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Resolutely he reminded himself that he must keep cool and steady. He would leave nothing undone that could be done. He would shout at intervals. Perhaps sooner or later some night-watchman would hear him. He would reach that trap-door if the achievement were humanly possible. But first, last, and all the time he would keep cool.
The result is that the business of our very small government goes plunging along in the most surprising manner, with a promise that it will end some day in chaos and revolution of course upon a diminutive scale. A representative man is Mr. Bones, the solitary night-watchman of the town. One of the duties of Mr. Bones is to light the street-lamps.
How could they drive you if you didn't want to go?" queried the cross-examiner. "That's on me: it was a job I pulled off two years ago in another place up north of this and the night-watchman got in the way when I was leavin'. They jerked that on me and showed me th' rope. They had me by th' neck, with th' word passed to Chief Robertson.
But I was rebuked for trying to feed an idle and frivolous curiosity in so solemn and so mournful a place; and went my way with a humbled crest. Next morning I was telling the widow my adventure, when she exclaimed 'Come with me! I have a lodger who shall tell you all you want to know. He has been a night-watchman there. He was a living man, but he did not look it.
The ex-jockey, a bit of a man with a withered left arm made that way from an injury received in his last race, when his mount fell on him; The Irish cattle-boss gave him the job of night-watchman, "to break him of his superstitious silliness"; There was the big, black Jamaica cook ... as black as if he was polished ebony ... a fine, big, polite chap, whom everyone liked.
A week arterwards, as Ginger was being 'elped out of a pawnshop by Peter, he said 'e would give all he 'adn't got for the locket to be near enough to Sam to hear 'im laugh agin. My biggest fault, said the night-watchman, gloomily, has been good nature. I've spent the best part of my life trying to do my fellow- creeturs a good turn. And what do I get for it?
"Human natur'!" said the night-watchman, gazing fixedly at a pretty girl in a passing waterman's skiff. "Human natur'!" He sighed, and, striking a match, applied it to his pipe and sat smoking thoughtfully. "The young fellow is pretending that his arm is at the back of her by accident," he continued; "and she's pretending not to know that it's there.
To break into Reichman's store at night would be dangerous. Reichman himself was no coward, and he employed a savage night-watchman, just out of Sing Sing. So Blizzard planned a robbery in a spirit of farce, and in the broad and crowded light of day. Six stalwart young fellows entered Reichman's pawnshop at eleven-thirty in the morning. Each one had a watch or an overcoat to pawn.
"Dear Grandfather Konstantin Makarych," he wrote, "I am writing you a letter. I wish you a Happy Christmas and all God's holy best. I have no mamma or papa, you are all I have." Vanka gave a look towards the window in which shone the reflection of his candle, and vividly pictured to himself his grandfather, Konstantin Makarych, who was night-watchman at Messrs. Zhivarev.
"It means that now the year is returning toward the light again," said the old night-watchman. "No; it stands for the joy of the shepherds over the birth of Christ," said the rag-picker, stepping into the doorway. "The shepherds were poor folks, like ourselves, who lived in the darkness. That's why they rejoiced so over Him, because He came with the light."
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