A DIRTY STREET—A BAD BOY—SHIPPING AND MERCHANDISE—WE STOWAWAY ON BOARD THE 'ATALANTA'—A SALT TEAR.
The man in the white jacket helped us out, smiling as he did so, so that his teeth shone like ivory in his black face. We took the pie-dish and our bundles, and thanked him very much, and the train went on and took him with it, which we felt sorry for. For when one is out in the world, you know, one sometimes feels rather lonely, and sorry to part with a kind friend.
Everybody else went through a little gate into the street, so we did the same. It was a very dirty street, with houses on one side and the railway on the other. There were cabbages and carrots and old shoes and fishes' heads and oyster-shells and potato-peelings in the street, and a goat was routing among it all with its nose, as if it had lost [118]something and hoped to find it by and by.
Places like this always seemed to depress Fred's courage. Besides which, he was never in good spirits when he had to go long without food, which made me fear he would not bear being cast adrift at sea without provisions as well as his grandfather had done. I was not surprised when he said,
"What a place! And I don't believe one can get anything fit to eat, and I am so hungry!"
I looked at the houses. There was a pork-butcher's shop, and a real butcher's shop, and a slop shop, and a seedy jeweller's shop with second-hand watches, which looked as if nothing would ever make them go, and a small toy and sweetmeat shop, but not a place that looked like breakfast. I had taken Fred's bundle because he was so tired, and I suppose it was because I was staring helplessly about that a dirty boy a good deal bigger than either of us came up and pulled his dirty hair and said,
"Carry your things for you, sir?"
"No, thank you," said I, moving on with the bundles and the pie-dish; but as the boy would walk by me I said,
"We want some breakfast very much, but we haven't much money." And, remembering the cost of our supper, I added, "Could we get anything here for about twopence-halfpenny or threepence apiece?"
[119]
There was a moment's pause, and then the boy gave a long whistle.
"Vy, I thought you was swells!" said he.
I really do not know whether it was because I did not like to be supposed to be a poor person when it came to the point, or whether it was because of that bad habit of mine of which even Weston's ballad has not quite cured me, of being ready to tell people more about my affairs than it can be interesting for them to hear or discreet for me to communicate, but I replied at once: "We are gentlemen; but we are going in search of adventures, and we don't want to spend more money than we can help till we see what we may want it for when we get to foreign countries."
"You're going to sea, then, hare you?" said the boy, keeping up with us.
"Yes," said I; "but could you tell us where to get something to eat before we go?"
"There's a shop I knows on," said our new friend, "where they sells prime pudding at a penny a slice. The plums goes all through and no mistake. Three slices would be threepence: one for you, one for him, and one for my trouble in showing you the way. Threepence more's a quart of stout, and we drink fair by turns. Shall I take your purse [120]and pay it for you? They might cheat a stranger."
"No, thank you," said I; "but we should like some pudding if you will show us the way."
The slices were small, but then they were very heavy. We had two each. I rejected the notion of porter, and Fred said he was not thirsty; but I turned back again into the shop to ask for a glass of water for myself. The woman gave it me very civilly, looking as she did so with a puzzled manner, first at me and then at my bundles and the pie-dish. As she took back the tumbler she nodded her head towards the dirty boy, who stood in the doorway, and said,
"Is that young chap a companion of yours, my dear?"
"Oh, dear no," said I, "only he showed us the way here."
"Don't have nothing to do with him," she whispered "he's a bad un."
In spite of this warning, however, as there was no policeman to be seen, and the boy would keep up with us, I asked him the way to Victoria Dock.
It was not so easy to get to the ships as I had expected. There were gates to pass through, and they were kept by a porter. He let some people in and turned others back.
[121]"Have you got an order to see the docks?" asked the boy.
I confessed that we had not, but added that we wanted very much to get in.
"My eyes!" said the bad boy, doubling himself in a fit of amusement, "I believe you're both going for stowaways."
"What do you mean by stowaways?" I asked.
"Stowaways is chaps that hides aboard vessels going out of port, to get their passage free gratis for nothing."
"Do a good many manage it?" I asked with an anxious mind.
"There ain't a vessel leaves the docks without one and sometimes more aboard. The captain never looks that way, not by no accident whatsoever. He don't lift no tarpaulins while the ship's in dock. But when she gets to sea the captain gets his eyesight back, and he takes it out of the stowaways for their wittles then. Oh, yes, rather so!" said the bad boy.
There was a crowd at the gates.
"Hold your bundles down on your right side," said the boy, "and go in quickly after any respectable-looking cove you see."
Fred had got his own bundle now, and we followed our guide's directions, and went through the gates after an elderly, well-dressed man. The boy seemed to try to follow us, squeezing very close up to me, but the gatekeeper stopped him. When we were on the [122]other side I saw him bend down and wink backwards at the gatekeeper through his straddled legs. Then he stood derisively on his head. After which he went away as a catherine-wheel, and I saw him no more.
We were among the ships at last! Vessels very different from Mr. Rowe's barge, or even the three-penny steamboat, Lofty and vast, with shining decks of marvellous cleanliness, and giant figure-heads like dismembered Jins out of some Arabian tale. Streamers of many colours high up in the forest of masts, and seamen of many nations on the decks and wharves below, moved idly in the breeze, which was redolent of many kinds of cargo. Indeed, if the choice of our ship had not been our chief care, the docks and warehouses would have fascinated us little less than the shipping. Here were huge bales of cotton packed as thickly as bricks in a brick-field. There were wine-casks innumerable, and in another place the air was aromatic with so large a cargo of coffee that it seemed as if no more could be required in this country for some generations.
It was very entertaining, and Fred was always calling to me to look at something new, but my mind was with the shipping. There was a good deal of anxiety on it too. The sooner we chose our ship and "stowed away" the better. I hesitated between sailing-vessels and steamers. I did not believe that [123]one of the captain's adventures happened on board any ship that could move faster than it could sail. And yet I was much attracted by some grand-looking steamships. Even their huge funnels had a look of power, I thought, among the masts, like old and hollow oaks in a wood of young and slender trees.
One of these was close in dock, and we could see her well. There were some casks on deck, and by them lay a piece of tarpaulin which caught my eye, and recalled what the bad boy had said about captains and stowaways. Near the gangway were standing two men who did not seem to be sailors. They were respectably dressed, one had a book and a pencil, and they looked, I thought, as if they might have authority to ask our business in the docks, so I drew Fred back under shelter of some piled-up boxes.
"When does she sail?" asked the man with the book.
"To-morrow morning, sir," replied the other.
And then they crossed the gangway and went into a warehouse opposite.
It was noon, and being the men's dinner-time, the docks were not very busy. At this moment there was not a soul in sight. I grasped Fred's arm, and hoisted the bundle and pie-dish well under my own.
[124]"Tha............