The Man of Straw

Front matter

The Man of Straw BY THE SAME AUTHOR. Forming Vol. VI. of TJbe pioneer Series 1 ' Mr. Heinemann's genial nursery of up-to-date romance." — The Daily Telegraph. " The smart Pioneer Series." — The Observer. "As original as many other of Mr. Heinemann's ventures." — The Manchester Courier. " This very clever series." — Thc Glasgow Herald. 'The refreshingly original Pioneer Series." The Slieffield Telegraph. "The brilliant Pioneer Series."— Black and White. A Street in Suburbia Crown 8vo Cloth, 3s. net ; paper, 2s. 6d. " This ' Pioneer ' writes well, has an eye for dramatic effect, and has observed local humours with fruitful appreciation." The Globe. " By humour and pathos of a healthy kind, and not a little literary skill, Mr. Pugh has given some very vivid pictures of poor London life. ' A Street in Suburbia ' is the best of the ' Pioneer Series,' not forgetting 'George Mandeville's Husband.'" The Sketch.

"Mr. Pugh is subjective, and writes, in fact, professedly as one who had been brought up among the people he describes. He ranges over the fields of tragedy, and comedy, and farce . . . . always with sympathy and intelligence " The Pall Mall Budget. " All his characters live, move, and have their being, and we recognise a rare truthfulness to life. ' A Street in Suburbia ' has revealed Mr. Pugh's ability." — The Mancliester Guardian. London WM. HEINEMANN, 21 Bedford St., W.C- The Man of Straw By Edwin Pugh Author of "A Street in Suburbia" London William Heinemann All rights reserved CONTENTS FIRST STAGE Page The Glorious Shadow ..... I SECOND STAGE The Sorry Substance 77 THIRD STAGE Wedlock 149 FOURTH STAGE Madame Eva 235 FIFTH STAGE The Outcome . 3°3 So man, who here seems principal alone, Perliaps acts second to some sphere unknown, Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal ; 'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole. Alexander Pope. First Stage The Glorious Shadow CHAPTERS I-VIII STRAW

Chapter I

The busy street throbbed and hummed with strenuous life. Unhappy Penury in insufficient rags jostled unhappier Penury in faded broadcloth and rusty bombazine on the narrow way. Gutter vendors of pinchbeck trifles, that never could be of use to mortal man, chaffered seductively with such poor wives and mothers as could be brought to tear themselves between vases or a chromo-lithograph for the parlour and boots for their small-yeared offspring. Hapless women, these ! Most of them hard put to it to stretch a scanty store of toil-won house-money over a multitude of too pressing needs, yet retaining still, in the deeps of their nature, a sediment, a few, poor grains, of puny, feminine æstheticism. Bull-throated costermongers, hoarse tradesmen, feebly emulative, but with an inflated dignity to uphold withal, rent the dank, hot air with blatant bellowings.

Blent with the turbulent uproar were hollower sounds of woe ; the shrill wailings of unreasoning babes and sobs of bruised women ; feeble cries of pettish appeal from children old enough to understand, but not endure, the woes of their estate ; senseless howls and hoots and shrieks from youth for whom the sweets of youth were not ; addled utterances of drunken manhood, staggering from ale-house doors ; plaintive supplication from women heavy with the cares of maternity, light with the joy thereof: all this, in one unresting flood of sound, ebbing and flowing from the shores of silence. There was a thin rattle of traffic, too, the clack-splash-clack of horses' hoofs, scattering the crowd, threatening the unwieldy barrows ranged in either kerb. Over all was diffused the heavy, red glare of flaming naphtha-lamps, eclipsing the thinner brilliance of the hissing gas.

Presiding over one tiny stall — if stall it could be called which was but a wooden box on an iron tripod — was an itinerant quack : a spare, unkempt man in a tattered blue robe, reaching down to his broken boot-heels. As he limped and strutted in the gutter, he harangued the crowd thus : " There you go, there you go, there you go ! With half your week's wages in your pockets and the other half liquefied in your little brains. There you go ! And your stomachs are rotten and your livers are spongy nnd your lungs are congested. Faugh ! What do you care ? Dear me ! what do trifles like livers and lungs and stomachs matter to you ? It's Saturday. You're out enjoying your selves. You're going to live up to ten thousand a year to-night — if it's only for five minutes. Devil take the expense ! What do you care for money ?

