James Greenwood - The True History of a Little Ragamuffin

Ripston was not a swell. His trousers were of the same material as his jacket, and both were grimed with dirt. His face, too, was smutty enough to show distinctly the tracks of perspiration, brought on by his eager struggles in the mob to secure the chance of a front seat. But what struck me most was his hands. They were as dirty as they ever were, but they were corned as they never were in my recollection; and as I regarded them so heartily laid on the collar of my dandy black jacket, I felt a thrill such as is seldom felt in the course of a long life.

“Why, what’s the matter, Smiff? Ain’t yer glad to see me?” asked Ripston, suddenly dropping his hands from me. And then, after regard-me for a few moments, he suddenly broke into loud laughter. “I knows what it is now; I didn’t think of it afore,” he exclaimed; “you’ve got ’spectable, Smiff, and you don’t like mixin’ with me. ’Course you didn’t know I was changed; how should yer?”

This explanation did not comfort me, however; on the contrary, it made me wish that Ripston was a hundred miles away. I knew well enough what he meant; nevertheless, I asked him.

“Changed from what? What do yer mean to say that you’re changed from, Ripston?”

“Why, same as you’re changed—changed from them old ways of pickin’ up a livin’,” whispered Ripston. “I’m a greengrocer’s cove now—carries out coals, and taters, and all that, don’t yer know? Comfor’ble crib it is; eighteen-pence a week and all my wittles and lodgins. I’ve been at it this seven months.”

“How’s Mouldy?” I inquired, not without the wicked hope that my guilty conscience would receive comfort in the intelligence that Mouldy had turned out a consummate ruffian—a burglar, or highwayman, perhaps.

“Mouldy’s dead,” replied Ripston, shortly.

“Dead?”

“Dead since last boxin’-day. Come on, the doors is open; we shan’t get a seat in the gallery if we don’t shove in.”

“I ain’t goin’ to the gallery, I’m a-goin’ to the boxes, Rip. You come to the boxes too, Rip; then we can sit together and have a jaw between the pieces.”

“Boxes is fourpence; a penny is every mag I’ve got”

“Never mind, I’ll stand a box for you; I’ve got some money; I’ve got more’n a shillin’.”

I was ashamed to say that I had nearly three.

“More’n a shillin’! my eyes! you have been a-gettin’ on. You ain’t got a crib at a coal-shop. If I was to guess, I should say that you was a linen-draper’s cove. Are yer?”

“You’ve just guessed it,” I replied, much relieved that Ripston had found an occupation.

“And you’ve bin a savin’ up, and you’re come out for your holiday. Ain’t I right?”

“You alwis was a stunner at guessin’,” I answered, vaguely; “but come on, Rip, or we shan’t get a seat in the boxes neither.”

We did, however, get a tolerably good seat, and, being in a select and expensive part of the house, besides two young girls and an old lady, we had the box all to ourselves. The performance had not yet begun, so I produced my mash of sausage rolls and invited Rip to partake of it; I further showed him the oranges I had bought, which quite confirmed his opinion—if confirmation was necessary after my tacit acknowledgment—that I was out for a holiday.

“Mouldy dead, eh?” I remarked, as Rip was knuckle-deep in flakey crust and sausage meat.

“Had a haccident, and killed hisself the day arter Christmas-day,” answered Ripston, taking a fresh mouthful of the pasty, and shaking his head in a melancholy manner.

“What sort of haccident, Rip?”

“Fell off from a roof. Arter lead he was. Yer knows that old ware’us wot faced the river, wot was to let when you was down there—that ’un where the crane was wot we used to have a lark on?”

“I knows it.”

“That was where he got his haccident, then,” said Ripston, inclining his head to mine, and sinking his voice to a whisper. “You knows how things was goin’, Smiff, when you got the fever and was took away. Well, they got wuss and wuss. We lost the wan wot we used to lodge in, and nobody ’ud let us have a share of ther’n, for fear that we might have your fever on us, and they might ketch it; so we had to get into a corner and sleep on the stones— you knows the bird-limey sort of stones there is under the ’Delphi, Smiff? That was our luck at home, and out it was the same as though it was cut out of the same stuff. Market coves down on us, pleecemen agin’ us, no jobs; and, as for makin’ a little in the old way, don’t yer know, yer might as well have tried to nail the buttons off the beadle’s coat wirrout his knowin’ it, as ’tempt such a thing. Then come the weather— you knows the sort of weather it was, Smiff, perishen’, orful sort of weather, ’specially when your wittles was chiefly wegetables. How we got through them two months, blest if I know. Then there come Christmas-day. A cove nat’rally ’spects a bit of grub on a Christmas-day, if he don’t get any any other time; but it was no use our ’spectin’ it. Nothin’ but a ‘Swede’ for brekfus’, and Mouldy so down on his luck on account of chilblains that there he sat nussin’ his feet, poor feller, and goin’ on, enough to make yer mis’rable. They keeps Christmas down the ’Delphi, don’t yer know, Smiff? much jollier than might be ’spected. They gets the money somehow—clubs together, I s’pose—and has a fire, and summat to warm ’em and smokes and sings songs reg’ler like a party. We jined in the Christmas afore, but we couldn’t jine this time, and there we stopped in our corner, a-shiverin’ one agin’ the other, without a mite to eat arter that Swede till it was bed-time. I never seed poor Mouldy so desp’rit. He was alwis a good ’un at his wittles, yer know, Smiff, and the sound of the frizzin’ and fryin’, and the smell of the steak and inguns and that, was too much for. him. ‘This is the last day I’ll have of this, Rip,’ said he; ‘if the luck won’t turn of itself, I’m jiggered if I don’t turn it; it’s their time to have steaks and inguns to-night—to-morrow it shall be ourn, Rip, and no mistake.’ Well, yer know, I thought he was on’y sayin’ so because he felt so savage. I never dreamt that he meant anything serious, so I jest said ‘All right,’ and went to sleep without takin’ any more notice of Mouldy or enythink else.

“Well, next mornin’, when I woke Mouldy was already up and off. He never did go anywheres without tellin’ me, and I couldn’t make it out. I asked the coves wot I knowed if they had seed him that mornin’, but nobody had. I went and hunted round the market—never dreamin’ of the words he had said afore he went to sleep last night, mind yer—but no Mouldy; and then, ’bout ten o’clock, I come home agin, and jest as I got down the steps a feller ses, ‘Well, how is he?’ ses he. ‘How’s who?’ ses I. ‘Why, your chum, Mouldy,’ he ses. ‘Ain’t you bin to see him, or wouldn’t they let yer in?’ ses he. It took me so sudden that I couldn’t get my words out what I wanted to speak; so, ses the feller, ‘Mouldy’s gone to the ’orspidle—you knows that, don’t yer?’

‘Gone to the ’orspidle!’ ses I; ‘what’s he gone there for?’ ‘Broke both of his legs, and a whole lot of his ribs,’ ses he, ‘tryin’ to nail lead off a roof down by the waterside; and he’s gone on a stretcher to Guy’s. The gutter wot he climbed up by he was a-climbin’ down by, with the lead on him, don’t yer see, and the extry weight on it made the spout give way, and down he come a reg’ler buster. He’s dead afore this, I dessay.’”

So completely engrossed was Ripston in the recital of his friend’s melancholy end, that the stage-curtain had positively risen without his being aware of it. True, the opening performance was merely a ballet, an entertainment of a light and trivial character, and in which a boy of Ripston’s high dramatic inclinations could scarcely be expected to take delight. When he had progressed so far with his story, his emotion compelled him to pause and wipe his eyes, after which he gave but a single glance towards the stage, and proceeded.