Chapter III

“Billy Broke was his name and he’d left Los Angeles as I’ve told you on a visit to ’Frisco to see a wholesale firm on some business. He put up at the ‘Paris’ and went to his room to change his necktie and brush his hair, and when he opened his grip to fetch out the tie and the hairbrush, he come on a woman’s red silk petticoat rolled up and stuck in anyhow. At first he thought it was his wife’s, but he couldn’t remember ever seeing her in possession of such a garment, she being a woman of quiet tastes and not given to violent colours. Then he thought the thing must have been shoved in for fun by some joking young chaps that had been on the train. The more he considered this, the more he was sure of it, and down he sits to think things over.

“First of all he says to himself that if the thing was shoved in by them guys for fun it must have been stolen, then it came to him that maybe they didn’t put it in for fun but to get rid of it as evidence against them of some crime they’d committed. That made him sweat, but he got a clutch on himself, telling himself it was only in magazine stories things like that happened and that the chances were it belonged to his wife. Then he told himself that no matter who it belonged to or who put it there, he’d got to get rid of it.

“He wouldn’t risk bringing it back home, not much, and he wouldn’t risk keeping it an instant longer in his possession for fear of detectives arriving whilst it was still in his possession, so down he goes to the office and begs, borrows or steals a piece of brown paper and a yard and a half of string and back he comes to his room and wraps the evidence up and ties the string round it.

“‘There,’ says Billy to himself, ‘that’s done. Now the only thing I’ve got to do is take it out and lose it. Just throw it away. Some poor woman will pick it up and grateful she’ll be for it.’

“He comes down and goes out with the parcel under his arm and then he finds himself in the street. He’d thought to drop the parcel in the street casually as he walked along, it seemed the easiest thing in the world to do, but no sooner had he left the hotel with the parcel under his arm than he felt that everyone was watching him. That wasn’t stupidity either. Everyone was watching him. Everyone in every street is watching everyone else, doing it unbeknown to themselves most of the time, but doing it; it’s maybe a habit that has come down to us from the time we were hunters, and our lives depended on our eyes, but it’s there and if you fall down in any street half a dozen people will see you fall who otherwise would never have known of your existence, passing you without seeing you, consciously.

“That truth hit Billy between the eyes. He felt if he were to drop that parcel, not only would some guy see him drop it, but he’d know he’d dropped it purposefully, so he walks along with it under his arm trying to find an empty street, and somehow or another failing, till he comes on a narrow lane, and ‘Here’s my chance,’ says he and dives down it. Half way down, with no one in front or behind, he drops the parcel and walks on, but he couldn’t help turning his head like a fool, and there behind him, just come into the lane, was a man. The parcel was between Billy and the man, and Billy in a flash saw that the man would know he’d dropped it seeing Billy was walking away from it, not towards it. So, having turned his head, he had to complete the business and turn back and pick up the durned thing and walk on with it. He was in Market Street now and beginning to set his teeth. There was a good few people going and coming and they all seemed so busy and full of themselves that Billy took heart, and, walking along close to the houses, dropped the thing again. He didn’t turn his head this time, but just walked on, stopping here and there to look in at the shop windows and feeling he’d done the trick this time. He’d gone a good way and was looking in at a jeweller’s thinking which of the rings he’d buy for his wife if he had the money, when an old chap comes panting up to him with the parcel.

“‘I saw you drop it,’ says the old guy, and I ran after you with it, but you walk so quick I couldn’t catch you.’ Then he has a fit of coughing and Billy sees he’s nearly in rags and hands out a quarter and takes the parcel. Billy was beginning to find out the truth that if you want to lose a thing that’s of no value to you, you can’t, not in a city anyhow, but he was only beginning, else he’d have quitted the business right there and have knuckled under to that petticoat.

“Instead of that what does he do but go on with his peregrinations and his fool attempts to get rid of the thing, he makes it a present to a beggar woman and when she’d seen what was in it, she runs after him saying she’s taking no stolen goods and suggesting a dollar commission for not showing it to the police.

“Then getting along for four in the afternoon, Billy, feeling he’s married to the thing, begins to celebrate his connubial state with drinks. He wasn’t used to the stuff and he goes from saloon to saloon, warming up as he went and making more attempts at divorce till he strikes a bar tender notorious for his married unblessedness, offers the thing as a present for the B.T.’s wife and gets kicked flying into the street when a policeman picks him and his parcel up and starts them off again on their ambulations.

“The drink was working in him now strong—you see, he’d always been an abstemious man and you never know what whisky will do with a guy like that till it’s done with him. Billy cruises into another bar, planks down a quarter, swallows a high ball, gets a clutch on himself and starts on the king of all jags. He wasn’t trying to lose the parcel now. He was proud of it. He remembered in one saloon undoing it and showing the petticoat to an admiring audience. He remembered in another saloon saying the thing was full of bonds and banknotes. Then he was down in the dock area tumbling into gutters and singing songs. Chaps tried to rob him of the thing and he fought them like a wild cat. He’d begun the day with the parcel sticking to him, and he was ending the day by sticking to the parcel and resisting all attempts on it by armed force, so to speak. Then he believed he had a dust up with some Chinks who tried to nab the thing and there seemed to be police mixed up with it, for it ended with him running to escape policemen. Then he couldn’t remember anything more, and we told him how he had come running along the dockside till he struck the _Greyhound_ and came bounding on board, as per invoice.