Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison

by Arthur Morrison

  “The parrot had been a-straightenin’ of his feathers out an’ makin’ himself tidy arter the scramble an’ just at this very moment he gives a sort o’ little grumble to himself an’ then raps out ‘Pretty Poll! Hullo! Shut up!’

  “‘Hear him talk!’ I says. ‘He’ll go on like that all day an’ say anything you please. What an ornament he’d be to this ‘andsome bar o’ yours! People’d come a-purpose to see him. Come,’ I says, ‘You shall have him for five pound, cage an’ all! How’s that?’ says I.

  “Well, the landlord seemed quite on to buy him, though o’ course he wouldn’t do it without a haggle— ’twasn’t likely. But arter a bit we settled it at three quid, an’ he handed over the jemmies. An’ cheap it was, too. So he stood the cage up on the top o’ where a partition joined the bar-screen, where everybody could see him, an’ said he’d have a proper shelf made for him to-morrow. I didn’t hang about much arter that, you may guess. But as soon as I got into the street, who should I see but the clerk from the coal office, the one that had sprung the five bob, talking to a chap as was pointin’ to the pub. Of course, the first thing I thought of was a bolt, but afore I could make up my mind he caught sight o’ me. So up I went as bold as brass.

  “‘Hullo,’ says I, ‘that there parrot o’ yours is led me a pretty dance. Got out o’ the cage an’ kep’ me all the afternoon chasin’ him.’

  “‘Yes,’ says old Giglamps, ‘I wondered where you’d got to, but when I shut the office I heard about a parrot bein’ lose, an’ that man told me you’d brought it in here.’

  “‘Quite right,’ says I, ‘an’ so I did. Come in yourself, an’ sec it. But the cage ain’t settled for yet,’ I says, ‘an’ it’ll cost you five bob more at least; though the chap’s askin’ even more’n that.’

  “So I led him into the compartment on one side o’ the partition, an’ showed him the bird in the cage.

  “‘What are you goin’ to stand?’ says I. ‘You can see what sort of a cage it is — two quid’s nearer its real price than ten bob.’

  “Old Giglamps calls for whisky an’ soda for two, an’ says ‘Pretty Polly’ to the bird, same as what any customer might do, an’ then he hands me over another five bob.

  “‘I think he’ll take ten bob,’ says I, ‘an’ I’ll just run round an’ see if you’ll wait here.’

  “I was in an extra hurry, you see, for very good reason. He was sittin’ down, but I was standin’ up an’ keepin’ a weather eye on the street outside; an’ there who should I see, starin’ up at the pub front, but the clerk from the other coal office! What ho, thinks I, this tale o’ the parrot hunt’s got about an’ things is warmin’ up! So I skips out quick, an’ ketches the chap by the arm.

  “‘Hullo!’ says he, ‘what about that parrot?’

  “‘Ain’t you heard?’ says I. ‘He got out o’ the cage an’ led me no end of a dance. But he’s all right,’ I says, an’ I led the chap off to another compartment away from his pal.

  “‘I did hear about it,’ says he, ‘an’ that’s why I came here. I began to wonder where you’d got to.’

  “‘All right,’ says I, ‘he’s safe enough — I left him in charge of the landlord, an’ I was a-comin’ along arter you, ‘cos I wanted to tell you something private. The fact is,’ I says, whisperin’ in his ear, ‘the landlord’s took a great fancy to that parrot. He’s fair mad on it. O’ course, the parrot’s yours, an’ you can sell it or not, just as you please. But if you do sell it, don’t take less than ten pound, an’ if you get ten pound — well, I think I ought to have a quid or two out of it, oughtn’t I, seein’ as I give you the bird? That’s fair, ain’t it says I.

  “‘Yes,’ says he, ‘that’s all right. If I get a tenner for it, I’ll see you afterwards.’

  “‘All right,’ says I. ‘You come in an’ sit down, an’ don’t say nothing about it. You mustn’t seem anxious to sell. I told the landlord I was goin’ to see the owner an’ I’ll go round the back way an’ talk him confidential into givin’ a good price. You lie low till I give you the tip.’

