Adventures of Bindle

"A rinse, what's that?" enquired Cissie.

"You does it with soap an' water, miss, an' you might add a bit or two of lace, jest in case the neighbours was to come in. Now I must be orf. Old Sedgy ain't at 'er best after them 'alf days with Royal Richard. Don't let 'im nip orf, miss, will you?" Bindle added anxiously. "'E's that modest an' retirin' like, that e' might try."

At that moment Mr. Stiffson put his head out of his door. "Porter!" he stammered, "Oscar has not had his breakfast; it's on the kitchen mantelpiece." He shut the door hurriedly.

"Oscar's got to wait," muttered Bindle as he hurried downstairs.

Ten minutes later he had the gas-stove lighted in the sitting-room, and coffee, eggs and bacon, bread and butter, strawberry jam and marmalade ready on the table.

Miss Boye emerged from her room, a vision of loveliness in a pale-blue teagown, open at the throat, with a flurry of white lace cascading down the front. There was a good deal of Cissie Boye visible in spite of the lace. She still wore her matinée cap with the blue ribbons, and Bindle frankly envied Mr. Stiffson.

"Now, sir," he cried, banging at the laggard's door, "the coffee and the lady's waitin', an' I want to feed Oscar."

Mr. Stiffson came out timidly. He evidently realised the importance of the occasion. He wore a white satin tie reposing beneath a low collar of nonconformity, a black frock-coat with a waistcoat that had been bought at a moment of indecision as to whether it should be a morning or evening affair, light trousers, and spats.

"My, ain't we dressy!" cried Bindle, looking appreciatively at Mr. Stiffson's trousers. "You got 'er beaten with them bags, sir, or my name ain't Joe Bindle."

Mr. Stiffson coughed nervously behind his hand.

"Now," continued Bindle, "you got a good hour, then we must see wot's to be done. I'll keep the Ole Bird away."

"The Old Bird?" questioned Mr. Stiffson in a thin voice as he opened the door; "but Oscar is only – "

"I mean your missis, sir," explained Bindle. "You leave 'er to me."

"Come on, Mr. Man," cried Cissie Boye, "don't be afraid, I never eat men when there's eggs and bacon."

Mr. Stiffson motioned Bindle to accompany him into the sitting-room.

"I got to see to Oscar," said Bindle reassuringly.

"Now sit down," ordered Cissie Boye. Mr. Stiffson seated himself on the edge of the chair opposite to her. She busied herself with the coffee, bacon and eggs. Mr. Stiffson watched her with the air of a man who is prepared to bolt at any moment. He cast anxious eyes towards the clock. It pointed to a quarter to nine. Bindle had taken the precaution of putting it back an hour.

Suddenly Oscar burst into full song. Mr. Stiffson sighed his relief. Oscar had had his breakfast.

"Now, Mr. Man, eat," commanded Cissie Boye, "and," handing him a cup of coffee, "drink."

"An' be merry, sir," added Bindle, who entered at the moment. "You're 'avin' the time of your life, an' don't you forget it."

Mr. Stiffson looked as if the passage of centuries would never permit him to forget.

"An' now I'll leave you little love-birds," said Bindle with the cheerful assurance of a cupid, "an' go an' keep watch."

"But – " protested Mr. Stiffson, half rising from his chair.

"Oh! do sit down, old thing!" cried Cissie; "you're spoiling my breakfast."

Mr. Stiffson subsided. Destiny had clearly taken a hand in the affair.

"Now you jest enjoy your little selves," apostrophized Bindle, "an' then we'll try an' find out 'ow all this 'ere 'appened. It does me, blowed if it don't."

II

"I'm not aware that I speak indistinctly." The voice was uncompromising, the deportment aggressive. "I said 'Mr. Jabez Stiffson.'"

"You did, mum," agreed Bindle tactfully; "I 'eard you myself quite plainly."

"Then where is he? I'm Mrs. Stiffson."

