“No foreign foe’s insidious hateOur country shall o’erwhelmSo long as England’s ship of stateHasLAWLORat the helm.”
“No foreign foe’s insidious hateOur country shall o’erwhelmSo long as England’s ship of stateHasLAWLORat the helm.”
“No foreign foe’s insidious hate
Our country shall o’erwhelm
So long as England’s ship of state
HasLAWLORat the helm.”
Whether I was technically correct in describing as guiding the ship of state a man who would probably spend his entire Parliamentary career in total silence, voting meekly as the Whip directed, I had not stopped to enquire. All I knew was that it sounded well, and I wanted to hear it. In addition to which, there was the opportunity, never likely to occur again, of seeing Ukridge make an ass of himself before a large audience.
I went to Redbridge.
The first thing I saw on leaving the station was a very large poster exhibiting Boko Lawlor’s expressive features, bearing the legend:—
Lawlor
for
Redbridge.
This was all right, but immediately beside it, evidently placed there by the hand of an enemy, was a still larger caricature of this poster which stressed my old friend’s prominent nose in a manner that seemed to me to go beyond the limits of a fair debate. To this was appended the words:—
Do You
Want
THIS
For a Member?
To which, if I had been a hesitating voter of the constituency, I would certainly have replied “No!” for there was something about that grossly elongated nose that convicted the man beyond hope of appeal of every undesirable quality a Member of Parliament can possess. You could see at a glance that here was one who, if elected, would do his underhand best to cut down the Navy, tax the poor man’s food, and strike a series of blows at the very root of the home. And, as if this were not enough, a few yards farther on was a placard covering almost the entire side of a house, which said in simple, straightforward black letters a foot high:—
Down With
Boko,
The Human Gargoyle.
How my poor old contemporary, after passing a week in the constant society of these slurs on his personal appearance, could endure to look himself in the face in his shaving-mirror of a morning was more than I could see. I commented on this to Ukridge, who had met me at the station in a luxurious car.
“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Ukridge, huskily. The first thing I had noticed about him was that his vocal cords had been putting in overtime since our last meeting. “Just the usual give-and-take of an election. When we get round this next corner you’ll see the poster we’ve got out to tickle up the other bloke. It’s a pippin.”
I did, and it was indeed a pippin. After one glance at it as we rolled by, I could not but feel that the electors of Redbridge were in an uncommonly awkward position, having to choose between Boko, as exhibited in the street we had just passed, and this horror now before me. Mr. Herbert Huxtable, the opposition candidate, seemed to run as generously to ears as his adversary did to nose, and the artist had not overlooked this feature. Indeed, except for a mean, narrow face with close-set eyes and a murderer’s mouth, Mr. Huxtable appeared to be all ears. They drooped and flapped about him like carpet-bags, and I averted my gaze, appalled.
“Do you mean to say you’reallowedto do this sort of thing?” I asked, incredulously.
“My dear old horse, it’s expected of you. It’s a mere formality. The other side would feel awkward and disappointed if you didn’t.”
“And how did they find out about Lawlor being called Boko?” I enquired, for the point had puzzled me. In a way, you might say that it was the only thing you could possibly call him, but the explanation hardly satisfied me.
“That,” admitted Ukridge, “was largely my fault. I was a bit carried away the first time I addressed the multitude, and I happened to allude to the old chap by his nickname. Of course, the opposition took it up at once. Boko was a little sore about it for a while.”
“I can see how he might be.”
“But that’s all over now,” said Ukridge, buoyantly. “We’re the greatest pals. He relies on me at every turn. Yesterday he admitted to me in so many words that if he gets in it’ll be owing to my help as much as anything. The fact is, laddie, I’ve made rather a hit with the manyheaded. They seem to like to hear me speak.”
“Fond of a laugh, eh?”
“Now, laddie,” said Ukridge, reprovingly, “this is not the right tone. You must curb that spirit of levity while you’re down here. This is a dashed serious business, Corky, old man, and the sooner you realise it the better. If you have come here to gibe and to mock——”
“I came to hear my election song sung. When do they sing it?”
“Oh, practically all the time. Incessantly, you might say.”
“In their baths?”
“Most of the voters here don’t take baths. You’ll gather that when we reach Biscuit Row.”
“What’s Biscuit Row?”
“It’s the quarter of the town where the blokes live who work in Fitch and Weyman’s biscuit factory, laddie. It’s what you might call,” said Ukridge, importantly, “the doubtful element of the place. All the rest of the town is nice and clean-cut, they’re either solid for Boko or nuts on Huxtable—but these biscuit blokes are wobbly. That’s why we have to canvass them so carefully.”
“Oh, you’re going canvassing, are you?”
“Weare,” corrected Ukridge.
“Not me!”
“Corky,” said Ukridge, firmly, “pull yourself together. It was principally to assist me in canvassing these biscuit blighters that I got you down here. Where’s your patriotism, laddie? Don’t you want old Boko to get into Parliament, or what is it? We must strain every nerve. We must set our hands to the plough. The job you’ve got to tackle is the baby-kissing——”
“I won’t kiss their infernal babies!”
“You will, old horse, unless you mean to spend the rest of your life cursing yourself vainly when it is too late that poor old Boko got pipped on the tape purely on account of your poltroonery. Consider, old man! Have some vision! Be an altruist! It may be that your efforts will prove the deciding factor in this desperately close-run race.”
“What do you mean, desperately close-run race? You said in your wire that it was a walk-over for Boko.”
“That was just to fool the telegraph-bloke, whom I suspect of being in the enemy camp. As a matter of fact, between ourselves, it’s touch and go. A trifle either way will do the business now.”
“Why don’tyoukiss these beastly babies?”
“There’s something about me that scares ’em, laddie. I’ve tried it once or twice, but only alienated several valuable voters by frightening their offspring into a nervous collapse. I think it’s my glasses they don’t like. But you—now, you,” said Ukridge, with revolting fulsomeness, “are an ideal baby-kisser. The first time I ever saw you, I said: ‘There goes one of Nature’s baby-kissers.’ Directly I started to canvass these people and realised what I was up against, I thought of you. ‘Corky’s the man,’ I said to myself; ‘the fellow we want is old Corky. Good-looking. And not merely good-looking butkind-looking.’ They’ll take to you, laddie. Yours is a face a baby can trust——”
“Now, listen!”
“And it won’t last long. Just a couple of streets and we’re through. So stiffen your backbone, laddie, and go at it like a man. Boko is going to entertain you with a magnificent banquet at his hotel to-night. I happen to know there will be champagne. Keep your mind fixed on that and the thing will seem easy.”
The whole question of canvassing is one which I would like some time to go into at length. I consider it to be an altogether abominable practice. An Englishman’s home is his castle, and it seems to me intolerable that, just as you have got into shirt-sleeves and settled down to a soothing pipe, total strangers should be permitted to force their way in and bother you with their nauseous flattery and their impertinent curiosity as to which way you mean to vote. And, while I prefer not to speak at length of my experiences in Biscuit Row, I must say this much, that practically every resident of that dingy quarter appeared to see eye to eye with me in this matter. I have never encountered a body of men who were consistently less chummy. They looked at me with lowering brows, they answered my limping civilities with gruff monosyllables, they snatched their babies away from me and hid them, yelling, in distant parts of the house. Altogether a most discouraging experience, I should have said, and one which seemed to indicate that, as far as Biscuit Row was concerned, Boko Lawlor would score a blank at the poll.
