“Don’t, Johnny!” his mother entreated. “Think o’ the neighbours! They can hear next door!”
So they could, and for the sake of trade the proprieties of Harbour Lane must be respected. To have a row in the house was a scandal unpardonable in Harbour Lane. In the height of his anger Johnny remembered, and instinctively dropped his voice. “Very well,” he said, “then call a p’liceman—I’ll lock him up!”
Johnny’s anger kept his reason half astray yet, or he would have remembered that to have a member of the household taken off by a policeman would be more disgraceful than twenty rows. But Mr. Butson’s consternation, though momentary, was plain.
“Johnny, Johnny,” pleaded poor Nan, “think of the disgrace! Do let’s make it up—for my sake, Johnny!”
Bessy was crying in a corner, and Nan was choking and sobbing. Johnny wavered, and the poker stopped in mid-air. Butson took heart of grace and moved to get up, though he kept his eye on the poker. “Better take ’im away,” he growled to Nan, “if ye don’t want me to smash ’im!”
Straightway the poker waved again, and Mr. Butson changed his mind as to getting up. “Smash me?” Johnny asked. “Smash me, eh? Keep a civil tongue, or you shall have it now! See?” and he thrust the point against Mr. Butson’s nose, leaving a black smear. “Don’t think I care for you! If this was anywhere else I’d ha’ broken your head in twenty places! Now you sit there an’ listen to me, Mr. Butson. What you are we know. You came here starving, with about half a suit o’ boiler clothes in the world, and my mother fed you—out o’ charity, an’ worse luck. She fed you, and she put clothes on your lazy carcase, and you cadged and begged as a mongrel dog wouldn’t. Stop where you are, or you’ll have it!” This with another flourish of the poker and another smear on the nose. Mr. Butson sat up again, a figure of ignominy.
“You talked my mother over, and you married her, and you’ve lived on her ever since, like a gentleman—or like what you think’s a gentleman—you, not worth boy’s pay on a mud-barge! Now see here! I’m not a boy now—or at anyrate I’m not a little one. I’m within half a head as tall as you. I’m not so strong as you now perhaps, and I know I’m not as big. But some day I shall be stronger, because you’re rotting yourself with idleness and booze, and then I’ll give you a bigger hiding than you can carry, for what I saw just now! You look forward to that! Until then, if you put your hand within a foot of my sister again, I’ll brain you with this poker, or I’ll stick something into you,—I’ll go for you with whatever I can lay hold of! Now you remember that!”
Johnny’s voice was loud again, and once more Nan appealed.
“All right, mother,” he answered, more quietly, “but I’ll make him understand. I shall keep a little more at home in the evenings now, my fine fellow, and I shall take all this table to draw on, whether you like it or not, unless my sister or my mother want to use it. I’ve got more right here than you. And if I go out I’ll ask about your behaviour when I come in. I’ve kept quiet and knuckled under to you, for the sake of peace, and so as not to worry mother. There’s been enough o’ that. If you want rows you shall have ’em! I’ll make you as frightened of me as you are of the p’lice. Ah! you know what I mean!” Johnny had no idea of what he meant himself, but he had been sharp enough to observe the effect of his earlier allusion to the police, and he followed it up. “You know what I mean! You’d look a deal more at home in gaol than here, in a white shirt, eating other people’s victuals!”
Mr. Butson decided that bluster would not do just at present. He wondered if Johnny really did know anything, and how much. But surely not, or he would go a good deal farther. Anyway, best be cautious. So Mr. Butson growled, “Oh, all right. Damn lot o’ fuss to make over nothin’. I don’t want no words.”