Crocodile Tears

by

Guy Gilpatric

Version 1.2

	The Matamba is a broad and muddy African river which rises in the western highlands of the French Sudan and flows into the Atlantic not far from St. Louis de Senegal.  Some forty miles up this stream from the sea, a British freighter, the S.S. Inchcliffe Castle, lay blistering in the awful heat while she loaded a cargo of peanuts.  These peanuts, destined to provide oil, soap and vegetable fats for the recently liberated population of Marseille, were brought out to her in lighters manned by tar-black Mandingos.  The process of loading was primitive, its progress painfully slow, and by the ninth stifling day of it, Mr. Colin Glencannon found himself prey to a devastating boredom.  With everything in the engineering department shut down except the deck machinery, there was little to occupy him on the ship; on shore, the corrugated-iron peanut sheds and the squalid native village offered nothing more diverting than malaria, Mandingo ladies with notably unfashionable figures, and bugs which could bite with both ends.  Thus left dismally to his own resources, he was seated in the shade of the poop awning, deep in a copy of The Scots Presbyterian Churchman and deeper in a bottle of Duggan's Dew of Kirkintilloch, when he was waited upon by Mr. Montgomery.  The mate had just returned from shore in company with Captain Ball; his khaki shirt and shorts were stained with sweat and he appeared to be out of sorts.
	"'Ow soon can you get steam on the engines?" he demanded, gruffly and without preliminaries.
	Mr. Glencannon finished his paragraph in the Churchman, marked the place with his finger, took a swig from his bottle, yawned, stretched and finally looked up.
	"Steam?" he repeated, blinking vacantly.  "Did I just noo hear ye blethering something aboot steam?  Steam for what?  We're only half loaded, so why in the wurrld shud ye be wanting steam?"
	"Because we've got to shift our anchorage immejitly, that's why!"  Mr. Montgomery tapped his foot on the deck.  "That French bloke at the plantation just got a telegrarph message there's been a cloudburst in the back country.  'E says if we don't move upstream to the shelter of that there point, the current'll be too stiff for the lighters and we'll sit 'ere baking for another blarsted fortnight.  So now, per'aps yer ludship will kindly be so good as to condescend to inform me wot time can I 'ave the ruddy steam."
	Mr. Glencannon ignored the sarcasm and stifled another yawn.  "Ah, whurra, whurra, what a nuisance ye are!  Anybody but you cud have seen with half an eye that this was no fit spot to anchor in the feerst place!"
	"Oh, yus?" the mate bristled.  "Well, I let go exackly where the pilot said to!  Just you attend to your business and I'll attend to mine!"
	"Aye, weel, it's lucky for the ship that one o' us knows how," said Mr. Glencannon, folding his Churchman, gathering up his whiskey and frowning at his watch.  "I'll have steam for ye at precisely three o'clock, ye ill-natured jockoss.  And at precisely one minute past, I shall be richt here on deck to mak' sure ye dinna try to anchor in the middle o' yon peanut field."
	Shortly before the appointed time, Mr. Montgomery and the carpenter took their station on the forecastle head while Mr. Swales and the bos'n went aft to the poop.  Presently, the chains came clunking up the hawsepipes, the telegraph changed for half speed ahead and the Inchcliffe Castle moved slowly upstream, her partially exposed propeller thrashing a geyser of suds.  Returning to his chair beneath the awning, Mr. Glencannon observed that the speed of the current had indeed already increased and that the broad bosom of the Matamba, ordinarily a tarnished yellow, was now cocoa brown.  Even as he looked, a great tree, roots and all, came dipping and swirling down the middle.  In the glassy calm backwater under the point, however, a fleet of dugout canoes floated motionless as sleeping swans, the native occupants stretched out on their backs with their fishing lines looped around their big toes.
	Mr. Glencannon considered them pityingly.  "Losh, what a life!  What a country!" he growled to the second mate and the bos'n.  "How utterly futile, how frichtfully boring!  Moreower, it's contagious!  Why, even I, who am normally a mon o' vast energy and --"
	There was a sudden dull shock.  The deck trembled.  Mr. Glencannon sprang to his feet.  With a hoarse cry, "The propeller!" he rushed to the taffrail and leaned over it.  "The propeller's hit a log!  Oh, why couldn't that lout on the foc'sle keep his eyes open!"
	Just then, the engines were rung off and the forward anchors let go.  Still peering down at the muddy water, the trio on the poop saw rise to the surface, not a log, but a very large and very discouraged crocodile.  It lashed its tail feebly once or twice, rolled over with its putty-colored belly to the sky and then lay still.
	"Great swith, what a munster!" exclaimed Mr. Glencannon.  "He tried to bite off the propeller and got his domn neck brukken!  Quick, lads, let's give yon blackamoors in the dugoots a hail!  We'll heave them a line to mak' fast to the beast and hoist him aboard with the derrick!"
