CHORUS
And Peter was his name, etc.
“He sailed the trackless waste
With hair the colourÃâû of blood;
But we, we tramp the trampled streets
With souls the colour of mud.
“
And Peter was his name—
So Peterish was he,
He wept the sun’s eye back again,
Lest he should never see.”
Where was Peter? Where were Harry and the Faun Man? He was out in the streets—only the wildest of the young bloods remained with him. It didn’t matter to this cab-driving Falstaff if they all went away and only Cat’s Meat stayed, he was going to make a night of it.
Hardcastle was complaining that he’d never been arrested and taken to Vine Street. He insisted that it ought to happen to every English gentleman at least once. They drove back to Leicester Square to see if they could find a policeman who’d make up this deficiency in their education. They found three, only they chose the wrong side of the Square and discovered that they were being taken to a less aristocratic station. Then they explained their mistake, and their captors, being, as the Faun Man would have said, “very human fellows,” accepted compensation for wasted time, called them “My Lords,” and allowed them to escape.
It was Mr. Grace who provided the final entertainment. They had grown a little tired of his constant enquiry as to “What lydy done this?” Being unwilling to lose their esteem as a humorist, he drove them down side streets to a second-hand shop, which he had promised “never no more to visit.”
The house was in complete darkness. He threw down the reins and stood up, his whip clasped against his breast, his eyes lifted to the white moon sailing in silence over sulky chimney-pots. Singing ran in his family; it was from him that Grace inherited her talent. What his voice lacked in sweetness it made up in volume. He startled the stillness lustily:
“Oh,
Mister Widow, though
A murderer you be,
You’re
Sure, a very nice man—
A good enough pal for me.”
If Mr. Widow had been a sportsman, he would have felt flattered that the winning Oxford crew should take the trouble to greet him thus musically at two o’clock in the morning. He wasn’t. A night-capped head appeared at a window. The singing grew more hearty. The head vanished. The street door opened. A gentleman, very hastily attired, carrying a pair of white spats in his hand, shot out on to the pavement. A voice from the darkened shop pursued him, “‘Ad enough of you. A man is known by ‘is friends.”
The door closed as suddenly as it had opened.
Mr. Grace hailed the new arrival, “‘Ulloa, duckie! Been lookin’ for you h’everywhere.”
“I wish you hadn’t,” growled Ocky.
Cat’s Meat shivered in his harness. Mr. Grace, aware that he was somehow in error, picked up the reins. “Well, good night, young gen’lemen. Me and Mr. Waffles is goin’ ‘ome ter bed. Kum up, Cat’s Meat.”
But Cat’s Meat didn’t come up; he lolled between the shafts, listless and dejected. Mr. Grace climbed down from the box to examine him. “Wot’s matter, old pal? Got a ‘eadache?”
He stretched out his hand to pat him. Cat’s Meat shivered again, lolled over a little farther and crashed to the ground. He flickered his eye-lid just once, wearily and reproachfully, saying as plainly as was possible for so dumb an animal, “Old man, we’ve been and gone and done it.”
A hat was passed round. When its contents were presented to Mr. Grace he pushed it away from him. He was sobbing. “H’it’s not that; it ain’t the money. ‘E were the only man ‘as ever understood me. ‘Is h’intellergence wuz a thing to marvel h’at. A wonder of a ‘oss, ‘e were. I’ve often said h’it. ‘E’d bring me ‘ome as drunk as a lord and as saife as a baby. ‘E wuz a reg’lar mother ter me, ‘e were.”
The revelers melted into the night down the shuttered street, leaving Mr. Grace with the disregarded hat of money, the dead horse sprawled across the broken shafts and a gentleman, from whose hand a pair of white spats dangled, contemplating the ruin disconsolately.