Post Haste

This tendency was in part hereditary. His father had been a confirmed drinker. Although well aware of this, he did not believe in his own fallibility. Few young men of his stamp do. Other men might give way to it, but there was no fear of him. He admitted that he could, and sometimes did, take a stiff glass of grog—but what then? It did him no harm. He was not a slave to it. He could give it up and do without it if he chose—although, it is to be remarked, he had never made the trial, and only assumed this power. To be rather “screwed” now and then was, he admitted, somewhat discreditable; but he wasn’t worse than many others, and it didn’t occur often. Thus he reasoned, half-justifying himself in a thoroughly selfish, sinful course; growling at his “bad luck,” and charging the guilt of his sin, which he said he couldn’t help, on Fate—in other words, on God.

It never occurred to George Aspel that the true way to get out of his troubles was to commit his way to his Maker; to accept the position assigned him; to do the work of a faithful servant therein; to get connected with good society through the medium of churches and young men’s Christian associations, and to spend a few years in establishing a character for trustworthiness, capacity, vigour, and intelligence, which would secure his advancement in life. At least, if such thoughts did occur to him, he refused to entertain them, and resolved to fling care to the dogs and defy fortune.

Of course, it soon became apparent to his employer that there was a great change for the worse in the youth, whom he not only admired for his frank bearing and strapping appearance, but loved as his deliverer from death. Delicacy of feeling, however, prevented Mr Blurt from alluding to dissipations at which he could only guess.

Poverty and distress bring about strange companionships. When Aspel first arrived in London he would have scouted the idea of his having anything whatever to do with such a man as Abel Bones, but he had not proceeded far in his downward course when that disreputable character became, if not a companion, at least an acquaintance.

This state of things was brought about primarily by the patronage which Aspel had extended to the “poor worthless fellow” whom he had so unceremoniously knocked down. But the poor worthless fellow, although born in a lower rank of life, was quite equal to him in natural mental power, and much superior in cunning and villainy. Mr Bones had also a bold, reckless air and nature, which were attractive to this descendant of the sea-kings. Moreover, he possessed a power of mingling flattery with humbug in a way that made his victim fall rather easily into his toils.

Revenge, as we have said, lay at the bottom of Abel Bones’ desire to become better acquainted with Aspel, but profit soon took the place of revenge. Mr Bones earned his livelihood chiefly by appropriating what belonged to other people. He was not particular as to what he took, or how he took it, but on the whole preferred easy work (like most people) and large profit. Being a man of bold, ambitious views, he had often thought of forgery, but a neglected education stood in the way of that. Being also a man of resource, he did not doubt that this, like many other difficulties, would ere long succumb to his perseverance. While in this frame of mind it occurred to him that he might make a tool of his new acquaintance and would-be patron. At the same time he had penetration enough to perceive that his intended tool was a dangerous instrument, highly-tempered and sharp-set, with a will of its own, not yet quite demoralised, and not by any means to be played with.

It might be tedious to trace the steps and winding ways by which Abel Bones led his victim from one piece of impropriety to another—always concealing his real character, and playing the rôle of an unfortunate man, willing to work, but unable to find employment—until he almost had him in his toils.

“It’s of no use your dancing attendance on me any longer, Bones,” said Aspel one day, as the former appeared at the door of the ornithological shop. “I have all the will to help you, but I have not the power. My friends have failed me, and I can do no more than keep my own soul in my body. You must look to some one else with more influence than I possess.”

“That’s a bad job, sir,” returned Bones, with a downcast look. “I’ve bin down at the docks all day, an’ earned only enough to get a plate of bacon and beans. Surely there’s somethin’ wrong when a cove that’s willin’ to work must starve; and there’s my wife and child starvin’ too. Seems to me that a cove is justified in stealin’ in the circumstances.”

He cast a sidelong glance at Aspel. It was the first time he had ventured to suggest dishonest intentions. If they should be taken ill, he could turn it off as a jest; if taken well, he could proceed.

“I’m very sorry for you, Bones,” said Aspel, not noticing the hint, “very sorry, but what can I do? I have not a copper left beyond what I absolutely require.”

“Well, sir, I know that you can do nothing, but now that my wife and child are actually starvin’, I really don’t see the sin of helpin’ myself to a loaf at the nearest baker’s, and giving him leg-bail for it.”

“Nothing justifies stealing,” said Aspel.

“D’ee think not, sir?” said Bones. “If you saw your wife now, supposin’ you had one, at the pint of death with hunger, an’ you saw a loaf lyin’ as didn’t belong to you, would you let her die?”

Aspel thought of May Maylands.

“I don’t know,” he replied, “what I should do. All that I say is, that stealing is unjustifiable.”

The argument was stopped at this point by the entrance of a small telegraph message-boy.

Bones was startled by his sudden entrance.

“Well, good-night, sir, we’ll talk that matter over some other time,” he said quickly, pulling his wideawake well over his face as he went out, and giving the message-boy a prolonged stare.

The boy paid no regard to him, but, turning to Aspel, introduced himself as Peter Pax.

“What! the comrade-in-arms of my friend Phil Maylands?” asked Aspel.

