Not George Washington/Part Two/Chapter 10

(James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued)

Hatton's Club boys took kindly to my course of instruction. For a couple of months, indeed, it seemed that another golden age of the noble art was approaching, and that the rejuvenation of boxing would occur, beginning at Carnation Hall, Lambeth.

Then the thing collapsed like a punctured tyre.

At first, of course, they fought a little shy. But when I had them up in line, and had shown them what a large proportion of an eight-ounce glove is padding, they grew more at ease. To be asked suddenly to fight three rounds with one of your friends before an audience, also of your friends, is embarrassing. One feels hot and uncomfortable. Hatton's boys jibbed nervously. As a preliminary measure, therefore, I drilled them in a class at foot-work and the left lead. They found the exercise exhilarating. If this was the idea, they seemed to say, let the thing go on. Then I showed them how to be highly scientific with a punch ball. Finally, I sparred lightly with them myself.

In the rough they were impossible boxers. After their initial distrust had evaporated under my gentle handling of them, they forgot all I had taught them about position and guards. They bored in, heads down and arms going like semicircular pistons. Once or twice I had to stop them. They were easily steadied. They hastened to adopt a certain snakiness of attack instead of the frontal method which had left them so exposed. They began to cultivate a kind of negative style. They were tremendously impressed by the superiority of science over strength.

I am not sure that I did not harp rather too much on the scientific note. Perhaps if I had referred to it less, the ultimate disaster would not have been quite so appalling. On the other hand, I had not the slightest suspicion that they would so exaggerate my meaning when I was remarking on the worth of science, how it "tells," and how it causes the meagre stripling to play fast and loose with huge, brawny ruffians—no cowards, mark you—and hairy as to their chests.

But the weeds at Hatton's Club were fascinated by my homilies on science. The simplicity of the thing appealed to them irresistibly. They caught at the expression, "Science," and regarded it as the "Hey Presto!" of a friendly conjurer who could so arrange matters for them that powerful opponents would fall flat, involuntarily, at the sight of their technically correct attitude.

I did not like to destroy their illusions. Had I said to them, "Look here, science is no practical use to you unless you've got low-bridged, snub noses, protruding temples, nostrils like the tubes of a vacuum-cleaner, stomach muscles like motor-car wheels, hands like legs of mutton, and biceps like transatlantic cables"—had I said that, they would have voted boxing a fraud, and gone away to quarrel over a game of backgammon, which was precisely what I wished to avoid.

So I let them go on with their tapping and feinting and side-slipping.

To make it worse they overheard Sidney Price trying to pay me a compliment. Price was the insurance clerk who had attached himself to Hatton and had proved himself to be of real service in many ways. He was an honest man, but he could not box. He came down to the hall one night after I had given four or five lessons, to watch the boys spar. Of course, to the uninitiated eye it did seem as though they were neat in their work. The sight was very different from the absurd exhibition which Price had seen on the night I started with them. He might easily have said, if he was determined to compliment me, that they had "improved," "progressed," or something equally adequate and innocuous. But no. The man must needs be effusive, positively gushing. He came to me in transports. "Wonderful!" he said. "Wonderful!"

"What's wonderful?" I said, a shade irritably.

"Their style," he said loudly, so that they could all hear, "their style. It's their style that astonishes me."

I hustled him away as soon as I could, but the mischief was done.

Style ran through Hatton's Club boys like an epidemic. Carnation Hall fairly buzzed with style. An apology for a blow which landed on your chest with the delicacy of an Agag among butterflies was extolled to the skies because it was a stylish blow. When Alf Joblin, a recruit, sent Walter Greenway sprawling with a random swing on the mark, there was a pained shudder. Not only Walter Greenway, but the whole club explained to Alf that the swing was a bad swing, an awful violation of style, practically a crime. By the time they had finished explaining, Alf was dazed; and when invited by Walter to repeat the hit with a view to his being further impressed with its want of style, did so in such half-hearted fashion that Walter had time to step stylishly aside and show Alf how futile it is to be unscientific.

To the club this episode was decently buried in an unremembered past. To me, however, it was significant, though I did not imagine it would ever have the tremendous sequel which was brought about by the coming of Thomas Blake.

