Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 3).djvu/58



C-HO! Special edition!"

"Yer yar, sir! Take mine, sir! I see yer fust, sit!"

"No, sir; I was first, please, sir."

Two young ragamuffins, with seemingly not a pin's choice between them, were the speakers, and probably I should not have noticed either of them specially but for the occurrence of a momentary episode, in which they played very strongly contrasting parts.

In taking a halfpenny out of my pocket to pay for the paper which the more active of the two boys had thrust into my hand by the summary process of shouldering his competitor aside, I had, without being aware of the fact, let fall a shilling, which had rolled a yard or two away.

The boy who had served me with the paper had seen the coin fall, and scarcely stayed to take his half-penny before darting after it; but the boy he had distanced by his bit of sharp practice had also seen the coin fall and had picked it up by the time the other reached him. A moment later I came upon them, and overheard this significant scrap of dialogue:

"Yah! Yer ain't a-goin' ter be such a juggins as ter giv' it 'im back, are yer?"

"Yes, I am," said the other.

"Git out! Don't be a fool! Cop it now yer got it. He do' know as he's lost it, an' nobody but me see yer pick it up. Look 'ere, you just gi' me 'arves, that's wot yer got ter do, if ye're goin' ter be one o' my pals; an' if yer ain't—well, don't yer come 'ere agin, tryin' ter sell no Ekkers, 'cos I won' let yer. So look out!"

Though as yet I was in the dark as to the meaning of all this, I had heard enough to satisfy me that the boy to whom these threats were addressed was being bullied by the other, a boy about twelve years of age, as well as I could guess, and not bigger than himself, but with a hardened look of the streets in his face—a horrible look when one pauses to examine it and to think how it has come to be stamped upon the face of a boy but little past the years of his infancy, suggesting a doubt, indeed, whether he can ever have known such a time of life.

The second boy, equally tattered as he was as to clothing, I could see at a glance exhibited, distinctly, points of advantage over him. He was cleaner, both as to flesh and dress; and the stamp or stain of precocious experience was not recognisable in his face. It also occurred to my mind that the few words I had heard him speak were better spoken, and in themselves, more correct than those which had issued from the other's lips.

My observation of the two boys, which was only that of a moment, was cut short by the one who had picked up my shilling raising his eyes and seeing me. Without