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He wrote an address in our Reporter’s note-book, and, directly afterwards, left Leicester Square with his newly-found friend. As he turned in the direction of Piccadilly, he hailed a cab, into which he and his companion hastily scrambled.

By ten o’clock that night our Reporter paused before the door of the house in which he expected to find Antony Cowlrick, and debated with himself whether he should inquire for the man by name. It was quite natural, he thought, that a person who had been placed in a position so unpleasant as Antony Cowlrick should wish to avoid the disagreeable curiosity of prying eyes and vulgar tongues, and that in a new lodging he should give another name than his own. The house was situated in one of the lowest neighbourhoods, where only the poorest people dwell. There were at least half-a-dozen small bells on the right hand side of the door, and our Reporter fell into deep disgrace by pulling them one after another, and bringing down persons whose faces were strange to him.

He felt himself in a difficulty, when, giving a description of the man and the woman he wished to see, one lodger said, “O, it’s the second-floor back;” and another said, “Oh, it’s the third-floor front;” and another said, “What do yer mean by comin’ ’ere at this time o’ night rousing up people as want to be abed and asleep?” Now, this last rebuke was not taken in good part by our Reporter, whose knowledge of the slums of London, being somewhat extensive, had led him to the belief that householders and lodgers in these localities seldom go to bed before the public-house lights are put out. Sad, indeed, is it to reflect that the Gin-shop is the Church of the Poor, and that it is open from early morn till midnight to lead poverty and ignorance to lower and lower depths, in which it is impossible for purity and innocence to find a resting place!

At length, in despair, our Reporter, having no alternative, inquired of a woman in the house whether a person of the name of Cowlrick was within. The woman looked suspiciously at our Reporter, and said she would call “her man.” Her man came, and our Reporter repeated his question.

“Cowlrick!” cried the man. “Send I may live if that ain’t the name of the feller as was up at the perlice court for the murder in Great Porter Square! Yer don’t mean to say that it’s ’im you’ve come to inquire for at a respectable ’ouse?”

“Shut the door in his face, Jim!” called out the woman, from the top of the stairs.

No sooner said than done. The door was slammed in our Reporter’s face, and he was “left out in the cold,” as the saying is.

What, now, was our Reporter to do? He had no intention of giving up his search; the woof of his nature is strong and tough, and difficulties rather inspire than depress him. Within a stone’s throw from a weak hand there were six public-houses; within a stone’s throw from any one of these were half-a-dozen other public-houses. It was as though a huge pepper-box, filled with public-houses, had been shaken over the neighbourhood. There was a certain peculiarity in the order and arrangement of their fall. Most of them had fallen into the corners of the courts and narrow streets. There must be a Providence in this – a Providence which, watching over the welfare of brewers and distillers, has conferred upon them and upon their heirs and assigns an inalienable right in the corners of every street and lane in the restless Babylonian City.

Our Reporter made the rounds of these public-houses, ordered liquor in every one of them, and poured it on the floor – to the indignation of many topers, who called it “sinful waste;” especially to the indignation of one blear-eyed, grey-haired, old woman, with three long strong hairs sticking out of her chin. This old creature, who looked as if she had just stepped away from the witches’ cauldron in Macbeth (the brew there not being strong enough), screamed out to our Reporter, “You’ll come to want! You’ll come to want! For Gawd’s sake, don’t spill it, my dear! Give it to me – give it to me!” and struggled with him for the liquor.

Within half-an-hour of midnight our Reporter found himself once more before the house in which he supposed Antony Cowlrick would sleep that night. But he was puzzled what to do. To ring the bells again was hazardous. He determined to wait until a lodger entered the house; then he himself would enter and try the chamber doors.

The minutes passed. No guardian angel of a lodger came to his aid. But all at once he felt a tug at his trousers. He looked down. It was a little girl. A very mite of a girl.

“If yer please, sir – ”

“Yes, little one,” said our Reporter.

“Will yer pull the blue bell, and knock five times? I can’t reach.”

CHAPTER X
THE SPECIAL REPORTER OF THE “EVENING MOON” MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF A LITTLE MATCH GIRL

PULL the blue bell, and knock five times!

