All But Lost: A Novel. Vol. 2 of 3

by G. A. Henty

A cab was at the door, and the party were soon off.

“Now,” Perkins said, “if there is a shindy, we must all keep together, and then we shall be as right as ninepence, whatever comes of it. I'd back the Slogger and you and I, Mr. Maynard, to clear the roughs out of any room in London in about five minutes. Mr. Prescott's very handy with the gloves, but he hasn't weight, and in a close fight weight tells.”

“Where is the place, Perkins?”

“In the New Cut, sir. It's a penny gaff at ordinary times.”

Arrived at the New Cut, they discharged the cab, and went on foot through the busy crowd with which that locality is always filled of a Saturday evening. Hundreds of men were standing about, their week's work finished, smoking and talking together. The women were busy shopping, and were engaged in examining the various goods before purchasing, and in chaffering with the shopmen and costermongers. The pleasure of shopping is by no means a monopoly of the rich, the poor enjoy it to at least an equal extent; and no lady can more carefully examine the texture of the silk dress which the shopman temptingly holds out before her, or turn over one article after another before making her selection, than does her poorer sister scrutinise the markings and colour of a piece of bacon, or turn over the heaps of cauliflowers and cabbages upon a costermonger's cart. Great is the noise. The touts at the second-hand furniture and Jew clothing shops, the butchers, and the itinerant vendors, vie with each other in their efforts to obtain customers. Half-price has just begun at the Victoria Theatre, which stands large and black at the corner of the New Cut, and numbers are flocking in to see the tragedy of “The Hangman's Stepdaughter; or the Murdered Mother of the Blind Alley.” Views of this drama, of thrilling interest and in bright colours, are placed beside the doors, and, illuminated by the bright gaslight, exhibit scenes of bloodshed and murder, highly enticing to the frequenters of the threepenny gallery. A few policemen are scattered among the crowd, but their services are seldom required, except when some drunken man insists upon fighting everyone, and, refusing all persuasion to return home, has to be taken to the station-house, in spite of his struggles and shouts, by two policemen. In the discharge of this duty, although undertaken solely for the protection of the public, the police are greeted with much jeering and hooting on the part of that ungrateful body. And then all goes on quietly for a time. The gaslights shine brightly out from the gin-palaces, and great business is in course of being there carried on. Numbers go in and out, and the glass-doors are ever on the swing. Through these doors glimpses can be caught of crowds of men and women standing at the bar drinking, and waiting to be served; while through the open windows of the room above sounds of singing and of violent thumping of pewter pots and glasses upon the table come out. Through all this the four companions slowly made their way, and presently stopped at the door of one of those establishments popularly known as a penny gaff,—theatres at which a suicide, three murders, four combats, two comic songs, and a ballet, are condensed into the space of a quarter of an hour, and are to be heard for the charge of a penny; dens in which a perspiring audience inhale a pestilential atmosphere and vicious ideas together, and which the strong arm of the legislature should either reform or sweep away altogether.

At present the establishment was apparently closed. The appalling pictures no longer stood before the doors. The illumination which usually blazed upon it was extinguished. No sound of music or laughter came through into the street. The doors were closed, and the whole place seemed deserted. Now and then, however, a man went up, knocked, and after a short parley was admitted, and then all was quiet again. At this door the party knocked. It was partially opened, and a voice said,—

“What do you want?”

“Universal suffrage,” the Slogger answered.

The door opened a little wider, and they all entered. They found themselves in perfect darkness, but the man who had let them in turned on the light of a bull's-eye lantern.