Ukridge scoffed at this gloomy theory.
“My dear old horse,” he cried, exuberantly, as the door of the last house slammed behind us and I revealed to him the inferences I had drawn, “you mustn’t mind that. It’s just their way. They treat everybody the same. Why, one of Huxtable’s fellows got his hat smashed in at that very house we’ve just left. I consider the outlook highly promising, laddie.”
And so, to my surprise, did the candidate himself. When we had finished dinner that night and were talking over our cigars, while Ukridge slumbered noisily in an easy chair, Boko Lawlor spoke with a husky confidence of his prospects.
“And, curiously enough,” said Boko, endorsing what until then I had looked on as mere idle swank on Ukridge’s part, “the fellow who will have really helped me more than anybody else, if I get in, is old Ukridge. He borders, perhaps, a trifle too closely on the libellous in his speeches, but he certainly has the knack of talking to an audience. In the past week he has made himself quite a prominent figure in Redbridge. In fact, I’m bound to say it has made me a little nervous at times, this prominence of his. I know what an erratic fellow he is, and if he were to become the centre of some horrible scandal it would mean defeat for a certainty.”
“How do you mean, scandal?”
“I sometimes conjure up a dreadful vision,” said Boko Lawlor, with a slight shudder, “of one of his creditors suddenly rising in the audience and denouncing him for not having paid for a pair of trousers or something.”
He cast an apprehensive eye at the sleeping figure.
“You’re all right if he keeps on wearing that suit,” I said, soothingly, “because it happens to be one he sneaked from me. I have been wondering why it was so familiar.”
“Well, anyhow,” said Boko, with determined optimism, “I suppose, if anything like that was going to happen, it would have happened before. He has been addressing meetings all the week, and nothing has occurred. I’m going to let him open the ball at our last rally to-morrow night. He has a way of warming up the audience. You’ll come to that, of course?”
“If I am to see Ukridge warming up an audience, nothing shall keep me away.”
“I’ll see that you get a seat on the platform. It will be the biggest affair we have had. The polling takes place on the next day, and this will be our last chance of swaying the doubters.”
“I didn’t know doubters ever came to these meetings. I thought the audience was always solid for the speakers.”
“It may be so in some constituencies,” said Boko, moodily, “but it certainly isn’t at Redbridge.”
The monster meeting in support of Boko Lawlor’s candidature was held at that popular eyesore, the Associated Mechanics’ Hall. As I sat among the elect on the platform, waiting for the proceedings to commence, there came up to me a mixed scent of dust, clothes, orange-peel, chalk, wood, plaster, pomade, and Associated Mechanics—the whole forming a mixture which, I began to see, was likely to prove too rich for me. I changed my seat in order to bring myself next to a small but promising-looking door, through which it would be possible, if necessary, to withdraw without being noticed.
The principle on which chairmen at these meetings are selected is perhaps too familiar to require recording here at length, but in case some of my readers are not acquainted with the workings of political machines, I may say that no one under the age of eighty-five is eligible and the preference is given to those with adenoids. For Boko Lawlor the authorities had extended themselves and picked a champion of his class. In addition to adenoids, the Right Hon. the Marquess of Cricklewood had—or seemed to have—a potato of the maximum size and hotness in his mouth, and he had learned his elocution in one of those correspondence schools which teach it by mail. I caught his first sentence—that he would only detain us a moment—but for fifteen minutes after that he baffled me completely. That he was still speaking I could tell by the way his Adam’s apple wiggled, but what he was saying I could not even guess. And presently, the door at my side offering its silent invitation, I slid softly through and closed it behind me.
Except for the fact that I was now out of sight of the chairman, I did not seem to have bettered my position greatly. The scenic effects of the hall had not been alluring, but there was nothing much more enlivening to look at here. I found myself in a stone-flagged corridor with walls of an unhealthy green, ending in a flight of stairs. I was just about to proceed towards these in a casual spirit of exploration, when footsteps made themselves heard, and in another moment a helmet loomed into view, followed by a red face, a blue uniform, and large, stout boots—making in all one constable, who proceeded along the corridor towards me with a measured step as if pacing a beat. I thought his face looked stern and disapproving, and attributed it to the fact that I had just lighted a cigarette—presumably in a place where smoking was not encouraged. I dropped the cigarette and placed a guilty heel on it—an action which I regretted the next moment, when the constable himself produced one from the recesses of his tunic and asked me for a match.
“Not allowed to smoke on duty,” he said, affably, “but there’s no harm in a puff.”
I saw now that what I had taken for a stern and disapproving look was merely the official mask. I agreed that no possible harm could come of a puff.
“Meeting started?” enquired the officer, jerking his head towards the door.
“Yes. The chairman was making a few remarks when I came out.”
“Ah! Better give it time to warm up,” he said, cryptically. And there was a restful silence for some minutes, while the scent of a cigarette of small price competed with the other odours of the corridor.
Presently, however, the stillness was interrupted. From the unseen hall came the faint clapping of hands, and then a burst of melody. I started. It was impossible to distinguish the words, but surely there was no mistaking that virile rhythm:—
“Tum tumty tumty tumty tum,Tum tumty tumty tum,Tum tumty tumty tumty tum,TumTUMTYtumty tum.”
“Tum tumty tumty tumty tum,Tum tumty tumty tum,Tum tumty tumty tumty tum,TumTUMTYtumty tum.”
“Tum tumty tumty tumty tum,
Tum tumty tumty tum,
Tum tumty tumty tumty tum,
TumTUMTYtumty tum.”
It was! It must be! I glowed all over with modest pride.
“That’s mine,” I said, with attempted nonchalance.
“Ur?” queried the constable, who had fallen into a reverie.
“That thing they’re singing. Mine. My election song.”
It seemed to me that the officer regarded me strangely. It may have been admiration, but it looked more like disappointment and disfavour.
“You on this Lawlor’s side?” he demanded, heavily.
“Yes. I wrote his election song. They’re singing it now.”
“I’m opposed to ’imin totoand root and branch,” said the constable, emphatically, “I don’t like ’is views—subversive, that’s what I call ’em. Subversive.”
There seemed nothing to say to this. This divergence of opinion was unfortunate, but there it was. After all, there was no reason why political differences should have to interfere with what had all the appearance of being the dawning of a beautiful friendship. Pass over it lightly, that was the tactful course. I endeavoured to steer the conversation gently back to less debatable grounds.
“This is my first visit to Redbridge,” I said, chattily.
“Ur?” said the constable, but I could see that he was not interested. He finished his cigarette with three rapid puffs and stamped it out. And as he did so a strange, purposeful tenseness seemed to come over him. His boiled-fish eyes seemed to say that the time of dalliance was now ended and constabulary duty was to be done. “Is that the way to the platform, mister?” he asked, indicating my door with a jerk of the helmet.