The request was not to be denied. That the small party who made it could not “reach” was self-evident, for she was scarcely three feet and a half in height. But to say, “pull the blue bell” was one thing, and to pull the blue bell was another. Our Reporter had pulled every bell on the door, as he believed, and he looked in vain for a blue one.

“I don’t see the blue bell, little girl,” he said.

“Yes, yer do,” replied the little girl, with audacious effrontery. “Not where yer looking! It’s all by itself on the other side.”

Our Reporter found the bell, “all by itself,” on the left hand side of the door, where bells usually are not, and he pulled it, and knocked five times slowly.

“That ain’t right!” cried the little girl; her voice came as loud and shrill as if it proceeded from the throat of a canary. “Yer must knock like a postman, and a little ’un in – rat-tat, rat-tat, tat!”

Our Reporter obeyed, fully expecting to be assaulted for kicking up such a row so late in the night; but no one took any notice of him, and no one answered the ring and the knocks.

The little girl waited patiently, much more patiently than our Reporter, who rang and knocked again with the air of a man who was engaged in a contest and was getting the worst of it.

“Must I give it up?” he mentally asked himself, and answering immediately, “No, I will see Antony Cowlrick to-night, or I’ll know the reason why.” Then he looked down at the form of the little girl, and called, “Little girl!”

The little girl did not reply. She was leaning against the door-post in a state of perfect contentment. The particular house with which our Reporter might be said to be wrestling was in the shade; there was no lamp-post within twenty yards of it, and the night was dark.

“Little girl!” repeated our Reporter, in a louder voice.

Still no reply.

He leant down, and placed his hands on her shoulders. She did not move. He stooped lower, and looked into her face. She was fast asleep.

Even in the dark he saw how much she was to be pitied. Her poor wan face was dirty, and traces of tears were on it; her hair hung in thick knots over her forehead; her hands were begrimed; her clothes were rags; on her feet were a pair of what once were dancing shoes, and had twinkled in the ballet. They were half-a-dozen sizes too large for the little feet, and were tied to her ankles with pieces of twine. Their glory was gone indeed, and, though they had once been satin, they were fit only for the rag-bag or the dust-hole.

“Poor child!” sighed our Reporter. “It is easy to see what you are growing up into!”

He whispered in her ear, “Wake up, little one! I’ve knocked loud enough to raise the dead, and no one answers. Wake up!”

As she made no movement, he shook her, gently and with tenderness, whereupon she murmured some words, but so indistinctly that he did not gather their import.

“Eh?” he said, placing his ear to her lips. “What did you say?”

“Two boxes a penny,” she murmured. “Please buy a box! – starving mother at ’ome!”

A woman shuffled along the street, and stopped before the house, with the supper beer in a brown jug. As she opened the door with the latch-key, she glanced at the sleeping child.

“Why, it’s little Fanny!” she cried.

“Who asked me,” added our Reporter, “to pull the blue bell, and knock five times?”

“Yes,” observed the woman. “Third-floor back.”

“The young woman,” said our Reporter, taking up the cue, and slipping sixpence into the woman’s hand – (when do our poor refuse alms?) – “the young woman in the third-floor back – is she at home?”

“Goodness only knows,” replied the woman, who, having accepted the money, felt that she must earn it; “she’s that quiet, is Blanche, that there’s no telling when she’s in or when she’s out.”

“Let me see,” said our Reporter, pretending to consider, “how long has Blanche lived in the house?”

“About three months, I should say. Pretty, ain’t she?”

“Very. Young, too, to be the mother of little Fanny here.”

“Lord love you!” exclaimed the woman; “little Fanny’s no relation of her’n. She’s a single woman is Blanche. I thought you was a friend.”

“So I am. But this is the first time I’ve been here to see her.”

“You’re the first I’ve ever seen come after her.”

“She has not many friends, then?”

“Not one that I know of.”

“She has had an old friend with her to-day,” said our Reporter, thinking he might by this question obtain some information of Antony Cowlrick.

“Has she? I’m glad to hear it. I’ve wondered a good deal about the girl, and so has all of us in the street. She don’t mix with us free like. Not that she ain’t affable! But she keeps herself to herself. I must go in now,” said the woman, with a giggle, “or my old man’ll think I’ve run off with somebody.”

