Now, whether in summer or winter, poor people can patronise as well asrich; and so it fell out that the custom in poverty-stricken,hunger-pinched Gutter-alley was for the poor folk there to speakcondescendingly to old Dick Bradds, when he stood at the door of Number5, with his poor old head on one side as he looked up the court; head onthe other side as he looked down. "Dickey" he was generally called, andmore than one stout costermonger--they did a deal in costering inGutter-alley, and if you penetrated into the rooms of the humanrabbit-warren, fish could be found mingled with furniture, turnipsamongst the wash-tubs, and a good full bucket of mussels often formedthe seat of the father of a family while he helped his wife to make upropes of onions for the morrow's sale--well, many a stout costermongertold his wife in confidence that old Dickey Bradds always put him inmind of a moulting thrush. No inapt simile, and doubtless taken fromthe life, for there were always plenty of feathered captives to be seenin Gutter-alley.
It was quite true Dick--old Dickey Bradds--did look very much like someaged and shabby bird, lame of one leg; and when he stood on a coldwinter's morning peering up and down through the fog that loved to hangabout the court, no one would have felt at all surprised to have seenthe old man begin to peck, or to whet his long sharp old nose againstthe door-post.
Not that Dick did do anything of this kind--he only gave two or threekeen one-sided bird-like looks about before slowly hopping up-stairs tohis room on the second floor--the front room--to wait for Jenny.
A keen old blade though was Dick--a piece of that right good true steelso often to be found in the humblest implements, while yourfinely-polished, gaily-handled, ornamental upper-ten-thousand cutlery isso often inferior, dull of edge, and given to shut up just when they arewanted the most. Dick was not human hurried up, but a piece of fine oldcharcoal-made steel. Toil and hard usage had ground and ground Dicktill there was little left of him but the haft, and seventy years ofexistence rubbing away through the world--that hard grindstone to someof us--had made that haft very rickety of rivet and springs. Certainlythere was blade enough left to cut in one direction, but you could nottrust Dick for fear of his giving way, or perhaps closing upon the handthat employed him.
It was so with poor old Dick when he left the great auction-rooms, wherehe had been kept as long as was possible; and, being proud, Dick wouldnot believe in Nature when she told him that he had grown to be an oldman, and that the time had gone by when he was lusty and strong, andable to lift great weights; and when Dick's fellow-porters told him thata piece of furniture was too heavy for him to lift, he only feltannoyed, and grew angry and stubborn.
The fact was that Dick knew from old experience how hard a matter it wasfor even an industrious man to get a living in the great city; and forhim, whose livelihood depended entirely upon his muscles, to turn weakand helpless meant misery, privation, and perhaps the workhouse for hisold age.
That was what Dick thought, and therefore he fought hard against eventhe very semblance of weakness, making a point always at theauction-rooms of doing far more than he need, rushing at heavy pieces offurniture, tiring himself with extra work, and making himself an objectof sport to the thoughtless, of pity to his older fellow-servants of thefirm.
The consequence was that poor old Dickey Bradds had to go one day to thehospital, to lie there for many weary weeks, and come out at last lameand uncured, for at threescore and ten there is not much chance of a manbuilding up new tissue, piling on fresh muscle and strength, andrenewing the waste of so many years.
Poor old Dick left the hospital a confirmed cripple, but hopeful ever ofregaining his strength and activity--at least he said so, whether merelyto cheer up his grandchild or to mask his sufferings, that was knownonly to his own heart.