Reginald Cruden, Talbot Baines Reed [best black authors txt] 📗

nothing to do here just now,” said Reginald.

The boy looked a little disappointed, but said, presently,—

“Want any errands fetched, gov’nor?”

“No, not now. I’ve got all I want in for the present.”

“Like yer winders cleaned?”

“Not much use with this frost on them,” said Reginald.

Thwarted thus on every hand, the boy asked no more questions, but took upon himself to go round the office and dust it as well as he could with the ragged tail of his coat. It was evidently his way of saying, “Thank you,” and he seemed more easy in his mind when it was done.

He stopped once in the middle of his task as he caught Reginald’s eyes fixed half curiously, half pityingly upon him.

“Say—gov’nor, I ain’t going to read no more books; do ye hear?”

There was something quite pathetic in the tones in which this declaration of renunciation was made. It was evidently a supreme effort of repentance, and Reginald felt almost uncomfortable as he heard it.

“That there Noogate Calendar made a rare flare-up, didn’t it, gov’nor?” continued Love, looking wistfully towards the grate, if perchance any stray leaves should have escaped the conflagration.

“Not such a flare-up as you did,” said Reginald, laughing. “Never mind, we’ll try and get something nicer to read.”

“No fear! Never no more. I ain’t a-goin’ to read nothink again, I tell yer,” said the boy, quite warmly.

And for fear of wavering in his resolution he went round the room once more, rubbing up the cheap furniture till it shone, and ending with polishing up the very hearth that had served as the sacrificial altar to his beloved Newgate Calendar only a few days before. There was little or no more work to be done during the day. A few letters had come by the morning’s post, angrily complaining of the delay in delivering the promised goods. To these Reginald had replied in the usual form, leaving to Love the privilege of “licking them up.” He also wrote to Mr Medlock, enclosing the two pounds the pleasant clergyman had left the day before, and once more urging that gentleman to come down to Liverpool.

He went out, happily unconscious of the fact that a detective dogged every step he took, to post these letters himself, and at the same time to lay in a day’s provisions for two. It was with something like a qualm that he saw his last half-sovereign broken over this purchase. With nine shillings left in his pocket, and twelve days yet to Christmas, it was as clear as daylight that things were rapidly approaching a crisis. It was almost a relief to feel it.

On his way back to the office he passed a secondhand book-stall. He had lingered in front of it many times before now, turning over the leaves of this and that odd volume, and picking up the scraps of amusement and information which are always to be found in such an occupation. To-day, however, he overhauled the contents of the trays with rather more curiosity than usual; not because he expected to find a pearl of great price among the dust and dog’s ears of the “threepenny” tray. Reginald was the last person in the world to consider himself a child of fortune in that respect.

No! he had Master Love on his mind, and the memory of that blazing Newgate Calendar on his conscience, and, even at the cost of a further reduction of his vanishing income, he determined not to return provided with food for Love’s body only, but also for Love’s mind.

Accordingly he selected two very shabby and tattered volumes from the “threepenny” tray—one a fragment of Robinson Crusoe, the other Part One of the Pilgrim’s Progress, and with these in his pocket and the eatables in his hands, he returned to his charge as proud as a general who has just relieved a starving garrison.

After the frugal supper the books were triumphantly produced, but Master Love, still mindful of his recent tribulations, regarded them shyly at first, as another possible bait to his own undoing; but presently curiosity, and the sight of a wonderful picture of Giant Despair, overcame his scruples, and he held out his hand eagerly.

It was amusing to watch the critical look on his face as he took a preliminary glance through the pages of the two books. Reginald was half sorry he had not produced them one at a time; but it being too late now to recall either, he awaited with no little excitement the decision of the young connoisseur upon them. Apparently Love found considerable traces of what he would call “jam” in both. The picture of Crusoe coming upon the footprint in the sand, and that of the great battle between Christian and Apollyon, seemed to gather into themselves the final claims of the two rivals, and for a few moments victory trembled in the balance. At last he shut up Robinson Crusoe and stuffed it in his pocket.

“Say, what’s yer name,” said he, looking up and laying his finger on the battle scene; “which of them two does for t’other?”

“The one in the armour,” said Reginald.

“Thought so—t’other one’s a flat to fight with that there long flagpole. Soon as ’e’s chucked it away ’e’s a dead ’un. Say, what did they do with ’is dead body? No use a ’idin’ of it. If I was ’im I’d a cut ’is throat, and left the razor in ’is ’and, and they’d a brought it in soosanside. Bless you, coroners’ juries is reg’lar flats at findin’ out them sort of things.”

“Suppose you read what it says,” said Reginald, hardly able to restrain a laugh; “if you like you can read it aloud; I’d like to hear it again myself.”

The boy agreed, and that evening the two queerly assorted friends sat side by side in the dim candle-light, going over the wonderful story of the Pilgrim. Reginald judiciously steered the course through the most thrilling parts of the narrative, carefully avoiding whatever might have seemed to the boy dull or digressive.

