“‘I’ve fell through the bottom o’ my van,’ sez ‘e, ‘I’ve fell through the bottom o’ the dam’ thing in my bath! An’ my man’s as deaf as a post,’ sez ‘e, ‘an’ ‘e’s gone on without me! An’ I couldn’t run after ‘im over these ‘ere dam’ flints! Don’t stand there laughin’ like a maniac,’ sez ‘e— ‘go an’ stop ‘im!’
“Well, I never ‘ad such a paralysed, chronic fit in all my puff! I’d ‘a’ give a tanner for a lamp-post to ketch ‘old of an’ ‘ang on to, s’elp me! I jist ‘owled an’ staggered, an’ the toff under the bath, ‘is language got sparkier every second, till you’d ‘a’ thought no patent enamel could ‘a’ stood the ‘eat.
“‘If you ain’t as big a fool as you look,’ sez ‘e, ‘go after that van an’ earn a sovereign for yerself! I’ll give you a sovereign if you’ll lend me your coat an’ fetch back that infernal van so that I can get at my clothes!’
“So I steadied a bit when e’ offered to spring a quid, an’ I climbed out o’ the slings o’ the glass-frame, an’ shoved it in the ditch. Then I pulls off my old coat, an’ blimy, ‘e snatches it as though it was jewelled sealskin, an’ worth five ‘undred quid; an’ there wasn’t another soul in sight, neither, nor likely to be. An’ then I ‘oofs it off in my shirtsleeves at a trot after the van.
“I dunno ‘ow far I trotted ‘fore I caught sight of it, but it pretty nigh knocked me out — what with runnin’ an’ sweatin’ an’ blowin’, an’ bustin’ out a-larfin’ ‘tween whiles. The job seemed worth a good deal more’n a quid, an’ by the time I see the van in front I’d made up my mind to try if I couldn’t make it pay better.
“Well, I rounded a bend, an’ there was the carry-van at last, goin’ along easy as though nothink was wrong, an’ I put on a extry spurt. It was no good a-callin’ out, o’ course; an’ what was more, I didn’t mean to do it. No; I legged it up be’ind the van, an’ I jumped up on the footboard an’ opened the door. It was a snug crib inside, an’ I see the toff ‘ad bin a-doin’ ‘isself proper. But the floor! It was two-penn’orth o’ firewood, an’ dear at that! Now it was broke, you could see it was wore thin as a matchbox down the middle, an’ pretty rotten for a man to stand on alone; but when it come to a man an’ a bathful o’ water together, joltin’ down that stony ‘ill — what ho!
“But I’d got no time to waste on the busted floor. There was the fine new knickerbocker suit, an’ a portmanter, an’ a nobby kit-bag, an’ fishin’ rods, an’ a photoin’ camera. The portmanter was too big, so I slung the suit an’ the camera into the kit-bag an’ dropped out be’ind. The steady of dummy in front just went on like a stuck image. ‘E’d ‘a doddered on through a bloomin’ earthquake so long as it didn’t knock ‘im off ‘is perch.
“I guyed it back round the bend an’ opened the kit-bag. There was a tidy watch an’ chain in the jacket, an’ a sovereign-purse on the chain, with nine quid in it. So I got be’ind the ‘edge, an’ just wrung out o’ my old clothes an’ into the dossy knickerbockers in no time. Then I ‘ung the old things on the ‘edge, for anybody as might want ‘em. I wanted the kit-bag for something else— ‘cos I’d got a fresh idea. Some’ow a bit o’ luck like that always gives me fresh ideas.
“I dotted back the way I’d come, meanin’ to go wide round a field when I come to where I’d left of cockalorum with the bath. But after a bit I topped a little rise, an’ there I see ‘im comin’ along the road, ‘alf a mile off! There ‘e was, all alone in the world, with my old coat tied round the middle of ‘im an’ the bath on ‘is ‘ead, ‘oppin’ along tender on a little strip o’ grass by the road, like a cat on broken bottles atop of a garden wall! If on’y ‘e’d ‘a’ ‘ad the frame o’ winder-glass on ‘is back I could ‘a’ died ‘appy, but ‘e’d left that where I put it. Showed ‘ow much ‘e considered my interests, as was supposed to ‘a’ left it unpertected to do ‘im a service! You wouldn’t think a toff ‘ud be so selfish.
