t Vi iN tV U iN' AND . PELICAN I TUFTS UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES 9090 014 556 183 Wsbster Family Library of Vetefinary McKJkime Cummings School of Veterinary Medfdnaat Tufts University 200 Westbofo Road North Grafton, MA 01636 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN ^irrr^"^ SOME RANDOM REMINISCENCES, SPORTING OR OTHERWISE, OF ARTHUR M. BINSTEAD and ERNEST WELLS (" PITCHER ") ("swears") WRITTEN BY THE FORMER LONDON: BLISS SAND5 & C°- MDCCCXCVIII [J/i Rights Reserved.'] A MORSEL FROM MARTIAL " Arpilctanas mavis habitare tabenias.^'' Little book, and would'st thou then Leave my desk, so cool and quiet, In the busy haunts of men, Amid rival works to riot ? Little book, thou little know'st Half the dangers thou art running ; Critics are in town a host, Would-be wise and can-be cunning. Men of old and middle age, Beardless boys just fresh from college. All will twit thy modest page. All possess the critic's knowledge. When the path seems straight and clear. When thou deem'st the world hath crowned thee. Suddenly the nets appear Wherewithal thy foes have bound thee. But thou weariest of the eye That with loving care would con thee ; Longest o'er the lands to fly. Every youthful blemish on thee. Go ; the guiding hand is stayed, That hath checked thy rash endeavour : — Safer sojourn hadst thou made Here within my desk for ever. C. C. R. To "MASTER" OTHERWISE KNOWN AS JOHN CORLETT Chief of the Pink 'Uiis and Cheeriest of the Old Pelicans THIS MAGNUM OPUS IS Sffectionatelg 2)e&lcate& FOREWORDS Compiled and ivritie7i front merely mercenary motives^ and imtocent of a7iy desire to ins t nee f^ elevate, or i7iform^ the Authors STILL HOPE that, i?t recalli?ig all these arbitrary incidents to life again, not one word has been penned which could sever a friendship or wound an old friend. xii CONTENTS CHAPTER III The starting of the Pelican Club — Opened as "The Star" — The financier kicks the bucket — Swears comes along — The ride to York — A strong club committee — Ole Brer Rabbit — A strange and gruesome incident — A "bird" in July — The Pelican page-boy — Maggie — Swears the discreet tipper — Waiters' wiles — Hugh Drummond's fondness for driving four-wheelers — A leaf from the candidates'-book — A drive to Epsom — Origin of " Boy " — Novices at coaching — Philo- sophy of "the Honourable Hampton Wick" — A cab acci- dent — The downfall of Sir John Bennett — Sir John and " Ducks " Ailesbury — " Ducks " and his groom — Drummy and Sir James Paget — The boxer's benefit that went astray — The hall porter who had notions — The club cooking . . 55 CHAPTER IV Still on at the waiters — A " Cheese " servitor — A moral supper- room ditto — The story of Buzfuz — Pelicans move to Gerrard Street — The Mate's philosophy of boxing — The Author's speculations on the origin of fist-fighting — A glove-fight ten years ago — Alec Roberts and Arthur Bobbett at Paradise Row — An attempt to rush the doors — Enthusiasts on the roof — Chipping between the seconds — Roberts the winner — Police at the PeHcan — " Found the door open" — Fatty Coleman holds the watch — Eccentric time-keeping — No appeal al- lowed — Fatty's philosophy — Box and Cox business — A ma- tutinal peg — Bruges and Farnborough contrasted — Hero worshippers — Nat Langham's opinion — Nat's private trials — I find a Jackson in embryo — The buck-nigger at the " Slave Market " — His method of training — He is pitted against Ted Rich— Exit the " Slave Market " .... 77 CHAPTER V Fishers of men — " The ends crowns all," Troilus and Cressida — Savate — Points of the game — An intei^lude about a duel — Lord Queensberry's savate fighter at the Pelican — The Irish- man's idea of new rules — The Frenchman is knocked out — Jim Smith's opinion — And Swears's — Sir John Astleyand a "dear old chappie" — The "Mate's" repartee — Of those who lend and those who borrow — Last year's Parliamentary Committee — An amateur money-lender strikes the Pelican — And finds customers! — "Fatty" and the Major — "Bob" CONTENTS xiii PAGE Ilope-Johnstone sellshis moustache — An illustration of con- fidence — The art of pawning — All the capital lent out — Vanishing borrowers — The lender goes in deeper — A stable secret — Writting on the club steps — The dear old " Crowner " — The ethics of banking as explained by him — Bufifon in petticoats — A queer story of a provident peer — And of George Alexander Baird — Also of old Bob Bignell — A venerable Shylock neatly done ..... 102 CHAPTER VI When the slump came to the club — Bellamy's action — The judge who knew his Pink ^Un — Definitions of a " nuisance" — Eliza Turner's reasons — An Excise spy — Swears is "pinched " for the fines — But escapes from custody — A begging errand — Rescued ! — The influence of a monied friend — The obliging bums — Hughie lunches — Flying edibles — Boar's head barred — Drummy's pleasing candour — The dying man's beer — Two brands from the burning — Pelican smoking concerts — Solo- mon the impecunious — A remedy for cramp-in-the-kick — Fire at the club — Dickie the Driver and Billie Fitzwilliam subdue it — The landlord levies — A decent old man-in- possession — // Creditorii . . . . . , .127 CHAPTER Vn AVhen the grass grows short — A little moralising — The fall of Bobbie Eldon — Plot-hatching at the Hotel de la Mere Angot — A Noel-tide errand to the tradesmen of Knights- bridge — Two living pictures — The small parcel system — A valentine that pawned — Shifter broke at Monte Carlo — Runs into funds in a queer way — Exiles at Boulogne — Swears retires to Vimerieux — A poultry diet — The new bookmaker — The confrontation — The philosophy of impecuniosity — David Hope-Johnstone under restraint — Peter the Provident — ' ' Jubber's" — The Duke of Hamilton's dinner party — George Goddard — The Rejected of the Insurance Company — Six months to live ! — A heroic, sportmanly resolution — Getting through ;^ 1 56,000 — An ignominious ending — Another man who didn't die when he ought to have done . . . 147 CHAPTER VIII On making good use of the eyes and ears — Flash Kelly on methods of living — And on judges' reputations — A. Romano xiv CONTENTS rACE bets about a clock— And loses— The further lightening of A. Romano's purse — A romantic story of a steak-and-kidney pudding— Ben Harrity's missis — The trap of the friendly cop— A terrible reckoning — Off at a couple of tangents — Sir George Jessel and his h's— Ted Warden uses his ears — The treasured letter from his father — Ted and I go to Henley — And " hear things " — Upon which Ted acts, and forcibly — Another story of a money-grabber — Who got in a funk over the death duties — He realises and distributes his estate — To his subsequent sorrow 17^ CHAPTER IX Les chevaliers (tindustrie — Otherwise "the boys" — The usual moralising preface — " Ready-witted " Ramsbottom — De- scribed as a " brass- finisher" — 'The simpleton and the snide tip — The supposed "Stiff 'Un" rolls home — How Rams- bottom got out of it — The Metamorphosis of Mo Phillips — " The boys" run a young Hebrew into the Members' En- closure — A bad break — ' ' 'Ave a prawn " — Simpson, the slow parter — Taking on the recruits — The Lout's philosophy — " Scissors ! " — A Bracknell bilk — Flash Kelly gets a young officer some brass — The young 'un pines for fun — Kelly con- fronted with the opportunity of a lifetime — He takes posses- sion of the Bank of England — The sentries that were not visited — An undignified ending — Solo-whist in the train — " Tatbox " Tommy— The double-double .... 189 CHAPTER X Tufts of Turf — Veracious odds and ends — Fred Archer — A hurried biography — His win on Big Jemima — And magnificent Re- ward ! — The Stewards' Cup that Laceman didn't win — Archer's gambling — He puts Kitty, the cardseller, on Dutch Oven — The sole reason why the mare was started — The Mate's objection — Kitty collects her winnings — Archer as a collector of pennies — "Bishop" Harris — Archer and Osborne — Light-weights in the city — Racing superstitions — "Plunger" Walton — Ladislas beats Corrie Roy — The playing-card tip comes off — "Kangaroo" Hill — A run of ill omens — Matthew Dawson a sceptic — Joe Cannon another — The luck of some losers — The lost roll found at Sandown — An Alexandra Park parcel — Found in the moon- light — A wily barmaid — And a tempted chambermaid . 212 CONTENTS CHAPTER XI The doughty men of the East — An old lag — A counterfeit coiner — The ingenious barrister — The concertina - playing championship — Boot-finding — Sport and Religion — Ike Lyons, the shkviiel — The attempt to reform him — Fishers of policemen — Swears as a constable — Charlie Bacigalupo's morgue — Some of its occupants — Swears and the smugglers — The triumph of discretion — Les Miserables — The suicide of William Fishenden ..... 235. CHAPTER XII Some racing camp followers — Their wit, industry, domestic pride, and love of home — Their philosophy — Kirkconnel House — An owner's syndicate — The inevitable small beginning — "Knew 'im when he sold race-cards" — The policy of silence — An unkind postcard — Ear-biters at the railway-station — "Repartee" Robbins — The repugnance of Bill Ponderby — A corking Christmas confronts William — An over-inquisitive publican — Bill's diffidence — He "comes it " at last ! — Matador at the Flamingo Club — Bill Mixer's last game — ' ' The Captain's " real hard luck ! — The Hornsey plunger's streak — Shifter rescues Master from a rapless mob — The passing of Mrs Podberry . . . 264 A PINK UN AND A PELICAN CHAPTER I Introductory — Erudition, top-weight — A " horse on the composer" — Swears' first coup — An educational swap — Compulsory tossing — Parting advice — Swears bursts on town — A set of dress-shirts — Moralising and marking-ink — ■ The "Seftons" change hands — Swears enters the law — Coleridge on costs — Yankee judicial errors — The man who mashed the barmaid — And married elsewhere — Revenge — Piling up the agony — Writs of Action — Stranger than fiction — Don Juan feels a draught — "A little cheque" — A parallel case — The tip to the traveller — A daylight denouement — Miss Millington's mind made up — Her departure — " Manchester" seeks advice — Essays to cover his shorts — The mad Barcaldine wins ! — Welshed ! — The grim sequel. IT was over a round table, at which covers had been laid for a dozen in honour of somebody's birthday, that this unpretentious chronicle of bygone happenings was begotten. Swears and I had been monopolising the conversation somewhat — possibly we'd bored 'em a bit — for our kindly host, rising without assistance as the clock chimed eleven, gave it as his unsolicited opinion that two such amusing liars as we were utterly wasted on after-dinner oratory. And these kind words, coming as they did, straight from a generous and fatty heart, fell upon receptive A 2 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN soil. Swears brightened up like one to whom the truth has come late in life. He glanced enquiringly across the epergne at me, and I, interpreting his look correctly, nodded assent. The compact for the book was made without the utterance of a single word, and, five hours later, if the night constable, whose principal duty appeared to consist in seeing that none of the customers at the coffee-stall, posed at the corner of Cranbourne Street and St Martin's Lane, paid more than twice, had known the address of a lady type- writer, this, or some similar work, had been entered upon at four o'clock in the morning. But collaboration is not to be undertaken as lightly as that. It is, according to all the critics — dead and alive — only successful when it is not collaboration ; it is more blessed to conceal than to flaunt it. In this respect it is like Erudition, a fine and a noble thing when not overdone — as when the young gentleman up from Aldershot told the cabman to drive to Rule's Oyster Shop, and the young lady with the brass- coloured hair supplemented the instruction by adding, ^' Virgo Intacta Lane," the man on the box came to the very proper conclusion that, beyond certain limits, a knowledge of the classics was without its advantages. " The authors of this work," once wrote Mr Walter Besant, on an unpublished novel (I am quoting from an old Globe turn-over), " made the great mistake of writing it in alternate chapters. Now the style of one was not in the least like the style of the other; the effect was that of two men taking turns to tell the same story, each in his own way, and from his own point of view .... the thing was a horrid nightmare." A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 3 That's just what we wish to avoid. And not alone that, but also any long-winded dissertations or opinions on certain bygone events- contests at the Pelican, for instance — which could not possibly interest anybody now. With the exception of the brief dedicatory ode from the pen of poor dear old " Chat " Rhys (Do you remember the incident of the well- known composer who produced an ambitious musical piece, partly his own, but largely other people's, on the same night that he married the bewitching prima donna.? Somebody met him coming along Piccadilly on the following day with a face as long and dreary as Stamford Street. And, being asked " how it went last night," the man of sharps and flats answered ambiguously — " Oh, splendidly — er, but the overture was not mine ! ") — these anecdotes and stories have no morals to point, no axes to grind ; and it is solely with the desire to secure a smooth, harmonious result that the Pink 'Un, who is more used to scribbling than his Pelican partner (who does his full share of the talking), intentionally elbows the hard, incon- venient " we " out of the way, and adopts the style of the first person singular throughout what follows. Twenty years was the limit for memory-searching which we agreed upon at the outset ; but Swears' very first anecdote — the story of the early, but more than boyish coup that told him he should henceforth wrench a fat living from a fatuous world — was wide of the boundary. For it is more than thirty years ago now since a solitary horseman might have been seen slowly — no, that's not it — since the diligent readers of the Sussex or Hampshire newspapers of a certain spring morning 4 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN encountered an advertisement couched in these words : — TO SCHOOLMASTERS.— A lady residing in a large house, most pleasantly situated in the Isle of Wight, would be willing to receive delicate child (not an invalid) to stay with her during the summer, in return for six months' board and schooling for a backward but healthy boy of ten. Reply in first instance, " Circe," Biffin's Select Library, Ventnor, LW. Full many an " ad " has never, metaphorically speak- ing, grazed the target, but " Circe's " got a bull's-eye and rang the bell — rang several bells, to be correct — on its first appearance. Negotiations were opened on all sides, and Mrs Swears (who, it is useless to attempt further to conceal the fact, was " Circe "), was impressed most favourably by the " reply " of a Mr W. Socrates-M'Kinns, who steered a pensionnat des jeunes gens at Preston Park, near Brighton. Mr M'Kinns, of the other part, was equally delighted, on his daughter's behalf, with the Ventnor prospect. And, truly, who has not been ? Who among us has not some pleasant memory of Ventnor? Of a sentimental ramble out to the Chine of Shanklin, a recherche dinner eaten at the Marine, or of some beautiful young girl, marked down by phthisis as its own, who roomed next to us, and kept us awake through the night-watches whilst she coughed an eighteen-and-sixpenny bedstead down ? However Ernest Swears was ten and Edith Hortensia M'Kinns was twelve when they first set eyes on one another, on the steamboat pier at Portsmouth. The A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 5 approach was mutual, Mr M'Kinns and daughter from the raihvay-station, and Mrs Swears and son from the Ryde boat, and advanced to the centre of the stage, so dear to the heart of Mr George Alexander. Responding to a sharp maternal pinch on the upper inside of the left arm, Ernest muttered a suppressed " Wow ! " and raising his hat, politely inclined his young head, on which the back hair stood out from the parting as straight as four kings at poker. There was immediate recognition on both sides, for Mrs Swears was leading her progeny by the left arm, and Mr M'Kinns wore a buttonhole bouquet of variegated sweet-pea, and carried a tan glove in his right hand, as per his letter of the 15th instant. Naturally, there were stipulations to be made on both sides, and, with many admonitions to the youngsters to keep out of mischief and the pellucid waters of the harbour, the lady and gentle- man retired to an evil-smelling waiting-room to discuss terms, leaving the boy Swears and the little maiden outside upon the pier. With his right hand grasping a nicker and a piece of string in his breeches-pocket, and his left akimbo, the embryo Pelican surveyed the little maiden criti- cally from top to toe. He had not been made a consulting party to the educational swap that was being enacted, but he did not resent it ; none the less, he made the prudent enquiry of the little maid — " Is your pa a nice, kind man, little girl ? " At the mere mention of her absent parent, the little girl started sobbing, but, being adjured " not to blubber, as you only look ugly with yer nose red " she stammered that he was — he was a dear, kind papa. 6 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN " Ah ! " said young Swears, with evident satisfaction. " And did he give yer any spendin' money before you started ? " "Yes, he did, and mommer, too," confessed Miss M'Kinns. "Popper gave me half- a -crown and mommer a shillin' — that's three-and-sixpence." " Little girl," whispered the bad boy Swears, with much earnestness ; " I shall match yer for it ! " " Whatever's that ? " said she. For reply he pulled a penny from his pocket, and, poising it carefully on edge, with one hand over it, said — " You call to me ? " Great tears of hopelessness welled up into the sweet child's eyes. " But I don't want to ' match ' you," she pouted ; " I don't want to — not even a little bit." " What you want, an' what you don't want, saws no wood ! " hissed the desperate youth. " Either you matches me for three-an'-six, or gets slung into the harbour. Give it a name ! " A despairing glance in the direction of the waiting- room gave her no hope, and the water looked terribly turgid and cold. " Sing up ! " thundered young Ernest ; " don't be so mighty reluctant ! " " T-t-t-tails," sobbed Miss M'Kinns, beginning to blubber. There was a slight movement of the back of the boy's hand, and his fingers were extended a little ere he raised his right and exposed, prone on the back of his left, a penny-piece, head upwards. " Edith," said the boy, in hoarse but confidential tones, "your star ain't shinin' to-day. Hand over the A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 7 spondulicks an' look pleasant ; we all have our bad moments ! " But even as a boy he had a good heart. As the little lady, hand-in-hand with his own mother, passed down the gangway to the Ryde boat, he hurled a whispered fragment of good advice to her — " If yer popper or yer mommer sends you any more workin' exes, Edith, don't take any o' them Ventnor boys on ; you cati't toss for toffee !" Ten years later Swears entered the lists for the great battle of life equipped, like the simple village maiden, who awoke one day to find herself alone and on her uppers in Great Portland Street, with nothing but a slight knowledge of clay-modelling and cider- brewing by which to gain her daily bread, but who now rides in the Row, and puts her telephone number on her visiting-cards ; with little beyond his native wit. With vague ideas for the future, he settled down in a lodging in Swallow Street, abutting on the Quadrant, and rapidly began to surround himself with the little inconsiderable nicknacks that go to make a home — an earthenware matchstand from the " Rose " in Jermyn Street, coffee beans from the American Bar, whilst the dressing-table was dotted with pick-me-ups and other novelties from the famed laboratory of Jozeau in the Haymarket. In particular did an oblong green box, deposited on the faded felt cloth of the somewhat unsteady centre table beside the syphon of seltzer water and the two clumsy drinking tumblers, that had originally come into the market containing plum jam, do its level best to fill the eye of the observer. S A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN That box contained three copies (issued at one guinea) of the famed " Sefton " dress-shirt, warranted not to fray at the edges, and the first longcloth garment constructed with one buttonhole only in the starched front a little below the base of the sternum or breastbone, generally alluded to by after-dinner narrators of the diverting story of the " House Surgeon, the Sick Carpenter, and the Centre Bit." It is the business of one who would succeed in this frigid, non tangenda world, to assume a competency if he hath it not. Men would rather be bunkoed and bested by a polished, well-dressed villain who has already been up twice before the House Committee of Perdition, than be taken out for a whole evening by one who makes no attempt to disguise his moderate circumstances, or even owns that if he loses this round of cigars he will be compelled to spend to- morrow evening by his own fireside. Actuated by the worldliest of impulses, and with a desire to prejudice even the speculative valuations of the alien strangers of the other sex to whose tender mercies he was about to consign the obtrusively "new" linen — the little demoiselles at Madame Savondeluxe's clear-starching atelier in Frith Street — Swears, with a clean quill (as per the wrapper round the bottle), inscribed those vestments " A.E.W., lOi," " 1 02," and " 103," respectively. The rest is soon told. That night unholy men broke into the little laundry, for Madame did a tearing good trade and kept a fat till. And as the thieves passed out through the front shop, and the big one in the crepe mask pulled down from the lines sundry frilled undergarments with A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 9 which to square his sweetheart, his roving eye fell on the " Seftons," and he asked of the felon behind him in the false beard — " 'Ere, 'Arry, what size dickey-dirts do you take ? " " Sixteens an' a 'arf," answered Harry. " These is yer very identical size then." For an instant the burglar with the whiskers hesitated. "Some pore, strugglin' clerk perhaps " he began. "Clerk me gran'mother ! " hissed his mate, "jest pipe the markin's on 'em — w'y this bloke counts hees shirts by the ^underd!" Into the Law, of all things in the world, Swears first drifted — not that it is particularly surprising that he should do so, when you come to think of it, since few things come in handier to a man who is daily involved — as were his four — or more — fathers in the primeval forests in the great glad, free struggle for edible roots and nuts, than a smattering of his country's civil code. For, when all is said and done, that law is more closely related to common-sense than many a defeated suitor can ever be induced to believe. Certainly much depends on the legal wight who undertakes to pull down the fruit-laden bough to his client, and then there are constantly cropping up minor monetary considerations, to the nature of which Lord Russell of Killowen delicately alluded in some reminiscences of Lord Chief-Justice Coleridge, which he gave to The North American Review some four years ago. Taking his lordship's permission as granted, I quote the passage : lo A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN Desirous of information, Lord Coleridge was en- quiring from Mr Evarts, the distinguished New York barrister, formerly Secretary of State, how American lawyers were remunerated for their work. "Well, my lord," replied Mr Evarts, "the clients pay them a retaining fee ; it may be fifty dollars, or it may be five thousand dollars, or fifty thousand dollars." "Yes, and what does that cover?" asked Lord Coleridge. " Oh, that is simply the retainer. The rest is paid for as the work is done, and according to the work done." "Yes, Mr Evarts, and do clients Hke that?" " Not a bit, my lord, not a bit. They generally say : ' I guess, Mr Evarts, I should like to know how deep down I shall have to go into my breeches pocket to see this business through.' " " And what do you say then ? " " Well, my lord, I have invented a formula which I have found answer very well. I say : * Sir (or Madame, as the case may be), I cannot undertake to say how many judicial errors I shall be called upon to correct before I obtain for you final justice ! " The very first case that Swears took in to the office of his first employer — a particularly smart solicitor with a sporting and theatrical practice — was sufficiently remarkable to entitle it to a place in these memoirs. In his daily dalliance at the bar of the St James's Restaurant, Swears had noticed a very ardent flirtation going forward between a wealthy young gentleman, A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN ii rejoicing in the promising name of Burstall, and one of the prettiest of the half-dozen bar-maidens. It was no mere passing whim on the part of the swain : he was up to his neck in love, and put in whole afternoons holding his Dulcinea's somewhat solid paw, as deli- cately rounded a little fist as ever pulled on a beer- engine. As often as she could shirk her duty he would take her to the breezy front of Brighton, or lead her through the leafy glades of Kew or Burnham Beeches, until the season came when the acorn patters on the dry leaves and the early, bitter orange puckers up the small boy's mouth till it feels like a corrugated washing-board, and then Burstall proposed. She did not pause even long enough to put his name through Stubbs', but sealed the bargain with a kiss — or whatever the usual thing may be — and began the preparation of her wedding garments. Poor girl ! I say poor girl, because we all know what a fickle, flighty, unreliable lover the barmaid-masher makes, and Burstall was no record-breaker. After leading the girl on to run astounding ticks with every milliner and outfitter who would give her credit on the strength of the projected match ; to promise the order for her elaborate wedding-breakfast to the caterers in whose employ she was, and even to engage a struggling medical student, professionally known as a "chronic," for a future job, provided he got his M.B. somehow in the meantime, Burstall simply went off and married the head-chambermaid of the hotel in Jermyn Street, at which he stayed occasion- ally. Who was it then, that, having closely observed all these things, soothed the sobbing girl, bade her dry her tears, and buck-up " poor old dear ! " and his 12 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN guv'nor would take up the case and make a fortune for her ! Who was it ? — Why, Swears ! He carted her off in a cab, there and then, to his governor's office, telling her on the way the most flattering tales of the vast sums that had been awarded in former breach-of-promise actions far less heartless than was hers. Had she kept any of her faithless one's letters ? — was the promise ever put into writing ? — and ("don't mind me asking it, dear old thing, only it would make such a difference in the damages) can we include seduction ? " For an instant the jilted beauty's chiselled nostrils dilated, and she had thoughts of putting his eye out with the ferrule of her parasol, but wiser counsel prevailed, and, with a dry, irritating little cough, she said, " Yes, it might be added to the statement of damages." The solicitor listened patiently to her story, expressed the opinion that she had a splendid case, but pointed out that these actions were very expensive, and, as he saw no prospect of getting his costs out of her if he lost the day, he would want, in the event of her obtaining a settlement, half of the amount the action was compromised for, the fixing of the said amount to be left entirely to his discretion. To this the fair one readily agreed, and signed a paper to that effect. Then the brainy man of law bundled off his swiftest clerk to the Law Courts with instruc- tions to issue a writ and be back within half-an-hour : meanwhile the plaintiff was to wait. And now there comes in a strange coincidence that, put into a novel or a play, would be roundly condemned as being utterly improbable. None the A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 15 less it is an absolute fact that as the deserted barmaid sat in the inner office, awaiting the further directions of her adviser, Burstall, who was an old client of the smart lawyer's, arrived at the office by appointment, with his bride upon his arm, to execute a previously arranged marriage settlement. Little did Burstall dream, as he sat there, trying to appear interested in the crude humours of the Daily Cause List, what a bolt was about to drop out of the blue sky. But the solicitor managed it as delicately as possible. Popping his head into the waiting-room, he cried — "One moment, if you please, Mr Burstall," and the bridegroom jumped up and followed the lawyer into his private office. Then the man of smart practice said, " H'm — ah, your settlement will be ready for signature in a moment or so ; in the meantime, just put this in your pocket, will you ? It's merely a matter of form, but I'm instructed to bring an action against you for breach of promise and seduction by Miss , and your acceptance of the writ now will save a lot of time. Of course you've expected it all along ? " No ; the devil he had ! In fact it had quite unnerved him, and great dewdrops of perspiration stood out on his brow to attest the fact. The solicitor went on, " Pray calm yourself, my dear sir, the lady won't come into this room ; she's waiting in the one just opposite." " Good Lord ! " ejaculated the miserable man, " and does she know I'm here?" " I have not told )\qx yet " began the advocate. " Don't, don't — for Heaven's sake, don't ! " pleaded Burstall ; " what on earth am I to do ? " "Why, settle it, of course," was the ready rejoinder^ 14 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN " it would never do for a man of position like yourself, to come into court in such a wretched case. You just wait here a few minutes, and I'll go and see if I can't get the lady to accept a sum of money down in settlement." Full twenty minutes elapsed ere the astute master of the rolls returned to his monied client with the news that, to save all further expense and exposure, the lady would accept one thousand pounds down, and, in addition, there would be one hundred guineas for " costs," a very insignificant sum when one considered the fat fees he was foregoing. With a great sigh of relief, and breathing much more freely, the amorous youth lugged out his cheque- book and filled out a draft for ;^i 105, which — ended the adventure to the satisfaction of everybody con- cerned. Certainly the jilted one was supremely satisfied and happy. With a glance of deep gratitude, she squeezed Swears' hand as he put her into a cab, and said — " But for yoti, dear, I should never have met this truly marvellous lawyer. You must come and see me in my new home ; come to tea — a cosy little tea, you know, with sally-lunns?" And Swears said tenderly he would. Still, making love to barmaids is no end of a flat's game, as a somewhat parallel case, which came pro- minently under my observation some years ago, will prove. I was in Newcastle-on-Tyne, for the racing at Gosforth Park, and standing in the hall of — let me call it the " Caller Ou Hotel " — a house in which all the racing pressmen used to stay. And I noticed a A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 15 smart young fellow, who travelled for a big Manchester firm, lolling with his elbows on the ledge outside the desk at the office window, and the prettiest girl in the whole of Newcastle, who was the book-keeper at the hotel, was talking to him in a very earnest undertone. Whether she thought I was stone deaf, and consequently not worth considering, or whether she only deemed me indifferent to a hotel maid's peccadilloes, I don't know, but she said to the ragman in tones quite loud enough for me to overhear : " My room is on the floor above yours, and at the extreme end of the passage on the right-hand side. So that you may make no mistake, I'll kick the corner of my mat over ! " It was about eight o'clock in the evening on the night before a long bygone Northumberland Plate when this happened, and a few minutes later I was on my way with Jack Cobbett of the Life, Jim Flood and Paul Widdison of the Sportsman, and Josh Radcliffe, the local sporting editor, and one of the very best all-round men in the "perfesh," who was acting as our pilot to either the theatre or the music- hall — I'm sure I don't remember which. Nor do I wonder that I don't, for all that I could think about was the little speech I had overheard. Why should this pure young girl, with the oval. Madonna-like face and the soft brown eyes, with the small supple waist and the dimpled chin, so carefully and minutely impress upon a vulgar " commercial " stranger of distinctly opposite sex, the precise locality of her chamber? The more I asked myself the question, the more persistently did I refuse to admit to my silent mental debate the bad, coarse solution of the problem that a lifelong study of the Sunday news- i6 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN papers suggested. I positively felt ashamed of myself for the baseness of the thought. " Come, Binnie, no hauf y'ns," cried Josh RadcHffe, giving me a slap on the back, and momentarily I woke up and drained off the glass of whisky which stood in front of me. I noticed that we were in a big, garish bar, that there was a great crowd, and a sound as of somebody singing ; and — then I fell to dream- ing again. Presently came a second interruption. Some wag" brought down his brawny fist on the ends of a handful of lucifer matches that were standing on their heads in an earthenware receptacle, and they blazed up with a fearful stink. Eureka ! The mystery of the maiden's speech was unravelled. Evidently she had an appalling dread of fire, and, being ever afraid that she might wake up one night to find the hotel enveloped in flames, she took this course lest a possible rescuer, in his ignorance of the apportioning of the apartments, should, when the terrible time came, rush this way and that, and waste valuable moments in carrying out the bibulous " Boots," or rescuing the head waiter^ an obese, scorbutic hobo from Saarbriick. How prescient and forethoughtful women are ! It must have been close on one o'clock when our little party returned that morning, and the human machinery of the hotel — all but the bibulous " Boots " — had gone to rest. A last whisky was voted necessary, and then we, too, got our candlesticks and went upstairs. Daylight was streaming through my windows when the sound of rough voices and of many feet outside A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 17 the door aroused me. The candle guttered in its socket, bore evidence to the fact that I had tried to keep awake as long as I could in order to outstrip the Manchester gent when the summons came. What did this present commotion mean ? Joining the procession that was ascending the stairs, we came at length to the door at the end of the passage on the right-hand side, and the landlord, who was the leader of a troop consisting of maid and men servants, one or two guests, and the Manchester gent in his pyjamas, knocked. " What do you want ? " asked a feminine voice from the inside. " Open the door. Miss Millington," said the land- lord sternly, fumbling with the handle. " When I am dressed I will, not before," replied Miss Millington ; and I turned to the Manchester gent, who was showing marked signs of agitation, and asked him what the trouble was. It appears that he had gone to the girl's room soon after he imagined everybody was in bed to confer with her on the spiritual advantages to be gained by adopting a vegetable diet, and remained till daylight. Desirous of marking his appreciation of her resolve to con- tinue in the narrow path that leads to the higher life, he had pulled from his jacket pocket a bundle of bank-notes belonging to his firm, and peeled her off what he took to be a fiver. He could easily level it off in the exes, he said. On getting back to his own apartment, however, he discovered that he'd given her a fifty. Upon this he had gone back to rectify his mistake, only to find that Miss Millington had also made a discovery, and, with it, a resolution. This was to give hotel book-keeping a temporary rest the i8 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN while she went to visit a former sweetheart in Darlington. At that moment the sound of her key turning in the lock was heard, and in another second she flung the door open. There she stood in the pale grey light of morning dressed, even to her gloves, firm and resolute. " I'm sorry to leave you thus abruptly, Mr Ruddock," she said, addressing the landlord ; " but such oppor- tunities as this are few." '• You will give this gentleman back his banknote," said the landlord firmly. " Oh dear no, nothing of the kind ! A gift is a gift. Send for forty constables if you like, but beware how any of you lay a hand on me ! " And as she spoke Miss Millington, taking the back fulness of her skirts in her left hand, began the descent of the hotel staircase. She was in no un- seemly hurry, and when she came to the great front door, she paused and turned round that the night porter might open it for her. It was hard to believe that this young girl, with her big frank eyes and her modest sable raiment, was calmly absconding with the banknote that had, at such a very rapid rate, developed her character, but so it was. Lying be- tween her chemise and her corset, hugged tightly and securely to her heart, was the sheet of water- marked paper she had sold her billet for, and the spectacle of the miserable Don Juan of the cotton trade, who stood blubbering and making all sorts of other sickening breaks, proved convincing testimony to the genuineness of his loss. As the shadows of her taper boot heels, elongated by the wet pavement, disappeared round the corner, A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 19 the Manchester Giovanni turned to ,me and bleated — " Ah'm rewined, ah'm rewined ! Ah'll no' dare show ma face in Man-chester aafter this. Oh ! what'll I do, what'll I do ? " Now, though I lay claim to no particular distinction in the mathematical direction, I have a latent talent for monetary adjustments, and can explain away a deficiency as well as the next man. It must have been a trait in my character from mere childhood, for I do well remember when, eight-and-twenty years ago, I appointed myself a collector of alms for the nursing of the Franco-Prussian wounded, my worthy old schoolmaster stepped in and insisted on me being supplied with a bell-punch. Poor, funny old man ; I understand the sting of his satire now ! But I digress. " What are you to do ? " I answered the moist-eyed masher from Manchester. " Do you mean to say that such a go-ahead representative of the drizzly city as you are appeals to a mere racing man for advice? Oicr only idea of covering our shorts is to find a winner and dump the bundle on ! " " But if it loses ? " "Well, you and I are differently constituted for sustaining reverses," I said ; " but in your case you'd find the Tyne about handy." He was silent for a few minutes ; then he asked — " How far is Gosforth Park ? " " About eight miles. You'll see scores of shandry- dans carrying passengers at two-bob-a-nob, starting from Gray Street at about eleven." " But you've not told me the name of the horse } " said he, suddenly. 20 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN " Barcaldine," I whispered in his ear ; and, being tired of him and his hopelessness, I wandered off in the direction of the rum-and-milk annexe. Reader, do you know your Gosforth ? The place is as pretty as a picture, with a course and rings about four times the size of Ascot, with the races finishing in the opposite direction. The rugged, handsome Border pitmen, in their felt coats, literally swarm upon the course, and yet there seems no crowd ; whilst inside the main building, with its great stone pillars, one might, save for the familiar faces of the professional crowd, be attending some high "function" in a town hall. The Manchester Lothario had got twenty pounds on Barcaldine with the " Nanty Poloney Ironclad Firm," far down the course where the rings ended. To the practised eye they were wrong 'uns from the upper reaches of rascaldom ; but their " pitch," built of empty champagne boxes, with their style and title emblazoned upon a square of American cloth stretched on a frame, was taking enough with the yokels, and money was rolling in. And then Barcaldine romped home ! The mad horse that used to lunch off the biceps of unfortunate stable-boys and pick men up by the shoulder and shake them, simply spread-eagled his field, covering himself with glory and Bob Peck with quids. As soon afterwards as I found it convenient, I strolled down to the " pitch " of the " Nanty Poloney Ironclad Firm," and found it, as I thought — deserted ! Not quite so, for many angry pitmen stood about and still trampled upon the splinters of the champagne cases, wreaking a puny vengeance upon the slats of wood. And hard by, too, stood the gay Mancunian A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 21 with something in his hand. As he saw me coming he held his trophy out and let it unfold : it was the leathern cloth bearing the insignia of the Nanty Poloneyites — all that he'd got for the twenty pounds or more he had embezzled. Next day his body was found floating in the turgid waters of the Tyne, with his right hand still gripping the leathern sign. But it was not a case of suicide. A party of " Geordies " who had been welshed by the " Ironclads" had overtaken the man of cotton on his trudge back to Newcastle, and recognising the " trade- mark " he was carrying, and taking him for a member of the Nanty Poloney Syndicate, had — done the rest ! CHAPTER II The racing press-room — Reporting by clockwork — Joe Capp — His favourite column of The Sportsma?i — His men good at doctoring exes — Altcar in misery — Carrier pigeons — Sunday settlements — "Messengers, ;^3" — Brought off by a fluke ! — Hazard at Doncaster — The man who nearly broke the bank — Good Samaritans ! — Joe Capp's only win — Joe and the telegraph forms — A letter from the G.P.O. — And one in reply — The poet of Tlie Bird — A fragment of Shelley — Turf correspondence — The finding of Shifter — Blobbs and the writter — A Blobbsian coup r/V//— Shirley and the sausages — Shifter as a loser — As the guest of the Sergeant at Mace — As an answerer of correspondents — And an authority on Scripture — Willie has a bear given him — " Pars " is taken out to spend the evening — Danes Inn by midnight — The bear and Sam Adams— I become editor of TJie Man of the World — And inherit a society novel — Which dies a premature death. " T CLAIM," says my very good friend, Martin J- Cobbett, in the opening chapter of his ever welcome "Man on the March" — a book that one can take up at random and ahvays become engrossed in — " nearly a quarter of a century's practice in sporting journalism." I can lay claim to only seventeen, but even in that comparatively short period, the racing press-room has undergone tremendous changes, and out of the army of the recorders of racing who now go the circuit, I can make out only eight who belonged to the fraternity at the time of my A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 23 joining it as " Joe Capp's novice." These are "Charlie " Greenwood, " Hotspur " of TJie Daily Telegraph, Martin Cobbett, then of The Sporting Life, " Jack " Cobbett, then Joe Capp's second string — poor old Jack Berry, " Rufus," was the leader — "Billie" Innes of The News of the World, and James Henry Smith (now "Jim the Penman"), "Jack" Harris, "Jim" Flood, and Paul Widdison, all of The Sportsman. There were some good fat berths knocking about in those days, and the holders of them could stroll about leisurely, back losers, mix with the highest followers of the sport, and still keep "the tale" going; now all that is altered. Two-thirds of the good fellows in the reportorial cockloft are in the employ of one or other of the big Press Agencies, and, from the time the numbers go up for the opening race until ten or twenty minutes after the last winning jockey has been weighed in, they are so punctiliously busy that only occasionally can they slip out to "oil the machinery." The reports are written in series, and are distinguished by the names of colours. For instance, " Mauve " is the heading of a telegraph form on which one hundred and fifty words, descriptive of the running, are despatched within a very few minutes after each race is over ; " Magenta " is a fuller description, running to three hundred words ; " Violet " is the betting, and " Ruby " is the " introduction " — that part of a racing report in which the reporter dallies with the meteorological outlook, speculates on the strength of the company and the state of the going, and criticises the starter. Each of these messages goes to hundreds of different newspapers all over the country, and the man who writes them has only a vague knowledge of their destination, as new papers 24 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN are constantly being added to, and defunct organs being taken off, each service. The journaHst who ''spreads himself" in the racing page of the big London daily is not more proud of his work than the Press-Agency man, who, going his endless rounds, comes across a " stick " of his own " flowery " in the sporting column of the Rochdale Evening Sausagewrap. And so mote it be. When a sporting reporter's feet wear out, his " pro- prietors " — for they own him body and soul — buy him a Windsor chair and a gum-pot, and make a sub-editor of him. As I have intimated, it was under the banner of old Joe Capp, " T'owd Mon," as everybody called him (not that Yorkshire claimed him for a son : he was a native of Bedfordshire), that I first went race-report- ing. Old Joe was a fine, handsome specimen of British manhood, standing every bit of six foot two in his shoes, and fearing nothing but closing time. He was no great shakes as a scholar, but he under- stood racing and human nature — was an all-night sitter when the company and the stories were worth it, and, above all, he was a magnificent trencherman. He went through the menu over again in his dreams, and well do I remember him declaring to a first-class carriage-load of us as we steamed out of St Pancras one morning in the Four Oaks "special," that "never on no account whatever," did he leave the breakfast table without reading a certain bit of The Sportsman^ which gave him more pleasure than all the rest of that paper put together. And we all asked him which portion it was that so delighted him — was it " Vigilant's Note-Book," or " Notes on News," or old Fred Taylor's Newmarket budget ? A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 25 " No, laads," said he, quite seriously, "the pleasantest, most intcrestin' an'toothsomest bit o' writin'inthe paper to viy thinkiu' is the bill-o'-fare at the Horse Shoe ! " Joe Capp's was not a good school of journalism for a young 'un. To begin with, the pay was bad, for, though Joe was doing well enough with his papers, he was an inveterate gambler, and loved to have a pocket full of notes to play with. His men were always woefully short of brass, and instead of being able to stick to their work with the clear mind that a tenner in the inside pocket assures, had to go hedging and ditching about the ring and the paddock in search of winners, in order to square the hotel bill. With the single exception of myself, they were married men, and generally had to leave seventy-five per cent of Joe's " bit on account " behind them when they started, generally on a Sunday, for the coming week's racing, so that if the remaining bit " went down " — say on a first day at Lincoln, for instance — the scribe had got something beside reporting to do to keep himself afloat till the week's toil was up at Liverpool on the following Saturday, and, as he frequently had drawn his " screw " in advance, his only chance of having a sovereign or two for Sunday was to stick down some imaginary debit in his " exes account " — to which hangs a little story. It is sixteen years ago since I last saw the race for the Waterloo Cup, and yet, metaphorically baring my head and raisingmyright hand to Heaven, I dosolemnly declare that I shall not break a limb if I never see it again. Run where it is, at the season, and in the manner in which it is — well, let those who appreciate the dish help themselves liberally to it, nor trouble to push it across to me. 26 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN Old Joe garnered me in one bitter cold morning, bore me off to Liverpool, and put up at the Union Hotel in Clayton Square, our party including Mr Miller Corbett and Mr Joseph Trevor, both (I may mention for the benefit of the uninitiated) up to their necks in coursing. The game, as they expounded it to me, was to get out of the sheets as soon after six in the morning as possible, swallow a rum and milk, pocket a pork sausage and a penny roll (for which 2,5. 6d. was levied in your bill under the head of " luncheon taken to Altcar "), and be rattled over the stones to Lime Street railway station. Eight or ten miles by train, and a couple more on foot, brought you to a vast marshy waste, ironically termed Hill House Meadows. As a matter of fact, there were no hills, no houses, no meadows — but the natives seemed to think it was all right. By appointment, made overnight without my knowledge, I had to meet somewhere in the middle of this uninhabited waste a man and a boy, each of whom was to bring a basketful of carrier - pigeons, said pigeons being trained to fly, when released, into the post - office at an inferno just over the edge of the map, called Formby, where Joe Capp, seated on a stove, with both feet in the fender and his head up the chimney, received the little birds, and, detaching the result messages from their legs — result messages which I was supposed to write and attach to the colum- barian drumsticks by means of small india-rubber bands — wire the glad news all over the world in general, and to the dirty little pothouse clubs — where " stay-at-home sportsmen " sate and sharped each other, or the bookies of the rival clubs — in particular. It was a spirited and ennobling job enough, no A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 27 doubt, for a coursing enthusiast, but fny sand was soon run out. Whilst forty or fifty farm louts, termed " beaters," scoured the surrounding bogs for the first unwary hare, my reflections upon the situation were quite unfit for reproduction, and my thoughts were the more bitter because some thousands of local sports- men — persons who spoke no known language, but a dialect of " eehs " and " aahs," with different inflections of the voice — seemed to see no end of fun in it. At intervals of about twenty minutes a half-frozen hare got up, whereupon the slipper, with two greyhounds straining in the leash — Death to the knave who cribs that copyright phrase ! — appeared from behind a sheep-hurdle, the dogs were slipped, there was a very short run, chiefly by reason of the crowd hemming in the hunters and the hunted on all sides, and poor puss was pulled down and killed. The judge, a big man with a magenta face and head of orange-coloured hair, like a red Irish setter, who followed the course on horseback, then raised his cap or blew his nose, or in some other appropriate manner which I have since forgotten, signified which dog had won. a flag went up, and now and again the crowd cheered. Holy blue smoke ! there were four days of it ! I shall always look back to this as a sheer loss of four clear days out of my life, four days of misery without one single redeeming incident ; but business is business, as somebody remarked soon after Hack- ness's Cambridgeshire, when the Stock Exchange Price-List contained this sentence : — " Midland has declined i on the roasting of a passenger in the wrecked Pullman " ! 28 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN However, at noon on the following Sunday morning I met Rufus and Goliath at Ludgate Hill station, as was our Sabbath-day wont, for Joe Capp had only one time for settling up with his men, and that was one o'clock on Sundays. As we strolled in the direction of the tramway at Blackfriars — Joe lived right opposite Kennington Church — Rufus told us he had had an awful week and was dead broke. Ill luck clung to Rufus in his betting ventures like a red-admiral to a treacled tree, as it says in the butterfly book, and yet he was always cheerful and entertaining with it. At such times he had a great knack of sticking down the line "Messengers . . . £2, " in his account, whilst at such places as Bath and Halifax, where the racecourses are miles from the town, and up steep and tortuous hills, the "messengers" were good for a bit more. Well, on this particular Sunday morning, when Rufus imparted to us the information that he'd had an awful week, we knew it meant that the "Messengers" were going in. Three sovereigns was the figure on this occasion — aye, and I can see poor dear " T'owd Mon " now, as, seated in his little parlour, with Rufus on the opposite side of the table, and Goliath and I " piping off" the rush as we pretended to look over the Sunday papers at the other end of the room, he gazed in indignant awe, first at the item in the bill and then at old Jack Berry, prior to shifting his spectacles up to his forehead, as he always did before delivering himself of any weighty or impressive per- oration. Up they went and the storm burst. " A'mighty oh and streuth ! " (his invariable oath) " I never did, not in no shape nor form, set eyes on sich a bit of imposition " A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 29 But I really haven't the heart to imitate the old man, as, with much more denunciatory language, he pulled out his blue pencil and struck it clean through the offending item. I winked across at Goliath, and he winked back to me, but Rufus never moved a muscle. His wrath appeased by the detection of the attempted imposture, old Joe simmered down. He even made some rambling statements in good-natured justification of his act as he dived his fat thumb and forefinger into his capacious waistcoat pocket for the necessary spondulicks. Rufus only grunted something about being "damned sick of it," and, Goliath's bill and mine being settled without much comment or any demur, we took a drink and a cigar with the old governor and came away. In the very first bar we entered (twenty-five yards away, probably) Rufus, who had been chuckling like a turkey-pullet with hiccups, staggered us by saying to the barman, with a princely air — " George, gimme the wine list." Whether Jack or I recovered first I do not recollect, but one or both did hurriedly interrogate the red- beard : "Champagne, Rufus? And after the old man knocking out the three quid for the messengers ? " A saturnine smile o'erspread Rufus's merry old face, and died away in the side-wings of his ginger Vandyke whiskers. "The old fool knocked the three quid out, it's true," he said, " but he never took it off the (some- thinged) total!" so A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN The morality of this proceeding may not have been of a high order, but, to tell the cold truth, very little of that commodity was included in the outfit of the turf reporter of two decades ago, and one of the best stories that our greyheaded old chief ever got off was one that would have effectually disqualified him for sepulture in the Abbey of Westminster. He and I and Jack Cobbett were standing at the bar in the Subscription Rooms at Doncaster on the eve of a long-gone-by Leger, when somebody chanced to open a side-door and ascend the steep stairs that led to what used to be the card-room. There was something iike ante-post betting in those days, and on the ground floor of this old rookery, half-sleepy town-hall and half chapel-of-ease, you could back a horse for the Cesarewitch or Cambridgeshire till, if it was only the right 'un, you'd never want money again. Or, up on the first floor, you could shake the box all night ; but now — well, of course, there's no dice- box to start with — I doubt if there are many cards, whilst as for the betting ! You've only got to put a " pony " on one for a future event, and three reporters go tumbling over one another in their efforts to be first at the telegraph office to wire away an "important change in the Cambridgeshire market ! " " Ah, laads," sighed Joe, as the stranger was heard ascending the staircase, " never in no shape nor form get led into playin' hazards. Streuth ! ye can't name the odds it is against ye. What with the calculatin* of it's bein' six to foor against the eight, an' five to tew against the nine, an' eleven to eight against the six, an' seven's bein' the main — then havin' to dwell the box, then the payin' out, then the " A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 31 " Oh, but it's all right," said Jack, " if the others are playing fair ; you must win in your turn ? " "Well, Jack, I dunno. / on'y won once, laad, an' it was like this : I was comin' into these very rooms once, years ago, an' there was me, an' old George Moore, an' Harry Harper, an' Lord knows who besides. I remember Harry'd stood dinner for three at the ' Salutation,' an' be dom'd to 'em, for they charged a pound a bottle for the wine, the brewtes ! an' we'd had eight bottles, besides about eighteen or twenty whiskies apiece on the coorse well, jest as we came in at that very door, who should we meet but old George Dickens — Lord, it seems like yesterday! — an' I says, ' Ah, Georgie, boy, how goes it ? ' ' Oh, about the same as ever,' says he. ' I begin to think, Joe, it's a mug's game, for they're the ones as mostly seems to win.' * Why, ye old devil,' says I, ' what're ye talkin' about? Didn't I myself have to lay foorty pound to ten on ' ' Ah, but I mean at the box, not backing horses, Joe,' says old George. ' Why, there's a chap upstairs now as hasn't been at the game but a few months — he's as tight as a drum, and I'm blowed if he hasn't won over three thousand pound at hazards. An' he's that drur^^ that he hardly realises what he's worth ! ' "Well," old Joe went on, " I was that took aback, laads, you can't think ! Neither me nor old Harry couldn't speak a word for thinkin' of it ; there was sich a silence you might have beared a mangle drop. Jest then old George Moore goes off on the pretence as he's got to get up to see the Leger horses gallop in the mornin', an' I says to Harper, ' Harry, what d'ye say if we goes upstairs for a bit an' sees this chap a-plungin' ? ' ' Right,' says Harry, an' upstairs we 32 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN should ha' gone but that, jest at that very instant, the card-room door at the top o' the stairs opens, an' the very chap himself as had won all the brass walks out on to the landin'. Y'know they used to pay the winners upstairs in little bone checks — coloured ivory counters, about the same size as a florin. The white 'uns represented a pound apiece, the red 'uns five, the blue 'uns ten, an' so on. This chap, laads, must ha' broke the bank very nigh, for his hands was full o' chips, his coat-pockets was full, his breeches-pockets was full, an' dammy — even his haat was full ! An' that dryunk' ! S'trewth ! he could hardly stand. " We see him come to the top o' the stairs, spillin' the little ivory counters all over the place, then he staggers a bit — then he lurches forward — then he slips down a couple o' stairs — finally, the poor silly fule loses his balance an' rolls clean down the stairs to the bottom ! Well, you never see anything like them checks. They rolled all over the floor — here, there an' everywhere — an' all as he could do — he was that dryunk — was to crawl about on his hands an' knees, grinnin' all over his face 'n tryin' to rake the chips up into little heaps. ' Let's help him pick 'em up,' says I to Harry ; an' so we did, but it was a mighty back-breaking job, laads, an' no sooner did we shovel 'em over to him than the poor looney drops 'em all again ! Well, me and old Harry got a bit sick of it. I was just a-shovellin' up a handful o' the reds, when, somehow or other, I starts a-thinkin' o' what a crewil day's luck Pd had out on the Town Moor. ' Harry,' says I in a whisper, ' when I think o' the twenty pound to eight as I laid on Hummin' Bird, an' then it's gettin" done by a head, 's'trewth ! I almost feels inclined ' ' Well, hed never miss A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 33 V//^,' says Harry, catchin' my meanin', * an' you rcc'lect, Joe, I took seventy to ten about Picaroon, as didn't get into the first three ? ' With that I see him help himself to a handful o' the reds, so I quietly stowed away a score o' so o' the blues. ' Ah, me!' says Harry; 'did you notice what a brewte Red Clover run, Joe ? ' an' another half-pint o' the reds goes into his kick. ' No,' says I, collarin' a few more o' the blues, with half a dozen whites mixed up with 'em, — ' but Silver Queen was powerful bad.