CHAPTER XVIII
CHIPPY'S BAD TIME
When Chippy told his followers that they must play the game all the time, he meant every word that he said. He had devoted himself heart and soul to becoming a true scout, who is also a true gentleman, and he not only could reel off the laws by heart, but, as we have seen, he honestly strove to put them into practice at every moment. But now and again he ran up against a hard streak of weather in doing this, and he hit an uncommonly hard streak the very next morning.
At seven o'clock he turned up bright and early at the fishmonger's shop where he was employed. His employer, Mr. Blades, was in a fairly prosperous way of business in one of the secondary streets of the town. Mr. Blades looked after the shop; his son, a young man of twenty-three, drove a trap round with the customers' orders; and two boys, of whom Chippy was one, cleaned up, fetched and carried, ran short distances with pressing orders, and made themselves generally useful.
All went as usual until about eleven o'clock in the morning, when Chippy was despatched to deliver four or five small bags of fish at the houses of customers who lived within easy reach. He handed in the last bag of fish at the kitchen door of a semi-detached house, and the mistress took it in herself. Chippy was going out at the gate, when he heard himself called back. He returned to the door. The customer had already opened the bag, and was surveying critically the salmon cutlets inside.
'I don't think these look quite fresh,' she said. 'Has Mr. Blades had salmon in fresh this morning?'
'Yus, mum,' answered Chippy.
'Were these cutlets taken from the fresh salmon?'
They were not, and Chippy knew it, and was silent for a moment. She looked at him keenly, but smiling at the same time—a pleasant-faced, shrewd-eyed woman.
'Look here, my boy,' she said, 'these cutlets are for my daughter, who is only just recovering from a long illness, and I want her to have the best. You've got an honest sort of face, and I'll take your word. Were they cut from the fresh salmon?'
'No, mum,' mumbled Chippy.
'I felt certain of it,' she said. 'Now you ask Mr. Blades to send up fresh cutlets or none at all.'
Chippy went back with a sinking heart: he knew Mr. Blades. There was ample reason for his foreboding when he reported that the customer wanted cutlets from the fresh salmon.
'Fresh salmon!' roared Mr. Blades, a red-haired, choleric man. 'How under the sun did she find out these were not fresh? They look all right, and they smell all right.'
Chippy said nothing. Suddenly the fishmonger turned on him. 'Tell me just what she said!' he bellowed. 'You've been at some fool's trick or other, I know. You boys are enough to drive a man mad. Did she ask you anything?'
'Yus,' grunted Chippy, who now saw breakers ahead.
'Well, what did she ask you?'
'Wanted to know if they wor' off o' the salmon as come in this mornin'.'
'And what did you tell her?'
'Told 'er no,' mumbled Chippy.
The fishmonger jumped from the ground in his rage. 'There!' he cried, and smote the counter in his anger. 'What did I say? These boys are enough to ruin anybody! "Told her no! Told her no!"' He paused, speechless, and glared at Chippy.
At this moment a trap drove up to the kerb and stopped. Young Blades jumped out and came into the shop.
'Hallo!' he said cheerfully. 'Giving him a wiggin', guv'nor? That's rum. Slynn's a good little man, as a rule.'
Mr. Blades recovered his breath with a gasp and poured out the story of Chippy's enormity. 'Told her no, Larry!' he said. The astounded fishmonger could not get away from this. 'Told her no!' he repeated once more.
Larry Blades threw back his head and burst into a roar of jolly laughter which rang through the shop. 'Well, that's a good un!' he cried—'a real good un. And I never thought Slynn was such a softy. Why, Slynn,' he went on, and clapped Chippy on the shoulder, 'you'll never make a fishmonger if you carry on like that. Everything's fresh to a customer. You must always tell 'em it's just done its last gasp, unless the smell's a trifle too high, and then you must be guided by circumstances.'
He turned round to his father and laughed again jovially.
'It's all right, guv'nor,' he said. 'Cool off and calm down. You do get so excited over these little trifles. The kid's made a mistake. Well, he won't do it again. Anyhow, he's worth twenty o' that other kid. I caught him on th' Oakford road with his bags hangin' on some railings and playin' football with about a dozen more.'
'I dunno about him not doin' it again,' grumbled Mr. Blades; 'that's the way to lose customers; and people pass things like that from one to another.'
'Look here, Slynn,' said Larry Blades, wheeling sharply round, 'you've got to put yourself square with the guv'nor, or he'll have a fit every time you start on a round. Now, drop on your bended knees, raise your right hand, roll your eyes up, and say, "Mr. Blades, I'll never, never be such a flat again"'; and Larry laughed loudly, and pressed Chippy's shoulder to force him down and carry out the joke.
But Chippy did not go down: he only looked with anxious eyes from father to son.
'Come on, speak up!' cried Larry. 'What made you do such a soft trick, Slynn?'
'She said her daughter 'ad been ill,' mumbled Chippy.
