Boy stood staring, limp with horror,—Rattling Jack had been so extremely realistic in his description—suiting the action to the word, and the word to the action,—and at the “chuckle-chuckle in my windpipe” he had made such an appalling noise that Boy felt it would be necessary to run for assistance. But the venerable gentleman soon recovered from his histrionic efforts, and refilling his pipe began stuffing the tobacco well into it with the point of an extremely dirty forefinger.
“Ay, ay, there y’are,” he went on. “Now wot are ye goin’ to be yerself when yer tries to knock up a riggin’ in this wide world? There bain’t no place for boys in this old country, but away wiz yer to ’Meriker and Canada. Ask yer father to send ye away to ’Meriker,—there’s a chance for ev’ry man to make a million there, an’ come back a reg’lar bounder. An’ then ye can marry one o’ they foine ladies wot’s all dress an’ no brains. Simper-simper—slish-slish!—ah, they makes me sick, they do! I tell yer,” here he turned angrily round upon the astonished boy, “I tell yer they makes me sick, they do! We don’t see a-many of ’em ’ere, the Lord be blessed for all ’is mussies, but if ever you goes to Lunnon——”
“I used to live in London,” murmured Boy apologetically.
Rattling Jack looked at him in a kind of dull wrath.
“You! You little shaver! Come from Lunnon, do yer? Well, wot in the world is yer doin’ ’ere? Now tell me that!” Here lighting his pipe he stuck it well between his yellow teeth, and turned round with a fish-like glare in his eye upon the small boy before him. “Wot are yer doin’ ’ere?” he repeated. “Come now, tell me that!”
Boy meditated, finally he said,—
“I’m very sorry I can’t tell you. I really don’t know.”
“Avast there!” said Rattling Jack. “A boy as don’t know where ’e is, nor wot ’e is, nor why ’e is, ain’t no good as I can see. Chuck it!”
Possibly it may have been from the consideration of these scathing remarks of Rattling Jack that Boy was moved one morning to ask his “Muzzy” a perplexing question, which has often presented itself as the profoundest of problems to most of the world’s metaphysicians.
“Mother, what am I?”