Bindle: Some Chapters in the Life of Joseph Bindle

"Wot's yer number, sir?" he asked the Frenchman.

"Vingt-quatre."

"Now don't you go a-using none of them words 'fore a clergyman. Wot's yer number? that's wot I'm arstin'."

"Twenty-four – vingt-quatre."

"Well," said Bindle with decision, "you're in the wrong room."

"Mais c'est impossible," cried the Frenchman. "We have been here all night. Is it not so, cherie?" He turned to his wife for corroboration.

Bindle had no time to enter further into the dispute. Suddenly a fresh disturbance broke out further along the corridor.

"What the devil do you mean by this outrage, sir?" an angry and imperious voice was demanding. "What the devil do you – "

With a hasty word to the clergyman, who now looked thoroughly ashamed of himself, and a gentle push in the direction of the Office of Works, Bindle trotted off to the scene of the new disturbance. He heard another suppressed scream from the pink négligé betokening the entry of the clergyman.

"What the devil do you mean by entering my room?"

A tall, irate man, with the Army stamped all over him, dressed in pyjamas, with a monocle firmly wedged in his left eye, was fiercely eyeing a smaller man in a bath-robe.

"Not content with having got into my room, but damme, sir, you must needs try and get into my trousers. What the devil do you mean by it?"

Bindle looked along the corridor appreciatively. "Looks like a shipwreck at night, it do," he remarked to the chambermaid.

"It's my room," said the man in the bathrobe.

"Confound you," was the reply, "this is my room, and I'll prosecute you for libel."

"My room is No. 18," responded the other, "and I left my wife there half an hour ago."

He pointed to the figures on the door in proof of his contention. The man in the monocle looked at the door, and a puzzled expression passed over his face.

"Damme," he exploded, "my room is No. 15, but I certainly slept in that room all night." He darted inside and reappeared a moment after with his trousers in his hand.

"Here are my trousers to prove it. Are these your trousers?" The man in the bath-robe confessed that they were not.

"That seems to prove it all right, sir," remarked Bindle, who had come up. "A man don't sleep in a different room from his trousers, leastways, unless 'e's a 'Ighlander."

Similar disturbances were taking place along the corridor. The uproar began to attract visitors from other corridors, and soon the whole place was jammed with excited guests, in attire so varied and insufficient that one lady, who had insisted on her husband accompanying her to see what had happened, immediately sent him back to his room that his eyes might not be outraged by the lavish display of ankles and bare arms.

The more nervous among the women guests had immediately assumed fire to be the cause of the disturbance, and thinking of their lives rather than of modesty and decorum, had rushed precipitately from their rooms.

"It might be a Turkish bath for all the clothes they're wearin'," Bindle whispered to the exquisite youth, who with his two fellow-guests had left the Office of Works. "Ain't women funny shapes when they ain't braced up!"

The youth looked at Bindle reproachfully. He had not yet passed from that period when women are mysterious and wonderful.

At the doors of several of the rooms heated arguments were in progress as to who was the rightful occupant. Inside they were all practically the same, that was part of the scheme of the hotel. The man with the monocle was still engaged in a fierce altercation with the man in the bath-robe, who was trying to enter No. 18.

"My wife's in there," cried the man in the bath-robe fiercely.

At this moment the deputy-manager appeared, a man whose face had apparently been modelled with the object of expressing only two emotions, benignant servility to the guests and overbearing contempt to his subordinates. As if by common consent, the groups broke up and the guests hastened towards him. His automatic smile seemed strangely out of keeping with the crisis he was called upon to face. Information and questions poured in upon him.

"There's a girl in my bed."

"There's a man in my room."

"Somebody's got into my room."

"Is it fire?"

"It's a public scandal."

"This man has tried to take my trousers."

"Look here, I can't go about in this kit."

"I left my wife in room 18, and I can't find her."

"I shall write to The Times."

"I protest against this indecent exhibition."

The more questions and remarks that poured down upon him, the more persistently the deputy-manager smiled. He looked about him helplessly. Hitherto in the whole of his experience all that had been necessary for him to do was to smile and promise attention, and bully his subordinates. Here was a new phase. He wished the manager had not chosen this week-end for a trip to Brighton.

The eyes of the deputy-manager roved round him like those of a trapped animal seeking some channel of escape. By a lucky chance they fell upon the fireman who was just preparing to go off duty. The deputy-manager beckoned to him; the smile had left his face, he was now talking to a subordinate.

"What's the meaning of this?" he enquired.

