Mr. Smallweed

Mr. Smallweed and the Crossing-Sweeper By Stephen Scott

Readers familiar with Charles Dickens' great satirical novel Bleak House will recognize the characters in this story, which is intended as an erotic, ephebophile hommage to that great satirical novel. Jo, the 14-year old crossing-sweeper of the book, is so ill used by society that I wanted to give him some joy, even if it proves to be fleeting. It is difficult to imagine Dickens' "young gentleman" Smallweed having any warmth of heart for another human being, since avarice is all the Smallweeds care for. But this is my Smallweed, not his. Isn't that the point of fantasy?

Copyright, 2007 by Stephen Scott. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to Nifty Archives, to archive and display this work. All other uses are expressly forbidden unless explicit arrangement has been made with the author. This work may not be reproduced, posted, stored electronically, or archived, except for personal, non-public use, without the express written permission of the author.

I have a number of stories posted in the Nifty Archive Adult Youth--Fourth of July Fireworks, The Pool Cleaner's New Gig, The Chicken Run (3 parts) and The Boy on the Table Authoritarian--Number Twelve, His Private Stockade, Hustling a Hustler, All I Want for Christmas and Bicycle Butt Beginnings--The Boy in the Alley, Playground Games, In Camera and Itching Encounters--The Bellhop and the Movie Star and Straight Boy Cody for Cash Incest--Stress Relief and Brother's Bad Report Card Science Fiction or Fantasy--Lije Bailey's Perfect Love (Parts 1 and 2) Young Friends--After the Fireworks and To Johnny L. with Love

If you enjoy this story or any of my other stories, please drop me a line at Joe_Gillis_2000@yahoo.com (A No-Prize if you recognize that name!)

And if you'd like to keep up with my stories as I post them, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NiftyStoriesAlert/

You can also read some true encounters on my blog: http://www.livejournal.com/users/joegillis96/

Also some remembrances of boys I loved when I was young on my personal site: http://ncplaywright.mysite.com/ (Look under "Biography")

Chapter One Mr. Smallweed Meets the Crossing-Sweeper

It is evening in London, and summer's lease still obtains throughout the City. A breeze lightens the atmosphere of all it touches, so gentle in its unobtrusive ministrations it can scarcely lay claim to the phenomenon--we might better call it a mere breath of air, for it seems no more than the slightest exhalation that pauses over the harried bodies in the street, refreshing their features with such a lightness of touch that it is scarce noticed, never mind remarked upon.

Young Mr. Smallweed saunters forth from the offices of Kenge and Carboy, seeking he knows not what. The long vacation is still upon him, and his boredom has become intolerable. Especially as Mr. Guppy, upon whom he sets such great store and, indeed, models himself assiduously, is this evening entertaining his great friend Mr. Jobling (or `Weevil,' as he is known to Krook, his recent landlord).

Yet it is more than mere monotony that sends Mr. Smallweed thus. The Smallweeds are habituated by genetic conditioning to begin early and marry late, and Young Mr. Smallweed is no exception. An old man of 15, he has never been a child, and while his vanity and sense of prospect are pleased to note the rumors attending his reputed romantic leanings in this direction or that, towards a young lady here, a matronly waitress there, marriage is for him some many years off. Still, an undeniable something gnaws at the premature senescent, as it does from time to time, and off he strolls in search of its expression.

These nocturnal meanderings of Mr. Smallweed's are most naturally accomplished on such nights as these, when he is alone in the office and will be neither noticed nor followed. This is as much to his purpose as his not discouraging the winking intelligence that he has an eye for the ladies of the town.

Mr. Smallweed walks with a lively, casual step, making use of his cane and pushing up his hat at what he fancies a rakish angle. He is neither hurried nor overly relaxed. He appears as what he believes himself to portend: a professional of perambulatory intent--a gentleman, out for his nightly constitutional.

He exhibits upon his person no trace of anxiety or anticipation, though he feels both most keenly. For while he harbors no emotional attachment to anyone, and though his outward (and inward!) mien betrays no consciousness of being anything but the elderly student of Law he has for some time now been, yet his body remains adolescent.

It is a source of deep consternation to Mr. Smallweed (known at the offices of Kenge and Carboy as variously Small' or Chickweed') that while his mind and attainment bear no relation to his chronology, no more than any Smallweed male before him, yet his involuntary processes will so disloyally betray him! Him, for whom no natural (or indeed unnatural) barrier exists, is beset by forces he is powerless to compel. He can no more deny them than he can order them to desist, and it is a fact irksome in the extreme.

And so he walks, Young Smallwood, a slight sneer of rectitude upon his countenance, as befits a rising old man of the Law, and finds himself, without intent of compass, in the area known to all and sundry as Tom-all-Alone's.

He has been so consumed with self-recrimination (on the interior only, of course, for no man or woman who passes him would have noted the fact) that his feet have taken the matter in hand, so to speak, and conveyed him hither of their own accord. For feet, we must own, will move, and if there is no one to direct their route, will perforce move in one direction or the other, insensible of place. And it is a certainty that, despite the necessary precautions which Mr. Smallweed would take in any case, he would scarcely have directed his wayward feet in the direction of so filthy, unloved and unlamented a thoroughfare.

Yet before the owner of these detestable feet can correct their course, Mr. Smallweed is made conscious of a figure in a doorway nearby and, stopping to take its measure, is fatally drawn in.

The boy--for it is a boy--sits with his head in his arms and those supported by his ragged knees. His feet are bare, and plainly unwashed--indeed, have so seldom seen water that was not upon the street itself that he could count (if count he could, which he can't) their number upon the fingers of half a hand. His clothes are as dirty and ill-used as it is possible for clothing to be, and beside him, leaning with a kind of arrogant boldness upon the wall next to the figure, is a broom, as worn and care-laden as its owner.

Mr. Smallweed cannot say what it is about this abject figure that stirs his fancy, but he is stirred nonetheless, and in a fashion which it grieves him to recognize. He walks to the wall and stands before the boy, in an attitude of noblesse oblige which even a congenital idiot could scarcely fail to recognize. But as there is, to Mr. Smallweed's astonishment, no such recognition, he coughs twice, discreetly, into his pocket handkerchief, regains his previous composure, and waits again for the recognition that will surely, now, come to him as his uncontested due.

And still the obstinate boy takes no notice! It is altogether too much! thinks Mr. Smallweed. What are the lower orders coming to, that they shall tarry so and fail in their duties!

Mr. Smallweed is just preparing another cough, louder and more forceful this time, when the boy raises his head. It is a gesture due not to the respect Mr. Smallweed expects but to an unaccountable cramp which has suddenly seized the boy's right arm and which he has raised his head preparatory to moving that limb to a different angle. He is, therefore, most alarmed to be regarded at such close quarters by a gentleman of means.

The boy appears on the verge of speech, but if Mr. Smallweed but knew it, this boy, even could he force from his lips some sound reminiscent of human intercourse, would have nothing whatever to say that would enlighten, ennoble or otherwise impress. For, as the boy so often notes when forced to account for himself, he is insensible. He knows nothing.

`I don't know nothink,' he will say, and there is no one in this world that has held any sort of conversation with the boy who would foreswear to contradict or otherwise argue the point.

`You--boy!' says Mr. Smallweed imperiously. For though he is the boy's senior by a single year of chronology, he is infinitely older in fact, and compels anyone who doubts it to rethink his position. The boy is no exception.

`Who, sir? Me, sir?' asks the boy, looking about him in such consternation that a gentleman would address him that he thinks the fashionable figure before him must be speaking to another, worthier lad in the immediate vicinity.

`Who else?' Mr. Smallweed ripostes.

`Bless you, sir, I don't know.' (This, of course, is truer than Mr. Smallweed can know.)

`There being no other boys within hearing of my voice, surely the fact compels even you to accept that I am addressing you!'

`Me, sir? I don't know nothink.'

If Mr. Smallweed were given to expressing his feelings, he might have rolled his eyes and given the boy up for an imbecile. Yet the dirty face has a curious hold on the practitioner of Law. It is, for all its filth, an agreeable--indeed one might even say, an attractive--face. The nose is slightly turned-up, and could in no wise be called disproportionate to the head which contains it. The chin is sharp, the ears small, the lips red and full, and the hair, though limp with oil and wildly unkempt, of an appealing shade of black. But it is the eyes which hold Mr. Smallweed now, eyes that are as open and cleanly compelling as their owner is filthy and frightened. The pupils are dark, and shine with youthful vitality. True, they pool suddenly, as though the boy were about to begin weeping--which in truth, he is, so unaccountably frightened now of having incurred the gentleman's wrath, even though he knows not what he has done to deserve it.

That is of small consequence to a boy like this, for he is always at fault, even when he is unaware of the fault itself. He has certainly been told so often, by gentlemen (and ladies) of every stripe. Move on!' they will snarl, for his impecunious figure offends them to the very core. Move on, boy! Or must I call a beadle to force the issue?'

And so the boy will move on, as he is just now preparing to do. He reaches for his broom and, nodding abjectly, begs the gentleman's pardon for his offense.

`What offense, boy?' asks Mr. Smallweed, with no small sense of irritation.

`Why--I don't know, sir. But I must have offended, for I seem always to do.'

`But why should you offend me?' Mr. Smallweed persists, not yet realizing the folly of this sort of argument.

`I don't know, sir. I don't know nothink!'

Finally recognizing that this line of questioning will get him nowhere, Mr. Smallweed, with an inner shrug of irritation which he is loathe to exhibit in outward terms, surrenders to the inevitable.

`Never mind, boy. Never mind. Where do you live, boy?'

Live, sir? In a wretched ole, sir. A place not fit for pigs, much less the likes of a gentleman such as yourself, sir.'

`And where is this palace, boy? Is it nearby?'

`Bless you, sir, it couldn't be more nearby if it was the street which yer standin' on.'

This place?' Mr. Smallweed muses aloud, turning up his face to gaze at the ruins before which they stand. This?'

Tom-all-Alone's, they calls it, sir. A nasty place, sir, full of nasty oles such as the one I lives in.'

`I should like to see your lodgings, boy,' says Mr. Smallweed with determination.

`Mine, sir? But why, sir? They're not fit for nothink, sir. Nothink at all!'

`I've no cause to doubt you, boy, but I should like to see them all the same.'

The boy wonders, briefly, if the man is mad. But as he does not seem mad, he shrugs at the eccentricities of those beyond his station and, turning back to the doorway in which he has previously been sitting, hoists his broom over his shoulder and leads the way.

They walk, Mr. Smallweed and the filthy boy, through what seem to the latter to be miles and miles of houses and hallways, each as thoroughly foul as the one before. There is scant light (which in truth suits the gentleman's purpose, though he would not at this juncture be averse to a candle or even a ha'penny match-stick) and less air, and that which greets his nostrils is as laden with unpleasantness as it is possible to imagine.

The boy says nothing, nor even glances behind him, but carries forward, always moving, never hesitating, until they come to the rottenest house of all, into which dank doorway the boy darts, alighting a set of stairs so creaking and dilapidated that Mr. Smallweed is convinced from the first that the pair of them will split the wood and tumble to their deaths in the instant.

When he becomes fully cognizant that this does not happen, Mr. Smallweed is astonished to find they are at the top floor. The boy pushes open a door and goes inside, and his companion follows, closing it behind him as he steps into what is without doubt the meanest lodgings he has ever chanced to see.

The floor is filthy with the dust and grit of decades, and upon it lies the single, solitary item of furnishings the room possesses: a dirty mat. That and no more. There is not even a washstand, nor a wardrobe, nor a stool of any kind, and the room is as stuffy as the stairway into which it lead.

As Mr. Smallweed observes these essentials in the dim light of the moon that shines in through the open and curtainless window, the boy makes for a candle on the floor and lifts it.

`Don't bother, boy. We need no light.'

`As you wish, sir.'

The boy sets the candle down and stands in an attitude of anticipation. What he is waiting for he could not say, but as the gentleman seems to have some purpose, he does not venture the impertinence to question.

`Have you no wash-stand, boy?'

