Part 6

This unexpected and disconcerting answer made many anxious questions necessary.

“Why, my father, for what reason?” said the boy.

“In order to provide the means of life, beloved one,” said his father.

“The means of life, my father?” said the boy.

“The food we eat,” said his father. “Our clothes, the roof that protects us, the coals for the fire in the winter months.”

“Are all these things obtained with pieces of silver, my father?”

“Yes, beloved. We are called upon to pay in substance for all that we enjoy.”

The boy grew profoundly silent for a while.

“Does that mean, my father,” he said at last, in a choking voice, “that because we enjoy this little room of ours, we purchase the priceless hours we spend in it by pieces of silver--you and me?”

“Truly,” said his father.

“And yet, my father,” said the boy, “I have no pieces of silver of my own except those you used to give me when I went forth into the streets of the great city to the school. Neither have I books of my own to yield in exchange for pieces of silver. Can you tell me in what manner I must gain these things? You know, my father,” he added very anxiously, “it may befall that this little room might one day be taken away from me, as it once was before, if I do not obtain some pieces of silver of my own.”

“There is but one means of obtaining pieces of silver, beloved one,” said his father mournfully, “and that is by going forth to seek them in the streets of the great city.”

The boy was smitten with stupefaction by these words. They were charged with an import that he did not know how to sustain. But at least they caused a cloud to dissolve which had long pervaded his mind.

“I see, I see,” he said weakly; “now it is that I understand, my father, what all these street-persons are doing when they walk so furiously up and down the streets of the great city. They are seeking for pieces of silver.”

“Yes, beloved,” said his father.

“And it is for that reason that they look so fierce and so cruel, my father. They know that if they don’t find some pieces of silver their little rooms will be taken away from them.”

“Yes, beloved one,” said his father.

“How unhappy they must be, my father, those persons in the streets of the great city,” said the boy. “We ought to give them our pity instead of our fear and our hatred. But”--his voice seemed to perish--“does it not mean, my father, that I also must go forth once more into the great city and become a person in the streets?”

As he framed this sinister question he peered into his father’s eyes with a look of entreaty, as though he besought him not to answer in the manner that he feared to be inevitable.

“You have spoken truly, Achilles,” said his father gently.

The words of his father seemed to embody a sentence of death. His father perceived in what manner he was stricken.

“You see, beloved one,” he said, holding the slight frame against his bosom, “nothing whatever can be obtained in this world which for a term we are doomed to inhabit, except by the medium of pieces of silver. The food that sustains us, the clothes that shield us, the roof that defends us, can only be purchased by pieces of silver. Even these heroes, whom you and I consider the first among created things, had to collect many pieces of silver before they could acquire the materials, and the leisure to perform their most signal acts.”

“And, my father,” said the boy, “had they not always to have their little rooms in which to read the ancient authors and to seek their knowledge?” He shuddered with a kind of passion. “Yes, indeed, I must go out into the streets of the great city and find some pieces of silver,” he said.

X

The boy was visited by little sleep that night and for many nights to follow. The necessity of adventuring forth again into those streets, the recollection of which ever haunted him like a diabolical vision, was at first more than he could endure. Many were the attempts he made to fare forth yet again, but on every occasion he would turn back all stricken by distress after essaying less than a hundred yards. Yet at each failure the stern need of conquering this deplorable frailty would address him like a passion; and sometimes with a sense of dire humiliation he would be moved to take counsel of his father.

“How, my father, can I make myself obey myself?” was a question he asked many times.

It was not until his father had pondered deeply on this subject that he vouchsafed a reply. And then at last he said, “I fear, beloved, that in your present phase there is only one answer I can give to your question. I fear it will be necessary for you to obtain a little knowledge in the practical sciences before the power will be furnished for you to move out in courage and security into the streets of the great city. Beloved, we will devote a whole year to this study, and we will conduct it together.”

During that evening, to the boy’s astonishment, his father went out into the street and brought back a newspaper, an article the boy had never seen in his hand before.

“This is the Alpha and the Omega, beloved one, of that strange world whose mysteries you deem it to be your duty to penetrate,” said his father, with his secret and beautiful smile.

From that time forward the boy’s evenings were no longer given up to desultory readings in the ancient authors. He bestowed many painful and irksome hours upon the newspaper; and these would have been intolerable had not his labours had the sanction of his father’s patient exposition. Day by day its most obscure mysteries were unfolded to him. Yet the more knowledge he acquired the greater his repugnance became. “I hate it! I hate it!” he cried sometimes, with tears in his eyes.

