“Joe,” said Mr. Horace Dobb, coming out of a long meditative silence, “’ave you ever ’ad words with a prize-fighter?”
“Once,” admitted Mr. Joseph Tridge. “And only once! Never no more for me!” he ended, very definitely.
“What ’appened?”
“Why, I started to ’ave words with ’im,” returned Mr. Tridge.
“Well?” prompted Mr. Dobb.
“That’s all,” stated Mr. Tridge, simply.
“Did ’e ’it you back?”
“Not ’alf, ’e didn’t!”
“And what did you do?”
“Went ’ome in a cab,” succinctly supplied Mr. Tridge.
Again silence prevailed in Mr. Dobb’s snug back parlour. Mr. Tridge, sitting respectfully upright in his seat, once more fixed a forlorn and rather anxious gaze on his host. The late cook to the “Jane Gladys,” untroubled by his old shipmate’s appealing visage, settled down more comfortably in his arm-chair and puffed in cosy rumination at the stump of a cigar. A clock, acquired by Mr. Dobb in the course of business, stood on the mantelshelf. From the facts that it had just struck eleven and that its dial registered a quarter to two, anyone thoroughly familiar with its idiosyncrasieswould have deduced that the correct hour of the evening was something between six and seven.
Mr. Dobb, presently producing a penknife, impaled his cigar-stump on the point of its blade and thus pursued his smoke to its exceedingly bitter end. Still he forbore from speech, and at last Mr. Tridge, with a deep sigh of regret, rose to his feet.
“Well, I may as well be going now,” he asserted, mournfully. “Good-night, ’Orace.”
He crossed to the door, and there he halted.
“And if I was you,” he announced, bitterly, “I should swaller the rest of that there seegar! You won’t lose none of it, then. And, besides, it can’t taste worse than it smells!”
Mr. Dobb, in no wise irritated by this little ebullience of feeling, smiled up pleasantly at his visitor.
“What’s your ’urry?” asked Horace. “Come and sit down again! We ’aven’t finished ’alf our chat yet.”
With marked readiness Mr. Tridge returned to his chair, contritely murmuring an apology for his impoliteness.
“That’s all right,” said Horace, handsomely. “Seegars is never quite right when other chaps is smoking ’em. I’ve noticed that myself. Now, let me see, what were we talking about?”
“About me starting in a little ’air-dressing business of me own,” replied Mr. Tridge, leaning forward eagerly.
“No,wewasn’t talking about that,” corrected Mr. Dobb. “Youwas.”
“I’ve figgered it all out,” continued Mr. Tridge, undeterred, “and for twenty quid I could get going. And I’d pay you your money back in instalments, and pay you interest at the rate of—”
“I shan’t take no hinterest from you, Joe,” observed Mr. Dobb, with a kindly smile, “and I shan’t take no hinstalments neither. In fact, I shan’t want no money back from you at all!”
“Well, if ever there was a true pal—” gabbled Mr. Tridge, with the liveliest gratitude. “I always knew it! If ever there was a real friend in need—”
“I shan’t want no money back from you at all, Joe,” interrupted Mr. Dobb, coldly, “because I shan’t let you ’ave none to begin with. I shouldn’t dream of it!”
“Well, of all the mean, ’ard-’earted, un’elpful, false friends—” exclaimed Mr. Tridge, in high vexation.
“You go into the shop there, Joe,” directed Mr. Dobb, “and you’ll see my motter ’ung up large on the wall. ‘Strictly Business!’—that’s my guiding princerple, and you knows it! Business is business, and friendship is friendship, and when you tries to mix ’em you gets a little of each and not enough of both.”
“But lending me twenty quid to start on my own with would be business,” contended Mr. Tridge. “I’d pay you back.”
“I dare say you would,” retorted Mr. Dobb, sceptically. “If you could. But s’pose the speckylation turned out a failure, eh? No, Joe, I ain’t going to risk my money, and there’s a end to it. Or, rather, there won’t be a end of it. And now let’s change the subject and talk about something hinteresting.”
“But—but—but,” spluttered Mr. Tridge, wrathfully, “it was you what made me lose all my time learning ’air-dressing! Cut and cut old Sam Clark’s ’air, I did, till it looked as if ’is ’ead ’ad been varnished! Practised clean shaving on Peter Lock till ’is chin was so sore ’e ’ad to grow a beard! It was you that was goingto get me settled as a ’air-dresser, you remember?” he sneered.
“Yes, I remember,” confessed Mr. Dobb, flushing a little at the recollection. “Oh, well, mistakeswill’appen,” he put forward, with an effort to be casual.
“Mistakesdid’appen,” amended Mr. Tridge. “And ’ere am I with the old ‘Jane Gladys’ sold from under me, and me the only one of ’er crew out of a job. There’s Peter Lock in a snug billet, there’s old Sam a-ferrying fit to bust ’isself all day, there’s you married to a widow and ’er second-’and shop, and only me left out in the cold!”
“Well, and I want to see you settled,” declared Mr. Dobb. “When the four of us are well spaced about Shore’aven, we’ll be able to work some fine deals, bigger than ever we dreamed of on the old ‘Jane Gladys.’”
“Then why don’t you ’elp me to settle?” demanded Mr. Tridge, not unreasonably.
“’Eaven ’elps them what ’elps themselves, don’t forget, Joe,” was Mr. Dobb’s pious reply.
Impatiently Mr. Tridge rose again to his feet and stalked to the door. Again Mr. Dobb invited him to return to his seat and tarry longer.
“I don’t say as I won’t ’elp you to ’elp yourself, Joe,” observed Mr. Dobb. “In fact, if you only wouldn’t be so ’asty, and would listen to what I ’ave to say, you might feel sorry for all the things you’re trying to think of to say about me as you stands there.”
Mr. Tridge, with a demeanor nicely balanced between resentment and humility, once more sat down.
“I ain’t forgot ’ow you’re situated, Joe,” said Mr. Dobb, gently. “I’ve bore you in mind constant. And I’ve been waiting for you to come and see me these last few days. I got a little matter to put before you,Joe, what ought to be good for twenty quid at least, if you cares to tackle it.”
“Why didn’t you mention it before?” asked Mr. Tridge, suspiciously.
“Well, I wasn’t quite sure ’ow you’d take it,” returned Mr. Dobb. “You see, there—there’s a certain amount of disgrace about it.”
“If it brings in twenty quid,” said Mr. Tridge, frankly, “I shan’t think it disgraceful, whatever it is.”
“And—and there’s a certain amount of suffering,” added Mr. Dobb, watching his friend narrowly.
“Once I get me fingers on the twenty quid, I shall soon stop suffering,” asserted Mr. Tridge, cheerfully.
“Well, you remember me asking you just now if you’d ever ’ad a quarrel with a prize-fighter?”
“Yes, I remember. But what’s that to— ’Ere, ’strewth! ’Orace!” cried Mr. Tridge, in alarm. “I twig your game now! You’re wanting me to match against a prize-fighter! No, thanks!” he said, with the utmost firmness. “Once bit, twice shy!”
“Wait a bit!” begged Mr. Dobb. “You ’aven’t ’eard what I’ve got to say!”
“And don’t want to, either! Not if there’s a prize fight at the end of it! Not for fifty blessed quid! I’ve ’ad some! No, thank you, ’Orace. I ain’t fighting no prize-fighters on the thin chance of getting a purse of twenty quid—ifI win. Not me, ’Orace!”
