“Leave off talkin’ to that nigger gel,” commanded young Mrs. Miller.
“Who are you callin’ a nigger gel,” inquired the dark young woman across the heads of the surging crowd, “carrots?”
“You,” replied Mrs. Miller frankly, “Miss Tar Brush.”
“Don’t answer her,” begged Mr. Bat Miller to his new acquaintance. “She’s so jealous she can’t see straight.”
“I pity you,” said the dark young woman.
“So do I,” said Mr. Miller softly. “Lemme get your ticket for you.”
A roaring noisy crowded gallery, like the side of a mountain going from the base with strong iron rods protecting up to the topmost point, where patrons had to bend their backs to escape the ceiling. General discardment of coats by men and boys, universal doffing of hats and bonnets, and loosening of blouses by ladies. Bobbie, perched on the rolled-up coats of the two men, saw at a distance of what seemed at first to be several miles below, the tightly-wedged people on the floor of the theatre packed closely to the very footlights, and leaving just sufficient room for a small orchestra. Mrs. Bat Miller, still trembling with annoyance, bought oranges, and selecting one over ripe, stood up and threw it, and more by luck than skill, managed to hit the dark young woman, seated below, well on the side of the face, where it burst shell-like and caused annoyance. Having done this, young Mrs. Miller seemed more content, and twisting up her rope of red hair, settled down to unrestrained enjoyment of the evening.
“I wouldn’t ’ave your dispisition,” said Mr. Bat Miller to her, wistfully, “for a bloomin’ pension.”
Bobbie felt pleased to see the two boys from Drysdale Street far above him; they would require all the austerity that a railway arch could give to prevent them from feeling envious of him. He held up a piece of apple and shouted above the babel of voices, “’Ave ’alf?” and when they screamed back “Yus!” he ate it all calmly; thus goading them to a state of speechless vexation. Everybody called to everybody else; the enormous theatre filled with appeals for recognition. Presently through the uproar could be heard the discordant tuning up of the violins, and, holding the Duchess’s thin arm, he looked down again and saw that the orchestra had come in.
The footlights being turned up, the violins began to play. The Duchess said it was nothing to the Alhambra in the old days, but Bobbie felt this could not be true. When the curtain ascended and the uniformed men posted in various quarters of the large theatre bawled for silence, Bobbie held tightly to the Duchess for fear that he might be tempted to jump over.
It was not easy to discover at first the true intent of the play, because the gallery did not at once become quiet; two fights and a faint were necessary before quietude could be obtained. When the words from the far-off stage came up more distinctly to Bobbie’s quick ears, he realized that a plot was being arranged by two gentlemanly men in evening dress to rob the bank of the sum of fifty thousand pounds, and it seemed that they wished to do this unobtrusively, and indeed desired that any credit for its success should be placed to the account not of themselves, but of the manager of the bank. The manager came on just then to a majestic air from the orchestra; the audience seemed to know him, for they cheered, and he stood in the centre of the stage bowing condescendingly before he commenced to interest himself in the drama. He was rather a noble-looking young man, a little stout perhaps, with a decided way of speaking; you could hear every word he said, and when he had to make any movement the orchestra played briskly, as though to intimate that whatever misfortune might cross his path, he had always the supportof four fiddlers, two bass viols, a cornet, a pianist, and a trombone. The two villains intimated their desire to open an account at the bank. The manager asked for references. The two villains, first looking cautiously off at the wings to make sure that no one observed them, suddenly flung themselves on the bank manager. They were engaged in binding him with ropes, when a ragged boy (who the Duchess said was not a boy but a girl) jumped in at the window, and said,—
“What price me!”
Upon which the two villains instantly decamped; the ragged boy summoned the clerks (who, reasonably speaking, should have heard the struggle, but apparently did not), and the manager ordered that the ragged boy should he offered a highly responsible post in the bank, for, said the manager to the gallery, of what use is sterling honesty in this world if it be not liberally rewarded? a sentiment with which the gallery found itself able to express cordial agreement. In the next scene the two gentlemanly villains, undeterred by their rebuff, were seen in a vague light, drilling with caution the cardboard door of an immense safe of the bank. They had but just succeeded when voices were heard. Plaintive music and entrance of heroine. Dressed in white, she had come to bring a posy of flowers to the manager, whom, it appeared, she was to marry on the morrow. This visit seemed unnecessary, and it was certainly indiscreet; after the manager had surprised her and had given to the gallery a few choice opinions on the eternal power of Love, which made Mrs. Bat Miller so agitated that her rope of red hair became untied, the heroine went, after an affectionate farewell, leaving a note on the floor.
“You’ve dropped something, Miss,” shouted Bobbie.
“’Ush,” warned the Duchess. “That’s done a purpose.”
This note the villains found, after a struggle with the girl boy, who, demanding of them, “What price me?” was clubbed on the head, and left insensible. The note only required a slight alteration with the tearing off of one page to be construed into evidence of complicity in the crime; so that when, in the next scene, a cheerful wedding party in secondhand clothes came out of the church door, bells ringing, villagers strewing flowers, and wedding march from the orchestra, two constables suddenly pushed their way through the crowd and placed hands on the shoulders of the astonished bride, causing so much consternation that the bells stopped, the wedding march changed into a hurried frantic movement, what time the bride clutched at her bodice, and assured the gallery (but this they knew full well) that she was innocent. A boy inspector, with a piping voice, stepped forward and proceeded to act in accordance with stage law. Woman, I arrest you. Oh, sir, explain. This letter (said the inspector) in your handwriting was found in the bank after the robbery. Sir, said the tearful bride, ’tis true I wrote that letter, but—. Woman (said the stern boy inspector), prevarication is useless; who were your accomplices? You decline to answer? Good! Officers, do your duty. Scoundrels (shouted the bridegroom bank manager), unhand her, before God she is innocent as the driven snow, I swear it. Ho, ho (remarked the boy inspector, acutely putting two and two together), then this can only mean—here the orchestra became quite hysterical—that you yourself are guilty. Officers, arrest him also! May Heaven, begged the bride emotionally, addressing the gallery, may Heaven in its great mercy, protect the innocent and the pure. It seemed that Heaven proved somewhat tardy in respondingto the heroine’s appeal, for from a quarter to eight until a quarter to eleven, she and the hero found themselves in a succession of the direst straits, which, apportioned with justice, would have been more than enough for fifty young couples. It did seem that they could not by any dexterity do the right thing; whereas, the two villains, on the contrary, prospered exceedingly, to the special annoyance of Mr. Bat Miller, who, constituting himself leader of a kind of vigilance committee in the hot perspiring gallery, led off the hisses whenever either or both appeared, and at certain moments—as, for instance, when in the hospital ward they lighted their cigarettes, and discussed cynically the prospect of the injured boy’s speedy departure from life—hurling down at them appropriate and forcible words of reproof, that did credit alike to his invention and to the honesty of his feelings.
