LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE "-\ i /I A^l-V-* GREEN GINGER BY THE SAME AUTHOR TALES OF MEAN STREETS A CHILD OF THE JAGO TO LONDON TOWN CUNNING MURRELL THE HOLE IN THE WALL DIVERS VANITIES GREEN GINGER BY ARTHUR MORRISON So hey with a whim-wham from the lande of green ginger A Peck of Madnesse THIRD EDITION London: HUTCHINSON & CO. Paternoster Row 1909 TO GUY CONTENTS PAGE A SKINFUL OF TROUBLE I THE ABSENT THREE ....... 26 THE STOLEN BLENKINSOP ...... 41 CAP'EN JOLLYFAX'S GUN 65 SNORKEY TIMMS, HIS MARKS . . . 78 THE COPPER CHARM 96 DOBBS'S PARROT 114 THE SELLER OF HATE . . . . . .133 THE RODD STREET REVOLUTION .... 156 THE CHAMBER OF LIGHT ...... 177 MR. BOSTOCK'S BACKSLIDING 192 THE HOUSE OF HADDOCK 2l8 A LUCIFO MATCH 233 ARTS AND CRAFTS 254 WICKS'S WATERLOO 2-72 THE DRINKWATER ROMANCE 289 A Skinful of Trouble OF all the afflictions brought on a suffering civilization by the Limited Liability Acts as they stand in the statutes of this commercial country, few can exceed the troubles, pains, and harassments of Mr. Nathaniel Dowdall, con- sequent on his investment of an odd hundred pounds in Filer's Royal and Imperial Circus, Limited. It was no matter of a public issue of shares at the hands of a professional promoter, no case of a glowing prospectus with a titled directorate. Filer, of Filer's Royal and Imperial Circus, indeed, made fresh issues of shares when- ever he found the opportunity, and wherever he fell across the confiding investor. He was managing director, and, it is to be presumed, the rest of the board also. He was Filer, and there was the long and short, the thick and thin, the beginning and end of it. From time to time the capital of Filer, Limited, was increased by just as much as some hopeful stranger might be per- suaded to entrust to Filer, managing director, in i B GREEN GINGER exchange for an elegantly printed certificate con- stituting him a partner (limited) in the joys and sorrows of Filer. Then Filer's Royal and Im- perial Circus passed on, and, if the new shareholder remained quiescent, there was nobody in the world so ready to let bygones be bygones as the magnanimous Filer. Mr. Nathaniel Dowdall did not remain quies- cent. He followed Filer with letters, monthly, fortnightly, and then weekly. Some came back, through the Dead Letter Office, a few vanished wholly into the unknown, but some caught Filer at towns where the circus pitched, and others overtook him, redirected ; and that in sufficient numbers to grow, after a year or so, something of a nuisance to the otherwise unruffled Filer. So much so, that he went as far as to answer one or two of the later and more violent, in a tone of flowery affability. And then Mr. Dowdall wrote thus : Without Prejudice. 613, BRAMBLEBURV ROAD, STREATHAM HILL, S.W., May \$th. SIR, I will have no more of your evasions and promises. You have obtained my money by fraudulent misrepresentation, and I demand its instant return. Unless I receive by Thursday next your cheque for the sum of one hundred pounds, I shall place the whole affair in the hands 2 A SKINFUL OF TROUBLE of my solicitors to deal with as they consider best, with a view not only to the recovery of the money, but to the proper punishment of a disgraceful fraud. This letter is final. Your obedient servant, NATHANIEL DOWDALL. It would be difficult, thought Mr. Dowdall (and Mrs. Dowdall agreed with him), to devise a more peremptory missive than this ; though, indeed, since each of the last two letters had ended with the declaration that it was final, the concluding clause might be considered by now to have lost some of its force. But on the other hand, " Without Prejudice " was quite new, and very terrible to behold. Filer's answer, however, came in this form : FILER'S ROYAL AND IMPERIAL CIRCUS, LIMITED, May i6tA. MY DEAR MR. NATHANIEL DOWDALL, My natural delight at hearing once again from so highly esteemed a friend and partner as yourself was somewhat chastened by a suspicion that the tone of your letter was one of irritation. I need hardly assure you that it would afford me the highest and purest pleasure to comply with your thoughtful suggestion that I should send you my cheque for one hundred pounds, but I have 3 GREEN GINGER reason to believe that the presentation of that cheque at the bank would result in a pang of disappointment which far be it from me to inflict upon you. The stream of wealth, in fact, which is destined inevitably to overtake our enterprise in time, and which I shall welcome chiefly because it will enable me to divert a large volume of it toward you, is meeting with a temporary obstruc- tion. In the meantime permit me to thank you for the kind thought which prompted your charmingly original heading, and to rejoice to learn that you are still without prejudice against Your devoted, though temporarily embarrassed partner, PLANTAGENET FILER. Mr. Dowdall perused this letter with eyes that emerged steadily till they threatened to overhang his most prominent waistcoat-button. Speechless, he passed it across the breakfast-table to Mrs. Dowdall, who, having read it in her turn, barely mustered the words, " Well I never did ! " This was Mr. Dowdall's rejoinder, written after an hour's interval of simmering wrath : STREATHAM HILL, S.W., May IT th. MR. FILER, I am not to be turned aside by impudent flippancy. I may remind you that, 4 A SKINFUL OF TROUBLE even though you may have made away with my money, you have goods which may be seized in satisfaction of my claim, and unless 1 receive the sum of which you have defrauded me before the end of the week I shall take steps to secure it by the means provided by law. This letter is final. NATHANIEL DOWDALL. As Mr. Dowdall anticipated, this produced a change in Filer's attitude. His answer, still amiable in tone, indicated surrender : FILER'S ROYAL AND IMPERIAL CIRCUS, LIMITED, May I8//5. MY DEAR MR. DOWDALL, It grieves me to perceive, from your last letter, that my fear of a certain irritation on your part of late was well- founded, and I hasten to remove all occasion for an asperity which I feel sure you have already regretted. My sorrow is chiefly that you should cut yourself off from participation in the noble revenues which are shortly to accrue to this enterprise ; but, rather than my honour should be in any way called in question, I will even en- counter the bitterness of this disappointment. It would increase my distress, if, in addition to your sacrifice of the golden opportunity, you were to incur legal expenses ; and therefore I am now 5 GREEN GINGER freely handing over to you a valuable part of the property of this company, more than equivalent to the sum you have invested. It should arrive in the course of a day or so, by rail, in a large case, carriage forward. I am now leaving Eng- land, with the enterprise, for an extended Conti- nental tour, and take this opportunity of tendering you my heartiest farewells, and expressing my pleasure that our business connection terminates in friendly concord. Your late partner, but eternal well-wisher, PLANTAGENET FILER. P.S. The case should be handled with care. It is not a new one, and in some places it is not altogether what one might wish. P. F. This was far more satisfactory, and Mr. Dow- dall beamed as he passed the letter to his wife, who beamed again as she handed it back. Plainly he had gone the right way to work to bring such a fellow as Filer to his senses. Clearly Filer had realized at last that Nathaniel Dowdall was not to be trifled with, and had offered the best composition in his power without waiting for a legal seizure. Perhaps, also, there was a little in Mrs. Dowdall's suggestion that some traces of honesty lingered in Filer's system yet ; for, in truth, he might have left the country without 6 A SKINFUL OF TROUBLE notice, and so have removed his goods beyond the reach of bailiffs. There were possible awkwardnesses to be con- sidered, of course. Showmen's accessories were of little use to Mr. Dowdall, and might prove difficult to dispose of. But that was a matter best left till the goods came to hand. For the rest of that day and for some part of the next Mr. Dow- dall was patient and hopeful. And then the case arrived. Mr. Dowdall was sitting in the inconvenient little back room which the household was taught to