Adventures of Bindle

"I'm afraid I can't to-night, Millikins," replied Bindle. "I got a job on."

"Oh, Uncle Joe!" The disappointment in Millie's voice was too obvious to need the confirmation of the sudden downward droop of the corners of her pretty mouth. "You must come;" and Bindle saw a hint of tears in the moisture that gathered in her eyes.

He coughed and blew his nose vigorously before replying.

"You young love-birds won't miss me," he remarked rather lamely.

"But we shan't go unless you do," said Millie with an air of decision that was sweet to Bindle's ears, "and I've been so looking forward to it. Oh, Uncle Joe! can't you really manage it just to please meeee?"

Bindle looked into the pleading face turned eagerly towards him, at the parted lips ready to smile, or to pout their disappointment and, in a flash, he realised the blank in his own life.

"P'raps 'is Nibs might like to 'ave you all to 'imself for once," he suggested tentatively. "There ain't much chance with a gal for another cove when your Uncle Joe's about."

Millie laughed. "Why, it was Charlie who sent me to ask you, and to say if you couldn't come to-night we would put it off. Oh! do come, Uncle Joe. Charlie's going to take us to dinner at the Universal Café, and they've got a band, and, oh! it will be lovely just having you two."

"Well!" began Bindle, but discovering a slight huskiness in his voice he coughed again loudly. "Seem to 'ave caught cold," he muttered, then added, "Of course I might be able to put that job orf."

"But don't you want to come, Uncle Joe?" asked Millie, anxiety in her voice.

"Want to come!" repeated Bindle. "Of course I want to come; but, well, I wanted to be sure you wasn't jest askin' me because you thought it 'ud please your ole uncle," he concluded somewhat lamely.

"Oh, Uncle Joe!" cried Millie, "how could you think anything so dreadful. Why, wasn't it you who gave me Charlie?"

Bindle looked curiously at her. He was always discovering in his niece naïve little touches that betokened the dawn of womanhood.

"Ain't we becomin' a woman, Millikins!" he cried, whereat Millie blushed.

"Thank you so much for promising to come," she cried. "Seven o'clock at Putney Bridge Station. Don't be late, and don't forget," she cried and, with a nod and a smile, she was gone.

Bindle watched her neat little figure as she tripped away. At the corner she turned and waved her hand to him, then disappeared.

"Now I don't remember promisin' nothink," he muttered. "Ain't that jest Millikins all over, a-twistin' 'er pore ole uncle round 'er little finger. Fancy 'Earty 'avin' a gal like that." He turned in the direction of Fenton Street. "It's like an old 'en 'avin' a canary. Funny place 'eaven," he remarked, shaking his head dolefully. "They may make marriages there, but they make bloomers as well."

At five minutes to seven Bindle was at Putney Bridge Station.

"Makes me feel like five pound a week," he murmured, looking down at his well-cut blue suit, terminating in patent boots, the result of his historical visit to Lord Windover's tailor. "A pair o' yellow gloves and an 'ard 'at 'ud make a dook out of a drain-man. Ullo, general!" he cried as Sergeant Charles Dixon entered the station with a more than ever radiant Millie clinging to his arm.

"'Ere, steady now, young feller," cautioned Bindle as he hesitatingly extended his hand. "No pinchin'!"

Charlie Dixon laughed. The heartiness of his grip was notorious among his friends.

"I'm far too glad to see you to want to hurt you, Uncle Joe," he said.

"Uncle Joe!" exclaimed Bindle in surprise, "Uncle Joe!"

"I told him to, Uncle Joe," explained Millie. "You see," she added with a wise air of possession, "you belong to us both now."

"Wot-o!" remarked Bindle. "Goin'-goin' gone, an' cheap at 'alf the price. 'Ere, no you don't!" By a dexterous dive he anticipated Charlie Dixon's move towards the ticket-window. A moment later he returned with three white tickets.

"Oh, Uncle Joe!" cried Millie in awe, "you've booked first-class."

"We're a first-class party to-night, ain't we, Charlie?" was Bindle's only comment.

