But Charlie just shakes his head and says, "Mary, we got to have a lot of irons in the fire, not just one thing, 'cause if that one thing plays out, why, where would we be then?"
I nods me head, but I ain't satisfied with the answer.
"Please Mum, please Mum, please Mum," says I, stickin' out me hand. I've been put to the beggin' on this corner today and I'm workin' a lady and a little girl what has just come out of a bakery shop and have bags of sweet smellin' stuff. "Please Mum, please Mum, please Mum. Please."
The girl pipes up with, "Can't we give her a penny, Mother?" The girl is all dressed in white with ribbons and looks like she's been scrubbed pink. "She's awfully dirty and she looks cold."
"No, dear," says the mother. "Your dear uncle John gave you those pennies to buy yourself something special, and I don't want you to waste them." Evil old sow.
"I'm going to give one to her, anyhow," says the sainted girl firmly, and she pulls out a purse all covered in bright thread. She reaches in and pulls out a penny and plants it in me outstretched fist, careful not to touch any part of me grimy self. It's all I can do not to snatch the purse and run.
"Bless you, Miss," says I.
The lady grabs the girl's arm and starts on up the street. "You are just throwing your pennies away. I'm sure her father is right around the corner waiting to take your penny to drink. I am very displeased with you."
Somethin' happens in me head and I says, "No, Mum, you've got it all wrong. I ain't got no Dad or no Mum neither and—"
"Come, Dear," says the woman, nervouslike. I follows 'em down the street and I knows she's lookin' for a constable but I just can't help it and I clutches the penny in me fist as I runs after 'em and I'm chokin' up and the tears are startin' out of me eyes and runnin' down me chin and I shouts, "Me mum was just like you, she just died is all, it warn't her fault, she just died like me dad died and me sister died and Emily died and..."
I stops in the middle of the street and throws down the penny. It rings against the cobblestones and I lets out a howl and I hopes that a horse comes by and stomps on me head 'cause I hates the beggin' and I'm scared of the stealin' and I just want Jesus to come and put me out of my misery, but instead it's Charlie what comes and puts his arm around me and says, "C'mon now, Mary, it's awright, it's awright. Hush now, hush. Ye just got to remember it's, 'Please Mum, Please Mum,' over and over. Ye can't get personal, they don't like it. Hush now."
"But me mum was a lady," I blubbers, all snotted up and teary.
Charlie bends down and picks up the penny. "I know, Mary, I know. I reckon ye just wasn't cut out for the beggin'."
Charlie buys a meat pie with the penny and sticks it in his vest pocket, and we heads back to our kip, it startin' to get dark and all. We'll divide up the pie when we all gets back in the kip, along with whatever else the others have managed to scrounge up. Charlie's got a good way of dividin' up the stuff we get. He says he learned it from a man who was once in prison, and what Charlie does is he takes his shiv and cuts up whatever's there into pieces as alike in size as he can judge it. Then he turns his back so he can't see the pieces and one of us points at a piece and then Charlie calls out one of our names and that one gets that piece, and so on till it's all shared out and fair.
We're almost there and I'm quieted down now and I asks again, "Charlie, why don't we just do the readin' thing? We always makes money at it. I hates the beggin' so."
Charlie is quiet for a while and then he says, "Awright, Mary, I'll be tellin' ye straight. Yer the bright penny, anyways, and ye'll see the wisdom of me thinkin'."
Charlie stops in the gloom and takes me by the shoulder and turns me around and looks me in me eyes. "It's 'cause I don't want ye stolen, is why."
I looks up at him and he puffs up and goes on.
"Now, suppose we stands up in front of the broadsides and newspapers and such every day, and awright, we'll make money, I'll grant ye that; prolly enough to get by on, but..."
And here he stops and looks hard at me again. "It won't go without notice, don't ye see?" And he shakes me shoulder.
"Some bigger and meaner gang will see that yer little trick is a good quick way t' turn a penny and they'll be off wi' ye in a minute. I'll try to stop 'em, but all I gots is me shiv and Hughie. They've got bigger and tougher coves runnin' those gangs. Some are full growed and I couldn't stop 'em. Like Pigger O'Toole and Dirty Henry. Ye want to be with them? That's why I only runs the readin' game ever' few days so's nobody'd notice ye and why I'm always on the outer edge of the crowd keepin' me eye peeled for some cove checkin' ye out. That's why I told Hughie that if anyone ever makes a grab for ye that he's to hold on to ye and run away and hide, not stand and fight like he'd want."
Charlie stops to see if I'm gettin' this. I am.
"And if a big and nasty gang don't get ye, then one of the printers'd see that ye could be of some use to him and without the bother of an apprentice, 'cause no girl's ever an apprentice in the trades, and he'd take ye and use ye for setting words for a while and then he'd take ye and use ye for other things when ye got older and then he'd throw ye out. Or his wife would. Is that what ye want, Mary?"
I looks down all meek and says, "No, I don't want that."
Charlie puts his arm around me shoulders, and I puts me arm around his waist and presses me face against his vest. I likes it when he does that, puttin' his arm around me, I mean, and I get to be close to him and all.
We go back to the kip.
Dashin' highwaymen and funny drawin's ain't the only things out in front of the printers' shops—there's also the posters for the Newgate hangin's, which I don't find fun at all 'cause Charlie one time told us about the hangin' of Mary Townsend a year or so back and how she was only thirteen and condemned for stealin' bread or somesuch. When she was dropped on the gallows, she wouldn't die 'cause she didn't weigh enough to break her neck when she come to the end of the rope; she just dangled there kickin' and chokin' for the longest time till the merciful hangman took the rope in his hands and jumped down on her thin shoulders with his heavy boots, which snapped her neck and stopped her chokin' and kickin' for good and ever, and I'm so sick when I hears this that I pukes up the nothin' in my belly and I runs off and don't sleep right for three nights and I never get the thought of poor Mary Townsend completely out of my mind, ever, and I have a weird awful sense that it's goin' to happen to me someday, too. I don't know why, but I do. It keeps comin' to me in dreams or when me mind wanders, and I dreads it and I shakes when it comes over me.
So when the others go off to work the crowd at Newgate on Mondays, which is the hangin' day—unless it's a holiday like Christmas, in which case the poor wretches are hanged the Saturday before so as not to upset the joy of the day—I won't go with 'em; I stays in the kip. I've seen the awful horrid things hangin' in the cages at the edge of the city, all black and dried out and stinkin' wi' the birds pickin' at 'em.
Along with the posters in front of the printers is advertisements for extra good viewin' windows for rent by the day in the Newgate courtyard, so's the toffs can have a party with their friends and watch the hangin's, and when a young girl is bein' hanged, the price goes up. Ten pounds, sometimes.
I am sick to me heart over such hateful things in the world, and I prays for deliverance.
Chapter 3
Muck sits at the table outside the Bell and Boar drinkin' his pint and soppin' his bread in the stew what sits steamin' all glorious in front of his fat gut while we try to coax a penny out of him, but the swine says no, it wouldn't be good business practice to feed us. Ah no. He shakes his head sorrowful, like he can't help the way things are.