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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Kipps, by H. G. Wells
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+Title: Kipps
+       The Story of a Simple Soul
+
+Author: H. G. Wells
+
+Release Date: March 16, 2012 [EBook #39162]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KIPPS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charlene Taylor, Martin Pettit and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+KIPPS
+
+THE STORY OF A SIMPLE SOUL
+
+
+
+
+Books by H. G. Wells
+
+
+SHORT STORIES
+
+Twelve Stories and a Dream
+The Plattner Story and Others
+Tales of Space and Time
+The Stolen Bacillus and Other Stories
+
+
+ROMANCES
+
+The Food of the Gods
+The Wonderful Visit
+The War of the Worlds
+The Invisible Man
+The Time Machine
+The First Men in the Moon
+The Sea Lady
+The Island of Dr. Moreau
+
+
+NOVELS
+
+Kipps
+Love and Mr. Lewisham
+The Wheels of Chance
+
+
+SOCIOLOGICAL ESSAYS
+
+A Modern Utopia
+Anticipations
+Mankind in the Making.
+
+
+
+
+KIPPS
+THE STORY OF A SIMPLE SOUL
+
+BY
+H. G. WELLS
+
+NEW YORK
+CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+1906
+
+
+COPYRIGHT 1906, BY
+CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+PUBLISHED, 1906
+
+
+     "Those individuals who have led secluded or isolated lives, or have
+     hitherto moved in other spheres than those wherein well-bred people
+     move, will gather all the information necessary from these pages to
+     render them thoroughly conversant with the manners and amenities of
+     society."
+
+     _Manners and Rules of Good Society_
+
+     _By a Member of the Aristocracy_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS:
+
+
+BOOK I.
+
+THE MAKING OF KIPPS
+                                      PAGE
+   I. The Little Shop at New Romney      3
+  II. The Emporium                      36
+ III. The Wood-Carving Class            64
+  IV. Chitterlow                        88
+   V. "Swapped"                        117
+  VI. The Unexpected                   128
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON
+
+   I. The New Conditions               169
+  II. The Walshinghams                 201
+ III. Engaged                          218
+  IV. The Bicycle Manufacturer         245
+   V. The Pupil Lover                  259
+  VI. Discords                         282
+ VII. London                           309
+VIII. Kipps Enters Society             354
+  IX. The Labyrinthodon                380
+
+
+BOOK III.
+
+KIPPSES
+
+   I. The Housing Problem              395
+  II. The Callers                      424
+ III. Terminations                     443
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+THE MAKING OF KIPPS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE LITTLE SHOP AT NEW ROMNEY
+
+
+Sec.1
+
+Until he was nearly arrived at adolescence it did not become clear to
+Kipps how it was that he was under the care of an aunt and uncle instead
+of having a father and mother like other boys. Yet he had vague memories
+of a somewhere else that was not New Romney--of a dim room, a window
+looking down on white buildings--and of a some one else who talked to
+forgotten people, and who was his mother. He could not recall her
+features very distinctly, but he remembered with extreme definition a
+white dress she wore, with a pattern of little sprigs of flowers and
+little bows of ribbon upon it, and a girdle of straight-ribbed white
+ribbon about the waist. Linked with this, he knew not how, were clouded
+half-obliterated recollections of scenes in which there was weeping,
+weeping in which he was inscrutably moved to join. Some terrible tall
+man with a loud voice played a part in these scenes, and either before
+or after them there were impressions of looking for interminable periods
+out of the windows of railway trains in the company of these two
+people....
+
+He knew, though he could not remember that he had ever been told, that
+a certain faded, wistful face, that looked at him from a plush and gilt
+framed daguerreotype above the mantel of the "sitting-room," was the
+face of his mother. But that knowledge did not touch his dim memories
+with any elucidation. In that photograph she was a girlish figure,
+leaning against a photographer's stile, and with all the self-conscious
+shrinking natural to that position. She had curly hair and a face far
+younger and prettier than any other mother in his experience. She swung
+a Dolly Varden hat by the string, and looked with obedient respectful
+eyes on the photographer-gentleman who had commanded the pose. She was
+very slight and pretty. But the phantom mother that haunted his memory
+so elusively was not like that, though he could not remember how she
+differed. Perhaps she was older, or a little less shrinking, or, it may
+be, only dressed in a different way....
+
+It is clear she handed him over to his aunt and uncle at New Romney with
+explicit directions and a certain endowment. One gathers she had
+something of that fine sense of social distinctions that subsequently
+played so large a part in Kipps' career. He was not to go to a "common"
+school, she provided, but to a certain seminary in Hastings that was not
+only a "middle-class academy," with mortar boards and every evidence of
+a higher social tone, but also remarkably cheap. She seems to have been
+animated by the desire to do her best for Kipps, even at a certain
+sacrifice of herself, as though Kipps were in some way a superior sort
+of person. She sent pocket-money to him from time to time for a year or
+more after Hastings had begun for him, but her face he never saw in the
+days of his lucid memory.
+
+His aunt and uncle were already high on the hill of life when first he
+came to them. They had married for comfort in the evening or at any rate
+in the late afternoon of their days. They were at first no more than
+vague figures in the background of proximate realities, such realities
+as familiar chairs and tables, quiet to ride and drive, the newel of the
+staircase, kitchen furniture, pieces of firewood, the boiler tap, old
+newspapers, the cat, the High Street, the back yard and the flat fields
+that are always so near in that little town. He knew all the stones in
+the yard individually, the creeper in the corner, the dustbin and the
+mossy wall, better than many men know the faces of their wives. There
+was a corner under the ironing-board which by means of a shawl could,
+under propitious gods, be made a very decent cubby-house, a corner that
+served him for several years as the indisputable hub of the world; and
+the stringy places in the carpet, the knots upon the dresser, and the
+several corners of the rag hearthrug his uncle had made, became
+essential parts of his mental foundations. The shop he did not know so
+thoroughly--it was a forbidden region to him; yet somehow he managed to
+know it very well.
+
+His aunt and uncle were, as it were, the immediate gods of this world;
+and, like the gods of the world of old, occasionally descended right
+into it, with arbitrary injunctions and disproportionate punishments.
+And, unhappily, one rose to their Olympian level at meals. Then one had
+to say one's "grace," hold one's spoon and fork in mad, unnatural ways
+called "properly," and refrain from eating even nice sweet things "too
+fast." If he "gobbled" there was trouble, and at the slightest _abandon_
+with knife, fork, and spoon, his aunt rapped his knuckles, albeit his
+uncle always finished up his gravy with his knife. Sometimes, moreover,
+his uncle would come, pipe in hand, out of a sedentary remoteness in the
+most disconcerting way, when a little boy was doing the most natural and
+attractive things, with "Drat and drabbit that young rascal! What's he
+a-doing of now?" And his aunt would appear at door or window to
+interrupt interesting conversation with children who were upon unknown
+grounds considered "low" and undesirable, and call him in. The
+pleasantest little noises, however softly you did them,--drumming on
+tea-trays, trumpeting your fists, whistling on keys, ringing chimes with
+a couple of pails, or playing tunes on the window-panes,--brought down
+the gods in anger. Yet what noise is fainter than your finger on the
+window--gently done? Sometimes, however, these gods gave him broken toys
+out of the shop, and then one loved them better--for the shop they kept
+was, among other things, a toy shop. (The other things included books to
+read and books to give away and local photographs; it had some
+pretensions also to be a china shop, and the fascia spoke of glass; it
+was also a stationer's shop with a touch of haberdashery about it, and
+in the windows and odd corners were mats and terra-cotta dishes, and
+milking-stools for painting; and there was a hint of picture-frames, and
+fire-screens, and fishing tackle, and air-guns, and bathing suits, and
+tents: various things, indeed, but all cruelly attractive to a small
+boy's fingers.) Once his aunt gave him a trumpet if he would _promise_
+faithfully not to blow it, and afterwards took it away again. And his
+aunt made him say his Catechism and something she certainly called the
+"Colic for the Day" every Sunday in the year.
+
+As the two grew old while he grew up, and as his impression of them
+modified insensibly from year to year, it seemed to him at last that
+they had always been as they were when, in his adolescent days, his
+impression of things grew fixed. His aunt he thought of as always lean,
+rather worried-looking, and prone to a certain obliquity of cap, and his
+uncle massive, many-chinned, and careless about his buttons. They
+neither visited nor received visitors. They were always very suspicious
+about their neighbours and other people generally; they feared the "low"
+and they hated and despised the "stuck-up," and so they "kept themselves
+_to_ themselves," according to the English ideal. Consequently little
+Kipps had no playmates, except through the sin of disobedience. By
+inherent nature he had a sociable disposition. When he was in the High
+Street he made a point of saying "Hello!" to passing cyclists, and he
+would put his tongue out at the Quodling children whenever their
+nursemaid was not looking. And he began a friendship with Sid Pornick,
+the son of the haberdasher next door, that, with wide intermissions, was
+destined to last his lifetime through.
+
+Pornick, the haberdasher, I may say at once, was, according to old
+Kipps, a "blaring jackass"; he was a teetotaller, a "nyar, nyar,
+'im-singing Methodis'," and altogether distasteful and detrimental, he
+and his together, to true Kipps ideals, so far as little Kipps could
+gather them. This Pornick certainly possessed an enormous voice, and he
+annoyed old Kipps greatly by calling, "You--Arn" and "Siddee," up and
+down his house. He annoyed old Kipps by private choral services on
+Sunday, all his family "nyar, nyar-ing"; and by mushroom culture; by
+behaving as though the pilaster between the two shops was common
+property; by making a noise of hammering in the afternoon, when old
+Kipps wanted to be quiet after his midday meal; by going up and down
+uncarpeted stairs in his boots; by having a black beard; by attempting
+to be friendly; and by--all that sort of thing. In fact, he annoyed old
+Kipps. He annoyed him especially with his shop doormat. Old Kipps never
+beat his mat, preferring to let sleeping dust lie; and, seeking a motive
+for a foolish proceeding, he held that Pornick waited until there was a
+suitable wind in order that the dust disengaged in that operation might
+defile his neighbour's shop. These issues would frequently develop into
+loud and vehement quarrels, and on one occasion came so near to violence
+as to be subsequently described by Pornick (who read his newspaper) as a
+"Disgraceful Frackass." On that occasion he certainly went into his own
+shop with extreme celerity.
+
+But it was through one of these quarrels that the friendship of little
+Kipps and Sid Pornick came about. The two small boys found themselves
+one day looking through the gate at the doctor's goats together; they
+exchanged a few contradictions about which goat could fight which, and
+then young Kipps was moved to remark that Sid's father was a "blaring
+jackass." Sid said he wasn't, and Kipps repeated that he was, and quoted
+his authority. Then Sid, flying off at a tangent rather alarmingly, said
+he could fight young Kipps with one hand, an assertion young Kipps with
+a secret want of confidence denied. There were some vain repetitions,
+and the incident might have ended there, but happily a sporting butcher
+boy chanced on the controversy at this stage, and insisted upon seeing
+fair play.
+
+The two small boys under his pressing encouragement did at last button
+up their jackets, square and fight an edifying drawn battle, until it
+seemed good to the butcher boy to go on with Mrs. Holyer's mutton. Then,
+according to his directions and under his experienced stage management,
+they shook hands and made it up. Subsequently, a little tear-stained
+perhaps, but flushed with the butcher boy's approval ("tough little
+kids"), and with cold stones down their necks as he advised, they sat
+side by side on the doctor's gate, projecting very much behind,
+staunching an honourable bloodshed, and expressing respect for one
+another. Each had a bloody nose and a black eye--three days later they
+matched to a shade--neither had given in, and, though this was tacit,
+neither wanted any more.
+
+It was an excellent beginning. After this first encounter the attributes
+of their parents and their own relative value in battle never rose
+between them, and if anything was wanted to complete the warmth of their
+regard it was found in a joint dislike of the eldest Quodling. The
+eldest Quodling lisped, had a silly sort of straw hat and a large pink
+face (all covered over with self-satisfaction), and he went to the
+National School with a green baize bag--a contemptible thing to do. They
+called him names and threw stones at him, and when he replied by
+threatenings ("Look 'ere, young Art Kipth, you better _thtoppit_!") they
+were moved to attack and put him to flight.
+
+And after that they broke the head of Ann Pornick's doll, so that she
+went home weeping loudly--a wicked and endearing proceeding. Sid was
+whacked, but, as he explained, he wore a newspaper tactically adjusted
+during the transaction, and really it didn't hurt him at all.... And
+Mrs. Pornick put her head out of the shop door suddenly, and threatened
+Kipps as he passed.
+
+
+Sec.2
+
+"Cavendish Academy," the school that had won the limited choice of
+Kipps' vanished mother, was established in a battered private house in
+the part of Hastings remotest from the sea; it was called an Academy for
+Young Gentlemen, and many of the young gentlemen had parents in "India,"
+and other unverifiable places. Others were the sons of credulous widows,
+anxious, as Kipps' mother had been, to get something a little "superior"
+to a board school education as cheaply as possible; and others again
+were sent to demonstrate the dignity of their parents and guardians. And
+of course there were boys from France.
+
+Its "principal" was a lean, long creature of indifferent digestion and
+temper, who proclaimed himself on a gilt-lettered board in his front
+garden George Garden Woodrow, F.S.Sc., letters indicating that he had
+paid certain guineas for a bogus diploma. A bleak white-washed outhouse
+constituted his schoolroom, and the scholastic quality of its carved and
+worn desks and forms was enhanced by a slippery blackboard and two large
+yellow out-of-date maps, one of Africa and the other of Wiltshire, that
+he had picked up cheap at a sale. There were other maps and globes in
+his study, where he interviewed inquiring parents, but these his pupils
+never saw. And in a glass cupboard in the passage was several
+shillingsworth of test tubes and chemicals, a tripod, a glass retort,
+and a damaged Bunsen burner, manifesting that the "Scientific
+laboratory" mentioned in the prospectus was no idle boast.
+
+This prospectus, which was in dignified but incorrect English, laid
+particular stress on the sound preparation for a commercial career given
+in the Academy, but the army, navy and civil service were glanced at in
+an ambiguous sentence. There was something vague in the prospectus about
+"examinational successes"--though Woodrow, of course, disapproved of
+"cram"--and a declaration that the curriculum included "art," "modern
+foreign languages" and "a sound technical and scientific training." Then
+came insistence upon the "moral well-being" of the pupils, and an
+emphatic boast of the excellence of the religious instruction, "so often
+neglected nowadays even in schools of wide repute." "That's bound to
+fetch 'em," Mr. Woodrow had remarked when he drew up the prospectus. And
+in conjunction with the mortarboards it certainly did. Attention was
+directed to the "motherly" care of Mrs. Woodrow--in reality a small
+partially effaced woman with a plaintive face and a mind above cookery;
+and the prospectus concluded with a phrase intentionally vague, "Fare
+unrestricted, and our own milk and produce."
+
+The memories Kipps carried from that school into after life were set in
+an atmosphere of stuffiness and mental muddle; and included countless
+pictures of sitting on creaking forms bored and idle, of blot licking
+and the taste of ink, of torn books with covers that set one's teeth on
+edge, of the slimy surface of the laboured slates, of furtive
+marble-playing, whispered story-telling, and of pinches, blows, and a
+thousand such petty annoyances being perpetually "passed on" according
+to the custom of the place, of standing up in class and being hit
+suddenly and unreasonably for imaginary misbehaviour, of Mr. Woodrow's
+raving days, when a scarcely sane injustice prevailed, of the cold
+vacuity of the hour of preparation before the bread-and-butter
+breakfast, and of horrible headaches and queer, unprecedented, internal
+feelings resulting from Mrs. Woodrow's motherly rather than intelligent
+cookery. There were dreary walks, when the boys marched two by two, all
+dressed in the mortarboard caps that so impressed the widowed mothers;
+there were dismal half-holidays when the weather was wet and the spirit
+of evil temper and evil imagination had the pent boys to work its will
+on; there were unfair, dishonourable fights and miserable defeats and
+victories, there was bullying and being bullied. A coward boy Kipps
+particularly afflicted, until at last he was goaded to revolt by
+incessant persecution, and smote Kipps to tolerance with whirling fists.
+There were memories of sleeping three in a bed, of the dense leathery
+smell of the schoolroom when one returned thither after ten minutes'
+play, of a playground of mud and incidental sharp flints. And there was
+much furtive foul language.
+
+"Our Sundays are our happiest days," was one of Woodrow's formulae with
+the inquiring parent, but Kipps was not called in evidence. They were to
+him terrible gaps of inanity--no work, no play, a drear expanse of time
+with the mystery of church twice and plum duff once in the middle. The
+afternoon was given up to furtive relaxations, among which "Torture
+Chamber" games with the less agreeable, weaker boys figured. It was from
+the difference between this day and common days that Kipps derived his
+first definite conceptions of the nature of God and heaven. His instinct
+was to evade any closer acquaintance as long as he could.
+
+The school work varied, according to the prevailing mood of Mr. Woodrow.
+Sometimes that was a despondent lethargy; copy-books were distributed or
+sums were "set," or the great mystery of bookkeeping was declared in
+being, and beneath these superficial activities lengthy conversations
+and interminable guessing games with marbles went on while Mr. Woodrow
+sat inanimate at his desk heedless of school affairs, staring in front
+of him at unseen things. At times his face was utterly inane, at times
+it had an expression of stagnant amazement, as if he saw before his eyes
+with pitiless clearness the dishonour and mischief of his being....
+
+At other times the F.S.Sc. roused himself to action, and would stand up
+a wavering class and teach it, goading it with bitter mockery and blows
+through a chapter of Ann's "First French Course," or "France and the
+French," or a Dialogue about a traveller's washing, or the parts of an
+opera-house. His own knowledge of French had been obtained years ago in
+another English private school, and he had refreshed it by occasional
+weeks of loafing and mean adventure in Dieppe. He would sometimes in
+their lessons hit upon some reminiscence of these brighter days, and
+then he would laugh inexplicably and repeat French phrases of an
+unfamiliar type.
+
+Among the commoner exercises he prescribed the learning of long passages
+of poetry from a "Poetry Book," which he would delegate an elder boy to
+"hear," and there was reading aloud from the Holy Bible, verse by
+verse--it was none of your "godless" schools!--so that you counted the
+verses up to your turn and then gave yourself to conversation--and
+sometimes one read from a cheap History of this land. They did, as Kipps
+reported, "loads of catechism." Also there was much learning of
+geographical names and lists, and sometimes Woodrow in an outbreak of
+energy would see these names were actually found on a map. And once,
+just once, there was a chemistry lesson--a lesson of indescribable
+excitement--glass things of the strangest shape, a smell like bad eggs,
+something bubbling in something, a smash and stench, and Mr. Woodrow
+saying quite distinctly--they thrashed it out in the dormitory
+afterwards--"Damn!" followed by the whole school being kept in, with
+extraordinary severities, for an hour....
+
+But interspersed with the memories of this grey routine were certain
+patches of brilliant colour--the holidays, his holidays, which in spite
+of the feud between their seniors, he spent as much as possible with
+Sid Pornick, the son of the irascible black-bearded haberdasher next
+door. They seemed to be memories of a different world. There were
+glorious days of "mucking about" along the beach, the siege of
+unresisting Martello towers, the incessant interest of the mystery and
+motion of windmills, the windy excursions with boarded feet over the
+yielding shingle to Dungeness lighthouse--Sid Pornick and he far adrift
+from reality, smugglers and armed men from the moment they left Great
+Stone behind them--wanderings in the hedgeless reedy marsh, long
+excursions reaching even to Hythe, where the machine guns of the Empire
+are forever whirling and tapping, and to Rye and Winchelsea, perched
+like dream-cities on their little hills. The sky in these memories was
+the blazing hemisphere of the marsh heavens in summer, or its wintry
+tumult of sky and sea; and there were wrecks, real wrecks, in it (near
+Dymchurch pitched high and blackened and rotting were the ribs of a
+fishing smack flung aside like an empty basket when the sea had devoured
+its crew); and there was bathing all naked in the sea, bathing to one's
+armpits and even trying to swim in the warm sea-water (spite of his
+aunt's prohibition), and (with her indulgence) the rare eating of dinner
+from a paper parcel miles away from home. Toke and cold ground rice
+pudding with plums it used to be--there is no better food at all. And
+for the background, in the place of Woodrow's mean, fretting rule, were
+his aunt's spare but frequently quite amiable figure--for though she
+insisted on his repeating the English Church Catechism every Sunday,
+she had an easy way over dinners that one wanted to take abroad--and his
+uncle, corpulent and irascible, but sedentary and easily escaped. And
+freedom!
+
+The holidays were indeed very different from school. They were free,
+they were spacious, and though he never knew it in these words--they had
+an element of beauty. In his memory of his boyhood they shone like
+strips of stained glass window in a dreary waste of scholastic wall,
+they grew brighter and brighter as they grew remoter. There came a time
+at last and moods when he could look back to them with a feeling akin to
+tears.
+
+The last of these windows was the brightest, and instead of the
+kaleidoscopic effects of its predecessors its glory was a single figure.
+For in the last of his holidays, before the Moloch of Retail Trade got
+hold of him, Kipps made his first tentative essays at the mysterious
+shrine of Love. Very tentative they were, for he had become a boy of
+subdued passions, and potential rather than actual affectionateness.
+
+And the objects of these first stirrings of the great desire was no
+other than Ann Pornick, the head of whose doll he and Sid had broken
+long ago, and rejoiced over long ago, in the days when he had yet to
+learn the meaning of a heart.
+
+
+Sec.3
+
+Negotiations were already on foot to make Kipps into a draper before he
+discovered the lights that lurked in Ann Pornick's eyes. School was
+over, absolutely over, and it was chiefly present to him that he was
+never to go to school again. It was high summer. The "breaking up" of
+school had been hilarious; and the excellent maxim, "Last Day's Pay
+Day," had been observed by him with a scrupulous attention to his
+honour. He had punched the heads of all his enemies, wrung wrists and
+kicked shins; he had distributed all his unfinished copybooks, all his
+school books, his collection of marbles and his mortarboard cap among
+such as loved him; and he had secretly written in obscure pages of their
+books, "remember Art Kipps." He had also split the anaemic Woodrow's
+cane, carved his own name deeply in several places about the premises,
+and broken the scullery window. He had told everybody so often that he
+was to learn to be a sea captain that he had come almost to believe the
+thing himself. And now he was home, and school was at an end for him for
+evermore.
+
+He was up before six on the day of his return, and out in the hot
+sunlight of the yard. He set himself to whistle a peculiarly penetrating
+arrangement of three notes supposed by the boys of the Hastings Academy
+and himself and Sid Pornick, for no earthly reason whatever, to be the
+original Huron war-cry. As he did this he feigned not to be doing it,
+because of the hatred between his uncle and the Pornicks, but to be
+examining with respect and admiration a new wing of the dustbin recently
+erected by his uncle--a pretence that would not have deceived a nestling
+tomtit.
+
+Presently there came a familiar echo from the Pornick hunting-ground.
+Then Kipps began to sing, "Ar pars eight tra-la, in the lane be'ind the
+church." To which an unseen person answered, "Ar pars eight it is, in
+the lane be'ind the church." The "tra-la" was considered to render this
+sentence incomprehensible to the uninitiated. In order to conceal their
+operations still more securely, both parties to this duet then gave vent
+to a vocalisation of the Huron war-cry again, and after a lingering
+repetition of the last and shrillest note, dispersed severally, as
+became boys in the enjoyment of holidays, to light the house fires for
+the day.
+
+Half-past eight found Kipps sitting on the sunlit gate at the top of the
+long lane that runs towards the sea, clashing his boots in a slow
+rhythm, and whistling with great violence all that he knew of an
+excruciatingly pathetic air. There appeared along by the churchyard wall
+a girl in a short frock, brown-haired, quick-coloured, and with dark
+blue eyes. She had grown so that she was a little taller than Kipps, and
+her colour had improved. He scarcely remembered her, so changed was she
+since last holidays--if indeed he had seen her last holidays, a thing he
+could not clearly remember. Some vague emotion arose at the sight of
+her. He stopped whistling and regarded her, oddly tongue-tied.
+
+"He can't come," said Ann, advancing boldly. "Not yet."
+
+"What--not Sid?"
+
+"No. Father's made him dust all his boxes again."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"I dunno. Father's in a stew 'smorning."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+Pause. Kipps looked at her, and then was unable to look at her again.
+She regarded him with interest. "You left school?" she remarked after a
+pause.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"So's Sid."
+
+The conversation languished. Ann put her hands on the top of the gate,
+and began a stationary hopping, a sort of ineffectual gymnastic
+experiment.
+
+"Can you run?" she said presently.
+
+"Run you any day," said Kipps.
+
+"Gimme a start?"
+
+"Where for?" said Kipps.
+
+Ann considered, and indicated a tree. She walked towards it, and turned.
+"Gimme to here?" she called.
+
+Kipps, standing now and touching the gate, smiled to express conscious
+superiority. "Further!" he said.
+
+"Here?"
+
+"Bit more!" said Kipps, and then, repenting of his magnanimity, said
+"Orf!" suddenly, and so recovered his lost concession.
+
+They arrived abreast at the tree, flushed and out of breath.
+
+"Tie!" said Ann, throwing her hair back from her face with her hand.
+
+"I won," panted Kipps.
+
+They disputed firmly but quite politely.
+
+"Run it again, then," said Kipps. "_I_ don't mind."
+
+They returned towards the gate.
+
+"You don't run bad," said Kipps, temperately expressing sincere
+admiration. "I'm pretty good, you know."
+
+Ann sent her hair back by an expert toss of the head. "You give me a
+start," she allowed.
+
+They became aware of Sid approaching them.
+
+"You better look out, young Ann," said Sid, with that irreverent want of
+sympathy usual in brothers. "You been out nearly 'arf-hour. Nothing
+ain't been done upstairs. Father said he didn't know where you was, but
+when he did he'd warm y'r young ear."
+
+Ann prepared to go.
+
+"How about that race?" asked Kipps.
+
+"Lor!" cried Sid, quite shocked. "You ain't been racing _her!_"
+
+Ann swung herself round the end of the gate with her eyes on Kipps, and
+then turned away suddenly and ran off down the lane.
+
+Kipps' eyes tried to go after her, and came back to Sid's.
+
+"I give her a lot of start," said Kipps apologetically. "It wasn't a
+proper race." And so the subject was dismissed. But Kipps was
+_distrait_ for some seconds, perhaps, and the mischief had begun in him.
+
+
+Sec.4
+
+They proceeded to the question of how two accomplished Hurons might most
+satisfactorily spend the morning. Manifestly their line lay straight
+along the lane to the sea.
+
+"There's a new wreck," said Sid, "and my!--don't it smell just!"
+
+"Smell?"
+
+"Fair make you sick. It's rotten wheat."
+
+They fell to talking of wrecks, and so came to ironclads and wars and
+suchlike manly matters.
+
+Half-way to the wreck Kipps made a casual irrelevant remark. "Your
+sister ain't a bad sort," he said off-handedly.
+
+"I clout her a lot," said Sidney modestly, and after a pause the talk
+reverted to more suitable topics.
+
+The new wreck was full of rotting grain, and smelt abominably, even as
+Sid had said. This was excellent. They had it all to themselves. They
+took possession of it in force, at Sid's suggestion, and had speedily to
+defend it against enormous numbers of imaginary "natives," who were at
+last driven off by loud shouts of _bang_, _bang_, and vigorous thrusting
+and shoving of sticks. Then, also at Sid's direction, they sailed with
+it into the midst of a combined French, German and Russian fleet,
+demolishing the combination unassisted, and having descended to the
+beach, clambered up the side and cut out their own vessel in brilliant
+style, they underwent a magnificent shipwreck (with vocalised thunder)
+and floated "waterlogged"--so Sid insisted--upon an exhausted sea.
+
+These things drove Ann out of mind for a time. But at last, as they
+drifted without food or water upon a stagnant ocean, haggard-eyed, chins
+between their hands, looking in vain for a sail, she came to mind again
+abruptly.
+
+"It's rather nice 'aving sisters," remarked one perishing mariner.
+
+Sid turned round and regarded him thoughtfully. "Not it!" he said.
+
+"No?"
+
+"Not a bit of it." He grinned confidentially. "Know too much," he said;
+and afterwards, "Get out of things."
+
+He resumed his gloomy scrutiny of the hopeless horizon. Presently he
+fell to spitting jerkily between his teeth, as he had read was the way
+with such ripe manhood as chews its quid.
+
+"Sisters," he said, "is rot. That's what sisters are. Girls if you like,
+but sisters--no!"
+
+"But ain't sisters girls?"
+
+"_N-eaow!_" said Sid, with unspeakable scorn.
+
+And Kipps answered, "Of course. I didn't mean---- I wasn't thinking of
+that."
+
+"You got a girl?" asked Sid, spitting very cleverly again.
+
+Kipps admitted his deficiency. He felt compunction.
+
+"You don't know who _my_ girl is, Art Kipps--I bet."
+
+"Who is, then?" asked Kipps, still chiefly occupied by his own poverty.
+
+"Ah!"
+
+Kipps let a moment elapse before he did his duty. "Tell us!"
+
+Sid eyed him and hesitated. "Secret?" he said.
+
+"Secret."
+
+"Dying solemn?"
+
+"Dying solemn!" Kipps' self-concentration passed into curiosity.
+
+Sid administered a terrible oath. Even after that precaution he adhered
+lovingly to his facts. "It begins with a Nem," he said, doling them out
+parsimoniously. "M A U D," he spelt, with a stern eye on Kipps, "C H A R
+T E R I S."
+
+Now, Maud Charteris was a young person of eighteen and the daughter of
+the vicar of St. Bavon's,--besides which she had a bicycle,--so that as
+her name unfolded the face of Kipps lengthened with respect. "Get out!"
+he gasped incredulously. "She ain't your girl, Sid Pornick."
+
+"She is!" answered Sid, stoutly.
+
+"What--truth?"
+
+"_Truth._"
+
+Kipps scrutinised his face. "Reely?"
+
+Sid touched wood, whistled, and repeated a binding doggerel with great
+solemnity.
+
+Kipps still struggled with the amazing new light on the world about
+him. "D'you mean--she knows?"
+
+Sid flushed deeply, and his aspect became stern and gloomy. He resumed
+his wistful scrutiny of the sunlit sea. "I'd die for that girl, Art
+Kipps," he said presently, and Kipps did not press a question he felt to
+be ill timed. "I'd do anything she asked me to do," said Sid--"just
+anything. If she was to ask me to chuck myself into the sea." He met
+Kipps' eye. "I _would_," he said.
+
+They were pensive for a space, and then Sid began to discourse in
+fragments of Love, a theme upon which Kipps had already in a furtive way
+meditated a little, but which, apart from badinage, he had never yet
+heard talked about in the light of day. Of course many and various
+aspects of life had come to light in the muffled exchange of knowledge
+that went on under the shadow of Woodrow, but this of Sentimental Love
+was not among them. Sid, who was a boy with an imagination, having once
+broached this topic, opened his heart, or at any rate a new wing of his
+heart, to Kipps, and found no fault with Kipps for a lack of return. He
+produced a thumbed novelette that had played a part in his sentimental
+awakening; he proffered it to Kipps, and confessed there was a character
+in it, a baronet, singularly like himself. This baronet was a person of
+volcanic passions which he concealed beneath a demeanour of "icy
+cynicism." The utmost expression he permitted himself was to grit his
+teeth; and now his attention was called to it, Kipps remarked that Sid
+also had a habit of gritting his teeth--and indeed had had all the
+morning. They read for a time, and presently Sid talked again. The
+conception of love Sid made evident was compact of devotion and much
+spirited fighting and a touch of mystery; but through all that cloud of
+talk there floated before Kipps a face that was flushed and hair that
+was tossed aside.
+
+So they budded, sitting on the blackening old wreck in which men had
+lived and died, looking out to sea, talking of that other sea upon which
+they must presently embark....
+
+They ceased to talk, and Sid read; but Kipps falling behind with the
+reading and not wishing to admit that he read slowlier than Sid, whose
+education was of the inferior elementary school brand, lapsed into
+meditation.
+
+"I _would_ like to 'ave a girl," said Kipps. "I mean just to talk to and
+all that...."
+
+A floating object distracted them at last from this obscure topic. They
+abandoned the wreck and followed the new interest a mile along the
+beach, bombarding it with stones until it came to land. They had
+inclined to a view that it would contain romantic mysteries, but it was
+simply an ill-preserved kitten--too much even for them. And at last they
+were drawn dinnerward and went home hungry and pensive side by side.
+
+
+Sec.5
+
+But Kipps' imagination had been warmed by that talk of love, and in the
+afternoon, when he saw Ann Pornick in the High Street and said "Hello!"
+it was a different "hello" from that of their previous intercourse. And
+when they had passed they both looked back and caught each other doing
+so. Yes, he _did_ want a girl badly....
+
+Afterwards he was distracted by a traction engine going through the
+town, and his aunt had got some sprats for supper. When he was in bed,
+however, sentiment came upon him again in a torrent quite abruptly and
+abundantly, and he put his head under the pillow and whispered very
+softly, "I love Ann Pornick," as a sort of supplementary devotion.
+
+In his subsequent dreams he ran races with Ann, and they lived in a
+wreck together, and always her face was flushed and her hair about her
+face. They just lived in a wreck and ran races, and were very, very fond
+of one another. And their favourite food was rock-chocolate, dates, such
+as one buys off barrows, and sprats--fried sprats....
+
+In the morning he could hear Ann singing in the scullery next door. He
+listened to her for some time, and it was clear to him that he must put
+things before her.
+
+Towards dusk that evening they chanced on one another at the gate by the
+church; but though there was much in his mind, it stopped there with a
+resolute shyness until he and Ann were out of breath catching
+cockchafers, and were sitting on that gate of theirs again. Ann sat up
+upon the gate, dark against vast masses of flaming crimson and darkling
+purple, and her eyes looked at Kipps from a shadowed face. There came a
+stillness between them, and quite abruptly he was moved to tell his
+love.
+
+"Ann," he said, "I _do_ like you. I wish you was my girl.... I say, Ann:
+will you _be_ my girl?"
+
+Ann made no pretence of astonishment. She weighed the proposal for a
+moment with her eyes on Kipps. "If you like, Artie," she said lightly.
+"_I_ don't mind if I am."
+
+"All right," said Kipps, breathless with excitement, "then you are."
+
+"All right," said Ann.
+
+Something seemed to fall between them, and they no longer looked openly
+at one another. "Lor'!" cried Ann suddenly, "see that one!" and jumped
+down and darted after a cockchafer that had boomed within a yard of her
+face. And with that they were girl and boy again....
+
+They avoided their new relationship painfully.
+
+They did not recur to it for several days, though they met twice. Both
+felt that there remained something before this great experience was
+complete, but there was an infinite diffidence about the next step.
+Kipps talked in fragments of all sorts of matters, telling particularly
+of the great things that were being done to make a man and a draper of
+him, how he had two new pairs of trousers and a black coat and four new
+shirts. And all the while his imagination was urging him to that unknown
+next step, and when he was alone and in the dark he became even an
+enterprising wooer. It became evident to him that it would be nice to
+take Ann by the hand; even the decorous novelettes Sid affected egged
+him on to that greater nearness of intimacy.
+
+Then a great idea came to him, in a paragraph called "Lovers' Tokens"
+that he read in a torn fragment of _Tit Bits_. It fell in to the measure
+of his courage--a divided sixpence! He secured his aunt's best scissors,
+fished a sixpence out of his jejune tin money-box, and jabbed his finger
+in a varied series of attempts to get it in half. When they met again
+the sixpence was still undivided. He had not intended to mention the
+matter to her at that stage, but it came up spontaneously. He
+endeavoured to explain the theory of broken sixpences and his unexpected
+failure to break one.
+
+"But what you break it for?" said Ann. "It's no good if it's broke."
+
+"It's a Token," said Kipps.
+
+"Like...?"
+
+"Oh, you keep half and I keep half, and when we're sep'rated you look at
+your half and I look at mine--see! Then we think of each other."
+
+"Oh!" said Ann, and appeared to assimilate this information.
+
+"Only _I_ can't get it in 'arf nohow," said Kipps.
+
+They discussed this difficulty for some time without illumination. Then
+Ann had a happy thought. "Tell you what," she said, starting away from
+him abruptly and laying a hand on his arm, "you let _me_ 'ave it, Artie.
+I know where father keeps his file."
+
+Kipps handed her the sixpence, and they came upon a pause.
+
+"I'll easy do it," said Ann.
+
+In considering the sixpence side by side, his head had come near her
+cheek. Quite abruptly he was moved to take his next step into the
+unknown mysteries of love.
+
+"Ann," he said, and gulped at his temerity, "I _do_ love you. Straight.
+I'd do anything for you, Ann. Reely--I would."
+
+He paused for breath. She answered nothing, but she was no doubt
+enjoying herself. He came yet closer to her--his shoulder touched hers.
+"Ann, I wish you'd----"
+
+He stopped.
+
+"What?" said Ann.
+
+"Ann--lemme kiss you."
+
+Things seemed to hang for a space; his tone, the drop of his courage,
+made the thing incredible as he spoke. Kipps was not of that bold order
+of wooers who impose conditions.
+
+Ann perceived that she was not prepared for kissing after all. Kissing,
+she said, was silly, and when Kipps would have displayed a belated
+enterprise, she flung away from him. He essayed argument. He stood afar
+off, as it were--the better part of a yard--and said she _might_ let him
+kiss her, and then that he didn't see what good it was for her to be his
+girl if he couldn't kiss her.
+
+She repeated that kissing was silly. A certain estrangement took them
+homeward. They arrived in the dusky High Street not exactly together,
+and not exactly apart, but struggling. They had not kissed, but all the
+guilt of kissing was between them. When Kipps saw the portly contours of
+his uncle standing dimly in the shop doorway, his footsteps faltered,
+and the space between our young couple increased. Above, the window over
+Pornick's shop was open, and Mrs. Pornick was visible, taking the air.
+Kipps assumed an expression of extreme innocence. He found himself face
+to face with his uncle's advanced outposts of waistcoat buttons.
+
+"Where ye bin, my boy?"
+
+"Bin for a walk, uncle."
+
+"Not along of that brat of Pornick's?"
+
+"Along of who?"
+
+"That gell"--indicating Ann with his pipe.
+
+"Oh, no, uncle!"--very faintly.
+
+"Run in, my boy."
+
+Old Kipps stood aside, with an oblique glance upward, and his nephew
+brushed clumsily by him and vanished out of sight of the street, into
+the vague obscurity of the little shop. The door closed behind old Kipps
+with a nervous jangle of its bell, and he set himself to light the
+single oil lamp that illuminated his shop at nights. It was an
+operation requiring care and watching, or else it flared and "smelt."
+Often it smelt after all. Kipps for some reason found the dusky
+living-room with his aunt in it too populous for his feelings, and went
+upstairs.
+
+"That brat of Pornick's!" It seemed to him that a horrible catastrophe
+had occurred. He felt he had identified himself inextricably with his
+uncle, and cut himself off from her for ever by saying "Oh, no!" At
+supper he was so visibly depressed that his aunt asked him if he wasn't
+feeling well. Under this imminent threat of medicine he assumed an
+unnatural cheerfulness.
+
+He lay awake for nearly half an hour that night, groaning because things
+had all gone wrong--because Ann wouldn't let him kiss her, and because
+his uncle had called her a brat. It seemed to Kipps almost as though he
+himself had called her a brat....
+
+There came an interval during which Ann was altogether inaccessible.
+One, two, three days passed, and he did not see her. Sid he met several
+times; they went fishing, and twice they bathed; but though Sid lent and
+received back two further love stories, they talked no more of love.
+They kept themselves in accord, however, agreeing that the most
+flagrantly sentimental story was "proper." Kipps was always wanting to
+speak of Ann, but never daring to do so. He saw her on Sunday evening
+going off to chapel. She was more beautiful than ever in her Sunday
+clothes, but she pretended not to see him because her mother was with
+her. But he thought she pretended not to see him because she had given
+him up for ever. Brat!--who could be expected ever to forgive that? He
+abandoned himself to despair, he ceased even to haunt the places where
+she might be found.
+
+
+Sec.6
+
+With paralysing unexpectedness came the end.
+
+Mr. Shalford, the draper at Folkestone to whom he was to be bound
+apprentice, had expressed a wish to "shape the lad a bit" before the
+autumn sale. Kipps became aware that his box was being packed, and
+gathered the full truth of things on the evening before his departure.
+He became feverishly eager to see Ann just once more. He made silly and
+needless excuses to go out into the yard, he walked three times across
+the street without any excuse at all, to look up at the Pornick windows.
+Still she was hidden. He grew desperate. It was within half an hour of
+his departure that he came on Sid.
+
+"Hello!" he said; "I'm orf!"
+
+"Business?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Pause.
+
+"I say, Sid. You going 'ome?"
+
+"Straight now."
+
+"D'you mind? Ask Ann about that."
+
+"About what?"
+
+"She'll know."
+
+And Sid said he would. But even that, it seemed, failed to evoke Ann.
+
+At last the Folkestone bus rumbled up, and he ascended. His aunt stood
+in the doorway to see him off. His uncle assisted with the box and
+portmanteau. Only furtively could he glance up at the Pornick windows,
+and still it seemed Ann hardened her heart against him. "Get up!" said
+the driver, and the hoofs began to clatter. No--she would not come out
+even to see him off. The bus was in motion, and old Kipps was going back
+into his shop. Kipps stared in front of him, assuring himself that he
+did not care.
+
+He heard a door slam, and instantly craned out his neck to look back. He
+knew that slam so well. Behold! out of the haberdasher's door a small,
+untidy figure in homely pink print had shot resolutely into the road,
+and was sprinting in pursuit. In a dozen seconds she was abreast of the
+bus. At the sight of her Kipps' heart began to beat very quickly, but he
+made no immediate motion of recognition.
+
+"Artie!" she cried breathlessly, "Artie! Artie! You know! I got _that_!"
