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Original Penny Readings: A Series of Short Sketches

by George Manville Fenn · English · Gutenberg #34666 · 472,014 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Original Penny Readings: A Series of Short Sketches

Author: George Manville Fenn


        
Release date: December 15, 2010 [eBook #34666]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34666

Credits: Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ORIGINAL PENNY READINGS: A SERIES OF SHORT SKETCHES ***




Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




Original Penny Readings
A Series of Short Sketches
By George Manville Fenn
Published by George Routledge and Sons, London
This edition dated 1867

Original Penny Readings, by George Manville Fenn.

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ORIGINAL PENNY READINGS, BY GEORGE MANVILLE FENN.



CHAPTER ONE.

PAYING THE FOOTING.

Now, it don't matter a bit what sort of clay a pot's made of, if when
it's been tried in the fire it turns out sound and rings well when it's
struck.  If I'm only common red ware, without even a bit of glaze on me,
and yet answer the purpose well for which I'm made, why I'm a good pot,
ain't I, even if I only hold water?  But what I hate is this--to see the
pots that we come against every day of our lives all on the grumble and
murmur system, and never satisfied.  The pot of common clay wishes he
was glazed, and the glazed pot wishes he was blue crockery, and the blue
crock pot wishes he was gilt, and the gilt pot ain't satisfied because
he ain't china; and one and all are regularly blind to the good they
have themselves, and think their neighbours have all the pleasures of
this world.  They're so blind that they can't see the flaws in some of
the china.  "Oh! if I had only been that beautiful vase!" says the
common yellow basin that the missus washes the tea-things up in--"Oh! if
I had only been that beautiful vase!" says the basin, alluding to a
piece of china as stands on our mantel-piece--a vase that I picked up
cheap at a sale.  Why, the jolly old useful basin can't see the cracks,
and flaws, and chips in our aristocratic friend; he can't see the
vein-like marks, where he has been put together with diamond cement, nor
that half-dozen brass rivets let into him with plaster of Paris.  There,
go to, brother yellow basin; and look alive, and learn that old saying
about all not being gold that glitters.  Aristocratic china is very
pretty to look at--very ornamental; but if we put some hot water into
the mended vase, and tried to wash up in it, where would it be, eh?
Tell me that; while you, brother yellow basin, can bear any amount of
hard or hot usage; and then, after a wipe out, stand on your side, dry,
and with the consciousness of being of some use in this world; while the
bit of china--well, it is werry pretty to look at, certainly.  It's
werry nice to look at your heavy swell--the idle man of large means, who
gives the whole of his mind to his tie or his looking-glass; the man
with such beautiful whiskers, and such nice white hands; and when you've
done looking at him you can say he's werry ornamental, werry chinaish,
but he ain't much good after all.  But there; instead of grumbling about
having to work for your living, just thank God for it.  Look at your
dirty, black, horny fists: stretch 'em out and feel proud of them, and
then moisten 'em, and lay hold of whatever tool you work with, and go at
it with the thought strong on you that man had mind, hands, and power
given him to work with; and though toil be hard sometimes, why, the rest
after 's all the sweeter; while over even such poor fare as bread and
cheese and an onion there's greater relish and enjoyment than the china
vase gets over his _entrees_, which often want spice and
_sauce-piquante_ to help them down.  Man wasn't meant to be only
ornamental; so don't grumble any more about being a yellow basin.

But don't mistake me in what I mean; don't think I turn up my nose at
china: it's right enough in it's way, and at times vastly superior to
your common crockery.  I honour and feel proud of the china pots which,
having no occasion to work, throw aside idleness, and with the
advantages of power and position, work, and work hard--work with their
heads, and do great things--men who live not to eat, but eat to live and
benefit their fellows in some way.  Don't mistake my meaning, for I
don't want to make a man look with contempt on those above him; but
learn to see how that, whatever his position in life, he can do some
good, and that he is of service; and above all things, learn to see that
your yellow basin--your working man--is of quite as much value in this
world of ours as the china ornaments of society, whose aim and end is
often to--there I'm almost ashamed to say it--to kill time.

"Thou saidst they was good crows, Tommy; and they was nobbut booblins,"
says the old Lincolnshire man who wanted a rook pie, and bought his
rooks without seeing them, when they proved poor half-fledged birds; and
what lots of us believes what others say,--takes things for granted; and
after all only gets "booblins" for our dinner.  If men would only judge
for themselves--look before they leap--turn the china ornament up and
look at the cracks and rivets, or, even if it is sound, consider how
frail, fragile, and useless it is--they would be a little more satisfied
with their own lot in life, and not be so given to grumbling.  Things
are precious hard sometimes, but that's no reason why we should make
them harder by our own folly.  We see and know enough of the misery of
our great towns, and I mean to say that we have ourselves to thank for a
good--no, I mean a bad--half of it.  Now, just take away--I wish we
could--just take away out of London all the dirt, all the drunkenness,
and all the other vice, and how do you think it would look then, eh?
You can't tell me; but I can tell you something: it would ruin half the
doctors, half the undertakers, and three parts of the brewers, and
gin-spinners, and publicans; and that being rather a strong dose for any
man to digest at one sitting, I'll let you think it over without putting
any more on that subject.  I won't go on preaching about the everlasting
pipe that men make a common tunnel or chimney to carry off all the sense
in their heads through the abuse of tobacco; nor yet say anything about
drowning the good feelings of his heart by the abuse of beer; for I want
to get to the way in which yellow basins get jarring together, as if
they were never happy till the fresh one that comes amongst them is
cracked, and on the way to join the rest of the potsherds over whose
dust we walk during our journey of life.

I want to talk about "paying your footing;" for there was a paragraph in
a paper only a few days ago that brought up a good many old thoughts on
old subjects.  Now, this paragraph gave an account of a poor chap--at
Sheffield, I think--being ill-used by his fellow-workmen for not paying
his footing.

Now, I'll just ask any decent, honest, hard-working man, whether he can
imagine anything that comes nearer to dead robbery than making a poor
fellow, just took on at any trade, pull out perhaps his last coin to
find beer for a pack of thoughtless fellows who don't want it, and who
would be better without it.  I've opened my mouth on this subject
before, but it will bear touching again; for I think it a disgrace to
the British workman to keep up such dirty, mean old practices.  I'm not
preaching total abstinence or anything of the kind; let every man take
his own road.  I for one love a good glass of ale at proper time and
place; but sooner than drink at the expense of a poor, hard-up
fellow-worker, I'd drink water to the death.

I've seen it all again and again--in busy London, and in the sweet
country, where you can draw a hearty breath laden with vigour between
every stroke of hammer, or trowel, or brush--and I say that the sooner
the custom is kicked out of the workshop the better.  If it must be kept
up, and men won't turn it out, why, then, let them put the boot on the
other foot, and treat the new comer.

Nice young fellow comes into our shop once, fresh out of the country.
Times had been very flat, and he looked terribly seedy.  He'd come out
of one of your little offices where a man's printer, and bookbinder, and
all; and he was one of your fellows as would take a book, paste end
leaves on, and then leather away with a twelve-pound hammer at the
beating stone till the impression was all gone, and it was solid as a
board, take and nip it in the press, then sew the back, fit up his bands
in the sewing frame, and stitch the whole book; end leaves again, and a
bit o' paste in your first section; then glue your back, round him,
ravel out your bands, lace on your boards, and then sharpen up the
plough-knife, and cut all the edges smooth as glass; sprinkle or marble,
red edge or gilt and burnish--what you will; and then, how's it to be,
cloth?  Well, then, cut out, and glue on.  Half-calf?  Cut up your
leather, pare and trim your corners and back bit; and then, when the
open cartridge paper back is dry, and the head bands firm, pop on your
leather, then again your marble paper; paste down the end leaves; nip
the book in the plough press, and there you are, ready for gilding the
back and lettering to taste; or you may paste down your end leaves when
you've done.

But that ain't our way in town; ours is mostly cheap publication work,
done in fancy cloth; and a country hand might well feel strange to see
gals doing all the folding and stitching; one set of men at the
glue-pot, another set trimming edges with a great carving-knife, another
set rounding backs, another set cutting millboards, others making the
fancy cloth covers, others lettering and gilding with a machine, and so
on--division of labour, you know--when there the books are, stacks of
them--big stacks too; while if it wasn't for this scheming and working
the oracle the binding would never be done.

Well, this young fellow was working aside me; and he was put on at the
trimming--which is the cutting the edges of new books to be bound in
cloth; for if they were pressed too hard the ink would set off on to the
opposite sides; while this being considered as only the first binding
till they get thoroughly dry, only the front and bottom of the book is
cut.  You do the rest with your paper-knives.  Well, we're paid
piecework--fair money, you know--so much a dozen or score, so that a man
has what he earns; and with my hands all corny and hard, I was letting
go at a good rate, while my poor mate aside me was fresh at that work,
and doing precious little good beyond blistering his hands and making
his fingers sore; and I could see with half an eye as his bill would
only be a small one o' Saturday.

Now, the rule in most shops in London is, take care of yourself, and let
others look out o' their own side; but I never found myself any the
worse off for helping a lame dog over a stile: so I kept on giving my
mate a lift in the shape of a word here or there, so that he got on a
little better, but very slowly; for a man can't fall into the knack of
it all at once.  But he'd a good heart, and that "will do it" sorter
stuff that makes men get on in the world and rise above their fellows;
and he stuck at it till I saw him tear a strip off his handkerchief and
bind it round his chafed finger, so that the blood shouldn't soil the
books; and though he didn't say much, I could see by his looks as he
thanked me.

Towards afternoon, while the foreman was out of the way, one of the men
comes up for this new chap's footing; and being a big shop, where good
wages were made, it was five shillings.  I didn't take much notice, for
it warn't my business; but I saw the young fellow colour up and
hesitate, and stammer, as he says,--

"You must let me off till wages are paid;" but my gentleman begins to
bluster, and he says,--

"That comes o' working aside Tom Hodson, a scaly humbug as never paid
his own footings; but we ain't a-going to stand any more o' that sort o'
thing; and if you can't come the reg'lar, you'll soon find the place too
hot to hold you."

I felt as if I should have liked to give my man one for his nob, but
went on with my work; and after a bit more rowing, they left the young
chap alone; for I could see how the wind lay--he hadn't got the money,
and no wonder; but all that afternoon and next morning the chaps were
pitching sneers and jeers about from one to another; about the workus,
and a lot more of it, till, being quite a young chap, I could see more
than once the tears in his eyes.  Everybody cut him, and when he asked a
civil question no one would answer; and after tea the second night, when
I got back, there was a regular chorus of laughter, for the young chap
was standing red and angry by his lot of books, where some one had been
shying a lot o' dirty water over them, so as would spoil perhaps four
shillings' worth of sheets, and get the poor chap into a row as well as
having to pay for them.

Now, when we went to tea that night, I'd on the quiet asked him how he
stood, and lent him the money, thinking it would be better paid, for
they'd always have had a spite against him else; and now seeing this I
felt quite mad and spoke up:--

"Looks like one of that cowardly hound Bill Smith's tricks," I says; and
Bill, being a great hairy, six-foot-two fellow, puts on the bully, and
comes across the shop to me as if he was going to punch my head.

"If you can't pay _your_ footing," he says to me, "don't think as we're
a-goin' to take it in mouth; so just shut up," he says, "and mind your
own business;" and then, afore I knew what was up, that slight little
fellow with cheeks flaming, and eyes flashing, had got hold of Bill, big
as he was, and with his fingers inside his handkerchief, shook away at
him like a terrier does a rat--shook him till his teeth chattered; and
the great cowardly bounceable chap roared for mercy, and at last went
down upon his knees, while, with his teeth set, that young fellow shook
him till the whole shop roared again with laughter.

"Give it him, little 'un," says one; "Stick to him, young 'un," says
another; while big Bill Smith looked as if he was being murdered, till
the young chap sent him over against a plough-tub, where he knocked
against a glue-kettle, and the half-warm stuff came trickling over his
doughy white face, and he lay afraid to move.

"There's your beggarly footing," says the young chap, shying down two
half-crowns on the big bench; and then, without another word, he walked
to his place and tried to go on with his work.

I never did see a set of men look more foolish in my life than ours did
that night; and first one and then another slipped into his work, till
all were busy; while them two half-crowns lay on the table winking and
shining in the gaslight, and not a man had the face to come forward to
pick them up and send for the beer.

Last of all, it was getting towards seven, when, now quite cool, the
young chap beckons one of the boys and sends him out for two gallons and
a half of sixpenny; and when it came, goes himself and pours for the
whole shop, even offering the pot to Bill Smith; but he wouldn't take
it, but growled out something, when the whole shop laughed at him again,
and the rest of that evening he got chaffed awfully.

Next morning I'd been thinking how to get some fresh sheets stitched in
the young chap's books, so as to be as little expense as possible, and
when I got to the shop he was there looking at his heap, when I found
that though working men do wrong sometimes, there's the real English
grit in them; and here, before we came, if the chaps hadn't walked off
the damaged copies, shared them amongst 'em, and put fresh ones from
their own heaps, so as it never cost my young mate a shilling.

But it's a bad system, men.  Have your beer if you like, but don't ask a
poor hard-up fellow to rob self, wife, and child to pay his footing.



CHAPTER TWO.

ABOARD A LIGHT-SHIP.

Goes in for salvage, sir; and when a ship's going on to the sands, where
she must be knocked to pieces in no time, and a party of our company
goes off and saves her, why we deserves it, don't we?  That's our place,
you see; and them's old names of ships and bits o' wreck nailed up again
it.  We keeps oars, and masts, and sails in there; ropes, and anchors,
and things as don't want to be lying out on the beach; and then, too, it
serves for a shelter and lookout place.  Them's our boats--them two--
yawls we call 'em; and I mean to say that, lifeboat, or other boat,
you'll never find aught to come anigh 'em for seaworthiness.  There's a
build! there's fine lines!  Why, she goes over the water like a duck;
and when we've a lot of our chaps in, some o' them sand-bags and irons
at the bottom for ballast, the two masts, and a couple o' lug sails up,
it'll be such a storm as I ain't seen yet as'll keep us from going out.
Why, we've gone out, when in five minutes--ah! less than that--you
couldn't see the shore--nought but wild sea and spray all round; but
there, we're used to it, you see; and when we get to a ship in trouble,
and save her, why, there's some satisfaction in it.  And, after all,
'tain't half so bad as being in a light-ship.

Light-ship? yes, there's one out yonder.  No, not that--that's one o'
the harbour lights.  Out more to sea.  There, you can't see her now; but
if you take a look you'll see her directly.  Not the ship, o' course,
but the light.  There; that's her, bo.  Don't you see her?  That's a
revolving light.  Goes round and round, you know, so that sometimes you
see it, and sometimes you don't; and that's on the top of a mast aboard
a light-ship, moored head and starn on the sands, two mile out; and
sooner than spend a night aboard her when there's a storm on, I'd go out
to fifty wrecks.

Pretty sight that, ain't it?  Surprises many people as comes to the
sea-side.  Seems as if the sea's on fire, don't it?  There now, watch
that boat as the oars dip--quite gives flashes o' light.  But that ain't
nothing, that ain't, to what I've seen abroad.  I was in one of the
Queen's frigates out in the Pacific, and when we lay in the harbour at
Callao one night, the officers had a ball on board, and we chaps had
plenty to do taking the ladies backwards and forwards.  Well, when it
was over we in the first cutter were taking a party ashore--officers and
ladies--when they were singing, and so on, and they made us pull slowly,
for it was just as if the whole bay was afire, and when we dipped the
flash was enough to light up all our faces with the soft pale light.

But you should be out in the light-ship there for a night when there's a
heavy sea on and the waves makes a clean breach over you.  It's a dull
life out there at any time, for there's not much to do--only the light
to keep trimmed and the glass and reflectors well polished.  When I was
there we used to pass the time away making models of ships and rigging
them, or doing any little nick-nack jobs as took our fancies.  Four of
us used to be there at a time; and when the dark winter's night was
setting in, and the wind and sea getting up, you couldn't help feeling
melancholy and low.  The place we were in, you see, was a dangerous one,
and one where there had been no end of wrecks; while in more than one
place you could see the timbers of a half broke-up ship, lying stuck in
the sands.  Then, as it got dark, and you stood on deck, you could
almost fancy the tall white waves were the ghosts of them as had gone
down and been lost there--hundreds upon hundreds of them; and that puts
me in mind of one night when a full-rigged ship came on the sands.

It was a horribly rough afternoon, with a heavy gale blowing; cold, and
dark, and dismal it looked all round, and there we were watching this
here ship trying hard to give the sands a wide berth, but all to no
good, for there she was slowly drifting down nearer and nearer--now lost
to sight almost in the fog and spray, and now when it lifted, plain
again before us, till she seemed close in amongst the heavy surf.

At times our light-ship, heavily moored and strong-built as she was,
pitched and strained dreadful, so that it seemed as she must drag or
break away, while every now and then a wave would come with such a shock
that the heavy timbers quivered again; and of us four men there, every
one would have gladly been ashore, and out of those fierce roaring
breakers.  But no one showed the white feather, and there we were, as I
said, watching the big ship, till just as the gloomy winter's night set
in, and the gale came shouting by as though the storm meant to make a
night of it, we saw the ship for a moment, lost sight of her again, and
then, just as there was a bit of an opening in the fog, there she came
with a regular leap starn on to the sands, and "snap, snap," two of her
masts went overboard in an instant.

We had to hold on pretty tightly ourselves, I can tell you, and the
water that came aboard at times almost choked us; but with such a scene
as that before us, not a man could have gone below, and we stood
straining our eyes and trying to make out what was going on.

She was too far off for us to make out anything very plainly; but as we
looked, up went a rocket, rush into the air, and, leaving its fiery
train behind, broke into a shower of sparks.  Then there was another and
another sent up, and in the flashes of light we could make out as one
mast crowded with people still stood, while a regular shudder went
through one to think what it would be if that fell.

What seemed so cruel was that though we were only a quarter of a mile
off we couldn't help the poor creatures; all the good we were was to
keep our light burning brightly to warn ships off, but once they were on
the sands, with a heavy sea running, the stoutest shoremen shook their
heads, and when the lifeboat was run out knew well enough that the
chances were ever so much against the lives being all saved.

"Hooray!" says Bob Gunnis all at once; "here they come."

"Where?"  I says; "and who's coming?"

Looking where he pointed, for the wind swept his words away, I held on
my tarpaulin hat, and peered out to leeward, where every now and then I
could just see the white and blue sides of the lifeboat with her sail
up, and seeming to dance like a gull on the top of the water.  Now she'd
be quite hid in the dim misty clouds that kept flying across, half rain,
half spray.  Now she'd be seen plainer and nearer, coming on between us
and the wreck; and then it would come over so dark again we could make
nothing out.  But the lightly-painted boat and her white sail soon
showed again quite pale and ghost-like, now getting fast on towards the
vessel; though I couldn't help giving my head a shake as I held on and
looked.

"What water is there where she lies?"  I says to Bob Gunnis--for, you
see, he was a chap as knew to a foot what water there was anywhere for
far enough round.

"Let's see," he says, "it's about low water now, or should be if there
warn't this gale on, but she won't go down no lower anyhows.  Let's see,
there'll be just enough to float the lifeboat over, and that's all;
while if they give a scrape or a bump once it won't be no wonder."

And now we could just make out the lifeboat lay out for a bit, and then
let go her kedge and drop down towards the ship, as seemed at times to
be completely buried under water.  It made your eyes ache to watch, for
the spray came dashing into your face, while the lanthorn looked quite
dull and dripping, with the water splashing and beating against it.

All at once we had a grand view of the lifeboat, for she lay just where
the light from our lanthorn fell.  All four of us saw her as we hung
together by the bulwarks, and then there seemed something wrong, for she
was lifted on a great wave; and then one's heart seemed to come in one's
mouth, for she capsized.

I remember it all so well--the white frothy water, with the strong light
from our lanthorn upon it, and the pale, ghostly-looking boat capsizing,
while we held our breath to see her come right again; but she didn't,
but lay tossing in the water, for there was not depth enough for the
mast to pass under, or else the boat, being made self-righting, would
have come up again all right.

Just then, the light turning round, all was darkness again, and whether
it was fancy, or only the wind rushing by, there came one of the wildest
and most awful shrieks I ever heard in my life.  Then the light worked
round again, and shone down towards where the lifeboat and the ship lay;
but we could see nothing but the tremendous sea beating upon the sands,
boiling up and rising like mountains of foam, whilst our light-ship
rolled and plunged and tugged at her moorings, so that we could not keep
our feet.

Bound come the light again, and we strained our eyes to look, but there
was nothing but the tumbling sea in one great froth; and then darkness,
and light once more as the lanthorn revolved; and we then fancied that
in the dark part, between where the light fell and our ship, we could
make out the lifeboat drifting along on one side, with here and there
something dark clinging to it; but we couldn't be sure, and even if they
had floated close by us, we could have done nothing to help them, for
the sea on was something fearful.

There wasn't a man of us that night as didn't feel sure as the old
light-ship would be dragging her anchors and going ashore somewhere,
when, "Lord ha' mussy upon us," I says.  Of course, it was watch and
watch of a night; but, there, who could go and turn in with the sea
thundering on deck, and washing over you--the chain cables groaning and
creaking; the wind shrieking by, and the mast, atop of which stood the
lanthorn, quivering and jarring and shaking, as though it would snap off
by the deck?  Sleep!  No, not much of that; for we all stayed on deck,
talking when there was a lull, and holding on so as to keep from being
swept overboard.

