The child, brought from the kitchen, repeated for the benefit of Helen’s mistress his account of the explosion, a performance that had been well received downstairs. The lady was impressed.
“A clever boy,” she said. “Would you like me to adopt him, Helen, and thus leave you free?”
“I’d rather starve than let him go away from me again.”
“Supposing, then,” said the lady, getting over her surprise at this attitude, “supposing I set you up in a small business of some kind; will you promise me never to be deceitful again?” Helen gave the required guarantee, and her mistress put the small boy through a viva-voce examination; his replies concerning the award meted out to naughty people fortunately coincided exactly with the lady’s own views.
Helen Rollinson, widow of Ernest Rollinson, and mother of George Rollinson, saw her name painted over a shop in Southampton Row, with the words added, on either side of the main inscription, “Newsagent” and “Tobacconist”; she let the rooms above, giving some personal attendance, used the apartment at the back of the shop as a living-room whence she could see when a customer entered, occupied spare moments by making clothes for George, preparing necessary meals, and telling him to be a good lad. She slept for about six hours every night, giving the remaining eighteen to hard work, and to the considerable task of minding her own business. Mr. Forster carried his Education Act just in time to enable George to take advantage of it, and the boy was one of the earliest to pay sixpence a week and become a pupil of the State at a superior school; in his spare time he delivered newspapers and ran errands, sometimes going so far as the City and making use of the new Viaduct at Holborn; he was at first terrified by these important missions, but overhearing his mother speak of him to a customer as a boy who knew his way about, he determined to keep his fears to himself, and to overcome them. Moreover, there was the knowledge that undertakings of the kind, perilous as they might be, saved expense. Mrs. Rollinson watched every penny, every halfpenny, and spoke with genuine regret when disbursements had to be made to the Parcels Delivery Company.
“Throwing away good money!” she declared.
She explained to George, in answer to his question, a theory she held in regard to the coinage of the United Kingdom, and he embodied these views in an essay at school the following morning. His teacher, greatly diverted, read the paper aloud to the class, and the boys followed the lead, glad of an excuse for boisterous amusement. George flushed, and kept his head down. It gives some notion of the difficulties experienced by the State in its early days of keeping school when I mention that George ranged himself on the side of his parent, and declined to accept the opinions of educational authorities; the teacher, noting his attitude, spoke to him later in the playground, and assured him again that his argument was based upon error. Money, said the teacher, was manufactured at a place called the Mint situated east of the City; the gold coins were actual value, whilst the rest were called tokens, representing a value only by agreement. Notes were made on special paper, and printed under the supervision of the Bank of England. To write, as George Rollinson had done, that there were two kinds of money, one dry and the other slippery, one easy to retain and the other impossible to keep, was to make an assertion that, in the light of facts, could not possibly be supported.
“So get that nonsensical idea out of your head, my lad,” advised his teacher earnestly, “as soon as you possibly can. You have a good deal to learn yet, remember.”
On most subjects George accepted the instructions of the representatives of the State, bringing home to Southampton Row items of geographical information and snips of historical news; his mother nodded approvingly and hinted that all the particulars had once been learnt by her, but, owing to pressure of other matters, forgotten. When the boy asked about his father she constructed for his encouragement, and her own content, an ideal man, dogged, wise, and industrious, never wasting a moment of valuable time, always thrifty. Upon George inquiring why, in these circumstances, they had not been left more comfortably off, she fell back on her old theory regarding cash, and told him in conclusion that little boys who did not ask too many questions would find their appropriate reward in not being told too many lies.
The profits of the business were small, but they were sure. The newspaper and magazine side increased slightly year by year with nothing in the nature of a set-back, excepting the occasional defalcation of some customer with a poor memory, and lightly furnished in the way of luggage. Mrs. Rollinson, when the lad was of a sufficient age, showed him the results of the business, and George said they ought to sell letter paper at the tobacco counter, seeing that the figures there were stationary. Mrs. Rollinson gave this remark as “George’s latest” to a customer, a short, clean-shaven man, who patronised the shop for lucifer matches, and the customer pronounced it good; later, in calling, he mentioned he had worked it into a burlesque at the Strand Theatre where he was playing, and that it went fairly well. He added that he had never yet found the perfect tobacco, and now almost despaired of doing so; described the different flavours which he desired. George, listening from the shop parlour, asked permission of his mother to make a few experiments; she gave her consent, on the understanding that there should be no waste. The results, tried in the celebrated actor’s pipe, gained emphatic approval, and George suggested a letter should be written from the Theatre embodying these compliments and bearing a signature. The letter was framed, set in the window. Within a week Mrs. Rollinson found herself compelled to engage the services of an assistant on the tobacco side, a worthy, well-favoured man who thenceforth for many years, in accepting his wages on Saturday nights, made a proposal of marriage to her. Mrs. Rollinson declined, in set form, on the grounds that she wished to look after George.