“La! Mr Balls,” said the cook, who was not unacquainted with low life in London, having herself been born within sound of Bow-Bells, “you’ve got no occasion to worrit yourself about it. It ’as never bin different.”
“That makes it all the worse, cook,” returned Balls, standing with his back to the fireplace and his legs wide apart; “if it was only a temporary depression in trade, or the repeal of the corn laws that did it, one could stand it, but to think that such a state of things always goes on is something fearful. You know I’m a country-bred man myself, and ain’t used to the town, or to such awful sights of squalor. It almost made me weep, I do assure you. One room that I looked into had a mother and two children in it, and I declare to you that the little boy was going about stark naked, and his sister was only just a slight degree better.”
“P’raps they was goin’ to bed,” suggested Mrs Screwbury.
“No, nurse, they wasn’t; they was playing about evidently in their usual costume—for that evenin’ at least. I would not have believed it if I had not seen it. And the mother was so tattered and draggled and dirty—which, also, was the room.”
“Was that in the court where the Frogs live?” asked Jessie Summers.
“It was, and a dreadful court too—shocking!”
“By the way, Mr Balls,” asked the cook, “is there any chance o’ that brat of a boy Bobby, as they call him, coming here? I can’t think why master has offered to take such a creeter into his service.”
“No, cook, there is no chance. I forgot to tell you about that little matter. The boy was here yesterday and he refused—absolutely declined a splendid offer.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” returned the cook.
“Tell us about it, Mr Balls,” said Jessie Summers with a reproachful look at the other. “I’m quite fond of that boy—he’s such a smart fellow, and wouldn’t be bad-looking if he’d only wash his face and comb his hair.”