1939-07-07 — Page 35

THE CHINA MAIL FRIDAY SUPPLEMENT, JULY 7, 1089

"JEALOUS GOD"

(Continued from Page 1) "Ye haven' had the pleasure, have ye?" Charlie queried. "It's me frien' Donal,' Thought he'd do a bit o big work on his own;; an' Charlie had to follow him up and save his bacon. Get you down now" he pushed the man .along "Hand up your coat and Mikey'll give ye a beer. How's things, Mikey ?"

But Mikey was not listening. Anger was biting hard at his lips and his eyes flashed. Thieving! You could almost hear his thoughts. Thieving! He glower- ed at the sheepish youth. Thieving, of all things. . and a silly bit of work at that! God, to think. Then he remembered the boys, his expression relaxed and he went off to get a beer and telephone the fish shop to send over food for-he counted-food for nine.

"And what about us?" asked Charlie. "Poor starving waifs?" "You're not here", answered Mikey shortly. "You didn't come in and you don't go out-with the rest!"

Old Jem chuckled. He was up to all Mikey's cunning.

"And you locked the window?" Mikey had turned to the

comers..

new-

"Sure! And thank ye, brother, Ye'll get a jorum in heaven, to be sure!"

The fish came, and the chips, and knives and forks clattered.

"And what do we eat with?" persisted Charlie. "Here's plates and forks for nine, and eleven great, strapping fellers to be fed."

"You can take mine. I'm not eating." Mikey slumped. back into his seat, still glowering, but the lanky, Donal' looking less sheepish now, unfolded his long legs and went to his jacket that swung from a peg on the wall.

"Here's some!" he said and brought out h couple of silver- handled forks, Charlie frowned, and Mikey, with all eyes upon him, went on glowering. And there on the table were the forks, their new-bright silver winking in the light.

"Ah weel!" Charlie shrugged his shoulders sadly. "Eat, drink and be merry, for to-morrow.

There was tap on the outer. door, a firm tap that downed forks and platters and turned all eyes upon the latch. Mikey moved like lightning to the safe that" stood open in the corner, whipped some thing small and black from the top shelf and hid it beside him on the horsehair seat, underneath his coat.

"Get out, quick!" he breathed. But before anyone else could moved the door opened sharply, as if the person on the other side had expected it to be locked.

There was a bobby standing on the doorstep and another one behind him.

"Sorry to trouble you, Mr. Eisen- stein."

They were uffæble, 80 affable! "We've lost a couple of men across the roofs. No doubt you heard about the burglary next door. I'd like to step inside and have a look through your pre- mises."

"Sure!" said Mikey. "Come in- side, I'll go up with you.,

men

The two police towered in the little room, surrounded by the scraping back of chairs and the controlled uneasiness whose consciences are not at rest. They did not go far. As the first man stepped across the threshold he saw the new-bright gleam of silver on the table and saw, too,

that Eisenstein had followed his glance.

The officer played "for time, afraid of a trap. No one would ever have expected to catch Elsen- stein in a damn fool way like that. He walked round the room, talking about the shop next door, the broken fanlight, the missing jewellery, Then he took a step towards the table and picked up the two bright forks.

"And these Mr. Eisenstein?" He struck a note of sarcasm that hardly veiled the wariness in his voice.

+

Mikey shrugged. "Mine," he said.

"From your house, Mr. Eisen- stein ?"

"Yea!"

"And this?" the officer put out a long arm and touched the bulging pocket of one of the coats that hung on the wall. "Whose coat is this?”

"Mine!" answered Mikey. There was a hardly perceptible sound in the room: the intake of breath- hardly a sound at all, hardly more than a sensation.

Mikey looked glum as the officer went through the pockets and tossed a handful of shining things in his hands.

"Yours, Mr. Eisenstein?"

"Mine," repeated Mickey, and he took his pipe from his hand and bent to tap it out against his shoe. No one noticed a movement of his hand behind the folks of red table-cloth, under the jacket that lay on the seat. cept Jem, who had Mikey had put there.

No one ex- seen what

"I'm sorry, Mr. Eisenstein." The officer was speaking again. "You'll have to come along with me."

"I'm ready," said Mikey, "when you are," and he looked across at Jem. Old Jem's lips were mov- ing, mouthing the shape of words, waiting for sound to come. Mikey's eyes drilled into him and if ever eyes commanded silence, his did then. But Jem was past commands. He had been a crony of Mikey's for well-past forty- years. He had known him poor, then rich, bachelor, then husband, then father, then childless again. He had seen Mikey through thick and thin. No command of his could have silenced him.

Suddenly from the jerking,, straining lips sound came.

"But, 1-1-look here!" he shouted. "That c-c-coat! It's... its..

17

Something spat. There was a rocket of sound and old Jew fell. across the table as the boys stood watching with thunder in their ears. No one moved. The silence. that Eisenstein's had commanded was absolute. Then Mikey laid a revolver down on the table beside Jem's fallen face, left it a moment, remembered that it might be hot still, and moved it a little further away. Not a muscle flickered in his still, white face, but his eyes. burned with a wild remorseless anger that lived with and haunted the boys for the rest of their lives.

"Mr. Eisenstein!" The officer spoke up. "I arrest you..

"Yea!" snapped Mikey. “Im. coming."

He bent down and picked up his own jacket from the horsehair seat beside him then, remember- ing, dropped it again and looked for his pipe instead,

ordered, straightening up.

Get out, quick! All of you f

And you!! he turned to the lanky man introduced by Charlie as "my friend Donald: You, Morris, lock up the place and get home - and tell your, mother!"

Among those snapped by our busy photographer on Sunday last at Repulse Bay were Mrs. Winter, child and friends, around the nucleus of a

sand castle.

"I suppose

I'm

fussy,

...but I don't see

why, at my age, I should put up with second-best... For

instance, I'm fond of the theatre, but, believe me, I'd rather stay away than see an indifferent play.

So that's why, when you offered me whisky, I asked you

to make mine” a White Horse. I daresay some men hold that one Scotch whisky

is as good as another. Well,

!

when they know as much about it as I do, they will

think differently."

WHITE HORSE

Whisky

You can tell it blindfold!

ents for South China • @Jero