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The Underdog

F >> F. Hopkinson Smith >> The Underdog




"I didn't see him for a month--not until two nights ago. He didn't ring
the bell this time. He came in through the window. I thought the catch
was down, but it wasn't. Funny how quick these fellows can see a thing.
As soon as he shut the glass sash behind him he drew the curtains close;
then he turned down the gas. All this, mind you, before he had opened
his mouth. Then he said:

"'Anybody here but you?'

"'No.'

"'Sure?'

"'Yee, very sure.'

"He spoke in a husky, rasping voice, like a man who had caught his
breath again after a long run.

"He turned his back to the window, slipped his hand in his hip-pocket
and pulled out my mother's watch.

"'Is that it, "Doc"?'

"The light was pretty low, but I'd have known it in the dark.

"'Yes, of course it is--' and I opened the lid in search of the old
lady's photo. 'Where did you get it?'

"'Look again. There ain't no likeness.'

"'No, but here are the marks where they scraped it off'--and I held it
close to his eyes. 'Where did you get it?'

"'Don't ask no questions, "Doc." I had some trouble gittin' next the
goods, and maybe it ain't over yet. I'll know in the morning. If anybody
asks you anything about it, you ain't lost no watch--see? Last time you
seen me I was goin' West, see--don't forget that. That's all, "Doc." If
you're pleased, I'm satisfied.'

"He held out his hand to say good-by, but I wouldn't take it. His
appearance, the tone of his voice, and his hunted look made me a
little nervous.

"'Sit down. You'll let me pay you for it, won't you? Wait until I go
back in my bedroom for some money.'

"'No, "Doc," you can't pay me a cent. I'm sorry they got the mother's
picture, but I couldn't catch up with the goods before. That would have
been the best part of it for me. Mothers is scarce now--kind you and me
had--dead or alive. You won't mind if I turn out the gas while I slip
out, do you, and you won't mind either if I ask you to sit still here.
Somebody might see you--' and he shook my hand and started for the
window. As his hand neared the latch I could see in the dim light that
his movements were unsteady. Once he stumbled and clutched at the
bookcase for support----

"'Hold on,' I said--and I walked rapidly toward him--'don't go yet--you
are not well.'

"He leaned against the bookcase and put his hand to his side.

"I was alongside of him now, my arm under his, guiding him into a chair.

"'Are you faint?'

"'Yes--got a drop of anything, "Doc"? That's all I want. It ain't
nothing.'

"I opened my closet, took out a bottle of brandy and poured some into a
measuring-glass. He drank it, leaned his head for an instant against my
arm and, with the help of my hand slipped under his armpit, again
struggled to his feet.

"When I withdrew my hand it was covered with blood. It was too dark to
see the color, but I knew from the sticky feeling of it just what
it was.

"'My God! man,' I cried; 'you are hurt, your shirt's all bloody. Come
back here until I can see what's the matter.'

"'No, "Doc"--_no!_ I tell you. It's stopped bleeding now. It would be
tough for you if they pinched me here. Keep away, I tell you--I ain't
got a minute to lose. I didn't want to hurt him even after he gave me
this one in my back, but his girl was wearing it and there warn't no
other way. Git behind them curtains, "Doc." So! Good-by.'

"And he was gone."



PLAIN FIN--PAPER-HANGER


I

The man was a little sawed-off, red-headed Irishman, with twinkling,
gimlet eyes, two up-curved lips always in a broad smile, and a pair of
thin, caliper-shaped legs.

His name was as brief as his stature.

"Fin, your honor, by the grace of God. F-i-n, Fin. There was a 'Mac' in
front of it once, and an 'n' to the tail of it in the old times, so me
mother says, but some of me ancisters--bad cess to 'em!--wiped 'em out.
Plain Fin, if you plase, sor."