Washstand, sir? Bless you, sir, no. I've got nothink. Nothink at all! Only this mattress, sir,' he says, kicking the object with obvious distaste, which is already too good for the likes of a crossing-sweeper.'

Hm,' Mr. Smallweed muses. But water--surely you have some. To drink?'

`Water, sir? Oh, yes, sir. Here, sir.'

And so saying, the boy moves to the window and retrieves a dipper from the small, open pot that stands on the sill, bringing it to the gentleman, who staggers the young crossing-sweeper by not drinking from it, but dipping a handkerchief into it and pressing the wet cloth to the boy's own cheek.

`Sir?' The boy asks tremblingly.

`Shh. Hush, boy! Your face is filthy, and I would see what lies beneath the surface.'

So saying, Mr. Smallweed cleanses the boy's face almost tenderly, far more so than he might have believed himself capable. It is a job of work, however, taking time, great perseverance, and many forays of cloth into dipper before it can be accomplished. But when it is done, Mr. Smallweed is entirely satisfied that what he believes he has seen is indeed underneath, for the boy is as comely as could be imagined.

The boy's eyes are dangerously close to filling with tears, and their advent irks Mr. Smallweed mightily.

`Don't you cry, boy! Don't you dare cry!'

`I'm sorry, sir, truly I am, only... Only your touch is... is...'

`Is what, boy?'

The sweeper shrugs.

`I don't know, sir. Pleasant, I suppose I might say.'

`Well? What of that? Has no one ever touched you before in a... pleasant... manner?'

`Me, sir! Touch me, sir! With a stick or a staff, sir, oh, too many times! Even with a hand. But them is usually balled up, sir, in a fist!'

`Well, boy. If someone were to touch you, say in a more pleasant fashion, where might he touch, beyond your face?'

The boy is now as confused as he is frightened, half-convinced he is to meet his death. He falls to his knees, his arms about his head in a protective fashion.

`No, sir, please, sir! Don't, sir! I've got nothink! I don't know nothink! Don't hurt me, sir!'

`Hurt you? Hurt you, you say? Why on earth would I do that? You wound me, boy. Wound me to the heart!'

Mr. Smallweed is performing, and, he thinks, doing so right well. Let's see on of those poor players I saw last night in Mr. Guppy's company attempt this scene, he thinks. Upon my soul, it would be quite beyond them!

Indeed, the effect upon his audience is no less than he might have hoped, for the boy looks immediately abashed. Tears streak his newly clean cheeks.

`I thought, sir... Well, sir... you see...'

`That you are alone, and unprotected. That a gentleman of evil intentions might do you a violence, and no one would stop it.'

`That's it, sir. That's it exactly!'

`Come here, boy,' Mr. Smallweed commands with a smile and a gentle quality of speech, holding out his arms as the boy, if anything more frightened, and more confused than ever he was, rises and moves uneasily toward him. In an instant they are close, and Mr. Smallweed brings his arms about the boy slowly, showing he means no harm, until they embrace the pathetic creature.

The boy stands stiffly, uncertain what is expected. But Mr. Smallweed knows what he's about, and for the moment merely holds the youth close to him. Although the boy is dirty, he does not smell the worse for that, Mr. Smallweed thinks. But then, the crossing-sweeper is a youth, not a full-grown man, and lacks therefore the more offensive qualities that grown men possess in time.

`Is this... a pleasant touch, boy?' he asks softly.

`Bless you, sir, it is that,' the boy replies, his voice muffled slightly by the folds of Mr. Smallweed's clothing.

`Would you not care to touch me, perhaps, in a pleasant fashion?'

`I... I don't know what you mean, sir.'

`Your arms, boy. Can your arms not find their way to me as mine have to you?'

The boy says nothing for a moment, but after a few seconds his arms go tentatively about the gentleman, resting lightly on his person.

`Like... like this, sir?'

`Exactly so, boy,' Mr. Smallweed allows.

The boy's body excites him, so close in these close quarters. And the feel of the slender creature against him thus is causing a thrill of feeling to course through Mr. Smallweed's extremities.

There,' he says, patting the boy gently on the back. Is that not pleasant?'

`I reckon so, sir,' the boy replies. He is still quite tense and uncertain, though he has to admit he likes these new sensations more than a little.

Tell me, boy,' Mr. Smallweed says caressingly. Are there not places on your person that would enjoy a pleasant touch?'

`Sir?'

`If, for example, one's hand was to move thus,' says Mr. Smallweed, suiting the word to the action and allowing his palm to slide down the boy's curved back and to rest upon one cheek of his ill-clad posterior.

The boy starts at the unexpected motion, thinking he ought to pull away. But it is pleasant, this feeling, and instead of resisting as he believes is proper, the young crossing-sweeper, murmuring his assent, finds himself pushing back a bit against the strong, clever hand cupping him.

Emboldened, Mr. Smallweed allows his other hand to move likewise, and it soon joins its twin on the other side of the boy's nether region. Once again the boy feels he ought to resist, and once more he relents, a small choked sound issuing from his throat.

`Now, that is pleasant indeed, isn't it, boy!' Mr. Smallweed mutters.

`Bless you, sir, it is,' the boy replies, in a voice he scarce recognizes as his own.

I think, boy,' Mr. Smallweed continues, his own voice attaining a quality quite as ragged as this youth's own clothing, yes, I do think... that it can be made pleasanter still. Indeed, I am sure of it...'

The boy's trousers are tight, but Mr. Smallweed's hands are delicate and slender, and in very short order they have contrived to insinuate themselves beneath the cloth. The sweeper cries out a little when he feels the transfer of touch from without to close within, but the sound is one not of protest but acquiescence.

The hands move with slow and calculated precision, and in a moment are resting comfortably, cupping the bare flesh beneath the boy's thin trousers. It is, the boy admits to himself, an exceedingly pleasant touch!

But pleasanter still is the blessing bestowed upon him now, as the gentleman's lips caress the flesh of the boy's neck. He sighs and shudders, giving in to the unexpected gratuity, as the hands upon his bottom continue to cup and gently knead his quite pliant flesh.

Most pleasant of all, the boy now realizes, is the warm rush of feeling which has taken hold of his groin. He is fully stiff from the gentle, expert caresses of the surprisingly gentle and expert gentleman, and his hardness is pressed against that personage. He believes this fact should embarrass him, and briefly wonders whether the gentleman will take umbrage at such an indecent liberty, but this thought is brief and unheeded.

In fact, much to the boy's surprise, the gentleman has taken note of this change, and far from objecting, has deftly removed a hand from the sweeper's right cheek and has placed it directly upon the offending twig.

Oh, sir! I'm sorry, sir!' the boy begins, but is stopped short in his abject apology by a reproving Hush!' which is followed hard upon by the gentleman rubbing his palm up and down the guilty column of flesh, in a way that even this boy cannot fail to grasp is no reproach but instead a direct encouragement.

Indeed, the gentleman's fingers move to the buttons fronting the boy's trousers and, once they had been undone, gently removing the slender, twitching sliver and moving his fingers about it with delicious sensitivity. The gentleman created a splendid friction between the flesh of his hand and that of the boy's tumescence, and the youth felt an animal growl roll from his throat, all uncontrolled, which slowly pulled itself free and filled the dingy room's every cranny. It was not so much voluble as inclusive, seeming to float like the fog of a deep winter's night, enveloping both figures and bringing them together in a manner more intimate even than the acts themselves.

Freed from the confining constraints of the boy's trousers, the hand upon his bottom moved with greater independence. While Mr. Smallweed is, with quite good reason, loathe to spread the boy's buttocks (at present, that is; for with solid cleansing on the boy's part, there was nothing he would rather do) he is more than adept at exploring their contours to the benefit both of the boy and himself. He knows, for example, that if he moves his fingers beneath the rounded cheeks and presses against the area behind the sac, he can increase the boy's pleasure exponentially. This he does, while continuing to firmly frig the slender, hardened limb, which from every indication of the boy's gasping and twitching, shows signs of imminent release.

Mr. Smallweed's intuition does him credit. With a feral cry, a distinct arching of his back and a tightening of his bottom, the crossing-sweeper spews his seed into the accepting hand.

The boy shudders mightily, calling, `Ah, sir! Sir! Sir! Ahhh!' as he spends, satisfying Mr. Smallweed's unusually charitable (for him, and in the boy's own experience) desire to pleasure the youth exquisitely.

When it is over, the boy's extremities fail him and he slips onto the filthy floor of the room, his trousers gathered about his dirty knees. Mr. Smallweed looks down upon the crossing-sweeper and feels his own mounting excitement begin to carry him beyond rational control. All but ripping his own trouser buttons in his haste, he shoves his breeches down about his knees, takes his aching staff in hand and, kneeling by the prostrate youth, brings himself to such a climactic sensation of discharge that it fair sweeps him into insensibility and lack of consciousness.

When the eruption has ceased, Mr. Smallweed looks down again at the boy, whose exposed flesh now bears the thick, ebony signs of his spend, and smiles.

`You see, boy? A human touch, placed i can be of great comfort.'

`That it can, sir,' the boy murmurs sleepily. For the first time since their meeting, Mr. Smallweed is gratified to see a slight smile on the lad's lips. But then, Mr. Smallweed himself seldom smiles, and is somewhat astonished to realize he is doing so now.

It is certainly not his normal custom in such matters. On the occasions which have come before this evening, Mr. Smallweed has performed his duties with little feeling beyond the customary quickening of the senses, and when they are over and the end has been achieved, he is no happier than before he began--indeed, often feels a nagging form of spiritual emptiness once he spends.

Yet something about this boy has awoken a feeling in Mr. Smallweed. Feeling, it may be fairly said, is a thing most alien to this elderly practitioner of the law, unless by that word we mean the quickening of the pulse which attends the possibility of fiduciary gain, or the slight shimmer emanating from core at the contemplation of a brief perfectly phrased and framed with the requisite courtesies. Certainly at home Young Smallweed has never known the sensation of what, for lack of a better term, we might call love, nor would he have the slightest concept of expressing such feeling to his grandparents or his industrious twin sister.

Not even toward his mentor Mr. Guppy can Mr. Smallweed be said to express, exhibit, contemplate, hold or otherwise project any sensation beyond the obvious emulation of his person and attributes. If asked what he feels toward Guppy, Mr. Smallweed would doubtless blink in the blankest fashion and wonder, inwardly at the very least, why such a question should ever be put to a man.

Why then should this ragged boy, as dirty as he is ignorant, as loathsomely mean of comforts as any beggar, excite in Mr. Smallweed's breast a sensation the like of which he has never felt? He has experienced of these streets, has Mr. Smallweed, and of the carnal possibilities they contain--indeed, which they most assuredly promote. The crossing-sweeper is not the first such youth to have enjoyed Mr. Smallweed's company (although he is surely the filthiest!) and often as not in the relative safety and anonymous cheer of this inn or that, maintained for such like purposes, where no eyebrow would be raised at the sight of a gentleman of Mr. Smallweed's obvious means in tandem with a youth of lesser station.

Indeed, as we come to that, he has had, in the past, far greater reason to enjoy charitable fellow-feeling for these boys, inasmuch as they knew their business, were reasonably kempt, had a more than casual acquaintance with hot water and the annealing properties of the scrub-brush, and gave of themselves, freely and in far greater measure, more intimate experience than this ignorant, servile boy. If pressed, indeed, Mr. Smallweed would own that he generally prefers the sauciness and acute financial rectitude of these professionals, for they make no pretense that the arrangement is other than business-like.

Unable (or unwilling) to expend further cogitation on the subject of feeling, Mr. Smallweed re-produces his handkerchief, using it to discreetly remove the outward signs of his recent discharge. He kneels by the boy and proffers the cloth. The crossing-sweeper stares blankly at him, whereupon the young gentleman sighs and employs the kerchief in likewise blotting from the boy's extremities all signs of their recent congress. Putting the cloth upon the mat and gesturing to it, he tells the boy he might keep it, but to rinse it out thoroughly before selling it at the nearest pawnbroker's, which he has no doubt is the boy's intent. Whereupon Mr. Smallweed stands once more and adjusts his tall hat, which has come askew during his recent bodily exertions, and gazes down upon the boy, who had not stirred from the place to which he had removed himself after his spending.

