Part 7

And Sotcher's discourse at the Red Cow turned, lightly and easily, toward the question of explosives. Anybody could make them, he explained; nothing simpler, with care. And here he posed at large in the character of mysterious desperado, the wonder and admiration of all the Red Cow group. They should buy nitric acid, he said, of the strongest sort, and twice as much sulphuric acid. The shops where they sold photographic materials were best and cheapest for these things, and no questions were asked. They should mix the acids, and then add gently, drop by drop, the best glycerine, taking care to keep everything cool. After which the whole lot must be poured into water, to stand for an hour. Then a thick, yellowish, oily stuff would be found to have sunk to the bottom, which must be passed through several pails of water to be cleansed: and there it was, a terrible explosive. You handled it with care and poured it on brick-dust or dry sand, or anything of that sort that would soak it up, and then it could be used with safety to the operator.

The group listened with rapt attention, more than one pot stopping half-way on its passage mouthwards. Then Jerry Shand wanted to know if Sotcher had ever blown up anything or anybody himself.

The missionary admitted that that glory had not been his. "I'm one o' the teachers, me frien's--one o' the pioneers that goes to show the way for the active workers like you. I on'y come to explain the principles an' set you in the right road to the social revolution, so as you may get yer rights at last. It's for you to act."

Then he explained that action might be taken in two ways: either individually or by mutual aid in the group. Individual work was much to be preferred, being safer; but a particular undertaking often necessitated co-operation. But that was for the workers to settle as the occasion arose. However, one thing must be remembered. If the group operated, each man must be watchful of the rest; there must be no half measures, no timorousness; any comrade wavering, temporizing, or behaving in any way suspiciously, must be straightway _suppressed_. There must be no mistake about that. It was desperate and glorious work, and there must be desperate and rapid methods both of striking and guarding. These things he made clear in his best conspirator's manner: with nods and scowls and a shaken forefinger, as of one accustomed to oversetting empires.

The men of the Red Cow group looked at each other, and spat thoughtfully. Then a comrade asked what had better be blown up first. Sotcher's opinion was that there was most glory in blowing up people, in a crowd or at a theatre. But a building was safer, as there was more chance of getting away. Of buildings, a public office was probably to be preferred--something in Whitehall, say. Or a bank--nobody seemed to have tried a bank: he offered the suggestion now. Of course there were not many public buildings in the East End, but possibly the group would like to act in their own neighborhood: it would be a novelty, and would attract notice; the question was one for their own decision, independent freedom of judgment being the right thing in these matters. There were churches, of course, and the factories of the bloated capitalist. Particularly, he might suggest the gas-works close by. There was a large gasometer abutting on the street, and probably an explosion there would prove tremendously effective, putting the lights out everywhere, and attracting great attention in the papers. That was glory.

Jerry Shand hazarded a remark about the lives of the men in the gas-works; but Sotcher explained that that was a trivial matter. Revolutions were never accomplished without bloodshed, and a few casual lives were not to be weighed in the balance against the glorious consummation of the social upheaval. He repeated his contention, when some weaker comrade spoke of the chance of danger to the operator, and repeated it with a proper scorn of the soft-handed pusillanimity that shrank from danger to life and limb in the cause. Look at the glory, and consider the hundred-fold vengeance on the enemy in the day to come! The martyr's crown was his who should die at the post of duty.

His eloquence prevailed: there were murmurs no more. "'Ere, tell us the name of the stuff agin," broke out Gunno Polson, resolutely, feeling for a pencil and paper. "Blimy, I'll make some to-morrer."

He wrote down the name of the ingredients with much spelling. "Thick, yuller, oily stuff, ain't it, wot you make?" he asked.

"Yus--an' keep it cool."

The group broke up, stern and resolute, and Sotcher strode to his home exultant, a man of power.

For the next night or two the enthusiasm at the Red Cow was unbounded. There was no longer any questioning of principles or action--every man was an eager Anarchist--strong and devoted in the cause. The little chemical experiment was going on well, Gunno Polson reported, with confident nods and winks. Sotcher repeated his discourse, as a matter of routine, to maintain the general ardor, which had, however, to endure a temporary check as the result of a delicate inquiry of Snorkey's, as to what funds might be expected from head-quarters. For there were no funds, said Sotcher, somewhat surprised at the question.

