“Fell off from a roof. Arter lead he was. Yer knows that old ware’us wot faced the river, wot was to let when you was down there—that ’un where the crane was wot we used to have a lark on?”
“I knows it.”
“That was where he got his haccident, then,” said Ripston, inclining his head to mine, and sinking his voice to a whisper. “You knows how things was goin’, Smiff, when you got the fever and was took away. Well, they got wuss and wuss. We lost the wan wot we used to lodge in, and nobody ’ud let us have a share of ther’n, for fear that we might have your fever on us, and they might ketch it; so we had to get into a corner and sleep on the stones—you knows the bird-limey sort of stones there is under the ’Delphi, Smiff? That was our luck at home, and out it was the same as though it was cut out of the same stuff. Market coves down on us, pleecemen agin’ us, no jobs; and, as for makin’ a little in the old way, don’t yer know, yer might as well have tried to nail the buttons off the beadle’s coat wirrout his knowin’ it, as ’tempt such a thing. Then come the weather—you knows the sort of weather it was, Smiff, perishen’, orful sort of weather, ’specially when your wittles was chiefly wegetables. How we got through them two months, blest if I know. Then there come Christmas-day. A cove nat’rally ’spects a bit of grub on a Christmas-day, if he don’t get any any other time; but it was no use our ’spectin’ it. Nothin’ but a ‘Swede’ for brekfus’, and Mouldy so down on his luck on account of chilblains that there he sat nussin’ his feet, poor feller, and goin’ on, enough to make yer mis’rable. They keeps Christmas down the ’Delphi, don’t yer know, Smiff? much jollier than might be ’spected. They gets the money somehow—clubs together, I s’pose—and has a fire, and summat to warm ’em and smokes and sings songs reg’ler like a party. We jined in the Christmas afore, but we couldn’t jine this time, and there we stopped in our corner, a-shiverin’ one agin’ the other, without a mite to eat arter that Swede till it was bed-time. I never seed poor Mouldy so desp’rit. He was alwis a good ’un at his wittles, yer know, Smiff, and the sound of the frizzin’ and fryin’, and the smell of the steak and inguns and that, was too much for. him. ‘This is the last day I’ll have of this, Rip,’ said he; ‘if the luck won’t turn of itself, I’m jiggered if I don’t turn it; it’s their time to have steaks and inguns to-night—to-morrow it shall be ourn, Rip, and no mistake.’ Well, yer know, I thought he was on’y sayin’ so because he felt so savage. I never dreamt that he meant anything serious, so I jest said ‘All right,’ and went to sleep without takin’ any more notice of Mouldy or enythink else.
“Well, next mornin’, when I woke Mouldy was already up and off. He never did go anywheres without tellin’ me, and I couldn’t make it out. I asked the coves wot I knowed if they had seed him that mornin’, but nobody had. I went and hunted round the market—never dreamin’ of the words he had said afore he went to sleep last night, mind yer—but no Mouldy; and then, ’bout ten o’clock, I come home agin, and jest as I got down the steps a feller ses, ‘Well, how is he?’ ses he. ‘How’s who?’ ses I. ‘Why, your chum, Mouldy,’ he ses. ‘Ain’t you bin to see him, or wouldn’t they let yer in?’ ses he. It took me so sudden that I couldn’t get my words out what I wanted to speak; so, ses the feller, ‘Mouldy’s gone to the ’orspidle—you knows that, don’t yer?’
‘Gone to the ’orspidle!’ ses I; ‘what’s he gone there for?’ ‘Broke both of his legs, and a whole lot of his ribs,’ ses he, ‘tryin’ to nail lead off a roof down by the waterside; and he’s gone on a stretcher to Guy’s. The gutter wot he climbed up by he was a-climbin’ down by, with the lead on him, don’t yer see, and the extry weight on it made the spout give way, and down he come a reg’ler buster. He’s dead afore this, I dessay.’”
