BOOK III.
THE GOD OF FORTUNE.
(MR. FRANK PAINE TELLS THE STORY OF HIS ASSOCIATION WITH THE TESTAMENTARY DISPOSITIONS OF MR. BENJAMIN BATTERS.)
CHAPTER XVII.
THE AFFAIR OF THE FREAK.
I have not yet been able to determine if my connection with the testamentary dispositions of Mr. Benjamin Batters was or was not, in the first place, owing to what I call the Affair of the Freak in the Commercial Road. On no other hypothesis can I understand why the business should have been placed in my hands. While, at the same time, I am willing to admit that the connection, if any, was of so shadowy a nature that I am myself at a loss to perceive where it quite comes in.
What exactly took place was this.
George Kingdon had got his first command. As we have been the friends of a lifetime, and are almost of an age, he being twenty-seven and I twenty-eight, the matter had almost as much interest for me as it had for him. The vessel’s name was The Flying Scud. It was to leave the West India south dock on Tuesday, April 3. He dined with me the night before. We drank success to the voyage. The following day I went to see him start. All went well; he had a capital send off; was in the highest spirits; and the last I saw of him the ship was going down the river on the tide.
It was, I suppose, about seven o’clock in the evening. It had been a glorious day; promised to be as fine a night. The shadows were only just beginning to lengthen. I had had a drink or two with Kingdon, and felt that a walk would do me good. I strolled along Preston’s Road and High Street, into the West India Road, and thence into the Commercial Road. Before I had gone very far I came upon a number of people who were thronging round one of the entrances into Limehouse Basin. They were crowding round some central object which was apparently affording them entertainment of a somewhat equivocal kind. I asked a bystander what was the matter; a man with between his lips a clay pipe turned bowl downwards.
“It’s one of Barnum’s Freaks. They’re giving him what for.”
“What’s he done?”
“Done?” The fellow shrugged his shoulders. “He ain’t done nothing so far as I knows on; what should he ’ave done? They’re only ’aving a bit o’ fun.”