+
+The bus was already quickening its pace, and leaving her behind again,
+when Kipps realized what "that" meant. He became animated, he gasped,
+and gathered his courage together, and mumbled an incoherent request to
+the driver to "stop jest a jiff for sunthin'." The driver grunted, as
+the disparity of their years demanded, and then the bus had pulled up,
+and Ann was below.
+
+She leapt up upon the wheel. Kipps looked down into Ann's face, and it
+was foreshortened and resolute. He met her eyes just for one second as
+their hands touched. He was not a reader of eyes. Something passed
+quickly from hand to hand, something that the driver, alert at the
+corner of his eye, was not allowed to see. Kipps hadn't a word to say,
+and all she said was, "I done it, 'smorning." It was like a blank space
+in which something pregnant should have been written and wasn't. Then
+she dropped down, and the bus moved forward.
+
+After the lapse of about ten seconds it occurred to him to stand and
+wave his new bowler hat at her over the corner of the bus top, and to
+shout hoarsely, "Goo-bye, Ann! Don' forget me--while I'm away!"
+
+She stood in the road looking after him, and presently she waved her
+hand.
+
+He remained standing unstably, his bright, flushed face looking back at
+her, and his hair fluffing in the wind, and he waved his hat until at
+last the bend of the road hid her from his eyes. Then he turned about
+and sat down, and presently he began to put the half sixpence he held
+clenched in his hand into his trouser pocket. He looked sideways at the
+driver, to judge how much he had seen.
+
+Then he fell a-thinking. He resolved that, come what might, when he came
+back to New Romney at Christmas, he would by hook or by crook kiss Ann.
+
+Then everything would be perfect and right, and he would be perfectly
+happy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE EMPORIUM
+
+
+Sec.1
+
+When Kipps left New Romney, with a small yellow tin box, a still smaller
+portmanteau, a new umbrella, and a keepsake half-sixpence, to become a
+draper, he was a youngster of fourteen, thin, with whimsical drakes'
+tails at the poll of his head, smallish features, and eyes that were
+sometimes very light and sometimes very dark, gifts those of his birth;
+and by the nature of his training he was indistinct in his speech,
+confused in his mind, and retreating in his manners. Inexorable fate had
+appointed him to serve his country in commerce, and the same national
+bias towards private enterprise and leaving bad alone, which entrusted
+his general education to Mr. Woodrow, now indentured him firmly into the
+hands of Mr. Shalford, of the Folkestone Drapery Bazaar. Apprenticeship
+is still the recognised English way to the distributing branch of the
+social service. If Mr. Kipps had been so unfortunate as to have been
+born a German he might have been educated in an elaborate and costly
+special school ("over-educated--crammed up"--Old Kipps) to fit him for
+his end--such being their pedagogic way. He might.... But why make
+unpatriotic reflections in a novel? There was nothing pedagogic about
+Mr. Shalford.
+
+He was an irascible, energetic little man, with hairy hands, for the
+most part under his coat tails, a long, shiny, bald head, a pointed,
+aquiline nose a little askew, and a neatly trimmed beard. He walked
+lightly and with a confident jerk, and he was given to humming. He had
+added to exceptional business "push," bankruptcy under the old
+dispensation, and judicious matrimony. His establishment was now one of
+the most considerable in Folkestone, and he insisted on every inch of
+frontage by alternate stripes of green and yellow down the houses over
+the shops. His shops were numbered 3, 5 and 7 on the street, and on his
+billheads 3 to 7. He encountered the abashed and awestricken Kipps with
+the praises of his system and himself. He spread himself out behind his
+desk with a grip on the lapel of his coat and made Kipps a sort of
+speech. "We expect y'r to work, y'r know, and we expect y'r to study our
+interests," explained Mr. Shalford in the regal and commercial plural.
+"Our system here is the best system y'r could have. I made it, and I
+ought to know. I began at the very bottom of the ladder when I was
+fourteen, and there isn't a step in it I don't know. Not a step. Mr.
+Booch in the desk will give y'r the card of rules and fines. Jest wait a
+minute." He pretended to be busy with some dusty memoranda under a
+paper-weight, while Kipps stood in a sort of paralysis of awe regarding
+his new master's oval baldness. "Two thous'n three forty-seven pounds,"
+whispered Mr. Shalford audibly, feigning forgetfulness of Kipps. Clearly
+a place of great transactions!
+
+Mr. Shalford rose, and handing Kipps a blotting-pad and an inkpot to
+carry--mere symbols of servitude, for he made no use of them--emerged
+into a counting-house where three clerks had been feverishly busy ever
+since his door handle had turned. "Booch," said Mr. Shalford, "'ave y'r
+copy of the rules?" and a down-trodden, shabby little old man with a
+ruler in one hand and a quill pen in his mouth, silently held out a
+small book with green and yellow covers, mainly devoted, as Kipps
+presently discovered, to a voracious system of fines. He became acutely
+aware that his hands were full, and that everybody was staring at him.
+He hesitated a moment before putting the inkpot down to free a hand.
+
+"Mustn't fumble like _that_," said Mr. Shalford as Kipps pocketed the
+rules. "Won't do here. Come along, come along," and he cocked his coat
+tails high, as a lady might hold up her dress, and led the way into the
+shop.
+
+A vast interminable place it seemed to Kipps, with unending shining
+counters and innumerable faultlessly dressed young men and presently
+Houri-like young women staring at him. Here there was a long vista of
+gloves dangling from overhead rods, there ribbons and baby-linen. A
+short young lady in black mittens was making out the account of a
+customer, and was clearly confused in her addition by Shalford's eagle
+eye.
+
+A thickset young man with a bald head and a round, very wise face, who
+was profoundly absorbed in adjusting all the empty chairs down the
+counter to absolutely equal distances, awoke out of his preoccupation
+and answered respectfully to a few Napoleonic and quite unnecessary
+remarks from his employer. Kipps was told that this young man's name was
+Mr. Buggins, and that he was to do whatever Mr. Buggins told him to do.
+
+They came round a corner into a new smell, which was destined to be the
+smell of Kipps' life for many years, the vague, distinctive smell of
+Manchester goods. A fat man with a large nose jumped--actually
+jumped--at their appearance, and began to fold a pattern of damask in
+front of him exactly like an automaton that is suddenly set going.
+
+"Carshot, see to this boy to-morrow," said the master. "See he don't
+fumble. Smart'n 'im up."
+
+"Yussir," said Carshot fatly, glanced at Kipps, and resumed his
+pattern-folding with extreme zeal.
+
+"Whatever Mr. Carshot says y'r to do, ye _do_," said Mr. Shalford,
+trotting onward; and Carshot blew out his face with an appearance of
+relief.
+
+They crossed a large room full of the strangest things Kipps had ever
+seen. Ladylike figures, surmounted by black wooden knobs in the place of
+the refined heads one might have reasonably expected, stood about with a
+lifelike air of conscious fashion.
+
+"Costume room," said Shalford.
+
+Two voices engaged in some sort of argument--"I can assure you, Miss
+Mergle, you are entirely mistaken--entirely, in supposing I should do
+anything so unwomanly,"--sank abruptly, and they discovered two young
+ladies, taller and fairer than any of the other young ladies, and with
+black trains to their dresses, who were engaged in writing at a little
+table. Whatever they told him to do, Kipps gathered he was to do. He was
+also, he understood, to do whatever Carshot and Booch told him to do.
+And there were also Buggins and Mr. Shalford. And not to forget or
+fumble!
+
+They descended into a cellar called "The Warehouse," and Kipps had an
+optical illusion of errand boys fighting. Some aerial voice said,
+"Teddy!" and the illusion passed. He looked again, and saw quite clearly
+that they were packing parcels and always would be, and that the last
+thing in the world that they would or could possibly do was to fight.
+Yet he gathered from the remarks Mr. Shalford addressed to their busy
+backs that they had been fighting--no doubt at some past period of their
+lives.
+
+Emerging in the shop again among a litter of toys and what are called
+"fancy articles," Shalford withdrew a hand from beneath his coat tails
+to indicate an overhead change-carrier. He entered into elaborate
+calculations to show how many minutes in one year were saved thereby,
+and lost himself among the figures. "Seven tums eight seven nine--was
+it? Or seven eight nine? Now, _now_! Why, when I was a boy your age I
+c'd do a sum like that as soon as hear it. We'll soon get y'r into
+better shape than that. Make you Fishent. Well, y'r must take my word,
+it comes to pounds and pounds saved in the year--pounds and pounds.
+System! System everywhere. Fishency." He went on murmuring "Fishency"
+and "System" at intervals for some time.
+
+They passed into a yard, and Mr. Shalford waved his hand to his three
+delivery vans all striped green and yellow--"uniform--green,
+yell'r--System." All over the premises were pinned absurd little cards.
+"This door locked after 7:30.--By order, Edwin Shalford," and the like.
+
+Mr. Shalford always wrote "By order," though it conveyed no earthly
+meaning to him. He was one of those people who collect technicalities
+upon them as the Reduvius bug collects dirt. He was the sort of man who
+is not only ignorant, but absolutely incapable of English. When he
+wanted to say he had a sixpenny-ha'penny longcloth to sell, he put it
+thus to startled customers: "Can DO you one, six half if y' like." He
+always omitted pronouns and articles and so forth; it seemed to him the
+very essence of the efficiently businesslike. His only preposition was
+"as" or the compound "as per." He abbreviated every word he could; he
+would have considered himself the laughing-stock of Wood Street if he
+had chanced to spell _socks_ in any way but "sox." But, on the other
+hand, if he saved words here, he wasted them there: he never
+acknowledged an order that was not an esteemed favour, nor sent a
+pattern without begging to submit it. He never stipulated for so many
+months' credit, but bought in November "as Jan." It was not only words
+he abbreviated in his London communications. In paying his wholesalers
+his "System" admitted of a constant error in the discount of a penny or
+twopence, and it "facilitated business," he alleged, to ignore odd pence
+in the cheques he wrote. His ledger clerk was so struck with the beauty
+of this part of the System, that he started a private one on his own
+account with the stamp box, that never came to Shalford's knowledge.
+
+This admirable British merchant would glow with a particular pride of
+intellect when writing his London orders.
+
+"Ah! do y'r think _you_'ll ever be able to write London orders?" he
+would say with honest pride to Kipps, waiting impatiently long after
+closing time to take these triumphs of commercial efficiency to post,
+and so end the interminable day.
+
+Kipps shook his head, anxious for Mr. Shalford to get on.
+
+"Now, here, f' example, I've written--see?--'1 piece 1 in. cott. blk,
+elas. 1/ or.' What do I mean by that _or_, eh?--d'ye know?"
+
+Kipps promptly hadn't the faintest idea.
+
+"And then, '2 ea. silk net as per patts herewith': _ea._, eh?"
+
+"Dunno, sir."
+
+It was not Mr. Shalford's way to explain things. "Dear, dear! Pity you
+couldn't get some c'mercial education at your school. 'Stid of all this
+lit'ry stuff. Well, my boy, if y' don't 'ussel a bit y'll never write
+London orders, _that's_ pretty plain. Jest stick stamps on all those
+letters, and mind y'r stick 'em right way up, and try and profit a
+little more by the opportunities your aunt and uncle have provided ye.
+Can't say _what_'ll happen t'ye if ye don't."
+
+And Kipps, tired, hungry, and belated, set about stamping with vigour
+and despatch.
+
+"Lick the _envelope_," said Mr. Shalford, "lick the _envelope_," as
+though he grudged the youngster the postage-stamp gum. "It's the little
+things mount up," he would say; and, indeed, that was his philosophy of
+life--to bustle and save, always to bustle and save. His political creed
+linked Reform, which meant nothing, with Efficiency which meant a
+sweated service, and Economy which meant a sweated expenditure, and his
+conception of a satisfactory municipal life was to "keep down the
+rates." Even his religion was to save his soul, and to preach a similar
+cheese-paring to the world.
+
+
+Sec.2
+
+The indentures that bound Kipps to Mr. Shalford were antique and
+complex: they insisted on the latter gentleman's parental privileges;
+they forbade Kipps to dice and game; they made him over body and soul
+to Mr. Shalford for seven long years, the crucial years of his life. In
+return there were vague stipulations about teaching the whole art and
+mystery of the trade to him; but as there was no penalty attached to
+negligence, Mr. Shalford, being a sound, practical business man,
+considered this a mere rhetorical flourish, and set himself assiduously
+to get as much out of Kipps and to put as little into him as he could in
+the seven years of their intercourse.
+
+What he put into Kipps was chiefly bread and margarine, infusions of
+chicory and tea-dust, colonial meat by contract at threepence a pound,
+potatoes by the sack, and watered beer. If, however, Kipps chose to buy
+any supplementary material for growth, Mr. Shalford had the generosity
+to place his kitchen resources at his disposal free--if the fire chanced
+to be going. He was also allowed to share a bedroom with eight other
+young Englishmen, and to sleep in a bed which, except in very severe
+weather, could be made with the help of his overcoat and private
+underlinen, not to mention newspapers, quite sufficiently warm for any
+reasonable soul. In addition Kipps was taught the list of fines; and how
+to tie up parcels; to know where goods were kept in Mr. Shalford's
+systematised shop; to hold his hands extended upon the counter and to
+repeat such phrases as "What can I have the pleasure...?" "No trouble, I
+'ssure you," and the like; to block, fold, and measure materials of all
+sorts; to lift his hat from his head when he passed Mr. Shalford abroad,
+and to practise a servile obedience to a large number of people. But he
+was not, of course, taught the "cost" mark of the goods he sold, nor
+anything of the method of buying such goods. Nor was his attention
+directed to the unfamiliar social habits and fashions to which his trade
+ministered. The use of half the goods he saw sold and was presently to
+assist in selling he did not understand; materials for hangings,
+cretonnes, chintzes, and the like, serviettes and all the bright, hard
+white wear of a well-ordered house, pleasant dress materials, linings,
+stiffenings--they were to him from first to last no more than things
+heavy and difficult to handle in bulk, that one folded up, unfolded, cut
+in lengths, and saw dwindle and pass away out into that mysterious happy
+world in which the customer dwells. Kipps hurried from piling linen
+table-cloths, that were collectively as heavy as lead, to eat off
+oil-cloth in a gas-lit dining-room underground; and he dreamt of combing
+endless blankets beneath his overcoat, spare undershirt, and three
+newspapers. So he had at least the chance of learning the beginnings of
+philosophy.
+
+In return for these benefits he worked so that he commonly went to bed
+exhausted and footsore. His round began at half-past six in the morning,
+when he would descend unwashed and shirtless, in old clothes and a
+scarf, and dust boxes and yawn, and take down wrappers and clean the
+windows until eight. Then in half an hour he would complete his toilet
+and take an austere breakfast of bread and margarine and what only an
+Imperial Englishman would admit to be coffee, after which refreshment
+he ascended to the shop for the labours of the day. Commonly these began
+with a mighty running to and fro with planks and boxes and goods for
+Carshot, the window-dresser, who, whether he worked well or ill, nagged
+persistently by reason of a chronic indigestion, until the window was
+done. Sometimes the costume window had to be dressed, and then Kipps
+staggered down the whole length of the shop from the costume room with
+one after another of those ladylike shapes grasped firmly, but
+shamefully, each about her single ankle of wood. Such days as there was
+no window-dressing, there was a mighty carrying and lifting of blocks
+and bales of goods into piles and stacks. After this there were terrible
+exercises, at first almost despairfully difficult: certain sorts of
+goods that came in folded had to be rolled upon rollers, and for the
+most part refused absolutely to be rolled, at any rate by Kipps; and
+certain other sorts of goods that came from the wholesalers rolled had
+to be measured and folded, which folding makes young apprentices wish
+they were dead. All of it, too, quite avoidable trouble, you know, that
+is not avoided because of the cheapness of the genteeler sorts of labour
+and the dearness of forethought in the world. And then consignments of
+new goods had to be marked off and packed into proper parcels; and
+Carshot packed like conjuring tricks, and Kipps packed like a boy with
+tastes in some other direction--not ascertained. And always Carshot
+nagged.
+
+He had a curious formula of appeal to his visceral oeconomy, had
+Carshot, that the refinement of the times and the earnest entreaties of
+my friends induce me to render by an anaemic paraphrase.
+
+"My heart and lungs! I never see such a boy," so I present Carshot's
+refrain; and even when he was within a foot or so of the customer's face
+the disciplined ear of Kipps would still at times develop a featureless,
+intercalary murmur into--well, "my heart and lungs!"
+
+There came a blessed interval when Kipps was sent abroad "matching."
+This consisted chiefly in supplying unexpected defects in buttons,
+ribbon, lining, and so forth in the dressmaking department. He was given
+a written paper of orders with patterns pinned thereto, and discharged
+into the sunshine and interest of the street. Then, until he thought it
+wise to return and stand the racket of his delay, he was a free man,
+clear of all reproach.
+
+He made remarkable discoveries in topography, as for example that the
+most convenient way from the establishment of Mr. Adolphus Davis to the
+establishment of Messrs. Plummer, Roddis & Tyrrel, two of his principal
+places of call, is not as is generally supposed down the Sandgate Road,
+but up the Sandgate Road, round by West Terrace, and along the Leas to
+the lift, watch the lift up and down _twice_, but not longer, because
+that wouldn't do, back along the Leas, watch the Harbour for a short
+time, and then round by the churchyard, and so (hurrying) into Church
+Street and Rendezvous Street. But on some exceptionally fine days the
+route lay through Radnor Park to the pond where the little boys sail
+ships and there are interesting swans.
+
+He would return to find the shop settling down to the business of
+serving customers. And now he had to stand by to furnish any help that
+was necessary to the seniors who served, to carry parcels and bills
+about the shop, to clear away "stuff" after each engagement, to hold up
+curtains until his arms ached, and what was more difficult than all, to
+do nothing, and not stare disconcertingly at customers when there was
+nothing for him to do. He plumbed an abyss of boredom, or stood a mere
+carcass, with his mind far away, fighting the enemies of the Empire, or
+steering a dream ship perilously into unknown seas. To be recalled
+sharply to our higher civilisation by some bustling senior's "Nar then,
+Kipps. _Look_ alive! Ketch 'old. (My heart and lungs!)"
+
+At half-past seven o'clock--except on late nights--a feverish activity
+of "straightening up" began, and when the last shutter was up outside,
+Kipps with the speed of an arrow leaving a bow would start hanging
+wrappers over the fixtures and over the piles of wares upon the
+counters, preparatory to a vigorous scattering of wet sawdust and the
+sweeping out of the shop.
+
+Sometimes people would stay long after the shop was closed--"They don't
+mind a bit at Shalford's," these ladies used to say--it is always ladies
+do this sort of thing--and while they loitered it was forbidden to
+touch a wrapper, or take any measures to conclude the day until the
+doors closed behind them.
+
+Mr. Kipps would watch these later customers from the shadow of a stack
+of goods, and death and disfigurement was the least he wished for them.
+Rarely much later than nine, a supper of bread and cheese and watered
+beer awaited him upstairs, and, that consumed, the rest of the day was
+entirely at his disposal for reading, recreation, and the improvement of
+his mind....
+
+The front door was locked at half-past ten, and the gas in the dormitory
+extinguished at eleven.
+
+
+Sec.3
+
+On Sundays he was obliged to go to church once, and commonly he went
+twice, for there was nothing else to do. He sat in the free seats at the
+back; he was too shy to sing, and not always clever enough to keep his
+place in the prayer-book, and he rarely listened to the sermon. But he
+had developed a sort of idea that going to church had a tendency to
+alleviate life. His aunt wanted to have him confirmed, but he evaded
+this ceremony for some years.
+
+In the intervals between services he walked about Folkestone with an air
+of looking for something. Folkestone was not so interesting on Sundays
+as on week-days, because the shops were shut; but on the other hand
+there was a sort of confusing brilliance along the front of the Leas in
+the afternoon. Sometimes the apprentice next above him would condescend
+to go with him; but when the apprentice next but one above him
+condescended to go with the apprentice next above him, then Kipps, being
+habited as yet in ready-made clothes without tails, and unsuitable
+therefore to appear in such company, went alone.
+
+Sometimes he would strike out into the country--still as if looking for
+something he missed--but the rope of meal-times haled him home again;
+and sometimes he would invest the major portion of the weekly allowance
+of a shilling that old Booch handed out to him, in a sacred concert on
+the pier. He would sometimes walk up and down the Leas between twenty
+and thirty times after supper, desiring much the courage to speak to
+some other person in the multitude similarly employed. Almost invariably
+he ended his Sunday footsore.
+
+He never read a book; there were none for him to read, and besides, in
+spite of Mr. Woodrow's guidance through a cheap and cheaply annotated
+edition of the _Tempest_ (English Literature) he had no taste that way;
+he never read any newspapers, except occasionally _Tit-Bits_ or a
+ha'penny "comic." His chief intellectual stimulus was an occasional
+argey-bargey that sprang up between Carshot and Buggins at dinner. Kipps
+listened as if to unparalleled wisdom and wit, and treasured all the
+gems of repartee in his heart against the time when he, too, should be a
+Buggins and have the chance and courage for speech.
+
+At times there came breaks in this routine--sale times, darkened by
+extra toil and work past midnight, but brightened by a sprat supper and
+some shillings in the way of 'premiums.' And every year--not now and
+then, but every year--Mr. Shalford, with parenthetic admiration of his
+own generosity and glancing comparisons with the austerer days when _he_
+was apprenticed, conceded Kipps no less than ten days' holiday--ten
+whole days every year! Many a poor soul at Portland might well envy the
+fortunate Kipps. Insatiable heart of man! but how those days were
+grudged and counted as they snatched themselves away from him one after
+another!
+
+Once a year came stock-taking, and at intervals gusts of "marking off"
+goods newly arrived. Then the splendours of Mr. Shalford's being shone
+with oppressive brilliancy. "System!" he would say, "system. Come!
+'ussel!" and issue sharp, confusing, contradictory orders very quickly.
+Carshot trotted about, confused, perspiring, his big nose up in the air,
+his little eye on Mr. Shalford, his forehead crinkled, his lips always
+going to the formula "Oh, my heart and lungs!" The smart junior and the
+second apprentice vied with one another in obsequious alacrity. The
+smart junior aspired to Carshot's position, and that made him almost
+violently subservient to Shalford. They all snapped at Kipps. Kipps held
+the blotting-pad and the safety inkpot and a box of tickets, and ran and
+fetched things. If he put the ink down before he went to fetch things
+Mr. Shalford usually knocked it over, and if he took it away Mr.
+Shalford wanted it before he returned. "You make my tooth ache, Kipps,"
+Mr. Shalford would say. "You gimme n'ralgia. You got no more System in
+you than a bad potato." And at the times when Kipps carried off the
+inkpot Mr. Shalford would become purple in the face and jab round with
+his dry pen at imaginary inkpots and swear, and Carshot would stand and
+vociferate, and the smart junior would run to the corner of the
+department and vociferate, and the second apprentice would pursue Kipps,
+vociferating, "Look Alive, Kipps! Look Alive! Ink, Man! Ink!"
+
+A vague self-disgust, that shaped itself as an intense hate of Shalford
+and all his fellow-creatures, filled the soul of Kipps during these
+periods of storm and stress. He felt that the whole business was unjust
+and idiotic, but the why and the wherefore was too much for his
+unfortunate brain. His mind was a welter. One desire, the desire to
+dodge some at least of a pelting storm of disagreeable comment, guided
+him through a fumbling performance of his duties. His disgust was
+infinite! It was not decreased by the inflamed ankles and sore feet that
+form a normal incident in the business of making an English draper; and
+the senior apprentice, Minton, a gaunt, sullen-faced youngster with
+close-cropped, wiry, black hair, a loose, ugly mouth, and a moustache
+like a smudge of ink, directed his attention to deeper aspects of the
+question and sealed his misery.
+
+"When you get too old to work they chuck you away," said Minton. "Lor!
+you find old drapers everywhere--tramps, beggars, dock labourers, 'bus
+conductors--Quod. Anywhere but in a crib."
+
+"Don't they get shops of their own?"
+
+"Lord! '_Ow_ are they to get shops of their own? They 'aven't any
+capital! How's a draper's shopman to save up five hundred pounds even? I
+tell you it can't be done. You got to stick to cribs until it's over. I
+tell you we're in a blessed drainpipe, and we've got to crawl along it
+till we die."
+
+The idea that fermented perpetually in the mind of Minton was to "hit
+the little beggar slap in the eye"--the little beggar being Mr.
+Shalford--"and see how his blessed System met that."
+
+The threat filled Kipps with splendid anticipations whenever Shalford
+went marking off in Minton's department. He would look at Minton and
+look at Shalford, and decide where he would best like Shalford hit....
+But for reasons known to himself Shalford never pished and tushed with
+Minton, as he did at the harmless Carshot, and this interesting
+experiment upon the System was never attempted.
+
+
+Sec.4
+
+There were times when Kipps would lie awake, all others in the dormitory
+asleep and snoring, and think dismally of the outlook Minton pictured.
+Dimly he perceived the thing that had happened to him--how the great,
+stupid machine of retail trade had caught his life into its wheels, a
+vast, irresistible force which he had neither strength of will nor
+knowledge to escape. This was to be his life until his days should end.
+No adventures, no glory, no change, no freedom. Neither--though the
+force of that came home to him later--might he dream of effectual love
+and marriage. And there was a terrible something called the "swap," or
+"the key of the street," and "crib hunting," of which the talk was
+scanty but sufficient. Night after night he would resolve to enlist, to
+run away to sea, to set fire to the warehouse, or drown himself; and
+morning after morning he rose up and hurried downstairs in fear of a
+sixpenny fine. He would compare his dismal round of servile drudgery
+with those windy, sunlit days at Littlestone, those windows of happiness
+shining ever brighter as they receded. The little figure of Ann seemed
+in all these windows now.
+
+She, too, had happened on evil things. When Kipps went home for the
+first Christmas after he was bound, that great suspended resolve of his
+to kiss her flared up to hot determination, and he hurried out and
+whistled in the yard. There was a still silence, and then old Kipps
+appeared behind him.
+
+"It's no good your whistling there, my boy," said Old Kipps in a loud,
+clear tone, designed to be audible over the wall. "They've cleared out
+all you 'ad any truck with. _She's_ gone as help to Ashford, my boy.
+_Help!_ Slavey is what we used to call 'em, but times are changed.
+Wonder they didn't say lady-'elp while they was about it. It 'ud be like
+'em."
+
+And Sid? Sid had gone, too. "Arrand boy or somethink," said Old Kipps.
+"To one of these here brasted cicycle shops."
+
+"_Has_ 'e!" said Kipps, with a feeling that he had been gripped about
+the chest, and he turned quickly and went indoors.
+
+Old Kipps, still supposing him present, went on to further observations
+of an anti-Pornick hue....
+
+When Kipps got upstairs safe in his own bedroom, he sat down on the bed
+and stared at nothing. They were caught--they were all caught. All life
+took on the hue of one perpetual, dismal Monday morning. The Hurons were
+scattered, the wrecks and the beach had passed away from him, the sun of
+those warm evenings at Littlestone had set for evermore....
+
+The only pleasure left for the brief remainder of his holiday after that
+was to think he was not in the shop. Even that was transient. Two more
+days--one more day--half a day. When he went back there were one or two
+very dismal nights indeed. He went so far as to write home some vague
+intimation of his feelings about business and his prospects, quoting
+Minton. But Mrs. Kipps answered him, "Did he want the Pornicks to say he
+wasn't good enough to be a draper?" This dreadful possibility was of
+course conclusive in the matter. "No," he resolved they should not say
+he failed at that.
+
+He derived much help from a "manly" sermon delivered in an enormous
+voice by a large, fat, sun-red clergyman, just home from a colonial
+bishopric he had resigned on the plea of ill-health, exhorting him that
+whatever his hand found to do, he was to do with all his might; and the
+revision of his Catechism preparatory to his confirmation reminded him
+that it behooved him "to do his duty in that state of life unto which it
+shall please God to call him...."
+
+After a time the sorrows of Kipps grew less acute, and save for a
+miracle the brief tragedy of his life was over. He subdued himself to
+his position even as his Church required of him, seeing moreover no way
+out of it.
+
+The earliest mitigation of his lot was that his soles and ankles became
+indurated to the perpetual standing. The next was an unexpected weekly
+whiff of freedom that came every Thursday. Mr. Shalford, after a brave
+stand for what he called "Innyvishal lib'ty" and the "Idea of my
+System," a stand which he explained he made chiefly on patriotic
+grounds, was at last, under pressure of certain of his customers,
+compelled to fall in line with the rest of the local Early Closing
+Association, and Mr. Kipps could emerge in daylight and go where he
+listed for long, long hours. Moreover Minton, the pessimist, reached the
+end of his appointed time and left--to enlist in a cavalry regiment and
+go about this planet leading an insubordinate but interesting life, that
+ended at last in an intimate, vivid and really you know by no means
+painful or tragic night grapple in the Terah Valley. In a little while
+Kipps cleaned windows no longer; he was serving customers (of the less
+important sort) and taking goods out on approval; and presently he was
+third apprentice, and his moustache was visible, and there were three
+apprentices whom he might legally snub and cuff. But one was (most
+dishonestly) too big to cuff in spite of his greener years.
+
+
+Sec.5
+
+There came still other distractions, the natural distractions of
+adolescence, to take his mind off the inevitable. His costume, for
+example, began to interest him more; he began to realise himself as a
+visible object, to find an interest in the costume-room mirrors and the
+eyes of the girl apprentices.
+
+In this he was helped by counsel and example. Pierce, his immediate
+senior, was by way of being what was called a Masher, and preached his
+cult. During slack times grave discussions about collars, ties, the cut
+of trouser legs, and the proper shape of a boot-toe, were held in the
+Manchester department. In due course Kipps went to a tailor, and his
+short jacket was replaced by a morning coat with tails. Stirred by this,
+he purchased at his own expense three stand-up collars to replace his
+former turn-down ones. They were nearly three inches high, higher than
+those Pierce wore, and they made his neck quite sore and left a red mark
+under his ears.... So equipped, he found himself fit company even for
+this fashionable apprentice, who had now succeeded Minton in his
+seniority.
+
+Most potent help of all in the business of forgetting his cosmic
+disaster was this, that so soon as he was in tail coats the young ladies
+of the establishment began to discover that he was no longer a "horrid
+little boy." Hitherto they had tossed heads at him and kept him in his
+place. Now they discovered that he was a "nice boy," which is next door
+at least to being a "feller," and in some ways even preferable. It is
+painful to record that his fidelity to Ann failed at their first onset.
+I am fully sensible how entirely better this story would be from a
+sentimental point of view if he had remained true to that early love.
+Only then it would have been a different story altogether. And at least
+Kipps was thus far true, that with none of these later loves was there
+any of that particular quality that linked Ann's flushed face and warmth
+and the inner things of life so inseparably together. Though they were
+not without emotions of various sorts.
+
+It was one of the young ladies in the costume-room who first showed by
+her manner that he was a visible object and capable of exciting
+interest. She talked to him, she encouraged him to talk to her, she lent
+him a book she possessed, and darned a sock for him, and said she would
+be his elder sister. She allowed him to escort her to church with a
+great air of having induced him to go. Then she investigated his eternal
+welfare, overcame a certain affectation of virile indifference to
+religion, and extorted a promise that he would undergo "confirmation."
+This excited the other young lady in the costumes, her natural rival,
+and she set herself with great charm and subtlety to the capture of the
+ripening heart of Kipps. She took a more worldly line. She went for a
+walk with him to the pier on Sunday afternoon, and explained to him how
+a gentleman must always walk "outside" a lady on a pavement, and how all
+gentlemen wore, or at least carried gloves, and generally the broad
+beginnings of the British social ideal. Afterwards the ladies exchanged
+"words," upon Sabbatical grounds. In this way was the _toga virilis_
+bestowed on Kipps, and he became recognised as a suitable object for
+that Platonic Eros whose blunted darts devastate even the very
+highest-class establishments. In this way, too, did that pervading
+ambition of the British young man to be, if not a "gentleman," at least
+mistakably like one, take root in his heart.
+
+He took to these new interests with quite natural and personal zest. He
+became initiated into the mysteries of "flirting," and--at a slightly
+later stage, and with some leading hints from Pierce, who was of a
+communicative disposition in these matters--of the milder forms of
+"spooning." Very soon he was engaged. Before two years were out he had
+been engaged six times, and was beginning to be rather a desperate
+fellow, so far as he could make out. Desperate, but quite gentlemanly,
+be it understood, and without let or hindrance to the fact that he was,
+in four brief lessons, "prepared" by a distant-mannered and gloomy young
+curate, and "confirmed" a member of the Established Church.
+
+The engagements in drapery establishments do not necessarily involve a
+subsequent marriage. They are essentially more refined, less coarsely
+practical, and altogether less binding than the engagements of the
+vulgar rich. These young ladies do not like not to be engaged--it is so
+unnatural; and Mr. Kipps was as easy to get engaged to as one could
+wish. There are, from the young lady's point of view, many conveniences
+in being engaged. You get an escort for church and walks and so forth.
+It is not quite the thing to walk abroad with a "feller," much more to
+"spoon" with him, when he is neither one's _fiance_ nor an adopted
+brother; it is considered either a little _fast_, or else as savouring
+of the "walking-out" habits of the servant girls. Now, such is the
+sweetness of human charity, that the shop young lady in England has just
+the same horror of doing anything that savours of the servant girl as
+the lady journalist, let us say, has of anything savouring of the shop
+girl, or the really quite nice young lady has of anything savouring of
+any sort of girl who has gone down into the economic battlefield to earn
+herself a living.... But the very deepest of these affairs was still
+among the shallow places of love; at best it was paddling where it is
+decreed that men must sink or swim. Of the deep and dangerous places,
+and of the huge buoyant lift of its waves, he tasted nothing. Affairs of
+clothes and vanities they were, jealousies about a thing said,
+flatteries and mutual boastings, climaxes in the answering grasp of
+hands, the temerarious use of Christian names, culminations in a walk,
+or a near confidence, or a little pressure more or less. Close-sitting
+on a seat after twilight, with some little fondling, was indeed the
+boldest of a lover's adventures, the utmost limit of his enterprises in
+the service of that stark Great Lady, who is daughter of Uranus and the
+sea. The "young ladies" who reigned in his heart came and went like
+people in an omnibus: there was the vehicle, so to speak, upon the road,
+and they entered and left it without any cataclysm of emotion. For all
+that, this development of the sex interest was continuously very
+interesting to Kipps, and kept him going as much as anything through all
+these servile years.
+
+
+Sec.6
+
+For a tailpiece to this chapter one may vignette one of those little
+affairs.
+
+It is a bright Sunday afternoon; the scene is a secluded little seat
+half-way down the front of the Leas, and Kipps is four years older than
+when he parted from Ann. There is a quite perceptible down upon his
+upper lip, and his costume is just as tremendous a "mash" as lies within
+his means. His collar is so high that it scars his inaggressive jawbone,
+and his hat has a curly brim, his tie shows taste, his trousers are
+modestly brilliant, and his boots have light cloth uppers and button at
+the side. He jabs at the gravel before him with a cheap cane, and
+glances sideways at Flo Bates, the young lady from the cash desk. She
+is wearing a brilliant blouse and a gaily trimmed hat. There is an air
+of fashion about her that might disappear under the analysis of a woman
+of the world, but which is quite sufficient to make Kipps very proud to
+be distinguished as her particular "feller," and to be allowed at
+temperate intervals to use her Christian name.
+
+The conversation is light and gay in the modern style, and Flo keeps on
+smiling, good temper being her special charm.
+
+"Ye see, you don' mean what _I_ mean," he is saying.
+
+"Well, what do _you_ mean?"
+
+"Not what you mean!"
+
+"Well, tell me."
+
+"_Ah!_ That's another story."
+
+Pause. They look meaningly at one another.
+
+"You _are_ a one for being roundabout," says the lady.
+
+"Well, you're not so plain, you know."
+
+"Not plain?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You don't mean to say I'm roundabout?"
+
+"No. I mean to say ... though----"
+
+Pause.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"You're not a bit plain--you're" (his voice jumps up to a squeak)
+"pretty. See?"
+
+"Oh, get _out_!" her voice lifts also--with pleasure.
+
+She strikes at him with her glove, then glances suddenly at a ring upon
+her finger. Her smile disappears momentarily. Another pause. Eyes meet
+and the smile returns.
+
+"I wish I knew----" says Kipps.
+
+"Knew----?"
+
+"Where you got that ring."
+
+She lifts the hand with the ring until her eyes just show (very
+prettily) over it. "You'd just _like_ to know," she says slowly, and
+smiles still more brightly with the sense of successful effect.
+
+"I dessay I could guess."
+
+"I dessay you couldn't."
+
+"Couldn't I?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Guess it in three."
+
+"Not the name."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"_Ah!_"
+
+"Well, anyhow lemme look at it."
+
+He looks at it. Pause. Giggles, slight struggle, and a slap on Kipps'
+coatsleeve. A passerby appears down the path, and she hastily withdraws
+her hand.
+
+She glances at the face of the approaching man. They maintain a bashful
+silence until he has passed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE WOOD-CARVING CLASS
+
+
+Sec.1
+
+Though these services to Venus Epipontia, the seaside Venus, and these
+studies in the art of dress, did much to distract his thoughts and
+mitigate his earlier miseries, it would be mere optimism to present
+Kipps as altogether happy. A vague dissatisfaction with life drifted
+about him and every now and again enveloped him like a sea fog. During
+these periods it was greyly evident that there was something, something
+vital in life, lacking. For no earthly reason that Kipps could discover,
+he was haunted by a suspicion that life was going wrong or had already
+gone wrong in some irrevocable way. The ripening self-consciousness of
+adolescence developed this into a clearly felt insufficiency. It was all
+very well to carry gloves, open doors, never say "Miss" to a girl, and
+walk "outside," but were there not other things, conceivably even deeper
+things, before the complete thing was attained? For example, certain
+matters of knowledge. He perceived great bogs of ignorance about him,
+fumbling traps, where other people, it was alleged, _real_ gentlemen and
+ladies, for example, and the clergy, had knowledge and assurance, bogs
+which it was sometimes difficult to elude. A girl arrived in the
+millinery department who could, she said, _speak_ French and German. She
+snubbed certain advances, and a realisation of inferiority blistered
+Kipps. But he tried to pass the thing off as a joke by saying,
+"Parlez-vous Francey," whenever he met her, and inducing the junior
+apprentice to say the same.
+
+He even made some dim half-secret experiments towards remedying the
+deficiencies he suspected. He spent five shillings on five serial
+numbers of a Home Educator, and bought (and even thought of reading) a
+Shakespeare and a Bacon's "Advancement of Learning" and the poems of
+Herrick from a chap who was hard up. He battled with Shakespeare all one
+Sunday afternoon, and found the "English Literature" with which Mr.
+Woodrow had equipped him had vanished down some crack in his mind. He
+had no doubt it was very splendid stuff, but he couldn't quite make out
+what it was all about. There was an occult meaning, he knew, in
+literature, and he had forgotten it. Moreover, he discovered one day,
+while taunting the junior apprentice with ignorance, that his "rivers of
+England" had also slipped his memory, and he laboriously restored that
+fabric of rote learning: "Ty Wear Tees 'Umber...."
+
+I suppose some such phase of discontent is a normal thing in every
+adolescence. The ripening mind seeks something upon which its will may
+crystallise, upon which its discursive emotions, growing more abundant
+with each year of life, may concentrate. For many, though not for all,
+it takes a religious direction, but in those particular years the mental
+atmosphere of Folkestone was exceptionally free from any revivalistic
+disturbance that might have reached Kipps' mental being. Sometimes they
+fall in love. I have known this uneasiness end in different cases in a
+vow to read one book (not a novel) every week, to read the Bible through
+in a year, to pass in the Honours division of the London Matriculation
+examination, to become an accomplished chemist, and never more to tell a
+lie. It led Kipps finally into Technical Education as we understand it
+in the south of England.
+
+It was in the last year of his apprenticeship that he had pursued his
+researches after that missing qualification into the Folkestone Young
+Men's Association, where Mr. Chester Coote prevailed. Mr. Chester Coote
+was a young man of semi-independent means who inherited a share in a
+house agency, read Mrs. Humphry Ward, and took an interest in social
+work. He was a whitish-faced young man with a prominent nose, pale blue
+eyes, and a quivering quality in his voice. He was very active upon
+committees; he was very prominent and useful on all social occasions, in
+evidence upon platforms and upon all those semi-public occasions when
+the Great descend. He lived with an only sister. To Kipps and his kind
+in the Young Men's Association he read a stimulating paper on
+"Self-Help." He said it was the noblest of all our distinctive English
+characteristics, and he was very much down upon the "over-educated"
+Germans. At the close a young German hairdresser made a few commendatory
+remarks which developed somehow into an oration on Hanoverian politics.
+As he became excited he became guttural and obscure; the meeting
+sniggered cheerfully at such ridiculous English, and Kipps was so much
+amused that he forgot a private project to ask this Chester Coote how he
+might set about a little self-help on his own private account in such
+narrow margins of time as the System of Mr. Shalford spared him. But
+afterwards in the night-time it came to him again.
+
+It was a few months later, and after his apprenticeship was over and Mr.
+Shalford had with depreciatory observations taken him on as an improver
+at twenty pounds a year, that this question was revived by a casual
+article on Technical Education in a morning paper that a commercial
+traveller had left behind him. It played the _role_ of the word in
+season. Something in the nature of conversion, a faint sort of
+concentration of purpose, really occurred in him then. The article was
+written with penetrating vehemence, and it stimulated him to the pitch
+of inquiring about the local Science and Art Classes, and after he had
+told everybody in the shop about it and taken the advice of all who
+supported his desperate resolution, he joined. At first he attended the
+class in Freehand, that being the subject taught on early closing night;
+and he had already made some progress in that extraordinary routine of
+reproducing freehand "copies" which for two generations had passed with
+English people for instruction in art, when the dates of the classes
+were changed. Thereby just as the March winds were blowing he was
+precipitated into the wood-carving class, and his mind diverted first to
+this useful and broadening pursuit, and then to its teacher.
+
+
+Sec.2
+
+The class in wood-carving was an extremely select class, conducted at
+that time by a young lady named Walshingham, and as this young lady was
+destined by fortune to teach Kipps a great deal more than wood carving,
+it will be well if the reader gets the picture of her correctly in mind.
