Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished: A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure

“There you go again, you ignorant booby,” said Tim; “it wasn’t Eve as gave the beasts their names. It was Adam.”

“An’ wot’s the difference, I should like to know? wasn’t they both made one flesh? However, I think little Martha would have named ’em better if she’d bin there. What a funny little thing she is!”

“Funny!” returned Tim, contemptuously; “she’s a trump!”

During the conversation both boys had washed and rubbed their faces till they absolutely shone like rosy apples. They also combed and brushed their hair to such an extent that each mass lay quite flat on its little head, and bade fair to become solid, for the Guardian’s loving counsels had not been forgotten, and they had a sensation of wishing to please him even although absent.

Presently the house, which had hitherto been very quiet, began suddenly to resound with the barking of a little dog and the noisy voice of a huge man. The former rushed about, saying “Good-morning” as well as it could with tail and tongue to every one, including the household cat, which resented the familiarity with arched back and demoniacal glare. The latter stamped about on the wooden floors, and addressed similar salutations right and left in tones that would have suited the commander of an army. There was a sudden stoppage of the hurricane, and a pleasant female voice was heard.

“I say, Bob, that’s the missus,” whispered Tim through a knot-hole.

Then there came another squall, which seemed to drive madly about all the echoes in the corridors above and in the cellars below. Again the noise ceased, and there came up a sound like a wheezy squeak.

“I say, Tim, that’s the old ’un,” whispered Bob through the knot-hole.

Bob was right, for immediately on the wheezy squeak ceasing, the hurricane burst forth in reply:

“Yes, mother, that’s just what I shall do. You’re always right. I never knew such an old thing for wise suggestions! I’ll set both boys to milk the cows after breakfast. The sooner they learn the better, for our new girl has too much to do in the house to attend to that; besides, she’s either clumsy or nervous, for she has twice overturned the milk-pail. But after all, I don’t wonder, for that red cow has several times showed a desire to fling a hind-leg into the girl’s face, and stick a horn in her gizzard. The boys won’t mind that, you know. Pity that Martha’s too small for the work; but she’ll grow—she’ll grow.”

“Yes, she’ll grow, Franky,” replied the old lady, with as knowing a look as if the richest of jokes had been cracked. The look was, of course, lost on the boys above, and so was the reply, because it reached them in the form of a wheezy squeak.

“Oh! I say! Did you ever! Milk the keows! On’y think!” whispered Bob.

“Ay, an’ won’t I do it with my mouth open too, an’ learn ’ow to send the stream up’ards!” said Tim.

Their comments were cut short by the breakfast-bell; at the same time the hurricane again burst forth:

“Hallo! lads—boys! Youngsters! Are you up?—ah! here you are. Good-morning, and as tidy as two pins. That’s the way to get along in life. Come now, sit down. Where’s Martha? Oh! here we are. Sit beside me, little one.”

The hurricane suddenly fell to a gentle breeze, while part of a chapter of the Bible and a short prayer were read. Then it burst forth again with redoubled fury, checked only now and then by the unavoidable stuffing of the vent-hole.

“You’ve slept well, dears, I hope?” said Mrs Merryboy, helping each of our waifs to a splendid fried fish.

Sitting there, partially awe-stricken by the novelty of their surroundings, they admitted that they had slept well.

“Get ready for work then,” said Mr Merryboy, through a rather large mouthful. “No time to lose. Eat—eat well—for there’s lots to do. No idlers on Brankly Farm, I can tell you. And we don’t let young folk lie abed till breakfast-time every day. We let you rest this morning, Bob and Tim, just by way of an extra refresher before beginning. Here, tuck into the bread and butter, little man, it’ll make you grow. More tea, Susy,” (to his wife). “Why, mother, you’re eating nothing—nothing at all. I declare you’ll come to live on air at last.”

The old lady smiled benignly, as though rather tickled with that joke, and was understood by the boys to protest that she had eaten more than enough, though her squeak had not yet become intelligible to them.

“If you do take to living on air, mother,” said her daughter-in-law, “we shall have to boil it up with a bit of beef and butter to make it strong.”

