George Henty - Sturdy and Strong - or, How George Andrews Made His Way

"And your friend too, if he likes. I have some works down at Limehouse and employ a good many boys. Here is the address;" and he took a card from his pocket, wrote a few words on the back of it, and handed it to George.

"Ask for the foreman, and give him that, and he will arrange for you to begin work on Monday. Come along, Nellie; we have got to buy the fruit for to-morrow, you know."

So saying he took his daughter's hand, and George, wild with delight, ran off to tell Bill that he had obtained work for them both.

"Well, Nellie, are you satisfied?"

"Yes, I am glad you could give him work, papa; didn't he look pleased? Wasn't it funny his saying he wouldn't have any money?"

"Yes; I hardly expected to have met with a refusal in Covent Garden; but you were right, child, and you are a better judge of character than I gave you credit for. You said he was a nice-looking lad, and spoke like a gentleman, and he does. He is really a very good style of boy. Of course he is shabby and dirty now, and you see he has been an errand-boy at a grocer's; but he must have been better brought up than the generality of such lads. The one he called his friend looked a wild sort of specimen, altogether a different sort of boy. I should say he was one of the regular arabs hanging about this place. If so, I expect a very few days' work will sicken him; but I shouldn't be surprised if your boy, as you call him, sticks to it."

The next morning the two boys presented themselves at Mr. Penrose's works at Limehouse. These were sawing and planing works, and the sound of many wheels, and the hoarse rasping sound of saws innumerable, came out through the open windows of the building as they entered the yard.

"Now what do you boys want?" a workman said as he appeared at one of the doors.

"We want to see the foreman," George said. "I have a card for him from Mr. Penrose."

"I will let him know," the man replied.

Two minutes later the foreman came out, and George handed him the card. He read what Mr. Penrose had written upon it and said:

"Very well, you can come in on Monday; pay, eight shillings a week; seven o'clock; there, that will do. Oh, what are your names?" taking out a pocket-book. "George Andrews and William Smith;" and then, with a nod, he went back into his room, while the boys, almost bewildered at the rapidity with which the business had been arranged, went out into the street again.

"There we are, Bill, employed," George said in delight.

"Yes, there we is," Bill agreed, but in a more doubtful tone; "it's a rum start, aint it? I don't expect I shall make much hand of it, but I am wery glad for you, George."

"Why shouldn't you make much hand of it? You are as strong as I am."

"Yes; but then, you see, I aint been accustomed to work regular, and I expect I shan't like it – not at first; but I am going to try. George, don't yer think as I aint agoing to try. I aint that sort; still I expects I shall get the sack afore long."

"Nonsense, Bill! you will like it when you once get accustomed to it, and it's a thousand times better having to draw your pay regularly at the end of the week than to get up in the morning not knowing whether you are going to have breakfast or not. Won't mother be pleased when I write and tell her I have got a place! Last time she wrote she said that she was a great deal better, and the doctor thought she would be out in the spring, and then I hope she will be coming up here, and that will be jolly."

"Yes, that's just it," Bill said; "that's whear it is; you and I will get on fust-rate, but it aint likely as your mother would put up with a chap like me."

"My mother knows that you have been a good friend to me, Bill, and that will be quite enough for her. You wait till you see her."

"My eye, what a lot of little houses there is about here!" Bill said, "just all the same pattern; and how wide the streets is to what they is up Drury Lane!"

"Yes, we ought to have no difficulty in getting a room here, Bill, now that we shall have money to pay for it; only think, we shall have sixteen shillings a week between us!"

"It's a lot of money," Bill said vaguely. "Sixteen bob! My eye, there aint no saying what it will buy! I wish I looked a little bit more respectable," he said, with a new feeling as to the deficiencies of his attire. "It didn't matter in the Garden; but to go to work with a lot of other chaps, these togs aint what you may call spicy."

"They certainly are not, Bill," George said with a laugh. "We must see what we can manage."

George's own clothes were worn and old, but they looked respectable indeed by the side of those of his companion. Bill's elbows were both out, the jacket was torn and ragged, he had no waistcoat, and his trousers were far too large for him, and were kept up by a single brace, and were patched in a dozen places.

When George first met him he was shoeless, but soon after they had set up housekeeping together George had bought from a cobbler's stall a pair of boots for two shillings, and these, although now almost falling to pieces, were still the best part of Bill's outfit.

The next morning George went out with the bundle containing his Sunday clothes, which had been untouched since his arrival in town, and going to an old-clothes shop he exchanged them for a suit of working clothes in fair condition, and then returning hid his bundle in the hay and rejoined Bill, who had from early morning been at work shelling walnuts. Although Bill was somewhat surprised at his companion not beginning work at the usual time he asked no questions, for his faith in George was so unbounded that everything he did was right in his eyes.

"There is our last day's work in the market, Bill," George said as they reached their loft that evening.

"It's your last day's work, George, I aint no doubt; but I expects it aint mine by a long way. I have been a-thinking over this 'ere go, and I don't think as it will act nohow. In the first place I aint fit to go to such a place, and they are sure to make it hot for me."

"That's nonsense, Bill; there are lots of roughish sort of boys in works of that sort, and you will soon be at home with the rest."

"In the next place," Bill went on, unheeding the interruption, "I shall be getting into some blooming row or other afore I have been there a week, and they will like enough turn you out as well as me. That's what I am a-thinking most on, George. If they chucks me the chances are as they chucks you too; and if they did that arter all the pains you have had to get a place I should go straight off and make a hole in the water. That's how I looks at it."

"But I don't think, Bill, that there's any chance of your getting into a row. Of course at first we must both expect to be blown up sometimes, but if we do our best and don't answer back again we shall do as well as the others."

"Oh, I shouldn't cheek 'em back," Bill said. "I am pretty well used to getting blown up. Every one's always at it, and I know well enough as it don't pay to cheek back, not unless you have got a market-cart between you and a clear road for a bolt. I wasn't born yesterday. Yer've been wery good to me, you have, George, and before any harm should come to yer through me, s'help me, I'd chuck myself under a market-wagon."

"I know you would, Bill; but, whatever you say, you have been a far greater help to me than I have to you. Anyhow we are not going to part now. You are coming to work with me to start with, and I know you will do your best to keep your place. If you fail, well, so much the worse, it can't be helped; but after our being sent there by Mr. Penrose I feel quite sure that the foreman would not turn me off even if he had to get rid of you."

"D'yer think so?"

"I do, indeed, Bill."