Part 7

“Things might be worse even then,” said Mr. Dobb. “After all,” he hinted, “one black cat is very like another. And they can’t talk and give things away, can they?”

“No,” agreed Mr. Lock, immensely relieved. “And, besides, a cat that’s been taken away to be cured of fits ain’t hardly likely to look quite the same when it comes back again, is it?”

A nod of perfect understanding passed between these two keen tacticians, and Mr. Dobb promised that he would take care to call frequently at the residence of the Golightlys to ascertain whether Jonathan was controlled by homing instincts sufficiently serviceable to lead him back to his mistress. In that deplorable event, it was decided that action must depend upon the inspiration of the moment. In the meanwhile, Mr. Lock expressed his firm intention of securing another black cat from somewhere, and making its escape a matter of impossibility this time.

And thus it was that Mr. Lock, going wistfully about the environs of the harbour at a late hour that night at last managed to track down and capture an animal of the species and colour that he desired. He conveyed his protesting prisoner swiftly aboard the “Jane Gladys,” and there he extemporized for it a prison system from which not even a cat provided with a burglar’s kit and the ability to use it could have escaped.

For three days did Mr. Lock keep close watch and ward over his captive. Mr. Robb, on reconnoitring duty, was able to tell him that the vanished Jonathan had not yet put in an appearance at his home, and that the Golightlys were looking forward with the liveliest emotions of thankfulness to the moment which should restore to them their pet cured of its ailment by Mr. Lock’s veterinary skill.

“But s’pose,” put forward Mr. Tridge, one afternoon, in a pessimistic mood—“s’pose that that there first cat turns up at ’is old ’ome one day after you’ve got your other cat settled there. It’ll be awkward, won’t it?”

“Not a bit of it,” vaunted Mr. Lock. “I shall be working at the place by then, so it’s a ’undred to one that I shall catch sight of it first, and then there won’t be no fatted calf killed for the returned prodigal, you can bet. I shall just collar it and shove it in a sack and come down and have a look to see how the old harbour is getting on.”

“Ah, but s’pose you ain’t on the spot?” persisted Mr. Tridge. “What ’appens then?”

“Why, I shall swear it can’t be their beloved Jonathan, because ’e’d never ’ave left my sight while I ’ad ’im ’ere, so the new-comer must be a stray. Oh, I’ll manage them all right, don’t you fret!”

Next morning Mr. Lock arrayed himself in his best, shaved himself to a miracle of velvet smoothness, and brushed his hair with extraordinary interest, for he purposed now to restore the pseudo-Jonathan to its expectant master and mistress, and to bring diplomacy to bear upon the securing of the coveted post of chaperone to a milk-cart.

“Pity my eyes don’t lose a bit of their colour,” he observed, studying his reflection in the glass. “They look just as black as they did when we first ’ad that little dispute, Joe.”

“They look as if you might only ’ave got them last night,” agreed Mr. Tridge. “’Pon my soul, they makes me feel almost like a bad character myself, just to be talking to ’em.”

Mr. Lock, recognizing the futility of wishes, dropped the subject and took up the imprisoned cat. Slipping it into a hamper, he set off up town with it, and speedily came to the home of the Golightlys.

“’Ere’s you cat, ma’am,” he said to that lady, handing the animal over to her.

“My, that’s never our Jonathan!” cried the lady.

“Don’t he look well?” asked Mr. Lock, with enthusiasm. “I reckon he’s more than half cured by now.”

“But—but this is ever so much bigger than our dear old Jonathan,” objected the lady. “Bigger and—and stouter.”

“That’s the treatment and diet I give ’im,” explained Mr. Lock. “It always ’as that effect on my patients. It puts on weight and improves their coat wonderful. Ah, I never grudged him nothing! The best of everything he’s had, even though I’ve ’ad to go short myself sometimes.”

“Well, he certainly is wonderfully improved,” said the lady, gratefully. “I shouldn’t ’ardly have ever known ’im. And in that short time, too! ’Owever did you do it, young man?”

