she was awful fond of me--we've been pulling together this last ten
years--mother and me--we wanted to make it all right for my little
brother Jim--poor Jim!”
“What's wrong with Jim?” someone asked.
“Oh, he's blind,” said Malachi “always was--we wanted to make it
all right for him agin time he grows up--I--I managed to send home
about--about forty pounds a year--we bought a bit of ground, and--and--I
think--I'm going now. Tell 'em, Harry--tell 'em how it was--”
I had to go outside then. I couldn't stand it any more. There was a lump
in my throat and I'd have given anything to wipe out my share in the
practical jokes, but it was too late now.
Malachi was dead when I went in again, and that night the hat went
round with the squatter's cheque in the bottom of it and we made it “all
right” for Malachi's blind brother Jim.
TWO DOGS AND A FENCE
“Nothing makes a dog madder,” said Mitchell, “than to have another dog
come outside his fence and sniff and bark at him through the cracks when
he can't get out. The other dog might be an entire stranger; he might
be an old chum, and he mightn't bark--only sniff--but it makes no
difference to the inside dog. The inside dog generally starts it, and
the outside dog only loses his temper and gets wild because the inside
dog has lost his and got mad and made such a stinking fuss about nothing
at all; and then the outside dog barks back and makes matters a thousand
times worse, and the inside dog foams at the mouth and dashes the foam
about, and goes at it like a million steel traps.
“I can't tell why the inside dog gets so wild about it in the first
place, except, perhaps, because he thinks the outside dog has taken him
at a disadvantage and is 'poking it at him;' anyway, he gets madder the
longer it lasts, and at last he gets savage enough to snap off his own
tail and tear it to bits, because he can't get out and chew up that
other dog; and, if he did get out, he'd kill the other dog, or try to,
even if it was his own brother.
“Sometimes the outside dog only smiles and trots off; sometimes he
barks back good-humouredly; sometimes he only just gives a couple of
disinterested barks as if he isn't particular, but is expected, because
of his dignity and doghood, to say something under the circumstances;
and sometimes, if the outside dog is a little dog, he'll get away from
that fence in a hurry on the first surprise, or, if he's a cheeky little
dog, he'll first make sure that the inside dog can't get out, and then
he'll have some fun.
“It's amusing to see a big dog, of the Newfoundland kind, sniffing along
outside a fence with a broad, good-natured grin on his face all the time
the inside dog is whooping away at the rate of thirty whoops a second,
and choking himself, and covering himself with foam, and dashing the
spray through the cracks, and jolting and jerking every joint in his
body up to the last joint in his tail.
“Sometimes the inside dog is a little dog, and the smaller he is the
more row he makes--but then he knows he's safe. And, sometimes, as I
said before, the outside dog is a short-tempered dog who hates a row,
and never wants to have a disagreement with anybody--like a good many
peaceful men, who hate rows, and are always nice and civil and pleasant,
in a nasty, unpleasant, surly, sneering sort of civil way that makes you
want to knock their heads off; men who never start a row, but keep it
going, and make it a thousand times worse when it's once started, just
because they didn't start it--and keep on saying so, and that the other
party did. The short-tempered outside dog gets wild at the other dog for
losing his temper, and says:
“'What are you making such a fuss about? What's the matter with you,
anyway? Hey?'
“And the inside dog says:
“'Who do you think you're talking to? You---! I'll----' etc., etc., etc.
“Then the outside dog says:
“'Why, you're worse than a flaming old slut!'
“Then they go at it, and you can hear them miles off, like a Chinese
war--like a hundred great guns firing eighty blank cartridges a minute,
till the outside dog is just as wild to get inside and eat the inside
dog as the inside dog is to get out and disembowel him. Yet if those
same two dogs were to meet casually outside they might get chummy at
once, and be the best of friends, and swear everlasting mateship, and
take each other home.”
JONES'S ALLEY
She lived in Jones's Alley. She cleaned offices, washed, and nursed
from daylight until any time after dark, and filled in her spare time
cleaning her own place (which she always found dirty--in a “beastly
filthy state,” she called it--on account of the children being left in
possession all day), cooking, and nursing her own sick--for her family,
though small, was so in the two senses of the word, and sickly; one or
another of the children was always sick, but not through her fault.
She did her own, or rather the family washing, at home too, when she
couldn't do it by kind permission, or surreptitiously in connection with
that of her employers. She was a haggard woman. Her second husband was
supposed to be dead, and she, lived in dread of his daily resurrection.
