Page
THE CHINA MAIL FRIDAY SUPPLEMENT, OCTOBER 4, 1940.
►SHORT STORYO
A Lucifo Match by Arthur Morrison
PERSONS with a choice of sev-, new idea of the shopkeeper's, eral names are not common Johnson considered pockets ac- outside the peerage; but some of cording to Ideas of his own; hav- then-wholly unconnected with ing a natural human preference any pefer-are to be discovered for the easiest pocket in the most in London crowds, though discov sumptuous habiliment. ery is not what they are there He felt himself much drawn to- Lor.
Crowds, in fact, attract ward a man in an immensikoff" them, from the circumstance that a fur-lined overcoat--which was whatever the number of individ-quite the most magnificent gar- uals in a crowd, there are surement in the crotyd.
..
the
viction under the name Johkin- san-ch?"
-Johnson obediently stumbled in- to the dark opening, and the door 'Twasn't exactly a conviction, slammed behind him with a bang sir. I assure you," protested the 2nd a sharp click. It was linck- sweating pickpocket. "The judge's blacker than ever, but at least ho mistake entirely quite a misun-was alone for a space," and might derstanding; and the commonest collect his faculties. He reached watch you ever see; not worth a about him, and had no difficulty in finding the walls of his prison, bob!"
for in fact they were scarce a yard apart in any direction." seemed that he was in a wooden, cupboard, with a ledge for a sent.' He sat on the ledge and wondered.
“And what did you get?
year?!
A
"No, sir-nothing of the kind. It's a wicked slander, sir, when anybody says it was a year. Not a day more than nine months, I give you my solemn word!"
"Alter a dozen previous con- victions?"
to be several times that number The large side-pocket of of pockets, mostly with some "immensikoft" gaped invitingly thing in them; and a pickpocket and, though outside overcont-poc- who has once been convicted kets vere barren as a rule, this finds a change of name a wise was so very easy that it were precaution.
arrive So we
at wasting a chance not to try it. So Johnson placed himself against Johnson.
It chanced that Johnson stood the pocket and tried, with unex-
"No, sir-that's another sland- in quite a small crowd-perhaps pected success.
er: anybody as told you that is For indeed, at the bottom of
trying to take my churacter away of twenty-that stared at a shop
There wasn't more than seven, window in Oxford Street. He had that pocket reposed a purse-not
sir, or eight at the very most. It's only been Johnson for a week, at all what one might expect to an instant that
'ard to be scandalised like that, poor fellow, since 'emerging from find there.. In some months' retirement, and as purse was transferred to the out- confronted by the man in the fur- sir!" yet the name did not sit easily side pocket, so closely adjacent, lined coat.
"Shocking!" The stranger had He had to keep it continually in of Johnson's light overcoat; and The man was grinning at him slipped his purse away and now mind, lest in
unforeseen then Johnson paused for a mo with sardonic politeness, and had his hand on Johnson's should- emergency he might call himself ment, ostentatiously scratching his Johnson did not like him at all. er, with finger and thumb taking Jones, or Barker, or Jenkinson, check with the guilty hand, and He was tall and broad and dark, a good nip of his coat-collar. "Only small and seven or eight convictions! Poor any one of which was dangerous, staring with rapt eyes at the win-while Johnson was and lod been discarded in its dow; til he judged it expedient narrow, and pale. The strangers chap) you shall have another turn for that reason; always after to edge gently away and evapor-black moustache was waxed into once. Come along?"
long spikes, which pointed to just such another holiday as that ate from the little "crowd. he had lately discnjoyed.
ward the outward edges of the flat brim of a very tall hat, and gave a touch of the unearthly to his grib; and in his hand he ex tended toward Johnson a metal box-Johnson's own tobacco-box, in truth, which he now remember- ed to have left in that same side coat-pocket.
some
He strolled easily to the next turning turned up it with quicker steps, and so into a quieter cross street. Here he paused, plunged his hand into his side-pocket, and
found it empty.
