Spring-Heel'd Jack, The Terror of London — page 261: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

SS eee ‘me, ’cos I tell you it won't take. _ “Have they caught him’?—oh! have they caught him, Bill?” cried the woman. “ Don't expect they ever will, do you?” srowled Bill. ‘’Tain’t natural to think as how anybody could take him, if he warn’t a mind to be took. He’ssummut more nor a man, or he couldn’t have took all the pluck out of this hinfant twice, I can tell you.” : “‘ But Grasper, where’s he ?”’ ‘Gone off arter him, cuss him! I hope as he'll get_a topper as’ll put him out of the way.” ans Bill!” “Now, what are you arter? When it comes to ‘Oh, Bill!’ there’s sure to be some of the penny-gail sentimentality behind. What’s your game, now ?”’ said the fellow, as he followed his wife into the back room. ““{ wish he’d never come here.”’ Who?” cavVnOw. “Ves. Who?”’ “Why, that hoary-headed old villain of a Grasper, to be sure,’ said his wife. ** Do you, now ?”’ “T do, indeed.”’ “Well, so do I,” said Bill, “for one thing, and not for the other. You see, Poll, if he _hadn’t a been, I shouldn’t have got the five couter.” “It will never do you any good, Bill, never,” said his wife. “Won'tit? You'llsee. I'll havea stunning good lush on to-morrow at The Flyers.” The woman heaved a deep sigh. “What are you groaning at?” cried Bill, furiously. ‘‘Curse you! you never did care to see a fellow enjoy hisself.”’ *“‘ Enjoy yourself, Bill. Oh, what enjoyment ? waa enjoyment ?’” cried the woman, sorrow- ully. | ** Now, look’ye here, Poll. Don’t you come for to try on any of the penny-gaff heroine with S’help me never, it won't! I got the chips, and, of course, I means to make myself comfortable with ’em among my pals.” ‘Oh that you had never seen them or the villain either !” said the woman, who pretty well knew what she had to expect after Bill had enjoyed himself at The Flyers. ‘‘ He’ll do you some harm yet, the hoary-headed old raseal. It would have been a deal better for you if you had had nothing to do with him.” “ Perhaps it would, and perhaps it wouldn’t,” said Bill. “‘ He has you in his power.” Bill winced. ‘So has the other chap,’ said Bill. ‘* That man’s a devil, and that’s the reason I came back, for I knew if he’d seen me after him, he’d make it hot for me.”’ “T’m afraid trouble is coming on us again, Bill—very much afraid it is,” Oh! you're afraid of anything, you are,” sulkily replied the man. ‘f You should be plucky like me.” “ Like you?” ~“ Yes, me.’’ “God help me! enough as it is.”’ ” ooid the woman, “I’m bad sara rer erON o. SPRING-HEEL’D JACK: THE TERROR OF LONDON. 263 ‘What do you mean? Do you mean that I’m a cur?” said Bill, waxing wrath, The woman made no reply. We said that the way things had turned out that night had annoyed Bill, and that he only wanted some excuse to vent his displeasure on her. ‘What do you say ?”’ his wife did not speak. “ Nothing. I said nothing,’’ replied the woman, timidly. “Then, why don’t you? When I ask you anything, it’s your place to answer, ain’t it? You want to get up a row, don’t you ?” “No, Bill, no.” “ Yes, youdo, Tsay. You ain’t had enough of ’em lately, I suppose?” ~ ‘ God knows they have been none of my seek- ing,’’ said Mrs. Jackson. “Of course not. Nothing’s ever of your seeking. Oh no! certainly not.’’ ‘““Are you going to bed, Bill?”’ said the woman, fearful that the storm was about to burst forth. “ No, I ain’t.” “Then I am, for I am too tired to sit up longer.’ r ‘“‘ Certainly, you're tired. You always are, though what you’ve got to make you so would puzzle the devil himself to tell. Of course you're tired. Ishould like to know when you warn’t. Jf I’m ever at The Flyers, it’s ‘ Bill, are youcoming home? Imtired.’ ”’ ‘€ You forget, Bill,’ she said, in a meek tone, “that I have not only you and the children to do for, but that I work hard to get a few pence as well.” “Oh yes! you work, and a mouthful you make of it, don’t you? But you don’t say ‘Bill, you’re tired,’ when I work. Oh no! And if you do try to get a few halfpence, so do IT; and then the moment I get ’em, you begin to preach and palaver, and There, don’t say no more to me, for I ain’t been put in the very best of tempers to-night.” The woman was silent, and remained so, ’spite of the remarks which Bill continued to make, in the hope of causing her to give him some excuse to vent his rage upon her. Bill—like too many a paltry villain of the pre- sent day—vented the passions he dared not show in the presence of his own sex upon his poor wife, and planned and plotted hard for some ex- cuse for his unmanly conduct. For who ever knew a wife-beater who was not the most in- jured man in the world, instead of the most con- temptible. Bill Jackson was but the type of thousands, not only in the class of which he himself was a member, but of that which boasts of education and refinement. If. there could possibly be any excuse for a man raising his strong arm against the weak form of a woman, surely it could alone be found in the very lowest grades of society, among those whose brute passions have never been tamed by education or example ; in those slums where filth abounds, and the light of reason has not pene- trated ; and yet even there the excuse must be weak indeed. growled Bill, finding