As we were passing Rose Alley, a boy—an acquaintance of mine, and about as big as Jerry Pape—suddenly pounced out and seized me in much the same manner as Jerry had done in the first instance.
“Got him, Jerry? Halves, don’t you know?” exclaimed the boy, eagerly.
“Halves, be jiggered,” roared Jerry, seizing my other arm. “What’s halves for? Ain’t I been a huntin’ arter him ever since his father come home? Wasn’t I the first to ketch him?”
“Halves, I tell yer,” said the first boy, making surer his grip on my arm, and giving me a jerk. “Hain’t I been arkeepin’ my eye on yer ever since you first come acrost him? You’d never got him home if it hadn’t a been for me. No more jaw, Jerry Pape. Bring him along.”
“Shan’t. What did Jim Ballisat say? Didn’t he say the first as ketches him and brings him home, I’ll give a shillin’ to? He didn’t say nothink about the second that ketches him I”
“No more jaw, I tell you,” said the first boy, who was stronger than Jerry Pape. “Come on home,” (this to me, with a lug that made my shoulder-joints crack.) “I shouldn’t like to go you halves, my tulip. I ’spect you ’ll be werry nigh killed when yer father does get hold on yer.”
Once more overcome by terror, I wriggled down between my captors and lay on the pavement, crying aloud that I’d sooner die than go another step. Having no shoes on, I couldn’t kick very hard, but as well as I was able I let fly at both of them whenever they approached close enough.
The two boys were in despair. Jerry Pape, the treacherous thief, making so sure of my blood-money, and finding himself in a fair way of being baulked of it, was white with rage. Animated by a sudden spurt of courage, (he was known to be a shameful coward,) he unexpectedly turned on his rival, and struck him a heavy blow in the face with his fist.
“Take that,” said Jerry, “if it hadn’t been for you poking your nose in it, I should have got him home by this time.”
This was a rash move on Jerry’s part. The boy did take it as desired, but, unluckily for Master Pape, he was one of those mahogany-headed boys on whom a blow is lost, unless it downright dents them. For an instant only the mahogany-headed one comforted his assaulted nose with the cuff of his jacket, glaring at Jerry the while. Then he was at him like a terrier with a rat. With tempestuous force he bore him to the earth, and there he pummelled the villain in a way that did my heart good to see. I enjoyed it so much that I stayed dangerously long to witness it. Swift as light the thought came into my head, “Now is my time to be off!”
And with speed swift almost as the thought that suggested it, I sprang up, and away, leaving the baffled combatants struggling in the mud.
Now it’s my time to be off
Chapter XII. In which I endeavour to qualify myself for “barking,” and pick up some new acquaintances.
I ran back in the direction I had come, and speedily found myself in Smithfield again, and in that very part of it in which I had spent such a considerable part of the day. Nobody followed me, and the market was darker and even stiller than when I had left it half-an-hour since.
My errand had been attended by no little peril, and the results it had yielded were by no means satisfactory. It had effectually settled one point, however: it would be little short of insanity—aiding and abetting my own manslaughter—to return home. How could I doubt, after listening to the conversation that had taken place between the perfidious Jerry Pape and his companion, that my father, to say nothing of Mrs. Burke, was furiously incensed against me? My father, indeed, was not able even to contain his wrath until I happened to come home; he was burning and brimming over with it, and so longed to vent it on me, that he had offered the large sum of a shilling for my apprehension. It was a large sum for him to offer. It was as much as he could earn, carrying loads fit for a horse to draw, in a quarter of a day. A shilling would buy him three pots of beer.
Going home, then, being so completely out of the question, what was to be done? Where was I to sleep? was a question which at once presented itself, and not unnaturally, since never in my life had I as yet slept out of a more or less comfortable bed. Should I sleep where I was? Why not? I had had a good supper, and the nights were not so very cold. It wouldn’t hurt me for once—just for once—if I cuddled down in a corner, and made myself comfortable. It was light pretty early in the morning, and then—
Ah! and then? I had been thinking about to-morrow in a vague and mystic sort of way all the evening; but now it brought me up as suddenly as though it had been a brick wall “Tomorrow” was not to be shirked. Wherever I slept it was only shutting my eyes and opening them again, and it would be the new day—the day on which I must go single-handed into the world to get my living out of it. Of course I was already “on my own hands,” as the vulgar saying is, and had been since the morning; but it had been a patchy sort of a day at best. I had got up that morning at home; I had breakfasted there; I had run away, and gone back, and run away again. I had obtained a meal independently of home—but how? It would never do to begin and go through a new day—my first clear day—in such a manner. I must make up my mind, before I went to sleep, as to the sort of work I thought would suit me, and as soon as I woke I must go at it.
At what? Why, at “barking,” to be sure. It was light pretty early in the morning, and I would be off to one of the markets—Covent Garden or Billingsgate, I didn’t care which—and I would look out amongst the barrowmen for one that looked likely, and I would offer him my services. If he asked me how much a day I wanted, I would tell him—
Whew! It was all very well to talk about going to the market to look for a master; but suppose it should happen that, after having found one and made terms with him, I couldn’t do the work! Suppose, after all, my voice had no tune in it for barking! To be sure I did not know whether it had or not; but what a silly fellow I had been to let the whole afternoon and evening slip by without testing it! I had had the whole market to myself, as I might say, for ever so many hours, and I had done nothing but lounge idly about, as though I had a hundred a year coming in.
I had better see about it at once. It was not yet late—but little after nine o’clock, indeed—and I could not do better than retire to the centre of the pig-market and practise.
For which market should I prepare myself?
At ordinary times I should have found it difficult to choose; but the cold, slippery cobbled stones on which I stood, and the keen night air, had their influence, and I selected Covent Garden before Billingsgate without argument. This preliminary being settled, it next became a consideration what flowers and vegetables, commonly sold about the street, were then in season. What flowers? Let me see; why, wall-flowers, of course, as the most plentiful and favourite.
Ahem!
“Wall-flower! SWEET and pretty WALL-FLOW-er!”
It rang out pretty well as far as voice was concerned, but it was plain enough to my own ears that I hadn’t got the proper accent; it would never do to cut the first “wall-flower” so short as I had cut it. Let us try again—this time with my hand to one side of my mouth, to make the sound go further.
“WALL-FLOWER! sweet AND pret-TY WALL-FLOW-ER!”
That was a great deal better. I walked up and down one of the dark avenues, and for a quarter of an hour did a roaring trade in the wall-flower line, calling “Whoa!” to an imaginary donkey, and bawling out to my imaginary master for change for a sixpence and a shilling, just as though it was real.