A Child of the Jago Part 11

d.i.c.ky completed his round, and pushed his unladen trolley Grinder-ward with a fuller sense of responsibility than ever. For he carried money. A publican had paid him four and threepence, and he had taken two and tenpence elsewhere. He had left his proud signature, pencilled large and black, on two receipts, and he stopped in a dozen doorways to count the money over again, and make sure that all was right. Between the halts he added four and three to two and ten mentally, and proved his sum correct by subtracting each in turn from seven and a penny. And at last he stood his trolley on end by the bank of saucepans, and entered the shop.

'Walker's is paid, an' Wilkins is paid,' said d.i.c.ky, putting down the money. 'Two an' ten an' four an' three's seven an' a penny.'

Mr Grinder looked steadily and sourly at d.i.c.ky, and counted. He pitched the odd penny into the till and shook the rest of the coins in his closed hand, still staring moodily in the boy's face. 'It's three an'

six a week you come 'ere at,' he said.

'Yus sir,' d.i.c.ky replied, since Grinder seemed to expect an answer. The supreme moment when he should take his first wages had been the week's beacon to him, reddening and brightening as Sat.u.r.day night grew nearer.

'Three an' six a week an' yer tea.'

d.i.c.ky wondered.

'So as if I found out anythink about--say Bra.s.s Roastin'-jacks for instance--I could give ye yer three an' six an' start y' auf, unless I did somethin' wuss.'

d.i.c.ky was all incomprehension; but something made him feel a little sick.

'But s'posin' I _didn't_ find out anythink about--say Seven-pun' Jars o'

Pickles--an' s'pose I wasn't disposed to suspect anythink in regard to--say Doormats; then I could either give ye a week s notice or pay y'

a week's money an' clear y' out on the spot, without no more trouble.'

Mr Grinder paused, and still looked at d.i.c.ky with calm dislike. Then he added, as though in answer to himself, 'Yus.' ...

He dropped the money slowly from his right hand to his left. d.i.c.ky's mouth was dry, and the drawers and pickle-jars swam before him at each side of Grinder's head. What did it mean?

''Ere y' are,' cried Mr Grinder, with sudden energy, thrusting his hand across the counter. 'Two three-and-sixes is seven s.h.i.+llin's, an' you can git yer tea at 'ome with yer dirty little sister. Git out o' my shop!'

d.i.c.ky's hand closed mechanically on the money, and after a second's pause, he found broken speech. 'W--w--wot for, sir?' he asked, huskily.

'I ain't done nothink!'

'No, an' you sha'n't do nothink, that's more. Out ye go! If I see ye near the place agin I'll 'ave ye locked up!'

d.i.c.ky slunk to the door. He felt the sobs coming, but he turned at the threshold and said with tremulous lips:--'Woncher gimme a chance, sir?

S'elp me, I done me best. I--'

Mr Grinder made a short rush from the back of the shop, and d.i.c.ky gave up and fled.

It was all over. There could never be a shop with 'R. Perrott' painted over it, now; there would be no parlour with stuff-bottomed chairs and a piano for Em to play. He was cut off from the trolley for ever. d.i.c.ky was thirteen, and at that age the children of the Jago were past childish tears; but tears he could not smother, even till he might find a hiding-place: they burst out shamefully in the open street.

He took dark turnings, and hid his head in doorways. It was very bitter.

At last, when the sobs grew fewer, he remembered the money gripped in his wet fist. It was a consolation. Seven s.h.i.+llings was a vast sum in d.i.c.ky's eyes; until that day he had never handled so much in his life.

It would have been handsome recompense, he thought, for any trouble in the world but this. He must take it home, of course; it might avail to buy sympathy of his father and mother. But then, to think he might have had as much every fortnight of his life, a good tea every day, and the proud responsibility, and the trolley! At this his lips came awry again, his eyes sought his sleeve, and he turned to another doorway.

His glance fell on the white ap.r.o.n, now smudged and greased in good earnest. It made him feel worse; so he untied it and stuffed it away under his jacket. He wondered vaguely what had occurred to irritate Mr Grinder, and why he talked of pickles and doormats; but the sorrow of it all afflicted him to the extinction of such minor speculation. And in this misery he dragged his reluctant feet toward the Old Jago.

