“Was it a good ’un?” asked another family man, with another baby in his arms, just as Jepps reached his wife.
“Yes,” answered Jepps, “a real good ’un!”
“The best in the world!” sobbed Mrs. Jepps. “I won it in a raffle,” Jepps added.
“What?” cried Aunt Susan. “A raffle? What do you mean? Is this a time for sich jokes, Thomas?”
“Jokes?” bleated poor Jepps. “It ain’t no joke! He stole my watch, I tell you! Snatched it while I was a-trying to keep baby quiet!”
“Your watch!” Mrs. Jepps exclaimed; “your watch! Thomas Jepps, you ain’t fit to be trusted neither with a watch nor a child, you ain’t!”
II.
Tommy Jepps, meanwhile, accepted his misfortune with far greater equanimity than did his bereaved family.
He had lagged behind a little at the rifle-gallery, a place where you shot into a sort of tunnel with a target at the other end. The tunnels—there were four of them—interested him deeply, and he walked round to the side of the establishment to see how they were built. They were long, tapering, metal tubes, it seemed, painted red. Tommy walked along to the very end, hoping to see something of the target mechanism, but that was boxed in. Here, at some little distance from where his wanderings started, his attention was arrested by a man in an incipient crowd, who offered to eat a lighted newspaper for the small subscription of two shillings. It seemed to Tommy that so handsome an offer must be closed with at once, so he pushed into the group, and stared.
And that was how Tommy Jepps was lost For each individual member of the crowd agreed with Tommy, feeling convinced that the others would be sure to subscribe so reasonable a sum without delay, and waiting so patiently that the subscription was a long time beginning. And when at last it did begin it grew so slowly that at last the champion fire-swallower of all the countries he could remember was fain to be content with eighteenpence, at which very moderate sum his contract was completed. Having witnessed this feat, Tommy’s eyes retired to their normal places in his head, and his mouth, which had been wider open than the fire-swallower’s, slowly closed. The crowd opened out, and Tommy, who had been effectually buried in it for half an hour, awoke to the revelation that the rest of his party was nowhere to be seen.
For a moment it seemed a rather serious thing. Then, with a pause of reflection, he saw his misfortune in another light. He peered cautiously about him, and, after a little more consideration, he resolved that he would not be found just yet, at any rate.
Tommy was not only a philosopher, but a boy of business. He had come out for a day’s pleasure, but he must attend to business first; as a philosopher and a strategist he must secure his line of retreat. So he started off back to the railway-station, keeping a wary eye for his relations as he went.
The station was just a little less crowded now, though it was busy enough still. Tommy had not settled how, exactly, he should set about his business, but he kept his eyes open and looked out for a friend. Grown-up people, his experience taught him, were difficult to diplomatise; you never could tell for certain what they would do or say next, and it was apt to be something unpleasant when it came. But there was a sort of grown-up persons—Tommy could never have described the sort, neither could he ever mistake it—who were quite excellent, and always behaved like bricks to boys. And they were not such a rare sort of people either. So he set up a watch for some person of this kind, resolved to ask help and advice. He had not long to wait for one who, his instinct told him, was a capital specimen—a stout, red-faced man in a roaring tweed suit, with a big gold watch-chain. Several other stout men were with him, and they were all laughing and chuckling together at a joke one of them had made half an hour before.
“Please, sir!” said Tommy, craning his neck up at the red-faced man.
“Eh! Hullo!” said the man, almost falling over him. “Well, young ’un, what’s up?”
“Please, sir, will they give me another ticket home, and who ought I to go and ask for it?”
“Another ticket home? What for? Lost your own?”
“No, sir—mother’s got it. But I’ve lost mother.”
“O-o-o-oh! Lost your mother, eh? Well, would you know your way home if you had the ticket?”
“Yes, sir. But”—this with a sudden apprehension—“but I don’t want to go home yet!”
“No? Why not?”
“I come out to have a holiday, sir!”