Ah! it's a nice berth--tenter of a light-ship, moored at the end of the
dangerous sands--a place too bad for other vessels to come; so, fair
weather or foul, there you are, to keep your light bright and trimmed so
that you may warn other folks off.

We could see the lights ashore now and then, and knew how the folks
would be looking out for the lifeboat, and the very thought of it all
gave one a shudder, for it seemed that they were all lost--ship's crew
and lifeboat's crew--while we four had been looking idly on.

I'd crept along to the bows of the ship, and was trying to peer out into
the thick haze ahead, when all at once I gave a start, for I seemed to
hear a cry like some one hailing very faintly.

I looked out again and again on both sides, and then settled as it was
fancy, for the noise of the wind and water was deafening; but just as
I'd made up my mind that it was nothing I hears the cry again, and this
time it made me shiver, for I knew that any one of the ship's crew, or
the lifeboat's crew, must have been swept away half an hour before.  So,
as I said, I gave quite a shiver and crept back to where my mates stood,
and shouts in Bob Gunnis's ear, "There's some one a hailing of us!"

"Don't be a fool," he says, quite crusty; but I stuck out as there was,
and then he crept forward too, and stood listening.  "Now then," he
says, "where's your hailin' now?  Why, it was the--"

"Help!" came a faint cry from somewhere ahead, and Bob stopped short
with his mouth open, and his hand over his eyes, gazing out to sea.

"Say, mate," he says, ketching hold of my arm, and whispering in my ear,
with his mouth quite close--"say, mate, let's get back; 'taint nat'ral."

Well, feeling a bit queer after hearing that wild cry from somewhere off
the water, and knowing that nothing could live in the sea then on, we
thought it was what Alick Frazer, another of our chaps, called "No
canny," and we crept back along the bulwarks to where t'other two stood,
and "I say, bo," says Bob to Alick, "you can hear 'em drowning out there
now;" and Bob was obliged to shout it all.

"Ah!" says Alick, "and so we shall every storm night as comes, laddie;
and I'll no stay in the ship if we do."

"Help!" came the cry again off the water--such a long low cry, heard in
the lull, that it seemed to go through us all, and we stood there
trembling and afraid to move.

"'Tain't human," says Alick--"it's a sperrit;" but somehow or other we
all went up to the ship's head again, and stood trying to make something
out as the light turned round.  All just in front of us was dark, for it
was some little way out before the light struck the water; but we could
see nothing; and shaking our heads, we were about going back again, when
a sea came aboard with a rush, and made us hold on for dear life; and
then directly after came very faintly the cry, "Help!" so close at hand
that it seemed on board.

"Why, there's a chap on the chain?" cried Bob Gunnis excitedly.  "Look
here, mates," he cried; and there right below, and evidently lashed on
to the big mooring cable, we could make out a figure, sometimes clear of
the water, and sometimes with it washing clean over him.

"Ahoy!"  I sings out; but there was no answer, and during the next
minute as we stood there no cry for help came, for it seemed the poor
fellow was beat out.

"Well," I says, "we must fetch him aboard somehow."

"Ah!" says Bob Gunnis, "that's werry easy said, mate; p'raps you'll go
down the cable and do it."

That was home certainly, for with the sea, as we kept shipping, it was
hard enough to hold your own in the shelter of the bulwarks, without
going over the bows, where you would have to hang on, and get the full
rush.  "Well, but," I say, "some one must go;" and I shouted it out, and
looked at the other two.  But they wouldn't see it, and Bob Gunnis only
said it was bad enough there as we were; so I goes down below, feeling
all of a shiver as if something was going to happen, and they shouted at
me, but I came up again, and shoved the hatch on, and then crept forward
with some inch rope in my hand; makes one end fast round my waist, and
gives them the rest to pay out; and then gets ready to go over the bows
and slip down the cable.

I waited till a sea had struck us, and then climbed over and began to
swarm down the cold, slippery iron links; and not being far, I soon got
hold of the poor fellow hanging there; then the sea came right over us,
and it seemed as if I was going to be torn away; but I held on, and then
as it went down I got lower, and held tight hold of the poor chap--both
arms round him, and fancying how it would be if my knot wasn't fast, or
the rope parted.  I shouted for them to haul us aboard; but they
couldn't have heard me, for while I was watching the black bows of the
ship, another wave come over us, and I was almost drowned before it
sank.  But now they began to haul on tight, and dragged so that the rope
cut awfully, for I found that the poor chap didn't move; and loosing one
hand as they slackened a moment, I could feel as he had lashed himself
to the cable, and then the rope tightened again, and before I could
shout I was being dragged away, and the next moment they had me over the
side.

But I was a bit up now, and, opening my knife, I tried the knot, got my
breath, and went over again, slid down the chain, and getting where I
was afore, managed to cut through the poor fellow's lashings; and then
holding on tightly, shouted to them to haul; but as I shouted, the sea
washed right over us, and dashed us bang up against the ship's bows, so
that I was half stunned; but I held on, and then as the wave was sucking
us back, and I felt that it was all over, the rope tightened, the
fellows hauled in fast, and once more I was aboard, and this time not
alone--though, mind you, it was no easy task to get us over the side,
for I couldn't help them a bit.

After a bit I was able to crawl down the hatchway, and as they were
trying to pour rum into the poor fellow's mouth, I lay down in the
cabin, for my head felt heavy and stupid, and there I was watching them
as by the light of the swinging lanthorn they did what they could for
the poor fellow; and at last, lying there listening to the sea beating
up against the side, I fell into a half-stupid sort of sleep--part owing
to the way my head was struck, and partly from being worn-out.

Next morning when I woke, wet and shivering, the dull light through the
skylight showed me as the poor fellow lay on the other side, and there
was no one else in the cabin.  Close aside him was a life-belt; so I
knew that he had been one of the lifeboat crew, and, not wanting to
disturb him, I was going to creep out, when I thought I'd have a look to
see who it was I'd saved, and so I crept back a bit, and stooped down,
when my heart seemed to stop, for I saw as it was my own brother--and he
was dead!

Can't help feeling a bit soft about it, sir, though it's years ago now.
Poor chap! he volunteered, as the crew were short-handed, and was one of
the many lost, for only two or three got ashore.

Plucky young chap, he was; but the sea was too much for him; and, Lord,
sir, you'd be surprised how many the sea takes every year.



CHAPTER THREE.

K9--A QUEER DOG.

Ideas for new sketches are like mushrooms in the London fields--scarce
articles, and difficult to find unless you force them in a bed.  But
then the forced article will not bear comparison with that of
spontaneous growth, while you find that, as you have made your bed, so
on it you must lie.  So you lie, on the strength of your forced article,
and the natural consequence is that the public will not believe you when
you tell them a story.  We have had specimens lately of what the earnest
will dare in search of the novel, but in spite of Longfellow's
imperative words, we can't all be heroes.  Be that as it may, though,
after a long search, I found this mental mushroom in the field of
adventure.  It was nearly hidden by the surrounding growth, but peeped
forth white and shiny like a bald-crowned head, with the side crop
brushed carefully across in streaks.  It was a reverse of circumstances
certainly, but the idea was new, so I took a policeman into custody;
while as a proof of the daring contained in the apparently simple act,
think of a man to whom reputation is dear, and read the following.

I had long had my eye upon the policeman, for no one could gaze upon his
face without feeling that those impressive features had a large fund of
interesting matter concealed behind.  "There must be something more than
whiskers," I said, and then I considered what a sensation novelist he
would make if but of a literary bent.  Truth is stranger than fiction;
and what truths we should get from the man so often sworn to "tell the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."  However, failing
the policeman's turning _litterateur_, I thought a little of his
experience might be made available, and therefore the above-named
custodian act was performed.

Now the public--that is to say, the reading public--cannot guess at a
tithe of the difficulties to be encountered in making the policeman
speak; he looks upon every question as though it were, with entrapping
ideas, put to him by a sharp cross-examining counsel, and is reticent to
a degree.  He is a regular Quaker--he only speaks when the spirit moveth
him; and the only effective spirit for moving him is Kinahan's LL, which
seems to soothe the perturbed current of his thoughts, makes him cease
to regard the administering hand as that of prosecutor, prisoner, or
witness in an important case, and altogether it reduces him to one's own
level, if he will allow the expression.

Bobby sat one evening in my study--as my wife insists upon calling the
little shabby room over the back kitchen--and for awhile he seemed such
a Tartar that I regretted having caught him.  I almost shrank beneath
his hard stare, and began to wonder whether I had done anything that
would necessitate the use of the "darbies" he was fidgeting about in his
pocket, especially when his eyes were so intently fixed upon my wrists,
which lay upon the table before me in rather an exposed state, from the
fact of the tweed jacket I wore not being one of the "warranted shrunk."
It was enough to make any one shudder and draw the sleeves lower down,
and my performance of this act appeared to make my visitor so suspicious
that I verily believe he would have interposed to prevent my exit any
time during the course of his call.

My friend partook of my hospitality, and then began to speak, when I
opened a book and seized a pencil, but,--

"No, thanky, sir," he cried; "not if I knows it.  The regular reporters
is bad enough; only what can't be cured must be endoored.  But none o'
that, thanky.  P'raps you'll put that book away."

Of course I did so, and felt that I must imitate the special
correspondent of the _Pall Mall Gazette_, and trust to my memory.

"Now yer see, sir, I could say a deal; but then I says to myself--`It's
my dooty to tell you as anything you now says may be used in evidence
agen you at yer trial.'  Wherefore, don't you see, I takes notice of the
caution?"

I'd give something to be able to transfer to paper the solemn wink he
gave me, but that is impossible, and we both talked on indifferent
subjects until my visitor had had another mix, when thoughtfully poking
at the sugar, he said,--

"You see, sir, we do sometimes have cases on hand as makes a feller
quite savage; and then people as looks on will make it ten times wuss
for the pleeceman by siding with them as is took.  Here we gets kicked
and butted, knocked down and trod upon; clothes tore, hats once, 'elmets
now, crushed; hair pulled out by the roots, and all sorts o' nice
delicate attentions o' that sort, which naterally puts a feller out, and
makes him cut up rough; then the crowd round cries out `shame,' or, `oh,
poor feller,' or what not, and makes the poor feller as has half killed
a couple o' pleecemen wuss than he was afore.  Pleecemen oughter to keep
their tempers says the papers, arter what they calls a `police outrage,'
jest as if the force was recruited out of all that's amiable.  _We_
ain't angels, sir, not a bit of it; and it's a wonder we don't get more
outer temper than we does.  Jest you go to take a chap inter custody and
adwise him to come quietly; and then offer to take him all decent and
orderly.  Jest you go and do that, and let him turn round and give you a
spank in the mouth, as cuts yer lip open and knocks a tooth loose--jest
see how angelified you'll feel then; and try what a job it is not to
pull yer staff out and half knock his blessed head off.  Why, if Lord
Shaftesbury hisself had on the bracelet that night I know he'd give my
gentleman one or two ugly twists.  Wun knows wun oughter keep cool, but
yer see a feller ain't made o' cast iron, which would be a blessin' to
some of our fellers' legs--being a hard material.  After taking a rough
sometimes I've seen our chaps with legs black, blue, and bleeding with
kicks, while 'ceptin' a little touzlin' and sech, the prisoner hasn't
had a spot on him.  Yes, it's all werry fine, `Keep yer temper,'--`Don't
be put out,'--`Take it all coolly,'--be pitched outer winder and then
`come up smilin',' as _Bell's Life_ says.  Get kicked in the stummick,
and then make a bow; but that you'd be sure to do, for you'd get
reg'larly doubled up.  Never mind havin' yer whiskers pulled, and bein'
skretched a bit, it's all included in yer eighteen bob or pound a week;
and, above all--keep yer temper.

"A niste job two on us had in Oxford-street, I think it was, one day.
It was over a horinge chap as had been making an obstruction in the
busiest part o' the thoroughfare.  We'd been at him for about a week,
arstin' him civilly to drop it; for the vestry had been laying the case
before the magistrate, and we had our orders.  You see it was a good
pitch; and this chap used to do a roaring bit o' business, and of course
it warn't pleasant to give it up; but then he'd no call to be there, yer
know, for he was interfering with the traffic; so in course we had to
put a stop to it.

"Well, yer know, it had come to that pitch at last that if he wouldn't
go why we was to take him, and Dick Smith was the one that was in for it
along with me.  We neither on us liked it, for this was a civil-spoken
chap in a suit o' cords, a bird's-eye handkercher, and a fur cap.  He'd
got a smart way, too, o' doing his hair, which was black and turned
under at the two sides afore his ears; and besides he was only trying to
get a honest living; but dooty's dooty, yer know, sir, and we ain't got
much chance o' pickin' and choosin'.  So I says to Dick, as we goes
along--

"`Now, then, Dick,' I says, `which is it to be, the cove or his barrer?'

"`Oh!' says Dick, `I'm blest if I'm a-goin' to wheel the barrer through
the public streets.  Look well for a pleece-constable in uniform,
wouldn't it?'

"`Well,' I says, rather chuff, `some one's got it to do, and I ain't
a-goin' to have it shoved on to me.  Tell yer what we'll do--we'll toss
up.'

"`All right,' says Dick, `so we will.'

"So I fetches out a copper, the on'y one we could furridge out between
us, and to Dick I says, `Now, then, sudden death?'

"`Not a bit of it,' says he, `I'll go off lingerin'--best two out o'
three.'

"`Werry well,' I says, `anything for peace and quietness.'  And so we
tossed.

"`Heads,' says Dick.

"`Woman it is,' says I.  `One to me;' and then I passes the brown over
to Dick, and he spins up.

"`Lovely woman,' says I, and lovely woman it was.

"`Blowed if here ain't two Bobbies a tossin',' says one o' them niste
boys as yer meets with in London.

"Didn't I feel savage, though I had won; and for a moment I almost
wished it had been that werry young gentleman as we had to take.  But my
boy gives a grin and a hop, skip, and a jump, and then cuts behind a
gentleman's carriage as was passing, when the Johnny put out his foot
and gave him a push, and down he goes into the mud"; which was, of
course, pleasant to our outraged feelings, though it would have taken a
great deal of mud to spoil that boy's clothes.

"`Now then, Dick,' I says, `let's be off.'

"`Wot's the hurry?' says Dick, who was a thinking of the barrer, I could
see.

"`Oh, come on,' I says; for, thinks I to myself, `you're on the right
hand side of the way, my boy.'

"So off we goes, till we comes to the well-known spot, and there stood
my chap, a-doing a raging trade.

"`Now then, young feller,' I says, `you must move on.'

"`What for?' says he.

"`Obstructing the thoroughfare,' says I.

"`Taste 'em,' he says, `they're fust-rate to-day.  Shove two or three in
yer pocket for the young Bobbies.'

"`Won't do,' I says; `we've got our orders, and off yer goes.'

"`Get out,' he says, `you're chaffin'.'

"`Not a bit of it,' I says; `so stow nonsense and go on quietly, there's
a good feller.'

"`All right,' he says, seeing as we was serious, `all right.'  And then
he sells a horinge to this one, and a horinge to that one, and
sixpenn'orth to another one; but not a hinch would he move.  So we waits
a bit, and then I gives him another gentle hint or two.

"`All right,' he says agin, `wait a bit.'

"Well, yer knows, sir, this went on for about half an hour, and a crowd
gets collected, and every time as I speaks to him, `All right,' he says,
`wait a bit,' and then the crowd laughed and the boys hoorayed.

"I thinks to myself `This here won't do,' but neither Dick nor me wanted
to begin, so I has one last try, and I says quietly,--

"`Now, are you a-goin' or not?  Becos if you ain't we must make yer.'

"`All right,' he says, `wait a bit,' and the people bust out a laughin'
again, and the crowd gets bigger than ever.

"`Now, then, Dick,' I says to my mate, `come on,' for I see as it was no
use to be played with any longer.

"So Dick goes to the barrer, and I collars the chap, and the row began.
Dick lays hold o' the barrer handles quite savagely, and shoots a dozen
o' horinges off inter the road, when, of course, there was a regular
scramble, and somebody calls out `Shame!'  Then my chap takes and throws
hisself down, and gives my wrist such a screw as a'most sprained it, and
then somebody else calls out `Shame!'

"`Now you'd better come on quietly,' I says to my chap.  `You'll do no
good by making a row.'  And then I tries to get him up on his legs, when
some one calls out `Shame!' agin.

"`What's a shame?'  I says, which I didn't oughter have done, for I knew
my dooty better than they could tell me.  Howsoever I says it, `What's a
shame?'  I says.

"`Ill usin' a honest man,' says the crowd.

"I sees as it was no use to talk, so I gets well hold o' my chap, and
seeing, as he did, as his barrer was a moving off with Dick in the
sharps, and the boys a hoorayin', he gets up, and we was goin' on all
right, when some on 'em calls out `Shame!' again, and that sets the chap
off, and he throws hisself down, and, wuss luck, throws me down too,
when off goes my box, and in the scuffle my gent jumps up, puts his foot
on it, and nearly gets away.

"Now this made me a bit warm, for I was hurt, and I didn't mean to let
him go at no price now.  So, jest as he'd shook me off and was going to
bolt, I gets hold of his leg as I lays on the ground, when he gives me
the savagest kick right aside o' the head, and nobody didn't cry `shame'
then.

"Well, I wasn't stunned, but I felt precious giddy.  I jumps up, though,
and lays hold of him--sticks to him, too, and sometimes we was down and
sometimes up, and I know we rolled over in the mud half a dozen times.

"Last of all, in one of the struggles in all of which the crowd hindered
me as much as it could, my chap goes down, spang, with his head on the
pavement, and me atop of him, and there he lay stunned.

"`Shame, shame!' cries the crowd, `you've killed the poor fellow.'  And
then they begins a shovin' and a hustlin' of me about, and I don't know
how it would have ended if one of our chaps hadn't ha' come up; and then
Dick came back after gettin' rid o' the barrer.  Then we had the
stretcher fetched, and the end of it was Horinges got seven days for
assaultin' the police, and I got seven days, too--only mine was in the
infirmary.

"You wouldn't have ketched me tossin' if I'd known.

"You see, people will be so precious fond o' takin' what they calls the
weak side.  They never stops to ask themselves whether it's right or
whether it's wrong; but they goes at it like a bull at a gate, and it's
us as suffers.  Many's the chap as has got away when the pleece has jest
nicely put a finger on him.  In comes Public.  `Let that poor chap
alone,' says he, `what are you draggin' him off in chains like that
for?'  And so on to that tune till every one begins to feel for the
chap, who puts on a cantin' phisog, and turns his eyes about like them
coves as chalks on the pavement for a livin'.  Perhaps he's a burglar,
or a smasher, or swell-mobsman, or a nice tender-hearted critter as has
been beatin' his wife with a poker, or knocked her head agin the wall,
or some nice trick o' that kind.  And then everybody takes part agin the
police, and what can they do?

"`Their dooty,' says you.

"Well, in course, but it don't come werry pleasant, mind yer.

"People don't side with us; they don't like us a bit.  And of course
you'll say we don't like the people.  Well, we'll drop that part of the
business.  It's only natural for us to like a good murder, or burglary,
or forgery.  You swells likes your huntin', and fishin' and shootin';
and we enjoys our sport as much as you does your little games.  There's
a sorter relish about taking a fellow for anything exciting just when my
gentleman fancies he's got clean off--hopped his twig, as he thinks;
when in we goes at my gaol-bird, and pops salt on his tail.  Bless yer,
we claps the darbies on his wrists, and has him walked off before he
knows what's up.  He's like a orspital patient; we chloroforms him with
the bracelets, and before he comes to hisself we've cut off his liberty,
and he wakes up in a cell."

"Yer see, sir," said my friend, rising, "yer see, we've a knack o' doin'
it.  Spose, now, it's you as is wanted.  I've held you in play, say for
half an hour, to make sure as you're the man as I wants, for I've got
yer phortygruff pinned in my hat; and at last I walks up to yer just so,
and `You're my pris'ner,' says I.  Whereupon you ups with yer hands--
just so, that's the way--and tries to shove me off, when--"

"_Click, Click_..."

"There I has yer snug with your bracelets on; and werry proud I feels of
yer."

And in effect my visitor had carried out his illustration to the fullest
extent, so that I sat before him handcuffed, and he resumed his seat
smiling with triumph and LL.  I suggested the removal of my bonds; but
my captor, as he seemed to consider himself, merely smiled again, helped
himself to a cigar, lighted it, and began to smoke.

This was as bad as being a Lambeth casual.  Anybody, even Mrs Scribe
might come in, and the thought was more powerful than any sudorific in
the pharmacopoeia.  It was no use to appeal to K9, for he seemed to
consider Brag was a good dog, but Holdfast a better; and he did nothing
but smile and smoke.  Getting an idea for an article was all very well,
but at what a cost!  It would not do at all.  Why the special
correspondent of the _PMG_ would not have rested upon his hay-bag if a
committee to whom he was well-known had entered the place to inspect
him.  He would have fled without his bundle.  Ay, and so would I, but
there was some one coming up the stairs, and I should have run right
into some one's arms.  A last appeal to the fellow before me only
produced another smile; so, as a _dernier ressort_, I drew my chair
towards the table, and thrust my manacled hands out of sight.

I was just in time, for the handle turned, and in walked an artist
friend, who always makes a point of considering himself as much at home
in my room as I do myself in his.

"How are you, old boy?" said he, which was hardly the thing, considering
the company I was in.

I muttered something about being very well, and Chrayonne seated himself
by the fire.

"Pass the cigar-box, old fellow," said he.  But I couldn't hear him, and
tried to appear as if sitting at my ease--of course, a very simple thing
with one's hands pinioned.

