09 Not George Washington

by Unknown

  Yew are ther boys of the Empire, Steady an’ brave an’ trew. Yew are the wuns She calls ‘er sons An’ I luv yew.

  I had gone, out of curiosity, to the outskirts of the crowd, and before I knew what had happened I found myself close to the centre of it. A large man in dirty corduroys stood with his back to me. His shape seemed strangely familiar. Still singing, and swaying to horrible angles all over the shop, he slowly pivoted round. In a moment I recognised the bleary features of Tom Blake. At the same time he recognised me. He stretched out a long arm and seized me by the shoulder. “Oh,” he sobbed, “I thought I ‘ad no friend in the wide world except ‘er; but now I’ve got yew it’s orlright. Yus, yus, it’s orlright.” A murmur, almost a cheer it was, circulated among the crowd. But a policeman stepped up to me.

  “Now then,” said the policeman, “wot’s all this about?”

  Yew are the wuns She calls ‘er sons–-

  shouted Blake.

  “Ho, that’s yer little game, is it?” said the policeman. “Move on, d’yer hear? Pop off.”

  “I will,” said Blake. “I’ll never do it again. I promise faithful never to do it again. I’ve found a fren’.”

  “Do you know this covey?” asked the policeman.

  “Deny it, if yer dare,” said Blake. “Jus’ you deny it, that’s orl, an’ I’ll tell the parson.”

  “Slightly, constable,” I said. “I mean, I’ve seen him before.”

  “Then you’d better take ‘im off if you don’t want ‘im locked up.”

  “‘Im want me locked up? We’re bosum fren’s, ain’t we, old dear?” said Blake, linking his arm in mine and dragging me away with him. Behind us, the policeman was shunting the spectators. Oh, it was excessively displeasing to any man of culture, I can assure you.

  How we got along Shaftesbury I don’t know. It’s a subject I do not care to think about.

  By leaning heavily on my shoulder and using me, so to speak, as ballast, drunken Blake just managed to make progress, I cannot say unostentatiously, but at any rate not so noticeably as to be taken into custody.

  I didn’t know, mind you, where we were going to, and I didn’t know when we were going to stop.

  In this frightful manner of progression we had actually gained sight of Piccadilly Circus when all of a sudden a voice hissed in my ear: “Sidney Price, I am disappointed in you.” Hissed, mind you. I tell you, I jumped. Thought I’d bitten my tongue off at first.

  If drunken Blake hadn’t been clutching me so tight you could have knocked me down with a feather: bowled me over clean. It startled Blake a goodish bit, too. All along the Avenue he’d been making just a quiet sort of snivelling noise. Crikey, if he didn’t speak up quite perky. “O, my fren’,” he says. “So drunk and yet so young.” Meaning me, if you please.

  It was too thick.

  “You blighter,” I says. “You blooming blighter. You talk to me like that. Let go of my arm and see me knock you down.”

  I must have been a bit excited, you see, to say that. Then I looked round to see who the other individual was. You’ll hardly credit me when I tell you it was the Reverend. But it was. Honest truth, it was the Rev. John Hatton and no error. His face fairly frightened me. Simply blazing: red: fair scarlet. He kept by the side of us and let me have it all he could. “I thought you knew better, Price,” that’s what he said. “I thought you knew better. Here are you, a friend of mine, a member of the Club, a man I’ve trusted, going about the streets of London in a bestial state of disgusting intoxication. That’s enough in itself. But you’ve done worse than that. You’ve lured poor Blake into intemperance. Yes, with all your advantages of education and up-bringing, you deliberately set to work to put temptation in the way of poor, weak, hardworking Blake. Drunkenness is Blake’s besetting sin, and you–-“

  Blake had been silently wagging his head, as pleased as Punch at being called hardworking. But here he shoved in his oar.

  “‘Ow dare yer!” he burst out. “I ain’t never tasted a drop o’ beer in my natural. Born an’ bred teetotal, that’s wot I was, and don’t yew forget it, neither.”

  “Blake,” said the Reverend, “that’s not the truth.”

