Chapter 3

His wife went out and got a paper, and Mr. Pinner, who was unable to read, watched her anxiously as she looked through it. It was evident, at length, that his prowess of the previous evening had escaped being immortalised in print, and his spirits rose.

“I don’t s’pose he was much ’urt,” he said. “I dare say he wouldn’t like to tell ’em at the station he’d been knocked down. Some of ’em don’t. I’ll just keep my eyes open when I’m out.”

“I don’t think you ought to go out,” said his wife.

She picked up the paper again, and regarded him furtively. Then she bent over it, and slowly scanned the pages, until a sudden horrified gasp drove the roses from Mr. Pinner’s cheek and prepared him for the worst,

“Wot is it?” he stammered.

Mrs. Pinner folded the paper back and, motioning him to silence, read as follows:—

“A violent assault was committed last night on a policeman down at Wapping, who was knocked down by a seafaring man until he got concussion of the brain. The injured constable states that he can identify the man what attacked him, and has given a full description of him at the police-station, where search is now being made for ’im. The public-houses are being watched.”

“Ho, are they?” commented Mr. Pinner, much annoyed. “Ho, indeed.”

“That’s all,” said his wife, putting down the paper.

“All!” echoed the indignant fireman. “’Ow much more do you want? I’m in a nice ’ole, I don’t think. Seems to me I might as well be in quod as ’ere.”

“You don’t know when you’re well off,” retorted his wife.

Mr. Pinner sighed, and moved aimlessly about the room; then he resumed his chair, and, shaking his head slowly, lit his pipe.

“You’ll be quite safe indoors,” said his wife, whose plan was now perfected. “The only thing is, people’ll wonder what you’re staying indoors all day for.”

Mr. Pinner took his pipe out of his mouth and stared at her blankly.

“Seems to me you want a reason for staying indoors,” she pursued.

“Well, I’ve got one, ain’t I?” said the injured man.

“Yes, but you can’t tell them that,” said his wife. “You want a reason everybody can understand and keep ’em from talking.”

“Yes, all very fine for you to talk,” said Mr. Pinner; “if you could think of a reason it ’ud be more sensible.”

Mrs. Pinner, who had got several ready, assumed an air of deep thoughtfulness, and softly scratched her cheek with her needle.

“Whitewash the kitchen ceiling,” she said, suddenly.

“’Ow long would that take?” demanded her lord, who was not fond of whitewashing.

“Then you could put a bit of paper in this room,” continued Mrs. Pinner, “and put them shelves in the corner what you said you’d do. That would take some time.”

“It would,” agreed Mr. Pinner, eyeing her disagreeably.

“And I was thinking,” said his wife, “if I got a sugar-box from the grocer’s and two pairs o’ wheels you could make the baby a nice little perambulator.”

“Seems to me——” began the astonished Mr. Pinner.

“While you’re doing those things I’ll try and think of some more,” interrupted his wife.

Mr. Pinner stared at her for some time in silence; finally he said “Thank’ee,” in a voice slightly tinged with emotion, and fell into a sullen reverie.

“It’s the safest plan,” urged his wife, seriously; “there’s so many things want doing that it’s the most natural thing in the world for you to stay indoors doing them. Nobody’ll think it strange.”

She stitched on briskly and watched her husband from the corner of her eye. He smoked on for some time, and rising at last with a sigh, sent her out for the materials, and spent the day whitewashing.

He was so fatigued with the unwonted exertion that he was almost content to stay in that evening and smoke; but the following morning was so bright and inviting that his confinement appeared more galling than ever. Hoping for some miracle that should rescue him from these sordid tasks, he sent out for another paper.

“It don’t say much about it,” said his wife.

The baby was crying, the breakfast things were not washed, and there were several other hindrances to journalistic work.

“Read it,” said the fireman, sternly.

“The injured constable,” read Mrs. Pinner, glibly, “is still going on satisfactory, and the public-houses are still being watched.”

“They do seem fond o’ them public-houses,” remarked Mr. Pinner, impatiently. “I’m glad the chap’s getting on all right, but I ’ope ’e won’t be about afore I get to sea again.”

“I shouldn’t think he would,” said his wife. “I’d better go out and get the wall-paper, ’adn’t I? What colour would you like?”

Mr. Pinner said that all wall-papers were alike to him, and indulged in dreary speculations as to where the money was to come from. Mrs. Pinner, who knew that they were saving fast owing to his enforced seclusion, smiled at his misgivings.

