IX

Dicky came moodily back from his dinner at Mr Weech's, plunged in

mystified computation: starting with a debt of twopence, he had paid Mr

Weech an excellent clock--a luxurious article in Dicky's eyes--had eaten

a bloater, and had emerged from the transaction owing threepence

halfpenny. Of what such a clock cost he had no notion, though he felt it

must be some inconceivable sum. As Mr Weech put it, the adjustment of

accounts would seem to be quite correct; but the broad fact that all had

ended in increasing his debt by three half-pence, remained and perplexed

him. He remembered having seen such clocks in a shop in Norton Folgate.

To ask the price, in person, were but to be chased out of the shop; but

they were probably ticketed, and perhaps he might ask some bystander to

read the ticket. This brought the reflection that, after all, reading

was a useful accomplishment on occasion: though a matter of too much

time and trouble to be worth while. Dicky had never been to school; for

the Elementary Education Act ran in the Jago no more than any other Act

of Parliament. There was a Board School, truly, away out of the Jago

bounds, by the corner of Honey Lane, where children might go free, and

where some few Jago children did go now and again, when boots were to be

given away, or when tickets were to be had, for tea, or soup, or the

like. But most parents were of Josh Perrott's opinion: that school-going

was a practice best never begun; for then the child was never heard of,

and there was no chance of inquiries or such trouble. Not that any such

inquiries were common in the Jago, or led to anything.

Meantime Dicky, minded to know if his adventure had made any stir in the

house, carried his way deviously toward home. Working through the parts

beyond Jago Row, he fetched round into Honey Lane, so coming at New

Jago Street from the farther side. Choosing one of the houses whose

backs gave on Jago Court, he slipped through the passage, and so, by the

back yard, crawled through the broken fence into the court. Left and

right were the fronts of houses, four a side. Before him, to the right

of the narrow archway leading to Old Jago Street, was the window of his

own home. He gained the back yard quietly, and at the kitchen door met

Tommy Rann.

'Come on,' called Tommy. ''Ere's a barney! They're a-pitchin' into them

noo 'uns--Roperses. Roperses sez Fisherses is sneaked their things. They

_are_ a-gittin' of it!'

From the stairs, indeed, came shouts and curses, bumps and sobs and

cries. The first landing and half the stairs were full of people, men

and women, Ranns and Learys together. When Ranns joined Learys it was an

ill time for them they marched against; and never were they so ready and

so anxious to combine as after a fight between themselves, were but some

common object of attack available. Here it was. Here were these

pestilent outsiders, the Ropers, assailing the reputation of the

neighbourhood by complaining of being robbed. As though their mere

presence in the Jago, with their furniture and their superiority, were

not obnoxious enough: they must turn about and call their neighbours

thieves! They had been tolerated too long already. They should now be

given something for themselves, and have some of their exasperating

respectability knocked off; and if, in the confusion, their portable

articles of furniture and bed-clothing found their way into more

deserving hands--why, serve them right.

The requisite volleys of preliminary abuse having been discharged, more

active operations began under cover of fresh volleys. Dicky, with Tommy

Rann behind him, struggled up the stairs among legs and skirts, and saw

that the Ropers, the man flushed, but the woman paler than ever, were

striving to shut their door. Within, the hunchback and the baby cried,

and without, those on the landing, skidding the door with their feet,

pushed inward, and now began to strike and maul. Somebody seized the

man's wrist, and Norah Walsh got the woman by the hair and dragged her

head down. In a peep through the scuffle Dicky saw her face, ashen and

sweat-beaded, in the jamb of the door, and saw Norah Walsh's red fist

beat into it twice. Then somebody came striding up the stairs, and Dicky

was pushed farther back. Over the shoulders of those about him, Dicky

saw a tall hat, and then the head beneath it. It was the stranger he had

seen in Edge Lane--the parson: active and resolute. Norah Walsh he took

by the shoulder, and flung back among the others, and as he turned on

him, the man who held Roper's wrist released it and backed off.

'What is this?' demanded the new-comer, stern and hard of face. 'What is

all this?' He bent his frown on one and another about him, and, as he

did it, some shrank uneasily, and on the faces of others fell the blank

lack of expression that was wont to meet police inquiries in the Jago.

