IV

The next few years of the boy’s existence were passed almost entirely

in the society of his father in the little room behind the shop. He

attended no other school, but devoted many hours in the day to the

faded and timeworn volumes which so seldom found a purchaser. He read

deeply in books of all kinds, of all ages and countries, for his great

hunger for information seemed to grow on what it fed. In the evening,

when the shop was closed for the night, and his father came to bear him

company, he would spend many hours in putting questions to him. To

many of these his father would smile in the secret and beautiful manner

of the aged school-master, but would vouchsafe no answer.

On high days and holy days they would walk abroad together. Sometimes

they would explore the quarters of the great city; at other times they

would seek the country lanes. The boy’s partiality was for these latter

excursions. He could never divest himself of the nameless dread that

seized him in mingling with these vast acres of bricks and mortar, of

immitigable noise, of unfathomable dirt, and, above all, of his horror

of the mighty multitude that rendered the streets so terrible. One day

as their steps were pointed towards the heart of the great city, and he

was filled with misgiving, he ventured to say, “How I wish, my father,

we could walk always where we walked yesterday.”

“As it pleases you, beloved one,” said his father.

A little afterwards his father hailed an omnibus. They climbed together

to the roof, and were borne away by the sturdy horses through nests

of cheerless houses, and hives of dismal human creatures, until green

fields and tall trees came into view. As they walked in these groves

already spread in the mantle of spring, and their feet felt the sweet

and bright earth responsive beneath them, the boy said, “Why is it, my

father, that we sometimes choose the dirt, the noise, and the darkness,

when fair Elysium is so close about us?”

“I have observed, beloved one,” said his father, “that you do not

always turn to the easy and pleasant authors.”

The boy blushed vividly.

“How I wish,” he said, with vehement lips, “that I had never asked to

come here! We will forsake these groves, my father, which are spread

with flowers, which are quick with the songs of birds, and not return

to them for many days.”

“As you will, Achilles,” said his father gently.

In the spring and summer months the boy sometimes rose at dawn to

sally out alone into the streets. They were almost free of traffic and

street-persons at this time, and when his courage mounted high he was

not afraid to move among them. But later in the day, when the press

became so great he could only move abroad mistrustfully, and when the

darkness came he only dared to do so in his father’s company.

He determined to celebrate his fifteenth birthday with an adventure. On

the eve of that anniversary he made up his mind that on the following

morning he would buy a newspaper. When it came he went forth soon after

dawn, and remained in the streets until nearly eight o’clock. Then it

was he encountered a boy standing by the kerb with a newsbill spread

out before it. He had a bundle of newspapers under his arm, and was

bawling lustily. The boy approached with many misgivings, but finding

that the newsboy was taller, and that his voice was louder than he had

at first suspected, he moved away without venturing to speak to him.

However, a little farther off was a second newsboy who was very ragged,

who was not so tall, and whose voice was not so loud. This boy he spoke

to with an inflexible determination in his heart.

“I-if you p-please for w-what p-piece of m-money will you give me one

of your n-newspapers?” he said.

“Hay?” said the newsboy, looking at him in amazement.

With infinite difficulty the boy stammered through his question again.

“Why, a ha’penny, o’ course!” said the newsboy gruffly as he scratched

his head, for an uneasy suspicion lurked in it that the question was a

jest at his personal expense. “Did yer fink they was a quid apiece?”

“I--I w-will purchase one if you please,” said the boy. “T-this is a

halfpenny, is it not?”

He produced a shilling, and handed it to the newsboy, who gave him a

newspaper in exchange.

“I am much obliged to you,” said the boy, lifting his cap and moving

away hurriedly.

The newsboy stared with open mouth after the rapidly receding figure.

He then bit the shilling, spat on it, and inserted it carefully in a

hole in his somewhat nondescript nether garment.

“Law lummy!” he said.

The boy hurried back to the little room with the newspaper. Within him

was a glowing sense of physical achievement which he tried to repress.

As he sat down to take breakfast with his father, he said excitedly,

“Thou wilt never guess what I have done, O my father!”

“I am sure, Achilles, I cannot,” said his father; and he added, as

he placed an arm round the fragile form that was all shaken with

excitement, “Whatever you have done, beloved one, I pray that you have

not overtaxed your strength.”

“I have purchased one of those newspapers they sell in the streets of

the great city, my father,” said the boy. “See, it is here. I trust,

my father, there is no reason why I should not address my mind to that

which is written therein. I am fifteen years old to-day.”

“As you will, beloved one,” said his father sombrely.

