Part 35 (1/2)
”Jim, I say!” she repeated. ”Come here directly minute.”
Next moment Jim appeared. He was Jim to her because she was his wife, I suppose, but to us he was the Police, with his hair ruffled--from his hateful sofa-cus.h.i.+ons, no doubt--and his tunic unb.u.t.toned.
”What's up?” he said in a husky voice, as if he had been dreaming that he had a cold. ”Can't a chap have a minute to himself to read the paper in?”
”You told me to,” said the woman. ”You said if any folks come to the door with things I was to call you, whether or no.”
Even now we were blind to the disaster that was entangling us in the meshes of its trap. Alice said--
”We've sold a good deal, but we've _some_ things left--very nice things.
These crochet needles----”
But the Police, who had b.u.t.toned up his tunic in a hurry, said quite fiercely--
”Let's have a look at your license.”
”We didn't bring any,” said Noel, ”but if you will give us an order we'll bring you some to-morrow.” He thought a lisen was a thing to sell that we ought to have thought of.
”None of your lip,” was the unexpected reply of the now plainly brutal constable. ”Where's your license, I say?”
”We have a license for our dog, but Father's got it,” said Oswald, always quick-witted, but not, this time, quite quick enough.
”Your 'awker's license is what I want, as well you knows, you young limb. Your pedlar's license--your license to sell things. You ain't half so half-witted as you want to make out.”
”We haven't got a pedlar's license,” said Oswald. If we had been in a book the Police would have been touched to tears by Oswald's simple honesty. He would have said ”n.o.ble boy!” and then gone on to say he had only asked the question to test our honour. But life is not really at all the same as books. I have noticed lots of differences. Instead of behaving like the book-Police, this thick-headed constable said--
”Blowed if I wasn't certain of it! Well, my young blokes, you'll just come along o' me to Sir James. I've got orders to bring up the next case afore him.”
”_Case!_” said Dora. ”_Oh, don't!_ We didn't know we oughtn't to. We only wanted----”
”Ho, yes,” said the constable, ”you can tell all that to the magistrate; and anything you say will be used against you.”
”I'm sure it will,” said Oswald. ”Dora, don't lower yourself to speak to him. Come, we'll go home.”
The Police was combing its hair with a half-toothless piece of comb, and we turned to go. But it was vain.
Ere any of our young and eager legs could climb into the cart the Police had seized the donkey's bridle. We could not desert our n.o.ble steed--and besides, it wasn't really ours, but Bates's, and this made any hope of flight quite a forlorn one. For better, for worse, we had to go with the donkey.
”Don't cry, for goodness' sake!” said Oswald in stern undertones. ”Bite your lips. Take long breaths. Don't let him see we mind. This beast's only the village police. Sir James will be a gentleman. _He'll_ understand. Don't disgrace the house of Bastable. Look here! Fall into line--no, Indian file will be best, there are so few of us. Alice, if you snivel I'll never say you ought to have been a boy again. H.O., shut your mouth; no one's going to hurt you--you're too young.”
”I _am_ trying,” said Alice, gasping.
”Noel,” Oswald went on--now, as so often, showing the brilliant qualities of the born leader and general--”don't _you_ be in a funk.
Remember how Byron fought for the Greeks at Missy-what's-its-name. _He_ didn't grouse, and he was a poet, like you! Now look here, let's be _game_. Dora, you're the eldest. Strike up--any tune. We'll _march_ up, and show this sneak we Bastables aren't afraid, whoever else is.”
You will perhaps find it difficult to believe, but we _did_ strike up.
We sang ”The British Grenadiers,” and when the Police told us to stow it we did not. And Noel said--
”Singing isn't dogs or pedlaring. You don't want a license for that.”