THE confusing eddy of people outside Liverpool Street Station startled
him, so that he stood back to let them go by, until he remembered that
they did not cease to flow before midnight, and then he laughed at
himself and made his way out into Bishopsgate. He had a fine sense of
freedom in the consciousness that he was his own master; within wide
limitations he could go where he pleased and do as he pleased, and no one
had the right to say him nay. It seemed like getting rid of a suit of
armour. He gave himself the luxury of swearing softly as he walked
along, in order to prove conclusively that he was no longer trammelled by
the code of rules that obtained at the Cottage Homes. Walking up towards
Shoreditch Church it appeared to the boy that he was as fine a fellow as
any in the crowd of men hurrying along the pavement, that his daring and
his independence were sufficient for about six ordinary men; he felt very
much inclined to stop one or two in order to tell them so. The better to
live up to his new character of a regular blade, he turned into the
saloon bar of a gorgeous, over-mirrored, over-painted, over-furnished
public-house, and addressing a superb young lady who behind the bar read
a pamphlet called “An Amusing Way to Pick up Biology,” asked in a deep,
effective voice for a sherry and bitters. The superb young lady,
seemingly dazed with study, gave him instead a small bottle of lemonade
and a hard biscuit; Bobbie, awed by her appearance, did not dare to
complain of the mistake. He endeavoured, however, to entice the large
young woman into manly conversation by asking her how long it was since
she had left the old place, but she only answered absently, without
looking up from her hook, “Outside with those bootlaces, please,” and
Bobbie refrained from repeating his question.
At the corner of Drysdale Street he met a first friend in the person of
Niedermann, otherwise Nose, grown ridiculously tall, and garbed in a
frock coat queerly short at the sleeves. Niedermann did not know him at
first, but when recognition came he became at once interested, and asked
a number of questions, some of which Bobbie answered truthfully.
“What you ought to go and do, ole man,” said Niedermann, acutely, “is to
disguise yourself.”
“How d’you mean disguise myself?”
“Why, put on a false beard,” said the frock-coated lad, “and blue
spectacles, and what not. You’ll get copped else.”
“They won’t trouble,” said the boy uneasily.
“Take my advice or not, jest as you like. But I know what I should do.”
“Very likely they’re glad to get rid of me,” argued Bobbie. “It’ll be a
saving to them of pounds a year, and besides—”
“Tell you what you could do,” said Master Niedermann, looking at him
thoughtfully, “and that too without no trouble. You see this coat and
weskit of mine.”
“I see what there’s left of ’em.”
“Swop!” said the long youth walking with Bobbie down towards the railway
arch. “These what I’ve got are a bit short for me, because I’m a grown
lad, as you may see. But they’ll suit you a treat, and, besides, if they
circulate your description, no one in these togs ’ll recognize you for a
moment.”
“Wouldn’t see me if I was to get inside of ’em.”
“I think you’re wrong,” said Niedermann patiently. “What did you say the
address was that you’ve run away from?” Bobbie gave the information. “I
shall remember.”
“You’ve no call to remember,” said the boy sharply.
“I carry it all ’ere,” said Master Niedermann darkly, tapping his
unwashed forehead; “regular store’ouse of information my brain is.”
“What makes you call it a brain?” asked Bobbie.
“Do you particularly want your ’ead punched?” asked Master Niedermann
fiercely. “Because, if so, you’ve only got to say the word, and—” He
recovered himself with an effort. “But putting all argument a one side,”
he said genially, “you try on my coat and see how it fits.”
On Bobbie complying, Master Niedermann took no pains to conceal his
approval of the change.
“My word!” he said, “you might a been measured for it by a West-End
tailor.”
“Ain’t it a bit long in the tails?” asked Bobbie.
“All the better for that,” declared the long youth with enthusiasm.
“They’re wearing ’em long.”
“Now give me back my jacket,” said Bobbie.
“That be ’anged for a tale,” answered Niedermann, with an injured
expression. “A bargain’s a bargain.”
“But this isn’t a bargain,” expostulated the boy in the frock-coat. “I
never said—”
“Look here,” said the long youth threateningly. “Do you want me to give
you up to the police?”
