There was a wall between Cleg and the Drabble, a wall with a place for
your toes. With his boots off Cleg could have shinned up like a cat.
But three-shilling boots with toe caps are tender things and need to be
treated with respect. Whereupon Cleg had resort to guile.
"Hae ye seen the last number o' 'Gory Dick, the Desprader of the
Prairies,' Drabble?" cried Cleg over the wall.
"Gae 'way, man, an' eat sawdust, you paper boy!" cried the Drabble over
the wall.
The Drabble was of the more noble caste of the sneak thief. He had
still his eye on the collars. Cleg raged impotently. All his Irishry
boiled within him.
"Be the powers, Archie Drabble, wait till I catch ye. I'll not leave a
leevin' creature on ye from head to fut!"
The completeness of this threat might have intimidated the Drabble,
but he was on the safe side of the wall, and only laughed. He had
a vast contempt for Cleg, inasmuch as he had forsaken the good and
distinguished ways of Timothy Kelly, his father, and taken to missions
and Sunday schools. Cleg foamed in helpless fury at the foot of
the wall. He grew to hate his boots and his mended clothes, in his
great desire to get at the Drabble. To the original sin with regard
to the bed of the Kavannahs, the Drabble had now added many actual
transgressions. Cleg was the vindicator of justice, and he mentally
arranged to a nicety where and how he would punch the Drabble.
But just then the Drabble came over the wall at a run. He had been
spotted from a distance by an active young officer, Constable
Gilchrist, who was noted for his zeal in providing for the youth of
the south side. The Drabble dropped to the ground like a cat, with the
drawn pale face and furtive eyes which told Cleg that the "poliss" were
after him.
Without doubt Cleg ought to have given the offender up to justice, as
a matter of private duty. He might thus have settled his own private
matters with the pursued. But the traditional instincts of the outlaw
held. And, seeing the double look which the Drabble turned up and down
the street, he said softly—
"Here, Drabble; help me to deliver thae papers."
The Drabble glanced at Cleg to make out if he meant to sell him to
justice. That was indeed almost an impossibility. But the Drabble did
not know how far the evil communications of Sunday schools might have
corrupted the original good manners of the Captain of the Sooth-Back
Gang.
However, there was that in Cleg's face which gave him confidence. The
Drabble grabbed the papers and was found busily delivering them up one
side of the street while Cleg Kelly took the other, when Constable
Gilchrist, reinforced by a friend, came in sight over the wall by the
aid of a clothes-prop and the nicks in the stones.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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