I cannot say why it was, but at this moment a sudden foreboding swept over me.
“Why do you want to go on the platform?” I asked, apprehensively.
There was no doubt about the disfavour with which he regarded me now. So frigid was his glance that I backed against the door in some alarm.
“Never you mind,” he said, severely, “why I want to go on that platform. If you really want to know,” he continued, with that slight inconsistency which marks great minds, “I’m goin’ there to arrest a feller.”
It was perhaps a little uncomplimentary to Ukridge that I should so instantly have leaped to the certainty that, if anybody on a platform on which he sat was in danger of arrest, he must be the man. There were at least twenty other earnest supporters of Boko grouped behind the chairman beyond that door, but it never even occurred to me as a possibility that it could be one of these on whom the hand of the law proposed to descend. And a moment later my instinct was proved to be unerring. The singing had ceased, and now a stentorian voice had begun to fill all space. It spoke, was interrupted by a roar of laughter, and began to speak again.
“That’s ’im,” said the constable, briefly.
“There must be some mistake,” I said. “That is my friend, Mr. Ukridge.”
“I don’t know ’is name and I don’t care about ’is name,” said the constable, sternly. “But if ’e’s the big feller with glasses that’s stayin’ at the Bull, that’s the man I’m after. He may be a ’ighly ’umorous and diverting orator,” said the constable, bitterly, as another happy burst of laughter greeted what was presumably a further sally at the expense of the side which enjoyed his support, “but, be that as it may, ’e’s got to come along with me to the station and explain how ’e ’appens to be in possession of a stolen car that there’s been an enquiry sent out from ’eadquarters about.”
My heart turned to water. A light had flashed upon me.
“Car?” I quavered.
“Car,” said the constable.
“Was it a gentleman named Coote who lodged the complaint about his car being stolen? Because——”
“I don’t——”
“Because, if so, there has been a mistake. Mr. Ukridge is a personal friend of Mr. Coote, and——”
“I don’t know whose name it is’s car’s been stolen,” said the constable, elliptically. “All I know is, there’s been an enquiry sent out, and this feller’s got it.”
At this point something hard dug into the small of my back as I pressed against the door. I stole a hand round behind me, and my fingers closed upon a key. The policeman was stooping to retrieve a dropped notebook. I turned the key softly and pocketed it.
“If you would kindly not object to standing back a bit and giving a feller a chance to get at that door,” said the policeman, straightening himself. He conducted experiments with the handle. “’Ere, it’s locked!”
“Is it?” I said. “Is it?”
“’Ow did you get out through this door if it’s locked?”
“It wasn’t locked when I came through.”
He eyed me with dull suspicion for a moment, then knocked imperatively with a large red knuckle.
“Shush! Shush!” came a scandalised whisper through the keyhole.
“Never you mind about ‘Shush! Shush!’” said the constable, with asperity. “You open this door, that’s what you do.” And he substituted for the knuckle a leg-of-mutton-like fist. The sound of his banging boomed through the corridor like distant thunder.
“Really, you know,” I protested, “you’re disturbing the meeting.”
“Iwantto disturb the meeting,” replied this strong but not silent man, casting a cold look over his shoulder. And the next instant, to prove that he was as ready with deeds as with words, he backed a foot or two, lifted a huge and weighty foot, and kicked.
For all ordinary purposes the builder of the Associated Mechanics’ Hall had done his work adequately, but he had never suspected that an emergency might arise which would bring his doors into competition with a policeman’s foot. Any lesser maltreatment the lock might have withstood, but against this it was powerless. With a sharp sound like the cry of one registering a formal protest the door gave way. It swung back, showing a vista of startled faces beyond. Whether or not the noise had reached the audience in the body of the hall I did not know, but it had certainly impressed the little group on the platform. I had a swift glimpse of forms hurrying to the centre of the disturbance, of the chairman gaping like a surprised sheep, of Ukridge glowering; and then the constable blocked out my view as he marched forward over the debris.
A moment later there was no doubt as to whether the audience was interested. A confused uproar broke out in every corner of the hall, and, hurrying on to the platform, I perceived that the hand of the Law had fallen. It was grasping Ukridge’s shoulder in a weighty grip in the sight of all men.
There was just one instant before the tumult reached its height in which it was possible for the constable to speak with a chance of making himself heard. He seized his opportunity adroitly. He threw back his head and bellowed as if he were giving evidence before a deaf magistrate.
“’E’s—stolen—a—mo—tor—car! I’m a-r-resting—’im—for—’avin’—sto—len—a—norter-mobile!” he vociferated in accents audible to all. And then, with the sudden swiftness of one practised in the art of spiriting felons away from the midst of their friends, he was gone, and Ukridge with him.
There followed a long moment of bewildered amazement. Nothing like this had ever happened before at political meetings at Redbridge, and the audience seemed doubtful how to act. The first person to whom intelligence returned was a grim-looking little man in the third row, who had forced himself into prominence during the chairman’s speech with some determined heckling. He bounded out of his chair and stood on it.
“Men of Redbridge!” he shouted.
“Siddown!” roared the audience automatically.
“Men of Redbridge,” repeated the little man, in a voice out of all proportion to his inches, “are you going to trust—do you mean to support—-is it your intention to place your affairs in the hands of one who employscriminals——”
“Siddown!” recommended many voices, but there were many others that shouted “’Ear, ’Ear!”
“——who employscriminalsto speak on his platform? Men of Redbridge, I——”
Here someone grasped the little man’s collar and brought him to the floor. Somebody else hit the collar-grasper over the head with an umbrella. A third party broke the umbrella and smote its owner on the nose. And after that the action may be said to have become general. Everybody seemed to be fighting everybody else, and at the back of the hall a group of serious thinkers, in whom I seemed to recognise the denizens of Biscuit Row, had begun to dismember the chairs and throw them at random. It was when the first rush was made for the platform that the meeting definitely broke up. The chairman headed the stampede for my little door, moving well for a man of his years, and he was closely followed by the rest of the elect. I came somewhere midway in the procession, outstripped by the leaders, but well up in the field. The last I saw of the monster meeting in aid of Boko Lawlor’s candidature was Boko’s drawn and agonised face as he barked his shin on an overturned table in his efforts to reach the exit in three strides.
The next morning dawned bright and fair, and the sun, as we speeded back to London, smiled graciously in through the windows of our third-class compartment. But it awoke no answering smile on Ukridge’s face. He sat in his corner scowling ponderously out at the green countryside. He seemed in no way thankful that his prison-life was over, and he gave me no formal thanks for the swiftness and intelligence with which I had obtained his release.
A five-shilling telegram to Looney Coote had been the means of effecting this. Shortly after breakfast Ukridge had come to my hotel, a free man, with the information that Looney had wired the police of Redbridge directions to unbar the prison cell. But liberty he appeared to consider a small thing compared with his wrongs, and now he sat in the train, thinking, thinking, thinking.
I was not surprised when his first act on reaching Paddington was to climb into a cab and request the driver to convey him immediately to Looney Coote’s address.