After the meal, when the boy had removed the breakfast things from the

table, had cleansed them and laid them by, he sat down to read the

newspaper, full of an excited curiosity. As he did so a kind of proud

bewilderment came over him that his own personal initiative had brought

a thing of such mysterious import into the little room.

He began to read the newspaper at the first word of the first page, at

the top corner of the left hand. He read slowly and carefully every

word the page contained. He then turned to the next, and continued

to go word by word through each one of the twelve pages. When he had

finished, he found to his consternation that he had not been able to

draw a single ray of meaning out of all that vast assemblage of words.

After a period of reflection, in which he refrained zealously from

mentioning the subject to his father, he proceeded very carefully to

read it again. His failure to understand it proved just as lamentable.

In his chagrin and dismay he read it a third time, and a fourth; he

committed portions of it by heart; he committed other portions to

paper. In the evening he said to his father, with a blank face, “Why,

my father, dost thou know that I have not the strength of understanding

to comprehend a phrase of what is written in the newspaper!”

His father smiled in his secret manner.

“Can it be, Achilles,” he said, “that here is a bow that you cannot

bend?”

“My mind is as grass, my father, before the words in this newspaper,”

said the boy woefully. “I am fifteen years old to-day; I have been

able to gather the inmost meanings of some of the authors I have read,

and even in diverse tongues, my father, from that which is spoken by

you and me. For what reason is it that I do not gather that which is

written in the newspapers the street-persons are always reading as they

walk the streets of the great city?”

“Is it not, beloved one,” said his father, “that these newspapers are

composed in the strange tongues of those curious beings who walk the

streets of the great city?”

“You would say, my father,” said the boy, “that only street-persons can

comprehend that which is written in these newspapers of theirs?”

“At least, beloved one,” said his father, “to comprehend their

newspapers we must become familiar with their language, their nature,

and their ideas.”

“How I wish,” cried the boy, “that I had never purchased a newspaper!

How I wish I had never dared to bring it into this little room of

ours!”

With a curious repugnance in his face, the boy rent the newspaper in

the middle.

This, however, was not the conclusion of the matter. Although the boy

did not refer again to the subject for three days, it was constantly

in his thoughts. At the end of that period he said, “He that has a

passion, my father, to understand all things, must even understand the

contents of a newspaper, must he not? Yet, if he would understand that,

must he not first learn all that these street-persons, who darken the

great city, are doing and thinking and talking about?”

“The penalty is dire, beloved one,” said his father softly, “for all

passions that are imperious.”

“And why these street-persons walk so fast, my father,” said the boy,

“and why they look so cruel?”

“He who would converse with the book of their wisdom must not shrink

from their knowledge, beloved one,” said his father.

“Yet one such as I must learn to understand all things, my father, must

he not?”

“Truly, Achilles,” said his father, “the god-like one who aspires to

enfold himself in the mantle of heroes must wear the robe of a wide and

deep knowledge of all that is under the sun.”

“I knew it, my father, I knew it!” cried the boy with gaunt eyes.

He sank his head to the table, breathing heavily.

V

In the afternoon of the next day a slight and forlorn figure left the

precincts of the little room. Alone the boy stole out of the shop,

that _via media_ to the great world out of doors. Timorous of aspect

he entered the ever-moving throng in the streets of the great city. At

first he hardly dared to look at the faces of the street-persons or to

listen to their words; for he was clad in a kind of fear; he was about

to pluck the fruit of mysterious knowledge. After awhile, however, he

took a little courage. Covertly, and in dread lest his woeful ignorance

should be discovered, he began to mark the faces of the street-persons,

and to listen that he might hear their words. He even grew so bold as

to follow two street-persons whose voices were audible in discourse.

Others, whom he observed to be lingering in talk on the pavement, he

would approach warily. But in spite of this eager pursuit of knowledge

he was obliged to confess that the conversation of these street-persons

was as unintelligible as their newspapers.

In the course of his wanderings among the streets of the great city,

the boy’s attention was at last attracted by the most beautiful

creature he had ever seen outside his dreams and the pages of the

ancient authors. She was just a common woman street-person in a

particularly gay and handsome dress, yet her skin shone like marble,

and her hair was dark and glossy like the plumage of some wonderful

bird. A little girl, also dressed in great beauty, was at her side.

She had an aureole of golden curls, which to the boy seemed all woven

of sunbeams and gossamer. They were walking in an opposite direction

to that in which he was going, but in a sudden transport of delight at

their appearance he turned and followed them.