call his study, and Mrs. Dowdall was consult- ing him on the eternal domestic question, beef or mutton ; when the blank and bewildered face of Selina the housemaid appeared at the door, and the hand of Selina extended towards Mr. Dowdall a large biscuit-coloured delivery sheet. " It's the railway van, sir," announced Selina ; " and they've brought a tiger." " A tiger ! " gasped Mr. Dowdall, quite for- getting to shut his mouth after the utterance. And " A tiger ! " echoed Mrs. Dowdall, faintly, opening her mouth wider still. u Yes, m'm," replied the housemaid. "It's in a big wooden cage, a-nowlin' an' stampin' an' goin' on dreadful. And there's six pound four and eightpence to pay." 7 GREEN GINGER In the blank pause that followed, vague rumblings, shouts, and yelps from the direction of the street reached the ears of Mr. Dowdall, like the ancestral voices that prophesied war to Kubla Khan. He rose, murmuring helplessly ; his murmurs increased as he reached the study door, and the burden of their plaint was, " Six pound four and eightpence ! " Then he turned suddenly on Selina. " I won't have it ! " he exclaimed. " Send it away." And Mrs. Dowdall, awakened to a sudden sense of danger, caught his arm, pushed Selina into the passage, and shut the door after her in one complicated spasm of presence of mind. The noises from the street grew in volume, and it was clear that a public attraction had been scented, and the inevitable torrent of shouting boys had set in. Presently Selina returned with the report that, whether Mr. Dowdall paid the railways charges or waited to be sued for them, the tiger addressed to him would be delivered there and then. The men, it seemed, had given her to understand that the tiger's society was no longer desired, either by themselves or by any other person connected with the railway. " Nonsense ! " exclaimed Mr. Dowdall, re- covering something of his natural sense of civic propriety. but never anything like this. We can t stand it. There s only this room left, and we are crowded solid. We dare not come out. It is terrible. Q. What terrifies you ? 190 THE CHAMBER OF LIGHT A. All of it ! Furniture! Snakes! Fireworks! Cauliflowers ! Tentacles ! Curly wigs / Jim-jams ! Sacks and touzly wigs ! Pray do something for us. Q. Wtiat must we do ? A. (an almost undecipherable mass of ragged scrawls, apparently from many different hands in all sorts of directions on both sides of paper). Take them away . . . 'Benton . . . raise rent . . . Apologi-ze. . . . Never frighten people any more. . . . Know what it is ourselves now . . . never expected this. . . . Worse things than us. . . . Help ! Police ! . . . (rest wholly illegible). These mysterious words are all the explanation extant of the amazing phenomenon of the Luminous Room. Answers to succeeding questions were wholly unreadable, and in the end the experts gave up their attempts to unravel the mystery. It is a fact, nevertheless, that since the Quilters have left Missel Hall (they have been gone six months now) the strange light has wholly dis- appeared from the attic, and it has not been followed by any of the more ordinary terrors which preceded it ; a fact that, it is said, will shortly be cited in a paper to be read before a spiritualistic congress, and adduced as a proof that ghosts may be relied on to keep their promises, even when extorted under stress of deadly terror. 191 Mr. Bostock's Backsliding IT is a terribly easy thing to fall into imper- * ceptibly to glide into evil-doing ; and once embarked on the slippery descent, there is no telling how low one may descend. This, the moral of the story of Mr. Bostock, is, in ac- cordance with modern practice, placed at the beginning of the story instead of at the end, which our grandfathers considered the proper place. Nowadays we get the moral over and out of the way as soon as possible, and find it good riddance. Mr. Bostock was a person of that peculiar stainlessness which is only to be observed in a London suburb of the highest respectability, always in association with the precisely correct clothes for every occasion, and a comfortable in- come derived somehow from the City. He was no longer young, nor slim, and his large, clean- shaven countenance carried the heavy portentous- ness noticeable in the Strictly Proper. Regularity, Propriety, Serene Importance these words could 192 MR. BOSTOCK'S BACKSLIDING be traced across his white waistcoat and his pink face as distinctly as though spelt in printed letters ; and Severe Respectability shone like a halo from the high polish of his crown. Every admirer of the female sex every dis- criminating person, in other words will at once perceive that there was a Mrs. Bostock to whom much or all of this perfection was due ; indeed, the ribald of his suburb ascribed Mr. Bostock's correctitude to simple terror of his wife. This was the slander of vulgar malice, of course, but it is a fact that Mrs. Bostock was a lady well fitted to inspire terror in the unregenerate ; and those whom she regarded as her social inferiors which meant very nearly everybody had reason to quail before her overbearing majesty. Twenty-four years of training under Mrs. Bostock's severe eye had endowed Mr. Bostock with the shining qualities so vastly respected in his suburb, and of late her supervision had been reinforced by that of their two daughters, now grown up. It may be that it is not permitted to mere man to receive a greater share of this sort of blessing than can be conferred by an energetic wife and one full-grown daughter ; that the gradual accession of assistance from another daughter, as she reaches womanhood, will over- come the fortitude of the most respectable. It 193 o GREEN GINGER is certain that Mr. Bostock's lapse occurred shortly after Julia, his second daughter now arrived near marriageable age had fully ranged herself by the side of her mamma and her sister in the direction of his comportment. The family were staying at the seaside at the proper period of late summer, and, of course, at the proper place. The town is already sufficiently well advertised, so here I shall call it Scarbourne, which is not in the least like its real name. Everybody will readily recognize it, however, from the circumstance that it is the most genteel town on the English coast, where every male visitor positively must change all his clothes at least three times a day, and no lady must be seen to wear anything twice. Also, the promen- ade is the one place for pedestrian exercise, and the vulgar act of walking on the beach is never condoned. No place on earth basks in a more sacred odour of perfect respectability than this blessed spot, with nothing to mar its bliss but the presence of a vulgar convict prison a few miles inland, and the fact that the approach by railway lies through another seaside town of the most unpardonable description, where parents paddle on the sands among their children, and the air resounds to the banjo and tambourine of the nefarious nigger. It is said that the 194 MR. ROSTOCK'S BACKSLIDING Scarbourne visitors barely forgave the King for the proximity of His Majesty's prison, and that only in consideration of his social position ; but the railway company might beg forgiveness in vain for bringing their line through Beachpool- on-Sea. Mr. Bostock's temptation came insidiously yet suddenly, giving him little time for choice. There was some expectation that the office in the City, which provided the means for Mr. Bostock's respectability, might require his presence for a day or two in the midst of his vacation ; and there was hourly expectation of a telegram from his head clerk to call him. Mr. Bostock was somewhat puzzled, almost shocked, to detect himself looking forward to the receipt of the telegram with something vastly like pleasurable anticipation ; and with this begins the tale of his backsliding. A telegram did come, immediately after break- fast on a brilliant August morning. Mr. Bostock tore it open eagerly. It was from his chief clerk, indeed ; but it conveyed the news that the matter in question had been satisfactorily settled, and that Mr. Bostock's presence in London would not be required. Mr. Bostock sank back in his easy-chair in a frame of mind which he distinctly recognized as one of gloomy dejection. GREEN GINGER Mrs. Bostock