‘How much would it take to make you go quietly away, and hold your tongue?’ he asked. ‘I have more money in my purse at home, and if you gave me your address I would send it to you.’
The man shook his head in a decided way.
‘It would take pounds and pounds to make me hold my tongue,’ he said, ‘for I am a determined man when once I have made up my mind what it is my dooty to do. But I tell you what, young gentleman. There is one little job which I came in here to do, but which I may not have a chance of doing—’twould keep me too long, and I am a very busy man. Perhaps if you could manage it for me I might not tell after all. It’s a very simple thing, and I only promised to do it to please a little cripple girl of mine at home.’
‘And what is it?’ asked Vivian eagerly, catching at any straw which promised escape from the disclosures which he felt were staring him in the face.
‘Well,’ said the man slowly, and his voice sounded quite soft and gentle, ‘I make a living by breeding dogs, and I have a little cripple girl at home, and she has nothing to do but to lie in bed all day, and it gets wearisome for her at times; and to cheer her up I sometimes put the puppies on her bed, and she plays with them, and she grows as fond of them as if they were human beings like herself. There was one black retriever puppy in particular, which was born on her birthday, which I used to tell her she treated as if it were a baby, for she would save bits of her own supper for it, and it grew so fond of her it always slept at the foot of her bed. If I had been rich I would always have kept it for her; but I am a poor man, young gentleman, and when it got big it ate a lot, and I had to sell it, and the parting well-nigh broke Tottie’s heart. The coachman here came and bought it for his master for a watch-dog, and whenever I come on business to this part of London—I live down Shoreditch way—Tottie always asks if I have seen her pet. Generally I have to tell her “No,” for the coachman here is a disobliging cove, an’ if he saw a poor man like me hanging about the gates he’d order me off; but to-day, being Tottie’s birthday, an’ the dog’s too of course, an’ I happening to come up to ’Ighgate on business, she gave me two of her birthday cakes as a neighbour had given her, an’ she says, “Daddy,” she says, “you’ll see Monarch, an’ you’ll give him these from me, an’ when I am eating mine at supper-time I’ll know he’ll be eating his share.”’
The man paused, and drew two curious little brown buns from his pocket.
‘What queer-looking cakes!’ said Vivian, who had grown interested in the story in spite of his own fears.
‘Yes,’ replied the man; ‘these are German cakes. The woman as lives below us, and is kind to Tottie, is a German, and she bakes the most curious cakes. She has a shop, and makes quite a business of it. Tottie just loves this kind, and to think of the precious child being so unselfish, and denying herself, and she with such a poor appetite too, and sending two of them to Monarch, and here am I spending my whole Sunday away from her, waiting for a chance to give them to the dog. I climbed the fence, and laid myself open to being took up, just to try and please the darling, for I couldn’t bear to go home and meet her sweet face when she says, “Daddy, have you given my cakes to Monarch?” and I having to say “No.”’
The man drew his ragged sleeve across his eyes.
‘It’s very hard, young master,’ he added in a broken voice, ‘that an honest man can’t go boldly up to the coachman’s door, and ask to see the dog, without being called names, and turned away as a beggar, just because he’s poor, and his coat isn’t as whole as it might be.’