“Gosh!” ejaculated such a one when Harker passed to the next carriage: he flopped back on to his seat. “Did you hear? He said ‘sir!’ to each one of us when he said good-bye!”
So much for Harker. But he brought with him a number of other memories entangled somehow about his personality, and on these it may be as well to enlarge a little ere they slip back into the limbo of the forgotten past.
It says much for the vividness of Harker’s personality that he outran in these reminiscences the memory of “Stodge.” Certainly few interests loomed larger on the horizon of these days than the contents of the two canteens ashore.
There was one adjacent to the landing-place: a wise forethought of the authorities, enabling a fellow to stay his stomach during the long climb from the river to the playing fields, where the principal canteen stood.
“Stodge” was of a surpassing cheapness. That much was essential when the extent of the weekly pocket-money was limited (if memory is to be trusted) to one shilling. Further it was of a pleasing variety, certain peculiar combinations, hallowed by tradition, being alone unchanging.
Of these the most popular was the “Garry Sandwich.” Components: a half-stick of chocolate cream sandwiched between two “squashed-fly” biscuits; the whole beaten thin with a cricket-bat, gymnasium shoe, or other implement handy. The peculiarity of this particular form of dainty was that it sufficed as an unfailing bribe wherewith to open negotiations with one Dunn, the septuagenarian keeper of the pleasure boats. The moral atmosphere of the boat-house, in consequence of its custodian’s sweetness of tooth, came in time to resemble that of a Chinese yamen.
Another delicacy about which legend clustered was the “Ship’s Bun,” split in half, with a liberal cementing of Devonshire cream and strawberry jam oozing out at the sides. Concerning the bun itself, the maternal solicitude of the authorities extended one gratis to each cadet ashore on half-holidays lest the impecunious should hunger unnecessarily between lunch and tea. The buns were obtainable on application at the counter, whence the daughter of the proprietor—whom we will call Maunder—was charged with the duty of issuing them.
How she pretended to remember the two and a half hundred faces that presented themselves in surging crowds round the counter at 4 p.m. is more than her present recorder can say. But even as she extended a bun to the outstretched grubby hand of a suppliant, an expression of vixen-like indignation and cunning would transform her features.
“You’ve ’ad a bun afore!” she would snap shrilly, withdrawing the bounty in the nick of time. The hungry petitioner, cheerfully acknowledging defeat in a game of bluff, would then withdraw, pursued by Miss Maunder’s invective.
All the same she was not infallible, and on occasions hot protestations and even mutual recrimination rang to and fro across the counter. Appeal, ultimately carried to Mr. Maunder, was treated in much the same way as it is by croupiers at Monte Carlo. A gentleman’s word is his word. But it is as well not to be the victim of too many mistakes.