The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton Part 31

The child looked puzzled. He appeared to be trying to recollect something.

"Daddy, some things in the world seem so funny," he said, thoughtfully.

"I know that I used to like to play with Teddy Miles and d.i.c.k, hopscotch and marbles, and relievo. Relievo is a very rough game, and marbles makes one very dirty and dusty. Still, I know that I used to like to play those games. I don't want to now a bit. I would rather read. If you are busy, daddy, I shan't mind a bit. Please don't think that you will have to play with me. I want to read, I shall be quite happy reading all the time. Mr. Denschem has given me a list of books.

Perhaps you have some of them. If not, couldn't we get some out of a library?"

Burton looked at the list which the boy produced, and groaned to himself.

"My dear Alfred," he protested, "these books are for almost grown-up people."

The boy smiled confidently.

"Mr. Denschem gave me the list, father," he repeated simply.

After lunch, Burton took the boy round to Mr. Waddington's office. Mr.

Waddington was deep in a book of engravings which he had just purchased.

He welcomed Burton warmly and gazed with surprise at the child.

"Alfred," his father directed, "go and sit in that easy-chair for a few minutes. I want to talk to Mr. Waddington."

The child obeyed at once. His eyes, however, were longingly fixed upon the book of engravings.

"Perhaps you would like to have a look at these?" Mr. Waddington suggested.

Alfred held out his hands eagerly.

"Thank you very much," he said. "It is very kind of you. I am very fond of this sort of picture."

Burton took Mr. Waddington by the arm and led him out into the warehouse.

"Whose child is that?" the latter demanded curiously.

"Mine," Burton groaned. "Can you guess what has happened?"

Mr. Waddington looked puzzled.

"You remember the day I went down to Garden Green? You gave me two beans to give to Ellen and the child. It was before we knew that their action was not permanent."

"I remember quite well," Mr. Waddington confessed.

"You remember I told you that Ellen threw them both into the street? A man who was wheeling a fruit barrow picked up one. I told you about that?"

"Yes!"

"This child picked up the other," Burton declared, solemnly.

Mr. Waddington stared at him blankly. "You don't mean to tell me," he said, "that this is the ill-dressed, unwashed, unmannerly little brat whom your wife brought into the office one day, and who turned the ink bottles upside down and rubbed the gum on his hands?"

"This is the child," Burton admitted.

"G.o.d bless my soul!" Mr. Waddington muttered.

They sat down together on the top of a case. Neither of them found words easy.

"He's taken to drawing," Burton continued slowly, "hates the life at home, goes out for walks with the schoolmaster. He's got a list of books to read--cla.s.sics every one of them."

"Poor little fellow!" Mr. Waddington said to himself. "And to think that in three weeks or a month--"

"And in the meantime," Burton interrupted, "here he is on my hands.

He's run away from home--as I did. I don't wonder at it. What do you advise me to do, Mr. Waddington?"

"What can you do?" Mr. Waddington replied. "You must keep him until--"

"Upon children," Burton said thoughtfully, "the effect may be more lasting. No news, I suppose, of the tree?"

Mr. Waddington shook his head sorrowfully. "I've had a private detective now working ever since that day," he declared. "The man thinks me, of course, a sort of lunatic, but I have made it worth his while to find it. I should think that every child in the neighborhood has been interviewed. What about the novel?"

"Come back from the publishers," Burton replied. "I have sent it away to some one else."

Mr. Waddington looked at him compa.s.sionately.

"You were relying upon that, were you not?"

"Entirely," Burton admitted. "If I don't earn some money before Sat.u.r.day, I shan't know how to send the three pounds to Ellen."

"You had better," Mr. Waddington said gently, accept a trifling loan.

"Not if I can help it," Burton answered, hastily. "Thank you all the same, Mr. Waddington, but I would rather not. We will see what happens. I am going back now to try and write something."

They returned to the office. Burton pointed towards the easy-chair.

"Look!"

Mr. Waddington nodded. Alfred had propped up the book of engravings before him, was holding a sheet of paper on the blotting-pad, and with a pencil was intently copying one of the heads. They crossed the room and peered over his shoulder. For an untrained child it was an amazing piece of work.

"It is a Botticelli head," Mr. Waddington whispered. "Look at the outline."

The boy glanced up and saw them standing there. He excused himself gracefully.

"You don't mind, sir, do you?" he asked Mr. Waddington. "I took a sheet of paper from your office. This head was so wonderful, I wanted to carry away something that would remind me of it."

"If you like," Mr. Waddington offered, "I will lend you the book of engravings. Then when your father is busy you could make copies of some that please you."

The boy's cheeks were pink and his eyes soft.

"How lovely!" he exclaimed. "Father, may I have it?"

He left the office with the book clasped under his arm. On the way home, Burton bought him some drawing-paper and pencils. For the remainder of the afternoon they both worked in silence. Of the two, the boy was the more completely engrossed. Towards five o'clock Burton made tea, which they took together. Alfred first carefully washed his hands, and his manners at table were irreproachable. Burton began to feel uncomfortable. He felt that the spirit of some older person had come to him in childlike guise. There was so little to connect this boy with the Alfred of his recollections. In looking over his work, too, Burton was conscious of an almost awed sense of a power in this child's fingers which could have been directed by no ordinary inspiration. From one to another of those prints, the outlines of which he had committed to paper, the essential quality of the work, the underlying truth, seemed inevitably to be reproduced. There were mistakes of perspective and outline, crudities, odd little touches, and often a failure of proportion, and yet that one fact always remained. The meaning of the picture was there. The only human note about the child seemed to be that, looking at him shortly after tea-time, Burton discovered that he had fallen asleep in his chair.