The milkman told Jimmy that the KAISER was like a gambler who had
mortgaged his resources up to bursting point, and now with every tooth
drawn was chewing the bitter dregs of remorse to the bone. The milkman
says these things come to him whilst he is milking, and the reason is
that when he presses his head to the cow's side the heat of the cow
thaws the blood in his brain for a time.
He told Jimmy that he could make a speech with anybody when he had got
his brain like that, and that he thought of addressing meetings, but
that the cow would be uneasy on a public platform.
Then he looked round to see where Jimmy's bloodhound, Faithful, was.
You see Faithful sometimes makes the milkman's horse try to get into
the milk-cart and hide its head under the seat, you know, like an
ostrich in the dreary desert when it is pursued by its enemies. But
Faithful was chained up for the sake of the deaf-and-dumb woman who
comes round once a fortnight. The deaf-and-dumb woman has a blind
husband, who squeezes a concertina whilst she shakes some coppers in a
tin cup at you. Jimmy's mother always gives her sixpence.
Jimmy says bloodhounds don't like coppers jumping about in tin cups;
it makes them harbour resentment, and then you have to show people
where the piece came out of your dress. The milkman told Jimmy that he
had met the deaf-and-dumb woman that morning. She was all by herself
in one of his fields, practising "Where is my wandering boy to-night"
Her husband had enlisted, that was why, and she had sold the business.
Jimmy wanted to see the woman, but she never came past, so he went
down to the railway-station with Faithful to see if she were there.
But there was only a man with a parcel under his arm looking about for
a train.
Jimmy says that people often go to the station like that, just to see
if there is a train in it; they want to use up their return tickets,
Jimmy says. But there is only the porter to look at, Jimmy says. The
man seemed to think the porter was hiding the trains somewhere, and
asked him for a _Bradshaw_. Jimmy says the porter scratched his head
so hard that Jimmy thought he would get a splinter in his finger,
you know, like they tell you at school, and then he fetched the man a
bradawl. "Didn't he ask me for a gimlet and didn't I bring him one?"
the porter appealed to Jimmy.
Jimmy says the man was very rude to the porter; he said things you
have to be sorry about when you have time to think them over. Jimmy
says the man actually made the porter unlock the waiting-room door and
throw open the window, although the porter told him that he had a hen
sitting on some eggs there.
The man seemed very restless, Jimmy says, because he didn't stay long
in the waiting-room. You see Jimmy's bloodhound wanted to see what the
hen smelt like, and how it was getting on; but the hen was not quite
herself that day, and would keep on flying about the waiting-room at
Faithful, just to try and vex him.
Jimmy says Faithful did his best to get the hen to go back and be busy
sitting on eggs again, but she wouldn't listen to reason.
Jimmy says the man tried to throw the waiting-room at Faithful and the
hen, so Faithful came out through the window, until the furniture
had settled down. Bloodhounds are like that, Jimmy says, they avoid a
disturbance; Faithful is a very good avoider, Jimmy says.
Jimmy says he thinks one of eggs must have been addled, and come
undone in the excitement of the moment, by what the man said. He
didn't seem to like addled eggs much, Jimmy says, and he called
Faithful an animal.
There was a luggage train due, and Jimmy thought he would just see it
come in and then take Faithful away, when on looking round he saw that
his bloodhound had suddenly thrown himself on the Spy trail. He
kept sniffing at the parcel the man had placed on the seat, and then
sniffed hard at the man; after that he sat down and scratched himself
whilst he compared the sniffs. Jimmy says it is splendid to see a
prize bloodhound sifting evidence like that; Faithful is a very good
sifter, Jimmy says.
Jimmy says the man picked up the parcel and put it under his arm; you
could see he was anxious by the way he kept one foot drawn back at the
ready. But Jimmy knows all about parcels under people's arms; you do
it with a fishing-line, and it is a surprise to cure people when they
have got the hiccough.
What you have to do is to get the fishing-line ready, and when the
train comes in to the station you tie one end of the line to one of
the railway trucks, and then, if you are lucky, you manage to hook the
other end through the string of the parcel.
Jimmy says that when you see the parcel you are carrying suddenly jump
from under your arm and go bumping along after the train as it goes
out of the station, you forget to hiccough.
You can do it with buns in refreshment rooms or with the green baize
on bookstalls--it only depends on who has got the hiccough, Jimmy
says.
Jimmy says the man hadn't got the hiccough, but he was very surprised
to see his parcel start chasing the luggage train; it was because of
its activity, Jimmy says. Jimmy was on the bridge watching. Jimmy says
the parcel gave a squeak every time it bumped, and Faithful followed
the squeak all down the platform, and when the parcel burst he hurled
himself at it.
It was the blind man's concertina! and when Jimmy saw Faithful emerge
with the deaf-and-dumb label which the woman used to wear he ran for a
policeman as hard as he could.
The man wanted the policeman to take Jimmy in charge for destroying
his property, Jimmy says. He explained to the policeman about the
concertina; he said he had bought it from a woman who did not know its
value, and that it was a genuine "Strad."
Jimmy says the policeman might have let the man off if it hadn't been
for the porter. You see when the man's parcel was bumping along after
the train, the man opened his mouth so wide that some German words
fell out, and the porter had heard them. The porter knows German,
Jimmy says; he learned it before the War began from a German whose
luggage he had put into the wrong train.
When the German spy was searched it was found that he hadn't much
money, and the policeman said he must have bought the concertina and
label to try to get people to give him money and so work his way to
the coast.
It turned out afterwards that he had escaped from a concentrated camp,
Jimmy says. When Jimmy told the milkman about it, the milkman said
that it was "Ha, ha, one more feather plucked from the horde of German
rats that pollute the air with their diabolical designs."
He was just telling Jimmy that the KAISER was standing on the brink of
a deep abscess, when he heard Jimmy's bloodhound taking his horse home
to put it to bed, and this disturbed his flow of thought.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _The Mess Bore (innocent of small gunpowder plot)._
"DEPEND UPON IT, SIR, THERE'LL BE SOMETHING HAPPENING QUITE SOON NOW,
AND NEARER THAN WE THINK FOR."]
* * * * *