As for Dicky, he went to school. That is to say, he turned up now and
again, at irregular intervals, at the Board School just over the Jago
border in Honey Lane. When anything was given away, he attended as a
matter of course; but he went now and again without such
inducement--perhaps because he fancied an afternoon's change, perhaps
because the weather was cold and the school was warm. He was classed as
a half-timer, an arrangement which variegated the register, but
otherwise did not matter. Other boys, half-timers or not, attended as
little as he. It was long since the managers had realised the futility
of attempting compulsion in the Jago.
Dicky was no fool, and he had picked up some sort of reading and writing
as he went along. Moreover, he had grown an expert thief, and had taken
six strokes of a birch-rod by order of a magistrate. As yet he rarely
attempted a pocket, being, for most opportunities, too small; but he was
comforted by the reflection that probably he would never get really
tall, and thus grow out of pocket-picking when he was fully experienced,
as was the fate of some. For no tall man can be a successful pickpocket,
because he must bend to his work, and so advertise it to every beholder.
Meantime Dicky practised that petty larceny which is possible in every
street in London; and at odd times he would play the scout among the
practitioners of the 'fat's a-running' industry. If one crossed Meakin
Street by way of Luck Row and kept his way among the courts ahead, he
presently reached the main Bethnal Green Road, at the end whereof stood
the great goods depot of a railway company. Here carts and vans went to
and fro all day, laden with goods from the depot, and certain gangs
among the Jagos preyed on these continually. A quick-witted scout stood
on the look-out for such vehicles as went with unguarded tailboards. At
the approach of one such he sent the shout '_Fat's a-runnin'!_' up Luck
Row, and, quick at the signal, a gang scuttled down, by the court or
passage which his waved hand might hint at, seized whatever could be
snatched from the cart, and melted away into the courts, sometimes
leaving a few hands behind to hinder and misdirect pursuit. Taking one
capture with another, the thing paid very well; and besides, there were
many vans laden with parcels of tobacco, not from the railway depot but
from the tobacco factories hard by, a click from which was apt to prove
especially lucrative. Dicky was a notable success as scout. The
department was a fairly safe one, but it was not always easy to extract
from the gang the few coppers that were regarded as sufficient share for
service done. Moreover, Mr Weech was not pleased; for by now Dicky was
near to being his most remunerative client, and the cart robberies
counted nothing, for the fat's a-running boys fenced their swag with a
publican at Hoxton. And though Dicky had grown out of his childish
belief that Mr Weech could hear a mile away and see through a wall, he
had a cautious dread of the weapon he supposed to lie ever to his
patron's hand--betrayal to the police. In other respects things were
easier. His father took no heed of what he did, and even his mother had
so far accepted destiny as to ask if he had a copper or two, when there
was a scarcity. Indeed Hannah Perrott filled her place in the Jago
better than of old. She would gossip, she drew no very rigid line as to
her acquaintance, and Dicky had seen her drunk. Still, for Old Jago
Street she was a quiet woman, and she never brawled nor fought. Of
fighting, indeed, Josh could do enough for the whole family, once again
four in number. For the place of Looey, forgotten, was supplied by Em,
aged two.
When Dicky came home and recognised the clock on the mantel-piece, being
the more certain because his mother told him it had come from Weech's,
the thing irritated him strangely. Through all those four years since he
had carried that clock to Mr Weech, he had never got rid of the wretched
hunchback. He, too, went to the Board School in Honey Lane (it lay
between Dove Lane and the Jago), but he went regularly, worked hard, and
was a favourite with teachers. So far, Dicky was unconcerned. But scarce
an ill chance came to him but, sooner or later, he found the hunchback
at the back of it. If ever a teacher mysteriously found out that it was
Dicky who had drawn his portrait, all nose and teeth, on the blackboard,
the tale had come from Bobby Roper. Whenever Dicky, chancing upon school
by ill luck on an afternoon when sums were to be done, essayed to copy
answers from his neighbour's slate, up shot the hunchback's hand in an
instant, the tale was told, and handers were Dicky's portion. Once,
dinnerless and hungry, he had stolen a sandwich from a teacher's desk;
and, though he had thought himself alone and unseen, the hunchback knew
it, and pointed him out, white malice in his thin face and eager hate in
his thrust finger. For a fortnight Dicky dared not pass a little fruit
shop in Meakin Street, because of an attempt on an orange, betrayed by
his misshapen schoolfellow, which brought him a hard chase from the
fruiterer and a bad bruise on the spine from a board flung after him.