	After considerable excitement in the canoes as well as on the Inchcliffe Castle, the crocodile was dragged over the side and deposited on the after well deck.
	"Ah, losh, isn't it a beauty?" Mr. Glencannon gloated, strutting back and forth in the puddle that surrounded it.  "Why, it must fourteen feet lang if it's an inch!  Look it ower, Captain Ball and gentlemen!" he invited the crowd.  "Admire it, marvel at it, feast yere eyes on it!  I think ye'll agree it does credit to my coolness, courage and presence o' mind."
	"Oh, pooh!" Mr. Montgomery sneered. "Wot's so bally wonderful about picking up an old dead crocodile?  And now that you've got it, wot the 'ell are you going to do with it?"
	Mr. Glencannon looked at him coldly.
	"Why, I'm going to skin it, stuff it, tak' it to London and sell it," he answered.  What did ye think I was going to do--drap a pooched egg on it and have it with my tea?"
	"You can drop a raw egg on it and 'ave it with your whisky, just so's you get it off my deck!" Mr. Montgomery turned and waved to the man at the winch.  "All right, Rafferty!  'Eave it out over the side again, so's 'e can tow it ashore and stuff it to 'is 'eart's content."
	"Ashore?  Foosh!  Noo, just hold on a minute!" cried Mr. Glencannon.  "If ye think I'm going to stuff it on shore, where I'll catch my death o' fever and get drilled full o' holes by jet-propelled mosquitoes, ye've got another think coming!"
	And so 'ave you, if you think you're going to skin that narsty creature 'ere!" Mr. Montgomery retorted.  "I'll not 'ave me decks turned into no slaughter'ouse to make a Roman 'oliday for a drunken Scotch tinker!"
	With an outraged snort, Mr. Glencannon sprang forward, his brass knuckles at the ready.  His way was blocked by Captain Ball.  "Gentlemen!  Gentlemen!  I mean to say, come, come!" the shipmaster admonished them.  "I really can't see why you should fly off in such a tithy over this here mere crocodile!"
	"Mere?" growled Mr. Montgomery.  "Gor-blimey, 'e says 'imself it's fourteen feet long!"
	"Yes, quite--ker-hem--but don't let's spit hairs.  What I was about to say was, I was about to say I can't see why you should get so upset just because Mr. Glencannon wants to stuff his crocodile right here where it is.  Suppose a certain amount of goo and gurry does get spilled on the deck--well, what then?  Ha!  You should serve, like I did, in an old-time whaler, if you want to see a deck really get gullied up with soo and sur--er--sullied up with groo and----  Well, anyhow--ker-hem--Mr. Glencannon has got my permission to stuff his crocodile wherever his fancy dictates."
	"Mr. Montgomery touched his cap visor stiffly.  "Very good, sir.  You're the captain of the ship, sir, and I 'ereby washes me 'ands of the 'ole ruddy business!"
	"And while ye're at it, dinna owerlook the back o' yere neck," said Mr. Glencannon, daintily thumbing his nose at him.

	Bright and early the next morning, Mr. Glencannon appeared at breakfast in a pair of moth-eaten bathing trunks and the luxuriant pelt of copper-colored shag he had worn since early manhood.  Having bolted his meal, he borrowed an assortment of knives from the cook, ordered an ash bucket sent up from the stoke-hold, strode briskly aft and fell to work with gusto.
	"Ah, what a delichtful escape from boredom!" he breathed, flopping the crocodile over on its back with a crowbar.  "It's nothing less than a godsend!  After all, what cud be a better tonic for a curdled soul than a few days o' guid, clean creative wurrk?"
	Selecting a butcher knife, he drew it down the length of the crocodile's keel and then stood back to admire the result like an artist viewing his canvas.
	"Haw!  Weel done, Glencannon!  Copital!  Bravvio!" he applauded himself unstintingly.  "As I've told ye a thousand times, ye're a genius o' infinite talent and even greater vairsatility!"  He pried open the slit and peered within.  "H'm!  How interesting!  He appears to have an extremely cumplicated mechanism.  Weel, by the time I've finished this job, I foncy I'll know my way aroond inside a crocodile lik' a beggar in his cups....  Ho, there, Muster MacQuayle!  A vurra guid morning to ye, dear lad!"  He greeted the second engineer, who was watching him from the deck above.  "Please have the kindness to come doon here a minute and help me drog oot this condenser."
	"Aye, aye, sir!" Mr. MacQuayle crooked his arms over the handrails of the ladder, swung his feet in the air and slid down like a meteor.  "Er--condenser, ye said, sir?"  He leaned over the crocodile and studied its interior.  "Ye mean this gadget here?  That's no' his condenser, sir; it's his intermediate cylinder.  His condenser is that purplish sort o' a pudding, ower yon."
