Part 6

Soon after, Captain Dutt reluctantly announced that he, too, must now depart, and Messrs. Tridge and Lock accompanied him to the nearest draper’s shop, where he sagely selected a bonnet to be presented to Mrs. Dutt the moment he got home. And when the skipper, already holding the hat-box before him in a propitiatory manner, had passed from their sight round a corner, Mr. Tridge and Mr. Lock looked hard and remindedly at each other, and then made search in their pockets.

As a result, the one party produced a shilling and five pennies, and the other party disclosed a florin and a halfpenny; frank and unabashed confession admitted these coins to be “change” which the skipper had forgotten to pick up amid the mental distractions of the afternoon.

Whereupon, congratulating themselves and each other on this presence of mind in face of opportunity, Mr. Lock and Mr. Tridge had retired to the tap-room of the “Royal William,” and had there abundantly developed their policy of drowning dull care.

By now the night was well advanced, and a fevered, reckless brilliance was illuminating Mr. Lock’s personality, lighting up all those manifold polite accomplishments of which he was a master. Thus, he had entertained the company with a series of imitations of bird-calls, and performed clever feats of legerdemain with corks and pennies and hats.

Mr. Tridge was in complete eclipse. He had tried hard to be not ungenial, but his temperament was different from Mr. Lock’s, and every minute of revelry only found him more and more subdued and morose. He had struggled against this psychological handicap, even to the extent of exhibiting to the company four or five styles of dancing with which he was familiar, but so morose and forbidding was his countenance as he jigged and gyrated that none dared claim his attention by offering applause, so that when he sat down again it was amid complete and discouraging silence.

Mr. Lock, however, shone still more effulgently as the evening progressed. Knotting his handkerchief into semblance of a doll, he affected that it was a wife and that he was its husband, and built up on these premises a highly diverting ventriloquial monologue.

And, after that, he successfully introduced some farmyard mimicry, and then got well away with card tricks. Appreciative, and even enthusiastic, were Mr. Lock’s audience, and none was more enthusiastic or appreciative than the plump, fresh-faced little landlord of the “Royal William.” Not once, nor twice, but thrice, did he pay tribute to Mr. Lock’s powers in the medium most gratifying to that artist, and his flow of hospitality ceased only when a big and stern-visaged lady came presently and stood behind the bar at his side. And, thereafter, the licensee of the “Royal William” took, as it were, but a furtive and subsidiary interest in Mr. Lock’s entertainment; while the lady eyed the performance with a cold hostility which was inimical to true art.

And whether it was that Mr. Lock grew a little flustered under her malign regard, or whether it was that he sought to sting the landlord into revolt against domestic oppression, the fact remains that he began to intersperse his card tricks with humorous, but inflammatory, remarks bearing on the subject of domineering wives and too submissive husbands.

It is possible that the landlord of the “Royal William” derived amusement from these sallies. Certainly his eyes gleamed at each thrust, and more than once he turned away to conceal a grin, but he was too craven to exhibit open hilarity at Mr. Lock’s satires. The landlady, however, did not hesitate to betray her feelings in the matter, and thus it was that, at the tail of an amusing anecdote of domestic tyranny, Mr. Lock found himself confronted with a stern and acidulated request to sit down and keep quiet unless he wished to find himself in trouble.

Mr. Lock, a little nonplussed, glanced at the landlord to enlist his support. The landlord’s gaze was apologetic but unhelpful. Mr. Lock looked around among his admirers, but their demeanour had become absent and constrained. Mr. Lock turned and regarded Mr. Tridge; Mr. Tridge was wrapped in his own sable meditations. Pettishly, Mr. Lock flung down the pack of cards and sulked in a corner.

The landlady, having thus suppressed unwelcome propaganda, indulged in a tight-lipped smile of triumph, and began a rinsing of glasses. The hush deepened in the room, developing an atmosphere which brought Mr. Lock back to remembrance of his own insecure position in the world, and this was rendered still more discomforting by what followed. For an amiable gentleman in a check coat, after twice clearing his throat, sought to re-establish light conversation, and asked the landlord whether there was yet any news of Ted.

“I had a letter from him,” answered the landlord, coming out of a sort of thoughtful trance.

“Thanking you for all the kindnesses you’ve showed him, I lay,” hazarded the checkered gentleman.

“No,” returned the landlord, slowly. “’E only asked me to send on after him a pair of boots he’d left behind for mendin’.”

“Fancy bothering about boots!” marvelled the other. “If my uncle died and left _me_ a greengrocery shop—”

“And a nice little business, too, by all accounts,” struck in an individual in a mackintosh.

