Dave Burge nodded inexorably.
"Best feel in your pockets," he said, "p'raps 'e's bin there."
He had. The little man broke down. "I was a-goin' to send 'ome that two bob—s'elp me, I was.... An' what can I do without my tools? If I'd got no job I could 'a pawned 'em—an' then I'd 'a sent 'ome the money—s'elp me I would.... O, it's crool!"
The walking, with the long sleep after it, had left him sore and stiff, and Dave had work to put him on the road again. He had forgotten yesterday afternoon, and asked, at first, for the others. They tramped in silence for a few miles: when Joey suddenly flung himself upon a tussock by the wayside.
"Why won't nobody let me live?" he snivelled. "I'ma 'armless bloke enough. I worked at Ritterson's, man and boy, very nigh twenty year. When they come an' ordered us out, I come out with the others, peaceful enough; I didn't want to chuck it up, Gawd knows, but I come out promp' when they told me. And when I found another job on the Island, four big blokes set about me an' 'arf killed me.Ididn't know the place was blocked. And when two o' the blokes was took up, they said I'd get strike-pay again if I didn't identify 'em; so I didn't. Butthey never give me no strike-pay—they laughed an' chucked me out. An' now I'm a-starvin' on the 'igh road. An' Skulky ... blimy ...'e'sdone me too!"
There were days wherein Joey learned to eat a swede pulled from behind a wagon, and to feel thankful for an early turnip; might have learned, too, just what tramping means in many ways to a man unskilled both in begging and in theft, but was never equal to it. He coughed—and worse: holding to posts and gates, and often spitting blood. He had little to say, but trudged mechanically, taking note of nothing.
Once, as though aroused from a reverie, he asked, "Wasn't there some others?"
"Others?" said Dave, for a moment taken aback. "O, yes, there was some others. They're gone on ahead, y'know."
Joey tramped for half a mile in silence. Then he said, "Expect they're 'avin' a rough time too."
"Ah—very like," said Dave.
For a space Joey was silent, save for the cough. Then he went on: "Comes o' not bringing 'cordions with 'em. Every one ought to take a 'cordion what goes trampin'. I knew a man once that went trampin', an' 'e took a 'cordion.Hedone all right. It ain't so roughfor them as plays on the 'cordion." And Dave Burge rubbed his cap about his head and stared; but answered nothing.
It was a bad day. Crusts were begged at cottages. Every rise and every turn, the eternal yellow road lay stretch on stretch before them, flouting their unrest. Joey, now unimpressionable, endured more placidly than even Dave Burge. Late in the afternoon, "No," he said, "it ain't so rough for them as plays the 'cordion. They 'as the best of it.... S'elp me," he added suddenly, "we'reall 'cordions!" He sniggered thoughtfully, and then burst into a cough that left him panting. "We're nothin' but a bloomin' lot o' 'cordions ourselves," he went on, having got his breath, "an' they play any toon they like on us; an' that's 'ow they make their livin'. S'elp me, Dave, we're all 'cordions." And he laughed.
"Um—yus," the other man grunted. And he looked curiously at his mate; for he had never heard that sort of laugh before.
But Joey fondled the conceit, and returned to it from time to time; now aloud, now to himself. "All 'cordions: playin' any toon as is ordered, blimy....Arewe 'cordions?Idon't b'lieve we're as much as that ... no, s'elp me. We're on'y the footlin' little keys; shoved about to soot the toon.... Little tin keys, blimy ...footlin' little keys.... I've bin played on plenty,I'ave...."
Dave Burge listened with alarm, and tried to talk of other things. But Joey rarely heard him. "I've bin played on plenty,I'ave," he persisted. "I was played on once by a pal: an' my spring broke."
At nightfall there was more bad luck. They were driven from a likely barn by a leather-gaitered man with a dog, and for some distance no dormitory could be found. Then it was a cut haystack, with a nest near the top and steps to reach it.
In the night Burge was wakened by a clammy hand upon his face. There was a thick mist.
"It's you, Dave, ain't it?" Clayton was saying. "Good Gawd, I thought I'd lawst you. What's all this 'ere—not the water is it?—not the dock? I'm soppin' wet."
Burge himself was wet to the skin. He made Joey lie down, and told him to sleep; but a coughing fit prevented that. "It was them 'cordions woke me," he explained when it was over.
So the night put on the shuddering gray of the fore-dawn. And the two tramps left their perch, and betook them, shivering and stamping, to the road.
That morning Joey had short fits of dizzinessand faintness. "It's my spring broke," he would say after such an attack. "Bloomin' little tin key put out o' toon." And once he added, "I'm up to one toon, though, now: this 'ere bloomin' Dead March."
Just at the outskirts of a town, where he stopped to cough over a gate, a stout old lady, walking out with a shaggy little dog, gave him a shilling. Dave Burge picked it up as it dropped from his incapable hand, and "Joey, 'ere's a bob," he said; "a lady give it you. You come an' git a drop o' beer."
They carried a twopenny loaf into the tap-room of a small tavern, and Dave had mild ale himself, but saw that Joey was served with stout with a penn'orth of gin in it. Soon the gin and stout reached Joey's head, and drew it to the table. And he slept, leaving the rest of the shilling where it lay.
Dave arose, and stuffed the last of the twopenny loaf into his pocket. He took a piece of chalk from the bagatelle board in the corner, and wrote this on the table:—"dr. sir. for god sake take him to the work House."
Then he gathered up the coppers where they lay, and stepped quietly into the street.
TO BOW BRIDGE.
The eleven-five tram-car from Stratford started for Bow a trifle before its time. The conductor knew what he might escape by stealing a march on the closing public-houses; as also what was in store for all the conductors in his wake, till there were no more revellers left to swarm the cars. For it was Saturday night, and many a week's wages were a-knocking down; and the publicans this side of Bow Bridge shut their doors at eleven under Act of Parliament, whereas beyond the Bridge, which is the county of London, the law gives them another hour, and a man may drink many pots therein. And for this, at eleven every Saturday, there is a great rush westward, a vast migration over Lea, from all the length of High Street. From the nearer parts they walk, or do their best to walk; but from further Stratford, by the Town Hall, the Church, and the Martyrs' Memorial, they crowd the cars. For one thing, it is a long half-mile, and the week's work is over. Also, the car being swamped, it is oddsthat a man shall save his fare, since no conductor may fight his way a quarter through his passengers before Bow Bridge, where the vehicle is emptied at a rush. And that means yet another half-pint.