"Pass the cigars, Scribe," said Chrayonne, again, in a louder key; while
the policeman wagged his head, and smiled knowingly.

"He can't," said the wretch, grinning outright.

"Can't?" said Chrayonne, with a puzzled look.  "Can't?  But, I say," he
exclaimed, jumping up, "I beg your pardon, old fellow, I never thought
about your being engaged.  I'm off.  _Excusez_."

"Pris'ner," said K9, grinning.

"I am not," I exclaimed, indignantly; but it was of no avail, for the
wretch pulled the table-cover on one side, and pointed to my manacled
hands.

Chrayonne blew out his cheeky opened his eyes widely, and then whistled
very softly.  Then, after a pause--

"Very sorry, old fellow.  Can I do anything?  Bail--friends--
solicitors--"

"Yes," I exclaimed, furiously.  "Knock that scoundrel down, and take the
key of these confounded handcuffs from him.  It's a rascally piece of
humbug--it's a trick."

Chrayonne looked at the constable, who winked at him in reply, and, to
my intense disgust, I could see that for the moment he was more disposed
to place faith in the impassive demeanour of the myrmidon of the law
than in my indignant protestations.

Just then, however, by a desperate effort, and at the cost of some skin,
I dragged one hand from its durance vile, and rushed at my captor, as he
dubbed himself; but he coolly rose, took out the key, and released my
other hand.  Then pocketing the handcuffs, and winking at us both in
turn, he opened the door, and the room knew him no longer.  While, as a
specimen of the advantage or disadvantage of first impressions, I may
add that it took two cigars and words innumerable to make Chrayonne
believe that my visitor had not departed with the expectation of a heavy
bribe as payment for my release.



CHAPTER FOUR.

WAITING FOR 'ARRY.

Well, sir, yes; perhaps it was his own fault, a good deal of it, and yet
I thinks sometimes as those big folks above us might do something for us
to make things better.  But that's neither here nor there; we was
hungry, both on us, and he took it and got nabbed, and he's a taking it
out in here; and I allus takes a walk round every morning before going
out for the day with my basket.  Seems like to do me good, though I
can't see him; for I know he's there.  And then I count up the days as
well as I can so as to know when he'll come out, and 'tain't surprising
as sometimes they seems so long, that I get my cheek up again the wall
and has a good cry.

But that don't do no good, you know--only makes one feel a bit lighter;
and then I'm up and off, so as to save all I can again my chap comes
out; and then, good luck to us, I hope times 'll mend.

Down the Dials we live.  Not in the main street, you know, but just off
in a court, and right up atop in the garret.  You see, 'Arry gets his
living by birds, and we can keep 'em alive up there better.  Poor little
things! they dies fast enough now; but when we lived on the ground-floor
back it was awful.  I s'pose it was the closeness and bad smells, for
the little things would turn rough all over, and wouldn't eat, and then
next morning there they'd be with their pretty little bright eyes half
closed, and looking so pitiful that I used to cry about it, and then
'Arry used to call me a fool; but I know he didn't mind, for he allus
put his arm round me and give me a kiss.

Pore little soft, downy things; it used to be sad enough to have 'em
shut up behind them bars, beating their little soft breasts, and seeming
to say, "Let me out! let me out!" but when they died it was ever so much
worse.  Sometimes of a night I've woke up to hear a little scratching
noise and a rustling in one of the cages; and then I've known what it
meant, for it's one of the pore thing's little spirits flown away from
this weary life.

'Arry used to be soft over it too, for he's werry fond of his birds, and
when one went away from us like that, he used to roll the little body up
in a bit of stiff paper, and take it down in the country with him and
bury it.

"Seems hard to ketch the poor things," he used to say; "but we must get
a living somehow."

When we got up atop of the house there was more light, and a bit of sun
sometimes, so that the birds lived better, and used to sing more, and we
sold a-many.

You see 'Arry had his nets, and traps, and call-birds, and in the fine
weather we used to go down in the country together ketching linnets, and
goldfinches, and redpoles.  Sometimes we'd bring home a lark's or a
nightingale's nest, and I used to help him all I could--cutting turves,
and getting chickweed, and groundsel, and plantain, moss and wool for
canary nests, and mosses and sprays for the bird-stuffers to ornament
with, besides grasses of all kinds.  There's allus sale for them sorter
things, you know, and it's a honest living.

Why, it was like getting into heaven to run down with 'Arry into the
bright country--away from the dirt, and noise, and smoke; and I used to
make him laugh to hear me shout and sing, and to see me running along a
bank here to pick flowers, or stopping there to listen to the larks, and
even running arter the butterflies; but he used to like it, I think, and
allus took me with him when he could, for his mother lives with us and
feeds the birds when we're out.  Spring, and summer, and autumn, it was
allus beautiful: flowers and fruit, and bright sunshine, and soft,
gentle rain, and the sweet, sweet scent of the earth after.  Oh, sir,
shut yourself up for a month in a dirty room in a close court, where you
can hardly breathe--live from hand to mouth, and p'raps not have
enough--and then go out into the bright sunshine and on the breezy
hills, with the green, shady woods there, and the sparkling stream
there--the bees humming about on the heath bells, and all pure, and
bright, and golden with the furze and broom--and then feel how it all
comes over you, choking like, as if you were so happy you must cry, for
it's all too sweet and beautiful to bear!

'Arry allus laughed at me, but I know him and his ways, and what it
means when his eyes look so bright, and there's a twitching about the
corners of his mouth: and the more wild and happy I seemed, the quieter
he'd grow, poor boy, and then he'd take my basket away and carry it
hisself atop of his cages and sticks and nets, and "Go along, my gal,"
he'd say, so that I should be free and light.  For he's a good fellow is
'Arry, and never lifted his hand again me once in all the six years
we've been married, not even when he came home a bit on.

He used to like me to be fond of the country, and we'd go hopping in the
autumn time down there in Surrey amongst the lovely hills, where the
place is all sandy; and there's the big fir woods where you go walking
between the tall, straight trunks, with the sweet scent meeting you at
every step, as you walk over a thick bed of spines.  Then out again,
where the heath is all purple, and the whortleberries grow; while every
hedge is loaded with the great ripe blackberries--miles and miles away
from the smoke, but we never thought of the distance till we were going
home.  Ah! it was enough to make one grudge the people as had money,
allus out there in the clear, bright air; and yet I don't know as they
was happier than we when we made our bit o' fire under a sandy bank, and
sat there and had our bit of bread and cheese or a drop o' tea.

Hopping used to set us up well for some time; and how I used to love it!
but the worst of it was when we went back again into the court--so dull
and dark, when somehow or other, it allus seemed to come in wet and
miserable when we went back home, though the old woman was allus glad to
see us, and did all she could to cheer us up; for she never goes out
because of her rheumatics.  But it was of no use to be low, and we soon
settled down again.

All sorts we had in our place: finches, and canaries, and larks, and
squirrels sometimes.  In the spring-time we used to put pairs of
canaries in a big cage, and give 'em stuff to build their pretty little
nests; and there was one pair one year as I used to watch, and seem to
pity so, for there was the nest and the beautiful eggs, and the little
soft, downy, yellow-breasted thing sitting week after week, and no
little ones came; and then again and again the same.  And I couldn't
help it, you know; but it allus hurt me, and made me have a good cry;
for it made me think of three times when, after begging very hard,
'Arry's mother had let me see a tiny, soft little babe, so delicate and
beautiful, with its little hands and lovely pink nails; so pale, and
still; there were the little blue veins in the white forehead, and the
dimples in the cheeks, while the head was covered with soft golden hair;
and the eyes--ah! the eyes were allus the same, closed--closed, and they
never looked in mine; while when I put my cheek up against it 'twas
allus the same too--cold, cold, cold.  Three times; and I shall never
have two little lips say "Mother" to me.

'Arry used to say it was just as well, for poor people like us was best
without 'em; but it did seem so hard for the little, tiny, soft things
never to look upon the daylight, though it was only in a garret up a
court.

He'll be out in another month, 'Arry will, and we've kep' all together
as well as we could.  You see, I've done a great deal in creases of a
morning, for they allus sells somehow; then, too, I've had a turn at
flowers, for people will allus buy them too; young chaps to stick in
their button-holes, and gals going to work to put in a jug of water, so
as to get the sweet scent of the pretty bright things, that it seems
almost as cruel to bring into the City as it does birds.  Moss roses,
and pinks, and carnations sells best, and I don't know who loves 'em
most, your work-gal from the country or the poor London-bred one.  At
times I've had a fruit-basket, and done pretty well that way; for, you
see, I've been a bit lucky; and allus had a bit more than we wanted to
keep us; though more'n once I thought we must sell the things outer the
room.

Poor boy! he'll be surprised when he comes out, for it was along of hard
times that he got his six months.  He'd been down on his luck for some
weeks, and, though he tried hard, things went again him.  I tried to
cheer him up, but he got a bit wild and savage, and there's allus plenty
to get a chap like him to join in a plant--robbery, you know, sir; and
what with not havin' enough to eat, and the drink they give him, he got
worse and worse; and not being used to it, the other fellows got off,
and poor 'Arry was taken.

He wouldn't peach, bless you; though some of his mates in the job was
afraid, and got outer the way.  One way and another we got money enough
to get him a lawyer, and his case came on; and while I was a-sitting
there, trying to keep all the trouble down, I heard the magistrate talk
to him, and give him six months' hard labour, poor lad, when he'd only
done it to get food.

He saw me there, and give me a good long look, trying to smile all the
time; but I know'd that bright look in his eyes, and the working at the
corners of his mouth, and what he was feeling; but I never flinched a
bit, but met his look true and steady, for I knew he wanted all the
comfort I could give him.

I couldn't get near him to touch his hand, or I would; and while I was
looking hard at the spot where he stood, he was gone; and then the place
seemed to be swimming round, and I felt as though I wanted to cry out,
and then I came to and found myself sitting on the stones outside, with
'Arry's mother, and we got away as fast as we could.

Yes; up early, and round here every morning, wet or dry, for I shouldn't
seem to get on well if I didn't; and long tramps I has: now it's
Farringdon Market for creases; now Common Garding for flowers; or
Spitalfields or the Boro' for fruit--'cept oranges, and them we gets o'
the Jews; and you may say what you like, but I never finds them worse to
deal with than some as calls theirselves Christians.

Then it's off with your load, and get rid of it as fast as you can; for
its heavy carrying miles after miles through the long streets; and it's
a-many faces you look into before there's one to buy.  And last of all,
when I get back I can sit and think about 'Arry, and how pleased he'll
be to find as the nets, and cages, and calls, ain't none of 'em sold.
Yes, you can't help thinking about him, for outside the window there's
the pigeon trap as he was a-making with laths and nails; inside there's
his birds, and the one he was trying to stuff; for he says that's a good
living for a chap, if he's at all clever; and he used to think that
after seeing so many birds alive he could do it right off.  So at odd
times he used to practise; and there was his scissors and wires, and
tow, and files and nippers, and two or three little finches he'd done,
perched up on sprigs of wood, with their feathers wound over and over
with cotton, and pins stuck in 'em to keep the wings in their places.

But he allus was clever, was 'Arry; and if he'd had a chance, would have
got on.

When the sun's a-going down I gets to the open window, if I'm home time
enough; and while the birds are all twittering about me, I get looking
right out far away over roofs and chimneys--right out towards where
there's the beautiful country, and then I even seem to see it all bright
and clear: trees waving, and grass golden green; and through the noise
and roar of the streets I seem to hear the cows lowing as they go slowly
through the meadows, and the tinkle of the sheep-bell; while all the
clouds are golden, orange, and red.  Then, too, the bright stars seem to
come peeping out one at a time; and the sky pales, while there's a soft
mist over the brook, and a sweet, cool, freshness after the hot, close,
burning day; now, from where I seem to be on a hill-side, there can be
seen a bright light here and there from the cottages, and then about me
the bats go darting and fluttering silently along; there's the beautiful
white ghost-moths flitting about the bushes, and flapping along, high
up, a great owl; and, again, round and round, and hawking about along
the wood-side, there's a large night-jar after the moths; for 'Arry
taught me all their names.  And at last, in the deep silence, tears seem
to come up in my eyes, as I hear the beautiful gushing song of the
nightingales, answering one another from grove to grove--pure, bright,
and sparkling song that goes through one, and sends one's thoughts far
away from the present.

And those tears coming into one's eyes seem to shut out all the bright
scene, and it goes again; and though there's the twinkling stars
overhead, and the birds nestling around me, yet, instead of the peace
and silence, there's the roar of the court and the streets, the chimneys
and tiles all round, the light shining up from the gas, and I know I'm
only in the Dials; but it's sweet to fancy it all, and get away from the
life about you for a few minutes; and when 'Arry's mother sees me like
that, she never disturbs me to complain of her aches and pains.

No; never in the country since my boy was taken; but the bright days are
coming soon.



CHAPTER FIVE.

A ROGUE IN GRAIN.

"Oh, no; ain't nothing like such tools as I've been used to," he says.
"At my last shop everything was first class, and the place beautifully
fitted-up--gas on, new benches, fine joiners' chest o' tools, full of
beading and moulding planes, and stocks, and bits, and everything first
class."

"Well," says the guv'nor, "I don't want to be unreasonable: anything
really necessary for the job you shall have; but of course I can't help
my workshop not being equal to your last; but I 'spose it won't make
much difference if you get your wages reg'lar?"

"Oh, no;" he says; it didn't matter to him; he could work with any
tools, he could; ony he did like to see things a bit to rights, and so
on to that tune; and then my gentleman gets to work.

"Pity you didn't stop where you was so jolly well off," I thinks to
myself; and then I goes on whistling, and priming some shutters as the
guv'nor had made for a new shop front as he had to put in.  You see,
'tain't many years since our guv'nor was ony a working man like me, ony
he managed to scrape a few pounds together, and then very pluckily
started for hisself out in one of the new outskirts, where there was a
deal of new building going on by the big London contractors, and a deal
of altering and patching, which used to be done by the little jobbing
men same as our guv'nor.  Often and often he's talked to me about it
when working aside me pleasant and sociable as could be; how at times
he'd be all of a shake and tremble for fear of going wrong, not knowing
how to pay his man or two on Saturday, and obliged to be civil as could
be to them, for fear they'd go off and leave him in the lurch over some
job or other.  Then people didn't pay up, and he'd have to wait; and
then there was the ironmonger and the timber merchant wouldn't give him
credit, being only a small beginner; and one way and another he led such
a life of it for the first three years as made him wish again and again
as he'd been content to be journeyman and stopped on the reg'lar.  But
there; he warn't meant for a journeyman, he was too good a scholar, and
had too much in his brains, and, besides, had got such a stock of that
"will do it" in his head as made him get on.  He knowed well enough that
you can't drive a nail up to the head at one blow, or cover a piece of
flatting with one touch of the brush; and so he acted accordingly,
tapping gently at first till he'd got his nail a little way in, and then
letting go at it till it was chock up to the head, reg'lar fixture; and
so on, nail after nail, till he got his house up firm and strong.  He
didn't turn master for the sake of walking about with his hands in his
pockets; for, as he said to me often, "In my small way, Sam," he says,
"master's a harder job than journeyman's."  And so it was; for, come
tea-time and the men knocked off, I've seen him keep on hard at it, hour
after hour, right up to twelve o'clock; while the chaps as left the shop
would wink at one another, for some men ain't got any respect for a
hard-toiling master: they'll a deal sooner slave for some foul-mouthed
bully who gives them no peace of their lives.

Sometimes, when he's been hard pushed with a job, I've known him ask 'em
to stay and work a bit of overtime, same as he did my gentleman as had
been at such fine shops; but "Oh, no," he says, "couldn't do it,
thanky," and away he goes.

Well, now, that ain't the sort of thing, you know; for one good turn
deserves another; and my gentleman wouldn't have much liked it if he'd
been refused a day when he wanted it.  But, there, he was a poor sort;
and one of those fellows as must have everything exact to pattern, and
can't be put out in the least--chaps what runs in one groove all their
lifetime and can't do anything out of it; and then, when they're outer
work, why, they're like so many big babies and quite as helpless.  But
he didn't stay long; he was too fine, and talked too much.  The guv'nor
soon saw through him, and paid him off; and, according to my experience
in such things, those men as have so much to say, and are so very
particular to let the guv'nor know how particular they are not to waste
a bit of time, generally turn out the most given to miking--skulking,
you know.

I ain't much of a workman, you know; being only a sort of odd man on the
place, doing anything--painting or what not; but me and the guv'nor gets
on well together, for I make a point of helping him when he's hard
pushed; and I will say that of him, he's always been as liberal after as
a man could be.  Say a job's wanted quick, what's the good of niggling
about one's hours exactly, and running off for fear of doing a stroke
too much.  Go at it, I says, and work with the master as if you take an
interest in the job and feel a bit of pride in it.  Why, bless your
heart, 'tain't only the three or six-and-thirty shillings a week a man
ought to work for, but the sense of doing things well, so as he can
stand up aside his fellow-man, and look at his work and say, "I did
that, and I ain't ashamed of it."  Why, I've known fellows that bowky
about their jobs that they wouldn't own to 'em afterwards.  Sashes all
knock-kneed, panelling out of the square, or painters with their paint
all blistering and peeling off.  No; 'tain't only for the week's wage a
man ought to work, but for a sense of duty, and so on,

Guv'nor and me gets on very well together, for I was with him in his
worst times, when he used to work in his shirt-sleeves aside me; and
many's the time I've gone into little contract jobs with him, to
calculate the expense, when from being over-anxious to get work he'd
take the jobs a deal too low, and so I used to tell him.  But we always
got on together, and I'll tell you how it was I got along with him.

I always could carpenter a bit, but most of my time's been spent as a
painter--'prenticed to it, you know, and spent seven years with a
drunken master to learn 'most nothing, 'cept what I picked up myself.
Well, I couldn't get a job in town, so I was on the look-out round the
outside, when I came to our guv'nor's place, where he was at work with
two men, and him doing about as much as both of 'em.  No use to try on
for carpentering, I thinks, so I sets up the painting sign and goes in.

"Well," says the guv'nor, "I can give you a job if you can grain."

Now that was a rum 'un, for I was only a plain painter, and no grainer;
but after three weeks' hard lines, wife and family at home, and work
awful, it did seem tantalising to a willing man to have a week's wages
shown him if he could only do one particular thing.  Of course I had
dodged it a bit before, but I wasn't a grainer, and I knowed it well
enough; but I thinks to myself, "Well, this is outside London, where
people ain't so very artis-like in their ideas, and perhaps I can manage
it--so here goes.  I can but try, and if I misses, why, it ain't a
hanging matter."  So I says, "Well; I wouldn't undertake none of your
superfine walnuts, and bird's-eye maples, and marbles; but if it's a bit
of plain oak I'm your man."

"Well," he says, "that'll do; it's only plain oak; and, if you like, you
can begin priming and going on at once.  There's paints and brushes, but
you must find your own graining tools."

At it I goes like a savage, and then I found as there was a week's work
for me before I need touch the graining; for there was priming, and
first and second coats; and so I went on, but thinking precious hard
about the bit of graining I should have to do.  "Nothing venture,
nothing gain," I says; and that night I was hard at it after work--ah!
and right up to four o'clock in the morning--trying to put a bit of oak
grain on to a piece of smooth deal.  I'd got a brush or two, and some
colour, and a couple of them comb-like things we uses; and there I was,
with the missus trying to keep her eyes open and pretending to sew,
while I painted and streaked, and then smudged it about with a bit of
rag; and I'm blest if I didn't put some grain on that piece of wood as
would have made Mother Nature stare--knots, and twists, and coarse
grain, and shadings as I could have laughed at if I hadn't been so
anxious.  You see, the nuisance of it was, it looked so easy when
another man did it: touches over with his colour, streaks it down with
his comb, and then with a rag gives a smudge here and there, and all so
lightly, and there it is done.  But I couldn't, though I tried till the
missus nodded, so I was obliged to send her to bed for fear she'd set
her cap afire; and then I goes to the pump and has a reg'lar good
sloosh, and touches my face over with the cold water, when after a good
rub I goes at it again quite fresh.

I can't think now how many times I rubbed the paint off with the dirty
rag, but a good many I know, and the clock had gone three when I was
still at it, with every try seeming to be worse than the last; but still
I kept on till I seemed to hear it strike four in a muffled sort of way,
and then the next thing I heard was the wife calling me, for it was five
o'clock, and I had a long way to walk to get to my work.

As soon as I could get my head off the table, and pull myself together,
the first thing I did was to look at my graining; and some how or other
it didn't look so very much amiss; but still it warn't anything like
what it ought to be, as I knowed well enough.  All that day I was
thinking it over, and best part of that dinner-hour I stopped in the
shop trying it on again.

Just as I was going to smudge a piece over, and finish my bit of bread
and meat, not feeling at all satisfied, I gives a jump, for some one
behind me says,--

"Very neat, indeed.  Bit of old oak, I suppose.  You'd better do them
shutters that style of grain."

Well, do you know, if I didn't look at the guv'nor--for him it was--to
see whether he warn't a joking me; but, bless you, no; he was as serious
as a judge: so feeling all the while like a great humbug, as I was, I
says, "Werry well, sir," finished my dinner, and then got to work again.

It turned out as I expected, just a whole week before I had to begin
graining; and what with about an hour a day, and four more every night,
I got on pretty well, especially after giving a chap two pots of ale to
put me up to a wrinkle or two; and now I sometimes pass by that very bit
of graining, and though of course I could do it a deal better now, I
don't feel so very much ashamed of it.