Mrs. Stiffson was a tall woman of generous proportions. Her hair was grey, her features virtuously hard, her manner overwhelming. Her movements gave no suggestion of limbs, she seemed to wheel along with a slight swaying of the body from side to side.

"Well?" she interrogated.

"'E's sort of engaged, mum," temporised Bindle, "'avin' breakfast. I'll tell 'im you're 'ere. I'll break it gently to 'im. You know, mum, joy sometimes kills, an' 'e don't look strong."

Without a word Mrs. Stiffson wheeled round and, ignoring the lift, marched for the stairs. As he followed, Bindle remembered with satisfaction that he had omitted to close the outer door of Number Six.

Straight up the stairs, like "never-ending Time," marched Mrs. Stiffson. She did not hurry, she did not pause, she climbed evenly, mechanically, a model wife seeking her mate.

Any doubts that Bindle may have had as to Mrs. Stiffson's ability to find the husband she sought were set at rest by the shrill pipings of Oscar. Even a trained detective could not have overlooked so obvious a clue.

Along the corridor, straight for Number Six moved Mrs. Stiffson, Bindle in close attendance, fearful lest he should lose the dramatic intensity of the arrival of "the wronged wife."

Unconscious that Nemesis was marching upon him, Mr. Stiffson, stimulated by the coffee, bacon and eggs, and the gay insouciance of Cissie Boye, was finding the situation losing much of its terror for him.

No man for long could remain indifferent to the charming personality of Cissie Boye. Her bright chatter and good looks, her innocence, strangely blended with worldly wisdom, her daring garb; all combined to divert Mr. Stiffson's mind from the thoughts of his wife, apart from which the clock pointed to five minutes past nine, and Mrs. Stiffson was as punctual as fate.

Had he possessed the intuition of a mongoose, Mr. Stiffson would have known that there was a snake in his grass.

Instinct guiding her steps, Mrs. Stiffson entered the flat. Instead of turning to the right, in the direction of the bedroom in which Oscar was overdoing the thanksgiving business for bird-seed and water, she wheeled to the left and threw open the sitting-room door.

From under Mrs. Stiffson's right arm Bindle saw the tableau. Mr. Stiffson, who was facing the door, was in the act of raising his coffee-cup to smiling lips. Cissie Boye, sitting at right angles on his left, was leaning back in her chair clapping her hands.

"Oh, you naughty old thing!" she was crying.

At the sight of his wife, Mr. Stiffson's jaw dropped and the coffee-cup slipped from his nerveless hands. It struck the edge of the table and emptied its contents down the opening of his low-cut waistcoat.

At the sight of the abject terror on Mr. Stiffson's face, Cissie Boye ceased to clap her hands and, turning her head, met Mrs. Stiffson's uncompromising stare and Bindle's appreciative grin.

"Jabez!" It was like the uninflected accents of doom.

Mr. Stiffson shivered; that was the only indication he gave of having heard. With unblinking eyes he continued to gaze at his wife as if fascinated, the empty coffee-cup resting on his knees.

"Jabez!" repeated Mrs. Stiffson. "I thought I told you to wear your tweed mixture to-day."

Mrs. Stiffson had a fine sense of the dramatic! The unexpectedness of the remark caused Mr. Stiffson to blink his eyes like a puzzled owl, without however removing them from his wife, or changing their expression.

Cissie Boye laughed, Bindle grinned.

"Won't you sit down?" It was Cissie Boye who spoke.

"Silence, hussy!" There was no anger in Mrs. Stiffson's voice; it was just a command and an expression of opinion.

Cissie Boye rose, the light of battle in her eyes. Bindle pushed past Mrs. Stiffson and stood between the two women.

"Look 'ere, mum," he said, "we likes manners in this 'ere flat, an' we're a-goin' to 'ave 'em, see! Sorry if I 'urt your feelin's. This ain't a woman's club."

"Hold your tongue, fool!" the deep voice thundered.

"Oh, no, you don't!" said Bindle cheerfully, looking up at his mountainous antagonist. "You can't frighten me, I ain't married to you. Now you jest be civil."

