TRAVAIL
I
The Sailor, shipless and alone, was about to enter the most amazing
city in the world.
He was a handsome boy, lean, eager eyed, and very straight in the body
in spite of his gear, which consisted mainly of leggings, a tattered
jersey, and a wonderful fur cap with flaps for the nose and ears. He
was fairly tall, but being as thin as a rail looked much taller than he
was. His face and hands were the color of mahogany, his vivid eyes
were set with long intercourse with the sea, and in them was a look
that was very hard to forget.
He came ashore about ten o'clock in the morning of Tuesday, October the
fifth. For a while he stood on the edge of the quay with his bundle
under his arm, wondering what he should do. It had not occurred to him
to ask advice when he left the ship. Even the bosun had not said, "So
long" to him; in spite of six years' service he was a poor seaman with
no real heart for his job. He had been a cheap and inefficient hand;
aboard a better ship, in the Old Man's opinion, he would have been dear
at any price.
His relations with the rest of the crew had never been intimate. Most
considered him "soft" or "a bit touched"; from the Old Man to the last
joined ship's boy, he was "only Sailor." He never thought of asking
what he ought to do; and had he done so his curious intuition told him
the answer he would have been likely to receive. They would have told
him to go and drown himself.
He had not been ashore a quarter of an hour when he began to feel that
it was the best thing he could do. But the queer faculty he had told
him at once that it was a thing he would never be able to do now. If
he had had any luck it would have been done years ago.
Therefore, instead of jumping over the side of the quay, he suddenly
walked through the dock gates into the streets of Wapping. All the
morning he drifted aimlessly up one street and down another, his bundle
under his arm, but neither plan nor purpose in his mind. At last, he
began to feel very hungry, and then he found himself up against the
problem of getting something to eat.
Opposite where he stood in the narrow, busy, interminable street was an
imposing public house, painted a magnificent yellow. He knew that
bread and cheese and a tankard of beer, which he so greatly desired,
were there for the asking. But the asking!--that was the rub. He
always felt tongue-tied in a public house, and his experience of them
in his brief shore-goings in Frisco, Sydney, Liverpool, or Shanghai had
never been happy, and had sometimes ended in disaster. But now under
the spur of need, he crossed the street and, fixing his will, found his
way through the swing doors into the gilded interior of the Admiral
Nelson.
Happily, the American bar was at that moment without a customer. This
was a great relief to the Sailor. But a truly thrilling bar-lady,
replete with earrings, a high bust, and an elaborate false front, gave
him an eye of cool disdain as he entered with his bundle, which he laid
upon a marble-topped table as far from her as possible; and then, after
a long moment's pause, in order to screw his courage to the
sticking-point, he came over to the counter.
The sight of the bar-lady brought a surge of previous shore-goings into
the Sailor's mind. Quite automatically, he doffed his fur cap as
Klondyke would have done in these heroic circumstances, and then all at
once she forgot to be magnificent. For one thing, in spite of his
grotesque clothes and his thin cheeks and his shock of chestnut hair,
he was a decidedly handsome boy. Also he was a genuinely polite and
modest one, and the bar-lady, Miss Burton by name, who had the worldly
wisdom that owns to thirty-nine and the charm which goes with that
period of life, was favorably impressed. "What can I do for you?" Miss
Burton inquired. It was clear that her one desire was to help a shy
youth over his embarrassment.
The voice of the fair, so charmingly civilized, at once unlocked a door
in the Sailor's memory. With a further slow summoning of will-power
which made it the more impressive, he answered precisely as Klondyke
had at the Bodega in Frisco: "May I have some bread and cheese, please,
and half a pint of beer?"
"Certainly you may," she smiled.
The tone of deference had touched a chord in her. Moreover, he really
was handsome, although attired as a very ordinary, not to say a very
common, seaman, and evidently far more at home on the deck of a
windjammer than in the American bar of an up-to-date public-house.
"Fourpence, please." The bar-lady set before him a pewter flagon of
foaming fresh-drawn ale, also a liberal piece of bread and cheese,
beautifully white to one accustomed to hard tack aboard the _Margaret
Carey_.
In some confusion the Sailor produced a handful of silver coins from
his amazing trousers, out of which he solemnly chose a Spanish
fourpenny.
"Haven't you got anything English?" she asked, bursting suddenly into a
laugh.
Not a little disconcerted, the Sailor began to struggle with a second
handful of coins which he took from another pocket. Blushing to the
tips of his ears, he finally tendered half a crown.
"Two-and-two change." With an intent smile she marked what he did with
it.
Having stowed away the two-and-twopence, he was about to carry his
plate of bread and cheese and tankard of beer to the marble-topped
table where he had left his bundle, when the lady said, in a royal tone
of gracious command, "Why not sit and eat it here?"
The Sailor would have been the last young man in the world to think of
disobeying. He felt a little thrill creep down his spine as he climbed
up on the high stool exactly opposite her. It was the sort of thrill
he had had when under the aegis of Klondyke he had carried out this
delicate social maneuver for the benefit of the bar-ladies of Frisco,
Liverpool, and Shanghai.
At first, he was too shy to eat.
"Go on. Don't mind me," she encouraged him.
An intensive politeness caused him to cut his bread carefully with his
knife. And then before he put it into his mouth he said, in an abrupt,
but well modulated Klondyke manner, "'Scuse me, lady, won't yer 'ave a
bite yerself?"
The deferential tone belonged to the mentor of his youth, yet the
speech itself seemed to owe little to Eton College.
"No, thank you," said Miss Burton. "I'm not hungry." And then, seeing
his look of embarrassment, "Now get on with it. Don't mind me."
This was a woman of the world. She was a ripe student of human nature,
at least of the trousers-wearing section of human nature. Not for many
a day had she been so taken by a specimen of an always remarkable genus
as by this boy with the deep eyes, whose clothes and speech and
behavior were like nothing on earth.
A true amateur of the male sex, she watched this quaint specimen eating
bread and cheese. Presently he raised his tankard aloft, said, "Good
'ealth, lady," in a shy manner, and drank half of it at a gulp.
"When are you going to sea again?" asked Miss Burton, conversationally.
"Never going to sea no more," said the young man, with a strange look
in his eyes.
"What--never?" She seemed surprised.
"Never no more. I'll never sail agen afore the mast. I'd sooner
starve. It's--it's----"
"It's what?"
"It's hell, lady."
Miss Burton was taken aback by the tone of conviction. After all, this
grotesque young sea monster was no true amphibian.
"Well, what are you going to do ashore?" she asked after a pause, while
she gazed at him in astonishment.
"Dunno."
"No plans?"
The boy shook his head.
"Like another tankard of mild?"
"Yes, please, lady."
The impact of the bar-lady's easy and familiar style had caused a
rather sharp relapse from the Klondyke standard of refinement, but not
for a moment did the Sailor forget the dignity of her estate. In spite
of the hybrid words he used, the note of subtle deference was never out
of his voice; and Miss Burton, unconsciously intrigued by it, became
even more interested in this strange product of the high seas.
"How long have you been afloat?" She handed him a second tankard of
mild.
"Near six year."
"Six years. Gracious goodness! And you didn't like it?"
"No."
For some reason, the look in his eyes caused her to shiver a little.
"Why did you stick it, then?"
"Dunno."
A pause followed. Then he lifted his tankard again, said, "'Ere's
lookin', lady," and drank it right off.
"Well, you are a rum one, you are, and no mistake," murmured Miss
Burton, not to the Sailor, but to the beer engine at her side.
II
After the young man from the sea had drunk his second tankard of mild,
he sat on the high stool silent and embarrassed. He was hoping that
the gorgeous creature opposite would continue the conversation, but he
didn't seem to know how to encourage her. However, as soon as a
powerful feminine intelligence had told her the state of the case, she
said abruptly, "Well, and what are you going to do for a living now
you've retired from the sea?"
He gave his head a wistful shake.
The gesture, rather pathetic in its hopelessness, touched Miss Burton.
"Well, you can't live on air, you know."
"No, lady."
"Well, what are you going to do?"
Another shake of the head was the only answer, but as he met her
sympathetic eyes, an inspiration came to him.
"Lady," he said humbly, "you don't happen to know of a shack?"
"Know of a what!" The touch of acerbity froze him at once. "Shack!"
Coming to his assistance, "What on earth's that?"
"Lodgings, clean and decent, for a single man." The phrase was
Klondyke's, and it came to him quite oddly at that moment in all its
native purity. His mentor had a private collection of such phrases
which he used to roll out for his own amusement when he went ashore.
This was one. Henry Harper could see him now, pointing to a dingy card
in a dingy window in a dingy street, in some miserable seaboard suburb,
and he could hear him saying, "There you are, Sailor, lodgings, clean
and decent, for a single man."
Miss Burton pondered. And then the slow smile came again.
"Well, if you really want lodgings clean and decent for a single man I
suppose I must try and help you," she said graciously. "But I'm afraid
I shan't be much use. They are not quite in my line."
"No, lady."
"Still, Fore Street is full of them. That's the second turn to the
left and then the first on the right, and then the first on the right
again."
"Yes, lady."
"You might try No. 5--or No. 7--or No. 9--but Fore Street's full of
them."
Miss Burton was really trying to be helpful, and the young seaman was
very grateful to her, but Klondyke would have known at once that "she
was talking out of the back of her neck."
Armed with this valuable information, the young man got off his high
stool at last, raised his fur cap once more, with a little of the
unconscious grace of its original owner, said, "So long, lady,"
collected his bundle and went out by the side door. And in the
meantime, the bar-lady, who had marked every detail of his going,
hardly knew whether to laugh or to shed tears. This was the queerest
being she had ever seen in her life.
The Sailor managed to find Fore Street after taking several wrong
turnings and asking his way three times. And then his difficulties
really began.
Fore Street was very narrow, very long, very gloomy, very dirty. In
each of these qualities it seemed well able to compare with any street
he had seen in Frisco, in Sydney, in Liverpool, or even in Port Said.
But it didn't discourage him. After all he had never been used to
anything else.
The first house in Fore Street had a grimy card in a grimier window,
exactly in the manner to rejoice the heart of Klondyke. Sailor, who
had forgotten almost every syllable of "book-learning" he ever
possessed--and at no time had he been the possessor of many--leaped at
once to the conclusion that the legend on the card was, "Lodgings,
clean and decent, for a single man." Unfortunately it was,
"Dressmaking done here."
A very modest knock was answered by a large female of truculent aspect,
to whom he took off his cap, while she stood looking at him with
surprise, wonder and inveterate distrust of mankind in general and of
him in particular spreading over her like a pall.
"Lodgings, clean and decent, for a single man!"
The door of No. 1, Fore Street, was slammed violently in the face of
the applicant.
The Sailor nearly shed tears. He was absurdly sensitive in dealing
with the other sex and prone to be affected by its hazards and
vicissitudes. However, Auntie of the long ago surged into his mind,
and the recollection seemed to soften the rebuff. All, even of that
sex, were not bar-ladies, sympathetic, smiling, and magnificent.