“Trade secret,” said Mr. Lock, promptly.

“He—he don’t seem to take much notice of me,” said the lady, a little disappointedly. “Before he went away, when I used to speak to him, ’e’d look back at me and mew like a Christian; but now ’e don’t even seem to like me ’olding ’im.”

“You’re a bit strange to ’im at present, that’s all,” Mr. Lock assured her. “’E’ll be loving and affectionate to you again very soon. And, as for ’is fits—well, I can take my solemn gospel oath that he ain’t even had a attempt at one all the time ’e’s been in my charge.”

“How splendid!” cried Mrs. Golightly. “I’m sure he looks heaps better. You must ’ave took good care of ’im.”

“I did,” Mr. Lock asserted. “Never let him out of my sight for a single moment. Brushed and combed him three times a day, fed him on tid-bits, give him his physic regular with an oyster after it to take the taste of it out of his mouth, and used to sit by ’is side at night till he fell off to sleep.”

“You have been good to him!” cried the lady, moved by such devotion. “I wish I could make it right with you, some’ow!”

“I done it because I took a fancy to the cat,” said Mr. Lock, “and I don’t want no reward. I shall miss the old chap, though,” he went on, lowering his voice. “I’m sorry to part with him, for his sake as well as my own. If he could only have had a bit longer under my care, he’d ’ave been cured for good and all of them fits. As it is, there’s always the chance that they may come on after a while, and I’ll be far away by then.”

“But—but can’t you stop here in Shorehaven?”

“No, mum. I’ve got my living to earn, and there ain’t a job going here that would suit me. I want to give up the sea. I used to be a milkman afore I was a sailor, and naturally I’d like to take on the job of milkman again, only there ain’t no vacancies in this ’ere town.”

“That’s just where you’re wrong!” cried the lady, in high good humour. “I’m starting a dairy business here next week, and I’m looking out for a man to take the milk-round!”

“Well, well,” breathed Mr. Lock, “if ever there was a coincidence—”

He ceased abruptly, for sometimes Coincidence has two long arms and uses both simultaneously. Mr. Lock, gazing spellbound at the doorway, saw Mr. Golightly framed in it, and clasped in Mr. Golightly’s embrace was a black cat.

“Jonathan!” stated Mr. Golightly, simply.

“What?” screamed the lady.

“Just found him outside the back door, mewing enough to break his heart,” said her husband. “Look at him! Covered in mud, half starved—”

“That ain’t your cat!” denied Mr. Lock. “’E’s only a mangy old stray you’ve got ’old of. There’s your Jonathan in the fire-place there. Cured and improved out of all recognition.”

Mrs. Golightly picked up both cats and set them side by side.

“Jonathan!” she called, and the cat that Mr. Lock had brought foolishly strove to get up the chimney, while the other animal, uttering a half-plaintive, half-delighted mew, tottered forward to lick the lady’s hand.

“‘Never let him out of my sight’!” cried Mrs. Golightly. “‘Washed and brushed him every day! Fed him on all the best! Sat by ’im till ’e went off—’! ’Ere!” she ended, fiercely. “You go off—now—this minute! Else—”

Mr. Lock, ever one to recognize defeat, turned to take his departure. Mrs. Golightly, retrieving the alien cat from the chimney, thrust it into the hamper.

“’Ere, take your rubbish with you!” she ordered; and, thus encumbered, Mr. Lock took his departure.

“Blest if I am so sure that black cats are always lucky!” he murmured, dazedly.

At the corner of the road he ran into Mr. Horace Dobb. Mr. Dobb was in a state of considerable excitement.

“You ’aven’t left that cat at the Golightlys’ yet, then?” he observed, with relief. And, taking Mr. Lock by the arm, eagerly dragged him forward. “Well, then, the Golightlys ’ave lost their second chance of a cat, that’s all! ’Ere, come on in ’ere!” he directed, turning into the “Royal William.”