Dicky looked to see this man beaten down, kicked and stripped. But a

well-dressed stranger was so new a thing in the Jago, this one had

dropped among them so suddenly, and he had withal so bold a confidence,

that the Jagos stood irresolute. A toff was not a person to be attacked

without due consideration. After such a person there were apt to be

inquiries, with money to back them, and vengeance sharp and certain: the

thing, indeed, was commonly thought too risky. And this man, so

unflinchingly confident, must needs have reason for it. He might have

the police at instant call--they might be back in the Jago at the

moment. And he flung them back, commanded them, cowed them with his

hard, intelligent eyes, like a tamer among beasts.

'Understand this, now,' he went on, with a sharp tap of his stick on the

floor. 'This is a sort of thing I will _not_ tolerate in my parish--in

this parish: nor in any other place where I may meet it. Go away, and

try to be ashamed of yourselves--go. Go, all of you, I say, to your own

homes: I shall come there and talk to you again soon. Go along, Sam

Cash--you've a broken head already, I see. Take it away: I shall come

and see you too.'

Those on the stairs had melted away like punished school-children. Most

of the others, after a moment of averted face and muttered justification

one to another, were dragging their feet, each with a hang-dog pretence

of sauntering airily off from some sight no longer interesting. Sam

Cash, who had already seen the stranger in the street, and was thus

perhaps a trifle less startled than the others at his advent, stood,

however, with some assumption of virtuous impudence, till amazed by

sudden address in his own name: whereat, clean discomfited, he

ignominiously turned tail and sneaked downstairs in meaner case than the

rest. How should this strange parson know him, and know his name?

Plainly he must be connected with the police. He had brought out the

name as pat as you please. So argued Sam Cash with his fellows in the

outer street: never recalling that Jerry Gullen had called aloud to him

by name, when first he observed the parson in the street; had called to

him, indeed, to haste to the bashing of the Ropers; and thus had first

given the stranger notice of the proceeding. But it was the way of the

Jago that its mean cunning saw a mystery and a terror where simple

intelligence saw there was none.

As the crowd began to break up, Dicky pushed his own door a little open

behind him, and there stood on his own ground, as the others cleared

off; and the hunchback ventured a peep from behind his swooning mother.

'There y'are, that's 'im!' he shouted, pointing at Dicky. ''E begun it!

'E took the clock!' Dicky instantly dropped behind his door, and shut it

fast.

The invaders had all gone--the Fishers had made upstairs in the

beginning--before the parson turned and entered the Ropers' room. In

five minutes he emerged and strode upstairs: whence he returned, after a

still shorter interval, herding before him Old Fisher and Bob Fisher's

missis, sulky and reluctant, carrying tools.

And thus it was that the Reverend Henry Sturt first addressed his

parishioners. The parish, besides the Jago, comprised Meakin Street and

some small way beyond, and it was to this less savage district that his

predecessor had confined his attention: preaching every Sunday in a

stable, in an alley behind a disused shop, and distributing loaves and

sixpences to the old women who attended regularly on that account. For

to go into the Jago were for him mere wasted effort. And so, indeed, the

matter had been since the parish came into being.

X

When Dicky retreated from the landing and shut the door behind him, he

slipped the bolt, a strong one, put there by Josh Perrott himself,

possibly as an accessory to escape by the window in some possible

desperate pass. For a little he listened, but no sound hinted of attack

from without, and he turned to his mother.

Josh Perrott had been out since early morning, and Dicky, too, had done

no more than look in for a moment in search of dinner. Hannah Perrott,

grown tired of self commiseration, felt herself neglected and

aggrieved--slighted in her state of invalid privilege. So she

transferred some of her pity from her sore neck to her desolate

condition as misprized wife and mother, and the better to feel it,

proceeded to martyrise herself, with melancholy pleasure, by a

nerveless show of 'setting to rights' in the room--a domestic novelty,

perfunctory as it was. Looey, still restless and weeping, she left on

the bed, for, being neglected herself, it was not her mood to tend the

baby; she would aggravate the relish of her sorrows in her own way.

