XLI
Outsidethe mission-hall in the gently-raining April night, James Dodson, with his coat collar turned up over his ears and his hat pulled down over his eyes, lay in waiting for his friend. Upon beholding this woe-begone figure William Jordan gave a start of surprise.
“Why, Jimmy,” he said, “why do you come here now?”
“As I was half-way through the performance at the Alcazar,” said Jimmy Dodson apprehensively, “I had a sort of presentiment. Something seemed to tell me, Luney, that after to-night I might never see you again. Something seemed to tell me that you were going away.”
“Nature has certainly spoken to me,” said William Jordan.
“That doesn’t mean, Luney, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson in a voice not the least like his own, “that you intend to desert an old friend?”
“To-morrow at dawn I obey her decree,” said William Jordan.
“You don’t mean to say you are going away!” cried Jimmy Dodson.
“Yes—for a little while.”
“But—but,” said Jimmy Dodson, “I don’t think I could bear it if you were never to come back. You see, Luney, old boy—well, you see—well, somehow, I can’t explain it—but—if—you—were—never—to—come—back!”
The voice of Jimmy Dodson was slow-drawn like a wail. It pierced William Jordan to the heart. Tears leaped to the eyes of the young man, but in the darkness his stricken companion could not see them.
“Luney,” said Jimmy Dodson, “will you promise that you will come back?”
“I promise,” said the young man.
“Honour bright, you know, honest Injun,” said Dodson anxiously.
“Honest Injun, Jimmy,” said William Jordan, with a strange smile in his eyes.
“Give me your hand on it, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson; “although I am sure you wouldn’t play it low down on an old pal.”
William Jordan yielded to his friend’s importunity.
Dodson shuddered.
“Why, old boy,” he said, “it is so cold—so cold. Ugh, it is like ice.”
William Jordan kissed his friend in the darkness.
“And—and,” cried Dodson, “your lips burn like a fire.”
The two friends walked along in a silence. After they had proceeded a long distance in this fashion through the wet midnight streets, the thin and high-strung tones of Jimmy Dodson were heard again in the darkness.
“Luney,” he said in a voice that seemed to over-tax his powers of utterance, “I always used to wonder what made me take up with a chap like you; but since you came out of prison I have done nothing but wonder what made you take up with a chap like me.”
“You are one of the links in the chain,”said William Jordan, “one of the stages in the journey.”
“I don’t understand you at all,” said Jimmy Dodson.
“Perhaps it is well,” said William Jordan.
“And yet you know, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson, “when I first knew you, I didn’t understand you then. But I always accounted for it by the fact that you were not quite all there. Well, I don’t understand you a bit better now, although I have come now to account for it by the fact that I am not quite all there. I don’t know why I have come round towards you like I have. At first I thought you were rather less than the ordinary, and that you didn’t count at all; but now I consider you to be the finest chap I’ve ever known, and that you have got something about you that more than makes up for what you lack.”
“May you not have entered upon another phase?” said William Jordan.
“I don’t quite know what you mean, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson, “unless you mean that I’ve changed. At least I had that kind of thought as I sat this evening at the Alcazar. The wrestling bored me, the songs were rotten, and I didn’t think much of the ballet. And I thought the band was out of tune—all except John Dobbs. In fact, I began to wonder why I came. And then suddenly I thought of that night, old boy, when you sat at my side, and I took you round to see Hermione——”
“Ah, the goddess!” exclaimed William Jordan softly.
“I have often thought since,” said his friend, “that it was not right to play it on you as we did. And what Hermione said about you afterwards, old boy, rather turned me against her. But she was pretty low down, was Hermione; yes, she doesn’t dance in the ballet now-a-days. All the same she rather knocked you, old boy, didn’t she?”
“I thought her to be divine,” said William Jordan simply.
The two friends stayed their steps under a flickering gas-lamp in the City. The steady rain continued. The clock of a neighbouring church told the hour.
“It will be a long and wet walk to Peckham, Jimmy,” said William Jordan.
“It will, old boy,” said his friend; “but what do you suppose I care, now that you have given me your promise to come back? By the way, old boy, do you think it would be asking too much, as a special favour, for you to write me a line now and then just to say that you are alive?”
The gaze of William Jordan grew heavy with a darkness that was veiled from his friend.
“You must forgive me, Jimmy, if I don’t,” he said.
“As a special favour,” pleaded his friend. “You know, old boy, I have never had a line of yours. I have always been meaning to ask you for your autograph—that is before the trouble came—and—and now the trouble has come I intend to ask you for it. Send me a line, old boy, to say you are alive.”
“I cannot promise to do that,” said William Jordan, “because the strength has not yet been given to my right hand. But I do promise to return; and when I do return I shall listen for your tap upon the shutters; and then I will let you in as far as the threshold of the little room.”
The friends said their last farewells as the clocks chimed the hour of two.