CHIPPY'S BAD TIME
When Chippy told his followers that they must play the game all the
time, he meant every word that he said. He had devoted himself heart
and soul to becoming a true scout, who is also a true gentleman, and he
not only could reel off the laws by heart, but, as we have seen, he
honestly strove to put them into practice at every moment. But now and
again he ran up against a hard streak of weather in doing this, and he
hit an uncommonly hard streak the very next morning.
At seven o'clock he turned up bright and early at the fishmonger's shop
where he was employed. His employer, Mr. Blades, was in a fairly
prosperous way of business in one of the secondary streets of the town.
Mr. Blades looked after the shop; his son, a young man of twenty-three,
drove a trap round with the customers' orders; and two boys, of whom
Chippy was one, cleaned up, fetched and carried, ran short distances
with pressing orders, and made themselves generally useful.
All went as usual until about eleven o'clock in the morning, when
Chippy was despatched to deliver four or five small bags of fish at the
houses of customers who lived within easy reach. He handed in the last
bag of fish at the kitchen door of a semi-detached house, and the
mistress took it in herself. Chippy was going out at the gate, when he
heard himself called back. He returned to the door. The customer had
already opened the bag, and was surveying critically the salmon cutlets
inside.
'I don't think these look quite fresh,' she said. 'Has Mr. Blades had
salmon in fresh this morning?'
'Yus, mum,' answered Chippy.
'Were these cutlets taken from the fresh salmon?'
They were not, and Chippy knew it, and was silent for a moment. She
looked at him keenly, but smiling at the same time--a pleasant-faced,
shrewd-eyed woman.
'Look here, my boy,' she said, 'these cutlets are for my daughter, who
is only just recovering from a long illness, and I want her to have the
best. You've got an honest sort of face, and I'll take your word.
Were they cut from the fresh salmon?'
'No, mum,' mumbled Chippy.
'I felt certain of it,' she said. 'Now you ask Mr. Blades to send up
fresh cutlets or none at all.'
Chippy went back with a sinking heart: he knew Mr. Blades. There was
ample reason for his foreboding when he reported that the customer
wanted cutlets from the fresh salmon.
'Fresh salmon!' roared Mr. Blades, a red-haired, choleric man. 'How
under the sun did she find out these were not fresh? They look all
right, and they smell all right.'
Chippy said nothing. Suddenly the fishmonger turned on him. 'Tell me
just what she said!' he bellowed. 'You've been at some fool's trick or
other, I know. You boys are enough to drive a man mad. Did she ask
you anything?'
'Yus,' grunted Chippy, who now saw breakers ahead.
'Well, what did she ask you?'
'Wanted to know if they wor' off o' the salmon as come in this mornin'.'
'And what did you tell her?'
'Told 'er no,' mumbled Chippy.
The fishmonger jumped from the ground in his rage. 'There!' he cried,
and smote the counter in his anger. 'What did I say? These boys are
enough to ruin anybody! "Told her no! Told her no!"' He paused,
speechless, and glared at Chippy.
At this moment a trap drove up to the kerb and stopped. Young Blades
jumped out and came into the shop.
'Hallo!' he said cheerfully. 'Giving him a wiggin', guv'nor? That's
rum. Slynn's a good little man, as a rule.'
Mr. Blades recovered his breath with a gasp and poured out the story of
Chippy's enormity. 'Told her no, Larry!' he said. The astounded
fishmonger could not get away from this. 'Told her no!' he repeated
once more.
Larry Blades threw back his head and burst into a roar of jolly
laughter which rang through the shop. 'Well, that's a good un!' he
cried--'a real good un. And I never thought Slynn was such a softy.
Why, Slynn,' he went on, and clapped Chippy on the shoulder, 'you'll
never make a fishmonger if you carry on like that. Everything's fresh
to a customer. You must always tell 'em it's just done its last gasp,
unless the smell's a trifle too high, and then you must be guided by
circumstances.'
He turned round to his father and laughed again jovially.
'It's all right, guv'nor,' he said. 'Cool off and calm down. You do
get so excited over these little trifles. The kid's made a mistake.
Well, he won't do it again. Anyhow, he's worth twenty o' that other
kid. I caught him on th' Oakford road with his bags hangin' on some
railings and playin' football with about a dozen more.'
'I dunno about him not doin' it again,' grumbled Mr. Blades; 'that's
the way to lose customers; and people pass things like that from one to
another.'
'Look here, Slynn,' said Larry Blades, wheeling sharply round, 'you've
got to put yourself square with the guv'nor, or he'll have a fit every
time you start on a round. Now, drop on your bended knees, raise your
right hand, roll your eyes up, and say, "Mr. Blades, I'll never, never
be such a flat again"'; and Larry laughed loudly, and pressed Chippy's
shoulder to force him down and carry out the joke.
But Chippy did not go down: he only looked with anxious eyes from
father to son.
'Come on, speak up!' cried Larry. 'What made you do such a soft trick,
Slynn?'
'She said her daughter 'ad been ill,' mumbled Chippy.
