Читать книгу The Exploits of Captain O'Hagan - Arthur Henry Ward - Страница 6

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A very wilderness is Bernard O’Hagan, which no man could hope thoroughly to explore; a most picturesque figure in the satin-lined cloak which he loves to wear in defiance of fashion and indeed of civilised custom, singularly resembling the Merry Monarch whom a lady of his race once entertained right regally at the ancestral home of the O’Hagans. The unexpectedness of the man is one of the most marked features of his character—the one that makes his society at once delightful and alarming.

“My boy,” he will burst out, as we sit in a crowded café, “that gentleman yonder is unduly interested in my appearance.” And, stepping over to the offensive one: “Sir, you are staring at me. I suspect you of being a bum-bailiff!”

“What!” says the other, in all probability—whilst, my friend and I the observed of many observers, I tremble for the outcome of the affair—“how dare you! Damn it! how dare you!”

“Because,” replies O’Hagan, with a sort of calm ferocity, “I desire to pull your nose, and only await a fitting opportunity! You are a puppy, sir! There is my card!”

The man leaps in anger to his feet. Others arise, too, and waiters approach.

“You will regret this outrage!” says the man, pale or inflamed. “You will hear from my solicitor!”

Then O’Hagan throws back his picturesque head and laughs.

“The solicitor again!” he cries, snapping his fingers. “Always the solicitor—or the police! Is there no man alive to-day who can fight his own battles?”

He quietly returns to his table. The other speaks to the manager, and, if he be a good customer, the manager comes across to O’Hagan. O’Hagan rises slowly, fixing his eyes upon him. And, somehow, O’Hagan is never ejected. A devil of a fellow.

To the charge that he is a polished kind of bully he will reply calmly, arguing that he is merely of a sensitive and aristocratic temperament and suffers affront where one more callous would be conscious of none. He will submit to rudeness from no man, be he premier or potman; yet he is never vulgarly embroiled.

O’Hagan rarely wears a hat during the day. There is a simple explanation. At one time in his chequered career, the only presentable hat he possessed was a crush-hat. It was then that he cultivated the hatless fashion. This habit of going hatless directly led to his meeting with Pamela.

Captain O’Hagan was walking along a crowded, shop-lined thoroughfare, with that swinging stride which he will tell you runs in the family, and which enabled his ancestor Patrick to secure enrolment in the ranks of the Musketeers of Louis XIII. Before the door of a newsagent’s establishment—quite an unpretentious little shop—two men stood. One of them, elderly, waved a tweed cap—to a girl more than ordinarily pretty who was making her way up the steps to the roof of a moving motor bus. The girl carried a neat brown leather case, and, having gained a seat, turned and waved her handkerchief. The younger man smiled sourly, but did not join the elder in his waving.

O’Hagan, delighted with the girl’s animation and beauty, halted by the two, smiling at the retreating figure. Quite mechanically he raised the hard felt hat from the head of the younger and less enthusiastic man, and waved it with a vigour even more marked than that of the elder waver.

He was recalled to the scene from which the girl now had disappeared amid the motley traffic, by a violent punch in the ribs.

“Blighter!” said a coarse voice. “My ’at!”

Another than Captain O’Hagan had turned quickly, with arm raised to ward off another possible blow. But with O’Hagan the cult of the unusual is a creed to which he sacrifices daily. Some difficulty he experienced in suppressing a gasp, but he turned unhastily, calmly, and looked into the bright little eyes of the hat’s owner. These were set upon him wickedly, and a truculent, blue-shaded jaw was thrust forward in menace.

“You’ve properly asked for it,” continued the man, tensely, “and you’re goin’ to get it!”

“Jem!” protested the older man, fearfully. “Not here——”

Straight from the shoulder a piston stroke was launched at O’Hagan. It was a blow with brawn to drive it, with science to direct it. It was aimed—and well—in accordance with ring traditions of the “knock-out.” But one who takes unwarrantable liberties with unknowns’ hats must be prepared for reprisals.

O’Hagan is fond of showing his friends the tricks learned of Shashu Myuku of Nagasaki; he is equally prompt to demonstrate them to others. Without employing his right hand, which was engaged in holding the felt hat, he struck down the impending blow (any but a pupil of Myuku must have endeavoured to strike it up), thrust his left foot rapidly against his opponent’s advanced right shin, and, by a simple process of natural law the pugilist pitched forward on to the pavement, propelled by all the force of his own attacking impetus.

Much shaken, and with a rivulet of blood trickling down his nose from a damaged forehead, he got upon his feet again. Captain O’Hagan deliberately hurled the bowler far out into the stream of traffic, and fixed his large eyes upon its white-faced owner.

“One word,” he said, in that tone of suppressed ferocity wholly inimitable, “and I will throw you after it! You ape!”

The dazed and much-insulted man glanced from a shapeless dark mass which, prior to the passage of a brewer’s traction-engine, had been a felt hat, to the face of O’Hagan; and began with his handkerchief to wipe blood from his wounds. O’Hagan cast his eyes upward to the legend: “J. Crichton, Newsagent,” and took the elder man by the arm.

“A word with you, Mr. Crichton!” he said, sweeping that astonished old tradesman into the shop, and ignoring the knot of interested spectators gathered at the door.

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