'But I
Want Most Particular To Arst You Not To Forget To Remember About That
Bird I Giv' You,' He Says.
'You call it a jackdaw, and I've no
particular objection to that, only don't go and run away with the idea
that it's just an or'nary jackdaw.
It's a different sort, and you'll
come to know its value bime-by, and that it ain't the kind of bird you
can buy with a bit of bread and a pinch of tea,' he says. 'And there's
something else you've got to think of - that wife of yours. I've been
sort of married myself and can feel for you,' he says. 'The time will
come when that there bird's pretty little ways will amuse her, and last
of all it'll make her smile, and you'll get the benefit of that,' he
says. 'And you'll remember the bird was giv' to you by a man named
Jones - that's my name, Jones - walking from Newcastle to Dorchester,
looking for work. A poor man, you'll say, down on his luck, but not one
of the common sort, not a greedy, selfish man, but a man that's always
trying to do something to make others happy,' he says.
"And after that, he said, 'Good-bye,' without a smile, and walked off.
"And there at the door I stood, I don't know how long, looking after
him going down the road. Then I laughed; I don't know that I ever
laughed so much in my life, and at last I had to sit down on the bricks
to go on laughing more comfortably, until the missus came and arst me,
sarcastic-like, if I'd got the high-strikes, and if she'd better get a
bucket of water to throw over me.
"I says, 'No, I don't want no water. Just let me have my laugh out and
then it'll be all right.' Well, I don't see nothing to laugh at,' she
says. 'And I s'pose you thought you giv' him a penny. Well, it wasn't a
penny, it was a florin,' she says.
"'And little enough, too,' I says. 'What that man said to me, to say
nothing of the bird, was worth a sovereign. But you are a woman, and
can't understand that,' I says. 'No,' she says, 'I can't, and lucky for
you, or we'd 'a' been in the workhouse before now,' she says.
"And that's how I got the bird."
XXIX
A WONDERFUL STORY OF A MACKEREL
The angler is a mighty spinner of yarns, but no sooner does he set
about the telling than I, knowing him of old, and accounting him not an
uncommon but an unconscionable liar, begin (as Bacon hath it) "to droop
and languish." Nor does the languishing end with the story if I am
compelled to sit it out, for in that state I continue for some hours
after. But oh! the difference when someone who is not an angler relates
a fishing adventure! A plain truthful man who never dined at an
anglers' club, nor knows that he who catches, or tries to catch a fish,
must tell you something to astonish and fill you with envy and
admiration. To a person of this description I am all attention, and
however prosaic and even dull the narrative may be, it fills me with
delight, and sends me happy to bed and (still chuckling) to a
refreshing sleep.
Accordingly, when one of the "commercials" in the coffee-room of the
Plymouth Hotel began to tell a wonderful story of a mackerel he once
caught a very long time back, I immediately put down my pen so as to
listen with all my ears. For he was about the last person one would
have thought of associating with fish-catching - an exceedingly towny-
looking person indeed, one who from his conversation appeared to know
nothing outside of his business. He was past middle age - oldish-looking
for a traveller - his iron-grey hair brushed well up to hide the
baldness on top, disclosing a pair of large ears which stood out like
handles; a hatchet face with parchment skin, antique side whiskers, and
gold-rimmed glasses on his large beaky nose. He wore the whitest linen
and blackest, glossiest broadcloth, a big black cravat, diamond stud in
his shirt-front in the old fashion, and a heavy gold chain with a spade
guinea attached. His get-up and general appearance, though ancient, or
at all events mid-Victorian, proclaimed him a person of considerable
importance in his vocation.
He had, he told us at starting, a very good customer at Bristol,
perhaps the best he ever had, at any rate the one who had stuck longest
to him, since what he was telling us happened about the year 1870. He
went to Bristol expressly to see this man, expecting to get a good
order from him, but when he arrived and saw the wife, and asked for her
husband, she replied that he was away on his holiday with the two
little boys. It was a great disappointment, for, of course, he couldn't
get an order from her. Confound the woman! she was always against him;
what she would have liked was to have half a dozen travellers dangling
about her, so as to pit one against another and distribute the orders
among them just as flirty females distribute their smiles, instead of
putting trust in one.
Where had her husband gone for his holiday? he asked; she said Weymouth
and then was sorry she had let it out. But she refused to give the
address. "No, no," she said; "he's gone to enjoy himself, and mustn't
be reminded of business till he gets back."
However, he resolved to follow him to Weymouth on the chance of finding
him there, and accordingly took the next train to that place. And, he
added, it was lucky for him that he did so, for he very soon found him
with his boys on the front, and, in spite of what she said, it was not
with this man as it was with so many others who refuse to do business
when away from the shop.
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