Trouble in Porter Street [antikvár]

1. THE PEOPLE AND THE STREET There was a tinkle of breaking glass, sounds of feet scuffling and loud voices, that were quietened by a bellow, " Now then, TURN IT UP!" More quarrelling voices and then the loud one again, saying, " Come on now, out you go." The door swung open and slammed angrily. Tom Rigby, landlord of the Clarendon, rubbed his huge hands together and grinned. " Soon settled that," he said. Old Peter Turner drank down the rest of his pint and shook his head. " Porter Street ain't what it used to be," he said. " In my young days when we had a scrap it was a scrap." Little George Tims looked up from his beer. " Remember the time all the market boys set about the others? " " That was before your time," Peter remarked to the landlord. " The biggest free-for-all I've ever seen. Whole street joined in. They was slinging chairs and crockery out of the winders, chaps lying in the gutter bashing each other and the wives kicking and tearing each other's hair. The slops didn't dare come up and interfere. In the end they had to fetch a vanload of 'em. Drove right up the street, they did, and soon as it stopped they all came tumbling out with their truncheons in their hands." " But then they didn't get it all their own way, either," chirped up George Tims in his cracked, old man's voice. " The lads -stopped fighting each other and set about the cops." The landlord laughed, a fat chuckle. " Yes," he said, " they were a crowd those days. Always scrapping among themselves." 5