his awe for impudence and sent him sprawling, with the words,
"Tak that, you glowering partan!"

Do you think Tommy resented this? On the contrary he screamed from where
he lay, "Say it again! say it again!"

She was gone, however, but only, as it were, to let a window open, from
which came the cry, "Davit, have you seen my man?"

A male fairy roared back from some invisible place, "He has gone yont to
Petey's wi' the dambrod."

"I'll dambrod him!" said the female fairy, and the window shut.

Tommy was now staggering like one intoxicated, but he had still some
sense left him, and he walked up and down in front of this house, as if
to take care of it. In the middle of the street some boys were very busy
at a game, carts and lorries passing over them occasionally. They came
to the pavement to play marbles, and then Tommy noticed that one of them
wore what was probably a glengarry bonnet. Could he be a Thrums boy?

At first he played in the stupid London way, but by and by he had to
make a new ring, and he did it by whirling round on one foot. Tommy knew
from his mother that it is only done in this way in Thrums. Oho! Oho!

By this time he was prancing round his discovery, saying, "I'm one,
too--so am I--dagont, does yer hear? dagont!" which so alarmed the boy
that he picked up his marble and fled, Tommy, of course, after him.
Alas! he must have been some mischievous sprite, for he lured his
pursuer back into London and then vanished, and Tommy, searching in vain
for the enchanted street, found his own door instead.

His mother pooh-poohed his tale, though he described the street exactly
as it struck him on reflection, and it bore a curious resemblance to the
palace of Aladdin that Reddy had told him about, leaving his imagination
to fill in the details, which it promptly did, with a square, a
town-house, some outside stairs, and an auld licht kirk. There was no
such street, however, his mother assured him; he had been dreaming. But
if this were so, why was she so anxious to make him promise never to
look for the place again?

He did go in search of it again, daily for a time, always keeping a
look-out for bow-legs, and the moment he saw them, he dived recklessly
between, hoping to come out into fairyland on the other side. For though
he had lost the street, he knew that this was the way in.

Shovel had never heard of the street, nor had Bob. But Bob gave him
something that almost made him forget it for a time.