Chapter Fifteen.

Chapter Fifteen.George Aspel Receives Various Visitors at the Ornithological Shop, and is Called to Vigorous Action.As long as a man retains a scrap of self-respect, and struggles, from any motive whatever, against his evil tendencies, his journey to destruction is comparatively slow; but when once he gives way to despair, assumes that he has tried his best in vain, and throws the reins on the neck of his passions, his descent into the dark abyss is terribly rapid.For a time George Aspel was buoyed up by hope. He hoped that May Maylands might yet come to regard him with favour, though she studiously avoided giving him ground for such hope. He also continued, though faintly, to hope that Sir James Clubley might still think of fulfilling his promises, and, in pursuance of that hope, frequently inquired whether any letters had been left for him at the hotel where he first put up on arriving in London. But, when both of these hopes forsook him, and he found himself in what he deemed the ridiculous position of shopman to a bird-stuffer, without an influential friend in the great city, or the slightest prospect of improving his condition, he gave way to despair.Before quite giving way, however, he made several attempts to obtain work more suited to his tastes and acquirements, in which efforts he was heartily seconded by Mr Enoch Blurt; but Enoch was about as unknown in London as himself, so that their united efforts failed.In these circumstances the ambitious youth began to regard himself as a martyr to misfortune, and resolved to enjoy himself as he best might. With a view to this he spent his evenings in places of amusement, with companions whose example and influence helped to drag him down and increase his tendency to drink.This tendency was in part hereditary. His father had been a confirmed drinker. Although well aware of this, he did not believe in his own fallibility. Few young men of his stamp do. Other men might give way to it, but there was no fear of him. He admitted that he could, and sometimes did, take a stiff glass of grog—but what then? It did him no harm. He was not a slave to it. He could give it up and do without it if he chose—although, it is to be remarked, he had never made the trial, and only assumed this power. To be rather “screwed” now and then was, he admitted, somewhat discreditable; but he wasn’t worse than many others, and it didn’t occur often. Thus he reasoned, half-justifying himself in a thoroughly selfish, sinful course; growling at his “bad luck,” and charging the guilt of his sin, which he said he couldn’t help, on Fate—in other words, on God.It never occurred to George Aspel that the true way to get out of his troubles was to commit his way to his Maker; to accept the position assigned him; to do the work of a faithful servant therein; to get connected with good society through the medium of churches and young men’s Christian associations, and to spend a few years in establishing a character for trustworthiness, capacity, vigour, and intelligence, which would secure his advancement in life. At least, if such thoughts did occur to him, he refused to entertain them, and resolved to fling care to the dogs and defy fortune.Of course, it soon became apparent to his employer that there was a great change for the worse in the youth, whom he not only admired for his frank bearing and strapping appearance, but loved as his deliverer from death. Delicacy of feeling, however, prevented Mr Blurt from alluding to dissipations at which he could only guess.Poverty and distress bring about strange companionships. When Aspel first arrived in London he would have scouted the idea of his having anything whatever to do with such a man as Abel Bones, but he had not proceeded far in his downward course when that disreputable character became, if not a companion, at least an acquaintance.This state of things was brought about primarily by the patronage which Aspel had extended to the “poor worthless fellow” whom he had so unceremoniously knocked down. But the poor worthless fellow, although born in a lower rank of life, was quite equal to him in natural mental power, and much superior in cunning and villainy. Mr Bones had also a bold, reckless air and nature, which were attractive to this descendant of the sea-kings. Moreover, he possessed a power of mingling flattery with humbug in a way that made his victim fall rather easily into his toils.Revenge, as we have said, lay at the bottom of Abel Bones’ desire to become better acquainted with Aspel, but profit soon took the place of revenge. Mr Bones earned his livelihood chiefly by appropriating what belonged to other people. He was not particular as to what he took, or how he took it, but on the whole preferred easy work (like most people) and large profit. Being a man of bold, ambitious views, he had often thought of forgery, but a neglected education stood in the way of that. Being also a man of resource, he did not doubt that this, like many other difficulties, would ere long succumb to his perseverance. While in this frame of mind it occurred to him that he might make a tool of his new acquaintance and would-be patron. At the same time he had penetration enough to perceive that his intended tool was a dangerous instrument, highly-tempered and sharp-set, with a will of its own, not yet quite demoralised, and not by any means to be played with.It might be tedious to trace the steps and winding ways by which Abel Bones led his victim from one piece of impropriety to another—always concealing his real character, and playing therôleof an unfortunate man, willing to work, but unable to find employment—until he almost had him in his toils.“It’s of no use your dancing attendance on me any longer, Bones,” said Aspel one day, as the former appeared at the door of the ornithological shop. “I have all the will to help you, but I have not the power. My friends have failed me, and I can do no more than keep my own soul in my body. You must look to some one else with more influence than I possess.”“That’s a bad job, sir,” returned Bones, with a downcast look. “I’ve bin down at the docks all day, an’ earned only enough to get a plate of bacon and beans. Surely there’s somethin’ wrong when a cove that’s willin’ to work must starve; and there’s my wife and child starvin’ too. Seems to me that a cove is justified in stealin’ in the circumstances.”He cast a sidelong glance at Aspel. It was the first time he had ventured to suggest dishonest intentions. If they should be taken ill, he could turn it off as a jest; if taken well, he could proceed.“I’m very sorry for you, Bones,” said Aspel, not noticing the hint, “very sorry, but what can I do? I have not a copper left beyond what I absolutely require.”“Well, sir, I know that you can do nothing, but now that my wife and child are actually starvin’, I really don’t see the sin of helpin’ myself to a loaf at the nearest baker’s, and giving him leg-bail for it.”“Nothing justifies stealing,” said Aspel.“D’ee think not, sir?” said Bones. “If you saw your wife now, supposin’ you had one, at the pint of death with hunger, an’ you saw a loaf lyin’ as didn’t belong to you, would you let her die?”Aspel thought of May Maylands.“I don’t know,” he replied, “what I shoulddo. All that I say is, that stealing is unjustifiable.”The argument was stopped at this point by the entrance of a small telegraph message-boy.Bones was startled by his sudden entrance.“Well, good-night, sir, we’ll talk that matter over some other time,” he said quickly, pulling his wideawake well over his face as he went out, and giving the message-boy a prolonged stare.The boy paid no regard to him, but, turning to Aspel, introduced himself as Peter Pax.“What! the comrade-in-arms of my friend Phil Maylands?” asked Aspel.“The same, at your service,” replied the small messenger; “an’ if you are the friend he talks to me so much about, as goes by the name of George Aspel, an’ is descended in a direct line from the old sea-kings, I’m proud to make your acquaintance.”Aspel laughed at the consummate self-possession of the boy, and shaking hands with him heartily as a comrade of their common friend Phil, bade him take a seat, which he immediately did on the counter.“You’re surrounded by pleasant company here,” observed Pax, gazing intently at the pelican of the wilderness.“Well, yes; but it’s rather silent company,” said Aspel.“Did that fellow, now,” continued Pax, pointing to the owl, “die of surprise?”“Perhaps he did, but I wasn’t present at his death,” returned the other.“Well, now, I do like this sort o’ thing.”Little Pax said this with such genuine feeling, and looked round him with such obvious interest, that Aspel, with some surprise, asked him why he liked it.“Why? because from my earliest years I always was fond of animals. No matter what sort they wos, I liked ’em all—birds an’ beasts an’ fishes, flyers and creepers, an’ squeakers and flutterers,” said the boy, clasping both hands over one knee, and rocking himself to and fro on the counter, while he gazed into the owl’s face with the air of one whose mind is rambling far away into the remote past.“Once on a time,” he continued, sadly, “I dwelt in the country. I was born in the country. I’m a sort o’ country gentleman by nature, so to speak, and would have bin revellin’ in the country to this day if a perwerse fate hadn’t driven me into the town—a very perwerse fate indeed.”“Indeed?” said Aspel, unable to restrain a laugh at his visitor’s old-fashioned ways, “what sort of fate was it?”“A perwerse one, didn’t I tell you?”“Yes, but wherein consisted its perversity? How did it act, you know?”“Ah, its perwersity consisted in drivin’ me into town in a market-cart,” said Pax. “You must know that my perwerse fate was a uncle. He was a big brute. I don’t mean to speak of ’im disrespectfully. I merely give ’im his proper name. He was a market-gardener and kept cows—also a pump. He had a wife and child—a little girl. Ah! a sweet child it was.”“Indeed,” said Aspel, as the boy relapsed into a silent contemplative gaze at the pelican.“Yes,” resumed Pax, with a sigh, “itwasa child, that was. Her name was Mariar, but we called ’er Merry. Her father’s name—the Brute’s, you know—was Blackadder, and a blacker adder don’t wriggle its slimy way through filthy slums nowhere—supposin’ him to be yet unscragged, for he was uncommon hard on his wife—that’s my Aunt Georgie.Hername was Georgianna. I wonder how it is that peoplenevergive people their right names! Well, Mr Aspel, you must know I was nuss to baby. An amytoor nuss I was—got no pay for it, but a considerable allowance o’ kicks from the Brute, who wasn’t fond o’ me, as I’d done ’im a mortal injury, somehow, by being his defunct brother’s orphan child. You understand?”George Aspel having professed a thorough comprehension of these family relationships, little Pax went on.“Well then, bein’ nuss to Merry, I used to take ’er out long walks in the fields among the flowers, an’ I was used to catch butterflies and beetles for ’er, an’ brought ’em home an’ stuck pins through ’em an’ made c’lections; an’ oh, Ididlike to scuttle about the green lanes an’ chase the cows, an’ roll on the grass in the sunshine with Merry, an’ tear an bu’st my trousers, for w’ich I got spanked by the Brute, but didn’t care a rap, because that brought me double allowance o’ coddlin’ from Aunt Georgie. One day the Brute drove me into town in the market-cart; set me down in the middle of a street, and drove away, an’ I haven’t seen him, nor Aunt Georgie, nor Merry from that day to this.”“Dear me!” exclaimed George Aspel, rather shocked at this sudden and unexpected termination of the narrative; “do you mean to say—”“It strikes me,” interrupted Pax, looking pointedly at the door, “that you’ve got another visitor.”Aspel turned and saw the dishevelled curls and pretty face of Tottie Bones in the doorway.“Please, sir,” she said, entering, “I didn’t like to interrupt you, but Miss Lillycrop sent me to say that there was a strange smell of singein’ in the ’ouse, an’ would Mr Aspel be so kind as to come and try to find out where it was, as she didn’t understand such things.”“Smell of singeing, child!” exclaimed Aspel, rising at once and putting on his coat and hat. “Did you search for the cause, especially about your kitchen fireplace?”“O yes, sir,” exclaimed Tottie, “an’ we couldn’t see no cause at all—only the flue seemed to be ’otter than usual. We looked all over the ’ouse too, but couldn’t see nothink—but we could feel a most drefful smell.”Desiring Mrs Murridge to call Mr Blurt to attend to the shop, George Aspel hurried out.“Don’t try to keep up with us,” said Aspel to Tottie; “I must run. It may be fire!”“Oh! please, sir, don’t leave me behind,” pleaded the child.“All right—we won’t; kitch hold of my hand; give the other to Mr Aspel,” said Peter Pax.Holding on to her two friends, Tottie was swept along the streets at a rate which she had never before experienced—at least not as a foot-passenger,—and in a few minutes they were in Miss Lillycrop’s dwelling.That excellent lady was in a state of dreadful perturbation, as well she might be, for the house was filled with a thin smoke of very peculiar odour.Few persons except the initiated are fully alive to the immense importance of checking fire at its commencement. The smoke, although not dense enough to attract the attention of people outside, was sufficiently so to make those inside commence an anxious search, when they should have sent at once for the fire-engine.Three families occupied the tenement. Miss Lillycrop’s portion was at the top. A dealer in oils and stores of a miscellaneous and unsavoury kind occupied the basement.George Aspel at once suspected and made for this point, followed by Miss Lillycrop, who bade Tottie remain in her kitchen, with the intention of keeping her at once out of danger and out of the way.“There’s certainly fire somewhere, Pax; run, call the engines out,” said Aspel, descending three steps at a time.Pax took the last six steps at a bound, and rushed along the street, overturning in his flight two boys bigger than himself, and a wheelbarrow.The owner of the cellars was absent and his door locked. Where was the key? No one knew, but George Aspel knew of a key that had done some service in times past. He retreated a few steps, and, rushing at the door with all his weight and momentum, dashed it in with a tremendous crash, and went headlong into the cellar, from out of which came belching flames and smoke. Re-issuing instantly therefrom with singed hair and glaring eyes, he found Miss Lillycrop lying on her back in a faint, where the fire and smoke had floored her. To gather her up and dash into the street was the work of a moment. Scarcely less rapid was the rush of the fire, which, having been richly fed and long pent up in the cellar, now dashed up the staircases like a giant refreshed.Meanwhile little Pax ran headlong into a policeman, and was collared and throttled.“Now then, young ’un!”“Fire! station!” gasped Pax.“All right, this way—just round the corner,” said the man in blue, releasing his captive, and running along with him; but the man in blue was stout, middle-aged, and heavy. Pax outran him, saw the red lamp, found the fire-station door open, and leaped through with a yell of “Fire!” that nearly split his little lungs.The personification of calmness in the form of a fireman rose and demanded “Where?”Before Pax could gasp the address, two other personifications of calmness, who had been snoring on trestle-beds, dressed and booted, when he entered, now moved swiftly out, axed and helmeted. There was a clattering of hoofs outside. The double doors flew open, and the red engine rolled out almost of its own accord. More brass helmets were seen flashing outside.“Are you sure of the address, youngster?” asked one of the imperturbable firemen, settling his chinstrap more comfortably.“Are you sure o’ your own grandmother?” said Pax.“You’re cheeky,” replied the man, with a smile.“You make haste,” retorted Pax; “three minutes allowed to get under weigh. Two and a half gone already. Two-and-six fine if late, besides a—”The whip cracked, and Pax, leaping forward, seized the side of the engine. Six brass helmets bounded into the air, and their owners settled on their seats, as the horses made that momentary pause and semi-rear which often precedes a dashing start. The man whom he had been insulting held out a hand; Pax seized it, and was next moment in a terrestrial heaven, while calmness personified sauntered into the back office to make a note of the circumstance, and resume his pipe.Oh! it was a brief but maddening ride. To experience such a magnificent rush seemed to Pax worth living for. It was not more than half-a-mile; but in that brief space there were three corners to turn like zigzag lightning, which they did chiefly on the two near wheels, and there were carts, vans, cabs, drays, apple-stalls, children, dogs, and cats innumerable. To have run over or upset these would have been small gratification to the comparatively tender spirit of Pax, but toshavethem; to graze the apple-stalls; to just scrape a lamp-post with your heart in your mouth; to hear the tremendous roar of the firemen; to see the abject terror of some people, the excitement of others, the obedient “skedaddling” of all, while the sparks from the pump-boiler trailed behind, and the two bull’s-eyes glared ahead, so that the engine resembled some awful monster rushing through thick and thin, and waving in triumph its fiery tail—ah! words are but feeble exponents of thought: it was excruciating ecstasy! To have been born for this one burst, and died, would have been better than never to have been born at all,—in the estimation of the enthusiastic Peter Pax!A few minutes after George Aspel had borne the fainting Miss Lillycrop from the house the engine arrived. Some of the men swarmed into the house, and dived to the basement, as if fire and smoke were their natural food. Others got the engine to work in a few seconds, but already the flames had rushed into the lower rooms and passages and licked away the windows. The thick stream of water had just begun to descend on the fire, when another engine came rattling to the field, and its brazen-headed warriors leaped down to join the battle.“Oh!” groaned Miss Lillycrop at that moment, recovering in Aspel’s arms. “Oh! Tottie—To-o-o-o-tie’s in the kitchen!”Little Pax heard and understood. In one moment he bounded through the blazing doorway and up the smoking stair.Just then the fire-escape came into view, towering up against the black sky.“Hold her, some one!” cried Aspel, dropping his poor burden into the ready arms of a policeman.“The boy’s lost!” he exclaimed, leaping after Pax.Aspel was a practised diver. Many a time had he tried his powers under the Atlantic waves on the west of Ireland. He drew one long breath, and was in the attic kitchen before it was expended. Here he found little Pax and Tottie on the floor. The former had fallen, suffocated, in the act of hauling the latter along by the hair of the head. Aspel did not see them. He stumbled over them, grasped both in his strong arms, and bore them to the staircase. It was by that time a roaring furnace. His power of retaining breath was exhausted. In desperation he turned sharp to the right, and dashed in Miss Lillycrop’s drawing-room door, just as the fire-escape performed the same feat on one of the windows. The gush of air drove back the smoke for one moment. Gasping and reeling to the window, Aspel hurled the children into the bag of the escape. He retained sufficient power to plunge in head first after them and ram them down its throat. All three arrived at the bottom in a state of insensibility.In this state they were borne to a neighbouring house, and soon restored to consciousness.The firemen battled there during the greater part of that night, and finally gained the victory; but, before this happy consummation was attained, poor Miss Lillycrop’s home was gutted and her little property reduced to ashes.In these circumstances she and her little maid found a friend in need in Miss Stivergill, and an asylum in Rosebud Cottage.

