“There was a hole in the pocket!
“I lay there for a long time in an agony of fear that I should be run over. I heard the beat of horses’ feet close to me and the rumbling of wagons that shook the ground, and now and then a motor-car dashed by and turned me cold with fear. But as no harm came to me I realized that I must have fallen—I could not see for mud—very near the gutter; perhaps quite in it.
“‘I do wish some one would pick me up,’ I thought, ‘but I don’t see how they can, for if I can’t see them for mud, they can’t see me for mud.’ Just as I was saying this to myself, I felt a great splash on my face, and then another and another. A shower, and a very heavy one, had begun. In spite of the wet this made me very happy, for I was gradually being washed clean, and ‘now,’ thought I, ‘I shall be seen.’
“It happened exactly as I guessed, for almost immediately afterwards a hand pounced down on me and picked me up, and I heard a man’s voice say, ‘Well, I’m blowed if it ain’t a bob!’ I almost screamed as he put me between his teeth and bit me. ‘And a good’un too,’ he added, and then addressing the woman with him, who was leading a little boy, he said: ‘Come on, old girl, and we’ll have some dinner after all,’ and we all went off to the nearest Lockhart’s refreshment-room and sat down at a table by the fire.
“‘What shall it be, missis?’ the man asked. ‘Two pots of splash for me and you, and three doorsteps and a mug of chalk for his nibs?’
“The woman said that would do nicely, and the man went off to get the things from the counter, and as he had to give me in payment that was the last I saw of him and his family; for which I was sorry, for they were nice kindly sort of people although so poor. But I was able to see what he meant by his strange words, for he took back with him two cups of coffee, and three thick slices of bread and butter, and a mug of milk.
“Half an hour later I was given in change to a jolly navvy who was having an evening out with his girl. They had finished their supper and were now on their way to the circus. He held me in his hand until we got to the gallery door, and then I was pushed through a little grating and once again flung into a crowded till.
“There I felt I was doomed to stay for some time, for it was late and no one else was likely to come in. However, I did not mind much, for I was very tired and my head buzzed. ‘A shilling’s,’ I said to myself, as I lay there, ‘is a very disappointing life. Here am I lying in the till of a circus ticket-office and seeing nothing, while my late owner, who but for me would not be at the circus at all, is having all the fun.’ Where I lay I could faintly hear the band and the laughter. ‘But for me,’ I continued, ‘why, but for me and other coins people couldn’t do anything at all. It is we who give them their power. Just see what I have done this very day since I got up—I have bought tickets and food and drink and cab-rides for many people; I have been put into the plate at church and I have won ten shillings at the races; I have given pleasure and profit; I have fed the hungry; and I have just sent two worthy persons into the gallery of this circus. Not a bad day’s work!’
“So saying I composed myself to sleep, but just at that moment one of the managers came round to ask for some change, and once again I was sent out into the world. The manager put on his hat and overcoat and started for home, giving me for his ticket at the station, where I passed out again as change to a gentleman who was going to Notting Hill Gate, who put me in his pocket and did not take me out until he went to bed. And would you believe it? when I looked round I found I was on the very same dressing-table on which I had awakened in the morning, with my friend the silver-backed brush beside me.
“‘Then he didn’t spend you to-day?’ said the hair-brush, as soon as the man had gone to bed, and we could get a little time to ourselves.