World War Ii Pacific Island Guide A Geo Military

Study

Now available at alibris.com

( 4.7/5.0 ★ | 252 downloads )
-- Click the link to download --

https://click.linksynergy.com/link?id=*C/UgjGtUZ8&offerid=1494105.26
539780313313950&type=15&murl=https%3A%2F%2F2.zoppoz.workers.dev%3A443%2Fhttp%2Fwww.alibris.com%2Fsearch%2
Fbooks%2Fisbn%2F9780313313950
World War Ii Pacific Island Guide A
Geo Military Study

ISBN: 9780313313950
Category: Media > Books > Non-Fiction > Education Books
File Fomat: PDF, EPUB, DOC...
File Details: 10.5 MB
Language: English
Website: alibris.com
Short description: Good Connecting readers with great books since
1972! Used textbooks may not include companion materials such as
access codes, etc. May have some wear or writing/highlighting. We ship
orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!

DOWNLOAD: https://click.linksynergy.com/link?id=*C/UgjGtUZ8&
offerid=1494105.26539780313313950&type=15&murl=http%3A%2F%2F
www.alibris.com%2Fsearch%2Fbooks%2Fisbn%2F9780313313950
 World War Ii Pacific
Island Guide A Geo
Military Study

• Click the link: https://click.linksynergy.com/link?id=*C/UgjGtUZ8&offerid=1494105.2653978031331395

0&type=15&murl=https%3A%2F%2F2.zoppoz.workers.dev%3A443%2Fhttp%2Fwww.alibris.com%2Fsearch%2Fbooks%2Fisbn%2F9780313313950 to do
latest version of World War Ii Pacific Island Guide A Geo Military Study in multiple formats such as
PDF, EPUB, and more.
• Don’t miss the chance to explore our extensive collection of high-quality resources, books, and guides on
our website. Visit us regularly to stay updated with new titles and gain access to even more valuable
materials.
.
know how cruel it is! I shall never like anybody better than you—
never half so much. Don’t be unkind! I’ve not one friend in the
world but you, and I do love you more than anything.”
With that Johnny was ready to kick himself for a ruffian. He looked
about, but nobody else was in the shadowy street. He kissed Nora,
he called himself hard names, and he quieted her, though she still
sobbed. And there was no more talk of mere friendship. She had
tried her compromise, and had broken down. But presently Johnny
ventured to ask if she foresaw any difficulty with her parents.
“Father’s dead,” she said simply. “He’s been dead for years.” This
was the first word of her family matters that Johnny had heard.
Should he come to see her mother? The question struck her like a
blow.
“No—no, Johnny,” she said. “Not yet—no, you mustn’t. I can’t tell
you why—I can’t really; at anyrate not now.” Then after a pause, “O
Johnny, I’m in such trouble! Such trouble, Johnny!” And she wept
again.
But tell her trouble she would not. At anyrate not then. And in the
end she left Johnny much mystified, and near as miserable as
herself, because of his blind helplessness in this unrevealed
affliction.
Inexpert in mysteries, he was all incomprehension. What was this
trouble that he must not be told of? He did not even know where
Nora lived. Why shouldn’t she tell him? Why did she never let him
see her as far as home? This much he knew: that she had a mother,
but had lost her father by death. And this he had but just learned
from her under stress of tears. He was not to see her mother—at
least not yet. And Nora was in sore trouble, but refused to say what
the trouble was. That night he moped and brooded. And at
Maidment and Hurst’s next morning—it was Saturday—Mr. Cottam
the gaffer swore, and made remarks about the expedience of being
thoroughly awake before dinner-time. More, at one o’clock Johnny
passed the pay-box without taking his money, and turned back for it,
when reminded, amid the chaff of his shopmates, many offers of
portership, and some suggestions to scramble the slighted cash.
Not far from the yard-gate he saw a small crowd of people about a
public-house; and as he neared he perceived Mother Born-drunk in
the midst of it. The publican had refused to serve her—indeed, had
turned her out—and now she swayed about his door and proclaimed
him at large.
“’Shultin’ a lady!” she screamed hoarsely. “Can’t go in plashe ’thout
bein’ ’shulted. ’Shulted by low common public-’oush. I won’t ’ave
it!”
“Don’t you stand it, ducky!” sang out a boy. “You give ’em what
for!”
For a moment she seemed inclined to turn her wrath on her natural
enemy, the boy, but her eye fell on a black bottle with a broken
neck, lying in the gutter. “Gi’ ’em what for?” she hiccupped,
stooping for the bottle, “Yesh, I’ll gi’ ’em what for!” and with that
flung the bottle at the largest window in sight.
There was a crash, a black hole in the midst of the plate glass, and a
vast “spider” of cracks to its farthest corners. Mother Born-drunk
stood and stared, perhaps a little sobered. Then a barman ran out,
tucking in his apron, and took her by the arm. There were yells and
screams and struggles, and cheers from blackguard boys; and
Mother Born-drunk was hauled off, screaming and sliding and
stumbling, between a policeman and the publican.
Johnny told his mother, when he reached home, that her old
acquaintance Emma Pacey was like to endure a spell of gaol. But
what occupied his mind was Nora’s trouble, and he forgot Mother
Born-drunk for three or four days.
Then came the next evening of the dressmaking class at the
Institute, and he went, never doubting to meet Nora as she came
away. At the door the housekeeper, who was also hall-porter,
beckoned, and gave him a letter, left earlier in the day. It was
addressed to him by name, in a weak and straggling female hand,
and for a moment he stared at it, not a little surprised. When he
tore open the envelope he found a blotchy, tear-stained rag of a
letter, and read this:—

“My Dearest Johnny,—It is all over now and I do hope you will
forgive me for not telling you before. This is to say good-bye
and God bless you and pray forget all about me. It was wrong
of me to let it go so far but I did love you so Johnny, and I
could not help it and then I didn’t know what to do. I can never
come to the classes again with all this disgrace and everything
printed in the newspapers and I must get work somewhere
where they don’t know me. I would rather die, but I must look
after her as well as I can, Johnny, because she is my mother.
Burn this at once and forget all about me and some day you will
meet some nice girl belonging to a respectable family and
nothing to be ashamed of. Don’t try to find me—that will only
make us both miserable. Good-bye and please forgive me.
Yours affectionately,
Nora Sansom.”

