The Sailor Part 21

The Sailor nodded.

"If you'll take my advice, young feller, you'll go to Dago and Rogers and get one o' them blue suitings as they shows in the winder, neat but not gaudy, cut in the West End style. I'm thinkin' o' gettin' one meself; you simply can't help lookin' a gentleman in one o' them, with a spotted tie and a double turnover collar."

"Yep," said the Sailor, to whom all this was as intelligible as a play of Sophocles.

"You'll also want a nice neat Gladstone."

"Yep," said the Sailor abjectly.

"Brown paper parcel and your boots tied on by string at the end o' it won't do in this scene, young feller."

"No," said the Sailor.

"Got to dress the shop winder a bit in this act." A strange inner light was beginning to gleam in the eyes of Ginger. "Nice new Gladstone, pair o' nice wide knickers cut saucy round the knee, and a set o' new laces in your boots. And I'm thinking one o' those all-wool white sweaters you can get at Tallow's might turn out a good investment."

The Sailor nodded feebly.

"Never spile the s.h.i.+p for a ha'porth o' tar. Allus dress the part.

Never stint a coat o' paint for Mrs. Jarley's Waxworks."

The Sailor nodded.

"You've got to learn to knock the public silly," concluded Ginger, with a ferocity almost frightening, "if you are ever goin' to cut any ice on this bleedin' planet."

Utterly nonplussed, the Sailor went early to bed with his shame.

IX

In the opinion of c.o.x's Piece, "lift" was not the word for the bearing of Ginger on the morrow at the mid-day gathering. It was pardonable, no doubt; Ginger was Ginger, a being apart. Twopenny Sturgess wouldn't half have had it dusted out of him. It wouldn't have been stood from Gogo, or Hogan, or Foxey Green, but with Ginger it was different. It was realized in a way that was almost sinister by the cognoscenti of c.o.x's Piece that if there was such a thing existing in the world, Ginger was really and truly It.

Nevertheless, Pouncer Rogers was so unwise as to put into words the unspoken thought that was in every mind when he told Ginger bluntly to his face "that he'd believe it when he seed it."

"Yer call me a liar," said Ginger, drawing himself up to his full height of five feet six inches with remarkable dignity.

"I said I'd believe it when I seed it," said the heroic Pouncer.

"Sailor here read the letter," said Ginger, underplaying from the sheer strength of his hand. "Didn't you, Sailor boy? _You_ read d.i.n.kie Dawson's letter?"

"Yep," said the miserable Sailor.

"An' didn't he say a day's wages and railway fares both ways?"

The answer of the Sailor was understood to be in the affirmative.

"First cla.s.s, o' course," said Pouncer, with a deliberate wink at Gogo and Twopenny.

Ginger's hand was so full that he could afford to treat the observation on its merits.

"_Third_ cla.s.s, Pouncer. It was _third_, Sailor boy?" The appeal to Sailor boy had a superb touch of condescension. Pouncer would cheerfully have given a week's wages for the privilege of slaying Ginger.

"Yep--third," muttered the miserable one.

"Ginger Jukes," said the defiant Pouncer, "if you want my 'pinion, you don't know d.i.n.kie Dawson at all. That's my 'pinion."

"Your opinion was not _ast_, young Pouncer." Ginger's air was that of a Napoleon. "An' when anyone pleadin' well _asts_ it, Pouncer, you can give it. Perhaps you'll say that Sailor didn't read d.i.n.kie's letter?"

"So he says," sneered Pouncer.

The Sailor winced, but the cognoscenti were much too busy to notice him.

"You are never goin' to call _him_ a liar," said Ginger.

"I call him nothing."

"You had better not," said Ginger, who noticed that Pouncer was drawing in his horns a bit. "_I_ can afford to take your lip, young Pouncer Rogers. I'm used to it an' you are no cla.s.s, anyway, but if you call the Sailor here a liar, he'll have to put it acrost you. Won't you, Sailor boy?"

No reply from the Sailor.

"I call him nothing," said Pouncer, coming back a bit at this rather unexpected silence on the part of the Sailor. "But I simply says he pleadin' well didn't read no pleadin' letter from d.i.n.kie Dawson, that's all I simply says."

