and Gentiles shoulder to shoulder in a curious fraternizing which so often led to many people, all self-righteous, drawing the wrong conclusions.
He almost forgot Lila, Countess Hollern, and over-shot his stop, so that he had to walk back along the crowded pavements, with trams clattering past him and shopkeepers’ touts watching him hopefully, for the rich sometimes came to the East End to pick up “bargains”, and complained when they were disappointed. There were two sides to every bargain in the East End.
One thing was noticeable; no one seemed to recognize him.
At one time he could not have walked along this thoroughfare without being noticed, spoken to, nodded at, pointed out and certainly scowled at ferociously. It was a reflection on the rarity of his visits of late.
At last he reached Eddie Day’s public house, behind which there was a gymnasium, for Eddie Day, a large man now running to fat, had been a boxer in his youth and still loved the sport. Chopping blocks and coming champions were nursed under his benevolent wing. Those who could afford to pay for training paid, those who could not were trained all the same, and few failed to recompense Eddie Day when they began to earn money.
There were only three people in the public bar, and no one was behind it. The occupants looked up at Rollison, and as quickly looked away. All were strangers to him, and all were suspicious of a well-dressed man of Rollison’s appearance in the bar.
Then Eddie Day waddled behind the bar. His face was pale, his eyelids drooped, he looked tired—as he always did—and his little ears, delicate almost as a child’s were prominent only because he was nearly bald.
“Hallo, Eddie,” said Rollison.
Eddie looked up—and his little mouth gaped. He raised both hands, kept staring, then broke into a smile which seemed to double the size of his mouth, and brought his hands crashing down on the bar.
“Bless my ‘eart an’ soul, if it ain’t Mr. Ar! Well corlummee, if it ain’t Mr. Ar! Well, I never did!” He took Rollison’s hand in his vast fingers and squeezed it. “I never did!” he said, wheezing. “I thought you’d deserted us, Mr. Ar, ever since the curate business you ‘aven’t put your nose inside the place. Good boy, that parson, though I say.it myself—do you know what?”
“What?” asked Rollison, greatly pleased.
“My ole woman’s deserted the Army, an’ now she goes to church, that’s a fack. Proper looks dahn on them brass-blowing buglers, she do, and her uniform—she just won’t put it on. I bought ‘er a n’Ancient an’ Modern fer ‘er birfday, you know, one wiv music, and she was as prahd as punch of it, proper prahd. Gets a bit monotonous singing ‘ymns
“The same.”
“Good old mild and bitter,” said Eddie, taking a glass. “I remember the first mild-and-bitter you ‘ad in my ‘ouse, Mr. Ar, same as if it was yesterday. “Ere, I’ll tell you what—come into the parlour and meet the ole woman again. She’ll be tickled to death to see you.” He wheezed in high good humour, and added: “You know the way!”
Sitting in the parlour at the back of the pub, Eddie Day regaled Rollison with the local gossip, hoped that he would soon be about more often, said that Mrs. Eddie would soon be in, and then, when he seemed too breathless to talk any more, he leaned forward and said with a broad wink:
“What’s on your mind, Mr. Ar?”
Rollison laughed. “You’re a deep old scoundrel. Eddie!”
“You didn’t fink I fought you’d come to say ‘ow are yer at this time o’ day, did yer?” asked Eddie, with a shake of his head. “I know better’n that. If you’d come for that you would ‘ave chose to-night, when all the boys is abaht. Anythink much?”
“I don’t yet know,” said Rollison. “There was a little fellow picked up by the police last night—or early this morning. Known to use a knife.”
“Larry Bingham,” said Eddie promptly, and scowled. “Nasty little piece o’ work, that Bingham. I wouldn’t raise a finger to ‘elp ‘im, Mr. Ar, an’ that’s the truth. “Ad a cut at a lady in the West End, didn’t ‘e?”
“So that’s reached you,” said Rollison.
“Cor strike a light, we don’t miss much!” said Eddie. “Friend o’ yours? The lady, I mean?”
“Yes.”
“Dirty little tyke,” said Eddie, and then showed some alarm. “Larry, I means. Well. I dunno that I can ‘elp yer much, but
I do know this. He owed Malloy a pony. Usually does a job to pay off ‘is debts, Larry does, never got a penny to bless hisself wiv. You’d think a man would ‘ave the common to layoff the racket when it don’t show a divvy, wouldn’t you, Mr. Ar? I mean, I can understand a man keeping at the game if he’s making a good fing aht of it, although I don’t approve of it, mind you; I’m all for law and order. Malloy’s been very flush lately,” he added.
“Do you know whom Malloy’s working for?”
“No,” said Eddie. “He’s a close one, he is, but I’ll tell yer what—Percy Dann lives next door to Malloy, maybe he knows somethink. Should be in any time, ‘e always ‘as ‘is pint before dinner, Percy does. Just a minute, Mr. Ar, I’ll go an’ see if ‘e’s arrived.”
He came back in a few minutes, followed by a painfully thin and ugly man, with a despondent face and dreary brown eyes and an Adam’s apple which moved up and down above his choker. He wore an oily-looking cloth cap at the back of his head, and in his right hand he carried a pint glass.
Eddie said: “Got ‘im for yer, Mr. Ar!”
“Coo lumme, look-oo-it-is,” said Percy Dann, running the words together as if he could not utter them fast enough. “I-never-fought-I’d-live-ter-see-this-day Mister Ar. “Ow are yer?”
He extended a limp hand.