What was this? What did it all mean? He stood in the gymnasium
dressing-room to read it, and when he looked up, the gaslight
danced and the lockers spun about him. The one clear thing was
that Nora said good-bye, and was gone.
Presently his faculties assorted themselves, and he read the letter
again; and then once more. It was “all over” and she asked him to
forgive her for not telling him before. Telling him what? She told
him nothing now. She would never come to the Institute again, and
he didn’t know her address, and he mustn’t try to find her. But then
there was “everything printed in the newspapers.” Of course, he
must look at the newspapers; why so long realising that? He went
to the reading-room and applied himself to the pile of papers and
magazines that littered the table. One paper after another he
searched and searched again, but saw nothing that he could connect
with Nora, by any stretch of imagination. Till he found a stray sheet
of the day before, with rings of coffee-stain on it. The “police
intelligence” lay uppermost, and in the midst of the column the
name Emma Sansom, in italic letters, caught his eye. She was forty-
one, and was charged with drunkenness and wilful damage. A
sentence more, and everything stood displayed, as by a flash of
lightning; for he had witnessed the offence himself, on Saturday.
Emma Sansom was the married name of Emma Pacey, whom the
boys called Mother Born-drunk; and the woman was Nora’s mother!
Now it was plain—all, from the very beginning, when the child
wandered in the night seeking her strayed and drunken mother, and
inquired for her with the shamed excuse that she was ill. This was
why he was not to call to see Nora’s mother; and it was for this that
Nora hindered him from seeing her home.
There was the shameful report, all at length. The publican’s tale
was simple and plain enough. He had declined to serve the prisoner
because she was drunk, and as she refused to leave, he had her
turned out, though, he said, she made no particular resistance.
Shortly afterward he heard a crash, and found a broken bottle and a
great deal of broken glass in the bar. He had gone outside, and saw
the prisoner being held by his barman. His plate-glass window was
smashed, and it was worth ten pounds. There was little more
evidence. The police told his worship that the prisoner had been
fined small sums for drunkenness before, but she was usually
inoffensive, except for collecting crowds of boys. This was the first
charge against her involving damage. She was the widow of a ship’s
officer lost at sea, and she had a small annuity, but was chiefly
supported of late by her daughter—a dressmaker—a very
respectable young woman. The daughter was present (the reporter
called her “a prepossessing young female in great distress”), and she
wished to be allowed to pay the damage in small instalments. But in
the end her mother was sent to prison for a month in default of
payment of fine and damage. For indeed the daughter was a minor,
and her undertaking was worthless.
One thing Johnny looked for eagerly, but did not find—the prisoner’s
address. Whether consideration for the daughter had prompted the
reporter to that suppression, or whether it was due to accident,
Johnny could not guess. In other reports in the same column some
addresses were given and some not. But straightway Johnny went
to beg the housekeeper that he might rummage the store of old
papers for those of the day before. For to desert Nora now, in her
trouble, was a thing wholly inconceivable; and so far from burning
the letter, he put it, envelope and all, in his safest pocket, and felt
there, more than once, to be assured of its safety.
But the address was in none of the papers. In fact the report was in
no more than three, and in one of those it was but five lines long.
What should he do? He could not even write her one line of
comfort. And he had been going on with his work placidly all
Monday while Nora had been standing up in a police-court, weeping
and imploring mercy for her wretched mother! If he had known he
could scarce have done anything to aid her. But helplessness was no
consolation—rather the cruellest of aggravations.
Well, there stood the matter, and raving would not help it, nor would
beating the table—nor even the head—with the fist. He must
somehow devise a way to reach Nora.
 XXVIII.

