her. “’E’ll be loving and affectionate to you again very soon. And, as
for ’is fits—well, I can take my solemn gospel oath that he ain’t even
had a attempt at one all the time ’e’s been in my charge.”
“How splendid!” cried Mrs. Golightly. “I’m sure he looks heaps better.
You must ’ave took good care of ’im.”
“I did,” Mr. Lock asserted. “Never let him out of my sight for a single
moment. Brushed and combed him three times a day, fed him on tid-bits,
give him his physic regular with an oyster after it to take the taste of
it out of his mouth, and used to sit by ’is side at night till he fell
off to sleep.”
“You have been good to him!” cried the lady, moved by such devotion. “I
wish I could make it right with you, some’ow!”
“I done it because I took a fancy to the cat,” said Mr. Lock, “and I
don’t want no reward. I shall miss the old chap, though,” he went on,
lowering his voice. “I’m sorry to part with him, for his sake as well as
my own. If he could only have had a bit longer under my care, he’d ’ave
been cured for good and all of them fits. As it is, there’s always the
chance that they may come on after a while, and I’ll be far away by
then.”
“But—but can’t you stop here in Shorehaven?”
“No, mum. I’ve got my living to earn, and there ain’t a job going here
that would suit me. I want to give up the sea. I used to be a milkman
afore I was a sailor, and naturally I’d like to take on the job of
milkman again, only there ain’t no vacancies in this ’ere town.”
“That’s just where you’re wrong!” cried the lady, in high good humour.
“I’m starting a dairy business here next week, and I’m looking out for a
man to take the milk-round!”
“Well, well,” breathed Mr. Lock, “if ever there was a coincidence—”
He ceased abruptly, for sometimes Coincidence has two long arms and uses
both simultaneously. Mr. Lock, gazing spellbound at the doorway, saw Mr.
Golightly framed in it, and clasped in Mr. Golightly’s embrace was a
black cat.
“Jonathan!” stated Mr. Golightly, simply.
“What?” screamed the lady.
“Just found him outside the back door, mewing enough to break his heart,”
said her husband. “Look at him! Covered in mud, half starved—”
“That ain’t your cat!” denied Mr. Lock. “’E’s only a mangy old stray
you’ve got ’old of. There’s your Jonathan in the fire-place there.
Cured and improved out of all recognition.”
Mrs. Golightly picked up both cats and set them side by side.
“Jonathan!” she called, and the cat that Mr. Lock had brought foolishly
strove to get up the chimney, while the other animal, uttering a
half-plaintive, half-delighted mew, tottered forward to lick the lady’s
hand.
“‘Never let him out of my sight’!” cried Mrs. Golightly. “‘Washed and
brushed him every day! Fed him on all the best! Sat by ’im till ’e went
off—’! ’Ere!” she ended, fiercely. “You go off—now—this minute! Else—”
Mr. Lock, ever one to recognize defeat, turned to take his departure.
Mrs. Golightly, retrieving the alien cat from the chimney, thrust it into
the hamper.
“’Ere, take your rubbish with you!” she ordered; and, thus encumbered,
Mr. Lock took his departure.
“Blest if I am so sure that black cats are always lucky!” he murmured,
dazedly.
At the corner of the road he ran into Mr. Horace Dobb. Mr. Dobb was in a
state of considerable excitement.
“You ’aven’t left that cat at the Golightlys’ yet, then?” he observed,
with relief. And, taking Mr. Lock by the arm, eagerly dragged him
forward. “Well, then, the Golightlys ’ave lost their second chance of a
cat, that’s all! ’Ere, come on in ’ere!” he directed, turning into the
“Royal William.”
The aggressive landlady and the cheerful little landlord were behind the
counter. At Mr. Dobb’s entry, they both turned expectantly towards him,
and the severity of the landlady perceptively waned.
“’Ere’s the young fellow I spoke about just now!” cried Mr. Dobb. “Look
at the state of ’is eyes, and you can see I was telling the truth!”
“And ’as ’e got it there in the basket?” asked the landlord, eagerly.
“’E ’as!” declared Mr. Dobb, and, unfastening the lid of the hamper, he
allowed its occupant to escape.
