Kitabı oku: «My Doggie and I», sayfa 2
We passed quickly down to the lower end of the alley, which seemed to lose itself in a wretched court that appeared as if it intended to slip into the river—an intention which, if carried out, would have vastly improved its sanitary condition. Here, in a somewhat dark corner of the court, I entered an open door, ascended a flight of stairs, and gained a second landing. At the farthest extremity of the passage I stopped at a door and knocked. Several of the other doors of the passage opened, and various heads were thrust out, while inquisitive eyes surveyed me and my companion. A short survey seemed to suffice, for the doors were soon shut, one after another, with a bang, but the door at which I knocked did not open.
Lifting the latch, I entered, and observed that Mrs Willis was seated by the window, looking wistfully out. Being rather deaf, she had not heard my knock.
“Come in,” I whispered to little Slidder, “sit down on this stool near the door, and keep quiet until I speak to you.”
So saying, I advanced to the window. The view was not interesting. It consisted of the side of a house; about three feet distant, down which ran a water-spout, or drain-pipe, which slightly relieved the dead look of the bricks. From one pane of the window it was possible, by squeezing your cheek against it, to obtain a perspective view of chimney-pots. By a stretch of the neck upwards you could see more chimney pots. By a stretch of imagination you could see cats quarrelling around them,—or anything else you pleased!
Sitting down on a rickety chair beside the little old woman, I touched her gently on the shoulder. She had come to know my touch by that time, I think, for she looked round with a bright little smile.
Chapter Three
Treats of an Old Heroine
It was pleasant yet sad to observe the smile with which old Mrs Willis greeted me—pleasant, because it proved that she was rejoiced to see me; sad, because it was not quite in keeping with the careworn old face whose set wrinkles it deranged.
“I knew you would come. You never miss the day,” she said, both words and tone showing that she had fallen from a much higher position in the social scale.
“It costs me little to visit you once a week, dear Mrs Willis,” I replied, “and it gives me great pleasure; besides, I am bound by the laws of the Society which grants your annuity to call personally and pay it. I only wish it were a larger sum.”
“Large enough; more than I deserve,” said the old woman in a low tone, as she gazed somewhat vacantly at the dead wall opposite, and let her eyes slowly descend the spout.
The view was not calculated to distract or dissipate the mind. The bricks were so much alike that the eye naturally sought and reposed on or followed the salient feature. Having descended the spout as far as the window-sill permitted, the eyes of Mrs Willis slowly reascended as far as possible, and then turned with a meek expression to my face. “More than I deserve,” she repeated, “and almost as much as I require. It is very kind of the Society to give it, and of you to bring it. May God bless you both! Ah, doctor! I’m often puzzled by—eh! What’s that?”
The sudden question, anxiously asked, was accompanied by a feeble attempt to gather her poor garments close round her feet as Dumps sniffed at her skirts and agitated his ridiculous tail.
“It’s only my dog, granny,”—I had of late adopted this term of endearment; “a very quiet well-behaved creature, I assure you, that seems too amiable to bite. Why, he appears to have a tendency to claim acquaintance with everybody. I do believe he knows you!”
“No, no, he doesn’t. Put him out; pray put him out,” said the old woman, in alarm.
Grieved that I had unintentionally roused her fear, I opened the door and called Dumps. My doggie rose, with his three indicators erect and expectant.
“Go out, sir, and lie down!”
The indicators slowly drooped, and Dumps crawled past in abject humility. Shutting the door, I returned.
“I hope you don’t dislike little boys as well as little dogs, granny, because I have brought one to wait for me here. You won’t mind his sitting at the door until I go?”
“No, no!” said Mrs Willis quickly; “I like little boys—when—when they’re good,” she added, after a pause.
“Say I’m one o’ the good sort, sir,” suggested Slidder, in a hoarse whisper. “Of course, it ain’t true, but wot o’ that, if it relieves her mind?”
Taking no notice of this remark, I again sat down beside my old woman.
“What were you going to say about being puzzled, granny?”
“Puzzled, doctor! did I say I was puzzled?”
“Yes, but pray don’t call me doctor. I’m not quite fledged yet, you know. Call me Mellon, or John. Well, you were saying—”
“Oh, I remember. I was only going to say that I’ve been puzzled a good deal of late by that text in which David says, ‘I have never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.’ Now, my father and mother were both good Christians, and, although I cannot claim to be a good one myself, I do claim to be a poor follower of Jesus. Yet here am I—”
She paused.
