Fighting the Flames by Robert Michael Ballantyne (read novels website txt) 📖

it cheap, sir," said the lively rough.

"No!" said the elderly gentleman, with a sort of snapping look, as he turned his gaze up the street and then down it.

"Snow's wery deep on the steps, sir," said the rough.

"D'you suppose I'm an ass?" exclaimed the elderly gentleman, in a sudden burst.

"Well, sir," said the lively rough, in the grave tone and manner of one who has had a difficult question in philosophy put to him, "well, sir, I don't know about that."

His large mouth expanded gradually from ear to ear after this reply. The elderly gentleman's face became scarlet and his nose purple, and retreating two paces, he slammed the door violently in the rough's face.

"Ah, it all comes of over-feedin', poor feller," said the lively man, shouldering his shovel and resuming his walk beside his gloomy comrade, who neither smiled nor frowned at these pleasantries.

"A warm old g'n'l'm'n!" remarked the boy in the man's hat as he passed.

The lively man nodded and winked.

"Might eat his wittles raw an' cook 'em inside a'most!" continued the boy; "would advise him to keep out of 'yde Park, though, for fear he'd git too near the powder-magazine!"

At this point the gloomy rough--who did not appear, however, to be a genuine rough, but a pretty good imitation of one, made of material that had once seen better days--stopped, and said to his comrade that he was tired of that sort of work, and would bid him good-day. Without waiting for an answer he walked away, and his companion, without vouchsafing a reply, looked after him with a sneer.

"A rum cove!" he remarked to the small boy in the man's hat, as he continued his progress.

"Rayther," replied the boy.

With this interchange of sentiment these casual acquaintances parted, to meet probably no more!

Meanwhile the gloomy rough, whom the lively one had called Ned, walked with rapid steps along several streets, as though he had a distinct purpose in view. He turned at last into a narrow, quiet street, and going up to the door of a shabby-genteel house, applied the knocker with considerable vigour.

"Now then, go along with you; we don't want _your_ services here; we clear off our own snow, we do. Imprence! to knock, too, as if he was a gentleman!"

This was uttered by a servant-girl who had thrust her head out of a second-floor window to take an observation of the visitor before going down to open the door.

"Is he at home, Betsy dear?" inquired the gloomy man, looking up with a leer which proved that he could be the reverse of gloomy when he chose.

"Oh, it's you, is it? I don't think he wants to see you; indeed, I'm sure of it," said the girl.

"Yes he does, dear; at all events I want to see him; and, Betsy, say it's pressing business, and _not_ beggin'."

Betsy disappeared, and soon after, reappearing at the door, admitted the man, whom she ushered into a small apartment, which was redolent of tobacco, and in which sat a young man slippered and dressing-gowned, taking breakfast.

"How are you, doctor?" said the visitor, in a tone that did not accord with his soiled and ragged garments, as he laid down his hat and shovel, and flung himself into a chair.

"None the better for seeing you, Hooper," replied the doctor sternly.

"Well, well!" exclaimed Ned, "what a world we live in, to be sure! It was `Hail fellow! well met,' when I was well off; now," (he scowled here) "my old familiars give me the cold shoulder _because I'm poor_."

"You know that you are unjust," said the doctor, leaning back in his chair, and speaking less sternly though not less firmly; "you know, Ned, that I have helped you with advice and with money to the utmost extent of my means, and you know that it was a long, long time before I ceased to call you one of my friends; but I do not choose to be annoyed by a man who has deliberately cast himself to the dogs, whose companions are the lowest wretches in London, and whose appearance is dirty and disgusting as well as disreputable."

"I can't help it," pleaded Hooper; "I can get no work."

"I don't wonder at that," replied the doctor; every friend you ever had has got you work of one kind or another during the last few years, and you have drunk yourself out of it every time. Do you imagine that your friends will continue to care for a man who cares not for himself?

Ned did not reply, but hung his head in moody silence.

"Now," continued the doctor, "my time is a little more valuable than yours; state what you have got to say, and then be off. Stay," he added, in a softened tone, "have you breakfasted?"

"No," answered Ned, with a hungry glance at the table.

"Well, then, as you did not come to beg, you may draw in your chair and go to work."

Ned at once availed himself of this permission, and his spirits revived wonderfully as he progressed with the meal, during which he stated the cause of his visit.

"The fact is," said he, "that I want your assistance, doctor--"

"I told you already," interrupted the other, "that I have assisted you to the utmost extent of my means."