"Young Pouncer," said Ginger, "you have called the Sailor a liar." He turned to his protege with the anxious air of an extraordinarily polite Samaritan. "I'll hold your coat, Sailor boy. You've took too much already from the likes o' him. Give me your coat. You are bound to put it acrost him now."

Ginger looked around magisterially; the cognoscenti concurred as one.

Already the Sailor's coat was in Ginger's hand. In the next moment he had rolled up the sleeves of the Sailor's blue jersey, remarking as he did so, "If ever I see a chap on his bended knees a-lookin' for trouble, it's this here young Pouncer. Sailor boy, if you'll be ruled by me, you won't half give him his gruel."

"It's more than you can, Ginger Jukes," said Pouncer, with ill-timed and unworthy defiance.

Ginger was aware of that fact. In the first place, fighting was not his long suit. He had too much intellect to love so vulgar a pastime merely for its own sake. Not only was it violent and dangerous, but it seldom meant anything in particular when you were through with it. All the same, it had its uses. Pouncer had been getting above himself for some little time now. If he didn't soon receive a proper licking from somebody, the hegemony of c.o.x's Piece might cease to be a sinecure.

"His left's fairly useful," whispered Ginger, as he brought his man up to the scratch. "But that's all he's got. Now mind you punch a hole right through him."

It was a rather disappointing sc.r.a.p. But for this it would be unfair to blame either Pouncer or the Sailor. The fiasco was due to the unexpected, unwarranted, thoroughly ill-timed, and almost unprecedented behavior of the Metropolitan Police, who in the person of a certain Constable Y28 promptly moved on the combatants while they were sparring for position. He was obviously a young constable who had not quite shaken down into his duties.

"It'll have to be a draw," announced Ginger a little lower down the road, while Constable Y28 stood watching the ebb and flow of the cognoscenti. But it may have been that Ginger's verdict was governed less by a consideration of the att.i.tude of Constable Y28, than by the fact that Pouncer's ring-craft appeared to have improved considerably since Ginger had last seen it in action. For obvious reasons, it would not do for the Sailor to meet his Waterloo just then.

"Young Pouncer," said Ginger, as a final and dramatic parting shot, "you've called the Sailor a liar, but all the same, we can neither on us play next Sat.u.r.day for the Isle of Dogs Albion. An' if on Sat.u.r.day mornin' you take the trouble to roll up at the station about five minutes to seven, you will flaming well see the reason."

"Seein' ain't always believin," said Pouncer.

In spite, however, of that unchallengeable statement, c.o.x's Piece was well represented at the up platform to London Bridge at five minutes to seven, or thereabouts, on the morning of Sat.u.r.day, November 3. These enthusiasts, touched with scepticism as they were, deserved well of fate. It was not that they sympathized with Pouncer Rogers in his ign.o.ble point of view; they believed that for the first time in its brief and rather checkered history, the Isle of Dogs Albion F.C. was coming into its own.

An impressive sight met the faithful who were present on the up platform to London Bridge at a few minutes to seven on the morning of Sat.u.r.day. Then it was that Ginger and the Sailor were seen in the booking-hall taking their tickets for Blackhampton. Each carried a brand-new and decidedly elegant Gladstone bag, brilliant of hue and affirming its owners.h.i.+p in bold and clear letters; W.H.J.--H.H.

Moreover, both Ginger and the Sailor wore a brand-new cap of black and white tweed, a brand-new overcoat with velvet collar, a brand-new blue suit, undoubted masterpieces of Jago and Brown, 25 The Arcade, and at Finsbury Circus, the whole surmounted by l.u.s.trous boots, spotted necktie and spotless double collar. The effect was heightened by a previous evening's haircut and a close matutinal shave.

Those of the faithful who had a.s.sembled on the up platform to wish _bon voyage_ to their club mates on their journey to High Olympus were rather staggered by the sight of them. Had the goalkeeper and the right full back of the Isle of Dogs Albion been going forth to play for the first team of the Villa itself, they could not have dressed the part more superbly. Such stage management, its inception due to the genius of Ginger, its execution, the fruit of the Sailor's fabulous wealth, filled their friends with awe. The unworthy doubt cast by Pouncer upon Ginger's _bona fides_ brought its own Nemesis. Pouncer was so completely overthrown by the spectacular appearance on the up platform that he sneaked out of the station _via_ alternate doors of the refreshment buffet, an illegal crossing of the main line, and a final exit by the booking-hall of the down platform.