Produced by Al Haines
BINDLE
SOME CHAPTERS IN THE
LIFE OF JOSEPH BINDLE
BY
HERBERT JENKINS
"Bindle is the greatest Cockney
that has come into being through
the medium of literature since
Dickens wrote Pickwick Papers"
MR. T. P. O'CONNOR, M.P.
HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED
YORK STREET LONDON S.W.1
1916
A
HERBERT
JENKINS
BOOK
_Eighteenth Printing Completing 283,711 copies:_
Printed In Great Britain at the Athenaeum Printing Works, Redhill.
TO
MY MOTHER
WHO AS HER SON'S
BEST FRIEND IS
PROBABLY HIS
WORST CRITIC
FOREWORD
Some years ago I wrote an account of one of Bindle's "little jokes," as
he calls them, which appeared in _Blackwood's Magazine_. As a result
the late Mr. William Blackwood on more than one occasion expressed the
opinion that a book about Bindle should be written, and suggested that
I offer it to him for publication. Other and weighty matters
intervened, and Bindle passed out of my thoughts.
Last year, however, the same suggestion was made from other quarters,
and in one instance was backed up by a material reasoning that I found
irresistible.
A well-known author once assured me that in his opinion the publisher
who wrote books should, like the double-headed ass and five-legged
sheep, be painlessly put to death, preferably by the Society of
Authors, as a menace to what he called "the legitimate."
Authors have been known to become their own publishers, generally, I
believe, to their lasting regret; why, therefore, should not a
publisher become his own author? At least he would find some
difficulty in proving to the world that his failure was due to
under-advertising.
H. J.
12, ARUNDEL PLACE,
HAYMARKET, LONDON, S.W.
_August_, 1916.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
FOREWORD
I. THE BINDLES AT HOME
II. A NOCTURNAL ADVENTURE
III. THE HYPNOTIC FIASCO
IV. THE HEARTYS AT HOME
V. BINDLE TRIES A CHANGE OF WORK
VI. THE HOTEL CORRIDOR
VII. BINDLE COMMITS AN INDISCRETION
VIII. THE GREAT CONSPIRACY
IX. THE TEMPERANCE FETE
X. MR. HEARTY PRAYS FOR BINDLE
XI. MR. HEARTY BECOMES EXTREMELY UNPOPULAR
XII. BINDLE AGREES TO BECOME A MILLIONAIRE
XIII. OXFORD'S WELCOME TO BINDLE
XIV. MR. HEARTY GIVES A PARTY
XV. BINDLE AND THE GERMAN MENACE
XVI. THE AMATEUR DETECTIVES
XVII. BINDLE MAKES A MISTAKE
XVIII. BINDLE ASSISTS IN AN ELOPEMENT
XIX. THE SCARLET HORSE COTERIE
XX. MILLIE LEAVES HOME
XXI. CONCLUSION
BINDLE
CHAPTER I
THE BINDLES AT HOME
"Women," remarked Bindle, as he gazed reflectively into the tankard he
had just drained, "women is all right if yer can keep 'em from marryin'
yer."
"I don't 'old wiv women," growled Ginger, casting a malevolent glance
at the Blue Boar's only barmaid, as she stood smirking at the other end
of the long leaden counter. "Same as before," he added to the barman.
Joseph Bindle heaved a sign of contentment at the success of his rueful
contemplation of the emptiness of his tankard.
"You're too late, ole sport," he remarked, as he sympathetically
surveyed the unprepossessing features of his companion, where freckles
rioted with spots in happy abandon. "You're too late, you wi' three
babies 'fore you're twenty-five. Ginger, you're----"
"No, I ain't!" There was a note of savage menace in Ginger's voice
that caused his companion to look at him curiously.
"Ain't wot?" questioned Bindle.
"I ain't wot you was goin' to say I was."
"'Ow jer know wot I was goin' to say?"
"'Cos every stutterin' fool sez it; an' blimey I'm goin' to 'ammer the
next, an' I don't want to 'ammer you, Joe."
Bindle pondered a moment, then a smile irradiated his features,
developing into a broad grin.