“That’s ’im!” cried the landlord, raptly.
“That’s our dear, dear little lost one!” shrilled the lady, in happy
agitation.
“Well, you’re a trump!” declared the landlord, turning to Mr. Lock.
“This gent ’ere ’as been telling us all about it!”
“Oh!” said Mr. Lock, lamely.
“Yes, indeed,” answered the landlord. “We ’appened to mention to ’im
that our cat was missing, and ’e told us ’ow ’e knew of a cat what ’ad
been saved from torture by a sailorman. There was a great big ’ulking
chap and another chap ’ad got ’old of our cat,” narrated the landlord,
“and you see ’em ill-treating it, and you interfered, and they knocked
you about cruel, and give you two terrible black eyes—”
“And they are terrible, too!” said the landlady, with a sympathetic
shudder. “You must ’ave suffered, young man.”
“I did, ma’am. I did!”
“But you saved our pet!” cried the landlord. “You see, that gent there’s
been telling us all about it! It come out quite by accident, to—we was
talking about billiard-marking; that was what led up to it, some’ow.
Anyway, you saved our cat, and me and my missis are very grateful to you
for it. And you’ve been keeping it till you felt less knocked about, and
then you were going to try and find its home! Well, you’re saved that
trouble, anyway!”
“From what I saw of you the other night,” confessed the landlady, “I
should never have thought you could have behaved so noble.”
Husband and wife now retired apart for a brief whispered colloquy.
Within one minute of its conclusion, Mr. Lock had been offered and had
accepted the vacant post of billiard-marker and odd-job man to the “Royal
William”. . . .
Late that same night, Mr. Tridge ceased undressing and looked across at
Mr. Lock.
“You’re right, Peter!” he admitted. “They _are_!”
_EPISODE V_
A MATTER OF ADVERTISEMENT
“Joe,” said Mr. Horace Dobb, coming out of a long meditative silence,
“’ave you ever ’ad words with a prize-fighter?”
“Once,” admitted Mr. Joseph Tridge. “And only once! Never no more for
me!” he ended, very definitely.
“What ’appened?”
“Why, I started to ’ave words with ’im,” returned Mr. Tridge.
“Well?” prompted Mr. Dobb.
“That’s all,” stated Mr. Tridge, simply.
“Did ’e ’it you back?”
“Not ’alf, ’e didn’t!”
“And what did you do?”
“Went ’ome in a cab,” succinctly supplied Mr. Tridge.
Again silence prevailed in Mr. Dobb’s snug back parlour. Mr. Tridge,
sitting respectfully upright in his seat, once more fixed a forlorn and
rather anxious gaze on his host. The late cook to the “Jane Gladys,”
untroubled by his old shipmate’s appealing visage, settled down more
comfortably in his arm-chair and puffed in cosy rumination at the stump
of a cigar. A clock, acquired by Mr. Dobb in the course of business,
stood on the mantelshelf. From the facts that it had just struck eleven
and that its dial registered a quarter to two, anyone thoroughly familiar
with its idiosyncrasies would have deduced that the correct hour of the
evening was something between six and seven.
Mr. Dobb, presently producing a penknife, impaled his cigar-stump on the
point of its blade and thus pursued his smoke to its exceedingly bitter
end. Still he forbore from speech, and at last Mr. Tridge, with a deep
sigh of regret, rose to his feet.
“Well, I may as well be going now,” he asserted, mournfully.
“Good-night, ’Orace.”
He crossed to the door, and there he halted.
“And if I was you,” he announced, bitterly, “I should swaller the rest of
that there seegar! You won’t lose none of it, then. And, besides, it
can’t taste worse than it smells!”
Mr. Dobb, in no wise irritated by this little ebullience of feeling,
smiled up pleasantly at his visitor.
“What’s your ’urry?” asked Horace. “Come and sit down again! We ’aven’t
finished ’alf our chat yet.”
With marked readiness Mr. Tridge returned to his chair, contritely
murmuring an apology for his impoliteness.
“That’s all right,” said Horace, handsomely. “Seegars is never quite
right when other chaps is smoking ’em. I’ve noticed that myself. Now,
let me see, what were we talking about?”
