"Now he's put out," said Dick, looking puzzled at his wife. "I did not
mean to upset him; but a man can't lend another man what he hasn't got,
can he, mother?" There was no answer--only the clicking of Mrs
Shingle's needle against her thimble.
"I say a man can't lend what he hasn't got, can he, mother?" said Dick
again, as he bent over some strange performance that he was achieving
with an awl and some wax-end.
"I wasn't thinking of that, Dick," said his wife, with a sigh, "but of
the money for the boots."
"There, you needn't fidget about that," said Dick, throwing out his arms
so as to draw the hemp tight; "for we shouldn't have had the money if he
had kept the boots."
"Not had the money?"
"No--he meant to keep it for the rent. He said so."
"There!" exclaimed Mrs Shingle. "Well, that comes of having your
brother for your landlord. He's as hard again as any one else."
"Well, Max always was a hard one, certainly, my dear. Ever since we
were boys together, `Merry, merry boys--since we were boys together,'"
he sang. Then, descending once more to everyday-life conversation, he
went on, "He was a hard one, Max was; and as to money, he'd always have
a penny or twopence when I had none, even if he borrowed it of me."
"And never paid it again," said his wife contemptuously. "Well, it was
a way he had," said Dick.
"I haven't patience with him."
"No, my dear, you never did have patience with Max. Clever chap too.
Marries his widow with lots of tin and a pair of boots--boys I mean--
ready made. Why didn't I?"
"Ah! why indeed?" said Mrs Shingle sharply.
"Because I was a fool," said Dick, smiling pleasantly. "Fools are best
off too, mother. I say, fancy me with a wife like Max's!"
The idea seemed to please Dick so that he laughed and wiped one eye.
"There are worse women than Mrs Max," said Mrs Shingle.
"Yes, and there's better ones than you, I suppose, mother. But I'm
contented, and never wanted a divorce yet."
"Dick, how can you talk so before that boy?"
"All right! but I say, mother--Here, go on with your work, you young
rascal. Keeping your ears staring wide open like that!"
"Please, master, I couldn't help hearing," said the boy dolefully. "I'm
a-learning my trade, and trying to obey my pastors and masters as hard
as ever I can."
"Now, lookye here," said Dick, taking up his hammer and gazing
threateningly at the boy, "I never have given it to you yet, John
Johnson, or, as I familiarly call you, from where you came and the
stripes you had on you when you came, Union Jack--"
"No, master," whined the boy, "you've been very kind indeed to me."
"I have, you hungry young alligator," said Dick. "So look here, I won't
have it; I'm as bad as Mr Hopper that way,--I hate people to preach and
sling catechism at me so don't you do it again."
"No, master; please, I'll try very hard indeed, and obey you, as it is
my dooty to."
"Will you leave off?" roared Dick, striking his bench with the hammer,
so that the tools and nails jumped almost as much as the boy. "You're
at it again, talking in that canting, whining, tread-underfoot,
workhouse style; and I won't have it. What did I tell you you was?"
"A free-born Briton, please, master."
"Then why don't you act as such, and say `Yes, sir,' and `No, sir,'
outright and down straight?--not whine and grovel like a worm without
any sting in his tail."
"Please, master, I'll try and order myself lowly and reverently to all
my betters."
"Now, just hark at him!" cried Dick to his wife.
"Please, master, I'm very--"
"Ah!" shouted Dick.
"All right, master," said the boy; and he bent to his work.
"I say, mother;" said Dick, "Max is a bit put out with us."
"So it seems," said Mrs Shingle, biting her silk and stitching away.
"I think he'd be glad if we starved to death."
"Well, I don't know about that, my girl, because it wouldn't be nice to
look at, and he never liked unpleasant things; but he's a bit put out
about our Jess."
"What?" said Mrs Shingle, turning very red.
"About our Jess," said Dick, hammering away very viciously at an
inoffensive-looking bit of leather. "He's got to know about those boys
being so fond of coming here."
"Our Jessie's as good as his boys," said Mrs Shingle sharply, and ready
to stand her ground, now that the truth was out.
"So she is, my gal--so she is, every bit; but she's only copper, and
they're silver-gilt in his eyes, if they ain't gold.--Here, you sir,
you're listening again, instead of working," he shouted to the boy, who
began to gum his hands liberally with wax and roll the threads on his
lath-like knees.--"But Max has been on to me about it, and he says he
won't have it; and I always told them so, 'specially Tom. `Tom,' I
says, `your governor won't like your coming here,' I says; `and he'll
think all sorts of things about it.'"