The fireman looked up and down the corridor. He had been at the hotel over ten years, that is, since its opening, and knew every inch of the place. From the crowd of figures he glanced along the corridor. He was a man of few words.

"Somebody's been 'avin' a joke. The numbers 'ave all been changed. That," pointing to No. 18, "is No. 15, and that," pointing to No. 24, "is No. 21."

At the fireman's words angry murmurs and looks were exchanged. Each of the guests suspected the others of the joke. The fireman, who was a man of much resource as well as of few words, quickly solved the problem by obtaining some envelopes and putting on the doors the right numbers. Within a quarter of an hour every guest had found either his clothes, his lost one, or both, and the corridor was once more deserted.

"Well," murmured Bindle, as he stepped out of the service lift, "I s'pose they won't be wantin' me again, so I'll go 'ome an' get a bit o' sleep." And he walked off whistling gaily, whilst the fireman searched everywhere for the one man the deputy-manager most desired to see.

II

On the Monday evening following the hotel episode Mr. and Mrs. Bindle were seated at supper. Bindle had been unusually conversational. He was fortunate in having that morning obtained employment at a well-known stores. He was once more a pantechnicon-man. "King Richard is 'isself again," he would say, when he passed from a temporary alien employment to what he called the "legitimate."

He had felt it desirable to explain to Mrs. Bindle the cause of his leaving the Splendid Hotel. She had seen nothing at all humorous in it, and Bindle had studiously refrained from any mention of women being in the corridors.

He had just drawn away from the table, and was sitting smoking his pipe by the fire, when there was a loud knock at the outer door. He looked up expectantly.

Mrs. Bindle went to the door. From the passage he heard a familiar voice enquiring for him. It was Sanders, the foreman, who followed Mrs. Bindle into the room. He made no response to Bindle's pleasant, "Good-evenin'."

"D'you know what you done?" enquired Sanders aggressively. "You lost me my ruddy job. You did it a-purpose, and I've come to kill yer."

"Ain't yer 'ad enough of buryin'?" enquired Bindle significantly. "Buryin' yer mother on Saturday, and now yer wants to kill yer ole pal on Monday."

The menacing attitude of the foreman had no effect upon Bindle. He had a great heart and would cheerfully have stood up to a man twice the size of Sanders. The foreman made a swift movement in the direction of Bindle.

"You stutterin', bespattered – Gawd!"

Mrs. Bindle, seeing that trouble was impending, had armed herself with a very wet and very greasy dishcloth, which she had thrown with such accurate aim as to catch the foreman full in the mouth.

"You dirty 'ound," she vociferated, "comin' into a Christian 'ome and usin' that foul language. You dirty 'ound, I'll teach yer."

Mrs. Bindle's voice rose in a high crescendo. She looked about her for something with which to follow up her attack and saw her favourite weapon – the broom.

"You dirty-mouthed tyke," she cried, working herself into a fury. "You blasphemin' son o' Belial, take that." Crack came the handle of the broom on the foreman's head. Without waiting to observe the result, and with a dexterous movement, she reversed her weapon and charged the foreman, taking him full in the middle with the broom itself. In retreating he stumbled over the coal-scuttle, and sat down with a suddenness that made his teeth rattle.

Bindle watched the episode with great interest. Never had he so approved of Mrs. Bindle as at that moment. Like a St. George threatening the dragon she stood over the foreman.

"Now then, will yer say it again?" she enquired menacingly. There was no response. "Say, 'God forgive me,'" she ordered. "Say it," she insisted, seeing reluctance in the foreman's eye. "Say it, or I'll 'it yer on yer dirty mouth with this 'ere broom. I'm a daughter of the Lord, I am. Are yer goin' to say it or shall I change yer face for yer?"

"God forgive me," mumbled the foreman, in a voice entirely devoid of contrition.

Mrs. Bindle was satisfied. "Now up yer get, and orf yer go," she said. "I won't 'it yer again if yer don't talk, but never you think to come a-usin' such words in a Christian 'ome again."

The foreman sidled towards the door warily, When he was within reach of it he made a sudden dive and disappeared.

Bindle regarded his wife with approval as she returned from banging the door after him.

"I didn't know," he remarked, "that they taught yer that sort of thing at chapel. I likes a religion that lets yer do a bit in the knock-about business. Can't understand you and 'Earty belongin' to the same flock of sheep. Rummy thing, religion," he soliloquised, as he applied a match to his pipe; "seems to 'ave its Bank 'Olidays, same as work."

