The Tale of Timber Town

“Nonsense, man. How can you be caught? It’s I who take the risk. I am responsible for the delivery of the mails, and if anything goes wrong it’s I will have to suffer. You do your little bit, and I’ll see that you get off scot-free. Here’s my hand on it.”

The merchant held out his flabby hand, and Tresco took it.

“It’s a bargain?”

“It’s a bargain,” said Tresco.

Crookenden reached for his cheque book, and wrote out a cheque for fifty pounds.

“Take this cheque to the bank, and cash it.”

Tresco took the bit of signed paper, and looked at it.

“Fifty?” he remarked. “I said a hundred down.”

“You shall have the balance when you have done the work.”

“And I can do it how I like, where I like, and when I like between nightfall and dawn?”

“Exactly.”

“Then I think I can do it so that all the post office clerks in the country couldn’t bowl me out.”

But the merchant merely nodded in response to this braggadocio – he was already giving his mind to other matters.

Without another word the goldsmith left the office. He walked quickly along the street, regarding neither the garish shops nor the people he passed, and entered the doors of the Kangaroo Bank, where the Semitic clerk stood behind the counter.

“How will you take it?”

The words were sweet to Benjamin’s ear.

“Tens,” he said.

The bank-notes were handed to him, and he went home quickly.

The digger was sitting where Tresco had left him.

“There’s your money,” said the goldsmith, throwing the notes upon the table.

The digger counted them.

“That’s only fifty,” he said.

“You shall have the balance in two days, but not an hour sooner,” replied Tresco. “In the meanwhile, you can git. I’m busy.”

Without more ceremony, he went into his workshop.

“Jake, I give you a holiday for three days,” he said. “Go and see your Aunt Maria, or your Uncle Sam, or whoever you like, but don’t let me see your ugly face for three solid days.”

The apprentice looked at his master open-mouthed.

The goldsmith went to the safe which stood in a corner of the shop, and took out some silver.

“Here’s money,” he said. “Take it. Don’t come back till next Friday. Make yourself scarce; d’you hear?”

“Right, boss. Anythin’ else?”

“Nothing. Go instanter.”

Jake vanished as if the fiend were after him, and Tresco seated himself at the bench.

Out of a drawer immediately above the leather apron of the bench he took the wax impression of something, and a square piece of brass.

“Fortune helps those who help themselves,” he muttered. “When the Post Office sent me their seals to repair, I made this impression. Now we will see if I can reproduce a duplicate which shall be a facsimile, line for line.”

CHAPTER XII

Rock Cod and Macaroni

The small boat came alongside the pilot-shed with noise and fuss out of all proportion to the insignificance of the occasion.

It was full spring-tide, and the blue sea filled the whole harbour and threatened to flood the very quay which stretched along the shore of Timber Town.

In the small boat were two fishermen, the one large and fat, the other short and thick.

“Stoppa, Rocka Codda!” cried the big man, who was of a very dark complexion. “You son ’a barracouta, what I tella you? Why you not stoppa ze boat?”

“Stop ’er yourself, you dancin’, yelpin’ Dago.”

“You calla me Dago? I calla you square-’ead. I calla you Russian-Finna. I calla you mongrel dogga, Rocka Codda.”

The Pilot’s crew, standing at the top of the slip, grinned broadly, and fired at the fishermen a volley of chaff which diverted the Italian’s attention from his mate in the boat.

“Ah-ha!” His voice sounded as shrill as a dozen clarions, and it carried half-a-mile along the quay. He sprang ashore. “Hi-ya!” It was like the yell of a hundred cannibals, but the Pilot’s crew only grinned. “You ze boys. I bringa you ze flounder for tea. Heh?” In one moment the fat fisher was back in the boat, and in another he had scrambled ashore with a number of fish, strung together through the gills. Above the noise of the traffic on the quay his voice rose, piercing. “I presenta. Flounder, all aliva. I give ze fish. You giva” – with suddenness he comically lowered his voice – “tobacco, rumma – what you like.” He lay the gift of flounders on the wooden stage. “Where I get him? I catcha him. Where you get ze tobacco, rumma? You catcha him. Heh?”

Rock Cod, having made fast the boat, was now standing beside his mate.

A sailor picked up the flounders, and, turning back the gills of one of them, said, “Fresh, eh, Macaroni?”

The bulky Italian sidled up to the man. “Whata I tell you? Where I catcha him? In ze sea. Where you catcha ze tobacco? In ze sea. What you say? Heh?” He gave the sailor a dig in the ribs.

By way of answer he received a push. His foot slipped on the wet boards of the stage, and into the water he fell, amid shouts of laughter.

As buoyant as a cork, he soon came to the surface, and, scrambling upon the stage, he seized a barracouta from the boat, and rushed at his mate. “You laugha at me, Rocka Codda? I teacha you laugh.” Taking the big fish by the tail, he belaboured his partner in business with the scaly carcase, till the long spines of the fish’s back caught in the fleshy part of his victim’s neck. But Rock Cod’s screams only drew callous comment from his persecutor. “You laugha at your mate? I teacha you. Rocka Codda, I teacha you respecta Macaroni. Laugha now!”

With a sudden jerk Rock Cod obtained his freedom, though not without additional agony. He faced his partner, with revenge in his wild eyes and curses on his tongue. But just at this moment, a stoutly-built, red-faced sailor pushed his way through the Pilot’s crew, and, snatching the barracouta from the Italian, he thrust himself between the combatants.

“Of all the mad-headed Dagoes that God A’mighty sent to curse this earth you, Macaroni, are the maddest. Why, man, folks can hear your yelling half the length of the quay.”