It is only fair to add that the gallery gave to Mr. Miller ready and unanimous assistance. How they yelled with delight when the boy (who was a girl) defied one of the villains, and bade him do his worst! How they shivered when the villain, producing a steel dagger, crept furtively up to the boy, whose back was turned, and how they shouted with rapture as the boy, swinging round at exactly the right moment, presented a revolver at the villain’s forehead, causing that despicable person to drop the dagger and go weak at the knees. How they held their breath when, on the boy incautiously laying down the revolver and going to look at the wings, the villain obtained possession of the deadly weapon, and covered the boy with it. And then when the boy had affected to cower and to beg for mercy (which, it need hardly be said, the villain flatly declined to grant), how they screamed with mad ecstasy on the boy saying with sudden calm,—
“By-the-bye! Hadn’t you better make sure that that little pop-gun’s loaded?”
Causing the villain to curse his fate and to snap the trigger ineffectually, thus giving the boy a cue for saying once more,—
“What price me!”
Bobbie in support whistled and hissed and howled so much, that after a while he became exhausted, and to his regret found himself unable to express opinions with vigour; this did not, however, prevent him from weeping bitter tears over the hospital scene. It was in the hospital scene, as a matter of fact, that the luck of the hero and heroine turned. The injured youngster suddenly recovered sight and reason; denounced the two villains, now cringing beneath the triumphant, hysterical theatre; called upon the boy inspector, fortunately at the wings, to arrest them, which the boy inspector instantly did, thus retrieving his position in the esteem of the audience; amid an increasing hum of approval from the mountain of heads in front, the youngster arranged from his couch for the future happiness of the hero and heroine, capping it all and extracting a roar from the house by remarking,—
“Now, what price me!”
Which might have been the pure essence distilled from all the best jokes of all time, judging from its instantaneous and admirable effect. Then the hero and heroine, at the centre of the stage, managed to intimate that sunshine had broken through the clouds; that trustful and loving, they would now proceed to live a life of absolute peace and perfect happiness; the orchestra feeling itself rewarded at last for all its faithful attention, broke out into a triumphant march, and—rideau.
In Hoxton Street it was drizzling, and the crowd surging out of the doorway turned up its coat collars and tied handkerchiefs over its bonnets, and set off for home. Bobbie, dazed with excitement, clutched the Duchess’s yellow skirt and trotted along, after a minute’s rest at a whelk stall, the two men and Mrs. Miller following closely behind. At the corner of Essex Street they waited to allow a four-wheeler to go by. The elderly horse, checked by the driver, slipped, and nearly fell, recovered itself, and slipped again, made vain efforts to get a secure footing, and upon the driver standing up to use his whip and saying bitterly, “Why don’t you fall down and ’ave done with it,” did fall down, and remained there. A small crowd formed without a moment’s delay; Mr. Bat Miller went to the stout old gentleman inside the cab, now trying without success to let down the window, and opening the door, assured him with great courtesy that he had no cause for fear. Having done this, Mr. Miller re-closed the door and stepped back. He passed something furtively to red-haired Mrs. Miller, who slipped the something into Bobbie’s pocket, telling him in a commanding whisper to cut off home like mad. Bobbie, feeling that he was helping in some proceeding of an imperial nature, complied, noting as he darted away the very stout gentleman hammering with his fists at the closed window of the four-wheeler. Mr. Miller sauntered off Kingsland Road way; the two women and Mr. Leigh went unconcernedly to a public-house.
Bobbie was shivering when five minutes later the company rejoined him at the street door of the house in Ely Place. Mr. Miller found his key and let them in. The smelly lamp in the passage burned low; in the closed back room a quavering voice sang a hymn.
“Dare to be a Daniyul,Dare to stand alone,Dare to ’ave a purpose firm,And dare—”
“Dare to be a Daniyul,Dare to stand alone,Dare to ’ave a purpose firm,And dare—”
“Shut it!” commanded Bat Miller, knocking at the door of the back room sharply. “Get off to sleep, can’t you?” He turned to the others. “And now,” he said with a change of manner, “let’s see what kind of a little present this young genelman’s bin and brought ’ome for us.”
“I b’lieve he pinched it for me,” said young Mrs. Miller cheerfully, “’cause to-day isn’t my birthday.”
Bobbie, with something of majesty, brought from his pocket a heavy gold watch and part of a gold chain, and laid them on the table. The four put their heads together and examined the property. Then they beamed round upon the small boy.
“I foresee, Bobbie,” said the Duchess, in complimentary tones, “that you’re a goin’ to grow up a bright, smart, useful young chep.”
“He’ll want trainin’,” suggested Mr. Bat Miller.
“And watchin’,” growled Mr. Leigh.
“And when he gets to be a man,” said young Mrs. Miller facetiously, as she pulled off her boots, “all the gels in the neighbourhood ’ll be after him.”
With these praises clanging and resounding in his heated little brain, Bobbie went upstairs to bed.
Fornearly a year Bobbie Lancaster lived his young life in Ely Place. Although every day was not so full of incident as the first, he could not charge dulness against his existence; the standard of happiness set up in Ely Place not being a high one, was therefore easily reached; monotony at any rate came rarely. When other plans failed, quarrels could always be relied upon, and these gave such joy, not only to the chief actors and actresses, but also to the audience, that it seemed small wonder so successful a performance should be frequently repeated. Now and again events occurred which flattered Bobbie, and gave him the dearest satisfaction a small boy can experience—that of being treated as though he were grown up. It had not taken Mr. Leigh and Mr. Bat Miller long to recognize that in Bobbie they had a promising apprentice; one so obstinately honest as to be of great assistance to them in their dishonest profession. They exercised due caution in taking him into their confidence. For instance, he was still at the end of the year not sure why it was that the back room on the ground floor remained always locked; why its windows, facing a yard, and overlooked by the huge straggling workhouse, were closely shuttered. He knew that a man worked there; he knew that this man was called The Fright, and Mrs. Miller, on one expansive evening when in admirable humour, told him that The Fright was by trade a silver chaser. Presuming on some additional knowledge acquired at a time when supposed to be asleep, he demanded of the two men further particulars; Mr. Bat Miller replied fiercely that spare the rod and spoil the child had never been his motto, and thereupon gave Bobbie the worst thrashing that the boy had ever dreamed of. Following this, the boy found himself for some days treated with great coldness by the adult members of the household, and made to feel that he was no longer in the movement. When either of the men went out in the evening, the boy was not permitted to go also; he found himself deprived of adventurous excursions into the suburbs; the casual loafing about at busy railway stations was denied to him. So keenly did he feel this ostracism that he had tumultuous thoughts of giving himself up to the School Board inspector whom he had hitherto dodged, and of devoting his time to the acquirement of useful knowledge; it is right to add that the idea of betraying any of the secrets which he had learnt concerning the habits of the two men never for a moment occurred to him. An alternative was to buy a revolver similar to the one possessed by Teddy Sullivan, and to go out somewhere and shoot someone; the latter faintly-sketched plan was rubbed out because Master Sullivan, his friend, encountered disaster one evening in Union Street. In the course of a strenuous hand-to-hand fight between Hackney Road boys and Hoxton boys, a point arrived where the Hoxton boys found themselves badly worsted, whereupon Master Sullivan, with a sentence plagiarized from a penny romance which he knew almost by heart, “Ten thousand furies take you, you dastardly scoundrels,” whipped out his revolver, and closing his eyes, fired, injuring two or three promising juveniles from the tributary streets of Hackney Road, and, as a last consequence of this act, finding himself exposed to the glory of police court proceedings, and to the indignity of a birching.
