“Ao.” Shaik Yip smiled a meaningless Oriental smile. “Perce want money. Ao. Perce and Shaik Yip talk business. Co’long. Co’long.”
And they entered the Blue Lantern and ordered two Gypsy’s Warnings and some of the Nearer-my-God-to-Thee sandwiches.
The Sleep ménage was not such as one would turn to happily, when weary, for repose. Perce lived with his stepfather, a paralytic, and the old man’s daughter, a “softie.” The old man, a mass of helpless flesh, lived in a chair by the fireside. He had been a stevedore in his time, and his great shaggy head, his rolling shoulders, and the long, thick arms, all now as white and motionless as death, told a tale of superb strength in youth. There he sat now, and there he was fed and tended and washed. The only life that had been left him was his voice, and of this there only remained a thin piping, so that he was known locally as Old Joe, after that Fleet Street notability who, every morning at ten-thirty in the Fourth Edition, gives the world his famous treble.
His daughter, a slip of a girl, was the mother of the house. Her face had that arresting beauty sometimes seen in the faces of the vacant-minded. There was nothing of the idiot about her, save in her talk and her simple character. She managed the house, and she managed Old Joe, and she strove hard to manage the waster, Perce.
“Wis’ful,” someone had said. “Wis’ful—that’s ’ow she looks. Like as if she was wanting to catch ’old of something that ain’t there.”
As for Perce, he only ate and drank and slept at the house, and had little to do with Fanny, save to borrow coppers from her.
“A wicked boy,” piped Old Joe. “That’s what ’e is. Never tries to get work. Got one job, and got sacked from that, and ain’t done a stroke since. ’Anging about pubs and mixin’ wiv wasters. Grr! ’E’ll end in gaol, mark what I say. Blast ’im. Arr.... Fanny’s the good girl. Where’d we all be if it wasn’t for Fanny? Looks after us and keeps us all going. Does anything to keep the ’ome together, doncher, me gel? Goes out charing, or does needlework. Clever wiv ’er needle, she is. But that blasted Perce. Grr! I’d spit on ’im. I’d turn ’im out the ’ouse if I could. But ’e won’t go. Cos ’e knows I’m ’elpless and can’t do nothing. Not if ’e struck me I couldn’t do nothink. An’ ’e’s nearly done it, oncer twice. The blasted drunken little waster. Gawd—if I’d a-got my strength back—I’d learn ’im. You dunno—nobody dunno—what I’ve ’ad to put up wiv from ’im—all cos I can’t move—an’ ’e knows it. Things ’e’s said to me. Things ’e’s done. Gawd. Dunno what I’ve a-done that I should ’ave to put up....”
Whereupon he would collapse and weep cold tears down his huge white face, and Fanny would run in from her daily work, or drop her sewing, and paw him and talk baby-talk to him.
He was right about Perce, though. Perce was the boy for fancy waistcoats and the private bar. Perce was the boy for the athletic saloon—as an onlooker. Perce was the boy for hanging on the fringe of those who lead the impetuous life. But Perce was never the boy for a fight or an adventure or a woman, or for any indulgence that called for quality. Perce was the complete rotter.