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.