In time, an intercourse sprang up between them.

One evening Peter appeared with a stick of wood, and as he smoked, he whittled at it with a _real_ jack-knife! He was scrutinized by the keen-eyed youngsters with interest at once, and before he had whittled long, he had fifty children sitting in the shape of a semicircle on the stone pavement, watching his doings with almost breathless Interest.

When the result of his work actually developed into a "cat" of marvellous form and finish, a sigh of intense joy passed through the boy part of his audience.

When the "cat" was passed over to their mercies, words could not be found to express their emotions.
Another evening, the old clothes-line that served for a jump-rope, after having bravely rubbed against the pavement many thousand times in its endeavor to lighten the joyless life of the little pack, finally succumbed, worn through the centre and quite beyond hope of further knotting.

Then Peter rose, and going to one of the little shops that supplied the district, soon returned with a _real_ jump-rope, with _wooden handles!_ So from time to time, _real_ tops, _real_ dolls, _real_ marbles and various other _real_, if cheap, things, hitherto only enjoyed in dreams, or at most through home-made attempts, found their way into the angle, and were distributed among the little imps.