Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0057/00579.txt

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$Unique_ID{bob00579}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Hard Times
Chapter VI}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Dickens, Charles}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{gradgrind
childers
father
thquire
bounderby
ith
upon
never
sleary
give}
$Date{}
$Log{}
Title:       Hard Times
Book:        Book The First: Sowing
Author:      Dickens, Charles

Chapter VI

Sleary's Horsemanship

     The name of the public house was the Pegasus's Arms.  The Pegasus's legs
might have been more to the purpose; but, underneath the winged horse upon the
signboard, the Pegasus's Arms was inscribed in Roman letters. Beneath that
inscription again, in a flowing scroll, the painter had touched off the lines:

     Good malt makes good beer,
     Walk in, and they'll draw it here;
     Good wine makes good brandy,
     Give us a call, and you'll find it handy.

     Framed and glazed upon the wall behind the dingy little bar, was another
Pegasus - a theatrical one - with real gauze let in for his wings, golden
stars stuck on all over him, and his ethereal harness made of red silk.

     As it had grown too dusky without, to see the sign, and as it had not
grown light enough within to see the picture, Mr. Gradgrind and Mr. Bounderby
received no offence from these idealities.  They followed the girl up some
steep corner-stairs without meeting anyone, and stopped in the dark while she
went on for a candle.  They expected every moment to hear Merrylegs give
tongue, but the highly trained performing dog had not barked when the girl and
the candle appeared together.

     "Father is not in our room, sir," she said, with a face of great
surprise. "If you wouldn't mind walking in, I'll find him directly."

     They walked in; and Sissy, having set two chairs for them, sped away with
a quick light step.  It was a mean, shabbily furnished room, with a bed in it.
The white nightcap, embellished with two peacock's feathers and a pigtail bolt
upright, in which Signor Jupe had that very afternoon enlivened the varied
performances with his chaste Shakespearian quips and retorts, hung upon a
nail; but no other portion of his wardrobe, or other token of himself or his
pursuits, was to be seen anywhere.  As to Merrylegs, that respectable ancestor
of the highly trained animal who went aboard the ark, might have been
accidentally shut out of it, for any sign of the dog that was manifest to eye
or ear in the Pegasus's Arms.

     They heard the doors of rooms above, opening and shutting as Sissy went
from one to another in quest of her father; and presently they heard voices
expressing surprise.  She came bounding down again in a great hurry, opened a
battered and mangy old hair trunk, found it empty, and looked round with her
hands clasped and her face full of terror.

     "Father must have gone down to the Booth, sir.  I don't know why he
should go there, but he must be there; I'll bring him in a minute!" She was
gone directly, without her bonnet; with her long, dark, childish hair
streaming behind her.

     "What does she mean!" said Mr. Gradgrind.  "Back in a minute?  It's more
than a mile off."

     Before Mr. Bounderby could reply, a young man appeared at the door, and
introducing himself with the words, "By your leaves, gentlemen!" walked in
with his hands in his pockets.  His face, close-shaven, thin, and sallow, was
shaded by a great quantity of dark hair, brushed into a roll all round his
head, and parted up the centre.  His legs were very robust, but shorter than
legs of good proportions should have been.  His chest and back were as much
too broad, as his legs were too short.  He was dressed in a Newmarket coat and
tight-fitting trousers; wore a shawl round his neck; smelt of lamp-oil, straw,
orange-peel, horse's provender, and sawdust; and looked a most remarkable sort
of Centaur, compounded of the stable and the play-house.  Where the one began,
and the other ended, nobody could have told with any precision.  This
gentleman was mentioned in the bills of the day as Mr. E. W. B. Childers, so
justly celebrated for his daring vaulting act as the Wild Huntsman of the
North American prairies; in which popular performance, a diminutive boy with
an old face, who now accompanied him, assisted as his infant son: being
carried upside down over his father's shoulder, by one foot, and held by the
crown of his head, heels upwards, in the palm of his father's hand, according
to the violent paternal manner in which wild huntsmen may be observed to
fondle their offspring.  Made up with curls, wreaths, wings, white bismuth,
and carmine, this hopeful young person soared into so pleasing a Cupid as to
constitute the chief delight of the maternal part of the spectators; but in
private, where his characteristics were a precocious cutaway coat and an
extremely gruff voice, he became of the Turf, turfy.

