The Observations of Henry | Page 8

a week.' Then
he took another pull at the beer and looked more savage than ever.
"'Well,' I says, 'that ain't the sort of thing to be humpy about.'
"'Yes it is,' he snaps back; 'it means that if I don't take precious good
care I'll drift into being a blooming milkman, spending my life yelling
"Milk ahoi!" and spooning smutty-faced servant-gals across area
railings.'
"'Oh!' I says, 'and what may you prefer to spoon--duchesses?'
"'Yes,' he answers sulky-like; 'duchesses are right enough--some of
'em.'
"'So are servant-gals,' I says, 'some of 'em. Your hat's feeling a bit small
for you this morning, ain't it?'
"'Hat's all right,' says he; 'it's the world as I'm complaining of--beastly
place; there's nothing to do in it.'
"'Oh!' I says; 'some of us find there's a bit too much.' I'd been up since
five that morning myself; and his own work, which was scouring milk-
cans for twelve hours a day, didn't strike me as suggesting a life of
leisured ease.

"'I don't mean that,' he says. 'I mean things worth doing.'
"'Well, what do you want to do,' I says, 'that this world ain't big enough
for?'
"'It ain't the size of it,' he says; 'it's the dulness of it. Things used to be
different in the old days.'
"'How do you know?' I says.
"'You can read about it,' he answers.
"'Oh,' I says, 'and what do they know about it--these gents that sit down
and write about it for their living! You show me a book cracking up the
old times, writ by a chap as lived in 'em, and I'll believe you. Till then
I'll stick to my opinion that the old days were much the same as these
days, and maybe a trifle worse.'
"'From a Sunday School point of view, perhaps yes,' says he; 'but
there's no gainsaying--'
"'No what?' I says.
"'No gainsaying,' repeats he; 'it's a common word in literatoor.'
"'Maybe,' says I, 'but this happens to be "The Blue Posts Coffee
House," established in the year 1863. We will use modern English here,
if you don't mind.' One had to take him down like that at times. He was
the sort of boy as would talk poetry to you if you weren't firm with him.
"'Well then, there's no denying the fact,' says he, 'if you prefer it that
way, that in the old days there was more opportunity for adventure.'
"'What about Australia?' says I.
"'Australia!' retorts he; 'what would I do there? Be a shepherd, like you
see in the picture, wear ribbons, and play the flute?'
"'There's not much of that sort of shepherding over there,' says I, 'unless

I've been deceived; but if Australia ain't sufficiently uncivilised for you,
what about Africa?'
"'What's the good of Africa?' replies he; 'you don't read advertisements
in the "Clerkenwell News": "Young men wanted as explorers." I'd drift
into a barber's shop at Cape Town more likely than anything else.'
"'What about the gold diggings?' I suggests. I like to see a youngster
with the spirit of adventure in him. It shows grit as a rule.
"'Played out,' says he. 'You are employed by a company, wages ten
dollars a week, and a pension for your old age. Everything's played
out,' he continues. 'Men ain't wanted nowadays. There's only room for
clerks, and intelligent artisans, and shopboys.'
"'Go for a soldier,' says I; 'there's excitement for you.'
"'That would have been all right,' says he, 'in the days when there was
real fighting.'
"'There's a good bit of it going about nowadays,' I says. 'We are
generally at it, on and off, between shouting about the blessings of
peace.'
"'Not the sort of fighting I mean,' replies he; 'I want to do something
myself, not be one of a row.'
"'Well,' I says, 'I give you up. You've dropped into the wrong world it
seems to me. We don't seem able to cater for you here.'
"'I've come a bit too late,' he answers; 'that's the mistake I've made.
Two hundred years ago there were lots of things a fellow might have
done.'
"'Yes, I know what's in your mind,' I says: 'pirates.'
"'Yes, pirates would be all right,' says he; 'they got plenty of sea-air and
exercise, and didn't need to join a blooming funeral club.'

"'You've got ideas above your station,' I says. 'You work hard, and one
day you'll have a milk-shop of your own, and be walking out with a
pretty housemaid on your arm, feeling as if you were the Prince of
Wales himself.'
"'Stow it!' he says; 'it makes me shiver for fear it might come true. I'm
not cut out for a respectable cove, and I won't be one neither, if I can
help it!'
"'What do you mean to