TWO FRIENDS.
"I did wake before, Bill," George said after he had eaten a few
mouthfuls; "but you were out."
"Yes, I turned out as soon as the carts began to come in," Bill said,
"and a wery good morning I have had. One old chap gave me twopence for
looking arter his hoss and cart while he went into the market with his
flowers. But the best move was just now. A chap as was driving off
with flowers, one of them swell West-end shops, I expect, by the look
of the trap, let his rug fall. He didn't see it till I ran after him
with it, then he gave me a tanner; that was something like. Have yer
finished yer bread and cheese?"
"Yes," George said, "and I could manage a drink of water if I could
get one."
"There's a fountain handy," Bill said; "but you come along with me, I
am agoing to stand two cups of coffee if yer aint too proud to take
it;" and he looked doubtfully at his companion.
"I am not at all too proud," George said, for he saw that the
slightest hesitation would hurt his companion's feelings.
"It aint fust-rate coffee," Bill said, as with a brightened look on
his face he turned and led the way to a little coffee-stall; "but it's
hot and sweet, and yer can't expect more nor that for a penny."
George found the coffee really better than he had expected, and Bill
was evidently very much gratified at his expression of approval.
"Now," he said, when they had both finished, "for a draw of 'baccy,"
and he produced a short clay pipe. "Don't yer smoke?"
"No, I haven't begun yet."
"Ah! ye don't know what a comfort a pipe is," Bill said. "Why, when
yer are cold and hungry and down on your luck a pipe is a wonderful
thing, and so cheap; why, a ounce of 'baccy will fill yer thirty pipes
if yer don't squeeze it in too hard. Well, an ounce of 'baccy costs
threepence halfpenny, so, as I makes out, yer gets eight pipes for a
penny; and now," he went on when he had filled and lit his pipe,
"let's know what's yer game."
"You mean what am I going to do?" George asked.
Bill nodded.
"I want to get employment in some sort of works. I have been an
errand-boy in a grocer's for more than a year, and I have got a
written character from my master in my pocket; but I don't like the
sort of thing; I would rather work with my own hands. There are plenty
of works where they employ boys, and you know one might get on as one
gets older. The first thing is to find out whereabouts works of that
sort are."
"There are lots of works at the East End, I have heard tell," Bill
said; "and then there's Clerkenwell and King's Cross, they aint so far
off, and there are works there, all sorts of works, I should say; but
I don't know nuffin' about that sort of work. The only work as I have
done is holding hosses and carrying plants into the market, and
sometimes when I have done pretty well I goes down and lays out what I
got in _Echoes_, or _Globes_, or _Evening Standards_; that pays yer,
that does, for if yer can sell them all yer will get a bob for eight
penn'orth of papers, that gives yer fourpence for an hour's work, and
I calls that blooming good, and can't yer get a tuck-out for a bob!
Oh, no, I should think not! Well, what shall it be? I knows the way
out to Whitechapel and to Clerkenwell, so whichever yer likes I can
show yer."
"If Clerkenwell's the nearest we may as well try that first," George
said, "and I shall be much obliged to you for showing the way."
The two boys spent the whole day in going from workshop to workshop
for employment; but the answers to his application were unvarying:
either he was too young or there was no place vacant. George took the
disappointment quietly, for he had made up his mind that he would have
difficulty in getting a place; but Bill became quite angry on behalf
of his companion.
"This is worse nor the market," he said. "A chap can pick up a few
coppers there, and here we have been a-tramping about all day and aint
done nothing."
Day after day George set out on his quest, but all was without
success. He and Bill still slept in the loft, and after the first day
he took to getting up at the same time as his companion, and going out
with him to try and pick up a few pence from the men with the
market-carts. Every other morning they were able to lie later, as
there were only regular marketdays three mornings a week.
On market mornings he found that he earned more than Bill, his better
clothes giving him an advantage, as the men were more willing to trust
their carts and rugs to the care of a quiet, respectable-looking boy
than to that of the arabs who frequented the Garden. But all that was
earned was laid out in common between the two boys, and George found
himself seldom obliged to draw above a few pence on his private stock.
