Vain Fortune | Page 9

a small boy set to watch over it. His duty was also
to shuffle his feet when the servant-maid approached, and a precious
drubbing he got if he failed to shuffle them loud enough. The ''ot un,' as
he was nicknamed, always had a pack of cards in his pocket, and to
annex everything left on the tables he considered to be his privilege.
One day, when he was asked how he came by the fine carnation in his
buttonhole, he said it was a present from Sally, neglecting to add that
he had told the child to steal it from a basket which a flower-girl had
just put down.
[Illustration: "'A dirty, hignominious lot, them boys is.'"]
Hubert hated this boy, and once could not resist boxing his ears. The
''ot un' writhed easily out of his reach, and then assailed him with foul
language, and so loud were his words that they awoke the innocent
cause of the quarrel, a weak, sickly-looking man, with pale blue eyes
and a blonde beard. Hubert had protected him before now against the
brutality of the boys, who, when they were not playing nap, divided
their pleasantries between him and the decrepit prize-fighter. He came
in about nine, took a cup of coffee from the counter, and settled himself
for a snooze. The boys knew this, and it was their amusement to keep
him awake by pelting him with egg-shells and other missiles. Hubert
noticed that he had always with him a red handkerchief full of some
sort of loose rubbish, which the boys gathered when it fell about the
floor, or purloined from the handkerchief when they judged that the
owner was sufficiently fast asleep. Hubert now saw that the
handkerchief was filled with bits of coloured chalk, and guessed that

the man must be a pavement artist.
'A dirty, hignominious lot, them boys is,' said the artist, fixing his pale,
melancholy eyes on Hubert; 'bad manners, no eddication, and, above all,
no respect.'
'They are an unmannerly lot--that Jew boy especially. I don't think
there's a vice he hasn't got.'
The artist stared at Hubert a long time in silence. A thought seemed to
be stirring in his mind.
'I'm speaking, I can see, to a man of eddication. I'm a fust-rate judge of
character, though I be but a pavement artist; but a picture's none the
less a picture, no matter where it is drawn. That's true, ain't it?'
'Quite true. A horse is a horse, and an ass is an ass, no matter what
stable you put them into.'
The artist laughed a guttural laugh, and, fixing his pale blue porcelain
eyes on Hubert, he said--
'Yes; see I made no bloomin' error when I said you was a man of
eddication. A literary gent, I should think. In the reporting line, most
like. Down in the luck like myself. What was it--drink? Got the chuck?'
'No,' said Hubert, 'never touch it. Out of work.'
'No offence, master, we're all mortal, we is all weak, and in misfortune
we goes to it. It was them boys that drove me to it.'
'How was that?'
'They was always round my show; no getting rid of them, and their
remarks created a disturbance; the perlice said he wouldn't 'ave it, and
when the perlice won't 'ave it, what's a poor man to do? They are that
hignorant. But what's the use of talking of it, it only riles me.' The
blue-eyed man lay back in his seat, and his head sank on his chest. He
looked as if he were going to sleep again, but on Hubert's asking him to

explain his troubles, he leaned across the table.
'Well, I'll tell yer. Yer be an eddicated man, and I likes to talk to them
that 'as 'ad an eddication. Yer says, and werry truly, just now, that
changing the stable don't change an 'orse into a hass, or a hass into an
'orse. That is werry true, most true, none but a eddicated man could 'ave
made that 'ere hobservation. I likes yer for it. Give us yer 'and. The
public just thinks too much of the stable, and not enough of what's
inside. Leastways that's my experience of the public, and I 'ave been
a-catering for the public ever since I was a growing lad--sides of bacon,
ships on fire, good old ship on fire.... I knows the public. Yer don't
follow me?'
'Not quite.'
'A moment, and I'll explain. You'll admit there's no blooming reason
except the public's blooming hignorance why a man shouldn't do as
good a picture on the pavement as on a piece of canvas, provided he
'ave the blooming genius. There is no doubt that with them 'ere chalks
and a nice smooth stone that Raphael--I