Chapter XXVI: That Crooked Sixpence

Biffins Lee had really so much to do of a forenoon about the Queerest Show on Earth that unless some particular rehearsal was on he did not trouble much to look after any of his people, each one of whom had duties to perform. But about two o'clock in the afternoon of the day following that on which poor Lotty had fled, Mary sought audience of the boss.

'Lotty never returned, sir. She was to stay all night with Crona, and I fully expected her back to breakfast. I am very anxious.'

So was Biffins now.

'Start Chops off at once,' he cried 'to Crona's house to make inquiries.'

Chops was glad of the excuse, and so was Wallace; for the honest dog, at all events, made sure of finding the loved one.

When Chops returned he went directly to Lee's tent.

'Lotty be gone, sir--clean gone hoff.'

'Eh? What! are you mad, boy?'

'W'ich I don't think so, Mr Biffins Lee, an' sir to you.'

'Does not Crona know anything about it?'

'Twixt you an' me an the dooroocoolie, Mr Lee, an' you needn't let it go no furder, I think that it was Crona 'erself that sent Miss Lotty away to live with a great-grandaunt of hers.'

'Great-grandaunt of whom, you fool?'

'Why, Crona's as ever was!'

'Don't stand there and cheek me, or I'll break every bone in your ugly carcass.'

'An' that ain't callin' me my lord, is it, sir?'

'Go and find her, I tell you. Find her, find her. Can't you see I'm a ruined man if she returns not, and the show is ruined?'

'Not much it ain't, boss. You still has me, as Micawber's wife said to 'im. An' you has Bruin an' the Living Skeleting.'

'Go and find Lot, I tell you. You are in the plot. I feel sure you are.'

'Do you now?'

'You--you--you'---- Biffins couldn't find a word strong enough to fling at the fat boy.

'Suppose,' said Chops, with provoking coolness, 'that I says I sha'n't. An' suppose I sings like this 'ere:

For though I am your wedded wife,
Yet I am not your slave, sir.'

Biffins Lee had a huge iron paper-weight in his hand, and this he launched at Chops's head with all his force. Had it struck the boy he never would have breathed again. But he ducked in time, and the weight shivered a huge flower-pot--a property. Chops picked up the paper-weight.

'Now, listen, boss. I gives you warnin'. I'm hoff, an' I takes this 'ere triflin' _memento mori_ with me. An' if ye hattempts to foller'---- Chops balanced the terrible paper-weight on his palm by way of emphasising his words. 'Good-bye, Biffins Lee. Think of me w'en far away. No more at present from your confectionate friend an' lovier trew, Chops, 'is mark. W'ich I is hever a-thinkin' on you, Bill.' And Chops marched straight away and never once looked back.

Biffins threw himself back in his chair. 'Ruined! ruined!' he cried. 'Lotty, my infant prodigy and violinist, gone! And now Chops my merman!'

The very next morning the _Belhivey Chronicle_ came out with a long article headed:

CENTER
'THE QUEEREST SHOW ON EARTH.
MERMAN BUBBLE BURST.'

It commenced by describing what is still known as Mermaid Bay, entirely surrounded on three sides by tall, perpendicular rocks on which not even a seamew could find footing. Then it went on to say:

'It will be in the recollection of our worthy fishermen readers that it was here where the mermaid and merman appeared to many people. It was at the time impossible not to believe that these were real denizens of the deep, human though their faces and arms and shoulders were. They appeared suddenly, and as quickly dived and were seen no more.

'But now the bubble has burst, and it is we who have burst it. A curious cave has been found on the wooded grounds of D---- MacD----, Esq., which is always full of water, but which has a wide opening below its rocky side opening into the sea beyond. Any ordinary diver can easily, therefore, take a header, swim through the aperture, and find himself in the open sea under the cliffs; and, there disporting as a mermaid, or a sea-lion if he likes, quite as easily dive and make his way into the cave again.

'And this is precisely what occurred. Then the great tank in the Queerest Show on Earth was a divided one, and built on precisely the same lines. That is all.

