Part 14 (1/2)

They caught at the expression, ”Science,” and regarded it as the ”Hey Presto!” of a friendly conjurer who could so arrange matters for them that powerful opponents would fall flat, involuntarily, at the sight of their technically correct att.i.tude.

I did not like to destroy their illusions. Had I said to them, ”Look here, science is no practical use to you unless you've got low-bridged, snub noses, protruding temples, nostrils like the tubes of a vacuum-cleaner, stomach muscles like motor-car wheels, hands like legs of mutton, and biceps like transatlantic cables”--had I said that, they would have voted boxing a fraud, and gone away to quarrel over a game of backgammon, which was precisely what I wished to avoid.

So I let them go on with their tapping and feinting and side-slipping.

To make it worse they overheard Sidney Price trying to pay me a compliment. Price was the insurance clerk who had attached himself to Hatton and had proved himself to be of real service in many ways. He was an honest man, but he could not box. He came down to the hall one night after I had given four or five lessons, to watch the boys spar.

Of course, to the uninitiated eye it did seem as though they were neat in their work. The sight was very different from the absurd exhibition which Price had seen on the night I started with them. He might easily have said, if he was determined to compliment me, that they had ”improved,” ”progressed,” or something equally adequate and innocuous.

But no. The man must needs be effusive, positively gus.h.i.+ng. He came to me in transports. ”Wonderful!” he said. ”Wonderful!”

”What's wonderful?” I said, a shade irritably.

”Their style,” he said loudly, so that they could all hear, ”their style. It's their style that astonishes me.”

I hustled him away as soon as I could, but the mischief was done.

Style ran through Hatton's Club boys like an epidemic. Carnation Hall fairly buzzed with style. An apology for a blow which landed on your chest with the delicacy of an Agag among b.u.t.terflies was extolled to the skies because it was a stylish blow. When Alf Joblin, a recruit, sent Walter Greenway sprawling with a random swing on the mark, there was a pained shudder. Not only Walter Greenway, but the whole club explained to Alf that the swing was a bad swing, an awful violation of style, practically a crime. By the time they had finished explaining, Alf was dazed; and when invited by Walter to repeat the hit with a view to his being further impressed with its want of style, did so in such half-hearted fas.h.i.+on that Walter had time to step stylishly aside and show Alf how futile it is to be unscientific.

To the club this episode was decently buried in an unremembered past.

To me, however, it was significant, though I did not imagine it would ever have the tremendous sequel which was brought about by the coming of Thomas Blake.

Fate never planned a coup so successfully. The psychology of Blake's arrival was perfect. The boxers of Carnation Hall had worked themselves into a mental condition which I knew was as ridiculous as it was dangerous. Their conceit and their imagination transformed the hall into a kind of improved National Sporting Club. They went about with an air of subdued but tremendous athleticism. They affected a sort of self-conscious nonchalance. They adopted an odiously patronising att.i.tude towards the once popular game of backgammon. I daresay that picture is not yet forgotten where a British general, a man of blood and iron, is portrayed as playing with a baby, to the utter neglect of a table full of important military dispatches. Well, the club boys, to a boy, posed as generals of blood and iron when they condescended to play backgammon. They did it, but they let you see that they did not regard it as one of the serious things of life.

Also, knowing that each other's. .h.i.tting was so scientific as to be harmless, they would sometimes deliberately put their eye in front of their opponent's stylish left, in the hope that the blow would raise a bruise. It hardly ever did. But occasionally----! Oh, then you should have seen the hero-with-the-quiet-smile look on their faces as they lounged ostentatiously about the place. In a word, they were above themselves. They sighed for fresh worlds to conquer. And Thomas Blake supplied the long-felt want.

Personally, I did not see his actual arrival. I only saw his handiwork after he had been a visitor awhile within the hall. But, to avoid unnecessary verbiage and to avail myself of the privilege of an author, I will set down, from the evidence of witnesses, the main points of the episode as though I myself had been present at his entrance.

He did not strike them, I am informed, as a particularly big man. He was a shade under average height. His shoulders seemed to them not so much broad as ”humpy.” He rolled straight in from the street on a wet Sat.u.r.day night at ten minutes to nine, asking for ”free tea.”

I should mention that on certain Fridays Hatton gave a free meal to his paris.h.i.+oners on the understanding that it was rigidly connected with a Short Address. The preceding Friday had been such an occasion. The placards announcing the tea were still clinging to the outer railings of the hall.

When I said that Blake asked for free tea, I should have said, shouted for free tea. He cast one decisive glance at Hatton's placards, and rolled up. He shot into the gate, up the steps, down the pa.s.sage, and through the door leading into the big corrugated-iron hall which I used for my lessons. And all the time he kept shouting for free tea.

In the hall the members of my cla.s.s were collected. Some were changing their clothes; others, already changed, were tapping the punch-ball.

They knew that I always came punctually at nine o'clock, and they liked to be ready for me. Amongst those present was Sidney Price.

Thomas Blake brought up short, hiccuping, in the midst of them. ”Gimme that free tea!” he said.

Sidney Price, whose moral fort.i.tude has never been impeached, was the first to handle the situation.

”My good man,” he said, ”I am sorry to say you have made a mistake.”

”A mistake!” said Thomas, quickly taking him up. ”A mistake! Oh! What oh! My errer?”

”Quite so,” said Price, diplomatically; ”an error.”

Thomas Blake sat down on the floor, fumbled for a short pipe, and said, ”Seems ter me I'm sick of errers. Sick of 'em! Made a bloomer this mornin'--this way.” Here he took into his confidence the group which had gathered uncertainly round him. ”My wife's brother, 'im wot's a postman, owes me arf a bloomin' thick 'un. 'E's a hard-working bloke, and ter save 'im trouble I came down 'ere from Brentford, where my boat lies, to catch 'im on 'is rounds. Lot of catchin' 'e wanted, too--I _don't_ think. Tracked 'im by the knocks at last. And then, wot d'yer think 'e said? Didn't know nothing about no ruddy 'arf thick 'un, and would I kindly cease to impede a public servant in the discharge of 'is dooty. Otherwise--the perlice. That, mind you, was my own brother-in-law. Oh, he's a nice man, I _don't_ think!”

Thomas Blake nodded his head as one who, though pained by the hollowness of life, is resigned to it, and proceeded to doze.