	"What, that?" Mr. Glencannon smiled indulgently.  "Tsk, tsk, Muster MacQuayle, ye're sodly in error!  His intermediate cylinder is that thing that looks lik' a pink bowler hat, with all the pipes and tubing coupled up to it."
	"No, sir, it's nowt o' the sort," Mr. MacQuayle asserted positively.  "That is his secondurra evaporator unit, as ye can plainly see if ye'll tak' the trouble to trace the siphon ducts from the main connections."
	Mr. Glencannon's face darkened and his walrus mustache bristled.  "Noo, just a minute, my dear young mon!" he said.  "Am I to understond from yere ossinine blether that ye think ye know more aboot marine engineering than I do?"
	Ye can understond what ye domn weel please," said Mr. MacQuayle, with spirit.  "If ye understud e'en the ruddiments o' marine engineering, ye'd understond that his gadget is no' his condenser, but his intermediate cylinder, as I told ye in the feerst place."
	"Foosh and fuddlesticks!" roared Mr. Glencannon, seizing the crowbar and pounding the deck with it.  "It's his condenser, I tell ye!"
	Mr. MacQuayle dragged a Stillson wrench from his hip pocket and whanged it thunderously against the ash bucket.  "And I tell ye it's his intermediate cylinder!" he bellowed.
	"Oh, aye?" Mr. Glencannon crouched tense.  "Weel, ye headstrong gowk, I'll give ye a closer look at it!"  He reached into the crocodile, snatched up the object in dispute and hurled it full at his assistant's head.
	Mr. MacQuayle ducked.  The missile caromed slitheringly off the rail and fell ker-slop! into the muddy Matamba River.  An instant later, he ducked again as the crowbar went hurtling after it.
	"Hoot!  So it's violence ye want, is it?  Weel!"  He rolled up his sleeve, spat on his palm and took a fresh grip on his Stillson.  "Weel, ye murderous auld boglie, in all o' Scotia's historra, the doughty Clan MacQuayle has ne'er refused the gage o' the nosty, drunken brood o' sheep stealers that call themselves Glenca----"
	There came an outburst of shouts from the deck above, where a number of the crew had gathered to enjoy the fracas.  They were pointing excitedly at something in the water.  Leaning over the rail, Mr. Glencannon gasped with surprise and delight.  For there, floating close alongside the Inchcliffe's weed-grown plates was a crocodile fully as large and quite as dead as the original specimen.
	"E popped up and grabbed that 'unk of gizzard you flung at Mr. MacQuayle, sir." one of the coal passers explained.  "Just as 'e'd sunk 'is teeth into it, yer crowbar came sailing down and barshed 'is greedy 'ead in."
	"It wasn't a gizzard, domn it, it was a condenser!  But still"--Mr. Glencannon smiled and expanded his chest--"but still, as ye all saw, I made a vurra phenumenal shot.  Hurry up, lads!  Hop into the boat and mak' fast a line to him!  Haw!  Why, at this rate, I'll be stuffing crocodiles from noo until the oak that fell last winter doth upraise its shottered stem!"
	"Like 'ell you will!" snarled Mr. Montgomery, arriving on the scene with Captain Ball and sizing up the situation at a glance.  "There'll be no more ruddy crocodiles setting foot on this 'ere ship, not if I knows it!  Look at the 'orrid state me deck is in already!  Ugh!  It smells like Billingsgate Fish Market!"
	"Oh, now, pish-tush," Captain Ball chided him, nevertheless hastening to light a cigar.  "Don't be such a fussbudget!  Why, another crocodile more or less won't make any difference one way or the other!  Crocodiles, Mr. Mate, are like children: having two of 'em is no more trouble than having one."
	"Ah!  A very profoond observation!" Mr. Glencannon nodded.  "By the way, captain and gentlemen, noo while we're all still gathered here, I feel it my Christian duty to testify in yere presence that I bear no grudge against Muster MacQuayle for his recent vicious display of temper.  Let him onswer to his ain fulthy conscience, say I, and let the rest o' us get busy and yonk yon crocodile aboard."
	Later that morning, as he was slicing, cutting, hacking, ripping and humming a gay little tune to himself, young Mr. Levy, the wireless operator, strolled aft and stood watching him.  It was apparent that Sparks had something on his mind.
	After an interval, he shifted his feet and cleared his throat.  "Lawks, Mr. Glencannon.  I must say you've got a rare talent for this sort of work!" he began unctuously.  "'Ow will you go about the actual stuffing part?"
	"Oh, that will be ridiculously sumple," the engineer assured him.  "I've read up on the subject in my auld stondby, The Hondy Mon's Hondbook, or, A Thousand Things to Mak' From Odds and Ends.  Before the skins are quite dry, ye see, I'll stretch them ower skeletons bent oot o' wire and steel rod.  When we get to Marseels, I'll buy some arsenic or something similar to sprinkle aroond inside the skins to keep the bugs oot.  Next I'll stuff the hollow parts with cotton waste, auld jute sacking and what not.  And finally, o' course, I'll sew them up."
