As soon as he saw the canvasser, and noted his fixed, unearthly stare, and listened to his hoarse, unnatural voice, the sergeant knew what was the matter; it was a man in the horrors, a common enough spectacle at Ninemile. He resolved to decoy him into the lock-up, and accosted him in a friendly, free-and-easy way.
“Good day t'ye,” he said.
“—— most magnificent volume ever published, jewelled in fourteen holes, working on a ruby roller, and in a glass case,” said the book-canvasser. “The likenesses of the historical personages are so natural that the book must not be left open on the table, or the mosquitoes will ruin it by stinging the portraits.”
It then dawned on the sergeant that this was no mere case of the horrors—he was dealing with a book-canvasser.
“Ah, sure,” he said, “fwhat's the use uv tryin' to sell books at all, at all; folks does be peltin' them out into the street, and the nanny-goats lives on them these times. Oi send the childer out to pick 'em up, and we have 'em at me place in barrow-loads. Come along wid me now, and Oi'll make you nice and comfortable for the night,” and he laid his hand on the outstretched palm of the figure.
It was a fatal mistake. He had set in motion the machinery which operated the figure's left arm, and it moved that limb in towards its body, and hugged the sergeant to its breast, with a vice-like grip. Then it started in a faltering and uneven, but dogged, way to walk towards the river.
“Immortial Saints!” gasped the sergeant, “he's squazin' the livin' breath out uv me. Lave go now loike a dacent sowl, lave go. And oh, for the love uv God, don't be shpakin' into me ear that way;” for the figure's mouth was pressed tight against the sergeant's ear, and its awful voice went through and through the little man's head, as it held forth about the volume. The sergeant struggled violently, and by so doing set some more springs in motion, and the figure's right arm made terrific swipes in the air. A following of boys and loafers had collected by this time. “Blimey, how does he lash out!” was the remark they made. But they didn't interfere, notwithstanding the sergeant's frantic appeals, and things were going hard with him when his subordinate, Constable Dooley, appeared on the scene.
Dooley, better known as The Wombat because of his sleepy disposition, was a man of great strength. He had originally been quartered at Sydney, and had fought many bitter battles with the notorious “pushes” of Bondi, Surry Hills and The Rocks. After that, duty at Ninemile was child's play, and he never ran in fewer than two drunks at a time; it was beneath his dignity to be seen capturing a solitary inebriate. If they wouldn't come any other way, he would take them by the ankles and drag them after him. When the Wombat saw the sergeant in the grasp of an inebriate he bore down on the fray full of fight.
“I'll soon make him lave go, sergeant,” he said, and he caught hold of the figure's right arm, to put on the “police twist”. Unfortunately, at that exact moment the sergeant touched one of the springs in the creature's breast. With the suddenness and severity of a horse-kick, it lashed out with its right hand, catching the redoubtable Dooley a thud on the jaw, and sending him to grass as if he had been shot.
For a few minutes he “lay as only dead men lie”. Then he got up bit by bit, wandered off home to the police-barracks, and mentioned casually to his wife that John L. Sullivan had come to town, and had taken the sergeant away to drown him. After which, having given orders that anybody who called was to be told that he had gone fifteen miles out of town to serve a summons on a man for not registering a dog, he locked himself up in a cell for the rest of the day.