Tension was snapped by a quarrel between Mr. Bat Miller and his young wife. There were times when Mrs. Bat Miller was obtrusively affectionate with her husband; as compensation, occasions flew in when she became half mad with jealousy. The Duchess and Mr. Leigh at these crises acted as peacemakers, a task at times not easy; in this particular case they failed entirely. The young woman tore her red hair with fury; she screamed so loudly that, common as such exhibitions were in Ely Place, neighbours began to show some interest in the front door. In this difficulty Mr. Bat Miller, pained and distressed, appealed to Bobbie to state whether so far from having been walking with the sister of Nose, the boy of Drysdale Street, between the hours of nine and ten that evening, he had not as a matter of fact been in the company of Bobbie at Liverpool Street Station. To this question Bobbie (who at the hours mentioned had been having a gloomy and quite solitary game of hop-scotch at the Kingsland Road end of Ely Place) answered promptly, “Yus!” and Mrs. Bat Miller confronted with this proof of alibi burst into regretful tears and reproached herself for a silly woman, one who allowed herself to be taken in by the gossip of any spiteful cat of a neighbour. Mr. Miller, grateful to Bobbie for this timely assistance, persuaded the quiet Leigh to allow the boy to resume his position in their confidence. After some hesitation Mr. Leigh agreed, adding, however, that he hoped Bobbie would see that the first duty of little boys was to be seen and not heard; the second, not to go about interfering with what did not concern them. These Mr. Leigh declared to be ever golden rules, not to be broken without danger. Bobbie promised to bear the advice carefully in mind, and re-assumed his position in the house with satisfaction.
The two women were nearly always kind to him, and to them he became indebted for cheerful hours. The proudest memory of the Duchess’s was that of her one appearance on the music hall stage. It seemed that another young lady and herself, having, in the late sixties, saved their money, had made their bow from the small stage of a small hall attached to a small public-house in Banner Street, St. Luke’s. They called themselves the Sisters Montmorency (on the urgent recommendation of the agent), and sang a song which still remained her favourite air. When in very good temper and when Bobbie had been a very good boy, she would go out of the room, and re-enter with a fine swish of the skirts singing in a thin, quavering voice this verse:—
You should see us in our landor when we’re drivin’ in the Row,You should ’ear us chaff the dukes and belted earls;We’re daughters of nobility, so they treat us with ceevility,For of well-bred, high-class damsels we’re the pearls.
You should see us in our landor when we’re drivin’ in the Row,You should ’ear us chaff the dukes and belted earls;We’re daughters of nobility, so they treat us with ceevility,For of well-bred, high-class damsels we’re the pearls.
It appeared that the two débutantes quarrelled with each other after the first performance over some point of etiquette and fought in Banner Street, St. Luke’s; as a consequence the partnership had thereupon been dissolved, and the Duchess’s career as an artiste of the music halls found itself checked and stopped.
Proud in the ownership of a new bowler hat; magnificent in the possession of a four-bladed knife with a corkscrew, which had come to him as his share of the contents of a portmanteau labelled from Scarborough to King’s Cross, and taken possession of at the latter station by Mr. Miller before the owner had time to claim it, Bobbie strolled along Old Street one evening, smoking a cigarette, and pushing small girls off the pavementinto the roadway. Behind him walked Miss Trixie Bell, feathered hatted and a skirt furtively let out after departure from her mother’s shop in Pimlico Walk; Miss Bell, in crossing lakes on the pavement, felt justified in lifting her skirt carefully to avoid contact with the ground, which it cleared by about twelve inches. At a junction of the City Road the boy stopped to allow the confused trams to untie themselves, and looking round saw her.
“Cheer!” said Miss Bell with defiant shyness. “How’s the world using you?” Bobbie did not answer. “You ain’t seen me for a long time.”
“Ain’t wanted,” replied the boy.
“I’ve been away in the country,” said the young woman, in no way disconcerted. “’Mongst medders and pigs and farm yards and nuts, and I don’t know what all.”
“Well,” he said, “what of it?”
“You still living in Ely Place?”
“P’raps I am; p’raps I ain’t.”
“I wouldn’t live there for something,” remarked the girl, shrugging her shoulders.
“They wouldn’t let you,” replied the boy. “They’re very particular about the kerricter of people they ’ave there.”
“Must they all ’ave a bad kerricter?” asked Miss Bell innocently.
The trams at the junction of roads extricated themselves from the tangle, and people who had been waiting on the kerb went across the roadway. Trixie Bell followed Bobbie, and they walked on opposite sides of the dimly-lighted pavement near St. Luke’s Asylum, continuing their conversation with breaks occasioned by intervening passers-by.
“You’ve no call,” shouted the boy, “to come follering me about. I don’t want no truck with gels.”
“I s’pose you’ve bought the street, ain’t you?” asked Miss Bell loudly. “Seem to think you’re everybody ’cause you’ve got a bowler ’at on. Be wearing a chimney-pot next, I lay.”
“Shan’t ask your permission.”
“All the boys down in the country,” called out the girl, “wash ’emselves twice a day.”
“More fools them,” said Bobbie.
“They wouldn’t dare be seen going about with a dirty face and neck like what you’ve got.”
“Look ’ere,” said the boy savagely. He moved nearer to her. “You leave my face and neck alone.”
“Sorry to do otherwise,” she remarked pertly.
“When I want any remarks from you ’bout my face and neck I’ll ast for ’em. Till then you keep your mouth shut ’r I’ll shut it for you.”
“You’d do a lot.”
