I
He was hardly fit to figure in the great review of life. A boy of ten or
twelve, in tattered clothes, with an accordion in a case swung over one
shoulder like a sack, and under the other arm a wooden cage containing a
grey squirrel. It was a December night in London, and the Southern lad
had nothing to shelter his little body from the Northern cold but his
short velveteen jacket, red waistcoat, and knickerbockers. He was going
home after a long day in Chelsea, and, conscious of something fantastic
in his appearance, and of doubtful legality in his calling, he was
dipping into side streets in order to escape the laughter of the London
boys and the attentions of policemen.
Coming to the Italian quarter in Soho, he stopped at the door of a shop
to see the time. It was eight o'clock. There was an hour to wait before
he would be allowed to go indoors. The shop was a baker's, and the
window was full of cakes and confectionery. From an iron grid on the
pavement there came the warm breath of the oven underground, the red
glow of the fire, and the scythe-like swish of the long shovels. The boy
blocked the squirrel under his armpit, dived into his pocket, and
brought out some copper coins and counted them. There was ninepence.
Ninepence was the sum he had to take home every night, and there was not
a halfpenny to spare. He knew that perfectly before he began to count,
but his appetite had tempted him to try again if his arithmetic was not
at fault.
The air grew warmer, and it began to snow. At first it was a fine
sprinkle that made a snow-mist, and adhered wherever it fell. The
traffic speedily became less, and things looked big in the thick air.
The boy was wandering aimlessly through the streets, waiting for nine
o'clock. When he thought the hour was near, he realised that he had lost
his way. He screwed up his eyes to see if he knew the houses and shops
and signs, but everything seemed strange.
The snow snowed on, and now it fell in large, corkscrew flakes. The boy
brushed them from his face, but at the next moment they blinded him
again. The few persons still in the streets loomed up on him out of the
darkness, and passed in a moment like gigantic shadows. He tried to ask
his way, but nobody would stand long enough to listen. One man who was
putting up his shutters shouted some answer that was lost in the
drumlike rumble of all voices in the falling snow.
The boy came up to a big porch with four pillars, and stepped in to rest
and reflect. The long tunnels of smoking lights which had receded down
the streets were not to be seen from there, and so he knew that he was
in a square. It would be Soho Square, but whether he was on the south or
east of it he could not tell, and consequently he was at a loss to know
which way to turn. A great silence had fallen over everything, and only
the sobbing nostrils of the cab-horses seemed to be audible in the
hollow air.
He was very cold. The snow had got into his shoes, and through the rents
in his cross-gartered stockings. His red waistcoat wanted buttons, and
he could feel that his shirt was wet. He tried to shake the snow off by
stamping, but it clung to his velveteens. His numbed fingers could
scarcely hold the cage, which was also full of snow. By the light coming
from a fanlight over the door in the porch he looked at his squirrel.
The little thing was trembling pitifully in its icy bed, and he took it
out and breathed on it to warm it, and then put it in his bosom. The
sound of a child's voice laughing and singing came to him from within
the house, muffled by the walls and the door. Across the white vapour
cast outward from the fanlight he could see nothing but the crystal
snowflakes falling wearily.
He grew dizzy, and sat down by one of the pillars. After a while a
shiver passed along his spine, and then he became warm and felt sleepy.
A church clock struck nine, and he started up with a guilty feeling, but
his limbs were stiff and he sank back again, blew two or three breaths
on to the squirrel inside his waistcoat, and fell into a doze. As he
dropped off into unconsciousness he seemed to see the big, cheerless
house, almost destitute of furniture, where he lived with thirty or
forty other boys. They trooped in with their organs and accordions,
counted out their coppers to a man with a clipped moustache, who was
blowing whiffs of smoke from a long, black cigar, with a straw through
it, and then sat down on forms to eat their plates of macaroni and
cheese. The man was not in good temper to-night, and he was shouting at
some who were coming in late and at others who were sharing their supper
with the squirrels that nestled in their bosoms, or the monkeys, in red
jacket and fez, that perched upon their shoulders. The boy was perfectly
unconscious by this time, and the child within the house was singing
away as if her little breast was a cage of song-birds.
As the church clock struck nine a class of Italian lads in an upper room
in Old Compton Street was breaking up for the night, and the teacher,
looking out of the window, said:
"While we have been telling the story of the great road to our country a
snowstorm has come, and we shall have enough to do to find our road
home."