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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12155 ***
+
+NIGHT WATCHES
+
+by W.W. Jacobs
+
+
+
+
+STEPPING BACKWARDS
+
+"Wonderful improvement," said Mr. Jack Mills.  "Show 'em to me again."
+
+Mr. Simpson took his pipe from his mouth and, parting his lips, revealed
+his new teeth.
+
+"And you talk better," said Mr. Mills, taking his glass from the counter
+and emptying it; "you ain't got that silly lisp you used to have.  What
+does your missis think of 'em?"
+
+"She hasn't seen 'em yet," said the other.  "I had 'em put in at dinner-
+time.  I ate my dinner with 'em."
+
+Mr. Mills expressed his admiration.  "If it wasn't for your white hair
+and whiskers you'd look thirty again," he said, slowly.  "How old are
+you?"
+
+"Fifty-three," said his friend.  "If it wasn't for being laughed at I've
+often thought of having my whiskers shaved off and my hair dyed black.
+People think I'm sixty."
+
+"Or seventy," continued Mr. Mills.  "What does it matter, people
+laughing?  You've got a splendid head of 'air, and it would dye
+beautiful."
+
+Mr. Simpson shook his head and, ordering a couple of glasses of bitter,
+attacked his in silence.
+
+"It might be done gradual," he said, after a long interval.  "It don't
+do anybody good at the warehouse to look old."
+
+"Make a clean job of it," counselled Mr. Mills, who was very fond of a
+little cheap excitement.  "Get it over and done with.  You've got good
+features, and you'd look splendid clean-shaved."  Mr. Simpson smiled
+faintly.  "Only on Wednesday the barmaid here was asking after you,"
+pursued Mr. Mills.  Mr. Simpson smiled again.  "She says to me, 'Where's
+Gran'pa?' she says, and when I says, haughty like, 'Who do you mean?'
+she says, 'Father Christmas!'  If you was to tell her that you are only
+fifty-three, she'd laugh in your face."
+
+"Let her laugh," said the other, sourly.
+
+"Come out and get it off," said Mr. Mills, earnestly.  "There's a
+barber's in Bird Street; you could go in the little back room, where he
+charges a penny more, and get it done without anybody being a bit the
+wiser."
+
+He put his hand on Mr. Simpson's shoulder, and that gentleman, with a
+glare in the direction of the fair but unconscious offender, rose in a
+hypnotized fashion and followed him out.  Twice on the way to Bird
+Street Mr. Simpson paused and said he had altered his mind, and twice
+did the propulsion of Mr. Mills's right hand, and his flattering
+argument, make him alter it again.
+
+It was a matter of relief to Mr. Simpson that the barber took his
+instructions without any show of surprise.  It appeared, indeed, that an
+elderly man of seventy-eight had enlisted his services for a similar
+purpose not two months before, and had got married six weeks afterwards.
+Age of the bride given as twenty-four, but said to have looked older.
+
+A snip of the scissors, and six inches of white beard fell to the floor.
+For the first time in thirty years Mr. Simpson felt a razor on his face.
+Then his hair was cut and shampooed; and an hour later he sat gazing at
+a dark-haired, clean-shaven man in the glass who gazed back at him with
+wondering eyes--a lean-jawed, good-looking man, who, in a favourable
+light, might pass for forty.  He turned and met the admiring eyes of Mr.
+Mills.
+
+"What did I tell you?"  inquired the latter.  "You look young enough to
+be your own son."
+
+"Or grandson," said the barber, with professional pride.
+
+Mr. Simpson got up slowly from the chair and, accompanied by the
+admiring Mr. Mills, passed out into the street.  The evening was young,
+and, at his friend's suggestion, they returned to the Plume of Feathers.
+
+"You give the order," said Mr. Mills, "and see whether she recognizes
+you."
+
+Mr. Simpson obeyed.
+
+"Don't you know him?"  inquired Mr. Mills, as the barmaid turned away.
+
+"I don't think I have that pleasure," said the girl, simpering.
+
+"Gran'pa's eldest boy," said Mr. Mills.
+
+"Oh!"  said the girl.  "Well, I hope he's a better man than his father,
+then?"
+
+"What do you mean by that?"  demanded Mr. Simpson, painfully conscious
+of his friend's regards.