“I ‘ooked it through a gate an’ waited be’ind a ‘aystack while ‘e went past, an’ a precious while he was a-doin’ it, too, gruntin’ an’ cussin’ to ‘isself; me, with ‘is clothes on me, a-lookin’ at ‘im, an’ ‘im too wild an’ too tender in the feet to notice anythink but the ground ‘e was treadin’ on. I was sorry for the pore bloke, o’ course, but then a chap can’t neglect business, can ‘e? An’, besides, I felt sure ‘e’d find my of duds on the ‘edge presently.
“So I guyed off as soon as I could to the place where I put in the pantry winder, an’ I took the win out again just after dusk an’ did the show for ‘alf the wedge in the kipsy — spoons an’ forks in my pockets, an’ the rest in the kit-bag: all I could carry. That was my new idea, you see. Then I come through the shrubbery an’ out the front way, an’ at the gate I met the very slavey as was pipin’ me while I put in the pantry winder! She looked pretty ‘ard, so I puts on a voice like a markis, an’ ‘Good evenin’!’ I says, very sniffy an’ condescendin’ as I went past, and she says ‘Good evenin’, sir,’ an’ lets me go. Oh, I can do it sossy, I tell ye, when I’ve got ‘em on!
“I went all out for the station, an’ caught a train snug. I see Ginger Bates an’ Joe Kelly comin’ off from the train as I got there; but I dodged ‘em all right, an’ did the wedge in next day for thirty quid an’ twenty-five bob for the photo-camera — ought to ‘a’ bin more. An’ so I pulled off a merry little double event. I never ‘ad sich a day’s luck as I ‘ad that day, all through. It was ‘eavenly!”
“And is that all you know of the affair?” I asked.
“All that’s to do with me,” replied the unblushing Snorkey. “But the toff with the van, ‘is troubles wasn’t over. ‘E was in the papers next day — locked up for ‘ousebreakin’. It seems they missed the stuff out o’ the plate-basket soon after I’d gone, an’ the slavey that piped me goin’ out gave a description o’ me in the nobby tweed suit, an’ somebody remembered seem’ jist sich a bloke go past in a carryvan. It made a fetchin’ novelty for the ‘a’penny papers— ‘Gentleman Burglar in a Travelling Van,’ especially when ‘e was found disguised as a glazier in my old clothes, an’ ‘is frame o’ glass discovered concealed in a ditch. That did it pretty plain for ‘im, you see. ‘E’d turned up first like a glazier, and reconnoitiered, an’ then ‘e’d come dossed up to clear out the stuff. Plain enough. It was quite a catch for a bit, but it didn’t last — the rozzers ‘ad to let ‘im go. But they didn’t let Ginger Bates an’ Joe Kelly go, though — not them. Them two unfort’nit spec’lators prowled about lookin’ for me for some time, an’ about twelve o’clock at night they sailed in to do the job without me. Well, you see, by then it was a bit late for that place. The people was up all night, listenin’ for burglars everywhere, an’ there was two policemen there on watch as well. So Ginger Bates and Joe Kelly was collared holus-bolus, an’ thereby prevented raisin’ unproper claims to stand in with what I’d scraped up myself. An’ now they’ve bin wearin’ knickerbockers theirselves for more’n two years, an’ as soon as they’ve done their time — well, there’s no knowin’ but what they may make it a matter o’ perfessional jealousy. What ho-o-o-o!”
HIS TALE OF BRICKS
“MY luck again!” growled Snorkey Timms, elbowing out from the unclean crowd about the faro-table. The imperturbable Hebrew in the bowler hat who sat banker raked in Snorkey’s shilling with a pile of others, and paid an infinitesimal selection into the half-dozen eager paws thrust in to receive.
“How much is that?” I asked.
“Thirteen bob altogether,” Snorkey answered ruefully; “my very last blooming oat.”
“Well,” I remarked, “you didn’t come here to gamble, you know.”
In fact, Snorkey, having the entry to this particular Whitechapel faro-hole, had come merely to bring me. He was reminded, and across his eyes there fell that odd, blank, half-sulky look, with something honestly shame-faced about it, which I knew heralded an effort to “tap” me.
“No,” he grumbled, “it was to show you in; an’ it’s co
st me thirteen bob — me bringin’ you ‘ere.”
“It needn’t have done,” I said; “but I’m game to square it for you — when we’re outside.”
Snorkey looked up quickly. “Don’t keep it till then,” he said; “go an’ pop it down for me. You’ll change the luck.”
“Why?”
“You ain’t ever played faro, ‘ave ye?”
“Never.”
“Then you’re bound to win. Ain’t you ever noticed it, teachin’ a bloke a game o’ cards! ‘E always wins off you. You go an’ pop it down, like a pal.”
