"Yes, I will."
At about eight o"clock that evening there came a mysterious knock at Mrs Aspinall"s door. She opened, and there stood Bill. His att.i.tude was business-like, and his manner very impressive. Three other boys stood along by the window, with their backs to the wall, deeply interested in the emptying of burnt cigarette-ends into a piece of newspaper laid in the crown of one of their hats, and a fourth stood a little way along the kerb casually rolling a cigarette, and keeping a quiet eye out for suspicious appearances. They were of different makes and sizes, but there seemed an undefined similarity between them.
"This is my push, Mrs Aspinall," said Bill; "at least," he added apologetically, "it"s part of "em. Here, you chaps, this is Mrs Aspinall, what I told you about."
They elbowed the wall back, rubbed their heads with their hats, shuffled round, and seemed to take a vacant sort of interest in abstract objects, such as the pavement, the gas-lamp, and neighbouring doors and windows.
"Got the things ready?" asked Bill.
"Oh, yes."
"Got "em downstairs?"
"There"s no upstairs. The rooms above belong to the next house."
"And a nice house it is," said Bill, "for rooms to belong to. I wonder,"
he reflected, c.o.c.king his eye at the windows above; "I wonder how the police manage to keep an eye on the next house without keepin" an eye on yours--but they know."
He turned towards the street end of the alley and gave a low whistle.
Out under the lamp from behind the corner came a long, thin, shambling, hump-backed youth, with his hat down over his head like an extinguisher, dragging a small bony horse, which, in its turn, dragged a rickety cart of the tray variety, such as is used in the dead marine trade. Behind the cart was tied a mangy retriever. This affair was drawn up opposite the door.
"The cove with a cart" was introduced as "Chinny". He had no chin whatever, not even a receding chin. It seemed as though his chin had been cut clean off horizontally. When he took off his hat he showed to the mild surprise of strangers a pair of shrewd grey eyes and a broad high forehead. Chinny was in the empty bottle line.
"Now, then, hold up that horse of yours for a minute, Chinny," said Bill briskly, ""relse he"ll fall down and break the shaft again." (It had already been broken in several places and spliced with strips of deal, clothes-line, and wire.) "Now, you chaps, fling yourselves about and get the furniture out."
This was a great relief to the push. They ran against each other and the door-post in their eagerness to be at work. The furniture--what Mrs A.
called her "few bits of things"--was carried out with elaborate care.
The ironing table was the main item. It was placed top down in the cart, and the rest of the things went between the legs without bulging sufficiently to cause Chinny any anxiety.
Just then the picket gave a low, earnest whistle, and they were aware of a policeman standing statue-like under the lamp on the opposite corner, and apparently unaware of their existence. He was looking, sphinx-like, past them towards the city.
"It can"t be helped; we must put on front an" go on with it now," said Bill.
"He"s all right, I think," said Chinny. "He knows me."
"He can"t do nothin"," said Bill; "don"t mind him, Mrs Aspinall. Now, then (to the push), tie up. Don"t be frightened of the dorg-what are you frightened of? Why! he"d only apologize if you trod on his tail."
The dog went under the cart, and kept his tail carefully behind him.
The policeman--he was an elderly man--stood still, looking towards the city, and over it, perhaps, and over the sea, to long years agone in Ireland when he and the boys ducked bailiffs, and resisted evictions with "shticks," and "riz" sometimes, and gathered together at the rising of the moon, and did many things contrary to the peace of Gracious Majesty, its laws and const.i.tutions, crown and dignity; as a reward for which he had helped to preserve the said peace for the best years of his life, without promotion; for he had a great aversion to running in "the boys"--which included nearly all mankind--and preferred to keep, and was most successful in keeping, the peace with no other a.s.sistance than that of his own rich fatherly brogue.
Bill took charge of two of the children; Mrs Aspinall carried the youngest.
"Go ahead, Chinny," said Bill.
Chinny shambled forward, sideways, dragging the horse, with one long, bony, short-sleeved arm stretched out behind holding the rope reins; the horse stumbled out of the gutter, and the cart seemed to pause a moment, as if undecided whether to follow or not, and then, with many rickety complaints, moved slowly and painfully up on to the level out of the gutter. The dog rose with a long, weary, mangy sigh, but with a lazy sort of calculation, before his rope (which was short) grew taut--which was good judgment on his part, for his neck was sore; and his feet being tender, he felt his way carefully and painfully over the metal, as if he feared that at any step he might spring some treacherous, air-trigger trap-door which would drop and hang him.