The red face broadened into a wide grin, and some of the stout men laughed outright. “So you’re goin’ off on the spree all by yourself, are you?” said the red-faced man. “That’s pluck. But if you go asking for another ticket they’ll keep you in the office till your mother comes for you, or take you to the police-station. That wouldn’t be much of a holiday, would it?”
Tommy was plainly dismayed at the idea, and at his doleful change of face several stout men laughed aloud. “Come, Perkins,” said one, “it’s only one an’ a penny, half single. I’ll toss you who pays!”
“Done!” replied the red-faced man, “sudden death—you call;” and he spun a shilling.
“Heads!” called the challenger.
“Tails it is,” was the answer. “You pay. What station, young ’un?”
“Stratford, sir.”
“That’s all right,” said the loser, moving off with his hand in his pocket. “I was a bit rash. It might ha’ been Manchester!”
“That’s saved me precisely one d.,” observed the red-faced man, spinning his shilling again and dexterously transferring it to Tommy’s startled palm. “You go and buy the town, you desperate young rip! And take care you don’t go losing the last train!”
Tommy was almost more amazed than delighted. This was magnificent—noble. As soon as he could, he began to think. It was plain that being lost had its advantages—very decided advantages. Those stout men wouldn’t have looked at him a second time in ordinary circumstances, but, because he was lost—behold the shilling and the railway ticket! Here was a discovery: nothing less than a new principle in holiday-making for boys. Get lost, and make your holiday self-supporting.
He did not buy the town, but began modestly with a penn’orth of bull’s-eyes, to stimulate thought. He sucked them and thought his hardest: thought so hard, indeed, that in his absence of mind he swallowed a bull’s-eye prematurely, and stood staring, with a pain as of a red-hot brick passing slowly through his chest, and an agonised effort to remember if he had heard of people dying through swallowing bull’s-eyes whole. The pain in the chest presently passed off, however, and he found himself staring at a woman with a basket of apples and oranges.
“Apples, three a penny,” said the woman enticingly. “Oranges a ha’penny each. There’s nice ripe ’uns, my dear!”
“I’ve lost my mother,” replied Tommy irrelevantly.
“Lost yer mother!” responded the woman, with much sympathy. “Why, I wonder if you’re the little boy as I was asked about? Has yer father got pale whiskers an’ a round ’at, an’ a baby, an’ yer mother an’ three other ladies, an’ yer little brother an’ sister?”
Tommy nodded—perhaps rather guiltily.
The woman swung her basket on her arm and gave him an energetic push on the shoulder. “You go straight along down there, my dear,” she said, pointing, “an’ then round to the left, an’ yer father’s waiting by the second turning. Don’t forget! Here—have an apple!” and she thrust one into his hand. “And an orange,” she added impulsively, stuffing one into his jacket-pocket.
This was really very satisfactory. He had half expected the apple, but the orange was quite an extra—had in fact been wrung from the honest apple-woman by the pathetic look occasioned by the swallowing of the bull’s-eye. Tommy went off in the direction she indicated, but took the wrong way at the first turning, being much occupied with thought. For he was resolving to look all day as pathetic as could be ex
pected of a boy with a holiday all to himself, and a new invention to make it pay.
In truth the invention paid very well. Tommy perambulated the crowded beach on a system of scouting devised for the occasion. He made a halt at each convenient booth or stand, and from behind it carefully reconnoitred the crowd in front. No doubt he was searching anxiously for his sorrowing relations.
Meantime, as I have said, the invention worked excellently. He did not always set it in motion by the crude statement that he had lost his mother; he varied his gambit, so to speak. Sometimes he asked people if they had seen her. In this way he procured a short sea voyage by interesting the mother of an embarking family which did not quite fill the boat. He had his railway ticket, he explained, and could get home, but meantime he must make his holiday as best he might. That excellent family yielded a penny and a bun as well as the experience in navigation. Just such another family was good for a turn on a roundabout.