After the interview with Master Niedermann Bobbie determined to avoid
friends for the rest of that evening. He therefore walked about the
streets of Hoxton, his cornet wrapped in a newspaper under his arm,
dodging when he saw a face known to him. He glanced at himself on
passing shop windows, and tried to believe that the frayed frock-coat
gave him an increased air of manliness. Strolling cautiously into
Pimlico Walk, and inspecting the little bonnet shop kept by Eliza Bell,
he saw Trixie at the counter; her black hair rolled up and arranged
carefully above her pretty neck, she wore a pink blouse with neat collar
and cuffs, her face had a touch of colour, and Bobbie for the first time
felt that he would like to kiss her. He knew, however, that to enter the
shop of Mrs. Bell would necessitate listening to reproof and good advice,
neither of which things was that evening desired by him. The same motive
stopped him from taking a ’bus to Fetter Lane to call upon Myddleton
West, whose address he remembered; he told himself that he enjoyed
liberty too much to allow it to be checked by sage counsels. Going up to
Ely Place and turning, with some idea of going through in order to see
the house where he had spent some of his life, he had but passed the
dwarf posts at the entrance when at least six separate and offensive
odours rushed furiously at him. He coughed and turned back.
But in the Theatre of Varieties he found joy. He paid a shilling to the
old lady in the pay box up the sawdust-covered steps, and on the old lady
shouting, “Jimes,” James in uniform just inside the swing doors of the
crowded, heated music hall, said, “Yessir. This way, sir. Stand a one
side, please, and let the genelman pass,” and conducted Bobbie
ceremoniously past the folk who were standing at the back of the first
balcony; unlocked the door, showed him into the box; fetched a programme,
accepted twopence with a military salute, called Bobbie “Me lord,”
evidently mistaking him for a member of the aristocracy. Then the boy
settled down on the front bench in the box, preparing to enjoy himself.
Fine to see the upturned faces from the twopenny pit—they sat down in the
pit now, he observed; in his day you had to stand—the rows and rows of
interested faces in the twopenny gallery, and to note that many of them
were watching him, the only occupant of the shilling boxes. He felt
confused at first with this attention. Shielding himself behind the
dusty curtains, he gazed at Mlle. Printemps, who, with paper rose in her
hair, bare arms, bare shoulders, and scarlet tights, kept her footing on
a large white marble globe, juggling the while with plates and knives and
bottles. Once or twice Mlle. Printemps, who was a little thin, perhaps,
and red at the elbows, but an agreeable person for all that, came over on
the great white globe quite close to the box in which Bobbie was seated,
whereupon he said softly (being a desperate sort of rattle out for the
evening), “I’ll ’ave your flower, miss,” and felt relieved to find that
the thin lady on the globe had not overheard him. Then came Bray and
Wilkins, described on the yellow slip as Irish-American duettists, the
finest humorists of two hemispheres, whose humour was not, perhaps, so
much fine as broad, being conducted somewhat in this way: Bray, facing
the audience, shouted, “Oi say; have you heard about me wife?” and
Wilkins, also facing the audience, shouted back, “Oi have not heard about
your wife;” after a whispered communication, Wilkins assumed incredulity,
and said, “Oi don’t believe it, sorr,” and Bray, indignant, said, “It’s
the truth I’m giving ye; a fine bouncing boy at eighteen minutes past
five.” “Oi’ll not believe it,” persisted Wilkins, “it’s all your kid,”
to which Bray replied indignantly, “It’s not my kid, sorr,” and Wilkins
retorted at once, “Who’s kid is it, then?” Followed, tremendous personal
chastisement, which made Bobbie laugh until tears came. After the
American duettists, Mr. Tom Somebody came shyly on the stage, affecting
to be astonished at finding himself there and rather wishful to go off
again, but, on being humorously appealed to by the conductor, deciding to
stay. Mr. Tom Somebody had been jilted by the lady of his heart, and it
seemed to the judicial observer that the lady might have found excuse for
her conduct in the singular manner of apparel the gentleman wore, for he
had no hat, but only the brim of a hat, his jacket was very short, and
his trousers very baggy; a paper front stuck out ludicrously at his
chest, and—this made Bobbie shriek with delight—he had in the hurry of
dressing placed his collar around his waist.
“For she’s a daisy,
She sends me crazy,
No wonder people say I’m getting pline;
She only flouts me,
And sometimes outs me,
I’m goin’ simply barmy on account of Emmer-jine.”
At half-past eight the band played the National Anthem; the attendants
shouted the order for dispersal, and Bobbie, giving up the private box
with a sigh, followed the crowd down the stone staircase. Outside, the
patrons of the second performance waited impatiently in a line at the
edge of the pavement. Bobbie recognized one or two faces in the crowd;
they looked older, he thought, and slightly dirtier; those whom he
remembered as boys of about his own age were accompanied by young ladies,
whose bare heads shone with oil, and who wore, for the most part,
maroon-coloured dresses, partly shielded by aprons; they seemed in
excellent spirits, and shouted defiant badinage to friends at a distance.