“But you won’t ’ark to what I say!” complained Mr. Dobb.
“No, I won’t!” asseverated Mr. Tridge. “While I’ve got the senses I was born with, I’ll ’ave nothing to do with prize-fighters, and that’s flat!”
“You mean it?” asked Horace. “That’s your last word?”
“I do!” returned Mr. Tridge, in complete determination. “It are!”
Mr. Dobb shook his head a little perplexedly, and was clearly on the point of saying something further, when he changed his mind and frowned thoughtfully at the ceiling for some while. Mr. Tridge, with arms doggedly folded, stared at him in resolute opposition.
“As a matter of fact, Joe,” said Mr. Dobb, at last, “you’re on quite the wrong tack. Prize-fighters ain’t got nothing to do with it.”
“Then what did you drag ’em in for?” countered Mr. Tridge.
“I only wanted to see if you knew what kind of chaps prize-fighters was like to get into trouble with.”
“Well, and what did you want to know that for?” queried Mr. Tridge, vigilantly.
“So as to see whether you’d realize, by comparison, what a very different sort of job this is I’m offering you.”
“’Ave it your own way,” said Mr. Tridge, guardedly. “You go on and say all you’ve got to say, and I’ll listen. That’s all I’ll promise.”
Thus encouraged, Mr. Dobb began to entertain his old shipmate with a character sketch of a certain Mr. Jevvings, Christian name either Haugustas or Hadolphus.
But whatever uncertainty Mr. Dobb might have as to Mr. Jevvings’ correct baptismal name, he had none as to Mr. Jevvings’ character. Mr. Jevvings, testified Horace, was a sport, a nut, a scorcher, a lad of the village, and a real caution. Also, it appeared, he was a knockout, a go-er, and, likewise, a cough-drop. Alternatively, he was also the limit. Mr. Tridge, nodding his head sapiently over these titles to fame, epitomizedthem all in the surmise that Mr. Jevvings must be a lively sort of card, and this description of the young gentleman gained Mr. Dobb’s cordial agreement.
Blessed with a gay disposition, an abundance of cash, and a widespread reputation for boisterous exploits, one might have expected that Mr. Jevvings found life replete with satisfaction. But, no! said Mr. Dobb. Oh, dear, no! There was something which inexorably qualified Mr. Jevvings’ enjoyment of existence. As Mr. Dobb phrased it, there was always a wasp in Mr. Jevvings’ jam.
It seemed that that young gentleman, although of average build, sadly lacked physical prowess, so much so that, in some of his roystering adventures, antagonists had thought nothing of playfully ruffling his hair prior to throwing him through a window. Courage in plenty had Mr. Jevvings, else would he long ago have retired into obscurity, but he had no skill at arms, and very frequently this precipitated an anticlimax in his spirited doings, so that they ended unheroically for him. Too often, in fact, had this happened of late, and consequently Mr. Jevvings’ reputation as a dashing blade was beginning to be clouded by a certain ribald contempt for his activities.
These things did Mr. Dobb explain to Mr. Tridge, in the terms most easily understanded of his old shipmate. Arrived at this point, he leaned impressively forward and tapped Mr. Tridge on the knee.
“And now,” stated Mr. Dobb, “’e’s got a idea for making people like ’im more serious. He’s going to ’ave a fight with some one and knock ’im clean out.”
“But from what you’ve been telling me,” objected Mr. Tridge, “’e couldn’t knock a fly off the wall.”
Mr. Dobb, sitting erect, favoured his friend with a vast lingering wink. Then he continued his exposition.
It appeared that Mr. Jevvings was a close acquaintance of Mr. Dobb’s. Recently he had come unostentatiously to Mr. Dobb and had confessed to him the bitterness that was vexing his soul. It was, in fact, Mr. Dobb who had suggested a semi-public demonstration of his fistic powers which should compel admiration and respect. With this proposition Mr. Jevvings had fallen in so enthusiastically that he had left all arrangements, financial and otherwise, to be consummated by Mr. Dobb.
“So that’s whereyoucomes in,” explained Mr. Dobb.
“I see,” said Mr. Tridge, acutely. “I says something to ’im, ’e knocks me down, and I get twenty quid for it?”.
“Oh, not so helementary as that, Joe!” replied Mr. Dobb, pained at such lack of artistic imagination. “It’s got to be worked up to, neat and natural. And there’s got to be time for people to talk about it, before it comes off, as well as after. It’ll be a swell thing, fought out reg’lar in a boxing-ring, with seconds and all.”
“And when ’e’s knocked me about long enough,” supposed Mr. Tridge, “down I goes, and takes the count-out?”
Roughly, agreed Mr. Dobb, that was about the size of it. But the preliminaries, he pointed out, would need careful handling to create sufficient stir to satisfy Mr. Jevvings, and also Mr. Tridge would be required to take enough punishment to make the affair look convincing ere he succumbed to Mr. Jevvings’ knockout blow. This, he explained, was the voluntary humiliation and suffering to which he had alluded earlier in the evening.
“Well, if ’e’s ’alf the rabbit you make ’im out to be, ’e can’t ’urt me much,” complacently theorized Mr. Tridge; “and, as for ’umiliation, I’ve been ’umiliated for nothing at all in police-courts before now, so I certainly don’t mind being ’umiliated for money.”
Mr. Dobb, warmly eulogizing Mr. Tridge’s philosophy, assured him that the money was safe enough. Once arrangements were in trim for the combat, he—Mr. Dobb—would hold himself personally responsible for its payment.
“And we’ll set the ball rolling this very night,” said Mr. Dobb, with a computative glance at the clock. “Jevvings’ll be up in the ‘Rose and Crown,’ along of some of ’is pals. You must manage to get into a haltercation with ’im straightway, and leave the rest to me and one or two others what are in the know. We’ll see that a boxing match is fixed up between you, and you can leave all the arrangements to us.”
To all this Mr. Tridge assented with perfect readiness. Mr. Dobb then added a few simple instructions, and, after a single rehearsal, pronounced Mr. Tridge perfect in his role. Summoning his wife from some remote apartment, Mr. Dobb affably slipped his arm through Mr. Tridge’s, and the pair set off for the “Rose and Crown.”
“That’s ’im—that’s Jevvings!” whispered Horace, as they entered the crowded saloon bar. “That quiet-looking young feller in the check suit, with the pink tie, sitting reading the noospaper with patent leather boots on.”
Mr. Tridge, with a nod of comprehension, began to cross the floor. He was in the act of passing the young man when he stumbled clumsily, and, to preserve hisbalance, first knocked off the young man’s hat and next ripped the newspaper from his grasp.
“Why can’t you keep your great feet out of the way?” bellowed Mr. Tridge, furiously. “You ought to sit with ’em sticking out of the window, the size they are! You don’t want patent leather on ’em—you wants red lamps on ’em and a watchman’s box by the side of ’em! Of all the awkward—”
Mr. Jevvings, while preserving his calm under this onslaught, rose from his seat with a singularly sinister expression. Then, catching the expressive face of Mr. Dobb, he sat down again, a little helplessly. An awed hush had fallen on the room; frequenters of the apartment carefully setting down their glasses stared incredulously at the truculent Mr. Tridge.
“I must ask you to apologize!” said the aggrieved Mr. Jevvings, in a somewhat fluty voice.
“You ask away!” returned Mr. Tridge, with jocund ferocity. “You keep on till you’re as black in the face as your blessed great boots! Apologize to a splay-footed whipper-snapper like you? Why, I’d sooner give you a smack in the eye! Far sooner! And so I would, too, for two pins!”
