The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fortunate Youth, by William J. Locke

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Title: The Fortunate Youth

Author: William J. Locke

Posting Date: August 1, 2009 [EBook #4379]
Release Date: August, 2003
First Posted: January 20, 2002

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORTUNATE YOUTH ***

Produced by Charles Aldarondo. HTML version by Al Haines.

THE FORTUNATE YOUTH

BY

WILLIAM J. LOCKE

CHAPTER I

PAUL KEGWORTHY lived with his mother, Mrs. Button, his stepfather, Mr.
Button, and six little Buttons, his half brothers and sisters. His was
not an ideal home; it consisted in a bedroom, a kitchen and a scullery
in a grimy little house in a grimy street made up of rows of exactly
similar grimy little houses, and forming one of a hundred similar
streets in a northern manufacturing town. Mr. and Mrs. Button worked in
a factory and took in as lodgers grimy single men who also worked in
factories. They were not a model couple; they were rather, in fact, the
scandal of Budge Street, which did not itself enjoy, in Bludston, a
reputation for holiness. Neither was good to look upon. Mr. Button, who
was Lancashire bred and born, divided the yearnings of his spirit
between strong drink and dog-fights. Mrs. Button, a viperous Londoner,
yearned for noise. When Mr. Button came home drunk he punched his wife
about the head and kicked her about the body, while they both exhausted
the vocabulary of vituperation of North and South, to the horror and
edification of the neighbourhood. When Mr. Button was sober Mrs. Button
chastised little Paul. She would have done so when Mr. Button was
drunk, but she had not the time. The periods, therefore, of his
mother's martyrdom were those of Paul's enfranchisement. If he saw his
stepfather come down the street with steady gait, he fled in terror; if
he saw him reeling homeward he lingered about with light and joyous
heart.

The brood of young Buttons was fed spasmodically and clad at random,
but their meals were regular and their raiment well assorted compared
with Paul's. Naturally they came in for clouts and thumps like all the
children in Bu