“Well, granny,” said I, “are you forsaken?”
“Nay, John, God forbid that I should say so; but am I not a beggar? Ah pride, pride, you are hard to kill!”
“Are you a beggar?” I asked in a tone of surprise. “When did you beg last, granny?”
“Is not a recipient of charity a beggar?”
“No,” I replied stoutly, “he is not. A solicitor of charity is a beggar, but a recipient thereof is not. In your case it was I who was the beggar. Do you not remember when I found you first, without a crust in the house, how I had to beg and entreat you to allow me to put your name on this charity, and how you persistently refused, until at last I did it without your consent; and how, eventually, you gave in only when I charged you with pride? You are not forsaken, granny, and you are not a beggar.”
“Brayvo, doctor! you have ’er there!” came in a soft whisper from the door.
For a moment I felt tempted to turn the boy out, as I had turned out the dog; but, seeing that my old woman had not overheard the remark, I took no notice of it.
“You have put the matter in a new light John,” said Mrs Willis slowly, as her eyes once more sought the spout. “You often put things in new lights, and there does seem some truth in what you say. It did hurt my pride at first, but I’m gettin’ used to it now. Besides,” continued the old lady, with a deep sigh, “that trouble and everything else is swallowed up in the great sorrow of my life.”
“Ah! you refer to your granddaughter, I suppose,” said I in a tone of profound sympathy. “You have never told me about her, dear granny. If it is not too painful a subject to speak of, I should like to hear about her. When did she die?”
“Die!” exclaimed Mrs Willis with a burst of energy that surprised me—“she did not die! She left me many, many months ago, it seems like years now. My Edie went out one afternoon to walk, like a beautiful sunbeam as she always was, and—and—she never came back!”
“Never came back!” I echoed, in surprise.
“No—never. I was not able to walk then, any more than now, else I would have ranged London all round, day and night, for my darling. As it was, a kind city missionary made inquiries at all the police-offices, and everywhere else he could think of, but no clew could be gained as to what had become of her. At last he got wearied out and gave it up. No wonder; he had never seen Edie, and could not love her as I did. Once he thought he had discovered her. The body of a poor girl had been found in the river, which he thought answered to her description. I thought so too when he told me what she was like, and at once concluded she had tumbled in by accident and been drowned—for, you see, my Edie was good and pure and true. She could not have committed suicide unless her mind had become deranged, and there was nothing that I knew of to bring about that. They got me with much trouble into a cab, and drove me to the place. Ah! the poor thing—she was fair and sweet to look upon, with her curling brown hair and a smile still on the parted lips, as if she had welcomed Death; but she was not my Edie. For months and months after that I waited and waited, feeling sure that she would come. Then I was forced to leave my lodging. The landlord wanted it himself. I begged that he would let me remain, but he would not. He was a hard-hearted, dissipated man. I took another lodging, but it was a long way off, and left my name and new address at the old one. My heart sank after that, and—and I’ve no hope now—no hope. My darling must have met with an accident in this terrible city. She must have been killed, and will never come back to me.”
The poor creature uttered a low wail, and put a handkerchief to her old eyes.
“But, bless the Lord!” she added in a more cheerful tone, “I will go to her—soon.”
For some minutes I knew not what to say in reply, by way of comforting my poor old friend. The case seemed indeed so hopeless. I could only press her hand. But my nature is naturally buoyant, and ready to hope against hope, even when distress assails myself.
“Do not say there is no hope, granny,” said I at last, making an effort to be cheerful. “You know that with God all things are possible. It may be that this missionary did not go the right way to work in his search, however good his intentions might have been. I confess I cannot imagine how it is possible that any girl should disappear in this way, unless she had deliberately gone off with some one.”
“No, John, my Edie would not have left me thus of her own free will,” said the old woman, with a look of assurance which showed that her mind was immovably fixed as to that point.
“Well, then,” I continued, “loving you as you say she did, and being incapable of leaving you deliberately and without a word of explanation, it follows that—that—”
I stopped, for at this point no plausible reason for the girl’s disappearance suggested itself.
“It follows that she must have been killed,” said the old woman in a low broken tone.
“No, granny, I will not admit that.—Come, cheer up; I will do my best to make inquiries about her, and as I have had considerable experience in making investigations among the poor of London, perhaps I may fall on some clew. She would be sure to have made inquiries, would she not, at your old lodging, if she had felt disposed to return?”
“Felt disposed!” repeated Mrs Willis, with a strange laugh. “If she could return, you mean.”
