When the royal carriage had passed by, the crowd immediately scattered,
and then for the first time Flo perceived that she was deserted by her
companions. She looked to right and left, before and behind her, but
the little rough and ragged figures she sought for were nowhere visible.
She was still excited by the sight she had witnessed, and was
consequently not much frightened though it did occur to her to wonder
how ever she should find her way home again. She turned a few steps,--
Saint James's Park with the summer sunshine on it lay before her. She
sat down on the grass, and pulled a few blades and smelt them--they were
withered, trampled, and dry, but to Flo their yellow, sickly green was
beautiful.
She gathered a few more blades and tucked them tenderly into the bosom
of her frock--they would serve to remind her of the queen, they had
sprouted and grown up within sight of the queen's house, perhaps one day
the queen had looked at them, as to-day she had looked at Flo.
The child sat for half-an-hour unperceived, and therefore undisturbed,
drinking in the soft summer air, when suddenly a familiar voice sounded
in her ears, and the absent figures danced before her.
"I say, Flo, would yer like somethink _real_, not an ony s'pose?"
Flo raised her eyes and fixed them earnestly on Dick.
"No, Dick," she replied slowly, "there beant but one queen, and I've
seen the queen, and she's beautiful and good, and she looked at me,
Dick, and I'm not a goin' to take 'er place, so I'll be the hearl's wife
please, Dick dear."
The two boys laughed louder than ever, and then Jenks, coming forward
and bowing obsequiously, said in a mock serious tone--
"Will my Lady Countess, the hearl's wife, conderscend to a 'elpin' o'
taters and beef along o' her 'umble servants, and will she conderscend
to rise orf this 'ere grass, as hotherwise the perleece might feel
obligated to give 'er in charge, it being contrary to the rules, that
even a hearl's wife should make this 'ere grass 'er cushion."
Considerably frightened, as Jenks intended she should be, Flo tumbled to
her feet, and the three children walked away. Dick nudged his sister
and looked intensely mysterious, his bright eyes were dancing, his shock
of rough hair was pushed like a hay-stack above his forehead, his dirty
freckled face was flushed. Jenks preceded the brother and sister by a
few steps, getting over the ground in a light and leisurely manner, most
refreshing to the eyes of Dick.
"Ain't 'ee a mate worth 'avin'?" he whispered to Flo.
"But wot about the meat and taters?" asked Flo, who by this time was
very hungry; "ain't it nothink but another `s'pose' arter all?"
"Wait and you'll see," replied Dick with a broad grin.
"Here we 'ere," said Jenks, drawing up at the door of an eating-house,
not quite so high in the social scale as Verrey's, but a real and
substantial eating-house nevertheless.
"Now, my Lady Countess, the hearl's wife, which shall it be? Smokin'
'ot roast beef and taters, or roast goose full hup to chokin' o' sage
and onions? There, Flo," he added, suddenly changing his tone, and
speaking and looking like a different Jenks, "you 'as but to say one or
t'other, so speak the word, little matey."
Seeing that there was a genuine eating-house, and that Jenks was in
earnest, Flo dropped her assumed character, and confessed that she had
_once_ tasted 'ot fat roast beef, long ago in mother's time, but had
never so much as _seen_ roast goose; accordingly that delicacy was
decided on, and Jenks having purchased a goodly portion, brought it into
the outer air in a fair-sized wooden bowl, which the owner of the
eating-house had kindly presented to him for the large sum of four
pence. At sight of the tempting mess cooling rapidly in the breeze, all
Flo's housewifely instincts were awakened.
"It won't be _'ot_ roast goose, and mother always did tell 'as it should
be heat up 'ot," she said pitifully. "'Ere, Dick, 'ere's my little
shawl, wrap it round it fur to keep it 'ot, do."
Flo's ragged scrap of a shawl was accordingly unfastened and tied round
the savoury dish, and Dick, being appointed bowl-bearer, the children
trudged off as rapidly as possible in the direction of Duncan Street.
They were all three intensely merry, though it is quite possible that a
close observer might have remarked, that Dick's mirth was a little
forced. He laughed louder and oftener than either of the others, but
for all that, he was not quite the same Dick who had stared so
impudently about him an hour or two ago in Regent Street. He was
excited and pleased, but he was no longer a fearless boy. An hour ago
he could have stared the world in the face, now even at a distant sight
of a policeman he shrank behind Jenks, until at last that young
gentleman, exasperated by his rather sneaking manner, requested him in
no very gentle terms not to make such a fool of himself.
Then Dick, grinning more than ever, declared vehemently that "_'ee_
wasn't afraid of nothink, not 'ee." But just then something, or some
one, gave a vicious pull to his ragged trouser, and he felt himself
turning pale, and very nearly in his consternation dropping the dish,
with that delicious supper.
The cause of this alarm was a wretched, half-starved dog, which,
attracted doubtless by the smell of the supper, had come behind him and
brought him to a sense of his presence in this peremptory way.
"No, don't 'it 'im," said Flo, as Jenks raised his hand to strike, for
the pitiable, shivering creature had got up on its hind legs, and with
coaxing, pleading eyes was glancing from the bowl to the children.
"Ain't 'ee just 'ungry?" said Flo again, for her heart was moved with
pity for the miserable little animal.
"Well, so is we," said Dick in a fretful voice, and turning, he trudged
on with his load.
"Come, Flo, do," said Jenks, "don't waste time with that little sight o'
misery any more, 'ees ony a street cur."
"No 'ee ain't," said Flo half to herself, for Jenks had not waited for
her, "'ees a good dawg."
"Good-bye, good dawg," and she patted his dirty sides. "Ef I wasn't so
werry 'ungry, and ef Dick wasn't the least bit in the world crusty, I'd
give you a bite o' my supper," and she turned away hastily after Jenks.
"Wy, I never! 'ee's a follerin' o' yer still, Flo," said Jenks.
So he was; now begging in front of her, paying not the least attention
to Jenks--Dick was far ahead--but fixing his starved, eager, anxious
eyes on the one in whose tone he had detected kindness.
"Oh! 'ee _is_ starvin', I must give 'im one bite o' my supper," said
Flo, her little heart utterly melting, and then the knowing animal came
closer, and crouched at her feet.
"Poor brute! hall 'is ribs is stickin' hout," said Jenks, examining him
more critically. "I 'spects 'ees strayed from 'ome. Yer right, Flo,
'ees not such a bad dawg, not by no means, 'ee 'ave game in 'im. I ses,
Flo, would you like to take 'im 'ome?"
"Oh, Jenks! but wouldn't Dick be hangry?"
"Never you mind Dick, I'll settle matters wid 'im, ef you likes to give
the little scamp a bite o' supper, you may."
"May be scamp's 'ees name; see! 'ee wags 'is little tail."
"Scamp shall come 'ome then wid us," said Jenks, and lifting the little
animal in his arms, he and Flo passed quickly through Seven Dials, into
Duncan Street, and from thence, through a gap in the pavement, into the
deep, black cellar, which was their home.