'What of that?' laughed Larry. 'That salmon wouldn't hurt her then.'
'Yer see, I'm a boy scout,' burst out Chippy suddenly, his husky voice hoarser than ever from excitement and uneasiness.
'Boy scout?' said Larry wonderingly. 'What's that? And what's it got to do with Mrs. Marten's cutlets?'
Chippy began eagerly to explain, and the two men listened for a few moments in puzzled wonder.
'Oh, well,' burst in Larry, 'that may be all very well in its way, but it's clean outside business.'
'It ain't outside anything,' murmured Chippy.
'What!' said young Blades. 'You don't mean to say you'd do the same if it happened again, do you? Do you want to lose your job?' Chippy stood aghast. Lose his precious four-and-six a week!
'No, no,' cried Chippy; 'I'll do anything. I'll work as long as yer like—I'll come at six if yer like, an' stop till any time at night. Don't tek' me job off o' me.'
'Well, if you want to keep it, you must do as you're told,' began Larry, but his father out in.
'There's a lot of talk,' he cried, 'but I want you to notice, Larry, that that boy is dodging the question all the time. He's given no promise to do his best by us, and he ain't going to give any promise, either.'
'All right,' said Larry. 'I'll come bang straight to the point. If we send you out, Slynn, with a bit o' salmon that looks sweet and smells sweet, will you swear to a customer as it's dead fresh, and can't be bettered?'
Chippy was cornered. On one side his job—his precious job—how precious none could know unless they knew his starved and narrow home; on the other his oath as a boy scout to run straight and play fair to all men.
'Now, speak out,' cried Larry impatiently. But Chippy—poor Chippy!—had seen an ideal in his rough, hard life, and he clung to it.
'Yer see,' he began once more, 'I'm a boy scout——'
The fishmonger was bubbling mad all the time; now he completely boiled over.
'There he goes again!' yelled Mr. Blades. 'If he's a boy scout, let him clear out o' this, and scout round for another job. Now, then, shift, and look sharp about it.'
But Chippy was unwilling to go. He was searching his mind for words with which to plead, and to promise to do his utmost for them, save for the breaking of his scout's oath, when the furious fishmonger sprang upon him, tore the bag he still held from his grasp, and literally threw him out of the shop. Taken by surprise, Chippy was pitched headlong, and went sprawling along the pavement. He picked himself up without a word, and went away down the street. His job had gone, and he knew it, and he stayed not another moment for vain pleading.
'Just hark at him!' cried the fuming Mr. Blades; 'the impident young dog! Got the sack, and goes off whistling!'
'Well, I'm blest!' said Larry, and nodded his head thoughtfully. 'I thought he was dead keen on his job. But he don't care a rap about it. He was only a-kiddin' us. Whistling like a lark!'
Poor Chippy! how sorely was he misjudged! The fishmonger and his son knew nothing of Scout Law 8: 'A scout smiles and whistles under all circumstances,' and 'under any annoying circumstances you should force yourself to smile at once, and then whistle a tune, and you will be all right.'
Chippy turned a corner, and his whistling died away. Soon it stopped. His mouth worked a little, and his lips would not quite come into shape for the merry notes. Scout Law 8 was splendid advice, but this was a very stiff thing, even for No. 8. Chippy could not whistle, but he hoped very much that he still wore the smile. Well, his face was twisted, true, and the twists had the general shape of a smile, but it was a smile to wring the heart.
When he got home, he found his mother bending over the wash-tub. She looked up in surprise and then alarm: his face betrayed him.
'What's the matter?' she cried. 'What brings you back at this time?'
'I've got the sack,' said Chippy briefly.
The poor pinched-face woman cried out in dismay.
'An' your father's only done four days this last fortni't!' she wailed. Chippy's father was a dock-side labourer, and work had been very slack of late.
'It's aw' right,' said Chippy. 'Don't worry, mother. I'm off up the town now, to look for another job. I seen two cards out th' other day in Main Street, "Boy Wanted." I only come in now to mend me britches.'
When Mr. Blades flung Chippy out, the Raven had fallen on one knee, and his trouser had split clean across. He now purposed to cobble up the rent before he started on his quest for the precious work which means the right to live.
He found a needle and some thread, took off his trousers, and stitched busily away, for he was very handy with his fingers: his mother, too, had no time for such work; she had got a washing job, and was hard at it to help the family funds.
As Chippy stitched, his cheerfulness returned. Soon he was whistling in real earnest. 'I'm goin' in for a rise,' he announced. 'I've picked up a lot at old Blades' place. I'm goin' to ask five bob.'
'What made him sack yer?' asked his mother.
'Oh, I didn't suit,' said Chippy hastily. 'An' I done my best, too.'
He made haste to be off on his quest, for he was not anxious to disclose why he had been sacked: in Skinner's Hole the reason would sound too fantastic to be easily accepted.