Mr. Merrywhistle walked along and mused, in no unhappy frame of mind. A visit to the Silvers always soothed and comforted him; and on this occasion the sweet face of Mrs. Silver, and the happy faces and voices of the children, rested upon him like a peaceful cloud. So engrossed was he, that he did not heed the pattering of a small urchin at his side, and it was many moments before he awoke from his walking dream, and became conscious of the importunate intruder.
'If you please, sir!' said the small urchin, for the twentieth time, in a voice of weak pleading.
Mr. Merrywhistle looked down, and saw a face that he fancied he had seen before. But the memory of the happy group in Buttercup-square still lingered upon him. What he really saw as he looked down was a little boy without a cap, large-eyed, white-faced, and bare-footed. No other than Tom Beadle in fact, making hay, or trying to make it, not while the sun, but while the moon shone.
'If you please, sir!' repeated the boy, 'will you give me a copper to buy a bit o' bread?'
Then the dawn of faint suspicion loomed upon Mr. Merrywhistle. He placed his hand lightly upon Tom Beadle's shoulder, and said in a troubled voice, 'My boy, haven't I seen you before to-day?'
'No, sir,' boldly answered Tom Beadle, having no suspicion of the truth; for when the shilling was slipped into his hand, his eyes were towards the ground, and he did not see Mr. Merrywhistle's face.
'Were you not on the Royal Exchange with a little girl, and didn't I give you a-a shilling?'
For a moment Tom Beadle winced, and he had it in his mind to twist his shoulder from Mr. Merrywhistle's grasp and run away. For a moment only: natural cunning and his inclination kept him where he was. To tell the honest truth, a lie was a sweet morsel to Tom Beadle, and he absolutely gloried in 'taking people in.' So, on this occasion, he sent one sharp glance at Mr. Merrywhistle-which, rapid as it was, had all the effect of a sun-picture upon him-and whined piteously, 'Me 'ave a shillin' guv to me! Never 'ad sich a bit o' luck in all my born days. It was some other boy, sir, some cove who didn't want it. They allus gits the luck of it. And as for a little gal and the Royal Igschange, I wish I may die if I've been near the place for a week!'
'And you are hungry?' questioned Mr. Merrywhistle, fighting with his doubts.
''Aven't 'ad a ounce o' bread in my mouth this blessed day;' and two large tears gathered in Tom Beadle's eyes. He took care that Mr. Merrywhistle should see them.
Mr. Merrywhistle sighed, and with a feeling of positive pain gave twopence to Tom Beadle, who slipped his shoulder from Mr. Merrywhistle's hand with the facility of an eel, and scudded away in an exultant frame of mind.
Mr. Merrywhistle walked a few steps, hesitated, and then turned in the direction that Tom Beadle had taken.
'Now, I wonder,' he thought, 'whether the collector was right this morning, and whether I have been assisting in making criminals today.'