"You're too touchy, Ginger. I wasn't goin' to say, 'Ginger, you're
barmy.'" Ginger winced and clenched his fists. "I was goin' to say,
'Ginger, you're no good at marriage wi'out tack. If yer 'ad more tack
maybe yer wouldn't 'ave got married."
Ginger spat viciously in the direction of the spittoon, but his
feelings were too strong for accurate aim.
"The parsons say as marriages is made in 'eaven," growled Ginger. "Why
don't 'eaven feed the kids? That's wot I want to know."
Ginger was notorious among his mates for the gloomy view he took of
life. No one had ever discovered in him enthusiasm for anything. If
he went to a football match and the team he favoured were beaten, it
was no more than he expected; if they were victorious his comment would
be that they ought to have scored more goals. If the horse he backed
won, he blamed fate because his stake was so small. The more beer he
absorbed the more misanthropic he seemed to become.
"Funny coves, parsons," remarked Bindle conversationally; "not as I've
any think to say agin' religion, providin' it's kep' for Sundays and
Good Fridays, an' don't get mixed up wi' the rest of the week."
He paused and lifted the newly-filled tankard to his lips. Presently
he continued reminiscently:
"My father 'ad religion, and drunk 'isself to death 'keepin' the chill
out.' Accordin' to 'im, if yer wanted to be 'appy in the next world
yer 'ad to be a sort of 'alf fish in this. 'E could tell the tale, 'e
could, and wot's more, 'e used to make us believe 'im." Bindle laughed
at the recollection. "Two or three times a week 'e used to go to
chapel to 'wash 'is sins away,' winter an' summer. The parson seemed
to 'ave to wash the 'ole bloomin' lot of 'em, and my father never
forgot to take somethink on 'is way 'ome to keep the chill out, 'e was
that careful of 'isself.
"'My life is Gawd's,' 'e used to say, 'an' I must take care of wot is
the Lord's.' There weren't no spots on my father. Why, 'e used to wet
'is 'air to prove 'e'd been ''mersed,' as 'e called it. You'd 'ave
liked 'im, Ginger; 'e was a gloomy sort of cove, same as you."
Ginger muttered something inarticulate, and buried his freckles and
spots in his tankard. Bindle carefully filled his short clay pipe and
lit it with a care and precision more appropriate to a cigar.
"No," he continued, "I ain't nothink agin' religion; it's the people
wot goes in for it as does me. There's my brother-in-law, 'Earty by
name, an' my missis--they must make 'eaven tired with their moanin'."
"Wot jer marry 'er for?" grumbled Ginger thickly, not with any show of
interest, but as if to demonstrate that he was still awake.
"Ginger!" There was reproach in Bindle's voice. "Fancy you arstin' a
silly question like that. Don't yer know as _no_ man ever marries any
woman? If 'e's nippy 'e gets orf the 'ook; if 'e ain't 'e's landed.
You an' me wasn't nippy enough, ole son, an' 'ere we are."
"There's somethin' in that, mate." There was feeling in Ginger's voice
and a momentary alertness in his eye.
"Well," continued Bindle, "once on the 'ook there's only one thing
that'll save yer--tack."
"Or 'ammerin 'er blue," interpolated Ginger viciously.
"I draws the line there; I don't 'old with 'ammerin' women. Yer can't
'ammer somethink wot can't 'ammer back, Ginger; that's for furriners.
No, tack's the thing. Now take my missis. If yer back-answers 'er
when she ain't feelin' chatty, you're as good as done. Wot I does is
to keep quiet an' seem sorry, then she dries up. Arter a bit I'll
whistle or 'um 'Gospel Bells' (that's 'er favourite 'ymn, Ginger) as if
to meself. Then out I goes, an' when I gets 'ome to supper I takes in
a tin o' salmon, an' it's all over till the next time. Wi' tack,
'Gospel Bells,' and a tin o' salmon yer can do a rare lot wi' women,
Ginger."
"Wot jer do if yer couldn't whistle or 'um, and if salmon made yer ole
woman sick, same as it does mine; wot jer do then?" Ginger thrust his
head forward aggressively.
Bindle thought deeply for some moments, then with slow deliberation
said:
"I think, Ginger, I'd kill a slop. They always 'angs yer for killin'
slops."