He resolved, first, to try the Institute. Nora’s name and address

must be on the class registers; but what business had he with the
girl’s class registers? As diplomatist his failure was lamentable. He
could invent no reasonable excuses, and ignoble defeat was his fate
at the hands of the rigid lady who managed the girls department of
the Institute. Then he took to prowling about all the streets that lay
beyond that second corner that had marked the end of their evening
walks, watching for her; searching also, desperately, for some
impossible sign about a house that might suggest that she lived in
it. Thus he spent the daylight of two evenings watching a little
muslin-hung window, because the muslin was tied with a ribbon of a
sort he remembered her to have worn, and because he chose to
fancy a neatness and a daintiness about the tying that might well be
hers. But on the second evening as dusk fell the window opened,
and a hairy, red-bearded man in blue shirt sleeves put out his head
and leaned on the sill to smoke his pipe and watch the red sky.
Johnny swung away savagely, and called himself a fool for his pains;
and indeed, he could ill afford to waste time, for Maidment and
Hurst claimed him till five each day, and a few hours in the evening
were all that remained; more, Nora would change her lodgings—
perhaps had done so already.
After this he screwed his courage so high as to go to the police-
station where the charge against Nora’s mother must have been
taken, and to ask for her address. But the cast-iron-faced inspector
in charge took his name and address instead, as a beginning, and
then would tell him nothing. And at last, maddened and reckless, he
went to the publican, and demanded the information of him. Now if
Johnny had had a little more worldly experience, a little more
cunning, and a great deal more coolness, he would have done this
at first, and, beginning by ordering a drink, he would have opened a
casual conversation, led it to the matter of the window, and in the
end would have gained his point quietly and easily. But as it was, he
did none of these things. He ordered no drink, and he made a blunt
request, taking little thought of its manner, none of the publican’s
point of view, and perhaps forgetting that the man was in no way
responsible for the rebuffs already endured. The publican, for his
part, was already in a bad temper, because of the clumsy tapping of
a barrel and ensuing “cheek” of the potman. So he answered
Johnny’s demand by asking if he had come to pay for the window;
and receiving the negative reply he had expected, he urgently
recommended the intruder’s departure “outside”: in such terms as
gave no choice but compliance.
So that now, in extremity, Johnny resolved on a last expedient: one
that had been vaguely in his mind for a day or two, though he had
yet scarce had courage to consider it seriously. This was, to tell his
mother the whole thing; and to induce her, if he might, to ask the
address at the Institute—perhaps on some pretext of dressmaking
business. He was not hopeful, for he well knew that any hint of
traffic with the family of one such as Nora’s mother would be a
horror to her. But he could see nothing else, and to sit still were
intolerable. Moreover he guessed that his mother must suspect
something from his preoccupation, and his neglect of his drawing.
Though indeed poor Nan was most at pains, just then, to conceal
troubles of her own.
Mr. Butson, in fact, began to chafe under the restraints of narrow
circumstances. Not that he was poorer than had been his habit—
indeed he was much better off—but that his needs had expanded
with his prosperity and with his successes in society. And it was just
now that his wife began to attempt retrenchment. Probably she was
encouraged by the outrageous revolt of her son, a revolt which had
made advisable a certain degree of caution on the part of himself,
the head of the household. She spoke of a rumour that the ship-
yard opposite might close, as so many other Thames ship-yards had
closed of late years. That, she said, would mean ruin for the shop,
and she must try to save what little she might, meantime. An
absurdity, of course, in Mr. Butson’s view. He felt no interest in the
rumours of old women about ship-yards, and petty measurement of
the sordid chances of trade irritated him. If his wife found one
source of profit running dry, she must look out and tap another, that
was all. So long as he got what he wanted he troubled little about
the manner of its getting. But now he ran near having less than he
wanted, and his wife was growing even less accommodating. She
went so far as to hint of withholding the paltry sum the lad earned;
he should have it himself, she thought, to buy his clothes, and to
save toward the end of his apprenticeship. More than this, Mr.
Butson much suspected that Johnny had actually had his own money
for some while past, and that Mrs. Butson had descended to the
mean subterfuge of representing as his earnings a sum which in
reality she extracted each week from the till; an act of pure
embezzlement. And then there was the cottage in Epping Forest.
She wouldn’t sell it now, though she wanted to sell when she first
left it. What good was there in keeping it? True there was three-
and-sixpence a week of rent, but that was nothing; it would go in a
round of drinks, or in half a round, in any distinguished bar; and
there were deductions even from the three-and-sixpence. Sold, the
cottage might produce a respectable sum—perhaps a hundred
pounds—at anyrate eighty. The figures stirred his blood. What a
magnificent dash a man might cut with eighty pounds! And a
fortune might be made out of it, too, if it were used wisely, and not
buried away in a wretched three-and-sixpenny cottage. Properly
invested on judicious flat-race Certainties, it would double itself
about twice a week. So he made it very plain to Nan that the sale of
the cottage for what it would fetch and the handing over of the
proceeds was a plan he insisted on. But the stupid woman wouldn’t
see it. It was plain that she was beginning to over-estimate her
importance in the establishment, by reason that of late she had not
been sufficiently sworn at, shoved, thumped, and twisted and
pinched on the arms. That was the worst of kindness to a woman—
she took advantage.
So that he was obliged to begin to thump again. There was no need
to do it so that Johnny might know, and so cause a low disturbance.
In fact, Johnny took little notice of things at home just now, no
longer made inquiries, nor lifted the poker with so impudent a stare;
and he was scarce indoors at all. Wherefore Mr. Butson punched
and ruffianed—being careful to leave no disreputable marks in visible
spots, such as black eyes—and sometimes he kicked; and he
demanded more money and more, but all the while insisted on the
sale of the cottage. The monstrous laws of conveyance made it
impossible for him to lay hands on the deeds and sell the place
himself, or he would have done it, of course. And he made it
advisable, too, for Bessy to avoid him—and that had a better effect
than any direct attack on Nan. Till at last the woman was so far
reduced that she was near a very dangerous rebellion indeed—
nearer than Mr. Butson suspected. For she began to think of
attempting a separation by magistrate’s order, shameful as it would
be in the neighbourhood. Though she feared greatly.
So it was when Johnny turned toward home on an evening a little
before nine o’clock, sick of blind searching, and ready to tell his
mother the story of Nora Sansom, first to last. At Harbour Lane
corner he saw Butson walking off, and wondered to see him about
Blackwall so early in the evening.
Nobody was in the shop, and Johnny went through so quietly that he
surprised his mother and Bessy, in the shop-parlour, crying bitterly.
Nan sat on a chair and Bessy bent over her, and no concealment was
possible. Johnny was seized by a dire surmise. “Mother! What’s
this?” he said. “What’s he been doing?”
Nan bent lower, but answered nothing. Johnny looked toward Bessy,
almost sternly. “He—he’s beaten mother again,” Bessy blurted,
between sobs.
“Beaten mother! Again!” Johnny’s face was white, and his nostrils
stood wide and round. “Beaten mother! Again!”
“He’s always doing it now,” Bessy sobbed. “And wanting more
money. I’d a good mind to tell you before, but—but—”
“Beaten mother!” The room swam before Johnny’s eyes. “Why—”
Nan rose to close the door. “No, Johnny,” she said meekly. “I’m a
bit upset, but don’t let it upset you. Don’t you—”
“What’s the matter with your leg? You’re limping!”
“He kicked her! I saw him kick at her ankle!” Bessy burst out,
pouring forth the tale unrestrained. “I tried to stop him and—and—”
“And then he hit you?” asked Johnny, not so white in the cheeks
now, but whiter than ever about the mouth.
“Yes; but it was mother most!” and Bessy wept afresh.
Perhaps his evenings of disappointment had chastened Johnny’s
impatience. He knew that the man was out of reach now, and he
forced his fury down. In ten minutes he knew the whole thing,
between Bessy’s outpourings and Nan’s tearful admissions.
“When is he coming back?”
They did not know—probably he would be late, as usual. “But don’t
go doing anything hasty, Johnny,” Nan implored; “I’m so afraid of
you doing something rash! It’s not much, really—I’m a bit upset, but
—”
“I’ll have to think about this,” Johnny said, with such calmness that
Nan felt somewhat reassured, though Bessy was inwardly afraid.
“I’m going out for an hour.”
He strode away to the Institute, walking by instinct, and seeing
nothing till he was under the lettered lamp. He went to the
dressing-room and hurried into his flannels. In the gymnasium the
instructor, a brawny sergeant of grenadiers, was watching some lads
on the horizontal bar. Johnny approached him with a hesitating
request for a “free spar.”
“Free spar, my lad?” said the sergeant. “What’s up? Gettin’
cheeky? Want to give me a hidin’?”
“No, sergeant,” Johnny answered. “Not such a fool as that. But I
never had a free spar with a man much heavier than myself, and—
and I just want to try, that’s all!”
There was a comprehending twinkle about the sergeant’s eyes.
“Right,” he said; “you’re givin’ me near two stone—that’s if you’re a
bit over eleven. Fetch the gloves.”
At another time Johnny would never have conceived the impudence
of asking the sergeant—once champion of the army—for a free spar.
Even a “light” spar with the sergeant was something of an
undertaking, wherein one was apt to have both hands full, and a bit
over. But the lad had his reasons now.
He dashed at the professor with a straight lead, and soon the blows
were going like hail on a window-pane. The sergeant stood like a
rock, and Johnny’s every rush was beaten back as by hammer-blows
on the head. But he came again fresh and eager, and buzzed his
master merrily about the head, getting in a very respectable number
of straight drives, such as would knock an ordinary man down,
though the sergeant never winked; and bringing off one on the
“mark” that did knock out a grunt, much as a punch in that region
will knock one out of a squeaking doll.
“Steady,” the sergeant called after two long rounds had been
sparred. “You’ll get stiff if you keep on at that rate, my lad, and
that’s not what you want, I reckon!” This last with a grin. “You
haven’t been boxin’ regular you know, just lately.”
“But you’re all right,” he added, as they walked aside. “Your work
keeps you in good condition. Not quite so quick as you would ha’
been if you’d been sparrin’ every evening, o’course. But quick
enough for your job, I expect.” And again Johnny saw the cunning
twinkle.
It was about closing time, and when Johnny had changed his
clothes, he found the sergeant leaving also. He thanked him and
bade him good-night.
“Good-night, May,” the sergeant called, and turned into the street.
But he swung back along the footpath after Johnny, and asked, “Is it
to-morrow?”
“What, sergeant?”
“Oh, I ain’t a sergeant—I’m a stranger. There’s a sergeant goes to
that moral establishment p’raps,” with a nod at the Institute, “but he
behaves strictly proper. I’m just a chap out in the street that would
like to see the fight, that’s all. When is it?”
“I don’t quite know that myself,” Johnny answered.
“Oh—like that, is it? Hum.” The sergeant was thoughtful for a
moment—perhaps incredulous. Then he said, “Well, can’t be
helped, I suppose. Anyway, keep your left goin’ strong, but don’t
lead quite so reckless, with your head up an’ no guard. You’re good
enough. An’ the bigger he is, the more to hit!”
 XXIX.