"Wot?" demanded Jerry Shand, opening his mouth and putting down his pipe: "ain't we goin' to get nothink for all this?"

They would get the glory, Sotcher assured him, and the consciousness of striking a mighty blow at this, and that, and the other; but that was all. And instantly the faces of the group grew long.

"But," said Old Baker, "I thought all you blokes always got somethink from the--the committee?"

There was no committee, and no funds: there was nothing but glory, and victory, and triumph, and the social revolution, and things of that kind. For a little, the comrades looked at each other awkwardly, but they soon regained their cheerfulness, with zeal no whit abated. The sitting closed with promises of an early gathering for the next night.

But when the next night came Sotcher was later than usual. "Ullo," shouted Gunno Polson, as he entered, "'ere you are at last. We've 'ad to do important business without you. See," he added in a lower tone, "'ere's the stuff!" And he produced an old physic-bottle nearly full of a thick, yellowish fluid.

Sotcher started back half a pace, and slightly paled. "Don't shake it," he whispered hoarsely. "Don't shake it, for Gawd's sake!... Wot--wotjer bring it 'ere for, like that? It's--it's awful stuff, blimy." He looked uneasily about the group, and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. "I--I thought you'd git the job over soon as the stuff was ready.... 'Ere, my Gawd!" he squeaked under his breath, "don't put it down 'ard on the table like that. It's sich--sich awful stuff." He wiped his forehead again, and, still standing, glanced once more apprehensively round the circle of impassive faces. Then after a pause, he asked, with an effort, "Wot--wotjer goin' to do now?"

"Blow up the bleed'n' gas-works, o' course," answered Gunno Polson complacently. "'Ere's a penn'orth o' silver sand, an' a 'bacca canister, an' some wire, an' a big cracker with a long touch-paper, so as to stick out o' the canister-lid. That ought to set it auf, oughtn't it? 'Ere, you pour the stuff over the sand, doncher?" And he pulled out the cork and made ready to mix.

"'Old on--'old on--don't! Wait a bit, for Gawd's sake!" cried Sotcher, in a sweat of terror. "You--you dunno wot awful stuff it is--s'elp me, you don't! You--you'll blow us all up if you don't keep it still. Y--you'll want some--other things. I'll go an'--"

But Jerry Shand stood grimly against the door. "This 'ere conspiracy'll 'ave to be gawn through proper," he said. "We can't 'ave no waverers nor blokes wot want to clear out in the middle of it, and p'r'aps go an' tell the p'lice. Them sort we 'as to _suppress_, see? There's all the stuff there, me lad, an' you know it. Wot's more, it's you as is got to put it up agin the gas-works an' set it auf."

The hapless Sotcher turned a yellower pallor and asked faintly, "Me? Wy me?"

"All done reg'lar and proper," Jerry replied, "'fore you come. We voted it--by ballot, all square. If you'd 'a' come earlier you'd 'a' 'ad a vote yerself."

Sotcher pushed at Jerry's shoulder despairingly. "I won't, I won't!" he gasped. "Lemme go--it ain't fair--I wasn't 'ere--lemme go!"

"None o' yer shovin', young man," said Jerry severely. "None o' yer shovin', else I'll 'ave to punch you on the jore. You're a bleed'n' nice conspirator, you are. It's pretty plain we can't depend on you, an' you know wot that means,--eh? Doncher? You're one o' the sort as 'as to be suppressed, that's wot it means. 'Ere, 'ave a drink o' this 'ere beer, an' see if that can't put a little 'art in ye. You got to do it, so you may as well do it cheerful. Snorkey, give 'im a drink."

But the wretched revolutionary would not drink. He sank in a corner--the furthest from the table where Gunno Polson was packing his dreadful canister--a picture of stupefied affright.

Presently he thought of the bar--a mere yard of counter in an angle of the room, with a screen standing above it--and conceived a wild notion of escape by scrambling over. But scarce had he risen ere the watchful Jerry divined his purpose.

"'Old 'im, Snorkey," he said. "Keep 'im in the corner. An' if 'e won't drink that beer, pour it over 'is 'ead."

Snorkey obeyed gravely and conscientiously, and the bedraggled Sotcher, cowed from protest, whined and sobbed desolately.

When all was ready, Jerry Shand said: "I s'pose it's no good askin' you to do it willin', like a man?"

