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Whispering Windows
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'Books by the Same Author
Limehouse Nights:
Tales of Chinatown
TivinJtletoes
Nights in Town:
A London Autobiography
London Lamps:
A Book of Songs
Out and About:
More Nights in Town
The Song Book of Qitong Lee of
Limehouse
The Outer Circle:
Rambles in Remote London


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Tales of the Waterside
By
Thomas Burke
Author of "Litnehoicse Nights"
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Grant Richards Limited
St Martin's Street
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Whispering Windows
v


Books by the Same Author
Limehouse Nights :
Tales of Chinatown
Twinkletoes
Nights in Town:
A London Autobiography
London Lamps :
A Book of Songs
Out and About :
More Nights in Town
The Song Book of Quong Lee of
Limehouse
The Outer Circle :
Rambles in Remote London


Whispering Windows
Tales of the Waterside
Thomas Burke
Author of " Limehouse Nights”
London
Grant Richards Limited
St Martin's Street
mdccccxxi


First Frinted
Peprinted
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. April 1921
. May 1921
Printed in Great Britain by the Riverside Press Limited
Edinburgh


1-18-357771B
Winifred
To
,
386476





Contents
raft
The Yellow Scarf
9
A Game of Poker
33
Katie the Kid
51
The Heart of a Child
69
The Dumb Wife .
81
Bluebell .
101
A Family Affair .
127
The Little Flowers of Frances
143
The Perfect Girl.
155
The Affair at the Warehouse
167
Big Boy Blue .
185
Mazurka
199
The Scarlet Shoes
211
The Good Samaritans
239
Twelve Golden Curls
251
Miss Plum-Blossom
267
The Cam
. 281
The Song of Ho Ling
295





■ s


THE shape and soul of Shadwell are
reflected in its name. Shadwell!
Cold, grey, stony syllables, without
lustre or savour; flat to the eye and the
palate. It lies derelict between the river
and Commercial Road. Its main streets are
forlorn and blear of aspect, and are named
in cruel mockery—Formosa Terrace, Acacia
Grove, Plum-tree Walk, Laburnum Court.
Its dominant odours are fried fish and bilge-
water. Its colour by day is of cobweb; by
night, of the jungle. Its noise is persistent;
a brown drone overridden by intermittent
crashes. It is sliced at intervals by alleys
without light, whose silence is not peace, but
silence so tense that one knows it must soon
be broken by some sound of dread. On the
flood-tide floats from Limehouse the bitter-
sweet alluring smell of Asia; and the spring
comes slowly up this way.
It is a circus of harsh, unavailing endeavour.
Here wealth does not accumulate, though men
decay. Its people are casual labourers, out-
casts, petty thieves, ineffectual shopkeepers.
They are for ever splashily busy, without aim
or hope, in this and that puny enterprise ; and
are perpetually harassed in chasing the cocky
and elusive one-and-sixpence. Their evenings
n


Whispering Windows
are as stressful as their days, for they bring to
the quest for entertainment the flurried zeal
that directs their businesses. In the beetling
tenement houses they set their gramophones
buzzing. In the mission halls venturesome
voices lift the bathos of hymn tunes to tragedy.
From dim-lit bars the debilitated music of
electric pianos brings ill-tidings of the search
for gaiety; and above them all blares the
band of the Salvation Army, strenuously
wanton.
In a minor street of this district stood once
a small shop with dim, reticent windows.
Through these dusty windows sniggering boy.s
would peer, and would nudge one another
with furtive comment. The stock, dusty as
the windows, seemed to have been thrown
together by disdainful hands. There were
faded photographs of monster-limbed actresses,
in tights; a few books in paper covers, with
titles matching the maladroit archness of the
photographs; some bottles of scent with
variegated labels; and little packets of toilet
accessories. The ill-informed might have
assumed, from the style and condition of the
display, that the owner was letting his business
run to ruin; while, in fact, he was doing very
well. The goods in his window were not
12


The Yellow Scarf
exposed for sale; they were a nod and a wink
to the knowing ones that he had other tricks
up his sleeve.
The shop bore no name on the front, but
it was known to be the property of one Mr
Bronsden. He was a most worthy man. He
kept himself to himself; and in England there
is no more certain way of winning the respect
of one's neighbours. He was a large man.
His visage was sour; his complexion sanguine.
* His head was thatched with a mass of beer-
; coloured hair. His clothes and linen were
always soiled, and he kept himself in tune
with them, and walked with humility in side
streets. Sour as his visage was, he could, on
occasion, be jocose, and was so with esteemed
customers; but jocosity came heavily from
him, and his jokes were as sour and muddy as
the lips over which they crawled.
This Bronsden owned, besides a comfortable
little business, a wife. Few people had seen
■ her. Few people indeed had even had sight
of his private apartments. He was not a man
. who took pride or joy in his possessions.
Though the wife was a recent acquisition, he
{ took less account of her than some of his
customers took of their home-made rabbit-
S hutches. Perhaps he was justified, for he had
J3


Whispering Windows
picked her off the streets. This is an action
whose merit cannot be denied, for he found
her when she had been but a few days in
that situation, and, by his intervention, she
was snatched from its attendant calamities.
Beaten and broken, she was wandering about
the streets, when he came across her, and
listened perfunctorily to her bitter words that
were half appeal and half defiance.
Without any clear motive, he gave her
shelter. Then he dismissed the old woman
who played at attending him and robbed him
of food and money, and installed Hetty in
her place, and married her. The contract was
plainly set forth ; she entered his establishment
as indoor servant, with duties, personal cash
allowance, household allowance, and reason-
able freedom of movement. Her position
only differed from that of the ordinary
domestic help by her being joined in holy
matrimony to her employer : a rite upon
which he had insisted so that she should be
his fixed property.
Now should she have been proud of the
dignity conferred upon her—a wastrel of the
alleys; and for a few weeks she was. Then,
being a servant in a good home ceased to
content her. She wanted to stir delight in
14


The Yellow Scarf
the muffled heart of Bronsden, and found that
it was not in her power to do so. In her
company, or without it, he was passive; her
fluttering gesture and gamesome eye drew no
response or quickening of the blood from him.
He accepted her, as he accepted his pipe.
Yet beauty rested in her weary face and her
flowing figure, and she knew it and longed for
its recognition. Because he was oblivious of
her charms, she began to hate him ; and because,
to her honest mind, this neglect afforded no
proper reason for hatred, she began to cast
about for a reason.
She soon found one. Her distaste for
her situation developed rapidly. I think she
was not a woman of normal sensibilities.
Though he was a strong, silent man, she could
not reverence him. Though he was hard and
heavy with his tongue, she did not admire the
brute. She was foolish enough to want things
to which she was not entitled : gentle hands,
and respect, and little courtesies. Bronsden
looked down to her from stony heights, but
she did not look up to him. He had taken
her from the streets in his big, abstracted
way, on her first journey of misery, and had
made her respectable. He had given her
money for frocks and chocolates and knick-
15


Whispering Windows
knacks. By Shadwell standards, he was the
perfect husband. He was kind, in his aloof
way, and occasionally sportive. She was
indeed in a position to be envied. But ... he
was her rescuer, her benefactor. By all human
ideas he was entitled to her gratitude and her
service. In the eyes of the world she was
deep in his debt. It was this fact that bit
and burned her heart night and day. Herein
she found good and sufficient reason for
hatred.
In a room at the rear of his shop, looking
on to a blank wall, he had fixed a laboratory,
and there he toiled by day and increased the
wadded brown smell of Shadwell as he com.
pounded his dreadful medicines and surgical
goods. To the shop would come often men of
horrid aspect and slinking demeanour. They
would murmur diffident words to Bronsden
and would follow him through the living-room
to the laboratory at the back; and there the two
would remain in murmurous confabulation,
with interjected sniggers. And in the living-
room Hetty would sit and feed upon her
hate.
Now all men are not so impervious to the
graces of woman as this Bronsden. Tom the
Toff was an inflammable young man; what is
16


The Yellow Scarf
known, in certain circles, as a warm member.
One glance from bright eyes would set him
alight. He was as combustible as powder.
And when, one morning, he passed Hetty in
St George's, her eyes applied the match. He
followed her. He noted where she lived, and
hung about each morning to watch for her
appearance on the street with market basket.
Time was his own; for he was Tom the Toff,
a free-lance, who worked West End crowds
for purses and handbags. He had an easy
conquest. She was as ripe for the bold smile
of this debonair philanderer as he for her
sidelong glances.
He found early occasion for visiting the
morose Bronsden in the way of business. He
had a long talk with Bronsden. He told a
tale, and listened to Bronsden expatiating on
the merits of his remedies. Then he men-
tioned casually that he had a good deal of
business in the West End; it might be worth
Bronsden's considering whether he, Tom
the Toff, could work an agency for him
among West End gentlemen. This proposal
Bronsden considered, and it became necessary
that Tom the Toff should visit the shop many
times for conferences and discussion of terms.
Within a week, Tom the Toff's presence in
b 17


Whispering Windows
the shop was accepted as casually as the
presence of a partner.
And Hetty no more sulked and gnawed
herself in the living-room. A light step on
the threshold of the shop filled her with music
and laughter. Youth leapt to youth. And
when Bronsden was busy in the laboratory,
and could not be disturbed, there were delicious
minutes when they stood in each other's
presence, and looked and talked—oh, any kind
of talk, but a very special kind of look. It
was inevitable that she should turn to him.
For he had nothing to give her, in the way of
material comforts. His West End raids were
intermittent, and yielded a precarious income.
It was, this time, for her, to give; and she
gave hiin with both hands the gift of her
love.
Tom the Toff felt the frigid atmosphere
with which Bronsden filled the house, and
knew its effect on a limber-hearted girl. At
first, in her presence, he was shy and diffident,
dropping his easy, nonchalant air, and becom-
ing awkward. By this Hetty knew that their
hearts were beating in tune, and by exquisite
gesture and significant attitude, sharper
messengers than any words, they made mutual
discovery. The barriers went down, then;
iS


The Yellow Scarf
and they discoursed freely, as though there
were no Bronsden bulking between them.
But Bronsden was still there. Others knew
it, if Tom and Hetty forgot it. Tom's father
knew it, and said so.
“Wodyeh think yer up to?” he would
inquire. “Eh? Going into business as a
dealer in trouble-or what? This kind o'
thing's going to be a lot o’use to you, ain't it?
Messin' yesself up with another chap's wife.
And what a wife! Yeh know where 'e found
'er, doncher ? Remember I'm yer father. I
seen more o the world'n what you 'ave.
Besides, there's ’im. 'E ain't a man what says
much, but, begor, I wouldn't like to be on the
wrong side of ’im. Them quiet kind, when
they breaks out, they breaks out. And Gawd
’elp the one they breaks on.”
But Tom paid little heed to dad's garrulous
admonitions. He had heard of dreadful things
happening to other people, but it had never
seemed likely that dreadful things could
happen to him.
"I warn yeh!” went on dad. “I warn yeh.
If anything comes o' this, yeh can't say I
'aven't warned yeh.”
“No, yer right there," replied the respect-
ful son. “I couldn't truthfully say that,
19


Whispering Windows
considering yer at it morning and night. Yeh
got a nice pleasant voice, dad, but I wonder
yeh don't sometimes get a bit tired of 'earing
it. I do."
In the living-room at evenings, Hetty would
be notably vivacious and happy-eyed. Spring-
tide hung about her and moved with her; but
the saturine Bronsden ate his supper and saw
nothing. Until, reckoning too boldly on his
obtuseness, Tom the Toff presented Hetty
with a yellow silk scarf. And Hetty, drunk
with glamour, wore it.
At supper on the night of its presentation,
Bronsden noticed it. Only deliberately could
he have ignored it. It was of brilliant yellow
hue, with a long silk fringe. With it about
her shoulders Hetty could have been picked
up at a mile distant.
"Where d'you get that?"
"Get what?"
"That scarf you got on."
"Oh, that?" airily. "Oh, Tom the Toff
give me that."
"Tom the Toff gave you that? Whaffor?"
"Oh, just a sort of present, like. Sort of
acknowledgment of what he's made out of
placing your stuff up there."
"Give it to me," he said gently.
20


The Yellow Scarf
"What?"
"Take it off and give it to me."
"Whaffor?"
His eyes snapped. His voice rose. "Never
mind what for. Give it to me."
"Of course I shan't. It was given to me."
He stretched a hand, and spoke gently.
"Give me that scarf."
"Shan't."
In one movement his great form rose from
the table and came to her. With a twitch of
the hand he snatched it from her shoulders,
crumpled it into a ball, aud thrust it into his
pocket.
"Understand, girl, that you're my wife. I
don't let my wife have presents from other
men. See? Understand that?"
Hetty shrank back. The shock of his action
had staggered her. "Wha—wha—wha"
Then tears came, and sobs, and she beat
herself with her fists, unable to beat him.
Then words came.
"You beast! You brute. Gimme back
my scarf. I'm not your slave. I ain't going
to be crushed like this. You stifle me. You
treat me like dirt. Gimme my scarf."
"My wife won't take presents from other
men. Understand?"
21


The Yellow Scarf
matter with me, exactly? Where am I
wrong?" He sought to soothe her with his
voice, tolerantly, as one soothes a querulous
child. It was the wrong way.
"Oh, shut up! You're all wrong. You—
your ways and your manners and "She
knew what she wished to say, the fine distinc-
tions of character she wished to draw; but
her range of words was restricted. "Anyway,
I'll please myself. A wife's supposed to be
mistress of her own home, ain't she? I'm like
a kitchen-maid here. I ain't hardly able to
call me soul me own. But you may as well
know that I've asked Tom the TofF to supper
to-morrow night."
His manner changed from the soothing to
the ruffled. His face began to close up. "Oh,
you have, have you? And what have I got
to say about it?"
"Don't know and don't care. Gimme my
scarf."
"Tom the Toff won't come to supper to-
morrow night."
"He will!" she screamed.
"He won't. He won't come into this shop
again." He came closer to her. "You can
assert your right to please yourself in some
other way. Not this way. Understand? I
23


Whispering Windows
don't coop you up or stifle you. I've only
tried to protect you against yourself—against
your own ignorance. If I hadn't, you'd soon
a-been sliding back to where I found you.
And, Hetty, don't try any tricks with me.
See? Two or three people have found out
that it don't pay to play tricks with me.”
She glared back at him, and saw something
in his face that made her suddenly afraid.
- You talk to me as if I was a kid !” she
protested sullenly. . “Why can't you treat
me properly ?”
“ Have I ever ill-treated you?”
“ Not the way you mean. But you done it
by taking all the life out o’me. By taking no
notice of me-not more'n if I was that table.
Gimme my scarf.”
“ I shall not give you that scarf. I tell you
--if you want to assert your right to please
yourself, do it some other way.”
“I don't want no other way!” She ground
the words from her teeth, and then was sorry.
Her secret was out. She knew that, from the
dull spark that glowed in his eye.
He regarded her intently; then said, quietly,
as one dismissing a trifle: “I shall not give
you that scarf.”
She glowered, finished with words and
24


The Yellow Scarf
without capacity for action. He returned to
his chair, and relapsed into gloom. And for
the rest of the evening they sat in frightful
silence, while he followed with his eyes her
smallest movement.
When she moved to clear the table, he rose,
and went into his laboratory. She watched
him go with hateful eyes. She saw him no
more until midnight, when he came out, look-
ing tired and bent. He moved about the
kitchen. She continued to read the serial in
The Sunday Fireside.
“ It's getting late,” he said, after a long
silence. “You coming to bed ?”
: “Not yet. I want to finish this.”
He hung about for some minutes; then
went upstairs. The moment she heard the
click of the bedroom door, she dropped The
Sunday Fireside, and got up.
“The beast! Treats me like a kid, he does.
I won't be treated like this. I wonder if he's
got it on him, Or whether he's hidden it.”
· She lit a candle, and went into the laboratory.
Here she pottered, nosing around, pulling
things about, opening drawers, humming and
fretting to herself. At last she found it.
He had screwed it tight into a ball and
had thrust it into an old tin box. She
25


Whispering Windows
snatched it savagely away, and thrust it inside
her corsage.
“Ha! Mr Clever Dick. I'm as smart as
you."
Bitter fury, loose and without dignity,
possessed her. Her mind was yapping at his,
and snarling and grimacing like a whipped
child. His suave demeanour under the quarrel
had increased her hatred of him. She knew
that she had dropped all grace and had be ome
ludicrous in her rage, and she envied him his
self-sufficiency. But she thrilled at the fact
that she had retrieved the scarf, and this lent
her some pride.
She went up to bed swaggering, and no
word passed between them that night or next
morning. He shut himself in his laboratory
till noon. Then he came out for dinner, and
over the meal broke the silence.
“Look here, Hetty, we can't go on like this.
It's too silly. If you want Tom the Toff to
supper, he can come. And anybody else you
like to invite. I don't want you to think I
crush you. If it's company and society you
want, I know I'm not very gay. So if it'll
make you happy to have him, have him.
Peace and quietness is all I want.”
She looked up, surprised at this sudden
26


The Yellow Scarf
change, and found him regarding her gravely,
scrutinising her, passing veiled eyes over her
person. She was not ready for this surrender.
She did not know how to accept it.
"Well, I do want company and all that,"
she said lamely.
"I know. I know I'm old and You
please yourself."
! « Oh, well"
And so the quarrel was healed, and Tom the
Toff came to supper. With that supper in
the back room her desire for love and gaiety
ended. Tom the Toff arrived on time, and
found the table laid with cold meat, salad,
beer, fruit, cheese. Bronsden was out, and he
and Hetty snatched a few rapturous minutes;
but before she could tell him of what had
passed last night, Bronsden returned, bearing
a tin of salmon and a bottle of whisky, as a
friendly addition to the table. He seemed
downcast, preoccupied; but he greeted Tom
the Toff with his usual detached affability,
and inquired what he had backed that day.
"Got the tin-opener, Hetty ?" he growled.
She brought it, and he set to work on the
tin. It was a tough one, and awkward to
hold, tipping up when he pressed on its edge.
"Dammit! Just a minute, Tom, will yeh?
a7


Whispering Windows
This is as hard as steel. Can't get the point
in. Hold it firm, will yeh, while I have
another try."
Tom came to the table, and placed both
hands on the tin, holding it firm. They stood
close together, their heads meeting, and in
silence Bronsden pressed on the cutter to drive
its point through the tin. Then the silence
was broken by a high ripping squeak. The
cutter had slipped along the edge of the tin.
With a sharp "Ow!" Tom's hand flashed
to his mouth.
"I say, old man!" Bronsden stood, holding
the cutter, his attitude one of much concern.
"I say, I'm awfully sorry. The cutter slipped.
Damn the thing."
"Oh, it's all right," said Tom. "It's no-
thing." But when he took his hand from his
mouth the blood ran around his wrist and
down his fingers from an angry, jagged wound.
It came pouring out to the tablecloth, and
down that to the floor. It was no common
wound.
Immediately Hetty swerved from the side-
table, where she had been cutting bread.
"Oh, Tom!"
"Bind it up!" snapped Bronsden. "QuickP
Hetty turned about the room with hands
28


The Yellow Scarf
out for bandage. Then they flew to her
breast, and out came the yellow scarf.
Bronsden had gone to his chair, and sat
back, calmly. At this sudden action his big
head nodded in two minute movements.
“Where d’you get that ?” he said quietly.
“I thought I took it away from you."
She made no answer, but twisted the scarf
into a bandage.
“ Did you steal that from my room ?”
“Mind your own business."
“ You're not to use it,” he said, in even
tones.
“I shall do as I please.”
“Hetty, I tell you not to use it. Get the
Ov ro01
towel.”
“Oh, shut up. Can't you see Tom's
bleeding ?”
“ Very well.”
She fussed over Tom, tender-wise, mater-
nally, and wound the scarf tightly about his
wrist. Then she forced him to a chair, and
herself sat down. She sat down with a flirt
of defiance too strongly marked to carry con-
viction of self-possession. This accident had
given her opportunity for open challenge of
this man's bondage. She sat upright, her
attitude expressing: “Well, and what now?”
29


Whispering Windows
Bronsden poured two glasses of whisky, and
passed one to Tom. “ I'm sorry, old man,"
he growled. “Awfully sorry. Those damn
tin-openers. I always said they were danger-
ous. Keep your arm up. Hetty'll have to
cut your meat for you now, and feed you."
Suddenly, Tom emitted a gasp-another
gasp- then a scream. He pressed his free
hand to the damaged wrist, and bent forward.
His teeth were set close, his face twisted in
pain.
“What is it ?” Hetty cried.
“Oo, it's burning!” he gasped. “Burning
like hell. 'Strewth!” Hetty came to him,
in agitation, but as she reached him he leapt
up, and dashed himself against the wall, and
screamed. “Oo, God, I can't stand it!” He
tore at the scarf, and unwound it from his
wrist. “It's going all over me.' Oh, Hetty,
what you done to me? What you done to
me ? I'm going all funny. When you put
that scarf on it started. Hetty!"
He sank back to the leather sofa, and Hetty
rushed to him. She grabbed the whisky glass,
and held some to him. She dithered. And,
as she hung over him, uncertain what to do,
unable to do one thing by thinking of others,
she was suddenly seized by a feeling that

30


The Yellow Scarf
something dreadful had entered the room.
Involuntarily she turned her head, and glanced
about her. Then she saw the thing that had
entered the room. Bronsden sat immovable
in his chair; but on his face was a wry, dark
smile.
“What is it? she cried vaguely. “What's
the matter?”
“Nothing."
• What you smiling at?"
“Nothing. You know, I told you not to
use that scarf.”
Tom the Toff dropped like a log on the
floor. She looked at him and at the yellow
scarf and at the door leading to the dreadful
laboratory, and back at her husband. She
went and stood over him.
“ You damn devil-wotter you done?”
Quivering, she struck him in the face.
But he only smiled. And, though she struck
him again and again, he still smiled.


A Game of Poker





AS Archie Plumpton, known to his
circle as Plum-plum, stepped from
the glare of the Blue Lantern into
the melting radiance that it diffused, and from
that into the inhospitable darkness of. Poplar,
three men with flat faces and long eyes
crept from their several observation posts and
followed him. One walked behind him, one
level with him across the street, and one a few
paces ahead. From a side street ambled a
small hooded van drawn by a pony. This, at
a discreet distance, joined the party. Plum-
plum walked upright, whistling to himself,
one hand in trousers pocket, the other swing-
ing free. The others walked silently, with an
air of abstraction and concern with personal
affairs.
It was a warm night of summer, and streets
and houses were stewing in a viscid heat.
Plum-plum strolled airily down East India
Dock Road, glad of the slight breeze that
wandered from the river and oblivious of the
peril that moved busily with him. Certainly
he had asked for the trouble that was coming
to him; for, if it is injudicious to be funny
with a policeman, it is more than folly to
meddle with the affairs of a Chinese brother-
hood. Plum-plum had done no less than
35


Whispering Windows
thrust hand and foot into the intimate affairs
of the Azure Dragon Tong.
Word had come to him, some while ago, of
an accumulation of carven vessels, gems and
other objects that please the eye of the con-
noisseur, which lay at a certain house in
Poplar High Street, next door to which he
had sometimes played at puckapoo. He had
seen the stuff through the window of the front
room, and had almost cried with professional
vexation at seeing such a haul placed within
finger-reach, to be obtained without the
smallest exercise of technical skill or finesse.
It almost seemed beneath his position to take
them.
But he did take them. He walked in one
afternoon, at the hour of sleep, and took them
away in a bag, and passed them to his nearest
friend and adorer, Flash Florrie. He thought he
had done only what he had done many times
before—intervened between police and receiver
in the matter of the bunce. He did not know
that he had administered a dreadful affront to
the most powerful Tong in Limehouse.
He was soon made to know. Cold anger
held the Azure Dragon Tong at the discovery
of this insolence. It quickly became known
about the district that it was Plum-plum's
36


A Game of Poker
work, and the boys, once their envy of his
slimness had passed, talked of. it with appreci-
ation and delight. They could understand
the delicious impudence of it, and admire
accordingly; and Plum-plum became a public
hero. But the Tong held a council to decide
what proceedings should be taken against him.
The president asked who accused Plum-
plum, and two stepped forward and repeated
the street-corner stories. To these two was
assigned the duty of entering the house of
Plum-plum and making an exact search for
the treasure, at whatever cost to their persons
or their liberties. This was done, and failure
reported. Plum-plum came home one night
and found his three rooms ransacked and torn
apart; and he smiled. The Tong did not
smile. Another meeting was held, and it was
decided that Plum-plum himself must be
secretly apprehended, and made to discover
the whereabouts of their property, and, after
suitable punishment, surrender it.
At least (they held among themselves) if we
do not by the means we are about to employ
recover our property—at least the English-
man will receive a lesson that it is unwise
to interfere with our affairs. He shall be an
example to others.
37


Whispering Windows
So the three men and the hooded van, now
dogging Plum-plum, were engaged in carrying
out the decision of the council. And Plum-
plum walked carelessly, still bearing about
him something of that public glory with
which his exploit had endued him. He was
a dexterous and versatile lad, and had been
desired by more than one gang, as partner.
But he preferred to play a lone hand. He
was not a crook by education or inclination.
He would have liked to be a decent citizen,
but found decent citizenship so dull. He had
drifted into this game because he liked its
soldier-of-fortune atmosphere, and because he
was too wayward and impatient of hours,
regulations and the petty bonds of legitimate
business. He had found, too, on his pre-
liminary flourish, that he had a marked
aptitude for it; and every man likes to do
the work that he can do really well and without
conscious effort. He wore crime as a feather
in his cap. He could appear in any society
without crying at the top of his voice: "I'm
a crook!" He could get away with a police-
man's truncheon while being examined on
suspicion. He could collect money for the
missionaries with one hand and snaffle the
donor's watch with the other. These were
38


A Game of Poker
small tricks; he did not preen himself with
them. It was the bigger things, calling for
strategy, that afforded him delight. But he
had never tackled the Chinese before, and he
had yet to learnijat his tricks with them
were as paper swords before steel weapons.
To the end of East India Dock Road he
went, and, at the Iron Bridge at Canning
Town, he crossed suddenly, and passed into
the void of Plaistow Marsh and its meagre
lamps and its waist-high mist. He was going
towards Beckton, where lodged Flash Florrie.
As he entered the Marsh the three followers
drew together at a corner and exchanged,
tacitly, emotions of satisfaction. A lonely,
lugubrious bell announced ten o'clock, and
the notes floated miserably about the waste.
But Plum-plum was not conscious of his
surroundings. His eyes were fixed on the
line of lights that made the horizon, and he
strode with nonchalant step, his thoughts
hovering amiably about the bright person
of Flash Florrie and her sturdy, tree-like
beauty.
But midway across the Marsh a sudden
misstep of one of the Chinks came sharply to
his ears. Momentarily suspicion entered his
mind, and drove out the bees and butterflies
39


Whispering Windows
that fluttered there. He stood still, and heard
no other step, and knew that he was being
followed. This was nothing new. He was
often shadowed by plain-clothes men, and
could always feel their attentions and comport
himself circumspectly. But plain-clothes men
do not walk about in slippers, and the step he
had heard was a slippered step. As he stood
there, a deeper sense of imminent personal
danger grew within him; and, even as he
speculated upon its nature, it arrived.
The struggle was brief. He fought hard
for a few moments, and caught a glimpse of
close, round faces and long eyebrows. Then
something was pressed against his nose and
he fell solidly among them. From the dis-
tance the pony-cart came to them: and into
this, and its litter of greengrocer's baskets and
potato sacks, he was bundled. The three
companions followed him, and the cart moved
forward.
Slowly they crossed the Marsh, while
Plum-plum slept stupidly. On the farther
side they chose byways. They rumbled
through alleys of ebony darkness, whose very
noises had the hard quality of ebony; and
through streets parallel with the placid river,
about which dodged innumerable nimble tugs.
40


A Game of Poker
Not a word passed between the company; a
profound, uneasy silence held the van.
And so they came to the little lost colony
of Cyprus. Cyprus is a frigid, dusty region
where the four winds and their branch winds
meet, and where the sun comes seldom. Its
houses are square brick boxes, at whose doors
squat or lounge the docksmen About the
stony streets the children gambol day and
night; and from slatternly windows peer the
women. In this corner, where the lips of the
Thames dribble into little purposeless canals,
silence cannot live. The Chinks had chosen
their location well, for the business they had
in hand. From year to year, hammer, crane,
siren, hooter and bell perform their rough,
unceasing music; iron against iron, steel
against steel, with a chorus of nail and rivet;
and through the night the shunted trucks
make a melancholy fugue. The glum streets
and forlorn shops make dreadful efforts to
assert the presence of humanity, but Work
prevails: one long-drawn hysteria of toil;
one everlasting hosanna of noise. Men
come and go in worried, clamant haste; and
through the stupendous turmoil tramps and
destroyers crawl with an air of scornful
idleness.


