‘Well, it might pull him up a bit,’ said Miss Barlow, ‘and make him more careful when he found that people knew what he really was like.’
‘Y-yes,’ said William, ‘yes, I see what you mean.’
‘What I simply can’t understand,’ went on Miss Barlow, ‘is him thinking Dolly Clavis the most beautiful girl in the world.’
‘I felt quite different after I’d met you,’ said Robert earnestly.
She looked at him in surprise.
‘Quite different from what?’ she said.
‘Oh-er-different from what I felt before,’ said Robert lamely.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said. ‘You seem to me quite potty to-day.’
‘Yes, I see what you mean,’ said William. ‘I see what you mean about perhaps it doin’ him good to tell you his name. Yes, perhaps it would be kind to him really. It—’
Something harder and rounder passed into William’s hand. A half-crown. William rose. Unlike the ordinary blackmailer, he knew where to stop.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’d better be going home.’
‘Won’t you tell me his name?’ said Miss Barlow in a tone of deep disappointment.
‘No,’ said William bluntly, ‘I don’t think I will. Goodbye.’
She watched his retreating figure.
‘I don’t believe there was a word of truth in it from beginning to end,’ she said at last.
‘Neither do I,’ said Robert. ‘At least, I bet that if he has got a brother, he’s quite a decent sort of chap.’
‘I dare say he is,’ said Miss Barlow.
‘He looked to me like a real little ruffian,’ said Robert.
‘I dare say he was,’ sighed Miss Barlow. ‘I don’t know much about boys.’
‘They’re all little wretches,’ said Robert.
‘I dare say they are,’ said Miss Barlow. ‘You don’t think Dolly Clavis beautiful, do you?’
‘I think she’s hideous,’ said Robert. ‘I think you’re heaps more beautiful than anyone else in the world.’
‘That’s awfully sweet of you,’ sighed the beloved.
William found his bandits awaiting him by the empty house. They looked bored and depressed. Ginger’s finger was wrapped in a blood-stained, grimy handkerchief, Douglas was limping, and Henry’s face was cut.
‘You’ve been a jolly long time,’ said Ginger gloomily.
‘Well, you ought to’ve had plenty to do,’ said William.
‘Well, we hadn’t,’ said Ginger. ‘The fire wouldn’t light. An’ we caught a rat an’ it bit my finger nearly through, an’ Douglas fell through a hole in the floor and nearly got killed, an’ Henry tried to get through a place where the window was broken an’ it wasn’t big enough, an’ I bet you’ve not got anythin’.’
‘Well, I have,’ said William, and he proudly brought out his spoils.
They gazed at him with admiration and amazement.
‘How d’you get it?’ said Ginger.
‘Jus’ bandittin,’ said William casually. ‘I jus’ made folks give up their money to me.’
‘What’ll we do with it?’ said Ginger, accepting the explanation quite simply.
Through the air came the glorious strains from the fair-ground.
‘Let’s go to the fair,’ said William. ‘An’ then go on livin’ ordinary again. I don’ think there’s really much in this bandittin’ business.’
‘Neither do I,’ said Ginger, sucking his bitten finger.
‘Nor me,’ said Douglas, rubbing his leg.
‘Nor me,’ said Henry, stroking his face.
‘All right. Come on,’ said William. ‘We’ll go’n’ spend the money at the fair.’
Singing zestfully and untunefully, the Outlaws walked down the hill to the fair-ground.
CHAPTER 5
WILLIAM AND THE PRIZE CAT
William and Ginger ambled slowly down the lane. Henry and Douglas had succumbed to a local epidemic of mumps and so William and Ginger were the only two representatives of the Outlaws at large. Each carried sticks and slashed at the grass by the roadside as he went along. The action was purely mechanical. Neither felt properly dressed out of doors unless he had a stick to slash at things with.
‘Couldn’t we get underneath the flap?’ Ginger was saying.
‘No,’ said William, ‘I thought of that. They’ve got someone there to stop you. Jimmie Barlow says he tried that yesterday, and it wasn’t any good.’
‘You asked your father for money, din’t you?’ said Ginger.