The hunchback's whole energies--even his whole time--seemed to be
devoted to watching him. Dicky, on his part, received no injuries
meekly. In the beginning he had tried threats and public jeers at his
enemy's infirmity. Then, on some especially exasperating occasion, he
pounded Bobby Roper savagely about the head and capsized him into a
mud-heap. But bodily reprisal, though he erected it into a practice,
proved no deterrent. For the little hunchback, though he might cry at
the pummelling, retorted with worse revenge of his own sort. And once or
twice bystanders, seeing a deformed child thus treated, interfered with
clouts on Dicky's ears. The victim, moreover, designed another
retaliation. He would go to some bigger boy with a tale that Dicky had
spoken vauntingly of fighting him and beating him hollow, with one hand.
This brought the big boy after Dicky at once, with a hiding: except on
some rare occasion when the hunchback rated his instrument of vengeance
too high, and Dicky was able to beat him in truth. But this was a very
uncommon mistake. And after this Dicky did not wait for specific
provocation: he 'clumped' Bobby Roper, or rolled him in the gutter, as a
matter of principle, whenever he could get hold of him.
That afternoon Dicky had suffered again. Two days earlier, tea and cake
had been provided by a benevolent manager for all who attended the
school. Consequently the attendance was excellent, and included Dicky.
But his attempt to secrete a pocketful of cake, to carry home for Em,
was reported by Bobby Roper; and Dicky was hauled forth, deprived of his
plunder, and expelled in disgrace. He waited outside and paid off the
score fiercely, by the help of a very long and pliant cabbage stalk. But
this afternoon Bill Bates, a boy a head taller than himself and two
years older, had fallen on him suddenly in Lincoln Street, and, though
Dicky fought desperately and kicked with much effect, had dealt him a
thrashing that left him bruised, bleeding, dusty, and crying with rage
and pain. This was the hunchback's doing, without a doubt. Dicky limped
home, but was something comforted by an accident in Shoreditch High
Street, whereby a coster's barrow-load of cough-drops was knocked over
by a covered van, and the cough-drops were scattered in the mud. For
while the carman and the coster flew at each other's name and address,
and defamed each other's eyes and mother, Dicky gathered a handful of
cough-drops, muddy, it is true, but easy to wipe. And so he made for
home more cheerfully disposed: till the sight of the Ropers' old clock
brought the hunchback to mind once more, and in bitter anger he resolved
to search for him forthwith, and pass on the afternoon's hiding, with
interest.
As he emerged into the street, a hand was reached to catch him, which he
dodged by instinct. He rushed back upstairs, and emptied his pockets,
stowing away in a safe corner the rest of the cough-drops, the broken
ruin he called his knife, some buttons and pieces of string, a bit of
chalk, three little pieces of slate pencil and two marbles. Then he went
down again into the street, confident in his destitution, and watched,
forgetting the hunchback in the excitement of the spectacle.
The loafers from the corners had conceived a sudden notion of
co-operation, and had joined forces to the array of twenty or thirty.
Confident in their numbers, they swept the street, stopping every
passenger--man, woman or child--and emptying all pockets. A straggler on
the outskirts of the crowd, a hobbledehoy like most of the rest, had
snatched at but had lost Dicky, and was now busy, with four or five
others, rolling a woman, a struggling heap of old clothes and skinny
limbs, in the road. It was Biddy Flynn, too old and worn for anything
but honest work, who sold oranges and nuts from a basket, and who had
been caught on her way out for her evening's trade in High Street. She
was a fortunate capture, being a lone woman with all her possessions
about her. Under her skirt, and tied round her waist with string, she
kept her money-bag; and it was soon found and dragged away, yielding two
and eightpence farthing and a lucky shoe-tip, worn round and bright. She
had, moreover, an old brass brooch; but unfortunately her wedding ring,
worn to pin-wire, could not be got past the knotted knuckle--though it
would have been worth little in any case. So Biddy Flynn, exhausted with
plunging and screaming, was left, and her empty basket was flung at her.