Whispering Windows
To a narrow street of warehouses in this
ill-named Cyprus came the greengrocer's van.
It stopped at a tall door which was immedi-
ately opened, revealing a steep flight of
stone steps. Up these steps Plum-plum
was carried; and thence to a room on the top
landing. The room was an unused room,
plainly arranged for the occasion. The
boards were bare; the plaster of the walls
had fallen in a mess of chips; and the
windows, which looked into the chilly face of
Cyprus, were heavily swathed with matting.
Four lighted candles in bottles stood on
a deal box. Round the fireplace stood a
screen, and in the grate a clear fire was
burning.
The three men placed Plum-plum on the
floor, and one brought sturdy cord and bound
his wrists and feet. Another brought a bucket
of water, and the water was thrown about his
head and throat. After some seconds he
opened his eyes and looked about him. He
raised his head, and tried to move, and found
he could only roll. He rolled over and
looked up, and saw four silent yellow men
regarding him. He looked long at them,
slowly coming back from his deep sleep.
Then he understood, and spoke.
42


Whispering Windows
went to Plum-plum, and dragged him to a
sitting posture, and pulled aside the screen.
“ You see-um fire?” asked Ah Kang.
Plum-plum looked at it, and saw. “No
can."
“ You give back jewels. You tellum
where they go. And it will be betteh-
much betteh. If you no tell-prap fire 'e
mek you tell. Huh?”
Plum-plum looked at the unblinking fire
and the shaded faces about him, and felt
suddenly sick. He thought of Flash Florrie,
under whose bed rested the property. They
would not release him until the treasure was
in their possession, and if he told them, he
must remain in their custody while they
went to her home. By what method they
would recover their property from her, and
what penalty they would inflict upon her for
her part in the affront, he did not like to
think. He jerked his head at them.
“Look 'ere, if you think you can muck
about like this with Englishmen, you're
dam fella well mistaken-see? If you don't
let me go pretty quick, there'll be heap
trouble for you—and all the rest of your
bunch. So I tell yeh! Stop this foolery
plenty dam quick and untie me. See !”
44


A Game of Poker
Ah Kang stood over him. "You tellum
where jewels are."
"You go to hell!"
Ah Kang permitted himself to smile, and
flicked his fingers at the others. The screen
was drawn around the fire, and Plum-plum
heard the clatter of metal instruments. Next
moment he was flung down, and his coat,
shirt and collar were ripped from his
shoulders by a sharp knife. He lay quiescent.
To struggle was futile. To shout for help he
knew was vain. Where he was he did not
know; but he knew enough of the Chinks to
be sure that, having planned this business,
they would have been careful to carry him
where cries for help would pass unheeded.
Ah Kang spoke again in suave tones:
"You tellum where jewels are?"
Plum-plum spat at him, then shut his
teeth and looked away. From time to time
the others moved about, nodding among
themselves and exchanging smiles that were
frightfully discordant with the business in
hand. When Ah Kang reproved the smiles
they went behind the screen, and Plum-plum
heard them murmuring and grunting to-
gether. He heard the crackling of the fire,
the rattle of coke as they replenished
45


Whispering Windows
it; and he was conscious of the increased
warmth which the screen could not effectually
enclose.
There are some things before which no
man can retain his faith; to which the body
must surrender, however steadfast the spirit;
and Plum-plum knew that sooner or later he
must give way. No creature can endure
physical pain beyond a certain point, and
that point is determined not by courage but by
sensibility. The "strong" man is a creature
of blunted nerves and brute skin; yet even
he has his breaking-point. Plum-plum knew
that his breaking-point was very near. He
seemed to see through the screen the glowing
fire, white-hot, and the preparations of which
it was the centre and he the object. He felt
already the touch of hot iron; but, until he
could endure no more, he would not speak.
He did not suffer fear, but he did suffer a
physical nausea that almost drained him of
resistance.
He knew he would have to speak before he
left that room—in one minute or two minutes
or five minutes; yet the spirit that had carried
him so aptly through so many delicate engage-
ments closed his lips. He could not speak
now, while he was in full control of his
46


A Game of Poker
faculties. He felt that to do so would be to
turn himself from man into a mere husk
covered with everlasting self-loathing. After-
wards-after that-he would not be himself;
and neither words nor actions would carry
any sting of self-reproach.
“Dissa pokeh prap 'e mek you talk, huh?”.
“ You go to hell !”
From the streets, the strident but desirable
streets, came distantly an organ's titillating
music; its exuberant vulgarity overriding the
stealthy crackling of the fire and the subdued
movements of the hidden Chinks. Then Ah
Kang uttered a curt word. Plum-plum was
rolled over, and one pressed heavily on his
neck. From behind the screen came another
with a poker, its point glowing red. Plum-
plum heard his slippered step, and, though
he could not see, he could follow his steady
approach; he could follow the movement of
the extended arm; he could feel the glowing
thing upon his back; he could see the horrid
mark that it would leave. Ah Kang spoke
again, and the man with the poker made a
slow, drawing movement with it across the
shoulders of Plum-plum.
A rending shriek came from the victim, and
his whole body heaved in a spasm. Ah Kang
47


Whispering Windows
acrOSS
made a movement, and the man with the poker
stood aside.
“ You tellum where jewels are now, or- ”
Plum-plum made no sound.
“Huh? You no had-um plenty lesson ?
We try again.”
Again the poker was drawn across his
shoulders, slowly, lingeringly. But this time
it brought no cry, no movement. The four
men exchanged glances. Ah Kang moved to
Plum-plum and rolled him over. He placed
a hand on his breast, and looked up with an
expressionless face, while his mind suffered
wonder, perplexity, anger. They would not
now find the jewels. Plum-plum was dead.
“He dead,” said Ah Kang stupidly.
“Dead ?” The others echoed him stupidly.
They said it again among themselves, and all
looked stupidly at the poker. The man who
held it was twisting it and snapping it to
pieces in his hands-a wooden stick, painted
to resemble steel, and, at its point, painted a
shrill scarlet.
So they stood, dumb, anxious, impotent,
until one of them went again to Plum-
plum to touch him and turn him over; and
at the same moment he sprang far back
from the body with a high scream and a


A Game of Poker
trembling arm outstretched to Plum-plum's
back.
“ Hee-yah!”
Across the shoulders was a long brown
mark-the seared trail of a red-hot poker.
A tense and throbbing silence enveloped
them-a silence of superstitious alarm; and
in the close heat of that room they drew
together, shivering.





Katie the Kid





KATIE THE KID was none of your
rapturous, languishing, kiss-me girls.
She was a Stunner. She was a Spanker.
She was a jazz of a girl. She knew Shadwell,
whose dun light was the first she saw, as few
people know their native place. She knew it
inside out. Many times had she taken it to
pieces, that she might find out what made it
work; and when she thus tampered with it,
she seldom put it back correctly: there was
usually a cog missing when she had finished
with it. And for perhaps three or six mqnths
the proper motions of Shadwell would be
retarded, while the cog picked oakum or made
sacks under State supervision.
Yes, Katie the Kid was a nark. She was
by no means your common nark, who is a
poor, spiritless, servile fellow, cringing to his
employers and going in bodily fear of his
victims. She had the game well taped. She
knew all the tricks of the times, and her ample
sleeve held others, not yet of the times. In
heart and sinew she was concrete. She took
money from the gangs, and money from the
police, and sold the plans of each to the other.
She walked about St George Street and its
cowering alleys with the tread of the conqueror.
She strode. She moved with the sturdy grace
53


Whispering Windows
of a steel ship, and her long, lusty limbs
swayed forward as though making way through
advancing seas. A nest of dense, crisp curls
was built against her big, bright face, from
which glowed defiant 'eyes of jet. She wore
the best feathers and drank the best beer, and
put a little bit by.
And then the big fool fell in love.
She fell in love with Freddie Frumkin, who
was beginning to be known to vigilant sports-
men as a likely lad. She first saw him at a
series of trial contests at a little boxing hall
on the south of the river; and the lithe,
quivering figure and the shining white skin of
him, as he danced about the ring and received
blow after blow with game nonchalance, set
her too a-dancing and a-quivering, and filled
her with an emotion which she hardly under-
stood. It was new to her. In the eighth
round he was knocked out; and though,
hitherto, she had felt only contempt for the
defeated in any kind of contest, this knock-
out blow went straight to her heart. It first
cracked—this concrete heart of hers—then
swiftly melted. That night she took his image
to her pillow, and lay awake in blessed brood-
ing, and knew that love had come to her: and
being, with all her tricks, fiercely modest in
54


Katie the Kid
physical matters, she was suddenly abashed
and humiliated.
Soon, diffidently, by means which every
woman can employ, she sought his acquaint-
ance, and won it. By the same means she
made him know the state of her feelings; and
he-well, he was a big, healthy boy, and when
he looked upon this big, healthy girl and heard
her words, the thing was done. Thereafter
they went about together and agreed in every-
thing. At all his contests Katie the Kid was
present, as near the ring as she could get, to
exhort him to victory and blight his opponent
to ineptitude.
Glibly, as one long skilled in misrepresenta-
tion, she told him her story: how she was
without parents, and worked in a cigarette
factory near the Tower; how she lived alone,
and spent her spare time in reading books
borrowed from the Free Library, and never
went about with boys, or strolled along her
local Monkey's Parade, deeming such doings
unworthy any self-respecting girl. Whereat
Freddie glowed, and wondered that so sweet
and gentle a girl should have seen anything
in a rough young pug like himself, or should
even suffer his company. He told her so, and
said that she made him feel ashamed, and
55


Whispering Windows
made him want to do better and bigger things.
You know how it is with your first girl.
On this, Katie began to think. She began
to think about herself, and her stock of self-
esteem dropped sharply. If she inspired
Freddie Frumkin with a desire for nobler
ways of life, he in turn inspired her with
yearnings. He was so clean and cool and
simple that she discovered in herself a desire
for clean and cool and simple things. She
tried suddenly to cut the nark business and
the secret commission business. To the loud
derision of the Geranium Street police station
she started the follow-the-gleam business. As
no man is so ardent a teetotaller as your
reclaimed dipsomaniac, so with Katie the Kid.
She placed herself in the hands of the local
Settlement Workers, and set about looking
for steady and decent employment. It was
even said that she was to attend the open-
air mission meetings at the corner of Love
Lane on Wednesday evenings; but the
police prevented this last indecency. Such
backsliding didn't suit them. They made a
grand remonstrance.
“ Dammit,” said the sergeant, “what the
hell's she want to turn pious for? With
anybody else it'd a-bin all to the good for us.
56


Katie the Kid
But her! We can't get on without her. We
gotter git her back some'ow."
They did. Remonstrances failed, but
economic pressure succeeded. Her savings
were soon exhausted; and wherever the local
Settlement Workers went among employers,
with stories of her industry and moral rectitude,
they found that the police had been before
them. There was no job for Katie the Kid.
So, quietly, she took up again her secret
duties. Fortunately, Freddie's home was by
Bermondsey Wall, and was severed from hers
by the river. Gossip of the North side seldom
reaches the South, and they had no common
friends. Thus she was able to continue as a
nark in Shadwell, while in Bermondsey she
was a factory hand with yearnings towards
self-culture.
Three evenings a week, when Freddie was
not engaged, she would go to him, and they
would walk comfortably together in the flare
and glitter of Jamaica Road, where the girls
parade with frolicsome frocks and gleeful eyes;
or down the more modest byways where lights
are few. It was just after her return to her
old employment that Freddie spoke casually
of his need of a punching-ball. He was
not yet promising enough to attract gifts of
57


Whispering Windows
equipment from backers, and he had only
the gymnasium at the boxing booth in which
to train, which was a damn nuisance. A
punching-ball, to be fixed in the back-yard
of his home, would be the very thing. But
they were damn expensive.
Katie pondered the idea at night, and she
guessed why he could not purchase the ball.
There had been rides on the bus on Sundays,
some visits to the local music hall, and a
little gilt cross and chain for her sapling neck.
From her there had been as yet no gift: her
savings were gone, and for the moment crime
was short, and there was little coming in from
the police. She went home that night to
devise means of raising money and to study
sporting papers for some hint as to the price
of punching-balls.
Next day something came her way. In
the street, local gossip made much of the theft
of many rolls of cloth from a dry-goods ware-
house. Thieves and cloth were well away,
and the police were "pursuing inquiries."
The sergeant sought Katie, met her in the
street, flicked an eye at her and disappeared
down an alley. She followed him.
"Ah, Katie—just looking for you. Got a
job for you. You heard about this cracking
58


Katie the Kid
of Higginses' place. Well, there's four dozen
rolls of cloth gone—good stuff, too. We're
stuck on it, for the moment. We're watching
all the boys, but haven't got anything so far.
Now, it's up to you. Higginses are offering
a reward, and if you can put us on to the
stuff or the men, you'll do yourself a bit o'
good. I dessay there might be a couple o'
quid in it for you. See? So put yer back
into it."
"Right-o! I'll have a look round."
That day her mind ran on rolls of cloth and
punching-balls. A couple o' quid. That
ought to be sufficient for the purpose. So
she set to work, the punching-ball suspended
before her, with gentle thoughts flitting about
it, while, in the recesses of her mind, the rolls
of cloth covered some crushed but still mov-
ing instincts. It was her first job since her
reformation; and soon the old fever of the
hunt crept into her veins. It ran with her
blood, and set a pace; and the thrills that
some find in strong drink and some in sex
and some in works of art coursed about her
shoulders.
Into the dark places of Shadwell she went;
into places where discreet men would not go;
into places of dirt and crawling beastliness.
59


Whispering Windows
She went, too, into bright places; into well-
kept taverns, where men were clean and
fashily dressed. She hung about highways
and alleys. She gathered a word here, a half-
sentence there. She drank heavily with old
acquaintance and casual company. It was
Dick the Duke who set her on the way, with
a shrug and a few words.
“Getting about a bit to-day, ain't you,
Katie? What's the game, eh? You ain't
going to tell me you're on Higginses' affair ?
Eh? Good lord! Fancy wasting yer time
on that. You're worth better jobs than that.
Blasted lot of amateurs. They've hid it, kid.
Hid it !”
Katie made no clear reply to his per-
functory remarks, but stood him another
drink and drank with him; and had another
at his shout. Then she strolled idly away.
There was but one place in Shadwell where
amateurs hid things, and to that place she
went. Near the old Basin, she stopped at
an open-air coffee caravanserai, labelled
“ Jumbo's,” which stood under an arch,
backed against the doors of a disused storage
vault. She took a cup of coffee here, and
used her eyes. She made goo-goos at Jumbo,
and chi-iked him.
60


Katie the Kid
"Got a new suit, eh, Jumbo? My word,
we're coming it, ain't we? Nice bit o' cloth,
too."
A minute movement at the corner of his
lips on the word "cloth," which would have
been unperceived by others, or have con-
veyed nothing if it had been perceived, satisfied
Katie. She was watching for it.
She ambled back to Geranium Street.
"I found that bunce of Higginses."
"Good girl. You shall have a nice sweety
for that. Where is it?"
"Old Jumbo's got it. In that vault behind
'is place. 'Tanyrate 'e knows all about it."
"Oho. We'll send round and have a little
chit-chat with Jumbo."
"Right-ol I'll wait. When do I get the
dough?"
"Just as soon as we confirm it, ducky."
The officer called for a plain-clothes man,
and assigned him to a friendly cup of coffee
with Jumbo. Within half-an-hour he re-
turned.
"I seen Jumbo, and warned him. Same
old Jumbo. Injured innocence. First, he
didn't know nothing about it. Then minding
it for some customers of his. However, I put
the wind up him prop'ly. They're calling for
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Whispering Windows
the stuff to-night- or one or two of 'em are-
and I got a list of all the names out of him.
It's a gang of six, apparently. I got the
names 'ere. I warned Jumbo extra special,
and put it across him. Said we'd have him
for a stretch if he so much as winked an eye.
So if we wait till to-night we can catch 'em
removing it, and then round up the others.
Jumbo won't move at all-he's too fond of his
own skin.”
“Right-o! Well, we may as well have
an observation man on there, in case. Get
Gordon on to it.”
“Satisfied ?” asked Katie.
“Yes, kid, that's all right. Here you are.
Now go and get yesself a good rump-steak,
with lashings of onions--you look a bit all-
gone."
She took the money, but her first thought
was not of food, but of the shop in Cable
Street where athletic goods were sold. To it
she went, and returned with her purchase.
In her one-room home she cooked herself a
hotch-potch meal, with tea; and when she
had eaten she straightened herself, and set out
for Bermondsey.
During the walk her mind gambolled in
pleasant pastures. She saw Freddie's strong
62


Katie the Kid
white arms at work upon the punching-ball,
and glowed with pride as she anticipated his
raptures at the long-desired gift. They met
near Cherry Gardens Pier, where it is dark,
and at once his arms were about her, and his
lips upon hers, while she fingered lovingly the
blue scarf about his neck. Then they walked
slowly towards Jamaica Road. Under the
lamplight he noticed the unwieldy parcel she
was carrying.
"What you got there, kid?"
"Aha! Never you mind. You wait and
see."
He led her to the " Man in the Moon," kept
by a friend of his, who allowed him the use of
the back room, where were seats and a fire.
He was in high feather. "Now, Katie, order
what you like. I bin a bit short o' the ready
lately, but I just clicked fer a bit from old
Jriggles, who's trying to get me a match with
lotty Jewett. I reckin I could settle 'im in
three rounds if it comes orf. So 'ave just what
,yeh like." She chose a port-and-lemonade, and
he ordered a dry-ginger for himself. "Now
then, let's 'ave a button-hook at yer parcel."
Proudly she tossed it to him. "Open it."
He opened it. "Well, I'm damned! Now,
Katie! Now who'd a-thought of you doing
63


Whispering Windows
that? Now, reely! But, I say Well,
well, well. And you bin an' bought this fer
me? No, but Well, there! You didn't
ought to 'ave, though. Reely, Katie, you
didn't. They cost a lot o' money, I know.
More'n you can prop'ly afford. You didn't
Oh, you dear kid! If you ain't a real pal!"
He tossed the ball to the ceiling, and caught
it, and grinned broadly, and tossed it back
again, then became serious.
"No, but, Katie—you shouldn't a-done it.
You've 'ad to work dam 'ard fer this, I know.
A lot of overtime and saving-up. Fancy you
thinking all this of me, though. Just what I
wanted, too. And from you 1 Katie—you
think too much of me. I ain't 'alf good enough
fer you. I don't deserve that a girl like you
should think so much of me. I ain't worth
you—your—love. I 'Ere—what's the
matter? Katie!"
For suddenly Katie spluttered over her port,
and burst into a howl of sobs, and big tears ran
for the first time down those firm, dry cheeks.
"Why, Katie kid, what's up? There now—
you bin overworking—that's what it is. You
ain't bin feeding properly. You bin starving
yesself to get this ball. 'Ere, I say—oh, Katie!"
"Oh, I can't keep it up no longer, Freddie.
64


Whispering Windows
“ You ain't telling me anything. I knew.”
“ You knew ? Knew what?”
“What you was. I knew it before.”
“ Knew? When? Who told yeh?”
“ I known it all along. From the first.”.
“ You known it all along? And bin out wi'
me, and kep' up wi' me? You? You let me
go about wi' yeh, and said all those things to
me, as though you meant 'em ?”
“ I did mean 'em. I do mean 'em.”
“ You—so clean and straight, going about
wi' me, knowing what I was ?”
“'M. I knew you was a nark. But I
didn't want you to know I knew in case I
should lose yeh. So I let you think I believed
about the cigarette factory. 'Cos-Katie-I
see something fine about you. About the way
you loved me. I see you wanted to be some-
thing better, 'cos of me-like I felt about you.
I knew you tried to cut it out-over in
Shadwell. I 'eard all about it. And I knew
then that you was all right. And I loved you
more for it. Any feller would. And I says
to meself-she's straight, although she's bin a
nark, and she loves me, and as soon as I can
get a bit together she shall come out of it, and
we'll make a fresh start. That's what I said.
And I ain't going to throw you away. It's fer
66


Katie the Kid
you to do the throwing. Listen, Katie. I
loved you, knowing what you was. You
loved me, thinking I was different from what
I was. What d'you think my job is?"
"Boxing, ain't it?"
He made a noise of disgust. "Boxing?
No! Boxing's only a side-line with me. I
want to be a boxer, but there's no money in it
yet. Katie—I'm just a common, dirty, side-
door burglar—that's what I am. It was me
and a pal what did that business of cloth from
Higginses what's all over the newspapers
to-night, and Hi! George! Quick—
brandy—quick! Katie's all gone!"





The Heart of a Child





Whispering Windows
with cigarettes. The Blue Lantern saw him
at irregular intervals. Then he would come
in at opening-time, retire by himself to a
corner, and drink until he was stewed.
He was in his usual corner to-night, palpably
stewed. He sat with sagging head and damp,
drooping mouth, limp fingers precariously sup-
porting an empty glass. Comments passed :
“ Barney seems to 'ave 'ad a field day to-
day-what?"__" Ar, 'aving 'is reg’lar monthly,
eh?”_"Well, 'e's certainly slopped this time.
’E's copped the brewer to-night, fair.”
Suddenly, as to the summons of a bell, he
seemed to become conscious that his condi-
tion was remarked. With shaking hand he
deposited the glass on a near table, after trying
twice to put it where the table was not. Then
he jerked back his head, pulled his lean limbs
together, shot himself from his seat, and
staggered through the swing doors. As he
disappeared, he shot a malevolent glance at
the muttering crowd.
- Huh !” said one. “Got 'is monkey up.
Now that kid of 'is will ’ave to go through it,
I suppose.”
He slithered from the bar across the road,
down Gill Street, and so to Tonkin Road. He
slithered into his gas-lit shop, mumbling sticky
72


The Heart of a Child
words. His head rolled from side to side,
peering and inquiring. Seeing nobody, he
called in a wet voice, loudly, for "Dai-see!"
None answered him; and after some seconds
of stupid swaying he guided himself to a stool
behind the counter, and sat, fumbling and
hiccuping. Some minutes passed.
Then the shop door opened, and a girl
entered with appearance of stealthy panic.
A half-smile lit her face. She moved with
a flirt of frock, as one walking off a stage
whereon a conquest has been made. Her
face was the fresh, mobile face of a child, but
at the corners of the mouth knowledge rested.
Her step was peremptory; her manner, for a
child, too self-sufficient. She tossed back her
pouring, dark hair, and smoothed the little
frock of dirty linen. Then she saw the head
of Barney Flowers above the counter; and the
smile was shot away, and the step crawled,
and her blood thinned. She tumbled from
challenge to submission.
"Where you bin ?" he snapped. Her form
dwindled, and she retreated to the farther
wall, like a gambolling dog suddenly called to
order by the one voice it fears. "Leaving
the shop, eh? Slipping out with them boys
again, and leaving everything to look after
73


Whispering Windows
itself, and get pinched? Thought I was out
o' the way, and you could pop off? 'Ow
many times 'ave I told you about leaving the
shop—eh? Wodder yeh think yer 'ere for
—eh?" He rose from the stool and steadied
himself against the counter. He pointed with
a scraggy arm. "Upstairs. Quick." He
swung round to the door, and glowered; and
slowly she crawled, an abject animal, from the
shop to the narrow stairway.
And suddenly he became sober. He bolted
the shop door, and turned down the lights.
From under the counter he took a lean cane,
and passed it through lean fingers, delicately,
as it were a flower. Then he too moved up
the stairs; and soon those in the Blue
Lantern heard, through the jazz music of
voice and glass and beer-engine, and the
commenting chit-chat of the cash register, a
sharp scream, followed by a burst of sobs.
And they "Tch'd" to one another, and re-
marked that Barney was at it again, and
that somebody ought to interfere there, and
look after that kid. But neighbours are shy
of unneighbourly interference. It involves all
kinds of undesirable publicity, and the fierce
light that beats upon the police court witness-
box is much too strong for the sensitive folk
74


The Heart of a Child
of this district. They shifted the responsi-
bility. "Best thing she can do's to go to the
police, eh?"
Upstairs, in a room empty of furniture, save
for a mattress on the floor, with wall-paper
hanging in dank strips, Barney taught Daisy
not to leave the shop unguarded. The cane
in his hands seemed a living thing, and whistled
and sang, and bit and stung the young, bright
body in time with his own stream of chill
profanity. The child, a tumult of frock and
raving curls, screamed and writhed, strangling
herself with sobs and appeals and efforts to
break from the grip that held her down and
the flaming thing that leapt about her. Loom-
ing above her, Barney whipped her with a
kind of dazed ferocity, screaming his words in
time with her cries; and the cries rose in pitch
until the room seemed filled in every crevice
with human wails.
Then, abruptly, the cries and moaning
ceased. Barney, with cane held above the
disordered figure, paused on the sudden
silence. He wrenched her round, and looked
close at her, and then stepped back, in dull
wonder. She was smiling. Upon her face
he saw a curious secret smile that seemed to
hang rather under the eyes than about the
75


