thee seen the cash box?’ asked Grimes, in an eager whisper.
‘Look at my ‘and, Benjamin,’ was the serenely triumphant answer. ‘It’s bin on the cash box! You’re all right: the swag’s ready for us.’
‘Swag! Wot be that?’
‘That’s swag!’ said Chummy Dick, pulling half-a-crown out of his pocket, and solemnly holding it up for Benjamin’s inspection. ‘I haven’t got a fi’ pun’ note, or a christenin’ mug about me; but notes and silver’s swag, too. Now, young Grimes, you knows swag; and you’ll have your swag before long, if you looks out sharp. If it ain’t quite so fine a night tomorrer — if there ain’t quite so much of that moonshine as there is now to let gratis for nothin’ — why, we’ll ‘ave the cash box!’
‘Half on it for me! Thee knows’t that, Chummy Dick!’
‘Check that ‘ere talky-talky tongue of your’n; and you’ll ‘ave your ‘alf. I’ve bin to see the old man; and he’s gived me his wisitin’ card, with the number of the ‘ouse. Ho! ho! ho! think of his givin’ his card to me! It’s as good as inwitin’ one to break into the ‘ouse — it is, every bit!’ And, with another explosion of laughter, Chummy Dick triumphantly threw Mr Wray’s card into the fire.
‘But that ain’t the pint,’ he resumed, when he had recovered his breath. ‘We’ll stick to the pint — the pint’s the cash box.’ And, to do him justice, he did stick to the point, never straying away from it, by so much as a hair’s breadth, for a full half-hour.
The upshot of the long harangue to which he now treated Mr Benjamin Grimes, was briefly this: he had invented a plan, after reading the old man’s advertisement first, for getting into Mr Wray’s lodgings unsuspected; he had seen the cash box with his own eyes, and was satisfied, from certain indications, that there was money in it — he held the owner of this property to be a miser, whose gains were all hoarded up in his cash box, stray shillings and stray sovereigns together — he had next found out who were the inmates of the house; and had discovered that the only formidable person sleeping at No. 12 was our friend the carpenter — he had then examined the premises; and had seen that they were easily accessible by the back drawing-room window, which looked out on the wash-house roof — finally, he had ascertained that the two watchmen appointed to guard the town, performed that duty by going to bed regularly at eleven o’clock, and leaving the town to guard itself; the whole affair was perfectly easy — too easy in fact for anybody but a young beginner.
‘Now, Benjamin,’ said Chummy Dick, in conclusion — ’mind this: no wiolence! Take your swag quiet, and you takes it safe. Wiolence is sometimes as bad as knockin’ up a whole street — wiolence is the downy cracksman’s last kick-out when he’s caught in a fix. Fust and foremost, you’ve got your mask,’ (here he pulled out a shabby domino mask,) wery good; nobody can’t swear to you in that. Then, you’ve got your barker,’ (he produced a pistol,) ‘just to keep ‘em quiet with the look of it, and if that won’t do, there’s your gag and bit o’ rope’ (he drew them forth,) ‘for their mouths and ‘ands. Never pull your trigger, till you see another man ready to pull his. Then you must make your row; and then you make it to some purpose. The nobs in our business — remember this, young Grimes! — always takes the swag easy; and when they can’t take it easy, they takes it as easy as they can. That’s visdom — the visdom of life!’
‘Why thee bean’t a-going, man?’ asked Benjamin in astonishment, as the philosophical housebreaker abruptly moved towards the door.
‘Me and you must’nt be seen together, tomorrer,’ said Chummy Dick, in a whisper. ‘You let me alone: I’ve got business to do tonight — never mind wot! At eleven tomorrer night, you be at the cross roads that meets on the top of the common. Look out sharp; and you’ll see me.’
‘But if so be it do keep moonshiny,’ suggested Grimes.
‘On second thoughts, Benjamin,’ said the housebreaker, after a moment’s reflection, ‘we’ll risk all the moonshine as ever shone — High Street, Tidbury, ain’t Bow Street, London! — we may risk it safe. Moon, or no moon, young Grimes! tomorrer night’s our night!’
By this time he had walked out of the house. They separated at the door. The radiant moonlight falling lovely on all things, fell lovely even on them. How pure it was! how doubly pure, to shine on Benjamin Grimes and Chummy Dick, and not be soiled by the contact!
VI
During the whole remainder of Annie’s birthday, Mr Wray sat at home, anxiously expecting the promised communication from the mysterious new pupil whose elocution wanted so much setting to rights. Though he never came, and never wrote, old Reuben still persisted in expecting him forthwith; and still waited for him as patiently the next morning, as he had waited the day before.
Annie sat in the room with her grandfather, occupied in making lace. She had learnt this art, so as to render herself, if possible, of some little use in contributing to the general support; and, sometimes, her manufacture actually poured a few extra shillings into the scantily filled family coffer. Her lace was not at all the sort of thing that your fine people would care to look at twice — it was just simple and pretty, like herself; and only sold (when it did sell, and that alas! was not often!) among ladies whose purses were very little better furnished than her own.
‘Julius Caesar’ was downstairs, in the back kitchen, making the all-important box — or, as the landlady irritably phrased it, ‘making a mess about the house’. She was not partial to sawdust and shavings, and almost lost her temper when the glue pot invaded the kitchen fire. But work away, honest carpenter! work away, and never mind her! Get the mask of Shakespeare out of the old box, and into the new, before night comes; and you will have done the best day’s work you ever completed in your life!
Annie and her grandfather had a great deal of talk about the Shakespeare cast, while they were sitting together in the drawing-room. If I were to report all old Reuben’s rhapsodies and quotations during that period, I might fill the whole remaining space accorded to me in this little book. It was only once that the conversation varied at all. Annie just asked, by way of changing the subject a little, how a plaster cast was taken from the mould; and Mr Wray instantly went off at a tangent, in the midst of a new quotation, to tell her. He was still describing, for the second time, how the plaster and water were to be mixed, how the mixture was to be left to ‘set’, and how the mould was to be pulled off it, when the landlady, looking very hot and important, bustled into the room, exclaiming: —
‘Mr Wray, sir! Mr Wray! Here’s Squire Colebatch, of Cropley Court, coming upstairs to see you!’ She then added, in a whisper: ‘He’s very hot-tempered and odd, sir, but the best gentleman in the world — ’
‘That will do, ma’am! that will do!’ interrupted a hearty voice, outside the door. ‘I can introduce myself; an old playwriter and an old play-actor don’t want much introduction, I fancy! How are you, Mr Wray? I’ve come to make your acquaintance: how do you do, sir!’
Before the Squire came in, Mr Wray’s first idea was that the young gentleman pupil had arrived at last — but when the Squire appeared, he discovered that he was mistaken. Mr Colebatch was an old gentleman with a very rosy face, with bright black eyes that twinkled incessantly, and with perfectly white hair, growing straight up from his head in a complete forest of venerable bristles. Moreover, his elocution wanted no improvement at all; and his ‘delivery’ proclaimed itself at once,