and her daughters were dressing for a morning drive in the jobbed carriage that conveyed them everywhere, except for the promenade walk ; and as Mr. Bostock sat back with the telegram in his hand his wife appeared, patting and smoothing her gloves. " Oh that telegram has come, then," observed Mrs. Bostock. " Then we'll ask Mrs. Berkeley Wiggs to take your seat, and we'll drive out a little when I've done some shopping in the town. I suppose you'll catch the ten-thirteen ? " Here was Mr. Bostock's temptation, and here began his fall. " Y yes ! " he stammered, hastily, crumpling up the telegram and stuffing it away in his pocket. " Yes ! I'll I'll catch the ten-thirteen, of course. Too late for the fast train, of course. Of course. Yes, my dear I'll go off and catch the ten-thirteen. Don't bother about me I'll walk, or have a cab. Yes of course, I must catch the ten-thirteen ! " A very easy thing, the fall of Mr. Bostock. You will observe that he said nothing as to the contents of the telegram not a word. Mrs. Bostock assumed that the message was the one expected, and her husband merely allowed her the assumption. Almost anybody might have done the same thing accidentally, as it were. And, in fact, Mr. Bostock hardly realized what 196 MR. ROSTOCK'S BACKSLIDING he had done till Mrs. Bostock had departed in search of Mrs. Berkeley Wiggs ; the most recent accession to her acquaintance, and Socially Immense. Even when he did fully realize the position of affairs Mr. Bostock betrayed no symptom of remorse. His behaviour, indeed, for the next hour or so diverged every minute farther and farther from the precedent set by twenty-four years of strict regularity. He took a cab to the railway station, and during the short ride his demeanour so changed that the startled cabman scarcely recognized his fare as he emerged. Mr. Bostock's hat had settled over at a jaunty angle, and Mr. Bostock's face had acquired a joyous, almost a waggish, expression. A shade of apprehension crossed it as he approached the booking-office window and glanced nervously about him. Then he plunged his head deep in at the little hole, and demanded his ticket in a voice inaudible from without. He took his seat in the ten-thirteen train, just as he said he would ; but and here you may begin the measure of Mr. Bostock's backsliding he got out at Beachpool-on-Sea ! Not without some nervousness and trepidation, it is true ; for the habit of twenty-four years is hard to shake off. But once out in the GREEN GINGER High Street of Beachpool, Mr. Bostock's gradual expansion was a wonderful thing to see. He put his hands in his trousers pockets, he put his hat positively at the back of his head, and at the end of the street, by the sea, he bought a cane and swung it ! Mr. Bostock was taking a little holiday c< on his own," as the vulgar say. How long he was going to stay, what arrangements he should make, and all the rest of it he had as yet thought nothing of. Here he was, free and irresponsible, at Beachpool, where nobody knew him, and ready for a holiday after twenty-four years' respectability. He went back to the shop where he bought the cane, and there bought a pipe and an ounce of tobacco. Mrs. Bostock had never allowed him to smoke anything less respectable than a cigar since they were married. Sometimes she had even bought the cigars herself. Perhaps I should not have mentioned this last circumstance, since it is far from my design to arouse sympathy for the perverted Bostock. As for him, he grew wilder at every step along the beach. For he walked along the sands here like any low tripper, and once he actually " skated " an oyster-shell along the water not very well. Then he stopped to listen to a group of niggers, and even laughed laughed aloud MR. BOSTOCKS BACKSLIDING at a song about a " missis " and a mother-in-law, and put twopence in the tambourine rather than go away before it was finished. And as he went on among the children digging sand and their elders devouring fruit and buns, he burst into little gasps of laughter at nothing whatever, and was barely able to repress an insane desire to dance in public. The desire grew so urgent, indeed, that he walked straight on along the beach, past the last of the family groups, and into the solitude beyond. Here the cliffs began, and the shore was strewn with large stones, which presently gave place to boulders. Mr. Bostock was two miles from Beachpool, and absolutely alone with the cliff's, the boulders, and the sea. He took a cautious glance about him, laughed aloud twice, and burst into the most astonishing fandango ever executed by an elderly gentleman having no connection with the stage. Then he plucked the hat from his head, flung it at his feet, and kicked it over the nearest boulder. Mr. Bostock had utterly thrown off the mask ! He picked his hat up, however, with some solicitude, and sat on the boulder to restore its shape. Then he held it at arm's length and laughed at it, loud and long. No hat of Mr. Bostock's had endured such derision before. 199 GREEN GINGER He clapped it on the side of his head, stuck his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, and gazed out over the sea, chuckling. The great green water was beautiful and smooth and soft, and the day was warm. Mr. Bostock had not had a swim for years ; Mrs. Bostock did not consider the exercise suitable to his dignity and his years, nor, indeed, the costume to his figure. He had no bathing costume now, but did that really matter ? There was not a soul in sight, nor likely to be one. The nearest person at Beachpool was two miles off, and Scarbourne was quite seven miles away. There was the towel difficulty, of course ; but Mr. Bostock had a mind above difficulties just now, and a towel was a trifle beneath his soaring notice. As a boy he had run about to get dry, and now he chanced to have two big, clean pocket-handker- chiefs. Mr. Bostock was tuned up for a wild adventure, and this was the wildest he could think of. He took one more look along the deserted shore and up at the silent cliffs, and began to pull off his clothes. There never was such a delightful swim as Mr. Bostock indulged in from that deserted shore. There were cool, transparent pools among the rocks that dotted the shore, and farther out there was just enough motion in the water to 200 MR. BOSTOCK'S BACKSLIDING save monotony. The air was warm and the water of a pleasant coolness, for as yet the sun had not brought it to its full summer-day temperature. And all the while not a soul came in sight along the shore. From time to time Mr. Bostock glanced back to the solitary dark speck among the boulders which he knew to be his heap of clothes, and he saw it always quite safe. So time went, while Mr. Bostock, from time to time floating on his back and gazing thought- fully into the blue of the sky above, revolved in his mind scandalous fraudulent plans for the future, whereby forged telegrams from the office should procure him more holidays like this. Thus does fancied impunity embolden the evil-doer. Still, delightful as that swim was, Mr. Bostock realized that he must come out of the water sooner or later, and at length he turned and headed for the shore, marking his course by the little dark spot where he had left his clothes. He came in slowly and easily, dreading no evil. The tide had risen a little, and he congratulated himself on getting in in time to save his clothes a possible wetting, a danger he had not considered, in the excitement of the adventure. He rose from the water's edge, 201 GREEN GINGER grasped the boulder, took two tender steps on the shingle and instantly rushed back into the sea and swam off as hard as he could go. In the whole course of his hitherto exemplary life Mr. Bostock had never had such a shock such a horrible, stunning surprise. The clothes were not his ! But this alone was a comparative trifle. For what had sent Mr. Bostock staggering back as from the charge of a bull, what had propelled him headlong into the sea and set him swimming as though the bull had turned into a shark, was the appalling fact that he had found himself confronted with a heap of female garments ! There seemed to be no possible mistake. It was a black, rusty-looking heap, with a rather disorganized bonnet and a pair of cloth-topped boots