"Listen!" cried Cissie Boye with flashing eyes. "Don't you go giving me the bird like that, or – " She paused at a loss with what to threaten her guest.

"It's all right, miss," said Bindle, "You jest leave 'er to me; I got one o' my own at 'ome. She's going to speak to me, she is."

Mrs. Stiffson's efforts of self-control were proving unequal to the occasion, her breathing became laboured and her voice husky.

"What is my husband doing in this person's flat?" demanded Mrs. Stiffson, apparently of no one in particular. There was something like emotion in her voice.

"Well, mum," responded Bindle, "'e was eatin' bacon an' eggs an' drinking coffee."

"How dare you appear before my husband like that!" Mrs. Stiffson turned fiercely upon Cissie Boye. "You brazen creature!" anger was now taking possession of her.

"Here, easy on, old thing!" said Cissie Boye, seeing Mrs. Stiffson's rising temper, and entirely regaining her own good humour.

"I repeat," said Mrs. Stiffson, "what is my husband doing in your company?"

"Ask him what he's doing in my flat," countered Cissie Boye triumphantly.

"Look 'ere, mum," broke in Bindle in a soothing voice, "it's no use a-playin' 'Amlet in a rage. You jest sit down and talk it over friendly like, an' p'raps I can get a drop of Royal Richard from old Sedgy. It's sort of been a shock to you, mum, I can see. Well, things do look bad; anyhow, Royal Richard'll bring you round in two ticks."

Mrs. Stiffson turned upon Bindle a look that was meant to annihilate.

Bindle glanced across at Mr. Stiffson, who was mechanically rubbing the middle of his person with a napkin, his eyes still fixed upon his wife.

"Because your 'usband gets into the wrong duds," continued Bindle, "ain't no reason why you should get into an 'owling temper, is it?"

There was a knock at the door and, without waiting for a reply, Mrs. Sedge entered, wearing a canvas apron and a crape bonnet on one side and emitting an almost overpowering aroma of Royal Richard. In her hands she carried a large bowl of porridge. Marching across to the table, she dumped it down in front of Mr. Stiffson.

"Ain't that jest like a man, forgettin' 'alf o' wot 'e ought to remember!" she remarked and, without waiting for a reply, she stumped out of the room, banging the door behind her.

Bindle sniffed the air like a hound.

"That's Royal Richard wot you can smell, mum," he explained.

Cissie Boye laughed.

Ignoring the interruption, Mrs. Stiffson returned to the attack.

"I demand an explanation!" Her voice shook with suppressed fury.

"Listen!" cried Cissie Boye, "if your boy will come and sleep in my flat – "

"Sleep in your flat!" cried Mrs. Stiffson in something between a roar and a scream. "Sleep in your flat!" She turned upon her husband. "Jabez, did you hear that? Oh! you villain, you liar, you monster!"

"But – but, my dear," protested Mr. Stiffson, becoming articulate, "Oscar was here all the time."

Cissie Boye giggled.

"So that is why you have put on your best clothes, you deceiver, you viper, you scum!"

"Steady on, mum!" broke out Bindle. "'E ain't big enough to be all them things; besides, if you starts a-megaphonin' like that, you'll 'ave all the other bunnies a-runnin' in to see wot's 'appened, an' if you was to 'ear Number Seven's language, an' see wot Queenie calls 'er face, Mr. S. might be a widower before 'e knew it."

"Where did you meet this person?" demanded Mrs. Stiffson of her husband, who, now that the coffee was cooling, began to feel chilly, and was busily engaged in trying to extract the moisture from his garments.

"Where did you meet her?" repeated his wife.

"In – in the bath-room," responded Mr. Stiffson weakly.

Mrs. Stiffson gasped and stood speechless with amazement.

"I heard a splashing," broke in Cissie Boye, "and I peeped in, – I only just peeped in, really and really."

"An' then we 'ad a little friendly chat in the 'all," explained Bindle, "an' after breakfast we was goin' to talk things over, an' see 'ow we could manage so that you didn't know."