“Ay, by _his_ accounts,” agreed the landlord. “If half he said was true, he won’t have to do any more billiard-marking and odd-jobbing.”

“Not while the money lasts, at any rate,” said the man in the mackintosh. “Have you got anyone to take his place yet?”

The landlord, shaking his head, replied that he had not yet found a successor to Ted. Billiard-markers, he added, were scarce; people who desired employment as such were, as a rule, of one or two unsatisfactory classes, knowing either too little or too much.

Mr. Lock, assimilating this talk, lifted his eyes and peered as it were through the mists of his troubles. Here, obviously, was a vacancy going, and one which he was well qualified to fill, for his knowledge of the billiard table was neither elementary nor academic. A post as a marker and odd-job man at the “Royal William” appealed with equal force to his temperament and his talents. He could conceive of no form of employment more compatible with his desires. He almost groaned with mortification at the thought that he had allowed a _faux pas_ to ruin his chances of so delectable a situation.

None the less, he determined to make sure that his opportunity was indeed irrevocably lost, and, to that end, when the landlady had temporarily quitted the apartment, he sidled up to the host of the “Royal William,” and put a blunt inquiry to him.

“No chance whatever!” answered that worthy, regretfully shaking his head.

“You’ll find me just the sort of chap you want,” pleaded Mr. Lock.

“I’ve no doubt of it,” accepted the landlord. “If it was only me what had the say, you could start to-morrow. I don’t mind admitting straight to your face that I’ve took to you. You’ve got a civil, well-bred, amoosin’ way with you. You’d get on like a house afire with the gents in the billiard-room. But—”

He shook his head again, sighed, and left the ellipsis to carry its own implication.

“The missis, eh?” said Mr. Lock, sadly.

“The missis,” agreed the landlord.

“I suppose it ’ud be no good my trying to—”

“It ’ud be no good your trying anything!” interrupted the landlord, with conviction. “You can bet she’s got her knife into you, and you can bet nothing ’ud please her more than to twist it round like a corkscrew.”

“Well, if I had a job here,” contended Mr. Lock, “she’d have a lot more chances to twist it.”

“Look here, I’d give you the job if I dared, but I dare not, and that’s flat and honest,” said the landlord, earnestly. “I daren’t! See? That’s how it is—I daren’t! But here she comes; _you_ can ask her about it, if you like.”

The landlady, returning, bent a gaze of extreme displeasure on both Mr. Lock and her husband at finding them in commune. Mr. Lock, studying her countenance but the briefest while, turned away.

“I don’t think it matters,” he remarked.

Twenty minutes later the law’s exigency emptied the “Royal William.” The fresh air outside immediately had a restorative effect on Mr. Lock’s spirits, giving back to him his normal buoyancy, so that he shed his worries like a mantle, and became again his gay and debonair self. Mr. Tridge, however, had come to a slow and obstinate truculency of mood, and avowed an open antagonism to all mankind. And this divergency of outlook led to an unfortunate sequel, for, as they made their way back to the ship, which was only to continue as their home until the formalities of her sale had been completed, a black cat shot across their path, and Mr. Lock gleefully hailed its transit as a fortunate omen. “Black cats are always lucky!” declared Mr. Lock, with elation.

“You’re a liar!” churlishly declared Mr. Tridge.

“But they are!” insisted Mr. Lock.

“And I’ll prove you’re a liar!” cried Mr. Tridge, irately, and forthwith struck Mr. Lock a grevious blow on the right eye.

“’Ere—steady!” shouted Mr. Lock.

“’Oo are you giving orders to?” bellowed Mr. Tridge, in high passion, and straightway smote Mr. Lock’s left eye. “_Now_ do you think black cats are always lucky?”

Mr. Lock, sitting down on a convenient doorstep, pressed his palms to his eyes, too engrossed in a species of private astronomy to reply to Mr. Tridge’s question. Mr. Tridge, as one who had creditably sustained the truth of his assertions, cocked his head proudly and walked on. Mr. Lock, recovering after a while, followed him with marked caution, nor did he attempt reprisals. But this magnanimity was less because he knew that no one would be more surprised and apologetic on the morrow over the occurrence than Mr. Tridge, than because Mr. Tridge was altogether a larger and more powerful man than Mr. Lock.

Mr. Tridge, achieving the “Jane Gladys” in grim solitude, made his simple preparations for slumber, and lay down in his bunk with a sigh of weary content. He was fast asleep ere Mr. Lock ventured down to the fo’c’sle and wooed repose.

