A Son of the State

by W. Pett Ridge

CHAPTER VII.

Occasions when the boy allowed himself an outburst of rebellion became more rare as he felt his way slowly up the school-room to the height of the third standard; the Collingwood mother found herself able one day to congratulate him on the fact that for two months he had not imperilled his right to a meat dinner. Excellence of table proved, indeed, with all the boys in the Cottage Homes a powerful incentive to good behaviour. The bill of fare changed every day; boiled beef and carrots on (say) Thursday were followed by roast mutton on Friday and by Irish stew on Saturday, with a precise allowance to each cottage (a restriction which did not apply to vegetables), so that meals had, by reason of this variety, a charm of unexpectedness which pleased the boys greatly. In their own homes in Hoxton most of them had only been sure of two things in regard to dinner—either that there would not be enough, or that there would be none at all. Thus it was that when appeals to a boy’s sense of honour or his sense of decorum failed, an appeal to his appetite proved effective. With Bobbie, moreover, there was ever, as a high goal to be strived for, the band. With the assistance of a good-natured euphonium who lived in Collingwood, and after much wrestling with obstinate difficulties, the knowledge that F.A.C.E. spelt the open spaces became his proud possession; other musical facts capitulated on seeing his determination. Whenever tempted to punch another boy’s head, and roll that boy on the asphalted space where they played during the ten minutes’ relief from school, and to tear that boy’s pocket, and to do him grievous damage, the thought of himself marching in the band uniform and blowing the cornet part of the “Turkish Patrol” arrested his hand; the same thought did him the same good service when, on being sent to the store-keeper’s room, he found himself near to an open drawer containing sugar and chocolate. At times, however, temper burst so suddenly that there was no time for the thought of cornet to intervene, and then the possibility of being allowed to join the band went away so far as to be nearly out of sight, and Bobbie mourned. On one of these grey days he happened to be despatched to the bandmaster with a note. The bandmaster was rehearsing the overture to “Zampa” in the small room overfilled with noise by twenty lads, who had become scarlet-faced from the tension of watching the slips of music before them, of watching, also, the bandmaster’s beat.

“’Pon my word,” cried the bandmaster explosively, rapping the stand before him with his stick, and stopping the brazen blasts that had made windows shake, “if you cornets aren’t enough to make a saint forget himself. What do you think you’re doing?”

Cornets, with respect, replied that they thought they were playing a tune.

“I should never have guessed that,” retorted the bandmaster caustically. Bobbie delivered his note. “What you’ll be like if you go out anywhere to play this summer don’t bear thinking about.”

One of the cornets offered the remark that he was doing his best.

“And bad’s your best,” cried the bandmaster explosively. “Why, I’d guarantee to take a piece of wood and make it play the cornet better than you do, Nutler.” The cornet player, Nutler, here chuckled under the impression that the bandmaster required laughter in recognition of the humour of the remark. “Don’t laugh at me, sir,” ordered the bandmaster violently. “I won’t have it.” Nutler, the cornet-player, assumed a look of abject woe. “And don’t look like that, either.”

Master Nutler, goaded, inquired resentfully how he was to look, then.

“You’re to look smart, sir,” said the bandmaster, “if you want to continue in the band. There’s plenty of others, mind you, ready to take your place.”

Master Nutler muttered the disastrous remark that they would take a bit of finding.

“Oh!” said the bandmaster, “would they take a bit of finding?” He called to Bobbie, now leaving the room. “Boy,” he cried out, “come here.”

Bobbie returned and saluted.

“Have you any ear for music?”

“How d’you mean ear, sir?” asked Bobbie anxiously.

“Can you sing?”

“What’ll you ’ave, sir?” said Bobbie.

“Anything.”

The boy, round-eyed with eagerness, sang a few lines of an amiable glee which Collingwood boarders were accustomed to chant.

“We’re gowing to the woodlands, to the woodlands gay and free.
Now, who will be my comrade and come along with me?
For I—”

“That’ll do,” said the bandmaster. “Do you think you could play a musical instrument?”

“I think I could try, sir.”

“Good! You come to elementary practice this evening.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Bobbie, flushing delightedly.

“Now, Mr. Clever Nutler,” remarked the bandmaster acutely to the cornet boy, “we’ll see who’s right—you or me. Come along. Let’s try this second part again.”

Master Nutler whispered to Bobbie as he went by that for two pins he would wring Bobbie’s something neck, but the two pins not being forthcoming Master Nutler did not carry his threat into effect. Bobbie went out of the room, and as he walked by the side of the garden could not help noticing how much brighter the sun appeared, and how very excellent was the world. He grew so ecstatic over the prospect of becoming a man of importance that he wrote in the evening to the Duchess at the address given to him two years before, a letter which seemed to him to err, if anything, on the side of modesty.

“My dear Duches,—I am writing a few lines to hope that you and Mr. Leigh are quite well and getting on fine. I have not seen you for a long pereod.

“I am pleased to tell you that I am principle player in the band here, and much esteemed by my masters and by my fellow scolars. Everybody says I shall make one of the finest music players in the world if I only go on and succede. Dear Duches, I think sometimes of the old days, but not often, because I am so busy with my music. I am an accomplished scolar and a cr. to the schools.

“If you ever come to London you can come and see me, but dress nice, and do not say nothing about Ely Place and Mr. Miller. I am in compond division. Remember me to Mr. Leigh, and I remain,—Yours truly,

“Robert Lancaster.

“I shall probably play at the Flower Show in Augst. They all say the band will be nothing without me. I am now twelve years next birthday, which will be also in Augst.”

Robert Lancaster took so much care in regard to behaviour after his first lesson on the cornet, and walked about with such a detached important air that the Collingwood mother insisted on giving him medicine under the impression that his health could not be perfect. An outburst of temper reassured the good lady, but general improvement was a passport that enabled Bobbie to enter the gates of her matronly reserve, and she singled him out for favour by telling him about her youth in Devonshire; memories that helped to revive Bobbie’s thoughts of his one gay spell of hop-picking years ago in Kent. The Collingwood mother, having been away from her native county for twenty years, gave idealistic descriptions of Torrington, and Milton Damerel, and Brandis Corner, so that the country generally became pictured in his mind as a land of fair delight. When Collingwood’s mother shook her head in despair at being unable to describe the joys more fully, Bobbie would brag about Hoxton and the Haberdashers’ School at the end of Pitfield Street, with its statue of Aske and its tall iron railings. Somehow the more he talked of the place the less inclined be felt to return there.

“Don’t speak to me about your Hoxtons,” begged the Collingwood mother. “Give me decent people to mix with that know how to wash ’emselves.”

“They’re pretty smart up there,” urged Bobbie, with deference. “They know a thing or two.”

“They know a thing or two too many,” declared the Collingwood mother, severely. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever come across the worst of ’em, but I’m told there are thieves and coiners, and goodness knows what all about the place.”

“Think it’s a fact, mother?” inquired Bobbie with innocence.

“Bless you, yes. The lowest of the low. Didn’t you never come across any of them?”

“Me?” echoed the boy. “Goo’ gracious! What a question to ask.”

“Perhaps you were too young to take notice.”

“That might have been it,” he conceded. “Fact of the matter is my real mother was very careful who she mixed with, and there might ’a been railway snatchers or anything around us for all I knew.”

“Don’t talk about them,” interrupted the Collingwood mother, shivering. “Let me tell you some more about Devonshire.”

Summer came to the Cottage Homes and brought with it cricket matches to be played against the boys of the private school a few meadows off, where the two different grades of young men met on common ground that the best of games offers, and where Bobbie developed an ability for bowling slows of a peculiarly artful and delusive character, insomuch that they came from his hand in a way that made the batter (confident of hitting a six-er) run out to strike, with the result that he not infrequently found himself bowled or stumped. These games with boys of happier circumstances did much to refine the lads of the Cottage Homes; even Bobbie, whilst he ridiculed and burlesqued some of the private school youths who had a languid way of talking and a courteous behaviour, found himself selecting some of the tricks of manner that seemed to him worthy and commendable, and these improved him. The cornet helped.