of the sort called "jemimas," down at heel, bulgy at the toes, and very loose and frilly about the elastic sides. It seemed, in short, the outfit of the sort of elderly female for whom the only word is "geezer." A little way out from shore Mr. Bostock ventured to turn about and tread water. Surely that was the boulder on which he had left his clothes ? They had been quite visible from the sea, as he distinctly remembered, and now the 202 MR. ROSTOCK'S BACKSLIDING only heap of clothes in sight was the heap he had just fled from, lying precisely in the same spot. There was not a soul in sight, nor any human belonging except that heap of clothes on the boulder. Nobody was visible on the water, nobody on the shore. Mr. Bostock swam in a little way, till he could stand on the sandy bottom, with his head and shoulders above water, and then, remembering the expedient of Mr. Pickwick in the wrong bedroom at Ipswich, called out very loudly, " Ha hum ! " Mr. Bostock waited for an answer, but heard nothing but the sea, and saw nothing but that and the shore and the dark heap of clothes before him. There was certainly not another pile of clothes anywhere in sight, and Mr. Bostock, his first fright over, began to grow very anxious. He walked a step or two farther in and called again, this time very loudly indeed, " Ha hum ! " And then, when no sound answered him, he proceeded " Anybody there ? " Nobody was there, it would seem, so presently Mr. Bostock, staring wildly and anxiously in all directions, crept out of the water again. Was it possible that his eyes had deceived him ? No ; the clothes were exactly what he had taken them to be, and no others were in sight. 203 GREEN GINGER He snatched hastily at a grubby old plaid shaw that crowned the heap, and, wrapping it about him, began to explore the beach. It was all useless. Nobody was near him, and not a scrap of his own clothing was to be seen. Mr. Bostock's mind did not work with great rapidity, but now that he had got dry by his boyhood's method of running about the beach, with some assistance from the grubby plaid shawl, he realized that he was faced by the dread- ful prospect of returning to civilization disguised as a " geezer." He lifted the shabby garments gingerly, and shuddered. They had that peculiar gritty grimi- ness that makes any sensitive person shudder, and they smelt damp, like a rag-shop. Mr. Bostock shrank and groaned, but there was no help for it. With an infinitude of shivers and squirms he began to put them on. He felt about the skirt for pockets, and grew conscious of a new terror. There was a pocket a torn, clammy bag dangling by one corner and it was empty ! In the pockets of Mr. Bostock's vanished suit were nearly ten pounds in gold and silver, a pocket-book with several notes in it, a gold watch and chain, and some other valuables, to say nothing of his railway- ticket. He broke into a cold sweat. Not only 204 MR. BOSTOCK'S BACKSLIDING must he go among his fellow-creatures as a " geezer," but as a " geezer " absolutely penni- less ! The prospect was more terrible than anything Mr. Bostock had imagined in his life. He broke into a fit of savage indignation at the callous depravity of the wretched female who had stolen his clothes, and must now be masquerading in them as a man in itself a scandalous offence against the law. And at that reflection Mr. Bostock's distress became, if possible, still more acute. For it struck him that he too, arrayed in the horrible clothes he was struggling with, would be committing the same scandalous offence, and liable to the same penalty ! At length the dismal toilet was complete, and Mr. Bostock, miserable enough, but ignorant even now of the amazing figure he was making by reason of his unskilful management of the unaccustomed garments, addressed himself to the next step. Beachpool was two miles in one direction, Scarbourne more than seven the other way. Pulling nervously at the strings of the battered bonnet, which all too scantily covered his lack of tresses, he turned first one way and then the other. Which way should he go ? The rising tide answered the question for him. Long before he could traverse the seven rocky 205 GREEN GINGER miles under the cliffs he would be caught by the tide ; so perforce he turned back to Beach- pool. He did it with some vague sense of relief, too, for he had not yet invented a means of dodging Mrs. Bostock. He did not even know where she might be encountered. The capture of Mrs. Berkeley Wiggs had been the object of some ambition, and now that it was effected, Mrs. Bostock would probably keep her as long as possible for a drive inland to lunch anything convenient. But even supposing Mrs. Bostock safely out of the way, how could her wretched husband possibly enter the select board- ing establishment undetected in the guise of a " geezer " ? The way to Beachpool was filled with per- plexity, and Mr. Bostock grew desperate as he went. What could he do ? Whose help could he ask ? Who would lend money to an appar- ently and obviously disreputable old woman, who told a cock-and-bull tale of being a gentleman of substance, much respected in the City, in need of a little temporary assistance ? The very best he could hope for from such a course was that inquiries would be made, which was the last thing he wanted ; for, in his mind's eye, he saw the terrible figure of Mrs. Bostock, stern, suspicious, and incredulous, standing at the other 206 MR. BOSTOCK'S BACKSLIDING end of those inquiries. But it would be far more likely that he would be given in charge of the police straightway. Mr. Bostock was convinced that to beg would not only be difficult, but useless ; and in his dire extremity he began to consider the possibility of stealing of stealing clothes, money, anything that would get him out of this horrible mess. So low had the principles of the hitherto blame- less Mr. Bostock been brought in the course of a mere hour or two from his first tiny, almost involuntary, departure from the path of rectitude. (Refer to moral, ut supra.] As a man of business it had, of course, occurred to him to wire to his office for a telegraphic money-order, to be sent to the nearest post- office. But, as a man of business also, he re- membered that any person applying for the money must produce complete proof of his identity. Proof of his identity in this amazing rig ! But, to begin with, the telegram to the office must cost at least sixpence. And where was the sixpence ? And so Mr. Bostock crept into Beachpool in a very different state of mind from that in which he had left it ; meditating theft. He was ready to steal the pennies from a blind man's hat. Indeed, he would have preferred that proverbial 207 GREEN GINGER form of larceny before any other, from its comparative safety and simplicity ; but blind men have far too little in their hats. He slunk about the back streets, sweating with terror at the notice he was attracting. It was only because of his clean-shaven face that he had dared to come into the town at all, and now he began to wish himself back on the empty beach. But something must be done, and des- peration forced him far beyond his natural courage, which was not very great. He found himself in a street leading directly into the High Street, and straight before him in the High Street was a cheap tailor's, where dummy figures, labelled " This style, thirty shillings," stood by the door. No peri ever gazed at the portals of Paradise with half the ardent longing with which Mr. Bostock stared at the door of that cheap tailor's shop. Very gladly would he have given a cheque for fifty pounds for one of those shoddy suits and a ticket to London. He had no cheque- book, and if he had, what would any sane tailor think of such a proposition from a disreputable- looking old woman ? But the shop, with its possible salvation, at- tracted him. Perhaps he might make an arrange- ment with the tailor. He drew nearer, eyeing the dummies at the door with an affectionate 208 MR. BOSTOCK'S BACKSLIDING interest which might well have aroused the notice of any observer, and, in fact, did attract the attention of the shopkeeper, lurking like a spider in the recesses of his shop. Even in his present excitement, Mr. Bostock was sane enough to see the impossibility of either stealing a suit off