And having received her half-day's wage, she departed contentedly, and made her way to the nearest public-house.
Mr. Joseph Loveday gazed disconsolately around; it was not the broken crockery that annoyed him, it was the disarrangement of domestic custom. Having discharged the woman who had served him so long, it was a settled thing that she would never be employed by him again. Where could he find another who would serve him more faithfully? He detested strangers, and a break in his usual habits was a great discomfort to him. He was in a mood to exaggerate the discomfort, and in a few minutes he had magnified it considerably. It is not from the most important disasters of life, but from its pins and needles, that we draw our acutest miseries. Everything had been going wrong with Mr. Loveday lately. During the past week he had missed three books from his stall outside, and had been unable to discover the thief. Even if he had been successful in catching him he would have hesitated to prosecute him, because of the loss of time it would entail. Then, Mrs. Peeper, proprietor of the wardrobe shop, who occasionally cooked his dinners for him, had been behaving badly, keeping him waiting an hour and more, and placing before him food, so villainously cooked that he could not eat it. Some change was decidedly necessary to restore the harmony of his days. As he was debating with himself in what way the change could be made, he raised his eyes and saw through the window a lad standing at the stall outside, turning over the leaves of a book. The age of this lad was twelve, and his name was Timothy Chance.
"I might do worse," thought Mr. Loveday. The drawback was that Timothy was a bundle of rags.
He was turning over the leaves of the book he had lifted at haphazard from the stall, but he was not reading it. Every now and then he directed a furtive glance towards the interior of the shop, in the hope, without obtruding himself, of attracting favorable attention. Hanging on his left arm was an old open-work basket, and sitting therein was a bedraggled hen. Mr. Loveday stepped to the shop door, and said:
"Well, Timothy."
"Yes, sir," said the lad, looking up with a cheerful smile, and speaking in quite respectable English, "here I am, back again, like a bad penny."
"Come in," said Mr. Loveday.
Timothy gladly obeyed the summons, and entered. Placing his basket with the hen in it upon the floor, he stood respectfully before the bookseller. In classic story a goose became historical; in this modern tale, wherein heroic deeds are not heralded by clang of trumpets, it may by and by be admitted that the fowl which Timothy Chance set down deserves no less a fame.
[CHAPTER IX.]
Poor and ragged as he was, the lad's bearing was distinguished by a bright manliness--even thus early shown--which could scarcely fail to win favor. The circumstances of his young life were singular, and deserve, and need, brief mention.