As long as a man retains a scrap of self-respect, and struggles, from any motive whatever, against his evil tendencies, his journey to destruction is comparatively slow; but when once he gives way to despair, assumes that he has tried his best in vain, and throws the reins on the neck of his passions, his descent into the dark abyss is terribly rapid.

For a time George Aspel was buoyed up by hope. He hoped that May Maylands might yet come to regard him with favour, though she studiously avoided giving him ground for such hope. He also continued, though faintly, to hope that Sir James Clubley might still think of fulfilling his promises, and, in pursuance of that hope, frequently inquired whether any letters had been left for him at the hotel where he first put up on arriving in London. But, when both of these hopes forsook him, and he found himself in what he deemed the ridiculous position of shopman to a bird-stuffer, without an influential friend in the great city, or the slightest prospect of improving his condition, he gave way to despair.

Before quite giving way, however, he made several attempts to obtain work more suited to his tastes and acquirements, in which efforts he was heartily seconded by Mr Enoch Blurt; but Enoch was about as unknown in London as himself, so that their united efforts failed.

In these circumstances the ambitious youth began to regard himself as a martyr to misfortune, and resolved to enjoy himself as he best might. With a view to this he spent his evenings in places of amusement, with companions whose example and influence helped to drag him down and increase his tendency to drink.

This tendency was in part hereditary. His father had been a confirmed drinker. Although well aware of this, he did not believe in his own fallibility. Few young men of his stamp do. Other men might give way to it, but there was no fear of him. He admitted that he could, and sometimes did, take a stiff glass of grog—but what then? It did him no harm. He was not a slave to it. He could give it up and do without it if he chose—although, it is to be remarked, he had never made the trial, and only assumed this power. To be rather “screwed” now and then was, he admitted, somewhat discreditable; but he wasn’t worse than many others, and it didn’t occur often. Thus he reasoned, half-justifying himself in a thoroughly selfish, sinful course; growling at his “bad luck,” and charging the guilt of his sin, which he said he couldn’t help, on Fate—in other words, on God.

It never occurred to George Aspel that the true way to get out of his troubles was to commit his way to his Maker; to accept the position assigned him; to do the work of a faithful servant therein; to get connected with good society through the medium of churches and young men’s Christian associations, and to spend a few years in establishing a character for trustworthiness, capacity, vigour, and intelligence, which would secure his advancement in life. At least, if such thoughts did occur to him, he refused to entertain them, and resolved to fling care to the dogs and defy fortune.

Of course, it soon became apparent to his employer that there was a great change for the worse in the youth, whom he not only admired for his frank bearing and strapping appearance, but loved as his deliverer from death. Delicacy of feeling, however, prevented Mr Blurt from alluding to dissipations at which he could only guess.

Poverty and distress bring about strange companionships. When Aspel first arrived in London he would have scouted the idea of his having anything whatever to do with such a man as Abel Bones, but he had not proceeded far in his downward course when that disreputable character became, if not a companion, at least an acquaintance.

This state of things was brought about primarily by the patronage which Aspel had extended to the “poor worthless fellow” whom he had so unceremoniously knocked down. But the poor worthless fellow, although born in a lower rank of life, was quite equal to him in natural mental power, and much superior in cunning and villainy. Mr Bones had also a bold, reckless air and nature, which were attractive to this descendant of the sea-kings. Moreover, he possessed a power of mingling flattery with humbug in a way that made his victim fall rather easily into his toils.

Revenge, as we have said, lay at the bottom of Abel Bones’ desire to become better acquainted with Aspel, but profit soon took the place of revenge. Mr Bones earned his livelihood chiefly by appropriating what belonged to other people. He was not particular as to what he took, or how he took it, but on the whole preferred easy work (like most people) and large profit. Being a man of bold, ambitious views, he had often thought of forgery, but a neglected education stood in the way of that. Being also a man of resource, he did not doubt that this, like many other difficulties, would ere long succumb to his perseverance. While in this frame of mind it occurred to him that he might make a tool of his new acquaintance and would-be patron. At the same time he had penetration enough to perceive that his intended tool was a dangerous instrument, highly-tempered and sharp-set, with a will of its own, not yet quite demoralised, and not by any means to be played with.

It might be tedious to trace the steps and winding ways by which Abel Bones led his victim from one piece of impropriety to another—always concealing his real character, and playing therôleof an unfortunate man, willing to work, but unable to find employment—until he almost had him in his toils.

“It’s of no use your dancing attendance on me any longer, Bones,” said Aspel one day, as the former appeared at the door of the ornithological shop. “I have all the will to help you, but I have not the power. My friends have failed me, and I can do no more than keep my own soul in my body. You must look to some one else with more influence than I possess.”

“That’s a bad job, sir,” returned Bones, with a downcast look. “I’ve bin down at the docks all day, an’ earned only enough to get a plate of bacon and beans. Surely there’s somethin’ wrong when a cove that’s willin’ to work must starve; and there’s my wife and child starvin’ too. Seems to me that a cove is justified in stealin’ in the circumstances.”

He cast a sidelong glance at Aspel. It was the first time he had ventured to suggest dishonest intentions. If they should be taken ill, he could turn it off as a jest; if taken well, he could proceed.

“I’m very sorry for you, Bones,” said Aspel, not noticing the hint, “very sorry, but what can I do? I have not a copper left beyond what I absolutely require.”

“Well, sir, I know that you can do nothing, but now that my wife and child are actually starvin’, I really don’t see the sin of helpin’ myself to a loaf at the nearest baker’s, and giving him leg-bail for it.”

“Nothing justifies stealing,” said Aspel.

“D’ee think not, sir?” said Bones. “If you saw your wife now, supposin’ you had one, at the pint of death with hunger, an’ you saw a loaf lyin’ as didn’t belong to you, would you let her die?”

Aspel thought of May Maylands.

“I don’t know,” he replied, “what I shoulddo. All that I say is, that stealing is unjustifiable.”

The argument was stopped at this point by the entrance of a small telegraph message-boy.

Bones was startled by his sudden entrance.

“Well, good-night, sir, we’ll talk that matter over some other time,” he said quickly, pulling his wideawake well over his face as he went out, and giving the message-boy a prolonged stare.

