My Friend Smith Part 57

"Yes, I would."

"Well, if you must know, I'm a-going to the racket school!"

"The what?" I exclaimed.

"Racket school."

"Oh! ragged school, you mean. Where is it? I didn't know you went.

They ought to teach you better there than to steal, Billy," I said.

"Oh!" replied the boy, with a touch of scorn in his voice, "that there bloke's a-going to learn me, not you!"

"What! does Smith teach at the ragged school, then?"

"In course he do! Do you suppose I'd go else?"

And off he trotted, leaving me utterly bewildered.

Jack Smith teaching in a ragged school! Jack Smith wearing a pair of boots that he knew were stolen! What could I think?

At any rate, I was resolved to be no party to Billy's dishonesty. At any cost, since I had not the heart to deliver up the culprit to justice, I must see that the victim was repaid. He might never have noticed the theft; but whether or no, I should have no rest till his loss had been made good.

It was no time to mince matters. My own funds, as the reader knows, were in a bad state. I owed far more than I could save in half a year.

But I had still my uncle's half-sovereign in my pocket, which I had hitherto, despite all my difficulties, kept untouched. An emergency had now arisen, thought I, when surely I should be justified in using it.

As long as I remained a party to Billy's dishonesty I was, I felt, little better than a thief myself, and that I could not endure, however bad in other respects I might have been.

I went straight to Trotter's shop. A jovial, red-faced woman stood at the door, just about to shut up for the night.

"I want to see Mr Trotter," said I.

"Mrs Trotter, you mean, I suppose?" said the woman. "I'm the lady."

"Can I speak to you for a minute?" I said.

"Yes--half an hour if you like. What is it?"

"It's something private."

"Bless us, are you going to offer to marry me, or what?" exclaimed she; "come, what is it?"

"Have you--that is, did you--the fact is, I don't know whether you happen to have missed a pair of boots," I said, falteringly.

She made a grab at my arm.

"So you're the thief, are you? A nice trade you've started at, young master, so I can tell you!"

"Oh," I cried, in the utmost alarm and terror, "you're quite wrong, you are indeed. I never touched them--I only--I--I know who did, that's all."

Mrs Trotter still held me fast.

"Oh, you know who did, do you?"

"Yes--he's a--" I was going to say "s...o...b..ack," but I stopped myself in time, and said, "a little boy."

She released her grasp, greatly to my relief, and waited for me to go on.

"And I really don't think he knows any better," said I, recovering my confidence.

"Well," she said, eyeing me sharply.

"Well," I said, "I know the proper thing would be to give him up to the police."

"That's what I'd do to you in a minute, if you'd stolen them," she said.

"I've rather an interest in the little boy," I said nervously, "and I thought if you wouldn't mind telling me what the boots came to, I'd ask you to let me pay for them. I don't think he'll do it again."

"Well, it's a very queer thing," said the woman; "what a popular young thief your friend must be! Why, I had a young gentleman here yesterday evening asking the very same thing of me!"

"What!" I exclaimed, "was it Jack Smith?"

"I don't know his name, but he'd a pair of black eyes that would astonish you."

"That's him, that's him!" I cried. "And he wanted to pay for the boots?"

"He did pay for them. I shall make my fortune out of that pair of boots," added she, laughing.

This, then, explained his wearing the boots that morning. How quick I had been to suspect him of far different conduct!

"You'd better keep your money for the next time he steals something,"

observed Mrs Trotter, rather enjoying my astonishment; "he's likely to be a costly young treat to you at this rate. I hope the next party he robs will be as lazy about her rights as me."

I dropped my uncle's half-sovereign back into my purse, with the rather sad conviction that after all I was not the only honest and righteous person in the world.

The next morning, on my arrival at Hawk Street rather before the time (I had taken to being early at the office, partly to avoid arriving there at the same time as Smith, and partly to have the company of young Larkins, of postage-stamp celebrity, in my walk from Beadle Square), I found Doubleday already there in a state of great perturbation.

"What do you think," he cried, almost before I entered the office--"what do you think they've done? I knew that young puppy's coming was no good to us! Here have I been here twelve years next Michaelmas, and he not a year, and blest if I haven't got to hand over the petty cash to my lord, because old Merrett wants the dear child to get used to a sense of responsibility in the business! Sense of rot, I call it!"

It certainly did seem hard lines. Doubleday, as long as I had been at Hawk Street, had always been the custodian of all loose cash paid into the office, which he carefully guarded and accounted for, handing it over regularly week by week to be paid into the bank.

It is never pleasant when a fellow has held an office of trust to have it coolly taken from him and handed to another. In this case no one would suspect it meant any lack of confidence; for Doubleday, even his enemies admitted, was as honest as the Bank of England; but it meant elevating another at his expense, which did not seem exactly fair.

"If the darling's such a big pot in the office," growled Doubleday, "they'd better make him head clerk at once, and let me run his errands for him."

"Never mind," said I, "it'll be so much less work for you."

"Yes, and a pretty mess the accounts will get into, to make up for it."

Hawkesbury entered at this moment, smiling most beautifully.