But along of my guv'nor.  What a fight that man did have surely; and how
well I used to know when he was running short on Saturdays: he'd look
ten years older those times; and over and over again I've felt ashamed
to take the money; but one couldn't do without it, you know, on account
of the little ones and wife.  Last of all, though, we got to understand
one another--the guv'nor and me; and this was how it was: he'd been
worse nor usual, and was terribly hard-up, for he'd been buying wood and
paying for it; for though he could have plenty of credit now as he don't
want it, in those days not a bit of stuff could he get without putting
the money down.  Well, having next to no capital, this bothered him
terribly; and after paying two men on Saturday, I felt pretty sure as he
was run close, and stood hanging about in the shop, not knowing whether
to go in to the house or be off home; and at last I did go home and told
the wife about it, and she said we could hold out two or three weeks
very well, if I thought the guv'nor would pay by-and-by.  But I soon
settled that, for I knew my man, and so I set down quietly to my tea,
and was sticking a bit of bread-and-butter in one little open beak and a
bit in another, when there comes a knock at the door, and I turned red
all over, for I felt it was the guv'nor; and so it was, and he'd brought
my wages, when, as he stood in my bit of a kitchen holding out the
three-and-thirty shillings, I couldn't for the life of me help looking
at where his watch-chain hung, and it warn't there.

I meant to do it neatly, and without hurting his feelings, for him and
his wife had been very kind to us when we had the sickness in the house;
but, you see, it warn't a bit of graining, and I regularly muffed the
job when I told him to let it stand for two or three weeks, as we could
do till then.  Next moment he had hold of my hand, shaking it heartily,
and then next after that he broke down in a humbled, mortified sort of a
way; and when the wife hurried the children up the staircase, out of
sight, poor chap! he sat down, laid his head on his hand, and groaned.

"Cheer up," I says, "it'll be all right soon."

"Right! yes," he says, jumping up.  "But it ain't that," he says; "it's
meeting a friend where I didn't expect one;" and then he was gone.

I was sitting at breakfast next morning (Sunday) when the garden gate
rattles, and there was the guv'nor coming in such a hurry.  Never stops
to knock, but in he comes and shakes hands hearty; and then, without
speaking, stuffs a letter into my hand.  "Head it," he says, "last post,
last night," and I did; but what I took most notice of was a long strip
of paper with "197 pounds 10 shillings 6 pence" written on it, just
under the name of one of the London bankers.

Yes, we had a pleasant dinner, a comfortable cup of tea, and a cosy
supper with the guv'nor that day; and uncommon good friends we've been
ever since.  I do all sorts at the shop, so that there's always a job,
and though people say "Jack of all trades--master of none," I think a
man might follow French suit and know two trades and master them both,
so as when work falls one way he has a chance the other.  Poor folks
often get hunted by the wolf Poverty, and it would not be amiss to take
a lesson from the burrowing animals, and have two holes--to get out of
one when t'other happened to be stopped.



CHAPTER SIX.

A CABMAN'S STORY.

"Hope I see you well, sir.  Thanky, sir, I ain't had such a cigar since
as you give me that day.  You'll often find me on this stand, sir, and
happy to drive yer at any time, either on the box or inside.  But I say,
you know, sir, how about putting a feller in print?  Fine game some of
our chaps made on it, because they said as they knew it all by heart.
You see I don't like to wherrit people with my old stories; but when I
can get any one to listen I du like to talk a bit.  You can't form no
idea of the things as we hears and sees; and I believe it would do any
man good to drive a keb for a twelvemonth; it's both wonderful what
you'd pick up, and how you'd git picked up.  Here's your poets writing
about green banks and flowers, and shepherds and shepherdesses, and love
and stuff; why I've had no end of love-making in my keb here.  Young
ladies and young swells, whose pars and mars ain't agreeable like, makes
assignations and hires a keb by the hour, to be drove up and down, and
the driver often looking as innocent as you please.  I don't dislike
them sorter jobs, for you see, when he says `How much, kebby?' one can
lay it on a bit, for he won't look shabby by disputing the fare before
the young lady.  But, Lor' bless you, they'd pay anything just at them
times, for money seems no object--everythink's sweet, and when it rains
I think they fancies as it's all sugar and water.

"There was one old chap as I drove regular; he used to come to my stand
twice a week, and after the first time I always knew what to do.  Ah! he
was a fine old chap, and had been a orficer or somethin' of that sort.
Big mustarsh, yer know, and whiskers white as snow, and a hye!  Ah, his
was a hye, his were!  Talk about tellin' soldiers to charge! why, they
couldn't do no other with him a lookin' at 'em; though if he hadn't been
a good sort I don't think as I could have done much in charging my
fashion, you know.  It was a pleasure to see him walk--as upright as his
old gold-headed cane.  Seven bob a week he was to me reg'lar, and I used
to look out for his old white head a-coming round the corner about three
o'clock in the arternoon, and then I used to drive him right off to
Kensal-green Cemetery, where he'd get down, and I always waited for him
half an hour, when out he'd come, looking as fierce and stiff as ever,
get into the keb, `Home,' he'd say, giving his stick a bit of a
flourish, just as if it were a sword; and home it was.

"About the seccun time we went, I walks permiscus up to the gatekeeper--
stiff-looking chap, too, with only one eye, and a touch o' the
k'mishionaire about him, only he hadn't got no empty sleeve hanging to
his button and didn't wear no mustarchers; but all the same, I sets him
down as having handled the musket some time, and so he had.  Well, I
walks up to him slowly and 'spectfully, showin' him all the time as I
know'd as I was only a kebman, and had learned to order myself lowly and
reverently to all my betters, you know; and this iled him a bit, so as
he went easy, and we got into conversation.  I draws him on by degrees;
for these gatekeepers is werry great swells in their way, as any one may
see for hisself by getting a haporth o' curds and whey at one of the
parks, and studying the inflooence of a gold band round a man's hat.
'Taint everybody as notices it, but it's wonderful how that ere yaller
metal stiffens a feller's neck.  Look at flunkeys, for instance--decent
chaps enough, some on 'em, till they gets a bit o' lace on their hats,
and then they're as proud on it as a fresh-moulted cockatoo.  Never wore
no lace on my hat; but shouldn't mind wearing a little more nap.

"Let's see where had I got to?  Ah, I know.  Most extinguished myself
with them gold-band hats.  You see, I was a saying as them gatekeepers
is big swells, and wants careful handling.  They're the sort of chaps
that wun would like to buy at wun's own wallyation and sell at theirs.
Payin' spec that to anybody; only I'm 'fraid as the market would soon
get choked.  Well, fust thing I does is to fall werry much in love with
the flowers in his windy, and quite 'spectfully arsts the name of 'em;
when, bein' a bit of a gardener, he comes out with some thunderin' great
furrin word, as I knows jolly well he didn't know the meanin' on; and I
says, `Oh!' as if I was werry much obliged, and takes hold o' one werry
gently, and has a smell, and then thinks a great deal o' the size of the
blossoms, and so on; till, as if it was takin' a great liberty, I arsts
if he couldn't cut me just one.  Jest what he wanted, yer know; and
making a terrible fuss over it, and explaining the wally of the plant,
he snips me off a bit, and I sticks it in my button-hole, while he
looked as pleased as some o' those old buffers in white weskets as puts
shillings in plates when there's a k'lection, and then thinks as they've
been patrons: for some folks do love to be arskt favours, and then comes
the grandee as they grants 'em.

"So then I goes on a fishin' and a fishin', and calls him `sir,' and
arsts his opinion of Common Garden, and so on, till at last I hooks him,
and--

"Coo-o-ome orn!  What are yer up to, Nosey?  Never was such a 'oss as
you for lookin' arter the main chance.  That wasn't a sixpence, stoopid,
and if it was I'd a got off and picked it up without yer going down on
yer knees.  Never was such a 'oss as this here, sir.  He's a Paddy--come
out of a Roman Catholic country, yer know; and blest if he ain't allus a
tryin' to go down on his knees.  Fancies every crossin'-sweeper he sees
is a holy father, and wants to confess, I suppose.  It's a natteral
weakness of his, and it's taken all the hair off his knees.  I paints
'em up a bit so as to hide the worst of it, but he's allus a tryin' it
on.  Get along, do.

"Well, I hooks him, you know--the gatekeeper, I means--and arter playin'
him a bit he was as civil as you please; gets down off his stilts, and
was ready to tell me anything.  So then I gets to know as my gentleman
was an old colonel as had buried a daughter there two months afore, and
had allus come twice a week ever since to have a look at the place.
`An',' says Mr Crusp--that was the gatekeeper's name--`an', as you may
find out yourself if you go, I've got geranums an' stocks, an' werbenas,
quite a show on 'em, for the old gentleman said he should like to see
some flowers there.'  And just then out comes the old orficer, and I
drives off.

"Well, sir, things goes on like this here for a matter o' months, and--

"Just look at that, now.  Coome orn, stoopid.  Blest if ever there was
sich a 'oss.  It's pounds outer my pocket; but the guv'nor don't care,
bless yer, as long as I take in my reg'lar dose every day.  Jest look at
that, now; pulling up short right in the middle of the road, cos them
Jarmans was blowin' up a row.  Likes music, I spose; so do I, when I can
get it good, and so does everybody, it seems to me.  I was a talking to
a gentleman only t'other day, jest as I may be to you, and he says, says
he, `It's my opinion that if you give the working classes good music,
joined to good words, they wouldn't notice them rubbishing music-hall
things, as only goes down because they're tacked on to a pretty tune.'
And he's right, yer know, and he's a man as has done a good deal towards
improving the working people.  Why, only see if a pretty tune comes up
if it isn't whistled and sung all over the town--ah, and the country
too--in no time; and what's more, it ain't forgotten neither.  Yer see,
to like yer fine books and poetry a man wants eddication; but it comes
nateral to him to love a pretty tune.  I ain't up to much, yer know, but
I can't stand the rubbish as folks goes and wags their heads to--and
what for? only because they can't get anything better.  Who says common
folks don't love music!  Just take 'em and show 'em the crowds arter the
soldiers' and volunteer bands, and in the parks, and then, perhaps,
they'll alter their tune; and--look at that, now, if I ain't gone right
away from the story.  Shouldn't do for a speaker, I shouldn't, for it
seems to me as I'm like my old 'oss, Nosey--allus wants to turn down the
fust turning as comes.  There he goes.  Coo-o-me orn.

"Well, things goes on for a matter o' months, and twiste a week I
pockets my three-and-six; but I keeps thinking as it couldn't last much
longer.  `So the old gentleman got tired,' says you.  Right you are!  He
did get tired at last, but not as you might think.  He allus came same
time, and stopped same time, and then I drove him back to his own door.
Summer went by.  The gals had cried the lavendy up and down the streets,
and the swells had all gone outer town to the sea-side and the furrin
waterin' places; and for long enough, whenever a decent job had come, it
had been luggage on the roof, and a bundle of sticks and umbrellys
inside, and then off to some railway station or another.  Kensington
Gardings was a rainin' yaller leaves all day long, while the robins was
tunin' up their melancholy little pipes, just as if there was no one
else left to sing, and they was werry miserable becos the cold weather
was a-comin'; while there was no sing left in me, for my asthmy was a
beginning to tickle me up a bit, as it allus does in autumn time; but
still my old gentleman comes as reg'lar as clockwork.

"One afternoon, as I was sitting on my box, rather cold and chilly, for
the fog was a-comin' creepin' on earlier nor usual, I was amusin' myself
a pickin' ov a few walnuts--eight a penny, you know, without the port
wine and salt.  It was a dull sort of time, when you could hear the
muffin bell a-going down the side streets; and the fires shining through
the window-blinds looked warm and cosy.  I was a pickin' and growlin'
away at my nuts--for they didn't skin easy, besides being werry dry,
when who should I see a-comin' but my reg'lar fare.  Up he comes along
the street, straight and stiff as a drill-sergeant, and though half a
dozen whips runs up touting for the job, he never takes no notice of
'em, and I draws up to the kerb, jumps down to let him in, and opens the
door, when he stops with one leg in the keb.

"Yer see, this wasn't a reg'lar thing, for arter the first time I allus
knew what he wanted, and we understood one another, so that it was all
done this way: jump in--set down--take up agin--set down agin--pay up--
touch yer 'at--jump on the box--and nary word spoken.  Sooted him, yer
know; and it sooted me; so what more did you want?  But now on this day
it was diffurnt, for, as I said afore, he stops with one leg in the keb,
and begins to speak, quite pleasant, and quiet, and civil, as a
gentleman could speak, and he says, `Kebman, I thank you for your
attention.  Here's a suffrin for you.  Drive on.'

"In course, I thanked him; but he didn't seem to want to be talked to,
and I drives on, thinking it was a rum start paying aforehand.  Not as
I'd got anything to grumble about, for a suffrin warn't to be sneezed
at, as the sayin' is.  So I drives up to the cemetery gates; sets him
down; puts the nose-bag on the mare I drove then; an' lights my pipe.

"One pipe allus used to do for me while he went in and came out; so I
used to smoke it, and then put it away.  But this time he didn't come
back so soon as usual, or else, being a bit outer sorts in stummick and
pocket, I'd smoked faster; so I pulls it out and lights up agen, and a
good deal o' bother I had, I remember, for the matches was damp, and
there was I a-rubbin' one arter the other again the pipe bowl for long
enough, inside my hat.

"Well, I finished that pipe, and then another, for it seemed to me as he
was having a long stay on the strength of the suffrin.  `And welcome,' I
says; for, of course, being a good sort, I wasn't going to grudge him an
hour.  But it got to be more than an hour, and dusky, and foggy, and
damp; and that blessed rheumatic shoulder o' mine began a-going it
orful.  It was just for all the world as though some one had made a hole
right through the blade-bone, and then, shovin' a piece of clothes-line
through, was a sawin' of it backards and furards.  Then it began to rain
a little--mizzly, yer know--and the mare havin' tossed her old nose-bag
about till she couldn't get not anuther taste o' chaff, let alone a hoat
or a bean, stands hanging all together like, same as those fiery steeds
as they used to send up under a balloon, Cremorne way, years ago, and
lookin' for all the world like a hannimal cut out for the knackers.

"Last of all out comes Mr Crusp, all hot tea and buttered toast,
shining beautiful, and looking as though he'd been going on to the tune
o' four cups and three rounds.  Then he begins to fasten up; and
`Ulloa!' says he, `what are you a-waitin' for?'  `Colonel,' says I.
`Out long ago,' says he.  `No,' says I; `he's been in more'n two hours.'
Well, he looks gallus hard at me, and then he says, `He must ha' gone
out without you seein' of him.  He's give you the slip.'  `Then he must
ha' come away inside that there black omblibus with plumes on it, then,'
I says, for I knowed as I must ha' seen him if he had come out; and then
I tells him about the suffrin.

"`Why didn't you say that afore,' says Crusp.  `You see if he ain't been
and committed hisself, or fell a wictim to his sorrow.'  And then he
turns short round, and goes puffin' along one o' the side walks; while,
knowin' as my old mare wouldn't run away to save her life, I follered.

"First we goes down a long gravel path where the 'santhemums was a
hanging their heads, and seeming as if they was a crying; but then all
the trees I could see in the dim light was covered with tears.  Then
Crusp leads off across a flower garding like, all covered with graves
and stones; and somehow, stumbling along in a big old box coat, I
manages to fall right over one of 'em; but when I pulled myself together
agen, and gets up to the gatekeeper, I finds him standing aside my
reg'lar fare, who was lying down there in the wet grass with his cheek
agin a grave, and one arm stretched right over it: while in t'other was
a long lock of dark hair.  His hat had rolled off, and his own long
white hair lay loose among the dead flowers and damp grass; and turning
all of a tremble, I stoops down beside him, and Crusp whispers, so quiet
and solemn, `He's gone to her!'

"For a moment or two I couldn't believe it, for there in the dusk it
seemed as though he was only crying over the restin'-place of his poor
child.  I didn't like to speak, for it all seemed so strange and solemn:
there was the `drip--drip--drip' from the trees, and now and then a sad
mournful sort of sigh as the wind swept by; and I don't know how it was,
but sad times seemed to come up again and take hold of a fellow's heart;
so that dim as it all was before, it turned worse, till one could hardly
see at all, and though the rain came slowly down, it seemed right and
nateral to take off one's hat; and we both did, and then stole away on
tiptoe to fetch more help.

"That allus comes back in the autumn time, when the leaves are falling,
and the rain drips slowly down; and then, feeling quite melancholy-like,
I can see again as plain as can be that fine old man restin' his head
upon the grave, with his silver hair all spread out upon the grass, and
him taking his rest from his troubles.

"Here we are, sir,--'Tannic Gardings; and, if it's all the same to you,
I'll just give that old 'oss a feed and a rub down, while you and the
ladies look through the green'ouses.  Eases his jints a bit, yer see,
and they runs werry stiff sometimes."



CHAPTER SEVEN.

J. WELTUS.

Reformations, and improvements, and setrer, are all very well; but, mind
yer, if your drink's been four ale all your life you won't take kindly
to porter, "threepence a pot in your own jugs," if some one tells you
all at once as it's better for you, and your ale's pison.  Rome warn't
built in a day, you know, and arter sitting for five-and-twenty year on
my bench and using the lapstone and sterrup-leather, you ain't a-going
to make me take nat'rally to a hupright bench.

Here I am, yer see; allus at home--airy spot; good light, and never no
sun; pleasant prospect o' four foot in front, none to the right, and
chock down into Fleet-street on the left.  What more would you have?
Every convenience for carrying on a large and lucrative trade without
moving from yer seat.  Here's one's stool, and, altogether, close to
one's hand, everything as a artis' in leather work could want.  Now see
here: paste? there you are; stuffin'? there you are; tub for soakin'?
there you are; and so on with every think--whether it's lapstone, foot,
hemp, ball, wax, bristles, dubbin, grease, or ink.  There's one's knives
and stone all in a row; there's one's divisions with all one's nails and
pegs--brass, iron, and wood; there's one's hammers; and--there, what
more would you have for soleing and heeling a boot or a shoe right off
without leaving yer seat?  And all done in a regular business way, yer
know; none o' yer new-fangled rivet and clinch and sewing-machine
rubbish; but straightforward laid-in stitches, put in with a sharp awl
and a fine pair of ends, laid into and drawn tight with plenty of elbow
grease, and the sole stoned and hammered as solid as a board, and more
too.

Rivets indeed!  Why, how can a boot be decent as is nailed together just
as a chip would make a box?  'Tain't natural, no more nor gutta-percha
was, nor india-rubber was.  Course I had to take to gutta-percha soles,
as it was the fashun, else yer lose yer trade; but there you were,
sticking the things on with a lot o' grease tar stuff, and then as soon
as they got warm, off they comes again, and serve 'em right too for not
being sewed, and then touched round the wearing Darts with a few rows o'
sprigs neatly put in, or a facing o' sparrables.

And here's yer everlasting soles and yer machinery and clat!  Don't tell
me: why, they can't answer any more than indy-rubber goloshes can, as
raises your corns, an' draws yer feet, an' makes a man miserable, as of
course every one is as ain't got a decent shoe to his foot.  It's all
very fine having yer new fangles, and one introdoosing cork, and another
iron, and another copper and copper toes.  You may have yer grand
warerusses over Southwark way; but my 'pinion is as it must come down to
us at last, as only stands to reason.

Now here you are; you've bought yer pair o' ready-mades and worn 'em a
bit, and then where are you? why, a-looking out for "J. Weltus,
shoemaker, repairs neatly executed"--as it says on the board over the
stall, as cost me a soleing and heeling for a painter chap outer work as
did it for me, and put no dryers in his colour, so as the boys give it
that pitted-with-the-small-pox look by aimin' at it with their popguns.
Well, you looks for J. Weltus, and finds him sittin' in his stall in the
court, and shows him what's up, and very naterally he laughs at yer, as
he does at all as runs away from your fine old conservative wax-end and
leather, for your improved, reform, upright bench, and machine-made
understandings.

But J. Weltus takes pity on you, and soon has yer boots in hand; and, as
the swell says, he "analyses" 'em.  And then where are yer?  Here's your
sole good for nought--the welt gone, heel sunk, and a whole regiment of
pegs sticking up inside fit to rasp every bit o' skin off yer foot.

Well, of course he grins; but you wants 'em to-morrow?  Werry good; and
he grins again to find that with all yer machine-making and sewing, yer
obliged to come back to the old mender after all; so he takes off his
glasses, gets Kidney Joe to cast a hye on his stall, and runs round to
the grindery shop in Drury Lane, and comes back in ten minutes with a
few real Archangel bristles, a ball of hemp, a set of first-class
leather, some stuffin'; and of course, just as if to insult him, the
counter's chock full o' ready-closed uppers, with all sorts o'
jigamaree, fiddle-faddle stitching about 'em, as ain't no good only to
let the water in.  Then off he sets again--only he has to go back for
his wax, which is, as one may say, the mainspring of a boot--the mortar
of the edifice, as holds all together and as it should be.

Nex' day you comes for the boots, and there they are.  Well, they ain't
done; but J.W.'s a-ripping into 'em.  One's been touched over with a bit
o' glass, as has smoothed the new half-sole wonderful, and another's
being sprigged; then the edges'll be waxed up a bit with the dubbin',
and then there's yer boots--a tighter and a better pair than they was
afore, and all for three shillings, or three-and-six, according to your
customer.

I never puts any toe-pieces on, punched full o' holes to make 'em look
'ansum; but does my work in the good old style, and if I was in
Parliament every man as didn't wear Wellingtons should be taxed.

But along o' them cards in the winders.  Well, a chap come to me one
day, and wanted me to be agent, and I stares up at him at first to see
as he wasn't joking, "Loans of from 5 pounds to 100 pounds upon personal
security," says the card he showed me, just as you can see 'em in
hundreds o' back courts and slums--places where you may be sure people
wants heaps o' money.

