uniform with a playful forefinger and said: “Eeny-meeny-miney-mo.” At last they reached Bow Street Police Station, where Pym, holding hands with both policemen, ran in a little ahead of them crying: “Yoo-hoo!” Charged with being drunk and incapable he began to argue the point. Drunk, yes: incapable, no. When they asked him his name he replied, with a girlish titter: “My name is Norval.” His address, he said, was Saint Busto’s Hotel. They emptied his pockets and locked him in a cell with awooden floor, designed for the temporary accommodation of irresponsible inebriates. There was a wooden bed like a shelf with a severely hygienic little water-closet fitted into the far end. The authorities are not unacquainted with the suicidal gloom of the debauchee in the small hours of the morning when you taste yourself, smell yourself, remember yourself, and want to pick yourself up between thumb and forefinger and throw yourself away.
There was no chain with which Pym might have hanged himself. They had taken away his penknife—he remembers missing it. Nothing but death would do, he felt. Never again could he walk the streets like a free man. He was a jail-bird, pasty and furtive, stale with the smell of the bucket—ruined, lost.
He lay down and wept. He could hear himself hiccuping and groaning like a worn-out gramophone—a gramophone with an unbalanced turn-table that squeaked and shuddered as it spun to a standstill … wobbling and grating … running down….
In the morning they took him upstairs to be charged. One of the policeman who had arrested him said: “You had a good time last night.”
“Lovely,” said Pym; “simply divine.” Bitterness gave place to shame and anguish. “What did I do?” he asked, looking at the stone floor.
“You tried to kiss me,” said the policeman. “Kept counting my buttons and saying, ‘Eeny-meeny-miney-mo’, and you couldn’t stand up. Nothing much, really. Don’t take it to heart,” he added, touched by the horror on Pym’s face. “I arrested a Lord not so long ago and he thought he was a dog and was on all-fours by the lamp-post outside the florist’s shop trying to unbutton his fly. When we picked him up he went ‘Woof! Woof!’ and bit me. If I hadn’t picked him up in time he’d ’ave got it for ‘indecent exposure’——”
“I’ll admit anything,” said Pym; “—anything you like—I was drunk. I hadn’t eaten—I wasn’t well. But don’t, for Christ’s sake, please don’t say I tried to kiss you!”
“Don’t you worry—that’ll be all right.”
“And cut out that ‘Eeny-meeny-miney-mo’, won’t you?”
“Your name’s Norval, isn’t it?”
“Good God, no! Pym—John Pym; that’s my name.”
“You said Norval last night.”
“It’s out of a poem. My name is Pym, I swear! Oh, God! God!”
“I can see this is your first,” said the policeman, nodding like a midwife. “You wait in there and don’t worry. They’ll fine you a few shillings, that’s all.”
“I don’t know how to thank you.”
“That’s all right. Just don’t worry: it’ll all be over in a few minutes. Now you go and wait in there.”
Pym pressed the fright out of his face. His mouth became a crack; his eyes became narrow, hard and glittering. Now he was a rock—a Gibraltar only a little the worse for wear. In the big, cool, dull-green waiting-room fifteen or twenty other prisoners were assembled.
Here wavered stale, pale simulacra—worn-out carbon copies of men: uncorrected proofs and childishly-daubed miniatures of sinners. In one corner a methylated-spirit drinker with a green-and -mauve face crouched shivering: his mouth was a yellow perforation like a worm-hole in a plum—perfectly round. He was trying to blow spit-bubbles. One of the aristocrats of the place, a young man who had already served three months in prison and was to be charged with stealing an overcoat, looked down with amused disdain. Near-by a concatenation of
There was no chain with which Pym might have hanged himself. They had taken away his penknife—he remembers missing it. Nothing but death would do, he felt. Never again could he walk the streets like a free man. He was a jail-bird, pasty and furtive, stale with the smell of the bucket—ruined, lost.
He lay down and wept. He could hear himself hiccuping and groaning like a worn-out gramophone—a gramophone with an unbalanced turn-table that squeaked and shuddered as it spun to a standstill … wobbling and grating … running down….
In the morning they took him upstairs to be charged. One of the policeman who had arrested him said: “You had a good time last night.”
“Lovely,” said Pym; “simply divine.” Bitterness gave place to shame and anguish. “What did I do?” he asked, looking at the stone floor.
“You tried to kiss me,” said the policeman. “Kept counting my buttons and saying, ‘Eeny-meeny-miney-mo’, and you couldn’t stand up. Nothing much, really. Don’t take it to heart,” he added, touched by the horror on Pym’s face. “I arrested a Lord not so long ago and he thought he was a dog and was on all-fours by the lamp-post outside the florist’s shop trying to unbutton his fly. When we picked him up he went ‘Woof! Woof!’ and bit me. If I hadn’t picked him up in time he’d ’ave got it for ‘indecent exposure’——”
“I’ll admit anything,” said Pym; “—anything you like—I was drunk. I hadn’t eaten—I wasn’t well. But don’t, for Christ’s sake, please don’t say I tried to kiss you!”
“Don’t you worry—that’ll be all right.”
“And cut out that ‘Eeny-meeny-miney-mo’, won’t you?”
“Your name’s Norval, isn’t it?”
“Good God, no! Pym—John Pym; that’s my name.”
“You said Norval last night.”
“It’s out of a poem. My name is Pym, I swear! Oh, God! God!”
“I can see this is your first,” said the policeman, nodding like a midwife. “You wait in there and don’t worry. They’ll fine you a few shillings, that’s all.”
“I don’t know how to thank you.”
“That’s all right. Just don’t worry: it’ll all be over in a few minutes. Now you go and wait in there.”
Pym pressed the fright out of his face. His mouth became a crack; his eyes became narrow, hard and glittering. Now he was a rock—a Gibraltar only a little the worse for wear. In the big, cool, dull-green waiting-room fifteen or twenty other prisoners were assembled.
Here wavered stale, pale simulacra—worn-out carbon copies of men: uncorrected proofs and childishly-daubed miniatures of sinners. In one corner a methylated-spirit drinker with a green-and -mauve face crouched shivering: his mouth was a yellow perforation like a worm-hole in a plum—perfectly round. He was trying to blow spit-bubbles. One of the aristocrats of the place, a young man who had already served three months in prison and was to be charged with stealing an overcoat, looked down with amused disdain. Near-by a concatenation of
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