Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison

by Arthur Morrison

  “‘But ‘old on, Maria!’ says Jimmy; ‘you didn’t wait to hear it all. Here’s the rest:

  “These unpleasant results, however, may be effectually prevented by wrapping the vessel containing the radium in lead foil.”’

  “‘What?’ shouts the missis again, goin’ nearly black in the face. ‘What? And you let me carry it about without any lead foil on it all this time! You murderer! Ow!’ And with that she chucks one o’ them fits when they scream and kick their heels on the ground.

  “The best physic Jimmy could think of for fits and fury was whisky, so he skipped out and got a bottle. It acted pretty well and after a while the missis was a bit consoled, though nervous still, and rather threatenin’. And Jimmy very carefully took the lead-foil cap from the cork and wrapped it all round the bottle o’ radium. When she see that, the missis got businesslike again, snatched it, and went back with it to tie herself up. So Jimmy lost sight o’ that precious metal once more for a bit.

  “But it was only for a bit. Jimmy decided he must keep on gettin’ educated about radium, and he went in such a buster for papers and magazines he very nigh ruined hisself. He fetched home a big armful about twice a day, and raked ‘em all through for information about radium, till he found a little article in one of ‘em that said the lead foil wrapped outside a bottle o’ radium didn’t really prevent it actin’ on the human frame but only made it strike deeper internal. When she read that, Jimmy’s missis caught him one whang over the ear with a shovel and then chucked her clothes off final and went to bed, groanin’ pitiful. She said the pains all over the inside of her was more than ord’nary Hoxton language could tell; and she called him to witness that there wasn’t one single mark on the outside of her, which proved how horrid deep it had struck internal and she ‘oped he was satisfied now he’d killed her at last.

  “Poor Jimmy fished out the little bottle from under the heap o’ clothes, rolled it up in a lot o’ brown paper, and hung it on a string to a nail, where it couldn’t touch nothink. He was beginnin’ to get a bit sick of his fortune, and he went out to think things over and get away from Mrs. Spicer’s dyin’ groans. The first friend he met invited him to have a drink, and then began to ask him if he knew anything about radium. This gave Jimmy a bit of a guilty start, and he got away from that friend as soon as the glass was empty. But that wasn’t the only start he got that day, nor the worst. Two other friends offered him drinks, one after the other, and then led the conversation round, very artful to radium. Both of ‘em did it. Jimmy was that frightened he left half the last drink in the glass and bolted. It seemed pretty plain there was a general suspicion got about that he had that radium; so he made up his mind to make what he could on it quick, or at any rate, put it out of hand for a bit. So he went into a pawnbroker’s and asked if they’d buy some radium, or lend a thousand or two on some.

  “‘What?’ roars the pawnbroker; ‘another of yer? You’re a funny joker, ain’t you? What sort of a game d’ye call it, eh?’

  “He was that fierce that Jimmy almost galloped out o’ the shop and down the street quite bewildered. What was the matter with everythink?

  “He got home and found the missis sittin’ up angrier than ever, if possible. She wanted to know why he’d gone out and left her alone to die, and why he hadn’t fetched the doctor. He said it wouldn’t do to tell a doctor about the radium, but she wanted to know what was the good o’ radium or anythink else, to a woman as was dyin’ by inches. Jimmy began to think serious about takin’ that radium back to the doctor as had lost it and gettin’ a reward, since it seemed he couldn’t get nothing else. So he took down the little brown-paper parcel from the nail, holdin’ it very careful by the string, and walked off to have a look at the board outside the police-station, where they stick up rewards and found-drowneds and sich.

  “Sure enough, when he got there, there was a reward bill, offerin’ fifty quid for the little bottle o’ radium, supposed to ha’ been lost in a omnibus. Fifty quid was a long way short o’ what he had expected, but then it was a long way better than nothing and another dose of Coldbath Fields; and Jimmy felt very uneasy about them two or three friends as had been pumpin’ him about radium that very afternoon. And then, just as he was a-thinkin’ of it, a hand drops on his shoulder and there stands one o’ the very chaps hisself!

  “Poor Jimmy very near dropped in a heap, but the chap winks to him confidential. ‘Look ‘ere,’ says the chap; ‘no hank, just between ourselves now. S’pose you’d got that there radium, what ‘ud you do? Would you take that there reward, or could you sell it better? You might tell a pal.’