* * *

“’Strewth!” cried Mr. Tridge, in utter amazement, waking next morning.

Mr. Lock, who had just risen reluctantly to dress, turned an inquiring gaze on his shipmate.

“_Now_ what is it?” he asked, petulantly.

“’Strewth!” exclaimed Mr. Tridge again, staring incredulously at the polychromatic setting of Mr. Lock’s eyes. “Peter, you _must_ ’ave been a-going it last night!” he added, with intense conviction. “My word!”

“Me? No worse than you!” denied Mr. Lock.

“You must ’ave got to scrapping,” surmised Mr. Tridge. “Did you win or lose?”

“What do you mean?” sourly questioned Mr. Lock. “I never scrapped with no one. I was—I was imitating canaries. Canaries don’t scrap.”

“’Ow did you get them two awful big black eyes, then?” wonderingly queried Mr. Tridge.

“Black eyes?” murmured Mr. Lock, perplexed. “Black eyes?”

“Black and red and green and yaller and blue and purple and horange,” supplemented Mr. Tridge.

Mr. Lock crossed to the little mirror which hung on the shelf.

“So I ’ave!” he said, in blank surprise. “So I ’ave! I thought it was only the front part of my ’eadache!”

“Two real beauties!” declared Mr. Tridge. “You must ’ave got nasty over something, Peter. Why didn’t you leave it to me to do your scrapping for you, like we always does? I shouldn’t ’ave got ’it like that, you can bet!”

Mr. Lock, disturbed by the discovery, sat down on the edge of his bunk and shook his head, an action which caused him such discomfort that he lay down again.

“Can’t you remember ’ow it ’appened, Peter?” asked Mr. Tridge, with genuine sympathy. “If you can remember the chap _I’ll_ step along and square up with ’im for you,” he promised.

“I’ve been trying to remember,” said Mr. Lock. “I don’t think it was a scrap, though. I believe it was a hexaplosion somewhere. I seem to remember a lot of sparks.”

“Now I come to think of it, I seem to remember a fire or something,” murmured Mr. Tridge, after mental gropings. “Or was it something to do with the ’arbour-master?”

The twain lay silent, striving to recollect the cause of the alteration to Mr. Lock’s countenance, and they were still silently seeking to establish the origin of the disaster when Mr. Horace Dobb made his appearance in the fo’c’sle.

“Well, did you ’ave a good time last—” he began, and then broke off at sight of Mr. Lock’s contused features. “Ah, I see you did!” he ended, sapiently.

“_Both_ of ’em! That’s what I can’t understand,” mused Mr. Tridge. “_Both_ of ’em! ’E must ’ave been carrying something in his arms at the time, that’s the only way I can hexplain it.”

“’Ow did it ’appen, Peter?” asked Mr. Dobb, curiously.

“I can’t remember yet whether it was a man or the hact of providence,” confessed Mr. Lock. “I’ve got a headache and can’t think clear.”

“Pity,” commented Mr. Dobb. “I’ve come down to see you on a little matter of business, but if you ain’t equal to—”

“Talking business always clears my ’ead,” said Mr. Lock, eagerly. “Have you found me a job, then?”

“Found you a road leading to a job,” amended Mr. Dobb. “I can put you on it, but you must walk up it yourself. ’Ow do you like the hidea of going around with a milk-cart?”

“Not much,” frankly returned Mr. Lock.

“It’ll do you all right to go on with,” urged Mr. Dobb. “You’ve got to find something to do, ain’t you?”

“Peter Lock in a milk-cart!” marvelled Mr. Tridge. “A _milk_-cart! Don’t that just show you what a rum world this is?”

“I shan’t half get chaffed!” foretold Mr. Lock.

“You needn’t keep it longer than it takes you to find a better job,” pointed out Mr. Dobb. “Meanwhile, you’ll be remaining in Shore’aven ’ere, and we shall all be in touch with each other, like what we’ve always planned on.”

“But a milk-cart!” protested Mr. Lock. “Now, if it ’ad been a wine and spirit shop—”

“Think of all the pretty gals you’ll be ’anding in cans to!” recommended Mr. Dobb. “Everything’s got its bright side.”

“Come to think of it, it ain’t such a bad job,” agreed Mr. Lock, brightening. “When do I start?”

“You’ve got to get the job first,” Mr. Dobb reminded him. “You’ll ’ave to play up for it very careful and polite and artful, and that’s why I thought it was a better chance for you than for Joe, there. There’s a old geezer, a Mrs. Golightly, what you’ll ’ave to be hextra special hattentive to. ’Er ’usband runs a grocery shop, and she’s going to start the dairy business as a side-line in a week or two. You play your cards right, and the job is yours for the asking. You see, you’re going to do the old geezer a favour before she knows what you’re after, and that’s always a big ’elp.”

