'Never you mind what I want it for. I do want it, and that's enough for you. You trouble yourself with your own affairs, and don't poke your nose into mine, my girl; you'll find it safest.'
'I'll try to get it for you, Tommy.'
Mr. Davis was scornful.
'Oh, you will, will you! How are you going to set about getting 'arf a sovereign? Perhaps you'll be so good as to let me know. Because if you can lay hands on 'arf a sovereign whenever one's wanted, it's a trick worth knowing. You're such a clever one at getting 'old of the pieces, you are, and always have been.'
The man's irony seemed to cause the woman to wince. She drew a little farther back towards her corner.
'I don't rightly know how I shall get hold of it, not just now, I don't; but I daresay I shall manage somehow.'
'Oh, you do, do you? Shall I tell you how you'll manage? You listen to me. You'll go to them there slave-drivers with them two coats, and they'll keep you waiting for two mortal hours or more. Then they'll dock sixpence for fines--you're always getting fined; you 'ardly ever take anything in without you're fined; you're a slovenly workwoman, that's what you are, my lass, and that's the truth!--you'll come away with three bob, and spend 'arf a crown on rent, or some such silly nonsense; and then when it comes to me, you'll start snivelling, and act the crybaby, and I shall have to treat you to a kicking, and find myself further off my 'arf sovereign than ever I was. I don't want no more of your nonsense. Give me them two coats!'
'You'll pawn 'em if I do.'
'Of course I'll pawn 'em. What do you suppose I'm going to do with them--eat 'em, or give them to the Queen?'
'You'll get me into trouble again! They're due in to-day. You know what happened last time. If they lock me up again, I'll be sent away.'
'Then be sent away, and be 'anged to you for a nasty, mean, snivelling cat! Why don't you earn enough to keep your 'usband like a gentleman? If you don't, it's your fault, isn't it? Give me them two coats!'
'No, Tommy, I won't!'
He went closer to her.
'For the last time; will you give me them two coats?'
'No!'
She hugged the parcel closer, and she closed her eyes, so that she should not see him strike her. He hit her once, twice, thrice, choosing his mark with care and discretion. Under the first two blows she reeled; the last sent her in a heap to the floor. When she was down he kicked her in a business-like, methodical fashion, then picked up the parcel which had fallen from her grasp.
'You've brought it on yourself, as you very well know. It's the kind of thing I don't care to have to do. I'm not like some, what's always spoiling to knock their wives about; but when I do have to do it, there's no one does it more thorough, I will say that.'
He left her lying in a heap on the boards. On his way to the pawnbroker's he encountered a friend, Joe Cooke. Mr. Cooke stopped and hailed him.
'What yer, Tommy! Are you coming along with us to-night on that there little razzle?'
'Of course I am. Didn't I say I was? And when I say I'm coming, don't I always come?'
'All right, old coxybird! Keep your 'air on! No one said you didn't. Got the rhino?'
'I have. Leastways, I soon shall have, when I've turned this little lot into coin of the realm.'
He pointed to the bundle which he bore beneath his arm. Mr. Cooke grinned.
'What yer got there?'
'I've got a couple of coats what my wife's been wearing out her eyes on for a set of slave-driving sweaters. Three-and-six they was to pay her for them. I rather reckon that I'll get more than three-and-six for them, unless I'm wrong. And when I have melted 'em, Joe, I don't mind if I do you a wet.'
Joe did not mind, either. The two fell in side by side. Mr. Cooke drew his hand across his mouth.
'Ever since my old woman died I've felt I ought to have another--a good one, mind you. There's nothing like having someone to whom you can turn for a bob or so.'
'It's more than a bob or so I get out of my old woman, you may take my word. If she don't keep me like a gentleman, she hears of it.'
Mr. Cooke regarded his friend with genuine admiration.
'Ah! but we're not all so fly as you, Tommy, nor yet so lucky.'
'Perhaps not--not, mind you, that that's owing to any fault of yours. It's as we're made.'
Mr. Davis, with the bundle under his arm, bore himself with an air of modest pride, as one who appreciated his natural advantages.
They reached the pawnbroker's. The entrance to the pledge department was in a little alley leading off the main street. As Mr. Davis stood at the mouth of this alley to say a parting word to his friend as a prelude to the important business of the pledging, someone touched him on the arm.
A voice accosted him.
'What is it that you would do?'
Mr. Davis spun round like a teetotum. He stared at the Stranger.
'Hollo, matey! Who are you?'
'I am He that you know not of.'
Mr. Davis drew a little back, as if a trifle disconcerted. His voice was huskier than even it was wont to be.
'What's the little game?'
'I bid you tell me what is this thing that you would do?'
Mr. Davis seemed to find in the words, which were quietly uttered, a compelling influence which made him curiously frank.
'I am going to pawn these here two coats which my wife's been making.'
'Is it well?'
Mr. Davis slunk farther from the Stranger. 'What's it got to do with you?'
'Is it well?'
There was a sorrowful intonation in the repetition of the inquiry, blended with a singularly penetrant sternness. Mr. Davis cowered as if he had been struck a blow. He turned to his friend.
'Say, Joe, who is this bloke?'
The Stranger spoke to Mr. Cooke.
'Look on Me, and you shall know.'
Mr. Cooke looked--and knew. He began to tremble as if he would have fallen to the ground. Mr. Davis, noting his friend's condition, became uneasy.
'Say, Joe, what's the matter with you? What's he done to you, Joe?'
Mr. Cooke was silent. The Stranger answered:
'Would that that which has been done to him could be done to you, and to all this city! But you are of those that cannot know, for in them is no knowledge. Yet return to your wife, and make your peace with her, lest worse befall.'
Mr. Davis began to slink out of the alley, with furtive air and face carefully averted from the Stranger. As he reached the pavement, a big man, with a scarlet handkerchief twisted round his neck, caught him by the shoulder. The big man's speech was flavoured with adjectives.
'Why, Tommy! what's up with you? You look as if you was just a-going to see Jack Ketch.'
Then came the flood of adjectives to give the sentence balance. Mr. Davis tried to wriggle from his questioner's too strenuous grip.
'Let me go, Pug--let me go!'
'What for? What's wrong? Who's been doing something to yer?'
Mr. Davis made a movement of his head towards the Stranger. He spoke in a husky whisper.
'That bloke--over there.'
The big man dragged the unwilling Mr. Davis forward.
'What's my friend been doing to you, and what have you been doing