"Your bath-room!" roared Mrs. Stiffson at length, the true horror of the situation at last seeming to dawn upon her. "My husband in your bath-room! Jabez!" she turned on Mr. Stiffson once more like a raging fury. "You heard! were you in this creature's bath-room?"

Mr. Stiffson paused in the process of endeavouring to extract coffee from his exterior.

"Er – er – " he began.

"Answer me!" shouted Mrs. Stiffson. "Were you or were you not in this person's bath-room?"

"Yes – er – but – " began Mr. Stiffson.

Mrs. Stiffson cast a frenzied glance round the room. Action had become necessary, violence imperative. Her roving eye lighted on the bowl full of half-cold porridge that Mrs. Sedge had just brought in. She seized it and, with a swift inverting movement, crashed it down upon her husband's head.

With the scream of a wounded animal, Mr. Stiffson half rose, then sank back again in his chair, his hands clutching convulsively at the basin fixed firmly upon his head by the suction of its contents. From beneath the rim the porridge gathered in large pendulous drops, and slowly lowered themselves upon various portions of Mr. Stiffson's person, leaving a thin filmy thread behind, as if reluctant to cut off all communication with the basin.

Bindle and Cissie Boye went to the victim's assistance, and Bindle removed the basin. It parted from Mr. Stiffson's head with a juicy sob of reluctance. Whilst his rescuers were occupied in their samaritan efforts, Mrs. Stiffson was engaged in describing her husband's character.

Beginning with a request for someone to end his poisonous existence, she proceeded to explain his place, or rather lack of place, in the universe. She traced the coarseness of his associates to the vileness of his ancestors. She enquired why he had not been to the front (Mr. Stiffson was over fifty years of age), why he was not in the volunteers. Then slightly elevating her head she demanded of Heaven why he was permitted to live. She traced all degradation, including that of the lower animals, to the example of such men as her husband. He was the breaker-up of homes, in some way or other connected with the increased death-rate and infant mortality, the indirect cause of the Income Tax and directly responsible for the war; she even hinted that he was to some extent answerable for the defection of Russia from the Allied cause.

Whilst she was haranguing, Bindle and Cissie Boye, with the aid of desert spoons, were endeavouring to remove the porridge from Mr. Stiffson's head. It had collected behind his spectacles, forming a succulent pad before each eye.

Bindle listened to Mrs. Stiffson's tirade with frank admiration; language always appealed to him.

"Ain't she a corker!" he whispered to Cissie Boye.

"Cork's out now, any old how," was the whispered reply.

Then Mrs. Stiffson did a very feminine thing. She gave vent to three short, sharp snaps of staccatoed laughter, and suddenly collapsed upon the sofa in screaming hysterics.

Cissie Boye made a movement towards her. Bindle laid an arresting hand upon her arm.

"You jest leave 'er be, miss," he said. "I know all about them little games. She'll come to all right."

"Where the hell is that damn porter?" the voice of Number Seven burst in upon them from the outer corridor.

"'Ere I am, sir," sang out Bindle.

"Then why the corruption aren't you in your room?" bawled Number Seven.

Bindle slipped quickly out into the corridor to find Number Seven bristling with rage.

"Because Ole Damn an' 'Op it, I can't be in two places at once," he said.

Whilst Bindle was engaged with Number Seven, Mrs. Stiffson had once more galvanised herself to action. Still screaming and laughing by turn, she wheeled out of the flat with incredible rapidity and made towards the lift.

"Hi! stop 'er, stop 'er!" shouted Bindle, bolting after Mrs. Stiffson, followed by Number Seven.

"Police, police, murder, murder!" screamed Mrs. Stiffson. She reached the lift and, with an agility that would have been creditable in a young goat, slipped in and shut the gates with a clang. Just as Bindle arrived the lift began slowly to descend. In a fury of impatience, Mrs. Stiffson began banging at the buttons, with the result that the lift stopped halfway between the two floors.

