DICK DUCKWORTH'S DIAMOND.

Auckland Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 149, 27 June 1887, Page 6

DICK DUCKWORTH'S DIAMOND.

[By One o£ the Crowd.]

AS I contemplated the several gangs of 'sifters , drudging drearily in the great 'yard'owned by a parish dust contractor, it was difficult to realise that the grimy operatives, men and boys, women and young girls, could with heartiness echo the axiom, •Sweet is the bread of industry. , Sweet! All in the midst of unsightly heaps of such material as they were bending over, laboured these ' poor workers, a never-ending supply of which was brought in from morning till night by he collectors, reeking from dustbins, and known in that state as'rough stuff.' Other mounds there were that had been already operated on and converted to 'fine stuff, , to be conveyed to the barges that lay floating on the inky canal close at hand, to be carried to tM country and utilised for brickmakmg purposes. Dust, everlastingly dust, from dawn of day until dusk of evening, dust to walk on, to handle, to taste, to smell. It occurred to me as I gazed on the melancholy scene that this indeed was the most degraded depth to which a civilised being could descend in pursuit of a livelihood. 'Hope springs eternal in the human breast,' but he who penned that melodious line never visited a parish dust-yard or took an opinion on the subject from the scarecrow crews that toil there. How much of hope could kindle in the breasts of those wretched slaves of the sieve, encouraging them to bear patiently with the present because of a possible pleasant future 1 I presently came in view of a group of four workers, so hard at it as to suggest that dust-sifting was an occupation paid for by the piece, and not by the day or hour. They were engaged in a comparatively secluded part of the yard, and one, an old man who, acting as 'server,' as it is called, plied the sieves with shovelful for sifting,was in appearance ashes personified. Ashes mingled with the grey of his hair, and lay in a rope all round the edge of his neckerchief, as though as much as could be there contained had already filtered in between his jacket and his body linen, and there was room for no more until he shook himself and caused A subsidence. There were ashes in his stubbly beard, his short pipe was coated with ashes, and ashes also filled his waistcoat pockets. , The Other 'server , was a boy, and the sifters ■were two young women, each with part of a coal sack by way of Substantial bibbed apron, and with her head enveloped in a cloth to keep the ashes out of her hair. A3 for their lower extremities, they might have been mermaids for all visible evidence there was to the contrary* They stood at least in their own sittings, which increased so rapidly as to suggest the possibility that it was part of the duties of the old man and tho boy to dig them out and release them for a fresh start when they had buried themselves up to their armpits and could sift no longer. When they left off for a restj they all four engaged in brisk conversation, the tone of which denoted neither despondency nor lownoss of spirits. I strolled up and entered into conversation with the old dustsifter.

'There's rum things turns lip in dnst siftin', I can tell you,' he said; • Not golden balls, p'raps, nor gold anything, often, but smaller sorts 'of valuables are not so uncommon as most people might suppose. Sometimes a whole day will go without a grain of luck, and next day you may get three Pi , four turns of one sort or t'other. It might be.only a ha'penny or a' penny, or it might be a sixpence, or a shilling/Or a silver teaspoon or some bit of jew Try—a—a brooch or a yerring i—swep' , off the- mantelshelf into the fender, and so it gets into the dustbin. There's no knowing wot your next shovelful may bring up. It's that wot takes off the rough edge of the ness of the job and makes .the time fly, Hah ! talk about a find, that was a curious One Dick Duckworth made at Baker's yard.' | <T fiever heer'd that stOry, Sam,' remarked one of the sifters. ' How did the dimund get into Dick Duckworth's hollow tooth, Sam V 'If you keep your young ears open you'll very likely hear,' returned the old server, with one eye on me. 'I know all about it as well as Dick himself, and" the price of a pot of beer for the telling Of it, ho matter who it was that stood it, would be as welcome to me as to him any day in the weeL' I nodded assent to this hinted proposition. J 'When 1 call it a find, it Was; and it wasn't, if you can make that out, sir,' Sam started forthwith. "'lt couldn't be called a find like ordinary 'uns,be- !- pauso them that lost it had a idea whjat had. become of it, and wliefS iHfilgjht be looked for. How it was supposed to have'got into the dustbin is mdre than lean tell you,, but* there couldn't be any doubt but that that Was'the suspicion, from th 6 natuiy Of khe. eii-J quiries that was made immediately afterwards. I never seen the difnunt myself; but I have seen the ; hpllijr in the tooth, about which I will tell you M6re presently; arid judging from that it riiust ha' been as big as a horse b&m,' and it was set in a gold brpoch. Soon as-ifc was ttiissed it;was thought to be in the dustbin, and orders Were give to-search for ft* there ; but when they get about it it W&s fouti'd tliat the dustmen had b&en, arid, the r bitt emptied - that very morning. The, question was, what h"d become of th r e\ dust .that had been took away from the; Course them tlikt dirdunt belonged to was too wicfe-

