A Son of the State

THE round white September moon lighted up Pitfield Street from end to end, making the gas lights in the shop windows look abashed and unnecessary; out in the Old Street triangle, men on the wooden seats who had good eyesight read halfpenny evening papers as though it were day, able without trouble to make record in knowing-looking pocket-books of the running of Ormonde. At the Hoxton Theatre of Varieties, the early crowd streamed out into Pitfield Street flushed with two hours of joy for twopence, and the late crowd which had been waiting patiently for some time at the doors, flowed in. When these two crowds had disappeared, the Old Street end of Pitfield Street belonged once more to the men and women who were shopping, and at the obtrusive fruiterer’s (with a shop that bulged almost to the kerb and a wife whose size was really beyond all reason), even there one could just pass without stepping into the road. Further up the street, outside a public-house, was, however, another crowd blocking the pathway, and this crowd overflowed into the dim passage by the side of the public-house, where it looked up at a lighted room on the first floor with an interest ungenerously repaid by the back view of a few heads. A grown-up crowd, mainly of middle-aged women. Children had given up efforts to belong to it, and down the passage, which was as the neck of a bottle leading into a court quite six feet wide, youngsters shouted and sang and quarrelled and played at games. From the direction of the other end came a short acute-faced boy with a peakless cap, a worn red scarf tied very tightly around his neck. He had both hands in the pockets of a jacket which was too large for him; he smoked the fag-end of a cigar with the frowning air of a connoisseur who is not altogether well pleased with the brand. He stopped, signalled with a jerk of his head to a slip of a girl who was disputing for the possession of an empty lobster can, with the vigour that could not have been exceeded if the lobster can had been a jewel case of priceless value; she retired at once from the struggle, and, pulling at her stocking, ran towards him.

“Where’s all the chaps?” he asked, removing the cigar stump from his lips.

“Where’ve you bin, Bobbie Lancaster?” she asked, without replying to his question.

“You ’eard what I asted you, Trix,” he said, steadily. “I asted you where all the chaps was.”

“Some of ’em have gone over ’Ackney way,” said the slip of a girl. “Where’ve you bin?”

He flicked the black ash from the fag end in the manner of one five times his age.

“’Opping!” he said.

“You’re a liar!” retorted the small girl, sharply.

“Ho!” said the boy. “Shows what you know about it.”

“No, but,” she said, admiringly, “’ave you though, straight?”

“I’ve bin at Yaldin’,” he said, with immeasurable importance,—“at Yaldin’ down in Kent for ite days. Me and another chap.”

“Bin ’ome?” asked the girl, with interest.

“Not yet,” he said. “When I do I shall ’ave to take a drop of something in for the old gel. I went off wifout letting her know and I expect she’s been wonderin’ what’s become of me.”

“Then if you ain’t bin ’ome,” said the little girl, breathlessly, “p’raps you don’t—”

A strong voice called from a doorway.

“Trixie Bell! Trixie Bell! You come in this minute and look after the shop, you good-for-nothing little terror.”

“I must be off,” said the small girl, going hurriedly. “Wait ’ere till I come out again and I’ll tell you somefing.”

“I don’t waste my time loafin’ about for gels,” said Master Lancaster, as the girl disappeared in a doorway. “Ketch me!”

He sauntered down the court towards Pitfield Street and, noting the crowd, slightly increased his pace. Taking a shilling from his coat pocket he tied it in a blue handkerchief and stuffed the handkerchief inside his waistcoat, being aware apparently that it is in a London crowd that property sometimes changes hands in the most astonishing manner.

“Very well then,” said a fiery faced woman, who, getting the worst of an argument, was looking around for another subject, “if you did ’ave an uncle who was drowned, that’s no reason why you should step on this little kid’s toes.”

“Born clumsy!” agreed Master Lancaster, resentfully rubbing his boot.

“Stand a bit aside, can’t you, and let the youngster pass. ’Aving a uncle who was in the navy don’t entitle you to take up all the room.

“Likely as not the little beggar’s a witness and wants to go upstairs.” The fiery faced woman looked down at the boy. “Are you a witness, dear?”

“Course I’m a witness,” he said, readily.

“What did I tell you?” exclaimed the beefy faced woman with triumph. “Constable, ’ere ’s a witness that ’s got to be got upstairs. Make way for him, else he’ll get hisself in a row for being late.”

Whereupon, to his great amazement and satisfaction, Master Bobbie Lancaster found himself passed along through the thick crowd of matrons to the swing doors of the public-house; the importance of his mission being added to by every lady, so that when at last he reached the two policemen guarding the stairs he was introduced to them as a boy who saw the accident; could identify the driver, could, in short, clear up everything. Bobbie, accordingly, after being cuffed by the two policemen (more from force of habit than any desire to treat him harshly), was shot up the staircase past a window where, glancing aside, he saw the bunches of excited interested faces below; past a landing, and, the door being left momentarily unattended, he slipped into the room. He gave up instantly his newly gained character and crouched modestly in a corner behind the thirty members of the general public and kept his head well down.

“Now, now, now! Do let ’s proceed in order. Is there any other witness who can throw any light on the affair? What?”

The club room of the public-house, with cider and whiskey advertisements on its brown papered walls, was long and narrow, and the stout genial man seated at the end of the table had command of the room from his position. He gave his orders to a bare-headed sergeant who hunted for witnesses and submitted the results at the other end of the long table; he smiled when he turned to the twelve moody gentlemen at the side of the table; to one, at the extreme end, who had a carpenter’s rule in his breast pocket he was especially courteous. The carpenter made laborious notes with a flat lead pencil on a slip of blue paper, a proceeding at which the other members of the jury grunted disdainfully. Bobbie Lancaster, between the arms of two men in front of him, caught sight momentarily of the woman whom the sergeant had caught and who was now kissing the Testament. He recognised her as a neighbour.

“What does she say her name is, sergeant?”

“Mary Jane Rastin, sir.”

“Mary Jane Rastin.” The coroner wrote the name. “Very good! Now, Mrs. Rastin—”

“’Alf a minute,” interrupted the carpenter. “Let me get this down right. W—r—a—”

“W be blowed,” said the blowsy woman at the end of the table indignantly. “Don’t you know how to spell a simple name like Rastin? Very clear you was before the days of the School Board.”

“I have it down,” said the coroner, suavely, “R—a—s—t—i—n.”

“Ah,” said Mrs. Rastin, in complimentary tones, “you’re a gentleman, sir. You’ve had an education. You ain’t been dragged up like—”

“Be careful what you’re saying of,” begged the carpenter, fiercely. “Don’t you go aspersing my character, if you please. I’m setting ’ere now to represent the for and—”

“Now, now, my dear sir,” said the coroner, “don’t quarrel with the witness.” He smiled cheerfully at the other members of the jury and almost winked. “That’s my prerogative, you know.” He turned to the trembling lady at the end of the table. “Now, Mrs. Rastin, you live in Pimlico Walk, and you are, I believe, a widow?” Mrs. Rastin bowed severely, and then looked at the carpenter as who should say, What do you make of that, my fine fellow? The coroner went on. “And you knew the deceased?”

“Intimate, sir!”

“Was she a woman with—er, inebriate tendencies?”

“Pardon, sir?”