Besides, Looey had been given something to eat a long time ago, and had

not eaten it yet: with her there was nothing else to do. So that now, as

she dragged a rag along the grease-strewn mantel-piece, Mrs Perrott

greeted Dicky:--'There y'are, Dicky, comin' 'inderin' 'ere jest when I'm

a-puttin' things to rights.' And she sighed with the weight of another

grievance.

Looey lay on her back, faintly and vainly struggling to turn her fearful

little face from the light. Clutched in her little fist was the unclean

stump of bread she had held for hours. Dicky plucked a soft piece and

essayed to feed her with it, but the dry little mouth rejected the

morsel, and the head turned feverishly from side to side to the sound of

that novel cry. She was hot wherever Dicky touched her, and presently

he said:--'Mother, I b'lieve Looey's queer. I think she wants some

med'cine.'

His mother shook her head peevishly. 'O, you an' Looey's a noosance,'

she said. 'A lot you care about _me_ bein' queer, you an' yer father

too, leavin' me all alone like this, an' me feelin' ready to drop, an'

got the room to do an' all. I wish you'd go away an' stop 'inderin' of

me like this.'

Dicky took but another look at Looey, and then slouched out. The landing

was clear, and the Ropers' door was shut. He wondered what had become of

the stranger with the tall hat--whether he was in the Ropers' room or

not. The thought hurried him, for he feared to have that stranger asking

him questions about the clock. He got out into the street, thoughtful.

He had some compunctions in the matter of that clock, now. Not that he

could in any reasonable way blame himself. There the clock had stood at

his mercy, and by all Jago custom and ethic it was his if only he could

get clear away with it. This he had done, and he had no more concern in

the business, strictly speaking. Nevertheless, since he had seen the

woman's face in the jamb of the door, he felt a sort of pity for

her--that she should have lost her clock. No doubt she had enjoyed its

possession, as, indeed, he would have enjoyed it himself, had he not had

to take it instantly to Mr Weech. And his fancy wandered off in

meditation of what he would do with a clock of his own. To begin with,

of course, he would open it, and discover the secret of its works and

its ticking: perhaps thereby discovering how to make a clock himself.

Also he would frequently wind it up, and he would show the inside to

Looey, in confidence. It would stand on the mantel-piece, and raise the

social position of the family. People would come respectfully to ask the

time, and he would tell them, with an air. Yes, certainly a clock must

stand eminent among the things he would buy, when he had plenty of

money. He must look out for more clicks: the one way to riches.

As to the Ropers, again. Bad it must be, indeed, to be deprived suddenly

of a clock, after long experience of the joys it brought; and Norah

Walsh had punched the woman in the face, and clawed her hair, and the

woman could not fight. Dicky was sorry for her, and straightway resolved

to give her another clock, or, if not a clock, something that would

please her as much. He had acquired a clock in the morning; why not

another in the afternoon? Failing a clock, he would try for something

else, and the Ropers should have it. The resolve gave Dicky a virtuous

exaltation of spirit, the reward of the philanthropist.

Again he began the prowl after likely plunder that was to be his daily

industry. Meakin Street he did not try. The chandlers' and the

cook-shops held nothing that might be counted a consolatory equivalent

for a clock. Through the 'Posties' he reached Shoreditch High Street at

once, and started.

This time his movements aroused less suspicion. In the morning he had no

particular prize in view, and loitered at every shop, waiting his chance

at anything portable. Now, with a more definite object, he made his

promenade easily, but without stopping or lounging by shop-fronts. The

thing, whatsoever it might be, must be small, handsome, and of an

interesting character--at least as interesting as the clock was. It must

be small, not merely for facility of concealment and removal--though

these were main considerations--but because stealthy presentation were

then the easier. It would have pleased Dicky to hand over his gift

openly, and to bask in the thanks and the consideration it would

procure. But he had been accused of stealing the clock, and an open gift

would savour of admission and peace-offering, whereas in that matter

stark denial was his plain course.

A roll of print stuff would not do; apples would not do; and fish was

wide of his purpose. Up one side and down the other side of High Street

he walked, his eyes instant for suggestion and opportunity. But all in

vain. Nobody exposed clocks out of doors, and of those within not one

but an attempt on it were simple madness. And of the things less

desperate of access nothing was proper to the occasion: all were too

large, too cheap, or too uninteresting. Oddly, Dicky feared failure

more than had he been hunting for himself.