He papered the room that day, after a few choice observations on the price of wall-paper, and expressed his opinion that in a properly governed country the birth of red-whiskered policemen would be rendered an impossibility. To the compliments on his workmanship bestowed by the gratified Mrs. Pinner he turned a deaf ear.

There was nothing in the paper next morning, Mrs. Pinner’s invention being somewhat fatigued, but she promptly quelled her husband’s joy by suggesting that the police authorities were lying low in the hope of lulling him into a sense of false security. She drew such an amusing picture of the police searching streets and public-houses, while Mr. Pinner was blithely making a perambulator indoors, that she was fain to wipe the tears of merriment from her eyes, while Mr. Pinner sat regarding her in indignant astonishment.

It was no source of gratification to Mr. Pinner to find that the other ladies in the house were holding him up as a pattern to their husbands, and trying to incite those reluctant gentlemen to follow in his footsteps. Mrs. Smith, of the first floor, praised him in terms which made him blush with shame, and Mrs. Hawk, of the second, was so complimentary that Mr. Hawk, who had not long been married, came downstairs and gave him a pressing invitation to step out into the back yard.

By the time the perambulator was finished his patience was at an end, and he determined at all hazards to regain his liberty. Never had the street as surveyed from the small window appeared so inviting. He filled his pipe and communicated to the affrighted Mrs. Pinner his intention of going for a stroll.

“Wait till I’ve seen the paper,” she protested.

“Wot’s the good of seeing the paper?” replied Mr. Pinner. “We know as ’e’s in bed, and it seems to me while ’e’s in bed is my time to be out. I shall keep a look-out. Besides, I’ve just ’ad an idea; I’m going to shave my moustache off. I ought to ha’ thought of it before.”

He went upstairs, leaving his wife wringing her hands below. So far from the red policeman being in bed, she was only too well aware that he was on duty in the district, with every faculty strained to the utmost to avenge the outrage of which he had been the victim. It became necessary to save her husband at all costs, and while he was busy upstairs with the razor she slipped out and bought a paper.

He had just come down by the time she returned, and turned to confront her with a conscious grin; but at the sight of her face the smile vanished from his own, and he stood waiting nervously for ill news.

“Oh, dear,” moaned his wife.

“What’s the matter?” said Mr. Pinner, anxiously.

Mrs. Pinner supported herself by the table and shook her head despondently.

“’Ave they found me out?” demanded Mr. Pinner.

“Worse than that,” said his wife.

“Worse than that!” said her husband, whose imagination was not of a soaring description. “How can it be?”

“He’s dead,” said Mrs. Pinner, solemnly.

“_Dead!_” repeated her husband, starting violently.

Mrs. Pinner, with a little sniff, took up the paper and read slowly, interrupted only by the broken ejaculations of her husband.

“The unfortunate policeman who was assaulted the other day down at Wapping passed away peacefully yesterday evening. Lady Verax is prostrate with grief and refuses to leave the death-chamber. Several members of the Royal family have telegraphed their——”

“_Wot?_” interrupted the astounded listener.

“I was reading the wrong bit,” said Mrs. Pinner, who was too engrossed in her reading of the death of a well-known nobleman to remember to make all the corrections necessary to render them suitable for a policeman. Here it is:—

“The unfortunate policeman who was assaulted the other day down at Wapping passed away peacefully yesterday evening in the arms of his wife and family. The ruffian is believed to be at sea.”

“I wish ’e was,” said Mr. Pinner, mournfully. “I wish ’e was anywhere but ’ere. The idea o’ making a delikit man like that a policeman. Why, I ’ardly touched ’im.”

“Promise me you won’t go out,” said his wife, tearfully.

“_Out?_” said Mr. Pinner, energetically; “_out?_ D’ ye think I’m mad, or wot? I’m going to stay ’ere till the ship sails, then I’m going down in a cab. Wot d’ye think I want to go out for?”

He sat in a frightened condition in the darkest corner of the room, and spoke only to his wife in terms of great bitterness concerning the extraordinary brittleness of members of the police force. “I’ll never touch one on ’em agin as long as I live,” he protested. “If you brought one to me asleep on a chair I wouldn’t touch ’im.”

“It’s the drink as made you do it,” said his wife.

“I’ll never touch a drop agin,” affirmed Mr. Pinner, shivering.