A sort of stifling surprise agitated the room and those gentlemen who were in the forefront of the quarrel cautiously stood back, while those on the outer rim of the altercation craned eagerly forward.
“If you don’t apologize,” said Mr. Jevvings, firmly, “I shall thrash you!”
“Ho, yus,hin-deed!” derided Mr. Tridge. “Come on, then!” he invited, and posed himself combatantly.
Audible was the rustle of amazement that coursed through the spectators. Mr. Jevvings, rising, began to turn back his coat-cuffs. There was a tense hush.
And then, as the folds of a curtain may come sweeping down to suspend the action of a play, so did Mr. Horace Dobb and the landlord of the “Rose and Crown” effectively intervene at this juncture.
With a deft certainty of grasp, Mr. Dobb and the landlord took command of affairs. Smoothly and swiftly did they regularize the situation. Building from the foundation that a mere rough-and-ready scrap was unthinkable in the chaste altitudes of the “Rose and Crown’s” saloon bar, a scaffolding of suggestions was run up with a celerity which suggested previous consultations, and presently, within this scaffolding, the outlines took shape of a pugilistic encounter of considerable ceremony, involving a ring, judge, seconds, and all the other paraphernalia of the craft.
Mr. Tridge, listening interestedly, heard the arrangements brought to a conclusion with the fixing of a date at that day week for the encounter. Mr. Jevvings having signified his entire willingness to accept the terms of the contest, Mr. Tridge gave his own acquiescence to the programme, adding rather gratuitously that, on the Sunday afternoon following the contest he would call round at the hospital with a bunch of grapes for Mr. Jevvings. Alternately he proposed to send a handsome wreath of white flowers.
“Right you are, then—that’s all settled!” said Mr. Dobb, exchanging a glance of relief with the landlord. “And now, Joe, I think we’d better leave ’ere. Hettiquette, you know, hettiquettte! ’E was ’ere first, and it’s ’is privilege to remain.”
He seemed in some anxiety to remove Mr. Tridge from the scene, and, taking him by the arm, drew him to the door. Here he led the way out into the street. Mr. Tridge, with a farewell remark to the effect thathis opponent would be well advised to catch measles before the week was out, was about to follow Mr. Dobb, when a stout gentleman solemnly stepped forward to pat his shoulder with approval.
“I admire your pluck,” stated the stout gentleman.
“Huh!” exclaimed Mr. Tridge, glancing scornfully at Mr. Jevvings. “It don’t need much pluck!”
“But you know who he is, don’t you?” asked the other, wonderingly.
“Don’t know and don’t care!” was Mr. Tridge’s reckless reply. “I shall expect to learn ’oo ’e is at the inquest, any way.”
“You don’t know who he is?” gasped the stout gentleman, and then he patted Mr. Tridge’s shoulder again, but this time it was commiseratingly. “Why, that’s Ted Burch—youknow,theTed Burch! ‘Toff’ Burch, the Swindon Slogger!”
“What?” squealed Mr. Tridge. “A—a—a prize-fighter?”
“Middleweight champion of—”
“But—but I thought ’is name was Jevvings?”
“So it is,pro tem.,” returned his informant. “He’s stopping herenem. con., doing a little quiet training for a match he’s got next month against Billy Traske, of Birmingham, and—”
Mr. Tridge did not await further instruction concerning Mr. Edward Burch. He had passed through the door with extreme celerity and was already cantering passionately in pursuit of Mr. Horace Dobb. Speedily catching up with his quarry, Mr. Tridge seized him and charged him with the blackest of treachery towards an unsuspecting friend. Mr. Dobb, but slightly stirred by the accusation, obliquely admittedits truth by regretting that Mr. Tridge should so soon have learnt the truth about Mr. Burch.
“But—but what did you want to play me a trick like thatfor?” roared Mr. Tridge.
“Why, because you’d never else ’ave dared to do what you did,” calmly replied Mr. Dobb. “You said yourself you’d ’ave nothing whatever to do with prize-fighters. That’s why I ’ad to take all the trouble to make up all that yarn I told you about Jevvings being a wild young chap of this town. Otherwise I’d never have brought you up to the scratch.”
“Well, you don’t suppose I’m going any further with it, do you?” demanded Mr. Tridge. “Nofear!”
“Oh, but you can’t back out now, Joe!” argued Mr. Dobb. “It ’ud look so silly and cowardly if you backed out now.”
“I don’t care ’ow itlooksif I back out! I know ’ow it willfeelif Idon’tback out, anyway! I can’t think what possessed you to play such a silly trick on me! Getting me to agree to stand up to a professional boxer under false pretences! Why, I’ve half a mind—”
Mr. Dobb, beseeching Mr. Tridge to maintain calm, now promised to impart the exact truth of the matter, prefacing his statement with a catalogue of grisly things which he said he hoped would happen to him if he diverged from complete veracity by as much as a hair-breadth.
He admitted that Mr. Burch, otherwise Mr. Jevvings, was a pugilist of some prominence with a deserved fame for neat and businesslike finishes to his bouts. It was, it transpired, the aim and ideal of Mr. Burch to put a similarly neat and businesslike finish to his forthcoming encounter with Mr. William Traske, ofBirmingham. And, indeed, there was not the slightest doubt of Mr. Burch’s ability to do so. Unfortunately, there were others who held the same confidence as to the result, and this materially affected the betting on the issue of the match. In short, so overwhelmingly was Mr. Burch the favourite that it had become a matter of extreme difficulty to find anyone willing to bet against him, no matter how tempting the odds.
In these circumstances, it was thought expedient that something should transpire to lessen the popularity of Mr. Burch in betting circles. The landlord of the “Rose and Crown,” a party vested with considerable financial interests in Mr. Burch, had talked the matter over with other supporters, and together they had agreed on a plan. Further, the landlord of the “Rose and Crown,” being a close friend of Mr. Dobb’s and conversant with his abilities for organization, had called him in counsel and enlisted his services in the matter.
Briefly the scheme was this. Mr. Burch was to become involved in a quarrel with a local nobody, and to agree to settle the difference with boxing-gloves. Mr. Burch was to perform but indifferently at this match, failing to make the most of opportunities, and not getting in the knock-out blow till the twentieth round. There were spies in the Burch camp, and this strange remissness of his would indubitably be reported leading to a resurgence of confidence among the supporters of Mr. Traske, and so creating a profitable reaction on the betting market.
“But they’ll twig it’s a put-up job,” contended Mr. Tridge.
“No, they won’t, not them! You see, the affair’s supposed to be kept very quiet. Of course, it’s really a matter of hadvertisement, to hadvertise that Burch’as gone dead off form; but seeing that it’s a personal matter ’e’s fighting about, they’ll never dream ’e ain’t in earnest.”
Here, then, concluded Mr. Dobb, was the real office that Mr. Tridge was required to fill, and the only difference in it to that which he had aforetime imagined it to be was that he was expected to stand up to a professional boxer of proved ability, instead of a mere amateur of indifferent skill.
“The fighting part’s just the same,” pointed out Mr. Dobb. “You’ve only got to let ’im play about with you for a bit, and the twenty quid is yours.”
“Play about?” echoed Mr. Tridge.
“That’s all, Joe,” said Mr. Dobb, reassuringly. “And you get twenty quid for it. It’s a big sum, but I know we can rely on you to keep your mouth shut. And ’ere’s the ‘Jolly Sailors’—let’s turn in and talk it over quietly.”