The punt was the ordinary Thames boat: a long, narrow, flat-bottomed,
shallow craft with tapering ends decked over to serve as seats, the
whole propelled by a pole the size of a tight-rope dancer's and about as
difficult to handle.

Chartering the punt had been easy. All I had had to do was to stroll
down the path bordering the river, run my eye over a group of boats
lying side by side like a school of trout with their noses up-stream,
pick out the widest, flattest, and least upsettable craft in the fleet,
decorate it with a pair of Turkey-red cushions from a pile in the
boathouse, and a short mattress, also Turkey-red--a good thing at
luncheon-hour for a tired back is a mattress--slip the key of the
padlock of the mooring-chain in my pocket and stroll back again.

The hiring of the man for days after my arrival at Sonning-on-Thames,
was more difficult, well-nigh impossible, except at a price per diem
which no staid old painter--they are all an impecunious lot--could
afford. There were boys, of course, for the asking; sunburnt,
freckle-faced, tousle-headed, barefooted little devils who, when my back
was turned, would do handsprings over my cushions, landing on the
mattress, or break the pole the first day out, leaving me high and dry
on some island out of calling distance; but full-grown, sober-minded,
steady men, who could pole all day or sit beside me patiently while I
worked, hand me the right brush or tube of color, or palette, or open a
bottle of soda without spilling half of it--that kind of man was scarce.

Landlord Hull, of the White Hart Inn--what an ideal Boniface is this
same Hull, and what an ideal inn--promised a boatman to pole the punt
and look after my traps when the Henley regatta was over; and the owner
of my own craft, and of fifty other punts besides, went so far as to say
that he expected a man as soon as Lord Somebody-or-Other left for the
Continent, when His Lordship's waterman would be free, adding,
meaningly:

"Just at present, zur, when we do be 'avin' sich a mob lot from Lunnon,
'specially at week's-end, zur, we ain't got men enough to do our own
polin'. It's the war, zur, as has took 'em off. Maybe for a few day,
zur, ye might take a 'and yerself if ye didn't mind."

I waved the hand referred to--the forefinger part of it--in a
deprecating manner. I couldn't pole the lightest and most tractable punt
ten yards in a straight line to save my own or anybody else's life. Then
again, if I should impair the precision of my five fingers by any such
violent exercise, my brush would wabble as nervously over my canvas as a
recording needle across a steam-gauge. Poling a rudderless, keelless
skiff up a crooked stream by means of a fifteen-foot balancing pole is
an art only to be classed with that of rowing a gondola. Gondoliers and
punters, like poets, are born, not made. My own Luigi comes of a race of
gondoliers dating back two hundred years, and punters must spring from
just such ancestors. No, if I had to do the poling myself, I should
rather get out and walk.

Fin solved the problem--not from any special training (rowing in
regattas and the like), but rather from that universal adaptability of
the Irishman which fits him for filling any situation in life, from a
seat on a dirt-cart to a chair in an aldermanic chamber.

"I am a paper-hanger by trade, sor," he began, "but I was brought up on
the river and can put a punt wid the best. Try me, sor, at four bob a
day; I'm out of a job."

I looked him over, from his illuminated head down to his parenthetical
legs, caught the merry twinkle in his eyes, and a sigh of relief escaped
me. Here was not only a seafaring man, accustomed to battling with the
elements, skilled in the handling of poles, and acquainted with swift
and ofttimes dangerous currents, but a brother brush, a man conversant
with design and pigments; an artist, keenly sensitive to straight lines,
harmony of tints, and delicate manipulation of surfaces.

I handed him the key at once. Thenceforward I was simply a passenger
depending on his strong right arm for guidance, and at luncheon-hour
upon his alert and nimble, though slightly incurved, legs for
sustenance, the inn being often a mile away from my subject.

And the inns!--or rather my own particular inn--the White Hart at
Sonning.

