CHAPTER FIVE
1.
There are streets in London into which the sun seems never to
penetrate. Some of these are in fashionable quarters, and it is to be
supposed that their inhabitants find an address which looks well on
note-paper a sufficient compensation for the gloom that goes with it.
The majority, however, are in the mean neighborhoods of the great
railway termini, and appear to offer no compensation whatever. They
are lean, furtive streets, gray as the January sky with a sort of
arrested decay. They smell of cabbage and are much prowled over by
vagrom cats. At night they are empty and dark, and a stillness broods
on them, broken only by the cracked tingle of an occasional piano
playing one of the easier hymns, a form of music to which the
dwellers in the dingy houses are greatly addicted. By day they
achieve a certain animation through the intermittent appearance of
women in aprons, who shake rugs out of the front doors or, emerging
from areas, go down to the public-house on the corner with jugs to
fetch the supper-beer. In almost every ground-floor window there is a
card announcing that furnished lodgings may be had within. You will
find these streets by the score if you leave the main thoroughfares
and take a short cut on your way to Euston, to Paddington, or to
Waterloo. But the dingiest and deadliest and most depressing lie
round about Victoria. And Daubeny Street, Pimlico, is one of the
worst of them all.
On the afternoon following the events recorded, a girl was dressing
in the ground-floor room of Number Nine, Daubeny Street. A tray
bearing the remains of a late breakfast stood on the rickety table
beside a bowl of wax flowers. From beneath the table peered the green
cover of a copy of _Variety_. A gray parrot in a cage by the window
cracked seed and looked out into the room with a satirical eye. He
had seen all this so many times before,--Nelly Bryant arraying
herself in her smartest clothes to go out and besiege agents in their
offices off the Strand. It happened every day. In an hour or two she
would come back as usual, say "Oh, Gee!" in a tired sort of voice,
and then Bill the parrot's day proper would begin. He was a bird who
liked the sound of his own voice, and he never got the chance of a
really sustained conversation till Nelly returned in the evening.
"Who cares?" said Bill, and cracked another seed.
If rooms are an indication of the characters of their occupants,
Nelly Bryant came well out of the test of her surroundings. Nothing
can make a London furnished room much less horrible than it intends
to be, but Nelly had done her best. The furniture, what there was of
it, was of that lodging-house kind which resembles nothing else in
the world. But a few little touches here and there, a few
instinctively tasteful alterations in the general scheme of things,
had given the room almost a cosy air. Later on, with the gas lit, it
would achieve something approaching homeiness. Nelly, like many
another nomad, had taught herself to accomplish a good deal with poor
material. On the road in America, she had sometimes made even a
bedroom in a small hotel tolerably comfortable, than which there is
no greater achievement. Oddly, considering her life, she had a genius
for domesticity.
Today, not for the first time, Nelly was feeling unhappy. The face
that looked back at her out of the mirror at which she was arranging
her most becoming hat was weary. It was only a moderately pretty
face, but loneliness and underfeeding had given it a wistful
expression that had charm. Unfortunately, it was not the sort of
charm which made a great appeal to the stout, whisky-nourished men
who sat behind paper-littered tables, smoking cigars, in the rooms
marked "Private" in the offices of theatrical agents. Nelly had been
out of a "shop" now for many weeks,--ever since, in fact, "Follow the
Girl" had finished its long ran at the Regal Theatre.
"Follow the Girl," an American musical comedy, had come over from New
York with an American company, of which Nelly had been a humble unit,
and, after playing a year in London and some weeks in the number one
towns, had returned to New York. It did not cheer Nelly up in the
long evenings in Daubeny Street to reflect that, if she had wished,
she could have gone home with the rest of the company. A mad impulse
had seized her to try her luck in London, and here she was now,
marooned.
"Who cares?" said Bill.
For a bird who enjoyed talking he was a little limited in his remarks
and apt to repeat himself.