To Bobbie walking down towards Old Street, it occurred that the true
touch of manliness would not he achieved until he secured the company of
a member of the opposite sex. He went into a tobacconist’s shop and
bought a twopenny cigar, with a paper belt, which he selected from a box
labelled “The Rothschild Brand,” and smoking this, he, with the cornet
placed in the capacious tail pocket of the frock-coat, strolled through
Shoreditch to Hackney Road. He winked at one or two young women hurrying
home with hot suppers laid on pieces of paper, but they only sneered at
him, one lady of about thirteen declaring indignantly that, were her
hands not full, she would fetch him a clip side the ear.
“It’s this blooming coat,” said Bobbie ruefully.
These repulses brought disappointment, but happily there existed other
ways of proving to the world that he was now thoroughly grown up. He
went into a quiet public-house, where, in the private bar, some bemused
men were talking politics, and on the invitation of the anxious young
proprietor, who appeared to be new to the business and desirous of
obtaining custom, Bobbie gave his opinion on the question of increasing
the strength of the Navy, and, encouraged by beer, found himself quite
eloquent. So eloquent, indeed, that presently he insisted upon
contradicting everybody, and some unpleasantness ensued.
“You’ll ’scuse me, my boy,” said a white-faced, sleepy-eyed baker,
pointing unsteadily at Bobbie with the stem of his pipe, “you’ll ’scuse
me if I take the lib’ty of tellin’ you—or rather I sh’ say, informing
you—that you’re a liar.”
“You repeat that,” said Bobbie, flushed and aggressive. “Go on! Say
that again and see what ’appens.”
“It was only meant as a pleasant joke, I expect,” urged the young
proprietor nervously from the other side of the counter. “Shake ’ands
and make it up.”
“Let him call me that again,” said the boy fiercely. “That’s all. I’ll
learn him, the—”
“What’d I call you?” inquired the tipsy baker. “Best of my rec’lection I
called you hon’ble young genleman. Do you deny, sir, that you’re hon’ble
young genleman? Because, if so,” added the baker with great solemnity,
“if so, I shall have great pleasure in—hic—drinkin’ your ’ealth.”
“I’ve been insulted!” shouted the scarlet-faced boy violently, “in the
presence of gentlemen! I want this put right! I want an apology! I’m
as good a man—”
“Look ’ere,” interrupted the anxious young publican. “’Ave a ceegar at
my expense, and let bygones be bygones.”
“My young friend,” said the baker, balancing to and fro as he rested one
hand on the zinc counter, “if I’ve ’pologized to you in any way, I can
only say that it’s purely cler’cal error on my part, and I’m prepared to
most humbly insult—”
“You mean,” corrected the young publican, “that if you’ve insulted him
you’re prepared to apologize.”
“Dammit,” cried the baker, turning explosively on the young proprietor,
“can’t two genlemen settle their pers’nal disputes without a blooming
pot’ouse keeper dictatin’ to ’em? What?”
“Yes,” said Bobbie, not to be outdone, “what th’ ’ell do you—”
“You mistook my meanin’, gentlemen,” said the young publican penitently.
“All I want is peace and quietness.”
“Precious rum way you’ve got of going about it,” said Bobbie truculently.
“You take my advice, Mr. Public-house, and don’t you interfere with
whatever matters there may be in this world that don’t in no wise
whatsoever tend to concern you.”
“Spoke,” declared the tipsy baker, offering his hand to Bobbie; “spoke
like a norator. Give us a song, ole man.”
“Gentlemen, I do hope—”
“Can’t give you a song,” said the flushed boy; “but I can give you a tune
on the cornet.”
“Please, gentlemen, do not—”
“Music of the cornet,” declared the bemused baker, “is like gen’le dew of
’eaven. You blow up, my boy.”
To the terror of the young publican, Bobbie produced his cornet and
played a verse of “Tom Bowling,” causing the baker to become maudlin, and
to declare tearfully that he wished he had been a sailor instead of an
adjective baker, trampled on by most and scorned by all. On Bobbie
playing the prelude to the first set of some quadrilles, the private bar,
standing up tipsily, set to partners and went through the evolutions with
intense gravity, excepting the baker, who, acting as M.C., stumbled in
and out crying loudly, “La’ies’ chain!” The agitated young publican,
fearful of consequences, felt constrained at last to send for a
policeman, and when one came and touched the boy cornet player on the
shoulder, saying, “Outside with that instrument of torture, if you
please,” then Bobbie stepped out of the swing doors and through a small
crowd with the proud consciousness that, having been ejected from a
public-house, real manhood was now his, and could never be taken from
him. He stumbled along Hackney Road with his cornet, a slip of a crowd
following. To escape them he jumped clumsily on a tram.
