Читать книгу Toilers of Babylon: A Novel - Farjeon Benjamin Leopold - Страница 11

Church Alley, in which Mr. Loveday's second-hand bookshop was situated, was not in the most squalid part of the East, wherein may be found horrible patches, in comparison with which the haunts of heathens in savage lands are a veritable paradise. It was, indeed, in close contiguity to the most respectable part of it, lying to the eastward of the famous butchers' mart, which, in the present day, is shorn of its doubtful glories. The alley was a slit in the main thoroughfare, running parallel with it, about sixty yards in length, and containing thirty-four tenements, sixteen of which were private dwellings and eighteen places of business. In the flourishing West it would have been converted into an arcade, and dignified with an imposing name drawn from royal or martial records; in the toiling East it was simply what it professed to be-an alley, very narrow, very shabby, and generally very dark. When winter fogs lay thick upon the mighty city they reached perfection by the time they floated to Church Alley and settled there. Then was the darkness truly Egyptian, and there the gloom remained, as if in proud assertion of the fitness of things, long after surrounding thoroughfares were bright. The sun rose later there and set earlier, and in freezing time it was a very heaven of slides days after surrounding space was thawing. The explanation of these unusual phenomena may be found in the circumstance that when "weather" got into Church Alley it could not easily get out. There was no roadway for horses and carts; between the rows of houses ran a footpath ten feet in width. The enterprising builder who purchased the land and designed the estate had husbanded his inches with a shrewd eye to the greatest possible number of rents to be squeezed out of them, and it must be confessed that his efforts were crowned with complete success.

"Full many a flower is born to blush unseen," and this applies to weeds as well as flowers. Persons not acquainted with the intricacies of the neighborhood would have passed Church Alley without noticing it, even without being aware that there was such a thoroughfare within hail; it seemed, as it were, to shrink from notice, and to have been formed with a view to the enjoyment of the pleasures of obscurity, notwithstanding that it had at one end a public-house and a pawnbroker's shop, and at the other end a pawnbroker's shop and a public-house. These four establishments may be said to have been the archways to the paradise of Church Alley, and from the commencement to the end of the year, in rain or shine, in winter or summer, lost and wretched Peris could always be seen there, lingering at the gates. Public-houses and pawnbroker's shops are as the very breath of life in the East of London, and are important and degrading elements in the education of the dwellers therein. Children from their earliest days are familiar with them, and grow into the knowledge (which fair minds cannot dispute) that these institutions are planted there especially for their behoof. Brewers and distillers grow fat upon vice, and go smilingly through the world, conveniently blind to the fact that the richer they grow the more crowded become the ranks of those wretched ones from whose midst our prisons are filled, and whose lives are a standing reproach to humanity and civilization. It is not the fair use, but the gross abuse, of a system which is here deplored. The axe should be laid to it, despite the Moloch called vested interests, which is set up at the least remonstrance to frighten the timid. Let there be beer-shops and public-houses within limits, but it is infamous legislation which sanctions and encourages (as is to be verified to-day in slices of the East) every fifth or sixth tenement to be either one or the other. To contend, in respect of these hot-beds of vice, that the law of supply follows the law of demand, is an unblushing falsehood; they are distinctly forced upon the people by the very men who fatten upon the degradation, and who are often to be seen upon public platforms deploring the evils of which they are the creators. The sermons these moralists preach-to win votes, or to prove themselves qualified for public office, or to air their spurious philanthropy-are the bitterest of mockeries.

Between the particular public-houses and pawnbrokers' shops which flanked Church Alley were dotted other notable places of business. To wit, Mr. Joseph Loveday's second-hand bookshop, to which we have been already introduced, a sweet-stuff shop, a cook-shop, a wardrobe-shop, and a printer's office, in which the master worked at case and press as his own journeyman. To the small boys and girls in the vicinity of Church Alley these shops were a great attraction, and they patronized them generously. The wardrobe-shop, which, like the bookshop, dealt only in second-hand goods, was as alluring to the grown-up folk of the female sex as it was to the youngsters, and longing were the eyes cast upon the faded silks and satins displayed in the dingy window. A shrewd, wise woman was Mrs. Peeper, the keeper thereof, a woman deeply and strangely versed in the desires and temptations of the lowly female heart. A woman of attainments, too, who might have won a name as a writer of fiction had her steps been led in that direction. In her shop-window would be displayed a much-worn and frayed satin dress, with a train so long as to set female mouths watering, and to this dress would be attached the legend, "From the wardrobe of her Royal Highness the P-ss of W-s." The legend set afloat would go the rounds, and girls and women would flock to gaze at the dress which had once adorned the figure of a royal princess. At another time Mrs. Peeper would arrange in her window several pairs of shoes, boots, and silk stockings, which she would announce as "Direct from B-cking-m P-l-ce;" at another time a flounced petticoat from a duchess; at other times hats, feathers, gloves, trimmings, capes, and various items of vanity, which she would cunningly bait with tempting legends to catch her fish. Mrs. Peeper might be accounted somewhat of a magician, for she filled the minds of many females with fancies which played their parts in dreams, changing charwomen into duchesses, young girls into princesses, and garrets into palaces. Mrs. Peeper seldom failed to land her fish, and the royal garments would be sold at singularly moderate prices, and, moreover, payment taken at so much per week.

