Original Penny Readings: A Series of Short Sketches

But I was a bit up now, and, opening my knife, I tried the knot, got my breath, and went over again, slid down the chain, and getting where I was afore, managed to cut through the poor fellow’s lashings; and then holding on tightly, shouted to them to haul; but as I shouted, the sea washed right over us, and dashed us bang up against the ship’s bows, so that I was half stunned; but I held on, and then as the wave was sucking us back, and I felt that it was all over, the rope tightened, the fellows hauled in fast, and once more I was aboard, and this time not alone – though, mind you, it was no easy task to get us over the side, for I couldn’t help them a bit.

After a bit I was able to crawl down the hatchway, and as they were trying to pour rum into the poor fellow’s mouth, I lay down in the cabin, for my head felt heavy and stupid, and there I was watching them as by the light of the swinging lanthorn they did what they could for the poor fellow; and at last, lying there listening to the sea beating up against the side, I fell into a half-stupid sort of sleep – part owing to the way my head was struck, and partly from being worn-out.

Next morning when I woke, wet and shivering, the dull light through the skylight showed me as the poor fellow lay on the other side, and there was no one else in the cabin. Close aside him was a life-belt; so I knew that he had been one of the lifeboat crew, and, not wanting to disturb him, I was going to creep out, when I thought I’d have a look to see who it was I’d saved, and so I crept back a bit, and stooped down, when my heart seemed to stop, for I saw as it was my own brother – and he was dead!

Can’t help feeling a bit soft about it, sir, though it’s years ago now. Poor chap! he volunteered, as the crew were short-handed, and was one of the many lost, for only two or three got ashore.

Plucky young chap, he was; but the sea was too much for him; and, Lord, sir, you’d be surprised how many the sea takes every year.

Chapter Three.
K9 – A Queer Dog

Ideas for new sketches are like mushrooms in the London fields – scarce articles, and difficult to find unless you force them in a bed. But then the forced article will not bear comparison with that of spontaneous growth, while you find that, as you have made your bed, so on it you must lie. So you lie, on the strength of your forced article, and the natural consequence is that the public will not believe you when you tell them a story. We have had specimens lately of what the earnest will dare in search of the novel, but in spite of Longfellow’s imperative words, we can’t all be heroes. Be that as it may, though, after a long search, I found this mental mushroom in the field of adventure. It was nearly hidden by the surrounding growth, but peeped forth white and shiny like a bald-crowned head, with the side crop brushed carefully across in streaks. It was a reverse of circumstances certainly, but the idea was new, so I took a policeman into custody; while as a proof of the daring contained in the apparently simple act, think of a man to whom reputation is dear, and read the following.

I had long had my eye upon the policeman, for no one could gaze upon his face without feeling that those impressive features had a large fund of interesting matter concealed behind. “There must be something more than whiskers,” I said, and then I considered what a sensation novelist he would make if but of a literary bent. Truth is stranger than fiction; and what truths we should get from the man so often sworn to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” However, failing the policeman’s turning littérateur, I thought a little of his experience might be made available, and therefore the above-named custodian act was performed.

Now the public – that is to say, the reading public – cannot guess at a tithe of the difficulties to be encountered in making the policeman speak; he looks upon every question as though it were, with entrapping ideas, put to him by a sharp cross-examining counsel, and is reticent to a degree. He is a regular Quaker – he only speaks when the spirit moveth him; and the only effective spirit for moving him is Kinahan’s LL, which seems to soothe the perturbed current of his thoughts, makes him cease to regard the administering hand as that of prosecutor, prisoner, or witness in an important case, and altogether it reduces him to one’s own level, if he will allow the expression.

Bobby sat one evening in my study – as my wife insists upon calling the little shabby room over the back kitchen – and for awhile he seemed such a Tartar that I regretted having caught him. I almost shrank beneath his hard stare, and began to wonder whether I had done anything that would necessitate the use of the “darbies” he was fidgeting about in his pocket, especially when his eyes were so intently fixed upon my wrists, which lay upon the table before me in rather an exposed state, from the fact of the tweed jacket I wore not being one of the “warranted shrunk.” It was enough to make any one shudder and draw the sleeves lower down, and my performance of this act appeared to make my visitor so suspicious that I verily believe he would have interposed to prevent my exit any time during the course of his call.

My friend partook of my hospitality, and then began to speak, when I opened a book and seized a pencil, but, —

“No, thanky, sir,” he cried; “not if I knows it. The regular reporters is bad enough; only what can’t be cured must be endoored. But none o’ that, thanky. P’raps you’ll put that book away.”

Of course I did so, and felt that I must imitate the special correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazette, and trust to my memory.

“Now yer see, sir, I could say a deal; but then I says to myself – ‘It’s my dooty to tell you as anything you now says may be used in evidence agen you at yer trial.’ Wherefore, don’t you see, I takes notice of the caution?”

