Chapter Four.The “Rocket” Newspaper Company, Limited.The reader may imagine that the walk our two heroes took Citywards that Monday morning was not a very cheerful one. It seemed like walking out of one life into another. Behind, like a dream, were the joyous, merry days spent at Garden Vale and Wilderham, with no care for the future, and no want for the present. Before them, still more like a dream, lay the prospect of their new work, with all its anxiety, and drudgery, and weariness, and the miserable eighteen shillings a week it promised them; and, equally wretched at the present moment, there was the vision of their desolate mother, alone in the Dull Street lodgings, where they had just left her, unable at the last to hide the misery with which she saw her two boys start out into the pitiless world.The boys walked for some time in silence; then Horace said,—“Old man, I hope, whatever they do, they’ll let us be together at this place.”“We needn’t expect any such luck,” said Reginald. “It wouldn’t be half so bad if they would.”“You know,” said Horace, “I can’t help hoping they’ll take us as clerks, at least. They must know we’re educated, and more fit for that sort of work than—”“Than doing common labourer’s work,” said Reg. “Rather! If they’d put us to some of the literary work, you know, Horace—editing, or correcting, or reporting, or that sort of thing, I could stand that. There are plenty of swells who began like that. I’m pretty well up in classics, you know, and—well, they might be rather glad to have some one who was.”Horace sighed.“Richmond spoke as if we were to be taken on as ordinary workmen.”“Oh, Richmond’s an ass,” said Reg, full of his new idea; “he knows nothing about it. I tell you, Horace, they wouldn’t be such idiots as to waste our education when they could make use of it. Richmond only knows the manager, but the editor is the chief man, after all.”By this time they had reached Fleet Street, and their attention was absorbed in finding the by-street in which was situated the scene of their coming labours. They found it at last, and with beating hearts saw before them a building surmounted by a board, bearing in characters of gold the legend,RocketNewspaper Company, Limited.The boys stood a moment outside, and the courage which had been slowly rising during the walk evaporated in an instant. Ugly and grimy as the building was, it seemed to them like some fairy castle before which they shrank into insignificance. A board inscribed, “Work-people’s Entrance,” with a hand on it pointing to a narrow side court, confronted them, and mechanically they turned that way. Reginald did for a moment hesitate as he passed the editor’s door, but it was no use. The two boys turned slowly into the court, where, amid the din of machinery, and a stifling smell of ink and rollers, they found the narrow passage which conducted them to their destination.A man at a desk half way down the passage intercepted their progress.“Now, then, young fellows, what is it?”“We want to see the manager, please,” said Horace.“No use to-day, my lad. No boys wanted; we’re full up.”“We want to see the manager,” said Reginald, offended at the man’s tone, and not disposed to humour it.“Tell you we want no boys; can’t you see the notice up outside?”“Look here!” said Reginald, firing up, and heedless of his brother’s deprecating look; “we don’t want any of your cheek. Tell the manager we’re here, will you, and look sharp?”The timekeeper stared at the boy in amazement for a moment, and then broke out with,—“Take your hook, do you hear, you—or I’ll warm you.”“It’s a mistake,” put in Horace, hurriedly. “Mr Richmond said we were to come here to see the manager at nine o’clock.”“And couldn’t you have said so at first?” growled the man, with his hand still on his ruler, and glaring at Reginald, “without giving yourselves airs as if you were gentry? Go on in, and don’t stand gaping there.”“For goodness’ sake, Reg,” whispered Horace, as they knocked at the manager’s door, “don’t flare up like that, you’ll spoil all our chance.”Reg said nothing, but he breathed hard, and his face was angry still.“Come in!” cried a sharp voice, in answer to their knock.They obeyed, and found a man standing with a pen in his mouth at a desk, searching through a file of papers. He went on with his work till he found what he wanted, apparently quite unconscious of the boys’ presence. Then he rang a bell for an overseer, whistled down a tube for a clerk, and shouted out of the door for a messenger, and gave orders to each. Then he sent for some one else, and gave him a scolding that made the unlucky recipient’s hair stand on end; then he received a visit from a friend, with whom he chatted and joked for a pleasant quarter of an hour; then he took up the morning paper and skimmed through it, whistling to himself as he did so; then he rang another bell and told the errand-boy who answered it to bring him in at one o’clock sharp a large boiled beef underdone, with carrots and turnips, and a pint of “s. and b.” (whatever that might mean). Then he suddenly became aware of the fact that he had visitors, and turned inquiringly to the two boys.“Mr Richmond—” began Horace, in answer to his look.But the manager cut him short.“Oh, ah! yes,” he said. “Nuisance! Go to the composing-room and ask for Mr Durfy.”Saying which he sat down again at his desk, and became absorbed in his papers.It was hardly a flattering reception, and gave our heroes very little chance of showing off their classical proficiency. They had at least expected, as Mr Richmond’s nominees, rather more than a half glance from the manager; and to be thus summarily turned over to a Mr Durfy before they had as much as opened their mouths was decidedly unpromising.Reginald did make one feeble effort to prolong the interview, and to impress the manager at the same time.“Excuse me,” said he, in his politest tones, “would you mind directing us to the composing-room? My brother and I don’t know the geography of the place yet.”“Eh? Composing-room? Get a boy to show you. Plenty outside.”It was no go, evidently; and they turned dismally from the room.The errand-boy was coming up the passage as they emerged—the same errand-boy they had seen half an hour ago in the manager’s room; but, as their classical friends would say—“Quantum mutatus ab illo Hectore!”His two arms were strung with the handles of frothing tin cans from the elbow to the wrist. He carried two tin cans in his mouth. His apron was loaded to bursting with bread, fish, cheese, potatoes, and other edibles; the necks of bottles protruded from all his pocket’s,—from the bosom of his jacket and from the fob of his breeches,—and round his neck hung a ponderous chain of onions. In short, the errand-boy was busy; and our heroes, even with their short experience of business life, saw that there was little hope of extracting information from him under present circumstances.So they let him pass, and waited for another. They had not to wait long, for the passage appeared to be a regular highway for the junior members of the staff of theRocketNewspaper Company, Limited. But though several boys came, it was some time before one appeared whose convenience it suited to conduct our heroes to the presence of Mr Durfy. Just, however, as their patience was getting exhausted, and Reginald was making up his mind to shake the dust of the place from his feet, a boy appeared and offered to escort them to the composing-room.They followed him up several flights of a rickety staircase, and down some labyrinthine passages to a large room where some forty or fifty men were busy setting up type. At the far end of this room, at a small table, crowded with “proofs,” sat a red-faced individual whom the boy pointed out as “Duffy.”“Well, now, what doyouwant?” asked he, as the brothers approached.“The manager said we were to ask for Mr Durfy,” said Reginald.“I wish to goodness he’d keep you down there; he knows I’m crowded out with boys. He always serves me that way, and I’ll tell him so one of these days.”This last speech, though apparently addressed to the boys, was really a soliloquy on Mr Durfy’s part; but for all that it failed to enchant his audience. They had not, in their most sanguine moments, expected much, but this was even rather less than they had counted on.Mr Durfy mused for some time, then, turning to Reginald, he said,—“Do you know your letters?”Here was a question to put to the captain of the fifth at Wilderham!“I believe I do,” said Reginald, with a touch of scorn in his voice which was quite lost on the practical Mr Durfy.“What do you mean by believe? Do you, or do you not?”“Of course I do.”“Then why couldn’t you say so at once? Take this bit of copy and set it up at that case there. And you, young fellow, take these proofs to the sub-editor’s room, and say I’ve not had the last sheet of the copy of the railway accident yet, and I’m standing for it. Cut away.”Horace went off.“After all,” thought he to himself, “what’s the use of being particular? I suppose I’m what they call a ‘printer’s devil’; nothing like starting modestly! Here goes for my lords the sub-editors, and the last page of the railway accident.”And he spent a festive ten-minutes hunting out the sub-editor’s domains, and possessing himself of the missing copy.With Reginald, however, it fared otherwise. A fellow may be head of the fifth at a public school, and yet not know his letters in a printing-office, and after five or ten-minutes’ hopeless endeavour to comprehend the geography of a typecase, he was obliged to acknowledge himself beaten and apprise Mr Durfy of the fact.“I’m sorry I misunderstood you,” said he, putting the copy down on the table. “I’m not used to printing.”“No,” said Mr Durfy, scornfully, “I guessed not. You’re too stuck-up for us, I can tell you. Here, Barber.”An unhealthy-looking young man answered to the name.“Take this chap here to the back case-room, and see he sweeps it out and dusts the cases. See if that’ll suit your abilities, my dandy”; and without waiting to hear Reginald’s explanations or remonstrances, Mr Durfy walked off, leaving the unlucky boy in the hands of Mr Barber.“Now, then, stir your stumps, Mr Dandy,” said the latter. “It’ll take you all your time to get that shop straight, I can tell you, so you’d better pull up your boots. Got a broom?”“No,” muttered Reg, through his teeth, “I’ve not got a broom.”“Go and get that one, then, out of the corner there.”Reginald flushed crimson, and hesitated a moment.“Do you ’ear? Are you deaf? Get that one there.”Reginald got it, and trailing it behind him dismally, followed his guide to the back case-room. It was a small room, which apparently had known neither broom nor water for years. The floor was thick with dirt, and the cases ranged in the racks against the walls were coated with dust.“There you are,” said Mr Barber. “Open the window, do you ’ear? and don’t let none of the dust get out into the composing-room, or there’ll be a row. Come and tell me when you’ve done the floor, and I’ll show you ’ow to do them cases. Rattle along, do you ’ear? or you won’t get it done to-day;” and Mr Barber, who had had his day of sweeping out the shops, departed, slamming the door behind him.Things had come to a crisis with Reginald Cruden early in his business career.He hadcomeinto the City that morning prepared to face a good deal. He had not counted on much sympathy or consideration from his new employers; he had even vaguely made up his mind he would have to rough it at first; but to be shut up in a dirty room with a broom in his hand by a cad who could not even talk grammar was a humiliation on which he had never once calculated.Tossing the broom unceremoniously into a corner, he opened the door and walked out of the room. Barber was already out of sight, chuckling inwardly over the delicious task he had been privileged to set to his dandy subordinate, and none of the men working near knew or cared what this pale, handsome new boy did either in or out of the back case-room.Reginald walked through them to the passage outside, not much caring where he went or whom he met. If he were to meet Mr Barber, or Mr Durfy, or the manager himself, so much the better. As it happened, he met Horace, looking comparatively cheerful, with some papers in his hand.“Hullo, Reg,” said he; “have they promoted you to a ‘printer’s devil’ too? Fancy what Bland would say if he saw us! Never mind, there’s four hours gone, and in about another six we shall be home with mother again.”“I shall be home before then,” said Reg. “I’m going now. I can’t stand it, Horace.”Horace stared at his brother in consternation.“Oh, Reg, old man, you mustn’t; really you mustn’t. Do let’s stick together, however miserable it is. It’s sure to seem worse at first.”“It’s all very well for you, Horace, doing messenger work. You haven’t been set to sweep out a room.”Horace whistled.“Whew! thatisa drop too much! But,” he added, taking his brother’s arm, “don’t cut it yet, old man, for mother’s sake, don’t. I’ll come and help you do it if I can. Why couldn’t they have given it me to do, and let you go the messages!”Reginald said nothing, but let his brother lead him back slowly to the big room presided over by Mr Durfy.“Where is it?” Horace inquired of him at the door.