For Mr. Bagshaw was a man of influence among the meaner minds about him: an elevating force through all Bow. Not a chapel revival meeting but was the goodlier and the juicier for his fervid exhortings — even for his presence: not a prayer-meeting but gained in desert by his copious invocations. He had become stout and round-faced in his prosperity, but the face was pale, smooth, and flat, and bore no trace of any bodily indulgence that was not respectable. He walked in the street with his head thrown back, the cape of his Inverness cloak flung wide over his shoulders, black silk lining outward, and his expression that of joyous piety. Altogether a man of great popular account. He was a guardian of the poor, and in that capacity had long maintained a dignified struggle against oakum picking in the casual ward: a task dishonouring to the workers, a thing destructive of the dignity of labour and an insult to the higher humanity. More, he was a vestryman: and the navvies found him a ready champion in their protest against the use of pauper labour on the roads. So that his virtues were not unregarded of the people, and, indeed, he had his reward, even in business. In his shop, withal, his excellence shone undimmed. He had no medical or surgical qualifications, yet he freely gave the best advice he could to the suffering poor who came for drugs, and not one was sent empty away, so long as he had some money to offer, however little, for medicine. For, once the sum available were ascertained, it were hard indeed if something could not be made up that should come within the price, and moreover, leave the shade of profit that was Mr. Bagshaw’s just due. But some payment there must be, for then was the beneficiary’s self-respect and independence maintained; and there was no credit, for debt destroyed the moral fibre. It is the duty of a philanthropist to consider such things for his ignorant neighbours.
And so Mr. Bagshaw, diligent in his business, prospered in well-doing. Even his maintenance of Old Nye and his wife was not all loss. In addition to the services their natural gratitude prompted them to render, there came two several five-pound notes from an officer of Nye’s old regiment whose servant the old man had been, and these went some way toward repayment for their lodging and expenses, which, indeed, were not over-large after all. Moreover, there was no necessity for a boy, nor for a charwoman. Still, there were vexations. The Nyes grew old and ineffectual. Their admiration of their patron’s discourses and invocations led them to his chapel in clothes that were disgraceful to a respectable place of worship, and reflected discredit on himself; to these intrusions, however, he put an end. Then it was found that Nye had pawned his old silver watch — had gone straight from Mr. Bagshaw’s establishment into a low pawnshop, and had probably been seen. True, he was penitent, when taxed with the fault, but the thing was done.
But chiefly, the old couple aged fast. There came a time when old Nye was unsafe on the steps as he cleaned the windows, and when, in fact, the windows were very ill cleaned. His sight was bad, too, and he knocked down jars. He grew slow on errands, and forgot them half-way. Once he broke a window as he staggered by with a shutter; he could not carry a scuttle without dropping a trail of coal, and bottles, in the washing, slipped from his shaking hands and smashed. The mild young shop assistant helped him, but he had work of his own, and there was no concealing the old man’s growing uselessness. He felt it himself, and strove to hide it in a show of alacrity and nimbleness that made things worse. As for the old woman, though her wits remained the clearer, she failed otherwise worse than he. She would drop in a heap from her chronic rheumatism, and her share of the chafing would fall to be done by Old Nye, unequal to his own. Old Nye and his missis were worn out.
Clearly, the thing could not go on thus. Bagshaw’s with smeared windows, half-polished brass, dirty floors — it would never do. Somebody else must be found to do the work. Certainly it would come more expensive, but it could not be helped; and by the favour of providence the business could well afford it. The question was how to get rid of old Nye and his wife. Popular as Mr. Bagshaw was, a little thing might destroy the general remembrance of his years of patient benignity. Fortunately a way presented itself.
Not far from Bagshaw’s was a public-house where forms and trestle-tables still stood in front as they had done when Bow was a green village. Old Nye was passing this place on some dimly-remembered errand, when a greengrocer’s man said to three soldiers with whom he sat: “Look at that; ‘e’s a old soldier — Crimea. Ain’t very bloomin’, is ‘e, not to look at?” Old Nye heard himself hailed, and one of the soldiers, reaching out, seized him by the arm. “‘Souse me, sergeant, you’re going past the canteen. Come — don’t be proud, if we are on’y young ‘uns.” And he drew old Nye to the seat beside him.
The old man would not stay long, for he had his errand, and must not seem slow. He was dull and preoccupied, and only answered, “Thank ye kindly,” and replied to whatever was said with doubtful stammers and mumblings. But the beer comforted him, and presently he went his way with firmer steps.