There are others, of course--the Red Lion at Henley; the old Warboys
hostelry at Cookham; the Angler at Marlowe; the French Horn across the
black water and within rifle-shot of the White Hart--a most pretentious
place, designed for millionnaires and spendthrifts, where even chops and
tomato-sauce, English pickles, chowchow and the like, ales in the wood
and other like commodities and comforts, are dispensed at prices that
compel all impecunious, staid painters like myself to content themselves
with a sandwich and a pint of bitter--and a hundred other inns along the
river, good, bad, and indifferent. But yet with all their charms I am
still loyal to my own White Hart.

Mine is an inn that sets back from the river with a rose-garden in front
the like of which you never saw nor smelt of: millions of roses in a
never-ending bloom. An inn with low ceilings, a cubby-hole of a bar next
the side entrance on the village street; two barmaids--three on
holidays; old furniture; a big fireplace in the hall; red-shaded lamps
at night; plenty of easy-chairs and cushions. An inn all dimity and
cretonne and brass bedsteads upstairs and unlimited tubs--one fastened
to the wall painted white, and about eight feet long, to fit the largest
pattern of Englishman. Out under the portico facing the rose-garden and
the river stand tables for two or four, with snow-white cloths made gay
with field-flowers, and the whole shaded by big, movable Japanese
umbrellas, regular circus-tent umbrellas, their staffs stuck in the
ground wherever they are needed. Along the sides of this garden on the
gravel-walk loll go-to-sleep straw chairs, with little wicker tables
within reach of your hand for B.& S., or tea and toast, or a pint in a
mug, and down at the water's edge seafaring men like Fin and me find a
boathouse with half a score of punts, skiffs, and rowboats, together
with a steam-launch with fires banked ready for instant service.

And the people in and about this White Hart inn!

There are a bride and groom, of course. No well-regulated Thames inn can
exist a week without a bride and groom. He is a handsome, well-knit,
brown-skinned young fellow, who wears white flannel trousers, chalked
shoes, a shrimp-colored flannel jacket and a shrimp-colored cap
(Leander's colors) during the day, and a faultlessly cut dress-suit
at night.

She has a collection of hats, some as big as small tea-tables; fluffy
gowns for mornings; short frocks for boating; and a gold belt, two
shoulder-straps, and a bunch of roses for dinner. They have three dogs
between them--one four inches long--well, perhaps six, to be
exact--another a bull terrier, and a third a St. Bernard as big as a
Spanish burro. They have also a maid, a valet, and a dog-cart, besides
no end of blankets, whips, rugs, canes, umbrellas, golf-sticks, and
tennis-bats. They have stolen up here, no doubt, to get away from their
friends, and they are having the happiest hours of their lives.

"Them two, sor," volunteers Fin, as we pass them lying under the willows
near my morning subject, "is as chuck-full of happiness as a hive's full
of bees. They was out in their boat yisterday, sor, in all that pour,
and it rolled off 'em same as a duck sheds water, and they laughin' so
ye'd think they'd split. What's dresses to them, sor, and her father?
Why, sor, he could buy and sell half Sonnin'. He's jist home from Africa
that chap is--or he was the week he was married--wid more lead inside
him than would sink a corpse. You kin see for yerself that he's made for
fightin'. Look at the eye on him!"

Then there is the solitary Englishman, who breakfasts by himself, and
has the morning paper laid beside his plate the moment the post-cart
arrives. Fin and I find him half the time on a bench in a cool place on
the path to the Lock, his nose in his book, his tightly furled umbrella
by his side. No dogs nor punts nor spins up the river for him. He is
taking his holiday and doesn't want to be meddled with or spoken to.

There are, too, the customary maiden sisters--the unattended and
forlorn--up for a week; and the young fellow down from London, all
flannels and fishing-rods--three or four of them in fact, who sit round
in front of the little sliding wicket facing the row of bottles and
pump-handles--divining-rods for the beer below, these
pump-handles--chaffing the barmaids and getting as good as they send;
and always, at night, one or more of the country gentry in for their
papers, and who can be found in the cosey hall discussing the crops, the
coming regatta, the chance of Leander's winning the race, or the latest
reports of yesterday's cricket-match.