+She was only a year or so older than he was; she had a pale,
+intellectual face, dark grey eyes, and black hair, which she wore over
+her forehead in an original and striking way that she had adopted from a
+picture by Rossetti in the South Kensington Museum. She was slender, so
+that without ungainliness she had an effect of being tall, and her hands
+were shapely and white when they came into contrast with hands much
+exercised in rolling and blocking. She dressed in those loose and
+pleasant forms and those soft and tempered shades that arose in England
+in the socialistic-aesthetic epoch and remain to this day among us as the
+badge of those who read Turgenev's novels, scorn current fiction, and
+think on higher planes. I think she was as beautiful as most beautiful
+people, and to Kipps she was altogether beautiful. She had, Kipps
+learnt, matriculated at London University, an astounding feat to his
+imagination; and the masterly way in which she demonstrated how to prod
+and worry honest pieces of wood into useless and unedifying patterns in
+relief extorted his utmost admiration.
+
+At first, when Kipps had learnt he was to be taught by a "girl," he was
+inclined to resent it, the more so as Buggins had recently been very
+strong on the gross injustice of feminine employment.
+
+"We have to keep wives," said Buggins (though as a matter of fact he did
+not keep even one), "and how are we to do it with a lot of girls coming
+in to take the work out of our mouths?"
+
+Afterwards Kipps, in conjunction with Pierce, looked at it from another
+point of view, and thought it would be rather a "lark." Finally, when he
+saw her, and saw her teaching, and coming nearer to him with an
+impressive deliberation, he was breathless with awe and the quality of
+her dark, slender femininity.
+
+The class consisted of two girls and a maiden lady of riper years,
+friends of Miss Walshingham's, and anxious rather to support her in an
+interesting experiment than to become really expert wood-carvers; an
+oldish young man with spectacles and a black beard, who never spoke to
+any one, and who was evidently too short-sighted to see his work as a
+whole; a small boy who was understood to have a "gift" for wood-carving;
+and a lodging-house keeper who "took classes" every winter, she told
+Mr. Kipps, as though they were a tonic, and "found they did her good."
+And occasionally Mr. Chester Coote--refined and gentlemanly--would come
+into the class, with or without papers, ostensibly on committee
+business, but in reality to talk to the less attractive one of the two
+girl students; and sometimes a brother of Miss Walshingham's, a slender,
+dark young man with a pale face, and fluctuating resemblances to the
+young Napoleon, would arrive just at the end of the class-time to see
+his sister home.
+
+All these personages impressed Kipps with a sense of inferiority that in
+the case of Miss Walshingham became positively abysmal. The ideas and
+knowledge they appeared to have, their personal capacity and freedom,
+opened a new world to his imagination. These people came and went, with
+a sense of absolute assurance, against an overwhelming background of
+plaster casts, diagrams and tables, benches and a blackboard--a
+background that seemed to him to be saturated with recondite knowledge
+and the occult and jealously guarded tips and secrets that constitute
+Art and the Higher Life. They went home, he imagined, to homes where the
+piano was played with distinction and freedom, and books littered the
+tables, and foreign languages were habitually used. They had complicated
+meals, no doubt--with serviettes. They "knew etiquette," and how to
+avoid all the errors for which Kipps bought penny manuals, "What to
+Avoid," "Common Errors in Speaking," and the like. He knew nothing
+about it all--nothing whatever; he was a creature of the outer darkness
+blinking in an unsuspected light.
+
+He heard them speak easily and freely to one another of examinations, of
+books and paintings, of "last year's Academy"--a little contemptuously;
+and once, just at the end of the class-time, Mr. Chester Coote and young
+Walshingham and the two girls argued about something or other called, he
+fancied, "Vagner" or "Vargner"--they seemed to say it both ways--and
+which presently shaped itself more definitely as the name of a man who
+made up music. (Carshot and Buggins weren't in it with them.) Young
+Walshingham, it appeared, said something or other that was an "epigram,"
+and they all applauded him. Kipps, I say, felt himself a creature of
+outer darkness, an inexcusable intruder in an altitudinous world. When
+the epigram happened, he first of all smiled, to pretend he understood,
+and instantly suppressed the smile to show he did not listen. Then he
+became extremely hot and uncomfortable, though nobody had noticed either
+phase.
+
+It was clear his only chance of concealing his bottomless baseness was
+to hold his tongue, and meanwhile he chipped with earnest care, and
+abased his soul before the very shadow of Miss Walshingham. She used to
+come and direct and advise him, with, he felt, an effort to conceal the
+scorn she had for him; and, indeed, it is true that at first she thought
+of him chiefly as the clumsy young man with the red ears.
+
+And as soon as he emerged from the first effect of pure and awestricken
+humility--he was greatly helped to emerge from that condition to a
+perception of human equality by the need the lodging-house keeper was
+under to talk while she worked, and as she didn't like Miss Walshingham
+and her friends very much, and the young man with spectacles was deaf,
+she naturally talked to Kipps--he perceived that he was in a state of
+adoration for Miss Walshingham that it seemed almost a blasphemous
+familiarity to speak of us being in love.
+
+This state, you must understand, had nothing to do with "flirting" or
+"spooning" and that superficial passion that flashes from eye to eye
+upon the leas and pier--absolutely nothing. That he knew from the first.
+Her rather pallid, intelligent young face, beneath those sombre clouds
+of hair, put her in a class apart; towards her the thought of
+"attentions" paled and vanished. To approach such a being, to perform
+sacrifices and to perish obviously for her, seemed the limit he might
+aspire to, he or any man. For if his love was abasement, at any rate it
+had this much of manliness, that it covered all his sex. It had not yet
+come to Kipps to acknowledge any man as his better in his heart of
+hearts. When one does that the game is played and one grows old indeed.
+
+The rest of his sentimental interests vanished altogether in this great
+illumination. He meditated about her when he was blocking cretonne; her
+image was before his eyes at tea-time, and blotted out the more
+immediate faces, and made him silent and preoccupied, and so careless in
+his bearing that the junior apprentice, sitting beside him, mocked at
+and parodied his enormous bites of bread and butter unreproved. He
+became conspicuously less popular on the "fancy" side, the "costumes"
+was chilly with him and the "millinery" cutting. But he did not care. An
+intermittent correspondent with Flo Bates, that had gone on since she
+left Mr. Shalford's desk for a position at Tunbridge "nearer home," and
+which had roused Kipps in its earlier stages to unparalleled heights of
+epistolatory effort, died out altogether by reason of his neglect. He
+heard with scarcely a pang that, as a consequence perhaps of his
+neglect, Flo was "carrying on with a chap who managed a farm."
+
+Every Thursday he jabbed and gouged at his wood, jabbing and gouging
+intersecting circles and diamond traceries, and that laboured inane
+which our mad world calls ornament, and he watched Miss Walshingham
+furtively whenever she turned away. The circles in consequence were
+jabbed crooked; and his panels, losing their symmetry, became
+comparatively pleasing to the untrained eye--and once he jabbed his
+finger. He would cheerfully have jabbed all his fingers if he could have
+found some means of using the opening to express himself of the vague
+emotions that possessed him. But he shirked conversation just as
+earnestly as he desired it; he feared that profound general ignorance of
+his might appear.
+
+
+Sec.3
+
+There came a time when she could not open one of the class-room windows.
+The man with the black beard pored over his chipping heedlessly....
+
+It did not take Kipps a moment to grasp his opportunity. He dropped his
+gouge and stepped forward. "Lem _me_," he said....
+
+He could not open the window either!
+
+"Oh, please don't trouble," she said.
+
+"'Sno trouble," he gasped.
+
+Still the sash stuck. He felt his manhood was at stake. He gathered
+himself together for a tremendous effort, and the pane broke with a
+snap, and he thrust his hand into the void beyond.
+
+"_There!_" said Miss Walshingham, and the glass fell ringing into the
+courtyard below.
+
+Then Kipps made to bring his hand back, and felt the keen touch of the
+edge of the broken glass at his wrist. He turned dolefully. "I'm
+tremendously sorry," he said in answer to the accusation in Miss
+Walshingham's eyes. "I didn't think it would break like that,"--as if he
+had expected it to break in some quite different and entirely more
+satisfactory manner. The boy with the gift of wood-carving having stared
+at Kipps' face for a moment, became involved in a Laocoon struggle with
+a giggle.
+
+"You've cut your wrist," said one of the girl friends, standing up and
+pointing. She was a pleasant-faced, greatly freckled girl, with a
+helpful disposition, and she said "You've cut your wrist," as brightly
+as if she had been a trained nurse.
+
+Kipps looked down, and saw a swift line of scarlet rush down his hand.
+He perceived the other man student regarding this with magnified eyes.
+"You _have_ cut your wrist," said Miss Walshingham, and Kipps regarded
+his damage with greater interest.
+
+"He's cut his wrist," said the maiden lady to the lodging-house keeper,
+and seemed in doubt what a lady should do. "It's----" she hesitated at
+the word "bleeding," and nodded to the lodging-house keeper instead.
+
+"Dreadfully," said the maiden lady, and tried to look and tried not to
+look at the same time.
+
+"Of _course_ he's cut his wrist," said the lodging-house keeper,
+momentarily quite annoyed at Kipps; and the other young lady, who
+thought Kipps rather common, went on quietly with her wood-cutting with
+an air of its being the proper thing to do--though nobody else seemed to
+know it.
+
+"You must tie it up," said Miss Walshingham.
+
+"We must tie it up," said the freckled girl.
+
+"I 'adn't the slightest idea that window was going to break like that,"
+said Kipps, with candour. "Nort the slightest."
+
+He glanced again at the blood on his wrist, and it seemed to him that it
+was on the very point of dropping on the floor of that cultured
+class-room. So he very neatly licked it off, feeling at the same time
+for his handkerchief. "Oh, _don't!_" said Miss Walshingham as he did
+so, and the girl with the freckles made a movement of horror. The giggle
+got the better of the boy with the gift, and celebrated its triumph by
+unseemly noises; in spite of which it seemed to Kipps at the moment that
+the act that had made Miss Walshingham say "Oh, _don't!_" was rather a
+desperate and manly treatment of what was after all a creditable injury.
+
+"It ought to be tied up," said the lodging-house keeper, holding her
+chisel upright in her hand. "It's a bad cut to bleed like that."
+
+"We must tie it up," said the freckled girl, and hesitated in front of
+Kipps. "Have you got a handkerchief?" she said.
+
+"I dunno 'ow I managed _not_ to bring one," said Kipps. "I---- Not
+'aving a cold I suppose some'ow I didn't think----"
+
+He checked a further flow of blood.
+
+The girl with the freckles caught Miss Walshingham's eye, and held it
+for a moment. Both glanced at Kipps' injury. The boy with the gift, who
+had reappeared with a chastened expression from some noisy pursuit
+beneath his desk, made the neglected motions of one who proffers shyly.
+Miss Walshingham under the spell of the freckled girl's eye produced a
+handkerchief. The voice of the maiden lady could be heard in the
+background. "I've been through all the technical education ambulance
+classes twice, and I know you go _so_ if it's a vein, and _so_ if it's
+an artery--at least you go _so_ for one and _so_ for the other,
+whichever it may be; but...."
+
+"If you will give me your hand," said the freckled girl, and proceeded
+with Miss Walshingham's assistance to bandage Kipps in a most
+businesslike way. Yes, they actually bandaged Kipps. They pulled up his
+cuffs--happily they were not a very frayed pair--and held his wrist, and
+wrapped the soft handkerchief round it, and tightened the knot together.
+And Miss Walshingham's face, the face of that almost divine Over-human,
+came close to the face of Kipps.
+
+"We're not hurting you, are we?" she said.
+
+"Not a bit," said Kipps, as he would have said if they had been sawing
+his arm off.
+
+"We're not experts, you know," said the freckled girl.
+
+"I'm sure it's a dreadful cut," said Miss Walshingham.
+
+"It ain't much reely," said Kipps; "and you're taking a lot of trouble.
+I'm sorry I broke that window. I can't think what I could have been
+doing."
+
+"It isn't so much the cut at the time, it's the poisoning afterwards,"
+came the voice of the maiden lady.
+
+"Of course I'm quite willing to pay for the window," panted Kipps
+opulently.
+
+"We must make it just as tight as possible, to stop the bleeding," said
+the freckled girl.
+
+"I don't think it's much reely," said Kipps. "I'm awful sorry I broke
+that window, though."
+
+"Put your finger on the knot, dear," said the freckled girl.
+
+"Eh?" said Kipps; "I mean----"
+
+Both the young ladies became very intent on the knot, and Mr. Kipps was
+very red and very intent upon the two young ladies.
+
+"Mortified, and had to be sawn off," said the maiden lady.
+
+"Sawn off?" said the lodging-house keeper.
+
+"Sawn _right_ off," said the maiden lady, and jabbed at her mangled
+design.
+
+"_There_," said the freckled girl, "I think that ought to do. You're
+sure it's not too tight?"
+
+"Not a bit," said Kipps.
+
+He met Miss Walshingham's eye, and smiled to show how little he cared
+for wounds and pain. "It's only a little cut," he added.
+
+The maiden lady appeared as an addition to their group. "You should have
+washed the wound, dear," she said. "I was just telling Miss Collis." She
+peered through her glasses at the bandage. "That doesn't look _quite_
+right," she remarked critically. "You should have taken the ambulance
+classes. But I suppose it will have to do. Are you hurting?"
+
+"Not a bit," said Kipps, and he smiled at them all with the air of a
+brave soldier in hospital.
+
+"I'm sure it _must_ hurt," said Miss Walshingham.
+
+"Anyhow, you're a very good patient," said the girl with the freckles.
+
+Mr. Kipps became quite pink. "I'm only sorry I broke the window--that's
+all," he said. "But who would have thought it was going to break like
+that?"
+
+Pause.
+
+"I'm afraid you won't be able to go on carving to-night," said Miss
+Walshingham.
+
+"I'll try," said Kipps. "It reelly doesn't hurt--not anything to
+matter."
+
+Presently Miss Walshingham came to him as he carved heroically with his
+hand bandaged in her handkerchief. There was a touch of a novel interest
+in her eyes. "I'm afraid you're not getting on very fast," she said.
+
+The freckled girl looked up and regarded Miss Walshingham.
+
+"I'm doing a little, anyhow," said Kipps. "I don't want to waste any
+time. A feller like me hasn't much time to spare."
+
+It struck the girls that there was a quality of modest disavowal about
+that "feller like me." It gave them a light into this obscure person,
+and Miss Walshingham ventured to commend his work as "promising" and to
+ask whether he meant to follow it up. Kipps didn't "altogether
+know"--"things depended on so much," but if he was in Folkestone next
+winter he certainly should. It did not occur to Miss Walshingham at the
+time to ask why his progress in art depended upon his presence in
+Folkestone. There was some more questions and answers--they continued to
+talk to him for a little time, even when Mr. Chester Coote had come into
+the room--and when at last the conversation had died out it dawned upon
+Kipps just how much his cut wrist had done for him....
+
+He went to sleep that night revising that conversation for the twentieth
+time, treasuring this and expanding that, and inserting things he might
+have said to Miss Walshingham, things he might still say about
+himself--in relation more or less explicit to her. He wasn't quite sure
+if he wouldn't like his arm to mortify a bit, which would make him
+interesting, or to heal up absolutely, which would show the exceptional
+purity of his blood.
+
+
+Sec.4
+
+The affair of the broken window happened late in April, and the class
+came to an end in May. In that interval there were several small
+incidents and great developments of emotion. I have done Kipps no
+justice if I have made it seem that his face was unsightly. It was, as
+the freckled girl pointed out to Helen Walshingham, an "interesting"
+face, and that aspect of him which presented chiefly erratic hair and
+glowing ears ceased to prevail.
+
+They talked him over, and the freckled girl discovered there was
+something "wistful" in his manner. They detected a "natural delicacy,"
+and the freckled girl set herself to draw him out from that time forth.
+The freckled girl was nineteen, and very wise and motherly and
+benevolent, and really she greatly preferred drawing out Kipps to
+wood-carving. It was quite evident to her that Kipps was in love with
+Helen Walshingham, and it struck her as a queer and romantic and
+pathetic and extremely interesting phenomenon. And as at that time she
+regarded Helen as "simply lovely," it seemed only right and proper that
+she should assist Kipps in his modest efforts to place himself in a
+state of absolute _abandon_ upon her altar.
+
+Under her sympathetic management the position of Kipps was presently
+defined quite clearly. He was unhappy in his position--misunderstood. He
+told her he "didn't seem to get on like" with customers, and she
+translated this for him as "too sensitive." The discontent with his fate
+in life, the dreadful feeling that education was slipping by him,
+troubles that time and usage were glazing over a little, revived to
+their old acuteness but not to their old hopelessness. As a basis for
+sympathy indeed they were even a source of pleasure.
+
+And one day at dinner it happened that Carshot and Buggins fell talking
+of "these here writers," and how Dickens had been a labeller of blacking
+and Thackeray "an artist who couldn't sell a drawing," and how Samuel
+Johnson had walked to London without any boots, having thrown away his
+only pair "out of pride." "It's luck," said Buggins, "to a very large
+extent. They just happen to hit on something that catches on, and there
+you are!"
+
+"Nice easy life they have of it, too," said Miss Mergle. "Write just an
+hour or so, and done for the day! Almost like gentlefolks."
+
+"There's more work in it than you'd think," said Carshot, stooping to a
+mouthful.
+
+"I wouldn't mind changing, for all that," said Buggins. "I'd like to see
+one of these here authors marking off with Jimmy."
+
+"I think they copy from each other a good deal," said Miss Mergle.
+
+"Even then (chup, chup, chup)," said Carshot, "there's writing it out in
+their own hands."
+
+They proceeded to enlarge upon the literary life, on its ease and
+dignity, on the social recognition accorded to those who led it, and on
+the ample gratifications their vanity achieved. "Pictures
+everywhere--never get a new suit without being photographed--almost like
+Royalty," said Miss Mergle.
+
+And all this talk impressed the imagination of Kipps very greatly. Here
+was a class that seemed to bridge the gulf. On the one hand essentially
+Low, but by factitious circumstances capable of entering upon those
+levels of social superiority to which all true Englishmen aspire, those
+levels from which one may tip a butler, scorn a tailor, and even commune
+with those who lead "men" into battle. "Almost like gentlefolks"--that
+was it! He brooded over these things in the afternoon, until they
+blossomed into daydreams. Suppose, for example, he had chanced to write
+a book, a well-known book, under an assumed name, and yet kept on being
+a draper all the time.... Impossible, of course, but _suppose_--it made
+quite a long dream.
+
+And at the next wood-carving class he let it be drawn from him that his
+real choice in life was to be a Nawther--"only one doesn't get a
+chance."
+
+After that there were times when Kipps had that pleasant sense that
+comes of attracting interest. He was a mute, inglorious Dickens, or at
+any rate something of that sort, and they were all taking him at that.
+The discovery of this indefinable "something in" him, the development of
+which was now painfully restricted and impossible, did much to bridge
+the gulf between himself and Miss Walshingham. He was unfortunate, he
+was futile, but he was not "common." Even now with help...? The two
+girls, and the freckled girl in particular, tried to "stir him up" to
+some effort to do his imputed potentialities justice. They were still
+young enough to believe that to nice and niceish members of the male
+sex--more especially when under the stimulus of feminine
+encouragement--nothing is finally impossible.
+
+The freckled girl was, I say, the stage manager of this affair, but Miss
+Walshingham was the presiding divinity. A touch of proprietorship came
+in her eyes at times when she looked at him. He was
+hers--unconditionally--and she knew it.
+
+To her directly Kipps scarcely ever made a speech. The enterprising
+things that he was continually devising to say to her, he usually did
+not say, or he said them in a suitably modified form to the girl with
+the freckles. And one day the girl with the freckles smote him to the
+heart. She said to him, with the faintest indication of her head across
+the class-room to where her friend reached a cast from the shelf, "I do
+think Helen Walshingham is sometimes the most lovely person in the
+world. Look at her now!"
+
+Kipps gasped for a moment. The moment lengthened, and she regarded him
+as an intelligent young surgeon might regard an operation without
+anaesthetics.
+
+"You're right," he said, and then looked at her with an entire
+abandonment of visage.
+
+She coloured under his glare of silent avowal, and he blushed brightly.
+
+"I think so, too," he said hoarsely, cleared his throat, and after a
+meditative moment proceeded sacramentally with his wood-carving.
+
+"You _are_ wonderful," said the freckled girl to Miss Walshingham,
+apropos of nothing, as they went on their way home together. "He simply
+adores you."
+
+"But, my dear, what have I done?" said Helen.
+
+"That's just it," said the freckled girl. "What _have_ you done?"
+
+And then with a terrible swiftness came the last class of the course, to
+terminate this relationship altogether. Kipps was careless of dates, and
+the thing came upon him with an effect of abrupt surprise. Just as his
+petals were expanding so hopefully, "Finis," and the thing was at an
+end. But Kipps did not fully appreciate that the end was indeed and
+really and truly the end, until he was back in the Emporium after the
+end was over.
+
+The end began practically in the middle of the last class, when the
+freckled girl broached the topic of terminations. She developed the
+question of just how he was going on after the class ended. She hoped he
+would stick to certain resolutions of self-improvement he had breathed.
+She said quite honestly that he owed it to himself to develop his
+possibilities. He expressed firm resolve, but dwelt on difficulties. He
+had no books. She instructed him how to get books from the public
+library. He was to get a form of application for a ticket signed by a
+ratepayer; and he said "of course," when she said Mr. Shalford would do
+that, though all the time he knew perfectly well it would "never do" to
+ask Mr. Shalford for anything of the sort. She explained that she was
+going to North Wales for the summer, information he received without
+immediate regret. At intervals he expressed his intention of going on
+with wood-carving when the summer was over, and once he added "If----"
+
+She considered herself extremely delicate not to press for the
+completion of that "if----"
+
+After that talk there was an interval of languid wood-carving and
+watching Miss Walshingham.
+
+Then presently there came a bustle of packing, a great ceremony of
+hand-shaking all round by Miss Collis and the maiden lady of ripe years,
+and then Kipps found himself outside the class-room, on the landing
+with his two friends. It seemed to him he had only just learnt that this
+was the last class of all. There came a little pause, and the freckled
+girl suddenly went back into the class-room, and left Kipps and Miss
+Walshingham alone together for the first time. Kipps was instantly
+breathless. She looked at his face with a glance that mingled sympathy
+and curiosity, and held out her white hand.
+
+"Well, good-bye, Mr. Kipps," she said.
+
+He took her hand and held it. "I'd do anything," said Kipps, and had not
+the temerity to add, "for you." He stopped awkwardly. He shook her hand
+and said, "Good-bye."
+
+There was a little pause.
+
+"I hope you will have a pleasant holiday," she said.
+
+"I shall come back to the class next year, anyhow," said Kipps
+valiantly, and turned abruptly to the stairs.
+
+"I hope you will," said Miss Walshingham.
+
+He turned back towards her. "Reelly?" he said.
+
+"I hope everybody will come back."
+
+"I will--anyhow," said Kipps. "You may count on that," and he tried to
+make his tones significant.
+
+They looked at one another through a little pause.
+
+"Good-bye," she said.
+
+Kipps lifted his hat. She turned towards the class-room.
+
+"Well?" said the freckled girl, coming back towards her.
+
+"Nothing," said Helen. "At least--presently." And she became very
+energetic about some scattered tools on a desk.
+
+The freckled girl went out and stood for a moment at the head of the
+stairs. When she came back she looked very hard at her friend. The
+incident struck her as important--wonderfully important. It was
+unassimilable, of course, and absurd, but there it was, the thing that
+is so cardinal to a girl, the emotion, the subservience, the crowning
+triumph of her sex. She could not help feeling that Helen took it, on
+the whole, a little too hardly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+CHITTERLOW
+
+
+Sec.1
+
+The hour of the class on the following Thursday found Kipps in a state
+of nearly incredible despondency. He was sitting with his eyes on the
+reading room clock, his chin resting on his fists and his elbows on the
+accumulated comic papers that were comic alas! in vain! He paid no heed
+to the little man in spectacles glaring opposite to him, famishing for
+_Fun_. In this place it was he had sat night after night, each night
+more blissful than the last, waiting until it should be time to go to
+Her! And then--bliss! And now the hour had come and there was no class!
+There would be no class now until next October; it might be there would
+never be a class so far as he was concerned again.
+
+It might be there would never be a class again, for Shalford, taking
+exception at a certain absent-mindedness that led to mistakes and more
+particularly to the ticketing of several articles in Kipps' Manchester
+window upside down, had been "on to" him for the past few days in an
+exceedingly onerous manner....
+
+He sighed profoundly, pushed the comic papers back--they were rent away
+from him instantly by the little man in spectacles--and tried the old
+engravings of Folkestone in the past, that hang about the room. But
+these, too, failed to minister to his bruised heart. He wandered about
+the corridors for a time and watched the library indicator for awhile.
+Wonderful thing that! But it did not hold him for long. People came and
+laughed near him and that jarred with him dreadfully. He went out of the
+building and a beastly cheerful barrel organ mocked him in the street.
+He was moved to a desperate resolve to go down to the beach. There it
+might be he would be alone. The sea might be rough--and attuned to him.
+It would certainly be dark.
+
+"If I 'ad a penny I'm blest if I wouldn't go and chuck myself off the
+end of the pier.... _She'd_ never miss me...." He followed a deepening
+vein of thought.
+
+"Penny though! It's tuppence," he said after a space.
+
+He went down Dover Street in a state of profound melancholia--at the
+pace and mood as it were of his own funeral procession--and he crossed
+at the corner of Tontine Street heedless of all mundane things. And
+there it was that Fortune came upon him, in disguise and with a loud
+shout, the shout of a person endowed with an unusually rich, full voice,
+followed immediately by a violent blow in the back.
+
+His hat was over his eyes and an enormous weight rested on his
+shoulders and something kicked him in the back of his calf.
+
+Then he was on all fours in some mud that Fortune, in conjunction with
+the Folkestone corporation and in the pursuit of equally mysterious
+ends, had heaped together even lavishly for his reception.
+
+He remained in that position for some seconds awaiting further
+developments and believing almost anything broken before his heart.
+Gathering at last that this temporary violence of things in general was
+over, and being perhaps assisted by a clutching hand, he arose, and
+found himself confronting a figure holding a bicycle and thrusting
+forward a dark face in anxious scrutiny.
+
+"You aren't hurt, Matey?" gasped the figure.
+
+"Was that _you_ 'it me?" said Kipps.
+
+"It's these handles, you know," said the figure with an air of being a
+fellow sufferer. "They're too _low_. And when I go to turn, if I don't
+remember, Bif!--and I'm _in_ to something."
+
+"Well--you give me a oner in the back--anyhow," said Kipps, taking stock
+of his damages.
+
+"I was coming down hill, you know," explained the bicyclist. "These
+little Folkestone hills are a Fair Treat. It isn't as though I'd been on
+the level. I came rather a whop."
+
+"You did _that_," said Kipps.
+
+"I was back pedalling for all I was worth anyhow," said the bicyclist.
+"Not that I _am_ worth much back pedalling."
+
+He glanced round and made a sudden movement almost as if to mount his
+machine. Then he turned as rapidly to Kipps again, who was now stooping
+down, pursuing the tale of his injuries.
+
+"Here's the back of my trouser leg all tore down," said Kipps, "and I
+believe I'm bleeding. You reely ought to be more careful----"
+
+The stranger investigated the damage with a rapid movement. "Holy Smoke,
+so you are!" He laid a friendly hand on Kipps' arm. "I say--look here!
+Come up to my diggings and sew it up. I'm----. Of course I'm to blame,
+and I say----" his voice sank to a confidential friendliness. "Here's a
+slop. Don't let on I ran you down. Haven't a lamp, you know. Might be a
+bit awkward, for _me_."
+
+Kipps looked up towards the advancing policeman. The appeal to his
+generosity was not misplaced. He immediately took sides with his
+assailant. He stood up as the representative of the law drew nearer. He
+assumed an air which he considered highly suggestive of an accident not
+having happened.
+
+"All right," he said, "go on!"
+
+"Right you are," said the cyclist promptly, and led the way, and then,
+apparently with some idea of deception, called over his shoulder, "I'm
+tremendous glad to have met you, old chap.
+
+"It really isn't a hundred yards," he said after they had passed the
+policeman, "it's just round the corner."
+
+"Of course," said Kipps, limping slightly. "I don't want to get a chap
+into trouble. Accidents _will_ happen. Still----"
+
+"Oh! _rather!_ I believe you. Accidents _will_ happen. Especially when
+you get _me_ on a bicycle." He laughed. "You aren't the first I've run
+down not by any manner of means! I don't think you can be hurt much
+either. It isn't as though I was scorching. You didn't see me coming. I
+was back pedalling like anything. Only naturally it seems to you I must
+have been coming fast. And I did all I could to ease off the bump as I
+hit you. It was just the treadle I think came against your calf. But it
+was All Right of you about that policeman, you know. That was a Fair Bit
+of All Right. Under the Circs, if you'd told him I was riding it might
+have been forty bob! Forty bob! I'd have had to tell 'em Time is Money.
+Just now for Mr. H. C.
+
+"I shouldn't have blamed you either, you know. Most men after a bump
+like that might have been spiteful. The least I can do is to stand you a
+needle and thread. And a clothes brush. It isn't everyone who'd have
+taken it like you.
+
+"Scorching! Why if I'd been scorching you'd have--coming as we
+did--you'd have been knocked silly.
+
+"But I tell you, the way you caught on about that slop was something
+worth seeing. When I asked you, I didn't half expect it. Bif! Right off.
+Cool as a cucumber. Had your line at once. I tell you that there isn't
+many men would have acted as you have done, I _will_ say that. You
+acted like a gentleman over that slop."
+
+Kipps' first sense of injury disappeared. He limped along a pace or so
+behind, making depreciatory noises in response to these flattering
+remarks and taking stock of the very appreciative person who uttered
+them.
+
+As they passed the lamps he was visible as a figure with a slight
+anterior plumpness, progressing buoyantly on knickerbockered legs, with
+quite enormous calves, legs that, contrasting with Kipps' own narrow
+practice, were even exuberantly turned out at the knees and toes. A
+cycling cap was worn very much on one side, and from beneath it
+protruded carelessly straight wisps of dark red hair, and ever and again
+an ample nose came into momentary view round the corner. The muscular
+cheeks of this person and a certain generosity of chin he possessed were
+blue shaven and he had no moustache. His carriage was spacious and
+confident, his gestures up and down the narrow deserted back street they
+traversed, were irresistibly suggestive of ownership; a suggestion of
+broadly gesticulating shadows were born squatting on his feet and grew
+and took possession of the road and reunited at last with the shadows of
+the infinite, as lamp after lamp was passed. Kipps saw by the flickering
+light of one of them that they were in Little Fenchurch Street, and then
+they came round a corner sharply into a dark court and stopped at the
+door of a particularly ramshackle looking little house, held up between
+two larger ones, like a drunken man between policemen.
+
+The cyclist propped his machine carefully against the window, produced a
+key and blew down it sharply. "The lock's a bit tricky," he said, and
+devoted himself for some moments to the task of opening the door. Some
+mechanical catastrophe ensued and the door was open.
+
+"You'd better wait here a bit while I get the lamp," he remarked to
+Kipps; "very likely it isn't filled," and vanished into the blackness of
+the passage. "Thank God for matches!" he said, and Kipps had an
+impression of a passage in the transitory pink flare and the bicyclist
+disappearing into a further room. Kipps was so much interested by these
+things that for the time he forgot his injuries altogether.
+
+An interval and Kipps was dazzled by a pink shaded kerosene lamp. "You
+go in," said the red-haired man, "and I'll bring in the bike," and for a
+moment Kipps was alone in the lamp-lit room. He took in rather vaguely
+the shabby ensemble of the little apartment, the round table covered
+with a torn, red, glass-stained cover on which the lamp stood, a mottled
+looking-glass over the fireplace reflecting this, a disused gas bracket,
+an extinct fire, a number of dusty postcards and memoranda stuck round
+the glass, a dusty, crowded paper rack on the mantel with a number of
+cabinet photographs, a table littered with papers and cigarette ash and
+a syphon of soda water. Then the cyclist reappeared and Kipps saw his
+blue-shaved, rather animated face and bright-reddish, brown eyes for
+the first time. He was a man perhaps ten years older than Kipps, but his
+beardless face made them in a way contemporary.
+
+"You behaved all right about that policeman--anyhow," he repeated as he
+came forward.
+
+"I don't see 'ow else I could 'ave done," said Kipps quite modestly. The
+cyclist scanned his guest for the first time and decided upon hospitable
+details.
+
+"We'd better let that mud dry a bit before we brush it. Whiskey there
+is, good old Methusaleh, Canadian Rye, and there's some brandy that's
+all right. Which'll you have?"
+
+"_I_ dunno," said Kipps, taken by surprise, and then seeing no other
+course but acceptance, "well--whiskey, then."
+
+"Right you are, old boy, and if you'll take my advice you'll take it
+neat. I may not be a particular judge of this sort of thing, but I do
+know old Methusaleh pretty well. Old Methusaleh--four stars. That's me!
+Good old Harry Chitterlow and good old Methusaleh. Leave 'em together.
+Bif! He's gone!"
+
+He laughed loudly, looked about him, hesitated and retired, leaving
+Kipps in possession of the room and free to make a more precise
+examination of its contents.
+
+
+Sec.2
+
+He particularly remarked the photographs that adorned the apartment.
+They were chiefly photographs of ladies, in one case in tights, which
+Kipps thought a "bit 'ot," but one represented the bicyclist in the
+costume of some remote epoch. It did not take Kipps long to infer that
+the others were probably actresses and that his host was an actor, and
+the presence of the half of a large, coloured playbill seemed to confirm
+this. A note framed in an Oxford frame that was a little too large for
+it, he presently demeaned himself to read. "Dear Mr. Chitterlow," it ran
+its brief course, "if after all you will send the play you spoke of I
+will endeavour to read it," followed by a stylish but absolutely
+illegible signature, and across this was written in pencil, "What price,
+Harry, now?" And in the shadow by the window was a rough and rather able
+sketch of the bicyclist in chalk on brown paper, calling particular
+attention to the curvature of the forward lines of his hull and calves
+and the jaunty carriage of his nose, and labelled unmistakably
+"Chitterlow." Kipps thought it "rather a take-off." The papers on the
+table by the syphon were in manuscript. Kipps observed manuscript of a
+particularly convulsive and blottesque sort and running obliquely across
+the page.
+
+Presently he heard the metallic clamour as if of a series of irreparable
+breakages with which the lock of the front door discharged its function,
+and then Chitterlow reappeared, a little out of breath as if from
+running and with a starry labelled bottle in his large, freckled hand.
+
+"Sit down, old chap," he said, "sit down. I had to go out for it after
+all. Wasn't a solitary bottle left. However, it's all right now we're
+here. No, don't sit on that chair, there's sheets of my play on that.
+That's the one--with the broken arm. I think this glass is clean, but
+anyhow wash it out with a squizz of syphon and shy it in the fireplace.
+Here! I'll do it! Lend it here!"
+
+As he spoke Mr. Chitterlow produced a corkscrew from a table drawer,
+attached and overcame good old Methusaleh's cork in a style a bartender
+might envy, washed out two tumblers in his simple, effectual manner, and
+poured a couple of inches of the ancient fluid into each. Kipps took his
+tumbler, said "Thenks" in an off-hand way, and after a momentary
+hesitation whether he should say "here's to you!" or not, put it to his
+lips without that ceremony. For a space fire in his throat occupied his
+attention to the exclusion of other matters, and then he discovered Mr.
+Chitterlow with an intensely bulldog pipe alight, seated on the opposite
+side of the empty fireplace and pouring himself out a second dose of
+whiskey.
+
+"After all," said Mr. Chitterlow, with his eye on the bottle and a
+little smile wandering to hide amidst his larger features, "this
+accident might have been worse. I wanted someone to talk to a bit, and I
+didn't want to go to a pub, leastways not a Folkestone pub, because as a
+matter of fact I'd promised Mrs. Chitterlow, who's away, not to, for
+various reasons, though of course if I'd wanted to I'm just that sort I
+should have all the same, and here we are! It's curious how one runs up
+against people out bicycling!"
+
+"Isn't it!" said Kipps, feeling that the time had come for him to say
+something.
+
+"Here we are, sitting and talking like old friends, and half an hour ago
+we didn't know we existed. Leastways we didn't know each other existed.
+I might have passed you in the street perhaps and you might have passed
+me, and how was I to tell that, put to the test, you would have behaved
+as decently as you have behaved. Only it happened otherwise, that's all.
+You're not smoking!" he said. "Have a cigarette?"
+
+Kipps made a confused reply that took the form of not minding if he did,
+and drank another sip of old Methusaleh in his confusion. He was able to
+follow the subsequent course of that sip for quite a long way. It was as
+though the old gentleman was brandishing a burning torch through his
+vitals, lighting him here and lighting him there until at last his whole
+being was in a glow. Chitterlow produced a tobacco pouch and cigarette
+papers and with an interesting parenthesis that was a little difficult
+to follow about some lady named Kitty something or other who had taught
+him the art when he was as yet only what you might call a nice boy, made
+Kipps a cigarette, and with a consideration that won Kipps' gratitude
+suggested that after all he might find a little soda water an
+improvement with the whiskey. "Some people like it that way," said
+Chitterlow, and then with voluminous emphasis, "_I don't_."
+
+Emboldened by the weakened state of his enemy Kipps promptly swallowed
+the rest of him and had his glass at once hospitably replenished. He
+began to feel he was of a firmer consistency than he commonly believed,
+and turned his mind to what Chitterlow was saying with the resolve to
+play a larger part in the conversation than he had hitherto done. Also
+he smoked through his nose quite successfully, an art he had only very
+recently acquired.
+
+Meanwhile Chitterlow explained that he was a playwright, and the tongue
+of Kipps was unloosened to respond that he knew a chap, or rather one of
+their fellows knew a chap, or at least to be perfectly correct this
+fellow's brother did, who had written a play. In response to
+Chitterlow's enquiries he could not recall the title of the play, nor
+where it had appeared nor the name of the manager who produced it,
+though he thought the title was something about "Love's Ransom" or
+something like that.
+
+"He made five 'undred pounds by it, though," said Kipps. "I know that."
+
+"That's nothing," said Chitterlow, with an air of experience that was
+extremely convincing. "Nothing. May seem a big sum to _you_, but _I_ can
+assure you it's just what one gets any day. There's any amount of money,
+an-ny amount, in a good play."
+
+"I dessay," said Kipps, drinking.
+
+"Any amount of money!"
+
+Chitterlow began a series of illustrative instances. He was clearly a
+person of quite unequalled gift for monologue. It was as though some
+conversational dam had burst upon Kipps, and in a little while he was
+drifting along upon a copious rapid of talk about all sorts of
+theatrical things by one who knows all about them, and quite incapable
+of anticipating whither that rapid meant to carry him. Presently somehow
+they had got to anecdotes about well-known theatrical managers, little
+Teddy Bletherskite, artful old Chumps, and the magnificent Behemoth,
+"petted to death, you know, fair sickened, by all these society women."
+Chitterlow described various personal encounters with these personages,
+always with modest self-depreciation, and gave Kipps a very amusing
+imitation of old Chumps in a state of intoxication. Then he took two
+more stiff doses of old Methusaleh in rapid succession.
+
+Kipps reduced the hither end of his cigarette to a pulp as he sat
+"dessaying" and "quite believing" Chitterlow in the sagest manner and
+admiring the easy way in which he was getting on with this very novel
+and entertaining personage. He had another cigarette made for him, and
+then Chitterlow, assuming by insensible degrees more and more of the
+manner of a rich and successful playwright being interviewed by a young
+admirer, set himself to answer questions which sometimes Kipps asked and
+sometimes Chitterlow, about the particulars and methods of his career.
+He undertook this self-imposed task with great earnestness and vigour,
+treating the matter indeed with such fulness that at times it seemed
+lost altogether under a thicket of parentheses, footnotes and episodes
+that branched and budded from its stem. But it always emerged again,
+usually by way of illustration to its own degressions. Practically it
+was a mass of material for the biography of a man who had been
+everywhere and done everything (including the Hon. Thomas Norgate, which
+was a Record), and in particular had acted with great distinction and
+profit (he dated various anecdotes, "when I was getting thirty, or forty
+or fifty, dollars a week") throughout America and the entire civilised
+world.
+
+And as he talked on and on in that full, rich, satisfying voice he had,
+and as old Methusaleh, indisputably a most drunken old reprobate of a
+whiskey, busied himself throughout Kipps, lighting lamp after lamp until
+the entire framework of the little draper was illuminated and glowing
+like some public building on a festival, behold Chitterlow and Kipps
+with him and the room in which they sat, were transfigured! Chitterlow
+became in very truth that ripe, full man of infinite experience and
+humour and genius, fellow of Shakespeare and Ibsen and Maeterlinck
+(three names he placed together quite modestly far above his own) and no
+longer ambiguously dressed in a sort of yachting costume with cycling
+knickerbockers, but elegantly if unconventionally attired, and the room
+ceased to be a small and shabby room in a Folkestone slum, and grew
+larger and more richly furnished, and the fly-blown photographs were
+curious old pictures, and the rubbish on the walls the most rare and
+costly bric-a-brac, and the indisputable paraffin lamp, a soft and
+splendid light. A certain youthful heat that to many minds might have
+weakened old Methusaleh's starry claim to a ripe antiquity, vanished in
+that glamour, two burnt holes and a claimant darn in the table cloth,
+moreover, became no more than the pleasing contradictions natural in the
+house of genius, and as for Kipps!--Kipps was a bright young man of
+promise, distinguished by recent quick, courageous proceedings not too
+definitely insisted upon, and he had been rewarded by admission to a
+sanctum and confidences, for which the common prosperous, for which
+"society women" even, were notoriously sighing in vain. "Don't _want_
+them, my boy; they'd simply play old Harry with the work, you know!
