by some strange freak of good fortune to which i was totally unaccustomed, the very next day after my summary dismissal from the trunk-maker's, i got a job in a big dairy company's business. i have forgotten exactly how it happened, but i think that one of my street chums told me he had seen the notice in the shop window, and hurrying off at once, i secured the situation. at first blush i was almost overwhelmed with the magnitude of my good fortune. for my wages were to be six shillings per week, and a pint of milk twice a day, which to me was wealth indeed, and i began to have visions of getting a little pocket-money out of my earnings, and perhaps even, blissful thought, a new suit of clothes, a possession that i had never yet enjoyed.

my delight was somewhat tempered by the fact that my hours of business were to be from 4.30 a.m. to 9 p.m., on sunday and week-day alike, in summer; and from 5.30 a.m. to 9 p.m. in winter. but of course that was merely a detail. as i had to begin at so unholy an hour in the morning, of course it was unthinkable that i could get any food in the house, and so my landlady made arrangements, in consideration of receiving the whole of my earnings and the milk, to subsidise a local coffee-stall keeper to the extent of one cup of coffee and one slice of cake, price together one penny, every morning. this i bolted at the street corner, often scalding my mouth, for i need hardly say that the margin of time was never very great. and if a boy arrived late, well, there was an end, for his van had gone without him, since it might not linger, obstructing the others.

after swallowing my coffee, i fled as fast as my legs would carry me towards my place of business (sounds important, doesn't it?), which, when i reached it, was a roaring vortex of noise. for the railway vans had just arrived from paddington station, and the huge churns of milk were being shifted with much clangour and shouting from the street to the cellar of the shop, where their contents were being distributed into the polished churns which went into the distributing vans. every man and boy was hard at work, the majority fitting out their respective vans with cans, kettles, etc.; and in half an hour from beginning this work, every van (there were sixteen of them) with its driver and its attendant boy, a crate full of empty cans, and two brimming churns of milk, had rattled off towards the district, often three or four miles away, which was allotted to it.

in summer this eager rush and excitement was rather pleasant, and more in the nature of a huge frolic than otherwise; but in winter, on bitter, bleak, snowy, or wet mornings, it was undoubtedly terribly hard upon such children as i, poorly clad and insufficiently fed, as most of us were. there were two of us in my van besides the driver, it being a heavy district, and there was consequently considerable rivalry between my fellow-worker and myself, which kept both of us from lagging. our boss was a gruff, unsociable sort of fellow, but he must have had a soft spot in his heart somewhere, for he invariably pulled up at the first coffee stall (it was set against a dead wall, nearly opposite the entrance to kensington palace gardens, i remember), and treated each of us to a pennyworth of coffee and cake; and this kindness he repeated when we had finished our round, if the weather was cold.

upon arriving at the commencement of our district we at once flew into violent activity, distributing the milk in cans down the areas and at the doors; but at seven we began to serve at the doors, the servants being about, and many a chunk of cake and mug of hot coffee fell to my lot from kind-hearted kitchen-maids. so, taking it all round, it was not entirely unpleasant if very exhausting. but one thing i have never been able to understand, the wonderful memory we developed. we carried no books, and yet when we returned to the shop at about eight, each of us went before the cashier and repeated, without an effort apparently, as he read out the numbers of the houses, the quantity of milk we had served them with. i do not remember learning this, and indeed it seemed to come naturally to all of us. and when it is remembered that out of 150 gallons of milk we were only allowed one quart for margin, it can easily be understood that we must have been pretty correct.

we had an hour allowed for breakfast, and then the boys had to return and wash and polish the big cans or kettles, as we called them, a task which took us till the afternoon, when we sallied forth again in all the glory of white smocks, shining cans, and trim equipages. this was the pleasant time, for there were nice little snacks obtainable at kitchen doors, and many an opportunity of making a dishonest halfpenny by selling milk to strangers, which deficiency in our pails we made up by giving short measure to regular and large customers, but never, as far as i know, by calling in the aid of the pump. at night when we returned, and the men took their vans off to the stables, the boys washed up the hundreds of small cans under the acute supervision of an old foreman. all the cans were washed and rinsed, were stacked with open lids ready for the morning, and at about 9.30 we were released.