Now and then the village doctor or miller--quite an important man is the
miller--you would think so if you could see the mill--drops in, draws up
a chair, and ventures an opinion on the price of wheat in the States or
the coal strike or some kindred topic, the coming country fair, or
perhaps the sermon of the previous Sunday.

"I hope you 'eard our Vicar, sir--No? Sorry you didn't, sir. I tell yer
'e's a nailer."

And so much for the company at the White Hart Inn.


II

You perhaps think that you know the Thames. You have been at Henley, no
doubt, during regatta week, when both banks were flower-beds of
blossoming parasols and full-blown picture-hats, the river a stretch of
silver, crowded with boats, their occupants cheering like mad. Or you
know Marlowe with its wide stream bordered with stately trees and
statelier mansions, and Oxford with its grim buildings, and Windsor
dominated by its huge pile of stone, the flag of the Empires floating
from its top; and Maidenhead with its boats and launches, and lovely
Cookham with its back water and quaint mill and quainter lock. You have
rowed down beside them all in a shell, or have had glimpses of them
from the train, or sat under the awnings of the launch or regular packet
and watched the procession go by. All very charming and interesting,
and, if you had but forty-eight hours in which to see all England, a
profitable way of spending eight of them. And yet you have only skimmed
the beautiful river's surface as a swallow skims a lake.

Try a punt once.

Pole in and out of the little back waters, lying away from the river,
smothered in trees; float over the shallows dotted with pond-lilies;
creep under drooping branches swaying with the current; stop at any one
of a hundred landings, draw your boat up on the gravel, spring out and
plunge into the thickets, flushing the blackbirds from their nests, or
unpack your luncheon, spread your mattress, and watch the clouds sail
over your head. Don't be in a hurry. Keep up this idling day in and day
out, up and down, over and across, for a month or more, and you will get
some faint idea of how picturesque, how lovely, and how restful this
rarest of all the sylvan streams of England can be.

If, like me, you can't pole a punt its length without running into a
mud-bank or afoul of the bushes, then send for Fin. If he isn't at
Sonning you will hear of him at Cookham or Marlowe or London--but find
him wherever he is. He will prolong your life and loosen every button on
your waistcoat. Fin is the unexpected, the ever-bubbling, and the
ever-joyous; restless as a school-boy ten minutes before recess, quick
as a grasshopper and lively as a cricket. He is, besides, brimful and
spilling over with a quality of fun that is geyserlike in its
spontaneity and intermittent flow. When he laughs, which he does every
other minute, the man ploughing across the river, or the boy fishing, or
the girl driving the cow, turn their heads and smile. They can't help
it. In this respect he is better than a dozen farmers each with his two
blades of grass. Fin plants a whole acre of laughs at once.

On one of my joyous days--they were all joyous days, this one most of
all--I was up the backwater, the "Mud Lark" (Fin's name for the punt)
anchored in her element by two poles, one at each end, to keep her
steady, when Fin broke through a new aperture and became reminiscent.

I had dotted in the outlines of the old footpath with the meadows
beyond, the cotton-wool clouds sailing overhead--only in England do I
find these clouds--and was calling to the restless Irishman to sit still
or I would send him ashore ... wet, when he answered with one of his
bubbling outbreaks:

"I don't wonder yer hot, sor, but I git that fidgety. I been so long
doin' nothin'; two months now, sor, since I been on a box."

I worked on for a minute without answering. Hanging wall-paper by
standing on a box was probably the way they did it in the country, the
ceilings being low.

"No work?" I said, aimlessly. As long as he kept still I didn't care
what he talked or laughed about.

"Plinty, sor--an' summer's the time to do it. So many strangers comin'
an' goin', but they won't let me at it. I'm laid off for a month yet;
that's why your job come in handy, sor."