Rehearsals of the band became more furious as the day of the Flower Show approached. Master Nutler by dint of successful experiments in insubordination found his engagement for the event in peril, and Master Nutler had more than once pressed Bobbie to decide the question of their musical ability by a stand-up fight. Quite a large family of Nutlers lived in the Homes, ranging from the lanky, red-haired girl of fifteen to a baby of two; the father and mother of the family having, on retirement to an unknown quarter, generously presented their entire quiver-full to the guardians as souvenir of indebtedness to their native parish, so that a sample of the Nutler family could he found in nearly every cottage and in the ophthalmic hospital beyond the gates. The gauge of combat being thrown down repeatedly in the presence of witnesses, Bobbie felt bound at last to take it up, and arrangements being effected by a mature boy, the fight took place furtively in the kitchen garden one evening at twilight; Bobbie punishing Master Nutler so effectively that he had to give that weeping indignant young gentleman two glass alleys, a china apple, and a copy of a book from the Index Expurgatorius, in order to prevent him from saying anything about it. Master Nutler, thus bribed, generously agreed not to report the circumstance to the authorities, but he gave information to the other members of his family, and commanded a vendetta against Robert Lancaster. The Nutler family had its private differences; indeed, its members seldom met without quarrelling, but in the presence of an opportunity for spite against a common enemy they united, and conferred amicably on a course of action. The eldest Miss Nutler favoured scratching of the enemy’s face; after debate the others induced her to withdraw this resolution, and to agree to a plan of more elaborate strategy.

Gay expectation scented the air on the morning of the Flower Show. For the band especially, it meant occupying on a sunlit lawn a position of conspicuous importance, to be followed by admirable feeding and iced lemonade that had no limits except those fixed by the band’s own capacity. It was an occasion, too, when fair ladies came from mansions of the neighbourhood and paid graceful compliments to the band, sometimes giving to members bright, alluring pieces of silver. Master Nutler, who had received intimation that, owing to his want of care at rehearsals, his services would not be required, when about muttering to himself in a gruff undertone, as men will when they are suffering from repressed grievances. At twelve o’clock, after morning school, the conscientious bandmaster took the boys through the devious ways of the “Il Trovatore” selection, and piloted them with the solo parts of “H.M.S. Pinafore.” Bobbie’s playing of his solo extorted from the bandmaster a rare word of approval.

“You’ve got on wonderfully well, Lancaster,” said the bandmaster.

“Thanks to you, sir,” said the boy politely.

“You aren’t quite so steady as I could wish, but I think you’ll pull through.”

“You leave it to me,” said Bobbie, rubbing the cornet affectionately with his handkerchief.

“At two o’clock, boys, we start. Take care that none of you get into a mischief between now and then.” A chorus of assurances. “Ah!” sighed the bandmaster, “I know what boys are. Lancaster, can you take a note to the superintendent for me?”

“Like a shot, sir.”

Bobbie, flying out into the asphalted playground to take the note in the promised manner, found himself tripped up by Master Nutler, who, having done this, demanded, with great indignation, to know where Bobbie was a-coming to. Bobbie replied that some day, when he could afford it, he proposed to enjoy the pleasure of again wiping the floor with Nutler, whereupon that young gentleman requested that the task should not be postponed, but should be effected at once. Bobbie forced himself into composure, and hurried on, followed by a parting remark from Nutler, “Sneak!”

Trotting along by the fringe of flower beds on the right-hand side of the broad walk, in great good-humour, the scream of a girl near to one of the red-roofed houses made him stop. Lanky Miss Nutler, having seen him approach, had twisted the arm of the small girl who, two years previously, had arrived at the Homes with Bobbie, and who, having long since given up tears, had become one of the brightest little maids in the place. At present, however, she appeared terrified out of her usual cheerfulness because of superfluous attention paid to her by Miss Nutler.

“Now will you be good?” inquired Miss Nutler, suavely, as she gave the small girl’s arm another twist.

“I am good,” cried the small girl piteously. “Leave off twistin’ my wrist, or else I shall have to scream.”

“Promise not to call me Miss Camel again,” ordered the lanky young woman.

“I never did.”

“I shall punish you,” said Miss Nutler, with regret, “more for telling a lie than for calling me out of my proper name.” The small girl screamed with pain. “Ah! you may ’oller.”

“Leave the girl alone,” shouted Bobbie from the fence of the garden.

“Beg your pardon?” said Miss Nutler, with studied courtesy. “I didn’t quite catch what you said.”

“Leave that little girl alone,” he repeated sharply. “If she’s done anything wrong, it’s for others to punish her, not you.”

“I don’t wish to ’old any conversation with you,” said the young woman sedately. “Kindly mind your own business.”

“Leggo my wrist,” cried the small girl agonizedly. “Come and make her, Bobbie Lancaster. She’ll—she’ll break my arm.”

Master Lancaster darted through the gates. The small girl’s face was white with pain; Miss Nutler’s face yellow with defiance. He released the small girl quickly, and she ran off. Miss Nutler staggered hack, and fell, an ungraceful heap, on the ground.

“’Elp! ’Elp! Murder!” yelled Miss Nutler. “Fi—yer!”

“Now what are you kicking up a row for?” demanded Bobbie.

“He’s killed me,” declared Miss Nutler, panting, to the mother of her cottage, who had hastened out to ascertain the cause of disturbance. “Oh, the villain! Oh, fetch a doctor! Oh, don’t let him make his escape!”

“I’m not going to make no escape,” said the boy sturdily. “I never knocked her down; she fell down.”

“Oh!” cried Miss Nutler. “To think that he should tell a untruth. Oh, I wonder he ain’t struck down before my very eyes! Oh, I’m going into ’sterricks!”

And she went off into what, it must be admitted, was, for a young amateur, a very fair imitation of a hysterical fit.

The mother, much concerned, told Bobbie that he would have to be taken at once to the Superintendent. The father of a cottage opposite appeared. Interference by boys with girls, said the father, was just the one thing that had to be punished for more than anything. Could not be permitted for a single moment—not for a single moment.

“Why, what’s anyone to do,” stammered the boy, indignantly, “when they see a big girl like her ill-using another ’alf her size?”

The father said that it was not for Bobbie to interfere.

“I simply separated of ’em,” pleaded the boy. “She was using the little girl something crool, and—”

“Perjerer!” interrupted Miss Nutler, reviving for this purpose. She closed her eyes again, and hammered at the ground with her heels.

“And I particular don’t want to get into no trouble just now. I’ll explain it all to-morrow.”

The father said that to-morrow would not do. Bobbie must go along with him now to the Superintendent’s house, the while the mother would use her best endeavours to restore Miss Nutler. The latter task proved to be one of no difficulty, for the young woman, on the palms of her hands being slapped, re-opened her eyes, and said, faintly,—

“Where am I? Tell me, someone! Is it all a ’orrible dream?”

The Superintendent, ordinarily a cheery man, whistled gravely as he listened to the report against the boy standing at the other end of the table.

“Thought you were a good lad, Lancaster.”

“Not much use being good, sir,” growled Bobbie, “when your luck’s against you.”

The father, an old policeman, enjoying this echo of the old days, repeated and added to his report of Miss Nutler’s condition, remarking sagely that extreme violence must have been used.

“We’ll investigate it fully to-morrow,” commanded the Superintendent. “No time now. Meanwhile you’ll stay at home, my lad.”

“What?” said Bobbie, amazedly. “And not play at the show?”

“And not play at the show. Some one else must be found to take your place. I’m sorry.”