‘Yes,’ replied William bitterly, ‘and he said that he’d give me some if ever he noticed me being clean and tidy and quiet for three days together. That’s a jolly mean way of sayin’ “no.” ’Sides, if ever I was like that there prob’ly wouldn’t be any circus here so it would all be wasted and if there was I bet I wouldn’t feel like goin’ to it if I’d been clean and tidy and quiet for three days. I bet you wouldn’t feel much like doin’ anythin’ if you’d been clean and tidy and quiet for three days. You asked your father, too, din’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Ginger gloomily, ‘an’ he went on and on and on about every window or anythin’ that had got broke in our house for—for all my life I should think. He even remembered that time that I fell through the roof and broke the skylight. Well, that’s so long ago I’d almost quite forgot that till he said about it. Anyway I hurt myself jolly badly over it an’ you’d have thought he’d’ve been sorry instead of makin’ it an excuse not to give me money to go an’ see a circus.’
‘We haven’t even anythin’ we can sell,’ said William taking up the antiphonic lament. ‘I tried to sell my whistle to Frankie Dakers, but it hasn’t any whistle in and he wouldn’t buy it. He’d been to the circus.’
‘Jolly fine one, isn’t it?’ said Ginger wistfully.
‘He said it was a rippin’ one,’ said William. They walked on for a moment in silence, frowning and slashing absently at the roadside with their sticks.
Then suddenly round a bend in the roadway, all unprepared and unexpecting, they ran into the Hubert Laneites, their rivals and enemies from time immemorial. Hubert Lane, standing in the centre of his little band, smiled fatly at them. It happened to be a period of armed neutrality between the two bands. Had it been a period of open warfare the Hubert Laneites would have fled on sight of even two of the Outlaws, for the Hubert Laneites, though possessed of deep cunning, lacked courage and strength in open warfare. But as it was, Hubert Lane smiled at them fatly.
‘Hello,’ he said, ‘been to the circus?’
Hubert Lane had a knack of finding out most things about his enemies, and he was well aware that the Outlaws had not been to the circus, because they had not enough money for their entrance fee.
‘Circus?’ said William carelessly. ‘What circus?’
‘Why the one over at Little Marleigh?’ said Hubert, slightly deflated.
‘Oh that one,’ said William smiling, ‘you mean that one. It’s not much of a circus, is it?’
Hubert Lane had recourse to heavy sarcasm.
‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘It takes a much grander circus than that to satisfy you, I s’pose?’
‘Well,’ said William mysteriously, ‘I know a jolly sight more about circuses than most people.’
The Hubert Laneites laughed mockingly.
‘How do you know more about circuses than most people?’ challenged Hubert.
William considered this in silence for a moment, wondering whether to have been born in a circus and worked in it till he was rescued and adopted by his present parents, or to have an uncle who owned all the circuses in England and took him to see one every week. He rejected both claims as being too easy for Hubert to disprove, and contented himself with saying still more mysteriously;
‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’
Hubert eyed him uncertainly. He suspected that William’s assurance of manner and deep mysteriousness of tone was bluff, and yet he was half impressed by it.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘You prove it. I’ll believe it when you prove it.’
‘All right,’ retorted William. ‘You jolly well wait and see.’
Hubert snorted contemptuously, deciding that this unfounded claim of William’s would make a good weapon of offence against him for some time to come, and already framing in his mind simple unvarnished allusions to it as, ‘Who said he knew all about circuses an’ couldn’t afford to go to the one at Little Marleigh?’ Such challenges, however, needed to be issued from a safe distance, so for the present he turned to another subject.
‘I’m gettin’ up a cat show to-morrow,’ he said innocently. ‘There’s a big box of chocolates for the prize. Would you like to bring your cat along?’
The brazen shamelessness of this for a minute took away William’s breath. It was well known that Hubert’s mother possessed a cat of gigantic proportions, who had won many prizes at shows. That the Hubert Laneites should thus try to win public prestige for themselves, and secure their own box of chocolates by organising a cat show at which their own exhibit was bound to win the prize was a piece of assurance worthy of them.
‘Like to enter your cat?’ repeated Hubert carelessly.
