As I said before, my mother let lodgings, and kept the ground-floor front room for people to drink tea and smoke in; and I used to take my little stool and sit at the knees of the pensioners who came in, and hear all their stories, and try to make out what they meant, for half was to me incomprehensible; and I brought them fire for their pipes, and ran messages. Old Ben the Whaler, as they called him, was the one who took most notice of me, and said that I should be a man one of these days, which I was very glad to hear then. And I made a little boat for my sister, which cost me a great deal of trouble and labour; and Ben helped me to paint it, and I gave it to Virginia, and she and I were both so pleased; but when my mother saw it, she threw it into the fire, saying it was “so un-genteel,” and we both cried; and old Ben was very angry, and said something to my mother, which made her sing “High diddle diddle” for the whole day afterwards.
Such are the slight reminiscences, which must content the reader, of my early existence.
When I was eight years old (about six years after his last visit), my father made his appearance; and for the first time, I knew that my father was alive, for I was but two years old when he left, and I remembered nothing about him, and I had never heard my mother mention his name as if he still existed.
My father came in one day very unexpectedly, for he had given no notice of his return; and it so happened that as he came in, my mother was beating me with the frying-pan, for having dipped my finger in the grease in which she had been frying some slices of bacon. She was very angry, and as she banged me with it, Virginia was pulling at her skirts, crying and begging her to desist. “You little wretch,” cried my mother, “you’ll be just such a sea-monster as your father was—little wulgar animal, you must put your fingers into the frying-pan, must you? There, now you’ve got it.” So saying, she put down the frying-pan, and commenced singing as loud as she could, “Hush-a-bye, baby, Pussy’s a lady.”
“Ay, now you’re vexed, I daresay,” continued she, as she walked into the back kitchen.
All this time, my father had been at the door looking on, which she had not perceived. My father then came in. “What’s your name, my lad?” said he.
“Tommy Saunders,” replied I, rubbing myself; for the frying-pan was very hot, and my trousers very much out of repair.
“And who is that little girl?” said he.
“That’s my sister Virginia;—but,” continued I, “who are you? Do you want my mother?”
“Not very particularly just now,” said my father, taking up my sister and kissing her, and then patting me on the head.