He tried farther south, in Norton Folgate. There was a shop of cheap

second-hand miscellanies: saddles, razors, straps, dumbbells, pistols,

boxing gloves, trunks, bags, and billiard-balls. Many of the things hung

about the door-posts in bunches, and within all was black, as in a cave.

At one door-post was a pistol. Nothing could be more interesting than a

pistol--indeed it was altogether a better possession than a clock; and

it was a small, handy sort of thing. Probably the Ropers would be

delighted with a pistol. He stood and regarded it with much interest.

There were difficulties. In the first place it was beyond his reach; and

in the second, it hung by the trigger-guard on a stout cord. Just then,

glancing within the shop, he perceived a pair of fiery eyes regarding

him, panther-like, from the inner gloom; and he hastily resumed his

walk, as the Jew shop-keeper reached the door, and watched him safely

away.

Now he came to Bishopsgate Street, and here at last he chose the gift.

It was at a toy-shop: a fine, flaming toy-shop, with carts, dolls, and

hoops dangling above, and wooden horses standing below, guarding two

baskets by the door. One contained a mixed assortment of tops, whips,

boats, and woolly dogs; the other was lavishly filled with shining,

round metal boxes, nobly decorated with coloured pictures, each box with

a little cranked handle. As he looked, a tune, delightfully tinkled on

some instrument, was heard from within the shop. Dicky peeped. There was

a lady, with a little girl at her side who was looking eagerly at just

such a shining, round box in the saleswoman's hands, and it was from

that box, as the saleswoman turned the handle, that the tune came. Dicky

was enchanted. This--this was the thing, beyond debate: a pretty little

box that would play music whenever you turned a handle. This was a thing

worth any fifty clocks. Indeed it was almost as good as a regular

barrel-organ, the first thing he would buy if he were rich.

There was a shop-boy in charge of the goods outside the window, and his

eyes were on Dicky. So Dicky whistled absently, and strolled carelessly

along. He swung behind a large waggon, crossed the road, and sought a

convenient doorstep; for his mind was made up, and his business was now

to sit down before the toy-shop, and wait his opportunity.

A shop had been boarded up after a fire, and from its doorstep one could

command a perfect view of the toy-shop across the broad thoroughfare

with its crowded traffic--could sit, moreover, safe from interference.

Here he took his seat, secure from the notice of the guardian shop-boy,

whose attention was given to passengers on his own side. The little

girl, gripping the new toy in her hand, came out at her mother's side

and trotted off. For a moment Dicky reflected that the box could be

easily snatched. But after all the little girl had but one: whereas the

shopwoman had many, and at best could play on no more than one at a

time.

He resumed his watch of the shop-boy, confident that sooner or later a

chance would come. A woman stopped to ask the price of something, and

Dicky had half crossed the road ere the boy had begun to answer. But the

answer was short, and the boy's attention was released too soon.

At last the shopwoman called the boy within, and Dicky darted

across--not directly, but so as to arrive invisibly at the side next the

basket of music boxes. A quick glance behind him, a snatch at the box

with the reddest picture, and a dash into the traffic did it.

The dash would not have been called for but for the sudden re-appearance

of the shop-boy ere the box had vanished amid the intricacies of Dicky's

jacket. Dicky was fast, but the boy was little slower, and was,

moreover, bigger, and stronger on his legs; and Dicky reached the other

pavement and turned the next corner into Widegate Street, the pursuer

scarce ten yards behind.

It was now that he first experienced 'hot beef'--which is the Jago idiom

denoting the plight of one harried by the cry 'Stop thief.' Down

Widegate Street, across Sandys Row and into Raven Row he ran his best,

clutching the hem of his jacket and the music box that lay within.

Crossing Sandys Row a loafing lad shouldered against the shop-boy, and

Dicky was grateful, for he made it a gain of several yards.