“That little room in the corner.”“All right. I’ll come if I possibly can. Do try it, old man, won’t you?”“I’ll try it,” said Reginald, with something very like a groan as he opened the door and walked grimly back to the back case-room.Horace, full of fear and trembling on his brother’s account, hurried with his copy to Mr Durfy, and waited impatiently till that grandee condescended to relieve him of it.“Is there anything else?” he inquired, as he gave it up.“Anything else? Yes, plenty; but don’t come bothering me now.”Horace waited for no more elaborate statement of Mr Durfy’s wishes, but thankfully withdrew, and made straight for Reginald.He found him half hidden, half choked by the dust of his own raising, as he drew his broom in a spiritless way across the black dry floor.He paused in his occupation as Horace entered, and for a moment, as the two stood face to face coughing and sneezing, a sense of the ludicrous overcame them, and they finished up their duet with a laugh.“I say,” said Horace, as soon as he could get words, “I fancy a little water would be an improvement here.”“Where are we to get it from?” said Reg.“I suppose there must be some about. Shall I go and see?”“We might tip one of those fellows outside a sixpence to go and get us some.”“Hold hard, old man!” said Horace, laughing again. “We’re not so flush of sixpences as all that. I guess if we want any water we shall have to get it ourselves. I’ll be back directly.”Poor Reg, spirited up for a while by his brother’s courage, proceeded more gingerly with his sweeping, much amazed in the midst of his misery to discover how many walks in life there are beyond the capacity even of the captain of the fifth of a public school.He was not, however, destined on the present occasion to perfect himself in the one that was then engaging his attention. Horace had scarcely disappeared in quest of water when the door opened, and no less a personage than the manager himself entered the room.He was evidently prepared neither for the dust nor the duster, and started back for a moment, as though he were under the impression that the clouds filling the apartment were clouds of smoke, and Reginald was another Guy Fawkes caught in the act. He recovered himself shortly, however, and demanded sharply,—“What are you doing here, making all this mess?”“I’m trying to carry out Mr Durfy’s instructions,” replied Reginald, leaning on his broom, and not at all displeased at the interruption.“Durfy’s instructions? What do you mean, sir?”“Mr Durfy’s—”“That will do. Here you,” said the manager, opening the door, and speaking to the nearest workman, “tell Mr Durfy to step here.”Mr Durfy appeared in a very brief space.“Durfy,” said the manager, wrathfully, “what do you mean by having this room in such a filthy mess? Aren’t your instructions to have it swept out once a week? When was it swept last?”“Some little time ago. We’ve been so busy in our department, sir, that—”“Yes, I know; you always say that. I’m sick of hearing it. Don’t let me find this sort of thing again. Send some one at once to sweep it out; this lad doesn’t know how to hold a broom. Take care it’s done by four o’clock, and ready for use. Pheugh! it’s enough to choke one.”And the manager went off in a rage, coughing.Satisfactory as this was, in a certain sense, for Reginald, it was not a flattering way of ending his difficulties, nor did the spirit in which Mr Durfy accepted his chief’s reprimand at all tend to restore him to cheerfulness.“Bah, you miserable idiot, you! Give up that broom, and get out of this, or I’ll chuck you out.”“I don’t think you will,” said Reginald, coolly dropping the broom and facing his enemy.He was happier at that moment than he had been for a long time. He could imagine himself back at Wilderham, with the school bully shouting at him, and his spirits rose within him accordingly.“What do you say? you hugger-mugger puppy you—you—”Mr Durfy’s adjectives frequently had the merit of being more forcible than appropriate, and on the present occasion, what with the dust and his own rage, the one he wanted stuck in his throat altogether.“I said I don’t think you will,” repeated Reginald.Mr Durfy looked at his man and hesitated. Reginald stood five foot nine, and his shoulders were square and broad, besides, he was as cool as a cucumber, and didn’t even trouble to take his hands out of his pockets. All this Mr Durfy took in, and did not relish; but he must not cave in too precipitately, so he replied, with a sneer,—“Think! A lot you know about thinking! Can’t even hold a broom. Clear out of here, I tell you, double quick; do you hear?”Reginald’s spirits fell. It was clear from Mr Durfy’s tone he was not going to attempt to “chuck him out,” and nothing therefore could be gained by remaining.He turned scornfully on his heel, knowing that he had made one enemy, at any rate, during his short connection with his new business.And if he had known all, he could have counted two; for Mr Durfy, finding himself in a mood to wreak his wrath on some one, summoned the ill-favoured Barber to sweep out the back case-room, and gave his orders so viciously that Barber felt distinctly aggrieved, and jumping to the conclusion that Reginald had somehow contrived to turn the tables on him, he registered a secret vow, there and then, that he would on the first opportunity, and on all subsequent opportunities, be square with that luckless youth.Caring very little about who hated him or who liked him, Reginald wandered forth, to intercept the faithful Horace with the now unnecessary water; and the two boys, finding very little to occupy them during the rest of the day, remained in comparative seclusion until the seven o’clock bell rang, when they walked home, possibly wiser, and certainly sadder, for their first day with theRocketNewspaper Company, Limited.
The reader may imagine that the walk our two heroes took Citywards that Monday morning was not a very cheerful one. It seemed like walking out of one life into another. Behind, like a dream, were the joyous, merry days spent at Garden Vale and Wilderham, with no care for the future, and no want for the present. Before them, still more like a dream, lay the prospect of their new work, with all its anxiety, and drudgery, and weariness, and the miserable eighteen shillings a week it promised them; and, equally wretched at the present moment, there was the vision of their desolate mother, alone in the Dull Street lodgings, where they had just left her, unable at the last to hide the misery with which she saw her two boys start out into the pitiless world.
The boys walked for some time in silence; then Horace said,—
“Old man, I hope, whatever they do, they’ll let us be together at this place.”
“We needn’t expect any such luck,” said Reginald. “It wouldn’t be half so bad if they would.”
“You know,” said Horace, “I can’t help hoping they’ll take us as clerks, at least. They must know we’re educated, and more fit for that sort of work than—”
“Than doing common labourer’s work,” said Reg. “Rather! If they’d put us to some of the literary work, you know, Horace—editing, or correcting, or reporting, or that sort of thing, I could stand that. There are plenty of swells who began like that. I’m pretty well up in classics, you know, and—well, they might be rather glad to have some one who was.”
Horace sighed.
“Richmond spoke as if we were to be taken on as ordinary workmen.”
“Oh, Richmond’s an ass,” said Reg, full of his new idea; “he knows nothing about it. I tell you, Horace, they wouldn’t be such idiots as to waste our education when they could make use of it. Richmond only knows the manager, but the editor is the chief man, after all.”
By this time they had reached Fleet Street, and their attention was absorbed in finding the by-street in which was situated the scene of their coming labours. They found it at last, and with beating hearts saw before them a building surmounted by a board, bearing in characters of gold the legend,RocketNewspaper Company, Limited.
The boys stood a moment outside, and the courage which had been slowly rising during the walk evaporated in an instant. Ugly and grimy as the building was, it seemed to them like some fairy castle before which they shrank into insignificance. A board inscribed, “Work-people’s Entrance,” with a hand on it pointing to a narrow side court, confronted them, and mechanically they turned that way. Reginald did for a moment hesitate as he passed the editor’s door, but it was no use. The two boys turned slowly into the court, where, amid the din of machinery, and a stifling smell of ink and rollers, they found the narrow passage which conducted them to their destination.
A man at a desk half way down the passage intercepted their progress.
“Now, then, young fellows, what is it?”
“We want to see the manager, please,” said Horace.
“No use to-day, my lad. No boys wanted; we’re full up.”
“We want to see the manager,” said Reginald, offended at the man’s tone, and not disposed to humour it.
“Tell you we want no boys; can’t you see the notice up outside?”
“Look here!” said Reginald, firing up, and heedless of his brother’s deprecating look; “we don’t want any of your cheek. Tell the manager we’re here, will you, and look sharp?”
The timekeeper stared at the boy in amazement for a moment, and then broke out with,—
“Take your hook, do you hear, you—or I’ll warm you.”
“It’s a mistake,” put in Horace, hurriedly. “Mr Richmond said we were to come here to see the manager at nine o’clock.”
“And couldn’t you have said so at first?” growled the man, with his hand still on his ruler, and glaring at Reginald, “without giving yourselves airs as if you were gentry? Go on in, and don’t stand gaping there.”
“For goodness’ sake, Reg,” whispered Horace, as they knocked at the manager’s door, “don’t flare up like that, you’ll spoil all our chance.”
Reg said nothing, but he breathed hard, and his face was angry still.
“Come in!” cried a sharp voice, in answer to their knock.
They obeyed, and found a man standing with a pen in his mouth at a desk, searching through a file of papers. He went on with his work till he found what he wanted, apparently quite unconscious of the boys’ presence. Then he rang a bell for an overseer, whistled down a tube for a clerk, and shouted out of the door for a messenger, and gave orders to each. Then he sent for some one else, and gave him a scolding that made the unlucky recipient’s hair stand on end; then he received a visit from a friend, with whom he chatted and joked for a pleasant quarter of an hour; then he took up the morning paper and skimmed through it, whistling to himself as he did so; then he rang another bell and told the errand-boy who answered it to bring him in at one o’clock sharp a large boiled beef underdone, with carrots and turnips, and a pint of “s. and b.” (whatever that might mean). Then he suddenly became aware of the fact that he had visitors, and turned inquiringly to the two boys.
“Mr Richmond—” began Horace, in answer to his look.
But the manager cut him short.
“Oh, ah! yes,” he said. “Nuisance! Go to the composing-room and ask for Mr Durfy.”
Saying which he sat down again at his desk, and became absorbed in his papers.
It was hardly a flattering reception, and gave our heroes very little chance of showing off their classical proficiency. They had at least expected, as Mr Richmond’s nominees, rather more than a half glance from the manager; and to be thus summarily turned over to a Mr Durfy before they had as much as opened their mouths was decidedly unpromising.
Reginald did make one feeble effort to prolong the interview, and to impress the manager at the same time.
“Excuse me,” said he, in his politest tones, “would you mind directing us to the composing-room? My brother and I don’t know the geography of the place yet.”
“Eh? Composing-room? Get a boy to show you. Plenty outside.”
It was no go, evidently; and they turned dismally from the room.
The errand-boy was coming up the passage as they emerged—the same errand-boy they had seen half an hour ago in the manager’s room; but, as their classical friends would say—
“Quantum mutatus ab illo Hectore!”
His two arms were strung with the handles of frothing tin cans from the elbow to the wrist. He carried two tin cans in his mouth. His apron was loaded to bursting with bread, fish, cheese, potatoes, and other edibles; the necks of bottles protruded from all his pocket’s,—from the bosom of his jacket and from the fob of his breeches,—and round his neck hung a ponderous chain of onions. In short, the errand-boy was busy; and our heroes, even with their short experience of business life, saw that there was little hope of extracting information from him under present circumstances.
So they let him pass, and waited for another. They had not to wait long, for the passage appeared to be a regular highway for the junior members of the staff of theRocketNewspaper Company, Limited. But though several boys came, it was some time before one appeared whose convenience it suited to conduct our heroes to the presence of Mr Durfy. Just, however, as their patience was getting exhausted, and Reginald was making up his mind to shake the dust of the place from his feet, a boy appeared and offered to escort them to the composing-room.
