After this the machinery of the institution had its own way with him. It was as though he were passed through each of its scientific appliances in turn—the steam washing machine, the centrifugal steam wringer, the hot-air drying horse, the patent mangle, the gas ovens, the heating pipes, the spray baths, the model bakery, and the central engine. After drifting through the fourth standard he was sent every other day to a workshop to fit him for after life. Looney joined a squad of little gardeners which shuffled about the walks, two deep, with spades shouldered like rifles. Alfred was sent to the shoemaker's, as there was a vacancy there. He did such work as he was afraid not to do, and all went well as long as nothing happened.
Only two events marked the lapse of time. Mrs. Reeve did not recover from the "twist in her inside." In answer to her appeal, a brother-in-law in the north took charge of her two remaining children, and then she died. It was about three years after Alfred had entered the school. He was sorry; but the next day came, and the next, and there was no visible change. The bell rang: breakfast, dinner, and tea succeeded each other. It was difficult to imagine that he had suffered any loss.
The other event was more startling, and it helped to obliterate the last thought of his mother's death. After a brief interval of parental guidance, Clem had returned to the school for about the tenth time. As usual he devoted his vivacious intellect chiefly to Looney, in whose progress he expressed an almost grandmotherly interest. Looney sputtered and made sport as usual, till one night an unbaptized idea was somehow wafted into the limbo of his brain. He was counting over the faggots in the great store-room under his dormitory when the thought came. Soon afterwards he went upstairs, and quietly got into bed. It was a model dormitory. So many cubic feet of air were allowed for each child. The temperature was regulated according to thermometers hung on the wall. Windows and ventilators opened on each side of the room to give a thorough draught across the top. The beds had spring mattresses of steel, and three striped blankets each, and spotted red and white counterpanes such as give pauper dormitories such a cheerful look. Looney and Clem slept side by side. Before midnight the dormitory was full of suffocating smoke. The alarm was raised. For a time it was thought that all the boys had escaped down an iron staircase lately erected outside the building. But when the flames had been put out in the store-room below, the bodies of Looney and Clem were found clasped together on Clem's bed. Looney's arms were twisted very tightly around Clem's neck, and people said he had perished in trying to save his friend. Next Sunday the chaplain preached on the text, "And in death they were not divided." Their names were inscribed side by side on a little monument set up to commemorate the event, and underneath was carved a passage from the Psalms: "Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain."
EPILOGUE
At last Alfred's discharge paper came from the workhouse, and he trudged down the road to the station, carrying a wooden box with his outfit, valued at £7. He had been in charge of the State for six years, and had quite forgotten the outside world. His nurture and education had cost the ratepayers £180. He was now going to a home provided by benevolent persons as a kind of featherbed to catch the falling workhouse boy. Here the manager found him a situation with a shoemaker, since shoemaking was his trade, but after a week's trial his master called one evening at the home.
"Look 'ere, Mr. Waterton," he said to the manager. "I took on that there boy Reeve to do yer a kindness, but it ain't no manner of good. I suppose the boy 'ad parents of some sort, most likely bad, but 'e seems to me kind of machine-made, same as a Leicester boot. I can't make out whether you'd best call 'im a sucklin' duck or a dummercyle. And as for bootmakin'—I only wish 'e knowed nothing at all."
So now Alfred is pushing a truck for an oilman in the Isle of Dogs at a shilling a day. But the oilman thinks him "kind of dormant," and it is possible that he may be sent back to the school for a time. Next year he will be sixteen, and entitled to the privileges of a "pauper in his own right."
Meanwhile little Lizzie is slowly getting her outfit ready for her departure also. A society of thoughtful and energetic ladies will spend much time and money in placing her out in service at £6 a year. And, as the pious lady said to herself when she wrote out a good character for her servant, God help the poor mistress who gets her!
But in all countries there is a constant demand of one kind or another for pretty girls, even for the foster-children of the State.