So the eleven-five car started sooner than it might have done. As it was spattering with rain, I boarded it, sharing the conductor's forlorn hope, but taking care to sit at the extreme fore-end inside. In the broad street the market clamored and flared, its lights and shadows flickering and fading about the long churchyard and the steeple in the midst thereof; and toward the distant lights, the shining road sparkled in long reaches, like a blackguard river.
A gap fell here and there among the lights where a publican put his gas out; and at these points the crowds thickened. A quiet mechanic came in, and sat near a decent woman with children, a bundle, a basket, and a cabbage. Thirty yards on the car rumbled, and suddenly its hinder end was taken in a mass of people—howling, struggling, and blaspheming—who stormed and wrangled in at the door and up the stairs. There were lads and men whooping and flushed, there were girls and women screaming choruses; and in a moment the seats were packed, knees were taken, and there was not an inch of standing room. The conductor cried,"All full!" and tugged at his bell-strap, whereunto many were hanging by the hand; but he was swept from his feet, and made to push hard for his own place. And there was no more foothold on the back platform nor the front, nor any vacant step upon the stairway; and the roof was thronged; and the rest of the crowd was fain to waylay the next car.
This one moved off slowly, with shrieks and howls that were racking to the wits. From divers quarters of the roof came a bumping thunder as of cellar-flapping clogs. Profanity was sluiced down, as it were by pailfuls, from above, and was swilled back as it were in pailfuls from below. Blowses in feathered bonnets bawled hilarious obscenity at the jiggers. A little maid with a market-basket, hustled and jostled and elbowed at the far end, listened eagerly and laughed when she could understand; and the quiet mechanic, whose knees had been invaded by an unsteady young woman in a crushed hat, tried to look pleased. My own knees were saved from capture by the near neighborhood of an enormous female, seated partly on the seat and partly on myself, snorting and gulping with sleep, her head upon the next man's shoulder. (To offer your seat to a standing woman would, as beseems a foreign antic, have been visited by the ribaldry of the whole crowd.) In the midstof the riot the decent woman sat silent and indifferent, her children on and about her knees. Further along, two women ate fish with their fingers and discoursed personalities in voices which ran strident through the uproar, as the odor of their snack asserted itself in the general fetor. And opposite the decent woman there sat a bonnetless drab, who said nothing, but looked at the decent woman's children as a shoeless brat looks at the dolls in a toyshop window.
"So I ses to 'er, I ses"—this from the snacksters—"I'm a respectable married woman, I ses. More'n you can say, you barefaced hussey, I ses—" Then a shower of curses, a shout, and a roar of laughter; and the conductor, making slow and laborious progress with the fares nearest him, turned his head. A man had jumped upon the footboard and a passenger's toes. A scuffle and a fight, and both had rolled off into the mire, and got left behind. "Ain't they fond o' one another?" cried a girl. "They're a-goin' for a walk together;" and there was a guffaw. "The silly bleeders'll be too late for the pubs," said a male voice; and there was another, for the general understanding was touched.
Then—an effect of sympathy, perhaps—a scuffle broke out on the roof. But thisdisturbed not the insides. The conductor went on his plaguy task: to save time, he passed over the one or two that, asked now or not, seemed likely to pay at the journey's end. The snacking women resumed their talk, the choristers their singing; the rumble of the wheels was lost in a babel of vacant ribaldry; the enormous woman choked and gasped and snuggled lower down upon her neighbor's shoulder; and the shabby strumpet looked at the children.
A man by the door vomited his liquor: whereat was more hilarity, and his neighbors, with many yaups, shoved further up the middle. But one of the little ones, standing before her mother, was pushed almost to falling; and the harlot, seeing her chance, snatched the child upon her knee. The child looked up, something in wonder, and smiled; and the woman leered as honestly as she might, saying a hoarse word or two.
Presently the conflict overhead, waxing and waning to an accompaniment of angry shouts, afforded another brief diversion to those within, and something persuaded the standing passengers to shove toward the door. The child had fallen asleep in the street-walker's arms. "Jinny!" cried the mother, reaching forth and shaking her. "Jinny! wake up now—you mustn't go to sleep." And she pulled thelittle thing from her perch to where she had been standing.
The bonnetless creature bent forward, and, in her curious voice (like that of one sick with shouting), "She can set on my knee, m'm, if she likes," she said; "she's tired."
The mother busied herself with a jerky adjustment of the child's hat and shawl. "She mustn't go to sleep," was all she said, sharply, and without looking up.
The hoarse woman bent further forward, with a propitiatory grin. "'Ow old is she?... I'd like to—give 'er a penny."
The mother answered nothing; but drew the child close by the side of her knee, where a younger one was sitting, and looked steadily through the fore windows.
The hoarse woman sat back, unquestioning and unresentful, and turned her eyes upon them that were crowding over the conductor; for the car was rising over Bow Bridge. Front and back they surged down from the roof, and the insides made for the door as one man. The big woman's neighbor rose, and let her fall over on the seat, whence, awaking with a loud grunt and an incoherent curse, she rolled after the rest. The conductor, clamant and bedevilled, was caught between the two pell-mells, and, demanding fares and gripping his satchel, was carriedover the footboard in the rush. The stramash overhead came tangled and swearing down the stairs, gaining volume and force in random punches as it came; and the crowd on the pavement streamed vocally toward a brightness at the bridge foot—the lights of the Bombay Grab.
The woman with the children waited till the footboard was clear, and then, carrying one child and leading another (her marketings attached about her by indeterminate means), she set the two youngsters on the pavement, leaving the third on the step of the car. The harlot, lingering, lifted the child again—lifted her rather high—and set her on the path with the others. Then she walked away toward the Bombay Grab. A man in a blue serge suit was footing it down the turning between the public-house and the bridge with drunken swiftness and an intermittent stagger; and, tightening her shawl, she went in chase.
The quiet mechanic stood and stretched himself, and took a corner seat near the door; and the tram-car, quiet and vacant, bumped on westward.
THAT BRUTE SIMMONS.
Simmons's infamous behavior toward his wife is still matter for profound wonderment among the neighbors. The other women had all along regarded him as a model husband, and certainly Mrs. Simmons was a most conscientious wife. She toiled and slaved for that man, as any woman in the whole street would have maintained, far more than any husband had a right to expect. And now this was what she got for it. Perhaps he had suddenly gone mad.
