A Little World

“Who’s the young lady who was here just now?” said Lionel, coolly.

D. Wragg’s face changed slightly, as looking sharply up into his visitor’s face, he said, bluntly —

“Oh, never mind her; she’s a visitor – girl up-stairs. We was talking about dorgs, wasn’t us?”

Lionel was checked for the moment; but seeing Harry’s eye fixed keenly upon him, he said, roughly —

“There, there! I want no toy tarriers. Where’s Luff?”

“It’s all right, sir; don’t you make no mistake. When I says as I’ll get a gent his dorg, I mean it; and – there now!” he exclaimed, with a voice of the most intense disgust. “I did think as I was dealing with gents as would keep their word. I calls that shabby. But just as you like, though; I’m ready.”

“What do you mean?” said Harry Clayton; for the little man had thrust his hands into his pockets, and leant back against a parrot’s cage, whose occupant immediately buried its beak amongst the wiry hair that ornamented D. Wragg’s scalp.

“What do I mean? Why! didn’t I give you both a hint about the suspiciousness of the gent as had the dorg? Didn’t I tell you what might be the consequences? Didn’t I tell you as they was a body of men as I despises? And yet you both has the meanness to go and bring one along with you. That ere aint the way to get dorgs back as is lost. Don’t you make no mistake, gents. You may depend upon it as the party as that dorg follered home has gone right chock away in disgust long enough ago.”

“Police!” exclaimed Lionel. “Why, the man’s mad!”

“Looks like it, don’t it,” said D. Wragg, coolly. “Only don’t you make no mistake. I’ve had dealings in dorgs afore now, gents; and I don’t think, as you’ll find, I aint fledged.”

The young men turned as the speaker pointed towards the door, and gave quite a start as, in place of the heavy features just before the occupants of the door-frame, they saw peering in the impassive inquiring countenance of a policeman.

But the next moment the constable had sauntered on, muttering first the word “rats,” and after walking a few steps, “or pigeons.”

Harry directly recognised in him the constable who had directed them, and turning to the dealer, he said, quietly —

“My friend here is a gentleman, Mr Wragg. He gave you to understand distinctly last night that he should not employ the police.”

“Then what was that there Bobby a looking in for, then?” said the dealer, in an injured tone.

“On my honour I don’t know, unless it was from simple curiosity,” replied Harry. “We asked him to direct us in a street a short distance away.”

“Honour bright?” said D. Wragg.

“I gave you my word,” said Harry, with ill-concealed contempt; and there was something so straightforward in the young man’s countenance, that it immediately carried with it conviction, for the dealer brightened up, and directly thrust out a hand in token of amity.

Smiling the while, Harry Clayton took it, Lionel looking on with an amused expression.

“I beg your pardon, sir – I beg your pardon. Don’t you make no mistake. I aint a mean, contemptible cageful of suspicion, I aint. I beg your pardon. That there’s a hand as never did nothing wuss yet than help to get a gent back his dorg, so as to oblige a regular customer. Plenty of gents trust me, and comes to me when they’ve had their dorgs foller other people; and I acks as mejum and commissioner, and does my best for both parties.”

“’Pon my soul, this grows highly amusing,” said Lionel, laughing. “Why, Harry, I’m right; we must have come to court. May I ask if the young lady of the house will again be visible, so as to go through the same performance?”

Harry looked annoyed, and D. Wragg gave Lionel a sharp, searching sidelong glance, which the other missed.

“Let’s settle the business at once, gents,” said D. Wragg. “Let me see, sir,” he continued, jerking himself round the counter. “I’ll trouble you for two fivers.”

“But where’s the dog?” said Lionel.

“Don’t you make no mistake, sir. You hand over the money, and you shall have him in five minutes.”

Lionel hesitated for a moment, and then drew a couple of crisp notes from his pocket-book, and handed them to the dealer.

“I suppose you will give me a receipt?” said Lionel.

“Never put pen to paper in my life, gents, and never means to,” was the reply. “It’s been the ruin of thousands. But you shall have a receipt for buying a dog, if you like. Here,” he said, stumping to the inner door, and speaking to somebody within; “you won’t mind coming to write out a receipt for ten pound for me, will you? If you won’t, I must call Janet down. That’s right, my dear; come and do it while I go and see if that there party’s brought the dorg.”

To Harry Clayton’s great annoyance, Patty came slowly and timidly from the inner room, her face flushed and her eyes wandering from one to the other.