"Just as if money need make any difference!" exclaimed Mrs Shingle.
"It needn't, my gal," said Dick, grunting over his work; "but it do--it
makes all the difference; you see if it don't. For if you don't go off
with that bit of shoe-binding of yours, and bring back the money, we
sha'n't get any dinner, and that's very different to having it. But
where's Jessie?"
"Gone to the warehouse."
"What, all-alone! Now, look here, mother--I won't have it. She's too
young and pretty to go there all alone, and I won't have her left to be
followed and annoyed by counter-jumpers, and that fellow as gives out
the work. You know she came home crying on Friday. Why didn't you go
with her?"
"I had this to finish, Dick."
"You've always got _this_ to finish," said Dick testily. "Then you
should have kept her till I came back."
"But it would have been too late, Dick. Where are you going?" she
cried, as he rose and began to untie his apron. "To meet her," he
exclaimed angrily.
"But she hasn't gone alone, Dick," said the wife softly.
"If you've let her go there with that Fred Fraser, Polly, I'll never
forgive you," cried Dick.
"She's gone with Tom, dear."
"Tom, dear, indeed! It isn't `Tom, dear,' and it isn't going to be
`Tom, dear,'" exclaimed Dick, re-tying his apron viciously.
"But he came, dear, just as she was starting, and he begged so hard that
I was obliged to let him take her."
"There you go!" cried Dick, hammering again at the piece of unoffending
leather. "You'll ruin me before you've done. Here's Max says only this
morning, says he, `I won't have that gal of yours hanging about after my
wife's sons.' He said `_gal_' and `my wife's sons.' And I, feeling a
bit up, says back, `Lookye here, Max, I can't help your _boys_ coming to
my house. I'm not going to send my _daughter_ away.' I think that was
pretty sharp on him, you know; when, `Damn your impudence,' he says.--
Look here, Jack," continued Dick, pointing at the boy with his hammer,
"I promised the workhouse authorities as I'd bring you up moral, so
don't you go telling anybody as your master swears, because that was
some one else."
"All right, master," said the boy smartly.
"That's better," cried Dick; "don't whine. Well, mother, then he gets
in a towering rage, and showed me what was the matter with the boots.
They'd got Jessie in 'em; that's where they wouldn't fit. `How dare you
speak to me in that familiar way, sir!' he says, sticking himself out
and looking big, like a poor-law guardian. `When I employ you, sir, as
an humble tradesman, I desire you pay me proper respect.' And now,
mother, you've been and made worse of it. Hang me, if I don't turn
burglar, or something to make money, if things don't mend! I'm sick of
being poor."
"No, don't, please, master," said the boy, with a whine. "Honesty's the
best policy. And he who steals comes to a bad end."
"Now, just look here, young fellow," cried Dick, with a serio-comic look
on his face, as he raised his hammer once more, "burglary's bad enough,
but killing's worse. There was a man once who had a boy from a workus,
just as I've had you, to teach you a trade--"
"Yes, master," said the boy, with eyes and mouth wide open.
"Well, he killed him with ill-usage, that's all. I shouldn't like to
kill you, you know, so don't you get chucking any more of your copy-book
texts at me again."
"All right, master," said the boy, wiping his eyes.
"Now, look here, mother: once for all, I won't have it. I'm as poor as
I can be to get along; and though we've swallowed my watch, and the
sugar-tongs and spoons, I haven't swallowed my little bit of pride; and
the next time that Tom or that Fred comes here, see if I don't call him
a son of a purse-proud, stuck-up father, and slam the door in his
face.--Now, you be off."
"Yes, Dick," said his wife meekly; and she rose and gathered together
her work. "But, Dick, you're not very cross with me?"
"Well, perhaps not," he said; and his eyes endorsed his words.
"But, look here, Dick: if Tom comes back with Jessie, you won't say
anything unkind to him--for her sake?"
"Won't I?" cried Dick sharply. "I'll shy the lapstone at him! If he's
too good for my Jessie, she's too good for him."
"But don't hurt their feelings, Dick," she whispered, so that the boy
should not hear.
"I don't want to hurt her feelings," said Dick, yielding to his wife's
influence. "But there, you're trying to come the soft on me again, as
you always do, and I won't have it. Now be off."
"Yes, Dick--I'm going," she said quickly, as she put on her bonnet and
shawl. "But I know you won't be unkind."