But others had joined in the hunt, and Dicky for the first time began to

fear. This was a bad day--twice already he had been chased; and now--it

was bad. He thought little more, for a stunning fear fell upon him: the

fear of the hunted, that calculates nothing, and is measured by no

apprehension of consequences. He remembered that he must avoid

Spitalfields Market, full of men who would stop him; and he knew that in

many places where a man would be befriended many would make a virtue of

stopping a boy. To the right along Bell Lane he made an agonised burst

of speed, and for a while he saw not nor remembered anything; heard no

more than dreadful shouts drawing nearer his shoulders, felt only the

fear. But he could not last. Quick enough when fresh, he was tiny and

ill fed, and now he felt his legs trembling and his wind going.

Something seemed to beat on the back of his head, till he wondered madly

if it were the shop-boy with a stick. He turned corners, and chose his

way by mere instinct, ashen-faced, staring, open-mouthed. How soon would

he give in, and drop? A street more--half a street--ten yards? Rolling

and tripping, he turned one last corner and almost fell against a vast,

fat, unkempt woman whose clothes slid from her shoulders.

''Ere y' are, boy,' said the woman, and flung him by the shoulder

through the doorway before which she stood.

He was saved at his extremity, for he could never have reached the

street's end. The woman who had done it (probably she had boys of her

own on the crook) filled the entrance with her frowsy bulk, and the

chase straggled past. Dicky caught the stair-post for a moment's

support, and then staggered out at the back of the house. He gasped, he

panted, things danced blue before him, but still he clutched his jacket

hem and the music box lying within. The back door gave on a

cobble-paved court, with other doors, two coster's barrows, and a few

dusty fowls. Dicky sat on a step where a door was shut, and rested his

head against the frame.

The beating in his head grew slower and lighter, and presently he could

breathe with no fear of choking. He rose and moved off, still panting,

and feeble in the legs. The court ended in an arched passage, through

which he gained the street beyond. Here he had but to turn to the left,

and he was in Brick Lane, and thence all was clear to the Old Jago.

Regaining his breath and his confidence as he went, he bethought him of

the Jago Row retreat, where he might examine his prize at leisure,

embowered amid trucks and barrows. Thither he pushed his way, and soon,

in the shade of the upturned barrow, he brought out the music box.

Bright and shiny, it had taken no damage in the flight, though on his

hands he found scratches, and on his shins bruises, got he knew not how.

On the top of the box was the picture of a rosy little boy in crimson

presenting a scarlet nosegay to a rosy little girl in pink, while a red

brick mansion filled the distance and solidified the composition. The

brilliant hoop that made the sides (silver, Dicky was convinced) was

stamped in patterns, and the little brass handle was an irresistible

temptation. Dicky climbed a truck, and looked about him, peeping from

beside the loose fence-plank. Then, seeing nobody very near, he muffled

the box as well as he could in his jacket, and turned the handle.

This was indeed worth all the trouble. _Gently Does the Trick_ was the

tune, and Dicky, with his head aside and his ear on the bunch of jacket

that covered the box, listened: his lips parted, his eyes seeking

illimitable space. He played the tune through, and played it again, and

then growing reckless, played it with the box unmuffled, till he was

startled by a bang on the fence from without. It was but a passing boy

with a stick, but Dicky was sufficiently disturbed to abandon his

quarters and take his music elsewhere.

What he longed to do was to take it home and play it to Looey, but that

was out of the question: he remembered the watch. But there was Jerry's

Gullen's canary, and him Dicky sought and found. Canary blinked solemnly

when the resplendent box was flashed in his eyes, and set his ears back

and forward as, muffled again in Dicky's jacket, it tinkled out its

tune.

Tommy Rann should not see it, lest he prevail over its beneficent

dedication to the Ropers. Truly, as it was, Dicky's resolution was hard

to abide by. The thing acquired at such a cost of patience, address,

hard flight, and deadly fear was surely his by right--as surely, quite,

as the clock had been. And such a thing he might never touch again. But

he put by the temptation manfully, and came out by Jerry Gullen's front

door. He would look no more on the music box, beautiful as it was: he

would convey it to the Ropers before temptation came again.

It was not easy to devise likely means. Their door was shut fast, of

course. For a little while he favoured the plan of setting the box

against the threshold, knocking, and running off. But an opportunity

might arise of doing the thing in a way to give him some glimpse of the

Ropers' delight, an indulgence he felt entitled to. So he waited a

little, listened a little, and at last came out into the street, and

loafed.