> ' Shall ye go up there to-morrow,' says he. ' Certainly^ laad,' says I. ' Then so shall I,' says he, grabbin' twenty or thirty o' the white 'uns, to sort o' pay the flyman with. Well, when we'd put all the little checks into the fellow's pockets — (he stood a big bottle, like a sportsman, he did, though he didn't drink much of it) — we saw him off to his hotel in a fly, and " The old man heaved a sigh of relief, like the exhaust of a locomotive. " And that's the on'y time, laads, as I ever won at the game of hazards ! " In some matters the lamented old 'un was decidedly simple, a remark that is justified by the true tale of Joe and the telegraph forms. Prior to — oh, I should say, Shotover's Derby — the Press telegraph sheets were as big again as they are at present, and very often the first " side " contained no more than the bare address of the newspaper to which the message was going. To obviate this waste, the present forms were introduced, and the old ones were no longer accepted. Now Joseph, like many younger and less- c 34 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN experienced authors, always laid himself out for big literary things, even if, when hatched, they never amounted to very much. He never went to a meet- ing without, at least, a dozen blacklead pencils, pointed at both ends, and quite a ream of telegraph " second sheets " ; and when the ukase went forth from St Martin's-le-Grand, he may have had nearly a hundredweight of Government paper at his house in Kennington. Well, we were all off to Doncaster one fine Sep- tember morning by the early train — several pressmen, and three or four of the travelling telegraphic staff, a little band of ardent, earnest workers in the business of transmitting racing intelligence, to whom racing reporters owe a great deal. A kindly-disposed telegraph clerk — and nearly all of them that I have come in contact with are that — often exceeds his duty, should he come across a clerical error in a reporter's message. The Doncaster " special " started a bit earlier in those days than it does now, so that a fellow didn't have much chance of getting breakfast, and I re- member what a mighty relief we all felt when old Joe got his bag down out of the rack, and produced about half-a-stone of nice fresh ham-sandwiches, each of which was carefully wrapped — some of us didn't fail to twig — separately in a postal telegraph-form of the old pattern. Those sandwiches went down with rare gusto, and, 'pon my word, we ought, out of sheer gratitude, to have refrained from playing the joke we did on the old man, but mischief is so enticing. That night, after a cheery dinner at the " Elephant," where the whole party of us put up, two or three of A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 35 us sneaked out and started the game. At a law stationer's in the town we procured a sheet of blue paper, with the lion and unicorn on it, and wrote to the old man as follows : " St Martin s-lk-Grand, " London, E.C., ^th September iZZi. " To Mr Joseph Capp. "Siu, — It having come to the knowledge of Her Majesty's Postmaster-General that you are in the habit of using the forms provided by this Department as wrappers for ham-sandwiches, I have to inform you that, unless you immediately desist in such practices, and write, and send, or cause to be sent, a full apology to the Postmaster-General, together with six-and-eight- pence for this letter, proceedings will be forthwith instituted against you." And we signed it with an illegible scribble. We sent that letter up by the guard of the night mail to be posted in London, and about noon on the Wednesday, just as we were all taking a "peg" at the bar, before setting out for the course, a local postman delivered that letter to the natty little barmaid, who, in turn, put it into Joe Capp's hand. His whole aspect changed as he read the spurious mandate. " A'mighty oh an' 'strewth ! " he cried, as great beads of perspiration started from his brow and coursed down his sleek old cheeks. " How the 'ell could the old devil ha' found it out ? " His misery was only too complete. The idea that he, a staunch Tory, a respected ratepayer and church- warden, and the father of a grown-up family, should be indicted for wrapping up ham - sandwiches in Government forms, was too horrible. It was plain that he wouldn't rest until that letter was answered in some way or other, which, of course — for practical 36 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN jokers have no mercy — was just what we wanted. In fact, there and then, we put our heads together to indite a reply, and, before we started for the course, a letter running something like this was posted : "Elephant Hotel, " DONCASTER, loih September 1882. "To Her Majesty's Postmaster-General. " Dear Sir, — I must admit that on more than one occasion I have been guilty of wrapping up ham, beef, tongue — and what not — sandwiches in your telegraph forms. But, dear sir, yester- day shall be the last time, and I hereby apologise, and beg to enclose six-and-eightpence for your trouble in writing, and remain, yours obediently, JOSEPH Capp." What followed ? Well, we never quite knew ; but as we heard that one of the big pots at St Martin's called on Joe at his London address in search of an explanation of the extraordinary confession, and as Joe always swore very volubly at anybody who ever afterwards asked him to pass the telegraph forms, we drew our own conclusions. So readily do recollections of the cheery old soul recur to me that, figuratively speaking, "without turning a hair," I could go on and fill up the rest of the book with Joe Capp anecdotes, but, of course, that wouldn't do ; anyhow, a couple more mayn't be unacceptable. Joseph enjoyed some sort of a reputation as a poet, and all owing to my old comrade, " Nathaniel Gubbins," who, for fourteen or fifteen years prior to Common's Derby, controlled the fortunes of The Bu'd d Freedom. Nary a number of that journal came out during the racing season that A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 37 did not contain at least one little effort of this sort : — SUSPENSE. " The sailor who clings to the icy shrouds When his vessel is tossed to the lea, And with weary eye, looks up to the sky For the stars he may never see. Who feels his hand slipping, his strength near gone, And he sees that his chance is lost, Feels just as I felt at Epsom last Wednesday, When I see Lord Marcus drop the flag in the October Handicap, and that dommed brewte, Gay Hermit, whom Pd backed for seven pun ten, get left at the post ! J. Capp." We soon got to know that these plaintive wails of our ill-starred poet with a bias for backing 'em, wrung the public withers, because countless persons wrote to say so, but we (I say "we," because I was at this time writing stories in the Bird) never quite realised how far-reaching were the lamentations until we got a letter one day, written on mourning-edged note- paper, from a young lady at Bootle, who said that her "dear aunt," who had "just passed away," was a very great admirer of the writings of "your unfortunate poet, Mr Capp," and had been in the habit of cutting the pieces out of the papers and preserving them for the sake of the homely sentiment they exhibited. So now that her relative was no more, she thought she could not pay a prettier tribute to the memory of her dear aunt than by soliciting her favourite poet to write a few lines to go on the poor old dear's tomb- stone. And she enclosed a postal order for two guineas ! 38 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN No wonder the divine Shelley — I think it was Percy Bysshe, but won't be certain — wrote: — "Around his grave the neighbours tread, And one and all they laugh, Not at their poor dear friend who's dead — But at his epitaph. By His Uncle." Then there was another " constant reader " who took his Bird too literally. T'owd Mon had a stand- ing advertisement in both of John Corlett's papers, and it commenced : " Mr Joseph Capp will be pleased to be consulted on any matters relating to the Turf," etc. One of the earliest results of that " ad." was the following : — '"West Rigc Colliery Office, II BoTHWELL Street, Glasgow, loth September iS36. "Dear Sir,— As I see from your advertisement that you have great experience in all matters relating to turf, I should take it as a favour if you could tell me the best kind of seed to use for a croquet green, as the last mixture we tried has turned out very unsatisfactory. — Yours respectfully, Alex. Lennox."" Poor old Joseph ! Kinder, better-hearted soul than he never lived. Towards the back-end of the racing season of '90 he was taken ill, and, growing gradually worse week after week, he died on the 7th of February 1891. Two of the very ablest journalists and best fellows that ever belonged to John Corlett's staff were Reginald Shirley Brooks, who was known to the world as " Peter Blobbs," and Willie Goldberg, universally called " Shifter." The former was senior in service to the latter, whose first meeting with " Master " was unconventional, enough. In the course A PINK 'UN AND A TELICAN 39 of one of their many tramps across the county of Kent, John and Shirley got lost in some fields in the vicinity of Canterbury. They cast about for a road, but to no purpose, until they presently came upon a young gentleman, physically small, but with a noble nose, who was sitting by the trunk of a tree indulging in a siesta. Awakened and questioned as to the route to be taken, the little man shook off his drowsiness, and said he might just as well pilot them into the city, and this he did, proving a loquacious and most interesting companion on the walk. So, when the paper was being made up on the following Friday, " Master," to return the compliment, inserted a note, intimating that if the unknown little man who so civilly showed the way into Canterbury to two pedestrians, one wearing a black velvet coat, would call at 52 Fleet Street on any Friday afternoon, he would be entertained in the usual manner. The little man called, proved to be a particular bright spirit, and — the Pink 'Un gained its "Shifter." The life of a favourite in Bohemian circles — and both these good fellows were received everywhere with open arms — is calculated to break down even stronger constitutions than Will and Shirley began with. Every young man through whose veins the right strain of blood courses is entitled to indulge in follies which, as he grows older, he will outlive, and most men come out of the crucible wiser and better in every way for the experience. But Nature will insist all the same upon having something like her proper allowance of time between the bedclothes, and even the most long-suffering stomach will rise in revolt — in more than one sense — at a monotonous diet of old brandy. Even the musty old monk 40 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN Planudes, from whom yEsop is alleged to have cribbed most of his fables, gave the stomach the mastery- over the rest of the members of the body. And a propos : In pink, long, long ago, poor Shirley related a little anecdote of an incident which, he acknow- ledged, happened in connection with himself A County Court officer with, a judgment summons was, as the Yankees say, " after him with a hot stick," and had successfully treed him, as far as holding a strong strategic position in the passage of the old Mona Hotel in Covent Garden (where Shirley lodged) could be considered a victory. As there were exits both by way of Henrietta Street and Maiden Lane, the writter, who had probably been " slipped " once or twice before, arrived at about six in the morning, as soon as the hotel doors opened, and took up sentry duty between the old ice-chest and the umbrella stand in the hall. Seven — eight — nine o'clock rolled by without one word of complaint from the process-server, who doubtless thought he was getting "near it." But ten went past too, and then came eleven, and the dun, growing weary, sought out and interrogated the " Boots." " I s'pose you're sure Mister Brooks is up there ? " "Oh, cert'in, he on'y come in about a 'our afore you got here." "Well, it's just struck eleven, an' he ain't up?" " That's so ; no sign of it." " Whatever time does he 'ave his breakfast ? " " Breakfast ! " echoed the Boots, with fine scorn, "he don't trouble no breakfast, but — he's gener'ly sick about har' past eleven or a quarter to twelve ! " A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 41 Shirley had a sweet and gentle disposition that caused him to be beloved by everybody, nor did any of the petty ironies of life disturb him in the least. We were three columns short in the Pink ' Un one Friday night, and that at a very late hour. One of " Master's " cheery old-port lunches had taken up the whole afternoon ; the old 'un himself had departed into Kent, and the master printer, with a lugubrious countenance, announced that the machines were wait- ing ! Three columns ! Nobody was sober enough to attempt the task of writing them. Shirley grabbed hold of the current number of Labby's grey-covered weekly, and tore out the " Queer Story," adding the simple headline — " How on earth did this story get into the columns of Truth?" he handed it out to be set, and the situation was saved. As an instance of his aversion to wounding the feelings of his friends, I should like to refer in a dozen lines to an incident which occurred once upon a time at a country house breakfast at which sausages — home-made pork sausages — were a leading dish. They weren't nice sausages. There was no dis- guising that fact, but an hereditary gentleness com- pelled him to struggle with them. The slow progress he made with his breakfast attracted the attention of his hostess. Didn't he like the sausages? He faintly murmured that he adored them. Weren't they flavoured to his liking? They were perfect. And yet — and yet he got no fonvarder. At last, in answer to a point-blank query, he threw down his knife and fork, but yet heedful of causing offence, he blurted out : " I wish to heavens I had been born a Jew ! " Shirley has been sleeping at Kensal Green these 42 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN ten years, but he lives for ever in the memories of his old classmates, whilst at Charlton Court, John Corlett's pretty old place four miles from Headcorn (known as " Bottom-barley " to readers of the paper : the punning inversion of the name was poor " Peter Blobbs's "), " Shirley's room " is still kept as it was, the walls covered with original sketches by Sir John Tenniel, a couple by George Augustus Sala, and photographs and pictures of Horace Mayhew, Richard Doyle, John Leech, Gilbert a Beckett, Mark Lemon, Douglas Jerrold, and many other old friends of the elder Shirley Brooks during the period of his editor- ship of Punch. A similarity of tastes in most matters brought me into very close companionship with Willie Goldberg, whose death in September '94 took from our little fraternal band another of its dearest brothers. Willie wrote the " Office Boy's Diary," and for very much less humorous works other and luckier men have found undying fame. If "Shifter" had possessed any serious aim or purpose in life, save to take it as easily as possible, he might have achieved almost any position he coveted, for he had all the necessary ability. But as most of his bright schemes — save and except the inception of the Pelican Club — came to nothing, it was just as well that he had a vein of philosophy so rich that it commanded the admiration of the ultra-reckless. At Sandown Park once, on a very wet day, I came across him, drenched to the skin, broke to the world, and he had just invested his last half-crown in a singularly sloppy and un- inviting "portion" of Irish stew. He gazed scorn- fully at the unsatisfactory mess which the waiter had set before him, then at his rain-soaked clothing, then A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 43 he pulled out his empty trousers' pockets, and ex- claimed disgustedly : " And for tJiis I pawned my girl's enamelled garters ! " At another time he fell into the clutches of a tip- staff just as he came into Fleet Street at about noon one Friday, and was taken off to the office of the Serjeant at Mace. It was a question of thirty-six or thirty-seven pounds, and, with an important New- market meeting on, everybody with any brass was out of town. But I got it together after three or four hours' hunting, and, when I went down to release him, he was sitting at a deal table, between two warrant officers, writing an additional bit of the afore- mentioned " Diary," descriptive of the very latest amours of the office cat ! It was he who, being set by " Master " one day, in the absence of the regular Johnnie whose work it was, to write answers to the almost numberless corres- pondents who habitually send in contributions — some of them wildly unsuitable — to the paper, came, as a starter, upon a long, serious poem written on four sides of foolscap, all about a young man leaving his home to go abroad, and beginning — " Will they miss me, I wonder, Will they miss me?" Willie read no further, but, tearing the poem in half, and dropping it into the waste-basket, replied to the young man — " Heaven knows ! But, if they should, they ought never to be entrusted to fire a gun again." He even saw hope where that holy man Isaiah 44 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN descried none, for, in the course of an examination in Scripture (at Oxford, I think it was), he, being called upon to diagnose the Prophet's state of mind when he cried — " The swine are always wath me, and the fat bulls of Basan keep me in on every side," did reply that the Prophet probably considered it was a first-class opportunity to start a ham and beef shop ! But, speaking about animals, I must tell you about Little Bill and the bear. It happened in the winter time, about seven or eight years ago, when several of the members of the Victoria Club hired Covent Garden Theatre and ran a circus there. Lots of good sorts had a hand in it ; Bill Foster and Bill Holland (both dead now), Douglas Cox, Harry Ulph, cheery old Purkiss, then of the " Royal," and now at the " Star and Garter " at Kew Bridge, and ever so many more. The " star turns " in the entertainment, which took place twice every day, were the then unknown Paul Cinquevalli, Batty, the natty horseman (no infringement on Tom Cannon's copyright), the " Beautiful Geraldine," and two savage and sullen brown bears. There was nothing new nor particularly striking in the bears' "turn," save the almost human pathos with which they howled for beer ; the consumption of a couple of half-pints of which, out of bottles with strips of flannel sewn round them (to give the b'ars a grip), terminate their " act." My constant companion of an afternoon was Willie, and he became unconscionably attached to these bears, for all their surly, morose manners. He would lean over the edge of their improvised loose box, and feed them and talk to them for long spells, and many a prima dofiita, or reigning queen of the Gaiety crowd, would have envied the favourable notices he srave these A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 45 representatives of the House of Ursidac in the Pink 'Un. Permane, the bear master, did not attempt to conceal his gratification, especially as the bears, so liberally advertised, were booked and re-booked with many managements. But, in the fleeting nature of all earthly delights, the day came when the season was at an end ; when the " Beautiful Geraldine " came down from her wire for the last time, when the little toy hansom that had figured in the equestrian pageant of Cinderella was sold to the maker of the nicest pork sausages in London — Mr "Billie" Harris — and when the bear's beer was stopped, and their heavy travelling cage trundled out. It was then that Permane delicately hinted to Shifter that he would like to present him with a ring, a scarf- pin — something in return for his patronage. This, of course, was quite out of the question ; and yet it leaked out somehow that there was one thing, and one only, that Permane could donate if he only had it. Had he got a little bear ? And, as it happened, Permane had. It was the neatest little bear that ever started out to see the world nestling between the shirt-front and the overcoat of a regular contributor to The Sporting Times. 1 1 was about the size of a lamb, and, looking it over, we there and then named it " Pars," because it had no semblance of a short story, or — to be candid — it had no tail. It became apparent to me very early in the evening travels that " Pars " was not used to lead- ing a town life. He was distinctly a bear for the home fireside, and the more music-halls we took him to that evening the more he seemed to want to hibernate. But we reached home at last. 46 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN Danes Inn at one o'clock in the morning was a quiet old cloister enough. Aubrey Kingdom had not returned from the Pelican at that hour, and Bob Martin was probably in the same haven of cheer. Jim the Penman was away racing somewhere, Kate Paradise might be on tour, and the man who was wont to awake the echoes of the night with a steam organ was recuperating in another place. Kangaroo Hill rarely passed the gates before 2 A.M., which was also about the time that Sam Adams usually returned, unless he was spending the evening out. Sam Adams had a snug little suite of rooms on the ground floor of the northernmost end house on the right, and "Shif" and I roosted immediately above him. Sam, being a full-fledged music-hall proprietor, had his "oak" picked out with gold-leaf; ours, judged by its dents and bruises, might have been at the explosion of Hell Gate, whilst remnants of gummed notices, such as, " Gone to Kainschatka. Back in July" still adhered to it. Sam's letter-box was an elaborate brass-mounted affair ; ours was boarded up, with a strip of plasterer's lathwood nailed along the inside bottom of the door, to bar " substituted service " and other objectionable processes of the Court being shoved underneath it. Do you think that bear would settle down in his new home ? Not by a pailful ! The entire contents of the larder, from the pale golden wine of Scotland to the rich red Lowenbrau of Munich, were offered him in turn, with Angostura and Worcester "on the side," as they say across the pond, but he only rocked from side to side and moaned piteously. There is a good deal of monotony in a young bear's moan. He hangs on to two keys in the middle A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 47 register, and keeps on, and on, and on. We shut him in the coal cupboard, and tried to read, but it was no good. He had evidently given himself up as lost. He seemed to think that the only thing he could do was to let go both anchors — vocally — and pray for day. There is a limit to human endurance, and "Pars" reached it just about the time that the little mantel- clock scored the hour of three. Willie put down the book he had been trying to read, and gently, but firmly, removed the unhappy young plantigrade to the railed stone landing outside. Then what happened was this : The bear descended the stone steps, walked along the passage, and looked out into the deserted inn. Nothing but grey old stones and cold blue sky, save here and there a faint glimmer from the window of some man who was entertaining an angel unawares or reading in bed. Then he turned back and noticed, for the first time probably, Sam Adam's costly sheep-skin door-mat. For about five minutes the wandering bear turned down on this, but as soon as he closed his eyes the old thoughts of home and a hairy mother like a guardsman's shako came over him. He arose, and standing on his hind feet, brought his muzzle to the level of Sam's brass-bound letter-box. Into this he poured his groan — " Oh — wo — wo — wo — wo — Oh — woooh ! " Now Sam was accustomed to these " alarums and excursions " from time to time, and thinking it was some of the boys who had reached port, loaded to the taffrail, he called out — " Good night, dear old boys, good night ! Go to bed. I'm awfully tired. See y' in the mornin'." 48 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN For a brief moment " Pars " paused, probably astonished at the sound of a voice coming out of the darkness. His case didn't seem so hopeless after all. So he fairly inserted the tip of his snout in the letter slit, and yelled — " Oh— oh— oh— oh— oh ! Who— a, Who— a ! " Sam's voice had lost some of its pleasantness as it came back — '■^ Do let a fellow go to sleep, boys. If you were as tired as I am you wouldn't do it. Good night ! " This " invisible-speaker " business was evidently a pleasing novelty to " Pars." He waited for several seconds, as though making sure that the message had finished, and then he gave off, in a lower key, a series of sounds in imitation of a locomotive engine taking a train out of a station — " Whoof ! — whoof ! — whoof ! — whoof ! — whoof ! " There was a sound as of the scraping of a match, then of the opening of an inner door, and the voice, coming nearer and nearer, cried — " I'm damned if I'll be played the fool with like this ! Now then — who is it — I'll punch his head if he's as big as a house ! " The door was suddenly flung open, and Sam Adams, in his pyjamas, rushed out into the darkness to grapple with the supposed foe. For one instant " Pars," with the caution of his race, crouched in the shadow of the door: in the next, he was hugging Sam's right leg just below the thigh. " Whoo— o, Whoo— o, Whoo— oy ! " The vigour and volume with which Sam joined in and made a duet of it, brought men and lights from all parts of the inn, and Well, the rest was mere commonplace ; we all went A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 49 into Sam's rooms and sate up yarning till the milkman came round, when the antagonists of the night took their first drink together, and one of them with no whisky in it. It was in January 1891 that I was inducted into the editorial chair of The Man of the World, following Horace Lennard (who had had it re-caned and fitted with a new off-foreleg) and preceding its present occupant, my bon caniarade Colonel Newnham-Davis ("The Dwarf of Blood," as poor Bessie Bellwood christened him during an impromptu performance of an amateur pantomime). I took over the staff as it stood (which it never did, though it seemed to think that the new editor succeeded to an inherent right to take it out to see imaginary men) ; the right-of-way of a proof-reading room at the printer's, and a copy of Whitaker's Almanack for 1875. Also, in the second week of my stewardship, the proprietor, one John Corlett, handed over to me between sixteen and eighteen pounds' weight of closely written foolscap — about as much as would fill a shirt- box — which he alleged to be the manuscript of an up-to-date Society novel, a "thrilling story of the mysteries of a London season," the newspaper publishing rights of which he had recently pur- chased. " You shall now stand me a drink at the Rainbow," said he, and, dropping the manuscript on the floor with a thud that shook the chandelier loose in the tailor's shop below, we went out. At this distance of time I do not desire to say hard or unkind things about that Society novel, but it didn't seem to " thrill " Society for sour apples, and 5© A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN some old and valued readers even wrote in about it. And yet the ingredients were in it all right. The crowd at Ascot was described as a " gay and glittering throng," and the Colonel, whose horse won a race on the Cup Day, always swore " by St George ! " — never anything coarse or vulgar. The heroine was " a typical English girl, with a profusion of straw-coloured and glistening hair, so hard to define, which suited her blonde complexion to admiration." I speak by the file. Nor had the g-rande dame of "perhaps forty- five, but still exceedingly handsome," been forgotten ; she kept on coming to the surface like a tank performer for a breathing interval. When the Colonel spoke to " Dick," the hero, of her, it was as " the Honourable Mrs Clipperton, whom your father would remember were he alive, and whose name was at one time always spoken in conjunction with your father's brother, boy, Lord Rowland Rivenham." When seven chapters had come before the public eye, in the course of exactly as many weeks. Master came up from Kent one day, and said — " Pitch, how much more of that novel is there ? " " About enough to cover the Beacon Course," said I. " H'm ! What had we better do about it ? " "If you think," I began, somewhat diffidently, " that the author would not object to the editor collaborating with him " " That's it ! You've got it ! And — finish it off in to-morrow's paper ! " As we came back from the " Cheese," Willie Goldberg and I, after leaving the fine old chief, we agreed to do it together. And this how the eighth, and last, chapter of that Society novel, the " stirrine A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 51 story of the mysteries of a London season," appeared in the Man next day : CHAPTER VIII THE EDITOR JUMPS IN At length came the crash. Reginald was proud of his tandem driving, and, on a certain bright spring morning in February, he drove up to Mervyn's door, with a couple of very smart bays in an inordinately high tandem-cart, and announced his intention of running his brother down to Kempton and back. Reginald's wish had ever been to Mervyn law, so, wiring to put off an engagement or two in town, he donned a masterpiece in the way of covert coats, and cramming on his half-guinea brown pot-hat, gave himself up for the day. It was what is termed a "bookies' day " at Kempton. One by one the favourites, in sporting parlance, " went down," and, strangest of all, Israel Gideon was in "Tattersall's enclosure," laying them with persistent vigour. With this wily Semite not only did Reginald gamble heavily, but Mervyn " punted " to such an extent that when the " interval for luncheon " came, he was aghast to find that he had not enough left to purchase a plate of the celebrated Irish stew. As he turned — or, rather, li'as turned by an ostentatious head waiter — from the door of the luncheon room, Gideon passed, smiling with satisfaction at having had a " skinner." It was too much for Mervyn ; he was irritated beyond degree. In vain he tried to control his temper — in another moment he had sprung upon the Jew and thrown him into a clump of laurels, falling upon the prostrate form of the Hebrew, and grappling him by the throat. " I — tell — yer — you backed — Theod — erlite," gasped Gideon, now red in the face. " Liar 1 " hissed Mervyn. " Where's yer ticket ? " " It is here ! " yelled Mervyn, and, drawing the Swedish hunting-knife (without which he never travelled), he plunged it into the bookie's heart. The men at the gates of the Grand Stand looked on petrified, but ere they could interfere, Mervyn had, with a last glance at his fallen foe, drawn the keen blade across his own throat. 52 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN Snarler, attired in a green coat, with a Union Jack hat, was doing good business outside a booth, with a silver book ; yet somehow the British pubhc seemed to resent his turning up later on in large black-and-white checks and unsettled accounts. Mr S. H. Hyde possesses at Kempton Park an almost un- exampled pond, situated in a thicket, surrounded by umbrageous shade, of the kind most desirable for a British public that has lost its brass and its temper. Unfortunately for Snarler, he selected this as a safe hiding - place, and accompanied by Knocker, who had been clerking for him, hied him quickly to this charming and sylvan bolt-hole. Unfortunately, in their haste they shed the snide tickets on the way, and the B.P., with the sleuth-hound instinct of a paper-chaser in search of a public- house, was on their track. They lie now beneath the water-lilies, and Mr Hyde's eels fatten on them exceedingly. Thus the cost of the obsequies is dispensed with, whilst we've got rid of a brace of incubi from this veracious chronicle. Meanwhile, Lady Cranleigh was giving one of those fried fish soirees which were the talk of Mayfair. No luxury was missing, and when George Wotherspoon rose to propose the toast of the evening in some six-shilling-a-dozen champagne, which he had specially imported, and disposed of to the hostess, there was not a white eye in the company. " Lady Cranleigh's health," cried the undaunted youth, " and her daughter Madge. Bumpers." Mr A. Braxton Hicks, the celebrated coroner, says that he never sat on three more painfully blackened and distorted corpses. It was against the advice of everybody that Mrs Barrett volunteered to take Mrs Collins, with Rose, and Miss Gascoigne, down the newly-discovered coal-mine at Newhaven. Scientists, while admitting that a rich vein had undoubtedly been discovered in this most unexpected locality, asserted, nevertheless, that the deposit would be so highly charged with gas that, as one eminent geologist humorously put it, it need possess the blowing -off capabilities of a prize-boxer. But they would go. At Victoria they were joined by Slikey Sam and Peter A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 53 Denny, and who, of all the world, should get into the train at Clapham but Mrs Rivenham and Uick. The cage was very crowded as it lowered slowly, slowly into the bowels of the earth, the only sound to be heard, above the clink, clink of the chain, being an occasional hiccup from Peter Denny, who made no attempt to deny the fact that he was "oiled." At length they were in almost total darkness, the one Davey lamp of the cage attendant showing but a flickering light. With a drunkard's stare Denny regarded that lamp, then he gazed at the butt end of a twopenny " Sensation" still in his hand. At last he blurted : " Hi say, sonny, gimme a li' ! " "A light!" gasped the attendant. "Impossible! D'you want to blow the gaff up ? " " Gimme a light, you ! " Then a struggle began. The grimy miner clutched his farthing dip to his bosom, whilst the inebriated Denny fought madly to get it. In the mtr'/ec somehow the lamp came undone A long, low rumbling sound, as though the mountains were in labour — a puff of smoke at the pit's mouth — that was all that told the tale of the Great Newhaven Colliery Disaster. " Alas ! " said Thomas Hicks when he heard the fatal news, " gone are the friends of my boyhood. I am alone in the desolate world." .'\t this moment he was seated on the parapet of Westminster Bridge. It was the work of a moment to swallow an overdose of opium, to shoot himself through the head, stab his own heart, and plunge in the raging flood beneath. We have no exact means of ascertaining, but we consider it extremely improbable that he will henceforth figure prominently in this ower true tale. " There was a sound of revelry by night " at the United Shoveha'penny and Tripe Club. Interest particularly centred, as is customary in Pall Mall, in the annual skittle match for the championship. The preliminary ties had been worked off satis- factorily, and the police had only to be called in five times. Now was the moment of breathless interest. The final lay between Captain Denby Wyeford and Lord Arthur Playford. 54 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN Hushed was every tongue, and in the supreme excitement you could almost have heard a steam-roller fall on the floor. Wyeford went first : a twicer. " Let me set up the pieces for you," he said to his antagonist. " Not at all," said his lordship, " I will do it myself, my chivalrous foeman." And he did so, carefully affixing a secret string to the apex of each skittle. Result. A floorer. " Sharper ! Gonoph ! " yelled Denby, blue with rage. The Playfords never forgive, and his lordship at once bashed out his adversary's brains with the cheese, amid resounding shouts of " good ball." "And now all is lost but my honour," said Lord Arthur, drearily, as he proceeded to insert the professional end of a corkscrew in his intercostal artery. How true it is that all flesh is grass ! Any character in this novel, who has not been killed off this week, will be attended to on forwarding a complaint, with a scrutiny fee of five shillings. Editor. FINIS. CHAPTER III The starting of the Pelican Club — Opened as "The Star" — The financier kicks the bucket — Swears comes along — The Ride to York— A strong club committee — Ole Brer Rabbit — A strange and gruesome incident — A "bird" in July — the Pelican page-boy— Maggie — Swears the discreet tipper — Waiters' wiles — Hugh Urummond's fondness for driving four-wheelers — A leaf from the candidates'-book — A drive to Epsom — Origin of "Boy" — Novices at coaching — Philosophy of " the Honourable Hampton Wick" — A cab accident — The downfall of Sir John Bennett — Sir John and "Ducks" Ailesbury — " Ducks" and his groom — Drummy and Sir James Paget — The boxer's benefit that went astray — The hall porter who had notions — The club cooking. THE precise reason why the late lamented PeHcan Club had, after a merry life of a little more than five years, to put its shutters up, will never be definitely and satisfactorily settled — at least, so far as the outside world is concerned. Some say it was loose management ; Swears declares it was unsuccess- ful litigation. Every singer in a village quartette can give you just three good reasons why the organisation isn't absolutely perfect ; but there are ten times that number of men who feel sure they could have carried on " this peculiar conglomeration of mixed spirits," as poor old Sir John Astley called the Pelicans, with success. Does it matter a row of pins to-day who was right or who was wrong ? Not it. Consequently, we'll leave all such intricate problems for other people to solve, and devote this chapter to some pleasant memories of the old place — or places. 56 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN It was on the night of Wednesday, the nineteenth of January, 1887, that the generally indescribable residents of Denman Street, at the western end of Shaftesbury Avenue — then called in flights of imaginative fancy Denman Street, Piccadilly — ob- served with emotions of curiosity, not unmixed with suspicion, a great number of hansom cabs arriving in rapid succession at the doors of the queer old building, externally resembling a conflicting combination of a second-class Turkish bath and an ambitious Baptist's meeting-house, that had long occupied the site No. 21 in that classic, if depressing, thoroughfare. To two or three hundred of the gilt-edged young gentlemen of that bygone era there was no mystery at all : they had come simply to " assist " at the inaugural ceremony of a new sporting and supper club, which the late " Shifter " had promoted on lines somewhat similar, but distinctly superior, to those of the Adelphi Club in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden. " The Spooferies," as everybody called the place, had rather outgrown its sphere of usefulness, and had begun to exhibit signs of outliving its popularity. Success — phenomenal success — had corrupted both management and servants to the extent of making them think they were, jointly and severally, in- dispensable. They began to turn up their noses at small cheques drawn by inebriated noblemen in the smaller hours, and even demur when called upon to produce tripe-and-onion suppers, with Welsh rarebits to follow, at seven in the morning. So, first finding a harmless, necessary small capitalist, and running him to earth, Willie had opened the " Star " Club to supply the boys of the best old sporting set in the A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 57 world, the " young 'uns coming on," and those who had been dining with Lucullus — or his modern prototype, Romano — with recreation and refresh- ment, not only during the whole of the day, but also after the utterly preposterous hour fixed in the Licensing Act. It was nothing short of what the writers in the society papers call a " brilliant function " that Wednesday night. The cosy and complete premises, the boxing saloon, the bars, both British and Yankee, the supper and the champagne — all were most suc- cessfully interview'cd by a representative crowd of fellows, who prophesied a splendid future for the new club ; aye, and kept on prophesying it until the old charwoman arrived simultaneously with the milk in the morning. Even these two depressing events failed to put an end to the revelries, for the milk-can was instantly taken out of the old girl's hands, a quantity of the excellent spirit of Jamaica was added to its contents, and a still further period of good feeling and kindly prophecy was immediately entered upon. But the venture, thus well started, was doomed to receive a sudden and most untoward check. From the outset the small capitalist — small, but still of primary importance — had taken the most glowing views of the club's prospects, views that were doubt- less enlarged to panoramas of a future of indolent luxury and affluence by the seductive eloquence of poor " Shifter." The sanguine small capitalist — it can surely harm nobody after a lapse of eleven years to tell the bare truth? — was a man who believed in " wetting " the good luck, and, so entirely persuaded was he that he'd never want money any more, that 58 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN he toasted the club again and again, till, to put it as pleasantly as possible, Udc ©verMb 5t! This sad happening left the new-fledged club perched metaphorically like a young blackbird on a barren bough, its eyes closed, but its bill wide open, hopeful of and dependent upon the passing that way of any adult bird ready and willing to contribute to and continue the good work. The bird that presently came along was a Pelican, the first of its kind ever seen in Denman Street, and it answered to the name of " Swears." It is not insinuated at this or any other portion of the entertainment that Swears, like the imprudent " Mac " of old at the music-halls, " dared to have money," but he had the next best thing to it — influence with a man who had plenty. At the time of which I am writing, this unfortunate person lived in delightful old Eboracum, and on the very evening of the day on which Swears and Willie came together, did they set out on their " Ride to York," more desperate and determined than ev^er Turpin could have been. For Richard had at least something to carry him, whereas viy pair of heroes were confronted at the very outset by an almost insurmountable obstacle — the third-class fare for two! Far be it from me to suggest that they had recourse to the painful and vulgar expedient of " macing the rattler," but the name of the person, if any, who produced from his pockets twice the necessary fifteen-and- eightpence for the tickets, is not forthcoming. A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 59 With the money which the impecunious travellers got from the man in York I must beg the reader's pardon, and pull aside for a moment. When I had written the line, abruptly broken off above, I stopped and asked my col- laborateur — " By the way, what was the chap's name, and whereabouts in York did he live ? " " Oh, his name doesn't matter now," said Swears. " He lived at the barracks." " He was in some cavalry regiment, then?" " Cavalry be sugared ! " cried Swears pityingly. " D'ye think if he'd been on horseback we should ever have caught him ? " Permit me to hark back and begin the last para- graph again. With the money they got from the man in York, or rather what remained of it after each had " drawn a bit " on account of personal working expenses, Swears and Shifter set their house in order. To begin with, they renewed the lease, certain of the servants' liv^eries, and friendly relationships (which were becoming somewhat strained), with their trades- people. When at length the club re-opened, it was not as the " Star," but the " Pelican," and with a committee which, it must be admitted, was singularly strong. On it were the Marquis of Queensberry (" Q " always to his familiars), poor " Kim " Mandeville (afterwards Duke of Manchester), Lords " Ned " de Clifford, and Churston, the Honourable Dan, and Clem, Finch, old Sir John Astley— "The Mate" to all who did and many who didn't know him — " Archie " Drummond, then a Captain in the Scots Guards, John Corlett, " Master" o' the Pink 'Un, Walter Dickson, 6o A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN best of good fellows and of " whips," and generally- called " Dicky the Driver," George Edwardes, a less busy man then than now, the late " Charlie " Harris, " Bob " (" Ballyhooly ") Martin, Teddy Solomon, who came near being a genius in music, our only Arthur Roberts, and the careful David James — careful, say I, because he resigned his seat, after failing to pass a measure " in supply," fixing the price of cheddar cheese on the bill of fare at one penny. And this after making fifty or sixty thousand pounds out of " inferior Dosset." To a grand flourish of trumpets — and corkscrews — an Inaugural Fancy Dress Ball was given, and though it cannot truly be said that there was a great deal of dancing, all the prettiest women from the "Gaiety" and the "Avenue" (then doing big business with comic opera), were there, whilst so many of the heartiest drinkers in Her Majesty's Army turned up, headed by the late "Fred" Russell (" Ole Brer Rabbit " of The Sportmg Times), that from midnight till five the next morning the men in the Brandy- and-Soda annexe never knew a dull moment. Poor Fred ! A bit of his cheery, candid comment — for he always spoke his mind, no matter where he might be — recurs to memory now. It occurred at the Court Theatre on the occasion of a new piece, called Tlie Manager, being presented, and went something like this: Joe Vint {ofte of the characters on the stage) : " You have heard me speak of Mr Justice Bunsby?" Mrs Barker {also on stage) : " I never heard you speak of any one else. Is he a relation of yours ? " Joe Vint {on stage) : " Yes, a relation by marriage." Mrs Barker {o7i stage) : "Whom did he marry?" A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 6i Joe Vint {ott stage): "Nobody. That's just it. But I have often heard my mother say that if my father hadn't proposed first, she would have accepted Mr Justice Bunsby, in which case I should have been a Bunsby." Ole Brer Rabbit {in the front row of the stalls, and loudly) : " I'll take six to four you are one now." What some of the managers of the present day would say to this kind of thing may be easily imagined, but it " went " then, and nobody ever dreamed of giving what they to-day call a " premiere," or a hundredth performance celebration without setting aside a stall for Captain Russell. There was a very grim circumstance connected with his end, poor fellow ! He and Shirley Brooks and " Kim " Mandeville (not then Duke of Manchester) went down to Southend to spend a Saturday to Monday. As *'■ Kim " had a touch of liver come on soon after dinner, he decided to go to bed, and Shirley and Fred strolled out into the town in search, of mis- adventure. They came to a shop where " imperish- able " funeral wreaths, made chiefly of small shells, were for sale, and, mindful of the indisposition of their companion at the hotel, they purchased one with the intention of taking it to town with them and quietly hanging it over the head of Mandeville's bed in the room he always kept at the Pelican. All this they duly carried out. A few days after their return Fred Russell was suddenly taken ill in the club, and, as it was found impossible to move him, Mandeville said : " Take him up to my bed ; I shan't be using it for a day or two." This was done ; and three days later Fred Russell lay there dead, and above his head was the new shell 62 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN wreath which he himself had nailed up as a joke on his friend Kim ! An instance of the way in which members' orders were imperatively carried out shall turn the subject. A certain very verdant young gentleman, who had joined barely twenty-four hours, strolled into the club one flaming hot afternoon in July, and, evidently con- sidering it the correct thing, ordered an elaborate lunch "on his own." In a bored way he told the head waiter he wasn't so particular as to what he had, so long as he got some soup, fish, an entree, "and a bird, of course!" The head waiter with difficulty suppressed a grin. " A bird " in the middle of July ! But the order, given in all good faith, was scrupulously carried out. The young gentleman had his "bird," and, it being "the close season," as the aged servitor told him in strict confidence, he made no bones over paying three guineas for the luxury. Three guineas ! And yet there were old members in the house at the time who declared that the club parrot, which was the unfortunate " bird " pressed into service, was worth a fiver at the very least. After all, the charm of a club is sensibly affected for good or ill by the discretion shown by its servants, and in this respect the Pelicans had nothing to grumble about. There was a certain page-boy, a tallish, red-headed youth, who was the personification of prudence. He stepped up to the bar one night, just after a pair of wheels had been heard to stop out- side, presented a letter, the envelope containing which was superscribed in a woman's most angular hand- writing, to Captain "Jack" H , and said — " Awaitin' an answer, sir, and the answer's rather tall, with yellow 'air, an' is sittin' outside waitin' in the cab ! " A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 63 It was this self-same boy, who, being, as I have said, a smart, soldierly-looking fellow, was offered a more lucrative post at the Carlton. He did not altogether relish the all-night business at the Pelican, particularly the Sabbath sittings, but before taking on the new job he wisely concluded to make a few enquiries. It was a prudent thing to do, but he fairly staggered a fine old Tory who had shown an interest in his welfare when he asked : " And is there any boxin' on Sunday nights at the Carlton Club, sir?" Then tliere was a cook, a fine handsome woman, just in her thirties, who proved the positive ruin of the younger male servants, for, as far as love-making went, she could have given the late Mrs Potiphar cards and spades and a beating ! Many old and observant members of the club lunched on cold meat from week's end to week's end by reason of the cook's inconquerable weakness, for no waiter was ever known to take a chop or a steak downstairs for Maggie to grill who returned under twenty minutes. The day came at last when Swears made a star- chamber matter of it, and it seemed as though Maggie's tender heart would break. " Oh dear, oh dear ! " she sobbed, " and to think how I've tried to make everybody happy and com- fortable, too ! " "That's just the point, Maggie," replied the mag- nanimous Swears, " but don't be cut up about it. Fame and fortune await you, Maggie, but — not here ! Here's a fiver for you ; go to one of the wardrobe shops in the Avenue, and get yourself a blue silk dress and a big hat with feathers on it, and go down to Regent Street ; that's\s\\&x& you'll get appreciated; you're only wasting your time with my waiters!" 64 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN Wonderful man at handling servants is Swears ; so far-seeing, so tactful. I went down to the seaside with him about a twelvemonth ago, and we were invited one night to go to a big public dinner at the boss hotel. For a great wonder we were early, and, going upstairs, we encountered on the first landing a little man in a dress suit, standing in front of a consol-glass, fussily arranging a long chain about his neck. " Aha ! " cried Swears, in a stage aside, " here's a bit o' luck — the wine-steward ! Half a dollar is never thrown away on a wine-steward, take my word for it, Arthur." So, taking a silver coin from his pocket, he sidled up to the little man, pressed the piece into his palm, and said : " You'll see, when you enter the saloon, where we're sitting ; bring us a full bottle of each sort and leave it. You won't regret it when the tables are cleared." The little man drew himself up starchily, flung the half-crown as far away from him as the walls would allow, and strutted away like a ruffled bantam. " Cocky little swine ! " said Swears, as he picked up the scorned coin, and pocketed it. " I s'pose the little beast thought he was worth a dollar ! Damned if I'll tip him at all now ! " and we went into the great dining-room. We'd hardly been in our seats long enough to warm them than the hammer of the toastmaster at the further end of the tables rapped for silence. Then, in stentorian tones, the relic of stately feeding cried aloud — " Gentle — men, pray rise for the Mayor ! " A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 65 And, I need hardly tell you, in peacocked the little man with the long chain, the " wine-steward " who chucked away Ernest's " half-oxford." Reverting to the Gerrard Street waiters, there was one period in the history of the Pelican during which Swears had around him about the hottest lot of rascals to be found in one place since Cremorne closed. They used to be very warm at Crockford's, I am told, constantly bringing in drinks that were never ordered to the players at the card-tables, and setting the trays, which invariably had one or two pats of butter stuck on underneath, atop of any loose gold that might be lying about. " You're mistaken, William, / ordered no brandy and water," the old members would say, and away the tray was carried with two or three sovereigns sticking underneath it. But Swears had one fellow in particular who had a happy knack of dating his customer's bills just over the top of the money columns, and then artlessly adding the day or the month — as best suited — in with the shillings, and, as ninety-nine Pelicans out of every hundred were criminally careless in money matters, the little fraud invariably came off. That a very simple accident should deprive the ingenious fellow of his hoard was only in keeping with the moral maxim about the " best policy," contained in the copy-books of early childhood. He dropped a wash-leather bag with seventy-six pounds in notes and gold in it on the floor of the club one night, and, as his bad luck ruled it, the proprietor picked it up. Like the scheming vizier before the Caliph Haroun- al-Raschid, the frightened waiter "pronounced his own doom," for, never daring to apply for the return of the " little parcel " he couldn't possibly have 66 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN accounted for, he became an object of suspicion, and was shortly afterwards sacked. There was another waiter whose peculiar ideas of the mother tongue caused some speculation among the curious, and one night a member asked him point blank: " Henri, what is your nationality ? " " To tell ye de troot, sir," said Henri, " I har-rdly know meself Me fader was an Irish pig-jobber, me mudder sang in Italian opera at Coven' Gyardin, an' I was born in a four-wheeler ! " Mention of this venerable vehicle leads to the observation that there probably never was a young blood fonder of driving a " growler " than Hughie Drummond, " brightest and best of the sons of the morning." Next to climbing a lamp-post outside the Raleigh, and reading, from that elevation, trite passages from Howard Vincent's handbook to a congregation of constables belonging to the C Division of police, Drummy's delight was to steer a four-wheeler. There was a night at the old Pelican in Denman Street when Colonel Brabazon and the gentlemen of the guard dropped in to pay a return visit — if the ex- pression is applicable — after a assault-at-arms on a rather lavish scale had been given by the Pelicans at St James' Palace in the presence of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales. Very few of these gentlemen were then members of the club ; indeed, from the fact that they were expressing unbounded admiration of the cosy peacefulness and quietude of the place, I doubt if any were. Swears was simply beaming with satisfaction at their repeated encomiums, and secretly speculating on the run the candidates'-book was about to have, when, as Rider Haggard has it, a strange thing happened. Wild whoops and " View halloas," that might have A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 67 ranked with John Peel's, come only just ahead of a great crashing of glass, a thundering of iron-shod hoofs, a violent crashing through swing doors of a heavy, clattering body, and right into the middle of the common room of the club came a four-wheeled cab, packed, inside and out, with half a score of the choicest spirits of that day, and driven by Hughie. For the next twenty minutes, during which the new arrivals yelled the " Club Anthem," and the cab- man, assisted by the servants, got the trembling horse and the heavy old cab back into the roadway, and a police -constable kept an expectant crowd on the move outside, something approaching chaos reigned, and the gentlemen of the guard departed without so much as even enquiring after the candidates'-book! What wonderful yarns might be written round that book alone, by the way, if one could only get hold of it ! But it is held against a bill of costs in connection with a bankruptcy, and that by a gentle- man who has given no early promise of the knack of writing short stories. This seems to show that the dog- in-the-manger sentiment enters largely into matters of everyday life, beside being the absolute foundation of every love affair. A transcript of one page, how- ever, is amongst my notes, and I give it : — DATE NAME OF CANDIDATE ADDRESS PROFESSION OR OCCUPATION PROPOSER SECONDER pl. 2S/S9 Ernest Boulanger, General Hotel Bristol, London Emperor infuturo Hugh Rayner Hugh F. Drummond Supported by Cecil Raleigh, Walter Pallant, Andrew Haley, C. D. Marius, Percy J. Whichelo, Isidor E. Wertheimer, J. H. J. Hornsby, Colville Hyde, J. D. Astley, Bart., Wil- ford Morgan, F. A. Wombwell, H. R. Bagot, G. P. Airey, Alfred Benjamin, R. P. Noah," and a host of others. 