  “Call me a drunkard, do yer?” replied Blake. “Go on. Say it again. Say I’m a blarsted liar, won’t yer? Orlright, then I shall run away.”

  And with that he wrenched himself away from me and set off towards the Circus. He was trying to run, but his advance took the form of semicircular sweeps all over the pavement. He had circled off so unexpectedly that he had gained some fifty yards before we realised what was happening. “We must stop him,” said the Reverend.

  “As I’m intoxicated,” I said, coldly (being a bit fed up with things), “I should recommend you stopping him, Mr. Hatton.”

  “I’ve done you an injustice,” said the Reverend.

  “You have,” said I.

  Blake was now nearing a policeman. “Stop him!” we both shouted, starting to run forward.

  The policeman brought Blake to a standstill.

  “Friend of yours?” said the constable when we got up to him.

  “Yes,” said the Reverend.

  “You ought to look after him better,” said the constable.

  “Well, really, I like that!” said the Reverend; but he caught my eye and began laughing. “Our best plan,” he said, “is to get a four-wheeler and go down to the Temple. There’s some supper there. What do you say?”

  “I’m on,” I said, and to the Temple we accordingly journeyed.

  Tom Blake was sleepy and immobile. We spread him without hindrance on a sofa, where he snored peacefully whilst the Reverend brought eggs and a slab of bacon out of a cupboard in the kitchen. He also brought a frying-pan, and a bowl of fat.

  “Is your cooking anything extra good?” he asked.

  “No, Mr. Hatton,” I answered, rather stiff; “I’ve never cooked anything in my life.” I may not be in a very high position in the “Moon,” but I’ve never descended to menial’s work yet.

  For about five minutes after that the Reverend was too busy to speak. Then he said, without turning his head away from the hissing pan, “I wish you’d do me a favour, Price.”

  “Certainly,” I said.

  “Look in the cupboard and see whether there are any knives, forks, plates, and a loaf and a bit of butter, will you?”

  I looked, and, sure enough, they were there.

  “Yes, they’re all here,” I called to him.

  “And is there a tray?”

  “Yes, there’s a tray.”

  “Now, it’s a funny thing that my laundress,” he shouted back, “can’t bring in breakfast things for more than one on that particular tray. She’s always complaining it’s too small, and says I ought to buy a bigger one.”

  “Nonsense,” I exclaimed, “she’s quite wrong about that. You watch what I can carry in one load.” And I packed the tray with everything he had mentioned.

  “What price that?” I said, putting the whole boiling on the sitting-room table.

  The Reverend began to roar with laughter. “It’s ridiculous,” he chuckled. “I shall tell her it’s ridiculous. She ought to be ashamed of herself.”

  Shortly after we had supper, previously having aroused Blake.

  The drunken fellow seemed completely restored by his repose. He ate more than his share of the eggs and bacon, and drank five cups of tea. Then he stretched himself, lit a clay pipe, and offered us his tobacco box, from which the Reverend filled his briar. I remained true to my packet of “Queen of the Harem.” I shall think twice before chucking up cig. smoking as long as “Queen of the Harem” don’t go above tuppence-half-penny per ten.

  We were sitting there smoking in front of the fire—it was a shade parky for the time of year—and not talking a great deal, when the Reverend said to Blake, “Things are looking up on the canal, aren’t they, Tom?”

  “No,” said Blake; “things ain’t lookin’ up on the canal.”

  “Got a little h
ouse property,” said the Reverend, “to spend when you feel like it?”

  “No,” said the other; “I ain’t got no ‘ouse property to spend.”

  “Ah.” said the Reverend, cheesing it, and sucking his pipe.

  “Dessay yer think I’m free with the rhino?” said Blake after a while.

  “I was only wondering,” said the Reverend.

  Blake stared first at the Reverend and then at me.

  “Ever remember a party of the name of Cloyster, Mr. James Orlebar Cloyster?” he inquired.

  “Yes,” we both said.

  “‘E’s a good man,” said Blake.

  “Been giving you money?” asked the Reverend.