“Well—if she could,” said I.
“No doubt she would; but soon after I left my old lodging the landlord fled the country, and other people came to the house, who were troubled by my sending so often to inquire. Then my money was all expended, and I had to quit my second lodging, and came here, which is far, far from the old lodging, and now I have no one to send.”
“Have you any friends in London?” I asked.
“No. We had come from York to try to find teaching for my darling, for we could get none in our native town, and we had not been long enough in London to make new friends when—when—she went away. My dear Ann and Willie, her mother and father, died last year, and now we have no near relations in the world.”
“Shall I read to you, granny?” said I, feeling that no words of mine could do much to comfort one in so sad a case.
She readily assented. I was in the habit of reading and praying with her during these visits. I turned, without any definite intention of doing so, to the words, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” I cannot tell why, but I paused here instead of reading on, or commenting on the words.
The old woman looked earnestly at me.
“These words,” she said, “have been in my mind all yesterday and the day before. I have been greatly comforted by them, because ‘He is faithful who has promised.’ Pray over them, John; don’t read any more.”
I knelt by the poor woman’s chair; she could not kneel with me in body, though she did in spirit, I doubt not. I had quite forgotten Slidder, but, on rising, observed that he had followed my example and gone down on his knees.
“Were you praying with us, Slidder?” I asked, after we left Mrs Willis, and were walking up the alley, followed by Dumps.
“Dun know, sir; I’ve never heard nor seen nuffin’ o’ this sort before. In coorse I’ve heard the missionaries sometimes, a-hollerin’ about the streets, but I never worrited myself about them. I say, doctor, that’s a rum go about that gal Edie—ain’t it? I’ve quite took a fancy to that gal, now, though I ain’t seen her. D’ye think she’s bin drownded?”
“I scarce know what to think. Her disappearance so suddenly does seem very strange. I fear, I fear much that—however, it’s of no use guessing. I shall at once set about making inquiries.”
“Ha! so shall I,” said the little waif, with a look of determination on his small face that amused me greatly, “for she’s a good gal is Edie—if she ain’t drownded.”
“Why, boy, how can you know whether the girl is good or bad?”
“How can I know?” he echoed, with a glance of almost superhuman wisdom. “In coorse I know by the powers of obserwation. That old gal, Mrs Willis, is a good old thing—as good as gold. Vell, a good mother is always cocksure to ’ave a good darter—specially ven she’s a only darter—so the mother o’ Edie bein’ good, Edie herself must be good, don’t you see? Anythink as belonged to Mrs Willis can’t help bein’ good. I’m glad you took me to see her, doctor, for I’ve made up my mind to take that old ’ooman up, as the bobbies say w’en they’re wexed with avin’ nuffin’ to do ’xcept strut about the streets like turkey-cocks. I’ll take ’er up and do for ’er, I will.”
On questioning him further I found that this ragged and homeless little waif had indeed been touched by Mrs Willis’s sad story, and drawn towards her by her soft, gentle nature—so different from what he had hitherto met with in his wanderings,—and that he was resolved to offer her his gratuitous services as a message-boy and general servant, without requiring either food or lodging in return.
“But Mrs Willis may object to such a dirty ragged fellow coming about her,” said I.
“Ain’t there no pumps in London, stoopid?” said Slidder, with a look of pity, “no soap?”
“True,” I replied, with a laugh, “but you’d require needles and thread and cloth, in addition, to make yourself respectable.”
“Nothink of the sort; I can beg or borrer or steal coats and pants, you know.”
“Ah, Slidder!” said I, in a kind but serious tone, “doubtless you can, but begging or borrowing are not likely to succeed, and stealing is wrong.”
“D’you think so?” returned the boy, with a look of innocent surprise. “Don’t you think, now, that in a good cause a cove might:—
“‘Take wot isn’t his’n,
An’ risk his bein’ sent to pris’n?’”
I replied emphatically that I did not think so, that wrong could never be made right by any means, and that the commencement of a course of even disinterested kindness on such principles would be sure to end ill.
“Vell, then, I’ll reconsider my decision, as the maginstrates ought to say, but never do.”
“That’s right. And now we must part, Slidder,” I said, stopping. “Here is the second sixpence I promised you, also my card and address. Will you come and see me at my own house the day after to-morrow, at eight in the morning?”
“I will,” replied the boy, with decision; “but I say, all fair an’ above-board? No school-boardin’ nor nuffin’ o’ that sort—hey? honour bright?”
