BALDRY'S SUCCESSOR.

OU see, things is so altered since I was a boy and first took to my profession-served an apprenticeship to it, like, with old Baldry. A lame old chap old Baldry was, just

the same as I'm lame-same place, same way-leg out at the hip, you know, and never got put right again; only being a man about the same height, I was half an inch better off than Baldry, for he wore a sole six inches thick, and mine's only five and a half when new, only, of course, it wears.

Now, it's no use for you to say, are you aiming at ?" because if I fashion, I shall never do it at all. lamps to light down a long street, come back the other ?"

"what

"Whatever do you mean ?" or don't say what I've got to say my own "Ah," says you, "if you've got the why don't you go down one side and

That's your ignorance, that is. Why don't I? Why, because the proper way's to go zig-zag, backwards and forrards-one, one side, and t'other till you've done. I know naterally, you'd do it the smooth way, but then naterally won't do. Natur always teaches you to do everything wrong; it's eddication as puts you right. You see a man get on a horse, or hold a pair o' reins, or climb a ladder, or try to swim naterally, and see what a mess he makes of it; eddication's the thing, and I'll tell you what I was going to according to mine.

Well, as I was a saying, I fust took to my profession in the good old times with Baldry, and when I knew him fust, Baldry was just such a man as me, only a bit more grey. It's the profession does it; we grows to match one a-bits, and if you put a regiment of lamplighters together, shouldering their sticks, they'd be as good a match one with the other as a regiment of soldiers.

Baldry was a good, kind-hearted sorter man, as always took to boys; he'd let 'em carry his big trimming-box in the daytime, when he went his round, cleaning and trimming the lamps, and if the boy as carried his heavy box behaved hisself very well during the day, he'd let him go the rounds of a night, and help carry the ladder.

That was what we boys aimed at, you know, carrying the ladder of a night. We didn't care about the ile box or can in the daytime, but did it for the sake of the reward at night; for after carrying the ladder

for an hour or two, perhaps, was a very great treat, Baldry would let one or the other of us light the last lamp-run up the ladder, you know, open the glass, shut it up after, and come down all alone, and feel happy after for a week.

There was some people as used to say it was old Baldry's idleness; but it warn't; I know better. I've done it myself out of kindness to boys, and it does 'em good-teaches 'em to be useful, and keeps you from being so tired as you would be if you did it all.

This, you know, was out Tulse Hill way, and in those days the lamps was ile, not gas, and they had to be trimmed every one of 'em. A man could take some pride in his lamps in them days; and I was as proud of 'em as old Baldry was, so he quite took to me, making the other boys as jealous as could be, till at last it got to be a reg'lar matter of course for me to go afternoon and night, and when I could manage to wake, I used to go along with him early in the morning to put 'em out. I was along of Baldry when he had his accident-his bad one. It was knots did it. Knots always caused the accidents with the lamplighters. Knots in the side of the light ladder, you know, which gives way when a man's running up sharp, and lets him down.

For you see a man has to run up sharp. It's done like drilling, you know-shoulder ladder, march, halt, unshoulder ladder, hang against lamp rail, and be half way up almost in one movement, and down again with the lamp lit, while anybody else would have been thinking about getting the ladder fixed.

Gas had just come in when Baldry had his bad accident, and he didn't like it—the gas, you know, not the accident-he said no good would ever come of the stuff; but like the rest of us, he had to give way to the noo-fangled notions.

Dicky," he used to say to me as we trudged along-me carrying the ladder-"it's a nasty, unwholesome, onnateral stuff. You can't carry it in a can, and you can't carry it about, and you can't pour it out; and when turn it on, you you can't see it. Then look at the smell, my boy, and the nasty white light, and the way it blows up if you let the lamp get full of emptiness that you can't look at. It's my belief, Dicky, as it's wicked," he says. "When there's smoke there's fire," he says; so, of course, where there's fire, my boy," he 66 says, there's smoke. Well, where's your smoke in them gas lamps? There's what looks like flame, but there ain't no smoke; and I say as it's onnateral. There's plenty of smoke in an ile lamp, so why ain't there in this gas?"

He was quite right, Baldry was, for the old ile lamps would make the glasses quite black sometimes, but Baldry was a philosopher, he was,

though it didn't prevent his coming down on his hip one day, when the ladder broke right in half.

"Ah! Dicky," he says to me, as two men made a stretcher out of his broken ladder, and carried him to the doctor's shop, and then home, where he lay for six weeks, and came out lame, with a thick-soled boot -six inches as I telled you.-"Ah! Dicky," he says, "it's the gash as made that wood brittle, and you'll get it just the same one of these days, my boy. And such a beautiful light ladder, too!"

And it was a light ladder; about the lightest in the parish, but that didn't hinder it from breaking. Ah, if old Baldry had lived to see ladders done away with for lighting up, and men going about with a thin tin lantern at the end of a stick to poke up into a lamp, and turn on the gas at the same time, I believe it would have broke his 'art.

You see, he thought nothing of a man as arn't nimble with a ladder, and I believe in his best days he'd have run, stopped short, cut up to the top of his ladder, and come down the other side without tipping over, he was so clever at balance.

Well, I did Baldry's lamps for him all the time he was ill-on the sly like, so that the parish shouldn't know, and took his wages for him, and Baldry gave me a shilling a week for doing on it, and told me solemn like arterwards as he'd made me his heir, and left me his business in his will.