“About me starting in a little ’air-dressing business of me own,” replied
Mr. Tridge, leaning forward eagerly.
“No, _we_ wasn’t talking about that,” corrected Mr. Dobb. “_You_ was.”
“I’ve figgered it all out,” continued Mr. Tridge, undeterred, “and for
twenty quid I could get going. And I’d pay you your money back in
instalments, and pay you interest at the rate of—”
“I shan’t take no hinterest from you, Joe,” observed Mr. Dobb, with a
kindly smile, “and I shan’t take no hinstalments neither. In fact, I
shan’t want no money back from you at all!”
“Well, if ever there was a true pal—” gabbled Mr. Tridge, with the
liveliest gratitude. “I always knew it! If ever there was a real friend
in need—”
“I shan’t want no money back from you at all, Joe,” interrupted Mr. Dobb,
coldly, “because I shan’t let you ’ave none to begin with. I shouldn’t
dream of it!”
“Well, of all the mean, ’ard-’earted, un’elpful, false friends—”
exclaimed Mr. Tridge, in high vexation.
“You go into the shop there, Joe,” directed Mr. Dobb, “and you’ll see my
motter ’ung up large on the wall. ‘Strictly Business!’—that’s my guiding
princerple, and you knows it! Business is business, and friendship is
friendship, and when you tries to mix ’em you gets a little of each and
not enough of both.”
“But lending me twenty quid to start on my own with would be business,”
contended Mr. Tridge. “I’d pay you back.”
“I dare say you would,” retorted Mr. Dobb, sceptically. “If you could.
But s’pose the speckylation turned out a failure, eh? No, Joe, I ain’t
going to risk my money, and there’s a end to it. Or, rather, there won’t
be a end of it. And now let’s change the subject and talk about
something hinteresting.”
“But—but—but,” spluttered Mr. Tridge, wrathfully, “it was you what made
me lose all my time learning ’air-dressing! Cut and cut old Sam Clark’s
’air, I did, till it looked as if ’is ’ead ’ad been varnished! Practised
clean shaving on Peter Lock till ’is chin was so sore ’e ’ad to grow a
beard! It was you that was going to get me settled as a ’air-dresser,
you remember?” he sneered.
“Yes, I remember,” confessed Mr. Dobb, flushing a little at the
recollection. “Oh, well, mistakes _will_ ’appen,” he put forward, with
an effort to be casual.
“Mistakes _did_ ’appen,” amended Mr. Tridge. “And ’ere am I with the old
‘Jane Gladys’ sold from under me, and me the only one of ’er crew out of
a job. There’s Peter Lock in a snug billet, there’s old Sam a-ferrying
fit to bust ’isself all day, there’s you married to a widow and ’er
second-’and shop, and only me left out in the cold!”
“Well, and I want to see you settled,” declared Mr. Dobb. “When the four
of us are well spaced about Shore’aven, we’ll be able to work some fine
deals, bigger than ever we dreamed of on the old ‘Jane Gladys.’”
“Then why don’t you ’elp me to settle?” demanded Mr. Tridge, not
unreasonably.
“’Eaven ’elps them what ’elps themselves, don’t forget, Joe,” was Mr.
Dobb’s pious reply.
Impatiently Mr. Tridge rose again to his feet and stalked to the door.
Again Mr. Dobb invited him to return to his seat and tarry longer.
“I don’t say as I won’t ’elp you to ’elp yourself, Joe,” observed Mr.
Dobb. “In fact, if you only wouldn’t be so ’asty, and would listen to
what I ’ave to say, you might feel sorry for all the things you’re trying
to think of to say about me as you stands there.”
Mr. Tridge, with a demeanor nicely balanced between resentment and
humility, once more sat down.
“I ain’t forgot ’ow you’re situated, Joe,” said Mr. Dobb, gently. “I’ve
bore you in mind constant. And I’ve been waiting for you to come and see
me these last few days. I got a little matter to put before you, Joe,
what ought to be good for twenty quid at least, if you cares to tackle
it.”
“Why didn’t you mention it before?” asked Mr. Tridge, suspiciously.