I’d give something to be able to transfer to paper the solemn wink he gave me, but that is impossible, and we both talked on indifferent subjects until my visitor had had another mix, when thoughtfully poking at the sugar, he said, —

“You see, sir, we do sometimes have cases on hand as makes a feller quite savage; and then people as looks on will make it ten times wuss for the pleeceman by siding with them as is took. Here we gets kicked and butted, knocked down and trod upon; clothes tore, hats once, ’elmets now, crushed; hair pulled out by the roots, and all sorts o’ nice delicate attentions o’ that sort, which naterally puts a feller out, and makes him cut up rough; then the crowd round cries out ‘shame,’ or, ‘oh, poor feller,’ or what not, and makes the poor feller as has half killed a couple o’ pleecemen wuss than he was afore. Pleecemen oughter to keep their tempers says the papers, arter what they calls a ‘police outrage,’ jest as if the force was recruited out of all that’s amiable. We ain’t angels, sir, not a bit of it; and it’s a wonder we don’t get more outer temper than we does. Jest you go to take a chap inter custody and adwise him to come quietly; and then offer to take him all decent and orderly. Jest you go and do that, and let him turn round and give you a spank in the mouth, as cuts yer lip open and knocks a tooth loose – jest see how angelified you’ll feel then; and try what a job it is not to pull yer staff out and half knock his blessed head off. Why, if Lord Shaftesbury hisself had on the bracelet that night I know he’d give my gentleman one or two ugly twists. Wun knows wun oughter keep cool, but yer see a feller ain’t made o’ cast iron, which would be a blessin’ to some of our fellers’ legs – being a hard material. After taking a rough sometimes I’ve seen our chaps with legs black, blue, and bleeding with kicks, while ’ceptin’ a little touzlin’ and sech, the prisoner hasn’t had a spot on him. Yes, it’s all werry fine, ‘Keep yer temper,’ – ‘Don’t be put out,’ – ‘Take it all coolly,’ – be pitched outer winder and then ‘come up smilin’,’ as Bell’s Life says. Get kicked in the stummick, and then make a bow; but that you’d be sure to do, for you’d get reg’larly doubled up. Never mind havin’ yer whiskers pulled, and bein’ skretched a bit, it’s all included in yer eighteen bob or pound a week; and, above all – keep yer temper.

“A niste job two on us had in Oxford-street, I think it was, one day. It was over a horinge chap as had been making an obstruction in the busiest part o’ the thoroughfare. We’d been at him for about a week, arstin’ him civilly to drop it; for the vestry had been laying the case before the magistrate, and we had our orders. You see it was a good pitch; and this chap used to do a roaring bit o’ business, and of course it warn’t pleasant to give it up; but then he’d no call to be there, yer know, for he was interfering with the traffic; so in course we had to put a stop to it.

“Well, yer know, it had come to that pitch at last that if he wouldn’t go why we was to take him, and Dick Smith was the one that was in for it along with me. We neither on us liked it, for this was a civil-spoken chap in a suit o’ cords, a bird’s-eye handkercher, and a fur cap. He’d got a smart way, too, o’ doing his hair, which was black and turned under at the two sides afore his ears; and besides he was only trying to get a honest living; but dooty’s dooty, yer know, sir, and we ain’t got much chance o’ pickin’ and choosin’. So I says to Dick, as we goes along —

“‘Now, then, Dick,’ I says, ‘which is it to be, the cove or his barrer?’

“‘Oh!’ says Dick, ‘I’m blest if I’m a-goin’ to wheel the barrer through the public streets. Look well for a pleece-constable in uniform, wouldn’t it?’

“‘Well,’ I says, rather chuff, ‘some one’s got it to do, and I ain’t a-goin’ to have it shoved on to me. Tell yer what we’ll do – we’ll toss up.’

“‘All right,’ says Dick, ‘so we will.’

“So I fetches out a copper, the on’y one we could furridge out between us, and to Dick I says, ‘Now, then, sudden death?’

“‘Not a bit of it,’ says he, ‘I’ll go off lingerin’ – best two out o’ three.’

“‘Werry well,’ I says, ‘anything for peace and quietness.’ And so we tossed.

“‘Heads,’ says Dick.

“‘Woman it is,’ says I. ‘One to me;’ and then I passes the brown over to Dick, and he spins up.

“‘Lovely woman,’ says I, and lovely woman it was.

“‘Blowed if here ain’t two Bobbies a tossin’,’ says one o’ them niste boys as yer meets with in London.

“Didn’t I feel savage, though I had won; and for a moment I almost wished it had been that werry young gentleman as we had to take. But my boy gives a grin and a hop, skip, and a jump, and then cuts behind a gentleman’s carriage as was passing, when the Johnny put out his foot and gave him a push, and down he goes into the mud”; which was, of course, pleasant to our outraged feelings, though it would have taken a great deal of mud to spoil that boy’s clothes.

