Page:A Child of the Jago - Arthur Morrison.djvu/233

 persuaded, Dicky Perrott should be the new boy. Mr. Grinder was persuaded. Chiefly, perhaps, because the vicar undertook to make good the loss, should the experiment end in theft; partly because it was policy to oblige a good customer; and partly, indeed, because Mr. Grinder was willing to give such a boy a chance in life, for he was no bad fellow, as oil-and-colour men go, and had been an errand-boy himself.

So that there came a Monday morning when Dicky, his clothes as well mended as might be (for Hannah Perrott, no more than another Jago, could disobey Father Sturt), and a cut-down apron of his mother's tied before him, stood by Mr. Grinder's bank of pots and kettles, in an eager agony to sell something, and near blind with the pride of the thing. He had been waiting at the shop-door long ere Mr. Grinder was out of bed; and now, set to guard the outside stock—a duty not to be