awake to-riiakfe a great fuss over it, bo they employed a detective. He pretended to M quite a private individgle, wanting to know what became of dust in general. He got hold of the men who fetched away that particular bad, and he got talking with 'em, and standing beer, aiid then! he went with 'em to the yatd. Eai'ty in the afternoon that was, and so the detective he says to 'em, 'Is this the spot where ydu have been shooting all the dnst you have brought in to-day V and they told him it was. ' And have you been sifting this heap to-day, man V he asks of Dick Duckworth, who was standing there along with his old woman. ' Not yet,' says Dick, ' we're just agoing to begin now.' 'That's lucky,' said the mirid you they didn't take him for one —' I never see any dustsifting, and I want to, to put in a book I'm writing about it. I'll sit down here, if you don't mind, and watch how it's done/ 'If you sit so close as that, Mister, says Dick,' 'you'll gefthe dust all over you, , ' I must sit close if I wish to see,' says the chap, , I'm so shortSighted. , I; ,

'Well, Dick, he couldn't make it out. He was one of the sharp sort, and he see there was something in the wind, but he couldn't make out exactly what. He kep' on serving, and his old woman she kcp' on sifting, and the detective chap he kep' a-looking on so close that Dick could hardly avoid knocking him- on the head with his shovel. "But he had promised 'em a shilling each, so they couldn't very well make any objections. He asked a lot of questions—what came of the bones and the rags and the broken glass that was picked out in sorting—and pretended to be very much interested when Dick told him that even the mouldy broad was worth something, being sold 'to a pig-dealer in the country for a shilling a hundredweight. He listened very attentive to all they told him, but he never took both his eyes off the sieve 'cept whon one of 'era was on Dick's shovel and on the heap he was shoveling at; and now and then he would make a dash at something in the sieve. He kcp' his face so low down that Dick and his wife could make signs over Ins head, and Dick he give her to understand that he now smelt a rat, and that she was to keep her eyes open and follow his lead, whatever it was. So they kep' the game going for a couple of hours, when Dick he spies something uncommon looking shining among the stuff, and he kicks a cabbage leaf pver it fot the present, but tips his old woman the wink to look out. After a while he serves her with a shovelul, and the shiny thing in it, and at the very same moment he drops his shovel and picks up something in a hurry off the ground and shoves it in his pocket. Up jumps the detective chap quick as a terrier dog.after a rat, and says he to Dick, ' I'll trouble you for what you just picked up> my friend.'' Why, wot has it got to do with youf'says Dick, 'findings is keepings in this yard.' ' We'll soon see about that,' says the other. ' I'm a police officer, and whatever it was that you just now picked up and put in your westkit pocket you'll have to give up to me.' ' Well, it haint much to make a bother about,' says Dick, 'it's only a livery button off a coachman's coat.' And he takes it out of his pocket and gives it up. But of course that didn't satisfy the detective. He has a feel in all Dick's pockets, but he didn't find what he wanted. While the dispute was going on between 'em Dick's old woman had whipped the dimunt brooch out of the sieve and shoved it down her bosom. The detective he stopped and looked on till all the heap was sifted, and then he walked off savage, and refusing to give 'em the two shillings' he had promised, because of Dick's irhpudence. 