“Got no change,” said the roundabout man, as roundabout men do. For it is their custom, if possible, to postpone giving change in the hope of their patrons emerging from the machine too sick and giddy to remember it “Got no change. I’ll give it you when you come off.”
“Not you,” retorted the father of the family, made cunning by experience. “You’ll be too busy, or forget, or something. Here’s a boy what’s looking for his mother; we’ll make up the bob with him.”
So the morning went; and Tommy, in act of acquiring a high opinion of the generosity of his fellow creatures, attained a higher one of his own diplomacy. Not that it invariably succeeded. At times, indeed, its failure was total. There was a cocoa-nut shy proprietor, for instance, whose conduct led Tommy to consider him a very worthless person. He began by most cordially inviting Tommy to try his luck—called him a young sportsman, in fact Tommy was much gratified, and selected a stick.
“Money first!” said the man, extending a dirty palm.
“Lost my mother,” replied Tommy, confidently, having come to regard this form of words as the equivalent of coin of the realm.
“What?” The man’s face expressed furious amazement.
“Lost my mother!” Tommy repeated a little louder, surprised to find anybody so dull of comprehension.
“’Ere, get out!” roared the outraged tradesman, who was not educated to the point of regarding a cocoanut shy a necessity of life for a lost boy. “Get out!” And he snatched the stick with such energy that Tommy got out with no delay.
He was so far cast down by this ruffian’s deplorable ignorance of the rules of the game that his next transaction was for cash. He saw a man selling paper “trunks” of the sort that had so seriously startled Mrs. Lunn earlier in the morning, and he greatly desired one for himself. But the trunk merchant was an unpromising-looking person—looked, in fact, rather like the cocoanut man’s brother. So Tommy paid his penny, and set out to amuse himself.
The toy was quite delightful for awhile, and confounded and dismayed many respectable persons. But after a little time it began to pall; partly, perhaps, because it interfered with business. It is not diplomatic for any boy wishing to appeal to the pity of a lady or gentleman in the character of a lost child, to begin by blowing a squeaking paper “trunk” into that lady or gentleman’s face. It strikes the wrong note, so to speak.
So presently Tommy tired of the “trunk,” and devised a new use for it.
He looked about to find some suitable person to whom to offer the article for sale, and at length he fixed on a comfortable old lady and gentleman who were sitting on a newspaper spread on the sand, and eating sandwiches. Now to the superficial it might seem that a stout and decorous old couple of about sixty-five years of age and thirty-two stone total weight, were not precisely the most likely customers on Southend beach for such an implement as Tommy had to offer. But Tommy was less superficial than you might think.
“Please would you like to buy that?” he asked, looking as interesting and as timid as he could manage. “Only a ha’penny. It cost a penny.”
“Why, bless the child!” cried the old lady; “we don’t want a thing like that!” And the old gentleman sat speechless, with his mouth full of sandwich.
“I’ve lost my mother,” said Tommy.
For a moment more the old couple continued to stare, and then the old lady realised the pathos of the situation in a flash. Tommy suddenly found himself snatched into a sitting position beside her and kissed. And the next moment he was being fed with sandwiches.
“Poor little chap!” said the nice old lady. “Poor little chap! Lost his mother and tried to sell his toy to buy something to eat! Have another sandwich, my dear.”
Tommy did not in the least need the sandwiches, having been eating almost all day, and being even now lumpy because of pockets distended by an apple, a paper of bull’s eyes, several biscuits, and a large piece of toffee. But he wished to be polite, so he ate as much as he could, and answered the old lady’s questions to the best of his ability. He told her his name, his age, where he lived, and what sums he could do. He assured her that he knew his way home, and had his ticket safe; and he eased her mind wonderfully by his confidence that he could find his mother very soon, and particularly because of his absolute certainty of meeting her, at latest, at the railway-station. And finally, not without difficulty, he tore himself away, bearing with him not only the rejected “trunk,” but added wealth to the amount of fourpence.
