DEFPERATELY HARD UP.

Westport Times, Volume VII, Issue 1059, 1 April 1873, Page 4

DEFPERATELY HARD UP.

" Come in !" T shouted. " That's cool!" exclaimed Fred, as he darted iut<> the bedroom, to hide his coatless jjwrson ; then in strode Tom Brooks, looking very buttonedup and tight about the person, took the chair just vacated, pulled out a pipe from its worn case, helped himself from the jar of bird's eye tobacco upon the table, lit up, and began to smoke. " Where's Freddy?" he said, opening his lips for the first time, disallowing the slight parting for the admission of the pipe, tor upon entrance, he had confined himself to a slight nod; " where's Freddy ?" " Here he is," said that individual, who had been listening, and, recognising the voice, now made his appearance, coatless and bootless and advanced sulkily to the fireside. " Hot, ain't it ?" said the new coiner with a shiver, as he glanced at Fred, who growled, banged the bit of fire about a little, and then emptied the battered coal-scuttle, so as to renovate the failing blaze. The next minute Fred had drawn up another chair, relit his pipe, and began smoking furiously, as, placing his hands deep in his pockets, and his heels upon the fender, he worked his toes about in his gray stockings in a wonderfully elastic way. Then came a pause, during which we all smoked furiously, till Tom Brooks leaned forward, and drawing the large pewter tankard upon the table closer towards him, raised the lid by pressing it with his th-imb ; took a long breath, and lifted the vessel to his lips ; gazed into i.t fur a moment, dropped, the lid with a click, and set it down again with a sigh, for the vessel was empty. Five minutes elapsed with nothing but smoke floating around, when, presuming upon a brotherly intimacy, the result of years of social communion, Tom removed his pipe from his mouth, and said grufflv to Fred, " Put on your coat, man." Fred looked up, scowled, thrust his hands a little further down in his pockets, and his toes in his stockings, so that one nail glittered through the worn web in the firelight, and then smoked on, faster than ever. Then Tom Brooks spoke again, " Where's Freddy's coat ?" "Uncle's!" I said laconically, for Fred did not move. Tom winced a little before once more speaking, " And boots !" he said, gazing earnestly the while at Fred's obtrusive toes. " These are his boots," I said grimly, bringing into notice the pair that graced or disgraced my own feet, for each would have contained a foot and a half solid measure. " Humph !" said Tom, with look, and once more lifting the lid of the tankard, to make sure that it was perfectly empty ; " I came to borrow half a sov." " Oh, did you ?" I said. And then we all smoked again, in a sort blank despair, staring the while at the fire, as if that were to blame for our common poverty. " Can't do it for a fellow, I s'pose?" said Tom. Fred looked up, first at Tom, and then at vac, before bursting iuto a savage Victoria Theatre-ruffian laugh ; after which he seemed relieved, and looked again at his toes. " Got nothing to drink ?" said Tom, after another essay at the tankard. I shook my head, and wo all went on smoking. " L'll trouble you for those boots, Joe," said Fred, at last bestirring himself; and jumping up, he set aside the tankard, tobacco, and books upon the table, so as to set at liberty the checked cotton table-cover, red, purple, £>nd gray, and ornamented with gummy rings, and brown burned holes, which cover he wrapped round his shoulders after the faahion of the blanket of an Indian chief, what time I proceeded to get out of the large boots. . " How am I to go out without boots?" I said. "Keep 'em on," growled Fred, resuming his seat, and once more considering his toes. " What's going to be done?" said Tom at last; but; no one answered save by puffs of smoke. " This wont do you know," resumed he, gar.iug round the room, and then tearing a pipe-light off an old brief, kept for appearance sake ; '• let's think it out; but I can't think dry. Cant you get the pot filled ? Ale, porter, half-and-half anything— I'm choking." Fred rose from his seat, strode softly into the bedroom, and returned with the handless waterjug, which he placed upon the tabla. " What's the good of humbugging ?" growled Tom testily; " cau't you muster enough between you for that ?" I shook my head. " Then send and get it tilled on credit," said Tom. " Freddy sent it down two hours ago," 1 explained, •' .and they sent the thing back with the bill inside. Like to see ?" " No thanky," said Tom, fidgeting in his chair; for he had helped largely to swell that account, fully onethird of the liability having been incurred on his behalf.

" Well," said Fred, whose pipe was now out, " what's going to be done ?" "Ah!" said Tom Brooks, "what's going to be done !" " Just so," I said ; " that's the poiut;" and then there was another pause. " No one manage a draw from the old folks ?" suggested Tom. We both shook our heads. " Anyone we could borrow of?" said Tom again, but: this only resulted in another head-shnking. "Money's tight in the city," said Fred, grimly.; " let's go and sing." "Do what?" 1 said. " Go and sing," said Fred, "after spouting both your coats, to produce uniformity, and spending the i'-sult —'All the way from Temple T> ir and got no work to do.' " ?! And v ho do you think would lend anything upon our coats," said Tom ; " might get. something from the Jews though." " But come, I say, bo serious : what re we to do? "Anything, anybody,

