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Updated: June 15, 2025
Are you going to send me to prison?" He said this openly, cynically, like a man. He was a little ragged street-arab, as tall as a boot, his forehead hidden under a queer mop of yellow hair. Nobody claimed him, and they sent him to the Reform School. Not very intelligent, idle, clumsy with his hands, the only trade he could learn there was not a good one that of reseating straw chairs.
"Have some more bread and butter, and tea, Bob and some more sausage," said Mrs Merryboy, under a sudden impulse. Bob declined. Yes, that London street-arab absolutely declined food! So did Tim Lumpy! "Now, my lads, are you quite sure," said Mr Merryboy, "that you've had enough to eat?" They both protested, with some regret, that they had.
All his street-arab nature, all his instincts of gaiety, so long suppressed by his constant anxiety and disappointment, came out and betrayed themselves in roars of laughter, bursts of animal spirits and a picturesque need of childlike exuberance and riot.
He had been thrown on the streets when a child by his parents, who had rid themselves of his unwelcome presence with as little emotion as they would have tossed an empty can out of doors. A street-arab, he had picked a living from the gutters, hardened to exposure, taking food and shelter with the craft of an old soldier in hostile country.
The street-arab in him, used to the freedom of a small shop, recoiled from the thought of Packard's, the huge factory where you became a machine, repeating one operation indefinitely till you were fit for nothing else. Paasch had taught him the trade thoroughly, from cutting out the insoles to running the bead-iron round the finished boot. As a forlorn hope, he resolved to call on Bob Watkins.
When he succeeded, he looked partly like a Shetland pony, partly like a street-arab; but his own impression was that his wild and ferocious appearance acted as a living rebuke to young men of weaker natures. If I had to express a blunt opinion, I should say he was a dreadful simpleton.
Years and misfortune had added to her dignity, and Jonah felt his shop and success and money slip away from him, leaving him the street-arab sprung from the gutter before this aristocrat. Ray took to her at once, and climbed into her lap, bringing her heart into her mouth as he rubbed his feet on the famous black silk.
There was a bright intelligent little street-Arab on the opposite side of the way, who observed Giles with mingled feelings of admiration, envy, and hatred, as he strode sedately along the street like an imperturbable pillar.
With the rosy cheeks and yellow hair of one of Rubens' Madonnas he was double-faced as a prince, and as knowing as an old attorney; in short, at the age of ten he was nothing more nor less than a blossom of depravity, gambling and swearing, partial to jam and punch, pert as a feuilleton, impudent and light-fingered as any Paris street-arab.
He has been under the tap, too thoroughly scrubbed, boiled, strained and served up with melted butter and a sprig of parsley for ornament in a gilt-edged dish. I prefer him raw, and would rather have the street-Arab, if in town, and the unkempt, rough and tough cottage boy in the country.
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