and while he was speaking the city Arab regarded the provincial boy’s innocent face—for it was a peculiarly innocent face when in repose—with a look of mingled curiosity and cunning.
“Now look ’ee here, young ’un,” said the Arab, “I don’t know nothink about the Vest End squares, an’ what’s more I don’t want to, but I do know a lot about the East End streets, an’ if you’ll come with me, I’ll—”
“Thank ’ee, no,” interrupted Billy, with unlooked-for decision, “I’ve got business to look arter at the West End.”
“Yell, cooriously enough,” returned the Arab, “I’ve got business at the East End. By the vay, you don’t ’appen to ’ave any browns—any coppers—about you—eh?”
“Of course I has. You don’t suppose a man goes cruisin’ about Lun’on without any shot in the locker, do you?”
“To be sure not,” responded the street boy; “I might ’ave know’d that a man like you wouldn’t, anyhow. Now, it so ’appens that I’m wery much in want o’ change. You couldn’t give me browns for a sixpence, could you?”
The Arab said this so earnestly—at the same time producing a sixpence, or something that looked like one, from his pockets—that the provincial boy’s rising suspicions were quite disarmed.
“Let me see,” he said, plunging his hand into his trousers pocket—“one, two, three—no, I’ve only got fourpence, but—”
He was cut short by the Arab making a sudden grasp at the coins, which sent most of them spinning on the pavement.
Like lightning little Billy sprang forward and planted his right fist on the point of the Arab’s nose with such vigour that the blow caused him to stagger backwards. Before he could recover Billy followed him up with a left-hander on the forehead and a right-hander on the chest, which last sent him over on his back. So sudden was the onset that the passers-by scarcely understood what was occurring before it was all over. A grave policeman stepped forward at the moment. The Arab rose, glided into a whirl of wheels and horses’ legs, and disappeared, while Billy stood still with doubled fists glaring defiance.
“Now then, my boy, what’s all this about?” said the man in blue, placing a large hand gently on the small shoulder.
“He’s bin and knocked my coppers about,” said our little hero indignantly, as he looked up, but the stern yet kindly smile on the policeman’s face restored him, and he condescended on a fuller explanation as he proceeded to pick up his pence.
Having been cautioned about the danger of entering into conversation with strangers in London—especially with street boys—Billy was directed to a Pimlico omnibus, and deposited not far from his destination. Inquiring his way thereafter of several policemen—who were, as he afterwards related to admiring friends, as thick in London as bloaters in Yarmouth—he found himself in front of the Dotropy residence.
“Yes, my little man,” said the footman who opened the door of the West End mansion, “Miss Ruth is at ’ome, and ’as been expecting you. Come this way.”
That footman lost ground in Billy’s estimation because of using the word little. If he had said “my boy,” it would have been all right; “my man” would have been gratifying; but “my little man” was repulsive. A smart servant girl who chanced to see him on his way to the library also caused him much pain by whispering to her fellow something about a sweet innocent-faced darling, and he put on a savage frown, as he was ushered into the room, by way of counteracting the sweet innocence. A glass opposite suddenly revealed to its owner the smooth rosy-brown visage, screwed up in a compound expression. That expression changed so swiftly to sheer surprise that a burst of involuntary laughter was the result. A deep flush, and silence, followed, as the urchin looked with some confusion round the room to see if he had been observed or overheard, and a sense of relief came as he found that he was alone. No one had seen or heard him except some of the Dotropy ancestors who had “come over” with the Conqueror, and who gazed sternly from the walls. For, you see, being a family of note, the dining-room could not hold all the ancestors, so that some of them had to be accommodated in the library.
That glance round had a powerful effect on the mind of the fisher-boy, so powerful indeed that all thought of self vanished, for he found himself for the first time in a room the like of which he had never seen, or heard, or dreamed of.
He knew, of course, that there were libraries in Yarmouth, and was aware that they had something to do with books, but he had never seen a collection on a large scale, and, up to that time, had no particular curiosity about books.
Indeed, if truth must be told, Billy hated books, because the only point in regard to which he and his mother had ever differed was a book! A tattered, ragged, much-soiled book it was, with big letters at the beginning, simple arrangements of letters in the middle, and maddening compounds of them towards the end. Earnestly, patiently, lovingly, yet perseveringly, had Mrs Bright tried to drill the contents of that book into Billy’s unwilling brain, but with little success, for, albeit a willing and obliging child, there was a limit to his powers of comprehension, and a tendency in his young mind to hold in contempt what he did not understand.
One day a somewhat pedantic visitor told Billy that he would never be a great man if he did not try to understand the book in question—to thoroughly digest it.
“You hear what the gentleman says, Billy, you dirty little gurnet,” said David Bright on that occasion, “you’ve got to di-gest it, my lad, to di-gest it.”
“Yes, father,” said Billy, with a finger in his mouth and his eyes on the visitor.
The boy’s mind was inquisitive and ingenious. He pestered his father, after the visitor had gone, for an explanation as to what he meant by digesting the book.
“Why, sonny,” returned David, knitting his brows very hard, for the question was somewhat of a puzzler, “he means that you’ve got to stow away in your brain the knowledge that’s in the book, an’ work away at it—di-gest it, d’ee see—same as you stow grub into yer stummick an’ digest that.”
Billy pondered this a long time till a happy thought occurred to him.
“I’ll digest it,” said he, slapping his thigh one day when he was left alone in the house. “We’ll all di-gest it together!”
He jumped up, took the lid off a pot of pea-soup that was boiling on the fire, and dropped the hated book into it.
“What’s this i’ the soup, Nell?” said David that day at dinner, as he fished a mass of curious substance out of the pot. “Many a queer thing have I fished up i’ the trawl from the bottom o’ the North Sea, but ne’er afore did I make such a haul as this in a pot o’ pea-soup. What is’t?”
“Why, David,” replied the wife, examining the substance with a puzzled expression, “I do believe it’s the primer!”
They both turned their eyes inquiringly on the boy, who sat gravely watching them.
“All right, father,” he said, “I put ’im in. We’re a-goin’ to di-gest it, you know.”
“Dirty boy!” exclaimed his mother, flinging the remains of the boiled book under the grate. “You’ve ruined the soup.”
“Never a bit, Nell,” said the skipper, who was in no wise particular as to his food, “clean paper an’ print can’t do no damage to the soup. An’ after all, I don’t see why a man shouldn’t
