Читать книгу Twenty-Three Stories by Twenty and Three Authors онлайн

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Battling was of a type that is too common in the eastern districts of London; a type that upsets all accepted classifications. He wouldn’t be classed. He was a curious mixture of athleticism and degeneracy. He could run like a deer, leap like a greyhound, fight like a machine, and drink like a suction-hose. He was a bully; he had the courage of the high hero. He was an open-air sport; he had the vices of a French decadent.

It was one of his love adventures that properly begins this tale; for the girl had come to Battling one night with a recital of terrible happenings; of an angered parent, of a slammed door.... In her arms was a bundle of white rags. Now Battling, like so many sensualists, was also a sentimentalist. He took that bundle of white rags; he paid the girl money to get into the country; and the bundle of white rags had existed in and about his domicile in Pekin Street, Limehouse, for some eleven years. Her position was nondescript; to the casual observer it would seem that she was Battling’s relief punch-ball—an unpleasant post for any human creature to occupy, especially if you are a little girl of twelve, and the place be the one-room household of the lightning welter-weight. When Battling was cross with his manager ... well, it is indefensible to strike your manager or to throw chairs at him, if he is a good manager; but to use a dogwhip on a small child is permissible and quite as satisfying; at least he found it so. On these occasions, then, when very cross with his sparring partners, or overflushed with victory and juice of the grape, he would flog Lucy. But he was reputed by the boys to be a good fellow. He only whipped the child when he was drunk; and he was only drunk for eight months of the year.