A Little World

“Jared, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!” said his wife.

“So I am, my dear,” said Jared, screwing up his face; “but it was you who grumbled. ‘Like as the arrows in the hand of a giant;’ and ‘Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them.’ That’s it, isn’t it? But they didn’t pay rent and rates and taxes in those days, and every man had his own freehold in the land of Israel. Ah! there was no Duplex Street in the land in those days.”

“Nor no Decadia,” said Mrs Jared, tartly.

“No,” said Jared, “nor no St Runwald’s. By the way, I wonder who used to mend their musical instruments at that time.”

Here Jared gave a loud nasal “whang-whung” upon the clarionet.

“There were the trumpets they blew before Jericho, you know,” he continued. “They must have got cracked some time or other. They couldn’t have had organs though, and Ichabods wern’t invented to blow. ‘To repairing clarionet, ninepence,’” he muttered, writing a little entry in a pocket-book. “Never mind the expense, my dear. Look at the breed: not such children anywhere. Talk about arrows: sharp as needles. I wish, though, you’d ask that little one of Tim’s here to play with them a little oftener. I like the child, and – and well there, I believe it’s really an act of kindness.”

“Poor little thing, yes,” said Mrs Jared; “but she’s not like a child; she’s so old and strange, and don’t seem to mix with them. Mr Ruggles came this afternoon just as Janet came up to the door.”

“Tim Ruggles – what did he want? I don’t owe him a penny.”

“Don’t talk in that way, dear, just as if all the people who came to the house wanted money.”

“Well, don’t they?” said Jared.

“No, dear, of course not, not all; and I don’t think you ought to speak like that.”

“Consequences of long habit, my dear,” said Jared.

“And besides, Mr Ruggles never troubled you for money, though it has been owing to him sometimes till I’ve been ashamed to see him.”

“That beautiful wife of his has though,” said Jared, nursing one leg by the fire as he stirred the glue now melting in the little pot, preparing for some fresh piece of music cobbling.

Mrs Jared winced and looked uncomfortable.

“Bullied me terribly one day for two and ninepence. Bother the Jezebel! I hate her, if it’s only for the way in which she ill-uses that child. ’Pon my soul,” exclaimed Jared excitedly, “I feel sometimes as if I could take the little thing away.”

Here Jared stirred the glue so viciously, that a portion fell over into the fire, and a vile savour arose in his nostrils.

“But it was about her he came to-day,” said Mrs Jared, nervously.

“What! little Pine?”

“No; about Mrs Ruggles,” said Mrs Jared, speaking very hurriedly. “He says there is no doubt about poor Mrs Nimmer never being able again to perform her duties; and he wants you to use any little influence you may have with Mr Gray and Mr Timson.”

“What for – mending?” said Jared.

“No, no; to back Mrs Ruggles in trying to get the appointment of pew-opener.”

“What! Mrs Ruggles?”

“Yes, dear,” exclaimed Mrs Jared, laying down her work.

“I’ll see her – ”

“And if you will,” continued Mrs Jared, hastily interrupting her husband, whose glue was again in the fire, “he says that she will not mind the distance.”

“I shouldn’t think she would,” exclaimed Jared. “Why, she’d scourge us all. Why, I hate her and she hates me, and has done ever since I spoke about her ill-using the little one. Why, before I’d stir a step to get the nasty old cat the post, I’d – ”

“And Mr Ruggles says, if you would speak for her, he thinks her having occupation away would make it pleasanter for those at home, and little Pine would be more left to him; and it would be conferring an obligation upon him that he would never forget.”

“Bother the fellow! why did he put it like that, so as to make a man eat his words? Why, I hate to see the nasty one-sided looks of the woman; and I know if I help her into the church, she’ll do me an ill turn for it some time or other.”

“Nonsense,” cried Mrs Jared. “Depend upon it the woman has some good qualities.”

“Ah! it’s all very fine!” said Jared. “You’d take the very devil’s part, if you saw him in trouble.”

“Hush!” exclaimed Mrs Jared; “and now you’ll do your best now, won’t you, and do Mr Ruggles a good turn?” – the Mr was slightly emphasised. “I promised him you would.”

“Men are lords of the creation,” muttered Jared; “man is a free agent. Ah, well! are we going out to-night?”

“Yes, and to see Janet home,” was the reply; and soon after, Mrs Jared stood, big basket in hand, and ready, for it was marketing night, and there were the wants of the household to supply.

Volume One – Chapter Sixteen.

Purkis’s Emporium

“I’m always glad to get out of this place,” said Mrs Jared; and she hurried her steps as they turned out of Brownjohn Street, where they had left Janet in safety, Monsieur Canau being absent at his theatrical duties; but they had seen D. Wragg, who had insisted upon Jared taking back a couple of unfortunate sparrows in a paper-bag. “Just to please the children,” the dealer had said. They had also seen Mrs Winks, and made an appointment with that lady concerning soap and soda: and now the providing had to be attended to in the busy street to which they made their way.