Come Bill, come Tom, come Sam, come Jael:, come every one, no matter whom ; fill up your glasses and drink away your guts in my honour. I'm out giving away to-night, and I'm going to do it in. I've got a ragged shirt to my back and a tad coat over it; but there's a pocket in my greasy trousers, and money in it, too. I've left all my cares at home with the missus for her to mind. I'm a man to-night with the thirst of Hell in a Heaven of Alcohol. I'm happy. I'm rich. If I see a thing I don't want I have it. That's me ! . . . . Eh, isn't it so ? Don't I know you ? O, you raving madmen ! " A possible cus tomer lingered within earshot. He altered his tone. "A moment, madam," he cried. "This," holding up a bunch of withered herbs in his blue-red hand, " this preparation is a specific for diseases of the choler — c, h, I mean — and the bile !

It is made from hops, mandrake, podophyllin, sassafras, Peruvian bark that quinine's made from, quassia, dandelion flowers, and buchu leaves. Here is another nostrum." extending toward her an oily green tablet. "This is for coughs, colds, asthma, bronchitis, phthisis, difficulty in breathing, hoarseness, black phlegm, gathered eschars over the air-cells of the lungs that stop you from breathing freely. Try it, lady. The nominal charge is a penny a p.- .ket, two for three ha'pence, or three for two pence. An imalgam of the two preparations, which I have THE GLORLOUS SHADOW 5 here, is a panacea for every ill "... . the possible customer moved away . . . . " except the ill of my own poverty." He sighed. A woman, flat-chested, unwieldy, with her thin grey hair escaping from the restraining influence of a crushed bonnet of purple velvet, who sat on a reversed basket under the bow of an adjacent barrow, prosperously piled with vegetables in reckless disarray of red and white and green, looked up into the quack's face and offered him sympathy.

" Trade's bad to-night, ain't it, Ike ? " she said. The quack blew on his fingers, smiling. " People's so blooming healthy," said the woman, grumbling from sheer sympathy. "That matters nothing, Mrs. Sprunt," said the quack. "The trouble is, they know they're healthy." He rolled the jest on his tongue and sniggered, feebly. " How much have you took ? " asked the woman. "Threepence ha'penny," said the quack. " But patience! I shall make my fortune yet. Everything comes to him who waits, you know " " If him as is waiting don't die in the meantime, which he generally do," remarked the woman, with large scorn. The quack laughed and spat. "That's blood," he said, covering his spittle with his foot. " It's this cold wind." He shivered. " Here," said the woman, feeling in the pocket of 1 er apron, " go and get yourself a drop of brandy with that.

She extended a shilling toward him. " No," he said. " Get out with you ! " cried the woman. " Don't play the fool ! You can easy pay me back." " As a loan, then," said the quack, taking the money. " Why, of course," said the woman ; " you didn't think I was agoing to insult you by givin' it you, did you ? " "No, no, of course not. Keep your eye on my stall, Mrs. Sprunt, will you, while I'm gone? I'll be back in a minute or two." He moved away. The woman turned to her husband, a stocky man of middle age, clear-skinned, clean-shaven, with a good-humoured face and small, bright eyes. " I reckon old Ike's about on his back," she said. " Ah ! " said her husband. " Spits blood, don't he ? " "I jest give him a shilling," said the woman. "He's gone off with it to get drunk. Quite happy about it, he was, poor old chap." " Ah !