Bobbie lifted his arm, but the small girl did not flinch. He made another threatening gesture; instantly his new bowler hat went spinning into the middle of the road in imminent danger of being run over by a railway van. Bobbie rescued it adroitly, and returning chased Miss Bell as far as Goswell Road.
“Don’t hit me,” she begged, panting; “I won’t do it again.”
“Time’s come,” said the boy hotly, “when I’ve got to punch your bloomin’ ’ead for you.”
“Lemme off this time,” craved Miss Bell, crouching against a shop window, “and I’ll stand you a ride back by tram.”
“You ain’t got no tuppence,” said Bobbie, relenting.
“I’ve got thruppence,” she said.
They walked on as far as Bloomsbury in order that they might have full money’s worth. When they boarded a departing tram, and the conductor shouted to them to get off, it delighted Bobbie very much to be able to confound the man by declaring themselves as passengers. To do honour to the occasion the boy rolled a cigarette, and, turning to a tall spectacled young man on the seat behind them, borrowed a match.
“Take two,” said the tall young man.
As the tram sailed past the lighted shops in Theobald’s Road, Trixie passed the twopence furtively to her companion, who paid the conductor with a lordly air, offering at the same time a few criticisms on the conductor’s appearance. Presently the girl touched very lightly his hand and moved nearer to him.
“Keep your ’ead off my shoulder,” he remarked brusquely.
“I want to tell you something,” said Trixie.
“Needn’t get so close.”
“My mother says—”
“What,” said Bobbie, “is the old cat still alive?”
“My mother says that if you like to leave those people what you’re with now and come and work at our shop as a errand boy—”
“A errand boy,” echoed Bobbie amazedly. “Work at that bloomin’ ’ole in the wall?’
“She’ll give you eighteen-pence a week and see that you ’ave good schooling, and arrange so that you grow up respectable.”
Bobbie, recovering from his astonishment, placed his cigarette on the seat in order that he might laugh without restraint.
“Of all the dam bits of cheek!” he declared exhaustedly.
“Make a lot of difference to you,” said the wise young woman. “If you don’t grow up respectable you’ll simply—”
“Me, respectable,” said the amused boy. “Why, you silly little ijiot, d’you think I don’t know a trick worth fifty of that. I ain’t going to work for my bloomin’ livin’.”
“Won’t ’ave a chance to if the police get ’old of you.”
“Is that another one of your Mar’s remarks? ’Cause, if so, you tell her from me, that she’s a—”
“Let’s get down ’ere,” said Trixie Bell. She interrupted the string of adjectives by rising; there were tears in her eyes. “This is ’Oxton Street.”
“You can,” said the boy. “I’m goin’ on to Shoreditch.”
“Wish I—I hadn’t met you now,” she said, with a catch in her voice.
“Don’t let it ’appen again.”
“I’ll never speak to you,” sobbed Trixie Bell, “never no more in all my life.”
“Best bit of news I’ve ’eard for a age.”
“Don’t you expect—don’t you expect me ever to take notice of you in future, mind.”
“If you do,” said Bobbie, “I shall be under the pineful necessity of knocking your ’ead clean off.”
“Goo’-bye,” said the girl hesitatingly.
“Be slippy,” said Bobbie.
The tall young man on the seat behind leaned forward as Trixie Bell disappeared down the steps of the tram. He tapped Bobbie on the shoulder.
“You behaved rather discourteously, sir, to your fair companion,” he said.
“Go on!” said Bobbie, recklessly. “All of you manage my affairs! Don’t mind me! I’ll sit back and not do nothing.”
“My excuse must be that we have met before. My name is Myddleton West, and I was at an inquest once—”
“I remember,” said the boy.
“Is the lady who has just gone engaged to you, may I ask?”
“No fear,” said Bobbie, disdainfully. “She’s a bit gone on me, that’s all. Perfect nuisance it is, if you ask me.”
“This,” said Myddleton West, “shows how awkward Providence is. With some of us the case is exactly the reverse.”
“You’re a lump better off without ’em,” said the boy sagely.
“I only want one.”
“And one,” said Bobbie, “is sometimes one too many. What are you doing in this quarter? Thought you lived ’Olborn way.”
“I want the police station in Kingsland Road,” said the journalist. “I have to see the inspector about something. Do you know it?”
“Do I not?” said Bobbie confidently.
They descended at the turbulent junction of roads near Shoreditch Station, and the boy conducted Myddleton West along the noisy crowded pavement of Kingsland Road, under the railway arch towards the police station. Glancing down Drysdale Street as he passed, Bobbie noticed Bat Miller near the gas-lamp talking to Nose’s sister; observed also in the shadow of the arch Mrs. Bat Miller watching the scene, her face white and her lips moving. As soon as he had shown Myddleton West the entrance to the police station, and had received sixpence for his pains, he hurried through to Hoxton Street, coming back into Drysdale Street from that end. His intention had been to witness the comedy that he assumed to be impending; to his great regret, just as Mr. Bat Miller began to punch the dark young woman affectionately, the young men who guarded Drysdale Street from the ruthless invader suddenly appeared, led by Nose and by Libbis, and the odds being about eight to one, drove him off with furious threats. He went back to the police station in order to complete the earning of his sixpence by reconducting Myddleton West to the tram for Bloomsbury. Approaching the station, on the steps of which plain clothes men were as usual lounging, he saw Mrs. Bat Miller on the opposite side of the roadway, her white apron over her head, beckoning to one of the plain clothes men. Then she walked carelessly into Union Street. The detective followed her. Bobbie slipped across and stood in a doorway.
“Well, my dear,” said the detective. “What’s your little game?”
“Mr. Thorpe,” said Mrs. Bat Miller, panting. She pressed one hand against her bodice and gasped for breath. “Do you want—want to do a fair cop?”
“A fair cop,” said Mr. Thorpe, cheerfully, “would just now come in very handy. Who are the parties?”
“He’s behaved like a wretch,” said the young woman breathlessly, “or I’d never ’are turned on him. I’m as striteforward a gel as ever breathed in all ’Oxton, ain’t I, Mr. Thorpe?”
“No one more so,” agreed the detective. “What’s the name of—”
“Anything else I could ’ave forgive him,” she said, trembling with passion. “When we’ve been ’ard up and he’s come ’ome with not a penny in his pocket and me gone without dinner, did I complain?”
“Course you didn’t. Who—”
“When he was put away for six months three year ago, didn’t I slave and keep myself to myself, and go and meet him down at Wandsworth when he came out?”
“No lady,” conceded Mr. Thorpe, “could have done more. What is—”
“When he was laid up in the orsepital,” she went on fiercely, “didn’t I go to see him every visiting day and take him nuts and oranges and goodness knows what all, and sit be his bedside for the hour together?”
