Fortune's Footballs

Front matter

BY THE SAME AUTHOR. HIS LORDSHIP AND OTHERS. TUXTER'S LITTLE MAID. THE JUDGE OF THE FOUR CORNERS. GASCOIGNE'S "GHOST." TOMALYN'S QUEST. "OLD MAN'S" MARRIAGE. EY G. B. BURGIN London C. ARTHUR PEARSON LIMITED HENRIETTA STREET, W.C. ©e&icatton. To Sir Henry Irving. Dear Sir Henry,— You may remember how I carried off the glass from which you drank after the first performance of "Becket." History repeated itself — with a difference. The Pretender's adherent sat upon his goblet, and broke it. A domestic broke mine. Were I master of golden phrase and honeyed speech, I would tell you prettily of the pang it cost me to lose my goblet. But rough am I, of uncouth tongue, with no better reparation to make for my original offence than to aggravate it by laying this poor tale at your feet. Believe me, dear Sir Henry, Yours very sincerely, THE AUTHOR. CONTENTS

Chapter I The Mahout And The Pastrycook

" /^^ ET up, you silly josser, or the elephant'll V_T squash you ! " shouted the boys in the butcher's cart. Every raindrop was a tear which rolled into the gutter, and speedily became liquid mud. The young gentlemen from Queen Elizabeth's school stood ankle-deep in its delicious depths, conscious that no usher dared go after them through the jammed and excited crowd. The more aspiring scholars shinned up lamp-posts in order to gain a glimpse of the approaching circus. Less adventurous students tipped a butcher-boy with coppers, and crowded into his cart among gory joints of mutton and beef. Others perched shivering on the basin of Enfield Market fountain and refused to descend, although their teeth chattered like castanets ; for a circus comes but once a year and is a solemn festival. Even the prowling Salvationist did not indulge in eloquent metaphors, but passed tracts to strangers with a delusively benignant air intended to make them believe that he was distributing circus bills.

Suddenly recalled to a sense of his more active mission in life by the jingle of approaching cymbals, the Salvationist produced his cornet, knelt down outside the door of the adjoining public-house and prayed with unctuous rectitude for the miserable sinners drifting to liquid damnation within. " Get up ! " cried the boys in the butcher's cart. " Here's the elephant coming. He'll squash you ! " The Salvationist prayed parenthetically for the elephant. " He's a arskin' for it," said a navvy inside the public-house, irresolutely raising his pint-pot of beer. The Salvationist prayed for all bibulous sinners. " Don't you go a-wasting good swipes on 'im, Jack Rogers," solemnly advised a thirsty friend. The Salvationist prayed for the thirsty friend. " He's a arskin' for it agin," reflected Jack Rogers, pausing with the pot half-way to his mouth.

" And may 'eaven 'elp Mrs. Rogers and all the little Rogerses, and save their pore pa from 'ell fire, Amen," implored the Salvationist, still regardless of the boys' warning shouts. "He's a arskin' for it," resolutely repeated Mr. Rogers. The Salvationist fervently yet mournfully prayed for Mr. Rogers's father and mother. " Don't you be a fool," implored the friend. " And he shall 'ave it.blarst 'im ! " said Mr. Rogers, goaded to fury by further minatory petitions of the Salvationist. He staggered up to the kneeling man, pint-pot in hand, stoically poured the beer over the Salvationist's uncovered head, and re-entered the public-house amid cries of " Shame! " from the crowd. The Salvationist patiently wiped away some of the beer, shook the rest out of his jersey, and began to pray for Mr. Rogers with renewed vigour.

As he did so a bicyclist suddenly turned the corner and, in striving to avoid the Salvationist, steered straight for the approaching elephant. As the bicycle ran up against his forelegs, it seemed to anger the elephant, for he coiled his trunk around the handle-bars, and flung machine and man over the heads of the crowd. Then he majestically continued his way, quite regardless of the fact that he had broken the bicyclist's ribs and hurled him through a pastrycook's window. Before he had moved on a couple of yards, however, the gorgeously clad mahout, evidently a novice, struck " Old Ajax " savagely on the head with a spiked stick. The spiked stick appeared to bring a sudden illumination to the elephant's mind. He turned round, reached up at his mahout, and threw him after the bicyclist. In the brief space of one minute the bicyclist and the mahout lay inharmoniously together, crushing tarts with a reckless disregard which evoked loud protests from the crowd of schoolboys who had gathered together to view the last appearance of Sanger's Circus that season.