Whispering Windows
lips. He had caught her with this smile on
the last occasion, and it had disturbed him.
He could not understand it. He glared at
her now, seeking by a long look to discover its
source; and a sudden intense hatred, touched
with fear, of her seized him. Then the drink
ran back to his brain, and again the rod fell,
and again. But now her lips were tight, and
she was silent, and nothing was heard in that
room but the hiss of the cane and of his
breathing.
- At last he dropped her, and Aung the cane
away. His lips were moist and pale. A spot
of colour showed on either cheek. His eyes
were heavy. As he left her, he looked back
for a moment, perplexed. Then gave it up,
and lumbered down the stairs. But the smile
haunted him and hurt him and jeered him,
and he pondered upon some means whereby
he might rid himself of it.
Next morning Daisy went as usual about
the house, and at each encounter with Barney
she brought to her face that smile, and noted
the smile's effect upon him. Barney glowered
upon her, and tried to avoid her and her smile;
and at last went out to the Blue Lantern
to lose it, and found it at the bottom of his
glass, and on the floor, and in the air. He
76


The Heart of a Child
drank heavily, and the boys took note of him
as he sat in his corner, beating time with a
tumbler, and slobbering an old hymn-tune.
At one o'clock Daisy peeked through the
swing-door, as though in search of him, and
smiled at the company and at him. To the
company her smile was a child's smile of
salutation, but to Barney it was much more.
It was to him a deliberate provocation, a
challenge. Like a fool he accepted it. He
brandished his glass at her and babbled:
"Grr'out! I'll give yeh something to smile
at! I'll wipe that smile orf yer face!" and
stayed in the bar until half-past two.
At that hour he was put outside, very
drunk; so drunk that at the chop suey
restaurant, where he customarily took his
afternoon meal, he called loudly for a shop
steward.
An hour later, at a time when Tonkin Road
was filled with people, a high, shrill scream cut
cleanly through the gentle stir. Screams of a
kind were not uncommon here, but this was
no ordinary scream. It was not the pitiful
scream of a child being whipped, or the
querulous scream of a wife against a violent
husband, but an imperative scream of alarm
that could not be ignored. And following it
*
v
77


Whispering Windows
came a young, thin voice: "'Elp! 'Elp! 'E's
killing me!"
A constable on a near corner heard it, and,
with dignified haste, moved to the shop of
Mr Flowers. Encouraged by his presence,
the crowd gathered and flowed into the shop
behind him and overwhelmed him, and rushed
upstairs. In the bare room they saw the
child prone on the floor. They saw Barney
Flowers dithering over her with infuriated
gesture and grimace. They saw him turn,
as the leader of the crowd reached the door,
and rush upon it to slam it in their faces.
But a quick foot and the pressure of many
bodies countered the movement, and the room
was quickly filled. At this moment the child
stirred. Her lips opened, but no sound came.
Weakly she raised an arm and pointed it at
Barney. Then her arm dropped, and she
moved no more.
On the floor at her side lay a tea-cup. The
Man Who Knows What To Do, who makes
one of every crowd, shouted: "Get that cup!
Don't let 'im smash it!" Somebody grabbed
the cup. The constable, using valiant elbows,
knocked the crowd aside. He went first to
the child, made a brief examination, then
quietly collared the 'cup from The Man Who


The Heart of a Child
Knew What To Do. He looked into it. He
turned to Barney, who stood in the fierce grip
of two of the crowd, speechless, white-lipped,
damp-faced, glaring. He blew his whistle and
hustled the crowd away.
Well, of course Barney was arrested and,
later, hanged. At the trial local witnesses,
eager now to come forward when the affair
had assumed wide importance, showed, to the
satisfaction of the twelve good tradesmen in
the box, that the child had gone in terror of
Barney; that he had consistently ill-treated
and threatened her; that she was not his child,
but had been bought by him from a tramp
woman; that he kept stocks of poison in
which he did illicit business; that nobody was
in the house that afternoon save himself and
the child; that the dregs of the poison found
in the tea-cup corresponded to poison of which
he held a supply, and that a new packet of it
had been opened that day; that the child was
insured for twenty pounds; and that he was
a man of vicious turn of mind to whom the
taking of life weighed little against his own
dreadful inclinations. Then there was the
child's last cry for help, heard by ten wit-
nesses, and her last gesture of accusation, to
which there were six witnesses.
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Whispering Windows
His demeanour in the dock greatly assisted
the case for the prosecution. He protested
his innocence furiously, with fevered move-
ments, inarticulately, with torrents of words
and sudden dams of speechlessness. He con-
tradicted himself clumsily many times. But
his whirling explanations were beaten down
by the evidence.
So they hanged him. You see, the general
knowledge of the child mind is so slender that
while men will credit the darkest and most
tortuous motives to the adult mind, they are
ever sure that a child could never carry out,
or even conceive, the simplest scheme of spite
or retribution. Not one member of the
coroner's jury thought twice about the smile
which Daisy wore in death-a chill, clear
smile of triumphant satisfaction.


The Dumb Wife


DARK is this tale of love with woe as
dark as the brooding arches that shut
out light from the streets about the
water-side. In these streets it is always chilly
afternoon, grey-hued and empty of happy
noise and welcoming windows. Here the
narrow kerbs make boundaries for the
puckered lives of their people; and feet fall
without echo upon their stones.
Yet, though all else perish here, beauty and
love and sacrifice survive. In these waste
places below London River mean iniquities
propagate and flourish, and curl their soiling
arms about all that would be brave and
beautiful. Yet beauty persists. Even in
the heart of darkness love takes root and
spreads therein its eternal enchantments of
gardens and moonrise and April airs and
song.
In one of these infelicitous streets, some
distance from the main Chinese quarter, stood
a small Chinese laundry. At an upper
window of this laundry sat, for many years,
a woman of semi-Oriental features. Day by
day, month by month, she sat there, the object
of that pity which those deep in misfortune
bestow so largely upon others in misfortune.
Part of her story was known. She was the
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Whispering Windows
wife of the owner of the laundry, Ng Yong;
and she was dumb.
Throughout the hours of light she sat at
her window, her naturally placid face now
coldly blank by her affliction; staring at
nothing, hearing nothing; silent and still; a
piece of Chinese carving. And deep in her
narrow eyes lay a crouching horror, so that
strangers, passing that window, quickened
their steps to the friendly main road. What
passed each day behind that rigid face may
not be known; can only be conjectured.
What hate—what fear—what resolution of
vengeance and escape — what vacillation —
what dark ideas and darker memories gathered
there—these things are not to be told.
Upon recurring occasions she would, without
warning, shed her impassivity, and a scene
would follow. She would run to the door
and strive for speech to the point of paroxysm,
and utter anomalous noises, and make wild
gestures in the direction of West India Dock.
Then her husband would hasten to her. He
would take her in hand, sadly, and lead her,
with kind firmness, back to seclusion; and the
neighbours would murmur in sympathy with
him and his forbearance under his trials.
He had early explained to them the mis-
r


The Dumb Wife
fortune that had befallen his house, and they
had often aided him in quieting the sufferer.
On her rare walks he went always with her,
the ministering husband; and when she turned
and turned from street to street, as though
in search of one desired spot, and stopped
passers-by with her pleading face and working
jaws, he would make forlorn play with his
hands, and strangers would draw away, and
those who knew would gather about him.
This much was known. Here is the full
story.
When Moy Toon was born in Poplar of an
English mother and a Chinese father there
was no warm place for her with her father's
people, and none at all with her mother's.
Her father's people, however, finding her lying
about unclaimed, and holding something of
grace within them, did provide her with bare
necessaries. Left motherless in her early years,
she was received into a tea-house in the colony
to do the rough work. In this tea-house
she spent many tedious years whose days
'she scarcely counted. She had little capacity
for thought; felt little; asked little; was as
content as the slave born in slavery and
untaught. Her birth had given her a larger
share of Oriental compliance than of Western
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Whispering Windows
scepticism and challenge. Things were what
they were, and she accepted them. She grew
up in the promiscuous company of the docks.
Of moral training she had little, and no
learning beyond that given of custom to
the Chinese woman of the coolie class. So
she passed her young years in a kind of
somnambulism.
Then one night there came to the tea-house,
in the fourth stage of inebriety, a young
second mate. She had seen him many times
about the streets; and, in her aimless way,
had admired his happy stride and clear,
sea-brightened face. On this occasion the
wavering charm of the girl, unsettled be-
tween English mobility and Eastern gravity,
captivated his beer-bound senses, and he made
proposals to her. He had but to invite, and
she went, her warped spirit mildly pleased at
the attention from this man-wonder.
Well, that night was the first of many. He
made a fuss of her, and called her Baby Doll
and other babbling names, and bought cheap
gifts for her. On his next time ashore he
again sought her out, and pleased himself with
her simple company. Some months later he
made a definite parting from her, telling her
only that he was about to marry and settle
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Whispering Windows
would receive, under other protection, at least
the essentials of life, which she herself could
not faithfully promise him. So she let wisdom
beat down her sentiment, and surrendered the
child, with the condition that she should see
it from time to time as she wished.
For six years, then, she followed her arid
course, mother and no mother, accepting,
without question or conjecture, the untoward-
ness of her circumstance; rather giving thanks
that her course was broken, week by week, by
visits to the boy. Often during these years her
pillow shook to the vibrations of her sobbing
breast, as she recalled the young strength and
delicate small ways of him, and reached vain
arms through the darkness to the child she
might not openly claim. In the rough-and-
tumble of the dock-side alleys he had grown into
a wiry, alert urchin, big and bold for his age;
and delicious afternoons she spent with him,
dressing him in a travesty of seaman's uniform
-reefer jacket and gilt buttons, with peaked
cap and much cheap braid about it — and
calling him “Mother's Sailor Boy”; after-
noons that compensated for the lonely nights.
Then old Ng Yong appeared. He had
bought the laundry business of a compatriot
who was returning to his own country, and
88


The Dumb Wife
he was doing very well with it. But, looking
round the fittings of the house, which he had
bought with the business, he felt that some-
thing was lacking, and discovered that it
lacked a woman. He felt that a woman
would be an agreeable piece of furniture, and
would finish off the establishment. He looked
about for one, and at the tea-house of the
Hundred Gilded Dragons he found Moy
Toon. Moy Toon seemed to him to be just
the article. He inquired of the keeper of the
house concerning her, and found that she was
available, and was in the gift of the keeper.
Now Ng Yong was very strict on the
sanctity of womanhood (from the prospective
purchaser's point of view) and put to the
keeper voluminous questions upon her life
and behaviour. These the man behind
the Gilded Dragons answered freely: not
entirely truthfully, but freely, with an en-
gaging air of candour. When Ng Yong
demanded assurances of the unblemished
character of the goods, these also he freely
gave. No gentleman of commerce has yet
been known to cry down his wares; and he
knew that the disclosure of a certain ad-
venture would appreciably lower the price of
the article to that of shop-soiled.
89


Whispering Windows
Moy Toon was privately told of the opening
of negotiations, and was shown, by reports
of Ng Yong's prosperity, how largely her
situation should be uplifted by an alliance
with him, and how necessary it was that the
existence of the boy should be kept secret.
It was urged upon her that she should re-
nounce for ever any further part in him; but
to that she answered nothing. To the
proposed union she offered no objection. Ng
Yong was old, but she was not repelled on
that ground: she was sufficiently Chinese to
regard the difference in ages as fitting. She
saw here a chance of helping herself, and,
indirectly, the boy, and was prepared to take
it without a second thought. She never
doubted her ability to keep her own secret.
So, some nights later, she was inspected
and questioned by Ng Yong, who expressed
himself as satisfied with her person and with
her demeanour of modesty. But he did not
let the serious occasion of wife-taking pass
without administering a sharp lecture on
wifely deportment. He sat before her in the
kitchen of the tea-house, his fleshy hands
splayed upon his knees, his old head wagging,
the secrets of his eyes shaded from the groping
minds of his fellows. Ng Yong's wife, he
90


The Dumb Wife
told her, must be obedient; must give un-
questioning and unceasing service to her lord;
must give ready and regular attention to
household duties; must sever all connection
with the people about the tea-house; and,
above all, must be honest and faithful. She
must be all his and his alone. He quoted
passages from the Four Books concerning the
Virtuous Wife, and the others; and his voice
dropped to a muttered monotone as he spoke
of the punishment befitting the wife who
failed in the first law.
To this homily Moy Toon listened per-
functorily, and answered casually, with modest
and low-toned responses. So the business
proceeded, through many evenings of bargain-
ing, until at last a middle price was agreed,
the money paid to the Gilded Dragons, and
Moy Toon lifted over the threshold of Ng
Yong.
All that he required of her in service and
obedience she gave him. But she would not
renounce her boy. Her heart had not been
asked of her, and that she kept; and in it,
guarded from all profane contact, rested the
boy. He was her joss, and through him and
before him she worshipped. For the rest, she
served Ng Yong well. She had no desire to
9i


Whispering Windows
do else. She was scrupulous in anticipating
his wishes, studious in attending the house,
and looked at no other man.
Of this she had but little chance, for her
husband was ever about her. Maybe her -
demeanour of modesty had not wholly con-
vinced him. He watched her with vigilant
eyes; never was she free from him; and even
when she. was out on shopping business she
felt that she was under his regard.
Her meetings with her boy became, there-
fore, matters of delicacy. To go to the house
in Canning Town, each Thursday, as she had
done these six years, would at once arouse
suspicion. He would note these regular,
recurring disappearances; he would question
her and perhaps not be satisfied by her
answers; he would follow her or have her
followed, and discover her secret; and then
the pavement would receive her, and she and
the boy would starve.
She considered carefully new arrangements,
and decided that future meetings must be
haphazard, snatched at odd moments, and a
different rendezvous must be appointed for
each meeting. Discretion warned her to
follow the Dragon's advice and abandon
wholly these meetings. She was safe now
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Whispering Windows
should see her thus engaged, she could reply,
quite suitably, that the woman and the boy
were strangers; that the child at play had
attracted her and she had spoken to him and
his mother. No harm in that. So it was
done, without misadventure.
For the next meeting, a fortnight later, she
appointed a sweetstuff shop near Blackwall,
where the boy was fed with cakes and ginger-
beer. She spent an hour with him here, and
when she returned, Ng Yong, who was custom-
arily superintending the laundry at that hour,
was awaiting her upstairs. He told her that
she had been long gone; and she answered
that she had gone to the cheaper market at
Shadwell, and had been delayed because the
road was under repair. He looked strangely
and closely at her, but she caught nothing of
the look. Her eyes were full of her boy—how
bonny he was looking and how pert of manner.
The next meeting she fixed, after some
thought, for a morning in a disused cellar in
a remote corner near West India Dock. She
had discovered this cellar some years ago, and
it was to-day much as it was then. She and
her sailor had spent some hours there one wet
evening of summer, when he had been unable
to find other temporary accommodation. It
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The Dumb Wife
was easily entered, and, as it held nothing that
could be stolen, was never under observation.
It had lain abandoned since the river first
entered it and swamped its contents. Repairs
had been attempted, but the river persisted ;
and at every high tide it was waist-deep in
water. It was entered from a narrow passage
by a flight of broken steps so hidden that none
could without guidance discover them.
Hither, then, the boy was brought. The
cellar, lit by Moy Toon's electric torch, did not
daunt him. He was a lad of his father's spirit,
she told herself, for he was delighted with the
adventure, and trotted about the place, prying
here and there, and nourishing his mother's
heart with smiles. She stood by him, bloom-
ing with pride and encouraging his tricks,
careless of all save the small circle in which he
moved. But in the midst of his gambolling
the woman who had brought him lifted a
nervous finger.
“Listen! Quiet!”
He stopped suddenly, and Moy Toon
gathered him against her skirt. They listened.
“Oo-er !” croaked the woman. “Some-
one comin'. I was afraid we'd get into trouble
comin' 'ere. What'll we do? Where shall
we go? Oo-er. I'm gointer get outer this.
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Whispering Windows
It's your affair. I ain't in it. I ain't gointer
be mixed up in no"
With a whirl of worried skirts and cumbrous
boots, she pounded up the steps. Moy Toon,
below, heard a sound as of a dull impact, and
a shrill "Oo—er!" followed by "Look out,
Sel!"
It was a moment of panic. The woman had
seen something to affright her, and Moy Toon's
first instinct was the boy. At that moment
she was without power of thought. She saw
three feet from her an alcove in which the
boy had been exploring. It was guarded by
a heavy door with a great iron hasp and lock.
She grabbed the boy by the arm, and put her
mouth to his ear.
"In there, darling. Quick—in there.
Don't make a sound. It's for mummy."
The boy understood and hopped into the
alcove. She swept the door upon him and
snapped it close. She turned from it to reach
the torch and extinguish it; and turned to see
Ng Yong descending the last step to the cellar,
with hand outstretched in command which she
instinctively obeyed. He reached the bottom,
and stood motionless, looking about him, right
and left. The sudden shock of his arrival, and
the closing of the door, had left her breathless,
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The Dumb Wife
-
incapable of act or word. She leaned against
the wall, panting, her slow mind rolling round
one idea: “What did he see? What did he
see?” Through his silence she prayed for him
to speak.
At last he spoke, quietly: “So this is where
you meet your lover? Let us see him.”
“Lover? Me? No, I don't. Oh no--no
---I don't. What d’you mean?”
She knew that she was speaking stupidly,
unconvincingly, but delight at his mistake
about a lover made her careless. Inside her-
self she laughed. If she had to suffer his
wrath, she would suffer; but at least the boy
was safe, while the lover idea remained.
“ Where is your lover?”
“Lover? Ha-ha! I ain't got no lover.”
“ What then would you be doing here?”
“ But-I mean-don't be silly! Lover? I
come 'ere to-_”.
“So you come to this place—this place to
gossip with old women, huh? Bring out your
lover.”
“But I ain't. " She saw suddenly that
her best plan, for the boy's sake, was to hold
the idea of a lover, to develop it.
“ Well, I mean, suppose I "
He raised a hand. “Look at me!”
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Whispering Windows
The instinct of obedience raised her eyes,
and she looked full at him, and what she saw
in his face turned her sick. She gibbered.
“But I ain't I ain't--"
“You-you to whom I gave my trust. Oh,
child of a dog!”
“But I mean-I- "
A snarl broke from his lips. His hand
dipped to his inner pocket. She watched it,
with foolish eyes, fumbling under his canvas
coat. She saw it come out, holding a long
curved knife, the blade dulled by long disuse.
He held it by the ivory hilt, directed the point
upon her, horizontally, and slowly, quietly
approached her. Like dropping water, the
words of his homily on the Virtuous Wife
dropped through her mind.
“ You have chosen your place well. We
are safe here. I told you how I would punish
unfaithfulness."
With each step forward he took, she took
one backward, shrinking from him. He
followed her. She drew back, shuddering,
arms extended, pressing herself against the
wall as if she would force herself into it.
He followed her. Pat-pat, pat-pat, they
moved softly along the damp floor. She
continued to step slow paces backward, eyes
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The Dumb Wife
fixed on him. He followed her. He followed
her until she had reached the far wall, where
an iron grating gave out to the river.
There she stood, mouthing at him, cornered ;
fascinated, rabbit-like, by the dull tongue of
steel that slowly floated towards her breast.
Nearer and nearer it came. She felt the touch
of it upon her corsage; then the prick of it
upon her skin; and at this she opened wide
her throat to scream : “ Mercy! Mercy! I
ain't got no lover!”.
But, though she opened her throat, none of
these words came. Her mouth opened and
shut, and her teeth came together and flew
apart; but no sound could she utter. The
knife rose and fluttered half-an-inch from her
throat. Then Ng Yong dropped it to his
waist, and drew back. He looked long at her
before he spoke again.
“Where is this lover?”
Her lips moved, and she made meaningless
noises, and shook her head and prayed with
her hands. Ng Yong replaced the knife in
his coat, and nodded gravely. The shock of
discovery and the threatened punishment had
taken punishment from his hands. His wife
was punished by an instrument keener than -
any blade of steel. She was struck dumb. '
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Whispering Windows
He took her by the arm. She shrank from
the touch, and he smiled upon her. He drew
her to the steps leading to the alley. As he
led her away, she struggled, and pointed to
the great door of the alcove, and made low
noises: "Myw! Myw!"
Ng Yong, too, looked at the door, and gave
a smile of understanding. With easy force
he compelled her up the steps. She beat
against his bent arm, and strove with hands
and lips, as one explaining. But he led her
away, quietly, down that narrow passage, so
that none noted their going until they reached
the main road. And he led her home, and
told sympathetic inquirers how his wife had
suffered a sad shock from a street accident,
which had deprived her of speech and made
her foolish of mind.
too


Bluebell





LIPPERY SAM, the copper's nark,
stood in the bar of the Blue Lantern
and drank bitter, while he complained
to his only friend, Hank Hogan, the odd
messenger, of the present discontents. At
the other end of the bar a group of the
Roseleaf Boys, who “ worked” the West End
shopping crowds, delivered to the world
generally, in high voices, their opinions of
Slippery Sam.
“ Thinks 'isself smart, y'know. I reckon
we got a beat on 'im lars' week.” “Smart!
Huh! Nosing round Chinatown for dope
shops is about all 'e's fit for.” “ Planted the
bunce right under 'is dirty nose, I did.”
“Why, take a dekko at ’im. 'E looks like 'is
job. Any side-door cadger'd know it first time.
Goes about with a black mask on and a brass
band in front of 'im, playing · I'm the copper's
nark.'” “Yerce, if a faro crib opened next
door to 'im and 'ung out signs, 'e wouldn't
know it for a week or two."
Here the voices dropped. Slippery Sam
had not heard what was spoken loudly, but
he heard what was murmured ; his ears were
adjusted that way. “ Yerce, old ’Awkins 'as
started a shop in Cable Street. Bin running
these four weeks. 'E dunno it, though. E'll
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Whispering Windows
'ear about it like 'e 'ears everything else
when 'e reads it in the papers.”
Slippery Sam drank up, excused himself to
his friend and went out.
The boys were right. He hadn't heard
about it. But the name caught his ear, and
he thought of a gentle walk to Cable Street.
On another point the boys were wrong. He
was good for something besides nosing for
dope shops in Chinatown. He was good for
nosing round women. He nosed round them
like a dog. He sniffed. He fawned. He
snapped. He snarled. He patted and mauled
and showed his teeth. He was nosing round
one now. Bluebell Hawkins. But in her
case he could not snarl or show his teeth.
There was nothing to bite on. Or there had
been nothing to bite on. But the informa-
tion given to him by the sour temper of the
Roseleaf Boys indicated something substantial.
Old Hawkins had started a Shop. In Shad-
well a Shop means one thing. It does not
mean a gambling den or a dancing den or a
coining den or a shebeen ; it means a Shop.
As he passed up Gravel Lane there was a
sudden outcry of young voices :
“Come on, boys! 'Ere's Sing-a-song Joe!
Chase 'im, boys! Muck ’im about !”
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Bluebell
Slippery Sam stopped to watch and chuckle.
Against a wall crouched a lanky, thin-faced,
wispy-haired youth, in tatterdemalion clothes.
In his lean fingers he held a tin whistle.
With this and with lifted leg he made aimless,
slow gestures of defence, while his face wore
the silly smile of the victim who tries to enter
into the joke of his persecution. His mouth
made childish noises of protest. Slippery Sam
stood by and grinned. This was Sing-a-song
Joe, the half-witted character of the district;
sometimes drunk, sometimes running amok ;
but always the butt of the street boys, and
always stupidly cheerful. When things were
dull and amusement wanting, there was always
Sing-a-song Joe to be dug out and baited.
Whence he came none knew. He had
appeared among them as a lad in knicker-
bockers. The Union would not have him ;
the Asylum would not have him; the police
were bored with him. He was helpless and
harmless. His bed was any archway sheltered
from the breeze. His food he cadged by
promises--or, as some said, threats-to sing
a song in return for broken scraps or cigar-
ettes or beer. From those who knew him he
mostly got the gift, and was hastily released
from his promise of entertainment. It was
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Whispering Windows
only when he approached a stranger that the
price would be accepted and the neighbour-
hood disturbed by frightful discords on his
whistle, or additional horror lent by his
cracked voice to obscene soldier and sailor
songs.
Slippery Sam stood and watched and urged
on the boys. Then suddenly, through the
crowd, broke the slim, bright figure of a
young girl. She cuffed right and left with
her hands, and came to the side of Sing-a-
song, striking with words.
"Let 'im alone, yeh little beasts. You
leave 'im be. Never mind, Sing-a-song, I'll
see to 'em. Here, mike off quick. Little
blackguards, can't yeh leave the boy alone?"
With profane comment and derisive gestures
the boys strolled away to the neXt amuse-
ment, and she put an arm about the victim.
"They bin hustling you, Sing-a-song?" she
asked gently.
He giggled. "No, no. I don't mind.
They alwis do it. They like a bit o' fun.
They think I'm cracked. But you know,
don't yeh? You know I'm all right? I like
you, Bluebell. You're kind to me."
She smiled upon him. "You ought to
stick up for yourself, boy, you're big enough
106


Bluebell
now. Hit 'em. Knock 'em about. I know
there's a crowd of 'em, but you hit one, hard,
and it'll frighten the others. See?"
"Oh no, Bluebell, that ain't right. They
don' mean nothing. Wouldn't be right to
'urt 'em."
Slippery Sam strolled up. "'Ullo, missie."
Bluebell Hawkins looked round and shud-
dered sharply. She moved closer to the half-
witted Sing-a-song.
"Hullo."
Sing-a-song observed that she was engaged.
"I'll go, Bluebell," he piped, humbly with-
drawing.
Bluebell stretched a hand. "No, don't."
But, putting his whistle to his lips, and blow-
ing a piercing blast, he capered round the
corner and away.
"Seem fond o' Sing - a - song," remarked
Slippery conversationally.
"Oh?"
"Yerce. Never take no notice of yer
friends when they pass in the streets, but
always looking after 'im."
Bluebell thought of a rude retort, but did
not make it. She was not sure of Slippery.
She loathed him. The fact of his being in
her neighbourhood affected her as the presence
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Whispering Windows
of a cat affects some people. And, somehow,
though she felt no fear, she had a notion that
he was to be feared.
"What if I do?" she said. "He wants
someone to look after him, when everybody's
tormenting him. Why should they? He's
only a bit soft. There's nothing nasty or
wicked about him. That boy'd do anything
in the world for me."
"Well, perhaps 'e would. Perhaps other
people would too. What could 'e do for yeh,
though? 'E's no good to anyone. Can't
even look after 'isself. There's other people
that might be yer friends—real friends—and
do things for yeh, if yeh'd let 'em. Nobody
never knows when they might want a friend
—a real friend." •
He looked at her and his eyes raked her
face and then—or so she felt—raked off her
clothes and grinned upon her young body.
She shuddered again and moved beyond him.
His sloppy clothes, his sloppy limbs, his sloppy
movements nauseated her. There was an
odour of slops all about him. "Well, I must
be going."
"Right-o. But don't forget what I said.
A friend's a friend. And yeh never know."
She walked swiftly from him, in some
108


