A son of the state

Chapter I

'HE round white September moon lighted up Pitfield Street from end to end and made the gas lights in the shop windows look abashed and unnecessary. Out in the Old Street triangle, men on the wooden seats who had good eyesight read the halfpenny evening papers as though it were day, and were able without any trouble to make record in knowing-looking pocket books of the running of Ormonde. At the Hoxton Theatre of Varieties, the early crowd streamed out into Pitfield Street flushed with two hours of joy for twopence, and the late crowd which had been waiting patiently at the doors flowed in for their twopennyworth. When these two crowds had disappeared, the Old Street end of Pitfield Street belonged once more to the men and women who were shopping, and even at the obtrusive fruiterer’s (with a shop that bulged almost to the kerb and a wife whose size was really beyond all reason), even there one could just pass without stepping into the road. Further up the street, outside a public-house, was however another crowd blocking the pathway, and this crowd overflowed into the dim passage by the side of the public-house, where it looked up at the lighted room on the first floor with an interest that seemed to be ungenerously repaid by the back view of a few heads. It was a grown-up crowd, mainly of women. Children had given up efforts to belong to it, and down the passage which was as the neck of a bottle leading into a court quite six feet wide, youngsters shouted and sang and quarrelled and played at games. From the direction of the other end of the court came a short, acute faced boy with a peakless cap and a worn red scarf tied very tightly around his neck. He had both hands in the pockets of a jacket which was too large for him, and he smoked the fag end of a cigar with the frowning air of a connoisseur who is not altogether well pleased with the brand. He stopped, signalled with a jerk of his head to a slip of a girl who was disputing for the possession of an empty lobster can with a vigour that could not have been exceeded if the lobster can had been a jewel case of priceless value ; she retired at once from the struggle, and, pulling at her stocking, ran towards him.

u Where ’s all the chaps ? ” he asked, removing the cigar stump from his lips.

“ Where ’ve you bin, Bobbie Lancaster ? ” she asked, without replying to his question.

“You ’eard what I asted you, Trix,” he said, steadily. “ I asted you where all the chaps was.”

“Some of ’em ’ave gone over ’Ackney way,” said the slip of a girl. “ Where ’ve you bin ? ”

He flicked the black ash from the fag end in the manner of one five times his age.

“ ’Opping ! ” he said.

“ You ’re a liar ! ” retorted the small girl, sharply.

“ Ho ! ” said the boy. “ Shows what you know about it.”

“No, but,” she said, admiringly, “’ave you though, straight ? ”

“ I’ve bin at Yaldin’,” he said, with immeasurable importance, — “at Yaldin’ down in Kent for ite days. Me and another chep.”

“ Bin ’ome ? ” asked the girl, with interest.

“ Not yet,” he said. “ When I do I shall ’ave to take a drop of something in for the old gel. I went off wifout letting her know and I expect she ’s been wonderin’ what ’s become of me.”

“Then if you ain’t bin ’ome,’'’ said the little girl, breathlessly, “ p’raps you don’t

A strong voice called from a doorway.

“Trixie Bell! Trixie Bell ! You come in this minute and look after the shop, you good-fornothing little terror.’’

w I must be off,” said the small girl, going hurriedly. “Wait ’ere till I come out again and I ’ll tell you somefing.”

“ I don’t waste my time loafin’ about for gels,” said Master Lancaster, as the girl disappeared in a doorway. “ Ketch me ! ”

He sauntered down the court towards Pitfield Street and, noting the crowd, slightly increased his pace. Taking a shilling from his coat pocket he tied it in a blue handkerchief and stuffed the handkerchief inside his waistcoat, being aware apparently that it is in a London crowd that property sometimes changes hands in the most astonishing manner.

“Very well then,” said a fiery faced woman, who, getting the worst of an argument, was looking around for another subject, “ if you did ’ave an uncle who was drowned, that ’s no reason why you should step on this little kid’s toes.”

“ Born clumsy ! ” agreed Master Lancaster, resentfully rubbing his boot.