“The same, at your service,” replied the small messenger; “an’ if you are the friend he talks to me so much about, as goes by the name of George Aspel, an’ is descended in a direct line from the old sea-kings, I’m proud to make your acquaintance.”

Aspel laughed at the consummate self-possession of the boy, and shaking hands with him heartily as a comrade of their common friend Phil, bade him take a seat, which he immediately did on the counter.

“You’re surrounded by pleasant company here,” observed Pax, gazing intently at the pelican of the wilderness.

“Well, yes; but it’s rather silent company,” said Aspel.

“Did that fellow, now,” continued Pax, pointing to the owl, “die of surprise?”

“Perhaps he did, but I wasn’t present at his death,” returned the other.

“Well, now, I do like this sort o’ thing.”

Little Pax said this with such genuine feeling, and looked round him with such obvious interest, that Aspel, with some surprise, asked him why he liked it.

“Why? because from my earliest years I always was fond of animals. No matter what sort they wos, I liked ’em all—birds an’ beasts an’ fishes, flyers and creepers, an’ squeakers and flutterers,” said the boy, clasping both hands over one knee, and rocking himself to and fro on the counter, while he gazed into the owl’s face with the air of one whose mind is rambling far away into the remote past.

“Once on a time,” he continued, sadly, “I dwelt in the country. I was born in the country. I’m a sort o’ country gentleman by nature, so to speak, and would have bin revellin’ in the country to this day if a perwerse fate hadn’t driven me into the town—a very perwerse fate indeed.”

“Indeed?” said Aspel, unable to restrain a laugh at his visitor’s old-fashioned ways, “what sort of fate was it?”

“A perwerse one, didn’t I tell you?”

“Yes, but wherein consisted its perversity? How did it act, you know?”

“Ah, its perwersity consisted in drivin’ me into town in a market-cart,” said Pax. “You must know that my perwerse fate was a uncle. He was a big brute. I don’t mean to speak of ’im disrespectfully. I merely give ’im his proper name. He was a market-gardener and kept cows—also a pump. He had a wife and child—a little girl. Ah! a sweet child it was.”

“Indeed,” said Aspel, as the boy relapsed into a silent contemplative gaze at the pelican.

“Yes,” resumed Pax, with a sigh, “it was a child, that was. Her name was Mariar, but we called ’er Merry. Her father’s name—the Brute’s, you know—was Blackadder, and a blacker adder don’t wriggle its slimy way through filthy slums nowhere—supposin’ him to be yet unscragged, for he was uncommon hard on his wife—that’s my Aunt Georgie. Her name was Georgianna. I wonder how it is that people never give people their right names! Well, Mr Aspel, you must know I was nuss to baby. An amytoor nuss I was—got no pay for it, but a considerable allowance o’ kicks from the Brute, who wasn’t fond o’ me, as I’d done ’im a mortal injury, somehow, by being his defunct brother’s orphan child. You understand?”

George Aspel having professed a thorough comprehension of these family relationships, little Pax went on.

“Well then, bein’ nuss to Merry, I used to take ’er out long walks in the fields among the flowers, an’ I was used to catch butterflies and beetles for ’er, an’ brought ’em home an’ stuck pins through ’em an’ made c’lections; an’ oh, I did like to scuttle about the green lanes an’ chase the cows, an’ roll on the grass in the sunshine with Merry, an’ tear an bu’st my trousers, for w’ich I got spanked by the Brute, but didn’t care a rap, because that brought me double allowance o’ coddlin’ from Aunt Georgie. One day the Brute drove me into town in the market-cart; set me down in the middle of a street, and drove away, an’ I haven’t seen him, nor Aunt Georgie, nor Merry from that day to this.”

“Dear me!” exclaimed George Aspel, rather shocked at this sudden and unexpected termination of the narrative; “do you mean to say—”

“It strikes me,” interrupted Pax, looking pointedly at the door, “that you’ve got another visitor.”

Aspel turned and saw the dishevelled curls and pretty face of Tottie Bones in the doorway.

“Please, sir,” she said, entering, “I didn’t like to interrupt you, but Miss Lillycrop sent me to say that there was a strange smell of singein’ in the ’ouse, an’ would Mr Aspel be so kind as to come and try to find out where it was, as she didn’t understand such things.”

“Smell of singeing, child!” exclaimed Aspel, rising at once and putting on his coat and hat. “Did you search for the cause, especially about your kitchen fireplace?”

“O yes, sir,” exclaimed Tottie, “an’ we couldn’t see no cause at all—only the flue seemed to be ’otter than usual. We looked all over the ’ouse too, but couldn’t see nothink—but we could feel a most drefful smell.”

Desiring Mrs Murridge to call Mr Blurt to attend to the shop, George Aspel hurried out.

“Don’t try to keep up with us,” said Aspel to Tottie; “I must run. It may be fire!”

“Oh! please, sir, don’t leave me behind,” pleaded the child.

“All right—we won’t; kitch hold of my hand; give the other to Mr Aspel,” said Peter Pax.

Holding on to her two friends, Tottie was swept along the streets at a rate which she had never before experienced—at least not as a foot-passenger,—and in a few minutes they were in Miss Lillycrop’s dwelling.