i do not know how long this strenuous employment claimed me, but i know that i was one day discharged suddenly without explanation. the only reason i can assign is that some of my petty pilferings of milk had been discovered, and the only excuse i can give is that of all my earnings i never had a halfpenny to call my own—it all went for my keep.

why or how i went to my next place i shall never know. it is to me and always has been a profound mystery. it was at a "lath-render's," a place where laths were made by hand from curved fillets of russian pine, with a groove down the centre as if showing whence the pith had been removed, that had often aroused my wonder as to their use. i was to receive, as far as i remember, small wages, and certainly no food, but i was to learn the business! but my only occupation while i was there was to tie up chips for sale and keep the fire going in the stove, although i watched the men splitting the long laths from the billets with a sort of hatchet with keenest interest. ah, yes, i used to saw the billets into lengths, i remember, but not to any extent. i was too small for such strenuous labour.

well, my whole course there is misty in retrospect, but deeply flavoured with the pleasant scent of the pine wood, except the manner of my leaving, which was sudden, dramatic, and mysterious. i have said that my principal occupation was the tying up of chips. there were naturally a great many of these, and they were made into bundles by the aid of a rude machine, and sold, largely to laundresses, who used to send for them as being more economical than the bundle-wood at the oil-shops. now what perverse demon tempted me i know not, but one day i thought it would be a desirable thing to conceal in the heart of each bundle a lump of clinker from the stove! no possible benefit could accrue to me from doing this, and had my reasoning powers been in working order, i must have known that detection and subsequent disaster must inevitably be swift.

but i did not think, and i did include clinkers in my bundles, with the result that one day a horde of infuriated washerwomen, mostly of irish extraction, descended upon the shop armed with clinkers, with which, after briefest prologue, they pelted my unfortunate and totally innocent employer. he, poor man, could do nothing but close the establishment under this rapid fire of missiles; and then, thinking quickly, turned upon me and flung me out, not, i rejoice to say, as a sacrifice to the mob, but by a rear door, whence i escaped along the canal side. explanation of my conduct i have none, and there i must leave the matter. it may have been the budding of incipient genius, but in the mellow light of retrospect i confess that it appears very like the act of a lunatic of which i had been guilty.

again, i was free and still characterless. this time i suffered, as no doubt i deserved, hunger, thirst, and pain before i again entered employment, but when i did get a berth it promised fairer than any of my[pg 21] previous ones. just how i fell in with this astounding piece of luck, i have forgotten, but what is indelibly impressed upon my memory is the fact that in my new situation i received board and clothing and two shillings a week—quite sufficient to pay for my poor little bed in a room which i shared with a cobbler, who used it for a workshop, toiling far into the night after i had gone to sleep; but while i was awake, entertaining me vastly with scraps of quaint philosophy. no wonder i was what they used to call an old-fashioned kid! but bless that dear old cobbler's heart. he was gentle, kind, and wise, except in one direction, but even in his cups i never remember hearing him say ought that a little child might not listen to, or ask and obtain the meaning of unsullied. he was very fond of me, and i of him. i daresay we meant a great deal to each other, meeting as we did in that little eddy out of the great rapids of life, and without visible effort supplying each other's needs. i well remember meeting him one day—it must have been when i was looking for a job—surrounded by a little mob of children "avin a gime wiv im" in the vernacular. taking me gently by the arm he said, with a grand wave of his free hand, "now here is an example for you, ill-mannered brats that you are, that can only shout 'ullo, trotty.' i know i trot, i know i am old, but you are ill-bred to remind me of it, and as for this dear child!" and much to my horror and entire discomfiture, he lifted me up and kissed me.[pg 22] i did not get over that, or escape the consequences of his ill-timed affection for a long time, i promise you.