“I really don’t know,” said the detective impartially, “what men are coming to. Where are—”
“And then to go paying his attentions to a—”
“Not so loud!”
She checked herself and looked round. Then she took the lapel of Mr. Thorpe’s coat and whispered. Bobbie could not hear the words.
“Good!” exclaimed the detective. “Are they both indoors now?”
“If they ain’t you can wait for ’em,” she replied.
“Will six men be enough d’you think?”
“Six ’ll be ample, Mr. Thorpe,” she said. “And if Miller shows fight, tell them not to be afraid of knocking him about. It’ll do him good, the—”
“I’ll make a note of it,” said Mr. Thorpe. “You don’t want to come with us, I s’pose? You’d better not be seen p’raps?”
“You leave me to look after meself,” she answered.
“Come over and ’ave a cup of tea along with our female searcher,” suggested Mr. Thorpe.
“Tea be ’anged,” she said. “I shall want something stronger than tea when my paddy’s over.”
“Daresay we shall be able to get you a sovereign or two for this job if you keep yourself quiet.”
“Keep your money,” she cried angrily. “All I want is to be at the Sessions when he comes up and to watch her face.”
Bobbie crept from his doorway. Once in Kingsland Road, he flew along swiftly, slipping in and out of the crowd, and jumping a linen basket, to the astonishment of the two women who were carrying it. He scuttled through the dwarf posts and down Ely Place, knocking over one or two children toddling about in the way, and reaching the house so exhausted that he could only just give the usual whistle at the key-hole. Mr. Leigh opened the door, and seeing him took off the chain. The boy, staggering into the dimly-lighted passage leaned against the wall.
“Bat Miller in?” he panted.
“What’s the row?” demanded Mr. Leigh concernedly. Bobbie explained in a hurried, detached, spasmodic way. Mr. Leigh took a pair of scissors from his pocket, and, glancing at a slip of looking-glass, cut off the whiskers which fringed his face.
“Tell the wife,” said Mr. Leigh, quietly snipping, “to meet me at Brenchley, if she gets clear. Tell her not to make no fuss.” He took his overcoat from the peg, and a cloth cap with ear flaps. “Come straight here ’ave you?” he asked.
“Like a bloomin’ arrer.”
“Look outside and see if they’ve come up yet,” requested Mr. Leigh, tying the flaps of his cap under his chin. “We don’t want no bother or nothing.”
Ely Place being clear at the Hoxton Street end, Mr. Leigh, his head well down, went out of the doorway. He shook hands with Bobbie.
“You’re a capital boy,” whispered Mr. Leigh, approvingly. “If I’d got anything smaller than a tanner about me I’d give it you. Be good!”
Bobbie closed the door, and his heart fluttering, went upstairs to the front bedroom. The Duchess was asleep, dressed, on her bed; her high-heeled boots ludicrously obtrusive. Bobbie aroused her and gave her the news.
“My old man’s safe, then? What about Bat Miller?” she asked, sitting up, affrightedly.
“We must watch out of the winder,” ordered Bobbie. “If he comes first we’ll wave him to be off; if he comes after they’re ’ere he’ll be nabbed.”
“You’ve got a ’ead on you,” said the Duchess, trembling, “that would be a credit to a Prime Minister. Come to the winder and—Let me ’old your ’and, I’m all of a shake.”
“They can’t touch us, can they?” asked Bobbie, stroking the woman’s thin trembling wrist.
“Hope not,” said the Duchess, nervously. “But there, you never know what the law can do. Fancy her turning nark jest through a fit of jealousy. Is that Miller talking to one of the neighbours?”
Mr. Miller it was. Mr. Miller, chatting amiably with one of the lady neighbours on the subject of flowers and how to rear them; the lady neighbour being something of a horticulturist in her way, possessing, as she did, in her garden plot, one sooty shrub, a limp sunflower, and several dandelions. Mr. Miller had just said something to the lady neighbour which had made her laugh uproariously, when, chancing to look up, he saw the signals of the Duchess and of Bobbie. His face took a note of interrogation; they motioned to him to go away with all despatch. Mr. Bat Miller crammed his hat over his head and ran off blindly; so blindly indeed that, at the Kingsland Road end of the place, he jumped into the arms of three overcoated men led by Mr. Thorpe; escaping these, he was caught neatly by uniformed policemen who were close behind. At the same moment a similar force appeared at the Hoxton Street end of the place. Bobbie and the Duchess held each other’s hands and went downstairs. The faint sound of a hymn came from the closed door.
Three loud raps at the front door. Bobbie went along the passage and opened it. Mr. Thorpe, with the other men; out in the court a small interested crowd, the noise of windows being thrown up.
“Come about the white-washin’?” asked Bobbie, innocently.
“Take the chain off, me lad,” said Mr. Thorpe, with his foot inside.
“Right you are, sir.”
The men came into the dark passage and one of them flashed a bull’s-eye lantern around.
“Father in?” asked Mr. Thorpe.
“Well, no,” answered the boy, “he isn’t exactly in, sir.”
“Won’t be long, I daresay.”
“I wouldn’t wait, sir,” said Bobbie respectfully, “if I was you. Fact is he’s been dead some years.”
The man with the bull’s-eye made the circle of light dance to the bottom stair and discovered the Duchess. Another went to the closed door of the back room and put his shoulder against it.
“Now then, ma’am,” said Mr. Thorpe, turning from the boy impatiently. “Where’s your good gentleman?”
“Pray don’t ask me, fellow,” replied the Duchess, endeavouring to assume her accent of refinement with some want of success. “If you want him, I really think the best thing you can do is to find him.”
“Go upstairs, two of you,” commanded Mr. Thorpe. “Two others give Baker a help with that door. Someone look after this woman and the kid.”
Bobbie, his shoulder gripped by a broad hand, watched with interest. The door groaned complainingly for a moment or two; then it gave way with so much suddenness that the two men stumbled into the room. Between the figures of the men Bobbie could see the room crowded in the manner of a workshop of limited accommodation. A wooden bench stood against the shuttered windows; the flare of a fire out of sight reddened the untidy floor. On a table some circular moulds of plaster of Paris; near, some coins with a tail of metal attached that gave them an unconvincing appearance. Three pewter pots, half melted on the edge of an iron sink. A small battery in the corner, and at this seated the figure of a young man. The figure looked round casually as’ the men entered, and Bobbie caught sight of a face not pleasant to look upon.
“Is that the Fright?” whispered Bobbie to the Duchess. The Duchess nodded and touched her forehead.
“Tile loose!” she said.
The figure turned back to his work of plating, crooning his hymn as though the interruption was not worthy of any special notice. Then the door partially closed.
“Mind my shoulder, please,” said the Duchess affectedly.
“I am minding it,” said the detective cheerfully.
