James Greenwood - The True History of a Little Ragamuffin

“Had your tea?” he presently inquired of me, rising from the sofa abruptly.

“No, sir,” I replied, growing each moment more and more uncomfortable.

“Draw up, then; take that chair against the window.”

“Please, sir, I don’t want any tea.”

“Go without, then,” replied he; “I’m going to get my tea. Never mind, sit where you are; I’ll eat and talk too, and you take care and keep your ears open.”

“Where d’yer come from?” he presently asked. The question took me so suddenly, that I didn’t know how to answer it, even if I had been inclined. Where had I come from? From Clerkenwell, from Camberwell, from Wentworth Street—which should I say? Mr. George, however, relieved me of my embarrassment.

“All right! I don’t want to know particular, since you’re shy about it,” he remarked, not allowing the conversation to interfere with his appetite for the eggs and ham. “Have you got a home to go to—a regular home, with a father and mother? I must know that.”

“I’ve run away, and I daren’t go home.”

“Why daren’t you?”

“’Cos I should be about murdered.”

“Because you’d be about murdered, eh?” repeated Mr. George, placidly helping himself to lump sugar; “that’s all right. There’ll be no occasion for you to go home and be murdered, my lad; you’re going to live here in future.”

“Live here?”

“Ah! I’m going to take you as an in-door ’prentice; I’m going to feed and lodge you, and you’re going to work for me.”

“What at, sir?”

“At what you’ve served two months at, so you say,” replied Mr. George, with an incredulous shrug of his shoulders; “at the trade I caught you working at to-night.”

“Not that that style of performance will suit me,” continued he, after a pause, sufficiently long to enable him to give his undivided attention to pouring out and sweetening a cup of tea; “oh, dear no! I’d sooner board and lodge you, and find you in togs and pocket-money for six months, rather than see you going about your business in such a beastly, bungling manner. Luck’s all very well, but a man’s a fool who trusts to it. Nobody ever prospered who trusted all to luck, my lad. You’ve been lucky—lucky to the last, I may say, because if it hadn’t been your luck to have met with me, you’d have found yourself behind a grating in less than a month, sure as eggs.”

And as though to illustrate the aptness of the simile, he whipped the last remaining egg in the dish into his mouth entire, and this bringing the meal to an end, he leant back in his chair, and, taking a pretty little toothpick from his waistcoat pocket, proceeded to use it, while he further enlightened me as to his intentions as regarded myself.

“What I’ve got to say,” said he, “may be said in a very few words. You’re a lad in want of a master—devilishly in want of a master—and I’m a master not particularly wanting a lad, but happening to be open for one that suits me. At present you’re a muff—you ain’t worth your salt; but I’ve took a sort of fancy to you, and if you’ve a mind to go into the thing all right, and square, and earnest, why, I’ll make a man of you. I can do it My name is George Hopkins—Long George Hopkins, I’m called. You, being a muff, may never have heard of me; but I’d lay a matter of twelve to one that the first policeman you meet has. ‘Know him? Ah! I should rather think we did,’ he’d say; ‘he’s one of the cleverest trainers in London.’ I’ve got it in print to show in a dozen newspapers.” And he ran the fingers of his unoccupied hand through his curls, and, tilting his chair, continued to pick his teeth gracefully, allowing me full half-a-minute for silent admiration of a man who had earned for himself such wide-spread reputation.

“I’m going to train you,” continued he, presently, in a patronising tone, and with his thumbs hooked in at the arm-holes of his waistcoat.

There was no use in contradicting him, and, seeing that I was expected to say something, I replied, “Thanky, sir I if you’re a-goin’ to do me any good, I’m werry much obliged to you.”

“Do you good! it’s a chance that a dozen boys in this street would jump out of their skins for. You’ll see. You think yourself a wonderfully clever chap, no doubt; kids always are conceited—I was. Now I’ll warrant, in less than a month, to bring you along so that you won’t be able to think of a job like this” (here he tapped the pocket into which he had placed the pocket-book I had stolen) “without feeling downright ashamed of yourself. That’s saying something, isn’t it?”

I began to feel more at my ease with Mr. Hopkins, and I answered that I thought it was saying a great deal.

“Exactly; it’s saying everything. In fact,” said he, taking out a meerschaum pipe from a handsome case, and filling and lighting it, “it’s saying ten times more tin, and twenty times less risk in getting it. It’s as plain as A, B, C. ‘It’s a wretched life, and you’d better turn your hand to honest ways,’ say the Johnny Greens, who know no more how to lighten a pocket than they do of well-boring; and they’re right enough; as they find it, honesty is the best policy, no doubt. What’s your name?”

“Jim Smith”—

Wishing to conceal my real name from Mr. Hopkins, I was about to give him the one that Mouldy and Ripston had conferred on me, but having doubts as to how he would take it, I hesitated when I had got thus far.

“Very well, Jim Smith, so far so good; now let us go a little further into the business. You haven’t been doing by any means first-rate, now, I’ll wager, in spite of all your good luck?”

“Well, as for that”—

“You’ve no need to tell me; I know all about it,” interrupted Mr. Hopkins, waving his hand. “It’s always the same; meat to-day, banyan tomorrow—no certainty; never a regular half-crown in your pocket, eh?”

“Nor a reg’ler shillin’ either,” I answered. “How can it be reg’ler when you’re ’bliged to take it as it comes, and when you can get it?”

“Of course, it can’t be regular. Well, well, it’s the light of other days, with all that sort of thing, if you will only mind yourself, as I told you before. I teach you your business—I provide you grub and bub, while you’re learning it, all free and without charge—and, when you’re knowing enough, you work for me. You understand? You work for me, and I dress you as handsome as any young gentleman in the land. I feed you on the best; I lodge you like a duke. Slack times or busy shall make no sort of difference to you; there’s always a good dinner, and if you want a crown to spend of evenings, all you’ve got to do is to ask for it. How do you like the offer?” And Mr. Hopkins grinned to see the expression of astonishment and incredulity that, naturally enough, was visible on my countenance.

“I couldn’t be off likin’ it,” I replied; “but what’s it all goin’ to be done on the strength on? that’s what I want to know.”

“On the strength of your going to work, and bringing me home all your earnings,” answered Mr. Hopkins.

“You mean, bring home all I can—can—get?” I observed, taking much more kindly to the generous fellow now than at first.

“Just so,” nodded he, puffing out a mouthful of smoke.

“Oh, well! I don’t think there need be any hagglin’ over it,” said I eagerly, and only afraid, either that he might be joking or presently see cause to alter his mind, “I’m quite willin’; it’s just the sort of place as’ll suit me, I think.”

“No doubt of it,” replied Mr. Hopkins. “That’s one side of the picture; now let’s have a look at the other side. You heard what Mrs. Hopkins said when we first came in, didn’t you?”