Mr. Dobb paused and pointed impressively at Mr. Lock.

“You’re one of the finest amytoor animal doctors in England,” he told him.

“Ho, am I?” said Mr. Lock, casually. “First I’ve heard of it.”

“Same ’ere till a hour ago,” returned Mr. Dobb. “Only I ’appened to be talking with ’er, and one thing led to another, and then I see you just ’ad to be good at animal doctoring.”

“Why?” asked Mr. Lock.

“Why, because you’re going to cure ’er pet cat of fits for ’er.”

“Am I?” remarked Mr. Lock. “’Ow do I do that?”

“That’s for you to decide,” answered Mr. Dobb, easily. “It’ll be the beginning of your job in the milk line. It’s lucky she’s got a pet cat with fits, ain’t it? It’s a black cat, too. Black cats,” he stated, dogmatically, “are always lucky.”

At mention of these words a swift tremor coursed through Mr. Lock’s frame, and he sat up in his bunk, staring hard at Mr. Tridge, and gradually raising a rigid forearm to point accusingly at him. A similar start of surprise pulsed through Mr. Tridge, and after a long, horrified stare at Mr. Lock’s damaged optics, he suddenly turned on his mattress and guiltily drew his blankets over his head. Mr. Dobb, viewing this by-play in surprise, offered the theory that his friends were rehearsing for employment as kinema actors.

“I know who done it now!” cried Mr. Lock, bitterly. “And so does he! It was you talking about black cats, ’Orace, what done it!”

“I done what by talking about black cats?” demanded the mystified Mr. Dobb.

Mr. Lock irately made the situation clear to Mr. Dobb, who, as soon as he had regained composure, assumed the role of peacemaker so successfully that ere long Mr. Tridge was encouraged to emerge again from beneath his blankets and promise all manner of recompense to Mr. Lock at some future date when liberality should be more convenient. This understanding reached, Mr. Dobb returned to the object of his call.

“Soon as ever Mrs. Golightly told me about ’er cat ’aving fits,” said Mr. Dobb, “I thought at once of you, Peter. Remember that cat you cured of hiccups at Teignmouth?”

“I _said_ it was cured,” shamelessly corrected Mr. Lock. “I never went back to see once I’d got the money for it.”

“Anyway, you can _start_ to cure this old geezer’s cat for ’er, can’t you? You’ve got till next’ Saturday aboard this old boat, ’aven’t you? Well, suppose you get the cat and bring it ’ere, and keep it with you till then?”

“I see,” said Mr. Lock, readily. “Then I can take it back to ’er and say I’m sorry, but I’m leaving the town to find work elsewhere; and what a pity it is, seeing that the cat’s so much better already under my treatment.”

“That’s the hidea, Peter!” concurred Mr. Dobb. “The old gal is regularly wrapped up in that cat. She couldn’t make more fuss of it if she tried. And ’er ’usband is very fond of it, too. It’s more like a nursery than anything else when that cat comes into the room, and to ’ear ’em both sit round hencouraging it to eat its meals! It’s like a baby spending a day with its grandparents!”

“They’ll be very grateful if I can cure it of fits,” said Mr. Lock, thoughtfully; “and if I ’aven’t had time enough to do it—”

“They’ll pretty well offer you that job in the milk line without being asked, simply to keep you near your patient,” prophesied Mr. Dobb. “You dress yourself now and come along with me, and you’ll see what a simple, easy affair it is to a smart chap like you.”

“See?” said Mr. Lock severely to Mr. Tridge. “Black cats _are_ always lucky, after all!”

Half an hour later Mr. Lock, furnished with a very circumstantial story about a carriage accident to account for the spectacular state of his features, had the felicity of being introduced to Mrs. Golightly and her husband by Mr. Horace Dobb. The conventions of etiquette thus fulfilled, Mr. Dobb came straight to the point of the business in hand.

“Peter’s going to do you a favour and cure that ’ere cat of yours, ain’t you, Peter?” he observed.

“All being well, yes,” said Mr. Lock, modestly.

“If _you_ can’t cure it, no one can!” gushed Mr. Dobb. “You’re a wonder at curing animals, Peter, and you knows that’s true. Remember that dog you cured for the dook?”

“Which one?” asked Mr. Lock, carelessly.

“The—the blood’ound,” answered Mr. Dobb.

“I meant, which dook?” said Mr. Lock.