There was a momentary silence, as both men drained their pewters, and a
moment after they left the Blue Boar. They walked along, each deep in
his own thoughts, in the direction of Hammersmith Church, where they
parted, Bindle to proceed to Fulham and Ginger to Chiswick; each to the
mate that had been thrust upon him by an undiscriminating fate.
Joseph Bindle was a little man, bald-headed, with a red nose, but he
was possessed of a great heart, which no misfortune ever daunted. Two
things in life he loved above all others, beer and humour (or, as he
called it, his "little joke"); yet he permitted neither to interfere
with the day's work, save under very exceptional circumstances. No one
had ever seen him drunk. He had once explained to a mate who urged
upon him an extra glass, "I don't put more on me back than I can carry,
an' I do ditto wi' me stomach."
Bindle was a journeyman furniture-remover by profession, and the life
of a journeyman furniture-remover is fraught with many vicissitudes and
hardships. As one of the profession once phrased it to Bindle, "If it
wasn't for them bespattered quarter-days, there might be a livin' in
it."
People, however, move at set periods, or, as Bindle put it, they "seems
to take root as if they was bloomin' vegetables." The set periods are
practically reduced to three, for few care to face the inconvenience of
a Christmas move.
Once upon a time family removals were leisurely affairs, which the
contractors took care to spread over many days; now, however, moving is
a matter of contract, or, as Bindle himself expressed it, "Yer 'as to
carry a bookcase under one arm, a spring-mattress under the other, a
pianner on yer back, and then they wonders why yer ain't doin'
somethink wi' yer teeth."
All these things conspired to make Bindle's living a precarious one.
He was not lazy, and sought work assiduously. In his time he had
undertaken many strange jobs, his intelligence and ready wit giving him
an advantage over his competitors; but if his wit gained for him
employment, his unconquerable desire to indulge in his "little jokes"
almost as frequently lost it for him.
As the jobs became less frequent Mrs. Bindle waxed more eloquent. To
her a man who was not working was "a brute" or a "lazy hound." She
made no distinction between the willing and the unwilling, and she
heaped the fire of her burning reproaches upon the head of her luckless
"man" whenever he was unable to furnish her with a full week's
housekeeping.
Bindle was not lazy enough to be unpopular with his superiors, or
sufficiently energetic to merit the contempt of his fellow-workers. He
did his job in average time, and strove to preserve the middle course
that should mean employment and pleasant associates.
"Lorst yer job?" was a frequent interrogation on the lips of Mrs.
Bindle.
At first Bindle had striven to parry this inevitable question with a
pleasantry; but he soon discovered that his wife was impervious to his
most brilliant efforts, and he learned in time to shroud his
degradation in an impenetrable veil of silence.
Only in the hour of prosperity would he preserve his verbal
cheerfulness.
"She thinks too much o' soap an' 'er soul to make an 'owlin' success o'
marriage," he had once confided to a mate over a pint of beer. "A
little dirt an' less religion might keep 'er out of 'eaven in the next
world, but it 'ud keep me out of 'ell in this!"
Mrs. Bindle was obsessed with two ogres: Dirt and the Devil. Her
cleanliness was the cleanliness that rendered domestic comfort
impossible, just as her godliness was the godliness of suffering in
this world and glory in the next.
Her faith was the faith of negation. The happiness to be enjoyed in
the next world would be in direct ratio to the sacrifices made in this.
Denying herself the things that her "carnal nature" cried out for, she
was filled with an intense resentment that anyone else should continue
to live in obvious enjoyment of what she had resolutely put from her.
Her only consolation was the triumph she was to enjoy in the next
world, and she found no little comfort in the story of Dives and
Lazarus.
The forgiveness of sins was a matter upon which she preserved an open
mind. Her faith told her that they should be forgiven; but she felt
something of the injustice of it all. That the sinner, who at the
eleventh hour repenteth, should achieve Paradise in addition to having
drunk deep of the cup of pleasure in this world, seemed to her unfair
to the faithful.
To Mrs. Bindle the world was a miserable place; but, please God! it
should be a clean place, as far as she had the power to make it clean.
When a woman sets out to be a reformer, she invariably begins upon her
own men-folk. Mrs. Bindle had striven long and lugubriously to ensure
Bindle's salvation, and when she had eventually discovered this to be
impossible, she accepted him as her cross.