Few of her neighbours’ faults escaped the eyes and ears of Mrs. Webster, moralist. Indeed, she had observed the whole circumstances of old Nye’s detention, from the door of the adjoining greengrocer’s. Determined that Mr. Bagshaw should at least know how his forbearance was abused, she hastened at once to that philanthropist with a full report. Was it right that his dependant should thus openly disgrace him, carousing with common soldiers before a public-house?
Deeply pained as Mr. Bagshaw was, he’ saw his duty clearly. The Nyes must go. If all his years of patient effort had failed to arouse in them the proper moral sense, then the attempt was futile. Sorrowfully, but with unmistakable firmness, he announced his determination to old Nye. The old man stared and gulped, and clutched at the counter with the nearer hand. His gaze wandered round the shop and he mumbled dismally, but he said nothing. Having discharged a painful duty with a proper observance, Mr. Bagshaw retired behind the shop.
It was at least an hour ere old Nye came to Mr. Bagshaw, and, feebly and with a trembling dryness of the mouth, besought a reconsideration — at least a respite.
His wife was bad just then (she was, indeed, in bed at the moment) but would be better soon. They separated man and wife in the workhouse; and, perhaps, in a little while he could find another place. He was truly sorry; it should not occur again; and so forth. But Mr. Bagshaw’s resolve was not to be shaken by mere words. This much he conceded nevertheless: that the pair should stay till the end of the week. For he reflected that he was not yet prepared with anyone to succeed them.
Old Nye did his futile best with the duties of both till Friday, when the old woman appeared again and went about her work as she had not done for months; so that Mr. Bagshaw half thought of the possibility of keeping her without her husband. In the dinner-hour, while Mr. Bagshaw was away, she talked to the mild assistant with deferential flattery, offered to clean down his shelves behind the dispensing screen, and asked a respectful question or two about the drugs she found there. At closing-time that night as the assistant reached his coat he heard old Nye say in the back scullery: —
“There’ll be the brass to clean fust thing in the mornin’; I’ll go down the yard an’ mix the ile and brick-dust ready.”
“Not to-night,” answered the old woman. “Rest now, Tom.”
The mild assistant had never heard old Nye’s Christian name before.
* * * * *
IN the morning the assistant found the shutters still up. He carried a key of the shop door, however, and passed in. Nobody was about. He called up the stairs and out into the yard, but was not answered. Then he went up to the door of the little bedroom and knocked vigorously. Still there was no sound. He called. The door was not locked, so presently he pushed it open.
The blind was down, and the old iron bedstead, with its ragged heap of bed, lay in shadow. There was a close smell of guttered candle, and another smell, slighter and subtler. He pulled the blinds aside, and the light fell on a pillow and on a man’s face, livid, blue, and staring, with set teeth and frothy lips. He started back, tearing the rotten
blind from its roller; and there on the bed’s edge, as in act of mounting it, lay huddled another body, trailing to the floor a skinny shank, knotted and monstrous at the knee.
He ran into the street, aghast and shouting. People gathered and policemen came. When the stairs were mounted again the smell of guttered candle was still to be perceived, but the fainter scent of prussic acid had fled on the fresher air. Under the woman’s clenched hand lay a blue phial with a staring label. It was one, the assistant saw, from a shelf behind the dispensing screen. When they came to look at the spot whence it had been taken, there, in a little heap, lay a pierced penny-piece, three halfpence, and a blackened old Crimean medal.
Sympathy for Mr. Bagshaw was general through all Bow.
RHYMER THE SECOND
BILL WRAGG, dealer in all creatures in size between that of a donkey and that of a mouse, but chiefly merchant of dogs, keeps a little shop on the right of a stable-entry in — well, in London. He has taken me into his confidence, and there may be reasons why he would not like to see his precise address in print. Bill is a stoutish man of forty-five, with a brown, shaven face that looks very soft and puffy under the eyes and hard as rock everywhere else. He is a prosperous man nowadays, as prosperity goes in the dog and guinea-pig line, and he has a sort of semi-detached assistant, a slightly junior creature of his own kind, whose name is Sam. Sam’s other name is sometimes Brown, sometimes Styles, and sometimes Walker; and sometimes Sam is Bill’s accredited agent, and sometimes he doesn’t even know him by sight.
