Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished: A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure. Robert Michael Ballantyne
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now, I’m a Dutchman if it ain’t the hangel!” exclaimed a voice in the corner of the small room, before either Wealth or Poverty could utter a word.
“Oh! it’s my boy,” exclaimed Di with delight, forgetting or ignoring the poverty, dirt, and extremely bad air, as she ran forward and took hold of Bobby’s hand.
It was a pre-eminently dirty hand, and formed a remarkable contrast to the little hands that grasped it!
The small street boy was, for the first time in his life, bereft of speech! When that faculty returned, he remarked in language which was obscure to Di:—
“Vell, if this ain’t a go!”
“What is a go?” asked Di with innocent surprise. Instead of answering, Bobby Frog burst into a fit of laughter, but stopped rather suddenly with an expression of pain.
“Oh! ’old on! I say. This won’t do. Doctor ’e said I musn’t larf, ’cause it shakes the leg too much. But, you know, wot’s a cove to do ven a hangel comes to him and axes sitch rum questions?”
Again he laughed, and again stopped short in pain.
“I’m so sorry! Does it feel very painful? You can’t think how constantly I’ve been thinking of you since the accident; for it was all my fault. If I hadn’t jumped up in such a passion, the pony wouldn’t have run away, and you wouldn’t have been hurt. I’m so very, very sorry, and I got dear papa to bring me here to tell you so, and to see if we could do anything to make you well.”
Again Bobby was rendered speechless, but his mind was active.
“Wot! I ain’t dreamin’, am I? ’As a hangel really come to my bedside all the vay from the Vest-end, an’ brought ’er dear pa’—vich means the guv’nor, I fancy—all for to tell me—a kid whose life is spent in ‘movin’ on’—that she’s wery, wery, sorry I’ve got my leg broke, an’ that she’s bin an’ done it, an’ she would like to know if she can do hanythink as’ll make me vell! But it ain’t true. It’s a big lie! I’m dreamin’, that’s all. I’ve been took to hospital, an’ got d’lirious—that’s wot it is. I’ll try to sleep!”
With this end in view he shut his eyes, and remained quite still for a few seconds, and when Di looked at his pinched and pale face in this placid condition, the tears would overflow their natural boundary, and sobs would rise up in her pretty throat, but she choked them back for fear of disturbing her boy.
Presently the boy opened his eyes.
“Wot, are you there yet?” he asked.
“Oh yes. Did you think I was going away?” she replied, with a look of innocent surprise. “I won’t leave you now. I’ll stay here and nurse you, if papa will let me. I have slept once on a shake-down, when I was forced by a storm to stay all night at a juv’nile party. So if you’ve a corner here, it will do nicely—”
“My dear child,” interrupted her amazed father, “you are talking nonsense. And—do keep a little further from the bed. There may be—you know—infection—”
“Oh! you needn’t fear infection here, sir,” said Mrs Frog, somewhat sharply. “We are poor enough, God knows, though I have seen better times, but we keep ourselves pretty clean, though we can’t afford to spend much on soap when food is so dear, and money so scarce—so very scarce!”
“Forgive me, my good woman,” said Sir Richard, hastily, “I did not mean to offend, but circumstances would seem to favour the idea—of—of—”
And here Wealth—although a bank director and chairman of several boards, and capable of making a neat, if weakly, speech on economic laws and the currency when occasion required—was dumb before Poverty. Indeed, though he had often theorised about that stricken creature, he had never before fairly hunted her down, run her into her den, and fairly looked her in the face.
“The fact is, Mrs Frog,” said Giles Scott, coming to the rescue, “Sir Richard is anxious to know something about your affairs—your family, you know, and your means of—by the way, where is baby?” he said looking round the room.
“She’s gone lost,” said Mrs Frog.
“Lost?” repeated Giles, with a significant look.
“Ay, lost,” repeated Mrs Frog, with a look of equal significance.
“Bless me, how did you lose your child?” asked Sir Richard, in some surprise.
“Oh! sir, that often happens to us poor folk. We’re used to it,” said Mrs Frog, in a half bantering half bitter tone.
Sir Richard suddenly called to mind the fact—which had not before impressed him, though he had read and commented on it—that 11,835 children under ten years of age had been lost that year, (and it was no exceptional year, as police reports will show), in the streets of London, and that 23 of these children were never found.
He now beheld, as he imagined, one of the losers of the lost ones, and felt stricken.
“Well now,” said Giles to Mrs Frog, “let’s hear how you get along. What does your husband do?”
“He mostly does nothin’ but drink. Sometimes he sells little birds; sometimes he sells penny watches or boot-laces in Cheapside, an’ turns in a little that way, but it all goes to the grog-shop; none of it comes here. Then he has a mill now an’ again—”
“A mill?” said Sir Richard,—“is it a snuff or flour—”
“He’s a professional pugilist,” explained Giles.
“An’ he’s employed at a music-hall,” continued Mrs Frog, “to call out the songs an’ keep order. An’ Bobby always used to pick a few coppers by runnin’ messages, sellin’ matches, and odd jobs. But he’s knocked over now.”
“And yourself. How do you add to the general fund?” asked Sir Richard, becoming interested in the household management of Poverty.
“Well, I char a bit an’ wash a bit, sir, when I’m well enough—which ain’t often. An’ sometimes I lights the Jews’ fires for ’em, an’ clean up their ’earths on Saturdays—w’ich is their Sundays, sir. But Hetty works like a horse. It’s she as keeps us from the work’us, sir. She’s got employment at a slop shop, and by workin’ ’ard all day manages to make about one shillin’ a week.”
“I beg your pardon—how much?”
“One shillin’, sir.”
“Ah, you mean one shilling a day, I suppose.”
“No, sir, I mean one shillin’ a week. Mr Scott there knows that I’m tellin’ what’s true.”
Giles nodded, and Sir Richard said, “ha–a–hem,” having nothing more lucid to remark on such an amazing financial problem as was here set before him.
“But,” continued Mrs Frog, “poor Hetty has had a sad disappointment this week—”
“Oh! mother,” interrupted Hetty, “don’t trouble the gentleman with that. Perhaps he wouldn’t understand it, for of course he hasn’t heard about all the outs and ins of slop-work.”
“Pardon me, my good girl,” said Sir Richard, “I have not, as you truly remark, studied the details of slop-work minutely, but my mind is not unaccustomed to financial matters. Pray let me hear about this—”
A savage growling, something between a mastiff and a man, outside the door, here interrupted the visitor, and a hand was heard fumbling about the latch. As the hand seemed to lack skill to open the door the foot considerately took the duty in hand and burst it open, whereupon the huge frame of Ned Frog stumbled into the room and fell prostrate at the feet of Sir Richard, who rose hastily and stepped back.
The pugilist sprang up, doubled his ever ready fists, and, glaring at the knight, asked savagely:
“Who the—”
He was checked in the