William thought of the mangy and undersized creature who represented the sole feline staff of his household. Hubert thought of it too.
‘I suppose it wouldn’t have much chance,’ said Hubert at last, with nauseating pity in his voice.
‘It would. It’s a jolly fine cat,’ said William indignantly.
‘Want to enter it then?’ said Hubert, satisfied with the cunning that had made William thus court public humiliation. The Brown cat was the worst-looking cat of the village.
‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’ll put you down. Bring it along this afternoon.’
William and Ginger walked dejectedly away.
Early that afternoon they set off, William carefully carrying the Brown cat, brushed till it was in a state bordering on madness, and adorned with a blue bow (taken off a boudoir cap of Ethel’s) at which it tore furiously in the intervals of scratching William.
‘It’s got spirit, anyway,’ said William proudly, ‘and that ought to count. It’s got more spirit than that fat ole thing of Hubert’s mother’s. I think spirit ought to count.’
But Ginger refused to be roused from his dejection.
‘It doesn’t count,’ he said. ‘I mean it doesn’t count for them—scratchin’ the judges an’ such like.’ He inspected their entry more closely and his dejection increased. ‘Why are there so many places where it hasn’t got any fur?’
‘It’s always like that,’ said William. ‘It’s quite healthy. It eats a lot. But it never has fur on those places. It’s all right. It doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with it. It just means that—that it hasn’t got fur on those places.’
‘And look at its ear. It’s all gone funny.’
‘That’s where it had a fight,’ explained William, ‘it goes out fighting every night. It’s a jolly brave cat. I bet there’s not many cats that fight as much as this one does.’
As if to corroborate his statement, the cat shot out a paw and gave him a scratch from forehead to chin, then, taking advantage of his suddenly relaxed hold, leapt from his arms and fled down the road still tearing madly at its blue bow.
‘There!’ said Ginger. ‘Now you’ve gone and done it. Now we’ve got to go without a cat or not go at all, and they’ll laugh at us if we go without a cat, and they’ll call us funks if we don’t go at all.’
William considered these alternatives gloomily.
‘An’ they’ll go on and on ’cause they know we can’t go to the circus,’ he added.
‘Go after it and try and catch it again,’ suggested Ginger.
‘No, I’m jolly well not going to,’ said William. ‘I’m sick of it. I’d rather fight someone.’
‘Well, what shall we do?’ said Ginger. ‘Go without a cat or just not go?’
‘Let’s sit down and wait a bit,’ said William, ‘an’ try’n’ think of a plan. We might find a stray cat bigger’n’ their’s. Let’s jus’ sit down an’ think.’
Ginger shook his head at William’s optimism.
‘I bet there aren’t any stray cats nowadays. I never see any. And if there were they wouldn’t just come when you wanted them. And if they did they wouldn’t be the big fat sort of cat what like the Lane cat is.’
They were sitting down on the roadside, their backs to the wood that bordered the road. William turned to look into the wood.
‘There’s wild cats anyway,’ he said, ‘I bet there’s still a few wild cats left in England. I bet they’re bigger than his mother’s old cat. I bet that if we could find a wild cat and tame it and take it along it’d get the prize all right. I shun’t be a bit surprised if there was some wild cats left in this wood. I’m goin’ to have a look anyway.’
And he was just going to make his way through the hedge that bordered the wood when the most amazing thing happened. Out of the wood gambolling playfully came a gigantic—was it a cat? It was certainly near enough to a cat to be called a cat. But it was far from wild. It greeted Ginger and William affectionately, rolling over on to its back and offering itself to be stroked and rubbed.
They stared at it in amazement.
‘It’s a wild cat,’ said William, ‘a tame, wild cat. P’raps hunger made it tame, or perhaps now that there aren’t any other wild animals to fight wild cats have got tame. P’raps it’s the last wild cat left in England. Puss! Puss! Puss!’
It leapt upon him affectionately.
‘It’s a jolly fine wild-cat,’ he said, stroking it, ‘and we’re jolly lucky to have found a cat like this. Look at it. It knows it belongs to us now. Let’s find something for it to eat.’
