The seaman looked down, and beheld a small boy with a head like a disorderly door-mat, and garments to match. He stood in what may be styled an imitative attitude, with his hands thrust into his ragged pockets, his little legs planted wide apart, his cap thrust well back on his head, and his eyebrows wrinkled. He also pursed his lips to such an extent that they resembled a rosebud in a dirty bush.
“Yes, imp,” replied the seaman—he meant to have said “impudence,” but stopped at the first syllable as being sufficiently appropriate—“yes, imp, I have lost my bearings, and I’ll give you a copper if you’ll help me to find ’em.”
“Wot sort o’ copper?” demanded the urchin, “there’s three sorts of ’em, you know, in this ’ere kingdom—which appears to be a queendom at present—there’s a farding and a ha’penny and a penny. I mention it, capp’n,” he added apologetically, “in case you don’t know, for you look as if you’d come from furrin parts.”
The seaman’s look of surprise melted into a broad grin of amusement while this speech was being fluently delivered. At its conclusion he pulled out a penny and held it up.
“Well, it ain’t much,” said the small boy, “and I ain’t used to hire myself out so cheap. However, as you seem to be raither poorly off, I don’t mind if I lend you a hand for that. Only, please, don’t mention it among your friends, as it would p’raps lower their opinion of you, d’you see? Now then w’ot d’you want to know?”
To this the “capp’n,” still smiling at the small boy’s precocious insolence, replied that he was in search of an old woman who dwelt in a small court styled Grubb’s Court, so he was told, which lay somewhere in that salubrious neighbourhood, and asked if he, the imp, knew of such a place.
“Know’s of it? I should think I does. W’y, I lives there. It’s right down at the foot o’ this ’ere lane, an’ a wery sweet ’ristocratik spot it is—quite a perninsular, bein’ land, leastwise mud, a’most surrounded by water, the air bein’ ’ighly condoosive to the ’ealth of rats, likewise cats. As to old women, there’s raither a broad sprinklin’ of ’em in the court, rangin’ from the ages of seventy to a hundred an twenty, more or less, an’ you’ll take some time to go over ’em all, capp’n, if you don’t know your old woman’s name.”
“Her name is Roby—,” said the seaman.
“O, Roby? ah,” returned the small boy, looking sedately at the ground, “let me see—yes, that’s the name of the old ’ooman, I think, wot ’angs out in the cabin, right-’and stair, top floor, end of the passage, w’ere most wisiters flattens their noses, by consekince of there bein’ no light, and a step close to the door which inwariably trips ’em up. Most wisiters to that old ’ooman begins their acquaintance with her by knocking at her door with their noses instead of their knuckles. We calls her place the cabin, ’cause the windows is raither small, and over’angs the river.”
“Well then, my lad,” said the seaman, “clap a stopper on your tongue, if you can, and heave ahead.”