This they proceeded to do, though, as time progressed, they talked less and less quietly. Mr. Dobb, after drawing over and over again an agreeable mental picture wherein Mr. Tridge, for a few paltry taps on the nose, was rewarded with a hair-dressing business of his very own, at length won the admission from his friend that it seemed worth it, after all.
“’Course it is,” affirmed Mr. Dobb. “You can take a bit of punishment, can’t you?”
“I cantakeit all right,” acquiesced Mr. Tridge. “The worst of it is that I always takes it faster than I gives it.”
“Besides, Joe, ’e won’t ’it you very ’ard,” wheedled Mr. Dobb. “You see ’e’s got to give the idea that ’e’s out of form. And it won’t be till the twentieth roundthat ’e knocks you out, so you’ll ’ave plenty of time to get used to the idea.”
“And I might go down of my own haccord in the nineteenth,” said Mr. Tridge, brightly. “Then ’e won’t ’ave a chance to put me properly to sleep.”
So that, when at length the law of the land compelled the “Jolly Sailors” to be churlish with its hospitality, Mr. Tridge had promised that no effort should be lacking on his part to crown the match with success, and he and his old shipmate parted on the best of terms.
Next morning, however, Mr. Tridge’s courage had suffered a relapse. Calling on Mr. Dobb at an early hour, he proclaimed his intention to abjure the match. In vain did Mr. Dobb fawn upon him with honeyed words; in vain did Mr. Dobb conjure up for him a splendid vision of a barber’s shop with “J. Tridge” in big letters over the door. Mr. Tridge was obdurate to mere verbal blandishments. It was only when Mr. Dobb, in desperation, offered to come with him and enter into pourparlers for early occupation of the little shop Mr. Tridge knew to be standing empty, that that unwilling gladiator again agreed to hold to the terms of his contract.
And even then he managed things with so adroit a reluctance that, before the day was over, Mr. Dobb, to clinch matters more effectually, was jockeyed into standing surety for the rent of the little shop, so that Mr. Tridge could enter into tenancy straightway.
For the next twenty-four hours Mr. Tridge was occupied with pails and brooms, getting his establishment into order, to the exclusion of all thoughts about the impending combat. That night, however, he was too tired to sleep, and next morning he again sought outMr. Dobb to place his resignation in his hands. But Mr. Dobb treated the crisis diplomatically by advancing him the wherewithal to purchase sundry implements of the hair-dressing profession. And, after that, Mr. Tridge could not but vow that he would cause no further concern of mind, and this promise he loyally kept.
None the less a marked moodiness of manner overcame him as the day of the encounter drew near, and often his deportment was that of a man doomed to early disintegration. To cheer him, Mr. Dobb contrived for him a secret meeting with Mr. Burch, who revealed himself as quite an amiable young gentleman, and promised Mr. Tridge that he should receive no real hurt until the final blow of the contest.
“And that,” interpolated Mr. Dobb, encouragingly, “you won’t be in your senses to feel, Joe, for more than a millionth part of a second, so you needn’t worry about that.”
And so we come to the day of the meeting, with Mr. Tridge, now visibly a prey to the direst forebodings, and with but a pathetic interest in his hairdressing shop, ready for immediate opening. For hours Mr. Tridge had gazed round the tiny place, sighing profoundly, as one who has achieved an aim too late in life, or else he had fondled the shining new implements reverently, as if already they were relics.
Mr. Dobb did his best to dissipate these mournful fears, reporting to Mr. Tridge that his financial share in the affair was abundantly secure, and that as soon after the conclusion of the contest as Mr. Tridge was able to think clearly, the landlord of the “Rose and Crown” was empowered to pay out to Mr. Tridge twenty pounds, less the amount already advanced by Mr. Dobb. And also Horace had endeavoured to stimulate Mr. Tridge’sinterest in life by causing to be affixed to the wall of the place of meeting a huge poster which announced the imminent opening of the Magnolia Toilet Saloon (proprietor, J. Tridge), Bridge Street, Shorehaven. At six o’clock that evening Mr. Tridge was disturbed in a singularly vain effort to secure a little refreshing slumber, and was called upon to receive Mr. Peter Lock. Mr. Lock, at the earnest request of his old shipmate, had consented to act as Mr. Tridge’s second, and by way of inculcating the proper bright spirit in his principal with a little facetiousness, he now entered the apartment with slow, measured tread, and with extraordinary gravity of mien.
“Joseph Tridge,” announced Mr. Lock, sepulchrally, “your hour is come!”
“Don’t go making a mock of sacred things!” irritably requested Mr. Tridge. “It ain’t funny—not at this minute.”
“Joseph Tridge,” droned on Mr. Lock, undeterred, in the same hollow tones, “have you made your will?”
“It so ’appens,” snapped Mr. Tridge, “I ’ave! This very hafternoon! Thanks be I ain’t left nothing to grinning i-i-enas!”
Mr. Lock, perceiving that Mr. Tridge’s nerves were not yet keyed to appreciation of personal badinage, now endeavoured to rally him by narrating to him a number of droll anecdotes, all of which Mr. Tridge received in stony silence. Mr. Lock was still indefatigably endeavouring to cheer his principal when the stout and venerable Mr. Samuel Clark made his appearance.
Mr. Clark essayed no levity of conversation. On the contrary, he crossed in silence to Mr. Tridge and gravely clasped his hand. This done, he patted Mr.Tridge on the shoulder with deep sympathy, shook his hand again, and then sat down with a long, deep sigh.
“Cheerful,youare!” growled Mr. Tridge. “What do you think you’ve come to—a fooneral?”
“Oh, no; not yet—not yet, Joe!” Mr. Clark made haste to reply. “But I must say I ’ad a most hextryordinary dream about you to-day. Most hextryordinary! I dreamed you was killed in this ’ere fight. Funny thing I should dream that, wasn’t it?”
“Funny?” fulminated Mr. Tridge.
“Anyway,” interposed Mr. Lock, “dreams always goes by contraries. It’ll be the other chap what’ll—”
“In my dream,” said Mr. Clark, “the other chap was so overcome by ’orror that ’e ’anged ’isself. So there you are—take your choice!”
For some moments Mr. Tridge sat apparently considering the selection. Then suddenly he rose and looked sadly in the mirror, and next he went slowly round the room, gazing at every article as though in tender farewell. Finally, shaking his head, he passed out of the apartment, and, followed by Mr. Clark and Mr. Lock, made his way to the “Rose and Crown.”
Here he found Mr. Dobb, who professed keen relief at sight of him, and forthwith conducted him to a dressing-room attached to the arena. Mr. Lock now offered to his principal much sage advice with regard to the coming contest; but Mr. Tridge was too occupied in his own mournful meditations to give useful heed.
“What—not dressed yet?” asked Horace, in surprise, entering the cubicle presently. “Why, you’ll be late! The ’all’s packed to overflowing, and there’s three chaps fell through the skylight already!”
As one in a dream Mr. Tridge began to disrobe and, later, to habit himself in the athletic garb Horace had procured for him.
“Now, come along!” ordered Horace, impatiently. “And for goodness’ sake, Joe, stop your knees from rattling so loud, else the referee won’t be able to ’ear ’isself speak! And do try to look ’appier!”
“I can’t!” confessed Mr. Tridge.
