I was now a thief! There was no use in endeavouring to evade or mitigate the terrible truth—I was a thief! I had deliberately stolen a pint of almond nuts—stolen, run away with, sold them, and spent the money they fetched! Mouldy was “pillow” on this occasion, and as a tribute, I suppose, to my skill, I was allowed to “pick my part;” so I lay with my head on Mouldy’s breast, whilst Ripston occupied his legs’ end.
But despite this great advantage, I couldn’t sleep. All my pulses seemed to beat to the mental utterance of that dreadful word “thief!” Thief! thief! thief! thief! My heart, my temples, my hands and feet equally complained of it, and I could get no rest at all
“A thief!” I at last involuntarily whispered.
I had thought that Mouldy was asleep, but he was not.
“Who’s a thief?” he asked.
The abruptness of the question startled me considerably, but I was too full of the woeful theme to be started away from it; indeed, in my bitter remorse I think that I felt rather glad than otherwise of an opportunity of accusing myself.
“I’m a thief, Mouldy,” I answered.
“Well, who said that you warn’t?” replied Mouldy, snappishly.
“But I am, Mouldy; I am.”
“’Course you are. No need to be so jolly proud on it, Smiffield. You are a thief, if it’s worth while callin’ such jobs as we seed you doin’ to-day, thievin’; which I don’t.”
“But I never was a thief before, Mouldy,” I replied, earnestly. “I never was; and that’s as true as I’m layin’ here alive. It’s that wot makes me so precious miserable.”
“Gammon!”
The word was uttered by Ripston, who, it seemed, like Mouldy, was lying awake.
“It isn’t gammon, Rip; it’s quite true,” I sorrowfully replied. “I wish it was gammon.” “You’re afraid to say ‘Strike me dead if it is!’” said Ripston.
“I am not,” I replied. And I said it.
“’Course he can say it,” observed Mouldy; “and so he can say ‘Strike him dead if he is,’ even now, if anybody asks him.”
“I should be afraid of bein’ struck dead if I did, Mouldy,” I replied.
“Why would you?”
“Because now I am a thief.”
“Oh, no, you hain’t,” said Mouldy, shaking his head, as though his opinion on the subject was deeply rooted. “What you did to-day wasn’t thievin’; not by a werry long ways.”
“’Course it wasn’t,” chimed in Ripston, with equal earnestness.
“Well, then,” said I, “what was it?”
“Well, I don’t know ’zactly what it’s called; all I knows about it is, that it ain’t reg’ler out-and-out thievin’.”
I shook my head doubtingly, and I suppose that Mouldy felt the movement.
“Don’t believe me; arks the law,” he continued. “When did ever you hear of a case like yours bein’ put in the newspapers?”
“That’s how to look at it,” pursued Ripston. “When did anybody ever hear of a cove bein’ took afore the beaks at Bow Street for it? It’s the beadle wot settles it. And wot’s a beadle when the law looks at him? Why, he’s frightened of a p’liceman hisself. ’Taint likely as the law would let a beadle settle thievin’ cases—now, is it?”
“Then what’s the beadle put there for?” “What for? Why, I’ve told you what for. To settle things—things wot ain’t right, to come to the rights on it—and wot ain’t thievin’. That’s wot he carries that cane for.”
“Takin’ what ain’t yours is thievin’; at least that’s what I’ve always heard say,” I replied.
“I knows all about that,” replied Mouldy, raising his head on his hand, the more conveniently to discuss the interesting subject; “they do say so, but that’s their iggerance; they never tried it, so they can’t be ’spected to know any better. Look here, Smiffield, it lays this way—If a cove walked into one of them shops in Common Garden market, and helped hisself out of the till, and they caught him a-doin’ of it, that ’ud be thievin’; if he dipped his hand into the pocket of any lady or gen’lman wot come to buy flowers and that, and they caught him a-doin’ of it, that ’ud be thievin’; and so the beak as you was took afore ’ud jolly soon give you to understand. But if a feller—a hard-up feller, don’t yer know—as has been tryin’ to pick up his ’a’pence in a honest sort of a manner, if he is found with a few apples or nuts as doesn’t happen to belong to him, the salesman wot they do belong to gives him a clout or a kick, else he calls the beadle, and he lays into him with his cane, and then lets him go. Why, if the beadle was to take one of us afore the beak, he’d get pitched into for takin’ up the beak’s waluable time, and p’r’aps get the sack.”
Without doubt, Mouldy spoke as though he meant what he said; or if he did not, it was very kind of him to pretend so earnestly in order to make my mind easy. It was equally kind of Ripston for so heartily backing him; but, somehow, all that they said didn’t lift the new and strange weight off my conscience. It may have padded it a bit, so that it sat easier; but lift it off it certainly did not.
“Well, if takin’ things—nuts and that—isn’t stealin’, what is it?” I asked of Mouldy.
“Oh, all sorts o’ things: prowlin’, sneaking, makin’.”
“Pinchin’ findin’, gleanin’, some coves calls it,” put in Ripston; “but, Lor’! wot’s the odds how yer call it?”
“’Spose now a p’liceman was asked,” I urged, “what name would he give it?”
“Oh, ah! who’d think of arstin’ such jolly liars as wot the perlice is?” replied Ripston.
“Fact is, Smiffield, you’re funkin’; that’s what you’re a-doin’ of,” said Mouldy. “The ’greement was, that you wouldn’t funk; and here you are, chockful of it.”
“Not exactly funkin’,” I replied. “If it ain’t thievin’, it’s all right I thought that it was.”
“Bless you, when you gets as old as I am, you’ll know better ’un to take fright at words,” said Mouldy. “Why, when I was a kid, and lived at home with my old ’oman, I’ve set and I’ve heerd the old man a-readin’ the newspaper to her; and you wouldn’t believe how jolly careful even such artful coves as lawyers are ’bliged to be about the names they give things. Unless a chap is bowl’d out in right down reg’ler priggin’, they dursn’t call him a thief. They comes it mild, and calls it ‘ ’bezelment,’ or ‘petty larsny.’ Why, it’s no wus than petty larsny if a cove nails a loaf off a baker’s counter; and as for ’bezelment!—my eyes, Smiffield!—if you calls sneakin’ a handful of nuts thievin’, I suppose you’d call what the law calls ’bezelment, highway robbery! ’Sides, s’pose it was as bad as ’bezelment, what ’ud you get for it? Ripston ’bezeled a milk-can once, and on’y got fourteen days for it. Didn’t you, Ripston?”
“Ripston don’t want that chucked in his face,” waspishly replied the person alluded to. “If we comes to rakin’s up of private histories, p’r’aps I might know coves wot had got more ’un fourteen days, not to speak of private-whippin’s. Howsomever, I won’t mention no names. If the cap fits the cove I means, he’d better hold his jaw; that’s all I’ve got to say.”
Mouldy was evidently the “cove” hinted at, for he only further made some muttered remark about Ripston being a disagreeable beggar, and then, after a little commonplace conversation, (during which Mouldy and Ripston became reconciled,) my two partners dropped off to sleep.