Bluebell
trouble at his words. She walked lightly, and
her feet barely disturbed the dust of the pave-
ment. In Juniper Street, where was her
home, she was known as That Refined Girl.
It was agreed that she was Quite The Lady.
There was gentleness in every line of her.
Even the massed yellow of her hair seemed
gentle against the brutal bricks and girders
and the insistent dun of Shadwell; and the
startling combination of light curls with deep
brown eyes lent her an air of waywardness
that caused remark in a place where all things
were blunt and determined. Her merry hat,
her bright mouth, her swinging arms gave a
moment's courage to the cringing street as
she passed; but her heart was troubled.
Mr Hawkins, her father, had long done well
in the second-hand wardrobe business; but
lately he had disposed of his stock and good-
will, and was now much at home. He had
told Bluebell, in a casual way, that he had
started another business, in a new line, but
what that business was she was not told.
Certainly, it seemed more profitable than
second-hand clothes, for there was more
money about the house. He did himself well,
and gave Bluebell presents of new hats and
frocks, and added many necessary comforts to
109


Whispering Windows
of a cat affects some people. And, somehow,
though she felt no fear, she had a notion that
he was to be feared.
“What if I do?” she said. “He wants
someone to look after him, when everybody's
tormenting him. Why should they? He's
only a bit soft. There's nothing nasty or
wicked about him. That boy'd do anything
in the world for me.”
“ Well, perhaps ’e would. Perhaps other
people would too. What could 'e do for yeh,
though? 'E's no good to anyone. Can't
even look after 'isself. There's other people
that might be yer friends-real friends--and
do things for yeh, if yeh'd let 'em. Nobody
never knows when they might want a friend
--a real friend.”
He looked at her and his eyes raked her
face and then-or so she felt--raked off her
clothes and grinned upon her young body.
She shuddered again and moved beyond him.
His sloppy clothes, his sloppy limbs, his sloppy
movements nauseated her. There was an
odour of slops all about him. “Well, I must
be going."
“Right-o. But don't forget what I said.
A friend's a friend. And yeh never know."
She walked swiftly from him, in some
108


Bluebell
w
trouble at his words. She walked lightly, and
her feet barely disturbed the dust of the pave-
ment. In Juniper Street, where was her
home, she was known as That Refined Girl.
It was agreed that she was Quite The Lady.
There was gentleness in every line of her.
Even the massed yellow of her hair seemed
gentle against the brutal bricks and girders
and the insistent dun of Shadwell; and the
startling combination of light curls with deep
brown eyes lent her an air of waywardness
that caused remark in a place where all things
were blunt and determined. Her merry hat,
her bright mouth, her swinging arms gave a
moment's courage to the cringing street as
she passed; but her heart was troubled.
Mr Hawkins, her father, had long done well
in the second-hand wardrobe business; but
lately he had disposed of his stock and good-
will, and was now much at home. He had
told Bluebell, in a casual way, that he had
started another business, in a new line, but
what that business was she was not told.
Certainly, it seemed more profitable than
second-hand clothes, for there was more
money about the house. He did himself well,
and gave Bluebell presents of new hats and
frocks, and added many necessary comforts to
109


Whispering Windows
their home. But Bluebell had wondered about
this business, and his evasion of her questions.
Lately, nasty words had crept about the dis-
trict, and had been borne, by the sluggish wind
of gossips' breath, to her ears. She began to
scrutinise her father at the supper-table, while
he was engaged with the evening paper; and, at
last, putting words together, she framed some-
thing like the truth. She confirmed it by
questions to Sing-a-song Joe, who heard
everything; and he told her, innocently, not
knowing whether the business was good or
bad, its nature.
She had not known it long before her father
discovered that she knew. Without a word
from either, mutual knowledge was discovered;
and thereafter the bright tone of the Hawkins'
home was subdued. Though never pro-
claimed, the knowledge pervaded the house
like a fog. This nasty grey Fact loomed over
them, and sat between them at the fireside, and
hovered above the table as they sat at meals,
and sucked the warmth from their words and
their advances, and lent a chill to any attempt
at candid intercourse. And there were dread-
ful occasions when Hawkins would say, in the
tones of a clumsy actor who has memorised a
part till it becomes meaningless: "Well, girl,
no


Bluebell
I shall be rather late to-night. Special busi-
ness to see to, y'know. Don't wait up for
me." And Bluebell would reply in the same
tones: "All right, dad; I'll leave something
cold on the table for you."
She did not dare to name to him her know-
ledge and her horror. Though a strong,
undemonstrative love united them, his dark
temper had always forbidden any attempt on
her part to challenge any attitude or action of
his. Don't think that she suffered any pangs
of conscience at enjoying the new good things
provided by this more prosperous business.
She didn't. Nor, perhaps, was she at all
concerned with the "wrong" side of it. It
was to her only a thoroughly nasty business.
What horrified and disgusted her, savagely
insistent as she was on chastity, and loathing
the fact of sex, was the dirtiness, the animalism,
the disgrace of it.
He was not often out late. He was out at
odd times morning and evening, but usually
returned at ten o'clock. The place of busi-
ness in Cable Street Bluebell had discovered.
There he went each morning to collect the
money paid by the night's visitors, and to see
that order was maintained among the terrible
company who called themselves facetiously
in


Whispering Windows
his "staff." He was always quietly dressed:
sleek; reticent in style and speech. A black
beard lent him circumspection, and his manner
was like a dark alley of shuttered houses.
He was always, to his neighbours, "Mr"
Hawkins.
As Bluebell prepared the table for supper
to-night the words of Slippery Sam still
clattered in her head; and when at his proper
hour her father came in, she quizzed him.
He sat at the table with the evening paper,
not, as usual, tranquil and self-contained.
He fidgeted. Bluebell observed. After eat-
ing, he spoke.
"You know Sam Booth?"
"What—him they call Slippery Sam?"
"'M."
"Yes, everybody does." The tone of voice
clearly conveyed " and loathes him."
"Oh, well—not a bad chap. I rather like
him. You don't seem to?"
"Well, can you ask? Like him? How
can one like a rat or a snake or anything
slimy?"
"Oh, he's not as bad as all that. You
mustn't believe all people say about him.
He's not really such a bad chap. However,
I only asked. But you might be a bit nice
112


Whispering Windows
She looked steadily at him and he at her.
He wondered if she knew; but her face was
the face of a pretty girl busy with domestic
matters.
"Well, I won't keep yeh now. I'll tell yeh
later. I don't want to worry your little 'ead.
I dessay yer father's told yeh already that he
might be in trouble some time."
Bluebell walked away sickened, partly from
contact with Slippery, and partly from his
words. She brooded and fretted all day, and
that night her father spoke his awful lines:
"Well, girl, I shall be rather late to-night.
Special business to see to, y'know. Don't
wait up for me." To which she made the
customary reply.
Half-an-hour after he was gone came a
knock at the street door. She opened it and
found Slippery Sam.
"Want to come in," he said hoarsely.
"Want to talk to yeh, private-like."
Her arm ached to slam the door upon his
nose, but something restrained her. She let
him enter. He slouched into the kitchen and
stood awkwardly by the table.
"It's true what I told yeh 'smorning," he
began. "I found out about it. There'll be
trouble fer you and your dad before long.
H4


Bluebell
But it could be stopped. I could get it
stopped, I think.”
She looked at him with orderly eyes.
“ Well, suppose it is true? What about it?
Why come and tell me ?”
“Well, yeh said 'smorning yeh'd do any-
thing to 'elp your dad if 'e was in trouble.
Well, now yeh got a chance, so I thought I'd
tell yeh.”
" I see. You want to be squared, I suppose.
How much do you want?”
“Ah, I see you've rumbled it. But-er-
well, it ain't a matter o' money. I can get
money easy. There's some things better'n
money. I thought I'd come to-night, seeing
yer dad go out; 'cos if 'e 'eard you was ready
to save 'im this way, very likely 'e wouldn't
let yeh. Might be ready to stand the racket
’isself, rather'n you should be-er-bothered.
But I reckon you wouldn't like to let 'im in
fer-well—bad trouble, when you could easy
prevent it.”
She rested a hand on the kitchen table and
leant across it.
“What is it you want, you-beast ?”
Then he smiled and his awkwardness
dropped from him. This was a language he
understood. He asserted himself.
115


Whispering Windows
“Why, if yeh look in the glass, ducky, yeh
don't need to ask a man that. You know
what I want.”
She took a deep breath, as though to blow
him from the room. Then she recovered and
spoke quietly. “No, you slimy reptile. No.
Get out-quick!”
He did not move. “ Nice words from you
-slimy reptile-from you. And who are
you? Where did that pretty frock come
from? Where did those shoes come from?
Eh? Who's worse—you, that swank about
in new ’ats and frocks and look the lady, or
the poor gels what make the money that buys
'em? Eh? D'yeh know what your father is?
'E's a "
She clapped hands to ears. “Don't say it.
Beast. Don't say it. Oh!”
“ Ar! I see yeh know. And still try to
be the lady. Well, it won't last long, y'know.
Not only your being a lady won't last.
There's worse. Your dad'll be taken to the
court. 'E'll be committed for trial. It'll all
be printed in the papers. Twelve munce is
a light sentence for that. An' 'e'll be put in
convick dress, and be eating 'is 'eart out in a
cell, and working at miserable work--and not
a soul to talk to all the time. 'E'll be thinking
II6


Bluebell
of you—every minute of the day and 'arf the
night. And where'11 you be? Eh? When
it's all exposed — where'll you be? 'Ere?
No. You'll be chased out of the place. You
won't 'ave nowhere to go. You won't—you
won't 'ave a place to lay yer ead. Nobody'll
look at yeh, when they know. Yeh'll be
where the girls are what bring the money fer
yer pretty frocks and 'ats. That's where you'll
be, unless 'Arf-a-dozen words from me
and—flip-flop!"
She dropped into a chair and hid her
face. "Don't, don't! You beast! Oh, go
away."
He approached her. "Now don't be silly,
gel. I'll give y'a chance. Gimme a kiss now,
and I won't do nothing for a day or two.
I'll let yeh think it over. Come on."
He shook her shoulder. She writhed at the
touch, but she thought of father in prison,
and slowly she rose, her lips parted in misery
and disgust. Her skin tingled. He stood
motionless at her side.
"Come on, gel."
Slowly she put her face to his, and gave
him her bright mouth. He grabbed her neck
and pressed his tight lips hard against hers,
and she sobbed and her throat made noises of
117


Whispering Windows
revolt. “There! That's that! I'll go now,
and you be sensible and think it over.
She sank to the table again, and when she
looked up he was gone.
Long she sat thus, staring before her, while
grim, grey thoughts moved nakedly across her
mind. Then, chilled with solitude, she got
up, took hat and coat, and went out. She
did not know and did not care where she
would walk-she wanted to be out. Suddenly,
as she passed a lampless alley, the quiet of the
street was rent by a screaming note from a tin
whistle, and she knew that Sing-a-song Joe
was about. She followed the direction of the
sound, for she felt that Sing-a-song was the
one person she could meet to-night. With
Sing-a-song she could and did talk freely.
She could tell him things she dare not tell to
others – little fancies, whims, desires, that
would have aroused bitter ridicule in others.
He was a child. She could unpack her mind
to him in speech without fear of compromising
herself by revelation.
She found him strutting gaily over the
cobbles, whistle at mouth. He stopped at
sight of her, and, though the inane smile
remained on his face, his voice conveyed
concern.
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Bluebell
“ 'Ullo, Bluebell. Don't yeh feel well,
Bluebell? You got a pain anywhere,
Bluebell ?”
“Oh, Sing-a-song, I'm so unhappy. I'm
in trouble, Sing-a-song.”
“What? Ain't you had your dinner,
Bluebell ! Or you lost your purse -- or
what?”
“No, it isn't anything like that, Sing-a-song.
Here, come down here."
“That's right, Bluebell. You tell Sing-
a-song all about it. You alwis look after
Sing-a-song, so 'e'll look after you.”
Up and down the side street they walked
for half-an-hour, while Bluebell told him, in
plain, set terms that he could understand, the
nature of her trouble. She did not tell him
with any idea of finding advice or assistance,
but because she must discharge her mind of
its burden of horror, and he was the one person
to whom she could confess without surrender
of dignity and esteem. Cackles of thin
laughter, which from Sing-a-song meant sym-
pathy, interspersed her monotonous recital;
and when he heard that Slippery Sam was the
occasion of her troubled eyes and lagging steps,
he shuffled his feet and blew wild notes on his
whistle. Slippery Sam was his enemy too,
119


Bluebell
“ All right, kid,” said Gossett. “I didn't
know it was you. Settle down and be
good.”
“Slippery Sam's a bad man,” said Sing-
a-song inconsequently.
“ Just found that out, boy? Most people
knew that a long time ago.”
“Sing-a-song don't like Slippery Sam. 'E's
unkind to people.”
“No more don't I, old man. We ain't
loved one another for a long time. But don't
you worry. One o' these days I'll get him,
and then he won't give you nor nobody else
any trouble. I'm only waiting fer me chance.
Now be’ave yesself, boy, and I'll see yer not
shifted from here. Here--here's a crust of
bread and cheese--bit o' my supper, but I
don't fancy cheese to-night.”
Sing-a-song grabbed the food and ate it;
and all through the night he lay awake on the
stones. The morning gave him an idea. One
way there was, he saw suddenly, by which his
Bluebell might be saved : a drastic way, which
might put some pain upon her, but a pain less
hideous and enduring than that which now
threatened her. It was the only way he could
see to assuage her present misery; and he set
himself to take it.
I21


Whispering Windows
For a week of evenings the atmosphere of
the Hawkins' home was like a dark forest,
where surly red fire smouldered. The great
Fact that sat always between them at table
had now a shadowy companion—a grim Idea
that crouched behind it and made terrible
grimaces at Bluebell. Darker and darker grew
her father's manner, retreating from her day
by day, until it seemed that never again would
they reach one another; and day by day she
suffered double torture: the torture of his
strained face and the torture of Slippery
Sam with his "Well, gel, when am I goin' to
'ave more'n a kiss, eh?" until she felt each
night that the breaking-point had been reached,
and the torture must be ended by the one act
of sacrifice that was demanded.
At the end of the week the surly red broke
into fierce flame. Hawkins came home early
that evening, before ten o'clock. He dropped
heavily into the chair by the kitchen stove.
Bluebell brought a bottle of beer and poured
him a glass. She placed it on the table at his
elbow, but he did not drink. He looked deep
into the fire, and spoke slowly:
"Er— Bluebell—girl."
"'M?"
"Got some bad news for you."
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Whispering Windows
“No--it wasn't Slippery Sam. He's been
quite nice to me lately. It was that loony
boy, Sing-a-song Joe they call him. He gave
'em the office. Put that nasty, superior kind
o' copper, Gossett--you know him-on to it.
Slippery Sam tried to stop it, but Gossett
was too quick for him. Said that Sing-a-
song Joe done it to help you. Dunno
what he's talking about. What you staring
at like that?”
“Oh, God! My pal! Done for by my
pal !”
“Done for? Here, girl, don't take on so.
It ain't so bad, perhaps. There'll be a bit o'
money for you to go on with. I oughta known
it was bound to come. If it hadn't come that
way, it'd a-come by Slippery Sam. He found
out about it a week or two ago. I've had to
keep him quiet with money, but he wasn't
satisfied with money. He's bin askin' me for
all sorts of things. Things I'd never think
of giving him. Bluebell, girl, it's just as
well, perhaps, that I'm in for it, and don't
have to think over what he wanted. Now
that this has happened he can't bother us
no more. Bluebell-he was asking me for
you.”
“ Yes? That's what makes it more awful.
124


Bluebell
That Sing-a-song should have done this—now.
'Cos, you see, dad”—the words dropped hard
and black from her lips—" you see, to save
you, I give myself to Slippery Sam last
night.”
125


A Family Affair





T HERE was trouble down our street.
There was something doing. There
was a large fly in the sweet ointment
of its social life. The wind was well up. And
all along of that there little Connie Raymond
and them there dirty Chinks. You could see
at a glance that something was "up,” for Mrs
Raymond was leaning across the sill of her
open parlour window, which gave directly to
the street; and Mrs Raymond only sat in her
parlour on solemn occasions, and only once
before--when Aunt Polly upset the lamp-
had the window been opened.
She was haranguing her two sons, Alf and
Bert, who stood outside, smoking nonchalant
cigarettes : Alf incipiently pugnacious; Bert,
with a taste for diplomacy, thinking hard. A
group of little girls stood at a disrespectful
distance, and sympathisers strained their ears;
for it was felt that the affront fell not only
upon the Raymond family, but upon the whole
colony of Nugget Street. And they listened and
nodded as Mrs Raymond made her jeremiad.
“To think of it. Our Connie. Going with
a Chink. And ev'body in the place knowing
it. Alwis kep' ourselves respectable we ’aver
On'y twice in ’is life was yer father put away.
And you boys ain't on'y bin pinched once:
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Whispering Windows
twice. Come to that—who ain't? Police
trouble comes to ev'body—even the 'igh-up
ones. But this—and with all the papers full
o' stuff jus' now 'bout white gels going with
Chinks, and 'ow it oughter be stopped. Goes
and picks up one at that there Blue Lantern,
and walks out with 'im. Night after night.
It's enough to break yer 'eart. 'Er that I've
kep' so respectable, too. Never bin anything
like it in our family before. All married fair
and square, we was. And even if some of
us picked wrong 'uns, leastways they was
white. . . . Oh, don't stand there like a couple
of lamp-posts. Say something!"
Alf looked at Bert, and Bert looked at his
boots. Then Bill Higgins, the roadman,
chipped in, and said something consolatory.
"I don't wonder yer worried, missus," said
Bill Higgins.
"A nice gel like your Connie going with
one o' them when she could 'ave the pick o'
the street. It's shameful, that's what it is,"
said Bill Higgins.
"One o' them dirty yeller boys. They eats
rats, y'know. Yerce, they do. I seen 'em.
And worship images. And never wash their-
selves. And treacherous—yeh never know
where y'are with 'em. Stick a knife in yer
130


Whispering Windows
"Well, Bert," said Alf, "you get old of
'er, and ask 'er——"
"No, you're the eldest. It'd come better
from you."
"No. you," said Alf emphatically. "I
spoke to 'er before—about that business of
Aunt Amy's tomatoes. And she likes you
better'n me."
"Well, as you spoke before, you ought to
now. She'll take it better, being the second
time. She ain't likely to give you another
eye like the one"
"Look 'ere, you're the talking man. If
you're afraid of the gel, say so."
"Don't be silly. I ain't afraid of no gel."
"Well, I am. Of 'er. So that's that. I
ain't one fer words. I'm a man of action.
I can't deal with women. But I can with
men—if you can call a Chink a man. There
won't be nothing said when I get 'old of 'im.
There won't be much left of 'im—not enough
to attract gels, anyway."
Bert spread his hands. "Ah, that's where
you're wrong. You can't deal with these
people that way. You wanter use tact. You
gotter make 'em understand the situation.
You can't settle everything with a punch on
the jaw. We gotter get him to see the
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A Family Affair
principle of the thing. A few words from
me"
"I'll make 'im see a lot o' things besides
principles when I"
Mrs Raymond lamented with her hands.
"Well, don't stand there nagging at one
another. Do something."
"Well," said Alf, "we're going to. But I
suppose the first thing to do is to find 'im."
"Yerce," said Bert pleasantly, "that'd be
a good idea to start wiv, Brainy. As you're
the man of action, it'll be your move."
"But aincher going to say a word to Connie
about 'Ush! 'ere she comes."
Mrs Raymond withdrew her head from the
window-frame, and Alf and Bert looked up
and down the street, and at their boots,
and flourished their cigarettes and whistled.
Through the doorway of the Raymond home
stepped Miss Raymond, with the flourish of
a young bird trying its wings. She stepped
into the evening as though the evening had
been "arranged" as a background for her.
She passed her two brothers with a non-
committal nod, which they affected not to see.
Her mother glowered at her back. As she
swam down the street, Alf nudged Bert.
"Now's the chance. She's going to meet
i33 **•


Whispering Windows
’im. If we follow 'em until she leaves 'im,
and then follow 'im, we can get 'im down a
back-way, and ’ave 'im to ourselves, eh?”
Bert agreed, and imparted the plan to Mrs
Raymond, who passed it to the street; and
away went the two champions of tender white
womanhood against the wiles of the crawling
reptiles of Pennyfields. And there was still
greater excitement down our street when it
became known that the two young Raymonds
were about to enter Chinatown and track
down the assaulter of their dignity, and work
white justice upon a Chink. They were “seen
off,” as it were. They were given a valedic-
tory ovation. It was as though the loungers
said amiably among themselves: “Well, we
shan't see them no more.” Tales were told to
Mrs Raymond of the things that had been
done to white men who had crossed the path
of the Chinks; and she became again voluble.
“Ah, that's just what they are-like cats.
I seen 'im 'anging about the end of the street
for 'er, and ’e fair frightens me—the look of
’im. Just like a cat. You can't tell what 'e's
thinking about. And you 'ear so much about
this White Slave business now-it gives you
the jumps.”
And Alf and Bert, conscious of the deep
134


A Family Affair
adventure to which they were committed,
swaggered as they departed.
And all this trouble down our street over
a sentimental interlude produced by an idle
moment and the weather. It was late
summer, the season of languid skies; the
time of appointments in the dusky public
gardens; when shadowy faces at street corners
greet shadowy passers; when streets, meagre
and tattered by day, assume a chubby, self-
satisfied air by night; when, in the chilly
twilight, all is blurred like a worn-out film,
and, in the Essex fields beyond Barking, the
corn stands as yellow as the hair of the
Blue Lantern's barmaid. It was at one
dim corner of West India Dock Road, on
such an evening, that the young Quong Foo
filled his eye with the speaking face of little
Connie Raymond. She called him with a
smile, the smile of her age and class. It was
not a happy smile, or a shy smile, or a satisfied
smile, or a coy smile, but a wide, chill, master-
ful smile, to which he had no defence. Connie
was early adept in the technique of the game:
she had a keen sense of the streets. As she
stood negligently shouldering the corner of
the alley, her flippant frock, that hung mid-
way between knee and shoe, her saucy hat
135


Whispering Windows
and blown brown hair could hardly fail to
capture the heart of a bored exile. They did
capture him; and Quong Foo and she walked
together, and took a drink together at the
Blue Lantern, and again walked together.
That was all. Connie Raymond, the ac-
complished little flirt, had walked out some
evenings with a grave and courteous Chink,
putting herself in the way of any little tricks
he chose to work upon her. Asking for it,
in fact. And because of this, a pogrom was
proclaimed against the Oriental colony of
Limehouse, and Alf and Bert were about
to open it.
Near Limehouse Church they observed the
meeting of Connie and her yellow boy, and
each fortified the other with pronouncements
of anathema upon all races that were not
white of skin.
"Don't it make yer blood boil, Bert?"
"Not 'alf it don't. Disgusting, I call it."
"There ain't a name for it."
"I dunno. The papers what 'ave bin
writing about Chinks getting 'old of white
gels found all sorts o' names for it. Fancy
names."
"1 dessay. But the thing's bad enough wiv-
out giving it a name. 'Ere they are in our
136


A Family Affair
country, making free wiv everything, and
Ow, I can ’ardly keep me 'ands orf ’im."
“Ah, but you got to 'old yesself in. It
don't do. Not with them. We gotter 'andle
it delicate-like. Wotter we going to say when
we first pick 'im up ?”
“Say? I ain't going to say nothing. I
thought you was going to do the talking."
" Yerce; but we got to interduce the sub-
ject, like. You know-polite but firm. The
velvet 'and in the mailed fist."
“I should feel inclined to interduce the
subject with me boot.”
“Ah, but-s'pose 'e didn't take no notice
of yer boot ? Eh? You gotter be careful,
y’know. They're crafty devils. Up to every-
thing. S'pose while you're lifting yer boot
'e did something behind yer back. Yeh never
know. That's why I believe in diplomatics."
“Gurr! You take 'em too seriously. A
pack o’ dirty Chinks. We gotter teach 'em
a lesson-show 'em they can't come messing
round white gels. They gotter be taught
their place. I reckon I'm a match for any
three of them. They're yeller, and I'm
white-and I'm dam well going to let 'em
know it.”
• Shut up,” said Bert. “Look - she's
137


Whispering Windows
leaving 'im. Come in this shop 'ere. You
buy something, and I'll watch."
They entered a small tobacconist's, and
Bert peeped from the door, and saw Connie
mount an east-bound bus, and the Chink walk
leisurely down West India Dock Road.
"Come on, Alf!"
They scampered out, and followed hotly.
"Damn! 'E's going right down to the
Causeway. We shan't get no chance to get
'im down an alley. Never mind—we gotter
go through with it."
"Don't you worry," said Alf. "I'll see
this through. Quick—'e's gorn down Penny-
fields."
They trotted after the unsuspecting phil-
anderer, saw him in Pennyfields, and saw him
enter a diminutive shop. Swiftly they came
up, and paused to look at the place. Its
front was encrusted with dirt; its windows
were dim with the smokes of many months.
It was more unkempt, more blear of aspect,
even more beset by evil odours than any house
in their own street. Behind the window was a
litter of tinned fruits and a few strips of fish.
The woodwork of the shop was discoloured by
the flight of ages. About it twined a filigree
of spider's web.
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A Family Affair
"Huh!" said Alf. "So this is where 'e lives.
And to think of anybody out o' this dirty,
stinking yeller place coming after a white
gel. And our sister, Bert, our sister—eh?"
Bert was fired equally with indignation.
"You're right, Alf. Well, now, you wait
outside, and I'll go in. I know the kind of
lingo they understand, and if talk don't 'ave
no effect on 'im, or if 'e tries to do the
dirty, you come in and put it across 'im.
See?"
So Bert dashed in, determined to stand no
nonsense from eaters of dog. He looked
about the dusty, airless shop, but saw no sign
of the elegant yellow dude. He was begin-
ning to wonder if he had mistaken the door-
way, when a curtain at the back of the shop
was pulled aside, and an elderly Chinaman,
wearing a tattered canvas suit and steel
spectacles, came forward.
"Oh, ah — er — me wantum Chinkie just
come in."
The old man regarded him gravely, with-
out expression, as though waiting for him to
speak. This disconcerted the diplomatist, and
he repeated himself.
"Me wantum Chinkie just come in. Me
wantum talkee young Chinkie."
139


