James Greenwood - The True History of a Little Ragamuffin

“Here, you poor little wretch,” said he, “take this and buy bread with it and before I could recover from my surprise, he passed on and was lost in the darkness.

I had not even said “thanky” for it, and I didn’t know whether to be sorry or glad on that score. It was such a queer sort of twopence. I had not earned it I had not worked for it. I had not expected it. He had voluntarily given it to me. Other people had given me halfpence many a time, and I had spent them without further thought beyond settling what I should buy. But I did not feel at liberty to spend the strange gentleman’s twopence so.

Confound his twopence! If he had twopence to give a boy, why didn’t he say, “Here’s twopence for you,” and have done with it? True, I was a poor little wretch, and as far as I remember I did not feel particularly hurt at being so called; it was his ordering me to buy bread with his money that made it seem so much like—well—so much like a beggar’s twopence. His words rang in my ears till they tingled as though Mrs. Burke had recently pulled them, and I looked up the street and down the street, and was very much relieved to discover that no one had witnessed the little transaction. Finding that it was so, I soothed my injured dignity by uttering aloud and defiantly towards the way the benevolent man had taken, “You be blowed! who are you ordering? I shan’t buy bread neither; I shall buy what I like.”

So I did. Feeling that the stranger was mine enemy, and one whom it would give me much satisfaction to disobey, I walked down towards Barbican, resolutely turning my gaze from the bakers’ shops, (it was, in my hungry condition, no easy matter to do so,) and with my mind bent on luxuries. There was at that time a little old-fashioned shop in Barbican where jams and preserves were sold. It was a wholesale sort of a shop, and the jams were deposited in great gallon jars, each one of which was ticketed with the price per pound of its contents. One in particular took my fancy; it was labelled “greengage,” and the mouth of the jar was deliciously smeared with it. Eighteenpence a pound this jar was marked, and after working a difficult sum in long division on my fingers, I discovered that two ounces of it would come to twopence farthing. This was an insurmountable difficulty. True, I might go in and ask for twopen’orth. Twopence was a goodish bit of money. It wasn’t like going in and asking for a ha’porth. “Two pen’orth of greengage jam, please.” And, after this brief rehearsal, I stepped firmly to the shop door, but had hardly placed a foot on the threshold than I received a box on the ear that sent me reeling.

“Now be off,” exclaimed the old woman belonging to the shop, and who, it seems, had mistaken her customer. “I’ve been watching you these ten minutes, you little prig,” and she slammed the door hard and put the catch on.

Hard as I thought my luck at the time, I have no doubt that the old woman did me a real service. What did I want with greengage jam? It was as much as anything out of wanton malice towards my benefactor that I thought of buying it, and I was very properly checked, and at the same time punished. No such proper reflections were mine at that time, however; indeed, I am ashamed to confess that it was when I had rushed vengefully into the road to find a convenient stone to shy through the jam-shop window, that an odour assailed my nostrils of so enticing a sort, that my anger was instantly appeased.

It proceeded from a neighbouring cook-shop. The peas-pudding as well as the baked faggots were “just up,” and their fragrance blended, producing a result potent enough to drive a cold and hungry boy mad. Fancy what would have been my sensations if I had invested my twopence in that miserable mite of jam and afterwards approached the cook-shop!

Without a moment’s deliberation I marched in and bought my supper—a faggot—(it cost me a pang to be compelled to forego the liberal spoonful of gravy that accompanied each one, in consequence of having no vessel to hold it,) on a big cabbage leaf, a ha’porth of peas-pudding, and a ha’porth of baked potatoes. I longed to be at it at once, but I had heard of unprincipled scoundrels who waylaid children going errands and robbed them of their goods: so I bundled up my supper in the cabbage-leaf, and, hiding it in the breast of my jacket, made haste back to the pig-market, and, sitting in a secluded corner, devoured it with great relish.

I don’t mean to say that I couldn’t have eaten more—indeed, I am sure that I could have eaten three times as much—still I felt very much better for my supper. I felt better every way; the goodness of the supper had softened my heart as well as assuaged my hunger. How was little Polly? I thought of her more than of father, home, anything; nor was it any great wonder that I should. Without doubt she was a dead weight on my liberty during the daytime, and a serious draw-back of nights, but she was a dear little soul. She couldn’t speak to me, but she couldn’t bear to see me cry; and often and often after Mrs. Burke had beaten me, and I felt so bad I didn’t know what to be at, poor Polly would put her little arms round my neck, and her lips against my cheek to kiss me. She was all the comfort I had, and I believe I was all the comfort she had, poor child.

These and a hundred other such melancholy reflections passed through my mind as I sat in the pig-shambles, until I could bear them no longer, and determined at all hazards to venture home and make inquiries, or at least to approach our alley, and lurk about till I saw somebody who lived there, and of whom I could make inquiries.

It was quite dark by this time, and the way from Smithfield to our alley was not a much frequented one; nevertheless I stepped along with extreme caution, darting into doorways if I saw approaching any one looking in the distance the least like my father or Mrs. Burke. I met nobody that I knew, however, and presently reached Turnmill Street in safety. As luck would have it, while I was as yet twenty yards from Frying-pan Alley, whom should I run against but my old friend Jerry Pape?

I have said whom I ran against, but it would be more correct to say that he ran against me. He ran right at me from across the road, and embraced me with both his arms, as though he was so jolly glad to see me he could scarcely contain himself.

“What, Jim? what cheer, old boy? Where was you goin’?” said Master Pape, his affectionate embrace abating nothing.

“I don’t know quite where I am going, Jerry,” I replied, shaking hands with the good-natured fellow. “I was thinking of going home just to see”—

“Then you hain’t been home?” asked Jerry, eagerly.

“No.”

“You hain’t been home since the mornin’—not since you hooked it away?”

Jerry’s voice was tremulous with excitement as he asked the question.

“No,” I replied, “I’ve been away all day. How are they all, Jerry? Have you seen young Polly out this arternoon?”

Master Pape made no reply to my question.

“If you hain’t been home, you’d better come now,” said he, griping the collar of my jacket with something more than friendly ardour, and giving me a jerk in the direction in which he wished me to go. “Come on, you’ve got to go home, you know.”

Jerry’s behaviour at once aroused my worst suspicions.

“I hain’t going home without I like,” said I, and down I sat on the pavement.

The treacherous villain appeared to be suddenly made aware of the faultiness of his tactics.

“You hain’t a-going home?” said he with affected astonishment, and at the same time taking his hand from my collar.” Well, you are a rummy chap. You just said you was.”

“I can go without your pulling, Jerry Pape. What do you want to pull me for?”