Personally, though I was considerate enough not to say so, I was pro-Coote. If Ukridge wished to go about sneaking his friends’ cars without a word of explanation, it seemed to me that he did so at his own risk. I could not see how Looney Coote could be expected to know by some form of telepathy that his vanished Winchester-Murphy had fallen into the hands of an old schoolfellow. But Ukridge, to judge by his stony stare and tightened lips, not to mention the fact that his collar had jumped off its stud and he had made no attempt to adjust it, thought differently. He sat in the cab, brooding silently, and when we reached our destination and were shown into Looney’s luxurious sitting-room, he gave one long, deep sigh, like that of a fighter who hears the gong go for round one.
Looney fluttered out of the adjoining room in pyjamas and a flowered dressing-gown. He was evidently a late riser.
“Oh, here you are!” he said, pleased. “I say, old man, I’m awfully glad it’s all right.”
“All right!” An overwrought snort escaped Ukridge. His bosom swelled beneath his mackintosh. “All right!”
“I’m frightfully sorry there was any trouble.”
Ukridge struggled for utterance.
“Do you know I spent the night on a beastly plank bed,” he said, huskily.
“No, really? I say!”
“Do you know that this morning I was washed by the authorities?”
“I say, no!”
“And you say it’s all right!”
He had plainly reached the point where he proposed to deliver a lengthy address of a nature calculated to cause alarm and despondency in Looney Coote, for he raised a clenched fist, shook it passionately, and swallowed once or twice. But before he could embark on what would certainly have been an oration worth listening to, his host anticipated him.
“I don’t see that it was my fault,” bleated Looney Coote, voicing my own sentiments.
“You don’t see that it was your fault!” stuttered Ukridge.
“Listen, old man,” I urged, pacifically. “I didn’t like to say so before, because you didn’t seem in the mood for it, but what else could the poor chap have done? You took his car without a word of explanation——”
“What?”
“——and naturally he thought it had been stolen and had word sent out to the police-stations to look out for whoever had got it. As a matter of fact, it was I who advised him to.”
Ukridge was staring bleakly at Looney.
“Without a word of explanation!” he echoed. “What about my letter, the long and carefully-written letter I sent you explaining the whole thing?”
“Letter?”
“Yes!”
“I got no letter,” said Looney Coote.
Ukridge laughed malevolently.
“You’re going to pretend it went wrong in the post, eh? Thin, very thin. I am certain that letter was posted. I remember placing it in my pocket for that purpose. It is not there now, and I have been wearing this suit ever since I left London. See. These are all the contents of my——”
His voice trailed off as he gazed at the envelope in his hand. There was a long silence. Ukridge’s jaw dropped slowly.
“Now, how the deuce did that happen?” he murmured.
I am bound to say that Looney Coote in this difficult moment displayed a nice magnanimity which I could never have shown. He merely nodded sympathetically.
“I’m always doing that sort of thing myself,” he said. “Never can remember to post letters. Well, now that that’s all explained, have a drink, old man, and let’s forget about it.”
The gleam in Ukridge’s eye showed that the invitation was a welcome one, but the battered relics of his conscience kept him from abandoning the subject under discussion as his host had urged.
“But upon my Sam, Looney, old horse,” he stammered, “I—well, dash it, I don’t know what to say. I mean——”
Looney Coote was fumbling in the sideboard for the materials for a friendly carouse.
“Don’t say another word, old man, not another word,” he pleaded. “It’s the sort of thing that might have happened to anyone. And, as a matter of fact, the whole affair has done me a bit of good. Dashed lucky it has turned out for me. You see, it came as a sort of omen. There was an absolute outsider running in the third race at Kempton Park the day after the car went called Stolen Goods, and somehow it seemed to me that the thing had been sent for a purpose. I crammed on thirty quid at twenty-five to one. The people round about laughed when they saw me back this poor, broken-down-looking moke, and, dash it, the animal simply romped home! I collected a parcel!”
We clamoured our congratulations on this happy ending. Ukridge was especially exuberant.
“Yes,” said Looney Coote, “I won seven hundred and fifty quid. Just like that! I put it on with that new fellow you were telling me about at the O. W. dinner, old man—that chap Isaac O’Brien. It sent him absolutely broke and he’s had to go out of business. He’s only paid me six hundred quid so far, but says he has some sort of a sleeping partner or something who may be able to raise the balance.”
THE EXIT OF BATTLING BILLSON
The Theatre Royal, Llunindnno, is in the middle of the principal thoroughfare of that repellent town, and immediately opposite its grubby main entrance there is a lamp-post. Under this lamp-post, as I approached, a man was standing. He was a large man, and his air was that of one who has recently passed through some trying experience. There was dust on his person, and he had lost his hat. At the sound of my footsteps he turned, and the rays of the lamp revealed the familiar features of my old friend Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge.
“Great Scot!” I ejaculated. “What are you doing here?”
There was no possibility of hallucination. It was the man himself in the flesh. And what Ukridge, a free agent, could be doing in Llunindnno was more than I could imagine. Situated, as its name implies, in Wales, it is a dark, dingy, dishevelled spot, inhabited by tough and sinister men with suspicious eyes and three-day beards; and to me, after a mere forty minutes’ sojourn in the place, it was incredible that anyone should be there except on compulsion.
Ukridge gaped at me incredulously.
“Corky, old horse!” he said, “this is, upon my Sam, without exception the most amazing event in the world’s history. The last bloke I expected to see.”
“Same here. Is anything the matter?” I asked, eyeing his bedraggled appearance.
“Matter? I should say something was the matter!” snorted Ukridge, astonishment giving way to righteous indignation. “They chucked me out!”
“Chucked you out? Who? Where from?”
“This infernal theatre, laddie. After taking my good money, dash it! At least, I got it on my face, but that has nothing to do with the principle of the thing. Corky, my boy, don’t you ever go about this world seeking for justice, because there’s no such thing under the broad vault of heaven. I had just gone out for a breather after the first act, and when I came back I found some fiend in human shape had pinched my seat. And just because I tried to lift the fellow out by the ears, a dozen hired assassins swooped down and shot me out. Me, I’ll trouble you! The injured party! Upon my Sam,” he said, heatedly, with a longing look at the closed door, “I’ve a dashed good mind to——”
“I shouldn’t,” I said, soothingly. “After all, what does it matter? It’s just one of those things that are bound to happen from time to time. The man of affairs passes them off with a light laugh.”
“Yes, but——”
“Come and have a drink.”
The suggestion made him waver. The light of battle died down in his eyes. He stood for a moment in thought.
“You wouldn’t bung a brick through the window?” he queried, doubtfully.
“No, no!”
“Perhaps you’re right.”
He linked his arm in mine and we crossed the road to where the lights of a public-house shone like heartening beacons. The crisis was over.
“Corky,” said Ukridge, warily laying down his mug of beer on the counter a few moments later, lest emotion should cause him to spill any of its precious contents, “I can’t get over, I simply cannot get over the astounding fact of your being in this blighted town.”
