AN ADVENTURE IN PUDDING LANE
Next morning, when the time came for Lucy to start for school, the Frenchman said that he felt a little indisposed, and would not venture out in the heat.
“I’ll take her,” said Martin. “But I can’t promise to bring her back, because I’m going in search of work again, and I don’t know where I’ll be when school is over.”
“Don’t you worry, my lad,” said Susan. “Dick will be home then, and he can fetch the child for once. And I hope you’ll get a job to-day, for it makes a difference not having your few shillings at the weekend.”
When he had left his sister at the door of the dame’s school, Martin stood for a minute or two undecided as to the way he would go in his hunt for work.
He was feeling rather disheartened. It was the first time Susan Gollop had said a word to hint that he was a burden to her, and in his pride he was determined that she should never have another occasion for any remark of the sort.
Up to the present his applications for a job had been made at the larger places of business—establishments that would rank equal with Mr. Greatorex’s shop in Cheapside. But it was no time to pick and choose; he would take the meanest job that offered itself, no matter what it was.
It occurred to him that he might have better success if he crossed the river and made inquiries at the Hop Market in Southwark. In the course of his walk towards London Bridge he was crossing Pudding Lane, a narrow street near Billingsgate, when he was almost thrown down by the sudden impact of a strange figure that darted out of a baker’s shop at the corner.
“Steady!” he cried, putting up his hands to protect himself.
The figure recoiled, then without a word of excuse or explanation dashed down the lane. Martin laughed; he had never seen a more comical object than this boy, a little bigger than himself, who was covered with flour, and whose head was almost concealed in a large mass of dough.
His amusement was increased when he saw a second figure issue from the shop—the figure of a short, stout man, he too cased in dough and flour from head to foot. The baker set off at a toddling scamper after the boy, their course marked on the cobblestones with a white trail.
In a few moments the pursuer recognised that his chase was hopeless. The boy, indeed, had turned the corner and was out of sight by the time his master had run half a dozen paces.
“The young villain!” cried the man, stopping short and shaking his fist in the direction of the vanished fugitive.
He turned back towards the shop, picking at the dough that clung to his hair and beard, spluttering and muttering curses the while. As he was passing Martin a mass of the loosened dough fell over his eyes, and for a moment he tottered like a blind man.
Martin sprang to his side, held him steady, and helped him to rid himself of some of the dough, which hung in long clammy strips about his face, like the curls of a full-bottomed wig.
“Ugh! Ugh!” gasped the baker. “The insolent young ruffian! Thank you! Thank you! My hair is short, or—— The young viper! ’Tis a mercy none of the neighbours have seen my plight. Quick, boy; lead me. I can scarcely see my own shop door!”
Martin took him by the arm and led him the few paces to his shop. On the sign hanging above the door were the words: “Faryner, Baker to His Majesty the King.”
Within the shop Martin stayed to give further assistance to the angry baker, who intermingled abuse of the runaway boy with explanations, half to himself, and half to Martin.
“The whelp!” he exclaimed. “He comes late, and when I tax him, is saucy, scandalously saucy. ’Twould try the patience of a saint, and I’m no saint. Must silence his chattering tongue. Up with a pan of dough; dab it on the rascal’s head.
“The impudence of the knave! What does he do but snatch up another pan and empty it over me—me, a master baker, baker to the King, contractor to the Admiralty, purveyor to half the nobility and gentry. Ay, and flings a bag of flour at me. What do you think of that? What is the world coming to?”
Martin did not venture to say what he thought.
“Well, he’ll never darken my doors again, that’s certain. And that reminds me. There’s his basket—the loaves ought to have been delivered an hour ago. I was already one boy short, and the rascal knew it, and yet he came late. I shall lose some of my best customers.”
The greater part of the sticky mass had now been plucked from the baker’s head. He looked ruefully at the basket of loaves in a corner of the shop, scratched his head, became conscious that there were still some fragments of dough adhering to his short-clipped hair, and burst out again into violent denunciation of his errand boy.
On the impulse of the moment Martin spoke up.
“I’ll take the basket. I’m out of a job.”
“Ah!” exclaimed the baker, looking at him keenly as if he was only just aware of him. “Who are you?”
“My name’s Martin Leake.”
“Are you honest?”
“Won’t you try me?”
“That’s not a bad answer. You’ve done me a service and I like the look of you. I’ll try you. Here’s a list of the customers these loaves are to be delivered to. Set off at once. Nay, wait! I don’t like changes. If I try you, and you satisfy me, I shall expect you to stick to the job. Five shillings a week and a loaf a day. That’s my wages.”
“I’ll be glad to earn that to begin with,” said Martin.
“Then that’s a bargain. Don’t loiter.”
Martin took the basket on his arm, and as he went out he heard the baker mutter:
“How shall I get rid of the rest of this plaguey dough? The young ruffian!”
Scanning the list of customers given him, Martin was interested to find at the bottom the name of Mr. Slocum, at the goldsmith’s shop in Cheapside. The idea of meeting his old master was not at all pleasant, but he reflected that if he went to the back entrance, from a yard leading out of Bow Lane, he would probably avoid such a meeting, and see only the housekeeper or the cook, who had both been on friendly terms with him.
“I’m glad it’s the last on the list,” he thought. “But I wish I hadn’t to go there at all. What strange fate is always bringing me into contact with old Slocum? I don’t like it. There’s something mysterious about it.”
And it was with a strange feeling of misgiving that he trudged on with his heavy load of bread.