Mr. Butson was perhaps a shade relieved when he returned home

that night and found all quiet, and Johnny in bed. He had half
expected that his inopportune return might have caused trouble.
But the night after, as he came from the railway station, a little
earlier than usual, Johnny stopped him in the street.
“I want to speak to you,” he said. “Just come round by the dock
wall.”
His manner was quiet and businesslike, but Mr. Butson wondered.
“Why?” he asked. “Can’t you tell me here?”
“No, I can’t. There are too many people about. It’s money in your
pocket if you come.”
Mr. Butson went. What it meant he could not imagine, but Johnny
usually told the truth, and he said it would be money in his pocket—
a desirable disposition of the article. The dock wall was just round a
corner. A tall, raking wall at one side of a sparsely lit road that was
empty at night, and a lower wall at the other; the road reached by a
flight of steps rising from the street, and a gateway in the low wall.
“Well, what is it now?” Mr. Butson asked, suspiciously, as Johnny
stopped under a gas-lamp and looked right and left along the
deserted road.
“Only just this,” Johnny replied, with simple distinctness. “You
wanted mother to give you my money every week, though in fact
she’s been letting me keep it. Well, here’s my last week’s money”—
he shook it in his hand—“and I’ll give it you if you’ll stand up here
and fight me.”
“What? Fight you? You?” Mr. Butson laughed; but he felt a secret
uneasiness.
“Yes, me. You’d rather fight a woman, no doubt, or a lame girl. But
I’m going to give you a change, and make you fight me—here.”
Johnny flung his jacket on the ground and his hat on it.
“Don’t be such a young fool,” quoth Mr. Butson loftily. “Put on your
jacket an’ come home.”
“Yes—presently,” Johnny replied grimly. “Presently I’ll go home, and
take you with me. Come, you’re ready enough to punch my mother,
without being asked; or my sister. Come and punch me, and take
pay for it!”
Mr. Butson was a little uncomfortable. “I suppose,” he sneered,
“you’ve got a knife or a poker or somethin’ about you like what you
threatened me with before!”
“I haven’t even brought a stick. You’re the sort o’ coward I
expected, though you’re bigger than me and heavier. Come—” he
struck the man a heavy smack on the mouth. “Now fight!”
Butson snarled, and cut at the lad’s head with the handle of his
walking stick. But Johnny’s arm straightened like a flash, and
Butson rolled over.
“What I thought you’d do,” remarked Johnny, seizing his wrist and
twisting the stick away. “Now get up. Come on!”
Mr. Butson sat and gasped. He fingered his nose gently, and found
it very tender, and bleeding. He seemed to have met a thunderbolt
in the dark. He turned slowly over on his knees, and so got on his
feet.
“Hit me—come, hit me!” called Johnny, sparring at him. “Fancy I’m
only my mother, you cur! Come, I’m hitting you—see! So!” He
seized the man by the ear, twisted it, and rapped him about the
face. The treatment would have roused a sheep. Butson sprang at
Johnny, grappled with him, and for a moment bore him back.
Johnny asked nothing better. He broke ground, checked the rush
with half-arm hits, and stopped it with a quick double left, flush in
the face.
It was mere slaughter; Johnny was too hard, too scientific, too full of
cool hatred. The wretched Butson, bigger and heavier as he might
be, was flaccid from soft living, and science he had none. But he
fought like a rat in a corner—recking nothing of rule, but kicking,
biting, striking, wrestling madly; though to small purpose: for his
enemy, deadly calm and deadly quick, saw every movement ere it
was made, and battered with savage precision.
“Whenever you’ve had enough,” said Johnny, as Butson staggered,
and leaned against the wall, “you can stop it, you know, by calling
the p’lice. You like the p’lice. There’s always one of ’em in the next
street, an’ you’ve only to shout. I shall hammer you till ye do!”
And he hammered. A blow on the ear drove Butson’s head against
the wall, and a swing from the other fist brought it away again. He
flung himself on the ground.
“Get up!” cried Johnny. “Get up. What, you won’t? All right, you
went down by yourself, you know—so’s to be let alone. But I’m
coming down too!” and with that he lay beside Butson and struck
once more and struck again.
“Chuck it!” groaned Butson. “I’m done! Oh! leave me alone!”
“Leave you alone?” answered Johnny, rising and reaching for his
jacket. “Not I. You didn’t leave my mother alone a soon as she
asked you, did you? I’ll never pass you again without clouting your
head. Come home!”
He hauled the bruised wretch up by the collar, crammed his hat on
his head and cut him across the calves with his own walking stick.
“Go on! March!”
“Can’t you leave me alone now?” whined Butson. “You done
enough, ain’t ye?”
“No—not near enough. An’ you’ll have a lot more if you don’t do as
I tell you. I said I’d take you home, an’ I will. Go on!”
Two or three dark streets led to Harbour Lane, but they were short.
It was past closing time, and when they reached the shop the lights
were turned down and the door shut. Nan opened to Johnny’s
knock, and he thrust Butson in before him. “Here he is,” said
Johnny, “not thrashed half enough!”
Dusty and bleeding, his face nigh unrecognisable under cuts and
bruises, Butson sat on a box, a figure of shame. Nan screamed and
ran to him.
“I did it where the neighbours wouldn’t hear,” Johnny explained,
“and if he’d been a man he’d have drowned himself rather than
come here, after the way I’ve treated him. He’s a poor cur, an’ I’ll
buy a whip for him. There’s the money I promised you” he went on,
putting it on the box. “It’s the first you’ve earned for years, and the
last you’ll have here, if I can manage it!”
But Nan was crying over that dishonourable head, and wiping it with
her handkerchief.
 XXX.

