Our Mr. Wrenn: The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man Part 10

This time it was the great little Bill who had to be dragged off. McGarver held him, kicking and yammering, his mild mustache bristling like a battling cat's, till the next round, when Pete was knocked out by a clumsy whirlwind of fists.

He lay on the deck, with Bill standing over him and demanding, "What's my name, _heh?_"

"I t'ink it's Bill now, all right, Wrennie, old hoss--Bill, old hoss," groaned Pete.

He was permitted to sneak off into oblivion.

Bill Wrenn went below. In the dark pa.s.sage by the fidley he fell to tremorous weeping. But the brackish hydrant water that stopped his nose-bleed saved him from hysterics. He climbed to the top deck, and now he could again see his brother pilgrim, the moon.

The stiffs and bosses were talking excitedly of the fight.

Tim rushed up to gurgle: "Great, Bill, old man! You done just what I'd 'a' done if he'd cussed me. I told you Pete was a bluffer."

"Git out," said Satan.

Tim fled.

Morton came up, looked at Bill Wrenn, pounded him on the shoulder, and went off to his mattress. The other stiffs slouched away, but McGarver and Satan were still discussing the fight.

Snuggling on the hard black pile of tarpaulins, Bill talked to them, warmed to them, and became Mr. Wrenn. He announced his determination to wander adown every s.h.i.+ning road of Europe.

"Nice work." "Sure." "You'll make a snappy little ole globe-trotter." "Sure; ought to be able to get the slickest kind of grub for four bits a day." "Nice work," Satan interjected from time to time, with smooth irony. "Sure.

Go ahead. Like to hear your plans."

McGarver broke in: "Cut that out, Marvin. You're a 'Satan' all right. Quit your kidding the little man. He's all right. And he done fine on the job last three-four days."

Lying on his mattress, Bill stared at the network of the ratlines against the brilliant sky. The crisscross lines made him think of the ruled order-blanks of the Souvenir Company.

"Gee!" he mused, "I'd like to know if Jake is handling my work the way we--they--like it. I'd like to see the old office again, and Charley Carpenter, just for a couple of minutes. Gee!

I wish they could have seen me put it all over Pete to-night!

That's what I'm going to do to the blooming Englishmen if they don't like me."

The S.S. _Merian_ panted softly beside the landing-stage at Birkenhead, Liverpool's Jersey City, resting in the suns.h.i.+ne after her voyage, while the cattle were unloaded. They had encountered fog-banks at the mouth of the Mersey River. Mr.

Wrenn had ecstatically watched the sh.o.r.es of England--_England!_--ride at him through the fog, and had panted over the lines of English villas among the dunes. It was like a dream, yet the sh.o.r.e had such amazingly safe solid colors, real red and green and yellow, when contrasted with the fog-wet deck unearthily glancing with mist-lights.

Now he was seeing his first foreign city, and to Morton, stolidly curious beside him, he could say nothing save "Gee!"

With church-tower and swarthy dome behind dome, Liverpool lay across the Mersey. Up through the Liverpool streets that ran down to the river, as though through peep-holes slashed straight back into the Middle Ages, his vision plunged, and it wandered unchecked through each street while he hummed:

"Free, free, in Eu-ro-pee, that's _me!_"

The cattlemen were called to help unload the remaining hay.

They made a game of it. Even Satan smiled, even the Jewish elders were lightly affable as they made pretendedly fierce gestures at the squat patient hay-bales. Tim, the hatter, danced a limber foolish jig upon the deck, and McGarver bellowed, "The bon-nee bon-nee banks of Loch Lo-o-o-o-mond."

The crowd bawled: "Come on, Bill Wrenn; your turn. Hustle up with that bale, Pete, or we'll sic Bill on you."

Bill Wrenn, standing very dignified, piped: "I'm Colonel Armour. I own all these cattle, 'cept the Morris uns, see?

Gotta do what I say, savvy? Tim, walk on your ear."

The hatter laid his head on the deck and waved his anemic legs in accordance with directions from Colonel Armour (late Wrenn).

The hay was off. The _Merian_ tooted and headed across the Mersey to the Huskinson Dock, in Liverpool, while the cattlemen played tag about the deck. Whooping and laughing, they made last splashy toilets at the water-b.u.t.ts, dragged out their luggage, and descended to the dock-house.

As the cattlemen pa.s.sed Bill Wrenn and Morton, shouting affectionate good-bys in English or courteous Yiddish, Bill commented profanely to Morton on the fact that the solid stone floor of the great shed seemed to have enough sea-motion to "make a guy sick." It was nearly his last utterance as Bill Wrenn.

He became Mr. Wrenn, absolute Mr. Wrenn, on the street, as he saw a real English bobby, a real English carter, and the sign, "Cocoa House. Tea _Id_."

England!

"Now for some real grub!" cried Morton. "No more scouse and willow-leaf tea."

Stretching out their legs under a table glorified with toasted Sally Lunns and Melton Mowbrays, served by a waitress who said "Thank _you_" with a rising inflection, they gazed at the line of mirrors running Britishly all around the room over the long lounge seat, and smiled with the triumphant content which comes to him whose hunger for dreams and hunger for meat-pies are satisfied together.

CHAPTER V

HE FINDS MUCH QUAINT ENGLISH FLAVOR

Big wharves, all right. England sure is queen of the sea, heh?

Busy town, Liverpool. But, say, there is a quaint English flavor to these shops.... Look at that: 'Red Lion Inn.'...

'Overhead trams' they call the elevated. Real flavor, all right. English as can be.... I sure like to wander around these little shops. Street crowd. That's where you get the real quaint flavor."

Thus Morton, to the glowing Mr. Wrenn, as they turned into St.

George's Square, noting the Lipton's Tea establishment. _Sir_ Thomas Lipton--wasn't he a friend of the king? Anyway, he was some kind of a lord, and he owned big society racing-yachts.

In the grandiose square Mr. Wrenn prayerfully remarked, "Gee!"

"Greek temple. Fine," agreed Morton.

"That's St. George's Hall, where they have big organ concerts,"

explained Mr. Wrenn. "And there's the art-gallery across the Square, and here's the Lime Street Station." He had studied his Baedeker as club women study the cyclopedia. "Let's go over and look at the trains."

"Funny little boxes, ain't they, Wrenn, them cars! Quaint things. What is it they call 'em--carriages? First, second, third cla.s.s...."

"Just like in books."

"Booking-office. That's tickets.... Funny, eh?"

Mr. Wrenn insisted on paying for both their high teas at the cheap restaurant, timidly but earnestly. Morton was troubled.

As they sat on a park bench, smoking those most Anglican cigarettes, "Dainty Bits," Mr. Wrenn begged:

"What's the matter, old man?"