He spoke as though he was the somebody who meant to take me in hand, and the supposition that that was what he meant caused me an uncomfortable sensation it would be hard to describe. I didn’t like the look of him a bit, and somehow I felt almost as much afraid of him as though he had been a policeman. I didn’t go so far us telling him so, but what I did tell him was that I was much obliged to him, but that I didn’t want taking in hand. He turned on me savagely.
“Never mind what you want and what you don’t want,” said he. “Well, I’m——! what next? If you never had a master before, you’ve got one now, and so you’ll find. There’s no two ways about me, so hold your tongue and walk by the side of me until we get home; then we’ll have a little chat together.”
He turned back into the Poultry, and went up Cornhill, and through Houndsditch, and so into Whitechapel, and wound and twisted about through various thoroughfares, until Little Keate Street was reached, I keeping by his side as he commanded.
I have often since wondered why, as I did not like the look of him, I did not run away, seeing that I had plenty of opportunity for doing so; and the best solution I can find is, that had he appeared to have taken pains to keep me close by him, and manifested any anxiety lest I should run away, it is very likely that I might have attempted to escape; but he didn’t seem to take the least pains in the world about me; he walked along swinging his silk umbrella with the air of the most ordinary person out for an evening stroll, only once in a while giving a downward glance in my direction. Somehow, he seemed to make sure that I would not disobey him, and, incomprehensible as it now appears to me, if that was his conjecture, it was a perfectly correct one. I did not dare disobey him. To be sure he had seen me commit the theft, and he might possibly and after all be something in the police way. Anyway, I felt myself powerless to do aught but what be desired.
Arrived at Keate Street, and about the middle of it, he gave a curious little knock at a door, which was opened by a smartly-dressed and very good-looking young woman, who, not at first perceiving me, observed to my companion, “I didn’t expect you home so early, George,” and kissed him very affectionately.
“I’ve brought you a new lodger, Suke,” said he.
She didn’t seem best pleased, I thought, and answered, sulkily, “Well, you know best, of course, George. I should have thought that you was sick of lodgers; he’ll last just about as long as the last one did, I suppose.”
“You may take an oath he won’t last a day longer if he plays any tricks with me,” replied George, with an ugly laugh. “Tea ready, Suke?”
“Very nearly. Go in.”
We went into the front parlour, which was very nicely furnished, and the tea-things were already spread on the table before the cosy fire. There was a sofa in the room, and on this George threw himself languidly and remained, with his arms under his head and his feet in the air, in perfect and perplexing silence, until the young woman before mentioned appeared with the tea-pot, and a dish of lovely broiled ham, garnished with eggs. Her temper evidently had not improved during her absence. “Out of the way, unless you want to be scalded,” said she to me, spitefully, as she came by with the tea-pot; and when she had set it and the dish down she turned about to leave the room.
“Ain’t you going to sit down, Suke?” he inquired.
“No, thanky; I’ve had my tea,” she replied.
“Oh, go to——, if you like!” snapped the irritable and impolite gentleman. “What the devil is it to do with you?”
The young woman deigned no reply, but went out, shutting the door behind her with a decision that unmistakably betrayed the extent and quality of her emotion.
“Had your tea?” he presently inquired of me, rising from the sofa abruptly.
“No, sir,” I replied, growing each moment more and more uncomfortable.
“Draw up, then; take that chair against the window.”
“Please, sir, I don’t want any tea.”
“Go without, then,” replied he; “I’m going to get my tea. Never mind, sit where you are; I’ll eat and talk too, and you take care and keep your ears open.”
“Where d’yer come from?” he presently asked. The question took me so suddenly, that I didn’t know how to answer it, even if I had been inclined. Where had I come from? From Clerkenwell, from Camberwell, from Wentworth Street—which should I say? Mr. George, however, relieved me of my embarrassment.
“All right! I don’t want to know particular, since you’re shy about it,” he remarked, not allowing the conversation to interfere with his appetite for the eggs and ham. “Have you got a home to go to—a regular home, with a father and mother? I must know that.”
“I’ve run away, and I daren’t go home.”
“Why daren’t you?”
“’Cos I should be about murdered.”
“Because you’d be about murdered, eh?” repeated Mr. George, placidly helping himself to lump sugar; “that’s all right. There’ll be no occasion for you to go home and be murdered, my lad; you’re going to live here in future.”
“Live here?”
“Ah! I’m going to take you as an in-door ’prentice; I’m going to feed and lodge you, and you’re going to work for me.”
“What at, sir?”
“At what you’ve served two months at, so you say,” replied Mr. George, with an incredulous shrug of his shoulders; “at the trade I caught you working at to-night.”
“Not that that style of performance will suit me,” continued he, after a pause, sufficiently long to enable him to give his undivided attention to pouring out and sweetening a cup of tea; “oh, dear no! I’d sooner board and lodge you, and find you in togs and pocket-money for six months, rather than see you going about your business in such a beastly, bungling manner. Luck’s all very well, but a man’s a fool who trusts to it. Nobody ever prospered who trusted all to luck, my lad. You’ve been lucky—lucky to the last, I may say, because if it hadn’t been your luck to have met with me, you’d have found yourself behind a grating in less than a month, sure as eggs.”
And as though to illustrate the aptness of the simile, he whipped the last remaining egg in the dish into his mouth entire, and this bringing the meal to an end, he leant back in his chair, and, taking a pretty little toothpick from his waistcoat pocket, proceeded to use it, while he further enlightened me as to his intentions as regarded myself.
“What I’ve got to say,” said he, “may be said in a very few words. You’re a lad in want of a master—devilishly in want of a master—and I’m a master not particularly wanting a lad, but happening to be open for one that suits me. At present you’re a muff—you ain’t worth your salt; but I’ve took a sort of fancy to you, and if you’ve a mind to go into the thing all right, and square, and earnest, why, I’ll make a man of you. I can do it My name is George Hopkins—Long George Hopkins, I’m called. You, being a muff, may never have heard of me; but I’d lay a matter of twelve to one that the first policeman you meet has. ‘Know him? Ah! I should rather think we did,’ he’d say; ‘he’s one of the cleverest trainers in London.’ I’ve got it in print to show in a dozen newspapers.” And he ran the fingers of his unoccupied hand through his curls, and, tilting his chair, continued to pick his teeth gracefully, allowing me full half-a-minute for silent admiration of a man who had earned for himself such wide-spread reputation.