Then Alice said, "You see we've taken your advice; we're giving free
drinks. Doesn't it all look nice?"
"It does that," said the tramp. "I don't mind if I do."
So we gave him two glasses of lemonade succeedingly, and thanked him for
giving us the idea. He said we were very welcome, and if we'd no
objection he'd sit down a bit and put on a pipe. He did, and after
talking a little more he fell asleep. Drinking anything seemed to end
in sleep with him. I always thought it was only beer and things made
people sleepy, but he was not so. When he was asleep he rolled into the
ditch, but it did not wake him up.
The boys were getting very noisy, and they began to shout things, and to
make silly noises with their mouths, and when Oswald and Dicky went over
to them and told them to just chuck it, they were worse than ever. I
think perhaps Oswald and Dicky might have fought and settled
them--though there were eleven, yet back to back you can always do it
against overwhelming numbers in a book--only Alice called out:
"Oswald, here's some more, come back!"
We went. Three big men were coming down the road, very red and hot, and
not amiable-looking. They stopped in front of the Benevolent Bar and
slowly read the wadding and red-stuff label.
Then one of them said he was blessed, or something like that, and
another said he was too. The third one said, "Blessed or not, a drink's
a drink. Blue ribbon though by ----" (a word you ought not to say,
though it is in the Bible and the catechism as well). "Let's have a
liquor, little missy."
The dogs were growling, but Oswald thought it best not to take any
notice of what the dogs said, but to give these men each a drink. So he
did. They drank, but not as if they cared about it very much, and then
they set their glasses down on the table, a liberty no one else had
entered into, and began to try and chaff Oswald. Oswald said in an
undervoice to H. O.:
"Just take charge. I want to speak to the girls a sec. Call if you want
anything." And then he drew the others away, to say he thought there'd
been enough of it, and considering the boys and the new three men,
perhaps we'd better chuck it and go home. We'd been benevolent nearly
four hours anyway.
While this conversation and the objections of the others were going on,
H. O. perpetuated an act which nearly wrecked the Benevolent Bar.
Of course Oswald was not an eye or ear witness of what happened, but
from what H. O. said in the calmer moments of later life, I think this
was about what happened:
One of the big disagreeable men said to H. O.:
"Ain't got such a thing as a drop o' spirit, 'ave yer?"
H. O. said no, we hadn't, only lemonade and tea.
"Lemonade and tea! blank" (bad word I told you about) "and blazes,"
replied the bad character, for such he afterwards proved to be. "What's
_that_ then?"
He pointed to a bottle labelled Dewar's whiskey, which stood on the
table near the spirit-kettle.
"Oh, is _that_ what you want?" said H. O., kindly.
The man is understood to have said he should bloomin' well think so, but
H. O. is not sure about the bloomin'.
He held out his glass with about half the lemonade in it, and H. O.
generously filled up the tumbler out of the bottle labelled Dewar's
whiskey. The man took a great drink, and then suddenly he spat out what
happened to be left in his mouth just then, and began to swear. It was
then that Oswald and Dicky rushed upon the scene. The man was shaking
his fist in H. O.'s face, and H. O. was still holding on to the bottle
we had brought out the methylated spirit in for the lamp, in case of any
one wanting tea, which they hadn't.
"If I was Jim," said the second ruffian, for such indeed they were, when
he had snatched the bottle from H. O. and smelt it, "I'd chuck the whole
show over the hedge, so I would, and you young gutter-snipes after it,
so I wouldn't."
Oswald saw in a moment that in point of strength, if not numbers, he and
his party were outmatched, and the unfriendly boys were drawing gladly
near. It is no shame to signal for help when in distress--the best ships
do it every day. Oswald shouted "Help! help!" Before the words were out
of his brave yet trembling lips our own tramp leaped like an antelope
from the ditch and said:
"Now then, what's up?"
The biggest of the three men immediately knocked him down. He lay still.