There was another means also by which his father sought to increase his knowledge of the practical sciences. He would accompany him daily into the streets at all hours of the morning, afternoon and evening. He made him familiar with many labyrinths among the highways and byways of the great city. He gave him an insight into many obscure methods of acquiring pieces of silver. He would denote the character of individual persons as they passed by; and above all, he strove to make the boy familiar with the language that was in daily use about him, and with the plane of ideas of those who used it.

In the course of one of these daily lessons his father pointed out a boy kneeling at the edge of the pavement with a box before him, some brushes and a pot of blacking.

“That boy, beloved one,” said his father, “maintains his place in the scheme by removing the mud from the boots of the passers-by. Observe him now cleansing those of the man in the tall bright hat. For so doing he will be rewarded with a small piece of silver, and with that piece of silver he will obtain food and a roof for his head.”

“I don’t understand, my father, I don’t understand,” said the boy in deep perplexity. “If the man in the tall bright hat gives away to others the pieces of silver he possesses because he is too proud to bear a little mud on his boots, how can he obtain food for himself, and how can he sustain the little room in which he dwells?”

“We will follow in the footsteps of that man,” said his father, “and seek to find out the means by which he gains his own pieces of silver in such profusion.”

For many weeks the boy’s education in the practical sciences was conducted in this fashion; and although at first he lived in a state of deep perplexity, and was often overcome by the feeling that he would never find a key to these bewildering enigmas that made up the life of the great world out of doors, which now for some inscrutable purpose he was called upon to enter, perseverance, study and devout patience furnished him at last with some kind of reward.

Not less than two years of concentrated effort was necessary ere the boy began to make real progress in the least subtle of the astonishing complexities of that potent civilization of the West as evolved in the latter days of the nineteenth century of the Christian era. But as one slight piece of knowledge after another rewarded his intense application, he seemed to derive some ground of certainty from his successes, so that by the time he was nearly eighteen years of age he had pieced together these hard-won fragments of experience in such numbers that they wove themselves into a kind of fabric of lucid ideas. Endowed with this basis upon which to stand, he felt the hour to be at hand when the courage and the capacity would be his to make some sort of an entrance into the life of men and things, in the actual and visible out-of-doors world.

One evening he said to his father with an almost proud air: “To-morrow, my father, I intend to put to the test all this knowledge that has come to me during my many days of study--that is, of course, my father, if you think I speak the language well enough.”

“Yes, beloved one,” said his father, with a mournfulness which was in strange contrast with the exaltation of his own mood. “I think by now you speak the language well enough to do so.”

“And I am growing very learned in the newspaper, am I not, my father?” he said almost joyfully, for although in his heart he still loathed the newspaper, the sense of achievement in being able to read and to understand the less inscrutable of its mysteries was very high.

“Yes, beloved one,” said his father, “I consider your progress is wonderful.”

“I observe, my father,” said the boy proudly, “that according to the newspaper we purchased this morning--no, no, that is not the true way of speaking--no, I meant merely to say that according to this morning’s paper, ‘a bright boy is wanted at No. 12, Webster’s Buildings in the City.’ It is my purpose, my father, to present myself at No. 12, Webster’s Buildings in the City to-morrow morning at the hour of nine.”

“This is indeed Achilles,” said his father. He peered wistfully at the wan cheeks now brilliant with the excitement of resolve.

“If you will embrace me, my father,” said the boy, “I will go now to my chamber all alone by myself. I am grown so powerful with the knowledge I have gained that I feel as if I may do almost anything.”

The white-haired man took the frail form into his embrace.

“I beseech you,” he said, as he held him in his arms, “not to demand too much of the strength that Nature has lent you. I would urge you not to go out among the life of the great city if you have a single misgiving.”

“I have not a single misgiving, my father,” said the boy. “I am able to read and to write and to speak the English tongue. I know how to ask the con--the conductor to stop the horses of the omnibus. I can do sums--compound fractions. I am acquainted with most of the streets in the great city. Have I not walked therein alone several times?”

“Well, well, Achilles,” said his father softly, “if you have really made up your mind!”

“You do speak the language beautifully, my father,” said the boy. “If you have really made up your mind! Why, those are the very words I heard a woman street-person use in Piccadilly yesterday.”

The boy took a lighted candle and went up the stairs. This was the first occasion on which he had ventured to do this unattended since the night he had passed in the cell at the police station. But now a new-born sense of power was upon him, the fruit of knowledge. Of late he had made an amazing advance in his studies. He was already beginning to move about the great world out of doors in freedom and security. He had even begun to carry his capacity in his bearing. Only that afternoon a small girl of ten with a basket on her arm had asked him to tell her the time, and also the nearest way to High Holborn. And the proud consciousness was his that he had performed both these offices with perfect satisfaction to them both.