Bindle and Number Seven shouted down instructions; but without avail. The lift had stuck fast. Mrs. Stiffson shrieked for help, shrieked for the police, and shrieked for vengeance.

"Damned old tiger-cat!" cried Number Seven. "Leave her where she is."

Bindle turned upon him a face radiating smiles.

"Them's the best words I've 'eard from you yet, sir"; and he walked upstairs to reassure the occupants of Number Six that fate and the lift had joined the Entente against Mrs. Stiffson.

It was four hours before Mrs. Stiffson was free; but Mr. Stiffson, his luggage, his thermos flask and Oscar had fled. Cissie Boye was at rehearsal and Bindle had donned his uniform. It was a chastened Mrs. Stiffson who wheeled out of the lift and enquired for her husband, and it was a stern and official Bindle who told her that Mr. Stiffson had gone, and warned her that any further attempt at disturbing the cloistral peace of Fulham Square Mansions would end in a prosecution for disorderly conduct.

And Mrs. Stiffson departed in search of her husband.

CHAPTER XI

THE CAMOUFLAGING OF MR. GUPPERDUCK

I

"Ah!" cried Bindle as he pushed open one of the swing doors of the public bar of The Yellow Ostrich. "I thought I should find my little sunflower 'ere," and he grasped the hand that Ginger did not extend to him. Demonstration was not Ginger's strong point.

The members of the informal club that used to meet each Friday night at The Scarlet Horse had become very uncertain in their attendance, and the consequent diminution in the consumption of liquor had caused the landlord to withdraw the concession of a private-room.

Bindle had accepted the situation philosophically; but Ruddy Bill had shown temper. In the public bar he had told the landlord what he thought of him, finishing up a really inspired piece of decorated rhetoric with "Yus, it's The Scarlet 'Orse all right; but there's a ruddy donkey behind the bar," and with that he had marched out.

From that date Bindle's leisure moments had been mostly spent in the bar of The Yellow Ostrich. It was here that Ginger, when free from his military duties, would seek Bindle and the two or three congenial spirits that gathered round him. Wilkes would cough, Huggles grin, and Ginger spit vindictive disapproval of everyone and everything, whilst "Ole Joe told the tale."

"There are times," remarked Bindle, when he had taken a long pull at his tankard, "when I feel I could almost thank Gawd for not bein' religious." He paused to light his pipe.

Ginger murmured something that might have been taken either as an interrogation or a protest.

"I jest been 'avin' a stroll on Putney 'Eath," continued Bindle, settling himself down comfortably in the corner of a bench. "I likes to give the gals a treat now an' then, and who d'you think I saw there?" He paused impressively, Ginger shook his head, Huggles grinned and Wilkes coughed, Wilkes was always coughing.

"Clever lot o' coves you are," said Bindle as he regarded the three. "Grand talkers, ain't you. Well, well! to get on with the story.

"There was a big crowd, makin' an 'ell of a row, they was, an' there in the middle was a cove talkin' an' wavin' 'is arms like flappers. So up I goes, thinkin' 'e was sellin' somethink to prove that you 'aven't got a liver, an' who should it turn out to be but my lodger, Ole Guppy."

"Wot was 'e doin'?" gasped Wilkes between two paroxysms.

"Well," continued Bindle, "at that particular moment I got up, 'e was talkin' about wot a fine lot o' chaps them 'Uns is, an' wot an awful lot of Aunt Maudies we was. Sort o' 'urt 'is feelin's, it did to know 'e was an Englishman when 'e might 'ave been an 'Un. 'E was jest a-sayin' somethink about Mr. Llewellyn John, when 'e' disappears sudden-like, and then there was a rare ole scrap.

"When the police got 'im out, Lord, 'e was a sight! Never thought ten minutes could change a cove so, and that, Ginger, all comes about through being a Christian and talkin' about peace to people wot don't want peace."

"We all want peace." Ginger stuck out his chin aggressively.

"Ginger!" there was reproach in Bindle's voice, "an' you a soldier too, I'm surprised at you!"

