Читать онлайн
Bindle: Some Chapters in the Life of Joseph Bindle

Bindle: Some Chapters in the Life of Joseph Bindle

FOREWORD

Some years ago I wrote an account of one of Bindle's "little jokes," as he calls them, which appeared in Blackwood's Magazine. As a result the late Mr. William Blackwood on more than one occasion expressed the opinion that a book about Bindle should be written, and suggested that I offer it to him for publication. Other and weighty matters intervened, and Bindle passed out of my thoughts.

Last year, however, the same suggestion was made from other quarters, and in one instance was backed up by a material reasoning that I found irresistible.

A well-known author once assured me that in his opinion the publisher who wrote books should, like the double-headed ass and five-legged sheep, be painlessly put to death, preferably by the Society of Authors, as a menace to what he called "the legitimate."

Authors have been known to become their own publishers, generally, I believe, to their lasting regret; why, therefore, should not a publisher become his own author? At least he would find some difficulty in proving to the world that his failure was due to under-advertising.

H. J.

12, ARUNDEL PLACE,

HAYMARKET, LONDON, S.W.

August, 1916.

CHAPTER I
THE BINDLES AT HOME

"Women," remarked Bindle, as he gazed reflectively into the tankard he had just drained, "women is all right if yer can keep 'em from marryin' yer."

"I don't 'old wiv women," growled Ginger, casting a malevolent glance at the Blue Boar's only barmaid, as she stood smirking at the other end of the long leaden counter. "Same as before," he added to the barman.

Joseph Bindle heaved a sign of contentment at the success of his rueful contemplation of the emptiness of his tankard.

"You're too late, ole sport," he remarked, as he sympathetically surveyed the unprepossessing features of his companion, where freckles rioted with spots in happy abandon. "You're too late, you wi' three babies 'fore you're twenty-five. Ginger, you're – "

"No, I ain't!" There was a note of savage menace in Ginger's voice that caused his companion to look at him curiously.

"Ain't wot?" questioned Bindle.

"I ain't wot you was goin' to say I was."

"'Ow jer know wot I was goin' to say?"

"'Cos every stutterin' fool sez it; an' blimey I'm goin' to 'ammer the next, an' I don't want to 'ammer you, Joe."

Bindle pondered a moment, then a smile irradiated his features, developing into a broad grin.