'And it won't be the last of the night,' added the first.
'Monsieur who?' I said.
'Maurice,' said the first barman, and it came out like 'more ice'. 'Very Frenchified, he is.'
'But not really, though,' added another of the barmen.
'I've seen his name before,' I said; 'it was being put up outside a little hall in Blackpool.'
'Very likely,' said my barman.
I looked at my glass of water and enquired about the price of a pint. On hearing the answer, I told my barman I'd nip back to the Evening Star for my last of the night, if that was quite all right with him. He grinned, and all the barmen watched me walk through the main doors and out into the hot night.
There might have been thirty people in the Star by now, and every man jack avoiding the billiard table. The Ramsden's was off, so I put away a pint of something else that I didn't much care for, and it didn't knock the stone on the line from my mind, so I took another, and that seemed about the right dose.
I came out of the Evening Star for a second time, and a tram went racing past like a comet with advertisements, or the fast drawing-back of a curtain. Looking far to my left, I saw the Joint and Hind's Mill, a black modern castle at the top of Beacon Hill. To the right, at the top of Horton Street, was another beacon of sorts, the Palace Theatre, but the show was done long since and, as I watched, the lights began to go out. I made towards this disappearing target anyway, and turned off before reaching it to enter the side streets.
The wife would have been home an hour since, or more, so I was late. I didn't like to be late back for the wife, and I didn't like to be bothered about being late back.
There was a quarter moon, lying on its back, lazy and not giving out much light; there were flies around all the gas lamps, and too much life in the streets, though none of it to be seen: just far-off shouts and cries, and all doubled by the echo of the houses. The shouts always seemed to be shadows of sound, around the corner, or in the alleyways behind the houses.
I turned down a snicket that cut a terrace in half, then pushed along a particular back alley because I liked the racket my boots made on the cobbles, but the clanging of the segs on my heels was presently doubled, so that the sound was more the clip clop of a horse. I turned, and there seemed to be a fast-travelling shadow, but no sound. I carried on walking, and was back to hearing the sound of my own boots. I turned into another snicket, and then I was in Back Hill Street.
The gas was up in the occasional house. I came to ours, which gave out no light, and saw a man or a shadow of a man beyond, in Hill Street. Something about him made me look behind me, and there came a shout from that direction that seemed to jump, so that it was two shouts, and then the noise of something happening in Hill Street, and then nothing.
I unlocked the door, walked into the house and sat down on the sofa, not breathing. It came as a relief, a few moments later, to hear the steady chimes of midnight coming up from the parish church. I stared at the closed door, and thought about how a good cold snap would put an end to all this nonsense in the streets. When the chimes ended, I stood up to put on a brew, and as I did so the letter box flipped open. I flew at the door and looked up and down Back Hill Street, but that's all I saw: the street and the quarter moon, looking like a painting.
Chapter Seven
Bright sunlight and the clanging of hooves woke me up early the next morning, the Saturday, and, as I climbed out of bed, I thought: did I go and see a ventriloquist last night, or did he come and see me? I ought not to have been standing next to the fellow in the bar like that. It was against all the rules. Then there was Paul of the Socialist Mission. I knew I'd said too much to someone. Or had it all been just kids in the streets and bad beer?
Leaving the wife to sleep, I stepped out, and saw a pantechnicon drawing up. The remover was in the driving seat but there was no sign of our lodger.
The remover leapt down, and said: 'Upstairs, is it?' He opened the doors at the back, took out a chair, and darted into the house with it. I watched as the remover took in various articles and, as he did not see any need to say anything, it was like watching a burglary in reverse. Just then a young fellow in a black suit came wandering into the court, and he looked a George Ogden somehow: biggish and rather round. He was wearing a high collar even though it was a Saturday, and he was all waistcoat, the garment in question being shiny black with many little secret slits and vents and special pockets for small things. Laced into it through special holes was a watch chain, which hung across this fellow's belly like a golden banner. I knew that I had marvelled at this waistcoat before – and that I must have done so down at the Joint.
He was about of an age with me. He stuck out his hand: 'What's your label?' he said, and he not only shook my hand but clapped me on the back.
'Jim Stringer,' I said.
'Which makes you the master of the house.'
'I am the man of the house'1 said, carefully.
George Ogden gave me a look – curious, like, but friendly. He had a round face, and a lot of curly hair which looked like smoke that had tumbled upwards from a chimney and stopped.
The remover was toiling away in the background, now carrying a bundle of George Ogden's books. I caught sight of the title of one: Letters of Descartes. They were all from the Everyman Library.
'I've come along to see that this man takes proper care of my things' said George Ogden loudly, and just then he turned to the remover: 'Good morning to you.'
The remover made no reply, but carried on removing.
'Very independent unit, that chap' said George Ogden.
'The wife tells me you work at the Joint,' I said. I didn't like to say: You're a clerk, because to my ears that sounded unkind. 'I wondered if that's where you saw the advertisement?'
He nodded. 'Presently in the booking office,' he said, 'but I like to think I have the steam in me to go a good deal further. What line are you in?'
'Engine man,' I said, and for the first time since beginning on the footplate I said it without boastfulness.
'What… driver?'
'Hope to be in time,' I said automatically. 'But just at the moment firing.'
'I like to think I'm a ticket clerk only on the outside,' said our lodger, at which I took a good look at him, thinking: well, there's a lot of your outside.
'Are you on goods or passengers?' he asked. 'Don't say you're on the express runs?'
I fancied he half wanted me to be on the expresses, and half not.
'I'm on the excursions,' I said.
'Oh yes… Do you think one of us should hold that horse?' he said, nodding towards the removal man's nag.
'It's standing perfectly still' I said.
'I know' said George Ogden, and then he seemed quite lost again for a second. 'But there are some valuable items in that van, I don't mind telling you.'
Wondering about what sort of goods we were getting here, with this funny fellow, I inched my way around to the back of the van so I could get a clue to his character from his possessions, saying as I did so: 'I suppose you spend half your time selling tickets for our show – the excursion runs, I mean, especially the Blackpool trips. There was a stone put on the line to Blackpool last week. Did you hear of that? My mate and me were the ones who found it in our way.'
'Yes,' said George, 'I did hear of that.'
'A lass was killed when we clapped on the brakes,' I said.
Thoroughly bad show,' said George. 'Not quite cricket, if you see what I mean.'
'We'll find out who put it there,' I said. 'You can bet your boots.'
'You've a lot of plants,' I said, for I had now inched my way around the back of the van, where there was a whole forest of ferns and rubber plants.