  “‘I — I’m a honest man,’ says Jimmy, as proud as he could manage, but tremblin’ horrid. ‘I’m a honest man, and I’m a-goin’ to take it back to the gentleman. I was jist lookin’ to see his address.’

  “‘Oh, you was, was you?’ says the chap starin’. ‘You was goin’ to take it back? How?’

  “‘In this here parcel,’ says Jimmy, holdin’ up the bunch o’ brown paper on the end of the string. ‘I’m a straightforward, honest man, I am, and I don’t conceal nothing.’

  “The chap stared harder than ever. Then he whispered, ‘Come round the corner,’ and Jimmy went.

  “‘Look here,’ says the chap, ‘did you say you’d got that radium?’

  “‘Yes,’ says Jimmy. ‘I ain’t afraid to say it. I came by it honest, I did, in a bus. At least, my missis sat on it, and she’s—’

  “‘Hold ‘ard!’ says the chap. I’ve got that radium!’

  “‘You?’says Jimmy. ‘You?’

  “‘Yes,’ says the chap, ‘and ‘ere it is. I’ve been worried to death what to do with it, ‘cos in fact it’s worth a fortune — thousands. I’ve been askin’ all kinds o’ people about it on the quiet, but I couldn’t find out how to sell it. It’s in this little bottle.’ And the chap pulls out jist sich another little bottle as Jimmy’s.

  “Jimmy went giddy with a awful suspicion. ‘That — that’s all your humbug,’ he said. ‘I — I’m goin’ to the gentleman at the ‘orspital—’

  “‘I’ll come, too,’ says the chap. ‘I want that reward!’

  “So they started off together. Half-way to the ‘orspital Jimmy pulled ‘isself a bit together and stopped. ‘How much did you give Billy Blenkin for that bottle?’ he said.

  “‘Ten bob,’ says the chap.

  “‘Then I believe I’m twice as big a mug as you,’ groans Jimmy. But we’ll see.’

  “When they got to the ‘orspital and asked the porter for Dr. Sowter the man grinned all over his face. ‘What’s this?’ says he. ‘More radium? Show us yer little bottle!’

  “‘We come to see Dr. Sowter on private business,’ says Jimmy, doin’ the sniffy.

  “‘Oh, yus,’ says the porter, ‘and so ‘ave about twenty-seven more of you, all with bottles o’ brass filin’s. Dr. Sowter’s about fed up with them bottles o’ brass filin’s, and he says they’re all to be left at this lodge or else took straight away. So you jist take your choice. I only wonder he ain’t had some o’ you locked up.’

  “And that was the end of Jimmy Spicer’s fortune,” concluded Snorkey. “We’ve bid a long good-bye to old Billy Blenkin — we sha’n’t ever see him again down this way. He must ha’ made about forty quid out o’ that penn’orth o’ brass filin’s. And I should be surprised if he paid for the penn’orth, either.”

  INFANTRY AT THE DOUBLE

  WHIT-MONDAY was late in the year, and, astonishing to tell, the holiday was bright and warm, gay and sunny. The ordinarily quiet suburban village in which Mr. Septimus Deacon lived was crowded, hilarious, uproarious. The common was become a fair, where swings swung, roundabouts rotated, cocoanuts stood undisturbed in an atmosphere of whizzing sticks, and ear-piercing tunes, evolved by steam power, tore the affrighted air. With a corner of the common all to itself, Filer’s Royal and Imperial Circus contributed a large part of the general uproar and animation and not far away Challis’s Show of Natural Wonders and Tasty Tal
ent hinted its presence through the medium of two big drums and a key-bugle, with an occasional interlude on a megaphone. The Green Dragon was crowded within and without, and the ample and busy space about it was edged with a fringe of small children, in perambulators and out of them; so that an innocent foreigner might have supposed them to stand in waiting to supply the legendary meal of the Green Dragon when that monster should find business slackening, and snatch a moment to take a little sustenance on its own account. But the free-born Briton would have passed by unalarmed, recognizing the operation of the Act of Parliament that hallows all licensed premises from youthful intrusion.

  Mr. Septimus Deacon always took a philanthropic delight in the Whit-Monday fair on the common, though it was not often that the weather permitted him so thorough an enjoyment of its cheerfulness. He was called accurately enough, an old bachelor, though he had few or none of the characteristics of the conventional bachelor type; it was, in fact, merely by accident of sex that he was not an old maid, as perhaps he should have been. He had been coddled at home as a boy, and remained his mother’s companion when he grew up; and now that he was alone and had never had to work, or rub against the rude world, he coddled himself, and would have been happier, perhaps, and busier if Miss Wicks, the old maid next door, had taught him wool-work.