It was sharp work that providing, now at the butcher’s, now at the greengrocer’s, and now at the grocer’s that was not green; then they went to get a piece of the very fine prime old Cheshire from the next shop, with five eggs for sixpence, and butter and lard. Then the big basket began to grow heavy, and there was no more room in Jared’s pockets, nor yet under Mrs Jared’s shawl; and their steps were directed, as Jared supposed, homewards, as he groaned beneath his load.

For Jared Pellet always was loaded. No sooner did he take a weight off his shoulders than one asserted itself upon his mind. But it did not matter, he said, so long as he did not get so much more than his share. Upon the present occasion he felt like a man carrying a sheet of plate-glass down Fleet Street; for he had apples in the same pocket with the eggs, and that pocket being disposed to bulge, people would keep coming in contact, even though he used a market bunch of greens as the “ease-her-stop-her” boys do the fenders on the “Citizen” steamers to soften collision or contact with pier.

Then, too, there was Mrs Jared to protect in the crowd, for she was a very little woman; and though she would not own to it, that big basket bothered her sadly, being a regular tyrant, and, in spite of the coolness of the night, keeping her in a profuse perspiration.

It really was a brute of a basket – one of those wicker enormities with a cross handle, two flaps, and a large interior. Plenty of room when you could get anything inside; but an abomination of obstinacy, which seemed to like to have goods carried half in and half out, top-heavy fashion, with the flap lids cocked up and in the way of the handle.

And so it was upon the night in question; nothing would pack in as it should. The potatoes certainly did dive in properly when the scale was turned up; but the beef would not enter in spite of all the coaxing and contriving bestowed. No; it would not go in, but broke the wedge of fine old Cheshire all to crumbs; and there it was being carried home with the rough, red, freshly-sawed bone sticking out, and anointing with wet marrow Mrs Jared’s second-best shawl. Even the tea-paper was broken, and “Timson’s fine old family mixture” escaping in secret amongst the potatoes. However the moist sugar was safe, for it was being carried is a brown paper cone, balanced inside Jared’s hat, to the serious alarm of the two sparrows, till Jared stopped for a moment at a street corner and let them fly.

Any one with sympathetic feelings will easily understand that homely shopping under such circumstances was rather trying to the temper. Mrs Jared’s temper was tried, but it only displayed itself in slight compressions of her lips; and even this outward and visible sign of something wrong soon passed off, giving place to an air of anxiety as they passed through a by-street, where she suddenly arrested her husband.

The stopping-place was at a liberally painted shoemaker’s shop, over which, in large letters, shone the golden words, “Purkis’s Boot and Shoe Emporium,” while the gilt flourishes and bands upon the board seemed to remind the beholder strangely of the beadle’s uniform and wand of office.

“Hallo!” exclaimed Jared, waking up from a dream of Farmer’s Gloria in Excelsis, “What do you want here?”

“Only to tell Mr Purkis to send for Totty’s little boots,” said Mrs Jared.

Jared was satisfied, and they entered, sending a small bell hung upon the half door into a very rage of ringing, to summon attendance, although the owner of the establishment was ponderously taking the measure of a customer’s foot, by means of a long slip of paper and a sliding rule, slowly the while making entries upon the said white slip, and afterwards smearing them out and re-writing them. The next minute, though, he had fallen into a state of doubt, and measured again, till, in his confusion, he not only made himself extremely inky, but blotted his customer’s white stockings.

But at last Mr Purkis had finished, sighed relief, dismissed the measured lady, with a promise very doubtful of fulfilment, taken off his glasses, and then turned to welcome his visitors, Mr Jared Pellet, organist of his (Mr Purkis’s) church, being a customer held by him in some reverence.

A very warm, moist man was Mr Purkis in all weathers, and during conversation he was always busy dabbing his forehead, or wiping his neck or hands, even continuing the desiccating process sometimes within his shirt-collar; but his broad face was wreathed with smiles, and a Chesterfield could not have been more polite to his visitors as he responded to Jared’s inquiries about his health.

“Not very well, sir,” said Mr Purkis, taking up a huge clump-soled boot. “I’ve been a deal worried to-day, sir, over this boot. Mr D. Wragg’s, sir, as you recommended to come to me, and that leg of his as is shorter than the other never seems to keep the same length two days together, and I can’t get the sole thick enough, even now. But he’s a good customer all the same, and I thank you ever so much for recommending me to him. Make that dark gi – young lady’s boots too, I do, sir; her as comes with the little Frenchman; but where he picks up his boots, I don’t know.”