“J. Barria, bookdealer,” he read from the sign. “J! That's Janey, ain't it? Hold on. She ain't the bookdealer. She ain't any ten-cent novel either. She's a Rushy bound, two dollar and a half a copy, with a dedication on the fly-leaf, which”--Tommy stopped suddenly and reflected--“which it might be dedicated to Tommy.”
It came near to being a sentiment. The possibility of such a thing rising from within him seemed impressive. He walked back to No. 4 thoughtfully, and thrust himself into a fight with Hamp Sharkey, in which it was proved that Hamp was the better man. Tommy regained his ordinary reckless cheerfulness. But when a man is in a state of mind that it needs a stand-up and knock-down fight to introduce cheerfulness, he cannot hope to conceal his state of mind.
Cripple Street drowsed in the sunshine one August afternoon. A small boy dug bricks out of the sidewalk with a stick. It seemed to emphasize the indifferent calm that no one took that interest in Cripple Street to come and stop him. The clangor of the fire-bells broke across the city. For a moment the silence in Cripple Street seemed more deathly than before. Then the doors of the tailors and bookbinders flew open. The Fire Company came with leap and roar, ladder, engine, and hose, rattle of wheels and thud of steam. Passing Mr. Barria's Durdo turned his head, saw Janey in the door, and beamed on her.
“It's Tommy's girl,” thundered Hamp Sharkey, from the top of his jingling ladders. Fire Brigade No. 4 cheered, waved its helmet, wherever it had a hand free, and in a moment was gone, leaving the drift of its smoke in the air, the tremble of its passing, and Janey flushed and thrilled. Hook and ladder and all had hailed her with honor as Tommy's girl. A battalion of cavalry, with her lover at the head, dashing up to salute, say, her battlemented or rose-embowered window--both terms occur in the Annuals--and galloping away to the wars, might have been better theoretically, but Janey was satisfied. She had no defence against such battery. Power, daring, and danger were personified in Tommy. He had brought them all to her feet. This it was to live and be a woman. She turned back into the dim shop, her eyes shining. The backs of the dusty books seemed to quiver and glow, even those containing arithmetic, dead philosophies, and other cool abstractions, as if they forgot their figures and rounded periods, and thought of the men who wrote them, how these once were young.