“He’s an Englishman, the Count, isn’t he?” asks Mr. Volpes.
“A Englishman! Lor’ bless your heart, no. They’re both French; she’s of Spanish igstraction, I believe, and they lived since their marriage mostly in Spanish America. But they always speaks to each other in French, when they do speak; which them as waits upon them says isn’t often.”
“He’s very rich, I suppose,” says the milkman.
“Rich!” cries Mrs. Moper, “the money as that man has got they say is fabellous; and he’s a regular business man too, down at his bank every day, rides off to the City as punctual as the clock strikes ten. Lor’, by the by, Mr. Volpes,” says Mrs. Moper suddenly, “you don’t happen to know of a tempory tiger, do you?”
“A temporary tiger!” Mr. Volpes looks considerably puzzled.
“Why, you see, the Count’s tiger, as wasn’t higher than the kitchen table I do believe, broke his arm the other day. He was a-hangin’ on to the strap behind the cab, a-standin’ upon nothing, as them boys will, when the vehicle was knocked agen an omnibus, and his arm bein’ wrenched sudden out of the strap, snapped like a bit of sealing-wax; and they’ve took him to the hospital, and he’s to come back as soon as ever he’s well; for he’s a deal thought on, bein’ a’most the smallest tiger at the West-end. So, if you happen to know of a boy as would come temporary, we should be obliged by your sending him round.”
“Did he know of a boy as would come temporary?” Mr. Budgen’s young man appeared so much impressed by this question, that for a minute or two he was quite incapable of answering it. He leaned his elbows on the kitchen table, with his face buried in his hands and his fingers twisted in his flaxen hair, and when he looked up there was, strange to say, a warm flush over his pale complexion, and something like a triumphant sparkle in his dark brown eyes.
“Nothing could fall out better,” he said; “nothing, nothing!”
“What, the poor lad breaking his arm?” asked Mrs. Moper, in a tone of surprise.
“No, no, not that,” said Mr. Budgen’s young man, just a little confused; “what I mean is, that I know the very boy to suit you—the very boy, the very boy of all others to undertake the business. Ah,” he continued in a lower voice, “and to go through with it, too, to the end.”
“Why, as to the business,” replied Mrs. Moper, “it ain’t overmuch, hangin’ on behind, and lookin’ knowin’, and givin’ other tigers as good as they bring, when waitin’ outside the Calting or the Anthinium; which tigers as is used to the highest names in the peerage familiar as their meat and drink, will go on contemptuous about our fambly, callin’ the bank ‘the shop,’ and a-askin’, till they got our lad’s blood up (which he had had his guinea lessons from the May Fair Mawler, and were better left alone), when the smash was a-comin’, or whether we meant to give out three-and-sixpence in the pound like a honest house, or do the shabby thing and clear ourselves by a compensation with our creditors of fourpence-farthing? Ah,” continued Mrs. Moper, gravely, “many’s the time that child have come home with his nose as big as the ’ead of a six-week old baby, and no eyes at all as anyone could discover, which he’d been that knocked about in a stand-up fight with a lad three times his weight and size.”
“Then I can send the boy, and you’ll get him the situation?” said Mr. Budgen’s young man, who did not seem particularly interested in the rather elaborate recital of the exploits of the invalid tiger.
“He can have a character, I suppose?” inquired the lady.
“Oh, ah, to be sure. Budgen will give him a character.”
“You will impress upon the youth,” said Mrs. Moper, with great dignity, “that he will not be able to make this his permanence ’ome. The pay is good, and the meals is reg’lar, but the situation is tempory.”
“All right,” said Mr. Budgen’s assistant; “he doesn’t want a situation for long. I’ll bring him round myself this evening—good afternoon;” with which very brief farewell, the flaxen-haired, dark-eyed milkman strode out of the kitchen.
“Hum!” muttered the cook, “his manners has not the London polish: I meant to have ast him to tea.”
“Why, I’m blest,” exclaimed the scullerymaid suddenly, “if he haven’t been and gone and left his yoke and pails behind him! Well, of all the strange milkmen I ever come anigh, if he ain’t the strangest!”
She might have thought him stranger still, perhaps, this light-haired milkman, had she seen him hail a stray cab in Brook Street, spring into it, snatch off his flaxen locks, whose hyacinthine waves were in
