A FAMILY MATTER.
EVEN Nickie's intimates of the wharves and the river banks knew nothing
of his ancestors or relations. Nickie was naturally reticent about his
own business; On the point of family connections he was dumb. It was
assumed that he had had a father and mother at some stage of his career,
but the evolution of Nickie the Kid from a schoolboy, with shining
morning face, to a homeless rapscallion, living on his impudence, was
never dwelt upon by our hero, which is a great pity, as the process of
degeneration must have been highly interesting.
Certainly, Nickie did not regret his respectable past, if he were ever
respectable, and it is equally certain that he had no craving for high
things in the way of tall hats and two-storey houses. He appreciated the
value of money, since it enabled him to gratify his tastes, but it must
be admitted his tastes were scandalous in the main.
However, at Banklands Nickie solicited work, laborious and painful work.
Moreover, he went to the job of his own free will, when sober and in his
right mind. This seemed to imply an awakening of conscience, a dawning
sense of his utter uselessness to the body politic, and a desire to
figure as a useful member of society. On the other hand, it may have been
a symptom of brain-softening. But it happened to be neither; it was in
fact a means to a wicked end. On the fading end of a superior suburb,
where the streets of fine villas and mansions thinned off and dwindled,
and were lost among the gum trees of the original wilderness, Nickie
found his billet.
The suburb was coming ahead. The motor-car had made it easy and
accessible to the rich. Splendid dwellings were going up all over the
place, the road makers were exceedingly busy, and hammers of the
stone-knappers rattled an incessant fusillade.
Nickie the Kid came to Banklands one pleasant summer day, watched the
busy people with a desultory sort of interest, and moralised within
himself.
"Do these people expect to live a thousand years?" mused Mr. Crips, "that
they build such solid houses? Or do they regard them as monuments? Look
at that palace, and I sleep well on a potato sack under four boards!"
Nickie was examining a fine, white house, ornate as a wedding cake, with
plentiful cement, and balconies as frivolous as those of a Chinese
pagoda. It stood within capacious grounds, and proclaimed aloud the fact
that its proprietor was a rich man, ostentatious of his riches.
"I expect there's a matter of thirty rooms in that house," mused Nicholas
Crips, "and after all, a man can get just as drunk in a threepenny bar."
Nickie put in a couple of days skirmishing at Banklands, and fared well,
but as there was no hotel in the suburb Nicholas did not contemplate
making a lengthy stay. Something he saw on the second afternoon induced
him to change his mind, and threw him into a state of profound reflection
lasting for nearly an hour; then he sauntered over to the man working on
the pile of stones before the gates of the cemented mansion, and seating
himself on the broken metal, entered into conversation with the two-inch
mason wielding the hammer.
"Pretty hard work this," ventured Nicholas.
"Blanky hard," assented the stonebreaker.
"Did you ever try the softening influence of beer?" asked Nickie, drawing
a bottle from his pocket.
"Well, I won't make yeh force it on me," said the stonebreaker.
They divided the liquor like brothers dear, and the stonebreaker
developed a sudden affection for Nicholas Crips, who after twenty minutes
casual conversation, introduced his plea.
"Must be splendid exercise for the liver, stoneknapping," he said. "I've
been troubled with liver complaint lately. Living too high. Could you
give a man a job?"
"Well," said the breaker, "I got a sorter contrac' t' break so many
yards. If you'll do it at bob a yard you can get gain' on the other end
iv th' 'eap."
The price was far below current rates for cutting metal, but Nickie was
not penurious and grasping. He threw off his tattered coat, and, draped
in fragments of a shirt, in a pair of trousers, half of which fluttered
in the breeze, and boots that looked like a collection of fragments, he
set to work.
Certainly Nicholas Crips did not show any disposition to work himself to
death. After an hour his employer told him he wasn't likely to earn
enough to keep a rag-gatherer in toilet soap, but Nickie explained again
that he was merely exercising his liver, and had no intention of making
an independence as a breaker of road metal.