+Chaps outside, bank clerks and university fellows, think the life's all
+_that_ sort of thing. Don't you believe 'em. Don't you believe 'em."
+
+And then----!
+
+"Boom.... Boom.... Boom.... Boom.... right in the middle of a most
+entertaining digression on flats who join touring companies under the
+impression that they are actors, Kipps much amused at their flatness as
+exposed by Chitterlow.
+
+"Lor'!" said Kipps like one who awakens, "that's not eleven!"
+
+"Must be," said Chitterlow. "It was nearly ten when I got that whiskey.
+It's early yet----"
+
+"All the same I must be going," said Kipps, and stood up. "Even
+now--maybe. Fact is--I 'ad _no_ idea. The 'ouse door shuts at 'arf past
+ten, you know. I ought to 'ave thought before."
+
+"Well, if you _must_ go! I tell you what. I'll come, too.... Why!
+There's your leg, old man! Clean forgot it! You can't go through the
+streets like that. I'll sew up the tear. And meanwhile have another
+whiskey."
+
+"I ought to be getting on _now_," protested Kipps feebly, and then
+Chitterlow was showing him how to kneel on a chair in order that the
+rent trouser leg should be attainable and old Methusaleh on his third
+round was busy repairing the temporary eclipse of Kipps' arterial glow.
+Then suddenly Chitterlow was seized with laughter and had to leave off
+sewing to tell Kipps that the scene wouldn't make a bad bit of business
+in a farcical comedy, and then he began to sketch out the farcical
+comedy and that led him to a digression about another farcical comedy of
+which he had written a ripping opening scene which wouldn't take ten
+minutes to read. It had something in it that had never been done on the
+stage before, and was yet perfectly legitimate, namely, a man with a
+live beetle down the back of his neck trying to seem at his ease in a
+roomful of people....
+
+"_They_ won't lock you out," he said, in a singularly reassuring tone,
+and began to read and act what he explained to be (not because he had
+written it, but simply because he knew it was so on account of his
+exceptional experience of the stage) and what Kipps also quite clearly
+saw to be, one of the best opening scenes that had ever been written.
+
+When it was over Kipps, who rarely swore, was inspired to say the scene
+was "damned fine" about six times over, whereupon as if by way of
+recognition, Chitterlow took a simply enormous portion of the inspiring
+antediluvian, declaring at the same time that he had rarely met a
+"finer" intelligence than Kipps' (stronger there might be, _that_ he
+couldn't say with certainty as yet, seeing how little after all they had
+seen of each other, but a finer _never_); that it was a shame such a
+gallant and discriminating intelligence should be nightly either locked
+up or locked out at ten--well, ten thirty then--and that he had half a
+mind to recommend old somebody or other (apparently the editor of a
+London daily paper) to put on Kipps forthwith as a dramatic critic in
+the place of the current incapable.
+
+"I don't think I've ever made up anything for print," said Kipps;
+"----ever. I'd have a thundering good try, though, if ever I got a
+chance. I would that! I've written window tickets often enough. Made 'em
+up and everything. But that's different."
+
+"You'd come to it all the fresher for not having done it before. And the
+way you picked up every point in that scene, my boy, was a Fair Treat! I
+tell you, you'd knock William Archer into fits. Not so literary, of
+course, you'd be, but I don't believe in literary critics any more than
+in literary playwrights. Plays _aren't_ literature--that's just the
+point they miss. Plays are plays. No! That won't hamper you anyhow.
+You're wasted down here, I tell you. Just as I was, before I took to
+acting. I'm hanged if I wouldn't like your opinion on these first two
+acts of that tragedy I'm on to. I haven't told you about that. It
+wouldn't take me more than an hour to read...."
+
+
+Sec.3
+
+Then so far as he could subsequently remember, Kipps had "another," and
+then it would seem that suddenly, regardless of the tragedy, he insisted
+that he "reelly _must_ be getting on," and from that point his memory
+became irregular. Certain things have remained quite clearly, and as it
+is a matter of common knowledge that intoxicated people forget what
+happens to them, it follows that he was not intoxicated. Chitterlow came
+with him partly to see him home and partly for a freshener before
+turning in. Kipps recalled afterwards very distinctly how in Little
+Fenchurch Street he discovered that he could not walk straight and also
+that Chitterlow's needle and thread in his still unmended trouser leg
+was making an annoying little noise on the pavement behind him. He tried
+to pick up the needle suddenly by surprise and somehow tripped and fell
+and then Chitterlow, laughing uproariously, helped him up. "It wasn't a
+bicycle this time, old boy," said Chitterlow, and that appeared to them
+both at the time as being a quite extraordinarily good joke indeed.
+They punched each other about on the strength of it.
+
+For a time after that Kipps certainly pretended to be quite desperately
+drunk and unable to walk and Chitterlow entered into the pretence and
+supported him. After that Kipps remembered being struck with the
+extremely laughable absurdity of going down hill to Tontine Street in
+order to go up hill again to the Emporium, and trying to get that idea
+into Chitterlow's head and being unable to do so on account of his own
+merriment or Chitterlow's evident intoxication, and his next memory
+after that was of the exterior of the Emporium, shut and darkened, and,
+as it were, frowning at him with all its stripes of yellow and green.
+The chilly way in which "Shalford" glittered in the moonlight printed
+itself with particular vividness on his mind. It appeared to Kipps that
+that establishment was closed to him for evermore. Those gilded letters,
+in spite of appearances, spelt FINIS for him and exile from Folkestone.
+He would never do wood-carving, never see Miss Walshingham again. Not
+that he had ever hoped to see her again. But this was the knife, this
+was final. He had stayed out, he had got drunk, there had been that row
+about the Manchester window dressing only three days ago.... In the
+retrospect he was quite sure that he was perfectly sober then and at
+bottom extremely unhappy, but he kept a brave face on the matter
+nevertheless, and declared stoutly he didn't care if he _was_ locked
+out.
+
+Whereupon Chitterlow slapped him on the back very hard and told him
+that was a "Bit of All Right," and assured him that when he himself had
+been a clerk in Sheffield before he took to acting he had been locked
+out sometimes for six nights running.
+
+"What's the result?" said Chitterlow. "I could go back to that place
+now, and they'd be glad to have me.... Glad to have me," he repeated,
+and then added, "that is to say, if they remember me--which isn't very
+likely."
+
+Kipps asked a little weakly, "What am I to do?"
+
+"Keep out," said Chitterlow. "You can't knock 'em up now--that would
+give you Right away. You'd better try and sneak in in the morning with
+the Cat. That'll do you. You'll probably get in all right in the morning
+if nobody gives you away."
+
+Then for a time--perhaps as the result of that slap in the back--Kipps
+felt decidedly queer, and acting on Chitterlow's advice went for a bit
+of a freshener upon the Leas. After a time he threw off the temporary
+queerness and found Chitterlow patting him on the shoulder and telling
+him that he'd be all right now in a minute and all the better for
+it--which he was. And the wind having dropped and the night being now a
+really very beautiful moonlight night indeed, and all before Kipps to
+spend as he liked and with only a very little tendency to spin round now
+and again to mar its splendour, they set out to walk the whole length of
+the Leas to the Sandgate lift and back, and as they walked Chitterlow
+spoke first of moonlight transfiguring the sea and then of moonlight
+transfiguring faces, and so at last he came to the topic of Love, and
+upon that he dwelt a great while, and with a wealth of experience and
+illustrative anecdote that seemed remarkably pungent and material to
+Kipps. He forgot his lost Miss Walshingham and his outraged employer
+again. He became as it were a desperado by reflection.
+
+Chitterlow had had adventures, a quite astonishing variety of adventures
+in this direction; he was a man with a past, a really opulent past, and
+he certainly seemed to like to look back and see himself amidst its
+opulence.
+
+He made no consecutive history, but he gave Kipps vivid, momentary
+pictures of relations and entanglements. One moment he was in
+flight--only too worthily in flight--before the husband of a Malay woman
+in Cape Town. At the next he was having passionate complications with
+the daughter of a clergyman in York. Then he passed to a remarkable
+grouping at Seaford.
+
+"They say you can't love two women at once," said Chitterlow. "But I
+tell you----" He gesticulated and raised his ample voice. "It's _Rot_!
+_Rot!_"
+
+"I know that," said Kipps.
+
+"Why, when I was in the smalls with Bessie Hopper's company there were
+three." He laughed and decided to add, "Not counting Bessie, that is."
+
+He set out to reveal Life as it is lived in touring companies, a quite
+amazing jungle of interwoven "affairs" it appeared to be, a mere
+amorous winepress for the crushing of hearts.
+
+"People say this sort of thing's a nuisance and interferes with Work. I
+tell you it isn't. The Work couldn't go on without it. They _must_ do
+it. They haven't the Temperament if they don't. If they hadn't the
+Temperament they wouldn't want to act, if they have--Bif!"
+
+"You're right," said Kipps. "I see that."
+
+Chitterlow proceeded to a close criticism of certain historical
+indiscretions of Mr. Clement Scott respecting the morals of the stage.
+Speaking in confidence and not as one who addresses the public, he
+admitted regretfully the general truth of these comments. He proceeded
+to examine various typical instances that had almost forced themselves
+upon him personally, and with especial regard to the contrast between
+his own character towards women and that of the Hon. Thomas Norgate,
+with whom it appeared he had once been on terms of great intimacy....
+
+Kipps listened with emotion to these extraordinary recollections. They
+were wonderful to him, they were incredibly credible. Of course the
+tumultuous, passionate course was the way life ran--except in high-class
+establishments! Such things happened in novels, in plays--only he had
+been fool enough not to understand they happened. His share in the
+conversation was now indeed no more than faint writing in the margin;
+Chitterlow was talking quite continuously. He expanded his magnificent
+voice into huge guffaws, he drew it together into a confidential
+intensity, it became drawlingly reminiscent, he was frank, frank with
+the effect of a revelation, reticent also with the effect of a
+revelation, a stupendously gesticulating, moonlit black figure,
+wallowing in itself, preaching Adventure and the Flesh to Kipps. Yet
+withal shot with something of sentiment, with a sort of sentimental
+refinement very coarsely and egotistically done. The Times he had
+had!--even before he was as old as Kipps he had had innumerable times.
+
+Well, he said with a sudden transition, he had sown his wild oats--one
+had to somewhen--and now he fancied he had mentioned it earlier in the
+evening, he was happily married. She was, he indicated, a "born lady."
+Her father was a prominent lawyer, a solicitor in Kentish Town, "done a
+lot of public house business"; her mother was second cousin to the wife
+of Abel Jones, the fashionable portrait painter--"almost Society people
+in a way." That didn't count with Chitterlow. He was no snob. What _did_
+count was that she possessed, what he ventured to assert without much
+fear of contradiction, was the very finest, completely untrained
+contralto voice in all the world. ("But to hear it properly," said
+Chitterlow, "you want a Big Hall.") He became rather vague and jerked
+his head about to indicate when and how he had entered matrimony. She
+was, it seemed, "away with her people." It was clear that Chitterlow did
+not get on with these people very well. It would seem they failed to
+appreciate his playwright, regarding it as an unremunerative pursuit,
+whereas as he and Kipps knew, wealth beyond the dreams of avarice would
+presently accrue. Only patience and persistence were needful.
+
+He went off at a tangent to hospitality. Kipps must come down home with
+him. They couldn't wander about all night, with a bottle of the right
+sort pining at home for them. "You can sleep on the sofa. You won't be
+worried by broken springs anyhow, for I took 'em all out myself two or
+three weeks ago. I don't see what they even put 'em in for. It's a point
+I know about. I took particular notice of it when I was with Bessie
+Hopper. Three months we were and all over England, North Wales and the
+Isle of Man, and I never struck a sofa in diggings anywhere that hadn't
+a broken spring. Not once--all the time."
+
+He added almost absently: "It happens like that at times."
+
+They descended the slant road towards Harbour Street and went on past
+the Pavilion Hotel.
+
+
+Sec.4
+
+They came into the presence of old Methusaleh again, and that worthy
+under Chitterlow's direction at once resumed the illumination of Kipps'
+interior with the conscientious thoroughness that distinguished him.
+Chitterlow took a tall portion to himself with an air of asbestos, lit
+the bulldog pipe again, and lapsed for a space into meditation, from
+which Kipps roused him by remarking that he expected "an acter 'as a
+lot of ups and downs like, now and then."
+
+At which Chitterlow seemed to bestir himself. "Ra-ther," he said. "And
+sometimes it's his own fault and sometimes it isn't. Usually it is. If
+it isn't one thing it's another. If it isn't the manager's wife it's
+bar-bragging. I tell you things happen at times. I'm a fatalist. The
+fact is Character has you. You can't get away from it. You may think you
+do, but you don't."
+
+He reflected for a moment. "It's that what makes tragedy Psychology
+really. It's the Greek irony--Ibsen and--all that. Up to date."
+
+He emitted this exhaustive summary of high-toned modern criticism as if
+he was repeating a lesson while thinking of something else, but it
+seemed to rouse him as it passed his lips, by including the name of
+Ibsen.
+
+He became interested in telling Kipps, who was indeed open to any
+information whatever about this quite novel name, exactly where he
+thought Ibsen fell short, points where it happened that Ibsen was
+defective just where it chanced that he, Chitterlow, was strong. Of
+course he had no desire to place himself in any way on an equality with
+Ibsen; still the fact remained that his own experience in England and
+America and the colonies was altogether more extensive than Ibsen could
+have had. Ibsen had probably never seen "one decent bar scrap" in his
+life. That, of course, was not Ibsen's fault or his own merit, but there
+the thing was. Genius, he knew, was supposed to be able to do anything
+or to do without anything; still he was now inclined to doubt that. He
+had a play in hand that might perhaps not please William Archer--whose
+opinion, after all, he did not value as he valued Kipps' opinion--but
+which he thought was at any rate as well constructed as anything Ibsen
+ever did.
+
+So with infinite deviousness Chitterlow came at last to his play. He
+decided he would not read it to Kipps, but tell him about it. This was
+the simpler because much of it was still unwritten. He began to explain
+his plot. It was a complicated plot and all about a nobleman who had
+seen everything and done everything and knew practically all that
+Chitterlow knew about women; that is to say, "all about women" and
+suchlike matters. It warmed and excited Chitterlow. Presently he stood
+up to act a situation--which could not be explained. It was an extremely
+vivid situation.
+
+Kipps applauded the situation vehemently. "Tha's dam' fine," said the
+new dramatic critic, quite familiar with his part now, striking the
+table with his fist and almost upsetting his third portion (in the
+second series) of old Methusaleh. "Tha's dam' fine, Chit'low!"
+
+"You see it?" said Chitterlow, with the last vestiges of that incidental
+gloom disappearing. "Good, old boy! I thought you'd see it. But it's
+just the sort of thing the literary critic can't see. However, it's only
+a beginning----"
+
+He replenished Kipps and proceeded with his exposition.
+
+In a little while it was no longer necessary to give that
+over-advertised Ibsen the purely conventional precedence he had hitherto
+had. Kipps and Chitterlow were friends and they could speak frankly and
+openly of things not usually admitted. "Any 'ow," said Kipps, a little
+irrelevantly and speaking over the brim of the replenishment, "what you
+read jus' now was dam' fine. Nothing can't alter that."
+
+He perceived a sort of faint, buzzing vibration about things that was
+very nice and pleasant and with a little care he had no difficulty
+whatever in putting his glass back on the table. Then he perceived
+Chitterlow was going on with the scenario, and then that old Methusaleh
+had almost entirely left his bottle. He was glad there was so little
+more Methusaleh to drink because that would prevent his getting drunk.
+He knew that he was not now drunk, but he knew that he had had enough.
+He was one of those who always know when they have had enough. He tried
+to interrupt Chitterlow to tell him this, but he could not get a
+suitable opening. He doubted whether Chitterlow might not be one of
+those people who did not know when they had had enough. He discovered
+that he disapproved of Chitterlow. Highly. It seemed to him that
+Chitterlow went on and on like a river. For a time he was inexplicably
+and quite unjustly cross with Chitterlow and wanted to say to him, "you
+got the gift of the gab," but he only got so far as to say "the gift,"
+and then Chitterlow thanked him and said he was better than Archer any
+day. So he eyed Chitterlow with a baleful eye until it dawned upon him
+that a most extraordinary thing was taking place. Chitterlow kept
+mentioning someone named Kipps. This presently began to perplex Kipps
+very greatly. Dimly but decidedly he perceived this was wrong.
+
+"Look 'ere," he said suddenly, "_what_ Kipps?"
+
+"This chap Kipps I'm telling you about."
+
+"What chap Kipps you're telling which about?"
+
+"I told you."
+
+Kipps struggled with a difficulty in silence for a space. Then he
+reiterated firmly, "_What_ chap Kipps?"
+
+"This chap in my play--man who kisses the girl."
+
+"Never kissed a girl," said Kipps; "leastwise----" and subsided for a
+space. He could not remember whether he had kissed Ann or not--he knew
+he had meant to. Then suddenly in a tone of great sadness and addressing
+the hearth he said, "_My_ name's Kipps."
+
+"Eh?" said Chitterlow.
+
+"Kipps," said Kipps, smiling a little cynically.
+
+"What about him?"
+
+"He's me." He tapped his breastbone with his middle finger to indicate
+his essential self.
+
+He leant forward very gravely towards Chitterlow. "Look 'ere, Chit'low,"
+he said, "you haven't no business putting my name into play. You
+mustn't do things like that. You'd lose me my crib, right away." And
+they had a little argument--so far as Kipps could remember. Chitterlow
+entered upon a general explanation of how he got his names. These, he
+had for the most part got out of a newspaper that was still, he
+believed, "lying about." He even made to look for it, and while he was
+doing so Kipps went on with the argument, addressing himself more
+particularly to the photograph of the girl in tights. He said that at
+first her costume had not commended her to him, but now he perceived she
+had an extremely sensible face. He told her she would like Buggins if
+she met him; he could see she was just that sort. She would admit, all
+sensible people would admit, that using names in plays was wrong. You
+could, for example, have the law of him.
+
+He became confidential. He explained that he was already in sufficient
+trouble for stopping out all night without having his name put in plays.
+He was certain to be in the deuce of a row, the deuce of a row. Why had
+he done it? Why hadn't he gone at ten? Because one thing leads to
+another. One thing, he generalized, always does lead to another....
+
+He was trying to tell her that he was utterly unworthy of Miss
+Walshingham, when Chitterlow gave up the search and suddenly accused him
+of being drunk and talking "Rot----."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+"SWAPPED"
+
+
+Sec.1
+
+He awoke on the thoroughly comfortable sofa that had had all its springs
+removed, and although he had certainly not been intoxicated, he awoke
+with what Chitterlow pronounced to be, quite indisputably, a Head and a
+Mouth. He had slept in his clothes and he felt stiff and uncomfortable
+all over, but the head and mouth insisted that he must not bother over
+little things like that. In the head was one large, angular idea that it
+was physically painful to have there. If he moved his head the angular
+idea shifted about in the most agonising way. This idea was that he had
+lost his situation and was utterly ruined and that it really mattered
+very little. Shalford was certain to hear of his escapade, and that
+coupled with that row about the Manchester window----!
+
+He raised himself into a sitting position under Chitterlow's urgent
+encouragement.
+
+He submitted apathetically to his host's attentions. Chitterlow, who
+admitted being a "bit off it" himself and in need of an egg-cupful of
+brandy, just an egg-cupful neat, dealt with that Head and Mouth as a
+mother might deal with the fall of an only child. He compared it with
+other Heads and Mouths that he had met, and in particular to certain
+experienced by the Hon. Thomas Norgate. "Right up to the last," said
+Chitterlow, "he couldn't stand his liquor. It happens like that at
+times." And after Chitterlow had pumped on the young beginner's head and
+given him some anchovy paste piping hot on buttered toast, which he
+preferred to all the other remedies he had encountered, Kipps resumed
+his crumpled collar, brushed his clothes, tacked up his knee, and
+prepared to face Mr. Shalford and the reckoning for this wild,
+unprecedented night, the first "night out" that ever he had taken.
+
+Acting on Chitterlow's advice to have a bit of a freshener before
+returning to the Emporium, Kipps walked some way along the Leas and back
+and then went down to a shop near the Harbour to get a cup of coffee. He
+found that extremely reinvigorating, and he went on up the High Street
+to face the inevitable terrors of the office, a faint touch of pride in
+his depravity tempering his extreme self-abasement. After all, it was
+not an unmanly headache; he had been out all night, and he had been
+drinking and his physical disorder was there to witness the fact. If it
+wasn't for the thought of Shalford he would have been even a proud man
+to discover himself at last in such a condition. But the thought of
+Shalford was very dreadful. He met two of the apprentices snatching a
+walk before shop began. At the sight of them he pulled his spirits
+together, put his hat back from his pallid brow, thrust his hands into
+his trouser pockets and adopted an altogether more dissipated carriage;
+he met their innocent faces with a wan smile. Just for a moment he was
+glad that his patch at the knee was, after all, visible and that some at
+least of the mud on his clothes had refused to move at Chitterlow's
+brushing. What wouldn't they think he had been up to? He passed them
+without speaking. He could imagine how they regarded his back. Then he
+recollected Mr. Shalford....
+
+The deuce of a row certainly and perhaps----! He tried to think of
+plausible versions of the affair. He could explain he had been run down
+by rather a wild sort of fellow who was riding a bicycle, almost stunned
+for the moment (even now he felt the effects of the concussion in his
+head) and had been given whiskey to restore him, and "the fact is,
+sir"--with an upward inflection of the voice, an upward inflection of
+the eyebrows and an air of its being the last thing one would have
+expected whiskey to do, the manifestation indeed of a practically unique
+physiological weakness--"it got into my _'ed_!"
+
+Put like that it didn't look so bad.
+
+He got to the Emporium a little before eight and the housekeeper with
+whom he was something of a favourite ("There's no harm in Mr. Kipps,"
+she used to say) seemed to like him if anything better for having broken
+the rules and gave him a piece of dry toast and a good hot cup of tea.
+
+"I suppose the G. V.----" began Kipps.
+
+"He knows," said the housekeeper.
+
+He went down to shop a little before time, and presently Booch summoned
+him to the presence.
+
+He emerged from the private office after an interval of ten minutes.
+
+The junior clerk scrutinised his visage. Buggins put the frank question.
+
+Kipps answered with one word.
+
+"Swapped!" said Kipps.
+
+
+Sec.2
+
+Kipps leant against the fixtures with his hands in his pockets and
+talked to the two apprentices under him.
+
+"I don't care if I _am_ swapped," said Kipps. "I been sick of Teddy and
+his System some time. I was a good mind to chuck it when my time was up.
+Wish I 'ad now."
+
+Afterwards Pierce came round and Kipps repeated this.
+
+"What's it for?" said Pierce. "That row about the window tickets?"
+
+"No fear!" said Kipps and sought to convey a perspective of splendid
+depravity. "I wasn't in las' night," he said and made even Pierce, "man
+about town" Pierce, open his eyes.
+
+"Why! where did you get to?" asked Pierce.
+
+He conveyed that he had been "fair round the town." "With a Nactor chap,
+I know."
+
+"One can't _always_ be living like a curit," he said.
+
+"No fear," said Pierce, trying to play up to him.
+
+But Kipps had the top place in that conversation.
+
+"My Lor'!" said Kipps, when Pierce had gone, "but wasn't my mouth and
+'ed bad this morning before I 'ad a pick-me-up!"
+
+"Whad jer 'ave?"
+
+"Anchovy on 'ot buttered toast. It's the very best pick-me-up there is.
+You trust me, Rodgers. I never take no other and I don't advise you to.
+See?"
+
+And when pressed for further particulars, he said again he had been
+"fair all _round_ the town, with a Nactor chap" he knew. They asked
+curiously all he had done and he said, "Well, what do _you_ think?" And
+when they pressed for still further details he said there were things
+little boys ought not to know and laughed darkly and found them some
+huckaback to roll.
+
+And in this manner for a space did Kipps fend off the contemplation of
+the "key of the street" that Shalford had presented him.
+
+
+Sec.3
+
+This sort of thing was all very well when junior apprentices were about,
+but when Kipps was alone with himself it served him not at all. He was
+uncomfortable inside and his skin was uncomfortable, and Head and Mouth
+palliated perhaps, but certainly not cured, were still with him. He
+felt, to tell the truth, nasty and dirty and extremely disgusted with
+himself. To work was dreadful and to stand still and think still more
+dreadful. His patched knee reproached him. These were the second best of
+his three pairs of trousers, and they had cost him thirteen and
+sixpence. Practically ruined they were. His dusting pair was unfit for
+shop and he would have to degrade his best. When he was under inspection
+he affected the slouch of a desperado, but directly he found himself
+alone, this passed insensibly into the droop.
+
+The financial aspect of things grew large before him. His whole capital
+in the world was the sum of five pounds in the Post Office Savings Bank
+and four and sixpence cash. Besides there would be two months' screw.
+His little tin box upstairs was no longer big enough for his belongings;
+he would have to buy another, let alone that it was not calculated to
+make a good impression in a new "crib." Then there would be paper and
+stamps needed in some abundance for answering advertisements and railway
+fares when he went "crib hunting." He would have to write letters, and
+he never wrote letters. There was spelling for example to consider.
+Probably if nothing turned up before his month was up he would have to
+go home to his Uncle and Aunt.
+
+How would they take it?...
+
+For the present at any rate he resolved not to write to them.
+
+Such disagreeable things as this it was that lurked below the fair
+surface of Kipps' assertion, "I've been wanting a chance. If 'e 'adn't
+swapped me, I should very likely 'ave swapped _'im_."
+
+In the perplexed privacies of his own mind he could not understand how
+everything had happened. He had been the Victim of Fate, or at least of
+one as inexorable--Chitterlow. He tried to recall the successive steps
+that had culminated so disastrously. They were difficult to recall....
+
+Buggins that night abounded in counsel and reminiscence.
+
+"Curious thing," said Buggins, "but every time I've had the swap I've
+never believed I should get another Crib--never. But I have," said
+Buggins. "Always. So don't lose heart, whatever you do....
+
+"Whatever you do," said Buggins, "keep hold of your collars and
+cuffs--shirts if you can, but collars anyhow. Spout them last. And
+anyhow, it's summer!--you won't want your coat.... You got a good
+umbrella....
+
+"You'll no more get a shop from New Romney, than--anything. Go straight
+up to London, get the cheapest room you can find--and hang out. Don't
+eat too much. Many a chap's put his prospects in his stomach. Get a cup
+o' coffee and a slice--egg if you like--but remember you got to turn up
+at the Warehouse tidy. The best places _now_, I believe, are the old
+cabmen's eating houses. Keep your watch and chain as long as you can....
+
+"There's lots of shops going," said Buggins. "Lots!"
+
+And added reflectively, "But not this time of year perhaps."
+
+He began to recall his own researches. "'Stonishing lot of chaps you
+see," he said. "All sorts. Look like Dukes some of 'em. High hat. Patent
+boots. Frock coat. All there. All right for a West End crib.
+Others--Lord! It's a caution, Kipps. Boots been inked in some reading
+rooms--_I_ used to write in a Reading Room in Fleet Street, regular
+penny club--hat been wetted, collar frayed, tail coat buttoned up, black
+chest-plaster tie--spread out. Shirt, you know, gone----" Buggins
+pointed upward with a pious expression.
+
+"No shirt, I expect?"
+
+"Eat it," said Buggins.
+
+Kipps meditated. "I wonder where old Merton is," he said at last. "I
+often wondered about 'im."
+
+
+Sec.4
+
+It was the morning following Kipps' notice of dismissal that Miss
+Walshingham came into the shop. She came in with a dark, slender lady,
+rather faded, rather tightly dressed, whom Kipps was to know some day as
+her mother. He discovered them in the main shop at the counter of the
+ribbon department. He had come to the opposite glove counter with some
+goods enclosed in a parcel that he had unpacked in his own department.
+The two ladies were both bent over a box of black ribbon.
+
+He had a moment of tumultuous hesitations. The etiquette of the
+situation was incomprehensible. He put down his goods very quietly and
+stood hands on counter, staring at these two ladies. Then, as Miss
+Walshingham sat back, the instinct of flight seized him....
+
+He returned to his Manchester shop wildly agitated. Directly he was out
+of sight of her he wanted to see her. He fretted up and down the
+counter, and addressed some snappish remarks to the apprentice in the
+window. He fumbled for a moment with a parcel, untied it needlessly,
+began to tie it up again and then bolted back again into the main shop.
+He could hear his own heart beating.
+
+The two ladies were standing in the manner of those who have completed
+their purchases and are waiting for their change. Mrs. Walshingham
+regarded some remnants with impersonal interest; Helen's eyes searched
+the shop. They distinctly lit up when they discovered Kipps.
+
+He dropped his hands to the counter by habit and stood for a moment
+regarding her awkwardly. What would she do? Would she cut him? She came
+across the shop to him.
+
+"How are _you_, Mr. Kipps?" she said, in her clear, distinct tones, and
+she held out her hand.
+
+"Very well, thank you," said Kipps; "how are you?"
+
+She said she had been buying some ribbon.
+
+He became aware of Mrs. Walshingham very much surprised. This checked
+something allusive about the class and he said instead that he supposed
+she was glad to be having her holidays now. She said she was, it gave
+her more time for reading and that sort of thing. He supposed that she
+would be going abroad and she thought that perhaps they _would_ go to
+Knocke or Bruges for a time.
+
+Then came a pause and Kipps' soul surged within him. He wanted to tell
+her he was leaving and would never see her again. He could find neither
+words nor voice to say it. The swift seconds passed. The girl in the
+ribbons was handing Mrs. Walshingham her change. "Well," said Miss
+Walshingham, "Good-bye," and gave him her hand again.
+
+Kipps bowed over her hand. His manners, his counter manners, were the
+easiest she had ever seen upon him. She turned to her mother. It was no
+good now, no good. Her mother! You couldn't say a thing like that before
+her mother! All was lost but politeness. Kipps rushed for the door. He
+stood at the door bowing with infinite gravity, and she smiled and
+nodded as she went out. She saw nothing of the struggle within him,
+nothing but a satisfactory emotion. She smiled like a satisfied goddess
+as the incense ascends.
+
+Mrs. Walshingham bowed stiffly and a little awkwardly.
+
+He remained holding the door open for some seconds after they had passed
+out, then rushed suddenly to the back of the "costume" window to watch
+them go down the street. His hands tightened on the window rack as he
+stared. Her mother appeared to be asking discreet questions. Helen's
+bearing suggested the off-hand replies of a person who found the world a
+satisfactory place to live in. "Really, Mumsie, you cannot expect me to
+cut my own students dead," she was in fact saying....
+
+They vanished round Henderson's corner.
+
+Gone! And he would never see her again--never!
+
+It was as though someone had struck his heart with a whip. Never! Never!
+Never! And she didn't know! He turned back from the window and the
+department with its two apprentices was impossible. The whole glaring
+world was insupportable.
+
+He hesitated and made a rush head down for the cellar that was his
+Manchester warehouse. Rodgers asked him a question that he pretended not
+to hear.
+
+The Manchester warehouse was a small cellar apart from the general
+basement of the building and dimly lit by a small gas flare. He did not
+turn that up, but rushed for the darkest corner, where on the lowest
+shelf the sale window tickets were stored. He drew out the box of these
+with trembling hands and upset them on the floor, and so having made
+himself a justifiable excuse for being on the ground, with his head well
+in the dark, he could let his poor bursting little heart have its way
+with him for a space.
+
+And there he remained until the cry of "Kipps! Forward!" summoned him
+once more to face the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE UNEXPECTED
+
+
+Sec.1
+
+Now in the slack of that same day, after the midday dinner and before
+the coming of the afternoon customers, this disastrous Chitterlow
+descended upon Kipps with the most amazing coincidence in the world. He
+did not call formally, entering and demanding Kipps, but privately, in a
+confidential and mysterious manner.
+
+Kipps was first aware of him as a dark object bobbing about excitedly
+outside the hosiery window. He was stooping and craning and peering in
+the endeavour to see into the interior between and over the socks and
+stockings. Then he transferred his attention to the door, and after a
+hovering scrutiny, tried the baby-linen display. His movements and
+gestures suggested a suppressed excitement.
+
+Seen by daylight, Chitterlow was not nearly such a magnificent figure as
+he had been by the subdued nocturnal lightings and beneath the glamour
+of his own interpretation. The lines were the same indeed, but the
+texture was different. There was a quality about the yachting cap, an
+indefinable finality of dustiness, a shiny finish on all the salient
+surfaces of the reefer coat. The red hair and the profile, though still
+forcible and fine, were less in the quality of Michael Angelo and more
+in that of the merely picturesque. But it was a bright brown eye still
+that sought amidst the interstices of the baby-linen.
+
+Kipps was by no means anxious to interview Chitterlow again. If he had
+felt sure that Chitterlow would not enter the shop he would have hid in
+the warehouse until the danger was past, but he had no idea of
+Chitterlow's limitations. He decided to keep up the shop in the shadows
+until Chitterlow reached the side window of the Manchester department
+and then to go outside as if to inspect the condition of the window and
+explain to him that things were unfavourable to immediate intercourse.
+He might tell him he had already lost his situation....
+
+"Ullo, Chit'low," he said, emerging.
+
+"Very man I want to see," said Chitterlow, shaking with vigour. "Very
+man I want to see." He laid a hand on Kipps' arm. "How _old_ are you,
+Kipps?"
+
+"One and twenty," said Kipps. "Why?"
+
+"Talk about coincidences! And your name now? Wait a minute." He held out
+a finger. "_Is_ it Arthur?"
+
+"Yes," said Kipps.
+
+"You're the man," said Chitterlow.
+
+"What man?"
+
+"It's about the thickest coincidence I ever struck," said Chitterlow,
+plunging his extensive hand into his breast coat pocket. "Half a jiff
+and I'll tell you your mother's Christian name." He laughed and
+struggled with his coat for a space, produced a washing book and two
+pencils, which he deposited in his side pocket; then in one capacious
+handful, a bent but by no means finally disabled cigar, the rubber
+proboscis of a bicycle pump, some twine and a lady's purse, and finally
+a small pocket book, and from this, after dropping and recovering
+several visiting cards, he extracted a carelessly torn piece of
+newspaper. "Euphemia," he read and brought his face close to Kipps'.
+"Eh?" He laughed noisily. "It's about as fair a Bit of All Right as
+anyone _could_ have--outside a coincidence play. Don't say her name
+wasn't Euphemia, Kipps, and spoil the whole blessed show."
+
+"Whose name--Euphemia?" asked Kipps.
+
+"Your mother's."
+
+"Lemme see what it says on the paper."
+
+Chitterlow handed him the fragment and turned away. "You may say what
+you like," he said, addressing a vast, deep laugh to the street
+generally.
+
+Kipps attempted to read. "'WADDY or KIPPS. If Arthur Waddy or Arthur
+Kipps, the son of Margaret Euphemia Kipps, who----'"
+
+Chitterlow's finger swept over the print. "I went down the column and
+every blessed name that seemed to fit my play I took. I don't believe in
+made-up names. As I told you. I'm all with Zola in that. Documents
+whenever you can. I like 'em hot and real. See? Who was Waddy?"
+
+"Never heard his name."
+
+"Not Waddy?"
+
+"No!"
+
+Kipps tried to read again and abandoned the attempt. "What does it
+mean?" he said. "I don't understand."
+
+"It means," said Chitterlow, with a momentary note of lucid exposition,
+"so far as I can make out that you're going to strike it Rich. Never
+mind about the Waddy--that's a detail. What does it usually mean? You'll
+hear of something to your advantage--very well. I took that newspaper up
+to get my names by the merest chance. Directly I saw it again and read
+that--I knew it was you. I believe in coincidences. People say they
+don't happen. _I_ say they do. Everything's a coincidence. Seen
+properly. Here you are. Here's one! Incredible? Not a bit of it! See?
+It's you! Kipps! Waddy be damned! It's a Mascot. There's luck in my
+play. Bif! You're there. _I'm_ there. Fair _in_ it! Snap!" And he
+discharged his fingers like a pistol. "Never you mind about the
+'Waddy.'"
+
+"Eh?" said Kipps, with a nervous eye on Chitterlow's fingers.
+
+"You're all right," said Chitterlow; "you may bet the seat of your only
+breeches on that! Don't you worry about the Waddy--that's as clear as
+day. You're about as right side up as a billiard ball--whatever you do.
+Don't stand there gaping, man! Read the paper if you don't believe me.
+Read it!"
+
+He shook it under Kipps' nose.
+
+Kipps became aware of the second apprentice watching them from the shop.
+His air of perplexity gave place to a more confident bearing.
+
+"'---- who was born at East Grinstead.' I certainly was born there. I've
+'eard my Aunt say----"
+
+"I knew it," said Chitterlow, taking hold of one edge of the paper and
+bringing his face close alongside Kipps'.
+
+"'----on September the first, eighteen hundred and seventy-eight----'"
+
+"_That's_ all right," said Chitterlow. "It's all, all right, and all you
+have to do is write to Watson and Bean and get it----"
+
+"Get what?"
+
+"Whatever it is."
+
+Kipps sought his moustache. "You'd write?" he asked.
+
+"Ra-ther."
+
+"But what d'you think it is?"
+
+"That's the fun of it!" said Chitterlow, taking three steps in some as
+yet uninvented dance. "That's where the joke comes in. It may be
+anything--it may be a million. If so! Where does little Harry come in?
+Eh?"
+
+Kipps was trembling slightly. "But----" he said, and thought. "If you
+was me----" he began. "About that Waddy----?"
+
+He glanced up and saw the second apprentice disappear with amazing
+swiftness from behind the goods in the window.
+
+"_What?_" asked Chitterlow, but he never had an answer.
+
+"Lor'! There's the guv'nor!" said Kipps, and made a prompt dive for the
+door.
+
+He dashed in only to discover that Shalford, with the junior apprentice
+in attendance, had come to mark off remnants of Kipps' cotton dresses
+and was demanding him. "Hullo, Kipps," he said, "outside----?"
+
+"Seein' if the window was straight, Sir," said Kipps.
+
+"Umph!" said Shalford.
+
+For a space Kipps was too busily employed to think at all of Chitterlow
+or the crumpled bit of paper in his trouser pocket. He was, however,
+painfully aware of a suddenly disconcerted excitement at large in the
+street. There came one awful moment when Chitterlow's nose loomed
+interrogatively over the ground glass of the department door, and his
+bright, little, red-brown eye sought for the reason of Kipps'
+disappearance, and then it became evident that he saw the high light of
+Shalford's baldness and grasped the situation and went away. And then
+Kipps (with that advertisement in his pocket) was able to come back to
+the business in hand.
+
+He became aware that Shalford had asked a question. "Yessir, nosir,
+rightsir. I'm sorting up zephyrs to-morrow, Sir," said Kipps.
+
+Presently he had a moment to himself again, and, taking up a safe
+position behind a newly unpacked pile of summer lace curtains, he
+straightened out the piece of paper and reperused it. It was a little
+perplexing. That "Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps"--did that imply two
+persons or one? He would ask Pierce or Buggins. Only----
+
+It had always been impressed upon him that there was something demanding
+secrecy about his mother.
+
+"Don't you answer no questions about your mother," his aunt had been
+wont to say. "Tell them you don't know, whatever it is they ask you."
+
+"Now this----?"
+
+Kipps' face became portentously careful and he tugged at his moustache,
+such as it was, hard.
+
+He had always represented his father as being a "gentleman farmer." "It
+didn't pay," he used to say with a picture in his own mind of a penny
+magazine aristocrat prematurely worn out by worry. "I'm a Norfan, both
+sides," he would explain, with the air of one who had seen trouble. He
+said he lived with his uncle and aunt, but he did not say that they kept
+a toy shop, and to tell anyone that his uncle had been a butler--_a
+servant!_--would have seemed the maddest of indiscretions. Almost all
+the assistants in the Emporium were equally reticent and vague, so great
+is their horror of "Lowness" of any sort. To ask about this "Waddy or
+Kipps" would upset all these little fictions. He was not, as a matter of
+fact, perfectly clear about his real status in the world (he was not,
+as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about anything), but he knew that
+there was a quality about his status that was--detrimental.
+
+Under the circumstances----?
+
+It occurred to him that it would save a lot of trouble to destroy the
+advertisement there and then.
+
+In which case he would have to explain to Chitterlow!
+
+"Eng!" said Mr. Kipps.
+
+"Kipps," cried Carshot, who was shopwalking; "Kipps, Forward!"
+
+He thrust back the crumpled paper into his pocket and sallied forth to
+the customers.
+
+"I want," said the customer, looking vaguely about her through glasses,
+"a little bit of something to cover a little stool I have. Anything
+would do--a remnant or anything----"
+
+The matter of the advertisement remained in abeyance for half an hour,
+and at the end the little stool was still a candidate for covering and
+Kipps had a thoroughly representative collection of the textile fabrics
+in his department to clear away. He was so angry about the little stool
+that the crumpled advertisement lay for a space in his pocket,
+absolutely forgotten.
+
+
+Sec.2
+
+Kipps sat on his tin box under the gas bracket that evening, and looked
+up the name Euphemia and learnt what it meant in the "Enquire Within
+About Everything" that constituted Buggins' reference library. He hoped
+Buggins, according to his habit, would ask him what he was looking for,
+but Buggins was busy turning out his week's washing. "Two collars," said
+Buggins, "half pair socks, two dickeys. Shirt?... M'm. There ought to be
+another collar somewhere."
+
+"Euphemia," said Kipps at last, unable altogether to keep to himself
+this suspicion of a high origin that floated so delightfully about him,
+"Eu--phemia; it isn't a name _common_ people would give to a girl, is
+it?"
+
+"It isn't the name any decent people would give to a girl," said
+Buggins, "----common or not."
+
+"Lor'!" said Kipps. "Why?"
+
+"It's giving girls names like that," said Buggins, "that nine times out
+of ten makes 'em go wrong. It unsettles 'em. If ever I was to have a
+girl, if ever I was to have a dozen girls, I'd call 'em all Jane. Every
+one of 'em. You couldn't have a better name than that. Euphemia indeed!
+What next?... Good Lord!... That isn't one of my collars there, is it?
+under your bed?"...