The boy paid no regard to him, but, turning to Aspel, introduced himself as Peter Pax.

“What! the comrade-in-arms of my friend Phil Maylands?” asked Aspel.

“The same, at your service,” replied the small messenger; “an’ if you are the friend he talks to me so much about, as goes by the name of George Aspel, an’ is descended in a direct line from the old sea-kings, I’m proud to make your acquaintance.”

Aspel laughed at the consummate self-possession of the boy, and shaking hands with him heartily as a comrade of their common friend Phil, bade him take a seat, which he immediately did on the counter.

“You’re surrounded by pleasant company here,” observed Pax, gazing intently at the pelican of the wilderness.

“Well, yes; but it’s rather silent company,” said Aspel.

“Did that fellow, now,” continued Pax, pointing to the owl, “die of surprise?”

“Perhaps he did, but I wasn’t present at his death,” returned the other.

“Well, now, I do like this sort o’ thing.”

Little Pax said this with such genuine feeling, and looked round him with such obvious interest, that Aspel, with some surprise, asked him why he liked it.

“Why? because from my earliest years I always was fond of animals. No matter what sort they wos, I liked ’em all—birds an’ beasts an’ fishes, flyers and creepers, an’ squeakers and flutterers,” said the boy, clasping both hands over one knee, and rocking himself to and fro on the counter, while he gazed into the owl’s face with the air of one whose mind is rambling far away into the remote past.

“Once on a time,” he continued, sadly, “I dwelt in the country. I was born in the country. I’m a sort o’ country gentleman by nature, so to speak, and would have bin revellin’ in the country to this day if a perwerse fate hadn’t driven me into the town—a very perwerse fate indeed.”

“Indeed?” said Aspel, unable to restrain a laugh at his visitor’s old-fashioned ways, “what sort of fate was it?”

“A perwerse one, didn’t I tell you?”

“Yes, but wherein consisted its perversity? How did it act, you know?”

“Ah, its perwersity consisted in drivin’ me into town in a market-cart,” said Pax. “You must know that my perwerse fate was a uncle. He was a big brute. I don’t mean to speak of ’im disrespectfully. I merely give ’im his proper name. He was a market-gardener and kept cows—also a pump. He had a wife and child—a little girl. Ah! a sweet child it was.”

“Indeed,” said Aspel, as the boy relapsed into a silent contemplative gaze at the pelican.

“Yes,” resumed Pax, with a sigh, “itwasa child, that was. Her name was Mariar, but we called ’er Merry. Her father’s name—the Brute’s, you know—was Blackadder, and a blacker adder don’t wriggle its slimy way through filthy slums nowhere—supposin’ him to be yet unscragged, for he was uncommon hard on his wife—that’s my Aunt Georgie.Hername was Georgianna. I wonder how it is that peoplenevergive people their right names! Well, Mr Aspel, you must know I was nuss to baby. An amytoor nuss I was—got no pay for it, but a considerable allowance o’ kicks from the Brute, who wasn’t fond o’ me, as I’d done ’im a mortal injury, somehow, by being his defunct brother’s orphan child. You understand?”

George Aspel having professed a thorough comprehension of these family relationships, little Pax went on.

“Well then, bein’ nuss to Merry, I used to take ’er out long walks in the fields among the flowers, an’ I was used to catch butterflies and beetles for ’er, an’ brought ’em home an’ stuck pins through ’em an’ made c’lections; an’ oh, Ididlike to scuttle about the green lanes an’ chase the cows, an’ roll on the grass in the sunshine with Merry, an’ tear an bu’st my trousers, for w’ich I got spanked by the Brute, but didn’t care a rap, because that brought me double allowance o’ coddlin’ from Aunt Georgie. One day the Brute drove me into town in the market-cart; set me down in the middle of a street, and drove away, an’ I haven’t seen him, nor Aunt Georgie, nor Merry from that day to this.”

“Dear me!” exclaimed George Aspel, rather shocked at this sudden and unexpected termination of the narrative; “do you mean to say—”

“It strikes me,” interrupted Pax, looking pointedly at the door, “that you’ve got another visitor.”

Aspel turned and saw the dishevelled curls and pretty face of Tottie Bones in the doorway.

“Please, sir,” she said, entering, “I didn’t like to interrupt you, but Miss Lillycrop sent me to say that there was a strange smell of singein’ in the ’ouse, an’ would Mr Aspel be so kind as to come and try to find out where it was, as she didn’t understand such things.”

“Smell of singeing, child!” exclaimed Aspel, rising at once and putting on his coat and hat. “Did you search for the cause, especially about your kitchen fireplace?”

“O yes, sir,” exclaimed Tottie, “an’ we couldn’t see no cause at all—only the flue seemed to be ’otter than usual. We looked all over the ’ouse too, but couldn’t see nothink—but we could feel a most drefful smell.”

Desiring Mrs Murridge to call Mr Blurt to attend to the shop, George Aspel hurried out.

“Don’t try to keep up with us,” said Aspel to Tottie; “I must run. It may be fire!”

“Oh! please, sir, don’t leave me behind,” pleaded the child.

“All right—we won’t; kitch hold of my hand; give the other to Mr Aspel,” said Peter Pax.

Holding on to her two friends, Tottie was swept along the streets at a rate which she had never before experienced—at least not as a foot-passenger,—and in a few minutes they were in Miss Lillycrop’s dwelling.

That excellent lady was in a state of dreadful perturbation, as well she might be, for the house was filled with a thin smoke of very peculiar odour.

Few persons except the initiated are fully alive to the immense importance of checking fire at its commencement. The smoke, although not dense enough to attract the attention of people outside, was sufficiently so to make those inside commence an anxious search, when they should have sent at once for the fire-engine.

Three families occupied the tenement. Miss Lillycrop’s portion was at the top. A dealer in oils and stores of a miscellaneous and unsavoury kind occupied the basement.

George Aspel at once suspected and made for this point, followed by Miss Lillycrop, who bade Tottie remain in her kitchen, with the intention of keeping her at once out of danger and out of the way.

“There’s certainly fire somewhere, Pax; run, call the engines out,” said Aspel, descending three steps at a time.

Pax took the last six steps at a bound, and rushed along the street, overturning in his flight two boys bigger than himself, and a wheelbarrow.

The owner of the cellars was absent and his door locked. Where was the key? No one knew, but George Aspel knew of a key that had done some service in times past. He retreated a few steps, and, rushing at the door with all his weight and momentum, dashed it in with a tremendous crash, and went headlong into the cellar, from out of which came belching flames and smoke. Re-issuing instantly therefrom with singed hair and glaring eyes, he found Miss Lillycrop lying on her back in a faint, where the fire and smoke had floored her. To gather her up and dash into the street was the work of a moment. Scarcely less rapid was the rush of the fire, which, having been richly fed and long pent up in the cellar, now dashed up the staircases like a giant refreshed.

Meanwhile little Pax ran headlong into a policeman, and was collared and throttled.

“Now then, young ’un!”

“Fire! station!” gasped Pax.

“All right, this way—just round the corner,” said the man in blue, releasing his captive, and running along with him; but the man in blue was stout, middle-aged, and heavy. Pax outran him, saw the red lamp, found the fire-station door open, and leaped through with a yell of “Fire!” that nearly split his little lungs.

The personification of calmness in the form of a fireman rose and demanded “Where?”

Before Pax could gasp the address, two other personifications of calmness, who had been snoring on trestle-beds, dressed and booted, when he entered, now moved swiftly out, axed and helmeted. There was a clattering of hoofs outside. The double doors flew open, and the red engine rolled out almost of its own accord. More brass helmets were seen flashing outside.

“Are you sure of the address, youngster?” asked one of the imperturbable firemen, settling his chinstrap more comfortably.

“Are you sure o’ your own grandmother?” said Pax.

“You’re cheeky,” replied the man, with a smile.

“You make haste,” retorted Pax; “three minutes allowed to get under weigh. Two and a half gone already. Two-and-six fine if late, besides a—”

The whip cracked, and Pax, leaping forward, seized the side of the engine. Six brass helmets bounded into the air, and their owners settled on their seats, as the horses made that momentary pause and semi-rear which often precedes a dashing start. The man whom he had been insulting held out a hand; Pax seized it, and was next moment in a terrestrial heaven, while calmness personified sauntered into the back office to make a note of the circumstance, and resume his pipe.

Oh! it was a brief but maddening ride. To experience such a magnificent rush seemed to Pax worth living for. It was not more than half-a-mile; but in that brief space there were three corners to turn like zigzag lightning, which they did chiefly on the two near wheels, and there were carts, vans, cabs, drays, apple-stalls, children, dogs, and cats innumerable. To have run over or upset these would have been small gratification to the comparatively tender spirit of Pax, but toshavethem; to graze the apple-stalls; to just scrape a lamp-post with your heart in your mouth; to hear the tremendous roar of the firemen; to see the abject terror of some people, the excitement of others, the obedient “skedaddling” of all, while the sparks from the pump-boiler trailed behind, and the two bull’s-eyes glared ahead, so that the engine resembled some awful monster rushing through thick and thin, and waving in triumph its fiery tail—ah! words are but feeble exponents of thought: it was excruciating ecstasy! To have been born for this one burst, and died, would have been better than never to have been born at all,—in the estimation of the enthusiastic Peter Pax!

A few minutes after George Aspel had borne the fainting Miss Lillycrop from the house the engine arrived. Some of the men swarmed into the house, and dived to the basement, as if fire and smoke were their natural food. Others got the engine to work in a few seconds, but already the flames had rushed into the lower rooms and passages and licked away the windows. The thick stream of water had just begun to descend on the fire, when another engine came rattling to the field, and its brazen-headed warriors leaped down to join the battle.

“Oh!” groaned Miss Lillycrop at that moment, recovering in Aspel’s arms. “Oh! Tottie—To-o-o-o-tie’s in the kitchen!”

Little Pax heard and understood. In one moment he bounded through the blazing doorway and up the smoking stair.

Just then the fire-escape came into view, towering up against the black sky.

“Hold her, some one!” cried Aspel, dropping his poor burden into the ready arms of a policeman.

“The boy’s lost!” he exclaimed, leaping after Pax.

Aspel was a practised diver. Many a time had he tried his powers under the Atlantic waves on the west of Ireland. He drew one long breath, and was in the attic kitchen before it was expended. Here he found little Pax and Tottie on the floor. The former had fallen, suffocated, in the act of hauling the latter along by the hair of the head. Aspel did not see them. He stumbled over them, grasped both in his strong arms, and bore them to the staircase. It was by that time a roaring furnace. His power of retaining breath was exhausted. In desperation he turned sharp to the right, and dashed in Miss Lillycrop’s drawing-room door, just as the fire-escape performed the same feat on one of the windows. The gush of air drove back the smoke for one moment. Gasping and reeling to the window, Aspel hurled the children into the bag of the escape. He retained sufficient power to plunge in head first after them and ram them down its throat. All three arrived at the bottom in a state of insensibility.

In this state they were borne to a neighbouring house, and soon restored to consciousness.

The firemen battled there during the greater part of that night, and finally gained the victory; but, before this happy consummation was attained, poor Miss Lillycrop’s home was gutted and her little property reduced to ashes.

In these circumstances she and her little maid found a friend in need in Miss Stivergill, and an asylum in Rosebud Cottage.