" said her husband. " It must be pretty rough to come down in the world, Annie, I should think. It's lucky we never had a chance to do it, eh, old gel ? " " You're right," said the woman. A boy lurched against the barrow. "Now then, you !" she cried. " Wot are you up to ? 'Pon me word ! some on you didn't ought to be allowed out without your mars. You're like kids at a blooming school-treat, a-trying to run four different ways at once ! Come out of it, can't you. This ain't no grand stand at Hepsom for you to set on ! "

Chapter II

" Hold up, can't you, Bill ! " " I am a-holdin' up. I'm holdin' you up." " Hold yourself up, then. I ain't no blooming leaning- " Garnaway, I thought you was ! " "You've had your dinner, I suppose?" "Yuss." " Well, lean on that." "That's funny, ain't it? "Moll !" "Yuss." " Got a hairpin ? " "What for?" " I want to stick it into Bill. He thinks I'm his dinner." " Bli'me, if you was my dinner, I'd put you out of sight in once and quick, too ! " A new voice sounded. " O, chuck it ! " The old voices joined against the interloper in fierce, ironical array. " Hullo ! Where are you from ? " " 'Ditch. Where d'yer think ? " "What 'Ditch?" " Houn'sditch." " Can you do any think ? " " Come out in the road and see ! " A woman intervened. " Leave him alone, 'Enry. " " Leave me alone ! Leave him alone, more like.

I'd put him in his hat as soon as look at him, and sooner, the wonk-eyed, pig-nosed monkey ! Garn home an' wash your face and let's have a look at you ! P'r'aps you think I don't know you ; but I do ! " " That's a blooming insult ! See this fist ? " " It's big enough, and dirty enough." " You'll smell it if you ain't pretty civil " I can smell it, from here." " Let me get at him ! " " Don't be a fool, Bill, it's only his chaff. Lumme, what's the harm in a bit of chaff? We shall all get chucked out if we ain't more'n careful." " You go and bile your head for veal ! " The woman was put aside. There was a rushing together of men and a scuffling and a flourishing of grimy fists ; hobnails grated on the sanded floor. Into the turmoil stepped a queer, blue-robed figure with hands outspread in gay deprecation.

At sight of the apparition there was a sudden silence ; then anger was lost in merriment. " It's old ' Coughs-colds-and-asthma ' ! " cried one of the women, glad to seize a possible diversion. The quack bowed and smiled, and spoke, every one listening closely. Even the barmaid, behind the counter, was moved from her apathy and lent an ear. " It is truly said," the quack began, "that things done well, and with a care, exempt themselves from fear ; but that things done without example, in their issue are to be feared." He paused. "My dear, uncouth, unlovely friend," he said, laying a hand on one man's shoulder, "why should your gentle mistress be likened unto the giddy calf ? Is it because she minces well and is not above owning to a partiality for chaff? " " Quack ! quack ! " yelled the crowd, in derisive chorus.

" Does this mean that you are all ducks and ducklings ? If so, I would that there was peace, too. Duck and peas was ever a favourite dish of mine at this season of the year. There, there, it is but a timid jest. You may forgive me for it only on condition that 'tis seen of you." " Stow it, Ike, and have a drink." "A moment. Let me be not rash in my conclusions. Perhaps you cry ' Quack ! quack ! ' because I peddle in physics and bolster up diseased humanity in the howling market-place. Is that so? " " What are you going to have ? ' " I will have a drop of brandy. You are a kingly tribe, you costermongers. I will have a drop of brandy — warm, with lemon. Yes ; you are a kingly tribe. An hour, or it may be more, ago, the wife of one of your kind gave me a shilling — what you call' in your full-blooded way ' the nimble bob ! ' She gave it me with kind words and without osten tation.

She did not say to me, ' Buy food for your soul with this ; go, pray, before you spend it.' She gave it me, and when I had it, it was my own, to waste, to lose, to spend, or to gamble withal. (A plague on this Shakespearean mood which doth so hamper up my speech and cumber my wit with phrases !) You see, 'tis thus. In my youth I studied the dramatic art. I studied it when I should have studied medicine. My gentle parents were anxious that I should dabble in ill-spilt blood and fret my soul beside death-beds. But I had no stomach for such a life. I loved the fresh pure atmosphere of the footlights, the painted verdure of lhe canvas scenery. I longed to mount the slopes of Helicon upon the dusty 'wings.' .... Your health, gentlemen, your health ! Ladies, I pledge you ! " He drank and replaced the empty glass upon the counter.

