Gander, the captain of the gang of boy crossing-sweepers, was a big lad
of sixteen, with a face devoid of all expression, until he laughed,
when the cheeks, mouth, and forehead instantly became crumpled up with
a wonderful quantity of lines and dimples. His hair was cut short, and
stood up in all directions, like the bristles of a hearth-broom, and
was a light dust tint, matching with the hue of his complexion, which
also, from an absence of washing, had turned to a decided drab, or what
house-painters term a stone-colour.
He spoke with a lisp, occasioned by the loss of two of his large front
teeth, which allowed the tongue as he talked to appear through the
opening in a round nob like a raspberry.
The boy’s clothing was in a shocking condition. He had no coat, and his
blue-striped shirt was as dirty as a French-polisher’s rags, and so
tattered, that the shoulder was completely bare, while the sleeve hung
down over the hand like a big bag.
From the fish-scales on the sleeves of his coat, it had evidently once
belonged to some coster in the herring line. The nap was all worn off,
so that the lines of the web were showing like a coarse carpet; and
instead of buttons, string had been passed through holes pierced at the
side.
Of course he had no shoes on, and his black trousers, which, with the
grease on them, were gradually assuming a tarpaulin look, were fastened
over one shoulder by means of a brace and bits of string.
During his statement, he illustrated his account of the tumbling
backwards--the “caten-wheeling”--with different specimens of the art,
throwing himself about on the floor with an ease and almost grace, and
taking up so small a space of the ground for the performance, that his
limbs seemed to bend as though his bones were flexible like cane.
“To tell you the blessed truth, I can’t say the last shilling I
handled.”
“Don’t you go a-believing on him,” whispered another lad in my ear,
whilst Gander’s head was turned: “he took thirteenpence last night, he
did.”
It was perfectly impossible to obtain from this lad any account of his
average earnings. The other boys in the gang told me that he made more
than any of them. But Gander, who is a thorough street-beggar, and
speaks with a peculiar whine, and who, directly you look at him, puts
on an expression of deep distress, seemed to have made up his mind,
that if he made himself out to be in great want I should most likely
relieve him--so he would not budge an inch from his twopence a-day,
declaring it to be the maximum of his daily earnings.
“Ah,” he continued, with a persecuted tone of voice, “if I had only
got a little money, I’d be a bright youth! The first chance as I get
of earning a few halfpence, I’ll buy myself a coat, and be off to the
country, and I’ll lay something I’d soon be a gentleman then, and come
home with a couple of pounds in my pocket, instead of never having
ne’er a farthing, as now.”
One of the other lads here exclaimed, “Don’t go on like that there,
Goose; you’re making us out all liars to the gentleman.”
The old woman also interfered. She lost all patience with Gander, and
reproached him for making a false return of his income. She tried to
shame him into truthfulness, by saying,--
“Look at my Johnny--my grandson, sir, he’s not a quarther the
Goose’s size, and yet he’ll bring me home his shilling, or perhaps
eighteenpence or two shillings--for shame on you, Gander! Now, did you
make six shillings last week?--now, speak God’s truth!”
“What! six shillings?” cried the Goose--“six shillings!” and he began
to look up at the ceiling, and shake his hands. “Why, I never heard of
sich a sum. I did once _see_ a half-crown; but I don’t know as I ever
touched e’er a one.”
“Thin,” added the old woman, indignantly, “it’s because you’re idle,
Gander, and you don’t study when you’re on the crossing; but lets the
gintlefolk go by without ever a word. That’s what it is, sir.”
The Goose seemed to feel the truth of this reproach, for he said with a
sigh, “I knows I am fickle-minded.”