Whilst struggling for Bindle's salvation, Mrs. Bindle had not
overlooked the more immediate needs of his body. For many weeks of
their early married life a tin bath of hot water had been placed
regularly in the kitchen each Friday night that Bindle might be
thorough in his ablutions.
At first Mrs. Bindle had been surprised and gratified at the way in
which Bindle had acquiesced in this weekly rite, but being shrewd and
something of a student of character, particularly Bindle's character,
her suspicions had been aroused.
One Friday evening she put the kitchen keyhole to an illicit use, and
discovered Bindle industriously rubbing his hands on his boots, and,
with much use of soap, washing them in the bath, after which he
splashed the water about the room, damped the towels, then lit his pipe
and proceeded to read the evening paper. That was the end of the bath
episode.
It was not that Bindle objected to washing; as a matter of fact he was
far more cleanly than most of his class; but to him Mrs. Bindle's
methods savoured too much of coercion.
A great Frenchman has said, "Pour faire quelque chose de grande, il
faut etre passione." In other words, no wanton sprite of mischief or
humour must be permitted to beckon genius from its predestined path.
Although an entire stranger to philosophy, ignorant alike of the word
and its meaning, Mrs. Bindle had arrived at the same conclusion as the
French savant.
"Why don't you stick at somethin' as if you meant it?" was her way of
phrasing it. "Look at Mr. Hearty. See what he's done!" Without any
thought of irreverence, Mrs. Bindle used the names of the Lord and Mr.
Hearty as whips of scorpions with which on occasion she mercilessly
scourged her husband.
At the time of Bindle's encounter with his onetime work-mate, Ginger,
he had been tramping for hours seeking a job. He had gone even to the
length of answering an advertisement for a waitress, explaining to the
irritated advertiser that "wi' women it was the customers as did the
waitin'," and that a man was "more nippy than a gal."
Ginger's hospitality had cheered him, and he began to regard life once
more with his accustomed optimism. He had been without food all day,
and this fact, rather than the continued rebuffs he had suffered,
caused him some misgiving as the hour approached for his return to home
and Mrs. Bindle's inevitable question, "Got a job?"
As he passed along the Fulham Palace Road his keen eye searched
everywhere for interest and amusement. He winked jocosely at the
pretty girls, and grinned happily when called a "saucy 'ound." He
exchanged pleasantries with anyone who showed the least inclination
towards camaraderie, and the dour he silenced with caustic rejoinder.
Bindle's views upon the home life of England were not orthodox.
"I'd like to meet the cove wot first started talkin' about the ''appy
'ome life of ole England,'" he murmured under his breath. "I'd like to
introduce 'im to Mrs. B. Might sort o' wake 'im up a bit, an' make 'im
want t' emigrate. I'd like to see 'im gettin' away wi'out a scrap.
Rummy thing, 'ome life."
His philosophy was to enjoy what you've got, and not to bother about
what you hope to get. He had once precipitated a domestic storm by
saying to Mrs. Bindle:
"Don't you put all yer money on the next world, in case of accidents.
Angels is funny things, and they might sort of take a dislike to yer,
and then the fat 'ud be in the fire." Then, critically surveying Mrs.
Bindle's manifest leanness, "Not as you an' me together 'ud make much
of a flicker in 'ell."
As he approached Fenton Street, where he lived, his leisurely pace
perceptibly slackened. It was true that supper awaited him at the end
of his journey--that was with luck; but, luck or no luck, Mrs. Bindle
was inevitable.
"Funny 'ow 'avin' a wife seems to spoil yer appetite," he muttered, as
he scratched his head through the blue-and-white cricket cap he
invariably wore, where the four triangles of alternating white and
Cambridge blue had lost much of their original delicacy of shade.
"I'm 'ungry, 'ungry as an 'awk," he continued; then after a pause he
added, "I wonder whether 'awks marry." The idea seemed to amuse him.
"Well, well!" he remarked with a sigh, "yer got to face it, Joe," and
pulling himself together he mended his pace.
As he had foreseen, Mrs. Bindle was keenly on the alert for the sound
of his key in the lock of the outer door of their half-house. He had
scarcely realised that the evening meal was to consist of something
stewed with his much-loved onions, when Mrs. Bindle's voice was heard
from the kitchen with the time-worn question:
"Got a job?"
