“A wicked boy,” piped Old Joe. “That’s what ’e is. Never tries to get work. Got one job, and got sacked from that, and ain’t done a stroke since. ’Anging about pubs and mixin’ wiv wasters. Grr! ’E’ll end in gaol, mark what I say. Blast ’im. Arr.... Fanny’s the good girl. Where’d we all be if it wasn’t for Fanny? Looks after us and keeps us all going. Does anything to keep the ’ome together, doncher, me gel? Goes out charing, or does needlework. Clever wiv ’er needle, she is. But that blasted Perce. Grr! I’d spit on ’im. I’d turn ’im out the ’ouse if I could. But ’e won’t go. Cos ’e knows I’m ’elpless and can’t do nothing. Not if ’e struck me I couldn’t do nothink. An’ ’e’s nearly done it, oncer twice. The blasted drunken little waster. Gawd—if I’d a-got my strength back—I’d learn ’im. You dunno—nobody dunno—what I’ve ’ad to put up wiv from ’im—all cos I can’t move—an’ ’e knows it. Things ’e’s said to me. Things ’e’s done. Gawd. Dunno what I’ve a-done that I should ’ave to put up....” Whereupon he would collapse and weep cold tears down his huge white face, and Fanny would run in from her daily work, or drop her sewing, and paw him and talk baby-talk to him. He was right about Perce, though. Perce was the boy for fancy waistcoats and the private bar. Perce was the boy for the athletic saloon—as an onlooker. Perce was the boy for hanging on the fringe of those who lead the impetuous life. But Perce was never the boy for a fight or an adventure or a woman, or for any indulgence that called for quality. Perce was the complete rotter. Perce was the boy to glower upon the helpless giant and tell him off. “Oh, shut up,” he’d snarl. “You ought to be in a work’ouse, you did. Or else in a play. Cut yer blasted yap, cancher, yer rotten old nuisance!” And the old man would return, shrilly and tearfully: “I’m sorry, Perce, me boy. But I’m an old man, y’know, and queer. And I sits ’ere all day and all night, and I can’t ’elp _feeling_ things. I know yer a good boy, really, though yeh do speak sharp sometimes.... Arr ... if only Gawd’d give me back my strength, I could work for all of us. Me, strongest man in London Docks, and now a-sitting ’ere day and night, day and night, day and night.” On the Monday night he did not come home, and Old Joe was wondering where he might be, and hoping to Christ he’d tumbled in the river; and Fanny, too, on Tuesday night, was wondering and laying the supper, and hoping nothing had happened, and assuring Old Joe that Perce was a nice, good boy. At eight o’clock a step sounded in the cadaverous darkness of Bluegate Lane, and Perce came in. His key rattled in the door, and words passed between him and another. He was heard to wipe his boots—a thing he had never been known to do. He seemed to be walking uncertainly, with many feet. Then the kitchen door was snatched open by Fanny, the soft, and Perce was heard by her and Old Joe to murmur: “Tha’ll be all right.” But only Perce entered the kitchen.