London, as we already know, had held out hands of welcome to the
innocent Jimmy, and had promised great things to him; moreover, changing
her name to Fortune, she had seemed to tell him that in a little time
she would be his for the mere wooing. He soon discovered, however, what
manner of jade she was, and how shamefully she had deceived him.
It must be said at once that Mr. Baffall had behaved rather well.
Remembering complacently his own first struggles in the great
city--struggles intimately connected even now in his mind with a
shortage of food and of clothing--he decided that the boy was starting
with good prospects--far better, indeed, than those his patron had
enjoyed. The boy was put into a good business, and a sufficient sum was
to be paid for his lodging in a modest way; Jimmy had but to work within
those carefully-arranged lines that had been drawn for him, and all
would be well. He would rise step by step, and presently take his place,
with his advancing years, in the great army of men in that particular
line of life. Mr. Baffall shook his head at the thought of the
possibilities of Jimmy rising to be a second Baffall on such beginnings;
such things did not happen every day. But for the rest he was well
provided for, and there was an end of the matter.
Jimmy's lodging was in a sort of rough-and-tumble haphazard
boarding-house in the neighbourhood of Camden Town--a boarding-house
crowded with young men and half-grown youths, and presided over by a
lady of untidy appearance and rasping voice, and with an air of being
always in a hurry. She was assisted in the management of the place by
two haphazard, scrambling, hurrying servant-maids--never quite clean
(save on special occasions, when they managed to get out for an hour or
so) and always haggard and tired-looking. Everyone appeared to be in a
great hurry in the morning, from the time when the first young man
clattered downstairs, and plunged at his breakfast, until the time when
the more aristocratic, who did not begin work until ten o'clock, hurried
away from the house; and everyone appeared very tired at night, what
time that strangely composite meal known as a "meat tea" was set before
the returning workers. Jimmy discovered, something to his dismay, that
this, outside the actual life of the warehouse in that turning off
Cheapside, was to be his life.
The thing was hideous from the beginning; hideous in the sense that, in
being swallowed up in such an existence, he became at once a mere unit
in the scheme of things--one of a hurrying, driving crowd, with no
individuality, and no time to think of anything but his work, and his
journeys to and fro, and his eating and his sleeping. And even sleep was
hideous; because, to his dismay, he found that, as a junior in the
boarding-house he had to share a room with two other youths, given a
little to sky-larking, and to the smoking of cheap cigarettes.
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