“‘Now then, Dick,’ I says, ‘let’s be off.’

“‘Wot’s the hurry?’ says Dick, who was a thinking of the barrer, I could see.

“‘Oh, come on,’ I says; for, thinks I to myself, ‘you’re on the right hand side of the way, my boy.’

“So off we goes, till we comes to the well-known spot, and there stood my chap, a-doing a raging trade.

“‘Now then, young feller,’ I says, ‘you must move on.’

“‘What for?’ says he.

“‘Obstructing the thoroughfare,’ says I.

“‘Taste ’em,’ he says, ‘they’re fust-rate to-day. Shove two or three in yer pocket for the young Bobbies.’

“‘Won’t do,’ I says; ‘we’ve got our orders, and off yer goes.’

“‘Get out,’ he says, ‘you’re chaffin’.’

“‘Not a bit of it,’ I says; ‘so stow nonsense and go on quietly, there’s a good feller.’

“‘All right,’ he says, seeing as we was serious, ‘all right.’ And then he sells a horinge to this one, and a horinge to that one, and sixpenn’orth to another one; but not a hinch would he move. So we waits a bit, and then I gives him another gentle hint or two.

“‘All right,’ he says agin, ‘wait a bit.’

“Well, yer knows, sir, this went on for about half an hour, and a crowd gets collected, and every time as I speaks to him, ‘All right,’ he says, ‘wait a bit,’ and then the crowd laughed and the boys hoorayed.

“I thinks to myself ‘This here won’t do,’ but neither Dick nor me wanted to begin, so I has one last try, and I says quietly, —

“‘Now, are you a-goin’ or not? Becos if you ain’t we must make yer.’

“‘All right,’ he says, ‘wait a bit,’ and the people bust out a laughin’ again, and the crowd gets bigger than ever.

“‘Now, then, Dick,’ I says to my mate, ‘come on,’ for I see as it was no use to be played with any longer.

“So Dick goes to the barrer, and I collars the chap, and the row began. Dick lays hold o’ the barrer handles quite savagely, and shoots a dozen o’ horinges off inter the road, when, of course, there was a regular scramble, and somebody calls out ‘Shame!’ Then my chap takes and throws hisself down, and gives my wrist such a screw as a’most sprained it, and then somebody else calls out ‘Shame!’

“‘Now you’d better come on quietly,’ I says to my chap. ‘You’ll do no good by making a row.’ And then I tries to get him up on his legs, when some one calls out ‘Shame!’ agin.

“‘What’s a shame?’ I says, which I didn’t oughter have done, for I knew my dooty better than they could tell me. Howsoever I says it, ‘What’s a shame?’ I says.

“‘Ill usin’ a honest man,’ says the crowd.

“I sees as it was no use to talk, so I gets well hold o’ my chap, and seeing, as he did, as his barrer was a moving off with Dick in the sharps, and the boys a hoorayin’, he gets up, and we was goin’ on all right, when some on ’em calls out ‘Shame!’ again, and that sets the chap off, and he throws hisself down, and, wuss luck, throws me down too, when off goes my box, and in the scuffle my gent jumps up, puts his foot on it, and nearly gets away.

“Now this made me a bit warm, for I was hurt, and I didn’t mean to let him go at no price now. So, jest as he’d shook me off and was going to bolt, I gets hold of his leg as I lays on the ground, when he gives me the savagest kick right aside o’ the head, and nobody didn’t cry ‘shame’ then.

“Well, I wasn’t stunned, but I felt precious giddy. I jumps up, though, and lays hold of him – sticks to him, too, and sometimes we was down and sometimes up, and I know we rolled over in the mud half a dozen times.

“Last of all, in one of the struggles in all of which the crowd hindered me as much as it could, my chap goes down, spang, with his head on the pavement, and me atop of him, and there he lay stunned.

“‘Shame, shame!’ cries the crowd, ‘you’ve killed the poor fellow.’ And then they begins a shovin’ and a hustlin’ of me about, and I don’t know how it would have ended if one of our chaps hadn’t ha’ come up; and then Dick came back after gettin’ rid o’ the barrer. Then we had the stretcher fetched, and the end of it was Horinges got seven days for assaultin’ the police, and I got seven days, too – only mine was in the infirmary.

“You wouldn’t have ketched me tossin’ if I’d known.

“You see, people will be so precious fond o’ takin’ what they calls the weak side. They never stops to ask themselves whether it’s right or whether it’s wrong; but they goes at it like a bull at a gate, and it’s us as suffers. Many’s the chap as has got away when the pleece has jest nicely put a finger on him. In comes Public. ‘Let that poor chap alone,’ says he, ‘what are you draggin’ him off in chains like that for?’ And so on to that tune till every one begins to feel for the chap, who puts on a cantin’ phisog, and turns his eyes about like them coves as chalks on the pavement for a livin’. Perhaps he’s a burglar, or a smasher, or swell-mobsman, or a nice tender-hearted critter as has been beatin’ his wife with a poker, or knocked her head agin the wall, or some nice trick o’ that kind. And then everybody takes part agin the police, and what can they do?

