Chapter I: His Brother--The Philanthropist

As Robin was standing rubbing his tear-stained eyes outside the church door, a man, who considered himself a philanthropist, but was not, passed by.

He saw the disreputable-looking child, observed that he stood almost inside the church porch, and thought it a nice opportunity for holding forth to this young sinner on the error of his ways.

Judging correctly by Robin's outward appearance that he was a little scapegrace, a regular scamp of the streets, and assuming incorrectly that he was hardened within, he set to work on the much-practised principle of making hard, harder.

"Come, come, my lad, what are you idling there for? If you don't want to go into the church you had better be off about your business. Don't you know now"--this in a would-be patronising tone--"that idling is very sinful?"

While the gentleman was speaking, Robin had been running his bright eyes all over him, and inwardly speculating how best he might secure his pocket handkerchief: finding, however, that he was expected to reply, he hung his head and said,

"Dunno."

"You don't know!" repeated the gentleman, getting wroth. "Did your mother never tell you that verse out of the Bible--'If a man will not work, neither shall he eat?'"

"Dunno," said Robin, more helplessly than before.

"Gracious me! what ignorance, and in a Christian land! Where do you go to school, lad?"

"Doesn't go nowheres," said Robin.

"But you are over the age; the Board ought to know of this. What's your home address?" taking out his pocket-book.

"Eh?" questioned Robin.

"Don't you understand me, child? Where do you sleep at night?"

"Hany wheres."

"Well, where?"

"Nowheres in 'ticlar."

The gentleman returned his pocket-book to the seclusion of his pocket in a mild, not an acute, fit of despair.

"Did not suppose there was such a case left in London--a homeless child! Really very interesting; wonder what his ideas of religion are?"

This man never gave a thought to the poor little starving body.

"Now, my lad, you have heard of God, of course?"

"Yes, zir."

"Ah! What do you know about Him?"

"Don't know nothink but His name--give us a 'ap'ny, zir."

"Gracious me! what depravity! Confesses that he knows nothing of God, and in the same breath asks for a halfpenny." This the gentleman whispered to himself; aloud, he said, "Listen, boy, I am really anxious to help you, but I make it a rule never to give to beggars. You are a strong lad, and should work for your living. But your ignorance is frightful; you tell me to my face you know nothing of your Creator. Now you must go to school--Will you? I will give you the address of one that will receive you."

"Yes, zir; yes, zir. Give us a 'ap'ny, zir. I be rare and 'ungry, zir."

"No, I make it a principle never to encourage idling; you must work for your halfpenny, I have told you this already. There are a thousand things you can do; go as an errand-boy, sweep a crossing--your hands were not given you for nothing; but here," taking a card out of his pocket, "is the address of a nice ragged school, opened for little boys like you. Let me persuade you, my dear lad, to go there this evening; any one will read the address I have written here for you."

He put the card into Robin's hand and moved off, the boy raising after him once more his shrill cry--

"I be rare and 'ungry, zir; give us a 'ap'ny, and God bless yer."

A moment or two later the gentleman missed his pocket handkerchief, which Robin soon sold for a plentiful meal. It never occurred to him that Robin was the thief, for the child had an innocent, nay, contradictory as it may sound, an honest, open expression, which forbade any such thought in connection with him.

The gentleman walked on, pleased with himself and his well-chosen words: he had read the little street lad a lecture, and put him in the way of entering the paths of goodness. It never crossed his mind that he might have employed his time better by giving Robin the halfpenny he desired; or, better still, by putting him in the way of earning it for himself. He walked on, well pleased with himself, but nevertheless shocked for Robin.

"Ignorant of all but the name of the Almighty! Who'd have thought it? who _would_ have thought it, in our enlightened days, and without a home, too. I did not suppose there was such a case left in London. What with our industrial schools, and reformatories, and ragged schools, and refuges of all sorts, there ought not to be one such child now left in London."

Quite right, Mr. Philanthropist--there _ought_ not to be; but what if it has been proved by the most careful computation that cases such as Robin's, number in our city, not by hundreds, but by thousands?*

* "The number of destitutes, or homeless juveniles under sixteen years of age in London, cannot be less than thirty thousand."--_From a paper read before the Social Science Congress at Liverpool, Oct._ 1876