Chapter Twenty Four.
How I found that Hope deferred makes the Heart sick.
The reader may picture my horror and astonishment on discovering Billy’s secret. And the strangest part of it was that the graceless youth appeared to be utterly unconscious that he had done anything wrong. On the contrary, his jubilant face and triumphant voice showed plainly that he considered he had done a fine—a splendid thing.
I endeavoured to reason with him; he flared up as if I were trying to defraud Jack Smith of his new boots. I warned him of the punishment that would follow if he were caught. He gloried in the risk he ran. I told him it was wicked to steal—even for other persons. He retorted, “It wasn’t no concern of mine.”
Altogether it seemed hopeless to disenchant him with his exploit, and I therefore left him, wholly at a loss to make out this strange puzzle of a boy.
I was still more perplexed when, next morning, Jack Smith appeared at the office wearing the identical new pair of boots which had been the cause of all my horror!
I waited impatiently for the hours to pass, when I should be at liberty to pay my usual visit to Billy.
He was sitting there grimly, unlike his usual manner, evidently expecting me.
“Well,” said I, “what have you done with those boots?”
“’Tain’t no concern of yourn!”
“But he was wearing them to-day.”
“In course he was!” said Billy, brightening a little.
“Did you tell him you had—had stolen them?”
“Yaas,” replied the boy, gruffly.
“And he took them?” said I, in astonishment.
“Ain’t you saw them on ’im?” demanded he, evidently disliking this catechism.
“Billy,” said I, “I can’t understand it.”
“You ain’t no call to!” was the polite reply; “’tain’t no concern or yourn.”
“It is my concern if other people are robbed,” I said. “Don’t you know, if I chose, I could fetch a policeman and get you locked up?”
“In course you could! Why don’t yer?”
Was there ever such a hopeless young scamp?
“Whose shop did you take them from?” I asked.
“Trotter’s, aside of our court. Go and tell him!” replied he, scornfully.
“How would you like any one to steal away one of your brushes?”
“I’d give ’em a topper!”
“But that’s just what you’ve done to Trotter,” I argued.
“Well, why don’t you fetch him to give me a topper?” he replied.
I gave it up. There was no arguing with a boy like this. If there had been, there would have been no further opportunity that night, for as I stood by, puzzling in my mind what to say to bring home to the graceless youth a sense of his iniquity, he began picking up his brushes and shouldering his box.
“Where are you going so early?” I asked.
“Don’t you like to know?” retorted he.
“Yes, I would.”
“Well, if you must know, I’m a-going to the racket school!”
“The what?” I exclaimed.
“Racket school.”
“Oh! ragged school, you mean. Where is it? I didn’t know you went. They ought to teach you better there than to steal, Billy,” I said.
“Oh!” replied the boy, with a touch of scorn in his voice, “that there bloke’s a-going to learn me, not you!”
“What! does Smith teach at the ragged school, then?”
“In course he do! Do you suppose I’d go else?”
And off he trotted, leaving me utterly bewildered.
Jack Smith teaching in a ragged school! Jack Smith wearing a pair of boots that he knew were stolen! What could I think?
At any rate, I was resolved to be no party to Billy’s dishonesty. At any cost, since I had not the heart to deliver up the culprit to justice, I must see that the victim was repaid. He might never have noticed the theft; but whether or no, I should have no rest till his loss had been made good.
It was no time to mince matters. My own funds, as the reader knows, were in a bad state. I owed far more than I could save in half a year. But I had still my uncle’s half-sovereign in my pocket, which I had hitherto, despite all my difficulties, kept untouched. An emergency had now arisen, thought I, when surely I should be justified in using it. As long as I remained a party to Billy’s dishonesty I was, I felt, little better than a thief myself, and that I could not endure, however bad in other respects I might have been.
I went straight to Trotter’s shop. A jovial, red-faced woman stood at the door, just about to shut up for the night.
“I want to see Mr Trotter,” said I.
“Mrs Trotter, you mean, I suppose?” said the woman. “I’m the lady.”
“Can I speak to you for a minute?” I said.
“Yes—half an hour if you like. What is it?”
“It’s something private.”
“Bless us, are you going to offer to marry me, or what?” exclaimed she; “come, what is it?”
“Have you—that is, did you—the fact is, I don’t know whether you happen to have missed a pair of boots,” I said, falteringly.
She made a grab at my arm.
