By the middle of the afternoon Tom was rich. He had traded the privilege of whitewashing for twelve marbles, a piece of blue bottle glass, a brass doorknob, a kitten with one eye and a dog collar. The fence had three coats of whitewash on it. Tom had discovered a great law of human action: to make a man covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. On the way home he saw a new girl in the garden of the Thatcher house, a lovely little creature with yellow hair in two long tails. He worshipped her at once and forgot his old love Amy Lawrence in a moment. He began to show off in all sorts of absurd boyish ways, and she threw a pansy over the fence just before she went in.