The aggressive landlady and the cheerful little landlord were behind the counter. At Mr. Dobb’s entry, they both turned expectantly towards him, and the severity of the landlady perceptively waned.

“’Ere’s the young fellow I spoke about just now!” cried Mr. Dobb. “Look at the state of ’is eyes, and you can see I was telling the truth!”

“And ’as ’e got it there in the basket?” asked the landlord, eagerly.

“’E ’as!” declared Mr. Dobb, and, unfastening the lid of the hamper, he allowed its occupant to escape.

“That’s ’im!” cried the landlord, raptly.

“That’s our dear, dear little lost one!” shrilled the lady, in happy agitation.

“Well, you’re a trump!” declared the landlord, turning to Mr. Lock. “This gent ’ere ’as been telling us all about it!”

“Oh!” said Mr. Lock, lamely.

“Yes, indeed,” answered the landlord. “We ’appened to mention to ’im that our cat was missing, and ’e told us ’ow ’e knew of a cat what ’ad been saved from torture by a sailorman. There was a great big ’ulking chap and another chap ’ad got ’old of our cat,” narrated the landlord, “and you see ’em ill-treating it, and you interfered, and they knocked you about cruel, and give you two terrible black eyes—”

“And they are terrible, too!” said the landlady, with a sympathetic shudder. “You must ’ave suffered, young man.”

“I did, ma’am. I did!”

“But you saved our pet!” cried the landlord. “You see, that gent there’s been telling us all about it! It come out quite by accident, to—we was talking about billiard-marking; that was what led up to it, some’ow. Anyway, you saved our cat, and me and my missis are very grateful to you for it. And you’ve been keeping it till you felt less knocked about, and then you were going to try and find its home! Well, you’re saved that trouble, anyway!”

“From what I saw of you the other night,” confessed the landlady, “I should never have thought you could have behaved so noble.”

Husband and wife now retired apart for a brief whispered colloquy. Within one minute of its conclusion, Mr. Lock had been offered and had accepted the vacant post of billiard-marker and odd-job man to the “Royal William”. . . .

Late that same night, Mr. Tridge ceased undressing and looked across at Mr. Lock.

“You’re right, Peter!” he admitted. “They _are_!”

_EPISODE V_ A MATTER OF ADVERTISEMENT

“Joe,” said Mr. Horace Dobb, coming out of a long meditative silence, “’ave you ever ’ad words with a prize-fighter?”

“Once,” admitted Mr. Joseph Tridge. “And only once! Never no more for me!” he ended, very definitely.

“What ’appened?”

“Why, I started to ’ave words with ’im,” returned Mr. Tridge.

“Well?” prompted Mr. Dobb.

“That’s all,” stated Mr. Tridge, simply.

“Did ’e ’it you back?”

“Not ’alf, ’e didn’t!”

“And what did you do?”

“Went ’ome in a cab,” succinctly supplied Mr. Tridge.

Again silence prevailed in Mr. Dobb’s snug back parlour. Mr. Tridge, sitting respectfully upright in his seat, once more fixed a forlorn and rather anxious gaze on his host. The late cook to the “Jane Gladys,” untroubled by his old shipmate’s appealing visage, settled down more comfortably in his arm-chair and puffed in cosy rumination at the stump of a cigar. A clock, acquired by Mr. Dobb in the course of business, stood on the mantelshelf. From the facts that it had just struck eleven and that its dial registered a quarter to two, anyone thoroughly familiar with its idiosyncrasies would have deduced that the correct hour of the evening was something between six and seven.

Mr. Dobb, presently producing a penknife, impaled his cigar-stump on the point of its blade and thus pursued his smoke to its exceedingly bitter end. Still he forbore from speech, and at last Mr. Tridge, with a deep sigh of regret, rose to his feet.

“Well, I may as well be going now,” he asserted, mournfully. “Good-night, ’Orace.”

He crossed to the door, and there he halted.

