But if Emmeline was disappointed, Micky and Kitty were not. All the merry-go-rounds were playing different tunes2; all the people who had[59] anything to sell or to show were proclaiming its merits at the tops of their voices; the public was enjoying itself in a very loud fashion; in fact, everybody was doing everything in the noisiest manner possible, and the discord3 of sounds produced was deafening4 and delightful5 to the twins.
‘Isn’t it lovely?’ said Kitty to Micky, as she skipped about; but Micky did not hear, for he was engaged in a scornful colloquy6 with the owner of the hand-worked wooden horses.
‘Think I’m going to ride on one of those things?’ he was demanding indignantly. ‘Do you take me for a kid?’
‘Emmeline,’ clamoured Kitty, ‘when may we go and see the darling elephants?’
‘You girls can do what you like,’ said Micky grandly, ‘but I’m off for a motor-drive.’
Aunt Grace had provided each twin with a shilling, and Emmeline with a florin to spend at the Fair, so that there was plenty of money for such luxuries as motor-drives.
The motor-drive, or rather several motor-drives, and the call on the darling elephants were gone through in due course, and then Micky fell under the spell of the cocoanut-shy.
‘Do come on, Micky!’ entreated7 Emmeline, after he had made many unsuccessful shots; ‘I believe they’re fixed[60]——’
The rest of her sentence was lost in indignant astonishment8; someone had flicked9 one of the little feather brooms known as ‘fair-ticklers’ full in her face!
‘Come along, Micky,’ she exclaimed, with angry impatience10; ‘I’m sick of this horrid11 place. Why, what are you doing?’
For Micky had suddenly flung down the ball which he was about to shy at the cocoanuts, and was rushing after a wretched little street arab of about his own size.
‘Give it up! You little cad!’ he shouted, as he caught hold of the boy’s ragged12 jacket. ‘Give it up this minute!’
‘I ain’t got nothing,’ whined13 the boy, trying vainly to wriggle15 out of Micky’s grasp.
‘Yes, you have. I saw you take it,’ and to Emmeline’s intense surprise, Micky suddenly wrenched16 her own purse out of the street arab’s dirty hand. Her thoughts had been so much taken up by the fair-tickler that she had not even felt it go.
‘I’d give you a jolly good thrashing if you weren’t such a muff!’ exclaimed Micky.
Emmeline collected her astonished wits with an effort.
‘Well, you are a naughty little boy,’ she remarked severely17; ‘it would just serve you right if we gave you up to the police.’
[61]
The ragged little urchin18 began to howl. If he had really been much afraid he would probably have run away, but this did not strike Emmeline, and her heart softened19 towards him, especially when he sobbed20: ‘I ain’t had nothing to eat since yesterday morning.’
Kitty, who was looking on with wide-open pitying eyes, gave Emmeline’s hand a sudden squeeze.
‘May I give him the money I’ve got left?’ she whispered.
‘Not till we know more about him,’ said Emmeline. ‘Is your father out of work?’ she added to the boy, with some vague idea that it was the correct thing to ask questions of that kind before giving alms.
‘I ain’t got no father nor mother neither,’ he replied, still in his professional whine14.
‘Who looks after you, then?’ asked Emmeline, more gently.
‘Old Sally Grimes,’ was the answer, ‘but she ain’t give me nothing to eat since yesterday morning, and she beat me something awful!’
‘Come along with me,’ said Emmeline. A sudden idea had taken possession of her.
‘What for?’ asked the boy half suspiciously.
‘I’m going to give you something to eat,’ said Emmeline.
The boy’s eyes glistened21. It had been a[62] picturesque22 exaggeration to say that he had had nothing to eat since yesterday morning, but he was really very hungry.
‘Thank you kindly23, lady,’ he said, and Emmeline flushed with gratification. ‘Lady’ sounded so much grander than ‘Missy.’
‘What are you going to give him to eat?’ asked Micky, with interest. ‘There’s a man selling ice-cream over there.’
Almsgiving was impossible to Micky just then, for he had spent all his money (his last two cocoanut shies had been paid for by Kitty), but he was quite willing to help with advice.