“You’re no gentleman,” declared the Duchess, “or you wouldn’t behave to a lady in this way.”
“I was never what you may call a society man,” said the detective. “You seem to have got a rare old little snide factory here all to yourself.”
“I beg your pardon!” said the Duchess icily.
“Carried on nice and quiet too, apparently. No show, no display, no what you may call arrogance about it.”
“What is this person talking about, Bobbie, my dear?”
“Ast him,” said Bobbie, his eyes fixed on the partially-closed door.
“This your boy, ma’am?”
“Are you addressing your conversation to me, sir?”
“Who does the kid belong to?”
“This lad,” said the Duchess, precisely, “is, I regret to say, an orphan. I took some interest in his case, and my husband and myself have, so to speak, adopted him.”
“Then you’ll probably have to unadopt him,” said the detective. “If he’s got no relatives the State will take him in hand.”
“Who’s she?” asked Bobbie, detaching his interest from the back room.
“The State’s got a pretty decent-sized family as it is,” went on the man, “and one extra won’t make much difference.” His two colleagues came downstairs. “Anybody?” he asked. The two men replied not a soul.
“Then one of ’em’s nipped off,” said the detective. “Go and tell the sergeant.”
The door re-opened as the men proceeded to obey. Between two of Mr. Thorpe’s assistants came the demented man, his terrible face down; Bobbie was pulled back to allow them to conduct him through the passage. Finding himself going at a regular pace, he commenced to sing huskily a Moody and Sankey hymn with a marching rhythm.
“Hold the gospel banner high,On to victory grand,Satan and his hosts defy,And shout for Danyul’s band.”
“Hold the gospel banner high,On to victory grand,Satan and his hosts defy,And shout for Danyul’s band.”
“Bring the woman and the boy,” ordered Mr. Thorpe. “And keep close round them. There’s an awkward crowd outside.”
The awkward crowd of Ely Place was not apparently ready to carry its awkwardness to the point of interference with the police. On the contrary, the crowd seemed anxious to show some friendliness towards the plain clothes men, saying, Good evening, Mr. Thorpe, sir; more work for you, I see. And how are you, Mr. Baker? and how’s that cold of yours getting on, I wonder? Some of the men of Mr. Thorpe’s regiment remained in charge of the house; the others assisted in conducting the three arrested people to the police station.
“Hullo, young man,” said Myddleton West, at the entrance. The crowd in Kingsland Road had swelled to the number of hundreds, and West had to wait for their departure. “You in this affair?”
“Looks like it,” said Bobbie.
“Can I do anything?” asked the long young journalist.
“Yes!”
“Tell me!”
“Keep your head shut,” said the boy gruffly. “I don’t want no one interfering with my affairs.”
“Deplorable thing,” remarked Myddleton West aside to the sergeant, “for a child like that.”
“Not at all, sir,” said Mr. Thorpe, “not at all. We’ve nabbed him just in time.”
Eventsoccurred with a rapidity that, in view of their importance, seemed to Bobbie frankly indecorous. No sooner had he been placed between parallel iron bars in a police court than he was whisked from the iron bars, on the direction of a magistrate, who had a kindly manner with children; after a brief week at the workhouse, looked after by a burly inmate (knownto colleagues by the satirical name of the Slogger), Bobbie found himself again carried off swiftly to the court, where, when a number of cases had been heard in which foreign gentlemen and foreign ladies told everything but the truth, Bobbie was hurried in and directed to stand by the side of the dock, an order that annoyed him because this was clearly an attempt to treat him as though he were not a grown up and a perfect criminal. In the rooms adjoining the court he had seen Bat Miller, and Bat Miller had had opportunity of mentioning that he was the only one who would get put away, and that when he came out it would be his pleasurable duty to see that Mrs. Bat Miller found herself repaid for all her trouble.
Scarce had the boy taken up an attitude of “don’t care” at the side of the dock, and scarce had he commenced to prepare a short remark of defiance for the benefit of Master Ted Sullivan, the shooting youth (whom he saw at the back of the court), when he found himself hustled out of the court by the public door; on kicking the gaoler protestingly in leaving, the gaoler boxed his ears, telling him that he would find somebody outside to teach him manners. Outside, indeed, was an official from the workhouse, who re-conducted him to the huge building that threw out its wings in various directions at the back of Ely Place, and there they had no sooner arrived than Bobbie, being now the charge and ward of the guardians, found himself added to a party of children made up of six boys and seven girls (nearly all of them younger than himself), who were carried away in charge of the Slogger and a grim, silent comrade of the Slogger, to a London station that Bobbie knew, there to take train for the parish schools which Wisdom, looking in some years before at a meeting of the Guardians, had suggested. All this rapidity of action made the boy extremely sulky; when the Slogger, in workhouse uniform, offered him a few choice flowers of advice culled from the spacious gardens of experience, in the shape of hints on the way of living in the world at the minimum of labour to yourself and the maximum of expense to other people, Bobbie growled at the Slogger’s well-meant counsel, and would have found the journey away into Essex tedious but for the fact that he heard a woman in the next compartment remark that he possessed a bright little face. The compliment saved him from depression, and made him put his cap straight.
Arrived at a country station, the small band of thin-faced children marched out into the roadway in charge of the two men. One of the youngest baby girls had just decided the moment to be opportune for wailing, when they happened on a scene that changed the attitude of everybody from the Slogger down to the smallest boy in petticoats. The sight being new to Bobbie, his interest and delight increased accordingly. The Slogger seemed to have exercised enough energy at some period of his life to have obtained certain information, and was in consequence able to give the scene a title.
“A cirkiss!” said the Slogger authoritatively.
A circus it was! Not one of your cheap affairs, mind, of amateur monkeys and two dogs and a goat, but a real, complete, elaborate, efficient circus, with just now its best artistes out to give to the town bold advertisement of its coming performance that afternoon. Four huge lumbering elephants strode along deliberately, men on their backs directing them with the touch of a stick; when an elephant lifted its trunk as though about to play something, the girls in the crowd that lined the village street shouted, “Oh—ah!” affrightedly, and stepped back on the toes of people behindthem. Came, too, dainty white miniature horses, decorated with trappings and bells, and led by pages in such admirable costumes that it seemed almost a pity the wearers had not bethought themselves of shaving; handsome, proud, capering black horses ridden by sedate matrons in riding habits, who, being applauded by the lookers on, bowed graciously and touched their hats with their whips, but who, on the suggestion being loudly offered by Bobbie (now scarlet with excitement) that they should turn a somersault, frowned and looked at the crowd with the air of offended empresses. Piebald ponies, brown ponies, chestnut ponies and grey ponies, and, when you were tired of ponies, a gorgeous car with uniformed footmen walking soberly at its side, and high up in this car a lady with a trident and golden helmet and white robes, who gazed straight before her and sniffed a little, and once unfortunately gave a sneeze that sent the golden helmet a little awry, but who, despite these drawbacks (which, of course, were no reflection on her moral worth), looked a very fine and dignified figure of a woman.
