YOU CAN'T BE TOO CAREFUL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 206, 31 August 1936, Page 15

YOU CAN'T BE TOO CAREFUL.

By J. A. WILLIAMS

AFTER what very nearly happened to | Wotcher Parkin, I've deckled that you can't be too careful about w'ftrds. One word can so easily mean a long sentence. When Wotcher first told me about his Daltonism I said I wasn't interested in shorthand. Which just oliows you! But, jl expect you'd have said the same thing. Wotcher told me it was a rare internal disease, most likely, as he didn't feel any pain at all. He told me about it so often that I suffered more from his Daltonism than he did. But it let him down, in the end. It was an Army doctor who told Wotcher that he suffered from Daltonism, but he had to do his bit just the same. That was in '17, and by the time Wotcher and the Americans hud won the war, he'd clean forgotten all about it. What started the trouble was me doing a bit of plumbing for old Elijah Sowerby. His bathroom had gone to leak something fierce, the pipes having rusted away through not being used. Old Sowerby was known to those who did "private business" with him as Elijah the Profit, on account of his being satisfied with nothing less than a hundred per cent for himself. Wotcher owed it to Elijah for a "squeak" he gave over the Brandon jewel raid, which earned for Wotcher a stay in the country for the best part of tw> years. When ho came out he was, as the novel says, "thirsting for revenge." He used to tell me about it frequent, and I would give him sound advice, only he said it didn't sound good enough for him.

Ho happened to be at my place when old Sowerby's cheque came in for the plumbing I'd done. I showed it to Wotcher, thinking to impress him with the fruits of iuiUtftry. He stared at it like a strangled codfish, and went into a sort of trance for about ten minutes. I'd never seen him look so intelligent before, <so the time passed quickly. When his coma had come to a full-stop as it were, he began asking a lot of questions. "Is that the way Elijah always makes out his cheques?" "It is," I answers. "Signs 'em with a rubber stamp, ah?" Wotcher asks, persistent like. "He does," I says., "He's got to — what with both his hands being twisted with rheumatics. You ought to know." 'He always paid me cash," says Wotcher with a pensive, far-away expression on his face. "And he types out the amount and all that on a machine?" "Wotcher," I says, beginning to get tired, "how did you guess?" But he hasn't a sense of humour; he took me serious. "Can't you see?" he yelps, impatient like. "Use yer eyes, Jim!" I tell you I felt fair peeved with the chap. He went on asking questions, though. How much did I think old Sowerby was worth? Had I ever seen him making out a cheque?. told him all I knew, and ho perked up a bit. "Jim," says he at last, giving mo an earnest look. "I've decided to travel the straight and nai'rer. A barrer-load of bananas for me. I'm a reformed character."

And when, two days later, I saw him down our street, harrow and all, you could have knocked me down with a feather-weight. He'd drop in on me and Agnes and tell us all about honesty being the best policy. The way he preached you'd think it was I who needed reforming. People began to say what a nice, honest chap Wotcher was. Agnes, being his sister, felt so happy she used up Sowerby's cheque buying herself some new clothes. Later 011 Wotcher gave up bananas and went to a cousin down at Brighton, who owned a boat. He took trippers out to sea at a bob a time, 011 commission. At the end of the season he sneaked back on the quiet, and met me in a pub. It was luchy Agnes wasn't with me. "Belay there, messmate," he greets me. "How goes it?" He'd grown a beard, and was that brown I wouldn't' have -known him from Tarzan. If he hadn't told me who he was. He was brimful of ozone, and had what he called a fine scheme which he proposed to me. Fine —it sounded more like imprisonment to me, and when he'd done he had the impudence to ask if I'd join in. After all the advice I'd given him, too, and the way he had preached at me with those bananas. AVell, they say there are 110 straight bananas. Wotcher and a banana would make a proper pair, I'm thinking. I did my best to persuade him against the scheme, but it was 110 go. e "Shi ver-me-timbers, messmate, but vou're a fool," he scoffs, and sort of rolls out of the pub, leaving behind a strong smell of seaweed. I tell you, there was enough brine .'about that fellow to salt a shipload of herring. He must have picked up _ those strange expressions from the trippers. He was still hankering to get his own back on old Sowerby. The \y(>rst of it was that I'd told him enough to make it look easy. When I. was trying to reform the squib, he was scheming it out all the time. The bananas were just bluff.'

On the first foggy day he planned to «o down to Sowerby's junk shop —which he used to hide his-real business. Once inside, Wotcher was goingto tie the old sinner up, and make himself out a cheque. 011 the typewriter, and sign -it with Elijah's rubber stamp. ; It seemed so/.easy that I coulcln t sleep of nights, worrying. Wotcher was lying low, posing, Heaven help him, as a sailor." " It was towards the end of September when I spoke to him in the pub, so the foggy weather wasn't far off. I tell von, about the middle of October, a slight haze in the mornings would send me all goosey. . Then, one Thursday morning, we had a regular pea-souper, and I felt so bad I stayed indoors expecting all sorts of unpleasant things to happen. 4imes had <?one down the street to do a bit of shopping, when a knock sounded on the door. I went out, and there, it v ou please, was Wotcher. large as life, bear' 1 and all; grinning like a gorilla. "Wi-'t'o the idea?" I asks linn, wish:n r y r° an( l l°st himself in the f if whe~e near the docks for pre-

(SHORT STORY.)