Therefore he took courage to knock at the door of the next house which
also had a card in the window. But, unfortunately, that again was not
to proclaim lodgings, clean and decent, for a single man, but merely,
"A horse and cart for hire."
Here the blow, again from the quarter which knows how to deal them, was
equally decisive. A creature, blowsy and unkempt, told him, after a
single glance at his fur cap and his bundle and his deep-sea-going
gear, "that if he didn't take hisself off and look sharp about it she'd
set the pleece on him."
At this second rebuff the Sailor stood at the edge of the curb for some
little time, trying to pluck up spirit to grapple with the problem of
the next card-bearing domicile, which happened to be the third house in
the street. He felt he had begun to lose his bearings a bit. It had
come upon him all at once with great force that he was a stranger in a
strange land whose language he didn't know.
He had just made up his mind to tackle the next card in the window, let
the consequences be what they might, when he felt his sleeve plucked by
a small urchin of nine with a preternaturally sharp and racial
countenance.
This promising product of the world's greatest race, one Moses
Gerothwohl by name, had had an eye fixed on the fur cap ever since he
had heard its owner ask at the first house in the street for lodgings,
clean and decent, for a single man. This was undoubtedly one of those
foreign sailors, perhaps a Rooshian--a Rooshian was the very highest
flight of which the imagination of Moses Gerothwohl was at present
capable--who, even if they were apt to get drunk on queer fluids and
sometimes went a bit free with their knives, were yet very
good-natured, and as a rule were pretty well off for money.
"Did yer sye, mate, yer wanted a shakedown?" said Moses Gerothwohl,
plucking at the sleeve of the Sailor.
The Sailor looked down at the urchin and nodded.
"Come with me, then," said Moses, stoutly. "And I'll take yer to my
grandma's."
He led the Sailor through a perfect maze of by-streets, and through a
nest of foul courts and alleys, until at last he came to the house of
his grandmother, to whom he presented the foreign seaman.
She was not very prepossessing to look at, nor was her abode enticing,
but she had a small room to offer which, if not over clean and
decidedly airless, contained a bed of which he could have the sole use
for the reasonable sum of sixpence a night.
The young man accepted the terms at once and laid his bundle on the
bed. But the old woman did not accept him with equal alacrity. There
was a little formality to be gone through before the transaction could
be looked upon as "firm." It was usual for the sixpence to be paid in
advance.
Grandma was one-fifth tact, three-fifths determination, one-fifth
truculence, and the whole of her was will power of a very concentrated
kind. She was as tough as wire, and in the course of several tense and
vital minutes, during which her wolf's eyes never left Henry Harper's
face, that fact came home to him.
It took nearly five minutes for the Sailor to realize that Grandma was
waiting for something, but as soon as he did, the way in which he bowed
to fate impressed her right down to the depths of her soul. He took an
immense handful of silver out of his pocket, the hoarded savings of six
years of bitter toil, chose one modest English "tanner" after a search
among many values and nationalities, and handed it over with a polite
smile.
The old woman was a very hard nut of the true waterside variety, but
the sight of such affluence was almost too much for her. Money was her
ruling passion. She went downstairs breathing hard, and with a deep
conviction that Rothschild himself was in occupation of her first floor
front.
In the meantime, the Sailor had seated himself on the bed at the side
of his bundle, and had started to think things out a bit. This was a
long and tough job. Hours passed. The small, stuffy, evil-smelling
bedroom grew as black as pitch; a heavy October darkness had descended
upon the strange land of Wapping, but the Sailor was still thinking
very hard; also he was wondering what he should do next.
He hadn't a friend on the wide earth. There was nothing to which he
could turn his hand. He could neither read nor write. And in his
heart he had a subtle fear of these queer longshore people, although he
had sense enough to know that it was a Sailor's duty to trample that
feeling under foot. One who six long years had sailed before the mast
aboard the _Margaret Carey_ had nothing to fear in human shape.
As Henry Harper sat on that patched counterpane in the growing October
darkness, unloosing that strange and terrible thing, the mind of man,
he was not merely lonely, he was afraid. Afraid of what? He didn't
know. But as the darkness grew there came an uncanny feeling under his
jersey. It seemed to stick him in the pit of the stomach like the icy
blade of a knife. He had tasted fear in many forms, but this kind of
stealing coldness was something new and something different.
It grew darker and darker in the room. The sense of loneliness was
upon him now like a living presence. There was not a soul in the world
to whom he could turn, to whom he might speak, unless it was the old
woman downstairs. Yet lonely and rather terrified as he was, his odd
intuition told him it would be better to converse with no one than to
converse with her.
At last, shivering and supperless, although his pockets were heavy with
silver untold, he made up his mind to turn in. It was a counsel of
desperation. He was sick to nausea with the business of thinking about
nothing, a process which began in nothing and ended in nothing; and at
last with a groan of misery, he pulled off his boots and leggings, but
without removing his clothes stretched himself on the bed.
If he could have had his wish he would have gone to sleep, never to
awake again. But he could only lie shivering in the darkness without
any hope of rest. Presently a clock struck two. And then he thought
he heard a creak on the stairs and shortly afterwards a stealthy
footfall outside his door.
He had never been anything but broad awake. But these creeping noises
of the night seemed to string up every sense he had to a point that was
uncanny. He held his breath in order to listen--to listen like a
frightened animal in a primeval forest that has begun to sense the
approach of a secret and deadly foe.
The door of the room came very softly open. It was at the side of the
bed, and he could not see it; but he felt an almost imperceptible
vibration in the airless stuffiness in which he lay. Moreover, a
breathing, catlike thing had entered the room; a thing he could neither
hear nor see. It was a presence of which he was made aware by the
incandescent forces of a living imagination.
It was too dark to see, there was not a sound to hear, but he knew
there was a breathing shape within reach of his left hand.
Suddenly his hand shot out and closed upon it.
He caught something electric, quivering, alive. But whatever it was, a
deadly silence contained it. There was not a sound, except a gasp, as
of one who has made a sudden plunge into icy water. The Sailor lay
inert, but now that live thing was in his hand he was not afraid.
He expected a knife. Realizing that he must defend his face or his
ribs or whatever part might be open to attack, he knew he must be ready
for the blow.
But a queer thing happened. The attack was not made by a knife. It
was made by a human will. As he lay grappling in the darkness with his
visitor, slowly but surely he felt himself enfolded by an unknown
power. Such a force was beyond his experience. His own will was in a
vice; there was a deadly struggle, yet neither moved. Not a sound was
uttered, but in the end the Sailor nearly screamed with the
overmastering tension which seemed to be pressing out his life. And
then he realized that his hand was no longer holding the thing upon
which it had closed.
The room was empty again. The darkness was too great for his eyes to
tell him, but every sense he had, and at this moment he had more than
five, seemed to say that whatever his peril, it had now passed.
He sat up and listened tensely through the still open door. He thought
he could hear the creak of a foot on the stairs. Then he began to
search his pockets for a box of matches, and suddenly remembered that
he hadn't one. But the sense of physical danger had given him a new
power over his mind. He was now terribly alert.
His instinct was to get out of that house at once. But a very little
reflection showed that such a course was not necessary. It was only an
old woman after all.
III
Reinforced with the idea that an old woman with wolf's eyes should have
no terrors for a sailor, Henry Harper decided to stay where he was,
until daylight at least. In the absence of matches and local knowledge
it would not be easy to find a way out of the house in the middle of
the night. Moreover if he drew the chest of drawers from under the
skylight, which was too thickly plastered with generations of grime to
dispense light from the sky or anywhere else, and barricaded the door,
he could not be taken by surprise and need have fear of none.
He decided to do this. With arms as tough as steel, he lifted up the
chest of drawers bodily and dumped it with a crash against the door.
Let Grandma get through that if she could. If she did, God help her.
Yes, God help her. The Sailor suddenly took from his pocket a large,
bone-hafted clasp knife. There came the friendly click of the opening
blade, he felt the well ground edge lightly with the ball of his thumb.
He would lie quietly for Grandma in comfort and in simple faith.
What a fool to let her go! ... the trusty friend in his hand was
speaking to him.... Had you forgotten me? I'd have done Grandma's
business in a brace of shakes, you know.
The Sailor, aware of that, felt rather sorry.
But in a little while there was another voice in the room. In climbing
back on the bed, one hand touched the fur cap which lay at the foot of
it. Instantly, a second voice spoke through the darkness.
"No, Sailor, my boy." What a voice it was! "It ain't quite white.
Put your knife in your pocket, old friend. And if Grandma calls again
and you feel you _must_ set your mark on her, what's wrong with your
ten commandments, anyway?"
The tones of Klondyke filled the darkness with their music.
Sailor obeyed instinctively, in the way he had always done. He put the
knife back in his pocket with a gentle sigh.
The dirty dawn of a wet October day stole on the young man's eyes as he
was attempting a doze on the patched counterpane with his sea-going
gear around him. The arrival of an honest Wednesday morning, chill and
dismal as it was, dispelled with a magic that seemed ironical any
lingering trace he might have of his night fear of Grandma. Was he not
a sailor who six long years had sailed the seas? Had he not seen, done
and suffered things which held him forever from any human thrall?
But Henry Harper knew better than to ask Grandma what she had got for
breakfast.
He chose instead to sling his hook. Gathering his truck back into its
bundle, and cramming the magic cap over his eyes, he pulled the chest
of drawers away from the bedroom door. Then as soon as there was light
enough to see the way he crept down the creaking stairs, unlocked,
unbolted and unchained the door below, and slipped out into Wednesday
morning.
Wednesday morning received him with a chill spatter of rain. He stood
a minute on the cobbles of the squalid yard in front of Grandma's
abode--wondering where he was, what he should do, which turn he should
take. As a fact, there was only one turn he could take, and that lay
straight ahead across the yard, through a short arched passageway
leading to a maze of courts and alleys which led heaven knew where.
He proceeded to find out. Bundle under arm, fur cap over eyes, a roll
in his gait, the Sailor emerged at last upon a main street, at present
only half awake. But it contained a thing of vast importance: a
policeman.
The Law in its majesty looked at the Sailor. The Sailor in his
simplicity looked at the majesty of the Law. There was a time, six
long, long years ago, when he would not have ventured such a liberty
with the most august of human institutions. But he was through that
phase of his career. By comparison with all the stripes that had since
been laid upon him even the police were gentle and humane.
There was not a soul in sight except this solemn London bobby, who
stood four square in the Sailor's path.
"Mornin', mister." The Sailor lifted his cap, partly from a sense of
fraternity, partly from a proud feeling of being no longer afraid to do
so.
The bobby surveyed the strange nondescript that had been washed up by
the tide of Wapping. He looked gravely at the bundle and at the fur
cap, and then decided in quite an impersonal way not to return their
owner's salutation.
The Sailor was not hurt by the aloofness of the Law. He had not
expected anything else. After all, the police were the police. He
knew that a gulf of several hemispheres was fixed between a real
three-stripe rozzer of the Metropolitan Force and a thing it had
pleased fate to call by the name of Henry Harper.
