An Australian Lassie Part 24

"My poor John!" she said, "of course you're hungry. We'll go to a shop and get a really good breakfast. I wasn't thinking. When a person begins to make a lot of money, they generally forget other things, don't they?"

"Um!" said John, who had made nothing at all. "We'll go and get a good breakfast and then we'll be fit for anything, won't we. Come on."

They turned round the corner into King Street, and there to their delight found the shops one by one opening their eyes--drapers, chemist, fruiterers, and then at last a shop with cakes in the window.

The children stood at the door and peeped in. They saw myriads of white tables and a couple of sleepy looking girls. One girl held a broom and was leaning on its handle and surveying the stretch of floor to be swept. Her eyes at last went to the door, and Betty, seeing they had been observed walked slowly in, leaving John outside.

"No," said the girl, shaking her head.

"We want some breakfast," said Betty, and added "please," as her eyes fell on a trayful of pastry on the counter.

Again the girl shook her head.

"Can't give you any here," she said; "now run away."

Then Betty's face flushed; for though one may sing to earn an honest livelihood and competency, it is quite another thing to be taken for a beggar.

"We'll pay for it," she said, and then forgot her pride and urged, "Go on, we're so hungry! We've been walking about since five o'clock."

Something in the child's face touched the girl's heart. She herself had been up at half-past five and knew a great deal about poverty and privation.

"Well, come on then," she said. "Go and sit down at one of them tables and I'll fetch you something."

Betty ran to the door and called "John," in an ecstatic tone, "come on."

Then the two of them chose a table and sat down.

"Not porridge, please," called Betty to the girl. "Just cakes and things, and lemonade instead of tea. _I'll_ pay the bill."

But John brought out his shilling.

"I'll pay for myself," he said grimly, "and I'll pay you back the penny I owe you, too."

CHAPTER XVIII

ALMA'S SHILLING

By ten o'clock Betty had made another shilling, having caught the workers of the city as they were going to their day's toil.

And it must be owned it was a mysterious "something" about the child herself that arrested what attention she drew. Perhaps it lay in the fresh rosiness of her face, in the clearness of her sweet eyes, in the brightness of her young hair; for her courage ebbed away so soon as two or three were gathered around her; her voice sank to a whisper, she drooped her head, trifled with one wristband or the other, stood first on one foot and then on the other, and displayed the various signs of nervousness Mr. Sharman's stern eye provoked her to.

At eleven o'clock, John, who had made threepence by carrying a bag for a lady, looked Betty up at the appointed corner and proposed lemonade and currant buns, for which she was quite ready.

Afterwards they stood for a valuable half-hour outside the waxworks and explored the markets, where Betty sang "Scatter seeds of kindness," in spite of John's solemnly given advice to keep it for Sunday. Here she only made a penny halfpenny by her song, but as she said to John--

"Every one must expect some bad hours."

Then, too, there was in her heart a feeling of certainty that a keen eyed, bent shouldered old gentleman would be pa.s.sing soon, and carry her away straight to the very threshold of fame, as Madam S----'s old gentleman carried _her_.

When they had become thoroughly acquainted with the markets, John suggested she should again "count up," with a view of deciding what sort of lodgings she could afford for the night.

Betty had not thought of such a trivial thing, leaving it possibly for her old gentleman to settle. But she was more than willing to "count up" again.

So they went into a corner behind a deserted fruit stall, sat down upon an empty case, and made little stacks of pennies and half-pennies and small silver coins.

She had two shillings and a penny, she found in all, and John told her she could afford to go to one of the places he had seen this morning, where a bed and breakfast were to be had for sixpence.

"I have seen some places where they charge a shilling," said John. "It seems an awful lot to pay for a bed and a bit of breakfast. But a sixpenny place will do for you, and as you're only twelve they might take you for threepence."

"And where will you go?" asked Betty anxiously.

"Oh, I'd be sixpence, you see, because I'm thirteen and a half," said John. "I can't afford to pay sixpence. It's always harder for a fellow to get on than for a girl. That's why you hear more about self-made men than self-made women--they're thought more of. No bed for me, I expect, for some time to come. I'll have to sleep in the Domain. I heard a fellow talking this morning, and he said he's been sleeping there for a week now. And, you know, Peterborough, the artist I told you about--well, he slept for a week in a _barrel_!"

"How much money have you got?" asked Betty.

"Eightpence!" said John. "No one seems to want an errand boy to-day."

Betty began to feel very doleful at being one step above John in this the beginning of their career. But she dared not offer to lend to him, he had been so very insistent upon paying her back her penny, and paying for his own breakfast and lemonade and buns.

He took her and showed her two houses which bore the words, "Bed and breakfast, 6_d._!" and then he led the way to the Domain, having been through it many times with his grandfather, while to stay-at-home Betty it was no more than a name. Macquarie Street lay asleep as they travelled through it and past Parliament House and the Hospital and the Public Library.

It never for a moment occurred to Betty that Dot was domiciled in that street of big high houses and hushed sounds. She knew Dot's school address was "Westmead House, Macquarie Street," but she had not the remotest idea that she and John were travelling down Macquarie Street past Westmead House.

Just inside the Domain gates they paused to admire Governor Burke's statue, and to count their money again in its shade.

Then John pointed out to her the tree-shaded path that runs to Woollomooloo Bay and the great sweeping gra.s.s stretch that lay on one side of it.

Many men were there already, full length upon the gra.s.s, their hats over their eyes, asleep or callous to waking.

Betty at once signified her intention of spending her first night out here, also, and pointed to a seat under a Norfolk Island pine tree.

"We could be quite cosy there," she said, "and you could lend me your coat."

"But I'd want it myself," said John.

"John in _Girls and Boys Abroad_ used always to give Virginia his coat,"

said Betty.

It was slightly to the right of Governor Burke's statue that Betty was inspired to sing "Yield not to temptation," standing with her back to the iron railing.

And it was just as she was being carried out of herself and singing her shrillest in the second verse that Miss Arnott, the English governess in Westmead House, brought her line of pupils for their daily const.i.tutional down the Domain.

Pretty Dot, and the judge's daughter, Nellie Harden, were at the head of the line, and were conversing in an affable manner and low voices upon the newest tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs for summer hats, when the little couple near the statue came into view.

Betty's eyes were downcast that she might not be distracted by her audience, but John, who was clinging to the railing near her, saw the marching school, saw Dot, and knew that she had seen.