Ben on the Job

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Misbehaviour of Two Thumbs (#uddba87fc-3466-5a18-9ee7-58240c72f4cc)

When Ben had got up that morning—getting up with Ben was mainly the process of changing from a prone to an erect position and peering into a mirror, if there happened to be one, to work out whether he’d washed last week or the week before—he had been quite sure that something would happen to him before the time came to lie down again. He knew it by the infallible sign of itching thumbs.

Whenever his thumbs itched, something ’orrible always happened. His thumbs had itched on that never-to-be-forgotten foggy afternoon when he had stumbled into a house numbered ‘Seventeen’, to die a hundred deaths before he stumbled out again. They had itched before he had advised a bloke leaning over a low stone parapet not to jump into the Thames—‘I wouldn’t, mate, if I was you,’ he’d said, ‘it looks narsty!’—to discover that the bloke was already dead. They had itched before a peculiarly unpleasant meeting with an Indian. Ben ’ated Injuns. They had itched before a shipwreck that had hurled him into a situation so completely and fantastically impossible that he still didn’t believe it.

And now, here they were, itching again! Lummy, what was it going to be this time?

Well, there was nothing to do but to wait and see. What was was, what is is, and what will be will be, for once. Fate puts the spotlight on you there’s no slipping out of it. And so, resigned but alert, Ben paused at a morning coffee stall to fortify himself for whatever lay ahead.

‘Mornin’, guv’nor,’ he said, ‘wot’s the noos terday? ’Ave they started the Fif’ World War yet?’

‘Wouldn’t surprise me,’ grinned the stall-keeper.

‘Nor me neither,’ answered Ben, ‘but let’s ’ope they stop at ’arf a dozen. Cup o’ corfee.’

‘Did you pay for the last?’ inquired the stall-keeper good-naturedly.

‘On’y by mistike.’

The stall-keeper laughed as he pushed a thick cup across. Ben took a cautious sip.

‘What’s the matter? Think it’s poisoned?’

‘Well, there’s no ’arm in bein’ careful,’ returned Ben. ‘See, this ain’t goin’ ter be my lucky day. Coo, call this corfee? Am I s’posed ter fork aht threepence fer this?’

‘Not if you can give me a tip for the two-thirty?’

‘Saucy Sossidge.’

‘That’s a new one on me.’

‘Go on, wot higgerence! I’m ridin’ it meself!’

Warmed by the coffee—warmed but not ruined, for the stall-keeper said he had had three penn’orth of fun and allowed his comic customer to depart with his last shilling intact—Ben shuffled off to face the day, and the morning passed, most surprisingly, without any shocks. It was indeed a remarkably successful morning, for it produced seven fag-ends, one almost half its original length, and twopence for helping a nervous old lady across the road.

At one o’clock he partially filled a neglected void with two substantial sandwiches. They were so substantial that you couldn’t taste what was inside them. Thinking it might be a good idea to find out, Ben opened one to see, but as he found nothing he supposed he had opened it in the wrong place. Nevertheless, they did their job, and half an hour on an Embankment seat put him right again.

He might have stayed longer on the seat, for Ben liked sitting down, it was comfortable, if an old man with fuzzy white hair had not suddenly darted towards him and sat down by his side. The old man was breathing heavily, and his tongue kept shooting out to moisten his lips. ‘If this is It,’ thought Ben, ‘I ain’t stoppin’!’ And he got up and departed.

To his considerable relief, and even more considerable surprise, the old man did not get up and follow him. False alarm! This was not It!

‘I wunner if me thumbs was wrong this time?’ reflected Ben, as he resumed his way to nowhere. The day was passing too smoothly to believe. ‘Arter orl, I expeck yer can get a nitch wot’s jest a nitch, even in yer thumbs?’

There was yet another theory that might explain his strange immunity. Perhaps Fate could be dodged if you were nippy enough? Suppose, for instance, that nasty old man, and he was nasty, the way his tongue was working overtime—suppose Fate had sent him along, but Ben had beaten Fate on the post? With sudden hope Ben grinned. ‘That’s wot it is!’ he decided. ‘I’ve given Faite the KO!’

Before long, however, he found his self-faith weakening. Here came the mist! That was a second sign of trouble. In rather surprising obedience to a weather forecast, a thin, depressing mist began to weave through the streets; and half Ben’s woes took place in fog. He had even been born in one, birth being the initial woe that preceded all the rest. A fog in the street and an itch on the thumb formed a combination to kill all hope.

A minor drawback of foggy weather was that it made fag-ends harder to find. In order not to miss them you had to keep your nose well down, which often made you bump into people …

And then Ben did bump into someone. Or someone bumped into him. He couldn’t say which. All he knew was that he suddenly found himself sitting on the pavement.

‘Oi!’ he bleated.

The man with whom he had collided was also on the pavement, but he was up again before Ben had begun to think about it. ‘Tork abart bounce!’ thought Ben. ‘’E must be mide o’rubber!’

There was no time to find out whether he was indeed made of rubber, because the next instant the man was gone.

‘Corse, don’t say “Beg pardon,” or “Are yer ’urt?” or anythink like that! Jest buzz orf, like I didn’t matter!’

Still sitting on the ground, Ben gazed indignantly after the vanished man. Then all at once his emotion changed from indignation to anxiety, as the unmistakable form of a policeman materialised out of the fog.

Was this going to be It?

‘Hallo, hallo!’ said the policeman.

‘Sime ter you,’ replied Ben.

‘Had a tumble?’

‘No, I jest thort I’d sit dahn in the sunshine.’

‘Oh! Well, how about finding a seat somewhere else where you won’t be in people’s way?’

‘’Ow abart you givin’ me a ’and hup first, and then findin’ me one?’

The constable stooped and helped Ben to rise, and then stood watching while Ben groped about himself for bruises. You did it by pressing various parts of your anatomy to see whether any of them hurt.

‘Feeling all right?’ inquired the constable.

He seemed friendly enough. Perhaps, after all, this was not going to be It? That might or might not be an advantage, because after you’d screwed yourself up to it like, there was something in getting it over.

‘Dunno,’ answered Ben.

‘Well, no one else can tell you.’

‘I feels a bit groggy. Things is goin’ rahnd like.’

‘Then hold on to me until they stop going round like. You’ll be all right if you just take it easy, sonny.’ Funny how policemen seemed to like calling him sonny when he was often old enough to be their great-grandfather! This ’un didn’t look more’n twenty. P’r’aps it was because they was generally big and he was only a little ’un? ‘You haven’t told me yet how it happened?’

‘Eh?’

‘Did you slip?’

‘No. Bloke bumps inter me.’