     "By your leaves, gentlemen," said Mr. E. W. B. Childers, glancing round
the room.  "It was you, I believe, that were wishing to see Jupe?"

     "It was," said Mr. Gradgrind.  "His daughter has gone to fetch him, but I
can't wait; therefore, if you please, I will leave a message for him with
you."

     "You see, my friend," Mr. Bounderby put in, "we are the kind of people
who know the value of time; and you are the kind of people who don't know the
value of time."

     "I have not," retorted Mr. Childers, after surveying him from head to
foot, "the honour of knowing you; - but if you mean that you can make more
money of your time than I can of mine, I should judge from your appearance,
that you are about right."

     "And when you have made it, you can keep it too, I should think," said
Cupid.

     "Kidderminster, stow that!" said Mr. Childers.  (Master Kidderminster was
Cupid's mortal name.)

     "What does he come here cheeking us for, then?" cried Master
Kidderminster, showing a very irascible temperament.  "If you want to cheek
us, pay your ochre at the doors and take it out."

     "Kidderminster," said Mr. Childers, raising his voice, "stow that! -
Sir," to Mr. Gradgrind, "I was addressing myself to you.  You may or you may
not be aware (for perhaps you have not been much in the audience), that Jupe
has missed his tip very often, lately."

     "Has - what has he missed?" asked Mr. Gradgrind, glancing at the potent
Bounderby for assistance.

     "Missed his tip."

     "Offered at the Garters four times last night, and never done 'em once,"
said Master Kidderminster.  "Missed his tip at the banners, too, and was loose
in his ponging."

     "Didn't do what he ought to do.  Was short in his leaps and bad in his
tumbling," Mr. Childers interpreted.

     "Oh!" said Mr. Gradgrind, "that is tip, is it?"

     "In a general way that's missing his tip," Mr. E. W. B. Childers
answered.

     "Nine oils, Merrylegs, missing tips, garters, banners, and Ponging, eh?"
ejaculated Bounderby, with his laugh of laughs.  "Queer sort of company, too,
for a man who has raised himself."

     "Lower yourself, then," retorted Cupid, "Oh Lord!  if you've raised
yourself so high as all that comes to, let yourself down a bit."

     "This is a very obtrusive lad!" said Mr. Gradgrind turning, and knitting
his brows on him.

     "We'd have had a young gentleman to meet you, if we had known you were
coming," retorted Master Kidderminster, nothing abashed.  "It's a pity you
don't have a bespeak, being so particular.  You're on the Tight-Jeff, ain't
you?"

     "What does this unmannerly boy mean," asked Mr. Gradgrind, eyeing him in
a sort of desperation, "by Tight-Jeff?"

     "There!  Get out, get out!" said Mr. Childers, thrusting his young friend
from the room, rather in the prairie manner.  "Tight-Jeff or Slack-Jeff, it
don't much signify: it's only tight-rope and slack-rope. You were going to
give me a message for Jupe?"

     "Yes, I was."

     "Then," continued Mr. Childers, quickly, "my opinion is, he will never
receive it.  Do you know much of him?"

     "I never saw the man in my life."

     "I doubt if you ever will see him now.  It's pretty plain to me, he's
off."

     "Do you mean that he has deserted his daughter?"

     "Ay!  I mean," said Mr. Childers, with a nod, "that he has cut.  He was
goosed last night, he was goosed the night before last, he was goosed to-day.
He has lately got in the way of being always goosed, and he can't stand it."

     "Why has he been - so very much - Goosed?" asked Mr. Gradgrind, forcing
the word out of himself, with great solemnity and reluctance.

     "His joints are turning stiff, and he is getting used up," said Childers.
"He has his points as a Cackler still, but he can't get a living out of them."

     "A Cackler!" Bounderby repeated.  "Here we go again!"

     "A speaker, if the gentleman likes it better," said Mr. E. W. B.
Childers, superciliously throwing the interpretation over his shoulder, and
accompanying it with a shake of his long hair - which all shook at once.
"Now, it's a remarkable fact, sir, that it cut that man deeper, to know that
his daughter knew of his being goosed, than to go through with it."

