CHAPTER V
This is a chronicle of facts, culled from the life of William Adolphus Turnpike and other personages, as distinguished from mere history. Everybody in this age of research and cheap books, to say nothing of magazines and newspapers, knows that history is not true. It is established beyond doubt, for instance, that King Richard III. was a man of loving disposition, and that the story of his being an accessory to the death of the little princes has no foundation. We know also that the Scots deliberately planned the loss of the battle of Flodden in order to pave the way for their modern invasion of England and the capture of all the good jobs in the empire. They simply lured the English on, because they knew that no Englishman could live north of the Tweed and ever get enough to eat, while every Scotsman is impervious to stomachic or climatic conditions so long as there is a position to be filled or a bawbee to be paid out.
Here then, sticking to facts, is to be recorded that William Adolphus Turnpike reached the office one Monday morning, some time after the events last chronicled, wearing a black eye, an abrased nose, and a scratched chin. Naturally, Lucien Torrance, office boy to Simmons, the architect, and therefore on terms of equality with William, demanded an immediate and detailed explanation, which William proceeded to give.
"Did yer see the lacrosse match between the Easts and the Stars on Saturday?
"What! yer didn't? Gee! you missed it. Say, there was somethin' doing nearly every minute till the police broke up the game and took the players to the Number 4 Station.
"What's that—did I take the kiddies? Not for a minute I didn't. Would yer wanter take your little brothers or sisters——
"You ain't got none. Well, nobody's blamin' you, are they? I'm just supposin' you had. Would you wanter take 'em any place you'd thought there was goin' to be a scrap? Not much you wouldn't. I seen them teams play once before when I was a kid.
"What! Well, I like that. Fourteen last birthday, and I'm taking nothin' from any feller my age around these parts and don't you forget it, or I might forget I promised me mother I'd try not to fight for one day.
"Well, anyway I piked off alone to the flats to see the game, and, say, there was about half a millyun people there.
"What's that! There ain't half a millyun in the whole city of Toronto? You'd be a peach of a booster for this town, wouldn't you? Suppose there ain't, it sounds good anyway. Besides, you know very well I'm just trying to give you some idea about the size of the mob. And say, maybe there wasn't some tough mugs there neither. Uh!