Outside the mission-hall in the gently-raining April night, James
Dodson, with his coat collar turned up over his ears and his hat pulled
down over his eyes, lay in waiting for his friend. Upon beholding this
woe-begone figure William Jordan gave a start of surprise.
“Why, Jimmy,” he said, “why do you come here now?”
“As I was half-way through the performance at the Alcazar,” said Jimmy
Dodson apprehensively, “I had a sort of presentiment. Something seemed
to tell me, Luney, that after to-night I might never see you again.
Something seemed to tell me that you were going away.”
“Nature has certainly spoken to me,” said William Jordan.
“That doesn’t mean, Luney, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson in a voice not
the least like his own, “that you intend to desert an old friend?”
“To-morrow at dawn I obey her decree,” said William Jordan.
“You don’t mean to say you are going away!” cried Jimmy Dodson.
“Yes--for a little while.”
“But--but,” said Jimmy Dodson, “I don’t think I could bear it if you
were never to come back. You see, Luney, old boy--well, you see--well,
somehow, I can’t explain it--_but--if--you--were--never--to--come
--back_!”
The voice of Jimmy Dodson was slow-drawn like a wail. It pierced
William Jordan to the heart. Tears leaped to the eyes of the young man,
but in the darkness his stricken companion could not see them.
“Luney,” said Jimmy Dodson, “will you promise that you will come back?”
“I promise,” said the young man.
“Honour bright, you know, honest Injun,” said Dodson anxiously.
“Honest Injun, Jimmy,” said William Jordan, with a strange smile in his
eyes.
“Give me your hand on it, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson; “although I am
sure you wouldn’t play it low down on an old pal.”
William Jordan yielded to his friend’s importunity.
Dodson shuddered.
“Why, old boy,” he said, “it is so cold--so cold. Ugh, it is like ice.”
William Jordan kissed his friend in the darkness.
“And--and,” cried Dodson, “your lips burn like a fire.”
The two friends walked along in a silence. After they had proceeded a
long distance in this fashion through the wet midnight streets, the
thin and high-strung tones of Jimmy Dodson were heard again in the
darkness.
“Luney,” he said in a voice that seemed to over-tax his powers of
utterance, “I always used to wonder what made me take up with a chap
like you; but since you came out of prison I have done nothing but
wonder what made you take up with a chap like me.”
“You are one of the links in the chain,” said William Jordan, “one of
the stages in the journey.”
“I don’t understand you at all,” said Jimmy Dodson.
“Perhaps it is well,” said William Jordan.
“And yet you know, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson, “when I first knew you,
I didn’t understand you then. But I always accounted for it by the
fact that you were not quite all there. Well, I don’t understand you
a bit better now, although I have come now to account for it by the
fact that I am not quite all there. I don’t know why I have come round
towards you like I have. At first I thought you were rather less than
the ordinary, and that you didn’t count at all; but now I consider you
to be the finest chap I’ve ever known, and that you have got something
about you that more than makes up for what you lack.”
“May you not have entered upon another phase?” said William Jordan.
“I don’t quite know what you mean, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson, “unless
you mean that I’ve changed. At least I had that kind of thought as I
sat this evening at the Alcazar. The wrestling bored me, the songs were
rotten, and I didn’t think much of the ballet. And I thought the band
was out of tune--all except John Dobbs. In fact, I began to wonder why
I came. And then suddenly I thought of that night, old boy, when you
sat at my side, and I took you round to see Hermione----”
“Ah, the goddess!” exclaimed William Jordan softly.
“I have often thought since,” said his friend, “that it was not
right to play it on you as we did. And what Hermione said about
you afterwards, old boy, rather turned me against her. But she was
pretty low down, was Hermione; yes, she doesn’t dance in the ballet
now-a-days. All the same she rather knocked you, old boy, didn’t she?”
“I thought her to be divine,” said William Jordan simply.
The two friends stayed their steps under a flickering gas-lamp in the
City. The steady rain continued. The clock of a neighbouring church
told the hour.
“It will be a long and wet walk to Peckham, Jimmy,” said William Jordan.
“It will, old boy,” said his friend; “but what do you suppose I care,
now that you have given me your promise to come back? By the way, old
boy, do you think it would be asking too much, as a special favour, for
you to write me a line now and then just to say that you are alive?”
The gaze of William Jordan grew heavy with a darkness that was veiled
from his friend.
“You must forgive me, Jimmy, if I don’t,” he said.
“As a special favour,” pleaded his friend. “You know, old boy, I have
never had a line of yours. I have always been meaning to ask you for
your autograph--that is before the trouble came--and--and now the
trouble has come I intend to ask you for it. Send me a line, old boy,
to say you are alive.”
“I cannot promise to do that,” said William Jordan, “because the
strength has not yet been given to my right hand. But I do promise
to return; and when I do return I shall listen for your tap upon the
shutters; and then I will let you in as far as the threshold of the
little room.”
The friends said their last farewells as the clocks chimed the hour of
two.