68 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN Coming " back to my horses " — cab horses, there is another four-wheeler drive of Hughie's that historians have hitherto passed over. It took place down the road to Epsom in the year of the Rothschild's only bit of luck in the Derby. It was in '79, when Sir Bevys won, Drummy was to call and pick up John Corlett at Anderton's Hotel, and the pilgrimage to the Downs was to be undertaken in a hansom, which the chief of the Pink 'Un had already put in commission, and victualled with half a dozen bottles of the choicest " Boy " to be found in Fleet Street. (The young bucks of the present day, by the way, generally allude to a bottle of champagne erroneously as " the Boy," in evident ignorance of the origin of the term, which is as follows : At a shooting party of His Royal Highness's, the guns were followed at a distance by a lad who wheeled a barrow-load of champagne, packed in ice. The weather was intensely close and muggy, and whenever anybody felt inclined for a drink he called out " Boy ! " to the youth in attend- ance ; the frequency with which this happened leading to the adoption of the term. It does not follow, however, that everybody who uses the word nowadays was out shooting that day with the Prince). By the time Clapham Common was reached, the basket of wine was found to be taking up too much of the foot room ; moreover, some allusion had been made to the historic suggestion addressed by the Governor of North Carolina to his brother-ruler of the South, on an ever memorable occasion, so the cab was pulled up and the wire nippers produced. The pop of the first cork brought a host of Romanys around, and so mightily to the liking of the Lees and A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 69 the Coopers was the brand John Corlett had selected, that they would probably have finished the half- dozen but for the arrival in sight of an old four- wheeler, plastered from roof to step with posters of The Topical Times, which had either been only recently started or was just cutting its literary teeth. "Why, John," cried Hughie, "here's the Opposition in a four-wheeler ? " "Then," responded John, no churlish sportsman, " ask the Opposition if it will pull up and take a drink." As it happened, it was not the leaders of the Opposition but some underlings, and, on being ap- proached, they unanimously came over to the other party, as their masters, " Pot " Stephens and " Bill " Yardley would undoubtedly have done in similar circumstances. Then it was that Hughie's unconquer- able love of the growler's box-seat asserted itself, and, when the two vehicles re-started, the hope of the House of Drummond was steering The Topical Times turn-out from a seat that had probably been obtained by bribery and corruption. Now Master Hugh was an apt pupil of the incom- parable Selby's, but there were eccentricities about his style that " Father Jim " never could correct. " This," he said to me the other day on the front seat of the New Times, as we started down the steep hill that runs into Cobham, " is where I dropped the reins on the wheelers' backs and they started to bolt ! D'you remember that, Dickie ? " And Walter Dickson, the perfection of whips, shook with laughter at Hugh's notion of an innovation in coachmanship. Just the same playful ways had the good fellow 70 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN whom we all called " The Honourable Hampton Wick." "Over there," he would remark, pointing to a wayside cottage with the blinds down, " is the abode of a poor son of toil, cut off ere his prime. He came in contact with this coach while I was driving yesterday. I wonder," he would continue, as a herd of cattle came in sight, " whether these are bullocks or cows, because cows will be more expensive. Oh yes — that avenue of elms ! See the sameness there would be about it, and the Dutch severity of the outline, but for the fact that last Friday I upset that blessed old tree on the right ! " — and so on. Whether Hugh drove the cab-horse carelessly or whether he " did it a-purpose " to confound the Op- position is not known, but in something under two miles from the halting place at Clapham, the four- wheeler went slap into a ditch and turned over ! Hughie pulled himself out of the hedge and at once tendered his resignation, the reins, and a morsel of kindly advice to the astonished cabby, mixed up amongst the hand-bills, posters, and paste-pots inside the capsized growler. With what placidity we can regard the misfortunes of others ! Into the hansom that had been bowling leisurely along behind, got John and Hughie, and in due course reached the Downs. " Master," being an inveterate luncher, and Hughie very useful at the manger also, it was only natural that, after trifling with eight or nine cold spreads in different boxes in the Stand, they should go in search of something to drink on the Hill. On the verv crown of this eminence stood the A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 71 coach of the Scots Guards, and Colonel Fludyer was the first to extend hospitality to the roving pair. It happened as Hugh removed the most prominent feature of his jovial face from the inside of a large tumbler, that he recognised, just below his feet, the familiar figure of Sir John Bennett seated on his sturdy, round-barrelled cob. Sir John had his back to the coach, and was contentedly surveying the wonderful living picture that literally surrounded him, never dreaming that any one would rudely and wantonly disturb his reverie, " I wonder," mused Hughie, gazing down at the aldermanic back view, " how the dear old chap would carry a passenger behind ? " Hugh's actions were always treading on the heels of his thoughts, and so, hardly were the words out of his mouth, than his body was seen flying, with legs outstretched, off the top of the coach. He came down fairly astride the cob, right behind Sir John, and instantly the whole lot went down like a ninepin ! There they were, struggling on the turf, Sir John and the pony and Drummy together. The last named, being by far the most nimble, was on his feet first, and was actively assisting the portly old clockmaker to rise. " Allow me, my dear Sir John, allow me," cried Hughie, determined in Capel Court parlance to " make the market good," as he rescued and restored the Bennettian white bowler and assisted to brush the dust from the black velvet jacket so familiar to Cheapside. " Outrageous, sir, outrageous ! " he con- tinued. " Have you any idea who it was that did it ? " " Not the slightest, my friend, not the least," re- turned Sir John, "ha.vej/of^?" 72 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN "Yes, sir, I have," replied Drummy, with well- simulated indignation, " unless I am very much mistaken, it was the person standing upon the box of that coach there ; " and he indicated the late "Billy" Savernake, Marquess of Ailesbury, who, in a suit of fearful and wonderful chessboard cloth, stood on the box of the next coach but one. " Ducks," as Ailesbury was called in playful allusion to the leading product of the town from which he took his title, had been a highly amused spectator of the whole affair, and he was still grinning from ear to ear. Now the strong point about George William Brudenell Bruce always was his command of " language " As the costermonger said, speaking in admiration of his pal who cursed the missionary in the railway train for eleven minutes without stopping to draw breath, or ever repeating himself, " Lord love me, it's 2. gift ! " and " Ducks " could " rap it out " in a way that would have made a Billingsgate porter turn green with envy. So, when poor old Sir John, much redder in the face than usual, rode up, shaking his fist at Ailesbury, calling him a " d — d scoundrel," and demanding what he meant by it, " Ducks " simply took one glance of amused contempt at the old man, and — BEGAN ! ! ! How it all ended I never enquired, and, after all, it's a pity to spoil a good story, but it's a thousand to one on " Ducks " having had the best of it : he had such a gift of conversation. Lots of folks who criticised his doings and the eccentric manner of his life knew nothing of the other side of his character ; he wasn't all bad. He was to drive a lot of fellows down to Kempton one day, and had ordered his coach to be at the door at ten o'clock. Half-past ten came, however, but with A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 73 no sign of the coach, so he walked round to the stables and found the stud -groom just having the wheelers put in. "This isn't ten o'clock, Jim ?" " No, m'lord," stammered Jim, who was a lazy- rascal and always unpunctual. " I'm sorry I'm so late." " But you're always late, Jim, and I feel sure it arises from the fact that you're labouring under a great misapprehension. You're only here by the month — not on a ninety-nine years' lease! Do you tumble ? " Presumably Jim did, for he was a perfect model of punctuality — for nearly a week afterwards ! Hughie made no mistake in turning poor old Sir John over to Ducks ; but then Drummy always had a happy knack of getting out of these little scrapes. Too rich to be forgotten is the very significant remark that Drummy made to Sir James Paget upon a somewhat grave occasion. The prince of surgeons had performed a very intricate and difficult operation upon Hugh who, still in considerable pain, watched the great medico step across the room to the wash- stand, and, after pouring some antiseptic solution into the basin, proceed to rinse his hands. As he did so he turned his head, and his gaze met that of his patient. Sir James smiled reassuringly, as doctors sometimes do after half killing a man. "You may well smile, sir," said Hughie, with jocular cynicism, "but you probably won't think it's so damned funny when it comes to the suit of "Paget versus Drummond " for your fees ! " Hughie was ever a light-hearted lad, and occasion- ally did himself a lot of good by sheer accident. For 74 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN instance, a lot of men of the right sort chanced to be in the club late one night when some boxers dropped in to arrange with poor Johnnie Fleming about their forthcoming engagements. Swears seized upon the opportunity to get up an impromptu bit of a show there and then, and a rattling good night's entertain- ment it proved. Towards the finish Hughie went round with his hat, and, as all the boys of those days thought it a deuced sight more blessed to give than to receive, he gathered in quite a respectable handful of gold. Next morning when George — the handiest man that club-proprietor ever had (he is still bar-keeper, valet, and confidential adviser to the appreciative Swears, acting also as a sort of human buffer between his master and his master's creditors) — went up with the brandy- and-soda, he found Drummy sitting up in bed regard- ing with unmistakable astonishment and satisfaction the dozens of gold coins that were strewn on the toilet-table and all over the carpet. " George," said he, still glaring at the pretty little quids, " I'm positive I'm awake, and yet it all seems like a glorious, delightful dream ! Just look at 'em ! And yet, when I came away from the Pavilion last night, I'd only got twelve-and-sixpence ! Are they real ? " " Oh, they're real enough, sir," said George, pick- ing up one of the coins and dropping it on the counterpane. " Then what has happened ? " "The fact is, sir," said George, "you got up a benefit for some boxers last night and — er — took it yourself! " George always had a certain amount of tact about A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 75 him, though the same could not be said of all the Pelican servants, especially of Jim, the burly Irish hall-porter. It should be mentioned that the club was generally closed at about four o'clock each morning, and Jim was naturally interested in the observance of punctuality. Well, one dull, leaden Christmas afternoon at about an hour before the duchesses and countesses of society have the tea- cups handed round, James elected to " get his load on," and, under one of the delusions that not in- frequently arise during inebriety, he imagined it was twelve hours later than it really was. So into the club he lurched, and, despite all protests, threats, and expostulations, he began to bundle the members unceremoniously into the street and close the club doors. In the midst of it all Swears, who had been hastily summoned from his afternoon siesta, appeared, and, with considerable difficulty and the assistance of a couple of police-constables, convinced the Hibernian that it was anything but four o'clock in the morning. As the rumpus subsided, and the members, all laughing heartily, went back. Swears mopped the beads of per- spiration from his forehead, and said to the fellow in a tone of anguished remonstrance : "This mustn't happen again, Jim. If you want to turn your knowledge of athletics to good account, for Heaven's sake chuck some new members ijito the club : don't chuck the old 'uns out ! " It was just about this time, too, that Swears had a lot of trouble with the culinary department of the club, and the complaint - book teemed with entries that murmured loudly at the state of the cooking. One member, who stood it longer than the rest, but kicked at last, was Loftus Thornhill. After 76 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN eating a very badly prepared meal one night he said to Swears : " I've dined here for the last time, Ernest. The soup was smoky and unpalatable, the fish was burnt, and the cutlets were cold and positively gritty. A more disgraceful dinner I've never tried to eat. You won't see me here again in a hurry." Nor did we. But, months afterwards. Swears encountered Loftus walking along Coventry Street. Contrite as might be, the Pelican almost begged the wanderer to return to the fold. Such a good chap as he was missed by everybody. " Everything is altered now," said Swears, as a final rally, "and what's more, Loftus, I've got my old chef back." " I know it," answered Loftus, with a sad smile. " / saw her cleaning the doorsteps as I drove past this morning ! " CHAPTER IV Still on at the waiters — A " Cheese " servitor — A moral supper- room ditto — The story of Buzfuz — Pelicans move to Gerrard Street — The Mate's philosophy of boxing — The Author's speculations on the origin of fist-fighting — A glove-fight ten years ago — Alec Roberts and Arthur Bobbett at Paradise Row — An attempt to rush the doors — Enthusiasts on the roof — Chipping between the seconds — Roberts the winner — Police at the Pelican — " Found the door open " — Fatty Coleman holds the watch — Eccentric timekeeping — No ap- peal allowed — Fatty's philosophy — Box and Cox business — A matutinal peg — Bruges and Farnborough contrasted — Hero worshippers — Nat Laugham's opinion— Nat's private trials — I find a Jackson in embryo — The buck nigger at the "Slave Market" — His method of training — He is pitted against Ted Rich — Exit the "Slave Market." I CAN NOT deny that waiters, of one sort and another, got a full shake in the last chapter. And yet I'm loth to leave them and get along with the main story, for I'm very partial to the waiter of the old school, and detest the imported foreign article that nowadays seems to work its way into the most sacred old chop-houses. Give me the old- fashioned waiter, with a bit of nous about him, the waiter who becomes a part and parcel of the house. Simpsons, and that older snuggery, the " Cheshire Cheese," have had many such ; indeed, it was Cole, who reigned for years at the cosy old place in Wine Office Court, who said one of the most dignified and 77 78 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN delightful things that a waiter ever got off. A party of American tourists were looking over the antiquated dining-room, and, coming to the table upon which the famous pudding is cut twice a week, one of them said : " I guess that's a tarnation old table ? " " About three hundred years, sir," said Cole. " Sa — ay, that don't go," cried the disbelieving Yank ; " that's before old Doctor Johnson used to lunch here ! " " Well, you surely don't think we got new furniture for him, do you ? " answered Cole, with fine sarcasm, and that incredulous Yankee wilted. I call to mind another honest, if somewhat bibulous, head waiter at a certain supper-rooms to which I much resorted at one time, and he it was who quoted the bitter example of the elasticity of woman's love that I'm about to relate. It cropped up through his asking me to recommend his son for a billet — his fancy halted between a sporting club and an a la mode beef-house — and upon my asking in return why he didn't have the lad there, under his constant super- vision, he had turned quite serious, and even started moralising. Let a mere lad see all that he had to see, and overhear all that he had to hear? No. Rather should he go into the streets and sell But at this point I jumped in, and refused further to discuss young William and his virtue. Who ever heard of a supper-room waiter possessing any virtue, save, at times, discretion ! William gazed sadly, half-apologetically into a tankard which he had re- moved from another table, and asked me the astonish- ing question : " At what age, sir, should the full story of a woman's baseness be placed before a mere lad ? " A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 79 "Well," said I, metaphorically baiting a line and casting it, " it much depends upon the brand and vintage of the story. How would you start it for instance?" He took the hook at once — good, simple soul ! " The night before last, sir," he began, in a slightly lowered tone, " Mr Fishton-Smithers dined at that end table with a singularly beautiful female." " Mr Fishton-Smithers, the barrister? " " The same, sir — leastways I know he's something connected with the law." " He's a barrister — and a very smart one, too. Go on." " He dined at that end table with, I must admit, a very fascinatin' female, sir. It struck me when they came in that they'd had a glass o' wine or two, an' they spun their dinner out sich a time, long after all the rest o' the tables was va-cated, that, as they talked rather loud, an' the place was all quiet, I couldn't be off hearin' their conversation, especially as they kept orderin' liqueurs after liqueurs. After about the fifth, the lady she lights a cigarette, which she took from his case which was lyin' on the table, an' she says, carelessly, though with a air as though she'd been thinkin' things over, she says, ' Now, then, old Buzfuz, settin' all sentiment on one side, what I want of you is "counsel's opinion."' I don't think Mr Smithers was much pleased at the question ; but he twisted his moustache shruggingly like, and looked across the table at her. " ' Well,' says he, ' apart from all — I am bound to use the word — minor considerations, I don't see how you're to do it. To a little woman of the world like yourself, I will not talk about " affairs of the heart," but simply take a pounds, shillings, and pence " 8o A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN " ' Oh, don't bother about the pence ! ' she inter- rupted. " ' Very well,' Mr Smithers went on, ' a monetary- view, then. Old Myddleton, as you say, allows you two hundred a month, and pays your rent. This stockbroking boy, this young — what's his name ? ' "'Johnnie Brokenhill.' "'Just so. This Mr — or should I say Master — Brokenhill wishes to marry you — marry you, mind, Ethel — on five pounds a week, a tenth part of the sum on which you find it impossible to get along now. Now, if you can tell me how that's to be done ' " ' Oh ! ' she cried, ' thafs all right ! Old Myddleton's arrangement would still go on ; Johnnie wouldn't interfere with that !' "Mr Fishton- Smithers left off twiddhn' his moustache quite suddenly, and called for another liqueur. " ' Oh, he wouldn't, eh ? ' he answered with a little laugh. * Oh well then, that's all right ! What do you want " counsel's opinion " on then ? ' " ' Why — er ' she began, leaning a little further across the table, and putting her finger up to her lips, ' to tell you the truth. Fishy, I have a lover ' "Mr Fishton-Smitherssat slap back in his chair an' looked at her like a man looks at the third of triplets, sir. I've often read about people gaspin' for breath, but had never seen one before. Then he blew, like as though the room was gettin' too hot, an' drew his hand acrost his forehead. Presently, when he re- covered himself a little, he said : "' I — er — hardly like to refer to cz/r little friendship. A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 8r Ethel, but, 'pon me soul, it would be interesting to know what place / hold " '^'VouP' she cried, laying her gloved left hand on his arm, and makin' in play as though she'd hit him, ' Why, you jealous old silly-billy, _;/^w are dear, price- less old Buzfuz, of course ! ' " No, sir, what he said to t/iaf I don^ know," remarked William, " for to tell you the truth, I had to go down to the bar an' got a drop o' brandy to^ steady my nerves." The foundation stone of the Gerrard Street build- ing, now in the occupation of a telephone company, was laid by Sir John Astley on Wednesday, the 3rd of April 1889. At the large and luxurious lunch which followed at the Cafe Royal, and over which even a democrative Siar man went into ecstasies,, describing the guests as sturdy, strapping, ruddy-faced young men, exceedingly well-fed to look at, exceed- ingly well groomed and faultless in point of varnished boots and well-fitting coats — positive walking adver- tisements for Smalpage ! — with huge bouquets in their buttonholes and resplendent ties of the latest shape, the fine old " Mate " got upon his hind legs and delivered himself of a strong, and therefore char- acteristic speech. He extolled the virtues of " Our Proprietor," and then, after wishing good luck to the new building, he plunged into the philosophy of Boxing. " I believe in a man takin' his own part," he said, "and bein' able to put 'em up if he wants to. (Cheers.) What's the good o' carryin' a dam great stick about? It's in the way; it incommodes you, an' if you put one o' those blasted six-shooters in your 52 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN pocket, it's likely to go off at the wrong time. I believe, as I said, in a man bein' able to take his own part, and so long as he's got his two bunches of dukes hangin' down by his side, and can put 'em up, he don't want anything else. Let him defend himself with the weapons that God gave him, and damn all other inventions ! " Doubtless fighting with the fists is of very ancient origin — at any rate, it will save me a great deal of useless research to suppose so. Without going as far as did an ingenious author who, many years ago, claimed that wrestling originated at the meeting of the Angel and Jacob, related in the twenty-third chapter of the First Book of Moses called Genesis, there is no reason to doubt that the fist was man's first weapon, and that he learned to rely on his " dukes " for attack or protection long before he thought of fashioning a club from the bough of a tree, with which to pound his neighbour and wage war with the three-toed horse and the cave bear. The modern, legally-tolerated form of fisticuffs, the glove contest, has passed, and in some places is still passing, through troublous times. It is said that even in this enlightened age it is far easier in Texas, for instance, to pull off a nigger-lynching bee than a championship boxing-match. But then there's a superfluity of " wind " about championship boxing in America, as witness the recent introduction of a patent pneumatic boxing-glove ! Within as short a space as ten years, boxing has become decidedly more popular than it was, and I attribute it (with all the arrogance of a self-constituted critic of but twenty years' experience) to the fact that A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 83 matches between the very best men in the business may now be witnessed in absolute comfort and security, whereas formerly one who desired to see a scrap, even between fourth or fifth-rate men, had to duck and dive about in the most unsavoury quarters, "part" to an unconscionable extent, and suffer the occasional loss of the old racing " Waterbury," or put up with the pain and indignity of a punch on the nose from an utter stranger in a generall}' futile effort to retain one's own portable property. Let me give my uninitiated readers (Pray,what author cares towrite for the other sort, the fellows who " knew it all long before you were born " ?) a sketch of a night at one of the most select of the boxing dives of ten short years ago. It was at a "School of Arms," in an extremely narrow, dirty thoroughfare in Lambeth, called " Para- dise Walk " — presumably by a cynic. Street lamps were very occasional luxuries, but darkness had not quite got the upper hand, and the occasional glare of a gin-palace showed the muddy road to our Strand cabman. That a meeting of unusual interest was imminent, was evinced by the crowds of doubtful- looking loafers and close-cropped larrikins, all flocking in the same direction, whilst a timely warning to the prudent was presented in the spectacle of a very brightly illuminated baker's shop, in which absolutely nothing was on view but the baker himself, who, having with rare Teutonic wit taken in the situation at a glance, had cleared all the bread out of his window, and was sitting on the shop counter in about the most likely spot to shelter the till. Police- constables there were in half-dozens, marching and counter-marching to and fro, and churning up the 84 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN crowd as they do when clearing the racecourse at Epsom or at Ascot, but the lads were slippery as eels ; they literally swarmed the place, and did a roaring trade by joining in the excited, surging crowd swarm- ing round two great wooden doors, which might have formed the back entrance to a barn or a very primitive gaff. Whenever these doors, over which appeared the bold and inflexible inscription — " Admission, One Sovereign," opened, as they did every few seconds, the mob swayed about, and the indescribables cheered and shoved up from behind, so that the likely-looking stranger who essayed to get through that crowd, felt like the old lady who, years and years ago, testified to the genuineness of " Doctor " Slade's seances. " Ye could feel spirit 'ands a-wandering all over of yer," she said. When you had paid your " quid," and got inside — and he would have been a very trouble-seeking individual who tried to gain admission without going through the first-named formula — you had no small difficulty in getting a seat. For the " School of Arms " was no more than a low-roofed shed, measuring perhaps fifty feet by forty, with a sixteen-feet square taken out of the middle for the fistic arena — the only bit of floor space that was boarded. So close were the front seats — rough deal benches — to the ropes, that the heads of the " gents " who occupied them came in contact with the hemp itself, while the second and third rows placed respectively about three and six feet higher, were just far enough back to give the second-row man's knees free play of the front-row man's shoulder-blades. All these pitches were taken by the time I got in, and indifferent standing room was hard to find, whilst the atmosphere — it was a muggy September evening — was truly awful. Up in A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 85 one corner, surrounded by his " bodyguard " of pugilists, was the late George " Abington " Baird, and with him Jim Carney, the Birmingham Light- Weight Champion of the World, and Arthur Cockburn, not then, I think, an owner of racehorses. Charlie Black- lock, quite the best-hearted patron of boxing men to be found, and now a large shareholder in the N.S.C., had brought four or five friends ; my old friend Martin Cobbett had energetically screwed himself into a pitch near the favourite's corner, and Teddy Bayly, all-round useful man, was wedged in between poor old " Shifter" and a sporting house-surgeon from King's College Hospital. The usual preliminaries, familiar, I have no doubt, to most of my readers, were carried out with unusual bluster. Even the water in the pails was regarded with suspicion, and tasted, and there was quite a squabble over the alleged unfair division of the powdered resin. Then Alec Roberts, stripped to a pair of bathing drawers, but with a light overcoat thrown over his shoulders, came in, his esquires being Jack Harper, then landlord of the Market House at Islington, and Bob Habbijam, himself the proprietor of a very useful " School of Arms " in Newman Street, Oxford Street. Roberts was quickly followed into the ring by Arthur Bobbett, distinctly not the most typical puncher to be found, with a plaster that enveloped him to his breasts and his shoulder blades. It was evident that Bobbett had " Birning'am " behind him, for his seconds were George Probert and Jim Bevan. "Time" was not called as promptly as it might have been for the reason that a most interesting wholesale set-to had just started in the undulating, 86 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN rubble-floored alley by which the " School of Arms " was approached. A number of " gents," not possessed of the necessary gold pieces, had tried to carry the doors by storm, and the insignia of the black eye and ruddy proboscis was being dealt out to them with great freedom by the little band of bruisers within. It was only when this attack had been repulsed, and Sam Blakelock, a little bit flushed, but bearing no other signs of recent damage, appeared from the alley and cried " Go on, guv'nor, it's all ' Sir Garnet ' now ! " that the referee arose and explained that the fight was with small gloves, to a finish, for two hundred sovereigns a-side. I don't propose to try your patience at this lapse of time with a record of the rounds in detail. Roberts " went for" the fair, lanky lad in front of him as though he'd like to settle the thing in three or four rounds, but Bobbett was not to be so easily drawn. " Gently, my lad, gently," came from a counsellor in Bobbett's corner, who Lntended his remarks equally for the other side, "yer don't want to knock 'im out yet ; give us a little show o' yer quality afore you ' out's ' 'im ! " But Bobbett didn't seem so easy about it, and, swinging in a round arm blow, which Roberts avoided by ducking, he landed on the latter's back. "What's the matter, Arty, boy," came a cant-toned enquiry from Roberts' corner, "don't yer like his little plaster? We can't give it to yer, my lad, altJid yer own's a-slippin' down." Such was the fact, and when Bobbett went to his corner at the end of the round, his handlers neglected all else to get the collapsing diachylon back to its place. Round succeeded round, and, as Bobbett did nothing but duck to avoid punishment, and the heat and stuffiness were becoming insufferable, we all A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 87 looked like being asphyxiated, when a saviour with- out, in the shape of a prize-fighting costermonger on the roof, averted a calamity by pulling open a skylight. Thrusting his head, shoulders, and one arm through the frame in the ceiling, he shouted as he held out two half-crowns, literally under my very nose, " 'Ere, Alick knocks 'im aout fer five bio' — who'll 'ave it? " But, just then, business from behind called him. His mission up there on the roof was to exclude — Anglice, sling off — any who sought to " pipe off" the contest through the skylight aforesaid, and his method with such invaders was particularly short an' sweet. " Blymy ! Git orf this roof." No answer. " J'yer, are ye goin' orf ?" Still no answer, '"Ere — Bill — gimme that flower-pot ! " Then we heard a rush of heavy feet on the leaden flats, a scuffle, a sharp crack, a falling of broken earthenware, and a thud : the intruder had been thrown into the street below ! This happened pretty frequently. But the fight had begun to take shape at last : Alec Roberts was driving Bobbett all over the ring. Old Jack Baldock, always the noisiest of ringsiders, was howling at the Fulham lad. " Stand up to 'im, my lad, stand up to 'im an' 'ave a round ; " an in- vocation which was met by " Shut up, Coddy Middin's " from Bobbett's corner, a reference, I believe, to a former conqueror of Baldock's. Any- how the sting, wherever it came in, was felt. " Why carn't yer let the dead rest ? " cried Baldock. " Dead or not, I'd back 'im to give you all you wanted ! " retorted the other. "Shut up. Withers, this ain't Sharntilly ! " was another bit of innuendo. " May the Devil never 'ave an easy minute till he gets hold of ye, but don't give 'im the brass knuckles." S8 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN About this time Roberts fought his man right over into one corner and got him on the ropes. Like a wild animal at bay Bobbett seemed, for a change, to put in all he knew, and, as a fact, he put in a little more, for, his foot slipping where the constant sponging had made a slop, and meeting the tin water-bowl in its slide, he sent the latter slap into the lap of the man who was crouching down in front of me. This chap's first impulse was to jump up, which caused me to jump up too, whereupon a crooked stick came down from the skylight and swiped my hat off — and all this, as the luck would have it, at the very acme of the encounter, just as Roberts ad- ministered to his reluctant adversary the coup de grace. To have lost the climax and my " cady " together was very irritating ; but by this the " inquest," or inevitable wrangle between the seconds, had started, so rescuing my unoffending but broken bowler from the wet sawdust, I pushed my way out to where fresh air and the fob-divers were waiting. What has become of Bobbett I do not know, nor is it at all unusual for a boxer who one day bursts upon the firmament of fisticuffs to fall into utter obscurity ; but Roberts is a full-blown instructor to the Army at Aldershot, and — all praise to him — has turned out five boxing champions from the First Battalion of the Grenadier Guards, So, by the same token, the five best boxers in her Majesty's army — two drummers and three privates — are wasting their sweetness on the desert air of Gibraltar. Boxing can be now seen under very different con- ditions to those obtaining at Paradise Row. A member of the National Sporting Club may book a seat there for a big contest, order his dinner at the A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 89 same time, and turn up on the night of the match with the certainty of finding his place reserved for him. He knows, too, that absolute order will be maintained from first to last. No unauthorised or undesirable visitor could possibly bluff his way into the N.S.C. Be he the President himself (the en- thusiastic Lord Lonsdale), or the most insignificant feather-weights adjutant of the towel and water-bottle, he must pass through the double lines of com- missionaires and boxing instructors of the club to the turnstiles, where the janitors are a champion of the Royal Navy and an ex-superintendent of Bow Street Police-Ofifice. If he can bounce this little army he deserves a seat — not that he is any the more likely to occupy one without the necessary voucher. This frequent mention of the police, by the way, recalls the memory of an unexpected visit they paid to the Pelican in its early days. Be it here re- marked that the police have the most unconscionable methods of raising money known to man. Whenever the funds of the Court are low, they make no more ado, but simply sally forth and raid some unfortunate club, in direct opposition to the excellent old adage, that " An Englishman's house is his castle." The only occasion of their coming to the Pelican was on a Saturday night, when a squad of constables, headed by an inspector, boldly marched into the gymnasium and witnessed, without comment, but evidently with much satisfaction, two rounds of as lively a " mill " between a couple of as smart middle-weights as the keenest Corinthian could desire. This intrusion was subsequently apologised for by the Commissioners, upon the incident being brought to their notice by the club solicitor, Sir 90 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN (then Mr) George Lewis, who defined the action of the inspector and his men as a trespass of the most flagrant kind. As far as the Pelicans assembled on that night were concerned, the event was provoca- tive of amusement rather than uneasiness, and there certainly was none of the undignified " skedaddling " that is usually witnessed at a police raid. Whilst the men were fighting not a single person took any notice of the intruders ; it was only when the contest was over that the time-keeper (a gentleman very well known, and a captain in the Grenadier Guards) stepped up to the inspector, and asked the cause of the intrusion. " The door was open, sir," replied the bobby, " and we walked in." " Well," said the captain, " the door is still open — right about face — quick marr — ch ! " And, amidst loud laughter, the constables marched out. The relation of the incident might very well be allowed to end here, but, as a matter of fact, the two inspectors were subsequently invited to stay, if their duty permitted it, to v/itness a bit of sparring. Stay they did, and a ripping fine exhibition of the art they witnessed, seeing that the contestants were Smith, then in his prime, and Toff Wall. It was a couple of much smaller potatoes in the pugilistic basket that fought a twenty-round contest one night to the clocking of Fatty Coleman, and it may be confessed now that the bulky Stephen alone saved the fight from ignominiously collapsing. Jolly old Stephen ! I don't know what his present aspira- tions may be, but surely some public position should be provided to recompense an adipository development A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 91 like his. He isn't big enough for a circus, but would be just the thing for a young ladies' boarding-school at Brighton, where he could not be equalled for sitting on the girls' seaweed albums. Coming back to the mutton, Fatty was sitting by the side of the ablest and firmest referee of modern times, Jack Angle, and holding the stop-watch. The fight commenced, and it was soon very evident that the lads were no particular fliers. At the same time, one of them slogged and rustled in such wild, cyclonic style that his opponent looked very like catching a fluky punch before he'd got fairly warmed into action, and it was a hundred to one on his going out inside seventy seconds, when Fatty, to the astonishment of everybody, roared out " Time ! " The referee looked surprised, and, but for the gravity of the time-keeper, a dozen amused spectators would have demanded to know what sort of time was being kept. One gentleman, however — a very occasional visitor — who had got a big bit on the hurricane fighter, put an end to all mild or playful remonstrance with the holder of the " clock " by becoming violently angry, and not forgetting to show it. He thundered at the referee to know what " this damned nonsense " meant, only to be told, quietly but firmly, by Angle, who probably scented a joke somewhere, that he must either hold his tongue or leave the club : the referee had no control whatever over the time-keeper ! Very much the same sort of thing happened in the second, and again in the third round, and each time just as it looked any odds that could be named on the fellow who was being ignominiously licked dropping in his very tracks, " Time !"' came welling out, and the 92 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN duffer of the pair was lugged into his corner by his ever hopefui seconds. The occasional visitor was boiling over with indignation, but he simmered down, while he made a polite and even pathetic appeal to the referee, only to get the same answer as before. Eventually, after sixteen or seventeen rounds, the beaten man, liberally dosed with brandy-and-water, pulled himself together wonderfully, and, setting about his now tiring attacker, entirely turned the tables on him, and wound up by knocking him out ! Oh, what a hullabaloo that stranger kicked up as the boxer who had been so well served in the matter of " Time " secured the victory ! He protested that Fatty knew no more about time-keeping than the singing soubrette of a touring company about holy matrimony ! He railed and he stormed ; but the man who broke the weighing-machine at Monte Carlo neither lost his temper or his dignity. Drawing himself up, and adjusting his black - rimmed glass to his eye, he looked the complainant up and down, and said : " My good fellow, this contest wasn't got up solely in order that you might win your miserable bets, but for the honest amusement of the club members (Hear ! hear !), and if, instead of exercising my discretion, I had allowed the regulation three minutes, the fight wouldn't have lasted a couple of rounds ! " For a brief moment the grumbler was simply aghast at this masterly argument. Fatty rammed his theory home with a little mild solicitude : " No one is more sorry than I am," said he, " that the referee's decision doesn't suit you ; but, there, the best thing you can do is to come upstairs and stand drinks, and say no more about it." Coming to think of it. Fatty had (and has) a very A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 93 happy knack of reversing the positions of aggressor and aggrieved, and, barring the foregoing, no better "exhibit" could be attached to this affidavit than that setting forth how Stephen came up one night from Brighton, and wanted a bed at the ckjb. All the beds were, as a matter of fact, engaged ; but Fatty said he didn't care a button about that ; he meant to sleep in one, no matter how he managed it. Proceeding to make his own enquiries as to who held the coveted positions, he found that one was booked, on a weekly engagement, to a certain sybarite, whose principal claim to fame was based on the fact that in the autumn of '82, he saluted, from the top of the Great Pyramid, the victorious Wolseley, as he entered Cairo. It was said at the time that he scaled the big pile, and heliographed to the present Commander-in-Chief the message : " Forty centuries salute thee," and that Sir Garnet sent the reply : " Come down, and don't make a damned fool of yourself" This sportsman held a bedroom, but he was never known to return to it before half-past six or seven in the morning, so said Fatty — " As it isn't quite twelve, and six hours' sleep will do me admirably, here goes for a little Box and Cox business." And he turned in. Sure enough, it was half-past six when, full of wine and good temper, the " rightful heir " turned up. Arrived at his room, he gazed long and anxiously at the burly tenant of his bed, still sleeping, and eventually recognised him. Foxed as the reveller was, there was still a deal of philosophy about him. "Man always wakes up in a bad temper," he mused ; " and, as Fatty's got to clear out the moment he wakes, I'd better get something to mollify him." So 94 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN downstairs he went to the bar, and procured a large silver cup of champagne, which he carried back to the bedroom with his own hands. " Hi, hi. Fatty ! " he cried, " here's a ripping good peg ! Get up and have a pull of it ! Champagne cup with some '65 liqueur in it ! " Fatty, not to be too precipitate, opened one eye and slowly turned over. " Come, stir yourself if you want it," cried the man with the flagon, " for if Hughie, who's only in the next room, comes in, you'll have no earthly ! " Hardly had he said the words than Hughie, in his pyjamas, appeared in the room, grabbed the cup, and, after a struggle, during which most of the wine was slopped over the carpet, gained possession. If ever a " first drink " was " taken and wanted " that was ! Drummy drained the vessel dry and set it down on a chair. By this time Coleman, parched and indignant, was sitting up in bed. He frowned upon the man whose bed he was in, and growled — " What the devil did you want to wake two men up to a miserable little pmt for? Where do / come in ? " And, abashed, the easy fellow went down to the bar for another quart. Some old-fashioned sportsmen effect a sneer when- ever the conversation turns on modern prize-fighting, and declare that it is now given over wholly to a class of men to whom honour and fair play are w^ords quite without meaning. But such an assertion is far too sweeping. Certainly the " Battle of Bruges," which took place on the 23rd of December 1889, must for ever remain a terrible blot on the sheet of British Pugilism, but a smudge that would have A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 95 proved little less damaging came very near defacing the page nearly thirty years before. It is an accepted fact amongst the well-informed that a set of scoundrels, scarcely less ruffianly than those who were behind Smith at Bruges, were in Tom Sayers' corner in that field at Farnborough on the 17th of April, i860, and, seeing that their man could hardly stand, cut the ropes when the cry of " Police ! " — the same tactics that were resorted to in Belgium — broke up the fight. It is a mighty significant fact, too, that all the sharps won money over Sayers (although, as all Englishmen should know, it ended in a draw, and both men were presented with belts), for the simple reason that the "office" was to back Sayers not to lose. Nine out of every ten of my hard-working brothers of the notebook and pencil, who slipped right and left into the Smith party (as they very well deserved to be slipped into), on the day after that disgraceful exhibition on poor Atkinson-Grimshaw's tennis-lawn, must have forgotten or been unacquainted with the true story of the Farnborough battle, for, with one accord, tliey drew a comparison between Sayers and Smith which set the latter before the public as the most unmitigated blackguard that ever trod the earth. And, after all, it was not Smith who took the roughs, carriage paid, to Bruges. Some of the acts that these beasts were guilty of in the quaint town that is now but a memory of old Flanders, and where the women sit at the doors "conjuring cotton into cloudy lace," cannot be even hinted at in print. Utterly humiliated at the trouble he had unwittingly brought upon the dreamy old place by granting the use of his lawn, poor Grimshaw, 96 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN who had once held a commission in the Cameronians, positively cried to me weeks afterwards with shame. But was Tom Sayers the wonder — the embodi- ment of all the virtues — that a generation now in its sere and yellow leaf claims him to have been ? I beg leave to strongly doubt it, but then I never was a hero worshipper. Liter alia, it was in the sanded bar of a little pub in the " Green Lanes " at Brighton that I fell in with a handful of idolators of the pre-Farnborough era. " Only think of it," quoth one, " I worked alongside o' Johnny Heenan in a lumber yard in the States afore ever he knowed 'ow to use his dooks at all ! " " Indeed ! " asserted the bibulous remnant of a sartorial artist loftily, "and I measured Tom Sayers for a suit o' clothes the v^ery day after the ' mill ' at Farnboro' ! " " And I," softly murmured a third, raising some- body else's pewter to his lips, while the " light of other days " softly illumined his solitary optic ; " I touched old Jim Mace for a couple o' bob on'y last night outside o' the Old Ship ! " And once more the truth of the old saw, to the effect that a single live moke knocks the stuffing out of a whole forest full of dead lions, became readily apparent. Upon the point of Tom Sayers' supremacy, an old and honourable friend of mine — W. Wignell, long may his handsome old face be seen in Fleet Street — once had an argument with that fine old Scotsman, Matthew Dawson, and for the sake of the ruling of a very high authority which the incident includes, I may be excused for relating it. Mat Dawson was an ardent Sayersite, and con- A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 97 sidered the Brighton-bred eleven-stunner second to none ; but " Wig " wouldn't hear the champion mentioned in the same breath with Young Dutch Sam. The disputants were travelling up from one of the now defunct race-meetings with which Surrey- abounded, and words ran so high that eventually a level fiver was betted, the question to be submitted to Nat Langham as soon as the travellers reached town. Nat Langham 's parlour was crowded that night, as it generally was, and some time slipped by before the host could be button-holed, taken aside, and appealed to. But no sooner had the case been put to him than, instead of replying privately to his questioners, he stood up, held his right hand aloft for silence, which was immediately granted him, and cried, for the amusement of the company — " Two gentlemen here, who are friends of mine, have got a wager as to which I consider the better fighter — Tom Sayers or young Dutch Sam. I can only say that I wish I was standing in with the backer of Sam ! " This was a very strong opinion to express, coming as it did from the only man who ever defeated the Brighton bricklayer ; and, moreover, Sayers was in the room at the time, and heard Langham's decision, but refrained from actively challenging it, though it naturally started many heated arguments, Nat Langham had a wonderful eye for "talent," and rarely went abroad without four boxing-gloves in his back pockets — not the stuffed articles one sees in the regular way, but mittens with no padding, which could be inflated with wind. If Nathaniel spotted a bit of promising stuff in a street fight, he'd wait till 98 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN the turn-up was over, introduce himself, and invite the winner to step out into the back yard of the nearest alehouse, or even down a neighbouring mews, where he'd soon see if the fellow had anything in him. I endeavoured once upon a time to take a leaf out of the worthy Nathaniel's book, but it turned out a fearful frost, and this was the how of it : A large picture, composed of studies from the nude, and called " The Slave Market at Cairo," was being exhibited in a now demolished shop, which stood at the corner of Wellington Street and the Strand. The door-keeper was a big buck nigger, a browny West African with baggy white trousers, a vermilion zouave jacket, blue turban, and a natural aroma stronger than a quart of ammonia. There chanced one day to come that way a procession of the unemployed, escorted by no end of idle ruffians bent on kicking up a row at all hazards, and three of these, attracted by the gaudy get-up of the nigger, turned aside to see what it was all about. Having smacked their lips over the reprinted press opinions quoted on the outside bills, they essayed to enter the exhibition, but without offering to put down the necessary shilling a head. Remonstrated with by the dusky aboriginal from the land where everything is contagious except soap, they became obstreperous, and were going to make an ambulance case of the black man there and then, but that he " got his little idea " in first. No sooner did the roughs twit him upon his colour, and allege that he was of anonymous parentage, than his sledge- hammer fists shot out, first this way and then the other, and the entire syndicate went sprawling. Each of the three blackguards had received his quietus, and A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 99 a black eye, and the public's tribute to the victor was the same that ruins nearly all our pugilists — free drinks. They carted the unresisting blackamoor over into the bar of the "Wellington," and bought him more beer than he'd seen for months ; small silver rained into his palm, and for days he was as big an attraction as the old mad elephant had been in the time of Exeter 'Change, which once stood on just about the same spot. Happening to know the man who was running the picture, I very soon got hold of the black, who, however, already felt the weight of his new honours, and emphatically declined to put the gloves on with any but a professional boxer. He " knew all about de game," he said, and only wanted " a chance at de big club." That was the acme of his ambition, and he stood a full two inches taller when we talked about it. The very next time I went to the club I mentioned the black and his adventure with the hobo's to Johnnie Fleming, and the National Sporting manager, with his customary enterprise, engaged the son of Ham to give an exhibition, pitching on a very useful man to stretch him in Ted Rich, of Walworth. My eye ! and what an "exhibition" it was, to be sure ! I must admit I " had ma doots " about the nigger when, on calling in at the picture show one evening, they told me he was "out training," but would be "passing the corner every three or four minutes " ! He was getting off his superfluous flesh by running in a little circuit — down the steps in Adelaide Place, along a short stretch of the Embank- ment, going west'ards up the steep gradient of Savoy Street, and so on round again. loo A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN The eventful night came round : Ted Rich and the " Slave Market " stood face to face within the roped arena, the black attired in a pair of linen drawers — the best that he could borrow — quite two sizes too small for him. Upon the instant that " Time " was called, he threw himself into an attitude that was not only extremely ludicrous, but brought so much strain to bear on the front portion of his trow-trows, that the two buttons on which the greatest responsibility rested flew off with a metallic " ping, ping ! " Roars of laughter rang through the theatre of the club at the — for one or two reasons — indescribable spectacle now presented by the coon. Johnnie Fleming, doing his best to smother his own merri- ment, motioned to Barney Sheppard to adjust the black's dress, but Barney only shook his comical head, and that, too, in a way that evoked another salvo of laughter. They took the nigger's gloves off, and lent him some safety-pins, with which he put himself in order, and then the signal was given — all the sooner, perhaps, in order to check the unseemly merriment, for the boxing shows at the N.S.C. are carried out with an amount of propriety that would lend fresh dignity to an archbishop taking the top- most degree in Freemasonry. Again the black put himself in that extraordinary attitude, the like of which I can only compare to the posture of a man who is trying to put up a dumb-bell much too heavy for him. Rich smiled, but he hadn't, after all, come there to play pantaloon to the coon's clown. He stepped forward — out went his right — bang ! clean on the point — and down went the black in a heap. He got up, only to be sent to the boards again ; and he stood just forty seconds of it. The A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN loi dusky fraud knew no more about scientific boxing than a hog does about hip-pockets ! Though I could hardly accredit it possible that he ever believed himself able to bring off such a gigantic bit of bluff, I could not but applaud his discretion in creeping out between the ropes. The man who " never knows when he's licked " can always be identified by his badly battered countenance and loss of one eye, saith an unknown philosopher. CHAPTER V Fishers of men— "The end crowns all," Troilus and Cressida— Savate—Y6vcA% of the game— An interlude about a duel- Lord Queensberry's savate fighter at the Pelican— The Irish- man's idea of new rules— The Frenchman is knocked out- Jim Smith's opinion— And Swears's— Sir John Astley and a "dear old chappie"— The " Mate's" repartee— Of those who lend and those who borrow— Last year's Parliamentary Committee— An amateur money-lender strikes the Pelican —And finds customers !