The pipe, and his friend, the string, that night had a long conversation as their master lay asleep. They evidently thought I was asleep too, for they made no effort to conceal their voices, and I consequently heard every word.
It chiefly had reference to me, and was in the main satirical.
"Some coves is uncommon proud o" themselves, mate, ain"t they?-- particular them as ain"t much account after all?"
"You"re right, mate. Do you hear, Turnip? you ain"t much account; you"re on"y silver-plate, yer know, so you don"t ought to be proud, you don"t!"
"What I say," continued the pipe, "is that coves as gives "emselves hairs above their stations is a miserable lot. What do _you_ think?"
"What don"t I?" snuffled the string. "Do you hear, Turnip? you"re a miserable cove, you are. Why can"t you be "appy like me and my mate?
We don"t give ourselves hairs; that"s why we"re "appy."
"And, arter all," pursued the pipe, "that"s the sort of coves as go second-hand in the end. People "ud think better on "em if they didn"t think such a lot of theirselves; wouldn"t they now, mate?"
"Wouldn"t they just! What do you think of that, Turnip? You"re on"y a second-hand turnip, now, and that"s all along of being stuck-up and thinking such a lot of yourself! You won"t go off for thirty bob, you won"t see!"
"Mate!" exclaimed the pipe, presently (after I had had leisure to meditate on the foregoing philosophical dialogue), "mate, I"ll give you a riddle!"
"Go it!" said the mate.
"Why," asked the pipe, in a solemn voice, "is a second-hand pewter- plate, stuck-up turnip, like a weskit that ain"t paid for?"
"Do you hear, Turnip? Why are you like a weskit that ain"t paid for?
Do yer give it up? I do."
""Cos it"s on tick!" p.r.o.nounced the pipe.
I could have howled to find myself the victim of such a low, villainous joke, that had not even the pretence of wit, and I could have cried to see how that greasy string wriggled and snuffled at my expense.
"My eye, mate! that"s a good "un! Do you hear, Turnip? you"re on tick, you know, like the weskit. Oh, my eye! that"ll do, mate; another o"
them will kill me. Oh, turn it up! do you hear? On tick!-- hoo, hoo, hoo! Do you hear, Turnip? _tick_!"
Need I say I spent a sad and sleepless night? When my disgust admitted of thought I could not help reflecting how very happy some vulgar people can be with a very little sense, and how very unhappy other people who flatter themselves they are very clever and superior can at times find themselves.
By the time I had satisfied myself of this my master uncurled himself and got up.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
HOW I CHANGED MASTERS TWICE IN TWO DAYS, AND AFTER ALL FOUND MYSELF IN p.a.w.n.
It was scarcely four o"clock when my lord and master arose from his brief repose, and sallied through the rain and darkness back in the direction of the city. He was far less anxious to salute the police now than he had been a few hours ago. He slunk down the back streets, and now and then darted up a court at the sound of approaching foot steps; or retreated for some distance by the way he had come, in order to strike a less guarded street.
In this manner he pursued his way for about an hour, till he reached a very narrow street of tumble-down houses, not far from Holborn. Down this he wended his way till he stood before a door belonging to one of the oldest, dingiest, and most decayed houses in all the street. Here he gave a peculiar sc.r.a.pe with his foot along the bottom of the door, and then sat down on the doorstep.
Presently a voice came through the keyhole, in a whisper.
"That you, Stumpy?" it said.
"Yas," replied my master.
"All clear?"
Stumpy looked up and down the street and then hurriedly whispered, "No."
Instantly the voice within was silent, and Stumpy was to all appearance sleeping soundly and heavily, as if tired nature in him had fairly reached its last strait.
The distant footsteps came nearer; and still he slept on, snoring gently and regularly. The policeman advanced leisurely, turning his lantern first on this doorway, then on that window; trying now a shutter-bar, then a lock. At last he stood opposite the doorstep where Stumpy lay.
It was a critical moment. He turned his lamp full on the boy"s sleeping face, he took hold of his arm and gently shook him, he tried the bolt of the door against which he leaned. The sleeper only grunted drowsily and settled down to still heavier slumber, and the policeman, evidently satisfied, walked on.
"Is he gone?" asked the voice within, the moment the retreating footsteps showed this.
"Yas, but he"ll be back," whispered the boy.
And so he was. Three times he paced the street, and every time found the boy in the same position, and wrapped in the same profound slumber.
Then at last he strode slowly onward to the end of his beat, and his footsteps died gradually away.
"Now?" inquired the voice.
"Yas," replied Stumpy.
Whereat the door half-opened, and Stumpy entered.
It was a dirty, half-ruinous house, in which the rats had grown tame and the spiders fat. The stairs creaked dismally as Stumpy followed his entertainer up them, while the odours rising from every nook and cranny in the place were almost suffocating.
The man led the way into a small room, foul and pestilential in its closeness. In it lay on the floor no less than nine or ten sleeping figures, mostly juveniles, huddled together, irrespective of decency, health, or comfort. Stumpy surveyed the scene composedly.
"Got lodgers, then," he observed.
"Yes, two on "em--on"y penny ones, though."
Just then a sound of moaning came from one corner of the room, which arrested Stumpy"s attention.
"Who"s that?" he asked.
"Old Sal; she"s bad, and I reckon she won"t last much longer the way she"s a-going on. I shall pack her off to-day."
Stumpy whistled softly; but it was evident, by the frequent glances he stole every now and then towards the corner where the sufferer lay, that he possessed a certain amount of interest in the woman described as "Old Sal."
The man who appeared to be the proprietor of this one well-filled lodging-room was middle-aged, and had a hare-lip. He had an expression half careworn, and half villainous, of which he gave Stumpy the full benefit as he inquired.
"What "ave yer got?"
"Got, pal?" replied Stumpy; "a ticker."
"Hand it up," said the man, hurriedly.
Stumpy produced me, and the man, taking me to the candle, examined me greedily and minutely.