`May I visit you again, boy?' the gentleman inquires.

The youth seems, in his face, to be asking why such a young gentleman should wish to revisit so mean a set of lodgings as these, having seen them once. Instead, he nods mutely.

`If you wish to, sir.'

Nodding, Mr. Smallweed reaches into his trouser pocket and removes a half-crown, which he places on the boy's abdomen.

The youth's eyes widen, and it is within his reach to protest that the young gentleman should not vouchsafe such an inconvenience on the likes of him, but with a further small nod of his head, the gentleman vacates the room, closing the mean door behind him.

The boy stares at the door, as if doing thus would alter the fact of the gentleman's passing. The half-crown glitters on his belly in the moonlight, and he turns his attention to the coin. It feels cool on his skin, and as he gazes at it his attention is drawn to the limp member lying close by.

What has happened between himself and the young gentleman is of sufficient oddity to arouse his limited capacity for thought. For he has never so much as taken it in hand before, other than to facilitate the act of voiding his bladder. He stares at the tuft of black hair which decorated its base, and his eyes move from that point upward. The boy has not considered this appendage as possessing the ability to give pleasure before tonight, and the revelation that such a thing were possible seems to him an event of the gravest magnitude.

He has, it is true, awoken of a morning to find himself guilty of some discharge in the night, but has assumed it the result of too much gin before retiring. If pressed he might recall some warming dream before waking, and a sensation of extreme well being in his groin. But as he has never been pressed, so he does not remember any such occurrence. He doesn't, as he might have said, know nothink! The evening's events are, therefore, of a most singular nature indeed!

Still lying in an attitude of half-nakedness, the boy places his fingers around the coin and is on the point of wrapping it neatly in the kerchief when he recalls the young gentleman's admonition and resolves to clean the cloth at his first opportunity. Having been sorely abused by all and sundry the last time he was given a large reward (by the gentlewoman whom he had guided from one spot to another, ending at the cemetery) the boy determines to show no one this windfall.

He rises and, pulling his trousers back up about his waist, goes to the window. Darting a glance hither and yon to be sure he is not observed from below or from any other window in the court, he carefully places the coin at the bottom of the open water butt on the sill, where it glistens gently in the moonlight upon the water.

The boy stands staring out the open window for a time, the puzzle of what has recently taken place in his room still unsolved. Then, feeling suddenly fagged, he goes back to his mat and lays himself down, falling instantly into sleep. Chapter Two Mr. Smallweed Returns, and a Boy is Bathed

For the past fortnight Young Mr. Smallweed has continued to endure the long vacation, cursing the inactivity which has allowed his thoughts to stray, far too often, from the cool law rooms to the filthy confines of Tom-all-Alone's.

No one who knows him could square the passions raging in his breast with the cold, calculating spectre Mr. Smallweed presents to the world at large. He can scarce believe it himself, and the vision of the crossing-sweeper which his idle mind will persist in conjuring is fairly driving him mad!

That boy! He thinks. That filthy, degraded, ignorant, ill-used boy!

In desperation, he has twice given himself over of an evening to the professional lads of his acquaintance, hoping that their practiced ministrations will obliterate any thoughts of the dirty youth in whose foul lodgings Mr. Smallwood allowed himself to venture so recently. Yet, despite his best intentions (and the infinite pains the boys took on his behalf) these two forays have ended with profound embarrassment for the scholar of Law. In both instances, the young gentleman has had the unsettling experience, at a moment of intense importance, of seeing the faces of the boys dissolve into that of the crossing-sweeper, and at these instants his heart has seized and his body followed suit, for in the next second the sweeping-boy's countenance has disappeared as quickly as it come into view, leaving him confused in mind and spirit, and deflated utterly in all other important aspects.

A failure to perform at the crucial moment has never troubled our young friend before, and he takes it ill. Yet no amount of coaxing or persuasion can alter the limpness with which he regards the fleshly banquets spread before him.

He pays his companions, of course, as if the business has been transacted to the satisfaction of both parties, but he does so with a burning cheek and a certain knowledge that his shortcomings will soon be the subject of much sniggering behind the hands of the boys, leaving him no choice but to quit the premises, vowing to himself that he will never return. If Mr. Smallweed but knew, the boys are not discussing his case--they have seen its like often enough, and as long as it does not interfere with their expected payment (and Mr. Smallweed has made certain is has not) they give it no more thought than they do its reverse. But the young gentleman has convinced himself that his shame is a phenomenon of rarest import, to be observed and talked over endlessly, and in this state of profound unreason, considers these indifferent youths as perfect gossips, malicious and amused by his private catastrophe.

That boy! That wretched, accursed, dirty idiot of a boy!

That boy, whose dirty yet curiously appealing features are conjured each night in Mr. Smallweed's mean little bed when the family has gone to sleep, causing havoc in his lower extremities and precipitating forced release into the towel he keeps close by and washes himself of a morning. A filthy street-urchin scarcely fit to frig in secret and surely not worth the half-crown Mr. Smallweed so casually tossed to him.

Some impression of personal propriety has foresworn the young gentleman from returning to Tom-all-Alone's this fortnight, as if Mr. Smallweed could not bear himself thither on pain of death. He is not concerned with recognition, for no one with whom he is acquainted would be seen in such mean streets unless the circumstances were more extraordinary than he can imagine. It is, rather, his sense that he is immune to feeling, and that, should he be content to wait it out, this matter of a ragged crossing-sweeper will diffuse itself with time, and distance. That it has not is a matter of no small concern to Mr. Smallweed.

And so it is that he finds himself this evening rolling with the fog toward that place which propriety and self-concern have barred him these two weeks. He is scarcely aware of his surroundings as his legs carry him to that purgatorial vicinity with almost a will of their own--spurred, no doubt, by that appendage between them to which reason cannot appeal. He climbs the stairs of the filthy abode to which the boy escorted him previous, half in dream and half in fear, and knocks upon the door before his rationality can reasonably take control.

The portal opens, and Mr. Smallweed is greeted by the worn, sagging visage of a woman in middle age, who scowls at him with undisguised suspicion.

`What do yet want?' the crone inquires in a voice which suggests she would as loathe scream for the beadle as open her door any wider than it takes to reveal a mouth full of rotting teeth and two brows knitted together in a permanent show of mistrust.

I beg your pardon, madam,' the young gentleman stammers. I was in search of a youth who occupies these lodgings.'

Youth, eh?' the apparition cackles, taken with a sudden humor that leaves her gasping. When she recovers, she narrows her eyes even further (if this were possible!) and snorts derisively. What youth was ever here is long past, sir. Now leave me alone!'

She begins to shut the door and Mr. Smallweed, knowing not what else to do, gently but firmly presses back against this movement.

Begging your pardon, I'm sure, madam,' he says, but there was, a fortnight ago, a young boy hereabouts. A crossing-sweeper by trade, as I believe.'

Eh?' The woman's face softens only to the extent that she is attempting to think, an activity which does not come easily to her. Yer'll be meanin' Toughey, I suppose. Well, my lad, Toughey no longer abides in this place.'

`He has moved, then?'

`Moved on, more like, and with force.'

`Evicted, you mean?'

`Just as I says. Moved on, and with some gentle prodding by the Beadle, I shouldn't wonder.'

The cackle returns, more debilitating this time in its effects, and it is some while before the bearer of this unhappy mirth can be brought to a state of address.

`Where, do you suppose, one might find the lad now?'

`Hah! When yer can't even afford such lodgings as these, the gutter is yer only refuse, I'm sure. Look there, an' I'll wager ye'll find him.'

`I beg your pardon, ma'am. Thank you for your assistance. I shall not trouble you more.'

Mr. Smallweed is on the point of departure when the old spectre fixes him with a canny look, one the young gentleman bears very uncertainly indeed.

'Ere, now,' says she. Wot would a gennelman like yerself be a'wantin' with the likes of `im? Eh? Up to no good, I shouldn't guess!'

If Mr. Smallweed is at all disturbed by the tone of her insinuation, he does not betray it.

`The boy once did me a kindness. I was hoping to repay him. That is all.'

All, is it? Well,' adds the crone, with a smile which for ugliness of purpose the young gentleman has never seen the like of before, I can do a bit of goodness meself, now an' agin.' The door opens a trifle wider, and Mr. Smallweed is horrified to note the woman gesturing to her mean mat--the self-same resting upon which place the boy has so recently reposed in his post-coital delirium. `Slip us a shilling an' we'll pour out the wine. Eh, boy?'

Resisting the urge to strike the woman, Mr. Smallweed blanches, recovers, tips his hat and turns away.

`Some other time, ma'am, I'm sure.'

He races down the groaning stairs, followed by the hideous cackle.

Reaching the relative safety of the street once more, Mr. Smallweed pauses in the doorway. His heart is racing and his face is suddenly wet with a sour, moist veneer, which he absently abstracts from his countenance by means of his pocket kerchief. He stands for a moment, terrified and angry, wishing he had struck the elderly beast with his cane before alighting. The impertinence of the woman! The fiendish, ugly, malevolent, obscenity of the offer! And behind it, he is certain now, the base assumption upon his rectitude--that he would consort with low boys for money!

Mr. Smallweed shivers, despite the oppressive heat of the summer's night, and resolves then and there to abandon this folly and to return to his congenial pursuits straightaway! It is only the voice that stops him, as he is rounding the corner.

Sir?' asks the voice in tones of awe and quiet. Is that the young gennelman wot took pity on me? It is, isn't it?'

Mr. Smallweed stops, turning in the direction from which the scarcely whispered sound has emanated. There, in a darkened doorway, his broom propped against the wall, is the very boy himself!

`I was... looking for you, boy,' Mr. Smallweed offers, his own voice curiously constricted so that the authority he means to project is abated somewhat by an unaccustomed tremor.

`Was you, sir? Was you indeed? I'm glad, sir, that I am.'

Why are you no longer in your lodgings?' Mr. Smallweed asks, with more gentle courtesy and delicacy of spirit than is his wont. Were you not able to use the proceeds from the kerchief? Was the half-crown not sufficient to keep your room?'

Bless you, sir, but I couldn't part with em!' The boy digs into his pocket and retrieves, astoundingly, both cloth and coin. The kerchief, Mr. Smallwood notes, has been cleaned.

`But you have need of them! Why did you not employ them?'

`I don't know, sir. I don't know nothink.'

`But you must have a reason! You're out of doors and you needn't be.'

The boy screws up his face in what is almost a parody of thought. If he could, he might tell the young gentleman that these tokens had touched some part of him as unfamiliar to feeling as the gentleman's own heart. He might say that his benefactor has excited in him a deep new knowledge of his own capacity to experience pleasure--indeed, to generate it. He might tell him that these considerations were stronger and held more meaning for him than the timely payment of a week's mean lodging. But lacking the ideas or the words required, he only says, I needed to keep em, sir. I just needed to, an' that's all I know.'

Mr. Smallweed gazes at the boy for a time, his inner soul in a tumult of confusion. Finally, with scarcely a thought as to what he is suggesting, the young gentleman takes the boy by the arm.

`Come with me,' he says.

The boy retrieves his broom and follows. They walk together, somewhat aimlessly, for Mr. Smallweed does not know the surroundings.

`Is there a tavern hereabouts?' he asks the boy.

`Many an' many, sir.'

`Take us to one.'

`Yes, sir.'

The boy takes the lead and, in a few moments, they are entering a dark hostel. A bored looking man reposes behind the counter, and Mr. Smallweed approaches him, tipping his tall hat in greeting.

This boy wants lodgings,' he explains. Have you any?'

More than I'd like, sir,' the clerk replies. The young master may have his pick.'

`Anything will do.'

The clerk considers. The young gentleman is surely no judge of these matters, and might be taken in handily. On the other hand, he might not.

`Four an' six per week.'

Very well,' Mr. Smallweed replies, reaching into his trouser pocket and extracting a handful of coins. This will suffice for a month, I believe?'

`It will that, bless you!' the clerk answers in surprise. He hands over a key and points up a dim, dirty stairway.

