“Ga on! I ain’t your boy. Don’t know yer; I’m this ’ere bloke’s chap, and I ain’t a-goin’ to be larned by no one else.”
It was impossible to avoid smiling at this frank declaration, seriously as it was uttered.
“When did your mother get into trouble?” asked Jack.
“This very afternoon, bless ’er old ’art. She was on the fly all yesterday, a-goin’ on any’ow. So I comes round afore the racket school, to see if she was a-coolin’ down, and, there! if she ’adn’t hooked it! I ’as a good look up and down the court, but she’d walked. So I cuts to the nighest station, and sees a pal o’ mine outside. ‘It’s all right,’ says he; ‘she’s in there,’ meaning the lock-up. ‘Wot was she up to?’ says I. ‘Winders agin,’ he says. So she’s all safe, she is.”
“I tell you what it is, Billy,” said Smith. “I’m afraid you let her spend the money you get for blacking boots on drink. That’s what gets her into trouble.”
“That ain’t no concern of yourn,” said Billy. Then, suddenly correcting himself, he added, “Leastways it ain’t no concern of these here two blokes. Mister, I say, governor, is it too late for to learn me to-night?”
“Yes, it’s too late to-night; but we’ll have the school to-morrow instead. Where will you live while your mother’s away?”
“Oh, ain’t you funny!” said the boy, with a grin. “As if a chap liked me lived anywheres!”
“Well,” said Jack, taking my arm, and not desirous to prolong the discussion, “mind you turn up to-morrow, Billy.”
“No fears,” cried Billy, with a grin, accompanying us for a step or two, walking on his hands.