fog just outside.
So into the fog he had slipped, and through it he now ran, in the innocent belief that his troubles were over. He managed to steer an uninterrupted course for a full ten minutes, and then the person he bumped into was nothing more alarming than an elderly gentleman with a bad corn.
‘Where are you going to?’ barked the elderly gentleman.
‘Sime spot as you was,’ replied Ben, hunger and the fog rendering him something of a daredevil.
As he hurried on, he recalled the gleam of the elderly gentleman’s gold watch-chain, and he wondered how many square meals that could have been converted into.
‘It’s a lucky thing fer gold watches,’ he reflected, ‘that me mother taught me ter say me prayers reg’lar!’
Presently, feeling secure, he slackened his pace; and indeed this was necessary, for although he could not see London, he felt it beginning to envelop him. Houses loomed up, when he hit one side of the road or the other. People became more frequent, and meetings ceased to be events, or bumpings to surprise. Traffic groped and hooted along the road, lamp-posts dawned—a mile away one moment and upon you the next—and, every now and again, voices were suddenly raised in warning, or anxiety, or irony.
The fog entered Ben’s brain, as well as his eyes. Soon, he was walking in a sort of a trance. If you had stopped him and asked where he was walking, he could not have told you, and he might have had difficulty, also, in telling you why he walked—until, at any rate, he had had several seconds to consider the matter. He was travelling very much like a rudderless ship, borne by the tide into whatever port, or on to whatever rocks, that tide decreed.
But, at last, Ben’s dormant will did assert itself for a brief instant, though even here Fate selected the particular restaurant into which he turned, to add another link to the strange chain that was binding him. It was, of course, a cheap restaurant, for an out-of-work seaman can patronise no other, and it was nearly empty. Ben shuffled to a pew-like seat with a high back, sat down, and ordered a cup of tea and as much bread-and-butter as would be covered by fourpence. Then he settled himself to his simple meal, comparing it regretfully with the more lavish repast he had missed earlier in the day.
He was seated near the end of the long, narrow room, and only one table lay beyond—a table completely hidden by the high back of his bench. He had vaguely imagined this end table to be unoccupied, but suddenly a word fell upon his ears, and he paused in the act of conveying a substantial piece of bread-and-butter to his mouth. For the word he had heard was ‘Seventeen.’
‘That’s rum,’ he thought. ‘Seems as if I can’t git away from the blinkin’ number terday!’
He cocked his ears. Soon, another voice made a remark—a girl’s voice this time. The first voice had been a man’s.
‘Isn’t there any other way?’ asked the girl’s voice.
It was sullen and dissatisfied, and the man’s voice replied somewhat tartly:
‘What other way do you suggest?’
Apparently the girl made no response, for the man repeated his question, as though nervous and irritated.
‘Oh, I don’t care,’ said the girl’s voice, in accents suggesting the accompaniment of a shrug. ‘It’s all the same in the end.’
‘That’s where you’re a fool!’ rasped the man’s voice. It was kept low, but Ben had no difficulty in hearing the words. ‘It’s not the same in the end. There’s a hell of a difference!’
‘To you, I dare say.’
‘And to you, to. Why—’ The remark was interrupted by the dull sound of a train. Evidently, there was a line running past the back of the shop. ‘That’s a bit funny, isn’t it?’ exclaimed the man’s voice.
‘What’s funny?’ demanded the girl’s voice.
‘Why—that train.’
‘I can’t see where the fun comes in.’
‘’Ear, ’ear,’ thought Ben. ‘Wot’s funny in a trine—hexcep’ when it’s on time?’
The voices ceased, and the piece of bread-and-butter completed its postponed journey to Ben’s mouth. While it was followed by another, and another, Ben tried to visualise the owners of the voices. It may be mentioned that he visualised them all wrong. The man developed in his mind like Charlie Peace, and the girl like Princess Mary.
He began to fall into a reverie, but all at once he cocked his ears again. The conversation behind him was being resumed.
‘Well, well, we needn’t decide this minute,’ muttered the man, ‘but the only thing I can see is Number Seventeen.’
‘Blimy, and it’s the on’y thing I can ’ear,’ thought Ben.
‘I’ll tell you what it is,’ retorted the girl. ‘You’re getting nervy.’
‘Nervy, is it?’
‘Yes. Nothing’s happened to worry about yet. Why, we’ve only just—’
‘Quiet!’ whispered the man fiercely. ‘Haven’t you got any sense at all?’
After a short silence, the girl’s voice remarked, with irony:
‘I haven’t had much up till now. But it’s coming.’
‘A bit cryptic, aren’t you, my girl?’ observed the man.
‘Then here’s something else cryptic,’ she answered. ‘Why will some people persist in wearing blinkers?’
‘Now we’re goin’ ter ’ave a little dust-up,’ thought Ben. ‘Two ter one on the gal!’
The dust-up did not materialise, however. Instead, a bulky form materialised, walking up the shop. It was the bulky form of a policeman, and the policeman entered Ben’s pew, and sat down opposite him.
‘Well, I’m blowed!’ thought Ben. ‘This is my lucky dye! Thank Gawd, the bobbies don’t turn hup in seventeens!’
The policeman looked at Ben, and nodded.
‘Pretty thick outside there, isn’t it?’ he remarked.
‘Yus,’ answered Ben.
‘Worst fog I ever remember,’ continued the policeman. ‘Looks as if it’s going to last a week.’
‘Yus,’ said Ben.
The policeman smiled. ‘Putting something warm inside you, eh?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Well, tea’s better than beer.’
‘No. I means, yus.’
‘How would you like another cup?’
Ben began to grow suspicious. People were not usually kind to him unless they had some ulterior motive.