"My good fellow, not so sharp, pray," said Ned, helping himself to another roll, the first having vanished like a morning cloud; "I don't want money--ah: that is to say, I _do_ want money, but I don't want yours. No; I came here to ask you to help me to get a body."

"A body. What do you mean?"

"Why, what I say; surely you've cut up enough of 'em to know 'em by name; a dead body, doctor,--a subject."

The doctor smiled.

"That's a strange request, Ned. You're not going to turn to my profession as a last resort, I hope?"

"No, not exactly; but a friend of mine wants a body--that's all, and offers to pay me a good round sum if I get one for him."

"Is your friend a medical man?" asked the doctor.

"N-no, he's not. In fact, he has more to do with spirits than bodies; but he wants one of the latter--and I said I'd try to get him one--so, if you can help me, do so, like a good fellow. My friend is particular, however; he wants a _man_ one, above six feet, thin and sallow, and with long black hair."

"You don't suppose I keep a stock of assorted subjects on hand, do you?" said the doctor. "I fear it won't be easy to get what you want. Do you know what your friend intends to do with it?"

"Not I, and I don't care," said Ned, pouring out another cup of coffee. "What does a body cost?"

"Between two and three pounds," replied the doctor.

"Dear me, so cheap," said Ned, with a look of surprise; "then that knocks on the head a little plan I had. I thought of offering myself for sale at Guy's or one of the hospitals, and drinking myself to death with the money, leaving my address, so that they might know where to find me; but it's not worth while to do it for so little; in fact, I don't believe I could accomplish it on three pounds' worth of dissipation."

"Don't jest about your besetting sin," said the doctor gravely; "it's bad enough without that."

"Bad enough," exclaimed Ned, with a sudden flash of ferocity; "ay, bad enough in all conscience, and the worst of it is, that it makes me ready to jest about _anything_--in heaven, earth, or hell. Oh, drink! accursed drink!"

He started up and clutched the hair of his head with both hands for a moment; but the feeling passed away, and he sat down again and resumed breakfast, while he said in a graver tone than he had yet used--

"Excuse me, doctor; I'm subject to these bursts now and then. Well, what say you about the body? My friend offers me twenty pounds, if I get the right kind. That would be seventeen pounds of profit on the transaction. It's worth an effort. It might put me in the way of making one more stand."

Ned said this sadly, for he had made so many stands in time past, and failed to retain his position, that hope was at dead low-water of a very neap-tide now.

"I don't like the look of the thing," said the doctor. "There's too much secrecy about it for me. Why don't your friend speak out like a man; state what he wants it for, and get it in the regular way?"

"It mayn't be a secret, for all I know," said Ned Hooper, as he concluded his repast. "I did not take the trouble to ask him; because I didn't care. You might help me in this, doctor."

"Well, I'll put you in the way of getting what you want," said the doctor, after a few moments reflection; "but you must manage it yourself. I'll not act personally in such an affair; and let me advise you to make sure that you are not getting into a scrape before you take any steps in the matter. Meanwhile, I must wish you good-day. Call here again to-night, at six."

The doctor rose as he spoke, and accompanied Ned to the door. He left a coin of some sort in his palm, when he shook hands.

"Thankee," said Ned.

"If you had come to beg, you should not have got it," said the doctor. "God help him!" he added as he shut the door; "it is an awful sight to see an old companion fall so low."


CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.


AN OLD PLOT.

It is evening now. The snow is still on the ground; but it looks ruddy and warm in the streets, because of the blaze of light from the shop-windows, and it looks colder than it did on the house-tops, by reason of the moon which sails in the wintry sky.

The man in the moon must have been in good spirits that night, for his residence seemed almost fuller than the usual full moon, and decidedly brighter--to many, at least, of the inhabitants of London. It looked particularly bright to Miss Tippet, as she gazed at it through the windows of her upper rooms, and awaited the arrival of "a few friends" to tea. Miss Tippet's heart was animated with feelings of love to God and man; and she had that day, in obedience to the Divine precept, attempted and accomplished a good many little things, all of which were, either directly or indirectly, calculated to make human beings happy.

Emma Ward, too, thought the moon particularly bright that night; in fact she might almost have been regarded as a lunatic; so steadily did she gaze at the moon, and smile to herself without any apparent motive. There was reason for her joy, however, for she had come to know, in some mysterious way, that Frank Willders loved her; and she had known, for a long time past, that she loved Frank Willders.

Frank had become a foreman of the Fire Brigade, and had