‘And there’s a girl selling delicious toffee, only she calls it candy,’ said Kitty. ‘Why does she call it candy, Emmeline?’
‘I shouldn’t think of giving a starving boy ice-cream, or toffee either,’ said Emmeline. ‘We’ll go where there’s something more sensible to eat than what you can buy at this Fair. Come along, children.’
On the whole, the twins were not unwilling24 to leave the Fair. It was rather sad to go so soon, but less so now that twopence of Kitty’s represented all their remaining fortune than it would have been half an hour before, and when even that solitary25 twopence had been spent on the mysterious toffee that called itself ‘candy,’ their willingness to forsake26 the Fair became eagerness[63] to see what new thing was about to happen. It was as good as a story-game come true to wander through the streets of Eastwich with this delightfully27 ragged dirty boy.
‘Where are we going, Emmeline? What are we going to do?’ they cried.
‘You’ll see,’ said Emmeline.
As a matter of fact, she did not quite know herself.
They came out of the Fair into a region of squalid little shops; squalid, at least, they appeared to Emmeline, but her protégé saw them from a different point of view.
‘Please, lady, the fried fish and ’taters in there is all right,’ he hinted wistfully, as they passed an overwhelming smell.
Emmeline hesitated. She had vaguely28 intended taking him to some superior Tea-Rooms in the High Street, where she herself had sometimes gone for a treat, but now she came to think of it, perhaps the fried-fish shop would be more fitting in this case.
‘I think we’ll go in here, then,’ she decided29, to her guest’s obvious satisfaction.
A shopman with a much stained apron30 gazed at the party in some astonishment as they entered, but he seemed to think Emmeline a trustworthy person, for he made no demur31 when she ordered a plate of fried fish and potatoes.
[64]
‘What’s your name, little boy?’ asked Emmeline, when the shopman had disappeared into the back regions, and they were seated waiting at a grimy table covered with American leather in imitation of marble.
‘Diamond Jub’lee Jones,’ replied the boy glibly32.
‘What an extraordinary name!’ exclaimed Emmeline, and the twins began to giggle33.
‘I were born on Diamond Jub’lee day,’ he explained, with evident pride.
‘Well, Diamond Jubilee34, I’m sure with such a splendid birthday you ought to be a very good, honest boy,’ said Emmeline, by way of improving the occasion. ‘What would Queen Victoria have said if anyone had told her that a boy born on her Diamond Jubilee would ever take to picking people’s pockets? Why, she would have been awfully35 upset.’
Diamond Jubilee looked round the shop furtively36, as though to assure himself that there was nobody within hearing. ‘That ain’t to please meself I picks pockets,’ he mumbled37; ‘that’s Mother Grimes. She beats us something awful if we don’t bring nothing home.’
‘You don’t mean to say she is bringing you up as a thief!’ exclaimed Emmeline, in a horrified38 voice.
What Diamond Jubilee might have answered will never be known, for just at that moment the[65] shopman came back with the fried fish and potatoes, and private conversation was stopped for the time being. Diamond Jubilee threw himself on the food like a ravenous39 animal, while Micky and Kitty looked on with a fascinated stare. From their point of view, his table manners were quite as well worth watching as those of the elephants they had just been visiting.
Emmeline’s point of view was a more fastidious one, and at any other time she might have been disgusted, but to-day it was with a certain tolerance40 that she saw Diamond Jubilee put his knife into his mouth. His last words had shed a halo of romance round his unkempt head. It was to children like him that Kathleen had been a good angel.
With that last thought, a plan flashed into Emmeline’s brain—a plan so strange and startling that it almost took her breath away for the moment, and so glorious that it made her want to jump and dance about the shop, only that would have been out of keeping with the dignity of the wonderful plan.
‘Diamond Jubilee, if you have quite done, will you come outside? I’ve something important to tell you.’ Emmeline’s heart was thumping41 so that she could hardly get the words out.
‘Well, there ain’t nothing more on this here plate,’ said Diamond Jubilee, giving it a final[66] scrape. Perhaps he hoped that she would offer a second helping42, but she scarcely even heard what he said.
‘Stop a bit, miss!’ called the shopman, as she seized hold of Diamond Jubilee’s arm, and began hurrying him out of the shop. ‘You haven’t paid, miss.’