Presently the beautiful woman street-person and the little girl

stayed their steps to look in the window of a huge and brilliantly

decorated shop. The interior seemed so dazzling to the boy that it

might have been the palace of a magician. While he stood a little way

off observing street-beauty preoccupied with the street-beautiful--and

he was fain to confess that when closely observed the street-beautiful

seemed much nearer to the beautiful of rare and strange authenticity

with which he held constant intercourse, than he had ever suspected--a

handsome man street-person, wearing fine clothes, sauntered towards

the woman and the little girl.

This man also stayed to look in the bright windows of the shop. To the

great surprise and curiosity of the boy, who was observing him closely,

although this man spoke neither to the woman nor the little girl nor

claimed their attention in any way, his hand entered the woman’s pocket

and took out some article which he transferred to his own pocket in

his closed fist. Then, without in any way attracting the regard of

the woman and the little girl, this handsome and finely-dressed male

street-person sauntered away from the shop in just the same careless

and leisurely fashion in which he had come near it.

A little while afterwards the woman and the little girl entered the

shop. Although the boy was awed by the superb nature of its precincts,

his timidity was overcome by the most powerful impulse that had ever

been excited in him. It was too potent to resist. Therefore he followed

the woman and the little girl into the gorgeous interior, devouring

them with his gaze.

A second tall and handsome male street-person, also dressed finely,

came forward to greet the woman and the little girl. He bowed to them

with graceful deference.

“Let me look at one of those _peignoirs_ you have in the window,” said

the woman.

The sound of her voice was so loud and harsh that a cold thrill went

through the boy’s veins.

“Certainly, madam,” said the tall man. “Will you kindly go forward?

Straight on up the stairs.”

In the middle of the great shop was a broad flight of richly carpeted

stairs. The woman, the little girl, and the tall man ascended these.

Involuntarily, as if drawn by a magnet, the boy followed them up the

stairs.

At the top of the stairs was another great and glittering room. Here

were counters and chairs, resplendent articles of wearing apparel

strewn all about; and some other women street-persons, who wore no

hats, yet very good to look upon and dressed in neat black clothes. The

beautiful woman sank languidly upon a chair. The little girl with the

golden curls began to roam about the great room.

Quite suddenly the little girl chanced to see the boy, who stood gazing

at her with rapture in his eyes. She walked up to him fearlessly as

though he were one of her chief friends. She looked upon him in such

a manner of artless simplicity that his cheeks began to burn with

gladness.

“I yike oo,” said the little girl in a voice so loud and clear that it

could be heard all over the great room. “Would oo yike to kiss me?”

The woman half-turned in her chair and looked at the boy coldly and

steadily. As his eyes met hers the blood seemed to turn to ice in his

veins.

“Come here immediately,” she said to the little girl in the loud tone

she had used down-stairs to the tall man. “What a horrid-looking boy!

He has a sore on his face.”

The boy grew petrified with fear and distress. As he reeled against

one of the counters, with no more life in him than a stone, one of the

women in black came up to him.

“You have no right whatever to be here,” she said roughly. “How dare

you come in!”

The boy, numb with terror, could hardly apprehend that he was being

addressed.

“Miss Sharp,” said the woman in black, turning to one who was similarly

attired, “fetch Mr. Parley. This boy has no right whatever to be here.”

The tall man came up.

“Mr. Parley,” said the woman in black, “this boy has been found in this

department. Oughtn’t he to be searched?”

“What do you mean by coming into this shop?” said the tall man, turning

to the boy very roughly.

“I--I--I d-don’t think I know, sir,” the boy stammered in a voice that

was not audible.

The woman with the little girl rose from her chair suddenly.

“Why, where is my purse!” she cried in a tone of angry surprise.

A great outcry seemed to arise all at once. Excited street-persons

sprang into being on this side and that. They emerged from behind

curtains, doorways and recesses; they came pressing forward until they

formed a circle of startled faces around the boy. One and all seemed to

be staring with incredulous dismay at an object in their midst.

When the boy had recovered a little from the shock of being addressed

in a public manner by street-persons, he began to look about him with

a sense of bewilderment, which, however, was quite impersonal. He

appeared to be standing in the centre of some strange incident, yet

seek as he might he could not discern its nature. The buzz of eager

tongues all around seemed to be discussing, that is as far as he could

apprehend the queer language that they spoke, some remarkable creature

who in sober verity did not appear to be present at all.

“How shocking it is to see crime stamped on such a young face!” he

could distinguish as the indignantly spoken words of the street-woman

who had lost her purse.

“I do hope the police won’t be long,” said one of the women in black.

“You are sure, Miss Sharp, you saw no confederates?” he heard the tall

man say.

“There were no confederates,” said an angular woman with great

impressiveness.