To-morrow all these painted, variously-bedizened lords and ladies would retire into the felicities of domestic life until the sap flowed in the trees and the time was come for the singing of birds. Now they were kings and queens, dukes and duchesses, dusky - tressed belles of Patagonia and other distant places, preceded by the Black Prince on a prancing bay. The Black Prince's vizor was three centuries too late, and his pink trunks belonged to a still remoter period ; but his chain mail, albeit a trifle rusty, rippled down in serpentine folds and defied the falling rain which damaged the faultless complexions of the fair equestriennes. Even the lion on the triumphal car had had his fur rubbed off in spots. But the crowd cheered the stately beast to the echo and anxiously waited to see whether the four other elephants would follow the example set by Old Ajax.

Ajax, how ever, having found a cart filled with vegetables, had already laid aside his sudden spleen. When the vegetables were all sampled, he moved on with the other members of the procession without another thought of the mahout, who had been transferred to a counter in order that the local doctor might extract multitudinous splinters of glass from his panoramic person. Victim number one looked viciously from another counter at his fellow-sufferer. " Serves me right," he groaned, shaking his mis shapen head, " for borrying a bike. I wouldn't like it if I was a elephant. Feel like a bloomin' pincushion, I do." " Peace, knave," said the mahout, with a vulgar assumption of superiority. " Fetch me hither the man of simples." Hanger Purchase, hastily catching up a bun, flung it at the mahout's head, and sunk back with a groan.

" First squashed, first served," he said, surlily ; " don't call me no names, you muddle-'eaded play actor, or I'll tell my master." The mahout raised himself on his elbow, and endeavoured to return gibe for gibe. But to be called a " play-actor " soothed his restless vanity. " 'Twas an experiment," he said, hastily. " I was fain to essay the mastery of mind over matter with that fierce beast. Good Master Leech, prithee leave that churl and bring me your medicaments." " It looks very much," said the doctor, grimly surveying his patients, " as if matter had achieved a double mastery over mind. Purchase, what were you doing in the crowd on a bicycle you don't know how to ride ? " " Miss Esyth — Oh — h — mind that three-cornered bit, doctor !— didn't want to get into the crowd, and I thought they'd make way for the bike, the saucy 'ounds.

When I rang the bell, the elephant done for me like this. Seemed to think I was his tea coming, and got disappointed like good to eat." when he found I wasn't " You're not much the doctor. "Now that I've put you in my carriage Cottage." worse for it," said the strapped you up, we'll and drive round to the " I don't want no drives," said Hanger Purchase. " I can walk now, and, what's more, I'm going to." But at the first movement of his lacerated limbs, he gave a groan and sank back fainting. The doctor (he did not like being called a " leech " by a strolling circus vagabond) turned to the pro prietress of the shop. " Just pick the pieces of glass out of this " He hesitated a moment as he moved towards the mahout. " Gentleman," said the mahout, pointedly. " Gentleman," repeated the doctor. " There's not much the matter with him.

Better get a stretcher from the police-station and take him off to the tents." The mahout used language which would have mortified even Old Ajax. " You take care of that common clod there," he cried, indignantly, "instead of attending to a man of my condition." " You'd better control yourself, even though you can't control your elephant," suggested the doctor. " I'll look in on you as I come back. Now, Pur chase, lean on me, and don't groan, or you'll upset my horses. The scent of that lion has already frightened them out of their wits." With some difficulty Purchase was placed in the doctor's carriage ; whereupon the mahout, finding himself unnoticed, sat up on the counter and, with a careless air which was pathetic in its impudence, ravenously began to devour the bun hurled at him by the indignant bicyclist.