“Why what’s that?” said Long Hicks on the way to work in the
morning. “Got cuts all over yer hands!”
“Yes,” Johnny answered laconically. “Fighting.”
“Fightin’!” Long Hicks looked mighty reproachful. “Jest you be
careful what company you’re gettin’ into,” he said severely. “You’re
neglectin’ yer drawin’ and everything lately, an’ now—fightin’!”
“I ain’t ashamed of it,” Johnny replied gloomily. “An’ I’ve got other
things to think about now, besides drawing.”
Hicks stared, stuttered a little, and rubbed his cap over his head. He
wondered whether or not he ought to ask questions.
They went a little way in silence, and then Johnny said: “It’s him;
Butson.”
“No!” exclaimed Hicks, checking in his stride, and staring at Johnny
again. “What! Bin fightin’ Butson?”
Johnny poured out the whole story; and as he told Hicks’s eyes
widened, his face flushed and paled, his hands opened and closed
convulsively, and again and again he blew and stuttered
incomprehensibly.
“Job is, to drive the brute away,” Johnny concluded wearily. “He’ll
stop as long as he’s fed. An’ mother thinks it’s a disgrace to get a
separation—goin’ before a magistrate an’ all. I’m only tellin’ you
because I know you won’t jaw about it among the neighbours.”
That day Long Hicks got leave of absence for the rest of the week,
mightily astonishing Mr. Cottam by the application, for Hicks had
never been known to take a holiday before.
“’Awright,” the gaffer growled, “seein’ as we’re slack. There’s one or
two standin’ auf for a bit a’ready. But what’s up with you wantin’
time auf? Gittin’ frisky? Runnin’ arter the gals?”
And indeed Long Hicks spent his holiday much like a man who is
running after something, or somebody. He took a walking tour of
intricate plan, winding and turning among the small streets, up
street and down, but tending northward; through Bromley, Bow and
Old Ford, and so toward Homerton and the marshes.
Meantime Johnny walked to and from his work alone, and brooded.
He could not altogether understand his mother’s attitude toward
Butson. She had been willing, even anxious, to get rid of him by any
process that would involve no disgrace among the neighbours, and
no peril to the trade of the shop; he had made her life miserable; yet
now she tended the brute’s cuts and bumps as though he didn’t
deserve them, and she cried more than ever. As for Johnny himself,
he spared Butson nothing. Rather he drew a hideous solace from
any torture wherewith he might afflict him.
“When are you going to clear out?” he would say. “You’d rather be
kept than work, but you don’t like being thrashed, do you?
Thrashed by a boy, eh? You’ll enjoy work a deal better than the life
I’ll lead you here, I can tell you. I’ll make you glad to drown
yourself, mean funk as you are, before I’m done with you! Don’t be
too careful with that eye: the sooner it’s well, the sooner I’ll bung it
up again!”
Bessy marvelled at this development of morose savagery on her
brother’s part. With her, though he spoke little, he was kinder than
ever, but it was his pastime to bully Butson: who skulked miserably
in the house, being in no fit state for public exhibition.
As to his search for Nora Sansom, Johnny was vaguely surprised to
find himself almost indifferent. It would have been useless to worry
his mother about it now, and though he spent an hour or two in
aimless tramping about the streets, it was with the uppermost
feeling that he should rather be at home, bullying Butson. He had
no notion why, being little given to introspection; and he was as it
were unconscious of his inner conviction that after all Nora could not
be entirely lost. While Butson’s punishment was the immediate
concern, and as the thing stood, the creature seemed scarce to have
been punished at all.
 XXXI.

