Had been established maintenance was comparatively easy. Walking feet?no special foot-gear needed here?crunched the surface as they would a sandy beach. But if the surface was examined closely.

Head ached his joints complained his stomach was knotted into a burning ball and the only thing he could really muster any enthusiasm for was the fact that his shift would be over in an hour or two and for half a day he would. diflucan Friend taking ten times more trouble about the imp than good Mr. Forley himself! Such a joke as that Benjamin's mother had not often met with in the course of her life and she begged to be excused if she took the liberty of having a laugh at it. Leaving her to laugh as much as she pleased and coming to a pretty positive conclusion after what he had just heard that Mr. Forley's interest in the child was not of the fondest possible kind Trottle walked into the front room and Benjamin's mother enjoying herself immensely followed with the candle. There were two pieces of furniture in the front garret. One an old stool of the sort that is used to stand a cask of beer on; and the other a great big ricketty straddling old truckle bedstead. In the middle of this bedstead surrounded by a dim brown waste of sacking was a kind of little island of poor bedding--an old bolster with nearly all the feathers out of it doubled in three for a pillow; a mere shred of patchwork counter-pane and a blanket; and under that and peeping out a little on either side beyond the loose clothes two faded chair cushions of horsehair laid along together for a sort of makeshift mattress. When Trottle got into the room the lonely little boy had scrambled up on the bedstead with the help of the beer-stool and was kneeling on the outer rim of sacking with the shred of counterpane in his hands just making ready to tuck it in for himself under the chair cushions. "I'll tuck you up my man " says Trottle. "Jump into bed and let me try. " "I mean to tuck myself up " says the poor forlorn child "and I don't mean to jump. I mean to crawl I do--and so I tell you!" With that he set to work tucking in the clothes tight all down the sides of the cushions but leaving them open at the foot. Then getting up on his knees and looking hard at Trottle as much as to say "What do you mean by offering to help such a handy little chap as me?" he began to untie the big shawl for himself and did it too in less than half a minute. Then doubling the shawl up loose over the foot of the bed he says "I say look here " and ducks under the clothes head first worming his way up and up softly under the blanket and counterpane till Trottle saw the top of the large nightcap slowly peep out on the bolster. This over-sized head-gear of the child's had so shoved itself down in the course of his journey to the pillow under the clothes that when he got his face fairly out on the bolster he was all nightcap down to his mouth. He soon freed himself however from this slight encumbrance by turning the ends of the cap up gravely to their old place over his.