The boy swallowed something in his throat, and his under lip twitched. He looked round at the framed list of rules on the wall, at the papers on the table, and at everything in the room with a dazed air.

“I’m a—a bit sorry about it, too,” he said gloomily.

“Rules are rules,” mentioned the Superintendent.

“Someone shall suffer for it,” declared the boy, with sudden fierceness. “I ain’t going to be jumped on just because—”

“Take him down to Collingwood,” ordered the Superintendent.

“Can’t you give me a good wolloping, sir, and have done with it?”

“Take him away, please.”

It was a fierce and an aggrieved and a revengeful lad who looked out of the window of Collingwood that afternoon and watched the band marching out towards the gates, uniformed in its best, and carrying its instruments proudly. The rays of the bright sun reflected in the shining brass, and Robert Lancaster blinked as he looked at them, but he did not cry, because, when he saw Nutler marching with cornet in hand, his hot little brain racked with a burning sense of injustice. He went upstairs and watched the short line of boys until trees intervened. He had some vague idea of breaking everything in the cottage that could be broken, but a moment’s consideration informed him that this as a remedy would be imperfect. The mother called to him, offering some work in cleaning the grate, and Bobbie, setting to this with great strenuousness, produced such excellent results that the mother gave him her sympathy for his present situation, and joined him in denouncing Miss Nutler in good set terms. Nevertheless, the grievance remained, and the mother went so far in her cordial agreement that, after a while, the grievance appeared to have grown enormously, and he felt himself to be the very worst used man in the whole world. Somebody’s head should be punched for this; if he had Teddy Sullivan’s revolver, a more convincing action could be adopted. It would be rather fine and dramatic to go out when the band returned and, covering them with a six-shooter, force them to hold up their hands and give him full apology for the wrong that had been done to him. Failing the presence of an arm of warfare, it seemed not easy to see what he could do. All that he could decide in his aggrieved, blazing, infuriated mind was that he would do something.

When a post letter came at about four o’clock addressed to him in a strange old-fashioned writing, he did not at first open it, because, rare as letters were, he felt gloomily that nothing like good fortune could come to him on that day. He tore the envelope after a while, and prepared himself for another shaft of ill-luck. A postal order dropped out, and his anticipations whirled round.

“My dear Bobbie,—I were glad to hear from you, and to know that you was getting on so well in the world. My husband were also greatly pleased. He is now what is called a landoner, and is much occupied during the day looking after the men that is employed under him.

“Dear Bobbie, you must know that we live in an immense hotel, and that I ride to the hounds every day of my life. We also intertain the gentry of the neighbourhood, who treat us as their equals or more. We are not proud of our good fortune, for we know that pride cometh before a fall. I enclose a trifle to buy yourself something; I could easily send more, as we are, so to speak, roling in money, but I am in a hurry to catch the post.

“My husband sends his best respects, and hopes you will continue to grow up a good boy and respect your elders.—Yours affect’ly,

“L. Leigh.

“Fond love and kisses.”

Bobbie read this friendly and agreeable letter from the Duchess three times. Then, looking at the address carefully, he started up with a sudden inspiration.

“I know what I’ll do,” he said to himself excitedly. “I’ll bunk off.”

He made his preparations with haste, having a vague fear that something might happen to induce him to change his mind. The mother of Collingwood Cottage was dozing in her kitchen as he came downstairs, and he had a good mind to kiss the good soul; but he knew that doing this might twist his determination, and he set his mouth hard. He stuffed his small bundle under his waistcoat, and went across to the band-room with the stolid face of a man obeying orders.

“Please, I’ve got to take my cornet and get down to the Flower Show as sharp as I possibly can.”

The same story contented the gate-keeper, who gave him the correct time, and Bobbie started along the white road at a quick pace. At the first turning he branched off, and, skirting the fields belonging to the Cottage Homes, returned to the town, where a post-office was to be found. There he changed the postal order. In five minutes he was speeding away Londonwards, with defiant head well out of the carriage windows, a cigarette between his lips, the cornet and his handkerchiefed bundle in his hand.

“This,” said the boy truculently to the distant red-roofed homes, “this’ll let you see what a man can do when he’s put upon.”

CHAPTER VIII.

The confusing eddy of people outside Liverpool Street Station startled him, so that he stood back to let them go by, until he remembered that they did not cease to flow before midnight, and then he laughed at himself and made his way out into Bishopsgate. He had a fine sense of freedom in the consciousness that he was his own master; within wide limitations he could go where he pleased and do as he pleased, and no one had the right to say him nay. It seemed like getting rid of a suit of armour. He gave himself the luxury of swearing softly as he walked along, in order to prove conclusively that he was no longer trammelled by the code of rules that obtained at the Cottage Homes. Walking up towards Shoreditch Church it appeared to the boy that he was as fine a fellow as any in the crowd of men hurrying along the pavement, that his daring and his independence were sufficient for about six ordinary men; he felt very much inclined to stop one or two in order to tell them so. The better to live up to his new character of a regular blade, he turned into the saloon bar of a gorgeous, over-mirrored, over-painted, over-furnished public-house, and addressing a superb young lady who behind the bar read a pamphlet called “An Amusing Way to Pick up Biology,” asked in a deep, effective voice for a sherry and bitters. The superb young lady, seemingly dazed with study, gave him instead a small bottle of lemonade and a hard biscuit; Bobbie, awed by her appearance, did not dare to complain of the mistake. He endeavoured, however, to entice the large young woman into manly conversation by asking her how long it was since she had left the old place, but she only answered absently, without looking up from her hook, “Outside with those bootlaces, please,” and Bobbie refrained from repeating his question.

At the corner of Drysdale Street he met a first friend in the person of Niedermann, otherwise Nose, grown ridiculously tall, and garbed in a frock coat queerly short at the sleeves. Niedermann did not know him at first, but when recognition came he became at once interested, and asked a number of questions, some of which Bobbie answered truthfully.

“What you ought to go and do, ole man,” said Niedermann, acutely, “is to disguise yourself.”

“How d’you mean disguise myself?”

“Why, put on a false beard,” said the frock-coated lad, “and blue spectacles, and what not. You’ll get copped else.”

“They won’t trouble,” said the boy uneasily.

“Take my advice or not, jest as you like. But I know what I should do.”

“Very likely they’re glad to get rid of me,” argued Bobbie. “It’ll be a saving to them of pounds a year, and besides—”

“Tell you what you could do,” said Master Niedermann, looking at him thoughtfully, “and that too without no trouble. You see this coat and weskit of mine.”

“I see what there’s left of ’em.”

“Swop!” said the long youth walking with Bobbie down towards the railway arch. “These what I’ve got are a bit short for me, because I’m a grown lad, as you may see. But they’ll suit you a treat, and, besides, if they circulate your description, no one in these togs ’ll recognize you for a moment.”

“Wouldn’t see me if I was to get inside of ’em.”

“I think you’re wrong,” said Niedermann patiently. “What did you say the address was that you’ve run away from?” Bobbie gave the information. “I shall remember.”

“You’ve no call to remember,” said the boy sharply.

“I carry it all ’ere,” said Master Niedermann darkly, tapping his unwashed forehead; “regular store’ouse of information my brain is.”

“What makes you call it a brain?” asked Bobbie.

“Do you particularly want your ’ead punched?” asked Master Niedermann fiercely. “Because, if so, you’ve only got to say the word, and—” He recovered himself with an effort. “But putting all argument a one side,” he said genially, “you try on my coat and see how it fits.”

On Bobbie complying, Master Niedermann took no pains to conceal his approval of the change.

“My word!” he said, “you might a been measured for it by a West-End tailor.”

“Ain’t it a bit long in the tails?” asked Bobbie.

“All the better for that,” declared the long youth with enthusiasm. “They’re wearing ’em long.”

“Now give me back my jacket,” said Bobbie.

