“There be nothing like a friend in need, Dummie; and somehow or other, I thinks as how you knows more of the horigin of that 'ere lad than any of us!”
“Me, dame!” exclaimed Dummie, with a broad gaze of astonishment.
“Ah, you! you knows as how the mother saw more of you just afore she died than she did of 'ere one of us. Noar, now, noar, now! Tell us all about 'un. Did she steal 'un, think ye?”
“Lauk, Mother Margery, dost think I knows? Vot put such a crotchet in your 'ead?”
“Well!” said the dame, with a disappointed sigh, “I always thought as how you were more knowing about it than you owns. Dear, dear, I shall never forgit the night when Judith brought the poor cretur here—you knows she had been some months in my house afore ever I see'd the urchin; and when she brought it, she looked so pale and ghostly that I had not the heart to say a word, so I stared at the brat, and it stretched out its wee little hands to me. And the mother frowned at it, and throwed it into my lap.”
“Ah! she was a hawful voman, that 'ere!” said Dummie, shaking his head. “But howsomever, the hurchin fell into good 'ands; for I be's sure you 'as been a better mother to 'un than the raal 'un!”
“I was always a fool about childer,” rejoined Mrs. Lobkins; “and I thinks as how little Paul was sent to be a comfort to my latter end! Fill the glass, Dummie.”
“I 'as heard as 'ow Judith was once blowen to a great lord!” said Dummie.
“Like enough!” returned Mrs. Lobkins—“like enough! She was always a favourite of mine, for she had a spuret [spirit] as big as my own; and she paid her rint like a decent body, for all she was out of her sinses, or 'nation like it.”
“Ay, I knows as how you liked her—'cause vy? 'T is not your vay to let a room to a voman! You says as how 't is not respectable, and you only likes men to wisit the Mug!”
“And I doesn't like all of them as comes here!” answered the dame—“'specially for Paul's sake; but what can a lone 'oman do? Many's the gentleman highwayman wot comes here, whose money is as good as the clerk's of the parish. And when a bob [shilling] is in my hand, what does it sinnify whose hand it was in afore?”
“That's what I call being sinsible and practical,” said Dummie, approvingly. “And after all, though you 'as a mixture like, I does not know a halehouse where a cove is better entertained, nor meets of a Sunday more illegant company, than the Mug!”
Here the conversation, which the reader must know had been sustained in a key inaudible to a third person, received a check from Mr. Peter MacGrawler, who, having finished his revery and his tankard, now rose to depart. First, however, approaching Mrs. Lobkins, he observed that he had gone on credit for some days, and demanded the amount of his bill. Glancing towards certain chalk hieroglyphics inscribed on the wall at the other side of the fireplace, the dame answered that Mr. MacGrawler was indebted to her for the sum of one shilling and ninepence three farthings.
After a short preparatory search in his waistcoat pockets, the critic hunted into one corner a solitary half-crown, and having caught it between his finger and thumb, he gave it to Mrs. Lobkins and requested change.
As soon as the matron felt her hand anointed with what has been called by some ingenious Johnson of St. Giles's “the oil of palms,” her countenance softened into a complacent smile; and when she gave the required change to Mr. MacGrawler, she graciously hoped as how he would recommend the Mug to the public.
“That you may be sure of,” said the editor of “The Asinaeum.” “There is not a place where I am so much at home.”
With that the learned Scotsman buttoned his coat and went his way.
“How spiteful the world be!” said Mrs. Lobkins, after a pause, “'specially if a 'oman keeps a fashionable sort of a public! When Judith died, Joe, the dog's-meat man, said I war all the better for it, and that she left I a treasure to bring up the urchin. One would think a thumper makes a man richer—'cause why? Every man thumps! I got nothing more than a watch and ten guineas when Judy died, and sure that scarce paid for the burrel [burial].”
“You forgits the two quids [Guineas] I giv' you for the hold box of rags—much of a treasure I found there!” said Dummie, with sycophantic archness.
“Ay,” cried the dame, laughing, “I fancies you war not pleased with the bargain. I thought you war too old a ragmerchant to be so free with the blunt; howsomever, I supposes it war the tinsel petticoat as took you in!”
“As it has mony a viser man than the like of I,” rejoined Dummie, who to his various secret professions added the ostensible one of a rag-merchant and dealer in broken glass.
The recollection of her good bargain in the box of rags opened our landlady's heart.
“Drink, Dummie,” said she, good-humouredly—“drink; I scorns to score lush to a friend.”
Dummie expressed his gratitude, refilled his glass, and the hospitable matron, knocking out from her pipe the dying ashes, thus proceeded:
“You sees, Dummie, though I often beats the boy, I loves him as much as if I war his raal mother—I wants to make him an honour to his country, and an ixciption to my family!”
“Who all flashed their ivories at Surgeons' Hall!” added the metaphorical Dummie.
“True!” said the lady; “they died game, and I be n't ashamed of 'em. But I owes a duty to Paul's mother, and I wants Paul to have a long life. I would send him to school, but you knows as how the boys only corrupt one another. And so, I should like to meet with some decent man, as a tutor, to teach the lad Latin and vartue!”
“My eyes!” cried Dummie; aghast at the grandeur of this desire.
“The boy is 'cute enough, and he loves reading,” continued the dame; “but I does not think the books he gets hold of will teach him the way to grow old.”
“And 'ow came he to read, anyhows?”
“Ranting Rob, the strolling player, taught him his letters, and said he'd a deal of janius.”
“And why should not Ranting Rob tache the boy Latin and vartue?”
“'Cause Ranting Rob, poor fellow, was lagged [Transported for burglary] for doing a panny!” answered the dame, despondently.
There was a long silence; it was broken by Mr. Dummie. Slapping his thigh with the gesticulatory vehemence of a Ugo Foscolo, that gentleman exclaimed—
“I 'as it—I 'as thought of a tutor for leetle Paul!”
“Who's that? You quite frightens me; you 'as no marcy on my narves,” said the dame, fretfully.
“Vy, it be the gemman vot writes,” said Dummie, putting his finger to his nose—“the gemman vot paid you so flashly!”
“What! the Scotch gemman?”
“The werry same!” returned Dummie.
The dame turned in her chair and refilled her pipe. It was evident from her manner that Mr. Dunnaker's suggestion had made an impression on her. But she recognized two doubts as to its feasibility: one, whether the gentleman proposed would be adequate to the task; the other, whether he would be willing to undertake it.
In the midst of her meditations on this matter, the dame was interrupted by the entrance of certain claimants on her hospitality; and Dummie soon after taking his leave, the suspense of Mrs. Lobkins's mind touching the education of little Paul remained the whole of that day and night utterly unrelieved.
CHAPTER III.
I