“We’re as poor as our neighbours Mrs Gray; and if we are not paid, we must borrow. It’s a scarlet shame to go to the spout because money lent to a friend is not to be found. You had it in your need, Liza Gray, and we want it in our need; and have it I will, Liza Gray.”
“Hush, hush!” said Liza Gray; “don’t wake the little-un, for she is very fretful.”
“I will have the five shillings, or I will have as good,” said Mrs Mullins.
“Hush, hush, neighbour; now, I’ll tell you—you shall have it; but yet a little time. This is great tommy-day, and settles our reckoning for five weeks; but my man may have a draw after to-morrow, and he shall draw five shillings, and give you half.”
“And the other half?” said Mrs Mullins.
“Ah! the other half,” said Liza Gray, with a sigh. “Well, then—we shall have a death in our family soon—this poor babe can’t struggle on much longer; it belongs to two burial clubs—that will be three pounds from each, and after the drink and the funeral, there will be enough to pay all our debts and put us all square.”
The doors of Mr Diggs’ tommy-shop opened. The rush was like the advance into the pit of a theatre when the drama existed; pushing, squeezing, fighting, tearing, shrieking. On a high seat, guarded by rails from all contact, sate Mr Diggs senior, with a bland smile on his sanctified countenance, a pen behind his ear, and recommending his constrained customers in honeyed tones to be patient and orderly. Behind the substantial counter which was an impregnable fortification, was his popular son, Master Joseph; a short, ill-favoured cur, with a spirit of vulgar oppression and malicious mischief stamped on his visage. His black, greasy lank hair, his pug nose, his coarse red face, and his projecting tusks, contrasted with the mild and lengthened countenance of his father, who looked very much like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
For the first five minutes Master Joseph Diggs did nothing but blaspheme and swear at his customers, occasionally leaning over the counter and cuffing the women in the van or lugging some girl by the hair.
“I was first, Master Joseph,” said a woman eagerly.
“No; I was,” said another.