She quickly took pen and paper from a drawer and began to write, while D. Wragg jerked himself out of the door.

“Why, Harry,” said Lionel, staring hard at the fair little writer the while, “depend upon it that old chap has cut with the money, and we shall never see him again. But never mind; he has left us a jolly little hostage, and we can take her instead.”

Harry Clayton bit his lips, for his fingers itched to seize Lionel by the collar, and shake him till he could not speak; but he felt that he could do nothing now but suffer for his want of frankness, as he saw the pretty little head bent down over the paper.

“What a charming handwriting!” continued Lionel, in the bantering tones, for he had seen Harry’s annoyance. “What well-shaped letters! By the way, my dear, what boarding-school were you at?”

Patty’s crimson face was raised to his for an instant, but her eye fell beneath his bold stare, and she went on writing with trembling hand.

“I shall place that receipt amongst my treasures,” said Lionel, “and – ”

“Have the goodness to recollect where you are,” said Harry, angrily. “Your banter is out of place and offensive.”

Lionel stared, laughed, and elevated his eyebrows, as, without bestowing upon him another glance, Patty took the slip of paper she had written, and handed it to Harry, meeting his eyes for the moment fully as she said in a low voice, “Thank you!” and then she passed out of the shop.

Volume One – Chapter Twenty Six.

Good Advice

“Your receipt, Lionel,” said Harry, quietly, as he passed the paper to his companion.

“Thanks! yes. A saucy little prude! she knows how to play her cards. We’ve got the receipt, and he’s got the ten pounds; but I don’t mean to go without value for my cash, if I take one of those scrub-tailed old cockatoos, and – Ah! what, Luffy, old boy – what, Luffy! Down there, down there, good dog! What! you know your old master, then? There! down, down!”

“There, gents, that’s about it, aint it,” said D. Wragg, stumping in after the dog, and stooping to unfasten the collar round his neck, as the delighted animal bounded upon its master, licking his hand, pawing him, and displaying his unbounded canine pleasure at the meeting, to the great endangering of D. Wragg’s stock-in-trade.

“And now, is there anything more as I can do for you, eh?” said D. Wragg, rubbing his hands, and jigging about as if freshly wound up. “A few rats for the dorg? A couple o’ score sparrers for a shot? Send ’em anywheres! Don’t you make no mistake. You won’t get better supplied in the place. Not to-day, gents? Well, another time perhaps.”

“Yes; I’ll give you another look in,” said Lionel, gazing hard the while at Harry.

“Werry good, sir! werry good!” said D. Wragg, rubbing his hands and jerking himself as if another set of springs had just been brought into use. “I hope as you will. Gents often do come to me again when they’ve been once. Let me give you another card. Here, Janet, bring me another card for the gents. Oh! she aint there. Would you mind giving me a card off the chimally-piece, my dear, for these gents?”

Lionel, who had reached the door, returned; and Patty, now quite composed, brought out a card, and avoiding the young man’s outstretched hand, she passed it to D. Wragg.

“Give it to the gentlemen, my dear; don’t be ashamed. There’s nothing to mind. Don’t you make no mistake, gents; she’s young and a bit shy.”

Patty did not look up as the card was taken from her hand; and though Harry tried hard to meet her eyes once more, so as to ask forgiveness for the slight he had offered to her, she turned back into the room, and the young men passed out of the shop.

“That’s a good dorg, gents, a good dorg!” whispered D. Wragg, from behind his hand, as he followed them to the door. “You’d better keep a sharp eye on him. I’ve got my bit of commission out of this job; but honour bright, gents. As gents, I don’t want to see you here again arter the bull-tarrier – not just yet, you know – not just yet. Good-day, gents. Don’t you make no mistake; you know, about me. Good-day!”

“Bye-bye! old chap,” said Lionel, lightly, as they strolled on. “Wish we’d bought a chain and collar, Harry; I shouldn’t like to lose old Luff again, in this abominable maze. Let’s go back!”

“No, no; there is no need!” exclaimed Harry, hastily. And then flushing slightly at the eagerness he had displayed, he continued firmly – “If you’ll take my advice, Lionel, you will go there no more.”

