6

'who was very glad to get it; and I (small Cain that I LONDON:

was, except that I had never done harm to any one) was

1822-4.

At Hunger.

handed over as a lodger to a reduced old lady, long ford-stairs.

'known to our family, in Little-college-street, Camden- C. D. log. 'town, who took children in to board, and had once done 'so at Brighton; and who, with a few alterations and ' embellishments, unconsciously began to sit for Mrs. 'Pipchin in Dombey when she took in me.

town.

'She had a little brother and sister under her care then; At Mrs. Roylance's somebody's natural children, who were very irregularly in Camden'paid for; and a widow's little son. The two boys and I slept in the same room. My own exclusive breakfast, of a penny cottage loaf and a pennyworth of milk, I pro'vided for myself. I kept another small loaf, and a quarter ' of a pound of cheese, on a particular shelf of a particular 'cupboard; to make my supper on when I came back at 'night. They made a hole in the six or seven shillings, I

know well; and I was out at the blacking-warehouse 'all day, and had to support myself upon that money all 'the week. I suppose my lodging was paid for, by my A cast-a'father. I certainly did not pay it myself; and I certainly

I had no other assistance whatever (the making of my 'clothes, I think, excepted), from Monday morning until 'Saturday night. No advice, no counsel, no encourage'ment, no consolation, no support, from any one that I can 'call to mind, so help me God.

way.

'Sundays, Fanny and I passed in the prison. I was at Sundays in 'the academy in Tenterden-street, Hanover-square, at

' nine o'clock in the morning, to fetch her; and we walked 'back there together, at night.

prison.

LONDON: 1822-4.

At Hungerford-stairs.

C. D. loq.

A choice of puddings.

Places of

resort.

'I was so young and childish, and so little qualified— how could I be otherwise ?-to undertake the whole charge of my own existence, that, in going to Hungerfordstairs of a morning, I could not resist the stale pastry 'put out at half-price on trays at the confectioners' doors ' in Tottenham-court-road; and I often spent in that, the 'money I should have kept for my dinner. Then I went ' without my dinner, or bought a roll, or a slice of pudding. 'There were two pudding shops between which I was ' divided, according to my finances. One was in a court 'close to St. Martin's-church (at the back of the church) which is now removed altogether. The pudding at that shop was made with currants, and was rather a special pudding, but was dear: two penn'orth not being 'larger than a penn'orth of more ordinary pudding. A good shop for the latter was in the Strand, somewhere ( near where the Lowther-arcade is now. It was a stout, hale pudding, heavy and flabby; with great raisins in it, 'stuck in whole, at great distances apart. It came up hot, at about noon every day; and many and many a day did

'I dine off it.

'We had half-an-hour, I think, for tea. When I had money enough, I used to go to a coffee-shop, and have 'half-a-pint of coffee, and a slice of bread and butter. 'When I had no money, I took a turn in Covent-garden market, and stared at the pine-apples. The coffee-shops 'to which I most resorted were, one in Maiden-lane; one ' in a court (non-existent now) close to Hungerford'market; and one in St. Martin's-lane, of which I only ' recollect that it stood near the church, and that in the

door there was an oval glass-plate, with COFFEE-ROOM

painted on it, addressed towards the street. If I ever

LONDON:

1822-4.

At Hunger

find myself in a very different kind of coffee-room now, ford-stairs. ' but where there is such an inscription on glass, and read C. D. loq. it backward on the wrong side MOOR-EEFFOC (as I often

' used to do then, in a dismal reverie), a shock goes ' through my blood.

'I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unin- What really was: 'tentionally, the scantiness of my resources and the diffi'culties of my life. I know that if a shilling or so were 'given me by any one, I spent it in a dinner or a tea. I 'know that I worked, from morning to night, with common men and boys, a shabby child. I know that I tried, but ineffectually, not to anticipate my money, and to make it last the week through; by putting it ' away in a drawer I had in the counting-house, wrapped into six little parcels, each parcel containing the same

' amount, and labelled with a different day. I know that

I have lounged about the streets, insufficiently and un

'satisfactorily fed. I know that, but for the mercy of what easily

might have

God, I might easily have been, for any care that was been. 'taken of me, a little robber or a little vagabond.

'But I held some station at the blacking warehouse 'too. Besides that my relative at the counting-house did 'what a man so occupied, and dealing with a thing so 'anomalous, could, to treat me as one upon a different 'footing from the rest, I never said, to man or boy, how it ' was that I came to be there, or gave the least indication ' of being sorry that I was there. That I suffered in 'secret, and that I suffered exquisitely, no one ever knew

LONDON: but I. How much I suffered, it is, as I have said already, utterly beyond my power to tell. No man's imagination

1822-4.

At Hungerford-stairs.

can overstep the reality. But I kept my own counsel,

C. D. log. and I did my work. I knew from the first, that if I

The foreman and

the carman.

Remonstrance

with his father.

could not do my work as well as any of the rest, I could not hold myself above slight and contempt. I soon 'became at least as expeditious and as skilful with my hands, as either of the other boys. Though perfectly 'familiar with them, my conduct and manners were 'different enough from theirs to place a space between us. They, and the men, always spoke of me as "the young gentleman." A certain man (a soldier once) named Thomas, who was the foreman, and another named Harry, who was the carman and wore a red jacket, used "to call me "Charles" sometimes, in speaking to me; but 'I think it was mostly when we were very confidential, ' and when I had made some efforts to entertain them over our work with the results of some of the old 'readings, which were fast perishing out of my mind. 'Poll Green uprose once, and rebelled against the "young "gentleman" usage; but Bob Fagin settled him speedily.

'My rescue from this kind of existence I considered 'quite hopeless, and abandoned as such, altogether; though I am solemnly convinced that I never, for one 'hour, was reconciled to it, or was otherwise than 'miserably unhappy. I felt keenly, however, the being 'so cut off from my parents, my brothers, and sisters; ' and, when my day's work was done, going home to such 'a miserable blank; and that, I thought, might be cor' rected. One Sunday night I remonstrated with my father

1822-4.

' on this head, so pathetically and with so many tears, that LONDON: 'his kind nature gave way. He began to think that At Hunger. 'it was not quite right. I do believe he had never ford-stairs. 'thought so before, or thought about it. It was the first C. D. loq. ' remonstrance I had ever made about my lot, and perhaps 'it opened up a little more than I intended. A back' attic was found for me at the house of an insolvent-court 'agent, who lived in Lant-street in the borough, where 'Bob Sawyer lodged many years afterwards. A bed and bedding were sent over for me, and made up on the floor. 'The little window had a pleasant prospect of a timber'yard; and when I took possession of my new abode, I 'thought it was a Paradise.'

A lodging

in Lant

street.

shalsea.

There is here another blank, which it is however not difficult to supply from letters and recollections of my own. What was to him of course the great pleasure of his paradise of a lodging, was its bringing him again, though after a fashion sorry enough, within the circle of home. From this time he used to breakfast at home,' in other Breakfast and supper words in the Marshalsea; going to it as early as the gates in Marwere open, and for the most part much earlier. They had no want of bodily comforts there. His father's income, still going on, was amply sufficient for that; and in every respect indeed but elbow-room, I have heard him say, the family lived more comfortably in prison than they had done for a long time out of it. They were waited on still by the maid-of-all-work from Bayham-street, the orphan girl of the Chatham workhouse, from whose sharp little worldly and also kindly ways he took his first impression of the Marchioness in the Old Curiosity Shop. She also