Boys -- Fiction; London (England) -- Fiction; Slums -- Fiction
Hannah and Dicky were there, sitting together behind the glass partition
that rose at the side of the dock. Hannah's face was down in her hands,
and Dicky's face was thin and white, and he sat with his neck stretched,
his lips apart, his head aside to catch the smallest word. His eyes,
too, were red with strained, unwinking attention. Josh felt vaguely
that they might keep a bolder face, as he did himself. His sprained foot
was still far from well, but he stood up, putting his weight on the
other. He might have been allowed to sit if he had asked, but that would
look like weakness.
There was another judge this time, an older one, with spectacles. He had
come solemnly in, after lunch, with a bunch of flowers in his hand, and
Josh thought he made an odd figure in his long red gown. Why did he sit
at the end of the bench, instead of in the middle, under the long sword?
Perhaps the old gentleman, who sat there for a little while and then
went away, was the Lord Mayor. That would account for it. There was
another room behind the bedroom at Weech's, which he had never thought
about. Perhaps the money was there, after all. Could they have missed
any hiding place in the shop parlour? No: there was the round table,
with the four chairs about it, and the little sideboard; besides the
texts on the wall, and two china figures on the mantel-piece--that was
all. There was a copper in the wash-house, but there was nothing in it.
The garret was a very good place to keep things in; but there was a
strong smell of stale pickles. He could smell it now--he had smelt it
ever since.
The judge stopped a witness to speak of a draught from a window. Josh
Perrott watched the shutting of the window--they did it with a cord. He
had not noticed a draught himself. But pigeons were flying outside the
panes and resting on the chimney-stacks. Pud Palmer tried to keep
pigeons in Jago Row, but one morning the trap was found empty. A
poulterer gave fourpence each for them. They were ticketed at
eighteenpence a pair in the shop, and that was fivepence profit apiece
for the poulterer. Tenpence a pair profit on eleven pairs was nearly ten
shillings--ten shillings all but tenpence. They wouldn't have given any
more in Club Row. A man had a four-legged linnet in Club Row, but there
was a show in Bethnal Green Road with a two-headed sheep. It was outside
there that Ginger Stagg was pinched for lob-crawling. And so on, and so
on, till his head buzzed again.
His counsel was saying something. How long had he been talking? What was
the good of it? He had told him that he had no defence. The lawyer was
enlarging on the dead man's iniquities, talking of provocation, and the
heat of passion, and the like. He was aiming desperately at a
recommendation to mercy. That was mere foolery.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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