  “So he goes in an’ sees his cage there all safe with the parrot in it, an’ he orders his drink an’ sits down quiet. I thought o’ rushin’ round into the private bar an’ tellin’ the landlord he was a chap comin’ to offer a price for the bird, just to mix things up a bit while I got away. But when I got outside there was another surprise, s’elp me. It was just gettin’ dusk, and there was the poor old lady as had lost her parrot, with a handkerchief over her head an’ the cage in’er’and, comin’ down the road disconsolate, lookin’ up at the houses after her bird!

  “When you’ve got a run o’ luck, follow it up. That’s my motto. It was a bit of a risk, but I skipped across the road an’ said: ‘Beg pardon, mum, but was you a lookin’ for a parrot?’

  “‘Oh, yes,’ she says. ‘Have you seen it? If you’ll only help me find my poor bird, I’ll be so grateful! I didn’t know he’d got out till I went to bring the cage in. Several people told me he’d come along this road an’ been caught,’ says she. ‘Is that true? Do you know who’s got him?’

  “‘Yes mum,’ says I, ‘I can put you on the track at once. Your parrot’s in that public ‘ouse opposite, havin’ been took there by the man as caught it. I’ll see about it for you, mum,’ I says. ‘You come across an’ sit down in the hotel entrance, mum. It’s quite respectable there, mum. The man what’s got it is a low sort o’ chap, mum — a coalheaver, name o’ Dobbs, a-sittin’ in the jug department. You can see your bird from the hotel entrance, mum, stood up on a partition. O’ course, a rough feller like that Dobbs wouldn’t be allowed in the hotel entrance an’ a lady like you couldn’t go into the jug department. I’ll see about it. I expect he’ll cut up rough an’ want to claim the bird, mum, but I’ll see you get your rights, mum!’

  “‘Oh, thank you,’ says the old gal, ‘I shall be so grateful if you will. I’ve been so distressed at the idea of losin’ my dear Polly! If you will get him back, I’ll be most grateful. Of course, I’ll pay a reward.’

  “Jesso, mum,’ I says, ‘jesso. But not more’n half a sovereign. I’ll see you ain’t swindled, mum,’ I says. ‘That chap Dobbs ‘ud be extortionate, but not a farden more’n half a sovereign, mum,’ says I, ‘if you’ll allow me to advise you. I’ll see to it for you, mum. You just sit down in the hotel entrance, mum, an’ give me the half-sovereign, an’ I’ll talk to him firm — firm. It’s the only way, with these low characters. I’ll talk to him firm, an’ mention the p’lice. I’ll see about it for you, mum!’

  “So I sits the old gal down with her birdcage on the settee in the hotel entrance, takes her half-quid, an’ — well, I left ‘er there an’ hooked it round the first turnin’ an’ travelled straight ahead, fast, for the next half-hour.

  “That made near four quid altogether, raised on credit. In my business a chap as can’t start very well on four quid ain’t fit to start at all, sir. I done very well, startin’ on credit, like I’m tellin’ you.”

  “And you’ve never net any of your creditors since?” I asked.

  “No, sir I ain’t. My business don’t seem to take me that way. It’s just a book debt, you see — just a book debt. They can’t complain. What they was all arter — the two coal clerks, the landlord, an’ the old lady — what they paid for, was nothin’ but the parrot an’ the cage, wasn’t it? Well, and there it was for them, with them all round it. They couldn’t expect more’n that, could they?”

  For the first time during the story I could detect an indistinct chuckle from somewhere deep in Bill Wragg’s throat.

  “There’s just one thing I was sorry for,” he said; “but then you can’t ‘ave everything. I should ‘a’ liked to ‘a’ seen the shindy when them respectable parties got tired o’ waitin’, an’ began to start in an’ try to settle it all among ‘em-selves! I’d almost ‘a’ give a quid back to ‘ear ‘ow they did settle it! But that ‘ud be a luxury, an’ a man o’ business starting on credit can’t afford luxuries!”


  THE SELLER OF HATE

  THERE is an English county of which it is said that the devil never entered it for fear of being put into a pie. At the moment I cannot remember which county it is, and know no more of it than to be certain it was not Essex, for all Essex pies are filled with much care, and are excellent. Nevertheless, it is the fact that in the old days, before he began building cheap villas, the devil very rarely came into Essex, and even now seldom ventures beyond the parts that they sell, by auction, in building lots. For the old Essex men were too hard for him, and the county bore him no luck. Everybody knows of his historic defeat at Barn Hall, and here I have the tale of his bad bargain at Cock-a-Bevis Hill.

