Hooligan Nights | Page 9

magisterial interrogation. If you ask young Alf--very suddenly--what his business is, he will reply that he is a horse-plaiter. With time for reflection he may give quite a different answer, according to the circumstances of the case, for he has done many things; watch-making, domestic service, and the care of horses in a travelling circus, have stored his mind with experience and given his fingers deftness.
Young Alf is now eighteen years of age, and stands 5 feet 7 inches. He is light, active, and muscular. Stripped for fighting he is a picture. His ordinary attire consists of a dark-brown suit, mellowed by wear, and a cloth cap. Around his neck is a neatly-knotted neckerchief, dark-blue, with white spots, which does duty for collar as well as tie. His face is by no means brutal; it is intelligent, and gives evidence of a highly-strung nature. The eyes are his most remarkable feature. They seem to look all round his head, like the eyes of a bird; when he is angry they gleam with a fury that is almost demoniacal. He is not prone to smiles or laughter, but he is in no sense melancholic. The solemnity of his face is due rather, as I should conclude, to the concentration of his intellect on the practical problems that continually present themselves for solution. Under the influence of any strong emotions, he puffs out the lower part of his cheeks. This expresses even amusement, if he is very much amused. In his manner of speech he exhibits curious variations. Sometimes he will talk for ten minutes together, with no more trace of accent or slang than disfigure the speech of the ordinary Londoner of the wage-earning class. Then, on a sudden, he will become almost unintelligible to one unfamiliar with the Walk and its ways. He swears infrequently, and drinks scarcely at all. When he does, he lights a fire in the middle of the floor and tries to burn the house down. His health is perfect, and he has never had a day's illness since he had the measles. He has perfect confidence in his own ability to look after himself, and take what he wants, so long as he has elbow-room and ten seconds' start of the cop. His fleetness of foot has earned him the nickname of 'The Deer' in the Walk. On the whole, few boys are better equipped by nature for a life on the crooked, and young Alf has sedulously cultivated his natural gifts.

Chapter 3
Trailing Clouds of Glory
From heaven young Alf came to Irish Court; but at the first rumour of his advent, his father went for a soldier, and so disappears at once and completely from this chronicle. For young Alf never set eyes on his father's chivvy.
His recollections of childhood are, as is natural, scrappy; here a blank, there a vivid patch of remembrance. But in the course of various talks he has supplied enough scattered memories to give a fair notion of his earliest outlook upon life. The flagstones of Irish Court, and the proximity of Patrick Hooligan, these are the impressions that remain with him. Cabbage stalks, potato peelings, even derelict shoes that will no longer go up the spout are to be found on the flagstones of Irish Court; and with these the untrammelled infant can do marvellous things. Young Alf cannot remember ever possessing a toy; but he never felt the want of one. He dealt from infancy in realities.
He retains, too, the impression of a single room, with a bed in the corner. In another corner was a heap of clothes--at night. In the day-time, his mother earned her living by selling second-hand clothes from a hand-barrow in the Walk. To young Alf, Lambeth Walk was the great world, full of possibilities of pleasure and profit. Marvellous finds could be made in the mysterious region under the rows of barrows in the Walk. Expeditions in search of hidden treasure were organized, and brought to successful issue, more particularly in the direction of the sweetstuff barrow, where brandy-balls might be expected to drop, as it were, from heaven. There was no lack of companionship, for children of all ages are plentiful in the Walk, and all are friends or enemies. Now and then, if he was in luck, he could see Patrick Hooligan come down the court and go into his kip, as a king enters his palace.
On the whole, his childhood must be regarded as a very happy one; his mother was kind to him, and he did pretty much as he pleased, until the School Board officer roped him in, and he had to go to school. Here, of course, he received precisely the same education that five out of six English boys receive. He can read, write a