第54章

He could never understand how he escaped.He stood on the roof awaiting capture quietly,as resistance was useless,picked up a hat two sizes too large for him,and,walking slowly to the end of the roof,ducked suddenly under an old signboard that was nailed to a chimney.Every moment he expected a John to walk up to him,but,to his amazement,none came.

As a man may walk unhurt amid a shower of bullets,he had walked unseen under twenty policemen's eyes.From Castlereagh Street came a murmur of voices.The theatres were out,and a huge crowd,fresh from the painted scenes and stale odours of the stalls and gallery,watched with hilarious interest the harlequinade on the roofs.In half an hour a procession was formed,two deep,guarded by the police,and followed by a crowd stumbling over one another to keep pace with it,shouting words of encouragement and sympathy to the prisoners.Five minutes later Chook slithered down a veranda post,a free man,and walked quietly to the tram.

THE "ANGEL"LOSES A CUSTOMER

Six months after the death of Mrs Yabsley,Ada and Mrs Herring sat in the back parlour of the Angel sipping brandy.They had drunk their fill and it was time to be going,but Ada had no desire to move.She tapped her foot gently as she listened to the other woman's ceaseless flow of talk,but her mind was elsewhere.She had reached the stage when the world seemed a delightful place to live in;when it was a pleasure to watch the people moving and gesticulating like figures in a play,without jar or fret,as machines move on well-oiled cogs.

There was nothing to show that she had been drinking,except an uncertain smile that rippled over her heavy features as the wind breaks the surface of smooth water.Mrs Herring was as steady as a rock,but she knew without looking that the end of her nose was red,for drink affected that organ as heat affects a poker.Ada looked round with affection on the small room with the sporting prints,the whisky calendar,and the gong.

For months past she had felt more at home there than at the "Silver Shoe."She had never forgotten the scene that had followed her first visit to this room,when Jonah,surprised by her good humour,had smelt brandy on her breath.The sight of a misshapen devil,with murder in his eyes,spitting insults,had sobered her like cold water.She had stammered out a tale of a tea-room where she had been taken ill,and brandy had been brought in from the adjoining hotel.Mrs Herring,who had spent a lifetime in deceiving men,had prepared this story for her as one teaches a lesson to a child,but she had forgotten it until she found herself mechanically repeating it,her brain sobered by the shock.For a month she had avoided the woman with the hairy lip,and then the death of her mother had removed the only moral barrier that stood between her and hereditary impulse.

Since then she had gone to pieces.Mrs Herring had prescribed her favourite remedy for grief,a drop of cordial,and Jonah for once found himself helpless,for Mrs Herring taught Ada more tricks than a monkey.

Privately she considered Ada a dull fool,but she desired her company,for she belonged to the order of sociable drunkards,for whom drink has no flavour without company,and who can no more drink alone than men can smoke in the dark.Ada was an ideal companion,rarely breaking the thread of her ceaseless babble,and never forgetting to pay for her share.It was little enough she could squeeze out of Aaron,and often she drank for the afternoon at Ada's expense.

She looked anxiously at Ada,and then at the clock.For she drank with the precision of a patient taking medicine,calculating to a drop the amount she could carry,and allowing for the slight increase of giddiness when she stepped into the fresh air of the streets.But to-day she felt anxious,for Ada had already drunk a glass too much,and turned from her coaxings with an obstinate smile.The more she drank,she thought,the less she would care for what Jonah said when she got home.Mrs Herring felt annoyed with her for threatening to spoil a pleasant afternoon,but she talked on to divert her thoughts from the brandy.

"And remember what I told you,dearie.Every woman should learn to manage men.Some say you should study their weak points,but that was never my way.They all like to think their word is law,and you can do anything you please if you pretend you are afraid to do anything without asking their permission.And always humour them in one thing.Now,Aaron insists on punctuality.His meals must be ready on the stroke,and once he is fed,I can do as I please.Now,do be ruled by me,dearie,and come home."But Ada had turned unmanageable,and called for more drink.Mrs Herring could have slapped her.Her practised eye told her that Ada would soon be too helpless to move,and she thought,with a cringing fear,of Aaron the Jew,and her board and lodging that depended on his stomach.

Outside it had begun to rain,and Joe Grant,a loafer by trade and a lug-biter by circumstance,shifted from one foot to another,and stared dismally at the narrow slit between the swinging doors of the "Angel",where he knew there was warmth,and light,and comfort--everything that he desired.The rain,fine as needle-points,fell without noise,imperceptibly covering his clothes and beard with moisture.The pavements and street darkened as if a shadow had been thrown over them,and then shone in irregular streaks and patches of light,reflected from the jets of light that suddenly appeared in the shop windows.Joe looked at the clock through the windows of the bar.It was twenty to six.The rain had brought the night before its time,and Joe wondered what had become of Mrs Jones and her pal.He had had the luck to see her going in at the side door,and she was always good for a tray bit when she came out.

Failing her,he must depend on the stream of workmen,homeward bound,who always stopped at the Angel for a pint on their way home.