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They could not hope to catch him off his guard a second time, and, as far as hired assault and battery were concerned, he was as safe in New York, now that Bat Jarvis had declared himself on his side, as he would have been in the middle of a desert. What Bat said was law on the East Side. No hooligan, however eager to make money, would dare to act against a protégé of the Groome Street leader.
I wish I knew where she was. I'd have liked for you to meet her." "It will probably be necessary," said Smith, as they set out for Groome Street, "to allude to you, Comrade John, in the course of this interview, as one of our most eminent living cat-fanciers. You have never met Comrade Jarvis, I believe?
And yet, he concluded, he "would put George Borrow above every other writer on the Gypsies. . . . He communicates a subtle insight into Gypsydom that is totally wanting in the works mainly philological of Pott, Liebich . . . and their confreres." Hindes Groome was speaking, too, from the point of view of a Romany student, not of a critic of human literature.
"Ma'am, obliged. Fond of de kit. I am." "She's a dear," said Betty, tickling the cat under the ear. "Ma'am," went on Mr. Jarvis, pursuing his theme, "obliged. Sha'n't fergit it. Any time you're in bad, glad to be of service. Bat Jarvis. Groome Street. Anybody'll show youse where I live." He paused, and shuffled his feet; then, tucking the cat more firmly under his arm, left the room.
The cook, who had recovered from her first attack, was emitting another volley of shrieks, in which the word "fire" could be distinguished in syllables of two. Mrs. Groome rang the bell violently and the imperturbable James appeared. "Is the house on fire?" "No, ma'am; only the city. It's worth looking at, if you care to step out on the lawn." Mrs.
Montgomery, Mrs. Yorba, whose husband had recently built the largest and ugliest house in San Francisco, perched aloft on Nob Hill; several more of Mrs. McLane's favorites, old and young, and Maria Groome, born Ballinger, now a proud pillar of San Francisco Society. The dining-room of Ballinger House was long and narrow and from its bow window commanded a view of the Bay.
"And you can tell de Spider," went on Bat with growing ferocity, "dat next time he gits gay and starts in to shoot guys in me dance-joint I'll bite de head off'n him. See? Does dat go? If he t'inks his little two-by-four gang can put it across de Groome Street, he can try. Dat's right.
No diner-out can afford to be without such a cat. Such a cat spells death to boredom." Mr. Jarvis eyed him fixedly, as if pondering over his remarks. Then he turned to Billy again. "Say!" he said. "Any time you're in bad. Glad to be of service. You know the address. Groome Street. Bat Jarvis. Good night. Obliged."
Borrow’s descriptions of gipsy life are, no doubt, too deeply charged with the rich lights shed from his own personality entirely to satisfy a more matter-of-fact observer, and I am not going to say that he is anything like so photographic as F. H. Groome, for instance, or so trustworthy. But then it should never be forgotten that Borrow was, before everything else, a poet.
I just dote on being a Groome, plus Ballinger, plus. And I'm not guying, neither. I'd hate like the mischief to be second rate, no matter what I won later. It must be awful to have to try to get to places that should be yours by divine right, as it were.
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