“The—the one what give you the gold watch and chain,” replied Mr. Dobb. “Show ’em to Mrs. Golightly, Peter; she’d like to see ’em.”

Mr. Lock’s hand made a movement towards his waistcoat, and then checked itself. “I forgot,” he said, with a smile. “I left it at the bank in London, along with all them other testimonials and medals I’ve got for animal doctoring. A chap what lives a travelling, seafaring life,” he explained to the lady, “needs to be careful of his property.”

“Yes, indeed,” she assented. “But I wonder you don’t give up the sea and settle down ashore.”

“So ’e means to one day,” struck in Mr. Dobb. “’E’s going to give up seafaring and animal-curing, ain’t you, Peter, and settle down quiet and peaceful ashore?”

“In a nice, quiet, respectable job, when I find one to suit me,” said Mr. Lock.

“I wonder if you’d—” began the lady, and then paused. “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind seeing poor Jonathan now?”

Mr. Lock professing readiness to interview his prospective patient, both Mr. and Mrs. Golightly bustled from the room, making loud and endearing appeal to the stricken feline to come and be shown to the kind gentleman. Left alone, Mr. Lock and Mr. Dobb winked very pleasantly at each other.

“It’s as good as yours, that job is, Peter,” said Mr. Dobb. “She nearly offered it to you just now of ’er own accord. Did you ’ear ’er? You’ve made a ’it there, Peter, my boy! Keep it up!”

Mrs. Golightly, returning presently with an undistinguished-looking black cat in her arms, postponed consideration of its condition while she delivered an affectionate address on the manifold virtues of the animal. Mr. Lock, after gravely listening to the tale of so much excellence, plainly enhanced his favour with the good dame by remarking that the cat reminded him very much of a similar animal, the property of a countess, which he had cured of sunstroke in two days. He added that the countess’s gratitude was most touching and substantial.

“Oh, dear!” sighed Mrs. Golightly. “I do ’ope you ain’t going to charge me very, very much for curing Jonathan! I ain’t a countess, not by no means.”

“I shouldn’t dream of charging you anything, ma’am,” replied Mr. Lock. “I’ve already took a great fancy to this cat, for one thing, and for another, I believe we all ought to do folks good turns whenever we get the chance.”

He now bent professionally over the cat, felt all the joints in its tail in a highly technical manner, and then gravely studied its eyes. Mr. and Mrs. Golightly, watching him, awaited his verdict in breathless suspense.

“He can and shall be cured,” said Mr. Lock. “If,” he added, “I can do it in the time.”

Within the hour the afflicted animal had taken up temporary residence on board the “Jane Gladys.” Sundry dainties which had, at Mr. Lock’s instruction, been secured for the patient’s diet served as an excellent dinner that day for two impecunious mariners. An indignant black cat found that “rest and quiet” were terms interpreted on the “Jane Gladys” by enforced seclusion in a sea-chest while the human occupants of the fo’c’sle enjoyed a protracted siesta after their meal. Indeed, it was only when a late tea had restored full energy to Mr. Lock that he recollected the needs of his patient. A foray in the galley was rewarded with the discovery of a red herring in a dark corner, and, armed with this booty, Mr. Lock prepared to inaugurate an altered course of dietetics for his patient.

Cautiously he raised the lid of the chest, but not cautiously enough; for the black cat, wearied of solitary confinement, slipped through the opening, and, easily dodging the convulsive clutch of Mr. Lock and the outstretched hands of the interested Mr. Tridge, it streaked out of the fo’c’sle and up on to the deck. Mr. Lock’s ill-timed recriminations of Mr. Tridge’s clumsiness caused a regrettable delay in pursuit, and when at last the two sailormen had reached the deck, the black cat had completely vanished in the darkness.

Frenzied and exhaustive search was made, only to be abandoned in the end when sundry sportive souls on the wharf took to jocund mimicry of the enticing calls made by Mr. Lock and his companion. Loudly did Mr. Lock bewail so inauspicious and swift a termination to his high hopes of the conduct of a milk-cart.

And moodily did he make his way to Fore Street, there to seek Mr. Dobb in his home, and tell him of this underhand trick which the cat had played upon one who had desired to deal benevolently by it.

“Well, it’s no good crying over spilt milk-carts,” pronounced Mr. Dobb, when his visitor began to sorrow over the wreck of his ambitions. “You’ve got to be up and doing—that’s all. As long as that cat don’t turn up at its old ’ome, you’ve always got a chance of finding it again somewhere.”

“Suppose we don’t find it, though?” asked Mr. Lock.