Johnson was a mild person not at all the sort of man whom one might suppose to be a pick pocket which was fortunate, of course, for Johnson. He was a meck, rather timid body, whose His chin fell, and he stood tastes would have been domestic amazed. There was no doubt of if he had been a family man..and it-this was the pocket into which he would have been a family man he had dropped ti purse, and "How de do?" said the sardonic if it were not for the expense. He now there was nothing there. stranger. Wore you feeling in was temperate, thrifty, and inoffen- He felt in the opposite..pocket-your pocket for this?"." sive; he shrank with horror from needlessly, for he clearly remem- the idea of anything violent, such bered working with his right as burglary or work; he had no hand, and with this right side-poc- vices, no particular abilities, and ket against the left pocket of the -only-one small talent: he could "ummensikoff There was noth
pick a pocket very well indeed. ing now in either of his side-poc- "Altogether, Johnson was an un-kets, though he raked them usually virtuous thief.
through with anxious fingers.
He stood in a small crowd in And then everything inside him Oxford Street, as I have said, and bounced at the sudden touch of while the small crowd stared, at a hand on his shoulder. He shrank the shop window because of some and turned, and found himself
GRAND GIN THIS!"
YES ISN'T IT! ALWAYS DRINK IT AND IT'S ONLY FIVE BUCKS
A BOTTLE!
The Best of Gin
Yet compare $500
the price!
per bottle
FINDLATER'S
GIN
Findlater's
Gilman
DRY
WINES &
SPIRIT
N
BITS Dent
*
"No, indeed, sujet me alone! On my solemn davy, si, it was all a mistake! I dunno how tho purse go there!" And it sur prised Johnson to and offering an excuse wit deal of truth in it.
himsel
such
Imprisonment was not wholly a novelty, though this was certain- ly the darkest cell he had ever inhabited, and the smallest. There was to be an hour's respite, it seemned, but he was mighty un- easy as to what would happen at the end of the hour, He thought again of that horrible beetle, und.. the clothes, tingled on his skin at the recollection, till he began to rub himself all over. Heavens! if there were more of them in this place!.
He jumped to his fect, shook himself and stamped, and then bothought him of his match-box. He found it and spilt it, stooped for it hurriedly butted his hend into one side of the cupboard, and his opposite end into the other. and caine to the floor in a heap.
"Now then, keep quiet in there!" The voice was a strange one certainly not that of the duk man and it came from whore? No- here about him, but apparently somewhere above, though
this ho was not certain. there was no possibility int he could be watched in this peakable darlenassi He grʊp- painfully, found a match, grop- again, and found the box to
strike it on.
came the voice off strikin
them
The stranger's grin relaxed a little, and his voice grew more business like. "Vory well," he said. "Come with me for an hour and I won't charge you. Bu don't you displease me, my vir- Johnson's panic impulse was to tuous, friend! The grin fickered deny his tobacco-box utterly, but ed up again. "Don't you dispicase the stranger's black eyes were me, or you'll go back to as long
The light was a great relief, for piercing his very brain, and he a dose of gaol as I can get you, felt it useless. He took the box mind that! You shall buy your it revealed the fact that at least and release on my terms, Coine along! the place was free from visible in- that was forced on him, gasped unintelligibly he was ox- but first stuff those pockets sects. He could see now that his cell was wooden top, bottom, tremely obliged, and didn't know again." he had dropped it; but he never Johnson obeyed, and walked by and sides, and then came burn- remembered what he did say.. the side of his persecutor in aec fingers, and sudden darkness. "I believe some speaking thief maze of sickening bewilderment. He lit another match, and satis- The fled himself that there was no picked your pocket," said the Could he be really awake? stranger, his grin growing flercer. whole thing was uncommonly like cranny or even a keyhole, which peeping was: "Open it and see if anything's a hideous nightmare, down to the through missing."
very beetle. He had the most possible, then he lit another to Johnson began a munible that distinct recollection of bis shock pick up those remaining, and, sequence and didn't matter, but pockets empty, Be had put another after
he put Now the the eyes and the satanic grin com the purse there, and there it agam. pelled him, and he sprang the lid proved to be after all.
matches! Instantly there arose in with-The thing was the more like a in a gigantic creature with horns, dream, because his efforts to re- Johnson stopped, bumped his which ran across his hand on member-made it all seem like head again, and scrambled to his horrid clawed legs and roade for somethi that had occured in seat. Then he found courage to his sleeve. Johnson squeaked like long ago. And he would speak. say he began.
d'year? You stow that row a rat, and flung box and insect to doubtless have believed it P the ground together. He had a nightmare and made some des Shut up.”