‘Oh, bother!’ cried Emmeline, impatiently. ‘I was quite forgetting. How much is it?’
‘Three halfpence, please, miss.’
Her fingers were trembling with excitement as she fumbled43 for the money in her little brown leather purse.
‘That’ll be right, thank you, miss,’ he said, as she threw it down on the counter.
At last they were out in the street again, and she was free to tell the marvellous plan with which for the last two minutes she had been almost bursting. ‘Diamond Jubilee,’ she demanded, again laying her hand in a motherly way on his very dirty and rather smelly jacket sleeve, ‘don’t you feel a longing44 sometimes for a better life?’
Diamond Jubilee stared at her as though he did not understand the question.
‘Wouldn’t you like to get away from Mother Grimes, and go to live with people who would teach you to be a good boy and always be kind to you?’ she asked, the words almost tumbling over one another in her eagerness.
[67]
‘Well,’ said Diamond Jubilee, ‘maybe I would, maybe I wouldn’t.’
Emmeline was conscious of a sudden chill of disappointment. This was not the way she had pictured him hailing the prospect45 of deliverance from Mother Grimes and his present life. But perhaps his indifferent manner simply meant that he did not even yet quite understand.
‘Because if you would like it,’ she went on very slowly and distinctly, ‘I’ll take you home with me.’
‘Emmeline!’ gasped46 Kitty, ‘whatever will Aunt Grace say?’ Even to her simple mind, it seemed a somewhat unusual proceeding47 to adopt a strange boy out of the streets on the strength of his having tried to pick one’s pocket.
Micky, however, saw things from a less conventional standpoint. ‘I say, Emmeline, what a stunning48 lark49!’ he exclaimed. ‘Why, it will be almost like keeping another dog!’
Meantime, Diamond Jubilee was regarding Emmeline with a critical stare, very unlike the deferential50 gratitude51 she felt he ought to have shown. ‘Garn!’ he said, suspiciously. ‘You’re kidding me, ain’t you?’
‘I don’t know what you mean by kidding you,’ said Emmeline, with dignity. ‘If you come home with me you shall have plenty to eat and a nice[68] house to live in. I promise you that, and I always keep my promises.’
Even after Emmeline’s assurance that he should have plenty to eat and a nice home, Diamond Jubilee did not look as if he altogether trusted her. Still, she had just given him the best meal he had had for a long time past, and life with Mother Grimes had been particularly unpleasant lately.… ‘Well,’ he said doubtfully, ‘maybe—I’ll come.’
‘Does that mean you will come, or you won’t?’ said Emmeline.
He gave her another critical stare before answering, ‘I don’t mind if I do.’
She knew that this was a way of accepting her offer, and though she could not help feeling nettled52, it was too late now to draw back. Besides, it might only be an unfortunate manner which made Diamond Jubilee seem so indifferent. ‘Well, then, listen what you’ve got to do,’ she commanded in her briskest and most capable voice. ‘We must hurry back now to have tea with a friend who is expecting us, and though of course you can’t come in, as you haven’t been invited, you must come with us and wait outside, or you won’t know where to find us again. We shan’t stay more than half an hour, and after that we’ll take you to your new home. And now you had better walk a little way behind us.[69] It’s not that we don’t like walking with you, but it might lead to awkward questions if people met you with us,’ she added hastily, for fear of hurting his feelings.
She need not have been afraid. He had no special desire to walk with these strange children, who had so unexpectedly adopted him, so he fell back in stolid53 indifference54.
‘Emmeline,’ said Kitty uneasily, as they hurried along towards Mary’s house, ‘it will be a tremendous surprise for Aunt Grace when Diamond Jubilee turns up.’
‘It’s the jolliest lark that ever was!’ Micky was exclaiming, on her other side, ‘I never thought you were so sporting, Emmeline.’
‘It isn’t sporting at all,’ said Emmeline, with dignity. ‘You don’t seem to understand, Micky, that this is a good work, and not a game.’
‘But are you quite sure that Aunt Grace won’t be cross?’ asked Kitty.