“Honour bright!” I replied, holding out my hand, which he grasped and shook quite heartily.
We had both taken two or three steps in opposite directions, when, as if under the same impulse, we looked back at each other, and in so doing became aware of the fact that Dumps stood between us on the pavement in a state of extreme indecision or mental confusion.
“Hallo! I say! we’ve bin an’ forgot Punch!” exclaimed the boy.
“Dumps,” said I, “come along!”
“Punch,” said he, “come here, good dog!”
My doggie looked first at one, then at the other. The two indicators in front rose and fell, while the one behind wagged and drooped in a state of obvious uncertainty.
“Won’t you sell ’im back?” said Slidder, returning. “I’ll work it out in messages or anythink else.”
“But what of the bobbies?” I asked.
“Ah! true, I forgot the bobbies. I’d on’y be able to keep ’im for a week, p’r’aps not so long, afore they’d nab him.—Go, Punch, go, you don’t know ven you’re vell off.”
The tone in which this was uttered settled the point, and turned the wavering balance of the creature’s affections in my favour. With all the indicators extremely pendulous, and its hairy coat hanging in a species of limp humility, my doggie followed me home; but I observed that, as we went along, he ever and anon turned a wistful glance in the direction in which the ragged waif had disappeared.
Chapter Four
In Which Dumps Finds Another Old Friend
One morning, a considerable time after the events narrated in the last chapter, I sat on the sofa waiting for breakfast, and engaged in an interesting conversation with Dumps. The only difference in our mode of communication was that Dumps talked with his eyes, I with my tongue.
From what I have already said about my doggie, it will be understood that his eyes—which were brown and speaking eyes—lay behind such a forest of hair that it was only by clearing the dense masses away that I could obtain a full view of his liquid orbs. I am not sure that his ears were much less expressive than his eyes. Their variety of motion, coupled with their rate of action, served greatly to develop the full meaning of what his eyes said.
“Mrs Miff seems to have forgotten us this morning, Dumps,” I remarked, pulling out my watch.
One ear cocked forward, the other turned back towards the door, and a white gleam under the hair, indicating that the eyes turned in the same direction, said as plainly as there was any occasion for—
“No; not quite forgotten us. I hear her coming now.”
“Ha! so she is. Now you shall have a feed.” Both ears elevated to the full extent obviously meant “Hurrah!” while a certain motion of his body appeared to imply that, in consequence of his sedentary position, he was vainly attempting to wag the sofa.
“If you please, sir,” said my landlady, laying the breakfast tray on the table, “there’s a shoe-black in the kitchen says he wants to see you.”
“Ah! young Slidder, I fancy. Well, send him up.”
“He says he’s ’ad his breakfast an’ will wait till you have done, sir.”
“Very considerate. Send him up nevertheless.”
In a few minutes my protégé stood before me, hat in hand, looking, in the trim costume of the brigade, quite a different being from the ragged creature I had met with in Whitechapel. Dumps instantly assaulted him with loving demonstrations.
“How spruce you look, my boy!”
“Thanks to you, sir,” replied Slidder, with a familiar nod; “they do say I’m lookin’ up.”
“I hope you like the work. Have you had breakfast? Would a roll do you any good?”
“Thankee, I’m primed for the day. I came over, sir, to say that granny seems to me to be out o’ sorts. Since I’ve been allowed to sleep on the rug inside her door, I’ve noticed that she ain’t so lively as she used to was. Shivers a deal w’en it ain’t cold, groans now an’ then, an whimpers a good deal. It strikes me, now—though I ain’t a reg’lar sawbones—that there’s suthin’ wrong with her in’ards.”
“I’ll finish breakfast quickly and go over with you to see her,” said I.
“Don’t need to ’urry, sir,” returned Slidder; “she ain’t wery bad—not much wuss than or’nary—on’y I’ve bin too anxious about her—poor old thing. I’ll vait below till you’re ready.—Come along, Punch, an’ jine yer old pal in the kitchen till the noo ’un’s ready.”
After breakfast we three hurried out and wended our way eastward. As the morning was unusually fine I diverged towards one of the more fashionable localities to deliver a note with which I had been charged. Young Slidder’s spirits were high, and for a considerable time he entertained me with a good deal of the East-end gossip. Among other things, he told me of the great work that was being done there by Dr Barnardo and others of similar spirit, in rescuing waifs like himself from their wretched condition.
