Jim looked darkly at him, and giving the stand a kick, sent the blacking-bottle, the brushes, and Grif's boots, rolling in the gutter; and, while Grif was busy picking them up, he took his companion's arm, and walked away.
This was not an encouraging beginning to Grif's honest career, and dark doubts entered his mind as to whether he really had made a change for the better.
"What's the use of bein' moral," he grumbled, as he rearranged his stand, "if this is the way I'm to be served? They've soon found out that Dick Handfield's gone; and ain't they mad at it, neither! It's a good job he went away to-day. Old Flick will be mad, too, at buyin' the bad note. It's a reg'lar game, that's what it is. I'm precious hungry. I wish I was near the confectioner's. I'd go and arks for a pie. But I'll see it out. I promised Ally I would, and I will. Hallo! what do you want?"
This was addressed to a boy, if possible dirtier and more ragged than Grif himself. Indeed, dirt and this boy had become so inseparable that he was known by the simple but expressive name of Dirty Bob. Now, Dirty Bob had seen Grif take up his stand, and had disdainfully watched him wait for customers. In Dirty Bob's eyes Grif was a renegade, a sneak, for setting up as a shoeblack. And he determined to show his disdain in his own particular way. He possessed only one sixpence in the world, and he resolved to spend it luxuriously.
"Oh, it's you, Dirty Bob, is it?" said Grif.
"Yes, it's me," responded Dirty Bob, loftily.
"What do you want?" asked Grif.
"What do I want?" echoed Dirty Bob. "Why, you're a bootblack, ain't you?"
"Yes," replied Grif, with dignity. "I'm a moral shoeblack now."
"Ho! crikey!" exclaimed Dirty Bob. "What do you call yourself?"