He did very well with the trunk—very well indeed. He never got quite so much as fourpence again, but he got some pennies, one twopence, and several halfpennies. He continued to select his customers with care, and rarely made a mistake. Some selections were unfortunate and unproductive, however, but that he quite expected; and it surprised him to find what a number of benevolent persons, made liberal by a fine Bank Holiday, were ready to pay for a thing and then let him keep it. He never fell into the error of offering his stock-in-trade to anybody in the least likely to compromise his dignity by using it, for persons of sufficient age and dignity were easily to be found by a boy of discrimination, even on Southend beach.
But everything must come to an end at last, and so did the commercial career of the trunk. Having carefully observed a large, good-tempered-looking woman sitting under an umbrella, and having convinced himself that she was not likely to need a paper trunk for personal entertainment, he proceeded to business in the usual manner.
“Lost yer mother?” said the woman affably. “All right, you’ll soon find her. Here’s yer ha’penny.”
And with that this unscrupulous female actually took the trunk and handed it over to some children who were playing hard by.
Tommy felt deeply injured. He had no idea those children were hers. It was shameful, he thought, to take advantage of a lost boy in such a prompt fashion as that. And he had begun to feel quite a reviving affection for that trunk.
But it had paid excellently, on the whole, and, at anyrate, with his accumulated capital, he could make a pleasant holiday for the rest of the day: to say nothing of what might yet accrue from his distressful situation.
So business danced with pleasure through the sunny hours till Tommy was driven to absolute flight by an excellent but overzealous old gentleman who desired to take him to the police-station. It was a narrow squeak: and it was a most fortunate circumstance that the zealous old gentleman was wholly unable to run. As it was the adventure decided Tommy to abandon business, and seek some secluded spot suitable to the pursuit of pleasure, unaccompanied and undisturbed.
The cliffs at Southend, as you may know, are laid out as public gardens, traversed by precipitous paths, embushed with shrubs, and dotted with convenient seats. But Tommy did not want a seat. In simple fact he was a little tired of keeping a constant look-out, and since there were his own party, the apple-woman, whom he had espied in the distance twice since their first encounter, and the zealous old gentleman, all at large somewhere in Southen
d, he judged it safer to lie under a convenient bush, in some place commanding an interesting view, and there begin a leisurely picnic.
He found a capital bush, just behind one of the seats; a thick bush that no eye could penetrate from the outside, yet from between the twigs of which he had an excellent view of the sea and some part of the gardens. It was almost as good as a pirate’s cave, and so very proper to Tommy’s situation.
He fell to taking imaginary shots at all comers, with slight intervals for toffee, till the ramparts of his stronghold were piled with invisible copses. Men of all complexions fell to his unerring aim, till at last there came a red-headed man, walking up the path with a very laboured air of casual indifference, although he puffed visibly as he came, as if he had been running; also, as he walked, he glanced anxiously over his shoulder. Tommy pulled the trigger of fancy and one more desperate foeman bit the dust; after which he sat on the seat before the stronghold, so that his legs obstructed Tommy’s view.
For a moment Tommy was in doubt how to deal with so inconvenient an enemy as this, and then he forgot his desperate defence altogether; for he was amazed to see the man’s hand come stealing out behind him into the bush, and there deposit on the ground, absolutely on Tommy’s gun-rest—two watches!
The hand was withdrawn as stealthily as it came, and the man began, with some difficulty, to whistle a tune. And now up the same path there came another man: a tall, well-set-up man, who walked like a policeman; which, indeed, was exactly what he was—a policeman in plain clothes.
“Well, Higgs,” said the new-comer suspiciously, “what’s your game today?”
“Game?” whined the red-headed man in an injured tone. “Why, no game at all, guv’nor, not today. Can’t a bloke come out for a ’oliday?”
“Oh, of course,” replied the other; “anybody can come out for a holiday. But there’s some as does rum things on their holidays. I’ve got my eye on you, my fine feller!”
The Arthur Morrison Mystery Page 127