"Do a wonderful stroke o' business," I says, looking at my chap.  "Find
plenty o' customers down here; but p'raps they might object to the smell
o' the leather, and so keep away."

"Bless yer, no," says the chap--"not at all.  Many of our agents is
marine-store dealers and groshers.  Good commission for you if you like
to take it."

But I wouldn't; and there hung the card in the little red herring and
sweet shop till last week, when they had to turn out because the place
is all coming down to make way for the new law courts, and setrer.

Do! of course it's a do; same as those 'wertisements in the papers is
from distressed tradesmen who'll give five pound for the loan of ten for
a week, and deposit fifty pounds wally of stuff for security--pawn
tickets, yer know--cards got from folks' uncle when they've been on a
wisit--"Frock-coat and satin wesket, fifteen and nine, John Smith, 999,
Snooks-street"--and all on to that tune.  Traps--traps--traps, every one
on 'em, as the poor fellows know as has had any dealings with the
moneylenders.

Now, just look here; about the only honest one there is, is your uncle.
Fixed interest, certain time, and he wants security.  Saturday night and
a hard week, and rent due, and the chap as the boots was made for not
come to fetch 'em; the pair as was mended not paid for--and all the
stuff required cost money, you see--so off you goes to your uncle with
two flat irons and the missus's ring.  Then you does your bit of
negotiation, and the job's done; and out you come from the little court
where the door flaps to, and all's right and square, and no odds to
nobody; but just try same as Jinks did to get a loan from the
Cosmypolitan and Jint-Stock Adwance and Discount Company, and see how
you like it.  So many stamps for application; so much for inquiry fee;
so much for this, and so much for that, and so on.

Jinks comes in, as maybe you, and he says, "I shall be wantin' a pair o'
boots nex' week," he says, "and you may as well take the measure now,"
he says; "save time when I gives the order."

"All right," I says, getting hold o' my rule and a strip o' paper.

"But I dunno yet what sort I'll have," he says.  "I've a sorter leaning
towards 'lasticks; but I dunno," he says, "but what I'd best stick to
the old sort--laceups."

"Say the word," I says, and he said it--"'Lasticks!" and I took his
measure, and brought out a pen, dips in my ink-bottle, and makes marks;
and all the time he was precious busy rattling some printed paper about
and pretending to be reading.

"Oh, Weltus," he says all at once, just as if it struck him all at the
moment, "I'm a-going to have an advance from the 'ciety."

"Are you?"  I says--"inches and a harf--'lasticks--kid tops."

"What?" he says.

"Only my measuring," I says, with the pen in my mouth.

"Oh!" he says, "jusso."  And then he goes on--"'Bliged to get a couple
of tradesmen--'spectable tradesmen--to sign their names to the papers--
just to show, you know, as I'm some one decent.  You'll be one, won't
yer?"

"One what?"  I says--"bondsman?"

"Oh, no," he says, "nothing o' the kind; only just sign yer name.  It's
me as is bound; and if anything went wrong, why, they'd come upon me,
and so on, yer know.  Don't yer see?"

"No!"  I says, taking off my glasses, and rubbin' 'em on my leather
apron--"No," I says, "I can't quite."

"Why," he says, "it's five pound as I'm going to borrow; and they lends
it me on my own pussonal security; but just to show as I'm the right
sort, I get two 'spectable tradesmen to put down their names.  Don't yer
see?  I could get plenty to do it, only I don't want every one to know.
You see now, don't you?"

"No," I says, "I can't somehow."

"Why," he says, "it's all right, man," and he gives me a slap on the
shoulder.  "I'm going to pay it back by 'stalments, and I shall pay yer
cash for them boots when I gets the money, and it'll be doing us both a
good turn.  There's the line--just along there--`J. Weltus, Pull-Down
Court.'  Don't you be in a stew; there's nothing to be 'feard on.  It's
me as they'd come on, I tell you.  Your signing yer name along that line
is only a form, and it's me they'd sell up.  Now don't you see?  I shall
give you the order for them boots o' Monday."

But, do you know, I'm blest if I could see it then; and though he tried
a bit more, he couldn't make me see it.  Long course o' roughing it in
the world's made my eyes dull, yer know; and, last of all, Jinks doubles
up his papers, and goes out quite huffy; while I gets ready a fresh pair
of ends and goes on with a job I had in hand, when every time I pulls
the threads home I gives a good hard grunt, and goes on analysing Bob
Jinks, and wondering what it would all come to.  "Holiday now and then's
all werry well," I says, "but Rye House, 'Ampton Court, and Gravesend on
Mondays won't do even if a man does make six-and-thirty bob a week.
Masters don't like their hands to be allus going out, and besides, it
don't look well to take a soot o' clothes out on Saturday night, and
stuff 'em up the spout again on Toosdays or Wensdays;" and arter
analysing a good deal, I couldn't help finding as Bob Jinks was one of
them chaps as helped pay for Mrs Shortnip's satin dress at the Rising
Sun.  "Hal, a pint o' beer's good," I says to myself, "and I don't
object to a pipe with it; but have the work done first.  That's my
motter."

"Don't begin them boots till I gives yer the order," says Jinks, as he
goes out.

"No," I says, "I shan't;" nor I didn't neither, for I couldn't see the
Jos Miller of it, and somehow or another Jinks never come inside my
place again.

I was on the look-out, though, and I suppose he did make some one see
all about it, and got him to sign; for two months arter there was a
snuffy-looking old foggy-eyed chap a-stopping in his lodgings, and a
little while arter two o' Levy Haman's men was fetching the furnitur
down, and I saw sev'ral things as must ha' been his at the broker's shop
at the corner; for they do say as these loan 'cieties are precious hard
on any one as gets behind with the payments, and 'll eat you outer house
and home.  But, bless yer, it's no 'ciety in most cases, but some
precious hook-beaked knowing one as is company, directors, and sekketary
all in himself and lives on the interest and sellings up of them as gets
into his claws.  'Taint often as they do lend anything, but when they do
they makes theirselves safe enough by getting about three names and a
plugging rate of interest; and then, good luck to yer if yer don't pay
up.  Gettin' things on tick's all werry well, but though they call it
so, 'taint no credit to nobody; and that's what I say; and if I ain't
right, my name ain't J. Weltus.



CHAPTER EIGHT.

MY FARE.

Don't you make a mistake, now, and think I'm not a working man, because
I am.  Don't you run away with the idea that because I go of a morning
and find my horse and cab waiting ready cleaned for me, and I jumps up
and drives off, as I don't work as hard as any mechanic, because I do;
and I used to work harder, for it used to be Sunday and week days, till
the missus and me laid our heads together, and said, if we couldn't live
on six days' work a week at cabbing we'd try something else; so now I am
only a six days' man--Hansom cab, VR, licensed to carry two persons.

None o' your poor, broken-kneed knackers for me.  I takes my money in to
the governor regular, and told him flat that if I couldn't have a decent
horse, I wouldn't drive; and I spoke a bit sharp, having worked for him
ten years.

"Take your chice, Steve Wilkins," he says; and I took it, and drove
Kangaroo, the wall-eyed horse with a rat tail.

I had a call one day off the stand by the Foundling, and has to go into
New Ormond Street, close by; and I takes up an old widow lady and her
daughter--as beautiful a girl of seventeen or eighteen as ever I set
eyes on, but so weak that I had to go and help her down to the cab, when
she thanked me so sweetly that I couldn't help looking again and again,
for it was a thing I wasn't used to.

"Drive out towards the country, cabman, the nearest way," says the old
lady; "and when we want to turn back, I'll speak."

"Poor gal!"  I says, "she's an invalid.  She's just such a one as my Fan
would have been if she'd lived;" and I says this to myself as I gets on
to my box, feeling quite soft; for though I knew my gal wouldn't have
been handsome, what did that matter?  I didn't like to lose her.

"Let's see," I says again, "she wants fresh air.  We'll go up the hill,
and through Hampstead;" and I touches Kangaroo on the flank, and away we
goes, and I picks out all the nicest bits I could, and when I comes
across a pretty bit of view I pulls up, and pretends as there's a strap
wanted tightening, or a hoof picking, or a fresh knot at the end of the
whip, and so on.  Then I goes pretty quickly along the streety bits, and
walks very slowly along the green lanes; and so we goes on for a good
hour, when the old lady pushes the lid open with her parasol, and tells
me to turn back.

"All right, mum," I says; and takes 'em back another way, allers
following the same plan; and at last pulls up at the house where I
supposed they was lodgers, for that's a rare place for lodgings about
there.

I has the young lady leaning on my arm when she gets out, and when she
was at the door she says, "Thank you" again, so sweetly and sadly that
it almost upset me.  But the old lady directly after asked me the fare,
and I tells her, and she gives me sixpence too much, and though I wanted
to pocket it, I wouldn't, but hands it back.

"Thank you, cabman," she says; "that's for being so kind and attentive
to my poor child."

"God bless her, mum," I says, "I don't want paying for that."

Then she smiles quite pleasant, and asks me if it would be worth my
while to call again the next afternoon if it was fine, and I says it
would; and next day, just in the same way, I goes right off past
Primrose Hill, and seeing as what they wanted was the fresh air, I makes
the best o' my way right out, and then, when we was amongst the green
trees, Kangaroo and me takes it easy, and just saunters along.  Going up
hill I walks by his head, and picks at the hedges, while them two,
seeing as I took no notice of 'em, took no notice o' me.  I mean, you
know, treated me as if we was old friends, and asked me questions about
the different places we passed, and so on.

Bimeby I drives 'em back, and the old lady again wanted to give me
something extra for what she called my kind consideration; but "No,
Stevey," I says to myself; "if you can't do a bit o' kindness without
being paid for it, you'd better put up the shutters, and take to some
other trade."  So I wouldn't have it, and the old lady thought I was
offended; but I laughed, and told her as the young lady had paid me; and
so she had, with one of her sad smiles, and I said I'd be there again
nex' day if it was fine.

And so I was; and so we went on, day after day, and week after week; and
I could see that, though the sight of the country and the fresh air
brightened the poor girl up a bit, yet he was getting weaker and weaker,
so that, at last, I half carried her to the cab, and back again after
the ride.  One day, while I was waiting, the servant tells me that they
wouldn't stay in town, only on account of a great doctor, as they went
to see at first, but who came to them now; and, last of all, when I went
to the house, I used always to be in a fidget for fear the poor gal
should be too ill to come out.  But no, month after month she kep' on;
and when I helped her, used to smile so sweetly, and talk so about the
trouble she gave me, that one day, feeling a bit low, I turned quite
silly, and happening to look at her poor mother a-standing there with
the tears in her eyes, I had to hurry her in, trod get up on to my seat
as quick as I could, to keep from breaking down myself.

Poor gal! always so loving and kind to all about her--always thanking
one so sweetly, and looking all the while so much like what one would
think an angel would look--it did seem so pitiful to feel her get
lighter and lighter, week by week--so feeble, that, at last, I used to
go upstairs to fetch her, and always carried her down like a child.

Then she used to laugh, and say, "Don't let me fall, Stephen,"--for they
got to call me by my name, and to know the missus, by her coming in to
help a bit; for the old lady asked me to recommend 'em an honest woman,
and I knowed none honester than my wife.  And so it was with everybody--
it didn't matter who it was--they all loved the poor gal; and I've had
the wife come home and sit and talk about her, and about our Fanny as
died, till she's been that upset she's cried terribly.

Autumn came in werry wet and cold, and there was an end to my jobs
there.  Winter was werry severe, but I kep' on hearing from the missus
how the poor gal was--sometimes better, sometimes worse; and the missus
allus shook her head werry sadly when she talked about her.

Jennywerry and Feberwerry went by terribly cold, and then March came in
quite warm and fine, so that things got so forrard, you could buy
radishes wonderful cheap in April; and one night the wife comes home and
tells me that if it was as fine nex' day as it had been, I was to call,
and take the old lady and her daughter out.

Nex' day was splendid.  It was as fine a spring day as ever I did see,
and I sticks a daffy-down-dilly in on each side of Kangaroo's head, and
then spends twopence in a couple o' bunches o' wilets, and pins 'em in
on the side where the poor gal used to sit, puts clean straw in the
boot, and then drives to the place with the top lid open, so as to
sweeten the inside, because swells had been smoking there that morning.

"Jest run yer sponge and leather over the apron a bit, Buddy," I says to
our waterman, afore I left the stand.

"Got a wedding on?" he says, seeing how pertickler I was.

"There, look alive!"  I says, quite snappish; for I didn't feel in a
humour to joke; and then, when I'd got all as I thought right, I drives
up, keeping the lid open, as I said afore.

When I draws up, I puts the nose-bag on the old horse, for him to amuse
himself with, and so as I could leave him, for he wouldn't stir an inch
with that bag on, to please all the pleacemen in London.  Then I rings,
and waits, and at last gets my orders to go and help the young lady
down.

I takes off my hat, wipes my shoes well, and goes up; and there she was
waiting, and smiled so pleasantly again, and held out her hand to me, as
though I'd been a friend, instead of a rough, weather-battered street
cabman.  And do you know what I did, as I went in there, with my eyes
all dim at seeing her so, so changed?  Why, I felt as if I ought to do
it, and I knelt down and took her beautiful white hand in mine, and
kissed it, and left a big tear on it; for something seemed to say so
plainly that she'd soon be where I hoped my own poor gal was, whom I
always say we lost; but my wife says, "No, not lost, for she is ours
still."

She was so light now, that I carried her down in a minute; and when she
was in the cab and saw the wilets, she took 'em down, and held 'em in
her hand, and nodded and smiled again at me, as though she thanked me
for them.

"Go the same way as you went first time, Stephen," she says.

And I pushed over all the quieter bits, and took her out beyond
Hampstead; and there, in the greenest and prettiest spot I could find, I
pulls up, and sits there listening to the soft whispers of her voice,
and feeling, somehow, that it was for the last time.

After a bit I goes gently on again, more and more towards the country,
where the hedges were turning beautiful and green, and all looked so
bright and gay.

Bimeby I stops again, for there was a pretty view, and you could see
miles away.  Of course, I didn't look at them if I could help it, for
the real secret of people enjoying a ride is being with a driver who
seems no more to 'em than the horse--a man, you see, who knows his
place.  But I couldn't help just stealing one or two looks at the inside
where that poor gal lay back in the corner, looking out at the bright
spring-time, and holding them two bunches o' wilets close to her face.
I was walking backwards and forwards then, patting the horse and
straightening his harness, when I just catches the old lady's eye, and
saw she looked rather frightened, and she leans over to her daughter and
calls her by name quickly; but the poor girl did not move, only stared
straight out at the blue sky, and smiled so softly and sweetly.

I didn't want no telling what to do, for I was in my seat and the old
horse flying amost before you could have counted ten; and away we went,
full pace, till I come up to a doctor's, dragged at the bell, and had
him up to the cab in no time; and then he rode on the footboard of the
cab, in front of the apron, with the shutters let down; and he whispered
to me to drive back softly, and I did.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The old lady has lodged with us ever since, for I took a better place on
purpose, and my missus always attends on her.  She's werry fond o'
talking with my wife about their two gals who have gone before; but
though I often, take her for a drive over the old spots, she never says
a word to me about such things; while soon after the funeral she told
Sarah to tell me as the wilets were not taken from the poor gal's hand,
same time sending me a fi-pun note to buy a suit o' mourning.

Of course, I couldn't wear that every day, but there was a bit o' rusty
crape on my old shiny hat not such a werry long time ago; and I never
buy wilets now, for as they lie in the baskets in spring-time, sprinkled
with the drops o' bright water, they seem to me to have tears upon 'em,
and make me feel sad and upset, for they start me off thinking about "My
Fare."



CHAPTER NINE.

SPOTS ON LIFE'S SUN.

In educating myself a bit, it seems to me like getting up a high
mountain; and after going on at it for years and years, I've come to the
idea that there never is any getting up atop, for no sooner do I get up
one place than there's another; and so it is always the same, and you've
never done.  It's being thick-headed, I suppose; but somehow or another
I can't get to understand lots of things, and I know I never shall.  Now
just look here: suppose I, as a working man, go into my neighbour Frank
Brown's garden, cuts his cabbages, digs up his potatoes, and takes 'em
home--"annexes" 'em, you know; then larrups Frank till he's obliged to
cut and run; then I takes a werry loving fancy to all his furniture,
clothes, and chaney, and moves 'em into my premises.  "Don't do that,"
says his wife.  "There, hold _your_ tongue," I says, "I'm `annexing'
'em; and you may be off after your husband;" and then I turns her out
and locks the door.

"That's a rum game," you'll say.  Very good; so it is; and when the
thing's showed up, where am I? stole the vegetables, assaulted Frank
Brown, insulted and abused his wife, and plundered his house.  What
would Mr Payne, or Mr Bodkin, or Mr Knox say to me, eh?  Why, of
course, I must serve my time in gaol to make amends.  But that's what I
can't understand, and I want to know why I mayn't do it retail, when my
betters do it wholesale.  Here we are: here's the King of Prussia turned
out the King of Hanover and his wife, and, I s'pose, some more of 'em;
and I mean to say it's precious hard; and then again he's been thrashing
the Austrians, as perhaps deserved it, and perhaps didn't, while no end
of homes have been made desolate, and thousands upon thousands of God's
creatures slaughtered, let alone the tens of thousands as have been
mutilated and will bear the marks of the battles to their graves.  Ah!
I've sat aside a man as was on the battle-fields, and heard him describe
the "glory" of the war, the anguish of the wounded, the fearful
distortion of the dead, the smashed horses, and, above all, that
horrible slaughterhouse stench of blood that fouled the air with its
sickening, disease-bringing, cholera-sowing taint.  And then the King
says "Hurray," and they sing the "Te Deum."

There, I suppose I'm very ignorant, but I can't understand it at all;
and in my simple fancy it seems blasphemous.  Say we had an invading
army coming against us--same as in the days of good Queen Bess--and we
drive 'em off.  Those who fall do it in defence of their country, and
die like heroes; well, then, let's sing the "Te Deum," and thank Him for
letting us gain the victory.  Say we go to help an oppressed country
fairly and honestly.  Good again--let's return thanks; but when it's for
the sake of getting land, and for more conquest, why, then, if it must
be done, the less that is said afterwards the better.  And besides they
must be having a grand festival, and bring fifty of the prettiest
maidens in the city to meet the King and present him with laurel
wreaths.  Better have taken him crape bands for the hats of all his
party, and to distribute amongst the fatherless!  Some pictures there
were in the 'lustrated papers, too, of the laurel-crowned damsels, and
the grand religious festival with panoply and priests; but the artist
gave one grim rub to the whole thing--one as tells, too--for here and
there, in undress uniform, he sketched out wan-looking men with their
arms in slings, or limping with sticks, crippled perhaps for life; and
then no doubt they'll give you some of their ideas of glorious war.
Illuminations, too, under the Lindens at Berlin; grand enough, no doubt;
but it seems as though the heavens wept to see it, for the rain's
streaming down at a fine rate.

But, there, I suppose I don't understand these sort of things, and like
a good many more get talking about what I should hold my tongue on; but
somehow or another, whenever I hear the word _war_, I can't see
regiments of gay soldiers, and bands of music, and prancing horses, but
trampled, muddy, and blood-stained fields, with shattered bodies lying
about; or dim rooms turned into hospitals, with men lying groaning in
their great agony--hopeless, perhaps, of ever rising from the rough
pallet where they lie.

But, there, let's get on to another kind of war--war _with_ the knife--
knife and fork, you know--the battle of life for a living; for there's
no mistake about it, there is a regular battle going on for the daily
bread, and if a man hasn't been well drilled to it in his
apprenticeship, it's rather a poor figure he'll cut in amongst the rest.
Ah, you come across some rum fellow soldiers, too, in the course of
your life; here's one chap is asked to do a little extra job, and, as he
does it, goes on like our old sexton used down in the country when he
put up the Christmas holly in the church.  "Ah!" he says to me--"Ah! you
see, I don't get nothing for doing this--_only my salary_."  Men are so
precious frightened of making work scarce.  Why, I remember soon after I
came up to London going into Saint Paul's for a gape round, when they
were going to fit up the seats for the Charity Children's Festival; and
do what I would I couldn't help having a hearty laugh to see how the
fellows were going it.  Perhaps it was a scaffold pole wanted lifting;
when about a score of chaps would go crawling up to it, and have a look;
then one would touch it with his foot, and then another; then one would
stoop down and take hold on it, and give a groan, and then let go again;
next another would have his groan over it; then they'd look round, as if
they thought being in a grand church a miracle war going to happen, and
that the pole would get up of itself and go to its place.

It didn't though: so at last, groaning and grunting, they managed to get
it on their shoulders--the whole score of 'em trying to have a hand in
it; but puzzled sometimes how to manage it, for the short 'uns couldn't
hitch their shoulders up high enough to reach, and had to be content
with walking under it like honest British workmen as had made up their
minds to earn every penny of their money; while the tall chaps carried
the pole, and it didn't seem to hurt them much as they took it to its
place and groaned it down again; when they was all so faint that they
had to knock off for some beer.

I have heard an old workman say how many bricks he'd lay in a day in his
best times, and it was a precious many; and I've seen old Johnny Mawley
lay 'em too, and he'd have been just the chap to suit some of our London
men, who look sour at you if you lay into the work tight.  Old Johnny
used to build little walls and pigsties down in Lincolnshire, and had
his boy, young Johnny, with him.  There the old chap would be tapping
and pottering about over his work, with no necessity for him to stand
still till the mortar set at the bottom, for fear of the building giving
way or growing top-heavy--there he'd be, with the work getting well set
as he went on; for after getting one brick in its place and the mortar
cleared off, he'd drawl out very slowly, as he stood looking at his
job--"Johnny, lad, wilt thou bring me another brick?"  And Johnny used
to bring him another brick; and old Johnny would lay it; and work never
got scarce through him.

