She led him to a street out of Tottenham-court-road, in which there were no lamps—the houses, however, were large, and many stories high.
“Take my hand,” said the girl, “and mind how you tread.”
Guided by his new companion, Joey arrived at a door that was wide open: they entered, and, assisted by the girl, he went up a dark staircase, to the second storey. She opened a room-door, when Joey found himself in company with about twenty other children, of about the same age, of both sexes. Here were several beds on the floor of the room, which was spacious. In the centre were huddled together on the floor, round a tallow candle, eight or ten of the inmates, two of them playing with a filthy pack of cards, while the others looked over them: others were lying down or asleep on the several beds. “This is my bed,” said the girl; “if you are tired you can turn in at once. I shan’t go to bed yet.”
Joey was tired, and he went to bed; it was not very clean, but he had been used to worse lodgings lately. It need hardly be observed that Joey had got into very bad company, the whole of the inmates of the room consisting of juvenile thieves and pickpockets, who in the course of time obtain promotion in their profession, until they are ultimately sent off to Botany Bay. Attempts have been made to check these nurseries of vice: but pseudo-philanthropists have resisted such barbarous innovation: and upon the Mosaic principle, that you must not seethe the kid in the mother’s milk, they are protected and allowed to arrive at full maturity, and beyond the chance of being reclaimed, until they are ripe for the penalties of the law.
Joey slept soundly, and when he awoke next morning found that his little friend was not with him. He dressed himself; and then made another discovery, which was, that every farthing of his money had been abstracted from his pockets. Of this unpleasant fact he ventured to complain to one or two boys, who were lying on other beds with their clothes on; they laughed at him, called him a greenhorn, and made use of other language, which at once let Joey know the nature of the company with whom he had been passing the night. After some altercation, three or four of them bundled him out of the room, and Joey found himself in the street without a farthing, and very much inclined to eat a good breakfast.
There is no portion of the world, small as it is in comparison with the whole, in which there is more to be found to eat and to drink, more comfortable lodgings, or accommodation and convenience of every kind, than in the metropolis of England, provided you have the means to obtain it; but notwithstanding this abundance, there is no place, probably, where you will find it more difficult to obtain a portion of it, if you happen to have an empty pocket.
Joey went into a shop here and there to ask for employment—he was turned away everywhere. He spent the first day in this manner, and at night, tired and hungry, he laid down on the stone steps of a portico, and fell asleep. The next morning he awoke shivering with the cold, faint with hunger. He asked at the areas for something to eat, but no one would give him anything. At a pump he obtained a drink of water—that was all he could obtain, for it cost nothing. Another day passed without food, and the poor boy again sheltered himself for the night at a rich man’s door in Berkeley-square.
Chapter Seven
The exhausted lad awoke again, and pursued his useless task of appeals for food and employment. It was a bright day, and there was some little warmth to be collected by basking in the rays of the sun, when our hero wended his way through Saint James’s Park, faint, hungry, and disconsolate. There were several people seated on the benches; and Joey, weak as he was, did not venture to go near them, but crawled along. At last, after wandering up and down, looking for pity in everybody’s face as they passed, and receiving none, he felt that he could not stand much longer, and emboldened by desperation, he approached a bench that was occupied by one person. At first he only rested on the arm of the bench, but, as the person sitting down appeared not to observe him, he timidly took a seat at the farther end. The personage who occupied the other part of the bench was a man dressed in a morning suit à la militaire and black stock. He had clean gloves and a small cane in his hand, with which he was describing circles on the gravel before him, evidently in deep thought. In height he was full six feet, and his proportions combined strength with symmetry. His features were remarkably handsome, his dark hair had a natural curl, and his whiskers and mustachios (for he wore those military appendages) were evidently the objects of much attention and solicitude. We may as well here observe, that although so favoured by nature, still there would have been considered something wanting in him by those who had been accustomed to move in the first circles, to make him the refined gentleman. His movements and carriage were not inelegant, but there was a certain retinue wanting. He bowed well, but still it was not exactly the bow of a gentleman. The nursery-maids as they passed by said, “Dear me, what a handsome gentleman!” but had the remark been made by a higher class, it would have been qualified into “What a handsome man!” His age was apparently about five-and-thirty—it might have been something more. After a short time he left off his mechanical amusements, and turning round, perceived little Joey at the farther end. Whether from the mere inclination to talk, or that he thought it presuming in our hero to seat himself upon the same bench, he said to him—
“I hope you are comfortable, my little man; but perhaps you’ve forgot your message.”
“I have no message, sir, for I know no one: and I am not comfortable, for I am starving,” replied Joey, in a tremulous voice.
“Are you in earnest now, when you say that, boy; or is it that you’re humbugging me?”
Joey shook his head. “I have eaten nothing since the day before yesterday morning, and I feel faint and sick,” replied he at last.
His new companion looked earnestly in our hero’s face, and was satisfied that what he said was true.
“As I hope to be saved,” exclaimed he, “it’s my opinion that a little bread and butter would not be a bad thing for you. Here,” continued he, putting his hand into his coat-pocket, “take these coppers, and go and get some thing into your little vitals.”
“Thank you, sir, thank you, kindly. But I don’t know where to go: I only came up to London two days ago.”
“Then follow me as fast as your little pins can carry you,” said the other. They had not far to go, for a man was standing close to Spring-garden-gate with hot tea and bread and butter, and in a few moments Joey’s hunger was considerably appeased.
“Do you feel better now, my little cock?”
“Yes, sir, thank you.”
“That’s right, and now we will go back to the bench, and then you shall tell me all about yourself; just to pass away the time. Now,” said he, as he took his seat, “in the first place, who is your father, if you have any; and if you haven’t any, what was he?”
“Father and mother are both alive, but they are a long way off. Father was a soldier, and he has a pension now.”
“A soldier! Do you know in what regiment?”
“Yes, it was the 53rd, I think.”
“By the powers, my own regiment! And what is your name, then, and his?”
“Rushbrook,” replied Joey.
“My pivot man, by all that’s holy. Now haven’t you nicely dropped on your feet?”
“I don’t know, sir,” replied our hero.
“But I do; your father was the best fellow I had in my company—the best forager, and always took care of his officer, as a good man should do. If there was a turkey, or a goose, or a duck, or a fowl, or a pig within ten miles of us, he would