	"H'm!"  Mr. Levy took a cigarette from over his ear and slowly tapped it on his wrist watch.  "And when we get to London, you'll sell 'em, eh?  Or at least, you'll try to!"  He lit a match and touched it to the cigarette, meanwhile studying Mr. Glencannon from under half-closed lids.
	"If you should 'appen to arsk me, Mr. Glencannon, you've got a very limited market and a very tough sales problem!"
	"Aye, so it wud seem, so it wud seem.  But come, Muster Levy; I know ye've got a keen business head on ye, and yere suggestions wud be vurra weelcome."
	"Oh, yus?  Just exactly 'ow very welcome?"  Mr. Levy lipped his cigarette over the rail and rubbed his hands briskly.  "Shall we say twenty per cent of the gross?"
	"Ten," said Mr. Glencannon.  "And noo that we've come to tairms, let's sit doon here on this latest crocodile and discuss yere ideas."
	Mr. Levy shrugged and settled down beside him.  "All right.  Now listen!  The way I analyze this 'ere sales problem, crocodiles in London certainly ain't everybody's dish, but still, they're no end of a novelty.  Next to nobody'll want to buy 'em, but practically everybody'll stop to look at 'em, see what I mean?  Well, the way to carsh in on this 'igh attention value is to use 'em in advertising something."
	"But ----"
	"But wait!  Now, just suppose we was to put 'igh stiff collars and good loud neckties on 'em, which would make 'em even more of a novelty than ever.  On one necktie we'd 'ave the name 'Joe' and on the other we'd 'ave 'Sid.'"
	"Joe?  Sid?  What for?"
	Mr. Levy smirked complacently, then leaned over and poked Mr. Glencannon in the ribs.  "For Joe and Sid Crocker, that's wot for!"
	Mr. Glencannon sprang to his feet.  "Joe and Sid Crocker!  The Limehouse pub keepers!  Ho, splendid!  Wonderful!  Mognificent!"  He seized Mr. Levy's hand and pumped it violently.  "Ah, Sparks, Sparks, Sparks, ye're nothing short o' a prudigy!"
	"Say, ain't I?  And can'tcher just picture wot a ruddy fine eye-catcher them two crocs will make, standing on their 'ind legs out there on the sidewalk in front of the pub?  Why, say, we can even put big wooden cigars in their mouths and mugs of beer in their 'ands, too!  I'll bet we can make the Crockers stump up twenty quid for 'em easy!"
	"Twenty quid?  Twenty quid, foosh!" Mr. Glencannon snapped his fingers.  "We'll demand twenty-five or theerty at the vurra least!"
	"Yus, thirty-five--why not?  Them Crocker blokes can afford it!  Per'aps you didn't know it, Mr. Glencannon, but besides running that there pub in East India Dock Road, Joe and Sid fix prize fights, pull off little deals with race 'orses, buy jewelry with no questions arsked, and I don't know wot all!"
	"Ah!  In a wurrd, they're vurra progressive businessmen," Mr. Glencannon nodded understandingly.   "Weel, 'twill be a pleasure and a privilege to deal with them!"

	Some weeks later, the Inchcliffe Castle mosed into the silvery, hill-ringed amphitheater of Marseille harbor, threaded her way between the wreck bouys that studded the fairway and tied up at the Hun-blasted ruin of the Quai de la Joliette.  She lay berthed at the ravished city for eight days, a good part of which Mr. Glencannon spent combing the pharmacist's shops for certain chemicals with which to treat his crocodiles' interiors, and grog shops for certain others with which to treat his own.  From Marseille, the ship went light around to Huelva, where she loaded oranges and cork bark for London.  By the time she had left that port and joined a northbound convoy.  Mr. Glencannon's long travail was nearly o'er.
	"There, noo, Sparks!" he said as he sewed the final stitch in the final crocodile and bit off the thread.  "Cast yere eyes upon the neatest job o' toxidairmy since the days o' ancient Egypt, when Queen Cleo Patrick stuffed the infant Moses full o' bulrushes!"
	Mr. Levy inspected the crocodiles critically.  "Yus, just laying there, they really do look as lifelike as dammit," he declared.  "You say you can bend 'em into any position you want, eh?"
	"Aye, thonks to my ingenious arrangement o' the metal framework within.  O' course there's no' sufficient headroom here in the shelter-deck to have them stonding upricht, but I can stond them up in a jiffy on the sidewalk ootside the pub."
	"And 'ow about the collars and ties and the big wooden cigars?"
	"They and the beer mugs are all that remain to be done.  I'll mak' the hoberdashery oot o' tin and the mugs oot o' five-gallon grease drums. 
