Chapter 1

* A Distributed Proofreaders Canada eBook *

This eBook is made available at no cost and with very few restrictions.
These restrictions apply only if (1) you make a change in the eBook
(other than alteration for different display devices), or (2) you are
making commercial use of the eBook. If either of these conditions
applies, please contact an FP administrator before proceeding.

This work is in the Canadian public domain, but may be under copyright
in some countries. If you live outside Canada, check your country’s
copyright laws. IF THE BOOK IS UNDER COPYRIGHT IN YOUR COUNTRY, DO NOT
DOWNLOAD OR REDISTRIBUTE THIS FILE.

Title: The Saving Clause
Author: Herman Cyril McNeile (1888-1937)
Date of first publication: 1927
Date first posted: July 26, 2013
Date last updated: March 24, 2014
Faded Page eBook #20130755

This ebook was produced by: David T. Jones, Elizabeth Oscanyan, Al
Haines, Paul Ereaut & the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at
http://www.pgdpcanada.net

THE SAVING CLAUSE

* * * * *

BOOKS BY “SAPPER”

BULL-DOG DRUMMOND
THE BLACK GANG
THE THIRD ROUND
THE FINAL COUNT
THE SAVING CLAUSE
JOHN WALTERS
WORD OF HONOUR
SHORTY BILL
JIM BRENT
OUT OF THE BLUE
JIM MAITLAND
THE DINNER CLUB
THE MAN IN RATCATCHER

* * * * *

THE SAVING CLAUSE

By “SAPPER”

HODDER AND STOUGHTON LIMITED

LONDON

* * * * *

_Made and Printed in Great Britain for Hodder & Stoughton, Limited,_
_by C. Tinling & Co., Ltd., Liverpool, London and Prescot._

Table of Contents

I — THE SAVING CLAUSE
II — BILLIE FINDS THE ANSWER
III — THE RUBBER STRAP
IV — ROUT OF THE OLIVER SAMUELSONS
V — THE HORROR AT STAVELEY GRANGE
VI — CYNTHIA DELMORTON
VII — THE ELEVENTH HOUR
VIII — THREE OF A KIND
IX — THE IMPASSIVE FOOTMAN

I — THE SAVING CLAUSE

I guess I don’t hold with missionaries. I’ve been in most corners of
this globe, and I reckon that the harm they do easily outweighs the
good. Stands to reason, don’t it, that we can’t all have the same
religion, same as we can’t all have the same shaped nose? So what in
thunder is the good of trying to put my nose on to your face, where it
won’t fit? And it sort of riles me to see these good earnest people
labouring and sweating to do to others what they would only describe as
damned impertinence if those others tried to do it to them. Yet, as I
see it, there’s no reason why the others shouldn’t. ‘Tisn’t as if any
particular bunch had a complete corner in truth, is it?

But there are exceptions, same as to most things. And for the past
twenty years whenever I’ve said I don’t hold with missionaries, I’ve
always added a saving clause in my mind. Care to hear what that saving
clause is? Right: mine’s the same as before.

It was just after the Boer War that it happened. I’d come home: got a
job of sorts in London. Thought a few years of the quiet life would do
me good, and an old uncle of mine wangled me into the office of a pal of
his. Funny old thing my boss was, with a stomach like a balloon. And I
give you my word that he was the last man in London whom you’d have
expected to meet at the Empire on a Saturday night. It was sheer bad
luck, though I don’t suppose I could have stood that job, anyway, for
long.

I’d met a pal there, you see, and I suppose we’d started to hit it a
bit. Anyway a darned great chucker-out came and intimated that he
thought the moment had come when we’d better sample the cool night air
of Leicester Square.

Well, I don’t say I was right: strictly speaking, I suppose I should
have accepted his remark in the spirit in which it was intended. But the
fact remains that I didn’t like his face or his frock coat–and we had
words. And finally the chucker-out sampled the cool night air–not me.
The only trouble was that just as he went down the stairs, my boss was
coming up with wife and family complete. And that chucker-out was a big
man: I guess it was rather like being hit by a steam roller. Anyway the
whole blessed family turned head over heels, and landed on the pavement
simultaneously with the chucker-out on top.

Again strictly speaking, I suppose I should have gone and picked them up
with suitable words of regret. But I just couldn’t do it: I was laughing
too much. In fact I didn’t stop laughing till I began to run–the police
were heaving in sight. Still you boys know what the Empire was like in
those days: so I’ll pass on to Monday morning.

Not that there’s much to say about Monday morning, except that it closed
my connection with the firm. The old man had a black eye where the
chucker-out had trodden on his face, and the hell of a liver. And he
utterly failed to see the humorous side of the episode. As far as I
could make out his wife had smashed her false teeth in the mêlée, and
was as wild as a civet cat; and only the fact that his own firm would be
involved had prevented him giving my name to the police. My own private
opinion was that it wasn’t so much the firm he was worrying about as
himself. Still, that’s neither here nor there: all that matters is that
my job in London terminated that morning.

Maybe you’re wondering what the dickens all this has to do with
missionaries and my saving clause, but I’m coming to that part soon. And
I want you to realize the frame of mind I was in when I found myself
propping up the Criterion bar just before lunch on that Monday. It may
seem strange to you that a bloke like me could ever have stomached quill
driving in a City office, but the fact remains that at the time I was
almighty sick with myself at having got the sack. And as luck would have
it, I hadn’t been in that bar more than five minutes when a bunch of
four of the boys blew in, whom I’d last seen in South Africa. They were
the lads all right, I give you my word: four of the toughest
propositions you’re ever likely to meet in your life. There was Bill
Merton who had graduated in the Kimberley diamond rush: Andy Fraser who
had left Australia hurriedly, and it didn’t do to ask why: Tom Jerrold
with a five-inch scar on his face that he’d picked up in Chicago: and
last but not least Pete O’Farrell.

Gad! he was a character, was Pete. A great big hulking fellow of about
six feet three, with muscles like an ox, and a pair of blue eyes that
went clean through you and came out the other side. I once saw him
tackle four policemen in Sydney, and get away with it. So did one
policeman who ran for his life: the other three went to hospital.