Mr. Cripps shook his head sagaciously, and could plainly see that I was cut out for a statesman. He also lifted his empty glass, looked at it abstractedly, and put it down again. Nothing coming of this, he complimented my personal appearance once more, and thought that my portrait should certainly be painted, as a memorial in my future days of greatness.
This notion seemed to strike my grandfather rather favourably, and he forthwith consulted a slate which dangled by a string; during his contemplation of which, with its long rows of strokes, Mr. Cripps betrayed a certain anxious discomfort. "Well," said Grandfather Nat at length, "you are pretty deep in, you know, an' it might as well be that as anything else. But what about that sign? Ain't I ever goin' to get that?"
Mr. Cripps knitted his brows and his nose, turned up his eyes and shook his head. "It ain't come to me yet, Cap'en Kemp," he said; "not yet. I'm still waiting for what you might call an inspiration. But when it comes, Cap'en Kemp – when it comes! Ah! you'll 'ave a sign then! Sich a sign! You'll 'ave sich a sign as'll attract the 'ole artistic feelin' of Wapping an' surroundin' districks of the metropolis, I assure you. An' the signs on the other 'ouses – phoo!" Mr. Cripps made a sweep of the hand, which I took to indicate generally that all other publicans, overwhelmed with humiliation, would have no choice but straightway to tear down their own signs and bury them.
"Umph! but meanwhile I haven't got one at all," objected Grandfather Nat; "an' they have."
"Ah, yes, sir – some sort o' signs. But done by mere jobbers, and poor enough too. My hart, Cap'en Kemp – I respect my hart, an' I don't rush at a job like that. It wants conception, sir, a job like that – conception. The common sort o' sign's easy enough. You go at it, an' you do it or hexicute it, an' when it's done or hexicuted – why there it is. A ship, maybe, or a crown, or a Turk's 'ed or three cats an' a fryin' pan. Simple enough – no plannin', no composition, no invention. But a 'ole in a wall, Cap'en Kemp – it takes a hartist to make a picter o' that; an' it takes study, an' meditation, an' invention!"
"Simplest thing o' the lot," said Captain Nat. "A wall, an' a hole in it. Simplest thing o' the lot!"
"As you observe, Cap'en Kemp, it may seem simple enough; that's because you're thinkin' o' subjick, instead o' treatment. A common jobber, if you'll excuse my sayin' it, 'ud look at it just in that light – a wall with a 'ole in it, an' 'e'd give it you, an' p'rhaps you'd be satisfied with it. But I soar 'igher, sir, 'igher. What I shall give you'll be a 'ole in the wall to charm the heye and delight the intelleck, sir. A dramatic 'ole in the wall, sir, a hepic 'ole in the wall; a 'ole in the wall as will elevate the mind and stimilate the noblest instinks of the be'older. Cap'en Kemp, I don't 'esitate to say that my 'ole in the wall, when you get it, will be – ah! it'll be the moral palladium of Wapping!"
"When I get it," my grandfather replied with a chuckle, "anything might happen without surprisin' me. I think p'rhaps I might be so startled as to forget the bit you've had on account, an' pay full cash."
Mr. Cripps's eyes brightened at the hint. "You're always very 'andsome in matters o' business, Cap'en Kemp," he said, "an' I always say so. Which reminds me, speakin' of 'andsome things. This morning goin' to see my friend as keeps the mortuary, I see as 'andsome a bit o' panel for to paint a sign as ever I come across. A lovely bit o' stuff to be sure – enough to stimulate anybody's artistic invention to look at it, that it was. Not dear neither – particular moderate in fact. I'm afraid it may be gone now; but if I'd 'a 'ad the money – "
A noise of trampling and singing without neared the door, and with a bang and a stagger a party of fresh customers burst in and swept Mr. Cripps out of his exposition. Two were sun-browned sailors, shouting and jovial, but the rest, men and women, sober and villainous in their mock jollity, were land-sharks plain to see. The foremost sailor drove against Mr. Cripps, and having almost knocked him down, took him by the shoulders and involved him in his flounderings; apologising, meanwhile, at the top of his voice, and demanding to know what Mr. Cripps would drink. Whereupon Grandfather Nat sent me back to the bar-parlour and the little ship, and addressed himself to business and the order of the bar.