a dummy, or eloping with the dummy complete, clothes and all, under his arm. But as he neared the doorway he could not resist the impulse to extend his hand to the coveted garments ; and at that moment the shopkeeper appeared. He was a shiny, stout, frock-coated Jew, and he said, very peremptorily : " Here, vat you vant ? Out o' dis here ! " Mr. Bostock thrust all his resolution into his voice ; it was a rather large, round, rolling voice, very impressive from a confident middle-aged gentleman in the right clothes, but startlingly out of character with his present outfit. " I ah wish to see you privately on a matter of business," said Mr. Bostock. " Ah, I dessay," replied the shopkeeper ; " ve got nodden to give avay here. Hook it, missis ; sharp ! " *' But I assure you if you will only listen " " Got no dime to stand talkin' mit you. If you vont go then pht ! B'leesman ! " Mr. Bostock had not noticed that two police- 209 p GREEN GINGER men were inspecting him with some curiosity from the nearest corner. Now he saw them with a sudden twinge of alarm, and straightway began a hurried retreat across the road. " Hi ! You there ! Here come here ! " cried one of the policemen, starting smartly after him. At that Mr. Bostock lost all hold of his wits, and, snatching up his skirts in both hands, ran madly up the street he had come by, followed by both the policemen and the beginnings of a joyful crowd. With no more thought of disguise, no more plans or schemes, nothing but a frantic desire to get away, anywhere, anyhow, Mr. Bostock scampered up one narrow street and down an- other, with a gathering hunt behind him. The bonnet dangled over his shoulders by the strings round his neck, and the bulgy " jemimas" threatened to fly off his feet as he ran. Blind instinct taught him to turn each corner as he came to it, and so keep out of view of his pursuers as much as possible ; and fortunately his way led him through the old town, where the fishermen's alleys favoured his flight. But Mr. Bostock was a poor runner, and it was the mere spur of terror that kept him ahead. He caught at a post and swung into a street leading 210 MR. ROSTOCK'S BACKSLIDING down to the sea, and as he did it he met a gust of wind that took the bonnet clean away up the street behind him. There was an alley to the right, and into that he plunged, bonnetless and somewhat bald ; and farther still, growing slower and more "blown " as he went, till he emerged at the back of a row of unfinished houses in the outskirts of the town. And here he trod on a brickbat, which twisted the "jemima " sideways on his foot and flung him headlong. He could run no more. His little remaining breath was clean knocked out of him, and he lay where he fell, beaten and done for. But presently, as the first shock of the fall wore off, he became aware that the noise of pursuit had ceased, and that, as a fact, he was alone behind the unfinished houses, and comparatively safe. The lost bonnet had saved him, for the hunters naturally kept on up the street along which they found the thing bowling, and so off on the wrong track. Mr. Bostock climbed painfully to his feet, and crawled, panting, behind a broken fence. Why he had been chased with such persistence he could not divine, but, at any rate, it was clear that he must get out of Beachpool with no more delay. He put the plaid shawl over his head, and made shift to pull the rest of his dress into some sort 211 GREEN GINGER of order. Then he started out, with much timid reconnoitring, to tramp to Scarbourne by road. There was nothing else to be done. He must approach the back way to the select boarding establishment, and take one of the servants, who might recognize him, into his confidence. He would promise anything a sovereign, five pounds, whatever the girl asked to be smuggled in during the absence of his family. It was a difficult expedient, but the only one. And with this last resort in view Mr. Bostock began his nine miles' tramp. He went with the greatest caution till he was well clear of Beachpool, and even then only ventured to walk his best which was not very good, for he was mightily tired already when nobody was in sight. Twice he stopped to extract small pebbles from the "jemimas," which had cracks convenient for their admission ; and then, as he approached the confines of a village, he stopped for a more peremptory reason still. For there was a bounce from the hedge behind him, a pair of stalwart arms clasped him round, and a loud voice shouted by his ear : " Here he be, sergeant ! I got him ! Sergeant ! Sergeant ! " Struggles were unavailing, for the arms clipped him firmly just above the elbow, and the affrighted 212 MR. BOSTOCK'S BACKSLIDING Mr. Bostock perceived that they were encased in blue sleeves, with an armlet ; at the same moment a hatless policeman came running from a cottage by the wayside and seized him in front. u Get the handcuffs, sergeant ! He be a desprit char'cter ! " bawled the voice in the captive's ear. u All right we won't stand to none of his despritness here," replied the sergeant, dexter- ously seizing Mr. Bostock by the wrist and collar. " Come along, you ! " " I I I've had my clothes stolen ! " gasped Mr. Bostock. "Had yer ha ! ha! That's a good 'un," cried the sergeant. " Had his clothes stole ! " " Ha ! ha ! " echoed the other captor, catching Mr. Bostock's other arm ; " that be a moighty good 'un, sergeant ! " " But I have, I tell you ! " desperately wailed the victim. " All right, me fine feller," grimly responded the sergeant ; " you needn't make a song about them clothes. We've got 'em 'ere for ye all right. Come along ! " A flash of perplexed hope confused Mr. Bostock's faculties, and then, as he was led toward the cottage, a slatternly old woman appeared at the door. 213 GREEN GINGER " Yes ! " cried the old woman shrilly, " that's the blaggard right enough. That's my shawl over his 'ed ! An' my other frock ! An' my boots ! An' an' what ha' ye done with my bonnet, you low thief? Sergeant, he's been an' sold my best bonnet ! " ** What ? " cried Mr. Bostock. " Are these things yours ? " " Course they are, impidence ! Comin' into people's 'ouses a-night an' stealin' wittles, M an " Then I give that woman in charge ! " inter- rupted Mr. Bostock. " She's stolen my clothes, and ten pounds, and a pocket-book, and my watch and chain ! " At this the old woman spluttered with rage, and the two policemen guffawed aloud. " You're a gay 'un, you are ! There ain't no watch- pocket in them clothes ! You shall have 'em, my boy we're a-goin' to put 'em on ye afore we take ye back. Here y'are ! " With these words Mr. Bostock was forced in at the door of the cottage, and so to a room at the back. " Here's yer clothes, my hearty," proceeded the sergeant ; " and precious glad you'll be to get into 'em again, I don't think. Come along ! " With that he shut the door behind them, and 214 MR. BOSTOCK'S BACKSLIDING presented to Mr. Bostock's astounded eyes a suit of drabbish yellow, decorated with black " broad arrows " ! Nothing but the uniform of the convict prison ! Mr. Bostock stared wildly. Was this some frenzied nightmare, or was he really stark mad ? He gabbled incoherently. " No, no stole my clothes bathing not them name of Bostock refer to my bankers no it's all a mistake ! " And then he stopped, with open mouth, as the state of the case dawned on him slowly. Some wretched convict had escaped and left these things. He had entered the cottage in the night for food, had gone off disguised in the only clothes he could find, and had wandered, hiding in lonely places, till he had reached the sea-shore. And then he had made another change, at Mr. Bostock's expense ! And, indeed, that was exactly what had happened. And the curiosity of the police at Beachpool, the chase, and now the final capture all were due to that invaluable invention, the telephone. " Come along into 'em ! " urged the sergeant, with the horrible clothes in his hand. " You was precious anxious about 'em just now. Or shall we shove 'em on for ye ? " " No, no, I tell you it's a mistake. Take 215 GREEN GINGER me to Scarbourne no, wire to Cornhill ! I'll give you five pounds ten fifty ! " Poor Mr. Bostock struggled to his feet and feebly made for the door. The succeeding quarter of an hour is too painful for description. But