Chapter Sixteen.Begins with Juvenile Flirtation, and Ends with Canine Cremation.The disreputable nature of the wind which blows good to nobody has been so frequently referred to and commented on by writers in general that it merits only passing notice here. The particular breeze which fanned the flames that consumed the property that belonged to Miss Lillycrop, and drove that lady to a charming retreat in the country thereby rescuing her from a trying existence in town, also blew small Peter Pax in the same direction.“Boy,” said Miss Stivergill in stern tones, on the occasion of her first visit to the hospital in which Pax was laid up for a short time after his adventure, “you’re a good boy. I like you. The first of your sex I ever said that to.”“Thank you, ma’am. I hope I shan’t be the last,” returned Pax languidly, for he was still weak from the effects of the partial roasting and suffocation he had undergone.“Miss Lillycrop desired me to come and see you,” resumed Miss Stivergill. “She has told me how bravely you tried to rescue poor little Bones, who—”“Not much hurt, I hope?” asked the boy eagerly.“No, very little—scarcely at all, I’m glad to say. Those inexplicable creatures called firemen, who seem to me what you may call fire-fiends of a good-natured and recklessly hilarious type, say that her having fallen down with her nose close to the ground, where there is usually a free current of air, saved her. At all events sheissaved, and quite well.”“I hope I didn’t haul much of the hair out of her poor head?” said Pax.“Apparently not, if one may judge from the very large quantity that remains,” replied his visitor.“You see, ma’am, in neck-or-nothin’ scrimmages o’ that sort,” continued Pax, in the off-hand tone of one much experienced in such scrimmages, “one can’t well stop to pick and choose; besides, I couldn’t see well, d’ee see? an’ her hair came first to hand, you know, an’ was convenient. It’s well for both on us, however, that that six foot odd o’ magnificence came to the rescue in time. I like ’im, I do, an’ shall owe ’im a good turn for savin’ little Bones.—What was her other name, did you say, ma’am?”“I didn’t mention any other name, but I believe it is Tottie.—Now, little Peter, when the doctor gives you leave to be moved, you are to come to me to recruit your health in the country.”“Thank you, ma’am. You’re too good,” said Pax, becoming languid again. “Pray give my best respects to Tottie and Miss Lillycrop.”“So small, and so pretty, and such a wise little thing,” murmured Miss Stivergill, unaware, apparently, that she soliloquised aloud.“So big, and so ugly, and such a good-hearted stoopid old thing!” murmured Pax; but it is only just to add that he was too polite to allow the murmur to be heard.“Good-bye, little Peter, till we meet again,” said Miss Stivergill, turning away abruptly.“Farewell, ma’am,” said Pax, “farewell; and if for ever—”He stopped, because his visitor was gone.According to this arrangement, Pax found himself, not many days after, revelling in the enjoyment of what he styled “tooral-ooral” felicity—among cows and hay, sunshine and milk, buttercups and cream, green meadows and blue skies,—free as a butterfly from telegraphic messagery and other postal cares. He was allowed to ramble about at will, and, as little Bones was supposed to be slightly invalided by her late semi-suffocation, she was frequently allowed by her indulgent mistress to accompany him.Seated on a stile one day, Pax drew Tottie out as to her early life, and afterwards gave an account of his own in exchange.“How strange,” said Tottie, “that you and I should both have had bybies to nuss w’en we was young, ain’t it?”“It is, Tot—very remarkable. And we’ve had a sad fate, both of us, in havin’ bin wrenched from our babbies. But the wrench couldn’t have bin so bad in your case as in mine, of course, for your babby was nobody to you, whereas mine was a full cousin, an’ such a dear one too. Oh, Tot, you’ve no notion what splendid games we used to have, an’ such c’lections of things I used to make for ’er! Of course she was too young to understand it, you know, for she could neither walk nor speak, and I don’t think could understand, though she crowed sometimes as if she did. My! how she crowed!—But what’s the matter, Tot?”Tottie was pouting.“I don’t like your bybie at all—not one bit,” she said emphatically.“Not like my babby!” exclaimed Pax.“No, I don’t, ’cause it isn’t ’alf so good as mine.”“Well,” returned Pax, with a smile, “I was took from mine. I didn’t forsake it like you.”“Ididn’tforsake it,” cried Tottie, with flashing eyes, and shaking her thick curls indignantly—which latter, by the way, since her coming under the stern influence of Miss Stivergill, had been disentangled, and hung about her like a golden glory.—“I left it to go to service, and mother takes care of it till I return home. I won’t speak to you any more. I hateyourbybie, and Iadoremine!”So saying, little Bones jumped up and ran away. Small Pax made no attempt to stop her or to follow. He was too much taken aback by the sudden burst of passion to be able for more than a prolonged whistle, followed by a still more prolonged stare. Thereafter he sauntered away slowly, ruminating, perhaps, on the fickle character of woman, even in her undeveloped stages.Tottie climbed hastily over a stile and turned into a green lane, where she meant to give full vent to her feelings in a satisfactory cry, when she was met face to face by Mr Abel Bones.“Why, father!” she exclaimed, running to her sire with a look of joyful surprise, for occasional bad treatment had failed to dry up the bottomless well of love in her little heart.“Hush! Tottie; there—take my hand, an’ don’t kick up such a row. You needn’t look so scared at seein’ me here. I’m fond o’ the country, you know, an’ I’ve come out to ’ave a little walk and a little talk with you.—Who was that you was talkin’ with just now?”Tottie told him.“Stoppin’ here, I s’pose?”“Yes. He’s bin here for some time, but goes away soon—now that he’s better. It was him as saved my life—at least him and Mr Aspel, you know.”“No, I don’t know, Tot. Let’s hear all about it,” replied Mr Bones, with a look of unwonted gravity.Tottie went off at once into a glowing account of the fire and the rescue, to which her father listened with profound attention, not unmingled with surprise. Then he reverted to the aspect of the surrounding country.“It’s a pretty place you live in here, Tot, an’ a nice house. It’s there the lady lives, I suppose who has the strange fancy to keep her wealth in a box on the sideboard? Well, itiscurious, but there’s no accountin’ for the fancies o’ the rich, Tot. An’ you say she keeps no men-servants about her? Well, that’s wise, for men are dangerous characters for women to ’ave about ’em. She’s quite right. There’s a dear little dog too, she keeps, I’m told. Is that the only one she owns?”“Yes, it’s the only one, and such a darlin’ it is, andsofond of me!” exclaimed Tottie.“Ah, yes, wery small, but wery noisy an’ vicious,” remarked Mr Bones, with a sudden scowl, which fortunately his daughter did not see.“O no, father; little Floppart ain’t vicious, though itisawful noisy w’en it chooses.”“Well, Tot, I’d give a good deal to see that dear little Floppart, and make friends with it. D’you think you could manage to get it to follow you here?”“Oh, easily. I’ll run an’ fetch it; but p’r’aps you had better come to the house. I know they’d like to see you, for they’resokind to me.”Mr Bones laughed sarcastically, and expressed his belief that they wouldn’t like to see him at all.Just at that moment Miss Stivergill came round the turn of the lane and confronted them.“Well, little Bones, whom have you here?” asked the lady, with a stern look at Mr Bones.“Please, ma’am, it’s father. He ’appened to be in this neighbourhood, and came to see me.”“Your father!” exclaimed Miss Stivergill, with a look of surprise. “Indeed!”“Yes, ma’am,” said Bones, politely taking off his hat and looking her coolly in the face. “I ’ope it’s no offence, but I came a bit out o’ my way to see ’er. She says you’ve bin’ wery kind to her.”“Well, she says the truth. I mean to be kind to her,” returned Miss Stivergill, as sternly as before.—“Take your father to the cottage, child, and tell them to give him a glass of beer. If you see Miss Lillycrop, tell her I’ve gone to the village, and won’t be back for an hour.” So saying, Miss Stivergill walked down the lane with masculine strides, leaving Tottie pleased, and her father smiling.“I don’t want no beer, Tot,” said the latter. “But you go to the cottage and fetch me that dear little dog. I want to see it; and don’t forget the lady’s message to Miss Lillycrop—but be sure you don’t say I’m waitin’ for you. Don’t mention me to nobody. D’ee understand?”Poor Tottie, with a slight and undefined misgiving at her heart, professed to understand, and went off.In a few minutes she returned with the little dog—a lively poodle—which at first showed violent and unmistakable objections to being friendly with Mr Bones. But a scrap of meat, which that worthy had brought in his pocket, and a few soothing words, soon modified the objection.Presently Mr Bones pulled a small muzzle from his pocket.“D’you think, now, that Floppart would let you put it on ’er, Tot?”Tot was sure she would, and soon had the muzzle on.“That’s right; now, hold ’er fast a moment—just a—there—!”He sprang at and caught the dog by the throat, choked a snarling yelp in the bud, and held it fast.“Dear, dear, how wild it has got all of a sudden! W’y, it must be ill—p’r’aps mad. It’s well you put that muzzle on, Tot.”While he spoke Abel Bones thrust the dog into one of the capacious pockets of his coat.“Now, Tot,” he said, somewhat sternly, “I durstn’t let this dog go. It wants a doctor very bad. You go back to the ’ouse and tell ’em a man said so. You needn’t say what man; call me a philanthropist if you choose, an’ tell ’em I’ll send it back w’en it recovers. But you needn’t tell ’em anything until you’re axed, you know—it might get me into trouble, d’ee see, an’ say to Miss Stivergill it wasn’t your father as took the dog, but another man.”He leaped over a low part of the hedge and was gone, leaving poor Tottie in a state of bewildered anxiety on the other side.Under the influence of fear Tottie told the lies her father had bid her tell, and thereafter dwelt at Rosebud Cottage with an evil conscience and a heavy heart.Having gained the high-road, Mr Bones sauntered easily to the railway station, took a third-class ticket for Charing Cross, and in due time found himself passing along the Strand. In the course of that journey poor little Floppart lay on its back in the bottom of its captor’s pocket, with a finger and thumb gently pressing her windpipe. Whenever she became restive, the finger and thumb tightened, and this with such unvarying regularity that she soon came to understand the advantage of lying still. She did, however, make sundry attempts to escape—once very violently, when the guard was opening the carriage-door to let Mr Bones enter, and again almost as violently at Charing Cross, when Mr Bones got out. Indeed, the dog had well-nigh got off, and was restored to its former place and position with difficulty.Turning into Chancery Lane, and crossing over to Holborn, Abel Bones continued his way to Newgate, where, appropriately enough, he stopped and gazed grimly up at the massive walls.“Don’t be in a ’urry,” said a very small boy, with dirt and daring in equal proportions on his face, “it’ll wait for you.”Mr Bones made a tremendous demonstration of an intention to rush at the boy, who precipitately fled, and the former passed quietly on.At St. Martin’s-le-Grand he paused again.“Strange,” he muttered, “there seems to be some sort o’ fate as links me wi’ that Post-Office. It was here I began my London life as a porter, and lost my situation because the Postmaster-General couldn’t see the propriety of my opening letters that contained coin and postage-stamps and fi’-pun’ notes, which was quite unreasonable, for I had a special talent that way, and even the clargy tell us that our talents was given us to be used. It wasn’t far from here where I sot my little nephy down, that time I got rid of him, and it was goin’ up these wery steps I met with the man I’m tryin’ my best to bring to grief, an’ that same man wants to marry one of the girls in the Post-Office, and now, I find, has saved my Tot from bein’ burnt alive! Wery odd! It was here, too, that—”Floppart at this moment turned the flow of his meditations by making a final and desperate struggle to be free. She shot out of his pocket and dropped with a bursting yell on the pavement. Recovering her feet before Bones recovered from his surprise she fled. Thought is quick as the lightning-flash. Bones knew that dogs find their way home mysteriously from any distance. He knew himself to be unable to run down Floppart. He saw his schemes thwarted. He adopted a mean device, shouted “Mad dog!” and rushed after it. A small errand-boy shrieked with glee, flung his basket at it, and followed up the chase. Floppart took round by St. Paul’s Churchyard. However sane she might have been at starting, it is certain that she was mad with terror in five minutes. She threaded her way among wheels and legs at full speed in perfect safety. It was afterwards estimated that seventeen cabmen, four gentlemen, two apple-women, three-and-twenty errand-boys—more or less,—and one policeman, flung umbrellas, sticks, baskets, and various missiles at her, with the effect of damaging innumerable shins and overturning many individuals, but without hurting a hair of Floppart’s body during her wild but brief career. Bones did not wish to recapture her. He wished her dead, and for that end loudly reiterated the calumny as to madness. Floppart circled round the grand cathedral erected by Wren and got into Cheapside. Here, doubling like a hare, she careered round the statue of Peel and went blindly back to St. Martin’s-le-Grand, as if to add yet another link to the chain of fate which bound her arch-pursuer to the General Post-Office. By way of completing the chain, she turned in at the gate, rushed to the rear of the building, dashed in at an open door, and scurried along a passage. Here the crowd was stayed, but the policeman followed heroically. The passage was cut short by a glass door, but a narrow staircase descended to the left. “Any port in a storm” is a proverb as well known among dogs as men. Down went Floppart to the basement of the building, invading the sanctity of the letter-carriers’ kitchen orsalle-à-manger. A dozen stalwart postmen leaped from their meals to rush at the intruder. In the midst of the confusion the policeman’s truncheon was seen to sway aloft. Next instant the vaulted roof rang with a terrible cry, which truth compels us to state was Floppart’s dying yell.None of those who had begun the chase were in at the death—save the policeman,—not even Abel Bones, for that worthy did not by any means court publicity. Besides, he felt pretty sure that his end was gained. He remembered, no doubt, the rule of the Office, that no letters or other things that have been posted can be returned to the sender, and, having seen the dog safely posted, he went home with a relieved mind.Meanwhile the policeman took the remains of poor Floppart by the tail, holding it at arm’s-length for fear of the deadly poison supposed to be on its lips; and left the kitchen by a long passage. The men of the Post-Office returned to their food and their duties. Those who manage the details of her Majesty’s mails cannot afford to waste time when on duty. The policeman, left to himself, lost himself in the labyrinth of the basement. He made his way at last into the warm and agreeable room in which are kept the boilers that drive the engine that works the lifts. He was accosted by a stalwart stoker, whose appearance and air were as genial as the atmosphere of his apartment.“Hallo!” said he, “what ’ave you got there?”“A mad dog,” answered the policeman.—“I say, stoker, have you any ashpit where I could bury him?”“Couldn’t allow ’im burial in our ashpit,” replied the stoker, with a decided shake of the head; “altogether out of the question.”The policeman looked at the dead dog and at the stoker with a perplexed air.“I say, look here,” he said, “couldn’t we—ah—don’t you think that we might—”He paused, and cast a furtive glance at the furnaces.“What! you don’t mean—cremate ’im?”The policeman nodded.“Well, now, I don’t know that it’s actooally against the rules of the GPO,” replied the stoker, with a meditative frown, “but it seems to me a raither unconstitootional proceedin’. It’s out o’ the way of our usual line of business, but—”“That’s right,” said the policeman, as the stoker, who was an obliging man, took up a great shovel and flung open the furnace-door.A terrific glare of intense heat and light shot out, appearing as if desirous of licking the stoker and policeman into its dreadful embrace.“I don’t half like it,” said the stoker, glancing in; “the Postmaster-General might object, you know.”“Not a bit of it, he’s too much of a gentleman to object—come,” said the policeman encouragingly.The stoker held up the shovel. The body of Floppart was put thereon, after the removal of its collar. There was one good swing of the shovel, followed by a heave, and the little dog fell into the heart of the fiery furnace. The stoker shut the great iron door with a clang, and looked at the policeman solemnly. The policeman returned the look, thanked him, and retired. In less probably than three minutes Floppart’s body was reduced to its gaseous elements, vomited forth from the furnace chimney, and finally dissipated by the winds of heaven.Thus did this, the first recorded and authentic case of cremation in the United Kingdom, emanate—as many a new, advantageous, and national measure has emanated before—from the prolific womb of the General Post-Office.

