'I shall want some of the copies for myself, you know,' I had warned them both.
'Quite right, sir!' cried Huish, heartily. 'It's like a man with a dog an' a bitch--'e must 'ave 'is pick o' the pups!'
Huish could take the counter at a pinch, but it was neither his business nor his pleasure; and our gentle shepherd found French coinage as dark a mystery as the British rifle. But we were very often assisted by an unpaid volunteer, another great character in his way. We never knew his name, and to me at least he was a new type. A Hull lad, eighteen years old, private in a Labour Battalion employed near the town, he must have had work enough by day and night to satisfy even one of his strength and build, which were those of a little gorilla. And yet never a free evening had this boy but he must spend it behind our counter, slaving like the best of us for sheer love. But it was the work _he_ loved; he was a little shop-keeper born and bred; his heart was in the till at home; that was what brought him hot-foot to ours; and his passionate delight in the mere routine of retail trade was the new thing to me in human boyhood.
At first I had wondered, the hobby seemed so unnatural: at first I even kept an eye on him and on the till. Our leader had gone on leave before the New Year; nobody seemed to know how far he had encouraged the boy, or the origin of his anomalous footing in the hut; and we were taking a cool thousand francs a day. But our young volunteer bore microscopic scrutiny, but repaid it all. His was not only a labour of love unashamed, but the joyous exercise of a gift, the triumphant display of an inherent power. He beat the best of us behind a counter. It was his element, not ours for all the will and skill in the world; he was a fish among swimmers, a professional among amateurs, and the greatest disciplinarian of us all. The home till may have been behind a bar in the worst part of Hull, long practice in prompt refusal have given him his short way with old soldiers opening negotiations out of their turn. It was a good way, however, as cheery as it was firm. I can hear it now:
'Naw, yer dawn't, Jock! Get away back an' coom oop in't queue like oother people!'
It was never resented. Though not even one of us, but the youngest and lowliest of themselves, that urchin by his own virtue exercised the authority of a truculent N.C.O. with the whole military machine behind him. I never heard a murmur against him, or witnessed the least reluctance to obey his ruling. And with equal impunity he addressed all alike as 'Jock.'