A FISTIC ARGUMENT
"You're hungry and want me to give you food? I'll see you in hell
first!"--From _Words to the Hungry_.
I left my job on Tuesday, and tramped about for the rest of the week
foot-free and reckless. The nights were fine, and sleeping out of doors
was a pleasure. On Saturday night I found myself in Burn's model
lodging-house, Greenock. I paid for the night's bedding, and got the use
of a frying-pan to cook a chop which I had bought earlier in the day.
Although it was now midsummer a large number of men were seated around
the hot-plate on the ground floor, where some weighty matter was under
discussion. A man with two black eyes was carrying on a whole-hearted
argument with a ragged tramp in one corner of the room. I proceeded to
fry my trifle of meat, and was busily engaged on my job when I became
aware of a disturbance near the door. A drunken man had come in, and his
oaths were many, but it was impossible to tell what he was swearing at.
All at once I turned round, for I heard a phrase that I knew full well.
"There's a good time comin', though we may never live to see it," said
the drunken man. The speaker was Moleskin Joe, and face to face he
recognised me immediately.
"Dermod Flynn, by God!" he cried. "Dermod--Flynn--by--God! How did you
get on with your milkin', sonny? You're the only man I ever cheated out
of five bob, and there's another man cheatin' you out of your bit of
steak this very minute."
I turned round rapidly to my frying-pan, and saw a man bending over it.
This fellow, who was of middle age, and unkempt appearance, had broken
an egg over my chop, and was busily engaged in cooking both. I had never
seen the man before.
"You're at the wrong frying-pan," I roared, knowing his trick.
"You're a damned liar," he answered.
"No, but you are the damned liar," I shouted in reply.
"Good!" laughed Moleskin, sitting down on a bench, and biting a plug of
tobacco. "Good, Flynn! Put them up to Carroty Dan; he's worth keepin'
your eye on."
"If he keeps his eye on me, he'll soon get it blackened," replied the
man who was nick-named Carroty, on account of his red hair. "This is my
frying-pan."
"It is not," I replied.
"Had you an egg on this chop when you turned round?" asked Carroty.
"I had not."
"Well, there's an egg on this pan, cully, so it can't be yours."
I knew that it would be useless to argue with the man. I drew out with
all my strength, and landed one on the jowl of Carroty Dan, and he went
to the ground like a stuck pig.
"Good, Flynn!" shouted Moleskin, spitting on the planking beneath his
feet. "You'll be a fighter some day."
I turned to the chop and took no notice of my fallen enemy until I was
also lying stretched amidst the sawdust on the floor, with a sound like
the falling of many waters ringing in my head. Carroty had hit me under
my ear while my attention was devoted to the chop. I scrambled to my
feet but went to the ground again, having received a well-directed blow
on my jaw. My mouth was bleeding now, but my mind was clear. My man
stood waiting until I rose, but I lay prone upon the ground considering
how I might get at him easily. A dozen men had gathered round and were
waiting the result of the quarrel, but Moleskin had dropped asleep on
the bench. I rose to my knees and reaching forward I caught Carroty by
the legs. With a strength of which, until then, I never thought myself
capable, I lifted my man clean off his feet, and threw him head foremost
over my shoulders to the ground behind. Knowing how to fall, he dropped
limply to the ground, receiving little hurt, and almost as soon as I
regained my balance, he was in front of me squaring out with fists in
approved fashion. I took up a posture of instinctive defence and waited.
My enemy struck out; I stooped to avoid the blow. He hit me, but not
before I landed a welt on the soft of his belly. My punch was good, and
he went down, making strange noises in his throat, and rubbing his guts
with both hands. His last hit had closed my left eye, but all fight was
out of Carroty; he would not face up again. The men returned to their
discussion, Moleskin slid from his bench and lay on the floor, and I
went on with my cooking. When Carroty recovered I gave him back his egg,
and he ate it as if nothing had happened to disturb him. He asked for a
bit of the chop, and I was so pleased with the thrashing I had given him
that I divided half the meat with the man.
Later in the evening somebody tramped on Moleskin Joe and awoke him.
"Who the hell thinks I'm a doormat?" he growled on getting to his feet,
and glowered round the room. No one answered. He went out with Carroty,
and the two of them got as drunk as they could hold. I was in bed when
they returned, and Carroty, full of a drunken man's courage, challenged
me again to "put them up to him." I pretended that I was asleep, and
took no notice of his antics, until he dragged me out of the bed. Stark
naked and mad with rage, I thrashed him until he shrieked for mercy. I
pressed him under me, and when he could neither move hand nor foot, I
told him where I was going to hit him, and kept him sometimes over two
minutes waiting for the blow. He was more than pleased when I gave him
his freedom, and he never evinced any further desire to fight me.
"It's easy for anyone to thrash poor Carroty," said Joe, when I had
finished the battle.
On Sunday we got drunk together in a speak-easy[8] near the model, and
it was with difficulty that we restrained Carroty from challenging
everybody whom he met to fistic encounter. By nightfall Moleskin counted
his money, and found that he had fourpence remaining.
"I'm off to Kinlochleven in the morning," he said. "There's good graft
and good pay for a man in Kinlochleven now. I'm sick of prokin' in the
gutters here. Damn it all! who's goin' with me?"
"I'm with you," gibbered Carroty, running his fingers through the
"blazing torch"--the term used by Joe when speaking of the red hair of
his mate.
"I'll go too," I said impulsively. "I've only twopence left for the
journey, though."
"Never mind that," said Moleskin absently. "There's a good time comin'."
Kinlochleven is situated in the wilderness of the Scottish Highlands,
and I had often heard of the great job going on there, and in which
thousands of navvies were employed. It was said that the pay was good
and the work easy. That night I slept little, and when I slept my dreams
were of the journey before me at dawn, and the new adventures which
might be met with on the way.
FOOTNOTE:
[8] A shebeen. "You must speak easy in a shebeen when the police are
around."