	"Fine, fine!  My word, wot an eyecatcher they'll be!  There ain't a pub in London's ever 'ad anything to touch 'em, I'll guarantee that!  Yus, and if Joe and Sid don't whack out fifty pounds for 'em, I'll be ----  Oh, 'ere's Mr. Montgomery!"
	"Guid-by, Muster Montgomery!" Mr. Glencannon greeted him.
	"Er -- I 'ope you'll excuse this interruption, gempmen," the mate smiled obsequiously as he stepped in over the high iron sill.  "I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but I couldn't 'elp over'earing something about fifty quid for these 'ere crocs.  Fifty quid!  Whew!  It's a lot of money, friends, a lot of money!  Welp, Mr. Glencannon, I -- I simply can't believe an upstanding sportsman like you would dream of doing me out of my fair share of it!"
	"Blosh!" cried Mr. Glencannon, clenching his fists.  "What d'ye mean, yere fair share o' it?  I kilt the feerst crocodile with my propeller!  I kilt the second with my crowbar!  I've stuffed them both with my ain fair hands in the teeth o' yere bitterest opposition!  Have ye octually got the bross to come puling to me noo for a share o' my hard-won earnings, ye grosping cockney twirp?"
	"Oh, please, Colin, old boy!" Mr. Montgomery looked pained.  "Arfter all, despite out little differences, you and me 'ave been chums for years!  For old times sake, let's be fair about this thing!  You wouldn't 'ave got either of these crocs if I 'adn't run the ship over the first one--come, you must admit it!  I saw it in the water a'ead of us and there was plenty of time to dodge it.  But did I signal the bridge to shift the course?  Mo, I didn't, Colin, and you know I didn't!  Instead, my first thought was of you!  'Chauncey, 'I says to meself ----"
	"Aye!  'Chauncey,' ye said to yersel', 'Chauncey, here comes a domn great log floating in the way!  If the propeller hits it, 'twill surely smosh a blade off!  Oh, what a lovely picnic Glencannon will have, way doon here in Ofrica, trying to unship the brukken prop and fitting on the spare!'  Swith, ye slimy Judas, ye've convicted yersel' oot o' yere ain mouth!"
	Mr. Montgomery turned pale and swallowed once or twice.  "All right, me bucko, if that's 'ow you feel about it!" he said, stalking away, "But just let me tell you, you 'aven't 'eard the larst of this thing yet!"
	Despite this threat, however, he maintained a sullen silence throughout the remainder of the voyage to London.
	On the morning after their arrival in Limehouse Docks, Mr. Levy went aft to Mr. Glencannon's room.  "Welp," he said briskly, "wot say we pick up our crocodiles, nip over to East India Dock Road and talk a bit of business with Joe and Sid?"
	"I'm entirely at yere sairvice," said Mr. Glencannon.  "However, I must inform ye that through a slicht flaw in my colculations, the crocodiles weigh nearly four hundred pounds apiece, so picking them up will be no laughing matter."
	"Let's take only one of 'em, then.  Arfter all, a good salesman only needs a sample."
	It took the combined efforts of Messrs. Glencannon, Levy and three deck hands to wrestle the sample across the gangplank to the dockside.
	"Ah, swith, what a load!" the engineer panted.  "We'll ne'er be able to lug it by hond.  Do ye go doon to the engine room, a couple o' ye, and fetch up one o' those little roller trucks that we use for shifting heavy parts.  And bring me a bit o' rope to tow it with."
	Trailed on the truck, which it effectively concealed, the crocodile appeared to be following Mr. Glencannon through the dockyard on a leash.
	"Haw!" he chuckled to Mr. Levy, who was carrying the neckwear and cigar in the beer mug.  "He looks so notural I wuddn't be surprised to see him stop at the next lamppost!"
	As they were passing the customs office at the dockyard gate, they were halted by an inspector.
	"'Arf a moment, gempmen," he said.  "Wot are you going to do with that there crocodile?"
	"What's it to ye?" demanded Mr. Glencannon, who loathed all bureaucrats on principle.
	"It's nothing to me, sir, but it may be something to you," retorted the functionary.  "I'll 'ave to arsk you please to step into the office."
	"Ah, foosh!" fumed Mr. Glencannon, following him through the doorway.  "Things have come to a pretty poss when His Modjesty's Government stoops to mulcting loyal subjects engaged in the noble wurrks o' chority!"
	"Meaning wot?" the inspector inquired.
	"Meaning that this crocodile is a children's toy whuch I am even noo on my way to bestow upon The Royal Chartered London Asylum for Orphans o' Sailors Lost at Sea in the Sairvice o' the British Empire, that's what I mean!" cried Mr. Glencannon, beating his breast resoundingly.