It was near six o'clock, and a smell of bloater hung about Jerry

Gullen's door and window; under the raised sash Jerry Gullen,

close-cropped and foxy of face, smoked his pipe, sprawled his elbows,

and contemplated the world. Dicky, with the music box stowed out of

sight, looked as blank of design and as destitute of possession as he

could manage; for there were loafers near Mother Gapp's, loafers at the

Luck Row corner--at every corner--and loafers by the 'Posties,' all

laggard of limb and alert of eye. He had just seen a child, going with

an empty beer can, thrown down, robbed of his coppers and a poor old

top, and kicked away in helpless tears; and the incident was commonplace

enough, or many would have lacked pocket-money. Whosoever was too young,

too old, or too weak to fight for it must keep what he had well hidden,

in the Jago.

Down the street came Billy Leary, big, flushed and limping, and hanging

to a smaller man by a fistful of his coat on the shoulder. Dicky knew

the small man for a good toy-getter--(which = watch stealer)--and judged

he had had a good click, the proceeds whereof Billy Leary was battening

upon in beershops. For Billy Leary rarely condescended to anything less

honourable than bashing, and had not yet fallen so low as to go about

stealing for himself. His missis brought many to the cosh, and his chief

necessity--another drink--he merely demanded of the nearest person with

the money to buy it, on pain of bashing. Or he walked into the nearest

public-house, selected the fullest pot, and spat in it: a ceremony that

deprived the purchaser of further interest in the beer, and left it at

his own disposal. There were others, both Ranns and Learys, who pursued

a similar way of life; but Billy Leary was biggest among them--big men

not being common in the Jago--and rarely came to a difficulty: as,

however, he did once come, having invaded the pot of a stranger, who

turned out to be a Mile End pugilist exploring Shoreditch. It was not

well for any Jago who had made a click to have Billy Leary know of it;

for then the clicker was apt to be sought out, clung to, and sucked dry;

possibly bashed as well, when nothing more was left, if Billy Leary were

still but sober enough for the work.

Dicky gazed after the man with interest. It was he whom his father was

to fight in a week or so--perhaps in a few days: on the first Sunday,

indeed, that Leary should be deemed fit enough. How much of the limp was

due to yesterday's disaster and how much to to-day's beer, Dicky could

not judge. But there seemed little reason to look for a long delay

before the fight.

As Dicky turned away a man pushed a large truck round the corner from

Edge Lane, and on the footpath beside it walked the parson, calm as

ever, with black clothes and tall hat, whole and unsoiled. He had made

himself known in the Jago in the course of that afternoon. He had

traversed it from end to end, street by street and alley by alley. His

self-possession, his readiness, his unbending firmness, abashed and

perplexed the Jagos, and his appearance just as the police had left

could but convince them that he must have some mysterious and potent

connection with the force. He had attempted very little in the way of

domiciliary visiting, being content for the time to see his parish, and

speak here a word and there another with his parishioners. An encounter

with Kiddo Cook did as much as anything toward securing him a proper

deference. In his second walk through Old Jago Street, as he neared the

Feathers, he was aware of a bunch of grinning faces pressed against the

bar window, and as he came abreast, forth stepped Kiddo Cook from the

door, impudently affable, smirking and ducking with mock obsequiousness,

and offering a quart pot.

'An' 'ow jer find jerself, sir?' he asked, with pantomime cordiality.

'Hof'ly shockin' these 'ere lower classes, ain't they? Er--yus;

disgustin', weally. Er--might I--er--prepose--er--a little refreshment?

Ellow me.'

The parson, grimly impassive, heard him through, took the pot, and

instantly jerking it upward, shot the beer, a single splash, into

Kiddo's face. 'There are things I must teach you, I see, my man,' he

said, without moving a muscle, except to return the pot.

Kiddo Cook, coughing, drenched and confounded, took the pot

instinctively and backed to Mother Gapp's door, while the bunch of faces

at the bar window tossed and rolled in a joyous ecstasy: the ghost

whereof presently struggled painfully among Kiddo's own dripping

features, as he realised the completeness of his defeat, and the

expedience of a patient grin. The parson went calmly on.