Then there was the printer, Mr. Edenborough. In his window were displayed specimens of cheap printing, cards, billheads, handbills, and what not, but there were clear spaces through which the children could peep at the master printer at his work. His stock in trade consisted of one frame, containing about a dozen cases of fancy type, which, with three pairs of cases of small pica, comprised his treasures in metal; there was also a rack of large wood letter for display bills; also an old Albion press. The youngsters stared their eyes out at him as he stood before the frame, composing-stick in hand, picking up the types with that swaying motion of his body which the spectators did not know was the sign of an inferior workman, for the skilful and expert compositor, the one who has generally earned his reputation as a "whip," keeps his body still as his hands travel over the case; they stared the harder when they saw him lock up the chase in which the card or handbill was inserted; and they stared the harder still when he worked ink-roller and press, and pulled off the impressions of the job in hand. He was rather proud of his audience, and made no attempt to disperse them; their admiration was a tribute, and it sweetened his labors.

Then there was the cook-shop, in which, at stated hours of the day, hot dishes made their appearance, smoking. A great attraction, these; tantalizing perhaps, but at all events the youngsters had the smell for nothing. Sometimes a stray ha'penny from the juvenile throng found its way into the cook-shop till. Thereafter would ensue, in some convenient nook, such a feast as Caligula never enjoyed.

Then there was Mr. Sly, the proprietor of the sweet-stuff shop. Such mysteries of sweetness, sticky or otherwise, but generally sticky, were in his window, that the children, once they got there, had the greatest difficulty in tearing themselves away. Ha'pence and farthings-the latter largely predominating-burned holes in the pockets of small breeches, and invariably, unless the plum-duff of the cook-shop stopped the way, were swept into Mr. Sly's till. There was, besides, in this man's establishment a strange and overwhelming temptation which lured the children on, and filled them now with visions of ineffable happiness, and now with visions of dark despair. The exquisite feelings of Manfred were repeated again and again in the breasts of these small morsels of mortality. In a little room at the back of his shop Mr. Sly kept what was spoken of as a "dolly," which may be described as a species of roulette board, the ball-a marble-being sent spinning down a corkscrew tower till it reached the numbers, and finally settled in its resting-place. The rule of this gambling game was the easiest imaginable, and will be understood by the words "double or quits," a system which, in its results, was painfully comprehensible to the young reprobates who patronized it. A case in point occurred at the precise time that Mr. Loveday and Timothy Chance were talking together, and what ensued may be accepted as an illustration of Mr. Sly's method of conducting that part of his business.

A juvenile of the male sex had come unexpectedly into possession of a farthing. It had not been given to him "to be good;" he had picked it up in Church Alley. He looked at it first in wonder and delight at his good luck, then he flourished it triumphantly. Forthwith he was surrounded, and far and wide the news spread that "Billy Forester had picked up a farden." This caused the meeting to be a numerous one. Before proceeding to discuss how it should be spent there was a difficulty to smooth over.

"I cried, ''Arves!'" said little Bob Bracey.

"You didn't," said Billy Forester.

"I did!"

"You didn't!"

"Look 'ere; I'll fight you for it!"

"No, yer won't. It's mine, and I means to stick to it."

"What are you goin' to do with it?" was asked in a chorus.

"Spend it," said Billy.

"In course he is. The farden's Billy's, and he's goin' to spend it. We'll all 'ave a lick."

Then ensued a discussion upon ways and means.

"I think," said Billy, "I'll spend it in burnt almonds."

This caused dismay. A farthing's worth of burnt almonds among so many, Billy by right taking the lion's share, would go a very little way; the majority of Billy's comrades would not get even a "lick."

"I tell yer wot to do, Billy," said a shrewd youngster. "'Ave a spin at old Sly's dolly, and double it."

"Yes, do, Billy, and double it ag'in. Then we'll all 'ave a taste."

Why they called Mr. Sly "old Sly" cannot be explained, the vender of sweet-stuff being comparatively a young man; but it is a way poor children have.

Billy Forester was at heart a gambler.

"I'll do it," he said.

Away he marched, followed by the admiring crowd. Billy, having found a farthing, was a hero.

"Now then," said Mr. Sly as they flocked into his shop, "not so many of yer. Hallo, Billy, it's you. What do you want?"

Billy replied by crooking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Mr. Sly's back room. That the gambling had to be carried on in secrecy made it all the more tempting to the juveniles. It was supposed by many that Mr. Sly would be beheaded if the government caught him at it.

"All right," said Mr. Sly, "you and me, Billy. Now, clear out, every one of yer, or I'll shut up shop. You can wait outside for Billy."

He hustled them out like a flock of sheep, and they clustered in the alley in pleasurable expectation, waiting for Billy. Meanwhile Mr. Sly conducted the hero to the little back room.

"'Ow much for, Billy?" asked Mr. Sly.

"A farden."

"Only a farden! Well, never mind; little fish is sweet. 'And it over."

Billy parted with his farthing.

"Will you go fust, Billy?"

"No, you," said Bill.

"'Ere goes, then." Down the screw turret went the marble, spinning round and round, and when it landed Mr. Sly called, "Eight. Rather a low number that, Billy."

Billy took the marble, spitting first in his hand for luck, and put it in the hole at the top of the tower.

"Twelve," said Mr. Sly.

Billy, having won, was entitled to one half-penny's worth of sweet-stuff for his farthing. He could choose, at liberty, almond-rock, acid drops, peppermint-stick, barley-sugar, hard-bake, toffee, treacle-rock, or any other sweet condiment he preferred. He was debating what to do when the voice of Mephistopheles fell upon his ear.

"You've got a ha'porth, Billy. Make it a penn'orth. Go in and win."

Billy remembered what one in the meeting had said, "and double it ag'in." He would.