He lay in his pillows that night with almost the sensations of a conqueror. Who among all the cruel and remorseless throng in the streets of the great city, who were yet so strong and capable and so wonderfully certain of themselves, could have done more? A year ago such an achievement as this would have been beyond his wildest ambitions. A month ago he could not have done it. A week ago it would have been barely possible. As he lay in this flush of valour it occurred to him suddenly that the light was burning at its fullest. There and then he determined, for the first time in his life, to get out of bed and turn it out.

He jumped from the sheets with a bound, fearing to delay. With a touch of the finger the room was plunged in complete darkness. Like one possessed he darted back across the floor and found his way back into his bed. He buried his head deep down under the clothes. He lay there shuddering among nameless horrors, and shuddering fell asleep.

That night his father never sought his couch at all. He sat below in the little room until the daylight came, pondering the contents of the ancient tome. In the morning at seven o’clock when the boy came down-stairs again he found his father still in meditation.

“I have had such dreams, my father,” said the boy, and his face was still flushed with the excitement of the previous night. “Some of them were so hideous that they made me cry out, yet all the time I knew myself to be one of the great ones of the earth.”

XI

At eight o’clock, after having made a delicate meal, the boy set out on his pilgrimage into the streets of the great city. It was a delicious morning of early spring. The sun stole through its white curtains, playing elvishly on the traffic. The sounds and cries which ascended from the purlieus of this vast open theatre seemed to be mellowed, and to merge themselves in the primal harmony of the unplumbed spaces overhead. Never before had the boy felt such an exhilaration as on this glorious day. He crossed from one pavement to another with wonderful valiancy, sometimes evading the heads of the horses with a feeling that was almost akin to unconcern. He took his way from street to street with the conviction ever re-affirming itself within him that he would find his way to No. 12, Webster’s Buildings in the City.

In the height of this new power, which for the first time in his life had rendered him fit to move in the great world out of doors, he gave expression to his sense of joy by breaking out suddenly into the reverberating, wavelike music of the Iliads. His lips moved to the measure of those mighty cadences; they rolled out of his mouth, and their song was louder than the thunder of the traffic. As he pressed ever onwards through the endless, elbowing throng, he knew himself as one with the son of Peleus.

Without once faltering, or one mistake in his course he found himself before the façade of Webster’s Buildings in the City as the clocks were striking nine. A moment’s reflection showed him which was No. 12. It comprised a suite of offices on the ground floor.

Quite a number of boys of various ages and sizes were waiting on the pavement outside the door. They had formed themselves into a queue. First the boy stood looking at the mystic No. 12 which was painted on the fanlight over the door, and then at the row of youthful faces, which was already regarding him critically. After a moment of hesitation he walked past them and plunged into the interior of the building. As he did so, loud and angry protests arose of, “’Ere, you come back, Barnum and Bailey!” “Take yer turn, yer young swine!” “Give ’im one for himself!”

The boy not understanding to whom this enigmatic truculence was addressed, walked through the dark passage into the first room that he saw, the door of which was partly open. A morose-looking man who was biting a pen was standing just inside it.

The boy took off his hat and bowed low.

“M-may it p-please you, sir,” he said, repeating slowly but in strangely timid accents, a speech which he had already carefully rehearsed a thousand times, “I d-desire to offer m-myself in the capacity of a bright boy.”

The morose-looking man took the pen out of his mouth with great deliberation, and also with an astonishment which he did not seek to dissemble.

“Do you, indeed?” he said. “We do want a bright boy, but we don’t want ’em too bright. You go back and wait your turn, you cheeky young imp.”

The boy stood a moment in perplexity, unable to grasp what was implied by this answer, and what, in the circumstances, was the fitting course to pursue. In the next, however, he had received enlightenment. The problem was solved for him by the man with the pen. “D---- your young impudence!” he said, taking him by the shoulders. In the next instant the boy had been run through the passage and flung out on to the pavement with the aid of a heavy kick.

His re-appearance and mode of egress were not lost on the select company of bright boys who formed the queue. They seemed to accord them a very decided approval. As the boy stood in bewilderment, with his former morbid dread of physical violence returning upon him, loud howls of derision arose from the queue.

At first it did not occur to the boy that they were directed at himself. But, as he continued to stand before the door in irresolution and surprise, the displeasure with which he was viewed personally was brought somewhat forcibly to his notice. A boy sauntered out from the middle of the queue and collected a handful of mud from the gutter. He then crept up stealthily behind him, and flung it down the back of his neck.

In spite of this not particularly delicate hint, however, and in spite of the cries of derision all about him which seemed every moment to increase, the boy continued to stand before the door. At last a powerful boy, who was the first in the queue, turned to a companion and said: “Keep my place, Nosey.” He then stepped out, and seizing the boy ferociously by the ear, half led and half dragged him to the tail of the queue. After having cuffed him severely, he said, “You get out of your place again, and I’ll break your neck.”

