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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12211 ***
+
+ODD CRAFT
+
+By W.W. Jacobs
+
+
+
+A SPIRIT OF AVARICE
+
+
+Mr. John Blows stood listening to the foreman with an air of lofty
+disdain.  He was a free-born Englishman, and yet he had been summarily
+paid off at eleven o'clock in the morning and told that his valuable
+services would no longer be required.  More than that, the foreman had
+passed certain strictures upon his features which, however true they
+might be, were quite irrelevant to the fact that Mr. Blows had been
+discovered slumbering in a shed when he should have been laying bricks.
+
+[Illustration: "Mr. John Blows stood listening to the foreman with an air
+of lofty disdain."]
+
+"Take your ugly face off these 'ere works," said the foreman; "take it
+'ome and bury it in the back-yard.  Anybody'll be glad to lend you a
+spade."
+
+Mr. Blows, in a somewhat fluent reply, reflected severely on the
+foreman's immediate ancestors, and the strange lack of good-feeling and
+public spirit they had exhibited by allowing him to grow up.
+
+"Take it 'ome and bury it," said the foreman again.  "Not under any
+plants you've got a liking for."
+
+"I suppose," said Mr. Blows, still referring to his foe's parents, and
+now endeavouring to make excuses for them--"I s'pose they was so pleased,
+and so surprised when they found that you was a 'uman being, that they
+didn't mind anything else."
+
+He walked off with his head in the air, and the other men, who had
+partially suspended work to listen, resumed their labours.  A modest pint
+at the Rising Sun revived his drooping spirits, and he walked home
+thinking of several things which he might have said to the foreman if he
+had only thought of them in time.
+
+He paused at the open door of his house and, looking in, sniffed at the
+smell of mottled soap and dirty water which pervaded it.  The stairs were
+wet, and a pail stood in the narrow passage.  From the kitchen came the
+sounds of crying children and a scolding mother.  Master Joseph Henry
+Blows, aged three, was "holding his breath," and the family were all
+aghast at the length of his performance.  He re-covered it as his father
+entered the room, and drowned, without distressing himself, the impotent
+efforts of the others.  Mrs. Blows turned upon her husband a look of hot
+inquiry.
+
+"I've got the chuck," he said, surlily.
+
+"What, again?" said the unfortunate woman.  "Yes, again," repeated her
+husband.
+
+Mrs. Blows turned away, and dropping into a chair threw her apron over
+her head and burst into discordant weeping.  Two little Blows, who had
+ceased their outcries, resumed them again from sheer sympathy.
+
+"Stop it," yelled the indignant Mr. Blows; "stop it at once; d'ye hear?"
+
+"I wish I'd never seen you," sobbed his wife from behind her apron.  "Of
+all the lazy, idle, drunken, good-for-nothing----"
+
+"Go on," said Mr. Blows, grimly.
+
+"You're more trouble than you're worth," declared Mrs. Blows.  "Look at
+your father, my dears," she continued, taking the apron away from her
+face; "take a good look at him, and mind you don't grow up like it."
+
+Mr. Blows met the combined gaze of his innocent offspring with a dark
+scowl, and then fell to moodily walking up and down the passage until he
+fell over the pail.  At that his mood changed, and, turning fiercely, he
+kicked that useful article up and down the passage until he was tired.
+
+"I've 'ad enough of it," he muttered.  He stopped at the kitchen-door
+and, putting his hand in his pocket, threw a handful of change on to the
+floor and swung out of the house.
+
+Another pint of beer confirmed him in his resolution.  He would go far
+away and make a fresh start in the world.  The morning was bright and the
+air fresh, and a pleasant sense of freedom and adventure possessed his
+soul as he walked.  At a swinging pace he soon left Gravelton behind him,
+and, coming to the river, sat down to smoke a final pipe before turning
+his back forever on a town which had treated him so badly.
+
+The river murmured agreeably and the rushes stirred softly in the breeze;
+Mr. Blows, who could fall asleep on an upturned pail, succumbed to the
+influence at once; the pipe dropped from his mouth and he snored
+peacefully.
+
+He was awakened by a choking scream, and, starting up hastily, looked
+about for the cause.  Then in the water he saw the little white face of
+Billy Clements, and wading in up to his middle he reached out and,
+catching the child by the hair, drew him to the bank and set him on his
+feet.  Still screaming with terror, Billy threw up some of the water he
+had swallowed, and without turning his head made off in the direction of
+home, calling piteously upon his mother.
+
+Mr. Blows, shivering on the bank, watched him out of sight, and, missing
+his cap, was just in time to see that friend of several seasons slowly
+sinking in the middle of the river.  He squeezed the water from his
+trousers and, crossing the bridge, set off across the meadows.