She entered the house, and our Reporter, with little Fanny asleep in his arms, followed. On the first floor the woman vanished, and he pursued his way to the third. The stairs were in utter darkness, and he had to exercise great care to save his shins and to avoid disturbing the lodgers in the house. In due time he reached the third floor, and struck a match. There were only two doors on the landing, and he saw at once which of the two led to the back room. He knocked, and received no response; and then he tried the handle of the door. It gave way, and he was in the room, in utter darkness.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, addressing, as he believed, the occupant, “but as no one answered” —

He did not finish the sentence, for the stillness of the room affected him. His position was certainly a perplexing one. He listened for the breathing of some person, but heard none.

“Antony Cowlrick,” he thought, “have you been playing me a trick?”

He struck another match, and lit a candle which was on a small table. Then he looked around. The room was empty.

“Now,” thought our Reporter, “if this is not the room in which Antony Cowlrick led me to expect he would receive me, and the tenant proper himself or herself should suddenly appear, I shall scarcely be prepared to offer a reasonable excuse for my intrusion.”

No articles of clothing were in sight to enlighten him as to the sex of the tenant of this third-floor back. There was a bed in decent order, and he laid little Fanny upon it. Having done this, he noticed that food was on the table – the remains of a loaf cut in slices, with a scraping of butter on them, a small quantity of tea screwed up in paper, and a saucer with about an ounce of brown sugar in it.

“Not exactly a Rothschild,” mused our Reporter, “but quite as happy perhaps.”

For our Reporter has his own views of things, and contends that more happiness is to be found among the poor than among the rich.

Continuing his investigations, our Reporter was not long before he made an important discovery. Exactly in front of the slice of bread and butter on the table was a chair, upon which the person who appeared to be invited to the frugal supper would naturally sit, and exactly behind the bread and butter was a piece of paper, set up on end, upon which was written:

“Dear little Fanny. Good-bye. If ever I am rich I will try and find you. Look on the mantelshelf.”

There was a peculiarity in the writing. The letters forming the name “Fanny” were traced in large capital letters, such as a child who could not read fine writing might be able to spell; the rest was written in small hand.

Our reporter argued the matter logically thus: The little girl asleep on the bed could not read, but understood the large letters in which her name was written. The supper on the table was set out for her. Preparing to partake of it, her eyes would fall on the paper, and she would see her name upon it. Curiosity to know what else was written would impel her to seek a lodger in the house – perhaps the landlady – who would read the message aloud to her, and would look on the mantelshelf.

Why should not our Reporter himself read the message to little Fanny, and why should he not look on the mantelshelf?

He did the latter without further cogitation. Upon the mantelshelf he found two unsealed envelopes, with writing on them. Each contained money.

One was addressed “For Fanny.” It contained a shilling. On the other was written: “Mrs. Rogers, landlady. If a gentleman engaged upon a newspaper calls to see Blanche and a friend whom she met in Leicester Square to-day, please give him the enclosed. Blanche is not coming back. Her rent is paid up to next Saturday. Good-bye.”

He had not, then, entered the wrong apartment. This room had been occupied by Antony Cowlrick’s fair friend, and the enclosure was for our Reporter.

He took it out; it was a sealed letter. He opened it, and read, as a sovereign fell to the floor: —

“Sir, – I am enabled thus soon to repay you the sovereign you so generously lent me to-day. Had it been out of my power to do so to-night you would most probably have seen me as you expected. It is better as it is, for I have nothing to communicate which I desire to make public. I shall ever retain a lively sense of your kindness, and I depend upon the fulfilment of your promise not to write about me in your paper for three days. If you do not know what else to do with the money received by your paper in response to its appeal for subscriptions on my behalf, I can tell you. Give it to the poor. – Your faithful servant,

“ANTONY COWLRICK.”

The handwriting was that of an educated man, and the mystery surrounding Antony Cowlrick was deepened by the last proceeding.

A voice from the bed aroused our Reporter from his meditations. Little Fanny was awake, and was calling for Blanche.

“Blanche is not in yet,” said our Reporter. “Come and eat your supper.”

The little girl struggled to her feet, and approached the table. The curiosity of our Reporter was strongly excited, and before giving Fanny the message and the shilling left for her by Blanche, he determined to question her. Thereupon the following colloquy ensued: —

Our Reporter: This is your supper, Fanny.