"O, let me go, I--I ain't well--s'elp me, I ain't. I--I might do it wrong--an'--an'--I'm a--a teacher--a speaker; not the active branch, s'elp me. Put it auf--for to-night--wait till to-morrer. I ain't well an'--an' you're very 'ard on me!"

"Desp'rit work, desp'rit ways," Jerry replied laconically. "You're be'avin' very suspicious, an' you're rebellin' agin the orders o' the group. There's only one physic for that, ain't there, in the rules? You're got to be suppressed. Question is 'ow. We'll 'ave to kill 'im quiet somehow," he proceeded, turning to the group. "Quiet an' quick. It's my belief 'e's spyin' for the p'lice, an' wants to git out to split on us. Question is 'ow to do for 'im?"

Sotcher rose, a staring spectre. He opened his mouth to call, but there came forth from it only a dry murmur. Hands were across his mouth at once, and he was forced back into the corner. One suggested a clasp-knife at the throat, another a stick in his neckerchief, twisted to throttling-point. But in the end it was settled that it would be simpler, and would better destroy all traces, to despatch him in the explosion--to tie him to the canister, in fact.

A convulsive movement under the men's hands decided them to throw more beer on Sotcher's face, for he seemed to be fainting. Then his pockets were invaded by Gunno Polson, who turned out each in succession. "You won't 'ave no use for money where you're goin'," he observed callously; "besides, it 'ud be blowed to bits an' no use to nobody. Look at the bloke at Greenwich, 'ow 'is things was blowed away. 'Ullo! 'ere's two 'arf-crowns an' some tanners. Seven an' thrippence altogether, with the browns. This is the bloke wot 'adn't got no funds. This'll be divided on free an' equal principles to 'elp pay for that beer you've wasted. 'Old up, ol' man! Think o' the glory. P'r'aps you're all right, but it's best to be on the safe side, an' dead blokes can't split to the coppers. An' you mustn't forget the glory. You 'ave to shed blood in a revolution, an' a few odd lives more or less don't matter--not a single damn. Keep your eye on the bleed'n' glory! They'll 'ave photos of you in the papers, all the broken bits in a 'eap, fac-similiar as found on the spot. Wot a comfort that'll be!"

But the doomed creature was oblivious--prostrate--a swooning heap. They ran a piece of clothes-line under his elbows, and pulled them together tight. They then hobbled his ankles, and took him among them through the alley and down the quiet street, singing and shouting their loudest as they went, in case he might sufficiently recover his powers to call for help. But he did not, and there in the shadow, at the foot of the great gasometer, they flung him down with a parting kick and a barbarous knock on the head, to keep him quiet for those few necessary moments. Then the murderous canister, bound with wire, was put in place; the extruding touch-paper was set going with a match; and the Red Cow Anarchists disappeared at a run, leaving their victim to his fate. Presently the policeman on that beat heard a sudden report from the neighborhood of the gas-works, and ran to see what it might mean.

The next morning Alfred Sotcher was charged at the Thames Police Court as a drunk and incapable. He had been found in a helpless state near the gas-works, and appeared to have been tied at the elbows and ankles by mischievous boys, who had also, it seemed, ignited a cracker near by where he lay. The divisional surgeon stated that he was called to the prisoner, and found him tearful and incoherent, and smelling strongly of drink. He complained of having been assaulted in a public-house, but could give no intelligible account of himself. A canister found by his side appeared to contain a mixture of sand and castor oil, but prisoner could not explain how it came there. The magistrate fined him five shillings, with the alternative of seven days, and as he had no money he was removed to the cells.

ON THE STAIRS.

The house had been "genteel." When trade was prospering in the East End, and the ship-fitter or block-maker thought it no shame to live in the parish where his workshop lay, such a master had lived here. Now, it was a tall, solid, well-bricked, ugly house, grimy and paintless in the joinery, cracked and patched in the windows: where the front door stood open all day long; and the womankind sat on the steps, talking of sickness and deaths and the cost of things; and treacherous holes lurked in the carpet of road-soil on the stairs and in the passage. For when eight families live in a house, nobody buys a door-mat, and the street was one of those streets that are always muddy. It smelt, too, of many things, none of them pleasant (one was fried fish); but for all that it was not a slum.

