HE FINDS MUCH QUAINT ENGLISH FLAVOR
Big wharves, all right. England sure is queen of the sea, heh? Busy
town, Liverpool. But, say, there is a quaint English flavor to these
shops…. Look at that: ‘Red Lion Inn.’… ‘Overhead trams’ they call the
elevated. Real flavor, all right. English as can be…. I sure like to
wander around these little shops. Street crowd. That’s where you get
the real quaint flavor.”
Thus Morton, to the glowing Mr. Wrenn, as they turned into St. George’s
Square, noting the Lipton’s Tea establishment. _Sir_ Thomas
Lipton—wasn’t he a friend of the king? Anyway, he was some kind of a
lord, and he owned big society racing-yachts.
In the grandiose square Mr. Wrenn prayerfully remarked, “Gee!”
“Greek temple. Fine,” agreed Morton.
“That’s St. George’s Hall, where they have big organ concerts,”
explained Mr. Wrenn. “And there’s the art-gallery across the Square,
and here’s the Lime Street Station.” He had studied his Baedeker as
club women study the cyclopedia. “Let’s go over and look at the
trains.”
“Funny little boxes, ain’t they, Wrenn, them cars! Quaint things. What
is it they call ’em—carriages? First, second, third class….”
“Just like in books.”
“Booking-office. That’s tickets…. Funny, eh?”
Mr. Wrenn insisted on paying for both their high teas at the cheap
restaurant, timidly but earnestly. Morton was troubled. As they sat on
a park bench, smoking those most Anglican cigarettes, “Dainty Bits,”
Mr. Wrenn begged:
“What’s the matter, old man?”
“Oh, nothing. Just thinking.” Morton smiled artificially. He added,
presently: “Well, old Bill, got to make the break. Can’t go on living
on you this way.”
“Aw, thunder! You ain’t living on me. Besides, I want you to. Honest I
do. We can have a whole lot better time together, Morty.”
“Yes, but—Nope; I can’t do it. Nice of you. Can’t do it, though. Got to
go on my own, like the fellow says.”
“Aw, come on. Look here; it’s my money, ain’t it? I got a right to
spend it the way I want to, haven’t I? Aw, come on. We’ll bum along
together, and then when the money is gone we’ll get some kind of job
together. Honest, I want you to.”
“Hunka. Don’t believe you’d care for the kind of knockabout jobs I’ll
have to get.”
“Sure I would. Aw, come on, Morty. I—”
“You’re too level-headed to like to bum around like a fool hobo. You’d
dam soon get tired of it.”
“What if I did? Morty, look here. I’ve been learning something on this
trip. I’ve always wanted to just do one thing—see foreign places. Well,
I want to do that just as much as ever. But there’s something that’s a
whole lot more important. Somehow, I ain’t ever had many friends. Some
ways you’re about the best friend I’ve ever had—you ain’t neither too
highbrow or too lowbrow. And this friendship business—it means such an
awful lot. It’s like what I was reading about—something by Elbert
Hubbard or—thunder, I can’t remember his name, but, anyway, it’s one of
those poet guys that writes for the back page of the
_Journal_—something about a _joyous adventure_. That’s what being
friends is. Course you understand I wouldn’t want to say this to most
people, but you’ll understand how I mean. It’s—this friendship business
is just like those old crusaders— you know—they’d start out on a fine
morning—you know; armor shining, all that stuff. It wouldn’t make any
dif. what they met as long as they was fighting together. Rainy nights
with folks sneaking through the rain to get at ’em, and all sorts of
things— ready for anything, long as they just stuck together. That’s
the way this friendship business is, I b’lieve. Just like it said in
the _Journal_. Yump, sure is. Gee! it’s—Chance to tell folks what you
think and really get some fun out of seeing places together. And I
ain’t ever done it much. Course I don’t mean to say I’ve been living
off on any blooming desert island all my life, but, just the same, I’ve
always been kind of alone—not knowing many folks. You know how it is in
a New York rooming-house. So now—Aw, don’t slip up on me, Morty.
Honestly, I don’t care what kind of work we do as long as we can stick
together; I don’t care a hang if we don’t get anything better to do
than scrub floors!”
Morton patted his arm and did not answer for a while. Then:
“Yuh, I know how you mean. And it’s good of you to like beating it
around with me. But you sure got the exaggerated idee of me. And you’d
get sick of the holes I’m likely to land in.”
There was a certain pride which seemed dreadfully to shut Mr. Wrenn out
as Morton added:
“Why, man, I’m going to do all of Europe. From the Turkish jails to—oh,
St. Petersburg…. You made good on the _Merian_, all right. But you do
like things shipshape.”