Hunger, and the smell of his favourite vegetable, made him a coward.
"'Ow jer know, Fairy?" he asked with crude facetiousness.
"What is it?" enquired Mrs. Bindle shrewdly as he entered the kitchen.
"Night watchman at a garridge," he lied glibly, and removed his coat
preparatory to what he called a "rinse" at the sink. It always pleased
Mrs. Bindle to see Bindle wash; even such a perfunctory effort as a
"rinse" was a tribute to her efforts.
"When d'you start?" she asked suspiciously.
How persistent women were! thought Bindle.
"To-night at nine," he replied. Nothing mattered with that savoury
smell in his nostrils.
Mrs. Bindle was pacified; but her emotions were confidential affairs
between herself and "the Lord," and she consequently preserved the same
unrelenting exterior.
"'Bout time, I should think," she snapped ungraciously, and proceeded
with her culinary preparations. Mrs. Bindle was an excellent cook.
"If 'er temper was like 'er cookin'," Bindle had confided to Mrs.
Hearty, "life 'ud be a little bit of 'eaven."
Fenton Street, in which the Bindles lived, was an offering to the
Moloch of British exclusiveness. The houses consisted of two floors,
and each floor had a separate outer door and a narrow passage from
which opened off a parlour, a bedroom, and a kitchen. Although each
household was cut off from the sight of its immediate neighbours, there
was not a resident, save those who occupied the end houses, who was not
intimately acquainted with the private affairs of at least three of its
neighbours, those above or below, as the case might be, and of the
family on each side. The walls and floors were so thin that, when the
least emotion set the voices of the occupants vibrating in a louder key
than usual, the neighbours knew of the crisis as soon as the
protagonists themselves, and every aspect of the dispute or discussion
was soon the common property of the whole street.
Fenton Street suited Mrs. Bindle, who was intensely exclusive. She
never joined the groups of women who stood each morning, and many
afternoons, at their front doors to discuss the thousand and one things
that women have to discuss. She occupied herself with her home,
hounding from its hiding-place each speck of dust and microbe as if it
were an embodiment of the Devil himself.
She was a woman of narrow outlook and prejudiced views, hating sin from
a sense of fear of what it might entail rather than as a result of
instinctive repulsion; yet she was possessed of many admirable
qualities. She worked long and hard in her home, did her duty to her
husband in mending his clothes, preparing his food, and providing him
with what she termed "a comfortable home."
Next to chapel her supreme joy in life was her parlour, a mid-Victorian
riot of antimacassars, stools, furniture, photograph-frames, pictures,
ornaments, and the musical-box that would not play, but was precious as
Aunt Anne's legacy. Bindle was wont to say that "when yer goes into
our parlour yer wants a map an' a guide, an' even then yer 'as to call
for 'elp before yer can get out."
Mrs. Bindle had no visitors, and consequently her domestic holy of
holies was never used. She would dust and clean and arrange; arrange,
clean, and dust with untiring zeal. The windows, although never
opened, were spotless; for she judged a woman's whole character by the
appearance of her windows and curtains. No religieuse ever devoted
more time or thought to a chapel or an altar than Mrs. Bindle to her
parlour. She might have reconciled herself to leaving anything else in
the world, but her parlour would have held her a helpless prisoner.
When everything was ready for the meal Mrs. Bindle poured from a
saucepan a red-brown liquid with cubes of a darker brown, which
splashed joyously into the dish. Bindle recognised it as stewed steak
and onions, the culinary joy of his heart.
With great appetite he fell to, almost thankful to Providence for
sending him so excellent a cook. As he ate he argued that if a man had
an angel for a wife, in all likelihood she would not be able to cook,
and perhaps after all he was not so badly off.
"There ain't many as can beat yer at this 'ere game," remarked Bindle,
indicating the dish with his fork; and a momentary flicker that might
have been a smile still-born passed across Mrs. Bindle's face.
As the meal progressed Bindle began to see the folly of his cowardice.