Before she married Simmons, Mrs. Simmons had been the widowed Mrs. Ford. Ford had got a berth as donkeyman on a tramp steamer, and that steamer had gone down with all hands off the Cape: a judgment, the widow woman feared, for long years of contumacy which had culminated in the wickedness of taking to the sea, and taking to it as a donkeyman—an immeasurable fall for a capable engine-fitter. Twelve years as Mrs. Ford had left her still childless, and childless she remained as Mrs. Simmons.
As for Simmons, he, it was held, was fortunate in that capable wife. He was a moderately good carpenter and joiner, but no man of the world, and he wanted one. Nobody could tell what might not have happened to Tommy Simmons if there had been no Mrs. Simmons to take care of him. He was a meek and quiet man, with a boyish face and sparse, limp whiskers. He had no vices (even his pipe departed him after his marriage), and Mrs. Simmons had engrafted on him divers exotic virtues. He went solemnly to chapel every Sunday, under a tall hat, and put a penny—one returned to him for the purpose out of his week's wages—in the plate. Then, Mrs. Simmons overseeing, he took off his best clothes and brushed them with solicitude and pains. On Saturday afternoons he cleaned the knives, the forks, the boots, the kettles, and the windows, patiently and conscientiously. On Tuesday evenings he took the clothes to the mangling. And on Saturday nights he attended Mrs. Simmons in her marketing, to carry the parcels.
Mrs. Simmons's own virtues were native and numerous. She was a wonderful manager. Every penny of Tommy's thirty-six or thirty-eight shillings a week was bestowed to the greatest advantage, and Tommy never ventured to guess how much of it she saved. Hercleanliness in housewifery was distracting to behold. She met Simmons at the front door whenever he came home, and then and there he changed his boots for slippers, balancing himself painfully on alternate feet on the cold flags. This was because she scrubbed the passage and doorstep turn about with the wife of the downstairs family, and because the stair-carpet was her own. She vigilantly supervised her husband all through the process of "cleaning himself" after work, so as to come between her walls and the possibility of random splashes; and if, in spite of her diligence, a spot remained to tell the tale, she was at pains to impress the fact on Simmons's memory, and to set forth at length all the circumstances of his ungrateful selfishness. In the beginning she had always escorted him to the ready-made clothes shop, and had selected and paid for his clothes: for the reason that men are such perfect fools, and shopkeepers do as they like with them. But she presently improved on that. She found a man selling cheap remnants at a street corner, and straightway she conceived the idea of making Simmons's clothes herself. Decision was one of her virtues, and a suit of uproarious check tweeds was begun that afternoon from the pattern furnished by an old one. More: it was finished by Sunday; when Simmons, overcome by astonishmentat the feat, was indued in it, and pushed off to chapel ere he could recover his senses. The things were not altogether comfortable, he found: the trousers clung tight against his shins, but hung loose behind his heels; and when he sat, it was on a wilderness of hard folds and seams. Also his waistcoat collar tickled his nape, but his coat collar went straining across from shoulder to shoulder; while the main garment bagged generously below his waist. Use made a habit of his discomfort, but it never reconciled him to the chaff of his shopmates; for as Mrs. Simmons elaborated successive suits, each one modelled on the last, the primal accidents of her design developed into principles, and grew even bolder and more hideously pronounced. It was vain for Simmons to hint—as hint he did—that he shouldn't like her to overwork herself, tailoring being bad for the eyes, and there was a new tailor's in the Mile End Road, very cheap, where.... "Ho yus," she retorted, "you're very consid'rit I dessay sittin' there actin' a livin' lie before your own wife Thomas Simmons as though I couldn't see through you like a book. A lot you care about overworkin' me as long asyourturn's served throwin' away money like dirt in the street on a lot o' swindlin' tailors an' me workin' an' slavin' 'ere to save a 'apenny an'this is my return for it any one 'ud think you could pick up money in the 'orseroad an' I b'lieve I'd be thought better of if I laid in bed all day like some would that I do." So that Thomas Simmons avoided the subject, nor even murmured when she resolved to cut his hair.
So his placid fortune endured for years. Then there came a golden summer evening when Mrs. Simmons betook herself with a basket to do some small shopping, and Simmons was left at home. He washed and put away the tea-things, and then he fell to meditating on a new pair of trousers, finished that day and hanging behind the parlor door. There they hung, in all their decent innocence of shape in the seat, and they were shorter of leg, longer of waist, and wilder of pattern than he had ever worn before. And as he looked on them the small devil of Original Sin awoke and clamored in his breast. He was ashamed of it, of course, for well he knew the gratitude he owed his wife for those same trousers, among other blessings. Still, there the small devil was, and the small devil was fertile in base suggestions, and could not be kept from hinting at the new crop of workshop gibes that would spring at Tommy's first public appearance in such things.
"Pitch 'em in the dustbin!" said the small devil at last; "it's all they're fit for."
Simmons turned away in sheer horror of his wicked self, and for a moment thought of washing the tea-things over again by way of discipline. Then he made for the back room, but saw from the landing that the front door was standing open, probably by the fault of the child downstairs. Now a front door standing open was a thing that Mrs. Simmons wouldnotabide: it looked low. So Simmons went down, that she might not be wroth with him for the thing when she came back; and, as he shut the door, he looked forth into the street.
A man was loitering on the pavement, and prying curiously about the door. His face was tanned, his hands were deep in the pockets of his unbraced blue trousers, and well back on his head he wore the high-crowned peaked cap topped with a knob of wool, which is affected by Jack ashore about the docks. He lurched a step nearer to the door, and "Mrs. Ford ain't in, is she?" he said.
Simmons stared at him for a matter of five seconds, and then said, "Eh?"
"Mrs. Ford as was, then—Simmons now, ain't it?"
He said this with a furtive leer that Simmons neither liked nor understood.
"No," said Simmons, "she ain't in now."
"You ain't her 'usband, are ye?"
"Yus."
The man took his pipe from his mouth, and grinned silently and long. "Blimy," he said at length, "you look the sort o' bloke she'd like,"—and with that he grinned again. Then, seeing that Simmons made ready to shut the door, he put a foot on the sill and a hand against the panel. "Don't be in a 'urry, matey," he said, "I come 'ere t'ave a little talk with you, man to man, d'ye see?" And he frowned fiercely.
Tommy Simmons felt uncomfortable, but the door would not shut, so he parleyed. "Wotjer want?" he asked. "I dunno you."
"Then, if you'll excuse the liberty, I'll interdooce meself, in a manner of speaking." He touched his cap with a bob of mock humility. "I'm Bob Ford," he said, "come back out o' kingdom-come, so to say. Me as went down with theMooltan—safe dead five year gone. I come to see my wife."
