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.

Bob was his favorite among the dancing girls, and she--or should it be he?
The odd thing about these girls was that a number of them were really boys--or at least were boys at Christmas-time, which seemed to Tommy to be even stranger than if they had been boys all the year round.