discomposed, and changes the subject.
‘What has become of the old man who used to lie in that bed in the
corner?’
The nurse don’t remember what old man is referred to. There has
been such a many old men. The well-spoken old man is doubtful.
The spectral old man who has come to life in bed, says, ‘Billy
Stevens.’ Another old man who has previously had his head in the
fireplace, pipes out,
‘Charley Walters.’
Something like a feeble interest is awakened. I suppose Charley
Walters had conversation in him.
‘He’s dead,’ says the piping old man.
Another old man, with one eye screwed up, hastily displaces the
piping old man, and says.
‘Yes! Charley Walters died in that bed, and – and – ‘
‘Billy Stevens,’ persists the spectral old man.
‘No, no! and Johnny Rogers died in that bed, and – and – they’re
both on ’em dead – and Sam’l Bowyer;’ this seems very extraordinary
to him; ‘he went out!’
With this he subsides, and all the old men (having had quite enough
of it) subside, and the spectral old man goes into his grave again,
and takes the shade of Billy Stevens with him.
As we turn to go out at the door, another previously invisible old
man, a hoarse old man in a flannel gown, is standing there, as if
he had just come up through the floor.
‘I beg your pardon, sir, could I take the liberty of saying a
word?’
‘Yes; what is it?’
‘I am greatly better in my health, sir; but what I want, to get me
quite round,’ with his hand on his throat, ‘is a little fresh air,
sir. It has always done my complaint so much good, sir. The
regular leave for going out, comes round so seldom, that if the
gentlemen, next Friday, would give me leave to go out walking, now
and then – for only an hour or so, sir! – ‘
Who could wonder, looking through those weary vistas of bed and
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Dickens, Charles – Reprinted Pieces
infirmity, that it should do him good to meet with some other
scenes, and assure himself that there was something else on earth?
Who could help wondering why the old men lived on as they did; what
grasp they had on life; what crumbs of interest or occupation they
could pick up from its bare board; whether Charley Walters had ever
described to them the days when he kept company with some old
pauper woman in the bud, or Billy Stevens ever told them of the
time when he was a dweller in the far-off foreign land called Home!
The morsel of burnt child, lying in another room, so patiently, in
bed, wrapped in lint, and looking steadfastly at us with his bright
quiet eyes when we spoke to him kindly, looked as if the knowledge
of these things, and of all the tender things there are to think
about, might have been in his mind – as if he thought, with us,
that there was a fellow-feeling in the pauper nurses which appeared
to make them more kind to their charges than the race of common
nurses in the hospitals – as if he mused upon the Future of some
older children lying around him in the same place, and thought it
best, perhaps, all things considered, that he should die – as if he
knew, without fear, of those many coffins, made and unmade, piled
up in the store below – and of his unknown friend, ‘the dropped
child,’ calm upon the box-lid covered with a cloth. But there was
something wistful and appealing, too, in his tiny face, as if, in
the midst of all the hard necessities and incongruities he pondered
on, he pleaded, in behalf of the helpless and the aged poor, for a
little more liberty – and a little more bread.
PRINCE BULL. A FAIRY TALE
ONCE upon a time, and of course it was in the Golden Age, and I
hope you may know when that was, for I am sure I don’t, though I
have tried hard to find out, there lived in a rich and fertile