Nickie's heap was right opposite the great, fanciful iron gates of the
cemented residence. He could see the well-kept garden and the showy house
from where he worked, and he frequently ceased his half hearted rapping
at the tough stone to watch children playing on the lawn. He was
particularly interested in a tall, `severe-looking, fair-haired woman,
who appeared on the balcony for a moment.
Mr. Crips had been at work for about three hours, during which time he
had perspired a good deal and gathered much dust, for Nickie was
habitually easy going, and his task, although pursued with no diligence,
had "taken it out of him" to some extent. He was certainly a deplorable
scarecrow. A fine, polished carriage, with rubber tyres, drawn by a
splendid pair of chestnuts, was driven down the side drove by a livened
menial. It drew up near the centre gates, and Nickie leaned on his hammer
and waited.
The tall, dignified lady, accompanied by a short, important man in
immaculate black, came along the path, and approached the open door of
the vehicle. Nickie advanced carelessly, and intercepted them. He bowed
grotesquely.
"Good day, Billy," he said, familiarly. He lifted his hat pointedly to
the lady. "'Ow's yerself Jinny?" he asked.
The lady and gentleman stared at him in utmost astonishment for a moment,
then consternation seized them, and they made a dive for the vehicle.
Nickie followed to the door.
"So long, if yer mus' be goin', Willyum," he said, pleasantly. "So long,
Jinny. How's the old man's fish business?"
"Drive on!" gasped the gentleman. He had the scared expression of one who
had seen a spectre.
The liveried menial whipped up, and the carriage was swept away. Nickie
returned to his heap, and for fully two minutes Stub McGuire, his
employer, gazed at him in speechless, open-mouthed amazement.
"Well, of all the blarsted cheeks!" gasped McGuire, when speech came to
him.
"Don't mention it," said Nickie.
"Don't mention it!" yelled Stub. "No, iv course not, but what price his
nibs in the noble belltopper mentionin' it t' th' Johns, an' gettin' you
seven days fer disgustin' behaviour?"
Nickie smiled inscrutably, and continued his work. When the carriage
returned, he made an adroit movement, and courteously opened the door.
"'Low me, Jinny, my dear," he said, offering his grimy hand.
The lady stepped down, and passed him disdainfully. The gentleman brushed
him aside.
"'Ope yeh 'ad er pleasant ride in yer cart, Billy?" said Nicholas.
He followed them to the gate, and called through the bars.
"Very sorry, Jinny, but I carn't haccept yer pressin' invitation ter
dinner, havin' er previous engagement."
He returned to his work again, smiling sweetly. He seemed to enjoy Stub
McGuire's horror.
"'Ere, 'ere," said McGuire, "off this job you go if you don't know better
than to insult people that way. You'll be gettin' me inter mischiff."
"Not at all," said Nickie, "not at all. Surely a man may offer ordinary
civilities to his friends. Bless my soul, you wouldn't have me cut old
Billy in the streets, would you? If I didn't speak to Jinny she'd think I
was angry with her, and cry her eyes out. She has a tender heart, poor
girl. She is a sensitive soul, and craves for social distinction. She
looks to me to secure them a footing in exclusive circles, Mr. McGuire."
"I don't know what y're talkin' about," Stub grumbled, "but that's enough
of it, see?"
Nickie took no notice of his employer's admonitions, however, and when a
clergyman drove up in a buggy an hour later, our hero intercepted him at
the gate.
"Good afternoon, sir," he said. "Would you mind tellin' Willyum inside
there how Nickie sends him his compliments, and 'opes Jinny's quite
well."
"My good fellow, you must not be insolent," ejaculated the minister.
"They won't take it as hinsolence," Nicholas explained. "They've er very
touchin' regard fer me. Tell them. I arsked after 'em, won't yer?"
Even Stub McGuire noticed that Nickie, whose speech was usually
excellent, adopted the vulgar tongue in addressing the man he called
Billy, or any of his friends or relations.
Next day, Nickie inveigled three children, who were playing on the lawn,
and entertained them at the gate with frivolous conversation for nearly
ten minutes, when the state of affairs was discovered by their dignified
mamma, who sent a maid flying to the rescue. Nickie took off his hat to
the maid.
