Sawn Off Part 17

"And never paid it again," said his wife contemptuously. "Well, it was a way he had," said d.i.c.k.

"I haven't patience with him."

"No, my dear, you never did have patience with Max. Clever chap too.

Marries his widow with lots of tin and a pair of boots--boys I mean-- ready made. Why didn't I?"

"Ah! why indeed?" said Mrs Shingle sharply.

"Because I was a fool," said d.i.c.k, smiling pleasantly. "Fools are best off too, mother. I say, fancy me with a wife like Max's!"

The idea seemed to please d.i.c.k so that he laughed and wiped one eye.

"There are worse women than Mrs Max," said Mrs Shingle.

"Yes, and there's better ones than you, I suppose, mother. But I'm contented, and never wanted a divorce yet."

"d.i.c.k, how can you talk so before that boy?"

"All right! but I say, mother--Here, go on with your work, you young rascal. Keeping your ears staring wide open like that!"

"Please, master, I couldn't help hearing," said the boy dolefully. "I'm a-learning my trade, and trying to obey my pastors and masters as hard as ever I can."

"Now, lookye here," said d.i.c.k, taking up his hammer and gazing threateningly at the boy, "I never have given it to you yet, John Johnson, or, as I familiarly call you, from where you came and the stripes you had on you when you came, Union Jack--"

"No, master," whined the boy, "you've been very kind indeed to me."

"I have, you hungry young alligator," said d.i.c.k. "So look here, I won't have it; I'm as bad as Mr Hopper that way,--I hate people to preach and sling catechism at me so don't you do it again."

"No, master; please, I'll try very hard indeed, and obey you, as it is my dooty to."

"Will you leave off?" roared d.i.c.k, striking his bench with the hammer, so that the tools and nails jumped almost as much as the boy. "You're at it again, talking in that canting, whining, tread-underfoot, workhouse style; and I won't have it. What did I tell you you was?"

"A free-born Briton, please, master."

"Then why don't you act as such, and say `Yes, sir,' and `No, sir,'

outright and down straight?--not whine and grovel like a worm without any sting in his tail."

"Please, master, I'll try and order myself lowly and reverently to all my betters."

"Now, just hark at him!" cried d.i.c.k to his wife.

"Please, master, I'm very--"

"Ah!" shouted d.i.c.k.

"All right, master," said the boy; and he bent to his work.

"I say, mother;" said d.i.c.k, "Max is a bit put out with us."

"So it seems," said Mrs Shingle, biting her silk and st.i.tching away.

"I think he'd be glad if we starved to death."

"Well, I don't know about that, my girl, because it wouldn't be nice to look at, and he never liked unpleasant things; but he's a bit put out about our Jess."

"What?" said Mrs Shingle, turning very red.

"About our Jess," said d.i.c.k, hammering away very viciously at an inoffensive-looking bit of leather. "He's got to know about those boys being so fond of coming here."

"Our Jessie's as good as his boys," said Mrs Shingle sharply, and ready to stand her ground, now that the truth was out.

"So she is, my gal--so she is, every bit; but she's only copper, and they're silver-gilt in his eyes, if they ain't gold.--Here, you sir, you're listening again, instead of working," he shouted to the boy, who began to gum his hands liberally with wax and roll the threads on his lath-like knees.--"But Max has been on to me about it, and he says he won't have it; and I always told them so, 'specially Tom. `Tom,' I says, `your governor won't like your coming here,' I says; `and he'll think all sorts of things about it.'"

"Just as if money need make any difference!" exclaimed Mrs Shingle.

"It needn't, my gal," said d.i.c.k, grunting over his work; "but it do--it makes all the difference; you see if it don't. For if you don't go off with that bit of shoe-binding of yours, and bring back the money, we sha'n't get any dinner, and that's very different to having it. But where's Jessie?"

"Gone to the warehouse."

"What, all-alone! Now, look here, mother--I won't have it. She's too young and pretty to go there all alone, and I won't have her left to be followed and annoyed by counter-jumpers, and that fellow as gives out the work. You know she came home crying on Friday. Why didn't you go with her?"

"I had this to finish, d.i.c.k."

"You've always got _this_ to finish," said d.i.c.k testily. "Then you should have kept her till I came back."

"But it would have been too late, d.i.c.k. Where are you going?" she cried, as he rose and began to untie his ap.r.o.n. "To meet her," he exclaimed angrily.

"But she hasn't gone alone, d.i.c.k," said the wife softly.

"If you've let her go there with that Fred Fraser, Polly, I'll never forgive you," cried d.i.c.k.

"She's gone with Tom, dear."

"Tom, dear, indeed! It isn't `Tom, dear,' and it isn't going to be `Tom, dear,'" exclaimed d.i.c.k, re-tying his ap.r.o.n viciously.

"But he came, dear, just as she was starting, and he begged so hard that I was obliged to let him take her."

"There you go!" cried d.i.c.k, hammering again at the piece of unoffending leather. "You'll ruin me before you've done. Here's Max says only this morning, says he, `I won't have that gal of yours hanging about after my wife's sons.' He said `_gal_' and `my wife's sons.' And I, feeling a bit up, says back, `Lookye here, Max, I can't help your _boys_ coming to my house. I'm not going to send my _daughter_ away.' I think that was pretty sharp on him, you know; when, `d.a.m.n your impudence,' he says.-- Look here, Jack," continued d.i.c.k, pointing at the boy with his hammer, "I promised the workhouse authorities as I'd bring you up moral, so don't you go telling anybody as your master swears, because that was some one else."

"All right, master," said the boy smartly.

"That's better," cried d.i.c.k; "don't whine. Well, mother, then he gets in a towering rage, and showed me what was the matter with the boots.

They'd got Jessie in 'em; that's where they wouldn't fit. `How dare you speak to me in that familiar way, sir!' he says, sticking himself out and looking big, like a poor-law guardian. `When I employ you, sir, as an humble tradesman, I desire you pay me proper respect.' And now, mother, you've been and made worse of it. Hang me, if I don't turn burglar, or something to make money, if things don't mend! I'm sick of being poor."

"No, don't, please, master," said the boy, with a whine. "Honesty's the best policy. And he who steals comes to a bad end."

"Now, just look here, young fellow," cried d.i.c.k, with a serio-comic look on his face, as he raised his hammer once more, "burglary's bad enough, but killing's worse. There was a man once who had a boy from a workus, just as I've had you, to teach you a trade--"

"Yes, master," said the boy, with eyes and mouth wide open.