+
+
+His self-imposed term of bachelorhood lasted just three months, at the
+end of which time he made up his mind to enact the part of the generous
+husband and forgive his wife everything.  He would not go into details,
+but issue one big, magnanimous pardon.
+
+Full of these lofty ideas he set off in the direction of home again.  It
+was a three-days' tramp, and the evening of the third day saw him but a
+bare two miles from home.  He clambered up the bank at the side of the
+road and, sprawling at his ease, smoked quietly in the moonlight.
+
+A waggon piled up with straw came jolting and creaking toward him.  The
+driver sat dozing on the shafts, and Mr. Blows smiled pleasantly as he
+recognised the first face of a friend he had seen for three months.  He
+thrust his pipe in his pocket and, rising to his feet, clambered on to
+the back of the waggon, and lying face downward on the straw peered down
+at the unconscious driver below.
+
+"I'll give old Joe a surprise," he said to himself.  "He'll be the first
+to welcome me back."
+
+"Joe," he said, softly.  "'Ow goes it, old pal?"
+
+Mr. Joe Carter, still dozing, opened his eyes at the sound of his name
+and looked round; then, coming to the conclusion that he had been
+dreaming, closed them again.
+
+"I'm a-looking at you, Joe," said Mr. Blows, waggishly.  "I can see you."
+
+Mr. Carter looked up sharply and, catching sight of the grinning features
+of Mr. Blows protruding over the edge of the straw, threw up his arms
+with a piercing shriek and fell off the shafts on to the road.  The
+astounded Mr. Blows, raising himself on his hands, saw him pick himself
+up and, giving vent to a series of fearsome yelps, run clumsily back
+along the road.
+
+"Joe!" shouted Mr. Blows.  "J-o-o-oE!"
+
+[Illustration: "'Joe!' shouted Mr. Blows.  'J-o-o-OE!'"]
+
+Mr. Carter put his hands to his ears and ran on blindly, while his
+friend, sitting on the top of the straw, regarded his proceedings with
+mixed feelings of surprise and indignation.
+
+"It can't be that tanner 'e owes me," he mused, "and yet I don't know
+what else it can be.  I never see a man so jumpy."
+
+He continued to speculate while the old horse, undisturbed by the
+driver's absence, placidly continued its journey.  A mile farther,
+however, he got down to take the short cut by the fields.
+
+"If Joe can't look after his 'orse and cart," he said, primly, as he
+watched it along the road, "it's not my business."
+
+The footpath was not much used at that time of night, and he only met one
+man.  They were in the shadow of the trees which fringed the new cemetery
+as they passed, and both peered.  The stranger was satisfied first and,
+to Mr. Blows's growing indignation, first gave a leap backward which
+would not have disgraced an acrobat, and then made off across the field
+with hideous outcries.
+
+"If I get 'old of some of you," said the offended Mr. Blows, "I'll give
+you something to holler for."
+
+He pursued his way grumbling, and insensibly slackened his pace as he
+drew near home.  A remnant of conscience which had stuck to him without
+encouragement for thirty-five years persisted in suggesting that he had
+behaved badly.  It also made a few ill-bred inquiries as to how his wife
+and children had subsisted for the last three months.  He stood outside
+the house for a short space, and then, opening the door softly, walked
+in.
+
+The kitchen-door stood open, and his wife in a black dress sat sewing by
+the light of a smoky lamp.  She looked up as she heard his footsteps, and
+then, without a word, slid from the chair full length to the floor.
+
+"Go on," said Mr. Blows, bitterly; "keep it up.  Don't mind me."
+
+Mrs. Blows paid no heed; her face was white and her eyes were closed.
+Her husband, with a dawning perception of the state of affairs, drew a
+mug of water from the tap and flung it over her.  She opened her eyes and
+gave a faint scream, and then, scrambling to her feet, tottered toward
+him and sobbed on his breast.
+
+"There, there," said Mr. Blows.  "Don't take on; I forgive you."
+
+"Oh, John," said his wife, sobbing convulsively, "I thought you was dead.
+I thought you was dead.  It's only a fortnight ago since we buried you!"
+
+"Buried me?"  said the startled Mr. Blows.  "Buried me?"
+
+"I shall wake up and find I'm dreaming," wailed Mrs. Blows; "I know I
+shall.  I'm always dreaming that you're not dead.  Night before last I
+dreamt that you was alive, and I woke up sobbing as if my 'art would
+break."
+
+"Sobbing?" said Mr. Blows, with a scowl.  "For joy, John," explained his
+wife.