'What of that?' laughed Larry. 'That salmon wouldn't hurt her then.'
'Yer see, I'm a boy scout,' burst out Chippy suddenly, his husky voice
hoarser than ever from excitement and uneasiness.
'Boy scout?' said Larry wonderingly. 'What's that? And what's it got
to do with Mrs. Marten's cutlets?'
Chippy began eagerly to explain, and the two men listened for a few
moments in puzzled wonder.
'Oh, well,' burst in Larry, 'that may be all very well in its way, but
it's clean outside business.'
'It ain't outside anything,' murmured Chippy.
'What!' said young Blades. 'You don't mean to say you'd do the same if
it happened again, do you? Do you want to lose your job?' Chippy
stood aghast. Lose his precious four-and-six a week!
'No, no,' cried Chippy; 'I'll do anything. I'll work as long as yer
like--I'll come at six if yer like, an' stop till any time at night.
Don't tek' me job off o' me.'
'Well, if you want to keep it, you must do as you're told,' began
Larry, but his father out in.
'There's a lot of talk,' he cried, 'but I want you to notice, Larry,
that that boy is dodging the question all the time. He's given no
promise to do his best by us, and he ain't going to give any promise,
either.'
'All right,' said Larry. 'I'll come bang straight to the point. If we
send you out, Slynn, with a bit o' salmon that looks sweet and smells
sweet, will you swear to a customer as it's dead fresh, and can't be
bettered?'
Chippy was cornered. On one side his job--his precious job--how
precious none could know unless they knew his starved and narrow home;
on the other his oath as a boy scout to run straight and play fair to
all men.
'Now, speak out,' cried Larry impatiently. But Chippy--poor
Chippy!--had seen an ideal in his rough, hard life, and he clung to it.
'Yer see,' he began once more, 'I'm a boy scout----'
The fishmonger was bubbling mad all the time; now he completely boiled
over.
'There he goes again!' yelled Mr. Blades. 'If he's a boy scout, let
him clear out o' this, and scout round for another job. Now, then,
shift, and look sharp about it.'
But Chippy was unwilling to go. He was searching his mind for words
with which to plead, and to promise to do his utmost for them, save for
the breaking of his scout's oath, when the furious fishmonger sprang
upon him, tore the bag he still held from his grasp, and literally
threw him out of the shop. Taken by surprise, Chippy was pitched
headlong, and went sprawling along the pavement. He picked himself up
without a word, and went away down the street. His job had gone, and
he knew it, and he stayed not another moment for vain pleading.
'Just hark at him!' cried the fuming Mr. Blades; 'the impident young
dog! Got the sack, and goes off whistling!'
'Well, I'm blest!' said Larry, and nodded his head thoughtfully. 'I
thought he was dead keen on his job. But he don't care a rap about it.
He was only a-kiddin' us. Whistling like a lark!'
Poor Chippy! how sorely was he misjudged! The fishmonger and his son
knew nothing of Scout Law 8: 'A scout smiles and whistles under all
circumstances,' and 'under any annoying circumstances you should force
yourself to smile at once, and then whistle a tune, and you will be all
right.'
Chippy turned a corner, and his whistling died away. Soon it stopped.
His mouth worked a little, and his lips would not quite come into shape
for the merry notes. Scout Law 8 was splendid advice, but this was a
very stiff thing, even for No. 8. Chippy could not whistle, but he
hoped very much that he still wore the smile. Well, his face was
twisted, true, and the twists had the general shape of a smile, but it
was a smile to wring the heart.
When he got home, he found his mother bending over the wash-tub. She
looked up in surprise and then alarm: his face betrayed him.
'What's the matter?' she cried. 'What brings you back at this time?'
'I've got the sack,' said Chippy briefly.
The poor pinched-face woman cried out in dismay.
'An' your father's only done four days this last fortni't!' she wailed.
Chippy's father was a dock-side labourer, and work had been very slack
of late.
'It's aw' right,' said Chippy. 'Don't worry, mother. I'm off up the
town now, to look for another job. I seen two cards out th' other day
in Main Street, "Boy Wanted." I only come in now to mend me britches.'
When Mr. Blades flung Chippy out, the Raven had fallen on one knee, and
his trouser had split clean across. He now purposed to cobble up the
rent before he started on his quest for the precious work which means
the right to live.
He found a needle and some thread, took off his trousers, and stitched
busily away, for he was very handy with his fingers: his mother, too,
had no time for such work; she had got a washing job, and was hard at
it to help the family funds.
As Chippy stitched, his cheerfulness returned. Soon he was whistling
in real earnest. 'I'm goin' in for a rise,' he announced. 'I've
picked up a lot at old Blades' place. I'm goin' to ask five bob.'
'What made him sack yer?' asked his mother.
'Oh, I didn't suit,' said Chippy hastily. 'An' I done my best, too.'
He made haste to be off on his quest, for he was not anxious to
disclose why he had been sacked: in Skinner's Hole the reason would
sound too fantastic to be easily accepted.