"A wrong un, I expect," was the reflection of Constable H23, who always
expected a wrong un at that hour of the morning. Upon the spur of this
thought, the bobby suddenly turned on his heel, and saw the wrong un,
bundle, fur cap and all, crossing the road like an early morning fox at
the lure of a favorite hencoop. Moreover, he was crossing it for the
reason that he was frantically hungry.
Across the road, at a junction it formed with three others as mean and
dismal as itself, was a sight supremely blessed in the eyes of the
Sailor. It was nothing less than a coffee stall in the panoply of
matutinal splendor. Steaming fluids, with flames glowing under them,
flanked one half of its counter; rock cakes, ham sandwiches, beef
sandwiches, rolls and butter, and pork pies, splendidly honest and
genuine pork pies, flanked the other half of it.
The proprietor of the stall, an optimist in white apron and shirt
sleeves, being unmistakably of the male sex had no terrors for the
Sailor. Besides, he was flushed with the knowledge that he had just
said good morning to the police.
"Cup o' coffee, mister, and one o' them."
Nothing less than a pork pie could meet the need of the Sailor.
Moreover, he dived in his pocket, took the first coin that came, which
happened to be half a crown, and laid it with true Klondyke
magnificence on the counter.
The proprietor of the stall, who added a power of clear thinking to his
many qualities, appeared to see in the action as well as in the coin
itself, a declaration of financial status on the part of the young
seaman in the remarkable gear. Also this view was shared by the only
one of his early morning customers who happened to be at the stall: to
wit, an almost aggressively capable looking and slightly bow-legged
young man with flaming red hair and ears set at right angles to his
head, who was devouring a pork pie with quiet ferocity.
A single glance passed between Ike, who owned the stall, and the most
influential of his patrons, who answered to the name of Ginger; a
single glance and that was all.
"Nothing smaller, sonny?" said Ike, smiling and pleasant. "Not used to
big money at seven g.m. Penny the corfee and two pence the pie. Three
d." The proprietor raised three fingers and beamed like a seraph.
Ginger suspended operations on the pork pie to see what Dr. Nansen
would do next.
The Sailor, with memories of Grandma still in his mind, put back the
half-crown carefully before he brought out anything else. He was not
going to give himself away this time. Thus he went warily in search of
the smallest coin he could disentangle from the welter of all shapes
and sizes, of all values and countries, which had been disposed in
every pocket of his person. At last he produced one and laid it on the
oilcloth modestly, as though he merely valued it at threepence. But in
that part of the world it was valued at half a sovereign.
"Rich aunt," said the proprietor of the stall, with respectful humor.
The young man with the flaming hair turned half about, pork pie in
hand, to get a better view of Dr. Nansen. This close observer
proceeded to chew steadily without venturing any remark.
There was nothing left for the Sailor but to give away his wealth in
handfuls now. He had to keep diving into his secret hoard, which out
of deference to the thought of Grandma he was still determined not to
disclose in bulk and sum. Now came up a Spanish fourpenny, now a
Yankee nickel, now a Frenchman, now a Dutchman, now a Mexican
half-dollar, now a noble British quid. For several crowded and
glorious minutes, Ike and the most influential of his patrons had the
time of their lives.
"Thank you, Count," said the proprietor of the stall urbanely, when at
last the owner of the fur cap had managed to discharge his liability in
coin current in the realm of Great Britain. Then, in common with the
entranced Ginger, he watched the young man recruit exhausted nature.
The Sailor having made short and clean work of his first pie went on to
his second, then to his second cup of coffee, then to a rock cake, then
to a ham sandwich, then to a third cup of coffee, then to a third pie,
when Ike and Ginger, his patron, watched with ever growing respect.
And then came the business of finding ninepence, and with it a second
solemn procession of Yankees and Dutchmen and Spaniards and Mexicans,
which roused the respect of Ginger and Ike to such a pitch that it
became almost unbearable.
"See here, Vanderbilt!" said Ike at last, yielding reluctantly the hope
that the young plutocrat would ever hit the exact coin that would meet
the case. "Dig up that half dollar. Me and Ginger"--a polite grimace
at Ginger--"can make up one-and-nine."
Ginger, divided between the reserve of undoubted social position--he
was earning good money down at the docks--and an honest desire to make
himself agreeable in such romantic circumstances, warily produced a
grimy and war-worn sixpence and handed it across the counter, looking
Ike straight in the eyes as he did so.
"Any use?" said Ginger, calm, aloof, and casual.
In the meantime the Sailor had begun the search for his half-crown.
Ginger and Ike waited hopefully, and in the end they were rewarded.
The Sailor found it at last, but not before he had made an end of all
secrecy. In sheer desperation he disclosed handfuls of his hoard.
"Thank yer, Count. One-and-nine change," said Ike.
IV
The Sailor, fortified by one of the best breakfasts of his life,
politely said "Mornin'" to the proprietor of the coffee stall with a
lift of the cap not ungraceful, adding a slightly modified ritual for
the benefit of Ginger, and stepped out again into the world.
Ike and Ginger, his patron, turned to watch the Sailor go. Neither
spoke, but with eyes that glowed in the gray light of the morning like
those of a couple of healthy basilisks, they marked all that the young
man did. The Sailor walked into the middle of the road to the point
where four arteries of traffic met, and then hesitation overcame him as
to what he should do next. For a little while, he stood looking up one
street and down another with an expression of bewilderment upon his
face.
"So long," said Ginger to Ike.
The proprietor of the stall had now none to share his thoughts. He saw
Ginger, assured but wary, saunter up to the Sailor as he stood at gaze;
saw him touch the young man on the shoulder as if by chance rather than
design; saw him speak words which, bend across the counter as he might,
he was too far away to catch.
"Lookin' for anything?" were the words that Ginger spoke. Moreover, he
spoke them blandly, yet with such a subdued air that he might have been
talking in his sleep. The Sailor, whose eyes were far away in the gray
mists of the morning, was looking for nothing, it seemed.
"Which way you goin'?" asked Ginger, in the same tone of mild
somnambulism.
"Dunno," said the Sailor, his eyes farther away than ever.
"Don't know," repeated Ginger.
At this point, he ventured to look very hard and straight into the face
of the Sailor. His knowledge of the human race was pretty considerable
for one of his years, and there was something about the wearer of the
fur cap that interested him. The face under it was fine-drawn, much
tanned by the weather, open as the sky. Ginger then flung an expert's
eye over the lean length of blue jersey which surmounted a grotesque
pair of leggings.
"You don't know," said Ginger. "Well, suppose you walk as far as the
docks?"
The Sailor didn't seem to mind.
"Been long at sea?" inquired Ginger, as with intimate local knowledge
he piloted the young man through a series of short cuts.
"Six year."
"Have ye so!" Ginger was surprised and impressed. "Like it?"
The eyes of the Sailor looked straight down into those of Ginger. But
he didn't say anything.
"You didn't like it?"
"No."
"Why did you stick it, then?"
"Dunno."
The conversation languished a moment, but Ginger's curiosity was
increasing.
"Still foller the sea?"
"No."
"What's yer job?"
"Ain't got one."
Ginger stroked a resolute jaw.
"Lookin' for a billet?"
"Yep."
"Ashore?"
The Sailor nodded.
"Better come with me, then," said Ginger, with an air of decision.
"Dare say we can fix you at our shop. Fifteen bob a week ... fifteen
bob and a tizzey ... if you leave it ter me."
The heart of the Sailor leaped under his jersey. This was big money as
money was understood aboard the _Margaret Carey_.
At the end of a narrow street they came suddenly upon the dock gates.
Through these on the left, then to the left again, and then to the
right was the private wharf of Antcliff and Jackson, Limited, and also
at Hull and Grimsby. Ginger, having told the Sailor tersely to wait
outside, entered the decrepit wooden office at the entrance to the
wharf, with the air of a partner in the firm. After he had had two
minutes' conversation with a melancholy individual with a red nose and
a celluloid collar, he beckoned to the Sailor to come inside.
The Sailor entered the office like a man in a dream.
"Name?" said, or rather snapped, the Individual.
"Enry Arper."
The Individual took down the time book from the rack above his head
with a vehemence that seemed quite uncalled for, opened it savagely,
dipped a pen in a cracked inkpot and dashed down the name ferociously.
"Sign."
The Sailor took up the pen coolly and with a sense of power. The
Individual was a mere babe at the breast compared to Mr. Thompson and
the Old Man. Moreover, the ability to sign his name was his one
literary accomplishment and he was honorably proud of it. Klondyke had
taught him that, and he had hung on for all he was worth to such a
priceless asset. H-e-n with a Hen, r-y Henry, H-a-r with a Har, p-e-r
Harper--the letters were formed very carefully with his tongue sticking
out of his mouth.
Ginger, rather impressed by the insouciance of the whole proceeding,
then led the Sailor across the yard to his duties. He wasn't quite
such a guy as he looked. There was something there it seemed;
something that went pretty deep. Ginger noted it not unfavorably. He
was all for depth. He was a great believer in depth.
The Sailor was informed by this new and providential friend that he had
stood out for the princely emolument of seventeen and a tizzey, and had
been able to get it. This was big money for his rank of life, but his
occupation was menial. He had to haul sacks, to load and unload
cargoes. Still he didn't complain. It was the life of a gentleman in
comparison with being afloat on the high seas.
To be sure his money was not as big as it looked. He had to live out
of it and to find a berth to sleep in at night. But making every
allowance for longshore extravagance there could be no doubt that this
new existence was sheer luxury after six years of Sing and wet hash and
hard-tack and a bed in the half-deck of the _Margaret Carey_.
Dinner time came at twelve o'clock, and under the aegis of Ginger, the
Sailor walked up the main street once more to Ike's coffee stall, and
at Ginger's expense had as much as he could eat for sixpence. He
wanted to pay his own shot and Ginger's also, but Ginger simply would
not hear of such a thing. This was His, he said firmly; and when
Ginger spoke firmly it generally had to be His whatever it was or might
be. It was nice of Ginger; all the same that paladin was far-sighted,
he was clear-headed, he was sure and cool. What Ginger didn't know was
not knowledge, and it was no less a person than Ike who said so.
For example, after dinner, which took exactly twelve minutes by the
clock of the Booteries across the road and opposite the stall, Ginger
remarked almost in the manner of one who communes with his subliminal
self, "There's one thing yer wantin'."
The Sailor looked incredulous. At that moment he felt it was not in
the power of wide earth or high heaven to offer him anything further.
"You want a belt for your brass." Ginger spoke behind his hand in a
whisper. "Mon't carry it loose. Wear it round your waist, next your
skin. Money's money."
Ike, absorbed in the polite occupation of brushing stray crumbs of rock
cake from the strip of grimy oilcloth which graced the counter, was so
much impressed by Ginger's grasp of mind that he had the misfortune to
bring down a jubilee mug with his elbow, without breaking it,
fortunately.