"Row with your Union?" I remarked, listlessly, my mind still intent on
watching a sky tint above the foreground trees.

"No--wid the perlice. A little bit of a scrimmage wan night in Trafalgar
Square. It was me own fault, sor, for I oughter a-knowed better. It was
about three o'clock in the mornin', sor, and I was outside one o' them
clubs just below Piccadilly, when one o' them young chaps come out wid
three or four others, all b'ilin' drunk--one was Lord Bentig--jumps into
a four-wheeler standin' by the steps an' hollers out to the rest of us:
'A guinea to the man that gits to Trafalgar Square fust; three minutes'
start,' and off he wint and we after him, leavin' wan of the others
behind wid his watch in his hand."

I laid down my palette and looked up. Paper-hanging evidently had its
lively side.

"Afoot?"

"All four of 'em, sor--lickety-split and hell's loose. I come near
runnin' over a bobbie as I turned into Pall Mall, but I dodged him and
kep' on and landed second, with the mare doubled up in a heap and the
rig a-top of her and one shaft broke. Lord Bentig and the other chaps
that was wid him was standin' waitin', and when we all fell in a heap he
nigh bu'st himself a-laughin'. He went bail for us, of course, and give
the three of us ten bob apiece, but I got laid off for three months, and
come up here, where me old mother lives and I kin pick up a job."

"Hanging paper?" I suggested with a smile.

"Yes, or anything else. Ye see, sor, I'm handy carpenterin', or puttin'
on locks, or the likes o' that, or paintin', or paper-hangin', or
mendin' stoves or tinware. So when they told me a painter chap wanted
me, I looked over me perfessions and picked out the wan I tho't would
suit him best. But it's drivin' a cab I'm good at; been on the box
fourteen year come next Christmas. Ye don't mind, do ye, sor, my not
tellin' ye before? Lord Bentig'll tell ye all about me next time ye see
him in Lunnon." This touch was truly Finian. "He's cousin, ye know, sor,
to this young chap what's here at the inn wid his bride. They wouldn't
know me, sor, nor don't, but I've driv her father many a time. My rank
used to be near his house on Bolton Terrace. I had a thing happen there
one night that--more water? Yes, sor--and the other brush--the big one?
Yes, sor--thank ye, sor. I don't shake, do I, sor?"

"No, Fin; go on."

"Well, I was tellin' ye about the night Sir Henry's man--that's the
lady's father, sor--come to the rank where I sat on me box. It was about
ten o'clock--rainin' hard and bad goin', it was that slippery.

"'His Lordship wants ye in a hurry, Fin,' and he jumped inside.

"When I got there I see something was goin' on--a party or
something--the lights was lit clear up to the roof.

"'His Lordship's waitin' in the hall for ye,' said his man, and I jumped
off me box and wint inside.

"'Fin,' said His Lordship, speakin' low, 'there's a lady dinin' wid me
and the wine's gone to her head, and she's that full that if she waits
until her own carriage comes for her she won't git home at all! Go back
and get on yer cab wid yer fingers to yer hat, and I'll bring her out
and put her in meself. It's dark and she won't know the difference. Take
her down to Cadogan Square--I don't know the number, but ye can't miss
it, for it's the fust white house wid geraniums in the winders. When ye
git there ye're to git down, help her up the steps, keepin' yer mouth
shut, unlock the door, and set her down on the sofa. You'll find the
sofa in the parlor on the right, and can't miss it. Then lay the key on
the mantel--here it is. After she's down, step out softly, close the
door behind ye, ring the bell, and some of her servants will come and
put her to bed. She's often took that way and they know what to do.'
Then he says, lookin' at me straight, 'I sent for you, Fin, for I know I
kin trust ye. Come here tomorrow and let me know how she got through and
I'll give ye five bob.'