  “‘E’s put me into the way of earning it. It’s the sorfest job ever I struck. ‘E told me not to say nothin’, and I said as ‘ow I wouldn’t. But it ain’t fair to Mr. Cloyster, not keeping of it dark ain’t. Yew don’t know what a noble ‘eart that man’s got, an’ if you weren’t fren’ of ‘is I couldn’t have told you. But as you are fren’s of ‘is, as we’re all fren’s of ‘is, I’ll take it on myself to tell you wot that noble-natured man is giving me money for. Blowed if ‘e shall ‘ide his bloomin’ light under a blanky bushel any longer.” And then he explained that for putting his name to a sheet or two of paper, and addressing a few envelopes, he was getting more money than he knew what to do with. “Mind you,” he said, “I play it fair. I only take wot he says I’m to take. The rest goes to ‘im. My old missus sees to all that part of it ‘cos she’s quicker at figures nor wot I am.”

  While he was speaking, I could hardly contain myself. The Reverend was listening so carefully to every word that I kept myself from interrupting; but when he’d got it off his chest, I clutched the Reverend’s arm, and said, “What’s it mean?”

  “Can’t say,” said he, knitting his brows.

  “Is he straight?” I said, all on the jump.

  “I hope so.”

  “‘Hope so.’ You don’t think there’s a doubt of it?”

  “I suppose not. But surely it’s very unselfish of you to be so concerned over Blake’s business.”

  “Blake’s business be jiggered,” I said. “It’s my business, too. I’m doing for Mister James Orlebar Cloyster exactly what Blake’s doing. And I’m making money. You don’t understand.”

  “On the contrary, I’m just beginning to understand. You see, I’m doing for Mr. James Orlebar Cloyster exactly the same service as you and Blake. And I’m getting money from him, too.”

  CHAPTER 18

  ONE IN THE EYE (Sidney Price’s narrative continued)

  “Serpose I oughtn’t ter ‘ave let on, that’s it, ain’t it?” from Tom Blake.

  “Seemed to me that if one of the three gave the show away to the other two, the compact made by each of the other two came to an end automatically,” from myself.

  “The reason I have broken my promise of secrecy is this: that I’m determined we three shall make a united demand for a higher rate of payment. You, of course, have your own uses for the money, I need mine for those humanitarian objects for which my whole life is lived,” from the Reverend.

  “Wot ‘o,” said Blake. “More coin. Wot ‘o. Might ‘ave thought o’ that before.”

  “I’m with you, sir,” said I. “We’re entitled to a higher rate, I’ll make a memo to that effect.”

  “No, no,” said the Reverend. “We can do better than that. We three should have a personal interview with Cloyster and tell him our decision.”

  “When?” I asked.

  “Now. At once. We are here together, and I see no reason to prevent our arranging the matter within the hour.”

  “But he’ll be asleep,” I objected.

  “He won’t be asleep much longer.”

  “Yus, roust ‘im outer bed. That’s wot I say. Wot ‘o for more coin.”

  It was now half-past two in the morning. I’d missed the 12:15 back to Brixton slap bang pop hours ago, so I thought I might just as well make a night of it. We jumped into our overcoats and hats, and hurried to Fleet Street. We walked towards the Strand until we found a four-wheeler. We then drove to No. 23, Walpole Street.

  The clocks struck three as the Reverend paid the cab.

  “Hullo!” said he. “Why, there’s a light in Cloyster’s sitting-room. He can’t have gone to bed yet. His late hours save us a great deal of trouble.” And he went up the two or three steps which led to the front door.

  A glance at Tom Blake showed me that the barge-driver was alarmed. He looked solemn and did not speak. I felt funny, too. Like when I first handed round the collection-plate in our parish church. Sort of empty feeling.

  But the Reverend was all there, spry and business-like.

  He leaned over the area railing and gave three short, sharp taps on the ground floor window with his walking-stick.

  Behind the lighted blind appeared the shadow of a man’s figure.

  “It’s he!” “It’s him!” came respectively and simultaneously from the Reverend and myself.

  After a bit of waiting the latch clicked and the door opened. The door was opened by Mr. Cloyster himself. He was in evening dress and hysterics. I thought I had heard a rummy sound from the other side of the door. Couldn’t account for it at the time. Must have been him laughing.

