“You’re wrong there,” he said. “My mother’s got a chany jug what used to belong to her grandfather, and he lived in Lunnon.” Observing a twinkle in the corner of Barney’s eye he continued in an injured tone:
“You’ve bin lyin’. Lies is wicked, and stealin’s wicked too.”
There was a sound of conscious superiority in his tone, which was naturally irritating to his companion, who laughed hoarsely.
“Jest listen to him,” he said, addressing Lord Beaconsfield for want of a more intelligent audience, “listen to him! Don’t he preach fine? An’ him a boy without a carikter too! Lies is wicked, eh? And stealin’s wicked. Who told him that, I wonder?”
“It’s in the catekizum,” continued Frank. “Parson allers said so, and Schoolmaster too.”
Barney made a gesture expressive of much contempt at the mention of these two dignitaries.
“Parson and Schoolmaster!” he said derisively. “Why, in course they said so; they’re paid to do it. That’s how they earns their money. But jest you please to remember, that yer not Parson, not yit Schoolmaster, but a boy without a carikter, so shut up with yer preachin’.”
Without a character! It was hard, Frank thought, that he, a respectable Danecross boy, who had been to school, and sung in the choir, and whose folks had always worked honest and got good wages, should have come to this! That a vagrant tramp, who could neither read nor write, and who got his living anyhow, should be able to call him “a boy without a carikter!”
And the worst of it was, that it was true, he sadly thought, as he plodded along in the dust by Barney’s side. He had thrown away his right to be considered respectable—no one would employ him if they knew he had run away, and still less if they knew he had been “on the tramp” with a boy like Barney.
However, as time went on, such serious thoughts troubled him less frequently; as long as the sun shone, it was easy to avoid dwelling on them amidst the change and uncertainty of his vagrant life.