me?’ asked Dicky, plainly more mystified than ever. ‘Wy ‘e never told me nothink. ‘E gimme the sack this afternoon, an’ chucked me out.’
‘Then wotcher got yer apron on now for?’
‘Oh,’ said Dicky, looking down at it, ‘I jist put it on agin—o’ purpose.’ And he glanced at the mat.
Mr Weech understood, and grinned—a genuine grin this time. ‘That’s right Dicky,’ he said, ‘never let yer wits go a-ramblin’. A sharp boy like you’s a lot too good for a shop-boy, slavin’ away from mornin’ till night, an’ treated ungrateful. Wot did ‘e sack ye for?’
‘I dunno. Took a fit in ‘is ‘ead, I s’pose. Wotcher goin’ to gimme for this mat? It’s a two an’ three mat.’
‘Want somethink to eat, doncher?’ suggested Mr Weech, glancing at a heap of stale cake.
‘No I don’t,’ Dicky answered, with sulky resolution. ‘I want money.’
‘Awright,’ said Mr Weech, resignedly. ‘You ain’t ‘ad much to eat an’ drink ‘ere for a long time, though. But I’ll do the ‘an’some, seein’ you’re bin treated ungrateful by Grinder. ‘Ere’s twopence.’
But Dicky held to the mat. ‘Twopence ain’t enough,’ he said. ‘I want fourpence.’ He meant to spare nobody—not even Mr Weech.
‘Wot? Fourpence?’ gasped Mr Weech indignantly. ‘Wy, you’re mad. Take it away.’
Dicky rolled the mat under his arm and turned to the door.
”Ere,’ said Mr Weech, seeing him going, ‘I’ll make it thrippence, seein’ you’re bin treated so bad. Thrippence—and a slice o’ cake,’ he added, perceiving that Dicky did not hesitate.
‘I don’t want no cake,’ Dicky answered doggedly. ‘I want fourpence, an’ I won’t take no less.’
The good Weech was unwilling that Dicky should find another market after all, so he submitted to the extortion. ‘Ah well,’ he said, with a sigh, pulling out the extra coppers, ‘jist for this once, then. You’ll ave to make it up next time. Mindjer, it’s on’y ‘cos I’m sorry for ye bein’ treated ungrateful. Don’t you go an’ treat me ungrateful, now.’
Dicky pocketed his pence and made for home, while Mr Weech, chuckling gently at his morning prophecy of a doormat for fourpence, carried the plunder to the room reserved for new and unused stock; promising himself, however, a peep at Grinder’s shop in the morning, to make quite sure that Dicky had really left.
So ended Dicky’s dealings with the house of Grinder. When Father Sturt next saw the oil-man, and inquired of Dicky’s progress, he was met with solemn congratulations that no larcenies were to pay for. Mr Grinder’s sagacity, it seemed, had enabled him to detect and crush at the outset Dicky’s plans for selling stock wholesale on his own account. Out of consideration for the vicar’s recommendation he had refrained from handing the boy over to the police, but had paid him a week in advance and dismissed him. Father Sturt insisted on repaying the money, and went his way with a heavy heart. For if this were what came of the promising among his flock, what of the others? For some while he saw nothing of Dicky; and the incident fell back among a crowd of others in his remembrance: for Dicky was but one among thousands, and the disappointment was but one of many hundreds.
Lying awake that night, but with closed eyes, Dicky heard his mother, talking with his father, suggest that perhaps an enemy had earwigged Grinder, and told him a tale that had brought about Dicky’s dismissal: somebody, perhaps, who wanted the situation for somebody else. Josh Perrott did no more than grunt at the guess, but it gave a new light to Dicky. Clearly that would account for Grinder’s change. But who could the mischief-maker be?
The little clock on the mantel-piece ticked away busily in the silence, and Dicky instantly thought of the hunchback. He it must have been, without a doubt. Who else? Was he not hanging about the shop, staring and sneering, but a day or two back? And was it not he who had pursued him with malice on every occasion, in school and out? Had not Bobby Roper this very trick of lying tales? Where was the gratuitous injury in all these four years that had not been Bobby Roper’s work? Dicky trembled with rage as he lay, and he resolved on condign revenge. The war with Dove Lane was over for the time being, but that made it easier for him to catch his enemy.
CHAPTER XXII
THE feud between the Jago and Dove Lane was eternal, just as was that between the Ranns and the Learys; but, like the Rann and Leary feud, it had its paroxysms and its intervals. And, in both cases, the close of a paroxysm was signalised by a great show of amity between the factions. Bob Rann and Billy Leary would drink affably from the same pot, and Norah Walsh and Sally Green would call each other ‘mum’; while Jagos and Dove-Laners would mingle in bars and lend pinches of tobacco, and call each other ‘matey.’ A paroxysm in the war had now passed, and reconciliation was due. The Dove-Laners had been heavily thrashed: their benjamins and kicksies had been impounded in Meakin Street, and they had ceased from buying. Dove Lane itself had been swept from end to end by the victorious Jago, and the populations of both were dotted thickly with bandaged heads. This satisfactory state of things achieved, there was little reason left for fighting. Moreover, if fighting persisted too long at a time, the police were apt to turn up in numbers, subjecting the neighbourhood to much inconvenient scrutiny, and very often coming across Jagos—or even Dove-Laners—‘wanted’ on old accounts. So peace was declared; and, as a visible sign thereof, it was determined that the Dove-Laners should visit the Jago in a body, there to join in a sing-song at Mother Gapp’s. Mother Gapp’s was chosen, not only because it was Mother Gapp’s—an important consideration—but also because of the large room behind the bar, called the ‘club-room,’ which had long ago been made of two rooms and a big cupboard, by the cutting away of crazy partitions from the crazy walls.
Scarce was it dark when the Dove-Laners, in a succession of hilarious groups—but withal a trifle suspicious—began to push through Mother Gapp’s doors. Their caps pulled down to their ears, their hands in their pockets, their shoulders humped, and their jackets buttoned tight, they lurched through the Jago, grinning with uneasy affability at the greetings that met them, being less practised than the Jagos in the assumption of elaborate cordiality.
In the club-room of the Feathers there were but three or four of the other party, though the bar was packed. The three or four, of whom Josh Perrott was one, were by way of a committee of stewards deputed to bid the Dove-Laners welcome, and to help them to seats. The Jagos were in some sort in the situation of hosts, and it had been decided after debate that it would ill become them to take their places till their guests were seated. The punctilio of the Jago on such occasions was a marvel ever.
So Josh Perrott stood at one side of the club-room door and Billy Leary at the other, shaking hands with all who entered, and strenuously maintaining cheerful grins. Now the Jago smile was a smile by itself, unlike the smiles in other places. It faded suddenly, and left the face—the Jago face—drawn and sad and startling by contrast, as of a man betrayed into mirth in the midst of great sorrow. So that a persistent grin was known for a work of conscious effort.
The Dove-Laners came in still larger numbers than had been expected, and before long it was perceived that there would be little space in the club-room, if any at all, for the Jagos. Already the visitors seemed to fill the place,
