"What happened then?" I asked, however, at last.
He roused himself from his reverie.
"Oh," he said. "Nothing extraordinary. She had to leave London for a time, and gave me her pet canary to take charge of while she was away."
"But it wasn"t your fault," I urged.
"No, perhaps not," he agreed; "but it created a coldness which others were not slow to take advantage of."
"I offered her the cat, too," he added, but more to himself than to me.
We sat and smoked in silence. I felt that the consolations of a stranger would sound weak.
"Piebald horses are lucky, too," he observed, knocking the ashes from his pipe against the window sash. "I had one of them once."
"What did it do to you?" I enquired.
"Lost me the best crib I ever had in my life," was the simple rejoinder.
"The governor stood it a good deal longer than I had any right to expect; but you can"t keep a man who is _always_ drunk. It gives a firm a bad name."
"It would," I agreed.
"You see," he went on, "I never had the head for it. To some men it would not have so much mattered, but the very first gla.s.s was enough to upset me. I"d never been used to it."
"But why did you take it?" I persisted. "The horse didn"t make you drink, did he?"
"Well, it was this way," he explained, continuing to rub gently the lump which was now about the size of an egg. "The animal had belonged to a gentleman who travelled in the wine and spirit line, and who had been accustomed to visit in the way of business almost every public-house he came to. The result was you couldn"t get that little horse past a public- house--at least I couldn"t. He sighted them a quarter of a mile off, and made straight for the door. I struggled with him at first, but it was five to ten minutes" work getting him away, and folks used to gather round and bet on us. I think, maybe, I"d have stuck to it, however, if it hadn"t been for a temperance chap who stopped one day and lectured the crowd about it from the opposite side of the street. He called me Pilgrim, and said the little horse was "Pollion," or some such name, and kept on shouting out that I was to fight him for a heavenly crown. After that they called us "Polly and the Pilgrim, fighting for the crown." It riled me, that did, and at the very next house at which he pulled up I got down and said I"d come for two of Scotch. That was the beginning. It took me years to break myself of the habit.
"But there," he continued, "it has always been the same. I hadn"t been a fortnight in my first situation before my employer gave me a goose weighing eighteen pounds as a Christmas present."
"Well, that couldn"t have done you any harm," I remarked. "That was lucky enough."
"So the other clerks said at the time," he replied. "The old gentleman had never been known to give anything away before in his life. "He"s taken a fancy to you," they said; "you are a lucky beggar!""
He sighed heavily. I felt there was a story attached.
"What did you do with it?" I asked.
"That was the trouble," he returned. "I didn"t know what to do with it.
It was ten o"clock on Christmas Eve, just as I was leaving, that he gave it to me. "Tiddling Brothers have sent me a goose, Biggles," he said to me as I helped him on with his great-coat. "Very kind of "em, but I don"t want it myself; you can have it!"
"Of course I thanked him, and was very grateful. He wished me a merry Christmas and went out. I tied the thing up in brown paper, and took it under my arm. It was a fine bird, but heavy.
"Under all the circ.u.mstances, and it being Christmas time, I thought I would treat myself to a gla.s.s of beer. I went into a quiet little house at the corner of the Lane and laid the goose on the counter.
""That"s a big "un," said the landlord; "you"ll get a good cut off him to- morrow."
"His words set me thinking, and for the first time it struck me that I didn"t want the bird--that it was of no use to me at all. I was going down to spend the holidays with my young lady"s people in Kent."
"Was this the canary young lady?" I interrupted.
"No," he replied. "This was before that one. It was this goose I"m telling you of that upset this one. Well, her folks were big farmers; it would have been absurd taking a goose down to them, and I knew no one in London to give it to, so when the landlord came round again I asked him if he would care to buy it. I told him he could have it cheap.
""I don"t want it myself," he answered. "I"ve got three in the house already. Perhaps one of these gentlemen would like to make an offer."
"He turned to a couple of chaps who were sitting drinking gin. They didn"t look to me worth the price of a chicken between them. The seediest said he"d like to look at it, however, and I undid the parcel.