"Just dropped in to borrow yer pen and 'mW' says he, bold as brass. "1 wants ro endorse this cheque of Elijah's before I "goes to the bank. Rather do it 'ere than there, with all them clurks knockin' around." "You've brought it off, then?" "Sure thing, boy!" "And you mean to say," I continues, real angry, "that you've the face to come here in the middle of a job like this? What's old Sowerby doing in the meantime ?" 'Sitting in his office," grins Wotcher, "trussed up like a fowl. You are quite right, Jim —the job was as easy as kiss me, and J got the cheque book, typed out tlie cheque on the old machine what was on the desk. 1 made it out to JamoH Smith, no's to be sale. "Tho old fox wiw ho Beared ho told mo where everything was. JLis littlo rubber stamp wnn fastened to a small chain tied to lii« button-hole, and his little square (.in box with a lid, what held tho ink-pad, was in his left-hand waistcoat pocket. "With his help I wasn't in tho place five minutes, and not a soul about the place neither, in this 'ero fog. The cheque's exactly like tho one you showed me—for tho plumbing, remember?" "How much is it for?" I wondering whether I oughtn't to call the police or not. Agnes means a lot to mo; Jier happiness is mine. The second disgrace would hurt her badly, so I did nothing. "Ninety-eight pounds, twelve and a tanner," says Wotcher, with a wink. "Looks more natural like, seel It's easy, Jim, when you uses brains." "And what's going to happen to Sowerby? Suppose someone calls?" I tell you, I was scared stiff, on account of Agnes, and mo being brought in as accessory, or something scandalous like that. Wotcher only laughed. "Don't you worry, Jim. I've thought everything out. Yer see, I knew Elijah kept the key of his shop in the lock —on the inside. So I took a card along, with 'Gone Out' printed large on it. "Then, when I had tied him up, I took tho key out of the lock, hung the card against the glass so's people could see it plain, and locked him in. I've got tho key with me now. If anybody calls, they'll'get no answer, see the card, and go away. But nobody'll call this weather." "You can't leave him there like that," I protests.

"Look 'cm. Jim," says Wotcher, very superior. "Who's ruiinin' this show, me or you? What I propose to do is to cash this cheque. Then I comes back hero to Allies, from Brighton, 6ee? I shaves me beard, puts oil fresh togs, and there's me, honest Wotcher Parkin, what no 0110 suspects. "What's more, I got a little silver jug'l wants to sell Sowerby. I trots down to his shop, goes in, takes away the card, leaving the key in the lock, and knocks on the counter. "Getting no answer, I pops me 'ead into the office, and there I finds Elijah bound 'and and foot. I rescues 'im and sells 1110 jug at a profit." Wotcher looks at me hard. "That's a joke, that is," ho says, but I couldn't seo the point —unless it was the "jug"— for him. While lio was speaking I got out the pen and ink, and Wotcher turned a funny colour when I stopped him signing tho cheque "W. Parkin" instead of "James Smith." Then, before I had a chance to look at tho cheque, I heard Agnes fumbling at the front door, so I pushes Wotcher out through the back way. Just in time, too.

Agnes was dishing up the dinner when there came another knock on the door, and I nearly fell off my chair. It was only Wotcher, with a face as long as a fiddle. Agnes made him very welcome, but ho linrdly touched his food, and listened to his sister's chatter like a deaf mute at a funeral. He said he had toothache, hut to me he looked like a man with a severe pain in the back of his neck. I got it out of him later —the news I mean, not the pain. The bank had refused to cash his cheque. They -\vere most polite, though, and did their best to call up old Sowerby on the 'phone, while poor Wotcher waited and sweated. But they got no answer. That wait taught Wotcher more than my advice ever did. The clerk at the counter apologised to Wotcher, and gave him his cheque back, asking him to get a new one made out, when it would be all right. Mr. Sowerby had been warned to be most careful, but had evidently been absent-minded when he had made out this cheque, because he had stamped his signature red instead of green, which was used solely for cheques. The red was for correspondence, receipts, and the like. A slight mistake,.that was all.

If you ask mo, old Elijah wasn't so scared as Wotchcr had tliought, nor so absent-minded as the Bank made out. But what pot me was Wotcher making a fool mistake like that. "Couldn't you see it was stamped red. you idiot?" 'i asked him. "The one I showed you was green." "They both looked exactly alike ter me, Jim," ho answered, in a crushed sort of way. So I tried him with some wool patterns of Agnes', and sure enough, the fellow was* colour-blind. Btit I made him change and shave, and sent him' off to Elijah's as planned. The only reward he got was to be swindled over his silver jug. . |f As wo found out later, ib was that Daltonism of his which had let him down. It's a special kind of colourblindness named after _ a chap called Dal ton, who first discovered that he couldn't tell the difference between red and green. . It taught Wotcher ft lesson. It taught me one, too —that you can t be too carcful about words. Wotcher sells fish now. White fish.