Within an hour Mr. Tridge was being lionized in the bar-parlour. Men strove for the honour of buying drinks for him, feeling well repaid if he recognized their existence in return. Quite plutocratic people vied with each other for the privilege of speaking deferentially to him, and importantly bade each other hush when he condescended to voice his opinions on any subject. For Mr. Tridge had won a battle in record time against the wildest expectation, and was now a hero and had raised himself into the ranks of the Temporary Immortals.
Mr. Dobb alone appeared out of sympathy with the popular mood for acclamation. For some while he sat silently watching Mr. Tridge among his courtiers. At last, unable to repress his emotions any longer, he rose and led Mr. Tridge into the obscurity of the passage outside.
“What the dooce did you do it for?” irascibly demanded Horace.
“It was a hinspiration,” said Mr. Tridge, modestly. “Just as the start was called, I looked up and I see that hadvertisement of my saloon. Somehow it come into my ’ead all in a flash what you said about the match being all a matter of hadvertisement, and a idea come to me that almost blinded me. I didn’t see why I shouldn’t get the hadvertisement for me and my saloon. I could see ’ow everybody ’ud troop up to be shaved by a chap what ’ad knocked out Toff Burch of Swindon. I could see ’ow useful my reppytation would be to keep customers in order when they complained if I cut ’em. And then I done it. Almost before I could think ’ow I was to do it, I done it. I knew I shouldn’t get a better chance, I knew ’e wouldn’t be troubling at all and that ’e wasn’t hexpecting me to do anything, and I done it. And it come off.”
“’E’ll ’alf kill you for it later on,” prophesied Mr. Dobb, with malevolent satisfaction.
“Oh, no, ’e won’t! I’ve ’ad a chat with ’im since ’e come round. ’E was pretty sore about it, ’e owned, but ’e don’t so much mind now. For why? Already they’re hoffering three to one against ’im for ’is match with Traske of Birmingham. So ’e’s quite satisfied, after all. And I’ve took care to see that I ain’t hexpected to meet ’im again, because I’ve been telling every one I’d made a vow long ago to give up boxing for hever from this night forth, and they all agrees with me that I couldn’t ’ave made a better end-up.”
“Well, every one else may be satisfied, but I ain’t,” said Mr. Dobb, a little awkwardly. “I’ll tell you for why. Knowing ’ow things was planned I’d been making a good lot of bets at long odds on this match—fourteen pounds in all—against you, of course. And, seeing as you’ve upset everything, I reckon it ’ud only be friendly and fair, out of your collection and so forth, to make good a bit of my loss to me.”
“Come round to-morrow when I open,” invited Mr. Tridge, happily, “and you shall be the first customer and I’ll shave you free. There!”
“Don’t try to get out of it like that, Joe. Fair’s fair! If you’d done what you was hexpected to I’d ’ave made money. As it is, I’ve lost it. And you’ve got your collection, and the rest of your twenty quid, and—”
“And I’ve got a motter, too, ’Orace,” said Mr. Tridge, softly, turning to the door of the bar-parlour. “It’s the same as yours,” he ended, with a grin, as he returned to adulation.