assault—so that Patty, left alone, was enjoying herself, as was her custom, in dispensing seed, red sand, chickweed, and groundsel, and other food—with water unlimited—to the hungry many.
“Have you brought me anythink to do for you, my dovey?” said a voice, and a round red fat face appeared from somewhere, being thrust into the shop between a parrot’s cage, and a bunch of woolly and mossy balls, such as are supplied to young birds about to set up housekeeping.
“Nothing this morning, Mrs. Winks,” trilled Patty.
“Not nothink, my dovey? no collars, nor hankychys, nor cuffs? The water’s bilin’, and the soap and soda waitin’, so don’t say as you’ve brought nothink as I can wash.”
“Nothing—nothing—nothing,” laughed Patty; “but be a dear old soul, and fetch me a pail of clean water, so that I can fill the globe for Janet before she comes back.”
“Of course I will, my pet; only fetch me the pail, or I shall be knocking of something down if I come any further.”
Patty handed the pail as requested to Mrs. Winks, correcting very mildly a spaniel that leaped up at her as she did so. She then disappeared for a few minutes, to return bearing in her little hands a large globe, in which were sailing round and round half-a-dozen goldfish, staring through the glass in a stupid contented way, as their bright scales glistened and their fat mouths opened and shut in speechless fashion. Then, as she set the globe down upon the counter, there came a loud panting from the passage—a heavy rustling—and the next moment it was evident that Mrs. Winks had made her way to the front, for she now puffed her way in at the shop-door, bearing the well-filled pail.
“Oh, how kind!” cried Patty; “I could have taken it in at the side.”
“You look fit to carry pails, now, don’t you, you kitten; it’s bad enough to let you come here at all,” said the stout dame, smiling; and she stood, very tubby in shape, and rested her pinky, washing-crinkled hands for a moment upon her hips; then she wiped her nose upon her washed-out print apron; and lastly, as Patty stooped to pour the water from the globe, and replenish it with fresh, Mrs. Winks softly took a step nearer, and just once gently stroked the young girl’s fair glossy hair, drawing back her hand the next instant as Patty looked up and smiled.
“Ah, my dovey! why, here’s Mounseer just going out for his walk!” exclaimed Mrs. Winks, as the little, shabby yellow-faced Frenchman squeezed into the shop through the side-door, his shoulders hoisted nearly to his ears, and his hands occupied the one with a cigarette, the other with a tasselled cane.
“Ah! tenez then, dogs,” he cried, thumping his cane upon the floor, for he had been saluted with a barking chorus. “Janet will soon be down—and how is my little one?”
Patty held out her hand, when, laying his cigarette upon the counter, the old man took off his hat, placed it in the same grasp that held his cane, and then, with the grace of an old courtier, kissed the little round fingers that were extended to him. Directly after, he replaced his hat, but only to raise it again in salute to Mrs. Winks, who acknowledged the act of courtesy by shortening herself two inches, and then rising to her normal height and breadth.
“I was just going to say, Mounseer, that if all people were as polite as you, how easy we could get along; and that if I was like Miss Patty here, people wouldn’t be so rude and queer when one goes round with the basket.”
“Aha! they are rude, then, those people in the galleree?”
“Rude ain’t nothing to it, Mr. Canau; they makes way fast enough for the man with the porter, but when I’m coming with my basket of apples, oranges, biscuits, ginger-beer, and bills of the play, they goes on dreadful, a-sticking out their knees and grumbling, and a-hindering one to that degree, that you’ve no idee what a heat I’m in when I’ve gone down a row; and never gets half round before the curting rises again, let alone their remarks about being fat—just as if I made myself fat, which I don’t; and, as I says to one hungry-looking fellow, I says, ‘If I was as thin as you, I’d be a super still, and you admiring of me, instead of my having to supply people’s nasty animal wants, and being abused for it.’ For—I put it to you now, Mr. Canau—can people do without their apples, and oranges, and things, when a play’s long and heavy? and I’m sure I’ve helped many a noo piece to a success, when it would—Oh, if there isn’t the water a-bilin’ over!”
With an agility and lightness almost corklike, Mrs. Winks, warned by a strong and pungent odour steaming up between the boards, hurried down below; the little Frenchman lit his cigarette, kissed his hand to Patty, and then shuffled in his well-worn and cracked Wellington boots from the shop.
Patty, quite at home, refilled her bright bowl with water, and bore it through the side-door, and then returned to continue supplying the many wants around; but only to be interrupted by a fresh comer—a barefooted, round-faced, ragged man, smoking a short black pipe, but bent almost double beneath the heavy basket he bore, one which required a great deal of manoeuvring to get it past the cages, in addition to a great many low adjurations, in a husky voice, to “come on then!” or to “get out!” But at last it was safely deposited beside the counter, when the bearer made quite an Indian salaam, bending low in salutation to the smiling girl.
“That’s the werry last noo bow, Miss. I larnt that of my friend Jammesie Jeejeewo, what plays the little tom-tom drum with his fingers outside the public-houses of a night, and sings ‘Fa-la-ma-sa-fa-la-ta;’ and sells scent-packets, and smiles like a nigger all day long in Oxford Street. He’s own brother to the opium-eating cove as has allers got the cold shiver and freeze, and sweeps the crossin’ at the Cirkis. That’s it, Miss,” he said, bowing again with outstretched hands. “Blame the thing! what are you up to?” he shouted, shaking and snapping his soft fingers, one of which had come in contact with the cage of a hungry parrot, and been smartly nipped.
“Well, Dick!” said Patty, kindly.
“Well, Miss, but where’s Miss Janet? But, there! love and bless your pretty face, Miss, it’s a treat to see you here. Why, you makes the shop full of sunshine, and the birds to sing happier than if they was far away amongst their own woods and fields. But now to business, Miss,” he exclaimed, as, stooping to the basket on the floor, he brought out, piled one upon the other, a dozen freshly-cut, green, round, cheese-plate-like clover turves. “Tuff’s is getting werry skeerce, Miss; and will you tell Miss Janet as they’ve riz another penny a dozen? Penny a mile miss, accorden’ to Act of Parlyment. Every mile I goes farther away, I puts on a penny a dozen. They won’t let you cut ’em anywheres; and I got these four mile t’other side Pa’an’ton. I’m blest if there’ll be a bit of country soon, or a blessed scrap of chickweed or grunsel, or a tuff to cut anywheres. There wouldn’t be no water-creases if people didn’t grow ’em a purpose; and that’s what I shall have to do with grunsel—have a farm and grow it by the acre. You know, Miss, the bricks and mortar frightens the green stuff; and it goes farder and farder away, till it costs me a pound a year more for shoe-leather than it did a time ago.”
“Come, Dick, business,” said Patty, smiling at his earnestness; “I’m mistress just now.”
“To be sure, Miss—business,” said Dick. “Grunsel, Miss; there you are. Chickweed, green as green, and fresh as a daisy; plantain—there’s a picter—there’s fine long stalks, as full of seeds as Injin corn, and ’most as big; but blow my rags, if I don’t think this here’s the werry last to be got.”
As he spoke, the man placed the various bunches he had enumerated upon the counter, and then looked up smiling in Patty’s face as she spoke.
“Why,
