Читать книгу William Adolphus Turnpike - William Banks - Страница 7

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This is a chronicle of facts, culled from the life of William Adolphus Turnpike and other personages, as distinguished from mere history. Everybody in this age of research and cheap books, to say nothing of magazines and newspapers, knows that history is not true. It is established beyond doubt, for instance, that King Richard III. was a man of loving disposition, and that the story of his being an accessory to the death of the little princes has no foundation. We know also that the Scots deliberately planned the loss of the battle of Flodden in order to pave the way for their modern invasion of England and the capture of all the good jobs in the empire. They simply lured the English on, because they knew that no Englishman could live north of the Tweed and ever get enough to eat, while every Scotsman is impervious to stomachic or climatic conditions so long as there is a position to be filled or a bawbee to be paid out.

Here then, sticking to facts, is to be recorded that William Adolphus Turnpike reached the office one Monday morning, some time after the events last chronicled, wearing a black eye, an abrased nose, and a scratched chin. Naturally, Lucien Torrance, office boy to Simmons, the architect, and therefore on terms of equality with William, demanded an immediate and detailed explanation, which William proceeded to give.

"Did yer see the lacrosse match between the Easts and the Stars on Saturday?

"What! yer didn't? Gee! you missed it. Say, there was somethin' doing nearly every minute till the police broke up the game and took the players to the Number 4 Station.

"What's that—did I take the kiddies? Not for a minute I didn't. Would yer wanter take your little brothers or sisters——

"You ain't got none. Well, nobody's blamin' you, are they? I'm just supposin' you had. Would you wanter take 'em any place you'd thought there was goin' to be a scrap? Not much you wouldn't. I seen them teams play once before when I was a kid.

"What! Well, I like that. Fourteen last birthday, and I'm taking nothin' from any feller my age around these parts and don't you forget it, or I might forget I promised me mother I'd try not to fight for one day.

"Well, anyway I piked off alone to the flats to see the game, and, say, there was about half a millyun people there.

"What's that! There ain't half a millyun in the whole city of Toronto? You'd be a peach of a booster for this town, wouldn't you? Suppose there ain't, it sounds good anyway. Besides, you know very well I'm just trying to give you some idea about the size of the mob. And say, maybe there wasn't some tough mugs there neither. Uh!

"Well, the referee he gives the teams a talking to about keeping the nation-al game clean and free from disgrace. 'The first man,' he says, 'that forgets he's playing lacrosse and begins laying the hickory on anybody,' he says, ''ll get a good long penalty.'

"Then Alderman McWhirter takes a whirl at 'em; him with the spongy whiskers on each side of his face, and a jaw like the vestibul of a street car.

"Vestibool, is it? Where did ye learn French? You muster lived in Montreal.

"You never? Well, hold your hair on; hold your hair on. Kinder soured on your food, ain't yer? What d'ye eat for breakfast anyway? Malted soapsuds, chipped mule fritters, er any o' them fancy foods?

"Porridge! my, but you're away behind the times. Wake up, man, wake up, the fast express is tearin' down the track and——

"All right. I'll proceed. So McWhirter gives the bunch a spiel a mile long and would be going yet, but somebody calls out to him to dry up, an' he gets red in the face and dries up, and the game starts.

"For about one minute they played like Sunday school was a joy to them, and then the Easts bangs the ball into the net and the goal umpire he ups with his hand, meanin' a goal and——

"What's that? You know that means a goal, eh! Feeling pretty pert this morning, eh! Mebbe you'd like to go on an' tell the story to yourself.

"Oh! all right, all right. Well, anyway, up goes the goal umpire's hand for a goal, and down goes the umpire for the count, for Tip Doolen of the Stars cracks him a wallop on his brain factory you could hear a mile away. And all the Easts piles on to Tip and it took the police fifteen minutes to get 'em untied. And the police sergeant he says, it's Tip to the station, but the goal umpire wakes up and says he wouldn't lodge no complaint, for Tip and him's friendly, only would they please get a new goal umpire, he says, and they did.

"Then the police sergeant wouldn't let 'em go on playing till he'd had a little say, and you'd oughter heard it. He says, 'It looks to me like most er you fellers is spoilin' for a clubbin', and I'd hate,' he says, 'to disappoint you if that's the case. But I'm willing to stay on duty a few hours beyond me time,' he says, 'in order to please you.'

"And the fellers swear they're ready to go on with the game and play like kinder-gart'ners. So the sergeant says, 'Let her go,' he says.

