Considerably elated, the boys started off on their way home. The thought of two-and-sixpence, and a sight of a real dog-fight, was quite enough to silence all Dick’s scruples, and Jenks never had any.
Yet once, long ago now, Jenks had cried when the cat pounced on his canary, once Jenks had a kind heart. It was not all hard yet, though very nearly so. Still some things could touch him, some faces, some words, some tones, could reach a vulnerable part within him. He hardly knew himself that the better part of him, not yet quite dead, was touched, he only called it being in a fix. He was in a fix about Dick. It had been his intention, it had been his motive, in coming to live in the Saint Giles’s cellar, to train Dick as a thief, and if possible Flo also.
He was a very expert young hand himself,—no boy in London with lighter fingers, or more clever in dodging the police, than he. He knew that the first requisite for any successful thief was to possess an innocent appearance, and the moment he saw Dick and Flo he knew that their faces would make their own, and probably his fortune, in this criminal trade. He had gone cautiously about his work, for eyes much less sharp than his must have perceived that the children were strictly honest. Their honesty, their horror of theft, had filled him with surprise, and added greatly to his difficulties. He saw, however, that Dick was the weaker of the two, and his scruples he determined first to overcome. It took him some time, a whole month, but at last Dick fell, and Jenks was triumphant. All now was smooth sailing with him, he was in high, the highest spirits. Dick should be taken down skilfully step by step the broad descent, and presently Flo would follow.
The bad boy’s plans were all laid, when suddenly there came an obstacle—such an obstacle too—such a feather of a thing,—only a child’s pleading voice and tearful eyes. What a fool Jenks was to mind so slight a thing!
He was a fool then, for mind it he did. He liked Flo, in his way he was fond of Flo, but she herself might go to ruin sooner than have any of his plans injured. It was not for her sake he hesitated. No. But she had told him why they were honest, why hard crusts and lives full of hunger and want were sweeter to them than luxuries unfairly come by; and strange to say, for some inexplicable reason, this motive for honesty approved itself to the boy, for some reason known only to himself it raised a pain in his hardened heart, it roused the nearly dead conscience within him. He said to himself that the children’s conduct was plucky—real, awful plucky; that it would be a mean act of him to make thieves of them.
For ten minutes after his interview with Flo he resolved that nothing in the world should induce him to do so; he resolved to go away as she had asked him to go away, and leave them to pursue their honest career unmolested, untempted by such as he. But in half-an-hour he had wavered, had partly laughed off Flo’s words, and had called all that stuff about mothers—dead mothers—nonsense.
All day long he was undecided—he came back to the cellar at night undecided; he had gone out with Dick and Scamp still not sure whether to keep his promise to Flo or to break it. How was it that in returning from his interview with Maxey his resolutions to do right wavered more and more?
Perhaps it was because he had committed another cruel and evil deed, and so the little good in him died quickly out; perhaps, as certainly was the case, Satan was tempting him more than ever. Be this as it may, before Jenks fell asleep that night his mind was made up. Flo’s scruples were all folly, Dick had yielded once, he could, would, and should yield again. If he proved obstinate Jenks had means in his possession which would compel him to lead the life he wished. Yes, Jenks resolved that before many months were over their heads, not only Dick, but Flo herself should be a thief. It should not be his fault if Dick and Flo were not two of the cleverest little thieves in London.