THE TWO-UP SCHOOL
The silence of sleeping things hung over the Haymarket, and the three
long, dingy arcades lay huddled and lifeless in the night, black and
threatening against a cloudy sky. Presently, among the odd nocturnal
sounds of a great city, the vague yelping of a dog, the scream of a
locomotive, the furtive step of a prowler, the shrill cry of a
feathered watchman from the roost, the ear caught a continuous rumble
in the distance that changed as it grew nearer into the bumping and
jolting of a heavy cart.
It was the first of a lumbering procession that had been travelling all
night from the outlying suburbs--Botany, Fairfield, Willoughby,
Smithfield, St Peters, Woollahra and Double Bay--carrying the patient
harvest of Chinese gardens laid out with the rigid lines of a
chessboard. A sleepy Chinaman, perched on a heap of cabbages, pulled
the horse to a standstill, and one by one the carts backed against the
kerbstone forming a line the length of the arcades, waiting patiently
for the markets to open. And still, muffled in the distance, or
growing sharp and clear, the continuous rumble broke the silence, the
one persistent sound in the brooding night.
Presently the iron gates creaked on rusty hinges, the long, silent
arcades were flooded with the glow from clusters of electric bulbs,
and, with the shuffle of feet on the stone flags, the huge market woke
slowly to life, like a man who stretches himself and yawns. Outside,
the carters encouraged the horses with short, guttural cries, the heavy
vehicles bumped on the uneven flags, the horses' feet clattered loudly
on the stones as the drivers backed the carts against the stalls, and
the unloading began.
In half an hour the grimy stalls had disappeared under piles of green
vegetables, built up in orderly masses by the Chinese dealers. The
rank smell of cabbages filled the air, the attendants gossiped in a
strange tongue, and the arcades formed three green lanes, piled with
the fruits of the earth. Here and there the long green avenues were
broken with splashes of colour where piles of carrots, radishes and
rhubarb, the purple bulbs of beetroot, the creamy white of
cauliflowers, and the soft green of eschalots and lettuce broke the
dominant green of the cabbage.
The markets were transformed; it was an invasion from the East.
Instead of the sharp, broken cries of the dealers on Saturday night,
the shuffle of innumerable feet, the murmur of innumerable voices in a
familiar tongue, there was a silence broken only by strange guttural
sounds dropping into a sing-song cadence, the language of the East.
Chinamen stood on guard at every stall, slant-eyed and yellow, clothed
in the cheap slops of Sydney, their impassive features carved in
fantastic ugliness, surveying the scene with inscrutable eyes that had
opened first on rice-fields, sampans, junks, pagodas, and the barbaric
trappings of the silken East.
At four o'clock the sales began, and the early buyers arrived with the
morose air of men who have been robbed of their sleep. There were
small dealers, Dagoes from the fruit shops, greengrocers from the
suburbs, with a chaff-bag slung across their arm, who buy by the dozen.
They moved silently from stall to stall, pricing the vegetables,
feeling the market, calculating what they would gain by waiting till
the prices dropped, making the round of the markets before they filled
the chaff-bags and disappeared into the darkness doubled beneath their
loads.
Chook and Pinkey reached the markets by the first workman's tram in the
morning. As the rain had set in, Chook had thrown the chaff-bags over
his shoulders, and Pinkey wore an old jacket that she was ashamed to
wear in the daytime. By her colour you could tell that they had been
quarrelling as usual, because she had insisted on coming with Chook to
carry one of the chaff-bags. And now, as she came into the light of
the arcades, she looked like a half-drowned sparrow. The rain dripped
from her hat, and the shabby thin skirt clung to her legs like a wet
dishcloth. Chook looked at her with rage in his heart. These trips to
the market always rolled his pride in the mud, the pride of the male
who is willing to work his fingers to the bone to provide his mate with
fine plumage.