Seeing that he was half-starving, the good-natured proprietress of the shop brought him some sausage rolls. " I thank you, madam," said the thick-lipped mahout, graciously. " Hitherto, your attentions have been almost too pointed for my comfort." He pulled off his turban and disclosed a shock head of black hair and small, beady, black eyes. His sensual mouth was bloodless from want of food, his greasy complexion pallid beneath the paint. His nose ! That sufficed. The mahout, whatever he might call himself, was contradicted by his curved, fleshy organ of smell. It was the nose of that race which has been marked for ever with the brand of the Great Betrayal. There was a tawdry theatricality about the man which never forsook him for an instant. He ate critically, fastidiously, with an expression of amused tolerance at the poor fare put before a man of his importance.

" I s'pose it does make you hungry, poor creetur, being all that way up on the elephant? " queried the mistress of the shop. " 'Twas but a passing experiment, undertaken for the sake of the sensation," said the mahout. " The real mahout was ill ; and, as no one else dared mount the beast, I took my life in my hand and did it. It gave me real pleasure to prod that elephant, I hated him so ; and the dislike was mutual. He'll try to kill me some day. A mere nothing ! Courageous, 'tis true, but a mere nothing. I have done greater deeds of derring-do than that." He paused, and melo dramatically bit a roll in two. " And about my bill for damages ? Purchase will pay for one window, and you'd better settle up for the other. I won't charge you anything for the rolls," said the mistress of the shop.

" Oh, send it in to Sanger," replied the mahout, getting off the counter, and giving himself a shake. " Sanger's a rich man, and can afford to pay up." " They're coming back this way," said the mistress of the shop. " You'd better hide. There was a man pricked an elephant's tru " "Ancient history, my good woman — ancient history. In case it should repeat itself, I'll get out of the way ; " and the mahout hastily crawled under the counter, his countenance livid with fear. The mistress of the shop pitied her involuntary guest. " Don't you be afraid, you poor creetur," she said. " I've done nothing to him, and I'm not afraid. If he wants to come in, I'll shush him off with my apron." Old Ajax stopped irresolutely before the shop as if he had a little business matter on his mind which required immediate attention.

The mistress of the shop thrust a three-pound cake in his trunk, and declined to budge. With all his faults, Ajax was a gentleman, an admirer of the fair sex. He gave up his revenge — for the time being — swallowed the cake at a gulp, waved his trunk caressingly round the woman's head, stole a four-pound cake, and continued his march. But there was that in the expression of his small, vindictive eye which boded ill for the merciless mahout should they ever meet again. When the procession had moved away the mahout crawled out from under the counter and appropriated a decanter of port. " Pah ! British ! " he said, with the air of a man who was not to be imposed on. " I almost prefer the embraces of the elephant." He stripped off his spangled tunic and cotton trousers, and stood revealed in seedy black habili ments which might have once served for a village schoolmaster or a curate with a large family and a small income.

" Now that I am rested and refreshed," he said, bombastically, " I free myself from these degrading garments — these symbols of servitude to " He crashed against the counter in sudden pain. " Air ! Air ! Give me air," and fell forward. " I'm dy — dying ! Give me " The mistress of the shop caught the amateur mahout in her motherly arms and laid him on the floor. For a moment his shock head was pillowed on her innocent breast. " He's as thin as a starving merle," she said, apologetically, to her handmaid. " He must be a strolling play-actor." " Is this the man ? " asked a gentle voice in the doorway. The mistress of the shop rose from the man's side and made a curtsey. " It's the poor gentleman the elephant threw in here," she said, pityingly. " Who told you about it, Miss Essie ? " The girl did not smile at the forlorn figure on the floor.

" Doctor Jones has just returned with Purchase," she answered, gravely, "and papa said that if Pur chase hadn't knocked up against the elephant there would not have been this accident. He wants to see this— this " She hesitated as she looked down upon the repellent, hawk-like face, with its suggestion of brutality and power, its mingling of ferocity and weak wickedness. The mahout appeared to fascinate the girl. " I have never seen any one like him," she said, gazing at the prostrate figure with serious, perplexed eyes. " I don't like his face ; it looks so evil." And yet she drew a step nearer to it. The mistress of the shop smiled deprecatingly. " Ah, miss, if he were only in fine clothes and well fed he'd be just as nice as any other gentleman." The girl looked at the tinselled garb on the floor.