The prisoner said no more, but feminine horror of crawling perate effort to wake himself. things and had never seen a 'stigatore it n for the 202 that the welted, Strange noises reached gloating stranger most paluably his ear from some far-away- part The stranger snatched the box had him by the arm as they walk of the building, and a little ait fell, and, brushing roughly ed through the back streets, and there were spoduct creakin against Johnson skilfully scoope now and again put a question of begun to remember storles of up the insect from the pavement such a purgent and pendirating mysterious rooms tant
"What?" he said,
you nature that demanded all John and crushed men
them; of weighted co mean to say it wasn't yours at sun's king wits to meet it. all And yet you wanted to take. Such wits as Johnson had wore fell; of chambers slowl it? Is there anything else in barely sufficien
for the eds of with poisonous gas. those pockets of yours that doen-his trade, and now they were op n't belong to you? Show 'me?” pressed by a feeling that he was “No, sir! Nothing at all shoeing "gor at" in some unfathom upon my solemn day!" walled able manner; for indeed the sat- Johnson in terror. For the eyes, ente stranger chuckled, gaily to and the grin were forces thur, hingelf as the torment went on. ever."Nothing at all, sir!” pro- Their way led through numer tested Johnson, pulling out the ous back streets, which Johnson pocket-linings. And thore, as the was too disconcerted to recognise right-hand pocket camo. Inside, even if he knew them; and at lust Gut, emerged the stranger's purse. they stopped before a very blank "Liar" cried the dark man and secret-looking door in a tall Thief! That is my purse!"
building that had no more than He snatched it away fut open-two other openings in it, and those ed it, while Johnson stood helpless windows, small and high. in' amazement, with his packets. The stranger opened the door protruding on each side,
with a latchkey, never looking at "Seel" pursued the stranger, the key, but always at Jahnson, If stopped with a jerk, and the thrusting the open purge under his with that embarrassing grin, un- prisoner, recovering his legs, was nose. My purso, with my money altered, unless it were now a liteware of a loud and now familiar. tle less force and a little more voice. There was a tap at the in fit! What about that
whimsical. The door revealed door, and a click, and instantly it nothing but a "dark passage, into few open, and Johnsor was blind- which Johnsdn was pushed withed by a flood of light and deafon-
ed by a roar of sound.. out ceremony.
beetle before
seized timbl
that filed
As he got he began to trembles and as the minutes passed he felt himself growing desperate with frur, He wished he had all himself to be handed to the police. for at least he knew what that meant. But now--he could not endure much longer. He had made up his mind, come what might, to shout his loudest for help when as he stood feeling the hundredth time for the door- fastening, he was suddenly flung backward and down, confusedly realising that the cupboard was shooting up bodily. Was the thing a litt?-
*
Instinct brought a jumbled de- ience to Johnson's lips. "Quite a mistake-wouldn't think of such a thing, being a gentleman him self Accident that might hap- The place entelt damp, and on Hundreds of fates stared at him pen to anyhody a lot of trouble the whole stillingly like a cell from a great hall, as many voices in the family lately" and so on. In a police station in not which shouted a delighted greeting." and "What's your naino?" sonppod gave the prisoner's terrore more twice as many heads olupnod loud the stranger. It disconcerted definite turn. The dour closed applause. The cupboard stood ung on a brilliantly lighted stage, Johnson more than anything else behind them and left thom to see that this endish person in the dark; and Johnson,
and by it stand the sorconte atran- gen in evening dress," with: black was grinning more than opor, of them, was thrust
wand in his hand; while Johnson... While his unavoidable eyes seem- ing qud staggering along
Bushing and dishevelled, ad to diving more about Johnson ge till he emerged un
blinked flian even Johrsan -over new, only a degree loss obaou
and cowered helplessly.
Ladies and gentlemon" - cried What's your name?" he emands nothing avas dispornikle hu
or 24 have the honour Vast construction of aqu
Johnson, alias [Jones!" spluttered the thief, in that vanished into
Ker, alias Jenkin. ponie "Darker!--no, Jenkinson above. Here the stranger
menn Jelinaoni",
ed, and groping
son, the eminent pickpocket. You "Oh," I see, the stronger reaming the heniny, flung open on- will remember that when I en- clared the Indy in the enbinet „I- plied, and now his moustache and ether door.
thore " he said, "and elt promised you quite a nov Got his grin chased teach allier 19 the
and to shan't want you for an original dénouer
pers vory tips of his cars."2 ket, down.
before Jones, glas Barker, allas Jenkins nour. bon, and at present Johnson. Last
ad.
the ta intro Jones, Alt
sydd on Rage