Toilers of Babylon: A Novel. Farjeon Benjamin Leopold
Chizlet," said Mr. Loveday, gravely, "last Friday you broke two dishes."
"Not me, sir."
"Well, the cat. This day week the cat broke all my cups and saucers. If I keep you in my service, in the course of another week there will not be a sound piece of crockery or glass in the place. Therefore I will not trouble you to come here again."
"We're all born, and none buried," said the charwoman, with a silly smile.
And having received her half-day's wage, she departed contentedly, and made her way to the nearest public-house.
Mr. Joseph Loveday gazed disconsolately around; it was not the broken crockery that annoyed him, it was the disarrangement of domestic custom. Having discharged the woman who had served him so long, it was a settled thing that she would never be employed by him again. Where could he find another who would serve him more faithfully? He detested strangers, and a break in his usual habits was a great discomfort to him. He was in a mood to exaggerate the discomfort, and in a few minutes he had magnified it considerably. It is not from the most important disasters of life, but from its pins and needles, that we draw our acutest miseries. Everything had been going wrong with Mr. Loveday lately. During the past week he had missed three books from his stall outside, and had been unable to discover the thief. Even if he had been successful in catching him he would have hesitated to prosecute him, because of the loss of time it would entail. Then, Mrs. Peeper, proprietor of the wardrobe shop, who occasionally cooked his dinners for him, had been behaving badly, keeping him waiting an hour and more, and placing before him food, so villainously cooked that he could not eat it. Some change was decidedly necessary to restore the harmony of his days. As he was debating with himself in what way the change could be made, he raised his eyes and saw through the window a lad standing at the stall outside, turning over the leaves of a book. The age of this lad was twelve, and his name was Timothy Chance.
"I might do worse," thought Mr. Loveday. The drawback was that Timothy was a bundle of rags.
He was turning over the leaves of the book he had lifted at haphazard from the stall, but he was not reading it. Every now and then he directed a furtive glance towards the interior of the shop, in the hope, without obtruding himself, of attracting favorable attention. Hanging on his left arm was an old open-work basket, and sitting therein was a bedraggled hen. Mr. Loveday stepped to the shop door, and said:
"Well, Timothy."
"Yes, sir," said the lad, looking up with a cheerful smile, and speaking in quite respectable English, "here I am, back again, like a bad penny."
"Come in," said Mr. Loveday.
Timothy gladly obeyed the summons, and entered. Placing his basket with the hen in it upon the floor, he stood respectfully before the bookseller. In classic story a goose became historical; in this modern tale, wherein heroic deeds are not heralded by clang of trumpets, it may by and by be admitted that the fowl which Timothy Chance set down deserves no less a fame.
CHAPTER IX
Poor and ragged as he was, the lad's bearing was distinguished by a bright manliness-even thus early shown-which could scarcely fail to win favor. The circumstances of his young life were singular, and deserve, and need, brief mention.
Somewhat less than twelve years before this day on which, in obedience to Mr. Loveday's summons, he entered the bookseller's shop, Mr. Loveday turned into Church Alley, after a walk he was in the habit of taking through the markets of the East where the humble folk make their purchases for the day of rest. It was therefore Saturday night, and the hour was a little past midnight. In front of the pawnbroker's shop, at the corner of Church Alley, stood the pawnbroker himself in a state of perturbation, taking a few steps this way and a few that in an uncertain, undecided fashion. His shutters were up, and the day's business was at an end. He pounced upon Mr. Loveday, whose position then, as at present, was one of authority among his neighbors, who tacitly and willingly acknowledged him to be a man of superior stamp.
"Ah, Mr. Loveday," said the pawnbroker, laying his hand on the bookseller's arm, "did you see a woman running away as you came along?"
"Not that I noticed," replied Mr. Loveday, observing that something unusual was agitating the pawnbroker.
"Or a man?" asked the pawnbroker.
"No."
"It is altogether the most extraordinary thing," said the pawnbroker, scratching his head, "the most ex-tra-or-di-na-ry. I never heard of anything like it."
"Like what?"
"Would you mind," said the pawnbroker, "stepping inside, and giving me your advice?"
"Certainly," said Mr. Loveday.
He followed the pawnbroker into the shop, and there upon the counter, in one of the divisions used by persons who came to pledge their goods or redeem them, lay an old shawl containing, as was evidenced by a gentle and regular upheaving, an animate object.
"What do you think of this?" exclaimed the pawnbroker, unfolding the shawl.
"A very fine baby," said Mr. Loveday, "though I don't pretend to be a judge-and fast asleep."
"Proving," added the pawnbroker, "that it's been well stuffed."
"Stuffed!"
"Had plenty to drink-got its belly full. That's the artfulness of it."
"The baby's artfulness?" inquired Mr. Loveday, much mystified.
"No-of the trick that's been played upon me. Put comfortably to sleep, satisfied, so that it shouldn't excite suspicion by as much as a whimper."
"But explain," said Mr. Loveday, as much in the dark as ever. "Is it your baby?"
"No, sir," replied the pawnbroker, energetically, "it is not."
"Then how comes it here?"
"That's what I'd like to know. If you'll believe me, Mr. Loveday, I'll tell you all about it-no, not all, as much I as know myself."
"Of course I'll believe you," said Mr. Loveday, his interest growing fast.
"Here am I," commenced the pawnbroker, excitedly, "all alone by myself in the shop-well, not exactly here where we stand, but in my room at the back there. Business over an hour ago-close at eleven, you know. Shutters put up, and my assistant gone home. Front door left ajar, because it's a hot night, and the gas has been flaring away. My wife and the children all asleep up-stairs; no one to disturb me. There's a bit of supper on the table. Mr. Loveday," he said, breaking off abruptly, "my wife is a most peculiar woman-a most pe-cu-li-ar woman."
"Go on with your story," said Mr. Loveday, calmly.
"Usually she stops up with me, and we have a bit of supper together, especially on Saturday nights, the busiest time of the week for me. But, as luck will have it, she doesn't feel quite the thing to-night, and she goes to bed early. There I am, then, eating my supper and making up my accounts. Everything very quiet, nothing wrong, as far as I can see. I'll take my oath, Mr. Loveday, that when my assistant wishes me good-night all the parcels are cleared away, and there's nothing left on the counters, not as much as a pin. Well, sir, I come to the end of my supper and my accounts, and feel easy in my mind. Three ha'pence wrong in the reckoning up, but it's on the right side. I put my money and books in the safe, lock it, pocket the key, fill my pipe, and get up to come to the door to have a whiff of tobacco and fresh air. I've got to pass through the shop to get to the street door, and as I come up to this counter here, this bundle stares me in the face. 'Hallo?' says I-to myself, you know-'Hallo! here's something been overlooked;' and I takes hold of the bundle, and starts back as if I was shot. I feel something moving inside. I come up to it again, and open it, and there's this baby staring me in the face-no, not staring me in the face, because it's fast asleep; but there's this baby. How would you have felt?"
"Very much astonished."
"I was flabbergasted. How did it come here? Who brought it? What's the meaning of it? While I was sitting in the back room I didn't hear a sound, but it must have been then that the street door was pushed softly open, and this-this thing put on my counter. If I caught the woman who did it I'd make it warm for her."
"Perhaps,"