'Yes. It was all right, wasn't it? I mean, you did confirm . . .'
'Oh yes. Quite all right, quite all right. I was merely . . . humour me once more and let me have a copy of the titles Mr Healey wanted to see, would you, dear boy?'
VI
'Bust me, Sir!' said Mr Polterneck. 'Bust me if I haven't just the little warmint for your most partic'lar requirements just now a-curling up in innocent slumber in the back room. You can bounce me from here to Cheapside if that ain't the truest truth that ever a man gave utterance of. Mrs Polterneck knows it to be so, my Uncle Polterneck knows it to be so and any man as is acquainted with me could never be conwinced to the contrary of it, not if you boiled him and baked him and twisted him on the rack for another opinion.'
'I am assured of your good faith in this matter?' asked Peter.
'Lord, Mr Flowerbuck. I'm in the way of weeping that you might have doubt of it! My good faith in this matter is the one sure fact you may most particular be assured of! My good faith is a flag, Mr Flowerbuck. It is a tower, Sir, a Monument. My good faith is not made of air, Mr Flowerbuck, it is an object such as you might touch and look upwards on with wonder and may you whip me until I bleed if that ain't so.'
'Then I suppose we might do business?'
'Now then, Sir,' said Mr Polterneck, producing a most preposterous handkerchief of bright vermilion silk with which he mopped his brow. 'He's a most especial warmint, is Joe Cotton. Most particular especial. To a gentleman like yourself as I can tell is most discerning in the nature of young warmints, he is a nonparelly. I could sonnet you sonnets, Mr Flowerbuck, about the gold of his tresses and the fair smoothness of his young skin. I could ballad you ballads, Sir, on the theme of the fair round softness of his rump and the garden of paradise that awaits a man within. I've a stable of young colts, Sir, as I can say the like would not be found in any district of the City, nor without the City too, and Master Cotton, Sir, is my Prize. If that ain't recommendation enough you can hang me by the neck right now, Sir, from old Uncle Polterneck's lintel, and have done with me for a lying rascal.'
It was all Peter could do to restrain himself from taking Polterneck fully at his word. The fear of what foul gases might ooze from the creature's lungs as he did so and what contamination he would suffer in the handling of him kept his vengeful fury at bay quite as much as the reflection that he must proceed as levelly as he might with the business in hand.
'I suppose you can tell me nothing of his provenance?' he asked indifferently.
'As to his provenance, Sir, I'm in the way of thinking, and Mrs Polterneck is the same, and Uncle Polterneck is hardly of a different persuasion, that he was sent down from Heaven, Sir. Sent down from Heaven itself to put bread in the mouths of my kinfolk and give pleasure and boon to gentlemen such as yourself, Sir. That is my opinion of his provenance and the man ain't been given birth to who could shake me out of it. You never seen such beauty in a lad, Sir. And how he's all compliance and skill in the Art he has been called to! A wonder to see him set to work, Sir. They say a young sister was sent down with him.'
'A girl? His twin, perhaps?'
'Well, now that you are in the line of remarking on the matter, I did hear mention as how the girl was his twin, Sir! A golden beauty of like complexion, for those that admires the same in the gentle sex. Where she might be, I have no knowledge, nor interest neither. Young cock-chicks is my game, Sir, the hen-birds is too devilish tickerly a proposition for a peaceable gentleman like myself. Bust me if they don't start a-breeding and a-parting with chicks of their own afore they've paid their way and how,' wheezed Mr Polterneck, 'is a man of business to procure the blessing of prosperity for his hearth when his stock is all a-laid up and a-breeding?'
'So you have no knowledge of this sister's whereabouts?'
'As to Whereabouts, whereabouts is different to provenance, Sir. Whereabouts is Mystery, and ask Mrs Polterneck and Uncle Polterneck if I don't deal in nothing but certainty. The whereabouts of Miss Judith is in doubt, the whereabouts of Master Joe is in the back room. If you are needful of a pretty little lady . . .'
'No, ho. Your Joe will do.'
'Indeed, Sir, as I hope he will do.'
'As for price?'
'Ah now, Mr Flowerbuck,' said Polterneck, wagging a greasy finger. 'Seeing as we're agreed on the warmint's celestial provenance, I can't have my proper say in the affair of Fees. If he was my own I'd say a crown, and Mrs Polterneck and Uncle Polterneck would cry that I was a-cheating myself cruel and I would shake my head sorrowful and raise the fee another crown to please 'em! I should happily settle at that price, though Mrs P. and Uncle P. would complain I was cheating myself still. I was born generous and: I can't help it and won't give apology to no man for it. But for all I can cheat myself, Mr Flowerbuck, I can't be cheating Heaven! It wouldn't be right, Sir. I could rob myself with a will an it pleased my gentlemen, for my customers is all to me, but I can't go robbing the Angels, Mr Flowerbuck, I can't. It ain't in me to do so. A full sovereign for the evening, back again by six next morning.'
Peter forbore once more to put a period to the rottenest life in the rottenest den in the rottenest borough in the rottenest city in all the rotten world. He pressed a coin into Polterneck's hand.
'Bring the boy to me!' he whispered.
Polterneck clapped his hands.
'Flinter!'
In the shadows at the back of the room a figure rose from out the straw. It was the figure of a boy, no older in appearance than fourteen years, although in a city where children of six have the eyes and gait of old men, indeed the same life of experience to look back upon, and where youths of twenty are so kept back in growth by filth and hunger that they retain the aspect of frail infants, it was impossible for Peter to determine the true age of this specimen. But that was never his concern, for his eyes were ever fixed upon the face. Or upon the part where the face ought by rights to have been. For it was not a face he fixed his gaze upon. A face, my Lords and Ladies and fine gentlemen, has eyes, does it not? A face must boast ears, a mouth, some arrangement of all the features that sniff and see and hear and taste before it can lay claim to that title. That they sniff the stench of villainy, see the deepest shame, hear the most degraded blasphemies and taste aught but the bitterest sorrows - that is never the face's affair! The face presents these organs each set in their place to look at what they will and listen where they please. What countenance deserves the name therefore -my lords who look upon gold plate, my ladies who breathe fine perfumes, my friends who taste plump mutton and hear the sweet harmony of a loving voice - what face can be called a face which has not a nose set upon it? What term might we invent to describe a face whose nose is all ate up? A face with a hole in its middle where a nose should have stood - be it a nose pinched and long, swollen and bulbous, or Roman and aloof, be it any kind of nose plain or pretty - a face, I say, with a black nullity where nostrils and bridge should be presenting themselves for admiration or disgust, that is no face but the face of Shame, no countenance but the countenance of Want. It is the visage of Sin and Lust, the aspect of Need and Despair but not - I beg the favour of your believing me - not, an hundred times never, the face of a human child.
'Flinter! Fetch down young Joe for the gentleman. And Flinter! don't you never dream of touching no part of him neither, or bust me if you don't find your head a suddenly lacking of two ears also!'
Polterneck turned to Peter with an indulgent smile, for all the world as if to say 'Bless my buttons if I don't lavish more care on my young lads than they deserve!' He must then have caught sight of the expression of revulsion and horror on Peter's face, for he hastened to whisper an explanation.