Tommy and Co.

“If I wasn’t wanting to see ’im,” remarked to herself Mrs. Postwhistle, who was knitting with one eye upon the shop, “’e’d a been ’ere ’fore I’d ’ad time to clear the dinner things away; certain to ’ave been. It’s a strange world.”

Mrs. Postwhistle was desirous for the arrival of a gentleman not usually awaited with impatience by the ladies of Rolls Court – to wit, one William Clodd, rent-collector, whose day for St. Dunstan-in-the-West was Tuesday.

“At last,” said Mrs. Postwhistle, though without hope that Mr. Clodd, who had just appeared at the other end of the court, could possibly hear her. “Was beginning to be afraid as you’d tumbled over yerself in your ’urry and ’urt yerself.”

Mr. Clodd, perceiving Mrs. Postwhistle, decided to abandon method and take No. 7 first.

Mr. Clodd was a short, thick-set, bullet-headed young man, with ways that were bustling, and eyes that, though kind, suggested trickiness.

“Ah!” said Mr. Clodd admiringly, as he pocketed the six half-crowns that the lady handed up to him. “If only they were all like you, Mrs. Postwhistle!”

“Wouldn’t be no need of chaps like you to worry ’em,” pointed out Mrs. Postwhistle.

“It’s an irony of fate, my being a rent-collector, when you come to think of it,” remarked Mr. Clodd, writing out the receipt. “If I had my way, I’d put an end to landlordism, root and branch. Curse of the country.”

“Just the very thing I wanted to talk to you about,” returned the lady – “that lodger o’ mine.”

“Ah! don’t pay, don’t he? You just hand him over to me. I’ll soon have it out of him.”

“It’s not that,” explained Mrs. Postwhistle. “If a Saturday morning ’appened to come round as ’e didn’t pay up without me asking, I should know I’d made a mistake – that it must be Friday. If I don’t ’appen to be in at ’alf-past ten, ’e puts it in an envelope and leaves it on the table.”

“Wonder if his mother has got any more like him?” mused Mr. Clodd. “Could do with a few about this neighbourhood. What is it you want to say about him, then? Merely to brag about him?”

“I wanted to ask you,” continued Mrs. Postwhistle, “’ow I could get rid of ’im. It was rather a curious agreement.”

“Why do you want to get rid of him? Too noisy?”

“Noisy! Why, the cat makes more noise about the ’ouse than ’e does. ’E’d make ’is fortune as a burglar.”

“Come home late?”

“Never known ’im out after the shutters are up.”

“Gives you too much trouble then?”

“I can’t say that of ’im. Never know whether ’e’s in the ’ouse or isn’t, without going upstairs and knocking at the door.”

“Here, you tell it your own way,” suggested the bewildered Clodd. “If it was anyone else but you, I should say you didn’t know your own business.”

“’E gets on my nerves,” said Mrs. Postwhistle. “You ain’t in a ’urry for five minutes?”

Mr. Clodd was always in a hurry. “But I can forget it talking to you,” added the gallant Mr. Clodd.

Mrs. Postwhistle led the way into the little parlour.

“Just the name of it,” consented Mr. Clodd. “Cheerfulness combined with temperance; that’s the ideal.”

“I’ll tell you what ’appened only last night,” commenced Mrs. Postwhistle, seating herself the opposite side of the loo-table. “A letter came for ’im by the seven o’clock post. I’d seen ’im go out two hours before, and though I’d been sitting in the shop the whole blessed time, I never saw or ’eard ’im pass through. E’s like that. It’s like ’aving a ghost for a lodger. I opened ’is door without knocking and went in. If you’ll believe me, ’e was clinging with ’is arms and legs to the top of the bedstead – it’s one of those old-fashioned, four-post things – ’is ’ead touching the ceiling. ’E ’adn’t got too much clothes on, and was cracking nuts with ’is teeth and eating ’em. ’E threw a ’andful of shells at me, and making the most awful faces at me, started off gibbering softly to himself.”

“All play, I suppose? No real vice?” commented the interested Mr. Clodd.

“It will go on for a week, that will,” continued Mrs. Postwhistle – “’e fancying ’imself a monkey. Last week he was a tortoise, and was crawling about on his stomach with a tea-tray tied on to ’is back. ’E’s as sensible as most men, if that’s saying much, the moment ’e’s outside the front door; but in the ’ouse – well, I suppose the fact is that ’e’s a lunatic.”

“Don’t seem no hiding anything from you,” Mrs. Postwhistle remarked Mr. Clodd in tones of admiration. “Does he ever get violent?”

