James Greenwood - The True History of a Little Ragamuffin

Pineapples at that time were not nearly so plentiful nor nearly so cheap as they now are. The one I had become the possessor of had been one of a row of six, and I had heard the shopkeeper say to a gentleman who had asked the price of them, “All in that row, half-a-guinea, sir.” Although perfectly astonished to hear such a tremendous price set on the fruit, I was glad that I had heard it, otherwise Bogey Simmons (the old gentleman in Coal Yard, who dealt in market pilferings) would have derived from my ignorance a most unfair advantage in the transaction; for it was Bogey’s way to insist on those who dealt with him setting a price on their goods; and in the matter of the pineapple, had I been left to the guidance of my own judgment, I should have thought fourpence—at the outside, sixpence—a stiffish sum to ask for it. As it was, I resolved to ask him two shillings; and made so sure of the money, that, on the road, I settled in my mind how I would spend tenpence of it—sixpence in a comfortable supper, and fourpence in a lodging; for, owing to the miserable manner in which I had passed the preceding night, I yearned for the comfort of a bed almost as much as for something to eat.

Bogey Simmons lived at a house in Coal Yard, the kitchen of which was in the occupation of a cobbler. The cobbler’s stall was approached by a flight of steps in front of the house, and the cobbler being on good terms with Bogey, allowed people who came to transact business with the latter to pass through his stall out through a door at the back, and so up to Bogey’s room above. As I approached the house, I was delighted to find that it was all right—a light was burning in the stall, and over the top of the yellow curtain that screened the half glass door could be seen the cobbler’s hands rising and falling as he pulled at his wax-ends. The cobbler knew me well enough; so, without hesitation, I went down the steps and tapped at his door—having first, however, taken the precaution to stuff the pineapple into one of the ample pockets of the fustian trousers.

The cobbler opened the door. I could see by the glance he gave me through his spectacles, that he at once recognised me; but, to my great astonishment, he affected to regard me as though I had been the most perfect stranger.

“Well, my boy, what do you want?”

“It’s all right; let us come through. I’m goin’ up to Bogey.”

“What do you mean ‘let you come through?’ Who’s Bogey?”

“Bogey Simmons; him as buys”—

“He don’t live here,” interrupted the cobbler; “he’s gone away. And that’s what you ’d better do, unless you want to bring the police poking round my place again. I thought I had seen the last of your crew.”

Evidently there was a screw loose. This was apparent even more from the cobbler’s manner than his words. When he referred to the police, he did so with considerable nervousness, and a fidgety glance this way and that up and down the alley.

“Where has Bogey moved to? Do tell us, mister; I wants to see him pertickler.”

“He ain’t moved nowhere’s yet; he’s laying at Colbath Fields a-waitin’ to be tried,” replied the frightened cobbler, pushing me gently up the steps. “Do go, that’s a good lad; they’re a-watchin’ the house now for all I know. Be off; it’s no use you stoppin here.”

“But look here—you might as well buy it as Bogey;” and I began to haul the pineapple out of my trousers’ pocket “You shall have it for a shillin’—ninepence!—there.”

“Put it back! put it back!” cried the cobbler, trembling with excitement, as he squeezed back the pineapple into my pocket with his waxy hands; “ will you go? Stay here another moment and I’ll cut your throat.” And as he spoke, he snatched from off his work-bench a bright old knife, ground down at the point to almost needle sharpness, and made at me so furiously, that I took the steps two at a time, and ran for my life.

It really did seem as though the fates were against me. Bogey Simmons was the only person we three partners had ever dealt with. There were other “dealers,” whose names and places of abode I had heard tell of, but I could not think of one now; and so there I was as badly off as though my pockets were empty. Confound the precious pineapple! Had I taken three or four pears or oranges instead, I might have gone out in the Strand, and held them out for sale at the edge of the pavement. I might have gone round to the gallery door of the Adelphi or the Olympic—it was just the time—and disposed of them in a twinkling, but how could I offer a pineapple for sale in that way? If I did, I should find myself where Bogey Simmons was in a very short time.

There was only one course to pursue—a most extravagant course, and one that I resigned myself to with bitter regret—I must eat the pineapple—I had never tasted the fruit, and had no particular desire to; I would have exchanged it for its weight in bread with the greatest of pleasure. But there was no choice; I must eat something. And so, presently arriving at a mews somewhere near Bedford Square, I got into a cart I found there, and crouching down out of sight, ate up my half-guinea’s worth, body and bones. If I had had a knife I should have peeled it like a turnip, but being possessed of no such handy implement, I just bit off the top-knot, and ate it fairly down to the stump.

The result was that it didn’t agree with me. I was dreadfully sick, and so ill that I had scarcely power to move. I stayed in the cart until near the middle of the night when my limbs ached so with cold, that I sat up to rub them. As I did so, I spied a stable-heap at a little distance off, smoking bravely, and crawling out of the cart, I bedded comfortably among the warm litter till daybreak.

How I passed that day I could scarcely relate if I tried. I only know that I went aimlessly moving about, (I did not dare approach Covent Garden, the reader may be sure; though, indeed, I well might for all the good it had yielded me,) up one road and down another, feeling more benumbed than hungry, and neither seeking nor finding relief. I was too benumbed to think, somehow.

Then came the evening once more, and I was in Gray’s Inn Lane. There was a little mob of people blocking up a part of the pavement, and when I came up I found that they were listening to a boy singing in the road. I always liked singing, and the boy’s song happening to be one I very well knew—it was one of Mrs. Burke’s favourites—I found heart to stand and listen. “Erin-go-bragh” was the song. His voice was not a bad one, but it did not suit the song—at least it did not suit it so softly well as did Mrs. Burke’s voice. However, it suited the people very well; and when the boy had finished the song, and came round with his cap, the halfpence went “chink, chink” into it in a way that made me stare again.

It opened my eyes, did that boy’s song and its results, in more ways than one. It opened them so on one special object, that for a while I could see nothing else, or hear anything. It engrossed me entirely. The eyes of my mind were so completely fixed on it—on the object in question—that the mob dispersed and the singer went his way, and still I remained standing on the path as when I had first taken my stand there.

The object in question was that of a boy—not a boy in a black jacket and trousers, and with boots to his feet, such as he whom I had just listened to, but a boy in a tremendous pair of fustian trousers and a slouchy jacket smeared and daubed with paint—a shoeless and capless boy singing “Erin-go-bragh” in the road. I could see the boy as plainly as though just off the path-kerbing a looking-glass was fixed; I could hear him singing the Irish song with a true Irish flavour in its tune—the flavour that Mrs. Burke put in it, as I well knew from hearing it so often, and having so often practised it. There was a larger mob listening to the second boy than to the first, and the circumstance of his having no cap did not stand in his way when the song was finished, and he came round pulling a spray of his front hair in a civil way.