The disreputable nature of the wind which blows good to nobody has been so frequently referred to and commented on by writers in general that it merits only passing notice here. The particular breeze which fanned the flames that consumed the property that belonged to Miss Lillycrop, and drove that lady to a charming retreat in the country thereby rescuing her from a trying existence in town, also blew small Peter Pax in the same direction.

“Boy,” said Miss Stivergill in stern tones, on the occasion of her first visit to the hospital in which Pax was laid up for a short time after his adventure, “you’re a good boy. I like you. The first of your sex I ever said that to.”

“Thank you, ma’am. I hope I shan’t be the last,” returned Pax languidly, for he was still weak from the effects of the partial roasting and suffocation he had undergone.

“Miss Lillycrop desired me to come and see you,” resumed Miss Stivergill. “She has told me how bravely you tried to rescue poor little Bones, who—”

“Not much hurt, I hope?” asked the boy eagerly.

“No, very little—scarcely at all, I’m glad to say. Those inexplicable creatures called firemen, who seem to me what you may call fire-fiends of a good-natured and recklessly hilarious type, say that her having fallen down with her nose close to the ground, where there is usually a free current of air, saved her. At all events sheissaved, and quite well.”

“I hope I didn’t haul much of the hair out of her poor head?” said Pax.

“Apparently not, if one may judge from the very large quantity that remains,” replied his visitor.

“You see, ma’am, in neck-or-nothin’ scrimmages o’ that sort,” continued Pax, in the off-hand tone of one much experienced in such scrimmages, “one can’t well stop to pick and choose; besides, I couldn’t see well, d’ee see? an’ her hair came first to hand, you know, an’ was convenient. It’s well for both on us, however, that that six foot odd o’ magnificence came to the rescue in time. I like ’im, I do, an’ shall owe ’im a good turn for savin’ little Bones.—What was her other name, did you say, ma’am?”

“I didn’t mention any other name, but I believe it is Tottie.—Now, little Peter, when the doctor gives you leave to be moved, you are to come to me to recruit your health in the country.”

“Thank you, ma’am. You’re too good,” said Pax, becoming languid again. “Pray give my best respects to Tottie and Miss Lillycrop.”

“So small, and so pretty, and such a wise little thing,” murmured Miss Stivergill, unaware, apparently, that she soliloquised aloud.

“So big, and so ugly, and such a good-hearted stoopid old thing!” murmured Pax; but it is only just to add that he was too polite to allow the murmur to be heard.

“Good-bye, little Peter, till we meet again,” said Miss Stivergill, turning away abruptly.

“Farewell, ma’am,” said Pax, “farewell; and if for ever—”

He stopped, because his visitor was gone.

According to this arrangement, Pax found himself, not many days after, revelling in the enjoyment of what he styled “tooral-ooral” felicity—among cows and hay, sunshine and milk, buttercups and cream, green meadows and blue skies,—free as a butterfly from telegraphic messagery and other postal cares. He was allowed to ramble about at will, and, as little Bones was supposed to be slightly invalided by her late semi-suffocation, she was frequently allowed by her indulgent mistress to accompany him.

Seated on a stile one day, Pax drew Tottie out as to her early life, and afterwards gave an account of his own in exchange.

“How strange,” said Tottie, “that you and I should both have had bybies to nuss w’en we was young, ain’t it?”

“It is, Tot—very remarkable. And we’ve had a sad fate, both of us, in havin’ bin wrenched from our babbies. But the wrench couldn’t have bin so bad in your case as in mine, of course, for your babby was nobody to you, whereas mine was a full cousin, an’ such a dear one too. Oh, Tot, you’ve no notion what splendid games we used to have, an’ such c’lections of things I used to make for ’er! Of course she was too young to understand it, you know, for she could neither walk nor speak, and I don’t think could understand, though she crowed sometimes as if she did. My! how she crowed!—But what’s the matter, Tot?”

Tottie was pouting.

“I don’t like your bybie at all—not one bit,” she said emphatically.

“Not like my babby!” exclaimed Pax.

“No, I don’t, ’cause it isn’t ’alf so good as mine.”

“Well,” returned Pax, with a smile, “I was took from mine. I didn’t forsake it like you.”

“Ididn’tforsake it,” cried Tottie, with flashing eyes, and shaking her thick curls indignantly—which latter, by the way, since her coming under the stern influence of Miss Stivergill, had been disentangled, and hung about her like a golden glory.—“I left it to go to service, and mother takes care of it till I return home. I won’t speak to you any more. I hateyourbybie, and Iadoremine!”

So saying, little Bones jumped up and ran away. Small Pax made no attempt to stop her or to follow. He was too much taken aback by the sudden burst of passion to be able for more than a prolonged whistle, followed by a still more prolonged stare. Thereafter he sauntered away slowly, ruminating, perhaps, on the fickle character of woman, even in her undeveloped stages.

Tottie climbed hastily over a stile and turned into a green lane, where she meant to give full vent to her feelings in a satisfactory cry, when she was met face to face by Mr Abel Bones.

“Why, father!” she exclaimed, running to her sire with a look of joyful surprise, for occasional bad treatment had failed to dry up the bottomless well of love in her little heart.

“Hush! Tottie; there—take my hand, an’ don’t kick up such a row. You needn’t look so scared at seein’ me here. I’m fond o’ the country, you know, an’ I’ve come out to ’ave a little walk and a little talk with you.—Who was that you was talkin’ with just now?”

Tottie told him.

“Stoppin’ here, I s’pose?”

“Yes. He’s bin here for some time, but goes away soon—now that he’s better. It was him as saved my life—at least him and Mr Aspel, you know.”

“No, I don’t know, Tot. Let’s hear all about it,” replied Mr Bones, with a look of unwonted gravity.

Tottie went off at once into a glowing account of the fire and the rescue, to which her father listened with profound attention, not unmingled with surprise. Then he reverted to the aspect of the surrounding country.

“It’s a pretty place you live in here, Tot, an’ a nice house. It’s there the lady lives, I suppose who has the strange fancy to keep her wealth in a box on the sideboard? Well, itiscurious, but there’s no accountin’ for the fancies o’ the rich, Tot. An’ you say she keeps no men-servants about her? Well, that’s wise, for men are dangerous characters for women to ’ave about ’em. She’s quite right. There’s a dear little dog too, she keeps, I’m told. Is that the only one she owns?”

“Yes, it’s the only one, and such a darlin’ it is, andsofond of me!” exclaimed Tottie.

“Ah, yes, wery small, but wery noisy an’ vicious,” remarked Mr Bones, with a sudden scowl, which fortunately his daughter did not see.

“O no, father; little Floppart ain’t vicious, though itisawful noisy w’en it chooses.”

“Well, Tot, I’d give a good deal to see that dear little Floppart, and make friends with it. D’you think you could manage to get it to follow you here?”

“Oh, easily. I’ll run an’ fetch it; but p’r’aps you had better come to the house. I know they’d like to see you, for they’resokind to me.”

Mr Bones laughed sarcastically, and expressed his belief that they wouldn’t like to see him at all.

Just at that moment Miss Stivergill came round the turn of the lane and confronted them.

“Well, little Bones, whom have you here?” asked the lady, with a stern look at Mr Bones.

“Please, ma’am, it’s father. He ’appened to be in this neighbourhood, and came to see me.”

“Your father!” exclaimed Miss Stivergill, with a look of surprise. “Indeed!”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Bones, politely taking off his hat and looking her coolly in the face. “I ’ope it’s no offence, but I came a bit out o’ my way to see ’er. She says you’ve bin’ wery kind to her.”