"I do, you poor fish!" said Nelly, completing her maneuvers with the
hat and turning to the cage. "It's all right for you--you have a
swell time with nothing to do but sit there and eat seed--but how do
you suppose I enjoy tramping around, looking for work and never
finding any?"
She picked up her gloves. "Oh, well!" she said. "Wish me luck!"
"Good-bye, boy!" said the parrot, clinging to the bars.
Nelly thrust a finger into the cage and scratched his head.
"Anxious to get rid of me, aren't you? Well, so long."
"Good-bye, boy!"
"All right, I'm going. Be good!"
"Woof-woof-woof!" barked Bill the parrot, not committing himself to
any promises.
For some moments after Nelly had gone he remained hunched on his
perch, contemplating the infinite. Then he sauntered along to the
seed-box and took some more light nourishment. He always liked to
spread his meals out, to make them last longer. A drink of water to
wash the food down, and he returned to the middle of the cage, where
he proceeded to conduct a few intimate researches with his beak under
his left wing. After which he mewed like a cat, and relapsed into
silent meditation once more. He closed his eyes and pondered on his
favorite problem--Why was he a parrot? This was always good for an
hour or so, and it was three o'clock before he had come to his
customary decision that he didn't know. Then, exhausted by brain-work
and feeling a trifle hipped by the silence of the room, he looked
about him for some way of jazzing existence up a little. It occurred
to him that if he barked again it might help.
"Woof-woof-woof!"
Good as far as it went, but it did not go far enough. It was not real
excitement. Something rather more dashing seemed to him to be
indicated. He hammered for a moment or two on the floor of his cage,
ate a mouthful of the newspaper there, and stood with his head on one
side, chewing thoughtfully. It didn't taste as good as usual. He
suspected Nelly of having changed his _Daily Mail_ for the _Daily
Express_ or something. He swallowed the piece of paper, and was
struck by the thought that a little climbing exercise might be what
his soul demanded. (You hang on by your beak and claws and work your
way up to the roof. It sounds tame, but it's something to do.) He
tried it. And, as he gripped the door of the cage, it swung open.
Bill the parrot now perceived that this was going to be one of those
days. He had not had a bit of luck like this for months.
For awhile he sat regarding the open door. Unless excited by outside
influences, he never did anything in a hurry. Then proceeding
cautiously, he passed out into the room. He had been out there
before, but always chaperoned by Nelly. This was something quite
different. It was an adventure. He hopped onto the window-sill. There
was a ball of yellow wool there, but he had lunched and could eat
nothing. He cast around in his mind for something to occupy him, and
perceived suddenly that the world was larger than he had supposed.
Apparently there was a lot of it outside the room. How long this had
been going on, he did not know, but obviously it was a thing to be
investigated. The window was open at the bottom, and just outside the
window were what he took to be the bars of another and larger cage.
As a matter of fact they were the railings which afforded a modest
protection to Number Nine. They ran the length of the house, and were
much used by small boys as a means of rattling sticks. One of these
stick-rattlers passed as Bill stood there looking down. The noise
startled him for a moment, then he seemed to come to the conclusion
that this sort of thing was to be expected if you went out into the
great world and that a parrot who intended to see life must not allow
himself to be deterred by trifles. He crooned a little, and finally,
stepping in a stately way over the window-sill, with his toes turned
in at right angles, caught at the top of the railing with his beak,
and proceeded to lower himself. Arrived at the level of the street,
he stood looking out.
A dog trotted up, spied him, and came to sniff.
"Good-bye, boy!" said Bill chattily.
The dog was taken aback. Hitherto, in his limited experience, birds
had been birds and men men. Here was a blend of the two. What was to
be done about it? He barked tentatively, then, finding that nothing
disastrous ensued, pushed his nose between two of the bars and barked
again. Any one who knew Bill could have told him that he was asking
for it, and he got it. Bill leaned forward and nipped his nose. The
dog started back with a howl of agony. He was learning something new
every minute.
