with the Law, and what Followed
I let the book fall in a shamefaced way as my host took a great, ugly old silver watch from beneath his pillow, looked at it, shook it, looked at it again, and then exclaimed:
“It’s either ’levin o’clock or else she’s been up to her larks. Hush!”
He held up his hand, for just then a clock began to strike, and we both counted eleven.
“Then she was right for once in a way. Why didn’t you call me at ten?”
“I forgot, sir. I was reading,” I faltered; for I felt I had been guilty of a great breach of trust.
“And you haven’t had no breakfast,” he said, dressing himself quickly, and then plunging his face into the basin of water, to splash and blow loudly, before having a most vigorous rub with the towel. “Why, you must be as hungry as a hunter,” he continued, as he halted in what was apparently his morning costume of flannel shirt and trousers. “We’ll very soon have it ready, though. Shove the cloth on, youngster; the cups and saucers are in that cupboard, that’s right, look alive.”
I hastened to do what he wished, and in a few minutes had spread the table after the fashion observed by Mary at Mr Blakeford’s, while Mr Revitts took a couple of rashers of bacon out of a piece of newspaper on the top of the bookshelf, and some bread and a preserve jar containing butter out of a box under the table. Next he poured some coffee out of a canister into the pot, and having inserted his feet into slippers, he prepared to go out of the room.
“Bedroom, with use of the kitchen, for a single gentleman,” he said, winking one eye. “That’s me. Back in five minutes, youngster.”
It must have been ten minutes before he returned, with the coffee-pot in one hand and the two rashers of hot sputtering bacon in the other, when in the most friendly spirit he drew a chair to the table, and saying, “Help yourself, youngster,” placed one rasher upon my plate and took the other upon his own.
“I say, only to think of my mate coming upon you fast asleep in London,” he said, tearing me off a piece of bread. “Why, if he’d been looking for you, he couldn’t ha’ done it. Don’t be afraid o’ the sugar. There ain’t no milk.”
I was very hungry, and I gladly began my breakfast, since it was offered in so sociable a spirit.
“Let’s see. How did you say Mary looked?”
“Very well indeed, sir,” I replied.
“Send me – come, tuck in, my lad, you’re welcome – send me any message?”
“She did not know I was coming, sir.”
“No, of course not. So you’ve come to London to seek your fortune, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where are you going to look for it first?” he said, grinning.
“I don’t know, sir,” I said, rather despondently.
“More don’t I. Pour me out another cup o’ coffee, my lad, while I cut some more bread and scrape. Only to think o’ my mate meeting you! And so Mary looks well, does she?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And ain’t very comfortable, eh?”
“Oh no, sir! It’s a very uncomfortable place.”
“Ah, I shall have to find her a place after all! She might just as well have said yes last time, instead of going into a tantrum. I say, come; you ain’t half eating. I shall write and tell her I’ve seen you.”
If I was half eating before, I was eating nothing now, for his words suggested discovery, and my being given up to Mr Blakeford: when, seeing my dismay, my host laughed at me.
“There, get on with your toke, youngster. If I tell Mary where you are, you don’t suppose she’ll go and tell old Blakeford?”
“Oh no, sir! she wouldn’t do that,” I said, taking heart again, and resuming my breakfast.
“And I say, youngster, suppose you don’t say sir to me any more. I’m only a policeman, you know. I say, you were a bit scared last night, weren’t you?”
“Yes, sir – yes, I mean, I was very much afraid.”
“Ah, that’s the majesty of the law, that is! Do you know, I’ve only got to go into a crowd, and just give my head a nod, and they disperse directly. The police have wonderful power in London.”
“Have they, sir?”
“Wonderful, my lad. We can do anything we like, so long as it’s men. Hundreds of ’em ’ll give way before a half-dozen of us. It’s only when we’ve got to deal with the women that we get beat; and that ain’t no shame, is it?”
“No, sir,” I said, though I had not the faintest notion why. “You’re quite right,” he said; “it ain’t no shame. What! Have you done?”
“Yes, sir – yes, I mean.”
“Won’t you have that other cup of coffee?”
“No, thank you.”
“Then I will,” he said, suiting the action to the word. “Well, now then, youngster, what are you going to do, eh?”
“I’m going to try and find Mr Rowle’s brother, sir, at a great printing-office,” I said, searching my pockets, and at last finding the address given me. “Perhaps he’ll help me to find a situation.”
“Ah, p’r’aps so. They do have boys in printing-offices. Now, if you were a bit bigger you might have joined the police, and got to be a sergeant some day. It’s a bad job, but it can’t be helped. You must grow.”
“I am growing fast, sir,” I replied.
“Ah, I s’pose so. Well, now lookye here. You go and see Mr Rowle, and hear what he says, and then come back to me.”
“Come back here?” I said, hesitating.
“Unless you’ve got somewhere better to go, my lad. There, don’t you mind coming. You’re an old friend o’ my Mary, and so you’re an old friend o’ mine. So, for a week, or a fortnight, or a month, if you like to bunk down along o’ me till you can get settled, why, you’re welcome; and if a man can say a better word than that, why, tell him how.”
“I – I should be very, very grateful if you would give me a night or two’s lodging, sir,” I said, “and – and I’ve got six shillings yet.”
“Then don’t you spend more than you can help, youngster. Do you know what’s the cheapest dinner you can get?”
“No, sir – no, I mean.”
“Penny loaf and a pen’orth o’ cheese. You come back here and have tea along o’ me. I don’t go on duty till night. There, no shuffling,” he said, grinning. “If you don’t come back I’ll write and tell old Blakeford.”
I could see that he did not mean it, and soon after I left my bundle there, and