“Well, I wasn’t quite sure ’ow you’d take it,” returned Mr. Dobb. “You
see, there—there’s a certain amount of disgrace about it.”
“If it brings in twenty quid,” said Mr. Tridge, frankly, “I shan’t think
it disgraceful, whatever it is.”
“And—and there’s a certain amount of suffering,” added Mr. Dobb, watching
his friend narrowly.
“Once I get me fingers on the twenty quid, I shall soon stop suffering,”
asserted Mr. Tridge, cheerfully.
“Well, you remember me asking you just now if you’d ever ’ad a quarrel
with a prize-fighter?”
“Yes, I remember. But what’s that to— ’Ere, ’strewth! ’Orace!” cried
Mr. Tridge, in alarm. “I twig your game now! You’re wanting me to match
against a prize-fighter! No, thanks!” he said, with the utmost firmness.
“Once bit, twice shy!”
“Wait a bit!” begged Mr. Dobb. “You ’aven’t ’eard what I’ve got to say!”
“And don’t want to, either! Not if there’s a prize fight at the end of
it! Not for fifty blessed quid! I’ve ’ad some! No, thank you, ’Orace.
I ain’t fighting no prize-fighters on the thin chance of getting a purse
of twenty quid—_if_ I win. Not me, ’Orace!”
“But you won’t ’ark to what I say!” complained Mr. Dobb.
“No, I won’t!” asseverated Mr. Tridge. “While I’ve got the senses I was
born with, I’ll ’ave nothing to do with prize-fighters, and that’s flat!”
“You mean it?” asked Horace. “That’s your last word?”
“I do!” returned Mr. Tridge, in complete determination. “It are!”
Mr. Dobb shook his head a little perplexedly, and was clearly on the
point of saying something further, when he changed his mind and frowned
thoughtfully at the ceiling for some while. Mr. Tridge, with arms
doggedly folded, stared at him in resolute opposition.
“As a matter of fact, Joe,” said Mr. Dobb, at last, “you’re on quite the
wrong tack. Prize-fighters ain’t got nothing to do with it.”
“Then what did you drag ’em in for?” countered Mr. Tridge.
“I only wanted to see if you knew what kind of chaps prize-fighters was
like to get into trouble with.”
“Well, and what did you want to know that for?” queried Mr. Tridge,
vigilantly.
“So as to see whether you’d realize, by comparison, what a very different
sort of job this is I’m offering you.”
“’Ave it your own way,” said Mr. Tridge, guardedly. “You go on and say
all you’ve got to say, and I’ll listen. That’s all I’ll promise.”
Thus encouraged, Mr. Dobb began to entertain his old shipmate with a
character sketch of a certain Mr. Jevvings, Christian name either
Haugustas or Hadolphus.
But whatever uncertainty Mr. Dobb might have as to Mr. Jevvings’ correct
baptismal name, he had none as to Mr. Jevvings’ character. Mr. Jevvings,
testified Horace, was a sport, a nut, a scorcher, a lad of the village,
and a real caution. Also, it appeared, he was a knockout, a go-er, and,
likewise, a cough-drop. Alternatively, he was also the limit. Mr.
Tridge, nodding his head sapiently over these titles to fame, epitomized
them all in the surmise that Mr. Jevvings must be a lively sort of card,
and this description of the young gentleman gained Mr. Dobb’s cordial
agreement.
Blessed with a gay disposition, an abundance of cash, and a widespread
reputation for boisterous exploits, one might have expected that Mr.
Jevvings found life replete with satisfaction. But, no! said Mr. Dobb.
Oh, dear, no! There was something which inexorably qualified Mr.
Jevvings’ enjoyment of existence. As Mr. Dobb phrased it, there was
always a wasp in Mr. Jevvings’ jam.
It seemed that that young gentleman, although of average build, sadly
lacked physical prowess, so much so that, in some of his roystering
adventures, antagonists had thought nothing of playfully ruffling his
hair prior to throwing him through a window. Courage in plenty had Mr.
Jevvings, else would he long ago have retired into obscurity, but he had
no skill at arms, and very frequently this precipitated an anticlimax in
his spirited doings, so that they ended unheroically for him. Too often,
in fact, had this happened of late, and consequently Mr. Jevvings’
reputation as a dashing blade was beginning to be clouded by a certain
ribald contempt for his activities.
