第74章

The Filling of the Tank Viewed from outside, the `Cricketers Arms' was a pretentious-looking building with plate-glass windows and a profusion of gilding.The pilasters were painted in imitation of different marbles and the doors grained to represent costly woods.There were panels containing painted advertisements of wines and spirits and beer, written in gold, and ornamented with gaudy colours.On the lintel over the principal entrance was inscribed in small white letters:

`A.Harpy.Licensed to sell wines, spirits and malt liquor by retail to be consumed either on or off the premises.'

The bar was arranged in the usual way, being divided into several compartments.First there was the `Saloon Bar': on the glass of the door leading into this was fixed a printed bill: `No four ale served in this bar.' Next to the saloon bar was the jug and bottle department, much appreciated by ladies who wished to indulge in a drop of gin on the quiet.There were also two small `private' bars, only capable of holding two or three persons, where nothing less than fourpennyworth of spirits or glasses of ale at threepence were served.

Finally, the public bar, the largest compartment of all.At each end, separating it from the other departments, was a wooden partition, painted and varnished.

Wooden forms fixed across the partitions and against the walls under the windows provided seating accommodation for the customers.A large automatic musical instrument - a `penny in the slot' polyphone -resembling a grandfather's clock in shape - stood against one of the partitions and close up to the counter, so that those behind the bar could reach to wind it up.Hanging on the partition near the polyphone was a board about fifteen inches square, over the surface of which were distributed a number of small hooks, numbered.At the bottom of the board was a net made of fine twine, extended by means of a semi-circular piece of wire.In this net several india-rubber rings about three inches in diameter were lying.There was no table in the place but jutting out from the other partition was a hinged flap about three feet long by twenty inches wide, which could be folded down when not in use.This was the shove-ha'penny board.The coins - old French pennies - used in playing this game were kept behind the bar and might be borrowed on application.On the partition, just above the shove-ha'penny board was a neatly printed notice, framed and glazed:

NOTICE

Gentlemen using this house are requested to refrain from using obscene language.

Alongside this notice were a number of gaudily-coloured bills advertising the local theatre and the music-hall, and another of a travelling circus and menagerie, then visiting the town and encamped on a piece of waste ground about half-way on the road to Windley.The fittings behind the bar, and the counter, were of polished mahogany, with silvered plate glass at the back of the shelves.On the shelves were rows of bottles and cut-glass decanters, gin, whisky, brandy and wines and liqueurs of different kinds.

When Crass, Philpot, Easton and Bundy entered, the landlord, a well-fed, prosperous-looking individual in white shirt-sleeves, and a bright maroon fancy waistcoat with a massive gold watch-chain and a diamond ring, was conversing in an affable, friendly way with one of his regular customers, who was sitting on the end of the seat close to the counter, a shabbily dressed, bleary-eyed, degraded, beer-sodden, trembling wretch, who spent the greater part of every day, and all his money, in this bar.He was a miserable-looking wreck of a man about thirty years of age, supposed to be a carpenter, although he never worked at that trade now.It was commonly said that some years previously he had married a woman considerably his senior, the landlady of a third-rate lodging-house.This business was evidently sufficiently prosperous to enable him to exist without working and to maintain himself in a condition of perpetual semi-intoxication.This besotted wretch practically lived at the 'Cricketers'.He came regularly very morning and sometimes earned a pint of beer by assisting the barman to sweep up the sawdust or clean the windows.He usually remained in the bar until closing time every night.He was a very good customer; not only did he spend whatever money he could get hold of himself, but he was the cause of others spending money, for he was acquainted with most of the other regular customers, who, knowing his impecunious condition, often stood him a drink `for the good of the house'.

The only other occupant of the public bar - previous to the entrance of Crass and his mates - was a semi-drunken man, who appeared to be a house-painter, sitting on the form near the shove-ha'penny board.He was wearing a battered bowler hat and the usual shabby clothes.This individual had a very thin, pale face, with a large, high-bridged nose, and bore a striking resemblance to the portraits of the first Duke of Wellington.He was not a regular customer here, having dropped in casually about two o'clock and had remained ever since.He was beginning to show the effects of the drink he had taken during that time.

As Crass and the others came in they were hailed with enthusiasm by the landlord and the Besotted Wretch, while the semi-drunk workman regarded them with fishy eyes and stupid curiosity.

`Wot cheer, Bob?' said the landlord, affably, addressing Crass, and nodding familiarly to the others.`'Ow goes it?'

`All reet me ole dear!' replied Crass, jovially.`'Ow's yerself?'

`A.1,' replied the `Old Dear', getting up from his chair in readiness to execute their orders.

`Well, wot's it to be?' inquired Philpot of the others generally.

`Mine's a pint o' beer,' said Crass.

`Half for me,' said Bundy.

`Half o' beer for me too,' replied Easton.

`That's one pint, two 'arves, and a pint o' porter for meself,' said Philpot, turning and addressing the Old Dear.