`Top floor then. Room at the end of the hall. Thanking you for your custom, I'm sure, sir. At any time, day or night. You've only to ask for Conk.'

The young gentleman nods and, taking the arm of the boy beside him (who has, it need scarcely be pointed out, been struck dumb by his largesse), mounts the stairs. Once he has opened the door and ushered the crossing-sweeper inside, he thinks for a moment and, cautioning the boy to remain where he is, descends the stairs once more.

The boy requires food, Mr. Conk,' he says to the clerk. Can it be provided?'

`Certainly, sir. At an additional cost of two and six per week.'

Mr. Smallweed produces the required amount, times four and, handing over an additional half-crown, places his order.

`See to it, then. And send up some supper immediately. Cold meat will do. And a pint of gin.'

`Give us half a tick, sir. We're short-handed this evenin'.'

The clerk might have added that his establishment is short-handed every evening, but this intelligence not being necessary to the transaction, pockets the money and busies himself with setting up a tray of victuals while Mr. Smallweed mounts the stairs once more. If Mr. Conk has made any spurious assumptions about the young gentleman and his ward, he is at least sensible enough of his custom to keep it to himself.

Once inside the little room, Mr. Smallweed removes his tall hat and places it upon a bureau, being first careful to wipe its offensive top with his kerchief. Then he reposes in a chair, which, for roughness of material and lack of comfort, is a positive marvel of its age and weight.

The boy is standing in the middle of the room and seems, for the moment, so overwhelmed by the luxury of his immediate prospects that he cannot think and certainly can offer no speech appropriate to the occasion. But what he lacks in speech he makes up for in tears, two of which are coursing down his dirty cheek.

`Are you going to cry again, boy?' Mr. Smallweed asks with some asperity.

`Bless you, sir, I'm sorry,' the boy replies, wiping his eyes with his filthy shirt.

`I won't have yours tears, d--- you! I won't!' thunders the young gentleman.

The appearance of the youth's tears is deeply offensive. They add immeasurably to the sense Mr. Smallweed is experiencing of being utterly out of his depth. He has no more notion of why he has done what he has done than the boy himself, whose show of emotion is distasteful, for it indicates an excess of feeling, the very thing against which the young gentleman is opposing so vehemently within himself.

The boy wipes away the tears with his sleeve, and further remonstration and discussion are cut asunder by a hearty knock at the door. Mr. Smallweed opens it and admits the serving-maid, who enters with a tray of cold meat, bread, butter, and gin. He directs her to set it upon the bureau and gives her a shilling, which she accepts with smiling graciousness, curtseying before the young gentleman and leaving the room without a word.

The boy glances at Mr. Smallweed with a frightened look.

You may as well eat, boy,' that young gentleman sighs. It is paid for, after all.'

`Thank you, sir.'

The boy moves to the bureau and stands, as if awaiting instruction. Sighing audibly and feeling most put out, Mr. Smallweed pulls up a chair and instructs the boy to sit. The crossing-sweeper hesitates but a moment, then seats himself and begins to eat, with some delicacy at the first, as though he is afraid if he exhibits the full extent of his hunger the meal will be summarily removed. When no such penalties are meted out, he tucks in more forcefully.

Mr. Smallweed stares at the boy's back, slightly repelled by the vigor with which the crossing-sweeper devours the meal. He knows the boy is poor, hungry and, he assumes, has not seen a supper--meager as it is by the young gentleman's standards--as fulsome in some time, if indeed he has ever been presented with such choice victuals in his young life before. He asks himself if he was similarly repulsed when Mr. Guppy treated his impecunious friend Jobling some few weeks before. No, he thinks, I was not. But Mr. Jobling, despite his current state of penury, is a practitioner of the law like himself--a gentleman, whatever his straightened circumstances. This boy will never be a gentleman. One could, if one were of a whimsical or perverse frame of mind, clean and clothe him as a gentleman, but he would ever be a crossing-sweeper!

When the boy has finished, cleaning the plate with his fingers, Mr. Smallweed instructs him to use the napkin provided, then announces that they shall go walking. The boy, sated but still afraid, merely nods and follows his strange benefactor from the inn.

On the street once more, the young gentleman queries the boy as to whence he might go to obtain a bath.

`Aside from the river, sir? I don't know, sir.'

`Have you never bathed?' Mr. Smallweed asks with astonishment.

`I don't know, sir. I don't recall.'

`Remain here,' Mr. Smallweed instructs the boy. So saying, he returns to the tavern and makes a brief enquiry of Mr. Conk and returns to the street where the boy stands silently. If the young gentleman were more observant, or sympathetic, he might note with unease a slight trembling of the boy's extremities despite the sultry conditions of the night.

Following Conk's instructions, Mr. Smallweed bears the boy to an establishment some three blocks down, of mean appearance, but what is not in this vicinity? Once inside he makes a payment to the ragged clerk and, obtaining directions, escorts the boy to a small room at the back. There he finds, in addition to a heated stove, three tubs which each contain various measures of water. Though none is fresh, he is at least able to choose one of moderate cleanliness. He turns to the boy.

Mr. Smallweed is now a trifle embarrassed. Looking at the dirty floor and not, by any means, at the boy's face, he struggles to find the proper words for his course of instruction.

`Before--er--that is, prior to your bathing, I should like--well, that is--it would seem best if...'

`Sir?' the boy asks softly.

The crossing-sweeper's tone shows he bears no meanness of intent, and that evenness of vocal character is quite sufficient to restore the young gentleman's equilibrium.

See here,' he says, locking eyes with the boy. There are privies back of here, I should think.'

`I don't know, sir. I don't--'

Before the boy can once more assert his knowledge of `nothink,' Mr. Smallweed suggests that the lad see to his needs while the water is made ready.

`And mind you take care of all your needs, boy,' Mr. Smallweed adds, turning away as his face reddens.

The youth goes out to the back of the establishment and the young gentleman is suddenly most relieved of his presence. He busies himself with heating up additional water from a butt, which he places in a large pan atop the stove. He is just preparing to deposit the hot water into the tub when the crossing-sweeper returns.

`I done it, sir, like you asked.'

Without raising his gaze from his self-appointed task, Mr. Smallweed ventures to inquire, softly and with much redness of face, whether the boy has attended to all of his ablutions.

Bless you, sir,' the boy returns. I did, sir. That grub wot you give me afore was passin' through me fair quickly. It's lucky we stopped here when we did.'

From this intelligence, the young gentleman is satisfied his instructions have been carried out to the letter. He nods, stands up, and fixes his eye on the boy, who stands, still, waiting further word.

`Well? Good lord, boy! Don't just stand there gaping! Bathe, for Heaven's sake!'

The boy looks both puzzled and terrified as he stares into the tub. He turns his frightened gaze to Mr. Smallweed and tentatively dips one toe, in the most fastidious and condescending manner, into the water. Then he turns once more to the young gentleman.

`What is it now, boy? Is the water too cold? Too warm? What?'

`No, sir. It's all right enough, sir.'

`What, then?'

I've never seen the like of this ere contrapshun, sir. How does it work?'

If a feather were to drop from the rafters at this moment and alight upon Mr. Smallweed's tall hat, it is likely that gentleman would suffer a fall from which he might never recover.

`Why, you--you--bathe in it!'

`All at one time, sir?'

The boy seems incredulous.

`Why--yes! Yes, of course!'

`How, sir?'

How?' Mr. Smallweed is quite beyond himself at the boy's impossible ignorance. How, indeed! By removing your clothing and sitting in the bath, boy! How!'

`Please don't abuse me, sir. I don't know about these things. I don't know nothink!'

The boy seems for a moment to be contemplating the renewal of tears, which sight Mr. Smallweed feels his would rather strangle the youth then and there than bear.

Here,' says the young gentleman. Get undressed and hand me your clothing. Come, boy! I haven't all night!'

Looking a little red with embarrassment, the boy slowly removes his filthy shirt and gives this article over to Mr. Smallweed, who accepts it without comment, though it is exceedingly dirty.

His chest is whiter than his neck, but this is saying little. Upon his body the young gentleman notes no masculine hair.

The boy unbuttons his trousers and steps from them, likewise giving them over to his benefactor. They are, Mr. Smallweed notes, both worn to flimsy rags yet stiff with use--an unpalatable combination he does his best to rise above.

The boy stands in his smalls now, blushing furiously. Upon his naked thighs is no more hair than rests on his chest. The youth holds his hands over his groin in an attitude of extreme modesty, which moves Mr. Smallweed not at all. He is much more taken with the sight of the boy's near-nakedness, which excites in him such a passion as he cannot hide, for there is now a growing lump in his trousers which the boy, distracted by his own acute mortification, does not notice.

Come along, boy,' he says, not unkindly. You have nothing to be ashamed of. For haven't I seen what you're hiding?'

If he could, the boy might explain that whole this is true in a technical sense, his nakedness on that evening had been masked by the dim moonlight of his mean little room--not, as now, illuminated by the candles on the wall of the public bath. But, as the lad is incapable of such rational expression, he merely removes his hands from before him and slides his undergarments down to the floor, steps out of them, and hands them to the bemused young gentleman, and, being a modest boy despite his meanness, quickly re-covers himself with his hands.

The appendages Mr. Smallweed remembers well, though previously glimpsed in darker quarters, and they do not fail to excite in him the self-same response as before. But, as there is the business of the bath to attend and the hour grows no earlier, he merely clears his throat and instructs the boy to climb into the bath and lower himself in.

When the crossing-sweeper turns his back, Mr. Smallweed is treated to the unheralded sight of the boy's small, perfectly rounded young bottom. His unaccustomed feelings of carnality are once more quickened as the boy raises one leg up and, with the gravest delicacy, hauls himself into the washing-tub.

Settling down quite slowly, a look of grim distaste on his countenance, the boy finally succeeds in immersing himself in the water. When he has settled sufficiently, and no longer seems in terror, Mr. Smallweed comes forth and, picking up a brush and a cake of soap, begins the arduous task of scrubbing the boy.

Although he does not struggle or cry out, it is clear that the unaccustomed cleansing causes the youth extreme distress, and his lithe body tightens as the young gentleman pursues his task. At first, his arousal at seeing the boy completely naked takes precedence; then, the work becoming increasingly more arduous, this quickening of his manhood takes second place to the battle to scrub the unhappy boy, so miserably tense beneath the exertions of the young gentleman.

Gradually, however, some semblance of a decent human form begins to take shape. The boy's skin reddens and, once clean, begins to glow alluringly in the candlelight.

Mr. Smallwood attacks the job logically, beginning with the boy's neck and shoulders, moving to his arms and hands, then scrubbing his back and pale chest until all are gleaming and clean. Satisfied with his handiwork, the young gentleman bids the boy to kneel in the tub so that he may commence work on his rounded backside.

That finished (amid much quickening of the pulse and tight discomfort in his own small-clothes) Mr. Smallwood nudges the boy back into a sitting position and scrubs the youth's thighs and legs. On inspecting the crossing-sweeper's feet the young gentleman nearly despairs of success at the first, for the soles are so impossibly dirty from years upon years of trudging the streets without shoes. But, working with diligence and industry, he is finally able to remove at least a layer or two of London and leave it upon the floor of the washing-tub.

Taking up a cloth, Mr. Smallwood instructs the boy to kneel once more, and delicately cleanses the soft areas between the crossing-sweeper's thighs, taking care not to scrub too earnestly. The effect is the one to be imagined, on both boy and gentleman, and the task is thus made easier by the unfurling of the boy's staff in the young gentleman's hand.

When this has been accomplished, Mr. Smallweed once more instructs the boy to kneel, pushing him forward slightly and spreading his cheeks. He first scrubs the lad's bottom with the brush, then gently swabs at the space between the firm young cheeks, first with the cloth and then, seeking greater effectiveness, his own fingers, which occasionally press inward with soap and water.

This task is both the most odious and yet still the most interesting so far to Mr. Smallweed, whose groin, pressing against the tub as we works, is painfully constricted in its state of fullness. The boy, too, is now fully tumescent, if he weren't before!

The job done, Mr. Smallweed rinses the boy once more and, stepping away from the tub, hands the youth a towel.