“Snorkey,” I said, “after each shilling you put down and lost you called yourself several sorts of fool, and I never heard you tell such a lot of truth all at once before. You sha’n’t say those things about me. Come to the bar and explain why you think I can guess the name of the next card better than you.”
The bar was made of two packing-cases with an old tablecloth nailed over them, and the sole bar-fitting was a cheap Shoreditch-made overmantel, which provided shelves for a few whisky bottles. When you keep an unlicensed bar that the police may raid at any moment it is foolish to have more than a night’s supply of liquor on the spot at one time. Snorkey turned from the crowd of arched backs and plunging arms that shut in the faro-table and we sat alone by the bar, drinking a far better whisky than one would expect to find in such a place, and contemplating so much of the world as we could see.
“‘Tain’t a thing as you can argue out,” Snorkey observed presently, “about a beginner winnin’ But you must ‘a’ noticed it. Though I must say it ain’t the same in every game — games as isn’t cards. I’ve found that out, myself.”
“What games, for instance?”
“Well, all sorts. You know.”
I judged that Snorkey was thinking of the unlawful games whereby, for the most part, he made his living. It struck me, indeed, as a manifest thing that the practised burglar, for instance, must hold a great advantage over the novice, and I said something to that effect.
“Ah,” assented Snorkey, “an’ that stands to reason. ‘Tain’t bustin’ an’ screwin’ only, either, though that’s what you’d think of fust, natural enough. It’s wonderful ‘ow awk’ard a thing comes as you ain’t used to — any simple thing. Peter-claimin’, for one.”
Indeed, the particular form of enterprise to which Snorkey alluded would seem to offer no great technical difficulty, consisting, as it did and does, merely of the casual removal of unwatched bags and parcels from railway-stations and such places.
I replied with raillery. “Surely that isn’t a novelty for you?” I said.
“P’raps, an’ p’raps not,” he answered placidly. “But the fust shot I made didn’t come off very gay. It was on the strength o’ that dossy knickerbocker suit I tried the game. You remember the knickerbocker suit?”
I remembered it well. “Go on,” I said, “I know all about the suit. Tell me about the peter-claiming.”
Snorkey blew through his empty pipe, and I handed over my pouch. Then, his pipe filled and well alight, he began his story, to the accompaniment of the half-suppressed but unceasing clamour from the table across the room.
“Well, you see,” he said, “I ‘adn’t bin doin’ very well up to the time o’ that little touch down in the country — come to that I don’t seem ever to do very well, some’ow. But that little job put me to rights for a bit, an’ what with the quids an’ the dossy suit I was a dook for a month or two, I tell you.
“Up to then I’d been doin’ pretty near whatever I could, mostly standin’ in with others an’ doin’ the dirty work for a precious small corner o’ the stuff. So now I thought ‘ere was a good chance to go in on my own on the strength o’ the new clobber, as soon as the plunder was melted. The clobber was a knickerbocker country suit — but I said that before, o’ course — an’ when I come to think over what line it ‘ud do best for, I could see plain enough it was peter-claimin’. A toff in a dossy walkin’ suit is right enough at the main railway-stations, but wouldn’t look quite on the job anywhere else — not in London, I mean. An’ the more luggage you can lay ‘old of, why the more you look the part, you see. So I made up my mind to peter-claimin’. It always seemed a nice light branch, pretty easy an’ safe, the way things is done at the railway-stations, an’ I’d ‘a’ gone in at it before if it wasn’t for wantin’ the clothes. Now I’d got ‘em, an’ I thought all the rest was easy as — as drinkin’ another whisky.”
The illustration was facilitated by a second application at the bar, and Snorkey proceeded.
“Well, I just pratted round to Ikey Cohen — you know Ikey Cohen, don’t you? It’s ‘im as runs this ‘ere show.”
“Oh,” I said, “then it’s not the one they call the boss?”
“‘Im?” Snorkey answered, nodding toward a man in shirtsleeves who was in direction of the establishment. “Lord, no — not ‘im. ‘E’s the fancy proprietor put in to do ‘is three months if the place is raided, at thirty bob a week for ‘is missis while ‘e’s in, an’ fifty quid for ‘isself when ‘e comes out. Wish I’d got ‘is job at ‘alf the money. No, it’s Ikey Cohen as runs this an’ others like it. You know ‘is place up in ‘Oxton — I showed it to ye myself.”
