Hocken and Hunken Part 14

"Yes. The _real_ scenery's at the other end o' the town."

"The smell's healthy, they tell me." 'Bias halted in the roadway, and casting back his head took a long stare up at the gasometer. "You mustn' hurry me," he said, "I've got to enjoy _everything_."

"No hurry at all," said Cai, from whose heart the words lifted a burden at least as heavy as the musical box under his arm. "Hullo! here's Bill Tregaskis with his missus! . . . Evenin', William--good evenin', ma'am!"

Captain Cai pulled off his hat. "I hope you find your husband none the worse for the voyage?--though, to be sure, 'tisn' fair on him nor on any seamen, the way some folks reproaches us when we get back home."

Mrs Tregaskis dropped a curtsey. "But be sure, sir--what reproaches?"

"Your looks, ma'am--your looks, if I may say so! . . . William married you soon as he could, I'll wager; but, to be fair, that should ha' been ten years afore _you_ married _him_."

"La, sir!" answered Mrs Tregaskis blushing. "I wonder you never married, yourself--you talk such nonsense! But you're in spirits to-day, as any one can see." She glanced at the broad back of Captain Tobias, who stood a few paces away, with legs planted wide and gaze still wrapped in contemplation of the gasometer. "Makin' so bold, sir, is that your friend we've heard tell so much about?"

"It is, ma'am," Captain Cai turned about to call up 'Bias to be introduced, when Mr Tregaskis gently checked him, laying a hand on the musical box.

"I didn' think it worth mentionin' at the time, sir; but these instruments aren't intended for carryin' about."

"No, no," Captain Cai agreed hastily. "Here, 'Bias! Look around an' see who's the first to welcome ye! Tregaskis, of all men! And this here's his missus."

"How d'e do, Mr Tregaskis," said Captain Tobias, shaking hands. He knew the mate of the _Hannah Hoo_, and respected him for a capable seaman.

"I hope I see you well, ma'am?"

"Nicely, sir, thank you!" Mrs Tregaskis curtseyed and beamed.

But Captain Tobias, though with her, too, he shook hands politely enough, was plainly preoccupied. "'Tis a wonderful invention," said he.

"You just let the gas run in, an' then it is ready for use at any time.

I hadn't a notion you was so up-to-date here."

Mr Tregaskis looked puzzled. "It don't work by _gas_. You wind it up with a cog arrangement, which acts on a spring coil, I'm told--just like the inside of a watch. But we can see by liftin' up the lid."

"Eh?" Captain Tobias glanced back over his shoulder.

"But as I was tellin' the boss, 'twas never _intended_ for a country walk. You sets it down at home and calls for a tune--as it might be drinks," continued Mr Tregaskis lucidly.

Captain Cai touched his friend's elbow. "You're talkin' o' different things, you two," he explained in a nervous haste, anxious to get off delicate ground. "Tregaskis was alludin' to--er--this here; which" he concluded, "n.o.body could have been more taken aback than I was this mornin' . . . when it happened."

"You don't say that's the musical box!" cried Mrs Tregaskis.

"Now, don't you agree, sir"--she appealed to Captain Tobias--"with what I said to William at dinner-time, when he told me about the presentation and the speeches? [Here Captain Cai shot a look at his mate, who flushed but kept his eyes averted, pretending carelessness.] I said that for a lot of ignorant seamen 'twas quite a happy thought, an'

n.o.body could say as Captain Hocken didn' deserve it; but, the thing bein' bought in such a hurry--an' knowin' William as I do--ten to one he'd been taken in an' the thing wouldn't work when it came to be tried."

"I told you," put in her spouse, "as the salesman had shown us how to work it, an' it played the most life-like tunes, 'Home Sweet Home'

inclooded."

"The salesman!" said Mrs Tregaskis scornfully. "A long way you'll go in the world if you trust a salesman! Why, there was a young man once in Harris's Drapery showed me a bonnet--with humming-birds--perfectly outrageous; I wouldn' ha' been seen in it; and inside o' five minutes he had me there with the tears in my eyes to think I couldn' afford it."

"It works all right indeed, ma'am," Captain Cai a.s.sured her.

"Ah, maybe you're cleverer with machinery than William? I don't know how you find him at sea, but _I_ can't trust him to wind the clock."

"I didn' set it goin' myself, ma'am; not personally."

"Well," sighed Mrs Tregaskis, "I wish William had consulted me, anyway, before buying the thing in such a hurry. It's shop-soiled, he has to admit; which I only hope you'll overlook."

"I've told you, my dear," put in Mr Tregaskis patiently, "that the mark was done by a Challenge Cup. The fellow was quite honest about it."

"A more thoughtful man," the lady insisted, "would have consulted his wife--would have brought the thing home, maybe, for a trial, to have her opinion on it. The others wouldn't have raised any objection, I'm sure.

And," she concluded with another sigh, "he knows that I fairly dote on music!"

"If that's so, ma'am," began Captain Cai, and hesitated, overtaken by sudden caution, "I might let you have the loan of it, some time."

"You got out o' that very well," said Tobias, as they moved on. "I like this place--" He paused, to scan a bill h.o.a.rding. "I likes it the more the further I gets. But the women hereabouts seem more than usual forward. Which an unprejoodiced man might call it a drawback."

"I'm sorry, 'Bias, she would keep talkin' about the darned box. . . .

I couldn' prevent the lads, d'ye see--not knowin' they'd any such thing in their minds."

"She as good as invited herself to call an' listen to it," Tobias pursued stolidly. "You headed her off very well. 'Tis possible, o'

course, we may get tired o' the tunes in time; an' then she may be welcome to it for a spell. We'll see. Plenty o' time for that when we've done listenin' to it together."

Captain Cai halted and gazed at his friend with an emotion too deep for words. But Tobias did not see: he was staring up at a wire which crossed the street overhead.

"Telephone! What next? . . . You never told me, neither--or not to my recollection--as you went in for speech-makin'."

"But I don't. I--er--the fact is, I had thoughts of takin' a lesson or two. Private lessons, you understand."

"You don't need to, so far as I can see. What was it I heard you tellin' that widow-woman?--'You was made the recipient--of sentiments-- which emanated'--that's the way to talk to 'em in public life.

I can reckernise the lingo, though I couldn' manage it for worlds, an'

don't know as I want to try."

"Troy is my native town, you see," explained Cai, drinking encouragement.

"An' a rattlin' fine one, too!" Tobias halted in front of a wall letter-box. "Look at that, now! 'Hours of Collection' so-an'-so.

It _do_ make a difference--fancy a thing o' that sort at sea! . . .

D'ye know, although you never expressed yourself that way, I'd always a thought at the back o' my head that you'd end by takin' up with public life in one form or another."

"It _has_ been hinted to me," confessed Cai, colouring. "As one might say, it has been--er--"

"Emanated," his friend suggested.

"It has been emanated, then--that there was a thing or two wanted puttin' to rights."

"We'll make notes as we go along."

"But I don't want you to start by lookin' out our little weaknesses!"

cried Cai, suddenly fearful for his beloved town.

Nevertheless he was in the seventh heaven, divining that his friend (so chary of speech as a rule) had been trying to make amends, to sweep away the little cloud that for a moment--no more--had crossed their perfect understanding. 'Bias was here, determined to like Troy: and 'Bias was succeeding. What else mattered?

"Tidy little trade here," commented 'Bias, as they reached the Pa.s.sage Slip and conned the business reach of the river, the vessels alongside the jetties, the cranes at work, the shipping moored off at the buoys-- vessels of all nations, but mostly Danes and Russians, awaiting their turn.