"Well, sor, in a few minutes out she come, leanin' on His Lordship's
arm, steppin' loike she had spring-halt, and takin' half the sidewalk
to turn in.

"'Good-night, Your Ladyship,' says His Lordship.

"'Good-night, Sir Henry,' she called back, her head out of the winder,
and off I driv.

"I turned into the Square, found the white house wid the geraniums,
helps her out of me cab and steadied her up the steps, pulled the key
out, and was just goin' to put it in the lock when she fell up agin the
door and open it went. The gas was turned low in the hall, so that she
wouldn't know me if she looked at me.

"I found the parlor, but the lights were out; so widout lookin' for the
sofa--I was afraid somebody'd come and catch me--I slid her into a
rockin'-chair, laid the key on the hall-table, shut the door softlike,
rang the bell as if there was a fire next door, jumped on me box,
and driv off.

"The next mornin' I went to see His Lordship.

"'Did ye land her all right, Fin?'

"'I did, sor,' I says.

"'Had ye any trouble wid the key?'

"'No, sor,' I says, 'the door was open.'

"'That's queer,' he says; 'maybe her husband came in earlier and forgot
to shut it. And ye put her on the sofa----'

"'No, sor, in a big chair.'

"'In the parlor on the right?'

"'No, sor, in a little room on the left--down one step----'

"He stopped and looked at me.

"'Te're sure ye put her in the fust white house?'

"'I am, sor.'

"'Wid geraniums in the winder?'

"'Yes, sor.'

"'Red?' he says.

"'No, white,' I says.

"'On the north side of the Square?

"'No,' I says, 'on the south.'

"'My God! Fin,' he says, 'ye left her in the wrong house!'"

It was I who shook the boat this time.

"Oh, ye needn't laugh, sor; it was no laughin' matter. I got me five
bob, but I lost His Lordship's custom, and I didn't dare go near Cadogan
Square for a month."

These disclosures opened up a new and wider horizon. Heretofore I had
associated Fin with simple country life--as a cheery craftsman--a
Jack-of-all-trades: one day attired in overalls, with paste-pot, shears,
and ladder, brightening the walls of the humble cottagers, and the next
in polo cap and ragged white sweater, the gift of some summer visitor
(his invariable costume with me), adapting himself to the peaceful needs
of the river. Here, on the contrary and to my great surprise, was a
cosmopolitan; a man versed in the dark and devious ways of a great city;
familiar with life in its widest sense; one who had touched on many
sides and who knew the cafés, the rear entrances to the theatres, and
the short cut to St. John's Wood with the best and worst of them. These
discoveries came with a certain shock, but they did not impair my
interest in my companion. They really endeared him to me all the more.

After this I was no longer content with listening to his rambling
dissertations on whatever happened to rise in his memory and throat. I
began to direct the output. It was not a difficult task; any incident or
object, however small, served my purpose.

The four-inch dog acted as valve this morning.

Somebody had trodden on His Dogship; some unfortunate biped born to
ill-luck. In and about Sonning to tread on a dog or to cause any animal
unnecessary pain is looked upon as an unforgiveable crime. Dogs are made
to be hugged and coddled and given the best cushion in the boat. "A
man, a girl, and a dog" is as common as "a man, a punt, and an inn."

Instantly the four-inch morsel--four inches, now that I think of it, is
about right; six inches is too long--this morsel, I say, gave a yell as
shrill as a launch-whistle and as fetching as a baby's cry. Instantly
three chambermaids, two barmaids, the two maiden sisters who were
breakfasting on the shady side of the inn gable, and the dog's owner,
who, in a ravishing gown, was taking her coffee under one of the
Japanese umbrellas, came rushing out of their respective hiding-places,
impelled by an energy and accompanied by an impetuousness rarely seen
except perhaps in some heroic attempt to save a drowning child sinking
for the last time.

"The darlin'"--this from Katy the barmaid, who reached him first--"who's
stomped on him?"

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