I have four milk-boys as pets. They don't know it, but I cultivate an
intimate knowledge of their habits and study them as, once, years ago, I
was wont to study white mice and goldfish. I have watched their
development, listened to their song, and have made several interesting
discoveries about them.
When, after a hard evening's reading, perhaps, I jot down a few notes
and tumble into bed at 1 A.M., I do so with the delightful certainty
that at 6.30 the first of my pets will rouse me with his mellow
warbling. He (Number One) looks always on the bright side of things and
probably belongs to a club for incurable optimists, for he intersperses
his roulades with cheery spells of whistling. Should Number Two, who is
a pal of his, loom through the early morning mist with the lark and the
first motor-bus at the other end of the Terrace, no false modesty deters
him from making himself known; he gives a view-halloo that startles
every drooping cat in the district. He informs Number Two, while that
person is yet nebulous, a mere blur on the cosmos, that he went to the
local Empire last night, and that it was a bit of all right. With an
intermittent rumble he elicits the information that Geor-r-rge (that's
Number Two's name) went to his local Palace and had a treat of a beano.
And when they meet--exactly opposite my dwelling is the favoured
spot--the Can-can is performed with variations. Jolly fellows are One
and Two.
As for Number Three, I could tell you a little story about him. He has
had a love-affair. There was a time when he too joined in the dance and
song, as one might say; but all that is over for him. One morning he
turned up late, his usual merry call changed to a croak like that of a
bull-frog virtuoso. I peered between the curtains to make sure that it
was not Number Five (as yet hypothetical); but no--it was Three, with a
look on his face that could only bear one interpretation. Belinda had
been perverse, unkind, icy--had, in fact, thrown him over. You could
read it in the angle of his cap, in the broken lace dragging from his
boots, in his shuffling progress, and in the dulled gleam of his
brass-mounted cans. From that date he became a frowning pessimist,
perpetrating wheezes and squeaks and mumblings, quaverings and hoarse
murmurs, instead of the customary sportive yelp. 'Tis an unkind world,
according to Number Three.
Number Four generally arrives as the lingering chatter of his
predecessors dies away. He is rotund, judging by his voice (I have not
yet seen him); also I should say that he goes in for physical culture.
For, by the sounds that ascend to my window, his procedure is as
follows: he unhooks the empty can from the railings of the opposite
house and dashes it violently upward against the wall, catching it on
the rebound. This action he repeats a few times just to get into form;
it is, as it were, a muscular prelude. Then, taking seven or eight empty
tins from his trolley, he juggles with them, not very expertly, for some
of them break away into neighbouring areas and have to be retrieved; or
he will set the whole lot in the road and kick them round for five
minutes, brilliantly and wonderfully. This warms him. Picking them up,
he spends a relatively quiet interlude in sorting out the one he wants,
then fills it, bangs the lid down, and rehangs it in position. Having
repeated the process with the remainder, he glows with a sense of duty
done, and bursts into his farewell song; I often wish that it was his
swan-song. He produces in this vocal valediction noises which to the
ears of a Futurist composer might seem as Olympian music, but which to
my insufficiently educated taste are merely excruciating.
These, then are my four pets. I value them, for they teach me
self-denial and self-restraint; they rouse me at an hour when I might
otherwise be lost in slothful sleep; and they assure me that there is a
sphere in which taxes and politics really do not matter in the
slightest. Some day, I suppose, they will grow up. What will become of
their talents in the world of men it is beyond me to imagine. But Number
Four seems to have the makings of a politician.
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[Illustration: The Browns have taken the advice of the railways and
newspapers to "go early" for their seaside holidays.]
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