Quite a number of boys of various ages and sizes were waiting on the pavement outside the door. They had formed themselves into a queue. First the boy stood looking at the mystic No. 12 which was painted on the fanlight over the door, and then at the row of youthful faces, which was already regarding him critically. After a moment of hesitation he walked past them and plunged into the interior of the building. As he did so, loud and angry protests arose of, “’Ere, you come back, Barnum and Bailey!” “Take yer turn, yer young swine!” “Give ’im one for himself!”
The boy not understanding to whom this enigmatic truculence was addressed, walked through the dark passage into the first room that he saw, the door of which was partly open. A morose-looking man who was biting a pen was standing just inside it.
The boy took off his hat and bowed low.
“M-may it p-please you, sir,” he said, repeating slowly but in strangely timid accents, a speech which he had already carefully rehearsed a thousand times, “I d-desire to offer m-myself in the capacity of a bright boy.”
The morose-looking man took the pen out of his mouth with great deliberation, and also with an astonishment which he did not seek to dissemble.
“Do you, indeed?” he said. “We do want a bright boy, but we don’t want ’em too bright. You go back and wait your turn, you cheeky young imp.”
The boy stood a moment in perplexity, unable to grasp what was implied by this answer, and what, in the circumstances, was the fitting course to pursue. In the next, however, he had received enlightenment. The problem was solved for him by the man with the pen. “D—— your young impudence!” he said, taking him by the shoulders. In the next instant the boy had been run through the passage and flung out on to the pavement with the aid of a heavy kick.
His re-appearance and mode of egress were not lost on the select company of bright boys who formed the queue. They seemed to accord them a very decided approval. As the boy stood in bewilderment, with his former morbid dread of physical violence returning upon him, loud howls of derision arose from the queue.
At first it did not occur to the boy that they were directed at himself. But, as he continued to stand before the door in irresolution and surprise, the displeasure with which he was viewed personally was brought somewhat forcibly to his notice. A boy sauntered out from the middle of the queue and collected a handful of mud from the gutter. He then crept up stealthily behind him, and flung it down the back of his neck.
In spite of this not particularly delicate hint, however, and in spite of the cries of derision all about him which seemed every moment to increase, the boy continued to stand before the door. At last a powerful boy, who was the first in the queue, turned to a companion and said: “Keep my place, Nosey.” He then stepped out, and seizing the boy ferociously by the ear, half led and half dragged him to the tail of the queue. After having cuffed him severely, he said, “You get out of your place again, and I’ll break your neck.”