"Nit, you chaps," said Bill, "and wait for me." The push rubbed its head with its hat, said "Good night, Mrs Ashpennel," and was absent, spook-like.
When the funeral reached the street, the lonely "trap" was, somehow, two blocks away in the opposite direction, moving very slowly, and very upright, and very straight, like an automaton.
BOGG OF GEEBUNG
At the local police court, where the subject of this sketch turned up periodically amongst the drunks, he had "James" prefixed to his name for the sake of convenience and as a matter of form previous to his being fined forty shillings (which he never paid) and sentenced to "a month hard" (which he contrived to make as soft as possible). The local larrikins called him "Grog," a very appropriate name, all things considered; but to the Geebung Times he was known until the day of his death as "a well-known character named Bogg." The antipathy of the local paper might have been accounted for by the fact that Bogg strayed into the office one day in a muddled condition during the absence of the staff at lunch and corrected a revise proof of the next week"s leader, placing bracketed "query" and "see proof" marks opposite the editor"s most flowery periods and quotations, and leaving on the margin some general advice to the printers to "s.p.a.ce better." He also corrected a Latin quotation or two, and added a few ideas of his own in good French.
But no one, with the exception of the editor of the Times, ever dreamed that there was anything out of the common in the s.h.a.ggy, unkempt head upon which poor Bogg used to "do his little time," until a young English doctor came to practise at Geebung. One night the doctor and the manager of the local bank and one or two others wandered into the bar of the Diggers" Arms, where Bogg sat in a dark corner mumbling to himself as usual and spilling half his beer on the table and floor. Presently some drunken utterances reached the doctor"s ear, and he turned round in a surprised manner and looked at Bogg. The drunkard continued to mutter for some time, and then broke out into something like the f.a.g-end of a song. The doctor walked over to the table at which Bogg was sitting, and, seating himself on the far corner, regarded the drunkard attentively for some minutes; but the latter"s voice ceased, his head fell slowly on his folded arms, and all became silent except the drip, drip of the overturned beer falling from the table to the form and from the form to the floor.
The doctor rose and walked back to his friends with a graver face.
"You seem interested in Bogg," said the bank manager.
"Yes," said the doctor.
"What was he mumbling about?"
"Oh, that was a pa.s.sage from Homer."
"What?"
The doctor repeated his answer.
"Then do you mean to say he understands Greek?"
"Yes," said the doctor, sadly; "he is, or must have been, a cla.s.sical scholar."
The manager took time to digest this, and then asked:
"What was the song?"
"Oh, that was an old song we used to sing at the Dublin University,"
said the doctor.
During his sober days Bogg used to fossick about among the old mullock heaps, or split palings in the bush, and just managed to keep out of debt. Strange to say, in spite of his drunken habits, his credit was as good as that of any man in the town. He was very unsociable, seldom speaking, whether drunk or sober; but a weary, hard-up sundowner was always pretty certain to get a meal and a shake-down at Bogg"s lonely but among the mullock heaps. It happened one dark night that a little push of local larrikins, having nothing better to amuse them, wended their way through the old mullock heaps in the direction of the lonely little bark hut, with the object of playing off an elaborately planned ghost joke on Bogg. Prior to commencing operations, the leader of the jokers put his eye to a crack in the bark to reconnoitre. He didn"t see much, but what he did see seemed to interest him, for he kept his eye there till his mates grew impatient. Bogg sat in front of his rough little table with his elbows on the same, and his hands supporting his forehead. Before him on the table lay a few articles such as lady novelists and poets use in their work, and such as bitter cynics often wear secretly next their bitter, cynical hearts.
There was the usual faded letter, a portrait of a girl, something that looked like a pressed flower, and, of course, a lock of hair. Presently Bogg folded his arms over these things, and his face sank lower and lower, till nothing was visible to the unsuspected watcher except the drunkard"s rough, s.h.a.ggy hair; rougher and wilder looking in the uncertain light of the slush-lamp.
The larrikin turned away, and beckoned his comrades to follow him.
"Wot is it?" asked one, when they had gone some distance. The leader said, "We"re a-goin" ter let "im alone; that"s wot it is."
There was some demur at this, and an explanation was demanded; but the boss bully unb.u.t.toned his coat, and spat on his hands, and said:
"We"re a-goin" ter let Bogg alone; that"s wot it is."