Her eldest son was at large, but, not being yet sufficiently hardened in
misery, she dreaded his getting into trouble even more than his frequent
and interested appearances at home. She could buy off the son for a
shilling or two and a clean shirt and collar, but she couldn't purchase
the absence of the father at any price--_he_ claimed what he called his
“conzugal rights” as well as his board, lodging, washing and beer. She
slaved for her children, and nag-nag-nagged them everlastingly, whether
they were in the right or in the wrong, but they were hardened to it and
took small notice. She had the spirit of a bullock. Her whole nature
was soured. She had those “worse troubles” which she couldn't tell to
anybody, but had to suffer in silence.
She also, in what she called her “spare time,” put new cuffs and
collar-bands on gentlemen's shirts. The gentlemen didn't live in Jones's
Alley--they boarded with a patroness of the haggard woman; they didn't
know their shirts were done there--had they known it, and known Jones's
Alley, one or two of them, who were medical students, might probably
have objected. The landlady charged them just twice as much for
repairing their shirts as she paid the haggard woman, who, therefore,
being unable to buy the cuffs and collar-bands ready-made for sewing on,
had no lack of employment with which to fill in her spare time.
Therefore, she was a “respectable woman,” and was known in Jones's Alley
as “Misses” Aspinall, and called so generally, and even by Mother Brock,
who kept “that place” opposite. There is implied a world of difference
between the “Mother” and the “Misses,” as applied to matrons in Jones's
Alley; and this distinction was about the only thing--always excepting
the everlasting “children”--that the haggard woman had left to care
about, to take a selfish, narrow-minded sort of pleasure in--if, indeed,
she could yet take pleasure, grim or otherwise, in anything except,
perhaps, a good cup of tea and time to drink it in.
Times were hard with Mrs Aspinall. Two coppers and two half-pence in
her purse were threepence to her now, and the absence of one of the
half-pence made a difference to her, especially in Paddy's market--that
eloquent advertisement of a young city's sin and poverty and rotten
wealth--on Saturday night. She counted the coppers as anxiously and
nervously as a thirsty dead-beat does. And her house was “falling down
on her” and her troubles, and she couldn't get the landlord to do a
“han'stern” to it.
At last, after persistent agitation on her part (but not before a
portion of the plastered ceiling had fallen and severely injured one
of her children) the landlord caused two men to be sent to “effect
necessary repairs” to the three square, dingy, plastered holes--called
“three rooms and a kitchen”--for the privilege of living in which, and
calling it “my place,” she paid ten shillings a week.
Previously the agent, as soon as he had received the rent and signed the
receipt, would cut short her reiterated complaints--which he privately
called her “clack”--by saying that he'd see to it, he'd speak to the
landlord; and, later on, that he _had_ spoken to him, or could do
nothing more in the matter--that it wasn't his business. Neither it was,
to do the agent justice. It was his business to collect the rent, and
thereby earn the means of paying his own. He had to keep a family on
his own account, by assisting the Fat Man to keep his at the expense of
people--especially widows with large families, or women, in the case
of Jones's Alley--who couldn't afford it without being half-starved, or
running greater and unspeakable risks which “society” is not supposed to
know anything about.
So the agent was right, according to his lights. The landlord had
recently turned out a family who had occupied one of his houses for
fifteen years, because they were six weeks in arrears. He let them take
their furniture, and explained: “I wouldn't have been so lenient with
them only they were such old tenants of mine.” So the landlord was
always in the right according to _his_ lights.
But the agent naturally wished to earn his living as peacefully and
as comfortably as possible, so, when the accident occurred, he put the
matter so persistently and strongly before the landlord that he said at
last: “Well, tell her to go to White, the contractor, and he'll send a
man to do what's to be done; and don't bother me any more.”
White had a look at the place, and sent a plasterer, a carpenter, and a
plumber. The plasterer knocked a bigger hole in the ceiling and filled
it with mud; the carpenter nailed a board over the hole in the floor;
the plumber stopped the leak in the kitchen, and made three new ones in
worse places; and their boss sent the bill to Mrs Aspinall.
