James Greenwood - The True History of a Little Ragamuffin

Going home, then, being so completely out of the question, what was to be done? Where was I to sleep? was a question which at once presented itself, and not unnaturally, since never in my life had I as yet slept out of a more or less comfortable bed. Should I sleep where I was? Why not? I had had a good supper, and the nights were not so very cold. It wouldn’t hurt me for once—just for once—if I cuddled down in a corner, and made myself comfortable. It was light pretty early in the morning, and then—

Ah! and then? I had been thinking about to-morrow in a vague and mystic sort of way all the evening; but now it brought me up as suddenly as though it had been a brick wall “Tomorrow” was not to be shirked. Wherever I slept it was only shutting my eyes and opening them again, and it would be the new day—the day on which I must go single-handed into the world to get my living out of it. Of course I was already “on my own hands,” as the vulgar saying is, and had been since the morning; but it had been a patchy sort of a day at best. I had got up that morning at home; I had breakfasted there; I had run away, and gone back, and run away again. I had obtained a meal independently of home—but how? It would never do to begin and go through a new day—my first clear day—in such a manner. I must make up my mind, before I went to sleep, as to the sort of work I thought would suit me, and as soon as I woke I must go at it.

At what? Why, at “barking,” to be sure. It was light pretty early in the morning, and I would be off to one of the markets—Covent Garden or Billingsgate, I didn’t care which—and I would look out amongst the barrowmen for one that looked likely, and I would offer him my services. If he asked me how much a day I wanted, I would tell him—

Whew! It was all very well to talk about going to the market to look for a master; but suppose it should happen that, after having found one and made terms with him, I couldn’t do the work! Suppose, after all, my voice had no tune in it for barking! To be sure I did not know whether it had or not; but what a silly fellow I had been to let the whole afternoon and evening slip by without testing it! I had had the whole market to myself, as I might say, for ever so many hours, and I had done nothing but lounge idly about, as though I had a hundred a year coming in.

I had better see about it at once. It was not yet late—but little after nine o’clock, indeed—and I could not do better than retire to the centre of the pig-market and practise.

For which market should I prepare myself?

At ordinary times I should have found it difficult to choose; but the cold, slippery cobbled stones on which I stood, and the keen night air, had their influence, and I selected Covent Garden before Billingsgate without argument. This preliminary being settled, it next became a consideration what flowers and vegetables, commonly sold about the street, were then in season. What flowers? Let me see; why, wall-flowers, of course, as the most plentiful and favourite.

Ahem!

“Wall-flower! SWEET and pretty WALL-FLOW-er!”

It rang out pretty well as far as voice was concerned, but it was plain enough to my own ears that I hadn’t got the proper accent; it would never do to cut the first “wall-flower” so short as I had cut it. Let us try again—this time with my hand to one side of my mouth, to make the sound go further.

“WALL-FLOWER! sweet AND pret-TY WALL-FLOW-ER!”

That was a great deal better. I walked up and down one of the dark avenues, and for a quarter of an hour did a roaring trade in the wall-flower line, calling “Whoa!” to an imaginary donkey, and bawling out to my imaginary master for change for a sixpence and a shilling, just as though it was real.

Having polished off the wall-flowers to my perfect satisfaction, I cast about for a seasonable fruit, and found strawberries. I went at them with a confidence based on my first success, but speedily was driven to the conclusion that to an unpractised barker strawberries were decidedly a tickler. There was such a lot to say, and the words wouldn’t rhyme.

“STRAW-ber-REE! FOUR PENCE a MARKET pottle, O BOYS!”

It wasn’t neat. There was a bungling hitch between the “ket” of the market, and the “pot” of the pottle. Perhaps altering the price might make a difference.

“Fip-pence a MAR-KET pottle!”

No.

“Thrup-pence a market pottle!”

Same as fip-pence.

“Sixpence a mar”—

It was clear that the price had nothing to do with it. It was the word “market” that spoilt it; if that could be left out it would run smooth enough. But of course it couldn’t be left out, at fourpence, or sixpence, or any other price. Ignorant as I was of business matters generally, I knew that buyers of barrow-fruit would no sooner buy pottles of strawberries which were not vended as “market,” than they would purchase damsons, or any other sort of small plums, by any other measure than ale-house, or, as the barrowmen more properly styled it, “alias.”

By dint of much perseverance, however, and scores of repetitions, I contrived to bring my strawberry call to something like the proper thing. It was mainly effected by sinking the “ket” in market, and making it “mark’t,” and allowing it to slide easily into pottle. I was getting along very well, when, as I sat on a bar of one of the pens, I was made suddenly aware of the presence of two boys lurking in my rear. My first terrible thought was that it was Jerry Pape and his antagonist, and that, having fought their battle out, they had made it up, and joined in a partnership against me. I thought so the more, because the moment they saw that they were observed, one of them sprang forward and seized me violently by the hair.

“Whoa, boys! whoa, boys!” exclaimed he, mocking my strawberry-cry, and at each “whoa” giving my hair a cruel tug. “It’s werry nigh time you did ‘whoa boys.’ What do you mean, you wagabone, to be kicking up such a precious row in this here market, when you ought to be in bed—hey, sir?”

And he imitated the voice and gestures of a very savage policeman, flourishing his fist as though he held a staff in it.

My first feeling on turning round, despite the pain the hair-pulling had occasioned me, was one of thankfulness. The two boys were not Jerry Pape and his companion. They were of about the same size, or perhaps a little bigger, but perfectly strange boys to me.

“Do you hear me, sir?” continued the sham policeman, fiercely, feeling in his pockets for a pair of handcuffs. “Are you a-goin’ to move on, or am I to put yer where I’ll be able to find yer in the mornin’? You’d better go home quiet I won’t take no bails for you, don’t you know, if I once gets you to the station.”

“Go home yourself,” I retorted, wriggling out of his grasp and jumping down from my perch. “Why don’t you go home and leave a feller alone?”

“We’re a-goin’ home,” observed the other boy, who had been laughing at the sham policeman until he was compelled to hold on by the bars. “We’ve been to the gaff, up in Shoreditch, and this is our way home.” And then, addressing his companion, said he—

“Come along, Mouldy! We shan’t get to Westminister to-night.”

Now, I had been to Covent Garden with my father several times, and I knew that it was in or near Westminster; but I had always ridden on the barrow, starting direct from home. From my present position I was much perplexed as to which was the best way to the market; and hearing the boy mention Westminster as a place with which he was familiar, I thought it was a good opportunity to obtain a little information on the subject.

“What part of Westminster do you live in?” I asked of the boy who had last spoken, and who had hair of the same colour as Mrs. Burke’s, as was plainly to be seen through the holes in his cap.