And now events marched through a haze to meet Mr. Tridge. He was aware of being pushed on to a platform by Mr. Lock’s shoulder, of being introduced to a crowded audience, of being fitted with enormous gloves. He heard plaudits greet his name, and would automatically have smiled his acknowledgments had he had the least control over his features. He saw the graceful, well-knit, frame of his adversary vividly super-imposed, as it were, on a cloud made up of seconds and attendants.
“Time!” declared an authoritative voice. Mr. Clark breathed on Mr. Tridge a final cheery but unteetotal wish for his good luck; Mr. Lock gave him a shove; and he found himself facing his opponent. He caught a glimpse of the Magnolia Shaving Saloon advertisement, and he subconsciously wondered whether a ceremonial black shutter had been included among the stock and fixtures.
Mr. Jevvings bore down on him, glove outstretched, for the etiquette of handshaking. As hand met hand, Mr. Jevvings winked surreptitiously at Mr. Tridge in token of remembrance of the terms of the secret treaty. A sudden alertness illumined Mr. Tridge’s mind.
And as Mr. Jevvings carelessly stepped back from the handshake, Mr. Tridge’s left arm shot out, unexpectedly and violently and accurately. With a terrificimpact it landed squarely on the jaw of the unprepared Mr. Jevvings.
Mr. Jevvings momentarily had the illusion of sailing skyward. Then he landed on the floor with a resounding thud.
Mr. Tridge, palpitating almost tearfully ’twixt fear and hope, hovered near him; but he lay there inert, and they counted him out. And so Shorehaven’s most sensational boxing-bout came to an abrupt end at its very start.
Again high emotion wrapped a mist around Mr. Tridge, but now it was tinged with a roseate hue, for, lo! the fight was over and he was still alive, and, more wonderful still, uninjured. This alone he could apprehend with the forefront of his mind, but remoter regions of his brain took heed that there was cheering and drinking and speeches; there was abject worship from the stout Mr. Clark, warm commendation from Mr. Peter Lock. And, most gratifying of all, there was public presentation of the residue of the twenty pounds, correct to a penny, and also there was a collection which a dazed but approving audience supported to the extent of eleven pounds four and six.
Within an hour Mr. Tridge was being lionized in the bar-parlour. Men strove for the honour of buying drinks for him, feeling well repaid if he recognized their existence in return. Quite plutocratic people vied with each other for the privilege of speaking deferentially to him, and importantly bade each other hush when he condescended to voice his opinions on any subject. For Mr. Tridge had won a battle in record time against the wildest expectation, and was now a hero and had raised himself into the ranks of the Temporary Immortals.
Mr. Dobb alone appeared out of sympathy with the popular mood for acclamation. For some while he sat silently watching Mr. Tridge among his courtiers. At last, unable to repress his emotions any longer, he rose and led Mr. Tridge into the obscurity of the passage outside.
“What the dooce did you do it for?” irascibly demanded Horace.
“It was a hinspiration,” said Mr. Tridge, modestly. “Just as the start was called, I looked up and I see that hadvertisement of my saloon. Somehow it come into my ’ead all in a flash what you said about the match being all a matter of hadvertisement, and a idea come to me that almost blinded me. I didn’t see why I shouldn’t get the hadvertisement for me and my saloon. I could see ’ow everybody ’ud troop up to be shaved by a chap what ’ad knocked out Toff Burch of Swindon. I could see ’ow useful my reppytation would be to keep customers in order when they complained if I cut ’em. And then I done it. Almost before I could think ’ow I was to do it, I done it. I knew I shouldn’t get a better chance, I knew ’e wouldn’t be troubling at all and that ’e wasn’t hexpecting me to do anything, and I done it. And it come off.”
“’E’ll ’alf kill you for it later on,” prophesied Mr. Dobb, with malevolent satisfaction.
“Oh, no, ’e won’t! I’ve ’ad a chat with ’im since ’e come round. ’E was pretty sore about it, ’e owned, but ’e don’t so much mind now. For why? Already they’re hoffering three to one against ’im for ’is match with Traske of Birmingham. So ’e’s quite satisfied, after all. And I’ve took care to see that I ain’t hexpected to meet ’im again, because I’ve been telling every one I’d made a vow long ago to give up boxingfor hever from this night forth, and they all agrees with me that I couldn’t ’ave made a better end-up.”
“Well, every one else may be satisfied, butIain’t,” said Mr. Dobb, a little awkwardly. “I’ll tell you for why. Knowing ’ow things was planned I’d been making a good lot of bets at long odds on this match—fourteen pounds in all—against you, of course. And, seeing as you’ve upset everything, I reckon it ’ud only be friendly and fair, out of your collection and so forth, to make good a bit of my loss to me.”
“Come round to-morrow when I open,” invited Mr. Tridge, happily, “and you shall be the first customer and I’ll shave you free. There!”
“Don’t try to get out of it like that, Joe. Fair’s fair! If you’d done what you was hexpected to I’d ’ave made money. As it is, I’ve lost it. And you’ve got your collection, and the rest of your twenty quid, and—”
“And I’ve got a motter, too, ’Orace,” said Mr. Tridge, softly, turning to the door of the bar-parlour. “It’s the same as yours,” he ended, with a grin, as he returned to adulation.
The single, succinct phrase, “Doings!” linked to an address and an hour, had been passed round among the former shipmates of that obsolete vessel the “Jane Gladys,” and this slogan, acting much after the manner of a Fiery Cross, had immediately rallied the old confederacy to a ready eagerness to stand shoulder to shoulder again to take toll of the world by the exercise of those devious methods at which they were so expert.
And now here, in the cosy back parlour of the little shop in Fore Street, was assembled that quartet upon whom long companionship in the “Jane Gladys” had conferred a sinister brotherhood in ignoble aims and disreputable ambitions; and though each member had passed into a divergent class of shore-abiding life, it was plain that they were all still closely united by a common passion for petty intrigue.
Informal presidency over the meeting was exercised by Mr. Horace Dobb. At Mr. Dobb’s right hand sat the trim and debonair Mr. Peter Lock. On Mr. Dobb’s left was the corpulent and venerable Mr. Samuel Clark, who, by virtue of his appointment of ferryman across the mouth of Shorehaven Harbour, still preserved some remnant of his former nautical environment. Opposite to Mr. Dobb was Mr. Joseph Tridge, who had fortuitously laid aside his maritime jersey to wear a cottonoverall in that hairdressing shop which Fate and force had secured for him.
Despite the stimulating and still undisclosed purpose for which the assemblage had been convened, the opening stages of the reunion were largely made up of spaces of vaunting autobiography, contributed by each of the members in a jostling, ill-disciplined way, sometimes separately, but usually in a pressing, conflicting chorus.
Thus Mr. Clark recounted, with great glee, as an example of his acumen, an anecdote concerning a foreign client who was unfamiliar both with the British system of coinage and the current rate of payment for passage on a ferry-boat. Mr. Tridge, in a similar boastful spirit, rehearsed some of his most successful retorts to customers who complained of dull razors or blunt scissors or intrusive lather-brushes. Mr. Dobb, for his part, supplied glowing accounts of the profits to be derived from the second-hand business by a man who was neither unperceptive nor too scrupulously honest and Mr. Lock, not to be overshadowed, revealed many hitherto unsuspected ways by which a billiard-marker might add substantially to his income.
And so the time wore on very pleasantly, till at last Mr. Dobb, looking pointedly at the clock, cleared his throat, and leaning his folded arms on the table, patently assumed a waiting attitude. Instantly a hush intervened, and something of an electric thrill coursed through this old and tried combination of small adventurers, for the time for consideration of serious business was come.