“Who’s she supposed to be?” asked Bobbie.
“Britannier,” said the Slogger.
“I know what you mean,” said Bobbie.
The small girl who had attempted to cry, and now beamed, asked if the lady was related to the Britannia, Camden Town, and found herself for her ignorance derided by the rest of the party.
“Course not, you silly young silly,” replied Bobbie. “Britannia represents the country, and she’s the kind of mother of us all. Ain’t she, Slogger?”
“But s’pose you ain’t got a muvver?” said the small girl, thinking she had detected a flaw in the argument.
“Why, that’s jest where she comes in useful,” declared Bobbie. “Ain’t it, Slogger?”
“In a manner of speaking,” acknowledged the Slogger, cautiously, “yes.”
The two camels went by awkwardly, and Bobbie told the other children an amazing anecdote concerning them, invented on the spur of the moment; the performing dogs passed with ridiculous frills round their necks and an appealing look in their eyes that begged people not to laugh at them; more horses, with more haughty ladies; at the end of all the crowd fell in and followed the procession to the large canvas tent away on a triangle of spare land. As the party from Hoxton continued their march along the road to their destination, they seemed altogether different from those children who had come down. Bobbie sang. When they were clear of the town, two long pieces of string were seen far away in the broad dusty road. Coming near, the first piece of string proved to be a long procession of scarlet Tam o’ Shanter capped girls; the second was found to be made up of bright round-faced expectant boys in serviceable suits, chosen in order to evade any appearance of a uniform.
“Stop,” said the Slogger once more, “and watch.”
“Where are they going?” asked Bobbie.
“Why, to the cirkiss,” answered the Slogger. “These are only the best of ’em, though. The others ’ave to stay behind.”
“They’d no business,” said the boy darkly, “to make no distinction.”
“Take off your cap to the ladies in charge.”
“Not me,” said Bobbie.
“Take it off, when I keep telling you,” ordered the Slogger anxiously. “You’ll only get me and yourself into a row.”
“Only this once, then,” said the boy.
The Tam o’ Shanter capped little women, as they marched by the new arrivals, seemed much amused at the odd appearance of certain of the new recruits.
“For two pins,” said Bobbie threateningly, as he noted this attitude, “I’d punch all their bloomin’ ’eads.”
When the string of boys came the interest appeared more pronounced, and Bobbie, too, looked anxiously to see the kind of men with whom he would in future live. He felt bound to confess that they were rather a smart set of youngsters marching along with a swing; good temper (for which the afternoon’s treat was partly responsible) written large on everyone’s face. One boy of the marching detachment, being distant from the two or three teachers who were in charge, asked the Slogger satirically whether he would take a bit of slate pencil for the whole fourteen, and the Slogger having no reply, Bobbie threw a stone that hit the satirical boy on the leg, causing him to cry “Wah!” The boys having passed, the small detachment from Hoxton marched on again, and presently they saw away at the side of the road a long row of red-tiled houses going into fields and nursery gardens, and giving to the flat country a look of bright importance. The Slogger spoke.
“There you are,” said the Slogger, pointing. “There’s ’ome sweet ’ome for all you kiddies.”
The Slogger pulled a bell at the closed gateway, and on the gate opening obediently, the Slogger, with his silent colleague, entered the covered passage at the head of the fourteen youngsters. Near the end of the covered passage, a genial uniformed man met them, and saying, “Hullo! hullo! hullo!” took from the Slogger a blue form, which appeared to be a kind of bill of lading, and checked the goods carefully; then a stout motherly woman bustled out of the house, which was the first, it seemed, of the many red-tiled houses that strolled away into the meadows, and asked, “Have you wiped your boots, me dears?” and when they answered in a shy chorus, “Yus!” bade them wipe them again, a precaution justified in view of the spotless floors and well-swept passages which they presently found inside. The Slogger and his colleague had a glass of beer and some bread and cheese, and then the Slogger said “Good-bye and good luck!” his silent companion whispered with a mysterious air to Bobbie, “Long live Enarchy!” and they went.
“And now,” said the uniformed gate-keeper, taking off his jacket, “now to bath one or two of you biggest boys. S’phia, pick out yours.”
The wife of the uniformed man selected the girls and three of the tiniest boys, and led them away to a separate bath-room.
“’Alf a sec.,” said Bobbie, protestingly. “I’ve had a good wash once this week.”
“Once isn’t often,” remarked the uniformed man, opening the door of the bath-room. “You’ll find that you’ll not only have to wash regular, but you’ll get a proper bath twice a week, besides learning to swim.”
“It’s carrying a ’obby to an excess,” growled Bobby.
“Go in!” ordered the man. “We’ll see to you first.”
“That be ’anged for a tale,” remarked the boy, doggedly.
For answer, Bobby found himself shot swiftly into the bath-room.
“You begin to argue,” said the man, not unkindly, “and you’ll get into trouble: you do what you’re told, and you’ll find yourself as right as rain.”
This was the lesson that Bobbie at first obstinately declined to learn. The cottage was the probationary cottage where all new comers stayed in quarantine for fourteen days, with every day a visit from the doctor; the restraint and the regularity and the cleanliness and the general order of the place were foes against which Bobbie warred fiercely. He would have been more antagonistic at this stage, only that the doorkeeper’s wife was a good, burly soul, with a heart as large as her hand (both were easily moved), and when one day of the fortnight she saw Bobbie comforting the small crying girl who had arrived with the detachment, by standing on his head and clapping his heels to a martial rhythm, in order that the child might be induced to change tears for laughter, and when on charging Bobbie with being a good boy to thus divert the weeping young lady, he furiously denied the imputation, then the good woman determined that there was good in Bobbie, and rewarded him with a special meat pasty that the boy could not, in justice to his appetite, refuse. Furtively, too, he made admirable dolls from young turnips which had been brought in with others from the large gardens at the back, and had been cast aside; one of these—a staring damsel, with two peas for eyes, and a broad bean for a nose—so much endeared itself to the heart of the lachrymose little girl that, one evening, in an excess of emotion, she ate it, afterwards crying her little heart out with remorse.
“And now, young Lancaster,” said the doorkeeper, looking in the bathroom at the end of a fortnight that seemed about two years, “now you’ll on with your clothes and come along o’ me to Collingwood Cottage.”
“Very near time, too,” said Bobbie, rubbing himself with the towel. “I’ve had enough of this blooming bath nonsense.”
