By this time we all three had got out of the van, and were making our way towards the passage through which we had come the night before.
“What do you mean by anythink?”
“Well, we picks it up,” Ripston explained. “We keeps our eyes open, and when we sees a chance we grabs at it.”
“Then you don’t go at anything reg’ler?”
“Oh yes, we goes at everythink reg’ler,” replied Mouldy, laughing. “It’s no use bein’ pertickler, don’t you know; you’re ’bliged to do it to pick a crust up. It’s all chance work. Sometimes it’ll run as high as roast pork—sittin’ down to it, mind yer? not eatin’ it goin’ along—and another time it hain’t a lump of bread from the time you turns out in the mornin’ till you turns in again at night. It’s all luck.”
“Ah! but the best on it is, you never knows when the luck is goin’ to change,” interposed Ripston. “It’s that wot keeps the pluck in you. You thinks that your luck is dead out, and that it is no use expectin’ it ever to come back again; you turns round a corner, and steps into it slap up to your neck. Why, look on’y at yesterday arternoon! All day long not a mag;—no drop of coffee the fust thing; no breakfus’, no dinner—no nothink, ’cept wegetables and that sweepin’s! Mouldy he gets down on his luck—which you do, Mouldy, sooner than you ought sometimes—and ses he, ‘Wot’s the use of us a-prowlin’ and a-shiverin’ out here any longer, Rip? I thinks we’d better make our ways back to the ’Delphi; it’s warmer there than out here.’ ‘Let’s try a bit longer,’ ses I; ‘let’s go round the market three times, and then if nothing don’t turn up, we’ll go home.’ When, scarcely was the words out of my mouth, when somebody hollers, ‘Hi!’ and there was a gen’lman under the columade as wanted a cab fetched. Mouldy fetched it, which was sixpence for hisself, and a penny the cabman, made sevenpence. So there we was, you see! ’Stead of goin’ miser’ble back to the arches, and having to wait p’r’aps three or four hours till your wan came in, there was fippence for grub, and tuppence for the gaff which you see us a-comin’ from last night. We often goes to the gaff—don’t we, Mouldy?”
“We goes to a benefit to-morrow night, if it can be made to run to it,” Mouldy replied.
“Stunnin’ piece out too, it is,” said Ripston; “‘The Wampire Captain; or, the Pirate of the Desert.’ Leastways, it oughter to be a stunnin’ piece, from the name it’s got.”
“Names is nothink,” observed Mouldy. “Look at ‘Bleareye, the Bloodsucker,’ wot we went to see—wot we went without a bit of wittles all day long to see; and wot did it turn out? Why, Bleareye wasn’t a bloodsucker at all; he was on’y a common sort of a cove as lent money a-purpose to ruin young lords, and bring ’em to the work’us. Jigger such pieces as that!”
“Did you ever see a play, Smiffield?” asked Ripston.
“Only in a show,” I replied.
“What? a carrywan what a horse draws, I s’pose! It’s werry little you knows about plays then, Smiffield,” said Ripston, laughing contemptuously. “The place where we go is a reg’ler theatre, don’t yer know—reg’ler stage, and fightin’ with real swords, and characters dressed up real—all welvet, and gold, and diamonds—and blue fire, and that! You ought to go, Smiffield, if you’ve never been.”
By this time we had got out into the Strand, which was very quiet, as well it might be, for just then the churches chimed out five o’clock. Then Mouldy brought us to a stand-still.
“Look here,” said he to me; “afore we goes any furder, how are we goin’ on? Are you goin’ down to the river, or to Common Garden along with me and Ripston?”
“I should like to go with you, if you’ll let me.”
“Let you! there ain’t no lettin’s in it. Common Garden is as free to you as to us. The thing is, how are you goin’ to work?”
“I don’t know anything about the work, let alone how I am goin’ to do it,” I replied; “that’s what I want to go with you for, so that you might put me in the way of it.”
“What Mouldy means,” observed Ripston, “is this—are you goin’. to work on your own hook, or are you goin’ pardeners with us?”
Such an offer, under the circumstances, was of course extremely welcome.
“I should like to go pardeners,” I replied; “and you are good sorts of fellows to ask it of me.”
“Reg’ler pardeners, don’t you know,” said Ripston, in a whisper; “you works with us, and you grubs with us, and you lodges with us!”
“I understand.”
“Fact, you are willin’ to go with us, and do ’zactly what we do?” said Mouldy impressively. “Yes.”
“Whack all you finds, or gets, or haves give you,” said Ripston, with the utmost gravity; “never sneak off and spend nothink unbeknown!”
“Never. ’Tisn’t likely.”
“Whenever the beadle catches you, you agree to take your gruel, and never split on your pals; even though splitting would get you off. You agrees to all that?”
“All of it,” I replied; although, to tell the truth, I was not quite clear as to some of the terms proposed by Mouldy.
“You’ll stick fast to us, and never funk nor flinch?”
“Never.”
“Then shake hands,” said Mouldy. “Now shake hands with Ripston: now we’re pardeners. Come along, and let’s get to business at once.”
Chapter XV. In which the true nature of the business of our firm is made apparent, and I become a thief for the sake of a pen’orth of hot pudding.
True nature of the business
There was no use in hanging back. To think of returning home after being absent a day and a night was altogether more than I dare attempt.
I was in for it, and must make the best of it According to their own showing, the life led by Mouldy and Ripston was not a particularly hard one,—no harder, at least, and in respect of victuals, than I was well used and seasoned to. Not so hard. The “lump of bread” that my partners seemed to think such hard fare was the best I had got during the past three months; and the roast pork, never. They roamed about as they liked, and where they liked; they had nobody to whack ’em; they had all that they earned to spend and do as they pleased with; and they went to the play. All things considered, it appeared very lucky that I had fallen in with a pair of such jolly fellows; and luckier still, that they had taken to me so kindly. The lodging was the worst part of it. True, I had at present only tried it without straw; and even as it was, after one night’s trial, I felt merely a little stiffish, but all right in the main, and should by and by grow quite used to it.
These and kindred reflections occupied my mind until we reached Covent Garden. Here we found business brisk enough, though Mouldy declared that we were at least an hour later than we ought to have been. We didn’t enter the covered part of the market, but sauntered about the outskirts of it, where the carts and barrows were being laden. We wandered about in this way for so long a time, that I began to wonder when we were going to begin a job. I was about to ask the question, when Ripston darted away from us, and towards a man who stood holding up his finger by a pile of lettuces.
“Where’s Ripston gone?” I asked.
“Gone to work. Didn’t you see that cove with his finger held up? That means a job for a boy; if he had held up two fingers, he would have meant that it was a man wot he wanted. Don’t you never go when you see two fingers held up, Smiffield, else you might get a knot chucked at you, or something. One finger is what you’ve got to look out for. The job what Rip’s got will get us the coffee; now, if we can find summat else while he’s a-doin’ of it, that’ll be the tommy; which I hopes we shall, ’cos coffee wirout tommy don’t make much of a breakfus’. So keep your eyes open, Smiffield.”