"Is it possible that the gentleman is your husband?"
"Course 'e is. You put me into the boat 'long with 'im right away! Tom
and Joe, they're friends of 'is, but you ain't no friend of 'is, nor
yet of mine. I don't want to get into no trouble along o' you! Do you
'ear what I tell you, put me into 'is boat!"
"With the greatest possible pleasure."
But the thing was not so easy. The whole dozen were screaming at once,
and, judging by the threats they used, it seemed tolerably plain that
if I brought my craft within reach of theirs an attempt would be made
to board me, and there would be every probability of an awkward spill.
So, deeming discretion to be the better part of valour, I made for the
Surrey shore, intending to there land my passenger and restore her to
a--I trusted--fond, though excited, husband's arms. My intentions,
however, were misconstrued; they supposed I was running away, proposing
to save my skin from a drubbing instead of the lady's from a ducking,
so they started hotly in pursuit, their shouts redoubling. What was
worse, the lady thought so too, and commenced to give me a side of her
tongue which I trust, for his sake, it was her wont to spare her
husband.
I never was better abused; the bawling crew behind were good at the
game, but the ungrateful virago I had snipped was easily first. I grew
a trifle warm. If I was to be slanged I would be slanged for something.
I decided to give the husband a chase and the wife a little excursion.
It would have been easy enough to have shown a lead to the pursuing tub
until the end of time. I bent to the oars and let her have it. You
should have heard the hubbub. They saw that if I played that trick they
would never catch me, and how they raved! The joke was that my lady
passenger raved with the best of them--and her adjectives!
"Something, something, something you! If you don't put me into my
husband's somethinged boat, I'll spill the somethinged show!"
"Spill it."
For a moment I thought she would. Then she hesitated, reflected that
she not improbably might be left to drown, and didn't.
"I'll mark your face for you!" she screamed.
"If you move from your seat, my dear madam, I'll upset the show."
"Do!" she yelled. Then, as an afterthought, "'Elp! murder! police! 'E's
a-goin' to drown me!"
It seemed absurd to exhaust oneself for the sake of giving a pleasant
trip to a lady who would persist in shouting for the police in a voice
loud enough to be heard a mile away, especially as people on the
Twickenham shore evinced signs of misconstruing the situation. I
resolved, by way of vengeance, to concede what she wanted, and let the
pursuers catch us.
"My dear madam, as I have already informed you, nothing would give me
greater pleasure than to put you on board your husband's boat--I will
prove it."
Precisely what I expected happened. The lumbering tub came up. The
husband, with half a dozen of his friends, tried to board us. The frail
skiff careened. There was the crowd of us, including, thank goodness!
the lady passenger, in the stream. I had taken the precaution to draw
close into shore before staying my wild career, foreseeing the
inevitable catastrophe, so that it was only an affair of wading, yet I
do believe that I was the only one who really enjoyed the thing. I
doubt if the lady did. She swooned, or pretended to, directly she
reached dry land. As for her friends, the whole gallant gang would have
set on to me at once. But I will do her husband the justice to admit
that he was a man. He claimed the affair as his own, and he insisted on
taking it on as his own, and he took me on with it.
I had wanted a row royal and I had got it. Beanfeasting had not knocked
the fighting qualities out of him. If he was not a professional
pugilist he was a near relation. I can use them a bit, but he gave me
as good as I sent, and a trifle better. It was the difference between
the amateur and the professional; at his own game the tradesman always
wins. If we had fought to a finish I should have had enough, but we
didn't. A policeman came across the stream and stopped us. I had
escaped a black eye, but that was about all I had escaped. I had landed
a few, but they had been returned with interest. Twice had I been
fairly grassed, once with a tingler under the chin. I felt for a moment
as if I had swallowed every tooth in my head. I had the devout
satisfaction of knowing that my nervous system had received just that
fillip which it stood in need of.
"I'll have a lesson or two," I told myself, "from someone who can kill
me at sight, and the next time I meet my lady passenger's husband I
will do the grassing."
There's nothing like argument _a priori_ for clearing the air or
cobwebs from the brain. Do not talk to me of arbitration. I am a
physical force man. I returned to town feeling twice the man I left it.
A MEMBER OF THE ANTI-TOBACCO
LEAGUE
I
THE SIX CIGARS
Sunday morning. A cold wind blowing, slush in the streets, sleet
drizzling steadily down. For the moment the market was deserted. Not
because of the weather, wretched though the weather was, but because of
the excitement which was in the air.
A crowd buzzed about the entrance to the court. A crowd which grew
every second larger. A crowd which overflowed from the street itself,
so that its tributaries streamed into the network of lanes and of
alleys. An excited, a noisy, a shouting crowd. An angry crowd. A crowd
which gave utterance to its opinions at the top of its voice, in
language which was plain-spoken to a fault.
Jim Slater caught sight of a friend. He twisted himself round to shout
at him.
"Wot yer, Bill! That's another one he's done for--that makes seven!"
"It is true then? He 'as done it."
"Done it! I should think he 'as done it! Found the pore gal just as he
left 'er, lying up agin the wall, with 'er clothes over 'er 'ead, and
'er inside, wot 'e'd cut out, lying alongside--a 'orrid sight!"
"I'd like to 'ave the 'andlin'? of 'im!"
"'Andling of 'im! My Gawd!" A volley of expletives from Jim. "If I 'ad
the 'andling of 'im once I wouldn't want it twice. I'd cut the ---- up
for cat's meat!"
There was a chorus of approval from those who had heard. A woman's
voice rose above the hubbub; she shook her fist at the police who
guarded the entrance to the court.
"What's the good of you p'lice? You lets a chap carve us women up as if
we was cattle, and you never don't trouble yourselves to move a finger!
I'd be ashamed."
She was supported by a lady friend, a woman with a shawl over her head,
her hair streaming down her back; a woman who, evidently, had risen
hastily from bed.
"You're right, Polly! If a pore bloke steals a 'aporth o' fried
fish, they takes jolly good care, them slops, they runs him in, but
a ---- can do for as many of us gals as he ---- well chooses, and they
don't even trouble themselves to ketch 'im. Yah-h! I'd like to see him
do for some of them, I would--straight!"
From the crowd another loud-voiced chorus of approval. Jim Slater
formed a speaking-trumpet with his hands, and yelled,--
"Why don't yer ketch 'im?"