William the Good (20 page)

‘You left it on the bench again, William,’ said Douglas.

They went out and stood around the empty bench.

‘
Well
,’ said William ‘it’s – it’s mos’
mysterious.
Someone’s pinched
this
one too.’

Upstairs Ethel was hurling the second caterpillar and tin furiously into the fireplace.

‘Very funny, aren’t they?’ she was saying. ‘ “A little friend to keep you company.” And two caterpillars. Oh, yes, it’s a
great
joke, isn’t
it. All
right
, my young friends, all
right.
’

‘Well, all I can say
is
,’ William was saying, ‘that it’s one of the mos’
mysterious
things what’ve ever happened to me in all my life. Two
parrots give me an’ two tins of caterpillars stole off me in the same mornin’. . . but’s no good goin’ out to find another now. There’s not time. We’ll
jus’ have to have the lecture without it.’

It was late afternoon. Hector, still wearing his fatuous smile, came round the corner of the house. He’d expected a note of thanks before now. He felt that he
couldn’t wait a minute longer without hearing an account of Ethel’s rapturous glee on the receipt of his present. He could imagine it, of course, but he wanted to hear someone telling
him about it. ‘She was delighted’ . . . ‘So kind of you’ . . . ‘She was
deeply
touched’ . . . ‘She’s writing to you now’ . . .
‘She’s longing for the time when her quarantine will be over and she can see you and thank you properly’ . . . were a few of the phrases that occurred to him. . . .

A housemaid opened the door.

‘I just – er – called to see if the parrot was settling down all right,’ said Hector in an ingratiating manner.

‘The parrot?’ said the housemaid in surprise.

‘Yes, the parrot that arrived this morning.’

‘No parrot arrived this morning, sir,’ said the housemaid.

It was Hector’s turn to be surprised.

‘W-what?’ he said, ‘are – are you sure.’

‘Quite sure, sir,’ said the housemaid. ‘There’s no parrot in the house at all.’

‘Not – er – not in Miss Brown’s room,’ said Hector desperately.

‘No, sir, I’ve just been there.’

Dazedly Hector walked away. Of course the thing was as plain as daylight. What a fool he’d been to leave the thing out there on the seat. Some tramp had come back to the back door and run
off with it. And he’d spent all the money he’d got on it. . . . Wasn’t it the
rottenest—
He stopped and stared. He’d wandered disconsolately round to the other
side of the house and there, just outside the closed door of the summer-house, stood William with a parrot in a cage.

The lecture was over. The Outlaws had collected a small and unruly audience of children who’d nothing else to do but no one had enjoyed it except William, who had
lectured to his own entire satisfaction and was now feeling tired and hoarse. He was, moreover, beginning to find his parrots more of a liability than an asset. All attempts at closer acquaintance
with them had been resisted so promptly that both Ginger and Douglas had had to improvise bandages for bleeding fingers from very grimy handkerchiefs, and William’s nose had been bitten
almost in two while he was gazing fondly at his new possessions through the bars. Also there was the economic side of the question to consider. William had been down to the village to ascertain the
price of parrot food and had come back aghast at the result.

‘We simply can’t afford to keep ’em,’ he said.

‘Well, I know I can’t. I’d have nothin’ left for myself at all out of the bit of pocket money they give me.’

‘Can’t they live on scraps an’ things?’ said Ginger.

‘Oh, yes,’ said William, ‘I guess you’d like to try feedin’ ’em on pois’nous berries same as what you did with the dormouse.’

‘Well, it was mine, wasn’t it?’ said Ginger with spirit.

‘Yes, but
this
isn’t,’ said William, ‘this was given me to lecture on an’ I’m not goin’ to have it killed with pois’nous berries by
you.’

‘What are you goin’ to do with it, then?’ said Ginger, ‘if you say you can’t buy it proper food?’

‘I don’t know yet,’ said William irritably. Like most other lecturers he was suffering the reaction from his expenditure of eloquence.

At this point the two parrots began to hold a screaming contest till William was forced to take George’s outside and close the door, whereupon the clamour died down. It was at this moment
that Hector came round the corner of the house. His first impulse was to hurl himself upon William and accuse him of stealing his parrot. But on approaching nearer he saw that it was not his
parrot. It was not his parrot and it was not his cage. His expression changed. He approached William in a manner that can only be described as ingratiating.