"Tell Willyum," he said, "that bein' 'andy, I'll drop in ter lunch t'
day, but Jinny's not on no account t' put up a big spread fer me. I'll
jist take what's goin'."
He finished these remarks at the top of his voice, the girl being
half-way back to the house.
When the important man in immaculate black came out a little later,
Nickie saluted him gravely, as between gentlemen, but without deference.
"'Ow's it, Billy?" he said. "You might drop in an' see me this evenin'.
I'm livin' under th' blackberry hedge back o' your stables."
The stout man passed in silence, and with a great show of dignity. Nickie
had a busy afternoon. Evidently it was the dignified lady's "day." Quite
a crowd of people drove up to the gates during the afternoon, and Nickie
entrusted each with an affectionate and familiar message to Jinny. All
were horrified at the insolence of the disgusting man, and one young
fellow kicked Mr. Crips, but our' hero did not seem to mind. He merely
warned his assailant that he would issue a County Court writ for any
damages done to his trousers.
On the following morning at about 11 o'clock Nickie entered the grounds,
his rags fluttering in the breeze, marched to the door and rang the bell.
To the Napoleonic man-servant who opened to him, he gravely presented a
tomato can half-full of water, and said:
"Will yer please arsk Bill or Jinny if they'll be so good as to bile my
billy at the drorin'-room fire. Tell 'em it's Nicholas Crips what makes
the request. No, thanks, I won't come in, I'm afraid my motor car might
bolt."
The Napoleonic man-servant threw Nickie off the verandah, and threw his
billy after him, but this did not deter Nicholas from an attempt to enter
into familiar conversation bearing on family matters, when he found the
dignified lady in a summer house.
The lady glared at him in stony horror. "How dare you?" she ejaculated.
"How dare you?"
"Why, what's wrong, Jinny, old girl." asked Crips innocently, assuming a
lounging attitude in the doorway. "You find the togs I'm wearin' a trifle
too negligee, so to speak. They're quite the thing in our set."
"Let me pass!" ejaculated the lady with crushing hauteur.
Nickie was not impressed. He smiled, and continued dreamily: "My word,
things have moved with you, Jinny. You're gone up like er rocket in er
reg'lar blaze iv glory, but I can still see yeh in the old shop days. You
blazed then too, old girl. It wasn't with di'monds, 'twas fish scales,
but you blazed. You could alwiz put on dog. You sold flathead, Jinny, but
I give the devil his due--you did it like a duchess."
At this point the Napoleonic footman intervened again. He took Nickie by
his rags and the nape of his neck, and running him tip-toe out of the
garden, tumbled him headlong on the grass-grown roadside. Nickie rejoined
Stub McGuire quite unconcerned.
"That's a new society game, my friend," he said. "The flunkey scored ten
points."
A few hours later the proprietor of the cement mansion came to his gate,
and beckoned Nicholas Crips off the heap. Nickie the Kid responded with
alacrity, and Stub McGuire gazed in cow-like wonder while the two
discussed matters in the gateway.
Nickie was calling him "Bill," "Billy," and "Willyum," indiscriminately.
Stub nearly fainted when he saw the gentleman draw a bank-note from his
pocket, and hand it to Nicholas Crips. Nickie lifted his deplorable hat,
and said:
"So long, Bill. I'm sorry I can't come an' stay a month. Some other time,
perhaps."
The gentleman went in, and slammed the gate behind him. Nickie returned
to the heap, and picked up his coat and donned it.
"I'm handing in my resignation, Mr. McGuire," he said. "You are welcome
to my earnings, as I intend to live on my means--temporary at least." He
held up the note.
"A tenner!" gasped McGuire.
"A tenner!" replied Nicholas, "presented by the kind gentleman on
condition that I emigrate from this suburb and absent myself permanently.
The worst thing about rich relations, Stub, is that they want whole
suburbs to themselves; the best is that you can make them pay for the
privilege of exclusiveness."