Whispering Windows
“Do I understand that you wish to speak
to Quong Foo?”
Bert looked sharply at the old man, ready
to perceive trickery in every movement.
“Me not know 'is name. Me wantee
Chinkie just come in. Chinkie come muchee
talkee-talkee my sister-savvy? Chinkie go
walkee-walkee my sister. Me wantum talkee
Chinkie.”
The old man removed his spectacles and
regarded Bert with cold eyes. Then he spoke
in a polished English accent.
“Ah. I am the father of Quong Foo. 1
believe he is the young man you speak of.
Do I understand that you are the brother of
that white girl with whom I have seen my son
walking ?”
“That's me.” The cold precision of the old
man's language drove Bert back from pidgin
to Cocknese. “And I've come to see about
it. A yeller man and a white gel. It's gotter
stop.”
“I see. And you have come to treat in the
matter? Very well. How much?” He held
out a wrinkled hand.
“ Eh?”
“How much?” The question put Bert at
a loss. He went to the door and drew Alf
140


A Family Affair
into consultation. “ 'E says · Ow much ?' 'E's
the bloke's father.”
Alf clutched the doorway for support.
“ 'Ow much? Meaning money? I'll give
’im ’ow much. It's blackmail, that's what it
is. Blackmail, Bert. I'll give 'im " He
dashed into the shop with hands ready for use.
“What's this you're giving us, Chinkie ?”
The old man held out a hand, with a
question: “Five pounds ?”
“Five pounds? F-five-p-p-pounds ?” Alf
and Bert stared. Alf spluttered, and made
rude noises. “Well, of all the bleedun impu-
dence! A dirty yeller Chink to Look
’ere!”-and Alf delivered that paralysing and,
to most people, unanswerable question: “Who
th'ell d'yeh think yew are? Your blinking
son'll be dam lucky if 'e gets orf wiv a mouf
to eat wiv, time I've done wiv 'im. Mucking
round white gels-in our country, too. And
then working blackmail on it. Five pounds?
Understand this, Mister Chinkie. We ain't
offering no bribes in this business. We
don't ’ave to. Five pounds? We're English,
and you're yeller. You're in England, and
you gotter be’ave yesselves as such--see?
See that bunch of fives?” He held up a
knotted fist. “ It's made better men than
141


whispering Windows
you or your son spit out their ivories. White
men, too. If you bring that son of yours out
here, I'll learn 'im what it means to"
Across Alf's philippic cut the stern voice of
the Chink: "I fear I am not sufficiently
acquainted with the idiom of your language
to follow all your remarks. I gather only
that the mention of five pounds arouses your
indignation. Therefore, to settle the matter
quickly, I will overlook any question of an
apology for the affront, and will give ten,
twenty, if need be fifty pounds if you will
remove this white woman of your low-born
family from my son's neighbourhood and
undertake that she shall at no time again seek
him out and disgrace the honourable house of
Quong by association with its upright son."
And then there was silence: Alf and Bert
recognised, for the first time, that there are
some situations to which neither words nor
blows are adequate.
142


The Little Flowers of
Frances





THEY'RE a sorry crowd, the reg'lars
of the Blue Lantern. Even the
brightest of them, the flash boys and
girls, carry their terribly new store clothes
with a bedraggled air. The others are nakedly
downcast, without clothing of bravado to
cover them or weapon of spirit to arm them.
The Blue Lantern stands on Chinatown
corner, where the missionaries love to prowl.
It is kept by an ex-bruiser known to his
reg'lars as Dickery Dock. It is to Limehouse
what the village green is to the rural com-
munity. It is the centre of past history and
of current endeavour. In its bars new friend-
ships are formed, and old scores bloodily
wiped out. There hot, hard words and
vociferous debate lead to blows and the police
court, or end, more ignobly, with shocking
beer-shed.
There valorous schemes are laid, and the
vain cunning of the police is with sharper
cunning frustrated. There the keen wit of
the Cockney meets the deceptive frankness of
the Oriental and the tortuous reserve of the
black, and is often bested.
Upon an evening of winter, when, in the mist,
the substance of the streets melted into shadow,
and shadow took on body, Dickery Dock
* 145


Whispering Windows
looked about the house and stroked his chin
with complacent gesture. At the same
moment a policeman, trying to look like an
ordinary citizen, looked in, and also made a
complacent gesture. All the boys were there:
vigilance could be relaxed for a while. Dick
the Duke was there, with his usual crowd of
worshipping ladies. There, too, were Binkie
Flanagan, the automatic-machine expert,
Nobby the Nark, Big Bessie, some of the
Roseleaf Boys, old Quong Lee and John
Sway Too, Flash Florrie, little Chrissie Rain-
bow, Greenstockings, and, in a corner, Sing-
a-song Joe, the loony. All the reg'lars, in
short, replenishing from pewter pot and
uncouth glass their store of hope and enter-
prise, and recovering that calm acceptance of
the untoward which men call philosophy. As
the rattle of coins on the counter increased,
so did the buzz and clatter of the saloon and
four-ale bars gather volume. Listening from
without, the stranger would have said that
everybody within was happy. Their noise
flowed to the street like the quiet gurgle of
a self-satisfied stream: a stream that ignores
in its careless passage the muddy bed above
which it flows.
But one among the reg'lars was not happy;
146


The Little Flowers of Frances
could not even borrow an hour's delight on
the usury of the glass. Frances of the
Causeway, described colloquially as "Fanny,
poor kid," sat alone on a bench, face and
hands listless. Although sitting with the
crowd, she had dropped the mask of alert
nonchalance assumed by girls of her class in
public places: the strain of carrying it was
too severe for her worn nerves. In the last
two days she had realised that she was a back
number. Such beauty as she had once had
was now obliterated. Her hair was thin and
colourless. Her face no longer took aptly
the emollients and powders that she applied.
It was becoming an effort to be skittish and
effervescent in the presence of potential
customers. She was no longer facile in
dalliance; her profane comment no longer
came pat to the occasion. Even the black
men about the streets failed to look twice
at her.
She sat "all-gone," as she would have ex-
pressed it. The bright light of invitation that
customarily sat on her face, once assumed as
a trade trick, later to become habitual, was
out, and the coarse face hung empty. But
in every line of the flagging figure was
written disgust and yearning. She was done,
147


Whispering Windows
and she knew it; and she held yet enough of
her first girlhood's love of the good and the
seemly to suffer disgust at her situation and
impotent desire to amend it.
Others had played her game, and had done
well out of it. Some had married Chinks, and
now led silken lives, with flowered temples
made to their honour. Others had moved up
West, where they had found sleek protectors
and had put money in the bank. Others had
married seamen or small tradesmen. All had
been careful where she had been gay, spending
money as she got it and financing men friends
when they were hard up. Little Chrissie
would not be that sort of fool. She was in the
game for solid reward, and saw that she got i
every promised penny out of it. Greenstock
ings, too, knew where to draw the line between
frivolity in business hours and recklessness in
leisure. But Fanny had been caught by the
festal side of the life and the loud company,
and had crowded a jag into every hour.
And now she was through, and they talked
of her. “Whassup with Fanny, poor kid ?”
asked Greenstockings. “Looks as though
she'd drawn the winner and lorst the brief."
“ I dunno. Seems to ’ave got the fantods
lately. No doing nothing with 'er. She can't
148


The Little Flowers of Frances
get the boys now, and when she told me she
was ’ard up, and I told 'er she ought to go to
the Mission Workers, and they'd get 'er an
honest job, she fair snapped my 'ead orf.
Fact is, she's made a mess of things. She
didn't ought never to ’ave bin in this game.
She ain't fit for it. She's too-you know-too
thinks too much, like. She's told me.
Although she's done things I'd never do, she
ain't comfortable. Keeps on thinking of what
she's done. She ought to ’ave bin respectable,
reely. She's made for that. Can't you see
'er bathing the baby and getting 'er old man's
dinner? She ain't cut out for this. She's let
it get 'old of 'er too much.”
Fanny sat brooding. A young seaman, in
neat, shore-going clothes, brought a drink
from the counter, and sat down near her.
He glanced at her; then edged away. She
caught the glance and returned it, not profes-
sionally, but with appeal. She leaned towards
him.
“ Lend us 'alf-a-crown, boy.”
He looked up again; edged a little farther
away; then turned a shoulder and bent to his
glass, awkwardly, as one afraid of such women
while afraid of not behaving like a man of the
world.
.
149
.


Whispering Windows
■
"Lend us a shilling, then."
He became confused; remembered an ap-
pointment; drank up and departed.
Dickery Dock, seeing that she was with-
out a drink, called to her: "'Ave a drink,
Fanny?"
She went over to the bar. "No, thanks; I
don't want a drink. I say, lend us half-a-
crown, Dickery."
"Lend you 'alf-a-crown? 'Ere—come orf
it. This ain't a Finance and Mortgage
Corporation. You can 'ave a drink on the
'ouse, if yeh like, but"
"No, I want money."
"Money? Well, I don't know what yer
chances are o' gettin' money 'ere. Where's
yer security? Where are you going to get
money—now? You ain't got nothing to
sell now, Fanny. You realise that yesself,
doncher? You're past it. No, Fan, you ain't
got no chance with the boys about 'ere against
little Cherry and young Greenstockings and
the other flappers. No, kid, you'll alwis be
welcome to a drink 'ere, but money's another
matter. You know I make it a rule never to
lend money. I don't mind sticking up a drink
when a chap's 'ard up, but lend 'em money to
spend in other 'ouses—no."
150


The Little Flowers of Frances
"I don't want it to spend in other 'ouses."
"Wodyeh want it for, then?"
"I'm going away, an' 1 want to buy some-
thing most particular."
"Going away? Well, if you ain't the
bleedun limit! Wanter borrow money to
go away with! You take the 'Untley and
Palmer, you do. No, Fan, I'm sorry, but I
'ardly think that security would be good
enough even for Mugg from Mugtown. 'Ave
a drink."
"No, thanks. I'll go. Where I won't
bother nobody."
She turned from the bar, her face moment-
arily expressing chagrin until its lines deepened
into utter misery. The landlord looked after
her, puzzled at her attempt to break his rules,
and at her attitude. As she crept through the
swing doors, he looked at some of the boys
standing at the bar. "'Ear what she said? I
think she wants watching. 'Where I won't
bother nobody,' she said. See if you can find
old Nobby, and get 'im to keep an eye on 'er.
She looks as if she's got something in 'er
'ead—making a 'ole in the water, or some idea
of that sort. She better be looked after. We
don't want another scandal round this 'ouse,
just on top o' the last."
151


Whispering Windows
They dug out Nobby, and dispatched
him on his errand; and the beer engines
banged and hissed, and the cash register
clattered and rang, and the turmoil of glass
and voice rose with the rising hands of the
clock.
At half-past nine Nobby returned. He sat
down on the lounge, and his shoulders and
stomach vibrated and bass rumbles came
from him. Nobby was laughing. He always
laughed privately, within himself; but in the
communism of the public-house private
laughter is frowned upon. There men abide
by the wisdom of Aunt Jane--that the weary
old earth is in need of your mirth, it has
enough grief of its own.
“Now come on, Nobby, spit it out. Let's
’ave the joke. Don't keep it all to yesself.”
“G-get us a d-drink, someone. Bitter. I
was laughing,” he jerked from tremulous lips,
“I was laughing at Fanny, poor kid. She's
just bin nabbed.”
“ Nabbed ?” snapped Dickery Dock.
“ Whaffor? She ain't bin an' " He
looked up and his great eyes rolled in
elephantine agitation.
“No. Pinching--p-pinching f-flowers !”
“ Pinching flowers ? Shurrup !”
152


The Little Flowers of Frances
“ True's I sit 'ere. Pinching a fourpenny
bunch o’lilies-o'-the-valley from old Gorton's
shop, an' old Gorton caught 'er at it, an'
’anded 'er over."
“Well, it sounds queer, but I don't see
nothing to laugh about like you're laughing.”
“ 'Tain't the pinching—though that's funny.
It's what she said when they arst 'er why she
done it. Wod yeh think she said ? Our Fanny,
mindyeh. Frances of the Causeway-knowing
'er and 'er ways as we do. Wod yeh think
she said ?”
“Go on. What?”
“ Said she pinched 'em 'cos she’adn't got no
money and wanted em bad. Said she was
fed up with things and was going to end it,
and wanted the flowers 'cos—'cos a bad girl
like 'er couldn't go before God with nothing
in 'er 'and. Fanny, mind yeh! Talk about
laugh!”
But Landlord Dickery Dock was indignant.
“ Laugh! I can't see nothing to laugh abaht.
Seems to me solemn-like. "Tain't no laughing
matter-pore gel !”
153





The Perfect Girl





Whispering Windows
He paused to reach from a shelf a jar of
li-un, and extract a portion of its contents
with his yen-hok.
"The refined assembly," he continued,
"will doubtless refrain from expressions of
displeasure, and will concede from their own
experience that the words of this person are
weighted with wisdom when he tells them
that the attraction which they possess for
these white maidens is almost wholly in
proportion to the number of taels—or, as the
barbarian tongue has it, Bradburys—in their
possession; whereby the maidens may be
afforded refined and polished relaxation in
tea-houses and theatres."
The company looked doubtfully around the
room and about the floor, but none met the
eye of his fellows or the eye of John Sway
Too.
"Nevertheless," continued the narrator
complacently, "I have myself found one
white maiden of these cold streets—a maiden
of surpassing virtue and of beauty like to
dew upon chrysanthemums. Fairer than the
Great Night Lantern on the garden is she;
kinder than the sun to the bursting bud;
sweeter than the rain to the parched fields;
more gracious than the nest to the tired bird."
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The Perfect Girl
"Hi-yah !" cried his audience. "Will not
the estimable John Sway Too tell us of her?"
John Sway Too took the portion of li-un
into his hand and rubbed it slowly into a
pellet; and the company drew closer.
"It was about the time of Clear Weather,"
he began, "when, in our country, the almond
blossom is scattering its colour about the
garden walks, and the swallow comes again;
when, beneath the brown earth begin those
agreeable stirrings that rise at last to the full
laughter of the harvest; when, beneath the
bosoms of refined youths such as those I now
see before me, begin those not unpleasing
tremors that come at last to harvest in a kiss.
I had, on a fair evening of this season, followed
my custom of visiting a tea-house within this
street, and there engaging myself with white
men in a game of fan-tan. But upon that
evening some evil spirit was in possession of
the cards, and all my skill could not prevent
my losing many cash to my base associates.
At a point when but a few cash were left to
me, I resolved to play one game more, believ-
ing that my unremitting devotion to my
ancestors would lead them to intervene on
behalf of their miserable son. The agreeable
state of mind with which 1 entered upon this
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Whispering Windows
game was, however, violently displaced by
emotions of the most agitating nature; for I
soon observed that the cards which had fallen
to my hand were intolerably inadequate to the
purpose of recovering any portion of my coins.
When, therefore, the game was well begun, I
contrived, by that dexterity which my dignified
father had passed to me as his highest gift, to
thwart the evil spirit that sought to undo me,
and to substitute, by a rapid movement of the
arm, five cards of high value, which I carried
always in my tunic as a charm against evil-
doers, for those then in my hand.
"But alas! misfortune pursues even those
most attentive to the Four Books and most
devout in service to their ancestors. Scarce
had I effected the substitution, when the pig-
like eye of the wholly detestable Bill Hawkins
perceived the movement; and, disregarding
all the laws of the Book of Rites, he cried
aloud his discovery in that voice which many
have likened to the filing of an iron chain
by a number of watermen under the influence
of rice spirit. Immediately the assembled
company laid aside their dignity, and fell
upon me with blows and base comments upon
my accomplished father and the method by
which he bred me. With a total loss of the
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The Perfect Girl
perpendicular, I was hurried from the tea-
house to the Causeway, and there subjected
to usage of a degrading and highly painful
nature.
"Suddenly, at a point when the repeated
blows had become well-nigh unbearable, they
ceased, and a silence fell upon my persecutors;
and there appeared in our midst a white
maiden of loveliness surpassing any loveliness
that this person had at any time conceived.
Dazed as I was by my brutal treatment, I was
yet swift to note how my heart leapt and cried
at sight of her. Dense dark hair, with the
sheen of water at midnight, streamed about
her milk-white brow. Whiter than the
blossom of the cherry were her hands, and
her eyes shone with the lights of a thousand
festival lanterns. The running lines of her
limbs were as happy to the eye as the flashing
curves of the swallow in the middle air; and
through the dusk her face glowed like an
evening water-lily.
"While I lay prone on the hard road, she
addressed high words to my tormentors, and
her bright hands flashed against them like
fire-flies; and I felt that sweeter to my wounds
than all ointments and dressings would be one
caress from those hands. And lo I when she
l 161


The Perfect Girl
made light, she illuminated two lanterns, and
I found myself walking upon soft rugs in a
chamber garnished with flowers and silks.
Bidding me rest upon a purple couch, she
retired; and presently returned with soft
water and unguents, and with these she
blessed my bruises—ay, with those lily hands
she tended me. While I lay there in all
my baseness and misery, this white maiden
soothed and caressed my hurt places, and fed
my bosom with the rich light of her eyes.
When I was fully comforted, she brought me
wine and sweet foods, and sat by me as I ate,
and ate with me, and my heart grew so light
as I received her smiles that I scarce knew it
was there; nay, it had changed, I think, into
a little murmurous song or a soft flower of
the springtide.
"The hours grew to the noon of night.
Yet I moved not. I could not move, for her
beauty held me in delicious bonds. As she
sat by me, my heart danced with the fumes
of the time of Clear Weather, and little white
thoughts flowed and fluttered between our
hearts, and the room was sweetened by them.
My offending Angers wandered through the
forest of her hair. Her lucid face was a field
for my eyes to rove in. In my arms I held
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Whispering Windows
her, heart to heart, and all her shining loveli-
ness was mine. Her soft robes ran through
my fingers, and the strip of lace about her
neck was to me fairer than the jewels of the
temple. When the lanterns faded, her eyes
flooded the night with silver, and with my
head upon her young breast I dreamed of
these streets in Limehouse, and how all men
were kind to us; where white maidens scoffed
not at us because our faces are golden like the
sun; nor deceived us with soft words for the
purpose of obtaining taels from us.
"To me, John Sway Too, she gave these
hours of beauty. But she gave me more than
this. She gave me her inner mind. She gave
me kindness and warm understanding; and
though our spoken words fell without signifi-
cance upon each other's ears, we had full
knowledge without them. So passed the
hours in the bliss of sympathy and beauty.
All these gifts I had of her without return.
Nay, far from requiring money of me for the
gift of her charms, as other white girls do,
she gave me of her own store—pressed it
upon me that I might replenish my purse by
play.
"Yea, truly, when at last I felt that I should
depart, she pressed upon me many taels,
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The Perfect Girl
knowing that I was without substance, and a
basket of elegant provisions. When I would
have made a dignified refusal, she smiled upon
me, and I then took what she had offered me
and knew that I need speak no words of
thanks. She led me herself from her own
noble mansion to the door of my base and
despicable hovel; and there, in the street, she
left me with a memory of love that scattered
wonder and beauty upon the mean houses
about me, and made even the shadows of the
shops that fell upon the pathway she had
trodden, more dear and desirable than all the
substance of my own country.”
John Sway Too paused, and reached for
his pipe, while the company sat mute with
shining eyes and gaping mouths.
Presently—“ And did you never see her
again—this maiden of surpassing virtue and
loveliness?” asked one.
“Many times since have I seen her, my son.
And each time she is more lovely and gracious,
and pours sweeter blessings upon my unworthy
person.”
"Ao! Ao!” they cried eagerly. “She is
still here then? She is still to be seen about
these streets ? Could it be granted that we
might at some time catch even a distant
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Whispering Windows
Whispering Windows
glimpse of her enchantments - could for one
moment behold her?".
“In truth, yes. More than that, you may
see her and be with her even as I have been
with her. You may feast of her white beauty
and rare mind even as I."
“Hi-yah! Where, oh, where may we find
her, O refined and elegant John Sway Too?
Tell us quickly. Direct us to her, to this one
wbite maid who will not scorn our worship.”
“ The gracious and high-minded company,"
replied John Sway Too, “who have listened
so attentively to my trivial and wearisome
discourse, may find the Perfect White Maid
even as I found her; and once they have
found her they will renounce the company of
all other daughters of this sunless land. They
will find her in any one of these little pellets
of li-un which I am about to smoke in this
very ordinary and ill-constructed pipe.”
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The Affair at the Warehouse
Oh Joe we was happy. I hope Joe some
day you will be as happy because you have
been a good pal to me and I always liked you
Joe and I want everybody to know how happy
you can be together with a girl you love and
what loves you. Oh Joe I never knew before
how beautiful things were. I never knew
how lovely girls are and what a difference
comes into a girls face when she looks at her
boy and nestles up to him. Joe do you re-
member how we used to joke about love and
getting married. It seems horrible to think
of it now. But I hope Joe you wont have to
hide like a rabbit and only slink out at night
all because you love somebody—that is what
we got to do.
DEAR JOE—we have been here twenty-four
hours now. I suppose V has been missed
from the factory and from home and I reckon
they are wondering where I got to but I know
you wont give a pal away Joe.
I slipped out last night to get some more
grub in. Good job the streets is dark. Any-
how I didnt show my face at any shop round
here. I went up to Canning Town. I couldn't
get much because we darent use our ration
books us being registered at local shops for
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Whispering Windows
you will find a girl—not like what we used to
click with in Commercial Road but a real girl.
Violet was 15 on Tuesday, so we decided to
make it that day. I met her as she come from
the factory Joe and we went a long walk
and then a tram ride and then got back these
parts about midnight. I had got it all fixed.
I had been looking round for some time and
found what we wanted where nobody would
ever dream of looking for us. It was a ware-
house Joe over in the Island but it had been
empty for a long time. I had got in the
night before and had a look round and it was
all nice and dry on the first floor and I found a
lot of straw shavings and things and I made
up a bit of a bed like and tied a lot of it
together and made hassicks to sit on and I
fixed up a few old planks to make a sort of
table. Lucky it was warm weather else we
should have been cold because it wouldnt
have done to have started a fire in the stove
because someone who knew the place might
see the smoke coming out. Well Joe that is
where I took her. I had laid in a bit of grub
of a sort and at one in the morning we sat
down there together as cosy as you please and
had it. We didnt neither of us eat much.
We was too excited I think.
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The Affair at the Warehouse
Oh Joe we was happy. I hope Joe some
day you will be as happy because you have
been a good pal to me and I always liked you
Joe and I want everybody to know how happy
you can be together with a girl you love and
what loves you. Oh Joe I never knew before
how beautiful things were. I never knew
how lovely girls are and what a difference
comes into a girls face when she looks at her
boy and nestles up to him. Joe do you re-
member how we used to joke about love and
getting married. It seems horrible to think
of it now. But I hope Joe you wont have to
hide like a rabbit and only slink out at night
all because you love somebody—that is what
we got to do.
Dear Joe—we have been here twenty-four
hours now. I suppose Vr has been missed
from the factory and from home and I reckon
they are wondering where I got to but I know
you wont give a pal away Joe.
I slipped out last night to get some more
grub in. Good job the streets is dark. Any-
how I didnt show my face at any shop round
here. I went up to Canning Town. I couldn't
get much because we darent use our ration
books us being registered at local shops for
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Whispering Windows
this and that which would have got us nabbed
if we shown our faces where we was known.
But I called at Fat Freds place up at Canning
Town and got some boiled beef and pease from
him without a coupon. I pumped him a bit
and he didnt know anything was wrong. There
wont be nothing in the papers for a bit I
suppose but I bet V's father will go to the
police if she aint home to-night. I managed
to get some beer and some lemonade and I
pinched a glass from the lemonade shop.
Oh Joe when I got back I slipped in quiet
like and V didnt hear me and what do you
think I saw. She was sitting on one of the
hassicks and just as I got there she reached
for my old cap—what I thought I hadnt
better wear because it is a bright brown colour
and might be known—and hugged it to her
and kissed it. Oh Joe I cant tell you what it
makes a chap feel when he sees his girl do like
that. As soon as I see what she was doing 1
slipped out again and come back again and
made a bit of a noise this time so she would
know. Oh Joe how I love her. Joe if we
was to die at the same time I want you to go
to her people and mine and make them swear
to let us be buried together. You will do this
for me Joe wont you. You wont let a pal
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The Affair at the Warehouse
down will you. You got to do it in case
anything happens.
I expect her father wont half be wild but if
it did happen you must tell him it is my wish
and V's wish. It is a bit out of the ordinary I
know but if he loved his daughter and wants
to do something to make up for those awful
bruises that she carries on her arms and legs
from him I think he will agree to it. If he
doesnt and there is a Judge above us I hope
he will meet out punishment to those what
have deserved it by keeping us apart and
treating her so shameful. Tell him that
Joe.
But why am I going on like this. We are
just in love with everything at present and we
both laugh a lot at having to sneak out and lie
doggo all day. I took V out for a stroll at
about eleven and we mooched round a bit and
it was a lovely night. Although we dont talk
to nobody but each other we aint lonely. You
aint Joe when you love properly.
Well Joe last night we skipped away about
eleven and it was another lovely night so we
walked to Liverpool Street. We caught a
late train. I didnt know where it was going
but we hopped on without a ticket and went
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The Affair at the Warehouse
we walked into a village and had a slap up
time with eggs and tea and lettiss and radishes
and things. There was a piano there and V
sat down and played all the ragtimes for about
an hour. She always was one for a bit of
music as you know. The old girl who kept
the place thought we was just a couple of
London munition workers what had got a day
off and she was so took with V she couldnt do
enough for us. We had a fine wash and brush
up there and wanted it. That is what troubles
us most. We cant find no water in the ware-
house. She said she could let us have rooms
if we wanted to stay the night but me and V
didnt want to be separated and we thought
sleeping out nicer. So we slept out that night
again but not in those woods because we found
a nicer place just on the banks of a river.
V is no end tickled by the way I talked to
the old girl and the way I manage things and
find out the cheap places. She said she never
knew I had so much swank in me that is be-
cause I have always been a bit quiet and awk-
ward with her like a chap is when he is really
in love.
• •••••»
We come back to the warehouse to-night.
Everything looked alright. It didnt look as
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Whispering Windows
though anybody had spotted us. I wish there
was some way of your dropping a note into
the place so I can hear the news and know
what is going on and whether there is any
trouble about our going away. Joe that is
quite right that about a friend in need being
a friend indeed. You have always been the
best pal a chap ever had and we have had
some great times together aint we. You have
been closer than a brother to me Joe. I will
say that. You will easy know the place.
Second to the right as you get into Folly
Wall—a big empty place with a couple of
pulley cranes outside and a notice to Let.
Stick it under the door Joe but dont try to
see us. We cant take no risks.
Got your note old man. I guessed how it
would be but it is a good thing they dont put
two and two together. I hope the police
didnt upset my landlady when they called
round. She is a good old body. I suppose
they think I have just bolted to avoid military
service and dont guess we have gone together.
I cant help laughing at that when I know
how we was both looking forward to joining
up when we was eighteen wasnt we. But
that was before I met V. I am sorry her
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Whispering Windows
my throat if that would make things any nicer
for her. But she has said once or twice that
she has been a lot of trouble to me and to
everybody else and she said it again this time
and I dqnt like to hear her talk that way.
Oh Joe—what a wonderful girl she is. Such
character and principals she has got—I never
met anyone like her for that among our set
which is all the kind I know. If ever there
was a real good girl it is her. And so lively
and all—over what we have to put up with in
this place.
Oh Joe Joe. It has happened. I knew it
would. I never dared think of it. I never
said so to myself. I just knew it deep down
like. You will say that sounds silly but it is a
fact. I knew it all the time. And it has come.
Joe I had been out to get something for
supper and I come back with some hard-
boiled eggs and some beer and a loaf of bread
and some bananas and some saveloys what I
had knocked off while the chap was arguing
with someone. And I was looking forward
to the feed Ave was going to have Joe—and
oh Joe it is awful to write about. Me coming
in with those things what I had had such fun
in getting for her. And then Joe there she
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The Affair at the Warehouse
was lying on the bed of shavings all still. I
knew before T looked at her. She was dead
Joe and there was a bottle of something by
her side. How she had got it I don't know
because she never went into any shop without
me. She must have brought it with her in
case. But oh Joe she is dead now—my
darling little V. Oh God I loved her Joe
more than I thought one could and it is me
what has killed her. I didnt ought to have
interfered. I didnt ought to have taken her
from her home but what could I do Joe when
I loved her so and see her suffering like that.
I never thought that being in love meant
what it has to me. I never see none of these
awful things coming Joe when I first knew her.
She had left a letter for me for good-bye. This
is what she says Joe my precious little girl:
Sweet,
I love you too much to see you in any
more trouble than you have already got into
through loving me so. I will now say good-
bye sweetheart for the last time and when you
see Joe say Hullo for me and tell him I hope
we will all meet again some day. You will
let Dad know wont you sweetheart. I
thought after a while we might have gone
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Whispering Windows
back and got married when he had calmed
down a bit but there seems no way out.
Why cant we do what we want to so long
as we dont do nobody any harm. When I
met you dear I knew then that the world was
good and all a lovely place. Why did they
bother us so. I wonder why we cant all be
happy. I thought the world was so big and
good but really it is like being in a cage.
You cant do anything in the world unless
somebody else lets you. I am myself and so
are you. Why cant we be let alone.
Tell Joe that if he finds a nice girl I hope
he wins her and dont have nobody saying you
shant and he will be happy as I know I would
if I could live for always with you dear.
Well Joe I want you to take this letter to
the police and tell them to come here and they
will find us because this is Goodbye for me
too Joe. I cant help thinking as I write this
and look at her lying there so still what she
was saying in the woods. It seems I can
hear her voice in this warehouse Joe saying I
am lost come and find me. So I am going
to find her. I got that little gun what we
bought for a lark in Bethnal Green Road and
I got two cartridges. Joe—dont you forget
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The Affair at the Warehouse
what I said in one of the other letters about
our being side by side. You got to see it
done Joe for the sake of your old dead pal.
And now goodbye and all the best to you and
all the rest of the chaps at the works. It is
all over. It had to end somehow I suppose
and I knew this would be it and perhaps this
way is just as well. There is a lot of misery
in the world Joe that nobody can help. My
darling had a rough time all her life but she
looks very quiet now like as though she had
dropped off to sleep after being very tired. I
hope you will have a better time when you
meet your girl Joe.
From the Local Press
When information was taken to Ephraim
Carfax, who was found at the Wesleyan
Chapel at Foljambe Street, that the dead
body of his daughter, Violet Beatrice Carfax,
had been found in a disused warehouse side
by side with the dead body of a man who was
being sought by the military, he made no
comment beyond saying: "I thought she had
gone with a man. This is a sad blow. What
are they going to do with the bodies? I
suppose this will get into the papers." Mr
Carfax, who has an ironmongery business in
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Whispering Windows
Maroon Street, is a well-known chapel worker,
and is highly respected in the district.
At the inquest on the bodies of Violet
Beatrice Carfax, 15, and George Borrowdale,
18, verdicts of suicide while of unsound mind
were returned in each case, a rider being added
to the effect that the girl was clearly under
the influence of the man at the time. Letters
from the deceased were put in which seemed
to call for no other verdict. The father of
the girl, giving evidence, stated that she had
disappeared on Wednesday the 18th. Regard-
ing certain passages in the letters, he admitted
having frequently whipped her in order to
stop her from "going with boys," and to make
her come in by nine o'clock. She was always
in the streets. He was not aware that on
several occasions when she had not come home
until half-past ten, and had been punished,
her factory was working overtime. He had
not believed her when she pleaded this, as
she was not always truthful.
The jury expressed their sympathy with the
father in his bereavement, who is a prominent
and highly-respected chapel worker.
The funeral of Violet Beatrice Carfax, who,
r82