His pipe had lost its flavour, and he sat pondering in silence until the absolute necessity of finding more reasons for his continued presence in the house occurred to him. Mrs. Pinner agreed with the idea, and together they drew up a list of improvements which would occupy every minute of his spare time.

He worked so feverishly that he became a by-word in the mouths of the other lodgers, and the only moments of security and happiness he knew were when he was working in the bedroom with the door locked. Mr. Smith attributed it to disease, and for one panic-stricken hour discussed with Mr. Hawk the possibility of its being infectious.

Slowly the days passed until at length there were only two left, and he was in such a nervous and overwrought state that Mrs. Pinner was almost as anxious as he was for the day of departure. To comfort him she read a paragraph from the paper to the effect that the police had given up the search in despair. Mr. Pinner shook his head at this, and said it was a trap to get him out. He also, with a view of defeating the ends of justice, set to work upon a hood for the perambulator.

He was employed on this when his wife went out to do a little shopping. The house when she returned was quiet, and there were no signs of anything unusual having occurred; but when she entered the room she started back with a cry at the sight which met her eyes. Mr. Pinner was in a crouching attitude on the sofa, his face buried in the cushion, while one leg waved spasmodically in the air.

“Charlie,” she cried; “Charlie."

There was a hollow groan from the cushion in reply.

“What’s the matter?” she cried, in alarm. “What’s the matter?”

“I’ve seen it,” said Mr. Pinner, in trembling tones. “I’ve seen a ghost. I was just peeping out of the winder behind the blind when it went by.”

“Nonsense,” said his wife.

“_His_ ghost,” said Mr. Pinner, regaining a more natural attitude and shivering violently, “red whiskers, white gloves and all. It’s doing a beat up and down this street. I shall go mad. It’s been by twice.”

“’Magination,” said his wife, aghast at this state of affairs.

“I’m afraid of its coming for me,” said Mr. Pinner, staring wildly. “Every minnit I expect to see it come to the door and beckon me to foller it to the station. Every minnit I expect to see it with its white face stuck up agin the winder-pane staring in at me.”

“You mustn’t ’ave such fancies,” said his wife.

“I see it as plain as I see you,” persisted the trembling fireman. “It was prancing up and down in just the same stuck-up way as it did when it was alive.”

“I’ll draw the blind down,” said his wife.

She crossed over to the window, and was about to lower the blind when she suddenly drew back with an involuntary exclamation.

“Can you see it?” cried her husband.

“No,” said Mrs. Pinner, recovering herself. “Shut your eyes.”

The fireman sprang to his feet. “Keep back,” said his wife, “don’t look.”

“I must,” said her husband.

His wife threw herself upon him, but he pushed her out of the way and rushed to the window. Then his jaw dropped and he murmured incoherently, for the ghost of the red policeman was plainly visible. Its lofty carriage of the head and pendulum-like swing of the arms were gone, and it was struggling in a most fleshly manner to lead a recalcitrant costermonger to the station.

In the intervals of the wrestling bout it blew loudly upon a whistle.

“Wonderful,” said Mrs. Pinner, nervously. “Lifelike, I call it.”

The fireman watched the crowd pass up the road, and then he turned and regarded her.

“Would you like to hear what I call it?” he thundered.

“Not before the baby, Charlie,” quavered Mrs. Pinner, drawing back.

The fireman regarded her silently, and his demeanour was so alarming that she grabbed Charles Augustus Pinner suddenly from his cradle and held him in front of her.

“You’ve kep’ me here,” said Mr. Pinner, in a voice which trembled with self-pity, “for near three weeks. For three weeks I’ve wasted my time, my little spare time, and my money in making perambulators, and whitewashing and papering, and all sorts of things. I’ve been the larfing-stock o’ this house, and I’ve been worked like a convict. Wot ’ave you got to say for yourself?”

“Wot do you mean?” inquired Mrs. Pinner, recovering herself. “I ain’t to blame for what’s in the paper, am I? How was I to know that the policeman as died wasn’t your policeman?”

Mr. Pinner eyed her closely, but she met his gaze with eyes honest and clear as those of a child. Then, realising that he was wasting precious time, he picked up his cap, and as C 49 turned the corner with his prize, set off in the opposite direction to spend in the usual manner the brief remnant of the leave which remained to him.