They followed him up several flights of a rickety staircase, and down some labyrinthine passages to a large room where some forty or fifty men were busy setting up type. At the far end of this room, at a small table, crowded with “proofs,” sat a red-faced individual whom the boy pointed out as “Duffy.”
“Well, now, what doyouwant?” asked he, as the brothers approached.
“The manager said we were to ask for Mr Durfy,” said Reginald.
“I wish to goodness he’d keep you down there; he knows I’m crowded out with boys. He always serves me that way, and I’ll tell him so one of these days.”
This last speech, though apparently addressed to the boys, was really a soliloquy on Mr Durfy’s part; but for all that it failed to enchant his audience. They had not, in their most sanguine moments, expected much, but this was even rather less than they had counted on.
Mr Durfy mused for some time, then, turning to Reginald, he said,—
“Do you know your letters?”
Here was a question to put to the captain of the fifth at Wilderham!
“I believe I do,” said Reginald, with a touch of scorn in his voice which was quite lost on the practical Mr Durfy.
“What do you mean by believe? Do you, or do you not?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then why couldn’t you say so at once? Take this bit of copy and set it up at that case there. And you, young fellow, take these proofs to the sub-editor’s room, and say I’ve not had the last sheet of the copy of the railway accident yet, and I’m standing for it. Cut away.”
Horace went off.
“After all,” thought he to himself, “what’s the use of being particular? I suppose I’m what they call a ‘printer’s devil’; nothing like starting modestly! Here goes for my lords the sub-editors, and the last page of the railway accident.”
And he spent a festive ten-minutes hunting out the sub-editor’s domains, and possessing himself of the missing copy.
With Reginald, however, it fared otherwise. A fellow may be head of the fifth at a public school, and yet not know his letters in a printing-office, and after five or ten-minutes’ hopeless endeavour to comprehend the geography of a typecase, he was obliged to acknowledge himself beaten and apprise Mr Durfy of the fact.
“I’m sorry I misunderstood you,” said he, putting the copy down on the table. “I’m not used to printing.”
“No,” said Mr Durfy, scornfully, “I guessed not. You’re too stuck-up for us, I can tell you. Here, Barber.”
An unhealthy-looking young man answered to the name.
“Take this chap here to the back case-room, and see he sweeps it out and dusts the cases. See if that’ll suit your abilities, my dandy”; and without waiting to hear Reginald’s explanations or remonstrances, Mr Durfy walked off, leaving the unlucky boy in the hands of Mr Barber.
“Now, then, stir your stumps, Mr Dandy,” said the latter. “It’ll take you all your time to get that shop straight, I can tell you, so you’d better pull up your boots. Got a broom?”
“No,” muttered Reg, through his teeth, “I’ve not got a broom.”
“Go and get that one, then, out of the corner there.”
Reginald flushed crimson, and hesitated a moment.
“Do you ’ear? Are you deaf? Get that one there.”
Reginald got it, and trailing it behind him dismally, followed his guide to the back case-room. It was a small room, which apparently had known neither broom nor water for years. The floor was thick with dirt, and the cases ranged in the racks against the walls were coated with dust.
“There you are,” said Mr Barber. “Open the window, do you ’ear? and don’t let none of the dust get out into the composing-room, or there’ll be a row. Come and tell me when you’ve done the floor, and I’ll show you ’ow to do them cases. Rattle along, do you ’ear? or you won’t get it done to-day;” and Mr Barber, who had had his day of sweeping out the shops, departed, slamming the door behind him.
Things had come to a crisis with Reginald Cruden early in his business career.
He hadcomeinto the City that morning prepared to face a good deal. He had not counted on much sympathy or consideration from his new employers; he had even vaguely made up his mind he would have to rough it at first; but to be shut up in a dirty room with a broom in his hand by a cad who could not even talk grammar was a humiliation on which he had never once calculated.
Tossing the broom unceremoniously into a corner, he opened the door and walked out of the room. Barber was already out of sight, chuckling inwardly over the delicious task he had been privileged to set to his dandy subordinate, and none of the men working near knew or cared what this pale, handsome new boy did either in or out of the back case-room.
Reginald walked through them to the passage outside, not much caring where he went or whom he met. If he were to meet Mr Barber, or Mr Durfy, or the manager himself, so much the better. As it happened, he met Horace, looking comparatively cheerful, with some papers in his hand.
“Hullo, Reg,” said he; “have they promoted you to a ‘printer’s devil’ too? Fancy what Bland would say if he saw us! Never mind, there’s four hours gone, and in about another six we shall be home with mother again.”
“I shall be home before then,” said Reg. “I’m going now. I can’t stand it, Horace.”
Horace stared at his brother in consternation.
“Oh, Reg, old man, you mustn’t; really you mustn’t. Do let’s stick together, however miserable it is. It’s sure to seem worse at first.”
“It’s all very well for you, Horace, doing messenger work. You haven’t been set to sweep out a room.”
Horace whistled.
“Whew! thatisa drop too much! But,” he added, taking his brother’s arm, “don’t cut it yet, old man, for mother’s sake, don’t. I’ll come and help you do it if I can. Why couldn’t they have given it me to do, and let you go the messages!”
Reginald said nothing, but let his brother lead him back slowly to the big room presided over by Mr Durfy.
“Where is it?” Horace inquired of him at the door.
“That little room in the corner.”
“All right. I’ll come if I possibly can. Do try it, old man, won’t you?”
“I’ll try it,” said Reginald, with something very like a groan as he opened the door and walked grimly back to the back case-room.
Horace, full of fear and trembling on his brother’s account, hurried with his copy to Mr Durfy, and waited impatiently till that grandee condescended to relieve him of it.
“Is there anything else?” he inquired, as he gave it up.
“Anything else? Yes, plenty; but don’t come bothering me now.”
Horace waited for no more elaborate statement of Mr Durfy’s wishes, but thankfully withdrew, and made straight for Reginald.
He found him half hidden, half choked by the dust of his own raising, as he drew his broom in a spiritless way across the black dry floor.
He paused in his occupation as Horace entered, and for a moment, as the two stood face to face coughing and sneezing, a sense of the ludicrous overcame them, and they finished up their duet with a laugh.
“I say,” said Horace, as soon as he could get words, “I fancy a little water would be an improvement here.”
“Where are we to get it from?” said Reg.
“I suppose there must be some about. Shall I go and see?”
“We might tip one of those fellows outside a sixpence to go and get us some.”
“Hold hard, old man!” said Horace, laughing again. “We’re not so flush of sixpences as all that. I guess if we want any water we shall have to get it ourselves. I’ll be back directly.”
Poor Reg, spirited up for a while by his brother’s courage, proceeded more gingerly with his sweeping, much amazed in the midst of his misery to discover how many walks in life there are beyond the capacity even of the captain of the fifth of a public school.
He was not, however, destined on the present occasion to perfect himself in the one that was then engaging his attention. Horace had scarcely disappeared in quest of water when the door opened, and no less a personage than the manager himself entered the room.
He was evidently prepared neither for the dust nor the duster, and started back for a moment, as though he were under the impression that the clouds filling the apartment were clouds of smoke, and Reginald was another Guy Fawkes caught in the act. He recovered himself shortly, however, and demanded sharply,—
“What are you doing here, making all this mess?”
“I’m trying to carry out Mr Durfy’s instructions,” replied Reginald, leaning on his broom, and not at all displeased at the interruption.
“Durfy’s instructions? What do you mean, sir?”
“Mr Durfy’s—”
“That will do. Here you,” said the manager, opening the door, and speaking to the nearest workman, “tell Mr Durfy to step here.”
Mr Durfy appeared in a very brief space.
“Durfy,” said the manager, wrathfully, “what do you mean by having this room in such a filthy mess? Aren’t your instructions to have it swept out once a week? When was it swept last?”
“Some little time ago. We’ve been so busy in our department, sir, that—”
“Yes, I know; you always say that. I’m sick of hearing it. Don’t let me find this sort of thing again. Send some one at once to sweep it out; this lad doesn’t know how to hold a broom. Take care it’s done by four o’clock, and ready for use. Pheugh! it’s enough to choke one.”
And the manager went off in a rage, coughing.
Satisfactory as this was, in a certain sense, for Reginald, it was not a flattering way of ending his difficulties, nor did the spirit in which Mr Durfy accepted his chief’s reprimand at all tend to restore him to cheerfulness.
“Bah, you miserable idiot, you! Give up that broom, and get out of this, or I’ll chuck you out.”
“I don’t think you will,” said Reginald, coolly dropping the broom and facing his enemy.
He was happier at that moment than he had been for a long time. He could imagine himself back at Wilderham, with the school bully shouting at him, and his spirits rose within him accordingly.
“What do you say? you hugger-mugger puppy you—you—”
Mr Durfy’s adjectives frequently had the merit of being more forcible than appropriate, and on the present occasion, what with the dust and his own rage, the one he wanted stuck in his throat altogether.
“I said I don’t think you will,” repeated Reginald.
Mr Durfy looked at his man and hesitated. Reginald stood five foot nine, and his shoulders were square and broad, besides, he was as cool as a cucumber, and didn’t even trouble to take his hands out of his pockets. All this Mr Durfy took in, and did not relish; but he must not cave in too precipitately, so he replied, with a sneer,—
“Think! A lot you know about thinking! Can’t even hold a broom. Clear out of here, I tell you, double quick; do you hear?”
Reginald’s spirits fell. It was clear from Mr Durfy’s tone he was not going to attempt to “chuck him out,” and nothing therefore could be gained by remaining.
He turned scornfully on his heel, knowing that he had made one enemy, at any rate, during his short connection with his new business.
And if he had known all, he could have counted two; for Mr Durfy, finding himself in a mood to wreak his wrath on some one, summoned the ill-favoured Barber to sweep out the back case-room, and gave his orders so viciously that Barber felt distinctly aggrieved, and jumping to the conclusion that Reginald had somehow contrived to turn the tables on him, he registered a secret vow, there and then, that he would on the first opportunity, and on all subsequent opportunities, be square with that luckless youth.
Caring very little about who hated him or who liked him, Reginald wandered forth, to intercept the faithful Horace with the now unnecessary water; and the two boys, finding very little to occupy them during the rest of the day, remained in comparative seclusion until the seven o’clock bell rang, when they walked home, possibly wiser, and certainly sadder, for their first day with theRocketNewspaper Company, Limited.
