But although the boys did their best to make me comfortable; letting me have all the straw to myself, and tucking me up as nicely as the bedclothes would permit, I did not feel any better. That is to say, I was hot and cold as before, and my eyelids pressed heavy and burning on my eyes, and my tongue was parched, and my breath came short and laboured. I did feel better though, somehow, since I had got over my crying fit; I felt lighter, and more inclined, If I may so express it, to go easy with my illness—to lie still, and let it do just as it pleased with me.
Chapter XVIII. In which I bid farewell to my partners and the Dark Arches, and am conveyed to the workhouse to be cured of “the fever.”
It was easy to see that each minute Mouldy and Ripston grew more and more alarmed at my condition. After they had spread the jacket over me and made me comfortable, they did not lie down again, but went and sat in the comer of the van that was farthest from me, talking in whispers.
“P’r’aps it’s on’y a cold,” whispered Ripston.
“When a cold does reg’lar ketch hold on you, it do make you feel precious bad; don’t it, Mouldy?”
“Umph!” was all the answer that Mouldy made.
“It is a cold; don’t you think it is, Mouldy?”
“It’s summat, I s’pose,” replied Mouldy, vaguely, and in so low a whisper that I could scarcely hear it.
“If he don’t get better in the mornin’, we’ll have to get him some physic, Mouldy.”
“Yes.”
“Mustard plasters is good for wheezin’s at the chest; ain’t they, Mouldy?”
“Werry likely.”
“I recollects havin’ one on when I was a kid. I wonder how much mustard he’d take, Mouldy? A pen’orth ’ud do, I should think; he ain’t got a werry big chest.”
Mouldy was strangely inattentive to his companion’s conversation. To Ripston’s last observation he made no reply at all. After a pause of a minute or two’s duration, said Ripston—
“He seems to get wheezin’s wuss and wuss; don’t you think he do, Mouldy? Think it ’ud be any good tryin’ it on to beg that mustard tonight, Mouldy?”
“Not a bit; the shops is all shut up, ’cept the doctors’—they keeps open on Sundays, don’t you know?”
“They on’y sells pills. P’r’aps pills ’ud do him more good than mustard—eh, Mouldy? The wust of pills, they’ve got such precious rum names that a cove don’t know what to arks for.”
“Pen’orth of pills—that’s what I should ask for.”
“And s’pose the cove behind the counter said, ‘What sort of pills, my man?’”
“Then I should say, openin’ uns,” replied Mouldy, after a little consideration.
“I never thought of that. I s’pose they all are openin’ uns?”
“I never heard of a sort that different was expected on,” replied Mouldy, with the same sort of indifference in his tone as had distinguished his manner from the first. He seemed all the while to be thinking of something else.
“Then that’s agreed on,” continued Ripston; “the fust penny we ketches hold on in the mornin’ goes for pills for Smiffield. “What say, Mouldy?”
But Mouldy said nothing; and both boys were quiet for full a minute. I, too, remained quite quiet, for the purpose of hearing the whispered conversation going on between them. Not that I felt anxious about it. I didn’t feel anxious about anything. I didn’t care what they talked about, only I liked to hear them. It appeared as though Mouldy’s reserved manner of speech presently roused Ripston’s suspicions.
“Mouldy!” said he, suddenly, “if it ain’t a cold, what is the matter with Smiffield?”
“Who said it warn’t a cold? How should I know what’s the matter with him mor’n you?” snapped Mouldy.
“Well, you know, Mouldy, you’ve been in the ’orspital, and you might have seen what the matter was with a good many coves,” explained Ripston. “Don’t you recollect anybody’s case as was like his’n?”
“You hold your jaw!” replied he, in an impatient whisper. “How do yer know as he’s asleep?”
“Sure he is. Don’t you hear how reg’lar his wheezin’s is?”
“Yes; and I hears summat else, too,” said Mouldy, moodily.
“What else?”
“I hears the straw as he’s a-layin’ on raspin’ together. If he is asleep, he’s got that precious shiverin’ on him.” And then, in a still lower whisper, he continued, “I wish I hadn’t lent him my jacket, Rip. Jigger the cap wot he’s got his head on; but I do wish I hadn’t lent him my jacket.”
“There you are agin!” replied Ripston, reproachfully. “I never see such a feller as you are. Greedy beggar! He’d ha’ lent you his jacket, I’d bet a shillin’, if you wanted it”
“Lent it be jiggered! It’s as good as givin’ it; that’s wot I’m a-lookin’ at”
“What d’yer mean? You can have it back in the mornin’ can’t yer?” demanded Ripston.
“’Course I can,” answered Mouldy. “Oh, yes! I can have it back, Rip, and I can have summat with it, Rip, which I don’t pertickler want, thanky.”
“Can’t you open your mouth, and tell a feller what you mean?”
“Hush! Here, put your head over the side, ’cos he mightn’t be asleep arter all, you know, and it might frighten him.”
So they both rose softly, and leaned their heads over the side of the van. Somehow, however, my hearing was particularly sharp that night, and I could make out all that they said as plainly almost as though they had stooped down to whisper it
“Was you ever waxinated, Rip?”
“I was so, and got the places to prove it. But wot’s that got to do with Smiffield?”
“Well, you see, Rip, I never was waxinated, so I shall stay up at this end of the wan till the mornin’. You’re all right, old boy, and may sleep along with him if you likes; bein’ waxinated, you won’t catch it”
“Catch what?”
“Why, the fever. That’s what Smiffield’s got, and that’s what I don’t want,” replied Mouldy, impressively.
“Send I may live! Yer don’t mean it!” said Ripston, in a tone of great alarm. Then he’ll, die—won’t he, Mouldy?”
“Next door to sure.”
“Sudden Mouldy? Will he die sudden?”
“Not werry sudden; leastways, they don’t in general,” whispered Mouldy. “They does a good deal to ’em afore they dies of fever—shaves their head, and that.”
“What’s that for, Mouldy?” asked Ripston, in an awful voice.
“’Cos they goes cranky, and tears all their hair off if they don’t,” replied Mouldy.
“Lor’! jes fancy poor Smiffield dyin’!” said Ripston, after a few moments’ silence. “Poor old Smiff!”
I could scarcely credit my ears, but there could be no mistake about it—Ripston was crying.
I wasn’t alarmed—I wasn’t even surprised—to hear Mouldy say that I had the fever. Nor did my indifference arise from ignorance. I felt as ill as possible; and “the fever,” being the very worst complaint I had ever heard of, seemed to be exactly the proper name for my ailment. “The fever” was very common in Fryingpan Alley. It was never spoken of any other way than as “the fever,” and when it once made a settlement in the alley, a good time for Mr. Crowl was sure to follow. But even when I thought on my ailment as one which commonly killed those whom it seized—and for an instant the awful, gaping bullfinch, with his spears, appeared to my mind’s eyes—I felt in no dread. I wanted nothing, but to be let alone—not to be moved, or touched, or spoken to. I was glad to hear both Ripston and Mouldy moving to the other end of the van.