Hooligan Nights | Page 8

job in the bashing line. You have an enemy, we will say, whom you wish to mark, but, for one reason and another, you do not wish to appear in the matter. Young Alf will take on the job. Indicate to him your enemy; hand him five shillings (he will ask a sovereign; but will take five shillings), and he will make all the necessary arrangements. One night your enemy will find himself lying dazed on the pavement in a quiet corner, with a confused remembrance of a trip and a crash, and a mad whirl of fists and boots. You need have small fear that the job will be bungled. But it is a matter of complaint among the boys of the Walk, that if they do a bit of bashing for a toff and get caught, the toff seldom has the magnanimity to give them a lift when they come out of gaol.
The Hooligan is by no means deficient in courage. He is always ready to fight, though he does not fight fair. It must indeed, require a certain amount of courage to earn your living by taking things that do not belong to you, with the whole of society, backed by the police force, against you. The burglar who breaks into your house and steals your goods is a reprehensible person; but he undoubtedly possesses that two-o'clock-in-the-morning courage which is the rarest variety. To get into a stranger's house in the dead of night, listening every instant for the least sound that denotes detection, knowing all the time that you are risking your liberty for the next five years or so--this, I am sure, requires more nerve than most men can boast of. Young Alf has nearly all the vices; but he has plenty of pluck. And as I shall have very little to disclose that is to his credit, I must tell of one instance in which his conduct was admirable. One afternoon we were at the Elephant and Castle, when suddenly a pair of runaway horses, with a Pickford van behind them, came pounding into the traffic at the crossing. There was shouting, screaming, and a scurrying to clear the way, and then I saw young Alf standing alone, tense and waiting, in the middle of the road. It was a perilous thing to do, but he did it. He was used to horses, and though they dragged him for twenty yards and more, he hung on, and brought them up. A sympathetic and admiring crowd gathered, and young Alf was not a little embarrassed at the attention he commanded.
'The firm oughter reckernize it,' said a man in an apron, looking round for approval. 'There's a matter of two 'underd pound's worth of prop'ty that boy's reskid.'
We murmured assent.
'I don't want no fuss,' said young Alf, glancing quickly around him.
Just then a man ran up, panting and put his hand over the harness. Then he picked up the reins, and, hoisting himself by the step, peered into his van.
'You're in luck to-day, mister,' said a boy.
The man passed the back of his hand across a damp forehead, and sent a dazed look, through the crowd.
'One of them blarsted whistles started 'em,' he said.
'That's the boy what stopped 'em,' said a woman with a basket, pointing a finger at young Alf.
'That's awright,' muttered young Alf. 'You shut yer face.'
'Give the gentleman your name,' persisted the woman with the basket, 'and if everybody 'ad their rights-'
'Now then,' said a friendly policeman, with a hand on young Alf's shoulder, 'you give him your name and address. You want a job, you know. You bin out of work too long.'
Young Alf's brain must have worked very quickly for the next three seconds, and he took the right course. He told the truth. It required an effort. But, as the policeman seemed to know the truth, it would have been silly to tell a lie.
The next day young Alf had the offer of employment, if he would call at headquarters. For a day or two he hesitated. Then he decided that it was not good enough. And that night he went to another kip. By this time he might have been driving a Pickford van. But he never applied for the job.
Regular employment, at a fixed wage, does not attract the boy who is bred within sound of the hawkers in the Walk. It does not give him the necessary margin of leisure, and the necessary margin of chance gains. Many of them hang on to the edge of legitimate commerce as you may see them adhering to the tail-boards of vans; and a van-boy has many opportunities of seeing the world. The selling of newspapers is a favourite occupation. Every Lambeth boy can produce a profession in answer to