“Oh, I’d—”
“We might stay friends if we busted up now and met in New York again.
But not if you get into all sorts of bum places w—”
“Why, look here, Morty—”
“—with me…. However, I’ll think it over. Let’s not talk about it till
to-morrow.”
“Oh, please do think it over, Morty, old man, won’t you? And to-night
you’ll let me take you to a music-hall, won’t you?”
“Uh—yes,” Morton hesitated.
A music-hall—not mere vaudeville! Mr. Wrenn could hardly keep his feet
on the pavement as they scampered to it and got ninepenny seats. He
would have thought it absurd to pay eighteen cents for a ticket, but
pence—They were out at nine-thirty. Happily tired, Mr. Wrenn suggested
that they go to a temperance hotel at his expense, for he had read in
Baedeker that temperance hotels were respectable—also cheap.
“No, no!” frowned Morton. “Tell you what you do, Bill. You go to a
hotel, and I’ll beat it down to a lodging-house on Duke Street…. Juke
Street!… Remember how I ran onto Pete on the street? He told me you
could get a cot down there for fourpence.”
“Aw, come on to a hotel. Please do! It ’d just hurt me to think of you
sleeping in one of them holes. I wouldn’t sleep a bit if—”
“Say, for the love of Mike, Wrenn, get wise! Get wise, son! I’m not
going to sponge on you, and that’s all there is to it.”
Bill Wrenn strode into their company for a minute, and quoth the
terrible Bill:
“Well, you don’t need to get so sore about it. I don’t go around asking
folks can I give ’em a meal ticket all the time, let me tell you, and
when I do—Oh rats! Say, I didn’t mean to get huffy, Morty. But, doggone
you, old man, you can’t shake me this easy. I sye, old top, I’m peeved;
yessir. We’ll go Dutch to a lodging-house, or even walk the streets.”
“All right, sir; all right. I’ll take you up on that. We’ll sleep in an
areaway some place.”
They walked to the outskirts of Liverpool, questing the desirable dark
alley. Awed by the solid quietude and semigrandeur of the large private
estates, through narrow streets where dim trees leaned over high walls
whose long silent stretches were broken only by mysterious little
doors, they tramped bashfully, inspecting, but always rejecting, nooks
by lodge gates.
They came to a stone church with a porch easily reached from the
street, a large and airy stone porch, just suited, Morton declared, “to
a couple of hoboes like us. If a bobby butts in, why, we’ll just slide
under them seats. Then the bobby can go soak his head.”
Mr. Wrenn had never so far defied society as to steal a place for
sleeping. He felt very uneasy, like a man left naked on the street by
robbers, as he rolled up his coat for a pillow and removed his shoes in
a place that was perfectly open to the street. The paved floor was cold
to his bare feet, and, as he tried to go to sleep, it kept getting
colder and colder to his back. Reaching out his hand, he fretfully
rubbed the cracks between stones. He scowled up at the ceiling of the
porch. He couldn’t bear to look out through the door, for it framed the
vicar’s house, with lamplight bodying forth latticed windows,
suggesting soft beds and laughter and comfortable books. All the while
his chilled back was aching in new places.
He sprang up, put on his shoes, and paced the churchyard. It seemed a
great waste of educational advantages not to study the tower of this
foreign church, but he thought much more about his aching
shoulder-blades.
Morton came from the porch stiff but grinning. “Didn’t like it much,
eh, Bill? Afraid you wouldn’t. Must say I didn’t either, though. Well,
come on. Let’s beat it around and see if we can’t find a better place.”
In a vacant lot they discovered a pile of hay. Mr. Wrenn hardly winced
at the hearty slap Morton gave his back, and he pronounced, “Some
Waldorf-Astoria, that stack!” as they sneaked into the lot. They had
laid loving hands upon the hay, remarking, “Well, I _guess!_” when they
heard from a low stable at the very back of the lot:
“I say, you chaps, what are you doing there?”
A reflective carter, who had been twisting two straws, ambled out of
the shadow of the stable and prepared to do battle.
“Say, old man, can’t we sleep in your hay just to-night?” argued
Morton. “We’re Americans. Came over on a cattle-boat. We ain’t got only
enough money to last us for food,” while Mr. Wrenn begged, “Aw, please
let us.”
“Oh! You’re Americans, are you? You seem decent enough. I’ve got a
brother in the States. He used to own this stable with me. In St.
Cloud, Minnesota, he is, you know. Minnesota’s some kind of a shire.
Either of you chaps been in Minnesota?”
“Sure,” lied Morton; “I’ve hunted bear there.”