“Well, ’ere we are,” said Mr. Dobb, gazing round on his fellows, “all well and truly hestablished in the town of Shore’aven, like we’ve always ’oped and planned.Sitting round bragging about our cleverness is all very well, but you know my motter, don’t you?”
“‘Strictly business!’” supplied Mr. Tridge. “And I only wish I ’ad ’alf the friendly pints together it must ’ave saved you!”
“It’s a good motter,” said Mr. Dobb, equably. “It’s saved me a lot of talk, anyway, when you chaps ’ave dropped round on the chance of borrering a bob or two. ‘Strictly business!’—that’s got to be the motter for all of us, from now on. We’ve only to work together, and we can make ourselves ’ated for twenty miles round Shore’aven.”
“We used to be ’ated for a ’undred miles round the poor old ‘Jane Gladys,’” recalled Mr. Tridge, regretfully.
“‘Strictly business!’—that’s got to be one of our motters,” continued Mr. Dobb. “And the other must be ‘’Elp one another!’”
“Well, I like that!” exploded Mr. Clark. “And only the day before yesterday you refused to let me ’ave a cracked old second-’and teapot on credit!”
“And now ’ere we are, all hassembled for a trial trip, so to speak,” said Mr. Dobb, blandly ignoring the interruption. “If we work it right, there’s a couple of quid in it for each of you.”
“And what doyoutake?” demanded Mr. Tridge.
“I take the risk,” answered Mr. Dobb, simply.
“Oh, well, what’s the hidea, anyway?” asked Mr. Lock. “The boss ’as only given me one night off from the saloon, so I can’t stop here till to-morrow while you and Joe gets arguing as to whether you’re a miser or a philanthro-what-is-it! I suppose you’ve got some notion to put before us? You generally have.”
“And I ’ave now.” Mr. Dobb assured him. “A good ’un, too! You know old George Pincott?”
“The chap what’s lately started in the second-hand business in opposition to you?” returned Mr. Lock. “Aye, I know him. He often drops in at our place for a game of billiards.”
“I know ’e does,” admitted Mr. Dobb. “I’ve been taking that into account.”
“I know ’im, too,” put in Mr. Tridge. “’E comes round to me every day for a shave.”
“So I understand,” said Mr. Dobb, dryly.
“’E’s doing pretty well for a new-comer, too, ain’t ’e?” queried Mr. Clark, not without suspicion of relish.
“Too jolly well!” declared Mr. Dobb.
“’E wouldn’t buy my carumgorum studs off of me, though,” mentioned Mr. Clark, as though this were a circumstance that disproved Mr. Pincott’s business inefficiency. “Three chances I give ’im, too, to say nothing of leaving ’em at ’is shop for four days for ’im to make up ’is mind. ’E was out when I left ’em.”
“Oh, ’e ain’t a fool, not by no means!” observed Mr. Dobb. “Well, and now do you know Mr. Simon Lister?”
“I know hof ’im,” volunteered Mr. Clark. “’E’s that old chap what lives in the big new ’ouse along the London road, what used to be something in the hoil and colour line.”
“That’s the chap,” accepted Mr. Dobb. “’E come into a fortune, unexpected, about a year ago. ’E’s one of my regular customers.”
“What! you don’t mean to say a rich old chap like that drops around with old iron and odd crockery to sell to you?” cried Mr. Tridge, in surprise.
“Oh, no!” corrected Mr. Dobb, a trifle loftily. “’E belongs to the hart section of my business. He buys off of me; ’e don’t sell. ’E buys china and vallyble hornyments and so forth. A collector, ’e is, only the better kind. What they calls a connosher. ’E only goes in for good stuff.”
“And ’e buys it off ofyou?” asked Mr. Tridge, incredulous.
Momentarily Mr. Dobb’s eye drooped.
“’E don’t know so very much about hart,” he observed. “’E goes very largely by what I tells ’im.”
“And what doyouknow about hart?” asked Mr. Lock, gaping.
“If I can do business by making out I knows things,” said Mr. Dobb, firmly, “Iknows’em! See? Anyway, I make out I do. And ’e’s got the money to spare to get a collection together, and ’e comes to me to ’elp ’im, and I ain’t the man to refuse ’elp to anyone with money. Pounds and pounds ’e’s spent with me, just on my recommendation. I let ’im think that I think ’e knows nearly as much as I do about hart, and ’e thinks, therefore, as I wouldn’t think of cheating ’im.”
“There seems a lot of thinking about it,” said Mr. Lock.
“It’s a hobby of mine,” returned Mr. Dobb, “thinking is.”
“And you wouldn’t dream of deceiving ’im, I’ll lay!” said Mr. Tridge, ironically. “No more would I sell a chap off the ‘Raven’ a solid, rolled-gold himitation ring for a quid if I ’ad ’alf a chance!”
“China and brickybacks ’e’s bought off of me, and a few rare old prints, and some genuine hoil-paintings,” catalogued Mr. Dobb. “And some odds and ends what’e calls bigjewrious and virtue. ’E’s got the money to spend, and ’e wants to spend it, and ’oo am I to stand in the way of a man’s wishes?”
“It’s better than a lottery,” said Mr. Clark, wistfully. “And ’ave you got ’im all to yourself, ’Orace?”
“Up to a few days ago,” replied Mr. Dobb. “And that brings me to the matter in ’and. Old George Pincott got to ’ear about this ’ere Mr. Lister, and ’e’s trying ’ard to get ’is ’ooks in ’im and drag ’im clean away from me. After all, I found ’im first, and so I told Pincott, but ’is only answer was that all was fair in love and war.”
Mr. Dobb paused and sighed at such commercial laxity. Mr. Tridge feelingly remarked that he did not know how the principle acted in war, but that sometimes it made things very awkward so far as love was concerned. He was about to cite an instance when Mr. Dobb again claimed attention.
“Ever been in that poky little sweetstuff shop ’alf way down Market Lane?” he asked, as a general question. “Oh, well, I ain’t surprised!” he continued, as heads were shaken negatively. “It’s a tumble-down, ramshackle little place. But there’s a big hoil-painting ’anging up against the end wall, because that’s the only place where they can find room for it.”
“What sort of a picture?” asked Mr. Lock, with interest. “Saucy?”
“No, it’s supposed to be a bit of scenery—scenery in a fog at twilight, by the look of it. It’s signed by a chap called Carrotti, and the old gal what keeps the shop will tell you that it’s been in ’er family for ’undreds of years. She won’t sell it, she says, because it’s a heirloom in the family.”
“Sentimental old geezer,” commented Mr. Clark. “I’d sell—well, I don’t know what I wouldn’t sell if I ’ad the chance!”
“’Ave you tried to buy it off of ’er?” asked Mr. Tridge.
“I haven’t, and I ain’t going to, neither,” said Mr. Dobb. “I’m going to give old George Pincott a chance to buy it and make a big profit out of it.”
“But—” expostulated Mr. Lock, at such altruism.
“It looks,” continued Mr. Dobb, imperturbably, “as if it might be one of them there Old Masters. But it ain’t! Not by no means! I’ve took the opportunity to examine it pretty thorough, and, though I may not know much about hart really, I do know enough to know that this pickcher ain’t worth as much as the frame round it.”
“I see!” declared Mr. Lock, slapping his knee exultantly. “You want George Pincott to buy it and then get stuck with it?”