+
+Kipps got him the collar.
+
+"I don't see no great 'arm in Euphemia," he said as he did so.
+
+After that he became restless. "I'm a good mind to write that letter,"
+he said, and then, finding Buggins preoccupied wrapping his washing up
+in the "half sox," added to himself, "a thundering good mind."
+
+So he got his penny bottle of ink, borrowed the pen from Buggins and
+with no very serious difficulty in spelling or composition, did as he
+had resolved.
+
+He came back into the bedroom about an hour afterwards a little out of
+breath and pale. "Where you been?" said Buggins, who was now reading the
+_Daily World Manager_, which came to him in rotation from Carshot.
+
+"Out to post some letters," said Kipps, hanging up his hat.
+
+"Crib hunting?"
+
+"Mostly," said Kipps.
+
+"Rather," he added, with a nervous laugh; "what else?"
+
+Buggins went on reading. Kipps sat on his bed and regarded the back of
+the _Daily World Manager_ thoughtfully.
+
+"Buggins," he said at last.
+
+Buggins lowered his paper and looked.
+
+"I say, Buggins, what do these here advertisements mean that say
+so-and-so will hear of something greatly to his advantage?"
+
+"Missin' people," said Buggins, making to resume reading.
+
+"How d'yer mean?" asked Kipps. "Money left and that sort of thing?"
+
+Buggins shook his head. "Debts," he said, "more often than not."
+
+"But that ain't to his advantage."
+
+"They put that to get 'old of 'em," said Buggins. "Often it's wives."
+
+"What you mean?"
+
+"Deserted wives, try and get their husbands back that way."
+
+"I suppose it _is_ legacies sometimes, eh? Perhaps if someone was left a
+hundred pounds by someone----"
+
+"Hardly ever," said Buggins.
+
+"Well, 'ow----?" began Kipps and hesitated.
+
+Buggins resumed reading. He was very much excited by a leader on Indian
+affairs. "By Jove!" he said, "it won't do to give these here Blacks
+votes."
+
+"No fear," said Kipps.
+
+"They're different altogether," said Buggins. "They 'aven't the sound
+sense of Englishmen, and they 'aven't the character. There's a sort of
+tricky dishonesty about 'em--false witness and all that--of which an
+Englishman has no idea. Outside their courts of law--it's a pos'tive
+fact, Kipps--there's witnesses waitin' to be 'ired. Reg'lar trade. Touch
+their 'ats as you go in. Englishmen 'ave no idea, I tell you--not
+ord'nary Englishmen. It's in their blood. They're too timid to be
+honest. Too slavish. They aren't used to being free like we are, and if
+you gave 'em freedom they wouldn't make a proper use of it. Now
+_we_----. Oh, _Damn_!"
+
+For the gas had suddenly gone out and Buggins had the whole column of
+Society Club Chat still to read.
+
+Buggins could talk of nothing after that but Shalford's meanness in
+turning off the gas, and after being extremely satirical indeed about
+their employer, undressed in the dark, hit his bare toe against a box
+and subsided after unseemly ejaculations into silent ill-temper.
+
+Though Kipps tried to get to sleep before the affair of the letter he
+had just posted resumed possession of his mind he could not do so. He
+went over the whole thing again, quite exhaustively. Now that his first
+terror was abating he couldn't quite determine whether he was glad or
+sorry that he had posted that letter. If it _should_ happen to be a
+hundred pounds!
+
+It _must_ be a hundred pounds!
+
+If it was he could hold out for a year, for a couple of years even,
+before he got a Crib.
+
+Even if it was fifty pounds----!
+
+Buggins was already breathing regularly when Kipps spoke again.
+"_Bug_-gins," he said.
+
+Buggins pretended to be asleep, and thickened his regular breathing (a
+little too hastily) to a snore.
+
+"I say Buggins," said Kipps after an interval.
+
+"_What's_ up now?" said Buggins unamiably.
+
+"'Spose _you_ saw an advertisement in a paper, with your name in it,
+see, asking you to come and see someone, like, so as to hear of
+something very much to your----"
+
+"Hide," said Buggins shortly.
+
+"But----"
+
+"I'd hide."
+
+"Er?"
+
+"Goonight, o' man," said Buggins, with convincing earnestness. Kipps lay
+still for a long time, then blew profoundly, turned over and stared at
+the other side of the dark.
+
+He had been a fool to post that letter!
+
+Lord! _Hadn't_ he been a fool!
+
+
+Sec.3
+
+It was just five days and a half after the light had been turned out
+while Buggins was reading, that a young man with a white face and eyes
+bright and wide-open, emerged from a side road upon the Leas front. He
+was dressed in his best clothes, and, although the weather was fine, he
+carried his umbrella, just as if he had been to church. He hesitated and
+turned to the right. He scanned each house narrowly as he passed it, and
+presently came to an abrupt stop. "Hughenden," said the gateposts in
+firm, black letters, and the fanlight in gold repeated "Hughenden." It
+was a stucco house fit to take your breath away, and its balcony was
+painted a beautiful sea-green, enlivened with gilding. He stood looking
+up at it.
+
+"Gollys!" he said at last in an awestricken whisper.
+
+It had rich-looking crimson curtains to all the lower windows and brass
+railed blinds above. There was a splendid tropical plant in a large,
+artistic pot in the drawing-room window. There was a splendid bronzed
+knocker (ring also) and two bells--one marked "servants." Gollys!
+_Servants_, eh?
+
+He walked past away from it, with his eyes regarding it, and then turned
+and came back. He passed through a further indecision, and finally
+drifted away to the sea front and sat down on a seat a little way along
+the Leas and put his arm over the back and regarded "Hughenden." He
+whistled an air very softly to himself, put his head first on one side
+and then on the other. Then for a space he scowled fixedly at it.
+
+A very stout old gentleman, with a very red face and very protuberant
+eyes, sat down beside Kipps, removed a Panama hat of the most abandoned
+desperado cut, and mopped his brow and blew. Then he began mopping the
+inside of his hat. Kipps watched him for a space, wondering how much he
+might have a year, and where he bought his hat. Then "Hughenden"
+reasserted itself.
+
+An impulse overwhelmed him. "I say," he said, leaning forward, to the
+old gentleman.
+
+The old gentleman started and stared.
+
+"_Whad_ do you say?" he asked fiercely.
+
+"You wouldn't think," said Kipps, indicating with his forefinger, "that
+that 'ouse there belongs to me."
+
+The old gentleman twisted his neck round to look at "Hughenden." Then he
+came back to Kipps, looked at his mean, little garments with apoplectic
+intensity and blew at him by way of reply.
+
+"It does," said Kipps, a little less confidently.
+
+"Don't be a Fool," said the old gentleman, and put his hat on and wiped
+out the corners of his eyes. "It's hot enough," panted the old gentleman
+indignantly, "without Fools." Kipps looked from the old gentleman to the
+house and back to the old gentleman. The old gentleman looked at Kipps
+and snorted and looked out to sea, and again, snorting very
+contemptuously, at Kipps.
+
+"Mean to say it doesn't belong to me?" said Kipps.
+
+The old gentleman just glanced over his shoulder at the house in dispute
+and then fell to pretending Kipps didn't exist. "It's been lef' me this
+very morning," said Kipps. "It ain't the only one that's been lef' me,
+neither."
+
+"Aw!" said the old gentleman, like one who is sorely tried. He seemed to
+expect the passers-by presently to remove Kipps.
+
+"It _'as_," said Kipps. He made no further remark to the old gentleman
+for a space, but looked with a little less certitude at the house....
+
+"I got----" he said and stopped.
+
+"It's no good telling you if you don't believe," he said.
+
+The old gentleman, after a struggle with himself, decided not to have a
+fit. "Try that game on with me," he panted. "Give you in charge."
+
+"What game?"
+
+"Wasn't born yesterday," said the old gentleman, and blew. "Besides," he
+added, "_look_ at you! I know you," and the old gentleman coughed
+shortly and nodded to the horizon and coughed again.
+
+Kipps looked dubiously from the house to the old gentleman and back to
+the house. Their conversation, he gathered, was over. Presently he got
+up and went slowly across the grass to its stucco portal again. He stood
+and his mouth shaped the precious word, "Hughenden." It was all _right_!
+He looked over his shoulder as if in appeal to the old gentleman, then
+turned and went his way. The old gentleman was so evidently past all
+reason!
+
+He hung for a moment some distance along the parade, as though some
+invisible string was pulling him back. When he could no longer see the
+house from the pavement he went out into the road. Then with an effort
+he snapped the string.
+
+He went on down a quiet side street, unbuttoned his coat furtively, took
+out three bank notes in an envelope, looked at them and replaced them.
+Then he fished up five new sovereigns from his trouser pocket and
+examined them. To such a confidence had his exact resemblance to his
+dead mother's portrait carried Messrs. Watson and Bean.
+
+It was right enough.
+
+It really was _all_ right.
+
+He replaced the coins with grave precaution and went his way with a
+sudden briskness. It was all right--he had it now--he was a rich man at
+large. He went up a street and round a corner and along another street,
+and started towards the Pavilion and changed his mind and came round
+back, resolved to go straight to the Emporium and tell them all.
+
+He was aware of someone crossing a road far off ahead of him, someone
+curiously relevant to his present extraordinary state of mind. It was
+Chitterlow. Of course it was Chitterlow who had told him first of the
+whole thing! The playwright was marching buoyantly along a cross street.
+His nose was in the air, the yachting cap was on the back of his head
+and the large freckled hand grasped two novels from the library, a
+morning newspaper, a new hat done up in paper and a lady's net bag full
+of onions and tomatoes....
+
+He passed out of sight behind the wine merchant's at the corner, as
+Kipps decided to hurry forward and tell him of the amazing change in the
+Order of the Universe that had just occurred.
+
+Kipps uttered a feeble shout, arrested as it began, and waved his
+umbrella. Then he set off at a smart pace in pursuit. He came round the
+corner and Chitterlow had gone; he hurried to the next and there was no
+Chitterlow, he turned back unavailingly and his eyes sought some other
+possible corner. His hand fluttered to his mouth and he stood for a
+space at the pavement edge, staring about him. No good!
+
+But the sight of Chitterlow was a wholesome thing, it connected events
+together, joined him on again to the past at a new point, and that was
+what he so badly needed....
+
+It was all right--all right.
+
+He became suddenly very anxious to tell everybody at the Emporium,
+absolutely everybody, all about it. That was what wanted doing. He felt
+that telling was the thing to make this business real. He gripped his
+umbrella about the middle and walked very eagerly.
+
+He entered the Emporium through the Manchester department. He flung open
+the door (over whose ground glass he had so recently, in infinite
+apprehension, watched the nose of Chitterlow) and discovered the second
+apprentice and Pierce in conversation. Pierce was prodding his hollow
+tooth with a pin and talking in fragments about the distinctive
+characteristics of Good Style.
+
+Kipps came up in front of the counter.
+
+"I say," he said; "what d'yer think?"
+
+"What?" said Pierce over the pin.
+
+"Guess."
+
+"You've slipped out because Teddy's in London."
+
+"Something more."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Been left a fortune."
+
+"Garn!"
+
+"I 'ave."
+
+"Get out!"
+
+"Straight. I been lef' twelve 'undred pounds--twelve 'undred pounds a
+year!"
+
+He moved towards the little door out of the department into the house,
+moving, as heralds say, _regardant passant_. Pierce stood with mouth
+wide open and pin poised in air. "No!" he said at last.
+
+"It's right," said Kipps, "and I'm going."
+
+And he fell over the doormat into the house.
+
+
+Sec.4
+
+It happened that Mr. Shalford was in London buying summer sale
+goods--and no doubt also interviewing aspirants to succeed Kipps.
+
+So that there was positively nothing to hinder a wild rush of rumour
+from end to end of the Emporium. All the masculine members began their
+report with the same formula. "Heard about Kipps?"
+
+The new girl in the cash desk had had it from Pierce and had dashed out
+into the fancy shop to be the first with the news on the fancy side.
+Kipps had been left a thousand pounds a year, twelve thousand pounds a
+year. Kipps had been left twelve hundred thousand pounds. The figures
+were uncertain, but the essential facts they had correct. Kipps had gone
+upstairs. Kipps was packing his box. He said he wouldn't stop another
+day in the old Emporium, not for a thousand pounds! It was said that he
+was singing ribaldry about old Shalford.
+
+He had come down! He was in the counting house. There was a general
+movement thither. Poor old Buggins had a customer and couldn't make out
+what the deuce it was all about! Completely out of it was Buggins.
+
+There was a sound of running to and fro and voices saying this, that
+and the other thing about Kipps. Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger went the
+dinner bell all unheeded. The whole of the Emporium was suddenly
+bright-eyed, excited, hungry to tell somebody, to find at any cost
+somebody who didn't know and be first to tell them, "Kipps has been left
+thirty--forty--fifty thousand pounds!"
+
+"_What!_" cried the senior porter, "Him!" and ran up to the counting
+house as eagerly as though Kipps had broken his neck.
+
+"One of our chaps just been left sixty thousand pounds," said the first
+apprentice, returning after a great absence, to his customer.
+
+"Unexpectedly?" said the customer.
+
+"Quite," said the first apprentice....
+
+"I'm sure if Anyone deserves it, it's Mr. Kipps," said Miss Mergle, and
+her train rustled as she hurried to the counting house.
+
+There stood Kipps amidst a pelting shower of congratulations. His face
+was flushed and his hair disordered. He still clutched his hat and best
+umbrella in his left hand. His right hand was anyone's to shake rather
+than his own. (Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger ding, ding, ding, dang you!
+went the neglected dinner bell.)
+
+"Good old Kipps," said Pierce, shaking; "Good old Kipps."
+
+Booch rubbed one anaemic hand upon the other. "You're sure it's all
+right, Mr. Kipps," he said in the background.
+
+"I'm sure we all congratulate him," said Miss Mergle.
+
+"Great Scott!" said the new young lady in the glove department. "Twelve
+hundred a year! Great Scott! You aren't thinking of marrying anyone, are
+you, Mr. Kipps?"
+
+"Three pounds, five and ninepence a day," said Mr. Booch, working in his
+head almost miraculously....
+
+Everyone, it seemed, was saying how glad they were it was Kipps, except
+the junior apprentice, upon whom--he being the only son of a widow and
+used to having the best of everything as a right--an intolerable envy, a
+sense of unbearable wrong, had cast its gloomy shade. All the rest were
+quite honestly and simply glad--gladder perhaps at that time than Kipps
+because they were not so overpowered....
+
+Kipps went downstairs to dinner, emitting fragmentary, disconnected
+statements. "Never expected anything of the sort.... When this here old
+Bean told me, you could have knocked me down with a feather.... He says,
+'You b'en lef' money.' Even then I didn't expect it'd be mor'n a hundred
+pounds perhaps. Something like that."
+
+With the sitting down to dinner and the handing of plates the excitement
+assumed a more orderly quality. The housekeeper emitted congratulations
+as she carved and the maidservant became dangerous to clothes with the
+plates--she held them anyhow, one expected to see one upside down
+even--she found Kipps so fascinating to look at. Everyone was the
+brisker and hungrier for the news (except the junior apprentice) and the
+housekeeper carved with unusual liberality. It was High Old Times there
+under the gaslight, High Old Times. "I'm sure if Anyone deserves it,"
+said Miss Mergle--"pass the salt, please--it's Kipps."
+
+The babble died away a little as Carshot began barking across the table
+at Kipps. "You'll be a bit of a Swell, Kipps," he said. "You won't
+hardly know yourself."
+
+"Quite the gentleman," said Miss Mergle.
+
+"Many real gentlemen's families," said the housekeeper, "have to do with
+less."
+
+"See you on the Leas," said Carshot. "My gu--!" He met the housekeeper's
+eye. She had spoken about that before. "My eye!" he said tamely, lest
+words should mar the day.
+
+"You'll go to London, I reckon," said Pierce. "You'll be a man about
+town. We shall see you mashing 'em, with violets in your button'ole down
+the Burlington Arcade."
+
+"One of these West End Flats. That'd be my style," said Pierce. "And a
+first-class club."
+
+"Aren't these clubs a bit 'ard to get into?" asked Kipps, open-eyed,
+over a mouthful of potato.
+
+"No fear. Not for Money," said Pierce. And the girl in the laces who had
+acquired a cynical view of Modern Society from the fearless exposures
+of Miss Marie Corelli, said, "Money goes everywhere nowadays, Mr.
+Kipps."
+
+But Carshot showed the true British strain.
+
+"If I was Kipps," he said, pausing momentarily for a knifeful of gravy,
+"I should go to the Rockies and shoot bears."
+
+"I'd certainly 'ave a run over to Boulogne," said Pierce, "and look
+about a bit. I'm going to do that next Easter myself, anyhow--see if I
+don't."
+
+"Go to Oireland, Mr. Kipps," came the soft insistence of Biddy Murphy,
+who managed the big workroom, flushed and shining in the Irish way, as
+she spoke. "Go to Oireland. Ut's the loveliest country in the world.
+Outside Car-rs. Fishin', shootin', huntin'. An' pretty gals! Eh! You
+should see the Lakes of Killarney, Mr. Kipps!" And she expressed ecstasy
+by a facial pantomime and smacked her lips.
+
+And presently they crowned the event.
+
+It was Pierce who said, "Kipps, you ought to stand Sham!"
+
+And it was Carshot who found the more poetical word, "Champagne."
+
+"Rather!" said Kipps hilariously, and the rest was a question of detail
+and willing emissaries. "Here it comes!" they said as the apprentice
+came down the staircase. "How about the shop?" said someone. "Oh! _hang_
+the shop!" said Carshot and made gruntulous demands for a corkscrew with
+a thing to cut the wire. Pierce, the dog! had a wire cutter in his
+pocket knife. How Shalford would have stared at the gold tipped bottles
+if he had chanced to take an early train! Bang with the corks, and bang!
+Gluck, gluck, gluck, and sizzle!
+
+When Kipps found them all standing about him under the gas flare, saying
+almost solemnly "Kipps!" with tumblers upheld--"Have it in tumblers,"
+Carshot had said; "have it in tumblers. It isn't a wine like you have in
+glasses. Not like port and sherry. It cheers you up, but you don't get
+drunk. It isn't hardly stronger than lemonade. They drink it at dinner,
+some of 'em, every day."
+
+"What! At three and six a bottle!" said the housekeeper incredulously.
+
+"_They_ don't stick at _that_," said Carshot; "not the champagne sort."
+
+The housekeeper pursed her lips and shook her head....
+
+When Kipps, I say, found them all standing up to toast him in that
+manner, there came such a feeling in his throat and face that for the
+life of him he scarcely knew for a moment whether he was not going to
+cry. "Kipps!" they all said, with kindly eyes. It was very good of them,
+it was very good of them, and hard there wasn't a stroke of luck for
+them all!
+
+But the sight of upturned chins and glasses pulled him together
+again....
+
+They did him honour. Unenviously and freely they did him honour.
+
+For example, Carshot being subsequently engaged in serving cretonne and
+desiring to push a number of rejected blocks up the counter in order to
+have space for measuring, swept them by a powerful and ill-calculated
+movement of the arm, with a noise like thunder partly on to the floor
+and partly on to the foot of the still gloomily preoccupied junior
+apprentice. And Buggins, whose place it was to shopwalk while Carshot
+served, shopwalked with quite unparalleled dignity, dangling a new
+season's sunshade with a crooked handle on one finger. He arrested each
+customer who came down the shop with a grave and penetrating look.
+"Showing very 'tractive line new sheason's shun-shade," he would remark,
+and, after a suitable pause, "'Markable thing, one our 'sistant leg'sy
+twelve 'undred a year. V'ry 'tractive. Nothing more to-day, mum? No!"
+And he would then go and hold the door open for them with perfect
+decorum and with the sunshade dangling elegantly from his left hand....
+
+And the second apprentice, serving a customer with cheap ticking, and
+being asked suddenly if it was strong, answered remarkably,
+
+"Oo! _no_, mum! Strong! Why it ain't 'ardly stronger than lemonade...."
+
+The head porter, moreover, was filled with a virtuous resolve to break
+the record as a lightning packer and make up for lost time. Mr.
+Swaffenham, of the Sandgate Riviera, for example, who was going out to
+dinner that night at seven, received at half-past six, instead of the
+urgently needed dress shirt he expected, a corset specially adapted to
+the needs of persons inclined to embonpoint. A parcel of summer
+underclothing selected by the elder Miss Waldershawe, was somehow
+distributed in the form of gratis additions throughout a number of
+parcels of a less intimate nature, and a box of millinery on approval to
+Lady Pamshort (at Wampachs) was enriched by the addition of the junior
+porter's cap....
+
+These little things, slight in themselves, witness perhaps none the less
+eloquently to the unselfish exhilaration felt throughout the Emporium at
+the extraordinary and unexpected enrichment of Mr. Kipps.
+
+
+Sec.5
+
+The 'bus that plies between New Romney and Folkestone is painted a
+British red and inscribed on either side with the word "Tip-top" in gold
+amidst voluptuous scrolls. It is a slow and portly 'bus. Below it swings
+a sort of hold, hung by chains between the wheels, and in the summer
+time the top has garden seats. The front over the two dauntless
+unhurrying horses rises in tiers like a theatre; there is first a seat
+for the driver and his company, and above that a seat and above that,
+unless my memory plays me false, a seat. There are days when this 'bus
+goes and days when it doesn't go--you have to find out. And so you get
+to New Romney.
+
+This 'bus it was, this ruddy, venerable and immortal 'bus, that came
+down the Folkestone hill with unflinching deliberation, and trundled
+through Sandgate and Hythe, and out into the windy spaces of the Marsh,
+with Kipps and all his fortunes on its brow. You figure him there. He
+sat on the highest seat diametrically above the driver and his head was
+spinning and spinning with champagne and this stupendous Tomfoolery of
+Luck and his heart was swelling, swelling indeed at times as though it
+would burst him, and his face towards the sunlight was transfigured. He
+said never a word, but ever and again as he thought of this or that, he
+laughed. He seemed full of chuckles for a time, detached and independent
+chuckles, chuckles that rose and burst in him like bubbles in a wine....
+He held a banjo sceptre-fashion and restless on his knee. He had always
+wanted a banjo, and now he had got one at Malchior's while he was
+waiting for the 'bus.
+
+There sat beside him a young servant who was sucking peppermint and a
+little boy with a sniff, whose flitting eyes showed him curious to know
+why ever and again Kipps laughed, and beside the driver were two young
+men in gaiters talking about "tegs." And there sat Kipps, all
+unsuspected, twelve hundred a year, as it were, disguised as a common
+young man. And the young man in gaiters to the left of the driver eyed
+Kipps and his banjo, and especially his banjo, ever and again as if he
+found it and him, with his rapt face, an insoluble enigma. And many a
+King has ridden into a conquered city with a lesser sense of splendour
+than Kipps.
+
+Their shadows grew long behind them and their faces were transfigured in
+gold as they rumbled on towards the splendid West. The sun set before
+they had passed Dymchurch, and as they came lumbering into New Romney
+past the windmill the dusk had come.
+
+The driver handed down the banjo and the portmanteau, and Kipps having
+paid him--"That's aw right," he said to the change, as a gentleman
+should--turned about and ran the portmanteau smartly into Old Kipps,
+whom the sound of the stopping of the 'bus had brought to the door of
+the shop in an aggressive mood and with his mouth full of supper.
+
+"Ullo, Uncle, didn't see you," said Kipps.
+
+"Blunderin' ninny," said Old Kipps. "What's brought _you_ here? Ain't
+early closing, is it? Not Toosday?"
+
+"Got some news for you, Uncle," said Kipps, dropping the portmanteau.
+
+"Ain't lost your situation, 'ave you? What's that you got there? I'm
+blowed if it ain't a banjo. Goo-lord! Spendin' your money on banjoes!
+Don't put down your portmanty there--anyhow. Right in the way of
+everybody. I'm blowed if ever I saw such a boy as you've got lately.
+Here! Molly! And, look here! What you got a portmanty for? Why!
+Goo-lord! You ain't _really_ lost your place, 'ave you?"
+
+"Somethin's happened," said Kipps slightly dashed. "It's all right,
+Uncle. I'll tell you in a minute."
+
+Old Kipps took the banjo as his nephew picked up the portmanteau again.
+
+The living room door opened quickly, showing a table equipped with
+elaborate simplicity for supper, and Mrs. Kipps appeared.
+
+"If it ain't young Artie," she said. "Why! Whatever's brought _you_
+'ome?"
+
+"Ullo, Aunt," said Artie. "I'm coming in. I got somethin' to tell you.
+I've 'ad a bit of Luck."
+
+He wouldn't tell them all at once. He staggered with the portmanteau
+round the corner of the counter, set a bundle of children's tin pails
+into clattering oscillation, and entered the little room. He deposited
+his luggage in the corner beside the tall clock, and turned to his Aunt
+and Uncle again. His Aunt regarded him doubtfully, the yellow light from
+the little lamp on the table escaped above the shade and lit her
+forehead and the tip of her nose. It would be all right in a minute. He
+wouldn't tell them all at once. Old Kipps stood in the shop door with
+the banjo in his hand, breathing noisily. "The fact is, Aunt, I've 'ad a
+bit of Luck."
+
+"You ain't been backin' gordless 'orses, Artie?" she asked.
+
+"No fear."
+
+"It's a draw he's been in," said Old Kipps, still panting from the
+impact of the portmanteau; "it's a dratted draw. Jest look here, Molly.
+He's won this 'ere trashy banjer and thrown up his situation on the
+strength of it--that's what he's done. Goin' about singing. Dash and
+plunge! Jest the very fault poor Pheamy always 'ad. Blunder right in and
+no one mustn't stop 'er!"
+
+"You ain't thrown up your place, Artie, 'ave you?" said Mrs. Kipps.
+
+Kipps perceived his opportunity. "I 'ave," he said; "I've throwed it
+up."
+
+"What for?" said Old Kipps.
+
+"So's to learn the banjo!"
+
+"Goo _Lord_!" said Old Kipps, in horror to find himself verified.
+
+"I'm going about playing!" said Kipps with a giggle. "Goin' to black my
+face, Aunt, and sing on the beach. I'm going to 'ave a most tremenjous
+lark and earn any amount of money--you see. Twenty-six fousand pounds
+I'm going to earn just as easy as nothing!"
+
+"Kipps," said Mrs. Kipps, "he's been drinking!"
+
+They regarded their nephew across the supper table with long faces.
+Kipps exploded with laughter and broke out again when his Aunt shook her
+head very sadly at him. Then suddenly he fell grave. He felt he could
+keep it up no longer. "It's all right, Aunt. Reely. I ain't mad and I
+ain't been drinking. I been lef' money. I been left twenty-six fousand
+pounds."
+
+Pause.
+
+"And you thrown up your place?" said Old Kipps.
+
+"Yes," said Kipps. "Rather!"
+
+"And bort this banjer, put on your best noo trousers and come right on
+'ere?"
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Kipps, "_I_ never did."
+
+"These ain't my noo trousers, Aunt," said Kipps regretfully. "My noo
+trousers wasn't done."
+
+"I shouldn't ha' thought that _even you_ could ha' been such a fool as
+that," said Old Kipps.
+
+Pause.
+
+"It's _all_ right," said Kipps a little disconcerted by their
+distrustful solemnity. "It's all right--reely! Twenny-six fousan'
+pounds. And a 'ouse----"
+
+Old Kipps pursed his lips and shook his head.
+
+"A 'ouse on the Leas. I could have gone there. Only I didn't. I didn't
+care to. I didn't know what to say. I wanted to come and tell you."
+
+"How d'yer know the 'ouse----?"
+
+"They told me."
+
+"Well," said Old Kipps, and nodded his head portentously towards his
+nephew, with the corners of his mouth pulled down in a portentous,
+discouraging way. "Well, you _are_ a young Gaby."
+
+"I didn't _think_ it of you, Artie!" said Mrs. Kipps.
+
+"Wadjer mean?" asked Kipps faintly, looking from one to the other with a
+withered face.
+
+Old Kipps closed the shop door. "They been 'avin' a lark with you," said
+Old Kipps in a mournful undertone. "That's what I mean, my boy. They
+jest been seein' what a Gaby like you 'ud do."
+
+"I dessay that young Quodling was in it," said Mrs. Kipps. "'E's jest
+that sort."
+
+(For Quodling of the green baize bag had grown up to be a fearful dog,
+the terror of New Romney.)
+
+"It's somebody after your place very likely," said Old Kipps.
+
+Kipps looked from one sceptical, reproving face to the other, and round
+him at the familiar shabby, little room, with his familiar cheap
+portmanteau on the mended chair, and that banjo amidst the supper things
+like some irrevocable deed. Could he be rich indeed? Could it be that
+these things had really happened? Or had some insane fancy whirled him
+hither?
+
+Still--perhaps a hundred pounds----
+
+"But," he said. "It's all right, reely, Uncle. You don't think----? I
+'ad a letter."
+
+"Got up," said Old Kipps.
+
+"But I answered it and went to a norfis."
+
+Old Kipps felt staggered for a moment, but he shook his head and chins
+sagely from side to side. As the memory of old Bean and Shalford
+revived, the confidence of Kipps came back to him.
+
+"I saw a nold gent, Uncle--perfect gentleman. And 'e told me all about
+it. Mos' respectable 'e was. Said 'is name was Watson and
+Bean--leastways 'e was Bean. Said it was lef' me----" Kipps suddenly
+dived into his breast pocket. "By my Grandfather----"
+
+The old people started.
+
+Old Kipps uttered an exclamation and wheeled round towards the mantel
+shelf above which the daguerreotype of his lost younger sister smiled
+its fading smile upon the world.
+
+"Waddy 'is name was," said Kipps, with his hand still deep in his
+pocket. "It was _'is_ son was my father----"
+
+"Waddy!" said Old Kipps.
+
+"Waddy!" said Mrs. Kipps.
+
+"She'd never say," said Old Kipps.
+
+There was a long silence.
+
+Kipps fumbled with a letter, a crumpled advertisement and three bank
+notes. He hesitated between these items.
+
+"Why! That young chap what was arsting questions----" said Old Kipps,
+and regarded his wife with an eye of amazement.
+
+"Must 'ave been," said Mrs. Kipps.
+
+"Must 'ave been," said Old Kipps.
+
+"James," said Mrs. Kipps, in an awestricken voice, "after
+all--perhaps--it's true!"
+
+"_'Ow_ much did you say?" asked Old Kipps. "'Ow much did you say 'ed
+lef' you, me b'y?"
+
+It was thrilling, though not quite in the way Kipps had expected. He
+answered almost meekly across the meagre supper things, with his
+documentary evidence in his hand:
+
+"Twelve 'undred pounds. 'Proximately, he said. Twelve 'undred pounds a
+year. 'E made 'is will, jest before 'e died--not more'n a month ago.
+When 'e was dying, 'e seemed to change like, Mr. Bean said. 'E'd never
+forgiven 'is son, never--not till then. 'Is son 'ad died in Australia,
+years and years ago, and _then_ 'e 'adn't forgiven 'im. You know--'is
+son what was my father. But jest when 'e was ill and dying 'e seemed to
+get worried like and longing for someone of 'is own. And 'e told Mr.
+Bean it was 'im that had prevented them marrying. So 'e thought. That's
+'ow it all come about...."
+
+
+Sec.6
+
+At last Kipps' flaring candle went up the narrow uncarpeted staircase to
+the little attic that had been his shelter and refuge during all the
+days of his childhood and youth. His head was whirling. He had been
+advised, he had been warned, he had been flattered and congratulated, he
+had been given whiskey and hot water and lemon and sugar, and his health
+had been drunk in the same. He had also eaten two Welsh Rabbits--an
+unusual supper. His Uncle was chiefly for his going into Parliament, his
+Aunt was consumed with a great anxiety. "I'm afraid he'll go and marry
+beneath 'im."
+
+"Y'ought to 'ave a bit o' shootin' somewheer," said Old Kipps.
+
+"It's your _duty_ to marry into a county family, Artie. Remember that."
+
+"There's lots of young noblemen'll be glad to 'ang on to you," said Old
+Kipps. "You mark my words. And borry your money. And then, good day to
+ye."
+
+"I got to be precious Careful," said Kipps. "Mr. Bean said that."
+
+"And you got to be precious careful of this old Bean," said Old Kipps.
+"We may be out of the world in Noo Romney, but I've 'eard a bit about
+s'licitors, for all that. You keep your eye on old Bean, me b'y.
+
+"'Ow do we know what 'e's up to, with your money, even now?" said Old
+Kipps, pursuing this uncomfortable topic.
+
+"'E _looked_ very respectable," said Kipps....
+
+Kipps undressed with great deliberation, and with vast gaps of pensive
+margin. Twenty-six thousand pounds!
+
+His Aunt's solicitude had brought back certain matters into the
+foreground that his "Twelve 'Undred a year!" had for a time driven away
+altogether. His thoughts went back to the wood-carving class. Twelve
+Hundred a Year. He sat on the edge of the bed in profound meditation and
+his boots fell "whop" and "whop" upon the floor, with a long interval
+between each "whop." Twenty-five thousand pounds. "By Gum!" He dropped
+the remainder of his costume about him on the floor, got into bed,
+pulled the patchwork quilt over him and put his head on the pillow that
+had been first to hear of Ann Pornick's accession to his heart. But he
+did not think of Ann Pornick now.
+
+It was about everything in the world except Ann Pornick that he seemed
+to be trying to think of--simultaneously. All the vivid happenings of
+the day came and went in his overtaxed brain; "that old Bean" explaining
+and explaining, the fat man who wouldn't believe, an overpowering smell
+of peppermint, the banjo, Miss Mergle saying he deserved it,
+Chitterlow's vanishing round a corner, the wisdom and advice and
+warnings of his Aunt and Uncle. She was afraid he would marry beneath
+him, _was_ she? She didn't know....
+
+His brain made an excursion into the wood-carving class and presented
+Kipps with the picture of himself amazing that class by a modest yet
+clearly audible remark, "I been left twenty-six thousand pounds."
+
+Then he told them all quietly but firmly that he had always loved Miss
+Walshingham, always, and so he had brought all his twenty-six thousand
+pounds with him to give to her there and then. He wanted nothing in
+return.... Yes, he wanted nothing in return. He would give it to her all
+in an envelope and go. Of course he would keep the banjo--and a little
+present for his Aunt and Uncle--and a new suit perhaps--and one or two
+other things she would not miss. He went off at a tangent. He might buy
+a motor car, he might buy one of these here things that will play you a
+piano--that would make old Buggins sit up! He could pretend he had
+learnt to play--he might buy a bicycle and a cyclist suit....
+
+A terrific multitude of plans of what he might do and in particular of
+what he might buy, came crowding into his brain, and he did not so much
+fall asleep as pass into a disorder of dreams in which he was driving a
+four-horse Tip-Top coach down Sandgate Hill ("I shall have to be
+precious careful"), wearing innumerable suits of clothes, and through
+some terrible accident wearing them all wrong. Consequently he was being
+laughed at. The coach vanished in the interest of the costume. He was
+wearing golfing suits and a silk hat. This passed into a nightmare that
+he was promenading on the Leas in a Highland costume, with a kilt that
+kept shrinking, and Shalford was following him with three policemen.
+"He's my assistant," Shalford kept repeating; "he's escaped. He's an
+escaped Improver. Keep by him and in a minute you'll have to run him in.
+I know 'em. We say they wash, but they won't."... He could feel the kilt
+creeping up his legs. He would have tugged at it to pull it down only
+his arms were paralysed. He had an impression of giddy crisis. He
+uttered a shriek of despair. "_Now!_" said Shalford. He woke in horror,
+his quilt had slipped off the bed.
+
+He had a fancy he had just been called, that he had somehow overslept
+himself and missed going down for dusting. Then he perceived it was
+still night and light by reason of the moonlight, and that he was no
+longer in the Emporium. He wondered where he could be. He had a curious
+fancy that the world had been swept and rolled up like a carpet and that
+he was nowhere. It occurred to him that perhaps he was mad. "Buggins!"
+he said. There was no answer, not even the defensive snore. No room, no
+Buggins, nothing!
+
+Then he remembered better. He sat on the edge of his bed for some time.
+Could anyone have seen his face they would have seen it white and drawn
+with staring eyes. Then he groaned weakly. "Twenty-six thousand pounds?"
+he whispered.
+
+Just then it presented itself in an almost horribly overwhelming mass.
+
+He remade his bed and returned to it. He was still dreadfully wakeful.
+It was suddenly clear to him that he need never trouble to get up
+punctually at seven again. That fact shone out upon him like a star
+through clouds. He was free to lie in bed as long as he liked, get up
+when he liked, go where he liked, have eggs every morning for breakfast
+or rashers or bloater paste or.... Also he was going to astonish Miss
+Walshingham....
+
+Astonish her and astonish her....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was awakened by a thrush singing in the fresh dawn. The whole room
+was flooded with warm, golden sunshine. "I say!" said the thrush. "I
+say! I say! Twelve 'undred a year! Twelve 'Undred a Year. Twelve 'UNDRED
+a Year! I say! I say! I say!"
+
+He sat up in bed and rubbed the sleep from his eyes with his knuckles.
+Then he jumped out of bed and began dressing very eagerly. He did not
+want to lose any time in beginning the new life.
+
+
+END OF BOOK I
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE NEW CONDITIONS
+
+
+Sec.1
+
+There comes a gentlemanly figure into these events and for a space takes
+a leading part therein, a Good Influence, a refined and amiable figure,
+Mr. Chester Coote. You must figure him as about to enter our story,
+walking with a curious rectitude of bearing through the evening dusk
+towards the Public Library, erect, large-headed--he had a great, big
+head full of the suggestion of a powerful mind, well under control--with
+a large, official-looking envelope in his white and knuckly hand. In the
+other he carries a gold-handled cane. He wears a silken grey jacket
+suit, buttoned up, and anon he coughs behind the official envelope. He
+has a prominent nose, slatey grey eyes and a certain heaviness about the
+mouth. His mouth hangs breathing open, with a slight protrusion of the
+lower jaw. His straw hat is pulled down a little in front, and he looks
+each person he passes in the eye, and directly his look is answered
+looks away.
+
+Thus Mr. Chester Coote, as he was on the evening when he came upon
+Kipps. He was a local house agent and a most active and gentlemanly
+person, a conscious gentleman, equally aware of society and the serious
+side of life. From amateur theatricals of a nice, refined sort to
+science classes, few things were able to get along without him. He
+supplied a fine, full bass, a little flat and quavery perhaps, but very
+abundant, to the St. Stylites' choir....
+
+He passes on towards the Public Library, lifts the envelope in
+salutation to a passing curate, smiles and enters....
+
+It was in the Public Library that he came upon Kipps.
+
+By that time Kipps had been rich a week or more, and the change in his
+circumstances was visible upon his person. He was wearing a new suit of
+drab flannels, a Panama hat and a red tie for the first time, and he
+carried a silver-mounted stick with a tortoise shell handle. He felt
+extraordinarily different, perhaps more different than he really was,
+from the meek Improver of a week ago. He felt as he felt Dukes must
+feel, yet at bottom he was still modest. He was leaning on his stick and
+regarding the indicator with a respect that never palled. He faced round
+to meet Mr. Coote's overflowing smile.
+
+"What are you doang hea?" said Mr. Chester Coote.
+
+Kipps was momentarily abashed. "Oh," he said slowly, and then, "Mooching
+round a bit."
+
+That Coote should address him with this easy familiarity was a fresh
+reminder of his enhanced social position. "Jes' mooching round," he
+said. "I been back in Folkestone free days now. At my 'ouse, you know."
+
+"Ah!" said Mr. Coote. "I haven't yet had an opportunity of
+congratulating you on your good fortune."
+
+Kipps held out his hand. "It was the cleanest surprise that ever was,"
+he said. "When Mr. Bean told me of it--you could have knocked me down
+with a feather."
+
+"It must mean a tremendous change for you."
+
+"Oo. Rather. Change. Why, I'm like the chap in the song they sing, I
+don't 'ardly know where I are. _You_ know."
+
+"An extraordinary change," said Mr. Coote. "I can quite believe it. Are
+you stopping in Folkestone?"
+
+"For a bit. I got a 'ouse, you know. What my gran'father 'ad. I'm
+stopping there. His housekeeper was kep' on. Fancy--being in the same
+town and everything!"
+
+"Precisely," said Mr. Coote. "That's it!" and coughed like a sheep
+behind four straight fingers.
+
+"Mr. Bean got me to come back to see to things. Else I was out in New
+Romney, where my Uncle and Aunt live. But it's a Lark coming back. In a
+way...."
+
+The conversation hung for a moment.
+
+"Are you getting a book?" asked Coote.
+
+"Well, I 'aven't got a ticket yet. But I shall get one all right, and
+have a go in at reading. I've often wanted to. Rather. I was just 'aving
+a look at this Indicator. First-class idea. Tells you all you want to
+know."
+
+"It's simple," said Coote, and coughed again, keeping his eyes fixed on
+Kipps. For a moment they hung, evidently disinclined to part. Then Kipps
+jumped at an idea he had cherished for a day or more,--not particularly
+in relation to Coote, but in relation to anyone.
+
+"You doing anything?" he asked.
+
+"Just called with a papah about the classes."
+
+"Because----. Would you care to come up and look at my 'ouse and 'ave a
+smoke and a chat. Eh?" He made indicative back jerks of the head, and
+was smitten with a horrible doubt whether possibly this invitation might
+not be some hideous breach of etiquette. Was it, for example, the
+correct hour? "I'd be awfully glad if you would," he added.
+
+Mr. Coote begged for a moment while he handed the official-looking
+envelope to the librarian and then declared himself quite at Kipps'
+service. They muddled a moment over precedence at each door they went
+through and so emerged to the street.
+
+"It feels awful rum to me at first, all this," said Kipps "'Aving a
+'ouse of my own and all that. It's strange, you know. 'Aving all day.
+Reely I don't 'ardly know what to do with my time.
+
+"D'ju smoke?" he said suddenly, proffering a magnificent gold decorated
+pigskin cigarette case, which he produced from nothing, almost as
+though it was some sort of trick. Coote hesitated and declined, and
+then, with great liberality, "Don't let me hinder you...."