The cares of the shop had told on Pinkey's looks, for the last two
years spent with Chook's mother had been like a long honeymoon, and
Pinkey had led the life of a lady, with nothing to do but scrub and
wash and help Chook's mother keep her house like a new pin. So she
had grown plump and pert like a well-fed sparrow, but the care and
worry of the new shop had sharpened the angles of her body. Not that
Pinkey cared. She had the instinct for property, the passionate desire
to call something her own, an instinct that lay dormant and undeveloped
while she lived among other people's belongings. Moreover, she had
discovered a born talent for shopkeeping. With her natural desire to
please, she enchanted the customers, welcoming them with a special
smile, and never forgetting to remember that it was Mrs Brown's third
child that had the measles, and that Mrs Smith's case puzzled the
doctors. They only wanted a horse and cart, so that she could mind the
shop while Chook went hawking about the streets, and their fortunes
were made. But this morning the rain and Chook's temper had damped her
spirits, and she looked round with dismay on the cold, silent arcades,
recalling with a passionate longing the same spaces transformed by
night into the noisy, picturesque bazaar through which she had been
accustomed to saunter as an idler walks the block on a Saturday morning.
Pinkey waited, shivering in a corner, while Chook did the buying. He
walked along the stalls, eyeing the sellers and their goods with the
air of a freebooter, for, as he always had more impudence than cash, he
was a redoubtable customer. There was always a touch of comedy in
Chook's buying, and the Chinamen knew and dreaded him, instantly on the
defensive, guarding their precious cabbages against his predatory
fingers, while Chook parted with his shillings as cheerfully as a
lioness parts with her cubs. A pile of superb cauliflowers caught his
eye.
"'Ow muchee?" he inquired.
"Ten shilling," replied the Chinaman.
"Seven an' six," answered Chook, promptly.
"No fear," replied the seller, relapsing into Celestial gravity and
resuming his dream of fan-tan and opium.
Chook walked the length of the arcade and then came back. These were
the pick of the market, and he must have them. Suddenly he pushed a
handful of silver into the Chinaman's hand and began to fill his bag
with the cauliflowers. With a look of suspicion the seller counted the
money in his hand; there were only eight shillings.
"'Ere, me no take you money," cried he, frantic with rage, trying to
push the silver into Chook's hand. And then Chook overwhelmed him with
a torrent of words, swearing that he had taken the money and made a
sale. The Chinaman hesitated and was lost.
"All li, you no pickum," he said, sullenly.
"No fear!" said Chook, grabbing the largest he could see.
In the next arcade he bought a dozen of rhubarb, Chin Lung watching him
suspiciously as he counted them into the bag.
"You gottum more'n a dozen," he cried.
"What a lie!" cried Chook, with a stare of outraged virtue.
"I'll push yer face in if yer say I pinched yer rotten stuff," and he
emptied the rhubarb out of the bag, dexterously kicking the thirteenth
bunch under the stall.
"Now are yez satisfied?" he cried, and began counting the bunches into
the bag two by two. As the Chinaman watched sharply, he stooped to
move a cabbage that he was standing on, and instantly Chook whipped in
two bunches without counting.
"Twelve," said Chook, with a look of indignation. "I 'ope ye're
satisfied: I am."
When the bags were full, Pinkey was blue with the cold, and the dawn
had broken, dull and grey, beneath the pitiless fall of rain. It was
no use waiting for such rain to stop, and they quarrelled again because
Chook insisted that she should wait in the markets till he went home
with one chaff-bag and came back for the other. Each bag, bulging with
vegetables, was nearly the size of Pinkey, but the expert in moving
furniture was not to be dismayed by that. She ended the dispute by
seizing a bag and trudging out into the rain, bent double beneath the
load, leaving Chook to curse and follow.
Halfway through breakfast Pinkey caught Chook's eye fixed on her in a
peculiar manner.
"Wot are yez thinkin' about?" she asked, with a smile.
"Well, if yer want ter know, I'm thinkin' wot a fool I was to marry
yer," said Chook, bitterly.
A cold wave swept over Pinkey. It flashed through her mind that he was
tired of her; that he thought she wasn't strong enough to do her share
of the work. Well, she could take poison or throw herself into the
harbour.
"Ah!" she said, cold as a stone. "Anythin' else?"