“Though some on us don’t think it so wretched arter all,” he continued. “There’s the Slogger, now, he won’t go into the ’ome on no consideration; says he wouldn’t give a empty sugar-barrel for all the ’omes in London. But then the Slogger’s a lazy muff. He don’t want to work—that’s about it. He’d sooner starve than work. By consikence he steals, more or less, an finds a ’ome in the ‘stone jug’ pretty frequent. As to his taste for a sugar-barrel, I ain’t so sure that I don’t agree with ’im. It’s big, you know—plenty of room to move, w’ich it ain’t so with a flour-barrel. An’ then the smell! Oh! you’ve no notion! W’y, that’s wuth the price of a night’s lodgin’ itself, to say nothin’ o’ the chance of a knot-hole or a crack full o’ sugar, that the former tenants has failed to diskiver.”
While the waif was commenting thus enthusiastically on the bliss of lodging in a sugar-barrel, we were surprised to see Dumps, who chanced to be trotting on in front come to a sudden pause and gaze at a lady who was in the act of ringing the door-bell of an adjoining house.
The door was opened by a footman, and the lady was in the act of entering when Dumps gave vent to a series of sounds, made up of a whine, a bark, and a yelp. At the same moment his tail all but twirled him off his legs as he rushed wildly up the stairs and began to dance round the lady in mad excitement.
The lady backed against the door in alarm. The footman, anxious apparently about his calves, seized an umbrella and made a wild assault on the dog, and I was confusedly conscious of Slidder exclaiming, “Why, if that ain’t my young lady!” as I sprang up the steps to the rescue.
“Down, Dumps, you rascal; down!” I exclaimed, seizing him by the brass collar with which I had invested him.—“Pardon the rudeness of my dog, madam,” I said, looking up; “I never saw him act in this way before. It is quite unaccountable—”
“Not quite so unaccountable as you think,” interrupted Slidder, who stood looking calmly on, with his hands in his pockets and a grin on his face.—“It’s your own dog, miss.”
“What do you mean, boy?” said the lady, a gaze of surprise chasing away the look of alarm which had covered her pretty face.
“I mean ’xactly what I says, miss. The dog’s your own: I sold it to you long ago for five bob!”
The girl—for she was little more than sixteen—turned with a startled, doubting look to the dog.
“If you don’t b’lieve it, miss, look at the vite spot on the bridge of ’is nose,” said Slidder, with a self-satisfied nod to the lady and a supremely insolent wink to the footman.
“Pompey!” exclaimed the girl, holding out a pair of the prettiest little gloved hands imaginable.
My doggie broke from my grasp with a shriek of joy, and sprang into her arms. She buried her face in his shaggy neck and absolutely hugged him.
I stood aghast. The footman smiled in an imbecile manner.
“You’d better not squeeze quite so hard, miss, or he’ll bust!” remarked the waif.
Recovering herself, and dropping the dog somewhat hurriedly, she turned to me with a flushed face and said—
“Excuse me, sir; this unexpected meeting with my dog—”
“Your dog!” I involuntarily exclaimed, while a sense of unmerited loss began to creep over me.
“Well, the dog was mine once, at all events—though I doubt not it is rightfully yours now,” said the young lady, with a smile that at once disarmed me. “It was stolen from me a few months after I had bought it from this boy, who seems strangely altered since then. I’m glad, however, to see that the short time I had the dog was sufficient to prevent its forgetting me. But perhaps,” she added, in a sad tone, “it would have been better if it had forgotten me.”
My mind was made up.
“No, madam,” said I, with decision; “it is well that the dog has not forgotten you. I would have been surprised, indeed, if it had. It is yours. I could not think of robbing you of it. I—I—am going to visit a sick woman and cannot delay; forgive me if I ask permission to leave the dog with you until I return in the afternoon to hand it formally over and bid it farewell.”
This was said half in jest yet I felt very much in earnest, for the thought of parting from my doggie, even to such a fair mistress, cost me no small amount of pain—much to my surprise, for I had not imagined it possible that I could have formed so strong an attachment to a dumb animal in so short a time. But, you see, being a bachelor of an unsocial spirit, my doggie and I had been thrown much together in the evenings, and had made the most of our time.
The young lady half laughed, and hesitatingly thanked me as she went into the house, followed by Dumps, alias Punch, alias Pompey, who never so much as cast one parting glance on me as I turned to leave. A shout caused me to turn again and look back. I beheld an infant rolling down the drawing-room stairs like a small Alpine boulder. A little girl was vainly attempting to arrest the infant, and three boys, of various sizes, came bounding towards the young lady with shouts of welcome. In the midst of the din my doggie uttered a cry of pain, the Babel of children’s voices was hushed by a bass growl, and the street door closed with a bang!