‘Whose is that parrot, William?’ he asked pleasantly.

‘Mine,’ said William shortly.

‘W-where did you get it?’ said Hector still more pleasantly.

‘Someone gave it to me,’ said William.

There was a short silence, then Hector said slowly:

‘I was just wanting a parrot like that.’

‘Were you?’ said William.

Hector cleared his throat and then said in a manner that was more ingratiating than ever:

‘They’re rather dangerous, you know, and very expensive to feed.’

William secretly agreed with both these statements, but he gave no sign of having even heard them. A shade of nervousness crept into Hector’s ingratiating manner.

‘I – I’m willing to buy that parrot from you, William,’ he offered.

William turned a steady eye upon him.

‘How much for?’ he said sternly.

Hector hesitated. He hadn’t any money to speak of. With a different type of child, of course, one might – He’d always disliked William far more than the other Outlaws.

‘They’re not expensive things, of course,’ he said carelessly, hoping that William did not know their value, ‘and they’re a lot of trouble. One must take into
account that they’re delicate birds and one has to—’

William interrupted. A sudden gleam had come into William’s eye.

‘I tell you what I’ll do,’ he said, ‘I’ll swop it with you.’

‘What for?’ said Hector hopefully.

The gleam in William’s eye became brighter, more steely.

‘I want to give Ginger a present,’ he said carelessly. ‘I want to give him one of those nice trumpets. The
very
nice ones. You can get ’em at Foley’s in the
village. They cost six shillings. I’ll swop it with you for one of those trumpets to give to Ginger.’

William’s freckled face was absolutely expressionless as he made this offer. For a minute there was murder in Hector’s eye. He went purple, controlled himself with an effort, then
after a minute’s silence full of unspoken words, gulped and said:

‘Very well. You wait here.’

Soon he was back with the trumpet. He hurled it at William with a gesture of anger and contempt, seized the parrot cage and disappeared. He was going to take it home, write a beautiful little
note, fasten it to the ring, and deliver it in person at the front door. He wasn’t going to repeat his mistake of leaving it anywhere where it could be stolen before it reached the
beloved’s hands.

Inside the summer-house the Outlaws were dancing a dance of exultation and triumph around Ginger who was producing loud but discordant strains from his magnificent new trumpet.

This festive gathering was, however, broken by the sudden advent of George who, like Hector, had not been able to resist the temptation of coming round to receive a detailed description of
Ethel’s delight. Like Hector he had been informed that no parrot had entered the house that day. He had then caught a glimpse of the Outlaws in the summer-house leaping wildly about a parrot
in a cage to the mingled strains of some devilish musical instrument and the shrill sardonic chuckles of a parrot. He hurled himself in upon them in fury.

‘You little
thieves
,’ he panted, seizing William by both ears. ‘What do you
mean
by taking my parrot?’

William firmly but with great dignity freed his ears, then as firmly and with as much dignity replied:

‘’S not your parrot. ’S ours.’

George looked at the parrot and his jaw dropped. William was right. It wasn’t his parrot. It wasn’t his cage.

He gulped. His anger departed. A certain propitiatory note came into his voice as he began to make tentative enquiries as to the exact value William set upon his parrot. It appeared that though
William valued his parrot very highly indeed, still in order to oblige George he was willing to exchange it for a mouth-organ, one of the six-shilling ones from Foley’s, because he happened
to want to give one to Douglas as a present. George, after displaying all the symptoms of an imminent apoplectic fit, went off to buy the mouth-organ, returned with it, flung it furiously at the
Outlaws and stalked off with his parrot.

William turned to the other Outlaws.

‘I mus’ say,’ he admitted, ‘that a lot of extraordinary things seem to be hap’nin’ to us today. People givin’ away parrots an’ other people
wantin’ ’em an’ – let’s go’n’ see what he’s goin’ to do with it.’

