James Greenwood - The True History of a Little Ragamuffin

There was a great flour-waggon standing at a baker’s door close at hand, and behind this I dodged without being seen by them. They seemed very jolly. Ripston had his hands plunged deep into the pockets that had lately held the nuts, and Mouldy was throwing up and catching four or five penny pieces. When they arrived at the top of the alley, they looked about from left to right, and Ripston gave a whistle. No doubt they were looking for me, and that the whistle was meant to attract my attention should I happen to be in the neighbourhood. I kept close behind the wheel, however, and they saw nothing of me, and went down the street laughing.

I crossed over the way, and watched them. They went along, talking and laughing, until they got nearly to Long Acre, where there was a pudding shop; and while Mouldy went in, Ripston stood outside looking through the window. Presently Mouldy came out with such a pile of pudding of the sort just described, smoking on a cabbage-leaf, as made me draw in my breath to see. It seemed a very cold breath that I drew, and it made me feel more shivery and empty than ever.

I made my way over to their side of the road, and walked a goodish way behind them; not so far, however, but that I could see Ripston take one of the big slices, and raising it to his mouth, bite out of it a bit—ah! ever so large. He kept on raising it and biting it; (you may judge from this, and considering what sort of bites they were, how large were the pen’orths), and I got closer to them. I was dreadfully hungry.

I at last got so close behind them, that I could actually hear them eating. I could hear Ripston drawing his breath to and fro to cool the mouthful, and as he now and then turned his head aside I could see the contentment in his eyes.

When they commenced, there were but five lumps on the cabbage-leaf, and they were each well advanced with their second lump. If I meant to speak, there was no time to lose.

“What I likes Blinkins’s puddin’ for is, ’cos of the whackin’ lot of suet wot’s in it,” observed Ripston.

“I b’lieve yer,” replied Mouldy, licking his lips; “it’s a’most like meat puddin’.”

“I feels as though I’d had a’most enough; it’s so jolly fillin’,” said Ripston.

“Oh, well! don’t you go a over-eatin’ yourself,” laughed Mouldy; “I can eat this other bit.”

I could stand it no longer.

“Mouldy!” I exclaimed, laying a hand on his shoulder; “Mouldy, give us a bit!”

Mouldy gave a very violent start as I so quietly touched him, and wriggled downward; he, however, speedily recovered from his fright.

“Oh, it’s you, is it!” said he. “Where a’ you been? Been home to see if they’ll take yer back, and they won’t?”

“P’r’aps he’s been back to the market to split on us. Have you, Smiffield?”

“I haven’t been anywheres; I’ve been followin’ you two,” I humbly replied.

“Werry kind on yer; but we don’t want anybody a-follerin’ us—’specially sneaks,” said Mouldy.

“I ain’t a sneak, Mouldy,” I replied; “do give us a bit, that’s a good fellow; if you know’d how gallus hungry I am, you would, I know.”

“I’d be werry sorry to,” said the merciless rascal, tantalisingly whipping the last bit of his second lump into his mouth; “don’t yer know what the little ’im ses about keeping yer hands from pickin’ and stealin’? I’m ashamed on yer askin’ me to do such a wicked thing, Smiffield. If I was to give you a bit it ’ud choke yer.”

“You agreed that we should go whacks in everything,” I pleaded, appealing to his sense of justice, since I could not succeed in touching his generosity.

“So I meant it; so I means it now,” replied Mouldy; “but you wants your share o’ the puddin’ wirout doin’ your share o’ the priggin’, which it hain’t wery likely you’ll get. What do you say, Rip?”

“P’r’aps he didn’t quite twig our game, Mouldy,” replied Ripston, who, without doubt, was the most kind-hearted of the two. “P’r’aps if we’d ha’ told him wot we was up to, he would ha’ done different. Would you, Smiffield?”

As Ripston began to speak, he gave me the last remaining little piece of his second lump of pudding, and I just swallowed it in time to answer him. What a mouthful that was! Never in all my life, at Blinkins’s or elsewhere, did I ever taste anything like it. So warm, so savoury, so comforting! And there still reposed upon the cabbage-leaf, on Mouldy’s palm, a smoking piece that would have yielded ten such mouthfuls at least.

“ Would you have done different, Smiffield?” Just as he repeated the question, Mouldy was in the act of raising the last slice to his lips; but, nudged by Ripston, he paused—with his mouth open.

Should he eat that pudding or should I? It was plain that my answer would decide the momentous question. Excepting the scanty supper I had bought with that twopence the night before, I had eaten nothing since yesterday’s breakfast.

“You are right, Ripston,” I replied, loudly and boldly; “I would have done different.”

“Ah! but, now you do know, will you do different?—that’s the question.”

“I will,” I answered.

“When?” asked Mouldy.

“Now—as soon as ever I find a chance.”

“Then, that’ll do,” observed Ripston; “give him that lump of puddin’, Mouldy; he do look awful hungry.”

“Don’t you be in such a precious hurry,” answered Mouldy. “Here it is; I hain’t a-goin’ to eat it,” (here he slipped it into his roundabout pocket;) “but, afore he haves it, he’s got to earn it. He’s got to show us that what he ses he means. Come on.”

“Come on where?” asked Ripston.

“Back to Common Garden.”

Keeping close to the pudding side of Mouldy, I kept pace with my companions, with a certainty of the sort of business that was expected of me, and, as I am bound to confess, with but a faint disposition to shirk it. Arrived at the skirts of the market, we halted, and Mouldy took a survey.

“Come here, Smiffield,” said he, presently. Bold as brass I responded.

“You see that first stall atween the pillars—the one where the man with the blue apron is, and the baskets of nuts are standin’ all of a row?”

“Yes, I see them.”

“The first basket at the furder end is almonds. Off you goes; we’ll wait here.”

This was all Mouldy said, but his meaning was plain enough. I was to go and steal some almonds out of the farthest basket. That the pudding in Mouldy’s pocket should be mine, I had steadfastly made up my mind; how to get it was all that remained to consider. Mouldy pointed out the way, and without hesitation, but with my heart going “bump! bump!” I set off towards the nut-stall.

This side the stall was one piled with cauliflowers and rhubarb, and as I approached, I saw at a glance that my best plan was to get round to the back of the cauliflowers, by which means I might reach the almond basket from behind. There is a saying that the devil is seldom ill-disposed towards his young friends, and certainly the saying was verified in my case. Between the cauliflower-stall and the nut-stall there was a narrow passage, through which nobody but the stallkeeper had any business to pass; but, shutting my eyes to the danger, I walked in as though I lived there, and, crouching behind the cauliflowers, saw the nut merchant, whose back was towards me, talking to a customer. The cauliflower woman had her back towards me too, and was not likely to shift her position just at present, for she was sitting on a chair, taking her dinner off her lap.

There was the brimming nut basket, and nobody was looking. I dipped once—twice—thrice, filling my trousers pockets, and then started out at the passage, and made towards Mouldy and Ripston, who were lurking behind a pillar.