Chapter III Koko Reports Progress
Mr Mortimer was seated at breakfast. His rooms were situated in a terrace leading out of a fashionable thoroughfare in Pimlico, but the terrace itself was not at all fashionable, consisting, as it did, chiefly of lodging-houses resorted to by medical students, clerks, actors, and ladies’ maids and men-servants out of places. The keeper of the house was a burly, strident-voiced, strong-willed lady of forty, rough but not unkindly, who always gave Jim what she liked (as opposed to what he liked) for breakfast.
This morning—the morning after his arrival in town from Eastfolkshire—his first meal was composed of cold eggs-and-bacon and cold tea—not a deliriously appetising repast, ’tis true; but then, if a man is summoned to breakfast at nine and eventually crawls into his sitting-room at a quarter past ten, what can he expect? And Mrs Freeman was not the sort of lady to keep anything warm for lie-abed lodgers.
Having nibbled half a cold egg, Mortimer turned his attention to the loaf, and eventually breakfasted off bread and marmalade. The butter he eschewed, as it appeared to claim first cousinship with train-oil. As the tea was by this time black, and bitter to the taste, Jim sought to appease his thirst with a bottle of beer from the rickety sideboard. The cork of the bottle being in a state of crumbling decrepitude, Mortimer had to delay his drink while, with the help of a spoon and some expletives, he fished the broken fragments out of the beer.
“A picture,” observed a quiet voice, while Jim was thus engaged, “calculated to melt the heart of any maid.”
“Hullo—Koko!”
“While I object to that nickname,” gravely responded the little man who had entered, as he removed his hat and displayed an almost entirely bald head, “I am compelled to reply to it. Well, how are you, young feller?”
Jim replied in a testy murmur that he felt all right, and proceeded to drag more fragments of cork out of the beer. Meanwhile, the man who had come in laid his hat, gloves, and stick on the far end of the table, and then arranged his tie in front of the mirror over the mantelpiece.
“Doocid dude you are, Koko!” said Jim, looking at his friend over the edge of the glass; “why,” springing up, “you’ve grown!”
Now, as the caller was but an inch or two over five feet in height, there was every reason why he should have felt congratulated by this remark.
“No,” he said, in a resigned voice, “I haven’t grown—I’ve only got some of my fat off.”
As Jim towered high above his friend—his height, if anything, accentuated by the clinging folds of his dressing-gown—the little man gazed admiringly up at the Long ’Un, and deep down in his heart perhaps, heaved a little sigh because of his own smallness. For, alas! Koko had finished growing. He was thirty, and already bald; he was years older than Jim—so was it likely he would grow now? And this was why, and quite naturally, George Somers, reporter on a sporting newspaper—this little, bald, quiet, unassuming man—had come, at first, to notice Jim Mortimer, and afterwards, when they got to know one another, to like him, and, finally, when they became close friends, to give him his whole heart in that sterling regard which men sometimes have for men, when each is sure that the other is worthy of such unflinching esteem.
Koko was neat and dapper in his dress, with nothing awry about him. He was excellently and attractively tidy, with the tidiness that little people have. So well proportioned was he, that his small stature never seemed ridiculous, even when viewed in close juxtaposition to the Long ’Un’s great length. Koko was, in countenance, well favoured, with a small, neatly trimmed dark moustache, and rather large, mild eyes. Though generally impassive, his face would at times light up with a wonderful, sudden smile—a smile that it did you good to look upon, a smile that told you that Koko’s nature was all gold.
And Koko, you must know, had for some years been inspired with the feeling that it was his particular mission in this world to look after the Long ’Un. Though he had many other duties, and one other hobby, he always found time to keep an almost maternal eye on Jim Mortimer.
“By the way, old boy,” said Koko, after a time, “have you unpacked?”
“Only my pyjamas and dressing-gown,” said Jim.
“Shall I lend you a hand?”
Mortimer gave a deep laugh.
“Anybody would think I was a blooming kid, Koko, by the way you talk,” he said.
