Hooligan Nights | Page 5

wet; nor we didn't 'ave to wait long neither. Soon as he goes into the pub we nips round and shifts his old barrer, and 'fore you could say knife we had it froo the arches and in the stable-yard here. We got the meat upstairs, and then we run the empty barrer outside, and left it standin' in Paradise Street, where it couldn't do no one any 'arm.'
'But didn't anyone see you shift the barrow?' I asked.
''Ow was they to know we wasn't in the employment of the butcher?' he retorted. 'Besides, the uvver butchers wasn't likely to make a fuss. They didn't want no strangers comin' and interferin' wiv their pitch.'
'And did you see any more of the butcher?' I inquired.
'What do you fink?' he said. 'Presently we went back again to the Walk, and it wasn't all a minute before we saw the butcher tearin' up and down lookin' for his barrer. Of course nobody 'adn't seen anyfink of it. Then he started on the pubs, and went into every pub in the Walk askin' after his barrer. He had a lot of wet, but he didn't find his barrer, nor no meat neither. We went into one or two of the pubs after 'im, and gave 'im a lot of symperfy, jest abart as much as he could do wiv. One of the boys says: 'Sims to me your legs 'ave taken to walkin' again, guv'nor.' And the butcher couldn't 'ardly keep 'is 'air on. Then anuvver of the boys says he never was so sorry for anyfink in all his life. Come all the way from the Angel up at Islington, 'e 'ad, purpose to get a prime joint at the new butcher's in the Walk. That butcher's joints was the fair talk round Upper Street way, he says. What 'e'd say to the missus when 'e come home empty-'anded he didn't know, he says.
Then I chipped in.
'"Well, guv'nor," I says, "they tell me you've beat all them uvver butchers to-night. You've cleared out all your stock fore anyone else, aven't you? And you ain't given none of it away, neither."
'Wiv that he fair got 'is monkey up, and he went off down the Walk ragin' and roarin'; and me and the uvver boys went back to where we'd planted the meat. There was meat goin' cheap that night down our way--less than cawst-price, wiv no error. And some of them butchers wasn't quite so pleased as they fort they was, when they found legs of mutton sellin' at frippence a pound.'
'And what became of the unfortunate butcher?' I asked.
Last thing I see of him he'd had more'n enough already. And then he got into a 'ouse--not what you might call a resky 'ome--and there they put him to sleep, and went froo his pockets, and pitched him out in the mornin', skinned--feer skinned 'e was. The cops found 'is barrer next mornin', and wheeled it off. But the butcher never showed 'is dial again in the Walk. Bit too 'ot.'
'Rather rough on the butcher, wasn't it?' I suggested. 'But you probably didn't think of that.'
His eyes glanced quickly from mine to the yard below, and back to mine again, and for a moment--perhaps it was the moonlight that caught his face and gave it a weird twist--but for the moment he looked like a rat.
'I got meself to fink abart,' he said; and if I went finkin' abart uvver people I shouldn't be no good at this game. I wonder which of them silly young blokes it was forgot that leg of mutton I chucked outer winder.'
He peered over the sill, and the dog began barking again. But the step in the lane outside passed on. And young Alf turned again to me and expounded his philosophy of life.
'Look 'ere,' he said, if you see a fing you want, you just go and take it wivout any 'anging abart. If you 'ang abart you draw suspicion, and you get lagged for loiterin' wiv intent to commit a felony or some dam nonsense like that. Go for it, strite. P'r'aps it's a 'awse and cart you see as'll do you fine. Jump up and drive away as 'ard as you can, and ten to one nobody'll say anyfink. They'll think it's your own prop'ty. But 'ang around, and you mit jest as well walk into the next cop you see, and arst 'im to 'and you your stretch. See? You got to look after yourself; and it ain't your graft to look after anyone else, nor it ain't likely that anybody else'd look after you--only the cops. See?'
A cloud came over the moon, and threw the room and the yard outside into darkness. Young Alf became a dim shadow against the window.
'Time we was off,'