“Well, she says the truth. I mean to be kind to her,” returned Miss Stivergill, as sternly as before.—“Take your father to the cottage, child, and tell them to give him a glass of beer. If you see Miss Lillycrop, tell her I’ve gone to the village, and won’t be back for an hour.” So saying, Miss Stivergill walked down the lane with masculine strides, leaving Tottie pleased, and her father smiling.

“I don’t want no beer, Tot,” said the latter. “But you go to the cottage and fetch me that dear little dog. I want to see it; and don’t forget the lady’s message to Miss Lillycrop—but be sure you don’t say I’m waitin’ for you. Don’t mention me to nobody. D’ee understand?”

Poor Tottie, with a slight and undefined misgiving at her heart, professed to understand, and went off.

In a few minutes she returned with the little dog—a lively poodle—which at first showed violent and unmistakable objections to being friendly with Mr Bones. But a scrap of meat, which that worthy had brought in his pocket, and a few soothing words, soon modified the objection.

Presently Mr Bones pulled a small muzzle from his pocket.

“D’you think, now, that Floppart would let you put it on ’er, Tot?”

Tot was sure she would, and soon had the muzzle on.

“That’s right; now, hold ’er fast a moment—just a—there—!”

He sprang at and caught the dog by the throat, choked a snarling yelp in the bud, and held it fast.

“Dear, dear, how wild it has got all of a sudden! W’y, it must be ill—p’r’aps mad. It’s well you put that muzzle on, Tot.”

While he spoke Abel Bones thrust the dog into one of the capacious pockets of his coat.

“Now, Tot,” he said, somewhat sternly, “I durstn’t let this dog go. It wants a doctor very bad. You go back to the ’ouse and tell ’em a man said so. You needn’t say what man; call me a philanthropist if you choose, an’ tell ’em I’ll send it back w’en it recovers. But you needn’t tell ’em anything until you’re axed, you know—it might get me into trouble, d’ee see, an’ say to Miss Stivergill it wasn’t your father as took the dog, but another man.”

He leaped over a low part of the hedge and was gone, leaving poor Tottie in a state of bewildered anxiety on the other side.

Under the influence of fear Tottie told the lies her father had bid her tell, and thereafter dwelt at Rosebud Cottage with an evil conscience and a heavy heart.

Having gained the high-road, Mr Bones sauntered easily to the railway station, took a third-class ticket for Charing Cross, and in due time found himself passing along the Strand. In the course of that journey poor little Floppart lay on its back in the bottom of its captor’s pocket, with a finger and thumb gently pressing her windpipe. Whenever she became restive, the finger and thumb tightened, and this with such unvarying regularity that she soon came to understand the advantage of lying still. She did, however, make sundry attempts to escape—once very violently, when the guard was opening the carriage-door to let Mr Bones enter, and again almost as violently at Charing Cross, when Mr Bones got out. Indeed, the dog had well-nigh got off, and was restored to its former place and position with difficulty.

Turning into Chancery Lane, and crossing over to Holborn, Abel Bones continued his way to Newgate, where, appropriately enough, he stopped and gazed grimly up at the massive walls.

“Don’t be in a ’urry,” said a very small boy, with dirt and daring in equal proportions on his face, “it’ll wait for you.”

Mr Bones made a tremendous demonstration of an intention to rush at the boy, who precipitately fled, and the former passed quietly on.

At St. Martin’s-le-Grand he paused again.

“Strange,” he muttered, “there seems to be some sort o’ fate as links me wi’ that Post-Office. It was here I began my London life as a porter, and lost my situation because the Postmaster-General couldn’t see the propriety of my opening letters that contained coin and postage-stamps and fi’-pun’ notes, which was quite unreasonable, for I had a special talent that way, and even the clargy tell us that our talents was given us to be used. It wasn’t far from here where I sot my little nephy down, that time I got rid of him, and it was goin’ up these wery steps I met with the man I’m tryin’ my best to bring to grief, an’ that same man wants to marry one of the girls in the Post-Office, and now, I find, has saved my Tot from bein’ burnt alive! Wery odd! It was here, too, that—”

Floppart at this moment turned the flow of his meditations by making a final and desperate struggle to be free. She shot out of his pocket and dropped with a bursting yell on the pavement. Recovering her feet before Bones recovered from his surprise she fled. Thought is quick as the lightning-flash. Bones knew that dogs find their way home mysteriously from any distance. He knew himself to be unable to run down Floppart. He saw his schemes thwarted. He adopted a mean device, shouted “Mad dog!” and rushed after it. A small errand-boy shrieked with glee, flung his basket at it, and followed up the chase. Floppart took round by St. Paul’s Churchyard. However sane she might have been at starting, it is certain that she was mad with terror in five minutes. She threaded her way among wheels and legs at full speed in perfect safety. It was afterwards estimated that seventeen cabmen, four gentlemen, two apple-women, three-and-twenty errand-boys—more or less,—and one policeman, flung umbrellas, sticks, baskets, and various missiles at her, with the effect of damaging innumerable shins and overturning many individuals, but without hurting a hair of Floppart’s body during her wild but brief career. Bones did not wish to recapture her. He wished her dead, and for that end loudly reiterated the calumny as to madness. Floppart circled round the grand cathedral erected by Wren and got into Cheapside. Here, doubling like a hare, she careered round the statue of Peel and went blindly back to St. Martin’s-le-Grand, as if to add yet another link to the chain of fate which bound her arch-pursuer to the General Post-Office. By way of completing the chain, she turned in at the gate, rushed to the rear of the building, dashed in at an open door, and scurried along a passage. Here the crowd was stayed, but the policeman followed heroically. The passage was cut short by a glass door, but a narrow staircase descended to the left. “Any port in a storm” is a proverb as well known among dogs as men. Down went Floppart to the basement of the building, invading the sanctity of the letter-carriers’ kitchen orsalle-à-manger. A dozen stalwart postmen leaped from their meals to rush at the intruder. In the midst of the confusion the policeman’s truncheon was seen to sway aloft. Next instant the vaulted roof rang with a terrible cry, which truth compels us to state was Floppart’s dying yell.

None of those who had begun the chase were in at the death—save the policeman,—not even Abel Bones, for that worthy did not by any means court publicity. Besides, he felt pretty sure that his end was gained. He remembered, no doubt, the rule of the Office, that no letters or other things that have been posted can be returned to the sender, and, having seen the dog safely posted, he went home with a relieved mind.

Meanwhile the policeman took the remains of poor Floppart by the tail, holding it at arm’s-length for fear of the deadly poison supposed to be on its lips; and left the kitchen by a long passage. The men of the Post-Office returned to their food and their duties. Those who manage the details of her Majesty’s mails cannot afford to waste time when on duty. The policeman, left to himself, lost himself in the labyrinth of the basement. He made his way at last into the warm and agreeable room in which are kept the boilers that drive the engine that works the lifts. He was accosted by a stalwart stoker, whose appearance and air were as genial as the atmosphere of his apartment.

“Hallo!” said he, “what ’ave you got there?”

“A mad dog,” answered the policeman.—“I say, stoker, have you any ashpit where I could bury him?”

“Couldn’t allow ’im burial in our ashpit,” replied the stoker, with a decided shake of the head; “altogether out of the question.”

The policeman looked at the dead dog and at the stoker with a perplexed air.

“I say, look here,” he said, “couldn’t we—ah—don’t you think that we might—”

He paused, and cast a furtive glance at the furnaces.

“What! you don’t mean—cremate ’im?”

The policeman nodded.

“Well, now, I don’t know that it’s actooally against the rules of the GPO,” replied the stoker, with a meditative frown, “but it seems to me a raither unconstitootional proceedin’. It’s out o’ the way of our usual line of business, but—”

“That’s right,” said the policeman, as the stoker, who was an obliging man, took up a great shovel and flung open the furnace-door.

A terrific glare of intense heat and light shot out, appearing as if desirous of licking the stoker and policeman into its dreadful embrace.

“I don’t half like it,” said the stoker, glancing in; “the Postmaster-General might object, you know.”

“Not a bit of it, he’s too much of a gentleman to object—come,” said the policeman encouragingly.

The stoker held up the shovel. The body of Floppart was put thereon, after the removal of its collar. There was one good swing of the shovel, followed by a heave, and the little dog fell into the heart of the fiery furnace. The stoker shut the great iron door with a clang, and looked at the policeman solemnly. The policeman returned the look, thanked him, and retired. In less probably than three minutes Floppart’s body was reduced to its gaseous elements, vomited forth from the furnace chimney, and finally dissipated by the winds of heaven.

Thus did this, the first recorded and authentic case of cremation in the United Kingdom, emanate—as many a new, advantageous, and national measure has emanated before—from the prolific womb of the General Post-Office.