I knew the place, indeed: a shop of old clothes, boots, bags, saddlery, cutlery — everything that is bought cheap in lots. But the largest trade was transacted by a detached employé up a side-court, and it was the buying of anything anybody might bring, at receiver’s prices; for Ikey Cohen was the biggest fence in those parts.
“I went round to Ikey Cohen,” Snorkey proceeded, “an’ I borrowed a swag — a bag, you know. Ikey’s always game to lend you a bag, if you leave a bit on it and sell ‘im whatever stuff you touch for, afterwards. There’s some’ll tell you about wonderful-made conjurin’ bags with no bottoms to ‘em, which a peter-hunter takes to the station an’ jist drops casual over a bag a bit smaller, an’ then lifts up the two, one inside the other, and walks off. That’s all rats. Sich things might ‘a’ bin made — I ain’t sayin’ they ain’t bin, though I never see ‘em — but they ain’t the practical thing, an’ machinery for these jobs is all my eye. No; all you want’s a sound leather bag — a kit-bag or a portmanter or what notnot too new; with a few bricks in it — locked. Then you pop it down among a ‘eap o’ luggage an’ pick up another by mistake. If anybody spots you you apologise, an’ get your own again an’ ‘ave another try; if they don’t, off you go with whatever luck you’ve picked up; easy enough — when you’re used to it.
“Well, I got a good bag from Ikey — left ‘alf a quid on it. It was jist one of a job lot, shop-soiled, an’ I would ‘a’ liked it a bit dirtier for a fust try, but it was pretty right, an’ the others was much the same. So I pratted off an’ whacked a dozen or fifteen bricks into it, locked it careful an’ put the key in my pocket. You must always lock it — it might fly open in a crowd, an’ bricks looks bad in a portmanter; besides, when you do the change it keeps the other bloke a bit longer before he tumbles to the game an’ sings out— ‘e may think ‘e’s makin’ a bit on the swop!
“Well, I takes my bag o’ bricks, an’ jumps on a ‘bus in the Kingsland Road, an’ gets off at the corner o’ Liverpool Street. I thought I’d try Liverpool Street fust because it struck me the stairs might make it a bit easier. You can nip up the stairs from the main-line platform, you see, an’ get along the bridge to the other side by Bishopsgate, an’ watch all the way if anybody’s after you. So I got off at Liverpool Street and walked down into the station.
“It may seem a bit tricky gettin’ into a ‘ouse at night, but I can tell you it’s pretty nervous gettin’ to work in a railway-station in broad day, if you ain’t used to it. There’s such a swarm o’ people all over the shop, each with a ‘ed on ‘is shoulders an’ two eyes in it, that you never know whether you’re bein’ piped or not, or who’s doin’ it. I walked about a bit in my nobby suit an’ thick stockin’s, with my bag o’ bricks all so dossy, an’ choked off ‘alf
a dozen porters as wanted to ‘elp me; an’ at last I see my chance. What ho!
“I see sich a chance as I never expected — a chance as you wouldn’t see once in a ‘undred times. For I come round from the main platform to the suburban, where there was a pretty good pile o’ luggage stuck down opposyte the indicator-board; an’ there, just at one side o’ the pile, was a bag the very spit o’ the one I was carryin’. A yeller leather bag with brass fittin’s, just the same make an’ size, an’ just about as new as mine. So I whacked my bag down alongside of it and strolled off a few yards, casual.
“I ‘adn’t quite got practice yet, you see, to put one down an’ grab the other all in a rush, ‘cause that was a sort o’ thing more easy to be spotted, an’ I was feelin’ more nervous than I ought, considerin’. So I jist turned about casual for a few yards, an’ as I come back I ups with the bag I’d ‘ad my eye on, more casual than ever, lookin’ careless the other way, an’ ‘ooked it off up the nearest flight o’ stairs.
“I turned off along the big twisty foot-bridge toward the Bishopsgate part o’ the station, an’ I could see it was all serene be’ind me, down below. There was the other bag, an’ nobody fussin’ about it; so I began to feel quite comfortable. I come right out into the side bookin’-office all fair an’ easy, an’ it was all so very serene I thought I’d ‘ave a peep at what I’d got, ‘specially as there seemed nobody about in the bookin’office, an’ I couldn’t think of any better place. I tried the bag in a quiet corner, an’ it was locked. But the bag was so particular like mine I popped the key into the lock, an’ sure enough it turned it.
“Well, when I piped what was inside that bag I was never so much ker-flummoxed in all my nach’ral puff. For, s’elp me never, it was bricks! Bricks, by the ‘oly poker!
Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison Page 228