A GARDEN PLOT

The able-bodied men of the village were at work, the children were at school singing the multiplication-table lullaby, while the wives and mothers at home nursed the baby with one hand and did the housework with the other. At the end of the village an old man past work sat at a rough deal table under the creaking signboard of the Cauliflower, gratefully drinking from a mug of ale supplied by a chance traveller who sat opposite him.

The shade of the elms was pleasant and the ale good. The traveller filled his pipe and, glancing at the dusty hedges and the white road baking in the sun, called for the mugs to be refilled, and pushed his pouch towards his companion. After which he paid a compliment to the appearance of the village.

“It ain’t what it was when I was a boy,” quavered the old man, filling his pipe with trembling fingers. “I mind when the grindstone was stuck just outside the winder o’ the forge instead o’ being one side as it now is; and as for the shop winder—it’s twice the size it was when I was a young ’un.”

He lit his pipe with the scientific accuracy of a smoker of sixty years’ standing, and shook his head solemnly as he regarded his altered birthplace. Then his colour heightened and his dim eye flashed.

“It’s the people about ’ere ’as changed more than the place ’as,” he said, with sudden fierceness; “there’s a set o’ men about here nowadays as are no good to anybody; reg’lar raskels. And if you’ve the mind to listen I can tell you of one or two as couldn’t be beat in London itself.

“There’s Tom Adams for one. He went and started wot ’e called a Benevolent Club. Threepence a week each we paid agin sickness or accident, and Tom was secretary. Three weeks arter the club was started he caught a chill and was laid up for a month. He got back to work a week, and then ’e sprained something in ’is leg; and arter that was well ’is inside went wrong. We didn’t think much of it at first, not understanding figures; but at the end o’ six months the club hadn’t got a farthing, and they was in Tom’s debt one pound seventeen-and-six.

“He isn’t the only one o’ that sort in the place, either. There was Herbert Richardson. He went to town, and came back with the idea of a Goose Club for Christmas. We paid twopence a week into that for pretty near ten months, and then Herbert went back to town agin, and all we ’ear of ’im, through his sister, is that he’s still there and doing well, and don’t know when he’ll be back.

“But the artfullest and worst man in this place—and that’s saying a good deal, mind you—is Bob Pretty. Deep is no word for ’im. There’s no way of being up to ’im. It’s through ’im that we lost our Flower Show; and, if you’d like to ’ear the rights o’ that, I don’t suppose there’s anybody in this place as knows as much about it as I do—barring Bob hisself that is, but ’e wouldn’t tell it to you as plain as I can.

“We’d only ’ad the Flower Show one year, and little anybody thought that the next one was to be the last. The first year you might smell the place a mile off in the summer, and on the day of the show people came from a long way round, and brought money to spend at the Cauliflower and other places.

“It was started just after we got our new parson, and Mrs. Pawlett, the parson’s wife, ’is name being Pawlett, thought as she’d encourage men to love their ’omes and be better ’usbands by giving a prize every year for the best cottage garden. Three pounds was the prize, and a metal tea-pot with writing on it.

“As I said, we only ’ad it two years. The fust year the garden as got it was a picter, and Bill Chambers, ’im as won the prize, used to say as ’e was out o’ pocket by it, taking ’is time and the money ’e spent on flowers. Not as we believed that, you understand, ’specially as Bill did ’is very best to get it the next year, too. ’E didn’t get it, and though p’r’aps most of us was glad ’e didn’t, we was all very surprised at the way it turned out in the end.

“The Flower Show was to be ’eld on the 5th o’ July, just as a’most everything about here was at its best. On the 15th of June Bill Chambers’s garden seemed to be leading, but Peter Smith and Joe Gubbins and Sam Jones and Henery Walker was almost as good, and it was understood that more than one of ’em had got a surprise which they’d produce at the last moment, too late for the others to copy. We used to sit up here of an evening at this Cauliflower public-house and put money on it. I put mine on Henery Walker, and the time I spent in ’is garden ’elping ’im is a sin and a shame to think of.

“Of course some of ’em used to make fun of it, and Bob Pretty was the worst of ’em all. He was always a lazy, good-for-nothing man, and ’is garden was a disgrace. He’d chuck down any rubbish in it: old bones, old tins, bits of an old bucket, anything to make it untidy. He used to larf at ’em awful about their gardens and about being took up by the parson’s wife. Nobody ever see ’im do any work, real ’ard work, but the smell from ’is place at dinner-time was always nice, and I believe that he knew more about game than the parson hisself did.