Men are so precious frightened of interfering with one another.  I
s'pose it's all right; but it seems so queer for the plasterer to knock
off because a bit of beading wants nailing on or taking off, and the
carpenter has to be fetched to do it, when half a dozen taps of the
hammer would have set all right.  Bricklayer's setting a stove, and he
can't turn a screw, but must have the smith; whilst the carpenter knocks
off because a bit of brick wants chipping out of the wall; and so they
go on; and so I go on grumbling at it, and fault-finding.  But the most
I grumble at is this--the number of public-houses there is about London
waiting with their easily-swinging doors to trap men.  There's no
occasion to knock; just lean against the door, and open it comes; and
there's the grandly fitted-up place, and a smart barman or barmaid to
wait on you, and all so nice, and attractive, and sticky, that there's
no getting away again; so that it seems like one of those
catch-'em-alives as the fellows used to sell about the streets--and we
poor people the flies.

Nice trade that must be, and paying; to see the glitter and gloss they
puts on, and the showy places they build in the most miserable spots--
gilt, and paint, and gas, and all in style.  And then the boards and
notices!  "Double brown stout, 3 pence per pot in your own jugs;
sparkling champagne ales; Devonshire cider; cordial gin, and compounds;
Jamaica rum;" while at one place there was a chap had up in his window
"Cwrw o' Cymru," which must be an uncommon nice drink, I should think;
but I never had any of it, whatever it is.  But how one fellow does
tempt another into these places, and how the money does go there--money
that ought to be taken home; and it isn't like any other kind of
business: say you want a coffee-shop, or a baker's, you'll have two or
three streets, perhaps, to go down to find one; but there's always a
public at the corner all ready.  And, you see, with some men it is like
it was with a mate of mine--Fred Brown--easy-going, good-hearted chap.

"Come and have half a pint, Fred," one'd say to him; and then Fred would
shake his head, and be going on, till they began to banter him a bit,
when he'd go in and have his half-pint same as lots of us do, and no
great harm neither; but then this beer used to make him thirsty for
more, and then more, and more, when the end of it used to be that what
with treating, and one thing and another, Fred used to go home less
seven or eight shillings in his pocket, and all of a stagger, to make
his wife miserable, and the little things of children stare to see him
look such a brute.

I lost sight of the poor chap for about five years; and then, when we
met, I shouldn't have known him if he hadn't spoken in a rough, husky
voice, while his face looked bloated and pasty.

"Can't help it, mate," he'd say.  "Can't eat now, and if it warn't for
the drop o' drink I couldn't live."

Strange words them for a young man of five-and-thirty; but I believe
they were true, and he almost lived upon beer and gin.  But I thought it
couldn't last long, and living as I did close by him, and often dropping
into his miserable room, I knew how matters went with him; and at last
he was down and unable to go to work.

Fortunately for him, in spite of all trouble, his wife had kept the club
money paid up, or they would have been in a queer fix, for they were
proper badly off, as you could see at a glance when you went in: ragged
scrap or two of carpet, half worn-out chairs, ricketty table, and very
dirty-looking old bedstead in the same room, while where his poor wife
and children managed to creep of nights I don't know.  Second floor back
room it was, and when I got up there his wife made me a sign not to make
a noise, for he was asleep; and she was doing all she could to hush the
baby in her arms.

Poor woman! only a few years ago healthy, bright-eyed, and good-looking;
but now only half-dressed, sunken-cheeked, and pale, as numbers of other
poor neglected wives we see every day in the streets.  Two more children
were playing on the floor, while another lay with arms round its
father's neck, and there, just peeping at me above Fred's rough black
whiskers, were the two bright eyes.

I hadn't been there long before he woke; and then in that half-hour that
followed I saw sorrow, misery, and horrors enough to make any man
thoughtful for the rest of his life.  A strong, able workman, with his
mind completely overthrown by drink, imagining all sorts of strange
creatures were in the room and thronging about his bed, while every time
he recognised those about him came the constant demand for drink--for
the stuff that had brought him down to what he was.  His poor wife was
that beat out, that I promised to come back and sit up with him that
night, so that she could go and lie down at a neighbour's; and about
half-past nine I went back, and soon after there I was alone with poor
Fred, and him lying in a sort of dose.

It's not a nice thing to do, sitting up, in any case, for you get
creepy, and nervous, and fidgetty; but when it's with a man who is off
his mind, why, it's ten times worse; and there I sat with my eyes fixed
upon the bed, hour after hour, half afraid lest the poor fellow should
get out, or be up to any mad tricks.

I suppose it was about two o'clock, and when all was about still in the
streets--not even the rumble of a cab to be heard--when somehow or
another things seemed to get misty and dim; the bed seemed to be rising
and falling, while poor Fred's head was as if it had swelled up, and
kept coming closer to me, and then went back; and then I could see
nothing at all.

I woke up with a start, and a horrible feeling on me that there was
something wrong; then came the sound of trampling overhead, while at the
same moment the light gave a flickering leap, and went out.

I knew the matches were on the table, and after knocking over something
I found them lying open; but it was the barley-water jug I had upset,
and the matches were dripping wet.  Trembling and confused, I stood for
a moment not knowing what to do, and then felt my way towards the bed,
with the horrid dread upon me that poor Fred might spring at me and
strangle me in the dark.  Something seemed to tell me that he wasn't in
the bed, and therefore I expected he would be crouching down and waiting
to spring at me; and in my fancy I thought I could see it all--the
struggle for the mastery, and him getting me down, so that I could not
cry for help.

The confusion must have had something to do with it; but at all events
there was I quite unnerved and shaken, as I lightly touched the bed and
found all the clothes in a heap; while further search showed me that
there was no one there.  Then I heard again the trampling noise overhead
and hurried towards the door, with both hands stretched out; when, in
the dark, one went on either side of the open door, and I struck my
forehead a violent blow.  There was no time, though, to mind that, for I
knew something was wrong upstairs, and that Fred must be at the bottom
of it; so, hurrying up, I was soon at the door of the back attic, where,
though it was shut, I heard enough to make me shove it open with my
shoulder and dash in; for a sound came out as of two savage beasts
worrying each other, and then, by the dim light from the open window, I
could see two men scuffling upon the floor, while a woman sat on the bed
crouched up, and holding a baby to her breast--evidently too frightened
to move.

As I dashed in, one of the men leaped up, and was through the window in
a moment; and then, on going quickly up and leaning out, I could see it
was Fred, standing right upon the parapet above the lead gutter, when my
heart seemed to quite stand still, as I leaned there, expecting every
moment to see the poor fellow fall on to the flags beneath--four
stories; for he would have gone right into the basement yard at the
back.

Just then some one touched me; and looking sharp round, there was the
scared face of the lodger, and he whispered, "He was a-trying to get
out, when I woke up and seized him.  He's a'most choked me."

That was a strange, wild time, as I stood there wondering what was best
to be done; and do what I would I could hardly summon up the courage to
go after him, though I knew it was only through my neglect that he had
escaped from his room, and therefore I was bound to do something.

I tried calling him at first; but the only effect that had was to make
him begin muttering and walking backwards and forwards upon that giddy
parapet, so that it quite chilled one's blood; for, though used enough
to scaffolds at proper time and place, there was something horrid in
engaging in a struggle with one who was no better than a madman, on such
a roof as this.

But I did not stop thinking, or I should never have done what I did,
which was to get out into the gutter and walk cautiously up to the poor
fellow.

There--it took only a moment or two--not more, and then he bounded on to
me, and we too were struggling together and rocking backwards and
forwards all those feet above the ground, with certain death on one side
if I slipped, or he proved too strong for me.  Now we swayed this way,
now that, and wet with the sweat of terror, I could feel myself weaker
every moment; and the very thought of what would come at last was too
horrid to bear.  Once I got him back against the sloping roof, and my
spirits revived; but the next moment he leaped up, as though of
watch-spring, and had me down on my back upon the stone parapet, and
head and shoulders over the horrid pit beneath.

I could not cry out, but felt tongue and lips parched, while, with the
strength of despair, I clutched his neck, and gazed with startled looks
into his wild, glowering, half-shut eyes.  He was muttering and talking
the whole time, and every moment as I grew weaker, I could feel that I
was being forced over the parapet.  How many seconds it took I can't
say, but it seemed to me like an hour till the time when I felt that all
hope was past, and I shut my eyes that I might not see myself fall.
There seemed no hope--nothing but death before me, as I lay there, with
my flesh seeming to creep, and me unable to give a cry for help.

All at once, though, the clutch upon me grew feeble; then it ceased
altogether; and I saw poor Fred dragged away backwards; but it was some
few moments before I dared try to move, when, shivering in every limb, I
rolled myself off the stone parapet, and lay in a half swoon in the
gutter.

But the danger was over now; for two of the lodgers had dragged the poor
fellow back into the attic by his legs, and after a sharp struggle he
was securely tied down to the bed; but it was some time before I could
work on the top of a house again without getting nervous and upset.



CHAPTER TEN.

DINING WITH CABBY.

"Where to dine at any time," says the advertisement, as though such a
thing as money was quite out of the question, and so many men did not
depend upon the hospitality of their old friend Duke Humphrey.  Spite of
cattle disease and trichine terrors, the human stomach--be it beneath an
educated brain, or appertaining to Bill Sykes, of the Somers Town
Brill--the human stomach will act upon the mind, and cause it to long
after the flesh-pots.  _Il faut manger_--as a matter of course, the more
moderately the better! and as the Spartans held up the drunken Helot for
their youth to shun, why do we not have a double-barrelled statue of
Banting erected in our streets--a "look on this picture and on this"
style of article, showing the beauties of temperance and moderation--the
keeping a tight rein upon gastronomic desires, as opposed to gluttony
and feasting.

When you _can_ dine, how many temptations are offered, as, urged on by
the vacuum which, above all, fond Nature abhors, you stand chinking your
coin and considering.  You are in London, say; and you stand and ponder.
Club?  No.  Invites?  Not one.  Where shall it be--at the first-class
hotel or the shilling ordinary?  Fish with Simpson?  Whitebait with
Lovegrove?  With Bibra?  With Rudkin?  A steak at the Cock?  A snack at
the Rainbow?  Sawyer!  Sawyer!  Suggestive of snags and America, and
tremendous gorges?  Shall it be the London?  Shall we mount above the
great stationer's--the Partridge and Cozens--suggestive names for a
hungry man--impulsive as to the first, and making him think of a cozy
dinner after a long tramp in the stubble--checking as to the second.
"Call me cousin, but do not cozen me," says somebody somewhere, and most
likely the quotation is not correct, but then we hunger and are athirst.
No; we will dine in London, but not in "The London."  Westward, ho!
Strand, Circus, Quadrant, up the great street where rent is said to
swallow the tradesman's profit; where the throng is great in the season,
while out of the season the dog-fancier pockets his pups, and migrates
to the far east.  Now down this street to the left.

The student of human nature is like the proverbial traveller--he sees
strange things; and, what is more, he gets into queer company.  To study
human nature in its happiest moments, study it over its dinner--be it
the three courses and a dessert, preceded by removes, partaken of in
Belgravia, Berkleyria, or Transgibbetia; the public feed at a great
tavern, with a real MP in the chair, and all the delicacies of the
season upon the table, with toasts, speeches, cheers, reporters, and a
long and particular account to follow in the morning paper; the dinner
at the club, _a la_ Sprouts--a nubbly potato from a can, peppered with
gingery dust; the meal brought in a basin, "kivered" with a plate, tied
up in a blue cotton "wipe," and partaken of perchance upon the bricks
waiting for piling in father's hod when he has had his "wittles"; or the
three-halfpenny saveloy and "penny buster," forming in combination the
delicacy popularly known as a "dustman's sandwich," and said, in
connection with porter, to form a large portion of that gentleman's
sustenance; each, every, either of these dinners gives a certain glow to
the countenance of the recipient and undoubtedly it will be found that
human nature will be at its best about feeding-time.

Listen, then, and know all ye of the softer sex; and if you want
anything out of this same human nature, wait till the corn is planted,
and then look out for your harvest.

Knowing all this, and how mollifying is the influence of food, we should
prefer the interval following his last anthropophagia in our visit to
the cannibal; and, therefore, urged by a desire to see our enemy of the
badge at his best, we walk down "this street to the left," and somewhere
about half-way down we find a perennial fountain in the shape of an iron
post with a hole in its side by which to wind it up.  There are some
squat, tubby-looking little pails in a row; while close by stands a
shiny-hatted straw-bit besprinkled Triton blowing his pipe.  The water
looks cool and limpid, but hard by is the gin--a trap within an open
door.  Gin and water--a potent mixture; but in this case the master
takes the gin, and the horse the water.  The horses look hot and stuffy
this sunshiny day, as they stand with their cabs in a row down the long
street, nose-bagged and contemplative, but they evidently find
considerable enjoyment in banging their chaff-holding receptacles
against the back of the cab in front, or resting them upon spring or
wheel.

But where are the drivers--the supplanters of the Jehu, the jarvey of
hackney-coach days--the men who place a bit in the mouths of their
steeds, but prefer a sup in their own--the men who guide and rein them
in their course and check the prancings of their hoofs--where are they?
At their best.  Cabby dineth!  Dine we with him.

Up this shady little street, and into this shady shop--none the cooler
for it though; while phew! the steam!  Six, ten, fifteen hams in the
window; legs, loins, shoulders, all sorts of mutton; beef joints by the
dozen; and all hanging ready for to-morrow's consumption.  And to-day's?

"This way, sir; room in that box to the left."

We enter that box to the left, and find the "room" very small, and also
that we are elbowed by the people "Pegging away" at their dinner; while,
if we closed our eyes for a moment, we should be ready to take oath that
we were neither in the shop of Rimmel, Hendrie, nor Atkinson.  But,
sinking the sentimental, and setting aside the too great smell of
kitchen when a hot cinder has quenched its glow in the dripping-pan, the
odour is not so very bad, and we prepare to eat.

Now, we have eaten in a variety of places in our time, and with the
eating we have drunk--quaffing the regal wine of Champagne in an
ex-palace--that is to say, emptied glasses of what was said to be
genuine Clicquot; but we dare not venture to assert that it was not
gooseberry.  Reversing Mr Hullah's legend, "per scalam ascendimus," we
have dined off an Abernethy biscuit and a "penn'orth" of shrimps in a
recess of Waterloo Bridge--a redbait dinner in a granite hall, with a
view of the river both ways, equalling or excelling that from
Lovegrove's; and, therefore, we were not above asking the opinion of
friends right and left as to the quality of the joints on cut.

"Try the beef, guv'ner," says a gentleman in the style of head-dress
known as a "deerstalker," which he wore while he trowelled his dinner
into his mouth with the blade of a very wide knife.  "Try the beef,
guv'ner--the weal and 'am won't do.  Somethin's turned, either the weal
or my stummick."

A gentleman in a great-coat on my right suggests "line o' mutton," while
a very red-nosed man in front--red-nosed, but the very antithesis of the
holy Stiggins--quotes beefsteak pudding; but we like the look of the
beef proposer, and the sound of the dish; so, forgetful of _rinder_ and
every other pest, we seek to gain the attention of the hot nymph in
waiting.  No easy task, though, for the maiden, evidently own sister of
the Polly who captivated Smallweed, junior, is in all directions in the
space of a few seconds.

In luck though at last, and we announce that we will take a plate of
beef--roast.

"And taters?"

"And taters."

"And brockylow?"

"And brockylow."

"Stout?"

"Stout's hard," hints our beefy friend, and we decide upon
"half-and-half."

Five minutes after we are served with a prime plate off some prime ribs
of beef, three fine potatoes in their brown jackets, grinning all over,
and looking temptingly mealy-mouthed; a tolerably fine head of broccoli
that would suggest "cathoppers and grassipillars" were the season more
advanced, while even now one cannot help shuddering and thinking of
Fenianism and slugs; "a bread;" and, lastly, the beer supposed to be
soft, or rather not hard.

Now, if the place had been ventilated, twenty degrees cooler, free from
steam, smell, and tobacco smoke; it the knives had been what the cloth
should have been, and what the salt was not; if my neighbours had not
picked their teeth with their forks; if the mustard-pot had had no pipe
ashes in its jaundiced throat; if the pint pots had not made the tables
quite so gum-ringed; and lastly, and very briefly, if Cabby himself had
been a little less demonstrative in his eating, and a little more
guarded in his conversation: why, we could have made a very satisfactory
dinner.  But as the few above-mentioned trifles, and a mangy dog at our
feet, militated against our getting a comfortable meal, why, the result
was not quite so well as might be expected.

The trade going on was fast and furious.  Cabbies went out and Cabbies
came in; joint after joint was devoured, and the naked bones lay on the
steaming pewter desert like those of the vulture-torn camel in far
Araby.  Cabby was certainly here at his best--the bow was unstrung, and
he seemed to be enjoying himself.  He seemed rather Indian--Red Indian--
in his eating; laying in a good store, as though doubtful when time or
money would again be propitious for a hearty meal; while jokes flew
about--many at the expense of unwary fares and swells, for whom, as a
rule, Cabby seemed to entertain a profound contempt.

We were not there long, but the topics of the day were settled again and
again in the most satisfactory of ways, though probably not in
accordance with the ideas of our statesmen.  Mr Sothern was pitied; and
gin, rum, whisky, and brandy declared the only table spirits.  Fenianism
was stigmatised as "rowdy"; Jamaica turned inside out; and the
Parliamentary campaign mapped down.  We noted what we could while
finishing our "toke"; but we were upon enemies' ground; and who knows
the fate of spies discovered amid the freemasonry of Cabland.  We
thought of all this, and did not so much as point a pencil within the
sacred precincts; but we recollected what we could--not much, though,
for after dinner the digestive organs form a combination against those
devoted to thinking.  We came, however, to the conclusion that Cabby
loves good living--bodily, if not morally; and we fear that he possesses
the amiable weakness that exists to so large an extent amongst the
London poor--namely, that of living well to-day, and letting to-morrow
take care of itself.  To-morrow may be a bad day, and then he goes not
to his club; but contents himself with a "small German" upon his box; or
a kidney-pie at the corner; or lower still, perhaps, he may have but a
mealy potato from a can, or a "penn'orth" of peas-pudding on a scrap of
a newspaper, the aroma of whose ink imparts no improved flavour.  But so
it is throughout the world, Earth's creatures remembering that on the
blackest day there is another side to the cloud, and that sooner or
later the sun will shine again for rich and poor alike.

Cabby says luck's sure to turn sometime; so he munches his potato on or
in his cab; goes "tic" for a screw of tobacco, for which he seldom finds
the screw on too tightly, and then smokes and waits patiently for a
fare.  When he is down on his luck, and has nothing else to live upon,
he exists upon Hope; and she deals as gently with the rough-clothed,
battle-scarred veteran of the streets as with the Hon Charley
Fitzgauntlet of the Blues, when Fortune frowns and he has gambled away
half his patrimony at the Derby.  But if Cabby makes himself comfortable
at times, surely he is not much to be blamed, for this world is not
peopled with abstemious Dr Franklins, and when Cabby has the money in
his pocket, and smells a good dinner, who can blame him that he eats,
pays, and then waits for the next?  Perhaps it comes punctually, perhaps
it does not; still he waits, as Trotty Veck did, for his jobs; the bells
cried, "Job coming soon, Toby;" and it always did come sooner or later.
And so, like Toby's, Cabby's job comes sooner or later, and then he does
as wiser men do--eats, drinks, and is merry, "quaffing amber draughts
from the pearly pewter's foam"--draughts that make glad his heart, and
sometimes unsteady his hand.  But cab-horses are not given to run away--
we have sometimes wished they were--that is, if they would keep in the
right direction.  Still it is very rarely that Cabby meets with a mishap
through careless driving.  Accidents he does have, 'tis true; but,
considered in relation to the thousands of miles traversed, their
paucity is wonderful.

"But they're a shocking set, my dear; lazy, good-for-nothing creatures--
cheating, story-telling fellows.  Whatever you do, take the man's number
before you enter his cab."

So says Mrs British Matron.  But this is not all true.  Cabby can
cheat, lie, and be good for nothing; but he has his honest phase; and,
poor fellow, he has a hard time of it.

The wind whistles down the street on a dark night; the rain or sleet
drives in cutting clouds round the corners; and Dives' son and daughter,
to return from dinner or party, send for a cab.  The first Cabby has
been sitting for a couple of hours fareless upon his box, and as his
half-frozen Rosinante is drawn up at the door of the well-lit house,
Cabby stiffly descends, and begins to dance upon the pavement, and beat
warmth into his breast after the popular mode of "Two thieves whopping a
rascal."

All this while there is a round of "good-byeing," and "dearing,"
shawling, wrapping, and goloshing; and then the thoughtful head of the
house hopes that the cabman is a member of the Bonded Brotherhood of
Bottle Scorners, and thinks Thomas had better take a hand candlestick
and look at the man's number.

The hand candlestick goes out, and so does the candle; for directly the
white-stockinged legs of Thomas are outside the hall door the light is
extinct, and the bearer fares like poor Mr Winkle on the windy night at
Bath, for he is banged out of the house.

"Vot odds vot a cove's number is?" says Cabby.  "Tell 'em to make 'aste
out."

