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Suppose, instead of his killing the gangsman, the gangsman killed him? He recalled a case he had heard much palaver about. An able seaman, a perfect Tom Bowling of a fellow, brought to at an alehouse in the Borough the old "Bull's Head" it was having a mind to lie snug for a while, 'tween voyages.
Hence the press-gang, the embodiment of this pretension, eventually threw aside ostence and took its pick of all who came its way, let their occupation or position be what it might. It was no duty of the gangsman to employ his hanger in splitting hairs. "First catch your man," was for him the greatest of all the commandments. Discrimination was for his masters.
Not many years ago he had been tried for the murder of one Paddy Kelly, a rival gangsman in his neighborhood, and had been acquitted on the ground of self-defense. But there had been a good deal of talk about evidence framed in his behalf. Later he had been arrested for graft, but the case somehow had never been acted upon by the district attorney's office.
In his efforts to swell the returns of pressed men the gangsman was supposed we may even go so far as to say enjoined to use no more violence than was absolutely necessary to attain his end. The question of force thus resolved itself into one of the degree of resistance he encountered. Needless to say, he did not always knock a man down before bidding him stand in the king's name.
The gangsman, as a rule, is stunted and slight of build. The Kid's rapid work on the present occasion created a good deal of confusion. There was no doubt that much had been hoped for from speedy attack. Also, the generalship of the expedition had been in the hands of the fallen warrior. His removal from the sphere of active influence had left the party without a head.
He could with impunity deprive almost any ablebodied adult of his freedom, and he could sometimes, with equal impunity, add to his scanty earnings by restoring that freedom for a consideration in coin of the realm; but when, like Josh Cooper, sometime gangsman at Hull, he extended his prerogative to the occupants of hen-roosts, he was apt to find himself at cross-purposes with the law as interpreted by the sitting magistrates.
The sailor's well-known partiality for drink was constantly turned to account by the astute gangsman. If a sailor himself, he laid aside his hanger or cudgel and played the game of "What ho! shipmate" at the cost of a can or two of flip, gently guiding his boon companion to the rendezvous when he had got him sufficiently corned. Failing these tactics, he adopted others equally effective.
It was a short, wicked-looking little bludgeon, the black-jack of the New York tough. "Get busy," advised the Kid briefly. The promptitude and despatch with which the Kid had attended to the gentleman with the black-jack had not been without its effect on the followers of the stricken one. Physical courage is not an outstanding quality of the New York gangsman.
Being there to guard the ship, he bade them begone, and upon their disregarding the order, and closing in upon him with evident intent to take him, he clapped the blunderbuss, which was heavily charged with swanshot, to his shoulder and let fly into the midst of them. No jury thereafter ever found him guilty of a capital felony if by chance he killed a gangsman in self-defence.
"Lor love yer! that's the wery reason we're a-pressin' of your worship," replied the grinning minions of the service. "We've such a set of black-guards aboard the tender yonder, we wants a toff like you to learn 'em manners." The quixotic idea of inculcating manners by means of the press infected others besides the gangsman.
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