one o'clock
I do assure _ you _ , '' said Dick , striking the table with his fist in his enthusiasm , so that the crockery jumped , and some of the children almost choked by reason of their food going down what they styled their `` wrong throats '' -- `` I do assure _ you _ , that it would ` ave done yer ` art good to ` ave seed 'm , as I did the day I went there , so clean and comf ` r ` able and ` appy -- no mistake about that . Their ` appiness was genoo _ ine _ . Wot made it come ` ome to me was , that I seed there a little boy as I ` appened to know was one o ' the dirtiest , wickedest , sharpest little willains in London -- a mere spider to look at , but with mischief enough to fill a six-fut man to bu ` stin ' -- an ' there ` ee was , clean an ' jolly , larnin ' his lessons like a good un -- an ' no sham neither , cos ` e 'd got a good spice o ' the mischief left , as was pretty clear from the way ` ee gave a sly pinch or pull o ' the hair now an ' again to the boys next him , an ' drawed monkey-faces on his slate . But that spider , I wos told , could do figurin ' like one o'clock , an ' could spell like Johnson 's Dictionairy . `` Well , '' continued Dick , after a few moments ' devotion to a bowl of coffee , `` I ` anded Billy Towler over to the superintendent , tellin ' ` im ` ee wos a ` omeless boy as ` ad n't got no parients nor relations , an wos werry much in need o ' bein ' looked arter . So ` ee took ` im in , an ' I bade him good-bye . '' Dick Moy then went on to tell how that the superintendent of the Grotto showed him all over the place , and told him numerous anecdotes regarding the boys who had been trained there ; that one had gone into the army and become a sergeant , and had written many long interesting letters to the institution , which he still loved as being his early and only `` home ; '' that another had become an artilleryman ; another a man-of-war 's man ; and another a city missionary , who commended the blessed gospel of Jesus Christ to those very outcasts from among whom he had himself been plucked .