“That be ’anged for a tale,” answered Niedermann, with an injured expression. “A bargain’s a bargain.”

“But this isn’t a bargain,” expostulated the boy in the frock-coat. “I never said—”

“Look here,” said the long youth threateningly. “Do you want me to give you up to the police?”

After the interview with Master Niedermann Bobbie determined to avoid friends for the rest of that evening. He therefore walked about the streets of Hoxton, his cornet wrapped in a newspaper under his arm, dodging when he saw a face known to him. He glanced at himself on passing shop windows, and tried to believe that the frayed frock-coat gave him an increased air of manliness. Strolling cautiously into Pimlico Walk, and inspecting the little bonnet shop kept by Eliza Bell, he saw Trixie at the counter; her black hair rolled up and arranged carefully above her pretty neck, she wore a pink blouse with neat collar and cuffs, her face had a touch of colour, and Bobbie for the first time felt that he would like to kiss her. He knew, however, that to enter the shop of Mrs. Bell would necessitate listening to reproof and good advice, neither of which things was that evening desired by him. The same motive stopped him from taking a ’bus to Fetter Lane to call upon Myddleton West, whose address he remembered; he told himself that he enjoyed liberty too much to allow it to be checked by sage counsels. Going up to Ely Place and turning, with some idea of going through in order to see the house where he had spent some of his life, he had but passed the dwarf posts at the entrance when at least six separate and offensive odours rushed furiously at him. He coughed and turned back.

But in the Theatre of Varieties he found joy. He paid a shilling to the old lady in the pay box up the sawdust-covered steps, and on the old lady shouting, “Jimes,” James in uniform just inside the swing doors of the crowded, heated music hall, said, “Yessir. This way, sir. Stand a one side, please, and let the genelman pass,” and conducted Bobbie ceremoniously past the folk who were standing at the back of the first balcony; unlocked the door, showed him into the box; fetched a programme, accepted twopence with a military salute, called Bobbie “Me lord,” evidently mistaking him for a member of the aristocracy. Then the boy settled down on the front bench in the box, preparing to enjoy himself. Fine to see the upturned faces from the twopenny pit—they sat down in the pit now, he observed; in his day you had to stand—the rows and rows of interested faces in the twopenny gallery, and to note that many of them were watching him, the only occupant of the shilling boxes. He felt confused at first with this attention. Shielding himself behind the dusty curtains, he gazed at Mlle. Printemps, who, with paper rose in her hair, bare arms, bare shoulders, and scarlet tights, kept her footing on a large white marble globe, juggling the while with plates and knives and bottles. Once or twice Mlle. Printemps, who was a little thin, perhaps, and red at the elbows, but an agreeable person for all that, came over on the great white globe quite close to the box in which Bobbie was seated, whereupon he said softly (being a desperate sort of rattle out for the evening), “I’ll ’ave your flower, miss,” and felt relieved to find that the thin lady on the globe had not overheard him. Then came Bray and Wilkins, described on the yellow slip as Irish-American duettists, the finest humorists of two hemispheres, whose humour was not, perhaps, so much fine as broad, being conducted somewhat in this way: Bray, facing the audience, shouted, “Oi say; have you heard about me wife?” and Wilkins, also facing the audience, shouted back, “Oi have not heard about your wife;” after a whispered communication, Wilkins assumed incredulity, and said, “Oi don’t believe it, sorr,” and Bray, indignant, said, “It’s the truth I’m giving ye; a fine bouncing boy at eighteen minutes past five.” “Oi’ll not believe it,” persisted Wilkins, “it’s all your kid,” to which Bray replied indignantly, “It’s not my kid, sorr,” and Wilkins retorted at once, “Who’s kid is it, then?” Followed, tremendous personal chastisement, which made Bobbie laugh until tears came. After the American duettists, Mr. Tom Somebody came shyly on the stage, affecting to be astonished at finding himself there and rather wishful to go off again, but, on being humorously appealed to by the conductor, deciding to stay. Mr. Tom Somebody had been jilted by the lady of his heart, and it seemed to the judicial observer that the lady might have found excuse for her conduct in the singular manner of apparel the gentleman wore, for he had no hat, but only the brim of a hat, his jacket was very short, and his trousers very baggy; a paper front stuck out ludicrously at his chest, and—this made Bobbie shriek with delight—he had in the hurry of dressing placed his collar around his waist.

“For she’s a daisy,
She sends me crazy,
No wonder people say I’m getting pline;
She only flouts me,
And sometimes outs me,
I’m goin’ simply barmy on account of Emmer-jine.”

At half-past eight the band played the National Anthem; the attendants shouted the order for dispersal, and Bobbie, giving up the private box with a sigh, followed the crowd down the stone staircase. Outside, the patrons of the second performance waited impatiently in a line at the edge of the pavement. Bobbie recognized one or two faces in the crowd; they looked older, he thought, and slightly dirtier; those whom he remembered as boys of about his own age were accompanied by young ladies, whose bare heads shone with oil, and who wore, for the most part, maroon-coloured dresses, partly shielded by aprons; they seemed in excellent spirits, and shouted defiant badinage to friends at a distance. To Bobbie walking down towards Old Street, it occurred that the true touch of manliness would not he achieved until he secured the company of a member of the opposite sex. He went into a tobacconist’s shop and bought a twopenny cigar, with a paper belt, which he selected from a box labelled “The Rothschild Brand,” and smoking this, he, with the cornet placed in the capacious tail pocket of the frock-coat, strolled through Shoreditch to Hackney Road. He winked at one or two young women hurrying home with hot suppers laid on pieces of paper, but they only sneered at him, one lady of about thirteen declaring indignantly that, were her hands not full, she would fetch him a clip side the ear.

“It’s this blooming coat,” said Bobbie ruefully.

These repulses brought disappointment, but happily there existed other ways of proving to the world that he was now thoroughly grown up. He went into a quiet public-house, where, in the private bar, some bemused men were talking politics, and on the invitation of the anxious young proprietor, who appeared to be new to the business and desirous of obtaining custom, Bobbie gave his opinion on the question of increasing the strength of the Navy, and, encouraged by beer, found himself quite eloquent. So eloquent, indeed, that presently he insisted upon contradicting everybody, and some unpleasantness ensued.

“You’ll ’scuse me, my boy,” said a white-faced, sleepy-eyed baker, pointing unsteadily at Bobbie with the stem of his pipe, “you’ll ’scuse me if I take the lib’ty of tellin’ you—or rather I sh’ say, informing you—that you’re a liar.”

“You repeat that,” said Bobbie, flushed and aggressive. “Go on! Say that again and see what ’appens.”

“It was only meant as a pleasant joke, I expect,” urged the young proprietor nervously from the other side of the counter. “Shake ’ands and make it up.”

“Let him call me that again,” said the boy fiercely. “That’s all. I’ll learn him, the—”

“What’d I call you?” inquired the tipsy baker. “Best of my rec’lection I called you hon’ble young genleman. Do you deny, sir, that you’re hon’ble young genleman? Because, if so,” added the baker with great solemnity, “if so, I shall have great pleasure in—hic—drinkin’ your ’ealth.”

“I’ve been insulted!” shouted the scarlet-faced boy violently, “in the presence of gentlemen! I want this put right! I want an apology! I’m as good a man—”

“Look ’ere,” interrupted the anxious young publican. “’Ave a ceegar at my expense, and let bygones be bygones.”

“My young friend,” said the baker, balancing to and fro as he rested one hand on the zinc counter, “if I’ve ’pologized to you in any way, I can only say that it’s purely cler’cal error on my part, and I’m prepared to most humbly insult—”

“You mean,” corrected the young publican, “that if you’ve insulted him you’re prepared to apologize.”