“‘Their dooty,’ says you.

“Well, in course, but it don’t come werry pleasant, mind yer.

“People don’t side with us; they don’t like us a bit. And of course you’ll say we don’t like the people. Well, we’ll drop that part of the business. It’s only natural for us to like a good murder, or burglary, or forgery. You swells likes your huntin’, and fishin’ and shootin’; and we enjoys our sport as much as you does your little games. There’s a sorter relish about taking a fellow for anything exciting just when my gentleman fancies he’s got clean off – hopped his twig, as he thinks; when in we goes at my gaol-bird, and pops salt on his tail. Bless yer, we claps the darbies on his wrists, and has him walked off before he knows what’s up. He’s like a orspital patient; we chloroforms him with the bracelets, and before he comes to hisself we’ve cut off his liberty, and he wakes up in a cell.”

“Yer see, sir,” said my friend, rising, “yer see, we’ve a knack o’ doin’ it. Spose, now, it’s you as is wanted. I’ve held you in play, say for half an hour, to make sure as you’re the man as I wants, for I’ve got yer phortygruff pinned in my hat; and at last I walks up to yer just so, and ‘You’re my pris’ner,’ says I. Whereupon you ups with yer hands – just so, that’s the way – and tries to shove me off, when – ”

“Click, Click…”

“There I has yer snug with your bracelets on; and werry proud I feels of yer.”

And in effect my visitor had carried out his illustration to the fullest extent, so that I sat before him handcuffed, and he resumed his seat smiling with triumph and LL. I suggested the removal of my bonds; but my captor, as he seemed to consider himself, merely smiled again, helped himself to a cigar, lighted it, and began to smoke.

This was as bad as being a Lambeth casual. Anybody, even Mrs Scribe might come in, and the thought was more powerful than any sudorific in the pharmacopoeia. It was no use to appeal to K9, for he seemed to consider Brag was a good dog, but Holdfast a better; and he did nothing but smile and smoke. Getting an idea for an article was all very well, but at what a cost! It would not do at all. Why the special correspondent of the PMG would not have rested upon his hay-bag if a committee to whom he was well-known had entered the place to inspect him. He would have fled without his bundle. Ay, and so would I, but there was some one coming up the stairs, and I should have run right into some one’s arms. A last appeal to the fellow before me only produced another smile; so, as a dernier ressort, I drew my chair towards the table, and thrust my manacled hands out of sight.

I was just in time, for the handle turned, and in walked an artist friend, who always makes a point of considering himself as much at home in my room as I do myself in his.

“How are you, old boy?” said he, which was hardly the thing, considering the company I was in.

I muttered something about being very well, and Chrayonne seated himself by the fire.

“Pass the cigar-box, old fellow,” said he. But I couldn’t hear him, and tried to appear as if sitting at my ease – of course, a very simple thing with one’s hands pinioned.

“Pass the cigars, Scribe,” said Chrayonne, again, in a louder key; while the policeman wagged his head, and smiled knowingly.

“He can’t,” said the wretch, grinning outright.

“Can’t?” said Chrayonne, with a puzzled look. “Can’t? But, I say,” he exclaimed, jumping up, “I beg your pardon, old fellow, I never thought about your being engaged. I’m off. Excusez.”

“Pris’ner,” said K9, grinning.

“I am not,” I exclaimed, indignantly; but it was of no avail, for the wretch pulled the table-cover on one side, and pointed to my manacled hands.

Chrayonne blew out his cheeky opened his eyes widely, and then whistled very softly. Then, after a pause —

“Very sorry, old fellow. Can I do anything? Bail – friends – solicitors – ”

“Yes,” I exclaimed, furiously. “Knock that scoundrel down, and take the key of these confounded handcuffs from him. It’s a rascally piece of humbug – it’s a trick.”

Chrayonne looked at the constable, who winked at him in reply, and, to my intense disgust, I could see that for the moment he was more disposed to place faith in the impassive demeanour of the myrmidon of the law than in my indignant protestations.

Just then, however, by a desperate effort, and at the cost of some skin, I dragged one hand from its durance vile, and rushed at my captor, as he dubbed himself; but he coolly rose, took out the key, and released my other hand. Then pocketing the handcuffs, and winking at us both in turn, he opened the door, and the room knew him no longer. While, as a specimen of the advantage or disadvantage of first impressions, I may add that it took two cigars and words innumerable to make Chrayonne believe that my visitor had not departed with the expectation of a heavy bribe as payment for my release.