"Won't I?" said Dick, as the door closed. "I'll show some of them yet!
I can be a regular savage when I like--can't I, Jack?"
"Please, what did you say, master?" whined the boy.
"I can be a regular savage when I like--can't I?" shouted Dick.
"Yes, master.--Please, master, I'm so hungry."
"So what?"
"So hungry, please, master."
"Hungry? Why, the boy's mad!" cried Dick, looking up in mock
astonishment. "How dare you, sir? Hungry, indeed! There, take that
wax-out of your mouth. You're always trying to ruin me by eating the
wax or chewing leather."
"I can't help it, master," said the boy. "Please, I'm so hungry."
"Hungry!" exclaimed Dick, with mock heroic diction. "Brought up, too,
as you were, at one of the first workhouses in the kingdom!"
"Please, master, I can't help it," said the boy. "I feel so hollow
inside."
"Hollow? Nonsense, sir! It's bad tendencies, or desire for gluttony
and wine-bibbing. And after I've been such a good master to you!"
"Yes, master; and I'll never, never, never--"
"`Never, never, never shall be slaves,'" sang Dick, in his musical tenor
voice. "But don't you say that, Jack, my boy; because if you keep on
running out of your trousers as you do, and looking like something
growing out of two beans, which is your boots, and then joining in the
middle and running up to a head, I sha'n't want you, specially if you're
going to be hollow, and want filling out."
"But I don't want filling out, master, only just a little sometimes. I
can't help feeling hollow, and as if something was gnawing me."
"Gnawing? Yes, that's it," cried Dick. "I always told you so. That's
it. You will devour your food in such a way that it don't digest; and
that's what you feel, sir--gnawing pains. There, fix up them bristles.
You ain't hungry."
"It feels very much like as I used to feel at the House, master," said
the boy. "We all of us used to feel hollow there sometimes on rice
days. I can't help it, please."
"Now, look ye here, my fine fellow, it won't do, so I tell you. I'm
your master, ain't I?"
"Yes, please," said the boy, making a scoop with his hand. "Leave off!
I won't have it!" cried Dick. "You ain't to bow to me. I say as your
master I ought to know best, and I say you ain't hungry; and, look here,
don't you chew wax and leather any more, because they're my property,
and you'll be tempted to swallow them, when it will not only be petty
larceny, but they'll disagree with you. Now, go on sorting out the best
o' them bits o' leather."
"Yes, master," said the boy.
Dick rose from his bench, and went to the cupboard to see if there was a
crust of bread and some butter to give to the boy; but it was quite
empty, and he began to walk up and down, talking to himself.
"It's very hard," he muttered dolefully; "but the more I try to get on
the more I don't, and if things don't mend God knows what's to become of
us. Poor Polly! she frets a deal, only she hides it; and as for
Jessie--There, there, there, I can't bear to think of it!" he groaned.
"I must have been a fool, and so can't get on."
He scuffled back to his seat, for a familiar step was heard in the
court; and, taking up his work, he began to sing merrily, after adjuring
the boy to go on ahead.
"Hollo, mother!" he cried, as his wife entered the room: "brought the
money?"
"No, Dick," said Mrs Shingle sadly; "they don't pay till next week."
"Don't pay for a week!" said Dick, letting his hands drop, but
recovering himself directly. "All right!" he cried,--"so much in
store.--`Cheer up, Sam, and don't let your spirits go down,'" he sang.
"I say, mother, ain't it time that Jessie was back?"
"Yes," said Mrs Shingle sadly; "she'll be back soon. It's very hard,
though, and it seems as if it never rained but it poured."
"Never does," said Dick cheerily; "`So put up your gingham and drive
away care,'" he sang. "Hang it, mother, I hope it won't really rain
before she comes back. Did she take the big umbrella?"
"No, father."
"Ah! bad job; but never mind--perhaps it won't rain. Go along, Jack, my
lad: you don't feel hollow inside now, do you?"
"Yes, please, master--ever so much hollower," said the boy pitifully.
"I never see such a boy," cried Dick. "Here, open the door, mother,--
it's Jessie. Hollo!" he cried, jumping up; "what's the matter?"
"Oh, father, father!" sobbed the girl, running to his arms.
"Why, my precious!" he exclaimed, patting her cheek, "what is it? Has
any one dared? Oh, that's it, is it?" he muttered; for his brother,
closely followed by his younger step-son, entered the room.