My capturer was a boy, and as remarkable a specimen of a boy as it has ever been my lot to meet during the whole of my career. His age was, say, fourteen. He stood four feet one in his slipshod boots.
The hat which adorned his head was an old white billycock, which in its palmy days might have adorned noble brows, so fashionable were its pretensions. Now, alas! it had one side caved in, and the other was green with wear and weather. The coat which arrayed his manly form was evidently one not made recently or to wearer’s measure, for besides showing cracks and rents in various parts, its tails were so extravagantly long for its small occupant that they literally almost touched the ground. His nether garments, on the other hand, although they resembled the coat in their conveniences for ventilation, being all in rags and tatters, appeared to have been borrowed from a smaller pair of legs even than those owned by my present possessor, for they—at least one leg—barely reached half way below the knee, while the other stopped short very little lower. Altogether, the boy was as nondescript and “scarecrowy” an object as one could well expect to meet with.
As he left the hall he gave a quick look round to assure himself no one was following him; then he darted across the road and proceeded to shuffle forward in so extremely leisurely and casual a way, that very few of the people who met him would have imagined he carried a stolen watch in his pocket.
Such a hole as it was! As soon as I had sufficiently recovered from my astonishment to look about me, I became aware that I was by no means the sole occupant of the receptacle he was pleased to designate by the title of a pocket, but which other people would have called a slit in the lining of his one sound coat-tail.
There was a stump of a clay pipe, with tobacco still hot in it. There was a greasy piece of string, a crust of bread, a halfpenny, a few brass buttons, and a very greasy and very crumpled and very filthy copy of a “penny awful” paper. I need hardly say that this scrutiny did not afford me absolute pleasure. In the first place, my temporary lodging was most unsavoury and unclean; and in the second place, there was not one among my many fellow-lodgers who could be said to be in my position in life, or to whom I felt in any way tempted to address any inquiry.
This difficulty, however, was settled for me. A voice close beside me said, in a hoarse whisper, “What cheer, Turnip? how do you like it?”
I looked round, and perceived that the speaker was the clay pipe, who happened to be close beside me as I lay.
I held my nose—so to speak (for watches are not supposed to be gifted with that organ)—the tobacco which was smouldering in him must have been a month old, while the pipe itself looked remarkably grimy and dirty. However, thought I, there would be no use in being uncivil to my new comrades, unpleasant though they were, and I might as well make use of this pipe to assist me to certain information I was curious to get. So I answered, “I don’t like it at all. Can you tell me where I am?”
“Where are you, Turnip? Why, you’re in young Cadger’s pocket, to be sure; but you won’t stay there long, no error.”
I secretly wished this objectionable pipe would not insist on addressing me as “Turnip,” but on the whole the present did not seem exactly the time to stand on my dignity, so I replied,—