“And if I was you,” he announced, bitterly, “I should swaller the rest of that there seegar! You won’t lose none of it, then. And, besides, it can’t taste worse than it smells!”

Mr. Dobb, in no wise irritated by this little ebullience of feeling, smiled up pleasantly at his visitor.

“What’s your ’urry?” asked Horace. “Come and sit down again! We ’aven’t finished ’alf our chat yet.”

With marked readiness Mr. Tridge returned to his chair, contritely murmuring an apology for his impoliteness.

“That’s all right,” said Horace, handsomely. “Seegars is never quite right when other chaps is smoking ’em. I’ve noticed that myself. Now, let me see, what were we talking about?”

“About me starting in a little ’air-dressing business of me own,” replied Mr. Tridge, leaning forward eagerly.

“No, _we_ wasn’t talking about that,” corrected Mr. Dobb. “_You_ was.”

“I’ve figgered it all out,” continued Mr. Tridge, undeterred, “and for twenty quid I could get going. And I’d pay you your money back in instalments, and pay you interest at the rate of—”

“I shan’t take no hinterest from you, Joe,” observed Mr. Dobb, with a kindly smile, “and I shan’t take no hinstalments neither. In fact, I shan’t want no money back from you at all!”

“Well, if ever there was a true pal—” gabbled Mr. Tridge, with the liveliest gratitude. “I always knew it! If ever there was a real friend in need—”

“I shan’t want no money back from you at all, Joe,” interrupted Mr. Dobb, coldly, “because I shan’t let you ’ave none to begin with. I shouldn’t dream of it!”

“Well, of all the mean, ’ard-’earted, un’elpful, false friends—” exclaimed Mr. Tridge, in high vexation.

“You go into the shop there, Joe,” directed Mr. Dobb, “and you’ll see my motter ’ung up large on the wall. ‘Strictly Business!’—that’s my guiding princerple, and you knows it! Business is business, and friendship is friendship, and when you tries to mix ’em you gets a little of each and not enough of both.”

“But lending me twenty quid to start on my own with would be business,” contended Mr. Tridge. “I’d pay you back.”

“I dare say you would,” retorted Mr. Dobb, sceptically. “If you could. But s’pose the speckylation turned out a failure, eh? No, Joe, I ain’t going to risk my money, and there’s a end to it. Or, rather, there won’t be a end of it. And now let’s change the subject and talk about something hinteresting.”

“But—but—but,” spluttered Mr. Tridge, wrathfully, “it was you what made me lose all my time learning ’air-dressing! Cut and cut old Sam Clark’s ’air, I did, till it looked as if ’is ’ead ’ad been varnished! Practised clean shaving on Peter Lock till ’is chin was so sore ’e ’ad to grow a beard! It was you that was going to get me settled as a ’air-dresser, you remember?” he sneered.

“Yes, I remember,” confessed Mr. Dobb, flushing a little at the recollection. “Oh, well, mistakes _will_ ’appen,” he put forward, with an effort to be casual.

“Mistakes _did_ ’appen,” amended Mr. Tridge. “And ’ere am I with the old ‘Jane Gladys’ sold from under me, and me the only one of ’er crew out of a job. There’s Peter Lock in a snug billet, there’s old Sam a-ferrying fit to bust ’isself all day, there’s you married to a widow and ’er second-’and shop, and only me left out in the cold!”

“Well, and I want to see you settled,” declared Mr. Dobb. “When the four of us are well spaced about Shore’aven, we’ll be able to work some fine deals, bigger than ever we dreamed of on the old ‘Jane Gladys.’”

“Then why don’t you ’elp me to settle?” demanded Mr. Tridge, not unreasonably.

“’Eaven ’elps them what ’elps themselves, don’t forget, Joe,” was Mr. Dobb’s pious reply.

Impatiently Mr. Tridge rose again to his feet and stalked to the door. Again Mr. Dobb invited him to return to his seat and tarry longer.