"I want this ruddy war to end," growled Ginger. "I don't 'old wiv war," he added as an after-thought.

"Now wot does it matter to you, Ging, whether you're a-carrin' a pack or a piano on your back?"

"Why don't they make peace?" burst out Ginger irrelevantly.

"Oh, Ginger, Ginger! when shall I teach you that the only way to stop a fight is to sit on the other cove's chest: an' we ain't sittin' on Germany's chest yet. Got it?"

"But they're willing to make peace," growled Ginger. "I don't 'old wiv 'angin' back."

"Now you jest listen to me. Why didn't you make peace last week with Pincher Nobbs instead o' fightin' 'im?"

"'E's a ruddy tyke, 'e is," snarled Ginger.

"Well," remarked Bindle, "you can call the Germans ruddy tykes. Pleasant way you got o' puttin' things, 'aven't you, Ging? No; ole son, this 'ere war ain't a-goin' to end till you got the V.C., that's wot we're 'oldin' out for."

"They could make peace if they liked," persisted Ginger.

"You won't get Llewellyn John to give in, Ging," said Bindle confidently. "'E's 'ot stuff, 'e is."

"Yus!" growled Ginger savagely. "All 'e's got to do is to stay at 'ome an' read about wot us chaps are doin' out there."

"Now ain't you a regular ole yellow-'eaded 'Uggins," remarked Bindle with conviction, as he gazed fixedly at Ginger, whose eyes shifted about restlessly. "Why, 'e's always at work, 'e is. Don't even 'ave 'is dinner-hour, 'e don't."

"Wot!" Ginger's incredulity gave expression to his features. "No dinner-hour?"

"No; nor breakfast-time neither," continued Bindle. "There's always a lot o' coves 'angin' round a-wantin' to talk about the war an' wot to do next. When 'e's shavin' Haig'll ring 'im up, 'im a-standin' with the lather on, makin' 'is chin 'itch."

Ginger banged down his pewter on the counter and ordered another.

"Then sometimes, when 'e's gettin' up in the mornin', George Five'll nip round for a jaw, and o' course kings can go anywhere, an' you mustn't keep 'em waitin'. So up 'e goes, an' there's L.J. a-talkin' to 'imself as 'e tries to get into 'is collar, an' George Five a-'elpin' to find 'is collar-stud when 'e drops it an' it rolls under the chest o' drawers."

Ginger continued to gaze at Bindle with surprise stamped on his freckled face.

"You got a kid's job to 'is, Ging," continued Bindle, warming to his subject. "If Llewellyn John 'ops round the corner for a drink an' to 'ave a look at the papers, they're after 'im in two ticks. Why 'e's 'ad to give up 'is 'ot bath on Saturday nights because 'e was always catchin' cold through nippin' out into the 'all to answer the telephone, 'im in only a smile an' 'is whiskers."

Ginger spat, indecision marking the act.

"Works like a blackleg, 'e does, an' all 'e gets is blackguardin'. No," added Bindle solemnly, "don't you never change jobs with 'im, Ging, it 'ud kill you, it would really."

"I don't 'old wiv war," grumbled Ginger, falling back upon his main line of defence. "Look at the price of beer!" He gazed moodily into the depths of his empty pewter.

"Funny cove you are, Ging," said Bindle pleasantly.

Ginger spat viciously, missing the spittoon by inches.

"There ain't no pleasin' you," continued Bindle, digging into the bowl of his pipe with a match stick. "You ain't willin' to die for your country, an' you don't seem to want to live for the twins."

"Wot's the use o' twins?" demanded Ginger savagely. "Now if they'd been goats – "

"Goats!" queried Bindle.

"Sell the milk," was Ginger's laconic explanation.

"They might 'ave been billy-goats," suggested Bindle.

Ginger swore.

"Well, well!" remarked Bindle, as he rose, "you ain't never goin' to be 'appy in this world, Ging, an' as to the next – who knows! Now I must be orf to tell Mrs. B. wot they been a-doin' to 'er lodger. S'long!"