A man appeared whom Bobbie recognized as the boy Nose’s father, and he, glancing round the room, said depreciatingly that there was nothing there worth carting away, but Mrs. Rastin told him to look at the chest of drawers; to look at the bedstead; to look at the mirror. Mr. Niedermann, still contemptuous, said that if he gave fifteen bob for the lot he should look down on himself for being an adjective idiot; Mrs. Rastin reasoned strongly against this attitude, saying that she was quite sure that two pounds five would not hurt him. Mr. Niedermann intimated, with much emphasis, that, on the contrary, two pound five would do him very grievous injury, apart from the fact that, by offering that sum, he would be making himself the laughing-stock of all Hoxton.
A neighbour here looked in to announce that the carriage was waiting, and after a sharp argument, conducted with great asperity on both sides, Mrs. Rastin climbed down from two pounds five to one pound two-and-six, and Mr. Niedermann, with a generous flow of language that was in an inverse ratio to his manner of disbursing money, climbed up to that amount, and Mr. Niedermann’s men came in and took everything away, leaving the room empty and bare. Mr. Niedermann paid over the amount, assuring Mrs. Rastin and Bobbie that a few jobs of similar character would bankrupt him, and departed, Mrs. Rastin acutely placing a small bag containing money under a loose plank of the flooring where, as she said to the Duchess, it would be, if anything, safer than in the Bank of England. The work completed, Mrs. Rastin showed them out and locked the door, placing the key under the mat. In Hoxton Street the carriage waited; the gloomy horses, standing with feet extended to avoid being blown away, turned round as the two came up through admiring rows of people as who should say, “Oh, you have come at last, then.” The scarlet-faced driver and his colleague were rubbing marks of mud off the black carriage; Trixie Bell was there, and slipped a clammy piece of sweetstuff into Bobbie’s hand as he was about to be lifted into the coach, which piece of sweetstuff he instantly threw away, to the regret of Trixie Bell and the joy of an infant at whose feet it was thrown, and who apparently thought the age of miracles had come again. The wind took off Bobbie’s new cap, carrying it sportively into a puddle. Fifty people ran to recover it, and the cap came back with enough of the puddle to give it age. Mrs. Rastin occupied the journey, as the two gloomy horses trotted to the mortuary, with wise precepts, to the effect that boys who couldn’t keep their new caps on, never by any dexterity or luck or artfulness went to Heaven. Bobbie did not mind this; he was too much interested in looking out of the window of the carriage. It seemed to him that it was like belonging to the royal family.
“’Ere we are, at the gates,” said Mrs. Rastin, finding her handkerchief. “Now mind you cry and behave yourself properly like a good boy, or else, when I get you ’ome, I’ll give you the best shakin’ you ever had in all your born days.”
“Don’t upset yourself,” said the boy.
“I’ll upset you, me lord,” retorted Mrs. Rastin. “You’ll have to be knocked into shape a bit before you’ll be good for anything; ’itherto you’ve been allowed to do too much jest as you bloomin’ well pleased.”
“Now who’s behavin’?” asked Bobbie satirically. The carriage went slowly through the opened iron gates and up the broad gravelled walk. “Nice language to use in a churchyard, I don’t think.”
“It’s your fault,” said Mrs. Rastin.
“It’s you that’ll get punished for it,” said the boy, “anyway.”
“Another word,” declared Mrs. Rastin strenuously, “and you don’t get out of the kerrige.”
“Try it on,” said Bobbie, “if you dare.”