" Did he wear these ? " Nestor Vane opened his eyes. " I have cast them off," he said, raising himself on one elbow. " In future Sanger can drive his own elephants, if he's fool enough to want to." The effect of this unnecessary statement was some what meagre, but the girl looked at him with renewed interest. " As our servant was partly the cause of your accident," she said, gravely, " I have come on my father's behalf to request you to accept his hospitality until you are well enough to join your companions." Vane rose with a limp swagger, but did not for an instant believe her story ; she was attracted by his appearance, and made the accident a pretext for seeing more of him. She was young, too — not more than twenty at most, and of a grave, serious beauty which annoyed, while it interested him.

The girl evidently regarded him as Du Chaillu might have looked upon his first gorilla. But she had not seen him act ; she did not know that he intended to write plays. Even Shakespeare himself had once held horses for a living ; but, in all probability, had never dared to ride an elephant. The strolling vagabond looked at the grey-eyed, fair-haired, beautiful girl, listened to her somewhat precise yet musical voice, and told himself that she was of a world to which he could never aspire. Very well. If he could not enter her world, she might, should circumstances serve, be made to descend to his. He bowed in tawdry personification of Claude Melnotte. " I accept your father's hospitality," he said, with feigned reluctance. In his present plight he would hatfe gladly embraced the shelter of a gaol.

Any thing was better than a draughty circus tent, even oakum-picking. The girl's lips quivered with an involuntary smile, which showed that she was not destitute of humour. " You will let me know the amount of the damage caused by your — your unlooked-for visitors ? " she asked the mistress of the shop. " Now, Mr. ? " " Vane. Nestor Vane." She had evidently expected something ending in " Levi " or " Solomons." " Will you please come with me, Mr. Vane ? We live but a short distance beyond the church. Be sure to send me the bill, Mrs. Hawkins." " Debit me these paltry ducats," said Vane, with a melodramatic squeak. " Farewell, good Hawkins, till we meet anon." "Goodbye, Mrs. Hawkins," said Esyth Blythe, another smile parting her beautiful lips as Vane limped out before her to clear the way. " I shall expect the bill to-morrow."

" You shall have it, miss," said Mrs. Hawkins, with fervour. " I thought it better to humour the poor gentleman. He's a little off his head, what with the bits of glass and not having had any breakfast. Ah, Miss Essie, these poor players are men and women when you get the paint off." " I think," Esyth communed with herself as she followed Vane, " some people are better with the paint on. I dislike this man already, and yet Mrs. Hawkins would do anything for him." " A very worthy female," said Vane, with a wave of his arm, as they moved towards the church. " The playwright meets with strange vicissitudes, in search of incidents for his work." Esyth allowed her surprise to become manifest. " You a writer of plays ! Why, so is my father. " His name ? " queried Vane. " Cranstone Blythe," said the girl, proudly, and yet with a curious ring of shame in her voice instantly detected by the Fortune's football at her side.

" W — w — what ? I beg your pardon. Of course I shall be delighted to see him and to — to compare methods." " He always tells people that he began as a ' barn stormer.' My mother was a Quakeress and ran away with him," said Esyth, with painstaking honesty. If Vane had spoken the truth he would have explained that he, too, had never been anything but a " barn-stormer," although he had played very minor parts in London theatres. " I am inclined to forgive that elephant, since he threw me at your feet," he said, with a greasy smile. Esyth shuddered. Curiously enough one word had been ringing in her ears ever since she had entered the pastrycook's shop : " Unclean ! Unclean ! Unclean ! " Something whispered to her that the man with the obviously false name was a social leper, that his sensual face and oily voice were nature's unmistakable danger-signals hung out to counsel avoidance.