+
+They walked a little way in silence, Kipps being chiefly concerned to
+affect ease in his new clothes and keeping a wary eye on Coote. "It's
+rather a big windfall," said Coote presently. "It yields you an
+income----?"
+
+"Twelve 'undred a year," said Kipps. "Bit over--if anything."
+
+"Do you think of living in Folkestone?"
+
+"Don't know 'ardly yet. I _may_. Then again, I may not. I got a
+furnished 'ouse, but I may let it."
+
+"Your plans are undecided?"
+
+"That's jest it," said Kipps.
+
+"Very beautiful sunset it was to-night," said Coote, and Kipps said,
+"Wasn't it?" and they began to talk of the merits of sunsets. Did Kipps
+paint? Not since he was a boy. He didn't believe he could now. Coote
+said his sister was a painter and Kipps received this intimation with
+respect. Coote sometimes wished he could find time to paint
+himself,--but one couldn't do everything and Kipps said that was "jest
+it."
+
+They came out presently upon the end of the Leas and looked down to
+where the squat dark masses of the Harbour and Harbour Station, gemmed
+with pinpoint lights, crouched against the twilit grey of the sea. "If
+one could do _that_," said Coote, and Kipps was inspired to throw his
+head back, cock it on one side, regard the Harbour with one eye shut
+and say that it would take some doing. Then Coote said something about
+"Abend," which Kipps judged to be in a foreign language and got over by
+lighting another cigarette from his by no means completed first one.
+"You're right, _puff_, _puff_."
+
+He felt that so far he had held up his end of the conversation in a very
+creditable manner, but that extreme discretion was advisable.
+
+They turned away and Coote remarked that the sea was good for crossing,
+and asked Kipps if he had been over the water very much. Kipps said he
+hadn't been--"much," but he thought very likely he'd have a run over to
+Boulogne soon, and Coote proceeded to talk of the charms of foreign
+travel, mentioning quite a number of unheard-of places by name. He had
+been to them! Kipps remained on the defensive, but behind his defences
+his heart sank. It was all very well to pretend, but presently it was
+bound to come out. _He_ didn't know anything of all this....
+
+So they drew near the house. At his own gate Kipps became extremely
+nervous. It was a fine, impressive door. He knocked neither a single
+knock nor a double, but about one and a half--an apologetic half. They
+were admitted by an irreproachable housemaid, with a steady eye, before
+which Kipps cringed dreadfully. He hung up his hat and fell about over
+hall chairs and things. "There's a fire in the study, Mary?" he had the
+audacity to ask, though evidently he knew, and led the way upstairs
+panting. He tried to shut the door and discovered the housemaid behind
+him coming to light his lamp. This enfeebled him further. He said
+nothing until the door closed behind her. Meanwhile to show his _sang
+froid_ he hummed and flitted towards the window, and here and there.
+
+Coote went to the big hearthrug and turned and surveyed his host. His
+hand went to the back of his head and patted his occiput--a gesture
+frequent with him.
+
+"'Ere we are," said Kipps, hands in his pockets and glancing round him.
+
+It was a gaunt Victorian room, with a heavy, dirty cornice, and the
+ceiling enriched by the radiant plaster ornament of an obliterated gas
+chandelier. It held two large glass fronted bookcases, one of which was
+surmounted by a stuffed terrier encased in glass. There was a mirror
+over the mantel and hangings and curtains of magnificent crimson
+patternings. On the mantel were a huge black clock of classical design,
+vases in the Burslem Etruscan style, spills and toothpicks in large
+receptacles of carved rock, large lava ash trays and an exceptionally
+big box of matches. The fender was very great and brassy. In a
+favourable position, under the window, was a spacious rosewood writing
+desk, and all the chairs and other furniture were of rosewood and well
+stuffed.
+
+"This," said Kipps, in something near an undertone, "was the o'
+gentleman's study--my grandfather that was. 'E used to sit at that desk
+and write."
+
+"Books?"
+
+"No. Letters to the _Times_, and things like that. 'E's got 'em all cut
+out--stuck in a book.... Leastways, he _'ad_. It's in that bookcase....
+Won't you sit down?"
+
+Coote did, bowing very slightly, and Kipps secured his vacated position
+on the extensive black skin rug. He spread out his legs compass-fashion
+and tried to appear at his ease. The rug, the fender, the mantel and
+mirror conspired with great success to make him look a trivial and
+intrusive little creature amidst their commonplace hauteur, and his own
+shadow on the opposite wall seemed to think everything a great lark and
+mocked and made tremendous fun of him....
+
+
+Sec.2
+
+For a space Kipps played a defensive game and Coote drew the lines of
+the conversation. They kept away from the theme of Kipps' change of
+fortune, and Coote made remarks upon local and social affairs. "You must
+take an interest in these things now," was as much as he said in the way
+of personalities. But it speedily became evident that he was a person of
+wide and commanding social relationships. He spoke of "society" being
+mixed in the neighbourhood and of the difficulty of getting people to
+work together, and "do" things; they were cliquish. Incidentally he
+alluded quite familiarly to men with military titles, and once even to
+someone with a title, a Lady Punnet. Not snobbishly, you understand,
+nor deliberately, but quite in passing. He had, it appeared, talked to
+Lady Punnet about private theatricals! In connection with the Hospitals.
+She had been unreasonable and he had put her right, gently of course,
+but firmly. "If you stand up to these people," said Coote, "they like
+you all the better." It was also very evident he was at his ease with
+the clergy; "My friend, Mr. Densemore--a curate, you know, and rather
+curious, the Reverend _and_ Honourable." Coote grew visibly in Kipps'
+eyes as he said these things; he became, not only the exponent of
+"Vagner or Vargner," the man whose sister had painted a picture to be
+exhibited at the Royal Academy, the type of the hidden thing called
+culture, but a delegate, as it were, or at least an intermediary from
+that great world "up there," where there were men servants, where there
+were titles, where people dressed for dinner, drank wine at meals, wine
+costing very often as much as three and sixpence the bottle, and
+followed through a maze of etiquette, the most stupendous practices....
+
+Coote sat back in the armchair smoking luxuriously and expanding
+pleasantly, with the delightful sense of Savoir Faire; Kipps sat
+forward, his elbows on his chair arm alert, and his head a little on one
+side. You figure him as looking little and cheap and feeling smaller and
+cheaper amidst his new surroundings. But it was a most stimulating and
+interesting conversation. And soon it became less general and more
+serious and intimate. Coote spoke of people who had got on, and of
+people who hadn't, of people who seemed to be _in_ everything and people
+who seemed to be _out_ of everything, and then he came round to Kipps.
+
+"You'll have a good time," he said abruptly, with a smile that would
+have interested a dentist.
+
+"I dunno," said Kipps.
+
+"There's mistakes, of course."
+
+"That's jest it."
+
+Coote lit a new cigarette. "One can't help being interested in what you
+will do," he remarked. "Of course--for a young man of spirit, come
+suddenly into wealth--there's temptations."
+
+"I got to go careful," said Kipps. "O' Bean told me that at the very
+first."
+
+Coote went on to speak of pitfalls, of Betting, of Bad Companions. "I
+know," said Kipps, "I know." "There's Doubt again," said Coote. "I know
+a young fellow--a solicitor--handsome, gifted. And yet, you
+know--utterly sceptical. Practically altogether a Sceptic."
+
+"Lor'!" said Kipps, "not a Natheist?"
+
+"I fear so," said Coote. "Really, you know, an awfully fine young
+fellow--Gifted! But full of this dreadful Modern Spirit--Cynical! All
+this Overman stuff. Nietzsche and all that.... I wish I could do
+something for him."
+
+"Ah!" said Kipps and knocked the ash off his cigarette. "I know a
+chap--one of our apprentices he was--once. Always scoffing.... He lef'!"
+
+He paused. "Never wrote for his refs," he said, in the deep tone proper
+to a moral tragedy, and then, after a pause--"Enlisted!"
+
+"Ah!" said Coote.
+
+"And often," he said, after a pause, "it's just the most spirited chaps,
+just the chaps one likes best, who Go Wrong."
+
+"It's temptation," Kipps remarked.
+
+He glanced at Coote, leant forward, knocked the ash from his cigarette
+into the mighty fender. "That's jest it," he said; "you get tempted.
+Before you know where you are."
+
+"Modern life," said Coote, "is so--complex. It isn't everyone is Strong.
+Half the young fellows who go wrong, aren't really bad."
+
+"That's jest it," said Kipps.
+
+"One gets a tone from one's surroundings----"
+
+"That's exactly it," said Kipps.
+
+He meditated. "_I_ picked up with a chap," he said. "A Nacter. Leastways
+he writes plays. Clever fellow. But----"
+
+He implied extensive moral obloquy by a movement of his head. "Of course
+it's seeing life," he added.
+
+Coote pretended to understand the full implications of Kipps' remark.
+"Is it _worth_ it?" he asked.
+
+"That's jest it," said Kipps.
+
+He decided to give some more. "One gets talking," he said. "Then it's
+''ave a drink!' Old Methusaleh four stars--and where _are_ you? _I_
+been drunk," he said in a tone of profound humility, and added, "lots
+of times."
+
+"Tt. Tt.," said Coote.
+
+"Dozens of times," said Kipps, smiling sadly, and added, "lately."
+
+His imagination became active and seductive. "One thing leads to
+another. Cards, p'raps. Girls----"
+
+"I know," said Coote; "I know."
+
+Kipps regarded the fire and flushed slightly. He borrowed a sentence
+that Chitterlow had recently used. "One can't tell tales out of school,"
+he said.
+
+"I can imagine it," said Coote.
+
+Kipps looked with a confidential expression into Coote's face. "It was
+bad enough when money was limited," he remarked. "But now----" He spoke
+with raised eyebrows, "I got to steady down."
+
+"You _must_," said Coote, protruding his lips into a sort of whistling
+concern for a moment.
+
+"I must," said Kipps, nodding his head slowly with raised eyebrows. He
+looked at his cigarette end and threw it into the fender. He was
+beginning to think he was holding his own in this conversation rather
+well, after all.
+
+Kipps was never a good liar. He was the first to break silence. "I don't
+mean to say I been reely bad or reely bad drunk. A 'eadache
+perhaps--three or four times, say. But there it is!"
+
+"I have never tasted alcohol in my life," said Coote, with an immense
+frankness, "never!"
+
+"No?"
+
+"Never. I don't feel _I_ should be likely to get drunk at all--it isn't
+that. And I don't go so far as to say even that in small quantities--at
+meals--it does one harm. But if I take it, someone else who doesn't know
+where to stop--you see?"
+
+"That's jest it," said Kipps, with admiring eyes.
+
+"I smoke," admitted Coote. "One doesn't want to be a Pharisee."
+
+It struck Kipps what a tremendously Good chap this Coote was, not only
+tremendously clever and educated and a gentleman and one knowing Lady
+Punnet, but Good. He seemed to be giving all his time and thought to
+doing good things to other people. A great desire to confide certain
+things to him arose. At first Kipps hesitated whether he should confide
+an equal desire for Benevolent activities or for further
+Depravity--either was in his mind. He rather affected the pose of the
+Good Intentioned Dog. Then suddenly his impulses took quite a different
+turn, fell indeed into what was a far more serious rut in his mind. It
+seemed to him Coote might be able to do for him something he very much
+wanted done.
+
+"Companionship accounts for so much," said Coote.
+
+"That's jest it," said Kipps. "Of course, you know, in my new
+position----. That's just the difficulty."
+
+He plunged boldly at his most secret trouble. He knew that he wanted
+refinement--culture. It was all very well--but he knew. But how was one
+to get it? He knew no one, knew no people----. He rested on the broken
+sentence. The shop chaps were all very well, very good chaps and all
+that, but not what one wanted. "I feel be'ind," said Kipps. "I feel out
+of it. And consequently I feel it's no good. And then if temptation
+comes along----"
+
+"Exactly," said Coote.
+
+Kipps spoke of his respect for Miss Walshingham and her freckled friend.
+He contrived not to look too self-conscious. "You know, I'd like to talk
+to people like that, but I can't. A chap's afraid of giving himself
+away."
+
+"Of course," said Coote, "of course."
+
+"I went to a middle-class school, you know. You mustn't fancy I'm one of
+these here board-school chaps, but you know it reely wasn't a
+first-class affair. Leastways he didn't take pains with us. If you
+didn't want to learn you needn't--I don't believe it was _much_ better
+than one of these here national schools. We wore mortarboards, o'
+course. But what's _that_?
+
+"I'm a regular fish out of water with this money. When I got it--it's a
+week ago--reely I thought I'd got everything I wanted. But I dunno what
+to _do_."
+
+His voice went up into a squeak. "Practically," he said, "it's no good
+shuttin' my eyes to things--I'm a gentleman."
+
+Coote indicated a serious assent.
+
+"And there's the responsibilities of a gentleman," he remarked.
+
+"That's jest it," said Kipps.
+
+"There's calling on people," said Kipps. "If you want to go on knowing
+Someone you knew before like. People that's refined." He laughed
+nervously. "I'm a regular fish out of water," he said, with expectant
+eyes on Coote.
+
+But Coote only nodded for him to go on.
+
+"This actor chap," he meditated, "is a good sort of chap. But 'e isn't
+what _I_ call a gentleman. I got to 'old myself in with 'im. 'E'd make
+me go it wild in no time. 'E's pretty near the on'y chap I know. Except
+the shop chaps. They've come round to 'ave supper once already and a bit
+of a sing song afterwards. I sang. I got a banjo, you know, and I vamp a
+bit. Vamping--you know. Haven't got far in the book--'Ow to Vamp--but
+still I'm getting on. Jolly, of course, in a way, but what does it lead
+to?... Besides that, there's my Aunt and Uncle. _They're_ very good old
+people--very--jest a bit interfering p'r'aps and thinking one isn't
+grown up, but Right enough. Only----. It isn't what I _want_. I feel
+I've got be'ind with everything. I want to make it up again. I want to
+get with educated people who know 'ow to do things--in the regular,
+proper way."
+
+His beautiful modesty awakened nothing but benevolence in the mind of
+Chester Coote.
+
+"If I had someone like you," said Kipps, "that I knew regular like----"
+
+From that point their course ran swift and easy. "If I _could_ be of any
+use to you," said Coote....
+
+"But you're so busy and all that."
+
+"Not _too_ busy. You know, your case is a very interesting one. It was
+partly that made me speak to you and draw you out. Here you are with all
+this money and no experience, a spirited young chap----"
+
+"That's jest it," said Kipps.
+
+"I thought I'd see what you were made of, and I must confess I've rarely
+talked to anyone that I've found quite so interesting as you have
+been----"
+
+"I seem able to say things to you like somehow," said Kipps.
+
+"I'm glad. I'm tremendously glad."
+
+"I want a Friend. That's it--straight."
+
+"My dear chap, if I----"
+
+"Yes, but----"
+
+"_I_ want a Friend, too."
+
+"Reely?"
+
+"Yes. You know, my dear Kipps--if I may call you that."
+
+"Go on," said Kipps.
+
+"I'm rather a lonely dog myself. _This_ to-night----. I've not had
+anyone I've spoken to so freely of my Work for months."
+
+"No?"
+
+"You. And, my dear chap, if I can do anything to guide or help you----"
+
+Coote displayed all his teeth in a kindly tremulous smile and his eyes
+were shiny. "Shake 'ands," said Kipps, deeply moved, and he and Coote
+rose and clasped with mutual emotion.
+
+"It's reely too good of you," said Kipps.
+
+"Whatever I can do I will," said Coote.
+
+And so their compact was made. From that moment they were Friends,
+intimate, confidential, high-thinking, _sotto voce_ friends. All the
+rest of their talk (and it inclined to be interminable) was an expansion
+of that. For that night Kipps wallowed in self-abandonment and Coote
+behaved as one who had received a great trust. That sinister passion for
+pedagoguery to which the Good Intentioned are so fatally liable, that
+passion of infinite presumption that permits one weak human being to
+arrogate the direction of another weak human being's affairs, had Coote
+in its grip. He was to be a sort of lay confessor and director of Kipps,
+he was to help Kipps in a thousand ways, he was in fact to chaperon
+Kipps into the higher and better sort of English life. He was to tell
+him his faults, advise him about the right thing to do----
+
+"It's all these things I don't know," said Kipps. "I don't know, for
+instance, what's the right sort of dress to wear--I don't even know if
+I'm dressed right now----"
+
+"All these things"--Coote stuck out his lips and nodded rapidly to show
+he understood--"Trust me for that," he said, "trust me."
+
+As the evening wore on Coote's manner changed, became more and more the
+manner of a proprietor. He began to take up his role, to survey Kipps
+with a new, with a critical affection. It was evident the thing fell in
+with his ideas. "It will be awfully interesting," he said. "You know,
+Kipps, you're really good stuff." (Every sentence now he said "Kipps" or
+"my dear Kipps" with a curiously authoritative intonation.)
+
+"I know," said Kipps, "only there's such a lot of things I don't seem to
+be up to some'ow. That's where the trouble comes in."
+
+They talked and talked, and now Kipps was talking freely. They rambled
+over all sorts of things. Among others Kipps' character was dealt with
+at length. Kipps gave valuable lights on it. "When I'm reely excited,"
+he said, "I don't seem to care _what_ I do. I'm like that." And again,
+"I don't like to do anything under'and. I _must_ speak out...."
+
+He picked a piece of cotton from his knee, the fire grimaced behind his
+back, and his shadow on the wall and ceiling was disrespectfully
+convulsed.
+
+
+Sec.3
+
+Kipps went to bed at last with an impression of important things
+settled, and he lay awake for quite a long time. He felt he was lucky.
+He had known--in fact Buggins and Carshot and Pierce had made it very
+clear indeed--that his status in life had changed and that stupendous
+adaptations had to be achieved, but how they were to be effected had
+driven that adaptation into the incredible. Here in the simplest,
+easiest way was the adapter. The thing had become possible. Not of
+course easy, but possible.
+
+There was much to learn, sheer intellectual toil, methods of address,
+bowing, an enormous complexity of laws. One broken, you are an outcast.
+How, for example, would one encounter Lady Punnet? It was quite possible
+some day he might really have to do that. Coote might introduce him.
+"Lord!" he said aloud to the darkness between grinning and dismay. He
+figured himself going into the Emporium to buy a tie, for example, and
+there in the face of Buggins, Carshot, Pierce and the rest of them,
+meeting "my friend, Lady Punnet!" It might not end with Lady Punnet! His
+imagination plunged and bolted with him, galloped, took wings and soared
+to romantic, to poetical altitudes....
+
+Suppose some day one met Royalty. By accident, say! He soared to that!
+After all,--twelve hundred a year is a lift, a tremendous lift. How did
+one address Royalty? "Your Majesty's Goodness," it will be, no
+doubt--something like that--and on the knees. He became impersonal. Over
+a thousand a year made him an Esquire, didn't it? He thought that was
+it. In which case, wouldn't he have to be presented at Court? Velvet
+cycling breeches like you wear cycling, and a sword! What a curious
+place a court must be! Kneeling and bowing, and what was it Miss Mergle
+used to talk about? Of course!--ladies with long trains walking about
+backward. Everybody walked about backward at court, he knew, when not
+actually on their knees. Perhaps, though, some people regular stood up
+to the King! Talked to him, just as one might talk to Buggins, say.
+Cheek of course! Dukes, it might be, did that--by permission?
+Millionnaires?...
+
+From such thoughts this free citizen of our Crowned Republic passed
+insensibly into dreams, turgid dreams of that vast ascent which
+constitutes the true-born Briton's social scheme, which terminates with
+retrogressive progression and a bending back.
+
+
+Sec.4
+
+The next morning he came down to breakfast looking grave--a man with
+much before him in the world....
+
+Kipps made a very special thing of his breakfast. Daily once hopeless
+dreams came true then. It had been customary in the Emporium to
+supplement Shalford's generous, indeed unlimited, supply of bread and
+butter-substitute, by private purchases, and this had given Kipps very
+broad, artistic conceptions of what the meal might be. Now there would
+be a cutlet or so or a mutton chop--this splendour Buggins had reported
+from the great London clubs--haddock, kipper, whiting or fish-balls,
+eggs, boiled or scrambled, or eggs and bacon, kidney also frequently and
+sometimes liver. Amidst a garland of such themes, sausages, black and
+white puddings, bubble-and-squeak, fried cabbage and scallops came and
+went. Always as camp followers came potted meat in all varieties, cold
+bacon, German sausage, brawn, marmalade and two sorts of jam, and when
+he had finished these he would sit among his plates and smoke a
+cigarette and look at all these dishes crowded round him with a beatific
+approval. It was his principal meal. He was sitting with his cigarette
+regarding his apartment with that complacency begotten of a generous
+plan of feeding successfully realized, when newspapers and post arrived.
+
+There were several things by the post, tradesmen's circulars and cards
+and two pathetic begging letters--his luck had got into the papers--and
+there was a letter from a literary man and a book to enforce his request
+for 10/--to put down Socialism. The book made it very clear that prompt
+action on the part of property owners was becoming urgent, if property
+was to last out the year. Kipps dipped in it and was seriously
+perturbed. And there was a letter from old Kipps saying it was difficult
+to leave the shop and come over and see him again just yet, but that he
+had been to a sale at Lydd the previous day and bought a few good old
+books and things it would be difficult to find the equal of in
+Folkestone. "They don't know the value of these things out here," wrote
+old Kipps, "but you may depend upon it they are valuable," and a brief
+financial statement followed. "There is an engraving someone might come
+along and offer you a lot of money for one of these days. Depend upon
+it, these old things are about the best investment you could make...."
+
+Old Kipps had long been addicted to sales, and his nephew's good
+fortune had converted what had once been but a looking and a craving--he
+had rarely even bid for anything in the old days except the garden tools
+or the kitchen gallipots or things like that, things one gets for
+sixpence and finds a use for--into a very active pleasure. Sage and
+penetrating inspection, a certain mystery of bearing, tactical bids and
+Purchase!--Purchase!--the old man had had a good time.
+
+While Kipps was rereading the begging letters and wishing he had the
+sound, clear common sense of Buggins to help him a little, the Parcels
+Post brought along the box from his uncle. It was a large, insecure
+looking case held together by a few still loyal nails, and by what the
+British War Office would have recognised at once as an Army Corps of
+string, rags and odds and ends tied together. Kipps unpacked it with a
+table knife, assisted at a critical point by the poker, and found a
+number of books and other objects of an antique type.
+
+There were three bound volumes of early issues of Chambers' Journal, a
+copy of Punch's Pocket Book for 1875, Sturm's Reflections, an early
+version of Gill's Geography (slightly torn), an illustrated work on
+Spinal Curvature, an early edition of Kirke's Human Physiology, The
+Scottish Chiefs and a little volume on the Language of Flowers. There
+was a fine steel engraving, oak-framed and with some rusty spots, done
+in the Colossal style and representing the Handwriting on the Wall.
+There were also a copper kettle, a pair of candle snuffers, a brass
+shoehorn, a tea caddy to lock, two decanters (one stoppered) and what
+was probably a portion of an eighteenth century child's rattle.
+
+Kipps examined these objects one by one and wished he knew more about
+them. Turning over the pages of the Physiology again he came upon a
+striking plate in which a youth of agreeable profile displayed his
+interior in an unstinted manner to the startled eye. It was a new view
+of humanity altogether for Kipps, and it arrested his mind.
+
+This anatomised figure made him forget for a space that he was
+"practically a gentleman" altogether, and he was still surveying its
+extraordinary complications when another reminder of a world quite
+outside those spheres of ordered gentility into which his dreams had
+carried him overnight, arrived (following the servant) in the person of
+Chitterlow.
+
+
+Sec.5
+
+"Ul-_lo_!" said Kipps, rising.
+
+"Not busy?" said Chitterlow, enveloping Kipps' hand for a moment in one
+of his own and tossing the yachting cap upon the monumental carved oak
+sideboard.
+
+"Only a bit of reading," said Kipps.
+
+"Reading, eh?" Chitterlow cocked the red eye at the books and other
+properties for a moment and then, "I've been expecting you 'round again
+one night."
+
+"I been coming 'round," said Kipps. "On'y there's a chap 'ere----. I
+was coming 'round last night on'y I met 'im."
+
+He walked to the hearthrug. Chitterlow drifted around the room for a
+time, glancing at things as he talked. "I've altered that play
+tremendously since I saw you," he said. "Pulled it all to pieces."
+
+"What play's that, Chit'low?"
+
+"The one we were talking about. You know. You said something--I don't
+know if you meant it--about buying half of it. Not the tragedy. I
+wouldn't sell my twin brother a share in that. That's my investment.
+That's my Serious Work. No! I mean that new farce I've been on to. Thing
+with the business about a beetle."
+
+"Oo yes," said Kipps. "_I_ remember."
+
+"I thought you would. Said you'd take a fourth share for a hundred
+pounds. _You_ know."
+
+"I seem to remember something----"
+
+"Well, it's all different. Every bit of it. I'll tell you. You remember
+what you said about a butterfly? You got confused, you know--Old Meth.
+Kept calling the beetle a butterfly and that set me off. I've made it
+quite different. Quite different. Instead of Popplewaddle--thundering
+good farce name that, you know; for all that it came from a Visitors'
+List--instead of Popplewaddle getting a beetle down his neck and rushing
+about, I've made him a collector--collects butterflies, and this one you
+know's a rare one. Comes in at window, centre." Chitterlow began to
+illustrate with appropriate gestures. "Pop rushes about after it.
+Forgets he mustn't let on he's in the house. After that----. Tells 'em.
+Rare butterfly, worth lots of money. Some are, you know. Everyone's on
+to it after that. Butterfly can't get out of room, every time it comes
+out to have a try, rush and scurry. Well, I've worked on that. Only----"
+
+He came very close to Kipps. He held up one hand horizontally and tapped
+it in a striking and confidential manner with the fingers of the other.
+"Something else," he said. "That's given me a Real Ibsenish Touch--like
+the Wild Duck. You know that woman--I've made her lighter--and she sees
+it. When they're chasing the butterfly the third time, she's on! She
+looks. 'That's me!' she says. Bif! Pestered Butterfly. _She's_ the
+Pestered Butterfly. It's legitimate. Much more legitimate than the Wild
+Duck--where there isn't a duck!
+
+"Knock 'em! The very title ought to knock 'em. I've been working like a
+horse at it.... You'll have a gold mine in that quarter share, Kipps....
+_I_ don't mind. It's suited me to sell it, and suited you to buy. Bif!"
+
+Chitterlow interrupted his discourse to ask, "You haven't any brandy in
+the house, have you? Not to drink, you know. But I want just an
+eggcupful to pull me steady. My liver's a bit queer.... It doesn't
+matter, if you haven't. Not a bit. I'm like that. Yes, whiskey'll do.
+Better!"
+
+Kipps hesitated for a moment, then turned and fumbled in the cupboard
+of his sideboard. Presently he disinterred a bottle of whiskey and
+placed it on the table. Then he put out first one bottle of soda water
+and after the hesitation of a moment another. Chitterlow picked up the
+bottle and read the label. "Good old Methusaleh," he said. Kipps handed
+him the corkscrew and then his hand fluttered up to his mouth. "I'll
+have to ring now," he said, "to get glasses." He hesitated for a moment
+before doing so, leaning doubtfully as it were towards the bell.
+
+When the housemaid appeared he was standing on the hearthrug with his
+legs wide apart, with the bearing of a desperate fellow. And after they
+had both had whiskeys--"You know a decent whiskey," Chitterlow remarked
+and took another "just to drink."--Kipps produced cigarettes and the
+conversation flowed again.
+
+Chitterlow paced the room. He was, he explained, taking a day off; that
+was why he had come around to see Kipps. Whenever he thought of any
+extensive change in a play he was writing he always took a day off. In
+the end it saved time to do so. It prevented his starting rashly upon
+work that might have to be rewritten. There was no good in doing work
+when you might have to do it over again, none whatever.
+
+Presently they were descending the steps by the Parade _en route_ for
+the Warren, with Chitterlow doing the talking and going with a dancing
+drop from step to step....
+
+They had a great walk, not a long one, but a great one. They went up by
+the Sanatorium, and over the East Cliff and into that queer little
+wilderness of slippery and tumbling clay and rock under the chalk
+cliffs, a wilderness of thorn and bramble, wild rose and wayfaring tree,
+that adds so greatly to Folkestone's charm. They traversed its
+intricacies and clambered up to the crest of the cliffs at last by a
+precipitous path that Chitterlow endowed in some mysterious way with
+suggestions of Alpine adventure. Every now and then he would glance
+aside at sea and cliffs with a fresh boyishness of imagination that
+brought back New Romney and the stranded wrecks to Kipps' memory; but
+mostly he bored on with his great obsession of plays and playwriting,
+and that empty absurdity that is so serious to his kind, his Art. That
+was a thing that needed a monstrous lot of explaining. Along they went,
+sometimes abreast, sometimes in single file, up the little paths, and
+down the little paths, and in among the bushes and out along the edge
+above the beach, and Kipps went along trying ever and again to get an
+insignificant word in edgeways, and the gestures of Chitterlow flew wide
+and far and his great voice rose and fell, and he said this and he said
+that and he biffed and banged into the circumambient Inane.
+
+It was assumed that they were embarked upon no more trivial enterprise
+than the Reform of the British Stage, and Kipps found himself classed
+with many opulent and even royal and noble amateurs--the Honourable
+Thomas Norgate came in here--who had interested themselves in the
+practical realisation of high ideals about the Drama. Only he had a
+finer understanding of these things, and instead of being preyed upon by
+the common professional--"and they _are_ a lot," said Chitterlow; "I
+haven't toured for nothing"--he would have Chitterlow. Kipps gathered
+few details. It was clear he had bought the quarter of a farcical
+comedy--practically a gold mine--and it would appear it would be a good
+thing to buy the half. A suggestion, or the suggestion of a suggestion,
+floated out that he should buy the whole play and produce it forthwith.
+It seemed he was to produce the play upon a royalty system of a new
+sort, whatever a royalty system of any sort might be. Then there was
+some doubt, after all, whether that farcical comedy was in itself
+sufficient to revolutionise the present lamentable state of the British
+Drama. Better perhaps for such a purpose was that tragedy--as yet
+unfinished--which was to display all that Chitterlow knew about women,
+and which was to centre about a Russian nobleman embodying the
+fundamental Chitterlow personality. Then it became clearer that Kipps
+was to produce several plays. Kipps was to produce a great number of
+plays. Kipps was to found a National Theatre.
+
+It is probable that Kipps would have expressed some sort of disavowal,
+if he had known how to express it. Occasionally his face assumed an
+expression of whistling meditation, but that was as far as he got
+towards protest.
+
+In the clutch of Chitterlow and the Incalculable, Kipps came round to
+the house in Fenchurch Street and was there made to participate in the
+midday meal. He came to the house, forgetting certain confidences, and
+was reminded of the existence of a Mrs. Chitterlow (with the finest
+completely untrained Contralto voice in England) by her appearance. She
+had an air of being older than Chitterlow, although probably she wasn't,
+and her hair was a reddish brown, streaked with gold. She was dressed in
+one of those complaisant garments that are dressing gowns or tea gowns
+or bathing wraps or rather original evening robes according to the
+exigencies of the moment--from the first Kipps was aware that she
+possessed a warm and rounded neck, and her well-moulded arms came and
+vanished from the sleeves--and she had large, expressive brown eyes that
+he discovered ever and again fixed in an enigmatical manner upon his
+own.
+
+A simple but sufficient meal had been distributed with careless
+spontaneity over the little round table in the room with the photographs
+and looking glass, and when a plate had by Chitterlow's direction been
+taken from under the marmalade in the cupboard and the kitchen fork and
+a knife that was not loose in its handle had been found for Kipps they
+began and she had evidently heard of Kipps before, and he made a
+tumultuous repast. Chitterlow ate with quiet enormity, but it did not
+interfere with the flow of his talk. He introduced Kipps to his wife
+very briefly; made it vaguely evident that the production of the comedy
+was the thing chiefly settled. His reach extended over the table, and he
+troubled nobody. When Mrs. Chitterlow, who for a little while seemed
+socially self-conscious, reproved him for taking a potato with a jab of
+his fork, he answered, "Well, you shouldn't have married a man of
+Genius," and from a subsequent remark it was perfectly clear that
+Chitterlow's standing in this respect was made no secret of in his
+household.
+
+They drank old Methusaleh and syphon soda, and there was no clearing
+away, they just sat among the plates and things, and Mrs. Chitterlow
+took her husband's tobacco pouch and made a cigarette and smoked and
+blew smoke and looked at Kipps with her large, brown eyes. Kipps had
+seen cigarettes smoked by ladies before, "for fun," but this was real
+smoking. It frightened him rather. He felt he must not encourage this
+lady--at any rate in Chitterlow's presence.
+
+They became very cheerful after the repast, and as there was now no
+waste to deplore, such as one experiences in the windy, open air,
+Chitterlow gave his voice full vent. He fell to praising Kipps very
+highly and loudly. He said he had known Kipps was the right sort, he had
+seen it from the first, almost before he got up out of the mud on that
+memorable night. "You can," he said, "sometimes. That was why----" he
+stopped, but he seemed on the verge of explaining that it was his
+certainty of Kipps being the right sort had led him to confer this
+great Fortune upon him. He left that impression. He threw out a number
+of long sentences and material for sentences of a highly philosophical
+and incoherent character about Coincidences. It became evident he
+considered dramatic criticism in a perilously low condition....
+
+About four Kipps found himself stranded, as it were, by a receding
+Chitterlow on a seat upon the Leas.
+
+He was chiefly aware that Chitterlow was an overwhelming personality. He
+puffed his cheeks and blew.
+
+No doubt this was seeing life, but had he particularly wanted to see
+life that day? In a way Chitterlow had interrupted him. The day he had
+designed for himself was altogether different from this. He had been
+going to read through a precious little volume called "Don't" that Coote
+had sent round for him, a book of invaluable hints, a summary of British
+deportment that had only the one defect of being at points a little out
+of date.
+
+That reminded him he had intended to perform a difficult exercise called
+an Afternoon Call upon the Cootes, as a preliminary to doing it in
+deadly earnest upon the Walshinghams. It was no good to-day, anyhow,
+now.
+
+He came back to Chitterlow. He would have to explain to Chitterlow he
+was taking too much for granted, he would have to do that. It was so
+difficult to do in Chitterlow's presence though; in his absence it was
+easy enough. This half share, and taking a theatre and all of it, was
+going too far.
+
+The quarter share was right enough, he supposed, but even that----! A
+hundred pounds! What wealth is there left in the world after one has
+paid out a hundred pounds from it?
+
+He had to recall that in a sense Chitterlow had indeed brought him his
+fortune before he could face even that.
+
+You must not think too hardly of him. To Kipps you see there was as yet
+no such thing as proportion in these matters. A hundred pounds went to
+his horizon. A hundred pounds seemed to him just exactly as big as any
+other large sum of money.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE WALSHINGHAMS
+
+
+Sec.1
+
+The Cootes live in a little house in Bouverie Square with a tangle of
+Virginia creeper up the verandah.
+
+Kipps had been troubled in his mind about knocking double or single--it
+is these things show what a man is made of--but happily there was a
+bell.
+
+A queer little maid, with a big cap, admitted Kipps and took him through
+a bead curtain and a door into a little drawing-room, with a black and
+gold piano, a glazed bookcase, a Moorish cosy corner and a draped
+looking glass over-mantel bright with Regent Street ornaments and
+photographs of various intellectual lights. A number of cards of
+invitation to meetings and the match list of a Band of Hope cricket club
+were stuck into the looking glass frame with Coote's name as a
+Vice-President. There was a bust of Beethoven over the bookcase and the
+walls were thick with conscientiously executed but carelessly selected
+"views" in oil and water colours and gilt frames. At the end of the room
+facing the light was a portrait that struck Kipps at first as being
+Coote in spectacles and feminine costume and that he afterwards decided
+must be Coote's mother. Then the original appeared and he discovered
+that it was Coote's elder and only sister who kept house for him. She
+wore her hair in a knob behind, and the sight of the knob suggested to
+Kipps an explanation for a frequent gesture of Coote's, a patting
+exploratory movement to the back of his head. And then it occurred to
+him that this was quite an absurd idea altogether.
+
+She said "Mr. Kipps, I believe," and Kipps laughed pleasantly and said,
+"That's it!" and then she told him that "Chester" had gone down to the
+art school to see about sending off some drawings or other and that he
+would be back soon. Then she asked Kipps if he painted, and showed him
+the pictures on the wall. Kipps asked her where each one was "of," and
+when she showed him some of the Leas slopes he said he never would have
+recognised them. He said it was funny how things looked in a picture
+very often. "But they're awfully _good_," he said. "Did you do them?" He
+would look at them with his neck arched like a swan's, his head back and
+on one side and then suddenly peer closely into them. "They _are_ good.
+I wish I could paint." "That's what Chester says," she answered. "I tell
+him he has better things to do." Kipps seemed to get on very well with
+her.
+
+Then Coote came in and they left her and went upstairs together and had
+a good talk about reading and the Rules of Life. Or rather Coote talked,
+and the praises of thought and reading were in his mouth....
+
+You must figure Coote's study, a little bedroom put to studious uses,
+and over the mantel an array of things he had been led to believe
+indicative of culture and refinement, an autotype of Rossetti's
+"Annunciation," an autotype of Watt's "Minotaur," a Swiss carved pipe
+with many joints and a photograph of Amiens Cathedral (these two the
+spoils of travel), a phrenological bust and some broken fossils from the
+Warren. A rotating bookshelf carried the Encyclopaedia Britannica (tenth
+edition), and on the top of it a large official looking, age grubby,
+envelope bearing the mystic words, "On His Majesty's Service," a number
+or so of the "Bookman," and a box of cigarettes were lying. A table
+under the window bore a little microscope, some dust in a saucer, some
+grimy glass slips and broken cover glasses, for Coote had "gone in for"
+biology a little. The longer side of the room was given over to
+bookshelves, neatly edged with pinked American cloth, and with an array
+of books--no worse an array of books than you find in any public
+library; an almost haphazard accumulation of obsolete classics,
+contemporary successes, the Hundred Best Books (including Samuel
+Warren's "Ten Thousand a Year") old school books, directories, the Times
+Atlas, Ruskin in bulk, Tennyson complete in one volume, Longfellow,
+Charles Kingsley, Smiles and Mrs. Humphry Ward, a guide book or so,
+several medical pamphlets, odd magazine numbers, and much indescribable
+rubbish--in fact a compendium of the contemporary British mind. And in
+front of this array stood Kipps, ill-taught and untrained, respectful,
+awestricken and, for a moment at any rate, willing to learn, while
+Coote, the exemplary Coote, talked to him like a bishop of reading and
+the virtue in books.
+
+"Nothing enlarges the mind," said Coote, "like Travel and Books.... And
+they're both so easy nowadays, and so cheap!"
+
+"I've often wanted to 'ave a good go in at reading," Kipps replied.
+
+"You'd hardly believe," Coote said, "how much you can get out of books.
+Provided you avoid trashy reading, that is. You ought to make a rule,
+Kipps, and read one Serious Book a week. Of course, we can Learn even
+from Novels, Nace Novels that is, but it isn't the same thing as serious
+reading. I made a rule, One Serious Book and One Novel--no more. There's
+some of the serious books I've been reading lately--on that table;
+Sartor Resartus--Mrs. Twaddletome's Pond Life, the Scottish Chiefs, Life
+and Letters of Dean Farrar...."
+
+
+Sec.2
+
+There came at last the sound of a gong and Kipps descended to tea in
+that state of nervous apprehension at the difficulties of eating and
+drinking that his Aunt's knuckle rappings had implanted in him forever.
+Over Coote's shoulder he became aware of a fourth person in the Moorish
+cosy corner, and he turned, leaving incomplete something incoherent he
+was saying to Miss Coote about his modest respect and desire for
+literature to discover this fourth person was Miss Helen Walshingham,
+hatless and looking very much at home.
+
+She rose at once with an extended hand to meet his hesitation.
+
+"You're stopping in Folkestone, Mr. Kipps?"
+
+"'Ere on a bit of business," said Kipps. "I thought you was away in
+Bruges."
+
+"That's later," said Miss Walshingham. "We're stopping until my
+brother's holiday begins and we're trying to let our house. Where are
+you staying in Folkestone?"
+
+"I got a 'ouse of mine--on the Leas."
+
+"I've heard all about your good fortune--this afternoon."
+
+"Isn't it a Go!" said Kips. "I 'aven't nearly got to believe its reely
+'appened yet. When that Mr. Bean told me of it you could 'ave knocked me
+down with a feather.... It's a tremenjous change for me."
+
+He discovered Miss Coote was asking him whether he took milk and sugar.
+"_I_ don't mind," said Kipps. "Just as you like."
+
+Coote became active handing tea and bread and butter. It was thinly cut,
+and the bread was rather new, and the half of the slice that Kipps took
+fell upon the floor. He had been holding it by the edge, for he was not
+used to this migratory method of taking tea without plates or table.
+This little incident ruled him out of the conversation for a time, and
+when he came to attend to it again they were talking about something or
+other prodigious--a performer of some sort--that was coming, called, it
+seemed, "Padrooski." So Kipps, who had quietly dropped into a chair, ate
+his bread and butter, said "No, thenk you" to any more, and by this
+discreet restraint got more freedom with his cup and saucer.
+
+Apart from the confusion natural to tea, he was in a state of tremulous
+excitement on account of the presence of Miss Walshingham. He glanced
+from Miss Coote to her brother and then at Helen. He regarded her over
+the top of his cup as he drank. Here she was, solid and real. It was
+wonderful. He remarked, as he had done at times before, the easy flow of
+the dark hair back from her brow over her ears, the shapeliness of the
+white hands that came out from her simple white cuffs, the delicate
+pencilling of her brow.
+
+Presently she turned her face to him almost suddenly, and smiled with
+the easiest assurance of friendship.
+
+"You will go, I suppose," she said, and added, "to the Recital."
+
+"If I'm in Folkestone I shall," said Kipps, clearing away a little
+hoarseness. "I don't _know_ much about music, but what I do know I
+like."