During this speech Thomas Simmons's jaw was dropping lower and lower. At the end of it he poked his fingers up through his hair, looked down at the mat, then up at the fanlight, then out into the street, then hard at his visitor. But he found nothing to say.
"Come to see my wife," the man repeated. "So now we can talk it over—as man to man."
Simmons slowly shut his mouth, and led theway upstairs mechanically, his fingers still in his hair. A sense of the state of affairs sank gradually into his brain, and the small devil woke again. Suppose this manwasFord? Suppose hedidclaim his wife? Would it be a knock-down blow? Would it hit him out?—or not? He thought of the trousers, the tea-things, the mangling, the knives, the kettles, and the windows; and he thought of them in the way of a backslider.
On the landing Ford clutched at his arm, and asked in a hoarse whisper: "'Ow long 'fore she's back?"
"'Bout a hour, I expect," Simmons replied, having first of all repeated the question in his own mind. And then he opened the parlor door.
"Ah," said Ford, looking about him, "you've bin pretty comf'table. Them chairs an' things"—jerking his pipe toward them—"was hers—mine that is to say, speaking straight, and man to man." He sat down, puffing meditatively at his pipe, and presently: "Well," he continued, "'ere I am agin, ol' Bob Ford dead an' done for—gawn down in theMooltan. On'y Iain'tdone for, see?"—and he pointed the stem of his pipe at Simmons's waistcoat,—"I ain't done for, 'cause why? Cons'kence o' bein' picked up by a ol' German sailin'-'utch an' tookto 'Frisco 'fore the mast. I've 'ad a few years o' knockin' about since then, an' now"—looking hard at Simmons—"I've come back to see my wife."
"She—she don't like smoke in 'ere," said Simmons, as it were at random.
"No, I bet she don't," Ford answered, taking his pipe from his mouth, and holding it low in his hand. "I know 'Anner. 'Ow d'you find 'er? Do she make ye clean the winders?"
"Well," Simmons admitted uneasily, "I—I do 'elp 'er sometimes, o' course."
"Ah! An' the knives too, I bet, an' the bloomin' kittles. I know. Wy"—he rose and bent to look behind Simmons's head—"s'elp me, I b'lieve she cuts yer 'air! Well, I'm damned! Jes' wot she would do, too."
He inspected the blushing Simmons from divers points of vantage. Then he lifted a leg of the trousers hanging behind the door. "I'd bet a trifle," he said, "she made these 'ere trucks. Nobody else 'ud do 'em like that. Damme—they're wuss'n wot you're got on."
The small devil began to have the argument all its own way. If this man took his wife back perhaps he'd have to wear those trousers.
"Ah!" Ford pursued, "she ain't got no milder. An' my davy, wot a jore!"
Simmons began to feel that this was no longerhis business. Plainly, 'Anner was this other man's wife, and he was bound in honor to acknowledge the fact. The small devil put it to him as a matter of duty.
"Well," said Ford suddenly, "time's short an' this ain't business. I won't be 'ard on you, matey. I ought prop'ly to stand on my rights, but seein' as you're a well-meanin' young man, so to speak, an' all settled an' a-livin' 'ere quiet an' matrimonual, I'll"—this with a burst of generosity—"damme, yus, I'll compound the felony, an' take me 'ook. Come, I'll name a figure, as man to man, fust an' last, no less an' no more. Five pound does it."
Simmons hadn't five pounds—he hadn't even five pence—and he said so. "An' I wouldn't think for to come between a man an' 'is wife," he added, "not on no account. It may be rough on me, but it 's a dooty.I'll'ook it."
"No," said Ford hastily, clutching Simmons by the arm, "don't do that. I'll make it a bit cheaper. Say three quid—come, that's reasonable, ain't it? Three quid ain't much compensation for me goin' away forever—where the stormy winds do blow, so to say—an' never as much as seein' me own wife agin for better nor wuss. Between man an' man now—three quid; an' I'll shunt. That's fair, ain't it?"
"Of course it's fair," Simmons repliedeffusively. "It's more'n fair: it's noble—downright noble,Icall it. But I ain't goin' to take a mean advantage o' your good-'artedness, Mr. Ford. She's your wife, an' I oughtn't to 'a' come between you. I apologize. You stop an' 'ave yer proper rights. It's me as ought to shunt, an' I will." And he made a step toward the door.
"'Old on," quoth Ford, and got between Simmons and the door; "don't do things rash. Look wot a loss it'll be to you with no 'ome to go to, an' nobody to look after ye, an' all that. It'll be dreadful. Say a couple—there, we won't quarrel, jest a single quid, between man an' man, an' I'll stand a pot out o' the money. You can easy raise a quid—the clock 'ud pretty nigh do it. A quid does it; an' I'll—"
There was a loud double-knock at the front door. In the East End a double-knock is always for the upstairs lodgers.
"Oo's that?" asked Bob Ford apprehensively.
"I'll see," said Thomas Simmons in reply, and he made a rush for the staircase.
Bob Ford heard him open the front door. Then he went to the window, and, just below him, he saw the crown of a bonnet. It vanished, and borne to him from within the door there fell upon his ear the sound of a well-remembered female voice.
"Where ye goin' now with no 'at?" asked the voice sharply.
"Awright, 'Anner—there's—there's somebody upstairs to see you," Simmons answered. And, as Bob Ford could see, a man went scuttling down the street in the gathering dusk. And behold, it was Thomas Simmons.
Ford reached the landing in three strides. His wife was still at the front door, staring after Simmons. He flung into the back room, threw open the window, dropped from the wash-house roof into the back-yard, scrambled desperately over the fence, and disappeared into the gloom. He was seen by no living soul. And that is why Simmons's base desertion—under his wife's very eyes, too—is still an astonishment to the neighbors.
BEHIND THE SHADE.
The street was the common East End street—two parallels of brick pierced with windows and doors. But at the end of one, where the builder had found a remnant of land too small for another six-roomer, there stood an odd box of a cottage, with three rooms and a wash-house. It had a green door with a well-blacked knocker round the corner; and in the lower window in front stood a "shade of fruit"—a cone of waxen grapes and apples under a glass cover.
Although the house was smaller than the others, and was built upon a remnant, it was always a house of some consideration. In a street like this mere independence of pattern gives distinction. And a house inhabited by one sole family makes a figure among houses inhabited by two or more, even though it be the smallest of all. And here the seal of respectability was set by the shade of fruit—a sign accepted in those parts. Now, when people keep a house to themselves, and keep it clean;when they neither stand at the doors nor gossip across back-fences; when, moreover, they have a well-dusted shade of fruit in the front window; and, especially, when they are two women who tell nobody their business: they are known at once for well-to-do, and are regarded with the admixture of spite and respect that is proper to the circumstances. They are also watched.