so as to turn up a sovereign," said Tom; "oh, the glorious uncertainty of tho law! One man starves while another ascends the woolsack." Too many in the profession," growled Fred. " Three, at all events," said Tom; " I'd j;o out if I could find something a little warmer." Fred shivered and poked the lire. " Why don't you fellows write something for the mags;" saiii Tom. " We do," I said, " but they won't have 'em. Fred's are all ' not suited,' and mine are ' declined with thanks," which sounds better, and is certainly more grammatical, but only comes to the same thing. There's my last," I said, taking a soiled manuscript from the chimney-piece. " Declined with thanks,' you see." And Tom took the sketch and began to turn over the leaves. " What a horrible hand you write, Joe," he said; but I would not hear him. " How are we to raise the wind ?" I said to Fred. "I'll raise a regular storm soon, if things don't alter," he said savagely. " If there was one, I'm sure there were a dozen briefs taken into Bulger's yesterday, and he's got a head like a block. Talk to him and see." " Wigblock," I suggested ; but Fred was too intent upon his toes to see the point. " Why, this thing would sell like fun, if it were printed," said Tom suddenly. ~ Let's get it printed, and sell it." " Pooh !" said Fred gruffly. " Pooh be hanged !" said Tom. "' How I was Garrotted ;' why, the name would sell it furiously. I shall get it done." " But how," I said ; for 1 felt that if Fred's manuscript had been in question, he would have refrained from saying " Pooh !" " I can manage that; I know a man who can put it in type in no time. That's about the only thing I could get credit for. We'll have it done, and then take them around to the shops." " Who will ?" I said. " "Why, I will," exclaimed Tom ; "I'm not above doing anything honest for a living." he continued pompously. " .And what price will you have them sold at ?" I said, to humour his notion ; " a shilling ?" •' A shilling, and sell one or two," he exclaimed; " no, sir, at the immortal penny, aud sell millions. Why this will be a regular golden egg, Joe Tou see if it is'nt, I'm off" In effect he was off; and that night he came rushing in with the wet proof sheets. " Now then," he exclaimed, dabbing them down upon the table; " as few alterations as possible, and then we can have them out to-morrow." The corrections were made, and Tom departed, " after declaring that a plum must result from the speculation;" and we saw him no more till the next day at twelve, when he came in closely followed by the printer's boy, bearing a large bundle of daaip copies of the hrochure. "Drop o' beer for bringing 'em, sir?" muttered the boy, hesitating at the door. "Tou dog, how dare you!" roared Tom ; " does Mr Galleys know that you go begging of his " He said no more, for the boy had made a precipitate retreat. " Cuts me to the heart," said Tom pathetically; " it was a heavy packet, and he was very civil, but I had not a sou. Mind I owe that boy sixpence, Joe. I'll pay him some day. J will, 'pon honor," he continued, for I was laughing ; " but now about taking those things out. I've been making inquiry, and find that we must sell them at ninepence a dozen, and give them one in. Now, who's going to take them round to the booksellers." " Why, you said that you would," said Fred. " Well, I did, certainly," was the reply; but as I've managed the printing, I think you two ought to go with the things to the retailers. Wholesale business, you know ; nothing to be ashamed of." " Got no coat," said Fred gruffly, though he was now sporting an old shooting-jacket." " Got no boots," I said, showing my feet, now encased in Fred's bead-work slippers. " Cowards both !" said Tom contemptuously ; " I shall be back by five, so order a steak from down in the court —steak and oysters, mind;" and then, after looking with great disgust at the parcel for a few minutes, he seized it, and hurried down the stairs; but directly after he dashed breathlessly into the room, " More briefs of Bulger's !" he exclaimed, "and I didn't want to be seen." Then, after waiting ten minutes, he made a fresh start, when we saw no more of him for half an hour, wheu he came slowly in, and seated himsel, looking blankly from one to the other. " Sold out ?" I said. " Well, no, not exactly, he replied, " you see, I went into Thompson's first, in Holborn, that being the first place I cared about stopping at, for for fear of being known. I hung about for ten minutes before I could summon courage enough to go in, for it's awfully hard work when you come to try. There, you need not grin ; if you doubt it, go and have a try yourselves. Well, I rushed in at last, with a couple of copies in one hand, and the bundle under my arm, when, bang me! if there wasn't Bulger, buying a cheap copy of ' Ivanhoe,' and he nodded at me. Luckily, I had the presence of m'Dd to stuff the two copies into my pocket, and to say to the man behind the counter—" Will you allow me to leave this here until I can send ior it? The string has come unfastened." " And you came away, and left the books there ?" I said, interrupting. " AVell, what could I do under the circumstances ?" said Tom ; " fetch them for me ; there's a good fellow. He'll think, from your looks, that you are a man I've paid." " Thank you," I said, trying to light my empty pipe, for we had finished the tobacco. " Will you go, Fred ?" he said, appealing to the man in the shooting-jacket. "I'd

sooner enlist, said Fred stoically ; " I knew you'd both make fools of yourselves over it," " Make what ?" said Tom wrathfully ; " will you oblige me by repeating that expression?" '• I said " "Hush!" I exclaimed; " here's some one coming." " Say I'm of out," whispered Fred anxiously; " it's some one's bill; say I'm gone out town ;" and he darted into the bedroom, and closed the door, and a couple of letters feel into the box inside. As a matter of course, I was not long in securing the missives, one of which was for me, the other for Fred ; the one containing a cheque, and the other, which was nearly as good—namely, the proofs of an article. " Only to think," said Tom, " of that dropping in just in the nick of time ;" and he passed his plate for some more gravy. "Trouble you for another oyster or two, Fred." "What shall you do about those tracts, Tom ?" said Fred. "Tracts—tracts?" said Tom thickly; " oh, ah, yes—l see ; why, we'll get the printer to take it up." Which he did, and handed over to us, at the end of six months, a balance in our favor of twenty pounds; and though, like many other young beginners who do not practise strict economy, and are not so particular as they should be in making ready-money payments, and have had more than once since to consider how we should we should "raise the wind," we have never yet been quite so " hard-up."