there’s a mouth for a steak, sir! Why, I should be too proud of
such a mouth as that, if I had it myself! Stand up and show it,
sir! Take off your cap. There’s a fine young man for a nice
little party, sir! An’t he?’
Inspector Field is the bustling speaker. Inspector Field’s eye is
the roving eye that searches every corner of the cellar as he
talks. Inspector Field’s hand is the well-known hand that has
collared half the people here, and motioned their brothers,
sisters, fathers, mothers, male and female friends, inexorably to
New South Wales. Yet Inspector Field stands in this den, the
Sultan of the place. Every thief here cowers before him, like a
schoolboy before his schoolmaster. All watch him, all answer when
addressed, all laugh at his jokes, all seek to propitiate him.
This cellar company alone – to say nothing of the crowd surrounding
the entrance from the street above, and making the steps shine with
eyes – is strong enough to murder us all, and willing enough to do
it; but, let Inspector Field have a mind to pick out one thief
here, and take him; let him produce that ghostly truncheon from his
pocket, and say, with his business-air, ‘My lad, I want you!’ and
all Rats’ Castle shall be stricken with paralysis, and not a finger
move against him, as he fits the handcuffs on!
Where’s the Earl of Warwick? – Here he is, Mr. Field! Here’s the
Earl of Warwick, Mr. Field! – O there you are, my Lord. Come
for’ard. There’s a chest, sir, not to have a clean shirt on. An’t
it? Take your hat off, my Lord. Why, I should be ashamed if I was
you – and an Earl, too – to show myself to a gentleman with my hat
on! – The Earl of Warwick laughs and uncovers. All the company
laugh. One pickpocket, especially, laughs with great enthusiasm.
O what a jolly game it is, when Mr. Field comes down – and don’t
want nobody!
So, YOU are here, too, are you, you tall, grey, soldierly-looking,
grave man, standing by the fire? – Yes, sir. Good evening, Mr.
Field! – Let us see. You lived servant to a nobleman once? – Yes,
Mr. Field. – And what is it you do now; I forget? – Well, Mr.
Field, I job about as well as I can. I left my employment on
account of delicate health. The family is still kind to me. Mr.
Wix of Piccadilly is also very kind to me when I am hard up.
Likewise Mr. Nix of Oxford Street. I get a trifle from them
occasionally, and rub on as well as I can, Mr. Field. Mr. Field’s
eye rolls enjoyingly, for this man is a notorious begging-letter
writer. – Good night, my lads! – Good night, Mr. Field, and
thank’ee, sir!
Clear the street here, half a thousand of you! Cut it, Mrs.
Page 93
Dickens, Charles – Reprinted Pieces
Stalker – none of that – we don’t want you! Rogers of the flaming
eye, lead on to the tramps’ lodging-house!
A dream of baleful faces attends to the door. Now, stand back all
of you! In the rear Detective Sergeant plants himself, composedly
whistling, with his strong right arm across the narrow passage.
Mrs. Stalker, I am something’d that need not be written here, if
you won’t get yourself into trouble, in about half a minute, if I
see that face of yours again!
Saint Giles’s church clock, striking eleven, hums through our hand
from the dilapidated door of a dark outhouse as we open it, and are
stricken back by the pestilent breath that issues from within.
Rogers to the front with the light, and let us look!
Ten, twenty, thirty – who can count them! Men, women, children,
for the most part naked, heaped upon the floor like maggots in a
cheese! Ho! In that dark corner yonder! Does anybody lie there?
Me sir, Irish me, a widder, with six children. And yonder? Me
sir, Irish me, with me wife and eight poor babes. And to the left
there? Me sir, Irish me, along with two more Irish boys as is me