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The Record of Badalia Herodsfoot 157
'What's the matter now? You go into your 'ouse. I'll see to the
man. 'As 'e been 'itting you?' said the policeman.
"Ittin' me? 'E's cut my 'eart in two, an' 'e stands there grinnin' as
tho' 'twas all a play to 'im.'
'You go on into your 'ouse an' lie down a bit.'
'I'm a married woman, I tell you, an' I'll 'ave my 'usband!'
'I ain't done her no bloomin' 'arm,' said Tom from the edge of
the crowd. He felt that public opinion was running against him.
'You ain't done me any bloomin' good, you dorg. I'm a married
woman, I am, an' I won't 'ave my 'usband took from me.'
'Well, if you
are
a married woman, cover your breasts,' said the
policeman soothingly. He was used to domestic brawls.
'Shan't — thank you for your impidence. Look 'ere!' She tore
open her dishevelled bodice and showed such crescent-shaped
bruises as are made by a well-applied chair-back. 'That's what 'e
done to me acause my heart wouldn't break quick enough! 'E's
tried to get in an' break it. Look at that, Tom, that you gave me last
night; an' I made it up with you. But that was before I knew what
you were tryin' to do long o' that woman —'
'D'you charge 'im?' said the policeman. "E'll get a month for it,
per'aps.'
'No,' said Jenny firmly. It was one thing to expose her man to the
scorn of the street, and another to lead him to jail.
'Then you go in an' lie down, and you' — this to the crowd — 'pass
along the pavement, there. Pass along. 'Taint nothing to laugh
at.' To Tom, who was being sympathized with by his friends, 'It's
good for you she didn't charge you, but mind this now, the next
time,' etc.
Tom did not at all appreciate Jenny's forbearance, nor did his
friends help to compose his mind. He had whacked the woman
because she was a nuisance. For precisely the same reason he had
cast about for a new mate. And all his kind acts had ended in a
truly painful scene in the street, a most unjustifiable exposure by
and of his woman, and a certain loss of caste - this he realized
dimly — among his associates. Consequently, all women were nui-
sances, and consequently whisky was a good thing. His friends con-
doled with him. Perhaps he had been more hard on his woman
than she deserved, but her disgraceful conduct under provocation
excused all offence.
'I wouldn't 'ave no more to do with 'er — a woman like that
158 Rudyard Kipling
there,' said one comforter.
'Let 'er go an' dig for her bloomin' self. A man wears 'isself out
to 'is bones shovin' meat down their mouths, while they sit at 'ome
easy all day; an' the very fust time, mark you, you 'as a bit of a
difference, an' very proper too for a man as
is
a man, she ups an'
'as you out into the street, callin' you Gawd knows what all.
What's the good o' that, I arx you?' So spoke the second comforter.
The whisky was the third, and his suggestion struck Tom as the
best of all. He would return to Badalia his wife. Probably she
would have been doing something wrong while he had been away,
and he could then vindicate his authority as a husband. Certainly
she would have money. Single women always seemed to possess the
pence that God and the Government denied to hard-working men.
He refreshed himself with more whisky. It was beyond any doubt
that Badalia would have done something wrong. She might even
have married another man. He would wait till the new husband
was out of the way, and, after kicking Badalia, would get money
and a long absent sense of satisfaction. There is much virtue in a
creed or a law, but when all is prayed and suffered, drink is the
only thing that will make clean all a man's deeds in his own eyes.
Pity it is that the effects are not permanent.
Tom parted with his friends, bidding them tell Jenny that he was
going to Gunnison Street, and would return to her arms no more.
Because this was the devil's message, they remembered and sev-
erally delivered it, with drunken distinctness, in Jenny's ears. Then
Tom took more drink till his drunkenness rolled back and stood off
from him as a wave rolls back and stands off the wreck it will
swamp. He reached the traffic-polished black asphalt of a side
street and trod warily among the reflections of the shop lamps that
burned in gulfs of pitchy darkness, fathoms beneath his boot heels.
He was very sober indeed. Looking down his past, he beheld that
he was justified of all his actions so entirely and perfectly that if
Badalia had in his absence dared to lead a blameless life he would
smash her for not having gone wrong.
Badalia at that moment was in her own room after the regular
nightly skirmish with Lascar Loo's mother. To a reproof as stinging
as a Gunnison Street tongue could make it, the old woman, de-
tected for the hundredth time in the theft of the poor delicacies
meant for the invalid, could only cackle and answer —
'D'you think Loo's never bilked a man in 'er life? She's dyin' now
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