the least sign of hesitancy, he held out the coin to me, saying:
"Please, sir, you dropped this."
The other boy turned away in angry disgust.
"Did I?" I asked.
"Yes, sir, when you took out the ha'penny to pay the other boy."
Here I must make remark which is personal to myself—enunciate a principle, while confessing that I have not always commanded sufficient firmness of mind, or rigidity of moral purpose, to put it into execution. I hold honesty to be a normal condition, and so, rarely if ever to be dealt with as if it were exceptional and extraordinary. The custom of rewarding poor people for doing something which all persons, whether rich or poor, are under primary obligation to do, has always appeared to me calculated to do harm to character, to confound simple moral obligation with virtue, never attainable except by effort, and mostly by sacrifice.
My first impulse was to say to this honest lad, "You are a good boy, keep the shilling"; but the thought crossed my mind, that the good which this small sum might do him might be a hundred times weighed down by the evil done to him, by linking, in his young mind, the idea of honesty with that of reward.
I closely watched his face as I took the piece of money from his hand; I could not detect in it the slightest expression of disappointment or regret. The fact struck me, I admit. I knew nothing about this poor boy, or of his companionships, more than I had just seen; there would have been nothing surprising, then—nothing, indeed, more than I might have expected to see if he had parted with this shilling with some small show of reluctance. But he did nothing of the sort—evidently looked for no return beyond the thanks I gave him.
He was turning quietly away, to sell his papers if he could, but I delayed him.
"How long have you been at this trade?"
The blood, I remarked, rushed into his face, and the next moment deserted it; and he half stammered as he answered:
"Only a few weeks, sir."
"Can you make a living out of it?" I inquired, not insensible to the grim irony of asking a small boy of twelve years old whether he could "make a living" out of anything in the nature of work.
"Some days, sir," he replied.
"When there happens to be something exciting in the paper—a shocking murder, or a big burglary?"
"If—yes, sir," he stammered. And again I noticed the ebb and flow of blood in his cheeks, but without paying any special heed to the fact.
"Have you tried your hand at anything else?" I asked.
"No, sir."
"Not as an errand-boy?'
"No, sir. I'm not strong enough for most places of that sort, sir—and they don't give wages enough, even if I were to get taken on on trial."
"Ah! your parents are very poor, then?"
"Yes, sir," he replied, with marked hesitation.
I had no particular object in thus catechising the poor boy in this way, but there was something in his manner which drew me on his flushing and now this hesitancy. My interest in him was, almost unconsciously to myself, being aroused.
"If a good boy's place were offered you, have you got a character to give?" I asked. For a moment he paused, and when he answered his eyes were downcast, his face white, and there were tears in his voice as he said, almost in a whisper:
"No, sir."
"Had one and lost it, do you mean?" I said.
"No, sir."
"You have never been in trouble—never done anything wrong?"
"No, sir—never."
Tears burst from his eyes, which were soon made red and swollen by the application of his knuckles. He was a good boy and a frank-minded boy—of that I felt quite sure; but I felt equally certain that he had a secret, and that he was withholding it from me. I had been examining him closely all the time I was speaking, and, little by little, the interest he had awakened within me had increased.
"Well, now—look here," I said, "I want a boy about your size and age to be in my chambers while I am out: have you a mother?"
"Oh, yes, sir!" he replied, almost eagerly.
"Then, as you have no character to give me, I'll see her."
"No, sir!—no! you can't see my mother, sir!" he cried, with unmistakable terror in his voice.
"Why not?" I asked, questioning him as closely with my eyes as with my lips.
