第24章

Away I ran and paid Hawker his three-and-six.Ouf! what a weight it was off my mind! (He was a Norfolk boy, and used to go home from Mrs.Nelson's "Bell Inn," Aldgate--but that is not to the point.)The next morning, of course, we were an hour before the time.I and another boy shared a hackney-coach; two-and-six: porter for putting luggage on coach, threepence.I had no more money of my own left.

Rasherwell, my companion, went into the "Bolt-in-Tun" coffee-room, and had a good breakfast.I couldn't; because, though I had five-and-twenty shillings of my parents' money, I had none of my own, you see.

I certainly intended to go without breakfast, and still remember how strongly I had that resolution in my mind.But there was that hour to wait.A beautiful August morning--I am very hungry.There is Rasherwell "tucking" away in the coffee-room.I pace the street, as sadly almost as if I had been coming to school, not going thence.Iturn into a court by mere chance--I vow it was by mere chance--and there I see a coffee-shop with a placard in the window, Coffee, Twopence.Round of buttered toast, Twopence.And here am I, hungry, penniless, with five-and-twenty shillings of my parents'

money in my pocket.

What would you have done? You see I had had my money, and spent it in that pencil-case affair.The five-and-twenty shillings were a trust--by me to be handed over.

But then would my parents wish their only child to be actually without breakfast? Having this money, and being so hungry, so VERYhungry, mightn't I take ever so little? Mightn't I at home eat as much as I chose?

Well, I went into the coffee-shop, and spent fourpence.I remember the taste of the coffee and toast to this day--a peculiar, muddy, not-sweet-enough, most fragrant coffee--a rich, rancid, yet not-buttered-enough delicious toast.The waiter had nothing.At any rate, fourpence I know was the sum I spent.And the hunger appeased, I got on the coach a guilty being.

At the last stage,--what is its name? I have forgotten in seven-and-thirty years,--there is an inn with a little green and trees before it; and by the trees there is an open carriage.It is our carriage.Yes, there are Prince and Blucher, the horses; and my parents in the carriage.Oh! how I had been counting the days until this one came! Oh! how happy had I been to see them yesterday! But there was that fourpence.All the journey down the toast had choked me, and the coffee poisoned me.

I was in such a state of remorse about the fourpence, that I forgot the maternal joy and caresses, the tender paternal voice.I pull out the twenty-four shillings and eightpence with a trembling hand.

"Here's your money," I gasp out, "which Mr.P---- owes you, all but fourpence.I owed three-and-sixpence to Hawker out of my money for a pencil-case, and I had none left, and I took fourpence of yours, and had some coffee at a shop."I suppose I must have been choking whilst uttering this confession.

"My dear boy," says the governor, "why didn't you go and breakfast at the hotel?""He must be starved," says my mother.