The crossing-sweeper steps from the washing-tub, clean as he has ever been, or likely ever will be, and dries himself quickly, for despite the heat of the evening, the air is cool upon his wet skin, which is, it need hardly be said, unaccustomed to such an amount of water that is not flowing down from the skies! More, although he is experiencing a pleasurable tingling in his loins at being thus unclad before his benefactor (and remembering too the latter's recent, gentle touch upon every part of his person) he is also embarrassed to be completely naked while the young gentleman, his gaze darting hither and yon at the boy's physiognomy, is perfectly and fully clothed.

When he is dry, the boy asks for his clothing. The request is surely proper and logical, but, for Mr. Smallweed, reveals the flaw in his thinking.

I would as leave burn these than have you place them upon yourself now you are clean,' he says, indicating the bundle of dirty rags. Still, you must wear something in the streets, so I suppose it must be these. However. It will not do for you to retain these under-garments!' With a look of extreme distaste the young gentleman hurls the offending cloth to the ground and kicks it violently away. `So I suppose I had better give you mine. They were clean this morning when I put them on, but however soiled they may be by a day's wear they will not come near to the filth in which you have been so long encased. And we are near the same size, so the fit should be close.'

Mr. Smallweed's voice is commanding and assured as ever, yet his fingers, as they alight upon his trouser buttons, tremble. He nevertheless contrives to undo the garment and, finally succeeding, steps from his trousers.

The boy stands before him, his eyes wide with a mix of astonishment and an insensate pleading. He cannot fathom his young benefactor's gracious offer, but there is more to the look upon his features than mere incomprehension. Some spark, some tiny stirring within, makes his breath quicken with anticipation as the young gentleman slips out of his smalls. There, before him now, his benefactor stands, naked from the waist and clearly tumescent. For a boy who, until quite recently has never regarded his nether regions as a source of anything but everyday function, the sight of the young gentleman's naked arousal makes the spark within him flare up suddenly, and he finds himself as stiff as his benefactor.

Mr. Smallweed, though he has noted all of the foregoing, seems in a great hurry to re-dress himself and, handing his undergarments to the boy, swiftly repositions and re-buttons his trousers, his face a mask of scarlet.

As he does so, the boy puts on the young gentleman's smalls. The feel of them, fresher by far than those he has worn for years and years, stimulates rather than calms the strange, warm sensations in his loins. As his benefactor has already suggested, the fit is close enough, for they stand roughly the same height and with the same proportions of weight.

Mr. Smallweed returns to the boy his ragged, dirty shirt is about to hand over the filthy trousers when something in the side-pocket makes him examine the mean material more closely. To his surprise, he removes the pocket-kerchief he gave the boy on that earlier occasion. It is stiff, but has been cleaned, and inside it he discovers the half-crown he presented the boy a fortnight before.

He gazes into the youth's eyes, his brow lifted in an unspoken question.

`Why did you not use these to barter for your lodgings, boy?' The question is asked with, for Mr. Smallweed, unusual softness and delicacy.

Oh, I couldn't sell them, sir!' the boy returns. They was...' and here the lad searches his ignorant brain for a reason. To someone who has been shown a modicum of kindness in his life, the answer would be fairly simple, if sentimental. The coin and the kerchief are simply tokens of an unusual affection given, and gratefully received.

`Never mind,' says Mr. Smallweed. The catch in his throat indicates he more than understands the boy's inarticulate explanation. He coughs and hands the crossing-sweeper his ragged trousers. In a moment the boy is dressed and ready to venture forth again onto the streets.

The air outside seems to calm Mr. Smallweed. It has been altogether too hot and close within the bath, he thinks, although the source of his true discomfort walks beside him. They return to the tavern presently, Mr. Smallweed stopping only long enough to purchase from Conk two tankards of ale, which he carries up the stairs as he and the boy repair to the crossing-sweeper's new lodgings.

In the room there is a long, unbroken silence between the two, for suddenly not even the more usually voluble young gentleman can find words. They stand in the middle of the room, blushingly unable to meet each other's eyes. Finally Mr. Smallweed, unable to bear the situation a moment longer, flings himself into a chair.

The boy comes to him and kneels at his feet. Placing a trembling hand on the young gentleman's knee, he looks up at his benefactor.

`You're too good to me, sir. I can't give you nothink. But, if yer want to... I mean... I liked wot yer did last time.'

An unexpected ache touches the young gentleman's heart, and that most invulnerable of his organs beats faster. He places his hand upon the boy's for a moment, the warm flesh tingling his fingers. Then he stands and, removing the candle to the bedside stand, moves to the mattress, where he waits for the boy to follow.

Chapter Three Unexpected Joy

The crossing-sweeper shuffles silently to the bed and waits. The young gentleman undresses quickly, and the boy takes his cue, slipping out of his clothing completely while his benefactor is still half-clothed, having shed only his coat and shirt. The boy takes him in hand then, sitting his benefactor on the mattress and undoing his gaiters, stockings and trousers, remembering belatedly as he slips these off than the young gentleman has given him his under-clothes and so has none himself.

And so they are at last naked together. The boy climbs upon the bed and Mr. Smallweed makes room for him. Then, remembering, he rises again and goes to the door, locking it securely. On the way back to the bed he stops, gazing at the boy in the flickering candlelight. Clean and scrubbed, the boy is ever more desirable than before.

Mr. Smallweed lies down next to the boy, on his side so that he may gaze at the crossing-sweeper's face and body. He reaches out a tentative, shaking hand to clasp the boy about the breast, his warm fingers closing upon the exposed nipple and stroking it gently so that the aureole grows rigid beneath his touch.

The boy, likewise on his side and gazing with open, trusting eyes upon the countenance and naked splendor of his benefactor, gives a little gasp as the strong fingers enclose his breast. His hand goes to the arm of the young gentleman and caresses it softly, his fingers tracing the light hairs upon the young man's flesh.

The two bodies move together. It is a natural advance, although essentially alien to both. There is in it, indeed, millennia of shared human history--a kind of racial memory, perhaps, which responds when thoughts and ideas are not otherwise in evidence.

The bodies, roughly the same in height, nestle in kind. What is soft presses softness; what is hard meets a corresponding stiffness. The pleasure given equals that received, making the act itself of surpassing significance to both youths. For Mr. Smallweed has not, in the past, given the proverbial frig whether his body's reactions to the stimulus of another body in like congress; his own pleasure is all that has mattered--and after all, he has paid for it, has he not! For the crossing-sweeper, pleasure itself is so unknown a quantity that he can scarce recognize it as such and would have no sense that his own delight is mirrored in the other, were it not for the constant sounds of appreciative enjoyment emanating from between his benefactor's lips.

`Oh, sir...' the boy murmurs as the young gentleman's hand brushes his left buttock.

The warm hand, which has cupped the boy's bottom gently, falters. Its owner rolls onto his side and gazes at the crossing-sweeper.

See here,' Mr. Smallweed says quietly, clearing his throat in unaccustomed embarrassment and uncertainty. You can't keep calling me "Sir" when we... that is... Well! We are become intimate! I don't even know your name. What is it, boy? For I can't keep calling you that.'

The crossing-sweeper is startled by this imprecation, for it has not occurred to the boy that the young gentleman should wish to know his name or to have any call to use it. He is, as he would certainly tell you, "nothink--no one." His life to now has not accustomed him to the need for this familiarity. But as he looks into his benefactor's eyes he can nothing there of a mocking inclination and so he merely says, quietly, `Jo, sir. I'm Jo.'

Jo.' The young gentleman tries out the name, and finds it satisfactory. Why, then, do they call you "Toughey," Jo?'

`It's like as may be on account of my feet, sir.'

`Your feet?'

`Ain't got no shoes is why. So my feet is tough--like leather.'

The young gentleman accepts this intelligence readily enough, for he has recently scrubbed the bottoms of the boy's feet and they were indeed tough and unyielding.

`Very well, then. Jo. And I should like you to call me...'

Here the young gentleman pauses. He has heretofore been known by no particular name, for in his previous carnal transactions he is a paying customer only. Now it will not do, he thinks quickly, to give the boy his true name, for while "Bart" is uncommon enough, still he does not like the idea of it being bandied about in this boy's vernacular. He considers, momentarily, using one of the names which is employed by the young legal experts at Kenge and Carboy--"Small," or even "Chick" (short for "Chickweed") but these are too distinctive and could too easily be traced back unto him.

For Mr. Smallweed has plans, has he not? A wife at some future date, whose presence will in no way curtail his amorous activities but who will provide a safe foundation for the keen perception of his social and moral rectitude. So "Small" or "Chick" it cannot be. He briefly considers some other form of arboreal nomenclature--"Ironwood," say--but decides this will not do either, for it is not such a stretch to a suspicious mind from "Ironwood" to "Smallweed."

The young gentleman also wonders at the satirical efficacy of saying that his name is Guppy! But this too he rejects, for if it should be used, could easily come back to haunt him. No, he must pursue a wider tack. And so he merely says, `You may call me Nemo, Jo,' knowing that the boy will certainly not recognize this moniker as the Latin for "no one."

This question of names having been settled between them, the two young men continue where things have left off.

Mr. Smallweed--or shall we, for the sake of brevity now refer to him as Bart?--cups the buttock he has previously been caressing and pulls the boy to him once more. Jo's hands go here, there, everywhere at once, not knowing where to put themselves and being too aroused by this congress to lie still. At present they are wrapped around Bart's waist as the two strong young twigs press together, causing a delightful friction that spurs their owners to move their hips from side to side and up and down in search of fresh pleasure.

Ah, Jo,' Bart sighs with unaccustomed fervor. You're such a lovely lad. Would you mind a kiss?'

Jo, who has to his memory never received (and certainly never given) a kiss before, considers the question briefly before deciding that he should like to experience this phenomenon, and nods his head in acquiescence. Whereupon Bart's lips close gently over his own and the gift is bestowed. It is, Jo thinks, as nice a thing as has ever been granted him, and he begins to respond, kissing back.

As for Mr. Smallweed, the kiss is, despite his superior carnal experience (superior at least to the crossing-sweeper) his first. He has never wished to bestow a kiss before on any of the street-boys with whom he has sported; they are only employees, despite the brevity of their use, and the young gentleman has enjoyed their bodies only, not their society. With Jo, it is as if a vista has opened before him, and the kiss is no less astonishing to him than it is to the boy.

Their pleasure increased the two boys roll gracefully together, their kisses growing stronger and more deeply felt.

First Bart lies atop Jo, then Jo on Bart, and in either position the pleasure is intensified.

When the kiss is broken Jo says, `I likes that, Nemmo.'

Bart touches the boy's chin and, thinking he should like to kiss that area, does so, pushing the boy over so that he is atop him once more. So pleasant is Bart's present occupation that he continues its employment, moving his lips from Jo's chin to his ear, from his ear to his slender neck, and so on, moving downwards so that eventually his lips rest on the boy's chest. The small nipples having grown hard, Bart kisses them, not at all gently, which causes the boy to heave upwards with his hips, pressing his twig against Bart's chest. It lolls there, leaving a trail of sticky wetness as it moves along the young gentleman's exposed flesh, the texture of which natural lubrication Bart rather enjoys.

The boy's flesh, clean now and tasting faintly and not unpleasantly of soap, is lightly dusted with hair, so fine as yet as to be like silk. Bart continues to kiss Jo's nipples, sucking them with gentle urgency and causing the boy to moan softly and thrash about on the mattress. When he has suckled his fill, Bart's lips and tongue move slowly to the center of the boy's chest and down his slender belly. He feels the hardness beneath as his face and chin proceed, and in a moment he beholds the boy's eager sex.

It pulses against Jo's under-fed belly, a thick stream of lubrication oozing silently from the tip. Bart holds the erect member in his hands and his tongue descends, tasting the liquid offering and finding it delicious.

The effect on the boy of these ministrations is immediate, and electric; Jo gasps and his hands press against either side of Bart's head, involuntarily thrusting upwards with his hips. This has the effect of pushing the head of his prodigiously leaking prick into Bart's mouth, where it grazes that young gentleman's lower front teeth as it moves inside the warm, moist portal, delighting both young men immeasurably.