"I mean," said Chook, stumbling for words, "I ought to 'ave 'ad more
sense than ter drag yez out of a good 'ome ter come 'ere an' work like
a bus 'orse."
"Is that all?" inquired Pinkey.
"Yes; wot did yer think?" said Chook, miserably. "It fair gives me the
pip ter see yer 'umpin' a sack round the stalls, when I wanted ter make
yer 'appy an' comfortable."
Pinkey took a long breath of relief. She needn't drown herself, then,
he wasn't tired of her.
"An' who told yer I wasn't 'appy an' comfortable?" she inquired,
"'cause yer can go an' tell 'em it's only a rumour. An' while ye're
about it, yous can tell 'em I've got a good 'ome, a good 'usband, an'
everythin' I want." Here she looked round the dingy room as if daring
it to contradict her. "An' as fer the good 'ome I came from, I wasn't
wanted there, an' was 'arf starved; an' now the butcher picks the best
joint an' if I lift me finger, a big 'ulkin' feller falls over 'imself
ter run an' do wot I want."
Chook listened without a smile. Then his lips twitched and his eyes
turned misty. Pinkey ran at him, crying, "Yer silly juggins, if I've
got yous, I've got all I want." She hung round his neck, crying for
pleasure, and Mrs Higgs knocked on the counter till she was tired
before she got her potatoes.
The wet morning gave Pinkey a sore throat, and that finished Chook. The
shop gave them a bare living, but with a horse and cart he could easily
double their takings, and Pinkey could lie snug in bed while he drove
to Paddy's Market in the morning. He looked round in desperation for
some way of making enough money to buy Jack Ryan's horse and cart,
which were still for sale. He could think of nothing but the two-up
school, which had swallowed all his spare money before he was married.
Since his marriage he had sworn off the school, as he couldn't spare
the money with a wife to keep.
All his life Chook had lived from hand to mouth. He belonged to the
class that despises its neighbours for pinching and scraping, and yet
is haunted by the idea of sudden riches falling into its lap from the
skies. Certainly Chook had given Fortune no excuse for neglecting him.
He was always in a shilling sweep, a sixpenny raffle, a hundred to one
double on the Cup. He marked pak-a-pu tickets, took the kip at two-up,
and staked his last shilling more readily than the first. It was
always the last shilling that was going to turn the scale and make his
fortune. Well, he would try his luck again unknown to Pinkey, arguing
with the blind obstinacy of the gambler that after his abstinence fate
would class him as a beginner, the novice who wins a sweep with the
first ticket he buys, or backs the winner at a hundred to one because
he fancies its name.
Chook and Pinkey had been inseparable since their marriage, and he
spent a week trying to think of some excuse for going out alone at
night. But Pinkey, noticing his gloomy looks, decided that he needed
livening up, and ordered him to spend a shilling on the theatre.
Instantly Chook declined to go alone, and Pinkey fell into the trap.
She had meant to go with him at the last moment, but now she declared
that the night air made her cough. Chook could tell her all about the
play when he came home. This in itself was a good omen, and when two
black cats crossed his path on the way to the tram, it confirmed his
belief that his luck was in.
When Chook reached Castlereagh Street, he hesitated. It was market-day
on Thursday, and the two sovereigns in his pocket stood for his banking
account. They would last for twenty minutes, if his luck were out, and
he would never forgive himself. But at that moment a black cat crossed
the footpath rapidly in front of him, and his courage revived. That
made the third tonight. Men were slipping in at the door of the
school, which was guarded by a sentinel. Chook, being unknown, waited
till he saw an acquaintance, and was then passed in. The play had not
begun, and his long absence from the alley gave his surroundings an air
of novelty.
The large room, furnished like a barn, gave no sign of its character,
except for the ring, marked by a huge circular seat, the inner circle
padded and covered with canvas to deaden the noise of falling coins.
Above the ring the roof rose into a dome where the players pitched the
coins. The gaffers, a motley crowd, were sitting or standing about,
playing cards or throwing deck quoits to kill time till the play began.
