“Thirsty weather,” he remarked, looking down at her.
“Too thirsty for me,” she answered, perhaps a shade crossly. Her voice, he noted, was pleasantly musical.
“Too thirsty, eh? Well, you’re in the right place for that, anyway.”
“Yes, if my old man would only buy me another drink.”
“And won’t he?”
“Not ’im. He’s scared of me getting drunk. Now, I ask you, do I look like a woman who would get drunk?”
He wondered if she were slightly drunk already. But he replied, rather hoping she were, “Of course you don’t. And have another drink with me if your fellow’s too mean to give you one.”
He had spoken loudly, and the crowd, as he had intended, overheard and began to titter. He liked them to be spectators of his prowess with a woman. In less than a minute he had reached that stage of jeering with her about her husband! Smart work, that!
“Ssh,” she whispered, mockingly. “He might hear you, and then he’d knock you down for sayin’ that! Better take care, young man!” Across the counter she snapped, “Mine’s a gin, George.”
The crowd’s titter became a gathering roar of laughter, and suddenly Potterson glimpsed the reason for it. The woman’s husband was actually standing beside her! Oh, this was really rich — something he would think of and enjoy in retrospect many a time afterwards! A little under-sized hollow-chested man, pale and careworn, shabbily dressed — the sort that is born to say “Sir” to everybody. Then it occurred to him that he had seen the face somewhere before — why — heavens, yes — he was the man to whom he had given the pills that very night, not a quarter of an hour before! What a joke! And how on earth had he managed to net such a splendid creature as that woman? Ah, but life — and especially life as he knew it — was full of such mysteries...
The situation, however, added full spice to his enjoyment. He always took a keen pleasure in emphasising his own power in front of others who lacked it, and nothing gratified him more than to flirt with a pretty woman before the very eyes of a husband who had not the nerve to object. It made him feel “big.”
To the little man he said, with patronizing condescension: “Too bad, my good man, to make myself known to your wife without your permission — but then, that’s your fault for having such a darned pretty wife! Somebody’ll steal her from you some day, you bet — especially if you don’t give her what she asks for. Anyhow you’ll join us both in a drink, won’t you?”
The man smiled sheepishly (how well Potterson knew his type also), and said he would have a “bitter.”
Potterson went on, taking care that all the bar should hear: “Your wife was warning me about you just now — told me I’d better be careful or you’d knock me down. Glad to see you don’t intend to, after all. I should hate to be knocked down.”
Again the man smiled sheepishly. The crowd laughed in derision, and even the woman could not forbear a titter at her husband’s expense. “I won’t let him,” she said, with mock pity in her voice. “He’s a real tiger when he’s roused — you’d never believe... Ain’t you, Bert?” she added, sipping her gin.
“Don’t give in to him,” said Potterson, keeping up the banter. “He’s a terrible fighter, I can see, but you’ll win in the end, if you tackle him the right way. Fight and win is my motto in this world.” He relapsed a little into his market-place manner. “If you want health, get it — it’s there for you to have. If you want wealth — same thing — fight and win it! If you want to talk to a pretty woman in a pub — well, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t, is there?”
The woman giggled delightfully.
“Have another drink with me, my dear,” resumed Potterson, well pleased with his rate of progress. “George, another gin for the lady and another double for me. And this gentleman will take another bitter, I daresay... Yes, after a fairly adventurous life all over the world I think I can claim that I’ve won pretty nearly all I ever wanted to win. I’m not grumbling. Life’s a grand thing when you can say that.”
“But a rotten thing when you can’t,” put in a man’s voice from the crowd.
Potterson heard and welcomed the interruption, it made him more the centre of attention than ever. “But you can, sir!” he thundered, fixing the crowd in general with his carefully-practised Napoleonic stare. “To a man who has red blood in his veins, life is bursting with prizes ripe for capture!” (One of his stock phrases, that was.) “You want something — very well, if you’re a man — a Man in the fullest sense of the word — you get it! Fight for it, if need be — but get it — that’s the main thing! Why, if I were to tell you half the things that have happened in my own life—” He drained his tumbler at a gulp, and through the glass he saw the little man looking up at him eagerly, evidently contemplating some remark. “Yes?” he said encouragingly, as a schoolmaster might interrogate a small child.
“Mister,” began the man, with obvious shyness and embarrassment. His voice lacked even the semblance of refinement that his wife’s had. “Mister, you’ll excuse me makin’ bold to ask you a question — but what you says interests me a good deal. Now, I’m a bit of a readin’ man — in my spare time, o’ course — and I’ve heard about the philosophy of that German fellow Nitsky — or whatever ’is name is—”
Potterson’s lip curled. Again he recognized the type — one of those down-at-heels fellows you found in public libraries poring over queer books. “Nitsky my foot!” he cried, winking boldly at the woman. “Never heard of the chap and don’t want to. I have my own philosophy — my own rules of life — just as I have my own rules of health. And my own are quite good enough for me.”
“But Nitsky says—”
“To hell with what Nitsky says. Look here, my good man, it’s not a bit of use your stuffing me with the damfool nonsense of some damned foreigner. What I want — and what I’ll listen to with pleasure — are your own ideas, if you’ve got any.”
The man flushed under the brutality of the sarcasm. “Well, sir,” he resumed, respectfully, “if you’ll let me put it in my own way, mebbe I can explain. It seems to me — not being an eddicated man, o’ course — but it seems to me that it ain’t much use expectin’ to get everythin’ in this world.”
“And why not?”
“Because there ain’t enough of everythin’ to go round.”
“There’s enough for you, my man, if you go in and get it!”
“But some other fellow may get it first.”
“Then take it off him.”
“Fight ’im, you mean, mister?”
Potterson roared as he might have done across a market place. The naïveté of the little fellow went to his brain as intoxicatingly as the whisky; never had he met a more perfect foil to his own self-conceit. “Yes, my good fellow, fight him! Most things worth having have to be fought for! Lord, when I look back and think of the fights I’ve had—”
“You, mister?”
“Well, do you think I’ve never had to put up my fists to a man? Look!” With a sweeping gesture he rolled up his sleeve and bared his arm above the elbow. “Look at that muscle, sir! Feel it! Hard as iron, eh? It’s years since my real fighting days, but I’ll wager tonight I could kill a man with one blow of this arm of mine if I was driven to it!”
He could feel the woman’s admiration on him like a warm glow; how she must contrast his splendid strength and virility with the spongy weakness of her little whelp of a husband! With her eyes so eagerly looking upwards to him, and the whisky fumes pleasantly simmering in his head, he felt a veritable Superman. Was he not a Superman? Could he not dominate a whole multitude by the magic of his voice and personality? Was not this very ordinary little public-house crowd hanging upon his every word? His heart swelled with pride; he would show them all what sort of a fellow he was. “Drinks all round on me, George,” he cried, loudly, and gloried in the respectful murmur of thanks that followed. How easy it was to handle these people! A loud voice and a free drink — or a free box of pills, for that matter — and they were his entirely...