Perce was the boy to glower upon the helpless giant and tell him off. “Oh, shut up,” he’d snarl. “You ought to be in a work’ouse, you did. Or else in a play. Cut yer blasted yap, cancher, yer rotten old nuisance!”
And the old man would return, shrilly and tearfully: “I’m sorry, Perce, me boy. But I’m an old man, y’know, and queer. And I sits ’ere all day and all night, and I can’t ’elp feeling things. I know yer a good boy, really, though yeh do speak sharp sometimes.... Arr ... if only Gawd’d give me back my strength, I could work for all of us. Me, strongest man in London Docks, and now a-sitting ’ere day and night, day and night, day and night.”
On the Monday night he did not come home, and Old Joe was wondering where he might be, and hoping to Christ he’d tumbled in the river; and Fanny, too, on Tuesday night, was wondering and laying the supper, and hoping nothing had happened, and assuring Old Joe that Perce was a nice, good boy.
At eight o’clock a step sounded in the cadaverous darkness of Bluegate Lane, and Perce came in. His key rattled in the door, and words passed between him and another. He was heard to wipe his boots—a thing he had never been known to do. He seemed to be walking uncertainly, with many feet.
Then the kitchen door was snatched open by Fanny, the soft, and Perce was heard by her and Old Joe to murmur: “Tha’ll be all right.”
But only Perce entered the kitchen.
He sank at once into a chair, as though wearied almost to exhaustion. He stretched his legs so that fatigue might express itself in every line of his figure. He lit a Woodbine. Supper was on the table—some bread and pickles and cheese, knives, and a jug of beer. He grabbed the jug to his mouth and drank noisily from it, and angrily, as though he were at last getting his rights from the world.
“Well, old ’un,” he tossed at the old man, perfunctorily, by way of salutation. He strove to put warmth and jocularity in the tone, but his face and lips remained stiff and cold. He smacked his hands together. “Ah, well,” he observed to the room generally. He looked critically at his hands. “Fingernails want cutting,” he remarked inconsequently. Old Joe took no notice of his greeting; did not look at him; seemed to be intent on something known only to himself.
“’Ere, Fanny-baby,” called Perce, “want you a minute.”
“What you want Fanny for, Percy-boy?”