WIKKEY

A SCRAP

By YAM

NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET
1888

WIKKEY.

A SCRAP.

CHAPTER I.

Mr. Ruskin has it that we are all kings and queens, possessing realms and treasuries. However this may be, it is certain that there are souls born to reign over the hearts of their fellows, kings walking about the world in broad-cloth and fustian, shooting-jackets, ulsters, and what not—swaying hearts at will, though it may be all unconscious of their power; and only the existence of some such psychological fact as this will account for the incident which I am about to relate.

Lawrence Granby was, beyond all doubt, one of these royal ones, his kingdom being co-extensive with the circle of his acquaintance—not that he was in the least aware of the power he exercised over all who came in contact with him, as he usually attributed the fact that he "got on" with people "like a house on fire" to the good qualities possessed by "other fellows." Even the comforts by which he was surrounded in his lodging by his landlady and former nurse, Mrs. Evans, he considered as the result of the dame's innate geniality, though the opinion entertained of her by underlings and by those who met her in the way of business was scarcely as favorable. He was a handsome fellow too, this Lawrence, six feet three, with a curly brown head and the frankest blue eyes that ever looked pityingly, almost wonderingly, on the small and weak things of the earth.

And the boy, Wikkey Whiston, was a crossing-sweeper. I am sorry for this, for I fancy people are becoming a little tired of the race, in story-books at least, but as he was a crossing-sweeper it cannot be helped. It would not mend matters much to invest him with some other profession, especially as it was while sitting broom in hand, under the lamp-post at one end of his crossing that he first saw Lawrence Granby, and if he had never seen Lawrence Granby I should not be writing about him at all.

It was a winter's morning in 1869, bright as it is possible for such a morning to be in London, but piercingly cold, and Wikkey had brushed and re-brushed the pathway—which scarcely needed it, the east wind having already done half the work—just to put some feeling of warmth into his thin frame before seating himself in his usual place beneath the lamp-post. There were a good many passers-by, for it was the time of day at which clerks and business men are on their way to their early occupation, and the boy scanned each face in the fashion that had become habitual to him in his life-long look out for coppers. Presently he saw approaching a peculiarly tall figure, and looked at it curiously, tracing its height upward from his own stunted point of view till he encountered the cheery glance of Lawrence Granby. Wikkey was strangely fascinated by the blue eyes looking down from so far above him, and scarcely knowing what he did, he rose and went shambling on alongside of the young man, his eyes riveted on his face. Lawrence, however, being almost unconscious of the boy's presence till his attention was drawn to him by the friend with whom he was walking, who said, laughing and pointing to Wikkey, "Friend of yours, eh? Seems to know you." Then he looked down again and met the curious, intent stare fixed upon him.

"Well, small boy! I hope you'll know me again," he said.

To which Wikkey promptly returned in the shrill, aggressively aggrieved voice of the London Arab: "I reckon it don't do you no harm, guvner; a cat may look at a king."

Lawrence laughed, and threw him a copper, saying, "You are a cheeky little fellow," and went on his way.

Wikkey stood looking after him, and then picked up the penny, holding it between his cold hands, as though it possessed some warming properties, and muttering: "It seems fur to warm a chap to look at him;" and then he sat down once more, still pondering over the apparition that had so fascinated him. Oddly enough the imputation of cheekiness rankled in his mind in a most unusual fashion—not that Wikkey entertained the faintest objection to "cheek" in the abstract, and there were occasions on which any backwardness in its use would betray a certain meanness of spirit: for instance to the natural enemy of the race—the Bobby—it was only right to exhibit as much of the article as was compatible with safety. Indeed, the inventor of a fresh sarcasm, biting in its nature yet artfully shrouded in language which might be safely addressed to an arm of the law was considered by his fellows in the light of a public benefactor. The errand-boy also, who, because he carried a parcel or basket and happened to wear shoes, thought himself at liberty to cast obloquy on those whose profession was of a more desultory nature, and whose clothing was scantier—he must be held in check and his pride lowered by sarcasms yet more biting and far less veiled. These things were right and proper, but Wikkey felt uncomfortable under an imputation of "cheekiness" from the "big chap" who had so taken his fancy, and wondered at his own feeling. That evening, as Lawrence walked briskly homeward, after his day's work, he became aware of the pale, wizen face again looking up into his through the dusk, and of a shrill voice at his side.

"I say, guvner, you hadn't no call fur to call me cheeky; I didn't mean no cheek, only I likes the look of yer; it seems fur to warm a chap."

Lawrence stopped this time and looked curiously at the boy, at the odd, keen eyes gazing at him so hungrily.

"You are a strange lad if you are not a cheeky one," he said. "Why do you like the look of me?"

"I dunno," said Wikkey, and then he repeated his formula, "it seems to warm a chap."

"You must be precious cold if that will do it, poor little lad. What's your name?"

"Wikkey."

"Wikkey? Is that all?"

"No, I've another name about me somewheres, but I can't just mind of it. They allus calls me Wikkey."

"Poor lad!" Lawrence said again, looking at the thin skeleton frame, sadly visible through the tattered clothing. "Poor little chap! it's sharp weather for such a mite as you. There! get something to warm you." And feeling in his pocket he drew out half-a-crown, which he slipped into Wikkey's hand, and then turned and walked away. Wikkey stood looking after him with two big tears rolling down his dirty face; it was so long since any one had called him a poor little chap, and he repeated the words over and over as he threaded his way in the darkness to the dreary lodging usually called "Skimmidges," and kept by a grim woman of that name.

"It seems fur to warm a chap," he said again, as he crept under the wretched blanket which Mrs. Skimmidge designated and charged for as a bed.

From that day forward Wikkey was possessed by one idea—that of watching for the approach of the "big chap," following his steps along the crossing, and then, if possible, getting a word or look on which to live until the next blissful moment should arrive. Nor was he often disappointed, for Lawrence, having recently obtained employment in a certain government office, and Wikkey's crossing happening to lie on the