Bill Wragg, as I have said, has now and again taken me into his confidence, in an odd, elliptic, non-committal manner that is all his own. Thus I have learned how, in the beginning of things, he started business in the parrot line with no money and no parrots; of how he set up, after this first transaction, with a capital of five shillings and an empty bird-cage; and other such professional matters. Among them was the story of a champion fox-terrier which he once possessed, from which he had made a very respectable profit, and to which he looked back with much pride.
Bill sat on the edge of his rat-pit as he told the story, while I, preferring the society of Bill’s best bull-pup before that of the few hundred squirming creatures that wriggled and fought a foot below Bill’s coat-tails, used the upturned basket that was the seat of honour of the place.
“That little bit o’ business,” said Bill, “was one o’ my neatest, an’ yet it was simple an’ plain enough for any chap as was properly up in the for about dawgs; any other cove might ha’ made ‘is honest fifty quid or so just the same way if he’d ha’ thought of it; might do it now a’most — anyway if there was a mad-dog scare on, like what there was when I done this. It was jist this way. Me an’ Sam, we was a-lookin’ through the Crystal Palace Show when we sees quite a little crowd in the middle o’ the fox-terrier bench. ‘Oh, what a love!’ says one big gal. ‘What a darlin’!’ says another. ‘He’s a good dawg if you like,’ says a swell. All a-puttin’ on the mighty fly, ye know, ‘cos they could see ‘Fust Prize’ stuck up over the dawg, so he was pretty sure to be a good ‘un. ‘‘E is a good pup, sure enough,’ says Sam, when we got past the crowd; ‘wait till them swells hooks it, an’ see.’ An’ right enough, ‘e was jist the best fox-terrier under the twelve-month that ever I see, in a show or out. Sharp an’ bright as a bantam; lovely ‘ead; legs, back, chest, fust-rate everywhere; an’ lor’, what a neck! Not a bad speck on ‘im. Well — there, you know what ‘e is! Rhymer the Second; fit to win anywhere now, though ‘e’s getting a bit old.”
I knew the name very well as that of a dog that had been invincible in fox-terrier open classes a few years back. It was news to me that Bill Wragg had ever possessed such a dog as that.
“Rhymer the Second,” Bill repeated, biting off a piece from the straw he was chewing and beginning at the other end. “Though I called ‘im Twizzler when ‘e was mine. Pure Bardlet strain, an’ the best that ever come from it. An’ ‘ere ‘e was, fust in puppy class, fust in novice class, fust in limit class, an’ all at fust go.”
“‘Ehe?’ says Sam, ‘that’s about yer sort, ain’t it?’
“‘Why, yus,’ I says, ‘‘e’s a bit of all right. I could do very nice with ‘im,’ I says.
“Sam grins, artful like. ‘Well, ye never know yer luck,’ he says. An’ I was a-beginnin’ to think things over.”
Mr. Wragg drew another straw from a sack by his side and resumed.
“So we went an’ bought a catalogue, an’ I went on a-thinkin’ things over. I thought ‘em over to that extent that I fell reg’lar in love with that little dawg, an’ made up my mind I could pretty ‘ardly live without ‘im. I am that sentimental, ye see, over a nice dawg. We sees the owner’s address in the catalogue, an’ he was a rare toff — reg’lar nob, with a big ‘ouse over Sutton way, breedin’ fox-terriers for amusement. Sam took a bit o’ trouble an’ found out all about the ‘ouse, an’ ‘e found out that the swell kep’ a boy that took out all the dawgs for exercise reg’lar every mornin’. ‘I thought as ‘ow you might like to ‘ave jist one more fond look at ‘im,’ says Sam.
“‘Well, I think I should,’ says I; ‘an’ maybe take ‘im a little present — a bit o’ liver or what not.’
“So Sam borrowed a ‘andy little pony-barrer, an’ next mornin’ me an’ ‘im went fer a drive over Sutton way. We stops at a quiet, convenient sort o’ corner by a garden wall, where the boy allus come by with the dawgs, an’ Sam, what ‘ad picked up a pore stray cat close by, ‘e stood off a bit farther on, like as though ‘e’d never seen me afore in all his nat’ral.