“Dammit,” cried the baker, turning explosively on the young proprietor, “can’t two genlemen settle their pers’nal disputes without a blooming pot’ouse keeper dictatin’ to ’em? What?”

“Yes,” said Bobbie, not to be outdone, “what th’ ’ell do you—”

“You mistook my meanin’, gentlemen,” said the young publican penitently. “All I want is peace and quietness.”

“Precious rum way you’ve got of going about it,” said Bobbie truculently. “You take my advice, Mr. Public-house, and don’t you interfere with whatever matters there may be in this world that don’t in no wise whatsoever tend to concern you.”

“Spoke,” declared the tipsy baker, offering his hand to Bobbie; “spoke like a norator. Give us a song, ole man.”

“Gentlemen, I do hope—”

“Can’t give you a song,” said the flushed boy; “but I can give you a tune on the cornet.”

“Please, gentlemen, do not—”

“Music of the cornet,” declared the bemused baker, “is like gen’le dew of ’eaven. You blow up, my boy.”

To the terror of the young publican, Bobbie produced his cornet and played a verse of “Tom Bowling,” causing the baker to become maudlin, and to declare tearfully that he wished he had been a sailor instead of an adjective baker, trampled on by most and scorned by all. On Bobbie playing the prelude to the first set of some quadrilles, the private bar, standing up tipsily, set to partners and went through the evolutions with intense gravity, excepting the baker, who, acting as M.C., stumbled in and out crying loudly, “La’ies’ chain!” The agitated young publican, fearful of consequences, felt constrained at last to send for a policeman, and when one came and touched the boy cornet player on the shoulder, saying, “Outside with that instrument of torture, if you please,” then Bobbie stepped out of the swing doors and through a small crowd with the proud consciousness that, having been ejected from a public-house, real manhood was now his, and could never be taken from him. He stumbled along Hackney Road with his cornet, a slip of a crowd following. To escape them he jumped clumsily on a tram.

“’O’ tight,” said the conductor.

The boy rode in a confused state of mind to the end of the journey at Lea Bridge Road, and then, partly sobered by the night air, returned by the tram. He felt quite happy; other passengers found themselves afire with curiosity to know what he was laughing about. Watching the lighted shops and the cheerful folk on the pavement below, Bobbie decided hilariously that this was better than the Cottage Homes. This was good. This was enjoyment. This was independence. This was freedom. This was life.

At Cambridge Heath Station he descended, because be saw outside a large public-house a line of brakes decorated with branches of trees and with Chinese lanterns; joyous men and women danced on the square space to no music. This seemed the kind of movement in which he desired to be. The men and women had been out into the country for the day; they appeared to have brought a good deal of the country back with them, for their hats and bonnets and clothes were decorated with bunches of flowers and oak leaves. The appearance of the boy with his cornet was welcomed with enthusiasm. Hoisted up on a huge empty cask, he, by command, played gustily a waltz that made the couples lay heads on their partners’ shoulders and move slowly, dreamily around. Of all the moments of pure delight that Bobbie, as a boy, was to experience, this ever stood in his memory high and high above all the rest. Presently the whirling crowd stopped exhaustedly.

“Ask the little boy,” suggested one of the panting women, “to play a what’s-a-name tune.”

“A comic?”

“No, no, no! Not a comic. You know what I mean, only you’re so stupid.”

“A love tune?”

“Bah!” said the lady, “you’re like all the men; you’ve got no sense. What I mean is a patriotic song.”

Therefore, “Rule Britannia” from the cornet to the great content of the beanfeasters and of the two or three constables, looking on at the scene good-naturedly. A hat went round before the party re-ascended the brakes, and Bobbie found himself in possession of a load of coppers that weighed him down on one side until he bethought himself of the ingenious plan of dividing them and placing one half in each pocket of his trousers. He saw the brakes depart, and was about to leave when he found his arm seized violently.

“I’ve got him,” shrieked Master Niedermann fiercely. “I thought I should find him. Evil doers never succeed for long. I was sure—”

“Leggo my arm,” said Bobbie.

“Likely thing,” screamed the long youth satirically, “after I’ve took all this trouble to find you. Gimme back my frock coat! Gimme back my frock-coat, that you pinched from me! Gimme back—”

One of the constables stepped forward. What was all this about?

“Sergeant,” cried Master Niedermann flatteringly, “thank goodness you’re ’ere. You’ll see that right’s done. He’s robbed me of my best frock-coat, and I want it back.”

“It’s a lie,” declared Bobbie. “Fact of the matter is—”

“Accuses me now,” said the estimable youth, with a pained air, “of telling a falsehood. Why, I couldn’t tell a falsehood, and well you know it, inspector.”

Constable begged to say that he knew nothing of the kind. Let the boy tell his tale.

“We changed coats, sir,” said Bobbie, “against my wish, and—”

“There’s alf a dollar sewed in the corner of it,” interrupted Nose, “and he must ’ave known it, or else he’d never ’ave thrown me down on the ground and clutched my neck with both his hands—like so—and then pulled the coat bodily off of me.”

Constable, his legal mind detecting an error in the statement, asked, in view of the fact that the boy had but two hands, how this was done.

“Ast him!” said Master Niedermann. “He knows! He did it. And make him gimme back my coat and my ’alf dollar.”

Constable requested to be informed how the half dollar had been earned or obtained.

“Be the sweat of me brow,” declared the long youth. “How d’ye think? I’d forgot where I put it for the moment, or else he should never have had it. And if he don’t give it me, I give him in charge.”

“’Ang me if I give it back,” said Bobbie, with sudden asperity. “You said a bargain’s a bargain, and so it’ll ’ave to be. I shan’t change again.”

“Then,” said Master Niedermann, oracularly, “I ’ereby beg to give him into custody.”

The constable seemed undecided. Bobbie watched his face, and trembled as he observed a slight increase in gravity. The police station meant at least an ignominious return to the Homes, and to the precise and dogmatically ordered life there. A crowd had gathered round close to the disputant parties, and Bobbie, withdrawing his anxious glance from the policeman for a moment to look around, saw a very little woman, whose face he remembered. Miss Threepenny. Her queer head came to about the waists of the people standing near to her.

“I suppose I’d better,” said the constable.

“Twenty-five, Barton Buildings,” whispered little Miss Threepenny. Then, with a quick change of voice and manner, “Who’s got my purse? Who’s stole my purse? Police! Stop thief! ’Elp—’elp—’elp!”

The constable hurried quickly from the doubtful case on which he was engaged to this that appeared more definite. In the commotion, Bobbie, holding his cornet tightly, made swift escape; he had reached Bethnal Green Road before Miss Threepenny—having discovered that her purse had, after all, not been stolen—had apologized to the constable for the unnecessary trouble that she had given. Bobbie was still recovering breath at the entrance to the giant block of model dwellings to which Miss Threepenny had hurriedly directed him, when that excellent little woman trotted up.

“You’re a nice young man,” said Miss Threepenny severely, “I don’t think. Going and getting yourself mixed up in a common street row, and forgetting what you owe to your poor dead mother and—”

Bobbie explained truthfully, and little Miss Threepenny relented.

“What are you going to do now?” she asked, looking up at him with less acerbity.

“Get a bed in a coffee shop, I s’pose,” said the boy. “To-morrow I shall get off to the country to see—to see some friends. This bloomin’ London makes my nut ache.”

The small woman stood on the third step of the stone stairs, so that she came thus face to face with Bobbie. She swung her key round her finger, reflectively.

“You’ll only get into more trouble,” she said.

“Likely as not,” replied the boy recklessly. “I can’t do right, somehow.”

“I’ve nearly ’alf a mind,” said the little woman, “to make you up a bed in my sitting-room.”

“Got two rooms now, Miss?”

“Rather,” said the little woman proudly.