" You will find my father in his study," said Esyth, hurrying past him into the house. For the moment her curiosity with regard to this strange being had spent itself ; he needed a thorough scrubbing, both mental and moral, before being introduced into any decent society.

Chapter II Cranstone Blythe Left

to his own guidance in this somewhat unceremonious fashion, Vane, full of self-pity, limped along the dim passage until he came to the widely-opened door, from which proceeded a strong smell of tobacco. A grey-bearded man of about sixty, whose intellectual, handsome features were coarsened by dissipation, sat at a small table in the centre of the room. Several sheets of manuscript, impatiently torn across and underlined with red ink in the peculiar manner affected by playwrights, lay upon the floor, as if thrown there in all the frenzy of unsuccessful composition. The room was well, but plainly, furnished. Immediately facing the door, and over the mantelpiece, hung an oil painting of a wonum's face. Its striking beauty seemed familiar to Vane. He felt he had seen it before ; but, for the moment, was unable to recall where the sweet, grey eyes had regarded him with such candid inquiry.

Vane coughed the deprecatingly deferential cough of a vagabond who is not at all sure of his reception. He felt a momentary embarrassment at the thought of appearing before his host under such questionable conditions. This player of many insignificant parts was sore all over and longed for a bath, for the elephant incident had been the culminating point of a fortnight's vulgar dissipation. Every few months the man's inordinate conceit gave way to some subtle nomadic craving which induced him to wander far afield, drinking in country inns, lodging at vile hovels, consorting with the lowest riff-raff of the road, and enjoying himself to the full, until his longing for " potted respectability " once more asserted it9elf, and he would again laboriously attempt to climb the ladder whence he had fallen.

It is true that he never climbed very high at the best of times, but still the craving was there. In any case, however, the temptation to pose never forsook him. He had an inordinate belief in his own powers; even when limping along the road and munching a raw turnip for breakfast he consumed the wholesome, yet un appetising, vegetable with an air that implied he was doing it for a wager. The motion of the elephant had not been altogether uncomfortable ; but he had amused himself with the consciousness that the style in which he prodded the patient beast attracted the attention of the crowd. Unfortunately for him, how ever, it had also attracted the attention of Old Ajax, who had a knack of making notes of little incidents os the kind and pigeon-holing them until opportunity should serve. True, the shop-window episode was annoying ; but then this sudden transition from pastrycooks to playwrights was more than satis factory.

Perhaps he might be able to pick up from Cranstone Blythe some notion of how to write a play. What had he heard about the man in addi tion to his enormous ability ? Stay ! Yes, that was it. Something about a call before the curtain for " Author ! author ! " and the author had been too drunk to face his audience. There was a touch of the heroic in that, a supreme contempt for the crowd which appealed to Vane's bombastic instincts. As an individualist, he objected to the crowd ; for hitherto its attitude towards him had been one of good-natured contempt. His acquaintance with turnips was not limited to breakfast diet ; some times they had been hurled at him, with forceful precision, by thick-witted rustics not educated up to Vane's conception of what acting really meant. And he was tired of turnips, both externally and intern ally : in the former case they were too hard, in the latter too soft.

He yearned for laurels, by way of a change. On the other hand Blythe had tired of laurels, and was evidently rusticating amid the turnip fields of Enfield, basking in its cabbage plots (it takes the damp mugginess of December days to bring to full perfection the insistent odour of an Enfield cabbage), and doubtless writing another play which should atone for his unfortunate attitude towards the British public when it had desired to praise him. Vane already saw himself profiting by Blythe's experience, as he arranged his seedy black rags around him and strode majestically into the room, one hand on his hip, the other on his breast. " Why the devil can't you shut the door after you, you dirty vagabond ? " said Blythe, somewhat thickly. " This part of the universe doesn't belong to you, at any rate.