“So you’re the thief, are you? A nice trade you’ve started at, young master, so I can tell you!”
“Oh,” I cried, in the utmost alarm and terror, “you’re quite wrong, you are indeed. I never touched them—I only—I—I know who did, that’s all.”
Mrs Trotter still held me fast.
“Oh, you know who did, do you?”
“Yes—he’s a—” I was going to say “shoeblack,” but I stopped myself in time, and said, “a little boy.”
She released her grasp, greatly to my relief, and waited for me to go on.
“And I really don’t think he knows any better,” said I, recovering my confidence.
“Well,” she said, eyeing me sharply.
“Well,” I said, “I know the proper thing would be to give him up to the police.”
“That’s what I’d do to you in a minute, if you’d stolen them,” she said.
“I’ve rather an interest in the little boy,” I said nervously, “and I thought if you wouldn’t mind telling me what the boots came to, I’d ask you to let me pay for them. I don’t think he’ll do it again.”
“Well, it’s a very queer thing,” said the woman; “what a popular young thief your friend must be! Why, I had a young gentleman here yesterday evening asking the very same thing of me!”
“What!” I exclaimed, “was it Jack Smith?”
“I don’t know his name, but he’d a pair of black eyes that would astonish you.”
“That’s him, that’s him!” I cried. “And he wanted to pay for the boots?”
“He did pay for them. I shall make my fortune out of that pair of boots,” added she, laughing.
This, then, explained his wearing the boots that morning. How quick I had been to suspect him of far different conduct!
“You’d better keep your money for the next time he steals something,” observed Mrs Trotter, rather enjoying my astonishment; “he’s likely to be a costly young treat to you at this rate. I hope the next party he robs will be as lazy about her rights as me.”
I dropped my uncle’s half-sovereign back into my purse, with the rather sad conviction that after all I was not the only honest and righteous person in the world.
The next morning, on my arrival at Hawk Street rather before the time (I had taken to being early at the office, partly to avoid arriving there at the same time as Smith, and partly to have the company of young Larkins, of postage-stamp celebrity, in my walk from Beadle Square), I found Doubleday already there in a state of great perturbation.
“What do you think,” he cried, almost before I entered the office—“what do you think they’ve done? I knew that young puppy’s coming was no good to us! Here have I been here twelve years next Michaelmas, and he not a year, and blest if I haven’t got to hand over the petty cash to my lord, because old Merrett wants the dear child to get used to a sense of responsibility in the business! Sense of rot, I call it!”
It certainly did seem hard lines. Doubleday, as long as I had been at Hawk Street, had always been the custodian of all loose cash paid into the office, which he carefully guarded and accounted for, handing it over regularly week by week to be paid into the bank.
It is never pleasant when a fellow has held an office of trust to have it coolly taken from him and handed to another. In this case no one would suspect it meant any lack of confidence; for Doubleday, even his enemies admitted, was as honest as the Bank of England; but it meant elevating another at his expense, which did not seem exactly fair.
“If the darling’s such a big pot in the office,” growled Doubleday, “they’d better make him head clerk at once, and let me run his errands for him.”
“Never mind,” said I, “it’ll be so much less work for you.”
“Yes, and a pretty mess the accounts will get into, to make up for it.”
Hawkesbury entered at this moment, smiling most beautifully.
“How punctual you two are!” said he.
“Need to be punctual,” growled Doubleday, “when I’ve got to hand you over the petty cash.”
“Oh!” said Hawkesbury; “the petty cash? My uncle was saying something about my keeping it. I think it’s a pity he couldn’t let it stay where it was; you’re so much more used to it than I am. Besides, I’ve plenty of work to do without it.”
“I suppose I shall get some of your work to do for you,” said Doubleday—“that is, if I’m competent!”
Hawkesbury laughed softly, as if it were a joke, and Doubleday relapsed into surly silence.
It was still some minutes before the other clerks were due. Hawkesbury used the interval in conversing amiably with me in a whisper.
“I’m afraid Doubleday’s put out,” said he. “You know, he’s a very good sort of fellow; but, between you and me, don’t you think he’s a trifle too unsteady?”
What could I say? I certainly could not call Doubleday steady, as a rule, and yet I disliked to have to assent to Hawkesbury’s question. “He’s very steady in business,” I said.
“Yes; but at other times I’m afraid he’s not,” said Hawkesbury. “Not that I’m blaming him. But of course, when a fellow’s extravagant, and all that, it is a temptation, isn’t it?”