“Don’t know what ’e would be like if ’e ’appened to fancy ’imself something really dangerous,” answered Mrs. Postwhistle. “I am a bit nervous of this new monkey game, I don’t mind confessing to you – the things that they do according to the picture-books. Up to now, except for imagining ’imself a mole, and taking all his meals underneath the carpet, it’s been mostly birds and cats and ’armless sort o’ things I ’aven’t seemed to mind so much.”

“How did you get hold of him?” demanded Mr. Clodd. “Have much trouble in finding him, or did somebody come and tell you about him?”

“Old Gladman, of Chancery Lane, the law stationer, brought ’im ’ere one evening about two months ago – said ’e was a sort of distant relative of ’is, a bit soft in the ’ead, but perfectly ’armless – wanted to put ’im with someone who wouldn’t impose on ’im. Well, what between ’aving been empty for over five weeks, the poor old gaby ’imself looking as gentle as a lamb, and the figure being reasonable, I rather jumped at the idea; and old Gladman, explaining as ’ow ’e wanted the thing settled and done with, got me to sign a letter.”

“Kept a copy of it?” asked the business-like Clodd.

“No. But I can remember what it was. Gladman ’ad it all ready. So long as the money was paid punctual and ’e didn’t make no disturbance and didn’t fall sick, I was to go on boarding and lodging ’im for seventeen-and-sixpence a week. It didn’t strike me as anything to be objected to at the time; but ’e payin’ regular, as I’ve explained to you, and be’aving, so far as disturbance is concerned, more like a Christian martyr than a man, well, it looks to me as if I’d got to live and die with ’im.”

“Give him rope, and possibly he’ll have a week at being a howling hyæna, or a laughing jackass, or something of that sort that will lead to a disturbance,” thought Mr. Clodd, “in which case, of course, you would have your remedy.”

“Yes,” thought Mrs. Postwhistle, “and possibly also ’e may take it into what ’e calls is ’ead to be a tiger or a bull, and then perhaps before ’e’s through with it I’ll be beyond the reach of remedies.”

“Leave it to me,” said Mr. Clodd, rising and searching for his hat. “I know old Gladman; I’ll have a talk with him.”

“You might get a look at that letter if you can,” suggested Mrs. Postwhistle, “and tell me what you think about it. I don’t want to spend the rest of my days in a lunatic asylum of my own if I can ’elp it.”

“You leave it to me,” was Mr. Clodd’s parting assurance.

The July moon had thrown a silver veil over the grimness of Rolls Court when, five hours later, Mr. Clodd’s nailed boots echoed again upon its uneven pavement; but Mr. Clodd had no eye for moon or stars or such-like; always he had things more important to think of.

“Seen the old ’umbug?” asked Mrs. Postwhistle, who was partial to the air, leading the way into the parlour.

“First and foremost commenced,” Mr. Clodd, as he laid aside his hat, “it is quite understood that you really do want to get rid of him? What’s that?” demanded Mr. Clodd, a heavy thud upon the floor above having caused him to start out of his chair.

“’E came in an hour after you’d gone,” explained Mrs. Postwhistle, “bringing with him a curtain pole as ’e’d picked up for a shilling in Clare Market. ’E’s rested one end upon the mantelpiece and tied the other to the back of the easy-chair – ’is idea is to twine ’imself round it and go to sleep upon it. Yes, you’ve got it quite right without a single blunder. I do want to get rid of ’im.”

“Then,” said Mr. Clodd, reseating himself, “it can be done.”

“Thank God for that!” was Mrs. Postwhistle’s pious ejaculation.

“It is just as I thought,” continued Mr. Clodd. “The old innocent – he’s Gladman’s brother-in-law, by the way – has got a small annuity. I couldn’t get the actual figure, but I guess it’s about sufficient to pay for his keep and leave old Gladman, who is running him, a very decent profit. They don’t want to send him to an asylum. They can’t say he’s a pauper, and to put him into a private establishment would swallow up, most likely, the whole of his income. On the other hand, they don’t want the bother of looking after him themselves. I talked pretty straight to the old man – let him see I understood the business; and – well, to cut a long story short, I’m willing to take on the job, provided you really want to have done with it, and Gladman is willing in that case to let you off your contract.”

Mrs. Postwhistle went to the cupboard to get Mr. Clodd a drink. Another thud upon the floor above – one suggestive of exceptional velocity – arrived at the precise moment when Mrs. Postwhistle, the tumbler level with her eye, was in the act of measuring.

“I call this making a disturbance,” said Mrs. Postwhistle, regarding the broken fragments.

“It’s only for another night,” comforted her Mr. Clodd. “I’ll take him away some time to-morrow. Meanwhile, if I were you, I should spread a mattress underneath that perch of his before I went to bed. I should like him handed over to me in reasonable repair.”

“It will deaden the sound a bit, any’ow,” agreed Mrs. Postwhistle.

“Success to temperance,” drank Mr. Clodd, and rose to go.