Читать книгу Hands Up! онлайн

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This kind of parody of Romeo I can quite understand is titillating to a young lady who owns a ticket of the Circulating Library, but there are many types of minds in the world and while some deck the sinister with the romantic, others see in the romantic the sinister. One such had spied upon me; and on the third, or perhaps fourth occasion of this secretive departure, just as I was turning away, he laid hold of me—a perfect type of dirty-scarved, greasy-capped lurcher.

"Half a minute young man," said he. "I've been watching you."

"Well?" said I.

"What's it worth?" said he.

"What do you mean?" said I.

"Why," said he, "your little game. I'll keep my mouth shut for a quid."

My dander was by no means up; there was a trifle of almost amusement in my mind.

"If you don't give me a quid," he said, "I'll step right over and tell the gentleman that you've been trying to get round about his daughter."

Of course, as the saying is, I saw red at that and hit out; and there we fell to, he, with his hooligan methods to aid in the victory, I with the intense madness at the sullying of my idol. I write with a certain air of levity of these incidents. I do so because there is no other way. When I think of the sequel of it all it seems a very silly play.