And so he was occupied for the most of the evening. Sometimes he sat with me and taught me the spars and rigging of the model, sometimes I peeped through the glass at the business of the house. The bar remained pretty full throughout the evening, in its main part, and my grandfather ruled its frequenters with a strong voice and an iron hand.
But there was one little space partitioned off, as it might be for the better company: which space was nearly always empty. Into this quieter compartment I saw a man come, rather late in the evening, furtive and a little flustered. He was an ugly ruffian with a broken nose; and he was noticeable as being the one man I had seen in my grandfather's house who had no marks of seafaring or riverside life about him, but seemed merely an ordinary London blackguard from some unmaritime neighbourhood. He beckoned silently to Grandfather Nat, who walked across and conferred with him. Presently my grandfather left the counter and came into the bar-parlour. He had something in his closed hand, which he carried to the lamp to examine, so that I could see it was a silver watch; while the furtive man waited expectantly in the little compartment. The watch interested me, for the inward part swung clean out from the case, and hung by a single hinge, in a way I had never seen before. I noticed, also, that a large capital letter M was engraved on the back.
Grandfather Nat shut the watch and strode into the bar.
"Here you are," he said aloud, handing it to the broken-nosed man. "Here you are. It seems all right – good enough watch, I should say."
The man was plainly disconcerted – frightened, indeed – by this public observation; and answered with an eager whisper.
"What?" my grandfather replied, louder than ever; "want me to buy it? Not me. This ain't a pawnshop. I don't want a watch; an' if I did, how do I know where you got it?"
Much discomposed by this rebuff, the fellow hurried off. Whereupon I was surprised to see the pale man rise from the corner of the bar, put his drink, still untasted, in a safe place on the counter, beyond the edge of the partition, and hurry out also. Cogitating this matter in my grandfather's arm-chair, presently I fell asleep.
What woke me at length was the loud voice of Grandfather Nat, and I found that it was late, and he was clearing the bar before shutting up. I rubbed my eyes and looked out, and was interested to see that the pale man had come back, and was now swallowing his drink at last before going out after the rest. Whereat I turned again, drowsily enough, to the model ship.
But a little later, when Grandfather Nat and I were at supper in the bar-parlour, and I was dropping to sleep again, I was amazed to see my grandfather pull the broken-nosed man's watch out of his pocket and put it in a tin cash-box. At that I rubbed my eyes, and opened them so wide on the cash-box, that Grandfather Nat said, "Hullo, Stevy! Woke up with a jump? Time you was in bed."
CHAPTER V
IN THE HIGHWAY
The Hole in the Wall being closed, its customers went their several ways; the sailors, shouting and singing, drifting off with their retinue along Wapping Wall toward Ratcliff; Mr. Cripps, fuller than usual of free drinks – for the sailors had come a long voyage and were proportionally liberal – scuffling off, steadily enough, on the way that led to Limehouse; for Mr. Cripps had drunk too much and too long ever to be noticeably drunk. And last of all, when the most undecided of the stragglers from Captain Nat Kemp's bar had vanished one way or another, the pale, quiet man moved out from the shadow and went in the wake of the noisy sailors.
The night was dark, and the streets. The lamps were few and feeble, and angles, alleys and entries were shapes of blackness that seemed more solid than the walls about them. But instead of the silence that consorts with gloom, the air was racked with human sounds; sounds of quarrels, scuffles, and brawls, far and near, breaking out fitfully amid the general buzz and whoop of discordant singing that came from all Wapping and Ratcliff