Three flights up, a gaunt woman with bare forearms stayed on her way to listen at a door which, opening, let out a warm, fetid waft from a close sick-room. A bent and tottering old woman stood on the threshold, holding the door behind her.

"An' is 'e no better now, Mrs. Curtis?" the gaunt woman asked, with a nod at the opening.

The old woman shook her head, and pulled the door closer. Her jaw waggled loosely in her withered chaps: "Nor won't be; till 'e's gone." Then after a certain pause, "'E's goin'," she said.

"Don't doctor give no 'ope?"

"Lor' bless ye, I don't want to ast no doctors," Mrs. Curtis replied, with something not unlike a chuckle. "I've seed too many on 'em. The boy's a-goin', fast; I can see that. An' then"--she gave the handle another tug, and whispered--"he's been called." She nodded amain. "Three seprit knocks at the bed-head las' night; an' I know what _that_ means!"

The gaunt woman raised her brows, and nodded. "Ah, well," she said, "we all on us comes to it some day, sooner or later. An' it's often a 'appy release."

The two looked into space beyond each other, the elder with a nod and a croak. Presently the other pursued, "'E's been a very good son, ain't 'e?"

"Ay, ay, well enough son to me," responded the old woman, a little peevishly; "an' I'll 'ave 'im put away decent, though there's on'y the Union for me after. I can do that, thank Gawd!" she added, meditatively, as chin on fist she stared into the thickening dark over the stairs.

"When I lost my pore 'usband," said the gaunt woman, with a certain brightening, "I give 'im a 'ansome funeral. 'E was a Oddfeller, an' I got twelve pound. I 'ad a oak caufin an' a open 'earse. There was a kerridge for the fam'ly an' one for 'is mates--two 'orses each, an' feathers, an' mutes; an' it went the furthest way round to the cimitry. 'Wotever 'appens, Mrs. Manders,' says the undertaker, 'you'll feel as you're treated 'im proper; nobody can't reproach you over that.' An' they couldn't. 'E was a good 'usband to me, an' I buried 'im respectable."

The gaunt woman exulted. The old, old story of Manders's funeral fell upon the other one's ears with a freshened interest, and she mumbled her gums ruminantly. "Bob'll 'ave a 'ansome buryin', too," she said. "I can make it up, with the insurance money, an' this, an' that. On'y I dunno about mutes. It's a expense."

In the East End, when a woman has not enough money to buy a thing much desired, she does not say so in plain words; she says the thing is an "expense," or a "great expense." It means the same thing, but it sounds better. Mrs. Curtis had reckoned her resources, and found that mutes would be an "expense." At a cheap funeral mutes cost half-a-sovereign and their liquor. Mrs. Manders said as much.

"Yus, yus, 'arf-a-sovereign," the old woman assented. Within, the sick man feebly beat the floor with a stick. "I'm a-comin'," she cried shrilly; "yus, 'arf-a-sovereign, but it's a lot, an' I don't see 'ow I'm to do it--not at present." She reached for the door-handle again, but stopped and added, by after-thought, "Unless I don't 'ave no plooms."

"It 'ud be a pity not to 'ave plooms. I 'ad--"

There were footsteps on the stairs: then a stumble and a testy word. Mrs. Curtis peered over into the gathering dark. "Is it the doctor, sir?" she asked. It was the doctor's assistant; and Mrs. Manders tramped up to the next landing as the door of the sick-room took him in.

For five minutes the stairs were darker than ever. Then the assistant, a very young man, came out again, followed by the old woman with a candle. Mrs. Manders listened in the upper dark. "He's sinking fast," said the assistant. "He _must_ have a stimulant. Dr. Mansell ordered port wine. Where is it?" Mrs. Curtis mumbled dolorously. "I tell you he _must_ have it," he averred with unprofessional emphasis (his qualification was only a month old). "The man can't take solid food, and his strength must be kept up somehow. Another day may make all the difference. Is it because you can't afford it?" "It's a expense--sich a expense, doctor," the old woman pleaded. "An' wot with 'arf-pints o' milk an'--" She grew inarticulate, and mumbled dismally.