“Perhaps not, Reverend Harry Clayton, – perhaps not,” laughed the young man, eyeing his companion sideways. “But don’t you make no mistake,” he continued, mimicking the voice and action of the man they had just left; “I may want a toy tarrier for a present, or a few rats, or a score or two of sparrers, or – eh, Harry? – to see the lady go through the dove performance. Don’t you make no mistake, friend Harry, for it’s quite within the range of probability that I may go there often.”

“Perhaps once too often!” exclaimed Harry, impetuously, for he could not control the passion within him. As Lionel spoke, each word seemed to be freighted with bitterness, armed with a sting and a sense of misery such as he had never before felt, and which seemed to crush down his spirit. Visions of Patty smiling welcome upon Lionel floated before him, filling him with a new feeling of rage; and it was all he could do to hide it from his companion, who began to whistle, and then said lightly —

“Perhaps so – perhaps so! As you say, I may go there once too often; but that’s my business, Master Harry, and nothing to do with reading classics. What a cad!” he exclaimed, as he returned the fierce look bestowed upon him by a heavy-browed young fellow in a sleeved waistcoat; nodded familiarly to the policeman; and then, making a point of coolly and insolently returning every loiterer’s stare, he passed on out of the region of the Decadian, thinking all the same, though, of Patty.

Volume One – Chapter Twenty Seven.

An Alarm

Mrs Winks was bound under contract to spend the next day at Duplex Street; but she made known just now her presence in the Dials, being busy enough in the lower regions of D. Wragg’s; for the smoke and steam of her copper altar, erected to the goddess of cleanliness, rose through the house, to be condensed in a dewy clamminess upon handrail and paint. It was the incense that rose thickly to the nostrils when she stuck in a wooden probe to fish up boiling garments for purification’s sake.

The inhabitants of D. Wragg’s dwelling took but little notice of Mrs Winks’ washing-days, inasmuch as they were inured to them by their frequency. D. Wragg, though, must be excepted; for when some bird would sneeze and evince a dislike to the odorous moist vapour, he called to mind the deaths of three valuable cochins by croup – a catarrh-like distemper which, with or without truth, he laid to the charge of Mrs Winks’ washing.

So that good lady busied herself over what she called her own and Monsieur Canau’s “toots,” – meaning thereby divers calico undergarments – till her playbill curl-papers grew soft in the steam. Mrs Winks was interrupted but once, when, aroused by the plunging in of the copper-stick and an extra cloud from the sacrifice, D. Wragg stamped with his heavy boot upon the shop-floor, and shouted an inquiry as to how long Mrs Winks would be before she was done, and whether she knew that there was company in the house?

To this query the stout lady returned the very vague response of “Hours!”

For D. Wragg was now shop-minding, and, as he called it, busy – that is to say, he was going over his stock, stirring up sluggish birds with a loose perch, administering pills composed of rue and butter to sickly bantams, which sat in a heap with feathers erect, and refusing to be smoothed down.

Here and there he would pin a newspaper before the cage of a newly-captured finch, fighting hard to escape by breaking its prison bars, beating its soft round bosom bare of feathers against the cruel wires, but with a fair prospect before it of finding relief for its restless spirit, if not for its body, and flight – where?

Then there were the “tarriers” to look after, some of which justified their name by not finding customers.

Here D. Wragg seemed quite at home, looking, as he stooped and tightened a chain or shortened a string, much like one of the breed Darwinised, and in a state of transition.

D. Wragg’s ministrations were needed, for since the shop had been left by Janet to his care, there had been sundry vicious commotions amongst the dogs. One slight skirmish had ended in a spaniel having an ear made more fringe-like in character. Then the restless little animals had executed a gavotte upon their hind-legs, maybe a waltz, ending in a general tangle, and an Old Bailey performance, caused by the twisting together of string and chain into a Gordian knot, which puzzled D. Wragg into using a knife for sword in its solution – the dogs the while lying panting, with protruding eyes, and a general aspect of being at the last gasp.

At last, though, the canine fancy were reduced to order, so far as was possible; for chained-up dogs are always moved by a restless spirit to reach something a few inches beyond their nose – canine examples, indeed, of human discontent; and if small and restless of breed, hang themselves upon an average about twelve times per diem– possibly without suicidal intent, though, from their miserable state, one cannot avoid suspicion.