Humiliation, terror and bodily pain were now added to the boy’s bewilderment, but even these potent forces, mighty in combination as they were, could not overcome the new-born strength of purpose that had so recently sprung up in his heart. Doggedly, yet sickly enough, he continued to stand behind the other boys, striving by every means in his power to divine precisely what was taking place around him; and to learn what line of conduct would consort with an immunity from personal violence, and yet further the end to which he had pledged himself.

He stood on the pavement nearly an hour while other boys formed up behind him. Happily none considered it to be worthy of their dignity to visit him with further notice now that his place had been unmistakably indicated to him and his presumption had been fittingly rebuked. Nevertheless he hardly dared to breathe or to look to the right or to the left lest he should again incur their notice. At last, however, an incident happened which afforded him intense relief.

In the process of time boy after boy in front of him had passed through the sacred door, and then after a brief interval within had returned and had gone away disconsolate, incurring as he did so, from those who still waited, sundry observations whose import the boy found it impossible to fathom. But at last one of these came out wearing an air of somewhat emphatic disgust, and said in a derisive tone to those who yet remained in the queue: “You can all go ’ome. Cocoa’s got it. Five bob a week, and a two bob rise every year.”

Upon this announcement, the boy was privileged to observe a strange thing. All the other boys, not only those in front of him, but those behind him also, melted away in silence as if by the agency of magic. At first, so great was his relief at finding himself delivered in this miraculous fashion of their presence that he could hardly realize his good fortune.

For the next half-hour he stood where he was, meditating on what course he must pursue. As he did so, there mounted still higher in his mind the paramount necessity of speaking his carefully-rehearsed words to those who were in need of a bright boy. For in the magic dispersal of those ruthless and terrible youthful street-persons he recognized clearly the hand of Providence. Whatever befell he must force himself to obey the high resolve he had formed the previous night which had now gained the sanction of heaven. If it cost him his life he must present himself again before the man in the office who had already used him so dreadfully.

With a compressed mouth and a stern face, from which he hoped all traces of the mud had been removed by the assiduous use of his handkerchief, although he could still feel it trickling down his back in a most disconcerting manner, he ventured forth again into the dark entrance of No. 12, Webster’s Buildings. The door at the end of the passage was now closed. He tapped timidly upon the glass. There came no answer. After waiting a full minute, in which he listened with nervous intensity for permission to enter, he tapped again a little louder. There was still no answer. Mustering up all his courage he tapped a third time as loudly as he dared. Even if he broke the glass he must obtain an answer!

“Come in,” said a voice from behind the door.

The boy opened the door and entered hat in hand. In the crowded room was a number of men and boys seated on tall stools. The boy clenched his hands and closed his eyes.

“M-may it p-please you, gentlemen,” he said shrilly at the top of his voice, “I desire to offer m-myself in the c-capacity of a bright boy.”

In profound astonishment all the men and boys ceased their labours for a moment. One of them, the morose-looking man, with whom previously he had had dealings, gave a short laugh.

“Oh, it’s _you_ again, is it?” he said. “Kindly wait a moment until I get to you.”

As he spoke, he picked up a heavy and long ruler and descended from his stool. The boy waited in obedience to his request. The man took him by the ear and led him out into the passage, and proceeded to beat him with the ruler brutally about the head and shoulders.

“Do you think we will be plagued out of our lives by the likes of you?” he said, as he flung the limp and breathless form into the street for the second time. “You come here again, and I’ll have you locked up.”

Bruised, breathless and bleeding, the boy dragged himself away from the vicinity of No. 12, Webster’s Buildings in the City. Yet it was only in the flesh he was conquered; his spirit was still fortified with resolve. What were his haps in comparison with those of Hector at the Defence of Troy? Therefore after leaning against the wall of an insurance office for a little time in order to recover some of the physical power which had been so rudely knocked out of him, he determined to renew his attempts to gain pieces of silver. It might be that others besides the occupants of No. 12, Webster’s Buildings in the City were in need of a bright boy. Indeed, it was most likely; at least there appeared to be a large number of bright boys who were desirous of gaining pieces of silver.

Accordingly he resolved to use his powers of observation, and to select for himself a shop or an office which he deemed likely to stand in need of the services of a bright boy. Yet his first choice was not fortunate. After mustering every consideration in its favour, he entered a small and unassuming shop in Gracechurch Street.

As he entered with a curious sensation in his heart, he was met by a young woman with a supercilious lift to her chin and an abundance of dark hair, who looked him up and down as though he had no right to be there.

“What do _you_ want?” she said in a sharp tone, and hurting him with her suspicious eyes.

“M-may it p-please you, m-madam,” he stammered, “I d-desire to offer myself in the capacity of a bright boy.”