Off in the darkness I heard a woman squeal, then say, with a giggle, “Keep yer ’ands hoff!” A chorus of male laughter followed her outburst.
“Yes, it’s high time we got home,” I said, reaching for my ale. I hadn’t touched a drop of it, wanting to be ready for whatever might happen. Now I drained it in two drafts, though it was hardly the best quality. Mr. Clemens (who had a bit of a head start on me) finished his at almost the same time. I put my empty tankard on the counter and we turned to leave the disreputable pub.
“ ’Ere, ye’ll not go hout so heasy,” said a gruff voice behind me, and a heavy hand fell on my shoulder. With a sigh I stopped and looked back over my shoulder. There stood the large man who had scowled at us while we waited for our drinks. His face was very red, and his shirt and trousers were soiled from whatever work he had done that day—perhaps for the last several days. From the look of his arms, the work involved a good bit of heavy lifting.
I tried to keep my voice calm. “Excuse me, friend, but I have had a long hard day. I think we would both be happier if I went on home and left you with your friends.” It was exactly what I felt, and I sincerely hoped it would suffice to get us out of the place without any more trouble.
The fellow was not interested in being conciliated. He began railing at me, working himself up to a fighting furor. He was close enough for me to smell his breath, which reeked of fried fish and more ale than was healthy for him. “Too good for the likes of us, are you? You bloody toffs drinks your pint and shakes the dust hoff your feet, does you? We’ll teach you to sneer at the workin’ man.” He cocked a ham-sized fist and took aim at my jaw.
“ ’Arry! We’ll ’ave none o’ that,” came a cry from somewhere behind him, but it was too late. I ducked under his drunken swing and planted three solid punches to his midsection before he could set himself for another assault. His eyes rolled up into his head and he went down like a rag doll.
I stepped back to give him room, but I could see that he was not about to get up for some time. “I’m sorry,” I said, as much to the tavernkeeper as to him or to the now silent crowd. I held my hands out to my sides, palms open. “I would have walked away if he’d let me. You saw it. I don’t pick fights, but a man has to defend himself.”
“That’s hall right, Yank,” said the tavernkeeper, who had come out to the front of the counter. “You done wot you ’ad to do, and nothin’ more. ’Arry won’t bother you, and won’t nobody else, if they wants anythin’ more to drink ’ere. You go your way, and that’ll be that.”
I was about to say something more, but Mr. Clemens took my elbow and said, “You heard the man, Wentworth. Let’s get out of here while we still can.”
That seemed the best advice I’d had all day, and so I followed it.
20
“Jesus, Wentworth! I didn’t know you had it in you,” Mr. Clemens said for the third time since we had left The Painted Lady. He looked sideways at me with an expression I could not quite read, though it seemed to contain a large admixture of surprise. After my one-sided fight with Harry, the barroom bully in the unsavory tavern, we had hurried away from the place—“That big ox doesn’t worry me, but he just might have friends,” my employer had said, and I needed no urging to put any possible pursuit behind me. Any friends of Harry might not confine themselves to bare fists. But we made it home without incident.
Mrs. Clemens and the girls had already retired. I had put a large kettle of water to heat up on the kitchen stove, to fill a tub for me to soak my weary and battered limbs before retiring, but it would be some time before it was warm enough. For now, we sat in the parlor, sipping Mr. Clemens’s whisky—mine liberally diluted with soda water. We thought it might still be possible to make some sense of what we had learned today—and to decide whether any of it pointed to something useful.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Are you surprised that I managed to overcome that bully?”
“Not so much that,” said Mr. Clemens. “You’re a big man, but I never saw you acting like a big man. Until now, every time I saw you use your strength it was to protect me—like this afternoon, when Tony Parkhurst came at us with his cane. He wasn’t after you, he was after me, and you just happened to be in the way. But tonight, that drunken ignoramus wanted to take a bit out of your hide—and you put him on the floor before he could get started. I always wondered when you would realize you can handle yourself in a fight, and now I’ve seen it twice in one day. I hope it isn’t going to change you from the nice young boy I hired to be my secretary.”
“I haven’t changed, sir,” I said. “To tell the truth, I was worried that the man I fought might come after you if I didn’t stop him first. He wasn’t looking for a fair fight, you know.”
“Nor a clean one, either,” he agreed. “You’re lucky you downed him before he grabbed a broken bottle, or had one of his chums club you with a chair. And I’d probably have gotten bushwhacked if I’d done anything but watch ’em work you over. So I reckon I owe you my thanks again—that’s the second time today. I’d give