Fanny (carefully spreading the brown sugar over her bread): Yes. Blanche never forgits me.

Our Reporter: Sugar every night?

Fanny: Yes, I likes it.

Our Reporter: Blanche is not your mother?

Fanny (with her mouth full): Lor! No.

Our Reporter: Is she your aunt or your cousin?

Fanny: Lor! No. She ain’t nothink to me but a – a —

Our Reporter (prompting, seeing that Fanny was in a difficulty): Friend?

Fanny: More nor that. A brick!

Our Reporter: She is good to you?

Fanny: There ain’t nobody like her.

Our Reporter: What are you?

Fanny (laughing): Wot am I? A gal.

Our Reporter: Do you go to school?

Fanny (with a cunning shake of her head): Ketch me at it!

Our Reporter: What do you do?

Fanny: I sells matches – two boxes a penny – and I falls asleep on purpose in front of the Nacheral Gallery.

Our Reporter: The National Gallery. In Trafalgar Square, where the fountains are?

Fanny: That’s the place – where the little man without legs plays the accorgeon.

Our Reporter: Why do you fall asleep there?

Fanny (with a sad, wistful smile): That’s mother’s little game. She makes me.

Our Reporter: Mother’s little game! Then you have a mother?

Fanny (shuddering): Raythur.

Our Reporter: Where does she live?

Fanny: At the pub round the corner, mostly – the Good Sir Mary Tun – till they turns her out.

Our Reporter: The Good Samaritan. But why does your mother make you fall asleep on purpose in front of the National Gallery?

Fanny: Don’t yer see? It’s a dodge. Mother gives me twelve boxes o’ matches, and I’ve got to sell ’em. If I don’t, I gits toko! Well, I don’t always sell ’em, though I try ever so ’ard. Then I falls down on the pavement up agin the wall, or I sets down on the church steps oppersite, with the boxes o’ matches in my ’and, and I goes to sleep. Pretends to, yer know; I’m wide awake all the time, I am. A lady and gent comin’ from the theaytre, stops and looks at me. “Poor little thing!” she ses. “Come along!” he ses. Sometimes the lady won’t come along, and she bends over, and puts ’er ’and on my shoulder. “Why don’t yer go ’ome?” she ses. “I can’t, mem,” I ses, “till I’ve sold my matches.” Then she gives me a copper, but don’t take my matches; and other gents and ladies as stops to look gives me somethink – I’ve ’ad as much as a shillin’ give me in a lump, more nor once. When they’re gone, mother comes, and wrenches my ’and open, and takes the money, and ses, “Go to sleep agin you little warmint, or I’ll break every bone in yer body!” Then I shuts my eyes, and the game’s played all over agin.

Our Reporter: Is your mother near you all the while, Fanny, that she comes and takes the money from you?

Fanny: Lor! No! That would spoil the game. She’s watchin’ on the other side of Trafalgar Square. She knows ’er book, does mother! Sometimes I’m so tired that I falls asleep in real earnest, and then I ketches it – ’ot!

Our Reporter: Does she beat you?

Fanny: Does she miss a chance?

The child hitches her shoulder out of her ragged frock, and our Reporter sees on the poor thin back, the bladebones of which stick up like knives, the marks of welts and bruises. There is room in our literature for another kind of book on “The Mothers of England” than that written by a celebrated authoress many years ago. Fanny’s poor little back is black and blue, and when our Reporter, with gentle finger, touches one of the bruises, the child quivers with pain.

Our Reporter: Altogether, Fanny, your life is not a rosy one?

Fanny: O, I ’ave lots of larks with the boys! And I’ve got some ’air.

Our Reporter (very much puzzled): Some what?

Fanny: Some ’air. I’ll show yer.

She jumps from her chair, creeps under the bed, and emerges presently, her face flushed and excited, with something wrapped in a piece of old newspaper. She displays her treasure to our astonished Reporter. It is a chignon, apparently made of tow, which she fixes proudly on her head. The colour is many shades lighter than Fanny’s own hair, which is a pretty dark brown, but that is of the smallest consequence to the child, who evidently believes that the chignon makes a woman of fashion of her.

