He stopped once in the middle of his task as he caught Reginald’s eyes fixed half curiously, half pityingly upon him.
“Say—gov’nor, I ain’t going to read no more books; do ye hear?”
There was something quite pathetic in the tones in which this declaration of renunciation was made. It was evidently a supreme effort of repentance, and Reginald felt almost uncomfortable as he heard it.
“That there Noogate Calendar made a rare flare-up, didn’t it, gov’nor?” continued Love, looking wistfully towards the grate, if perchance any stray leaves should have escaped the conflagration.
“Not such a flare-up as you did,” said Reginald, laughing. “Never mind, we’ll try and get something nicer to read.”
“No fear! Never no more. I ain’t a-goin’ to read nothink again, I tell yer,” said the boy, quite warmly.
And for fear of wavering in his resolution he went round the room once more, rubbing up the cheap furniture till it shone, and ending with polishing up the very hearth that had served as the sacrificial altar to his beloved Newgate Calendar only a few days before. There was little or no more work to be done during the day. A few letters had come by the morning’s post, angrily complaining of the delay in delivering the promised goods. To these Reginald had replied in the usual form, leaving to Love the privilege of “licking them up.” He also wrote to Mr Medlock, enclosing the two pounds the pleasant clergyman had left the day before, and once more urging that gentleman to come down to Liverpool.
He went out, happily unconscious of the fact that a detective dogged every step he took, to post these letters himself, and at the same time to lay in a day’s provisions for two. It was with something like a qualm that he saw his last half-sovereign broken over this purchase. With nine shillings left in his pocket, and twelve days yet to Christmas, it was as clear as daylight that things were rapidly approaching a crisis. It was almost a relief to feel it.
On his way back to the office he passed a secondhand book-stall. He had lingered in front of it many times before now, turning over the leaves of this and that odd volume, and picking up the scraps of amusement and information which are always to be found in such an occupation. To-day, however, he overhauled the contents of the trays with rather more curiosity than usual; not because he expected to find a pearl of great price among the dust and dog’s ears of the “threepenny” tray. Reginald was the last person in the world to consider himself a child of fortune in that respect.
No! he had Master Love on his mind, and the memory of that blazing Newgate Calendar on his conscience, and, even at the cost of a further reduction of his vanishing income, he determined not to return provided with food for Love’s body only, but also for Love’s mind.