     "Good!" interrupted Mr. Bounderby.  "This is good, Gradgrind!  A man so
fond of his daughter, that he runs away from her!  This is devilish good!  Ha!
ha!  Now, I'll tell you what, young man.  I haven't always occupied my present
station of life.  I know what these things are.  You may be astonished to hear
it, but my mother ran away from me."

     E. W. B. Childers replied pointedly that he was not at all astonished to
hear it.

     "Very well," said Bounderby.  "I was born in a ditch, and my mother ran
away from me.  Do I excuse her for it?  No.  Have I ever excused her for it?
Not I.  What do I call her for it?  I call her probably the very worst woman
that ever lived in the world, except my drunken grandmother. There's no family
pride about, me there's no imaginative sentimental humbug about me, there's no
imaginative sentimental humbug about me.  I call a spade a spade; and I call
the mother of Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, without any fear or any favour,
what I should call her if she had been the mother of Dick Jones of Wapping.
So, with this man.  He is a runaway rogue and a vagabond, that's what he is,
in English."

     "It's all the same to me what he is or what he is not, whether in English
or whether in French," retorted Mr. E. W. B. Childers, facing about.  "I am
telling your friend what's the fact; if you don't like to hear it, you can
avail yourself of the open air.  You give it mouth enough, you do; but give it
mouth in your own building at least," remonstrated E. W. B. with stern irony.
"Don't give it mouth in this building, till you're called upon.  You have got
some building of your own, I dare say, now?"

     "Perhaps so," replied Mr. Bounderby, rattling his money and laughing.

     "Then give it mouth in your own building, will you, if you please?" said
Childers.  "Because this isn't a strong building, and too much of you might
bring it down!"

     Eyeing Mr. Bounderby from head to foot again, he turned from him, as from
a man finally disposed of, to Mr. Gradgrind.

     "Jupe sent his daughter out on an errand not an hour ago, and then was
seen to slip out himself, with his hat over his eyes and a bundle tied up in a
handkerchief under his arm.  She will never believe it of him, but he has cut
away and left her."

     "Pray," said Mr. Gradgrind, "why will she never believe it of him?"

     "Because those two were one.  Because they were never asunder. Because,
up to this time, he seemed to dote upon her," said Childers, taking a step or
two to look into the empty trunk.  Both Mr. Childers and Master Kidderminster
walked in a curious manner; with their legs wider apart than the general run
of men, and with a very knowing assumption of being stiff in the knees.  This
walk was common to all the male members of Sleary's company, and was
understood to express, that they were always on horseback.

     "Poor Sissy!  He had better have apprenticed her," said Childers, giving
his hair another shake, as he looked up from the empty box.  "Now, he leaves
her without anything to take to."

     "It is creditable to you, who have never been apprenticed, to express
that opinion," returned Mr. Gradgrind, approvingly.

     "I never apprenticed?  I was apprenticed when I was seven year old."

     "Oh!  Indeed?" said Mr. Gradgrind, rather resentfully, as having been
defrauded of his good opinion.  "I was not aware of its being the custom to
apprentice young persons to - "

     "Idleness," Mr. Bounderby put in with a loud laugh.  "No; by the Lord
Harry!  Nor I!"

     "Her father always had it in his head," resumed Childers, feigning
unconsciousness of Mr. Bounderby's existence, "that she was to be taught the
deuce-and-all of education.  How it got into his head, I can't say; I can only
say that it never got out.  He has been picking up a bit of reading for her,
here - and a bit of writing for her, there - and a bit of ciphering for her,
somewhere else - these seven years."

     Mr. E. W. B. Childers took one of his hands out of his pockets, stroked
his face and chin, and looked, with a good deal of doubt and a little hope, at
Mr. Gradgrind.  From the first he had sought to conciliate that gentleman, for
the sake of the deserted girl.

     "When Sissy got into the school here," he pursued, "her father was as
pleased as Punch.  I couldn't altogether make out why, myself, as we were not
stationary here, being but comers and goers anywhere.  I suppose, however, he
had this move in his mind - he was always half-cracked - and then considered
her provided for.  If you should happen to have looked in to-night, for the
purpose of telling him that you were going to do her any little service," said
Mr. Childers, stroking his face again, and repeating his look, "it would be
very fortunate and well-timed; very fortunate and well-timed."