“ Stand a bit aside, can’t you, and let the youngster pass. ’Aving a uncle who was in the navy don’t entitle you to take up all the room.

Likely as not the little beggar ’s a witness and wants to go upstairs.” The fiery faced woman looked down at the boy. u Are you a witness, dear ? ”

“ Course I ’m a witness,” he said, readily.

cc What did I tell you ? ” exclaimed the beefy faced woman with triumph. “ Constable, ’ere ’s a witness that ’s got to be got upstairs. Make way for him, else he ’ll get hisself in a row for being late.”

Whereupon, to his great amazement and satisfaction, Master Bobbie Lancaster found himself passed along through the thick crowd of matrons to the swing doors of the public-house ; the importance of his mission being added to by every lady, so that when at last he reached the two policemen guarding the stairs he was introduced to them as a boy who saw the accident ; could identify the driver, could, in short, clear up everything. Bobbie, accordingly, after being cuffed by the two policemen (more from force of habit than any desire to treat him harshly), was shot up the staircase past a window where, glancing aside, he saw the bunches of excited interested faces below ; past a landing, and, the door being left momentarily unattended, he slipped into the room. He gave up instantly his newly gained character and crouched modestly in a corner behind the thirty members of the general public and kept his head well down.

u Now, now, now ! Do let ’s proceed in order. Is there any other witness who can throw any light on the affair ? What ? ”

The club room of the public-house, with cider and whiskey advertisements on its brown papered walls, was long and narrow, and the stout genial man seated at the end of the table had command of the room from his position. He gave his orders to a bare-headed sergeant who hunted for witnesses and submitted the results at the other end of the long table; he smiled when he turned to the twelve moody gentlemen at the side of the table ; to one, at the extreme end, who had a carpenter’s rule in his breast pocket he was especially courteous. The carpenter made labourious notes with a flat lead pencil on a slip of blue paper, a proceeding at which the other members of the jury grunted disdainfully. Bobbie Lancaster, between the arms of two men in front of him, caught sight momentarily of the woman whom the sergeant had caught and who was now kissing the Testament. He recognised her as a neighbour.

u What does she say her name is, sergeant ? ”

“Mary Jane Rastin, sir.”

“ Mary Jane Rastin.” The coroner wrote the name. u Very good ! Now, Mrs. Rastin — ”

“ ’Alf a minute,” interrupted the carpenter. “Let me get this down right. W — r — a — ” u W be blowed,” said the blowsy woman at the end of the table indignantly. “Don’t you know how to spell a simple name like Rastin ? Very clear you was before the days of the School Board.”

“ I have it down,” said the coroner, suavely, “R — a — s — t — i — n.”

“ Ah,” said Mrs. Rastin, in complimentary tones, “ you ’ re a gentleman, sir. Tou *ve had an education. Tou ain’t been dragged up like — ”

“ Be careful what you ’re saying of,” begged the carpenter, fiercely. “ Don’t you go aspersing my character, if you please. I ’m setting ’ere now to represent the lor and — ”

“ Now, now, my dear sir,” said the coroner, “ don’t quarrel with the witness.” He smiled cheerfully at the other members of the jury and almost winked. “ That ’s my prerogative, you know.” He turned to the trembling lady at the end of the table. “Now, Mrs. Rastin, you live in Pimlico Walk, and you are, I believe, a widow?” Mrs. Rastin bowed severely, and then looked at the carpenter as who should say, What do you make of that, my fine fellow ? The coroner went on. “ And you knew the deceased ? ”

“ Intimate, sir ! ”

“Was she a woman with — er, inebriate tendencies ? ”

“ Pardon, sir ? ”

“ I say was she a woman who had a weakness ,for alcohol ? ”

The sergeant interpreted, “ Did she booze ? ”

“ She liked her glass now and again, sir,” said Mrs. Rastin, carefully.

“That is rather vague,” remarked the coroner. “ What does c now and again * mean ? ”

“Well, sir,” said Mrs. Rastin, tying the ribbons of her rusty bonnet into a desperate knot, “ what I mean to say is whenever she had the chance.”