So completely engrossed was Ripston in the recital of his friend’s melancholy end, that the stage-curtain had positively risen without his being aware of it. True, the opening performance was merely a ballet, an entertainment of a light and trivial character, and in which a boy of Ripston’s high dramatic inclinations could scarcely be expected to take delight. When he had progressed so far with his story, his emotion compelled him to pause and wipe his eyes, after which he gave but a single glance towards the stage, and proceeded.
“Well, I wasn’t long a-gettin’ to Guy’s, you may lay your life, Smiff; and goin’ up to the cove what stands at the gate, ses I, ‘Please, I come to see my brother,’ ses I. ‘What name?’ he ses.
‘Mouldy,’ ses I; ‘he’s got both of his legs broke, and a whole lot of his ribs.’ ‘I know,’ ses he; ‘he fell off a house, or somethink. You’re a ’spectable sort of visitor!’ ses he; ‘but never mind, you are the on’y one as has come to inquire arter him, so you may go through. Ask for sister ’Melia’s ward,’ ses he; ‘that’s where they’ve took him.’
“So I did; and when I gets to the door, there was sister ’Melia, and I asks her civil if she’d show me the way to the boy Mouldy. ‘Is your name Ripston?’ ses she. ‘Yes, mum,’ I ses. ‘Come along,’ ses she; ‘that’s all he keeps saying on, “Where’s Ripston?” He ain’t long for this world, poor boy!’ ses she; ‘you’ll be in bare time to see him alive, I’m afraid.’ Well, there he was, Smiff. They’d washed him, and they’d put him on a white shirt; and he did look so orful white, and his eyes looked such great ’uns—blue eyes Mouldy had; blest if I ever know’d he had blue eyes till that time, Smiff—that I was reg’ler frightened. A gen’leman wot was a parson, I think, was talkin’ with Mouldy when I got up to the bed; but when the poor cove see me, he put his hand out for me. ‘What cheer, Rip? I’m so jolly glad you’ve come,’ he whispered;
‘I thought I was a-goin’ to die without never seein’ on yer agin, Rip. Shake hands, old son,—don’t yer squeedge.’ Blest if I could answer him, Smiff; there was a summat stickin’ in my throat that come up higher when I went to open my mouth, and I couldn’t say a word. ‘Mister,’ ses Mouldy to the gen’lman wot was a parson, ‘Mister,’ ses he, ‘would yer mind talkin’ to Ripston a little wot you’ve been a-talkin to me?’ ‘All right,’ the parson says; and he did, while Mouldy ketched hold of my hand. All about bein’ honest and that, the talk was; but, in the middle on it, Mouldy give my hand a sudden squeedge, and was took wuss. He couldn’t speak, but he looked at the parson werry hard, and then he looked at me and nodded his head, and then he died.”
Here Ripston once more evinced serious symptoms of an outburst of grief, seeing which, I dexterously pressed on his acceptance my largest orange, which he instantly commenced to suck with a vigour that showed the tremendous strength of the emotion that I had so happily been the means of diverting.
“Reg’ler struck of a heap I was, I can tell yer, after that talk, and seein’ of poor Mouldy turn his toes up,” continued Ripston, throwing the orange-peel into the pit, with a sigh. “I was good to change, don’t yer see, like Mouldy asked me to; but how can a cove change when he’s got nothink to change on? This was wot I thought on when I come out of the ’orspidle; and I thought on it a good bit, till at last I made up my mind that I would stop about the gate till the parson come out, and ask him how a cove wot had a mind to change had better set about it. By and by he comes out, and just as he was a-gettin’ into the carridge, I up and arst him. I forgets all his questions he asked me; but the best on it was that he winds up by givin’ me a shillin’, and where he lived ’rit on a card. ‘If you’re in the same mind to-morrow mornin’ as you are now, come to me,’ ses he, ‘and I’ll see what I can do for yer.’ I was in the same mind sharp enough, never fear; and it was the luckiest mind as ever I made up. He give me some togs, and then he went along with me hisself to the cove wot keeps the tater shop in Spitalfields, and he gets me the place; and that’s where I am now, and where I means to stick. There, now yer knows all about my changin’; which I’d ha’ done long afore if I’d on’y ha’ known how easy it was. Didn’t you find it easy, Smiff?”