“without character?”—the widow.—the bow-legged boy takes service.—studios and painters.
“manage it as you like,” the artist had said to the master of the boys’ home. “lend him, sell him, apprentice him, give him to me,—whichever you prefer. say i want a boot-black—a clothes-brusher—a palette-setter—a bound slave—or an adopted son, as you please. the boy i must have: in what capacity i get him is nothing to me.”
“i am bound to remind you, sir,” said the master, “that he was picked up in the streets, and has had no training, and earned no outfit from us. he comes to you without clothes, without character”—
“without character?” cried the artist. “heavens and earth! did you ever study physiognomy? do you know any thing of faces?”
“it is part of my duty to know something of them, sir,” began the master, who was slightly nettled.
“then don’t talk nonsense, my friend, but send me the boy, as soon as is consistent with your rules and regulations.”
the boy was jan. the man of business gave his consent, but he implored his “impulsive friend,” as he termed the artist, not to ruin the lad by indulgence, but to keep him in his proper place, and give him plenty to do. in conformity with this sensible advice, jan’s first duties in his new home were to clean the painter’s boots when he could find them, shake his velveteen coat when the pockets were empty, sweep the studio, clean brushes, and go errands. the artist was an old bachelor, infamously cheated by the rheumatic widow he had paid to perform the domestic work of his rooms; and when this afflicted lady gave warning on being asked for hot water at a later hour than usual, jan persuaded the artist to enforce her departure, and took her place. so heavy is the iron weight of custom—when it takes the form of an elderly and widowed domestic to a single gentleman—that even jan’s growing influence would not have secured her dismissal, had not the artist had a particular reason for wishing the boy’s practical talents to be displayed. he suspected his business friend of distrusting them because of jan’s artistic genius, and he was proud to boast that he had never known the comfort of clean rooms and well-cooked food till “the boy giotto” became his housekeeper.
the work was play to jan after his slavery to the hunchback, and on his happiness in living with a painter it is needless to dwell. for a week or two, the artist was busy with his “pot boiler,” and did not pay much attention to his new apprentice, and jan watched without disturbing him; so that when he offered to set the painter’s palette, his master regarded his success as an inspiration of genius, rather than as a result of habits of observation.
the painter, though clever and ambitious, and with a very pure and very elegant taste, was no mighty genius himself. the average of public taste in art is low enough, but in refusing his “high art” pictures, and buying his domestic ones, the public was not far wrong. it must be confessed that he had also a vein of indolence in his nature, and jan soon painted most of the pot boilers. another of his duties was to sit as a model for the picture. the painter sketched him again and again, and was never quite satisfied. what the vision of the windmill had lit up in the depth of his black eyes could not be recalled to order in the painter’s studio.
“i tell you what it is,” said the artist one day; “domestic servitude is taking the poetry out of you. you’re getting fat, giotto! understand that from henceforth i forbid you to black boots or grates, to brush, dust, wash, cook, or whatever disturbs the peace or hinders the growth of the soul. i must get the widow back!” and the painter heaved a deep sigh.
but jan was resolute against the widow. he effected a compromise. the bandy-legged boy from the home was taken into the painter’s service, and jan made himself responsible for his good conduct. he began by warning his vivacious friend that no freemasonry of common street-boyhood could hinder the duty he owed to his master of protecting his property and insuring his comfort, and that he must sooner tell tales of his friend than have the painter wronged. to this homily the bandy-legged boy listened with his red cheeks artificially distended, and occasional murmurs of “crikey!” but he took service on these terms, and did jan no discredit. he was incorruptibly honest, and when from time to time the street fever seized him, and he left his work to play at post-leaping outside, jan would quietly take his place, and did not betray him. this kindness invariably drew tears of penitence from the soft-hearted young vagrant, his freaks grew rarer and rarer, and he finally became as steady as he was quick-witted.
jan’s duties were now confined to the painting-room, and he soon became familiar with the studios of other artists, where his intelligent admiration of paintings which took his fancy, his modesty, his willing good-nature, and his precocious talent made him a general favorite.
he went regularly with his master to the early service in the sooty little church, in the choir of which he was finally enrolled. and the man of business kept a friendly eye on him, and gave him many a piece of sensible and very practical advice, to balance the evils of an artistic career.