Chapter Five.The Crudens at Home.If anything could have made up to the two boys for the hardships and miseries of the day, it was the sight of their mother’s bright face as she awaited them that evening at the door of Number 6, Dull Street. If the day had been a sad and lonely one for Mrs Cruden, she was not the woman to betray the secret to her sons; and, indeed, the happiness of seeing them back was enough to drive away all other care for the time being.Shabby as the lodgings were, and lacking in all the comforts and luxuries of former days, the little family felt that evening, as they gathered round the tea-table and unburdened their hearts to one another, more of the true meaning of the word “home” than they had ever done before.“Now, dear boys,” said Mrs Cruden, when the meal was over, and they drew their chairs to the open window, “I’m longing to hear your day’s adventures. How did you get on? Was it as bad as you expected?”“It wasn’t particularly jolly,” said Reginald, shrugging his shoulders—“nothing like Wilderham, was it, Horrors?”“Well, it was a different sort of fun, certainly,” said Horace. “You see, mother, our education has been rather neglected in some things, so we didn’t get on as well as we might have done.”“Do you mean in the literary work?” said Mrs Cruden. “I’m quite sure you’ll get into it with a little practice.”“But it’s not the literary work, unluckily,” said Reginald.“Ah! you mean clerk’s work. You aren’t as quick at figures, perhaps, as you might be?”“That’s not exactly it,” said Horace. “The fact is, mother, we’re neither in the literary not the clerical department. I’m a ‘printer’s devil’!”“Oh, Horace! whatdoyou mean?” said the horrified mother.“Oh, I’m most innocently employed. I run messages; I fetch and carry for a gentleman called Durfy. He gives me some parliamentary news to carry to one place, and some police news to carry to another place—and, by-the-way, they read very much alike—and when I’m not running backwards or forwards I have to sit on a stool and watch him, and be ready to jump up and wag my tail the moment he whistles. It’s a fact, mother! Think of getting eighteen shillings a week for that! It’s a fraud!”Mrs Cruden could hardly tell whether to laugh or cry.“My poor boy!” she murmured; then, turning to Reginald, she said, “And what do you do, Reg?”“Oh, I sweep rooms,” said Reg, solemnly; “but they’ve got such a shocking bad broom there that I can’t make it act. If you could give me a new broom-head, mother, and put me up to a dodge or two about working out corners, I might rise in my profession!”There was a tell-tale quaver in the speaker’s voice which made this jaunty speech a very sad one to the mother’s ears. It was all she could do to conceal her misery, and when Horace came to the rescue with a racy account of the day’s proceedings, told in his liveliest manner, she was glad to turn her head and hide from her boys the trouble in her face.However, she soon recovered herself, and by the time Horace’s story was done she was ready to join her smiles with those which the history had drawn even from Reginald’s serious countenance.“After all,” said she, presently, “we must be thankful for what we have. Some one was saying the other day there never was a time when so many young fellows were out of work and thankful to get anything to do. And it’s very likely too, Reg, that just now, when they seem rather in confusion at the office, they really haven’t time to see about what your regular work is to be. Wait a little, and they’re sure to find out your value.”“They seem to have done that already as far as sweeping is concerned. The manager said I didn’t know how to hold a broom. I was quite offended,” said Reginald.“You are a dear brave pair of boys!” said the mother, warmly; “and I am prouder of you in your humble work than if you were kings!”“Hullo,” said Horace, “there’s some one coming up our stairs!”Sure enough there was, and more than one person, as it happened. There was a knock at the door, followed straightway by the entrance of an elderly lady, accompanied by a young lady and a young gentleman, who sailed into the room, much to the amazement and consternation of its occupants.“Mrs Cruden, I believe?” said the elderly lady, in her politest tones.“Yes,” replied the owner of that name.“Let me hintroduce myself—Mrs Captain Shuckleford, my son and daughter—neighbours of yours, Mrs Cruden, and wishing to be friendly. We’re sorry to hear of your trouble; very trying it is. My ’usband, Mrs Cruden, has gone too.”“Pray take a seat,” said Mrs Cruden. “Reg, will you put chairs?”Reg obeyed, with a groan.“These are your boys, are they?” said the visitor, eyeing the youths. “Will you come and shake ’ands with me, Reggie? What a dear, good-looking boy he is, Mrs Cruden! And ’ow do you do, too, my man?” said she, addressing Horace. “Pretty well? And what do they call you?”“My name is Horace,” said “my man,” blushing very decidedly, and retreating precipitately to a far corner of the room.“Ah, dear me! And my ’usband’s name, Mrs Cruden, was ’Oward. I never ’ear the name without affliction.”This was very awkward, for as the unfortunate widow could not fail to hear her own voice, it was necessary for consistency’s sake that she should show some emotion, which she proceeded to do, when her daughter hurriedly interposed in an audible whisper, “Ma, don’t make a goose of yourself! Behave yourself, do!”“So I am be’aving myself, Jemima,” replied the outraged parent, “and I don’t need lessons from you.”“It’s very kind of you to call in,” said Mrs Cruden, feeling it time to say something; “do you live near here?”“We live next door, at number four,” said Miss Jemima; “put that handkerchief away, ma.”“What next, I wonder! if my ’andkerchief’s not my hown, I’d like to know what is? Yes, Mrs Cruden. We heard you were coming, and we wish to treat you with consideration, knowing your circumstances. It’s all one gentlefolk can do to another. Yes, and I ’ope the boys will be good friends. Sam, talk to the boys.”Sam needed no such maternal encouragement, as it happened, and had already swaggered up to Horace with a familiar air.“Jolly weather, ain’t it?”“Yes,” said Horace, looking round wildly for any avenue of escape, but finding none.“Pretty hot in your shop, ain’t it?” said the lawyer’s clerk.“Yes,” again said Horace, with a peculiar tingling sensation in his toes which his visitor little dreamed of.Horace was not naturally a short-tempered youth, but there was something in the tone of this self-satisfied lawyer’s clerk which raised his dander.“Not much of a berth, is it?” pursued the catechist.“No,” said Horace.“Not a very chirrupy screw, so I’m told—eh?”This was rather too much. Either Horace must escape by flight, which would be ignominious, or he must knock his visitor down, which would be rude, or he must grin and bear it. The middle course was what he most inclined to, but failing that, he decided on the latter.So he shook his head and waited patiently for the next question.“What do you do, eh? dirty work, ain’t it?”“Yes, isn’t yours?” said Horace, in a tone that rather surprised the limb of the law.“Mine? No. What makes you ask that?” he inquired.“Only because I thought I’d like to know,” said Horace artlessly.Mr Shuckleford looked perplexed. He didn’t understand exactly what Horace meant, and yet, whatever it was, it put him off the thread of his discourse for a time. So he changed the subject.“I once thought of going into business myself,” he said; “but they seemed to think I’d do better at the law. Same time, don’t think I’m a nailer on business chaps. I know one or two very respectable chaps in business.”“Do you?” replied Horace, with a touch of satire in his voice which was quite lost on the complacent Sam.“Yes. Why, in our club—do you know our club?”“No,” said Horace.“Oh—I must take you one evening—yes, in our club we’ve a good many business chaps—well-behaved chaps, too.”Horace hardly looked as overwhelmed by this announcement as his visitor expected.“Would you like to join?”“No, thank you.”“Eh? you’re afraid of being black-balled, I suppose? No fear, I can work it with them. I can walk round any of them, I let you know; they wouldn’t do it, especially when they knew I’d a fancy for you, my boy.”If Horace was grateful for this expression of favour, he managed to conceal his feelings wonderfully well. At the same time he had sense enough to see that, vulgar and conceited as Samuel Shuckleford was, he meant to be friendly, and inwardly gave him credit accordingly.He did his best to be civil, and to listen to all the bumptious talk of his visitor patiently, and Sam rattled away greatly to his own satisfaction, fully believing he was impressing his hearer with a sense of his importance, and cheering his heart by the promise of his favours and protection.With the unlucky Reginald, meanwhile, it fared far less comfortably.“Jemima, my dear,” said Mrs Shuckleford, who in all her domestic confidences to Mrs Cruden kept a sharp eye on her family—“Jemima, my dear, I think Reggie would like to show you his album!”An electric shock could not have startled and confused our hero more. It was bad enough to hear himself called “Reggie,” but that was nothing to the assumption that he was pining to make himself agreeable to Miss Jemima—he to whom any lady except his mother was a cause of trepidation, and to whom a female like Miss Jemima was nothing short of an ogress!“I’ve not got an album,” he gasped, with an appealing look towards his mother.But before Mrs Cruden could interpose to rescue him, the ladylike Miss Jemima, who had already regarded the good-looking shy youth with approval, entered the lists on her own account, and moving her chair a trifle in his direction, said, in a confidential whisper,—“Ma thinks we’re not a very sociable couple, that’s what it is.”A couple! He and Jemima a couple! Reginald was ready to faint, and looked towards the open window as if he meditated a headlong escape that way. As to any other way of escape, that was impossible, for he was fairly cornered between the enemy and the wall, and unless he were to cut his way through the one or the other, he must sit where he was.“I hope you don’t mind talking to me, Mr Reggie,” continued the young lady, when Reginald gave no symptom of having heard the last observation. “We shall have to be friends, you know, now we are neighbours. So you haven’t got an album?”This abrupt question drove poor Reginald still further into the corner. What business was it of hers whether he had got an album or not? What right had she to pester him with questions like that in his own house? In fact, what right had she and her mother and her brother to come there at all? Those were the thoughts that passed through his mind, and as they did so indignation got the better of good manners and everything else.“Find out,” he said.He could have bitten his tongue off the moment he had spoken. For Reginald was a gentleman, and the sound of these rude words in his own voice startled him into a sense of shame and confusion tenfold worse than any Miss Shuckleford had succeeded in producing.“I beg your pardon,” he gasped hurriedly. “I—I didn’t mean to be rude.”Now was the hour of Miss Jemima’s triumph. She had the unhappy youth at her mercy, and she took full advantage of her power. She forgave him, and made him sit and listen to her and answer her questions for as long as she chose; and if ever he showed signs of mutiny, the slightest hint, such as “You’ll be telling me to mind my own business again,” was enough to reduce him to instant subjection.It was a bad quarter of an hour for Reginald, and the climax arrived when presently Mrs Shuckleford looked towards them and said across the room,—“Now I wonder what you two young people are talking about in that snug corner. Oh, never mind, if it’s secrets! Nice it is, Mrs Cruden, to see young people such good friends so soon. We must be going now, children,” she added. “We shall soon see our friends in our own ’ouse, I ’ope.”A tender leave-taking ensued. For a while, as the retreating footsteps of the visitors gradually died away on the stairs, the little family stood motionless, as though the slightest sound might recall them. But when at last the street-door slammed below, Reginald flung himself into a chair and groaned.“Mother, we can’t stay here. We must leave to-morrow!”Horace could not help laughing.“Why, Reg,” he said, “you seemed to be enjoying yourself no end.”“Shut up, Horace, it’s nothing to laugh about.”“My dear boy,” said Mrs Cruden, “you think far more about it than you need. After all, they seem kindly disposed persons, and I don’t think we should be unfriendly.”“That’s all very well,” said Reg, “if there was no Jemima in the question.”“I should say it’s all very well,” said Horace, “if there was no Sam in the question; though I dare say he means to be friendly. But didn’t you and Jemima hit it, then, Reg? I quite thought you did.”“Didn’t I tell you to shut up?” repeated Reg, this time half angrily. “I don’t see, mother,” he added, “however poor we are, we are called on to associate with a lot like that.”“They have not polished manners, certainly,” said Mrs Cruden; “but I do think they are good-natured, and that’s a great thing.”“I should think so,” said Horace. “What do you think? Samuel wants to propose me for his club, which seems to be a very select affair.”“All I know is,” said Reginald, “nothing will induce me to go into their house. It may be rude, but I’m certain I’d be still more rude if I did go.”“Well,” said Horace, “I vote we take a walk, as it’s a fine evening. I feel a trifle warm after it all. What do you say?”They said Yes, and in the empty streets that evening the mother and her two sons walked happy in one another’s company, and trying each in his or her own way to gain courage for the days of trial that were to follow.The brothers had a short consultation that night as they went to bed,noton the subject of their next door neighbours.“Horrors,” said Reg, “what’s to be done about theRocket? I can’t stop there.”“It’s awful,” said Horace; “but what else can we do? If we cut it, there’s mother left a beggar.”“Couldn’t we get into something else?”“What? Who’d take us? There are thousands of fellows wanting work as it is.”“But surely we’re better than most of them. We’re gentlemen and well educated.”“So much the worse, it seems,” said Horace. “What good is it to us when we’re put to sweep rooms and carry messages?”“Do you mean to say you intend to stick to that sort of thing all your life?” asked Reg.“Till I can find something better,” said Horace. “After all, old man, it’s honest work, and not very fagging, and it’s eighteen shillings a week.”“Anyhow, I think we might let Richmond know what a nice berth he’s let us in for. Why, his office-boy’s better off.”“Yes, and if we knew as much about book-keeping and agreement stamps and copying presses as his office-boy does, we might be as well off. What’s the good of knowing how many ships fought at Salamis, when we don’t even know how many ounces you can send by post for twopence? At least, I don’t. Good-night, old man.”And Horace, really scarcely less miserable at heart than his brother, buried his nose in the Dull Street pillow and tried to go to sleep.
