“Ho, that’s yer little game, is it?” said the policeman. “Move on, d’yer hear? Pop off.”
“I will,” said Blake. “I’ll never do it again. I promise faithful never to do it again. I’ve found a fren’.”
“Do you know this covey?” asked the policeman.
“Deny it, if yer dare,” said Blake. “Jus’ you deny it, that’s orl, an’ I’ll tell the parson.”
“Slightly, constable,” I said. “I mean, I’ve seen him before.”
“Then you’d better take ‘im off if you don’t want ‘im locked up.”
“‘Im want me locked up? We’re bosum fren’s, ain’t we, old dear?” said Blake, linking his arm in mine and dragging me away with him. Behind us, the policeman was shunting the spectators. Oh, it was excessively displeasing to any man of culture, I can assure you.
How we got along Shaftesbury I don’t know. It’s a subject I do not care to think about.
By leaning heavily on my shoulder and using me, so to speak, as ballast, drunken Blake just managed to make progress, I cannot say unostentatiously, but at any rate not so noticeably as to be taken into custody.
I didn’t know, mind you, where we were going to, and I didn’t know when we were going to stop.
In this frightful manner of progression we had actually gained sight of Piccadilly Circus when all of a sudden a voice hissed in my ear: “Sidney Price, I am disappointed in you.” Hissed, mind you. I tell you, I jumped. Thought I’d bitten my tongue off at first.
If drunken Blake hadn’t been clutching me so tight you could have knocked me down with a feather: bowled me over clean. It startled Blake a goodish bit, too. All along the Avenue he’d been making just a quiet sort of snivelling noise. Crikey, if he didn’t speak up quite perky. “O, my fren’,” he says. “So drunk and yet so young.” Meaning me, if you please.
It was too thick.
“You blighter,” I says. “You
I must have been a bit excited, you see, to say that. Then I looked round to see who the other individual was. You’ll hardly credit me when I tell you it was the Reverend. But it was. Honest truth, it was the Rev. John Hatton and no error. His face fairly frightened me. Simply blazing: red: fair scarlet. He kept by the side of us and let me have it all he could. “I thought you knew better, Price,” that’s what he said. “I thought you knew better. Here are you, a friend of mine, a member of the Club, a man I’ve trusted, going about the streets of London in a bestial state of disgusting intoxication. That’s enough in itself. But you’ve done worse than that. You’ve lured poor Blake into intemperance. Yes, with all your advantages of education and up-bringing, you deliberately set to work to put temptation in the way of poor, weak, hardworking Blake. Drunkenness is Blake’s besetting sin, and you–-“
Blake had been silently wagging his head, as pleased as Punch at being called hardworking. But here he shoved in his oar.
“‘Ow dare yer!” he burst out. “I ain’t never tasted a drop o’ beer in my natural. Born an’ bred teetotal, that’s wot I was, and don’t yew forget it, neither.”
“Blake,” said the Reverend, “that’s not the truth.”
“Call me a drunkard, do yer?” replied Blake. “Go on. Say it again. Say I’m a blarsted liar, won’t yer? Orlright, then I shall run away.”
And with that he wrenched himself away from me and set off towards the Circus. He was trying to run, but his advance took the form of semicircular sweeps all over the pavement. He had circled off so unexpectedly that he had gained some fifty yards before we realised what was happening. “We must stop him,” said the Reverend.
“As I’m intoxicated,” I said, coldly (being a bit fed up with things), “I should recommend you stopping him, Mr. Hatton.”
“I’ve done you an injustice,” said the Reverend.
“You have,” said I.
Blake was now nearing a policeman. “Stop him!” we both shouted, starting to run forward.
The policeman brought Blake to a standstill.
“Friend of yours?” said the constable when we got up to him.
“Yes,” said the Reverend.
“You ought to look after him better,” said the constable.
“Well, really, I like that!” said the Reverend; but he caught my eye and began laughing. “Our best plan,” he said, “is to get a four-wheeler and go down to the Temple. There’s some supper there. What do you say?”
“I’m on,” I said, and to the Temple we accordingly journeyed.
Tom Blake was sleepy and immobile. We spread him without hindrance on a sofa, where he snored peacefully whilst the Reverend brought eggs and a slab of bacon out of a cupboard in the kitchen. He also brought a frying- pan, and a bowl of fat.
“Is your cooking anything extra good?” he asked.
“No, Mr. Hatton,” I answered, rather stiff; “I’ve never cooked anything in my life.” I may not be in a very high position in the “Moon,” but I’ve never descended to menial’s work yet.
For about five minutes after that the Reverend was too busy to speak. Then he said, without turning his head away from the hissing pan, “I wish you’d do me a favour, Price.”
“Certainly,” I said.
“Look in the cupboard and see whether there are any knives, forks, plates, and a loaf and a bit of butter, will
