Boys -- Fiction; London (England) -- Fiction; Slums -- Fiction
More plaster than ever embellished the heads of Dove Lane and the Jago
that night; but for the Jagos there was compensation. For down among the
barrels lay many a packet of tobacco, many a pair of boots, and many a
corner stuffed with mixed property of other sorts: which Mother Gapp had
fenced for many a month back. So that it happened to more than one
warrior to carry home again something with which he had run between the
'Posties' long before, and had sold to Mother Gapp for what she would
give.
The ground floor of the Feathers stood a battered shell. The damage of
four years ago was inconsiderable compared to this. With tears and
blasphemy Mother Gapp invaded the hoard of her long iniquity to buy a
new floor; but it was the larceny--the taking of the tobacco and the
boots, and the many other things from among the barrels--that cut her to
the soul. A crool--a crool thing was such robbery--sheer robbery, said
Mother Gapp.
Josh Perrott got a bad sprain in the cellar and had to be helped home.
More, he took with him not a single piece of plunder, such was his
painful disablement.
XXIII
For more than a week Josh Perrott could not walk about. And it was a bad
week. For some little while his luck had been but poor, and now he found
himself laid up with a total reserve fund of fourteenpence. A coat was
pawned with old Poll Rann (who kept a leaving shop in a first floor back
in Jago Row) for ninepence. Then Josh swore at Dicky for not being still
at Grinder's, and told him to turn out and bring home some money. Dicky
had risen almost too sore and stiff to stand, on the morning after the
fight at the Feathers, and he was little better now. But he had to go,
and he went, though he well knew that a click was out of the question,
for his joints almost refused to bend. But he found that the fat's
a-running boys were contemplating business, and he scouted for them
with such success as to bring home sevenpence in the evening. Then Kiddo
Cook, who had left Mother Gapp's with a double armful on the night of
the sing-song, found himself rich enough, being a bachelor, to lend Josh
eighteenpence. And a shawl of Hannah Perrott's was pawned. That, though,
was redeemed the next day, together with the coat. For Dicky brought
home a golden sovereign.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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