‘We’d better take it to the show first,’ said Ginger, ‘it’s nearly time.’
So they made a collar for it by tying Ginger’s tie loosely round its neck, and a lead by taking a boot-lace out of William’s boot and attaching it to the tie and set off towards the Lane’s house.
The wild cat ambled along the road with them in friendly fashion. William walked slowly and ungracefully in the laceless boot, but his heart was overflowing with pride and affection for his new pet.
‘I bet it’s the finest wild cat anyone’s ever found,’ he said.
The show was to be held in the shed at the back of the Lanes’ house. The other competitors were all there, holding more or less unwilling exhibits, and in the place of honour was Hubert Lane holding his mother’s enormous tabby. But the Lane tabby was a kitten compared with William’s wild cat. The assembled competitors stared at it speechlessly as William, with a nonchalant air, took his seat with it amongst them.
‘That—that’s not a cat,’ gasped Hubert Lane.
William had with difficulty gathered his exhibit upon his knee. He challenged them round its head.
‘What is it, then?’ he said.
They had no answer. It was certainly more like a cat than anything.
‘’Course it’s a cat,’ said William, pursuing his advantage.
‘Well, whose is it then?’ said Hubert indignantly. ‘I bet it’s not yours.’
‘It is mine,’ said William.
‘Well, why’ve we never seen it before then?’ said Hubert.
‘D’you think,’ said William, ‘that we’d let a valu’ble cat like this run about all over the place? Why, this is one of the most famous cats in all the world. We’d have it stole in no time if we let it run about all over the place like an ordin’ry cat. This isn’t an ordin’ry cat, this isn’t. Let me tell you this is one of the most famous cats in all the world, a speshully famous cat that never comes out except to go to shows, and that’s won prizes all over the world. An’ we don’t tell people about it either for fear of it being stole. Well, I’ve not got much time and I’ve got to get our cat back home, so if our cat’s bigger’n yours you’d better give me the prize now, ’cause this cat’s not used t
o be kept hangin’ about before being give its prize.’
The Hubert Laneites stared at William and his burden limply. It was no good. They had not the resilience to withstand this shock. They sagged visibly, eyes and mouth open to their fullest extent, gazing at the monster who sat calmly on William’s knees rubbing its face against his neck affectionately.
Hubert Lane at last roused himself with an effort from his paralysis of amazement. He knew when he had met defeat. He took the large box of chocolates on which the Hubert Laneites had meant to feast that afternoon and handed it to William, still gaping at the prize winner. The other exhibitors cheered. They were not at all sorry to see the Hubert Laneites worsted. William put the box of chocolates under his arm and set off, leading his exhibit and shuffling awkwardly in his laceless boot. It was not till they reached the gate leading to the road that the Hubert Laneites recovered from their stupefaction. They recovered all at the same minute and yelled as with one accord.
‘Who can’t afford to go to the circus? Yah.’
William was still drunk with the pride of possession.
‘It’s a jolly fine wild cat,’ he said again.
‘Where’ll we keep it?’ said Ginger practically.
‘In the old barn,’ said William, ‘an’ we’ll not tell anyone about it. They’ll only manage to spoil it somehow if they find out. We’ll keep it there an’ take it out walks in the woods an’ bring it food from home to eat. Then I vote we send it in for some real cat shows. I bet it’ll win a lot of money. I bet it’ll make us millionaires. An’ when I’m a millionaire I’m goin’ to buy a circus with every sort of animal in the world in it, an’ I bet I’ll have a jolly fine time.’
The mention of the circus rather depressed them and Ginger, to cheer them up, suggested eating the chocolates. They descended into the ditch (fortunately dry), and sat there with the prize cat between them. It seemed that the prize cat, too, liked chocolates and the three shared them equally, eating one each in turn till the box was finished.
‘Well, it’s had its tea now,’ said Ginger, ‘so let’s take it straight to the old barn for the night.’
‘You don’t know that it’s had enough,’ said William, ‘it might want a bit of something else. I bet we get it up to my bedroom without anyone seeing us and give it a bit of something else to eat there. I bet we can easily get it up without anyone seein’.’
William the Bad Page 10