If anything could have made up to the two boys for the hardships and miseries of the day, it was the sight of their mother’s bright face as she awaited them that evening at the door of Number 6, Dull Street. If the day had been a sad and lonely one for Mrs Cruden, she was not the woman to betray the secret to her sons; and, indeed, the happiness of seeing them back was enough to drive away all other care for the time being.
Shabby as the lodgings were, and lacking in all the comforts and luxuries of former days, the little family felt that evening, as they gathered round the tea-table and unburdened their hearts to one another, more of the true meaning of the word “home” than they had ever done before.
“Now, dear boys,” said Mrs Cruden, when the meal was over, and they drew their chairs to the open window, “I’m longing to hear your day’s adventures. How did you get on? Was it as bad as you expected?”
“It wasn’t particularly jolly,” said Reginald, shrugging his shoulders—“nothing like Wilderham, was it, Horrors?”
“Well, it was a different sort of fun, certainly,” said Horace. “You see, mother, our education has been rather neglected in some things, so we didn’t get on as well as we might have done.”
“Do you mean in the literary work?” said Mrs Cruden. “I’m quite sure you’ll get into it with a little practice.”
“But it’s not the literary work, unluckily,” said Reginald.
“Ah! you mean clerk’s work. You aren’t as quick at figures, perhaps, as you might be?”
“That’s not exactly it,” said Horace. “The fact is, mother, we’re neither in the literary not the clerical department. I’m a ‘printer’s devil’!”
“Oh, Horace! whatdoyou mean?” said the horrified mother.
“Oh, I’m most innocently employed. I run messages; I fetch and carry for a gentleman called Durfy. He gives me some parliamentary news to carry to one place, and some police news to carry to another place—and, by-the-way, they read very much alike—and when I’m not running backwards or forwards I have to sit on a stool and watch him, and be ready to jump up and wag my tail the moment he whistles. It’s a fact, mother! Think of getting eighteen shillings a week for that! It’s a fraud!”
Mrs Cruden could hardly tell whether to laugh or cry.
“My poor boy!” she murmured; then, turning to Reginald, she said, “And what do you do, Reg?”
“Oh, I sweep rooms,” said Reg, solemnly; “but they’ve got such a shocking bad broom there that I can’t make it act. If you could give me a new broom-head, mother, and put me up to a dodge or two about working out corners, I might rise in my profession!”
There was a tell-tale quaver in the speaker’s voice which made this jaunty speech a very sad one to the mother’s ears. It was all she could do to conceal her misery, and when Horace came to the rescue with a racy account of the day’s proceedings, told in his liveliest manner, she was glad to turn her head and hide from her boys the trouble in her face.
However, she soon recovered herself, and by the time Horace’s story was done she was ready to join her smiles with those which the history had drawn even from Reginald’s serious countenance.
“After all,” said she, presently, “we must be thankful for what we have. Some one was saying the other day there never was a time when so many young fellows were out of work and thankful to get anything to do. And it’s very likely too, Reg, that just now, when they seem rather in confusion at the office, they really haven’t time to see about what your regular work is to be. Wait a little, and they’re sure to find out your value.”
“They seem to have done that already as far as sweeping is concerned. The manager said I didn’t know how to hold a broom. I was quite offended,” said Reginald.
“You are a dear brave pair of boys!” said the mother, warmly; “and I am prouder of you in your humble work than if you were kings!”
“Hullo,” said Horace, “there’s some one coming up our stairs!”
Sure enough there was, and more than one person, as it happened. There was a knock at the door, followed straightway by the entrance of an elderly lady, accompanied by a young lady and a young gentleman, who sailed into the room, much to the amazement and consternation of its occupants.
“Mrs Cruden, I believe?” said the elderly lady, in her politest tones.
“Yes,” replied the owner of that name.
“Let me hintroduce myself—Mrs Captain Shuckleford, my son and daughter—neighbours of yours, Mrs Cruden, and wishing to be friendly. We’re sorry to hear of your trouble; very trying it is. My ’usband, Mrs Cruden, has gone too.”
“Pray take a seat,” said Mrs Cruden. “Reg, will you put chairs?”
Reg obeyed, with a groan.
“These are your boys, are they?” said the visitor, eyeing the youths. “Will you come and shake ’ands with me, Reggie? What a dear, good-looking boy he is, Mrs Cruden! And ’ow do you do, too, my man?” said she, addressing Horace. “Pretty well? And what do they call you?”
“My name is Horace,” said “my man,” blushing very decidedly, and retreating precipitately to a far corner of the room.
“Ah, dear me! And my ’usband’s name, Mrs Cruden, was ’Oward. I never ’ear the name without affliction.”
This was very awkward, for as the unfortunate widow could not fail to hear her own voice, it was necessary for consistency’s sake that she should show some emotion, which she proceeded to do, when her daughter hurriedly interposed in an audible whisper, “Ma, don’t make a goose of yourself! Behave yourself, do!”
“So I am be’aving myself, Jemima,” replied the outraged parent, “and I don’t need lessons from you.”
“It’s very kind of you to call in,” said Mrs Cruden, feeling it time to say something; “do you live near here?”
“We live next door, at number four,” said Miss Jemima; “put that handkerchief away, ma.”
“What next, I wonder! if my ’andkerchief’s not my hown, I’d like to know what is? Yes, Mrs Cruden. We heard you were coming, and we wish to treat you with consideration, knowing your circumstances. It’s all one gentlefolk can do to another. Yes, and I ’ope the boys will be good friends. Sam, talk to the boys.”
Sam needed no such maternal encouragement, as it happened, and had already swaggered up to Horace with a familiar air.
“Jolly weather, ain’t it?”
“Yes,” said Horace, looking round wildly for any avenue of escape, but finding none.
“Pretty hot in your shop, ain’t it?” said the lawyer’s clerk.
“Yes,” again said Horace, with a peculiar tingling sensation in his toes which his visitor little dreamed of.
Horace was not naturally a short-tempered youth, but there was something in the tone of this self-satisfied lawyer’s clerk which raised his dander.
“Not much of a berth, is it?” pursued the catechist.
“No,” said Horace.
“Not a very chirrupy screw, so I’m told—eh?”
This was rather too much. Either Horace must escape by flight, which would be ignominious, or he must knock his visitor down, which would be rude, or he must grin and bear it. The middle course was what he most inclined to, but failing that, he decided on the latter.
So he shook his head and waited patiently for the next question.
“What do you do, eh? dirty work, ain’t it?”
“Yes, isn’t yours?” said Horace, in a tone that rather surprised the limb of the law.
“Mine? No. What makes you ask that?” he inquired.
“Only because I thought I’d like to know,” said Horace artlessly.
Mr Shuckleford looked perplexed. He didn’t understand exactly what Horace meant, and yet, whatever it was, it put him off the thread of his discourse for a time. So he changed the subject.
“I once thought of going into business myself,” he said; “but they seemed to think I’d do better at the law. Same time, don’t think I’m a nailer on business chaps. I know one or two very respectable chaps in business.”
“Do you?” replied Horace, with a touch of satire in his voice which was quite lost on the complacent Sam.
“Yes. Why, in our club—do you know our club?”
“No,” said Horace.
“Oh—I must take you one evening—yes, in our club we’ve a good many business chaps—well-behaved chaps, too.”
Horace hardly looked as overwhelmed by this announcement as his visitor expected.
“Would you like to join?”
“No, thank you.”
“Eh? you’re afraid of being black-balled, I suppose? No fear, I can work it with them. I can walk round any of them, I let you know; they wouldn’t do it, especially when they knew I’d a fancy for you, my boy.”
If Horace was grateful for this expression of favour, he managed to conceal his feelings wonderfully well. At the same time he had sense enough to see that, vulgar and conceited as Samuel Shuckleford was, he meant to be friendly, and inwardly gave him credit accordingly.
He did his best to be civil, and to listen to all the bumptious talk of his visitor patiently, and Sam rattled away greatly to his own satisfaction, fully believing he was impressing his hearer with a sense of his importance, and cheering his heart by the promise of his favours and protection.
With the unlucky Reginald, meanwhile, it fared far less comfortably.
“Jemima, my dear,” said Mrs Shuckleford, who in all her domestic confidences to Mrs Cruden kept a sharp eye on her family—“Jemima, my dear, I think Reggie would like to show you his album!”
An electric shock could not have startled and confused our hero more. It was bad enough to hear himself called “Reggie,” but that was nothing to the assumption that he was pining to make himself agreeable to Miss Jemima—he to whom any lady except his mother was a cause of trepidation, and to whom a female like Miss Jemima was nothing short of an ogress!
“I’ve not got an album,” he gasped, with an appealing look towards his mother.
But before Mrs Cruden could interpose to rescue him, the ladylike Miss Jemima, who had already regarded the good-looking shy youth with approval, entered the lists on her own account, and moving her chair a trifle in his direction, said, in a confidential whisper,—
“Ma thinks we’re not a very sociable couple, that’s what it is.”
A couple! He and Jemima a couple! Reginald was ready to faint, and looked towards the open window as if he meditated a headlong escape that way. As to any other way of escape, that was impossible, for he was fairly cornered between the enemy and the wall, and unless he were to cut his way through the one or the other, he must sit where he was.
“I hope you don’t mind talking to me, Mr Reggie,” continued the young lady, when Reginald gave no symptom of having heard the last observation. “We shall have to be friends, you know, now we are neighbours. So you haven’t got an album?”
This abrupt question drove poor Reginald still further into the corner. What business was it of hers whether he had got an album or not? What right had she to pester him with questions like that in his own house? In fact, what right had she and her mother and her brother to come there at all? Those were the thoughts that passed through his mind, and as they did so indignation got the better of good manners and everything else.
“Find out,” he said.
He could have bitten his tongue off the moment he had spoken. For Reginald was a gentleman, and the sound of these rude words in his own voice startled him into a sense of shame and confusion tenfold worse than any Miss Shuckleford had succeeded in producing.