I explained my position. My presence in Llunindnno was due to the fact that the paper which occasionally made use of my services as a special writer had sent me to compose a fuller and more scholarly report than its local correspondent seemed capable of concocting of the activities of one Evan Jones, the latest of those revivalists who periodically convulse the emotions of the Welsh mining population. His last and biggest meeting was to take place next morning at eleven o’clock.
“But what are you doing here?” I asked.
“What amIdoing here?” said Ukridge. “Who, me? Why, where else would you expect me to be? Haven’t you heard?”
“Heard what?”
“Haven’t you seen the posters?”
“What posters? I only arrived an hour ago.”
“My dear old horse! Then naturally you aren’t abreast of local affairs.” He drained his mug, breathed contentedly, and led me out into the street. “Look!”
He was pointing at a poster, boldly lettered in red and black, which decorated the side-wall of the Bon Ton Millinery Emporium. The street-lighting system of Llunindnno is defective, but I was able to read what it said:—
ODDFELLOWS’ HALL
Special Ten-Round Contest.
LLOYD THOMAS
(Llunindnno)
vs.
BATTLING BILLSON
(Bermondsey).
“Comes off to-morrow night,” said Ukridge. “And I don’t mind telling you, laddie, that I expect to make a colossal fortune.”
“Are you still managing the Battler?” I said, surprised at this dogged perseverance. “I should have thought that after your last two experiences you would have had about enough of it.”
“Oh, he means business this time! I’ve been talking to him like a father.”
“How much does he get?”
“Twenty quid.”
“Twenty quid? Well, where does the colossal fortune come in? Your share will only be a tenner.”
“No, my boy. You haven’t got on to my devilish shrewdness. I’m not in on the purse at all this time. I’m the management.”
“The management?”
“Well, part of it. You remember Isaac O’Brien, the bookie I was partner with till that chump Looney Coote smashed the business? Izzy Previn is his real name. We’ve gone shares in this thing. Izzy came down a week ago, hired the hall, and looked after the advertising and so on; and I arrived with good old Billson this afternoon. We’re giving him twenty quid, and the other fellow’s getting another twenty; and all the rest of the cash Izzy and I split on a fifty-fifty basis. Affluence, laddie! That’s what it means. Affluence beyond the dreams of a Monte Cristo. Owing to this Jones fellow the place is crowded, and every sportsman for miles around will be there to-morrow at five bob a head, cheaper seats two-and-six, and standing-room one shilling. Add lemonade and fried fish privileges, and you have a proposition almost without parallel in the annals of commerce. I couldn’t be more on velvet if they gave me a sack and a shovel and let me loose in the Mint.”
I congratulated him in suitable terms.
“How is the Battler?” I asked.
“Trained to an ounce. Come and see him to-morrow morning.”
“I can’t come in the morning. I’ve got to go to this Jones meeting.”
“Oh, yes. Well, make it early in the afternoon, then. Don’t come later than three, because he will be resting. We’re at Number Seven, Caerleon Street. Ask for the Cap and Feathers public-house, and turn sharp to the left.”
I was in a curiously uplifted mood on the following afternoon as I set out to pay my respects to Mr. Billson. This was the first time I had had occasion to attend one of these revival meetings, and the effect it had had on me was to make me feel as if I had been imbibing large quantities of champagne to the accompaniment of a very loud orchestra. Even before the revivalist rose to speak, the proceedings had had an effervescent quality singularly unsettling to the sober mind, for the vast gathering had begun to sing hymns directly they took their seats; and while the opinion I had formed of the inhabitants of Llunindnno was not high, there was no denying their vocal powers. There is something about a Welsh voice when raised in song that no other voice seems to possess—a creepy, heart-searching quality that gets right into a man’s inner consciousness and stirs it up with a pole. And on top of this had come Evan Jones’s address.
It did not take me long to understand why this man had gone through the country-side like a flame. He had magnetism, intense earnestness, and the voice of a prophet crying in the wilderness. His fiery eyes seemed to single out each individual in the hall, and every time he paused sighings and wailings went up like the smoke of a furnace. And then, after speaking for what I discovered with amazement on consulting my watch was considerably over an hour, he stopped. And I blinked like an aroused somnambulist, shook myself to make sure I was still there, and came away. And now, as I walked in search of the Cap and Feathers, I was, as I say, oddly exhilarated: and I was strolling along in a sort of trance when a sudden uproar jerked me from my thoughts. I looked about me, and saw the sign of the Cap and Feathers suspended over a building across the street.
It was a dubious-looking hostelry in a dubious neighbourhood: and the sounds proceeding from its interior were not reassuring to a peace-loving pedestrian. There was a good deal of shouting going on and much smashing of glass; and, as I stood there, the door flew open and a familiar figure emerged rather hastily. A moment later there appeared in the doorway a woman.
She was a small woman, but she carried the largest and most intimidating mop I had ever seen. It dripped dirty water as she brandished it; and the man, glancing apprehensively over his shoulder, proceeded rapidly on his way.
“Hallo, Mr. Billson!” I said, as he shot by me.
It was not, perhaps, the best-chosen moment for endeavouring to engage him in light conversation. He showed no disposition whatever to linger. He vanished round the corner, and the woman, with a few winged words, gave her mop a victorious flourish and re-entered the public-house. I walked on, and a little later a huge figure stepped cautiously out of an alleyway and fell into step at my side.
“Didn’t recognise you, mister,” said Mr. Billson, apologetically.
“You seemed in rather a hurry,” I agreed.
“’R!” said Mr. Billson, and a thoughtful silence descended upon him for a space.
“Who,” I asked, tactlessly, perhaps, “was your lady friend?”
Mr. Billson looked a trifle sheepish. Unnecessarily, in my opinion. Even heroes may legitimately quail before a mop wielded by an angry woman.
“She come out of a back room,” he said, with embarrassment. “Started makin’ a fuss when she saw what I’d done. So I come away. You can’t dot a woman,” argued Mr. Billson, chivalrously.
“Certainly not,” I agreed. “But what was the trouble?”
“I been doin’ good,” said Mr. Billson, virtuously.
“Doing good?”
“Spillin’ their beers.”
“Whose beers?”
“All of their beers. I went in and there was a lot of sinful fellers drinkin’ beers. So I spilled ’em. All of ’em. Walked round and spilled all of them beers, one after the other. Not ’arf surprised them pore sinners wasn’t,” said Mr. Billson, with what sounded to me not unlike a worldly chuckle.
“I can readily imagine it.”
“Huh?”
“I say I bet they were.”
“’R!” said Mr. Billson. He frowned. “Beer,” he proceeded, with cold austerity, “ain’t right. Sinful, that’s what beer is. It stingeth like a serpent and biteth like a ruddy adder.”
My mouth watered a little. Beer like that was what I had been scouring the country for for years. I thought it imprudent, however, to say so. For some reason which I could not fathom, my companion, once as fond of his half-pint as the next man, seemed to have conceived a puritanical hostility to the beverage. I decided to change the subject.
“I’m looking forward to seeing you fight to-night,” I said.
He eyed me woodenly.
“Me?”
“Yes. At the Oddfellows’ Hall, you know.”