“ You were with her anterior to the accident ? ” “ I were ! ”

“ You had been drinking together ? ”

“Well, sir,” said Mrs. Rastin, impartially, and untying her bonnet strings, “ scarcely what you ’d call drinking. It was like this : It were the anniversary of my weddin’ day, and, brute as Rastin always was and shameful as he treated all my rel’tives in the way of borrowin’, still it ’s an occasion that comes as I say only once a year, and it seems wicked not to take a little something special, if it ’s only a drop of — ”

u And after you had been together some time you walked along Haberdasher Street to East Street ? ” “ With the view, sir,” explained Mrs. Rastin, u of ’aving a breath of fresh air before turning in.” w Was the deceased the worse for drink ? ” u Oh, no, sir ! No, nothing of the kind.” Mrs. Rastin was quite emphatic. u She was much the better for it. She said so.”

A corroborative murmur came from the crowd behind which Bobbie was hiding, and one of the endorsements sounded so much like the tones of his mother that he edged a little further away. He was becoming interested in the proceedings, and, after the great good fortune of getting into the room, he did not want to be expelled by an indignant parent.

u How was it you did not see the omnibus coming along ? ”

“Just one query I should like to ask first,” interposed the carpenter, holding up his left hand with a dim remembrance of school etiquette. ct What time was all this ? ”

“Six o’clock, as near as I can remember,” snapped Mrs. Rastin.

“ Six o’clock in the morning ? ” asked the carpenter, writing.

“ No, puddenhead,” said Mrs. Rastin, contemptuously. “ Six o’clock in the evening. Why don’t you buy a new pair of ears and give another twopence this time, and get a good — All right, sir,” to the coroner. “ I ’ll answer your question with pleasure. I know when I ’m speaking to a gentleman, and I know when I ’m talking to pigs .” Mrs. Rastin glanced triumphantly at the carpenter, and the carpenter looked appealingly at his unsympathetic neighbours as one in search of support. “We was standing on the kerb as I might be ’ere. Over there as it might be where the young man in glasses is that ’s connected with the newspaper, was a barrer with sweetstuff. c Oh ! ’ she says, all at once, c I must get some toffee,’ she says, c for my little boy ’gainst he comes ’ome,’ she says. With that and before I could so much as open me mouth to say, c Mind out ! ’ the poor deer was ’alf way across the road ; the bus was on her, and down she went. I cuts across to her,” Mrs. Rastin wept, and Bobbie could hear responsive sobs from the women near him, “ I cuts across to her, and she says, c I — I never got the sweets for him ’ she says. Thinking of her — of her little boy right at the last, you understand me, sir ! And the constable off with his cape, and put it under her ’ead, and she just ii turned, and,” Mfs. Rastin wept bitterly, “ and it was all over.” Mrs. Rastin patted her eyes with a deplorable handkerchief. uc Yes,’ she says, c I never got them sweets — ’ ”

ct Pardon me ! ” said the carpenter. “ Did you make a note of them words at the time ? What I mean to say, did you write ’em down on paper ? ”

“Not being,” said Mrs. Rastin, swallowing; her head shivering with contempt, and speaking with great elaboration, u not being a clever juggins with a miserable twopenny-’apenny business as joiner and carpenter in ’Oxton Street, and paying about a penny in the pound, if that, I did not write them words down on paper.”

u Ho ! ” said the carpenter, defiantly. u Then you ought to ’ave.”

Mrs. Rastin was allowed to back from the end of the table, and to take a privileged seat on a form where she had for company the witnesses who had already given evidence. These were an anxious bus driver, a constable of the G division, and a young doctor 'from the Hospital. The sergeant went hunting again in the crowd and this time captured what appeared to be a small girl, but who proved to be a tiny specimen of a mature woman. Bobbie Lancaster dodging to get a sight of her chuckled as he recognised Miss Threepenny (so-called from some fancied resemblance to that miniature coin), a little person whom he had not infrequently derided and chased.

w I really don’t know that we want any more evidence, sergeant,” remarked the coroner. “ What do you say, gentlemen ? ”

