He got in at Ipswich with seven different weekly papers under his arm. I
noticed that each one insured its reader against death or injury by
railway accident. He arranged his luggage upon the rack above him, took
off his hat and laid it on the seat beside him, mopped his bald head with
a red silk handkerchief, and then set to work steadily to write his name
and address upon each of the seven papers. I sat opposite to him and
read _Punch_. I always take the old humour when travelling; I find it
soothing to the nerves.
Passing over the points at Manningtree the train gave a lurch, and a
horse-shoe he had carefully placed in the rack above him slipped through
the netting, falling with a musical ring upon his head.
He appeared neither surprised nor angry. Having staunched the wound with
his handkerchief, he stooped and picked the horse-shoe up, glanced at it
with, as I thought, an expression of reproach, and dropped it gently out
of the window.
"Did it hurt you?" I asked.
It was a foolish question. I told myself so the moment I had uttered it.
The thing must have weighed three pounds at the least; it was an
exceptionally large and heavy shoe. The bump on his head was swelling
visibly before my eyes. Anyone but an idiot must have seen that he was
hurt. I expected an irritable reply. I should have given one myself had
I been in his place. Instead, however, he seemed to regard the inquiry
as a natural and kindly expression of sympathy.
"It did, a little," he replied.
"What were you doing with it?" I asked. It was an odd sort of thing for
a man to be travelling with.
"It was lying in the roadway just outside the station," he explained; "I
picked it up for luck."
He refolded his handkerchief so as to bring a cooler surface in contact
with the swelling, while I murmured something genial about the
inscrutability of Providence.
"Yes," he said, "I've had a deal of luck in my time, but it's never
turned out well."
"I was born on a Wednesday," he continued, "which, as I daresay you know,
is the luckiest day a man can be born on. My mother was a widow, and
none of my relatives would do anything for me. They said it would be
like taking coals to Newcastle, helping a boy born on a Wednesday; and my
uncle, when he died, left every penny of his money to my brother Sam, as
a slight compensation to him for having been born on a Friday. All I
ever got was advice upon the duties and responsibilities of wealth, when
it arrived, and entreaties that I would not neglect those with claims
upon me when I came to be a rich man."
He paused while folding up his various insurance papers and placing them
in the inside breast-pocket of his coat.
"Then there are black cats," he went on; "they're said to be lucky. Why,
there never was a blacker cat than the one that followed me into my rooms
in Bolsover Street the very first night I took them."
"Didn't it bring you luck?" I enquired, finding that he had stopped.
A far-away look came into his eyes.
"Well, of course it all depends," he answered dreamily. "Maybe we'd
never have suited one another; you can always look at it that way. Still,
I'd like to have tried."
He sat staring out of the window, and for a while I did not care to
intrude upon his evidently painful memories.
"What happened then?" I asked, however, at last.
He roused himself from his reverie.
"Oh," he said. "Nothing extraordinary. She had to leave London for a
time, and gave me her pet canary to take charge of while she was away."
"But it wasn't your fault," I urged.
"No, perhaps not," he agreed; "but it created a coldness which others
were not slow to take advantage of."
"I offered her the cat, too," he added, but more to himself than to me.
We sat and smoked in silence. I felt that the consolations of a stranger
would sound weak.
"Piebald horses are lucky, too," he observed, knocking the ashes from his
pipe against the window sash. "I had one of them once."
"What did it do to you?" I enquired.
"Lost me the best crib I ever had in my life," was the simple rejoinder.
"The governor stood it a good deal longer than I had any right to expect;
but you can't keep a man who is _always_ drunk. It gives a firm a bad
name."
"It would," I agreed.
"You see," he went on, "I never had the head for it. To some men it
would not have so much mattered, but the very first glass was enough to
upset me. I'd never been used to it."
"But why did you take it?" I persisted. "The horse didn't make you
drink, did he?"
"Well, it was this way," he explained, continuing to rub gently the lump
which was now about the size of an egg. "The animal had belonged to a
gentleman who travelled in the wine and spirit line, and who had been
accustomed to visit in the way of business almost every public-house he
came to. The result was you couldn't get that little horse past a public-
house--at least I couldn't. He sighted them a quarter of a mile off, and
made straight for the door. I struggled with him at first, but it was
five to ten minutes' work getting him away, and folks used to gather
round and bet on us. I think, maybe, I'd have stuck to it, however, if
it hadn't been for a temperance chap who stopped one day and lectured the
crowd about it from the opposite side of the street. He called me
Pilgrim, and said the little horse was 'Pollion,' or some such name, and
kept on shouting out that I was to fight him for a heavenly crown. After
that they called us "Polly and the Pilgrim, fighting for the crown." It
riled me, that did, and at the very next house at which he pulled up I
got down and said I'd come for two of Scotch. That was the beginning. It
took me years to break myself of the habit.
"But there," he continued, "it has always been the same. I hadn't been a
fortnight in my first situation before my employer gave me a goose
weighing eighteen pounds as a Christmas present."