D. Wragg had growled almost as much as his dogs in reducing them to order; but he turned at last to go over other portions of his stock, pinching protruded rats’ tails to make them lively; thrusting a hand down the stocking nailed over the hole in the top of the sparrow-cage, and taking out one panting black-cravatted cock-bird from amongst his scores of fellows, to find it naked of breast, with its heavy eyes half-closed, dying fast, and so escaping the sportive shot of the skilled marksman in some sweepstake – “so many birds each, shot from the trap.”

D. Wragg did not approve of waste, so taking the half-dead bird to one corner, he opened the cage, wherein, fixed and glaring with its yellow eye, sat a kestrel, which sluggishly dropped from its perch, and, with a good deal of unnecessary beating of its pointed wings, seized the hapless chirrupper in one quartette of yellow claws, returned to its seat, and then and there proceeded to strip the sparrow, sending a cloud of light downy feathers into the cage of its neighbour, a staring barn-owl, which had opened its eyes for a few minutes, but only to blink a while before subsiding into what appeared to be a ball of feathers. A pair of bullfinches were then roused, by a finger drawn rapidly across the cage bars – the effect being decidedly startling, while the next object upon which the dealer’s eye fell was a disreputable-looking, ragged-coated, grey parrot, busily engaged in picking off its feathers, as if, out of spite for its imprisonment, it wished to render itself as unsightly and unsaleable as possible.

“You’re a beauty, you are!” growled D. Wragg, poking at it viciously with the perch; but, nothing daunted, the bird seized the end of the assailing weapon with its strong hooked beak, and held on fiercely, screaming a loud defiance the while.

With a dexterous jerk, the stick was withdrawn – a strategical movement evidently taken by the bird as a token of defeat; for it stood upon one leg, derisively danced its head up and down, and then loudly cried out – “Quack – quack – quack!” an accomplishment learned of a couple of London-white Aylesbury ducks, located in a small green dog-kennel, whose door was formed of an old half-worn fire-guard.

Apparently satisfied, D. Wragg withdrew to a corner which he specially affected, and turned his back to door and window while he drew forth his dirty pocket-book and carefully examined the two crisp bank-notes, replaced them, and buttoned them up in his breastpocket, as he muttered, softly —

“More yet, my lad, more yet! I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if you turned out a mint to some on us afore we’ve done with you. And why not?” he muttered again, as he glanced uneasily over his shoulder. “What’s the good o’ money to such as him. If he likes to come on the chance of seeing her here, ’taint my doing, is it? I wish she was here always, I do.”

D. Wragg frowned as he proceeded to refresh himself with another pipe, and a renewed spelling over of his paper. Then he cocked his head on one side, magpie fashion, and listened, for a light step was heard, and the closing of a door, and the next minute, without waiting for her friend to descend, Patty was up-stairs, where Janet was watching her goldfish.

The latter turned as soon as she saw Patty, and seeming to read trouble in her face, she wound her arm round the little waist and drew her close.

“I came down to the shop,” said Janet; “but you were writing something for him, so I took advantage of it and came back. But don’t do it, Patty; I don’t like you to go in there.”

Patty did not answer, but stood looking, dreamy and thoughtful.

“Are you keeping something from me?” said Janet, pettishly.

“No – no – no,” said Patty, starting, and smiling once more; “I was only dull without you. Now, let’s talk. Some one came this morning – two some ones – they were there when you saw me writing – they spoke to me, and – and – and – ”

Patty’s face reddened, and then grew worn and troubled as she spoke.

“I did not like it,” she continued; “and – and – there! what stuff I am talking! We shall have no French to-day. Let’s go down, and when Monsieur comes in, get him to paint a partridge’s beak and legs, and I’ll help you to do it. There! pray, come down.”

Janet had her arm still round Patty’s waist, and for a few moments she stood gazing up at her in a strange thoughtful way. She did not speak, though; but keeping close to her visitor, walked with her to the door, muttering softly, “Patty has secrets – Patty has secrets; and I guess what it means.”

Hand-in-hand they began to descend the stairs, but only for Patty to turn back and lead the deformed girl into the room.

“What is it? what ails you?” said Janet, gazing wonderingly at her. “Are you ill? Do you feel faint?”

“No – no; it is nothing; I – I thought – I thought I had seen one of them before.”

“One of them!”

“Yes, one of the customers; but it was nothing – nothing,” she said, sadly; “I must have dreamed it. Janet, do you believe in fancying things?”

“Fancying things! What are you talking about?”