“Oh, no, I wouldn’t wish ’im anything so unkind as that!” denied Mr. Dobb, primly. “I want ’im to buy it and go along to sell it to Mr. Lister at a good profit.”
“You’ll be growing wings and learning the ’arp next!” foretold Mr. Tridge, in wide-eyed astonishment.
“Yes, and while ’e’s trying to sell it to ’im,” purred Mr. Dobb, “I’mgoing to step in and hexpose it as a fraud! And that ought to get old Lister away from Pincott and back safe to me and my shop for ever and ever, oughtn’t it?”
“Yes; but how are you going to get Pincott to buy it?” asked Mr. Lock.
“Well, in the first place,” said Mr. Dobb, “don’t forget that Pincott keeps a pretty close eye on me, andthat ’e generally goes by what I do, seeing I’m quicker at the business than ’e is. And, for another thing don’t forget that ’e’s a new-comer to these parts, and don’t know that us four was all shipmates together once.”
“Yes, but how—” began Mr. Lock again.
“Ah, that’s where you chaps comes in,” stated Mr. Dobb, and began to converse in lowered, more earnest tones with each of his old companions in turn.
It was on the following evening that the squat and not completely fashionable figure of Mr. George Pincott entered the billiard-room of the “Royal William.” The hour was still early, and Mr. Peter Lock, the marker, was rather forlornly reading a newspaper in a corner. Considerably did he brighten at the advent of even so unremunerative a patron as Mr. Pincott, and willingly did he accept that gentleman’s challenge to play a short game in the interval of waiting for brisker business.
“I see a friend of yours this afternoon, sir,” observed Mr. Lock, casually, after a while. “At least, hardly a friend, but more of an acquaintance.”
“Oh!” said Mr. Pincott, without much interest.
Mr. Lock squinted along his cue, made a shot, and retrieved the red ball from a pocket.
“Mr. Dobb, of Fore Street,” he said.
“Oh,’im?” said Mr. Pincott.
“Yessir, Mr. Dobb,” went on Mr. Lock; and was silent till he had brought another stroke to fruition. “Looking very pleased with himself, he was, too.”
“Why, was Mr. Lister along with him?” quickly asked Mr. Pincott.
“No, sir, he was alone. He must be finding business very good just at present. He couldn’t help smiling as he walked along, and he stopped and chatted to me asaffable as affable. He told me I ought to give up billiard-marking for picture-dealing. He said there was big money to be made at it by a chap who keeps his eyes open. It struck me at the time that it was rather a pity in some ways that he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Mind you, sir, I think he’d been—”
Mr. Lock made a pantomimic gesture indicating the assuagement of thirst.
“Ah!” cried Mr. Pincott, with a rising inflexion. “And what else did ’e say?”
“Well, sir, I don’t know as I ought to repeat it, you being a trade rival of his, so to speak,” said Mr. Lock, chalking his cue afresh. “But, after all, he didn’t tell me nothing very definite. It seems—”
He ceased to speak, transferring his entire attention to the preliminaries of a stroke.
“Well, what did ’e tell you?” demanded Mr. Pincott, when Mr. Lock stood erect again with a sigh of relief, and then began to stride purposefully towards the top of the table.
“Who, sir?” asked Mr. Lock, bending for further effort.
“Why, Dobb!”
“Dobb? Oh, yes!” said Mr. Lock. “Ah, I thought there was just the right exact amount of ‘side’ on that one!”
“About this ’ere Dobb!” Mr. Pincott impatiently reminded him.
“Oh, yes! Well, he didn’t tell me so very much, after all, sir. Only something about being on the track of a vallyble picture, what was hanging up practically unbeknown in this very town here, and about him hoping to buy it cheap before anyone else slipped in and snapped it up.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Mr. Pincott, thoughtfully. “Oh!” he repeated, still more thoughtfully. “Oh, ’e said that, did ’e? Did ’e tell you where the picture was?”
“No, sir, he didn’t say no more after that. He just lit a cigar and walked on.”
For a few seconds Mr. Pincott silently contemplated this goading mental picture of Mr. Dobb prodigally lighting cigars, plainly an earnest and foretaste of opulence to come. Then Mr. Pincott turned again to the marker and urged him to strive to remember every word that had passed in this interview with Mr. Dobb.
Mr. Lock, obliging, repeated some severe strictures of Mr. Dobb’s with regard to the district council, the state of the weather, and the badness of the local railway service. He was unable, however, to add one iota to that which he had already repeated concerning Mr. Dobb’s boasted pictorial discovery.
In the circumstances it was not surprising that Mr. Lock won the game with unusual ease, for Mr. Pincott had become heavily meditative, and in this mood he continued long after he had left the billiard-table, and it was still on him in a slightly increased degree when he came down to breakfast next morning.
It was soon after that meal that the bell affixed to the door of his shop summoned Mr. Pincott to the counter. Standing near the door, in an attitude somewhat furtive and hesitant, was a stout and aged mariner whom Mr. Pincott identified as the propulsive power of the ferry plying across the harbour mouth.
“Can I—can I speak to you, private and confident, for a minute, sir?” asked Mr. Clark, hoarsely.
“It depends,” hedged Mr. Pincott.
“It ain’t nothing to do with carumgorums this time, sir,” promised Mr. Clark.
“If it’s anything the police might want to know about,” said Mr. Pincott, “you’ve come to the wrong shop. Come at the wrong time o’ day, anyway.”
“Nor it ain’t anything to do with lead piping nor door-knockers, nor anything like that, sir,” disclaimed Mr. Clark.
“Then what is it?”
Mr. Clark gazed cautiously about him, and then, articulating into the back of his hand in a conspiratorial way, whispered across the counter.
“Eh?” asked Mr. Pincott. “I didn’t ’ear? Carrots? This ain’t a greengrocery!”
“I asked,” said Mr. Clark, more audibly, “’ow much is Carrottis worth?”
“Carrottis?” echoed Mr. Pincott, puzzled. “What are they, anyway?”
“Pickchers,” explained Mr. Clark. “Sort of these clarrsical pickchers painted by a chap called Carrotti, ages and ages ago.”
“’Ow the dooce should I know?” irritably began Mr. Pincott; and then his professional instincts asserted themselves. “They—they might be worth anything, up or down. It all depends. What makes you ask?”
“There’s a certain party wants to buy one,” said Mr. Clark. “And ’e’s made a offer for it, and it’s been refused. And ’e’s asked me to go along and make a little ’igher offer for it on ’is behalf and yet not on his behalf, if you takes my meaning. ’E’s frightened that they know ’e’s keen on getting it. And I says to myself that if there’s money to be made, why shouldn’t I make a bit extra, too? That’s only fair, ain’t it, sir?”
“Yes, yes,” assented Mr. Pincott. “And who might your friend be?”
“Ah, that ’ud be telling,” said Mr. Clark. “And I promised to keep ’is name right out of it. But,” he added, leering artfully, “there’s only you and ’im in the same business in this ’ere town.”
“’Orace Dobb!” cried Mr. Pincott.
“Well, I can take my haffydavit that I never told you ’is name, now, can’t I?” pointed out Mr. Clark, primly. “Well, be ’e ’oo ’e may, why should I take the trouble to buy it for ’im for a small tip when some one else might be willing to give me a bigger one? ’E ain’t got no particular call on me, and business is business when all’s said and done, ain’t it, sir?”