— "Fatty" and the Major— "Bob" Hope - Johnstone sells his moustache— An illustration of Confidence— The art of pawning— All the capital lent out —Vanishing borrowers— The lender goes in deeper— A stable secret— Writting on the club steps— The dear old "Crowner"— The ethics of banking as explained by him— Buftbn in petticoats— A queer story of a provident peer— And of George Alexander Baird— Also of old Bob Bignell —A venerable Shylock neatly done. HAVE you ever paused and considered, dearly beloved, how very like to his purely Wal- tonian or piscatorial brother, is the midnight fisher of men ? His success, or otherwise, entirely depends upon the baiting of his hook. At the present moment seventeen out of the twenty anglers after the monied young man of the West, who never thinks of going to bed until the sparrows in the dingy squares begin to shout to one another their congratulations on having lived to scratch another day, have nothing more alluring to offer than drinks, drinks— the everlasting, maddening, murderous old drinks. In a way drink is all right enough. There is 102 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 103 nothing that kills the ambition in a man quicker than thirst. A thirsty man can toil neither with pen, nor hand, nor foot. Many and many an army has been defeated, not so much for lack of good generalship or lack of ammunition, as for lack of beer. The more glory then to the angler of human fish who fits himself out with a spiritual gaff or an incorporeal landing-net, and Well, whilst the church-wardens take up the offertory, I would like to tell you the story of a worthy old schoolfellow, who has for some time past been an earnest fisher of men. He does his fishing from a small, new, corrugated- iron building by the side of the road from Hornsey to Woodberry Down, much frequented by the seekers after fresh air on a Sunday morning. From the gable of his doorway hangs a sign — a mediaeval scroll with an inscription in Hebrew upon it, whilst on either side of the entrance are scarlet shields, each emblazoned with the figure of a rampant heraldic lion. " Brother," said he to me, when I asked an ex- I04 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN planation of these things, " this handsome beast is the trade-mark of the biggest brewery in Munich; the inscription on the scroll is, I need not tell you, Hebrew, But the Sunday multitude, knowing nothing of heraldry or Hebrew, mistake the signs for a lager- beer outfit, and are lured inside, and oh, my brother," — here he clasped his hands in ecstasy — '* ere they can get out again we often hook a soul ! " Now, in the new preserves in Gerrard Street, Swears fished with the candidates' book, but the bait he used was always of the freshest ; and thus it came that his members were called together one night to witness what was really a test of superiority between the French and English methods of fighting, the former being, I need hardly say, the savate, or " old shoe " system. Many who read these pages may have seen the lower orders of the French fight with the feet in this way. The professors of the art claim to be able to teach six times as many blows in their own style as are known in our form of fighting. An adversary's leg can be broken, his neck dislocated, his face smashed, or — just the ashes knocked from his cigarette, each with one blow. The primary rule in learning to fight with the feet, and one of the most difficult to remember after receiving a hot punch on the nose, is that the weight of the body must always rest on the foot furthest away from the opponent. The foot in front must be entirely free of all weight or other hindrance, so that it can wave about in all directions like a stock- ing on a clothes-line in a gale of wind. The efficacy of this kind of warfare may be doubted, but a French- man argues on the theory that when a man is attacked, he should be qualified to use all his ends — (Do you A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 105 remember the Scotsma?i reporter, who, In describing the performance of an acrobat at a music-hall, wrote — " Next the artiste held on to the horizontal bar by his head, hands, feet, and other extremities " ?) — without any show of partiality. The average Frenchy acquires a knowledge of la savate as a means of meeting the marauders of the outer boulevards in their own fashion, and not with any idea of trying his extremities on his friends or acquaintances ; any difference of opinion he may have with them is covered by the code of the duello. Just half a moment, please. Speaking of the duello, d'ye know I was interested, some years ago, in the attempted flotation of a certain weekly journal, that apparently had as much chance of swimming as an American stove, despite the fact that its Board of Directors included two Marquises — one a French and the other a good old English title — a Viscount, two or three Captains in the Army, and a Right Reverend. Well, the public wouldn't have it then — though the paper is alive and apparently read by a good many now — and after a lot of wrangling, our crowd broke up, the French Marquis taking the Right Reverend as his Private Secretary. An active member of the crowd had been Fred Wisdom, sometimes alluded to as " the Tealeaf," and he, hearing that the Marquis had been "saying things" in another quarter, wrote a sharp letter to his Lordship, winding up with — " If you have anything to say, why don't you make an appointment, and say it to me?" Two or three days went by, and then he received a note in the familiar, cramped fist of the ex-parson. The missive ran — " Sir, — I am desired to acknowledge your letter of the 29th ult., and to inform you that if the Marquis has said anything to io6 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN which you have taken exception, he is prepared to give you that satisfaction which one gentleman is entitled to from another. I presume you will understand the nature of this communication. " Yours etc., "J B , " Private Secretaiy to the Marquis." Thus ran Frederick's reply, addressed to the Secretary — " Dear B ,Thanks for yours. To tell you the truth, I do not understand your letter, but if you will come down from the heights to which you have soared, and put it in plain English, I will endeavour to grasp it ; but, in the meantime, will you ask your noble patron to return the half-crown he borrowed of me last Friday week at the ' Old Cheshire Cheese ? ' " Yours faithfullv, " F. W. W." The particular professor selected to demonstrate the wonders of savate at the Pelican was brought over here by " O," as the present plucky holder of the Oueensberry marquisate is commonly called, and the pugilist who was eventually persuaded, after many others had refused, to meet the Frenchman, was Jim Donahue. England therefore was relying, as she has done in more than one or two emergencies, on an Irishman. When poor Johnnie Pleming took Donahue upstairs to don the war-paint, the manager said warningly — "Better guard the point well, Jim, because you must clearly understand he'll try to kick you in the mouth — that's French." "Is it, begobs!" exclaimed Jim. "Then, if he kicks me in the mouth O'ill bite him in the , that's Birning'am ! " It wasn't a bad notion of equalising matters from a A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 107 pugilist's point of view, but Fleming explained that kicking was the national mode of fighting in Lutetia, and not unfair. The man hadn't been in the ring many seconds when the Frenchman commenced the battle with the " cow kick," a shin roaster that in this case was only hard enough to be irritating, but it can be given by an expert with sufficient force to dislocate the knee-joint. Jim winced a bit, from botheration rather than anything else, but did not lower his guard. A second later the Frenchman gave him the coup deflanc, which consisted in suddenly swinging up the knee of the fighting foot, and planting the heel with great force under the Irishman's jaw. Jim went flying over the ropes, and up against the wainscot, which abutted on one side of the ring. He was consider- ably staggered when he got up, but, with true Irish fondness for a bit of punishment, he went at the froggy again, only to catch another kick fairly under the chin, and away went James to the old spot as if he was taking the wall with him. " Oh, by the Virr-gin ! " said he, as he rested in his corner, " 'tis loike foightin' a b d horr-se ! " All through the minute's interval Fleming dinned it into the Irishman to "slip him, slip him, and then come in with a right-handed punch." So, time being called, James went in with great caution, and with his eyes fixed on his adversary's feet — a strong characteristic of Kid Lavigne's otherwise faultless style, by the way. It was good advice that Fleming gave his man, for in the round that followed, the Frenchman, after manoeuvring for some seconds, let io8 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN go a mighty kick, which Jim saw coming just in time to step aside. Before the Gaul could recover his equilibrium, the son of Erin stepped in with his right foot, and, with his right fist, landed his opponent a tremendous smash squarely on the jaw. The Gallic professor fell all in a heap in the opposite corner of the ring, and for several seconds lay quite motionless. His seconds picked him up and tried every trick known to the fraternity to bring him to, but the ex- ponent of the methods of Montmartre only rolled about and groaned piteously. When at last he found his senses it was only to howl — " Oh, mon Dieu, zees ees not ze boxe ; I vill not do like zees ! " " No, you bounder ! " hissed Swears, who had been boarding the fellow at the club for over a week, " and you ' vill not do ' any more of my Chateau la Rose at eighteen shillings a bottle, either ! " As they lugged the Frenchy's carcase out of the ring, Jem Smith, then unbeaten, volunteered the remark : " Tell ye what, / should be very sorry to fight one o' them coves." There were several gentlemen there whose belief in la savate was not yet quite shattered, and they felt not displeased at being backed up by the champion of England, till Smith added : " Because I don't want to be tried for manslaughter!" None waxed more enthusiastic over the discom- fiture of the "damned froggies" than old Sir John Astley, who, later on, was explaining the pro and con of the thing upstairs at the bar, but was being constantly interrupted by a fair-haired young Guards- man, a mere lad of twenty, who was comparing A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 109 points of expenditure with some fellows of his own set at the " Mate's " very elbow. In the course of the discussion the youngster happened to drop the remark that he was surprised at anybody being hard up in such easy times, and the old baronet, who was just then drifting into very shallow pecuniary water, at once picked him up on it. " Doubtless you've had a deal of experience in your time, sir ; pray, how old are you ? " asked Astley. " I am twenty to-day. Sir John," replied the young 'un, " and my mater this very morning presented me with a ' monkey.' " " Bless my heart ! " cried the Mate, " that seems to be quite a fad of hers, doesn't it ? " " How so, sir ? " " Why, she did the self-same thing to your father just twenty years ago ! " Having drifted somehow into a mercenary channel, and, to steal and alternate a sentence from the late Mr William Shakespeare's successful, if somewhat stale, tragedy, called "Hamlet," there are more things — many more things — in the business of usury than are dreamt of in the philosophy of a Parliamentary Committee on money-lending, and, though the House of Commons' investigation of last year did much to lighten the darkness of the simple and the unworldly, the whole truth about the traffic will never be set down in black and white. The able and unabridged reports of the Parlia- mentary Committee's proceedings in the " Special " Standard, night after night, made mighty good reading. There is a natural and not altogether unaccountable prejudice in the public mind against no A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN all money-lenders, and the showing-up of a whole market bunch of Shylocks afforded the liveliest satisfaction. But there is something to be said on the other side as well. After all, it takes two, or even more — invariably more, as I've found it — to a money-lending transac- tion. In a deal of any sort the longest-headed chap in the crowd will always get the best of it, and the other three or four will console themselves by re- ferring to him ever afterwards as the " financier." It's a comprehensive term, meaning that he came out on top. Of course he did ; he knew the game at all points to begin with, and was mildly indifferent as to whether he went in or stood out ; but not so the borrower. All he knew was that he positively must have a hundred — or a thousand, or whatever it was — and he set all considerations on one side to get it. In one of his masterpieces, Leech illustrates the ruling sentiment in " doing a little bill." " It's the merest form in the world, old boy," says the seedy drawer ; " you only have to what they call ' accept ' it, and I'll find the money somehow when it comes due." " Come along," cries the other, " give us the pen ! " As to the invariable rate of interest, why, that is a hobby-horse for magisterial moralists and official receivers to ride. The working man who borrows a shilling of the pawnbroker on his plane or his saw, and wdghs out twopence for the accommodation when he redeems the tool forty-eight hours later, feels, when an indignant "beak" informs him he has been paying interest at the rate of three thousand per cent., as though, for two days at least, he has borne the responsibilities of a Rothschild, and wonders how the devil he ever managed to survive it ! Professional A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN iii usurers are a necessity, since the amateur sort seem to settle themselves before they have seriously entered upon a life of usefulness. I will give you an instance. Into the dear old Pelican there strolled one after- noon, long, long ago, a more or less distinguished foreigner, whose chief claims to notice were based upon the fact that he was the husband or something of a very beautiful actress, who was much sought after just then by reason of her conspicuous histrionic abilities, delightful after-dinner conversation, etc. He always was extravagantly over-dressed, but on this occasion he was tres chicy and literally beaming with self-satisfied smiles. He walked up to the table at which Swears sat, mentally comparing the candidates' book with the banker's overdraft, and, after greeting the proprietor with the effusiveness peculiar to most foreigners, remarked — "You vill be gr-reatly sap-parised, my dear Veils, to hear zat I haf come into money. Come, I seat down ; I tell you all about it." So down he sat and drew his gloves off. " Zees money zat comes to me," he continued in an earnest undertone that was audible all over the club, " I inhereet ; I am, as you say here, ' next-of-skin.' When I go to draw it zese two days a-go, my soleecetor he says ' Vhat beezness you go into wiz zis money, eh?' I tell him, I say, ' I haf great idea: I be now ze money-lender. It ees a von-derful beezness ! Tre-mendous large profeets ! You see, eh ? ' Zen, I sink to myself where I find, as you say, ' clients ' ? And I con-sider. Zen, I sink of you, my friend — Airnest Veils. All your Pelican-member chaps, zey are noblemens, gentlemens ; zey spend lots of money. 112 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN After zat zey must borrow some more. I detairmine I go to my friend Veils and get him to introduce me, and — here I am wiz ze money ! " There is magic in the sound at all times, but when the root of all evil was mentioned again and again in tones that were decidedly above the ordinary, more than one impecunious member, who had been com- fortably dozing in the leathern chairs by the old- fashioned chimney corner, awoke with a start. One of these was cheery old " Fatty," and his eagle eye was soon taking a hasty inventory of the " oofy " stranger. Another, who had shaken off sleep to find that the very pleasant sounds he had heard in his day- dream were delightfully and unusually real, was fine old Major " Bob " Hope-Johnstone, who had covered himself with glory — but alas ! not with wealth — in the service of Her Majesty. Though the major was an old man when I became acquainted with him, he had a physique and a record that any ambitious youngster might well have envied. Standing considerably over six foot, with magnificent shoulders, deep chest, and not an ounce of superfluous limber, he was, perhaps, the handsomest old man in London, not even except- ing the late Earl of Westmoreland. " Bob " Hope- Johnstone and his brother David were a pair of good-natured giants, with the courage of lions; indeed John Corlett once declared that had Bob lived in the days of Old Rome, he would have spoilt one of Macaulay's lays, or perhaps have inspired the poet to write a second, as he would undoubtedly have " kept the bridge " single-handed. When the British troops advanced on Pekin, " Bob " Hope-Johnstone was the favourite aide-de-camp of the Commander-in-Chief and the first man to enter the city, and he also was A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 115 at the ever- memorable Relief of Lucknow. On his return from Asia he dabbled in horse-racing, and narrowly missed being the owner of the famous Caller Ou, who won the Doncaster St Leger in 1861. An extraordinary coaching accident in the Edgware Road, however, did him serious and lasting injury, and perhaps it is not too much to say that he never was the same man afterwards. In driving under the railway bridge at Brondesbury, his head came in contact with the top of the arch, literally lifting off his skull, as you would lift the lid off a saucepan. To ninety-nine out of a hundred men it would have meant certain death, but the Major's splendid constitution and wonderful recuperative powers pulled him through. On another occasion a gang of Haymarket ruffians, with broken tumblers in their hands, set upon him, and with the jagged edges of the glasses inflicted fearful injuries on his face and head. Few men, fighting fair, could have done anything at all against such odds, but before Bob went down he had closed the right eye of one of his cowardly assailants for ever. He was descended in the direct line from the John- stones of Annandale ; and the head of the house on the one hand, and Sir Frederic Johnstone on the other, claimed the marquisate ; but the House of Lords did not decide in favour of either. Poor old Major ! he was so desperately short of money at the Pelican one night, that he sold to Lord Esme Gordon, for a ready fiver, his majestically-waxed moustaches and imperial, it being stipulated that Lord Esme should cut them off himself. This the noble poet did, and the Major, on examining himself in the looking-glass, was so horrified at his altered appear- 114 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN ance, that he groaned aloud : " Gracious Heavens ! Here, Esme, make it seven pound ten, and you shall have my head as well ! " The hirsute relics were sent to Rowland Ward, who mounted them in a case of purple velvet and silver, with a suitable lyric inscription appended, and the trophy occupied a place of honour upon the walls of the club where the poor old chap could gaze mournfully at his departed glories whenever he chose to drop in. To continue the story of the amateur money- lender — One or two others were awake besides Fatty and the Major, and Wells, seeing many obstacles in the way of utilising the capitalist himself, very generously considered how he might turn the simple man of shekels over to those by whom a small loan would be "taken and wanted," as they say in the betting lists, " Very good," said Swears, with the greatest un- concern, " the best thing you can do is to send out for five pounds' worth of assorted bill-stamps." With refreshing promptitude the chrysalis financier pulled out a handful of gold Excuse me breaking away just once more ; but what a beautiful thing is Confidence ! and especially Confidence going hand-in-hand with Finance ! There occurs to my memory a scrap of interesting dialogue I overheard on an Easter Monday years ago, between a gentleman with a consuming thirst and a lady with a bundle tied up in a cotton pocket-handkerchief; it was in a bar in Endell Street, Seven Dials. "Shop shut, d'ye say?" sneered the gent, with fine contempt. " Well, he's inside ! Whoever 'eared of a A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 115 pawnbroker a-goin' out on a Easter Monday ? Why, you're a-talkin' rot — he's a-restin' somewheres — under the bloomin' counter, mos' likely — an' gittin' ready for the rush to-morrer ! Lor, yer don't know you're aloive ! Go back an' knock — knock till he answers yer ; he'll oblige mer Upon this she went out w^ith the bundle, and the gent continued the conversation with an affable stranger. " Lor, that there woman, mate, she knows no more abaht runnin' a little bundle into a lug chovey's than John the Baptis' knew abaht cheap oysters ! My old 'un was the one ! Lummy ! she used to git their confidence, she did, an' then run it in on 'em ; she'd eddicate 'em up to takin' in a parcel without even openin' of it, an', strike me lucky, one day when the moskeener thought he was takin' in a 'lectro-plated tea an' corffee service, she strung him for fifty bob on an old tea-chest an' a jar o' pickled inyuns ! " and despatched (a thousand pardons for the interruption) the red - headed page - boy, who was generally on hand when wanted, for the familiar stamped slips. With the boy's return came the introduction of the first borrower — " Fatty" ! He was very bashful at first, and Swears had to draw him aside, and apparently beg of him to bestow his patronage on the new "oof- merchant." What Ernest really said was : " Fatty, old fellow, if I put it right for a hundred for you, will you settle your back subscriptions, and brass up what you owe for lunches ? " " Certainly," replied Fatty, " certainly." " It's a bet, then." Then it was that the amiable go-between put the ii6 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICx\N whispering tackle on the other party to the projected advance. " Very big man, physically and socially," Swears whispered to the grinning foreigner. "Formerly a cornet in the Blues ; now Chief Mace - Bearer to Judge Pollock. Quite safe for a hundred — if he'll accept your terms." " Fatty " took a deal of pressing. He really didn't know whether " a certain party," whose name he was not at liberty to mention, but with whom he did all his business, would approve of his accepting an advance elsewhere ; still, he supposed, he would have to accede to his friend's request — nobody else need know any- thing about it — it mustn't be much, though ; say a fleabite of a " hundred " for three months. With a self-sacrificial air " Fatty " grabbed the pen, as though he'd better get the job over before he had time to change his mind, and a moment later the budding usurer was walleting " Fatty's " bill for a hundred-and-fifty, whilst " Fatty," suddenly remember- ing an appointment with a man at Saffron Walden or somewhere, gathered up his hat and gloves to go and keep it. At the very doorpost, however, he was confronted by the herculean form of " The Major." " So you would elude me, would you, you miserable villain?" cried the old Crimean war-horse. "Fatty, unless you pull out some of that ill-gotten wealth, your only way out of this club will be over my prostrate body ! " How far the fine old " Major " would have gone towards carrying out this dire threat will never be known, for just then Swears called him for the purpose of introducing a second customer to the alien Not to make the anecdote too long, the A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 117 "Major" was, after much persuasion, induced to put his hand to a bit of paper, though he stuck out strenuously for a reduced rate of interest, de- claring he would pay no man more than Sanguinetti usually charged him. The parting shot was quite pathetic. " And zo," exclaimed the foreigner, folding up the " Major's " note-of-hand and glancing admiringly at the magnificent physical proportions and venerable silvered locks of the old hero, "you vere at zee Reh'ef of Lucka-now — eh, Major ? " " I was," grunted the veteran, adding n an under- tone, "and now I'm at the relief of — er 1 didn't quite catch the avaricious beggar's name, Swears ; what is it?" Before the German — I think he was a German, though I would not swear to his nationality — left his seat, he negotiated several other little loans. It is not a hard matter to press clean, crisp, ready money upon gentlemen of no occupation, already blackballed in perdition. " Veils, my friend," said the grateful Teuton, as he blotted up the wet ink on the last bill-stamp, " I haf to zincerely t'ank you. I haf done a beeg day's beezness : I haf lent out all zee capital zat I brought out viz me — now I gif you cheque for your trouble, eh?" But Swears protested he would receive nothing, a piece of magnanimity that stood him in good stead when, three months later, the monied "mug" was hunting for his creditors. Such a general exodus was not on record since the embarkation or Noah. With a pocketful of objectionable legal docu- ments, service of which he elected to effect himself, ii8 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN the poor fellow scoured the West End for his debtors, and only two he found. The first of these was effusively apologetic, and — though still " broke " — on the very brink of affluence. He, of all men in the betting world, had just been selected to work a gigantic commission for a horse that was in a race at Newmarket on the morrow. The " division " to which the animal belonged were so determined to rake in enough money to retire from the Turf on, that they would not employ the ordinary commission-agents, who would have " wanted their corner " and spoilt the whole thing. " Only say you'll lunch or dine with me, whichever you like, the day after to-morrow, when the race is won," exclaimed the wily debtor, " and I'll square this affair — eh, my boy? — and ask you to accept a little present of a ring or a pin — or a bracelet for your wife, if you prefer it — for the extra grace. What time '11 suit you on Friday at the Cafe Royal ? " The cupidity of the money-lender wasn't proof against this. His debtor was so absolutely positive about the thing, that he felt he ought to be in it too. 'Twas ever thus ! So he asked the man who had the commission to do, if he could get him fifty on. The man at first said he'd try. Then, in consideration of past favours, he grew reckless, and said definitely that he would, even if he was unable to get all he wanted on himself Hang it ! one good turn, etc. " You understand, of course," said the commissioner, whose generosity was wonderful, "these little trans- actions are always " ready "^ — nothing to do with our affair — but I daresay you've got your cheque-book with you ? " A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 119 Once again did the ingenuous Teuton weigh out, and — the two days lapsed. Then the appointment at the Cafe Royal lapsed too. But the world is only a very small place, and the West End no bigger, relat- tively, than a tea-saucer, and the day was not far dis- tant when borrower and lender again came face to face in the street. " Ah, yes, yes ; I remember it all very well, of course," cried the debtor, with a sigh that seemed to come from the very soles of his boots. " You were on, sir, you were on, but we all shared the same cruel, humiliating fate, Beaten by a head, sir, by a short head ! " With no end of a gulp the German swallowed the bitter pill, merely asking sympathetically — " Und vhat vhas der name of ze 'orse ? " " No, no, no ! " cried the man who had worked the commission, holding up his hands in well simulated horror, " you mustn't ask me that ! I dare not tell, I dare not — it was a stable secret ! " It was in the club itself that the man of shekels ran the second " ower " to earth, and, before the latter could offer any plausible excuses, he found the German's writ stuffed into his unwilling fist. It was a masterly piece of " writting," and deserved to score, but the child of the Fatherland, in racing parlance, " couldn't get a winner home anyhow." The second fellow had him up before the committee on the follow- ing day, for a flagrant infraction of Rule 17, which ran : " Any Member whose conduct, in or out of the Club, shall be unbecoming a gentleman . . . shall be requested to resign ; and in case of his non-compli- ance, he shall be subject to expulsion ;" and, as the committee to an odd 'un were distinctly of opinion I20 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN that writ-serving was extremely ungentlemanly, Hans went out ! A very fine old character, who entertained some queer ideas of the laws of ineiim et tuuin (and many other things, too — bar medicine and jurisprudence), was the dear old " Crowner," otherwise George Hull, M.D. He once laid down a precept to an elderly gentleman behind the counter at Messrs Shrubsole's, the bankers at Kingston-on-Thames, which I am never likely to forget. Within a few days of opening a current account — with a bill of exchange, by the way — with the famous old firm, George had " overdrawn " to the tune of thirty-five pounds, and his visit to the bank was in response to the regular reminder be- fitting such an occasion. George walked into the bank, removed his carefully- ironed hat, and placed it methodically down on the counter. Then from his breast-pocket he drew the offending epistle, and handed it to the silver-haired cashier. " Will you be good e-nough," said he, emphasizing his syllables as he always did, " to ex-plain to me the mean-ing of this de-mand ? Am I to under-stand that Messrs Shrub-sole do not know their busi-ness, or that they are short of ready money ? " To say that the patriarchal clerk, to whom the Crowner put these very pertinent interrogatories was aghast, is to put it very mildly. He simply gasped, but managed presently to ask what his firm had done that could be considered irregular. " Writ-ten me this off-ensive and extraordinary note, sir," replied the Crowner, gravely and severely, as though he were committing a ribald witness to prison for contempt of his court. " Let me tell A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 121 you, sir, that tlic u-til-ity of the ban-ker is to fi-nance those of his cus-to-mers who are tera-po-rarily without money with the sur-plus cash of those who, be-ing more for-tun-ately cir-cum-stanced, have balances stand-ing to their cre-dit. I wish you a ve-ry good day, sir ! " Nor can I dismiss the excellent old Crowner without one more characteristic anecdote about him. Slowly and sadly, one very hot morning, he stalked into the buffet of a certain riverside hotel, while Hebe was dusting the pork-pie shades and polishing the tumblers. "It is al-ways a cus-tom in our fam-i-ly," he observed, " to be-gin the day with a big whis-ky and milk." The joint produce of the distiller and the Alderney having been procured, " the Remains " (as many loved to call him) produced a small cardboard box. " Do you take any inte-rest in natu-ral his-tory ? " The barmaid professed that she passionately adored the study, and was, in short, a sort of Buffon in petticoats. The Crowner, slowly opening the box, remarked — " Here are two mice and four black bee-ties, and — why, I de-clare, the girl has fain-ted ! " Then, leisurely finishing his matutinal " peg," he strolled off without paying ! As a rule, when a person prefaces a statement by a declaration of its lordly truth, he succeeds only in damaging the confidence which his listeners' silent assent had up to that time expressed ; and yet, so monstrously unusual is the point of the experience I am about to relate — as briefly as may be — that, 122 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN despite all precedent, I must insist upon it as an arbitrary, veracious story. To vary the oft-heard declaration of the village gossips about the silver spoon, I would assert that the infant Viscount P. must have entered the world with a bill-stamp in his mouth, for he was on the books of more than one well-known Burlingtonian money-lender when he went from Eton to Oxford. In due course — that is when he had forgotten the bulk of what he knew before — he came down, married a beautiful girl who had just about enough money in her own right to justify the expense of a husband, and the young couple retired to the country to boom the census steadily, and wait for the death of the bridegroom's father, the Earl of O. As this did not happen for a considerable period, P. had quite a quiver full of grown-up olive-branches by the time he came into the title, and had gone past the age for frittering away the property to which he had suc- ceeded. In point of fact, he had been practising economy for so long, that, far from celebrating his " promotion " in the usual manner of men, his only thought was to put his capital out to the best advantage. Many shorter-headed men would have taken " the bundle " into the City and lost it, but P. — now O., by the way — had a little idea of his own. He went straight to Croesus, who had always done his paper, and said, in effect : " All my life, old chap, I've been paying you one hundred per cent, for ready money ; now do me a turn. Take my little lot off me at ten per cent, and lend it out in your regular way of business ? " Croesus wouldn't quite agree to that. He couldn't see the wisdom of paying ten per cent. A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 125 for money, when he had sacks full of his own lying idle. Eventually, he offered to take a considerable sum at seven per cent, an offer with which P. closed with alacrit>'. Not to delay the sequel : Young P. — P. the Second — was up at Oxford, and by this time was well in the hands of Cra^sus, as his father had been before him. The new O., knowing the value of money, had been keeping his boy a bit short, but the youngster could generally get all he wanted from C. When at last the day of reckoning came, there was gnashing of teeth indeed, for then only was it made clear that the cash for which C. was paying Q. seven per cent, he had lent to the nobleman's own son at three hundred, and as Q. eventually had to settle up his son and heir's debts, he actually paid two hundred and ninety- three per cent, for his own money ! The only one other instance of this sort of thing with which I am acquainted was an experience of the late George Alexander Baird's, which he himself related to me on John Sheldon's old " movable Grand Stand " (it took to pieces and was carted round the Midland Meetings), on Whittington Common, at Lichfield, but in this case it was one of Baird's many " personal friends " {sic) — "A fool and his money love company," saith the proverb — who "pulled the string." A few months before the then chrysalis " Squire " attained his majority, he evinced a burning desire to " touch " some of the vast inheritance, and to this end consulted one of his cronies as to the modus operandi of obtaining five thousand, without — and here he showed a faint glimmer of his Scottish-bred wisdom — " going to any regular money-lenders." 124 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN The friend said it was " easy," but how much was he to be " on " ? Baird answered — " A monkey." " Very well," said the disinterested pal, " give me an open cheque for that to begin with, and then I'll help you to draw the bills for the five thou'." Baird was quite willing to do this, but he pointed out that, as he'd already overdrawn his account at Coutts's, it would only be a farce to draw a cheque. " Nonsense," said the friend, " you're talking of to-day. Date the thing to-morrow : there'll be plenty of brass there then!" and so Baird gave the cheque for ;^50o and proceeded to draw the bills. What did the pal do ? I'll tell you. He caught the very first train he possibly could to Glasgow, and, going straight to Baird's trustees, made a clean breast of the thing — at least as far as the bills were concerned. He pointed out to them what a monumental pity it would be for the young man to begin borrowing money at the rate of two or three hundred per cent, and " getting into the hands of these cursed, insatiable sharks," as he put it, when his own trustees could instantly and easily turn an honest penny by advancing the cash themselves at a fair rate of interest, holding, as they did all the time, the coin in their own hands. This line of argument proved irresistible. Not only did the trustees undertake the transaction, but — lest it should " grow cold," probably — they telegraphed to Coutts's to place the amount asked for to the credit of young Baird, who very quickly made a hole in it. " But," he added, when he told me the story, "early as I was next morning in getting to the bank to draw a bit, Blank was there before me cashing the cheque I'd given him for that five hundred ! " A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 125 Poor Baird ! The thrifty example set hira by his male parent never influenced him in the slightest degree, or he might very well have been alive and " a prosperous gentleman " to this day. Another old memory insists on creeping in here of a case that contrasts somewhat strongly with young Baird's want of generalship. Most of my readers will very v/ell remember old Bob Bignell, who kept the Argyll Rooms, and, after the powers put a stop to the dancing and tutti- frutti business, turned the place into the cheery old Trocadero. Well, just before Bob sent his son to the University of Cambridge, he called him aside, and stuffed him full of good advice, after the manner of Polonius. " Now," said he, " in order to encourage you in thrift, I shall allow you three hundred a year while you are at the University, and whatever money you return to me at the end of that time I will double, so that you will have a little nest-egg to start in life with." And that thrifty young 'un went to Cambridge and played a high old game, winding up by winning ;^5ooo on the Cambridgeshire. They say that when the young undergraduate came back, and, planking down six thousand pounds in notes on the old man's table, requested him to redeem his promise, old Bob's first jump measured five feet six! Anyhow, "the guv'nor " didn't ponder for long. " This boy'll get on," he said, as he pulled out his cheque-book, like the great philosopher that he was. Some years ago there used to hang about the Quadrant and that fly - by - night neighbourhood a notorious old Shylock, about whom I have heard 126 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN some amusing stories, one of which, whether true oi not, I beg leave to repeat. One of "the Boys," driven to desperation one night managed to squeeze a fiver out of the old man, very, very much against the latter's inclination. For "Pimples," as the lumberer was called among his kind, was by no means a desirable security. The old man didn't understand the ethics of money- lending among the " lads of the village " either, for whenever he encountered " Pimples " during the next five or six months, he persistently dunned him to take up his I.O.U. "Pimples" got so sick of this at last, that, in a fit of ungovernable fury, he took the old nuisance by the throat one night, and swore by all the household gods he had accumulated that, if the patriarch didn't swallow the offending note-of-hand then and there, he would choke the life out of him and leave his miserable carcase in the gutter for the scavengers of St James's, Piccadilly, to gather in the morning. Seeing no way out of it, the old miser, with many protestations, complied. Some months after this the two men met again in the Hay- market. " Pimples " had been racing, and was in his invariable condition — "broke to the world." Ignoring the former transaction entirely, he stated flatly that the old man had " got to pull out " a couple of sovereigns for him to " get through the night with." He was about to scrawl a worthless I.O.U. for the sum he had mentioned on the fly-sheet of his race- card, when the trembling old usurer stopped him. "Not on that," said he, "not on that. Come into the ' Black 'Orse ' an' write it on a' abernethy biscuit ! " CHAPTER VI When the slump came to the club — Bellamy's action — The Judge who knew his Pink'U?t — Definitions of a " nuisance " — Eliza Turner's reasons — An Excise spy — Swears is "pinched" for the fines — But escapes from custody — A begging errand — Rescued I — The influence of a monied friend — The obliging bums — Hughie lunches — Flyingedibles — Bore'shead barred — Drummy's pleasing candour — The dying man's beer — Two brands from the burning — Pelican smoking concerts — Solomon the impecunious — A remedy for cramp-in-the-kick — Fire at the club — Dickie the Driver and Billie Fitzwilliam subdue it — The landlord levies — A decent old man-in-posses- sion — // Crediiorii. 'E have talked the matter over, Swears and I, but without being able to precisely determine what was the first outward and visible sign — to the members — of the inward and spiritual slump that eventually shut up the Pelican, but we think it was the notice that was wafered up on the chimney-glass to this effect : NOTICE. Members who have reason to believe that Writs, Judgments, or any other Legal Blisters are out against them, are warned against Washing, etc., downstairs, as THE CLUB LAVATORY IS FUIL OF BAILIFFS. 128 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN A lost action at law, this casual allusion to which is the only one that will be made in this veracious record of otherwise pleasant reminiscences, had under- mined the Pelican banking-account. Then, too, a great domestic affliction had fallen upon Swears ; and, as one peal of thunder seems to call for another, the Baird suit was only six months' old when a parson named Bellamy, the tenant of some property adjoin- ing the club, commenced an action to restrain Swears from permitting noisy entertainments on the club premises. Much that was mildly amusing, to all but the defendant (against whom an injunction was eventually granted), came out in the evidence. To begin with, Mr Justice Lawrance showed that he might not be classed among the judges who habitu- ally affect ignorance of all matters outside the Law Courts, Since the late Lord Coleridge asked, with an affectation of supreme ignorance, " And who is Connie Gilchrist ? " — and this at a time when the young lady's photographs were in every shop-window — judges in all courts have professed to know nothing whatever of the celebrities or customs in other walks of life. Here, however, upon counsel for the plaintiff (Sir A. Walton, Q.C.) stating, in support of his case, that he " should have to read from a paper called The Sporting Tiines" tho. learned judge at once interposed, " Oh, you mean the Pi7tk 'Un ! " — a judicial rejoinder that showed his lordship to be a broad-minded man of the world, and filled the defendant with fresh hope. Then the plaintiffs witnesses gave their definitions of what they considered constituted a nuisance. A tailor swore that his rest was disturbed by people running about the streets shouting, " Jackson's won in two rounds," and a police-constable and his wife A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 129 couldn't sleep after getting to bed for the loud singing of " vulgar music-hall songs " — (which turned out to be " For he's a jolly good fellow," and " God save the Queen " !) — also by a crowd of people surrounding a cab in which a boxer was leaving the club, and yelling, " Brayvo, Toff Wall ! " And here is another typical extract from the report of the cross-examination of the prosecutor's witnesses : Mr Haldane {for defendant) : " If the noises were not there, you would have no objection to the Pelican Club?" Eliza Turner (a iviiness) : " Oh yes, I would, because it makes the older buildin's look so old an' dirty ! " As against all this there was a ton of testimony — chiefly in the form of affidavits — to the effect that Gerrard Street and its vicinity had been mightily im- proved by the advent of the club. As my good friend, George R. Sims, said at the time : " The public interest in the question centred solely in the rival affidavits, and if the proceedings have done nothing else, they have at least been the means of indicating to a peaceable and peaceful citizen, tired of the storm and stress of London life, a spot where he can rest and be thankful. Gerrard Street, Soho, according to one set of affidavits, is evidently a Garden of Eden, an earthly Paradise, a Haven of Rest, and an oasis in the desert which has hitherto, in some unaccountable way, been overlooked by the large class of citizens who are always in search of a genteel residence in a quiet neighbourhood." " Dagonet " even burst into poetry over the matter — poetry too good to lie buried under seven bulky yearly volumes of the cheery Referee : I30 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN A PERFECT PARADISE.— (F/^^ Affidavits.) The quiet of the woodland way Bird broken is by night and day ; But ne'er a song-bird trills its lay In Gerrard Street, Soho. No breeze here bears the babel roar — Life's ocean, tideless evermore. Lies dead upon the silent shore Of Gerrard Street, Soho. The hermit seeking holy calm May soothe his soul with Gilead balm Beneath the desert's one green palm In Gerrard Street, Soho. But 'twas, O 'twas not always thus ; Men flying from life's fume and fuss In urbe found a peaceful rus In Gerrard Street, Soho. There was a time when shout and shriek And song and oath and drunken freak Made matters lively all the week In Gerrard Street, Soho. Then, too, alas ! the Sabbath eve Heard sounds to make the pious grieve And quiet tenants thought they'd leave In Gerrard Street, Soho. When came the change from noise to peace, When did the clattering hansom cease, When rose the value of a lease In Gerarrd Street, Soho? When came that sense of perfect rest Which makes the region doubly blest ? 'Twas when, as members' oaths attest, The Pelicans first built their nest In Gerrard Street, Soho ! A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 131 But, in spite of it all, injunctions were granted in respect of the boxing, the whistling for cabs, and the noise of the cabs and carriages themselves — most arbitrary regulations. It was soon after this that a Somerset House spy put the crowning bit of legal persecution on the club. Garbed in evening dress, so that his appearance was, as far as the colour of his clothes went, the same as that of the regulation Pelican, he obtained an entrance by sneaking in at an area gate on the night of a big boxing contest, and, once inside, obtained cham- pagne, brandy, and cigars, on the pretence of being a member of the club. In due course Swears was summoned before the sitting magistrate at Marl- borough Street — Mr Cooke — who convicted, inflict- ing fines that amounted in the aggregate to ;^35, and laying down the precept that the proprietor of a club was bound to have attendants, or others, who could distinguish members from non-members — quite an impossible requirement in a club where waiters have constantly to be changed, and many country, military, and sporting members only turn up occasionally. However, there it was. Twenty-four hours' grace is all that is given one to " find the brass " in these cases ; the alternative being a month or six weeks in the picturesque, old-world castle at the lower end of the Camden Road. All oblivious of these facts, Swears, who had gone straight from the dock at Marlborough Street to Brighton for the day and night, was, at the breaking of the twenty- fifth hour, walking briskly across the Temple, on his way from the railway-station at London Bridge to Lincoln's Inn Fields to keep a peremptory business appointment with Mr Registrar Brougham. He had 132 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN on, amongst other garments, a new light dust-coat, rather long in the sleeves, and as he was about to cross Fleet Street, he was tapped on one shoulder, and at the same time grabbed by the superfluity of cloth cuff that lapped over his fist on either side. The tipstaff's blunt declaration that it was a " case of Holloway " was quite needless, and Swears' course of action was equally obvious. With one glance ahead, he slipped his arms out of the sleeves, and fled like a hare across the road and up Bell Yard, leaving his coat, like Joseph, a pledge with the plaintiff to be subsequently redeemed. Of course the officers started in pursuit, but Swears had got a good lead, and, never slackening his speed, he ran clean on to the Bankruptcy Building in Portugal Street, and, bursting in during the public examination of some equally unfortunate wight, claimed, and was granted, the protection of the Court. The advantage gained, it is almost needless to add, was only of a temporary nature. The usher consolingly assured Swears that he would be turned out at four o'clock, till which hour the baffled bulldogs would wait patiently on the doorstep. The best thing to be done in the circumstances was to temporise with the captors who had him at bay, and this Ernest did, to the extent of getting one of them to go on a begging errand to some of the trusted chums who could be relied on, while the other of^cer remained on the watch. It is a cheering reminiscence that the " call " was so handsomely honoured that, after the debt and costs — now totting up over sixty pounds — were squared, there " remained of the frag- ments twelve baskets full." To be more explicit, each of the six good fellows A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 133 to whom Ernest applied in his hour of need, weighed in with the full amount asked for — fifty pounds — so that what at the outset looked like the grey old castle, with its iron swing-gates, and the little broom that has to be poked under the door when one wishes to confer with the warder or the chaplain, blossomed out into a full three-hundred-pound day ! What a Heaven-sent blessing are the men one can rely on, when the emergency is acutely, desperately real ! Who can over-estimate the immense value of the friend in need ? Before returning to the main theme of my story, I would like to quote, more as a grateful memory of my fellow confessor's than as a bolster for this reflec- tion, one other instance. Swears was under examination in the Court of Bankruptcy. At such a time one's meanest creditor has the right to interrogate one upon the most personal and frequently irrelevant matters ; and one small tradesman asked, through counsel, " Is it not a fact that the rent of the flat in which you are at present living is, with the electric light charges, j^iS7 a year ? " Ernest at once admitted that it was so, but did the Court think that /le would be guilty of such extrava- gance ? Never ! A dear and valued old friend of his had come manfully forward when he heard of the beginning of all this trouble, and had, protestations notwithstanding, insisted, out of the fulness of his heart and his purse, in guaranteeing his old chum's rent to his landlord. It was done out of sheer good nature — quietly and unostentatiously — and he(Swears) did hope that the Court would not compel him to divulge the name of his benefactor, a proceeding 134 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN which he felt would be extremely distasteful to that generous gentleman. The tradesman's legal representative was on to this instantly : pure cussedness is half the game. He objected to the name being withheld, and, after some little parley, the Court ruled that the gentleman's name should be given up, but not of necessity openly ; it might be written on a piece of paper and passed up for his (the Registrar's) inspection. " And I have your lordship's promise that it shall not be divulged ? " Swears asked, " It shall not be seen other than by counsel and myself," replied the Registrar. With a sigh of reluctance, as though he were giving away a State secret at the point of the bayonet Swears tore the fly-sheet off a letter, and wrote in pencil and under cover of his hand, as though some ubiquitous reporter might be peering through the roof, the two words — " Fatty Coleman," — and passed the paper up. Nothing could have been more satisfactory. Let's get back : Swears did not run the risk of disgusting his latter-day Good Samaritans by squandering the stuff, nor did he give any one lender a preference over the others by accepting his dole and returning all the rest. No, from each and every one he took one "tenner" to go towards the muniment chest of the Inland Revenue extortioners, another tenner for himself, as a solatium for wounded feelings, shock, inconvenience, and loss of time, and thirty pounds a-piece he sent them back. A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 135 (Or, at least, he says he did. The compensations of Hterary collaboration to the man who actually holds the pen and writes the book, include the opportunities of giving his own version of things.) Harking back to my opening statement, the Pelican's black day had come, and the club was full of bailiffs, but some of them were really decent chaps. In my own experience I have had a " man in " under a bill-of-sale who was quite the most obliging soul in the world. He would clean knives, varnish boots, dig in the garden, and sing all day like a cock angel. But that his presence was a source of sorrow to my dear wife (" Poor wretch ! " as Pepys says), I would have kept him with me to this day. Many of the " bums '" who were put into the Pelican were so desirous to be of service that they were rigged out and given a chance as waiters. One of them in particular is to be remembered. Full of confidence and bright purposes on his "opening day," and well grounded in the scale of charges, the first customer that chanced to come in was Hughie — Hughie in his very best form. He entered with the ringing " Hark forward ! hark forward ! " that brought the scent of the stubble round Kirby Gate over the footlights, and with his whanghee cane he cut down six or seven inoffensive tumblers that stood upon the bar. It was his usual way, and nobody, bar the " new waiter," turned a single hair. Hughie spotted the fresh face, and was on to the new man like tar. With a sharp cut across the back from the cane, he bade the green hand bring him the wine-list. Then he wanted the menu ; then The Sporting Life. He ordered half a dozen different 136 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN dishes, and, after tasting of each and swearing at all, and throwing the contents of the bread-basket at the various sporting trophies hanging on the walls, he had his gold case filled with cigarettes, and rose to go. The new waiter confronted him with the bill. " Great Scott, young fellow, where are you from, that you don't know me ? " cried Hughie. " / never pay dil/s ; send it to my solicitors, or — chalk it up ! Where's old Swears? Hi, boy, call me a hansom, you rascal ! " and in another moment the sound of retreating wheels announced Hugh's departure. With dejected mien and sadness in his voice, the new waiter walked across the room to where Swears was standing. " Guv'nor," said he, " from the bottom o' me 'eart I sympathises with yer. No wonder I a77i 'ere ! " Mention of shying the bread about — and a hard- baked Swiss roll delivered by a good shot is no light thing if it catches you on the nose — calls up the memory of a very merry supper, at which, the guests being too full of good wine to care much about eating, the viands went flying about the room like edible bats. Presently a glazed boar's head, nothing smaller coming to hand, took a rising young noble- man — who was enthusiastically yelling, " Play up at 'em ! Change all bad nuts ! " (after the manner of the gipsies at Epsom) — full and flush in the eyeglass, and laid him in the fender. As he didn't get up very promptly, and indeed seemed stunned, the host began to remonstrate. " Hang it ! " said he, " don't throw big things like " No," seconded Hughie, quite hurt at being A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 137 suspected of such a thing, even impersonally, ''do play fair. Look at my hands : I've thrown nothing but jelly all the evening!" But Hughie's candour upon all occasions was a thing of beauty and the sustaining prop of the good spirits in others. He strolled into the club one night, and noticed a snug little " function " (as they say in TJie World) going on ; a youthful member of the House of Lords, who had only recently taken his seat, was entertaining at dinner seven others, who had already warmed the upholstery of the Upper House. Hughie gazed admiringly at them for a moment or so, then he strolled up to the host and, slapping him on the back, bawled out in a tone that was intended to be highly congratulatory — " Dear old chaps, what a sight for sore eyes you all make ! Eight hereditary legislators at one table, and not a solid ounce of brains amongst the damned lot ! Dear old chaps ! " In the same way he could put fresh life and spirits even into a dying man. One of the best fellows in the world, and a staunch Pelican, was lying seriously ill — beyond all medical hope — and Hughie went to see him. The last of a long series of surgical opera- tions had left the poor devil a mere wreck, and, knowing that " his number was up," he said — " Hughie, old son, I don't see why we shouldn't take a parting drink together, and you can call my stirrup- cup a pint bottle of Guinness's stout." The doctor, still in the ante-room, said, in answer to Drummy's question, " Certainly, let him have whatever he likes ; it won't make any difference, poor fellow ! " 13S A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN So, there being none in the house, a maidservant was despatched to fetch a bottle ; but the girl, taking the first thing that was offered her, brought some other brew — doubtless an excellent article, but not what she was sent for. When this was poured out and handed to the dying man, he sipped it, nosed it, and exclaimed — " You can't kid me ! If that beer's Guinness's, I'm a ghost ! " " God bless the old chap ! God bless him ! " literally- shouted Hughie, grabbing the invalid by the hand and shaking it vigorously, " he's not going to die ! Cheer up, sonniCjj^'C'z^'ll pull through yet!" and, true enough, his prophecy turned out anyway, the patient didn't seem to be suffering from much, save, perhaps, advancing baldness, when I saw him with a beautiful fairy in a box at the Empire a few nights ago. " Which reminds me ," as dear old Sam Pallant says to his assembled Iambs at the Free- mason's when he is about to relate some fearsome adventure, I've a little story to weave in here, and, with your permission, I will call it " Two Brands from the Burning." It was just as the curtain went up on the second ballet at the Alhambra on a certain Thursday evening some few years ago, and the somewhat crude joculari- ties of Monkey Island began, that a tall, well-dressed man stood leaning against one of the brass staples at the end of the reserved fauteuils, gazing very earnestly^ if not rudely, at an undeniably beautiful girl sitting in the third row. It was easy to see that his practised eye told him she was not an absolutely modest woman, yet there was something about her that seemed fresh and new, and altogether promising of adventure. So A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 139 catching her pathetic sloe-like eyes a second or two later, he elevated his eyebrows invitingly, and nodded towards the velvety stairs leading up to the circle where are the bars, and, raising his right hand, with the first and second fingers closed upon the pad of the thumb, to his lips, he suddenly jerked his third and little fingers upwards, and, in imagination and mimicry, swallowed a glass of the vintage that cheers without bringing in its train any of the miseries of body and soul that follow the constant absorption of tannin. But instead of smilingly nodding her acquiescence, reaching her sables from the next fauteuil, and answer- ing to his bidding, she shrugged her shoulders in the prettiest way in the world, and, with an unhappy, utterly hopeless look in her eyes, that made her far more bewitching than before, she shook her head as much as to say she'd like to come, but dared not. " Great Scott ! " thought he, " I've struck something very out of the common." Whereas the fact was that she'd been personally conducted, being without a cavalier, to that fauteuil from the promenade by that ever watchful and cheeriest of managers, Douglas Cox, and told to sit on it as tight as a sick kitten to a hot brick, unless she wished to be put out into the cold, raw night, and it was raining outside. He would speak to her, quietly, if possible, but speak at all hazards, so raising the crimson silk rope, and passing through, he very soon sat by beauty's side. Who, let me ask, ever gauged the depth of a woman's artifice? When the Evil One, who was a woman, sent her daughters abroad upon the earth, she endowed them with the power of reading man's 140 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN thoughts and of formulating a lightning plan of assault upon that man's body and soul. Man was a wild prairie steer, and woman a practised rancher, her glance of love was a lasso, and when she threw it out she gathered in that man, and took him, roped, into the corral. Hettie Mills had a past that was monotonously like that of nine-tenths of her frail sisters. Middle-aged women of unprepossessing appearance had accosted her in the street in days gone by, and, after talking to her of the Scarlet Abomination till they made her cry for very hopelessness, had invited her to their homes to tea. But, to start with, she never liked tea, nor could she tolerate the professedly fatherly kisses of the musty old men who ruled over these functions. The men she'd been thrown amongst were men, anyway. As she gazed at the young fellow who was sitting beside her, she summed him up to a nicety. Fond of almost any woman, disposed to get very spoony, pretty free with his money, not much over thirty — he would do. She told him, ever so quietly, that she liked the look of him, and she thought it a pity that he knocked about town. He thought it rather an odd tack she'd gone on, though he said nothing, but something she had said had stuck, and he became very thoughtful. " Come out of this place, little woman," he said ; " come and have a bit of supper quietly somewhere — and talk to me." He took her out of the theatre and into a restaurant which was fairly quiet, seeing that the theatres were not yet over, and the army of supper-eaters still in their stalls. A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 141 And then she opened her heart — just as wide as she thought prudent. She had made a sh'ght slip, but it was not too late to retrace her steps, and she could show by her future conduct how sincere was her penitence. It was time for him to alter, too. The only tangible happiness in the world was domestic happiness ; he could break off his bad habits and start afresh. She spoke with great sense and feeling — she was a well educated girl — and, growing excited and enthusiastic as she went on, she at last declared that from that hour should her reformation begin. "And now," she said, "will you marry me?" He did not answer. He, too, had a past, more serious than even she supposed. Though but three- and-thirty, he had broken all but one of the command- ments, and her serious talk had set him speculating as to how much longer his forgery of his principal's signature would remain unknown — a fortnight, perhaps. Then In the meantime she was becoming discouraged. She frowned very, very slightly, but remembered an old piece of advice that, like all advice, fits in everywhere, to the effect that when one is in doubt, it is as well to weigh in with the biggest trump one happens to be holding. So she played herself, the Queen of Beautj^, when she said — " But, of course, you will not ; it was presumptuous of me ever to suppose that you would — so I must go — alone." " Stay, little woman, stay ! I'll marry you," he cried, and added in a resigned undertone, " It'll all come out about the same time, and I may as well go to gaol for bisramv as anything else ! " 142 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN It would be impossible for a disinterested person with a good flow of language to speak too glowingly of the club smoking-concerts which poor little Teddy Solomon used to get up ; from a managerial point of view, however, they were sometimes unduly costly. Teddy was a little genius, who was constantly in monetary straits, generally brought about by his own extravagance. It was a cold day indeed in which Teddy didn't face at least one financial crisis. And, not infrequently, the crucial problem would present itself to him just when the concert was at its height, and everything was going with a swing. A troubled expression would come over his face as though he felt some acute inward pang, and he'd hastily put down his baton, tear a corner off the drum band-part (or that of some other instrument that was only working half-time, like the dulcimer or the shawm) and scribble a note to Swears, which he would send up by one of his bandsmen — " Let me have a tenner by bearer, will you ? — E. S." With a woebegone countenance Swears would pencil the reply — " Give me a chance, old man. The bars haven't taken iJnee yet. Honour !