'But , they didn't care for that, having the brooch. But they didn't know what to do with it. It was pjain enough now to Dick Duckvvorth that it was this the detective was after, and; that alone showed ifc must be of some valtie. So. they kept ifc dark for a day or two, to think about it, and then out como a reward offering £20----for a dimunt brooch that was lost at such-and-such a time, and describing it, so that there.couldn't be any mistake as to the one Dick had being the identical article. Dick's old woman was for" taking it back and getting the money, but Dick didn't see his way to doing that after what had happened atween him and the detective chap; so, wanting advice, he asked it of a man who lodged in the same house with him, and who was a long-headed 'un,and got a living by buying up things at pawnbrokers' sale-rooms and selling 'em again. Dick showed him the dimunt brooch, and he at once larfed at the idear of returning it to, the owner for such a paltry sum as MiW It he said, ,£SOO, at the very leasts and offered, if Dick trusted him with it, to do the best he cotild ; with * it. Only, he said, it couldn't be" sold in England. It was worth too much. It would have to be took over to Amsterdam, where there was plenty of dimunt brokers who would pay down ready money for it, and ask no questions, But Dick," he wasn't quite .such, a, flat as to let the chap have the'handling of his dimunt and- take it away> to foreign > parts. So he said he didn't mind paying handsome for any help the other might giVe him; but that if it could be sold nowherei elsei .btuV in Amsterdam, he'd rather- got there himself and sell it. Slit. jfch'fe. jew'lry .dealer, he pointed out o^'difftetilty,' tfho'ever went with the dimuntj He, saidj would have to be jSeirtched"is before he started by' steamery and the dimunt would have to be hid somewhere about %\f: ;;'T3bdy. J&fi- :he then 'let' Dick Duckworth ■■ In'fcb the, secret that he lii'd; J ;fbui; false double teeth•;. in his mouth made holler to stow • precious 'Itoii&i "X'j'iia'fc haci bjeeh. come by oh the croia/ He didn't shoiv D&fc the -teeth,

but he described 'eih to him. He had had his o.wn sound ones pulled out, he said, for the purpose, when he fust went into the trade, and it was the only safe way he knowed of, If Dick didn't mind having one of his back grinders pulled out he would make it all right about the false one, get the holler made in it and everything; and, wbt's more, he would lend Dick money enough to take him to Amsterdam, and give him the address there of a man who would do his business in a jiffy. Dick's wife was against it all the time, but Dick he was a adwenteroUs sort of a chap, and at last he agreed. He purtended to have the toothache, and stood to having one of his back 'uns lugged out, and his friend stood to his word and got a false un made, and, borrering the dimunt, swore they'd took it out of the brooch only for about half an hour, while the holler in the false tooth was shaped for it. Likewise the friend was as good as he said he would be about the passage money, and lont Dick £Z 10s for the purpose, and went and see him off, and promised faithful that he would be at the quay that day week to meet him when he brought back his fortune. He wasn't there, though,' continued Sam, and his taking up his shovel apprised me that his story was near its conclusion, 'he warn't there, which very likely was as well for him, considcrin , the state o' mind Dick Duckworth was in. Dick came back, sir, with only 9d in money and that orfel pain in his jaws that his right eye were fair bunged up. The jew Try chap had swindled him, and what he put in the holler of the false tooth warn't the real dimunt at all,but a glass 'un. They never got him. They got Dick, and they gave him six months, and that and his jaws continerwally aching whenever the cold weather sets in was all he ever got out of his ' golden ball.' And having received the stipulated sum for his narration, Sam the ' server' and the boy and the two lady sifters went their wav to spend it.— 'Daily Telegraph. ,