  At the sight of us he tried to pull himself together. He half succeeded after a bit, and asked us to come in.

  To say his room was plainly furnished doesn’t express it. The apartment was like a prison cell. I’ve never been in gaol, of course. But I read “Convict 99” when it ran in a serial. The fire was out, the chairs were hard, and the whole thing was uncomfortable. Never struck such a shoddy place in my natural, ever since I called on a man I know slightly who was in “The Hand of Blood” travelling company No. 3 B.

  “Delighted to see you, I’m sure,” said Mr. Cloyster. “In fact, I was just going to sit down and write to you.”

  “Really,” said the Reverend. “Well, we’ve come of our own accord, and we’ve come to talk business.” Then turning to Blake and me he added, “May I state our case?”

  “Most certainly, sir,” I answered. And Blake gave a nod.

  “Briefly, then,” said the Reverend, “our mission is this: that we three want our contracts revised.”

  “What contracts?” said Mr. Cloyster.

  “Our contracts connected with your manuscripts.”

  “Since when have the several matters of business which I arranged privately with each of you become public?”

  “Tonight. It was quite unavoidable. We met by chance. We are not to blame. Tom Blake was–-“

  “Yes, he looks as if he had been.”

  “Our amended offer is half profits.”

  “More coin,” murmured Blake huskily. “Wot ‘o!”

  “I regret that you’ve had your journey for nothing.”

  “You refuse?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “My dear Cloyster, I had expected you to take this attitude; but surely it’s childish of you. You are bound to accede. Why not do so at once?”

  “Bound to accede? I don’t follow you.”

  “Yes, bound. The present system which you are working is one you cannot afford to destroy. That is clear, because, had it not been so, you would never have initiated it. I do not know for what reason you were forced to employ this system, but I do know that powerful circumstances must have compelled you to do so. You are entirely in our hands.”

  “I said just now I was delighted to see you, and that I had intended to ask you to come to me. One by one, of course; for I had no idea that the promise of secrecy which you gave me had been broken.”

  The Reverend shrugged his shoulders.

  “Do you know why I wanted to see you?”

  “No.”

  “To tell you that I had decided to abandon my system. To notify you that you would, in future, receive no more of my work.”

  There was a dead silence.

  “I think I’ll go
home to bed,” said the Reverend.

  Blake and myself followed him out.

  Mr. Cloyster thanked us all warmly for the excellent way in which we had helped him. He said that he was now engaged to be married, and had to save every penny. “Otherwise, I should have tried to meet you in this affair of the half-profits.” He added that we had omitted to congratulate him on his engagement.

  His words came faintly to our ears as we tramped down Walpole Street; nor did we, as far as I can remember, give back any direct reply.

  Tell you what it was just like. Reminded me of it even at the time: that picture of Napoleon coming back from Moscow. The Reverend was Napoleon, and we were the generals; and if there were three humpier men walking the streets of London at that moment I should have liked to have seen them.

  Chapter 19

  IN THE SOUP (Sidney Price’s narrative continued)

  They give you a small bonus at the “Moon” if you get through a quarter without being late, which just shows the sort of scale on which the “Moon” does things. Cookson, down at the Oxford Street Emporium, gets fined regular when he’s late. Shilling the first hour and twopence every five minutes after. I’ve known gentlemen in banks, railway companies, dry goods, and woollen offices, the Indian trade, jute, tea—every manner of shop—but they all say the same thing, “We are ruled by fear.” It’s fear that drags them out of bed in the morning; it’s fear that makes them bolt, or even miss, their sausages; it’s fear that makes them run to catch their train. But the “Moon’s” method is of a different standard. The “Moon” does not intimidate; no, it entwines itself round, it insinuates itself into, the hearts of its employees. It suggests, in fact, that we should not be late by offering us this small bonus. No insurance office and, up to the time of writing, no other assurance office has been able to boast as much. The same cause is at the bottom of the “Moon’s” high reputation, both inside and outside. It does things in a big way. It’s spacious.