but i am forgetting mr green, my employer. he kept an establishment in westbourne grove for the manufacture and sale of paper patterns of fashionable dresses. in those far-off days i think he must have been a pioneer in this business, and i know he used to visit paris periodically, in order to obtain the latest modes; and returning with them, his wife and her assistants reduplicated them in coloured paper, which elaborate models were exhibited in a grand show-room and sold. my business was to wear a fine suit of clothes with many silvered buttons, and lie hidden in the hall to conduct clients upstairs to the show-rooms, which was on the first floor over a shop. another and more important part of my duties was to carry parcels to clients' houses, at which times i wore a shiny top-hat bedecked with silver braid. indeed, so fine was i that my old companions of the street forbore to guy me, but paid me undisguised tribute of admiration for my splendour.

at such times as i was not employed in public work as aforesaid, i assisted the housemaid in her domestic duties, and was indeed a boy of all work. but taking it all round, i had a good place, and but for the one defect of never having any money of my own, i might have remained there until i began to grow a beard. but i could not resist the temptation of pilfering,[pg 23] because i had never anything of my own, and so in spite of my comfort and ease i forfeited this good place, and was suddenly kicked out. i had not yet, it will be seen, discovered for myself that honesty was the best policy, and i was certainly not one of those wonderful children of whom we read in prize-books that they would starve rather than steal. i stole whenever i saw a favourable opportunity, and when found out and made to suffer therefor, only blamed my own stupidity in not taking more elaborate precautions.

my next employment was at a chemist's, and my never ending wonder is, that i am alive to tell of my experiences there. for it was a large business, and they employed a light porter, a big boy of about eighteen, to do the work i was too weak for; and this fellow led me on to sample portions of the stock, which exercise on several occasions nearly proved fatal to me. but my direst experience was not due to him at all. i was sent one day with a basket containing six syphons of soda to a client's house in inverness place, and at the corner of inverness terrace, where it joins the place, i, resting, saw a fellow errand-boy approaching. after salutations, he suddenly caught sight of my burden as i sat upon the handle of the basket, and immediately asked me why i did not have a drink, and give him some. i, who knew nothing of syphons and their peculiarities, scoffed at the idea. but he very seriously gave me to understand that soda water was a kind of sublimated lemonade, and that it was most easy to get out of these patent bottles, which indeed were made for the purpose.

i needed little persuasion to try the experiment, and so in a minute or two behold me kneeling on the pavement, while that fiend, taking out one of the syphons, inserted the spout in my mouth, and telling me to draw hard, pulled the trigger! merciful powers, shall i, can i, ever forget the agony of that moment! i felt the impact of that surcharged stream against my diaphragm, and simultaneously a regurgitating flood seemed to be beating against my skull, while a double stream poured down my nostrils. he, the miscreant, yelling with delight, dropped the syphon on the pavement and fled, leaving me three parts dead, with a charge against me of something like five shillings and sixpence for a broken syphon. fun to him doubtless, but to me!!!

i must pass rapidly over several other adventures at that fatal shop, such as my putting a handful of soft soap in my mouth in mistake for honey, and exuding soapsuds from every pore for hours as it seemed, eating greedily of ipecacuanha lozenges and worm tablets, both given me by the light porter, with equally disastrous results, until one fateful saturday night came with the remark from the manager as he handed me my four shillings and sixpence, that i was too volatile for his business, and that as he did not want a post-mortem on the premises, i had better not trouble to return on monday morning. which valediction i received as quite in keeping with the recognised scheme of things as far as i was concerned.

but i could not help feeling that a crisis in my affairs had arrived, and i dared not return to my lodging with the now too familiar remark, "i've got the sack," so forgathering with another boy, similarly situated, i cut loose from such conventionalities as i had hitherto preserved; and after a riotous expenditure of sixpence in fried fish and chips and gingerbeer, we climbed the railings of kensington gardens, and creeping like indians through the gloom, ensconced ourselves within the shrubbery by the serpentine under a heap of plant matting, and slept soundly till morning.

