A Son of the State

by W. Pett Ridge

“Good night, mother,” said the boy obediently, bending down and kissing her above the eyes. The little woman gasped and ran quickly to her room.

In the morning Bobbie awoke, when at six o’clock Miss Threepenny was at work still setting the place to rights, and arranging, as he quietly noticed, his breakfast. As she came over to him, before going off, and looked down at him, he kept his eyes half-closed. When presently he had risen, and had eaten his breakfast, he made out an account on the back of an envelope thus, and laid the money upon it:—

Bread	1d.
2 saussages	2d.
Tea	1d.
Lodgings	3d.
Tot.	7d.

With thanks.

R. L.

He took his cornet and went out, down the stone stairs very quietly.

CHAPTER IX.

The boy discovered in London that day how much possession of a little money helps enjoyment. One does not want very much in London, but one does want some, and Bobbie, with four or five shillings in his pocket, found delights that London millionaires can never encounter. Two shillings and threepence of his fortune went to the purchase in City Road of a hard felt hat. The proprietor of the shop urged him to purchase a silk hat, and the boy tried one on, laughing very much at his own reflection in the mirror, but there were several good reasons why he should not agree with the proprietor (“A silk hat,” argued the proprietor, “tells me that a man’s a gentleman”), of which one was that he remembered reading a reply to a correspondent in one of the newspapers at Collingwood Cottage, which stated that a silk hat was not “de rigueur” for the country or the seaside; a second that he did not possess more than half the amount required for the cheapest specimen. The bowler hat, however, brought great content. Later in the day, finding himself in Hyde Park, he fastened his long frock-coat as well as the existing buttons would permit, and strolled down the Row, lifting his hat now and again to no one with great courtesy. He became exceedingly wishful to find some person with whom he might talk. He was getting on rather well with a little six-year-old maid, and had made for her fair-haired doll a couch of grass near the Achilles statue, and the little girl had told him that she had such a booful mamma and such a horrid large nurse and such a fearfully hard piano and such oceans of toys, when she and her doll were whisked away magically by the large nurse referred to, and Bobbie spent two whole hours in searching for them with no success. Out in Knightsbridge a string of sandwich men walked along gloomily, bearing advertisements of a new piece at one of the West End theatres; it occurred to the boy that it would be rather a fine, lordly act to pay his shilling and go to a first-class play, just for all the world as though he lived in Belgravia. The idea clipped his fancy, and despite the fact that after dinner at a cheap restaurant, whose proud boast was, “Come in here, and you will never go anywhere else,” he found that he would only have just enough left to pay his fare to the nearest railway station to Brenchley, he made up his mind to go to the theatre. He had a good wash at the cheap restaurant, and parted his hair in the middle, looking very closely to see if there existed a suspicion of down upon his upper lip. It was magnificent, this life of independence, but, obviously, there were drawbacks. For instance, you had not only to arrange for your meals, but you had also to pay them; this done, the fact remained that neither the quantity nor the quality proved so good as in the Cottage Homes. The boy foresaw (without troubling himself very much about it) that herein might be found a source of inconvenience. He packed the cornet very carefully in a borrowed newspaper; the cornet was slightly in the way, but he remembered that it belonged to the Cottage Homes, and he meant to return it there eventually. It was wrong to steal.

At the gallery door of the theatre that evening he found himself in a short queue, side by side with a thoughtful-looking youth, who carried on his arm an aged travelling rug. This youth talked very learnedly to Bobbie about the new phases of the drama, Bobbie listening with respect because it was a subject on which he felt himself to be not completely informed.

“Convention,” said the thoughtful young man, covering both of his arms with the old travelling rug and edging nearer to the two ladies in front, “convention, my dear sir, is the curse of the modern drama. The drama is enwrapped with iron shackles, and it screams aloud—excuse me, madam, they’re pushing at the back—and it screams aloud, ‘Release my bonds and give me liberty.’”