He mauled the thing pretty considerably, and cross-examined me as to how I come by it, ending by upsetting half a tumbler of gin and water over it. Then he offered me half a crown for it. It made me so angry that I took the brown paper and the string in one hand and the goose in the other, and walked straight out without saying a word.
"I carried it in this way for some distance, because I was excited and didn"t care how I carried it; but as I cooled, I began to reflect how ridiculous I must look. One or two small boys evidently noticed the same thing. I stopped under a lamp-post and tried to tie it up again. I had a bag and an umbrella with me at the same time, and the first thing I did was to drop the goose into the gutter, which is just what I might have expected to do, attempting to handle four separate articles and three yards of string with one pair of hands. I picked up about a quart of mud with that goose, and got the greater part of it over my hands and clothes and a fair quant.i.ty over the brown paper; and then it began to rain.
"I bundled everything up into my arm and made for the nearest pub, where I thought I would ask for a piece more string and make a neat job of it.
"The bar was crowded. I pushed my way to the counter and flung the goose down in front of me. The men nearest stopped talking to look at it; and a young fellow standing next to me said--
""Well, you"ve killed it." I daresay I did seem a bit excited.
"I had intended making another effort to sell it here, but they were clearly not the right sort. I had a pint of ale--for I was feeling somewhat tired and hot--sc.r.a.ped as much of the mud off the bird as I could, made a fresh parcel of it, and came out.
"Crossing the road a happy idea occurred to me. I thought I would raffle it. At once I set to work to find a house where there might seem to be a likely lot. It cost me three or four whiskies--for I felt I didn"t want any more beer, which is a thing that easily upsets me--but at length I found just the crowd I wanted--a quiet domestic-looking set in a homely little place off the Goswell Road.
"I explained my views to the landlord. He said he had no objection; he supposed I would stand drinks round afterwards. I said I should be delighted to do so, and showed him the bird.
""It looks a bit poorly," he said. He was a Devonshire man.
""Oh, that"s nothing," I explained. "I happened to drop it. That will all wash off."
""It smells a bit queer, too," he said.
""That"s mud," I answered; "you know what London mud is. And a gentleman spilled some gin over it. n.o.body will notice that when it"s cooked."
""Well," he replied. "I don"t think I"ll take a hand myself, but if any other gent likes to, that"s his affair."
"n.o.body seemed enthusiastic. I started it at sixpence, and took a ticket myself. The potman had a free chance for superintending the arrangements, and he succeeded in inducing five other men, much against their will, to join us. I won it myself, and paid out three and twopence for drinks. A solemn-looking individual who had been snoring in a corner suddenly woke up as I was going out, and offered me sevenpence ha"penny for it--why sevenpence ha"penny I have never been able to understand. He would have taken it away, I should never have seen it again, and my whole life might have been different. But Fate has always been against me. I replied, with perhaps unnecessary hauteur, that I wasn"t a Christmas dinner fund for the dest.i.tute, and walked out.
"It was getting late, and I had a long walk home to my lodgings. I was beginning to wish I had never seen the bird. I estimated its weight by this time to be thirty-six pounds.
"The idea occurred to me to sell it to a poulterer. I looked for a shop, I found one in Myddleton Street. There wasn"t a customer near it, but by the way the man was shouting you might have thought that he was doing all the trade of Clerkenwell. I took the goose out of the parcel and laid it on the shelf before him.
""What"s this?" he asked.
""It"s a goose," I said. "You can have it cheap."
"He just seized the thing by the neck and flung it at me. I dodged, and it caught the side of my head. You can have no idea, if you"ve never been hit on the head with a goose, how if hurts. I picked it up and hit him back with it, and a policeman came up with the usual, "Now then, what"s all this about?"
"I explained the facts. The poulterer stepped to the edge of the curb and apostrophised the universe generally.
""Look at that shop," he said. "It"s twenty minutes to twelve, and there"s seven dozen geese hanging there that I"m willing to give away, and this fool asks me if I want to buy another."
"I perceived then that my notion had been a foolish one, and I followed the policeman"s advice, and went away quietly, taking the bird with me.