Mr Grinder kept a shop in the Bethnal Green Road. It was announced in
brilliant lettering as an 'oil, colour and Italian warehouse,' and
there, in addition to the oil and the colour, and whatever of Italian
there might have been, he sold pots, pans, kettles, brooms, shovels,
mops, lamps, nails, and treacle. It was a shop ever too tight for its
stock, which burst forth at every available opening, and heaped so high
on the paving that the window was half buried in a bank of shining tin.
Father Sturt was one of the best customers: the oil, candles and
utensils needed for church and club all coming from Mr Grinder's. Mr
Grinder was losing his shop-boy, who had found a better situation; and
Father Sturt determined that, could but the oil-man be persuaded, Dicky
Perrott should be the new boy. Mr Grinder was persuaded. Chiefly
perhaps, because the vicar undertook to make good the loss, should the
experiment end in theft; partly because it was policy to oblige a good
customer; and partly, indeed, because Mr Grinder was willing to give
such a boy a chance in life, for he was no bad fellow, as
oil-and-colourmen go, and had been an errand boy himself.
So that there came a Monday morning when Dicky, his clothes as well
mended as might be (for Hannah Perrott, no more than another Jago, could
disobey Father Sturt), and a cut-down apron of his mother's tied before
him, stood by Mr Grinder's bank of pots and kettles, in an eager agony
to sell something, and near blind with the pride of the thing. He had
been waiting at the shop-door long ere Mr Grinder was out of bed; and
now, set to guard the outside stock--a duty not to be neglected in that
neighbourhood--he brushed a tin pot here and there with his sleeve, and
longed for some Jago friend to pass and view him in his new greatness.
The goods he watched over were an unfailing source of interest; and he
learned by much repetition the prices of all the saucepans, painted in
blue distemper on the tin, and ranging from eightpence-halfpenny, on the
big pots in the bottom row, to three-halfpence on the very little ones
at the top. And there were long ranks of little paraffin lamps at a
penny--the sort that had set fire to a garret in Half Jago Street a
month since, and burnt old Mother Leary to a greasy cinder. With a
smaller array of a superior quality at fourpence-halfpenny--just like
the one that had burst at Jerry Gullen's, and burnt the bed. While over
his head swung doormats at one-and-eightpence, with penny mousetraps
dangling from their corners.
When he grew more accustomed to his circumstances, he bethought him to
collect a little dirt, and rub it down the front of his apron, to give
himself a well-worked and business-like appearance; and he greatly
impeded women who looked at the saucepans and the mousetraps, ere they
entered the shop, by his anxiety to cut them off from Mr Grinder and
serve them himself. He remembered the boy at the toy-shop in Bishopsgate
Street, years ago, who had chased him through Spitalfields; and he
wished that some lurching youngster would snatch a mousetrap, that he
might make a chase himself.
At Mr Grinder's every call Dicky was prompt and willing; for every new
duty was a fresh delight, and the whole day a prolonged game of real
shopkeeping. And at his tea--he was to have tea each day in addition to
three and sixpence every Saturday--he took scarce five minutes. There
was a trolley--just such a thing as porters used at railway stations,
but smaller--which was his own particular implement, his own to pack
parcels on for delivery to such few customers as did not carry away
their own purchases: and to acquire the dexterous management of this
trolley was a pure joy. He bolted his tea to start the sooner on a
trolley-journey to a public-house two hundred yards away.
His enthusiasm for work as an amusement cooled in a day or two, but all
his pride in it remained. The fight with Dove Lane waxed amain, but
Dicky would not be tempted into more than a distant interest in it. In
his day-dreams he saw himself a tradesman, with a shop of his own and
the name 'R. Perrott,' with a gold flourish, over the door. He would
employ a boy himself then; and there would be a parlour, with
stuff-bottomed chairs and a shade of flowers, and Em grown up and
playing on the piano. Truly Father Sturt was right: the hooks were
fools, and the straight game was the better.
Bobby Roper, the hunchback, went past the shop once, and saw him. Dicky,
minding his new dignity, ignored his enemy, and for the first time for a
year and more, allowed him to pass without either taunt or blow. The
other, astonished at Dicky's new occupation, came back and back again,
staring, from a safe distance, at Dicky and the shop. Dicky, on his
part, took no more notice than to assume an ostentatious vigilance: so
that the hunchback, baring his teeth in a snigger of malice, at last
turned on his heel and rolled off.
Twice Kiddo Cook passed, but made no sign of recognition beyond a wink;
and Dicky felt grateful for Kiddo's obvious fear of compromising him.
Once old Beveridge came by, striding rapidly, his tatters flying, and
the legend 'Hard Up' chalked on his hat, as was his manner in his town
rambles. He stopped abruptly at sight of Dicky, stooped, and
said:--'Dicky Perrott? Hum--hum--hey?' Then he hurried on, doubtless
conceiving just such a fear as Kiddo Cook's. As for Tommy Rann, his
affections were alienated by Dicky's outset refusal to secrete treacle
in a tin mug for a midnight carouse; and he did not show himself. So
matters went for near a week.
But Mr Weech missed Dicky sadly. It was rare for a day to pass without a
visit from Dicky, and Dicky had a way of bringing good things. Mr Weech
would not have sold Dicky's custom for ten shillings a week. So that
when Mr Weech inquired, and found that Dicky was at work in an oil-shop,
he was naturally annoyed. Moreover, if Dicky Perrott got into _that_ way
of life, he would have no fear for himself, and might get talking
inconveniently among his new friends about the business affairs of Mr
Aaron Weech. And at this reflection that philanthropist grew
thoughtful.