Ginger laid such emphasis upon the point that the Sailor accompanied
him across the street to Grewcock's emporium, where body belts were
kept in stock. A careful survey of all to be found on the premises,
together with an examination, equally careful, of their prices
convinced Ginger that better value for the money could be had
elsewhere. Thus they withdrew lower down the street to Tollemache and
Pearson's, where unfortunately the scale of charges was even higher.
This was discouraging, but there was a silver lining to the cloud. It
appeared that Ginger had a belt, which in his own opinion was far
superior to anything they had yet seen; it was Russia leather of the
finest quality and he was willing to sell it for less than it cost if
the Sailor was open to the deal. The Sailor was not averse from doing
business, as Ginger felt sure would be the case, when the material
advantages had been pointed out to him. But as Ginger had not the belt
upon him he suggested that they should call at his lodgings on their
way back to the docks in order that the Sailor might inspect it.
Ginger's lodgings were within a stone's throw of the wharf of Antcliff
and Jackson, Limited. Not only were they very clean and comfortable,
but also remarkably convenient; in fact, they were most desirable
lodgings in every way. Their only drawback was they were not cheap.
Otherwise they were first class.
By a coincidence the Sailor, it seemed, was in need of good lodgings as
well as a belt for his money. Before he returned to the wharf of
Antcliff and Jackson, Limited, at one o'clock, he had been provided
with things so necessary to his comfort, well-being, and social status.
V
The Sailor paid six-and-six for the belt of Russia leather, and in
Ginger's opinion that was as good as getting it for nothing. Also he
agreed to share bed and board with Ginger for the sum of twelve
shillings a week. It was top price, Ginger allowed, but then the
accommodation was _extra_. Out of the window of the bedroom you could
pitch a stone into the wharf of Antcliff and Jackson, Limited.
This arrangement, in Ginger's opinion, was providential for both
parties. Such lodgings would have been beyond Ginger's means had he
been unable to find a decent chap to share them with him. Then the
Sailor was young, in Ginger's opinion, in spite of the fact that he had
been six years at sea. It would be a great thing in Ginger's opinion
for so young a sailor to be taken in hand by a landsman of experience
until he got a bit more used to _terrier firmer_.
So much was the Sailor impressed by Ginger's disinterestedness that at
six o'clock that evening, when his first day's work was done, he
brought his gear from the wharf to No. 1, Paradise Alley. Ginger
superintended its removal in the manner of an uncle deeply concerned
for the welfare of a favorite nephew. Indeed this was Ginger's
permanent attitude to the Sailor from this time on; all the same, he
received twelve shillings in advance for a week's board and lodging.
Uncle and nephew then sat down to a high tea of hot sausages, with
unlimited toast and dripping, before a good fire, in a front parlor so
clean and comfortable that the mind of the Sailor was carried back a
long six years to Mother and the Foreman Shunter.
When Henry Harper sat down to this meal with Ginger opposite, and that
philanthropist removed the cover from three comely sausages, measured
them carefully and helped the Sailor to the larger one-and-a-half, his
first thought was that he was now as near heaven as he was ever likely
to get. What a change from the food, the company, and the squalor of
the _Margaret Carey_! Klondyke himself could not have handed him the
larger sausage-and-a-half with an air more genuinely polite. There was
a self-possession about Ginger that was almost as wine and music to the
torn soul of Henry Harper.
As the Sailor sat eating his sausage-and-a-half and after the manner of
a sybarite dipping in abundant gravy the perfectly delicious toast and
dripping, he felt he would never be able to repay the debt he already
owed to Ginger. That floating hell which had been his home for six
long years, that other hell the native haunt of Auntie where all his
early childhood had been passed, even that more contiguous hell in the
next street but two, the abode of Grandma, were this evening a thousand
miles away. Just as the mere presence of Klondyke had once given him
courage and self-respect which in his darkest hours since he had never
altogether lost, so now, after such a meal, the mere sight of Ginger
sitting at the other side of the fire, smoking Log Cabin, put him in
new heart, touched him, if not with a sense of joy, with a sense of
hope.
As became a man of parts Ginger was not content to sit for the rest of
the evening smoking Log Cabin and gazing into the fire. At a quarter
past seven, by the cuckoo clock on the chimneypiece, there came a knock
at the outer door of the room which opened on the street. This was to
herald the arrival of Ginger's own private newspaper, the _Evening
Mercury_, which had been brought by a tattered urchin of nine, of whom
the Sailor caught a passing glimpse, and as in a glass darkly beheld
his former self.
In the eyes of the Sailor hardly anything could have ministered so much
to Ginger's social position as that every evening of his life, Sundays
excepted, his own newspaper should be delivered at No. 1, Paradise
Alley. It was impossible for the Sailor to forget his early days in
spite of the fact that fortune had come to him now in a miraculous way.
His world was still divided into those who sold papers and those who
bought them. Ginger clearly belonged to the latter exclusive and
princely caste. He was of the class of Klondyke--of Klondyke who in
his shore-goings in the uttermost parts of the earth behaved in an
indescribably regal and plutocratic manner. Sometimes it had appeared
to the Sailor, such were the amazing uses to which Klondyke had put his
money, that the earth was his and all the lands and the waters thereof.
Ginger's ideas were not as princely as those of Klondyke; that was, in
regard to money itself. He did not throw money about in the way that
Klondyke did, nor had he Klondyke's air of genial magnificence which
vanquished all sorts and conditions of men and women. But in their own
way Ginger's ideas were quite as imperial.
As soon as Ginger opened his evening paper he remarked, with a short
whistle, "I see Wednesday has beat the Villa."
"No," said the incredulous Sailor.
It was an act of politeness on the part of the Sailor to be
incredulous. He might have accepted the fact without any display of
emotion. But he felt it was due to his feelings that he should make
some kind of comment, for they had been stirred considerably by the
victory of Wednesday over the Villa.
"Win by much?" asked the Sailor, his heart suddenly beginning to beat
under his seaman's jersey.
"Three two," said Ginger.
"At Brum?"
"No, at Sheffle, in foggy weather, on a holdin' turf."
The Sailor's eyes glowed. And then with his chin in his hands he gazed
deep into the fire.
"I once seen the Villa," he said in a dreaming voice. It was the
proudest memory of his life.
Ginger withdrew his mind from a consideration of the Police Report and
the latest performances of the Government.
"At the Palace?" Ginger's tone was deep as becomes one entering upon
an epic subject.
"No," said the Sailor, the doors of memory unlocked. "At Blackhampton.
The Villa come to play the Rovers. My! they could play a bit. Won the
Cup that year. Me and young Arris climbed a tree overlookin' the
ground. Young Arris got pinched by a rozzer."
Ginger was not impressed by the reminiscence. It seemed a pity that a
chap who had been six years before the mast, and not a bad sort of
fellow, should give himself away like that. From the style and manner
of the anecdote it was clear to this exact thinker that the Sailor had
begun pretty low down in the scale. In the pause which followed the
Sailor shivered like a warhorse who hears the battle from afar. The
memories of his youth were surging upon him. In the meantime, Ginger,
who appeared to be frowning over the Government and the Police news,
was watching the Sailor's eyes very intently. He was watching those
strange eyes with a cool detachment.
"Enery," said Ginger, choosing his words carefully, "if I was you, do
you know what I'd do?"
Enery didn't.
"I'd very seriously be considerin' how I could earn my four quid a
week."
The Sailor smiled sadly. He knew from cold experience that such a
remark was sheer after-supper romance. Still it must be very nice to
own a mind like Ginger's, which could weave such fantasy about the
facts of life.
"If I was you," proceeded Ginger, "I wouldn't sleep in my bed until I
was earnin' my four quid a week, winter _and_ summer."
The Sailor who knew the price exacted in blood and tears to earn a
pound a month could only smile.
"I'm goin' out for it meself," said Ginger. "And I'm not so tall as
you. And I haven't your make and shape, I haven't your turn o' the
leg, I haven't your arms an' wrisses."
Ginger might have been speaking Dutch for all that the Sailor could
follow the emanations of his remarkable intellect.
"See here,"--an unnecessary adjuration since the Sailor was looking in
solemn wonder with both eyes---"my pal Dinkie Dawson has just been
engaged for three years by the Blackhampton Rovers at four thick uns a
week. Fact."
The Sailor didn't doubt it. The very genius of scepticism would have
respected such an announcement.
"Dinkie Dawson, if you please," said Ginger. "Why, I used to punch his
head fearful. He did my ciphering at school--an' now--an' now----!"
Ginger was overcome by emotion. "But if a mug like Dink--yes, mark
you, a _mug_ can earn big money, I'm sort of thinkin' _that_ puts it
right up to William Herbert Jukes, Esquire."
The eyes of the Sailor glowed like stars in the light of the fire. It
was almost as if he had heard the flutter of the wings of destiny. As
a boy of nine flying shoeless and stockingless through the icy mud of
Blackhampton, bawling, "Result of the Cup tie," he had felt deep in his
heart the first stab of ambition. One day he would help the Rovers
bring the Cup to his native city. That was no more than a dream. The
Rovers were heroes and supermen--not that Henry Harper was able to
formulate them in terms of psychological accuracy. And here was
Ginger, a new and very remarkable friend, whom fate had thrown across
his path, seated within three yards of him, setting his soul on fire.
"Why not?" There was no fire in the soul of Ginger. His voice was
arctic cold, but the purpose in it was deadly. "If a guy like Dink,
why not me?" A slight pause. "And if Ginger Jukes, who is five foot
six an' draws the beam at eleven stun in his birthday suit, why not Mr.
Enery Arper?" And Ginger looked across at the Sailor almost with pity.
The heart of the Sailor began to thump violently. And there came
something soft and large in his throat.
"How tall are you, Sailor? Six foot?" The eye of an expert traversed
the finely turned form.
"Thereabouts."
"What's your fighting weight in the buff?"
"Dunno."
"Ought to know to a bounce. But it don't matter. You'll thicken. How
old next birthday?"
"Nineteen."
"That's a good age. Wish I was. I'm one and twenty."
The Sailor thought he looked more.
"I'm a lot more in some things," said Ginger. "But at football I shall
not be one and twenty until the middle o' Janawerry."
The Sailor was a little out of his depth. There was a subtlety about
Ginger that went far beyond anything he had ever met. Even Klondyke,
great man as he was, seemed a mere child by comparison with this
forcible thinker.
"Nineteen is just the age," said Ginger, "to learn to chuck yerself
about. But I dare say you know how to do that, having follered the
sea."
"I can climb a bit," the Sailor admitted with great modesty.
"Can yer jump?"
The Sailor could jump a bit too.
"Could you throw yerself at the ball like a rattlesnake if you see it
fizzing for the fur corner o' the net?"
The Sailor's modesty could not hazard an opinion on a matter of such
technical complexity.
"I expect so," said Ginger, with a condescension that was most
agreeable. "You are just the build for a goalkeeper. If it's fine
tomorrow dinner-hour, we'll put you through your paces on Cox's Piece.
I'm thinkin', Enery, you and me will soon be out after that four quid.
