Nuth; and with her
came her large and awkward son. Mrs. Eggins, the caretaker, glanced up
the street, and then she let them in, and left them to wait in the
drawing-room amongst furniture all mysterious with sheets. For a long
while they waited, and then there was a smell of pipe-tobacco, and
there was Nuth standing quite close to them.
"Lord," said the old woman whose bonnet was lined with red, "you did
make me start." And then she saw by his eyes that that was not the way
to speak to Mr. Nuth.
And at last Nuth spoke, and very nervously the old woman explained
that her son was a likely lad, and had been in business already but
wanted to better himself, and she wanted Mr. Nuth to teach him a
livelihood.
First of all Nuth wanted to see a business reference, and when he was
shown one from a jeweller with whom he happened to be hand-in-glove
the upshot of it was that he agreed to take young Tonker (for this was
the surname of the likely lad) and to make him his apprentice. And the
old woman whose bonnet was lined with red went back to her little
cottage in the country, and every evening said to her old man,
"Tonker, we must fasten the shutters of a night-time, for Tommy's a
burglar now."
The details of the likely lad's apprenticeship I do not propose to
give; for those that are in the business know those details already,
and those that are in other businesses care only for their own, while
men of leisure who have no trade at all would fail to appreciate the
gradual degrees by which Tommy Tonker came first to cross bare boards,
covered with little obstacles in the dark, without making any sound,
and then to go silently up creaky stairs, and then to open doors, and
lastly to climb.
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