As the two lovers walked up the stairs leading to the up-platform, Bindle found it difficult to recognise in Sergeant Charles Dixon the youth Millie had introduced to him two years previously at the cinema.

"Wonder wot 'Earty thinks of 'im now?" muttered Bindle. "Filled out, 'e 'as. Wonderful wot the army can do for a feller," he continued, regretfully thinking of the "various veins" that had debarred him from the life of a soldier.

"Well, Millikins!" he cried, as they stood waiting for the train, "an' wot d'you think of 'is Nibs?"

"I think he's lovely, Uncle Joe!" said Millie, blushing and nestling closer to her lover.

"Not much chance for your ole uncle now, eh?" There was a note of simulated regret in Bindle's voice.

"Oh, Uncle Joe!" she cried, releasing Charlie Dixon's arm to clasp with both hands that of Bindle. "Oh, Uncle Joe!" There was entreaty in her look and distress in her voice. "You don't think that, do you, reeeeeally!"

Bindle's reassurances were interrupted by the arrival of the train. Millie became very silent, as if awed by the unaccustomed splendour of travelling in a first-class compartment with a first-class ticket. She had with her the two heroes of her Valhalla and, woman-like, she was content to worship in silence. As Bindle and Charlie Dixon discussed the war, she glanced from one to the other, then with a slight contraction of her eyes, she sighed her happiness.

To Millie Hearty the world that evening had become transformed into a place of roses and of honey. If life held a thorn, she was not conscious of it. For her there was no yesterday, and there would be no to-morrow.

"My! ain't we a little mouse!" cried Bindle as they passed down the moving-stairway at Earl's Court.

"Oh, Uncle Joe, I'm so happy!" she cried, giving his arm that affectionate squeeze with both her hands that never failed to thrill him. "Please go on talking to Charlie; I love to hear you – and think."

"Now I wonder wot she's thinkin' about?" Bindle muttered. "Right-o, Millikins!" he said aloud. "You got two young men to-night, an' you needn't be afraid of 'em scrappin'."

As they entered the Universal Café, with its brilliant lights and gaily chattering groups of diners Millie caught her breath. To her it seemed a Nirvana. Brought up in the narrow circle of Mr. Hearty's theological limitations, she saw in the long dining-room a gilded-palace of sin against which Mr. Hearty pronounced his anathemas. As they stood waiting for a vacant table, she gazed about her eagerly. How wonderful it would be to eat whilst a band was playing – and playing such music! It made her want to dance.

Many glances of admiration were cast at the young girl who, with flushed cheeks and parted lips, was drinking in a scene which, to them, was as familiar as their own finger-nails.

When at last a table was obtained, due to the zeal of a susceptible young superintendent, and she heard Charlie Dixon order the three-and-sixpenny dinner for all, she seemed to have reached the pinnacle of wonder; but when Charlie Dixon demanded the wine-list and ordered a bottle of "Number 68," the pinnacle broke into a thousand scintillating flashes of light.

She was ignorant of the fact that Charlie was as blissfully unaware as she of what "Number 68" was, and that he was praying fervently that it would prove to be something drinkable. Some wines were abominably sour.

"I've ordered the dinner; I suppose that'll do," he remarked with a man-of-the-world air.

Millie smiled her acquiescence. Bindle, not to be outdone in savoir-faire, picked up the menu and regarded it with wrinkled brow.

"Well, Charlie," he remarked at length, "it's beyond me. I s'pose it's all right; but it might be the German for cat an' dog for all I know. I 'opes," he added anxiously, "there ain't none o' them long white sticks with green tops, wot's always tryin' to kiss their tails. Them things does me."

"Asparagus," cried Millie, proud of her knowledge, "I love it."

"I ain't nothink against it," said Bindle, recalling his experience at Oxford, "if they didn't expect you to suck it like a sugar stick. You wants a mouth as big as a dustbin, if you're a-goin' to catch the end."

When the wine arrived Charlie Dixon breathed a sigh of relief, as he recognised in its foam and amber an old friend with which he had become acquainted in France.

"Oh! what is it?" cried Millie, clasping her hands in excitement.

"Champagne!" said Charlie Dixon.