     "On the contrary," returned Mr. Gradgrind.  "I came to tell him that her
connexions made her not an object for the school, and that she must not attend
any more.  Still, if her father really has left her, without any connivance on
her part - Bounderby, let me have a word with you."

     Upon this, Mr. Childers politely betook himself, with his equestrian
walk, to the landing outside the door, and there stood stroking his face and
softly whistling.  While thus engaged, he overheard such phrases in Mr.
Bounderby's voice as "No.  I say no.  I advise you not.  I say by no means."
While, from Mr. Gradgrind, he heard in his much lower tone the words, "But
even as an example to Louisa, of what this pursuit which has been the subject
of a vulgar curiosity, leads to and ends in.  Think of it, Bounderby, in that
point of view."

     Meanwhile, the various members of Sleary's company gradually gathered
together from the upper regions, where they were quartered, and, from standing
about, talking in low voices to one another and to Mr. Childers, gradually
insinuated themselves and him into the room.  There were two or three handsome
young women among them, with their two or three husbands, and their two or
three mothers, and their eight or nine little children, who did the fairy
business when required.  The father of one of the families was in the habit of
balancing the father of another of the families on the top of a great pole;
the father of a third family often made a pyramid of both those fathers, with
Master Kidderminster for the apex, and himself for the base; all the fathers
could dance upon rolling casks, stand upon bottles, catch knives and balls,
twirl hand-basins, ride upon anything, jump over everything, and stick at
nothing.  All the mothers could (and did) dance, upon the slack wire, and
performed rapid acts on bare-backed steeds; none of them were at all
particular in respect of showing their legs; and one of them, alone in a Greek
chariot, drove six in hand into every town they came to.  They all assumed to
be mighty rakish and knowing, they were not tidy in their private dresses,
they were not at all orderly in their domestic arrangements, and the combined
literature of the whole company would have produced but a poor letter on any
subject.  Yet there was remarkable gentleness and childishness about these
people, a special inaptitude for any kind of sharp practice, and an untiring
readiness to help and pity one another, deserving, often of as much respect,
and always of as much generous construction, as the every-day virtues of any
class of people in the world.

     Last of all appeared Mr. Sleary: a stout man as already mentioned, with
one fixed eye and one loose eye, a voice (if it can be called so) like the
efforts of a broken old pair of bellows, a flabby surface, and a muddled head
which was never sober and never drunk.

     "Thquire!" said Mr. Sleary, who was troubled with asthma, and whose
breath came far too thick and heavy for the letters, "Your thervant! Thith ith
a bad piethe of bithnith, thith ith.  You've heard of my Clown and hith dog
being thuppothed to have morrithed?"

     He addressed Mr. Gradgrind, who answered "Yes."

     "Well Thquire," he returned, taking off his hat, and rubbing the lining
with his pocket-handkerchief, which he kept inside for the purpose. "Ith it
you intenthion to do anything for the poor girl, Thquire?"

     "I shall have something to propose to her when she comes back," said Mr.
Gradgrind.

     "Glad to hear it, Thquire.  Not that I want to get rid of the child, any
more than I want to thtand in her way.  I'm willing to take her prenthith,
though at her age ith late.  My voithe ith a little huthky, Thquire, and not
eathy heard by them ath don't know me; but if you'd been chilled and heated,
heated and chilled, chilled and heated in the ring when you wath young, ath
often ath I have been, your voithe wouldn't have lathted out, Thquire, no more
than mine."

     "I dare say not," said Mr. Gradgrind.

     "What thall it be, Thquire, while you wait?  Thall it be Therry? Give it
a name, Thquire!" said Mr. Sleary, with hospitable ease.

     "Nothing for me, I thank you," said Mr. Gradgrind.

     "Don't thay nothing, Thquire.  What doth your friend thay?  If you
haven't took your feed yet, have a glath of bitterth."

     Here his daughter Josephine - a pretty fair-haired girl of eighteen, who
had been tied on a horse at two years old, and had made a will at twelve,
which she always carried about with her, expressive of her dying desire to be
drawn to the grave by the two piebald ponies - cried "Father, hush!  she has
come back!" then came Sissy Jupe, running into the room as she had run out of
it.  And when she saw them all assembled, and saw their looks, and saw no
father there, she broke into a most deplorable cry, and took refuge on the
bosom of the most accomplished tight-rope lady (herself in the family way),
who knelt down on the floor to nurse her, and to weep over her.