‘Aunt Grace won’t have anything to do with him,’ said Emmeline, rather defiantly55. ‘It’s we who are adopting him, not her. Nobody else will know anything about him, not even Mary. I’d like to tell her, but I’m afraid it wouldn’t be safe. She might think it her duty to tell Aunt Grace—one never quite knows with grown-up people, even the nicest of them.’
‘But how are you going to manage about his[70] food and the nice house to live in, if nobody’s to know about him?’ was Kitty’s very natural question.
‘He’ll live in the Feudal56 Castle, and we’ll buy his food with the money in my extra money-box,’ said Emmeline. ‘It’ll be quite all right to use it in that way, for it was for poor little children such as Diamond Jubilee that we collected it.’
For about five seconds the twins gazed at her open-mouthed. Such a scheme was beyond their most brilliant imaginings. Then Micky startled the passers-by with a wild war-whoop, and Kitty gasped: ‘How perfectly57 bea-u-tiful! Why, it’ll be just like the Young Pretender—taking him food, I mean, and keeping his hiding-place secret from everybody.’
‘We’ll have to bind58 ourselves by a solemn oath of secrecy,’ cried Micky. ‘Here goes—if I let out about Diamond Jubilee, may I and my descendants——’
‘Micky, you know Aunt Grace said we weren’t to say that,’ said Kitty, in a voice of distress59.
‘No, Micky; it’s not nice,’ said Emmeline.
‘I was only going to say, “May we lose our shirt-studs even to the hundredth generation!” said Micky, calmly. ‘Aunt Grace invented that herself, so there!’
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收听单词发音
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1
gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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tunes
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| n.曲调，曲子( tune的名词复数 )v.调音( tune的第三人称单数 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调 | |
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discord
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| n.不和，意见不合，争论，（音乐）不和谐 | |
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4
deafening
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| adj. 振耳欲聋的, 极喧闹的 动词deafen的现在分词形式 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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colloquy
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| n.谈话，自由讨论 | |
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7
entreated
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| 恳求，乞求( entreat的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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flicked
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的过去式和过去分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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whined
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| v.哀号( whine的过去式和过去分词 )；哀诉，诉怨 | |
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whine
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| v.哀号，号哭；n.哀鸣 | |
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wriggle
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| v./n.蠕动，扭动；蜿蜒 | |
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wrenched
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| v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的过去式和过去分词 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛 | |
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severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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urchin
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| n.顽童；海胆 | |
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softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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sobbed
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| 哭泣，啜泣( sob的过去式和过去分词 )； 哭诉，呜咽地说 | |
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glistened
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| v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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forsake
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| vt.遗弃，抛弃；舍弃，放弃 | |
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delightfully
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| 大喜，欣然 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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demur
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| v．表示异议，反对 | |
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glibly
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| adv.流利地，流畅地；满口 | |
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giggle
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| n.痴笑，咯咯地笑；v.咯咯地笑着说 | |
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jubilee
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| n.周年纪念；欢乐 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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furtively
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| adv. 偷偷地, 暗中地 | |
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mumbled
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| 含糊地说某事，叽咕，咕哝( mumble的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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horrified
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| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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ravenous
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| adj.极饿的，贪婪的 | |
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tolerance
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| n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差 | |
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41
thumping
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| adj.重大的，巨大的；重击的；尺码大的；极好的adv.极端地；非常地v.重击(thump的现在分词)；狠打；怦怦地跳；全力支持 | |
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42
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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43
fumbled
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| （笨拙地）摸索或处理（某事物）( fumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 乱摸，笨拙地弄； 使落下 | |
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44
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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46
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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47
proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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48
stunning
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| adj.极好的；使人晕倒的 | |
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49
lark
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| n.云雀，百灵鸟；n.嬉戏，玩笑；vi.嬉戏 | |
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50
deferential
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| adj. 敬意的，恭敬的 | |
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51
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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52
nettled
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| v.拿荨麻打，拿荨麻刺（nettle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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53
stolid
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| adj.无动于衷的，感情麻木的 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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55
defiantly
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| adv.挑战地，大胆对抗地 | |
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56
feudal
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| adj.封建的，封地的，领地的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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58
bind
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| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
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distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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