— Swears." A minute later the music would cease and some actor commence a long-winded recitation, that sent most of the members to the bar ; and three minutes later Solomon himself would appear with his coat and hat already donned, and putting on his silk muffler before going out to face the rigours of the night. " Not going, surely ? " Swears would cry, aghast. " Bound to, old man, bound to," Teddy would reply, A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 143 with his brows knit and his eyes half closed. " I've come over so faint and queer. Nothing serious — it's only worry — I shall feel better when I get home and am quiet." It would be Swears who had to face the crisis now, for the ostentatious departure of the chef dorchestre meant an end of the music, and the whole night would be a fiasco. " I know what it is," he would whisper sympatheti- cally ; " I've suffered with it myself, but — don't be too hard on old Swears. Say three quid now and three more after supper ? " " Come on then," Solomon would reply decisively, as he unbuttoned his coat again and stowed the muffler into one of its pockets, " and order me a whisky and soda and a medium Corona;" and in another couple of minutes the word would have been passed round that Mr Soloman had shaken off his indisposition, and was about to give a grand selection from Billee Taylor. Everybody liked poor little Teddy at the Pelican, and when he completed the score of The Red Hussar, and sold the opera for about a tenth of the sum of money of which he stood — or fancied he stood — in immediate need, the kindliest suggestions were heaped upon him by the admiring Pelicans, who utterly failed to see why he couldn't give the piece a number of alternative titles — The Blue Guardsman, The Scarlet Swaddy, The Striped Lancer, The Spotted Dragoon, The Pipeclayed Militiaman, The Violet Volunteer, The Heliotrope Artillery 7nan,z.Vi^ The Mottled Marine were amongst them — and keep on selling it to different managers until he'd got all the money he wanted ! He laid down his fiddle and his bow for ever in the 144 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN middle of January '95 ; and if there's such a place as Heaven, and Teddy Solomon has reached it, he must find it pretty tedious, since we are told that there is " neither marrying nor giving in marriage " up there. But the somewhat hazy and unconventional notions of commercial morality held by the Pelicans who advised Solomon in The Red Hussar matter were not shared by all the Gerrard Street " birds," and the incident of the fire at the club must prove it. It came about in this way : Swears had gone to his private drum, and to roost one night — or it may have been between three and four in the morning — and was dreaming happily, when much knocking at the door and pulling of the bell announced the arrival of Dickie the Driver and " Billie " Fitzwilliam, as a rule, two of the very best dressed men in town, and a credit to the immaculate and inflexible Smalpage, but to-night they were grimy and dirty, and their shirt-fronts and overcoats were in a condition that was pitiful to behold. Drinks they first of all demanded as a hard-won reward, and when these had been produced and sampled, Dickie began the narrative — dramatically,, impressively — aided, abetted, and interrupted by Billie. " Swears," cried Dickie, " the club was on fire " " Blazing like shavings ! " chipped in Billie. *' Another ten minutes, and there would have been no more Pelican " " Not as much as the lavatory left standing ! " " We saw that prompt measures only could avert total destruction " "And risked everything. Just look at my hat ! " A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 145 " That the whole place is not a big heap of smoking ashes at this moment is entirely due " Swears seemed to find his tongue for the first time. In undisguised horror he cried — " You don't mean to say you put it out ? " " Indeed, we did ! " answered Dickie, beaming. " The whole brigade, with Captain Shaw in com- mand, couldn't have done it better ! " added Billie. " Good Lord ! " ejaculated Swears, sinking back upon the bed disheartened — undone. " And the in- surance money was the only chance I had of ever getting decently out ! " Very shortly after this there came a quarter-day on which the landlord, somehow or other, got over- looked. It's impossible at times to think of everybody, but seemingly he was hurt about it, for the very next afternoon he sent round a local broker, who levied a distress and left a man in possession. This old fellow, despite his sordid calling, proved one of the merriest old souls that ever stepped in between a man and his household furniture, and when the members of the club got to know that he'd fought for his country at Waterloo — the battlefield, not the railway-station — and had been wounded no less than nine times, they made quite a fuss of him. First one insisted on taking him to the bar, then another, and another, till finally it was decided to honour him with a dinner. And a queer, incongruous figure the old chap cut, sitting on the right hand of the noble chairman, amongst a crowd of the best-dressed men in town — not that they overawed him in the least degree, a circumstance that was probably accounted for by the fact, of which he was properly very proud, that since 146 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN he'd been a " bum," he'd " stayed " at the houses of all the smartest noblemen in London ! And he created much merriment by enumerating most of them. Then, filling himself a bumper, and standing on the seat of his chair, he gave, " The Pelican Club, and to 'ell with the landlord of it," a somewhat dis- loyal toast, but one that was duly honoured. And when at last the day came for him to go, he " collected his props," as he called getting his belong- ings together, most reluctantly. With his hat in one hand, and the " props " aforesaid done up in a news- paper parcel of about the same size as a bath sponge, he stood on the threshold, and said — " Me lords an' gentlemen, it's sorry indeed I am to leave yer, but I still 'ave 'opes, an' to-night I shall pray on his knees that I may be put in 'ere every quarter-day as long as I live ! With all respec', good day I " CHAPTER VII When the grass grows short — A little moralising — The fall of Bobbie Eldon — Plot-hatching at the Hotel de la Mere Angot— A Noel-tide errand to the tradesmen of Knights- bridge — Two living pictures — The small parcel system — A valentine that pawned — Shifter broke at Monte Carlo — Runs into funds in a queer way — Exiles at Boulogne — Swears retires to Vimerieux — A poultry diet — The new bookmaker — The confrontation — The Philosophy of Im- pecuniosity — David Hope-Johnstone under restraint — Peter the Provident — "Jubber's" — The Duke of Hamilton's dinner-party — George Goddard — The rejected of the Insur- ance Company — Six months to live ! — A heroic, sportsmanly resolution — Getting through ^156,000 — an ignominious ending — Another man w^ho didn't die when he ought to have done. NOTHING in the whole world puts Morality to a more rigid test than Impecuniosity, and richly deserving of the rewards and emoluments promised in the hereafter, is he who has withstood temptation in the hour of penury. What becomes of the "teachings at a mother's knee," — (I ask as one who was more frequently extended across that of his father) — the excellent precepts instilled at school, — (You remember Professor Sellar's remark about Walrond? He had been expatiating on the old man's virtues to Matthew Arnold. " Ah," said Arnold, " we were all so good at Rugby." " Yes," retorted 148 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN Sellar, " but he kept it up ! ") — or even the promptings of conscience itself, when indigence and privation are mocking one, and opportunity offers ? I must admit I don't know. Everything, I fear, is sacrificed in order that the end may be attained. So many of the young fellows of to-day are " one-game " men, and, should any untoward circumstance arise to throw them out of their groove — only one false step — they are utterly done for. Unhappily, there is a tide in the affairs of young men, which, if not skilfully dodged, effectually drowns them. We all have our burdens to bear, and theirs are that Nature has filled them with more ginger and " go " than their pockets can stand the racket of " You kin swap yer reputation for a shillin';" said some village Poor Richard, " but you kin never swap back ; " and so the bright young spirit who has " gone a mucker " in Capel Court or Lombard Street, usually drifts into the shadier circles of the Turf, and not infrequently becomes " one of the boys." The religious improvident look to Heaven for supplies ; the irreligious and degenerate to the American Bar. When I first became acquainted with Bobby Eldon, second son of the Honourable and Reverend Richard Eldon (I may not divulge real names, but these are near enough), he had just come from Lincoln College, Oxford, to take up a responsible position in one of the most important joint-stock banks in the city. It was an ill choice of somebody's. Bobby was in first- rate fettle in the early hours of the morning in the Doll Tearsheet Club, pouring brandies and sodas into the grand piano, but the day spell at the bank was torture to him. True, there is no loss without a corresponding gain ; there never was a morning that A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 149 his man carried him up to bed that Bobby hadn't learned some new way of making a fool of himself. Eventually the crash came. Bobby left the bank in the city with considerable suddenness, and the Honourable and Reverend Richard's hair became three shades whiter. After all, if one is fated to be a fool for a time, he should get it over while he's young. It is better to see parents grieve than children. Bobby threw in his lot with " the boys." It was the day before Christmas, three years back, and Bob and his particular chum, Oats (which is short rhyming slang for Charley. " Oats-and-barley " it is in full, but the true art of it lies in the abbreviation), sate in the dirty little restaurant called the Hotel de la Mere Angot, in Compton Street, Soho, and talked things over seriously. "We must get a bit to-day. Bob," remarked Oats, " though where to look for it I'm hanged if I know ! May I never have eggs and bacon for breakfast again if I haven't developed a splint walkin' round and round that bar at the corner in search of a mug ! " "That's just it, Charlie, and that's precisely where you make the mistake," answered the young gentle- man, "you never try a fresh cover. If the whole season's coursing took place at Plumpton, how long d'ye think the hares would stay there ? " " What do you suggest then ? " responded the lurcher, apparently convinced by the scholar's lucid argument. " I've nothing to suggest, unfortunately. I've been relying upon j/our fecund brain, and — oh, my Charles ! — ^/iaf failing, Levius fit patientia quidquid ith.dX's twc quid, Charles) corrigere " " Oh, chuck it ! " growled the other, " the thing's ISO A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN too serious. Didn't you once have an account at Coutts's ? " " I did ; but it is deceased and fatally defunct." " But you've still got a few blank cheques left, maybe ? " " I may have, but what of it ? Charles, my boy, the thing's been done. Long after I'd had their notice to say my account was overdrawn I flew those cheques — everybody's had 'em." " Oh no, they haven't," cried the tempter. " I'll tell you several you've left out — poor things ! " " Who are they ? " asked Bobby, brightening up. " Your old man's tradespeople ! " " But, Charlie " " There you go, of course ! That's all the thanks I get for what you call my fecund brain ! And fancy you comin' over finicky about sticking a few bloated tradespeople — fat, sleek rascals that have had thousands and thousands — very likely millions — out of your poor old father " Bobby rose abruptly, but resolutely, from his chair. " Never mind my father, Charlie," said he. " I'll try 'em with some cheques — by gad I will ! " He ex- tended his right hand to the genius of plots, and sealed the bargain. It was between three and four o'clock on that dull, wintry afternoon when the pair — Eldon armed with a perfect sheaf of cheques drawn to " self or bearer " for various small amounts, and signed " R. Eldon " — sallied forth in a hansom on their Noel-tide errand to the tradesmen of Knightsbridge. And the plan worked like a greased charm ! Driving up to the different shop doors, Master Robert entered and took the commercial lions by their very beards. Could they A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 151 oblige him with change (he was careful not to say for his father's cheque ; they were permitted to assume that), as he had left it too late for the bank ? They not only could, but did, and that without the slightest murmur. By half-past five, when the precious pair discharged the cab, and retired into the private bar of a little tavern near Tattersalls' to count the spoil, they were considerably exhilarated to find that, less " spending money " — or, as Bobby facetiously put it, " cost of collection " — they had netted ninety-four pounds ! " Got any cheques left ? " asked the never-satisfied Oats. Robert's right hand dived into his overcoat pocket and reappeared holding one crumpled pink slip. " It's only for four pounds," he said carelessly, after looking at it. " Well, why waste it ? Aren't four sovereigns of greater consequence to us than to these chartered adulterators ? " " Possibly," admitted Eldon, " but — but it's so very small ! " He was already feeling much better for the new lining in his breeches pocket. " Small be hanged ! " sneered Oats, " it'll just fit one of 'em to a dot ! Let's see — four pounds, four pounds — why, strike me lucky ! it's just the very thing for — say, a milkman ! We haven't done a milkman yet. Who keeps the old man in cat-lap ? " Robert was rather hazy as to which particular dairy of the many in the neighbourhood supplied the milk for his father's household, but at length fixed upon a rather small shop in Sloane Street, and thither the conspirators went. The " guv'nor " himself wasn't in. The visitors murmured something about its being " a 152 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN nuisance." Then the comely body who had answered them asked if it was anything she could do, as the hour of Mr Simpson's return was uncertain. Oats took upon himself the responsibility of answering her. " His Lordship," he said, alluding presumably to the Honourable and Reverend, had left it too late to send to the bank, and wondered whether Mr Simpson could accommodate him with change for a small cheque? The simple woman all but dropped a curtsey at the mention of a name so respected. Mr Simpson's being out was of no importance — she would be delighted to change " His Lordship's " cheque. (It is something, after all, to confer a favour on an Honourable !) But, oh ! her regrets and apologies when she found she had only three pounds seventeen and sixpence in the till ! Upon mature consideration the gentlemen were unanimously of opinion that " that would do for the present," and they departed with it. The sequel is contained in two little pictures which I may describe in outline in the next sixteen or seventeen lines. They are distinctly more painful than the ordinarily harrowing subjects chosen for illustration at this depressing season of the year. The first has for a background the best dining- room at the Hotel de la Mere Angot. It is after- noon, and Mr Robert Eldon is reclining with his head in the coal-box. Mr Oats still rests in his chair at the table, fast asleep, with his nose in the dish that once held the now extinguished omelette au rhuni. Empty bottles are to the left of them, empty bottles to the right of them — in short, a triumph of empty bottles ! In the second picture, the fine, but lumbago-racked old gentleman, the Honourable and Reverend, with A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 153 eyes starting from their sockets, gazes in horrified wonderment at the veteran butler who stands before him, bearing a silver salver on which are two shillings and a sixpenny bit, " with Mister Simpson's respec'ful compliments, an' that makes me an' His Lordship quits ! " It was one of my earliest acquaintances on a race- course, a breezy, light-hearted fellow, who had " left down " in Tattersall's Ring, family, position, and everything else, who put me up to the little move by which the ingenious needy checkmated some of the non-trustful " cash-tailors," and I give it just as he gave it to me in a bar in the Old Jewry. " Hardly the correct cut, I'll admit," he said, as he gazed deprecatingly at the " bags " of the startling check suit he was wearing, " but one must make allowances. Maiden effort of a snip in the Poultry — bit too tight at the knee, bit too big over the boot, bit too ' something ' everywhere ; but — he'll learn, he'll learn. He'll learn something, if it's only caution," he continued, as though to smother his alleged conscience. " That sound and excellent judge, Mr Commis- sioner Kerr." he went on, when our glasses had been refilled, " once informed a snip who was after a chap for the price of a couple o' pair o' light ' round-my- houses' to go to Ascot in, and who said he 'didn't give credit at all in his business,' that there was no such thing as taking credit, and the worthy Commis- sioner was, as usual, right. Yet there's not a ' cash- tailor' from the Mansion House to Charing Cross that isn't open to send the duds home, and leave 'em too, if properly approached." I suggested modestly that, in consideration of our 154 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN long acquaintanceship (I refrained from alluding to sundry small sums that stood between us), I should be informed of this system. " With all the pleasure in life," he cried magnani- mously. " I call it the ' small-parcel system/ and it works like a Hindoo charm. Any tailor's '11 do, and any reasonable-sized order comes off; all you've got to do is to send a small boy out with an armful of bogey parcels on the day your things are done. Boy goes into the tailor's, slaps down a brown-paper parcel — don't matter much what you put in it, from a pair of old boots to half a Dutch cheese — and, without stoppin' a minute, he pipes out : * You're to include this in the parcel goin' to Captain Moppitt to-night. It's from Mappin & Webbs' — or Spinks — or any other good-sounding City firm, and — there you are ! Of course you're out when the parcel from the tailor arrives, but I've never known 'em to take it back. Mappin & Webbs' — or Spinks' — lead is quite good enough for them to follow. So, though this chequered suit mayn't be up to West-end standard in point of fit an' cut, I don't think you can call it dear at the canvas cover off a side o' beef, and the kids' old magic- lantern ! " But let me tell you a story of a valentine that pawned. It was on the evening of a festival of St Valentine, some years gone by, that " Shifter " stood in the big roulette room in the Casino at Monte Carlo, " broke to the world." It was a condition which had ceased to have the merit of novelty to Willie, who (like a great many of us, I imagine) frequently realised the bitter truths of Mr Micawber's most excellent precepts, and, philosopher though he was, Willie felt extremely A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 155 "tired." When he had staked on the black the red had come up ; when he had changed it to the red there had been a run on the black. We have all been there, perhaps. We have seen our little pile of artistic, but some- what unfamiliar, currency drawn away by the ebony rake of a bland croupier, with a head as bald as a labour leader's strike lie; he has gathered in our louis cTor and our five-franc cartwheels, and stacked them up end-wise in their respective rouleaux with a face as unconcerned, as unexpressive as a concrete sidewalk. They are gone — our last few coins ! Even if the croupier offered us we could not identify them, and we turn away with that sincere old feeling of bitter- ness on the part of poverty toward capital, with its accompanying consolation in the promise that the rich shall spend their eternal dog-days barefooted on the hot pavements of the bad place. At least / have felt so. So, with ill-luck clinging to him like a leech, Willie turned away. He would wire to the office of the paper in far-away Fleet Street, and endeavour to cajole the manager into a further draw in advance ; he would indite a long letter to John Corlett, entrenched in his Kentish fastness, and reproach him for not sending the " pony " he had been three times asked for. Occupied by these and other gloomy thoughts, he had wandered nearly to Giro's when a page-boy, bearing a letter from England, met and stopped him. It was from John Corlett, and the first touch of the envelope told the expert fingers that something more than a mere missive was inside. Willie tore open the flap, and drew out a crumpled and carelessly folded bank-note. It was doubled in half, and then in half 156 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN again, but the heavy printing of the word " Five " showed plainly through the semi-transparent paper. " Stingy old devil ! what on earth's the good of a fiver?" growled the little man; but, instinctively, his feet turned back in the direction of the Casino. The bald-headed croupier noted his return, and smiled the vacuous, meaningless smile of the simple spinster who has helped herself to too much burning rum with the omelette, a smile that became still more bland when Shifter handed over the note, still folded, and asked for the regulation six louis (which is all they give you in these places) in exchange. It was such a common, and withal such a profitable trans- action, that the knight of the rake did not immedi- ately scrutinise the flimsy — besides, the red had just lost. ^^ Faites vos jeux, messieurs., faites vos j'eux!" cried the attendant, and Billie planked down five out of his six gold pieces on the black. Round went the wheel. " Rien ne va plus ! " yelled the covey. Another second, and — up came the nigger. Again, and again, and yet once again, did the black roll up, and each time William Swillington Shifter had the lot down. He was about to go at it again, when his eye caught the wild gesticulations of the bald-headed croupier. The man was madly en- deavouring to explain that there was something wrong with the bank-note. Coolly enough, Willie picked up and pocketed his winnings, which by now amounted to something over a hundred louis, and went over. Then, with considerable indignation, the croupier smoothed out the note, and requested a translation — not to say an explanation — of it. And well he A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 157- might, for, as nearly as I remember now, it ran : — BANK OF ENJOYMENT. DRURY LANE BRANCH. / promise to pay the Bearer who visits my {Scmethingth) Annual Pantomime thousand hearty laughs. Augustus Harris, Chief Cashier. And that's the only instance on record, I fancy, of Monsieur Blanc standing rather over eighty sovereigns against a theatrical handbill. When an Englishman who has been accustomed to cut some sort of a swath m London life falls suddenly upon evil times, or when a young gentleman has lost more money than he can conveniently pay, he not infrequently stows his tweeds, linens, and leathers into his handiest kit-bag, and hops across to Boulogne " till the clouds roll by " ; and my co-remembrancer, Swears, related to me one night, when we were collaborating over a table-cloth at Verrey's, a story of his own experiences in France, which he may or may not have intended me to include in these joint reminiscences. He went to live over there for the reason that he was " broke," utterly and hopelessly as it looked at 158 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN the time, and he found asylum — or an elderly French spinster who most certainly ought to have been in- carcerated in one — in the sleepy, delightful, sandy, little fishing village of Vimerieux, which lies in a bit of a bay on the little-frequented road running from Boulogne to Calais. It is quite an old-world place, to which the average exile has not penetrated, nor the Saturday-to-Monday steamboat Hottentot found his way ; the ideal, tranquil, peaceful spot that one would choose in which to spend the eve of life's declining day, or before it gets as bad as that, retire into to sleep off the effects of a more than usually heavy Derby-week orgie. The spinster lady had an invitation and a desire to spend the autumn with a sister eccentric in Paris, and, with true Gallic frugality, she proposed to let her little didlet, with its front all bravely glazed with pink and green tiles, and furnished, if not elegantly, at least with a virgin's refined taste, to pay her exes on the southern trip. And who should come along to take the place but " Captain White." (The nom de guerre suggested itself quite readily to one who was always pretty hot, and just then in no end of a pickle.) " The Captain " approved enthusiastically of every- thing, including the cow and two pigs, and the seven fowls and eleven ducks — birds which he preferred to all others, he said — and, having introduced his servant, (a trustworthy ex-barkeeper) to take over the plate and linen as per the inventory, he went off to Poir- meurs in Boulogne to eat mussels, whilst the spinster, who had formed the most favourable impressions of le Capitan Anglais, turned over the keys to the trusty varlet, and ascended to her bedroom to stuff her valise. A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 159 So much for taking possession ; now to give the panorama a Httle twist. Swears and his servant had been living contentedly in the little chalet overlooking the Channel-kissed bay for six or seven weeks, during which all the fowls and the ducks and both the pigs had been sacrificed to keep the table going, and Wells, who for his sins was kept indoors by an attack of suppressed gout, was seriously contemplating the advisableness of sending his man up to Mannocks to pick up a {q^ hints that might prove useful in the assassination of the cow, when, as the novelist says, a strange thing happened. A brand new bookmaker dropped down, seemingly from the very clouds, and opened a little bit of an office in the Rue de I'Ecu. He was an industrious chap, and in a very short time books of his rules, prices, and limits were delivered by post to most of the likely refugees from Britain, and one of the little volumes turned up on Wells's breakfast-table. It was a most welcome little stranger, breathing no harsh suggestions about " references," but only inviting the ingenuous and the sanguine to step forward and back one — or two, or three ; the more the merrier. By a strange coincidence, Wells's only other letter that morning was from a still hopeful follower of the Turf in the old country, begging Ernest not to miss backing a certain horse that was running that self- same afternoon in a big race at Goodwood. The " cert " and the circular arriving together was surely an augury of good fortune to come, and, not to interfere with the luck, Swears started his man off the instant the fellow had swallowed his dejeuner, on the two-mile walk to Boulogne, with a brief note to i6o A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN the bookie, in which " Captain White " acknowledged the receipt of Mr Beauclerc's circular, and wished to have ;^25 each way on the horse aforementioned. The bookie was in Merridew's arranging for a supply of English newspapers when " the Captain's " messenger reached the Rue de I'Ecu, but the concierge fetched him, and mighty pleased did he seem on reading the letter. He desired the servant to present his compliments to " Captain White," and tell him he was to consider the bet " on " ; moreover, he presented the man with a franc as a poiirboire, and it seemed as though all parties were thoroughly satisfied with the deal. In the morning came the news of the horse's victory, and it started at the long odds of twelve to one ! It seemed an age to have to wait till Monday for his three hundred and seventy-five pounds, but Swears possessed the heavenly gift of patience, and at length the day arrived. It arrived, right enough, but — the bookie didn't ! Nor did he send apology or explanation of any sort. With inward misgivings, and an unregistered deter- mination to take anything " on account " that might be offered, Wells sent his servant to the defaulter, requesting him to send back a cheque at once, or call and explain his extraordinary conduct. The bookie, somewhat crestfallen, sent word in reply that he'd call. And he did. The confrontatioti is in France a common ordeal enough, but this one was something quite out of the ordinary. Ushered by the man-servant into the sick " Captain's " bedroom, the bookie's eyes oped wide, and he fell back a step or two, struck with astonish- ment when he beheld his client for the first time, A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN i6i whilst " the Captain," who had raised himself on the pillows with one arm, fell back with a groan of disgust. " Well, I'm d d ! " he cried, " Jim Fletcher ! " Good Gordon's beer!" ejaculated the bookie, " Ernest Wells ! An' both of us at the same good old game — the ' make ' ! " Surely no comment is needed ! In later days the Pelican had its full complement of short-commoners, who were generally in higher spirits than the men who were regularly full of blunt. There was always the cheering prospect of something turning up, and no man is happier than he who is continually lapsing into " the pleasing dream of the fiveness of twice two." Where would the much envied Duke of Westminster have been if a not very remote, but devilishly fortunate, ancestor hadn't made a lucky marriage with the daughter of a cowkeeper } For it was old Davies, the dairyman, who originally owned all the marshland upon which the Grosvenor estate now stands. The Micawbers of the world are too few, and the modern novelist who spoke of her hero's proud spirit being " humbled in the dust " was a little petticoated goose, because her hero had nothing to kick at, if it was only the right kind of dust. Poor David Hope -Johnstone was dreaming of fortunes he was never likely to possess, and erecting castles on purely atmospheric foundations, when he was taken off to a lunatic asylum, and when his fine old brother Bob and Fatty Coleman paid him a visit at the institution one afternoon, he talked of nothinsr but his vast possessions and the persons he intended i62 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN to benefit. As Fatty and the Major were coming away, David wrung their hands in his, and said he hoped they'd accept a little spending-money. Then he wrote out two cheques on oblong sheets of paper, with which, out of a humane desire to humour the poor fellow's whim, the authorities kept him well supplied. To his brother he gave an order on his bankers for ;^20,000, and to Fatty one for ;^io,ooo. "You may just as well have it, boys," he said, "for my friends here are so very kind, that I have no use whatever for money." As they returned to the Pelican in a four-wheeler, the Major drew out his brother's draft, gazed at it intently, and then said — " My brother David is a devilish sight more liberal in his notions 7iow than he was before he went in, poor chap ! " Then there was Peter W., another good sort, who was a chronic sufferer from " cramp in the kick," so much so that it at last got him into horrible, miserly habits. He positively used, when an occasional " bit " came his way, to stick it into a leathern note-case in a pocket inside his waistcoat, and struggle to forget it until the evil day came when some sheriff's officer, with a warrant or a committal order, should run him to ground. This happened one afternoon in the coffee-room at Jubber's — known to the uninitiated as Long's Hotel — and Peter stood at bay. Half a dozen or more of his chums were present, to each and all of whom in turn he applied to save him from being taken to Holloway ; but most of them had " obliged before," and were content to leave it at that. A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 163 Seeing that all hope of assistance was as dead as New Zealand mutton, he unbuttoned his waistcoat, lugged out a perfect wad of paper money, and ex- claimed in a lugubrious way — "It looks as if poor Peter has got to pay for himself this time ! " As a matter of hard fact, Jubber himself was one of Peter's heaviest and most patient creditors, though in the end he took a somewhat unusual step to bring Peter to book. " Angus," the late Duke of Hamilton, was a staunch patron of the hostelry at the corners of Bond and Clifford Streets, and at one of his merry dinners there Peter was a guest. When the chronic non-parter took his seat he found upon his plate, instead of the regulation half-dozen natives, such as had been served to each of the other men, nothing but Jubber's little bill, neatly folded, with the intima- tion in the lower left-hand corner in red ink that " An immediate settlement " would oblige. Peter was furious. He declared it to be a gross insult, not only to himself, but to the Duke, whose guest he was. Jubber didn't seem to be particularly dis- turbed by these threats, but he withdrew the bill — and substituted a writ which he had got all ready beforehand ! Peter became perfectly speechless with rage. De- claring it to be the greatest indignity that had ever been put upon him in his life, he wound up by saying to the Duke — " I'm sure, my dear Angus, that inasmuch as this has happened at your table, you'll see me through it, won't you ? " And the Duke could hardly assent for laughing. It should be added that Jubber was neither hard i64 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN or remorseless as a rule, unless they rubbed him the wrong way. None knew this better than George Goddard, who lived for years at the old place. George was strolling along Bond Street one day and met a man in the loth Hussars who had just got back from India. " My dear George," said the soldier, " I was just coming to see you. I s'pose you're still stopping at Jubber's ? " " Why, as to that," replied George, " I've been there so long, and owe such a devil of a lot of money there, that I'm damned if I know whether I'm stopping with Jubber or Jubber's stopping with me ! " There's one thing dead certain, and it is that im- pecuniosity brings out a lot of genius that would otherwise remain latent, and, next to poor Isidor Wertheimer's idea of painting his face in imitation of smallpox or scarlet fever, and appearing at his oak in his bedclothes whenever a dun persisted in knocking, ranks the philosophic resignation of a certain noble baronet, who was one of the best Pelicans that ever owed a tailor money. In order to borrow some cash one day, he submitted his body to the examination, in camera, of the con- sulting physician to a big life assurance company. By the advice of other birds at the Gerrard Street roost, who professed to know something about such ordeals, he'd been dieting himself for many days on asparagus and spring onions ; but he didn't pass, and it was a bit of a blow to him. I can very well under- stand it being so — even where there is no bill-stamp being wasted — for a " rejected proposal " marks a man for ever. In any subsequent advances he may make to other companies he is met by the invariable question* A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 165 " Have you ever been rejected by any other office ? " It won't avail him a row of pins that his great-grand- father never suffered from ringbone, sprung tendons, saddle-galls, or navicular disease, or that his great- grandmother never used tobacco in any form, if he once answers that question in the affirmative. In this particular case, when the life - assurance people's doctor had smitten the " life " on one cheek, he went off in a huff to his own medico, who brutally slapped the other one. In other words, his doctor said : " My dear fellow, I've warned you over and over again of the consequences of going on living in the style you have persisted in doing. Candidly, I don't believe you'll live a day over six months ! " The poor devil listened to the verdict in thoughtful silence, left the fee on the corner of the doctor's table, and came avv'ay mentally framing a new plan of campaign. He'd make things spin during those six months, anyhow ! With commendable promptitude he realised every asset he owned, and found himself with just ;j^i 56,000 at his bankers — one hundred and fifty-six thousand which he'd got to get through in the brief space of one hundred and eighty-two days ! It was not an easy task, but he meant to try and accomplish it with what kind help he could enlist. To do his pals bare justice, they really rendered valuable assistance. He gave banquets that broke records in luxurious profligacy, and every night, in the words of — er — Burton, I think — opened fresh bales of Oriental orgies in their original wrappings. Sir William'? little parties were very ripe fruit indeed, and many 1 66 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN a poor girl who had been crossed in love, and was severely at " outs " with her landlady, owed her fresh start with a new selection of frocks and things to the boundless generosity of the man whose " life " the insurance offices refused to take. The day came when he changed his very last fiver, but, strange to say — barring a little liver trouble — he was no nearer death than at the start ! Much against his will, he'd got to go on living without an income, and — all through a fool of a doctor ! His family called a meeting to consider what was best to be done, and a wealthy, but sour, old uncle — a regular old acid drop ! — was voted into the chair. After much discussion, it was finally agreed that the various relatives should take it in turns to have the wretched pauper down with them for a fortnight. He had shown that he was utterly incapable of being trusted with money, but so that he should keep his position, a tax to realise four pounds a week should be levied on the members of the familj^ by the chairman, who at each week - end should journey down to wherever the miserable dependent happened to be stopping, and expend the eighty bob in tipping the servants ! And now just one more story about a man who didn't die when he ought to have done. John Carrington Keene was the son of a big Pall Mall wine merchant. He was in his forty-first year when his father died and left him the whole concern — hock, stock, and barrel. Some men would have gone down on their patellas under the sheltering freehold and unmortgaged roof of the "Tasting Room," and balled up a short prayer of thanks to Heaven for a A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 167 business netting some seven thousand a year, but John was one of the " born tired " sort. A foolishly indulgent father had brought him up in comparative indolence, and in the cant term of the smug he " wanted to be a gentleman," and lead a life of idleness. John had not been bored by his lamented father's business long enough to warrant the stigma of " tradesman " attaching to him, when a dead smooth duck, in the shape of an enterprising company- promoter, strolled along. He was pleasanter than original sin. Outwardly, he was a sort of vedette angel, who went about oiling human creaking hinges ; inwardly, he'd have peeled the pelt off a deep sea jasper from the Dead City. He at once detected the square peg in the round hole, and had no difficulty wiiatever in persuading Mr Keene to turn the wine business into a limited company. And so John became once again a person of leisure, the while the man of keen perception from the city sate in the managing director's chair, chuckling like a famished hyena that has just dug up the cadaver of a fat missionary. You may have noticed, if you have given me the honour of your company in my previous rambles, that I never get the leading character in the story much further down the column than this, than he falls dangerously ill, and his medical advisers tell his next- of-kin to "prepare for the worst." Just so with John Carrington Keene. His horse fell with him in the Row, and, with the rare sagacity which most animals possess, began rubbing off an old hiding by rolling to and fro across its late rider. For many days after this elementary evening-up 1 68 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN of old scores, John Carrington Keene lay between life and death, slight odds being laid on the latter whenever either of the two surgeons who had the case in hand dropped in to baptise some new instru- ment of Arnold's, and take a fresh swat at the subject. It makes some people positively red-headed with rage to see a man about tov/n die comfortably. They want to see him bite the bedding and froth at the mouth. On the eighth day poor Keene recovered con- sciousness ; but life's flickering light was burning very low, and the human lamp was in this instance a long way from being a good plucked 'un. Keene, in short, was a coward, and on the evening of the day on which his devoted wife selected the pall-bearers, he sent down word that he had something of importance to say while he was yet able. " Dear wife," he said, and he closed his eyes, " the end is very near. The world grows dark about me ; there is a sort of mist gathering like a slanting pillar, and I seem to see an angel at the further end await- ing me." She only held his hand and wept. " I cannot go to the mansion that is prepared for me with a guilty conscience. Florrie — man is only flesh, and terribly weak at times — I have wronged you — and frequently ! " She did not start, nor even let go his hand. Perhaps it was not the surprise he thought. Then he made a clean breast of it. Did she remember how he was supposed to go to see Dog Rose win the Stewards* Cup in '89? She did remember, quite well. Well, the truth was, he didn't go near Goodwood at all. There was a little girl named Lena Milner, who had A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 1C9 taken a house at Brighton. The telegram which she received saying: "All well. Ripping good time. Won trifle on the day," was sent from Singleton by his friend, Percy Laing. Percy had encouraged him in the whole affair. (Confessors ever were churls ! ) "Captain Macleay's grouse-shooting party on the Wemmergill Moor in the following autumn was a delusion also. Captain Macleay was a certain Fanny Hanbury, and Wemmergill Moor was Woronzow Road, N.W. How sincerely (?) he wished he could undo it all ! " One by one he recalled beautiful ladies in many other localities who had figured in his inver- acities as whist-parties, dying schoolfellows, cab accidents, etc., to all of which the long-suffering woman listened attentively, even, with feminine prudence, taking notes. You can almost guess the rest. Nature, conspiring with Fortune, conceived a huge practical joke to play on John Carrington Keene. She restored him to health — a little the worse for careless wear, but still, health. His condition to-day is that of a healthy man, under five-and-forty, with all the liking for fun, but too well looked after. Mrs Keene is his constant, inseparable companion. There will be no more follies of the Wemmergill Moor or Dog Rose order, for she even sits outside the bath- room door while he performs his matutinal ablutions ! CHAPTER VIII On making good use of the eyes and ears — Flash Kelly on methods of living — And on judges' reputations — A. Romano bets about a clock — And loses — The further lightening of A. Romano's purse— A romantic story of a steak-and- kidney pudding — Ben Harrity's missis — The trap of the friendly cop — A terrible reckoning — Off at a couple of tangents — Sir George Jessel and his h's — Ted Warden uses his ears — The treasured letter from his father — Ted and I go to Henley — And "hear things" — Upon which Ted acts, and forcibly — Another story of a money-grabber — Who got in a funk over the death duties — He realises and dis- tributes his estate — To his subsequent sorrow. THE number of men who make full and entire use of their eyes is astonishingly small com- pared with that of the careless majority of human beings, who see so much, and yet observe so little. Nature is made up of miracles, but only one man in every ten thousand sees them, and has sufficient sense and science about him to get them patented, and make money of them. Flash Kelly aptly illustrated the difference between Eyes that observed, and Eyes that saw nothing, on the occasion of one of his many appearances before the Solon of the Westminster County Court, whither he had been taken on a judg- ment summons. Put into the box, and being sworn to stick to the truth, he stated with honest and engaging frankness, that he enjoyed no regular in- come from any source, had no " expectations," followed 170 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 171 no recognised trade or profession, and, in fact, was utterly without money, or the legitimate means of getting any. " Oh, rubbish ! " cried the judge; " if you are utterly without means, how can you live ? For instance, you must cat something ? " For a moment the versatile " Flash " gazed at the judge with an expression of amused and pitying contempt. " Your Honour is clearly not acquainted with the west end of London," he said. "Whether I am or I am not," responded the judge, somewhat nettled, " what has it to do with the ques- tion of what you live on ? " "Everything," said Kelly, with withering scorn, « for you evidently don't know that in the " Bodega" in Glasshouse Street, there's a side-table, on which a big basket of biscuits and a double-Glo'ster cheese stand all day, and for which no charge is made. A man can get plenty to cat in London without money, if that's all he's got to worry about ! " The judge made no order. Another of Kelly's philosophic reflections proved his invariable rule of probing for the roots of things. "Depend upon it," said he, "many a judge has got the reputation for getting through an enormous amount of work, and saving the time of the country, simply because he was beastly hungry, or had got an appointment with a female witness, whom he had spotted early in the day ! " Upon this question of Eyes and No Eyes I will put it to you, dear reader— (There's a bit of the church magazine about "dear reader," I fancy)— you may be a town mouse, with your eyes about you, 172 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN yet still in darkness ; have you ever noticed any peculiarity about the position of the big clock outside the Royal Courts of Justice? I'll warrant you have not ; and this, as somebody has remarked, is another story. Some five years ago I was engaged in damping earth's clay in the old bar at Romano's, when a certain noble sportsman, known on the fringe of racing as Captain Hockley, rushed in. He was a cut above "the boys," though he undoubtedly lived on (and even dabbled in the lighter vices out of the proceeds of) the exercise of his wits. Just as he came rushing in, Romano appeared from somewhere or other. " Hullo, Roman ! " was the Captain's shouted greet- ing, for he was a free and light-hearted person, and his conversation used to flow on at a great rate. " How the h are you ? I say, I s'pose that d d clock o' yours is all wrong, as usual ? I've got to catch the 9.49 from Waterloo, and — oh, Great Colossians ! — it's 9.40 now!'