Hocken and Hunken Part 8

"What's that?" asked Mr Philp.

"It's--it's a cuff," Captain Cai admitted.

"Belongs to the Widow Bosenna, I shouldn't wonder?" Mr Philp hazarded with ma.s.sive gravity. "It's the sort o' thing a woman wears now-a-days when she've lost her husband. I follows the fashions in my distant way." He paused and corrected himself carefully--"_Them sort._"

"I thought--it occurred to me--as it might be the handiest way of returnin' the thing."

"It seems early days to be carryin' that sort of article around in the crown o' your hat. Dangerous, too, if you use hair-oil. But you don't.

I took notice that you said 'no' yesterday when Toy offered to rub something into your hair. Now that's always a temptation with me, there bein' no extra charge. . . . Did she give it to you?"

"Who? . . . Mrs Bosenna? No, she left it behind here."

"When?"

"Yesterday evening."

"What was she doin' here, yesterday evenin', to want to take off her cuffs?"

"If you must know, she was planting roses."

"What? In April? . . . You mustn't think I'm curious."

"Not at all," Captain Cai agreed grimly.

"Nice little place you've pitched on here, I must say." Mr Philp changed his tone to one of extreme affability. "There's not a prettier little nest in all Troy than these two cottages. And which of the pair might be _your_ choice?"

"It's not quite decided."

"Well, you can't do wrong with either. But"--Mr Philp glanced back across the roadway and lowered his voice--"I'd like to warn you o' one thing. I don't know no unhandier houses for gettin' out a corpse.

There's a turn at the foot o' the stairs; most awk'ard."

"I reckon," said Captain Cai cheerfully, "'Bias an' me'll leave that to them as it concerns. But, man! what a turn you've a-got for funerals!"

"They be the breath o' life to me," Mr Philp confessed, and paused for a moment's thought. "Tell 'ee what we'll do: you shall come with me down to Fore Street an' buy yourself a new hat at Shake Benny's: 'tis on your way to Rilla Farm. There in the shop you can hand me over the one you're wearin', and Shake can send mine home in a bandbox." He twinkled cunningly. "I shall be wantin' a bandbox, an' that gets me one cost-free."

The man was inexorable. Captain Cai gave up resistance, and the pair descended the hill together towards Mr Benny's shop.

Young Mr Benny, "S. Benny, Gents' Outfitter," had suffered the misfortune to be christened Shakespeare without inheriting any of the literary aspirations to which that name bore witness. It was, in any event, a difficult name to live up to, and so incongruous with this youth in particular that, as he grew up, his acquaintances abbreviated it by consent to Shake; and, again, when, after serving an apprenticeship with a pushing firm in Exeter, he returned to open a haberdashery shop in his native town, it had been reduced, for business purposes, to a bare initial.

But it is hard to escape heredity. Albeit to young Mr Benny pure literature made no appeal, and had even been summarised by him as "footle," in the business of advertising he developed a curious literary twist. He could not exhibit a new line of goods without inventing an arresting set of labels for it; and upon these labels (executed with his own hands in water-colour upon cardboard) he let play a fancy almost Asiatic. Not content with mere description, such as "_Neck-wear in Up-to-date Helios_" or "_Braces, Indispensable_," he a.s.sailed the coy purchaser with appeals frankly personal, such as "_You pa.s.sed us Yesterday, but We Hit you this time_," or (of pyjamas) "_What! You don't Tell us You Go to Bed like your Grandfather_," or (of a collar) "_If you Admire Lord Rosebery, Now is Your Time_."

Captain Cai wanted a hat. "I be just returned from foreign," he explained; "and this here head-gear o' mine--"

Young Mr Benny smiled with a smile that deprecated his being drawn into criticism. "We keep ahead of the Germans yet, sir,--in some respects.

Is it Captain Hocken I have the pleasure of addressin'?"

"Now, how did he know that?" Captain Cai murmured.

"Why, by your hat," answered Mr Philp with readiness.

"You'll be wanting something more nautical, Captain? Something yachty, if I may suggest. . . . I've a neat thing here in yachting caps."

Mr Benny selected and displayed one, turning it briskly in his hands.

"The _Commodore_. There's a something about that cap, sir,--a what shall I say?--a distinction. Or, if you prefer a straight up-and-down peak, what about the _Squadron_ here? A little fuller in the crown, you'll observe; but that"--with a flattering glance--"would suit you.

You'd carry it off."

"Better have it full in the crown," suggested Mr Philp; "by reason it's handier to carry things."

"None of your seafarin' gear, I'll thank you," said Captain Cai hastily.

"I've hauled ash.o.r.e."

"And mean to settle among us, I hope, sir? . . . Well, then, with the summer already upon us--so to speak--what do we say to a real Panama straw? The _Boulter's Lock_ here, f'r instance,--extra brim--at five and sixpence? How these foreigners do it for the money is a mystery to me."

"I see they puts 'Smith Brothers, Birmingham,' in the lining," said Captain Cai.

"Importers' mark, sir,--to insure genuineness. . . . Let me see, what size were you saying? H'm, six-seven-eighths, as I should judge."

Young Mr Benny pulled out a drawer with briskness, ran his hand through a number of genuine Panamas of identical pattern, selected one, and poised it on the tips of his fingers, giving it the while a seductive twist. "If you will stand _so_, Captain, while I tilt the gla.s.s a trifle?"

Captain Cai gazed hardily at his reflection in the mirror. "It don't seem altogether too happy wi' the rest of the togs," he hazarded, and consulted Mr Philp. "What do _you_ think?"

"I ain't makin' no bid for your tail-coat, if that's what you mean,"

answered Mr Philp with sudden moroseness, pulling out his watch.

"I got one."

"Our leading townsmen, sir," said young Mr Benny, "favour an alpaca lounge coat with this particular line. We stock them in all sizes.

Alpacas are seldom made to measure,--'free-and-easy' being their motto, if I may so express it."

"It's mine, anyway."

"And useful for gardening, too. In an alpaca you can--" Young Mr Benny, without finishing the sentence, indued one and went through brisk motions indicative of digging, hoeing, taking cuttings and transplanting them.

The end of it was that Captain Cai purchased an alpaca coat as well as a Panama hat, and having bidden "so long" to Mr Philp, and pocketed his three-and-sixpence, steered up the street in the direction of Rilla Farm, nervously stealing glimpses of himself in the shop windows as he went. As he hove in sight of the Custom House, however, this bashfulness gave way of a sudden to bewilderment. For there, at the foot of the steps leading up to its old-fashioned doorway lounged his mate, Mr Tregaskis, sucking a pipe.

"Hullo! What are you doin' here?" asked Captain Cai.

"What the devil's that to you?" retorted Mr Tregaskis. But a moment later he gasped and all but dropped the pipe from his mouth.

"Good Lord!"

"Took me for a stranger, hey?"

The mate stared, slowly pa.s.sing a hand across his chin as though to make sure of his own beard. "What indooced 'ee?"

"When you're in Rome," said Captain Cai, with a somewhat forced nonchalance, "you do as the Romans do."

"Do they?" asked Mr Tregaskis vaguely. "Besides, we ain't," he objected after a moment.

"Crew all right?"

"Upstairs,"--this with a jerk of the thumb.