at its expiration Mr. Bostock was led forth in convict garb it was very tight, but in the flush of their triumph the village police force of two suspected nothing from that and pushed into a light cart with a fast horse, in presence of the whole population of the village. All that his struggle had gained for him was the distinction and interest, in the popular eye, of being very firmly handcuffed. The horse was whipped up and the village was left behind, which at any rate was some relief. Twenty minutes' smart drive brought the party within distant sight of Scarbourne, and within very near sight of an open carriage, which they rapidly overtook. Mr. Bostock's disorganized faculties were barely beginning to rearrange themselves, but he did recognize that carriage, and the people in it. With a gasp he slid off the seat, to hide himself in the bottom of the cart. "Hold up!" exhorted the constable, hauling at his arm. " Sergeant ! he's tryin' to hide from 216 MR. BOSTOCK'S BACKSLIDING them ladies in the carriage ! P'r'aps he's had somethink o' theirs ! " The sergeant gazed down on the cowering form, and then gave the horse an extra flick. " P'r'aps he has," he said. " We'll ask 'em." And thus it came about that Mr. Bostock, grimy, bruised, handcuffed, and bedizened with broad-arrows, was hauled up from the bottom of the cart and presented for identification to the horrified gaze of Mrs. Bostock, Miss Bostock, Miss Julia Bostock, Mrs. Berkeley Wiggs, and the coachman on the box. After that nothing mattered. The handsome apologies of the prison governor were a mockery, for Mr. Bostock would have preferred to stay with him. 217 The House of Haddock OBOSHOBERY DOVE hauled at the twist- V knotted cord by his side till his enormous silver watch emerged from its fob. According to immemorial ritual he banged the long-suffering timepiece three times edgewise on the socket of his wooden leg, clapped it to his ear, and finally looked at the face, comparing it with that of the old sun-dial over the church door behind us. u 'Taren't to be judged the sun's nigh two hours out, so 'tis like it may be the watch," he said. " An' none so much out, nayther, con- siderin'. 'Tis a wunnerful good watch for all its an oad 'un." " Your father's, wasn't it? " I asked, indolently. " My father gave n" pun' for that watch, sir, at Foulness, before eighteen hundred." For this conversation took place a good many years ago, when I was a very young person and Roboshobery Dove was not so many years short of ninety, tough old fellow as he was. "He gave 218 THE HOUSE OF HADDOCK fi' pun' for it of a man whose father had been a genelman once." We were sitting on the tombstone before the church door ; the tombstone that had served so many purposes since it had ceased, by reason of illegibility, to keep its charge as a memorial. For it was scored and worn by scythe-blades, it made a convenient waiting-place opposite the church door and the dial, and, if you turned your back on the church, as we had done, you looked out upon what always seemed to me the most wonderful view on earth ; over the tumbling roofs of the little town below and so across the five miles' width of sea that makes the outer gate of the Thames. It was said that the level stone had had other uses too ; it had been found adapted to certain profane games, in which buttons and halfpennies had their parts ; but that was in the old days, before people were all good. " Ay," repeated Roboshobery Dove, " his father had been a genelman once, an' his father before him, in Foulness, like others I could tell." " The Doves, eh ? " I suggested. " That I won't say, sir, though true 'tis I was christened after Roboshobery Dove as fit for King Charles agin Crom'ell. ' 'Tis arl a possibility,' says the parson to my father, ' that you be descendants, an' 'tis a fine handsome name.' An" 219 GREEN GINGER so he christened me. That were Master Ellwood. He were a parson o' th' oad sort, were he. Wore silver buckles to his breeches, an' slep' in his wig ; an' his walkin' stick were five foot long." I had heard Roboshobery so describe Parson Ellwood more than once before ; and experience told me that the old seaman was groping his mind for a story. So I waited. u Speakin' o' oad families come down, an' likewise speakin' o' Crom'ell," he said at length, " folk'll tell 'ee mostly, when things is broke in a church, as 'twere Crom'ell's sogers did it. Least- ways that's what ye hear in these parts. But 'taren't so not allus. You know the Haddock monument in the church, with the head off? Well I count they'll lay that to Crom'ell's sogers, but 'tweren't. I knew the oad soger as did that, an' he were none o' Crom'ell's ; far from a soger at all, sarten to say. I'll tell 'ee his courtin' tale, if you like." " A courting tale ? That's new. You never told me one of your own." Roboshobery Dove closed one bright blue eye for a full quarter of a minute. " Bin a bacheldor all my life," he said. Then he opened the closed eye and shut the other. " Very well," I said. " Go on." 220 THE HOUSE OF HADDOCK "The Haddock as that monument was to," Dove proceeded, " was him as built the alms- houses. It were a big family once admirals an' knights an' what not : but the one as left the alms-houses were nayther, though a rich man, 'tis doubtless. I dunno how many years 'tis since they were rich, but I count it's hundreds ; an' now there's none on 'em, rich or poor." So much I had myself read in the county history, where the family, once the greatest in these parts, was noted as extinct. " There's no more of 'em," the old man pursued, " an' I knowed the last. He were a long way from knight or admiral, or even rich man, though he were a bit of a miser in his way. Jim Haddock were his name oad Jim Haddock, as mostly called an' he got his livin' one way an' another with a bit o' field-work here an' there an' a bit o' higglin' in between, him keepin' fowls. His father before him had been a hedger, and his gran'father too, like as not ; but oad Jim couldn't forget as the family had been gentry once, an' he didn' let nobody else forget it, nayther. The taproom weren't good enough for he ; he'd sit in the parlour o' the Ship here, or the Castle, up at Hadleigh, an' wait to be asked to drink. If nobody offered him rum, he'd take sixpenny ale nothin' lower. An' he'd sniff over 221 GREEN GINGER the pot an' screw his mouth, like as 'twere an insult he were swallerin'. " ' 'Tis a wicked thing to think on,' he'd say, * me here drinkin' six-ale as was born by rights to be drunk on port wine every night o' my life, like any other genelman. Ah well ! Human greatness be a passin' show ! ' But he'd go on a-sniffin' an' drinkin' the sixpenny just as long as you'd go on payin' for it, an' longer. An' the next man 'ud hear a deal of his mighty grievance agin you, because 'tweren't better drink. " When he sold ten eggs once an' got three- pence for 'em, same as any other man was glad to get in them days, he went half round the parish with the money in his open hand before him, callin' the world to witness his hainish afflictions, whereby he'd a-bin give only three dirty coppers for ten eggs, like any common feller. He would ha' gone all round 'stead of half, but the half-way came down on Leigh Strand there, an' a chap three sheets in the wind fetches him a lift under the hand with a boat-stretcher as sent the coppers flyin' across the quay, an' he never found more'n one of 'em. " He never complained in that exact way afterwards, but he complained just as much. He got back that twopence an' a deal more, one way an' another. He used to forget to give change 222 THE HOUSE OF HADDOCK whenever you'd let him, an' talk wide an' noble about the word of a genelman if you tried to putt it right. His idea of a share in a harvestin' job was to draw summat on account, an' then sit on a beer-barr'l an' tell the master how the work ote to be done, very condescendin'. " But the wust of all his troubles, the most hainish grievance oad Jim Haddock ever had, were the alms-houses. It grieved him sick to see a bit o' freehold ground an' twelve cottages as had belonged to some great gran'father of his, about ten times removed, bein' lived in by other parties, an' him a-looking on an' gettin' nothen' out on't. He thote over it an' he grieved over it, an' he thote over it again, till at last he went to the rector. 