“Now, Mr. Clever Nutler,” remarked the bandmaster acutely to the cornet boy, “we’ll see who’s right—you or me. Come along. Let’s try this second part again.”
Master Nutler whispered to Bobbie as he went by that for two pins he would wring Bobbie’s something neck, but the two pins not being forthcoming Master Nutler did not carry his threat into effect. Bobbie went out of the room, and as he walked by the side of the garden could not help noticing how much brighter the sun appeared, and how very excellent was the world. He grew so ecstatic over the prospect of becoming a man of importance that he wrote in the evening to the Duchess at the address given to him two years before, a letter which seemed to him to err, if anything, on the side of modesty.
“My dear Duches,—I am writing a few lines to hope that you and Mr. Leigh are quite well and getting on fine. I have not seen you for a long pereod.
“I am pleased to tell you that I am principle player in the band here, and much esteemed by my masters and by my fellow scolars. Everybody says I shall make one of the finest music players in the world if I only go on and succede. Dear Duches, I think sometimes of the old days, but not often, because I am so busy with my music. I am an accomplished scolar and a cr. to the schools.
“If you ever come to London you can come and see me, but dress nice, and do not say nothing about Ely Place and Mr. Miller. I am in compond division. Remember me to Mr. Leigh, and I remain,—Yours truly,
“Robert Lancaster.
“I shall probably play at the Flower Show in Augst. They all say the band will be nothing without me. I am now twelve years next birthday, which will be also in Augst.”
Robert Lancaster took so much care in regard to behaviour after his first lesson on the cornet, and walked about with such a detached important air that the Collingwood mother insisted on giving him medicine under the impression that his health could not be perfect. An outburst of temper reassured the good lady, but general improvement was a passport that enabled Bobbie to enter the gates of her matronly reserve, and she singled him out for favour by telling him about her youth in Devonshire; memories that helped to revive Bobbie’s thoughts of his one gay spell of hop-picking years ago in Kent. The Collingwood mother, having been away from her native county for twenty years, gave idealistic descriptions of Torrington, and Milton Damerel, and Brandis Corner, so that the country generally became pictured in his mind as a land of fair delight. When Collingwood’s mother shook her head in despair at being unable to describe the joys more fully, Bobbie would brag about Hoxton and the Haberdashers’ School at the end of Pitfield Street, with its statue of Aske and its tall iron railings. Somehow the more he talked of the place the less inclined be felt to return there.
“Don’t speak to me about your Hoxtons,” begged the Collingwood mother. “Give me decent people to mix with that know how to wash ’emselves.”
“They’re pretty smart up there,” urged Bobbie, with deference. “They know a thing or two.”
“They know a thing or two too many,” declared the Collingwood mother, severely. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever come across the worst of ’em, but I’m told there are thieves and coiners, and goodness knows what all about the place.”
“Think it’s a fact, mother?” inquired Bobbie with innocence.
“Bless you, yes. The lowest of the low. Didn’t you never come across any of them?”
“Me?” echoed the boy. “Goo’ gracious! What a question to ask.”