CHAPTER VII

BINDLE COMMITS AN INDISCRETION

"Anyone would think you was goin' to a weddin'." Mrs. Bindle eyed Bindle aggressively.

"Not again; I got one little canary bird; two might make me un'appy."

Bindle had remembered his promise to his niece, Millie, in every particular, and had added as his own contribution a twopenny cigar resplendent in a particularly wide red-and-gold band, which he had been careful not to remove.

"Anythink might 'appen to me in this get-up," he remarked pleasantly, "so don't expect me till I'm 'ome – "

"You never take me out," broke in Mrs. Bindle stormily, "but you can take that chit of a girl out first time she asks."

"You don't like the pictures, Mrs. B., they ain't 'oly enough, an' some of the young women in 'em are a bit generous like with showin' their ankles – but there, there!"

"You used to take me out before we was married," replied Mrs. Bindle, ignoring Bindle's remark.

Bindle looked at her curiously.

"Them was the days when yer wasn't above goin' to a music-'all. There ain't nowhere to take yer 'cept the chapel, an' I don't enjoy it as you an' 'Earty do."

"Where do you expect to go to?" demanded Mrs. Bindle angrily. She always became angry when mention was made of the pleasures she once enjoyed. "Where do you expect to go to?"

"Well," remarked Bindle judicially, "accordin' to you an' 'Earty it's a place where yer don't 'ave to pay no water rates."

Mrs. Bindle sniffed derisively.

"Look 'ere, my one an' only," continued Bindle, "I got to 'ave a pretty bad time in the next world, accordin' to wot you an' 'Earty believes, so I'm goin' to the pictures an' I'll 'ave a drink or two in this. If I was as sure of 'eaven as you an' 'Earty is, maybe I'd be more careful."

Mrs. Bindle banged the iron she was using down upon the rest, but made no comment.

"Well, see you later, if I'm lucky," said Bindle, and he was gone.

He found Millie in a fever of expectation. She opened the door to him herself, looking very pretty and smart in her Sunday hat.

"I was so afraid you'd forget, uncle," she whispered, snuggling against him as they walked along. "You look so nice," she added.

Bindle looked down at himself and grinned.

"I pays for dressin'," he observed. "The cigar was me own idea. It gives a sort o' finish, eh, Millikins?"

They walked past the Fulham Grand Theatre, and at the Cinema Palace on the Fulham side of the bridge Bindle paused.

"Not this one, the one over the bridge," Millie cried anxiously.

"Further to walk for yer ole uncle."

"But – but – " faltered Millie, "Charlie Chaplin's at the other and I do so want to see him."

"Charlie Chaplin's 'ere too, Millikins. Look, it says so."

"Oh, uncle, please, please, the other one." There were tears in Millie's eyes and her voice shook.

Bindle was puzzled, but to please her he would have walked over many bridges.

"Uncle, you are good," was all she said as she smiled at him happily.

They passed over the bridge in silence, watching the stream of trams, buses, and people. When with Millie, Bindle never ventured upon those little personalities in which he indulged when alone.

"Do yer like chapel, Millikins?" Bindle enquired suddenly.

"I hate it, Uncle Joe!" There was such feeling and decision in Millie's voice that Bindle turned and regarded her curiously.

"Why?"

"I want to be happy, oh! I do so want to be happy, Uncle Joe." There was almost a sob in Millie's voice and her eyes were moist with unshed tears.

Bindle said nothing, but he pondered deeply as they walked slowly along. When they saw the brilliant lights of the Putney Pavilion Millie visibly brightened.

As they entered Millie looked eagerly round, and a sigh of contentment escaped her as her eyes rested on a tall, pale-faced youth who stood smoking a cigarette. He raised his hat about an inch from his head, squaring his elbow in the process as if saluting. The action was awkward and sheepish.

Bindle looked from the young man to Millie, then remembering Millie's distress at his suggestion of going to the other cinema, light dawned upon him. With elaborate courtesy, and to the youth's obvious astonishment, he returned the salute, then walking across seized his hand and shook it effusively.

"Millikins, this is a young man I used to know, but 'ave forgotten. 'E remembers me, 'owever, and that's all that matters. This is me niece Millie," he added to the youth who, staring in utter bewilderment from Bindle to Millie, stood with downcast head.

"Goin' in to see the pictures?" Bindle enquired casually.

"Er – no – er – yes, of course," stuttered the youth.

"Nice evenin' for pictures," continued Bindle, thoroughly enjoying the situation. "Don't yer think so?" he added, as the youth did not reply.

"Yes, very."