'We are sorry for that enterprising showman, Biffins Lee, Esq. He is certainly clever; and if he does as well in his next venture as he has done in this he will be able to marry and settle down for life.

'We are sorry for Lee,' the article concluded; 'but we are still more so for those well-known scientists or savants, Professors A., B., and C., let us call them, who wrote such splendid papers on this mermaid question, and delivered lectures thereon all over the country, thus literally playing into the capacious and rapacious pockets of Biffins Lee. We heartily hope that these scientists may find some handy bag in which to hide their sorely diminished heads.'

Biffins Lee was reading this staggerer, as he called it, for the second time when Crona herself was announced. She had Joe on her shoulder. It was Mary who had ushered her in.

'I think, Mary,' said Biffins, not unkindly but sadly, 'Crona would like to see me alone.'

Mary curtseyed and retired.

Now, what passed between Crona and Biffins Lee at this time hardly affects this ower true tale to any great degree. So the chief details of the interview may be omitted. But towards its close Biffins Lee turned towards Crona.

'And,' he said, 'supposing that I refuse point-blank to do as you tell me, Miss'----

'Stop!' cried his interviewer; 'I am Crona, and you are Biffins Lee--er--_for the present_. As to your refusing my offer--for an offer, and a good one it is--when you have time to consider you will not dream of such a thing. I do not apprehend any obstinacy on your part, Mr--Biffins Lee. I will call again to-morrow for your answer.'

She was about to leave when Lee called to her. 'Stay, stay,' he said. 'I will not require to ask you to call to-morrow. I shall give you my answer _now_.'

'And that is?'

'I accept.'

'Wise man! Better is a handful with quietness than both hands full with vexation of spirit.'

* * * * *

A fortnight passed away. Chops was still staying with Crona and her pets. His bedroom was a very sweet little room, and it looked right away over the wide, heathy moor, where so often he had wandered with Lotty and Wallace. Ah, but Wallace was here his constant companion, and often the poor dog listened and seemed to know what Chops said when he told him that before very long they would both go and see Lotty herself, and be happy as the day is long.

About the same time, moreover, at a tiny but pretty village by the sea, on the south-west coast of England, a little unpretentious show was opened, and hither had you wandered, reader, you would have met more than one acquaintance: Mary, Skeleton, Bruin, the dooroocoolie, and even Biffins Lee himself.

How are the mighty fallen! Well, it is true that the showman had come down a bit in the world, and that the establishment could no longer be called the Queerest Show on Earth in the absence of those two most valuable properties, Lotty and Chops. Still, there was no visible difference in Biffins. He had neither lost his voice nor his pomposity, which would have been a pity--for Biffins Lee. He had sly ways of doing things, and he managed to have it believed by the fishermen and rustic population that he had run through a vast fortune, if not two, and had lately lost valuable property. The latter part of the story was true enough, but it was stage 'property.' However, he had set the ball a-rolling. They say a rolling stone gathers no moss. Well, that depends upon what the stone is. For instance, the boy or girl who has a living to make, if not possessed of staying-power and steadfastness, will never become honoured and rich--never, never, _never_, as Lotty would say. On the other hand:

Men's evil manners live in brass,
Their virtues we write in water.

No matter how good and generous one is in this world, nor how much good he or she does, people will be ungrateful. But set the stone of gossip or scandal a-rolling, and see if it doesn't gather moss. From being a man who had sustained severe losses, Biffins Lee was soon exalted to the dignity of a nobleman in disguise only amusing himself with keeping a show until such time as he could arise in all his strength and glory to sweep from its false foundation one of the highest aristocratic families in Britain.

'You might see by his looks,' said one female gossip to another, as they stood by the village well, 'that he is something above the common.'

'Ay, indeed, Mr Lee looks a duke in disguise at the very least,' quoth her crony.

So Biffins Lee's show began to look up again, and he managed to secure varieties every fortnight.