XXI

He handed his father the seven s.h.i.+llings, and received a furious belting for losing his situation. He cried quietly, but it was not because of the strap. All he feared now was to meet Father Sturt. He had rather fifty beltings than Father Sturt's reproaches; and, having disgraced himself with Mr Grinder in some mysterious way which it was beyond his capacity to understand, what but reproaches could he expect from the vicar? The whole world was against him. As for himself, he was hopeless: plainly he must have some incomprehensible defect of nature, since he offended, do as he might, and could neither understand nor redeem his fault. He wondered if it had been so with little Neddy Wright, who had found the world too ruthless for him at ten; and had tied a brick to his neck, as he had seen done with needless dogs, and let himself timidly down into the ca.n.a.l at Haggerstone Bridge.

So he shuffled through Jago Row, when a hand came on his shoulder and a hoa.r.s.e voice said:--'Wot's the matter, d.i.c.ky?'

He turned, and saw the mild, coa.r.s.e face of Pigeony Poll, the jaw whereof was labouring on something tough and sticky. Poll pulled from her pocket a glutinous paper, clinging about a cohesive lump of broken toffee--the one luxury of her moneyed times. ''Ave a bit,' she said.

'Wot's the matter?'

But d.i.c.ky thrust the hand away and fled, for he feared another burst of tears. His eyes were bad enough as it was, and he longed to hide himself in some hole.

He turned into New Jago Street. Hither it was that Jerry Gullen had betaken himself with his family and the Canary, after the great eviction. d.i.c.ky slackened his pace, loitered at Jerry's doorway, and presently found himself in the common pa.s.sage. It was long since he had had a private interview with Jerry Gullen's canary: for, indeed, he was thirteen--he was no longer a child, in fact!--and it was not well that he should indulge in such foolish weakness. Nevertheless he went as far as the back door. There stood the old donkey, mangy and infirm as ever, but apparently no nearer the end. The wood of the fence was bitten in places, but it was not as yet gnawed to the general whiteness and roundness of that in Canary's old abode. Canary, indeed, was fortunate to-day, for at the sound of d.i.c.ky's step he lifted his nose from a small heap of straw, dust, and mouldy hay, swept into a corner. d.i.c.ky stepped into the yard, and put his hand on Canary's neck; presently he glanced guiltily at the windows above. n.o.body was looking. And in five minutes d.i.c.ky, aged as he was, had told Canary his troubles, while new tears wetted the ragged crest and dropped into the dusty straw.

Now his grief lost some of its edge. Ashamed as he was, he had a shapeless, unapprehended notion that Canary was the sole creature alive that could understand and feel with him. And Canary poked his nose under the old jacket and sniffed in sympathy, as the broken lining tickled him. d.i.c.ky's intellectuals began to arrange themselves. Plainly, Mr Weech's philosophy was right after all. He was of the Jago, and he must prey on the outer world, as all the Jago did; not stray foolishly off the regular track in chase of visions, and fall headlong. Father Sturt was a creature of another mould. Who was he, d.i.c.ky Perrott, that he should break away from the Jago habit, and strain after another nature?

What could come of it but defeat and bitterness? As old Beveridge had said, the Jago had got him. Why should he fight against the inevitable, and bruise himself? The ways out of the Jago old Beveridge had told him, years ago. Gaol, the gallows and the High Mob. There was his chance, his aspiration, his goal: the High Mob. To dream of oil-shops or regular wages was foolishness. His bed was made in the Jago, and he must lie on it. His hope in life, if he might have a hope at all, was to be of the High Mob. Spare n.o.body, stop at nothing, do his devilmost: old Beveridge had said that years ago. The task was before him, and he must not balk at it. As for gaol and the gallows, well! There they were, and he could not help it; ill ways out of the Jago, both, but still--ways out.

He rubbed his face carefully with his sleeve, put away his foolish ambitions, and went forth with a brave heart: to accomplish his destiny for well or ill,--a Jago rat. To do his devilmost. But to avoid Father Sturt.

