In a small wayside cottage in the outskirts¹ of one of those picturesque² villages which surround London, an old woman sat at the head of a small deal table, with a black teapot, a brown sugar-basin, a yellow milk jug³, and a cracked tea-cup before her.

 

At the foot of the same table sat a young man, with a large knife in one hand, a huge loaf of bread in the other, and a mass of yellow butter in a blue plate in front of him.

 

The young man was James Slagg; the old woman was his mother. Jim had no brothers or sisters, and his father chanced to be absent at market, so he had the “old lady” all to himself.

 

“Well, well, Jim,” said Mrs Slagg, with a loving look at her son’s flushed face, “you’ve told me a heap o’ wonderful tales about telegrumphs, an’ tigers, an’ electricity an’ what not. If you was as great a liar⁴ as you was used to be, Jim, I tell ’ee plain, lad, I wouldn’t believe one word on it. But you’re a better boy than you was, Jim, an’ I do believe you—indeed I do, though I must confess that some on it is hard to swallow.”

 

“Thank ’ee, mother,” said Jim, with a pleasant nod, as he cut an enormous slice from the loaf, trowelled upon it a mass of the yellow butter, and pushed in his cup for more tea.

 

“It was good of ye, Jim,” said the old woman, “to leave all yer fine friends and come straight away here to see your mother.”

 

“Good o’ me!” ejaculated Jim, with his mouth full—too full, we might say—“what goodness is there in a feller goin’ home, eh? Who’s finer, I should like to know, than a feller’s mother?”

 

“Well, you are a good boy, Jim,” said the old woman, glancing at a superannuated⁵ clock, which told of the moments in loud, almost absurd solemnity; “but if you don’t stop talkin’ and go on wi’ your eatin’, you’ll lose the train.”

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