+
+"Nothing," said the girl, "nothing.  Only we can all be better, can't
+we? He's a nice old gentleman; so simple."
+
+"Don't know you from Adam," said Mr. Mills, as she turned away.  "Now,
+if you ask me, I don't believe as your own missis will recognize you."
+
+"Rubbish," said Mr. Simpson.  "My wife would know me anywhere.  We've
+been married over thirty years.  Thirty years of sunshine and shadow
+together.  You're a single man, and don't understand these things."
+
+"P'r'aps you're right," said his friend.  "But it'll be a bit of a shock
+to her, anyway.  What do you say to me stepping round and breaking the
+news to her?  It's a bit sudden, you know.  She's expecting a white-
+haired old gentleman, not a black-haired boy."
+
+Mr. Simpson looked a bit uneasy.  "P'r'aps I ought to have told her
+first," he murmured, craning his neck to look in the glass at the back
+of the bar.
+
+"I'll go and put it right for you," said his friend.  "You stay here and
+smoke your pipe."
+
+He stepped out briskly, but his pace slackened as he drew near the
+house.
+
+"I--I--came--to see you about your husband," he faltered, as Mrs.
+Simpson opened the door and stood regarding him.
+
+"What's the matter?"  she exclaimed, with a faint cry.  "What's happened
+to him?"
+
+"Nothing," said Mr. Mills, hastily.  "Nothing serious, that is.  I just
+came round to warn you so that you will be able to know it's him."
+
+Mrs. Simpson let off a shriek that set his ears tingling.  Then,
+steadying herself by the wall, she tottered into the front room,
+followed by the discomfited Mr. Mills, and sank into a chair.
+
+"He's dead!"  she sobbed.  "He's dead!"
+
+"He is not," said Mr. Mills.
+
+"Is he much hurt?  Is he dying?"  gasped Mrs. Simpson.
+
+"Only his hair," said Mr. Mills, clutching at the opening.  "He is not
+hurt at all."
+
+Mrs. Simpson dabbed at her eyes-and sat regarding him in bewilderment.
+Her twin chins were still quivering with emotion, but her eyes were
+beginning to harden.  "What are you talking about?"  she inquired, in a
+raspy voice.
+
+"He's been to a hairdresser's," said Mr. Mills.  "He's 'ad all his white
+whiskers cut off, and his hair cut short and dyed black.  And, what with
+that and his new teeth, I thought--he thought--p'r'aps you mightn't know
+him when he came home."
+
+"Dyed?"  cried Mrs. Simpson, starting to her feet.
+
+Mr. Mills nodded.  "He looks twenty years younger," he said, with a
+smile.  "He'd pass for his own son anywhere."
+
+Mrs. Simpson's eyes snapped.  "Perhaps he'd pass for my son," she
+remarked.
+
+"Yes, easy," said the tactful Mr. Mills.  "You can't think what a
+difference it's made to him.  That's why I came to see you--so you
+shouldn't be startled."
+
+"Thank you," said Mrs. Simpson.  "I'm much obliged.  But you might have
+spared yourself the trouble.  I should know my husband anywhere."
+
+"Ah, that's what you think," retorted Mr. Mills, with a smile; "but the
+barmaid at the Plume didn't.  That's what made me come to you."
+
+Mrs. Simpson gazed at him.
+
+"I says to myself," continued Mr. Mills, "'If she don't know him, I'm
+certain his missis won't, and I'd better----'"
+
+"You'd better go," interrupted his hostess.
+
+Mr. Mills started, and then, with much dignity, stalked after her to the
+door.
+
+"As to your story, I don't believe a word of it," said Mrs. Simpson.
+"Whatever else my husband is, he isn't a fool, and he'd no more think of
+cutting off his whiskers and dyeing his hair than you would of telling
+the truth."
+
+"Seeing is believing," said the offended Mr. Mills, darkly.
+
+"I'll wait till I do see, and then I sha'n't believe," was the reply.
+"It is a put-up job between you and some other precious idiot, I expect.
+But you can't deceive me.  If your black-haired friend comes here, he'll
+get it, I can tell you."