     "Ith an infernal thame, upon my thoul it ith," said Sleary.

     "O my dear father, my good kind father, where are you gone?  You are gone
to try to do me some good, I know!  You are gone away for my sake, I am sure.
And how miserable and helpless you will be without me, poor, poor father,
until you come back!" It was so pathetic to hear her saying many things of
this kind, with her face turned upward, and her arms stretched out as if she
were trying to stop this departing shadow and embrace it, that no one spoke a
word until Mr. Bounderby (growing impatient) took the case in hand.

     "Now, good people all," said he, "this is wanton waste of time.  Let the
girl understand the fact.  Let her take it from me, if you like, who have been
run away from, myself.  Here, what's your name!  Your father has absconded -
deserted you - and you mustn't expect to see him again as long as you live."

     They cared so little for plain Fact, these people, and were in that
advanced state of degeneracy on the subject, that instead of being impressed
by the speaker's strong common sense, they took it in extraordinary dudgeon.
The men muttered "Shame!" and the women "Brute!" and Sleary, in some haste,
communicated the following hint, apart to Mr. Bounderby.

     "I tell you what, Thquire.  To thpeak plain to you, my opinion ith that
you had better cut it thort, and drop it.  They're a very good-natur'd people,
my people, but they're accuthtomed to be quick in their movement; and if you
don't act upon my advithe, I'm damned if I don't believe they'll pith you out
o' winder."

     Mr. Bounderby being restrained by this mild suggestion, Mr. Gradgrind
found an opening for his eminently practical exposition of the subject.

     "It is of no moment," said he, "whether this person is to be expected
back at any time, or the contrary.  He is gone away, and there is no present
expectation of his return.  That, I believe, is agreed on all hands."

     "Thath agreed, Thquire.  Thick to that!" From Sleary.

     "Well then.  I, who came here to inform the father of the poor girl,
Jupe, that she could not be received at the school any more, in consequence of
there being practical objections, into which I need not enter, to the
reception there of the children of persons so employed, am prepared in these
altered circumstances to make a proposal.  I am willing to take charge of you,
Jupe, and to educate you, and provide for you.  The only condition (over and
above your good behaviour) I make is, that you decide now, at once, whether to
accompany me or remain here.  Also, that if you accompany me now, it is
understood that you communicate no more with any of your friends who are here
present.  These observations comprise the whole of the case."

     "At the thame time," said Sleary, "I muth put in my word, Thquire, tho
that both thides of the banner may be equally theen.  If you like, Thethilia,
to be prentitht, you know the natur of the work and you know your companionth.
Emma Gordon, in whothe lap you're a lying at prethent, would be a mother to
you, and Joth'phine would be a thithther to you.  I don't pretend to be of the
angel breed myself, and I don't thay but what, when you mith'd your tip, you'd
find me cut up rough, and thwear a oath or two at you.  But what I thay,
Thquire, ith, that good tempered or bad tempered, I never did a horthe a
injury yet, no more than thwearing at him went, and that I don't expect I
shall begin otherwithe at my time of life, with a rider.  I never wath much of
a Cackler, Thquire, and I have thed my thay."

     The latter part of this speech was addressed to Mr. Gradgrind, who
received it with a grave inclination of his head, and then remarked:

     "The only observation I will make to you, Jupe, in the way of influencing
your decision, is, that it is highly desirable to have a sound practical
education, and that even your father himself (from what I understand) appears,
on your behalf, to have known and felt that much."

     The last words had a visible effect upon her.  She stopped in her wild
crying, a little detached herself from Emma Gordon, and turned her face full
upon her patron.  The whole company perceived the force of the change, and
drew a long breath together, that plainly said, "she will go."

     "Be sure you know your own mind, Jupe," Mr. Gradgrind cautioned her; "I
say no more.  Be sure you know your own mind!"

     "When father comes back," cried the girl, bursting into tears again after
a minute's silence, "how will he ever find me if I go away!"

     "You may be quite at ease," said Mr. Gradgrind, calmly; he worked out the
whole matter like a sum: "you may be quite at ease, Jupe, on that score.  In
such a case, your father, I apprehend, must find out Mr. - "

     "Thleary.  Thath my name, Thquire.  Not athamed of it.  Known all over
England, and alwayth paythe ith way."