He had by this time told the Shadow exactly how much money he had, and
the boy, seeing the difficulty that George found in getting work, was
most averse to the store being trenched upon, and always gave his vote
against the smallest addition to their ordinary fare of bread and
cheese being purchased, except from their earnings of the day. This
George felt was the more creditable on Bill's part, inasmuch as the
latter had, in deference to his prejudices, abstained from the petty
thefts of fruit with which before he had seasoned his dry crusts.
George had learned now what Bill knew of his history, which was little
enough. He supposed he had had a father, but he knew nothing of him;
whether he had died, or whether he had cut away and left mother, Bill
had no idea. His mother he remembered well, though she had died when
he was, as he said, a little chap. He spoke of her always in a hushed
voice, and in a tone of reverence, as a superior being.
"We was poor, you know," he said to George, "and I know mother was
often short of grub, but she was just kind. I don't never remember her
whacking me; always spoke soft and low like; she was good, she was.
She used to pray, you know, and what I remember most is as the night
afore she was took away to a hospital she says, 'Try and live honest,
Bill; it will be hard, but try, my boy. Don't you take to stealing,
however poor you may be;' and I aint," Bill said earnestly over and
over again. "When I has seed any chap going along with a ticker handy,
which I could have boned and got away among the carts as safe as
ninepence, or when I has seed a woman with her purse a-sticking out of
them outside pockets, and I aint had a penny to bless myself with, and
perhaps nothing to eat all day, I have felt it hard not to make a
grab; but I just thought of what she said, and I aint done it. As I
told yer, I have often nabbed things off the stalls or out of the
baskets or carts. It didn't seem to me as that was stealing, but as
you says it is, I aint going to do so no more. Now look yer here,
George; they tells me as the parsons says as when people die and they
are good they goes up there, yer know."
George nodded, for there was a question in his companion's tone.
"Then, of course," Bill went on, "she is up there. Now it aint likely
as ever I should see her again, 'cause, you know, there aint nothing
good about me; but if she was to come my way, wherever I might be, and
was to say to me, 'Bill, have you been a-stealing?' do yer think she
would feel very bad about them 'ere apples and things?"
"No, Bill, I am sure she would not. You see you didn't quite know that
was stealing, and you kept from stealing the things that you thought
she spoke of, and now that you see it is wrong taking even little
things you are not going to take them any more."
"That I won't, so help me bob!" the boy said; "not if I never gets
another apple between my teeth."
"That's right, Bill. You see you ought to do it, not only to please
your mother, but to please God. That's what my mother has told me over
and over again."
"Has she now?" Bill said with great interest, "and did you use to prig
apples and sichlike sometimes?"
"No," George said, "not that sort of thing; but she was talking of
things in general. Of doing things that were wrong, such as telling
lies and deceiving, and that sort of thing."
"And your mother thinks as God knows all about it?"
George nodded.
"And that he don't like it, eh, when things is done bad?"
George nodded again.
"Lor', what a time he must have of it!" Bill said in solemn wonder.
"Why, I heard a woman say last week as six children was enough to
worrit anyone into the grave; and just to think of all of us!" and
Bill waved his arm in a comprehensive way and repeated, "What a time
he must have of it!"
For a time the boys sat silent in their loft, Bill wondering over the
problem that had presented itself to him, and George trying to find
some appropriate explanation in reply to the difficulty Bill had
started. At last he said:
"I am afraid, Bill, that I can't explain all this to you, for I am not
accustomed to talk about such things. My mother talks to me sometimes,
and of course I went to church regularly; but that's different from my
talking about it; but you know what we have got to do is to try and
please God, and love him because he loves us."
"That's whear it is," Bill said; "that's what I've heard fellows say
beats 'em. If he loves a chap like me how is it he don't do something
for him? why don't he get you a place, for instance? You aint been
a-prigging apples or a-putting him out. That's what I wants to know."
"Yes, Bill, but as I have heard my mother say, it would be very hard
to understand if this world were the only one; but you see we are only
here a little time, and after that there's on and on and on, right up
without any end, and what does it matter if we are poor or unhappy in
this little time if we are going to be ever so happy afterwards? This
is only a sort of little trial to see how we behave, as it were, and
if we do the best we can, even though that best is very little, then
you see we get a tremendous reward. For instance, you would not think
a man was unkind who kept you five minutes holding his horse on a cold
day, if he were going to give you enough to get you clothes and good
lodging for the rest of your life."
