Having polished off the wall-flowers to my perfect satisfaction, I cast about for a seasonable fruit, and found strawberries. I went at them with a confidence based on my first success, but speedily was driven to the conclusion that to an unpractised barker strawberries were decidedly a tickler. There was such a lot to say, and the words wouldn’t rhyme.
“STRAW-ber-REE! FOUR PENCE a MARKET pottle, O BOYS!”
It wasn’t neat. There was a bungling hitch between the “ket” of the market, and the “pot” of the pottle. Perhaps altering the price might make a difference.
“Fip-pence a MAR-KET pottle!”
No.
“Thrup-pence a market pottle!”
Same as fip-pence.
“Sixpence a mar”—
It was clear that the price had nothing to do with it. It was the word “market” that spoilt it; if that could be left out it would run smooth enough. But of course it couldn’t be left out, at fourpence, or sixpence, or any other price. Ignorant as I was of business matters generally, I knew that buyers of barrow-fruit would no sooner buy pottles of strawberries which were not vended as “market,” than they would purchase damsons, or any other sort of small plums, by any other measure than ale-house, or, as the barrowmen more properly styled it, “alias.”
By dint of much perseverance, however, and scores of repetitions, I contrived to bring my strawberry call to something like the proper thing. It was mainly effected by sinking the “ket” in market, and making it “mark’t,” and allowing it to slide easily into pottle. I was getting along very well, when, as I sat on a bar of one of the pens, I was made suddenly aware of the presence of two boys lurking in my rear. My first terrible thought was that it was Jerry Pape and his antagonist, and that, having fought their battle out, they had made it up, and joined in a partnership against me. I thought so the more, because the moment they saw that they were observed, one of them sprang forward and seized me violently by the hair.
“Whoa, boys! whoa, boys!” exclaimed he, mocking my strawberry-cry, and at each “whoa” giving my hair a cruel tug. “It’s werry nigh time you did ‘whoa boys.’ What do you mean, you wagabone, to be kicking up such a precious row in this here market, when you ought to be in bed—hey, sir?”
And he imitated the voice and gestures of a very savage policeman, flourishing his fist as though he held a staff in it.
My first feeling on turning round, despite the pain the hair-pulling had occasioned me, was one of thankfulness. The two boys were not Jerry Pape and his companion. They were of about the same size, or perhaps a little bigger, but perfectly strange boys to me.
“Do you hear me, sir?” continued the sham policeman, fiercely, feeling in his pockets for a pair of handcuffs. “Are you a-goin’ to move on, or am I to put yer where I’ll be able to find yer in the mornin’? You’d better go home quiet I won’t take no bails for you, don’t you know, if I once gets you to the station.”
“Go home yourself,” I retorted, wriggling out of his grasp and jumping down from my perch. “Why don’t you go home and leave a feller alone?”
“We’re a-goin’ home,” observed the other boy, who had been laughing at the sham policeman until he was compelled to hold on by the bars. “We’ve been to the gaff, up in Shoreditch, and this is our way home.” And then, addressing his companion, said he—
“Come along, Mouldy! We shan’t get to Westminister to-night.”
Now, I had been to Covent Garden with my father several times, and I knew that it was in or near Westminster; but I had always ridden on the barrow, starting direct from home. From my present position I was much perplexed as to which was the best way to the market; and hearing the boy mention Westminster as a place with which he was familiar, I thought it was a good opportunity to obtain a little information on the subject.
“What part of Westminster do you live in?” I asked of the boy who had last spoken, and who had hair of the same colour as Mrs. Burke’s, as was plainly to be seen through the holes in his cap.
“What part? Why, the ’spectable part. Don’t we, Ripston?” replied the youth who had been addressed as Mouldy.
“I should ha’ thought that he might have knowed that by our ’pearance, without arstin’,” observed Ripston.
“But is it near Covent Garden?” I asked.
“What, Common Garden Theayter?” answered Mouldy, cocking his cap and giving his side locks a twist in imitation of the habits of the aristocracy. “Oh, yes! It’s just a short ride in our broom from our house to the theayter; and Ripston and me goes whacks in a private box. Don’t we, Ripston?”
“What’s the use of tellin’ such jolly lies?” laughed Ripston. “Where we live is nigh Common Garden—both the market and the theayter. We lodges in the ’Delphi—that’s where we lodges. Where do you lodge, young un?”
It didn’t much matter where I lodged. No doubt I should be able to find a place near the market—perhaps in the market itself—where I might pass the night quite as comfortably as in Smithfield, to say nothing of the advantages of being shown my way and being on the spot in good time in the morning. Without hesitation, I jumped out of the pen and into the pathway where they were.
“Come on,” said I; “it’s getting late.”
“Where are you goin’, then?” asked Mouldy, in surprise.
“With you,” I boldly replied.
“But we’re a-goin’ to the ’Delphi, don’t I tell you!” said Mouldy.
“So am I.”
Mouldy whistled, and looked in astonishment at Ripston.
“What? ain’t your lodgin’a no nigher than the arches?” asked the latter.
“The ’Delphi, you said; you didn’t say anything about arches,” said I.
“Well, the ’Delphi is the arches, and the arches is the ’Delphi—ain’t they?” observed Ripston.
“Are they? Well, I didn’t know. How should I, when I never was there?”
“Never was there? Why, you just said that you lodged there.”
“Well,” said I, “if you must know the full particulars, I haven’t got no lodgin’s to go to.”
“No reglar lodgin’s, you mean.”
“No lodgin’s at all,” I replied, “only here,”—and I glanced round the pens.
“Oh, that’s all gammon, you know!” spoke Mouldy. “Every cove’s got a lodgin’! What have you done with your old lodgin’?”
What had I done with it? That was a question blunt as it was unexpected; and by the manner in which the two boys eyed me and each other, it was plain that they saw the confusion it occasioned me. Mouldy pursued his inquiries.
“If you hain’t got no lodgin’,” said he, “how do you get your wittles?”
“And where do you go of Sundays?” put in Ripston.
I had made up mind to conceal my affairs entirely from my new friends for the present, at least; and here, all of a sudden, I found myself cornered, without any chance of escape. But, after all, where was the danger? To all appearance, they were boys who got their own living, and took care of themselves, without anybody’s control. Perhaps it might be to my advantage to tell them how I was situated, or pretty nearly; they might be able to advise me how to set about getting work.
“If I tell you all about it, will you promise that you won’t split?” I asked.
Both the lads solemnly assured me that they would suffer death rather than be guilty of such baseness.
“Then,” said I, “I used to lodge at home. I lodged there last night.”
“What, along with your father and mother, and that?” asked Ripston.
“Yes.”