with the bohemianism of artist-life jan was soon as familiar as with the bohemianism of the streets. a certain old-fashioned gravity, which had always been amongst his characteristics, helped him to preserve both his dignity and modesty in a manner which gave the man of business great satisfaction. he might easily have been spoiled, but he was not. he answered respectfully to about a dozen names which the vagrant fancy of the young painters bestowed upon him: jan-of-all-work—jan steen—the flying dutchman—crimson lake—madder lake—and miller’s thumb.
but his master called him giotto.
he was very happy, but the old home haunted him, and he longed bitterly for some news of his foster-father and the schoolmaster. whilst the terror of the cheap jack was still oppressing him, he had feared to open any communication with the past, for fear the wretched couple who were supposed to be his parents should discover and reclaim him. but as his nerves recovered their tone, as the horrors of his life as a screever faded into softer tints, as that boon of poor humanity—forgetfulness—healed his wounds, and he began to go about the streets without thinking of the hunchback at every corner, he felt more and more inclined to risk any thing to know how his old friends fared. there also grew upon him a conviction that the cheap jack’s story was false. he knew enough of art now, and of the value of his own powers, and of the struggle for livelihoods in london, to see that it had been a very good speculation to kidnap him. he had serious doubts whether the cart had been driven round by the mill, and whether master lake had refused to let him be awakened from his sleep, and had said it was, “all right, and he hoped the lad would do his duty to his good parents.” he remembered, too, the hunchback’s words when he lay speechless from the drugged liquor, and these raised a puzzling question: why should “the nobs” recognize him? he had learned what nobs are. spelt without a “k,” they are grand people, and what had grand people to do with sal’s son?
one cannot live without sympathy, and jan confided the complexities of his history to the bow-legged boy, and the interest they awakened in this young gentleman could not but be gratifying to his friend. he kept one eye closed during the story, as if he saw the whole thing (too clearly) at a glance. he broke the thread of jan’s narrative by comments which had no obvious bearing on the facts, and, when it was ended, be gave it as his opinion that certain penny romances which he named were a joke to it.
“oh, my! what a pity we can’t employ a detective!” he said. “whoever knowed a young projidy find his noble relations without a detective? but never mind, jan. i knows their ways. i’m up to their dodges. fust of all, you makes up your mind deep down in your inside, and then you says nothing to nobody, but follows it up. fol-lows it up!”
“i don’t know what to follow,” said jan; “and how can i make up my mind, when i know nothing?”
“that’s just where it is,” said his friend; “if you knowed every thing, wot ’ud be the use of coming the detective tip, and making it up in your inside?”
the bow-legged boy had made it up in his. he had decided that jan was a nobleman in disguise, and that his father was a duke, or a “jook,” as he called him. jan’s active imagination could not quite resist the influence of this romance, and he lay awake at night patching together the hunchback’s reference to the nobs, and the incredulous glance of the dark-eyed gentleman who had given him the half pence, and who was certainly a nob himself. and never did he leave the house on an errand for the painter that the bow-legged boy did not burst forth, dish-cloth or dirty boots in hand, from some unexpected quarter, and adjure him to “look out for the jook.”
it was a lovely afternoon when, by his friend’s advice, jan betook himself to the park, that the nobs might have that opportunity of recognizing him which the wide-mouthed woman had feared. he had washed his face very clean, and brushed his old jacket with trembling hands, and the bow-legged boy had tied a spotted scarf, that had been given to himself by a stableman in the mews opposite, round jan’s neck in what he called “a gent’s knot,” and the poor child went to seek his fate with a beating heart.
there were nobs enough. round and round they came, in all the monotony of a not very exhilarating amusement. the crowd was so great that the carriages crawled rather than drove, and jan could see the people well. many a lovely face, set in a soft frame of delicate hue, caught his artistic eye, and he watched for and recognized it again. but only a passing glance of languid curiosity met his eager gaze in return. not a nob recognized him. but a policeman looked at him as if he did, and jan crept away.
when he got home, he found household matters at a standstill, for the bow-legged boy had been tearfully employed in thinking how jan would despise his old friends when the “jook” had acknowledged him, and he had become a nob. and as jan set matters to rights, he resolved that he would not go to the park again to look for relatives.