+
+"I'm sure you'll like Paderewski," she said.
+
+"If you do," he said, "I dessay I shall."
+
+He found Coote very kindly taking his cup.
+
+"Do you think of living in Folkestone?" asked Miss Coote, in a tone of
+proprietorship, from the hearthrug.
+
+"No," said Kipps, "that's jest it--I hardly know." He also said that he
+wanted to look around a bit before doing anything. "There's so much to
+consider," said Coote, smoothing the back of his head.
+
+"I may go back to New Romney for a bit," said Kipps. "I got an Uncle and
+Aunt there. I reely don't know."
+
+Helen regarded him thoughtfully for a moment.
+
+"You must come and see us," she said, "before we go to Bruges."
+
+"Oo, rather!" said Kipps. "If I may."
+
+"Yes, do," she said, and suddenly stood up before Kipps could formulate
+an enquiry when he should call.
+
+"You're sure you can spare that drawing board?" she said to Miss Coote,
+and the conversation passed out of range.
+
+And when he had said "Good-bye" to Miss Walshingham and she had repeated
+her invitation to call, he went upstairs again with Coote to look out
+certain initiatory books they had had under discussion. And then Kipps,
+blowing very resolutely, went back to his own place, bearing in his arm
+(1) Sesame and Lilies, (2) Sir George Tressady, (3) an anonymous book
+on "Vitality" that Coote particularly esteemed. And, having got to his
+own sitting-room, he opened Sesame and Lilies and read it with ruthless
+determination for some time.
+
+
+Sec.3
+
+Presently he leant back and gave himself up to the business of trying to
+imagine just exactly what Miss Walshingham could have thought of him
+when she saw him. Doubts about the precise effect of the grey flannel
+suit began to trouble him. He turned to the mirror over the mantel, and
+then got into a chair to study the hang of the trousers. It looked all
+right. Luckily, she had not seen the Panama hat. He knew that he had the
+brim turned up wrong, but he could not find out which way the brim was
+right. However, that she had not seen. He might perhaps ask at the shop
+where he bought it.
+
+He meditated for awhile on his reflected face--doubtful whether he liked
+it or not--and then got down again and flitted across to the sideboard
+where there lay two little books, one in a cheap, magnificent cover of
+red and gold, and the other in green canvas. The former was called, as
+its cover witnessed, "Manners and Rules of Good Society, by a Member of
+the Aristocracy," and after the cover had indulged in a band of gilded
+decoration, light-hearted but natural under the circumstances, it added
+"TWENTY-FIRST EDITION." The second was that admirable classic, "The Art
+of Conversing." Kipps returned with these to his seat, placed the two
+before him, opened the latter with a sigh and flattened it under his
+hand.
+
+Then with knitted brows he began to read onward from a mark, his lips
+moving.
+
+"Having thus acquired possession of an idea, the little ship should not
+be abruptly launched into deep waters, but should be first permitted to
+glide gently and smoothly into the shallows, that is to say, the
+conversation should not be commenced by broadly and roundly stating a
+fact, or didactically expressing an opinion, as the subject would be
+thus virtually or summarily disposed of, or perhaps be met with a
+'Really' or 'Indeed,' or some equally brief monosyllabic reply. If an
+opposite opinion were held by the person to whom the remark were
+addressed, he might not, if a stranger, care to express it in the form
+of a direct contradiction, or actual dissent. To glide imperceptibly
+into conversation is the object to be attained."
+
+At this point Mr. Kipps rubbed his fingers through his hair with an
+expression of some perplexity and went back to the beginning.
+
+
+Sec.4
+
+When Kipps made his call on the Walshinghams, it all happened so
+differently from the "Manners and Rules" prescription ("Paying Calls")
+that he was quite lost from the very outset. Instead of the footman or
+maidservant proper in these cases, Miss Walshingham opened the door to
+him herself. "I'm so glad you've come," she said, with one of her rare
+smiles.
+
+She stood aside for him to enter the rather narrow passage.
+
+"I thought I'd call," he said, retaining his hat and stick.
+
+She closed the door and led the way to a little drawing-room, which
+impressed Kipps as being smaller and less emphatically coloured than
+that of the Cootes, and in which at first only a copper bowl of white
+poppies upon the brown tablecloth caught his particular attention.
+
+"You won't think it unconventional to come in, Mr. Kipps, will you?" she
+remarked. "Mother is out."
+
+"I don't mind," he said, smiling amiably, "if you don't."
+
+She walked around the table and stood regarding him across it, with that
+same look between speculative curiosity and appreciation that he
+remembered from the last of the art class meetings.
+
+"I wondered whether you would call or whether you wouldn't before you
+left Folkestone."
+
+"I'm not leaving Folkestone for a bit, and any'ow, I should have called
+on you."
+
+"Mother will be sorry she was out. I've told her about you, and she
+wants, I know, to meet you."
+
+"I saw 'er--if that was 'er--in the shop," said Kipps.
+
+"Yes--you did, didn't you!... She has gone out to make some duty calls,
+and I didn't go. I had something to write. I write a little, you know."
+
+"Reely!" said Kipps.
+
+"It's nothing much," she said, "and it comes to nothing." She glanced at
+a little desk near the window, on which there lay some paper. "One must
+do something." She broke off abruptly. "Have you seen our outlook?" she
+asked and walked to the window, and Kipps came and stood beside her. "We
+look on the Square. It might be worse, you know. That outporter's truck
+there is horrid--and the railings, but it's better than staring one's
+social replica in the face, isn't it? It's pleasant in early
+spring--bright green, laid on with a dry brush--and it's pleasant in
+autumn."
+
+"I like it," said Kipps. "That laylock there is pretty, isn't it?"
+
+"Children come and pick it at times," she remarked.
+
+"I dessay they do," said Kipps.
+
+He rested on his hat and stick and looked appreciatively out of the
+window, and she glanced at him for one swift moment. A suggestion that
+might have come from the Art of Conversing came into his head. "Have you
+a garden?" he said.
+
+She shrugged her shoulders. "Only a little one," she said, and then,
+"perhaps you would like to see it."
+
+"I like gardenin'," said Kipps, with memories of a pennyworth of
+nasturtiums he had once trained over his uncle's dustbin.
+
+She led the way with a certain relief.
+
+They emerged through a four seasons coloured glass door to a little iron
+verandah that led by iron steps to a minute walled garden. There was
+just room for a patch of turf and a flower-bed; one sturdy variegated
+Euonymus grew in the corner. But the early June flowers, the big
+narcissus, snow upon the mountains, and a fine show of yellow
+wallflowers shone gay.
+
+"That's our garden," said Helen. "It's not a very big one, is it?"
+
+"I like it," said Kipps.
+
+"It's small," she said, "but this is the day of small things."
+
+Kipps didn't follow that.
+
+"If you were writing when I came," he remarked, "I'm interrupting you."
+
+She turned round with her back to the railing and rested, leaning on her
+hands. "I had finished," she said. "I couldn't get on."
+
+"Were you making up something?" asked Kipps.
+
+There was a little interval before she smiled. "I try--quite vainly--to
+write stories," she said. "One must do something. I don't know whether I
+shall ever do any good--at that--anyhow. It seems so hopeless. And, of
+course, one must study the popular taste. But, now my brother has gone
+to London, I get a lot of leisure."
+
+"I seen your brother, 'aven't I?"
+
+"He came to the class once or twice. Very probably you have. He's gone
+to London to pass his examinations and become a solicitor. And then, I
+suppose, he'll have a chance. Not much, perhaps, even then. But he's
+luckier than I am."
+
+"You got your classes and things."
+
+"They ought to satisfy me. But they don't. I suppose I'm ambitious. We
+both are. And we hadn't much of a springboard." She glanced over his
+shoulder at the cramped little garden with an air of reference in her
+gesture.
+
+"I should think you could do anything if you wanted to," said Kipps.
+
+"As a matter of fact I can't do anything I want to."
+
+"You done a good deal."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Well, didn't you pass one of these here University things?"
+
+"Oh! I matriculated!"
+
+"I should think I was no end of a swell if _I_ did, I know that."
+
+"Mr. Kipps, do you know how many people matriculate into London
+University every year?"
+
+"How many then?"
+
+"Between two and three thousand."
+
+"Well, just think how many don't!"
+
+Her smile came again, and broke into a laugh. "Oh, _they_ don't count,"
+she said, and then, realising that might penetrate Kipps if he was left
+with it, she hurried on to, "The fact is, I'm a discontented person, Mr.
+Kipps. Folkestone, you know, is a Sea Front, and it values people by
+sheer vulgar prosperity. We're not prosperous, and we live in a back
+street. We have to live here because this is our house. It's a mercy we
+haven't to 'let.' One feels one hasn't opportunities. If one had, I
+suppose one wouldn't use them. Still----"
+
+Kipps felt he was being taken tremendously into her confidence. "That's
+jest it," he said, very sagely.
+
+He leant forward on his stick and said, very earnestly, "I believe you
+could do anything you wanted to, if you tried."
+
+She threw out her hands in disavowal.
+
+"I know," said he, very sagely and nodding his head. "I watched you once
+or twice when you were teaching that wood-carving class."
+
+For some reason this made her laugh--a rather pleasant laugh, and that
+made Kipps feel a very witty and successful person. "It's very evident,"
+she said, "that you're one of those rare people who believe in me, Mr.
+Kipps," to which he answered, "Oo, I _do_!" and then suddenly they
+became aware of Mrs. Walshingham coming along the passage. In another
+moment she appeared through the four seasons door, bonneted and
+ladylike, and a little faded, exactly as Kipps had seen her in the shop.
+Kipps felt a certain apprehension at her appearance, in spite of the
+reassurances he had had from Coote.
+
+"Mr. Kipps has called on us," said Helen, and Mrs. Walshingham said it
+was very kind of him, and added that new people didn't call on them very
+much nowadays. There was nothing of the scandalised surprise Kipps had
+seen in the shop; she had heard, perhaps, he was a gentleman now. In the
+shop he had thought her rather jaded and haughty, but he had scarcely
+taken her hand, which responded to his touch with a friendly pressure,
+before he knew how mistaken he had been. She then told her daughter that
+someone called Mrs. Wace had been out, and turned to Kipps again to ask
+him if he had had tea. Kipps said he had not, and Helen moved towards
+some mysterious interior. "But _I_ say," said Kipps; "don't you on my
+account----!"
+
+Helen vanished, and he found himself alone with Mrs. Walshingham, which,
+of course, made him breathless and Boreas-looking for a moment.
+
+"You were one of Helen's pupils in the wood-carving class?" asked Mrs.
+Walshingham, regarding him with the quiet watchfulness proper to her
+position.
+
+"Yes," said Kipps, "that's 'ow I 'ad the pleasure----"
+
+"She took a great interest in her wood-carving class. She is so
+energetic, you know, and it gives her an Outlet."
+
+"I thought she taught something splendid."
+
+"Everyone says she did very well. Helen, I think, would do anything well
+that she undertook to do. She's so very clever. And she throws herself
+into things so."
+
+She untied her bonnet strings with a pleasant informality.
+
+"She has told me all about her class. She used to be full of it. And
+about your cut hand."
+
+"Lor'!" said Kipps; "fancy, telling that!"
+
+"Oh, yes! And how brave you were."
+
+(Though, indeed, Helen's chief detail had been his remarkable expedient
+for checking bloodshed.)
+
+Kipps became bright pink. "She said you didn't seem to feel it a bit."
+
+Kipps felt he would have to spend weeks over "The Art of Conversing."
+
+While he still hung fire Helen returned with the apparatus for afternoon
+tea upon a tray.
+
+"Do you mind pulling out the table?" asked Mrs. Walshingham.
+
+That, again, was very homelike. Kipps put down his hat and stick in the
+corner and, amidst an iron thunder, pulled out a little, rusty,
+green-painted table, and then in the easiest manner followed Helen in to
+get chairs.
+
+So soon as he had got rid of his teacup--he refused all food, of course,
+and they were merciful--he became wonderfully at his ease. Presently he
+was talking. He talked quite modestly and simply about his changed
+condition and his difficulties and plans. He spread what indeed had an
+air of being all his simple little soul before his eyes. In a little
+while his clipped, defective accent had become less perceptible to
+their ears, and they began to realise, as the girl with the freckles had
+long since realised, that there were passable aspects of Kipps. He
+confided, he submitted, and for both of them he had the realest, the
+most seductively flattering undertone of awe and reverence.
+
+He stopped about two hours, having forgotten how terribly incorrect it
+is to stay at such a length. They did not mind at all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+ENGAGED
+
+
+Sec.1
+
+Within two months, within a matter of three and fifty days, Kipps had
+clambered to the battlements of Heart's Desire.
+
+It all became possible by the Walshinghams--it would seem at Coote's
+instigation--deciding, after all, not to spend the holidays at Bruges.
+Instead, they remained in Folkestone, and this happy chance gave Kipps
+just all these opportunities of which he stood in need.
+
+His crowning day was at Lympne, and long before the summer warmth began
+to break, while indeed August still flamed on high. They had
+organized--no one seemed to know who suggested it first--a water party
+on the still reaches of the old military canal at Hythe, the canal that
+was to have stopped Napoleon if the sea failed us, and they were to
+picnic by the brick bridge, and afterwards to clamber to Lympne Castle.
+The host of the gathering, it was understood very clearly, was Kipps.
+
+They went, a merry party. The canal was weedy, with only a few inches of
+water at the shallows, and so they went in three Canadian canoes. Kipps
+had learned to paddle--it had been his first athletic accomplishment,
+and his second--with the last three or four of ten private lessons still
+to come--was to be cycling. But Kipps did not paddle at all badly;
+muscles hardened by lifting pieces of cretonne could cut a respectable
+figure by the side of Coote's executions, and the girl with the
+freckles, the girl who understood him, came in his canoe. They raced the
+Walshinghams, brother and sister; and Coote, in a liquefying state and
+blowing mightily, but still persistent and always quite polite and
+considerate, toiled behind with Mrs. Walshingham. She could not be
+expected to paddle (though, of course, she "offered") and she reclined
+upon specially adjusted cushions under a black and white sunshade and
+watched Kipps and her daughter, and feared at intervals that Coote was
+getting hot.
+
+They were all more or less in holiday costume, the eyes of the girls
+looked out under the shade of wide-brimmed hats; even the freckled girl
+was unexpectedly pretty, and Helen, swinging sunlit to her paddle, gave
+Kipps, almost for the first time, the suggestion of a graceful body.
+Kipps was arrayed in the completest boating costume, and when his
+fashionable Panama was discarded and his hair blown into disorder he
+became, in his white flannels, as sightly as most young men. His
+complexion was a notable asset.
+
+Things favoured him, the day favoured him, everyone favoured him. Young
+Walshingham, the girl with the freckles, Coote and Mrs. Walshingham,
+were playing up to him in the most benevolent way, and between the
+landing place and Lympne, Fortune, to crown their efforts, had placed a
+small, convenient field entirely at the disposal of an adolescent bull.
+Not a big, real, resolute bull, but, on the other hand, no calf; a young
+bull, in the same stage of emotional development as Kipps, "standing
+where the two rivers meet." Detachedly our party drifted towards him.
+
+When they landed young Walshingham, with the simple directness of a
+brother, abandoned his sister to Kipps and secured the freckled girl,
+leaving Coote to carry Mrs. Walshingham's light wool wrap. He started at
+once, in order to put an effectual distance between himself and his
+companion, on the one hand, and a certain persuasive chaperonage that
+went with Coote, on the other. Young Walshingham, I think I have said,
+was dark, with a Napoleonic profile, and it was natural for him,
+therefore, to be a bold thinker and an epigrammatic speaker, and he had
+long ago discovered great possibilities of appreciation in the freckled
+girl. He was in a very happy frame that day because he had just been
+entrusted with the management of Kipps' affairs (old Bean inexplicably
+dismissed), and that was not a bad beginning for a solicitor of only a
+few months' standing, and, moreover, he had been reading Nietzsche, and
+he thought that in all probability he was the Non-Moral Overman referred
+to by that writer. He wore fairly large-sized hats. He wanted to expand
+the theme of the Non-Moral Overman in the ear of the freckled girl, to
+say it over, so to speak, and in order to seclude his exposition they
+went aside from the direct path and trespassed through a coppice,
+avoiding the youthful bull. They escaped to these higher themes but
+narrowly, for Coote and Mrs. Walshingham, subtle chaperones both, and
+each indisposed for excellent reasons to encumber Kipps and Helen, were
+hot upon their heels. These two kept direct route to the stile of the
+bull's field, and the sight of the animal at once awakened Coote's
+innate aversion to brutality in any shape or form. He said the stiles
+were too high, and that they could do better by going around by the
+hedge, and Mrs. Walshingham, nothing loath, agreed.
+
+This left the way clear for Kipps and Helen, and they encountered the
+bull. Helen did not observe the bull, but Kipps did; but, that afternoon
+at any rate, he was equal to facing a lion. And the bull really came at
+them. It was not an affair of the bull-ring exactly, no desperate rushes
+and gorings; but he came; he regarded them with a large, wicked, bluish
+eye, opened a mouth below his moistly glistening nose and booed, at any
+rate, if he did not exactly bellow, and he shook his head wickedly and
+showed that tossing was in his mind. Helen was frightened, without any
+loss of dignity, and Kipps went extremely white. But he was perfectly
+calm, and he seemed to her to have lost the last vestiges of his accent
+and his social shakiness. He directed her to walk quietly towards the
+stile, and made an oblique advance towards the bull.
+
+"You be orf!" he said....
+
+When Helen was well over the stile Kipps withdrew in good order. He got
+over the stile under cover of a feint, and the thing was done--a small
+thing, no doubt, but just enough to remove from Helen's mind an
+incorrect deduction that a man who was so terribly afraid of a teacup as
+Kipps must necessarily be abjectly afraid of everything else in the
+world. In her moment of reaction she went perhaps too far in the
+opposite direction. Hitherto Kipps had always had a certain flimsiness
+of effect for her. Now suddenly he was discovered solid. He was
+discovered possible in many new ways. Here, after all, was the sort of
+back a woman can get behind!...
+
+As so these heirs of the immemorial ages went past the turf-crowned mass
+of Portus Lemanus up the steep slopes towards the mediaeval castle on the
+crest the thing was also manifest in her eyes.
+
+
+Sec.2
+
+Everyone who stays in Folkestone gets, sooner or later, to Lympne. The
+castle became a farmhouse long ago, and the farmhouse, itself now ripe
+and venerable, wears the walls of the castle as a little man wears a big
+man's coat. The kindliest of farm ladies entertains a perpetual stream
+of visitors and shows her vast mangle, and her big kitchen, and takes
+you out upon the sunniest little terrace garden in all the world, and
+you look down the sheep-dotted slopes to where, beside the canal and
+under the trees, the crumpled memories of Rome sleep forever. For hither
+to this lonely spot the galleys once came, the legions, the emperors,
+masters of the world. The castle is but a thing of yesterday, King
+Stephen's time or thereabout, in that retrospect. One climbs the pitch
+of perforation, and there one is lifted to the centre of far more than a
+hemisphere of view. Away below one's feet, almost at the bottom of the
+hill, the Marsh begins, and spreads and spreads in a mighty crescent
+that sweeps about the sea, the Marsh dotted with the church towers of
+forgotten mediaeval towns and breaking at last into the low, blue hills
+of Winchelsea and Hastings; east hangs France, between the sea and the
+sky, and round the north, bounding the wide prospectives of farms and
+houses and woods, the Downs, with their hangers and chalk pits, sustain
+the passing shadows of the sailing clouds.
+
+And here it was, high out of the world of everyday, and in the presence
+of spacious beauty, that Kipps and Helen found themselves agreeably
+alone. All six, it had seemed, had been coming for the Keep, but Mrs.
+Walshingham had hesitated at the horrid little stairs, and then suddenly
+felt faint, and so she and the freckled girl had remained below, walking
+up and down in the shadow of the house, and Coote had remembered they
+were all out of cigarettes, and had taken off young Walshingham into the
+village. There had been shouting to explain between ground and parapet,
+and then Helen and Kipps turned again to the view, and commended it and
+fell silent.
+
+Helen sat fearlessly in an embrasure, and Kipps stood beside her.
+
+"I've always been fond of scenery," Kipps repeated, after an interval.
+
+Then he went off at a tangent. "D'you reely think that was right what
+Coote was saying?"
+
+She looked interrogation.
+
+"About my name?"
+
+"Being really C-U-Y-P-S? I have my doubts. I thought at first----. What
+makes Mr. Coote add an S to Cuyp?"
+
+"I dunno," said Kipps, foiled. "I was jest thinking----"
+
+She shot one wary glance at him and then turned her eyes to the sea.
+
+Kipps was out for a space. He had intended to lead from this question to
+the general question of surnames and change of names; it had seemed a
+light and witty way of saying something he had in mind, and suddenly he
+perceived that this was an unutterably vulgar and silly project. The
+hitch about that "s" had saved him. He regarded her profile for a
+moment, framed in weather-beaten stone, and backed by the blue elements.
+
+He dropped the question of his name out of existence and spoke again of
+the view. "When I see scenery, and things that are beautiful, it makes
+me feel----"
+
+She looked at him suddenly, and saw him fumbling for his words.
+
+"Silly like," he said.
+
+She took him in with her glance, the old look of proprietorship it was,
+touched with a certain warmth. She spoke in a voice as unambiguous as
+her eyes. "You needn't," she said. "You know, Mr. Kipps, you hold
+yourself too cheap."
+
+Her eyes and words smote him with amazement. He stared at her like a man
+who awakens. She looked down.
+
+"You mean----" he said; and then, "don't you hold me cheap?"
+
+She glanced up again and shook her head.
+
+"But--for instance--you don't think of me--as an equal like."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Oo! But reely----"
+
+His heart beat very fast.
+
+"If I thought," he said, and then, "you know so much."
+
+"That's nothing," she said.
+
+Then, for a long time, as it seemed to them, both kept silence, a
+silence that said and accomplished many things.
+
+"I know what I am," he said, at length.... "If I thought it was
+possible.... If I thought _you_.... I believe I could do anything----"
+
+He stopped, and she sat downcast and strikingly still.
+
+"Miss Walshingham," he said, "is it possible that you ... could care for
+me enough to--to 'elp me? Miss Walshingham, do you care for me at all?"
+
+It seemed she was never going to answer. She looked up at him. "I
+think," she said, "you are the most generous--look at what you have done
+for my brother--the most generous and the most modest of men. And this
+afternoon--I thought you were the bravest."
+
+She turned her head, glanced down, waved her hand to someone on the
+terrace below, and stood up.
+
+"Mother is signalling," she said. "We must go down."
+
+Kipps became polite and deferential by habit, but his mind was a tumult
+that had nothing to do with that.
+
+He moved before her towards the little door that opened on the winding
+stairs--"always precede a lady down or up stairs"--and then on the
+second step he turned resolutely. "But," he said, looking up out of the
+shadow, flannel-clad and singularly like a man.
+
+She looked down on him, with her hand upon the stone lintel.
+
+He held out his hand as if to help her. "Can you tell me?" he said. "You
+must know----"
+
+"What?"
+
+"If you care for me?"
+
+She did not answer for a long time. It was as if everything in the
+world had drawn to the breaking point, and in a minute must certainly
+break.
+
+"Yes," she said, at last, "I know."
+
+Abruptly, by some impalpable sign, he knew what the answer would be, and
+he remained still.
+
+She bent down over him and softened to her wonderful smile.
+
+"Promise me," she insisted.
+
+He promised with his still face.
+
+"If _I_ do not hold you cheap, you will never hold yourself cheap----"
+
+"If you do not hold me cheap, you mean?"
+
+She bent down quite close beside him. "I hold you," she said, and then
+whispered, "_dear_."
+
+"Me?"
+
+She laughed aloud.
+
+He was astonished beyond measure. He stipulated, lest there might be
+some misconception, "You will marry me?"
+
+She was laughing, inundated by the sense of bountiful power, of
+possession and success. He looked quite a nice little man to have.
+"Yes," she laughed. "What else could I mean?" and, "Yes."
+
+He felt as a praying hermit might have felt, snatched from the midst of
+his quiet devotions, his modest sackcloth and ashes, and hurled neck and
+crop over the glittering gates of Paradise, smack among the iridescent
+wings, the bright-eyed Cherubim. He felt like some lowly and righteous
+man dynamited into Bliss....
+
+His hand tightened upon the rope that steadies one upon the stairs of
+stone. He was for kissing her hand and did not.
+
+He said not a word more. He turned about, and with something very like a
+scared expression on his face led the way into the obscurity of their
+descent.
+
+
+Sec.3
+
+Everyone seemed to understand. Nothing was said, nothing was explained,
+the merest touch of the eyes sufficed. As they clustered in the castle
+gateway Coote, Kipps remembered afterwards, laid hold of his arm as if
+by chance and pressed it. It was quite evident he knew. His eyes, his
+nose, shone with benevolent congratulations, shone, too, with the sense
+of a good thing conducted to its climax. Mrs. Walshingham, who had
+seemed a little fatigued by the hill, recovered, and was even obviously
+stirred by affection for her daughter. There was, in passing, a motherly
+caress. She asked Kipps to give her his arm in walking down the steep.
+Kipps in a sort of dream obeyed. He found himself trying to attend to
+her, and soon he was attending.
+
+She and Kipps talked like sober, responsible people and went slowly,
+while the others drifted down the hill together, a loose little group of
+four. He wondered momentarily what they would talk about and then sank
+into his conversation with Mrs. Walshingham. He conversed, as it were,
+out of his superficial personality, and his inner self lay stunned in
+unsuspected depths within. It had an air of being an interesting and
+friendly talk, almost their first long talk together. Hitherto he had
+had a sort of fear of Mrs. Walshingham, as of a person possibly
+satirical, but she proved a soul of sense and sentiment, and Kipps, for
+all of his abstraction, got on with her unexpectedly well. They talked a
+little upon scenery and the inevitable melancholy attaching to the old
+ruins and the thought of vanished generations.
+
+"Perhaps they jousted here," said Mrs. Walshingham.
+
+"They was up to all sorts of things," said Kipps, and then the two came
+round to Helen. She spoke of her daughter's literary ambitions. "She
+will do something, I feel sure. You know, Mr. Kipps, it's a great
+responsibility to a mother to feel her daughter is--exceptionally
+clever."
+
+"I dessay it is," said Kipps. "There's no mistake about that."
+
+She spoke, too, of her son--almost like Helen's twin--alike, yet
+different. She made Kipps feel quite fatherly. "They are so quick, so
+artistic," she said, "so full of ideas. Almost they frighten me. One
+feels they need opportunities--as other people need air."
+
+She spoke of Helen's writing. "Even when she was quite a little dot she
+wrote verse."
+
+(Kipps, sensation.)
+
+"Her father had just the same tastes----" Mrs. Walshingham turned a
+little beam of half-pathetic reminiscence on the past. "He was more
+artist than business man. That was the trouble.... He was misled by his
+partner, and when the crash came everyone blamed him.... Well, it
+doesn't do to dwell on horrid things--especially to-day. There are
+bright days, Mr. Kipps, and dark days. And mine have not always been
+bright."
+
+Kipps presented a face of Coote-like sympathy.
+
+She diverged to talk of flowers, and Kipps' mind was filled with the
+picture of Helen bending down towards him in the Keep....
+
+They spread the tea under the trees before the little inn, and at a
+certain moment Kipps became aware that everyone in the party was
+simultaneously and furtively glancing at him. There might have been a
+certain tension had it not been first of all for Coote and his tact, and
+afterwards for a number of wasps. Coote was resolved to make this
+memorable day pass off well, and displayed an almost boisterous sense of
+fun. Then young Walshingham began talking of the Roman remains below
+Lympne, intending to lead up to the Overman. "These old Roman chaps," he
+said, and then the wasps arrived. They killed three in the jam alone.
+
+Kipps killed wasps, as if it were in a dream, and handed things to the
+wrong people, and maintained a thin surface of ordinary intelligence
+with the utmost difficulty. At times he became aware, aware with an
+extraordinary vividness, of Helen. Helen was carefully not looking at
+him and behaving with amazing coolness and ease. But just for that one
+time there was the faintest suggestion of pink beneath the ivory of her
+cheeks....
+
+Tacitly the others conceded to Kipps the right to paddle back with
+Helen; he helped her into the canoe and took his paddle, and, paddling
+slowly, dropped behind the others. And now his inner self stirred again.
+He said nothing to her. How could he ever say anything to her again? She
+spoke to him at rare intervals about reflections and the flowers and the
+trees, and he nodded in reply. But his mind moved very slowly forward
+now from the point at which it had fallen stunned in the Lympne Keep,
+moving forward to the beginnings of realisation. As yet he did not say
+even in the recesses of his heart that she was his. But he perceived
+that the goddess had come from her altar amazingly, and had taken him by
+the hand!
+
+The sky was a vast splendour, and then close to them were the dark,
+protecting trees and the shining, smooth, still water. He was an erect,
+black outline to her; he plied his paddle with no unskilful gesture, the
+water broke to snaky silver and glittered far behind his strokes.
+Indeed, he did not seem bad to her. Youth calls to youth the wide world
+through, and her soul rose in triumph over his subjection. And behind
+him was money and opportunity, freedom and London, a great background of
+seductively indistinct hopes. To him her face was a warm dimness. In
+truth, he could not see her eyes, but it seemed to his love-witched
+brain he did and that they shone out at him like dusky stars.
+
+All the world that evening was no more than a shadowy frame of darkling
+sky and water and dripping bows about Helen. He seemed to see through
+things with an extraordinary clearness; she was revealed to him
+certainly, as the cause and essence of it all.
+
+He was indeed at his Heart's Desire. It was one of those times when
+there seems to be no future, when Time has stopped and we are at an end.
+Kipps, that evening, could not have imagined a to-morrow, all that his
+imagination had pointed towards was attained. His mind stood still and
+took the moments as they came.
+
+
+Sec.4
+
+About nine that night Coote came around to Kipps' new apartment in the
+Upper Sandgate Road--the house on the Leas had been let furnished--and
+Kipps made an effort toward realisation. He was discovered sitting at
+the open window and without a lamp, quite still. Coote was deeply moved,
+and he pressed Kipps' palm and laid a knobby, white hand on his shoulder
+and displayed the sort of tenderness becoming in a crisis. Kipps was too
+moved that night, and treated Coote like a very dear brother.
+
+"She's splendid," said Coote, coming to it abruptly.
+
+"Isn't she?" said Kipps.
+
+"I couldn't help noticing her face," said Coote.... "You know, my dear
+Kipps, that this is better than a legacy."
+
+"I don't deserve it," said Kipps.
+
+"You can't say that."
+
+"I don't. I can't 'ardly believe it. I can't believe it at all. No!"
+
+There followed an expressive stillness.
+
+"It's wonderful," said Kipps. "It takes me like that."
+
+Coote made a faint blowing noise, and so again they came for a time of
+silence.
+
+"And it began--before your money?"
+
+"When I was in 'er class," said Kipps, solemnly.
+
+Coote, speaking out of a darkness which he was illuminating strangely
+with efforts to strike a match, said that it was beautiful. He could not
+have _wished_ Kipps a better fortune....
+
+He lit a cigarette, and Kipps was moved to do the same, with a
+sacramental expression. Presently speech flowed more freely.
+
+Coote began to praise Helen and her mother and brother. He talked of
+when "it" might be, he presented the thing as concrete and credible.
+"It's a county family, you know," he said. "She is connected, you know,
+with the Beaupres family--you know Lord Beaupres."
+
+"No!" said Kipps, "reely!"
+
+"Distantly, of course," said Coote. "Still----"
+
+He smiled a smile that glimmered in the twilight.
+
+"It's too much," said Kipps, overcome. "It's so all like that."
+
+Coote exhaled. For a time Kipps listened to Helen's praises and matured
+a point of view.
+
+"I say, Coote," he said. "What ought I to do now?"
+
+"What do you mean?" said Coote.
+
+"I mean about calling on 'er and all that."
+
+He reflected. "Naturally, I want to do it all right."
+
+"Of course," said Coote.
+
+"It would be awful to go and do something--now--all wrong."
+
+Coote's cigarette glowed as he meditated. "You must call, of course," he
+decided. "You'll have to speak to Mrs. Walshingham."
+
+"'Ow?" said Kipps.
+
+"Tell her you mean to marry her daughter."
+
+"I dessay she knows," said Kipps, with defensive penetration.
+
+Coote's head was visible, shaking itself judiciously.
+
+"Then there's the ring," said Kipps. "What 'ave I to do about that?"
+
+"What ring do you mean?"
+
+"'Ngagement Ring. There isn't anything at all about that in 'Manners and
+Rules of Good Society'--not a word."
+
+"Of course you must get something--tasteful. Yes."
+
+"What sort of a ring?"
+
+"Something nace. They'll show you in the shop."
+
+"Of course. I 'spose I got to take it to 'er, eh? Put it on her finger."
+
+"Oh, no! Send it. Much better."
+
+"Ah!" said Kipps, for the first time, with a note of relief.
+
+"Then, 'ow about this call--on Mrs. Walshingham, I mean. 'Ow ought one
+to go?"
+
+"Rather a ceremonial occasion," reflected Coote.
+
+"Wadyer mean? Frock coat?"
+
+"I _think_ so," said Coote, with discrimination.
+
+"Light trousers and all that?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Rose?"
+
+"I think it might run to a buttonhole."
+
+The curtain that hung over the future became less opaque to the eyes of
+Kipps. To-morrow, and then other days, became perceptible at least as
+existing. Frock coat, silk hat and a rose! With a certain solemnity he
+contemplated himself in the process of slow transformation into an
+English gentleman, Arthur Cuyps, frock-coated on occasions of ceremony,
+the familiar acquaintance of Lady Punnet, the recognised wooer of a
+distant connection of the Earl of Beaupres.
+
+Something like awe at the magnitude of his own fortune came upon him. He
+felt the world was opening out like a magic flower in a transformation
+scene at the touch of this wand of gold. And Helen, nestling beautiful
+in the red heart of the flower. Only ten weeks ago he had been no more
+than the shabbiest of improvers and shamefully dismissed for
+dissipation, the mere soil-burned seed, as it were, of these glories. He
+resolved the engagement ring should be of expressively excessive quality
+and appearance, in fact, the very best they had.
+
+"Ought I to send 'er flowers?" he speculated.
+
+"Not necessarily," said Coote. "Though, of course, it's an
+attention."...
+
+Kipps meditated on flowers.
+
+"When you see her," said Coote, "you'll have to ask her to name the
+day."
+
+Kipps started. "That won't be just yet a bit, will it?"
+
+"Don't know any reason for delay."
+
+"Oo, but--a year, say."
+
+"Rather a long time," said Coote.
+
+"Is it?" said Kipps, turning his head sharply. "But----"
+
+There was quite a long pause.
+
+"I say," he said, at last, and in an unaltered voice, "you'll 'ave to
+'elp me about the wedding."
+
+"Only too happy," said Coote.
+
+"Of course," said Kipps, "I didn't think----" He changed his line of
+thought. "Coote," he asked, "wot's a 'state-eh-tate'?"
+
+"A 'tate-ah-tay'!" said Coote, improvingly, "is a conversation alone
+together."
+
+"Lor'!" said Kipps, "but I thought----. It says _strictly_ we oughtn't
+to enjoy a tater-tay, not sit together, walk together, ride together or
+meet during any part of the day. That don't leave much time for meeting,
+does it?"
+
+"The books says that?" asked Coote.
+
+"I jest learnt it by 'eart before you came. I thought that was a bit
+rum, but I s'pose it's all right."
+
+"You won't find Miss Walshingham so strict as all that," said Coote. "I
+think that's a bit extreme. They'd only do that now in very strict old
+aristocratic families. Besides, the Walshinghams are so
+modern--advanced, you might say. I expect you'll get plenty of chances
+of talking together."
+
+"There's a tremendous lot to think about," said Kipps, blowing a
+profound sigh. "D'you mean--p'raps we might be married in a few months
+or so."
+
+"You'll _have_ to be," said Coote. "Why not?"...
+
+Midnight found Kipps alone, looking a little tired and turning over the
+leaves of the red-covered textbook with a studious expression. He paused
+for a moment on page 233, his eye caught by the words:
+
+"FOR AN UNCLE OR AUNT BY MARRIAGE the period is six weeks black, with
+jet trimmings."
+
+"No," said Kipps, after a vigorous mental effort. "That's not it." The
+pages rustled again. He stopped and flattened out the little book
+decisively at the beginning of the chapter on "Weddings."
+
+He became pensive. He stared at the lamp wick. "I suppose I ought to go
+over and tell them," he said, at last.
+
+
+Sec.5
+
+Kipps called on Mrs. Walshingham, attired in the proper costume for
+ceremonial Occasions in the Day. He carried a silk hat, and he wore a
+deep-skirted frock coat, his boots were patent leather and his trousers
+dark grey. He had generous white cuffs with gold links, and his grey
+gloves, one thumb in which had burst when he put them on, he held
+loosely in his hand. He carried a small umbrella rolled to an exquisite
+tightness. A sense of singular correctness pervaded his being and warred
+with the enormity of the occasion for possession of his soul. Anon he
+touched his silk cravat. The world smelt of his rosebud.
+
+He seated himself on a new re-covered chintz armchair and stuck out the
+elbow of the arm that held his hat.
+
+"I know," said Mrs. Walshingham, "I know everything," and helped him out
+most amazingly. She deepened the impression he had already received of
+her sense and refinement. She displayed an amount of tenderness that
+touched him.
+
+"This is a great thing," she said, "to a mother," and her hand rested
+for a moment on his impeccable coat sleeve.
+
+"A daughter, Arthur," she explained, "is so much more than a son."
+
+Marriage, she said, was a lottery, and without love and toleration
+there was much unhappiness. Her life had not always been bright--there
+had been dark days and bright days. She smiled rather sweetly. "This is
+a bright one," she said.
+
+She said very kind and flattering things to Kipps, and she thanked him
+for his goodness to her son. ("That wasn't anything," said Kipps.) And
+then she expanded upon the theme of her two children. "Both so
+accomplished," she said, "so clever. I call them my Twin Jewels."
+
+She was repeating a remark that she had made at Lympne, that she always
+said her children needed opportunities, as other people needed air, when
+she was abruptly arrested by the entry of Helen. They hung on a pause,
+Helen perhaps surprised by Kipps' weekday magnificence. Then she
+advanced with outstretched hand.
+
+Both the young people were shy. "I jest called 'round," began Kipps, and
+became uncertain how to end.
+
+"Won't you have some tea?" asked Helen.
+
+She walked to the window, looked out at the familiar outporter's barrow,
+turned, surveyed Kipps for a moment ambiguously, said "I will get some
+tea," and so departed again.
+
+Mrs. Walshingham and Kipps looked at one another and the lady smiled
+indulgently. "You two young people mustn't be shy of each other," said
+Mrs. Walshingham, which damaged Kipps considerably.
+
+She was explaining how sensitive Helen always had been, even about
+quite little things, when the servant appeared with the tea things, and
+then Helen followed, and taking up a secure position behind the little
+banboo tea table, broke the ice with officious teacup clattering. Then
+she introduced the topic of a forthcoming open-air performance of "As
+You Like It," and steered past the worst of the awkwardness. They
+discussed stage illusion. "I mus' say," said Kipps, "I don't quite like
+a play in a theayter. It seems sort of unreal, some'ow."
+
+"But most plays are written for the stage," said Helen, looking at the
+sugar.
+
+"I know," admitted Kipps.
+
+They finished tea. "Well," said Kipps, and rose.
+
+"You mustn't go yet," said Mrs. Walshingham, rising and taking his hand.
+"I'm sure you two must have heaps to say to each other," and so she
+escaped towards the door.
+
+
+Sec.6
+
+Among other projects that seemed almost equally correct to Kipps at that
+exalted moment was one of embracing Helen with ardour as soon as the
+door closed behind her mother and one of headlong flight through the
+open window. Then he remembered he ought to hold the door open for Mrs.
+Walshingham, and turned from that duty to find Helen still standing,
+beautifully inaccessible, behind the tea things. He closed the door and
+advanced toward her with his arms akimbo and his hands upon his coat
+skirts. Then, feeling angular, he moved his right hand to his
+moustache. Anyhow, he was dressed all right. Somewhere at the back of
+his mind, dim and mingled with doubt and surprise, appeared the
+perception that he felt now quite differently towards her, that
+something between them had been blown from Lympne Keep to the four winds
+of heaven....
+
+She regarded him with an eye of critical proprietorship.
+
+"Mother has been making up to you," she said, smiling slightly.
+
+She added, "It was nice of you to come around to see her."
+
+They stood through a brief pause, as though each had expected something
+different in the other and was a little perplexed at its not being
+there. Kipps found he was at the corner of the brown covered table, and
+he picked up a little flexible book that lay upon it to occupy his mind.
+
+"I bought you a ring to-day," he said, bending the book and speaking for
+the sake of saying something, and then he was moved to genuine speech.
+"You know," he said, "I can't 'ardly believe it."
+
+Her face relaxed slightly again. "No?" she said, and may have breathed,
+"Nor I."
+
+"No," he went on. "It's as though everything 'ad changed. More even than
+when I got my money. 'Ere we are going to marry. It's like being someone
+else. What I feel is----"
+
+He turned a flushed and earnest face to her. He seemed to come alive to
+her with one natural gesture. "I don't _know_ things. I'm not good
+enough. I'm not refined. The more you'll see of me the more you'll find
+me out."
+
+"But I'm going to help you."
+
+"You'll 'ave to 'elp me a fearful lot."
+
+She walked to the window, glanced out of it, made up her mind, turned
+and came towards him, with her hands clasped behind her back.
+
+"All these things that trouble you are very little things. If you don't
+mind--if you will let me tell you things----"
+
+"I wish you would."
+
+"Then I will."
+
+"They're little things to you, but they aren't to me."
+
+"It all depends, if you don't mind being told."
+
+"By you?"
+
+"I don't expect you to be told by strangers."
+
+"Oo!" said Kipps, expressing much.
+
+"You know, there are just a few little things. For instance, you know,
+you are careless with your pronunciation.... You don't mind my telling
+you?"