She went to the contractor's yard, and explained that the landlord was
responsible for the debt, not she. The contractor explained that he had
seen the landlord, who referred him to her. She called at the landlord's
private house, and was referred through a servant to the agent. The
agent was sympathetic, but could do nothing in the matter--it wasn't
his business; he also asked her to put herself in his place, which she
couldn't, not being any more reasonable than such women are in such
cases. She let things drift, being powerless to prevent them from doing
so; and the contractor sent another bill, then a debt collector and
then another bill, then the collector again, and threatened to take
proceedings, and finally took them. To make matters worse, she was two
weeks in arrears with the rent, and the wood-and-coalman's man (she
had dealt with them for ten years) was pushing her, as also were her
grocers, with whom she had dealt for fifteen years and never owed a
penny before.
She waylaid the landlord, and he told her shortly that he couldn't build
houses and give them away, and keep them in repair afterwards.
She sought for sympathy and found it, but mostly in the wrong places. It
was comforting, but unprofitable. Mrs Next-door sympathized warmly,
and offered to go up as a witness--she had another landlord. The agent
sympathized wearily, but not in the presence of witnesses--he wanted
her to put herself in his place. Mother Brock, indeed, offered practical
assistance, which offer was received in breathlessly indignant silence.
It was Mother Brock who first came to the assistance of Mrs Aspinall's
child when the plaster accident took place (the mother being absent at
the time), and when Mrs Aspinall heard of it, her indignation cured her
of her fright, and she declared to Mrs Next-door that she would give
“that woman”--meaning Mother Brock--“in char-rge the instant she ever
_dared_ to put her foot inside her (Mrs A.'s) respectable door-step
again. She was a respectable, honest, hard-working woman, and---” etc.
Whereat Mother Brock laughed good-naturedly. She was a broad-minded
bad woman, and was right according to _her_ lights. Poor Mrs A. was a
respectable, haggard woman, and was right according to _her_ lights, and
to Mrs Next-door's, perfectly so--they being friends--and _vice versa_.
None of them knew, or would have taken into consideration, the fact that
the landlord had lost all his money in a burst financial institution,
and half his houses in the general depression, and depended for food for
his family on the somewhat doubtful rents of the remainder. So they were
all right according to their different lights.
Mrs Aspinall even sought sympathy of “John,” the Chinaman (with whom she
had dealt for four months only), and got it. He also, in all simplicity,
took a hint that wasn't intended. He said: “Al li'. Pay bimeby. Nexy
time Flyday. Me tlust.” Then he departed with his immortalized smile. It
would almost appear that he was wrong--according to our idea of Chinese
lights.
Mrs Aspinall went to the court--it was a small local court. Mrs
Next-door was awfully sorry, but she couldn't possibly get out that
morning. The contractor had the landlord up as a witness. The landlord
and the P.M. nodded pleasantly to each other, and wished each other good
morning.... Verdict for plaintiff with costs... Next case!... “You
mustn't take up the time of the court, my good woman.”.. “Now,
constable!”...“Arder in the court!”... “Now, my good woman,” said the
policeman in an undertone, “you must go out; there's another case
on-come now.” And he steered her--but not unkindly--through the door.
“My good woman” stood in the crowd outside, and looked wildly round
for a sympathetic face that advertised sympathetic ears. But others had
their own troubles, and avoided her. She wanted someone to relieve her
bursting heart to; she couldn't wait till she got home.
Even “John's” attentive ear and mildly idiotic expression would have
been welcome, but he was gone. He _had_ been in court that morning,
and had won a small debt case, and had departed cheerfully, under the
impression that he lost it.
“Y'aw Mrs Aspinall, ain't you?”
She started, and looked round. He was one of those sharp, blue or
grey-eyed, sandy or freckled complexioned boys-of-the-world whom we meet
everywhere and at all times, who are always going on towards twenty, yet
never seem to get clear out of their teens, who know more than most of
us have forgotten, who understand human nature instinctively--perhaps
unconsciously--and are instinctively sympathetic and diplomatic; whose
satire is quick, keen, and dangerous, and whose tact is often superior
to that of many educated men-of-the-world. Trained from childhood in the
great school of poverty, they are full of the pathos and humour of it.
“Don't you remember me?”
“No; can't say I do. I fancy I've seen your face before somewhere.”
“I was at your place when little Arvie died. I used to work with him at
Grinder Brothers', you know.”
“Oh, of course I remember you! What was I thinking about? I've had such
a lot of worry lately that I don't know whether I'm on my head or my
heels. Besides, you've grown since then, and changed a lot. You're
Billy--Billy---”
“Billy Anderson's my name.”
“Of course! To be sure! I remember you quite well.”
“How've you been gettin' on, Mrs Aspinall?”
