diabolical aspect, with coaling for the Antipodes; he was washing
decks barefoot, with the breast of his red shirt open to the blast,
though it was sharper than the knife in his leathern girdle; he was
looking over bulwarks, all eyes and hair; he was standing by at the
shoot of the Cunard steamer, off to-morrow, as the stocks in trade
of several butchers, poulterers, and fishmongers, poured down into
the ice-house; he was coming aboard of other vessels, with his kit
in a tarpaulin bag, attended by plunderers to the very last moment
of his shore-going existence. As though his senses, when released
from the uproar of the elements, were under obligation to be
confused by other turmoil, there was a rattling of wheels, a
clattering of hoofs, a clashing of iron, a jolting of cotton and
hides and casks and timber, an incessant deafening disturbance on
the quays, that was the very madness of sound. And as, in the
midst of it, he stood swaying about, with his hair blown all manner
of wild ways, rather crazedly taking leave of his plunderers, all
the rigging in the docks was shrill in the wind, and every little
steamer coming and going across the Mersey was sharp in its blowing
off, and every buoy in the river bobbed spitefully up and down, as
if there were a general taunting chorus of ‘Come along, Mercantile
Jack! Ill-lodged, ill-fed, ill-used, hocussed, entrapped,
anticipated, cleaned out. Come along, Poor Mercantile Jack, and be
tempest-tossed till you are drowned!’
The uncommercial transaction which had brought me and Jack
together, was this:- I had entered the Liverpool police force, that
I might have a look at the various unlawful traps which are every
night set for Jack. As my term of service in that distinguished
corps was short, and as my personal bias in the capacity of one of
its members has ceased, no suspicion will attach to my evidence
that it is an admirable force. Besides that it is composed,
without favour, of the best men that can be picked, it is directed
by an unusual intelligence. Its organisation against Fires, I take
to be much better than the metropolitan system, and in all respects
it tempers its remarkable vigilance with a still more remarkable
discretion.
Jack had knocked off work in the docks some hours, and I had taken,
for purposes of identification, a photograph-likeness of a thief,
in the portrait-room at our head police office (on the whole, he
seemed rather complimented by the proceeding), and I had been on
police parade, and the small hand of the clock was moving on to
ten, when I took up my lantern to follow Mr. Superintendent to the
traps that were set for Jack. In Mr. Superintendent I saw, as
anybody might, a tall, well-looking, well-set-up man of a soldierly
bearing, with a cavalry air, a good chest, and a resolute but not
by any means ungentle face. He carried in his hand a plain black
walking-stick of hard wood; and whenever and wherever, at any
after-time of the night, he struck it on the pavement with a
ringing sound, it instantly produced a whistle out of the darkness,
and a policeman. To this remarkable stick, I refer an air of
mystery and magic which pervaded the whole of my perquisition among
the traps that were set for Jack.
We began by diving into the obscurest streets and lanes of the
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Dickens, Charles – The Uncommercial Traveller
port. Suddenly pausing in a flow of cheerful discourse, before a
dead wall, apparently some ten miles long, Mr. Superintendent
struck upon the ground, and the wall opened and shot out, with
military salute of hand to temple, two policemen – not in the least
surprised themselves, not in the least surprising Mr.
Superintendent.
‘All right, Sharpeye?’
‘All right, sir.’
‘All right, Trampfoot?’
‘All right, sir.’
‘Is Quickear there?’
‘Here am I, sir.’
‘Come with us.’
‘Yes, sir.’
So, Sharpeye went before, and Mr. Superintendent and I went next,
and Trampfoot and Quickear marched as rear-guard. Sharp-eye, I
soon had occasion to remark, had a skilful and quite professional
way of opening doors – touched latches delicately, as if they were