“I’m sure you will be,” I replied, not exactly knowing what else to say. “You find your business rather hard work sometimes, don’t you? and the pay sometimes a little doubtful?” I added, after a pause.
“I wish it was only a little,” Mr Jones replied, with a woeful grin; “but I get along, somehow—I keep alive, somehow; and it won’t always be so—not when I get my chance, you know!”
I really thought I ought to say something now, so I asked when he expected the chance, and what it was.
“Ah, that’s it!” said he. “Do you know you could be a good deal of service to me, if you’d the time?”
“I’ve more time than money, worse luck!” I said. “I should be glad to earn a trifle anyhow, and should be much obliged if you could point out the how; but as to being of service to you, I’d gladly be that for nothing.”
You see, I had taken a good look at Mr Jones’s ragged edges and glazed elbows by this time, and had come to the conclusion that, even gambler and roué as he was, he must have had about as much as he could do to look after himself.
I was mistaken. Mr Jones had influence, though he might be short of cash.
“If you’re really hard up,” he said, “I can put you onto a kind of job—if you like it. They are doing ‘The Battle of Blenheim’ at our place. It’ll be eighteenpence a night. You’ll have to double the armies, and be shot down at the end of every act. But it’s all easy enough.”
I thought this would suit me very well for the time, and most likely shooting down wasn’t permanently injurious to the system any more than being a gambler and a roué; so I thanked him very much.
“But how can I help you in return?” I asked.