Love stopped in his reading frequently to discuss the merits of the story and deliver himself of his opinion as to what he would have done under similar circumstances. He would have made short work with the lions chained by the roadside; he would have taken a bull’s-eye lantern through the dark valley; and as for the river at the end, he couldn’t understand anybody coming to grief there. Why, at Victoria Park last Whit Monday he had swum three-quarters of a mile himself!

In vain Reginald pointed out that Christian had his armour on. The young critic would not allow this as an excuse, and brought up cases of gentlemen of his acquaintance who had swum incredible distances in their clothes and boots.

But the story that delighted him most was that of the man who hacked his way into the palace. This was an adventure after his own heart. He read it over and over again, and was unsparing in his admiration of the hero, whom he compared for prowess with “Will Warspite the Pirate,” and “Dick Turpin,” and even his late favourite “Tim Tigerskin.” His interest in him was indeed so great that he allowed Reginald in a few simple words to say what it meant, and to explain how we could all, if we went the right way about it, do as great things as he did.

“Why you, youngster, when you made up your mind you wouldn’t read any more of those bad books, you knocked over one of your enemies.”

“Did I, though? how far in did I get?”

“You got over the doorstep, anyhow; but you’ve got plenty more to knock over before you get right into the place. So have I.”

“My eye, gov’nor,” cried the boy, his grimy face lighting up with an excited flush, “we’ll let ’em ’ave it!”

They read and discussed and argued far into the night; and when at last Reginald gave the order to go to bed there were no two friends more devoted than the Secretary of the Select Agency Corporation and his office-boy.

Love’s sleep that night was like the sleep of a pugilistic terrier, who in his dreams encounters and overcomes even deep-mouthed mastiffs and colossal Saint Bernards. He sniffed and snorted defiance as he lay, and his brow was damp with the sweat of battle, and his lips curled with the smile of victory. As soon as he awoke his hand sought the pocket where the wonderful book lay; and even as he tidied up the office and prepared the gov’nor’s breakfast, he was engaged in mortal inward combats.

“Say, gov’nor,” cried he, with jubilant face, as Reginald entered, “I’ve done for another of ’em. Topped him clean over.”

“Another of whom?” said Reginald.

“Them pals a-waitin’ in the ’all,” said he; “you know, in that there pallis.”

“Oh! in the Beautiful Palace we were reading about,” said Reginald. “Who have you done for this time?”

“That there Medlock,” said the boy.

“Medlock! What are you talking about?” said Reginald, in blank amazement.

“Oh, I’ve give him a wonner,” said the boy, beaming. “He says to me, ‘Collar all the letters your gov’nor writes ’ome,’ he says, ‘and I’ll give you a tanner for every one you shows me.’”

“Love, you’re talking rubbish!” said Reginald indignantly.

“Are I? don’t you make no mistake,” said the boy confidently; “I knows what he says; and that there letter you wrote home last night and leaves on the table, ‘That’s a tanner to me,’ says I to myself when I sees it this morning. ‘A lie,’ says I, recollecting of that chap in the story-book. So I lets it be; and my eye, ain’t that a topper for somebody—oh no!”

Reginald stared at the boy, half stupefied. The room whirled round him; and with a sudden rush the hopes of his life seemed to go from under him. It was not for some time that he could find words to say, hoarsely,—

“Love, is this the truth, or a lie you are telling me?”

“Lie—don’t you make no error, gov’nor—I ain’t on that lay, I can tell you. I’m goin’ right into that there pallis, and there’s two on ’em topped a’ready.”

“You mean to say Mr Medlock told you to steal my letters and give them to him?”

“Yes, and a tanner apiece on ’em, too. But don’t you be afraid, he don’t get none out of me, not if I swings for it.”

“You can go out for a run, Love,” said Reginald. “Come back in an hour. I want to be alone.”

“You aren’t a-giving me the sack?” asked the boy with falling countenance.

“No, no.”

“And you ain’t a-goin’ to commit soosanside while I’m gone, are yer?” he inquired, with a suspicious glance at Reginald’s blanched face.

“No. Be quick and go.”

“’Cos if you do, they do say as a charcoal fire—”

“Will you go?” said Reginald, almost angrily, and the boy vanished.

I need not describe to the reader all that passed through the poor fellow’s mind as he paced up and down the bare office that morning. The floodgates had suddenly been opened upon him, and he felt himself overwhelmed in a deluge of doubt and shame and horror.

It was long before he could collect his thoughts sufficiently to see anything clearly. Why Mr Medlock should take the trouble to prevent his home letters reaching their destination was incomprehensible, and indeed it weighed little with him beside the fact that the man who had given him his situation, and on whom he was actually depending for his living, was the same who could bribe his office-boy to steal his letters. If he were capable of such a meanness, was he to be trusted in anything else? How was Reginald to know whether the money he had regularly remitted to him was properly accounted for, or whether the orders were being conscientiously executed?

Then it occurred to him the whole business of the Corporation had been done in his—Reginald’s—name, that all the circulars had been signed by him, and that all the money had come addressed to