“It was the day arter this one I’m speaking about, the 16th o’ June, that the trouble all began, and it came about in a very eggstrordinary way. George English, a quiet man getting into years, who used when ’e was younger to foller the sea, and whose only misfortin was that ’e was a brother-in-law o’ Bob Pretty’s, his sister marrying Bob while ’e was at sea and knowing nothing about it, ’ad a letter come from a mate of his who ’ad gone to Australia to live. He’d ’ad letters from Australia before, as we all knew from Miss Wicks at the post-office, but this one upset him altogether. He didn’t seem like to know what to do about it.

“While he was wondering Bill Chambers passed. He always did pass George’s ’ouse about that time in the evening, it being on ’is way ’ome, and he saw George standing at ’is gate with a letter in ’is ’and looking very puzzled.

“‘Evenin’, George,’ ses Bill.

“‘Evenin’,’ ses George.

“‘Not bad news, I ’ope?’ ses Bill, noticing ’is manner, and thinking it was strange.

“‘No,’ ses George. ‘I’ve just ’ad a very eggstrordinary letter from Australia,’ he ses, ‘that’s all.’

“Bill Chambers was always a very inquisitive sort o’ man, and he stayed and talked to George until George, arter fust making him swear oaths that ’e wouldn’t tell a soul, took ’im inside and showed ’im the letter.

“It was more like a story-book than a letter. George’s mate, John Biggs by name, wrote to say that an uncle of his who had just died, on ’is deathbed told him that thirty years ago he ’ad been in this very village, staying at this ’ere very Cauliflower, whose beer we’re drinking now. In the night, when everybody was asleep, he got up and went quiet-like and buried a bag of five hundred and seventeen sovereigns and one half-sovereign in one of the cottage gardens till ’e could come for it agin. He didn’t say ’ow he come by the money, and, when Bill spoke about that, George English said that, knowing the man, he was afraid ’e ’adn’t come by it honest, but anyway his friend John Biggs wanted it, and, wot was more, ’ad asked ’im in the letter to get it for ’im.

“‘And wot I’m to do about it, Bill,’ he ses, I don’t know. All the directions he gives is, that ’e thinks it was the tenth cottage on the right-’and side of the road, coming down from the Cauliflower. He thinks it’s the tenth, but ’e’s not quite sure. Do you think I’d better make it known and offer a reward of ten shillings, say, to any one who finds it?’

“‘No,’ ses Bill, shaking ’is ’ead. ‘I should hold on a bit if I was you, and think it over. I shouldn’t tell another single soul, if I was you.’

“‘I be’lieve you’re right,’ ses George. ‘John Biggs would never forgive me if I lost that money for ’im. You’ll remember about keeping it secret, Bill?’

“Bill swore he wouldn’t tell a soul, and ’e went off ’ome and ’ad his supper, and then ’e walked up the road to the Cauliflower and back, and then up and back again, thinking over what George ’ad been telling ’im, and noticing, what ’e’d never taken the trouble to notice before, that ’is very house was the tenth one from the Cauliflower.

“Mrs. Chambers woke up at two o’clock next morning and told Bill to get up further, and then found ’e wasn’t there. She was rather surprised at first, but she didn’t think much of it, and thought, what happened to be true, that ’e was busy in the garden, it being a light night. She turned over and went to sleep again, and at five when she woke up she could distinctly ’ear Bill working ’is ’ardest. Then she went to the winder and nearly dropped as she saw Bill in his shirt and trousers digging away like mad. A quarter of the garden was all dug up, and she shoved open the winder and screamed out to know what ’e was doing.

“Bill stood up straight and wiped ’is face with his shirt-sleeve and started digging again, and then his wife just put something on and rushed downstairs as fast as she could go.

“‘What on earth are you a-doing of, Bill?’ she screams.

“‘Go indoors,’ ses Bill, still digging.

“‘Have you gone mad?’ she ses, half-crying.

“Bill just stopped to throw a lump of mould at her, and then went on digging till Henery Walker, who also thought ’e ’ad gone mad, and didn’t want to stop ’im too soon, put ’is ’ead over the ’edge and asked ’im the same thing.

“‘Ask no questions and you’ll ’ear no lies, and keep your ugly face your own side of the ’edge,’ ses Bill. ‘Take it indoors and frighten the children with,’ he ses. ‘I don’t want it staring at me.’