+
+Mr. Blows was about to ask for a further explanation of the mystery when
+he stopped, and regarded with much interest a fair-sized cask which stood
+in one corner.
+
+"A cask o' beer," he said, staring, as he took a glass from the dresser
+and crossed over to it.  "You don't seem to 'ave taken much 'arm during
+my--my going after work."
+
+"We 'ad it for the funeral, John," said his wife; "leastways, we 'ad two;
+this is the second."
+
+Mr. Blows, who had filled the glass, set it down on the table untasted;
+things seemed a trifle uncanny.
+
+"Go on," said Mrs. Blows; "you've got more right to it than anybody else.
+Fancy 'aving you here drinking up the beer for your own funeral."
+
+"I don't understand what you're a-driving at," retorted Mr. Blows,
+drinking somewhat gingerly from the glass.  'Ow could there be a funeral
+without me?"
+
+"It's all a mistake," said the overjoyed Mrs. Blows; "we must have buried
+somebody else.  But such a funeral, John; you would ha' been proud if you
+could ha' seen it.  All Gravelton followed, nearly.  There was the boys'
+drum and fife band, and the Ancient Order of Camels, what you used to
+belong to, turned out with their brass band and banners--all the people
+marching four abreast and sometimes five."
+
+Mr. Blows's face softened; he had no idea that he had established himself
+so firmly in the affections of his fellow-townsmen.
+
+"Four mourning carriages," continued his wife, "and the--the hearse, all
+covered in flowers so that you couldn't see it 'ardly.  One wreath cost
+two pounds."
+
+Mr. Blows endeavoured to conceal his gratification beneath a mask of
+surliness.  "Waste o' money," he growled, and stooping to the cask drew
+himself an-other glass of beer.
+
+"Some o' the gentry sent their carriages to follow," said Mrs. Blows,
+sitting down and clasping her hands in her lap.
+
+"I know one or two that 'ad a liking for me," said Mr. Blows, almost
+blushing.
+
+"And to think that it's all a mistake," continued his wife.  "But I
+thought it was you; it was dressed like you, and your cap was found near
+it."
+
+"H'm," said Mr. Blows; "a pretty mess you've been and made of it.  Here's
+people been giving two pounds for wreaths and turning up with brass bands
+and banners because they thought it was me, and it's all been wasted."
+
+"It wasn't my fault," said his wife.  "Little Billy Clements came running
+'ome the day you went away and said 'e'd fallen in the water, and you'd
+gone in and pulled 'im out.  He said 'e thought you was drownded, and
+when you didn't come 'ome I naturally thought so too.  What else could I
+think?"
+
+Mr. Blows coughed, and holding his glass up to the light regarded it with
+a preoccupied air.
+
+"They dragged the river," resumed his wife, "and found the cap, but they
+didn't find the body till nine weeks afterward.  There was a inquest at
+the Peal o' Bells, and I identified you, and all that grand funeral was
+because they thought you'd lost your life saving little Billy.  They said
+you was a hero."
+
+[Illustration: "'They dragged the river,' resumed his wife, 'and found
+the cap.'"]
+
+"You've made a nice mess of it," repeated Mr. Blows.
+
+"The rector preached the sermon," continued his wife; "a beautiful sermon
+it was, too.  I wish you'd been there to hear it; I should 'ave enjoyed
+it ever so much better.  He said that nobody was more surprised than what
+'e was at your doing such a thing, and that it only showed 'ow little we
+knowed our fellow-creatures.  He said that it proved there was good in
+all of us if we only gave it a chance to come out."
+
+Mr. Blows eyed her suspiciously, but she sat thinking and staring at the
+floor.
+
+"I s'pose we shall have to give the money back now," she said, at last.
+
+"Money!" said the other; "what money?"
+
+"Money that was collected for us," replied his wife.  "One 'undered and
+eighty-three pounds seven shillings and fourpence."
+
+Mr. Blows took a long breath.  "Ow much?"  he said, faintly; "say it
+agin."
+
+His wife obeyed.
+
+"Show it to me," said the other, in trembling tones; "let's 'ave a look
+at it.  Let's 'old some of it."
+
+"I can't," was the reply; "there's a committee of the Camels took charge
+of it, and they pay my rent and allow me ten shillings a week.  Now I
+s'pose it'll have to be given back?"
+
+"Don't you talk nonsense," said Mr. Blows, violently.  "You go to them
+interfering Camels and say you want your money--all of it.  Say you're
+going to Australia.  Say it was my last dying wish."
+
+Mrs. Blows puckered her brow.
