Samuel Crockett - Cleg Kelly, Arab of the City - His Progress and Adventures

At first he ran slowly, and apparently with great alarm, so that the butcher's boy had not the least doubt that he easily could catch him. Cleg held the sergeant's wife's "piece" in his hand as he ran, so that the butcher's boy could see the thick sugar on the top of the yellow butter. This stirred up the pursuer's desires, and he made a spurt to seize Cleg. Had the assailant been the grocer's boy, to whom sugar and butter were vain things, Cleg would have had to try another plan. Now, when the butcher's boy spurted, Cleg almost let himself be caught. He heard close behind him the labouring of the avenger. With a sudden rush he sped thirty yards in front; then he turned and ran backwards, eating the sergeant's wife's "piece" as he ran. This aggravated the butcher's boy to such an extent that he had to stop with his hand on his panting side, and curse Cleg's parentage – which, sad to relate, pleased Cleg more than anything. He said it was prime. By which he meant, not the sergeant's wife's "piece," but the whole situation, and especially the disgust of the butcher's boy.

Then Cleg, being contented, offered honourable terms, for he and the butcher's boy were in reality very good friends. He gave his late pursuer a fair half of the bread and sugar, but reserved the crust for himself. So, munching amicably, Cleg and the butcher's boy returned together to the paling on which Cleg had been sitting.

But, alas! during his temporary absence from his care, Tam Luke, the baker's boy, had come along. And in pursuit of the eternal feud between butcher's boys and baker's boys, he had overturned the basket and rolled the meat on the road. Luke was now sitting on the rail a little way along, smoking a pipe loaded with brown paper, with a kind of ostentatious calmness.

When half across the field the butcher's boy observed the insult to his basket. Yet he said nothing till he came quite near. Then, in the most friendly manner possible, he seized the defiled leg of mutton, destined for the dinner of an eminent Doctor in Divinity, and hit Tam Luke a swinging blow over the head with it, which not only broke that youth's pipe, but for a season spoiled the shape of his mouth, and tumbled him incontinently over the fence.

The baker's boy rose, shedding freely bits of clay pipe and exceedingly evil words. A battle royal seemed imminent to one who did not know the commonplaces of friendly intercourse among these worthies. But the baker's boy contented himself with stating over and over in varied and ornamental language, highly metaphorical in parts, what he would do to the butcher's boy if he hit him again. However, the butcher's boy had too great an advantage in handling Professor Hinderlands' leg of mutton, and the tempest gradually blew itself out.

Whereupon all parties betook themselves to a street pump to wash the various articles which had been strewed in the mire, and to dry them on the butcher's boy's blue-striped apron, which he wore girt about him like a rope. It was a highly instructive sight. And had the cooks of various respectable families seen the process, they would have had a sufficient answer to their frequent indignant question that morning, "What can be keeping Cleaver's young vaigabond?"

Also, had they happened to pass, a number of the good ladies who sat down so comfortably to enjoy their dinners (which they called "lunch" if anybody happened to call) would certainly have gone without the principal course.

But the butcher's boy and the baker's boy were not in the least distressed. Such things happened every day. It was all in the way of business. And as for our hero, he, as we have indicated before, merely remarked, in his vulgar way, that it was prime.

So far he had had a good, interesting day, and was exceedingly pleased with himself.

Presently all three went and calmly smoked on the side of the road, roosting contentedly on the paling, while Tam Luke, who had got a prize for good reading at the school, drew out of his pocket "The Bully Boys' Budget" – an international journal of immense circulation, which described the adventures of associated bands of desperate ruffians (aged, on an average, nine) in New York, a city which Cleaver's loon looked upon as a boys' Paradise. Boys were discouraged in Edinburgh. They got no chance of distinguishing themselves.

"It's a most michty queer thing," said Cleg, "that the story says, if Tam Luke reads it richt – "

"I'll smash yer tawtie heid!" remarked that gentleman, mightily offended at the insinuation.

"If Tam Luke reads it richt," continued Cleg, "that in New York the bobbies rin frae the boys; but here the boys rin frae the bobbies like fun."

" Me? " said Cleaver's boy. "I wadna rin for ony bobby in the hale toon."

"An' me ," cried Tam Luke, with mighty contempt, "I lickit a big bobby the nicht afore yestreen. I could fecht a bobby wi' yae hand tied ahint my back."

"Bobbies are nane sic bad folks. The sergeant's wife over there gied me a 'piece,'" said Cleg gratefully.

"Ye are a reid-heided Irish traitor!" said the butcher's boy with emphasis.

"It's my faither that's reid-heided," said Cleg promptly; "but tak' that ony way for speaking ill o' the family!"

And with the back of his hand he knocked the libeller of his forbears over into the field.

"I'm gaun to be captain o' a band o' robbers – will ye baith join?" said Tam Luke.

Cleaver's boy was about to wreak his vengeance on Cleg from the other side of the fence, but he paused with his arm suspended to think over the proposal.

"I'm gaun to be captain o' a band mysel'! Will ye join?" said the butcher's boy to Cleg, instead of assaulting him as he had first intended.

"What to do?" asked practical Cleg.

"To fecht the poliss, of course!" cried the butcher's boy and the baker's boy together. Their unanimity was wonderful.

" There's the sergeant the noo! " said Cleg quietly, pointing across the road.

And it was indeed the sergeant, who, having been on night duty, had just risen and strolled out to see what kind of weather it was.

The valiant captains of the decimating bands which were to terrorise the police of the city, descended from their several roosts as with one mind, seized their baskets, and sped round opposite corners with amazing speed.

Cleg Kelly was left alone, sitting on the paling. He pulled out what remained of his crust, and as he ate it with relish, he laughed aloud and kicked his heels with glee, so that the sergeant, stretching himself after his day-sleep, called across to the boy —

"What's up wi' ye, Cleg? Ye seem to be enjoyin' yoursel'!"

But all the answer he could get out of Cleg was just, "O man, sergeant, it's prime!"

But as to whether he meant the crust or only things in general, the sergeant was none the wiser.

Cleg had watched his father furtively all day. Little conversation passed between these two. Cleg devoted much of his time to a consideration of the best means of legitimate gain in his new profession of capitalist. He possessed the large sum of one shilling and a penny. It was banked upon sound old principles in the hollow end of a brick, which was buried under a flag in the backyard of a brewery. Cleg had hidden it with mystic incantations, and now carried a red worsted thread twisted round his finger to remind him of its whereabouts.

But there was another reason besides his large capital, why Cleg was unusually watchful of his father that day. First of all, Tim Kelly had come home sober from Hare's public the night before. That was a suspicious circumstance in itself. It showed not only that his ready cash had all been liquefied, but that Mistress Hare had drawn a line under the big chalk score behind her door. This line was the intimation that the single file of figures must be wiped off before another dram was served.