The stipulated hour in the morning beheld Jim Swain engaged in the task of window-cleaning, not very unpleasant in such weather. He pursued his occupation with unusual seriousness; the impression of the previous night remained upon him.
The back parlour, called, of course, the "study" in Routh's house, deserved the name as much or as little as such rooms ordinarily merit it. The master of the house, at least, used the room habitually, reading there a little, and writing a great deal. He had been sitting before a bureau, which occupied a space to the right of the only window in the apartment, for some time, when Harriet came to ask him if the boy, who was cleaning the windows, might go on with that one.
"Certainly," said Routh, absently; "he won't disturb me."
It would have required something of more importance than the presence of a boy on the other side of the window to disturb Routh. He was arranging papers with the utmost intentness. The drawers of the bureau were open on either side, the turned-down desk was covered with papers, some tied up in packets, others open: a large sheet, on which lines of figures were traced, lay on the blotting-pad. The dark expression most familiar to it was upon Stewart Routh's face that morning, and the tightly compressed lips never unclosed for a moment as he pursued his task. Jim Swain, on the outside of the window, which was defended by a narrow balcony and railing, could see him distinctly, and looked at him with much eagerness while he polished the panes. It was a fixed belief with Jim that Routh was always "up to" something, and the boy was apt to discover confirmation in the simplest actions of his patron. Had another observer of Routh's demeanour been present, he might, probably, have shared Jim's impression; for the man's manner was intensely preoccupied. He read and wrote, sorted papers, tied them up, and put them away, with unremitting industry.
Presently he stretched his hand up to a small drawer in the upper compartment of the bureau; but, instead of taking a paper or a packet from it, he took down the drawer itself, placed it on the desk before him, and began to turn over its contents with a still more darkly frowning face. Jim, at the corner of the window furthest from him, watched him so closely that he suspended the process of polishing; but Routh did not notice the cessation. Presently he came upon the papers which he had looked for, and was putting them into the breast-pocket of his coat, when he struck the drawer with his elbow, and knocked it off the desk. It fell on the floor, and its contents were scattered over the carpet. Among them was an object which rolled away into the window, and immediately caught the attention of Jim Swain. The boy looked at it, through the glass, with eyes in which amazement and fear contended. Routh picked up the contents of the drawer, all but this one object, and looked impatiently about in search of it. Then Jim, desperately anxious to see this thing nearer, took a resolution. He tapped at the window, and signed to Routh to open it and let him in. Routh, surprised, did so.
"Here it is, sir," said Jim, not entering the room, but sprawling over the window-sill, and groping with his long hands along the border of a rug which sheltered the object of Routh's search from his observation--"here it is, sir. I see it when it fell, and I knowed you couldn't see it from where you was."
The boy looked greedily at the object in his hand, and rolled it about once or twice before he handed it to Routh, who took it from him with a careless "Thank you." His preoccupied manner was still upon him. Then Jim shut down the window again from the outside and resumed his polishing. Routh replaced the drawer. Jim tried very hard to see where he placed the object he had held for a moment in his hand, but he could not succeed. Then Routh locked the bureau, and, opening a door of communication with the dining-room, Jim caught a momentary sight of Harriet sitting at the table, and went to his breakfast.
The seriousness of the previous night had grown and deepened over the boy. Abandoning the pursuit of odd jobs precisely at the hour of the day when he usually found them most plentiful, Jim took his way homewards with headlong speed. Arrived within sight of the wretched houses, he paused. He did not wish any one to see what he was going to do. Fortune favoured him. As he stood irresolute at one end of the narrow street, his aunt came out of the door. She was going, he knew, to do her humble shopping, which consisted, for the most part, in haggling with costermongers by the side of their carts, and cheapening poor vegetables at the stalls. She would not be coming back just yet. He waited until she had turned the opposite corner, and then plunged into the open doorway and up the dark staircase. Arrived at the room which formed his sole habitation, Jim shut the door, and unceremoniously pulled away his flock bed, rolled up neatly enough in a corner, from the wall. This wall was covered with a paper once gaudy, now dreary with the utter dreariness of dirt charged on bright colour, and had a wooden surbase about a foot in depth. Above the surbase there was a hole, not so large as to be easily remarked in a place where dilapidation of every sort was the usual state of things, and in this hole Jim insinuated his hand. There was suggestive dexterity in the way he did this; the lithe fingers had suppleness and readiness, swiftness and accuracy of touch, which, if there had been any one to care for the boy, that one would doubtless have noticed with regret. If he were not already a thief, Jim Swain possessed some of the physical requisites for that profession. Presently he withdrew the lithe hand, and looked steadfastly at the object which it had extracted from the hole in the wall. He turned it over and over, he examined it within and without, then he put it back again in the hiding-place, and replaced his bed.
Old Sally was much surprised, when she returned from her "marketing," to find her nephew at home. The apparition of Jim in the daytime, except on stray occasions, when, fortune being unpropitious, he would come home to see what his aunt could do for him in the way of dinner, was exceedingly rare. But he explained it now by saying he was tired, and had been well paid for a job he had done that morning. He proposed that he should get something choice that day for dinner, and stay "in" until evening.
"There's a new play at the 'Delphi to-night," said Jim, "and there'll be plenty of jobs down that way, callin' cabs and helpin' visitors to the hupper circles, as can't afford 'em, across the street. They're awful bewildered, mostly, when they come out of the theayter, and dreadful timid of the 'busses."