  Mr. Deacon, short-sighted, benevolent of aspect, wrapped about the neck — for one is liable to a chill in the brightest of weather — and carrying an umbrella — for showers come very suddenly, no matter how close home one may be — stared through thick spectacles at everything in the fair, and benignantly approved of it all.

  “Fine, hearty, wholehearted enjoyment,” he said to himself, smiling at a game that looked like football with no ball, wherein the sons and daughters of toil exchanged hats and thumped each other, hard, between the shoulder-blades, with howls of laughter.

  “Healthy, unrestrained merriment,” he added, brushing vaguely at his ear, and there encountering a long feather “tickler,” extended from the hand of a thick-set damsel with a still longer feather in her hat. He turned quickly, and met a sharp squirt of chilly liquid, which for a moment wholly blinded him to the charms of the thick-set damsel’s two companions, who danced off with jubilant shrieks, leaving him hurriedly intercepting the streams that ran down his neck. He wondered rather at the smell, as he would not have done had he been out early enough to see the “tormentor” merchant filling his “scent-fountains” at the ditch across the common.

  Mr. Septimus Deacon occupied some few minutes in adjusting his wrappers and reconciling his adventure with his general delight in the proceedings, and then found himself politely begging pardon of a solitary son of toil, very husky, who ran into him sideways and hung heavily on to his coat-lappet hiccupping dismally.

  “You s-seen my missis anywhere?” demanded the son of toil, disregarding Mr. Deacon’s apologies.

  “No,” said Mr. Deacon, “I haven’t.”

  “Qui’ sure?” pursued his questioner, with piercing emphasis, supporting himself now by both lappets of Mr. Deacon’s coat, and regarding him with an apparent suspicion that the lady might be artfully concealed in his tail-pocket.

  “I’m really quite sure,” replied Mr. Deacon fervently; “absolutely sure that I haven’t seen her at all, anywhere.”

  “I dunno wha’s become of ‘er,” mused the bereaved husband, disconsolately shaking his head. “I biffed ‘er in the eye, an’ I ain’t seen ‘er since. I dunno wha’ she wan’ go ‘way like that for. No accountin’ for a woman. Comin’ out for ‘nollidy an’ goin’ off soon’s we begin!”

  “Quite unaccountable,” agreed Mr. Deacon gently seeking to detach his new friend’s grasp. “You must be most anxious, and I am sorry to have detained you. Good morning!”

  “But look ‘ere you’ll tell me when you see ‘er, won’ yer?”

  “Certainly — of course; at once!”

  “Tell ‘er I’m worry outomelife ‘bout ‘er. I’m very fon’ my wife. I jis’ biffed ‘er in the eye, an’ I ain’ seen ‘er — ain’ seen ‘er noffor a long time. Answers to the name o’ Soosan. Goo’ bye, of pal! I’ll never forgeshyer. I’ll go’n ask s’mother feller.”

  “A fine, affectionate character under a rough exterior!” bleated Mr. Deacon, inwardly, as with some relief he observed the anxious spouse’s intricate progress through the crowd. Then he went his way in the direction leading by the Green Dragon.

  “Charming sight! Charming sight!” he mused, beaming on the fringe of small children; when he found himself addressed by a somewhat worried-looking woman with a large double perambulator, of the sort called a bassinette, with two hoods.

  “Would you jist give a ‘and to my pram sir, while I go an’ fetch my ‘usband?” pleaded the woman. “He’s in the Green Dragon, an’ I been a-waitin’ ‘ere ‘all an hour.”

  “Certainly!” replied Mr. Deacon, beaming more than ever. “He’s a little forgetful of the flight of time, no doubt, on so fine a holiday.”

  He took the handle of the unaccustomed vehicle, and the woman, with an appearance of great relief, disappeared in the main door of the Green Dragon. Mr. Deacon waited with a great deal of patience, with his eyes fixed on the door. “Another affectionate husband, no doubt,” he thought. “He is distressed to find he has kept his wife waiting so long, and now insists on her sharing his refreshment.”

  But there was no sign of the anxious mother, and Mr. Deacon’s patience suffered a certain strain. He began to feel a little apprehensive. The re-united parents had apparently forgotten all about their offspring. He looked anxiously about him, and presently his attention was arrested by a long, steady chuckle from a man who leaned on a neighbouring post, smoking a pipe.