“Ah!” said another woman, drawing a breath of relief, “here’s the

police.”

The burly forms of two extremely dignified and curiously dressed

street-persons, whom the boy’s knowledge of the practical sciences

enabled him to identify as police constables, appeared through the ring

of excited faces. After they had held some little intercourse with the

bystanders, which to the boy was not intelligible, to his astonishment

and great consternation one police constable seized him by the right

arm, the other by the left. With much celerity they turned out all his

pockets and exposed their content to view. Then they began to pull him

about in a most curious and alarming manner. They twisted his body

this way and that. They gripped him, and shook him, and punched him,

and pressed him. They took off his boots and looked into his mouth.

The only articles they found in his possession were a handkerchief,

fourpence in coppers, and an elzevir volume of Sophocles printed at

Düsseldorf in 1640.

“We can’t find no purse, ma’am,” said the more burly of the two police

constables, speaking slowly and heavily, “but no doubt you’ll hidentify

this?”

He offered the owner of the missing purse the volume of Sophocles.

“I shall identify nothing of the kind,” said the woman angrily. “I

want my purse; I can’t live without it,” and then she said with a cold

vehemence, “If my purse is not restored to me immediately it will be

most serious for everybody. My husband is a member of the Government.”

At this announcement a profound sigh appeared to escape the

ever-increasing circle of spectators. The excitement depicted in their

faces deepened perceptibly.

“Might I ask for the name of your husband, madam?” said the tall man,

with a very grave air.

“My husband,” said the woman in a tone which was quite fit to address

a mass meeting, “is Lord Pomeroy, the President of the Board of Public

Enlightenment.”

“Then your ladyship is the Countess of Pomeroy!” said the tall man in a

voice of awe.

“I have that misfortune,” said the woman, in a tone still louder than

any she had used before. As she spoke she looked round at all about

her, and in the act of so doing her eyes seemed to bulge out of her

head like those of a reptile.

Each police constable saluted respectfully.

“Miss Sharp,” said the tall man, “fetch the manager at once.”

The woman in black tore her skirt and knocked down a china ornament,

owing to the expedition with which she went forth to do so.

“I beg your pardon, my lady,” said the more amply nourished of the two

constables, “but I’m afeared we must ax you to prefer a charge.”

“I have nothing whatever to do with the charges,” said the woman

tartly. “I merely ask for my purse; I can’t live without it.”

“Well, my lady,” said the fatter of the two constables, “we can’t do

nothing unless you prefers a charge.”

“These people are concerned with the charges,” said the woman,

including all present by a comprehensive wave of the hand. “The charges

are _entirely_ their affair. They must pay all costs. I hold them

_entirely_ responsible for the loss of my purse.”

“Well, your ladyship----”

“Please don’t be stupid, constable,” said the woman. “One feels it

is trying you highly. But if these people prove unreasonable you had

better communicate with Lord Pomeroy at 220, Carlton House Terrace.”

The throng seemed to grow greater about the boy. The voices of the

street-persons seemed to increase in volume and earnestness. By this he

was divested of every tremor of fear. All his emotions were merged in

wonder and bewilderment, and an overpowering desire to know what would

happen next.

An obese and bald-headed man, with superb side-whiskers, who wore a

white waistcoat and very bright boots, came forward. His air was a

singular admixture of authority and deference. The woman who had lost

her purse was now rating the fatter of the two police constables at the

top of her voice. The man in the white waistcoat appeared to develop

a cough as he stood listening. Once or twice he glanced round at the

onlookers, yet affected that he had not done so.

In the meantime the only person on the huge premises who did not seem

to be ministering to this spectacle was the little girl with the golden

curls. She had strayed away behind one of the counters farther up the

room, and was engaged in ransacking several boxes of dolls. Those which

particularly appealed to her fancy she stuffed in the pockets of her

coat.

After a good deal of argument between the woman who had lost her

purse and the more amply nourished of the two police constables, in

the course of which the woman said some extremely rude things in an

extremely loud voice, all of which were received with much deference,

especially by those to whom they were not addressed, she called to

the little girl. Cramming another doll in her pocket that fairy-like

creature ran to her mother just as that person, somewhat hoarse and

red in the face, led the way down-stairs accompanied by the tall man

and the manager, each of whom, for a quarter of an hour past, had been

issuing somewhat irrelevant instructions to the woman in black and

other subordinates.

Behind these three Olympian figures, yet at an effective interval, came

the scarcely less Olympian figures of the two official representatives

of law and order, whose portliness of aspect, dignity of bearing, and

magnificent self-possession were enhanced by the fact that a frail,

bewildered and anæmic-looking boy was in their concentrated clutch. A

somewhat incongruous but profoundly impressed assemblage brought up the

rear of the procession.