“Ah! Don't mention it--nothing but worry and trouble--nothing but worry
and trouble. This grinding poverty! I'll never have anything else but
worry and trouble and misery so long as I live.”
“Do you live in Jones's Alley yet?”
“Yes.”
“Not bin there ever since, have you?”
“No; I shifted away once, but I went back again. I was away nearly two
years.”
“I thought so, because I called to see you there once. Well, I'm goin'
that way now. You goin' home, Mrs Aspinall?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I'll go along with you, if you don't mind.”
“Thanks. I'd be only too glad of company.”
“Goin' to walk, Mrs Aspinall?” asked Bill, as the tram stopped in their
way.
“Yes. I can't afford trams now--times are too hard.”
“Sorry I don't happen to have no tickets on me!”
“Oh, don't mention it. I'm well used to walking. I'd rather walk than
ride.”
They waited till the tram passed.
“Some people”--said Bill, reflectively, but with a tinge of indignation
in his tone, as they crossed the street--“some people can afford to ride
in trams.
“What's your trouble, Mrs Aspinall--if it's a fair thing to ask?” said
Bill, as they turned the corner.
This was all she wanted, and more; and when, about a mile later, she
paused for breath, he drew a long one, gave a short whistle, and said:
“Well, it's red-hot!”
Thus encouraged, she told her story again, and some parts of it for the
third and fourth and even fifth time--and it grew longer, as our stories
have a painful tendency to do when we re-write them with a view to
condensation.
But Bill heroically repeated that it was “red-hot.”
“And I dealt off the grocer for fifteen years, and the wood-and-coal
man for ten, and I lived in that house nine years last Easter Monday and
never owed a penny before,” she repeated for the tenth time.
“Well, that's a mistake,” reflected Bill. “I never dealt off nobody
more'n twice in my life.... I heerd you was married again, Mrs
Aspinall--if it's a right thing to ask?”
“Wherever did you hear that? I did get married again--to my sorrow.”
“Then you ain't Mrs Aspinall--if it's a fair thing to ask?”
“Oh, yes! I'm known as Mrs Aspinall. They all call me Mrs Aspinall.”
“I understand. He cleared, didn't he? Run away?”
“Well, yes--no---he---”
“I understand. He's s'posed to be dead?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that's red-hot! So's my old man, and I hope he don't resurrect
again.”
“You see, I married my second for the sake of my children.”
“That's a great mistake,” reflected Bill. “My mother married my
step-father for the sake of me, and she's never been done telling me
about it.”
“Indeed! Did _your_ mother get married again?”
“Yes. And he left me with a batch of step-sisters and step-brothers to
look after, as well as mother; as if things wasn't bad enough before. We
didn't want no help to be pinched, and poor, and half-starved. I don't
see where my sake comes in at all.”
“And how's your mother now?”
“Oh, she's all right, thank you. She's got a hard time of it, but she's
pretty well used to it.”
“And are you still working at Grinder Brothers'?”
“No. I got tired of slavin' there for next to nothing. I got sick of my
step-father waitin' outside for me on pay-day, with a dirty, drunken,
spieler pal of his waitin' round the corner for him. There wasn't
nothin' in it. It got to be too rough altogether.... Blast Grinders!”
“And what are you doing now?”
“Sellin' papers. I'm always tryin' to get a start in somethin' else, but
I ain't got no luck. I always come back to, sellin' papers.”
Then, after a thought, he added reflectively: “Blast papers!”
His present ambition was to drive a cart.
“I drove a cart twice, and once I rode a butcher's horse. A bloke worked
me out of one billet, and I worked myself out of the other. I didn't
know when I was well off. Then the banks went bust, and my last boss
went insolvent, and one of his partners went into Darlinghurst for
suicide, and the other went into Gladesville for being mad; and one
day the bailiff seized the cart and horse with me in it and a load of
timber. So I went home and helped mother and the kids to live on one
meal a day for six months, and keep the bum-bailiff out. Another cove
had my news-stand.”
Then, after a thought “Blast reconstriction!”
“But you surely can't make a living selling newspapers?”
“No, there's nothin' in it. There's too many at it. The blessed women
spoil it. There's one got a good stand down in George Street, and she's
got a dozen kids sellin'--they can't be all hers-and then she's got
the hide to come up to my stand and sell in front of me.... What are you
thinkin' about doin', Mrs Aspinall?”
