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The Secretary, working in the Dismal Swamp betimes next morning, was informed that a youth waited in the hall who gave the name of Sloppy. The footman who communicated this intelligence made a decent pause before uttering the name, to express that it was forced on his reluctance by the youth in question, and that if the youth had had the good sense and good taste to inherit some other name it would have spared the feelings of him the bearer.
‘Mrs Boffin will be very well pleased,’ said the Secretary in a perfectly composed way. ‘Show him in.’
Mr Sloppy being introduced, remained close to the door: revealing in various parts of his form many surprising, confounding, and incomprehensible buttons.
‘I am glad to see you,’ said John Rokesmith, in a cheerful tone of welcome. ‘I have been expecting you.’
Sloppy explained that he had meant to come before, but that the Orphan (of whom he made mention as Our Johnny) had been ailing, and he had waited to report him well.
‘Then he is well now?’ said the Secretary.
‘No he ain’t,’ said Sloppy.
Mr Sloppy having shaken his head to a considerable extent, proceeded to remark that he thought Johnny ‘must have took ‘em from the Minders.’ Being asked what he meant, he answered, them that come out upon him and partickler his chest. Being requested to explain himself, he stated that there was some of ‘em wot you couldn’t kiver with a sixpence. Pressed to fall back upon a nominative case, he opined that they wos about as red as ever red could be. ‘But as long as they strikes out’ards, sir,’ continued Sloppy, ‘they ain’t so much. It’s their striking in’ards that’s to be kep off.’
John Rokesmith hoped the child had had medical attendance? Oh yes, said Sloppy, he had been took to the doctor’s shop once. And what did the doctor call it? Rokesmith asked him. After some perplexed reflection, Sloppy answered, brightening, ‘He called it something as wos wery long for spots.’ Rokesmith suggested measles. ‘No,’ said Sloppy with confidence, ‘ever so much longer than them, sir!’ (Mr Sloppy was elevated by this fact, and seemed to consider that it reflected credit on the poor little patient.)
‘Mrs Boffin will be sorry to hear this,’ said Rokesmith.
‘Mrs Higden said so, sir, when she kep it from her, hoping as Our Johnny would work round.’
‘But I hope he will?’ said Rokesmith, with a quick turn upon the messenger.
‘I hope so,’ answered Sloppy. ‘It all depends on their striking in’ards.’ He then went on to say that whether Johnny had ‘took ‘em’ from the Minders, or whether the Minders had ‘took em from Johnny, the Minders had been sent home and had ‘got em. Furthermore, that Mrs Higden’s days and nights being devoted to Our Johnny, who was never out of her lap, the whole of the mangling arrangements had devolved upon himself, and he had had ‘rayther a tight time’. The ungainly piece of honesty beamed and blushed as he said it, quite enraptured with the remembrance of having been serviceable.
‘Last night,’ said Sloppy, ‘when I was a-turning at the wheel pretty late, the mangle seemed to go like Our Johnny’s breathing. It begun beautiful, then as it went out it shook a little and got unsteady, then as it took the turn to come home it had a rattle-like and lumbered a bit, then it come smooth, and so it went on till I scarce know’d which was mangle and which was Our Johnny. Nor Our Johnny, he scarce know’d either, for sometimes when the mangle lumbers he says, “Me choking, Granny!” and Mrs Higden holds him up in her lap and says to me “Bide a bit, Sloppy,” and we all stops together. And when Our Johnny gets his breathing again, I turns again, and we all goes on together.’
Sloppy had gradually expanded with his description into a stare and a vacant grin. He now contracted, being silent, into a half-repressed gush of tears, and, under pretence of being heated, drew the under part of his sleeve across his eyes with a singularly awkward, laborious, and roundabout smear.
‘This is unfortunate,’ said Rokesmith. ‘I must go and break it to Mrs Boffin. Stay you here, Sloppy.’
Sloppy stayed there, staring at the pattern of the paper on the wall, until the Secretary and Mrs Boffin came back together. And with Mrs Boffin was a young lady (Miss Bella Wilfer by name) who was better worth staring at, it occurred to Sloppy, than the best of wall-papering.
‘Ah, my poor dear pretty little John Harmon!’ exclaimed Mrs Boffin.
‘Yes mum,’ said the sympathetic Sloppy.
‘You don’t think he is in a very, very bad way, do you?’ asked the pleasant creature with her wholesome cordiality.
Put upon his good faith, and finding it in collision with his inclinations, Sloppy threw back his head and uttered a mellifluous howl, rounded off with a sniff.
‘So bad as that!’ cried Mrs Boffin. ‘And Betty Higden not to tell me of it sooner!’
‘I think she might have been mistrustful, mum,’ answered Sloppy, hesitating.
‘Of what, for Heaven’s sake?’
‘I think she might have been mistrustful, mum,’ returned Sloppy with submission, ‘of standing in Our Johnny’s light. There’s so much trouble in illness, and so much expense, and she’s seen such a lot of its being objected to.’
‘But she never can have thought,’ said Mrs Boffin, ‘that I would grudge the dear child anything?’
‘No mum, but she might have thought (as a habit-like) of its standing in Johnny’s light, and might have tried to bring him through it unbeknownst.’
Sloppy knew his ground well. To conceal herself in sickness, like a lower animal; to creep out of sight and coil herself away and die; had become this woman’s instinct. To catch up in her arms the sick child who was dear to her, and hide it as if it were a criminal, and keep off all ministration but such as her own ignorant tenderness and patience could supply, had become this woman’s idea of maternal love, fidelity, and duty. The shameful accounts we read, every week in the Christian year, my lords and gentlemen and honourable boards, the infamous records of small official inhumanity, do not pass by the people as they pass by us. And hence these irrational, blind, and obstinate prejudices, so astonishing to our magnificence, and having no more reason in them—God save the Queen and Confound their politics—no, than smoke has in coming from fire!
‘It’s not a right place for the poor child to stay in,’ said Mrs Boffin. ‘Tell us, dear Mr Rokesmith, what to do for the best.’
He had already thought what to do, and the consultation was very short. He could pave the way, he said, in half an hour, and then they would go down to Brentford. ‘Pray take me,’ said Bella. Therefore a carriage was ordered, of capacity to take them all, and in the meantime Sloppy was regaled, feasting alone in the Secretary’s room, with a complete realization of that fairy vision—meat, beer, vegetables, and pudding. In consequence of which his buttons became more importunate of public notice than before, with the exception of two or three about the region of the waistband, which modestly withdrew into a creasy retirement.
Punctual to the time, appeared the carriage and the Secretary. He sat on the box, and Mr Sloppy graced the rumble. So, to the Three Magpies as before: where Mrs Boffin and Miss Bella were handed out, and whence they