“In feeling that things are to take place – in being as if something whispered to you that there was to be trouble by and by, and misery, and heartaches – that the hawk was coming to seize a miserable little weak pigeon, and tear, and tear it till its poor heart was bleeding.”

“No; stuff!” ejaculated Janet.

“I feel so,” said Patty, slowly, “and sometimes I believe it. O Janet! if one could be rich and nice, and live where people would not be ashamed to see you, and – Ah! I’d give anything – anything to be rich and a lady. But there,” she cried, impetuously, “do come down.”

“Riddles – talking in riddles; like people speak in their sleep,” said Janet, as she wreathed her long arm round Patty. “Perhaps you ought not to come and see me here, for it is horrible; but I am used to it, and I could not live without you now. They don’t like you to come?”

“No,” said Patty; “but they think it would be unkind for me to stay away. They like you, and my father is fond of Monsieur Canau, and loves the musical evenings. You ought to come and live near us.”

“In fashionable Clerkenwell, eh?” said Janet, laughing. “No; he will not leave here – we are used to it, and we are poor, Patty,” she added, with a sigh.

“Lean on me,” said Patty, lightly; “and don’t let’s be miserable;” and they now began to descend the stairs; but only to be met by D. Wragg stumping and jerking up to meet them.

As the dealer came up, he gazed earnestly for a moment at Patty, and there was a hesitating air about him; but he seemed to chase it away, as, with an effort, he exclaimed —

“Here don’t you make no – Here, Miss Pellet, my dear, you’re wanted.”

“Wanted!” said Patty, instinctively shrinking back, while Janet’s dark fierce eyes gazed from one to the other.

“Yes; wanted – in the shop,” said D. Wragg. “You don’t mind coming, do you? Don’t stop her, Janet; it may mean money, you know.”

“But who – who wants me?” faltered Patty, one of whose hands tightly pressed the long restraining bony fingers of Janet – “who wants me?”

“It’s one o’ them swells as come about the dorg!”

Volume One – Chapter Twenty Eight.

The Alarm Quelled

By nine o’clock in the morning of the day succeeding that of his dinner-party at Norwood, Mr Richard Pellet, eager and anxious, was in Borton Street. He would have been there hours before, but Mrs Richard Pellet had been suffering from over-excitement, which was her way of describing a sharp fit of indigestion, brought on by over-indulgence in the good things of the table. So Mrs Richard Pellet had been faint and hysterical, and violently sick and prostrated. She had consumed nearly a half-bottle of the best Cognac; the servants had been, like their master, up nearly all night; and the consequence was, that about five o’clock, Mr Richard Pellet had lain down for an hour, which in spite of his anxiety extended itself to three. He awoke under the impression that he had been asleep five minutes, when he smoothed himself, hurried to the train, took a cab, and arrived at Borton Street two hours later than he had intended.

If he could have made sure that, now she was gone, he would see no more of Ellen Herrisey, he would have ceased from troubling himself in the matter; but, as he would have expressed himself, in his position the dread of any exposure was not to be borne.

It would never have done for his name – the name of Mr Richard Pellet – known everywhere in the city; down, too, in so many lists amongst the great philanthropists of the day, to be brought forward in such a connection, and then to be dragged through the mud and laughed at by those who had grudged his rise. Why! his name was held in honour by all the great religious societies, whose secretaries invariably sent him reports of their proceedings, and they did no more for what Richard called the “nobs.” So by nine the next morning he was at Borton Street, hot, angry, undecided, and uncomfortable.

No doubt, he told himself, by putting the police upon her track, he would be able to find her; but such a proceeding would involve confidences, and partake to some extent of the nature of an exposure, which he could not afford. No, it must be done quietly; so, with the intention of having it done quietly, he gave a sneaky, diffident, hang-dog rap at the door, as he glanced up and down the street to see if he was observed – such a knock as might be given by a gipsy-looking woman, with her wean slung at her back, and a bundle of clothes-pegs for sale in her hand.

But Richard Pellet’s humble no-notice-attracting knock had as little effect inside the house as in the street at large, and, in spite of the giver’s fidgety manner and uneasy glances up and down, no one answered the summons.

There was no help for it; so the early caller gave another rap at the door – a single rap; for, from the effects of an ordinary double knock, he saw in imagination a score of heads at the open doors and windows of the densely-populated street, gazing at and looking down upon him as the doctor and ordainer of strait-waistcoats for the woman said to be insane, and kept so closely for years past in a room at Number 804.