Big Boy Blue





BIG BOY BLUE had been for some
years the most adroit cop of his station.
He was a good mixer. He had pre-
sence, carriage, and address, and could wear
mufti without looking like a policeman. He
was big, calm, taciturn; slow to speak, quick
to smile; and in all situations imperturbable.
The most exacting business, the cleanest skin-
of-the-teeth extrication from disaster, seemed
to afford him no thrill. If he discussed his
adventures with others of his division, he did
so perfunctorily, in flat tones, as though speak-
ing of another. He seemed always the
spectator, observing himself as well as others.
He drank with his fellows, and received their
confidences, giving nothing in exchange be-
yond a call for the next round. He seemed
to stand aloof from the harmless human follies
of his circle; was impervious to the beauty of
girls; did not gamble; took little interest in
games; did not tell the rank anecdotes that
men tell one another; yet found himself
welcome in any crowd.
His colleagues liked him; bar-tenders liked
him; crooks liked him and stood him drinks
and chaffed him about their mutual relation-
ship. He was even welcome in Chinatown.
Little misconduct took place in those streets
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Whispering Windows
while he was about. Whenever a Tong battle
was imminent Big Boy Blue was told off to see
to it; and he saw to it by walking up to the
battling Chinks and calmly demanding their
weapons; which were immediately given up
to him.
At the Tea-house of Ah Fat he was notably
welcome, and the best tea was served to him
with selected chrysanthemum buds. He was
welcome here for two reasons: because Mr
Ah Fat was wise in Western ways and had
discovered the expediency of standing well
with the police; and because Mr Ah Fat had
a daughter who, from her shuttered retreat,
looked forth and worshipped the valiant form
and grave demeanour of Big Boy Blue. Ah
San Lee was so carefully guarded by her father
that few knew of her existence. Seldom was
she seen by strangers. On rare occasions,
customers at her father's tea-house had seen,
momentarily, at the end of the dim passage
leading to the kitchen, a round, moon-like face
with flat, black hair; but it was gone before
one might say whether it belonged to man or
woman.
But Boy Blue had seen her. When, on
unpremeditated occasions, he made a call at a
late hour at the shop of Ah Fat, and entered
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Big Boy Blue
the rooms for a tour of inspection, Ah Fat
would receive him with courtesy; and, after
the inspection, would press upon him a pot of
suey sen. Then he would accompany him to a
table in the empty restaurant and Ah San Lee
would come forth and wait upon them. The
exquisite finish of her form and the grace of
her movements and her plaintive smile were
lost upon Boy Blue; he observed only men;
and he would talk to her with tolerant, heavy
humour, and in the manner which some men
think pleasing to children.
“Well, Angel-Face, d’you back the winner
yesterday? No? Come, come. And after
what I told you. I told you to back Ching-
Chang for the two-thirty.” And: “Well,
Gladiola, when are you going to grow up and
get as big as me, eh?”
And Ah Fat would sit back and say nothing
and look nothing, while San Lee would droop
her eyes and roll her head and worship. Very
powerful was Ah Fat in Chinatown. He was
the chief of his Tong (The Silver Chrysanthe-
mum), and men had named him the Fire-
spouting Dragon. Greed sat upon his brow
and ate into his skin. He was the richest of
all the Quarter, and his riches had come to
him by the misfortunes of others: not by the
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Whispering Windows
honourable means of trade or the gaming-
table. He was a money-lender, and crafty in
his method. When sums loaned became due,
he would simulate kindly concern with the
affairs of his debtor, and would gently pass
back a portion of the money; and few were at
first sufficiently keen-witted to detect the trick.
Always he was affably ready with cash
assistance to the needy and unfortunate; and
as men do not frely talk of their pecuniary
embarrassments, or compare notes upon their
treatment by usurers, it came about that half
Chinatown was in great or small degree in his
power. When he began to use his power he
became a nuisance; and store-keepers and
laundry-men began to suffer acute disorder
of mind. Unable to resist his power, they
directed their animosity against those of his
Tong; and again those street battles, which
Boy Blue had so often quelled, broke out
again. This caused so much irritation to
peaceful seamen and dock workers, who
found that public bloodshed interrupted their
private beer-shed, that complaints were laid ;
and Boy Blue was assigned to see to it.
He saw to it, and, from his inquiries, learnt
the full story of the iniquities of Ah Fat in
the matter of his usury. He reported. Plans
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Big Boy Blue
were then laid for breaking the power of Ah
Fat and his Tong, and relieving his victims
from his duress; and news of these plans came
to Ah Fat.
Ah Fat set himself to see to it. He waddled
about his tea-house and his kitchen, and
thought. Then he sent for San Lee.
“Dissa Big Boy Blue,” he said, “ he get veh
busy jus' now. Big Boy Blue he make heap
damn fella trouble.” He smiled and showed
his teeth, pink from much chewing of areca-
nut.
San Lee listened and said nothing.
“ Dissa Big Boy Blue he gotta go!” And
San Lee shivered. “He gotta go-quick !”
He left her then, and went to the kitchen.
In the evening he came to her again.
“He too quick and clever for Ah Fat. He
no trust Ah Fat. He watch evehting Ah
Fat do. Yoh poh un'appy father-he got no
way to mek Big Boy Blue go. But li'l Ah
San Lee-Big Boy Blue no watch her like
he watch Ah Fat. San Lee, she 'elp 'er ole
father?”
San Lee stood mute under the steady drip
of his words.
Next day he spoke again, plaintively, of the
trouble that Boy Blue's activities implied to
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Big Boy Blue
to have another chat with Mr Ah Fat. That
kid of his has been mighty useful to me, at
times. He's as cute as they make 'em, but
she's like a baby. She may know something
that'll put the lid on him.”
So at ten o'clock the next Saturday he
went in plain clothes to Mr Ah Fat's tea-room.
The bars were closing, and much noise beat
about the by-ways. The rum-hounds of Lime-
house bayed to the moon. Random whiffs
of chandoo came to his nose. He made a
note of the house whence they came, and
decided to see to it to-morrow; and passed on
through the heavy, dry air of the Quarter.
As he turned into Pennyfields, Ah Fat was
watching from his window. With a lumbering
but swift movement he waddled to the tea-
room, seized a rod of split bamboo, and stood
over San Lee.
“ 'E come. 'E come to damage yoh poh
father. You ʼmember what I say?”.
She nodded. He looked at her doubtfully,
and brandished the bamboo; then moved
swiftly to the kitchen and made hasty prepar-
ation for the coming of Boy Blue. Then he
called San Lee to the kitchen, and pointed to
a tray on which stood two cups. He shook
her and showed her the cup nearest the edge
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Whispering Windows
of the tray. "Dissa cup, San Lee. Dissa
cup, O affliction to a miserable father. You
savee?"
San Lee nodded with blank face, gulping
and quivering, and Ah Fat folded his hands
and also nodded. He was in no mood to put
up with a recalcitrant child. The occasion was
desperate and called for extreme action. If
Boy Blue were successful in his plan for break-
ing his power, he was wholly undone. He
could no longer hold his head high above the
poor wretches of store-keepers and laundrymen
whose names stood on the wrong side of his
account leaves. He would be a figure for
ridicule. Men would doff their gravity at
sight of him. He would be abject. Life
would not be worth living. It must not
happen. Anything before that. It should
not happen. He was careless of all other
consequences if he could avert that supreme
disaster.
As the lumbering tread of Boy Blue was
heard on the stairs, he shook her again—
"Dissa cup, huh ?"—released her, and de-
scended to the cellar. When Boy Blue
entered the tea-room, she went forward,
following, dazedly, the part that had been so
sharply taught her. Even as she walked, Ah
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Big Boy Blue
Fat seemed to be at her side, and his dreadful
voice in her ear, exactingobedience to his
commands under pain of sufferings worse than
death. If she failed to play her part, if she
warned Boy Blue of his danger, torments
unbearable lay in store for her. But there was
one other way of saving him-away which
she could face with even mind.
“Ho, good-ev-en-ing, sir. You wan? look
around ? Ho yess, sir. I so sorry Misteh Ah
Fat 'e notatome. 'Ebe in veh soon.”
Boy Blue looked down at her and chucked.
her under the chin with a large hand. “ Right-o,
Angel-Face. And what's the latest with you,
eh? I'll come in and wait for Mr Ah Fat."
He loomed above her down the passage, his
lounge suit as severe as armour in contrast to
the dumpling figure in slack linen; his burly
boots gigantic alongside the timid list slippers.
He had his eyes all about him, and pushed
open the door of the kitchen and looked
round it. He saw nothing to disturb him,
and followed San Lee to the table near the
window. She did not give him the smiles
and head-wagging which usually greeted his
persiflage, but he paid no heed to it, beyond
remarking: “What's up, kiddie? Got the
fantoodleums?”
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Whispering Windows
“Ho no, misteh. I veh tired. You like li'l
suey sen, sir? You take cuppa tea with me?”
“ Tea? Well, I don't mind if I do. A
slice o' lemon in mine. Then if you shut the
door we can have a quiet li'l talk, eh?”
“Ollight. I go get tea.”
She went into the kitchen and got the tray,
and got a glowering look from the face of Ah
Fat, which was level with the top of the cellar
stairs. She returned to the tea-room, carrying
the tray with nice care. She set it down and
looked behind her to the kitchen. From the
street came throbs of dark sound, above which
climbed the lugubrious wail of a fiddle and
the grinding of a gramophone. She stood
stolid at the table. Her great moment had
come. Her hero was in danger of his life, and
must at all cost be saved. She alone--sweet
thought-could save him. The cellar beneath
the kitchen had in its time held many secrets,
but it should not hold Boy Blue. It was
rapture for her, this moment that had given
to her the chance of rendering to him the
highest of all service. Covering the tray with
her person, she took a piece of lemon from a
plate and dropped it in the cup that stood in
the middle of the tray ; and passed the cup
steadily to her guest.
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Big Boy Blue
· The other cup she took herself, and sat down
opposite Boy Blue.
“We dlink together, sir. As yoh gentle-
men say: I look towahds you. And veh soon
I tell you something useful.”
Well, cheerio, kid.”
They drank. San Lee sat calm, her eyes
fixed on Boy Blue. He noted the steady
gaze, and, knowing the Chinks, let her take
her own time for disclosing what she had to
disclose. But she was only trying to tell him
through her eyes that she was glad, and that
in a moment he would have a clear case
against Ah Fat. She took another mouthful
from the cup, and felt free to speak, for she
knew that she was going beyond the reach
of any human persecution. But when she
opened her mouth she found she could not
speak. No matter. Boy Blue would soon
discover the truth for himself.
As she felt the sudden sharp pains stabbing
her limbs, and the cold damp upon her face,
happiness beyond words was hers. She had
given all that she had to give to her valiant
prince, and great was the joy of giving. Her
head drooped, for it was very heavy; but she
felt that his eyes were upon her, and felt them
as a parting benediction, a Nunc dimittis.
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Whispering Windows
Until, with an effort, she raised her head to
meet his glance, and saw his face. In his eyes
was a look of awful questioning. His face
was as marble-white as hers. Sweat stood in
beads upon his skin. As the room glimmered
about her and the walls approached and re-
ceded, the last look that she received from
her hero was one of unutterable and un-
quenchable hatred. Ere he collapsed, he
seized the cup he had received from her hands
and flung it full at her.
Ah Fat, being no sport, and taking no
chance with undutiful daughters, had poisoned
both cups.
198


Mazurka





CHRISSIE RAINBOW stood on the
balcony of her tenement home and
looked down upon the evening life of
Limehouse. In the warm sapphire dusk even
the vociferant dock-side lay hushed, expectant;
and footsteps crackled like fire-works. Clusters
of boys and girls hung at street corners, chat-
ting and softly giggling. Yellow men paired
with silent, ogling females, and swam into
quiet by-ways. Hard-faced women collared
simple sailors. Malays hovered and desired,
not daring to pounce.
Then the big lamp outside the Blue Lantern
was lit, and lights appeared behind its many
windows, and an organ stopped at its doors,
and sprayed the neighbourhood with a rapid
fire of rag-time. Its bright summons set
young feet a-tapping and old heads a-wagging,
and into the gas-lit circle moved flaring hats
and wide-grinning faces. The great sea of
roofs that swept out to Essex began to twinkle
with luminous points, and all-night factories
made gashes of light across the distant gloom.
As the twilight deepened to night the
loungers began to pull themselves together
and to make certain movements towards sub-
stantial entertainment. The two music halls,
shrinking behind their bold veils of light.
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Whispering Windows
fung open their doors to a clamant crowd
of seekers after mirth. The cinemas were
“now showing,” vehemently, Lillian Gish
and Nazimova.
The organ stopped its ragging. Chrissie
heard its rasping wheels bear it away, and with
its passing the motley murmur of the crowd
again vexed her ears with its uneasy calm. :
For some minutes she stood thus, drawing
to herself the breath of the city. Then from
the little Chinese café at the corner of King's
Street came a sudden burst of music, as its
latest attraction, a penny-in-the-slot piano,
clattered its way through a new record--the
Mazurka from Coppèlia.
Straight through the open window to her
it came, riding joyously, insolently, above the
purring street; and it captured the idle half
of her mind, and she found herself smiling
in welcome to it! The chorus songs of the
street she knew, and the organ musie which had
just passed; and felt at no time any litheness
of limb to their rhythms. But here was some-
thing novel; charged with colour and various
melody, and rippling with lightness of heart
and holiday; something strange to her, yet
made to her own heart's measure. It carried
to her an invitation as flagrant as the nod and
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Whispering Windows
She discovered a sudden disgust of it and its
petty appointments. She moved about it.
She picked up a book, and threw it down.
She sat on the edge of the bed. She got up
and straightened an ornament on the mantel-
shelf. She again took up the book. But her
mind was outside. She was listening to the
crisp gossip of young feet to the pavement.
She was seeing the long Barking Road—all
breeze and glare and glitter of lamps and
shop windows. She was seeing the happy
encounters of boy and girl; and she felt the
odour of lilac floating from the public gardens.
The streets were breathing softly, closely,
wooing her. The Mazurka still simmered
within her.
Until to-night her evenings had followed a
changeless routine. Home from the factory
—wash—a meal of some tinned food and
tea—necessary repairs to garments—then a
book of some educational course—and bed.
By her fellows at the factory she was voted
slow. Miss Stuck-up was her name there.
"Look at The Stuck-up going 'ome to keep
'erself Pure!" "We ain't good enough for
the chaste Stuck-up!" All their invitations
to " evenings" and " crawls," to " 'ave a bit on,"
she declined ; and when, on the pavement out-
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Mazurka
side the factory, the girls stood in chattering
groups, to argue the evening's indulgence, she
would slip through them and away, followed
by muttered obscenities. To all their gibes
she had one reply—an exasperating smile of
self-sufficiency.
But to-night she could not rest; she was
not company for herself. The benignant dusk,
the crooning of the summer evening, and the
bright challenge of the Mazurka had entered
her blood. Solitude now distressed her. She
longed to be in the life that was all about her.
She longed to be accepted by the crowd, and
to be one of it; and suddenly she rose from
the bed, snatched her hat, and adjusted it at a
rakish angle. With a few deft touches she
smoothed the poor cotton frock; then, with
trilling pulses, she ran down the stone stairs
to the street, and surrendered herself to the
crowd.
She was Out. Cleverly she copied the
saunter of the other girls: the swinging arms,
the swirling frock, the roving eye. In the
high charm of her fifteen years she strode.
Her thin brown hair flowed about her shoulders,
and the swift lines of her limber legs curved
aptly from pendulous skirt to natty shoe. She
was prepared now to accept all things, and to
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Whispering Windows
find great joy in the common street. She
needed not to-night the rarefied atmosphere in
which she had hitherto held herself from con-
tact with the mob. She had come down off
her perch, and was now warm and fluent.
But the street made no demonstration at
her condescension. None looked twice at her.
The East End boy looks only for faces; if they
be not pretty, all other charms are without
virtue. She searched here and there for some
of her work-fellows. They were certainly
"out," amusing themselves somewhere, and
it would be pleasant to join them. It would
be pleasant to be popular with them. They
would perhaps find her a boy, who would
walk with her and take her arm; for she
thought that she wanted a boy to walk out
with and talk with. Really, she wanted to
talk with London and be friends with it.
Up and down the street she strolled, but saw
no familiar face, nor any that sought to make
itself known. Tiring after four turns, she
went to the Tunnel Gardens; and here she
boldly invited with feet and eyes. A few lads
looked at her, but with sniggers and ribald
comment. These were the knowing ones,
who chose carefully. "Pasty-face!" was the
welcome she got from them. Other lads
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Mazurka
looked at her without remark, but these were
the bashful, the inexperienced, who did not
know how to force an introduction; novices,
like herself.
But at the farther gate of the gardens she
found Adventure. Mr Sam Ling Lee, in
straw hat, brown boots and store suit, was
leaning against a railing, twirling a whangee
cane. His face was placid, his appearance
highly respectable; and he seemed lonely.
She came to him and passed him with a flutter
of frock, and gave him a long, expressive look.
He smiled. Some paces away, she looked
back. He was still looking. She stopped at
the railings, and smiled. He came to her.
Well, they walked out of the gardens
towards Pennyfields. Great elation was hers,
and her little lips were pursed tightly to hold
back the smile that would have lodged there.
She was living. She had Got Off. She was
no longer to be sneered at as the Stuck-up, the
timid. She could cut a dash as well as anyone
else. Mr Sam Ling Lee, too, was proud. A
white girl had given him the glad eye, and was
coming to Pennyfields to take a cup of tchah
and to eat with him.
At the tea-house of the Golden Chrys-
anthemum they sat at a marble table;
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Whispering Windows
and she drank tea and ate little cakes, and
thrilled to his quaint accent and turns of
speech. And he leaned across the table and
pressed her hand, and she returned the squeeze.
And he told her, by many difficult words, that
he knew the keeper of the tea-house, and that
there was a nice quiet room upstairs where
they could sit and talk. And he would like
to sit and talk with her.
So they went upstairs.
It was past public-house closing-time when
she came down. She stepped into Pennyfields,
narrow, dark and deserted, and her light shoes
made clear staccato sounds. She walked
dreamily. Her eyes were heavy. But there
was a warmth and fullness about her face that
was new, and that became her. She carried
herself with confidence. She was a woman.
The others could no longer swank before her.
Her heart danced in a cool confusion.
Then, as she turned into West India Dock
Road, the darkness screamed at her. Snarls
and growls and cat-calls met her, and vile
words leapt upon her. And suddenly she was
surrounded by a dozen of her work-fellows.
Too dazed by the attack to speak, she shrank
away. But they were on all sides: horrid
faces and writhing lips that spat beastly things
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Mazurka
at her. The full significance of the situation
scarcely reached her at the moment. It was
an attack; that was all she could clearly
understand; and she turned blindly to break
through them and run. And as she turned,
one pushed her between the shoulders, and she
stumbled against another who pushed her back.
Dumb, except for sobs, she waited, terrified,
in their midst; and they encircled her with
stretched arms and pointed fingers; and she
stood breasting a ring of living spears.
Then they joined hands, and danced about
her with a song:
"Who got orf with a Chink?
Who got orf with a Chink?
She did!
She did!
She did!
Yah!"
And from point to point of the circle she
was pushed and hustled and bunted like a
sack, until she dropped.
Then, clamorously, they indicted her:
"There's yer quiet ones! There's yer pure
work-girl! There's yer Stuck up! Gorn with
a Chink! Ugh, the dirty cat! That's all
that would 'ave 'er, I suppose. Ugh, the dirty
bitch!" They let her go then, and went off in
o 209


Whispering Windows
a grinning, giggling mass, chanting to the
night:
"Chrissie Rainbow's bin with a Chink
Yah I Yah! Yah!"
Slowly she crawled to her feet, and slowly she
crawled home, numb, sobbing, stricken. The
summer night was done. The scent of flowers
was gone. The air was heavy with the
religious odour of fried fish. There was no
more of colour and revelry and happy street
life. She looked upon the every-night Lime-
house, and saw grey streets, gruff" buildings,
ragged roofs and walls, tram-cars, buses, dark
pubs, and ugly, dolorous noise. And as she
staggered into her room, and collapsed upon
her bed, an uglier noise broke forth below, and
a damned jingling, hiccuping, penny-in-the-
slot piano gibed and reviled her with the
Mazurka from Coppelia.
310


The Scarlet Shoes





ORROWFUL are the streets of Lime-
house by day; crowded with purpose-
less noise and cold, unfruitful endeavour.
But the evening is kind to them, and with the
coming of the dark they are set a-tinkling with
brilliant girl-laughter, and the moon lends
grace to the most forlorn by-way.
About these streets and lanes walked one
time San-li-po, a maiden of the land of water-
lilies, whose patched garments of yellow
cotton, with cheap embroidery enriched, gave
vigour to the flat tones of warehouse walls and
hovels. Willowy and dew-like was San-li-po,
but seldom did her laughter swell the happy
twilight chorus. Not since babyhood had
her lips opened in merriment, for there was
little in her life to warm her heart to satisfac-
tion. A waif, born in the Pool on an incom-
ing tramp, and abandoned to the clustering
alleys, she had found her first shelter with the
wicked Lee Yip, and with him, because she
was in a strange land and knew of no other
shelter, she had remained these seventeen
years. Hard and cheerless was her life with
him; nor could the animated streets give her
even a reflection of their gladness. The white
men mocked at her moon-like face; her
countrymen regarded her not while they
213


