J. M. Barrie epub Sentimental Tommy: Large Print

The celebrated Tommy first comes into view on a dirty London stair, and he was insexless garments, which were all he had, and he was five, and so though we are looking athim, we must do it sideways, lest he sit down hurriedly to hide them. That inscrutable face,which made the clubmen of his later days uneasy and even puzzled the ladies while he wasmaking love to them, was already his, except when he smiled at one of his pretty thoughtsor stopped at an open door to sniff a potful. On his way up and down the stair he oftenpaused to sniff, but he never asked for anything; his mother had warned him against it, andhe carried out her injunction with almost unnecessary spirit, declining offers before theywere made, as when passing a room, whence came the smell of fried fish, he might call in, "Idon't not want none of your fish," or "My mother says I don't not want the littlest bit," orwistfully, "I ain't hungry," or more wistfully still, "My mother says I ain't hungry." Hismother heard of this and was angry, crying that he had let the neighbors know somethingshe was anxious to conceal, but what he had revealed to them Tommy could not make out,and when he questioned her artlessly, she took him with sudden passion to her flat breast,and often after that she looked at him long and woefully and wrung her hands.The only other pleasant smell known to Tommy was when the water-carts passed themouth of his little street. His street, which ended in a dead wall, was near the river, but onthe doleful south side of it, opening off a longer street where the cabs of Waterloo stationsometimes found themselves when they took the wrong turning; his home was at the top ofa house of four floors, each with accommodation for at least two families, and here he hadlived with his mother since his father's death six months ago. There was oil-cloth on thestair as far as the second floor; there had been oil-cloth between the second floor and thethird—Tommy could point out pieces of it still adhering to the wood like remnants of aplaster.