Hooligan Nights | Page 9

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 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