The Missing Link | Page 8

politely. "My fault in blocking the path.
My fault, entirely."
"By Jo-o-ve!" gasped Romeo; "that's a stunnin' make-up, old
chap--what? Nevah saw a bettah, by gad."
"Make-up?" said Nicholas. Mr. Crips had for gotten his false nose.
"Ya-as," said Romeo. "Your character, you know. A fellah 'd think
you'd just come from sleeping in a rubbish bin. Yes. Best Weary Willie
I've seen. But aren't you coming in, dear boy? You're a cart for Dolly's
prize for best-sustained character, eh?"
"Presently--presently." said Nicholas, smitten with a sudden idea.
"Waiting for a friend, you know."
Romeo went up the garden path, and Nickie the Kid retired under the
shadow of the hedge to allow his thoughts to revolve. Romeo's words
had suggested possibilities. Mr. Crips rarely wasted time making up his
mind. Three minutes later he was sauntering jauntily up the garden path
on the heels of a laughing Red Indian set.
It was a fancy dress ball. All the guests were masked or otherwise
disguised. Nickie had never encountered a softer thing. He determined
to make a night of it at the expense of the host of "White-cliff." To

avoid unpleasantness at the door, Nickie boldly climbed up the trellis of
a vine, and entered the noisy crowded ballroom through an open
window, rolling head over heels among the guests.
His appearance provoked a shout of laughter. This was the proper way
for a tramp to enter such a house. It was accepted as a quaint effort of
humour. Weary Willie was applauded, and his appearance, when he
rose to his feet, occasioned fresh merriment.
The "make-up" of Mr. Crips was certainly very effective, but with the
exception of the false nose it was nothing but his ordinary habit. He
wore a pair of old grey trousers, lashed up with one brace, and belted
with a strip of red material; between the fringed legs of this garment
and his broken canvas shoes the tops of socks, one white, the other
plaid, were plainly visible. The fact that they were only tops, and not
whole socks, was not to be missed, as they had worked up, and an inch
of bare ankle protruded. Nickie's coat was an old black Beaufort, from
which two buttons' hung on grey threads, which was split half-way up
the back, and from below the tails of which fluttered strips of torn
lining. He wore no vest, and had on a woman's faded pink print blouse
as a shirt. He had a linen collar that had long since lost all claims to
whiteness and all pretence of dignity, and his hat was a small round
boxer, with scarcely any rim. On one of the buttons of his Beaufort
hung a strip of ordinary sugar bag, on which he had written with a stub
of pencil the word "Program."
Mr. Nicholas Crips looked the part to the life. He had not shaved for a
week, and his lank hair was reaching out in all directions from under
his ridiculous hat, and from various strands dangled fragments of his
last couch under the boat shed. Nickie had nothing of the painted,
unconvincing theatrical accessories of the usual fancy dress tramp; he
looked real, and his success was instantaneous and complete.
I have endeavoured to show that Mr. Crips was not a diffident man; he
did not distress himself with scruples; fear of failure in an enterprise of
this kind never worried him. He walked across the grand ball-room,
swaggering in his rags, lifted his hat to a Watteau shepherdess who was
laughing at him from a settee in a recess, and said:

"Would yer darnce with er poor man, kind lydie?"
Again the crowd laughed. A tall Mary Queen of Scots peered at Nickie
through her lorgnette, and said.
"How very whimsical!" The little shepherdess was a merry spirit, and
bowed willingly. Nickie wrote "Milk Made" on his absurd programme,
and the quaintly assorted pair joined in the waltz. How, where and
when Nickie the Kid had learnt to dance Heaven knows, but he waltzed
well, and after that he danced with Mary Stuart in a set.
He was particularly attracted by Mary Stuart. She was a fine woman
and the rakish Nicholas had a discriminating eye where the sex was
concerned. Mary had a bold eye too, and a breezy manner. She took
great joy in the tramp.
A feature of Nickie's very humorous and original impersonation of the
Yarra-banker was his waggish begging. When he had danced, before
leaving his partner, he assumed a most lugubrious manner, and said:
"Dear lydie, would you kindly assist a pore decayed gent, what's got a
bedridden wife an' nine starvin' children, all twins? Just a copper, lydie.
The bailiffs is in, lydie, an' if I don't take 'orne nine-pence for the rent