CHAPTER XXI

“ONE WHOM HIS MOTHER COMFORTETH” When as duly chronicled, for the benefit of coming generations, little Tommy Tucker sang for his supper, it is uncertain whether his mood was buoyant and care-free, or the reverse. The chances are at least even, that the supper, and not the expression of inward joyousness was the incentive of Tommy’s song. That law of human society that one must work if he wishes to eat, grim though it sometimes seems, has served as a life-preserver in innumerable shipwrecks. The prosaic need of bre…