"Ess; a Metsican," splutters Joe, getting purple in the face under the impression of a contradiction. "That"s what I said--Metsican. Used to call him Black Peter. I"ve seen him eat rattlesnake. Swallow him clean down. Like this, he would--_Gollop!_" Here Mr. Wells goes off into a quiet chuckle of scepticism, one finger crooked over his pipe-stem, his sightless eyes blinking at the coals. "Great big bull of a feller.
"Normous chest. Legs o" granite. Used ter fight wi" bar o" iron. Ho! Ho!
Weighed half a hunded. Tremenjus weapon! If he hit you, you know--_dash_!--out go your brains. Ho! ho! He was fond o" me. If I saw him sulky, or anythin", up I"d go, an" "What"s matter?" I"d say. Peter"d say, "So-a-so." "Oh blow," I"d say, and walk off. He looked up to me.
R"spected me. Peter was always behind me in action. Always. Never let me be killed. Never! _Bang! Crack!_ Brain any man who come near me. Fond o"
me."
Joe, we gather, was fourteen years at sea without ever coming home. He was a pirate in the China seas for years. He was in the Baltic during the Crimea. He has been to the bottom of the sea two or three times. He has fought hand-to-hand with many a shark. He has been shipwrecked a score of times. The experience of St. Paul in a good cause hardly exceeds for suffering the experience of Old Joe in a bad one. For six days and seven nights he and seven others were tossed about the sea without food in a row-boat. Two of the men died, and were eaten by the rest, with the exception of Joe, who could not stomach cannibalism for all he was such a terrible fellow. Then they were picked up by the famous _Alabama_, and Joe fought in the great American War of North _versus_ South.
"I was put in prison," he says, with a roar of laughter. "Two years. In Allybammer. Two years in dungeon. In the Harbour there. Allybammer Harbour."
"Alabama, he means," whispers Mr. Wells. "You"ve heard of Alabama, I dare say? Somewhere in Ameriky, isn"t it? Ah! Well, that"s what Joe means--Alabama."
"Two years!" laughed Joe; and then, with a great roar of delight, he adds, "Went off my nut! In dungeon. Clean off my nut!"
"What Joe means," whispers Mr. Wells, slowly and dogmatically, "is that, while he was in prison in Alabama Harbour, he lost his reason: "Off his nut" is slang for losing his reason. Now, I dare say that that is true.
I shouldn"t be surprised if it was."
"Then I went Canada," bellows Joe, striking a fresh match. "Buff"lo hunter! Ho! Ho! Fought the Injuns. Red Injuns. Killed hundreds. _Slish!
C-r-r-r-r! Bang! Dash! Gurrrr!_ Hundreds. Red Injuns! I killed hundreds myself. Ho! Ho! I dashed their brains out. Ho! Ho! Injuns. Red Injuns!"
It is some time before he grows really calm after ill.u.s.trating with tremendous energy his ferocity against the poor Red Indians. Even Mr.
Wells grows enthusiastic, and, sucking his pipe-stem, chuckles proudly over Joe"s enormous valour.
But what a fall it is when Joe resumes his life. From being a pirate, a fighter, and a buffalo-hunter, he becomes--think of it!--a pastrycook.
He leaves the magnificent society of Jack Armstrong, and Black Peter, and Red Indians, to mix with the commonplace citizens of London--as a pastrycook! He makes buns. He makes sponge cakes. Think of it--he makes jam-puffs!
But romance could not leave Joe, even while he toiled before a London oven.
There was a fire on the premises, and Joe did astonishing things. After being rescued he walked calmly back, through sheets of fire, to fetch the cash-box from the parlour. "Never afraid of anythin"--fire, water, gunpowder, sword, arrows--nothin"! No fear. Always brave. Ho! Ho!
Brave"s lion."
"Tell the genneman," shouted Mr. Wells, "what became of the shop."
"Ho, business failed," roars Joe. "Pastry-cook I was. Came down--_smash_! Lost everythin". Every penny! Ho! Ho! But what"s odds?
Happy and jolly! Nothin" wrong. I"m a"right. What"s odds?"
"Your old missus is dead, ain"t she, Joe?" shouts Mr. Wells.
"Ess," answers Joe cheerfully. "Gone. Dead." He points towards the floor with a twitching finger, and stabs downward. "Dead. Years ago. Gone."
"And what about your boy?" asks Mr. Wells.
"No good," roars Joe, in half a rage. "He"s no good. No good "t all.
Brought him up like genneman. No good." He laughs again, shakes himself in his chair, and strikes another match.
"He was selling things in the street when the clergyman found him," says Mr. Wells behind his pipe. "Had a little tray strapped on to his shoulders, and two sticks to keep him standing. Collar-studs, tie-clips, bootlaces, matches--you know. You"ve often seen trays like that, I dare say. Well, that was what Joe was doing when the clergyman found him. Not this clergyman, you understand. The one before, Father Vivian. He"s now a bishop. Out somewhere in Africa. That"s his photograph on the wall over there. He sent us a picture-postcard the other day. Little black woolly-headed baby with no clothes on! I haven"t seen it myself, because my eyes are bad; but they all laugh at it, and I dare say it"s funny enough. A nice man Father Vivian was. A genneman. He"s a bishop now, but he don"t forget his old friends, do he?"
And as we listen to the blind man we wonder what his story is, and we learn that he was born in Trinity Lane, Upper Thames Street, in the days when poor people did live on that side of the water, and that he was engaged at an early age in tide work. "Coal trade," he says, quietly.