"Now you an' me's ole pals, but I've quite forgot yer name. Is it 'Orace?"

"Dixon, Charlie Dixon." A faint smile flickered across the young man's face as he caught Millie's eye. He was beginning to realise that somewhere in this astonishing adventure there was fun, and that Bindle had been first to see it.

For some seconds Bindle, who was a shrewd judge of character, regarded the young man. He was obviously nervous, but his grey eyes looked out honestly from a rather pleasant face into those of Bindle.

Suddenly he laughed. Millie looked from one to the other, her pretty brows puckered. The situation was obviously beyond her.

"Uncle, I want to speak to you, please." Millie's voice was scarcely audible.

"All right, my dear, we'll go and buy the tickets. You wait here, young feller," he added. "We'll be back in two ticks."

When out of earshot Millie whispered shyly, "That's Charlie Dixon, and we – we like each other, and I'm – I'm a wicked girl, Uncle Joe. I told him to be here and – "

"That's all right, Millikins, don't you worry."

Millie gave his arm an ecstatic squeeze as he left her to purchase the tickets.

When Bindle and his niece rejoined Charlie Dixon Bindle's mind was made up. He liked the look of the young man. He also remembered his own youth, and a glance at the happy face of his niece decided him upon his course of action.

"'Ow long 'ave yer known each other?" he enquired.

"More than six months," replied Charlie Dixon.

"Seems a lifetime, eh?" he grinned.

"I knew you'd understand, dear Uncle Joe," whispered the now radiant Millie.

"Look 'ere," said Bindle to Charlie Dixon, "I jest remembered I got to see a mate round the corner. You two go in wi' these tickets and I'll follow in ten minutes. If I misses yer, be 'ere in this 'all at ten sharp. See?"

They both saw, and exchanged rapturous glances.

"Mind, ten sharp, or I'll get the sack."

"Thank you, Mr. Bindle," said Charlie Dixon, raising his hat, to which Bindle responded with an elaborate sweep that brought a smile to the face of the attendant.

Just before turning into Putney High Street Bindle looked round to see Millie and Charlie Dixon in earnest converse, walking slowly towards the door leading in to the pictures – and bliss.

Bindle sighed involuntarily. "I wonder if I done right. Funny thing me playin' Coopid. Wonder wot Mrs. B. and 'Earty 'ud say. There's goin' to be trouble, J. B., and you're a-goin' to get yerself in an 'oly sort o' mess. If it 'adn't been for petticoats yer might a' been Mayor of Fulham or Charlie Chaplin."

At a quarter to ten Bindle left a merry group of intimates at the Scarlet Horse, and a few minutes later was waiting in the vestibule of the Pavilion, where he was joined by the lovers.

"I never knew Millikins was such a pretty gal," muttered Bindle, as they approached. Then aloud, "Where'd you two got to? I been searchin' everywhere."

With a wealth of detail they explained exactly where they had been sitting.

"Funny I didn't see yer," remarked Bindle. "Now you two must say good-night; and," turning to the youth, "if yer'll follow across the bridge slowly, maybe I'll see yer outside the Grand Theatre after I've taken this young woman 'ome."

Millie was strangely silent as the three crossed Putney Bridge. She was thinking deeply of her new-found happiness and, as she gripped Bindle's arm with both hands, she felt that he represented her special Providence. She could tell him anything, for he understood. She would always tell Uncle Joe everything.

Outside Fulham Theatre she said good-night to Charlie Dixon.

"You ain't said a word since I met you, Millikins. Wot's up?" enquired Bindle, puzzled at Millie's silence.

"I've been wondering, Uncle Joe," replied the girl in a subdued voice.

"Wot about? Tell yer ole uncle."

"I've been wondering why you are so good to me, and why you don't think me a wicked girl." Then, turning to him anxiously, "You don't, Uncle Joe, do you?"

"Well, Millikins, there ain't any think very wicked, so far as I can see, in wantin' to be 'appy in the way you do. 'Is nibs looks a nice young chap, an' if 'e ain't 'e'll wish 'e'd never seen your ole uncle." There was a grim note in Bindle's voice that surprised his niece.

"You don't think God minds us being happy that – that way, do you, Uncle Joe?" questioned Millie earnestly.

"I'm sure 'E don't, Millikins. 'E's all for the 'appiness wot don't do nobody any 'arm. That parson chap told me, an' 'e was a dean or somethink, an' 'e ought to know."

Millie drew a sigh of relief. Then her mood suddenly changed.