These things did Mr. Dobb explain to Mr. Tridge, in the terms most easily
understanded of his old shipmate. Arrived at this point, he leaned
impressively forward and tapped Mr. Tridge on the knee.
“And now,” stated Mr. Dobb, “’e’s got a idea for making people like ’im
more serious. He’s going to ’ave a fight with some one and knock ’im
clean out.”
“But from what you’ve been telling me,” objected Mr. Tridge, “’e couldn’t
knock a fly off the wall.”
Mr. Dobb, sitting erect, favoured his friend with a vast lingering wink.
Then he continued his exposition.
It appeared that Mr. Jevvings was a close acquaintance of Mr. Dobb’s.
Recently he had come unostentatiously to Mr. Dobb and had confessed to
him the bitterness that was vexing his soul. It was, in fact, Mr. Dobb
who had suggested a semi-public demonstration of his fistic powers which
should compel admiration and respect. With this proposition Mr. Jevvings
had fallen in so enthusiastically that he had left all arrangements,
financial and otherwise, to be consummated by Mr. Dobb.
“So that’s where _you_ comes in,” explained Mr. Dobb.
“I see,” said Mr. Tridge, acutely. “I says something to ’im, ’e knocks
me down, and I get twenty quid for it?”.
“Oh, not so helementary as that, Joe!” replied Mr. Dobb, pained at such
lack of artistic imagination. “It’s got to be worked up to, neat and
natural. And there’s got to be time for people to talk about it, before
it comes off, as well as after. It’ll be a swell thing, fought out
reg’lar in a boxing-ring, with seconds and all.”
“And when ’e’s knocked me about long enough,” supposed Mr. Tridge, “down
I goes, and takes the count-out?”
Roughly, agreed Mr. Dobb, that was about the size of it. But the
preliminaries, he pointed out, would need careful handling to create
sufficient stir to satisfy Mr. Jevvings, and also Mr. Tridge would be
required to take enough punishment to make the affair look convincing ere
he succumbed to Mr. Jevvings’ knockout blow. This, he explained, was the
voluntary humiliation and suffering to which he had alluded earlier in
the evening.
“Well, if ’e’s ’alf the rabbit you make ’im out to be, ’e can’t ’urt me
much,” complacently theorized Mr. Tridge; “and, as for ’umiliation, I’ve
been ’umiliated for nothing at all in police-courts before now, so I
certainly don’t mind being ’umiliated for money.”
Mr. Dobb, warmly eulogizing Mr. Tridge’s philosophy, assured him that the
money was safe enough. Once arrangements were in trim for the combat,
he—Mr. Dobb—would hold himself personally responsible for its payment.
“And we’ll set the ball rolling this very night,” said Mr. Dobb, with a
computative glance at the clock. “Jevvings’ll be up in the ‘Rose and
Crown,’ along of some of ’is pals. You must manage to get into a
haltercation with ’im straightway, and leave the rest to me and one or
two others what are in the know. We’ll see that a boxing match is fixed
up between you, and you can leave all the arrangements to us.”
To all this Mr. Tridge assented with perfect readiness. Mr. Dobb then
added a few simple instructions, and, after a single rehearsal,
pronounced Mr. Tridge perfect in his role. Summoning his wife from some
remote apartment, Mr. Dobb affably slipped his arm through Mr. Tridge’s,
and the pair set off for the “Rose and Crown.”
“That’s ’im—that’s Jevvings!” whispered Horace, as they entered the
crowded saloon bar. “That quiet-looking young feller in the check suit,
with the pink tie, sitting reading the noospaper with patent leather
boots on.”
Mr. Tridge, with a nod of comprehension, began to cross the floor. He
was in the act of passing the young man when he stumbled clumsily, and,
to preserve his balance, first knocked off the young man’s hat and next
ripped the newspaper from his grasp.