Long Hicks’s holiday had lasted three days, and Mr. Butson’s minor
bruises were turning green. It was at the stroke of five in the
afternoon, and Bessy was minding shop. From the ship-yard
opposite a score or so of men came, in dirty dungaree (for it was
Friday), vanguard of the tramping hundreds that issued each day,
regular as the clock before the timekeeper’s box. Bessy rose on her
crutch, and peeped between a cheese and a packet of candles, out
of window. Friday was not a day when many men came in on their
way home, because by that time the week’s money was run low, and
luxuries were barred. Bessy scarce expected a customer, and it
would seem that none was coming.
Peeping so, she grew aware of a stout red-faced woman
approaching at a rapid scuttle; and then, almost as the woman
reached the door, she saw Hicks at her heels, his face a long figure
of dismay.
The woman burst into the shop with a rasping shriek. “I want my
’usband!” she screamed. “Where’s my ’usband?”
“Come away!” called Hicks, deadly pale, and nervously snatching at
her shoulder. “Come away! You know what you promised!”
“Take yer ’and auf me, ye long fool! Where’s my ’usband? Is it you
what’s got ’im?” She turned on Bessy and bawled the words in her
face.
“No—no it ain’t!” cried Hicks, near beside himself. “Come away,
an’—an’ we’ll talk about it outside!”
“Talk! O yus, I’ll give ’im talk!” The woman’s every syllable was a
harsh yell, racking to the brain, and already it had drawn a group
about the door. “I’ll give ’im talk, an’ ’er too! Would anyone
believe,” she went on, turning toward the door and haranguing the
crowd, that grew at every word, “as ’ow a woman calling ’erself
respectable, an’ keepin’ a shop like any lady, ’ud take away a
respectable woman’s ’usband—a lazy good-for-nothin’ scoundril as
run away an’ left me thirteen year ago last Whitsun!”
Boys sprang from everywhere, and pelted in to swell the crowd,
drawn by the increasing screams. Many of the men, who knew the
shop so well, stopped to learn what the trouble was; and soon every
window in Harbour Lane displayed a woman’s head, or two.
“My ’usband! Where’s my ’usband? Show me the woman as took
my ’usband!”
Nan came and stood in the back parlour doorway, frightened but
uncomprehending. The woman turned. “You! You is it?” she
shrieked, oversetting a pile of tins and boxes, and clawing the air
above her. “Gimme back my ’usband, you shameless creechor!
Where ’a’ ye got ’im? Where’s my ’usband?”
Hicks put his arm about the woman’s waist and swung her back. He
was angry now. “Get out!” he said, “I didn’t bring you to make a
row like that! You swore you wouldn’t!”
Finding his arm too strong for her, the woman turned on Hicks and
set to clawing at his face, never ceasing to scream for her husband.
And then Johnny came pushing in at the door, having run from the
far street-corner at sight of the crowd.
Hicks, as well as he could for dodging and catching at the woman’s
wrists, made violent facial signals to Johnny, who stared,
understanding none of them. But he heard the woman’s howls for
her husband, and he caught at her arm. “Who is your husband?” he
said. “What’s his name?”
“What’s ’is name? Why Butson—’enery Butson’s ’is name! Gimme
my ’usband! My ’usband! Let me go, you villain!”
It was like an unexpected blow on the head to Johnny, but, save for
a moment, it stunned not at all—rather roused him. “I’ll fetch him!”
he cried, and sprang into the house.
Here was release—the man had another wife! He would drag the
wretch down to her, and then give him to the police. No wonder he
feared the police! The load was lifted at last—Butson’s punishment
was come indeed! Fiercely glad, and thinking of nothing but this,
Johnny swung into each room in turn.
But there was no Butson. His pipe lay broken on the front bedroom
fender, and his coat hung behind the door; but there was no other
sign.
Johnny dashed into the back yard. That, too, was empty. But in the
yard behind, the old lighterman, paint-pot in one hand and brush in
the other, just as he had broken off in the touching up of his mast,
stood, and blinked, and stared, with his mouth open. His house-
doors, back and front, stood wide, because of wet paint, and one
could see through to the next street. It was by those doorways that
Mr. Butson had vanished a minute ago, after scrambling over the
wall, hatless, and in his shirt sleeves. And the old lighterman
thought it a great liberty, and told Johnny so, with some dignity.
Johnny rushed back to the shop. “Gone!” he cried. “Bolted out at
the back!”
He might have offered chase, but his mother lay in a swoon, and
Bessy hung over her, hysterical. “Shove that woman out,” he said,
and he and Hicks, between them, thrust the bawling termagant into
the street and closed the door.
Without, she raged still, and grew hoarser, till a policeman came to
quiet her; and in the end she marched off with him, talking at a loud
scream all the way. And Harbour Lane flamed with the news of
Nan’s shameless bigamy.
 XXXII.