He shook his head.
“I ain’t fighting at no Oddfellows’ Hall,” he replied. “Not at no Oddfellows’ Hall nor nowhere else I’m not fighting, not to-night nor no night.” He pondered stolidly, and then, as if coming to the conclusion that his last sentence could be improved by the addition of a negative, added “No!”
And having said this, he suddenly stopped and stiffened like a pointing dog; and, looking up to see what interesting object by the wayside had attracted his notice, I perceived that we were standing beneath another public-house sign, that of the Blue Boar. Its windows were hospitably open, and through them came a musical clinking of glasses. Mr. Billson licked his lips with a quiet relish.
“’Scuse me, mister,” he said, and left me abruptly.
My one thought now was to reach Ukridge as quickly as possible, in order to acquaint him with these sinister developments. For I was startled. More, I was alarmed and uneasy. In one of the star performers at a special ten-round contest, scheduled to take place that evening, Mr. Billson’s attitude seemed to me peculiar, not to say disquieting. So, even though a sudden crash and uproar from the interior of the Blue Boar called invitingly to me to linger, I hurried on, and neither stopped, looked, nor listened until I stood on the steps of Number Seven Caerleon Street. And eventually, after my prolonged ringing and knocking had finally induced a female of advanced years to come up and open the door, I found Ukridge lying on a horse-hair sofa in the far corner of the sitting-room.
I unloaded my grave news. It was wasting time to try to break it gently.
“I’ve just seen Billson,” I said, “and he seems to be in rather a strange mood. In fact, I’m sorry to say, old man, he rather gave me the impression——”
“That he wasn’t going to fight to-night?” said Ukridge, with a strange calm. “Quite correct. He isn’t. He’s just been in here to tell me so. What I like about the man is his consideration for all concerned.Hedoesn’t want to upset anybody’s arrangements.”
“But what’s the trouble? Is he kicking about only getting twenty pounds?”
“No. He thinks fighting’s sinful!”
“What?”
“Nothing more nor less, Corky, my boy. Like chumps, we took our eyes off him for half a second this morning, and he sneaked off to that revival meeting. Went out shortly after a light and wholesome breakfast for what he called a bit of a mooch round, and came in half an hour ago a changed man. Full of loving-kindness, curse him. Nasty shifty gleam in his eye. Told us he thought fighting sinful and it was all off, and then buzzed out to spread the Word.”
I was shaken to the core. Wilberforce Billson, the peerless but temperamental Battler, had never been an ideal pugilist to manage, but hitherto he had drawn the line at anything like this. Other little problems which he might have brought up for his manager to solve might have been overcome by patience and tact; but not this one. The psychology of Mr. Billson was as an open book to me. He possessed one of those single-track minds, capable of accommodating but one idea at a time, and he had the tenacity of the simple soul. Argument would leave him unshaken. On that bone-like head Reason would beat in vain. And, these things being so, I was at a loss to account for Ukridge’s extraordinary calm. His fortitude in the hour of ruin amazed me.
His next remark, however, offered an explanation.
“We’re putting on a substitute,” he said.
I was relieved.
“Oh, you’ve got a substitute? That’s a bit of luck. Where did you find him?”
“As a matter of fact, laddie, I’ve decided to go on myself.”
“What! You!”
“Only way out, my boy. No other solution.”
I stared at the man. Years of the closest acquaintance with S. F. Ukridge had rendered me almost surprise-proof at anything he might do, but this was too much.
“Do you mean to tell me that you seriously intend to go out there to-night and appear in the ring?” I cried.
“Perfectly straightforward business-like proposition, old man,” said Ukridge, stoutly. “I’m in excellent shape. I sparred with Billson every day while he was training.”
“Yes, but——”
“The fact is, laddie, you don’t realise my potentialities. Recently, it’s true, I’ve allowed myself to become slack and what you might call enervated, but, damme, when I was on that trip in that tramp-steamer, scarcely a week used to go by without my having a good earnest scrap with somebody. Nothing barred,” said Ukridge, musing lovingly on the care-free past, “except biting and bottles.”
“Yes, but, hang it—a professional pugilist!”
“Well, to be absolutely accurate, laddie,” said Ukridge, suddenly dropping the heroic manner and becoming confidential, “the thing’s going to be fixed. Izzy Previn has seen the bloke Thomas’s manager, and has arranged a gentleman’s agreement. The manager, a Class A blood-sucker, insists on us giving his man another twenty pounds after the fight, but that can’t be helped. In return, the Thomas bloke consents to play light for three rounds, at the end of which period, laddie, he will tap me on the side of the head and I shall go down and out, a popular loser. What’s more, I’m allowed to hit him hard—once—just so long as it isn’t on the nose. So you see, a little tact, a little diplomacy, and the whole thing fixed up as satisfactorily as anyone could wish.”
“But suppose the audience demands its money back when they find they’re going to see a substitute?”
“My dear old horse,” protested Ukridge, “surely you don’t imagine that a man with a business head like mine overlooked that? Naturally, I’m going to fight as Battling Billson. Nobody knows him in this town. I’m a good big chap, just as much a heavy-weight as he is. No, laddie, pick how you will you can’t pick a flaw in this.”
“Why mayn’t you hit him on the nose?”
“I don’t know. People have these strange whims. And now, Corky, my boy, I think you had better leave me. I ought to relax.”
The Oddfellows’ Hall was certainly filling up nicely when I arrived that night. Indeed, it seemed as though Llunindnno’s devotees of sport would cram it to the roof. I took my place in the line before the pay-window, and, having completed the business end of the transaction, went in and enquired my way to the dressing-rooms. And presently, after wandering through divers passages, I came upon Ukridge, clad for the ring and swathed in his familiar yellow mackintosh.
“You’re going to have a wonderful house,” I said. “The populace is rolling up in shoals.”
He received the information with a strange lack of enthusiasm. I looked at him in concern, and was disquieted by his forlorn appearance. That face, which had beamed so triumphantly at our last meeting, was pale and set. Those eyes, which normally shone with the flame of an unquenchable optimism, seemed dull and careworn. And even as I looked at him he seemed to rouse himself from a stupor and, reaching out for his shirt, which hung on a near-by peg, proceeded to pull it over his head.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
His head popped out of the shirt, and he eyed me wanly.
“I’m off,” he announced, briefly.
“Off? How do you mean, off?” I tried to soothe what I took to be an eleventh-hour attack of stage-fright. “You’ll be all right.”
Ukridge laughed hollowly.
“Once the gong goes, you’ll forget the crowd.”
“It isn’t the crowd,” said Ukridge, in a pale voice, climbing into his trousers. “Corky, old man,” he went on, earnestly, “if ever you feel your angry passions rising to the point where you want to swat a stranger in a public place, restrain yourself. There’s nothing in it. This bloke Thomas was in here a moment ago with his manager to settle the final details. He’s the fellow I had the trouble with at the theatre last night!”
“The man you pulled out of the seat by his ears?” I gasped.
Ukridge nodded.
“Recognised me at once, confound him, and it was all his manager, a thoroughly decent cove whom I liked, could do to prevent him getting at me there and then.”