It was at once refilled and handed back to him. This time he waved it aside. " No, no," he said ; " not yet. I am a little addled as it is. My wits fly at random. Give me pause. That last was the seventh this evening. And I have but a poor head for liquor at any time." "Don't give in yet," one of the men adjured him. " We're just beginning to like it." " That may be ; that may be," said the quack. " Never theless you must give me pause." He sank down on a rough bench against the wall and passed his withered, trembling hand across his brow. His hollow, shrunken cheeks were flushed : his eyes were bright and glistening ; his full, red lips sagged loosely. His rude friends gazed and turned away. "Leave him alone for a bit," they said among them selves. " He'll start again presently. Bli' me ! ain't he a caution ?

Mad, of course ! Ho, yuss ! There ain't no doubt o' that. Been a toff, they say, and I believe it, too. Them hands never carted sacks of spuds and greens about, you bet ! " One of the women sat down beside the quack. She was coarse and blowsy and not quite sober. " Feel ill ? " she inquired. " No, no, my dear ; a passing mood, that's all " You're a good sort, dad. I thought there was going to be trouble just afore you come in." "Ah !" "You know what it is when blokes get slanging one another over their beer. It's hands up at a woid almost. And my Bill, you know, he's that short in his temper when he's had some, there's no getting along with him at any price. He's all right when he's sober, as quiet as a lamb, and as tender, too. But, you see, this afternoon we knocks off 'cos it's my birthday, and there y'are.

It's a drop here and a drop there and we take no sauce from strangers anywhere. Me and Bill we lights in here and gets a-muck ing about, no harm in it, of course, when this here bloke from 'Oun'sditch chips in. You know the all-over-yer 'Oun'sditch style ! Of course, Bill wasn't going to stand it, and so it got a bit thick. I wouldn't a-minded so much if Bill wasn't bosky. That's a funny thing about Bill. When he's sober he can fight and won't ; when he's drunk he will fight and can't. But I s'pose it's the way of the world." " Yes, yes ; it is. The mood and the opportunity rarely meet." " Shall I get your brandy afore the barmaid chucks it back into the waste tap, or don't you want it ? " "Thank you, I think I will have it now." The second glass of brandy fired his blood. "I like you," he told the blowsy woman.

"What's your name ? " " Mawther, only be easy with it." "Martha." He put his hand on hers. She jerked her elbow at his ribs. " Now, now ! " she said, wagging a fat forefinger archly. " Now ! " he cried. "What do you mean by 'now'? There is no ' now.' What was ' now ' just now, is ' then ' now. To-day is but to-morrow's yesterday." " That sounds a bit mixed," she remarked. " It is a mixed moment ; love, struggling hope, and vain-longing, commingling equally ! " He put his lean arm about her waist. " Be careful, now," she whispered. " Bill's got his eye on me. Take your arm away. Don't be a' old fool ! Look, here he comes ! . . . . It's all right, Bill." " I dunno, I dunno," said Bill, standing over them in a black humour. " Seems to me it's all wrong. You'd better steady on, Mister Ike." The quack staggered lamely to his feet.

"My dear boy," he said. "It's purely a Platonic passion, I assure you." "That's all very fine!" said Bill. "But I've mopped the road with a man for less." The woman stood up between them. "I'm ashamed of you, Bill," she murmured, trying to draw him aside. "You'll be jealous of the moke next. Pore old man ! He don't mean no harm. And wot with him being mad and drunk as well .... I'm s'prised at ,, *■ you." Bill was appeased. "Your hand, sir," he said, putting forth a cumbrous fist. The quack gave him his hand. "You are a fine fellow," he said. "A genuine bit of white carbon. I'm proud to know you. It has been my privilege to mingle with men of every class, from dukes to navvies. I have hobnobbed with lords, and handed tea to countesses across the knees of royalty itself. I have con versed with poets and statesmen, painters, and musicians, in every county of England.

