Tommy's
body looked for all the world like a pudding-bag. It was an india-rubber
pudding-bag, though. I shouldn't like to say that Tommy was a glutton.
But I am sure that no boy of his age could put out of sight, in the same
space of time, so many dough-nuts, ginger-snaps, tea-cakes,
apple-dumplings, pumpkin-pies, jelly-tarts, puddings, ice-creams,
raisins, nuts, and other things of the sort. Other people stared at him
in wonder. He was never too full to take anything that was offered him,
and at parties his weak and foolish mother was always getting all she
could to stuff Tommy with. So when Tommy said he hoped it would be
something nice to eat, and rolled his soft lips about, as though he had a
cream-tart in his mouth, all the boys laughed, and Mr. Blake smiled. I
think even the cane would have smiled if it had thought it polite.
"I hope it'll be something pleasant," said Fred Welch.
"So do I," said stumpy little Tommy Bantam.
"So do I, boys," said Mr. Blake, as he turned away; and all the way down
the block Old Ebony kept calling back, "So do I, boys! so do I!"
Mr. Blake and his friend the cane kept on down the street, until they
stood in front of a building that was called "The Yellow Row.
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