  “It’s a do, guv’nor,” he said, as Mr. Deacon’s gaze met his. “You’re landed with them kids, like what she was afore you.”

  “What do you mean?” demanded Mr. Deacon, conscious of a distinct change of temperature under his clothes.

  The man at the post chuckled again.

  “I’ve been a-watchin’ that there pram some time,” he said. “Three or four parties ‘as bin landed with it what I see myself, an’ others afore that, no doubt. As soon as they tumbled to the do they jist looked round an’ found another mug an’ passed it on. You’ll ‘ave to find another mug.”

  “What?” exclaimed Mr. Deacon, with a sharper change of temperature still. “Do you mean that these children don’t belong to that woman?”

  “Not a bit of it,” replied the man at the post. “It was a man as lumbered ‘em on to her. Arst her to mind ‘em while he went arter his wife, ‘e did; an’ it was a woman as landed ‘im with ‘em — said she was waitin’ for ‘er ‘usband.”

  “But where are all these people?” demanded Mr. Deacon, as the state of the case dawned on him. “Aren’t they in the Green Dragon?”

  “Not them. They ‘ooked it out the back way as fast as they went in, you bet. You’ll have to find a mug too, I tell ye. Go on — I won’t give you away.”

  “That’s quite out of the question,” returned Mr. Deacon, conscientious in his sweat of panic. “Where are the police?”

  “Don’t believe there are none — I never see none ‘bout ‘ere on Bank ‘Oliday.”

  Mr. Deacon recognized that this observation was not far from truth. For the place was outside the Metropolitan Police district, and the neighbourhood was apt to be given over wholly to the beanfeasters on these occasions. The police-station was a cottage some distance off, and the policeman might be anywhere. Moreover, the workhouse was eight miles away. The situation was shocking.

  “Never mind, guv’nor,” urged his adviser. “Don’t spile the fun. It’s bin a fair beano for me, lookin’ on. Land somebody else like what you’ve bin landed. ‘Ere’s a woman comin’ along now. Tell ‘er to ketch ‘old while you go into the pub an’ give your wife a ‘idin’. That’ll fetch ‘er!”

  But it became plain that Mr. Deacon fell far short of his prompter’s ideal of a sportsman. He
allowed the suggested victim to pass, and desperately collected his scattered faculties to face the situation. He separated the two hoods, which made something like a complete roof, and peeped at the babies. They seemed a particularly ugly couple, he thought, as they lay at opposite ends; but then Mr. Deacon was exceptionally inexperienced in babies, and with all his philanthropy could not conscientiously recall any baby that he hadn’t considered ugly. Fortunately both appeared to be asleep, so he quietly closed the hoods together, and with a last hopeless glance at the door of the Green Dragon began to push the perambulator toward home, to the audible scorn of the sportsman on the post. For Mr. Deacon could think of only one resource; he must consult Miss Wicks, the old maid next door.

  “Well, you are a mug,” remarked the man on the post, bitterly, as he saw his morning’s diversion leaving him. “I must say I wish you joy o’ that lot!”

  Mr. Deacon pursued his unaccustomed exercise in deep perplexity. The parting shot from the humorist at the post made him uneasy. Suppose this pair of infants were never claimed — would they remain for ever on his hands? All his recollections of cases of foundling children tended to reassure him in that respect, and yet — his experience of the world was small, and of babies nothing; and he could not help feeling a little uneasy. They looked as though they might be rather ill-tempered babies.

  He was disposed to take another peep, and presently a fancied movement under the hoods decided him. He was in a quieter spot, and unobserved. He pulled back the hoods and looked again. Certainly they were most unprepossessing babies. Both appeared to have moved since Mr. Deacon’s last peep so he ventured to lift the mouthpiece of the feeding-bottle that lay conspicuously on the coverlet and gently insinuate it between the lips of the baby that seemed a trifle the less ugly of the two. But instantly mouth and eyes screwed tighter, and turned in toward the pillow with unmistakable rejection. So Mr. Deacon conveyed the bottle to the opposite end and tried the other baby, with a more pronounced result. For there was a spit and splutter from that mouth, and as the face turned pillow-wards one screwed-up eye half opened with a momentary gleam of evil rage that caused Mr. Deacon to drop the feeding-bottle with something like a gasp. Obviously they were most ill-tempered babies. It was a mercy they hadn’t started crying.