"Ahh!' Jo cries. `Oh... Nemmo! Nemmo!'

Bart's tongue is now gainfully employed in licking and suckling the proffered head, which slickens under his ardor. This too is a first for the young gentleman, as always before he allowed nothing but that he should be pleasured. Tonight, he is inexplicably drawn to giving the boy he is with at least that degree of delight to which he is accustomed. He learns this evening what the boys he hires have long since known: how to take a male root deep, to the backs of their throats, without ostentatious choking. This accomplishment, painfully arrived at, increases his admiration of those young professionals no end.

It should be said at once that these erotic activities are, to Bart, no less strange in their active nature than the kiss upon which they began. When he has hired a boy previously, he has made it his privilege merely to lie back and exact the passive enjoyment of these pleasures. In one area only has he been an active participant. If pressed to explain his sudden interest in performing on Jo those things which he has never before attempted, the young gentleman would be put at some loss for an explanation. He only knows, without acknowledging it quite, that he feels somehow compelled to offer up to the boy that which he has never before felt a need to proffer.

As for Jo, whose only carnal experience until this night was that quick frig of his root with which this same young gentleman saw fit to please him a fortnight before, he can be fairly said to be floating on a cloud of happiness quite unlike any he has known in his young, ill-bred and suffering life. It would never have occurred to the boy, on his own, to imagine his member could be put to such employment as this. Yet here was his young benefactor, not just imaging it but doing it, and with his own mouth!

I never knew, he thinks, in between gasping and sighs. I never knew nothink!

Inexpert as Bart is in his manipulation of the boy's newly clean masculine twig, he senses, from the unrestrained rivulet issuing from Jo, that the crossing-sweep is close to his moment of perfect truth. And even as he thinks this, the boy suddenly tenses, his body rising up from the center, and there follows such a flood of viscous fluid as nearly chokes our young gentleman, accompanied by such exclamations of breathless delight from that quarter as might well be heard in a school-yard upon the ending of classes and the commencement of holiday term.

Bart is much taken by the taste and texture, and even the volume, of the gushing spend that fills his mouth. He swallows rapidly, and when the flood has abated, takes his leisure in expelling Jo, licking and kissing the last few droplets before allowing their source to fall from his lips.

When this is done, he finds himself lying atop the boy once more, his mouth seeking that of the crossing-sweeper.

Oh, Nemmo,' Jo murmurs languidly at last. That were marvelous, it were.'

`Did you think so, then, Jo?'

`Oh! Bless you, my Lor', yes!'

They lie now, side to side, each tracing with a gentle finger the face and figure of the other.

`I have other things I could show you, Jo,' says Bart, who despite his own stiffened state is yet still inclined to think of giving the crossing-sweeper some additional pleasure.

'ave you, now, Bart?' the boy responds, his brow furrowing slightly. 'ave you really?'

Instead of replying, Bart takes the boy in his arms and turns him over, onto his belly. In the candlelight, Jo's clean nakedness is far more appealing than in the dusky confines of the public bath. The line of him, from his shoulders downward, is so enticing that the young gentleman begins to kiss the flesh therein, moving ever down with his lips and tongue, toward that softly rounded bottom he coverts.

His hands are upon it first, caressing the perfect flesh, which warms his hands and fills his mind with thoughts of earthly pleasure so vivid and enticing he fears for a moment he will spend just thinking about it.

Getting himself under some strong measure of control, he continues to gently knead the boy's bottom cheeks, spreading them apart with his trembling fingers. He is suddenly glad that Jo has not availed himself of the chamber pot since their arrival back from the bath, for he knows from the experience of his own hands that the centre of the crossing-sweeper's treasure is still clean as a whistle, outside and in. His own fingers saw to that.

He bestows a kiss on the right-most cheek first, and follows this sally by kissing the left as the boy moans softly, wriggling a bit in his pleasure. Bart continues in this style, moving his lips closer and closer to the centre, his hands parting the cheeks as he does so. Then, with a suddenness that shocks the boy, the young gentleman places his hands about the youth's slender hips and hauls him upward.

Jo's bottom spreads wide of its own and Bart's lips go directly to the soft, clean tincture of flesh therein, his tongue preceding them. At the unexpected touch of warm wetness, the boy gasps deeply, tightening. But Bart is patient and steadfast, and with his tongue's persuasion, convinces the puckered muscle to relax again.

Although he has felt this sensation on the other end, as it were, before tonight, this is yet the first time the young gentleman has ventured into the hidden realm himself. He has, therefore, only a vague notion of the incidental pleasures of the act. The texture is immediately a source of great excitement to Bart; soft as silk, smooth as the flesh of a ripened peach, and delicious to the taste, which before now he had never supposed. And when the flesh surrenders against his oral onslaught and he pokes through the membrane, his excitement increases ten-fold, for he has never before experienced so staggering a sensation upon his tongue.

Jo gasps anew, thrusting his bottom up involuntarily, as the warm, moist tip of the tongue of his benefactor secures its passage. I truly know nothink! he thinks to himself in wonder. Nothink!

For the effect of this loving attack upon his nether-most region is not only beyond his capacity to have imagined, it has also had the not-unwelcome property of restoring to his spent twig more than a semblance of its previous vigor. He feels it engorging between his thighs, renewing itself and rising from parade-rest to full attention, as if in response to an order.

The tongue of the young gentleman has also unfurled itself fully, and is deeply embedded in the boy's secret trough. It behaves as though it had its own mind, one no longer controlled by Bart's impulses and reason. For Bart now has no reason of his own, so intoxicated is he by the heady wine of Jo's bottom. So it is with a stab of reluctance that he gradually withdraws his tongue from the channel, now slick with a fulsome infusion of Bart's saliva. But immediately it has cleared the opening, he replaces it with a finger, pushing gently but with grave insistence, past the tight ring that guards the boy's channel.

As his young benefactor's nimble digit presses forward, Jo knows with a sharp certainty that, truly, he knows "nothink," has known "nothink" until to-night. For if what has been done to him previously by "Nemmo"'s lips was a revelation to his dazed senses, this new, manual exploration is like the gift of fire. And fire it is, which suffuses his bottom as the finger proceeds upward, a flame that brightens and increases with the slow, steady movement until it tears a groan from his throat of such a guttural, animal quality it shocks both hearers into immobility.

`Have I hurt you, Jo?' Bart whispers urgently, stopped in his ascent by the fearsome, low intensity of the sound.

Jo, his head thrown back upon the pillow, his eyes closed and his young body arching upward again from his center of gravity, moans again.

No, Nemmo, bless you!' the boy gasps. It's lovely, wot yer a-doin', don't you stop!'

Feeling an immensity of relief on this point, Bart resumes his previous activity, gently moving his forefinger around the tight, clasping aperture until it is once more relaxed. He looks up upon the boy and is gratified to see the previously spent root once more taking on a tumescent state (and which mirrors his own).

He pushes forward, lightly, even teasingly, and, feeling a small knot of flesh beneath his fingertip, rubs it. The effect on the boy is immediate, and electric; Jo gasps, his muscles tense, and his hardened twig sails upward, as though it were attempting to penetrate a fissure made of air. The crossing-sweeper moans with pleasure, and Bart continues massaging the little knot, watching in excited fascination as its owner hoists his hips upward again and again, stabbing the warm atmosphere of the close, little room.

`Can you take more, do you think?' Bart asks kindly.

`Oh, yes, please, Nemmo!' Jo begs, breathing heavily.

The young gentleman removes his single finger and instantly replaces it within the boy's dilated opening with two, which slide in together with ease. He repeats his previous maneuvers, eliciting so strong a positive reaction from the boy that he is emboldened to press forward with greater passion. His fingers slip in and out of the slickened fissure, slowly at first and then with greater speed and intensity of purpose, as the boy continues to rut at the nothing above him and beg with whispered gasps the heartening entreaty `More--oh, more!'

Even as he prepares the boy's channel, Bart simultaneously lubricates his own hardened twig with salivary fluid, working the slick viscosity from the crown to the base, preparatory to mounting the squirming lad. The young gentleman supposes--rightly--that Jo has no more thought or knowledge about the mechanical possibilities of sexual congress than what is being given to him this night, and at this moment. If he were to ask the boy for permission to frig him, Jo would, no doubt, reply that he knows "nothink" about it. By taking the prerogative, Bart reasons, he will shortly discover, in a much simpler and more direct fashion, whether or no the action meets with mutual satisfaction. If it does not, he reasons, he will merely cease what he has begun, and no one will be the more inconvenienced.

So believing, Bart places himself in that position which best accommodates his aims and, withdrawing his fingers, swiftly replaces them, before Jo's muscles have the opportunity to contract, with the bulbous head of his prick. When the soft fistula tightens, it does so on the skin of the young gentleman's knob, thicker than his fingers but more pliant and yielding to pressure.

He waits, gauging the boy's response. He receives no immediate and urgent request to retreat; instead what reaches his ears is a long, shuddering sigh of pleasure that wracks the crossing-sweeper's young body from one extremity to another. Bart slowly presses on, the head sliding easily and comfortably past the tight ring of muscle against which it pushes. He has never before felt such deep consideration of the object of desire, for always in the past the boys were to him but seasoned members of their profession who were well past such reflection on his part. But Jo is such an innocent that, surprisingly to himself, Bart senses he should feel grief to injure in the smallest particular. It is, therefore, a great relief to him when the boy accommodates himself so easily in this (surely, to Jo) strange new bodily experience.

There is on the boy's face such an expression of blissful contentment that Bart is emboldened to move with greater agility. Accordingly, he arcs his back and moves his hips forward. In a moment his prick rests completely inside the boy, who gives forth with another shuddering rasp of breath and body, which, in causing Jo's muscles to contract, sends sparks of pleasure shimmering through Bart's middle extremities.

The boy relaxes and, looking down, Bart is pleased to note the crossing-sweeper's twig as hard and aroused as ever it has been.

Bart, too, is more pleasantly provoked than he can ever recall. The boy is like a moist suede inside, delectably tight but yet pliant and flexible. It is, Bart reflects, sweeter than his previous experiences together.

`Is that yer dickie-bird, Nemmo, wot's in me?' the boy asks softly. To Bart's surprise, the possibility does not appear to shock the lad, and when Bart affirms this, Jo sighs and says he's never known nothink to feel so nice.

`Could yer move it about, then, Nemmo?' the boy wonders. Bart asks if Jo would like that, and the boy nods solemnly and says he thinks it might be lovely, but then, he don't know nothink.

Bart begins to move his hips backward, but is stayed by a hand on his arm. He looks down at the boy wonderingly.

`Could we kiss again, then, do yer think?' he asks with such utter seriousness that Bart is tempted to laugh. But, seeing in the boy's eyes a plea, he checks this response, leans forward, and plants a deep kiss on the lad's waiting lips.

The embrace of their lips is sweeter than wine of choice, Bart thinks, especially when Jo reaches his arms around the young gentleman and pulls him close. He responds by kissing the boy more deeply still, and the sensation of pleasure moves with stunning rapidity from his lips to his groin. He can feel Jo's twig, stiff, against his belly, and finds that, for the first time in his experience, the evidence of another's pleasure is the occasion of pleasure in himself.

The pressure of the crossing-sweeper's root against his skin provides a spur to Bart, and he moves his hips and buttocks first back, then forward, to achieve a corresponding movement of his hardened prong along the smooth, slick surfaces of the boy's interior channel. This meets with an immediate, and rather urgent, vocalization of pleasure by Jo, who after studying his benefactor's actions for a time, conceives the notion that the strong physical contentment they produce might be matched indeed by proceedings of his own. Accordingly, he decides to test this practical theory by pushing back with his own hips as Bart pushes forward. This produces such an abundance of delightful pressure within him that he augments this measure by pulling back with his lower body as his "Nemmo" withdraws. These two mechanical transactions, taken together, prove more than efficacious, and it is not long before the two young men are moving in concert, matching each other blow-for-blow to the very obvious gratification of both.