+
+She slammed the door on his protests and, returning to the parlour,
+gazed fiercely into the glass on the mantelpiece.  It reflected sixteen
+stone of honest English womanhood, a thin wisp of yellowish-grey hair,
+and a pair of faded eyes peering through clumsy spectacles.
+
+"Son, indeed!"  she said, her lips quivering.  "You wait till you come
+home, my lord!"
+
+Mr. Simpson, with some forebodings, returned home an hour later.  To a
+man who loved peace and quietness the report of the indignant Mr. Mills
+was not of a reassuring nature.  He hesitated on the doorstep for a few
+seconds while he fumbled for his key, and then, humming unconcernedly,
+hung his hat in the passage and walked into the parlour.
+
+The astonished scream of his wife warned him that Mr. Mills had by no
+means exaggerated.  She rose from her seat and, crouching by the
+fireplace, regarded him with a mixture of anger and dismay.
+
+"It--it's all right, Milly," said Mr. Simpson, with a smile that
+revealed a dazzling set of teeth.
+
+"Who are you?"  demanded Mrs. Simpson.  "How dare you call me by my
+Christian name.  It's a good job for you my husband is not here."
+
+"He wouldn't hurt me," said Mr. Simpson, with an attempt at
+facetiousness.  "He's the best friend I ever had.  Why, we slept in the
+same cradle."
+
+"I don't want any of your nonsense," said Mrs. Simpson.  "You get out of
+my house before I send for the police.  How dare you come into a
+respectable woman's house in this fashion?  Be off with you."
+
+"Now, look here, Milly----" began Mr. Simpson.
+
+His wife drew herself up to her full height of four feet eleven.
+
+"I've had a hair-cut and a shave," pursued her husband; "also I've had
+my hair restored to its natural colour.  But I'm the same man, and you
+know it."
+
+"I know nothing of the kind," said his wife, doggedly.  "I don't know
+you from Adam.  I've never seen you before, and I don't want to see you
+again.  You go away."
+
+"I'm your husband, and my place is at home," replied Mr. Simpson.  "A
+man can have a shave if he likes, can't he?  Where's my supper?"
+
+"Go on," said his wife.  "Keep it up.  But be careful my husband don't
+come in and catch you, that's all."
+
+Mr. Simpson gazed at her fixedly, and then, with an impatient
+exclamation, walked into the small kitchen and began to set the supper.
+A joint of cold beef, a jar of pickles, bread, butter, and cheese made
+an appetizing display.  Then he took a jug from the dresser and
+descended to the cellar.
+
+A musical trickling fell on the ear of Mrs. Simpson as she stood at the
+parlour door, and drew her stealthily to the cellar.  The key was in the
+lock, and, with a sudden movement, she closed the door and locked it.  A
+sharp cry from Mr. Simpson testified to his discomfiture.
+
+"Now I'm off for the police," cried his wife.
+
+"Don't be a fool," shouted Mr. Simpson, tugging wildly at the door-
+handle.  "Open the door."
+
+Mrs. Simpson remained silent, and her husband resumed his efforts until
+the door-knob, unused to such treatment, came off in his hand.  A sudden
+scrambling noise on the cellar stairs satisfied the listener that he had
+not pulled it off intentionally.
+
+She stood for a few moments, considering.  It was a stout door and
+opened inwards.  She took her bonnet from its nail in the kitchen and,
+walking softly to the street-door, set off to lay the case before a
+brother who lived a few doors away.
+
+"Poor old Bill," said Mr. Cooper, when she had finished.  "Still, it
+might be worse; he's got the barrel o' beer with him."
+
+"It's not Bill," said Mrs. Simpson.
+
+Mr. Cooper scratched his whiskers and looked at his wife.
+
+"She ought to know," said the latter.  "We'll come and have a look at
+him," said Mr. Cooper.
+
+Mrs. Simpson pondered, and eyed him dubiously.
+
+"Come in and have a bit of supper," she said at last.  "There's a nice
+piece of beef and pickles."
+
+"And Bill--I mean the stranger--sitting on the beer-barrel," said Mr.
+Cooper, gloomily.
+
+"You can bring your beer with you," said his sister, sharply.  "Come
+along."