'Twere the rector and churchwardens, you understand, as had the management of the alms-houses, by will of oad Jerry Haddock. 'Twere a huntin' day when oad Jim went to the rectory, an' the rector were waitin' for his hoss to be brote round, an' gettin' impatient. " f Good-morning, sir,' says oad Jim. * I been a-thinkin' over the matter o' them alms-houses.' ct ' Oh, you have, have you ? ' says the rector, cockin' his eye. " 1 1 have,' says oad Jim, very firm an' decided. * I've been a-considerin' the matter very deep. It seems to me as how my fam'ly has been out 223 GREEN GINGER o' that there property long enough. I don't want to be hard on nobody, but the circumstances o' the fam'ly ain't what they was ; so I'm compelled to give notice. I'll thank 'ee to clear out all them oad parties, parson, by quarter day.' " What the rector said ain't quite sarten. I've heard different accounts, an' none of 'em ain't what you might expect from a parson, these here days. But that rector were one o' th' oad sort, an' anyhow what he did is sarten. He took oad Jim by the scruff o' the neck an' he runned him out o' the rectory garden that fast that he den't stop till he hit up agen this here churchyard fence. " Oad Jim Haddock took it bitter unkind o' the parson, an' complained most touchin' to every- body as 'ud listen. 'Tweren't the way for one genelman to treat another, he said ; the proper way, when two genelmen couldn't agree on a matter o' business, was to split the difference ; an' he'd a been very well satisfied with half the alms-houses. " Well, he went on complainin' very woeful ; but seein' he couldn't do no better he settled with hisself at last to get one o' the houses in the reg'lar way. You know what it says it's up in the church about the alms-houses bein' for de- cayed parishioners, men an' women, married an' single. Well, oad Jim were pretty sound an' 224 THE HOUSE OF HADDOCK able for work, an' not quite what you might look for in an alms-house, but he reckoned his fam'ly claims 'ud get over that. The houses were allus full, but there were one poor oad chap named Styles in one, about eighty-five, with a stroke down one side an' a cough that joggled him to bits, an' oad Jim counted his house as good as took, in a month or two. He went in, most wonnerful affectionate, every day, to see how poor oad Styles were a-gettin' on, an' to slap him very hard on the back when he coughed, an' tell him how much wuss he was a-lookin'. " Oad Styles lasted about a month longer than Jim expected, but he went arter all, an' then there was another disappointment, for instead o' oad Jim they putt a widder into the house. Not so partic'lar oad a widder, neither ; but she'd had two husbands, and 'tis like they counted she wouldn't easy get a third. But anyhow oad Jim Haddock went half-cracked. He said a mort of unrespectful things about oad Jerry Haddock wasting the fam'ly substance in riotous alms- houses, an' then he went to the rector again. The rector den't run him out this time ; oad Jim runned hisself when the parson grabbed his walkin'-stick. So when he found it was no good tryin' that way, he set out to see the widder herself. 225 Q GREEN GINGER u * Good-morning Mrs. Bartrip,' say he, sniffin' an' snuffin' an' screwin' his nose. ' Umf ! umf 1 Be you decayed ? ' " ' What ? ' says the widder, lookin' very hard at him. " ' I were only makin' inquiration,' says he, a bit milder. ' The rules o' the will says decayed parishioners, an' I felt a bit anxious about 'ee. If so be you ben't decayed I doubt the parson '11 be after turnin' 'ee out. He be terr'ble strict, the parson. An' the churchwardens too. 'Tis a very serious punishment, by Parliament act, for livin' here if you ben't decayed. But there I make no doubt you be 'cordin' to rules, Mrs. Bartrip.' " ' I be 'cordin' enough to rules to stay where I am,' says the widder. *' ' Ah, no doubt,' says oad Jim. * The pity is 'tis knowed all over the parish. Can't help it, ye see, livin' here, 'cordin' to rules. Though 'tain't what a party 'ud like knowed an' talked about. Still, no doubt 'tis what parties come to, gettin' so far on in years.' " ' Is't, indeed ? ' says the widder, liftin' her chin. " ' Ah, they do. Not that there's anythin' to be ashamed of in a few years more or less, for a sensible woman. When you get to sixty, ten years here or there don't make much difference.' 226 THE HOUSE OF HADDOCK " ' What do I know about sixty ? ' says the widder. " * Oh I'm not tryin' to bind ye to sixty, Mrs. Bartrip ; far from it. Sixty or seventy makes nothen', as I said, an' some decays later'n others. Poor oad Styles, now, he were late. Some thote 'twere the house bein' unhealthy ; an' sarten to say he were terr'ble bad toward the end. But he lasted fair well, did poor oad Styles. He were over two year here, an' I count ye might last quite as long as that, if the house don't get no damper. An' that wouldn't seem easy possible, 'tis sarten.' " ' Ah ! ' says Mrs. Bartrip, * a damp house suits me wonnerful ; allus did.' " Well, all was for nothen'. Mrs. Bartrip wouldn't move for pride, nor for wish to be thote young, nor for damp. So oad Jim waited a month an' tried her with ghosts. f " * Good-mornin', Mrs. Bartrip,' says he. * I wondered if you mightn't be ill, seein' a light in your keepin' room so late last night.' a < Light in my keepin' room ? ' says the widder. 4 Why, I weren't up after dark.' " ' Indeed, mum ? Then it must ha' been oad Styles agen. I've seed him about the garden two or three nights, but I den't think best to say nothen', you bein' a lone woman an' like as not 227 GREEN GINGER nervous o' ghosts ; I never guessed he'd ha' gone indoors.' " ' I wouldn't ha' guessed it either,' says the widder. " * But 'tis allus that way with them alms- houses,' says oad Jim. ' The oad parties do cling to 'em wonnerful.' " ' Don't blame 'em,' says the widder. " ' It's allus been the way, mum. Allus the way in that row o' houses. If the property had still been in the family I'd ha' had it attended to long ago, along with the plaster. But as it is, there's oad Styles a-walking the house all silent every night.' " ' Well, that's fust-rate,' says the widder. { I allus did like a ghost in the house, specially a silent one. It's company, an' it don't tell no lies.' " Anybody but oad Jim would ha' give up the job after that. But he never give up nothen' he could hoad on to, an' fore long he were round at the widder's again. This time he didn't try to drive her out. He saw that weren't to be done, so he split the difference (like a gentleman) an tried to get in without. He never brought up a word o' what had been said before, 'cept that the widder liked company ; an' as company he recommended hisself very strong, to say nothen' 228 THE HOUSE OF HADDOCK of protection from ghosts. An' the end of it was they were married. " The parson laughed half an hour by the clock when they went to put up the i banns, an' he con- gratulated oad Jim Haddock on enterin' into the ancestrial property at last. As to the weddin' there never was no sich fanteeg in all these parts. You wouldn't ha' believed there was half as many tin pots in Essex. The parson he set 'em a weddin' breakfast on his own lawn, an' had all the rest o' the alms-house people to help eat it. All that day they was squire an' lady, an' oad Jim Haddock was such a swell he might ha' fancied hisself his own great-gran'father ten times back. " But next mornin' he were seen choppin' fire- wood very early, which wasn't like his reg'lar habits. What had been said or done to cause it nobody knew, but 'twas whispered what happened when Madam Haddock showed herself at last. " ' Husband,' says she, sittin' easy in th' arm- chair, f I be a decayed oad 'ooman. Wash down that doorstep.' " Oad Jim made fare to objeck, but she grabbed the broom that sudden he changed his mind. An' there began a little crowd by the door to see oad Jim a-cleanin' a doorstep ; an' the crowd growed an' growed for half an hour before Mrs. Haddock were quite satisfied with the job. 229 GREEN GINGER "Then says she, sittin' easy as ever in the arm-chair : ' I be an oad 'ooman o' seventy, or mayhap eighty, ten years more or less not matter! n' ; so I need plenty o' rest. Peel you them taters for dinner.' " She lied the broom across her knee, handy- like, an' oad Jim went an' did what she bid. 