that was the beginning of an arab life in the great city, which, i suppose, must have had a certain charm for me, in that it was made up almost entirely of exciting episodes, tempered by the two salient factors of cold and hunger. i can never remember being warm and well fed together for more than an hour or two at a time, and those occasions were so rare as to mark their occurrence indelibly as periods to be reckoned from. i had no prevision, no ambition except to get a good feed and a warm place to sleep, no anxiety save to avoid the policeman, for the school board official was not yet in existence, nor as far as i was[pg 26] aware, any other person whose business it was to look after waifs and strays such as i was.

now, curiously enough, one fact stands out in great prominence for which i cannot account at all. it will have been noticed that i had, to put it mildly, no excessive scruples as to taking what did not belong to me, if i thought i needed it; but one thing i would not, could not, did not do, was beg. in the whole of that adventurous time of which i am writing, and afterwards when i was stranded in strange places between voyages in the early days, although i often suffered most acute pangs of hunger, i never once asked alms. and that, i think, will be found quite characteristic of the london street boy. it is a curious, and, i think, not unsatisfactory feature in his make-up. but there is no denying that we were all predatory in the highest degree. and this habit grew upon us, well, i had better say me, in a case of this kind; until when the lot fell upon me to do the "nicking" for the party, i went and did it with the most natural air in the world.

there was nothing melodramatic about it either, no stealthy dartings from shadow to shadow with an occasional "hist, i am observed," so dear to the old play-writers. oh, no. for instance, it once fell to me to "nick" something, and i have the most precise recollection of walking deliberately into a large grocer's shop in westbourne grove, its counter laden as usual with samples of goods for sale, and under the nose of[pg 27] the dumfounded salesman, who had watched me enter, lifting a large box of biscuits and retreating before he had even attempted to clear the obstacles between us. and that was only a type of many such adventures. since, however, this recital tends to become highly immoral, i will only quote one more instance which must even yet linger in the memories of such of its participants as are still alive.

there used to be a large sweet-stuff shop at the corner of newton road, westbourne grove, which did a fine trade, and was very fully stocked. one night, dared thereunto by some of my companions who had contributed an extraordinary full and varied meal, i entered this shop and calmly lifted a large glass off a side shelf, which contained five or six pounds of chocolate in penny bars covered with silver paper. i took no precautions whatever, beyond leaving the door wide open, nor did i hurry. but upon emerging into the grove i immediately turned up the dark way of newton road, and whistled shrilly for my chums, who were supposed to be keeping nix, although their idea of doing so was to get as far away as possible in case of accidents.

i found them all, however, in kildare gardens, which used to be reached by a sort of paved alley way guarded by posts at each end, and was a most select, silent, and quasi-aristocratic retreat. a veritable oasis of quiet comfort just off the main artery of westbourne grove, then beginning to be famous through the exertions of mr w. whiteley. and we sat down on the kerb of the central garden in the dark to divide the spoil. this being done, and each boy's pocket laden with chocolate sticks, one uneasy wight raised the question, "what should we do with the show-glass?" the obvious thing would have been to leave it there in the dark, but when did boys affect the obvious?

then arose the genius of the party and propounded a scheme which made us all cavort with delight (i have said that we were full fed). he proposed that our quartette should advance upon the first house in that utterly silent square, one member carrying the glass container, another the cover, while the other two ascended the steps under the portico and seized, one the knocker, and the other the bell. then at a given signal the glass must be hurled at the front of the house, the knocker banged, the bell pulled as hard as might be, and—flight. this was at ten p.m.

the instructions were carried out to the foot of the letter; and never, not in a mutiny on board ship, or a coolie riot, have i heard so infernal a row or seen so sudden an upheaval of temporarily mad people. we four were also suddenly frantic, and in our mad flight up kildare terrace, assisted the tumult by snatching at the bells at the garden gates as we ran. but on arriving in the talbot road, breathless, we halted, and alter a brief consultation, decided that we would return and view the result. we did, and we were completely satisfied. the gardens were full of people,[pg 29] each with a different theory, and the majority clad in strange garb. we circulated and enjoyed ourselves listening. but gradually the concourse melted away; and we, quite happy, stole off to our various lairs.