“’O’ tight,” said the conductor.
The boy rode in a confused state of mind to the end of the journey at Lea
Bridge Road, and then, partly sobered by the night air, returned by the
tram. He felt quite happy; other passengers found themselves afire with
curiosity to know what he was laughing about. Watching the lighted shops
and the cheerful folk on the pavement below, Bobbie decided hilariously
that this was better than the Cottage Homes. This was good. This was
enjoyment. This was independence. This was freedom. This was life.
At Cambridge Heath Station he descended, because be saw outside a large
public-house a line of brakes decorated with branches of trees and with
Chinese lanterns; joyous men and women danced on the square space to no
music. This seemed the kind of movement in which he desired to be. The
men and women had been out into the country for the day; they appeared to
have brought a good deal of the country back with them, for their hats
and bonnets and clothes were decorated with bunches of flowers and oak
leaves. The appearance of the boy with his cornet was welcomed with
enthusiasm. Hoisted up on a huge empty cask, he, by command, played
gustily a waltz that made the couples lay heads on their partners’
shoulders and move slowly, dreamily around. Of all the moments of pure
delight that Bobbie, as a boy, was to experience, this ever stood in his
memory high and high above all the rest. Presently the whirling crowd
stopped exhaustedly.
“Ask the little boy,” suggested one of the panting women, “to play a
what’s-a-name tune.”
“A comic?”
“No, no, no! Not a comic. You know what I mean, only you’re so stupid.”
“A love tune?”
“Bah!” said the lady, “you’re like all the men; you’ve got no sense.
What I mean is a patriotic song.”
Therefore, “Rule Britannia” from the cornet to the great content of the
beanfeasters and of the two or three constables, looking on at the scene
good-naturedly. A hat went round before the party re-ascended the
brakes, and Bobbie found himself in possession of a load of coppers that
weighed him down on one side until he bethought himself of the ingenious
plan of dividing them and placing one half in each pocket of his
trousers. He saw the brakes depart, and was about to leave when he found
his arm seized violently.
“I’ve got him,” shrieked Master Niedermann fiercely. “I thought I should
find him. Evil doers never succeed for long. I was sure—”
“Leggo my arm,” said Bobbie.
“Likely thing,” screamed the long youth satirically, “after I’ve took all
this trouble to find you. Gimme back my frock coat! Gimme back my
frock-coat, that you pinched from me! Gimme back—”
One of the constables stepped forward. What was all this about?
“Sergeant,” cried Master Niedermann flatteringly, “thank goodness you’re
’ere. You’ll see that right’s done. He’s robbed me of my best
frock-coat, and I want it back.”
“It’s a lie,” declared Bobbie. “Fact of the matter is—”
“Accuses me now,” said the estimable youth, with a pained air, “of
telling a falsehood. Why, I couldn’t tell a falsehood, and well you know
it, inspector.”
Constable begged to say that he knew nothing of the kind. Let the boy
tell his tale.
“We changed coats, sir,” said Bobbie, “against my wish, and—”
“There’s alf a dollar sewed in the corner of it,” interrupted Nose, “and
he must ’ave known it, or else he’d never ’ave thrown me down on the
ground and clutched my neck with both his hands—like so—and then pulled
the coat bodily off of me.”
Constable, his legal mind detecting an error in the statement, asked, in
view of the fact that the boy had but two hands, how this was done.
“Ast him!” said Master Niedermann. “He knows! He did it. And make him
gimme back my coat and my ’alf dollar.”
Constable requested to be informed how the half dollar had been earned or
obtained.
“Be the sweat of me brow,” declared the long youth. “How d’ye think?
I’d forgot where I put it for the moment, or else he should never have
had it. And if he don’t give it me, I give him in charge.”
“’Ang me if I give it back,” said Bobbie, with sudden asperity. “You
said a bargain’s a bargain, and so it’ll ’ave to be. I shan’t change
again.”
“Then,” said Master Niedermann, oracularly, “I ’ereby beg to give him
into custody.”