“Good Lord!” I said, aghast at this grim development, yet thinking how thoroughly characteristic it was of Ukridge, when he had a whole townful of people to quarrel with, to pick the one professional pugilist.
At this moment, when Ukridge was lacing his left shoe, the door opened and a man came in.
The new-comer was stout, dark, and beady-eyed, and from his manner of easy comradeship and the fact that when he spoke he supplemented words with the language of the waving palm, I deduced that this must be Mr. Izzy Previn, recently trading as Isaac O’Brien. He was cheeriness itself.
“Vell,” he said, with ill-timed exuberance, “how’th the boy?”
The boy cast a sour look at him.
“The house,” proceeded Mr. Previn, with an almost lyrical enthusiasm, “is abtholutely full. Crammed, jammed, and packed. They’re hanging from the roof by their eyelids. It’th goin’ to be a knock-out.”
The expression, considering the circumstances, could hardly have been less happily chosen. Ukridge winced painfully, then spoke in no uncertain voice.
“I’m not going to fight!”
Mr. Previn’s exuberance fell from him like a garment. His cigar dropped from his mouth, and his beady eyes glittered with sudden consternation.
“What do you mean?”
“Rather an unfortunate thing has happened,” I explained. “It seems that this man Thomas is a fellow Ukridge had trouble with at the theatre last night.”
“What do you mean, Ukridge?” broke in Mr. Previn. “This is Battling Billson.”
“I’ve told Corky all about it,” said Ukridge over his shoulder as he laced his right shoe. “Old pal of mine.”
“Oh!” said Mr. Previn, relieved. “Of course, if Mr. Corky is a friend of yours and quite understands that all this is quite private among ourselves and don’t want talking about outside, all right. But what were you thayin’? I can’t make head or tail of it. How do you mean, you’re not goin’ to fight? Of course you’re goin’ to fight.”
“Thomas was in here just now,” I said. “Ukridge and he had a row at the theatre last night, and naturally Ukridge is afraid he will go back on the agreement.”
“Nonthense,” said Mr. Previn, and his manner was that of one soothing a refractory child. “Hewon’t go back on the agreement. He promised he’d play light and he will play light. Gave me his word as a gentleman.”
“He isn’t a gentleman,” Ukridge pointed out, moodily.
“But lithen!”
“I’m going to get out of here as quick as I dashed well can!”
“Conthider!” pleaded Mr. Previn, clawing great chunks out of the air.
Ukridge began to button his collar.
“Reflect!” moaned Mr. Previn. “There’s that lovely audience all sitting out there, jammed like thardines, waiting for the thing to start. Do you expect me to go and tell ’em there ain’t goin’ to be no fight? I’m thurprised at you,” said Mr. Previn, trying an appeal to his pride. “Where’s your manly spirit? A big, husky feller like you, that’s done all sorts of scrappin’ in your time——”
“Not,” Ukridge pointed out coldly, “with any damned professional pugilists who’ve got a grievance against me.”
“Hewon’t hurt you.”
“He won’t get the chance.”
“You’ll be as safe and cosy in that ring with him as if you was playing ball with your little thister.”
Ukridge said he hadn’t got a little sister.
“But think!” implored Mr. Previn, flapping like a seal. “Think of the money! Do you realise we’ll have to return it all, every penny of it?”
A spasm of pain passed over Ukridge’s face, but he continued buttoning his collar.
“And not only that,” said Mr. Previn, “but, if you ask me, they’ll be so mad when they hear there ain’t goin’ to be no fight, they’ll lynch me.”
Ukridge seemed to regard this possibility with calm.
“And you, too,” added Mr. Previn.
Ukridge started. It was a plausible theory, and one that had not occurred to him before. He paused irresolutely. And at this moment a man came hurrying in.
“What’s the matter?” he demanded, fussily. “Thomas has been in the ring for five minutes. Isn’t your man ready?”
“In one half tick,” said Mr. Previn. He turned meaningly to Ukridge. “That’s right, ain’t it? You’ll be ready in half a tick?”
Ukridge nodded wanly. In silence he shed shirt, trousers, shoes, and collar, parting from them as if they were old friends whom he never expected to see again. One wistful glance he cast at his mackintosh, lying forlornly across a chair; and then, with more than a suggestion of a funeral procession, we started down the corridor that led to the main hall. The hum of many voices came to us; there was a sudden blaze of light, and we were there.
I must say for the sport-loving citizens of Llunindnno that they appeared to be fair-minded men. Stranger in their midst though he was, they gave Ukridge an excellent reception as he climbed into the ring; and for a moment, such is the tonic effect of applause on a large scale, his depression seemed to lift. A faint, gratified smile played about his drawn mouth, and I think it would have developed into a bashful grin, had he not at this instant caught sight of the redoubtable Mr. Thomas towering massively across the way. I saw him blink, as one who, thinking absently of this and that, walks suddenly into a lamp-post; and his look of unhappiness returned.
My heart bled for him. If the offer of my little savings in the bank could have transported him there and then to the safety of his London lodgings, I would have made it unreservedly. Mr. Previn had disappeared, leaving me standing at the ring-side, and as nobody seemed to object I remained there, thus getting an excellent view of the mass of bone and sinew that made up Lloyd Thomas. And there was certainly plenty of him to see.
Mr. Thomas was, I should imagine, one of those men who do not look their most formidable in mufti—for otherwise I could not conceive how even the fact that he had stolen his seat could have led Ukridge to lay the hand of violence upon him. In the exiguous costume of the ring he looked a person from whom the sensible man would suffer almost any affront with meekness. He was about six feet in height, and wherever a man could bulge with muscle he bulged. For a moment my anxiety for Ukridge was tinged with a wistful regret that I should never see this sinewy citizen in action with Mr. Billson. It would, I mused, have been a battle worth coming even to Llunindnno to see.
The referee, meanwhile, had been introducing the principals in the curt, impressive fashion of referees. He now retired, and with a strange foreboding note a gong sounded on the farther side of the ring. The seconds scuttled under the ropes. The man Thomas, struggling—it seemed to me—with powerful emotions, came ponderously out of his corner.
In these reminiscences of a vivid and varied career, it is as a profound thinker that I have for the most part had occasion to portray Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge. I was now to be reminded that he also had it in him to be a doer. Even as Mr. Thomas shuffled towards him, his left fist shot out and thudded against the other’s ribs. In short, in a delicate and difficult situation, Ukridge was comporting himself with an adequacy that surprised me. However great might have been his reluctance to embark on this contest, once in he was doing well.
And then, half-way through the first round, the truth dawned upon me. Injured though Mr. Thomas had been, the gentleman’s agreement still held. The word of a Thomas was as good as his bond. Poignant though his dislike of Ukridge might be, nevertheless, having pledged himself to mildness and self-restraint for the first three rounds, he intended to abide by the contract. Probably, in the interval between his visit to Ukridge’s dressing-room and his appearance in the ring, his manager had been talking earnestly to him. At any rate, whether it was managerial authority or his own sheer nobility of character that influenced him, the fact remains that he treated Ukridge with a quite remarkable forbearance, and the latter reached his corner at the end of round one practically intact.