"No, I should think not," Bill said fervently; "so it's like that, is
it?"
George nodded. "Like that, only more."
"My eye!" Bill murmured to himself, lost in astonishment at this new
view of things.
After that there were few evenings when, before they nestled
themselves down in the hay, the boys did not talk on this subject. At
first George felt awkward and nervous in speaking of it, for like the
generality of English boys, however earnest their convictions may be,
he was shy of speaking what he felt; but his companion's eagerness to
know more of this, to him, new story encouraged him to speak, and
having in his bundle a small Bible which his mother had given him, he
took to reading to Bill a chapter or two in the mornings when they had
not to go out to the early market.
It is true that Bill's questions frequently puzzled him. The boy saw
things in a light so wholly different from that in which he himself
had been accustomed to regard them that he found a great difficulty in
replying to them.
George wrote a letter to his mother, telling her exactly what he was
doing, for he knew that if he only said that he had not yet succeeded
in getting work she would be very anxious about him, and although he
had nothing satisfactory to tell her, at least he could tell her that
he had sufficient to eat and as much comfort as he cared for. Twice he
received replies from her, directed to him at a little coffee-house,
which, when they had had luck, the boys occasionally patronized. As
time went on without his succeeding in obtaining employment George's
hopes fell, and at last he said to his mate; "I will try for another
fortnight, Bill, and if at the end of that time I don't get anything
to do I shall go back to Croydon again."
"But yer can earn yer living here!" Bill remonstrated.
"I can earn enough to prevent me from starving, but that is all,
Bill. I came up to London in hopes of getting something to do by which
I might some day make my way up; if I were to stop here like this I
should be going down, and a nice sight I should be to mother if, when
she gets well enough to come out of the infirmary, I were to go back
all in rags."
"What sort of a place is Croydon?" Bill asked. "Is there any chance of
picking up a living there? 'cause I tells yer fair, if yer goes off I
goes with yer. I aint a-thinking of living with yer, George; but we
might see each other sometime, mightn't we? Yer wouldn't mind that?"
"Mind it! certainly not, Bill! You have been a good friend to me, and
I should be sorry to think of you all alone here."
"Oh, blow being a good friend to yer!" Bill replied. "I aint done
nothing except put yer in the way of getting a sleeping-place, and as
it's given me one too I have had the best of that job. It's been good
of yer to take up with a chap like me as don't know how to read or
write or nothing, and as aint no good anyway. But you will let me go
with yer to Croydon, won't yer?"
"Certainly I will, Bill; but you won't be able to see much of me. I
shall have to get a place like the last. The man I was with said he
would take me back again if I wanted to come, and you know I am all
day in the shop or going out with parcels, and of course you would
have to be busy too at something."
"What sort of thing do yer think, George? I can hold a hoss, but that
aint much for a living. One may go for days without getting a chance."
"I should say, Bill, that your best chance would be to try and get
work either in a brickfield or with a market-gardener. At any rate we
should be able to get a talk for half an hour in the evening. I was
always done at nine o'clock, and if we were both in work we could take
a room together."
Bill shook his head.
"That would be wery nice, but I couldn't have it, George. I knows as I
aint fit company for yer, and if yer was with a shop-keeping bloke he
would think yer was going to run off with the money if he knew yer
kept company with a chap like me. No, the 'greement must be as yer
goes yer ways and I goes mine; but I hopes as yer will find suffin to
do up here, not 'cause as I wouldn't like to go down to this place of
yourn, but because yer have set yer heart on getting work here."
A week later the two boys were out late in Covent Garden trying to
earn a few pence by fetching up cabs and carriages for people coming
out from a concert in the floral hall. George had just succeeded in
earning threepence, and had returned to the entrance to the hall, and
was watching the people come out, and trying to get another job.
Presently a gentleman, with a girl of some nine or ten years old, came
out and took their place on the footpath.
"Can I call you a carriage, sir?" George asked.
"No, thank you, lad, a man has gone for it."
George fell back and stood watching the girl, who was in a white
dress, with a little hood trimmed with swansdown over her head.