Anyhow, I'll answer for Mr. W. H."
With the air of a Bismarck, Mr. W. H. Jukes, _alias_ Ginger, resumed an
extremely concentrated perusal of the evening's news.
VI
That night the repose of the Sailor was rather disturbed. For one
thing he was unused to sleeping on dry land; for another Ginger took up
a lot of the bed, and as he slept next the wall, the Sailor's position
on the outer verge was decidedly perilous. Also when Ginger lay on his
back, which he did about two, he was a snorer. Therefore the Sailor
had to adjust himself to circumstances before he could begin to repose
at all.
Even when slumber had really set in, which was not until after three,
he had to wriggle his lean form into the famous but very tight jersey
of the Blackhampton Rovers, the historic blue and chocolate. But what
a moment it was when he came proudly on to the field in the midst of
the heroes of his early dreams, coolly buttoning his goalkeeping
gloves, and pretending not to be aware that thousands were massed tier
upon tier around the amphitheater craning their necks to get a glimpse
of him, and shouting themselves hoarse with their cries of battle!
It was odd that his first game with his beloved Rovers should be
against the doughtiest of their foes, the world-famous Villa. And it
seemed at first that the occasion would be too much for him. But
Ginger was there, ruddy and insouciant, also in a magnificent new
jersey. Ginger was playing full back, and just as the match was about
to begin he turned round to the goalkeeper and said, "Now, Sailor, pull
up your socks, old friend." But the queer thing was, the voice did not
belong to Ginger, it was the voice of Klondyke. Then confusion came.
It was not Ginger, it was Klondyke himself who was playing full back,
Klondyke the noblest hero of them all. So much was the Sailor
astonished by the discovery that he fell out of bed, without disturbing
Ginger who was in occupation of three parts of it and snoring like a
traction engine.
Next day, the dinner-hour being fine, the Sailor made his debut as a
football player on Cox's Piece in the presence of a critical assembly.
A number of the choicest spirits of the neighborhood, some in work,
some out of it, but one and all fired with real enthusiasm for a noble
game, gathered with a football about a quarter past twelve. This was a
stalwart company, but as soon as Ginger appeared on the scene he took
sole command of it. There were those who could kick a football as well
as he, there were those who were older, bigger, stronger, but by sheer
pressure of character in that assembly Ginger's word was law.
"Parkins," said Ginger, "you can't keep goal. Come out of it, Parkins.
Here's a chap as can."
While the crestfallen and unwilling Parkins deferred to the master
mind, a wave of solemn curiosity passed through the cognoscenti of
Cox's Piece. The Sailor was seen to doff his wonderful fur cap, which
alone was a guaranty of untold possibilities in its wearer, to roll up
solemnly the sleeves of his tattered blue seaman's jersey, and to take
his place in the goal which had been formed by two heaps of coats.
"He's a sailor," said Ginger, for the general information. But the
statement was entirely superfluous. It was clear to the humblest
intelligence that he was a sailor and nothing else, but Ginger knew the
value of such an announcement. To a landsman--and these were landsmen
all--a sailor is a sailor. Strange glories are woven round his
visionary brow. He is a being apart. Things are permitted to him in
speech and deed that would excite criticism in an ordinary mortal. For
instance, the first shot at goal, which Ginger took himself by divine
right, and quite an easy one, by design, for a real goalkeeper to
parry, the Sailor missed altogether. Had he been aught but a sailor
his reputation as far as Cox's Piece was concerned would have been gone
forever.
"Ain't got his sea legs yet." Ginger's coolness and impressiveness
were extraordinary. "Been eight year at sea. Round the world nine
times. Wrecked twice. Seed the serpent off the coast o' Madagascar.
Give me the ball, Igson. Wait till he gets his eye in an' you'll see."
Ginger's second shot at goal was easier than his first, and the Sailor,
to the gratification of his mentor, was able to mobilize in time to
stop it.
"What did I tell yer?" said Ginger. "You'll see what he can do when he
gets his sea legs."
Within a week the Sailor was the unofficial hero of Cox's Piece.
Ginger, of course, was the only authentic one. But he was too great a
man ever to be visited by a suspicion of jealousy. Jealousy is a
second rate passion, and whatever Ginger was he was not second rate.
Besides the Sailor's remarkable success on Cox's Piece increased the
prestige of his discoverer.
The Sailor took to goalkeeping as a duck takes to water. The truth was
he was a goalkeeper born, as a poet is born or a soldier or a musician.
His slender body was hung on wires, his muscles were toughened into
steel and whipcord by long years of hard and perilous training. Then
his eye, keen and clear as a hawk's, was quick and true. Also he was
active as a cat, and with very little practice was able to compass that
_tour de force_ of the goalkeeper's art, the trick of flinging himself
full length upon the ground in order to parry a swift shot at short
range.
Ginger was a wonderfully shrewd judge of men. And this faculty had
never shown itself more clearly than in seeing a born goalkeeper in the
Sailor even before that young man had made his debut on Cox's Piece.
The brilliant form of his protege was a personal triumph for Ginger.
His reputation for omniscience was more firmly established than ever.
In little more than a fortnight the Sailor was able to keep goal not
merely to the admiration of Cox's Piece, his fame had begun to spread.
It was not that Henry Harper, even in these critical days, was wholly
absorbed in the business of learning to play football. Of vast
importance to his progress in the world, as in Ginger's opinion that
art was, there was still time and opportunity for the Sailor to think
of other things.
He was much impressed by Ginger's perusal of the evening's news, which
always took place after supper. At the same time he was troubled.
Ginger took it for granted that Enery could read a newspaper. He
treated that as a matter of course, perhaps for the reason that he had
seen the Sailor sign his name, laboriously it was true, in the
time-book of Antcliff and Jackson, Limited. But Ginger, with all his
shrewdness, made a bad mistake. He little guessed that the Sailor's
signature stood for the sum of his learning. He little guessed when he
flung the _Evening Mercury_ across to the Sailor after he had done with
it himself, and the Sailor thanked him with that odd politeness which
rather puzzled him, and became absorbed in the paper's perusal, that
the young man could hardly read a word.
On the evening this first happened the Sailor had intended no deceit.
He was so straight by nature that he could not have set himself
deliberately to take in anybody. The deception came about without any
will of his to deceive at all; and he was soon having to maintain a
false impression which he had not intended to create. All the same, he
would have been mortally ashamed to let the cat out of his bag. He
well knew that it would have been a crushing blow to that terrible
thing, the pride of Ginger.
The young man wrestling behind the _Evening Mercury_ with the simplest
words it contained, and able to make very little of them in the way of
sense because they so seldom came together, reflected ruefully that he
ought at all costs to have borne in mind Klondyke's advice. "Stick to
the reading and writing, old friend. That's your line of country.
You'll get more out of those than ever you'll get out of the sea."
Bitterly he regretted now that he had not set store by those inspired
words. He began to see clearly that you could not hope to cut much ice
ashore unless you were a man of education.
He was able to write his name, and that was all. Also he knew his
alphabet and could count up to a hundred if you gave him plenty of
time. There were also a few words he knew at sight, and thirty,
perhaps, short ones, and the easiest in the terribly difficult English
language, that he could spell with an effort. This was the sum of his
knowledge, and the whole of it was due to Klondyke, who had given many
a half-hour of his leisure to imparting it in the cold and damp misery
of the half-deck with no more than a sputter of candle by which to do
it.
Sailor had clung desperately to all the scraps of learning which
Klondyke had given him, but when his friend left the ship he had not
had the grit to plow the hard furrow of knowledge for himself. Somehow
he had not been able to stick it. He needed the inspiration of
Klondyke's voice and presence, of Klondyke's humor and friendliness.
He could hardly bring himself to open the Bible his friend had given
him, and when he tried to read the _Brooklyn Eagle_ he couldn't see it
for tears.
Now he had left the sea for good, he knew a bitter price would be
exacted for his weakness. To begin with it would be impossible to tell
Ginger the truth. Ginger was the kind of man who would look down on
him if once he knew his secret. Besides it was a grievous handicap
ashore never to have been to school. Moreover the Sailor was so honest
that any kind of deception hurt him.
"Read that yarn about Kitchener and the Gippy?"
"No," said the miserable Sailor.
"Better. Page three. Bottom. Damn good. What?"
"Yep," said the Sailor, wishing to commit the act of hari-kari. He
must find a way out. The longer the pretense was kept up the worse it
would be. But it was impossible to tell Ginger that he couldn't even
find the yarn of Kitchener and the Gippy, let alone attempt to read it.
VII
Ginger was a wonderful chap, but his nature was hard. He had little of
Klondyke's far-sighted sympathy, which in circumstances of ever growing
difficulty would have been an enormous help to the Sailor.
Henry Harper had felt no shame when he told the dismal truth to
Klondyke that he could neither read nor write. But he would rather
have his tongue cut out than tell that particular truth to Ginger.
Still the game of make-believe must not go on. It made the young man
horribly uncomfortable to be driven to play it after supper every
night. Something must be done if the esteem, perhaps the friendship,
of Ginger was not to be forfeited.
The Sailor was no fool. Therefore he set his wits very seriously to
work to grasp the nettle without exposing his ignorance more than was
absolutely necessary. He spent anxious hours, not only during the day,
but in the watches of the night, trying to find a way out.
One Saturday evening he sat in a frame of mind bordering upon ecstasy.
At the instance of Ginger, who was the captain and treasurer of the
club, the chairman of the committee, and also one of its
vice-presidents, the Sailor had been invited that afternoon to keep
goal for the Isle of Dogs Albion. The Sailor had done so. Ginger had
shaken hands with him impressively after the match, and had solemnly
told him that he had won it for his side, which was truly the case.
And the fact was frankly admitted by the rest of the team.
"Mark my words," said Ginger to his peers, "that feller's young at
present, but he plays for England when he gets a bit more powder in his
hold."
This was talking, but no member of the Isle of Dogs Albion was so
misguided as to argue the matter. Ginger's word was the law of
nations. Besides, the Sailor was a goalkeeping genius; his form that
afternoon could not have been surpassed by Robinson of Chelsea.
That evening as the Sailor sat gazing, chin on hands, into the fire,
while Ginger read out the results of the afternoon's matches, he began
to think to a purpose.
"Sunderland hasn't half put it acrost the Arsenal. Villa and Wolves a
draw."
"Ginger," said the Sailor wistfully, "if you had been to sea for near
seven year an' you had forgot a bit o' what you knowed at school, what
would you do about it?"
"Do about what? 'Otspur hasn't half punctured Liverpool, I don't
think."
"Do about learnin' what you've forgot?"
"Come again, pardner. I'm not Old Moore. Manchester City and
Birmingham no goals half time."
"Do about learnin' a bit o' figurin' what you ought to ha' knowed afore
you went to sea?"
"Do you think I'm Datas?" The flash of scorn seared the soul of Henry
Harper like the live end of an electric wire. "It's a silly juggins
question. How the hell should I know?"
No, Ginger was not helpful.
