Part 75 (1/2)

'I will, I will,' said the woman.

'Then, look out,' said Falconer to the policeman; 'for I'm going to give you that lesson.'

The officer let the woman go, took his baton, and made a blow at Falconer. In another moment--I could hardly see how--he lay in the street.

'Now, my poor woman, come along,' said Falconer.

She obeyed, crying gently. Two other policemen came up.

'Do you want to give that woman in charge, Mr. Falconer?' asked one of them.

'I give that man in charge,' cried his late antagonist, who had just scrambled to his feet. 'a.s.saulting the police in discharge of their duty.'

'Very well,' said the other. 'But you're in the wrong box, and that you'll find. You had better come along to the station, sir.'

'Keep that fellow from getting hold of the woman--you two, and we'll go together,' said Falconer.

Bewildered with the rapid sequence of events, I was following in the crowd. Falconer looked about till he saw me, and gave me a nod which meant come along. Before we reached Bow Street, however, the offending policeman, who had been walking a little behind in conversation with one of the others, advanced to Falconer, touched his hat, and said something, to which Falconer replied.

'Remember, I have my eye upon you,' was all I heard, however, as he left the crowd and rejoined me. We turned and walked eastward again.

The storm kept on intermittently, but the streets were rather more crowded than usual notwithstanding.

'Look at that man in the woollen jacket,' said Falconer. 'What a beautiful outline of face! There must be something n.o.ble in that man.'

'I did not see him,' I answered, 'I was taken up with a woman's face, like that of a beautiful corpse. It's eyes were bright. There was gin in its brain.'

The streets swarmed with human faces gleaming past. It was a night of ghosts.

There stood a man who had lost one arm, earnestly pumping bilge-music out of an accordion with the other, holding it to his body with the stump. There was a woman, pale with hunger and gin, three match-boxes in one extended hand, and the other holding a baby to her breast. As we looked, the poor baby let go its hold, turned its little head, and smiled a wan, shrivelled, old-fas.h.i.+oned smile in our faces.

Another happy baby, you see, Mr. Gordon,' said Falconer. 'A child, fresh from G.o.d, finds its heaven where no one else would. The devil could drive woman out of Paradise; but the devil himself cannot drive the Paradise out of a woman.'

'What can be done for them?' I said, and at the moment, my eye fell upon a row of little children, from two to five years of age, seated upon the curb-stone.

They were chattering fast, and apparently carrying on some game, as happy as if they had been in the fields.

'Wouldn't you like to take all those little grubby things, and put them in a great tub and wash them clean?' I said.

'They'd fight like spiders,' rejoined Falconer.

'They're not fighting now.'

'Then don't make them. It would be all useless. The probability is that you would only change the forms of the various evils, and possibly for worse. You would buy all that man's glue-lizards, and that man's three-foot rules, and that man's dog-collars and chains, at three times their value, that they might get more drink than usual, and do nothing at all for their living to-morrow.--What a happy London you would make if you were Sultan Haroun!' he added, laughing. 'You would put an end to poverty altogether, would you not?'

I did not reply at once.

'But I beg your pardon,' he resumed; 'I am very rude.'

'Not at all,' I returned. 'I was only thinking how to answer you. They would be no worse after all than those who inherit property and lead idle lives.'