“And who,” I continued, “when sent with twopence to buy postage-stamps, squandered it on beer?”
His jaw dropped, as it had dropped in Covent Garden. It must be very unpleasant to have one’s past continually rising up to confront one.
“Look ’ere!” he said, a conciliatory note in his voice, “you and me’s pals, mister, ain’t we? Say we’re pals. Of course we are. You and me don’t want no fuss. Of course we don’t. Then look here: this is ’ow it is. You come along with me and ’ave a drop.”
It did not seem likely that my class would require any instruction in boxing that evening in addition to that which Mr. Blake had given them, so I went with him.
Over the moisture, as he facetiously described it, he grew friendliness itself. He did not ask after Kit, but gave his opinion of her gratuitously. According to him, she was unkind to her relations. “Crool ’arsh,” he said. A girl, in fact, who made no allowances for a man, and was over-prone to Sauce and the Nasty Snack.
We parted the best of friends.
“Any time you’re on the Cut,” he said, gripping my hand with painful fervour, “you look out for Tom Blake, mister. Tom Blake of the Ashlade and Lechton. No ceremony. Jest drop in on me and the missis. Goo’ night.”
At the moment of writing Tom Blake is rapidly acquiring an assured position in the heart of the British poetry-loving public. This incident in his career should interest his numerous admirers. The world knows little of its greatest men.
CHAPTER 11
JULIAN’S IDEA
(James Orlebar Cloyster’s narrative continued)