Fate never planned a coup so successfully. The psychology of Blake's arrival was perfect. The boxers of Carnation Hall had worked themselves into a mental condition which I knew was as ridiculous as it was dangerous. Their conceit and their imagination transformed the hall into a kind of improved National Sporting Club. They went about with an air of subdued but tremendous athleticism. They affected a sort of self-conscious nonchalance. They adopted an odiously patronising attitude towards the once popular game of backgammon. I daresay that picture is not yet forgotten where a British general, a man of blood and iron, is portrayed as playing with a baby, to the utter neglect of a table full of important military dispatches. Well, the club boys, to a boy, posed as generals of blood and iron when they condescended to play backgammon. They did it, but they let you see that they did not regard it as one of the serious things of life.

Also, knowing that each other's hitting was so scientific as to be harmless, they would sometimes deliberately put their eye in front of their opponent's stylish left, in the hope that the blow would raise a bruise. It hardly ever did. But occasionally——! Oh, then you should have seen the hero-with-the-quiet-smile look on their faces as they lounged ostentatiously about the place. In a word, they were above themselves. They sighed for fresh worlds to conquer. And Thomas Blake supplied the long-felt want.

Personally, I did not see his actual arrival. I only saw his handiwork after he had been a visitor awhile within the hall. But, to avoid unnecessary verbiage and to avail myself of the privilege of an author, I will set down, from the evidence of witnesses, the main points of the episode as though I myself had been present at his entrance.

He did not strike them, I am informed, as a particularly big man. He was a shade under average height. His shoulders seemed to them not so much broad as "humpy." He rolled straight in from the street on a wet Saturday night at ten minutes to nine, asking for "free tea."

I should mention that on certain Fridays Hatton gave a free meal to his parishioners on the understanding that it was rigidly connected with a Short Address. The preceding Friday had been such an occasion. The placards announcing the tea were still clinging to the outer railings of the hall.

When I said that Blake asked for free tea, I should have said, shouted for free tea. He cast one decisive glance at Hatton's placards, and rolled up. He shot into the gate, up the steps, down the passage, and through the door leading into the big corrugated-iron hall which I used for my lessons. And all the time he kept shouting for free tea.

In the hall the members of my class were collected. Some were changing their clothes; others, already changed, were tapping the punch-ball. They knew that I always came punctually at nine o'clock, and they liked to be ready for me. Amongst those present was Sidney Price.

Thomas Blake brought up short, hiccuping, in the midst of them. "Gimme that free tea!" he said.

Sidney Price, whose moral fortitude has never been impeached, was the first to handle the situation.

"My good man," he said, "I am sorry to say you have made a mistake."

"A mistake!" said Thomas, quickly taking him up. "A mistake! Oh! What oh! My errer?"

"Quite so," said Price, diplomatically; "an error."

Thomas Blake sat down on the floor, fumbled for a short pipe, and said, "Seems ter me I'm sick of errers. Sick of 'em! Made a bloomer this mornin'—this way." Here he took into his confidence the group which had gathered uncertainly round him. "My wife's brother, 'im wot's a postman, owes me arf a bloomin' thick 'un. 'E's a hard-working bloke, and ter save 'im trouble I came down 'ere from Brentford, where my boat lies, to catch 'im on 'is rounds. Lot of catchin' 'e wanted, too—I don't think. Tracked 'im by the knocks at last. And then, wot d'yer think 'e said? Didn't know nothing about no ruddy 'arf thick 'un, and would I kindly cease to impede a public servant in the discharge of 'is dooty. Otherwise—the perlice. That, mind you, was my own brother-in-law. Oh, he's a nice man, I don't think!"

Thomas Blake nodded his head as one who, though pained by the hollowness of life, is resigned to it, and proceeded to doze.

The crowd gazed at him and murmured.

Sidney Price, however, stepped forward with authority.

"You'd better be going," he said; and he gently jogged the recumbent boatman's elbow.

"Leave me be! I want my tea," was the muttered and lyrical reply.

"Hook it!" said Price.

"Without my tea?" asked Blake, opening his eyes wide.

"It was yesterday," explained Price, brusquely. "There isn't any free tea tonight."

The effect was magical. A very sinister expression came over the face of the prostrate one, and he slowly clambered to his feet.

"Ho!" he said, disengaging himself from his coat. "Ho. There ain't no free tea ternight, ain't there? Bills stuck on them railings in errer, I suppose. Another bloomin' errer. Seems to me I'm sick of errers. Wot I says is, 'Come on, all of yer.' I'm Tom Blake, I am. You can arst them down at Brentford. Kind old Tom Blake, wot wouldn't hurt a fly; and I says, 'Come on, all of yer,' and I'll knock yer insides through yer backbones."

