Boys -- Fiction; London (England) -- Fiction; Slums -- Fiction
It had been an easy click--scarce a click at all, perhaps, strictly
speaking. Dicky had tramped into the city, and had found a crowd outside
St Paul's--a well-dressed crowd, not being moved on: for something was
going forward in the cathedral. He recognised one of the High Mob, a
pogue-hunter--that is a pickpocket who deals in purses. Dicky watched
this man's movements, by way of education; for he was an eminent
practitioner, and worked alone, with no assistant to cover him. Dicky
saw him in the thick of the crowd, standing beside and behind one lady
after another; but it was only when his elbow bent to slip something
into his own pocket that Dicky knew he had 'touched.' Presently he
moved to another part of the crowd, where mostly men were standing, and
there he stealthily let drop a crumpled newspaper, and straightway left
the crowd. He had 'worked' it as much as he judged safe. Dicky wriggled
toward the crumpled paper, slipped it under his jacket, and cleared away
also. He knew that there was something in the paper beside news: that,
in fact, there were purses in it--purses emptied and shed as soon as
might be, because nobody can swear to money, but strange purses lead to
destruction. Dicky recked little of this danger, but made his best pace
to a recess in a back street, there to examine his pogues; for though
the uxter was gone from them, they might yet bring a few coppers from Mr
Weech, if they were of good quality. They were a fairly sound lot. One
had a large clasp that looked like silver, and another was quite new,
and Dicky was observing with satisfaction the shop-shininess of the
lining, when he perceived a cunning pocket at the back, lying flat
against the main integument--and in it was a sovereign! He gulped at the
sight. Clearly the pogue-hunter, emptying the pogues in his pocket by
sense of touch, had missed the flat pocket. Dicky was not yet able to
run with freedom, but he never ceased from trotting till he reached his
own staircase in Old Jago Street. And so the eight or nine days passed,
and Josh went out into the Jago with no more than a tenderness about his
ankle.
Now, he much desired a good click; so he went across High Street
Shoreditch, to Kingsland Railway Station and bought a ticket for
Canonbury.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account