Chapter Seventeen.Tottie and Mrs Bones in Difficulty.The descent of George Aspel became very rapid in course of time. As he lost self-respect he became reckless and, as a natural consequence, more dissipated. Remonstrances from his friend Mr Blurt, which were repelled at first with haughty disdain, came to be received with sullen indifference. He had nothing to say for himself in reply, because, in point of fact, there was nothing in his case to justify his taking so gloomy and despairing a view of life. Many men, he knew, were at his age out of employment, and many more had been crossed in love. He was too proud to condescend to false reasoning with his lips, though he encouraged it in his heart. He knew quite well that drink and bad companionship were ruining him, and off-hand, open-hearted fellow though he was said to be, he was mean enough, as we have already said, to growlingly charge his condition and his sins on Fate.At last he resolved to give up the business that was so distasteful to him. Unable to give a satisfactory reason for so doing, or to say what he meant to attempt next, and unwilling or ashamed to incur the remonstrances and rebut the arguments of his patron, the bold descendant of the sea-kings adopted that cowardly method of departure called taking French leave. Like some little schoolboy, he ran away! In other words, he disappeared, and left no trace behind him.Deep was Mr Enoch Blurt’s regret, for he loved the youth sincerely, and made many fruitless efforts to find him—for lost in London means lost indeed! He even employed a detective, but the grave man in grey—who looked like no class of man in particular, and seemed to have no particular business in hand, and who talked with Mr Blurt, at their first meeting, in a quiet, sensible, easy way, as though he had been one of his oldest friends—could find no clue to him, for the good reason that Mr Bones had taken special care to entice Aspel into a distant locality, under pretence of putting him in the way of finding semi-nautical employment about the docks. Moreover, he managed to make Aspel drunk, and arranged with boon companions to strip him, while in that condition, of his garments, and re-clothe him in the seedy garb peculiar to those gentlemen who live by their wits.“Very strange,” muttered Aspel, on recovering sufficiently to be led by his friend towards Archangel Court,—“very strange that I did not feel the scoundrels robbing me. I must have slept very soundly.”“Yes, you slep’ wery sound, and they’re a bad lot, and uncommon sharp in that neighbourhood. It’s quite celebrated. I tried to get you away, but you was as obstinate as a mule, an’ kep’ on singing about some sort o’ coves o’ the old times that must have bin bigger blackguards than we ’ave about us now-a-days, though the song calls ’em glorious.”“Well, well,” said Aspel, shrinking under the public gaze as he passed through the streets, “don’t talk about that. Couldn’t you get into some by-lanes, where there are not so many people? I don’t like to be seen, even by strangers, in this disreputable guise. I wish the sun didn’t shine so brightly. Come, push on, man.”“W’y, sir,” said Bones, becoming a little more respectful in spite of himself, “you’ve no need to be ashamed of your appearance. There’s not ’alf a dozen people in a mile walk in London as would look twice at you whatever appearance you cut—so long as it was only disreputable.”“Never mind—push on,” said Aspel sternly; “Iamashamed whether I have need to be or not. I’m a fool. I’m more—I’m a brute. I tell you what it is, Bones, I’m determined to turn over a new leaf. I’ll write to Mr Blurt and tell him where I am, for, of course, I can’t return to him in such clothes as these, and—and—I’ll give up drink.”Bones met this remark with an unexpected and bitter laugh.“What d’you mean?” demanded Aspel, turning fiercely upon him.“I mean,” replied Bones, returning his stare with the utmost coolness, “that youcan’tgive up drink, if you was to try ever so much. You’re too far gone in it. I’ve tried it myself, many a time, and failed, though I’ve about as strong a will as your own—maybe stronger.”“We shall see,” returned Aspel, as they moved on again and turned into the lane which led to the wretched abode of Bones.“Bring me pen, ink, and paper!” he exclaimed, on entering the room, with a grand air—for a pint of ale, recently taken, had begun to operate.Bones, falling in with his friend’s humour, rummaged about until he found the stump of a quill, a penny inkbottle, and a dirty sheet of paper. These he placed on a rickety table, and Aspel wrote a scrawly note, in which he gave himself very bad names, and begged Mr Blurt to come and see him, as he had got into a scrape, and could by no means see his way out of it. Having folded the note very badly, he rose with the intention of going out to post it, but his friend offered to post it for him.Accepting the offer, he handed him the note and flung himself down in a heap on the straw mattress in the dark corner, where he had first become acquainted with Bones. In a few seconds he was in a deep lethargic slumber.“What a wretched spectacle!” exclaimed Bones, touching him with his toe, and, in bitter mockery, quoting the words that Aspel had once used regarding himself.He turned to leave the room, and was met by Mrs Bones.“There’s a friend o’ yours in the corner, Molly. Don’t disturb him. I’m goin’ to post a letter for him, and will be back directly.”Bones went out, posted the letter in the common sewer, and returned home.During the brief interval of his absence Tottie had come in—on a visit after her prolonged sojourn in the country. She was strangling her mother with a kiss when he entered.“Oh, mother! I’msohappy, andsosorry!” she exclaimed, laughing and sobbing at once.Tottie was obviously torn by conflicting emotions. “Take your time, darling,” said Mrs Bones, smoothing the child’s hair with her red toil-worn hand.“Ay, take it easy, Tot,” said her father, with a meaning glance, that sent a chill to the child’s heart, while he sat down on a stool and began to fill his pipe. “What’s it all about?”“Oh! it’s the beautiful country I’ve been in. Mother, you can’t think—the green fields and the trees, and, oh! the flowers, and no bricks—almost no houses—and—But did you know”—her grief recurred here—“that Mr Aspel ’as bin lost? an’ I’ve been tellin’suchlies! We came in to town, Miss Lillycrop an’ me, and we’ve heard about Mr Aspel from old Mr Blurt, who’s tryin’ to find him out with ’vertisements in the papers an’ detectives an’ a message-boy they call Phil, who’s a friend of Mr Aspel, an’ also of Peter.”“Who’s Peter?” asked Mrs Bones.“Ah, who’s Peter?” echoed Mr Bones, with a somewhat sly glance under his brows.“He’s a message-boy, and such a dear fellow,” replied Tottie. “I don’t know his other name, he didn’t mention it, and they only call him little Peter, but he saved me from the fire; at least he tried—”“Saved you from the fire!” exclaimed Mrs Bones in amazement.“Yes; didn’t Miss Lillycrop tell you?” asked Tottie in no less surprise.Now it is but justice to Miss Lillycrop to say that even in the midst of her perturbation after the fire she sought to inform Mrs Bones of her child’s safety, and sent her a note, which failed to reach her, owing to her being away at the time on one of her prolonged absences from home, and the neighbour to whose care it had been committed had forgotten all about it. As Mrs Bones read no newspapers and took no interest in fires, she knew nothing about the one that had so nearly swallowed up Tottie.“Come, tell us all about it, Tot. You mentioned it to me, but we couldn’t go into details at the time,” said her father, puffing a vigorous cloud of smoke into the chimney.Nothing loath, the child gave her parents an account of the event, which was as glowing as the fire itself. As she dwelt with peculiar delight on the brave rescue effected by Aspel at the extreme peril of his life, conscience took Abel Bones by surprise and gave him a twinge.At that moment the sleeper in the corner heaved a deep sigh and turned round towards the light. Mrs Bones and the child recognised him at once, and half rose.“Keep still!” said Bones, in a low savage growl, which was but too familiar to his poor wife and child. “Now, look here,” he continued in the same voice, laying down his pipe,—“if either of you two tell man, woman, or child w’ere George Aspel is, it’ll be the death of you both, and of him too.”“Oh, Abel! don’t be hard on us,” pleaded his wife. “You would—no, youcan’tmean to do ’im harm!”“No, I won’t hurt him,” said Bones, “but you must both give me your word that you’ll make no mention of him or his whereabouts to any one till I give you leave.”They were obliged to promise, and Bones, knowing from experience that he could trust them, was satisfied.“But you’ll make a promise to me too, Abel, won’t you, dear?” said Mrs Bones; “you’ll promise not to do ’im harm of any kind—not to tempt ’im?”“Yes, Molly, I promise that.”Mrs Bones knew, by some peculiarity in the tone of her husband’s voice, that he meant what he said, and was also satisfied.“Now, Molly,” said Bones, with a smile, “I want you to write a letter for me, so get another sheet of paper, if you can; Mr Aspel used up my last one.”A sheet was procured from a neighbouring tobacconist. Mrs Bones always acted as her husband’s amanuensis (although he wrote very much better than she did), either because he was lazy, or because he entertained some fear of his handwriting being recognised by his enemies the police! Squaring her elbows, and with her head very much on one side—almost reposing on the left arm—Mrs Bones produced a series of hieroglyphics which might have been made by a fly half-drowned in ink attempting to recover itself on the paper. The letter ran as follows:—“Deer bil i am a-goin to doo it on mundy the 15th tother cove wont wurk besides Iv chaningd my mind about him. Don’t fale.”“What’s the address, Abel?” asked Mrs Bones.“Willum Stiggs,” replied her husband.“So—i—g—s,” said Mrs Bones, writing very slowly, “Rosebud Cottage.”“What!” exclaimed the man fiercely, as he started up.“Oh, I declare!” said Mrs Bones, with a laugh, “if that place that Tottie’s been tellin’ us of ain’t runnin’ in my ’ead. But I’ve not writ it, Abel, I only said it.”“Well, then, don’t say it again,” growled Bones, with a suspicious glance at his wife; “write number 6 Little Alley, Birmingham.”“So—numr sx littlaly bringinghum,” said Mrs Bones, completing her task with a sigh.When Bones went out to post this curious epistle, his wife took Tottie on her knee, and, embracing her, rocked to and fro, uttering a moaning sound. The child expressed anxiety, and tried to comfort her.“Come what’s the use o’ strivin’ against it?” she exclaimed suddenly. “She’s sure to come to know it in the end, and I need advice from some one—if it was even from a child.”Tottie listened with suspense and some anxiety.“You’ve often told me, mother, that the best advice comes from God. So has Miss Lillycrop.”Mrs Bones clasped the child still closer, and uttered a short, fervent cry for help.“Tottie,” she said, “listen—you’re old enough to understand, I think. Your father is a bad man—at least, I won’t say he’s altogether bad, but—but, he’s not good.”Tottie quite understood that, but said that she was fond of him notwithstanding.“Fond of ’im, child!” cried Mrs Bones, “that’s the difficulty. I’m so fond of ’im that I want to save him, but I don’t know how.”Hereupon the poor woman explained her difficulties. She had heard her husband murmuring in his sleep something about committing a burglary, and the words Rosebud Cottage had more than once escaped his lips.“Now, Tottie dear,” said Mrs Bones firmly, “when I heard you tell all about that Rosebud Cottage, an’ the treasure Miss Stiffinthegills—”“Stivergill, mother.”“Well, Stivergill. It ain’t a pretty name, whichever way you put it. When I heard of the treasure she’s so foolish as to keep on her sideboard, I felt sure that your father had made up his mind to rob Miss Stivergill—with the help of that bad man Bill Stiggs—all the more w’en I see how your father jumped w’en I mentioned Rosebud Cottage. Now, Tottie, wemustsave your father. If he had only got me to post his letter, I could easily have damaged the address so as no one could read it. As it is, I’ve writ it so bad that I don’t believe there’s a man in the Post-Office could make it out. This is the first time, Tottie, that your father has made up his mind to break into a ’ouse, but when he do make up his mind to a thing he’s sure to go through with it. He must be stopped, Tottie, somehow—mustbe stopped—but I don’t see how.”Tottie, who was greatly impressed with the anxious determination of her mother, and therefore with the heinous nature of her father’s intended sin, gave her entire mind to this subject, and, after talking it over, and looking at it in all lights, came to the conclusion that she could not see her way out of the difficulty at all.While the two sat gazing on the ground with dejected countenances, a gleam of light seemed to shoot from Tottie’s eyes.“Oh! I’ve got it!” she cried, looking brightly up. “Peter!”“What! the boy you met at Rosebud Cottage?” asked Mrs Bones.“Yes. He’ssucha nice boy, and you’ve no idea, mother, what a inventor he is. He could invent anythink, I do believe—if he tried, and I’m sure he’ll think of some way to help us.”Mrs Bones was not nearly so hopeful as her daughter in regard to Peter, but as she could think of nothing herself, it was agreed that Tottie should go at once to the Post-Office and inquire after Peter. She did so, and returned crestfallen with the news that Peter was away on a holiday until the following Monday.“Why, that’s the 15th,” said Mrs Bones anxiously. “You must see him that day, Tottie dear, though I fear it will be too late. How did you find him out? There must be many Peters among the telegraph-boys.”“To be sure there are, but there are not many Peters who have helped to save a little girl from a fire, you know,” said Tottie, with a knowing look. “They knew who I wanted at once, and his other name is such a funny one; it is Pax—”“What?” exclaimed Mrs Bones, with a sudden look of surprise.“Pax, mother; Peter Pax.”Whatever Mrs Bones might have replied to this was checked by the entrance of her husband. She cautioned Tottie, in earnest, hurried tones, to say nothing about Rosebud Cottage unless asked, and especially to make no mention whatever of the name of Pax.

The descent of George Aspel became very rapid in course of time. As he lost self-respect he became reckless and, as a natural consequence, more dissipated. Remonstrances from his friend Mr Blurt, which were repelled at first with haughty disdain, came to be received with sullen indifference. He had nothing to say for himself in reply, because, in point of fact, there was nothing in his case to justify his taking so gloomy and despairing a view of life. Many men, he knew, were at his age out of employment, and many more had been crossed in love. He was too proud to condescend to false reasoning with his lips, though he encouraged it in his heart. He knew quite well that drink and bad companionship were ruining him, and off-hand, open-hearted fellow though he was said to be, he was mean enough, as we have already said, to growlingly charge his condition and his sins on Fate.

At last he resolved to give up the business that was so distasteful to him. Unable to give a satisfactory reason for so doing, or to say what he meant to attempt next, and unwilling or ashamed to incur the remonstrances and rebut the arguments of his patron, the bold descendant of the sea-kings adopted that cowardly method of departure called taking French leave. Like some little schoolboy, he ran away! In other words, he disappeared, and left no trace behind him.

Deep was Mr Enoch Blurt’s regret, for he loved the youth sincerely, and made many fruitless efforts to find him—for lost in London means lost indeed! He even employed a detective, but the grave man in grey—who looked like no class of man in particular, and seemed to have no particular business in hand, and who talked with Mr Blurt, at their first meeting, in a quiet, sensible, easy way, as though he had been one of his oldest friends—could find no clue to him, for the good reason that Mr Bones had taken special care to entice Aspel into a distant locality, under pretence of putting him in the way of finding semi-nautical employment about the docks. Moreover, he managed to make Aspel drunk, and arranged with boon companions to strip him, while in that condition, of his garments, and re-clothe him in the seedy garb peculiar to those gentlemen who live by their wits.