But tonight the Sailor was in the seventh heaven, he was walking on
air, therefore with a courage not his as a rule he would not own defeat.
"Suppose you'd almost forgot how to read the news. What'd you do about
it?"
"Do about it? Why, I'd pleadin' well go and drown meself."
The Sailor drew in his breath in a little gasp. But the matter was so
tragic that he must go on. And it was no more than Klondyke had
foreseen.
"Perhaps there's someone as would learn me," said the Sailor half to
himself. And then his pluck gave out.
Silence fell for twenty minutes. Ginger smoked Log Cabin and read the
evening's news, while the Sailor continued to stare in the fire. Then
Ginger flung across the _Evening Mercury_ with, as the Sailor fancied,
a slight touch of contempt. But Henry Harper had not the heart to take
up the paper tonight. He must never take it up again until he had
learned to read it!
In the meantime Ginger reflected.
"Sailor," he said, looking at the fire-lit figure, with vibrations of
depth and power in his voice, "you'll go far. That's my opinion, an' I
don't talk out o' the back o' my neck as a general rule. You'll go
far."
This conveyed nothing to the Sailor.
"I'm tellin' yer," said Ginger. Rising with his freckled face shining
and his deep mind fired by ambition, he took from a drawer in the
supper table a sheet of writing-paper, an envelope, and a blotter which
a philanthropic insurance company had presented to the landlady, an
ancient ink bottle and a prehistoric pen from the chimneypiece, cleared
a space by piling saucers upon plates and cups on the top of them, and
then sat down to compose the following letter:
DEAR DINK,
I write these few lines hoping you are well as they leave me at
present. A chap has just joined our club as I think you ought to know
about. He's a sailor, and his goal-keeping is marvelous. None of our
chaps has seen anything like it. Thought you might like to know this
as the Hotspurs is after him. Two of their directors came to see him
play this afternoon, and from what I hear they are going to make him an
offer. But from what he tells me he would rather play for the Rovers
than anybody as he is Blackhampton born, and though he's been nine
times round the world and wrecked twice, he thinks there's no town like
it. At present he is young and green, being took to sea as quite a
kid, but I honestly think your directors ought to know about him, as he
will be snapped up at once. I can arrange to bring him over to
Blackhampton any Saturday for your club to look at if they care to give
us both a trial with the Rovers' second team. We would both come for
our expenses, railway fares, and one day's wages, but he won't come
without me as we lodge together and play for the same club. You can
take it from me he's a Nonesuch.
Yours truly,
W. H. JUKES.
P. S.--This season I am in pretty fair form myself at right full back.
W. H. J.
Ginger wrote this letter with great pains in a very clear and masterful
hand. He addressed it to Mr. D. Dawson (Blackhampton Rovers F.C.), 12
Curzon Street, Blackhampton. Then, without saying a word to the
Nonesuch, he went out to post it at the end of the street. Having done
this, thinking hard, he made his way to the little alien hairdresser in
the High Road, who had the honor of his patronage, and sternly ordered
"a hair cut, and see that you go close with the lawn mower."
Meanwhile the Sailor sat by the fire. Presently the room was invaded
by Mrs. Sparks, the landlady. She was a fatigued and faded creature,
but honest, discreet, and thoroughly respectable in Ginger's opinion,
and in that of his fellow lodger there could be no higher. Besides it
was no secret that Mrs. Sparks had seen better days. She was the widow
of a mariner, who had borne a gallant part in the bombardment of
Alexandria, although his country and hers appeared rather to have
overlooked the fact.
The Sailor was a little afraid of Mrs. Sparks. She was to his mind a
lady, and overawed by her sex in general, the young man was rather
embarrassed by her air of austerity. She never spoke without choosing
her words, also the order in which to place them; and Ginger, who was
frankly and cynically contemptuous in private discourse of Mrs. Sparks'
sex, was always careful to address her as "Ma'am," a fact which as far
as the Sailor was concerned amply vouched for her status.
At ordinary times the Sailor would not have dared to speak to his
landlady unless she had first spoken to him. But tonight he was in a
state of excitement. By some curious means the events of the afternoon
had translated him. A tiny bud of ambition was breaking its filaments
in his brain.
While Mrs. Sparks, weary and sallow of countenance, was clearing the
table, a compelling force made the Sailor remove his chin from his
hands and cease gazing into the fire.
"Beggin' pardon, m'm," he said, with the odd, almost cringing
humbleness which always inspired him in his passages with even the
least considerable of Mrs. Sparks' sex, "would you mind if I ask you a
question?"
The landlady was a little surprised. Her lodgers were not in the habit
of taking her into their confidence. But in spite of a bleak exterior
she was less formidable than she looked, and this the Sailor had felt
to be the case. In his tone, moreover, was a note to touch the heart
of any woman.
"Not at all," said Mrs. Sparks genteelly.
"If you had been seven year at sea," said the young man, enfolding her
with his deep eyes, "an' you had forgot your figurin', what would you
do about it?"
Mrs. Sparks was so completely at a loss that the Sailor felt it to be
his duty to make himself a little clearer.
"Suppose, m'm, you had forgot all yer knowed of your writin' and
readin' while you was at sea, what 'u'd you do about _that_?"
Mrs. Sparks shook her head. It was a ladylike expression of hopeless
defeat.
The Sailor grew desperate.
"See here, m'm." He took up the _Evening Mercury_ with a fierceness
which immensely surprised Mrs. Sparks; he looked so gentle that he
didn't seem to have it in him. "It's like this year. I can't read a
word o' this pleadin' paper. Beg parding, lady." Her face had
hardened at such a term of the sea. The voice of the young man died
suddenly as if thoroughly ashamed of its own vehemence.
However the vehemence had done the trick.
"I would learn," said the landlady curtly.
"Yep," said the Sailor, with the blush of a girl, "it's what I want to."
"Then why not?"
"Dunno how, m'm," he said helplessly.
"Why not go to a school?"
"Can't while I'm at work, m'm."
"There are schools you can go to at night."
Mrs. Sparks swept up the crumbs, whisked away the table cloth, replaced
it with a cheerful looking red one, and retired with a look which the
Sailor took for disdain.
No, he ought never to have let the cat out of the bag. It would have
been better to have bitten off his tongue. But after all it was only
Mrs. Sparks ... although Mrs. Sparks was Mrs. Sparks. He must be very
careful how he let on to people about his shameful ignorance.
He was a fool to worry about it. "It's nothing to be ashamed of, old
friend," Klondyke had said, but the world was not made up of Klondykes.
It was something to be ashamed of if you looked at it as Mrs. Sparks
and Ginger did. He felt, as far as they were concerned, he would never
live it down. Once more he looked into the fire in order to resume the
captaincy of his soul. But it was no use. Fix his will as he might,
the famous blue and chocolate jerseys of the Blackhampton Rovers had
yielded permanently to Mrs. Sparks with a look of scorn in her face.
He got up and in sudden despair took his cap off the peg behind the
door. No longer could he stay in the room with his shame. More space,
more air was needed. As he flung open the outer door, a gust of damp
fog came in; and with it came the squat, powerful, slightly bow-legged
figure of Ginger, looking more than ever like a man of destiny now he
had had his hair cut.
"Where goin'?"
"Walk," said the Sailor miserably.
"Nice night for a walk. Rum one you are." Had the Sailor's promise as
a goalkeeper been less remarkable Ginger would have been tempted to
rebuke such irresponsible behavior. As it was he was content merely to
place it on record.
"Well if you must, you must," said Ginger magisterially, closing the
door.
VIII
At five minutes past six on Tuesday evening, when Ginger came home from
work, a letter was waiting for him on the sitting-room chimneypiece.
The first thing he noticed was that it bore the Blackhampton postmark,
but being a very cool and sure hand, he did not open it at once. He
preferred to fulfil the first and obvious duty of a self-respecting
citizen of "cleaning himself up" at the scullery sink with water from
the pump, and of sitting down to a dish of tripe and fried onions,
always a favorite with him, and particularly on Tuesday when the tripe
was fresh, while the Sailor, looking rather forlorn, poured out the
tea. Ginger chose to do all this with astounding sang-froid before
opening Dinkie Dawson's letter.
He read slowly, with unruffled countenance. Then with a noncommittal
air, he threw the letter carelessly across the table to the Sailor, who
had to retrieve it from the slop basin which fortunately was empty.
"Read it," said Ginger, his face a mask, his tone ice cold, without a
trace of emotion.
The Sailor blushed vividly.
"Read it, yer fool," said Ginger. The pitiless autocrat was now
striking through the tone of detachment.
Hopelessly confused, the Sailor turned the letter the right side up.
But he didn't attempt to read. He knew it was no use. There was not a
line he could understand, yet he was forced to hold it before his eyes.
"What do you think o' that, young feller, my lad?"
Stern triumph was striking now through Ginger's almost terrible
detachment. "What do you think on it, eh?"
The Sailor was not able to think anything of it at the moment.
"None so dusty--what?" Ginger fairly glowed with a sense of victory.
"Yep," said the Sailor feebly.
"About fixes it--what?"
"Yep," said the Sailor.
He gave back the letter to Ginger with nervous guilt, neither knowing
why it was none so dusty nor what it was that it fixed.
"Yer silly perisher. Don't yer see what it means?"
The Sailor nodded feebly.
"Very well, then, why don't yer say so?"
There was the light of contempt in the truculent eyes of Ginger. The
Sailor simply could not meet them.
"Blymy"--the scorn of Ginger was withering--"if you hadn't been nine
times round the world afore the mast, I should say you was just a
guy--I should straight. Don't you understand what Dinkie Dawson says?"
The Sailor's stammer might be taken for, "Yep."
"Very well, then," said Ginger, so savagely that he had to read the
_Evening Mercury_ in order to calm himself.
The Sailor began to wish he was dead. And then suddenly Ginger laid
down the paper.
"This touch is goin' to cost you money, young Mister Man," he said,
magniloquently.
The Sailor's face was haggard.
"You'll have to lay out thirty bob on a new suit of clothes to start
with."
The Sailor nodded.
"Of course, you can get a suit for less, but myself I'm all for
quality."
The Sailor nodded.
"If you'll take my advice, young feller, you'll go to Dago and Rogers
and get one o' them blue suitings as they shows in the winder, neat but
not gaudy, cut in the West End style. I'm thinkin' o' gettin' one
meself; you simply can't help lookin' a gentleman in one o' them, with
a spotted tie and a double turnover collar."
"Yep," said the Sailor, to whom all this was as intelligible as a play
of Sophocles.
"You'll also want a nice neat Gladstone."
"Yep," said the Sailor abjectly.
"Brown paper parcel and your boots tied on by string at the end o' it
won't do in this scene, young feller."
"No," said the Sailor.
"Got to dress the shop winder a bit in this act." A strange inner
light was beginning to gleam in the eyes of Ginger. "Nice new
Gladstone, pair o' nice wide knickers cut saucy round the knee, and a
set o' new laces in your boots. And I'm thinking one o' those all-wool
white sweaters you can get at Tallow's might turn out a good
investment."