The constable seemed undecided. Bobbie watched his face, and trembled as
he observed a slight increase in gravity. The police station meant at
least an ignominious return to the Homes, and to the precise and
dogmatically ordered life there. A crowd had gathered round close to the
disputant parties, and Bobbie, withdrawing his anxious glance from the
policeman for a moment to look around, saw a very little woman, whose
face he remembered. Miss Threepenny. Her queer head came to about the
waists of the people standing near to her.
“I suppose I’d better,” said the constable.
“Twenty-five, Barton Buildings,” whispered little Miss Threepenny. Then,
with a quick change of voice and manner, “Who’s got my purse? Who’s
stole my purse? Police! Stop thief! ’Elp—’elp—’elp!”
The constable hurried quickly from the doubtful case on which he was
engaged to this that appeared more definite. In the commotion, Bobbie,
holding his cornet tightly, made swift escape; he had reached Bethnal
Green Road before Miss Threepenny—having discovered that her purse had,
after all, not been stolen—had apologized to the constable for the
unnecessary trouble that she had given. Bobbie was still recovering
breath at the entrance to the giant block of model dwellings to which
Miss Threepenny had hurriedly directed him, when that excellent little
woman trotted up.
“You’re a nice young man,” said Miss Threepenny severely, “I don’t think.
Going and getting yourself mixed up in a common street row, and
forgetting what you owe to your poor dead mother and—”
Bobbie explained truthfully, and little Miss Threepenny relented.
“What are you going to do now?” she asked, looking up at him with less
acerbity.
“Get a bed in a coffee shop, I s’pose,” said the boy. “To-morrow I shall
get off to the country to see—to see some friends. This bloomin’ London
makes my nut ache.”
The small woman stood on the third step of the stone stairs, so that she
came thus face to face with Bobbie. She swung her key round her finger,
reflectively.
“You’ll only get into more trouble,” she said.
“Likely as not,” replied the boy recklessly. “I can’t do right,
somehow.”
“I’ve nearly ’alf a mind,” said the little woman, “to make you up a bed
in my sitting-room.”
“Got two rooms now, Miss?”
“Rather,” said the little woman proudly.
He followed Miss Threepenny upstairs, through passages, and up more
stairs to her rooms. There the diminutive woman took off her bonnet and
set to work, as she said, to put the place to rights, which, seeing that
everything was perfectly neat and in order, seemed a superfluous act, and
indeed consisted mainly in moving the furniture from it’s proper place
and setting it back again. Bobbie felt confused and very tired, but the
little woman appeared so obviously glad to have someone to talk to that
he listened politely to her good-tempered chatters. They had supper
together, and then Miss Threepenny did something to an elderly easy chair
in the manner of an expert conjuror, whereupon it instantly changed into
a middle-aged couch. She bustled in and out of her own room, bringing a
pillow and some sheets; presently Bobbie found that he could no longer
look at the couch without yawning desperately.
“In the morning,” said the tiny woman, lighting a candle, “you sleep on,
because I shall be out and about early. And I shall be ’ome midday to
give you your dinner.”
“Goo’ night,” said the boy sleepily, taking his coat off.
“Dear, dear!” cried the little woman with a comic affectation of
bashfulness. “Do wait till I’m out of the room. You forget that I’m an
old maid. Some of you young men nowadays are enough to shock a saint.”
“Don’t you wish you’d got a son of your own, miss?” asked Bobbie, “to
live here and look after you?”
“Stuff and nonsense!” she answered quickly. “What should I want with a
great big slab of a boy knocking about the place? There’s a ridiculous
idea to be sure! Wonder what put that into your head, for goodness’
sake.”
“Nothing special,” said the boy, yawning. “Goo’ ni’.”
“All the same,” said the little woman hesitatingly, “if you like, Bobbie,
you can do this. Jest for fun, you know. You can give me a kiss on the
forehead and say, ‘Good night, mother.’” She laughed awkwardly. “Only
for the lark of the thing, you know.”
“Good night, mother,” said the boy obediently, bending down and kissing
her above the eyes. The little woman gasped and ran quickly to her room.
In the morning Bobbie awoke, when at six o’clock Miss Threepenny was at
work still setting the place to rights, and arranging, as he quietly
noticed, his breakfast. As she came over to him, before going off, and
looked down at him, he kept his eyes half-closed. When presently he had
risen, and had eaten his breakfast, he made out an account on the back of
an envelope thus, and laid the money upon it:—
Bread 1_d._
2 saussages 2_d._
Tea 1_d._
Lodgings 3_d._
Tot. 7_d._
With thanks.
R. L.
He took his cornet and went out, down the stone stairs very quietly.