“Very strange,” muttered Aspel, on recovering sufficiently to be led by his friend towards Archangel Court,—“very strange that I did not feel the scoundrels robbing me. I must have slept very soundly.”

“Yes, you slep’ wery sound, and they’re a bad lot, and uncommon sharp in that neighbourhood. It’s quite celebrated. I tried to get you away, but you was as obstinate as a mule, an’ kep’ on singing about some sort o’ coves o’ the old times that must have bin bigger blackguards than we ’ave about us now-a-days, though the song calls ’em glorious.”

“Well, well,” said Aspel, shrinking under the public gaze as he passed through the streets, “don’t talk about that. Couldn’t you get into some by-lanes, where there are not so many people? I don’t like to be seen, even by strangers, in this disreputable guise. I wish the sun didn’t shine so brightly. Come, push on, man.”

“W’y, sir,” said Bones, becoming a little more respectful in spite of himself, “you’ve no need to be ashamed of your appearance. There’s not ’alf a dozen people in a mile walk in London as would look twice at you whatever appearance you cut—so long as it was only disreputable.”

“Never mind—push on,” said Aspel sternly; “Iamashamed whether I have need to be or not. I’m a fool. I’m more—I’m a brute. I tell you what it is, Bones, I’m determined to turn over a new leaf. I’ll write to Mr Blurt and tell him where I am, for, of course, I can’t return to him in such clothes as these, and—and—I’ll give up drink.”

Bones met this remark with an unexpected and bitter laugh.

“What d’you mean?” demanded Aspel, turning fiercely upon him.

“I mean,” replied Bones, returning his stare with the utmost coolness, “that youcan’tgive up drink, if you was to try ever so much. You’re too far gone in it. I’ve tried it myself, many a time, and failed, though I’ve about as strong a will as your own—maybe stronger.”

“We shall see,” returned Aspel, as they moved on again and turned into the lane which led to the wretched abode of Bones.

“Bring me pen, ink, and paper!” he exclaimed, on entering the room, with a grand air—for a pint of ale, recently taken, had begun to operate.

Bones, falling in with his friend’s humour, rummaged about until he found the stump of a quill, a penny inkbottle, and a dirty sheet of paper. These he placed on a rickety table, and Aspel wrote a scrawly note, in which he gave himself very bad names, and begged Mr Blurt to come and see him, as he had got into a scrape, and could by no means see his way out of it. Having folded the note very badly, he rose with the intention of going out to post it, but his friend offered to post it for him.

Accepting the offer, he handed him the note and flung himself down in a heap on the straw mattress in the dark corner, where he had first become acquainted with Bones. In a few seconds he was in a deep lethargic slumber.

“What a wretched spectacle!” exclaimed Bones, touching him with his toe, and, in bitter mockery, quoting the words that Aspel had once used regarding himself.

He turned to leave the room, and was met by Mrs Bones.

“There’s a friend o’ yours in the corner, Molly. Don’t disturb him. I’m goin’ to post a letter for him, and will be back directly.”

Bones went out, posted the letter in the common sewer, and returned home.

During the brief interval of his absence Tottie had come in—on a visit after her prolonged sojourn in the country. She was strangling her mother with a kiss when he entered.

“Oh, mother! I’msohappy, andsosorry!” she exclaimed, laughing and sobbing at once.

Tottie was obviously torn by conflicting emotions. “Take your time, darling,” said Mrs Bones, smoothing the child’s hair with her red toil-worn hand.

“Ay, take it easy, Tot,” said her father, with a meaning glance, that sent a chill to the child’s heart, while he sat down on a stool and began to fill his pipe. “What’s it all about?”

“Oh! it’s the beautiful country I’ve been in. Mother, you can’t think—the green fields and the trees, and, oh! the flowers, and no bricks—almost no houses—and—But did you know”—her grief recurred here—“that Mr Aspel ’as bin lost? an’ I’ve been tellin’suchlies! We came in to town, Miss Lillycrop an’ me, and we’ve heard about Mr Aspel from old Mr Blurt, who’s tryin’ to find him out with ’vertisements in the papers an’ detectives an’ a message-boy they call Phil, who’s a friend of Mr Aspel, an’ also of Peter.”

“Who’s Peter?” asked Mrs Bones.

“Ah, who’s Peter?” echoed Mr Bones, with a somewhat sly glance under his brows.

“He’s a message-boy, and such a dear fellow,” replied Tottie. “I don’t know his other name, he didn’t mention it, and they only call him little Peter, but he saved me from the fire; at least he tried—”

“Saved you from the fire!” exclaimed Mrs Bones in amazement.

“Yes; didn’t Miss Lillycrop tell you?” asked Tottie in no less surprise.

Now it is but justice to Miss Lillycrop to say that even in the midst of her perturbation after the fire she sought to inform Mrs Bones of her child’s safety, and sent her a note, which failed to reach her, owing to her being away at the time on one of her prolonged absences from home, and the neighbour to whose care it had been committed had forgotten all about it. As Mrs Bones read no newspapers and took no interest in fires, she knew nothing about the one that had so nearly swallowed up Tottie.

“Come, tell us all about it, Tot. You mentioned it to me, but we couldn’t go into details at the time,” said her father, puffing a vigorous cloud of smoke into the chimney.

Nothing loath, the child gave her parents an account of the event, which was as glowing as the fire itself. As she dwelt with peculiar delight on the brave rescue effected by Aspel at the extreme peril of his life, conscience took Abel Bones by surprise and gave him a twinge.

At that moment the sleeper in the corner heaved a deep sigh and turned round towards the light. Mrs Bones and the child recognised him at once, and half rose.

“Keep still!” said Bones, in a low savage growl, which was but too familiar to his poor wife and child. “Now, look here,” he continued in the same voice, laying down his pipe,—“if either of you two tell man, woman, or child w’ere George Aspel is, it’ll be the death of you both, and of him too.”

“Oh, Abel! don’t be hard on us,” pleaded his wife. “You would—no, youcan’tmean to do ’im harm!”

“No, I won’t hurt him,” said Bones, “but you must both give me your word that you’ll make no mention of him or his whereabouts to any one till I give you leave.”

They were obliged to promise, and Bones, knowing from experience that he could trust them, was satisfied.

“But you’ll make a promise to me too, Abel, won’t you, dear?” said Mrs Bones; “you’ll promise not to do ’im harm of any kind—not to tempt ’im?”

“Yes, Molly, I promise that.”

Mrs Bones knew, by some peculiarity in the tone of her husband’s voice, that he meant what he said, and was also satisfied.

“Now, Molly,” said Bones, with a smile, “I want you to write a letter for me, so get another sheet of paper, if you can; Mr Aspel used up my last one.”

A sheet was procured from a neighbouring tobacconist. Mrs Bones always acted as her husband’s amanuensis (although he wrote very much better than she did), either because he was lazy, or because he entertained some fear of his handwriting being recognised by his enemies the police! Squaring her elbows, and with her head very much on one side—almost reposing on the left arm—Mrs Bones produced a series of hieroglyphics which might have been made by a fly half-drowned in ink attempting to recover itself on the paper. The letter ran as follows:—

“Deer bil i am a-goin to doo it on mundy the 15th tother cove wont wurk besides Iv chaningd my mind about him. Don’t fale.”

“What’s the address, Abel?” asked Mrs Bones.

“Willum Stiggs,” replied her husband.

“So—i—g—s,” said Mrs Bones, writing very slowly, “Rosebud Cottage.”

“What!” exclaimed the man fiercely, as he started up.

“Oh, I declare!” said Mrs Bones, with a laugh, “if that place that Tottie’s been tellin’ us of ain’t runnin’ in my ’ead. But I’ve not writ it, Abel, I only said it.”

“Well, then, don’t say it again,” growled Bones, with a suspicious glance at his wife; “write number 6 Little Alley, Birmingham.”

“So—numr sx littlaly bringinghum,” said Mrs Bones, completing her task with a sigh.

When Bones went out to post this curious epistle, his wife took Tottie on her knee, and, embracing her, rocked to and fro, uttering a moaning sound. The child expressed anxiety, and tried to comfort her.

“Come what’s the use o’ strivin’ against it?” she exclaimed suddenly. “She’s sure to come to know it in the end, and I need advice from some one—if it was even from a child.”

Tottie listened with suspense and some anxiety.

“You’ve often told me, mother, that the best advice comes from God. So has Miss Lillycrop.”

Mrs Bones clasped the child still closer, and uttered a short, fervent cry for help.

“Tottie,” she said, “listen—you’re old enough to understand, I think. Your father is a bad man—at least, I won’t say he’s altogether bad, but—but, he’s not good.”

Tottie quite understood that, but said that she was fond of him notwithstanding.

“Fond of ’im, child!” cried Mrs Bones, “that’s the difficulty. I’m so fond of ’im that I want to save him, but I don’t know how.”

Hereupon the poor woman explained her difficulties. She had heard her husband murmuring in his sleep something about committing a burglary, and the words Rosebud Cottage had more than once escaped his lips.

“Now, Tottie dear,” said Mrs Bones firmly, “when I heard you tell all about that Rosebud Cottage, an’ the treasure Miss Stiffinthegills—”

“Stivergill, mother.”

“Well, Stivergill. It ain’t a pretty name, whichever way you put it. When I heard of the treasure she’s so foolish as to keep on her sideboard, I felt sure that your father had made up his mind to rob Miss Stivergill—with the help of that bad man Bill Stiggs—all the more w’en I see how your father jumped w’en I mentioned Rosebud Cottage. Now, Tottie, wemustsave your father. If he had only got me to post his letter, I could easily have damaged the address so as no one could read it. As it is, I’ve writ it so bad that I don’t believe there’s a man in the Post-Office could make it out. This is the first time, Tottie, that your father has made up his mind to break into a ’ouse, but when he do make up his mind to a thing he’s sure to go through with it. He must be stopped, Tottie, somehow—mustbe stopped—but I don’t see how.”

Tottie, who was greatly impressed with the anxious determination of her mother, and therefore with the heinous nature of her father’s intended sin, gave her entire mind to this subject, and, after talking it over, and looking at it in all lights, came to the conclusion that she could not see her way out of the difficulty at all.

While the two sat gazing on the ground with dejected countenances, a gleam of light seemed to shoot from Tottie’s eyes.

“Oh! I’ve got it!” she cried, looking brightly up. “Peter!”

“What! the boy you met at Rosebud Cottage?” asked Mrs Bones.

“Yes. He’ssucha nice boy, and you’ve no idea, mother, what a inventor he is. He could invent anythink, I do believe—if he tried, and I’m sure he’ll think of some way to help us.”

Mrs Bones was not nearly so hopeful as her daughter in regard to Peter, but as she could think of nothing herself, it was agreed that Tottie should go at once to the Post-Office and inquire after Peter. She did so, and returned crestfallen with the news that Peter was away on a holiday until the following Monday.

“Why, that’s the 15th,” said Mrs Bones anxiously. “You must see him that day, Tottie dear, though I fear it will be too late. How did you find him out? There must be many Peters among the telegraph-boys.”

“To be sure there are, but there are not many Peters who have helped to save a little girl from a fire, you know,” said Tottie, with a knowing look. “They knew who I wanted at once, and his other name is such a funny one; it is Pax—”

“What?” exclaimed Mrs Bones, with a sudden look of surprise.

“Pax, mother; Peter Pax.”

Whatever Mrs Bones might have replied to this was checked by the entrance of her husband. She cautioned Tottie, in earnest, hurried tones, to say nothing about Rosebud Cottage unless asked, and especially to make no mention whatever of the name of Pax.

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