Presently his eye fell on something on which the light glittered as it
hung from her neck. Just as he was looking a hand reached over her
shoulder, there was a jerk, and a sudden cry from the child, then a
boy dived into the crowd, and at the same moment George dashed after
him. There was a cry of "Stop, thief!" and several hands made a grab
at George as he dived through the crowd; but he slipped through them
and was soon in the roadway.
Some twenty yards ahead of him he saw the boy running. He turned up
Bow Street and then dashed down an alley. He did not know that he was
followed until suddenly George sprang upon his back, and the two fell
with a crash, the young thief undermost. George seized his right hand,
and kneeling upon him, twisted it behind his back and forced him to
open his fingers, the boy, taken by surprise, and not knowing who was
his assailant, making but slight resistance.
George seized the gold locket and dashed back at full speed into the
market, and was soon in the thick of the crowd round the entrance. The
gentleman was standing talking to a policeman, who was taking a note
of the description of the lost trinket. The girl was standing by
crying.
"Here is your locket," George said, putting it into her hand. "I saw
the boy take it, and have got it from him."
"Oh, papa! papa!" the girl cried. "Here is my locket again."
"Why, where did you get it from?" her father asked in astonishment.
"This boy has just given it to me," she replied. "He says he took it
from the boy who stole it."
"Which boy, Nellie? Which is the boy who brought it back?"
The girl looked round, but George was gone.
"Why didn't you stop him, my dear?" her father said. "Of course I
should wish to thank and reward him, for the locket was a very
valuable one, and the more so to us from its having belonged to your
mother. Did you notice the boy, policeman?"
"No, sir, I did not see him at all."
"Was he a poor boy, Nellie?"
"Not a very, very poor boy, father," the girl replied. "At least I
don't think so; but I only looked at his face. He didn't speak like a
poor boy at all."
"Would you know him again?"
"Oh, yes, I am sure I should. He was a good-looking boy with a nice
face."
"Well, I am very sorry he has gone away, my dear. Evidently he does
not want a reward, but at any rate I should have liked to thank him.
Are you always on this beat, policeman?"
"I am on night duty, sir, while the concerts are on."
"At any rate, I dare say you know the constables who are about here in
the daytime. I wish you would mention the fact to them, and ask them
if they get any clew to the boy who has rendered me this service, to
let me know. Here is a card with my name and address."
After restoring the locket George made his way to the entrance to the
stables, where he generally met Bill after the theater had closed and
there was no farther chance of earning money. It was not till half an
hour later that the boy came running up.
"I have got eightpence," he said. "That is something like luck. I got
three jobs. One stood me fourpence, the other two gave me tuppence
each. What do yer say? Shall we have a cup of coffee afore we turns
in?"
"I think we had better not, Bill. I have got sixpence. We will put
that by, with the sixpence we saved the other day, for the hostler. We
haven't given him anything for some time. Your eightpence will get us
a good breakfast in the morning."
When they had comfortably nestled themselves in the hay George told
his companion how he had rescued and restored the locket.
"And he didn't give yer nuffin! I never heerd tell of such a scaly
trick as that. I should ha' said it ought to have been good for a bob
anyway."
"I did not wait to see, Bill. Directly I had given the little girl her
locket I bolted."
"Well, that were soft. Why couldn't yer have waited to have seen what
the bloke meant to give yer?"
"I did not want to be paid for such a thing as that," George replied.
"I don't mind being paid when I have done a job for anyone; but this
was different altogether."
Bill meditated for a minute or two.
"I can't see no difference, nohow," he said at last. "Yer did him a
good turn, and got the thing back. I dare say it were worth five bob."
"A good deal more than that, Bill."
"More nor that! Well, then, he ought to have come down handsome.
Didn't yer run like winking, and didn't yer jump on the chap's back
and knock him down, and didn't yer run back again? And warn't there a
chance, ef one of the bobbies had got hold of yer collar and found it
in yer hand, of yer being had up for stealing it? And then yer walks
off and don't give him a chance of giving yer nuffin. My eye, but yer
are a flat!"
"I don't suppose you will quite understand, Bill. But when people do a
thing to oblige somebody, and not as a piece of regular work, they
don't expect to be paid. I shouldn't have liked it if they had offered
me money for such a thing."
