“No,” said Paul.
“Powdered glass,” said Flossie shrilly, “in his coffee.”
“Turkish coffee,” said Dingy.
“To work!” said the Doctor; “we have a lot to see to.”
It was raining again by the time that Paul and Mr. Prendergast reached the playing-fields. The boys were waiting for them in bleak little groups, shivering at the unaccustomed austerity of bare knees and open necks. Clutterbuck had fallen down in the mud and was crying quietly behind a tree.
“How shall we divide them?” said Paul.
“I don’t know,” said Mr. Prendergast. “Frankly, I deplore the whole business.”
Philbrick appeared in an overcoat and a bowler hat.
“Miss Fagan says she’s very sorry, but she’s burnt the hurdles and the jumping posts for firewood. She thinks she can hire some in Llandudno for tomorrow. The Doctor says you must do the best you can till then. I’ve got to help the gardeners put up the blasted tent.”
“I think that, if anything, sports are rather worse than concerts,” said Mr. Prendergast. “They at least happen indoors. Oh dear! oh dear! How wet I am getting. I should have got my boots mended if I’d known this was going to happen.”
“Please sir,” said Beste-Chetwynde, “we’re all getting rather cold. Can we start?”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Paul. “What do you want to do?”
“Well, we ought to divide up into heats and then run a race.”
“All right! Get into four groups.”
This took some time. They tried to induce Mr. Prendergast to run too.
“The first race will be a mile. Prendy, will you look after them? I want to see if Philbrick and I can fix up anything for the jumping.”
“But what am I to do?” said Mr. Prendergast.
“Just make each group run to the Castle and back and take the names of the first two in each heat. It’s quite simple.”
“I’ll try,” he said sadly.
Paul and Philbrick went into the pavilion together.
“Me, a butler,” said Philbrick, “made to put up tents like a blinking Arab!”
“Well, it’s a change,” said Paul.
“It’s a change for me to be a butler,” said Philbrick. “I wasn’t made to be anyone’s servant.”
“No, I suppose not.”
“I expect you wonder how it is that I come to be here?” said Philbrick.
“No,” said Paul firmly, “nothing of the kind. I don’t in the least want to know anything about you; d’you hear?”
“I’ll tell you,” said Philbrick; “it was like this—”
“I don’t want to hear your loathsome confessions; can’t you understand?”
“It isn’t a loathsome confession,” said Philbrick. “It’s a story of love. I think it is without exception the most beautiful story I know.
“I daresay you may have heard of Sir Solomon Philbrick?”
“No,” said Paul.
“What, never heard of old Solly Philbrick?”
“No; why?”
“Because that’s me. And I can tell you this. It’s a pretty well-known name across the river. You’ve only to say Solly Philbrick, of the Lamb and Flag, anywhere south of Waterloo Bridge to see what fame is. Try it.”
“I will one day.”
“Mind you, when I say Sir Solomon Philbrick, that’s only a bit of fun, see? That’s what the boys call me. Plain Mr. Solomon Philbrick I am, really, just like you or him,” with a jerk of the thumb towards the playing-fields, from which Mr. Prendergast’s voice could be heard crying weakly: “Oh, do get into line, you beastly boys,” “but Sir Solomon’s what they call me. Out of respect, see?”
“When I say, ‘Are you ready? Go!’ I want you to go,” Mr. Prendergast could be heard saying. “Are you ready? Go! Oh, why don’t you go?” and his voice became drowned in shrill cries of protest.
“Mind you,” went on Philbrick, “I haven’t always been in the position that I am now. I was brought up rough, damned rough. Ever heard speak of ‘Chick’ Philbrick?
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“No, I suppose he was before your time. Useful little boxer, though. Not first-class, on account of his drinking so much and being short in the arm. Still, he used to earn five pound a night at the Lambeth Stadium. Always popular with the boys, he was, even when he was so full he couldn’t hardly fight. He was my dad, a good-hearted sort of fellow but rough, as I was telling you; he used to knock my poor mother about something awful. Got jugged for it twice, but my! he took it out of her when he got out. There aren’t many left like him nowadays, what with education and whisky the price it is.
“ ‘Chick’ was all for getting me on in the sporting world, and before I left school I was earning a few shillings a week holding the sponge at the Stadium on Saturday nights. It was there I met Toby Cruttwell. Perhaps you ain’t never heard of him, neither?”
“No, I am terribly afraid I haven’t. I’m not very well up in sporting characters.”
“Sporting! What, Toby Cruttwell a sporting character! You make me laugh. Toby Cruttwell,” said Philbrick with renewed emphasis, “what brought off the Buller diamond robbery of 1912, and the Amalgamated Steel Trust robbery of 1910, and the Isle of Wight burglaries in 1914! He wasn’t no sporting character, Toby wasn’t. Sporting character! D’you know what he done to Alf Larrigan, what tried to put it over on one of his girls? I’ll tell you. Toby had a doctor in tow at the time, name of Peterfield; lives in Harley Street, with a swell lot of patients. Well, Toby knew a thing about him. He’d done in one of Toby’s girls what went to him because she was going to have a kid. Well, Toby knew that, so he had to do what Toby told him, see?
“Toby didn’t kill Alf; that wasn’t his way. Toby never killed no one except a lot of blinking Turks the time they gave him the V.C. But he got hold of him and took him to Dr. Peterfield, and—” Philbrick’s voice sank to a whisper.
“Second heat, get ready. Now, if you don’t go when I say ‘Go,’ I shall disqualify you all; d’you hear? Are you ready? Go!”
“… He