"Well, that couldn't have done you any harm," I remarked. "That was
lucky enough."
"So the other clerks said at the time," he replied. "The old gentleman
had never been known to give anything away before in his life. 'He's
taken a fancy to you,' they said; 'you are a lucky beggar!'"
He sighed heavily. I felt there was a story attached.
"What did you do with it?" I asked.
"That was the trouble," he returned. "I didn't know what to do with it.
It was ten o'clock on Christmas Eve, just as I was leaving, that he gave
it to me. 'Tiddling Brothers have sent me a goose, Biggles,' he said to
me as I helped him on with his great-coat. 'Very kind of 'em, but I
don't want it myself; you can have it!'
"Of course I thanked him, and was very grateful. He wished me a merry
Christmas and went out. I tied the thing up in brown paper, and took it
under my arm. It was a fine bird, but heavy.
"Under all the circumstances, and it being Christmas time, I thought I
would treat myself to a glass of beer. I went into a quiet little house
at the corner of the Lane and laid the goose on the counter.
"'That's a big 'un,' said the landlord; 'you'll get a good cut off him to-
morrow.'
"His words set me thinking, and for the first time it struck me that I
didn't want the bird--that it was of no use to me at all. I was going
down to spend the holidays with my young lady's people in Kent."
"Was this the canary young lady?" I interrupted.
"No," he replied. "This was before that one. It was this goose I'm
telling you of that upset this one. Well, her folks were big farmers; it
would have been absurd taking a goose down to them, and I knew no one in
London to give it to, so when the landlord came round again I asked him
if he would care to buy it. I told him he could have it cheap.
"'I don't want it myself,' he answered. 'I've got three in the house
already. Perhaps one of these gentlemen would like to make an offer.'
"He turned to a couple of chaps who were sitting drinking gin. They
didn't look to me worth the price of a chicken between them. The
seediest said he'd like to look at it, however, and I undid the parcel.
He mauled the thing pretty considerably, and cross-examined me as to how
I come by it, ending by upsetting half a tumbler of gin and water over
it. Then he offered me half a crown for it. It made me so angry that I
took the brown paper and the string in one hand and the goose in the
other, and walked straight out without saying a word.
"I carried it in this way for some distance, because I was excited and
didn't care how I carried it; but as I cooled, I began to reflect how
ridiculous I must look. One or two small boys evidently noticed the same
thing. I stopped under a lamp-post and tried to tie it up again. I had
a bag and an umbrella with me at the same time, and the first thing I did
was to drop the goose into the gutter, which is just what I might have
expected to do, attempting to handle four separate articles and three
yards of string with one pair of hands. I picked up about a quart of mud
with that goose, and got the greater part of it over my hands and clothes
and a fair quantity over the brown paper; and then it began to rain.
"I bundled everything up into my arm and made for the nearest pub, where
I thought I would ask for a piece more string and make a neat job of it.
"The bar was crowded. I pushed my way to the counter and flung the goose
down in front of me. The men nearest stopped talking to look at it; and
a young fellow standing next to me said--
"'Well, you've killed it.' I daresay I did seem a bit excited.
"I had intended making another effort to sell it here, but they were
clearly not the right sort. I had a pint of ale--for I was feeling
somewhat tired and hot--scraped as much of the mud off the bird as I
could, made a fresh parcel of it, and came out.
"Crossing the road a happy idea occurred to me. I thought I would raffle
it. At once I set to work to find a house where there might seem to be a
likely lot. It cost me three or four whiskies--for I felt I didn't want
any more beer, which is a thing that easily upsets me--but at length I
found just the crowd I wanted--a quiet domestic-looking set in a homely
little place off the Goswell Road.
"I explained my views to the landlord. He said he had no objection; he
supposed I would stand drinks round afterwards. I said I should be
delighted to do so, and showed him the bird.
"'It looks a bit poorly,' he said. He was a Devonshire man.
"'Oh, that's nothing,' I explained. 'I happened to drop it. That will
all wash off.'
"'It smells a bit queer, too,' he said.
"'That's mud,' I answered; 'you know what London mud is. And a gentleman
spilled some gin over it. Nobody will notice that when it's cooked.'
"'Well,' he replied. 'I don't think I'll take a hand myself, but if any
other gent likes to, that's his affair.'
"Nobody seemed enthusiastic. I started it at sixpence, and took a ticket
myself. The potman had a free chance for superintending the
arrangements, and he succeeded in inducing five other men, much against
their will, to join us. I won it myself, and paid out three and twopence
for drinks. A solemn-looking individual who had been snoring in a corner
suddenly woke up as I was going out, and offered me sevenpence ha'penny
for it--why sevenpence ha'penny I have never been able to understand. He
would have taken it away, I should never have seen it again, and my whole
life might have been different. But Fate has always been against me. I
replied, with perhaps unnecessary hauteur, that I wasn't a Christmas
dinner fund for the destitute, and walked out.