  It was some little time ago — some might not call it a little time: at any rate it was before all the improvements — that old Luke Hoddy lived in a cottage on the lower slope of Cock-a-Bevis Hill. It was so small a cottage that it might have been called a shed without slander, and a very lonely, sullen, smoky, frowning, illconditioned-looking shed it was, because it is the property of a house to proclaim its tenant’s character, and Luke Hoddy was that sort of man. He was lonely, like his cottage, because he was sullen and frowning and ill-conditioned, like it also; and they both looked passing smoky because of neglect.

  It might be venturing too far to say that Luke Hoddy was the most misanthropic man in the world, or even in all England. But certainly he must have been the most misanthropic man in all Essex, where men were all smiling, jolly, and pleasant together in the days when the devil feared their honest faces. Luke Hoddy not only hated his fellow men, but he kept pigs, and hated them; he also kept fowls, and hated them too. He detested the poor cottage wherein his poverty condemned him to live; he loathed the people who bought eggs of him, and so enabled him to live there; he abominated the children who bought apples from the tree in the garden, abominated them to such an extent that I cannot guess what sentiments he had left for the boys who stole them in the dusk. He abhorred the whole world, and everything in it. He was poor and ugly and old, and he resented each misfortune as though it were the personal and individual crime of every creature but himself. When he sold a fowl or a dozen eggs he did it with so evil a grace that he had to sell cheaper than anybody else, or keep his wares; and this was another reason for hating his customer. He hated the money he took, because it wasn’t more; the eggs he sold, because he couldn’t keep them; the hen that laid them, because there weren’t thrice as many; the rest of the fowls, because they didn’t care; and he was only glad of an order for one because he could kill it without losing money. If he could have wrung his customer’s neck as cheaply, he would have done it with joy. To hate everybody better off than himself was part of his nature; and he hated the rest because they were so cheerful, comparatively. If you had given him a sackful of sovereigns he would have been your enemy for life, because they weren’t guineas; and you would have deserved much worse for being such a fool.

  At the close of a warm autumn day Luke Roddy stood by his garden gate and scowled on all of the world that he could see. The sinking sun flung red gold along the fields and against the trees and hedges, and a little child sat to view the marvel, and to think wonderful things that it would long to recall in after life, and fail. But old Hoddy hated all the gold in the world that was not in his own pocket, where there was very little, and that little the only thing he loved. Children also he detested, for they were human beings. A stout, round-faced woman went down the path, with a baby on one arm and a basket on the other, and as she passed she called good-night. Luke flung back a savage growl, for this woman was a great aversion of his, being always happy, and all her life persistently sending more children to play on Cock-a-Bevis Hill. Then a girl came, driving cows, and a brown lad with her, and neither of them saw Luke Hoddy at all, because they were looking at each other. Luke positively snarled; and such a villainous twist remained on his face when they had passed, that a very small boy, who was coming hopefully up with a halfpenny gripped in his fist, greatly desiring an apple, turned and ran, and never stopped till he reached the goody-shop in the village; so that old Hoddy was the poorer by one halfpenny, and I am sorry it was no more.

  The day waned, and people went on their way to rest from their work, old and young, men and women, and old Hoddy saw the world in little pass before his gate, and he hated it at large. Then there went the carrier, and after him Paigles, the farmer, on his cob.

  Paigles was a notoriously poor farmer, and backward with his rent; it was more than believed, in fact, that his landlord would be glad to sell the farm and that way be quit of him, since he shrank from turning Paigles away from the land his great-grandfather had farmed a hundred years before him. Luke Hoddy grinned savagely at Paigles’s back as it merged in the shadows of the trees. If only he had the money he would buy the farm, sell up Paigles, and fling him out, neck and crop. He would buy other people’s houses, too, and treat them likewise. They hated him now, and if he had money, how he would grind their faces! He would grind their faces off their heads, if only he had the money.