“I beg your pardon,” he gasped hurriedly. “I—I didn’t mean to be rude.”
Now was the hour of Miss Jemima’s triumph. She had the unhappy youth at her mercy, and she took full advantage of her power. She forgave him, and made him sit and listen to her and answer her questions for as long as she chose; and if ever he showed signs of mutiny, the slightest hint, such as “You’ll be telling me to mind my own business again,” was enough to reduce him to instant subjection.
It was a bad quarter of an hour for Reginald, and the climax arrived when presently Mrs Shuckleford looked towards them and said across the room,—
“Now I wonder what you two young people are talking about in that snug corner. Oh, never mind, if it’s secrets! Nice it is, Mrs Cruden, to see young people such good friends so soon. We must be going now, children,” she added. “We shall soon see our friends in our own ’ouse, I ’ope.”
A tender leave-taking ensued. For a while, as the retreating footsteps of the visitors gradually died away on the stairs, the little family stood motionless, as though the slightest sound might recall them. But when at last the street-door slammed below, Reginald flung himself into a chair and groaned.
“Mother, we can’t stay here. We must leave to-morrow!”
Horace could not help laughing.
“Why, Reg,” he said, “you seemed to be enjoying yourself no end.”
“Shut up, Horace, it’s nothing to laugh about.”
“My dear boy,” said Mrs Cruden, “you think far more about it than you need. After all, they seem kindly disposed persons, and I don’t think we should be unfriendly.”
“That’s all very well,” said Reg, “if there was no Jemima in the question.”
“I should say it’s all very well,” said Horace, “if there was no Sam in the question; though I dare say he means to be friendly. But didn’t you and Jemima hit it, then, Reg? I quite thought you did.”
“Didn’t I tell you to shut up?” repeated Reg, this time half angrily. “I don’t see, mother,” he added, “however poor we are, we are called on to associate with a lot like that.”
“They have not polished manners, certainly,” said Mrs Cruden; “but I do think they are good-natured, and that’s a great thing.”
“I should think so,” said Horace. “What do you think? Samuel wants to propose me for his club, which seems to be a very select affair.”
“All I know is,” said Reginald, “nothing will induce me to go into their house. It may be rude, but I’m certain I’d be still more rude if I did go.”
“Well,” said Horace, “I vote we take a walk, as it’s a fine evening. I feel a trifle warm after it all. What do you say?”
They said Yes, and in the empty streets that evening the mother and her two sons walked happy in one another’s company, and trying each in his or her own way to gain courage for the days of trial that were to follow.
The brothers had a short consultation that night as they went to bed,noton the subject of their next door neighbours.
“Horrors,” said Reg, “what’s to be done about theRocket? I can’t stop there.”
“It’s awful,” said Horace; “but what else can we do? If we cut it, there’s mother left a beggar.”
“Couldn’t we get into something else?”
“What? Who’d take us? There are thousands of fellows wanting work as it is.”
“But surely we’re better than most of them. We’re gentlemen and well educated.”
“So much the worse, it seems,” said Horace. “What good is it to us when we’re put to sweep rooms and carry messages?”
“Do you mean to say you intend to stick to that sort of thing all your life?” asked Reg.
“Till I can find something better,” said Horace. “After all, old man, it’s honest work, and not very fagging, and it’s eighteen shillings a week.”
“Anyhow, I think we might let Richmond know what a nice berth he’s let us in for. Why, his office-boy’s better off.”
“Yes, and if we knew as much about book-keeping and agreement stamps and copying presses as his office-boy does, we might be as well off. What’s the good of knowing how many ships fought at Salamis, when we don’t even know how many ounces you can send by post for twopence? At least, I don’t. Good-night, old man.”
And Horace, really scarcely less miserable at heart than his brother, buried his nose in the Dull Street pillow and tried to go to sleep.
Chapter Six.Reginald’s Prospects develop.It was in anything but exuberant spirits that the two Crudens presented themselves on the following morning at the workman’s entrance of theRocketNewspaper Company, Limited. The bell was beginning to sound as they did so, and their enemy the timekeeper looked as though he would fain discover a pretext for pouncing on them and giving them a specimen of his importance. But even his ingenuity failed in this respect, and as Horace passed him with a good-humoured nod, he had, much against his will, to nod back, and forego his amiable intentions.The brothers naturally turned their steps to the room presided over by Mr Durfy. That magnate had not yet arrived, much to their relief, and they consoled themselves in his absence by standing at the table watching their fellow-workmen as they crowded in and proceeded with more or less alacrity to settle down to their day’s work.Among those who displayed no unseemly haste in applying themselves to their tasks was Barber, who, with the dust of the back case-room still in his mind, and equally on his countenance, considered the present opportunity of squaring up accounts with Reginald too good to be neglected. For reasons best known to himself, Mr Barber determined that his victim’s flagellation should be moral rather than physical. He would have liked to punch Reginald’s head, or, better still, to have knocked Reginald’s and Horace’s heads together. But he saw reasons for denying himself that pleasure, and fell back on the more ethereal weapons of his own wit.“Hullo, puddin’ ’ead,” he began, “’ow’s your pa and your ma to-day? Find the Old Bailey a ’ealthy place, don’t they?”Reginald favoured the speaker by way of answer with a stare of mingled scorn and wrath, which greatly elevated that gentleman’s spirits.“’Ow long is it they’ve got? Seven years, ain’t it? My eye, they won’t know you when they come out, you’ll be so growed.”The wrath slowly faded from Reginald’s face, as the speaker proceeded, leaving only the scorn to testify to the interest he took in this intellectual display.Horace, delighted to see there was no prospect of a “flare-up,” smiled, and began almost to enjoy himself.“I say,” continued Barber, just a little disappointed to find that his exquisite humour was not as electrical in its effect as it would have been on any one less dense than the Crudens, “’ow is it you ain’t got a clean collar on to-day, and no scent on your ’andkerchers—eh?”This was getting feeble. Even Mr Barber felt it, for he continued, in a more lively tone,—“Glad we ain’t got many of your sickening sort ’ere; snivelling school-boy brats, that’s what you are, tired of pickin’ pockets, and think you’re goin’ to show us your manners. Yah! if you wasn’t such a dirty ugly pair of puppy dogs I’d stick you under the pump—so I would.”Reginald yawned, and walked off to watch a compositor picking up type out of a case. Horace, on the other hand, appeared to be deeply interested in Mr Barber’s eloquent observations, and inquired quite artlessly, but with a twinkle in his eye,—“Is the pump near here? I was looking for it everywhere yesterday.”It was Mr Barber’s turn to stare. He had not expected this, and he did not like it, especially when one or two of the men and boys near, who had failed to be convulsed by his wit, laughed at Horace’s question.After all, moral flagellation does not always answer, and when one of the victims yawns and the other asks a matter-of-fact questions it is disconcerting even to an accomplished operator. However, Barber gallantly determined on one more effort.“Ugh—trying to be funny, are you, Mr Snubnose? Best try and be honest if you can, you and your mealy-mug brother. It’ll be ’ard work, I know, to keep your ’ands in your own pockets, but you’d best do it, do you ’ear—pair of psalm-singin’ twopenny-ha’penny puppy dogs!”This picturesque peroration certainly deserved some recognition, and might possibly have received it, had not Mr Durfy’s entrance at that particular moment sent the idlers back suddenly to their cases.Reginald, either heedless of or unconcerned at the new arrival, remained listlessly watching the operations of the compositor near him, an act of audacity which highly exasperated the overseer, and furnished the key-note for the day’s entertainment.For Mr Durfy, to use an expressive term, had “got out of bed the wrong side” this morning. For the matter of that, after the blowing-up about the back case-room, he had got into it the wrong side last night, so that he was doubly perturbed in spirit, and a short conversation he had just had with the manager below had not tended to compose him.“Durfy,” said that brusque official, as the overseer passed his open door, “come in. What about those two lads I sent up to you yesterday? Are they any good?”“Not a bit,” growled Mr Durfy; “fools both of them.”“Which is the bigger fool?”“The old one.”“Then keep him for yourself—put him to composing, and send the other one down here. Send him at once, Durfy, do you hear?”With this considerately worded injunction in his ears it is hardly to be wondered at that Mr Durfy was not all smiles as he entered the domain which owned his sway.His eye naturally lit on Reginald as the most suitable object on which to relieve his feelings.“Now, then, there,” he called out. “What do you mean by interfering with the men in their work?”“I’m not interfering with anybody,” said Reginald, looking up with glowing cheeks, “I’m watching this man.”“Come out of it, do you hear me? Why don’t you go about your own work?”“I’ve been waiting here ten-minutes for you.”“Look here,” said Mr Durfy, his tones getting lower as his passion rose; “if you think we’re going to keep you here to give us any of your impudence you’re mistaken; so I can tell you. It’s bad enough to have a big fool put into the place for charity, without any of your nonsense. If I had my way I’d give you your beggarly eighteen shillings a week to keep you away. Go to your work.”Reginald’s eyes blazed out for a moment on the speaker in a way which made Horace, who heard and saw all, tremble. But he overcame himself with a mighty effort, and said,—“Where?”Mr Durfy glanced round the room.“Young Gedge!” he called out.A boy answered the summons.“Clear that rack between you and Barber, and put up a pair of cases for this fool here, and look after him. Off you go! and offyougo,” added he, rounding on Reginald, “and if we don’t make it hot for you among us I’m precious mistaken.”It was a proud moment certainly for the cock of the fifth at Wilderham to find himself following meekly at the heels of a youngster like Gedge, who had been commissioned to put him to work and look after him. But Reginald was too sick at heart and disgusted to care what became of himself, as long as Mr Durfy’s odious voice ceased to torment his ears. The only thing he did care about was what was to become of Horace. Was he to be put in charge of some one too, or was he to remain a printer’s devil?Mr Durfy soon answered that question.“What are you standing there for?” demanded he, turning round on the younger brother as soon as he had disposed of the elder. “Go down to the manager’s room at once; you’re not wanted here.”So they were to be separated! There was only time to exchange one glance of mutual commiseration and then Horace slowly left the room with sad forebodings, more on his brother’s account than his own, and feeling that as far as helping one another was concerned they might as well be doomed to serve their time at opposite ends of London.Gedge, under whose imposing auspices Reginald was to begin his typographical career, was a diminutive youth who, to all outward appearances, was somewhere about the tender age of fourteen, instead of, as was really the case, being almost as old as Reginald himself. He was facetiously styled “Magog” by his shopmates, in allusion to his small stature, which required the assistance of a good-sized box under his feet to enable him to reach his “upper case.” His face was not an unpleasant one, and his voice, which still retained its boyish treble, was an agreeable contrast to that of most of the “gentlemen of the case” in Mr Durfy’s department.For all that, Reginald considered himself much outraged by being put in charge of this chit of a child, and glowered down on him much as a mastiff might glower on a terrier who presumed to do the honour of his back yard for his benefit.However, the terrier in this case was not at all disheartened by his reception, and said cheerily as he began to clear the frame,—“You don’t seem to fancy it, I say. I don’t wonder. Never mind, I shan’t lick you unless you make me.”“Thanks,” said Reginald, drily, but scarcely able to conceal a smile at this magnanimous declaration.“Magog” worked busily away, putting away cases in the rack, dusting the frame down with his apron, and whistling softly to himself.