As Bart's movements take on a greater urgency and his thrusts come nearer each other in rapidity, there comes a deciding moment, when the head of his prick glances against the little knot within Jo which was previously manipulated digitally. When this occurs, the boy gives out with a gasp and an involuntary contraction of his muscles, squeezing the young gentleman's prong with sufficient power to induce from that quarter a gasp quite the equal of the one the crossing-sweeper has just articulated.

Oh!' cries Bart. Do that again, Jo!'

Not quite knowing what he has done, or why, the boy endeavors to repeat his muscular contraction and, succeeding, is rewarded by a burst of pleasure in his own bottom surely equal to that he has just given his bed-mate.

Oh!' he cries. Oh, Nemmo! Oh, wot... wot...'

`Pleasure?' Bart supplies, smiling, his face only inches above the boy's.

That's it, Nemmo!' Jo sighs. Oh, I ain't never known nothink to feel so lovely.' The crossing-sweeper reaches his arms about the young gentleman's neck and pulls that face toward his own, whereat their lips meet again.

When the kiss is completed, Bart resumes his previous motions, beginning with an especially athletic thrust that causes the head of his prick to connect with the small knot in Jo's interior. Immediately it does the youth's frame lifts from the mattress involuntarily, seeming almost to levitate briefly before crashing back down onto the soft embrace of the sheets, his lower muscles contracting tightly on Bart, causing exquisite pleasure to both.

`Oh, Nemmo!' the boy cries softly, his body tensing and relaxing, each contraction and release following the other rapidly. Sensing the boy is about to spend, and feeling a similarly inexorable rush of feeling in his own organ of generation, Bart gives yet one final heave upward, gripping the boy tightly.

They spend at nearly the same moment, the boy crying out softly, his hips lifting and falling, his muscles contracting and releasing in a series of spasms, accompanied by a sudden splash upon Bart's belly that quite coats his skin with hot, viscous fluid.

Bart meanwhile experiences quite a similar onrush of physical and emotional release. His seed rushes forth in a torrent as he holds the boy in his arms, softly bleating, `Jo... Jo... Jo...' as his passion dissipates itself in the crossing-sweeper's warm interior.

It is done.

The young gentleman collapses upon the boy then, and their lips once more entangle in a sweetly unrushed kiss which lingers quite past the time when Bart, in similar circumstances, would long since have withdrawn and been half into his breeches again, tossing a coin contemptuously at the receptacle of his heedless and businesslike passion. Instead of which he caresses the boy tenderly with his hands as his lips draw sweet honey from the crossing-sweeper's and his prong, although quite well satisfied and beginning to return to a post-tumescent state, remains where it is, snuggled cozily in the residue of his own spend.

They lie together, neither knows quite how long, in this gentle repose, until Bart's sex slips of its own accord from its place of nesting, and even after.

Our young gentleman raises his head and gazes down at the boy's face, surprised to see there a smile as natural and radiant as he could scarcely have imagined could ever light so solemn a countenance. Its sudden, unheralded appearance where Bart has heretofore glimpsed only solemnity, tears at something inside him.

Thank you, Nemmo,' Jo says. That was ever so nice.'

`It is I who should thank you, Jo,' Bart answers, his eyes memorizing the details of the gentle face below and his fingers tracing the chin and lips of its owner.

Oh, no, Nemmo!' Jo ripostes, smiling. You see, I never knew nothink like about such afore. I shouldn't have known what I was a-doin' if it hadn't been for you. I reckon I didn't know such pleasures was even possible, and wouldn't neither, if you hadn't to shown me.'

Bart smiles back, reflecting on this intelligence, and supposes it to be as true as any word he's ever heard before. The boy is so terribly ignorant! But, he admits to himself with a grin, so must all young men be, until knowledge is given, and he should not judge the boy by these standards merely because he, Bart, has known well the inner workings of desire and the outer mechanics of its fulfillment from so much younger an age. The benefits, he thinks, of a school-based education.

He remembers now his own first (frightened and somewhat ineffectual) initiation into these mysteries, occasioned when he was but 12 years of age, by the boy whose mean bed abutted his own. How confused he had been, as perplexed as he was excited, and how mortified his first spending had left him, until his school-mate had assured him it was perfectly natural.

Such a lot of flesh had passed through his experience since then! And in only three, short years!

He had, in fact, after his first fumblings in this direction, become so ardent an aficionado of the sport that he developed a reputation at the school second to none in any memory. Not merely his fellow boys had enjoyed and appreciated his society in this regard, but a few of the Masters as well! Indeed, few there were who did not succumb to his charms and his blandishments at least once.

But where the majority of the boys in their turn gradually put away these pleasures for the more respectable and sanctioned mooning after girls, Bart had gone on thinking only of this as his natural métier, and when, at the start of his fifteenth year, none of his school-fellows cared to partake of his particular offerings, he determined to parlay his superior marks and scholastic accomplishments toward being placed in a firm at the Court. From thence he discovered, with a few pennies in his pocket, there was more than enough young masculine flesh to be sampled in the City.

Yet with none of these predecessors, at-school or in the streets, had Bart felt anything akin to the gently prodding emotions this ignorant, unlettered crossing-sweep had awakened in his breast! It puzzled him greatly, even as it stirred his heart, pumping into the deepest chambers of that largely unutilised organ sensations he was as unfamiliar with as he was loathe to comprehend.

`I shouldn't mind if you was to do such again, Nemmo,' the boy says with a slight blush which is most becoming. The earnestness of this statement is made manifest by the slow hardening of the boy's prick against Bart's skin.

Bart is sorely tempted, and desire begins to return to his loins. But he has never enjoyed a second round so soon after the first; the diminishment of pleasure is one he always feels very keenly.

He kisses the boy lightly and advises they rest a while beforehand. Jo smiles in acquiescence, and Bart moves from atop the lad, suggesting they make us of the sheets to cover themselves. As Jo rises from the mattress, Bart, although engaged in lowering the blanket and bedclothes, glances at the naked boy in the guttering candlelight as he works.

The face, solemn as ever, is appealingly boyish, with strong cheekbones, attractively up-turned nose and rich, plump lips. And as Jo displays an utter lack of embarrassment in his nudity, he becomes, for Bart, ever more desirable. His limbs are shapely and with that relative absence of matting--aside from the gentle tufts that decorate his underarms and the more luxuriant thatch which adorns his sex--which so pleasantly points up his youthfulness. His lithe and well-shaped man-root dangles, alluringly, in a state half between flaccidity and tumescence, and looks no worse for the wear of its recent activity. When the crossing-sweeper turns about, the enticingly full roundness of his bottom causes the young gentleman's breath to catch briefly and his sex to stiffen alarmingly.

He is, however, determined upon a respite before the renewal of intimate congress, and so stifles his burgeoning excitement once the bed is made ready, and, once he has snuffed the candle, lies down, taking Jo by the hand and bringing the boy close to his side. He brings the front of his body in close contact with the back of the youth, nestling that part of himself that retains its rigidity between the downy, soft folds of Jo's posterior, places his arms about the crossing-sweeper gently, and closes his eyes.

Chapter Four Mr. Smallweed Takes His Leave, and Taking it, Returns it at Length

Neither young men is aware of the passage of time in the small, silent room, but the hours tick by in their fashion until, pleasantly disturbed by the climax of the dream into which he has been plunged, Bart awakens. He is briefly puzzled, unable to recount his surroundings or indeed how he came to be there, until he feels the warm flesh against his own and remembers with a sudden surge of delicious feeling the circumstances of the evening.

He is almost instantly aroused. He briefly considers wetting his knife of flesh and plunging it directly into the boy's natural sheath, the nearness of which to his organ of generation cannot be overstated. But, his mind clearing into a more conscious state, he remembers he is not engaged in a commercial exchange with Jo as he has been with all others with whom he has contracted for sensual pleasure until to-day and whose anal fundaments he is accustomed to using at his whim. The thought abashes him, and he blushes briefly but furiously.

He looks at the sleeping boy and thinks to himself that the youth's repose is wonderful--deep and peaceful in a way he, Bart, himself has not repined in some time. Perhaps it is the bed, comfortable and soft, that has lulled the boy into such a peaceful state. Perhaps too it is the sweetness of the after-glow of their congress.

Rising with some reluctance, the young gentleman goes to the bureau and, lifting the pitcher which reposes there, pours water into a washing-basin, which he uses to cleanse his member. Drying himself with a towel, he retrieves his clothing and dresses himself for the street. Then he sits down at a small writing-table and, taking up pen and paper and giving great thought to the arrangement of his words, writes:

My dear Jo, he begins, Business in the City requires my immediate attention, and so I must leave you. Trusting you to be as good as your word, I shall endeavor...

He breaks off suddenly, cursing himself for a fool. The boy cannot read! He crumples the paper and, placing it in an interior pocket, and goes to the bed where the boy lies sleeping. Gazing at the youth in his gentle sleep, he seems to Bart yet more comely than ever before. His lips, full and kissable, are parted slightly, the melancholia of his eyes curtained by his lids, the long lashes acting as an anchor to shield the viewer from their anxious solemnity. The young gentleman longs to take the boy in his arms once more, to plant a thousand kisses on those yielding lips, to comfort their owner with reassurances.

To Bart's astonishment, only a part of this longing is sexual, although it is surely that, as the stiffness in his breeches attests. The young gentleman's sense of business restrains him, however, and he resolves once more to be on his way once he has spoken to the boy. He nudges the crossing-sweeper's naked shoulder gently, and when Jo awakens, Bart smiles--an unexpected use of his facial muscles that leaves him feeling even more a fool than previously.

I must leave now, Jo,' he says, his hand upon the youth's hair. I have business in the City.'

`Ah,' the boy replies sleepily. There is a trace of disappointment in the note.

`I shall return, though, this evening... if you wish me to.'

The boy smiles dreamily.

`I'd like that, Nemmo, I should.'

The look on the boy's face requires every portion of Bart's resolve to ignore, for, upon seeing it, he longs only to remain where he is and to take Jo in his arms once more.

`You'll stay here, then? The room is paid, and you may order whatever you like or need in the way of food. You needn't take your broom out to-day, or any day, so long as you remain here.'

`Is it all right, Nemmo, if I leave for a bit, now and then?'

The boy's face has darkened, and Bart is suddenly aware that the crossing-sweep may somehow believe his a prisoner, made to stay in this room--indeed, perhaps in this very bed--until he is told otherwise.

`Of course, Jo. Come and go as you like. Only do regard this as your home, and come back, please. May I have your company for dinner, then?'

`I'd like that, too, Nemmo. Much, I would.'

Satisfied as to the arrangements having been understood, Bart, of a sudden whim the which he cannot explain to himself, brushes his lips on the boy's, holds him close for a moment, then rises from the mattress and heads for the door before his carnal instincts can stay his resolve further. But there is one more thought which occurs to him, and which he must impart to the boy.

`If you are spoken to, or questioned, please to remember that you are my cousin, whom I found in the streets and brought here. Can you repeat that, Jo? For it is important.'

`I'm your cousin, Nemmo, wot you found in the street,' the boy replies, with a look of great pride in himself for committing what to him is a strange fiction but which is of such obvious importance to his Nemmo.

Excellent,' says Bart. Until this evening, Jo,' he smiles, and is gone.

On his way he seeks the proprietor and informs him that his cousin is to be accorded every courtesy during his stay. That gentleman, having heard in his time any number of such tales in his time, is more than happy to accept it as the truth of the moment, and is eager to assure the young gentleman that his `cousin' shall be right well provided for, day and night, so long as the young gentleman vouches for him. This magnamition is accompanied by the subtle holding out of an open palm, into which Bart deposits a coin of the realm; an implication strongly understood to mean that the vouchsafing of such words were better accompanied by a concomitant payment in hard currency.

Upstairs, little Jo leans on his elbow for some time, looking at the door as though by staring at it he may induce it to open and call back his young benefactor.

At last the boy admits to himself that his powers of conjuring are quite inadequate to the task, or the wish, and lies back against the soft and yielding pillows. He gazes upward at the ceiling, resisting the urge to pinch himself to prove he is not yet dreaming.