"It was getting late, and I had a long walk home to my lodgings. I was
beginning to wish I had never seen the bird. I estimated its weight by
this time to be thirty-six pounds.
"The idea occurred to me to sell it to a poulterer. I looked for a shop,
I found one in Myddleton Street. There wasn't a customer near it, but by
the way the man was shouting you might have thought that he was doing all
the trade of Clerkenwell. I took the goose out of the parcel and laid it
on the shelf before him.
"'What's this?' he asked.
"'It's a goose,' I said. 'You can have it cheap.'
"He just seized the thing by the neck and flung it at me. I dodged, and
it caught the side of my head. You can have no idea, if you've never
been hit on the head with a goose, how if hurts. I picked it up and hit
him back with it, and a policeman came up with the usual, 'Now then,
what's all this about?'
"I explained the facts. The poulterer stepped to the edge of the curb
and apostrophised the universe generally.
"'Look at that shop,' he said. 'It's twenty minutes to twelve, and
there's seven dozen geese hanging there that I'm willing to give away,
and this fool asks me if I want to buy another.'
"I perceived then that my notion had been a foolish one, and I followed
the policeman's advice, and went away quietly, taking the bird with me.
"Then said I to myself, 'I will give it away. I will select some poor
deserving person, and make him a present of the damned thing.' I passed
a good many people, but no one looked deserving enough. It may have been
the time or it may have been the neighbourhood, but those I met seemed to
me to be unworthy of the bird. I offered it to a man in Judd Street, who
I thought appeared hungry. He turned out to be a drunken ruffian. I
could not make him understand what I meant, and he followed me down the
road abusing me at the top of his voice, until, turning a corner without
knowing it, he plunged down Tavistock Place, shouting after the wrong
man. In the Euston Road I stopped a half-starved child and pressed it
upon her. She answered 'Not me!' and ran away. I heard her calling
shrilly after me, 'Who stole the goose?'
"I dropped it in a dark part of Seymour Street. A man picked it up and
brought it after me. I was unequal to any more explanations or
arguments. I gave him twopence and plodded on with it once more. The
pubs were just closing, and I went into one for a final drink. As a
matter of fact I had had enough already, being, as I am, unaccustomed to
anything more than an occasional class of beer. But I felt depressed,
and I thought it might cheer me. I think I had gin, which is a thing I
loathe.
"I meant to fling it over into Oakley Square, but a policeman had his eye
on me, and followed me twice round the railings. In Golding Road I
sought to throw it down an area, but was frustrated in like manner. The
whole night police of London seemed to have nothing else to do but
prevent my getting rid of that goose.
"They appeared so anxious about it that I fancied they might like to have
it. I went up to one in Camden Street. I called him 'Bobby,' and asked
him if he wanted a goose.
"'I'll tell you what I don't want,' he replied severely, 'and that is
none of your sauce.'
"He was very insulting, and I naturally answered him back. What actually
passed I forget, but it ended in his announcing his intention of taking
me in charge.
"I slipped out of his hands and bolted down King Street. He blew his
whistle and started after me. A man sprang out from a doorway in College
Street and tried to stop me. I tied him up with a butt in the stomach,
and cut through the Crescent, doubling back into the Camden Road by Batt
Street.
"At the Canal Bridge I looked behind me, and could see no one. I dropped
the goose over the parapet, and it fell with a splash into the water.
"Heaving a sigh of relief, I turned and crossed into Randolph Street, and
there a constable collared me. I was arguing with him when the first
fool came up breathless. They told me I had better explain the matter to
the Inspector, and I thought so too.
"The Inspector asked me why I had run away when the other constable
wanted to take me in charge. I replied that it was because I did not
desire to spend my Christmas holidays in the lock-up, which he evidently
regarded as a singularly weak argument. He asked me what I had thrown
into the canal. I told him a goose. He asked me why I had thrown a
goose into the canal. I told him because I was sick and tired of the
animal.
"At this stage a sergeant came in to say that they had succeeded in
recovering the parcel. They opened it on the Inspector's table. It
contained a dead baby.
"I pointed out to them that it wasn't my parcel, and that it wasn't my
baby, but they hardly took the trouble to disguise the fact that they did
not believe me.
"The Inspector said it was too grave a case for bail, which, seeing that
I did not know a soul in London, was somewhat immaterial. I got them to
send a telegram to my young lady to say that I was unavoidably detained
in town, and passed as quiet and uneventful a Christmas Day and Boxing
Day as I ever wish to spend.
"In the end the evidence against me was held to be insufficient to
justify a conviction, and I got off on the minor charge of drunk and
disorderly. But I lost my situation and I lost my young lady, and I
don't care if I never see a goose again."
We were nearing Liverpool Street. He collected his luggage, and taking
up his hat made an attempt to put it on his head. But in consequence of
the swelling caused by the horseshoe it would not go anywhere near him,
and he laid it sadly back upon the seat.
"No," he said quietly, "I can't say that I believe very much in luck."