Balls, Bobby, Sir Richard, and Giles appear on the Stage.
As from the sublime to the ridiculous there is but a step, so, from the dining-room to the kitchen there is but a stair. Let us descend the stair and learn that while Sir Richard was expounding the subject of “the poor” to little Di, Mr Balls, the butler, was engaged on the same subject in the servants’ hall.
“I cannot tell you,” said Balls, “what a impression the sight o’ these poor people made on me.”
“La! Mr Balls,” said the cook, who was not unacquainted with low life in London, having herself been born within sound of Bow-Bells, “you’ve got no occasion to worrit yourself about it. It ’as never bin different.”
“That makes it all the worse, cook,” returned Balls, standing with his back to the fireplace and his legs wide apart; “if it was only a temporary depression in trade, or the repeal of the corn laws that did it, one could stand it, but to think that such a state of things always goes on is something fearful. You know I’m a country-bred man myself, and ain’t used to the town, or to such awful sights of squalor. It almost made me weep, I do assure you. One room that I looked into had a mother and two children in it, and I declare to you that the little boy was going about stark naked, and his sister was only just a slight degree better.”
“P’raps they was goin’ to bed,” suggested Mrs Screwbury.
“No, nurse, they wasn’t; they was playing about evidently in their usual costume—for that evenin’ at least. I would not have believed it if I had not seen it. And the mother was so tattered and draggled and dirty—which, also, was the room.”
“Was that in the court where the Frogs live?” asked Jessie Summers.
“It was, and a dreadful court too—shocking!”
“By the way, Mr Balls,” asked the cook, “is there any chance o’ that brat of a boy Bobby, as they call him, coming here? I can’t think why master has offered to take such a creeter into his service.”
“No, cook, there is no chance. I forgot to tell you about that little matter. The boy was here yesterday and he refused—absolutely declined a splendid offer.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” returned the cook.
“Tell us about it, Mr Balls,” said Jessie Summers with a reproachful look at the other. “I’m quite fond of that boy—he’s such a smart fellow, and wouldn’t be bad-looking if he’d only wash his face and comb his hair.”
“He’s smart enough, no doubt, but impudence is his strong point,” rejoined the butler with a laugh. The way he spoke to the master beats everything.
“‘I’ve sent for you, my boy,’ said Sir Richard, in his usual dignified, kindly way, ‘to offer you the situation of under-gardener in my establishment.’”
“‘Oh! that’s wot you wants with me, is it?’ said the boy, as bold as brass; indeed I may say as bold as gun-metal, for his eyes an’ teeth glittered as he spoke, and he said it with the air of a dook. Master didn’t quite seem to like it, but I saw he laid restraint on himself and said: ‘You have to thank my daughter for this offer—’
“‘Thank you, Miss,’ said the boy, turnin’ to Miss Di with a low bow, imitatin’ Sir Richard’s manner, I thought, as much as he could.
“‘Of course,’ continued the master, rather sharply, ‘I offer you this situation out of mere charity—’
“‘Oh! you do, do you?’ said the extraordinary boy in the coolest manner, ‘but wot if I objec’ to receive charity? Ven I ’olds a ’orse I expecs to be paid for so doin’, same as you expecs to be paid w’en you attends a board-meetin’ to grin an’ do nuffin.’
“‘Come, come, boy,’ said Sir Richard, gettin’ redder in the face than I ever before saw him, ‘I am not accustomed to low pleasantry, and—’
“‘An’ I ain’t accustomed,’ broke in the boy, ‘to ’igh hinsults. Do you think that every gent what years a coat an’ pants with ’oles in ’em is a beggar?’
“For some moments master seemed to be struck speechless, an’ I feared that in spite of his well-known gentleness of character he’d throw the ink-stand at the boy’s head, but he didn’t; he merely said in a low voice, ‘I would dismiss you at once, boy, were it not that I have promised my daughter to offer you employment, and you can see by her looks how much your unnatural conduct grieves her.’