“I don't know,” she wailed. “I really don't know what to do.”
And there still being some distance to go, she plunged into her tale of
misery once more, not forgetting the length of time she had dealt with
her creditors.
Bill pushed his hat forward and walked along on the edge of the kerb.
“Can't you shift? Ain't you got no people or friends that you can go to
for a while?”
“Oh, yes; there's my sister-in-law; she's asked me times without number
to come and stay with her till things got better, and she's got a hard
enough struggle herself, Lord knows. She asked me again only yesterday.”
“Well, that ain't too bad,” reflected Bill. “Why don't you go?”
“Well, you see, if I did they wouldn't let me take my furniture, and
she's got next to none.”
“Won't the landlord let you take your furniture?”
“No, not him! He's one of the hardest landlords in Sydney--the worst I
ever had.”
“That's red-hot!... I'd take it in spite of him. He can't do nothin'.”
“But I daren't; and even if I did I haven't got a penny to pay for a
van.”
They neared the alley. Bill counted the flagstones, stepping from one
to another over the joints. “Eighteen-nineteen-twenty-twenty-one!”
he counted mentally, and came to the corner kerbing. Then he turned
suddenly and faced her.
“I'll tell you what to do,” he said decidedly. “Can you get your things
ready by to-night? I know a cove that's got a cart.”
“But I daren't. I'm afraid of the landlord.”
“The more fool you,” said Bill. “Well, I'm not afraid of him. He can't
do nothin'. I'm not afraid of a landlady, and that's worse. I know the
law. He can't do nothin'. You just do as I tell you.”
“I'd want to think over it first, and see my sister-in-law.”
“Where does your sister-'n-law live?”
“Not far.”
“Well, see her, and think over it--you've got plenty of time to do it
in--and get your things ready by dark. Don't be frightened. I've shifted
mother and an aunt and two married sisters out of worse fixes than
yours. I'll be round after dark, and bring a push to lend a hand.
They're decent coves.”
“But I can't expect your friend to shift me for nothing. I told you I
haven't got a---”
“Mrs Aspinall, I ain't that sort of a bloke, neither is my chum, and
neither is the other fellows--'relse they wouldn't be friends of mine.
Will you promise, Mrs Aspinall?”
“I'm afraid--I--I'd like to keep my few things now. I've kept them so
long. It's hard to lose my few bits of things--I wouldn't care so much
if I could keep the ironin' table.”
“So you could, by law--it's necessary to your living, but it would cost
more'n the table. Now, don't be soft, Mrs Aspinall. You'll have the
bailiff in any day, and be turned out in the end without a rag. The law
knows no 'necessary.' You want your furniture more'n the landlord
does. He can't do nothin'. You can trust it all to me.... I knowed
Arvie.... Will you do it?”
“Yes, I will.”
At about eight o'clock that evening there came a mysterious knock at
Mrs Aspinall's door. She opened, and there stood Bill. His attitude was
business-like, and his manner very impressive. Three other boys stood
along by the window, with their backs to the wall, deeply interested in
the emptying of burnt cigarette-ends into a piece of newspaper laid in
the crown of one of their hats, and a fourth stood a little way along
the kerb casually rolling a cigarette, and keeping a quiet eye out for
suspicious appearances. They were of different makes and sizes, but
there seemed an undefined similarity between them.
“This is my push, Mrs Aspinall,” said Bill; “at least,” he added
apologetically, “it's part of 'em. Here, you chaps, this is Mrs
Aspinall, what I told you about.”
They elbowed the wall back, rubbed their heads with their hats, shuffled
round, and seemed to take a vacant sort of interest in abstract objects,
such as the pavement, the gas-lamp, and neighbouring doors and windows.
“Got the things ready?” asked Bill.
“Oh, yes.”
“Got 'em downstairs?”
“There's no upstairs. The rooms above belong to the next house.”
“And a nice house it is,” said Bill, “for rooms to belong to. I wonder,”
he reflected, cocking his eye at the windows above; “I wonder how the
police manage to keep an eye on the next house without keepin' an eye on
yours--but they know.”
He turned towards the street end of the alley and gave a low whistle.
Out under the lamp from behind the corner came a long, thin, shambling,
hump-backed youth, with his hat down over his head like an extinguisher,
dragging a small bony horse, which, in its turn, dragged a rickety cart
of the tray variety, such as is used in the dead marine trade. Behind
the cart was tied a mangy retriever. This affair was drawn up opposite
the door.