"But he must have it, Mrs. Curtis, if it's your last shilling: it's the only way. If you mean you absolutely haven't the money--" And he paused a little awkwardly. He was not a wealthy young man--wealthy young men do not devil for East End doctors--but he was conscious of a certain haul of sixpences at nap the night before; and, being inexperienced, he did not foresee the career of persecution whereon he was entering at his own expense and of his own motion. He produced five shillings: "If you absolutely haven't the money, why--take this and get a bottle--good: not at a public-house. But mind, _at once_. He should have had it before."

It would have interested him, as a matter of coincidence, to know that his principal had been guilty of the selfsame indiscretion--even the amount was identical--on that landing the day before. But, as Mrs. Curtis said nothing of this, he floundered down the stair and out into the wetter mud, pondering whether or not the beloved son of a Congregational minister might take full credit for a deed of charity on the proceeds of sixpenny nap. But Mrs. Curtis puffed her wrinkles, and shook her head sagaciously as she carried in her candle. From the room came a clink as of money falling into a teapot. And Mrs. Manders went about her business.

The door was shut, and the stair a pit of blackness. Twice a lodger passed down, and up and down, and still it did not open. Men and women walked on the lower flights, and out at the door, and in again. From the street a shout or a snatch of laughter floated up the pit. On the pavement footsteps rang crisper and fewer, and from the bottom passage there were sounds of stagger and sprawl. A demented old clock buzzed divers hours at random, and was rebuked every twenty minutes by the regular tread of a policeman on his beat. Finally, somebody shut the street-door with a great bang, and the street was muffled. A key turned inside the door on the landing, but that was all. A feeble light shone for hours along the crack below, and then went out. The crazy old clock went buzzing on, but nothing left that room all night. Nothing that opened the door....

When next the key turned, it was to Mrs. Manders's knock, in the full morning; and soon the two women came out on the landing together, Mrs. Curtis with a shapeless clump of bonnet. "Ah, 'e's a lovely corpse," said Mrs. Manders. "Like wax. So was my 'usband."

"I must be stirrin'," croaked the old woman, "an' go about the insurance an' the measurin' an' that. There's lots to do."

"Ah, there is. 'Oo are you goin' to 'ave,--Wilkins? I 'ad Wilkins. Better than Kedge, _I_ think: Kedge's mutes dresses rusty, an' their trousis is frayed. If you was thinkin' of 'avin' mutes--"

"Yus, yus,"--with a palsied nodding,--"I'm a-goin' to 'ave mutes: I can do it respectable, thank Gawd!"

"And the plooms?"

"Ay, yus, and the plooms too. They ain't sich a great expense, after all."

SQUIRE NAPPER.

I.

Bill Napper was a heavy man of something between thirty-five and forty. His moleskin trousers were strapped below the knees, and he wore his coat loose on his back, with the sleeves tied across his chest. The casual observer set him down a navvy, but Mrs. Napper punctiliously made it known that he was "in the paving"; which meant that he was a pavior. He lived in Canning Town, and was on a footpath job at West Ham (Allen was the contractor) when he won and began to wear the nickname "Squire."

Daily at the stroke of twelve from the neighboring church, Bill Napper's mates let drop rammer, trowel, spade, and pick, and turned toward a row of basins, tied in blue-and-red handkerchiefs, and accompanied of divers tin cans with smoky bottoms. Bill himself looked toward the street corner for the punctual Polly bearing his own dinner fresh and hot; for home was not far, and Polly, being thirteen, had no school now.

One day Polly was nearly ten minutes late. Bill, at first impatient, grew savage, and thought wrathfully on the strap on its nail by the kitchen-dresser. But at the end of the ten minutes Polly came, bringing a letter as well as the basin-load of beef and cabbage. A young man had left it, she said, after asking many ill-mannered questions. The letter was addressed "W. Napper, Esq.," with a flourish; the words, "By hand," stood in the corner of the envelope; and on the flap at the back were the embossed characters "T. & N." These things Bill Napper noted several times over, as he turned the letter about in his hand.

"Seems to me you'll 'ave to open it after all," said one of Bill's mates; and he opened it, setting back his hat as a preparation to serious study. The letter was dated from Old Jewry, and ran thus:--

"_Re_ B. NAPPER _deceased_.

"DEAR SIR,--We have a communication in this matter from our correspondents at Sydney, New South Wales, in respect to testamentary dispositions under which you benefit. We shall be obliged if you can make it convenient to call at this office any day except Saturday between two and four.--Your obedient servants,

"TIMS & NORTON."