“That truth hit Billy between the eyes. He felt if he were to drop that parcel, not only would some guy see him drop it, but he’d know he’d dropped it purposefully, so he walks along with it under his arm trying to find an empty street, and somehow or another failing, till he comes on a narrow lane, and ‘Here’s my chance,’ says he and dives down it. Half way down, with no one in front or behind, he drops the parcel and walks on, but he couldn’t help turning his head like a fool, and there behind him, just come into the lane, was a man. The parcel was between Billy and the man, and Billy in a flash saw that the man would know he’d dropped it seeing Billy was walking away from it, not towards it. So, having turned his head, he had to complete the business and turn back and pick up the durned thing and walk on with it. He was in Market Street now and beginning to set his teeth. There was a good few people going and coming and they all seemed so busy and full of themselves that Billy took heart, and, walking along close to the houses, dropped the thing again. He didn’t turn his head this time, but just walked on, stopping here and there to look in at the shop windows and feeling he’d done the trick this time. He’d gone a good way and was looking in at a jeweller’s thinking which of the rings he’d buy for his wife if he had the money, when an old chap comes panting up to him with the parcel.
“‘I saw you drop it,’ says the old guy, and I ran after you with it, but you walk so quick I couldn’t catch you.’ Then he has a fit of coughing and Billy sees he’s nearly in rags and hands out a quarter and takes the parcel. Billy was beginning to find out the truth that if you want to lose a thing that’s of no value to you, you can’t, not in a city anyhow, but he was only beginning, else he’d have quitted the business right there and have knuckled under to that petticoat.
“Instead of that what does he do but go on with his peregrinations and his fool attempts to get rid of the thing, he makes it a present to a beggar woman and when she’d seen what was in it, she runs after him saying she’s taking no stolen goods and suggesting a dollar commission for not showing it to the police.
“Then getting along for four in the afternoon, Billy, feeling he’s married to the thing, begins to celebrate his connubial state with drinks. He wasn’t used to the stuff and he goes from saloon to saloon, warming up as he went and making more attempts at divorce till he strikes a bar tender notorious for his married unblessedness, offers the thing as a present for the B.T.’s wife and gets kicked flying into the street when a policeman picks him and his parcel up and starts them off again on their ambulations.
“The drink was working in him now strong—you see, he’d always been an abstemious man and you never know what whisky will do with a guy like that till it’s done with him. Billy cruises into another bar, planks down a quarter, swallows a high ball, gets a clutch on himself and starts on the king of all jags. He wasn’t trying to lose the parcel now. He was proud of it. He remembered in one saloon undoing it and showing the petticoat to an admiring audience. He remembered in another saloon saying the thing was full of bonds and banknotes. Then he was down in the dock area tumbling into gutters and singing songs. Chaps tried to rob him of the thing and he fought them like a wild cat. He’d begun the day with the parcel sticking to him, and he was ending the day by sticking to the parcel and resisting all attempts on it by armed force, so to speak. Then he believed he had a dust up with some Chinks who tried to nab the thing and there seemed to be police mixed up with it, for it ended with him running to escape policemen. Then he couldn’t remember anything more, and we told him how he had come running along the dockside till he struck the Greyhound and came bounding on board, as per invoice.
IV
“That was the yarn Billy spun, and there he sat when he’d finished asking us what he was to do.
“‘Well, I says to him, ‘you’re asking that question a bit too late; to begin with, you should never have trusted yourself alone in ’Frisco with them nerves of yours. Second, you went the wrong way about getting rid of the thing.’
“‘Oh, did I?’ said Billy. ‘And how would you have done—put yourself in my position, and what would you have done to get rid of it?’
“That flummoxed me.