"Well, ef yer says so, no doubt it's right," Bill rejoined; "but it
seems a rum sort of notion to me. When people loses things they
expects to pay to get 'em back. Why, don't yer see outside the p'lice
station, and in the shop winders, papers offering so much for giving
back things as is lost. I can't read 'em myself, yer know; but chaps
have read 'em to me. Why, I've heerd of as much as five quid being
offered for watches and sichlike as was lost by ladies coming out of
theayters, and I have often thought what a turn of luck it would be to
light on one of 'em. And now yer says as I oughtn't to take the money
ef I found it."
"No, I don't say that, Bill. If you found a thing and saw a reward
offered, and you wanted the money, you would have good right to take
it. But, you see, in this case I saw how sorry the girl was at losing
her locket, and I went after it to please her, and I was quite content
that I got it back for her."
Bill tried again to think the matter over in his mind, but he was
getting warm and sleepy, and in a few minutes was sound off.
Two or three days later the lads had, to their great satisfaction,
obtained a job. Walnuts were just coming in, and the boys were engaged
to take off the green shucks. Bill was particularly pleased, for he
had never before been taken on for such a job, and he considered it a
sort of promotion. Five or six women were also employed, and as the
group were standing round some great baskets Bill suddenly nudged his
friend:
"I say, my eye, aint that little gal pretty?"
George looked up from his work and at once recognized the girl to whom
he had restored the locket. Her eye fell on him at the same moment.
"There, papa!" she exclaimed. "I told you if you brought me down to
the market I felt sure I should know the boy again if I saw him.
That's him, the one looking down into the basket. But he knew me
again, for I saw him look surprised when he noticed me."
The gentleman made his way through the women to George.
"My lad, are you the boy who restored the locket to my daughter three
evenings ago?"
"Yes, sir," George said, coloring as he looked up. "I was standing
close by when the boy took it, so I gave chase and brought it back,
and that's all."
"You were off again in such a hurry that we hadn't time to thank you.
Just come across to my daughter. I suppose you can leave your work for
a minute?"
"Yes, sir. We are working by the job," George said, and looking rather
shamefaced he followed the gentleman to the sidewalk.
"This is your boy, as you call him, Nellie."
"I was sure I should know him again," the child said, "though I only
saw him for a moment. We are very much obliged to you, boy, papa and
me, because it had been mamma's locket, and we should have been very
sorry to have lost it."
"I am glad I was able to get it back for you," George said; "but I
don't want to be thanked for doing it; and I don't want to be paid
either, thank you, sir," he said, flushing as the gentleman put his
hand into his pocket.
"No! and why not?" the gentleman said in surprise. "You have done me a
great service, and there is no reason why I should not pay you for it.
If I had lost it I would gladly have paid a reward to get it back."
"Thank you, sir," George said quietly; "but all the same I would
rather not be paid for a little thing like that."
"You are a strange fellow," the gentleman said again. "One does not
expect to find a boy in the market here refusing money when he has
earned it."
"I should not refuse it if I had earned it," George said; "but I don't
call getting back a locket for a young lady who has lost it earning
money."
"How do you live, lad? You don't speak like a boy who has been brought
up in the market here."
"I have only been here three months," George said. "I came up to
London to look for work, but could not get any. Most days I go about
looking for it, and do what odd jobs I can get when there's a chance."
"What sort of work do you want? Have you been accustomed to any work?
Perhaps I could help you."
"I have been a year as an errand-boy," George answered; "but I didn't
like it, and I thought I would rather get some sort of work that I
could work at when I got to be a man instead of sticking in a shop."
"Did you run away from home, then?" the gentleman asked.
"No, sir. My mother was ill and went into an infirmary, and so as I
was alone I thought I would come to London and try to get the sort of
work I liked; but I have tried almost all over London."
"And are you all alone here?"
"No, sir, not quite alone. I found a friend in that boy there, and we
have worked together since I came up."
"Well, lad, if you really want work I can give it you."
"Oh, thank you, sir!" George exclaimed fervently.
"And your friend too, if he likes. I have some works down at Limehouse
and employ a good many boys. Here is the address;" and he took a card
from his pocket, wrote a few words on the back of it, and handed it to
George.
