The wily Frenchman saw the hesitation, and determined to clinch the matter once for all.
"Ma foi, mine boy!" said he roughly. "If it like you not to do wat I tell you, go—go to your Jeremie, and come not back. I shall find oders dat weel be enchante to work for good, kind, old Renard," and the man took little Phil by the arm and began to walk away.
"Stop, stop, mister!" cried Tad. "Wait for me. I'll just run on board for my things, and I'll be with you in a minute. I promise I won't tell the skipper nothin', as you say he ain't no friend of yours."
Tad kept his word, and in three minutes he had joined the Frenchman and little Phil, and thereby started on a new and perilous road in his journey of life.
[CHAPTER IX]
A SLAVE INDEED
OLD Renard, as Tad soon found, was a Jack-of-all-trades. He could turn his hand to most things, though he did no sort of work well or thoroughly. But he was a bit of a tinker, a basket-maker, and mender; he could do a bit of rough cobbling for any villager who wanted a pair of boots mended; he could put a passable patch in a pair of trousers; and he could even play the dentist after a fashion of his own, and take out teeth, often getting a sound tooth by mistake, and very cheerfully giving any amount of pain for his fee.
Then, too, he was a bit of a pedlar, and generally carried about with him a box of cheap jewellery, relics, and knick-knacks, on which, by aid of his glib tongue, he made a fair profit. He also sold patent pills and ointments and quack remedies to the ignorant folk, besides earning many a dishonest penny by the telling of their fortunes. But it was by the lads in his employ that he made the most regular part of his income, and Tad soon found that his new work was by no means a bed of roses, and that old Foxy was quite as fully bent upon making him serve with rigour, as were the old Egyptian task-masters with their Israelite bondsmen.
Every morning, early, Phil and Tad were sent out into the streets of any town in which they happened to be. Phil had his little organ and monkey Jacko, and Tad was obliged to carry a much larger and noisier instrument, which sent forth a hoarse mingling of howl and screech when he turned the stiff handle, eliciting much bad language from people condemned to listen to it.
Every day the lads were compelled to give their master a certain sum. Sometimes they earned a little more, sometimes less, but not a sou did he ever abate of the sum to be paid to him; and if the required amount were not forthcoming every night on their return, the boys met with punishment more or less severe, according to the state of intoxication reached at the time by their master. For Renard was a heavy drinker, though seldom helplessly drunk. His was a head accustomed to alcohol, and he could take a great deal without other results than to make him quarrelsome and violent. But in the later stages of his drinking bouts, he became utterly unreasonable and a perfect savage, beating the lads unmercifully, and using horrible language.