Before this, indeed when he left the Ropers' room, and just after Dicky

had started out, he had looked in at the Perrotts' quarters to speak

about the clock. But plainly no clock was there, and Mrs Perrott's

flaccid indignation at the suggestion, and her unmistakable ignorance of

the affair, decided him to carry the matter no further, at any rate for

the present. Moreover, the little hunchback's tale was inconclusive. He

had seen no clock in Dicky's possession--had but met him on the stairs

with a bulging jacket. The thing might be suspicious, but the new parson

knew better than to peril his influence by charging where he could not

convict. So he duly commiserated Hannah Perrott's troubles, suggested

that the baby seemed unwell and had better be taken to a doctor, and

went his way about the Jago.

Now he stopped the truck by Dicky's front door and mounted to the

Ropers' room. For he had seen that the Jago was no place for them now,

and had himself found them a suitable room away by Dove Lane. And so,

emboldened by his company, the Ropers came forth, and with the help of

the man who had brought the truck, carried down the pieces of their

bedstead, a bundle of bedding, the two chairs, the pink vases, and the

strip of old carpet, and piled them on the truck with the few more

things that were theirs.

Dicky, with his hand on the music box in the lining of his jacket,

sauntered up by the tail of the truck, and, waiting his chance, plunged

his gift under the bundle of bedding, and left it there. But the little

hunchback's sharp eyes were jealously on him, and 'Look there!' he

squealed, ''e put 'is 'and in the truck an' took somethink!'

'Ye lie!' answered Dicky, indignant and hurt, but cautiously backing

off; 'I ain't got nothink.' He spread his hands and opened his jacket in

proof. 'Think I got yer bloomin' bedstead?'

He had nothing, it was plain. In fact, at the tail of the truck there

was nothing he could easily have moved at all, certainly nothing he

could have concealed. So the rest of the little removal was hurried, for

heads were now at windows, the loafers began to draw about the truck,

and trouble might break out at any moment: indeed, the Ropers could

never have ventured from their room but for the general uneasy awe of

the parson. For nothing was so dangerous in the Jago as to impugn its

honesty. To rob another was reasonable and legitimate, and to avoid

being robbed, so far as might be, was natural and proper. But to accuse

anybody of a theft was unsportsmanlike, a foul outrage, a shameful

abuse, a thing unpardonable. You might rob a man, bash a man, even kill

a man; but to 'take away his character'--even when he had none--was to

draw down the execrations of the whole Jago; while to assail the pure

fame of the place--to 'give the street a bad name'--this was to bring

the Jago howling and bashing about your ears.

The truck moved off at last, amid murmurings, mutterings, and grunts

from the onlookers. The man of the truck pulled, Roper shoved behind,

and his wife, with her threadbare decency and her meagre, bruised face,

carried the baby, while the hunchbacked boy went by her side. All this

under convoy of the Reverend Henry Sturt.

A little distance gave more confidence to a few, and, when the group had

reached within a score of yards of Edge Lane, there came a hoot or two,

a 'Yah!' and other less spellable sounds, expressive of contempt and

defiance. Roper glanced back nervously, but the rest held on their way

regardless. Then came a brickbat, which missed the woman by very little

and struck the truck wheel. At this the parson stopped and turned on his

heel, and Cocko Harnwell, the flinger, drove his hands into his breeches

pockets and affected an interest in Mother Gapp's window; till,

perceiving the parson's eyes directed sternly upon him, and the parson's

stick rising to point at him, he ingloriously turned tail and scuttled

into Jago Court.

And so the Ropers left the Jago. Dove Lane was but a stone's-throw ahead

when some of the load shifted, and the truck was stopped to set the

matter right. The chest was pushed back, and the bedding was lifted to

put against it, and so the musical box came to light. Roper picked it up

and held it before the vicar's eyes. 'Look at that, sir,' he said.

'You'll witness I know nothing of it, won't you? It ain't mine, an' I

never saw it before. It's bin put in for spite to put a theft on us.

When they come for it you'll bear me out, sir, won't you? That was the

Perrott boy as was put up to do that, I'll be bound. When he was behind

the truck.'

But nobody came for Dicky's gift, and in the Jago twilight Dicky vainly

struggled to whistle the half-remembered tune, and to persuade himself

that he was not sorry that the box was gone.