“Yell, that is a rum go!” exclaimed my little companion, as we walked slowly away. “Don’t it seem to you, now, as if it wor all a dream?”
“It does, indeed,” I replied, half inclined to laugh, yet with a feeling of sadness at my heart, for I knew that my doggie and I were parted for ever! Even if the young lady should insist on my keeping the dog, I felt that I could not agree to do so. No! I had committed myself, and the thing was done; for it was clear that, with the mutual affection existing between the lady and the dog, they would not willingly consent to be parted—it would be cruelty even to suggest a separation.
“Pshaw!” thought I, “why should the loss of a miserable dog—a mere mass of shapeless hair—affect me so much? Pooh! I will brush the subject away.”
So I brushed it away, but back it came again in spite of all my brushing, and insisted on remaining to trouble me.
Short though our friendship had been, it had, I found, become very warm and strong. I recalled a good many pleasant evenings when, seated alone in my room with a favourite author, I had read and tickled Dumps under the chin and behind the ears to such an extent that I had thoroughly gained his heart; and as “love begets love,” I had been drawn insensibly yet powerfully towards him. In short, Dumps and I understood each other.
While I was meditating on these things my companion, who had walked along in silence, suddenly said—
“You needn’t take on so, sir, about Punch.”
“How d’you know I’m taking on so?”
“’Cause you look so awful solemncholy. An’ there’s no occasion to do so. You can get the critter back again.”
“I fear not Slidder, for I have already given it to the young lady, and you have seen how fond she is of it; and the dog evidently likes her better than it likes me.”
“Yell, I ain’t surprised at that. It on’y proves it to be a dog of good taste; but you can get it back for all that.”
“How so?” I asked, much amused by the decision and self-sufficiency of the boy’s manner.
“Vy, you’ve on’y got to go and marry the young lady, w’en, of course, all her property becomes yours, Punch included, don’t you see?”
“True, Slidder; it had not occurred to me in that light,” said I, laughing heartily, as much at the cool and quiet insolence of the waif’s manner as at his suggestion. “But then, you see, there are difficulties in the way. Young ladies who dwell in fine mansions are not fond of marrying penniless doctors.”
“Pooh!” replied the urchin; “that ’as nuffin’ to do with it. You’ve on’y got to set up in a ’ouse close alongside, with a big gold mortar over the door an’ a one-’oss broom, an’ you’ll ’ave ’er in six months—or eight if she’s got contrairy parents. Then you’ll want a tiger, of course, to ’old the ’oss; an’ I knows a smart young feller whose name begins with a S, as would just suit. So, you see, you’ve nothing to do but to go in an win.”
The precocious waif looked up in my face with such an expression of satisfaction as he finished this audacious speech, that I could not help gazing at him in blank amazement. What I should have replied I know not, for we arrived just then at the abode of old Mrs Willis.
The poor old lady was suffering from a severe attack of influenza, which, coupled with age and the depression caused by her heavy sorrow, had reduced her physical powers in an alarming degree. It was obvious that she urgently required good food and careful nursing. I never before felt so keenly my lack of money. My means barely sufficed to keep myself, educational expenses being heavy. I was a shy man, too, and had never made friends—at least among the rich—to whom I could apply on occasions like this.
“Dear granny,” I said, “you would get along nicely if you would consent to go to a hospital.”
“Never!” said the old lady, in a tone of decision that surprised me.
“I assure you, granny, that you would be much better cared for and fed there than you can be here, and it would not be necessary to give up your room. I would look after it until you are better.”
Still the old lady shook her head, which was shaking badly enough from age as it was.
Going to the corner cupboard, in which Mrs Willis kept her little store of food and physic, I stood there pondering what I should do.
“Please, sir,” said Slidder, sidling up to me, “if you wants mutton-chops, or steaks, or port wine, or anythink o’ that sort, just say the word and I’ll get ’em.”
“You, boy—how?”
“Vy, ain’t the shops full of ’em? I’d go an help myself, spite of all the bobbies that valks in blue.”
“Oh, Slidder,” said I, really grieved, for I saw by his earnest face that he meant it, “would you go and steal after all I have said to you about that sin?”
“Vell, sir, I wouldn’t prig for myself—indeed I wouldn’t—but I’d do it to make the old ’ooman better.”