+
+Mr. Cooper grinned, and, placing a couple of bottles in his coat
+pockets, followed the two ladies to the house.  Seated at the kitchen
+table, he grinned again, as a persistent drumming took place on the
+cellar door. His wife smiled, and a faint, sour attempt in the same
+direction appeared on the face of Mrs. Simpson.
+
+"Open the door!"  bellowed an indignant voice.  "Open the door!"
+
+Mrs. Simpson, commanding silence with an uplifted finger, proceeded to
+carve the beef.  A rattle of knives and forks succeeded.
+
+"O-pen-the-door!"  said the voice again.
+
+"Not so much noise," commanded Mr. Cooper.  "I can't hear myself eat."
+
+"Bob!"  said the voice, in relieved accents, "Bob!  Come and let me
+out."
+
+Mr. Cooper, putting a huge hand over his mouth, struggled nobly with his
+feelings.
+
+"Who are you calling 'Bob'?"  he demanded, in an unsteady voice.  "You
+keep yourself to yourself.  I've heard all about you.  You've got to
+stay there till my brother-in-law comes home."
+
+"It's me, Bob," said Mr. Simpson--"Bill."
+
+"Yes, I dare say," said Mr. Cooper; "but if you're Bill, why haven't you
+got Bill's voice?"
+
+"Let me out and look at me," said Mr. Simpson.
+
+There was a faint scream from both ladies, followed by protests.
+
+"Don't be alarmed," said Mr. Cooper, reassuringly.  "I wasn't born
+yesterday.  I don't want to get a crack over the head."
+
+"It's all a mistake, Bob," said the prisoner, appealingly.  "I just had
+a shave and a haircut and--and a little hair-dye.  If you open the door
+you'll know me at once."
+
+"How would it be," said Mr. Cooper, turning to his sister, and speaking
+with unusual distinctness--"how would it be if you opened the door, and
+just as he put his head out I hit it a crack with the poker?"
+
+"You try it on," said the voice behind the door, hotly.  "You know who I
+am well enough, Bob Cooper.  I don't want any more of your nonsense.
+Milly has put you up to this!"
+
+"If your wife don't know you, how do you think I can?"  said Mr. Cooper.
+"Now, look here; you keep quiet till my brother-in-law comes home.  If
+he don't come home perhaps we shall be more likely to think you're him.
+If he's not home by to-morrow morning we--Hsh!  Hsh!  Don't you know
+there's ladies present?"
+
+"That settles it," said Mrs. Cooper, speaking for the first time.  "My
+brother-in-law would never talk like that."
+
+"I should never forgive him if he did," said her husband, piously.
+
+He poured himself out another glass of beer and resumed his supper with
+relish.  Conversation turned on the weather, and from that to the price
+of potatoes.  Frantic efforts on the part of the prisoner to join in the
+conversation and give it a more personal turn were disregarded.  Finally
+he began to kick with monotonous persistency on the door.
+
+"Stop it!"  shouted Mr. Cooper.
+
+"I won't," said Mr. Simpson.
+
+The noise became unendurable.  Mr. Cooper, who had just lit his pipe,
+laid it on the table and looked round at his companions.
+
+"He'll have the door down soon," he said, rising.  "Halloa, there!"
+
+"Halloa!"  said the other.
+
+"You say you're Bill Simpson," said Mr. Cooper, holding up a forefinger
+at Mrs. Simpson, who was about to interrupt.  "If you are, tell us
+something you know that only you could know; something we know, so as to
+identify you.  Things about your past."
+
+A strange noise sounded behind the door.
+
+"Sounds as though he is smacking his lips," said Mrs. Cooper to her
+sister-in-law, who was eyeing Mr. Cooper restlessly.
+
+"Very good," said Mr. Simpson; "I agree.  Who is there?"
+
+"Me and my wife and Mrs. Simpson," said Mr. Cooper.
+
+"He is smacking his lips," whispered Mrs. Cooper.  "Having a go at the
+beer, perhaps."
+
+"Let's go back fifteen years," said Mr. Simpson in meditative tones.
+"Do you remember that girl with copper-coloured hair that used to live
+in John Street?"
+
+"No!"  said Mr. Cooper, loudly and suddenly.
+
+"Do you remember coming to me one day--two days after Valentine Day, it
+was--white as chalk and shaking like a leaf, and--"
+
+"NO!" roared Mr. Cooper.
