The Sailor Part 19

"Read that yarn about Kitchener and the Gippy?"

"No," said the miserable Sailor.

"Better. Page three. Bottom. d.a.m.n good. What?"

"Yep," said the Sailor, wishing to commit the act of hari-kari. He must find a way out. The longer the pretense was kept up the worse it would be. But it was impossible to tell Ginger that he couldn't even find the yarn of Kitchener and the Gippy, let alone attempt to read it.

VII

Ginger was a wonderful chap, but his nature was hard. He had little of Klond.y.k.e's far-sighted sympathy, which in circ.u.mstances of ever growing difficulty would have been an enormous help to the Sailor.

Henry Harper had felt no shame when he told the dismal truth to Klond.y.k.e that he could neither read nor write. But he would rather have his tongue cut out than tell that particular truth to Ginger.

Still the game of make-believe must not go on. It made the young man horribly uncomfortable to be driven to play it after supper every night. Something must be done if the esteem, perhaps the friendship, of Ginger was not to be forfeited.

The Sailor was no fool. Therefore he set his wits very seriously to work to grasp the nettle without exposing his ignorance more than was absolutely necessary. He spent anxious hours, not only during the day, but in the watches of the night, trying to find a way out.

One Sat.u.r.day evening he sat in a frame of mind bordering upon ecstasy.

At the instance of Ginger, who was the captain and treasurer of the club, the chairman of the committee, and also one of its vice-presidents, the Sailor had been invited that afternoon to keep goal for the Isle of Dogs Albion. The Sailor had done so. Ginger had shaken hands with him impressively after the match, and had solemnly told him that he had won it for his side, which was truly the case.

And the fact was frankly admitted by the rest of the team.

"Mark my words," said Ginger to his peers, "that feller's young at present, but he plays for England when he gets a bit more powder in his hold."

This was talking, but no member of the Isle of Dogs Albion was so misguided as to argue the matter. Ginger's word was the law of nations. Besides, the Sailor was a goalkeeping genius; his form that afternoon could not have been surpa.s.sed by Robinson of Chelsea.

That evening as the Sailor sat gazing, chin on hands, into the fire, while Ginger read out the results of the afternoon's matches, he began to think to a purpose.

"Sunderland hasn't half put it acrost the a.r.s.enal. Villa and Wolves a draw."

"Ginger," said the Sailor wistfully, "if you had been to sea for near seven year an' you had forgot a bit o' what you knowed at school, what would you do about it?"

"Do about what? 'Otspur hasn't half punctured Liverpool, I don't think."

"Do about learnin' what you've forgot?"

"Come again, pardner. I'm not Old Moore. Manchester City and Birmingham no goals half time."

"Do about learnin' a bit o' figurin' what you ought to ha' knowed afore you went to sea?"

"Do you think I'm Datas?" The flash of scorn seared the soul of Henry Harper like the live end of an electric wire. "It's a silly juggins question. How the h.e.l.l should I know?"

No, Ginger was not helpful.

But tonight the Sailor was in the seventh heaven, he was walking on air, therefore with a courage not his as a rule he would not own defeat.

"Suppose you'd almost forgot how to read the news. What'd you do about it?"

"Do about it? Why, I'd pleadin' well go and drown meself."

The Sailor drew in his breath in a little gasp. But the matter was so tragic that he must go on. And it was no more than Klond.y.k.e had foreseen.

"Perhaps there's someone as would learn me," said the Sailor half to himself. And then his pluck gave out.

Silence fell for twenty minutes. Ginger smoked Log Cabin and read the evening's news, while the Sailor continued to stare in the fire. Then Ginger flung across the _Evening Mercury_ with, as the Sailor fancied, a slight touch of contempt. But Henry Harper had not the heart to take up the paper tonight. He must never take it up again until he had learned to read it!

In the meantime Ginger reflected.

"Sailor," he said, looking at the fire-lit figure, with vibrations of depth and power in his voice, "you'll go far. That's my opinion, an' I don't talk out o' the back o' my neck as a general rule. You'll go far."

This conveyed nothing to the Sailor.

