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This was the climax! It brought down the house! Never before had they seen such an actor. He was inimitable, and the people made the usual demand for an encore with tremendous fervour, expecting that Signor Twittorini would repeat the scene, probably with variations, and finish off with the promised song. But poor Sammy did not respond.
“I see,—you can improvise,” said the manager, quite pleased, “and I’ve no objection when it’s well done like that; but you’d better go on now, and stick to the programme.”
“I can’t sing,” said Sammy, in passionate despair.
“Come, come, young feller, I don’t like actin’ off the stage, an’ the audience is gittin’ impatient.”
“But I tell you I can’t sing a note,” repeated Sam.
“What! D’ye mean to tell me you’re not actin’?”
“I wish I was!” cried poor Sam, glancing upward with tearful eyes and clasping his hands.
“Come now. You’ve joked enough. Go on and do your part,” said the puzzled manager.
“But I tell you I’m not joking. I couldn’t sing just now if you was to give me ten thousand pounds!”
It might have been the amount of the sum stated, or the tone in which it was stated—we know not—but the truth of what Sam said was borne so forcibly in upon the manager, that he went into a violent passion; sprang at Sam’s throat; hustled him towards a back door, and kicked him out into a back lane, where he sat down on an empty packing case, covered his face with his hands, bowed his head on his knees, and wept.
The manager returned on the stage, and, with a calm voice and manner, which proved himself to be a very fair actor, stated that Signor Twittorini had met with a sudden disaster—not a very serious one—which, however, rendered it impossible for him to re-appear just then, but that, if sufficiently recovered, he would appear towards the close of the evening.
This, with a very significant look and gesture from Ned Frog, quieted the audience to the extent at least of inducing them to do nothing worse than howl continuously for ten minutes, after which they allowed the performances to go on, and saved the keeper of order the trouble of knocking down a few of the most unruly.
Ned was the first to quit the hall when all was over. He did so by the back door, and found Sam still sitting on the door-step.
“What’s the matter with ye, youngster?” he said, going up to him. “You’ve made a pretty mess of it to-night.”
“I couldn’t help it—indeed I couldn’t. Perhaps I’ll do better next time.”
“Better! ha! ha! You couldn’t ha’ done better—if you’d on’y gone on. But why do ye sit there?”
“Because I’ve nowhere to go to.”
“There’s plenty o’ common lodgin’-’ouses, ain’t there?”
“Yes, but I haven’t got a single rap.”
“Well, then, ain’t there the casual ward? Why don’t you go there? You’ll git bed and board for nothin’ there.”
Having put this question, and received no answer, Ned turned away without further remark.
Hardened though Ned was to suffering, there was something in the fallen boy’s face that had touched this fallen man. He turned back with a sort of remonstrative growl, and re-entered the back lane, but Signor Twittorini was gone. He had heard the manager’s voice, and fled.
A policeman directed him to the nearest casual ward, where the lowest stratum of abject poverty finds its nightly level.
Here he knocked with trembling hand. He was received; he was put in a lukewarm bath and washed; he was fed on gruel and a bit of bread—quite sufficient to allay the cravings of hunger; he was shown to a room in which appeared to be a row of corpses—so dead was the silence—each rolled in a covering of some dark brown substance, and stretched out stiff on a trestle with a canvas bottom. One of the trestles was empty. He was told he might appropriate it.
“Are they dead?” he asked, looking round with a shudder.
“Not quite,” replied his jailer, with a short laugh, “but dead-beat most of ’em—tired out, I should say, and disinclined to move.”
Sam Twitter fell on the couch, drew the coverlet over him, and became a brown corpse like the rest, while the guardian retired and locked the door to prevent the egress of any who might chance to come to life again.
In the morning Sam had a breakfast similar to the supper; was made to pick oakum for a few hours by way of payment for hospitality, and left with a feeling that he had at last reached the lowest possible depth of degradation.
So he had in that direction, but there are other and varied depths in London—depths of crime and of sickness, as well as of suffering and sorrow!
Aimlessly he wandered about for another day, almost fainting with hunger, but still so ashamed to face his father and mother that he would rather have died than done so.
Some touch of pathos, or gruff tenderness mayhap, in Ned Frog’s voice, induced him to return at night to the scene of his discreditable failure, and await the pugilist’s coming out. He followed him a short way, and then running forward, said—
“Oh, sir! I’m very low!”
“Hallo! Signor Twittorini again!” said Ned, wheeling round, sternly. “What have I to do with your being low? I’ve been low enough myself at times, an’ nobody helped—”
Ned checked himself, for he knew that what he said was false.
“I think I’m dying,” said Sam, leaning against a house for support.
“Well, if you do die, you’ll be well out of it all,” replied Ned, bitterly. “What’s your name?”
“Twitter,” replied Sam, forgetting in his woe that he had not intended to reveal his real name.
