Sawn Off Part 15

Mrs Shingle nodded.

"Makes me happy. Then I come and smoke a pipe here one day, and one at Max's another day; and you're both so glad to see me that that makes me happy too. Ha! you've spoiled that girl of yours, or she wouldn't go on like she does."

"I'm sure Jessie couldn't be a better behaved girl!" exclaimed Mrs Shingle.

"Stuff! You never whipped her well, and Max never trained those boys.

Good thing flogging! Makes the skin soft and elastic. Gives room to grow. Where's d.i.c.k?"

"Gone to his brother's."

"Gone to his brother's?"

Mrs Shingle nodded.

"What's he gone there for?"

"Take home a pair of new boots."

"What! did Max give d.i.c.k an order for a new pair?" Mrs Shingle nodded.

"Wonderful! Max is getting more virtuous than ever. I'll praise him next time I go."

"No, don't--please," said Mrs Shingle earnestly. "Every little does help so just now; and we can't afford to offend Max."

"So you make traps, and put Jessie in for a bait, and try to catch his wife's two boys, eh?"

"Indeed I did not," cried Mrs Shingle; "it was all Tom's own doing."

"Ah, I dare say it was; but young Fred's always hanging about here too; and as soon as-ever Max hears of it, there will be no end of a row. I shall put him on his guard."

"Pray say nothing!" cried Mrs Shingle imploringly. "Why not? Best for both the young noodles to be brought to their senses."

"No, no; it would make them so unhappy. Let matters take their course.

It will be quite time enough for the trouble to come when Maximilian finds it out for himself. Hush! here's d.i.c.k."

"Hulloa! What's that? The old game. Woman all over. Keeping secrets from your husband. Glad I never married!"

Mrs Shingle darted an indignant look at him, and no doubt a sharp retort was on her lips; but it was checked by a voice outside, and Richard Shingle, the occupier of the house, the mechanic who made boots and shoes and neatly executed repairs, entered the room, followed by his boy, with "Hallo, Hoppy, old man, how are you? Glad to see you. Too soon for the B flat yet; but you stop all day, and we'll polish that bit off to rights."

"How are you, d.i.c.k--how are you?" said the old man quietly. And then refilling his pipe, he lit up, half turned his back, and seemed to ignore that which followed, and to be totally ignored, on account of his deafness.

Richard Shingle was not an ill-looking man of forty; but he had a rather weak, vacillating expression of countenance, over which predominated a curious, puzzled look, which was due to something you could not make out. One moment you felt sure it was his eyes, but the next you said decidedly it was his mouth, while just as likely you set it down to his fair hair or his rather hollow cheeks, or the turn of his chin. The fact was, it was due to all his features, his figure, and his every att.i.tude; for Richard Shingle, as he stood before you, seemed as if he had just taken you by the b.u.t.ton-hole and said in full sincerity, as applied to the general scheme of life and man's position on earth: "I say, what does it all mean?"

For he was one of those men who had never "got on." He said he wanted to get on, and he worked very hard; but the world was too much for him, and he was always left behind. If he had lived at the equator, where it is hot, and man naturally feels inert, while the world races round at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, it is only natural to suppose that he might have been left behind; but it would have been just the same if Richard Shingle's existence had been upon the very Pole itself, north or south, where he would only have been called upon to turn once round in twenty-four hours. As he lived in that part of the temperate zone known as Islington, where the medium rate of progress is in force, it remained then, that not only could poor d.i.c.k never get ahead, but was always, in spite of his misplaced efforts, getting a little more and a little more behind.

And yet he looked a sharp, animated man, full of action, as on this occasion, when he turned to his wife with "Well, mother, here we are again, boots and all!"

"But you've not brought them back again, d.i.c.k?" said Mrs Shingle, looking anxiously up from her work.

"What do you call that, then?" said d.i.c.k, taking a blue bag from the doleful-looking, thin, white-faced boy with very short hair, and turning the receptacle upside down, so that the contents fell out on the floor with a bang.

"Oh, d.i.c.k!"

"He said they were the wussest-made pair of boots he ever see. After all the pains as I took with 'em," said the speaker, gloomily picking up the freshly polished leather, and examining it.

"Oh, d.i.c.k--how tiresome!"

"And swore he couldn't get his feet into 'em,--leastwise," he added correctively, "he didn't swear--Max is too good to swear--he said as he couldn't get his feet in 'em."

"Tut--tut--tut!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs Shingle, st.i.tching away at her work.

"He blowed me up fine; said I wasn't fit to shoe a horse, let alone a Christian man. When--look at 'em. Did you ever see a prettier pair-- eh, Hoppy?" he shouted.

The old man glanced at the boots and grunted, turning away again directly.

"Look at 'em, mother--rights and lefts, and the soles polished off smooth; and see how prettily they put out their tongues at you, all lined with a bit o' scarlet basil. Called me a cobbler, too, he did; and after laying myself out on the artistic tack, so as to get his future patronage, and that of Mrs S.'s two boys."

"Oh, d.i.c.k, d.i.c.k!"

"Yes, it is `Oh, d.i.c.k, d.i.c.k!' Bad, too, as we want the money. Wouldn't fit you, I suppose, Hoppy?"

"Hey?"

"I say they wouldn't fit you, would they? You should have 'em cheap."

"Bah, no! I couldn't wear boots like these. Couldn't afford it-- couldn't afford it. There's a pair for you to mend."

"All right, old man--all right; I'll do 'em. Of course they wouldn't do for you," he continued; "bad, too, as we want the money. Said it was what always came of employing relatives; but he did it out of charitable feeling--so as to give me a lift. Called me a bungler, too, when, look here, mother, how nicely I made a little mountain on that side to hold his bunion, and a little Greenwich-hill on that side to accommodate his favourite corn. That's working for relations, that is. Dressed up a bit, too, this morning to take 'em home, so as not to disgrace him by looking too shabby, and made Union Jack walk behind to carry the blue bag, same as if I was a sooperior kind of tradesman, and his servants shouldn't look down on me. Said I was Mr Richard Shingle, too, when the maid opened the door. But it was all no go. Another of my failures, old gal. Tell you what it is, mother, it'll be what the drapers call a terrific crash if it goes on like this."

"But, d.i.c.k dear, you don't mean that he won't have the boots at all?"

"That's just what I do mean. He's shied 'em on my hands. 'Taint as if he'd shied 'em on my feet."

"Oh, dear, dear, dear!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs Shingle. "Dear!" said d.i.c.k, trying to raise a feeble laugh. "That's just what they are. I can't afford to wear a pair of handsome boots like them. Only look at 'em.

Leather cost me nine shillings before I put in a st.i.tch."

"I declare, it's too bad, d.i.c.k," whimpered Mrs Shingle; "and us so badly off too. Brother, indeed! He's worse than--"

"There, that'll do," said d.i.c.k, taking off his coat, "Don't you get letting on about him, mother, because he is my brother, you know. Blood _is_ thicker than water."

"I don't see what that's got to do with it, d.i.c.k, if it's ten times as thick," said Mrs Shingle, stabbing away at her boot-binding as if the kid leather were Maximilian Shingle's skin.

"No, you don't," said d.i.c.k, rolling up his sleeves, and tying on his leather ap.r.o.n, before going to the chimney gla.s.s, and putting a piece of ribbon round his rather long hair, apparently to embellish his countenance, but really to keep the locks out of his eyes when he bent down over his work. "No, mother; that's because you're put out, and cross, and won't see it; but blood is thicker than water, ain't it, Hoppy?"

"Hey?" said the old fellow, taking his pipe out of his mouth.

"I say blood is thicker than water, ain't it?"