The money-changer, his pockets bulging with silver, came up, and Chook
turned his sovereigns into half-crowns. Chook looked with curiosity at
the crowd; they were all strangers to him.
The cards and quoits were dropped as the boxer entered the ring. It
was Paddy Flynn himself, a retired pugilist, with the face and neck of
a bull, wearing a sweater and sandshoes, his arms and legs bared to
show the enormous muscles of the ancient athlete. He threw the kip and
the pennies into the centre, and took his place on a low seat at the
head of the ring.
The gaffers scrambled for places, wedged in a compact circle, the
spectators standing behind them to advise or take a hand as occasion
offered. Chook looked at the kip, a flat piece of wood, the size of a
butter-pat, and the two pennies, blackened on the tail and polished on
the face. A gaffer stepped into the ring and picked them up.
"A dollar 'eads! A dollar tails! 'Arf a dollar 'eads!" roared the
gamblers, making their bets.
"Get set!--get set!" cried the boxer, lolling in his seat with a
nonchalant air; and in a twinkling a bright heap of silver lay in front
of each player, the wagers made with the gaffers opposite. The spinner
handed his stake of five shillings to the boxer, who cried "Fair go!"
The spinner placed the two pennies face down on the kip, and then, with
a turn of the wrist, the coins flew twenty feet into the air. For a
second there was a dead silence, every eye following the fall of the
coins. One fell flat, the other rolled on its edge, every neck craned
to follow its movements. One head and one tail lay in the ring.
"Two ones!" cried the boxer; and the stakes remained untouched.
The spinner tossed the coins again, and, as they fell, the gaffers
cried "Two heads!"
"Two heads," repeated the boxer, with the decision of a judge.
The next moment a shower of coins flew like spray across the ring; the
tails had paid their dollars to the winning heads. Three times the
spinner threw heads, and the pile of silver in front of Chook grew
larger. Then Chook, who was watching the spinner, noticed that he
fumbled the pennies slightly as he placed them on the kip. Success had
shaken his nerve, and instantly Chook changed his cry to "A dollar
tails--a dollar tails!"
The coins spun into the air with a nervous jerk, and fell with the two
black tails up. The spinner threw down the kip, and took his winnings
from the boxer--five pounds for himself and ten shillings for the boxer.
As another man took the kip, the boxer glared at the winning players.
"How is it?" he cried with the voice of a footpad demanding charity,
and obeying the laws of the game, the winners threw a dollar or more
from their heap to the boss.
For an hour Chook won steadily, and then at every throw the heap of
coins in front of him lessened. A trot or succession of seven tails
followed, and the kip changed hands rapidly, for the spinner drops the
kip when he throws tails. Chook stopped betting during the trot,
obeying an instinct. Without counting, his practised eye told him that
there were about five pounds in the heap of coins in front of him. The
seventh man threw down the kip, and Chook, as if obeying a signal, rose
from his seat and walked into the centre of the ring. He handed five
shillings to the boxer, and placed the pennies tail up on the kip. His
stake was covered with another dollar, the betting being even money.
"Fair go!" cried the boxer.
Chook jerked the coins upward with the skill of an old gaffer; they
flew into the dome, and then dropped spinning. As they touched the
canvas floor, a hundred voices cried "Two heads!"
"Two heads!" cried the boxer, and a shower of coins flew across the
ring to the winners.
"A dollar or ten bob heads!" cried the boxer, staking Chook's win.
Chook spun the coins again, and as they dropped heads, the boxer raked
in one pound.
"Wot d'ye set?" he cried to Chook.
"The lot," cried Chook, and spun the coins. Heads again, and Chook had
two pounds in the boxer's hands, who put ten shillings aside in case
Chook "threw out", and staked thirty. Chook headed them again, and was
three pounds to the good. The gaffers realized that a trot of heads
was coming, and the boxer had to offer twelve to ten to cover Chook's
stake. For the seventh time Chook threw heads, and was twelve pounds to
the good. This was his dream come true, and with the faith of the
gambler in omens, he knew that was the end of his luck. He set two
pounds of his winnings, and tossed the coins.