“An’ this was true, for poor Miss Di sat there with her hands clasped, her eyes full of tears, her eyebrows disappearin’ among her hair with astonishment, and her whole appearance the very pictur’ of distress. ‘However,’ continued Sir Richard, ‘I still make you the offer, though I doubt much whether you will be able to retain the situation. Your wages will—’
“‘Please sir,’ pleaded the boy, ‘don’t mention the wages. I couldn’t stand that. Indeed I couldn’t; it would really be too much for me.’
“‘Why, what do you mean?’ says master.
“‘I mean,’ says Impudence, ‘that I agree with you. I don’t think I could retain the sitivation, cause w’y? In the fust place, I ain’t got no talent at gardenin’. The on’y time I tried it was w’en I planted a toolip in a flower-pot, an’ w’en I dug it up to see ’ow it was a-gittin on a cove told me I’d planted it upside down. However, I wasn’t goin’ to be beat by that cove, so I say to ’im, Jack, I says, I planted it so a purpus, an’ w’en it sprouts I’m a-goin’ to ’ang it up to see if it won’t grow through the ’ole in the bottom. In the second place, I couldn’t retain the sitivation ’cause I don’t intend to take it, though you was to offer me six thousand no shillin’s an’ no pence no farthin’s a year as salary.’
“I r’ally did think master would ha’ dropt out of his chair at that. As for Miss Di, she was so tickled that she gave a sort of hysterical laugh.
“‘Balls,’ said master, ‘show him out, and—’ he pulled up short, but I knew he meant to say have an eye on the great-coats and umbrellas, so I showed the boy out, an’ he went down-stairs, quite quiet, but the last thing I saw of him was performin’ a sort of minstrel dance at the end of the street just before he turned the corner and disappeared.”
“Imp’rence!” exclaimed the cook.
“Naughty, ungrateful boy!” said Mrs Screwbury.
“But it was plucky of him,” said Jessie Summers.
“I would call it cheeky,” said Balls, “I can’t think what put it into his head to go on so.”
If Mr Balls had followed Bobby Frog in spirit, watched his subsequent movements, and listened to his remarks, perhaps he might have understood the meaning of his conduct a little better.
After he had turned the corner of the street, as above mentioned, Bobby trotted on for a short space, and then, coming to a full stop, executed a few steps of the minstrel dance, at the end of which he brought his foot down with tremendous emphasis on the pavement, and said—
“Yes, I’ve bin an’ done it. I know’d I was game for a good deal, but I did not think I was up to that. One never knows wot ’e’s fit for till ’e tries. Wot’ll Hetty think, I wonder?”
What Hetty thought he soon found out, for he overtook her on the Thames embankment on her way home. Bobby was fond of that route, though a little out of his way, because he loved the running water, though it was muddy, and the sight of steamers and barges.
“Well, Bobby,” she said, laying her hand on his shoulder, “where have you been?”
“To see old Swallow’d-the-poker, Hetty.”
“What took you there?” asked the girl in surprise.
“My legs. You don’t suppose I’ve set up my carriage yet, do you?”
“Come, you know what I mean.”
“Vell, then, I went because I was sent for, an’ wot d’ye think? the old gen’l’man hoffered me the sitivation of under-gardener!”
“You don’t say so! Oh! Bobby, what a lucky boy—an’ what a kind gentleman! Tell me all about it now,” said Hetty, pressing her hand more tenderly on her brother’s shoulder. “What wages is he to give you?”
“No wages wotsomever.”
Hetty looked into her brother’s face with an expression of concerned surprise. She knew some tradespeople who made her work hard for so very little, that it was not difficult to believe in a gentleman asking her brother to work for nothin’! Still she had thought better of Sir Richard, and expected to hear something more creditable to him.
“Ah, you may look, but I do assure you he is to give me no wages, an’ I’m to do no work.”
Here Bobby executed a few steps of his favourite dance, but evidently from mere habit, and unconsciously, for he left off in the middle, and seemed to forget the salient point of emphasis with his foot.