“Oh, no, you haven’t, my lad.”
“I feel,” grumbled the boy, “as though I never want to wash again. Where’s my weskit, boss?”
“Where’s your manners?” demanded the doorkeeper sharply.
“I don’t trouble about manners,” said Bobbie; “people ’ave to take me as they find me. If they don’t like it, they can jolly well lump it.”
“They’ll lump you if you are not careful,” warned the doorkeeper. “Rub your head again with the towel, and look sharp about it.”
“They’ll look silly if they come interferin’ ’long o’ me,” said Bobbie, with the towel over his head. “I ain’t like a kid.”
“Yes, you are,” said the man sagely. “Not only have you got a great deal to learn, but, moreover, you’ve got a great deal to forget. And touching this bath business, that you seem to kick against so, p’raps you’ll be interested to hear that in Collingwood you’ll have to wash just as regular as you’ve washed here, and you’ll get your two baths a week without fail.”
“Go on!” said the boy, uneasily.
“I’m telling you the truth, my lad. Your foster-parents ’ll see to that. Your new father works in the carpenter’s shop, and he’s what you may call a hard man.”
“If he comes the hard business with me,” muttered the boy, truculently, “I’ll dam well show him.”
He was presently, after a kiss from the wife, which he received shamefacedly, conducted out into the broad, gravelled roadway dividing the tworows of red-roofed cottages; stop made at a clematis-covered house which bore its title over the doorway. There his new foster-mother appeared and eyed him critically, looked with great care at his head and eyes, and the hour being in school-time and the cottage therefore without family, she took him over the rooms, showing him with pride the prints from Christmas numbers on the walls, the white-floored, white-tabled dining-room, the comfortable sitting-room with its illustrated weekly papers, and the kitchen and scullery, where everything shone so that mirrors would have been a superfluity; afterwards up the broad staircase to the dormitories, each with seven red-counterpaned beds, and a floor that gave promise of some day disappearing entirely under the attacks of scrubbing from two long boys on their knees.
“And some day,” said the foster-mother, generously, “if you grow up a good boy and become a half-timer, you shall be one of the two lads to stay at home and help me with the ’ouse work.”
“No great catch,” remarked Bobbie, grimly.
“Ah!” said the foster-mother, “you think so now; but you wait.”
“It’s gels’ work, not men’s.”
“We don’t ’ave girls in Collingwood,” said his foster-mother.
“Good job too.”
“And so I expect my boys to give me all the help about the house that they can, you see. They’ll be back from school and the workshops presently, and then you’ll meet ’em all.”
“That’ll be a treat,” said the boy, satirically. “What’s your name?”
“You’ll call me ‘mother,’ and you’ll call my ’usband ’father.’”
“Got some brawsted silly notions down ’ere,” he said.
“Use a word like that again, my boy,” said his foster-mother, with severity, “and you’ll ’ave rice instead of meat for dinner.”
“Like what?” asked the boy, astonished. The foster-mother spelt the word. “Not say brawsted,” echoed Bobbie, amazedly. “Why, what can you say?”
Limitations of speech afflicted Bobbie sorely when the thirty boys trooped into Collingwood from school and from work, jostling him as they took their places at the dinner-table. He had become so accustomed to the use of expressive words, here tabooed, that it was not easy for him to find effective substitutes. The boys aggravated him, too, by the excellence of their spirits; to look at them and to hear them talk, one would imagine this to be the brightest and cheeriest spot on earth; Bobbie made up his mind to correct this want of balance by surly and (when opportunity should offer) aggressive behaviour. He sat at the table gloomily, and when the foster-father, who brought to the dining-room a scent of shavings, rallied him, making a mild joke upon his Christian name (affecting to mistake Bobbie for a City policeman), the boy declined to join in the laugh, and scowled persistently.
Later, at the large school-house over the way, he found himself exposed to another ordeal, one that he decided in his small brain to be nothing more nor less than a studied insult, and this was an examination in spelling, reading, and arithmetic, from which he emerged with a self-abasement equalled by indignation against the young assistant teacher who had had to put questions to him. Thanks to the care that he had always taken to evade education offered by the State, he found himself placed in a class at the end of the large school-room amongst boys who were all some yearshis junior; found himself, too, failing to jump difficulties which they cleared with comparative ease, and becoming in consequence the recipient of much satire. After a few weeks of consideration, he decided one morning, as he put his head under the shower-tap in the washing-room at Collingwood—he had begun to conquer his disinclination for cleanliness—that he would show everybody he was not of the stuff that butts were made; that he would apply himself seriously to the acquirement of knowledge. This fact being made apparent, the young assistant found another target for his shafts of satire, and when one afternoon the question of 7 times 7 minus 9 was put to Bobbie, and the class prepared to be exceedingly diverted at Bobbie’s answer and was so diverted, not recognizing the fact that his answer proved absolutely correct, then the class had to be admonished for inappropriate hilarity, in terms that made Bobbie’s little head swell with content. Being advanced to the next of the three classes in the large school-room, he had maps to wrestle with, and felt for a time a grievance against his country because it had possessions in so many quarters of the globe.
Late afternoon brought relief in the shape of drill on the large square space at the end of all the cottages and near to meadows; drill conducted by an upright ex-army man in braided uniform, who doubled the parts of a stern disciplinarian of a drill-master, and a genial distributor of goods as a storekeeper. On parade the drill-master was like a commander-in-chief (but less hampered than that official by Secretaries of State for War and people); there came exercise with Indian clubs to the music of a band of boys in uniform of blue with scarlet facings, so that at a distance you might think they belonged to the service, and who were sometimes so proud of their ability that they could scarcely play the brass instruments; real military drill with small wooden rifles, and once the awkwardness of the first few drillings passed, and once you became used to the drillmaster’s voice, it was capital sport, because you had only to give imagination rein and you were a grown-up lifeguardsman with an admirable chest, chin well up, six feet two inches in your boots, and all the ladies who lived downstairs in West End houses hard at work worshipping you. Later, at five o’clock (the time being late autumn), you met the drill-sergeant again in the gymnasium, which was the swimming bath boarded over, and there you had the rarest games with parallel bars and the vaulting horse and horizontal bars, and goodness alone knew what. When all this had gone on for a few months Bobbie found to his great satisfaction that in stretching out his right arm and then bringing his fist back towards the shoulder there appeared above the elbow a distinct, palpable, unmistakable, not to be denied, sign of thick muscle. Saying his prayers that night on the reminder of the monitor of his room, he omitted the formula that he had been obliged to learn, and substituted special thanks for this development, asking that he might become a strong man, so that he could knock anybody down whenever that act should appear appropriate and desirable.
Thus Robert Lancaster grew.