“So you are,” said Koko, as he made his way to the adjoining bedroom, “in a great many things.”
In a leisurely manner the Long ’Un followed after his friend, who was already bending over the unstrapped portmanteau. Mortimer was in a lazy mood, the beer he had consumed having filled him with a feeling of lethargy. Sitting on the end of his bed, he smoked and watched Koko as the latter endeavoured to find his way through the hurly-burly before him—as he took the socks out of the boots in which it was the Long ’Un’s custom to pack them, rescued a tin of tooth-powder from the toe of a dancing pump—wherein it had been wedged to ensure safe travelling—fished a razor and shaving-brush out of the sponge-bag, and a sixpenny popular novel from the folds of a fancy waistcoat, put everything into its proper place in the chest of drawers or wardrobe, and at length paused, his task accomplished, in a somewhat flushed and heated condition.
“First-rate valet you’d make, Koko,” said the Long ’Un, ungratefully.
Koko, without replying, pushed the empty portmanteau under the bed, and then washed his hands.
“I must be off now,” he said simply.
“Oh, hang on a bit,” returned Mortimer, as they went back to the sitting-room.
“Must go,” said Koko, smoothing his silk hat with his coat sleeve—“work.”
“Where?”
“Billiards in the afternoon, fight in the evening.”
And with that he quietly departed.
Nobody would have dreamed that this quiet little man with the bald head had attended and described in nimble boxing terminology some of the fiercest combats that have ever been held at the National Milling Club; nobody would have dreamed that the Mr George Somers, whose hobby was the collecting of old, worm-eaten volumes, and whose initials, “G.S.,” were so familiar to the readers of the Book Hunter, was a well-known figure in swimming-baths, gymnasiums, billiard saloons, football, and cricket grounds the country over, gun clubs, lacrosse clubs, tennis clubs, and weight-lifting clubs. Yet the little man who nosed round bookstalls in Holywell Street (that was), Wych Street (that was), and St Martin’s Lane (that is), in search of rare first editions, was identical with the little man who accompanied Jim on many of his freebooting expeditions “up west,” and with the little man who attended sporting functions of every kind all the year round, rain or shine, in the proud capacity of the Sporting Mail’s “special representative.”
When Koko, some hours later, on his return from the billiard match, again looked in on the Long ’Un, he found Mr Mortimer still in his dressing-gown lolling over a book. The table bore the débris of Jim’s lunch.
As Koko entered the room, Mortimer threw away his book and yawned sluggishly. Koko walked gently up to him, and stood by the arm of his chair.
“I’ve got a bit of news for you, Jim.”
“Go ahead with it.”
“I’ve found out who that girl is.”
“What?”
The Long ’Un was out of his chair in a second, all life and fire and eagerness; the transformation was complete.
Koko laughed inwardly; he never laughed out loud.
“Yes, I’ve found out about her. She’s one of the girls at the Milverton Street post-office—she’s the girl that takes in the telegrams.”
“Are you sure?” exclaimed Jim.
“Certain,” said Koko, selecting a cigarette from his little silver case.
Mortimer was struck dumb with delight. For, ever since Koko and he, whilst taking tea at an ABC shop near St Matthew’s Hospital, had on three successive occasions observed an extremely handsome girl at a neighbouring table, the Long ’Un had been burning to know the young lady. That was before he went home for a month’s vacation. It would appear that Koko, faithful as ever to his friend’s interests, had not been idle during that month.
“Come on,” exclaimed Jim, “let’s go and send off some telegrams. She’ll at least be obliged to look at us. That’ll be something, won’t it?”
“Yes, that’ll be something,” said Koko; “all right, go and get dressed.”
The Long ’Un disappeared into the bedroom, and presently emerged in proper attire.
“You’d better wear your tail coat and top-hat, or I may cut you out,” suggested Koko.
With a bellow of laughter, the Long ’Un hurried into his bedroom again, issuing therefrom a minute later clad in the kind of coat and the kind of hat affected by Koko.
“Now,” said Koko, as they left Jim’s sitting-room, “we start level.”