“What are you going to say to him when you do see him, Frank?”
“In the first place I’m going to give him the sovereign Uncle Harry gave me for him; and in the next place—what a fellow you are, Prescott, in the next place—well, I suppose I shall tell him he is a fine little chap. No, I’ve another idea. By Jove, I will make a Buttons of him.”
“But what on earth do you want a Buttons for, Frank?” Prescott said, laughing.
“Oh, hundreds of things. He will be very useful in my chambers, go messages, and all sorts of things. I never can find that old bed maker of mine. My dear fellow, I can’t make out how I have done without one so long. A Buttons will be just the thing; besides, if I get a horse, look how useful he would be. I will make him cabin boy on board the yacht—hundreds of things; my dear fellow, my ideas come so fast, I think I shall take up the literary line, after all. There, get your hat and coat on, Prescott, and we will charter a cab, and be off at once to get Buttons.”
The afternoon had come out clear and fine; so they went out through Essex Street into the Strand, and took a cab, which soon set them down at the end of Sloane Street. Here they discharged it; and inquiring of a policeman where Moor Street was, received the intelligence that it lay down behind, but that they had better take the first turning to the right, and then inquire again. Accordingly they turned off from Sloane Street and entered the network of small lanes lying between Hans Place and Knightsbridge. Densely populated as the neighbourhood was, there were few signs of business, or the bustle of every day life. The place seemed entirely deserted by grown up people, and handed over bodily to children. The fathers were away at work, the mothers busy within the houses, but children swarmed everywhere; boys and girls of all ages and sizes, from the little baby set down upon a door step—sitting contentedly there, sucking a piece of rag, and gazing with a quiet old-fashioned look at the world around it, while its elder sister, a staid little woman of some seven years old, gossipped with another of the same standing—to lazy, hulking fellows of sixteen or seventeen, lounging idly at the corners of streets, smoking. Everywhere children engaged in every game which the youthful mind was capable of devising from the very limited materials at hand. Boys playing at hop-scotch, and tip-cat, and ball, with much shouting and rushing about, and danger to passers-by; boys playing at marbles, and games with buttons, and flat stones, and halfpence. These amusements constantly gave rise to great squabbling and disputes, in which one of the great idle fellows before mentioned was usually called in as umpire, although like umpires in general, he always failed signally in giving satisfaction to either party. Girls sitting on door steps working; girls playing at shuttlecock; little things of five or six years old in strange garments and vast bonnets, staggering along with babies nearly as big as themselves; grave little parties of nurses sitting on door steps—while the babies under their charge made dirt pies—and amusing themselves relating stories to each other,—not fanciful Arabian nights’ tales, but real histories of life:—“How father had come in on Saturday night drunk, and when mother had asked for money, how he had knocked she down.” Or, “how put about father was when he came home last night, to find that mother had been and pawned his Sunday clothes, and got drunk on it.” Many a similar tale do these little people relate gravely to each other. Poor little prematurely-old things, with their babies under their charge, and their cares already sitting heavily on their young shoulders, and such a life before them!
Sometimes, but not often, a cart comes along, and the games are stopped, and the marbles scattered, and the little nurses snatch up their charges; doors open hastily, and women rush out into the road and seize their little ones by their dress, or an arm, or a leg, or anything that comes handy, and carry them off into their houses, with much shaking and scolding, and through the closed doors come out sounds of slapping and cries.
Through all this, Frank Maynard and his friend make their way. They easily find Moor Street, but, not knowing the number, have some difficulty in discovering the Holls’ abode. However, after inquiring of some twenty children, they light upon one who is able to point out the house. Mrs. Holl herself opens the door in answer to their knock. Mrs. Holl is engaged in washing, and her arms to the elbows are white with soap-suds. Greatly surprised is she at seeing two gentlemen standing at the door. Finding however, by their inquiry if she is Mrs. Holl, that there is no mistake, she wipes her arms hastily with her apron, and asks them to walk in, apologizing as she does for the state of the room. There was no occasion for that, for it was beautifully clean. The washing-tub stood upon a low bench in one corner; there were some cords stretched across the ceiling, but the clothes were not yet suspended upon them, and except that there was a warm steam in the room, which made everything look clammy and moist, it was neat and tidy as usual. Mrs. Holl placed two chairs for her visitors, giving them a preliminary polish with her apron, and then waited in silence to hear the reason of their coming. But they were too much surprised at the conduct of the fourth inmate of the room to be able for a time to pay her any attention. He had at their entrance been sitting at work at his artificial flower making near the window. On seeing two gentlemen enter, and supposing that they wished to speak to Mrs. Holl, he had wheeled his box to its usual place by the fire, where there was a ladder fixed at a considerable angle and reaching to the ceiling. Under this he pushed his box, and then taking hold of its rungs he pulled himself up hand over hand to the ceiling, to the rafters of which were fixed a line of large open iron handles. Along these he swung himself to the staircase, and then away out of sight by similar handles; the whole being done apparently without the least effort, and as if it were a perfectly normal method of progression.
“By Jove!” Frank exclaimed, when he had disappeared up the stairs, “that’s wonderful. I am pretty good at gymnastics, but I could no more do that than I could fly, and it did not seem the least effort to him; and it is so much the more difficult that I see the poor fellow has lost the use of his legs.”
“James is wonderful strong, sir, in the arm,” Mrs. Holl said, “wonderful strong. He began that clambering work when he was about twelve year old. He was pale like and thin, and the doctor said he ought to go out in the air, and not always sit indoors. Well, sir, James he could not abear the thought of going out much, being drawed about in a cart, but he thought if father could put up a pole, across over his head, he might make a shift to draw himself up and down, and so exercise himself a bit. Well, sir, father he put up a pole, and in time James he got to be like a monkey, he could swing himself up with one arm and hang ever so long. After a bit, father he got the thought of setting some handles in the beams there, and the ladder to get up to them, and it were a great amusement for James; I have seen him go right round the room ten times; as for the stairs, that were James’s own idea. He were then about fifteen, and father used to carry him up to bed, and all at once it came to him, that if he had handles put on the top of the stairs and along his room, and then a ladder to get down by, he might make shift to go up and down of himself. Father went out that same night and got a blacksmith to make the handles, and that very night James went up to bed by himself. Lor, how pleased the poor lad were, to be sure. But I beg your pardon, gentlemen, for running on so—what can I do for you?”
“About ten days since, Mrs. Holl,” Frank said, “my friend and I were at the Serpentine, and your son—he said his name was Evan, I believe—went into the water to fetch out a dog.”