Now, this was very kind of Baldry, who was always arter that quite like a father to me, and he brought me up to his profession, and eddicated me, when but for him, being a no sort of a boy, as never had no father and mother, as I knowed on, I should never have riz above sweepin' a crossing, or goin' about with a barrer.

But he took to me arter that reg'lar, and I did great part of his work, and he give me half his wittles, which, being a big, growing lad, warn't enough, so I didn't grow any more; but I never grumbled-why should I,when he was making a scholar of me, and teaching me his profession.

And so time went on. Old Baldry got to work again, but he was never the same man arter that fall. He went lame, and was always having a row with the cobbler round the corner, saying as his sole was half an inch too thick, or half an inch too thin, when in six inches a half more or less couldn't much matter, you know. He used to be always sending me back'ards and forrards with that boot, to have it altered, and when the cobbler set his back up, and wouldn't alter it no more, Baldry took to his bed, for it broke his 'art.

I've found out since, having studied it after going the same way,

VOL. I.

10

I've found as you can't get a shoe sole as will just do; for when you've got a short game leg like that, it's the weather as does it, and sometimes it feels shorter and sometimes longer, when there ain't no difference in it at all.

Old Baldry got gradually worse in quite a quiet way, bein' seventytwo then, and I used to sit up and talk to him, and read bits of the paper about prize fights, and murders, and executions, to make him cheerful. The doctor came once or twice, and then he didn't come no more, and Baldry said it was a good job too, for he'd rather have a pint of beer any day, than that stuff he sent. As for the parish, they were very kind. Ours always was a kind parish, and saved a deal to the ratepayers. This time they knocked off old Baldry's wages, because he couldn't do his work-fifteen shillings a week he had-but they said I might do it for nine shillings a week, which would be the same as making Baldry an allowance, as we lived together, and be more independent for us both; and very much obliged I was, for it were a sight of money to me, being only a lad of about eighteen year old.

We lived in a two-roomed cottage then, at Brixton, and old Baldry and I got on capital, and I believe in his way he was very fond of me, though he was in such pain that whenever I was in the room with him, and warn't reading to keep him quiet, he used to lie there propped up, and do nothing but call me names, which wasn't pleasant, but I got used to it at last.

One evening-ah! a reg'lar foggy drizzle it was—I'd lit up, got home early, and lay down on my sack o' straw in the corner, to get a good sleep, so as to be up two hours before daylight, and go and put out the lamps. I was dreaming away of my being in a place full of hot new quartern loaves, and tubs of butter, having only had a roast tater all the day before, on account of spending all as was left in some soup for Baldry. Well, I was dreaming away, when it seemed as some one was calling to me; and waking up at last, there was the old man telling me to come, for he wanted me.

"Shall I light the lanthorn ?" I says, for we never had no candle.

"No," he says, in a slow, solemn way; "no, boy, my lamp's burning yet, and we shan't want it. Dick, my boy," he says, "I want to tell yer as I've been werry hard to yer sometimes, and imposed on yer; but you've been a good lad to me, and God bless yer!"

I couldn't say nothing for I felt choky like and upset, so he went on. "Yer don't feel any malice agen a pore old chap, I know, Dick, my boy, so do as I tell yer. Don't never leave a lamp a burning arter daylight, Dick; always be lit up just at dark; keep yer glasses clean; never have no knots in yer ladder, and you'll be a happy man."

I was always a big soft sorter fellow, and I began to cry, all silent like, in the dark.

"Dick, my boy," he says, arter a bit, "put a bit o' sack over my feet, my boy;" and I did. Then he says, "Now ketch hold of my hand, my boy, and hold it werry tight, for I feel kind of lonesome here in the dark, but my lamp's a burning yet, Dick, a burning yet."

So I ketched hold of his hand, which was as cold as a stone, and set down by him as he squeezed it gently, and then we never spoke for close upon an hour, when he began in a loud, husky sorter whisper as if talking to himself:

"Every man's useful in his way, and him as gives light to his fellow creatures ain't done so bad arter all. Dick, boy, listen to me-go on givin' light to them as lives about yer, and then yer can go out in peace. Dick, I ain't been to a place o' worship for five and forty year, nor since the missus took me just afore she went out, and then I remember as the parson said something about light, and now it's a coming, Dick," he says. "Dick, my boy, my lamp's burning, but there's the great Lamplighter coming on his round, and one touch and I shall be gone, for that day's coming, boy; there's the great light rising, and my poor old feeble glimmers won't be seen. Dick," he says, clutching at me, "I ain't afraid, boy, I ain't afraid; but say forgive us our trespasses, Dick, out loud, boy, out very loud, for -for I forget it, boy-forget it, and there isn't light enough to see the words-inside here, Dick-I can't see 'em-quick!"

I tried, and I tried hard, but the words seemed to stick in my throat till I give quite a bitter cry, for I felt that poor old hand tighter, hard in mine, and then it slackened sudden-like, and slipped away; and then as I knelt there crying like a child, I knew that I was alone; for the light as came in pale and sickly through the window showed me as poor old Baldry's lamp had gone out, and it was past the time for me to go my round.

Adventers! Ah, hundreds I could go on telling em for a week on'y you'd get tired. We lamplighters sees more'n policemen, I can tell yer. I mind one time, about two months after I'd got about after my fall, for my ladder went just the same as old Baldry's did, leaving me, after six weeks in the hospital, with a short leg and a long un-the left being the short 'un, yer see. While I was out on my round one morning, 'bout half-past three, putting out the lamps, I hears such a screeching in the next street while I was up the ladder; that I slid down sudden, and limped round to see a woman with a baby at a