Still, the neighbors knew the history of the Perkinses, mother and daughter, in its main features, with little disagreement: having told it to each other, filling in the details when occasion seemed to serve. Perkins, ere he died, had been a shipwright; and this was when the shipwrights were the aristocracy of the workshops, and he that worked more than three or four days a week was counted a mean slave: it was long (in fact) before depression, strikes, iron plates, and collective blindness had driven shipbuilding to the Clyde. Perkins had labored no harder than his fellows, had married a tradesman's daughter, and had spent his money with freedom; and some while after his death his widow and daughter came to live in the small house, and kept a school for tradesmen's little girls in a back room over the wash-house. But as the School Board waxed in power, and the tradesmen's pride in regard thereunto waned, the attendance, never large, came down to twosand threes. Then Mrs. Perkins met with her accident. A dweller in Stidder's Rents overtook her one night, and, having vigorously punched her in the face and the breast, kicked her and jumped on her for five minutes as she lay on the pavement. (In the dark, it afterwards appeared, he had mistaken her for his mother.) The one distinct opinion the adventure bred in the street was Mrs. Webster's, the Little Bethelite, who considered it a judgment for sinful pride—for Mrs. Perkins had been a Church-goer. But the neighbors never saw Mrs. Perkins again. The doctor left his patient "as well as she ever would be," but bedridden and helpless. Her daughter was a scraggy, sharp-faced woman of thirty or so, whose black dress hung from her hips as from a wooden frame; and some people got into the way of calling her Mrs. Perkins, seeing no other thus to honor. And meantime the school had ceased, although Miss Perkins essayed a revival, and joined a dissenting chapel to that end.
Then, one day, a card appeared in the window, over the shade of fruit, with the legend "Pianoforte Lessons." It was not approved by the street. It was a standing advertisement of the fact that the Perkinses had a piano, which others had not. It also revealed a grasping spirit on the part of people able to keep a houseto themselves, with red curtains and a shade of fruit in the parlor window; who, moreover, had been able to give up keeping a school because of ill-health. The pianoforte lessons were eight-and-sixpence a quarter, two a week. Nobody was ever known to take them but the relieving officer's daughter, and she paid sixpence a lesson, to see how she got on, and left off in three weeks. The card stayed in the window a fortnight longer, and none of the neighbors saw the cart that came in the night and took away the old cabinet piano with the channelled keys, that had been fourth-hand when Perkins bought it twenty years ago. Mrs. Clark, the widow who sewed far into the night, may possibly have heard a noise and looked; but she said nothing if she did. There was no card in the window next morning, but the shade of fruit stood primly respectable as ever. The curtains were drawn a little closer across, for some of the children playing in the street were used to flatten their faces against the lower panes, and to discuss the piano, the stuff-bottomed chairs, the antimacassars, the mantelpiece ornaments, and the loo table with the family Bible and the album on it.
It was soon after this that the Perkinses altogether ceased from shopping—ceased, at any rate, in that neighborhood. Trade withthem had already been dwindling, and it was said that Miss Perkins was getting stingier than her mother—who had been stingy enough herself. Indeed, the Perkins demeanor began to change for the worse, to be significant of a miserly retirement and an offensive alienation from the rest of the street. One day the deacon called, as was his practice now and then; but, being invited no further than the doorstep, he went away in dudgeon, and did not return. Nor, indeed, was Miss Perkins seen again at chapel.
Then there was a discovery. The spare figure of Miss Perkins was seldom seen in the streets, and then almost always at night; but on these occasions she was observed to carry parcels, of varying wrappings and shapes. Once, in broad daylight, with a package in newspaper, she made such haste past a shop-window where stood Mrs. Webster and Mrs. Jones, that she tripped on the broken sole of one shoe, and fell headlong. The newspaper broke away from its pins, and although the woman reached and recovered her parcel before she rose, it was plain to see that it was made up of cheap shirts, cut out ready for the stitching. The street had the news the same hour, and it was generally held that such a taking of the bread out of the mouths of them that wanted it by them that had plentywas a scandal and a shame, and ought to be put a stop to. And Mrs. Webster, foremost in the setting right of things, undertook to find out whence the work came, and to say a few plain words in the right quarter.
All this while nobody watched closely enough to note that the parcels brought in were fewer than the parcels taken out. Even a hand-truck, late one evening, went unremarked: the door being round the corner, and most people within. One morning, though, Miss Perkins, her best foot foremost, was venturing along a near street with an outgoing parcel—large and triangular and wrapped in white drugget—when the relieving officer turned the corner across the way.
The relieving officer was a man in whose system of etiquette the Perkinses had caused some little disturbance. His ordinary female acquaintances (not, of course, professional) he was in the habit of recognizing by a gracious nod. When he met the minister's wife he lifted his hat, instantly assuming an intense frown, in the event of irreverent observation. Now he quite felt that the Perkinses were entitled to some advance upon the nod, although it would be absurd to raise them to a level with the minister's wife. So he had long since established a compromise: he closed his finger and thumb upon the brim of his hat, and let hishand fall forthwith. Preparing now to accomplish this salute, he was astounded to see that Miss Perkins, as soon as she was aware of his approach, turned her face, which was rather flushed, away from him, and went hurrying onward, looking at the wall on her side of the street. The relieving officer, checking his hand on its way to his hat, stopped and looked after her as she turned the corner, hugging her parcel on the side next the wall. Then he shouldered his umbrella and pursued his way, holding his head high, and staring fiercely straight before him; for a relieving officer is not used to being cut.
It was a little after this that Mr. Crouch, the landlord, called. He had not been calling regularly, because of late Miss Perkins had left her five shillings of rent with Mrs. Crouch every Saturday evening. He noted with satisfaction the whitened sills and the shade of fruit, behind which the curtains were now drawn close and pinned together. He turned the corner and lifted the bright knocker. Miss Perkins half opened the door, stood in the opening, and began to speak.
His jaw dropped. "Beg pardon—forgot something. Won't wait—call next week—do just as well;" and he hurried round the corner and down the street, puffing and blowing andstaring. "Why the woman frightened me," he afterward explained to Mrs. Crouch. "There's something wrong with her eyes, and she looked like a corpse. The rent wasn't ready—I could see that before she spoke; so I cleared out."
