Читать книгу Anybody's Pearls - Footner Hulbert - Страница 4

Table of Contents

Allington walked westward in the Strand with his arrogant gaze fixed above the heads of the crowd as if he owned London. Every moment Dick feared to see him turn into some building where he could not follow. They came to an open space with a tall column in the centre, surmounted by a one-armed man, and having four huge lions at its base. Dick learned later that this was the Nelson column; the open space, Trafalgar Square. Crossing it, Allington passed under a colonnade which formed the gateway to a wide avenue lined with trees. This, Dick came to know, was the Mall, which led to Buckingham Palace. There was a lovely park with old trees on the left, and Allington turned into it. Dick hastened to overtake him.

“Good morning,” he said pleasantly.

The Englishman looked him over warily without replying.

“I’m a stranded American,” said Dick.

“Why not go to your consul?” said Allington sourly.

“He’d turn me over to the police.”

“Well, we’ve got our own unemployed,” said Allington with a hard smile.

“You get me wrong,” said Dick. “I’m not trying to make a touch. Though at that, I haven’t had my breakfast. I want you to put me wise to this burg, so I can scratch my own worms.”

The Englishman stared hard. “I don’t understand you,” he said.

“Say, you fellows ought to come to America and learn English,” said Dick grinning. “I was in the Chester just now when you came in. I saw them give you the razz.”

Allington bare his teeth in an ugly fashion, and his black eyes bored Dick through and through. Dick made haste to placate him.

“I liked the cut of your jib,” he said. “I fell for you, see? So I followed you.”

“What’s your name?” asked the other.

Dick had already made up his mind as to the part he would play. “Oh, my monaker’s Kid Murray Hill,” he said carelessly.

“Oh, a crook, eh?” said Allington, more at his ease.

“Well, it depends upon who uses the word,” said Dick. “It’s not a pretty word.”

“No offence,” said the Englishman, now quite anxious to be friendly. “I’ve heard how sharp you fellows are.... Did you hear what was said there in the Chester?” he asked with a keen look.

“Yes,” said Dick, “I was right behind you.”

“It’s infamous!” cried Allington, brandishing his stick as if he had the clerk before him at that moment. “I’m Lord Greatorex,” he went on with an air of simple dignity. “I don’t suppose you ever heard of me in America, but I’m quite well known here. I own eighteen thousand acres in Northumberland.”

Dick bit his lip to keep from smiling. “Oh, I spotted you for a lord first go,” he said with a serious air.

“They made a terrible mistake at the Chester,” Allington went on, “and the worst of it is, I can’t make them smart for it. Because, well, to tell the truth, I went to the Chester on a very delicate piece of business, and I can’t afford to have it get in the papers.”

Dick pricked up his ears. “Yes!” he said sympathetically.

But Allington (or Greatorex as Dick called him from thenceforward) changed the subject. “Tell me something about youself,” he said affably. “You’re a new type to me. I’d love to go to America.”

“I’m too faint to talk,” said Dick insinuatingly. “If I had a skinful I’d give you an earful.”

“Oh, your American slang is priceless!” said Greatorex laughing. “You must teach it to me. Come on, I know a nice little place to eat in Queen Anne’s Gate.”

They had quite a merry meal in the little restaurant, each man playing his respective comedy part. Greatorex enlarged in his casual manner upon life amongst the aristocracy, while Dick countered with several detailed histories of “jobs” that he had pulled off with the aid of his pals in New York. Until his fifteenth year Dick had scrambled for a living in the streets, and this part of his life supplied him with plenty of local colour for his yarns. Dick modestly confessed that it was owing to his having inadvertently “plugged a bull” that he had been obliged to beat it to England. As he downed the good food his spirits rose amazingly. He got more fun out of the situation than the other man, because he was on to Greatorex’s bluff, whereas Greatorex was not on to him. Dick said to himself: If this is one of England’s smart ones, I guess I’m just a little bit smarter.

All the while they talked, Greatorex was weighing and studying Dick with his sharp, hard glances. Trying to make up his mind whether he can use me to pull his chestnuts out of the fire, thought Dick. Does he think I can’t see it? Greatorex held off from making any confidences yet awhile. He excused himself from the table in order to telephone. After the meal he insisted on taking Dick for a drive in a taxi to show him Piccadilly and Hyde Park.

They returned to Victoria, and had themselves put down at what Greatorex called a “pub,” opposite the station. “Gosh! this is what the old fellows talk about at home!” said Dick, seeing the mahogany and the brass rail. But he realised there could never have been anything so democratic as this establishment in so-called democratic America. It astonished him to see silk-hatted gentlemen rubbing elbows with truck-drivers. The other sex, too. Elegantly clad ladies who had dropped in for a gin and ginger on their way to shop; and charwomen with their pints of ’alf-and-’alf. “It’s a relief to order a drink in a natural voice,” said Dick.

“Confound it, there’s a man I know,” said Greatorex in an annoyed tone. “Disgusting little Jew, but one must be agreeable to him, because one borrows money from him. We large landowners are frequently short of cash, you know.”

This individual approached them fulsomely. He was a more Jewish-looking Jew than the New York variety; hooked nose, hollow cheek-bones, thin grey beard; silk hat rubbed the wrong way, greasy frock coat. Dick perceived where the vaudeville comedians had got their idea. He answered to the name of Abrams. Something told Dick that this was the man Greatorex had telephoned to. Probably the brains of the gang, he said to himself.

Mr. Abrams insisted on treating, and the three of them sat down at a table in the back room. Greatorex and Abrams made an odd contrast, but in London nobody seemed to remark it. They all ordered a double Scotch. It occurred to Dick that he had better watch those drinks, but he dismissed the thought. Such stunts were never pulled in a crowded place like this. And anyhow, I should worry, thought Dick. That’s the advantage of having empty pockets.

The talk amounted to nothing at all; it had to do with the weather, and the impossibility of prohibition in England. It was funny to hear a Jew talking with a cockney accent; mixed Yiddish and cockney. Nothing was said that Dick could remember, but all the time he was aware that he was being subjected to a sharper and more experienced scrutiny than Greatorex’s. Finally a slight signal passed between Abrams and Greatorex, and the Jew got up to go.

I have been accepted, thought Dick, with rising excitement.