Out he went into Sh.o.r.editch High Street, and there he prowled the evening away; there and in Norton Folgate. But he touched for nothing--nothing at all. He feared lest his week's honesty had damaged his training. Even an apple on a stall he failed at, and had to run. And then he turned into Bethnal Green Road.

But here a thought checked him suddenly. What of Mr Grinder? He had threatened to have d.i.c.ky locked up if he came near the shop again. But a child of the Jago knew too much to be frightened by such a threat as that. He went on. He felt interested to see how his late employer was getting along without him, and who was minding the goods outside the shop. Probably there was n.o.body: and this gave d.i.c.ky an idea.

He had forgotten his smudgy ap.r.o.n, folded and tucked away in the lining of his jacket. Now he pulled it out, and fastened it before him once more. He knew Mr Grinder's habits in the shop, and if he could seize a fitting opportunity he might be able, attired in his ap.r.o.n, to pick up or reach down any article that struck his fancy, fearless of interference from pa.s.sers-by; for he would seem to be still shop-boy.

With that he hastened, for it was near closing time at Grinder's. He took the opposite side of the road, the better to observe unseen in the darkness. But Mr Grinder had already begun to carry things in from the pavement. As d.i.c.ky looked he came out with a long pole wherewith he unhooked from above a clattering cl.u.s.ter of pails and watering pots, and a bunch of doormats. The doormats he let fall on the flags, while he carried in the pots and pails. d.i.c.ky knew that these pots and pails were kept at night in a shed behind the house; so he scuttled across the road, opening the blade of his old knife as he ran. He cut the string that held the mats together, selected a thick one, rolled it under his arm, and edged off into the shadow. Then he ran quietly across to the nearest turning.

Presently Mr Grinder came out, hooked his finger in the string among the mats, and pulled up nothing. He stooped, and saw that the string was cut. He looked about him suspiciously, flung the mats over, and counted them. Then he stood erect; stared up the street, down the street, and across the road, with his mouth open; and made short rushes left and right into the gloom. Then he returned to the mats and scratched his head. Finally, he gave another glance about the street, picked up the mats in his arms and carried them in, counting them as he went. And, the mats bestowed, whenever he came forth for a fresh armful of saucepans, he stood and gazed doubtfully, now this way, now that, about the Bethnal Green Road.

Mr Aaron Weech was pus.h.i.+ng his last shutter into its place when 'Clean the knives,' said d.i.c.ky Perrott, in perfunctory repet.i.tion of the old formula.

Mr Weech seemed taken aback. 'Wot, that?' he asked, doubtfully, pointing at the doormat. Then, after a sharp look about the almost deserted street, he ran to Jago Row corner, twenty yards away, and looked down there. n.o.body was hiding, and he came back. He led the way into the shop, and closed the door. Then, looking keenly in d.i.c.ky's face, he suddenly asked,--''Oo toldjer to bring that 'ere?'

'Told me?' d.i.c.ky answered sullenly. 'n.o.body told me. Don'cher want it?'

''Ow much did 'e tell ye t'ask for it?'

'Tell me? 'Oo?'

'_You_ know. 'Ow much didjer say 'e said?'

d.i.c.ky was mystified. 'Dunno wotcher mean,' he replied.

Mr Weech suddenly broke into a loud laugh, but kept his keen look on the boy's face nevertheless. 'Ah, it's a good joke, d.i.c.ky, ain't it?' he said, and laughed again. 'But you can't 'ave me, ye know! Mr Grinder's a old friend o' mine, an' I know 'is little larks. Wot did 'e tell ye to do if I wouldn't 'ave that doormat?'

'Tell me?' asked d.i.c.ky, plainly more mystified than ever. 'Wy 'e never told me nothink. 'E gimme the sack this afternoon, an' chucked me out.'

'Then wotcher got yer ap.r.o.n on now for?'

'Oh,' said d.i.c.ky, looking down at it, 'I jist put it on agin--o'

purpose.' And he glanced at the mat.