"P'r'aps something's happened to the old lady," suggested Mrs. Crouch. "Anyhow, I should think the rent 'ud be all right." And he thought it would.
Nobody saw the Perkinses that week. The shade of fruit stood in its old place, but was thought not to have been dusted after Tuesday.
Certainly the sills and the doorstep were neglected. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were swallowed up in a choking brown fog, wherein men lost their bearings, and fell into docks, and stepped over embankment edges. It was as though a great blot had fallen, and had obliterated three days from the calendar. It cleared on Monday morning, and, just as the women in the street were sweeping their steps, Mr. Crouch was seen at the green door. He lifted the knocker, dull and sticky now with the foul vapor, and knocked a gentle rat-tat. There was no answer. He knocked again, a little louder, and waited, listening. But there was neither voice nor movement within. He gave three heavy knocks, and then came round to the front window. There was the shade of fruit, the glassa little duller on the top, the curtains pinned close about it, and nothing to see beyond them. He tapped at the window with his knuckles, and backed into the roadway to look at the one above. This was a window with a striped holland blind and a short net curtain; but never a face was there.
The sweepers stopped to look, and one from opposite came and reported that she had seen nothing of Miss Perkins for a week, and that certainly nobody had left the house that morning. And Mr. Crouch grew excited, and bellowed through the keyhole.
In the end they opened the sash-fastening with a knife, moved the shade of fruit, and got in. The room was bare and empty, and their steps and voices resounded as those of people in an unfurnished house. The wash-house was vacant, but it was clean, and there was a little net curtain in the window. The short passage and the stairs were bare boards. In the back room by the stair-head was a drawn window-blind, and that was all. In the front room with the striped blind and the short curtain there was a bed of rags and old newspapers; also a wooden box; and on each of these was a dead woman.
Both deaths, the doctor found, were from syncope, the result of inanition; and thebetter-nourished woman—she on the bed—had died the sooner; perhaps by a day or two. The other case was rather curious; it exhibited a degree of shrinkage in the digestive organs unprecedented in his experience. After the inquest the street had an evening's fame: for the papers printed coarse drawings of the house, and in leaderettes demanded the abolition of something. Then it became its wonted self. And it was doubted if the waxen apples and the curtains fetched enough to pay Mr. Crouch his fortnight's rent.
THREE ROUNDS.
At six o'clock the back streets were dank and black; but once in the Bethnal Green Road, blots and flares of gas and naphtha shook and flickered till every slimy cobble in the cartway was silver-tipped. Neddy Milton was not quite fighting-fit. A day's questing for an odd job had left him weary in the feet; and a lad of eighteen cannot comfortably go unfed from breakfast to night-fall. But box he must, for the shilling was irrecoverable, and so costly a chance must not be thrown away. It was by a bout with the gloves that he looked to mend his fortunes. That was his only avenue of advancement. He could read and write quite decently, and in the beginning might even have been an office-boy, if only the widow, his mother, had been able to give him a good send-off in the matter of clothes. Also, he had had one chance of picking up a trade, but the firm already employed as many boys as the union was disposed to allow. So Neddy had to go, and pick up such stray jobs as he might.
It had been a bad day, without a doubt. Things were bad generally. It was nearly a fortnight since Ned had lost his last job, and there seemed to be no other in the world. His mother had had no slop-waistcoat finishing to do for three or four days, and he distinctly remembered that rather less than half a loaf was left after breakfast; so that it would never do to go home, for at such a time the old woman had a trick of pretending not to be hungry, and of starving herself. He almost wished that shilling of entrance-money back in his pocket. There is a deal of stuff to be bought for a shilling: fried fish, for instance, whereof the aromas, warm and rank, met him thrice in a hundred yards, and the frizzle, loud or faint, sang in his ears all along the Bethnal Green Road. His shilling had been paid over but two days before the last job gave out, and it would be useful now. Still, the investment might turn out a gold mine. Luck must change. Meanwhile, as to being hungry—well, there was always another hole in the belt!
The landlord of the Prince Regent public-house had a large room behind his premises, which, being moved by considerations of sport and profit in doubtful proportions, he devoted two nights a week to the uses of the Regent Boxing Club. Here Neddy Milton, through along baptism of pummellings, had learned the trick of a straight lead, a quick counter, and a timely duck; and here, in the nine-stone competition to open this very night, he might perchance punch wide the gates of Fortune. For some sporting publican, or discriminating book-maker from Bow, might see and approve his sparring, and start him fairly, with money behind him—a professional. That would mean a match in six or eight weeks' time, with good living in the mean while: a match that would have to be won, of course. And after that ...!
Twice before he had boxed in a competition. Once he won his bout in the first round, and was beaten in the second; and once he was beaten in the first, but that was by the final winner, Tab Rosser, who was now matched for a hundred a side, sparred exhibition bouts up west, wore a light Newmarket coat, and could stand whiskey and soda with anybody. To be "taken up" on the strength of these early performances was more than he could reasonably expect. There might be luck in the third trial; but he would like to feel a little fitter. Breakfast (what there was of it) had been ten hours ago, and since there had been but a half-pint of four-ale. It was the treat of a well-meaning friend, but it lay cold on the stomach for want of solid company.
Turning into Cambridge Road, he crossed, and went on among the by-streets leading toward Globe Road. Now and again a slight aspersion of fine rain came down the gusts, and further damped his cap and shoulders and the ragged hair that hung over his collar. Also a cold spot under one foot gave him fears of a hole in his boot-sole as he tramped in the chilly mud.
In the Prince Regent there were many at the bar, and the most of them knew Neddy.
"Wayo, Ned," said one lad with a pitted face, "youdon't look much of a bleed'n' champion. 'Ave a drop o' beer."
Ned took a sparing pull at the pot, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. A large man behind him guffawed, and Neddy reddened high. He had heard the joke. The man himself was one of the very backers that might make one's fortune, and the man's companion thought it would be unsafe to back Neddy to fight anything but a beefsteak.
"You're drawed with Patsy Beard," one of Ned's friends informed him. "You'll 'ave to buck up."
This was bad. Patsy Beard, on known form, stood best chance of winning the competition, and to have to meet him at first set-off was ill luck, and no mistake. He was a thickset littlebutcher, and there was just the ghost of a hope that he might be found to be a bit over the weight.
A lad by the bar looked inquiringly in Ned's face and then came toward him, shouldering him quietly out of the group. It was Sam Young, whom Neddy had beaten in an earlier competition. "'Ungry, Neddy?" he asked, in a corner.