"I'm tellin' yer," said Ginger. Rising with his freckled face shining and his deep mind fired by ambition, he took from a drawer in the supper table a sheet of writing-paper, an envelope, and a blotter which a philanthropic insurance company had presented to the landlady, an ancient ink bottle and a prehistoric pen from the chimneypiece, cleared a s.p.a.ce by piling saucers upon plates and cups on the top of them, and then sat down to compose the following letter:

DEAR d.i.n.k,

I write these few lines hoping you are well as they leave me at present. A chap has just joined our club as I think you ought to know about. He's a sailor, and his goal-keeping is marvelous. None of our chaps has seen anything like it. Thought you might like to know this as the Hotspurs is after him. Two of their directors came to see him play this afternoon, and from what I hear they are going to make him an offer. But from what he tells me he would rather play for the Rovers than anybody as he is Blackhampton born, and though he's been nine times round the world and wrecked twice, he thinks there's no town like it. At present he is young and green, being took to sea as quite a kid, but I honestly think your directors ought to know about him, as he will be snapped up at once. I can arrange to bring him over to Blackhampton any Sat.u.r.day for your club to look at if they care to give us both a trial with the Rovers' second team. We would both come for our expenses, railway fares, and one day's wages, but he won't come without me as we lodge together and play for the same club. You can take it from me he's a Nonesuch.

Yours truly, W. H. JUKES.

P. S.--This season I am in pretty fair form myself at right full back.

W. H. J.

Ginger wrote this letter with great pains in a very clear and masterful hand. He addressed it to Mr. D. Dawson (Blackhampton Rovers F.C.), 12 Curzon Street, Blackhampton. Then, without saying a word to the Nonesuch, he went out to post it at the end of the street. Having done this, thinking hard, he made his way to the little alien hairdresser in the High Road, who had the honor of his patronage, and sternly ordered "a hair cut, and see that you go close with the lawn mower."

Meanwhile the Sailor sat by the fire. Presently the room was invaded by Mrs. Sparks, the landlady. She was a fatigued and faded creature, but honest, discreet, and thoroughly respectable in Ginger's opinion, and in that of his fellow lodger there could be no higher. Besides it was no secret that Mrs. Sparks had seen better days. She was the widow of a mariner, who had borne a gallant part in the bombardment of Alexandria, although his country and hers appeared rather to have overlooked the fact.

The Sailor was a little afraid of Mrs. Sparks. She was to his mind a lady, and overawed by her s.e.x in general, the young man was rather embarra.s.sed by her air of austerity. She never spoke without choosing her words, also the order in which to place them; and Ginger, who was frankly and cynically contemptuous in private discourse of Mrs. Sparks'

s.e.x, was always careful to address her as "Ma'am," a fact which as far as the Sailor was concerned amply vouched for her status.

At ordinary times the Sailor would not have dared to speak to his landlady unless she had first spoken to him. But tonight he was in a state of excitement. By some curious means the events of the afternoon had translated him. A tiny bud of ambition was breaking its filaments in his brain.

While Mrs. Sparks, weary and sallow of countenance, was clearing the table, a compelling force made the Sailor remove his chin from his hands and cease gazing into the fire.

"Beggin' pardon, m'm," he said, with the odd, almost cringing humbleness which always inspired him in his pa.s.sages with even the least considerable of Mrs. Sparks' s.e.x, "would you mind if I ask you a question?"

The landlady was a little surprised. Her lodgers were not in the habit of taking her into their confidence. But in spite of a bleak exterior she was less formidable than she looked, and this the Sailor had felt to be the case. In his tone, moreover, was a note to touch the heart of any woman.

"Not at all," said Mrs. Sparks genteelly.

"If you had been seven year at sea," said the young man, enfolding her with his deep eyes, "an' you had forgot your figurin', what would you do about it?"

Mrs. Sparks was so completely at a loss that the Sailor felt it to be his duty to make himself a little clearer.

"Suppose, m'm, you had forgot all yer knowed of your writin' and readin' while you was at sea, what 'u'd you do about _that_?"