The Observations of Henry Part 3

"'Australia!' retorts he; 'what would I do there? Be a shepherd, like you see in the picture, wear ribbons, and play the flute?'

"'There's not much of that sort of shepherding over there,' says I, 'unless I've been deceived; but if Australia ain't sufficiently uncivilised for you, what about Africa?'

"'What's the good of Africa?' replies he; 'you don't read advertis.e.m.e.nts in the "Clerkenwell News": "Young men wanted as explorers." I'd drift into a barber's shop at Cape Town more likely than anything else.'

"'What about the gold diggings?' I suggests. I like to see a youngster with the spirit of adventure in him. It shows grit as a rule.

"'Played out,' says he. 'You are employed by a company, wages ten dollars a week, and a pension for your old age. Everything's played out,' he continues. 'Men ain't wanted nowadays. There's only room for clerks, and intelligent artisans, and s...o...b..ys.'

"'Go for a soldier,' says I; 'there's excitement for you.'

"'That would have been all right,' says he, 'in the days when there was real fighting.'

"'There's a good bit of it going about nowadays,' I says. 'We are generally at it, on and off, between shouting about the blessings of peace.'

"'Not the sort of fighting I mean,' replies he; 'I want to do something myself, not be one of a row.'

"'Well,' I says, 'I give you up. You've dropped into the wrong world it seems to me. We don't seem able to cater for you here.'

"'I've come a bit too late,' he answers; 'that's the mistake I've made.

Two hundred years ago there were lots of things a fellow might have done.'

"'Yes, I know what's in your mind,' I says: 'pirates.'

"'Yes, pirates would be all right,' says he; 'they got plenty of sea-air and exercise, and didn't need to join a blooming funeral club.'

"'You've got ideas above your station,' I says. 'You work hard, and one day you'll have a milk-shop of your own, and be walking out with a pretty housemaid on your arm, feeling as if you were the Prince of Wales himself.'

"'Stow it!' he says; 'it makes me s.h.i.+ver for fear it might come true. I'm not cut out for a respectable cove, and I won't be one neither, if I can help it!'

"'What do you mean to be, then?' I says; 'we've all got to be something, until we're stiff 'uns.'

"'Well,' he says, quite cool-like, 'I think I shall be a burglar.'

"I dropped into the seat opposite and stared at him. If any other lad had said it I should have known it was only foolishness, but he was just the sort to mean it.

"'It's the only calling I can think of,' says he, 'that has got any element of excitement left in it.'

"'You call seven years at Portland "excitement," do you?' says I, thinking of the argument most likely to tell upon him.

"'What's the difference,' answers he, 'between Portland and the ordinary labouring man's life, except that at Portland you never need fear being out of work?' He was a rare one to argue. 'Besides,' says he, 'it's only the fools as gets copped. Look at that diamond robbery in Bond Street, two years ago. Fifty thousand pounds' worth of jewels stolen, and never a clue to this day! Look at the Dublin Bank robbery,' says he, his eyes all alight, and his face flushed like a girl's. 'Three thousand pounds in golden sovereigns walked away with in broad daylight, and never so much as the flick of a coat-tail seen. Those are the sort of men I'm thinking of, not the bricklayer out of work, who smashes a window and gets ten years for breaking open a cheesemonger's till with nine and fourpence ha'penny in it.'

"'Yes,' says I, 'and are you forgetting the chap who was nabbed at Birmingham only last week? He wasn't exactly an amatoor. How long do think he'll get?'

"'A man like that deserves what he gets,' answers he; 'couldn't hit a police-man at six yards.'

"'You bloodthirsty young scoundrel,' I says; 'do you mean you wouldn't stick at murder?'

"'It's all in the game,' says he, not in the least put out. 'I take my risks, he takes his. It's no more murder than soldiering is.'

"'It's taking a human creature's life,' I says.

"'Well,' he says, 'what of it? There's plenty more where he comes from.'

"I tried reasoning with him from time to time, but he wasn't a sort of boy to be moved from a purpose. His mother was the only argument that had any weight with him. I believe so long as she had lived he would have kept straight; that was the only soft spot in him. But unfortunately she died a couple of years later, and then I lost sight of Joe altogether. I made enquiries, but no one could tell me anything. He had just disappeared, that's all.

"One afternoon, four years later, I was sitting in the coffee-room of a City restaurant where I was working, reading the account of a clever robbery committed the day before. The thief, described as a well-dressed young man of gentlemanly appearance, wearing a short black beard and moustache, had walked into a branch of the London and Westminster Bank during the dinner-hour, when only the manager and one clerk were there.

He had gone straight through to the manager's room at the back of the bank, taken the key from the inside of the door, and before the man could get round his desk had locked him in. The clerk, with a knife to his throat, had then been persuaded to empty all the loose cash in the bank, amounting in gold and notes to nearly five hundred pounds, into a bag which the thief had thoughtfully brought with him. After which, both of them--for the thief seems to have been of a sociable disposition--got into a cab which was waiting outside, and drove away. They drove straight to the City: the clerk, with a knife p.r.i.c.king the back of his neck all the time, finding it, no doubt, a tiresome ride. In the middle of Threadneedle Street, the gentlemanly young man suddenly stopped the cab and got out, leaving the clerk to pay the cabman.

"Somehow or other, the story brought back Joseph to my mind. I seemed to see him as that well-dressed gentlemanly young man; and, raising my eyes from the paper, there he stood before me. He had scarcely changed at all since I last saw him, except that he had grown better looking, and seemed more cheerful. He nodded to me as though we had parted the day before, and ordered a chop and a small hock. I spread a fresh serviette for him, and asked him if he cared to see the paper.

"'Anything interesting in it, Henry?' says he.

"'Rather a daring robbery committed on the Westminster Bank yesterday,' I answers.

"'Oh, ah! I did see something about that,' says he.

"'The thief was described as a well-dressed young man of gentlemanly appearance, wearing a black beard and moustache,' says I.

"He laughs pleasantly.

"'That will make it awkward for nice young men with black beards and moustaches,' says he.

"'Yes,' I says. 'Fortunately for you and me, we're clean shaved.'

"I felt as certain he was the man as though I'd seen him do it.

"He gives me a sharp glance, but I was busy with the cruets, and he had to make what he chose out of it.

"'Yes,' he replies, 'as you say, it was a daring robbery. But the man seems to have got away all right.'

"I could see he was dying to talk to somebody about it.

"'He's all right to-day,' says I; 'but the police ain't the fools they're reckoned. I've noticed they generally get there in the end.'

"'There's some very intelligent men among them,' says he: 'no question of it. I shouldn't be surprised if they had a clue!'

"'No,' I says, 'no more should I; though no doubt he's telling himself there never was such a clever thief.'

"'Well, we shall see,' says he.

"'That's about it,' says I.

"We talked a bit about old acquaintances and other things, and then, having finished, he handed me a sovereign and rose to go.

"'Wait a minute,' I says, 'your bill comes to three-and-eight. Say fourpence for the waiter; that leaves sixteen s.h.i.+llings change, which I'll ask you to put in your pocket.'

"'As you will,' he says, laughing, though I could see he didn't like it.