"I think you were the flat!" said Jack, putting up his other foot on the
box.
"Me? _I_ ain't no flat, no error!" replied the boy, with a grin. "I'm
a sharp 'un, that's what I are!"
"I think you were worse than a flat to steal my money, and my friend's."
The boy looked perplexed. "Ga on!" said he.
"What's your name?" asked Jack, changing the subject.
"Billy," replied the boy.
"Billy what?"
"Ga on! What do you mean by `what'? Ain't Billy enough?"
"Where do you live?"
"Live? where I can; that's where I live!"
"Then you don't live with your mother in that court any longer?"
"The old gal--she ain't no concern of yourn!" said the youth, firing up.
"I know that," said Jack, evidently at a loss, as I had been, how to
pursue the conversation with this queer boy. "I say, Billy," he added,
"where are you going to sleep to-night?"
"Ain't a-goin' to sleep nowheres!" was the prompt reply.
"Would you like to come and sleep with me?"
"No fear!" was the complimentary reply.
"What are you going to do, then?"
"'Tain't no concern o' yourn; so it ain't."
"Will you be here to-morrow?"
"In corse I shall!"
"Well, I expect I'll want my boots done again to-morrow evening. Here's
a penny for this time."
The boy took the penny and held it in the palm of his hand.
"Isn't it enough?" asked Jack.
"You're 'avin' a lark with me," said the boy. "This 'ere brown--"
"What's wrong? It's a good one, isn't it?"
"Oh, ain't you funny? I don't want yer brown!" and to my amazement he
tossed the coin back.
Jack solemnly picked it up and put it back into his pocket. "Good-
night, Billy," said he. "Mind you are here to-morrow."
"No fear!" said Billy, who was once more resuming his gymnastic
exercises.
And so we left him.
My friend Smith was certainly a queer fellow. He seemed more interested
during the remainder of our walk with the little dishonest shoeblack we
had just left than with my half-candid story of my life in London during
his absence.
"Depend upon it, that's his way of making amends," said he; "there's
some good in the young scamp after all."
"It's precious hard to discover," said I. "He appears to me to be a
graceless young reprobate, who knows well enough that it's wicked to
steal, and seems rather proud of it than otherwise. I say, Jack, I'd
advise you not to have too much to do with him. He's done you harm
enough as it is."
When we returned to Beadle Square we found our amiable fellow-lodgers
evidently expecting our arrival. It was so long since I had taken
supper at Mrs Nash's that I seemed quite as much a stranger as Jack.
"Here they come," said Horncastle, who always shone on occasions like
this. "Here comes the two smallpoxes. Hold your noses, you fellows."
In this flattering manner we were received as we proceeded to seat
ourselves in our accustomed place at the table.
"They seem as cheerful and merry as ever," said Jack, solemnly, to me,
looking round him.
"I say, Jones," cried Horncastle, in an audible voice to a friend,
"wonderful how Batchelor turns up here now the other's come home! Got
to stop going out every night now, and coming home drunk at two in the
morning, eh? Going to behave now, eh? But he does go it, don't he,
when his keeper's back's turned, eh?"
All this, ridiculous as it was, was not very pleasant for me. To Jack,
however, it was highly amusing.
"I suppose they mean that for you," said he. "I feel quite flattered to
be called your keeper."
"It's all a lie," I said angrily, "about my coming home drunk, and all
that."
"I should rather hope it was," said my friend with a smile.
I was sufficiently uncomfortable, however, by the turn my fellow-
lodgers' wit was taking. Without meaning to deceive, I had somehow, in
my story to Jack, omitted all reference to my own extravagances, and
represented my dissipations more as contrivances to pass the time in my
friend's absence than congenial pleasures.
"Rum thing, too," continued Horncastle, who evidently saw I was not
liking it--"rum thing he's dropped those new ready-made togs of his and
his flash watch-chain. I wonder why--"
"Because they're not paid for," said another. "I know that, because I
was in Shoddy's shop to-day, and he asked me to tell Batchelor the
things were sold for ready money and no tick. Do you hear that,
Batchelor? that's what he says, and you'd better attend to it, I can
tell you."