And such dreams he had! Rare and wondrous, occasioned by the new-found pleasures into which his Nemmo initiated him before he slept. He dreamed... no, he cannot quite recall what. He remembers only that the dreams were warm and comfortable and good, and that they involved himself and his new friend and their bodies in congress

These thoughts are most pleasant to the crossing-sweeper, who stretches his limbs in a recollection of pleasure, yawns prodigiously, and is suddenly aware of a hunger gnawing at his vitals. He rises, puts on his new clothing, and wanders down to the breakfast room, where, ever mindful that it is not his money he is spending but his Nemmo's, and, being anxious to spare his benefactor undue expense, he enjoys a modest repast.

Sated, he goes out into the streets and wanders here and there throughout the bright morning. The new clothing irritates his skin somewhat (the pinch of the shoes upon feet wholly accustomed to being un-shod, is particularly and more cruelly irksome) but as his Nemmo has decreed he should wear them, he abides the discomfort gladly, if with a slight, lingering wish for his old attire, ragged and dirty though it was.

He has no set purpose in walking, but enjoys the feel of the pavement beneath his feet, though he longs to remove his shoes, which fetter him, and go barefoot as before. Still, he somehow senses that Nemmo would not approve, and thus resolves to remain as he is. He feels slightly delirious this morning, but puts this down to his changed circumstances and the newly revealed delights of which he now knows his body is capable, and to the unaccustomed sense of being well-fed.

In the City, Bart too feels a sense of lightness in the head, as well as of the limbs, but no one at Kenge and Carboy, seeing that young gentleman absorbed in his tasks, would note a change in him, so careful is he to remain, outwardly, in manner and speech, no different from the day before. Indeed, he welcomes the work, for it takes his mind from thoughts of Jo, from Jo's supple and pleasing body, and from the recurrent pangs of unwished-for emotions that now and then grip his heart on contemplation.

The boy is, after all, an urchin, of the streets and, most likely, best suited to and most comfortable in them. Bart knows this, and knows as well the unlikelihood of any state between them of equality, grace or lasting kinship. And yet, he cannot quite shake the notion, implanted in his breast, that, perhaps, the little crossing-sweeper was made for finer things. Is it too improbable to imagine him plucked from a better life through as yet known circumstance and deposited in the filth and destitution in which the young gentleman first discovered him? Is it a mere fancy to suppose he might therefore be brought back to that state through the grace and kindness of good intention?

Bart has never felt the slightest twinge of fellow-feeling for any such being before. It is not a pleasant occupation for his mind, to dwell on these thoughts and fancies, for they hold no place in the life he has chosen for himself.

D--m the boy! he thinks to himself at last. D--m him for his pathos and the strangling hold it has upon a gentleman such as himself! Send him back to Tom-all-Alone's and let him make out there as best he can!

But these observations are at war with others, equally real, that rage in the young gentleman's breast. He thinks that if he cannot see the boy this evening, he will surely fall into a faint of death, and be buried without pomp or flourish on the morrow!

Oh, would I had kept walking when first I beheld the wretch, and never given him the day o'day! Bart thinks sourly. What am I to do for the boy? What am I to do with the boy? Bring him home to my grandfather's, wrest that old gentleman from his perch and set the crossing-sweeper upon it, as crowning a king? Cater to him, feed him, house him, bathe him and wait upon him hand and foot? Or, equally improbable, continue to house him with inn-keeper and lose in that a small fortune in up-keep? Bah!

Yet withal each such thought is accompanied by a stronger, yet softer, one that moves easily from brain to breast to groin, of the splendors of the boy's body and of his sweetness of countenance and mien. Would not a young gentleman give worlds of his own (and those which he does not yet possess) to keep with him such delightful companionship? And why deny these thoughts and emotions? Each moment away from the boy is an eternity, a pain that strikes the young gentleman like a jolt from some infernal device set upon him by a malevolent god!

If Bart had been raised with any sense of the beauty of life and the joys to which the heart may be heir, he should at once have recognized the stirrings within him of the emotion of love, and embraced them with his whole self. But being as he was brought up to regard feeling as cheap and common and without merit and money and property the only causes worth the getting hold of, our young gentleman is at a loss to explain himself, to himself. These tearings at his inner being are loathsome to him.

Such boys are fit only for fucking, and decidedly not for holding, kissing, beholding with awe and feeling bereft without!

The hours pass, and with no surcease of these internal conflicts. When finally the time draws near for departing the offices of Kenge and Carboy, Bart feels anxious and shaky. His heart beats uncommon fast, his palms are damp, and in his thighs he feels a weakness akin to the ague. His face is flushed and moist, and his condition is commented upon by those nearest his base of operation.

A touch of something,' he murmurs, somewhat mortified at being so discovered in an extremity of feeling. The dew, perhaps. I was walking late last night and may have caught a chill.'

Various patent remedies are suggested. Rest is urged upon him. Hot posits and cups of steaming consommé are vouchsafed as best.

Nodding in agreement to one and all, and thanking them kindly for their solicitation, Bart retrieves his top-hat at last and exits the offices of Kenge and Carboy. He sends word to his family that he will not be home to-night, on account of business which detains him in the City, tips his messenger extravagantly, and hies toward the inn, and the comforts waiting, he hopes, for his consuming.

In that place, at this hour, a boy waits with a pleasant anticipation. He is formerly dirty and ill-clad, but this evening is shining clean once more from his afternoon ablutions, and while in theory considerably better situated as regards clothing than previously, is at this moment without any such garments at all.

He waits, reposing upon the pillows, the sheets drawn up over his nakedness, resisting the very strong urge to reach beneath them and massage his rigid man-root and frig it to spending.

This thought has been ever in his mind to-day, and the resistance to natural desire has been a battle he has fought, and fought again, throughout his waking hours. He has, however, he thinks, a duty to his Nemmo, to be fresh and un-spent, and so he keeps his hands above the counterpane and waits, as he has waited for hours, for the door to be unlocked and his benefactor to re-appear in the archway.

That young gentleman does so in time, and is quite pleasantly astonished to find the boy so. Really, he says, hadn't they better to dine before relaxing into other occupations? Yet even as he so remonstrates with the boy, he is removing his outer garments, locking the door, and moving toward the bed in a state of utmost arousal. After all, he reasons to himself, would not their dinner be better appreciated in the fullness of time and after such activity as will sharpen their appetites, when all others have been satisfied?

And so our young friends are engaged, and we leave them for the moment, out of a sense of propriety (and to avoid perhaps irritating the reader by describing anew that of which he has already partaken in considerable detail?) It will suffice merely to note that what happens behind the securely closed and well-locked portal of the room is tenderer and more keenly felt than even before, for there is now present deep emotion, which has intervened to complicate the earthy maneuvers of body with body, and so the congress of young gentleman and crossing-sweeper is less hurried, more languid and more satisfying by these means than the rather more frenzied and enthusiastic activities of the night before.

When we rejoin our friends, they are lying together in perfect bliss, their passions spent (along with their warm, liquid excretions) and their hands entwined in a loving gesture as they kiss in a sweet after-math of physical and emotional happiness.

Ere long, more gastronomical urgencies impel them to bathe their roots (and Jo's rather greasy back portal) in the wash-basin, to dress, and to descend the stairs and emerge in the street in search of viands to sate their gnawing appetites, all others having been met, and most sweetly and delightfully so. After which they repair once more to their secret lair in the inn, wherein Jo surprises his benefactor, and more than earns his keep and that young gentleman's esteem, by proving himself a quick and adept study at the ways of the flesh, in ways that astonish, delight and satisfy young Bart sufficient that he resolves to continue this mutually agreeable arrangement for an indefinite period, let the facts and exigencies sort themselves out as they may and as they deem proper to the case.

Epilogue Not to be read by those who would wish a happy ending to this tale

Should we leave our young friends thus, in the sweet, fresh bloom of their unaccountable romance? I fear we should, for the sequel will prove painful to one, and fatal for the other.

First, and happiest to relate, the private congress between Jo and Mr. Smallweed (although he still maintains the fiction of "Nemo," for sake of his own comfort and safety) continues for some time, to the mutual delight of the congregants. With each successive coupling Jo becomes more adept at giving--and more experienced in receiving--pleasure. As for our young gentleman friend, his growing sensual fascination with the crossing-sweeper begets deeper emotions yet. At each new meeting his joy in finding Jo behind the door of his room is unbounded; at each late parting, he feels an ache in the area of an organ he heretofore could have sworn in Chancery did not exist in any Smallweed.

Jo, too, becomes fonder of his benefactor and often spends his afternoons of waiting picturing his "Nemmo" with imaginations so vivid he could almost swear the young gentleman was in the room with him. These dream-figures elicit from the boy much the same physical response as Nemmo himself, in the flesh, and are accordingly the occasion of much solitary frigging of his strong boyish root. Fortunately for both, the crossing-sweeper's youth carries with it concomitant powers of recuperation so that, by evening, the boy is more than ever ready for the night's entertainments.

This pretty picture might go on in its languid fashion forever. Yet a sense of being true to the tale impels us to further state the facts. That lightness of head which Jo first experienced in the streets the morning after his first encounter with his young benefactor will prove in time to be the first stirrings of an illness more dire than he could suppose, and of an especially dreary evening in late autumn, Mr. Smallweed will repair, after an unavoidable absence of a few days, to the inn, to find that the crossing-sweeper has gone.

The jovial inn-keeper is of no help in this matter, save for his observing that the boy had complained of ill feeling at breakfast one morning, had seemed worse at lunch, and by dinner-time refused all sustenance and, further, was seen and heard in a state of rather alarming paleness and abstraction of mind, and has not been seen for some two or three days, that no one has seen or heard of him since, and that, should the young gentleman's "cousin" return, rest assured that, for the requisite exchange of coinage which his upraised palm most apologetically demands, he will keep the youth in due comfort and viands.

Poor Bart! For he is not to know, nor never ascertain, what accounts for Jo's disappearance. We, however, must sadly report that the boy, demented by the onset of a fever more severe than he has guessed, will wander in sickness until his cause is, briefly, taken up by a gentle young woman of a home known to herself and her own benefactor as Bleak House.

Yet even her kind intentions will be for naught, for forces beyond her ken will conspire to remove the boy from the comfort into which she has placed him, and will at last end his days under the equally kind (yet, alas, equally unavailing) ministrations of the commander of a shooting-gallery.

It would no doubt alleviate some of the heaviness which long sits on Mr. Smallweed's heart, were we aware that such gentle considerations will be extended to his crossing-sweeper at the extremity of his illness and the end of his suffering. Equally, young Bart would perhaps find some comfort in knowing that Jo, at the end, has left this earth with a shining vision before his unseeing eyes of a proper final repose, vouchsafed him in his ultimate delirium by that same shooting-gallery proprietor, whose generosity of spirit readers of a certain imposing history of Bleak House itself will ascertain to their satisfaction.

Would that I might report a different, and more heartening, end to this curious saga of unexpected emotional and physical benefaction! If Bart but knew, he might be comforted, for despite his own initial and rather mercenary intentions, he alone has shown the poor Jo the greatest kindness and support the boy ever knew, and that, before he was permanently "moved on," and even in his final deliriums, it, and he, were ever-most on the mind and in the heart of the poor lad.

Whether Bart "moves on" from his strained and unresolved grief, whether he will find another such youth of like qualities (and, perhaps, if he is likely, better natural situation, which will more easily facilitate their continued union) I cannot say, for the author of that history to which I alluded before does not himself say. It will be pretty to imagine, however, that this is so, and that even should the young gentleman find such happiness as this, that he will never forget, no long cease to honor, the memory of the dirty, unkempt crossing-sweeper who gave him, for so brief a time, a measure of grace upon the earth. We will, I'm sure, persist in imagining that it is so, and being so, is right and confers upon Mr. Smallweed a generosity of spirit that does him far greater credit than he could know, and that, further, it is up to us, who share this history, to reflect upon the causes of such unhappiness of mind, body and spirit, and to devote ourselves to their alleviation and ultimate surrender.

I feel quite certain that you agree, and on that happy thought, end my story here.

--D.C. London, 1853.