“Do you mean a temptation to be dishonest?”
“Well, it’s rather a strong way of putting it. I don’t suppose for a moment Doubleday is not perfectly trustworthy; no more does my uncle.”
“I should think not,” said I, rather warmly.
“Of course not,” said he, sweetly; “but you know, Batchelor, prevention is better than cure, and it seems the kindest thing, doesn’t it, to put temptation quite out of a fellow’s reach when one can?”
“But,” observed I, “it seems to me you are taking it out of Doubleday’s reach and putting it into your own.”
For an instant a shade of vexation crossed his face, but directly afterwards he laughed again in his usual amused manner.
“You forget,” said he, “I live at home, and haven’t the chance of following Doubleday’s example, even if I wished to. In fact, I’m a domestic character.”
He seemed to forget that he had frequently accepted Doubleday’s hospitality and joined in the festivities of the “usual lot.”
“I thought you lived at your uncle’s?” said I.
“Oh, no! My father’s rectory is in Lambeth. But we’re just going to move into the City. I don’t enjoy the prospect, I can assure you! But I say, how are you and your friend Smith getting on now?”
He was always asking me about my friend Smith.
“The same as usual,” said I.
“That’s a pity! He really seems very unreasonable, considering he has so little to be proud of.”
“It’s I that have got little to be proud of,” replied I.
“Really, Batchelor, you are quite wrong there. I think it’s very generous the way you have always stuck to him—with certainly not much encouragement.”
“Well,” said I, “I shall have another attempt to make it up with him.”
Hawkesbury mused a bit, and then said, smilingly, “Of course, it’s a very fine thing of you; but do you know, Batchelor, I’m not sure that you are wise in appearing to be in such a hurry?”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“I mean, I shall be as glad as any one to see you two friends again: but if you seem too eager about it, I fancy you would only be demeaning yourself, and giving him a fresh chance of repulsing you. My advice as a friend is, wait a bit. As long as he sees you unhappy about it he will have a crow over you. Let him see you aren’t so greatly afflicted, and then, take my word for it, he’ll come a good deal more than half way to meet you.”
There seemed to be something in this specious advice. I might, after all, be defeating my own ends by seeming too anxious to make it up with Jack Smith, and so making a reconciliation more difficult in the end. I felt inclined, at any rate, to give it a trial.
But the weeks that followed were wretched weeks. I heard daily and regularly from Billy all the news I could gather of my friend, but before Smith himself I endeavoured to appear cheerful and easy in mind. It was a poor show. How could I seem cheerful when every day I was feeling my loss more and more?
My only friends at this time were Hawkesbury and Billy and young Larkins. The former continued to encourage me to persevere in my behaviour before Smith, predicting that it would be sure, sooner or later, to make our reconciliation certain. But at present it did not look much like it. If I appeared cheerful and easy-minded, so did Smith. The signs of relenting which I looked for were certainly not to be discovered, and, so far from meeting me half way, the more unconcerned about him I seemed, the more unconcerned he seemed about me.
“Of course he’ll be like that at first,” said Hawkesbury, when I confided my disappointment one day to him, “but it won’t last long. He’s not so many friends in the world that he can afford to throw you over.”
And so I waited week after week. I saw him daily, but our eyes scarcely ever met. Only when I glanced at him furtively I thought him looking paler and thinner even than usual, and longed still more intensely to call him my friend and know why it was.
“Most likely he’s fretting,” said Hawkesbury, “and will soon give in. It’s a wonder to me how he’s held out so long.”
“Unless he speaks to me soon, I’ll risk everything and speak to him.”
“I can quite understand your anxiety,” said my counsellor, “but I really wouldn’t be too impatient.”
I tried to find out from Billy the reason of Jack’s altered looks.
“Yaas,” said he, in response to my inquiry whether he had heard if my friend was ill—“yaas, he do look dicky. ‘Governor,’ says I, ‘what’s up?’ I says. ‘Up,’ says he, ‘what do you mean by it?’ says he. ‘Go on,’ says I, ‘as if you didn’t know you was queer!’ ‘I ain’t queer,’ says he. ‘Oh, no, ain’t you,’ says I; ‘what do you want to look so green about the mazard for, then?’ says I. ‘Oh, that’s nothing,’ says he; ‘reading late at night, that’s what that is,’ says he. ‘Turn it up,’ says I. ‘So I will,’ says he, ‘when my Sam’s over,’ says he. Bless you, governor, I’d like to give that there Sam a topper, so I would.”
