"You can take up your stand at once. What do you say? Are you willing to be honest?"
"Didn't I tell you that this is my first day at it," replied Grif. "I'm willin' enough; I only wants my grub and a blanket. It don't matter to me how I gets 'em, so long as I do get 'em."
"Very well," and Mr. Blemish touched the bell, which on the instant brought a clerk, to whom he gave instructions. "Go with this young man, and he will provide you with everything that is necessary, and come to-night to the meeting of the Moral Boot Blacking Boys' Reformatory. Do you know why it is called the Moral Boot Blacking Boys' Reformatory?"
"No."
"Because all the boys are moral. If they are not moral when they are admitted, they are made moral. So mind that you're moral. The more moral you are, the better you will get on."
"I'll be very moral, I will," promised Grif, without the slightest idea of the meaning of his promise.
"Now you can go; I shall keep my eye on you, and watch how you conduct yourself;" and Mr. Blemish straightened himself, and swelled and puffed, as who should say, "I have done a noble and a moral action, and now I can transact my business with an easy conscience."
Grif, finding himself set up in life as a moral shoeblack, felt uncomfortably strange as he stood behind his stand in one of the Melbourne streets. He had been provided with a boot-stand, a set of brushes, and a pot of the best blacking; and as he surveyed his stock in trade, he was not quite certain whether he ought to be gratified or disgusted. He was so awkward altogether; and he did not know what to do with his hands. He placed them behind him--that was not business-like; he let them hang before him, and he became so painfully conscious of them, that he absolutely began to hate them. Never until now had he experienced what a dreadful responsibility it was to have two hands and not know what to do with them.
For an hour no customer came. Thinking that the state of his own boots was not a recommendation to business, he set to work brushing and polishing them up. It is amazing what a difference a well-polished pair of boots makes in one's appearance. As he surveyed his shining leathers, Grif felt that an important change had taken place in his prospects. He was already a respectable member of society. But still no customer came. He was a shrewd lad, and, thinking to tempt the passers-by, he took off his boots, and placing them upon his stand, courted custom with bare feet. In vain. Most of those who passed took no heed of him; a few looked at him and smiled--some in pity, some in derision. It was like standing in the pillory. He turned hot and cold, and flushed and paled, by turns. In truth, it was no enviable task for Grif, who had been a Bedouin of the byeways all his life, to stand stock-still, as if proclaiming that he was ashamed of his past life, and begged to be admitted into the ranks of honest respectability. Besides, he was hungry, and gnawing sensations within made him restless and unhappy. But Grif behaved bravely. He did not flinch from his post. For hours he stood, patiently waiting. And then an incident occurred. Two men, Jim Pizey and the Tenderhearted Oysterman, stopped before him. The sight of the Oysterman so inflamed Grif, that he felt inclined to do one of two things--to catch up his boots and fly away, or to spring upon the Oysterman and choke him for murdering Rough. But he did neither.
"Here's the young imp," I said Jim Pizey; "he's turned respectable," Grif's first impulse was to indignantly deny the imputation, but no time for utterance was given him. "Have you seen Dick Handfield to-day?" asked Pizey.