‘What about a drop at the Buffalo?’ said Mick.
Even from a distance they could see that this forbidding resort had become unusually cheerful. It was now the time of evening at which the labouring men who formed the greater part of Mrs Malpas’s customers finished their quarts and went home to bed. As the three men approached, many voices were heard.
‘Sounds as if there’s a drop stirrin’,’ said Mick. ‘By the houly, an’ so there will be! There’s the Pound House, after being closed on them with Mr Hind and Susan away!’
He opened the door and a mist of tobacco smoke met the colder air. At the same moment a tall musical box, shaped like a grandfather clock and worked by a penny-in-the-slot apparatus, struck up the tune of Champagne Charlie. In front of it, beating time with a pint pot, dangerously full, stood Wigan Joe. The man was three-parts drunk, as were most of the other cloggers who crowded the bar. At his right hand, next the fire, sat old Mr Malpas, following with anxious eyes the evolutions of the big man’s tankard. The room was so full of smoke and occupied by the jingle of the musical box that Abner and his friends entered without the clogger realising that they were there. . . .
‘That’s a good rousing tune, lad,’ he cried, leaning over Mr Malpas and beating out the rhythm with his free hand on the old man’s shoulder. ‘Eh, it’s a grand night is this. Makes you feel like you’re young again. Let’s have another bloody penn’orth!’ Mr Malpas nodded, smiling feebly.
Fumbling in his pocket for the coin, he became aware of Abner, Mick, and Atwell.
‘By gum, lads, is that you? Tell us quick what’s happened . . .’
‘They give him eighteen months,’ said Abner.
‘The b—s!’ said Joe under his breath. He took them aside and explained that he and his mates had thought that old Mr Malpas would be lonely-like with George in trouble and his missus away. ‘We thought we’d stay in and brighten things up a bit to take his mind off it like. We’ve had a nice bit of harmony,’ he said. ‘Eighteen months! Well, that’s a b— that is!’
At this moment the musical box, after one or two metallic protests, inharmoniously stopped in the middle of its chorus. Joe threw a penny to the man who sat nearest to it. ‘’Ere, put in another copper,’ he said, ‘an’ wind the blasted thing oop.’ The clockwork grated and the tune began again. ‘Don’t say a word to the old ’un,’ he said. ‘Keep his mind off it: that’s the ticket.’