+
+"I'll keep quiet upstairs till you've got it," continued her husband,
+rapidly.  "There was only two men saw me, and I can see now that they
+thought I was my own ghost.  Send the kids off to your mother for a few
+days."
+
+His wife sent them off next morning, and a little later was able to tell
+him that his surmise as to his friends' mistake was correct.  All
+Gravelton was thrilled by the news that the spiritual part of Mr. John
+Blows was walking the earth, and much exercised as to his reasons for so
+doing.
+
+"Seemed such a monkey trick for 'im to do," complained Mr. Carter, to the
+listening circle at the Peal o' Bells.  "'I'm a-looking at you, Joe,' he
+ses, and he waggled his 'ead as if it was made of india-rubber."
+
+"He'd got something on 'is mind what he wanted to tell you," said a
+listener, severely; "you ought to 'ave stopped, Joe, and asked 'im what
+it was."
+
+"I think I see myself," said the shivering Mr. Carter.  "I think I see
+myself."
+
+"Then he wouldn't 'ave troubled you any more," said the other.
+
+Mr. Carter turned pale and eyed him fixedly.  "P'r'aps it was only a
+death-warning," said another man.
+
+"What d'ye mean, 'only a death-warning'?"  demanded the unfortunate Mr.
+Carter; "you don't know what you're talking about."
+
+"I 'ad an uncle o' mine see a ghost once," said a third man, anxious to
+relieve the tension.
+
+"And what 'appened?"  inquired the first speaker.  "I'll tell you after
+Joe's gone," said the other, with rare consideration.
+
+Mr. Carter called for some more beer and told the barmaid to put a little
+gin in it.  In a pitiable state of "nerves" he sat at the extreme end of
+a bench, and felt that he was an object of unwholesome interest to his
+acquaintances.  The finishing touch was put to his discomfiture when a
+well-meaning friend in a vague and disjointed way advised him to give up
+drink, swearing, and any other bad habits which he might have contracted.
+
+[Illustration: "In a pitiable state of 'nerves' he sat at the extreme end
+of a bench."]
+
+The committee of the Ancient Order of Camels took the news calmly, and
+classed it with pink rats and other abnormalities.  In reply to Mrs.
+Blows's request for the capital sum, they expressed astonishment that she
+could be willing to tear herself away from the hero's grave, and spoke of
+the pain which such an act on her part would cause him in the event of
+his being conscious of it.  In order to show that they were reasonable
+men, they allowed her an extra shilling that week.
+
+The hero threw the dole on the bedroom floor, and in a speech bristling
+with personalities, consigned the committee to perdition.  The
+confinement was beginning to tell upon him, and two nights afterward,
+just before midnight, he slipped out for a breath of fresh air.
+
+It was a clear night, and all Gravelton with one exception, appeared to
+have gone to bed.  The exception was Police-constable Collins, and he,
+after tracking the skulking figure of Mr. Blows and finally bringing it
+to bay in a doorway, kept his for a fort-night.  As a sensible man, Mr.
+Blows took no credit to himself for the circumstance, but a natural
+feeling of satisfaction at the discomfiture of a member of a force for
+which he had long entertained a strong objection could not be denied.
+
+Gravelton debated this new appearance with bated breath, and even the
+purblind committee of the Camels had to alter their views.  They no
+longer denied the supernatural nature of the manifestations, but, with
+a strange misunderstanding of Mr. Blows's desires, attributed his
+restlessness to dissatisfaction with the projected tombstone, and, having
+plenty of funds, amended their order for a plain stone at ten guineas to
+one in pink marble at twenty-five.
+
+"That there committee," said Mr. Blows to his wife, in a trembling voice,
+as he heard of the alteration--"that there committee seem to think that
+they can play about with my money as they like.  You go and tell 'em you
+won't 'ave it.  And say you've given up the idea of going to Australia
+and you want the money to open a shop with.  We'll take a little pub
+somewhere."
+
+Mrs. Blows went, and returned in tears, and for two entire days her
+husband, a prey to gloom, sat trying to evolve fresh and original ideas
+for the possession of the money.  On the evening of the second day he
+became low-spirited, and going down to the kitchen took a glass from the
+dresser and sat down by the beer-cask.
+
+Almost insensibly he began to take a brighter view of things.  It was
+Saturday night and his wife was out.  He shook his head indulgently as he
+thought of her, and began to realise how foolish he had been to entrust
+such a delicate mission to a woman.  The Ancient Order of Camels wanted a
+man to talk to them--a man who knew the world and could assail them with
+unanswerable arguments.  Having applied every known test to make sure
+that the cask was empty, he took his cap from a nail and sallied out into
+the street.