Eleven of the gentlemen replied that they had had ample ; the carpenter waited until they had stated this, and then decided that the little woman’s evidence was to be heard. Miss Threepenny stepping on tiptoe, her hands folded on the handle of a rib-broken umbrella that was for her absurdly long, explained that she saw the accident, being then on her way home from her work at a theatrical costumier’s in Tabernacle Street.

w I was on the point of crossing the road, your worship,” said the tiny little woman in her shrill voice, “jest ’esitatin’ on the kerb when I see the bus coming along and I says to myself, 4 I ’ll wait till this great ’ulking thing goes by,’ I says, 1 and then I ’ll pop across.’ The thought,” said Miss Threepenny, dramatically, “ had no sooner passed through my mind than across the road runs the poor creature, under the ’orses ’eels she goes, and I, well I went off into a dead faint.”

The little mite of a creature looked around the room as though anticipating commendation for her appropriate behaviour.

“ And you agree with the other witnesses, my good little girl that — ”

“ Excuse me,” interrupted Miss Threepenny, with great dignity, “ I ’m not a good little girl ; I ’m a grown-up woman of thirty-three.”

u Thirty what ? ” asked the carpenter, his pencil ready to record facts.

w Thirty-three,” she repeated, sharply.

A confirmatory murmur came from the crowd of women at the back of the room. The sergeant told the women to be quiet.

“ My mistake,” said the coroner, politely, and waving aside the incredulous carpenter. w The point is — you think it was an accident, don’t you, madam ? ”

“ It were an accident,” said Miss Threepenny, looking round and fixing the nervous bus driver with her bright black little eyes, u that would never have happened if drivers on buses was to attend to their business, instead of having their heads turned and carrying on conversation with long silly overgrown gels riding on the front seat.”

Having made this statement, the little woman kissed the Testament again as though to make doubly sure, and with an air of dignity that no fullgrown woman would ever have dared to assume, trotted off* to take her seat next the bus driver. The bus driver whispered something viciously behind his hand, and Miss Threepenny replied with perfect calm in an audible voice that it was no use the bus driver flirting with her because she was a strict Wesleyan.

The carpenter’s obstinacy necessitated the clearing of the court, now that the time had arrived for the jury to consider their verdict, and Master Lancaster much to his annoyance found himself borne out of the room in the middle of the crowd of women. He doubted the probability of getting back into the room to hear the verdict, because it was scarce likely that he would again have the good luck to slip in unobserved by the policeman at the door. He went to the first landing and looked out on the upturned faces in the court below. A long youth with pince-nez, who had been reporting upstairs, came down and in opening an evening paper brushed unintentionally against Bobbie’s face.

“ That ’s my dial,” said the boy, truculently, “ when you ’ve done wif it.”

u I’m sorry,” said the young reporter.

“You ’re clumsy,” said Bobbie.

ct What are you doing at an affair of this kind ? 99 asked the reporter casually.

u Answerin’ silly questions what are put to me.” The reporter laughed and striking a match lighted a cigarette. “ After you,” said Bobbie, producing another fag end of a cigar, “ after you with the metch.”

u Do you like smoking ? ” asked the young man.

u Perfect slive to it,” said the boy, puffing the smoke well away in a manner that belied the assertion.

“ Queer little beggar ! ” said the young man. u Where d’ you live ? ”

“ ’Ome ! ” said the boy promptly. “ Where ’d you fink, cloth-head ? ”

u Strictly speaking,” remarked the youth, with good humour, “ my name is not cloth-head. My name is Myddleton West.”

“ Can you sleep a nights,” asked the boy, “ with a name like that ? ”

“ Myddleton West, journalist, of thirty-nine, Fetter Lane, Holborn. Now tell me yours.”