The Scarlet Shoes
are here concerned; the night when sweet
adventure came to this sad room and stretched
radiant hands towards San-li-po. At a late
hour on this night, Lee Yip made his ac-
customed entry to their abode, fumbling
and shouldering his way up the stairs, and
emitting . nasty noises from his mouth.
San-li-po, hearing other footsteps yet on
the stairs, stood by the table with blank
expression, ready to receive the wretched
fellows who alone would consort with her
guardian.
And lo! there entered to her Wing Dee, a
youth of fair aspect and seemly demeanour.
His hair was heavily oiled. His eyes were
reticent. He held himself upright in his can-
vas jacket and canvas trousers, and when he
perceived San-li-po, his round face glowed like
a lit lantern. He did not slouch to a corner,
with pig-like sounds, as their other guests : he
passed compliments to her; asked if she had
eaten her rice; and continued, using a courteous
form of phrase above the requirements of the
occasion:
" This person is mortified at the incon-
venience which he fears his undignified
presence in this truly refined apartment will
bring upon the honourable and flower-like
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Whispering Windows
more potent than words passed between
them.
After the meal, she pointed to a corner, and
to it he retired, and she went to her pallet.
Sleep came at once to her, and with it gracious
adventures with a fair and high-minded youth;
but Wing Dee lay awake through the long
night and the velvet voice of silence mur-
mured from the darkness and spoke beautiful
words to him. He thought of his own
country; of rivers; of stars; of blossom-
time; of a goodly house with many servants,
and of San-li-po in costly raiment flitting
about it. Then the grey of the morning fell
across the coloured dream, and he hid it away
in his heart. He awoke to the rough room,
and Lee Yip's beastly noise. He rose from
the chill boards and looked out upon the
sunless street and its fatigued activity. He
looked at the sodden face of Lee Yip, and
shuddered. Towards the corner where lay
San-li-po his heart forbade him to look,
though great was his desire to go to her, and
place by her pallet goodly gifts of warm silk.
But he knew that he had scarce sufficient
money to procure food for the space of days
that must elapse before the ship that had
engaged him left London. Even the poorest
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Whispering Windows
had looked long upon her, and had spoken
fair words to her. But that was all. Whence
he came, whither he was going, she knew
not; nor could she decently ask of him these
questions. His movements were no concern
of hers. Doubtless he had spoken courteously
and kindly towards her, because he was sorry
for her situation. Yet, having had this little
of him, she was anxious that he should give
more.
"Honourable guest going—going away?"
she murmured, and stopped with half-open
lips, as though about to say more.
Wing Dee caught the restrained fervour of
her voice, and rejoiced that she should thus
have spoken. So would he have spoken his
regret at parting; yet dared not.
"If this insignificant person might come
again to-night "he began, looking at her
and Lee Yip.
Lee Yip nodded his tattered head vigorously.
"Come every night," he grunted. "For the
few cash which this person charges for his
lodging, poor as it is, Wing Dee cannot find
better. Ao!"
So he came again that night, and, after
leaving the house the following morning, he'
met San-li-po in the streets. There, at a
220


The Scarlet Shoes
corner of West India Dock Road, they
talked. They told each other their stories.
With awkward glances and shy hesitancies,
with gushes of speech and cold blocks of
silence, they exchanged talk for about an
hour, each delighting in this sudden meeting,
each fearful of saying too much. They parted
abruptly, rudely, as is the way of boy and girl
in first love. But when they were gone on
their way, they knew that each was the other's
friend for ever, and great was the desire of
Wing Dee to lift San-li-po across his thres-
hold; great the desire of San-li-po to receive
the Napi of Wing Dee.
Four nights he spent as their lodger; and
joy illumined that musty room, and sweet-
ness passed in the air and hovered about the
table as they sat at rice. All things became
beautiful to him. He found delight in the
narrow alley where she lived; and its stones
were to him more holy than the stones of the
temple. These strange streets were all part
of her, and she was part of the streets and the
hard sky and the ships; and the mean life of
Chinatown became to him suddenly noble and
desirable: for it was the life she knew. His
immediate wish was to remove her from the
beast in whose charge she was held, but the
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Whispering Windows
wish, he knew, was futile. Hatred and loath-
ing seethed in his heart as he thought upon
the things that the maid had told him, and he
longed again to lay violent fingers upon the
wry neck of Lee Yip.
At the end of the week, much thought
showed him the way to his desire. He would
not rejoin his ship. He would stay in Lime-
house and work at any toil, however base,
until he had saved enough money to carry them
both to his own country. There they would
marry, and he would settle on his father's farm
and work it for her delight. To this plan he
moved, and, after some disappointment and
much perseverance, he obtained employment,
and employment in the Laundry of the Pure
White Water-Lily, above which she lived. By
sparse living and a little fortunate gambling,
he contrived to gather and hold a few coins;
then, delicate of feeling, he slept no more in her
room, but obtained lodging in a neighbouring
Oriental store, where he might still be near
her, and, in any mischance, succour her.
Each night, when his work was done, and
the fat Lee Yip had gone forth to seek delight
in the saloons and beer-houses about the
waterside, he would go to San-li-po, and they
would spend together some delicious hours.
222


The Scarlet Shoes
"O San-li-po, your voice is to me as the
bells of the Great Temple, and you are a garden
where I gather the most dignified rest and
refreshment. Soon, O San-li-po, I shall take
you home to your country that you have
never seen, and there by my side you will taste
pleasures of which you have never learnt."
"O Wing Dee, lord and master, your words
are more intoxicating to me than the most rare
perfumes. I am your slave."
As the hour grew late, he would leave her,
and wait in the West India Dock Road for
the home-coming of her drunken protector.
When he saw him bringing other drunkards
to sleep in that room with his chrysanthemum,
he would approach the sailors stealthily, and
draw them apart from their staggering guide;
and would put it to them whether it were not
entirely more desirable that they should spend
the night in his clean room without charge
than that they should pay valuable coins to the
drunken Lee Yip for the privilege of sleeping
in the underground den- infested with rats
and drain-water, to which he was conducting
them. By his knowledge and use of sailor
signs he was quickly able to convince them of
the evil reputation of Lee Yip. So that this
person, arriving at the door leading to his
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Whispering Windows
address. The lamp of his soul which he had
long kept so neatly trimmed was now lighted
by love, and shone through his blunt face for
all to see. So life went fairly for them for
many days.
Then trouble came. One midnight, as he
watched near the poor temple of his lady, Lee
Yip approached, and with him were three
dishevelled water-rats. Lee Yip was drunk,
and reeled; turning now and again to beckon
his guests to follow him, and reeling at every
turn. Swiftly Wing Dee noted the situation;
and as they drew near he slipped from his hid-
ing place and crept between host and guests.
Turning to the seamen, he muttered a seaman's
greeting, gave them a sign of warning, and
hustled them into an alley-way. There he
told them, with prodigal embellishment of
fact, of the offensive hovel to which Lee Yip
was taking them, and made them his accus-
tomed offer of free accommodation in his own
room. Some interchange of talk convinced
the seamen that the offer was of fair intent,
and that Wing Dee was one topside good fella
chap; and the four went from the alley by the
farther outlet.
But Lee Yip, drunk as he was, retained yet
some control of his faculties. Too often lately
226


The Scarlet Shoes
had evil spirits, hovering in the middle air,
swooped down and removed from his custody
likely guests from whom good measures of
rice-spirit might have been obtained; and
when he discovered that this evening's com-
pt ny also had vanished, he felt that the time
had come to turn his mind upon the matter.
Calling upon his ancestors, he slithered across
the road, looked at the doors about him, and
found them shut; and up and down the street,
and found it empty. He came to the mouth
of the alley, and looked down it, and he was
there in time to see four dim figures disap-
pearing at the other end. Towards them he
shuffled at an angular run, and came stealthily
to them. With well-nigh insufferable indigna-
tion he recognised his guests, and heard the
voice of Wing Dee conversing affably with
them on the base reputation and horrid
iniquities of himself, Lee Yip.
In a state of amazement and disgust he
retired abruptly to the shelter of the alley, and
crouched against the wall. The sudden shock
of this discovery drove the drink swiftly from
his brain, and left his faculties clear, though
its poison still turned and crawled in his blood.
He reviewed the situation in detail. He saw
himself outraged, scoffed at, reviled behind his
227


Whispering Windows
back by this pig of a seaman who had eaten
of his rice. Seeking a motive, he suddenly
remembered San-li-po, and here he saw clearly
things that his bemused mind had noted with-
out fully perceiving their import. He began
to remember certain looks that had passed b2-
tween San-li-po and Wing Dee in his room at
evenings. He began to remember that the
meals that San-li-po had cooked when the
youth was present were more sumptuous and
more daintily served than those to which she
had accustomed him. He remembered now,
very sharply, how San-li-po had often served
larger portions and choicer tit-bits to the guest
than to himself.
And now two streams of anger broke from
his breast and surged through him: one against
the youth; the other, the greater, against the
outcast waif, San-li-po, who had thus basely
deceived him by accepting the advances of this
pig who sought to rob him of his means of
life. Hot was his rage against the base and
treacherous thing that had subsisted on his
charity these many years, when no other
would help her, and now had turned against
him. He could not conjecture why these two
should wish to do him harm; he only saw
himself as the victim of their malicious hearts;
228


The Scarlet Shoes
and sorely upbraided himself for showing
kindness to a woman.
Then the two streams of anger united, and
became one, and in their murky waters a
dreadful dark thing began to grow. He faced
the way that Wing Dee had gone, and made
cruel signs with his hand, and his mouth
bristled with vile words ; and his brain fed on
the dark thing and gave back sustenance to
it. By the time he reached his door the
thing had grown until it had full possession
of him; and he stumbled up the stairs to
work his wrath upon the corrupt deceiver
whom he had so long harboured in his home,
and, through her, upon the guest who had
abused his roof.
When he entered, San-li-po was sitting on
the floor, and from her towzled skirt peeped
the little scarlet shoes which were tapping the
floor to some secret tune of glee. His dull
eye sharply noted them, for she had not yet
worn them in his presence, and he guessed
whence they came; and the flood of his anger
threatened to break its gates. He controlled
himself. With deliberate thickness of speech
and with heavy countenance he approached
her.
“O San-li-po, there is one asking for you.
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Whispering Windows
He desires to speak at once with you. It
is the young guest who lately visited our
dwelling. He is at the tea-house of Ho Foo
in some distress. There was a base and un-
dignified disturbance at the Blue Lantern,
and he lies wounded. I think his mind
wanders and he speaks from the middle air,
for he spoke much of you and requested me
to bring you to him.”
Sore alarm rose to the quiet eyes of San-li-po
at these words, and Lee Yip noted it, and
knew then that she was indeed in conspiracy
with that person against him. She moved
quickly to a peg where hung a loose covering
robe. This she wrapped about her, and they
went out to the dark streets and into the flow-
ing hum of London's silence. Through road
and alley they went, he lumbering in his broken
British boots, she in the scarlet shoes that
tripped along with her to the sick one who had
"given them. They passed from the Causeway
to Narrow Street, and so under many arches
that held uncomfortable noises.
“ Did I mistake, O Sun at Noon? I
thought you spoke of the tea-house of Ho
Foo, which is in---"
Lee Yip replied with a snarl and a grunt;
and, lest she offend him at this time when her
230


The Scarlet Shoes
presence was so much desired by another, she
kept silence and followed him. Down a
sloping lane of coal-dust he led her, till, at a
sudden turn, they faced the broad, rough river.
Behind them were the arches; on either side
deserted wharves. Then he turned upon
her.
"O San-li-po, creature of corruption and
deceit! O venomous snake! O female dog
of the city! O pig of behaviour! Your in-
sufferable conspiracy against the one who has
fed you and clothed you is known to me.
The nature of your relations with the detest-
able and evil-minded Wing Dee is known to
me. It is for some purpose which you know
that he takes from me my evening guests, my
only means of living. It is because of you
that he has taken to labour in the clothes-
cleansing business below our apartment.
What more is in your black heart I know
not, but never shall it come out to injure me.
Hi-yah!"
Ere she could utter one word or cry he fell
upon her. With his curling hands he worked
for some minutes what beastliness he would
upon her. Then he took her by the throat,
tore from her her garments and her shoes,
lifted her from the ground, and dropped her
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Whispering Windows
from the wharf to the full, surging river; and
the waters closed upon her.
Next morning, as Wing Dee plunged a
mass of clothes into the boiling cauldron, and
worked vigorously upon them, he listened for
his morning greeting—the patter of little
shoes upon the floor above—and was dis-
appointed that he did not hear it. He con-
tinued his work with quickened ears, awaiting
it, but throughout the morning no sound came
from that upper room. He was disturbed;
and at midday he went upstairs to see.
Neither Lee-Yip nor San-li-po was there.
He worked automatically through the after-
noon without zest, wondering at this inter-
ruption of habit, and fearing and dismissing
fear. In the evening he went again to the
room. It was still vacant. He inquired of
people about the street for San-li-po, but
none could answer him. He sought the
saloons of the Quarter for Lee Yip, but found
him not, nor had any seen him or had word
of him. When shops, tea-houses and saloons
all were closed, he returned to his room in a
spirit of no-tranquillity. There he bowed
before the joss, and lit a joss-stick, and burned
prayer papers; but no comfort came to him,
and the night passed with hollow tread.
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Whispering Windows
stood thus, while the hours crept across the
face of the night. Suddenly, when the mid-
hour had newly passed, he seemed to hear,
through the enveloping quiet, a gentle clatter
as of little feet on the pavement. With leap-
ing heart he looked from his window. The
street was dark and void of any human figure,
and no sound came up from its shadow. He
turned away, and his arms dropped in dolour.
But again he heard it, and this time it was a
distinct sound of feet on his stair. He stood
still and tense, listening. The sound drew
nearer, and now pattered outside his door—
it seemed to him, impatiently, pleadingly.
With vague tremblings in his breast, he
stole softly to the door, stretched a hesitating
hand to the fastening, unlatched it, and looked
out. The tiny landing was empty. His hand
groped at the darkness and touched nothing,
and he knew that he was deceived again.
But as he moved to close the door, the silence
of the stairway was shattered by a peremptory
stamp of little feet on the landing. He bent
close to the floor, and saw nothing, but very
clearly he heard the steps beating out their
morning message—now on the landing, now
two or three steps down, now back to the
landing.
234


The Scarlet Shoes
Crushing down the hope that grew within
him, he went into his room, saluted the joss,
called upon his ancestors, and returned to the
doorway. Down the stairs ran the sharp
tattoo of shoes. At the bottom they stopped.
Slowly he followed them, and opened the
lower door. As he stepped into the street, he
heard them tapping the pavement that led to
West India Dock Road, and knew that this
time he was not deceived; and now in full
faith he committed himself to their direction
and followed them, caring not whither they
led him, confident that they would lead him
to San-li-po. Across the road they went to-
wards the Causeway, and above the sirens and
the clamour of the dock trains his ears picked
out their chattering guidance.
As he followed them he babbled to them,
crying:
"O little scarlet shoes that have trotted so
softly beside my noisy feet, thank you for
answering my call. You are leading me to
her to whom you belong, and soon you will
be warmed again by her little feet. I hear
you singing \.o me, little shoes, and I will kiss
you as I kissed you before, when we are with
her."
Clitter-clatter, clitter-clatter, they tripped
«35


The Scarlet Shoes
night, what you bought orf the Chink? 'Ow
much d’you give for 'em ?”
“One-and-six. What about it?”
“What about it? Why, they ain't worth
tuppence. They're all worn out and fit fer
nothing.”
“Worn out be blowed! Why, they're as
good as new. They ain't bin worn more'n
once. I reckon I know me own job.'
“ And I reckon I know what I see. The
soles is worn right through, and they're
smothered all over in mud. Come an' 'ave
a look.”
Husband came and had a look.
“Well I'm damned !”
“ Huh! Good as new, eh? That's the kind
o'thing you buy after a night at yer precious
Blue Lantern.”
“ Well, I could 'a' sworn ”
“Grrr 1"
And the scarlet shoes, that brought two
lovers together, still make domestic discord in
Poplar.
237





IF you approach the West India Dock
by way of Commercial Road, you will
notice, west of Limehouse Church, a long,
narrow street of small houses debouching on
to the highway. It is flat, colourless, empty,
by day; and by night dark and adumbrating
queer adventure. It is the street that my
memory first evokes when I think of the East
End, for it held forward place in my childish
fancies. The corner of that street I would then
figure as my meeting-place with a girl; a girl
of my own creation. We would meet at
nights at that dark corner, and from it we
would survey the great road, its bronze gloom
broken by gouts of gas-light, while behind
us waited the long ranks of silent houses,
threatening and alluring, behind whose win-
dows happened nightly things dreadful and
things beautiful. I did not make a paradise of
that street, but I gave it magic properties, and
peopled it with my own characters, so that,
as occasion called, it was a street of romance
or squalor. And every night, at its corner,
stood the dream-child, waiting for me. Some-
times she had curls of yellow, and sometimes
dense black curls, or tresses of brown ; and her
frocks would change from filmy things to
furry, with the season.
Q 341


Whispering Windows
I have since shown my street to other
people, and they have seen a hopeless, littered
alley, housing aims without hope and hearts
that have never beat high in grace or villainy.
It is to-day as it always was. It has not
grown; it has not aged; for it has spent no-
thing in endeavour or desire. It is now a street
like all other streets, and holds no more the
power to change its aspect or its character.
It is no longer wholly awful or wholly
romantic. No rare adventure and gallant
rescue make it their setting. And no dream-
child now stands at its corner. Women stand
there all day and through much of the night,
between the opening and the closing times of
the Blue Lantern; but my girl went with its
vanished past. The street I had built from its
ugly bricks, and the child I had placed there
could not survive inspection under the cold
light of common sense.
To-day Greenstockings and Flash Florrie,
two of the most prominent of the Blue
Lantern noctambulists, live in that street; and
I am still foolish enough to cherish my fancies
and to believe that they have gobbled up my
dream-child. For in each of them is something
of the grace and fluent goodness that clothed
the little girl who stood so often at that corner.
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Whispering Windows
.
prized of the appointments of the Blue
Lantern are four canaries, whose cage hangs
from the chandelier above the centre of the
saloon. For many years they have lived
there, syncopating, with their piercing cries,
the sedate confabulations of bookmakers and
love-bargainers, who have often expressed the
pious wish that some hungry generation would
tread them down. Flash Florrie, finding her
one-sided conversation with the sailor non-
productive in the way of business, turned her
attention to the birds. She had been telling
him of the country vicarage where her early
years were spent under the care of her father,
“the dear ole vicar-the ole horne, dearie-I
can see it now-with roses all round the door
and Gawd is Love over the mantelpiece in
fretwork—and a governess cart and a pony in
the stable—and rabbit-shooting at Easter and
prayers every morning-I can see it now,
dearie. I was a fine gel then-the old dad
was that proud of me-I got engaged to a
viss-count. Well, one day, dearie, a stranger
come to the Vicarage, and the ole dad in the
kindness of his heart gave him shelter and-
Oh,can't-someone-kill-those-bloody-birds- I-can't-
’ear-meself-think!”
Greenstockings stood up. “'Ere, stop it,
244


The Good Samaritans
Florrie. Come on ’ome, dear. You're prop’ly
blotto to-night.”
« Blotto be damned ! Shan't! Don'wanner
g'ome. And don' in'rup' me when I'm talkin'
to frien'. You go'n make those bloody birds
shurrup. They're doing it a-purpose to 'noy
me."
“No, they ain't, dearie. You come on
’ome.”
“Shan't! Not till them birds shurrup.
You go'n stop 'em. Else I will."
“ Now, Florrie dear!”
The birds danced about their cage, scream-
ing, cheep-cheeping, and chirruping to the
merry bang of the beer-engine. With a sur-
prisingly adroit movement the drunken Florrie
stretched a huge arm, grabbed her pot of beer,
and flung it fiercely upwards at the cage. It
did its duty; it drenched the birds, and
their debate ended abruptly in a flutter of
wings.
Greenstockings turned wrathfully upon her
friend.
“Oh, Florrie, you cruel thing! Oh, Florrie !”
Florrie got up. “I'll learn the bahstuds to
in’errup' me.”
She put a foot on a chair and reached up to
them.
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Whispering Windows
befallen her; and she was wrenching its life
from it. No cries came from Greenstockings
now; only hard moans that grew fainter and
fainter.
In less than a minute had all this happened :
before any of the customers could follow its
action, and before the landlord had had time
to come round from his private room behind
the jug-and-bottle bar.
Then two of the Malays leapt from their
corner and fell upon Florrie. They leapt
just in time. Scarcely a breath was left in
the torn body of Greenstockings. But Florrie
would not be denied her vengeance. She freed
one hand and strove to beat them off; but they
were two to one, and they dragged her back
from her enemy. But they could not hold
her. With lithe movements she fought them,
and broke from them, and, ere Greenstockings
could stir from her prostration, seized her
again.
" And this time I'll finish yeh, blast
yeh !”
Again the Malays came to her, and she
fought them and Greenstockings by turn.
Manfully and whitely they stuck it. In a
few moments they had bleeding faces and
torn clothes, and many times had rolled in
248


Whispering Windows
from them with outstretched arms, and
crying:
“Grrr, yeh dirty blasted niggers! Leave
'er be! 'Ow dare yeh put yer dirty black
'ands on a white gel! Leave my pal alone,
yeh bloody niggers !”
250


Twelve Golden Curls





Whispering Windows
rose to alcoholic pitch, he spoke somewhat in
this wise:
About these great docks of London, not a
while ago, lived one Nobby the Nark, who
lounged about the water-side, and ran messages
for men; or, more accurately, proceeded at a
moderate pace upon such occasional business
as other men might require of him. During
the day, when not thus occupied, he would
meet men who took sums of money from
him, and promised him six to four, or, it may
be, ten to one, should the results of certain
performances by horses, which were to take
place in the afternoon, be favourable to their
doing so. At evenings he would frequent the
gaming-rooms kept by the honourable Ho
Foo. Sometimes he would gain a little, and
sometimes he would lose much, for very highly
skilled was Ho Foo in games of hazard.
There came a night when Nobby the Nark
would play pinkipo and chausa-bazee, games
that do not lightly yield their benefits to the
cumbrous mental processes of those who do
occasional work at the water-side. Very
seriously did Nobby strive with the games, but
at the night's end honourable Ho Foo held
not only the cash of Nobby, but the scrawled
254


Twelve Golden Curls
promise of Nobby to pay very much more.
"Now it was imperative that Nobby should
hasten to redeem that promise; for, should he
fail to do so, he would be for ever forbidden
the gaming-room of Ho Foo, and Ho Foo
would pass the word to all other gaming-
rooms ; and life without a gaming-room would
have but little savour for Nobby the Nark.
Four days passed into the upper air, and no
word came to Ho Foo from Nobby of the
money that should fulfil the written promise.
Now Nobby was the father of a daughter, who
kept house for him, and worked for both of
them at an adjacent factory; and this story to
which the honourable mister deigns to listen
is properly the story of this daughter.
On the evening following, Ho Foo was
taking the air around the gates of the West
India Dock, where the seamen gather to talk,
when he heard soft sounds as of one ill at
ease. Drawing near, he saw, in a dim corner,
this daughter of Nobby. He knew her well;
for often she had come to his gaming-room
to drag her father home. Very fair was this
maiden, and brave was her carriage. Upon
her head were many honey-coloured curls,
cunningly held captive by a little time-worn
hat; and her bright voice never failed to please
255


Whispering Windows
those to whom she addressed herself. But
to-night her carriage was subdued, the curls
had escaped, and some hung pendulous ; and
about her large eyes hovered many tears.
Now to the keeper of a gaming-house nothing
is more moving than the sight of distress; and
Ho Foo approached her and engaged her in
sympathetic talk.
As he heard her tale, sorrow and anger
rushed upon him, and he reproached himself
that his gaming-house should have brought
such disorder of mind upon so fair a maid.
For, from her words, he learnt that Nobby, her
father, had encountered much difficulty in
procuring the necessary sum that should re-
deem his written leaves and admit him once
more to the gaming-tables; and, growing
fretful from this continued abstinence from
his favourite pastime, had bade her go out to
the dock gates, where gathered the seamen,
and procure it by some means from them ; nor
should she return to their home until she had
done so.
Emotions of an unpleasant nature enveloped
the mind of honourable Ho Foo at this, and
he folded his hands and turned his thoughts
inward. Thereafter he spoke, saying:
“ This one is indeed in torment at words of
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Whispering Windows
haled him before the justices. There they
laid two charges upon him: that he was the
keeper of a gaming-house, and that he had
in his possession many ounces of the Great
Tobacco. Heavy was the sum that he was
commanded to surrender to them ere he might
go free; nay, all he possessed, and more, so
that he was driven to sell the things of his
house that he might satisfy them.
Much wisdom was in the mind of the sage
who observed that the misfortunes of one are
the entertainment of the many. Ho Foo was
now driven to sleeping in a poor back room,
empty of any appointments; and there he lay
unheeded, while about the streets his downfall
occasioned much agreeable diversion among
his friends and those who had frequented his
tables.
There he lay, and to his uneasiness of mind
came sickness of the body. None came to
succour or to nourish him. On the bare floor
he lay in misery; and those who heard of his
plight said that they hoped others were pro-
viding him with what was necessary. But in
a space of days, the tale of his sickness came
to the ears of the daughter of Nobby the
Nark; and her heart was moved and she was
sorely troubled. She had not forgotten—
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Whispering Windows
tumbled in a cascade of light. Slowly, sadly,
yet glad for the service that she might bring a
friend, she took scissors and cut off a curl from
either side, and laid them on the table before
her, and wept upon them. Then, resolutely,
she cut two more curls. So did she yet four
times more, till twelve golden curls lay spent
upon the table. These she made into a small
parcel. Then, barbed and cropped of her
beauty, ludicrous to look upon, she crept out
to one who had dealings in hair. And when
that one saw the refined quality of the hair,
his eyes glistened, and he turned his mind into
itself for a space of minutes. When he spoke
he named a sum of money which, he said, he
might with great ado recover when he should
have treated the curls with the skill that was
his; a sum utterly inadequate to the purpose
for which it was required. But the large ex-
perience which the maid's penury had given
her in bargaining came to her aid, and much
talk and manoeuvre passed between them,
until at last she left with many shillings.
Then did she hasten to procure delicacies
and comforts for poor Ho Foo; and O my
son, this child, shorn and disfigured as she
was, careful as she was of her fair name,
steadfast as she was in bearing herself properly
260


Twelve Golden Curls
before her neighbours, hesitated not to go to
the bare room where lay my countryman, and
tend him, and lave his head, and feed him
with the dainty foods that he was too weak
to give himself. Bold was her spirit in thus
challenging the good report of her kind and
imperilling her bright fame; bold her spirit
and very tender her heart. Many nights she
went to him, and gave him of her care, and
sorely grieved was he when his eyes discovered
the sacrifice of her beauty. He would have
refused her ministrations and her baskets of
delicacies, but she would not hear him, and he
was indeed too weak to contest. So she con-
tinued to visit him till the store of shillings was
spent. Then she came no more. But her
work was done, and soon Ho Foo was able to
rise and take the air of Pennyfields.
She came to him no more. Many days he
lingered about West India Dock Road, hoping
to see her, and tell her of his thankful heart.
He would not go to her, lest he thus bring
base remarks upon her; he would wait at
corners, thinking that she might pass. But
she came no more; and at last he dispatched
a little boy as messenger to say that he again
was well and was burning prayer-papers in her
name for gratitude.
261