It was with a shamed face that Neddy confessed; for among those in peril of hunger it is disgraceful to be hungry. Sam unpocketed a greasy paper, enveloping a pallid sausage-roll. "'Ave 'alf o' this," he said. It was a heavy and a clammy thing, but Ned took it, furtively swallowed a large piece, and returned the rest with sheepish thanks. He did not turn again toward the others, but went through to the room where the ring was pitched.
The proceedings began. First there were exhibition bouts, to play in the company. Neddy fidgeted. Why couldn't they begin the competition at once? When they did, his bout would be number five. That would mean at least an hour of waiting; and the longer he waited the less fit he would feel.
In time the exhibition sparring was ended, and the real business began. He watched the early bouts feverishly, feeling unaccountablyanxious. The lads looked strong and healthy. Patsy Beard was as strong as any of them, and heavy. Could he stand it? This excited nervousness was new and difficult to understand. He had never felt like it before. He was almost trembling; and that lump of sausage-roll had stuck half-way, and made breathing painful work. Patsy Beard was at the opposite corner, surrounded by admirers. He was red-faced, well-fed, fleshy, and confident. His short hair clung shinily about his bullet head. Neddy noted a small piece of court-plaster at the side of his nose. Plainly there was a tender spot, and it must be gone for, be it cut, or scratch, or only pimple. On the left side, too, quite handy. Come, there was some comfort in that.
He fell to watching the bout. It was a hard fight, and both the lads were swinging the right again and again for a knock-out. But the pace was too hot, and they were soon breathing like men about to sneeze, wearily pawing at each other, while their heads hung forward. Somebody jogged him in the back, and he found he must get ready. His dressing was simple. An ill-conditioned old pair of rubber gymnasium shoes replaced his equally ill-conditioned bluchers, and a cotton singlet his shirt; but his baggy corduroys, ragged at the ankles and doubtful at the seat, remained.
Presently the last pair of boxers was brought into the dressing-room, and one of the seconds, a battered old pug with one eye, at once seized Neddy. "Come along, young 'un," he said. "I'm your bloke. Got no flannels? Awright. Jump on the scales."
There was no doubt as to the weight. He had scaled at eight stone thirteen; now it was eight stone bare. Patsy Beard, on the other hand, weighed the full nine, without an ounce to spare.
"You're givin' 'im a stone," said the old pug; "all the more credit 'idin' of 'im. 'Ere, let's shove 'em on. Feel 'em." He grinned and blinked his solitary eye as he pulled on Neddy's hand one of a very black and long-worn pair of boxing-gloves. They were soft and flaccid; Neddy's heart warmed toward the one-eyed man, for well he knew from many knocks that the softer the glove the harder the fist feels through it. "Sawftest pair in the place, s'elp me," grunted the second, with one glove hanging from his teeth. "My lad 'ad 'em last time. Come on."
He snatched a towel and a bottle of water, and hurried Neddy from the dressing-room to the ring. Neddy sat in his chair in the ring-corner, and spread his arms on the ropes: while his second, arms uplifted, stood before him andducked solemnly forward and back with the towel flicking overhead. While he was fanning, Neddy was still conscious of the lump of sausage-roll in his chest. Also he fell to wondering idly why they called Beard Patsy, when his first name was Joe. The same reflection applied to Tab Rosser, and Hocko Jones, and Tiggy Magson. But certainly he felt hollow and sick in the belly. Could he stand punching? It would never do to chuck it half through. Still—
"Ready!" sang the timekeeper.
The old pug threw the towel over his arm. "'Ave a moistener," he said, presenting the water-bottle to Neddy's mouth. "Don't swaller any," he added, as his principal took a large gulp. "Spit it out."
"Seconds out of the ring!"
The old prize-fighter took his bottle and climbed through the ropes. "Don't go in-fightin'," he whispered from behind. "Mark 'im on the stickin'-plaster; an' if you don't give 'im a 'idin', bli' me, I'll give you one!"
"Time!"
The seconds seized the chairs and dragged them out of the ring, as the lads advanced and shook hands. Patsy Beard flung back his right foot, and made a flashy prance with his left knee as they began to spar for an opening: itwas Patsy's way. All Neddy's anxiety was gone. The moment his right foot dropped behind his left, and his left hand rocked, knuckles up, before him, he was a competent workman, with all his tools in order. Even the lump of dough on his chest he felt no more.
"Buy, buy!" bawled a wag in the crowd, as a delicate allusion to Beard's more ordinary occupation. Patsy grinned at the compliment, but Neddy confined his attention to business. He feinted with his left, and got back; but Patsy was not to be drawn. Then Neddy stepped in and led quickly, ducking the counter and repeating before getting away. Patsy came with a rush and fought for the body, but Neddy slipped him, and got in one for nothing on the ear. The company howled.
They sparred in the middle. Patsy led perfunctorily with the left now and again, while his right elbow undulated nervously. That foretold an attempt to knock out with the right: precautions, a straight and persistent left, and a wary eye. So Neddy kept poking out his left, and never lost sight of the court-plaster, never of the shifty right. Give and take was the order of the round, and they fought all over the ring, Patsy Beard making for close quarters, and Neddy keeping off, and stopping him with the left. Neddy met a straight punch on the nosethat made his eyes water, but through the tears he saw the plaster displaced, and a tiny stream of blood trickling toward the corner of Patsy's mouth. Plainly it was a cut. He broke ground, stopped half-way and banged in left and right. He got a sharp rive on the neck for his pains, and took the right on his elbow; but he had landed on the spot, and the tiny streak of blood was smeared out wide across Patsy's face. The company roared and whistled with enthusiasm. It was a capital rally.
But now Neddy's left grew slower, and was heavy to lift. From time to time Patsy got in one for nothing, and soon began to drive him about the ring. Neddy fought on, weak and gasping, and longed for the call of time. His arms felt as if they were hung with lead, and he could do little more than push feebly. He heard the yell of many voices, "Now then, Patsy, hout him! 'Ave 'im out! That's it, Patsy, another like that! Keep on, Patsy!"
Patsy kept on. Right and left, above and below, Neddy could see the blows coming. But he was powerless to guard or to return. He could but stagger about, and now and again swing an ineffectual arm as it hung from the shoulder. Presently a flush hit on the nose drove him against the ropes, another in the ribs almost through them. But a desperate, widewhirl of his right brought it heavily on Patsy's tender spot, and tore open the cut. Patsy winced, and—
"Time!"