“Thanks for helping me,” said he, after a time, as Reginald still stood by doing nothing. “I could never have done it all by myself.”Reginald blushed a little at this broad hint, and proceeded to lift down a case. But he nearly upset it in doing so, greatly to his companion’s horror.“You’d better rest,” he said, “you’ll be fagged out. Here, let me do it. There you are. Now we’re ready to start you. I’ve a good mind to go and get old Tacker to ring up the big bell and let them know you’re just going to begin.”Reginald could hardly be offended at this good-natured banter, and, as Gedge was after all a decent-looking boy, and aspirated his “h’s,” and did not smell of onions, he began to think that if he were doomed to drudge in this place he might have been saddled with a more offensive companion.“It’s a pity to put Tacker to the trouble, young ’un,” said he; “he’ll probably ring when I’m going to leave off, and that’ll do as well.”“That’s not bad for you,” said Gedge, approvingly; “not half bad. Go on like that, and you’ll make a joke in about a fortnight.”“Look here,” said Reginald, smiling at last. “I shall either have to punch your head or begin work. You’d better decide which you’d like best.”“Well, as Durfy is looking this way,” said Gedge, “I suppose you’d better begin work. Stick that pair of empty cases up there—the one with the big holes below and the other one above. You needn’t stick them upside down, though, unless you particularly want to; they look quite as well the right way. Now, then, you’d better watch me fill them, and see what boxes the sorts go in. No larks, now. Here goes for the ‘m’s.’”So saying, Mr “Magog” proceeded to fill up one box with types of the letter “m,” and another box some distance off with “a’s,” and another with “b’s,” and so on, till presently the lower of the two cases was nearly full. Reginald watched him with something like admiration, inwardly wondering if he would ever be able to find his way about this labyrinth of boxes, and strongly of opinion that only muffs like printers would think of arranging the alphabet in such an absurdly haphazard manner. The lower case being full up, Gedge meekly suggested that as he was yet several feet from his full size, they might as well lift the upper case down while it was being filled. Which done, the same process was repeated, only with more apparent regularity, and the case having been finally tilted up on the frame above the lower case, the operator turned round with a pleased expression, and said,—“What do you think of that?”“Why, I think it’s very ridiculous not to put the ‘capital J’ next to the ‘capital I,’” said Reginald.Gedge laughed.“Go and tell Durfy that; he’d like to hear it.”Reginald, however, denied himself the pleasure of entertaining Mr Durfy on this occasion, and occupied himself with picking up the types and inspecting them, and trying to learn the geography of his cases.“Now,” said “Magog,” mounting his box, and taking his composing-stick in his hand, “keep your eye on me, young fellow, and you’ll know all about it.”And he proceeded to “set-up” a paragraph for the newspaper from a manuscript in front of him at a speed which bewildered Reginald and baffled any attempt on his part to follow the movements of the operator’s hand among the boxes. He watched for several minutes in silence until Gedge, considering he had exhibited his agility sufficiently, halted in his work, and with a passing shade across his face turned to his companion and said,—“I say, isn’t this a beastly place?”There was something in his voice and manner which struck Reginald. It was unlike a common workman, and still more unlike a boy of Gedge’s size and age.“It is beastly,” he said.“I’m awfully sorry for you, you know,” continued Gedge, in a half-whisper, and going on with his work at the same time, “because I guess it’s not what you’re used to.”“I’m not used to it,” said Reginald.“Nor was I when I came. My old screw of an uncle took it into his head to apprentice me here because he’d been an apprentice once, and didn’t see why I should start higher up the ladder than he did. Are you an apprentice?”“No, not that I know of,” said Reginald, not knowing exactly what he was.“Lucky beggar! I’m booked here for nobody knows how much longer. I’d have cut it long ago if I could. I say, what’s your name?”“Cruden.”“Well, Cruden, I’m precious glad you’ve turned up. It’ll make all the difference to me. I was getting as big a cad as any of those fellows there, for you’re bound to be sociable. But you’re a nicer sort, and it’s a good job for me, I can tell you.”Apart from the flattery of these words, there was a touch of earnestness in the boy’s voice which struck a sympathetic chord in Reginald’s nature, and drew him mysteriously to this new hour-old acquaintance. He told him of his own hard fortunes, and by what means he had come down to his present position. Gedge listened to it all eagerly.“Were you really captain of the fifth at your school?” said he, almost reverentially. “I say! what an awful drop this must be! You must feel as if you’d sooner be dead.”“I do sometimes,” said Reginald.“I know I would,” replied Gedge, solemnly, “if I was you. Was that other fellow your brother, then?”“Yes.”Gedge mused a bit, and then laughed quietly.“How beautifully you two shut up Barber between you just now,” he said; “it’s the first snub he’s had since I’ve been here, and all the fellows swear by him. I say, Cruden, it’s a merciful thing for me you’ve come. I was bound to go to the dogs if I’d gone on as I was much longer.”Reginald brightened. It pleased him just now to think any one was glad to see him, and the spontaneous way in which this boy had come under his wing won him over completely.“We must manage to stick together,” he said. “Horace, you know, is working in another part of the office. It’s awfully hard lines, for we set our minds on being together. But it can’t be helped; and I’m glad, any way, you’re here, young ’un.”The young ’un beamed gratefully by way of response.The paragraph by this time was nearly set-up, and the conversation was interrupted by the critical operation of lifting the “matter” from the stick and transferring it to a “galley,” a feat which the experienced “Magog” accomplished very deftly, and greatly to the amazement of his companion. Just as it was over, and Reginald was laughingly hoping he would not soon be expected to arrive at such a pitch of dexterity, Mr Durfy walked up.“So that’s what you call doing your work, is it? playing the fool, and getting in another man’s way. Is that all you’ve done?”Reginald glared at him, and answered,—“I’m not playing the fool.”“Hold your tongue and don’t answer me, you miserable puppy! Let me see what you have done.”“I’ve been learning the boxes in the case,” said Reginald.Mr Durfy sneered.“You have, have you? That’s what you’ve been doing the last hour, I suppose. Since you’ve been so industrious, pick me out a lower-case ‘x,’ do you hear?”Reginald made a vague dive at one of the boxes, but not the right one, for he produced a ‘z.’“Ah, I thought so,” said Mr Durfy, with a sneer that made Reginald long to cram the type into his mouth. “Now let’s try a capital ‘J.’”As it happened, Reginald knew where the capital “J” was, but he made no attempt to reach it, and answered,—“If you want a capital ‘J,’ Mr Durfy, you can help yourself.”“Magog” nearly jumped out of his skin as he heard this audacious reply, and scarcely ventured to look round to notice the effect of it on Mr Durfy. The effect was on the whole not bad. For a moment the overseer was dumbfounded and could not speak. But a glance at the resolute pale boy in front of him checked him in his impulse to use some other retort but the tongue. As soon as words came he snarled,—“Ho! is it that you mean, my beauty? All right, we’ll see who’s master here; and if I am, I’m sorry for you.”And he turned on his heel and went.“You’ve done it now,” said “Magog,” in an agitated whisper—“done it clean.”“Done what?” asked Reginald.“Done it with Durfy. He will make it hot for you, and no mistake. Never mind, if the worst comes to the worst you can cut. But hold on as long as you can. He’ll make you go some time or another.”“He won’t make me go till I choose,” replied Reginald. “I’ll stick here to disappoint him, if I do nothing else.”The reader may have made up his mind already that Reginald was a fool. I’m afraid he was. But do not judge him harshly yet, for his troubles are only beginning.
It was in anything but exuberant spirits that the two Crudens presented themselves on the following morning at the workman’s entrance of theRocketNewspaper Company, Limited. The bell was beginning to sound as they did so, and their enemy the timekeeper looked as though he would fain discover a pretext for pouncing on them and giving them a specimen of his importance. But even his ingenuity failed in this respect, and as Horace passed him with a good-humoured nod, he had, much against his will, to nod back, and forego his amiable intentions.
The brothers naturally turned their steps to the room presided over by Mr Durfy. That magnate had not yet arrived, much to their relief, and they consoled themselves in his absence by standing at the table watching their fellow-workmen as they crowded in and proceeded with more or less alacrity to settle down to their day’s work.
Among those who displayed no unseemly haste in applying themselves to their tasks was Barber, who, with the dust of the back case-room still in his mind, and equally on his countenance, considered the present opportunity of squaring up accounts with Reginald too good to be neglected. For reasons best known to himself, Mr Barber determined that his victim’s flagellation should be moral rather than physical. He would have liked to punch Reginald’s head, or, better still, to have knocked Reginald’s and Horace’s heads together. But he saw reasons for denying himself that pleasure, and fell back on the more ethereal weapons of his own wit.
“Hullo, puddin’ ’ead,” he began, “’ow’s your pa and your ma to-day? Find the Old Bailey a ’ealthy place, don’t they?”
Reginald favoured the speaker by way of answer with a stare of mingled scorn and wrath, which greatly elevated that gentleman’s spirits.
“’Ow long is it they’ve got? Seven years, ain’t it? My eye, they won’t know you when they come out, you’ll be so growed.”
The wrath slowly faded from Reginald’s face, as the speaker proceeded, leaving only the scorn to testify to the interest he took in this intellectual display.
Horace, delighted to see there was no prospect of a “flare-up,” smiled, and began almost to enjoy himself.
“I say,” continued Barber, just a little disappointed to find that his exquisite humour was not as electrical in its effect as it would have been on any one less dense than the Crudens, “’ow is it you ain’t got a clean collar on to-day, and no scent on your ’andkerchers—eh?”
This was getting feeble. Even Mr Barber felt it, for he continued, in a more lively tone,—
“Glad we ain’t got many of your sickening sort ’ere; snivelling school-boy brats, that’s what you are, tired of pickin’ pockets, and think you’re goin’ to show us your manners. Yah! if you wasn’t such a dirty ugly pair of puppy dogs I’d stick you under the pump—so I would.”
Reginald yawned, and walked off to watch a compositor picking up type out of a case. Horace, on the other hand, appeared to be deeply interested in Mr Barber’s eloquent observations, and inquired quite artlessly, but with a twinkle in his eye,—“Is the pump near here? I was looking for it everywhere yesterday.”
It was Mr Barber’s turn to stare. He had not expected this, and he did not like it, especially when one or two of the men and boys near, who had failed to be convulsed by his wit, laughed at Horace’s question.
After all, moral flagellation does not always answer, and when one of the victims yawns and the other asks a matter-of-fact questions it is disconcerting even to an accomplished operator. However, Barber gallantly determined on one more effort.
“Ugh—trying to be funny, are you, Mr Snubnose? Best try and be honest if you can, you and your mealy-mug brother. It’ll be ’ard work, I know, to keep your ’ands in your own pockets, but you’d best do it, do you ’ear—pair of psalm-singin’ twopenny-ha’penny puppy dogs!”
This picturesque peroration certainly deserved some recognition, and might possibly have received it, had not Mr Durfy’s entrance at that particular moment sent the idlers back suddenly to their cases.
Reginald, either heedless of or unconcerned at the new arrival, remained listlessly watching the operations of the compositor near him, an act of audacity which highly exasperated the overseer, and furnished the key-note for the day’s entertainment.
For Mr Durfy, to use an expressive term, had “got out of bed the wrong side” this morning. For the matter of that, after the blowing-up about the back case-room, he had got into it the wrong side last night, so that he was doubly perturbed in spirit, and a short conversation he had just had with the manager below had not tended to compose him.