So, then, he was reading for an examination! This paleness, after all, did not come from fretting on my account, but because he had found an occupation which drove me from his thoughts evening after evening!
I felt more hopeless of recovering my friend than ever.
“Do you go to the ragged school still?” I asked.
“Yaas, a Fridays. I say, governor, look here.”
He dipped his finger into his blacking-pot, and, after cleaning the flagstone on which he knelt with his old hat, proceeded laboriously and slowly to trace an S upon it.
“There,” he cried, when the feat was accomplished, “what do you think of that? That’s a ess for Mr Smith, and a proper bloke he is. He do teach you to-rights, so I let you know, he do.”
“What else does he teach you besides your letters?”
“Oh, about a bloke called Cain as give ’is pal a topper, and—”
He stopped abruptly, as he noticed the smile I could not restrain, and then added, in his offended tone, “I ain’t a-goin’ to tell you. ’Tain’t no concern of yourn.”
I knew Billy well enough by this time to be sure it was no use, after once offending him, trying to cajole him back into a good-humour, so I left him.
So the wretched weeks passed on, and I almost wished myself back at Stonebridge House. There at least I had some society and some friends. Now, during those lonely evenings at Mrs Nash’s I had positively no one—except young Larkins.
That cheery youth was a standing rebuke to me. He had come up to town a year ago, a fresh, innocent boy; and a fresh, innocent boy he remained still. He kept his diary regularly, and wrote home like clock-work, and chirruped over his postage-stamp album, and laughed over his storybooks in a way which it did one’s heart good to see. And yet it made my heart sore. Why should he be so happy and I not? He wasn’t, so I believe, a cleverer boy than I was. Certainly he wasn’t getting on better than I was, for I had now had my third rise in salary, and he still only got what he started with. And he possessed no more friends at Beadle Square than I did. Why ever should he always be so jolly?
I knew, though I was loth to admit it. His conscience was as easy as his spirits. There was no one he had ever wronged, and a great many to whom he had done kind actions. When any one suggested to him to do what he considered wrong, it was the easiest thing in the world for him to refuse flatly, and say boldly why. If everybody else went one way, and he thought it not the right way, it cost him not an effort to turn and go his own way, even if he went it alone. Fellows didn’t like him. They called him a prig—a sanctimonious young puppy. What cared he? If to do what was right manfully in the face of wrong, to persevere in the right in the face of drawbacks, constituted a prig, then Larkins was a prig of the first water, and he didn’t care what fellows thought of him, but chirruped away over his postage-stamp album as before, and read his books, as happy as a king.
It was in this boy’s society that during those wretched weeks I found a painful consolation. He was constantly reminding me of what I was not; but for all that I felt he was a better companion than the heroes with whom I used to associate, and with whom I still occasionally consorted. He knew nothing of my trouble, and thought I was the crossest-grained, slowest growler in existence. But since I chose his company, and seemed glad to have him beside me, he was delighted.
“I say,” said he suddenly one evening, as we were engaged in experimenting with a small steam-engine he had lately become the proud possessor of, “I saw your old friend Smith to-day!”
“Where?” I asked.
“Why, down Drury Lane. I heard of a new Russian stamp that was to be had cheap in a shop there, and while I was in buying it he came in.”
“Was he buying stamps too?”
“No; he lives in a room over the shop. Not a nice hole, I should fancy. Didn’t you know he was there?”
“No,” I said.
“Oh, you should go and see the place. He’d much better come back here, tell him. But I thought you saw one another every day?” he added, in his simple way.
“Did he say anything to you?” I asked, avoiding the question.
“Yes. I asked him how he was getting on, and he said very well; and I asked him what he thought of the Russian stamp; and he said if I liked he could get me a better specimen at his office. Isn’t he a brick? and he’s promised me a jolly Turkish one, too, that I haven’t got.”
“Was that all?” I asked. “I mean all he said?”
“Yes—oh, and I asked if he’d got any message for you, and he said no. Look, there—it’s going! I say, isn’t it a stunning little engine? I mean to make it work a little pump I’ve got in the greenhouse at home. It’s just big enough.”
Any message for me? No! Was it worth trying for any longer? I thought, as once more I crept solitary and disappointed to bed.
But the answer was nearer than I thought for.