	"Oh, so it's not for sale, then?  H'm!"  The inspector leafed through a leather-bound volume as thick as a city directory.  "Ah, 'ere we are: 'Animals, Stuffed.  Paragrarph One.  Specimens imported for sale or for any commercial use shall be subject to a tax of two per cent of their declared or assessed, value, whichever is the greater.  Paragrarph Two.  Specimens imported for scientific use or for presentation to any public institution shall be admitted duty free.'  Welp, I farncy Paragrarph Two puts you all in the clear, sir."
	"That's exoctly what I told ye in the feerst place, ye bross-buttoned parasite! . . . Come, Muster Levy, let's hasten on our mission o' gloddening a thousand wee orphan hearts."
	Outside the dockyard, their passage up Three Colt Street was not devoid of incident.  For some distance they were trailed by a troop of whooping children who refused to disperse until Mr. Glencannon charged into the thick of them, boxed the ears of all within reach and threatened to eviscerate the rest.  Farther on, a blowsy lady heavily perfumed with Old Noddy Gin emitted a piercing shriek, cowered back against the wall and stood pointing with a trembling finger, her eyes dilated with horror.  Recognizing the symptoms, Mr. Glencannon dropped his tow line and hastened to reassure her.  "There, there, madam!" he said sympathetically.  "Ye've really no cause for alarm.  That crocodile whuch ye think ye only think ye see is octually an octual crocodile."
	"Crocodile?" said the lady,  "Wot crocodile?  I was looking at you, you narsty drunken beast!  Get out of 'ere before I 'ollers for the police!"
	Turning into East India Dock Road, they came at length to an impressive establishment labeled JOE & SID CROCKER. BEER, ALE, & SPIRITS.
	"Weel, here we are at last!" said Mr. Glencannon exultantly.  "You go richt on inside, Sparks, and get to wurrk with yere eloquent sales talk.  Meanwhile, I'll install the cigar, the necktie and the beer mug, and stond the croc up here on the sidewalk, all ready to clinch the deal.  Guid luck, lad!"  He gave him a parting slap on the back, then turned to one of the numerous bystanders.  "Pairdon me, my friend, but wud ye mind giving me a hond here for a moment?"
	"Oh, I say, Mr. Glencannon!" Mr. Levy called back from the pub's entrance.  "There -- there seems to be something wrong.  'Ere's a sign on the door that says Closed Until Further Notice . . . Wot's the reason, any of you chaps know?"
	"Inquisitive young bloke, ain'tcher!" one of the group spoke up.  "Per'aps we know the reason, chum, and then agyne per'aps we don't!  In this 'ere neighbor'ood, it's a lot healthier no to arsk questions"
	"Oh, aye?" said Mr. Glencannon, stepping over the crocodile and confronting the fellow.  "Weel, ye surly lout, ye'll find it domn unhealthy if ye dinna give a civil onswer to the question my friend just osked ye!"
	With remarkable speed and precision, the other drove in a left to the stomach and followed it with a right to the jaw.  As Mr. Glencannon went down, vainly striving to unlimber his brass knuckles, half the crowd fell upon him while the other half attended to Mr. Levy.  The crocodile was pushed from the sidewalk and went coasting slowly down the road.
	The driver of an approaching bus, seeing the struggle and the scurrying crowd, and suddenly spying a giant saurian advancing full in his path, directed his vehicle at the monster and ran over it lengthwise.  Almost simultaneously, someone blew a police whistle, and the melee on the sidewalk ended quickly as it had begun.  When a constable arrived, he found Mr. Glencannon in heated altercation with the bus driver.
	"'Ere, now!" said the Law, puffing out its cheeks.  "Wot's the meaning of this 'ere disturbance and wot is that there pile of wotever it is out there in the road?"
	"That is a vurra voluable stuffed crocodile, officer -- or at least it was until this drooling fuddle-wit druv his great domn omnibus ower it!" said Mr. Glencannon.  "It was worth a hundred poonds and I shall demond full reimbursement from the bus company!"
	The bus driver, though belligerent, was plainly worried.  "Wot?  A 'undred pounds?  for that thing?" he blustered.  "on, gor-blimey, mister, don't think you're going to get away with no such 'ighway robbery as that!"
	"'Old yer jaw, me man!" the constable intervened.  "If this gempman can prove 'is crocodile was worth a 'undred quid, the bus company'll 'ave to pay him a 'undred quid, for that's the law of the land.  Now get on out of 'ere with yer ruddy bus and let's the rest of us drag the crocodile over to the gutter.  Good 'heavens, just look at the 'orrible snarl me traffic is in!"
	Having written down the constable's number and the names of several witnesses, Messrs. Glencannon and Levy took silent leave of the shapeless ruin that a short time before had been the basis of such roseate hopes.
