The boy struck work at once, and answered, "I ain't got no ball."
"If you begin knocking stamped pieces of metal about in the street," continued Charles, "you will come to chuck-farthing, and from chuck-farthing to the gallows is a very short step indeed, I can assure you."
The boy did not seem to know whether Charles was joking or not. He cast a quick glance up at his face; but, seeing no sign of a smile there, he spat on one of his brushes, and said—
"Not if you don't cheat, it aint."
Charles suffered the penalty, which usually follows on talking nonsense, of finding himself in a dilemma; so he said imperiously—
"I shall buy you a ball to-morrow; I am not going to have you knocking buttons about against people's walls in broad daylight, like that."
It was the first time that the boy had ever heard nonsense talked in his life. It was a new sensation. He gave a sharp look up into Charles's face again, and then went on with his work.
"Where do you live, my little manikin?" said Charles directly, in that quiet pleasant voice I know so well.
The boy did not look up this time. It was not very often, possibly, that he got spoken to so kindly by his patrons; he worked away, and answered that he lived in Marquis Court, in Southwark.
"Why do you come so far, then?" asked Charles.