"Woof-woof-woof!" said Bill sardonically.
He perceived trousered legs, four of them, and, cocking his eye
upwards, saw that two men of the lower orders stood before him. They
were gazing down at him in the stolid manner peculiar to the
proletariat of London in the presence of the unusual. For some
minutes they stood drinking him in, then one of them gave judgment.
"It's a parrot!" He removed a pipe from his mouth and pointed with
the stem. "A perishin' parrot, that is, Erb."
"Ah!" said Erb, a man of few words.
"A parrot," proceeded the other. He was seeing clearer into the
matter every moment. "That's a parrot, that is, Erb. My brother Joe's
wife's sister 'ad one of 'em. Come from abroad, _they_ do. My brother
Joe's wife's sister 'ad one of 'em. Red-'aired gel she was. Married a
feller down at the Docks. _She_ 'ad one of 'em. Parrots they're
called."
He bent down for a closer inspection, and inserted a finger through
the railings. Erb abandoned his customary taciturnity and spoke words
of warning.
"Tike care 'e don't sting yer, 'Enry!"
Henry seemed wounded.
"Woddyer mean sting me? I know all abart parrots, I do. My brother
Joe's wife's sister 'ad one of 'em. They don't 'urt yer, not if
you're kind to 'em. You know yer pals when you see 'em, don't yer,
mate?" he went on, addressing Bill, who was contemplating the finger
with one half-closed eye.
"Good-bye, boy," said the parrot, evading the point.
"Jear that?" cried Henry delightedly. "Goo'-bye, boy!' 'Uman they
are!"
"'E'll 'ave a piece out of yer finger," warned Erb, the suspicious.
"Wot, 'im!" Henry's voice was indignant. He seemed to think that his
reputation as an expert on parrots had been challenged. "'E wouldn't
'ave no piece out of my finger."
"Bet yer a narf-pint 'e would 'ave a piece out of yer finger,"
persisted the skeptic.
"No blinkin' parrot's goin' to 'ave no piece of no finger of mine! My
brother Joe's wife's sister's parrot never 'ad no piece out of no
finger of mine!" He extended the finger further and waggled it
enticingly beneath Bill's beak. "Cheerio, matey!" he said winningly.
"Polly want a nut?"
Whether it was mere indolence or whether the advertised docility of
that other parrot belonging to Henry's brother's wife's sister had
caused him to realize that there was a certain standard of good
conduct for his species one cannot say: but for awhile Bill merely
contemplated temptation with a detached eye.
"See!" said Henry.
"Woof-woof-woof!" said Bill.
"_Wow-Wow-Wow!_" yapped the dog, suddenly returning to the scene and
going on with the argument at the point where he had left off.
The effect on Bill was catastrophic. Ever a high-strung bird, he lost
completely the repose which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere and the
better order of parrot. His nerves were shocked, and, as always under
such conditions, his impulse was to bite blindly. He bit, and
Henry--one feels sorry for Henry: he was a well-meaning man--leaped
back with a loud howl.
"That'll be 'arf a pint," said Erb, always the business man.
There was a lull in the rapid action. The dog, mumbling softly to
himself, had moved away again and was watching affairs from the edge
of the sidewalk. Erb, having won, his point, was silent once more.
Henry sucked his ringer. Bill, having met the world squarely and
shown it what was what, stood where he was, whistling nonchalantly.
Henry removed his finger from his mouth. "Lend me the loan of that
stick of yours, Erb," he said tensely.
Erb silently yielded up the stout stick which was his inseparable
companion. Henry, a vastly different man from the genial saunterer of
a moment ago, poked wildly through the railings. Bill, panic-stricken
now and wishing for nothing better than to be back in his cosy cage,
shrieked loudly for help. And Freddie Rooke, running the corner with
Jill, stopped dead and turned pale.
"Good God!" said Freddie.
