“You’ve come from a long way off, young un—ain’t yer?”
The runaway nodded, although he was really within about a mile and a half of his starting-point.
“Yer seems awfully tired. Why I do b’lieve as yer a crying. Wot’s the matter?”
There was an expression of sincere sympathy in the man’s face, and my young friend answered in a low faint voice, broken with sobs,—
“I’ve no home, and no relatives or friends to go to; and I don’t know what to do.”
The man eyed him very curiously before he replied,—
“My lodgin’s in Clerkenwell, not so very far from here; the bed ’ull ’old two. Come home and sleep with me; and we’ll take in a couple of black puddin’s, or a faggot, or something nice an’ ’ot for supper. Come along.”
The stranger was a poor mender of shoes, who lived in a squalid garret, at the top of an old house, overcrowded with lodgers; a foolish lazy fellow enough, without a principle of honesty, or a care for respectability or cleanliness in his entire composition, but withal a kindly one. Necessity drives sternly. The boy looked at his companion’s dirty linen and unwashed face and neck, and with a glance at the river, a longing, despairing look, which did not escape the stranger’s quick observation, turned and reluctantly went with him.
When they were in bed he began to tell his mournful story, and fell asleep at the beginning of it. In the morning the dirty son of St. Crispin explained that he was a supernumerary at the theatres, as well as a snob, and that he was engaged for the Princess’s Theatre, where Macready was then playing.
“If you like,” said he, “I’ll take you to the super-master; he lives close by in Hatton Garden, all amongst the Italians on the Hill.”