“What do you mean, Bobby?—be earnest, like a dear boy, for once.”
“Earnest!” exclaimed the urchin with vehemence. “I never was more in earnest in my life. You should ’ave seen Swallow’d-the-poker w’en I refused to ’ave it.”
“Refused it?”
“Ay—refused it. Come Hetty, I’ll explain.”
The boy dropped his facetious tone and manner while he rapidly ran over the chief points of his interview with Sir Richard.
“But why did you refuse so good an offer?” asked Hetty, still unable to repress her surprise.
“Because of daddy.”
“Daddy?”
“Ay, daddy. You know he’s fond o’ me, is daddy, and, d’ye know, though p’r’aps you mayn’t believe it, I’m raither fond o’ him; but ’e’s a bad ’un, is daddy. He’s bent on mischief, you see, an’ ’e’s set his ’art on my ’elpin’ of ’im. But I wont ’elp ’im—that’s flat. Now, what d’ye think, Hetty,” (here he dropped his voice to almost a whisper and looked solemn), “dad wants to make use o’ me to commit a burglary on Swallow’d-the-poker’s ’ouse.”
“You don’t mean it, Bobby!”
“But I do, Hetty. Dad found out from that rediklous butler that goes veepin’ around our court like a leeky pump, that the old gen’l’man was goin’ to hoffer me this sitivation, an ’e’s bin wery ’ard on me to accept it, so that I may find out the ways o’ the ’ouse where the plate an’ waluables lay, let ’im in some fine dark night an’ ’elp ’im to carry off the swag.”
A distressed expression marked poor Hetty’s reception of this news, but she said never a word.
“Now you won’t tell, Hetty?” said the boy with a look of real anxiety on his face. “It’s not so much his killin’ me I cares about, but I wouldn’t bring daddy to grief for any money. I’d raither ’elp ’im than that. You’ll not say a word to nobody?”
“No, Bobby, I won’t say a word.”
“Vell, you see,” continued the boy, “ven I’d made myself so disagreeable that the old gen’l’man would ’ave nothin’ to do with me, I came straight away, an’ ’ere I am; but it was a trial, let me tell you, specially ven ’e come to mention wages—an sitch a ’eavenly smell o’ roasted wittles come up from the kitchen too at the moment, but I ’ad only to look at Miss Di, to make me as stubborn as a nox or a hass. ‘Wot!’ thinks I to myself, ‘betray that hangel—no, never!’ yet if I was to go into that ’ouse I know I’d do it, for daddy’s got sitch a wheedlin’ way with ’im w’en ’e likes, that I couldn’t ’old hout long—so I giv’ old Swallowed-the-poker sitch a lot o’ cheek that I thought ’e’d kick me right through the winder. He was considerable astonished as well as riled, I can tell you, an’ Miss Di’s face was a pictur’, but the old butler was the sight. He’d got ’is face screwed up into sitch a state o’ surprise that it looked like a eight-day clock with a gamboil. Now, Hetty, I’m goin’ to tell ’ee what’ll take your breath away. I’ve made up my mind to go to Canada!”
Hetty did, on hearing this, look as if her breath had been taken away. When it returned sufficiently she said:
“Bobby, what put that into your head?”
“The ’Ome of Hindustry,” said Bobby with a mysterious look.
“The Home of Industry,” repeated the girl in surprise, for she knew that Institution well, having frequently assisted its workers in their labour of love.
“Yes, that’s the name—’Ome of Hindustry, what sends off so many ragged boys to Canada under Miss Macpherson.”
“Ay, Bobby, it does a great deal more than that,” returned the girl. “Sending off poor boys and girls to Canada is only one branch of its work. If you’d bin to its tea-meetin’s for the destitute, as I have, an’ its clothin’ meetin’s and its mothers’ meetin’s, an—”
“’Ow d’ye know I ’aven’t bin at ’em all?” asked the boy with an impudent look.
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