Under One Flag

Pulling alongside, I took off my cap.

"Pardon me, madam, but since your natural protectors appear to have deserted you, might I hope to enjoy the extreme felicity of your presence in my boat?"

She stared at me, askance.

"Who would yer think ye're talking to?"

"You, my dear madam. Do me the pleasure of sharing my craft."

She smiled bewitchingly.

"I don't mind if I do. It'll just about serve 'em right, the-!"

Then she used words. And she hopped into my boat and I thought that we were over. But there is a providence which watches over us, so we only shipped about a bucketful. I began to row her over the sunlit ripples, and made conversation as we went.

"Your friends appear to have had a little difference of opinion."

"Couple of bloomin' fools, that's what I call 'em, straight! Tom 'e says Joe splashes 'im, then 'e splashes Joe, then Joe splashes 'im, then they gets to words, then they wants to fight it out in the middle of the river. Nice I should 'ave looked if I'd a let 'em!"

"You would."

"What do you think? silly softs! No, what I says is if two blokes wants to fight, let 'em do it on dry land, or else let 'em put me on dry land before they does it in a boat."

"Your sentiments do you credit."

"All I 'opes is they'll give theirselves a fair old doin'. I'd like to see 'em knock the stuffin' clean out of theirselves, straight, I would."

"So should I. They appear, however, to have decided not to. They seem to have had their attention diverted by the discovery that you are missing."

My impression was, and is, that they had been made acquainted of my abduction of the lady by persistent shouts of interfering friends upon the river. They left off fighting, and, instead, took to running along the bank and yelling at us.

"Eliza, what are you doing in there? Come out of it!"

This question and command, shouted by the shorter of the two, a sandy-haired young ruffian, with a voice like a brass trumpet, seemed, under the circumstances, to be singularly out of place. The observations of his companion were more to the point.

"All right, guv'nor, you wait a bit! you wait till I get a 'old on yer! If I don't play a toon on yer, I'll give yer leave to call me names!"

The lady comforted me.

"Don't you mind what they say."

"I don't."

But presently someone came upon the scene whose remarks I decided to mind, in a way. An unwieldy tub bore down upon us, containing perhaps twelve or fourteen people. A stalwart young fellow, standing up in the bow, addressed himself to me.

"Excuse me, guv'nor, but might I ask what you're doin' along of that young lady?"

"Pardon me, sir, in my turn, but might I inquire what business that is of yours?"

"I don't want none of your sauce! Just you tell me what's your little game."

This struck me as being tolerably cool, sauce being evidently at least as much in his line as in mine.

"My little game, sir, is a saunter on the stream. Good-bye."

And with that I pulled away. The stranger became almost inarticulate with rage.

"Set me alongside of 'im! put me aboard of 'im! I'll knock 'is somethinged 'ead off 'is somethinged shoulders!"

His friends yelled in chorus. One shouted question caught my ear.

"What are you doing along of the bloke's wife?"

I looked at my companion.

"Is it possible that the gentleman is your husband?"

"Course 'e is. You put me into the boat 'long with 'im right away! Tom and Joe, they're friends of 'is, but you ain't no friend of 'is, nor yet of mine. I don't want to get into no trouble along o' you! Do you 'ear what I tell you, put me into 'is boat!"

"With the greatest possible pleasure."

But the thing was not so easy. The whole dozen were screaming at once, and, judging by the threats they used, it seemed tolerably plain that if I brought my craft within reach of theirs an attempt would be made to board me, and there would be every probability of an awkward spill. So, deeming discretion to be the better part of valour, I made for the Surrey shore, intending to there land my passenger and restore her to a-I trusted-fond, though excited, husband's arms. My intentions, however, were misconstrued; they supposed I was running away, proposing to save my skin from a drubbing instead of the lady's from a ducking, so they started hotly in pursuit, their shouts redoubling. What was worse, the lady thought so too, and commenced to give me a side of her tongue which I trust, for his sake, it was her wont to spare her husband.

I never was better abused; the bawling crew behind were good at the game, but the ungrateful virago I had snipped was easily first. I grew a trifle warm. If I was to be slanged I would be slanged for something. I decided to give the husband a chase and the wife a little excursion. It would have been easy enough to have shown a lead to the pursuing tub until the end of time. I bent to the oars and let her have it. You should have heard the hubbub. They saw that if I played that trick they would never catch me, and how they raved! The joke was that my lady passenger raved with the best of them-and her adjectives!

"Something, something, something you! If you don't put me into my husband's somethinged boat, I'll spill the somethinged show!"

"Spill it."

For a moment I thought she would. Then she hesitated, reflected that she not improbably might be left to drown, and didn't.

"I'll mark your face for you!" she screamed.

"If you move from your seat, my dear madam, I'll upset the show."

"Do!" she yelled. Then, as an afterthought, "'Elp! murder! police! 'E's a-goin' to drown me!"

It seemed absurd to exhaust oneself for the sake of giving a pleasant trip to a lady who would persist in shouting for the police in a voice loud enough to be heard a mile away, especially as people on the Twickenham shore evinced signs of misconstruing the situation. I resolved, by way of vengeance, to concede what she wanted, and let the pursuers catch us.

"My dear madam, as I have already informed you, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to put you on board your husband's boat-I will prove it."

Precisely what I expected happened. The lumbering tub came up. The husband, with half a dozen of his friends, tried to board us. The frail skiff careened. There was the crowd of us, including, thank goodness! the lady passenger, in the stream. I had taken the precaution to draw close into shore before staying my wild career, foreseeing the inevitable catastrophe, so that it was only an affair of wading, yet I do believe that I was the only one who really enjoyed the thing. I doubt if the lady did. She swooned, or pretended to, directly she reached dry land. As for her friends, the whole gallant gang would have set on to me at once. But I will do her husband the justice to admit that he was a man. He claimed the affair as his own, and he insisted on taking it on as his own, and he took me on with it.

I had wanted a row royal and I had got it. Beanfeasting had not knocked the fighting qualities out of him. If he was not a professional pugilist he was a near relation. I can use them a bit, but he gave me as good as I sent, and a trifle better. It was the difference between the amateur and the professional; at his own game the tradesman always wins. If we had fought to a finish I should have had enough, but we didn't. A policeman came across the stream and stopped us. I had escaped a black eye, but that was about all I had escaped. I had landed a few, but they had been returned with interest. Twice had I been fairly grassed, once with a tingler under the chin. I felt for a moment as if I had swallowed every tooth in my head. I had the devout satisfaction of knowing that my nervous system had received just that fillip which it stood in need of.

"I'll have a lesson or two," I told myself, "from someone who can kill me at sight, and the next time I meet my lady passenger's husband I will do the grassing."

There's nothing like argument a priori for clearing the air or cobwebs from the brain. Do not talk to me of arbitration. I am a physical force man. I returned to town feeling twice the man I left it.