He followed Miss Threepenny upstairs, through passages, and up more stairs to her rooms. There the diminutive woman took off her bonnet and set to work, as she said, to put the place to rights, which, seeing that everything was perfectly neat and in order, seemed a superfluous act, and indeed consisted mainly in moving the furniture from it’s proper place and setting it back again. Bobbie felt confused and very tired, but the little woman appeared so obviously glad to have someone to talk to that he listened politely to her good-tempered chatters. They had supper together, and then Miss Threepenny did something to an elderly easy chair in the manner of an expert conjuror, whereupon it instantly changed into a middle-aged couch. She bustled in and out of her own room, bringing a pillow and some sheets; presently Bobbie found that he could no longer look at the couch without yawning desperately.

“In the morning,” said the tiny woman, lighting a candle, “you sleep on, because I shall be out and about early. And I shall be ’ome midday to give you your dinner.”

“Goo’ night,” said the boy sleepily, taking his coat off.

“Dear, dear!” cried the little woman with a comic affectation of bashfulness. “Do wait till I’m out of the room. You forget that I’m an old maid. Some of you young men nowadays are enough to shock a saint.”

“Don’t you wish you’d got a son of your own, miss?” asked Bobbie, “to live here and look after you?”

“Stuff and nonsense!” she answered quickly. “What should I want with a great big slab of a boy knocking about the place? There’s a ridiculous idea to be sure! Wonder what put that into your head, for goodness’ sake.”

“Nothing special,” said the boy, yawning. “Goo’ ni’.”

“All the same,” said the little woman hesitatingly, “if you like, Bobbie, you can do this. Jest for fun, you know. You can give me a kiss on the forehead and say, ‘Good night, mother.’” She laughed awkwardly. “Only for the lark of the thing, you know.”

“Good night, mother,” said the boy obediently, bending down and kissing her above the eyes. The little woman gasped and ran quickly to her room.

In the morning Bobbie awoke, when at six o’clock Miss Threepenny was at work still setting the place to rights, and arranging, as he quietly noticed, his breakfast. As she came over to him, before going off, and looked down at him, he kept his eyes half-closed. When presently he had risen, and had eaten his breakfast, he made out an account on the back of an envelope thus, and laid the money upon it:—

Bread	1d.
2 saussages	2d.
Tea	1d.
Lodgings	3d.
Tot.	7d.

With thanks.

R. L.

He took his cornet and went out, down the stone stairs very quietly.

CHAPTER IX.

The boy discovered in London that day how much possession of a little money helps enjoyment. One does not want very much in London, but one does want some, and Bobbie, with four or five shillings in his pocket, found delights that London millionaires can never encounter. Two shillings and threepence of his fortune went to the purchase in City Road of a hard felt hat. The proprietor of the shop urged him to purchase a silk hat, and the boy tried one on, laughing very much at his own reflection in the mirror, but there were several good reasons why he should not agree with the proprietor (“A silk hat,” argued the proprietor, “tells me that a man’s a gentleman”), of which one was that he remembered reading a reply to a correspondent in one of the newspapers at Collingwood Cottage, which stated that a silk hat was not “de rigueur” for the country or the seaside; a second that he did not possess more than half the amount required for the cheapest specimen. The bowler hat, however, brought great content. Later in the day, finding himself in Hyde Park, he fastened his long frock-coat as well as the existing buttons would permit, and strolled down the Row, lifting his hat now and again to no one with great courtesy. He became exceedingly wishful to find some person with whom he might talk. He was getting on rather well with a little six-year-old maid, and had made for her fair-haired doll a couch of grass near the Achilles statue, and the little girl had told him that she had such a booful mamma and such a horrid large nurse and such a fearfully hard piano and such oceans of toys, when she and her doll were whisked away magically by the large nurse referred to, and Bobbie spent two whole hours in searching for them with no success. Out in Knightsbridge a string of sandwich men walked along gloomily, bearing advertisements of a new piece at one of the West End theatres; it occurred to the boy that it would be rather a fine, lordly act to pay his shilling and go to a first-class play, just for all the world as though he lived in Belgravia. The idea clipped his fancy, and despite the fact that after dinner at a cheap restaurant, whose proud boast was, “Come in here, and you will never go anywhere else,” he found that he would only have just enough left to pay his fare to the nearest railway station to Brenchley, he made up his mind to go to the theatre. He had a good wash at the cheap restaurant, and parted his hair in the middle, looking very closely to see if there existed a suspicion of down upon his upper lip. It was magnificent, this life of independence, but, obviously, there were drawbacks. For instance, you had not only to arrange for your meals, but you had also to pay them; this done, the fact remained that neither the quantity nor the quality proved so good as in the Cottage Homes. The boy foresaw (without troubling himself very much about it) that herein might be found a source of inconvenience. He packed the cornet very carefully in a borrowed newspaper; the cornet was slightly in the way, but he remembered that it belonged to the Cottage Homes, and he meant to return it there eventually. It was wrong to steal.

At the gallery door of the theatre that evening he found himself in a short queue, side by side with a thoughtful-looking youth, who carried on his arm an aged travelling rug. This youth talked very learnedly to Bobbie about the new phases of the drama, Bobbie listening with respect because it was a subject on which he felt himself to be not completely informed.

“Convention,” said the thoughtful young man, covering both of his arms with the old travelling rug and edging nearer to the two ladies in front, “convention, my dear sir, is the curse of the modern drama. The drama is enwrapped with iron shackles, and it screams aloud—excuse me, madam, they’re pushing at the back—and it screams aloud, ‘Release my bonds and give me liberty.’”

“I see,” said Bobbie.

“What we want is to see the realities of life placed upon the stage,” went on the thoughtful youth, “not a transparent imitation. We require the stage to give up its great services to the threshing out of some of the world’s trying problems, and to—”

“Best piece I ever see was at the Britannia, ’Oxton,” interrupted Bobbie, “when I was a kid. There was a man in it and a woman, and you must understand—”

“Got change for half a sovereign?” interrupted the thoughtful youth. “Small silver will do.”

“This is all I ’ave,” said Bobbie, showing the coins which were left to him, “besides the bob I’ve got in me hand.”

“Ah,” said the youth regretfully. “That’s no use to me. Put it back in your breast pocket—so. Allow me. If you place your handkerchief over it in this way, you’ll find yourself quite safe from thieves.”

“I s’pose there are some about still.”

“Town’s full of ’em,” said the other regretfully.

The narrow crowd made a movement, and the pairs closed up. A facetious man in the very front rapped twice at the doors, affecting to be the post.

“What’s to-night?” asked the youth suddenly. Bobbie gave the information. “Heavens!” exclaimed the youth, with great concern. “Here am I wasting my time hanging about when I’ve got an engagement with a lady of title at a reunion.”

“Say you forgot all about it,” suggested Bobbie.

“I would,” said the troubled youth confidentially, “only Lady B.’s such a jealous woman. It’s as much as she’ll do to let me out of her sight.”

“Well,” remarked Bobbie, chaffingly, “if you will get mixed up with the fair sex, you must put up with the consequences.” The youth went off as the doors opened, and the short, eel-like crowd slipping in demurely, went up the stairs.

When they were all seated it appeared that there was plenty of room for everybody; indeed only the two front rows secured any patrons, and the programme girl at the back, looking down at the scantily filled benches, said something so bitter and satirical to the policeman on duty, that one of her hairpins fell out, and tripped down the steps of the silent gallery, quite startling the few demure people. The patrons spoke in whispers; when Bobbie commenced to whistle, with a view of cheering them, they said “Hush!” and frowned at him.

