Dicky Lever was a hearty and not particularly intellectual youth of the
What ho! type (if you know what I mean). He was employed in some
capacity in a Government office, but his livelihood was not entirely
dependent on his exertions therein--which was, perhaps, fortunate, as
his sole claim to distinction in his Department lay in the fact of his
holding the record for the highest score at small cricket in the Junior
Secretaries' room. He was a member of the Leander Club, a more than
usually capable amateur actor, and a very good fellow all round.
The engagement was announced at the end of July, which is a busy time
for this country's legislators. The session was drawing to a close, and
we were passing Bills with a prodigality and despatch which provoked
many not altogether undeserved gibes from a reptile Opposition Press
concerning the devotion of his Majesty's Government to the worship of
Saint Grouse.
One night I brought Champion home to dinner between the afternoon and
evening sittings. At the latter he was to move the second reading of his
"Municipal Co-ordination Bill," a measure which was intended to grapple
with the chaos arising from the multitude of opposing or overlapping
interests that controlled the domestic arrangements of the Londoner. An
effort was to be made to bring all the Gas, Electricity, Water, Paving,
and other corporations into some sort of line, and prevent them from
getting into each other's way and adding to the expenses and
inconvenience of the much-enduring ratepayer. It was a useful little
Bill; but though everybody approved of it on principle, various powerful
interests were at work against it, and its prospects of getting through
Committee hung in the balance.
"Now, Mr Champion," said Dilly, who knew that a man always likes to be
questioned about his work, especially by a pretty girl, "what will your
Bill do for _us_? I have asked this person here,"--indicating her
_fiancé_,--"but he says parish-pump politics aren't in his department.
He licks stamps at the Foreign Office," she added in explanation.
"Tell her, Champion," said Dicky. "Out of my line altogether. Takes me
all my time to keep an eye on those Johnnies in the Concert of Europe."
"I will tell you one thing the Bill will do, Miss Dilly," said Champion,
a little heavily. (Dolly once said of him, "He's awfully clever and able
and all that, but he hasn't got a light hand for conversational
pastry.") "How many times have you noticed the streets up about here
this year?"
"Heaps," said Dilly.
"They have hardly ever been down," corroborated Dolly.
"Let me see," continued Dilly. "Our side of the Square was repaved in
January. Directly after that they took it up again and did something to
the drains."
"In March they opened it again to lay down an electric light main," said
I.
"In April something burst," said Dolly, "and that meant more men with
wigwams and braziers."
"And last month," concluded Dilly, "they took away the wood pavement and
relaid the whole Square with some new patent asphalte, which smelt
simply, oh----"
"Rotten!" supplied Gerald. (Have I mentioned that he had just arrived
home for his summer holiday?)
"Well," said Champion, "the Bill would regulate that sort of thing. It
would protect the streets from being torn up at will by any Company who
happened to have business underneath them. As things are, practically
any one may come along and hew holes anywhere he pleases."
"The police ought to stop it," said Kitty, who has a profound belief in
the Force. (I am convinced that if Beelzebub himself were to enter the
house at any time during my absence, Kitty would lure him into the
dining-room with the sherry, and then telephone for a constable.)
"The police have no right," said Champion. "If a gas company choose to
give notice that they intend on a certain day to come and burrow in a
road, all the police can do is to divert the traffic, and make the gas
company as comfortable as possible."
I was not following this conversation with any particular interest.
Being expected to speak in favour of the Bill that night, I was
undergoing the preliminary anguish which invariably attends my higher
oratorical efforts. But I remember now that about this time Dilly
suddenly turned to Dicky and whispered something in his ear. Then they
both looked across the dinner-table at Robin, who nodded, as who should
say, "I know fine what you whispered then." After that they all three
laughed and looked down the table at Champion, who was still expatiating
on the merits of his Bill.
I suppose anybody else would have divined what was in the wind, but I
did not.
* * * * *
A week later we were treated to an all-night sitting. The Irishmen had
been quiescent of late, but on this occasion they made amends for their
temporary relaxation of patriotism by resolutely obstructing an
Appropriation Bill, which had to pass through Committee that night (if
John Bull was to have any ready cash at all during the next few months),
and kept us replying to amendments and trotting through division-lobbies
until six o'clock next morning.
Robin stayed on in attendance at the House most of the night, but about
three o'clock I sent him home, with instructions to stay in bed till
tea-time if he pleased. He had had a hard time lately.
I was walking homeward in the early sunshine, marvelling, as people who
accidentally find themselves up early pharisaically do, at the fatuity
of those who waste the best hours of the whole day in bed, and revelling
in the near prospect of a bath and my breakfast, when on turning a
corner I walked into a hand-cart which was standing across the pavement.
It contained workmen's tools--picks, shovels, and the like. On the near
side of the roadway a man was erecting one of those curious wigwam
arrangements which screen the operations of electricians and other
subterranean burrowers from the public gaze. A dirty-faced small boy in
corduroys was tending a brazier of live coals, upon which some breakfast
cans were steaming. Between the wigwam and the pavement a gigantic navvy
was hewing wooden paving-blocks out of the roadway.
The spectacle did not attract my interest specially, as this particular
piece of street had been eviscerated so often that I had grown callous
to its sufferings. But I paused for a moment to survey the big navvy's
muscles, and to wonder how early in the morning it would be necessary to
rise in order to catch a small boy with a clean face. The navvy was a
fine specimen of humanity, with a complexion tanned a dusky coffee
colour.
I was reflecting on the joys of the simple life and the futility of
politics and other indoor pastimes in general, when the big man rose
from his stooping posture and caught my eye. He appeared a little
disconcerted by my scrutiny, and turned his back and renewed his
exertions with increased vigour, favouring me hereafter with what
architects call a "south elevation" of himself.
I went home to breakfast, wondering where I had seen the big navvy's
back before. I mentioned casually to Kitty and the Twins that Goring
Street was up again. They wondered how the management of the Goring
Hotel liked it, with that mess under their very windows, and agreed with
me that it was high time Champion's Bill, due for its Third Reading
to-morrow, became law.
I stayed in bed till lunch-time, and then, rather late in the afternoon,
set out for the House, which I knew I should find in an extremely limp
condition after its previous night's dissipation. On the way I called in
at the Goring Hotel in Goring Street, where Champion lived when in town.
I found him in his room on the first floor, gazing out of the window
into the street.
I looked out too, to see what was interesting him. Directly below us lay
the encampment of the workmen whom I had seen in the morning. They had
hewed up a few yards of the wood pavement, and the smaller of the two
men was now immersed up to his waist in a hole, working rather
laboriously in the restricted space at his command with a pick-axe. The
boy was piling wooden blocks into a neat heap, and the big man, whose
form was only partially visible, was doing something inside the wigwam.
The roadway was more than half blocked, and cabs and omnibuses, in
charge of overheated and eloquent drivers, were being filtered through
the narrow space left at their disposal by a phlegmatic policeman.
"Look here," said Champion.