“I don’t say as I won’t ’elp you to ’elp yourself, Joe,” observed Mr. Dobb. “In fact, if you only wouldn’t be so ’asty, and would listen to what I ’ave to say, you might feel sorry for all the things you’re trying to think of to say about me as you stands there.”

Mr. Tridge, with a demeanor nicely balanced between resentment and humility, once more sat down.

“I ain’t forgot ’ow you’re situated, Joe,” said Mr. Dobb, gently. “I’ve bore you in mind constant. And I’ve been waiting for you to come and see me these last few days. I got a little matter to put before you, Joe, what ought to be good for twenty quid at least, if you cares to tackle it.”

“Why didn’t you mention it before?” asked Mr. Tridge, suspiciously.

“Well, I wasn’t quite sure ’ow you’d take it,” returned Mr. Dobb. “You see, there—there’s a certain amount of disgrace about it.”

“If it brings in twenty quid,” said Mr. Tridge, frankly, “I shan’t think it disgraceful, whatever it is.”

“And—and there’s a certain amount of suffering,” added Mr. Dobb, watching his friend narrowly.

“Once I get me fingers on the twenty quid, I shall soon stop suffering,” asserted Mr. Tridge, cheerfully.

“Well, you remember me asking you just now if you’d ever ’ad a quarrel with a prize-fighter?”

“Yes, I remember. But what’s that to— ’Ere, ’strewth! ’Orace!” cried Mr. Tridge, in alarm. “I twig your game now! You’re wanting me to match against a prize-fighter! No, thanks!” he said, with the utmost firmness. “Once bit, twice shy!”

“Wait a bit!” begged Mr. Dobb. “You ’aven’t ’eard what I’ve got to say!”

“And don’t want to, either! Not if there’s a prize fight at the end of it! Not for fifty blessed quid! I’ve ’ad some! No, thank you, ’Orace. I ain’t fighting no prize-fighters on the thin chance of getting a purse of twenty quid—_if_ I win. Not me, ’Orace!”

“But you won’t ’ark to what I say!” complained Mr. Dobb.

“No, I won’t!” asseverated Mr. Tridge. “While I’ve got the senses I was born with, I’ll ’ave nothing to do with prize-fighters, and that’s flat!”

“You mean it?” asked Horace. “That’s your last word?”

“I do!” returned Mr. Tridge, in complete determination. “It are!”

Mr. Dobb shook his head a little perplexedly, and was clearly on the point of saying something further, when he changed his mind and frowned thoughtfully at the ceiling for some while. Mr. Tridge, with arms doggedly folded, stared at him in resolute opposition.

“As a matter of fact, Joe,” said Mr. Dobb, at last, “you’re on quite the wrong tack. Prize-fighters ain’t got nothing to do with it.”

“Then what did you drag ’em in for?” countered Mr. Tridge.

“I only wanted to see if you knew what kind of chaps prize-fighters was like to get into trouble with.”

“Well, and what did you want to know that for?” queried Mr. Tridge, vigilantly.

“So as to see whether you’d realize, by comparison, what a very different sort of job this is I’m offering you.”

“’Ave it your own way,” said Mr. Tridge, guardedly. “You go on and say all you’ve got to say, and I’ll listen. That’s all I’ll promise.”

Thus encouraged, Mr. Dobb began to entertain his old shipmate with a character sketch of a certain Mr. Jevvings, Christian name either Haugustas or Hadolphus.

But whatever uncertainty Mr. Dobb might have as to Mr. Jevvings’ correct baptismal name, he had none as to Mr. Jevvings’ character. Mr. Jevvings, testified Horace, was a sport, a nut, a scorcher, a lad of the village, and a real caution. Also, it appeared, he was a knockout, a go-er, and, likewise, a cough-drop. Alternatively, he was also the limit. Mr. Tridge, nodding his head sapiently over these titles to fame, epitomized them all in the surmise that Mr. Jevvings must be a lively sort of card, and this description of the young gentleman gained Mr. Dobb’s cordial agreement.