And it was this that undid him. No sooner had the gong sounded for round two than out he pranced from his corner, thoroughly above himself. He bounded at Mr. Thomas like a Dervish.
I could read his thoughts as if he had spoken them. Nothing could be clearer than that he had altogether failed to grasp the true position of affairs. Instead of recognising his adversary’s forbearance for what it was and being decently grateful for it, he was filled with a sinful pride. Here, he told himself, was a man who had a solid grievance against him—and, dash it, the fellow couldn’t hurt him a bit. What the whole thing boiled down to, he felt, was that he, Ukridge, was better than he had suspected, a man to be reckoned with, and one who could show a distinguished gathering of patrons of sport something worth looking at. The consequence was that, where any sensible person would have grasped the situation at once and endeavoured to show his appreciation by toying with Mr. Thomas in gingerly fashion, whispering soothing compliments into his ear during the clinches, and generally trying to lay the foundations of a beautiful friendship against the moment when the gentleman’s agreement should lapse, Ukridge committed the one unforgivable act. There was a brief moment of fiddling and feinting in the centre of the ring, then a sharp smacking sound, a startled yelp, and Mr. Thomas, with gradually reddening eye, leaning against the ropes and muttering to himself in Welsh.
Ukridge had hit him on the nose.
Once more I must pay a tribute to the fair-mindedness of the sportsmen of Llunindnno. The stricken man was one of them—possibly Llunindnno’s favourite son—yet nothing could have exceeded the heartiness with which they greeted the visitor’s achievement. A shout went up as if Ukridge had done each individual present a personal favour. It continued as he advanced buoyantly upon his antagonist, and—to show how entirely Llunindnno audiences render themselves impartial and free from any personal bias—it became redoubled as Mr. Thomas, swinging a fist like a ham, knocked Ukridge flat on his back. Whatever happened, so long as it was sufficiently violent, seemed to be all right with that broad-minded audience.
Ukridge heaved himself laboriously to one knee. His sensibilities had been ruffled by this unexpected blow, about fifteen times as hard as the others he had received since the beginning of the affray, but he was a man of mettle and determination. However humbly he might quail before a threatening landlady, or however nimbly he might glide down a side-street at the sight of an approaching creditor, there was nothing wrong with his fighting heart when it came to a straight issue between man and man, untinged by the financial element. He struggled painfully to his feet, while Mr. Thomas, now definitely abandoning the gentleman’s agreement, hovered about him with ready fists, only restrained by the fact that one of Ukridge’s gloves still touched the floor.
It was at this tensest of moments that a voice spoke in my ear. “’Alf a mo’, mister!”
A hand pushed me gently aside. Something large obscured the lights. And Wilberforce Billson, squeezing under the ropes, clambered into the ring.
For the purposes of the historian it was a good thing that for the first few moments after this astounding occurrence a dazed silence held the audience in its grip. Otherwise, it might have been difficult to probe motives and explain underlying causes. I think the spectators were either too surprised to shout, or else they entertained for a few brief seconds the idea that Mr. Billson was the forerunner of a posse of plain-clothes police about to raid the place. At any rate, for a space they were silent, and he was enabled to say his say.
“Fightin’,” bellowed Mr. Billson, “ain’t right!”
There was an uneasy rustle in the audience. The voice of the referee came thinly, saying, “Here! Hi!”
“Sinful,” explained Mr. Billson, in a voice like a foghorn.
His oration was interrupted by Mr. Thomas, who was endeavouring to get round him and attack Ukridge. The Battler pushed him gently back.
“Gents,” he roared, “I, too, have been a man of voylence! I ’ave struck men in anger. R, yes! But I ’ave seen the light. Oh, my brothers——”
The rest of his remarks were lost. With a startling suddenness the frozen silence melted. In every part of the hall indignant seatholders were rising to state their views.
But it is doubtful whether, even if he had been granted a continuance of their attention, Mr. Billson would have spoken to much greater length; for at this moment Lloyd Thomas, who had been gnawing at the strings of his gloves with the air of a man who is able to stand just so much and whose limit has been exceeded, now suddenly shed these obstacles to the freer expression of self, and advancing bare-handed, smote Mr. Billson violently on the jaw.
Mr. Billson turned. He was pained, one could see that, but more spiritually than physically. For a moment he seemed uncertain how to proceed. Then he turned the other cheek.
The fermenting Mr. Thomas smote that, too.
There was no vacillation or uncertainty now about Wilberforce Billson. He plainly considered that he had done all that could reasonably be expected of any pacifist. A man has only two cheeks. He flung up a mast-like arm, to block a third blow, countered with an accuracy and spirit which sent his aggressor reeling to the ropes; and then, swiftly removing his coat, went into action with the unregenerate zeal that had made him the petted hero of a hundred water-fronts. And I, tenderly scooping Ukridge up as he dropped from the ring, hurried him away along the corridor to his dressing-room. I would have given much to remain and witness a mix-up which, if the police did not interfere, promised to be the battle of the ages, but the claims of friendship are paramount.
Ten minutes later, however, when Ukridge, washed, clothed, and restored as near to the normal as a man may be who has received the full weight of a Lloyd Thomas on a vital spot, was reaching for his mackintosh, there filtered through the intervening doors and passageways a sudden roar so compelling that my sporting spirit declined to ignore it.
“Back in a minute, old man,” I said.
And, urged by that ever-swelling roar, I cantered back to the hall.
In the interval during which I had been ministering to my stricken friend a certain decorum seemed to have been restored to the proceedings. The conflict had lost its first riotous abandon. Upholders of the decencies of debate had induced Mr. Thomas to resume his gloves, and a pair had also been thrust upon the Battler. Moreover, it was apparent that the etiquette of the tourney now governed the conflict, for rounds had been introduced, and one had just finished as I came in view of the ring. Mr. Billson was leaning back in a chair in one corner undergoing treatment by his seconds, and in the opposite corner loomed Mr. Thomas; and one sight of the two men was enough to tell me what had caused that sudden tremendous outburst of enthusiasm among the patriots of Llunindnno. In the last stages of the round which had just concluded the native son must have forged ahead in no uncertain manner. Perhaps some chance blow had found its way through the Battler’s guard, laying him open and defenceless to the final attack. For his attitude, as he sagged in his corner, was that of one whose moments are numbered. His eyes were closed, his mouth hung open, and exhaustion was writ large upon him. Mr. Thomas, on the contrary, leaned forward with hands on knees, wearing an impatient look, as if this formality of a rest between rounds irked his imperious spirit.
The gong sounded and he sprang from his seat.
“Laddie!” breathed an anguished voice, and a hand clutched my arm.
I was dimly aware of Ukridge standing beside me. I shook him off. This was no moment for conversation. My whole attention was concentrated on what was happening in the ring.
“I say, laddie!”
Matters in there had reached that tense stage when audiences lose their self-control—when strong men stand on seats and weak men cry “Siddown!” The air was full of that electrical thrill that precedes the knock-out.