“Any marks?” inquired my master.
“Yees; there is so. C.N. it is; hup in one corner. He was sticking out of the pocket of a young chap as was going along with a face as long as a fooneral, and as miserable-lookin’ as if ’e’d swallowed a cat.”
C.N.! Could this handkerchief possibly have belonged to poor Charlie Newcome? His way home from Grime Street I knew would lead by London Bridge, and with the trouble of that afternoon upon him, would he not indeed have looked as miserable as the thief described?
And these two boys, having thus briefly compared notes, and exhibited to one another their ill-gotten gains, curled themselves up and fell fast asleep.
Dear reader, does it ever occur to your mind that there are hundreds of such vagrants in this great city? Night after night they crowd under railway arches and sheds, on doorsteps and in cellars. They have neither home nor friend. To many of them the thieves’ life is their natural calling; they live as animals live, and hope only as animals hope, and when they die, die as animals die; ignorant of God, ignorant of good, ignorant of their own souls. Yet even for such as they, Christ died, and the Spirit strives.
The pipe, and his friend, the string, that night had a long conversation as their master lay asleep. They evidently thought I was asleep too, for they made no effort to conceal their voices, and I consequently heard every word.
It chiefly had reference to me, and was in the main satirical.
“Some coves is uncommon proud o’ themselves, mate, ain’t they?—particular them as ain’t much account after all?”
“You’re right, mate. Do you hear, Turnip? you ain’t much account; you’re on’y silver-plate, yer know, so you don’t ought to be proud, you don’t!”
“What I say,” continued the pipe, “is that coves as gives ’emselves hairs above their stations is a miserable lot. What do you think?”