The Sailor nodded feebly.
"Never spile the ship for a ha'porth o' tar. Allus dress the part.
Never stint a coat o' paint for Mrs. Jarley's Waxworks."
The Sailor nodded.
"You've got to learn to knock the public silly," concluded Ginger, with
a ferocity almost frightening, "if you are ever goin' to cut any ice on
this bleedin' planet."
Utterly nonplussed, the Sailor went early to bed with his shame.
IX
In the opinion of Cox's Piece, "lift" was not the word for the bearing
of Ginger on the morrow at the mid-day gathering. It was pardonable,
no doubt; Ginger was Ginger, a being apart. Twopenny Sturgess wouldn't
half have had it dusted out of him. It wouldn't have been stood from
Gogo, or Hogan, or Foxey Green, but with Ginger it was different. It
was realized in a way that was almost sinister by the cognoscenti of
Cox's Piece that if there was such a thing existing in the world,
Ginger was really and truly It.
Nevertheless, Pouncer Rogers was so unwise as to put into words the
unspoken thought that was in every mind when he told Ginger bluntly to
his face "that he'd believe it when he seed it."
"Yer call me a liar," said Ginger, drawing himself up to his full
height of five feet six inches with remarkable dignity.
"I said I'd believe it when I seed it," said the heroic Pouncer.
"Sailor here read the letter," said Ginger, underplaying from the sheer
strength of his hand. "Didn't you, Sailor boy? _You_ read Dinkie
Dawson's letter?"
"Yep," said the miserable Sailor.
"An' didn't he say a day's wages and railway fares both ways?"
The answer of the Sailor was understood to be in the affirmative.
"First class, o' course," said Pouncer, with a deliberate wink at Gogo
and Twopenny.
Ginger's hand was so full that he could afford to treat the observation
on its merits.
"_Third_ class, Pouncer. It was _third_, Sailor boy?" The appeal to
Sailor boy had a superb touch of condescension. Pouncer would
cheerfully have given a week's wages for the privilege of slaying
Ginger.
"Yep--third," muttered the miserable one.
"Ginger Jukes," said the defiant Pouncer, "if you want my 'pinion, you
don't know Dinkie Dawson at all. That's my 'pinion."
"Your opinion was not _ast_, young Pouncer." Ginger's air was that of
a Napoleon. "An' when anyone pleadin' well _asts_ it, Pouncer, you can
give it. Perhaps you'll say that Sailor didn't read Dinkie's letter?"
"So he says," sneered Pouncer.
The Sailor winced, but the cognoscenti were much too busy to notice him.
"You are never goin' to call _him_ a liar," said Ginger.
"I call him nothing."
"You had better not," said Ginger, who noticed that Pouncer was drawing
in his horns a bit. "_I_ can afford to take your lip, young Pouncer
Rogers. I'm used to it an' you are no class, anyway, but if you call
the Sailor here a liar, he'll have to put it acrost you. Won't you,
Sailor boy?"
No reply from the Sailor.
"I call him nothing," said Pouncer, coming back a bit at this rather
unexpected silence on the part of the Sailor. "But I simply says he
pleadin' well didn't read no pleadin' letter from Dinkie Dawson, that's
all I simply says."
"Young Pouncer," said Ginger, "you have called the Sailor a liar." He
turned to his protege with the anxious air of an extraordinarily polite
Samaritan. "I'll hold your coat, Sailor boy. You've took too much
already from the likes o' him. Give me your coat. You are bound to
put it acrost him now."
Ginger looked around magisterially; the cognoscenti concurred as one.
Already the Sailor's coat was in Ginger's hand. In the next moment he
had rolled up the sleeves of the Sailor's blue jersey, remarking as he
did so, "If ever I see a chap on his bended knees a-lookin' for
trouble, it's this here young Pouncer. Sailor boy, if you'll be ruled
by me, you won't half give him his gruel."
"It's more than you can, Ginger Jukes," said Pouncer, with ill-timed
and unworthy defiance.
Ginger was aware of that fact. In the first place, fighting was not
his long suit. He had too much intellect to love so vulgar a pastime
merely for its own sake. Not only was it violent and dangerous, but it
seldom meant anything in particular when you were through with it. All
the same, it had its uses. Pouncer had been getting above himself for
some little time now. If he didn't soon receive a proper licking from
somebody, the hegemony of Cox's Piece might cease to be a sinecure.
"His left's fairly useful," whispered Ginger, as he brought his man up
to the scratch. "But that's all he's got. Now mind you punch a hole
right through him."
It was a rather disappointing scrap. But for this it would be unfair
to blame either Pouncer or the Sailor. The fiasco was due to the
unexpected, unwarranted, thoroughly ill-timed, and almost unprecedented
behavior of the Metropolitan Police, who in the person of a certain
Constable Y28 promptly moved on the combatants while they were sparring
for position. He was obviously a young constable who had not quite
shaken down into his duties.
"It'll have to be a draw," announced Ginger a little lower down the
road, while Constable Y28 stood watching the ebb and flow of the
cognoscenti. But it may have been that Ginger's verdict was governed
less by a consideration of the attitude of Constable Y28, than by the
fact that Pouncer's ring-craft appeared to have improved considerably
since Ginger had last seen it in action. For obvious reasons, it would
not do for the Sailor to meet his Waterloo just then.
"Young Pouncer," said Ginger, as a final and dramatic parting shot,
"you've called the Sailor a liar, but all the same, we can neither on
us play next Saturday for the Isle of Dogs Albion. An' if on Saturday
mornin' you take the trouble to roll up at the station about five
minutes to seven, you will flaming well see the reason."
"Seein' ain't always believin," said Pouncer.
In spite, however, of that unchallengeable statement, Cox's Piece was
well represented at the up platform to London Bridge at five minutes to
seven, or thereabouts, on the morning of Saturday, November 3. These
enthusiasts, touched with scepticism as they were, deserved well of
fate. It was not that they sympathized with Pouncer Rogers in his
ignoble point of view; they believed that for the first time in its
brief and rather checkered history, the Isle of Dogs Albion F.C. was
coming into its own.
An impressive sight met the faithful who were present on the up
platform to London Bridge at a few minutes to seven on the morning of
Saturday. Then it was that Ginger and the Sailor were seen in the
booking-hall taking their tickets for Blackhampton. Each carried a
brand-new and decidedly elegant Gladstone bag, brilliant of hue and
affirming its ownership in bold and clear letters; W.H.J.--H.H.
Moreover, both Ginger and the Sailor wore a brand-new cap of black and
white tweed, a brand-new overcoat with velvet collar, a brand-new blue
suit, undoubted masterpieces of Jago and Brown, 25 The Arcade, and at
Finsbury Circus, the whole surmounted by lustrous boots, spotted
necktie and spotless double collar. The effect was heightened by a
previous evening's haircut and a close matutinal shave.
Those of the faithful who had assembled on the up platform to wish _bon
voyage_ to their club mates on their journey to High Olympus were
rather staggered by the sight of them. Had the goalkeeper and the
right full back of the Isle of Dogs Albion been going forth to play for
the first team of the Villa itself, they could not have dressed the
part more superbly. Such stage management, its inception due to the
genius of Ginger, its execution, the fruit of the Sailor's fabulous
wealth, filled their friends with awe. The unworthy doubt cast by
Pouncer upon Ginger's _bona fides_ brought its own Nemesis. Pouncer
was so completely overthrown by the spectacular appearance on the up
platform that he sneaked out of the station _via_ alternate doors of
the refreshment buffet, an illegal crossing of the main line, and a
final exit by the booking-hall of the down platform.
Seated in a third smoker, on the way to his natal city of Blackhampton,
upon which he had not set eyes for seven long and incredible years, the
emotions of Henry Harper were very complex. He was in a dream. He had
been made to realize by the Force seated opposite smoking Log Cabin and
reading _Pearson's Weekly_, that romance had come at last into a mean
and hopeless life--into a life which had never looked for such things
to happen.
The Sailor knew now the ordeal before him. He was to be tried as a
goalkeeper by the great and famous Blackhampton Rovers, the gods of his
youth. The fact was very hard to believe, but according to the
relentless Force to the wheel of whose chariot he was tied such was the
case. And there was his new gear to prove it.
When they got past Luton, they had the compartment to themselves. It
was then that the Force, _alias_ Ginger, laid _Pearson's Weekly_ aside
and admonished the Sailor out of the store of his wisdom.
"First thing you bear in mind, young feller, is your name's Cucumber.
That's the hallmark o' class. It's the coolest player what takes the
kitty. Did you ever see Jock Norton o' the Villa?"
The Sailor did not remember having done so.
"It don't matter," said Ginger. "This afternoon you'll see me. I've
formed myself on Jock Norton o' the Villa. There's no better model for
a young and risin' player. But as I say, Cucumber's your docket.
That's my first an' my last word to you, young feller. It's Cucumber
what'll put the half Nelson on the kermittee. And, o' course,
everythink else yer leave to me. Understand?"
The Sailor did his best to do so.
"Everythink I tells yer, you'll do. Everythink I says, you'll stand
by. What I says you've said, you've pleadin' well said, young feller,
an' don't forget it."
The Sailor was not likely to forget. The look in the eyes of Ginger,
slightly flecked with green in a good light--why they should have
assumed that color is part of the eternal paradox--sent little chills
down the Sailor's spine.
They steamed into the Central Station of the famous but murky city of
Blackhampton at half-past twelve. The Sailor was still in a dream, but
of so vivid a hue that he was fairly trembling with excitement. And
the first person he saw, who actually opened the door of their
compartment, was a certain grim railway policeman, who, on Henry
Harper's last appearance at Blackhampton Central Station, had led him
outside by the ear and cuffed him soundly for having ventured to appear
in it. The final words of this stern official had been, "If ever you
come in here again, you'll see what I'll do."
Well, Henry Harper had come in again, and he was now seeing what the
policeman did. He felt subconsciously that fate was laughing at this
obsequious figure in uniform opening the door of a third smoker for a
new goalkeeper, who had come specially from London to be tried by the
Rovers.
Ginger considered it an economy of time, also the part of policy, to
have a light repast at the refreshment buffet. While they were in the
act of consuming egg sandwiches, bananas, and a pint of bitter--they
were good to play on--the throng around the buffet was swollen by three
or four smart individuals not quite so well dressed as themselves
perhaps, but each carrying a handbag which if not so new as theirs was
very similar in shape, design, and general importance.
There was a little commotion near the beer engine. "Play up, Rovers,"
cried an enthusiast in a chocolate and blue necktie. The quick ear of
Ginger caught the sound; his eye envisaged the cause of it. He gave
the Sailor a nudge so shrewd and sudden as to involve disaster to his
pint of bitter.
"There's Dink," he said, in a thrilling whisper.
One less than Ginger would have waited for the situation to evolve. He
would have been modestly content for the famous and redoubtable Dinkie
Dawson, already an idol of the public and the press, to confer notice
upon those whose reputations were in the womb of time. But that was
not Ginger's way.