+
+"Very well, I must try something else, then," said Mr. Simpson,
+philosophically.  "Carry your mind back ten years, Bob Cooper--"
+
+"Look here!"  said Mr. Cooper, turning round with a ghastly smile.
+"We'd better get off home, Mary.  I don't like interfering in other
+people's concerns.  Never did."
+
+"You stay where you are," said his wife.
+
+"Ten years," repeated the voice behind the door.  "There was a new
+barmaid at the Crown, and one night you----"
+
+"If I listen to any more of this nonsense I shall burst," remarked Mr.
+Cooper, plaintively.
+
+"Go on," prompted Mrs. Cooper, grimly.  "One night----"
+
+"Never mind," said Mr. Simpson.  "It doesn't matter.  But does he
+identify me?  Because if not I've got a lot more things I can try."
+
+The harassed Mr. Cooper looked around appealingly.
+
+"How do you expect me to recognize you--" he began, and stopped
+suddenly.
+
+"Go back to your courting days, then," said Mr. Simpson, "when Mrs.
+Cooper wasn't Mrs. Cooper, but only wanted to be."
+
+Mrs. Cooper shivered; so did Mr. Cooper.
+
+"And you came round to me for advice," pursued Mr. Simpson, in
+reminiscent accents, "because there was another girl you wasn't sure of,
+and you didn't want to lose them both.  Do you remember sitting with the
+two photographs--one on each knee--and trying to make up your mind?"
+
+"Wonderful imagination," said Mr. Cooper, smiling in a ghastly fashion
+at his wife.  "Hark at him!"
+
+"I am harking," said Mrs. Cooper.
+
+"Am I Bill Simpson or am I not?" demanded Mr. Simpson.
+
+"Bill was always fond of his joke," said Mr. Cooper, with a glance at
+the company that would have moved an oyster.  "He was always fond of
+making up things.  You're like him in that.  What do you think, Milly?"
+
+"It's not my husband," said Mrs. Simpson.
+
+"Tell us something about her," said Mr. Cooper, hastily.
+
+"I daren't," said Mr. Simpson.  "Doesn't that prove I'm her husband?
+But I'll tell you things about your wife, if you like."
+
+"You dare!"  said Mrs. Cooper, turning crimson, as she realized what
+confidences might have passed between husband and wife.  "If you say a
+word of your lies about me, I don't know what I won't do to you."
+
+"Very well, I must go on about Bob, then--till he recognizes me," said
+Mr. Simpson, patiently.  "Carry your mind--"
+
+"Open the door and let him out," shouted Mr. Cooper, turning to his
+sister.  "How can I recognize a man through a deal door?"
+
+Mrs. Simpson, after a little hesitation, handed him the key, and the
+next moment her husband stepped out and stood blinking in the gas-light.
+
+"Do you recognize me?" he asked, turning to Mr. Cooper.
+
+"I do," said that gentleman, with a ferocious growl.
+
+"I'd know you anywhere," said Mrs. Cooper, with emphasis.
+
+"And you?" said Mr. Simpson, turning to his wife.
+
+"You're not my husband," she said, obstinately.
+
+"Are you sure?" inquired Mr. Cooper.
+
+"Certain."
+
+"Very good, then," said her brother.  "If he's not your husband I'm
+going to knock his head off for telling them lies about me."
+
+He sprang forward and, catching Mr. Simpson by the collar, shook him
+violently until his head banged against the dresser.  The next moment
+the hands of Mrs. Simpson were in the hair of Mr. Cooper.
+
+"How dare you knock my husband about!" she screamed, as Mr. Cooper let
+go and caught her fingers.  "You've hurt him."
+
+"Concussion, I think," said Mr. Simpson, with great presence of mind.
+
+His wife helped him to a chair and, wetting her handkerchief at the tap,
+tenderly bathed the dyed head.  Mr. Cooper, breathing hard, stood by
+watching until his wife touched him on the arm.
+
+"You come off home," she said, in a hard voice.  "You ain't wanted.  Are
+you going to stay here all night?"
+
+"I should like to," said Mr. Cooper, wistfully.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Stepping Backwards, by W.W. Jacobs
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12155 ***