At a discreet distance they followed George round and out of the side gate. George was going to take the parrot in at the front door, ring the bell, and deliver it in person. He wasn’t
going to run the risk of having it stolen a second time. . . . And then, to his amazement, he saw Hector blithely approaching from the opposite direction also carrying a parrot in a cage. Hector
had been home, had written a graceful little note, attached it to the ring of the cage, and was now coming to present it to Ethel. They met at the gate. Their mouths slowly opened. Their eyes
bulged in fury and amazement as each recognised his own parrot and cage in the hand of the other. Simultaneously they shouted, ‘So
you
stole my parrot.’

The Outlaws watched in mystified delight. A shabby-looking man who happened to be passing also stopped to form an interested audience.

‘It’s not your parrot . . . I say
you
stole mine.’

‘I did
not . . . that’s
my parrot you’re holding.’

‘You heard her say she’d like a parrot and you—’

‘’You couldn’t afford one yourself so you pinched mine and—’

‘A jolly good thing I’ve caught you—’

‘I did
not—
’

‘You
did—
’

‘You’re a liar and a thief.’

‘I’m not. You are.’

‘I’m what?’

‘A liar and a thief.’

‘Say that again.’

‘A liar and a thief.’

‘Are you referring to me or to you?’

‘To you.’

‘Well, say it again.’

‘You’re a liar and a thief.’

Feeling words inadequate, but finding the cage he was carrying an impediment to threatening gestures, George turned round, thrust it into William’s arms with a curt ‘take that’
and began to roll up his sleeves. Hector turned to the shabby-looking man, who stood just behind him, thrust his cage into his arms, and began to roll up his sleeves. The next minute George and
Hector, who attended the same boxing class and knew each other’s style by heart, were giving a splendid display upon the high road, with bare fists. From the melange came at regular intervals
the words ‘thief and ‘liar’, ‘you did’, ‘I didn’t’.

It was clear that in the shabby-looking man’s breast there raged a struggle between duty and pleasure – the pleasure of watching the fight and the duty of providing for himself the
necessities of life. Duty won, and he crept softly away with his parrot and cage, and was never seen or heard of in that locality again.

William stood for a minute deep in thought, then went quietly indoors with his parrot and cage, leaving Hector and George still deaf and blind to everything but the joy of fighting. William,
still very thoughtful, carried his cage up to Ethel’s room.

‘I won’t come in, Ethel,’ he said softly, ‘’cause of catching your quarantine illness, but I’ve brought you a little present. I heard you’d said
you’d like a parrot an’ I’ve brought you one.’

Ethel and his mother came to the door and stared at him in amazement. Freckled, stern, inscrutable, he handed the cage to Ethel.

‘B-but wherever did you get it, William?’ said Mrs Brown.

‘A man gave it to me,’ said William.

‘A
man
gave it to you?’ gasped Mrs Brown.

‘Yes,’ said William, his face and voice entirely devoid of any expression. ‘A man in the road gave it me. He just put it in my arms an’ said: “Take that.” He
gave it me.’

‘
Well!
’ gasped Mrs Brown, ‘isn’t that
extraordinary
! But there
are
a lot of eccentric people about and’ – vaguely –
‘one’s always reading of queer things in the newspapers.’

Ethel was deeply touched. That William should bring his present straight to her. That it should be William who remembered her lightly expressed wish for a parrot which those two – well,
there weren’t any words strong enough for them – had only ridiculed. . . . She felt drawn to William as never before.

‘How – how
very
kind of you, William,’ she said. ‘I – you can have your bow and arrow back. I’m sorry I took if from you. It’s – it’s
very
kind of you to bring me the parrot.’

William received his bow and arrow with perfunctory thanks. Just at that moment the housemaid came up with a note. Ethel tore it open.

‘Why, it’s all right,’ she said. ‘Daphne hasn’t got measles after all. The rash has all gone, and the doctor says she’s not got it at all, and they want me to
go to tea, and they’ve got that artist coming – you know, the one that said that I was the loveliest girl he’d ever seen in his life, and – Oh, how jolly. I’ll start
at once.’

‘May Douglas and Ginger and me walk with you just as far as there, Ethel?’ said William.

‘Certainly, William,’ said Ethel in her melted mood.

A few minutes later Ethel, accompanied by William, Ginger and Douglas, set out fron the front door. William carried his bow and arrow, Ginger his magnificent new trumpet, and Douglas his
magnificent new mouth-organ. They walked very jauntily.