You don't believe me ? " " Yuss I do." "You do! Then you are a fool. No offence, no offence ! The truth is this : my tongue is too nimble for my brain. My thoughts cannot keep even pace with it. So I strain the truth, sometimes. It is a habit that grows on one. And, then, a lie is such a fruitful thing. Kill it, and its corpse will but manure the ground for twenty other lies. It battens on its own decay." "Gather round, mates," said Bill, grinning. " He's off agin. "Ay, gather round," said the quack. "You'll rarely get another chance to listen to such choice philosophy as I speak. I am a man of parts and culture. I am of mighty intellect, and the scion of a noble race. . . . What matters it that the head of that race is far from me, even as the heart is far from the pocket ? . . . . My childhood was a sunny time.

I was nurtured in the lap of luxury, and grew up as a flower. The beauty of my youth was as the bloom on the pink of perfection. No shadow of my present insignificance darkened the shining hours of my past. I outran all my fellows in the hot race for strength and skill : both strength of arm and skill of hand, and strength of mind and skill of thought. I basked in the smiles of Fortune as a whelp basks under the bitch's lolling tongue, careless of the teeth the smile has bared also. The accu mulated wisdom of the ages was mine, and I scorned it, preferring the deserts of the earth with their oases to the fair, fat, fallow lands of my fathers ! " There was an outcry. " O, but we've heard all that loads of times. Chuck us somethink noo ! " " I am an old bottle and cannot contain new wine," said the quack.

" I give you what I have. If that displeases you I will not speak at all. This comes of too much talking in the market-place. I am a fool to spout wisdom to churls. I will be silent." He sat down. " Get me some more brandy," he said. " No, no," said the barmaid. " You've had quite enough already, Mister Ike." He heeded her not. His mind had flown off at a tangent and was busy with his wrongs. "I protest to you all," he cried, "that I am a most miserable man. Even my philosophy is scouted now, the patient fruit of my long meditations. How is this? Let me be my own echo. It is thus : When first I turned to vending physics in the streets I thought to mend the minds of men as well as their bodies. To this end I discoursed to them the while I ministered to their diseases. With what result ? With the result that because I cannot go on for ever grinding fresh corn for these foul asses to smell and put aside with their disdainful noses, but must needs rake together with my wit the provender they will not have, and offer it to them again, and yet again, they flout me out and cry: 'Give us something new.' What would you have ?

I have tempted you with every kind of mental food. You have taken in none of it. Eat your own vomit. I am done with you ! " Again, he relapsed into silence. The crowd turned its back on him. He went to the bar and leaned against it, crossing his legs loosely. A water-bottle was at his elbow. He took it in his hand and lifted it to the level of his eyes. 1*3 The barmaid snatched at it angrily. "Put it down, Mister Ike," she said. "Don't mess about." He laughed in her face, extended his arm, and dropped the water-bottle on the floor. There was a grand crash and jangle as the glass shivered into splinters at his feet. The barmaid uttered a little shriek. " Look here ! " exclaimed an indignant barman, vaulting over the counter and taking the quack by the arm. "This is beyond a joke, you know. That decanter cost five bob, vou know.

Vou ain't got five bob, you know. Come now ! " "Friends," said the quack, "see how a water-bottle that is broken becomes a decanter ! In the same way, to be a saint you have to die ! " The barman, a tiny, volatile man, frothed at the lips. "Not so much of it," he said, shaking the quack roughly. " I've had enough of it, you know. You've broke this here decanter, you know." The quack laughed. " My dear fellow," he said, " I wish you would not notice things so." " Notice things be blow'd ! " cried the indignant barman. " I'm responsible for all the glass in this establishment, you know." " I'm glad to ease you of some of your responsibility." The barman seized the quack by the collar. " Hold on, mate, hold on ! " said the blowsy woman, Martha. " Don't choke the poor old bloke." " You shut up," said her unlovely swain.

" This looks like a seven-days-hard job. We'd better keep out of it." His fellows seemed to be of the same opinion. They uttered an approving grunt and began to make for the door, one by one. The unhappy quack still smiled, though there was a shadow of trouble on his face. "Don't handle me, man," he conjured, the waiter. " Contact with you is unpleasant. Our souls are not «( rapport. And you reek of heel-taps." The barman set his teeth grimly. I " Here," said he to the potboy, "go and fetch a police man." Two young men pushed forward through the crowd. The foremost barred the potboy's path. " Wait a minute," he said. "There's no need to lock him up." " P'r'aps you'll pay for the damage then? " sneered the barman. " Who are you ? you know." "Pay him, Dick," said the young man to his friend.