“Of course,” assented Mr. Pincott. “Why shouldn’t you be artful as well as anybody else? Where did you say the pickcher was?”
“I didn’t say,” replied Mr. Clark, gently.
“Well, ’ow can I say whether I want to buy it if I ’aven’t seen it?” contended Mr. Pincott, frowning.
“Ah, I wasn’t born yestiddy!” declared Mr. Clark, acutely. “If I tells you where the picture is to be found I might as well be right out of the affair altogether. You’d go along and buy it on your own, behind my back.”
“No such thing,” denied Mr. Pincott, with overdone indignation.
“Oh, well, I can proteck my own hinterests, thanks be!” stated Mr. Clark, easily. “I’ll wait till things is a bit further hadvanced before I commits myself. I’ll find out what price she’s willing to take, and see you again before I sees Mr. Dobb. ’Ow will that do?”
“That’s a good idea,” commended Mr. Pincott. “But—but I shouldn’t waste no time if I was you.I’d go right down there now, wherever it is, and carry things a step farther without delay.”
“And so I will, this minute,” agreed Mr. Clark. He favoured Mr. Pincott with a vast wink, and nodded very knowingly at him in token of mutual understanding. He then took his departure, and Mr. Pincott, giving him a grudged start of one minute, followed cautiously after him. The fact that Mr. Clark, without stopping anywhere, made his way directly back to his employment at the ferry caused Mr. Pincott to speak of that aged man’s duplicity in the harshest terms.
“Oh, well, anyway, I’m further than I was last night!” was the consolation Mr. Pincott eventually found for himself. “It’s a Carrotti, and Dobb’s found it and means to buy it at a bargain, and intends to sell it to old Lister, no doubt. However, there’s nothing to prevent me selling it to Lister either, if I can get ’old of it. Carrotti?” he mused. “First I’ve ever ’eard of ’im, but ’esoundsall right. Anyway, if it’s good enough for Dobb, it’s good enough for me.”
And with a grin of satisfaction at the prospect of defeating his sole competitor in the district, Mr. Pincott put on his hat again, and sauntered along for his customary shave.
He found the Magnolia Toilet Saloon to be void of customers, and at once sat down in the operating chair. Mr. Tridge, deftly tucking a towel about his patron’s throat, began to indulge in conversation with professional fluency.
“And ’ow’s business, sir?” he asked. “Pretty bright, I ’ope? There seems to be plenty of money knocking about the town for them as knows where to look for it. I know one gent, a customer of mine, what reckons to clear easy fifty quid over a little deal ’e’sgot in ’and, and the funny part of it is that ’e ain’t bought what ’e’s after yet. ’E’s made a offer, but—”
He stopped abruptly and, obtaining Mr. Pincott’s attention in the mirror, frowned warningly at him as Mr. Dobb entered.
“I understand,” said Mr. Pincott.
Mr. Dobb nodded patronizingly to Mr. Tridge, and accorded a rather more patronizing nod to Mr. Pincott. He then sat down quietly with a newspaper to await his turn for Mr. Tridge’s services. This coming at last, he took his place in the chair with marked alacrity.
“Don’t keep me longer than you can ’elp,” he directed. “I’m a bit later than I meant to be already. Give me a nice, clean shave, will you? I’m just on my way to see a lady on business.”
Mr. Pincott, in the act of passing through the doorway, involuntarily turned round and stared at Mr. Dobb.
When, ten minutes later, Mr. Dobb emerged from Mr. Tridge’s establishment, lovingly caressing and pinching a velvet chin, he betrayed not the slightest indication that he was aware that Mr. Pincott was lurking inconspicuously at an adjacent corner. Mr. Dobb, as one with a definite purpose, walked sharply up the street, turned into the neighbouring High Street, and thence crossed the wide market place diagonally. His itinerary was closely watched and imitated by Mr. Pincott.
And next Mr. Dobb made his way down the narrow, tumble-down alley known as Market Lane, still vigilantly attended by his trade rival. Finally, Mr. Dobb halted at a little sweetstuff shop, and without looking round, entered at its door. Mr. Pincott, finding convenient ambush near by, patiently waited for someminutes, and at last saw Mr. Dobb come again to the threshold of the tiny shop. Here Mr. Dobb turned round, and seemed to be in earnest discussion with some one within, eventually going off back along Market Lane with his hands deep thrust in his pockets and a dissatisfied expression on his face.
Mr. Pincott elatedly watched Mr. Dobb vanish from sight. Then, with long, eager strides, he went across the street and entered the little shop to the symptoms of tempestuous jangling of its door-bell. A female gazed at him inquiringly from behind the counter, but Mr. Pincott made no immediate remark to her, for he was engrossed in staring at a huge and pitchy landscape. Closer examination revealed the signature of “Andrew Carrotti” flung across a corner in a crimson scrawl.
“Very old picture, that,” observed the lady behind the counter, speaking with a kind of heavy and mechanical civility. “Been in our family for years and years. Not for sale, of course. We only hangs it up there because there ain’t any other room for it. And what can I get for you, please, sir?”
“Not for sale, eh?” said Mr. Pincott.
“No, sir,” she replied, definitely. “There’s another gent just been in and tried ’ard to buy it, but I ’ad to refuse him. Was you thinking of choc’lates, sir? We’ve got some just fresh in.”
Of certain negotiations which, despite the lady’s unwillingness, followed so swiftly and with such continuity of impact, it is superfluous to write. Suffice it to record that Mr. Pincott, fortified and stimulated by the thought that here was something he was snatching from the very grasp of Mr. Dobb, was content to believe that the intrinsic unloveliness of the picture did not matter, and that its value was not its value as awork of art, but as a piece of property for which Mr. Lister would pay handsomely.
So at last the lady, conceded her sex’s privilege, changed her mind, and was at last prevailed upon to part with the picture at a price which was only satisfactory to Mr. Pincott for the justification it afforded him to demand profits on the higher scale from Mr. Simon Lister.
In some excitement and a decrepit cab, Mr. Pincott carted his purchase direct to that gentleman’s abode in the suburbs of Shorehaven. Mr. Dobb, who had been doing a little reconnoitring duty in his turn, saw the vehicle turn into the London road with its burden, and he followed after it on foot.
Staggering spectacularly beneath his load, Mr. Pincott was ushered into the presence of Mr. Lister.
“Lawks!” was Mr. Lister’s simple tribute to the dramatic quality of the occasion. “Whatever ’ave you got there?” he asked, somewhat unnecessarily. “A picture?”
“Pickcher?” said Mr. Pincott, setting down the landscape flat on the table, and mopping his forehead. “It’ll be about the finest thing in your collection. I bought it for you, a rare bargain. ’Alf the dealers in the kingdom was after it, but I managed to diddle ’em!”
“It—it ain’t very ’andsome,” mildly criticized the worthy amateur.
“’Andsome?” queried Mr. Pincott. “What’s it want to be ’andsome for? It’s a genuine Old Master! ’Undreds of years old! It’s been in one family for generations.”
“Ah, that’s the kind of thing I want,” said Mr. Lister. “And ’ow did you come to ’ear of it?”
“I’ve ’ad my eye on it for months past,” Mr. Pincott told him. “I’ve been waiting my opportunity. You know ’ow it is in our line. You ’ave to go slow, otherwise you’re likely to get the price raised.”
“That’s so,” said Lister, with a nod of appreciation for such nice consideration of his pocket. “And ’oo’s it by?” he queried, examining the canvas with enhanced interest.