The small shopkeeper’s eyes grew round; a mixture of admiration and creeping fear lighted them.
“My gracious! You’re him, then! To think as ever I should——”
Here he broke off, and in a frenzy of excitement opened the door behind him and spoke to his wife. I overheard, for he could not subdue his voice. I think he felt confronted by the supreme business transaction of his career.
“Jane, Jane! Creep in the shop quiet and look at this here man! By ’Eaven! it’s the public executioner! To think as ever I should sell a rope to him! Hush!”
He turned, and while he addressed me with dreadful humility, the woman, Jane, crept into the shop, and stared morbidly upon my harrowed countenance.
Then she whispered to her husband—
“That’s not him, for I seed his picture in the Police News last week. It’s a new one, or else his assistant!”
Meantime I was being served, and it seemed that the little man suddenly awakened to the dignity of his calling before my sensational order. He began handling a wilderness of rope ends and discoursing upon them with the air of an expert as he rose to the great occasion.
“A nice twisted cordage you’ll be wanting, and if you’ll leave the choice to me, nobody shall be none the worse. I’ve been in rope since I was seventeen. Now, Manila hemp won’t do—too stiff and woody, too lacking in suppleness. That’s what you want: suppleness. The sisal hemps, from South America, are very pretty things, and the New Zealand hemp is hard to beat; but there’s another still more beautiful cordage. Only it’s very rarely used because it comes rather expensive. Still, when a fellow-creature’s life’s at stake, I suppose you won’t count the cost. Besides, the Government pays, don’t it? That’s a Jubbulpore hemp—best of all—or bowstring hemp, as I’m told they use in the harems of the East, though what for I couldn’t say. I’ve got a very nice piece—ten foot long and supple as silk—just try it—and any strain up to two hundred pound. Hand-spun, of course—a lovely thing, though I say so. But it’s a terrible thought. Jute’s cheaper, only I won’t guarantee it; I won’t indeed. You want a reliable article, if only for your own reputation. And one more thing; I suppose there’s no objection to my using this as an advertisement? People in these parts is all so fond of horrors; and as it’s Government I ought to be allowed the lion and unicorn perhaps?”
I bought the Jubbulpore hemp as the man advised. It cost thirty shillings, and the vendor wrestled between pleasure at the success of his extortion and horror at the future of his rope. But I told him he must neither advertise the circumstance, nor dare to assume the lion and unicorn on the strength of it. This discouraged him, and he lost heart and took a gloomy view of the matter.