Now Cabby is not a member of the Bonded Brotherhood, for he has had two
"goes" of gin since eight o'clock, and would have liked another--"only
it runs away with the brass"; and if this were known he would probably
lose his fare, although he has been sitting so long in the driving sleet
or rain, and Dives, jun, has imbibed two or three glasses of sherry,
three of champagne, and as many of port, during dinner and dessert.

The ricketty door of the vehicle is opened; the glass let down; dragged
up again; and then, with a bang which threatens to dislocate every joint
in the old cab's body, the door is closed, the box mounted, when
rattling and jangling, off goes the licensed carriage to deposit its
freight.

Distance two miles, barely, time nearly midnight; what wonder that after
a bad day our dinner companion pockets his "bob" with a growl, and
sullenly mounts his box to seek a fairer fare?



CHAPTER ELEVEN.

K9'S ADVENTURE.

One of the great peculiarities of the policeman is his head.  Now, I do
not mean that his head differs from the small or large capital at the
head of most articles; but I allude to the use he makes of that
important appendage to the human body.  A nod is said to be as good as a
wink to a blind horse; but leaving blind horses out of the question, the
policeman's nod is a great deal better than his wink.  There is a
majesty about one of his wags of the head that is sun-like in its
powers; for as the snow dissolves, so melts away the crowd before that
simple act.  It would be a matter of no small difficulty to reduce the
workings of his head to rule, on account of the vast number of
exceptions which would intrude; but in spite of the attendant
difficulties, I have learned something from my friend of the bracelet.
What most men would do by a wave of the hand, Bobby does waggishly--that
is to say, by means of his head.  What one would do in a pointed manner
with one's finger, again, K9 performs with his head.  If any ordinary
being wished to eject an intruder from his premises he would give
tongue--that is to say, not snarl or bark, but tell him to go in a very
fierce tone of voice; but again, a wag of our friend's head does the
duty, and far more effectually.  In short, the nod of emperor or king is
not one half so potent in the upper regions of society as that of K9
with the people.

What awe there is amongst the small boys of the metropolis, and how they
skim and scuffle off when the policeman wags his head; and yet, as they
round a corner, how that never-to-be-beaten Briton peeps forth from
their small natures as they yell defiance when out of reach.  But in
spite of his alacrity in fleeing, our friend holds the London _gamin_
somewhat in dread.  There is something very humiliating for a noble
swell of a policeman to have to march off four feet six inches of
puerile mischief--powerful in its very weakness--a morsel which acts as
a barbed and stinging thorn in Bobby's side all the way to the station.
We can easily imagine the grim smile of satisfaction which would ripple
over the countenance of our hero if, in traversing that part of Holborn
called High, like Tom Hood, he came into contact with a mother bewailing
the loss of her beloved child.  We can easily believe that Bobby would
fervently hope that the loss would prove his gain, that the child would
be, like the old woman's son Jerry in the ancient rhyme, lost and never
found; that the young dog would never turn up again to plague his life,
as he would be pretty sure to do at some future time, banding himself
with birds of a similar feather, chalking the pavements, bowling hoops
amongst the horses' legs, dropping caps down areas, altering butter-shop
tickets, running howling in troops out of courts, and disturbing the
equanimity of foot passengers, cutting behind cabs, yelling inside shop
doors, climbing lamp-posts and performing perilous acrobatic tricks on
the ladder bar, giving runaway knocks and rings, casting themselves
beneath horses' hoofs and miraculously escaping death at every tick of
the clock, making slides on the pave--ice in winter, mud in autumn or
spring, and of the slippery stones in summer; in short, proving a most
thorough plague, torment, and curse to our friend, who shuns the
persecution, as beasts do gad-flies or hornets, from their painful
insignificance.

A youthful pickpocket is a sad trial to him; in fact so is a small
offender of any description; for the sharp boys of London are all gifted
with tongues keen as the adder's teeth, and slightly artful in their
small way.  They are powerful at snivelling and appealing to the tender
feelings of the bystanders for aid and assistance against the bitter
tyranny of their captor; and now shines forth that peculiarity of the
British public against which our friend declaims, for the removal of a
boy of tender years, but tough experience, generally calls forth a large
amount of sympathy, which is loudly evinced in a manner most trying to
the nerves of K9.

In due course I received proper apology for the rather rough treatment I
had received, and then listened with considerable attention to further
recitals, many of which are lost to posterity from the jealousy evinced
by the street hero when an attempt was made at noting.

"No thanky, sir," said he, "as I said afore, that sorter thing's bad
enough in open court; but then we says what we are obliged.  No prifate
notin', thanky.  P'raps you'll put that flimsy away, as it might cause
futur' unpleasantry through bein' used as information again your umbel
servant.  I was a-goin' to say a word or two about a hupset as I had one
night going to take a fellow for forgery.  It warn't a very partic'lar
affair, for we knowed where my gentleman could be found, and there
warn't any need of a detective.  I was detective that time, and only
took one chap with me, as I went quietly about my job.

"From information I received I knowed my customer was somewhere out Soho
way, in one o' them big old houses as is all let out in lodgings, and
full of Frenchies, and Hightalians, and sich.  Reg'lar furren colony,
you know, all the way towards Leicester-square.  My customer had been a
clerk in a City firm, and had been hard at work makin' hisself a fortun
at bettin'.  He used to work hard at it, too, allus making his book so
that he'd bet on the safe side, whatever 'oss won; and I don't know what
he warn't going to make out of it.

"On the strength of what was a-comin', and to pay some little expenses
as he used to come in for through a werry smart sort o' lady as he
courted, he used to borrow money of his gov'nor, just on the quiet-like,
without bothering of him when he knowed he was busy.  So he used to sign
his gov'nor's name for him on bits o' cheques, and get what tin he
wanted from the bank; but allus meant to pay it back again when he got
in his heavy amounts as he was to win at Epsom, or Ascot, S'Leger, or
Newmarket.

"Well, you see this sweetheart of his was jest sech another as that Miss
Millwood as did for George Barnwell, and she was a regular dragon at
spending money.  Consequently my young friend was allus a borrowin' of
his gov'nor, as I telled you jest now; and at last of all he wouldn't
stand it any longer, for it was bleeding him precious heavy.  Besides
which, he wanted to know who was being so kind to him and savin' him so
much trouble about his ortygruff, as he called it.  So with a little bit
o' dodgin', in which I assisted, my customer was treed; and then,
watchin' his chance, he runs, and I has to find him.  In fact, yer know,
he was what we calls `wanted.'

"But I could tell pretty well where my gentleman would be, so when I'd
got my instructions I goes off to look arter him.

"Jest as a matter of form I goes to his lodgin's; but, jest as I
expected, he wasn't there; so then I goes on to Soho, where his lady had
apartments.  I was in plain clothes, so when I asked for her the people
let me in at once, and said I should find her in the first-floor front.
I left my mate on the other side o' the street, for I didn't expect any
opposition, so I walks upstairs to the door, turned the handle quietly,
and walks in--when I gave a bit of a start, for the place was nearly
dark, and would have been quite, if it hadn't been for the gas shining
up out of the street, and making patches of light on the wall; while, as
the lamps ain't werry close together in that part, it wasn't such a
great deal o' light as got in that ways.  If I'd been in uniform I
should have had my bull's-eye; but, as I warn't, why, I hadn't; so I
looks round the room, and, as far as I could see, it was nicely
furnished, but there was nobody there; so I gives a kick under the
table, but there was no one there neither; but on it I could just make
out as there was a decanter and two glasses and some biscuits.

"Well, only naterally, I takes 'old o' the decanter with one hand, pulls
out the stopper with the other, and has a smell.  No mistake about it--
sherry.

"There was the glasses all ready, and there was my mouth all ready; so I
pours out a glassful all ready too, and I was just a-goin' to raise the
glass to my lips, when a thought struck me, and I says to myself:

"`You air a niste promisin' young officer, you air.  You're aspiring to
be a detective, you air; and jest in the midst o' business you're
a-goin' to commit yourself like that.  How do you know it ain't a trap?'

"Well, you see, that was rather a settler; so I leaves the glass alone,
though it was rather hard work, and then I has another look, and sees as
there was foldin' doors leading into the back room, and one o' them
doors was not close shut.

"My finger goes up to the side o' my nose, and I gives myself a wink,
and slips out again to see if there warn't a door outer the back room on
to the landing.  As a matter o' course there it was, so that any one
might slip out o' that hole while I went in at t'other.  So I slips in
again and feels as there was one o' them little turning bolts on the
folding door; so I claps the door to, turns the bolt, and was out again
on to the landing in a jiffy.

"I needn't have hurried myself, though, for all was as quiet as could
be; and I thought as there was no one there, but of course I has to make
sure.  All at once I thinks that perhaps the landing door would be
locked in side, and as I'd shut the folding door that would be locked
too, so that I should be obliged to have 'em broken open, and this was
the sort of house where you wouldn't have a row if you could help it.

"How-so-be, sir, I tries the landing door, and finds it open easy
enough, and then I was inside the room, but what sort of a place it was
I couldn't tell, for it was as dark as Ejup.  Of course I expect it was
a bedroom, and thinks as I should soon feel the bedstead, as would fill
up a good bit o' the place.  But fust of all I drops down upon my hands
and knees; so as if anybody hit at me, or shot at me, or tried any o'
them little games in the dark, as they'd most likely do it at the height
of a man, why it would go over one, and only hit the furniture, which
can be replaced, when you can't replace active and enterprising
officers--leave alone being cut off in the flower of one's youth, you
know.

"Then I listens.  All as still and as dark as could be.  But still as it
was, I could hear my heart go `beat, beat,' wonderful loud.

"`Wish I'd a light,' I says to myself, but then it warn't no use
wishing; and I didn't want to go to the people downstairs, so I begins
feeling about as slow and as quiet as I could.

"I soon finds out as it's a bedroom, for I rubs my knuckles up against
the bed-post, and soon was close up alongside o' the ticking, when I
thinks as I heered a noise, and darts back to the door in a moment; but
all was still again, and I turns back, and then in a manner I got lost,
and confused, and could not tell which way I was going, nor yet where
was the door.

"Now, I daresay that all sounds werry queer; but perhaps you don't know
how easy it is to be lost in a dark room as you've never been in before,
even if it is a little 'un; and if so be as you thinks werry little of
it, jest you get a handkercher tied tight over yer eyes, and do as you
does at Christmas time--`turn round three times and ketch who you may,'
and then see where you are in two twinklings.

"Well, first of all I hits my hand again a chair; then I butts my head
again the corner of as hard a chest o' drawers as ever I did feel in my
life; and then I kicks up such a clatter with the washstand as would
have a'most alarmed the house; but I keeps down on my hands and knees,
being suspicious of an ambushment, till last of all I feels my way round
to the bedside again, and when I was far enough I reaches my hand
lightly over, and lays it on the bed, and then I jumps as though I was
shot, for I felt somebody's leg under the clothes.

"Then I snatches my hand back and turns all over in a wet, cold state as
if I'd been dipped, for I feels precious uncomfortable, and didn't know
what was best to be done next.  One moment I expected to hear the
`whish' of a heavy stick, or the sharp crack of a pistol; for arter the
noise I made it was quite impossible for whoever was in the bed to be
asleep.  Then I thinks as I would call for help, or run out, for I don't
mind telling you I felt regularly scared with the silence.  How-so-be, I
gets the better of my bit o' failing; and, rousing up, I puts my hand
over once more close up to where the pillow should be, and lays it upon
a cold face, and there it seemed to stick, for a shudder went up my arm
right to my head, and I couldn't neither move nor speak, while my mouth
felt as dry and hot inside as though it was full o' dust.

"Cold!  I never felt anything so cold; and I fell a shivering awful,
till with a regular drag I rouses myself up and snatches my hand away;
and as fast as ever I could I got out on to the landing and into the
front room, and all the while trembling and feeling as if something was
after me to pull me back.  I got to the window, smashes out a pane, and
gives a whistle as brings my mate to the door, and then I hears a ring,
and some voices, and he was up to my side in a moment or two, with some
o' the people o' the house arter him.

"`Turn on your light,' I says, as soon as he stood by me on the landing,
and then, feeling as white as a sheet, and my hair wet with
persperation, but more plucky now there was light and a companion, I
goes back towards the room.

"`Here, give us one o' them candles,' I says to a woman as came upstairs
with one in each hand; and then from upstairs and down comes the people,
all talking together, while as soon as some on 'em sees as it was the
police they shuffles off again, so as it was all women as stayed about
us.

"First glance I take I sees what was up, and I says to my mate:--

"`Keep them all out;' and he goes and stands at the door and closes it
after him, when I'm blest if I didn't let the candle fall, and it was
out in a moment.  But I felt better now there was help if I wanted it,
and I goes up to the bedside and lays my hand on that face as I touched
before, but it was cold as ice.  Then I slips my hand down to the
breast, but there wasn't a beat there, so I then says to myself, `Gone,'
says I; and in spite o' my shiverin' and tremblin' I tried to get the
better of it, and reaches over again and lays my hand on the back of a
head as felt cold, too; and then, after a good hard tussel with number
one, I feels down to the breast of this one, and there wasn't a beat
there.  Then I gets to the door again, just as a man comes with a candle
in his hand.

"I gives him my empty candlestick, and takes his light, and I says:--

"`I'm a policeman,' I says, `and you go out and fetch the nighest
doctor; and if you meets another constable tell him to come here.'

"`What for, young man?' he says, werry bounceable.

"`Never you mind what for,' I says; but you do as you're told; and
seeing me look as though I meant it, he starts off like a shot, and we
two stood there till the doctor came, and then we goes in, followed by
ever so many women, all looking white, and talking in whispers.

"Lord, sir, it was a sight!  There was the room well-furnished, and on
the bed lay as pretty a girl as ever you see, search through all London;
her face, and neck looking as white as so much marble, while all her
long black hair lay loose and scattered over the pillow.  Her hands were
under her head, and she looked for all the world as though she was
asleep; while by the flickering candles I almost thought I could see her
smile.  And there, with one arm across her, his head close to her side,
his face buried in the clothes, half-lying on the bed, with his feet on
the ground by the bedside, was him as I took to be my customer as I
wanted; and both him and the girl dead and stiff.

"The doctor examined 'em, and only said what every one could see plain
enough, but he says as well that they'd been gone hours; and that we
didn't know.

"Then he gives a sniff or two, and says as there's a strong smell of
acid about.  `Is there any cup or bottle anywhere?' he says.

"I gives a sorter jump, and felt my skin creep, for I recollects the
bottle and glasses in the next room, and a cold shiver goes all down my
back.

"How-so-be, I goes round and opens the folding doors, and shows the
doctor the sherry decanter, which had about three glasses at the bottom.

"`Ah!' says he, taking the glassful as I poured out, holding it up to
the light, and then sniffing it.  `Ah,' says he, `there's more than
enough for one in that glassful; and that seems to be the same,' he
says, smelling at the decanter.  `Pour it in, pleeceman, and tie the
stopper down, and seal it.'

"I takes up the glass and tries to pour it back, but if my hand didn't
shake to that degree that the glass chattered against the neck of the
decanter, and I spilt half the stuff on the cloth, I was so scared at
the escape I'd had.

"Well, sir, you see some one as won't take no refusal had been
beforehand with his warrant, and took both the forger and his lady, and
I know I thought it a most awful affair, for I was rather new to such
things then.  But whether he poisoned her, or whether they'd agreed to
it aforehand, nobody knew, not even the Coroner; but all I know is that
never before, nor since, have I met with anything as upset me so much as
finding them two poor things lying there in the dark--dead, and stiff,
and stark; it upset me wonderful--at least, that and the sherry
together."



CHAPTER TWELVE.

A VULGAR TONGUE.

Unfortunately, one cannot always get one's own particular cabman--the
favoured one of the civil tongue; and on more than one occasion I have
been on the box with as surly a specimen of humanity as ever drove a
horse.  Now, decidedly the real way to enjoy a cab-ride--rather a
difficult matter--is, providing the weather be fine, to mount beside the
driver.  You thus avoid musty smells, stifling symptoms, and that
hideous noise of jangling windows, a sound harsh enough to jar the
nerves of a bull.  Yes; decidedly the best way to enjoy a cab-ride is to
sink the bloated aristocrat, mount beside the driver, and fraternise.

But my surly driver would not fraternise, for he was of the class known
as crusty.  He was a sort of moral hedgehog, and, but for his forming a
study, I should decidedly have abdicated.

"Ah!  He's got his gruel," said my cynical friend as he drove past a
fallen horse belonging to the General Omnibus Company.  "There's another
fall in the kump'ny's shares.  Sarve 'em right.  No bisniss to have such
bad cattle."

Now, the beast I sat behind was about as ill-favoured and lean-fleshed
an animal as his master.  Evidently given to wind-gall, spavin, and
splint, he--the horse, not the driver--was to an unpractised eye
decidedly a jibber; while even a female ear would have detected that he
was a roarer.  It was evident, though, that my friend could not detect
the faults of his own steed, and therefore he lavished all his abuse
upon the horses of his contemporaries, whether of cab or 'bus.

But this driver seemed to have a spite against the world at large;
seeming to ooze all over until he broke out into quite a satirical
perspiration, while his lips acted as a safety-valve to let off an
explosive compound most rapidly formed in his interior.  He had a snarl
for everything and everybody, and could he have run over some
unfortunate crossing-sweeper, he would probably have been in ecstasies.
Whenever opportunity offered he snarled often and cruelly at the
misfortunes of his fellow-creatures.  Where the scavengers had left the
scraped-up mud beside the road--and where don't they?--he would drive
right through, noisily and rapidly, forming a large mud firework--to the
great increase of his after labour, certainly; but this seemed of no
account; he was so amply recompensed by the intense gratification he
enjoyed in besmirching as many passers-by as happened to be within
range; while when he succeeded in producing a currant-dumpling
appearance upon a footman's calves, he was almost apoplectic, and
rumbled with delight.  Woe to the wandering dog that came within reach
of his whip!  It would have been better for him had he ne'er been
pupped, for here there was no mercy shown.  As to the passing
salutations of brother cabs, they, though apparently pungent, glanced
off our friend's case-hardened composition, and the assailant would
depart with a stinging sarcasm tingling and buzzing in his ears.

It was enough to make one ruminate upon the vast amount of the gall of
bitterness in the man's mind, and ask how much the cab-riding world had
to do with the sharpening of the thorns with which this modern Jehu
bristled--Jehu, indeed, for he drove most furiously--spiny, hooked,
venomous, lacerating, clinging, tearing points that would have at you
and be in your skin whether you would or no; for upon asking the fare
when about to alight, having previously formed the determination not to
dispute a sixpence, I was told "Two shillings," and then, tendering a
florin, was greeted with--

"Ho! wun o' them blessed pieces.  Should ha' thought as a swell as
purfessed to be so interested in kebs would ha' been ashamed to horfer
less than 'arf a bull."

But there are amiable and advice-giving cabbies, who seem to take an
interest in the welfare of their customers.

I once agreed in times gone by to "conwoy" Mrs Scribe and her sister,
Miss Bellefille, as far as Richmond.  'Twas summer time, and our
imaginations were full of sparkling rivers, green eyots, silver swans,
and--well, yes, I'll own it, the carnal delights of a Star and Garter
dinner, with the following cigar.  There was the rail, certainly, but in
preference thereto I hired one of her Majesty's carriages, VR 123,456.
Our buttons had not come up in those days, so I fetched the vehicle from
the stand, and rode back beside the driver.  Upon reaching Miranda
Villas, I lightly leaped down and rang the bell.  Wonderful to relate,
the ladies waited ready in the passage, and after handing them into the
cab, I again mounted to the box, for the purpose of smoking upon the way
down.

We were moving off when a voice was heard from the interior of the
cab--"George, I've left my handkerchief upon the dressing-table; ask
Harriet to fetch it down."

I arrested the driver, who seemed to be regarding me rather
superciliously, which I attributed to insignificance of appearance, when
he exclaimed:--

"Now, Jarge, fetch the missus's wipe, and look alive."

"Confound his impudence," I muttered, "he takes me for the attendant;"
and then, with what must have been a decidedly melodramatic,
tyrannical-baron-like scowl upon my brow, I resummoned the abigail, and
obtained the required piece of cambric.

The feeling of indignation had fled as I reseated myself, and during the
drive down I omitted the smoke, and suffered the driver to discourse
fancy free.

He had an agreeable voice, had this Cabby--husky and wheezy; and but for
an unpleasant habit of expectorating at the flies which settled upon the
shafts, he might have proved an agreeable companion.  Curiosity,
however, seemed to be one of his failings, for addressing me in a mock
provincial style as "Jarge," and at the same time forcing his voice
somewhere down into the cavernous recesses beneath his waistcoat, he
began to catechise me after an approved method of his own.

"New hand?"--I nodded.

"Measured for your livery?"

"What?"  I said.

"Measured for your harness--togs, you know?"

"Not yet," I replied mildly--a martyr to information.

"Nice time on it, you fellers has: plenty ter eat, plenty ter drink,
nothing ter do, and plenty o' niste gals in the house.  Got any
guv'nor?"

I replied in the negative.

"Vell, then, young feller, you've put your foot into a good thing, and
if you plays your cards right, you'll make a swell of yourself in just
no time.  Reg'lar swell, you know; keep yer own wally, private barber,
and shoeblack brigade, yer know, to keep you all square--some one to
swear at when yer outer sorts.  Ony think; have yer chockely brought to
you in bed; and then come down arterwards in a red dressin'-gownd with
gold flowers on it, and a fancy cap with a big torsel!  And there yer
sits, big as a Lord Mayor, and has yer breakfass outer chany.  Ah, it's
a fine thing to be a swell, my lad!  Arterwards yer goes out, fust
chalk--all noo clothes--and when wun o' us pore chaps says, `Keb, sir!'
`Yes!' sez you, and you goes down to yer club and reads the papers, and
drinks champagne all day till dinner-time, when yer goes back to dinner
with the missus, and finishes off every night by going to the oprer.
Swell's life's a first-rate 'un, my lad.

