09 Not George Washington

We laughed together at the notion.

“Poor old Alf!” said Sidney Price.

“Now you probably know a good deal about Society?”

“Rath_er_” said Sidney. “They’re a hot lot. My word! Saw The Walls of Jericho three times. Gives it ‘em pretty straight, that does. Visits of Elizabeth, too. Chase me! Used to think some of us chaps in the ‘Moon’ were a bit O.T., but we aren’t in it—not in the same street. Chaps, I mean, who’d call a girl behind the bar by her Christian name as soon as look at you. One chap I knew used to give the girl at the cash-desk of the ‘Mecca’ he went to bottles of scent. Bottles of it—regular! ‘Here you are, Tottie,’ he used to say, ‘here’s another little donation from yours truly.’ Kissed her once. Slap in front of everybody. Saw him do it. But, bless you, they’d think nothing of that in the Smart Set. Ever read ‘God’s Good Man’? There’s a book! My stars! Lets you see what goes on. Scorchers they are.”

“That’s just what my dialogues point out. I can count on you, then?”

He said I could. He was an intelligent young man, and he gave me to understand that all would be well. He would carry the job through on the strict Q.T. He closely willingly with my offer of ten per cent, thus affording a striking contrast to the grasping Hatton. He assured me he had found literary chaps not half bad. Had occasionally had an idea of writing a bit himself.

We parted on good terms, and I was pleased to think that I was placing my “Dialogues of Mayfair” and my “London and Country House Tales” in really competent and appreciative hands.

Chapter 14

THE THIRD GHOST (James Orlebar Cloyster’s narrative continued)

There only remained now my serious verse, of which I turned out an enormous quantity. It won a ready acceptance in many quarters, notably the St. Stephen’s Gazette. Already I was beginning to oust from their positions on that excellent journal the old crusted poetesses who had supplied it from its foundation with verse. The prices they paid on the St. Stephen’s were in excellent taste. In the musical world, too, I was making way rapidly. Lyrics of the tea-and-muffin type streamed from my pen. “Sleep whilst I Sing, Love,” had brought me in an astonishing amount of money, in spite of the music-pirates. It was on the barrel-organs. Adults hummed it. Infants crooned it in their cots. Comic men at music-halls opened their turns by remarking soothingly to the conductor of the orchestra, “I’m going to sing now, so you go to sleep, love.” In a word, while the boom lasted, it was a little gold-mine to me.

Thomas Blake was as obviously the man for me here as Sidney Price had been in the case of my Society dialogues. The public would find something infinitely piquant in the thought that its most sentimental ditties were given to it by the horny-handed steerer of a canal barge. He would be greeted as the modern Burns. People would ask him how he thought of his poems, and he would say, “Oo-er!” and they would hail him as delightfully original. In the case of Thomas Blake I saw my earnings going up with a bound. His personality would be a noble advertisement.

He was aboard the Ashlade or Lechton on the Cut, so I was informed by Kit. Which information was not luminous to me. Further inquiries, however, led me to the bridge at Brentford, whence starts that almost unknown system of inland navigation which extends to Manchester and Birmingham.

Here I accosted at a venture a ruminative bargee. “Tom Blake?” he repeated, reflectively. “Oh! ‘e’s been off this three hours on a trip to Braunston. He’ll tie up tonight at the Shovel.”

“Where’s the Shovel?”

“Past Cowley, the Shovel is.” This was spoken in a tired drawl which was evidently meant to preclude further chit-chat. To clinch things, he slouched away, waving me in an abstracted manner to the towpath.

I took the hint. It was now three o’clock in the afternoon. Judging by the pace of the barges I had seen, I should catch Blake easily before nightfall. I set out briskly. An hour’s walking brought me to Hanwell, and I was glad to see a regular chain of locks which must have considerably delayed the Ashlade and Lechton.

The afternoon wore on. I went steadily forward, making inquiries as to Thomas’s whereabouts from the boats which met me, and always hearing that he was still ahead.

Footsore and hungry, I overtook him at Cowley. The two boats were in the lock. Thomas and a lady, presumably his wife, were ashore. On the Ashlade‘s raised cabin cover was a baby. Two patriarchal-looking boys were respectively at the Ashlade‘s and Lechton‘s tillers. The lady was attending to the horse.

The water in the lock rose gradually to a higher level.

“Hold them tillers straight!” yelled Thomas. At which point I saluted him. He was a little blank at first, but when I reminded him of our last meeting his face lit up at once. “Why, you’re the mister wot–-“

“Nuppie!” came in a shrill scream from the lady with the horse. “Nuppie!”

“Yes, Ada!” answered the boy on the Ashlade.

“Liz ain’t tied to the can. D’you want ‘er to be drownded? Didn’t I tell you to be sure and tie her up tight?”

“So I did, Ada. She’s untied herself again. Yes, she ‘as. ‘Asn’t she, Albert?”

This appeal for corroboration was directed to the other small boy on the Lechton. It failed signally.

“No, you did not tie Liz to the chimney. You know you never, Nuppie.”

“Wait till we get out of this lock!” said Nuppie, earnestly.

The water pouring in from the northern sluice was forcing the tillers violently against the southern sluice gates.

“If them boys,” said Tom Blake in an overwrought voice, “lets them tillers go round, it’s all up with my pair o’ boats. Lemme do it, you–-” The rest of the sentence was mercifully lost in the thump with which Thomas’s feet bounded on the Ashlade‘s cabin-top. He made Liz fast to the circular foot of iron chimney projecting from the boards; then, jumping back to the land, he said, more in sorrow than in anger: “Lazy little brats! an’ they’ve ‘ad their tea, too.”