Whispering Windows
Ill-tidings came back with the messenger.
Her sweet service had driven the fever from
Ho Foo, and it had entered into her. On the
bed in her attic she lay, broken of beauty, and
suffering, while her ill-famed father gave her
what casual attention he could spare from the
water-side and the gaming-rcom.
Meekly did Ho Foo plead to Nobby the
Nark that he might be permitted to attend
her; to sit at her door in case of urgent need;
to perform domestic duties. But Nobby the
Nark replied with coarse words and evil in-
sinuations and brutal looks and snarls. So
Ho Foo could but wait in the street outside,
and watch, and call his good spirits to her aid.
In a few days it was done. From that poor
attic she passed, even as Ho Foo stood in the
street below, with bowed head, as he had
stood every day since his first visit.
But that is not the end. When the news
came to him, Ho Foo went from that darkened
street with a high resolve. A few small coins
he had; and when he had performed rites
above them, he took them to a gaming-house,
then newly opened, and his good spirits went
with him. He came away, long past the noon
of night, and his belt was weighted with many
coins and rolls of paper money.
262


Twelve Golden Curls
Next day he sought piously for the merchant
in hair; and when he had found him he
inquired of him concerning twelve golden
curls recently bought. And lo 1 there, in a
small box, they lay, even as they had been
delivered. Then did Ho Foo inquire the
price at which the merchant would relinquish
them; and when the merchant demanded of
him four times that which he had paid for
them, Ho Foo quietly counted out the money
and carried the curls reverently to his room.
Sorrow and misfortune had come at once to
two poor people remote in birth and creed—
Ho Foo and the daughter of Nobby the Nark
—and from this bond sprang love everlasting.
For, with the rest of the large sum of money
that he had won, Ho Foo opened a little tea-
house in the Causeway; and in a corner of
that tea-house he made a shrine ; and in that
shrine he hung the twelve golden curls, and
beneath them he wrote fairly, in his own
characters and in the characters of this country,
their story; and the place is known as the Tea
House of the Twelve Golden Curls.
The Tea House of the Twelve Golden Curls
is built on sacrifice and gratitude; and there,
because of one white girl's gracious heart, your
countrymen and mine now gather in friend-
263


Miss Plum-Blossom


IT is the tale of the wooing and winning
of Lily Lily-Ling, called Miss Plum-
1 Blossom; of how she was pursued ; and
of her capture by her neighbour and country-
man Sam San Phung.
Miss Plum-Blossom was London-Chinese,
and first saw the fog of this world on a
cargo-boat as it crawled up the Thames from
the great seas. She was registered as a native
of Stepney, but her round face and blunt
features and olive skin furnished a clear
dementi of that statement. For eighteen
years she had lived among her countrymen,
seeing little of the other corners of London
which are not Chinese, and now was under
the care of Lee Tack, known as the Dragon-
with - Jaws -of - Fearful - Proportions, which is
to say that he was a bad man; and she
worked as serving-maid at his establish-
ment.
Now Sam San Phung, as he took tea and
bitter melon at the tea-house of Lee Tack,
cast slanting eyes upon the melting beauty of
Plum-Blossom, and would have prepared for
her a shrine in his two-roomed cottage in Gill
Street. But lo! there arose another, one Ah
Toy, the Mighty One of Bodily Perfection,
who had much fame as a vaudeville wrestler;
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Whispering Windows
and upon Miss Plum-Blossom he cast direct,
disconcerting eyes, so that he dazzled her.
Where to bestow her heart the maid knew
not. She had walked in Poplar Gardens with
each, and with each had given and received
certain salutations. But somehow ... Ah
Toy was strong and clever and admired, and
he had money; but he came from Canton.
Phung was poor and shiftless, and cut but
little ice; but he was of Mongolia, like her-
self, and, like herself, was registered as a
native of Stepney. Greatly she desired to
escape from the uncouth voice and hands of
Lee Tack; but when she decided, in her
mind, for the one, her heart turned straight
to the other. When she was with Phung
she wanted Ah Toy; when with Ah Toy it
was Phung who seemed desirable. So it is
with the young maid throughout the world.
And so the merry comedy went on; and
when the two men met in the Limehouse
streets or about the West India Dock, Ah
Toy would thrust forth the mighty stomach
that had made him famous, and beetle upon
his withering opponent. And when he had
passed Phung would turn and make the sign
of spitting and the five fingers.
But the happiness of Miss Plum-Blossom
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Whispering Windows
the dignity of a mandarin, and raised a fát
yellow hand.
“ Dissa one he wan no fight in dissa mis'ble
litty-o-saloon. Ho no! Hon'ble Ah Toy he
wan fight cos he heap big fighting fella. Ho,
Plum-Blossom !”
Plum-Blossom trotted forward at the call,
and sidled to the table, her hands playing at
her throat as she glanced from one to the other.
Her flat face showed perplexity.
“Which you like for husband ?" demanded
Lee Tack. “Hon'ble and upright Sam San
Phung or noble and round-bodied Ah Toy?”.
“No can say,” she murmured after a pause,
scanning Lee Tack's face as though fearing she
should do wrong whatever answer she gave.
“Ho!” snapped Ah Toy, “if the son of a
sea-slug, Sam San Phung, no fight"
Again Lee Tack silenced him.
“Fighting no good,” he declared. “No
equal chance. You t'row cards, huh? Dissa
one bring five card, and plenty number he win
-huh ?”
Miss Plum-Blossom, still immobile, nodded.
Ah Toy grunted. Sam San Phung looked
agreement. Lee Tack clapped and gave an
order for cards. While they waited, Sam San
Phung moved to the girl, and took her hand,
272


Miss Plum-Blossom
and prattled a moment, until Ah Toy thrust
out his stomach, and sent Phung staggering
back many paces. Lee Tack raised a reprov-
ing arm. Then from between the curtains
that concealed the staircase swam a figure
carrying a pack of Chinese cards.
The news had galloped round the tables in
the outer room and had been passed to the
street; and soon the room was full. The
musicians ceased playing. The boys stopped
dicing. Two pipe-smokers alone remained
placid. The rest of the room centred, in
a tangle of oily heads, about the little
wicker table in the centre. Lee Tack took
the cards, cut them, and dealt five to each
man. Ah Toy took his five and looked at
them; and curses dropped from his lips like
spitting toads. Phung threw first-defiantly,
a two. There was a bubble of exclamation
as Ah Toy threw four.
Ah Toy delivered an unnerving grimace,
and the men pressed hard on the players.
Phung turned a little pale as he threw three,
and Ah Toy followed it with two. He raised
an arm, and pleaded with the crowd :
.“ Back, Foo; back, Sway Lim.”
Plum-Blossom watched with impassive face,
wondering whither the cards would send her
273


Whispering Windows
-to the bold Ah Toy or to the gracious
Phung.
“Move! Move !” pleaded Phung again,
as the crowd hung heavily around him. He
moved a hand to his head, and pressed them
with his elbow. He threw eight. Ah Toy
swore, and cleared the audience with a jerk
of the arm as he threw eight, followed by nine
from Phung. But they crowded still closer
now, watching for the last throw. It was
not the excitement of the prize that held
them. A woman-what did it matter?
But the result of a gamble—that did interest
them.
Ah Toy wiped his nose on his arm and
threw, airily, a six. They stood now Phung
twenty-two and Ah Toy twenty. What would
the final cards do? The next throw settled
it. Phung, with a wooden face, wiped his
brow, stretched his neck, and turned up his
last card-ten.
There was a noise of indrawn breaths. The
great wrestler was beaten, and the girl was
Phung's. Ah Toy broke back, lifted up arm
and voice, and declared his intention of inflict-
ing upon Phung a chastisement that would
cause the utmost discomfort and degradation
to him and his totally insignificant ancestors;
274


Whispering Windows
-
order of things in this and other worlds, he
went from café to café and from pub to pub,
and drank much ongaway; and at the Blue
Lantern he finished with gin, and called upon
his ancestors to assist him in wreaking ven-
geance upon one who had wrought such
removal of gravity among those who had once
respected him. He swayed from the bar, and
marched with conquering if erratic step down
the by-way of West India Dock Road to Gill
Street, to interview this Sam San Phung.
He flung his tremendous weight upon the
door, which was not fastened, and so precipi-
tated himself into the front room of his enemy.
A friendly table helped him to recover his
dignity, and he looked around. At first the
room seemed empty; then he saw Plum-
Blossom alone, and an enormous smile split
his moon-like face. As she was now the
property of Sam San Phung, she would serve
his purpose of vengeance equally well.
Behold him, then, lurching upon her.
Behold him mouthing to her in explanation
of his unhappiness. Behold the gin taking
command of him, and impelling him to
weep tears of self-pity. Behold her shrinking
from him, with little low exclamations of
terror. Behold him grasping her in his rolling
276


Whispering Windows
hand disappeared. Mr Jamrach, the St
George's dealer in wild live-stock, does not
get all the live-stock that is landed in London.
Otherwise Phung would not be as happy as he
is to-day.
Suddenly his right hand reappeared under
his tunic. It quarrelled nervously with some-
thing. Then it shot forward, and something
went full at the face of Ah Toy. At the
sudden touch of the furry, quivering thing
he fell. The thing crawled about and fastened
itself now here, now there. He delivered a
high-pitched and far-reaching cry, and fought
it with his hands. Then he grabbed it. It
fought him hideously, with tiny claws and
teeth, and the champion wrestler screamed.
Hero on the mat as he was, this new opponent
had found him out. He rolled, and fought to
find his feet while fighting the thing ; but,
move as he would, the thing was about him at
all points.
At last, with a spasmodic heave, he scrambled
to his knees, and drew his knife. The
monkey's teeth were in his arm. He slashed
at it, and missed, and blubbered, while Phung
stood away and smiled and smiled. The
second cut got home. The monkey fell; and
he dashed for the door. Phung, still smiling,
278


Miss Plum-Blossom
shot a lightning foot. Ah Toy fell again, and
again the little claws were about him; but
this time he was up swiftly, dashed it away,
and with a twist brought the great knife down
to Phung's left side. There was a rip of cloth.
Phung fell. Lurching and blubbering, Ah
Toy bolted through the door.
And now Plum-Blossom awoke, and gave a
cry, and would have fainted. But Phung was
up and at her side at once. He gathered her
in his arms, as one would a flower, and soothed
her with gentle phrases. Her little hands ran
all about him, fearing for her lord's safety.
The knife-where did it go? He was wounded,
yes—he was in pain?
But no. Oh no! He opened his tunic,
showing the long slit made by Ah Toy's knife.
He displayed the blue shirt, which showed no
mark at all; for inside the tunic, which he
threw open, hung something that had been
sliced through, and had saved him.
“ Phung's mascots, 0 Springtime Blossom
of the Plum Tree. Mascots-all-same devil-
chasers-give Phung his Plum-Blossom for
bride, and save Phung's life.”
With quick fingers he detached them from
the fastening that held them, and showed them
to the wondering Plum-Blossom. Then, with
279


Whispering Windows
salutations, he placed them before the little
joss in the corner. They were two Chinese
cards, such as could be slipped from the tunic
while pressing the crowd back in a hot room;
the nine and ten which, produced at the right
moment, had won for him the game in Lee
Tack's saloon.
He picked up the gibbering monkey and
stowed it in its basket beneath the cupboard.
He stretched hands to Plum-Blossom, who
trotted to him. He laughed.
“Ho! Ah Toy come here no more.
Phung make him plenty frighten. Hol em-
brace me, pao-pei, embrace me-nine and ten
times /"
280





The Cane
sort. He must stand outside even the sugges-
tion of reproach; and he had therefore enforced
upon himself total abstinence from liquor. He
strove to be a shining example and, like King
Wenceslas, to exude moral worth and integrity
from his very footsteps.
His school w;:s a mixed school, and he took
classes of girls and boys alternately. The
scholars were gathered from the two-roomed
cottages of the side-alleys of the district, and
were a difficult team. The street was their
first playground, and when they came to
school the task of breaking them in to con-
centrated study was no casual matter. Born
in those cramped alleys, and running wild
from babyhood, their sense of social values
was choked in birth. Among the methods of
breaking them in, the managers gave first
place to corporal punishment, administered
indiscriminately to boys and girls alike.
They held that it was the only punishment
the children understood, and that it showed
beneficial results: and inattentive or unruly
girls received the cane from the men teachers
in the same measure as the boys.
When he had first taken up his duties he
was much averse from observing this rule
against the girls. He was a shy man, and
285


Whispering Windows
the mere fact of taking a girls' class had
somewhat perplexed and disconcerted him.
The order to inflict punishment with the
cane when, in his opinion, the children
merited it, still further abashed him; he had
even protested. Somehow ... it seemed to
him ... it wasn't quite . . . But the managers
said Rubbish, and pointed out that this was a
low and unruly district, and that they were a
rough lot of girls from slummy homes, and
he would have endless trouble and disorder
unless he followed the school system. It was
all for their good, and he would be failing in
his duty as teacher if he did not use these
measures. If they were not taught to behave
now, they would never learn: they would
follow their elders of the district and develop
into street wastrels. They concluded by tell-
ing him not to be silly, and there was then
nothing more to be said. When, at any time,
he was told not to be silly, he collapsed, for he
recognised that worldly wisdom was not his
strong point; and if a thing were accepted
as usual, he, too, accepted it without further
examination.
So, in a few weeks, he had become accus-
tomed to the school and his classes, and now
inflicted punishment on the girls, perfunctorily
286


The Cane
and in an absent way, whenever their conduct
required it; and thought no more about it.
He had discovered the truth of what the
managers had said about unruly characters.
Naturally nervous, he hated disorder of any
kind, and soon found that without the cane
he could not maintain quiet.
He thought no more about it for some
years. Then some silly busybody, without
knowledge of the district, discovered the
practice of this form of discipline, and wrote
to a leading daily paper about it. Quickly it
became public; and, when other newspapers
took up, in a large way, the story of this
school where girls were caned by men, a
storm broke over the school and its managers.
.Letters appeared denouncing the "odious
practice," the "frightfulness" of it, the
"appalling degradation" of it, for masters
and pupils. For weeks the controversy
raged, and drastic action was threatened;
but a sudden political crisis arising at this
point, the papers dropped it, and it passed
out of the public mind. The managers
ordered that the system should continue.
The public controversy led, naturally, to
discussions among the teachers, who dismissed
it professionally, as a journalistic "stunt";
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Whispering Windows
as foolish vapourings by people who •
understand; and it led this particular teacher
to a study of the correspondence. This
correspondence set him thinking. Some of
the arguments advanced against the practice
were curiously vague, full of dark hints that
were strange to him.
He began to be disturbed. He began to
take an interest in the matter, and to find
in these letters much that he had never be-
fore surmised. Grim, covert suggestions had
been made, and they remained with him. He
remembered having read somewhere that
every man carried with him a demon, and
he had accepted the theory — about other
men. Had anyone suggested that he nursed
a demon, he would have laughed. But that
week something happened that filled him with
fear. He had occasion to call out for punish-
ment a girl who had hitherto given him no
trouble; Dolly Uptrot, a big girl of thirteen.
Dolly was pert; dark of hair and eye, and
gay - footed; a girl of apple-blossom, pink
and white, adumbrating the golden beauty
to come. She moved with the delicious in-
souciance of the child, mixed with the first
conscious grace of woman; and the shy, un-
certain lines of her figure carried in their
288


The Cane
promise as much beauty as the perfect achieve-
ment.
The thing that startled him, that left him
sitting scared and dumb at his desk, was, that
after he had used the cane upon her, and she
was returning to her seat, she flashed a back-
ward glance at him from the depths of her big
eyes: a glance that linked itself in his mind
with the curious things upon which he had
lately pondered. Until this day he had
hardly noticed her. She had given little
trouble, and had been to him but one of a
group of children, a unit, identified only by
a name. It was not until this close relation-
ship occurred between delinquent and master,
and that curious glance ... It sat upon his
mind.
Next day he had occasion again to punish
her, and something awoke within him and
drove out the detached judicial motive. An
emotion which filled him, on the one side,
with disgust, as he tried to ignore it, and, on the
other side, with a cold and dark delight. He
feared it and fought it while secretly hugging
it. That night he walked home in a mixed
state of concern and abandon; and his landlady
noted his condition, and he was conscious of
her attention, and cunningly gave her cause to
T 289


Whispering Windows
think he had been drinking. This low sub-
terfuge, so unusual to him, set him wondering
still further about himself. He hardly dared
to think, lest he should discover somewhere in
a recess of his mind something that knew and
understood the cause of his disorder.
He wanted to talk to his colleagues about
it; to discover whether they, too, had suffered
these queer disturbances on similar occasions;
but he felt some awkwardness in approaching
the question. If he introduced it and threw
out hints, they might mark him as a monster.
Perhaps he was a monster. Or perhaps it
was stupid sensitiveness on his side. From
the attitude they had taken on the newspaper
attacks, it was clear that they were in no way
troubled by their duty and thought nothing of
the detailed indictments. It was a part of the
day's routine to which they gave no considera-
tion. No, he could not talk to them: he
could only wonder and speculate, and, by
wondering, he slowly fed this strange disorder.
All through the class hours he was conscious
of the girl, and began to notice that, from this
raw, unkempt herd, she stood out bold, bright,
alert. He found himself making a mark of her,
and doing deliberately what hitherto he had
done perfunctorily. He seized every trivial
290


The Cane
occasion to indulge himself with this intoxicat-
ing power, concentrating upon her, and even
manufacturing excuses for calling her out;
and when her large eyes clashed with his he
was filled with a quiet ferocity. He wanted
to hurt her. He flicked and lashed her with
his tongue throughout the day, holding her
up to the laughter of the class ; and he noted,
with a pleasure he could not stifle, the slow
crimson that crept up her face as the chosen
words stung her. He dared not honestly re-
cognise the dreadful enjoyment that was his
as he flung his taunts upon her, and she stood
shrinking before him; and how the hot shame
that grew in her face was coldly reflected
within him. But in his heart he did recognise
consciously that Dolly set herself in every
way, by inattention and unruly behaviour, to
challenge him. The more often he bullied
her, the more she seemed to presume some
sinister alliance between them ; unspoken, yet
known to both.
“Can't think what's come over my genter-
man lately,” his landlady said to her next-door
lady. “'E don't seem like the same man.
Always was quiet, but 'e's got quieter lately.
And a funny way about him-sheepish, like.”
He grew more and more morose, shutting
291


Whispering Windows
himself away from all intercourse. He began
to wonder whether the ideas that rambled in his
mind were perceived by others. It seemed at
times, to his heated fancy, that the girls of his
class began to give him closer attention. Each
time he punished a girl it seemed to him that
they watched him with cute, secret glances.
When he called Dolly out, she walked out
flirtatiously, and it seemed to him that his
class was one broad grin. He knew that all
of them were aware of the newspaper attacks
on the school, and he began to wonder if they
saw; if they knew. But it was of Dolly that
he most thought. No matter how severe the
punishment, always, as she returned to her
seat, she would toss that impudent glance of
understanding. He began to want earnestly
to talk with her; to discover what that bright
head held; to reassure himself that she was
just an idle, careless hoyden of the slums,
answering discipline with the facetious defiance
of ill-breeding.
So he thought and thought, and day by day
disquiet grew within him, and night by night
he would go home to his lodgings, stricken.
Shapes walked at his elbow and plucked at his
sleeve, and stabbed him with wink and leer.
He lived in a spate of light intoxication, as
292


The Cane
though a fluent fire were playing within him.
He began to cast about him for means of
escape from this possession. He thought of
resigning his position, and finding another
school where the custom was not in operation,
but the thought of change was startling to
him: he had lived in this district for twenty
years now. And some quiet, chuckling
voice inside him said No; a quiet voice, but
stronger than the strongest of the opposing
voices.
He knew now what it was that he nursed
within him, and he ceased to think or to care.
He surrendered himself to the delirious drug,
and thought with delight of the secret paradise
to which he had access.
And one afternoon, when he had dismissed
the class, he kept Dolly in, and punished her
in private, ferociously, and talked with her.
It was late when he let her go, and the
sidelong rays of the evening sun as they slid
through the schoolroom windows slanted upon
his desk, and upon a crumpled man that sat
before it, bowed and sick. When, after some
long time, he raised his eyes they fell upon the
school cane. With a sudden effort he roused
himself. He sprang from the chair, seized the
frightful thing, twisted it into many shapeless
293


Whispering Windows
fragments, and hurled it to a corner, with
horrid curses upon those who had compelled
him to use it.
Then he took hat and coat and went out.
He was last seen on a wharf at the river's
edge.
294


The Song of Ho Ling


BEHIND the small candle-lit windows
of a cottage in Poplar High Street
maladroit fingers were plucking from a
Chinese guitar a yearning song of two notes,
and a metallic voice was singing out of time
and out of tune with the guitar. Fingers and
voice belonged to young Ho Ling, and the
song was a song of Acknowledgment and
Avowal. On the first notes of the song the
curtains of the window opposite were twitched
aside, and between them appeared the head
and shoulders of Amber Goldstein. About the
head and shoulders swirled an eddy of dense
auburn curls, and the bright mouth and fine
nose were lit by yet brighter eyes. A girl of
spirit and ability.
Nightly this ceremony was performed.
Nightly at six o'clock Ho Ling would drag
his guitar from its place beneath the bed
and carry it to the window; and there he
would sit and sing to Amber Goldstein his
song of a service rendered and of an holy
obligation as yet unfulfilled, but to be fulfilled
at whatsoever time he should be called upon
by his benefactress, the young lady across the
road. And nightly the young lady would
appear at her window and smile a quick
acknowledgment of his declaration of fidelity.
297


The Song of Ho Ling
smeared her fresh lips with a lie, and proved
to the police that old Ho Wong was not a
bird, and could not be in two places at once.
Dearer than life to Ho Ling was this aged and
roguish father of his. For him he lived and
worked and strove, and sometimes stole,
following the precepts of the Books; and a
service done to the old man was esteemed by
him more highly than a greater service done
to himself.
The charge was that old Ho Wong was
concerned in the stabbing of Lop-ear Lang-
ford, an officer of the Blue Lantern's Army
of Hiccupation. The charge was truly laid.
Lop-ear Langford had pulled the nose of
Ho Wong and had knocked over his drink :
“ learning the yeller bahstuds to keep their
places,” he called it; and the night following
Ho Wong had waited in an alley-way for the
Lop-ear, and had used his knife upon him in
a way sufficient to justify a conviction for
causing grievous bodily harm. Two people
saw and identified Ho Wong, and the case
looked bad for him. In exceeding agitation
of mind and body, his dutiful son went about
the Quarter, seeking to discover some who
had seen his sire at that hour in other places ;
but as he had but four or five shillings to his
299


The Song of Ho Ling
room, and came across with gifts: a cast-off
opium pipe of bamboo, a Chinese banner, two
little tasselled devil-chasers, an empty ginger-
jar and his guitar. But Amber would have
nothing. She smiled upon his gifts, and
refused them; and when he pressed them
•upon her, she drove him, in mock exaspera-
tion, from her shop, and commanded him
never to mention it again.
But he was not so easily quieted. What
was to her a trifle, an idle digression, an un-
rehearsed gesture, was to him a sacrament, a
precious gift, something whose value could
not be weighed or measured or computed;
something that would rest upon him and his
family until requited. Had it been a mere
casual service, costing her nothing, its effect
upon him would have been the same. But it
was more: she had made a sacrifice for him;
she had told a lie in his behalf. It could not
be forgotten.
And, deliberately flouting her statement,
that it was nothing to make a song about, he
retired to his room and made a song about it;
and, as I have told you, sang it to her every
evening thereafter.
His honourable papa, however, was not so
zealous as himself in observing the precepts of
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Whispering Windows
the ways of woman. Mysterious and deadly
are they all towards men, and most dark and
hostile when they are white-skinned. There-
fore, O son, take heed. For there is that in
the face of the white woman which is not for
your good. She will bring sorrow upon you,
my son. Ay, and sorrow upon me also. Did
you not last week bring home a barely-to-be-
looked-upon three shillings for the sustenance
of your much-enduring father? Take heed.”
Whereto Ho Ling lifted up his voice and
cried: “O my father, nothing holds with me
before the desire to serve my august and
venerable father. But is it not clear to you
that but for this white woman my august
father would be languishing in a cold and
indescribably dreadful English prison, eating
the food of coolies and toiling for white
masters ? O my father, great debt our house
owes to this woman, for she saved us from dis-
honour and you from misery. I cannot look
upon her without thinking of that load of service
to be discharged. Surely virtue and beauty
must dwell in one who could so venture herself
as to render service to us who are nothing to
her?”
To which old Ho Wong again spoke the
Chinese phrase implying “Rats!”
304


The Song of Ho Ling
But a week later the occasion of their
quarrel was removed. Opportunity was given
to Ho Ling to redeem his vows, and set free
the house of Ho from its obligation. He came
home on Saturday evening, and handed two
shillings to his venerable father, as his week's
allowance for social dalliance; and when his
father demanded more, he replied that his
labours had been but ill rewarded that week,
and there was no more, save what should keep
them in food. . And his father rose and em-
ployed terms of no-veneration against his son,
accusing him of having wasted time upon the
white woman which might better have been
used in earning money. He spoke of himself
as suffering under emotions of the most dis-
agreeable and hardly-to-be-endured nature,
and went angrily.
Left alone, Ho Ling moved for awhile
about the room; then, having sung his even-
ing song, and waited vainly for acknowledg-
ment from the opposite window, he too went
out and mixed himself in the melancholy
turmoil of Chinatown's evening. He walked
up West India Dock Road, and stopped at
the Causeway, and stood looking along its
narrow length. In its primrose twilight many
figures strolled, stood, shuffled and turned.
305


Whispering Windows
Book of Filial Piety enjoining utmost sacrifice
for the parent's sake; and with them the
words of Mencius on the solemnity of dis-
charging services rendered by strangers. His
father was at the point of death, and he could
save him. But his benefactress was in like
position, and he recalled his song and his
solemn vow made before the joss. Here
now was the opportunity to perform that
vow and discharge the obligation from the
house of Ho. Now or never—for he knew
that Amber Goldstein had no family, no
blood-relation upon whom he might later dis-
charge it. Now was the time, or for ever he
must wander with this burden upon him and
his house, this unrequited service to lie as a
curse upon his children and their children's
children.
Yet his father—dare he neglect him even
for such a vow as this? After all, his father
was a man, a father of a son, and this other
was but a woman—a white woman. Too, she
herself had made nothing of the service, and
had persistently declared that it called for no
reward. But there were his vow and his song.
Yet the most holy of all ties bound him to his
father. What would be said of him by the
spirits when it became known that he left his
308


The Song of Ho Ling
father to die and saved some white woman?
Yet how would he stand when the charge was
made that he had left a benefactress to die,
with his obligations undischarged, when the
power to save her was in his hands? There
was the unchangeable law of requital of service
and sacrifice; the more stringent in such a
case as his, where the service was bestowed by
a white. And there was the everlasting law
of utmost duty to parents.
For two seconds Ho Ling stood, while he
thought of these things. This short, sharp
conflict of instincts, battling with each other,
lasted no longer. Then, his head whirling
with the combating impulses, he dropped his
canvas coat, poised on his toes, and leapt to
the water. As his head split the water, the
icy shock of it cleared him, and he made his
decision. With sturdy strokes he swam to-
wards one of the struggling figures.
Which?
DEC \ 61921
309


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UNIV. OF MICH,
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