Neddy was grabbed at the waist and put in his chair. "Good lad!" said the one-eyed pug in his ear as he sponged his face. "Nothink like pluck. But you mustn't go to pieces 'alf through the round. Was it a awk'ard poke upsetcher?"
Neddy, lying back and panting wildly, shook his head as he gazed at the ceiling. "Awright; try an' save yourself a bit. Keep yer left goin'—you roasted 'im good with that; 'e'll want a yard o' plaster to-night. An' when 'e gits leadin' loose, take it auf an' give him the right straight from the guard—if you know the trick. Point o' the jaw that's for, mind. 'Ave a cooler." He took a mouthful of water and blew it in a fine spray in Neddy's face, wiped it down, and began another overhead fanning.
"Seconds out of the ring!" called the timekeeper.
"Go it, my lad,"—thus a whisper from behind,—"you can walk over 'im!" And Neddy felt the wet sponge squeezed against the back of his neck, and the cool water trickling down his spine.
"Time!"
Neddy was better, though there was a worn feeling in his arm-muscles. Patsy's cut had been well sponged, but it still bled, and Patsy meant giving Neddy no rest. He rushed at once, but was met by a clean right-hander, slap on the sore spot. "Bravo, Neddy!" came a voice, and the company howled as before. Patsy was steadied. He sparred with some caution, twitching the cheek next the cut. Neddy would not lead (for he must save himself), and so the two sparred for a few seconds. Then Patsy rushed again, and Neddy got busy with both hands. Once he managed to get the right in from the guard as his second had advised, but not heavily. He could feel his strength going—earlier than in the last round—and Patsy was as strong and determined as ever. Another rush carried Neddy against the ropes, where he got two heavy body blows and a bad jaw-rattler. He floundered to the right in an attempt to slip, and fell on his face. He rolled on his side, however, and was up again, breathless and unsteady. There was a sickening throbbing in the crown of his head, and he could scarce lift his arms. But there was no respite: the other lad was at him again, and he was driven across the ring and back, blindly pushing his aching arms before him, while punch followed punch on nose, ears, jaws, and body, till somethingbegan to beat inside his head, louder and harder than all beside, stunning and sickening him. He could hear the crowd roaring still, but it seemed further off; and the yells of "That's it, Patsy! Now you've got 'im! Keep at 'im! Hout 'im this time!" came from some other building close by, where somebody was getting a bad licking. Somebody with no control of his legs, and no breath to spit away the blood from his nose as it ran and stuck over his lips. Somebody praying for the end of the three minutes that seemed three hours, and groaning inwardly because of a lump of cold lead in his belly that had once been sausage-roll. Somebody to whom a few called—still in the other building—"Chuck it, Neddy; it's no good. Why don'cher chuck it?" while others said, "Take 'im away, tyke 'im away!" Then something hit him between the eyes, and some other thing behind the head; that was one of the posts. He swung an arm, but it met nothing; then the other, and it struck somewhere; and then there was a bang that twisted his head, and hard boards were against his face. O it was bad, but it was a rest.
Cold water was on his face, and somebody spoke. He was in his chair again, and the one-eyed man was sponging him. "It was the call o' time as saved ye then," he said; "you'd never'a' got up in the ten seconds. Y' ain't up to another round, are ye? Better chuck it. It's no disgrace, after the way you've stood up." But Neddy shook his head. He had got through two of the three rounds, and didn't mean throwing away a chance of saving the bout.
"Awright, if you won't," his Mentor said. "Nothink like pluck. But you're no good on points—a knock-out's the on'y chance. Nurse yer right, an' give it 'im good on the point. 'E's none so fresh 'isself; 'e's blowed with the work, an' you pasted 'im fine when you did 'it. Last thing, just before 'e sent ye down, ye dropped a 'ot 'un on 'is beak. Didn't see it, didjer?" The old bruiser rubbed vigorously at his arms, and gave him a small, but welcome, drink of water.
"Seconds out of the ring!"
The one-eyed man was gone once more, but again his voice came from behind. "Mind—give it 'im 'ard and give it 'im soon, an' if you feel groggy, chuck it d'reckly. If ye don't, I'll drag ye out by the slack o' yer trousis an' disgrace ye."
"Time!"
Neddy knew there was little more than half a minute's boxing left in him—perhaps not so much. He must do his best at once. Patsy was showing signs of hard wear, and still blewa little: his nose was encouragingly crimson at the nostrils, and the cut was open and raw. He rushed in with a lead which Neddy ducked and cross-countered, though ineffectually. There were a few vigorous exchanges, and then Neddy staggered back from a straight drive on the mouth. There was a shout of "Patsy!" and Patsy sprang in, right elbow all a-jerk, and flung in the left. Neddy guarded wildly, and banged in the right from the guard. Had he hit? He had felt no shock, but there was Patsy, lying on his face.
The crowd roared and roared again. The old pug stuffed his chair hastily through the ropes, and Neddy sank into it, panting, with bloodshot eyes. Patsy lay still. The timekeeper watched the seconds-hand pass its ten points, and gave the word, but Patsy only moved a leg. Neddy Milton had won.
"Brayvo, young 'un," said the old fighter, as he threw his arm about Neddy's waist, and helped him to the dressing-room. "Cleanest knock-out I ever see—smack on the point o' the jaw. Never thought you'd 'a' done it. I said there was nothink like pluck, did'n' I? 'Ave a wash now, an' you'll be all the better for the exercise. Give us them gloves—I'm off for the next bout." And he seized another lad, and marched him out.
"'Ave a drop o' beer," said one of Neddy's new-won friends, extending a tankard. He took it, though he scarcely felt awake. He was listless and weak, and would not have moved for an hour had he been left alone. But Patsy was brought to, and sneezed loudly, and Neddy was hauled over to shake hands with him.
"You give me a 'ell of a doin'," said Neddy, "Inever thought I'd beat you."
"Beat me? well you ain't, 'ave you? 'Ow?"
"Knock-out," answered several at once.
"Well, I'm damned," said Patsy Beard....
In the bar, after the evening's business, Neddy sat and looked wistfully at the stout red-faced men who smoked fourpenny cigars and drank special Scotch; but not one noticed him. His luck had not come after all. But there was the second round of bouts, and the final, in a week's time—perhaps it would come then. If he could only win the final—then itmustcome. Meanwhile he was sick and faint, and felt doubtful about getting home. Outside it was raining hard. He laid his head on the bar table at which he was sitting, and at closing time there they found him asleep.