"So it went all right for quite a while and there wasn't much doin' except the noise, for both sides had big gangs there and you cert'nly could hear 'em.

"At the end of the second quarter it was a tie—two goals each, and not more'n half the players on the mourners' bench.

"What! You don't know what the mourners' bench is? Say, if you'd only study the English language 'stead of loading your think tank with them furrin' words you wouldn't need nobody to tell you that the mourners' bench is just another name for the penalty bench.

"But when the third quarter gets nicely started! Well, say, the referee he puts one of the Easts off the field for trippin', and another one of the Easts he swings his stick on the referee's slats for all he's worth, an' the referee just has time to kick him in the shins before a third feller gives the referee a biff under the ear and lays him out. About half the people made a mad rush for the Easts and the other half rushes for the Stars, and there's only six policemen there. But the sergeant—say, my Pa knows him well—he's the wise guy. He lets 'em all get going and you couldn't see anything but people shovin' and crowdin' and hittin'. And then he chases for the caretaker of the park where the flats are an' gets two lines of hose fixed on a hydrant and two cops a holdin' the hose. And pretty soon two streams er water hits the crowd, and you'd oughter have seen the way it bust up. Honest, I never thought there was so many fast runners in the whole of Canada. And when the most of the people is outer the way, here's nearly all the Easts and the Stars a rolling around on the ground tearin' each other to pieces. The water never fizzed on 'em. And the police sergeant—my Pa says he's a strat-eg-ist—he says, 'It's just adding fuel to the flames,' he says, 'to put water on 'em,' and looks round, and I did too, and sees the patrol wagon coming along with more cops in it. Them lacrosse fellers is just attendin' strictly to business same as if there wasn't anybody in the whole province of Ontario but them. And then the cops waded right in and clubbed them fellers good and plenty, and——

"That's what I'm coming to, if you'd only keep the brakes on your forty horse power tongue a minute.

"Yes, sir, they squeezed the whole shooting match into the wagon and took 'em to the station.

"Sure they gave 'em bail that night, and soaked 'em five and costs apiece in the court Monday morning. And I was telling my Pa about it, and I says to him, 'Now,' I says, 'in a case like that, Pa, who wins?' Of course I meant the game.

"And my Pa says to me, he says, 'Well,' he says, 'it looks to me like a draw,' he says, 'with first-class honors,' he says, 'to Sergeant Mackay and second place to the magistrate,' he says. And he never bats an eyelid when he says it. I tell you it's a pretty wise guy that can put one over on my Pa.

"What's that gotter do with my face! Gee, but you oughter to be in the law—you'd be the peach of a cross-exam'ner you would. But just so's to have no hard feelin's I'll tell you. I'm an East-ender myself, and I made some noise too. One of the Star rooters got kinder mad at me making a few remarks during the game, and when the mix-up starts I'm laying for him. But he seen me comin' and I couldn't dodge the brick he had. It's all right to pipe off about fighting square and fair, but that guy wasn't lettin' his brick go to waste till he could think up a motter. Not for him. He did just what I would have done if I'd seen that brick first."

But when Whimple asked for the cause of the battered visage, William merely answered that he had collided with a brick.

"Was the brick hurt any?"

"Well, not so's you'd notice it," retorted William smilingly.

"Um! It's rather unfortunate that it was such a hard object—for you, I mean," said Whimple. "You see I had intended to start you collecting rents to-day."

"Me!"

"Yes. Miss Whimple, my boy, is the possessor of some twenty houses; four of them in your district, William, to say nothing of some choice lots that are increasing in value every month. She's a wonderful woman, boy; her dad left her four houses to begin with, and she's done the rest. If I had her business ability, William, I'd be on the fair way to being wealthy now."

"But, Mister Whimple, my face won't matter. Like as not it'll give me a chance to talk to the people and find out whether they're good tenants or not. Let me try it, sir."

"All right. One of the tenants down your way owes two months' rent now, and in the other cases the rents are due to-day. Here are the addresses. You look after these four tenants every month; I'll take care of the others."

And forthwith William Adolphus Turnpike set out, as he expressed it to Lucien Torrance, "to round up some coin for Mister Whimple's aunt." He was proud of the trust imposed in him, and could not forbear a parting shot at Lucien.

"You're gotter stay here," he said importantly, "and answer fool questions when people call. But it's me to the front, Lucien Torrance, on a man's job."