Fanny: I wears it on Sundays, when I goes to the Embankment. Mother don’t know I’ve got it. If she did, she’d take it from me, and wear it ’erself. I say – ain’t it splendid, the Embankment?

Our Reporter: It is a fine place, Fanny. So you have larks with the boys?

Fanny: Yes. We goes to the play on the sly. ’Tain’t a month ago since Bob the Swell comes and ses, “Fanny, wot do yer say to goin’ and seein’ ‘Drink’ at the Princesses? Give us a kiss, and I’ll treat yer!” My! I was ready to jump out of my skin! He ’ad two other gals with ’im. He ses, ses Bob, “This is a lady’s party. It’s a wim of mine” – I don’t know wot he means by that, but he ses – “it’s a wim of mine. I wos allus a lady’s man, wosn’t I, Fan?” (And he is, a regular one!) “I’ve got three young women to my own cheek, all a-growin’ and a-blowin’! Let’s trot.” Wot a night we ’ad! He takes us to a ’Talian ice-shop in Williers Street, and we ’as penny ices, and then we goes to the Princesses – to the best part of the theaytre, ’igh up, where you can look down on all the other people. ’Ave you seen ‘Drink?’ Prime – ain’t it? But I shouldn’t like to be one o’ them gals as throws pails of water over each other. And when Coop-o falls from the scaffoldin’ – ain’t it nacheral! I almost cried my eyes out when he was ’aving dinner with ’is little gal. Then he gits the trembles, and goes on awful. I never seed one so bad as that! When the play’s over Bob takes us to a pub’ —

Our Reporter (shocked): Fanny!

Fanny: Wot’s the matter?

Our Reporter: You don’t drink, I hope?

Fanny: Yes, I does – but not what Bob the Swell drinks. I likes water with raspberry jam in it, stirred up. I ’ad some white satin once, but it made me sick. That night Bob drinks beer, and the other gals too. I was genteel; I ’ad lemonade. I got a wollopin’ when I got ’ome. Mother was waitin’ for me outside the Good Sir Mary Tun; I tried to dodge ’er, but it was no go; she caught me and give it me. “That’ll teach yer,” she said, “to leave your pore mother with a throat as dry as a salt ’erring, while you go gallivantin’ about with a parcel of boys!” I didn’t mind; it was worth the wollopin’.

Our Reporter: Now, let us talk about Blanche.

Fanny: Yes. ’Ow late she is to-night!

Our Reporter: Have you known her long, Fanny?

Fanny: Ever since she’s bin ’ere.

Our Reporter: About three months?

Fanny: I can’t count. It was a ’ot night – late, and I was cryin’; I couldn’t help it – I wos ’ungry, and mother ’ad been givin’ it to me. Blanche comes up, and arks a lot of questions – just the same as you’ve been doin’; then she brings me ’ome ’ere, and I’ve slept with ’er ever since.

Our Reporter: Does she work?

Fanny: I never seed ’er. She don’t do nothink.

Our Reporter: And no one comes to see her?

Fanny: Not as I knows on. Look ’ere! You don’t want to ’urt ’er, do you?

Our Reporter: No, Fanny. I would like to be a good friend to her, but I am afraid she has put it out of my power. You would be sorry if she went away from you?

Fanny (slowly, after a pause): I don’t know what I should do if she did. Are yer makin’ game of me? Who are yer?

Our Reporter: A friend of yours, Fanny, if you like. Do you see this paper? It was left for you.

Fanny: There’s my name on it. I can read that. Wot else does it say?

Our Reporter: Listen. (He reads.) “Dear little Fanny. Good bye. If ever I am rich I will try and find you. Look on the mantelshelf.” You were asleep, Fanny, and I looked on the mantel shelf. This was there for you. (He gives her the shilling.)

Fanny (turning the shilling over and over in her hand): I don’t know wot it means. Please read it agin – the fust part.

Our Reporter (after reading the farewell again): It means, Fanny, that Blanche is gone, and that if she is fortunate she will be kind to you by-and-bye.

Fanny’s head sinks on the table, and her little body is shaken with sobs. In vain does our Reporter attempt to comfort her, and at length he is compelled to leave her alone in the humble room in which poor Fanny has learnt a lesson of love which will abide with her, and, let us hope, will purify her days.