“Oh, I say, bear now! My brother’s never written m—”
“Oh, that was way up in the northern part, in the Big Woods. I’ve had
some narrow escapes.”
Then Morton, who had never been west of Pittsburg, sang somewhat in
this wise the epic of the hunting he had never done:
Alone. Among the pines. Dead o’ winter. Only one shell in his rifle.
Cold of winter. Snow—deep snow. Snow-shoes. Hiking along—reg’lar
mushing—packing grub to the lumber-camp. Way up near the Canadian
border. Cold, terrible cold. Stars looked like little bits of steel.
Mr. Wrenn thought he remembered the story. He had read it in a
magazine. Morton was continuing:
Snow stretched out among the pines. He was wearing a Mackinaw and
shoe-packs. Saw a bear loping along. He had—Morton had—a .44-.40
Marlin, but only one shell. Thrust the muzzle of his rifle right into
the bear’s mouth. Scared for a minute. Almost fell off his snow-shoes.
Hardest thing he ever did, to pull that trigger. Fired. Bear sort of
jumped at him, then rolled over, clawing. Great place, those Minnesota
Big—
“What’s a shoe-pack?” the Englishman stolidly interjected.
“Kind of a moccasin…. Great place, those woods. Hope your brother gets
the chance to get up there.”
“I say, I wonder did you ever meet him? Scrabble is his name, Jock
Scrabble.”
“Jock Scrabble—no, but _say!_ By golly, there was a fellow up in the
Big Woods that came from St. Cl—St. Cloud? Yes, that was it. He was
telling us about the town. I remember he said your brother had great
chances there.”
The Englishman meditatively accepted a bad cigar from Mr. Wrenn.
Suddenly: “You chaps can sleep in the stable-loft if you’d like. But
you must blooming well stop smoking.”
So in the dark odorous hay-mow Mr. Wrenn stretched out his legs with an
affectionate “good night” to Morton. He slept nine hours. When he
awoke, at the sound of a chain clanking in the stable below, Morton was
gone. This note was pinned to his sleeve:
DEAR OLD MAN,—I still feel sure that you will not enjoy the hiking.
Bumming is not much fun for most people, I don’t think, even if they
say it is. I do not want to live on you. I always did hate to graft on
people. So I am going to beat it off alone. But I hope I will see you
in N Y & we will enjoy many a good laugh together over our trip. If you
will phone the P. R. R. you can find out when I get back & so on. As I
do not know what your address will be. Please look me up & I hope you
will have a good trip.
Yours truly,
HARRY P. MORTON.
Mr. Wrenn lay listening to the unfriendly rattling of the chain harness
below for a long time. When he crawled languidly down from the hay-loft
he glowered in a manner which was decidedly surly even for Bill Wrenn
at a middle-aged English stranger who was stooping over a cow’s hoof in
a stall facing the ladder.
“Wot you doing here?” asked the Englishman, raising his head and
regarding Mr. Wrenn as a housewife does a cockroach in the salad-bowl.
Mr. Wrenn was bored. This seemed a very poor sort of man; a bloated
Cockney, with a dirty neck-cloth, vile cuffs of grayish black, and a
waistcoat cut foolishly high.
“The owner said I could sleep here,” he snapped.
“Ow. ’E did, did ’e? ’E ayn’t been giving you any of the perishin’
’osses, too, ’as ’e?”
It was sturdy old Bill Wrenn who snarled, “Oh, shut up!” Bill didn’t
feel like standing much just then. He’d punch this fellow as he’d
punched Pete, as soon as not—or even sooner.
“Ow…. It’s shut up, is it?… I’ve ’arf a mind to set the ’tecs on you,
but I’m lyte. I’ll just ’it you on the bloody nowse.”
Bill Wrenn stepped off the ladder and squared at him. He was sorry that
the Cockney was smaller than Pete.
The Cockney came over, feinted in an absent-minded manner, made swift
and confusing circles with his left hand, and hit Bill Wrenn on the
aforesaid bloody nose, which immediately became a bleeding nose. Bill
Wrenn felt dizzy and, sitting on a grain-sack, listened amazedly to the
Cockney’s apologetic:
“I’m sorry I ayn’t got time to ’ave the law on you, but I could spare
time to ’it you again.”
Bill shook the blood from his nose and staggered at the Cockney, who
seized his collar, set him down outside the stable with a jarring bump,
and walked away, whistling:
“Come, oh come to our Sunday-school,
Ev-v-v-v-v-v-ry Sunday morn-ing.”
“Gee!” mourned Mr. William Wrenn, “and I thought I was getting this
hobo business down pat…. Gee! I wonder if Pete _was_ so hard to lick?”