The boy complied reluctantly. With decreasing hesitation, he gave further particulars.

u I ’ll do a sketch about you,” said Myddleton West, looking down at the boy. uc The Infant of Hoxton ’ I think I ’ll call it.”

i6 u Going to put some’ing about me in the paper ? ” asked the boy, with undisguised interest, and discarding entirely his attitude of defiance.

u If they ’ll take it. There is, at times, a certain coyness on the part of editors — ”

The boy suddenly started. He touched the brass rod, and flew downstairs with so much swiftness, that he was out in the court before Myddleton West had discovered his absence. He looked up and saw the constable descending to call him back to the room ; the reason for Bobbie Lancaster’s flight became obvious.

The boy slipped eel-like through the crowd of women at the doorway and presently reached moonlight and Hoxton Street, where he drifted intuitively to the outside of the theatre. It gratified him exceedingly as he felt the shilling in his knotted handkerchief, to think that he might, if he were so minded — the hour being now half-past eight — go in at half-price, and seating himself in the stage box, witness the last three acts of “Foiled by a Woman.” He laughed outright as he stood near the lamps and looked in at the swing doors of the principal entrance, and imagined the astonishment of the threepenny gallery, high on the top of the mountain of faces within, were they to see him enter importantly the box at the right of the stage, and survey with lordly air the crowded, heated, interested house. How they would roar at him if he were to stick a penny in his eye, and carefully stroke an imaginary moustache and say, cc Bai Jove ! What people ! ” It would not be the first time that he had amused a crowd ; once, at a fire at Shoreditch, he had put on a paper helmet and pretended he was Chief of the fire brigade, and a matron in the crowd watching him had been so exceptionally amused at his antics that she had had to be unlaced and dragged home by solicitous lady friends. The boy resisted the temptation of the enticing placards, for he had already decided on the manner in which the shilling was to be expended ; the recollection of this made him think of his home. There would be some argument, he knew, with his mother, concerning his long absence, but once the first storm was over, sunshine would come, and the small flask and the sausages that he was going to buy would make her content.

He stepped in at the dark open doorway of his home, and went upstairs. At the end of the passage on the ground floor, a smelly oil lamp diffused scent, but not light ; it served only to accentuate the blackness. The boy knew the i8 stairs well and be dodged the hole on the fifth stair and stepped over the eighth — the eighth was a practical joke stair, and if you stepped on its edge, it instantly stood up and knocked your leg — he piloted himself adroitly on the landing. There were voices in the back room.

44 Comp’ny ! ” said Bobbie. 44 So much the better.”

He pushed the door, and entered. Two women who were in a corner examining the contents of a crippled chest of drawers by the aid of a candle, looked affrightedly over their shoulders.

41 ’Ullo ! ” said Bobbie. u What ’s your little game ? ”

“You give us quite a turn, Bobbie,” said Mrs. Rastin, nervously, 44 coming in so quiet. Where ’ve you bin all this time, deer ? ”

44 Where’s the old gel ?” asked Bobbie, taking his parcels from his pockets. “Where’s she got to ? ”

u ’Eaven ! ” said Mrs. Rastin’s friend, trying to close the drawer.

tc Don’t try to be funny,” advised the boy, M you can’t do it well, and you ’d better be ’alf leave it alone. How long ’fore she ’ll be in ? ”

44 You ’ave n’t ’eard, deer,” said Mrs. Rastin,

J 9

coming forward and taking the flask from him absently. “Your poor mother’s bin run over and we ’ve jest been ’olding her inquest.”

Bobbie Lancaster sat down on the wooden chair and blinked stupidly at the two women.

w And was that — was that my old gel that you give evidence about jest now up at the — ? ” w Yes, Bobbie. That was your poor dear mother, and a lovinger heart never breathed. Not in this world, at any rate.” Mrs. Rastin uncorked the flask and sniffed at it. u But you must cheer up, you know, because it was to be, and all flesh is grass, and we shall all meet, please God — ” Mrs. Rastin took a sip.

“ And there ’s many a kid,” chimed in the other neighbour, “that’s just as bad off as you, my lad, losing both their parents, and you must n’t think you’re the only one, ye know. You want a glass, Mrs. Rastin.”

The boy did not cry. His mouth twitched slightly, and he frowned as though he were endeavouring to understand clearly the position of affairs.