“Durfy,” said that brusque official, as the overseer passed his open door, “come in. What about those two lads I sent up to you yesterday? Are they any good?”
“Not a bit,” growled Mr Durfy; “fools both of them.”
“Which is the bigger fool?”
“The old one.”
“Then keep him for yourself—put him to composing, and send the other one down here. Send him at once, Durfy, do you hear?”
With this considerately worded injunction in his ears it is hardly to be wondered at that Mr Durfy was not all smiles as he entered the domain which owned his sway.
His eye naturally lit on Reginald as the most suitable object on which to relieve his feelings.
“Now, then, there,” he called out. “What do you mean by interfering with the men in their work?”
“I’m not interfering with anybody,” said Reginald, looking up with glowing cheeks, “I’m watching this man.”
“Come out of it, do you hear me? Why don’t you go about your own work?”
“I’ve been waiting here ten-minutes for you.”
“Look here,” said Mr Durfy, his tones getting lower as his passion rose; “if you think we’re going to keep you here to give us any of your impudence you’re mistaken; so I can tell you. It’s bad enough to have a big fool put into the place for charity, without any of your nonsense. If I had my way I’d give you your beggarly eighteen shillings a week to keep you away. Go to your work.”
Reginald’s eyes blazed out for a moment on the speaker in a way which made Horace, who heard and saw all, tremble. But he overcame himself with a mighty effort, and said,—
“Where?”
Mr Durfy glanced round the room.
“Young Gedge!” he called out.
A boy answered the summons.
“Clear that rack between you and Barber, and put up a pair of cases for this fool here, and look after him. Off you go! and offyougo,” added he, rounding on Reginald, “and if we don’t make it hot for you among us I’m precious mistaken.”
It was a proud moment certainly for the cock of the fifth at Wilderham to find himself following meekly at the heels of a youngster like Gedge, who had been commissioned to put him to work and look after him. But Reginald was too sick at heart and disgusted to care what became of himself, as long as Mr Durfy’s odious voice ceased to torment his ears. The only thing he did care about was what was to become of Horace. Was he to be put in charge of some one too, or was he to remain a printer’s devil?
Mr Durfy soon answered that question.
“What are you standing there for?” demanded he, turning round on the younger brother as soon as he had disposed of the elder. “Go down to the manager’s room at once; you’re not wanted here.”
So they were to be separated! There was only time to exchange one glance of mutual commiseration and then Horace slowly left the room with sad forebodings, more on his brother’s account than his own, and feeling that as far as helping one another was concerned they might as well be doomed to serve their time at opposite ends of London.
Gedge, under whose imposing auspices Reginald was to begin his typographical career, was a diminutive youth who, to all outward appearances, was somewhere about the tender age of fourteen, instead of, as was really the case, being almost as old as Reginald himself. He was facetiously styled “Magog” by his shopmates, in allusion to his small stature, which required the assistance of a good-sized box under his feet to enable him to reach his “upper case.” His face was not an unpleasant one, and his voice, which still retained its boyish treble, was an agreeable contrast to that of most of the “gentlemen of the case” in Mr Durfy’s department.
For all that, Reginald considered himself much outraged by being put in charge of this chit of a child, and glowered down on him much as a mastiff might glower on a terrier who presumed to do the honour of his back yard for his benefit.
However, the terrier in this case was not at all disheartened by his reception, and said cheerily as he began to clear the frame,—
“You don’t seem to fancy it, I say. I don’t wonder. Never mind, I shan’t lick you unless you make me.”
“Thanks,” said Reginald, drily, but scarcely able to conceal a smile at this magnanimous declaration.
“Magog” worked busily away, putting away cases in the rack, dusting the frame down with his apron, and whistling softly to himself.
“Thanks for helping me,” said he, after a time, as Reginald still stood by doing nothing. “I could never have done it all by myself.”
Reginald blushed a little at this broad hint, and proceeded to lift down a case. But he nearly upset it in doing so, greatly to his companion’s horror.
“You’d better rest,” he said, “you’ll be fagged out. Here, let me do it. There you are. Now we’re ready to start you. I’ve a good mind to go and get old Tacker to ring up the big bell and let them know you’re just going to begin.”
Reginald could hardly be offended at this good-natured banter, and, as Gedge was after all a decent-looking boy, and aspirated his “h’s,” and did not smell of onions, he began to think that if he were doomed to drudge in this place he might have been saddled with a more offensive companion.
“It’s a pity to put Tacker to the trouble, young ’un,” said he; “he’ll probably ring when I’m going to leave off, and that’ll do as well.”
“That’s not bad for you,” said Gedge, approvingly; “not half bad. Go on like that, and you’ll make a joke in about a fortnight.”
“Look here,” said Reginald, smiling at last. “I shall either have to punch your head or begin work. You’d better decide which you’d like best.”
“Well, as Durfy is looking this way,” said Gedge, “I suppose you’d better begin work. Stick that pair of empty cases up there—the one with the big holes below and the other one above. You needn’t stick them upside down, though, unless you particularly want to; they look quite as well the right way. Now, then, you’d better watch me fill them, and see what boxes the sorts go in. No larks, now. Here goes for the ‘m’s.’”
So saying, Mr “Magog” proceeded to fill up one box with types of the letter “m,” and another box some distance off with “a’s,” and another with “b’s,” and so on, till presently the lower of the two cases was nearly full. Reginald watched him with something like admiration, inwardly wondering if he would ever be able to find his way about this labyrinth of boxes, and strongly of opinion that only muffs like printers would think of arranging the alphabet in such an absurdly haphazard manner. The lower case being full up, Gedge meekly suggested that as he was yet several feet from his full size, they might as well lift the upper case down while it was being filled. Which done, the same process was repeated, only with more apparent regularity, and the case having been finally tilted up on the frame above the lower case, the operator turned round with a pleased expression, and said,—
“What do you think of that?”
“Why, I think it’s very ridiculous not to put the ‘capital J’ next to the ‘capital I,’” said Reginald.
Gedge laughed.
“Go and tell Durfy that; he’d like to hear it.”
Reginald, however, denied himself the pleasure of entertaining Mr Durfy on this occasion, and occupied himself with picking up the types and inspecting them, and trying to learn the geography of his cases.
“Now,” said “Magog,” mounting his box, and taking his composing-stick in his hand, “keep your eye on me, young fellow, and you’ll know all about it.”
And he proceeded to “set-up” a paragraph for the newspaper from a manuscript in front of him at a speed which bewildered Reginald and baffled any attempt on his part to follow the movements of the operator’s hand among the boxes. He watched for several minutes in silence until Gedge, considering he had exhibited his agility sufficiently, halted in his work, and with a passing shade across his face turned to his companion and said,—
“I say, isn’t this a beastly place?”
There was something in his voice and manner which struck Reginald. It was unlike a common workman, and still more unlike a boy of Gedge’s size and age.
“It is beastly,” he said.
“I’m awfully sorry for you, you know,” continued Gedge, in a half-whisper, and going on with his work at the same time, “because I guess it’s not what you’re used to.”
“I’m not used to it,” said Reginald.
“Nor was I when I came. My old screw of an uncle took it into his head to apprentice me here because he’d been an apprentice once, and didn’t see why I should start higher up the ladder than he did. Are you an apprentice?”
“No, not that I know of,” said Reginald, not knowing exactly what he was.
“Lucky beggar! I’m booked here for nobody knows how much longer. I’d have cut it long ago if I could. I say, what’s your name?”
“Cruden.”
“Well, Cruden, I’m precious glad you’ve turned up. It’ll make all the difference to me. I was getting as big a cad as any of those fellows there, for you’re bound to be sociable. But you’re a nicer sort, and it’s a good job for me, I can tell you.”
Apart from the flattery of these words, there was a touch of earnestness in the boy’s voice which struck a sympathetic chord in Reginald’s nature, and drew him mysteriously to this new hour-old acquaintance. He told him of his own hard fortunes, and by what means he had come down to his present position. Gedge listened to it all eagerly.
“Were you really captain of the fifth at your school?” said he, almost reverentially. “I say! what an awful drop this must be! You must feel as if you’d sooner be dead.”
“I do sometimes,” said Reginald.
“I know I would,” replied Gedge, solemnly, “if I was you. Was that other fellow your brother, then?”
“Yes.”
Gedge mused a bit, and then laughed quietly.
“How beautifully you two shut up Barber between you just now,” he said; “it’s the first snub he’s had since I’ve been here, and all the fellows swear by him. I say, Cruden, it’s a merciful thing for me you’ve come. I was bound to go to the dogs if I’d gone on as I was much longer.”
Reginald brightened. It pleased him just now to think any one was glad to see him, and the spontaneous way in which this boy had come under his wing won him over completely.
“We must manage to stick together,” he said. “Horace, you know, is working in another part of the office. It’s awfully hard lines, for we set our minds on being together. But it can’t be helped; and I’m glad, any way, you’re here, young ’un.”
The young ’un beamed gratefully by way of response.
The paragraph by this time was nearly set-up, and the conversation was interrupted by the critical operation of lifting the “matter” from the stick and transferring it to a “galley,” a feat which the experienced “Magog” accomplished very deftly, and greatly to the amazement of his companion. Just as it was over, and Reginald was laughingly hoping he would not soon be expected to arrive at such a pitch of dexterity, Mr Durfy walked up.
“So that’s what you call doing your work, is it? playing the fool, and getting in another man’s way. Is that all you’ve done?”
Reginald glared at him, and answered,—
“I’m not playing the fool.”
“Hold your tongue and don’t answer me, you miserable puppy! Let me see what you have done.”
“I’ve been learning the boxes in the case,” said Reginald.
Mr Durfy sneered.
“You have, have you? That’s what you’ve been doing the last hour, I suppose. Since you’ve been so industrious, pick me out a lower-case ‘x,’ do you hear?”
Reginald made a vague dive at one of the boxes, but not the right one, for he produced a ‘z.’
“Ah, I thought so,” said Mr Durfy, with a sneer that made Reginald long to cram the type into his mouth. “Now let’s try a capital ‘J.’”
As it happened, Reginald knew where the capital “J” was, but he made no attempt to reach it, and answered,—
“If you want a capital ‘J,’ Mr Durfy, you can help yourself.”
“Magog” nearly jumped out of his skin as he heard this audacious reply, and scarcely ventured to look round to notice the effect of it on Mr Durfy. The effect was on the whole not bad. For a moment the overseer was dumbfounded and could not speak. But a glance at the resolute pale boy in front of him checked him in his impulse to use some other retort but the tongue. As soon as words came he snarled,—
“Ho! is it that you mean, my beauty? All right, we’ll see who’s master here; and if I am, I’m sorry for you.”
And he turned on his heel and went.
“You’ve done it now,” said “Magog,” in an agitated whisper—“done it clean.”
“Done what?” asked Reginald.
“Done it with Durfy. He will make it hot for you, and no mistake. Never mind, if the worst comes to the worst you can cut. But hold on as long as you can. He’ll make you go some time or another.”
“He won’t make me go till I choose,” replied Reginald. “I’ll stick here to disappoint him, if I do nothing else.”
The reader may have made up his mind already that Reginald was a fool. I’m afraid he was. But do not judge him harshly yet, for his troubles are only beginning.