“Why can’t you keep your great feet out of the way?” bellowed Mr. Tridge,
furiously. “You ought to sit with ’em sticking out of the window, the
size they are! You don’t want patent leather on ’em—you wants red lamps
on ’em and a watchman’s box by the side of ’em! Of all the awkward—”
Mr. Jevvings, while preserving his calm under this onslaught, rose from
his seat with a singularly sinister expression. Then, catching the
expressive face of Mr. Dobb, he sat down again, a little helplessly. An
awed hush had fallen on the room; frequenters of the apartment carefully
setting down their glasses stared incredulously at the truculent Mr.
Tridge.
“I must ask you to apologize!” said the aggrieved Mr. Jevvings, in a
somewhat fluty voice.
“You ask away!” returned Mr. Tridge, with jocund ferocity. “You keep on
till you’re as black in the face as your blessed great boots! Apologize
to a splay-footed whipper-snapper like you? Why, I’d sooner give you a
smack in the eye! Far sooner! And so I would, too, for two pins!”
A sort of stifling surprise agitated the room and those gentlemen who
were in the forefront of the quarrel cautiously stood back, while those
on the outer rim of the altercation craned eagerly forward.
“If you don’t apologize,” said Mr. Jevvings, firmly, “I shall thrash
you!”
“Ho, yus, _hin_-deed!” derided Mr. Tridge. “Come on, then!” he invited,
and posed himself combatantly.
Audible was the rustle of amazement that coursed through the spectators.
Mr. Jevvings, rising, began to turn back his coat-cuffs. There was a
tense hush.
And then, as the folds of a curtain may come sweeping down to suspend the
action of a play, so did Mr. Horace Dobb and the landlord of the “Rose
and Crown” effectively intervene at this juncture.
With a deft certainty of grasp, Mr. Dobb and the landlord took command of
affairs. Smoothly and swiftly did they regularize the situation.
Building from the foundation that a mere rough-and-ready scrap was
unthinkable in the chaste altitudes of the “Rose and Crown’s” saloon bar,
a scaffolding of suggestions was run up with a celerity which suggested
previous consultations, and presently, within this scaffolding, the
outlines took shape of a pugilistic encounter of considerable ceremony,
involving a ring, judge, seconds, and all the other paraphernalia of the
craft.
Mr. Tridge, listening interestedly, heard the arrangements brought to a
conclusion with the fixing of a date at that day week for the encounter.
Mr. Jevvings having signified his entire willingness to accept the terms
of the contest, Mr. Tridge gave his own acquiescence to the programme,
adding rather gratuitously that, on the Sunday afternoon following the
contest he would call round at the hospital with a bunch of grapes for
Mr. Jevvings. Alternately he proposed to send a handsome wreath of white
flowers.
“Right you are, then—that’s all settled!” said Mr. Dobb, exchanging a
glance of relief with the landlord. “And now, Joe, I think we’d better
leave ’ere. Hettiquette, you know, hettiquettte! ’E was ’ere first, and
it’s ’is privilege to remain.”
He seemed in some anxiety to remove Mr. Tridge from the scene, and,
taking him by the arm, drew him to the door. Here he led the way out
into the street. Mr. Tridge, with a farewell remark to the effect that
his opponent would be well advised to catch measles before the week was
out, was about to follow Mr. Dobb, when a stout gentleman solemnly
stepped forward to pat his shoulder with approval.
“I admire your pluck,” stated the stout gentleman.
“Huh!” exclaimed Mr. Tridge, glancing scornfully at Mr. Jevvings. “It
don’t need much pluck!”
“But you know who he is, don’t you?” asked the other, wonderingly.
“Don’t know and don’t care!” was Mr. Tridge’s reckless reply. “I shall
expect to learn ’oo ’e is at the inquest, any way.”
“You don’t know who he is?” gasped the stout gentleman, and then he
patted Mr. Tridge’s shoulder again, but this time it was commiseratingly.
“Why, that’s Ted Burch—_you_ know, _the_ Ted Burch! ‘Toff’ Burch, the
Swindon Slogger!”
“What?” squealed Mr. Tridge. “A—a—a prize-fighter?”
“Middleweight champion of—”
“But—but I thought ’is name was Jevvings?”
“So it is, _pro tem._,” returned his informant. “He’s stopping here
_nem. con._, doing a little quiet training for a match he’s got next
month against Billy Traske, of Birmingham, and—”