     "Must find out Mr. Sleary, who would then let him know where you went.  I
should have no power of keeping you against his wish, and he would have no
difficulty at any time, in finding Mr. Thomas Gradgrind of Coketown.  I am
well known."

     "Well known," assented Mr. Sleary, rolling his loose eye.

     "You're one of the thort, Thquire, that keepth a prethiouth thight out
money out of the houthe.  But never mind that at prethent."

     There was another silence; and then she exclaimed, sobbing with her hands
before her face, "Oh give me my clothes, give me my clothes, and let me go
away before I break my heart!"

     The women sadly bestirred themselves to get the clothes together - it was
soon done, for they were not many - and to pack them in a basket which had
often travelled with them.  Sissy sat all the time, upon the ground, still
sobbing, and covering her eyes.  Mr. Gradgrind and his friend Bounderby stood
near the door, ready to take her away.  Mr. Sleary stood in the middle of the
room, with the male members of the company about him, exactly as he would have
stood in the centre of the ring during his daughter Josephine's performance.
He wanted nothing but his whip.

     The basket packed in silence, they brought her bonnet to her, and
smoothed her disordered hair, and put it on.  Then they pressed about her, and
bent over her in very natural attitudes, kissing and embracing her: and
brought the children to take leave of her; and were a tender-hearted, simple,
foolish set of women altogether.

     "Now, Jupe," said Mr. Gradgrind.  "If you are quite determined, come!"

     But she had to take her farewell of the male part of the company yet, and
every one of them had to unfold his arms (for they all assumed the
professional attitude when they found themselves near Sleary), and give her a
parting kiss - Master Kidderminister excepted, in whose young nature there was
an original flavour of the misanthrope, who was also known to have harboured
matrimonial views, and who moodily withdrew.  Mr. Sleary was reserved until
the last.  Opening his arms wide he took her by both her hands, and would have
sprung her up and down, after the riding-master manner of congratulating young
ladies on their dismounting from a rapid act; but there was no rebound in
Sissy, and she only stood before him crying.

     "Good bye, my dear!" said Sleary.  "You'll make your fortun, I hope, and
none of our poor folkth will ever trouble you, I'll pound it.  I with your
father hadn't taken hith dog with him; ith a ill-conwenienth to have the dog
out of the billth.  But on thecond thoughth, he wouldn't have performed
without hith mathter, tho ith ath broad ath ith long!"

     With that he regarded her attentively with his fixed eye, surveyed his
company with his loose one, kissed her, shook his head, and handed her to Mr.
Gradgrind as to a horse.

     "There the ith, Thquire," he said, sweeping her with a professional
glance as if she were being adjusted in her seat, "and the'll do you
juthtithe.  Good bye, Thethilia!"

     "Good bye, Cecilia!" "Good bye, Sissy!" "Good bless you, dear!" In a
variety of voices from all the room.

     But the riding-master's eye had observed the bottle of the nine oils in
her bosom, and he now interposes with "Leave the bottle, my dear; ith large to
carry; it will be of no uthe to you now.  Give it to me!"

     "No, no!" she said, in another burst of tears.  "Oh no!  Pray let me keep
it for father till he comes back!  He will want it when he comes back.  He had
never thought of going away, when he sent me for it.  I must keep it for him,
if you please!"

     "Tho be it, my dear.  (You thee how it ith, Thquire!) Farewell,
Thethilia!  My latht wordth to you ith thith, Thtick to the termth of your
engagement, be obedient to the Thquire, and forget uth.  But if, when you're
grown up and married and well off, you come upon any horthe-riding ever, don't
be hard upon it, don't be croth with it, give it a Bethpeak if you can, and
think you might do wurth.  People must be amuthed, Thquire, thomehow,"
continued Sleary, rendered more pursy than ever, by so much talking; "they
can't be alwayth a working, nor yet they can't be alwayth a learning.  Make
the betht of uth; not the wurtht.  I've got my living out of the horthe-riding
all my life, I know; but I conthider that I lay down the philothophy of the
thubject when I thay to you, Thquire, make the betht of us: not the wurtht!"

     The Sleary philosophy was propounded as they went down-stairs; and the
fixed eye of Philosophy - and its rolling eye, too - soon lost the three
figures and the basket in the darkness of the street.