* " Yesso, it's a-nina-forty," assented the Roman in his own queer line of broken English, as he looked up at the clock. " It can't be as late as that," persisted the Captain, " but then that dashed old clock o' yours never was right yet ! Don't catch me going by the d d thing!" " Oh, but he's alla-righta," insisted the little Italian. " I had him what you calla electrified by Green'ich." " Rubbish ! Hold on — there's the Law Courts clock— ///«/'// be right, I'll bet ! " The mere suggestion caused Romano to chuckle. " So you wasta the time to go right down Strand to see the Law Courta clock, eh ? " he asked. A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 173 " Not much ! Why, I can see it by just stepping outside. Mean to say you don't know that you can see the Law Courts clock from j^our own door ? " " Go along, go along. I don'ta buy it, as you call," laughed Alfonso Nicolino ; and certainly it did seem highly incredible that the Law Courts clock could be seen from the Vaudeville, as, leaving the distance out of the question, there were St Mary's and St Clement Dane's churches, both standing slap in the middle of the intervening stretch of the Strand. So Romano said, with a knowing shake of his head, as he stuck his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat : " You go find Arthur Roberts, Esquire ; he play spoof with you." " Don't believe it, eh ? " " No. Some other clock you t'ink of." " Not a bit of it. Look here ! I'll bet you a bottle of wine that we can see the Law Courts clock from the pavement outside your door ? " Romano paused for a moment. Then, evidently, he thought of the two churches, for he said : " Alia right, I bet you." " And a sovereign as well ? " Again he hesitated — again the churches settled it. " Yes, I bet you a sovereign as well." "Done!" Hockley smacked down his sovereign, Romano put another one to it, and we all three proceeded to the door. There, sure enough, a little to the right of the sepia outlines of St Mary's, and the greyer ones of St Clement's, shone an orange disc in the skv, which, upon inspection, was unquestionably the clock outside the grim old law factory. Romano seemed hardly able to believe his own eyes. He raised the glasses 174 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN half a dozen times, and gazed at the illuminated object from as many different standpoints ; there it certainly was. The Captain pocketed the yellow-boys, the cork was liberated from the bottle, and, as they say in parliamentary reports, the incident terminated. It took the little Roman a full week to get over that bet about seeing the clock — not that he can't lose a wager with as good a grace as anybody, but it was such a complete take-down. Two or three weeks rolled by, and one night a chap who used to throw his money about a bit carelessly, one Billie Wickford, drifted in casually. It was between half-past seven and eight o'clock, and whilst Billie sipped a sherry and bitters, the Roman came in. "If there's one thing I hate more than another," remarked Billie impersonally, "it is going over my usual dinner hour. Now, at my diggings in Jermyn Street, dinner's always served at half-past seven to the tick, and by the same rule, I'm always ready for it. To-night I've promised to grub with Freddy Pulman, and he never sits down until half-past eight. I feel I could eat the hind leg off an elephant now, but in an hour's time — by the way, what is the time?" " Itta wants justa twenty-two and a half minutes to eight," volunteered the luckless Romano. "Oh, that be hanged!" cried Wickford ; "it's later than that — must be." A sudden bright and happy idea illumined the interior of Romano's temple of thought : here was a chance to get his clock losings back ! " It's later than that," persisted Billie Wickford temptingly. A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 175 " Well, what you say to taka the time of the bloominga Law Courts clock, eh ? " " Ah, that would be all right," rejoined VVickford readily ; " but then, who's going all the way to Fleet Street to look at the Law Courts clock ? " "Why go to Fleet Street?" chuckled the wicked Roman. " You Englisha-men not know your own countree ! Looka here, Missa Pickford, Esquire, I bet you bottle o' wine you sec the a-Law Courta clock from just outside my door ! " " Not in your natural ! " cried Wickford. " Wella, I bet you. Bottle of ' Boy ' and two sovereigns ? " " Done ! " shouted Wickford, " I bet you two pounds and a bottle o' '74 that you can't see the Law Courts clock from the pavement outside this door ! " Outside they all went — quite a little army of them — but nary a sign of the clock was there. The night was clear enough, although there was no moon ; but nothing but dull dark blue loomed above and between the buildings and the eastern sky. A pained and thoughtful expression, similar to that usually worn by a stray cat in a strange garret during a meteoro- logical disturbance, spread over the Roman's face. But he forced a smile, and said : " Come along as far as Southampton Street ? " "That's not in the bet, but I'll do it," replied Mr Wickford, and the little cavalcade trudged forward. On the southern side of the Strand, outside Lacy's, you might see the Law Courts easily enough, but the fact remained that the clock was not on view. No word was spoken on the way back to the Cafe Vaudeville. Romano brassed up the thick 'uns, and pulled out the bottle and was silent. When the 176 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN crowd had departed he took his hat, and, fixing his eyes on the heavens in the spot where the familiar orange disc should have been, he walked right along the cab-haunted boulevard till he came to the principal entrance to Her Majesty's judicial dispensary. Still he could not discern the clock. Maybe, thought he, they have forgotten to light it. As he stood there, gazing up into the blue, a policeman strolled up. " Aha, Serjeant," cried the little Italian, catching hold of a button on the peeler's tunic, " I wanta aska you a question. Efery night I looka up here, see the clock. To-nighta no bloominga clock. Why?" " 'Cos a squad o' workmen's been all day a-takin' it down to clean it," said the constable, and passed on. And now, whenever the conversation at the bar turns upon the regularity of public clocks, the Roman, before joining in, steps outside the door to see what sort of a night it is ! A big illuminated clock, no matter where it may be hanging, is, after all, an article much more likely to set the brain of the thinking man at work than a purely domestic commonplace thing like — say an earthenware pudding-basin ; we'll fix it, if you please, at the pudding-basin, because I am reminded of a true story that turns upon one. Down in the Ring at Newmarket last back-end, and during a temporary lull in the racing, I came across an old ped called Jem Daggett (or Baggett ; I was never sure which, but the former will do), who used to run a bit in the days when old Sir John patronised that branch of athletics. Daggett was at Newmarket " looking after " one of the smaller ready- money bookmakers, and, knowing that I was always A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 177 a safe " find " for a whisky — especially to a man who had any semblance of an anecdote to unfold — he followed me into the long refreshment bar, down the three or four steps above the pay-box. He asked me if I'd "yeared" what a "picnic" old Ben Harrity had had with his missis, and I told him that I hadn't. Of course he knew I hadn't, but that was his guile. " Well, all the boys has got it," said he, " an' you can bet yer feet they don't chip him none about it, nyether ! You know old Ben, sir ? " Oh yes ; I knew old Ben. " Ben always were a rare man fer the wimmin," Mr Daggett continued, " an' this one's his third. It's funny — I dunno whether you've ever noticed it — 'ow poets an' nov/1 writers always makes their yearos youthful and young? They never gives a carroty old widower, fifty-three years old, a show. Yit, where would yer find a sounder stayer'n old Ben ? 'Ee ain't the sort o' rooster what flies the coop when his best 'en stops a - layin' eggs, not Ben ain't " " Suppose you get on to the story ; I want to go into the Birdcage to see the horses," I said. Mr Daggett seemed a little hurt at this, and, after all, a man should be allowed to tell his story his own way ; anyway, he went on. " When Ben married this yere girl, nobody a-'oldin' of 'im back, he goes an' takes a flat in a sort o' 'models' in Charin' Crost Road. Probably Ben 'imself, 'ad 'ee 'ad his 'ead loose, would ha' preferred Walworth or Islin'ton, but 'er Nibbs was officiatin' jest then, an' Ben was the lamb for the sacrifice. 'Ee takes that flat an*^ he fixes it up a treat ! I reckon 'ee thought they'd M 178 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN left 'im out o' the Blue Book long enough, an' they'd take 'im in nex' year if they on'y see'd the way he furnishes that flat ! Sech blue plush chairs I never afore set in ! — ah, an' the whole lot paid for, too ; none o' yer ' 'Ire Furnishin' ' funny bisness " " Come back to your horses, Jim," I said warningly, for, though the old fellow's " descriptive business " was graphic enough, the time for hoisting the next batch of numbers was drawing near. " P'r'aps you're right," he went on, half sorrowfully. " Well, when I sees all this luxuriousness, I inwardly ses to meself : ' No good'll come of it ; all this is too rich for the blood of a man what's away racin' six days outer the seven. These curves is too wide for the old mare to keep straight' An' afore the Epsom Spring week, Ben pitches me a yarn that tells me I've spotted another winner. He's found out as 'is missis 'as 'ooked up with a gillie of a actor chap — not a right-down actor, as you may say, but what they calls a male chorister — sort o' theatrical cock-angel ; that is, 'ee an' nineteen others is the Sultin's guards in a musical piece o' the extravvyganzer stripe. They comes on to a sort o' cachucha tune, an' sings a lot o' rot, blowin' the old Sultin's stable-secrets, as it were. What with their faces bein' stained wi' some sort o' furniture polish, an' each of 'em wearin' a metal overcoat — sorter made o' dog-chains an' snaffle-bits — they fairly 'its the wimmin in a vital spot; an' every night as old Ben's away his missis is a-gazin' on 'er pardner-in-sin from the front row o' the pit. When old Ben tumbles to what's up, 'ee sticks a roll o' flimsies in his kick, an' 'ee says to me: 'Jim,' he says, 'this actin' bloke's a-going' to git it in the neck if I sinks me wad ! ' An' I knew well enough, when Ben made, as you might A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 179 say, a ' money ' question of it, it was odds on the other side's red lamp a-goin' up ! " Mr Daggett paused momentarily, and I signified my conviction of Mr Harrity's infallibility when once wound up. Then he went on : " But Ben 'ad bit orf rather more than 'ee could chew. 'Ee knew the actin'-jay's stage name ; but, bless yer, what with the washerwoman, the tick tailor, an' the chandlery shop-keeper, these blokes owes so much in small sums that they never answers to no roll-call. Ben blew in a quid or two pipin' Mister Berkeley Seymour — that was the cove's moniker — off from the pit-stalls, an' 'avin' 'im p'inted out by programme gals an' sich ; but, lor! 'ee couldn't reckonise 'im again when the hull crowd poured outer the stage door ! Not he ! Any'ow, just about the time as he was gettin' proper murderous about it, 'ee gets put on to a ' tec ' from Vine Street — a cove as knew the value o' usin' the lamps 'ee'd got in his 'ead — and this new pal undertakes to steer Ben up ag'inst the game without doin' it, as it were, officially. He sets 'is eyes to work an' soon sees somethink. Ben's missis, he spies out, is in the 'abit o' reg'larly keepin' this mummin' cove in grub ! She's bin a-makin' 'im all sorts o' pies an' things which 'ee could cook for 'isself in 'ee's little gas saucepan, up in the second-pair back as he rented in Frith Street. There was 'ardly ever a day as she didn't send round somethink — 'ceptin', of course, when Ben was about. Well, this ' D,' he says to Ben : ' You jest fix it to stop at home all o' one day, an' see that yer wife 'olds no communication with outside, an' that same night you kin git yer forks in on Mr Berkeley Seymour proper.' Ben don't want tellin' twict ; he up an' fixes i8o A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN the very nex' day, which was a Friday, an' then goes 'ome, locks the outer door, an' tells 'ees old woman in a chills-an'-fever voice that 'ees doctor's ordered 'im complete rest." " Much more of it, James ? " " No, no. That very hi-dentical night it comes off. Ben meets the ' D ' by app'intment, an', just about eleven o'clock they're planted right oppersite the stage door. As the actin' mob begins a-pouring out, Ben nudges the ' D,' an' says : ' Now then, I don' want ter miss 'im.' ' Don't you worry about that,' says the *D,' 'you couldn't miss 'im in yer natch. He'll be a-carryin' a five-pound puddin' basin, tied over with a cloth, with a big label 'angin' to it, on which is written in a female's 'and : — BERKELEY SEYMOUR, Esquire, To be boiled, with H. H.'s unchanging love, for three and a half hours. " When old Ben 'eared this 'ee grasped the ' D ' by the fin, an' he says : ' Lor, lummy ! if you ain't a wonder ! ' ' Anyway,' says the tec, smilin' like he felt gratified, ' I think we've belled that cat ! ' Well, you can almost guess the rest. Along comes the pore, benighted Juggins with the puddin'-basin as the 'D' had planted on him; acrosst the road rushes Ben — kerbiff! — kerbang! — an', as the crowd about there never believes a man's beat simply becos 'ee falls down, Ben 'ad about fifteen minutes with 'im — all amongst the broken crockery an' the steak an' A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN i8i kidney — afore the p'lice came up an' took Berkeley Seymour orf to Charin' Crosst 'Orspital" " Is he out yet?" " 'Ee came back on the sixteenth night, Mister B. Old Ben went or sent to the play every night after so's to keep count, an' — well, the nex' time Mister Berkeley Seymour is a-walkin' on the tiles, an' spots a Barth-sheber, I reckon he'll ' pass,' don't you ? " But the people who have eyes and don't use them are not one whit more criminally careless than those who have ears and yet 'ear not — I can't help dropping the aspirate, like the legal gent who, asked to define the duties of the ushers in the law courts, said : " Oh, they're the fellows that say ' Ush ! ' " Tangent the second : absolutely irremissible. All the capital " H's " that have at one time and another littered the floorings of the Royal Courts of Justice have not been dropped by the litigious public ; indeed, for prodigality in this respect, Sir George Jessel, when Master of the Rolls, probably held the record. He disliked Lord Selborne for making the parole that he did of his religion, and one of his frequent sayings on encountering the sanctimonious one in the passages was: "'Ere comes that 'oly old 'umbug 'ummin' 'is 'orrid 'ymns ! " But about this matter of the attentive and intelligent ears. They grew, one on either side of the head of a very old and cherished schoolfellow of mine, a party by the name of Edward Warden. In his own home circle Ted was invariably mentioned as " a bad Qg'gP This kind of thing, often indulged in even by the best families, is mighty discouraging to a lad of spirit, who is often not nearly as bad as his frequent unfavourable reviewers seek to make him, but suffers i82 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN because he's about seven pounds ahead of his year, and his family circle wants ginger. Frequent allusions to him as the holder of a good place in the great human catalogue of attenuated hen-fruit do not serve to sweeten him, till at last he accepts universal obloquy as his portion, and at nightfall, instead of being among the ninety-and-nine that safely lay in the shelter of the fold, he is the one that is out — not exactly "on the hills astray," but "doing in" his health and his brass with the daughters of the horse- leech, or helping some undeserving sinner to run an early-and-late delirium-tremens factory. At the time of which I write I was myself regarded as somewhat of a social poultice, which only meant that I had a great disinclination to regular hours and routine drudgery, and had developed several traits of character which now go to constitute what is called a " Bohemian " — Lord ! how I hate that word ! Edward Rippingill Warden had not many posses- sions in this world (nor roseate expectations in any possible other), but one of the most valued — or I ought to say valuable — that he had was a letter from his father. Who has not treasured up a letter, or a faded flower, or a lock of hair, or a cherry-coloured ribbon garter, or — or even a copy of the evening newspaper containing the last appointment she ever made, in cypher ? The poor "bad egg" often took that letter out from among a bundle of others, and read and re-read it, principally with a desire to faithfully obey its injunctions. It ran : — "/uiy gt/:, 1875. "Edward, — In consideration of you undertaking never to darken my doors again, nor to come within a four-mile circle drawn round my residence on the Postal Directory map A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 185 (enclosed), nor communicating with me, nor molesting, either directly or indirectly, myself, your three brothers, your sister, or your Aunt Charlotte, up to the time of my death, the sum of three pounds shall be at your disposal on every Friday morning at the offices of my solicitors, Messrs Grey, Griffs & M'Stiff, y] Bedford Row, W.C. This free gift to be revoked in the event of your being brought at any time before any police magistrate and charged with any criminal offence. "(Signed) J. H. Rippingill Warden." A hard sort of a letter it seemed for a fellow to get from his father, but the old man was harder even than his note, as scores of the poor devils who borrowed his money at starve-out prices discovered. Coin, the old curmudgeon literally wallowed in, and on every piece a bitter tear had dried — the tears of the weary, the heart-broken, and the ground-down. That he must die some day and leave the yellow stuff behind him was a constant and an unhappy reflection for him, not rendered the less bitter by the fact that he dared not leave the profligate son out ; he even feared that the curse of a demoralised child might disturb his everlasting sleep. It was in '78 that Edward and I went down to Henley Regatta ; and hardly had we got the taste of the champagne-cup at the hotel bar than in strolled a bookmaker whom we (and everybody else too, for that matter) knew very well. He greeted the " bad ^ZZ " quite boisterously, winding up with : — " Lor ! I on'y saw the old gentleman las' week ; 'ow he ages ! He 'ad a 'pony' on Charibert for the July Stakes, and it never was in it ! " Nothing else in the world could possibly have steadied the " egg " as quickly and thoroughly as did those words. i84 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN " A ' pony ' on Charibert ! " he gasped, " why it never had a ghost of a chance ! Arthur, I must write — and write at once — to my father." Pen, ink, and paper were very soon forthcoming, and in three or four minutes the letter was written : — " Henley, July i^th, 1878. " Sir, — For three years I have obeyed the restrictions imposed upon me by yours of 9/7/75, but if any more reports of your pro- fligacy, such as the one I have just heard, reach me, the bargain ends. I am positively told that you put twenty-five pounds on Charibert, a horse which had no more chance of winning the July Stakes than you yourself, sir — you, with your lame back and your sciatica — would have had. In the name of my brothers, my sister, and myself, permit me to ask, what are YOU DOING WITH OUR MONEY ??— Indignantly, " Edward R. Warden." Old Warden, when he read that letter, had the first of a long series of apoplectic fits (to which he eventually succumbed), but he gave up betting, and, instead of frequenting racecourses, stuck a little closer to the task of putting together the handsome fortune, a fifth share of which the " bad egg " is to-day getting through in the best style he knows how — and, believe me, he does know how. Despite the fact that years and years and years ago a philosopher, disguised in burnt cork, paraphrased, with rare sense and truth, an old saying into "Where there's a will there's — invariably a lawsuit," the monied ignorant of both sexes, gloriously unlettered in the lingo of the law, continue, when their livers prick them, to bequeath and devise the scudi for which they have fought, bled, starved, and cheated, to — the leaders and juniors of the Chancery Bar. Sir George Lewis and his eyeglass were unknown to Milton, or he would never have babbled about "th' unconquerable will," A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 185 an instrument which was, in all probability, copied by a friend of the poor poet's from a form he'd come across in a cookery book, and wouldn't have held coarse sand after fifteen minutes with Justice Gorell Barnes. That this matter should be thus is one of the most sapient rulings of an all-wise Providence, for, were it not so, the remaining three-sixteenths of the legal profession would be writing shilling novels too, and the taking of human life on the publishers' staircases would become a common thing. But the race is not always to the battle, nor the swift to the strong ; improbable as it may seem, there are still some legacies that go astray and are lost to the treasuries of the Royal Courts of Justice, whether by ill-luck or good matters little, since the terms are synonymous — it was the same shilling that caused one boy to weep and one to rejoice. James Potter Porter (the name is fictitious since the story is absolutely true) kept a public-house in the north of London, in the days when public-houses in the north of London were better worth the keeping than at present. Unlike the unhappy victualler who frankly and somewhat hopelessly declared to the Commission last year that he was "tied for every blank thing bar sawdust ! " James Potter Porter's house was " free " for everything, and as James bought in the very best markets, and always paid cash, and took his discount, he did a roaring trade. The boozers of a district are never slow to scent out the house that sells the best stuff, even though it be but a small and unpretentious "pub," pure and simple, whereas the report that some well- known publican has given twenty thousand pounds for the local pongelo palace, with the plate-glass i86 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN saloon bars, generally has a deterrent effect. In toa many cases of this sort the well-known publican has " gone in " to get his capital back in three weeks by putting balloon-juice, carelessly rectified aquafortis, and other foreign brands of brassfounders' applejack in the " Scotch," and the next outward sign of the inward " spiritual " disgrace is that that house changes hands three or four times very rapidly, and then settles surely down by the bows. Porter kept his stuff at a high standard of excel- lence, with the result that he was soon keeping other "stuff" in cheerful quantities at the local branch of the London and County. His prosperity became monotonous ; he was at peace with all the world — all, say I ? — all but that vain old gasbag, Sir William Vernon Harcourt. The new death-duties, which came into force during Sir William's term of office as Chan- cellor of the Exchequer, caused James Potter Porter to use profane language, whereat his several daughters,, mostly married, affected to be as shocked as the con- flicting emotions of inward curiosity as to how much the old man really was worth, would allow them to be. As it happened, it was not long before things took a serious turn — for old Mr Porter, at any rate. He fell ill of a fever, and for many days and nights his daughters sat up with him, watching his breathings^ and sobbing over his constantly rising temperature, the while their husbands sate decently suppressing their inner glee, and sampling the ninepenny Murias in the bar-parlour. Then the red lamp went up. The local medical man expressed a desire to call in a Welbeck Street specialist to a consultation. Very, very grave they were, and when it was over they delivered their verdict with the air of men who were A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 187 on the brink of a big personal loss. "The worst" was to be feared. The daughters in whispers dis- cussed Peter Robinson versus Jay's for fit, style, and despatch, and the sons-in-law, on whom even the ninepenny Murias were beginning to pall, yawned and agreed among themselves that, blow as it was, it would, after all, be a happy release. It's a great mistake to hoard money for one's daughters' relatives by marriage. To them the sick testator is on the same mark as " kind words " — they " never die — no, never die." On the morning after the consultation between the Welbeck Street man and the local non-healer, another shark, the family solicitor, chipped in and took a hand. He had already had a consultation with the dying man, and now he came accompanied by a black leather bag, the contents of which, becoming known, relieved the old man's children-in-law of a great mental strain. Mr Porter, so the family solicitor ex- plained, had long since determined not to contribute to the coffers of the Inland Revenue on the new scale of death-duties. With the exception of the tavern itself (which would be handed over, free of convey- ance, to the youngest natural son — a bright youth who curled his front hair with irons, and carried rice paper and Turkish tobacco loose in his back-stoop pocket), the whole of Mr Porter's estate had been realised, and — the announcement well-nigh evoked applause — he would himself distribute his savings at his bedside. It must have been a queer sight — for I do not pretend to have been present at the cutting-up — the old man with trembling fingers handing out the wads of flimsies to his weeping daughters, their husbands ranged just behind them, full of expectation and i88 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN anxiety lest anybody should get paid twice. The weighing-out tired the old man, too ; and when it was all over he went off in a slumber, half sleep, half stupor, that lasted for seventeen hours. It only goes to show that you never know just how some cats will jump, that the old man's fever abated that very night. A day later he sipped a little cham- pagne, and by the end of the week he had tackled the middle out of a lean mutton chop. The family solicitor wore something akin to a worried look, and had quite an altercation in the bar- parlour with the curly-headed youth who had, some- what prematurely, it must be admitted, disposed of all the old man's clothes. With inward misgivings the man of law next wrote congratulatory notes to the sons-in-law and daughters, and wound up by suggesting that "of course, under the extraordinary circumstances," etc., restitution of the legacies would be made. Fatuous idea ! Those sons-in-law clung to that coin like pitch plasters, though one generously added in his letter of response that he would " never see the old man want." As to the son who crimped his fringe, and stained his forefingers with the tobacco of Turkey, though he had changed the golden initial letters on the facia from " J. P/' to " Reginald Potter " (with a hyphen) days before the old man could take solid food regularly, he magnanimously admitted that he was " open to consider negotiations for a partner- ship upon exceptionally favourable terms." But though months have elapsed, the old man is still " out of the firm," and pulling his son's beer- engines for his bed and board. CHAPTER IX Les chevaliers d'industrie— Otherwise "the boys" — The usual moralising preface — "Ready-witted" Ramsbottom — De- scribed as a " brass-finisher — The simpleton and the snide tip — The supposed " stifif 'un " rolls home — How Rams- bottom got out of it — The Metamorphosis of Mo Phillips — " The boys " run a young Hebrew into the Members' Enclosure — A bad break — " 'Ave a prawn " — Simpson, the slow parter — Taking on the recruits — The Lout's philosophy — " Scissors ! " — A Bracknell bilk — Flash Kelly gets a young officer some brass — The young 'un pines for fun — Kelly confronted with the opportunity of a lifetime — He takes possession of the Bank of England — The sentries that were not visited — An undignified ending — Solo-whist in the train — "Tatbox" Tommy — The double-double. " T SIGNED with a publisher up Regent Street ■*■ way for a consideration — enough to take me comfortably over the winter — to tell the true story of my life," said a very well-known sporting writer to me the other evening at Simpson's, "but when I'd stayed at home all the next day, and thought out the principal chapters, I went back and stood him the best lunch the Caf6 Royal could provide, and after- wards rushed him across to the Bodega and filled him full of the finest old brandy that Collingwood could lay hands on, to let me call the bargain off!" " And why ?" I asked. " Did you shy at the prospect of so much hard work ? " " No ! " said he seriously, " but my public's too 189 igo A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN valuable to me to be disillusioned. I'd no idea until I came to go into it how much of my life I've spent in bad company ! " Nor, when I came to apply the test to myself, had /. But 7/y/ public was disillusioned long ago ; indeed, so much attention have the mentally brilliant, but morally black — " the boys " — had in the columns over which I have trailed, that they might justifiably feel proud, and even stuck-up. To tell the bare truth, I have derived no small amusement, but (on the other hand) yards and yards of " copy " out of the amusing rascals, and, accepting Carlyle's estimate of the unfailing fool supply as correct, think the greenhorns may just as well fall into the landing - net of the racing tale - pitcher or card-sharper as be taken by the gaff of a Hobbs or a Balfour, inveigled into a rotten trading bank in the city, sweated to the bones in a stock-jobbing " pool," fall into miserly habits to endow a cats' home, or be drained consistently by the Nonconformist laity. It's better for trade generally. So much by way of a moral preface ! Men, reputable and otherwise, who go racing regularly, are apt to gain queer nicknames, such as "Spectacle" Ward, "Fog" Rowlands (the father of my friend, Cecil Raleigh, whose plays the public love) " Cherry " Angell, " Mandarin " Jones (what a walking encyclopaedia of worldly wrinkles he was !) " Ready - Money " Riley, and hundreds of others ; and to all who had come in contact with him, there was ample justification for calling one of the most insinuating lumberers on the Turf, " Ready- Witted " Ramsbottom. He it was who, taken in a raid upon a " spieling " club by the police, being subsequently A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 191 interrogated by an irritable magistrate in respect of describing himself as a "brass-finisher," retaliated by asking the Bench if it didn't think it a d d good name for one who had got through three thumping- legacies ! At pretty little Lingfield one sunny afternoon, Ramsbottom and partner had got a mug in tow. The way they led that young pigeon about the course would have given points to a Savoyard with a tamed bear. If one of them stepped aside to interrogate a (supposed) trainer, the other stayed and held the unseen chain ; if the other recognised an (alleged) owner, then the other took temporary charge of the simpleton. At last the welcome ringing of the bell announced the hoisting of the numbers, and a big field it was, too, even for a selling nursery. As the great frame of the numerals and jockeys' names drew everybody's gaze in the same direction, The Partner came up, most earnest and mysterious. It was nothing less than a " blooming pinch " for ^' Number Twenty-one." He referred to it by its number probably because it was described on the card as " Mr H. Greenfield's ch. filly by Thucydides — Mademoiselle de Minauderie," which was somewhat of a mouthful ; but they were to be sure and " have a fair old parcel on." " I'll get you to put me on a hundred," said Ramsbottom to The Pard, unbuttoning the top of his waistcoat and producing a very gorgeous satin note-case. " How much d'you want, sonny ? " — (this to the mug) — " You'd better have a hundred, too." " I never had a tip straighter than this," chipped in The Pard, observing that the pigeon hesitated some- what 192 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN " It's good enough for viy century, anyhow," grinned the Ready-Witted 'un ; and the pigeon fell. Withdrawing a leathern note-case from inside his breast-pocket, he peeled five twenties off a respectable roll of Mr H. G. Bowen's water-marked notes-of- hand, and gave them to The Partner, who instantly disappeared. But not for long. He was back in less than three minutes with the news that he'd " shot old Bob Lee for fifteen hundred to three," and that, " now, you could hardly get fours." This sounded so promising that the Juggins sug- gested a bottle, over which a very desultory conversa- tion had to be kept up till the cry came, " They're off!" As the three rushed out on to the gravel of the Ring, the poor young sucker took his glasses from their case, and handed them to Ramsbottom, on whose trained eye and tried judgment he was more willing to rely than on his own. Poor fool ! For, as a matter of fact, there was only one in it at the dis- tance, and that was the Mademoiselle de Minauderie filly. Ramsbottom realised what was up, but never for an instant did it disturb his serenity. Certainly he threw one instantaneous glance at The Partner as much as to say : " However could you make such a blunder as this?" but it was all too quick for the "jay's" eyes. As the field, a confused mass of horses and jockeys with flails upraised, flashed past, Rams- bottom stamped his foot angrily, and ejaculated : " Damn it ! — beaten to blazes ! " For a few seconds his mortification and rage would brook no reasoning — or, at least, it seemed so. " We'd won in a common trot at the distance," he A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 193 kept on insisting, as the three walked mechanically back to the bar ; whilst The Partner, mumbling some- thing about uncertainties of racing, still averred that the next race would put it all right. " I've just seen Tom Cannon's head lad," he said ; " they've got a reg'lar reg'ment here to back Dublin Cockle in the next." And he disappeared again. Now there's something in common between very young " mugs " and very young babies. Brush away their tears, and they sit up and take notice of things, and this one was no exception to the rule. As he sipped his first glass out of the second bottle, he screwed a pebble into his eye, and surveyed things — the cocoanut matted floor, the framed advertisements of unknown brands of champagne, the aldermanic proportions of the bar-tender, the two doors opposite, labelled respectively, with fine irony, " Reporters," and " Gentlemen Only." Then he critically inspected Ramsbottom, who had momentarily turned to speak to somebody, and finally his roving eye wandered out beyond the door, across the crowded Ring, and rested on a white-framed, three-sectioned, upright, oblong notice-board, bearing this legend : — 194 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN For a moment there was a strange metamorphosis of the " mug's " countenance. Surprise, joy, and in- spiration in turns took the mastery. Then the young 'un, after referring to his race-card, said timorously to Ramsbottom : " I say, deah old chap, ours has won ! Look there, at that number board." Then it was that Ramsbottom's fine ready wit came in. For the second time in twenty minutes he was in a very tight place, but Reuben Ramsbottom could have wriggled through the keyhole of Hades. " Dear old Juggins the J ! " cried he, giving his victim a merry, patronising slap on the back, " Why, they're the runners for the next race!" Which only goes to prove the rock-bound truth of the poet's — name forgotten — lines, "Life isn't in holdin' the biggest cards, but in playin' a poor hand well." As a champion piece of effrontery, however, I would like to tell the story of The Metamorphosis of Moses Phillips, which, as good Mr Barlow is prone to remark throughout the pages of " Sanford and Merton," " you may not have heard, and I will, therefore, relate." It may be all pure and unmitigated poppycock, but none the less, many of the smaller fry of the great army of Hebrews that go a-racing assert to this day that, but for that first terrible check, Mo Phillips might long ago ere now have been a prominent and an important turfite. But, as a celebrated French beauty, who fell so frequently that the story of her life reads like one continuous series of somersaults, remarked, it is the first step that costs ; and Mo certainly came base over apex from the uppermost rung, never to remount. A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 195 It was " the Boys " who brought him out. Preying upon the elder Philh'ps's abnormal development of his national characteristic, an inborn and ineradicable love of gambling, they had found no difficulty what- ever in convincing him of the tremendous chance that a young 'un — elegantly " got up " from head to heel, with a borrowed badge for the " Members' Enclosure," a gold-edged betting-book, and no " past " to wipe out — possessed of winning enough thousands in one week to leave off for ever, and they gained his unqualified assent to his son's starting. It was at a well-remembered Sandown Park meeting several years ago, that young Mo made his debut, and the chosen few who were in the secret, agreed that he " looked the toff to the very button." He was fairer of complexion than the majority of his co-religionists, and he had been most painstakingly trained in regard to keeping his mouth shut — aye, even bullied into silence. Being given clearly to understand that the eagle eyes of his non-Jewish confederates were ever upon him, he was most guarded lest a slip, such as " May I die ! " (for only on the melodramatic stage do the lower Jews say, " So-help- me,") or any other ejaculation of joy or despair, should bring him a cracking punch on the nose, seemingly from the very clouds themselves. Wherever it had come from, the pretty ribboned badge of a club member dangled at his top button- hole as he stood on the grassy slope of the lawn at Esher on that bright summer afternoon, and watched the numbers being hoisted for the opening race. As it happened there were only two runners, and, setting the market to begin with, as was the good old fellow's wont, Charlie Head led off with : 196 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN " I'll take two monkeys ! — I'll take two monkeys ! " Instantly did Phillips's mentors flash him the signal to go on, and, stepping up to the iron railings, on the other side of which Head stood shouting, he said : " I'll bet it you. Head." For an instant Head hesitated. Then he told his clerk to put the bet down, merely asking : " Lemme see, sir, who settles your account ? " "/ do," replied Mo, handing the versatile Charles one of the visiting-cards specially prepared for such warfare. " Pay and receive after each race." Head nodded assent. Well, Tom M'George, who was the starter in those days, wasn't long getting the pair off, and presently they entered the rails, neck and neck. Then a torrent of yelling and screeching began, for it was pretty patent to everybody who knew anything at all about it that the outsider was fairly holding the favourite. The row increased as the latter's jockey got his whip up, and rose to a perfect babel of shouting as the pair passed the post, with the wrong 'un a good head in front ! By the time Charlie Head had lowered his race- glasses from his eyes the young Semitic swell had vanished : the elegantly accoutred punter with the gold-rimmed betting book had, beyond all question, gone. The first day's racing of the following First October at Newmarket had been over about twenty minutes, and a heterogeneous crowd was streaming off the Heath and down the High Street. Outside the swing doors of the Subscription Rooms two or three little A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 197 knots of bookmakers were discussing their gains by the latest overthrow, and a Jew, with a small, flat box of giant shrimps, kept crying monotonously : " Prawns, a bob a dozen ; who says a dozen prawns ? " Anon there drew up a closed fly, and three elderly men got out. Two of them went straight into the Rooms, but the third, whose white moustache was carefully curled by the irons like a rolling wave, and around whose throat was a spotless white silk hand- kerchief, stayed behind to settle with the flyman. Eventually, as he turned to follow his companions into the Rooms, his eyes fell upon the itinerant fishmonger, and he gave something closely akin to a start. Then he went straight up to the Yid, and, seemingly only half convinced, said : "You — yes, it -was you — lost a thousand to me in July at Sandown Park ? " " I did, by God ! " replied the Jew hopelessly. " 'Ere, 'AVE A PRAWN ! " Then there was another chap that they called Jimmy Simpson, who had the unsavoury reputation of being a very bad parter. Though in every other respect a shining ornament to the band of brothers, Jimmy was shockingly costive over what spoils came his way, and the reluctant manner in which he invariably " cut up a little parcel " was calculated to cause pain. Next to " getting a bit on the cross," nothing is so reprehensibly vile amongst the villagers as the manifest desire of the " receiver-general " to sweat the other gentlemen's "corners," and Jimmy was rarely " in the chair " but what he tried it on. " There's no objection to yer takin' on the recruits," igS A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN once said old Bill Matterson, on being appealed to on a memorable occasion (Which came about in this way : Jim Simpson, old Bill Matterson, Cribbage Cox, and "The Lout" had picked up a Juggins on the road back from Kempton Park. They kidded the poor young fool to go to Cox's Rooms in Swallow Street, where, over a whisky and soda, the moguls were brought out. With a promptitude which attested eloquently to the skill of the quartette, the pigeon very quickly " did in " forty sovereigns, and then decided that his lucky star was not shining. When he'd gone, Jimmy Simpson said he'd just begun to take an interest in the play ; to knock off would be a greater sin than the burning of Moscow. They'd have a little hand amongst themselves. So, for once, he handed them each a tenner, and — in less than twenty minutes they'd skinned " The Lout," who, after all, was more of a bonnet than a spieler. " The Lout " naturally protesting at being thus rooked, old Bill ruled ) " There's no objection to yer a-takin' the recruits on, so long as yer don't start with the ' reserve ' men." To do " The Lout " justice, he had enough ready wit to rescue sufficient of his tenner to pay for his dinner and his subsequent "exes" to a music-hall. He did this by accepting his position as the mug of the moment, but he put in a counter claim as a stander - in at his own cutting - up, and, therefore, entitled to a " corner." It was an ingenious idea, and old Bill ruled that it stood, so that each of the three bunged him back five half-crowns, to which old Jim added a playful punch on the nose, though there was more powder than play behind it the others all thousrht. A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 199 Sunday is a day of rest with most men, but a severe attack of cramp-in-the-kick took Simpson and "The Lout " on a pilgrimage of the gilded haunts, and, strange to relate, they " found." Not only did they " find," but they struck it pretty rich, and in the course of a couple of hours' wild and exciting play in Simpson's Rooms in Panton Street (whither they had adjourned when licensed premises closed), the nice young stranger was unloaded of over one hundred and sixty pounds — twenty odd in cash, and a cheque for the rest. Next morning, when " The Lout " stood in the large saloon-bar, which was the rendezvous, and awaited the arrival of Simpson, it was noticed that he seemed pre-occupied and disinclined to talk. His hat was glossier than ever before, and it was a half-crown Flor Rothschild at which he puffed, still, as old Johnnie Toole used to say, he wasn't happy. Simpson was provokingly late in arriving, which may have given rise to many a doubt in " The Lout's " heart, but he came at last, all smiles and blusters. He called for drinks in an ostentatious and, for him, unusual way, and only nodded affirmatively when " The Lout " seized an opportunity — for the bar was busy, and everybody knew everybody else — of enquiring whether the cheque had been cashed on presentation. Three or four drinks having been discussed, and fifteen or twenty minutes wasted in idle conversation, " The Lout " thought it time to touch, and ordered rather than requested Simpson to step down with him into the lavatory — it was quieter there. Arrived, Simpson pulled a few notes and some gold out of his pockets. The spirit of sorrow at parting was clearly 200 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN all over him, and his companion of the previous night rightly conjectured that there would be an attempt at sweating. Jim began in a temporising style : " Well, Charlie, how have ye figured it out ? " " It wants no figuring," retorted the other con- spirator ; " there was a hundred an' sixty-three got, an' — strike me Prussian-blue ! — don't you begin no funny business or I'm likely to get violent ! " " Not likely I shouldn't, Charlie," said Simpson, a cowyard (as Walter Pallant says) when tackled squarely ; " but what I mean is, how d'ye want me to cut it up ? " With clenched fists and flashing eyes, " The Lout " took two steps towards his companion, which brought the other close to the glazed tile wall. " With SCISSORS ! " thundered the desperate " Lout," pulling from his back pocket as he spoke a huge pair of new shears, such as woollen mercers use. " With these SCISSORS, Jim, and every damned single coin and every note cut clean across the middle, too — that is, if you want to go home with your jugular all in one piece ! " It was making history with a vengeance, but Jim Simpson equally divided the gross receipts upon the marble slab of the tilt-up wash-basins to the very uttermost sixpence ! One of the very cheekiest members of this ever- growing, never thoroughly catalogued fraternity, is a young vagabond who trades upon his boyish appear- ance and diminutive stature to pass himself off on the verdant as a jockey, or the brother of a jockey, or a stable lad in charge of a horse running at the meet- ing, whichever may be the most desirable role to assume, and " hot as mustard " doesn't nearly describe A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 201 him. Cheek is, after all, nothing unless it is well carried out, and, at a recent Ascot meeting the young ruffian fairly surpassed himself. He scented out some lodgings in the house of an elderly spinster at Bracknell, and, after eating and drinking all he wanted during the four days, went off on Friday without going through the formality of settling with the poor old thing. That was bad enough ; but the letter she received from him on the Saturday morning added a needless sting to the injury. He wrote : — " The Criterion, Friday Night. " My dear Madam, — I am very sorry that I was forced to pull your leg for so large an amount yesterday, and fear it may have been wrenched out of its socket, but pray allow me to offer you some consolation. I have got a real pinch for the Northumberland Plate, and if it comes off, I will certainly send you a pair of crutches next week." But no chapter professedly describing the " work- men" of the village could possibly be considered complete without the story of how Flash Kelly held possession for a whole night of the Bank of England, and I give the tale, which is absolutely true in every particular — though the name of the unfortunate young lieutenant is varied — as I had it from Kelly's own lips. At three o'clock on a certain afternoon (the week, month, and year, make very little difference). Lieu- tenant Dorington of the ist Battalion of the Grenadier Guards, sate before the looking-glass in his bedroom in his flat in Jermyn Street, the while his manservant put a few finishing curls in his hair. Things were pretty bad with the lieutenant, or at least he thought so. His " kites " no longer floated on the zephyrs of Cork Street — wouldn't even rise at all — and the 202 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN immediate future was quite bare of even the promise of fun. Worse than all, it was his night to take down from Wellington Barracks the thirty privates who furnished the guard for the Bank of England, and the mere thought of the trudge through the streets, the frugal supper in the strong room, and the night's incarceration in the bank, was most depressing. In the midst of his glum reflections there was a knock at the outer oak, and a moment later Flash Kelly was shown in. About this time Flash had an exten- sive "practice" as a jackal (a money-lender's tout, for the benefit of the groundlings), and knew a great deal more about the " expectations " of the young men of that day than they did themselves. Flash was mildly excited — a rare thing with him — and the cause soon leaked out. "What should ye say, me bonny boy," he cried, slapping the lieutenant somewhat familiarly upon his towel-covered shoulder, " if I told ye I'd got a monkey 'ready' waitin' for ye, and you'd only got to go to the Adelphi to get it ? " The young 'un gazed at Flash in undisguised awe. " Don't ye think I'm a workman ! Don't ye think I'm a daddy?" went on Kelly, with a leer that was demoniacal. " Only fancy, a monkey on such a rubbishin' reversion as yours V The lieutenant winced a little, and turned uneasily to his servant. " Leave us for a little while, Williams," he said ; and the man withdrew. Then the lieutenant arose from his chair, and, removing the towels from his neck, got up and held out his right hand to the Criterionite. " D'ye mean it. Flash ? " said he. A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 205 " Absolutely waitin' for ye, on my word as — as an orficer an' a gentleman ! " " Where ? " " Adam Street, Adelphi." " I'll go there with you." " Good ! " " And we'll start at once ? " " Couldn't do better ! " The lieutenant rang the bell, and called outside the door — " Williams, whistle up a good hansom." There is no finer pick-me-up in the world to a healthy and unoofy young man, than the prospect of a rapid " touch," and in a very short time, Flash Kelly and the young lieutenant were bowling along in a hansom in the direction of Charing Cross. Every- thing was as Kelly had said ; indeed, within a space of forty minutes from the time of leaving Jermyn Street, Dorington had ;^490 in bank notes — a monkey less a tenner the obliging Hebrews charged for changing their own cheque after banking hours — in his pocket, and felt mightily better for it. Now, in periods of affluence, a young man's fancy invariably turns one way, and Dorington was no stone statue. As is generally the case, the greater run he gave his thoughts, the worse in the betting became that fine old war-horse, Duty. Over the second brandy and soda at old Epitaux's, whither they had adjourned to adjust the matter of Kelly's commission, the happy borrower suddenly remarked : " Flash, do you want to earn another fifty ? " Flash was decidedly not averse to this, and inti- mated as much. 204 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN *' Very well, then. The cat jumps this way : there's a dear little woman at Richmond I feel I must go and see, and I can only think of one way of doing it." " Which is " " For you to take my place all night in the Bank of England ! " " Great Scott ! " Kelly's ejaculation was not wholly one of amaze- ment at the boldness of the lieutenant's proposition ; he was equally staggered at being brought face to face with what seemed to him to be the opportunity of a lifetime — nay, more, of any score of lives as they were estimated at Merchant's Corner. Confused thoughts crowded upon his brain. Could he at a pinch do a bit of boring ? Why hadn't the art of excavation been taught in the schools of his boy- hood's days ? " Well, Flash, is it a bet ? " "I — I — I — s'pose so, sonny. But what about the make-up ? " " That'll be all right. My things will just about fit you. I will march the men down, you will come down in a cab with Williams, who will bring me a change of clothes. You will get into Her Majesty's scarlet in my private room at the bank, and remain there until I come to you to-morrow morning before the guard is relieved. Is it a bet ? " " It is," replied Kelly, not without some misgivings, but feeling that such a golden opportunity ought not to be missed. Ten minutes after the Bank of England had been handed over to the safe keeping of Tommy Atkins A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 205 that evening, two strangers were admitted on the parole of Lieutenant Dorington. They proceeded at once to the apartment reserved for the officer in charge ; once inside which, with the door locked, a little comedy began. It was a sort of double meta- morphosis, for as, piece by piece, the lieutenant doffed his uniform, the flash 'un, who had previously peeled to the linen, put it on, his own discarded garments being stuffed into the portmanteau which had contained the evening kit which Dorington was now substituting for his regimentals. When the dressing was completed there was a merry laugh, in which the ordinarily well-behaved servant could not help joining ; it was quite irresistible. As Kelly surveyed himself in the looking-glass, he could not help thinking that he ought to have held a commission — although the tunic was a trifle roomy and the overalls a shade too long in the leg to be really dressy. One bottle of wine christened the compact, which, so far, had gone on so well, and the lieutenant, having shown his successor where he could find several more bottles wherewith to " keep himself going " through his long vigil, departed. Forty minutes or more during his first hour alone did Flash spend in admiring himself in the glass. Then his thoughts turned on the reams and reams of tenners, and the tons and tons of quids, that were there — maybe at his very elbow ! Should he try a reconnoitre ? He opened the door rather nervously and poked his head, with the giant bearskin on it, out into the passage. The sentry, pacing to and fro, was almost on top of him in an instant. 