'Twere guessed as he'd tasted of that broom earlier in the mornin', 'fore he chopped the firewood. So he peeled the taters an' putt 'em in the pot, an' the bacon with 'em like as ordered. " Then says she : f I be such a worn-out oad 'ooman, an' this here house be that damp an' unwholesome I ain't done no washin' since fust the banns was putt up. Start up the copper-fire an' go to washin' the linen.' " So she began with him an' so she went on, till poor oad Jim Haddock wished he'd never been born a genelman at all. She sat all day in the easy-chair an' never let go the broom, 'cept she made him sweep with it. He scrubbed an' cooked an' washed an' mended an' got nothin' by it but chin-music an' broomstick, turn about. An' that weren't all nayther. He had to work outdoor as well as in. She druv him out with his eggs an' fowls, an' she saw she got the money too, every farden ; an' 'tween whiles she found 230 THE HOUSE OF HADDOCK him odd jobs round about, an' drawed his wages herself. Poor oad Jim was clean broke down, an' hardly mentioned his ancestrial family once in a week. " One day the beadle's wife falls ill, an' the rector sends round for Mrs. Haddock to go an' sweep out the church. So she turns to oad Jim an' says : ' There be a job o' sweepin' up to church ; get along quick an' do it while I sit in this here unhealthy house an' keep out the ghosts. An' mind I don't get no complaints from parson about it when I go up for the money in the evenin'.' " Well, he comes up to the church quiet an' humble, an' meets the parson in the porch, an' when the parson sees him, broom an' all, he laughs nigh as much as he did before the weddin'. ' Ton my soul, 'tis too bad of her,' says the parson, c but I dunno as you don't deserve it. 'Twouldn't be much of an admiral they'd make o' you ! ' " Oad Jim went in an' he started sweepin' humble an' quiet enough. But his heart were pretty bitter in him, an' the parson's words den't help it. So he went on a-sweepin' till he came opposite oad Jerry Haddock's monument, an' there were oad Jerry, his great-gran' father ten times over, as had caused all the trouble, smilin' 231 GREEN GINGER down at him, blind an' contempshus. That roused oad Jim at last. " * I dussen't strike my wife,' he says, * an' the parson be a man o' scorn an' wrath. But you can't hit me back,' he says. An' with that he swings round the broom an ketches oad Jerry Haddock sich a lift under the ear that the head flied clean down the chancel, an' they found it in the font next christenin' day ! " 232 A Lucifo Match PERSONS with a choice of several names are not common outside the peerage ; but some of them wholly unconnected with any peer are to be discovered in London crowds, though dis- covery is not what they are there for. Crowds, in fact, attract them, from the circumstance that whatever the number of individuals in a crowd, there are sure to be several times that number of pockets, mostly with something in them ; and a pickpocket who has once been convicted finds a change of name a wise precaution. So we arrive at Johnson. It chanced that Johnson stood in quite a small crowd perhaps of twenty that stared at a shop- window in Oxford Street. He had only been Johnson for a week, poor fellow, since emerging from some months' retirement, and as yet the name did not sit easily. He had to keep it continually in mind, lest in some unforeseen emergency he might call himself Jones, or Barker, or Jenkinson, any one of which was dangerous, 233 GREEN GINGER and had been discarded in its turn for that reason ; always after just such another holiday as that he had lately disenjoyed. Johnson was a mild person not at all the sort of man whom one might suppose to be a pickpocket which was fortunate, of course, for Johnson. He was a meek, rather timid body, whose tastes would have been domestic if he had been a family man ; and he would have been a family man if it were not for the expense. He was temperate, thrifty, and inoffensive ; he shrank with horror from the idea of anything violent, such as burglary or work ; he had no vices, no particular abilities, and only one small talent : he could pick a pocket very well indeed. Altogether, Johnson was an unusually virtuous thief. He stood in a small crowd in Oxford Street, as I have said, and while the small crowd stared at the shop window because of some new idea of the shopkeeper's, Johnson considered pockets according to ideas of his own ; having a natural human preference for the easiest pocket in the most sumptuous habiliment. He felt himself much drawn toward a man in an " immensikoff" a fur-lined overcoat which was quite the most magnificent garment in the crowd. The large side-pocket of the " immensikoff" gaped in- 234 A LUCIFO MATCH vitingly, and, though outside overcoat-pockets were barren vessels as a rule, this was so very easy that it were wasting a chance not to try it. So Johnson placed himself against the pocket and tried, with unexpected success. For indeed, at the bottom of that pocket reposed a purse not at all what one might ex- pect to find there. In an instant that purse was transferred to the outside pocket, so closely adjacent, of Johnson's light overcoat ; and then Johnson paused for a moment, ostentatiously scratching his cheek with the guilty hand, and staring with rapt eyes at the window ; till he judged it expedient to edge gently away and evaporate from the little crowd. He strolled easily to the next turning, turned up it with quicker steps, and so into a quieter cross street. Here he paused, plunged his hand into his side-pocket, and found it empty. His chin fell, and he stood amazed. There was no doubt of it this was the pocket into which he had dropped the purse, and now there was nothing there. He felt in the opposite pocket needlessly, for he clearly remembered working with his right hand, and with his right side-pocket against the left pocket of the c< im- mensikoff." There was nothing now in either of his side-pockets, though he raked them through 235 GREEN GINGER with anxious fingers. And then everything inside him bounced at the sudden touch of a hand on his shoulder. He shrank and turned, and found himself confronted by the man in the fur-lined coat. The man was grinning at him with sardonic politeness, and Johnson did not like him at all. He was tall and broad and dark, while Johnson was small and narrow and pale. The stranger's black moustache was waxed into long spikes, which pointed toward the outer edges of the flat brim of a very tall hat, and gave a touch of the unearthly to his grin ; and in his hand he extended toward Johnson a metal box Johnson's own tobacco-box, in truth, which he now re- membered to have left in that same side coat- pocket. " How de do ? " said the sardonic stranger. " Were you feeling in your pocket for this ? " Johnson's panic impulse was to deny his tobacco-box utterly, but the stranger's black eyes were piercing his very brain, and he felt it useless. He took the box that was forced on him, and gasped unintelligible acknowledgments. He meant to say that he was extremely obliged, and didn't know he had dropped it ; but he never remembered what he did say. " I believe some sneaking thief picked your 236 A LUCIFO MATCH pocket," said the stranger, his grin growing fiercer. " Open it and see if anything's missing." Johnson began a mumble that it was all right and of no consequence and didn't matter, but the eyes and the satanic grin compelled him, and he sprang the lid. Instantly there arose from within a gigantic creature with horns, which ran across his hand on horrid clawed legs and made for his sleeve. Johnson squeaked like a rat, and flung box and insect to the ground together. He had a feminine horror of crawling things, and had never seen a stag-beetle before. The stranger snatched the box as it fell, and, brushing roughly against Johnson, skilfully scooped up the insect from the pavement. " What ? " he said. " Do you mean to say it wasn't yours at all ? And yet you wanted to take it ? Is there anything else in those pockets of yours that doesn't belong to you ? Show me ! " " No, sir ! Nothing at all, sir, upon my solemn davy ! " wailed Johnson in terror. For the eyes and the grin were fiercer than ever.