Читать книгу The Exploits of Captain O'Hagan - Arthur Henry Ward - Страница 7

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A chair stood by the journal-strewn counter.

“Sit down,” said O’Hagan kindly, “and answer a few questions! Who is that person whose hat I honoured?”

The newsagent, who momentarily was expecting to awaken from this bad dream, shook his head ominously.

“It’s Jem Parkins, sir,” he replied, with that respect bordering upon awe which O’Hagan inspires in the plebeian soul. “He’s got the Blue Dragon now, but he’s ex-middleweight champion. There’ll be the devil to pay when he’s pulled hisself together, sir!”

“Reserve your speculations, Mr. Crichton,” said O’Hagan, “and confine yourself to facts. The young lady on the bus—your daughter?”

“Yes, sir.”

“She takes after her mother.”

Mr. Crichton stared.

“Did you know Polly—Mrs. Crichton, sir?”

“No. I was referring to your daughter’s good looks. She dresses neatly.”

Mr. Crichton had something of the British tradesman’s independent spirit, and even the awe inspired by O’Hagan’s tremendous presence could not wholly smother his paternal resentment.

“I’d have you know that Pamela’s a lady, sir! And I’d have——”

“Pamela is quite an unusual name for a girl of the lower classes. In what way is Parkins interested?”

The mild eye of Mr. J. Crichton smouldered into faint flame.

“The lower classes! The——”

“I asked you a question.”

Mr. Crichton hesitated, glanced around his shop—his own shop—noted that his pugilistic friend was entering the door with an air of business-like truculence, and took his elusive courage in both hands.

“I decline to be cross-examined—by you—or—by——”

Mr. Parkins closed the shop-door, bolted it, and pulled down the blue blind. He began deliberately to remove his coat.

“Half a mo, Mr. C.,” he interrupted in a quivering voice. “Sorry to put you out, but it’s got to be done. I’ll smash ’im; then you can call for the police and give ’im in charge!”

O’Hagan raised the monocle swung upon the broad black ribbon, and holding it at some distance from his right eye, surveyed the speaker.

“I thought I forbade you to address me?” he remarked icily.

Parkins, removing a collar and shirt-front combined, began to whistle.

“I’ll show you comin’ buttin’ in and runnin’ after respectable girls!” he announced hoarsely. “Blighter!”

O’Hagan dropped the monocle and laid his cane upon the counter. At the moment that Parkins stood upright and squared his chest, the Captain snatched up Mr. Crichton’s day-book—a heavy, leather-bound volume—and hurled it full at the pugilist’s head. One of the precepts of the Higher Jiu-jitsu, or “Art of Gentle Thought,” he will tell you, is to avail yourself of any missile within reach. His aim, then, is deadly. The day-book struck Parkins edgewise across the face, felling him like a stricken bullock—felling him utterly, brutally.

He crashed into the corner by the door—and lay still. (“A dreadful blow was struck at every gentleman when the sword was taken from him,” O’Hagan will say. “One cannot soil one’s gloves with the blood of churls.”)

“If you compel me to deal with you,” said the Captain, as Parkins returned to groaning consciousness of his injuries, “I shall cut your ears off!”

Do not judge my friend harshly. He was born three centuries too late, that is all. The claim of Democracy to an equality with Aristocracy is as unintelligible to him as it must have been to Denis O’Hagan, who upheld the Stuart cause whilst he had breath, and died at last like a gentleman at Worcester, having demonstrated his distaste for plebeian company by personally dispatching seven Roundheads. Or perhaps the autocratic soul of Patrick O’Hagan lives again within Bernard. This member of the family, sometime of the Mousquetaires du roi, narrowly escaped the Bastille for decapitating a Paris grocer who insulted a lady and attaching the erring tradesman’s head to his own shop-sign.

Parkins dizzily strove to get upon his feet. Mr. Crichton, trembling, was seeking to reach the telephone.

“Sit down, Mr. Crichton,” directed O’Hagan, turning the monocle upon him.

“This is my shop—and that’s one o’ my friends——”

“Sit down, Mr. Crichton.”

Mr. Crichton sat down.

“You”—to the tottering pugilist—“put on your filthy rags, and get out.”

Parkins steadied himself against the door.

“What d’you mean, get out? I’ve got more right ’ere than you! Just wait, you cowardly skunk! I’ll ’ave you yet! I’ll quod you for this!”

“You have one minute to get out. If I hear from you again, I shall give you in charge for assault and battery!”

O’Hagan, lolling against the counter, swung the monocle carelessly. The amplitude of his nonchalance prevailed. Parkins, recalling that he had struck the first blow, stuffed his “dicky” into his coat, resumed that garment, and began to unbolt the door.

With never a backward glance, the discredited Mr. Parkins made his exit. One of a curious group, without, entered on the pretence of buying a halfpenny paper. He was served by the trembling newsagent, but save for the presence of a hatless, distinguished gentleman, saw nothing to satisfy his curiosity in Mr. Crichton’s shop.

“Now, Mr. Crichton,” said O’Hagan, the customer departed, “in reference to Pamela: has the fellow, Parkins, pretensions?”

Mr. Crichton, pro tempore, was past protest.

“He’s an old pal o’ mine,” he explained, unsteadily, “and well off—and——”

“Pamela does not approve him?”

“Well, she’s got such superior ideas. But Parkins——”

“It is out of the question, Crichton. Dismiss the idea. Mrs. Crichton was a woman of higher social standing than yourself?”

The newsagent felt suffocation to be an imminent danger.

“She was the daughter of a lit’r’y gentleman——”

“Singular that she should have married you! Her father was badly in debt, possibly?”

“Look here——!”

“I say, possibly the late Mrs. Crichton’s father was financially indebted to you?”

Crichton, cowed:

“I pretty well kept him, for years!”

“Ah! poor girl! A tragedy of poverty! But you have not neglected Pamela’s education?”

“She’s had the best that money could give her!”

O’Hagan seized the hand of the bewildered Mr. Crichton and wrung it warmly.

“There are redeeming features in your character, Crichton!” he said. “For your endeavours on the girl’s behalf I can forgive you much. Rely upon my friendship! And Pamela has literary inclinations?”

“No, sir,” answered the newsagent, whose world was being turned topsy-turvy, who alternately believed that he was in the company of a madman or that he himself was mad. “She’s a musician; I’ve had her properly taught; she composes!”

Above all the chaos reigning in his mind, paternal pride asserted its sovereignty and his voice proclaimed it.

“Ah! composes? She has just gone to see a publisher? She had music in the leather case?”

“Her new piece, sir. She reckons it’s goin’ to make her!”

“What has she published?”

Mr. Crichton, crestfallen:

“Nothing, sir! You see, she’s unknown. They won’t give her a chance.”

“She will return to lunch?”

The newsagent stared.

“Pamela’ll be home to dinner!” he said.

“The midday meal? Exactly. I will lunch with you, Crichton. My name is Captain O’Hagan.”

His mode of patronage was superb, incomparable.

—————