" How much do you want? " " Five bob, sir," said the barman. " Give him half a crown, Dick," said the young man. " Really, sir," protested the barman. The other cut him short. " I know all about it," he said. " You aren't going to swindle me. Give him half a crown, Dick." He who thus imperiously took control of the situation was a youth of fine bearing, tall and comely. His friend, Dick, challenged attention less magnificently, being a man of small stature and colourless personality. The barman was overborne. " All right, then, let's have your half a crown," he said, sulkily. The money was paid to him. "And now," he continued, addressing the quack, "you'll please get out of it, you know." The quack held up a pacificatory hand. "Young man," he said, "you assume, too readily, in others, that knowledge which you yourself, perhaps, lack.

I do not know. It is my pleasure to be a fool to-night, and ignorance is my wisdom." " Are you going, or ain't you ? " cried the barman. "lam going," said the quack. "Gentlemen, good night. Ladies, my love warm you ! " He kissed his hand and staggered with a puny, ineffec tive attempt at dignity, toward the door. As he reeled off the threshold into the street, the young man, Dick, essayed to follow him. " No, no," said his magnificent friend, restraining him ; "don't worry about him any more, Dick. We've done quite enough /or him. If he gets into any further trouble he'll only have himself to blame." " O, Ell just see if he knows where he lives," said Dick, apologetically, and went out. He found the quack lying, face downward, on the pavement, a few paces away. The ground was wet, for it had THE GLORLOUS SHADOM 15 begun to rain, and a stiff wind was blowing.

Dick stooped down and touched the prostrate man with a gentle hand. ' Now, father, rouse yourself," he said. " Who calls me ' father ' ? " gurgled the drunken man. "One who might be your son, that's all," said Dick. "Can't you walk?" " O, young sir ! " wailed the poor quack. "Give me a little help out of your lusty youth. I am a brute, a beast. I am covered with shame. I loath myself. I am not fit to be touched by an honest man's hand." "That's all right, father," said Dick. " We all get a bit frisky now and again : young 'uns as well as old." " I am a brute, a beast, a foul spit ! " the quack said, raising a bloody, mud-stained face. " But help me, help me. I have a daughter. Help me, for her sake. She will be anxious for me. It is in her name I implore your assistance. If I am disgraced the disgrace will cover her too.

And she loves me, poor girl ! " " I'll take care of you, never fear," said Dick. " Catch hold of my arm. That's it. Now, see if you can stand. Brayvo ! Where do you live ? " " Very near here. If you will take me home, my daughter shall pray for you every night." " I need her prayers, not for the good I've done, but for the bad," said Dick. " God bless you ! " murmured the quack. The young man blushed in the darkness. " Never mind about that," he said, awkwardly. " Anybody might ha' done as much ! " he added, with modest}-. " I say, Dick, do let the old fool alone and come back and have a drink," said a voice in his ear. Dick turned and confronted his magnificent friend, who had followed him from the public-house, impatient of his prolonged absence. " I can't very well leave him like this, poor old chap," he said.

" He'll get locked up." " Let him get locked up, then. Why should we play the Good Samaritan to every drunken dotard we meet ? " " He's not an ordinary man." " He's extraordinarily drunk, if that's what you mean !" " But he pleaded so pitifully ! And he's got a daughter waiting for him at home." THE MAN OF STRA W "The devil he has ! H'm ! Well I'm sorry for her, poor &irl!" ' " So am I. It's more for her sake than his I'm doing this." " O, that's your game, is it ! There's a lovely maiden in perspective. I begin to understand. I thought it was odd." " Don't chaff, old chap. I really am sorry for the old man." "So am I, now. The young lady's put a new com plexion on the case entirely. I'm with you in this." " I think I'm dying!" moaned the quack, burying his face in Dick's shoulder. "You must expect to die, sir, if you live so fast," said Dick's magnificent friend, laughing.