Blessed with a gay disposition, an abundance of cash, and a widespread reputation for boisterous exploits, one might have expected that Mr. Jevvings found life replete with satisfaction. But, no! said Mr. Dobb. Oh, dear, no! There was something which inexorably qualified Mr. Jevvings’ enjoyment of existence. As Mr. Dobb phrased it, there was always a wasp in Mr. Jevvings’ jam.

It seemed that that young gentleman, although of average build, sadly lacked physical prowess, so much so that, in some of his roystering adventures, antagonists had thought nothing of playfully ruffling his hair prior to throwing him through a window. Courage in plenty had Mr. Jevvings, else would he long ago have retired into obscurity, but he had no skill at arms, and very frequently this precipitated an anticlimax in his spirited doings, so that they ended unheroically for him. Too often, in fact, had this happened of late, and consequently Mr. Jevvings’ reputation as a dashing blade was beginning to be clouded by a certain ribald contempt for his activities.

These things did Mr. Dobb explain to Mr. Tridge, in the terms most easily understanded of his old shipmate. Arrived at this point, he leaned impressively forward and tapped Mr. Tridge on the knee.

“And now,” stated Mr. Dobb, “’e’s got a idea for making people like ’im more serious. He’s going to ’ave a fight with some one and knock ’im clean out.”

“But from what you’ve been telling me,” objected Mr. Tridge, “’e couldn’t knock a fly off the wall.”

Mr. Dobb, sitting erect, favoured his friend with a vast lingering wink. Then he continued his exposition.

It appeared that Mr. Jevvings was a close acquaintance of Mr. Dobb’s. Recently he had come unostentatiously to Mr. Dobb and had confessed to him the bitterness that was vexing his soul. It was, in fact, Mr. Dobb who had suggested a semi-public demonstration of his fistic powers which should compel admiration and respect. With this proposition Mr. Jevvings had fallen in so enthusiastically that he had left all arrangements, financial and otherwise, to be consummated by Mr. Dobb.

“So that’s where _you_ comes in,” explained Mr. Dobb.

“I see,” said Mr. Tridge, acutely. “I says something to ’im, ’e knocks me down, and I get twenty quid for it?”.

“Oh, not so helementary as that, Joe!” replied Mr. Dobb, pained at such lack of artistic imagination. “It’s got to be worked up to, neat and natural. And there’s got to be time for people to talk about it, before it comes off, as well as after. It’ll be a swell thing, fought out reg’lar in a boxing-ring, with seconds and all.”

“And when ’e’s knocked me about long enough,” supposed Mr. Tridge, “down I goes, and takes the count-out?”

Roughly, agreed Mr. Dobb, that was about the size of it. But the preliminaries, he pointed out, would need careful handling to create sufficient stir to satisfy Mr. Jevvings, and also Mr. Tridge would be required to take enough punishment to make the affair look convincing ere he succumbed to Mr. Jevvings’ knockout blow. This, he explained, was the voluntary humiliation and suffering to which he had alluded earlier in the evening.

“Well, if ’e’s ’alf the rabbit you make ’im out to be, ’e can’t ’urt me much,” complacently theorized Mr. Tridge; “and, as for ’umiliation, I’ve been ’umiliated for nothing at all in police-courts before now, so I certainly don’t mind being ’umiliated for money.”

Mr. Dobb, warmly eulogizing Mr. Tridge’s philosophy, assured him that the money was safe enough. Once arrangements were in trim for the combat, he—Mr. Dobb—would hold himself personally responsible for its payment.

“And we’ll set the ball rolling this very night,” said Mr. Dobb, with a computative glance at the clock. “Jevvings’ll be up in the ‘Rose and Crown,’ along of some of ’is pals. You must manage to get into a haltercation with ’im straightway, and leave the rest to me and one or two others what are in the know. We’ll see that a boxing match is fixed up between you, and you can leave all the arrangements to us.”