"Two ones!" cried the gamblers, with a roar.
Chook threw again. One penny fell flat on its face; the other rolled
on its edge across the ring. In a sudden, deadly silence, a hundred
necks craned to follow its movements. Twenty or thirty pounds in
dollars and half-dollars depended on the wavering coin. Suddenly it
stopped, balanced as if in doubt, and fell on its face.
"Two tails!" cried the gaffers, and the trot of heads was finished.
Chook's stake was swept away, and the boxer handed him ten pounds.
Chook tossed a pound to him for commission. He acknowledged it with a
grunt, and looking round the ring at the winning players cried out "How
is it?--how is it?" With his other winnings Chook had over fifteen
pounds in his pocket, and he decided to go, although the night was
young. As he went to the stairs, the boxer cried out, "No one to leave
for five minutes!" following the custom when a big winner left the
room, to prevent a swarm of cadgers, lug-biters, and spielers begging a
tram fare, a bed, a cup of coffee from the winner. When Chook reached
the top of the staircase, the G.P.O. clock began to strike, and Chook
stopped to listen, for he had forgotten the lapse of time. He counted
the last stroke, eleven, and then, as if it had been a signal, came the
sound of voices and a noise of hammering from the front door. The next
moment the doorkeeper ran up the narrow staircase crying "The Johns are
here!"
For a moment the crowd of gamblers stared, aghast; then the look of
trapped animals came into their faces, and with the noise of
splintering wood below, they made a rush at the money on the floor.
The boxer ran swearing into the ring to hide the kip and the pennies,
butting with his bull shoulders against a mob of frenzied gaffers mad
with fear and greed, grabbing at any coins they could reach in despair
of finding their own. The news spread like fire. The school was
surrounded by a hundred policemen in plain clothes and uniform; every
outlet from the alley was watched and guarded. A cold scorn of the
police filled Chook's mind. For months the school ran unmolested, and
then a raid was planned in the spirit of sportsmen arranging a drive of
rabbits for a day's outing. This raid meant capture by the police, an
ignominious procession two by two to the lock-up, a night in the cells
unless bail was found, and a fine and a lecture from the magistrate in
the morning. To some it meant more. To the bank clerk it meant the
sack; to the cashier who was twenty pounds short in his cash, an
examination of his books and discovery; to the spieler who was wanted
by the police, scrutiny by a hundred pair of official eyes.
The gaffers ran here and there bewildered, cursing and swearing in an
impotence of rage. Like trapped rats the men ran to the windows and
doors, but the room, fortified with iron bars and barbed wire, held
them like a trap. The boxer cried out that bail would be found for the
captured, but his bull roar was lost in the din.
There was a rush of heavy police boots on the stairs, the lights were
suddenly turned out, and in the dark a wild scramble for liberty.
Someone smashed a window that was not barred, and a swarm of men fought
round the opening, dropping one by one on to the roof of some stables.
The first man through shouted something and tried to push back, but a
frenzied stream of men pushed him and the others into the arms of the
police, who had marked this exit beforehand. Chook found himself on
the roof, bleeding from a cut lip, and hatless. Below him men were
crouching on the roofs like cats, to be picked off at the leisure of
the police.
He could never understand how he escaped. He stood on the roof
awaiting capture quietly, as resistance was useless, picked up a hat
two sizes too large for him, and, walking slowly to the end of the
roof, ducked suddenly under an old signboard that was nailed to a
chimney. Every moment he expected a John to walk up to him, but, to
his amazement, none came. As a man may walk unhurt amid a shower of
bullets, he had walked unseen under twenty policemen's eyes. From
Castlereagh Street came a murmur of voices. The theatres were out, and
a huge crowd, fresh from the painted scenes and stale odours of the
stalls and gallery, watched with hilarious interest the harlequinade on
the roofs. In half an hour a procession was formed, two deep, guarded
by the police, and followed by a crowd stumbling over one another to
keep pace with it, shouting words of encouragement and sympathy to the
prisoners. Five minutes later Chook slithered down a veranda post, a
free man, and walked quietly to the tram.