Long Hicks raved and tore at his hair, striding about the shop, and
cursing himself with whatever words he could find. Johnny was
excited still, but he grew thoughtful. There was more in this
business, he saw now, than the mere happy riddance of Butson.
What of the future? His mother was prostrated, and lay moaning on
her bed. No one was there to tend her but Bessy, and there was no
likelihood of help; they had no intimacy with neighbours, and indeed
the stark morality of Harbour Lane womankind would have cut it off
if they had. For already poor Nan was tried and condemned (as was
the expeditious manner of Harbour Lane in such a matter), and no
woman could dare so much as brush skirts with her.
“It’s my fault—all of it!” said the unhappy Hicks. “I shouldn’t ’a’ bin
such a fool! But how was I to know she’d go on like that, after what
she’d agreed to? Oh, damme, I shouldn’t ’a’ meddled!”
Johnny calmed him as well as he might, pulled him into a chair in
the shop parlour, and sought to know the meaning of his self-
reproaches. “Why not meddle?” Johnny asked. “When you found
her kicking up that row—”
“Ah, but I didn’t, I didn’t!” protested Hicks, rolling his head
despairingly and punching his thigh. “I brought her here! It’s all my
fault! I thought I was doin’ somethin’ clever, an’ I was silly fool! O,
I’d like to shoot meself!”
“Brought her here? Well, tell us about it—no good punching
yourself. When did you find out he was married?”
“Knew it years ago; didn’t know the woman was alive, though.
Thought she must ’a’ bin dead when you told me he’d married your
mother.”
Some light broke on Johnny. “And you took these days off to look
for her—was that it?”
“That’s it. An’ I was a fool—made things wuss instead o’ better!”
“Never mind about that—anything’s better than having that brute
here. What changed your mind about her being dead?”
“Oh, I dunno. I’ll tell you all there is to it. Long time ago when I
was workin’ at Bishop’s an’ lodgin’ in Lime’us, my lan’lady she knew
Butson an’ ’is wife too, an’ she told me they led a pretty cat an’ dog
life, an’ one day Butson hops the twig. Well his missus wasn’t sorry
to lose ’im, an’ she sets to washin’ an’ ironin’ to keep ’erself an’ the
kid. But when Butson gets out of a job (’e was never in one long) ’e
goes snivellin’ round to ’er, an’ wants to go back, an’ be kep’. Well
the missis makes it pretty ’ot for ’im, you may guess; but she stands
’im for a week or two, givin’ it ’im pretty thick all the time, till Butson
’e cuts away again, an’ never comes back. His missis never
bothered about ’im—said she was well quit. This was all before I
went to live at Lime’us, but she used to be pals with my lan’lady. I
kep’ a bottle o’ whisky then, case of a friend comin’, an’ them two
give it what for, between ’em, on the quiet.”
“And did you know her then—his wife?”
“On’y by sight, an’ not to say to speak to, me bein’ a quiet sort. I
knew Butson since—in the shops; most took ’im for a bachelor.
Well, I wasn’t at Lime’us very long; I came away to this part an’ see
no more of ’er—though o’ course I see ’im, often. When you told
me ’e’d married your mother it took me aback a bit at first. But
then, thinks I, I expect the first one’s dead—must be. But after that,
the other day, when you told me what a right down bad ’un ’e was, I
begun to think wuss of ’im. I knew ’e’d bin livin’ idle, but I didn’t
guess ’e treated ’er so bad. An’ when you talked o’ wantin’ to get rid
of ’im, I got a notion. If ’e’s bad enough for what ’e’s done, thinks I,
’e’s bad enough for anythink. P’raps ’is fust wife ’s alive after all, an’
if she is, why the job’s done! Anyway, I puts it, I’ll risk a day or two
auf on it. An’ I did, an’ ’ere’s a nice old bloomin’ mess I made! Oh,
I ought to be poleaxed!”
“Well of course there’s been a row,” Johnny said gloomily, “an’ I
expect it’ll knock trade to pieces here, an’ half kill mother. But you
couldn’t very well help a row in a thing like this.”
“I bin three days findin” ’er. My old lan’lady’s dead, an’ I ’ad to try
an’ find ’er sister. Nobody knew where the sister was, but after a lot
o’ bother a old woman sends me to a cousin—in the workus. Cousin
in the workus thinks the sister’s dead too, but tells me to go an’ ask
at a newspaper-shop in Bromley. Newspaper-shop’s shut up—people
gone. Find the man as moved ’em, an’ ’e sends me to Bow—another
newspaper-shop. People there send me right back to Poplar; party
o’ the name o’ Bushell. Party o’ the name o’ Bushell very friendly,
an’ sends me to Old Ford; then I went to Bow again, an’ so I dodged
about, up an’ down, till I run across Mrs. Butson up on ’Omerton
Marshes, keepin’ a laundry. That was to-day, that was.
“Well, she took it mighty cool at first. When I told ’er I knew where
’er ’usband was, she told me I might keep my knowledge to myself,
for she didn’t want ’im. Very cool she was, till I told ’er ’e’d married
again, an’ at that she shut ’er jaw with a snap, an’ glared at me. So
I just told ’er what I knew, an’ ’ow it ’ud be a charity to give ’im a
scare on the quiet, an’ send ’im away from ’ere, an’ ‘All right,’ she
says. ‘Jest you show me where they live,’ she says; ‘I’ll give ’im a
scare!’ ‘Right,’ says I, but I made conditions. She wus to wait at the
street-corner, an’ I was to send in a message for ’im to come out.
Then we was to give ’im ten minutes to go an’ git ’is clo’es, if ’e
wanted any, make any excuse ’e liked, an’ clear out; so as to do it all
quiet an’ peaceable, an’ nobody the wiser. ‘All right,’ she says, ‘jest
you show me the place, that’s all!’ So I brought ’er. But when we
got to the corner an’ I told ’er which ’ouse, auf she went at a bolt,
an’—an’ set up all that row ’fore I could stop ’er! Who’d ’a’ thought
of ’er actin’ contradictory like that?”
It was not altogether so dense a mystery to Johnny as it was to the
simpler Hicks, twice his age, though more a boy than himself. But
he assured Hicks that after all he had done a good turn, and no
price was too high for riddance of Butson. “Mother’ll be grateful to
you, too, when she’s a bit quieter, an’ knows about it,” he said. And
presently he added thoughtfully, “I think I ought to have guessed
something o’ the sort, with his sneaking in an’ out so quiet, an’ being
afraid o’ the p’lice. There’s lots o’ things I see through now, that I
ought to have seen through before: not wantin’ the new name over
the door, for one!”
. . . . .
Till the shutters were up that night, and the door well bolted, Nan
May was urgent that that horrible woman must be kept out. And
when at last she slept, in mere exhaustion, she awoke in a fit of
trembling and choking, beseeching somebody to take the woman
away.
Bessy, like Johnny, had a sense of relief, though she slept not at all,
and dreaded vaguely. But withal she was conscious of some
intangible remembrance of that red-faced woman with the harsh
voice; and it was long—days—ere it returned to her that she had
heard the voice high above the shouts of the beanfeasters in the
Forest on the day when Uncle Isaac had brought Butson to the
cottage.
 XXXIII.

