On this afternoon Grif was particularly miserable. He had suffered much during the day from heat, and although he had plenty of cold water to drink, it must be admitted that that was but poor satisfaction to a hungry boy. He would have gone to his pie-shop, but the old woman had been gathered to her foremothers, and the pie-shop had passed into other hands. Grif had stood behind his boot-stand all the day broiling in the sun. No passer-by had been mad enough to stay blistering for a quarter of an hour in the heat, while his boots were being blackened. And, when evening came, it found Grif faint, and weary, and unhappy. The tears actually welled into his eyes as the sense of his forlorn condition came upon him. He could not stand it any longer! He looked round, with such a sense of desolation expressed in his face, that if any humane person had noticed it, it must have touched his heart with pity. He thought of the exhortations he had listened to, and of the good advice which had been heaped upon him. He thought of the promise he had given Mr. Blemish that he would continue to be moral. To break that promise would not pain Grif much; but there was the pledge he had given to Alice. He was about to be false to her. But he could not starve; she wouldn't ask him to do that, he knew. "No, she wouldn't arks me to do that," he muttered. "I'd die for her yes, this minute. If I went to her now, she would give me somethin' to eat--in course she would! But I won't go to her; I'll starve first! She stinted herself the other night, and didn't have enough to eat, because I was there. I know what I'll do. I'll go to Old Flick's, and sell my stand and brushes. He'll give me a bob for 'em, I dessay. Ally won't like it when she hears it, but I can't help it; I'm hungry."
Then the thought came upon him that, although he might have some right not to be moral if he pleased, he had no right to sell the stand and brushes. They were the property of the Reformatory. But he was stung to desperation, and he drove the thought from his mind.
"I don't care," he said recklessly. "I've been moral long enough. It ain't a bit of good! I ain't agoin' to starve any more. If they find it out, they can put me in quod agin, that's all. They'll give me my grab and a blanket there, at all events, and that's what I can't get here. I s'pose I am a bad lot, and I shall never be no good. How can I be good when I haven't got nothin' to eat?"
Asking this question of himself with much sternness, Grif put his stand and brushes under his arm, and wended his way towards Old Flick's Thoroughfare.
[CHAPTER XVI.]
POOR MILLY.
When Milly walked out of Old Flick's store, she walked out with the full determination of returning and possessing herself of the letter he had received from Jim Pizey, and which she was certain the old man had not destroyed. She had two reasons for her determination. One was a woman's reason--she had made up her mind to have it, and have it she would. A woman's logic is not always logical. The other reason was, that she was convinced there was something in the letter concerning herself. She did not stop to consider whether it would be good for her to read it; it was a letter from Jim; and read it she would. She felt hurt that he had sent her no word since his departure. There was nothing strange in her affection for him. She had no one else to love except her baby, and he was its father. He had deserted her, and still she clung to him. There is no human being in the world who is so complete an isolation as not to have a love for something; and the unfortunate class to which Milly belonged is no exception to this rule, for it is capable of strong, if misguided, affection.
To fortify herself for her task, Milly, after she had lolled her baby to sleep, adjourned to the bar of a public house, where she told how she had "done" Old Flick, and where she spent the greater portion of the two pounds in treating her associates to drink. Having soon made herself most thoroughly and desperately drunk, she set off staggering, but very earnest, towards Old Flick's All-sorts Store. Her mind was in a dangerous state of tension. She was almost blind from the fumes of the spirits she had taken, and everything swam before her; but she swung onwards, trolling out snatches of songs, and laughing and talking to herself incoherently. She did not attract much attention. A woman drunk was no novelty in that neighbourhood--indeed, her state was chronic to the locality; and she was allowed to proceed unmolested--some few people turning to look after her, but most avoiding her. She had not far to go, and when she arrived at her destination, she staggered in at the door, and sinking into a seat, gazed confusedly about her. Brushing her hair from her face, she looked round in vain for Old Flick.
"Now then, Flick," she said, almost inarticulately, "it's no use hiding away. Lord! how my head swims! Come out and give me the letter!"
She waited for an answer, but received none, for Old Flick was deep in his drunken swoon upon the floor.