+
+Old Mrs. Martin, a neighbour, saw him first, and announced the fact with
+a scream that brought a dozen people round her.  Bereft of speech, she
+mouthed dumbly at Mr. Blows.
+
+"I ain't touch--touched her," said that gentleman, earnestly.  "I ain't--
+been near 'er."
+
+The crowd regarded him wild-eyed.  Fresh members came running up, and
+pushing for a front place fell back hastily on the main body and watched
+breathlessly.  Mr. Blows, disquieted by their silence, renewed his
+protestations.
+
+"I was coming 'long----"
+
+He broke off suddenly and, turning round, gazed with some heat at a
+gentleman who was endeavouring to ascertain whether an umbrella would
+pass through him.  The investigator backed hastily into the crowd again,
+and a faint murmur of surprise arose as the indignant Mr. Blows rubbed
+the place.
+
+"He's alive, I tell you," said a voice.  "What cheer, Jack!"
+
+"Ullo, Bill," said Mr. Blows, genially.
+
+Bill came forward cautiously, and, first shaking hands, satisfied himself
+by various little taps and prods that his friend was really alive.
+
+"It's all right," he shouted; "come and feel."
+
+At least fifty hands accepted the invitation, and, ignoring the threats
+and entreaties of Mr. Blows, who was a highly ticklish subject, wandered
+briskly over his anatomy.  He broke free at last and, supported by Bill
+and a friend, set off for the Peal o' Bells.
+
+By the time he arrived there his following had swollen to immense
+proportions.  Windows were thrown up, and people standing on their
+doorsteps shouted inquiries.  Congratulations met him on all sides, and
+the joy of Mr. Joseph Carter was so great that Mr. Blows was quite
+affected.
+
+In high feather at the attention he was receiving, Mr. Blows pushed his
+way through the idlers at the door and ascended the short flight of
+stairs which led to the room where the members of the Ancient Order of
+Camels were holding their lodge.  The crowd swarmed up after him.
+
+The door was locked, but in response to his knocking it opened a couple
+of inches, and a gruff voice demanded his business.  Then, before he
+could give it, the doorkeeper reeled back into the room, and Mr. Blows
+with a large following pushed his way in.
+
+The president and his officers, who were sitting in state behind a long
+table at the end of the room, started to their feet with mingled cries of
+indignation and dismay at the intrusion.  Mr. Blows, conscious of the
+strength of his position, walked up to them.
+
+[Illustration: "Mr. Blows, conscious of the strength of his position,
+walked up to them."]
+
+"Mr. Blows!"  gasped the president.
+
+"Ah, you didn't expec' see me," said Mr. Blows, with a scornful laugh
+"They're trying do me, do me out o' my lill bit o' money, Bill."
+
+"But you ain't got no money," said his bewildered friend.
+
+Mr. Blows turned and eyed him haughtily; then he confronted the staring
+president again.
+
+"I've come for--my money," he said, impressively-- "one 'under-eighty
+pounds."
+
+"But look 'ere," said the scandalised Bill, tugging at his sleeve; "you
+ain't dead, Jack."
+
+"You don't understan'," said Mr. Blows, impatiently.  "They know wharri
+mean; one 'undereighty pounds.  They want to buy me a tombstone, an' I
+don't want it.  I want the money.  Here, stop it! _Dye hear?_"  The words
+were wrung from him by the action of the president, who, after eyeing him
+doubtfully during his remarks, suddenly prodded him with the butt-end of
+one of the property spears which leaned against his chair.  The solidity
+of Mr. Blows was unmistakable, and with a sudden resumption of dignity
+the official seated himself and called for silence.
+
+"I'm sorry to say there's been a bit of a mistake made," he said, slowly,
+"but I'm glad to say that Mr. Blows has come back to support his wife and
+family with the sweat of his own brow.  Only a pound or two of the money
+so kindly subscribed has been spent, and the remainder will be handed
+back to the subscribers."
+
+"Here," said the incensed Mr. Blows, "listen me."
+
+"Take him away," said the president, with great dignity.  "Clear the
+room.  Strangers outside."
+
+Two of the members approached Mr. Blows and, placing their hands on his
+shoulders, requested him to withdraw.  He went at last, the centre of a
+dozen panting men, and becoming wedged on the narrow staircase, spoke
+fluently on such widely differing subjects as the rights of man and the
+shape of the president's nose.
+
+He finished his remarks in the street, but, becoming aware at last of a
+strange lack of sympathy on the part of his audience, he shook off the
+arm of the faithful Mr. Carter and stalked moodily home.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Spirit of Avarice, by W.W. Jacobs
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12211 ***