"Niste gals them missuses o' yourn.  I should stick up ter the little
'un if I was you."  [Mrs Scribe.] "I likes the looks on her.  Can't say
much for t'other.  She's rayther too scraggy for my taste."  [Miss
Bellefille.] "Howsumever, it depends a good deal on which has most
ochre.  Though, mind yer, I wouldn't marry a gal altogether for her tin;
I'd rayther hev a good-tempered fat 'un with six thousan' than wun o'
yer thin, razor-backed, sour-tempered 'uns with twiste as much.  Tain't
no use havin heaps o' tin if yer can't enjoy it and do what yer likes.
There's some chaps as I knows as is spliced and dursent say as their
soul's their own; and no more durst send out for a pot o' porter than
fly.  Lor' bless you, every drop o' drink they swallers is 'lowanced out
to 'em.  Ony let the missus ketch 'em with the long clay and the backer,
and then see how soon all the fat's in the fire.  Gets told as they
makes the parly curtains smell wuss nor a tap-room, and keeps a buzzin'
about their ears till the pipe's reg'lar put out, and them too, werry
often.

"You take my adwice, young man, and don't you go and throw yourself
away.  Don't you go and make a martyr o' yourself, and get a ring o'
bitter haloes round your head--sure sign o' rain, you know, and the
wife's eyes a runnin' over.  I rather takes to that little 'un inside,
though; she looks good-tempered.  I s'pose she ain't above
five-and-twenty, is she?"

I said I believed that was her age.

"Good-tempered?" said Cabby; "don't shy the bread about if it's stale,
or bully the gals, or any o' them sorter games?"

"Oh, no!"  I said.

"Vell, then; mind what you're arter, and yer fortun's made.  You've got
your hand crossed with the right bit o' silver.  I squinted over my left
shoulder, and seed her a smilin' at yer when yer brought her the
handkercher.  Eh?  Ah! it's all werry fine, yer know; but I'm up to yer,
young feller.  We see some life our way, you know.  Nice artful card,
you are, you know, now ain't yer?"

Under the circumstances it seemed best to own to the soft impeachment,
which I did, and removed my ribs from Cabby's rather angular elbow.

"I say, yer know, bimeby, if yer look out, 'stead of `Jarge,' it'll be
`Jarge, dear:' ony don't you be in too big a hurry--don't you get a
building a castle in the hair without putting any bricks under it, or
else some fine morning down it comes atop of yer, and yer finds yerself
flat on yer back with all the wind knocked out of yer corpus."

Then came another facetious nudge of the elbow, almost forcible enough
to produce the effect so graphically described.

"Play your cards well, my lad, and you're a made man; but whatever you
do, don't be rash.  Allus make a pint o' cleanin' yerself fust thing,
and never show yourself to her with yer hair touzled and rough; and,
what's more, allus have a clean shave every morning, for there's nothin'
a woman hates wus than a man with a rough chin--nayther one thing nor
t'other.  Arter a bit, some day, when she's werry civil, and when she's
a-sayin' `Jarge' this or `Jarge' that, you might, just by accident like,
say `Yes, dear,' or `No, dear,' as the case may be; ony mind and see how
she takes it; and, as I said afore, don't be rash.  Whatever you do,
don't touch her without she begins fust, or else it's all dickey with
yer.  There's many a good game been spoilt by young fellers like you
bein' too fast, and not havin' nous enough to wait till the proper time.

"There's another way, too, you might spoil yerself if yer don't look
out.  Like all houses o' your sort, there's some niste gals downstairs,
and noises allus goes uppards a deal easier than they goes down'ards.
Don't you never let nobody upstairs hear anybody downstairs a-saying,
`Don't Jarge!' or `Do a' done now!' or `Such imperance!'--you know, my
lad, ony mind what I say: if them words downstairs is heered by any one
upstairs, there won't be a mossil o' chance o' them words upstairs bein'
heered downstairs.  But there, I ain't talkin' to a flat.  When we gets
down ter Richmond, and your folks is gone into the Star and Garter,
you'll be standin' a glass or two, and I can put you up to two or three
wrinkles, every word of which you'll be saving is worth five shillings
to yer.  Ah!  I ony wish I'd half your chance; I'd be riding in a keb of
my own before many months was over.

"The missuses a-goin' to a dinner, of course?  Ah, and a niste day for a
dinner down there, and a row on the river arterwards.  Goin' to meet
some gents, I s'pose?  But never you mind that.  Play your cards well,
and you'll be right, and can come down to Richmond once a week on your
own hook.  Don't you be a-standin' no nonsense, though, from some o'
them big swells all mustarsh and beard, with rings on their fingers.
You'll have some on 'em callin' at your house and tryin' it on, and
wanting to cut you out: but you can dodge 'em by running up in the room
when the bell didn't ring, and a-going up with coals, and letters, and
sich like; and if that don't do--don't let 'em go upstairs at all.  The
missus'll thank yer for it arterwards, as it's all for her good.  And
them young things is as ignorant as can be as to what's best for them.
I hain't lived five-and-forty years in this world to learn nothing, I
can tell yer.  Let's see, now, you're about eight-and-twenty, you are,
and don't seem a bad sorter chap; but you're too tame and quiet-like--
looks as if you wus just come outer the country, don't you see?  But
there, that'll all come right in time I dersay.

"I say, you knows, send us a slice o' cake when it comes off, my lad."

Upon reaching the Star and Garter I told my Mentor to await our return;
gave him a shilling to obtain the glass or two of which he had spoken;
and after handing out the ladies, walked off with them to the tune of a
low, but long-drawn whistle of astonishment from my self-constituted
adviser.

I rode home inside, for the evening was damp and chilly; and upon paying
the required tribute to my husky-voiced friend, he favoured me with a
long serio-comic look beneath the lamp-post, and then upon placing one
foot upon the wheel to reach his perch, he turned his head, winked
solemnly and with a peculiar wisdom in his eye, and then Minerva Road
knew him no more.



CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

FROM REAL LIFE.

"Co-o-o-o-me orn," said Cabby, as we sat by his side on the
box--"Co-o-o-me orn.  Nice sorter day this here, sir.  Thanky, sir; I do
draw a bit, and never sez `no' to a cigar.  Arter you with the light,
sir.  `Queer fares,' sir?  Ah!  I gets some queer sorter fares
sometimes--rum 'uns.  All sorts and sizes, as the sayin' is.  Taking a
poor gal to Bedlam ain't pleasant--they do screech so.  Blest if I
couldn't ha' pitched into the keeper sometimes when I've heerd the poor
creetur crying out as she wasn't mad, and beggin' and praying of him to
let her go.  It all seems agin natur, 'ticklar when a fellow's a bit
soft-like.  It's now a year come Martlemas as one night a flunkey comes
up to the stand and picks me out, and werry glad I was, for I'd had a
awful bad day.  I used to drive a mare then as I called `Bagged Sal,'
cos of her tail; for she hadn't got no tail--leastwise, none to speak
on.  She'd been a 'tillery 'oss out in the Crimee--one of them as stood
in the front rank and got all the hair nibbled off, and the roots gnawed
so as to spile the cemetery for the future.  But she could go, she
could, and get over the ground differun to this.  Coome orn, will yer;
that ain't nothing!  That's one of her games, sir.  She pulls up short
every now and then, if I ain't watchin' her, jest as if she wanted to
pick up suthin' in the road.  Well, sir, as I was a-saying, flunkey
seems to know a horse as could go, or else he wouldn't ha' choosed mine,
for she worn't at all ansum as you may suppose, besides bein' a
wherritty beast, allus twitchin' her stump of a tail outer the crupper,
and laying her ears back and biting.  Flunkey hails me, and I pulls
outer the rank and picks him up.

"`Drive to Cavendish Square,' sez he.

"Now, he wasn't a reg'lar thoroughbred flunkey, all white gloves,
stockings and powder, with a long cane and crestys on his buttons, but
one o' yer pepper-an'-salt doctor's men, all white choker and cheek, and
not arf so affable as a real footman.  He was one of them chaps as keeps
the patients waiting in the back parly till they tips him, and then he
finds out all of a sudden as the doctor ain't engaged.  Lord, sir, I've
waited hours in Saville-Row for poor innercent creeturs as didn't know
the wally of a trifle, and so spent a hextry five shillings in cab fare.

"`Drive to Cavendish Square,' sez he, as big as yer please and then he
begins a-whistling, and a-staring at all the gals as we passes.  My lord
hadn't a word to say to me, yer know, being only a kebby, and not up to
his social spear in society; but I begins to pump him a little--movin'
the handle quite gentle like at first, for he wouldn't suck a bit; but
bimeby I works him round, and out flows such a bright stream of
eloquence, and he begins to tell me where we was a-going to and who we
was a-going to take; and then I finds as it was a young lady to a
private asylum, for she was allus a-trying to kill herself, and all
through love.

"Well, we pulls up at a door with a werry large brass plate, and the
doctor's name on it in big letters, and there I waited for half an hour;
when the door opens and I hears a screech as goes through me like a
knife, and then they carries out a young gal with a face a'most like an
angel, only all drawed and frightened looking.

"The poor thing stares quite wild, first this way and then that way;
calls out `Hernest--Hernest--help!' and skreeked again as they pulled up
the glasses of the keb, and then Pepper-and-salt jumps up alongside me,
as it might be you, sir, and `Drive on fast,' he says, `along
'Ammersmith Road to Chiswick'--through Kensington, you know.

"Now, you know, sir, I'm blest if I know how I drove that arternoon.
You see, sir, one gets knocked about here, and shoved there, and goes
through lots o' strange things to get a living; but I can't help
thinking as we're all on us, gentle and simple, made alike, and outer
the same stuff.  Some on us, too, gets more than our share o' temper,
and softness, and fust one thing, and then another, and you see that's
how it is with me.  I'm a rum-looking cove to look at, reg'lar rough
one, you know, but then I've got a lot o' softness stowed away about my
heart as I ain't no business with.  Now I just ask you now, sir, as a
fair judge, what business has a kebman with softness?  It ain't natural.
Be as rough as you like, I says, but none o' that.  And yet my stoopid
old woman at home she likes it, and says it's natur.  P'rhaps it is, and
p'rhaps it ain't.  But then, you see, we don't live in a state of natur
now.  Quartern loaves, pots o' porter, and Dutch cheeses don't grow on
the hedges; and people has to look out precious sharp for enough to fill
out their weskits, and I've known the time when mine's been precious
slack about the buttons.  'Pon my soul, sir--beggin' your pardon for
being a bit strong--you upper crusters ain't no idea what shifts we're
put to sometimes for a living, and what hard work it is.  I ain't a
grumbling, for only having the missus, and no children, things ain't so
hard as they might be.  We gets along right enough, for the wife can
scheme wonderfully, and toss you up a sixpenny dinner as would surprise
yer.  She's up to a thing or two, an' can go to first-class butchers and
get her threepen'orth o' pieces--topping meat, you know; twopen'orth o'
taters and some carrots and turnips; and, Lor' bless you, you'd be
surprised as I said afore.  Did yer ever go down Leather Lane, sir, or
past the Brill at Somers Town, or some parts of Clare and Newport
Markets?  Perhaps you didn't.  But jest you wait for a stinging hot day,
and then go and see what the poor folks is a buying of; and then don't
you wonder no more about fevers, and choleras, and all them sort o'
troubles.  There ain't no wonder in the gin palaces going ahead, when so
many poor creeturs flies to 'em to drown their sorrows.  It's this
sorter thing as cheers me up; and makes me say a moral bit as I
learnt--`A contented mind's a continual feast,' I says to the wife; and
really, sir, if you'll believe me, sooner than I'd live as some of our
poor things does I'd try and peg on along with my old mare here.  We'd
make a subdivision: she should have the chaff, and I'd go in for the
oats and beans.

"Now, where had I got to?  Oh!  I know, sir--about that there poor gal.
I don't know how I drove down that day for softness.  It did seem so
sad, so pitiful for that fine young creetur to be dragged off in that
way.  I quite hated mysen, for it was as though I was to do with it, and
it was my fault; and at last, when we'd got up to that place where the
chap used to hatch his young cocks and hens by steam--Cantelo, I think
he called hisself--Pepper-and-Salt says, `Turn down here,' and I turned
down, and mighty glad I was when we got to the big old house, where they
took the poor girl in, and I thinks to myself, `Ah! next time as you
comes out, my lass, I'm afraid as it will be screwed down, and with the
black welwet a hanging over you!'

"I got werry good pay for that job; but somehow it did not seem to lit,
for the soft feeling as I told you of.  Every bit o' money seemed
gritty, and I felt gritty, and as I drove Pepper-and-Salt back it was me
as wouldn't talk.

"I bought a haddick and took home to the old ooman for supper, and I
toasted it myself, so as it shouldn't be burnt; and then we had a pint
o' porter made hot, with some ginger and sugar in it; and as I was
a-smoking my pipe and watching the haddick, I tells Betsy all about it.
But, p'raps you mightn't believe it, we didn't enjoy that supper: I felt
kinder lonesome like, and I see a big drop go off the missus's nose more
than once into the porter mug, as she sat a-rocking herself backwards
and forwards.

"Ah! there's some rum games a-going on in this here world, sir!"

We jogged on in silence for some little time, when "Hi!" roared Cabby at
an old lady crossing the road--producing the excellent effect of making
her stand still in the middle.

"I know some o' them old women 'll be the death o' me some day," said
Cabby.  "They allus waits till a keb's a-coming afore they cross the
road, and then when they gets knocked down there's a fuss and a inquest,
and a reglar bother, of course.

"Did you ever see one o' them patent kebs as come up about
five-and-twenty years ago?--I mean them with a door opening behind, and
a box up in front for the driver.  Niste things they was for swindling a
poor cove out of his hard-earned suffrins.  More nor wunst I've had
people a-slipping out without stopping on me, and, of course, when I
pulls up, if the keb wasn't empty.  Begging of your pardon, sir, it was
enough to make a saint swear.

"Coome orn, will yer?  Arter you, sir, with the light agen; talking
let's one's weed out more nor anything.  Rum fellows them sailors, sir;
there goes two with the name of their ship on their hats, like dogs with
their master's name on their collar.  Rum dogs, too--British bulldogs.
They ain't no notion at all o' what money's worth; they seem to fancy as
it's only meant to spend--never thinks a bit about saving of it.  I took
one up wunst at London Bridge, and I opens the door for him, and touches
my hat quite civil, for I allus does that to a fare, whosumever he be.
Mighty pleased he seemed, too, for he pulls out a tanner--what you calls
a tizzy, you know, sir--and he hands it over, and he says--

"`Give's hold o' the rudder-lines, mate, and fetch a glass o' grog to
drink afore sailing.'  And then he gets hold of the reins, and I fetches
a glass of rum-and-water, and we drinks it fair atween us; and when I
holds the door open agen, he pitches his bundle inside.  `Clap on the
hatches,' he says, and he bangs to the door, and then, while I was
a-staring, up he goes, and put hisself plop atop o' the roof, for all
the world like a tailor, and there he began a-chewing his bacca.
`Deck's clear, mate,' he says, `clap on sail;' and away we goes along
Cheapside, and the boys a-cheering and hooraying like all that.

"We hadn't gone werry far before he 'ails me to stop, and then we has
another glass o' rum-and-water.  And so we goes on and on, making no end
o' calls, till at last we must both have been in a werry reprehensible
state, sir; for all I remembers is waking up at four o'clock in the
morning in our mews, with the horse's head as far into the stable as he
could get it, and the sailor a-sitting fast asleep on the t'other
cushion inside the keb just opposite to me.  But then, you see, sailors
is such rum chaps!

"Law, sir, it's wonderful the dodges as I've seen in my time.  People's
beginning to find out as there's some romance in a keb now, since that
chap pisoned his wife and two children in one of our wehicles `licensed
to carry four persons'--and then went and did for hissen.  He was a bad
'un, reg'lar.  I wunst had a case of that sort myself.  I remember it as
well as if it was only yesterday, and it's many a year ago now.  That
was a night, surety--all rain and sleet mixed up, and the roads churned
into a pudge--City batter, I calls it.  I was on night-work, a-sitting
on my box, driving about anyveres, noveres like, for it was too cold for
the hoss to stand still.  P'raps I shouldn't ha' got him on again, for
he'd ha' turned stiff.  I'd been a-growling to myself like that I should
have to be out on such a night, and was then twisting of an old red
'ankercher round the brim o' my hat, to keep the rain from running down,
when a street door opens, and a woman comes running out with a man arter
her.

"`Come in,' he says, a-trying to drag her back; but she hangs away,
calling out `Help!' and says suthin' about `willain,' and `baseness,'
and `never.'  I couldn't 'ear all she says 'acause of the wind, though I
pulls up short in front of the house: a large one it was, with a light
in the hall, and I could see as the man was quite a swell, in a bobtail
coat and open wesket--same as they wears to go to the Hoprer.  Well,
when she acts like that he makes no more ado but fetches her a wipe
across the mouth with his hand, quite savage--I mean hits her--and then
runs in and bangs the door arter him, leaving that poor thing out in the
bitter night, in a low dress, and without a bit of bonnet.

"She gives a sort of ketch or sob like, and then says to me, in an
ordering sorter way--

"`Open the door, man!'

"I jumps down in a minute, and she gets in and tells me to drive to a
street near Eaton Square.  So I shuts the door and drives off, wondering
what it all meant, and feeling uncommonly as if I should have liked to
give that feller one for hisself, for it was a thing I never could bear
to see, any one strike a woman.

"Well, we gets to the street, and then I turns round to arst her the
number, when just as we passed a lamp-post I could see in at the window
as she was down on the floor.  You might have knocked me off the box
with a wisp.

"I pulls short up, jumps down, and opens the door; and there she was
with her hair down, and all of a heap like at the bottom of the keb.
The light shined well in, and as I lifted her on to the seat I could see
as she was young, and good-looking, and well dressed, and with a thick
gold chain round her neck.

"Just then up comes a p'leeceman, as big as you please, and `What's up?'
he says.  `Why, she's fainted,' I says.

"`Looks suspicious,' he says, a-hying me sideways.

"`P'raps it does,' I says, for I began to feel nasty at his aggrawating
suspicions.  Howsomever, I tells him then where I'd picked her lip, and
all the rest of it, and he looked 'nation knowing for a minute, and then
he says--

"`Jump up and drive to the nearest doctor's; and I'll get in and hold
her up.'  `But what's this here?' he says, laying hold of her hand--such
a little white 'un, with rings on, and with the fingers tight round a
little bottle.  `Drive on,' he shouts, quite fierce, an' I bangs to the
door, and forgot all about the wet.

"I soon comes across one o' them red brandy balls a-sticking in a lamp,
and I says to myself, `That's English for salts and senny,' I says; and
then I pulls up, ketches hold of surgery and night bell, and drags away
like fun.

"Then the door was opened, and we carried her in--no weight, bless you--
and lays her on the sofy.  Doctor comes in his dressing-gown, takes hold
of her hand, holds it a minute, and then lets it fall again.  Then he
holds his watch-case to her mouth, and you could hear the thing go
`tic-tic' quite loud, for there wasn't another sound in the room; and
then he lifts up one of her eyelids, and you could see her great black
eye a-staring all wild and awful like, as if she was seeing something in
the other world.  Then all at once she gave a sort of shivering sigh,
and I could see that it was all over.

"Doctor takes the bottle from the p'leeceman, smells it, shakes his
head, and gives it back again.  Then they two has a talk together, and
it ends in us lifting the poor thing back into the keb, and me driving
back to where we started from; p'leeceman taking care to ride on the box
this time.  And what a set out there was when we got there!  Fust comes
the suvvant, after we'd been ringing a'most half an hour.  She looked as
if just shook out of bed; and there she stood, with her eyes half-shut,
a-shiverin' and starin', with the door-chain up.  As soon as we made her
understand what was the matter, off she cuts; and then down comes the
swell in his dressen-gownd.  Fust he runs out and looks in the keb; then
he rushes upstairs again; then there was a dreadful skreeching, and a
lady comes a-tearing down in her night-gownd, and with her hair all
a-flying.  We'd carried the poor thing into the hall then, and she
throws herself on her, shrieking out, `I've killed her!  I've killed
her!' kissing her frantic-like all the time.  The swell had come down
after her, looking as white as a sheet; and he gets the lady away, while
p'leeceman and me carries my fare into a bedroom.

"P'leeceman took my number, and where I lived; and swell comes and gives
me two half-crowns; and then I took off and left 'em, feeling quite sick
and upset, and glad enough to get away.

"There was an inquest after, of course, and I had to go and give
evidence; but somehow or other precious little came out, for they kep it
all as snug as they could, and the jury brought it in `Temporary
Insanity.'

"Pull up here, sir?  Yes, sir.  _Star_ office, sir?  Phew! didn't know
as you was in the noosepaper way, sir, or shouldn't have opened my mouth
so wide.  Eighteenpens, sir; thanky, sir."

"Co-o-o-me orn, will yer?" were the words which faded away in the
Fleet-street roar.



CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

A WHEEL OF MISFORTUNE.

That's our vessel out there, moored fore and aft--that one with her
starn so low down, and her nose right up outer the water.  You see,
that's all owing to her make.  Being a screw boat, all her machinery is
far aft, as you can see by her funnel; and now the cargo's all o

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