Why need I have got myself into a rage over a suit of ready-made
clothes? It was surely no crime to possess them; and if I was owing the
amount it didn't follow I had anything to be ashamed of, as long as I
paid in the end. But I flushed up dreadfully, in a manner which Jack
could not help noticing, and replied, "You mind your own business--I'll
mind mine!"
"You'd better, my boy," was the reply. "Pyman, the pastrycook, was
asking most affectionately after you too. He says he hopes you won't
move without letting him know, as he'd like to call and--"
"Come on, Jack!" I cried, taking Jack's arm; "it's enough to make one
sick the way they talk."
And amid much laughter, and in no very amiable frame of mind, I quitted
my persecutors.
I made sure Jack would read me a lecture, or at any rate refer to the
subject which had caused me so much annoyance. He did neither.
"Lively lot they are," said he. "It's a wonder where they pick up all
their notions."
"They want to make you believe I've been up to all sorts of mischief
since you went away," I said.
Jack laughed.
"And they expect me to believe it," said he. "The best way with them is
to let them say what they like, and take no notice."
We went upstairs to bed, as the only place where we could enjoy one
another's society undisturbed.
As we were undressing. Jack took from his pocket a photograph, which he
showed to me.
"Fred," said he, "would you like to see a portrait of Mary?"
"Your sister?" said I, taking the picture. "Yes."
It was a pretty little girl of about twelve or thirteen, with dark eyes
and hair like Jack's; but, unlike him, with a merry, sunny face, which
even under the eye of a photographer could not be made to look solemn.
"How jolly!" was my exclamation.
Jack looked as delighted with this unsentimental comment as if I had
broken out into all sorts of poetic raptures, and replied, in his
peculiar, solemn way, "Yes, she is jolly."
"Is she your only sister?" I asked, giving him back the portrait.
"Yes," said he.
"Was she very ill when you got down?"
"Yes; we hardly thought she was going to live," he replied.
"I heard how you were both getting on now and then from Mrs Shield.
She seems a very kind person."
"She's our old nurse, you know," Jack said, "and like a mother to Mary
and me."
He had never spoken like this about home before. Whenever we had
approached the topic he had nervously changed the conversation. Now,
however, he seemed almost glad to talk to some one, and there was quite
a tremble in his voice as he spoke of his sister and Mrs Shield.
"Then your own mother's not alive?" I asked. I had asked the same
question once at Stonebridge House, I remembered, and then he had almost
resented it.
"No, she died when Mary was born, fourteen years ago. I cannot remember
her at all."
"Just like me," I said. "I never saw my mother that I know of. I say,
Jack, let's look at that portrait again."
He was delighted to show it to me, and I was glad once more to get a
glimpse of that merry face.
"And your father," I inquired, presently, "is he dead too?"
"No!" said Jack, with a sudden return of his old abruptness.
I was perplexed, but it was no use, evidently, pumping my friend with
further questions in that direction. So we proceeded to undress in
silence, and were soon in bed.
Presently the other lodgers came up, and then there was no chance of
renewing our talk, even if Jack had been so inclined. But he seemed
evidently in no humour for pursuing it.
In due time all was quiet once more, and then, just as I was beginning
to feel drowsy, and was lying half awake, half asleep, fancying myself
back again at Stonebridge House in the old dormitory, I felt a hand on
my arm and heard Jack's voice whisper, "Fred, are you asleep?"
"No," I replied, moving over to make room for him as he slipped in
beside me.
"Fred," he whispered, "I'm afraid you think me a brute."
"No, I don't," replied I, astonished; "why ever should I?"
"Why, I offended you just now, when you meant to be kind."
"No you didn't," said I. "I know there are some things you don't like
to talk about, and I--I've no right to ask you about them."