And this was a truth. But at that moment, at the back of the Tinklers' Lands, the Drabble was getting much good from Cleg Kelly. Cleg had off his coat and the Drabble was being "warmed."
"That'll learn ye to touch the Kavannahs' bed!" cried Cleg.
And the Drabble sat down.
"That's for miscaain' my faither!"
The Drabble sat down again at full length.
"That's for tellin' me to say my prayers! I learn you to meddle wi' my prayers!"
Thus Cleg upheld the Conscience Clause.
But the Drabble soon had enough. He warded Cleg off with a knee and elbow, and stated what he would do when he met him again on a future unnamed occasion.
He would tell his big brother, so he would, and his big brother would smash the face of all the Kellys that ever breathed.
Cleg was not to be outdone.
"I'll tell my big brother o' you, Drabble. He can fecht ten polissmen, and he could dicht the street wi' your brither, and throw him ower a lamp-post to dry."
Cleg and the Drabble felt that they must do something for the honour of their respective houses, for this sort of family pride is a noble thing and much practised in genealogies.
So, pausing every ten yards to state what their several big brothers would do, and with the fellest intentions as to future breaches of the peace, the combatants parted. The afternoon air bore to the Drabble from the next street
"You let the Kavannahs alane frae this oot or it'll be the waur for you! "
The Drabble rubbed his nose on his sleeve, and thought that on the whole it might be so.
Then he took out three papers which he had secreted up his sleeve, and went joyfully and sold them. The Drabble was a boy of resource. Cleg had to come good for these papers to Mistress Roy, and also bear her tongue for having lost them. She stopped them out of his wages. Then Cleg's language became as bad as that of an angry Sunday school superintendent. The wise men say that the Scots dialect is only Early English. Cleg's was that kind, but debased by an admixture of Later Decorated.
He merely stated what he meant to do to the Drabble when he met him again. But the statement entered so much into unnecessary detail that there is no need to record it fully.
ADVENTURE X. THE SQUARING OF THE POLICE
Cleg had recently entered upon a new contract with the mistress of Roy's paper shop. He was now "outdoor boy" instead of "indoor boy," and he was glad of it. He had also taken new lodgings. For when the police took his father to prison, to the son's great relief and delight, the landlord of the little room by the brickfield had cast the few sticks of furniture and the mattress into the street, and, as he said, "made a complete clearance of the rubbish." He included Cleg.
But it was not so easy to get rid of Cleg, for the boy had his private hoards in every crevice and behind every rafter. So that very night, with the root of a candle which he borrowed from a cellar window to which he had access (owing to his size and agility), he went back and ransacked his late home. He prised up the boards of the floor. He tore aside the laths where the plaster had given way. He removed the plaster itself with a tenpenny nail where it had been recently mended. He tore down the
entire series of accumulated papers from the ceiling, disturbing myriads of insects both active and sluggish which do not need to be further particularised.
"I'll learn auld Skinflint to turn my faither's property oot on the street," said Cleg, his national instinct against eviction coming strongly upon him. "I'll wager I can make this place so that the man what built it winna ken it the morn's morning!"
And he kept his word. When Nathan, the Jew pawnbroker and cheap jeweller, came with his men to do a little cleaning up, the scene which struck them on entering, as a stone strikes the face, was, as the reporters say, simply appalling. The first step Mr. Nathan took brought down the ceiling-dust and its inhabitants in showers. The next took him, so far as his legs were concerned, into the floor beneath, for he had stepped through a hole, in which Cleg had discovered a rich deposit of silver spoons marked with an entire alphabet of initials.
The police inspector was summoned, and he, in his turn, stood in amaze at the destruction.
"It's that gaol-bird, young Kelly!" cried Nathan, dancing and chirruping in his inarticulate wrath. "I'll have him lagged for it sure as I live."
"Aye?" said the inspector, gravely. He had his own reasons for believing that Mr. Nathan would do nothing of the sort. "Meantime, I have a friend who will be interested in this place."
And straightway he went down and brought him. The friend was the Chief Sanitary Inspector, a medical man of much emphasis of manner and abruptness of utterance.
"What's this? What's this? Clear out the whole damnable pig-hole! What d'ye mean, Jackson, by having such a sty as this in your district? Clean it out! Tear it down! It's like having seven bulls of Bashan in one stable. Never saw such a hog's mess in my life. Clear it out! Clear it out!"