“Twitter—Twitter. I’ve heard that name before. Why, yes. Father’s name Samuel—eh? Mother alive—got cards with Mrs Samuel Twitter on ’em, an’ no address?”
“Yes—yes. How do you come to know?” asked Sam in surprise.
“Never you mind that, youngster, but you come along wi’ me. I’ve got a sort o’ right to feed you. Ha! ha! come along.”
Sam became frightened at this sudden burst of hilarity, and shrank away, but Ned grasped him by the arm, and led him along with such decision, that resistance he felt would be useless.
In a few minutes he was in Ned’s garret eating bread and cheese with ravenous satisfaction.
“Have some beer!” said Ned, filling a pewter pot.
“No—no—no—no!” said Sam, shuddering as he turned his head away.
“Well, youngster,” returned Ned, with a slight look of surprise, “please yourself, and here’s your health.”
He drained the pot to the bottom, after which, dividing his straw into two heaps, and throwing them into two corners, he bade Sam lie down and rest.
The miserable boy was only too glad to do so. He flung himself on the little heap pointed out, and the last thing he remembered seeing before the “sweet restorer” embraced him was the huge form of Ned Frog sitting in his own corner with his back to the wall, the pewter pot at his elbow, and a long clay pipe in his mouth.
Mr Thomas Balls, butler to Sir Richard Brandon, standing with his legs wide apart and his hands under his coat tails in the servants’ hall, delivered himself of the opinion that “things was comin’ to a wonderful pass when Sir Richard Brandon would condescend to go visitin’ of a low family in Whitechapel.”
“But the family is no more low than you are, Mr Balls,” objected Jessie Summers, who, being not very high herself, felt that the remark was slightly personal.
“Of course not, my dear,” replied Balls, with a paternal smile. “I did not for a moment mean that Mr Samuel Twitter was low in an offensive sense, but in a social sense. Sir Richard, you know, belongs to the hupper ten, an’ he ’as not been used to associate with people so much further down in the scale. Whether he’s right or whether he’s wrong ain’t for me to say. I merely remark that, things being as they are, the master ’as come to a wonderful pass.”
“It’s all along of Miss Diana,” said Mrs Screwbury. “That dear child ’as taken the firm belief into her pretty ’ead that all people are equal in the sight of their Maker, and that we should look on each other as brothers and sisters, and you know she can twist Sir Richard round her little finger, and she’s taken a great fancy to that Twitter family ever since she’s been introduced to them at that ’Ome of Industry by Mr Welland, who used to be a great friend of their poor boy that ran away. And Mrs Twitter goes about the ’Ome, and among the poor so much, and can tell her so many stories about poor people, that she’s grown quite fond of her.”
“But we ain’t all equal, Mrs Screwbury,” said the cook, recurring, with some asperity, to a former remark, “an’ nothink you or anybody else can ever say will bring me to believe it.”
“Quite right, cook,” said Balls. “For instance, no one would ever admit that I was as good a cook as you are, or that you was equal to Mrs Screwbury as a nurse, or that any of us could compare with Jessie Summers as a ’ouse-maid, or that I was equal to Sir Richard in the matters of edication, or station, or wealth. No, it is in the more serious matters that concern our souls that we are equal, and I fear that when Death comes, he’s not very particular as to who it is he’s cuttin’ down when he’s got the order.”
A ring at the bell cut short this learned discourse. “That’s for the cab,” remarked Mr Balls as he went out.
Now, while these things were taking place at the “West-End,” in the “East-End” the Twitters were assembled round the social board enjoying themselves—that is to say, enjoying themselves as much as in the circumstances was possible. For the cloud that Sammy’s disappearance had thrown over them was not to be easily or soon removed.
Since the terrible day on which he was lost, a settled expression of melancholy had descended on the once cheery couple, which extended in varying degree down to their youngest. Allusion was never made to the erring one; yet it must not be supposed he was forgotten. On the contrary, Sammy was never out of his parents’ thoughts. They prayed for him night and morning aloud, and at all times silently. They also took every possible step to discover their boy’s retreat, by means of the ordinary police, as well as detectives whom they employed for the purpose of hunting Sammy up: but all in vain.
It must not be supposed, however, that this private sorrow induced Mrs Twitter selfishly to forget the poor, or intermit her labours among them. She did not for an hour relax her efforts in their behalf at George Yard and at Commercial Street.
At the Twitter social board—which, by the way, was spread in another house not far from that which had been burned—sat not only Mr and Mrs Twitter and all the little Twitters, but also Mrs Loper, who had dropped in just to make inquiries, and Mrs Larrabel, who was anxious to hear what news they had to tell, and Mr Crackaby, who was very sympathetic, and Mr Stickler, who was oracular. Thus the small table was full.
“Mariar, my dear,” said Mr Twitter, referring to some remarkable truism which his wife had just uttered, “we must just take things as we find ’em. The world is not goin’ to change its course on purpose to please us. Things might be
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