A hansom cab and a four-wheeler were drawn up in readiness at the side

of the kerb opposite the doors of the shop. Quite a crowd was besieging

the pavement, although perfect order was maintained by a small but

diligent posse of police constables of the X division. When the owner

of the purse emerged from the precincts of the shop each constable

saluted with military precision, and then proceeded to hustle stray

members of the multitude away from the door. As the woman and the

little girl entered the hansom with the aid of the tall man and the

man in the white waistcoat, and with the further aid of two police

officers, some of the bystanders removed their hats.

The woman seemed to be a little exhilarated by the proportions attained

by the crowd, and also by the respectful warmth of her reception. She

stood up in the hansom and addressed the crowd as though it had been a

public meeting.

“I hold you entirely responsible for the loss of my purse,” she said,

looking all around her as if to include one and all in this indictment.

“I refuse to pay any charges. Lord Pomeroy will be indignant.”

The travellers outside a passing omnibus stood up to listen, and as

the hansom drove off with the woman and the little girl to the nearest

police station, a man, wearing a “wide-awake” hat and a white tie,

called out from the roof of the bus, “Three cheers for Lord Pomeroy!”

They were given heartily.

The more amply nourished of the two police constables then entered the

four-wheeled cab. The boy was thrust in after him. The second police

constable followed. A third police constable, whose dignity and ample

nourishment, assisted by stripes on the arm, seemed even to transcend

those of his brethren in the interior, hoisted himself with difficulty

on the driver’s box, which groaned beneath his weight. As the vehicle

moved off slowly, some of the bystanders also groaned.

The police station was round the corner of the next street, some fifty

yards distant. The woman’s hansom had been there quite a minute by the

time the four-wheeled cab appeared at the rate of three miles an hour.

The woman had deemed it expedient to remain in the hansom until its

arrival. The absence of excited onlookers at the door of the police

station had been a disappointment to her. It had seemed to be an error

of judgment to arrive before the police. And by a curious oversight she

had neglected to have a police constable riding in the hansom with her.

However, with the consummate generalship gained by a long intercourse

with public life she was able to repair this omission. She stood up in

the hansom, and after catching the eye of several of the passers-by,

called out to no one in particular in her most vibrant mass-meeting

accents, “Let the prisoner get out first.”

The portly police constable got down from the box of the four-wheeler

with an alacrity which a detached observer might have felt to be

beneath the dignity of his physical equipment, and communicated this

order to those who sat within. It reassured the woman to observe that

the door of the police station had opened, and that on its threshold

were a police constable and a pale man with a pen behind his ear. A

second crowd was beginning already to assemble. As the boy in the

grasp of his two custodians was marched into the police station, the

woman had the gratification of noticing that by this time a number

of eye-witnesses had come round the corner from the Emporium. Their

interest was reassuring.

By the time the crowd on the pavement had grown almost large enough to

warrant the woman’s descent from the hansom, another pale man, with a

pen behind both ears, came out of the police station. The crowd made

way for him respectfully. He approached the step of the hansom with the

finely considered deportment of one who is accustomed to deal with men

and things.

“I am afraid, Lady Pomeroy,” he said firmly, but with perfect courtesy,

“we shall have to trouble you to come in and prefer a charge.”

“I have nothing whatever to do with the charges,” said the woman,

speaking over his head to the crowd. “I ask for my purse; I can’t live

without it. If it is not returned to me _immediately_ it will give

great displeasure to Lord Pomeroy.”

However, by this time the woman had seemed fully to decide that the

hour was ripe to make a descent from the vehicle. As she did so one of

those who had been privileged to take part in the scene outside the

Emporium cried, “Three cheers for Lord Pomeroy!”

They were given heartily.

By an impulse which she was powerless to repress, the woman stopped in

her triumphal progress to the door of the police station, and bowed and

smiled gracefully on all sides.

“Three cheers for the Countess!” was the reward she received.

Amidst quite a display of enthusiasm the woman entered the police

station, accompanied by the little girl with the golden curls, who was

clapping her small hands with glee. She did not seem to be aware that

several of the dolls she had been at the trouble to convey from the

Emporium had fallen out of her pockets on to the pavement.

“Wot’s up, Bill?” said a male street-person, with a filthy scarf round

his neck, to one whose neck was encased less adequately in only the

band of his shirt.

“Bin pinching one o’ the unemployed,” said his companion, with an

admirable assumption of the air of a Christian martyr.