“Well, we didn’t have to wait very long afore the boy comes along with a ‘ole mob o’ fox-terriers, all runnin’ all over the shop, ‘cept two or three young ‘uns on leads, an’ givin’ the boy all he could do to keep ‘em together, I can tell ye. There was very nigh a score in the crowd, but I picked out my little beauty at once, an’ there ‘e was, trottin’ along nice and genelmanly jist where I wanted ‘im, a bit behind most on ‘em. Jist as the boy goes past me I ketches my little beauty’s eye an’ whips out my little present — a nice bit o’ liver with just a touch o’ fakement on it, you understand just enough to fetch ‘im. At the same moment Sam, in front, ‘e somehow lets go the pore stray cat, an’ off goes the ‘ole bloomin’ pack o’ terriers arter ‘er, an’ the boy arter them, hollerin’ an’ whippin’ like fun — all ‘cept my little beauty, as was more took up with my little bit o’ liver. See?”
I saw, and the old rascal’s eyes twinkled with pride in the neatness of his larceny.
“Well, that cat made sich a fair run of it, an’ the dawgs went arter ‘er at sich a split, that in about ‘arf a quarter of a minute my pore little beauty was a lost dawg with nobody in the world to take care of ‘im but me an’ Sam. An’ in about ‘arf a quarter of a minute more ‘e was in a nice warm basket with plenty o’ straw, a-havin’ of a ride ‘ome in the pony-barrer jist as fast as the pony could take ‘im. I ain’t the cove to leave a pore little dawg all alone in the world.”
Here I laughed, and Bill Wragg’s face assumed an expression of pained surprise. “Well, no more I ain’t,” he said. “Look what a risk I was a-takin’ all along of a romantical attachment for that dawg. Why, I might ha’ bin ‘ad up for stealin’ ‘im!”
I banished unseemly mirth and looked very serious. “So you might,” I said. “Terrible. Go on. Did you bring him home?”
“‘E accompanied us, sir, all the way. When we took ‘im out ‘e was just a bit shy-like at bein’ in a strange place, but as well as ever. I says to the missis, I says, ‘‘Ere’s a pore little lost dawg we’ve found. I think e’s’ a pretty good ‘un.’
“‘Ah!’ says she, ‘that ‘e is.’ The missis ‘as got a pretty good eye for a dawg — for a woman! ‘That ‘e is,’ says she. ‘Are ye goin’ to keep ‘im?”
“‘Keep ‘im?’ says I. ‘No,’ I says, ‘not altogether. That wouldn’t be honest. I’m a-goin’ to buy ‘im, legal an’ honourable.’
“‘Buy ‘im?’ says the missis, not tumblin’ to the racket. ‘Buy ‘im? ‘Ow?’
“‘Buy ‘im cheap,’ says I, ‘in about a month’s time. ‘E’d be too dear jist at present for a pore ‘ard-workin’ chap like me. But we’ll keep ‘im for a month in case we’re able to find out the owner. Pity we can’t afford to feed ‘im very well,’ I says, ‘an’ o’ course ‘e might get a touch o’ mange or summat — but that’s luck. All you’ve got to do is to keep ‘im close when I’m out, an’ take care ‘e don’t get lost again.’
“So we chained ‘im up amongst the rest for that night, an’ we kep’ ‘im indoors for a month on the chain. O’ course, bein’ a pore man, I couldn’t afford to feed ‘im as well as the others— ‘im bein’ another man’s dawg as could well afford to keep ‘im, an’ ought never to ha’ bin so careless a-losin’ of ‘im. An’ besides, a dawg kep’ on the chain for a month don’t want so much grub as one as gits exercise. Anybody knows that. An’ what’s more, as I was a-goin’ to buy ‘im reg’lar, the wuss condition ‘e got in the cheaper ‘e’d come, ye see. So if we did starve ‘im a bit, more or less, it was all out of affection for ‘im. An’ we let ‘is coat go any’ow, an’ we give it a touch of a little fakement I know about that makes it go patchy an’ look like mange — though it’s easy enough got rid of. An’ so we kep’ ‘im for a month, an’ ‘e got seedier every day; an’, o’ course, we never ‘eard anything from the swell at Sutton.
“Well, at the end o’ the month the little dawg looks pretty mis’rable an’ taper. An’, to say nothink o’ the mangy coat an’ bad condition, all ‘is spirit an’ carriage was gone, an’ you know as ‘ow spirit an’ carriage is arf the pints in a fox-terrier. So I says to the missis, ‘Come,’ I says, ‘I’m about tired o’ keepin’ another man’s dawg for nothink. Jist you put a string on ‘im an’ take ‘im round to the p’lice-station.’
Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison Page 232