hat I tried, but ineffectually, not to
anticipate my money, and to make it last the week through; by putting it
away in a drawer I had in the counting-house, wrapped into six little
parcels, each parcel containing the same amount and labeled with a
different day. I know that I have lounged about the streets,
insufficiently and unsatisfactorily fed. I know that, but for the mercy
of God, I might easily have been, for any care that was taken of me, a
little robber or a little vagabond.

"But I held some station at the blacking-warehouse too. Besides that my
relative at the counting-house did what a man so occupied, and dealing
with a thing so anomalous, could, to treat me as one upon a different
footing from the rest, I never said, to man or boy, how it was that I
came to be there, or gave the least indication of being sorry that I was
there. That I suffered in secret, and that I suffered exquisitely, no
one ever knew but I. How much I suffered, it is, as I have said already,
utterly beyond my power to tell. No man's imagination can overstep the
reality. But I kept my own counsel, and I did my work. I knew from the
first that, if I could not do my work as well as any of the rest, I
could not hold myself above slight and contempt. I soon became at least
as expeditious and as skillful with my hands as either of the other
boys. Though perfectly familiar with them, my conduct and manners were
different enough from theirs to place a space between us. They, and the
men, always spoke of me as 'the young gentleman.' A certain man (a
soldier once) named Thomas, who was the foreman, and another named
Harry, who was the carman and wore a red jacket, used to call me
'Charles' sometimes, in speaking to me; but I think it was mostly when
we were very confidential, and when I had made some efforts to entertain
them over our work with the results of some of the old readings, which
were fast perishing out of my mind. Poll Green uprose once, and rebelled
against the 'young gentleman' usage; but Bob Fagin settled him speedily.

"My rescue from this kind of existence I considered quite hopeless, and
abandoned as such, altogether; though I am solemnly convinced that I
never, for one hour, was reconciled to it, or was otherwise than
miserably unhappy. I felt keenly, however, the being so cut off from my
parents, my brothers and sisters, and, when my day's work was done,
going home to such a miserable blank; and _that_, I thought, might be
cor