He had doomed himself to a night's walking the streets. He cudgelled
his brains how to avoid the consequences of his indiscretion. He
looked covertly at Mrs. Bindle. There was nothing in the sharp
hatchet-like face, with its sandy hair drawn tightly away from each
side and screwed into a knot behind, that suggested compromise. Nor
was there any suggestion of a relenting nature in that hard grey line
that served her as a mouth. No, there was nothing for it but to "carry
the banner," unless he could raise sufficient money to pay for a
night's lodging.
"Saw Ginger to-day," he remarked conversationally, as he removed a
shred of meat from a back tooth with his fork.
"Don't talk to me of Ginger!" snapped Mrs. Bindle.
Such retorts made conversation difficult.
It was Mrs. Bindle's question as to whether he did not think it about
time he started that gave Bindle the inspiration he sought. For more
than a week the one clock of the household, a dainty little travelling
affair that he had purchased of a fellow-workman, it having "sort o'
got lost" in a move, had stopped and showed itself impervious to all
persuasion Bindle decided to take it, ostensibly to a clock-repairer,
but in reality to the pawn-shop, and thus raise the price of a night's
lodging. He would trust to luck to supply the funds to retrieve it.
With a word of explanation to Mrs. Bindle, he proceeded to wrap up the
clock in a piece of newspaper, and prepared to go out.
To Bindle the moment of departure was always fraught with the greatest
danger. His goings-out became strategical withdrawals, he endeavouring
to get off unnoticed, Mrs. Bindle striving to rake him with her verbal
artillery as he retreated.
On this particular evening he felt comparatively safe. He was, as far
as Mrs. Bindle knew, going to "a job," and, what was more, he was
taking the clock to be repaired. He sidled tactically along the wall
towards the door, as if keenly interested in getting his pipe to draw.
Mrs. Bindle opened fire.
"How long's your job for?" She turned round in the act of wiping out a
saucepan.
"Only to-night," replied Bindle somewhat lamely. He was afraid of
where further romancing might lead him.
"Call that a job?" she enquired scornfully. "How long am I to go on
keepin' you in idleness?" Mrs. Bindle cleaned the Alton Road Chapel,
where she likewise worshipped, and to this she referred.
"I'll get another job to-morrow; don't be down'earted," Bindle replied
cheerfully.
"Down'earted! Y' ought to be ashamed o' yerself," exploded Mrs.
Bindle, as she banged the saucepan upon its shelf and seized a broom.
Bindle regarded her with expressionless face. "Y' ought to be ashamed
o' yerself, yer great hulkin' brute."
At one time Bindle, who was well below medium height and average
weight, had grinned appreciatively at this description; but it had a
little lost its savour by repetition.
"Call yerself a man!" she continued, her sharp voice rising in volume
and key. "Leavin' me to keep the sticks together--me, a woman too,
a-keepin' you in idleness! Why, I'd steal 'fore I'd do that, that I
would."
She made vigorous use of the broom. Her anger invariably manifested
itself in dust, a momentary forgetfulness of her religious convictions,
and a lapse into the Doric. As a rule she was careful and mincing in
her speech, but anger opened the flood-gates of her vocabulary, and
words rushed forth bruised and decapitated.
With philosophic self-effacement Bindle covered the few feet between
him and the door and vanished. He was a philosopher and, like
Socrates, he bowed to the whirlwind of his wife's wrath. Conscious of
having done everything humanly possible to obtain work, he faced the
world with unruffled calm.
Mrs. Bindle's careless words, however, sank deeply into his mind.
Steal! Well, he had no very strongly-grounded objection, provided he
were not caught at it. Steal! The word seemed to open up new
possibilities for him. The thing was, how should he begin? He might
seize a leg of mutton from a butcher's shop and run; but then Nature
had not intended him for a runner. He might smash a jeweller's window,
pick a pocket, or snatch a handbag; but in all these adventures
fleetness of foot seemed essential.
Crime seemed obviously for the sprinter. To become a burger required
experience and tools, and Bindle possessed neither. Besides, burgling
involved more risks than he cared to take.
Had he paused to think, Bindle would have seen that stealing was crime;
but his incurable love of adventure blinded him to all else.
"Funny thing," he mumbled as he walked down Fenton Street. "Funny
thing, a daughter o' the Lord wantin' me to steal. Wonder wot ole
'Earty 'ud say."