then picked up the parcel which had fallen from her grasp.
'You've brought it on yourself, as you very well know. It's the kind of thing I don't care to have to do. I'm not like some, what's always spoiling to knock their wives about; but when I do have to do it, there's no one does it more thorough, I will say that.'
He left her lying in a heap on the boards. On his way to the pawnbroker's he encountered a friend, Joe Cooke. Mr. Cooke stopped and hailed him.
'What yer, Tommy! Are you coming along with us to-night on that there little razzle?'
'Of course I am. Didn't I say I was? And when I say I'm coming, don't I always come?'
'All right, old coxybird! Keep your 'air on! No one said you didn't. Got the rhino?'
'I have. Leastways, I soon shall have, when I've turned this little lot into coin of the realm.'
He pointed to the bundle which he bore beneath his arm. Mr. Cooke grinned.
'What yer got there?'
'I've got a couple of coats what my wife's been wearing out her eyes on for a set of slave-driving sweaters. Three-and-six they was to pay her for them. I rather reckon that I'll get more than three-and-six for them, unless I'm wrong. And when I have melted 'em, Joe, I don't mind if I do you a wet.'
Joe did not mind, either. The two fell in side by side. Mr. Cooke drew his hand across his mouth.
'Ever since my old woman died I've felt I ought to have another-a good one, mind you. There's nothing like having someone to whom you can turn for a bob or so.'
'It's more than a bob or so I get out of my old woman, you may take my word. If she don't keep me like a gentleman, she hears of it.'
Mr. Cooke regarded his friend with genuine admiration.
'Ah! but we're not all so fly as you, Tommy, nor yet so lucky.'
'Perhaps not-not, mind you, that that's owing to any fault of yours. It's as we're made.'
Mr. Davis, with the bundle under his arm, bore himself with an air of modest pride, as one who appreciated his natural advantages.
They reached the pawnbroker's. The entrance to the pledge department was in a little alley leading off the main street. As Mr. Davis stood at the mouth of this alley to say a parting word to his friend as a prelude to the important business of the pledging, someone touched him on the arm.
A voice accosted him.
'What is it that you would do?'
Mr. Davis spun round like a teetotum. He stared at the Stranger.
'Hollo, matey! Who are you?'
'I am He that you know not of.'
Mr. Davis drew a little back, as if a trifle disconcerted. His voice was huskier than even it was wont to be.
'What's the little game?'
'I bid you tell me what is this thing that you would do?'
Mr. Davis seemed to find in the words, which were quietly uttered, a compelling influence which made him curiously frank.
'I am going to pawn these here two coats which my wife's been making.'
'Is it well?'
Mr. Davis slunk farther from the Stranger. 'What's it got to do with you?'
'Is it well?'
There was a sorrowful intonation in the repetition of the inquiry, blended with a singularly penetrant sternness. Mr. Davis cowered as if he had been struck a blow. He turned to his friend.
'Say, Joe, who is this bloke?'
The Stranger spoke to Mr. Cooke.
'Look on Me, and you shall know.'
Mr. Cooke looked-and knew. He began to tremble as if he would have fallen to the ground. Mr. Davis, noting his friend's condition, became uneasy.
'Say, Joe, what's the matter with you? What's he done to you, Joe?'
Mr. Cooke was silent. The Stranger answered:
'Would that that which has been done to him could be done to you, and to all this city! But you are of those that cannot know, for in them is no knowledge. Yet return to your wife, and make your peace with her, lest worse befall.'
Mr. Davis began to slink out of the alley, with furtive air and face carefully averted from the Stranger. As he reached the pavement, a big man, with a scarlet handkerchief twisted round his neck, caught him by the shoulder. The big man's speech was flavoured with adjectives.
'Why, Tommy! what's up with you? You look as if you was just a-going to see Jack Ketch.'
Then came the flood of adjectives to give the sentence balance. Mr. Davis tried to wriggle from his questioner's too strenuous grip.
'Let me go, Pug-let me go!'
'What for? What's wrong? Who's been doing something to yer?'
Mr. Davis made a movement of his head towards the Stranger. He spoke in a husky whisper.
'That bloke-over there.'
The big man dragged the unwilling Mr. Davis forward.
'What's my friend been doing to you, and what have you been doing to him?'
There was the usual adjectival torrent. The Stranger replied to the inquiry with another.
'Why are you so unclean of mouth? Is it because you are unclean of heart, or because you do not know what the things are which you utter?'
The retorted question seemed to take the big man aback. His manner became still more blusterous:
'I don't want none of your lip, and I won't have any, and you can take that from me! I don't know what kind of a Gospel-pitcher you are; but if you think because preaching's your lay that you can come it over me, I'll just show you can't by knocking the head right off yer.'
'What big things the little say!'
The retort seemed to goad Mr. Davis's friend to a state of considerable excitement.
'Little, am I? I'll show you! I'll learn you! I'll give you a lesson free gratis, and for nothing now, right straight off.' He began to tear off his cap and coat. 'Here, some of you chaps, catch hold while I'm a-showing him!' As he turned up his shirtsleeves, he addressed the crowd which had gathered: 'These blokes come to us, and because we're poor they think they can treat us as if we was dirt, and come the pa and ma game over us as if we was a lot of kids. I've had enough of it-in fact, I've had too much. For the future I mean to set about every one of them as tries to come it over me. Now, then, my bloke, put up your dooks or eat your words. Don't think you're going to get out of it by standing still, because if you don't beg pardon for what you said to me just now I'll-'
The man, who was by profession a pugilist, advanced towards the Stranger in professional style. The Stranger raised His right hand.
'Stay! and let your arm be withered. Better lose your arm than all that you have.'