Mrs Merryboy, senior, smiled again at this, though she had not heard a word of it. Obviously she made no pretence of hearing, but took it as good on credit, for she immediately turned to her son, put her hand to her right ear, and asked what Susy said.

In thunderous tones the joke was repeated, and the old lady almost went into fits over it, insomuch that Bob and Tim regarded her with a spice of anxiety mingled with their amusement, while little Martha looked at her in solemn wonder.

Twelve months’ experience had done much to increase Martha’s love for the old lady, but it had done nothing to reduce her surprise; for Martha, as yet, did not understand a joke. This, of itself, formed a subject of intense amusement to old Mrs Merryboy, who certainly made the most of circumstances, if ever woman did.

“Have some more fish, Bob,” said Mrs Merryboy, junior.

Bob accepted more, gratefully. So did Tim, with alacrity.

“What sort of a home had you in London, Tim?” asked Mrs Merryboy.

“Well, ma’am, I hadn’t no home at all.”

“No home at all, boy; what do you mean? You must have lived somewhere.”

“Oh yes, ma’am, I always lived somewheres, but it wasn’t nowheres in partikler. You see I’d neither father nor mother, an’ though a good old ’ooman did take me in, she couldn’t purvide a bed or blankets, an’ her ’ome was stuffy, so I preferred to live in the streets, an’ sleep of a night w’en I couldn’t pay for a lodgin’, in empty casks and under wegitable carts in Covent Garden Market, or in empty sugar ’ogsheads. I liked the ’ogsheads best w’en I was ’ungry, an’ that was most always, ’cause I could sometimes pick a little sugar that was left in the cracks an’ ’oles, w’en they ’adn’t bin cleaned out a’ready. Also I slep’ under railway-arches, and on door-steps. But sometimes I ’ad raither disturbed nights, ’cause the coppers wouldn’t let a feller sleep in sitch places if they could ’elp it.”

“Who are the ‘coppers?’” asked the good lady of the house, who listened in wonder to Tim’s narration.

“The coppers, ma’am, the—the—pl’eece.”

“Oh! the police?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Where in the world did they expect you to sleep?” asked Mrs Merryboy with some indignation.

“That’s best known to themselves, ma’am,” returned Tim; “p’raps we might ’ave bin allowed to sleep on the Thames, if we’d ’ad a mind to, or on the hatmosphere, but never ’avin’ tried it on, I can’t say.”

“Did you lead the same sort of life, Bob?” asked the farmer, who had by that time appeased his appetite.

“Pretty much so, sir,” replied Bobby, “though I wasn’t quite so ’ard up as Tim, havin’ both a father and mother as well as a ’ome. But they was costly possessions, so I was forced to give ’em up.”

“What! you don’t mean that you forsook them?” said Mr Merryboy with a touch of severity.

“No, sir, but father forsook me and the rest of us, by gettin’ into the Stone Jug—wery much agin’ my earnest advice,—an’ mother an’ sister both thought it was best for me to come out here.”

The two waifs, being thus encouraged, came out with their experiences pretty freely, and made such a number of surprising revelations, that the worthy backwoodsman and his wife were lost in astonishment, to the obvious advantage of old Mrs Merryboy, who, regarding the varying expressions of face around her as the result of a series of excellent jokes, went into a state of chronic laughter of a mild type.

“Have some more bread and butter, and tea, Bob and some more sausage,” said Mrs Merryboy, under a sudden impulse.

Bob declined. Yes, that London street-arab absolutely declined food! So did Tim Lumpy!

“Now, my lads, are you quite sure,” said Mr Merryboy, “that you’ve had enough to eat?”

They both protested, with some regret, that they had.

“You couldn’t eat another bite if you was to try, could you?”

“Vell, sir,” said Bob, with a spice of the ‘old country’ insolence strong upon him, “there’s no sayin’ what might be accomplished with a heffort, but the consikences, you know, might be serious.”

The farmer received this with a thunderous guffaw, and, bidding the boys follow him, went out.

He took them round the farm buildings, commenting on and explaining everything, showed them cattle and horses, pigs and poultry, barns and stables, and then asked them how they thought they’d like to work there.

“Uncommon!” was Bobby Frog’s prompt reply, delivered with emphasis.