Sidney Price spoke again. His words were honeyed, but ineffectual.

"I'm honest old Tom, I am," boomed Thomas Blake, "and I'm ready for the lot of yer: you and yer free tea and yer errers."

At this point Alf Joblin detached himself from the hovering crowd and said to Price: "He must be cowed. I'll knock sense into the drunken brute."

"Well," said Price, "he's got to go; but you won't hurt him, Alf, will you?"

"No," said Alf, "I won't hurt him. I'll just make him look a fool. This is where science comes in."

"I'm honest old Tom," droned the boatman.

"If you will have it," said Alf, with fine aposiopesis.

He squared up to him.

Now Alf Joblin, like the other pugilists of my class, habitually refrained from delivering any sort of attack until he was well assured that he had seen an orthodox opening. A large part of every round between Hatton's boys was devoted to stealthy circular movements, signifying nothing. But Thomas Blake had not had the advantage of scientific tuition. He came banging in with a sweeping right. Alf stopped him with his left. Again Blake swung his right, and again he took Alf's stopping blow without a blink. Then he went straight in, right and left in quick succession. The force of the right was broken by Alf's guard, but the left got home on the mark; and Alf Joblin's wind left him suddenly. He sat down on the floor.

To say that this tragedy in less than five seconds produced dismay among the onlookers would be incorrect. They were not dismayed. They were amused. They thought that Alf had laid himself open to chaff. Whether he had slipped or lost his head they did not know. But as for thinking that Alf with all his scientific knowledge was not more than a match for this ignorant, intoxicated boatman, such a reflection never entered their heads. What is more, each separate member of the audience was convinced that he individually was the proper person to illustrate the efficacy of style versus untutored savagery.

As soon, therefore, as Alf Joblin went writhing to the floor, and Thomas Blake's voice was raised afresh in a universal challenge, Walter Greenway stepped briskly forward.

And as soon as Walter's guard had been smashed down by a most unconventional attack, and Walter himself had been knocked senseless by a swing on the side of the jaw, Bill Shale leaped gaily forth to take his place.

And so it happened that, when I entered the building at nine, it was as though a devastating tornado had swept down every club boy, sparing only Sidney Price, who was preparing miserably to meet his fate.

To me, standing in the doorway, the situation was plain at the first glance. Only by a big effort could I prevent myself laughing outright. It was impossible to check a grin. Thomas Blake saw me.

"Hullo!" I said; "what's all this?"

He stared at me.

"'Ullo!" he said, "another of 'em, is it? I'm honest old Tom Blake, I am, and wot I say is——"

"Why honest, Mr. Blake?" I interrupted.

"Call me a liar, then!" said he. "Go on. You do it. Call it me, then, and let's see."

He began to shuffle towards me.

"Who pinched his father's trousers, and popped them?" I inquired genially.

He stopped and blinked.

"Eh?" he said weakly.

"And who," I continued, "when sent with twopence to buy postage-stamps, squandered it on beer?"

His jaw dropped, as it had dropped in Covent Garden. It must be very unpleasant to have one's past continually rising up to confront one.

"Look 'ere!" he said, a conciliatory note in his voice, "you and me's pals, mister, ain't we? Say we're pals. Of course we are. You and me don't want no fuss. Of course we don't. Then look here: this is 'ow it is. You come along with me and 'ave a drop."

It did not seem likely that my class would require any instruction in boxing that evening in addition to that which Mr. Blake had given them, so I went with him.

Over the moisture, as he facetiously described it, he grew friendliness itself. He did not ask after Kit, but gave his opinion of her gratuitously. According to him, she was unkind to her relations. "Crool 'arsh," he said. A girl, in fact, who made no allowances for a man, and was over-prone to Sauce and the Nasty Snack.

We parted the best of friends.

"Any time you're on the Cut," he said, gripping my hand with painful fervour, "you look out for Tom Blake, mister. Tom Blake of the Ashlade and Lechton. No ceremony. Jest drop in on me and the missis. Goo' night."

At the moment of writing Tom Blake is rapidly acquiring an assured position in the heart of the British poetry-loving public. This incident in his career should interest his numerous admirers. The world knows little of its greatest men.