A few people strayed into the dress circle and into the stalls below; the gentlemen declining to buy programmes, and the ladies pinning their tweed caps to their petticoats. Bobbie called out very loudly, “Orders!” and the constable up at the back interrupted his conversation with the satirical programme girl to whisper a reproof. An important-looking gentleman in white waistcoat came into a box, and surveyed through his opera glasses the gallery with contemptuous air; Bobbie, chafing under this deliberate inspection, and disregarding the indignant looks of his neighbours, said distinctly and repeatedly,—

“Take off that—white—weskit. Take off—that—white—weskit. Take off—that—white—”

Until the important gentleman had to retire defeated behind the hangings of the box. Presently a small orchestra stumbled shyly in, with a conductor, who, having looked round and yawned openly at the house, led them through a sleepy waltz, that eventually induced Bobbie to kick loudly at the wooden front of the gallery. The curtain went up to a few bars of a comic song, and then Bobbie, hopeful of enjoyment, took off his frock-coat, and leaned forward expectantly.

The bills described the play as a highly diverting original comedy fantasy, which was so long a title that it might well have included some of the elements of truth; but, as it proved, did not. A smart young maid and a mild footman were discovered on the stage, and these dusting at nothing in the elaborate breakfast-room with great energy, explained to each other that master had not been home the previous night, that mistress had gone to meet her aunt at Southampton, that this was a rum household, upon their word, and that they would be glad when they should have made enough money to take that little public-house on which they had set their hearts. Nevertheless, the maid boxed the ears of the mild footman soundly when he attempted to kiss her, at which moment one of the many doors in the room opened, and a wild-eyed young man appeared in evening dress, his necktie awry, and a hunted, affrighted look on his face. The two servants having taken his hoarsely-whispered commands for breakfast and disappeared, the distraught-looking master, advancing to the footlights, told the nearly empty house the story of his trouble. Taking advantage, it seemed, of his wife’s absence, he had been to a fancy dress ball the night before. There he had met an exceedingly handsome, opulent lady of South American extraction, who comported herself with great hauteur and coldness until a sudden alarm of “Fire” took place; on the instant he had clung to her from sheer nervousness and she had dragged him safely from the place. Arrived outside, the lady, to his amazement, declared him to be her preserver, disclosed her Christian name as Evangeline; swore never to leave him, but to confer upon him her hand in marriage, and when he attempted to fly, ran after him. The smart maid here interrupted, announcing, “A lady to see you, sir, and please mistress has arrived.” Entrance of a veiled lady, who, as the young master took refuge under a table, went across and through a doorway; entrance at that instant of young wife; ingenious but inexact explanation of his appearance by the husband; sudden return of the strange lady, who, giving up the veil, cried, “My preserver!” the young husband cried, “My Evangeline!” the young wife cried, “My aunt!” and—curtain on the first act.

“Well,” said Bobbie, looking around, “of all the dam silly plays—Ello! Ello! Who’s pinched my oof?”

“What say, little boy?”

“Who’s took my money,” demanded the boy, his face white. He looked under the seat, but it had not fallen out of the pocket. “Three or four bob I had and every penny’s gone.”

He turned savagely to the lady next him, “Have you got it?”

So far from having Bobbie’s money, it appeared that the lady herself had lost a purse which she had carried, for the better convenience of the thoughtful young man outside with the travelling rug, in a back pocket which everybody could get at but herself. Bobbie, sick and depressed at his loss, sat through the rest of the play trying to think out a plan of action, arriving just before eleven at a decision. The husband of the lady who had been robbed of her purse became so elated and triumphant over the event (having, it seemed, always prophesied that this would happen, and being one not often successful in forecasts) that he gave Bobbie sixpence, and Bobbie, after groaning in an unearthly way at the close of the piece, went out and down the stairs into the bright, crowded, busy street, with this coin for only monetary possession.

Charing Cross Station was filled with theatre patrons who, judging from their pleased faces, had been more fortunate than Bobbie, and were now hastening to suburban homes. Ladies in gossamer cloaks flew about excitedly in search of their platform; men in evening dress imperilled the catching of their last train by making frantic rushes to the refreshment bar. Bobbie discovered that the last train to Paddock Wood had gone; discovered also the platform from which the Tonbridge train (Tonbridge being the next convenient station) started, and, taking advantage of a sudden rush at the barrier, slipped in between the people and was borne by them along the platform. There he found the train waiting; found the guard’s van of the train; found a corner in the van, and whilst the young guard collected the offertory from third-class passengers for whom he had found room in another class of carriage, Bobbie secreted himself behind a big square wicker basket. The young guard whistled; the engine whistled, the doors banged to, the young guard jumped neatly into his brake, shouting good-night to the officials on the platform; the train went out across the bridge, and presently, after one or two stops, away into the dark country. The boy, crouching uncomfortably in ambuscade, consoled himself with anticipation. Once in the Duchess’s hotel comfort and he would not again separate. Perhaps they would put him in a uniform and make him General Commanding of the Hall; he could see the hall lined with giant palms; polite waiters at the far end guarding entrance to an elaborately-furnished dining-room. There would be mirrors with (he felt sure of this) roses painted upon them. He could imagine all this; what he could not adequately picture was the elaborate hot breakfast which the Duchess would cause to be prepared for him.

“And now,” said the young guard, entering the van from his compartment, “now for a struggle.”

Bobbie, hiding low behind the square basket, trembled. He had some thought of giving himself up and throwing himself upon the mercy of the guard, but he decided to wait. He could hear the rustling of pages as the young guard standing under the roof lamp commenced in a loud voice to recite:—

“A signalman sat in his signal-box
A thinking of this and that,
When the eight-ten mail went rushing by,
And he started, for—”

The young guard made his way steadily through the verses, then closing the book, tried to recite them without assistance, and partly succeeded, partly failed.

“I shall be no more better perfect by Thursday,” said the young guard hopelessly, “than my old lamp.”

At Tonbridge, when the train stopped—the hour being now near upon one—Bobbie, who had been dozing under the effects of the guard’s recital, warily bestirred himself. He waited until the guard had stepped out, and then, by rushing into the centre compartment of the van, he just managed to elude the porters who had thrown open the doors to clear out parcels. Bobbie jumped down from the off side of the brake on to the ballast, and intuitively made his way down the line. He had to reach the next station, Paddock Wood, and then the course would be clear; in all he guessed there was about a ten miles walk before him, and, by refraining from hurry, this ought to take him through the night. He walked carefully away from the station into the black night by the side of the lines, but not so carefully as to avoid an occasional stumble over iron rods connecting the points. By good chance he chose the line which would take him to Paddock Wood, and he made his way stolidly in the darkness along the straight rails, the cornet in his tail pocket knocking at his ankles. Looking back he saw the red and green lights of the junction that he had left; looking forward he saw nothing. Now and again he struck a match for the sake of company, and then for a moment he caught sight of the four shining rails and the tall gaunt telegraph posts; resting at one or two of these posts, he had a talk with them, and listened to their ceaseless humming. He was not afraid yet, because a spirit of adventure was in the air; he knew several boys at the Homes who would have shrieked with terror to find themselves alone like this on a black night in a lonely country with which they were not acquainted. The dead silence was just beginning to terrify him when far ahead he saw two small white eyes. They came nearer and nearer and larger and larger. The boy became nervous. He stopped and stumbled down into the dry ditch that ran along by the side of the railway; the two white eyes came upon him with a hissing sound, Bobbie put his hands over his face and held his breath. A fierce tumultuous rush past; a flash of light. Bobbie venturing to remove his hands after a full minute, saw that the engine, out alone at a time of night when all respectable engines should have been abed, was a distance off, its rear light showing redly.

He felt shaken by this, but he made his way doggedly along the loose ballasted walk, through the dark, still night, trying not to think of what he was doing; nevertheless, he still counted the gaunt telegraph posts, and told each of them its number. He had been walking, he thought, about an hour and a half, when he saw specks of coloured lights in the distance, and he knew that he was nearing a station. From thence he would have to branch off to the right.

“I’m getting on a fair treat,” he said, cheerfully.