Mr. Dunkin’s notice to quit arrived early the next morning. The
service of that notice was a duty he owed to society, morality,
conscience, virtue, propriety, religion, and several other things,
which he enumerated without hesitation. He could not have sat in
his pew the next day with any comfort, knowing that such a duty
remained unperformed; he would have felt a hypocrite.
The notice might have come before, for the trade had been good
and steady; but Mr. Dunkin also had heard the whispers that the
ship-yard might be shut, and he had hesitated long. Now, however,
there was no alternative—if Mrs. May were left to flaunt her infamy
the trade must decline under the scandal, and the place fall
worthless again. More, her expulsion at this time would seem less a
seizure of the new branch than a popular vindication of
righteousness.
Johnny was at home when the notice came. He had sent a message
to Mr. Cottam, pleading urgent family affairs.
“Might have expected it,” Johnny said, giving the paper to Hicks,
whom he had called into counsel. “Anyway mother swears she can’t
show her face in the shop again. She seems almost afraid to come
out of her bedroom, talks wild about disgracing her children, an’
wishes she was dead. She’s pretty bad, an’ as to the shop—that’s
done up. Question is what to do now.”
Then Hicks rose to his feet, and met the occasion face to face.
“We’ll do this thing between us,” he said, “and damn everybody! I
ain’t a man o’ business, not special, but I got you all into this ’ere
mess an’ I’ll see you out of it, or I’ll bust. Fust thing, this ’ere Mr.
Dunkin’s game’s plain enough. ’Ere’s a very decent business goin’
on, an’ ’e takes this excuse to collar it ’isself. You ain’t took the
shutters down yet, an’ we won’t take ’em down. We’ll stick up a big
bill ‘Business come to a end,’ or such other words, an’ let the
customers go where they like an’ ’ope they won’t come back. Then
p’raps ’e’ll come along in a day or two an’ offer to buy the stock,
thinkin’ ’e’ll get it for next to nothin’, you bein’ all at sixes an’
sevens. We won’t sell it—not one farden candle. But we won’t say
so. No. We’ll fight cokum. We’ll ask ’im to think over it for another
day or two an’ see if ’e can’t make it a quid or two more. ’E’ll let it
slide all the week if we do it right, expectin’ to land us at the last
minute an’ make us take anythink. But we’ll just be walkin’ the stuff
all away very quiet in the evenin’s, in a barrer, an’ then ’e’ll come
into a empty shop unexpected, an’ ’e won’t know what the
customers is used to, an’ that’ll give ’im fits for another week or
two. See?”
“But where shall we take the stuff?”
“Take it? Lord, anywhere!” replied Hicks, with a sweep of the hand.
“There’s plenty o’ empty shops ready to be took everywhere. Why
the number I’ve seen these two or three days ’ud surprise ye! Some
ain’t as good as others p’raps, but that we’ll settle in the week. It’s
just beginnin’ again, that’s all, same as what ye did three or four
year back! Lord, we’ll do it, I tell ye—do it flyin’!” Long Hicks waved
his arms enthusiastically. “As to the—the ha’pence,” he went on,
“p’raps your mother’s got some, p’raps she ain’t—don’t matter either
way. I’m a single man, an’ bin in good work years, an’ I got a bit in
the savin’s bank. All right! I ain’t goin’ to offer no favours, so don’t
sing out! Sixpence in the pound’s all I get out o’ the Post Office, an’
that ain’t much. I’m open to make it a bit more—three per cent. if
ye like—on loan; any security, or none—there’s plenty in the place in
the Forest an’ the stock an’ all—’ave it yer own way. Business! ’Ard
business! That’s all it is. An’ now we’ll clear decks. Fust, get your
mother an’ sister out o’ this, somewhere out o’ Harbour Lane, where
they ain’t known, an’ where they’ll quit frettin’.”
“Where?” Hicks’s impetuosity left Johnny’s wits lagging.
“Temp’ry lodgin’s. Needn’t be fur; next parish is as good as fifty mile
auf, in London. Better. An’ by George! now I think of it, I see the
very place when I was goin’ round. Party o’ the name o’ Bushell, in
Poplar. ’Ouse too big for ’em—got a furnished bedroom to let;
showed it me, case I might know anyone an’ send ’em, them ’avin’
done me a turn sendin’ me to Old Ford. What’s more, there’ll be two
more rooms, unfurnished, next week, tenant goin’ out—young gal, a
dressmaker. So we can take them too, if we get pushed, an’ run the
sticks in there. There’s luck to begin with! Why, things’ll go like
clockwork!”
Hicks rushed off to make sure of the lodging, and in half an hour
was back with a four-wheeled cab.
“Get ’em down an’ pop ’em in sharp,” said Hicks. “I’ve told the
cabby where to go. You go with ’em an’ make ’em comfortable, an’
I’ll wait ’ere till you come back. Mind—people at the ’ouse on’y
know she’s in trouble ’cos ’er ’usband’s run away, an’ I paid a week
in advance. Go on—I’ll keep out o’ the way in the back till they’re
clear auf; they don’t want to see me.”
Nan and Bessy wore veils, and hurried into the cab, while Johnny
glowered fiercely at every face he could see turned toward them. To
Johnny the streets seemed unreasonably familiar as the cab jolted
through them—unreasonably like what they were a day ago, before
this blow fell and knocked the world out of shape. They went out
through Blackwall Cross, by the High Street, and past the Institute,
where the familiar housekeeper—the housekeeper who had given
him Nora’s farewell letter—stood on the steps with a broom; through
the two streets, and past that corner where they had parted—it
seemed years ago. As to when they might meet again, and how—
that was not to be thought of now. His head was too full already.
 XXXIV.

“Oh, give us some time to blow the man down!” roared Mr. Bushell,
splashing and puffing amid much yellow soap and cold water in the
wash-house, whither he had gone for a wash, on coming home from
his tug. The voice thundered and rolled through the house, and on
the first floor, strangers not used to it grew muddled in their
conversation.

“Blow the man down, bully, blow the man down—

To my Aye! Aye! Blow the man down!
Singapore Harbour to gay London town—
Oh, give us some time to blow the man down!”

Up on the first floor landing, “A-a-ah! pore dears!” said Mrs. Bushell,
fat and sympathetic, looking up at Johnny, with her head aside and
her hands clasped. “Pore dears! No, nobody shan’t disturb ’em!
Lor, ’ow I do feel for ’em; an’ you too, Mr. May. Lucky you’re growed
up to be a comfort to yer pore mar! There—I won’t say nothin’
about yer father! Runnin’ away so disgraceful an’ all. But I can’t
think what parents is comin’ to, some of ’em. There’s the pore gal
as is leavin’ the other two rooms o’ Monday, now—sich a quiet, well-
be’aved young lady; we wouldn’t ’a’ let ’em stop a week if it wasn’t
for ’er sake, bein’ so ’ard to find a respectable lodgin’s with sich a
mother. But there—’er mother worries the pore thing’s life out—
alwis drinkin’—an’ now she’s akchally in gaol for breakin’ a
public-’ouse winder! An’ I sez—”
“Public-house window!” Johnny’s breath came short and thick.
“What’s her name?”
“P’raps I shouldn’t ’a’ mentioned it to a stranger, but lor, I don’t
s’pose you know ’er, an’ it’s Sansom. But—”
“Where is she? Show me! In here? Is she in now?” Johnny made
dashes at divers door-handles with one hand, while Mrs. Bushell,
confounded and scandalised, restrained him desperately by the
opposite arm. It took some impatient moments to make it plain to
the landlady that he intended no violent assault, nor, on
consideration, even the rudeness of dashing into a lady’s rooms
unannounced. Whereupon Mrs. Bushell went to a door and
knocked, Johnny close at her heels. And presently the door opened.
“Nora!”
“Oh Johnny, Johnny, I wish you hadn’t! . . . We shall only—” But
with that the words died on the breast of Johnny’s coat. Mrs.
Bushell’s eyes opened round, and then her mouth; and then Mrs.
Bushell went off very quietly downstairs—eyes and mouth and face
all round—and out into the wash-house; and “Blow the Man Down”
stopped in the middle.
“Oh, but you know what I said, Johnny! We can’t—you know we
can’t!”
“Nonsense! I shan’t let you go now. I’ve got a disreputable mother
now—or so they say. Have you heard of yours—since?”
“She’s in the infirmary—very bad. Something’s been forming on the
liver for years, the doctor says; and when she couldn’t get anything
to drink she broke down at once. But what did you say about your
mother?”
Johnny told her the tale. “And now,” he added in the end, “she’s in
there, worn out an’ broken down, an’ not a woman in the world to
comfort her but my sister. Come in, an’ help.” And they went in
together.