"Come on, Sailor boy, I'll introjuice yer. But mind--Cucumber. And
leave the lip ter me."
The Sailor didn't feel like being introduced to anybody just then,
certainly not to Dinkie Dawson, or the Prince of Wales, or Lord
Salisbury, or anyone of equal eminence. In spite of new clothes and a
Gladstone bag, he knew his limit. But the relentless Force to the
wheel of whose chariot he was tied, the amazing Ginger, sauntered up to
the beer engine and struck Dinkie Dawson a blow on the shoulder.
"Hullo, Ginge," said the great man. Moreover he spoke with the large
geniality of one who has really arrived.
"Hullo, Dink." Cucumber was not the word for Ginger. "Where are ye
playin'?"
"At Durbee agen the Countee."
"Mind yer put it acrost 'em," said Ginger, in the ready and agreeable
tone of the man of the world. "Let me introjuice Mr. Enery Arper. Mr.
Dinkie Dawson."
"'Ow do," said Dinkie. But it was not the tone he had used to Ginger.
There was inquiry, condescension, keep-your-distance and quite a lot of
other things in it. Ginger, whom Dinkie knew and liked, had described
Mr. Enery Arper as a Nonesuch, but Dinkie, who was himself a Nonesuch
of a very authentic breed, was not all inclined to make concessions to
a Nonesuch in embryo.
Mr. Harper's shyness was so intense that it might easily have been
mistaken for Lift. But Ginger, wary and alert, stepped into the breach
with his accustomed gallantry.
"I told yer in my letter he had been a sailor," whispered Ginger in the
great man's ear. "He's sailed eight years afore the mast. Three times
wrecked. Seed the serpent. Gee, what that chap's done an' seen--it
fair makes you dizzy. Not that you would think it to look at him,
would yer?"
"No, I wouldn't," said Dinkie, who measured men by one standard only.
"But what about his goalkeeping? Can he keep goal or can't he?
There's a big chance for a chap as can really _keep_ goal. But he must
be class."
"He's class," said Ginger--coolly.
"Can he clear well?"
"He's a daisy, I tell yer."
"That's got to be seen," said Dinkie. "But he looks green to me. An'
I tell you this, Ginger Jukes, it's not a bit o' use anybody trying to
lumber a green un on to a club like the Rovers."
"I know that," said Ginger urbanely. "But you'll see--if he keeps his
thatch. By the way, Dink, you didn't say in your letter whether the
Rovers had a vacancy for a right full back."
"We've got Mullins and Pretyman, the best pair o' backs in England."
Ginger knew that perfectly well, but he did not allow it to defeat him.
"There's as good fish in the sea as ever come out of it," said he.
"I don't know about that," said Dinkie Dawson coldly.
It was clear that Ginger Jukes did not realize where he was or what he
was up against.
X
Ginger and the Sailor drove to the ground of the Blackhampton Rovers on
the roof of a two-horse bus. It was a long way from the Central
Station, but they had time in hand; the match did not begin until
half-past two, and it was only a little after one at present. As
together they made what both felt to be as fateful a journey as they
would ever take in the whole course of their lives, their emotions were
many and conflicting.
"There y'are, young feller." Ginger pointed to a hoarding on which a
chocolate and blue poster was displayed. In spite of his religion of
Cucumber, the thrill in his voice was perceptible. "There's a bill of
the match."
"Who are we p-playin'?" stammered the Sailor, half choked by a sudden
rush of emotion that threatened to unman him.
"Can't yer read?"
"No," gasped the Sailor.
"No?" gasped Ginger.
"I--I mean, I can't see very well."
"_Can't see!_"
Ginger nearly fell off the bus.
"Not at this distance, I--I mean."
"Blymy." For a moment Ginger was done. Then he said with a ferocity
ruthless and terrible, "Young feller, you've pleadin' well _got_ to see
this afternoon. You've got to keep yer eyes skinned or ... or I'll
scrag yer. Understand? If you let me down or you let Dinkie make a
mark on us, you'll see what I'll do." There was something deadly now
in the freckled skin and the green eyes. Ginger might have been a
large reptile from the Island of San Pedro.
The Sailor felt horribly nervous, and the demeanor of Ginger did not
console him. The fact was, Ginger was horribly nervous too. It was
the moment of his life, the hour to which vaulting ambition had long
looked forward. Before this damp, dismal November afternoon was three
hours older would be decided the one really pregnant problem of
Ginger's universe, namely and to wit, could he contrive to get his foot
on the ladder that leads to fame and fortune? If courage and
resolution and an insight into the ways of men could bring this thing
to pass there was reason for Ginger to be of good faith. But--and the
But was a big one--none knew better than Ginger that many are called
and few are chosen, that the world is full of gifted and ambitious
people who have never quite managed to "deliver the goods," that life
is hell for the under dog, and that it is given to no man to measure
the exact distance between the cup and the lip.
The ground of the Blackhampton Rovers Football Club came into view as
the bus dived into a muddy and narrow lane. It then crossed the bridge
of the West Norton and Bagsworth canal, and there before the thrilled
eyes of the Sailor was the faded flag of chocolate and blue flying over
the enormous corrugated iron roof of the grand stand. But there were
not many people about at present. It was not yet two o'clock, moreover
the spectators were likely to be few, so dismal was the afternoon, and
of such little importance the match, which was a mere affair of the
second team.
Ginger, with all his formidable courage, was devoutly thankful that
such was the case. It was well that the prestige of the Blackhampton
Rovers was not at stake. For he knew that he was taking a terrible
risk. The Sailor was young and untried, his experience of the game was
slight, and had been gained in poor company. Even the second team of
the august Blackhampton Rovers was quite a different matter from the
first team of the Isle of Dogs Albion. They were up against class and
had better look out!
This was the thought in Ginger's mind as he entered the ground of the
famous club, with the Sailor at his heels, and haughtily said,
"Player," in response to a demand for entrance money on the part of the
man at the gate. Ginger was a little overawed by his surroundings
already in spite of a fixed determination not to be overawed by
anything.
As for the Sailor, following upon the heels of Ginger and speaking not
a word, he was as one in a dream. Yes, this was the ground of the
Rovers right enough. There was the flag over the pavilion. God in
heaven, what things he had seen, what things he had known since he
looked on it last! Somehow the sight of that torn and faded banner of
chocolate and blue brought a sudden gush of tears to his eyes. And in
a queer way, he felt a better man for shedding them. There at the end
of the ground by the farther goal, in the shadow of the legend,
Blackhampton Empire Twice Nightly, painted in immense letters on a
giant hoarding, was the tree out of which young Arris fell and was
pinched by a rozzer on the never-to-be-forgotten day when the Villa
came to play the Rovers in that immortal cup tie it had been the glory
of his youth to witness. And now ... and now! It was too much! Henry
Harper could not believe that he was about to wear the chocolate and
blue himself, that he was about to tread the turf of this historic
field which had not so much as one blade of grass upon it.
"Young feller." The face of Ginger was pale, his voice was hoarse.
"Don't forget what I've told yer. Remember Cucumber. Stick tight to
your thatch. There's a lot at stake for both on us. This has got to
mean two quid a week for you and me."
The Sailor did not reply. But an odd look came into his deep eyes.
Could Ginger have read them, and it was well he could not, those eyes
would have accused him of sacrilege. It was not with thoughts like
these that Henry Harper defiled the classic battleground, the sacred
earth of High Olympus.
XI
In the Rovers' dressing-room the reception of Ginger and the Sailor was
cool. Their look of newness, of their bags and overcoats in
particular, at once aroused feelings of hostility. They implied
greenness and swank; and in athletic circles these carry heavy
penalties. Greenness is a grave misdemeanor, swank a deadly sin.
Fortunately Ginger was far too wise to talk. He contented himself with
a civil passing of the time of day. One less a warrior might have been
a little cowed by the glances at his bag and his overcoat. But Ginger
was not. He did not care two straws for the opinion of his fellow
hirelings. It was his business to impress the club committee.
As for the Sailor, he was not in a condition to understand what was
taking place around him. Cucumber might be his name, but his brain was
like a ball of fire.
One of the immortal chocolate and blue shirts was handed to him, but
when the time came to put it on he stood holding it in his hand.
"Into it, yer fool," said his mentor, in a fierce whisper. It would
not be wise to attract by a display of eccentricity the notice of nine
pairs of eyes.
With a start, the Sailor came back to the present and thrust his head
into the shirt. His thoughts were with young Arris. He, too, had had
a dream of playing for the Rovers. If only young Arris could see him
now!
The "gate" was small, the afternoon unpleasant, the match by no means a
good one. The result did not matter to the Rovers, whose reputation
was known wherever football was played. In the view of the ruling
powers of that old and famous club, who sat in the center of the
grandstand, the object of this rather scratch game was not glory but
the discovery of new talent. But small as the audience was, it
contained a personage of vast consequence, who sat like Olympian Zeus
enthroned on high with his satellites around him.
He was a majestic figure whose importance could be seen at a glance.
His expansive fur coat, his superb contour, his spats, his red face,
the flower in his buttonhole, and the large cigar with a band round it
stuck in the side of his mouth, were a guaranty of status, apart from
any consideration of supreme capacity. Mr. Augustus Higginbottom was
the chairman of the club.
"Who have we got keepin' goal?" said Olympian Zeus, as he fixed a pair
of gold-rimmed eyeglasses on his nose and looked at his card. "Arper,
I see. Who the 'ell's Arper?"
"On trial, Gus." Three or four anxiously officious satellites hastened
to enlighten the chairman.
"I rather like the look o' Arper." It was as Plato might have spoken
had he ever worn a fur coat and had a large cigar with a band round it
tucked in the side of his mouth, and had he placed his services at the
disposal of the committee of the Blackhampton Rovers Football Club in
order to enable it to distinguish the false from the true.
"Make and shape there," said Mr. Higginbottom. "Light on his pins.
Gets down to the ball."
"Oh, well stopped, young un!" shouted an adventurous satellite, in
order that an official decree might be promulgated to the general
public.
It was known at once round the ground that the critics had got their
eyes on the new goalkeeper.
"I've heard say, Gus," said the adventurous one, "that this
youth--_well_ saved, _my_ lad!--is a sailor."
"Sailor is he?" Mr. Higginbottom was so much impressed by the
information that he began to chew the end of his cigar. "Ops about,
don't he. I tell you what, Albert"--six satellites craned to catch the
chairman's ukase--"I like the cut o' the Sailor."
"Played, young un," cried the grandstand.
"Albert," said the chairman, "who's that cab oss?"
"The right full back, Gus?"
"Him I mean. He's no use." The chairman glanced augustly at his card.
"Jukes, I see. Who the 'ell's Jukes?"
"On trial," said Mr. Satellite Albert. "But I don't altogether agree
with you there, Gus." Albert differed deferentially from the chairman.
"There's nothing like a touch o' Ginger."
"I grant you," said the chairman. "But the goods has to be there as
well. Ginger's no class. Moves like a height-year-old with the
staggers."