2o6 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN " All's well ! " cried the man, his sonorous tones echoing again along the passages. " Right you are, cully ! " replied the counterfeit lieutenant, intuitively, withdrawing his head ; and then, in an anxious tone, as he sank into a chair : " Wonder what I ought to have said ? " When in doubt play the bottle ; and this Henry certainly did. Indeed, what time it was when, having lapsed into a doze, his dreams of future affluence — of going down to the Grand National in a cloth-of-gold suit with sapphire and diamond buttons and twenty- four carat race-glasses — were rudely disturbed by a knocking at the door, he has since declared he never will know. " Cm in ! " he cried. There trooped into the apartment a sergeant and a drummer, the latter carrying a lantern. " Time to visit the sentries, sir." For the first time it dawned on Flash that he'd had too much to drink ; also, that he was very sleepy. So he lapsed again into semi-slumber, and replied, indefinitely — " Oh — er — sugar the s'ntries, le'm take a run ! " The sergeant gazed at the drummer — the drummer at the sergeant. " It ain't the lieutenant at all!" said the man. " No, that it ain't ! " responded the boy. " Vts\ Jiggered if it is ! " continued the sergeant, im- pressively ; and that settled it. The sergeant strode across the room and shook the mock officer by the arm. "Now then, now then — hedge a bit, hedge a bit!" cried Kelly, with a back-hander that sent the sergeant spinning. A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 207 Then they turned the guard out ! The sequel ? Well, the morning, of course, brought explanations of a sort. The lieutenant returned, was flabbergasted on hearing of the happenings of the night, and assisted Kelly to bolt, which Flash was not slow in doing. The foolish Dorington, however, was compelled to resign his commission. When the experienced and philosophical race-goer, travelling by rail down to a meeting a little way out of London, suddenly hears hoots and yells and howls of bitter blasphemy, the excited stamping of many feet, storms of shouted curses, and shrieks of frenzy proceeding from the compartment immediately ahead, he does not — as some might do — start to his feet and grab at the communicating cord in the hope of avert- ing a possible murder, because he knows very well what is on. It is purely and simply four Yiddisher gentlemen having a little friendly game at solo-whist, and one of them has called a misere, and got caught. That's all. He rather smiles a satisfied sort of smile as a man does whose judgment is declared correct, for he saw those four gents buying that pack of cards on the departure platform, and knowing just what sort of company they'd be, studiously avoided entering the same compartment with them. Somewhat similarly, whenever I want to hear a story of racing roguery, I always contrive to ride with some of " the Boys," and my quest is seldom a barren one. The compartment in the " Sandown Special " into which I stepped one sunny Saturday morning, held four of them : Tatbox Tommy (so-called from his adroitness with the dice), two whose names I didn't 2o8 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN know (nor are they necessary to the telling of this ower-true tale), and " Kennedy" Knight, the" Kennedy" from his having once laid a man out with a poker after the fashion of the gent who first made the name famous by a similar exploit in St Giles' many years ago. " There he goes ! that's him ! " cried one of the fellows I didn't know, as a well-dressed but simple- looking young gentleman passed along the platform. " Oh, is that him ? " echoed Tommy, looking after the retreating figure. " Well, he looks it." " And how did Harry take him on ? Lawd ! it's as good as a shillin' picture book only to hear about it ! " declared Knight. "/ ain't 'eard it — what was it?" enquired the second of the unknowns ; and " Kennedy " Knight related the swindle. " They found him at Newmarket last meetin'," he began. " Ball o' Twine got on to him in the town on the night o' the Crawfurd Plate somehow. I say ' somehow,' though it ain't necessary, for, as you know, Tommy, and you too, Bill, Ball always looks quite the gentleman. Anyway, he succeeded in making the 'tom-tug' think so — wait a bit, I'll tell ye his name in a minute. Yes, yes, he's a Mister George Sutton Shillington, and got tons o' stuff. Well, Ball plays his game all the week, for Newmarket ain't much of a place to bring off a bit o' business when all's said an' done, an' I'm blowed if he don't get the young gent on to start him makin' a book in the Grand Stand at Epsom. Ball was supposed to put a hundred of his own in the satchel, and Mister Shillin'ton a hundred, though o' course Ball knew that the young 'un 'ud be sure to have his cheque-book in his pocket, in case it was wanted. So he stands up A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 209 and starts a-fieldin', with that young feller Cooper a-clerkin', and the swell lookin' on. Ball made as though he was very p'rtickler who he bet with, and wouldn't take no Johnny O'Neills nor Teddy Hobsons on, till presently up comes Flash Joe — and really he looked a nobleman, every inch of him ! I soon rumbled he was in it when I heard Ball givin' him the 'me lord ' for it. He took a little bet, an' when he'd gone, the young 'un says : " ' Who was that ? ' "'What! don't ye know?' cried Ball, 'that was Lord Alexarnder Lennix.' "'Related to Nell Lennox?' asks the young 'un, with a smile ; but Ball's answer seemingly put all his doubts on one side. " ' I dunno who he's related to,' growls Ball : ' but he bets to big money and don't often find 'em — that's good enough for us ! By jig's, here he is again ! Heah, six er four 'er feeald ! — six er four 'er fee — aid ! Now, then, me lord ? ' " ' I — er — haven't noticed you fielding before to-day, Sampson,' says his (shamoi) lordship. ' Sampson ' was the name Ball had got on his book-cover. " ' No, me lord,' replies Ball o' Twine ; ' well, now, as you have, I hope you'll often be a customer ? ' " ' Whenever I can, Sampson,* says his (spooferino) lordship. ' I'd jest as soon bet with you as with Fry, I give you my word ' — nice and affable, wasn't he r "'Will you bet "ready," Sampson ?' asks his (what price the bloominger Blue Book) lordship. "'Cert'nly, me lord,' says Ball; so his (good old) lordship haves three ponies to one the next winner, and a hundred an' twenty to eighty the next, and even hundred the next ; and Leg-Bai! Lyons has a 21 o A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN ev^en fifty, an' — don't you forget it — / rolls up and touches for a pony, an' bloomin' soon the bank's gone, and there's three more races to be run. Well, young Mister ShilHn'ton he's gets a bit shy — as Ball thought he would. So, out at the bar, just before the nex' race. Ball comes it. " ' Look here, ShilHn'ton,' he says, as familiar as be d -d, * I tell ye what we shall have to do ; we shall have to go for a bit, and stand to lose nothink. I tell ye how we'll do it. Any of these gentlemen I'm bettin' " ready " with '11 take a cheque from me — even though it's your cheque, and they don't know you. So we'll go on bettin', an' if we lose, settle with your cheque. If we win a pile back afterwards, we can easily buy back the cheque, and if we don't, we'll stop it. Remember they can't cash it to-day, because racin' isn't over till five o'clock, and then they've got to get to town.' "Juggins the J pulls out his cheque-book and signs an open cheque. Sure enough, in the 2.30 race Lord (whatyermycallit) Lennix brings off a clean hundred an' twenty, so Ball fills in the cheque, and off his (pipe- the-veneer) lordship goes with it — straight as an arrow to St James' Square, too ! Well, Ball had a rare job to keep ShilHn'ton on the hooks after that, but managed to do it by leavin' off bettin' and gettin' him in the champagne bar with one or two o' the girls. They came back by the first special, but as they didn't reach town till past six, there was no need to go to the bank. So ShilHn'ton stands Ball dinner at the bloomin' Caffy Royal — was goin' to buy him a cigarette case, but Bali wouldn't hear of it, and it ain't till about half-past ten nex' mornin' that the poor young muglet goes to the bank to stop the cheque. A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 211 " ' I'm sorry to say it's paid,' says the clerk ; ' a gentleman drove up here in a cab yesterday just as we were closing and took it in notes and gold.' " " And even then," said Mr Kennedy Knight, when the others had done laughing, " Flash Joe couldn't go straight with his pals. He was forty quid short when he met poor old Ball at the American bar to cut it up, and swore that he'd had to pay forty for the original cab horse which fell dead of heart disease from over- drivin' as they flew through Fulham ! It ain't honest, yer know — an' that's why a decent man never will get a bit with Flash Joe — he can't act honourable in money matters ! " " What ho ! — Surbiton — they sight the briefs 'ere, don't they ? " CHAPTER X Tufts of Turf— Veracious odds and ends— Fred Archer— A hurried biography — His win on Big Jemima — And magnifi- cent reward ! — The Stewards' Cup that Laceman didn't win — Archer's gambling — He puts Kitty, the cardseller, on Dutch Oven — The sole reason why the mare was started — The Mate's objection — Kitty collects her winnings — Archer as a collector of pennies — "Bishop" Harris — Archer and Osborne — Light-weights in the City — Racing superstitions — " Plunger " Walton— Ladislas beats Corrie Roy — The playing-card tip conies off — " Kangaroo" Hill — A run of ill omens — Matthew Dawson a sceptic — Joe Cannon another — The luck of some losers — The lost roll found at Sandown — An Alexandra Park parcel — Found in the moonlight — A wily barmaid — And a tempted chambermaid. ELEVEN years and a little more ago, when on a certain dull November afternoon there was flashed all over the sporting world the terrible news that Fred Archer, the greatest horseman that ever lived, had, in a burst of madness, committed suicide, none were more put about — speaking of the tragedy from an unsentimental and a purely professional point of view — than the host of sporting writers and the big news agencies. The very last biography that newspaper men would have thought of preparing and pigeon-holing against an emergency (according to precedent in most well-regulated offices), was suddenly called for, and a task that any sporting scribe would have chosen to " spread himself over " in the ordinary 21-> A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 2x3 way, had to be rushed through, sheet by sheet, in order to cope with the urgency of the occasion. It is not too much for one whose own fingers bear the incriminating inkstain to assert that some really wonderful work was done in the shortest possible time, and, though here and there one came across a bit of the rago-fit that smacked stronger of hashed Racing Calendar than did others, many and many an old stager may turn back to the files in the sub- editorial library to-day, and, pointing to an honest full page of nonpareil or brevier, say to the " up-to-date, descriptive" novice — probably belonging to the sex that wears petticoats — " When you feel like breaking records, Euphemia, just put a head on that ! I left my chop, half-eaten, in the " Cheese " on getting the news at three in the afternoon, and — our country editions went away in the station-carts at half-past nine ! " All admiration as I am for, and with every re- spectful deference to, the daring young ladies who interview copper-coloured people in their own harems, and hang by their toes from twenty-storied buildings at twelve-and-sixpence a column, it took men, corrupt and degenerate as they may be, to get through a newspaper squeeze of this sort, and Fleet Street should be proud of them. But, getting back to those biographies, not one of them included the story of orte of Archer's very earliest wins — the Norfolk Handicap on Big Jemima — wherefore I propose to set it down in black and white for your perusal now. Twenty-five years ago, or as near as makes no difference, on a bright and glorious sunny afternoon, and the breezy old racecourse at Great Yarmouth, 214 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN they were weighing out the jockeys who were to ride the many starters for the Norfolk and Suffolk Handi- cap. It may be a question for my friend Spencer Brown to settle, whether the race has advanced or declined in the affections of the local farmers, for whose horses the event was originally framed, but I should think it was fully as popular as ever it was. On this occasion there was a biggish field, though at least one steed, fully qualified to run, was being led round and round the paddock without any prepara- tions being made for its running. She was a little bit rough, but a striking mare, and her name was Big Jemima. Her owner, a brusque and burly farmer, stood with hat in one hand and a big cotton handkerchief in the other, mopping the beads of perspiration from his mottled forehead. It was the sweat of vexation and anxiety rather than of undue exertion, for the fact was that, second to none as he considered his mare, he couldn't get a jockey for love nor money. Fred and Harry Jeffrey, Constable, Morbey, Wood, Morris, Parry — all were engaged, nor was there so much as an apprentice hanging about the dressing-room. It was at this juncture that the Clerk of the Scales came up, and heard of the old fellow's dilemma. The official glanced at his card, and mentally ran over the list of available horsemen. An inspiration occurred to him. "Where's that lad that's 'prenticed to Mat Daw- son ? " he said, " what in thunder's the boy's name ? Oh, Archer — that's it — now, he's a likely lad. Why not get Archer ? " The proposal was not entirely cheering to the old man, but he had little or no choice, and in rather a A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 215 lugubrious frame of mind he sought the tall, lanky lad with the cynical countenance who had been pointed out to him in the paddock. The boy smiled amusedly as the farmer showed him the mare, rough in her coat> indifferently groomed, and with little but her size to recommend her. Archer eyed her up and down, and seemed in no hurry to weigh out, till the old farmer wound up a warm eulogium on his steed with — " Well, theer she is, an' if you win on 'er, my lad, depend upon it, I shall not forgit yer — you nor yours, either ! " This ambiguous promise evidently decided Archer, who thereupon went away to don the colours. It was a good race, but in other hands than Archer's Big Jemima probably wouldn't have been in the first three. As it was the " Tinman " rode a magnificent finish, and up went the mare's number. Above all the hubbub, " the thunder of the captains and the shout ing " (as Job hath it), the voice of the delighted old farmer could be heard shouting. He skied his tile in the most approved fashion, and was literally beaming with good-nature as he shook his jockey by the hand. " Little 'un," he said, " you jest done it a puffic treat : you rode 'er splendid ! Now, tell me, have ye got a mother an' father livin' .'' " A little puzzled, but expectant, Freddie replied that he had. " Very well, then," said the old man with a burst, lest his prudence should step in and lead him into altering his mind, " this very night, afore the shops in the town closes, dang me if I won't send the old people a pound d the best green tea ! " And he did ! And in my commonplace book, under 2i6 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN the heading of" Presents to Jockeys," the entry stands, in company with Watts's "Merry Hampton " thousand, Charlie Wood's "Sandivvay" monkey, and even the level hundred given by the Duke of Portland to George Barrett in consideration of the suffering he went through to get himself down to ride Langwell in the Stewards' Cup of 1885. I am glad to have dropped by this accident into mentioning the Stewards' Cup of '85, for the largest sum that Archer was ever " put on " beforehand in a race was three thousand pounds to nothing on Laceman in this race, and he always declared that he should have won the money but for Dalmeny. He admitted not long before his death that he had lost large sums through the fact becoming known that he betted heavily, after which he no longer received the big presents he formerly did, and the money he won by betting did not nearly make up for this falling off. It was always assumed, after he had won a good race, that he had " helped himself," and many an owner who would otherwise have weighed out a monkey or so, as in former days, left it at that. On very rare occasions did Archer put anybody, barring Arthur Cooper and Johnnie O'Neill, who did his commissions, " on," but one rare and beautiful ex- ception stands to prove the rule. The recipient of his bounty was " Kitty," the garrulous old girl from the Emerald Isle, who still lives, " a prosperous gentle- woman," and sells cards on the racecourse. Than old Kitty, Archer never had a more importunate creditor. Kitty, you must know, never was deficient in confidence — it is related that on one occasion when she was selling buttonholes outside the Jockey Club A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 217 Rooms at Newmarket, she actually forced a flower upon the Prince of Wales, who, with customary good nature, accepted it — and the week before the Leger of '82 she went up to the Tinman at Sandown Park, and, slapping him on the back, wished him good luck at Doncaster, " an' hope you'll win the Leger, sir." " If I do," replied Archer, in chaff, "you shall have a brand new bonnet, Kitty." As a matter of fact Archer couldn't have believed that he had a ghost of a chance of taking the big Doncaster race at the time he spoke. He had been offered a thousand pounds to ride Geheimniss, and was trying all he knew to manage it, but Lord Falmouth refused to forego his claim, not that he thought Dutch Oven had a winning chance, but solely out of consideration to his trainer who had backed her for ;^ioo, and was naturally desirous of having a run for his money. The story of that astounding race is history, and there are still many who assert that Archer had all along worked a coup for his own benefit, but this is a slander that should be vigorously refuted. Meddle- some old Sir John Astley was particularly" hot under the collar " about it, and amidst a scene of confusion and excitement such as is seldom witnessed nowadays, he proceeded to take vigorous and drastic measures, as he generally did when he had a real or imaginary grievance. With a great deal of foresight — for he must have had a shrewd idea that the enquiry wouldn't take long — my jovial chief, John Corlett, was quite Billie Innes-like in timing the whole proceedings on that memorable 13th of September. Thus did he record them — " At 3h. 1 8m. i6s. Dutch Oven won the St Leger." 2i8 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN " At 3h. 1 8m. 40s. Sir John Astley requested that Lord Falmouth, Matthew Dawson, and Frederick James Archer be summoned to appear before the Stewards of the meeting to enquire into the running of Dutch Oven in the Great Yorkshire Stakes." "At 3h. 19m. 2s. the Honble. H. W. Fitzwilham, M.P., the Earl of Durham, and the Duke of Beaufort, the Stewards of the meeting, were of opinion that no sufficient case had been made out for any action on their part." And that was all that came of Sir John's objection to Dutch Oven. Amidst bickerings on the part of the losers, and rejoicings on that of the winners (Jack Hammond won ;^i 2,000 against his will), congratulations and insinuations. Archer entirely overlooked the fact that he owed a lady a new bonnet ; it probably never entered his head until it was brought very forcibly under his notice on the morning of the Cesarewitch — Corrie Roy's Cesarewitch. For then it was that, as he rode through the High Street of Newmarket, on his way to the Heath, the vigilant Kathleen, hanging around by the Post-Office, spotted him. With a startled "Och!" she dumped her quire or so of race-cards into the fulness of her looped-up apron, and went in pursuit of the famous horseman on the grey hack, calling upon him at every stride to stop. It was too much for Archer, and he reined up just outside Weatherby's office. " Och ! 'tis the greatest playsure in loife t' set oeyes on ye ! " cried Kitty, " for shure the crown o' me head might go as bare as " — (never mind what she said) — " did I wait for the bit of a bonnet ye promised me over th' Legorr. Come on, naow ! " A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 219 When Victor Hugo said that men wei'e women's playthings and women the devil's, he wasn't very wide of the mark, and Kitty, with her right hand on the hack's bridle, and Archer hunting for the sovereign he didn't feel sure of finding in his clothes — he never had any money about him — formed an illustration of the proverb that Hugo never dreamt of Just as Archer was getting hot, and quite a superfluous number of sporting reporters were gathering around, the famous jockey, to his intense relief, discovered a solitary " quid," and dropped it in the old girl's out- stretched palm. Any reasonable person would have considered the little matter honourably settled, but Kitty didn't. Gazing contemptuously at the yellow-boy, and then at its donor, she cried : " An' since when has a " new hat " ceased to be a guinea ? Come out wid the odd shillin' naow ! " This Archer knew very well he hadn't got. He turned to the little knot of racing scribes, and asked : "One of you boys lend me a shilling, will you?" and Jack Harris, of The Sportsman (I think it was), having first exacted a promise that it should be faithfully repaid, pulled out the bob, and released the jockey. Without endorsing the common belief, often given expression to by persons who never really knew him, that Archer was close-fisted wherever money was con- cerned, he certainly had one or two funny little ways that were queer enough in themselves to excite com- ment. For instance, frequently, when he came to weigh out before the Clerk of the Scales, he would experience a little difficulty in quite drawing the weight. He only needed what is generally termed " the turn of a feather," and any other jockey would 220 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN have called out for a pad, or a slightly heavier saddle- cloth, but not so Frederick. " Have you got any coppers in your pocket ? " he'd ask impersonally of the trainers or reporters who chanced to be lolling about on the outer side of the railing, and, having obtained some, he would drop them, a penny at a time, down the waistband of his breeches, until he increased his weight by enough to turn the scale. He never " weighed in " with any of those pennies — save and except in the sense of passing the scales with them still in his breeches — and could have given weight, literally as well as metaphorically, to many a little boy's kicking-mule money-box. As wine is to water, as the old problematists put it, so was Archer to the bulk of his contemporaries when it came to a tight finish, and very well do I remember a richly significant remark that was made by a good old pressman of the long ago — " Bishop " Harris — on one occasion at York. Two runners only turned out for some humbugging, old-fashioned race like the Yorkshire Oaks, and they were ridden respectively by John Osborne and Archer. (I keep on giving you the " Archer " without the prefix " Fred," but at this time his brother Charles had nearly left off race riding). Well, the "Bishop" was a bit behind with his " introduction," or whatever it was he was writing for dear life, and the reduction of the race to a match, which didn't want a lot of looking at or describ- ing, gave him pause. Turning to my old fellow- labourer in the vineyard, James Henry Smith ("Jim the Penman"), Harris asked him to take a note of " how they came." In due course, when the race was over, James Henry entered the press-room and A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 221 reported : " Old Johnnie made all the running and won in a canter." " Good God ! " cried the Bishop, in honest astonish- ment, " I suppose Archer couldn't get off for laughing ! " Yorkshiremen naturally, and the people who " knew all about it before you were born " sycophantically swore by " T'owd Pusher," as Osborne was called, though I am deliberately of opinion that the Chelten- ham wonder could have ridden "Owd Johnnie's" head off. And this leads me to comment upon the changed fashion that twenty years has brought about in jockeys, nine-tenths of whom are now little boys — to the eye at least — whereas only as far back as the seventies they were whiskered men. I chanced to be in Birch's, in Cornhill, on the Saturday after Isinglass had won the Leger, and six well-dressed, dapper little fellows stood in front of the pastry-laden counter, sipping at six glasses of champagne, and nibbling at six toothsome, but indigestible, bath buns. Several smart "city men," quaffing their matutinal liveners, were there too, and one of them, flicking a few crumbs of biscuit from his vast white waistcoat, remarked in a pleasant and fatherly way to the biggest of the midgets: " Ha, ha ! having a good tuck in before going back to school, eh ? Well, well, there's nothing like ' going it ' while the pocket-money lasts — I know / used to — and God knows there's time enough for all of you to learn of the world's reverses, its disappointments, and its " But a friend pulled him on one side and whispered something in his ear. Then Tommy Loates, with a broad grin, drained his glass, and Rickaby winked his other eye at "Tiny" White, and Bradford nearly 22 2 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN choked as the last morsel of a bath bun went the wrong way, and the whole six got into three hansoms to return to Mr Joseph Davis's " Academy " at Hurst Park, whilst the city man's friend remarked in a stage whisper : " You damned old fool, you don't go about enough. The ' little boy ' you told to go for the buns ' whilst his pocket-money lasted,' is the jockey that won the Derby and the Leger I " There is a disease — a virulent and old-standing disease, too — prevalent among many racing men, which requires some stronger form of vaccination than the buffoonery of the Thirteen Club to ward off its attacks. It is superstition, pure and simple. Many of our greatest experts at racing suffer as acutely from the malady as do the very greenest of winner-dreamers, and in certain of the smallest and most commonplace occurrences discover the minute piece which alone can make the great mosaic of a victory complete. There are several stages of the ailment, from that of the little Camden Town tobacconist who backed Regalia when she won the Oaks " because he sold 'em," down to the more ad- vanced case recently reported in the Continental papers, of the gambler who opened a grave and cut a forefinger from the hand of a dead woman to bring him luck, but it is all the same distemper. Some years ago, ten or twelve, perhaps (I am writ- ing away from my books), I was walking along High Street, Newmarket, in company with the American plunger, Walton. It was very early in the morning, long before the hour at which the average racing man on a visit to the town sits down to the inevitable bacon and sausages, or, indeed (much earlier still), before the evergreen Walter Laburnum " leads off," A PINK 'UN AND A PEUCAN 223 as he terms it, with his first gin and milk. And as we walked up the little hill near the Black Bear, Walton espied, out in the middle of the road, a solitary playing-card. It was lying face downwards when he espied it, but he picked it up, flicked the dust from it, and put it in his pocket. It was the seven of hearts. " This is a dead straight tip," he said to me, " and I shall ' play ' whatever is number seven on the card in the big race to-day. It's a sure thing, I tell ye." " The big race to-day," I said, " is the Jockey Club Cup, and it's as good as a walk-over for Corrie Roy, who will more likely figure as No. i or No. 2 on the card than No. 7." "I ca-an't help that," persisted Walton, with a twang; " you ' play ' No. 7, d'ye hear ? " In something over an hour the race-cards were out, and being hawked in the town. Corrie Roy was at the head of the race. No. i, and No. 7 was M. Lefevre's old -horse, Ladislas. On every fragment of form it was long odds on the Duchess of Montrose's beautiful mare. I felt " sorter sorry like " for the plunger ; but argument was of no use. That after- noon, as soon as the numbers went up, Walton started backing Ladislas. Corrie Roy was a hot favourite, and though the Yank piled the stuff on the other, it hardly affected the betting. At last the flag fell. Wood on Corrie Roy came along in the most confi- dent style. In action the mare was a perfect picture, and formed a striking contrast to Tadislas, who was struggling along beside her. Poor George Fordham was riding the horse, and a greater "kidder" never got into a saddle. As they came to the distance, Wood riding comfortably and smiling at the horse 224 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN and rider he thought he could leave " standing still " whenever he wanted to, Fordham grimaced and seemed to be flogging and spurring his horse for all he was worth. In reality he'd hardly touched him, nor did he till within six lengths of the post. Then he set to riding old Ladislas in earnest. Wood " tumbled " to the fact that he'd been " sold " ; but it was too late, and by the time he could get his mare into her full stride, the post had been passed, and Ladislas had won by a short head. With the sole exception, perhaps, of Archer's finish on Melton for the Derby, it was the finest piece of riding that I have ever seen. Walton won a pile of money. Presumably he held that backing winners by " the card," only went once at a meeting, for I didn't hear of his taking a similar tip during the remainder of the week. And it wasn't for the lack of cards, for I alone, forsooth, flung three whole packs over the garden of the cottage at which he lodged that selfsame night. I had at least one colleague on the Sporting Press — poor Arthur (" Kangaroo ") Hill, who fell into his last sleep literally across his writing table in his rooms in Danes Inn, two years ago — who had brought superstition to a fine art. He was a sterling good fellow, and when he came here from Australia some thirteen years ago he did very foolishly in telling the little band of travelling reporters it was his lot to be thrown amongst of his beliefs and his disbeliefs. The first meeting they all left London together for was a Manchester Whitsun. For some reason his comrades would drag him into a bar at King's Cross to take a " departer." Hardly had the drinks been served than a woman with a fearful case of strabismus came in. She A PINK 'UN AND A PELICx\N 225 looked round the bar, grinned, and walked out, but in doing so, kicked Hill's umbrella clean out of his hand. "Good Heavens!" he ejaculated, "I wouldn't have had this happen for a fiver," and, to the amusement of the crowd, he proceeded, with face as grave as that of the bull in " Tristram Shandy," to walk three times round the fallen brolly. As we walked up the in- clined subway into the Midland, hang me if we didn't meet a second cross-eyed woman ! She reeled about as she came to us, rolled up against the new chum, and, in the collision, upset something out of a paper bag all over him. It was salt ! The poor fellow winced visibly, and truly it was a merciless persecution, but worse remained. We had all taken our seats, when a porter, carrying a small square basket, came up to the window and asked which was Mr Hill. " Here," said the unfortunate. " This was left by a gentleman for you, sir," and he handed the basket in. The strings were soon cut, and — Out hopped a speckled hen ! There were some dead snips at Manchester that week, and most of the scribblers brought money home with them — a rare experience, by the way ! — but the man who dealt in signs and omens never had a bet, but went to bed early, and slept with one eye open in case of (he thought) a highly probable out- break of fire. The venerable and much respected Matthew Daw- son is far from being above superstition ; he turned back from taking a horse to a meeting once because a single magpie flew across the road ; whilst another P 226 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN " strong witness for the prosecution " is my good friend Joseph Cannon. Just twenty-three years ago (he was training then for Captain Machell), he was boxing his equine contingent for Goodwood, when he was suddenly confronted by the fact that his " lot " numbered thirteen all told. For some time he thought of taking one out, but having hopes of all, he finally adopted an opposite policy, and put one in to make fourteen. The one that he rang in was Trappist, and if you refer to your " M'Call," you will see that he brought home the Stewards' Cup with him. In this instance the superstition led up to the luck ; and — so it shall be with the rest of this chapter. When the French horse, Le Justicier, came over here in the summer of '96, a great crowd of sportsmen — a regular grown-up " Fresh Air " fund — of different nationalities came over also, as I for one, who went to Charing Cross to meet them, can testify. And the affability of the Frenchmen when they are out racing with the Britons is wonderful. A real, live baron, on leaving the station, took an affectionate adieu of a "sport" who, in this country, had been an omnibus conductor ! Such fraternity is beautiful to witness, I think, and is calculated to promote the best interests of sport between our countrymen and our Gallic neighbours, even if the latter do sometimes get a draft on the well-known banking house of Messrs Johnnie Rollox & Co., of St James' Street, for their winnings. But I digress. Two Britons had come by this train from Boulogne. They were not flats, by a particularly elongated chalk, A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 227 but each had brought a useful wad of the pretty blue notes of the Bank of France inside his waistcoat. Naturally, they were drier than the sermons quoted in the Store's list at six bob a brace — nobody ever knew Englishmen coming off a journey that were not ! — and an adjournment, similar to those made with such good results by the governors of the rival Carolinas, was made to the Buffet of the Grand Hotel. Here it was that Exile No. i made the painful discovery that he'd lost his " parcel." His pocket- book and all it contained had vanished ; a rapid, hopeless hunt through all his pockets firmly estab- lished the fact. "'Well, that's gone!' as the girl said to the soldier in the park, when she lost her certificate from the Billericay Sunday-School ! " cried the unfortunate traveller. Yet, despite the crude philosophy contained in his remark, he was no philosopher " whatever." He was convinced, from the instant he discovered his boodle was gone, that it had been " pinched," and had an angel descended from Heaven to assure him he was mistaken, he would not have believed it — I — I mean her — not have believed " her" ; must be a "her," since one never sees any cock angels in pictures. "You lost this nowhere but in the crowd comin' off the boat," said Exile the Second, with an air of great conviction, " and it was either an old chap in a drab billycock, or that young fellow that had the cup o' tea at Calais, and was queer before we started, that swiped it ! " " Well, it's gone," repeated the loser, with the want of variety that is apt to characterise one's remarks at such a moment. 228 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN " Oh, yes, it's g07ie" added the comforter in the unintentionally irritating way peculiar to those who adduce testimony, even after the verdict is a foregone conclusion. The specifics usually taken were at once indulged in — (i) another drink, (2) a call at New Scotland Yard. The men in blue at " the Yard " are not wildly consolatory, or never seem so to the man who is minus his property, and the process of describing the black morocco pocket-book, which his little daughter bought in the Rue Victor Hugo, and had stamped with " To Papa from Edith " in small gilt letters in- side the flap, seemed terribly tedious. Nor did the police attempt to dissuade him from his rooted conviction that he had a somewhat adult or elderly pachyderm on hand if he relied on the recovery of his notes for his daily exes. Still, they would do their best. On the following day, the voyagers went to San- down, none too hilarious, since most men who go a-racing are full of superstition. There was a huge crowd there, and the rings — more particularly Tatter- sail's — and the paddock were literally packed with human beings. I desire to impress the fact upon my non-racing readers, because they may not grasp what an Eclipse Stakes crowd at Sandown Park means, and therefore not fully appreciate the situation when the two bounders from Boulogne, getting wedged in the motley assembly that surrounded Dick Dunn, both saw a somewhat seedy man, who was fairly jammed in between them, draw from his breast-coat a black morocco note-case, and cry out to the bookie : — " I'll take twenty to two, Dick, if you'll change a French note for four ? " A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 229 " Take anything," chortled Dick. " Hi ! hi ! Roll up with your bones, fat, rags, and old bottles ! Come on, where is it?" But the two exiles had grabbed the arms of that seedy punter, and, truth to tell, the seedy punter seemed mighty apprehensive of trouble. As it happened, too, the very next man in the crowd was a detective, and, as the reader may probably say to himself, " now we shan't be long." The seedy punter — all that I am setting down here in black and white was incontrovertibly proved — was a bookmaker's clerk out of collar. He was walking along the south side of the Strand on the previous day in company with a small tradesman in that thoroughfare, when, on crossing Craven Street, the metallician spotted the pocket-book lying on the dirty asphalt close in by the kerbstone. His com- panion spotted it too, for as the " After - Dark " stooped to pick it up — even before he stretched out his arm — his pal had put his foot on the leather case, and stipulated : " Halves, Jimmy ? " Of course Jimmy agreed — (I believe there is a well-defined rule in these cases ?) — and the contents of the case were examined and divided in a small pub hard by Gatti's arches. The small tradesman, afraid to smash his notes at a bureau, had them still intact when the police called upon him ; the bookie's clerk, knowing how easy it is to change any note, so long as it isn't too big, on a race-course, had waited till he found a bookie in full swing, and as the traveller's luck would have it, the whole of the half of the original bundle was still in the pocket-book, the loss of which was undoubtedly due to the facility 230 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN with which a glazed leather pad can slide out of the Italian-cloth pocket of a man who flops about and tries to go to sleep in a railway train. Another veritable instance, in which I was person- ally concerned, happened on the evening of the day on which Earl of Annandale won the handicap for which Quebec started a scorching hot favourite at Alexandra Park — I haven't got a book of reference handy, but I should say it was the Saturday after Sir Visto's Leger — I and a pal, whom I will call Tommy for short, had driven back from Muswell in a hansom, and entered the Bodega in Glasshouse Street for the purpose of comparing the time with the alleged syn- chronised timepiece of that establishment. Tommy thrust his hand into his pocket to pay, and a look came over his face such as one expects to iind on the countenance of the owner of the winner of the Teheran Derby when, on appearing before the Shah of Shahs (as is usual on such occasions), that wily old serpent claims the horse, garnishee's the pot, and tips the chief of the guards the wink, which is invariably interpreted : " Take him away, tie a garden-roller on to his right leg, and dump him into the Tigris." " What's the matter? " said I. " Oh, by the Great Horn Spoon ! " cried he, rapidly thrusting his right fist first into one pocket and then into another, " I've lost sixty pounds worth of notes ; that's what's the matter." " Don't get flurried," said I, with the calm resigna- tion of the young naturalist who has tried for three seasons to grow peacocks with birdseed, and has just decided to kill the boy who told him it was the regular modus operandi. " Where do you remember seeing it last?" A riNK 'UN AND A PELICAN 231 " When old Billy Shee paid me over Last Toast," said Tommy peevishly ; " I had forty to ten and two fivers in my kick, which I rolled round the others he gave me." " Like a vulgar confidence trickster with a roll of wildcat money, and one good 'un wrapped round the outside," I chipped in with a sneer. ./ hadn't backed Last Toast : Cameronian, the good thing that finished much later, carried my little bundle. " Anyway, what's to be done ? " he demanded, as much as to say that he'd follow any scheme I pro- posed, however wild, and bully me roundly when it proved in vain. " Losin's is seekin's," said I ; " but if it means going back, let's try and find a cabman that doesn't want the earth." Well, we did. He said his yard was at Battersea, but, as he hadn't got to " change " for nearly two hours, he'd take us to the roadside pub at Hornsey, the last house on your left before entering the park gates — we thought this was quite near enough ; the most successful hunters of black ducks never go preceded by a brass band — and bring us back, for fourteen shillings. How different a race-course, where in the afternoon all was bustle and animation, looks in the pale moon- light ! I thought so as, blowing like a grampus and being bunked up behind by the sorrowing Tommy, I scaled my second flight of iron railings, those of Tattersall's Enclosure. What would Pratt, Verrall, and Cathcart have said could they have seen me perched on the cross - rail doing the rooster act, unable to fly as the bird would have done, and 232 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN afraid to jump since one of the barbed prongs had gone up the left leg, and hitched in the hem of my thingamys? Once over, however, we made straight for the spot, hard by the top of the then paddock steps, where Mr Shee was prone to pitch and issue his oblong heliotrope tickets. The whole ring was strewn with torn "briefs " and bits of paper, with here and there a broken tumbler ; but I thought I knew my ground ; nor was my vanity to be reproved. Lying full in the gleam of the pale moonlight, and easily distinguishable from the flat, torn tickets by their bulk, were Tommy's notes, crisp and clean, and folded in four ! Did we make any calls on the way home ? I fear we did, and many a blue and brown-eyed barmaid, who had set 'em up for selves and cabmen full four hours before, must have come to the conclusion that we were lost in the neighbourhood. For all barmaids who are not fools are philosophers — a statement which I will back up by " stating a case." It was at the Sessions last November twelvemonth, and a snide- pusher had been brought to book for tendering pewter money in a public-house. The principal wit- ness against the man was a barmaid, and the prisoner, in cross-examining her, asked whether it was not a fact that she often served between two and three hundred persons in the course of the evening. " Oh, lor, yes ! " said the girl, " and more than five hundred." The wretched fellow beamed with satisfaction at this, and proceeded to follow it up. " Then how," asked he, " can you positively swear to me ? " A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 233 " Becos," said the girl, " you was the on'y one that went away without drinkin' yer beer ! " That spiked his battery ! (Short interval for refreshments). Early on the morning of the Monday before a very recent Goodwood, a very well-known Notting- ham bookmaker left the stronghold of d'oyleys and dollymops on his annual pilgrimage to Chichester. In the inside pocket of his waistcoat he carried the principal implements of warfare : bank-notes in the original lump. They were clean, fresh notes, straight from the bank, and the value of the roll was ;o2,500. As he had a little business to transact in crossing the metropolis, he found he could not get down to Sussex in comfortable time to dine, so he had a cut from the saddle at Simpson's, and reserved a bed- room at a certain palatial hotel within easy reach of Victoria Station. On the following morning, over-sleeping himself somewhat, and starting in no end of a hurry, he had travelled as far as Midhurst — some sixty-four miles — ere he made the discovery that he had left his boodle behind, tucked snugly beneath his pillow, at the big hotel. He was out of that train at the next station, and agitating the wire, and, much later in the day, he literally burst into the manager's room at the huge caravansery. " It's all right, sir, it's all right ! " cried the hotel manager, who had no difficulty in divining the cause of his late guest's re-appearance ; " the chambermaid found 'em when she went up to strip the beds, and they're now in the safe in my office ! " 234 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN And they were — but one fiver was missing. In the moment of temptation the poor girl, like the clergy- man who sat down on the fish-hook (who was too good to swear, but felt too bad to let it alone), could not resist the temptation of swiping just one little fiver — it meant such a deal to her — and though the rejoicing bookie freely gave her four more to go with it, she lost her place ; which made up a combination of as hard and as soft luck as ever I heard of. CHAPTER XI The doughty men of the East — An old lag— A counterfeit coiner — The ingenious barrister — The concertina-playing championship — Boot-finding — Sport and Religion — Ike Lyons, the shlemiel — The attempt to reform him — Fishers of policemen — Swears as a constable — Charlie Bacigalupo's morgue — Some of its occupants — Swears and the smugglers — The triumph of discretion — Les Miserables — The suicide of William Fishenden. WHEN one's palate becomes cloyed with the artificial fripperies of the West-end, no cheaper or more effectual antidote can be taken than a sojourn in the lowlier quarters of the East. But one who would seek entertainment there need have a sym- pathetic soul in his body, for it is an unlovely locality. There are few spots on the map which goes with every well-regulated copy of Kelly's London Directory, in which so much actual need and absolute poverty exist as in Stratford-atte-Bow, E. A native of the place once told me that the only time he ever felt entirely free from want was when he was " doin' three stretch for stoppin' a kid in the street an' takin' its school money away," and he said it in no boastful spirit either. Right well he knew that other " lags " of my acquaintance — I love the professedly criminal classes — could beat his record into a cocked hat. For instance, take Joe Duffy. This was his little lot:— " Three months for lifting a till, January, 1877 / nine months for street robbery, October, 1^7 j ; fifteen months 235 236 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN for a pony and harness, 1878-9/ one month, assaulting the police, \%Zo ; five yeai^s penal servitude, burglary, November, 1880 {of which he swore he was innocent); six years' penal servitude, highway robbery with violetice {and the remainder of his " ticket " on first sentence of penal servitude), fuly, 1885 / one month for assaultiiig the old woman, March, 1 897. Chief-warder Turrell, Joe said, once tried to make it out a bit more ; but Joe's old woman was a dabster at book-keepin', and the tally, registered on the inside of the kitchen cupboard door, had never been altered, revised, or in any way tampered with. Sometimes when he reached home in the very early morning, before the first gleam of a new day had started the sparrows twittering under the eaves or in the rain- pipes, he'd slip downstairs and have a liker at that writing on the swinging bit of wainscot — not but what he knew it all by heart — but it had a chastening effect on him. " Six years ! " he would mutter, as his little grey eyes lingered over the last line but one, " an' on'y three quid gratuity ! Go steady, my lad, the nex' brace o' figures '11 spell ten or fourteen, sure ! " He was in a dejected and yet loquacious mood when last I happened across him, nor did gin and peppermint seem to make him take a rosier view of the situation. " No good at all ! " he growled in answer to my question as to whether the Record Reign festivities hadn't been good for his business. " What sort o' jays did the Juberlee bring into London? Why, a crowd o' black-an'-tan hugger-muggers as wrapped theirselves up in forty yards o' table-cloth, an' ye couldn't find their (something'd) pockits in a tray A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 237 o' moons — no, not if they was to stand still and let yer search 'em. Eighteen of us got up a shovin' match an' a cry of ' Fire ! ' for one whitey-brown bloke with long ear-rin's just outside the 'lambra one night ; but, lord bless yer ! after thirty-six 'ands 'ad bin all over him, tore his trowseys an' left 'im as naked as Barth-Sheber — why, even then we never found his sky!" I shrugged my shoulders ; one cannot listen and yet show no sympathy. " The luck seems out," he continued, lugubriously, " or perhaps I put it under " (and he pointed down- wards with his finger), " along o' my first old dear, for the one as I picked up a-comin' 'ome from the funeral — oh ! OH ! what a dangerous woman." "Is she?" said I. " Is she ? " he echoed after me. " Well, on'y to show yer, she wouldn't 'old her tongue the other night, an' so, just as any 'usband might do, I uppercuts her with the right, an' — well, p'raps I might ha' give her a bit too much o' the boot as she lays on the floor. But what does she do? Lor' doomy ! she acksherly sticks 'er 'ead out o' winder an' CALLS UP A ROZZER ! " As he took himself by the coat collar in imitation of the way the constable had evidently handled him, his mouth and eyes opened wide at the unexampled temerity of his concubine in calling in the police on simply being " outed." "OH, what a dangerous woman!" he cried, as he held up his long, lean fingers in horror ; then he added, not altogether disconnectedly, " I got a month. I takes cold in stir, too, an' when I come out it was on'y to go into the infirmary — ah ! an' there you go agen." " Where ? " I asked. ;;38 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN " Why, in the infirmary," said he, " The very first day as I was in there one o' the nurses lays her purse down out of 'er hand for a minnit, an' — it's gone ! Oh ! it was very orkard for me, bein' the last newcomer, an' " " How much was there in it ? " I enquired. " Seven-an'-fippence, a few 'air pins, an' a hadvertise- ment 'ow to improve the bust ! " he replied very readily, adding after an instant's reflection, " at least, so I was told I But everybody looks on me askarnce now, sir — which reminds me of a little thing as 'appened o' Monday mornin'. It was early — very early — an' I'd strolled down one o' the railway carriers' yards jes' to see as a vallyble collie dog, as we'd got to 'ear was comin' to a certain titled lady, didn't get lost in transit, when up comes the foreman, grabs me by the scruff o' the neck, an' boots me right outer the yard. Oh ! he did give my nacheral dress- improver somethink ! ' Now,' says 'e, ' you'll under- stand, we don't want none o' your sort 'angin' about down 'ere ; we've lost three sets of brass-plated 'arness in two months.' That fairly touched my pride, Mister B. Oh ! I was 'urt I says : ' Mister, may I die, but I wouldn't do a mean thing like that ! Me pinch 'arness ? Never ! I may ha' fallen a bit low, but I'm still a man, an' wouldn't descend to rob a pore 'orse.^ 'Ere, so long, I'm sighted !" And without stopping to tell me the sequel, he slipped out of sight like an eel in a bucket of oil. Then the policeman, in his darkness (for he knew not that I lived by retailing criminal stories), stepped up and asked me to go through my pockets and see if I'd lost anything ! Lost! Nay, I'd gained — about three pages ! A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 239 One of the very pleasantest fellows I ever met was a counterfeit coiner ; and here I'd like to express the opinion that, if the men and women who practice " smashing " could obtain a living by any other means, they certainly would not engage in an illicit occupation which, unlike most sinful pursuits, is full of sheer hard work, incessant drudgery and danger, from the time of stealing the publican's pewter tankard (which invariably forms the basis of the operation), to the time of uttering the base florin, which, as a rule, is just as soon as it has cooled. My coiner was quite a past-master at his craft ; and we were two out of, perhaps, ten " lodgers " in a large, old-fashioned house in what had once been a fashionable quarter of this great town. When the "quality" went elsewhere, a speculator bought up the lease and let the old place out in tenements to almost anybody who could pay a week's rent in advance — scribblers of prose and of verse, budding medicos, artists upon stone (not flagstone, let me add), one or two City bounders, and, as it happened, a smasher. He was the most agreeable fellow that reverse of fortune ever forced to forge a mould ; that man had no more use for Vice, for its own sake, than a dressed hog has for side-pockets. We invariably nodded to one another when we met upon the stairs, until at last, one day, we met in Tattersall's Ring at Sandown Park. Of course we had a drink at the bar — a second also — and I passed a remark upon the great quantity of silver he had ; then he took me into his confidence and told me all. That confidence I do not intend in these columns to violate, but the story of the forging of the last link in the chain of evidence upon which he 240 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN eventually got put away for ten years, he will, if he reads these lines, have no objection to me telling. He was a rare man for taking precautions. On the night after our meeting at Sandown Park he invited me into his room, where we sat and drank hot spiced ale. He rather lamented the fact that I couldn't see my way to passing some of his home-made florins, but I was obdurate ; it seemed to me such a petty and disgraceful fraud : had they been sovereigns I might have reconsidered his proposals. All of which by the way. But we did not split upon the point, and on the following morning, which was a Sunday as the Devil would have it, I was shut in his apart- ment with him, whilst he turned out a most credit- able batch of half-crowns. He worked principally upon a bench that rested at one end upon a ledge which was screwed upon the door. This was for the double purpose of barring the sudden entrance of a possible enemy, and providing against the remote possibility of the work-table being in use when the worker himself opened the door. Before he could go out he had to clear away his entire paraphernalia and take down his work-board. He hardly ever uttered the spurious coins himself — a very rare exception was the Esher incident — and, consequently, seldom had any "queer" about his person, and, but for a meddling member of the bar, who should have been writing shilling shockers, perpetrating " society " verse, or employing himself as other young barristers do, but was instead putting in a day at the sessions, Jenkinson — (that'll do for an alias) — never would have gone to Dartmoor. On the afternoon of his arrest a plain-clothes constable, standing at the top of some area steps in A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 241 Torrington Square, or, as Mrs Rossetti would have it, " Torrington Oblong," W.C., spotted Jenkinson. He had been " wanted " for some weeks. Jenkinson spotted the " D," too, don't you think that he didn't, and turning back, he started off at a great rate, but walking. As the "D" gained on him, however, he broke into a trot, then a run, and he flew across Gordon Square as though Jim Satan had been behind him. As they whizzed round to the right, the quarry heading for Endsleigh Street, the " D," on the off-chance of finding assistance, blew his whistle. A constable turned up, literally out of the ground, wiping his moustache on the palm of his glove, and Jenkinson ran slick into his arms ! ^" He's — a-thrown somethink — over railin's — wes' side o' Gordon Square ! " panted and puffed the detective, running up, all out of breath, and so, on search being made, it proved . He'd thrown away a purse containing silver — half-crowns and florins — to the value of eighteen shillings, and it was duly taken possession of Well, there was the usual police-court business ; he was committed for trial, and, pending it, the police sub- mitted the coins found in the purse to the Mint people. And every coin was found to be genuine. When the Sessions came on they had literally no case at all against Jenkinson, and I went to see and hear him tried in the full expectation of realising the line that many compositors on the big dailies keep in type : — " The prisoner then bowed to his lordship, and, stepping airily from the dock, left the court with his friends." But it did not come off A brainy young gentleman in a stuff gown, who Q 242 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN had not eaten his dinners in hall for nothing, begged to look at the silver, when it was passed round, and, having duly examined it, pointed out to counsel for the prosecution that the good coins bore exactly the same date as the counterfeit ones forming the subject of the charge. These were the coins from which the moulds had been made from which the wrong 'uns had been cast. The secret was out : the game went up — and so did " Jenkinson." But I am overdosing you with criminals, and in- ferring, however vaguely and unwittingly, that they form the staple product of the east. All this I would refute. Though what is generally called "society" doesn't run into the ground to any particular extent either in Stratford or Spitalfields, the former boasts of a local paper, the editor of which still dickers up a *' personal and social " column, and permits his " devil " to read it as a sort of introduction into fashionable life. Stratford has brought forth champions — and so has Spitalfields — and though, as a well-known great writer and metaphysician once remarked, " If I owned Strat- ford and Hell, I'd let Stratford on a long lease and live on my other freehold," she has sons who are proud to refer to her as their native heath. It was in Stratford, last winter, that one Johnnie Lane won the Concertina-playing Championship. The affair was promoted primarily to solace one George Ricks, or " Rixey," as most of the company called him in his hour of misfortune, for " Rixey " had broken his arm. My word, as Mr Daniel Leno says, how the honest, humble, unwashed sympathisers of Old-Man-With- A- Wing-Up did crowd into the room allotted them at the " Yorkshire Grey ! " They filed A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 243 in, young men and old, baldheads and babys, women with children, anticipated and assured, and every other sort and condition of biped peculiar to Strat- ford, till you couldn't have dropped the traditional sardine in ! Two waiters in their shirt-sleeves walked upon the tables, stepping deftly in and out of the mass of glasses and tankards collected on the boards, and conveyed drinks in liberal quantities to those who had responded to the invitation on the admission tickets to " come early," and were, in consequence, w^ged up in front against the very keyboard of a somewhat antiquated grand piano. Yet those waiters, walking seemingly on the shoulders of the mob, spilt not the fraction of a farthing's worth of malt upon the crushing human sea beneath their deftly balanced trays. It was, I think, only my curiosity as to how two or more men with concertinas could possibly be intro- duced into such an abnormal crush that I stayed on, and even now I am not quite certain where they came from, but the battle-ground on which Johnnie Lane wrested the belt from all comers was — the rosewood lid of the pianoforte ! Probably you never yet heard of such a thing as a " Boot-Finding Competition " ? And yet they are of almost nightly frequency in the bar-parlours of old Spitalfields. Imagine for yourselves a stuffy, evil-smelling tap - room, three-parts full of coster- mongers and less reputable loafers, all smoking or chewing tobacco, or swearing or disputing. All are supplied with drinks — that almost goes without saying. Presently a bit of a hubbub announces the entrance of the publican himself, a red - faced, bloated, " licentious wittier," and the lads, voluntarily clearing 244 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN a space at the far end of the room, disclose to view a low dai's or platform, which you hadn't noticed before. Mounting this, the plethoric " bung " and his pot- man, both in their shirt-sleeves, become violently busy, and the publican, calling aloud for " Order, order," turns and addresses his patrons. " Now, me lads," says he, "if you'll just keep your- selves in 'and a bit, an' give us some sort of attention, we'll get along with our 'Underd-and-fifteenth Boot- findin' Compertition. I think you all know the rules pretty well ; no bitin', no kickin', an' the fust gent as gets his own boots on, wins." (Great applause). " I 'ave this evenin' nine entries for the compertition, but on'y eight of the gents 'avin' paid their entrance fee, the ninth '11 not be quallerfied ter compete. I think it's on'y right ter state that it's J, Hoop." A perfect storm of yells follow. Cries of " J'yer, Jack, what'er yer done with yer bloomin' mivvy ? " " Brass up. Jack." " 'As yer old Dutch been a-gettin' of 'er daisies out again ? " and similar interrogatories ; but the voice of J. Hoop is silent. All claims to the proud and distinguished title of Champion Boot- Finder pass away like a chute- boat down a greased slide from J. Hoop ; he is silenced, vanquished, his soul grovels in the dust — all for a " mivvy." With an air of great importance and consciousness of responsibility, the publican reads over the list of the names of the eight remaining com- petitors. "E. Fish," "Duffer," "Boss" Mofifit, Loo Moss, "Inky," T. Winterbottom, "Minder" Perkins, and Young Brooks. As he calls the names out the fellows here and there answer, " Here, guv'nor," and proceed to struggle through the audience on to the platform. At length all eight are seated on a rough deal form. " Now, gents, 'orf with 'em," cries Boni- A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 245 face, producing a small piece of chalk from his waist- coat pocket. Like lightning each " gent " pulls his boots off; and — oh, the socks ! Three of the gentle- men haven't got any at all, whilst those of the remaining five are such utter remnants as to be scarcely recognisable. Each man deposits his boots immediately in front of him. Then the potman, going up to each of the competitors in turn, first chalks a number on the breast of each coat, and a corresponding number on the soles of each of the men's two trotter cases. The whole of the boots are then pitched helter-skelter into an old sugar hogshead, the head of which is next put lightly in. The barrel is turned over and rolled several times around the plat- form, amidst breathless anxiety on the part of the combatants. Their eyes follow every movement of the burly " chucker," as time after time he rolls round the hogshead of precious " crabs." Presently he halts, and, after a moment's pause, raises the barrel above his head. The excitement is at fever heat. Each " gent " crouches round the potman like a demon wicket-keeper. " Go," cries the landlord. The pot- man gives the cask one mighty jerk, and the boots are shot all over the floor. Such a yell ; such a scurry ! The men fling themselves on the boots like jackals on a carcase. They pant, they puff, they tear, they screech — they form simply a mass of tearing arms and legs. And the cries of their pals ! " Steady, Boss, steady there ! " " Now you've got 'em. Loo ! " " Go it. Inky ! " and such like, are truly deafening. One yell is heard, loud above the others, and a ragged wretch disengages himself from the howling hurly-burly. He leaps out from among them, and, like greased lightning, squats on the floor 246 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN and tugs on an old pair of sidesprings. " Here ! " he yells, triumphantly, falling over on his back and hold- ing his feet in the air. The landlord rushes forward — the figure 5 is on each of the boots, and. the same figure is on the man's breast. " Time ! " shouts the publican, and the panting wretches cease to struggle. Then cries the landlord in stentorian tones : — " Inky Stevens is the winner ! " But though the East is literally chock full of champions — from the Champion Barrow-Pusher, who, standing metaphorically on the tips of his toes, and bawling at the top of his voice, dares " Any man in England " to push an ordinary costermonger's barrow against him, for any distance between two and five miles, for any sum between five and twenty-five pounds a-side, down (or up) to the Champion Haddock Splitter (who shines amongst the hundreds of artificers who prepare these fish for the curer) — though, I repeat, the East is full of them, it is a curious fact that 80 per cent, of the sportsmen down there are Jews, and fairly orthodox Jews, too. There are some things you never can account for — like the little black-and-white baby that was once on exhibition in Ratcliff High- way. Both its parents were white — when washed — and the lady said, with a sad smile, as she fondled the little demi-nigger, she supposed it was a " dis- pensation of Providence." For all the rubies that ever came out of Burmah I wouldn't say one word against Creed ; all the same, I make the affirmation that, in its relationship to sport, religion is mighty intolerant in some cases and astonishingly elastic in others. A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 247 Last spring, for instance, thirty-seven good young men frogged it from the dear old Polytechnic, where in boyhood's days we were wont to revel in the diving-bell and the automaton rope-walker, and they padded the hoof to Brighton. On reaching there they were cheered, petted, blown-off with ginger-beer, treated to buns (the only kind of pastry they ever indulged in), and made little tin heroes of The Sunday papers had columns and columns about them, and I believe the first three or four to finish got money prizes. Only four short nights afterwards, almost double the number of other young men started to reverse the performance, leaving Tattersall's Enclosure, on White Hawk Hill, shortly after the last race ; yet, because they didn't happen to be in any way con- nected with the Young Men's Christian Association, no notice whatever was taken of their pedestrian achievement ; indeed, when the leader limped into Brixton at daybreak on Good Friday, there was not a single, solitary soul to greet him with a cheering word and the price of his 'bus fare to the Criterion, and, weary, heart-broken, fagged-out, and disgusted, he flopped down to consume the contents of a dog's water-trough, placed outside a shop-door by the humane directors of Hudson's Soap Com- pany. Ike Lyons was an East-end sportsman. He also was what the Yids call a shleniiel ; no matter what he turned his hand to, nothing ever came of it. A streak of it ran through his whole family. What with his mother writing short stories that nobody would publish ; his sister writing poetry that nobody would read ; his father writing systems at " Solo " that nobody would act on ; and Ike writing cheques 248 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN that nobody would cash, there was a full line of industry running to waste in the Lyons' menage. But somehow they held on. One great, good thing that may be said of the Hebrew community is that, so long as a Yid sticks to his religion, he is never allowed to want. At certain seasons, sufficiently frequent to suit the neediest, the millionaires go out amongst the hoboes that haven't got a bean, and there ensues a brief era of couters and good feeling. The elephant that walks round on Yontov is built on a big scale, and the smallest chit in the commonwealth is not put to bed until he has seen the whole of the adult pachyderm. But, alas ! Ike Lyons was a backslider. He observed not the calendar nor the fasts with which it literally bristles. If a fish came his way he jobbed the gaff right into it — metaphorically — with- out pausing to think whither the day might not be Youm Kippur or Rosh Hoshonah. It was thus that he became a reproach to his father and the heaviness of his mother, whose short story, utilising the backslider as the main incident and un-moral, met with the uniformly cold rejection at the hands of the editor of The Koslier Fireside. A last attempt to throw the rope of good influence round Isaac's neck and haul him back, had already been made by a good man. He had encountered the backslider trudging across Waterloo Bridge with a sack of scarlet, but unlawful, lobsters slung across his back, and the reprobate had not denied that Hampton was his Mecca and the racing pilgrims his intended profit. " Prophet," the worthy interrogator had then truly observed, was an unfortunate term for the errant A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 249 one to have used, inasmuch as he should at that very hour have been on his way to his synagogue, instead of striving with a sack of trifaJi. The good words did not fall upon altogether barren ground, and a parley ensued. To Isaac's somewhat curt inquiry as to what else he should do for a living, he was told to repair to his own room and pray for guidance. Whatever blessing he asked would surely be given him. He had expressed considerable doubt about this, but was abundantly reassured — indeed, so much weight had the good man's words had with him that, upon the assurance that there would be just as good a market for the shell-fish after sunset, and, if not, the self-appointed shepherd would make good the loss, that he had there and then begun his reformation by dumping the sack of crustaceans into the railway cloak- room. It was the very next Saturday morning that the good Jew, having occasion to walk across the bridge again, became aware, from the number and the appearance of the bulk of the pedestrians he kept meeting, that there was a race meeting on some- where down the South-Western Company's system, and, sad to relate, he had not got half way to the Strand when he beheld his convert of the previous Saturday come shambling along. He had no sack of lobsters this time, but — quite as bad, or worse — five cigar boxes in a strap and a sixth in his left hand, and as the erring Isaac over- took the racing men, one by one, he importuned them with : " Smokes ? Smokes ? Who says a choice smoke ? " The good man, in sorrow not in anger, intercepted 250 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN the backslider, and temporarily pinned him against the stone parapet. " You did not pray, as I told you to ? " the good man said. " 'Deed I did — may I die if I didn't, but, ach ! — no good ! " " What blessing did you ask ? " " O-oh, jest what I thought I could get along with — five thousand, dahn, an' a two-year-old as good as St Fruskin was the day he come out and beat Labrydor at Sandahn ! " His questioner was inexpressibly shocked, but he managed to reply in a voice of stern reproach : " You asked too much." " Accha Nibbish ! " cried Isaac, " but I was open to an offer ! " That knocked the unhappy rescuer. He said — and was seen — no more ! As the result of long observation, I should say. that a Jew seldom forgets a kindness and even more rarely forgives a really wanton insult. Memory bobs up serenely with a certain Goodwood incident of the year that Hornpipe beat Geheimness, a very sad bit of business for Fred Archer, and — quite incidentally, for the writer too. It was nine o'clock at night. The Duke of Rich- mond's royal and noble guests had dined, and were promenading the lawn to the delightful strains of an excellent military band within the enclosure that is invariably railed off in front of the great white house in Goodwood Park during the race week. And out- side those rails, in striking contrast to the brilliant assemblage within, were the thousand and odd hetero- geneous specimens of humanity that hang upon the A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 251 fringe of racing. And Judah Cohen, dealer in sponges, ordinarily of Wentworth Street, E., remarked to Isaac Lazarus, generally supposed to be deeply interested in the imported lemon industry, of Hart Street, Covent Garden : "J'yer, Ike, vich is the Prince?" And Ike replied, pointing with his forefinger. " There y'ar — over there — can't you see the di'mond in his shirt — 'ow 'ud yer old woman go with that 'ead- light fur a brooch, Judah ? " Judah did not reply to this considerate enquiry, but asked : "J 'yer, Ike, an' vich is Rorthschild ? " " W'y 'e ain't 'ere," responded Isaac, with some con- tempt ; " 'es at Ax le Bang, a-takin' the waters. Vy don't yer read yer Modern Society ? " " My missis won't 'ave it left," replied Judah ; " she says she can't rely on the court news. J'yer, who's that in the " A tall and formidable constable, clothed in a deal of brief authority and white cotton gloves, interposed. " Now, Blueskin," said he, laying a hand upon Isaac's shoulder in an offensively peremptory manner, " get on to yer lodgin's, you ain't wanted 'ere." It was a gratuitous insult, and Mr Lazarus quite took it as such. He indignantly protested — firstly, that he was doing no harm ; secondly, that his name was not Blueskin — whereat the crowd laughed (how easily is a crowd entertained) ; and thirdly But by this time the zealous officer had him by the scruff of the neck. " D'ye think you'd enjoy a march to Chichester?" said he, and, without waiting for a reply, he gave the Hebrew a spin that sent him across the grass in the 252 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN direction of the chalk road with a great deal of impetus. As the clock in the tower of Chichester Cathedral struck ten, the proprietor of the " Dolphin Haircutting and Shaving Saloon " was discovered putting up his shop shutters. Erratic as racing men are, there were still few who were likely to seek the atelier of the chin-scraper after ten o'clock, and the frugal barber felt justified in closing. As he hoisted the last shutter into its place, however, two gentlemen, whose cast of features involuntarily reminded one of the only re- corded instance of the Red Sea being crossed on foot, drove up in a fly, and one of them, whom a Littlechild or a Moser would have had no difficulty in recognising as Isaac Lazarus, asked the barber what he would take for his striped pole sign. The question certainly was an unusual one, scarce as these white and cherry- striped flagstaffs are becoming ; but the barber was a man of business, and so, after thinking the matter over for a minute or so, he said he thought that forty-five shillings would fill the bill. " Right," said Isaac. " Give me a receipt, and unfix the pole." This was very soon done, and, armed with the pole and the receipt, the Hebrews re-entered the fly and drove away. It was some distance — a good three miles — out on the road to the racecourse where that constable was posted ; but a Yid, like a Malay, can wait. And when, at last, the illuminations in the conservatory of Good- wood House came in sight, Isaac and Judah descended from their fly, and, shouldering the pole, discharged the conveyance and shuffled along the white chalk A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 253 road towards the " fixed point." As they blundered along in the bright moonlight that made the path look like silver sand, a loud and dictatorial voice, the owner of which had observed the pole, cried : " Hullo there— stop ! " In another moment two constables were upon the Hebrews, and one of them was, without a doubt, the " Blueskin " humorist. He seemed to recognise the Jews, and as he gazed first at them and then at the abstracted sign of the tonsorialist, he seemed gratified at finding his suspicions borne out. A mere motion of the head to his companion, and both the malefactors were arrested. He knew the pole, bless you ; indeed, 'twas he himself that shouldered it as the cavalcade set out for Chichester. But why weave the mystery further .'* 'Twas a sair and bitter walk back to the Cathedral town, but once there the receipt was incontestable, and even the barber protested at being dragged from his bed to testify to what was, after all, a purely commercial transaction. There is no moral to this incident, save that it shows that even a Hebrew importer of lemons may buy a barber's pole, and, after harvesting the police with it, may sell it back at a small reduction. And this leads me to the avowal that Swears once wore the blue — not in any practical joke, nor upon the beeswaxed floor of Covent Garden Theatre during the fancy ball season — but as a constable in the New York police, under Superintendent Byrnes. It is, however, unfair to attribute the wholesale corruption of the force, subsequently disclosed before the Lexow Committee, to this fact. How Swears, absolutely broke and hung up in the second city of the States, managed it, deponent 254 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN knoweth not, but perhaps he had some good friend at hand — as he generally has — who furnished proof that the candidate walked in his sleep, and was therefore eminently qualified for a night beat in " the Tender- loin." (If this brave jape is not found in the Gesta Ronianorum, it may be looked for elsewhere, for it has a familiar ring about it.) To Swears was allotted a beat in one of the dirtiest, noisiest, and, in Yankee parlance, the " toughest," districts in New York, a quarter that literally swarmed with the very lowest characters of both sexes — bunco-steerers, gold-brick fabricators, sandbaggers, and, worse than all, if that be possible, the alien dagos from Italy and Spain, who hold human life at the price of a guilty glance from another fellow's hoyden's eyes, or a partner's share in the night's take of smuggled tobacco or cigars. So common a thing had murder become in this precinct, that an enterprising small undertaker, one Charles Bacigalupo, well-known in East side political circles, had built in the rear of his shop a small chapel for the reception of the bodies of persons who had, mysteriously or otherwise, been murdered in the district. " Charlie's Morgue " was quite a show place. It had an altar surrounded by candles and crucifixes, a statuette of Joseph, another of the Virgin, and in the centre of all was a large bier, covered in black velvet, on which the body — after the philanthropic undertaker had closed the gaping wounds, washed the face, and generally tittivated the corpse up — was laid. At the feet of the "stiff" was placed a basket, into which the visitors dropped nickels and pennies to- wards the funeral expenses, and the more sensational the tragedy, the grander send-off the victim got. A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 255 I will give you one or two absolute instances, arraneincf them in this order : — Collection totalled. Dominico Montello, suffocated . 14 Dollars. L. Marcigliano, stabbed .... 42 " Lize the Man," bashed and ckibbed 65 „ Appolito Fillippo, throat cut 82 „ Man and woman shot., m JIagrattie delicto 145 Leo Poldo Marchesse, suicided for guilty love 450 And now a few words in explanation of these figures : — Dominico Montello was a miserable, a poor devil who sold roast chestnuts for a living. An old tea-tray, a pierced fire-pail, and a cardboard box-lid with "40" chalked on it, constituted his earthly possessions. Stay, though — he did have twelve dollars knotted in a corner of his shirt. There being absolutely no romance in a dirty old man falling into his last sleep over a charcoal fire, the crowd only chipped in two dollars, so that Charlie Bacigalupo barely covered exes. Marcigliano was taking a hand in a little family game at cards at a saloon at No. 58 Mulberry Street. Marci's own brother rang in a fifth and quite super- fluous ace, and Marci kicked like a steer about it. It was then that the brother drew his knife and proceeded to let the vitiated atmosphere into Marcigliano's abdominal cavity ; and, taking all these things into consideration, the patrons of Charlie Bacigalupo's morgue thought it worth a level forty- two dollars — no more, no less. " Lize the Man " was a bully, and lived on the women of the slums. It was never openly known 256 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN who " gave him his medicine," but his head was pounded hke a Hamburg steak, and sixty-five dollars rolled into the basket, principally contributed by the females who had been accustomed to support the maquereau during his life. Appolito Fillippo was a longshoreman, who was slashed to death at the corner of Barclay and Wash- ington Streets. He was hacked literally to ribbons, and yet the most terrible "cut" of all — that which appeared in a cheap police paper — sent crowds to the little chapel, and largely helped to bring eighty-two dollars into the offertory. In the brace of adulterers, Charlie had a "real soft snap." It was the old, old story of a married woman, an unmarried man, and a husband who objected to wear antlers. The guilty couple fled from Naples across the blue-green Atlantic, but Gabriel Bertolino was aboard the very next steamer, and, running the precious pair to earth at 17 Cherry Street, he " Drew his little Smith-and-Wesson, To inculcate a moral lesson." Thus, in death — for Gabriel was the glass-bottle- and-pipe-stem-champion of his canton — they were not divided, and as their bodies lay side by side on Charlie's black velvet bier, thousands and thousands of people stood in lines and struggled to gain admission to the chapel. For three days the police " regulated the traffic," and then compelled Bacigalupo to close his doors. One hundred and forty-five dollars — twenty-nine pounds — sent them off in style. Leo Poldo Marchesse, who was found dead in his chair, after enveloping a generous dose of rat poison, was not the draw that Bertolino's dead birds were. Still he touched them a little. He had had some A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 257 spicy press notices of his love affairs from time to time, and the sympathetic fair weighed in enough to bury him in the cemetery at Greenwood instead of in the Potter's Field. Somehow a newspaper account of the affair found its way to Italy, and Leo's father, who was a marquis, telegraphed to the under- taker to exhume the body, box it in style, and ship it. Leo's last overcoat was indeed, as the drapers say, " all wool and a yard wide." It commenced with a zinc shell, over which were three layers of walnut, another zinc interlining, and, outside all, a chestnut casket five inches thick. Four inches of this outer casing was composed of sand packed between the woodwork. Then the rope tackle was stretched on, and the Italian consul affixed his seal to the fastenings. Charlie's bill footed up four hundred and fifty dollars, or in English money, ninety pounds ! Some there were who said that asbestos would have come cheaper and lasted longer, but that, as our Rudyard says, is another matter. It was no light thing for the gentle Swears, who still proudly boasts that he came off victorious in the only serious fight he ever had in his life through his opponent stepping on a banana skin outside a fruiterer's in Glasshouse Street, whereby the fellow fell, and Ernest did promptly deposit his fifteen stone on his foe's chest until a truce was arranged — it was no light thing, I repeat, for Swears to be planted in such very undesirable company, with a hair-trigger revolver, that was likely to go off at any moment, in his hip pocket. It chanced one dark and dismal night, as Swears patrolled the alleys leading to the wharves, that he heard an oar plash in the river, and presently saw a R 258 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN boat come alongside the staples and tie up. Three evil-looking men got out. For a moment Constable Swears left off twirling his truncheon on its cord, and put his hand to his chest to make sure that his whistle was safe. As the men had meanwhile been advancing, and the alley was very narrow, further concealment was impossible, so Swears stood stock still and coughed perfunctorily. " Say, you should take somethin' for that cough," said the first man, who had a full sack over his shoulder ; " you'll be after wakin' up the sergeant on the next beat an' gettin' yerself disliked." Emboldened by finding them in a bantering mood, Ernest's courage returned somewhat, and he de- manded — " What have you got in that sack ? " " The skipper's dirty linen," replied the fellow doggedly — nay, defiantly. " Put it down and let's have a look at it." Simple as was the demand, it entirely changed the aspect of affairs. The smuggler, for that was really what the stranger was, dropped the sack and drew himself up so close to his questioner that his rough coat pressed against the silver star on the blue tunic. " They're smuggled smokes," he said insultingly, thrusting his face against Swears's, and running his right hand round to his hip pocket. " Now, what are you going to do about it ? " For one brief instant a thousand horrid thoughts flashed across Swears's brain — the morgue, with his own body stretched out upon the bier, the river, with his bloated carcass floating down on the top of the ebb-tide, and ten hundred other gruesome specula- A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 259 tions. His mind was made up. Self-preservation — first law of Nature. Forcing up some sort of a smile he replied — " What am I going to do about it, cockie .-' Why, I'm no hog — bung me a little box o' Princesa's and clear off!" Speaking of bloated carcasses in the river — (this chapter's fairly got the blues !) — there's one other little thing I'd like to squeeze in ; it won't take much room. It had been dull and leaden and grey all day, and night was creeping on with an advance-guard in the shape of a feeble damp white fog. Little flickering gas jets, like glow-worms, at regular intervals of sixty yards or so, were outlining the northern road round Regent's Park at the steady rate at which the lamplighter, with his fire-topped pole, was walking in the direction of St John's Wood. Occasionally a cry, like a quacked protest to the gathering darkness, came from some of the water-fowl in the Zoological Society's Gardens across the murky canal ; otherwise, there was a masterly majority of inanimate objects in the cheerless rural road. Presently two ragged men came slowly shuffling along, and halted on the span of pavement that over- looks the dark waters of the pool, an arm of the canal, that lies on the northern side of the road. The elder of the twain looked over the balustrade down at the water, on the surface of which a shadowy old church and some small buildings were dimly re- flected, and, turning to the slightly younger man, said : " Good-bye, Sam. I've made me mind up. There'll 26o A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN be none, bar you, to miss me — neither chick, nor child, nor cur." Without withdrawing his hands from the coat- pockets into which they were thrust, " Sam " only answered half-heartedly : " Did they tell yer at the 'orspital then, as 'ow you wouldn't get over it ? " " They tole me," answered the elder man wearily, and as though heartsick of repeating the story, " as another gall-stone 'ad got to be took away, an' I was to go as an in-patient to-morrer. But I can't stand it, Sam, it's no good ; the bare thoughts o' them usin' them knives, an' me with me guts stuffed full o' sponges an' odyform gawz, as they calls it, an' injy- rubber toobs, an' then the dressin' of it twice a day, settles me ! I'd rather finish it now, Sam, with no- body to see me go but you. Good-bye, lad." Sam reluctantly took his right hand out of his warm pocket and allowed his old chum to shake it He seemed to have something on his mind, but ex- perienced a difficulty in expressing it. As the old man placed his hands on thetopof the rail- ing, the urgency of the occasion loosened Sam's tongue. " Bill," he said quietly, " if you've made up yer mind to do it, / ain't a-goin* to be the one to stop yer, but — you ain't got no need to take that good coat in with yer ; it 'ud do me a treat till the spring ? " Sullenly, silently the broken-hearted old man peeled the coveted coat off his back and handed it to the philosopher. He was about to turn to the water when the prudent Sam interrupted him again. "While you're about it. Bill, ole man," he said, "I could do with the ' crabs ' as well ; they're a 'eap better'n mine is." A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 261 With something akin to a sneer, old William slipped his feet out of his heavy shoes and left them at the disposal of his merciless companion. But still he lingered. His feet and his shoulders were cold now, and discomfort gave rise to a desire to live a little longer. " Sam," he said, " I feels too cold, too numbed, to do it to-night. Gimme back my coat an' shoes. To- morrer night '11 do as well as to-night, an' by then I'll brace up an' do it at one pop." Samuel gave the clothes back with an undisguised bad grace, and he barely had the patience to wait whilst their quondam owner rehabilitated himself in them. Then, as noiselessly as they had come, the two men slouched off in the direction of Camden Town. Next night, at precisely the same hour, they re- appeared and halted, as before, at the pool that lay in the shadow of St Mark's. Without word of any sort the elder man mechanically peeled off his coat and shook off his shoes, which were as mechanically appropriated by his executor, and turned to the dark water. After a few minutes' silence old Bill said : " Sam, don't it say somewheres in the Bible as eternal punishment is the portion of 'im as takes 'is own life ? " Sam shook his head in a disinterested way, as though to intimate that he neither knew or cared. A second later he said : " If ye don't look slippy you'll 'ave a slop come along. They don't give yer much notice now, with them there rubber boots on." But the old man drew back. 262 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN " I'm sure the Bible says that about the torment," he persisted feebly, taking his coat from the hands of his companion, " an', leastways, it's a step as a man oughter think more'n once or twice over afore " " Oh, marbles ! " roared Samuel disgustedly, fling- ing down the shoes and marching off. Four or five-and-twenty hours slipped by, and Samuel, having his first kip-money in three nights, was in his fourpenny doss by six in the evening. It was a common thing with men in his station of life, who could take their spell in the blankets only when the rosy state of the finances ran to it. Just as he dozed off into his beauty sleep the deputy ,^ as the manager of a common lodging-house is called, entered the long dormitory with a tallish, thick-set man, impenetrably disguised in dark blue overalls and a check tweed jacket. " Wake up there, Sam," said the tall man, prodding with his right boot at the soles of the slumberer's feet. Sam roused himself with difficulty, as well one might who hadn't lapsed into slumber for seventy-two hours, and growled : " I dunno what it is, Mr Tilley, but you don't want me — strike me dead, you don't ! " " Oh ! " said the detective, blandly, " haven't you been a good deal with old Bill Fishenden lately ? " "Oh! damn Bill Fishenden!" answered the worn- out Sam ; " 'ee makes me feel tired, he does." "Well, he won't do no more," said the nark, " for he committed suicide an hour or so ago in a branch o' the Regent's Canal in the Albert Road ! " The effect of these words on Samuel was electrical. First he sat bolt upright, then he stared at the deputy A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 263 and the " D," then he dealt a mighty blow on an in- visible pulpit cushion. " Well, well, well ! " exclaimed Samuel, " if 'ee don't deserve to go to 'ell no bloke ever did ! W'y, two nights runnin' did I go to that pitch with him, an' now he goes an' does it behind me back. If he'd ha' cut his ruddy throat I wouldn't ha' cared a rap, but, oh — well ! it's LOW ! ! ! " CHAPTER XII Some racing camp-followers — Their wit, industry, domestic pride, and love of home — Their philosophy — Kirkconnel House — An owners' syndicate — The inevitable small beginning — "Knew 'im when he sold race-cards" — The policy of silence — An unkind postcard — Ear-biters at the railway-station — " Repartee" Robbins — The repugnance of Bill Ponderby — A corking Christmas confronts William — An over-inquisitive publican — Bill's diffidence — He "comes it" at last !— Matador at the Flamingo Club— Bill Mixer's last game — " The Captain's " real hard luck ! — The Hornsey plunger's streak — Shifter rescues Master from a rapless mob — The Passing of Mrs Podberry. IN spite of the fact that every " respectable " section of the community turns up its nose at him, that the police keep an ever-watchful eye on him, that the chandlery shopkeeper round the corner, and all the other petty tradesmen — bar the publican — refuse to trust him, and that his wife and children are objects of compassion in the eyes of all the smug, self-satisfied toilers and moilers of the locality, there is no man among them all who puts in a longer working day, labours harder with his brain, temper, legs, and digestive apparatus, and, as a rule, get less for doing it, than the habitual small camp-follower of racing. Whatever his line of business once was he left it years ago — or perhaps it had first run and left him ? — and now, with a very small capital, but an active 264 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 265 brain, all that he asks in exchange for his unremitting attention and all his time, are his meals of a sort, a glass of beer whenever he feels like it, a " bit " to leave at home with the missis, and a home- cooked joint on Sunday. In a third-class carriage going to a bygone meeting at Harpenden I, willy nilly, overheard a little friendly chat once between two racing camp-followers, and herewith I put it " in the box " in corroboration of the claim I make for the average " little punter's " energy, fund of resource, ready wit, domestic pride, love of home, ambition, and enterprise. " Bill," said the first, " did ye do any good at Bath ? " " Not bloomin' likely ! " answered the other. " I ought to-er bin boiled for goin' to sich a outlandish place." " Was old George there ? " " Not much, he wasn't ! George's got the knock at racin', he has, an' him an' his son is a-workin' up in the Regency Park, by where the kids play." " Oh ! What at ? " " Why, old George's got a sherbit-can, an' young George walks about with arf-a-gross of air-balloons. They're more likely to git a bit at that than they are at racin', I give you viy word ! " " Ah ! " " Altho', mind yer, all the twenty odd years as I've knowed old George, I never knew 'im come into money, nor do no work to earn none, so if he's broke now, he's done in nothink barrin' his time." " That's so. Hev' ye seen that new 'ouse Jim Fish has took with his winnin's over Maple's 'oss — Kirk- connel 'Ouse, he calls it ? — lor, what a place ! " 266 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN " I don't think much of it." " Yer don't, Bill, eh ? Is it the style o' the buildin' yer don't like? They calls it the Queen 'Lizabeth's style " " I dunno what they call it, but it puts me in mind o' them old South-Eastern 'thirds' — what you 'aves to stand on the seat of, to look out o' the winder ! " " Which ring are ye goin' in to-day, Bill ? " " Which bloomin' ring d'ye think ? Same as the other owners, o' course ! " " Owners? What are ye gittin' at ? " "What I says. You on'y make a exhybition o' yerself, an' show thatjon don't know nothink." " I certn'y never knew as you was a owner. Bill." " Ah ! then you don't keep yer ears an' eyes open. At Alexarnder's Park, the fust meetin' this year, after that race what Gluefoot won, there was a sale, an' the last 'oss brought into the ring was one that pulled up lame after runnin' in the race — Fieldlane Duck, it was called, and, as it had run nowhere, there wasn't no biddin' for it. Well, some of us gits together, an' we says, ' Let's form a syndikit an' buy the bloomin' thing;' an' so we did, for four guineas, an' it trotted 'ome at the back of 'Arry 'Emmins's cab. Well, we fed it up a bit, an' stuck it full o' oils an' drinks — I dunno what old Jesse Winfield puts in 'em, or whether drinkin' 'em bars a 'oss for what the papers calls the ' blue ribbin ' o' the turf — but we pulls old Fieldlane Duck out again on'y ten days ago, an picks up a nice little race with 'im at Wolver- 'ampton, an' he starts at eight to one ! That's the way to make money a-racin' ! " " Ah ! an' 'ow many of yer was there in the syndikit, Bill?" A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 267 " 'Ow many?" replied Bill, putting on his thinking cap by pulling off his own. " Why, let's see — it was eyether nineteen or twenty-one — you can easy reckon up ; my share o' the hoss come to seven an' a penny ! " " Loveaduck ! " cried the other. " Bill, you're a puffick wonder ! " and so, indeed, / thought. When one comes to look them over, a very fair percentage of the winning owners (after those actually born in the purple are excluded), must have belonged to " ambition's upward brood," since any man who has been going racing pretty regularly has heard it said of nearly all the front rank professionals, " I knew that man, sir, when he was sellin' race-cards." It is an unkind insinuation, and one that frequently issues from the mouth of one who could never become a financial success himself, save by the timely death of a very wealthy relative. It ranks with the newspaper paragraph that appeared shortly after a certain per- son of humble beginnings won the Derby, in which it was said that the lucky fellow would forthwith write his reminiscences, and wound up, " It is notorious that several eminent turfites are learning to read in their old age, in order to keep pace with the times." That's the very one thing they never can do — go to school. The racing man who runs into luck improves his manners, his home circle, his style of dress, and makes an ambitious effort to take and hold a footing higher up the ladder, but he cannot go back to the slate and the copy-book, and hence he becomes " reserved," for no more sinister reason than a desire not to give himself away. The successful butterman in his new suit of doeskin and his diamonds remains a butterman always, and looks to his wife and his daughters to " shove him along in society," but the 268 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN racing-man, with his aristocratic ideals always before his eyes, emulates them in their dress, manners, and fixings, and, for the rest, he — dries up. Much time is badly spent in envying others the happiness of which they are not possessed, for it is absurd to suppose that the little man grown big can be enjoying himself when he has to pass through life maintaining the forced dignity and reserve of a grass widow at a swell christening, and many a sly stab do the old pals left behind in the race contrive to give him. I remember, many years ago, a struggler running into enough brass to purchase his first race-horse, and, with it, the implied right of entry to the weighing-room. In the early hours of his greatness somebody sent him a postcard, addressed to the care of the Clerk of the Scales at one of our biggest club fixtures, and the same being read, first by one or two, and then by hundreds, as it chucked about on the weighing-room table, set a-foot a good deal of laughter at the expense of the humble addressee. It ran — base slave that I was to take a copy of it — " Lower Kennington Lane, Friday. "Dear Harry, — Send some more money; the brokers are still in. " Jack got a month. " Mother went round to the House, but they won't give outdoor relief any longer. " Shall I pawn the machine and pay the interest on your overcoat, as it's nearly out ? " Dirty linen sent from Doncaster not in time for wash. " Ever "Mary." A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 269- But for one that goes up, fully a hundred come down, as you may see for yourself at any metro- politan railway terminus on a race day when the " special " trains are about to start or are expected to arrive home again. Take Victoria, for instance, as I saw it after a two-day meeting at Gatwick, during which not a single first favourite had got home. As one dodges through the suppliants, in an endeavour to reach the outer cab rank, many and monotonous are the lamentations he hears. "Who — who could ha' backed Hawkwood, sir?" cries the old man who forced himself and his tip (Montauk, which got beaten), upon you when he caught you at the buffet bar earlier in the day, and as he speaks he raises his palms almost to his shrugged shoulders. He had been so dead sure about it, too. " Montauk, captain — absolutely nothink else," he had said. Then there is the ex-stable lad who has lost his billet through abandoning himself to the false joys of fourpenny ale. Somehow he has contrived to pick up your name and also that of your club, and from time to time he has unloaded upon you gratuitous " information " about horses he has never seen, and trials that were only so in the sense that they exhausted your patience. Still, he seems to live at and get about on it. The middle-aged obese cadger, who once upon a time printed the race-cards, but now advertises his wife's bedriddenness for a living, is certain to be awaiting the return of the good-natured race-goer. In a "missis" who has never been off her mattress since her last boy — now a lusty Shaftesbury Avenue fob-diver — was born, he has charge of a boom which 270 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN only needs stirring up occasionally with a long pole to make it squeal. The man who won the Waterloo Cup in the year you were born in has strong and indisputable claims which, as a sportsman, you cannot refute. He has certainly broken all records by the time he has made that triumph last. On that and his wife's pawnable collaterals he has gone through four decades. He was a free pawner ! Some folk cling to their chattels* but not he ! He was off round the corner, just as one may picture Torquato Tasso, who — it is a well- remembered bit of history — put his father's sword, four sheets, two table - covers, and an embroidered lawn toga in hock for twenty-five lire, March the 2nd, 1570. But I stray. From the train, in something like a hurry to get to his rooms in Ryder Street and dress in a possible seven minutes, came one Seaton-Campbell. Being broad of shoulder and agile of leg, he dodged the ex-stable helper, steered clear of the impenitent husband of the invalid, evaded the winner of the ever-memorable Waterloo Cup, and jostled two or three of " the Boys," whose importunities were more than ordinarily pressing. But " Repartee " Robbins, the man who was never nonplussed, got him. When the good-natured gentle- man realised that he was caught, he only smiled in the worried way of the man who has done his best to play a bad hand, but been beaten by better cards. "What's the trouble this time, Robbins?" he asked. " Bad, bad — very bad, sir. Can't touch a winner anyhow. I wouldn't mind a damn for meself, sir, but A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 271 I've got my bit o' trouble at home. Me poor old mother, Mister Campbell, has passed away, sir, an' she lays there with nothin' but the table-cloth over her a-waitin' to be buried, and — may I die 'ere, sir, but I 'aven't got a sanguinary oat ! " A queer, amused look, quite incompatible with the sad circumstances, came over the patron's face. " Robbins, you rascal," said he, " the day after Addio won at Lincoln last year — and that's nearly a twelve- month to this very day — you had two sovereigns of me for the very same identical purpose. I made a note of it at the time on the back of my race-card, and now — well, how d'ye explain it ? " Robbins never winced, never even hesitated, but replied with an astonished air — " Well I never ! An' now you comes to mention it, sir, / remember it too ! Ain't it positively mar- vellous 'ow history repeats itself? " But " Repartee " Robbins, after all has been said, couldn't hold a candle to one Bill Ponderby — which is another story. If Dick Dunn has such a thing about him as a beau ideal of any sort, his chosen type of adventurous enterprise on the Turf is surely Bill Ponderby, for there never was any hanging back, nor effeminate modesty, nor lack of finish about William. In a rough-and-ready way, perhaps, and with a full fount of dashes to punctuate the enthusiastic passages, Bill Ponderby could elevate his end of a discussion on any subject, from the latest thing in liver pills, clean up to the nude in Art, or even a little bit beyond it. Win or lose, too. Bill could always keep his temper, and, whether the libation was in celebration of a great 272 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN victory or the drowning of a crushing defeat, his in- variable toast was : " Well, well, round goes the world ; here's to the first game ever played at ! " But, as wheat is chastened by the wind and the soul by short commons, so also was the spirit of Bill Ponderby at seasons when the funds were low. Without taking too pessimistic a view of the matter, I may say that Christmas is a decidedly uncomfort- able period for the lower half of the great racing com- munity, and the particular Christmas of which I write held out, long before its advent, every prospect of being a fair corker for William. The exceptionally severe weather had put the kibosh on even hurdle- racing — several " gentlemen " jockeys had starved to death in the absence of " exes " — and Bill's battery seemed to be spiked at all points. The private bar at the "Old Mother Hubbard," with its red plush seats and its cheerful asbestos stove, where the lights danced merrily in the bottles of impossible liqueurs — such as heliotrope Maraschino and puce Vermouth — on the crystal shelves, and a false but fleeting warmth was added by the ruby claret glasses standing upside down in front of the silvered glass panels in the walls, seemed to Bill to be a good place to go to think things over. So he went. Now, Bill never was a rapid drinker in the general meaning of the term. He'd drain off his tankard of bitter at one pop, it is true, but it had generally been standing on the counter for at least ten minutes^ during which time Bill had warmed his hands, skimmed through the Sporting Life, and read any steamboat or coaching bills that hung upon the walls. He was indulging in this kind of mental exercise A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 273 when the landlord came in to count the silver change in the automatic till. "Morning, William; cold s'morning?" remarked the victualler patronisingly. "It is a bit parky," assented William ; nothing more. The sleek, unsuspecting publican, feeling at peace with all men after his hearty breakfast, gazed casually at the stolid Ponderby once or twice as he went on making up little piles of chink and setting them out on the shelves of the cash-register ; but William was deep in a perusal of the play-bills. Injudiciously the landlord renewed the conversation. " Yes," said he, looking first at the sky beyond the plate glass and then at the thermometer, " if this weather lasts it'll be very rough on the poor." " So I s'pose," growled William, as though the suggestion about the weather depressed him. " You're not in your accustomed spirits, Bill," ven- tured mine host, " not yourself at all ! " " No," said Bill, " I'm not. Fact is, I've got to do a thing to-day that's altogether repugnant to me, and yet I can't put it off." " Won't keep any longer, eh ? " " No," assented Bill, " not another night. An' yet, I give you my word as a man, I'd rather have one o' me hands cut off than do it, may I die, but I would ! " " Come, come, that would be rather a serious thing for you. Bill ; you don't mean that, surely? " " Don't I ? Strike me paralytic, but \ do ! I don't know when I felt so diffident about doing a thing as I do about this. I've tried and tried, and thought and thought again, to try and see a road out of it S 274 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN But, no ; there it stands ! I must pull myself together and do it, however much it pains me." " Is it a family matter, Bill?" hazarded the curious bung. " Well, it is and it isn't," answered William, and once more he dropped into the newspaper — upside down — as though he'd willingly avoid further mention of the subject. Bill was a keen student of human nature ! " Nothing wrong with the book ? " suggested the host, alluding to William's vocation on the race- course. " No, the book's all right." " H'm, well what is it — anything that / can advise you about " It was enough. Taking the licensed victualler by one arm and the silk lappel of his bar-jacket, so that escape was impossible, William delivered himself briefly, and with terrible earnestness, as follows : " By God ! Mr H,," he said, rolling his eyes and gritting his teeth, " it's you that I'm so exercised in me mind about, for, may I never go out o' this house alive, I've got — yes, got to, Mr H, — got to ' bite your ear ' for a tenner to get over Christmas with ! " It was a fearful shock to the landlord, but Bill's desperation settled it, and he went and fetched his cheque-book like a lamb. Christmas and the short, dark days are positive purgatory to the racing camp-follower ; his only chance at such a season is to squeeze himself into some snide sporting club, where gambling is going on night and day. I was coming along Shaftesbury Avenue one night A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 275 when the wind and the sleet were contending for the mastery, and the Hebrew clothiers, amongst whom there arc still some tender-hearted (and footed) folk, were even taking their tailors' dummies in out of the cold, when a youth of seven or eight, innocent of coat, hat, boots, or socks, trudged along in front of me, yelling — " Fift' Star, all 'er winners at Kempton, an' sudden deff of a toff in a sportin' club, paper ! " I bought a paper, and found in it a paragraph stating that a " gentleman well known in Turf circles," had expired suddenly in the Flamingo Club, which was an establishment that had long been an eyesore to the police of the C Division. As more than one raid had been made on it just about that time, the management had lately done away with all games, save that called " Matador," a rather over-rated pas- time of dominoes, which the needy sportsmen played for hours together, and in many cases for a living. Being an honorary member of the club — (though they begged me to accept a receipt for subscription, in case of any trouble with the authorities) — I went straight off to see which of the very doubtful " toffs " had landed the management with the disagreeable responsibility of a crowner's 'quest. It turned out to be a poor devil called Bill Mixer, a man who had " had it at one time, but left it down in the ring." Bill had, early that afternoon, taken his seat opposite a certain " Captain " Rogers — each possessing less than a sovereign — to settle by the ordeal of the oblong bones which should go away with the lot. They were to play the best of three games ; and the first honours, after a terrific struggle in which his man tried to corner him for sixes, fell to the " Captain." 276 A PINK 'UN AND A i^ELICAN The second game was an even tighter one than the first, for Bill Mixer avowedly couldn't play when " in the pit," and the exodus of four-fifths of the onlookers at the end of the first game, in obedience to the summons of a frowsy waiter, who had announced that " lunch " was served — a boiled beef and dumpling go-as-you-please, at fourteen pence — relieved him of his nervousness. It was " the Captain " who just failed to stay home this time. He got hung up with the six-five, and had to draw. Mixer won the rubber, and celebrated his victory in a small lemon-squash. " The Captain " threw away the butt of his cigarette before he entered upon the final shuffle, and Mixer, who was more serious than ever, removed his collar and necktie, and hung them over the whip arm of the terra-cotta statuette of Frederick James Archer, that adorned the mantelpiece. Two or three of the members, noting these unusual preparations, finished lunching abruptly, and returned to watch the match, and one very enquiring Yiddisher youth stood munching a shoot of celery, just abaft of the " Captain's " starboard ear. It was Rogers' put down, and Mixer followed without hesitating. He seemed to hold a clear run, if nothing very untoward turned up to stop him. At last he had to draw a domino. Only for an instant did he gaze at the (let us hope) inexpressive backs of the surplus bones ; then he drew one. // was a matador! To bluff his opponent, who he thought would surely be forced to draw presently, he drew a second bone. It was nnother matador ! As the poor wretch's eyes fell upon the unexpected prize, he suddenly dropped the dominoes he had A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 277 been holding in the palm of his left hand, and, clutching that hand to his side, fell out of his chair. The celery-muncher picked him up, whilst the others gazed on dubiously ; but the " Captain " never stirred. One had to play " strict cricket " when the money was down ; Mixer was probably bluffing. The son of Israel, however, thought otherwise, for he dropped the fallen man without ceremony when the awful truth dawned upon him. Besides, it was a dire calamity for a Cohen to handle the dead. "He 2s out," gasped the Jew, "may / die if he ain't ! " Then they gathered round and stared at the body of Mixer, but nobody ventured to touch it. Shock and a weak heart had settled him ; and he had entered the unknown hence with his mouth wide open, and the five-two matador palmed in his right fist. "Just my blasted luck!" roared the Captain dis- gustedly, as he rose from his chair. " First Bard of Avon gets second — then Best Man's beat — and now i/ii'sf Tke only bone I'd got was the double-blank^ and I'd fairly got him set when he goes an' croaks! Bah ! " But, per contra, your seedy sportsman knows how to fully appreciate a streak of good luck when it comes his way. In just thirteen words, the evergreen Walter Laburnum preached an eloquent sermon from that text, as I passed him on the Kempton platform at Waterloo one day. " Did you hear of the wonderful luck of my old pal Teddy (something), the Hornsey plunger, Mr B. ? " he asked. 278 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN "No," said I ; "what was it?" "Oh, marvellous, marvellous — sort o' thing only occurs to a man once in a lifetime ! Married a publican's widow last week, and — her first husbands clothes fit him ! " Fleet Street can possibly " give a bit of weight " to most places as a " run " for the utterly magless, rap- less, and pebble-beached, from whom no man suffers more than John Corlett, for the old 'un is too good- hearted to say no to those whom he first met there. One Friday morning he and Shifter were in the crowded bar of the old " Cheese," when Master saw one of his most pestilent pensioners trying to get through the crowd at him. " Get me out of this bar, Shif," he whispered in an agonised voice, " and I'll give you a quid." " Two," quoth the inexorable Conkster, as the pest struggled nearer, " and down on this counter." Down they came, too, and were pouched, and in less than five seconds Shifter, in some mysterious way, had squeezed the revered chief of the Pink '[/n into the street, a relieved, if perspiring and panting man. " The other one would have certainly tapped me for five," explains Master when he tells the story ; " but I thought it pretty thick of my little devil when he said, gazing at the quids : * There's something to be earned in the higher walks of journalism, after all!'" One of the merriest of the impecunious many that hang on to the coat-tails of racing was an old fellow who told me, over a tumbler of Hurst Park " Scotch,' of an adventure of his, which I will take the liberty oi A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 279 re-telling in my own words, and calling : "The Passing of Mrs Podberry." It was early evening in Little Hollingworth Street, off Pentonville Hill, and the orange-hued sun was setting in a blaze of glory behind the dark outline of the Midland Railway Company's London terminus, when an old man, who was a stranger to the scores of healthy but seemingly unclassified children who absolutely littered the roadway and the pavements, turned into the thoroughfare from the Islington end, and proceeded to the doorstep of the house bearing the number " 11." He was hardly what one would have called a scrupulously clean old man, and was still brushing a few fragments of Virginia from the pasteboard which he drew from his overcoat pocket when the blistered-grained door opened, and dis- covered a weather-beaten, burly man of, say, fifty, or something over. The visitor's first act was to step nimbly into the passage, his second to present his card, and his third to momentarily exhibit the small blue foolscap bond which toilers who are financed by some advertising " private gentleman, with superfluous cash at his dis- posal," know so well. " The total's fourteen, fifteen, six, without the levy, Mr Podberry," he said, adding, as though he did not for an instant expect that amount to be forthcoming, " but I s'pose I'm to stop ? " Podberry looked at the old man for a moment, gave a sigh and a great gulp, and buried his face in his hands. Only two short months before he had given this bill-of-sale in exchange for some ten bright golden pieces of the usurer, and now the two little handfuls of 28o A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN chattels which constituted his home and his household were to be swept away. He had borrowed the money blindly, shutting his eyes to the ruinous rate of interest, feeling positive — absolutely positive — of his being in funds when the sum fell due. He had battled in the hope of winning against great odds — to be precise, 300 to 9 — he had mortgaged his home on the strength of the information of the man who had since married the girl who had gone astray with the turned-off stable lad who swore that he'd had it straight from Lam- bourne that if Sir Benjamin didn't win the Lincoln- shire, Hobbs had pledged himself to eat the horse, " 'oofs and all." Bill Podberry stood before the old bailiff and sobbed aloud, his broad chest rising and falling beneath the soiled linen dickey which, under such violent grief, threatened to burst the guy-ropes which fastened it round the strong man's body. The old possession-man was visibly affected. " I 'ates to see a man cry," he said, apologetically ; " as for me, I'm on'y doin' me duty." " That's true, old friend, that's true," sobbed Pod- berry, " and had you on'y come two — three — hours later I could have borne it all ; but me wife, me poor, dear wife " Here he utterly broke down, and, turning away so as to obtain some support from a japanned deal hat-stand, he let his grief own him for some seconds. " She's sleepin' now — calmly, peacefully — but they say she cannot stay the night through. Oh ! if some merciful circumstance had only delayed your comin' till she had passed away — a-way ! " and the poor fellow's face again sought refuge in his dingy palms. Even a bailiff has a heart, if you only know how to A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN 281 prospect for it ; and some moisture stood in the old man's eyes. For a brief moment pity strove with hard duty. " Gimme sixpence to get a bed at a corfy shop," he blurted, in a rough but generous impulse, " an' I'll come back fust thing in the mornin'." " Bless you, old friend, bless you ! " cried Podberry, raking in his waistcoat pocket for the coin. " I will never, never forget you for this. Knock softly in the morning — you know, yOu know ? " Podberry grasped the old man's hand gratefully — affectionately — and as the seven o'clock steam whistle at the King's Cross Wheelworks died away in the distance, the humane old bailiff did the same. Soon after nine on the following morning the old man came back to Little Hollingworth Street. He coughed nervously and generally pulled him- self together as he drew near number eleven, and knocked at the door as softly as though it had been the portal of the very death chamber itself "Is, it — all over?" he asked, in subdued tones; and Podberry, who answered the door in his hat and overcoat, answered just as quietly — " All over." The old man doffed his shabby beaver respectfully and said, half to the widower and half to himself — " And — she's — gone ? " " Gone ! " echoed Podberry. " How did she pass away, sir — peacefully ? " asked the veteran, with quite a professional mourner's solicitude. " Even cheerfully," replied Podberry. " As the greengrocer's van, loaded up to the tilt, disappeared 282 A PINK 'UN AND A PELICAN round the corner she smiled to me and would have kissed her hand, but — but ye see she was only sittin' on the coal-box on the tailboard, and she had the paraffin lamp and the canary's cage in her left arm, and needed her right to hold on by, but she's gone, sonny — she's gone ! " And playfully bonneting the old man with his own beaver, and rolling him over in the deserted and dusty passage, Mr Podberry stepped outside, slammed the door behind him, and passed away also. FINIS CHARTAEQUE VIAEQUE. PSXNTED AT THE EDINBURGH fKESS, 9 AND H YOUNG STKEETw ^^««^&«ter Family Ubraiy cf Veterinary HftteAste ^ ,___ g^ol of Veterinary Medsr*^ > a: Tufts University 200 Westboro Road IterthGiafton. MA 01536