Truly this proved to be a night of coincidences to Mr. Merrywhistle; for he had not walked a mile before he came upon the queer little old man, whom he had met on the Royal Exchange. The old fellow was leaning against a lamp-post, smoking a pipe, and seemed to be as much at home in the wide street as he would have been in his own parlour. He looked surly and ill-grained, and his eyebrows were very precipitous. His mild eye was towards Mr. Merrywhistle, as that gentleman approached him, and when Mr. Merrywhistle slowly passed him, his fierce eye came in view and lighted upon the stroller. Before he had left the old man three yards behind him, Mr. Merrywhistle fancied he heard a chuckle. He would have dearly liked to turn back and accost the old man, but a feeling of awkwardness was upon him, and he could not muster sufficient courage. Chance, however, brought about an interview. Not far from him was a building that might have been a palace, it was so grand and light. It was a triumph of architecture, with its beautiful pillars, and its elaborate stonework. Great windows, higher than a man's height, gilt framed, and blazing with a light that threw everything around them in the shade, tempted the passer-by to stop and admire. There were three pictures in the windows, and these pictures were so cunningly surrounded by jets of light, that they could not fail to attract the eye. Awful satires were these pictures. Two of them represented the figure of a man under different aspects. On the left, this man was represented with a miserably-attenuated face, every line in which expressed woe and destitution; his clothes were so ragged that his flesh peeped through; his cheeks were thin, his lips were drawn in, his eyes were sunken; his lean hands seemed to tremble beneath a weight of misery: at the foot of this picture was an inscription, to the effect that it was the portrait of a man who did not drink So-and-so's gin and So-and-so's stout, both of which life's elixirs were to be obtained within. On the right, this same man was represented with full-fleshed face, with jovial eyes, with handsome mouth and teeth, with plump cheeks, with fat hands-his clothes and everything about him betokening worldly prosperity and happiness: at the foot of this picture was an inscription, to the effect that it was the portrait of the same man who (having, it is to be presumed, seen the error of his ways) did drink So-and-so's gin and So-and-so's stout. A glance inside this palace, crowded with Misery, would have been sufficient to show what a bitter satire these pictures were. But the centre picture, in addition to being a bitter satire, was awfully suggestive. It was this:
Whether to the artist or to the manufacturer was due the credit of ingeniously parading 'Old Tom' in a coffin, cannot (through the ignorance of the writer) here be recorded. But there it shone-an ominous advertisement. As Mr. Merrywhistle halted for a moment before these pictures, there issued from the Laboratory of Crime and Disease a man and a woman: he, blotched and bloated; she, worn-eyed and weary-both of them in rags. The woman, clinging to his arm, was begging him to come home-for his sake; for hers; for the children's; for God's! With his disengaged hand he struck at her, and she fell to the ground, bleeding. She rose, however, and wiped her face with her apron, and implored him again and again to come home-and again he struck at her: this time with cruel effect, for she lay in the dust, helpless for a while. A crowd gathered quickly, and a hubbub ensued. In the midst of the Babel of voices, Mr. Merrywhistle, looking down saw the strange old man standing by his side. The same surly, sneering expression was on the old man's countenance, and Mr. Merrywhistle felt half inclined to quarrel with him for it. But before he had time to speak, the old man took the pipe out of his mouth, and pointing the stem in the direction of the chief actors in the scene, said, 'I knew them two when they was youngsters.'
'Indeed,' replied Mr. Merrywhistle, interested immediately, and delighted at the opportunity of opening up the conversation.
'She was a han'some gal; you'd scarce believe it to look at her now. She 'ad eyes like sloes; though whether sloes is bird, beast, or fish, I couldn't tell ye, but I've heard the sayin' a 'undred times. Anyways, she 'ad bright black eyes, and was a good gal too; but she fell in love'-(in a tone of intense scorn) – with that feller, and married him, the fool!'
'What has brought them to this?'
'Gin!' said the old man, expelling the word as if it were a bullet, and bringing his fierce eye to bear with all its force upon Mr. Merrywhistle.
Short as was the time occupied by this dialogue, it was long enough to put an end to the scene before them. The woman was raised to her feet by other women, many of whom urged her to 'Give him in charge, the brute!' but she shook her head, and staggered away in pain. Very quickly after her disappearance the crowd dissolved, by far the greater part of it finding its way through the swing-doors of the gin-palace, to talk of the event over So-and-so's gin and So-and-so's stout. Not that there was anything new or novel in the occurrence. It was but a scene in a drama of real life that had been played many hundred times in that locality. Presently the street was quite clear, and Mr. Merrywhistle and the old man were standing side by side, alone. A handy lamp-post served as a resting-place for the old man, who continued to smoke his pipe, and to chuckle between whiles, as if he knew that Mr. Merrywhistle wanted to get up a conversation, and did not know how to commence. As he saw that the old man was determined not to assist him, and as every moment