Can any one wonder?
It was the Thrums tongue, and this the first time he had heard it except from his mother.
It was a dull day, and all the walls were dripping wet, this being the part of London where the fogs are kept.

Many men and women were passing to and fro, and Tommy, with a wild exultation in his breast, peered up at the face of this one and that; but no, they were only ordinary people, and he played rub-a-dub with his feet on the pavement, so furious was he with them for moving on as if nothing had happened.

Draw up, ye carters; pedestrians, stand still; London, silence for a moment, and let Tommy Sandys listen! Being but a frail plant in the way of a flood, Tommy was rooted up and borne onward, but he did not feel the buffeting.

In a passion of grief he dug his fists in his eyes, for the glory had been his for but a moment.

It can be compared to nothing save the parcel (attached to a concealed string) which Shovel and he once placed on the stair for Billy Hankey to find, and then whipped away from him just as he had got it under his arm.