"Ask for the foreman, and give him that, and he will arrange for you
to begin work on Monday. Come along, Nellie; we have got to buy the
fruit for to-morrow, you know."
So saying he took his daughter's hand, and George, wild with delight,
ran off to tell Bill that he had obtained work for them both.
"Well, Nellie, are you satisfied?"
"Yes, I am glad you could give him work, papa; didn't he look pleased?
Wasn't it funny his saying he wouldn't have any money?"
"Yes; I hardly expected to have met with a refusal in Covent Garden;
but you were right, child, and you are a better judge of character
than I gave you credit for. You said he was a nice-looking lad, and
spoke like a gentleman, and he does. He is really a very good style of
boy. Of course he is shabby and dirty now, and you see he has been an
errand-boy at a grocer's; but he must have been better brought up than
the generality of such lads. The one he called his friend looked a
wild sort of specimen, altogether a different sort of boy. I should
say he was one of the regular arabs hanging about this place. If so, I
expect a very few days' work will sicken him; but I shouldn't be
surprised if your boy, as you call him, sticks to it."
The next morning the two boys presented themselves at Mr. Penrose's
works at Limehouse. These were sawing and planing works, and the sound
of many wheels, and the hoarse rasping sound of saws innumerable, came
out through the open windows of the building as they entered the yard.
"Now what do you boys want?" a workman said as he appeared at one of
the doors.
"We want to see the foreman," George said. "I have a card for him from
Mr. Penrose."
"I will let him know," the man replied.
Two minutes later the foreman came out, and George handed him the
card. He read what Mr. Penrose had written upon it and said:
"Very well, you can come in on Monday; pay, eight shillings a week;
seven o'clock; there, that will do. Oh, what are your names?" taking
out a pocket-book. "George Andrews and William Smith;" and then, with
a nod, he went back into his room, while the boys, almost bewildered
at the rapidity with which the business had been arranged, went out
into the street again.
"There we are, Bill, employed," George said in delight.
"Yes, there we is," Bill agreed, but in a more doubtful tone; "it's a
rum start, aint it? I don't expect I shall make much hand of it, but I
am wery glad for you, George."
"Why shouldn't you make much hand of it? You are as strong as I am."
"Yes; but then, you see, I aint been accustomed to work regular, and I
expect I shan't like it--not at first; but I am going to try. George,
don't yer think as I aint agoing to try. I aint that sort; still I
expects I shall get the sack afore long."
"Nonsense, Bill! you will like it when you once get accustomed to it,
and it's a thousand times better having to draw your pay regularly at
the end of the week than to get up in the morning not knowing whether
you are going to have breakfast or not. Won't mother be pleased when I
write and tell her I have got a place! Last time she wrote she said
that she was a great deal better, and the doctor thought she would be
out in the spring, and then I hope she will be coming up here, and
that will be jolly."
"Yes, that's just it," Bill said; "that's whear it is; you and I will
get on fust-rate, but it aint likely as your mother would put up with
a chap like me."
"My mother knows that you have been a good friend to me, Bill, and
that will be quite enough for her. You wait till you see her."
"My eye, what a lot of little houses there is about here!" Bill said,
"just all the same pattern; and how wide the streets is to what they
is up Drury Lane!"
"Yes, we ought to have no difficulty in getting a room here, Bill, now
that we shall have money to pay for it; only think, we shall have
sixteen shillings a week between us!"
"It's a lot of money," Bill said vaguely. "Sixteen bob! My eye, there
aint no saying what it will buy! I wish I looked a little bit more
respectable," he said, with a new feeling as to the deficiencies of
his attire. "It didn't matter in the Garden; but to go to work with a
lot of other chaps, these togs aint what you may call spicy."
"They certainly are not, Bill," George said with a laugh. "We must see
what we can manage."
George's own clothes were worn and old, but they looked respectable
indeed by the side of those of his companion. Bill's elbows were both
out, the jacket was torn and ragged, he had no waistcoat, and his
trousers were far too large for him, and were kept up by a single
brace, and were patched in a dozen places.
When George first met him he was shoeless, but soon after they had set
up housekeeping together George had bought from a cobbler's stall a
pair of boots for two shillings, and these, although now almost
falling to pieces, were still the best part of Bill's outfit.