"Seaham to London. The _Isabella_ brig. Four or five years I had of that. Then I was off to Russia in the _Prince George_. Then I did the trade between England and America. Then I was on a brig working the west coast of Africa. After that I came home and married. My wife lived in Fivefoot Lane. Her father was a carpenter. She was a good woman. She"s dead now. We buried a sight of little "uns. I can"t tell you how many.
There was a son, Harry: we buried him; a girl, "Liza: we buried her; and a boy, Frank: we buried him; but I can"t tell you how many little "uns.
Buried a lot, we did. Three children living now. Doing fair, they are; pretty fair. As times go, you know. I dare say they"re happy enough."
After all these years of seafaring Mr. Wells worked on Brewer"s Quay for eleven years, and after that took a spell of work in City warehouses. He "entered the Fur Trade." He did good work and earned good money; but after a bit he got what he describes as "a bit of a blight"
in the eyes. He went to Moorfields hospital and underwent an operation.
The darkness didn"t lift. The twilight in which he lived deepened. He had to give up respectable work, and took to selling toys in the street.
Then, one day, he was knocked down by a cab, and was carried to hospital, where by good fortune he fell in with Father Vivian. Father Vivian--whose name is blessed to this day in I know not how many slum homes--happened to want a companion for Joe, and Mr. Wells was pressed into the service. The blind man came to take care of the paralytic, and here they now are in the little two-roomed slum cottage, smoking their pipes in the blackened kitchen, and declaring that they have never been so well off in their lives before.
His Majesty the King has no more loyal and affectionate subjects. A friend of mine carried the two old gentlemen off to a Coronation dinner.
They had a hundred things to complain of concerning the way in which the plates were whisked off before they had even got the savour of the dish in their nostrils; but when it came to singing "G.o.d save the King" they roared and cheered and shouted and cheered again, and cried till the tears ran down their faces. And now, among their possessions, there is nothing of which they are more proud than the gorgeous card telling how the King and Queen of England requested the favour of their society to a banquet. It is splendid to see these two old sea-dogs in their kitchen fingering that card and smiling over it with a pride not to be matched in all the world outside.
I have never heard them complain. They are old friends of mine. I have smoked many a pipe in their kitchen; but never yet did I hear murmur or complaint from their lips. Never once. They are most beautifully happy.
They are radiant in their happiness. I do not believe there is a room in the world in which laughter is more constant and more spontaneous than in the little low-roofed black kitchen where the paralytic old pirate and the blind old seaman smoke their pipes and chuckle over the things they have done, the sights they have seen, and the storms they have weathered.
Opposite to the two old gentlemen lives a great friend of theirs, a maker of rag-dolls--a grey-headed, bent-back old veteran named Mr.
Kight. I happened to be calling on the two old gentlemen on the Fifth of November last year, and, entering the kitchen, and while shaking hands with Joe (who always roars with laughter when he clutches your hand, and shakes it backwards and forwards as if he meant never to let it go) little Mr. Wells came fumbling to my side, laughing and chuckling, evidently with important news.
"You know it"s the Fifth of November," he said, nudging me with the elbow of the hand which held his pipe. "You know that, don"t you?
Everybody knows that. Well, I"ve been telling Old Joe that he ought to let me and Mr. Kight shove a couple o" broom-sticks under his Grandfer Chair and carry him out into the streets. He"d make a lovely Guy, wouldn"t he?"
Mr. Wells joined a treble of laughter to the continuous ba.s.s of Joe"s gurgle, and then, stooping forward: "Joe," he shouted, "I"m telling the genneman you ought to let me and Kight take you out in your chair for a Guy Fawkes."
At this Old Joe"s mouth opened wider than ever, his face became purple, and he pretended very hard indeed to laugh with a relish. But the jest hurt him. I saw, what Mr. Wells could not see, the hurt look in his old eyes, and, leaning to his ear, I shouted, "You"d have all the girls running after you, Joe! You"re too handsome for a Guy. They"d run you off to church and marry you as sure as a gun."
"Ess!" he cried, delighted. "Ess! "Zactly." And then, after a frightful effort to master his stammer, his face the colour of claret, his eyes buried in their flesh, his old body twitching violently, he burst out with the boast: "I was d----d handsome feller. Once. Ess! Handsome"s paint. Ho! Ho! Girls mad about me!"
Happiness was restored. We drew our chairs nearer to the fire, filled our pipes, and laughed away the winter afternoon in the best of good spirits.
"We"ve got nothing to complain of," says Mr. Wells. "Everybody is kind to us. We"ve got our health, thank G.o.d! We"ve got a roof over our heads.
We"ve got food in the locker. We"ve generally got a bit of terbaccer somewhere about the place. And we"ve done with the sea." After a pause, he adds, "When the Call comes, we shall be here to answer it. Early or late, we shall be ready; me and Old Joe."
Once more he leans across to the pirate. "I"m telling the genneman," he shouted; "that we"ve nothing to complain about, that when the Call comes we shall be ready."
"Ess!" shouts Old Joe cheerfully, with his pipe in the air. "Always ready! That"s me. Always ready. But, don"t want to die. Not yet. No! No fear. Why should I! Happy and jolly I am. Happy and jolly!" And once more he throws himself back with twitching shoulders, the chin fallen, the eyes scarcely visible in their bags of flesh, and laughs till the tears come.
"He"s wunnerful hearty for eighty-two," says Mr. Wells quietly.
HITS AND MISSES [Sidenote: _Anon._]
Shop-windows shivered in the frames Do advertise the women"s aims.
THE BROKEN WINDOW [Sidenote: _Anon._]