“ Old man died,” he said slowly, u soon after I was born, and now the old gel ’s gone.”

“Yes, Bobby ! (Run and get a lump of sugar, Mrs. What-is-it, out of my caddy.)”

w So,” said the boy, “ it ’mounts to this. I ain’t got no fawther, and I ain’t got no mother.” w That ’s about it, Bobbie.”

The boy jerked his chin and commenced to unlace his boots rather viciously.

“ Dem bright lookout for me,” he said.

Chapter II

/ | V HE boy’s sense of injury gave way and was, -*• indeed, utterly routed the next morning, by a feeling of importance. Mrs. Rastin bustled in and prepared a breakfast that filled the room with a most entrancing scent of frying fish, and to show her sympathy sat down with him to the meal and ate with excellent appetite, beguiling the time with cheery accounts of sudden death and murders and suicides that she, in the past, had had the rare good fortune to encounter. Mrs. Rastin took charge of the keys belonging to the chest of drawers, remarking that so far as regarded any little thing that Bobbie’s poor dear mother might have left, she would see that right was done just the same as though it were her own. Holidays being on at the Board School which Bobbie intermittently attended, Mrs Rastin said how would it be if he were to take a turn out in Hoxton Street for a few hours whilst she turned to and tidied up ?

“ Jest as you like,” said Bobbie, agreeably.

cc Don’t you go and get into no mischief, mind,” counselled Mrs. Rastin.

“Trust me,” said the boy. u Keep away from that Shoreditch set, and take good care of yourself. You’re all alone in the world now,” said Mrs. Rastin, pouring the last drop from the tea-pot into her cup, “ and you ’ll ’ave to look out. You ain’t got no mother to ’elpyou.”

“ By the bye,” said Bobbie, “ who ’s going to cash up for putting the old woman away ? ”

“ Me and a few neighbours are going to see to it,” remarked the lady, with reserve. u Don’t you bother your ’ead about that. Run off, and — Just a minute! I’ll sew this black band round the sleeve of your coat.” w WhafFor ? ” asked the boy. w Why, bless my soul,” exclaimed Mrs. Rastin. w As a sign that you ’re sorry, of course.” u That ’s the idea, is it ? ”

“Some one’ll ’ave to buy you a collar, too, for Tuesday.”

“ Me in a collar ? ” he said gratified. “ My word, I shall be a reg’lar tawf, if I ain’t careful.”

w What size — I think that ’ll hold — what size do you take, I wonder ? ”

“ Lord knows,” said the boy. “ I don’t. I ’ve never wore one yet.”

If in Hoxton that day a more conceited boy than Robert Lancaster had been in request, the discovery would have been difficult. He strolled up and down Hoxton Street where the secondhand furniture dealers place their bedsteads brazenly in the roadway, and when shop people, standing at their doors, glanced at the crape band on his sleeve he stood still for a while in order that they might have a good view.

A good-natured Jewess in charge of a fruit stall called to him, and inquired the nature of his loss, and when Bobbie had given her the facts (adding to the interest by various details suggested by his imagination) the Jewess gave an enormous sigh, and, as token of sympathy, presented him with two doubtful pears and a broken stick of chocolate. Bobbie went up towards New North Road, inventing further details of a gruesome nature in the hope of finding other shopkeepers similarly curious and appreciative, but no one else called to him, and at a confectioner’s shop, where he waited for quite a long time, a girl with her hair screwed by violent twists of paper, came out and said that if he did n’t leave off breathing on their window she would wring his neck for him ; upon Bobbie giving her a brief criticism in regard to the arrangement of her features, she repeated her threat with increased emphasis, and as there was obviously nothing to be gained by further debate, he strolled off with dignity through Fanshaw Street, arriving presently at Drysdale Street. The boys here were boys with an intolerably good opinion of themselves because they lived in a street over which the railway passed, and this made them hold themselves aloof from the other youths of Hoxton, and go through life with the austerity of men who knew the last word about engines. It seemed to Bobbie Lancaster that a chance had now arisen to humiliate Drysdale Street, and to lower its pride.