	"Ah, me, what a calomity!" sighed Mr. Glencannon.  "By richts, I shud be pocketing my fifty quid this vurra minute.  As it is, I suppose I can count myself lucky if I can swundle the bus company out o' a measly ten!  In any case, Muster Levy, please dinna delude yersel' that I'll give ye so much as a bawbee o' it, because I won't!  If ye still hope to mak' any money oot o' this ill-starred affair, ye'd better get busy and sell the remaining crocodile!"
	"But 'oo can I sell it to?  "Oo? asked Mr. Levy plaintively.  "That Crocker setup was a natural!  It couldn't 'appen again in a thousand years!  If the other crocodile was only a shark, now, I might sell it to my Uncle Lionel to 'ang outside 'is loan office.  But a crocodile----"  He shook his head and walked away to commune with his sorrow.
	Throughout the remainder of the day, Mr. Glencannon wrestled with the problem of how to cajole, browbeat, blackmail or delude the bus company into believing that the late lamented crocodile had been worth a hundred pounds.  He did the wrestling in a long succession of pubs, but closing time found him still without a solution.  As he made his way through the dark, foggy streets toward the rive, a full awareness of the day's misfortunes flooded dismally in upon him and he wept loud and unashamed.  Because the dockyard gate was only thirty feet wide, he had some difficulty in negotiating it.
	"Ah, whurra-hoo!" he sobbed, finally edging through it sidewise.  "How happy I was, how high my hopes, when I strode through these portals this vurra morning!  Then, the future seemed----"
	An inspiration struck him with such impact that it knocked him off his feet.  "Haw!" he exclaimed joyfully,  sitting on the damp cobblestones.  "Noo wait, wait, let me think a minute!  Aye, it's a flawless idea!  It's a pairfict idea!  It's an idea worthy o' the intellect that conceived it!  Colin, dear lad, let me be the feerst to congrotulate ye!:  He slapped himself on the back, shook hands with himself warmly, assisted himself to arise and headed for the Inchcliffe Castle in his own lighthearted company.

	When Mr. Montgomery came into the Inchcliffe Castle's saloon for breakfast next morning, he found Mr. MacQuayle already at the table, cursing the lumps in the porridge.  The mate grunted a salutation, gave his order to the steward and rattled open the newspaper.
	Suddenly, he stiffened.  "MacQuayle!" he said hoarsely.  "MacQuayle!  When we was at Marsyles, you went ashore with Glencannon a good bit!  Exackly where did 'e go?  Exackly wot did 'e do?  Think 'ard, Mac, think 'ard!"
	"I dinna have to think hard to tell ye that." said Mr. MacQuayle.  "When he wasn't slaking his theerst in the pubs alang the Boo Can-o'-beer, he was barging around from one chemist's shop to another, buying some kind o' powder to put inside his domn crocodiles."
	"Ha!" Mr. Montgomery banged his fist on the table.  "Welp, Mac, we've got the ruddy old walrus dead to rights at larst!  "Ere!"  He thrust the newspaper across the table.  "Just carst your eye on this 'ere story 'ere!"
	Mr. MacQuayle spread the journal before him and studied the indicated item.  It read:

	ARRESTS IN DOPE PLOT
	LIMEHOUSE PUBLICANS HELD
	Drugs Smuggled  From Marseille, Says
	Scotland Yard

	At an early hour yesterday morning, police raided the licensed premises of Joseph and Sidney Crocker in East India Dock Road and found a large quantity of narcotic drugs allegedly brought to London in British ships arriving from the recently liberated French port of Marseille.  Before the war, Marseille was notorious as the world headquarters of the illicit drug traffic and was frequently cited as such in League of Nations reports.  Scotland Yard officials state that yesterday's seizure is only a part of vast stocks of drugs secretly hoarded by Marseille dealers throughout the German occupation, and warn that large-scale smuggling operations are again under way.

	Mr. MacQuayle looked up, wide-eyed.  "Chauncey!  Ye mean to say Glencannon----"
	"Exackly!" cried Mr. Montgomery.  "It's as plain as the nose on your face!  The 'Joe and Sid' I over'eard 'im and Levy talking about was these 'ere Crockers!  'E simply sewed up the dope inside the crocodiles, delivered the first one yesterday morning, and these two coves got nabbed with it!"
	"Aye!" said Mr. MacQuayle.  "Come to think o' it, he----"  Suddenly he cocked his ear to a sound on deck.  He stood up and peered through the porthole.  "Look, Chauncey!  He's taking the other ashore this vurra minute!"
	"Ah, so 'e is, so 'e is!" said Mr. Montgomery tensely, looking over Mr. MacQuayle's shoulder.  "Welp, Mac, we'll just let 'im get a 'ead start as far as that first shed.  Then we'll nip around be'ind to the other side of it and beat 'im to the customs office.  Ha, ha, ha!  Oh, blimey, wot a lark!  Maybe you didn't know it, Mac, but the customs people pay a thumping big reward for the sort of information you and I are about to give 'em!  Welp, come on!  Let's go give it to 'em!"