Stop a minute. ' Eilanthe takes centre of stage.' That's it. Stand still on that rug for a moment, while I sketch you." " But I don't want to be sketched ; I want a bath." " My dear sir, it is a debt you owe to posterity. I couldn't — it positively couldn't — afford to miss seeing you as you are. You look so like a great man who has met with reverses. After a bath you will no longer be characteristic. Any smug-faced fool can take a bath. No, no ; I must have you as you are." Vane's outrageous vanity was instantly gratified. He had imagined that a majestic demeanour would cause Blythe to forget his poverty-stricken appear ance, but he was not prepared for such an instan taneous recognition of true greatness. With a few rapid strokes of his somewhat shaky hand Blythe transferred Vane to paper, dirt and all.

The drawing was an admirable likeness, but it did not stand up quite straight. It appeared to Vane as if it were on the top of a hill, and that Blythe had made it waver slightly downwards. Perhaps Blythe saw things that way. When Blythe had finished the drawing he pinned it to the wall, with the words, " Unusual kind of villain," underneath it. Vane watched this operation with great interest, and critically regarded the result. " 'Tisn't bad," he said at last, with a condescending wave of his right hand. " It really isn't bad. I quite expected to look worse than that after my recent bout. But why don't you make me stand erect ? " The other swung slowly round in his easy-chair, then turned again to regard the sketch on the wall. " Why don't I make it stand erect ? That's the humour of it, man.

You don't look as if you could ever have points enough in your character to stand up straight." " Thanks for the compliment ; but my present crookedness is largely owing to the exertions of your servant. As a brother barn-stormer you might be a little more helpful and — and complimentary. I've quite enough points in me without your chaffing a poor starving devil and making more at his expense." " Yes, I suppose I might," said the other, grimly. " You must have a certain amount of pluck in you or you would cringe to me. That thin blueness of your lips tells me you've not had a decent meal for some time. What was the last, eh ? Skilly ? " Vane looked defiantly at his grey-bearded, red nosed host. " Why should I cringe to you ? You're not the kind of man to turn me away. You look so devilish dull here.

I shall amuse you. Got any decent brandy ? " " Damn your impudence," said Blythe. " There's not much decency about brandy, and you know it. Of course I have brandy ; the place reeks of it. I've been seeing it all the morning, though I haven't taken it out of the cupboard. I've wanted to get hold of it between every sentence. I'm just bringing on my heroine in the last act, and somehow she, too, reeks of brandy, thinks brandy, talks brandy, looks brandy. She — oh, help yourself, and be hanged to you ! Your nostrils are twitching as if you suffered the tortures of the damned. There's the cupboard. Help yourself." " Thanks, I will — in a tumbler." Vane (he had a knack of varying his conversation to suit the people with whom he came in contact) went to the cup board, brought out a bottle and glass, and helped himself.

" Going to work any more to-day ? " he asked, one grimy hand fondling his warmed stomach. " N-no, I think not. You've driven things out of my head. Sit down and talk, and don't leave more mud on the chair than you can help. My daughter will think it untidy. Haven't I landed you in the seventh heaven, eh ? " Vane, unmindful of his wounds, sat down stiffly in a luxurious chair and put up his tattered shoes to the glowing fire. The heat drew out the damp and caused a little mist to rise up the chimney. He stole a quick glance at Blythe as the penetrating warmth reached his chilblained toes. "I'm not much inclined to talk," he said, "but I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll make a fair copy of that manuscript if you'll give me a bed and dinner to-night." Blythe hesitated. " You don't mind my speaking frankly ?

" " Not a bit. It's only another name for being brutally unpleasant to a man who can't answer you back again. How can an empty stomach argue with a full one ? It doesn't carry any weight. The thing's an immoral impossibility." "Oh, never mind morality. You shouldn't have come here if you meant to moralise. I've a strong feeling I should be doing a very wise thing if I were to chuck you a sovereign and tell you to move on." " Who made you a moral policeman ? " Vane was growing desperate. Turnips as an article of diet loomed unpleasantly close to him again. " I've been moving on for a fortnight. There's a certain amount of painful monotony about being on your legs for twenty hours out of the twenty-four." Blythe blew a great cloud of smoke and threw himself back in his chair. " I don't want to be un duly personal, but to judge from your appearance I should say that you ought to have got used to it by this time."