to one made of spars of
green wood, that were bunched up at one side, like a lady out for a
walk. On a round table there was a beautiful blue cloth, with very few
gravy marks, and here a man ate beef when a woman and a boy ate bread,
and near the fire was the man's big soft chair, out of which you could
pull hairs, just as if it were Shovel's sister.

Of this man who was his father he could get no hold. He could feel his
presence, but never see him. Yet he had a face. It sometimes pressed
Tommy's face against it in order to hurt him, which it could do, being
all short needles at the chin.

Once in those days Tommy and his mother ran away and hid from some one.
He did not know from whom nor for how long, though it was but for a
week, and it left only two impressions on his mind, the one that he
often asked, "Is this starving now, mother?" the other that before
turning a corner she always peered round it fearfully. Then they went
back again to the man and he laughed when he saw them, but did not take
his feet off the mantelpiece. There came a time when the man was always
in bed, but still Tommy could not see his face. What he did see was the
man's clothes lying on the large chair just as he had placed them there
when he undressed for the last time. The black coat and worsted
waistcoat which he could take off together were on the seat, and the
light trousers hung over the side, the legs on the hearthrug, with the
red socks still sticking in them: a man without a body.

But the boy had one vivid recollection of how his mother received the
news of his father's death. An old man with a white beard and gentle
ways, who often came to give the invalid physic, was standing at the
bedside, and Tommy and his mother were sitting on the fender. The old
man came to her and said, "It is all over," and put her softly into the
big chair. She covered her face with her hands, and he must have thought
she was crying, for he tried to comfort her. But as soon as he was gone
she rose, with such a queer face, and went on tiptoe to the bed, and
looked intently at her husband, and then she clapped her hands joyously
three times.

At last Tommy fell asleep with his mouth open, which is the most
important thing that has been told of him as yet, and while he slept day
came and restored the furniture that night had stolen. But when the boy
woke he did not even notice the change; his brain traversed the hours it
had lost since he lay down as quick