	When Mr. Glencannon arrived at the dockyard gate with his crocodile in tow, the inspector nodded and waved to him to pass.  "Well, sir, another little gift for the orphans, I see!"
	"No, my guid mon, I regret to say that this one isn't," said Mr. Glencannon.  "This specimen hoppens to be a strictly commaircial crocodile and therefore subject to import tax.  I have been offered a hundred poonds in cauld cash for him, and when I have paid ye the duty, I shall deliver him to my customer."
	"Coo!  A 'undred pounds!"  The inspector raised his eyebrows.  "Welp, mister, that means I'll 'ave to charge you two quid duty.  But I must say it's right down hownest of you to declare its real value.  If you'd left it to me, I'd 'ave assessed it at ten quid at the very most."
	"My dear friend," said Mr. Glencannon righteously, "honesty is the best policy in all walks o' life.  That is sumply ethics.  But when there is involved a question o' a non's obligations to his king and country, it is a profoondly sacred motter which pairmits o' no quibble, quobble nor cumpromise."
	"Quite right you are sir, and it's a pity there ain't more people with the same 'igh principles!  Please step inside while I make out the papers for you."
	Mr. Glencannon paid the two-pounds duty and carefully pocketed the declaration of value and the receipt which would establish the justice of his claim upon the bus company.  He was about to step out, shove the crocodile into the Thames and proceed uptown to collect, when a door marked CHIEF INSPECTOR was flung open.  Through it strode a gentleman of distinctly truculent mien.
	"See here, you," he said brusquely.  "Are you the owner of that crocodile out there?"
	"I have that honor." Mr. Glencannon acknowledged.  "I micht add that I have declared its value, paid the duty and got the receipt, so ye'd domn weel better mind yere monners when addressing me, ye uncouth boor!"
	"Oh, had I?" the chief inspector sneered.  "Well, my fine fellow, I've just received information that your crocodile is stuffed to the muzzle with smuggled dope.  I warn you to remain quietly where you are while we examine it. . . .  Got a knife, Wilson?  Right!  Get busy!"
	"Ho, foosh, this is a high-honded ootrage!" Mr. Glencannon protested.  "That crocodile is worth a hundred poonds, as yere ain receipt here testifies!  Ye -- ye surely canna mean that ye'ere going to cut it to pieces!"
	"Cut away, Wilson!" the chief inspector ordered.
	Within a few minutes, the stuffing was dragged out of the crocodile's hull and strewn upon the dockyard pavement.  "I don't find nothing 'ere, sir." Wilson reported, crawling about in it on his hands and knees like a dog search for a bone.
	"Cut open its head!  Cut open its legs!  Cut everything!  You know how little room dope takes up."
	"Ah, whurra, he's ruining it!" cried Mr. Glencannon.  "What will my customer say?  And what about my hundred quid?"
	"Cut, Wilson!" snapped the chief.
	Wilson cut.  When the crocodile was reduced to shreds he stood up and spread his hands helplessly.  "There's nothing, sir." he said.  "Absolutely nothing!"
	"No?  H'm! . . ."  The other scratched his chin, then stepped out and scuffed through the stuffing for himself.  "H'm -- er -- appears to have been a slight mistake.  Oh, really, my dear sir, I don't know what I can say or what I can do to ----"
	"Well, I'll tell ye what ye can do!" Mr. Glencannon thundered.  "Ye can give me an order on His Modjesty's Government for a hundred poonds for the property ye've destroyed, and what's more, ye can do it this vurra minite!"
	"Oh, yes sir!  Of course, sir!  Naturally, you will be fully reimbursed.  Er ----"  He turned and glowered at the door through which he had entered.  "Make out an order for a hundred pounds for this gentleman, Wilson," he directed.  "I've got to attend to something in my office."
	While the slip was being made out, angry voices could be heard through the partition.  There was a sound of scuffling, several heavy thumps, as though furniture were being tossed about, and then the slam of a door.
	Mr. Glencannon tucked the order away with the other documents, bowed coldly and stepped out into the scattered debris of his crocodile.  Just then, Messrs. Montgomery and MacQuayle came limping around the corner of the building and met him face to face.  The mate's nose was bleeding profusely and Mr. MacQuayle was holding his hand to his left eye.
	Mr. Glencannon halted, aghast.  "Oh, horrors, dear shipmates!:  His voice throbbed with tenderness and sympathy.  "What in the wurrld has hoppened to ye?  If I didn't have to rush uptown and collect a hundred poonds from the bus company and another hundred from the Bank o' England, I'd -- I'd break richt doon and shed some tears for ye!"

THE END

Published in The Saturday Evening Post
April 18, 1945