* * * * *

Lotty's new home in Highgate Heath was an ideal little place--for a London suburb, that is. There was nothing of the romance of the forest and moor about it, and the gipsy lass may have missed the glamour of the sea. There was a charming morsel of a garden that now in the sweet summer days was very pretty, and full of choice flowers. The forest was represented by two tall trees, which, as London smoke swept over even Highgate Heath, always wept wet soot after rain, and the ocean was a great stone saucer in which goldfish swam. But there was the nattiest morsel of a summer-house imaginable, all surrounded with honeysuckle and roses.

Chops, senior, was really a quiet, inoffensive, and kind-hearted man, and his wife the daintiest morsel of a laundry-woman ever seen. Then Lotty's parlour, as her one room was called, was very tidy, neat, and clean. Quite a girl's room, in fact, and never lacked flowers in it. It was

Contrived a double debt to pay:
A bedroom bright at night it was,
A drawing-room by day.

Apart from the fact that Antony, Wallace, and Chops were not here, the little gipsy lass was happier than ever she had been in her life before. No tiresome rehearsals, no scoldings when doing her best, no worry nor care. This cottage gave her perfect rest.

But it must not be supposed that Lotty was going to lead an idle life. Nothing could have been farther from the child's thoughts. She was determined to pay her own way--to pave her own way, in fact, and to walk thereon. Mrs Oak had wanted Lotty to make her house her home as long as she pleased. But while thanking her and promising to come and see her often, she could not see her way to accept the kind offer. Her spirit of independence forbade. She determined to become a teacher of French and music.

That word 'determined' is a strong one; but London is a stony-hearted mother even to the very cleverest of girls. Lotty stuck her little card in the parlour window inviting pupils. But, alas! pupils did not come. Chops's little sister Mariar was the only one she had at present; and although the child was clever and smart, and Chops's parents pretended that the tuition she was receiving was quite enough to pay for Lotty's board, our Lotty was not of the same opinion.

But she was not the girl to let down her heart. So one evening she took her violin case and walked quietly out. Quite a mile townwards walked she, and then in a quiet but genteel street she began to play. For a time not a soul came near her. Oh! but souls came at last, and perhaps they were really souls, for Lotty was playing her best selected things, and it was charming to listen to her. She turned as red as an adjoining postbox when her first money was pressed into her hand, and was a little astonished to find it was a crooked sixpence with a hole in it. It came from a horny hand too. 'That'll change your luck, my love,' said the sturdy giver, and went trudging off before Lotty could thank him.

Whether the crooked sixpence had anything to do with it or not, her luck did change, and she played every night after this in the same neighbourhood, and at the end of a week she had earned five-and-twenty beautiful white shillings, to say nothing of the bent sixpence.

One day she ventured forth in the forenoon, and while playing her sweetest an unsavoury-looking man, in a bowler hat and wearing an unwholesome-looking coat, walked up to her. He had not even the good manners to wait until she had finished her piece, but tapped her somewhat rudely on the shoulder.

'Beg your pardon--er--but what is your age, my girl?'

'Thirteen next week,' said Lotty, wondering what he meant.

'Ah, that means twelve. Ahem! I'm a board school officer. What standard?'

'What standard? I--I don't know what you mean, sir!'

'Ah, I thought not. Never been to school, eh?'

'N--no--that is'----

'That'll do. Now, your address? Don't tell me a fib, 'cause I'll find out. I can follow you.'

Lotty's cheek burned with shame. All the independence of her spirit rose in rebellion now.

'I shall not give my address, never, never, _never_. I don't know you, sir. Follow me if you please, but I never tell lies.'

A tall, rather handsome gentleman now stepped out of the crowd and took immediate charge of the situation. 'Have you got your card, fellow?' he said to the man in the bowler.

'Well--no, not exactly, but here's an envelope.'

Lotty's newly found friend recoiled a little when he looked at it.

'The child,' he said 'will permit me to go home with her; you, sir, may follow at a respectful distance.--Come, dear, give me your hand.'

When the board school officer did come to the cottage he was received with politeness, but--had his answer; and the gentleman who had come to Lotty's assistance was very much delighted to find that she had received the best of education. Indeed, he gave proof of this by engaging her as a day-teacher of music and French to his own children.

That crooked sixpence had surely brought luck in its wake.