  It was at this favorable moment that the devil ventured out on Cock-a-Bevis Hill. He did not come flaming and raging, in a way to frighten folk, for to-night that was not his business; he came dressed very well and neatly, like a gentleman of those days, and it struck Luke Hoddy at the time that he looked rather like the lawyer at Witham. He wore trousers a little tighter than was usual — skin-tight, in fact — with straps. His swallow-tailed coat was pinched in very elegantly at the waist, and his beaver hat was broad in the crown and wide in the brim. He carried a quizzing-cane, and his black stock looked as though it must have gone a dozen times round his neck, on a collar that was halfway up his head behind. Still, notwithstanding this very respectable appearence, you must not suppose that Luke Hoddy mistook his visitor. Indeed, he recognized him at once; his beautifully varnished boots looked empty at the toes, and from time to time something vaguely disturbed the points of his elegant coat-tail: moreover, his eyes would have been enough, glowing there in the dark like dull coals.

  “Good evening, Mr. Hoddy,” said the visitor, pleasantly.

  “Gr-r-r-umph!” replied Luke — as near as I can spell it. He was no great conversationalist, finding a growl express the most of what he had to say.

  “I’m very glad to meet you,” the visitor went on. “I think we should know each other, Mr. Hoddy.”

  “Gr-r-r-umph.”

  “It might lead to business, I think.”

  “Gr-r-r-umph?”

  “Yes. You will find me an excellent customer. My command of money is unlimited — I handle most of what exists, at some time or other — and expense is no consideration, so long as I get what I want. I am prepared to pay, Mr. Hoddy; heavily.”

  “Gr-r-m.” It was a slightly different growl this time. Old Hoddy was conscious of a possible opportunity. He did not care what he sold, if only it would fetch enough money. “I should want a lot,” he said, “a plenshus lot. Money down.”

  “You shall have it.”

  “An’ I won’t sign — no, not nothen’ — not till I get it, every farden.”

  The devil laughed — quite a gentlemanly laugh, with nothing offensive in it. “You are misunderstanding, Mr. Hoddy,” he said. “I believe — I really do believe you have the absurd old notion I hear of so often. Do you think I want to buy your soul?”

  “Course,” answered Luke. “What else?”

  “Really, really! I don’t wish to say anything unkind, but is it likely? As I have told you, I have unlimited command of money, and I spend it freely for purposes of business. But I don’t absolutely pitch it away, Mr. Hoddy! I don’t pay for what is as good as mine already, for nothing! No, no. You are persisting in a very common and vulgar error. I may have entered into such a transaction as you indicate, now and again, but then the circumstances were exceptional. As a rule such an arrangement with anybody willing to enter into it, is altogether unnecessary, as in your case. No; I come to buy something else!”
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br />   “What’s that?” demanded Hoddy, with suspicion. For his wits were not quick, and he knew he was dealing with a cunning customer. “Gr-r-r-umph! What’s that?”

  “Hate! I want to buy hatred, wholesale. I am the largest dealer in that line in existence, and I pay top prices. I do not ask lower terms in consideration of a big contract — I will even pay a specially high rate to a large producer like yourself; it saves trouble, and I want to have a substantial stock ready to hand. I sow it about all over the world, you see, and it is most annoying to find oneself in some happy, contented community, and the stock of hatred completely out. So I am here to buy all you can sell.”

  “How much?” asked Luke Hoddy, still suspicious.

  “Oh, we shall never quarrel about terms, I promise you. You shall make a fortune out of it. Of course, there are plenty of people who throw their hate about so that I could pick it up for nothing, but the quantities are comparatively small; and really, you know, a gentleman can’t go raking about in gutters for remnants and scraps, like some starving blackguard after crusts. Wouldn’t do at all, you know. So I prefer to buy wholesale, and you are a perfect quarry — a mine. I am ready to take your whole stock.”

  “How much?” asked Luke Hoddy, again.

  The visitor grinned quietly. “I do believe,” he said, “that if I wished to drive a hard bargain I could swindle you, Mr. Hoddy. You are so very anxious about the money, and I’m sure you don’t really guess what a stock of the goods you have in hand. I could make quite a bargain for the lot, I’m certain, and you’d be surprised at the amount you had sacrificed. But, as I have told you, money is no object with me, though I am not, at present, urgently needing the stock. I have been to a Philanthropic Congress lately, where everybody exuded it, wallowed in it, and pelted everybody else with it to such an extent that I couldn’t resist the temptation to gather it in, though I really attended with the idea of sowing some I already had in hand. I am quite well provided for a time, but as a prudent man of business I like to look ahead and make engagements in advance. You want to know what I will pay. Well, I am ready to accept bills as often as you like to draw them, each for anything up to five thousand pounds. Will that suit you?”