At Paddock Wood, noise and commotion that were grateful after the silence of the walk. Goods trains blundering about in sidings and excited men with lamps begging them to be reasonable, but the trucks of goods trains declining to listen to advice, and quarrelling and nudging and punching and shoving each other in a great state of ill-temper. Engines, on the earnest appeal of the men with lamps, hurried to restore order, and the occasion being one demanding drastic remedy, half a dozen specially quarrelsome trucks were selected for punishment, a masterful engine drew them out on a middle line, and when one of the men with lamps had uncoupled them, the engine made a sudden rush and sent them all flying away into a distant siding where they could no longer interfere with the general order. Something of quiet ensuing upon this, the engine-drivers drank hot tea out of tin cans, and the shunters with lamps made a hasty meal of thick bread and thick bacon—a meal interrupted by the arrival of a long, overgrown goods train, which insisted upon ridding itself of a dozen trucks, and went after a while with an exultant shriek at having got the best of somebody. Bobbie stood away from all this, watching it with great delight. He had begun to feel sleepy. This awakened him.

He went out through the flat, silent, straggling village, and found, by climbing a finger-post and striking a match, the direction that he had to take for Brenchley. There was a vague touch of lightness now in the starless sky; passing by the quick-set hedge, bordering a churchyard, he could see upright tombstones, dimly white, and the sight depressed the boy, for he knew that here were those whose memory to some was dear. The boy came to cross roads, and then found that his box of matches had disappeared through a hole in his frock-coat pocket. He sat down with his back against the post fixed in the grass triangle at the centre of the roads; before he had time to warn himself to keep awake, his eyes closed. He slept.

“Now, then!” said a voice. “Time all boys was out of bed.”

“It’s all right, mother,” said the boy sleepily. “I was just getting—”

He rubbed his eyes and looked around. Instead of the neat room with its red-counterpaned beds, and the mother of Collingwood Cottage shaking his shoulder—broad daylight and the open country. The person who had awakened him was a uniformed man, with a straight-peaked cap which bore the figure of a horse.

“Know where you are?” asked the uniformed man.

“Just beginning to guess,” said the boy blinking.

“Where you bound for?”

“What’s it got to do with you?” asked Bobbie, yawning.

“It’s got all to do with me, as it happens. I’m the constable in charge of this district.”

“Ho, yes!” said the boy incredulously. “Where’s your ’elmet?”

“Ah!” remarked the constable, with tolerance. “You’re town bred, I can see. What you got in your tail pocket?”

“Cornet.”

“Whose?”

“Mine,” said the boy defiantly. “Who’s did you think?”

“One minute,” said the constable sharply. “Haven’t done with you yet, my lad. If that’s your cornet, and you’ve come by it honest, you can no doubt play a tune on it.”

“Why should I play a tune to an amateur, ’alf-baked copper like you?”

“I’ve got you,” said the constable gleefully. “I’ve got you, my lad, on a piece of string. Wandering about with no vis’ble means of subsistence; also in possession of property that he is unable to account for. I’ll borrow a dog-cart, and take you off to Tonbridge.”

“Give it a name, then,” said the boy sulkily.

“‘Dreamt I dwelt in marble ’alls,’” suggested the constable.

Bobbie played this, and the constable, much delighted, not only gave up all idea of the dog-cart and Tonbridge, but asked for another verse.

“What time do you make it?” asked Bobbie, wiping his lips.

He felt hungry; the thought of hot coffee and hot rolls, and broiled ham and eggs, waiting for him at the Duchess’s magnificent hotel, made him anxious. The constable lifted a huge watch from his trousers pocket. “Wants a quarter to six,” he said.

“’Appen to know a place up at Brenchley called ‘The Happy Retreat’?”

“Do I not.”

“Rather fine hotel, isn’t it? One of the most important places of its kind in the district, eh?”

“Of its kind,” said the constable, “yes.”

“Do an extr’ordinary business there, don’t they?”

“Most extr’ordinary.”

“Which road do I take to get to it quickest?” The constable pointed with his stick. “I know the landlord and the landlady, and I want to get there for breakfast.”

“I could see you was well connected,” remarked the constable pleasantly, “by the fit of your coat. Give my regards to ’em, and tell ’em from me that ten o’clock’s their time for closing, not ’alf-past.”

“Right,” said Bobbie.

“Give us another verse of ‘Dreamt I dwelt,’” begged the constable, “’fore you go.”

The country was already rousing itself, being a country that went to bed early, and able, therefore, to rise betimes. Smoke puffed straight out of the chimneys stuck atop of the infrequent cottages; a grateful scent of boiling tea came from the open doors across the gardens of flowers to the roadway. Conceited poultry strutted out to the gate and crowed; birds up in the trees whistled and chirruped ceaselessly; rooks flew about near a row of tall poplars trying their voices, voices which seemed rather hoarse and out of practice. At one place by the side of the roadway where the green border was spacious, gipsies in their yellow-painted van were bestirring themselves, and scantily-clothed, brown-skinned children affected to wash at the brook whilst their parents quarrelled loudly. The male parent broke off to call to Bobbie, asking him if he wanted a lift to London. Bobbie shook his head, and hurried on up the hill. A postman went by on his tricycle, reading the postcards entrusted to him as he went; at the diamond-patterned windows on the top floor of cottages, apple-cheeked, white-shouldered girls were doing their hair, holding a rope of it between their teeth and plaiting the rest. A tramp who had been sleeping in a barn slouched along, picking straws from his deplorable clothes and swearing softly to himself. Men in thick, earth-covered boots came out of their houses to go to their work in the fields, and small babies waved hands to them from the protected doorways. Bobbie noticed, away from the road, a small, dilapidated house with a vague, unintelligible sign-post, and anxious to arrive at the Duchess’s hotel without error, he went to inquire. He pushed open the door; stepped in on the floor of uneven bricks. A lazy smell of stale beer pervaded the low-ceilinged passage; to the right was a room with a dirty table, dirtier by reason of sticky rings made by pots of beer. At the end of the table, smooth spaces caused by practice of the game of shove-halfpenny.

“Shop!” called Bobbie.

No answer! He went through the passage. It was a beer-house evidently; a few casks stood about and unwashed earthenware mugs lined the counter. Dirt and untidiness everywhere. Upstairs he heard a voice crooning, and he listened anxiously, for the song seemed familiar.

“You should see us in our landor when we’re drivin’ in the Row,
You should ’ear us chaff the dukes and belted earls.
We’re daughters of nobility—”

“The Duchess!” cried the boy.

The song stopped. A window of the room above opened and the Duchess’s voice could be heard upbraiding Mr. Leigh.

“Fat lot of good you do pottering about in the garden and pretendin’ you was born and bred in the country. Wish to goodness we was back in Ely Place again.”

Mr. Leigh begged that the Duchess would hold her row and let him get on with his scarlet runners in peace.

“Peace?” cried the Duchess, scornfully. “There’s a jolly sight too much peace about this dead and alive ’ole. I’m a woman used to a certain amount of seeciety.”

Mr. Leigh advised her to go downstairs and have a drop of beer and then get back to bed again.

“Beer and bed,” complained the Duchess with great contempt. “That’s about all there is in this place. I’d rather be Bat Miller and—”

“For goodness sake,” begged Mr. Leigh, “’ush.”

“Shan’t ’ush,” declared the Duchess, preparing to slam the window. “I shall tell everybody why we’re come ’ere and what you—”

Mr. Leigh, speaking for once with decision, said imperatively, “Shut that winder and shut your mouth, or else I’ll come and do both.”

The Duchess obeyed, and Bobbie stood back as he heard her coming in slippered feet down the stairs. Few of us look our best at six o’clock in the morning, and the Duchess formed no exception. It was not easy to glance at her without a shudder.

The boy turned and hurried out. He ran swiftly, crying as he went, down the hill to the gipsies’ van.