"Uncle, let's run," she cried; and without waiting for the protest that was forming itself on Bindle's lips, she caught him by the hand and dashed off. After a moment's hesitation Bindle entered into her mood and the pair tore up Fulham High Street, Millie running obliquely in front, striving to urge Bindle to a greater pace.

Just as they reached the Heartys' private door, Mr. Hearty himself emerged on his way to post a letter. Millie running sideways did not see him. Bindle was unable to avoid the inevitable collision, and Millie's elbow took her father dead in the centre of his waistcoat and drove the breath out of his body.

"Oh, father!" cried his horrified daughter.

"Millie!" gasped Mr. Hearty when he had regained sufficient breath for speech.

"My fault, 'Earty. I likes a run now and again; we was 'avin' a bit of a race. Millikins beats me in the matter o' legs."

To Mr. Hearty women had limbs, not legs, and he disliked intensely Bindle's reference to those of his daughter.

"I hope this will not occur again," he said severely. "I shall have to stop these – these – " Unable to find the word, Mr. Hearty passed on to the pillar-box.

Millie stood watching him, horror in her eyes.

"Oh, Uncle Joe, am I a very bad girl? Father always makes me feel so wicked."

"'E'd make an 'oly saint feel a bit of a rip. You're just about as bad as a first-class angel; but p'raps it 'ud be better not to 'old sports outside the shop. Might get me a bad name. Now in yer go, young 'un, an' we'll 'ave another bust next Friday, eh? I'll be seein' 'is nibs on me way 'ome."

"Good-night, dear Uncle Joe. I'm glad you're my uncle." She put her arms round his neck and kissed him, and Bindle experienced a curious sensation in his throat.

"Gawd bless yer, Millikins," Bindle mumbled in an unsteady voice, as she tripped along the passage.

"Fancy me sayin' that!" he muttered, as he closed the door. "It kind o' slipped out."

A few yards down the High Street Bindle met his brother-in-law returning from the post.

"I'm sorry, 'Earty, about that collision. It was all my fault. I like playin' wi' kids." There was an unaccustomed humility in Bindle's voice, assumed for the purpose of making things easier for Millie, that pleased Mr. Hearty.

"Millie is no longer a child, Joseph," he remarked, "but we'll say no more about it. I'm not hurt. Good-night." He bared his yellow teeth in token of forgiveness.

As he passed on, Bindle gazed up at the skies meditatively. "I wonder if Gawd really likes that sort?" he murmured with a seriousness that was unusual to him.

Outside the theatre he found waiting for him Charlie Dixon, who greeted him with:

"Will you bring her again, Mr. Bindle?"

"'Ere, I ain't a nurse, young feller. Nice mess you got me in. It's all through you that Millikins nearly killed 'er father. Ran clean into 'im and sort o' knocked the wind out of 'is bellows." Bindle told the story of the collision with great gusto.

"Now," he continued, "you and me's got to 'ave a talk, an' we'll 'ave a glass of beer at the same time."

Bindle learned the story of Millie's romance. It appeared that she and Charlie Dixon, who was in a shipping-office, went to the city by the same train every morning, Millie being a typist at a wholesale draper's. Young Dixon had watched her week after week, and he eventually became acquainted owing to a breakdown on the line, which resulted in a corresponding breakdown of the passengers' usual reserve. After that they went up regularly together, met at lunch, after business hours and on every occasion that Millie could possibly manage it. Once they had each obtained a half-holiday, which they had spent at the Zoo.

Charlie Dixon's frankness and obvious devotion to Millie Hearty entirely won Bindle's heart.

"You will help us, Mr. Bindle, won't you?" he pleaded.

"Look 'ere, young feller," said Bindle, with an unusual note of seriousness in his voice, "I don't know nothink about yer, an' before I 'elps I got to be sure wot I thinks yer are. Now you jest get me a letter or two from them as knows wot sort of a villain yer are, an' then p'r'aps I'll be the same sort of ole fool I been to-night. See?"

They parted with mutual regard and promises to meet again next Friday, when Charlie Dixon was to bring such documents as would vouch for his respectability.

"Yes; I been an ole fool," muttered Bindle, as he walked home. "This 'ere business is goin' to lead to trouble between me an' 'Earty. What a pity people gets it as bad as 'Earty. No man didn't ought to be religious all the week. It ain't natural."

That night Bindle entered his house whistling "Gospel Bells" with unaccustomed abandon.

"Been enjoyin' yerself, leavin' me at 'ome to slave and get yer meals ready," snapped Mrs. Bindle. "One o' these days you'll come 'ome and find me gone."