“Wot I want to know is, if I give you that watch and chain for fifteen bob, will that keep the ghost from ’anging round my wharf agin?” I ses.
“Why, o’ course,” he ses, staring; “but you ain’t been seeing it agin, ’ave you?”
“I’ve not, and I don’t want to,” I ses. “If it wants you to ’ave the watch and chain, give me the fifteen bob, and it’s yours.”
He looked at me for a moment as if he couldn’t believe ’is eyesight, and then ’e puts his ’and into ’is trowsis-pocket and pulls out one shilling and fourpence, ’arf a clay-pipe, and a bit o’ lead-pencil.
“That’s all I’ve got with me,” he ses. “I’ll owe you the rest. You ought to ha’ took the fifteen bob when I ’ad it.”
There was no ’elp for it, and arter making ’im swear to give me the rest o’ the money when ’e got it, and that I shouldn’t see the ghost agin, I ’anded the things over to ’im and came away. He came to the door to see me off, and if ever a man looked puzzled, ’e did. Pleased at the same time.
It was a load off of my mind. My con-science told me I’d done right, and arter sending a little boy with a note to Ted Dennis to tell ’im not to come any more, I felt ’appier than I ’ad done for a long time. When I got to the wharf that evening it seemed like a diff’rent place, and I was whistling and smiling over my work quite in my old way, when the young policeman passed.
“Hullo!” he ses. “’Ave you seen the ghost agin?”
“I ’ave not,” I ses, drawing myself up. “’Ave you?”
“No,” he ses.