She staggered away, wailing and rolling her head, with her hand to the
wall; and the gang, sharing out, sucked oranges with relish, and turned
to fresh exploits. Dicky watched from the Jago Court passage.
Business slackened for a little while, and the loafers were
contemplating a raid in force on Mother Gapp's till, when a grown lad
ran in pell-mell from Luck Row with a square parcel clipped under his
arm--a parcel of aspect well known among the fat's a-running boys--a
parcel that meant tobacco. He was collared at once.
'Stow it, Bill!' he cried breathlessly, recognising his captor. 'The
bloke's a-comin'!'
But half-a-dozen hands were on his plunder, it was snatched away, and he
was flung back on the flags. There was a clatter on the stones of Luck
Row, and a light van came rattling into Old Jago Street, the horse
galloping, the carman lashing and shouting:--'Stop 'im! Stop thief!'
The sight was so novel that for a moment the gang merely stared and
grinned. This man must be a greenhorn--new to the neighbourhood--to
venture a load of goods up Luck Row. And it was tobacco, too. He was
pale and flustered, and he called wildly, as he looked this way and
that:--'A man's stole somethin' auf my van. Where's 'e gawn?'
'No good, guv'nor,' cried one. 'The ball's stopped rollin'. You're lawst
'im.'
'My Gawd!' said the man, in a sweat, 'I'm done. There's two quid's worth
o' 'bacca--an' I on'y got the job o' Monday--bin out nine munse!'
'Was it a parcel like this 'ere?' asked another, chuckling, and lifting
a second packet over the tailboard.
'Yus--put it down! Gawd--wotcher up to? 'Ere--'elp! 'elp!'
The gang were over the van, guffawing and flinging out the load. The
carman yelled aloud, and fought desperately with his whip--Bill Hanks
is near blind of an eye now from one cut; but he was the worse for it.
For he was knocked off the van in a heap, and, as he lay, they cleared
his pockets, and pulled off his boots; those that had caught the sting
of the whip kicking him about the head till it but shifted in the slime
at the stroke, an inanimate lump.
There was talk of how to deal with the horse and van. To try to sell
them was too large a job, and too risky. So, as it was growing dusk, the
senseless carman was put on the floor of the van, the tailboard was
raised, and one of the gang led the horse away, to lose the whole thing
in the busy streets.
Here was a big haul, and many of the crowd busied themselves in getting
it out of sight, and scouting out among the fences to arrange sales.
Those who remained grew less active, and hung at the corner of Luck Row,
little more than an ordinary corner-group of loafers.
Then Dicky remembered the hunchback, and slouched off to Dove Lane. But
he could see nothing of Bobby Roper. The Jago and Dove Lane were
districts ever at feud, active or smouldering, save for brief intervals
of ostentatious reconciliation, serving to render the next attack on
Dove Lane the more savage--for invariably the Jagos were aggressors and
victors. Dicky was careful in his lurkings, therefore: lest he should be
recognised and set upon by more Dove Lane boys than would be convenient.
He knew where the Ropers lived, and he went and hung about the door.
Once he fancied he could hear a disjointed tinkle, as of a music-box
grown infirm, but he was not sure of it. And in the end he contented
himself, for the present, with flinging a stone through the Ropers'
window, and taking to his heels.
The Jago was black with night, the rats came and went, and the
cosh-carriers lurked on landings. On a step, Pigeony Poll, drunk because
of a little gin and no food, sang hideously and wept. The loafers had
dispersed to spend their afternoon's makings. The group which Dicky had
left by Luck Row corner, indeed, had been discouraged early in the
evening in consequence of an attempt at 'turning over' old Beveridge, as
he unsuspectingly stalked among them, in from his city round. For the
old man whipped out his case-knife and drove it into the flesh of Nobber
Sugg's arm, at the shoulder--stabbed, too, at another, and ripped his
coat. So Nobber Sugg, with blood streaming through his sleeve, went off
with two more to tie up the arm; and old Beveridge, grinning and
mumbling fiercely, strode about the street, knife in hand, for ten
minutes, ere he grew calm enough to go his way. This Tommy Rann told
Dicky, sitting in the back-yard and smoking a pipe; a pipe charged with
tobacco pillaged from a tin-full which his father had bought, at about
fourpence a pound, from a loafer. And both boys crawled indoors deadly
sick.