+
+"I like it," said Kipps.
+
+"There's aitches."
+
+"I know," said Kipps, and then, endorsingly, "I been told. Fact is, I
+know a chap, a Nacter, _he's_ told me. He's told me, and he's going to
+give me a lesso nor so."
+
+"I'm glad of that. It only requires a little care."
+
+"Of course. On the stage they got to look out. They take regular
+lessons."
+
+"Of course," said Helen, a little absently.
+
+"I dessay I shall soon get into it," said Kipps.
+
+"And then there's dress," said Helen, taking up her thread again.
+
+Kipps became pink, but he remained respectfully attentive.
+
+"You don't mind?" she said.
+
+"Oo, no."
+
+"You mustn't be too--too dressy. It's possible to be over-conventional,
+over-elaborate. It makes you look like a shop--like a common, well-off
+person. There's a sort of easiness that is better. A real gentleman
+looks right, without looking as though he had tried to be right."
+
+"Jest as though 'e'd put on what came first?" said the pupil, in a faded
+voice.
+
+"Not exactly that, but a sort of ease."
+
+Kipps nodded his head intelligently. In his heart he was kicking his
+silk hat about the room in an ecstasy of disappointment.
+
+"And you must accustom yourself to be more at your ease when you are
+with people," said Helen. "You've only got to forget yourself a little
+and not be anxious----"
+
+"I'll try," said Kipps, looking rather hard at the teapot. "I'll do my
+best to try."
+
+"I know you will," she said, and laid a hand for an instant upon his
+shoulder and withdrew it.
+
+He did not perceive her caress. "One has to learn," he said. His
+attention was distracted by the strenuous efforts that were going on in
+the back of his head to translate, "I say, didn't you ought to name the
+day?" into easy as well as elegant English, a struggle that was still
+undecided when the time came for them to part....
+
+He sat for a long time at the open window of his sitting-room with an
+intent face, recapitulating that interview. His eyes rested at last
+almost reproachfully on the silk hat beside him. "'Ow is one to know?"
+he asked. His attention was caught by a rubbed place in the nap, and,
+still thoughtful, he rolled up his handkerchief skilfully into a soft
+ball and began to smooth this down.
+
+His expression changed slowly.
+
+"'Ow the Juice is one to know?" he said, putting down the hat with some
+emphasis.
+
+He rose up, went across the room to the sideboard, and, standing there,
+opened and began to read "Manners and Rules."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE BICYCLE MANUFACTURER
+
+
+Sec.1
+
+So Kipps embarked upon his engagement, steeled himself to the high
+enterprise of marrying above his breeding. The next morning found him
+dressing with a certain quiet severity of movement, and it seemed to his
+landlady's housemaid that he was unusually dignified at breakfast. He
+meditated profoundly over his kipper and his kidney and bacon. He was
+going to New Romney to tell the old people what had happened and where
+he stood. And the love of Helen had also given him courage to do what
+Buggins had once suggested to him as a thing he would do were he in
+Kipps' place, and that was to hire a motor car for the afternoon. He had
+an early cold lunch, and then, with an air of quiet resolution, assumed
+a cap and coat he had purchased to this end, and thus equipped strolled
+around, blowing slightly, to the motor shop. The transaction was
+unexpectedly easy, and within the hour Kipps, spectacled and wrapped
+about, was tootling through Dymchurch.
+
+They came to a stop smartly and neatly outside the little toy shop.
+"Make that thing 'oot a bit, will you," said Kipps. "Yes, that's it."
+"Whup," said the motor car. "Whurrup!"
+
+Both his Aunt and Uncle came out on the pavement. "Why, it's Artie,"
+cried his Aunt, and Kipps had a moment of triumph.
+
+He descended to hand claspings, removed wraps and spectacles, and the
+motor driver retired to take "an hour off." Old Kipps surveyed the
+machinery and disconcerted Kipps for a moment by asking him in a knowing
+tone what they asked him for a thing like that. The two men stood
+inspecting the machine and impressing the neighbours for a time, and
+then they strolled through the shop into the little parlour for a drink.
+
+"They ain't settled," old Kipps had said to the neighbours. "They ain't
+got no further than experiments. There's a bit of take-in about each.
+You take my advice and wait, me boy, even if it's a year or two, before
+you buy one for your own use."
+
+(Though Kipps had said nothing of doing anything of the sort.)
+
+"'Ow d'you like that whiskey I sent?" asked Kipps, dodging the old
+familiar bunch of children's pails.
+
+Old Kipps became tactful. "It's a very good whiskey, my boy," said old
+Kipps. "I 'aven't the slightest doubt it's a very good whiskey and cost
+you a tidy price. But--dashed if it soots me! They put this here Foozle
+Ile in it, my boy, and it ketches me jest 'ere." He indicated his centre
+of figure. "Gives me the heartburn," he said, and shook his head rather
+sadly.
+
+"It's a very good whiskey," said Kipps. "It's what the actor manager
+chaps drink in London, I 'appen to know."
+
+"I dessay they do, my boy," said old Kipps, "but then they've 'ad their
+livers burnt out, and I 'aven't. They ain't dellicat like me. My stummik
+always _'as_ been extrey dellicat. Sometimes it's almost been as though
+nothing would lay on it. But that's in passing. I liked those segars.
+You can send me some of them segars...."
+
+You cannot lead a conversation straight from the gastric consequences of
+Foozle Ile to Love, and so Kipps, after a friendly inspection of a rare
+old engraving after Morland (perfect except for a hole kicked through
+the centre) that his Uncle had recently purchased by private haggle,
+came to the topic of the old people's removal.
+
+At the outset of Kipps' great fortunes there had been much talk of some
+permanent provision for them. It had been conceded they were to be
+provided for comfortably, and the phrase "retire from business" had been
+very much in the air. Kipps had pictured an ideal cottage, with a
+creeper always in exuberant flower about the door, where the sun shone
+forever and the wind never blew and a perpetual welcome hovered in the
+doorway. It was an agreeable dream, but when it came to the point of
+deciding upon this particular cottage or that, and on this particular
+house or that, Kipps was surprised by an unexpected clinging to the
+little home, which he had always understood to be the worst of all
+possible houses.
+
+"We don't want to move in a 'urry," said Mrs. Kipps.
+
+"When we want to move, we want to move for life. I've had enough moving
+about in my time," said old Kipps.
+
+"We can do here a bit more, now we done here so long," said Mrs. Kipps.
+
+"You lemme look about a bit _fust_," said old Kipps.
+
+And in looking about old Kipps found perhaps a finer joy than any mere
+possession could have given. He would shut his shop more or less
+effectually against the intrusion of customers, and toddle abroad
+seeking new matter for his dream; no house was too small and none too
+large for his knowing enquiries. Occupied houses took his fancy more
+than vacancies, and he would remark, "You won't be a livin' 'ere
+forever, even if you think you will," when irate householders protested
+against the unsolicited examination of their more intimate premises....
+
+Remarkable difficulties arose of a totally unexpected sort.
+
+"If we 'ave a larger 'ouse," said Mrs. Kipps with sudden bitterness, "we
+shall want a servant, and I don't want no gells in the place larfin' at
+me, sniggerin' and larfin' and prancin' and trapesin', lardy da! If we
+'ave a smaller 'ouse, there won't be room to swing a cat."
+
+Room to swing a cat it seemed was absolutely essential. It was an
+infrequent but indispensable operation.
+
+"When we _do_ move," said old Kipps, "if we could get a bit of
+shootin'----. I don't want to sell off all this here stock for nothin'.
+It's took years to 'cumulate. I put a ticket in the winder sayin'
+'sellin' orf,' but it 'asn't brought nothing like a roosh. One of these
+'ere dratted visitors pretendin' to want an air gun, was all we 'ad in
+yesterday. Jest an excuse for spyin' round and then go away and larf at
+you. No-thanky to everything, it didn't matter what.... That's 'ow _I_
+look at it, Artie."
+
+They pursued meandering fancies about the topic of their future
+settlement for a space and Kipps became more and more hopeless of any
+proper conversational opening that would lead to his great announcement,
+and more and more uncertain how such an opening should be taken. Once
+indeed old Kipps, anxious to get away from this dangerous subject of
+removals, began: "And what are you a-doin' of in Folkestone? I shall
+have to come over and see you one of these days," but before Kipps could
+get in upon that, his Uncle had passed into a general exposition of the
+proper treatment of landladies and their humbugging, cheating ways, and
+so the opportunity vanished. It seemed to Kipps the only thing to do was
+to go out into the town for a stroll, compose an effectual opening at
+leisure, and then come back and discharge it at them in its consecutive
+completeness. And even out of doors and alone, he found his mind
+distracted by irrelevant thoughts.
+
+
+Sec.2
+
+His steps led him out of the High Street towards the church, and he
+leant for a time over the gate that had once been the winning post of
+his race with Ann Pornick, and presently found himself in a sitting
+position on the top rail. He had to get things smooth again, he knew;
+his mind was like a mirror of water after a breeze. The image of Helen
+and his great future was broken and mingled into fragmentary reflections
+of remoter things, of the good name of Old Methusaleh Three Stars, of
+long dormant memories the High Street saw fit, by some trick of light
+and atmosphere, to arouse that afternoon....
+
+Abruptly a fine, full voice from under his elbow shouted, "What--O Art!"
+and, behold, Sid Pornick was back in his world, leaning over the gate
+beside him, and holding out a friendly hand.
+
+He was oddly changed and yet oddly like the Sid that Kipps had known. He
+had the old broad face and mouth, abundantly freckled, the same short
+nose, and the same blunt chin, the same odd suggestion of his sister Ann
+without a touch of her beauty; but he had quite a new voice, loud and a
+little hard, and his upper lip carried a stiff and very fair moustache.
+
+Kipps shook hands. "I was jest thinking of _you_, Sid," he said, "jest
+this very moment and wondering if ever I should see you again, ever.
+And 'ere you are!"
+
+"One likes a look 'round at times," said Sid. "How are _you_, old chap?"
+
+"All right," said Kipps. "I just been lef'----"
+
+"You aren't changed much," interrupted Sid.
+
+"Ent I?" said Kipps, foiled.
+
+"I knew your back directly I came 'round the corner. Spite of that 'at
+you got on. Hang it, I said, that's Art Kipps or the devil. And so it
+was."
+
+Kipps made a movement of his neck as if he would look at his back and
+judge. Then he looked Sid in the face. "You got a moustache, Sid," he
+said.
+
+"I s'pose you're having your holidays?" said Sid.
+
+"Well, partly. But I just been lef'----"
+
+"_I'm_ taking a bit of a holiday," Sid went on. "But the fact is, I have
+to give _myself_ holidays nowadays. I've set up for myself."
+
+"Not down here?"
+
+"No fear! I'm not a turnip. I've started in Hammersmith, manufacturing."
+Sid spoke offhand as though there was no such thing as pride.
+
+"Not drapery?"
+
+"No fear! Engineer. Manufacture bicycles." He clapped his hand to his
+breast pocket and produced a number of pink handbills. He handed one to
+Kipps and prevented him reading it by explanations and explanatory dabs
+of a pointing finger. "That's our make, my make to be exact, The Red
+Flag, see?--I got a transfer with my name--Pantocrat tyres, eight
+pounds--yes, _there_--Clinchers ten, Dunlop's eleven, Ladies' one pound
+more--that's the lady's. Best machine at a democratic price in London.
+No guineas and no discounts--honest trade. I build 'em--to order. I've
+built," he reflected, looking away seaward--"seventeen. Counting orders
+in 'and.... Come down to look at the old place a bit. Mother likes it at
+times."
+
+"Thought you'd all gone away----"
+
+"What! after my father's death? No! My mother's come back, and she's
+living at Muggett's cottages. The sea air suits 'er. She likes the old
+place better than Hammersmith ... and I can afford it. Got an old crony
+or so here.... Gossip ... have tea.... S'pose _you_ ain't married,
+Kipps?"
+
+Kipps shook his head, "I----" he began.
+
+"_I_ am," said Sid. "Married these two years and got a nipper. Proper
+little chap."
+
+Kipps got his word in at last. "I got engaged day before yesterday," he
+said.
+
+"Ah!" said Sid airily. "That's all right. Who's the fortunate lady?"
+
+Kipps tried to speak in an offhand way. He stuck his hands in his
+pockets as he spoke. "She's a solicitor's daughter," he said, "in
+Folkestone. Rather'r nice set. County family. Related to the Earl of
+Beaupres----"
+
+"Steady on!" cried Sid.
+
+"You see, I've 'ad a bit of luck, Sid. Been lef' money."
+
+Sid's eye travelled instinctively to mark Kipps' garments. "How much?"
+he asked.
+
+"'Bout twelve 'undred a year," said Kipps, more offhandedly than ever.
+
+"Lord!" said Sid, with a note of positive dismay, and stepped back a
+pace or two.
+
+"My granfaver it was," said Kipps, trying hard to be calm and simple.
+"'Ardly knew I _'ad_ a granfaver. And then--bang! When o' Bean, the
+solicitor, told me of it, you could 'ave knocked me down----"
+
+"_'Ow_ much?" demanded Sid, with a sharp note in his voice.
+
+"Twelve 'undred pound a year--'proximately, that is...."
+
+Sid's attempt at genial unenvious congratulation did not last a minute.
+He shook hands with an unreal heartiness and said he was jolly glad.
+"It's a blooming stroke of Luck," he said.
+
+"It's a bloomin' stroke of Luck," he repeated; "that's what it is," with
+the smile fading from his face. "Of course, better you 'ave it than me,
+o' chap. So I don't envy you, anyhow. _I_ couldn't keep it, if I did
+'ave it."
+
+"'Ow's that?" said Kipps, a little hipped by Sid's patent chagrin.
+
+"I'm a Socialist, you see," said Sid. "I don't 'old with Wealth. What
+_is_ Wealth? Labour robbed out of the poor. At most it's only yours in
+Trust. Leastways, that 'ow _I_ should take it." He reflected. "The
+Present distribution of Wealth," he said and stopped.
+
+Then he let himself go, with unmasked bitterness. "It's no sense at
+all. It's jest damn foolishness. Who's going to work and care in a
+muddle like this? Here first you do--something anyhow--of the world's
+work, and it pays you hardly anything, and then it invites you to do
+nothing, nothing whatever, and pays you twelve hundred pounds a year.
+Who's going to respect laws and customs when they come to damn silliness
+like that?" He repeated, "Twelve hundred pounds a year!"
+
+At the sight of Kipps' face he relented slightly.
+
+"It's not you I'm thinking of, o' man; it's the system. Better you than
+most people. Still----"
+
+He laid both hands on the gate and repeated to himself, "Twelve 'undred
+a year.... Gee-Whizz, Kipps! You'll be a swell!"
+
+"I shan't," said Kipps with imperfect conviction. "No fear."
+
+"You can't 'ave money like that and not swell out. You'll soon be too
+big to speak to--'ow do they put it?--a mere mechanic like me."
+
+"No fear, Siddee," said Kipps with conviction. "I ain't that sort."
+
+"Ah!" said Sid, with a sort of unwilling scepticism, "money'll be too
+much for you. Besides--you're caught by a swell already."
+
+"'Ow d'you mean?"
+
+"That girl you're going to marry. Masterman says----"
+
+"Oo's Masterman?"
+
+"Rare good chap I know--takes my first floor front room. Masterson says
+it's always the wife pitches the key. Always. There's no social
+differences--till women come in."
+
+"Ah!" said Kipps profoundly. "You don't know."
+
+Sid shook his head. "Fancy!" he reflected, "Art Kipps!... Twelve 'Undred
+a Year!"
+
+Kipps tried to bridge that opening gulf. "Remember the Hurons, Sid?"
+
+"Rather," said Sid.
+
+"Remember that wreck?"
+
+"I can smell it now--sort of sour smell."
+
+Kipps was silent for a moment with reminiscent eyes on Sid's still
+troubled face.
+
+"I say, Sid, 'ow's Ann?"
+
+"_She's_ all right," said Sid.
+
+"Where is she now?"
+
+"In a place ... Ashford."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+Sid's face had become a shade sulkier than before.
+
+"The fact is," he said, "we don't get on very well together. _I_ don't
+hold with service. We're common people, I suppose, but I don't like it.
+I don't see why a sister of mine should wait at other people's tables.
+No. Not even if they got Twelve 'Undred a Year."
+
+Kipps tried to change the point of application. "Remember 'ow you came
+out once when we were racing here?... She didn't run bad for a girl."
+
+And his own words raised an image brighter than he could have supposed,
+so bright it seemed to breathe before him and did not fade altogether,
+even when he was back in Folkestone an hour or so later.
+
+But Sid was not to be deflected from that other rankling theme by any
+reminiscences of Ann.
+
+"I wonder what you will do with all that money," he speculated. "I
+wonder if you will do any good at all. I wonder what you _could_ do. You
+should hear Masterman. He'd tell you things. Suppose it came to me, what
+should I do? It's no good giving it back to the state as things are.
+Start an Owenite profit-sharing factory perhaps. Or a new Socialist
+paper. We want a new Socialist paper."
+
+He tried to drown his personal chagrin in elaborate exemplary
+suggestions....
+
+
+Sec.3
+
+"I must be gettin' on to my motor," said Kipps at last, having to a
+large extent heard him out.
+
+"What! Got a motor?"
+
+"No!" said Kipps apologetically. "Only jobbed for the day."
+
+"'Ow much?"
+
+"Five pounds."
+
+"Keep five families for a week! Good Lord!" That seemed to crown Sid's
+disgust.
+
+Yet drawn by a sort of fascination he came with Kipps and assisted at
+the mounting of the motor. He was pleased to note it was not the most
+modern of motors, but that was the only grain of comfort. Kipps mounted
+at once, after one violent agitation of the little shop-door to set the
+bell a-jingle and warn his Uncle and Aunt. Sid assisted with the great
+furlined overcoat and examined the spectacles.
+
+"Good-bye, o' chap!" said Kipps.
+
+"Good-bye, o' chap!" said Sid.
+
+The old people came out to say good-bye.
+
+Old Kipps was radiant with triumph. "'Pon my Sammy, Artie! I'm a goo'
+mind to come with you," he shouted, and then, "I got something you might
+take with you!"
+
+He dodged back into the shop and returned with the perforated engraving
+after Morland.
+
+"You stick to this, my boy," he said. "You get it repaired by someone
+who knows. It's the most vallyble thing I got you so far, you take my
+word."
+
+"Warrup!" said the motor, and tuff, tuff, tuff, and backed and snorted
+while old Kipps danced about on the pavement as if foreseeing complex
+catastrophes, and told the driver, "That's all right."
+
+He waved his stout stick to his receding nephew. Then he turned to Sid.
+"Now, if you could make something like that, young Pornick, you _might_
+blow a bit!"
+
+"I'll make a doocid sight better than _that_ before I done," said Sid,
+hands deep in his pockets.
+
+"Not _you_," said old Kipps.
+
+The motor set up a prolonged sobbing moan and vanished around the
+corner. Sid stood motionless for a space, unheeding some further remark
+from old Kipps. The young mechanic had just discovered that to have
+manufactured seventeen bicycles, including orders in hand, is not so big
+a thing as he had supposed, and such discoveries try one's manhood....
+
+"Oh well!" said Sid at last, and turned his face towards his mother's
+cottage.
+
+She had got a hot teacake for him, and she was a little hurt that he was
+dark and preoccupied as he consumed it. He had always been such a boy
+for teacake, and then when one went out specially and got him one----!
+
+He did not tell her--he did not tell anyone--he had seen young Kipps. He
+did not want to talk about Kipps for a bit to anyone at all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE PUPIL LOVER
+
+
+Sec.1
+
+When Kipps came to reflect upon his afternoon's work he had his first
+inkling of certain comprehensive incompatibilities lying about the
+course of true love in his particular case. He had felt without
+understanding the incongruity between the announcement he had failed to
+make and the circle of ideas of his Aunt and Uncle. It was this rather
+than the want of a specific intention that had silenced him, the
+perception that when he travelled from Folkestone to New Romney he
+travelled from an atmosphere where his engagement to Helen was sane and
+excellent to an atmosphere where it was only to be regarded with
+incredulous suspicion. Coupled and associated with this jar was his
+sense of the altered behaviour of Sid Pornick, the evident shock to that
+ancient alliance caused by the fact of his enrichment, the touch of
+hostility in his "You'll soon be swelled too big to speak to a poor
+mechanic like me." Kipps was unprepared for the unpleasant truth; that
+the path of social advancement is and must be strewn with broken
+friendships. This first protrusion of that fact caused a painful
+confusion in his mind. It was speedily to protrude in a far more serious
+fashion in relation to the "hands" from the Emporium, and Chitterlow.
+
+From the day at Lympne Castle his relations with Helen had entered upon
+a new footing. He had prayed for Helen as good souls pray for Heaven,
+with as little understanding of what it was he prayed for. And now that
+period of standing humbly in the shadows before the shrine was over, and
+the Goddess, her veil of mystery flung aside, had come down to him and
+taken hold of him, a good, strong, firm hold, and walked by his side....
+She liked him. What was singular was that very soon she had kissed him
+thrice, whimsically upon the brow, and he had never kissed her at all.
+He could not analyse his feelings, only he knew the world was
+wonderfully changed about them, but the truth was that, though he still
+worshipped and feared her, though his pride in his engagement was
+ridiculously vast, he loved her now no more. That subtle something woven
+of the most delicate strands of self-love and tenderness and desire, had
+vanished imperceptibly; and was gone now for ever. But that she did not
+suspect in him, nor as a matter of fact did he.
+
+She took him in hand in perfect good faith. She told him things about
+his accent, she told him things about his bearing, about his costume and
+his way of looking at things. She thrust the blade of her intelligence
+into the tenderest corners of Kipps' secret vanity, she slashed his
+most intimate pride to bleeding tatters. He sought very diligently to
+anticipate some at least of these informing thrusts by making great use
+of Coote. But the unanticipated made a brave number....
+
+She found his simple willingness a very lovable thing.
+
+Indeed she liked him more and more. There was a touch of motherliness in
+her feelings towards him. But his upbringing and his associations had
+been, she diagnosed, "awful." At New Romney she glanced but little; that
+was remote. But in her inventory--she went over him as one might go over
+a newly taken house, with impartial thoroughness--she discovered more
+proximate influences, surprising intimations of nocturnal
+"sing-songs"--she pictured it as almost shocking that Kipps should sing
+to the banjo--much low-grade wisdom treasured from a person called
+Buggins--"Who _is_ Buggins?" said Helen--vague figures of indisputable
+vulgarity, Pierce and Carshot, and more particularly, a very terrible
+social phenomenon, Chitterlow.
+
+Chitterlow blazed upon them with unheralded oppressive brilliance the
+first time they were abroad together.
+
+They were going along the front of the Leas to see a school play in
+Sandgate--at the last moment Mrs. Walshingham had been unable to come
+with them--when Chitterlow loomed up into the new world. He was wearing
+the suit of striped flannel and the straw hat that had followed Kipps'
+payment in advance for his course in elocution, his hands were deep in
+his side pockets and animated the corners of his jacket, and his
+attentive gaze at the passing loungers, the faint smile under his boldly
+drawn nose, showed him engaged in studying character--no doubt for some
+forthcoming play.
+
+"What HO!" said he, at the sight of Kipps, and swept off the straw hat
+with so ample a clutch of his great, flat hand that it suggested to
+Helen's startled mind a conjurer about to palm a half-penny.
+
+"'Ello, Chitt'low," said Kipps a little awkwardly and not saluting.
+
+Chitterlow hesitated. "Half a mo', my boy," he said, and arrested Kipps
+by extending a large hand over his chest. "Excuse me, my dear," he said,
+bowing like his Russian count by way of apology to Helen and with a
+smile that would have killed at a hundred yards. He affected a
+semi-confidential grouping of himself and Kipps while Helen stood in
+white amazement.
+
+"About that play," he said.
+
+"'Ow about it?" asked Kipps, acutely aware of Helen.
+
+"It's all right," said Chitterlow. "There's a strong smell of syndicate
+in the air, I may tell you--Strong."
+
+"That's aw right," said Kipps.
+
+"You needn't tell everybody," said Chitterlow with a transitory,
+confidential hand to his mouth, which pointed the application of the
+"everybody" just a trifle too strongly. "But I think it's coming off.
+However----. I mustn't detain you now. So long. You'll come 'round, eh?"
+
+"Right you are," said Kipps.
+
+"To-night?"
+
+"At eight."
+
+And then, and more in the manner of a Russian prince than any common
+count, Chitterlow bowed and withdrew. Just for a moment he allowed a
+conquering eye to challenge Helen's and noted her for a girl of
+quality....
+
+There was a silence between our lovers for a space.
+
+"That," said Kipps with an allusive movement of the head, "was
+Chitterlow."
+
+"Is he--a friend of yours?"
+
+"In a way.... You see--I met 'im. Leastways 'e met me. Run into me with
+a bicycle, 'e did, and so we got talking together."
+
+He tried to appear at his ease. The young lady scrutinised his profile.
+
+"What is he?"
+
+"'E's a Nacter chap," said Kipps. "Leastways 'e writes plays."
+
+"And sells them?"
+
+"Partly."
+
+"Whom to?"
+
+"Different people. Shares he sells.... It's all right, reely--I meant to
+tell you about him before."
+
+Helen looked over her shoulder to catch a view of Chitterlow's
+retreating aspect. It did not compel her complete confidence.
+
+She turned to her lover and said in a tone of quiet authority, "You must
+tell me all about Chitterlow. Now."
+
+The explanation began....
+
+The School Play came almost as a relief to Kipps. In the flusterment of
+going in he could almost forget for a time his Laocoon struggle to
+explain, and in the intervals he did his best to keep forgetting. But
+Helen, with a gentle insistence, resumed the explanation of Chitterlow
+as they returned towards Folkestone.
+
+Chitterlow was confoundedly difficult to explain. You could hardly
+imagine!
+
+There was an almost motherly anxiety in Helen's manner, blended with the
+resolution of a schoolmistress to get to the bottom of the affair.
+Kipps' ears were soon quite brightly red.
+
+"Have you seen one of his plays?"
+
+"'E's tole me about one."
+
+"But on the stage."
+
+"No. He 'asn't 'ad any on the stage yet. That's all coming...."
+
+"Promise me," she said in conclusion, "you won't do anything without
+consulting me."
+
+And of course Kipps promised. "Oo--no!"
+
+They went on their way in silence.
+
+"One can't know everybody," said Helen in general.
+
+"Of course," said Kipps; "in a sort of way it was him that helped me to
+my money." And he indicated in a confused manner the story of the
+advertisement. "I don't like to drop 'im all at once," he added.
+
+Helen was silent for a space, and when she spoke she went off at a
+tangent. "We shall live in London--soon," she remarked. "It's only while
+we are here."
+
+It was the first intimation she gave him of their post-nuptial
+prospects.
+
+"We shall have a nice little flat somewhere, not too far west, and there
+we shall build up a circle of our own."
+
+
+Sec.2
+
+All that declining summer Kipps was the pupil lover. He made an
+extraordinarily open secret of his desire for self-improvement; indeed
+Helen had to hint once or twice that his modest frankness was excessive,
+and all this new circle of friends did, each after his or her manner,
+everything that was possible to supplement Helen's efforts and help him
+to ease and skill in the more cultivated circles to which he had come.
+Coote was still the chief teacher, the tutor--there are so many little
+difficulties that a man may take to another man that he would not care
+to propound to the woman he loves--but they were all, so to speak, upon
+the staff. Even the freckled girl said to him once in a pleasant way,
+"You mustn't say "contre temps," you must say "contraytom,"" when he
+borrowed that expression from "Manners and Rules," and she tried at his
+own suggestion to give him clear ideas upon the subject of "as" and
+"has." A certain confusion between these words was becoming evident, the
+first fruits of a lesson from Chitterlow on the aspirate. Hitherto he
+had discarded that dangerous letter almost altogether, but now he would
+pull up at words beginning with "h" and draw a sawing breath--rather
+like a startled kitten--and then aspirate with vigour.
+
+Said Kipps one day, "_As_ 'e?--I should say, ah--Has 'e? Ye know I got a
+lot of difficulty over them two words, which is which?"
+
+"Well, 'as' is a conjunction and 'has' is a verb."
+
+"I know," said Kipps, "but when is 'has' a conjunction and when is 'as'
+a verb?"
+
+"Well," said the freckled girl, preparing to be very lucid. "It's _has_
+when it means one has, meaning having, but if it isn't it's _as_. As for
+instance one says 'e--I mean _he_--He has. But one says 'as he has.'"
+
+"I see," said Kipps. "So I ought to say 'as 'e?'"
+
+"No, if you are asking a question you say _has_ 'e--I mean he--'as he?"
+She blushed quite brightly, but still clung to her air of lucidity.
+
+"I see," said Kipps. He was about to say something further, but he
+desisted. "I got it much clearer now. _Has_ 'e? _Has_ 'e as. Yes."
+
+"If you remember about having."
+
+"Oo I will," said Kipps.
+
+Miss Coote specialised in Kipps' artistic development. She had early
+found an opinion that he had considerable artistic sensibility, his
+remarks on her work had struck her as decidedly intelligent, and
+whenever he called around to see them she would show him some work of
+art, now an illustrated book, now perhaps a colour print of a
+Botticelli, now the Hundred Best Paintings, now "Academy Pictures," now
+a German art handbook and now some magazine of furniture and design. "I
+know you like these things," she used to say, and Kipps said, "Oo I
+_do_." He soon acquired a little armoury of appreciative sayings. When
+presently the Walshinghams took him up to the Arts and Crafts, his
+deportment was intelligent in the extreme. For a time he kept a wary
+silence and suddenly pitched upon a colour print. "That's rather nace,"
+he said to Mrs. Walshingham. "That lill' thing. There." He always said
+things like that by preference to the mother rather than the daughter
+unless he was perfectly sure.
+
+He quite took to Mrs. Walshingham. He was impressed by her conspicuous
+tact and refinement; it seemed to him that the ladylike could go no
+further. She was always dressed with a delicate fussiness that was never
+disarranged and even a sort of faded quality about her hair and face and
+bearing and emotions contributed to her effect. Kipps was not a big man,
+and commonly he did not feel a big man, but with Mrs. Walshingham he
+always felt enormous and distended, as though he was a navvy who had
+taken some disagreeable poison which puffed him up inside his skin as a
+preliminary to bursting. He felt, too, as though he had been rolled in
+clay and his hair dressed with gum. And he felt that his voice was
+strident and his accent like somebody swinging a crowded pig's pail in a
+free and careless manner. All this increased and enforced his respect
+for her. Her hand, which flitted often and again to his hand and arm,
+was singularly well shaped and cool. "Arthur," she called him from the
+very beginning.
+
+She did not so much positively teach and tell him as tactfully guide and
+infect him. Her conversation was not so much didactic as exemplary. She
+would say, "I _do_ like people to do" so and so. She would tell him
+anecdotes of nice things done, of gentlemanly feats of graceful
+consideration; she would record her neat observations of people in
+trains and omnibuses; how, for example, a man had passed her change to
+the conductor, "quite a common man he looked," but he had lifted his
+hat. She stamped Kipps so deeply with the hat-raising habit that he
+would uncover if he found himself in the same railway ticket office with
+a lady had to stand ceremoniously until the difficulties of change drove
+him to an apologetic provisional oblique resumption of his headgear....
+And robbing these things of any air of personal application, she threw
+about them an abundant talk about her two children--she called them her
+Twin Jewels quite frequently--about their gifts, their temperaments,
+their ambition, their need of opportunity. They needed opportunity, she
+would say, as other people needed air....
+
+In his conversations with her Kipps always assumed, and she seemed to
+assume, that she was to join that home in London Helen foreshadowed, but
+he was surprised one day to gather that this was not to be the case. "It
+wouldn't do," said Helen, with decision. "We want to make a circle of
+our own."
+
+"But won't she be a bit lonely down here?" asked Kipps.
+
+"There's the Waces, and Mrs. Prebble and Mrs. Bindon Botting and--lots
+of people she knows." And Helen dismissed this possibility....
+
+Young Walshingham's share in the educational syndicate was smaller. But
+he shone out when they went to London on that Arts and Crafts
+expedition. Then this rising man of affairs showed Kipps how to buy the
+more theatrical weeklies for consumption in the train, how to buy and
+what to buy in the way of cigarettes with gold tips and shilling cigars,
+and how to order hock for lunch and sparkling Moselle for dinner, how to
+calculate the fare of a hansom cab--penny a minute while he goes--how to
+look intelligently at an hotel tape, and how to sit still in a train
+like a thoughtful man instead of talking like a fool and giving yourself
+away. And he, too, would glance at the good time coming when they were
+to be in London for good and all.
+
+That prospect expanded and developed particulars. It presently took up a
+large part of Helen's conversation. Her conversations with Kipps were
+never of a grossly sentimental sort; there was a shyness of speech in
+that matter with both of them, but these new adumbrations were at least
+as interesting and not so directly disagreeable as the clear-cut
+intimations of personal defect that for a time had so greatly chastened
+Kipps' delight in her presence. The future presented itself with an
+almost perfect frankness as a joint campaign of Mrs. Walshingham's Twin
+Jewels upon the Great World, with Kipps in the capacity of baggage and
+supply. They would still be dreadfully poor, of course--this amazed
+Kipps, but he said nothing--until "Brudderkins" began to succeed, but if
+they were clever and lucky they might do a great deal.
+
+When Helen spoke of London a brooding look, as of one who contemplates a
+distant country, came into her eyes. Already it seemed they had the
+nucleus of a set. Brudderkins was a member of the Theatrical Judges, an
+excellent and influential little club of journalists and literary
+people, and he knew Shimer and Stargate and Whiffle, of the "Red
+Dragon," and besides these were the Revels. They knew the Revels quite
+well. Sidney Revel before his rapid rise to prominence as a writer of
+epigrammatic essays that were quite above the ordinary public, had been
+an assistant master at one of the best Folkestone schools, Brudderkins
+had brought him home to tea several times, and it was he had first
+suggested Helen should try and write. "It's perfectly easy," Sidney had
+said. He had been writing occasional things for the evening papers, and
+for the weekly reviews even at that time. Then he had gone up to London
+and had almost unavoidedly become a dramatic critic. Those brilliant
+essays had followed, and then "Red Hearts a-Beating," the romance that
+had made him. It was a tale of spirited adventure, full of youth and
+beauty and naive passion and generous devotion, bold, as the _Bookman_
+said, and frank in places, but never in the slightest degree morbid. He
+had met and married an American widow with quite a lot of money, and
+they had made a very distinct place for themselves, Kipps learnt, in the
+literary and artistic society of London. Helen seemed to dwell on the
+Revels a great deal; it was her exemplary story, and when she spoke of
+Sidney--she often called him Sidney--she would become thoughtful. She
+spoke most of him naturally because she had still to meet Mrs. Revel....
+Certainly they would be in the world in no time, even if the distant
+connection with the Beaupres family came to nothing.
+
+Kipps gathered that with his marriage and the movement to London they
+were to undergo that subtle change of name Coote had first adumbrated.
+They were to become "Cuyps," Mr. and Mrs. Cuyps. Or, was it Cuyp?
+
+"It'll be rum at first," said Kipps. "I dessay I shall soon get into
+it."...
+
+So in their several ways they all contributed to enlarge and refine and
+exercise the intelligence of Kipps. And behind all these other
+influences, and, as it were, presiding over and correcting these
+influences, was Kipps' nearest friend, Coote, a sort of master of the
+ceremonies. You figure his face, blowing slightly with solicitude, his
+slate coloured, projecting but not unkindly eye intent upon our hero.
+The thing he thought was going off admirably. He studied Kipps'
+character immensely. He would discuss him with his sister, with Mrs.
+Walshingham, with the freckled girl, with anyone who would stand it. "He
+is an interesting character," he would say, "likable--a sort of
+gentleman by instinct. He takes to all these things. He improves every
+day. He'll soon get Sang Froid. We took him up just in time. He wants
+now--well----. Next year, perhaps, if there is a good Extension
+Literature course, he might go in for it. He wants to go in for
+something like that."
+
+"He's going in for his bicycle now," said Mrs. Walshingham.
+
+"That's all right for summer," said Coote, "but he wants to go in for
+some serious, intellectual interest, something to take him out of
+himself a little more. Savoir Faire and self-forgetfulness is more than
+half the secret of Sang Froid."
+
+
+Sec.3
+
+The world as Coote presented it was in part an endorsement, in part an
+amplification and in part a rectification of the world of Kipps, the
+world that derived from the old couple in New Romney and had been
+developed in the Emporium; the world, in fact, of common British life.
+There was the same subtle sense of social graduation that had moved Mrs.
+Kipps to prohibit intercourse with labourers' children and the same
+dread of anything "common" that had kept the personal quality of Mr.
+Shalford's establishment so high. But now a certain disagreeable doubt
+about Kipps' own position was removed and he stood with Coote inside the
+sphere of gentlemen assured. Within the sphere of gentlemen there are
+distinctions of rank indeed, but none of class; there are the Big People
+and the modest, refined, gentlemanly little people like Coote, who may
+even dabble in the professions and counterless trades; there are lords
+and magnificences, and there are gentle folk who have to manage, but
+they can all call on one another, they preserve a general equality of
+deportment throughout, they constitute that great state within the
+state, Society, or at any rate they make believe they do.
+
+"But reely," said the Pupil, "not what you call being in Society?"
+
+"Yes," said Coote. "Of course, down here one doesn't see much of it, but
+there's local society. It has the same rules."
+
+"Calling and all that?"
+
+"Precisely," said Coote.
+
+Kipps thought, whistled a bar, and suddenly broached a question of
+conscience. "I often wonder," he said, "whether I oughtn't to dress for
+dinner--when I'm alone 'ere."
+
+Coote protruded his lips and reflected. "Not full dress," he
+adjudicated; "that would be a little excessive. But you should _change_,
+you know. Put on a mess jacket and that sort of thing--easy dress. That
+is what _I_ should do, certainly, if I wasn't in harness--and poor."
+
+He coughed modestly and patted his hair behind.
+
+And after that the washing bill of Kipps quadrupled, and he was to be
+seen at times by the bandstand with his light summer overcoat unbuttoned
+to give a glimpse of his nice white tie. He and Coote would be smoking
+the gold-tipped cigarettes young Walshingham had prescribed as _chic_,
+and appreciating the music highly. "That's--puff--a very nice bit,"
+Kipps would say, or better, "That's nace." And at the first grunts of
+the loyal anthem up they stood with religiously uplifted hats. Whatever
+else you might call them, you could never call them disloyal.
+
+The boundary of Society was admittedly very close to Coote and Kipps,
+and a leading solicitude of the true gentleman was to detect clearly
+those "beneath" him, and to behave towards them in a proper spirit.
+"It's jest there it's so 'ard for me," said Kipps. He had to cultivate a
+certain "distance," to acquire altogether the art of checking the
+presumption of bounders and old friends. It was difficult, Coote
+admitted. "That's what, so harkward--I mean awkward."
+
+"I got mixed up with this lot 'ere," said Kipps.
+
+"You could give them a hint," said Coote.
+
+"'Ow?"
+
+"Oh!--the occasion will suggest something."
+
+The occasion came one early closing night when Kipps was sitting in a
+canopy chair near the bandstand, with his summer overcoat fully open and
+a new Gibus pulled slightly forward over his brow, waiting for Coote.
+They were to hear the band for an hour and then go down to assist Miss
+Coote and the freckled girl in trying over some of Beethoven's duets, if
+they remembered them, that is, sufficiently well. And as Kipps lounged
+back in his chair and occupied his mind with his favourite amusement on
+such evenings, which consisted chiefly in supposing that everyone about
+him was wondering who he was, came a rude rap at the canvas back and the
+voice of Pierce.
+
+"It's nice to be a gentleman," said Pierce, and swung a penny chair into
+position while Buggins appeared smiling agreeably on the other side and
+leant upon his stick. _He was smoking a common briar pipe!_
+
+Two real ladies, very fashionably dressed and sitting close at hand,
+glanced quickly at Pierce, and then away again, and it was evident
+_their_ wonder was at an end.
+
+"_He's_ all right," said Buggins, removing his pipe and surveying Kipps.
+
+"'Ello, Buggins!" said Kipps, not too cordially. "'Ow goes it?"
+
+"All right. Holiday's next week. If you don't look out, Kipps, I shall
+be on the Continong before you. Eh?"
+
+"You going t' Boologne?"
+
+"Ra-ther. Parley vous Francey. You bet."
+
+"_I_ shall 'ave a bit of a run over there one of these days," said
+Kipps.
+
+There came a pause. Pierce applied the top of his stick to his mouth for
+a space and regarded Kipps. Then he glanced at the people about them.
+
+"I say, Kipps," he said in a distinct, loud voice, "see 'er Ladyship
+lately?"
+
+Kipps perceived the audience was to be impressed, but he responded
+half-heartedly, "No, I 'aven't," he said.
+
+"She was along of Sir William the other night," said Pierce, still loud
+and clear, "and she asked to be remembered to you."
+
+It seemed to Kipps that one of the two ladies smiled faintly and said
+something to the other, and then certainly they glanced at Pierce. Kipps
+flushed scarlet. "_Did_ she?" he answered.
+
+Buggins laughed good-humouredly over his pipe.
+
+"Sir William suffers a lot from his gout," Pierce continued unabashed.
+
+(Buggins much amused with his pipe between his teeth.)
+
+Kipps became aware of Coote at hand.
+
+Coote nodded rather distantly to Pierce. "Hope I haven't kept you
+waiting, Kipps," he said.
+
+"I kep' a chair for you," said Kipps and removed a guardian foot.
+
+"But you've got your friends," said Coote.
+
+"Oh! _we_ don't mind," said Pierce cordially, "the more the merrier,"
+and, "why don't you get a chair, Buggins?" Buggins shook his head in a
+sort of aside to Pierce and Coote coughed behind his hand.
+
+"Been kep' late at business?" asked Pierce.
+
+Coote turned quite pale and pretended not to hear. His eyes sought in
+space for a time and with a convulsive movement he recognised a distant
+acquaintance and raised his hat.
+
+Pierce had also become a little pale. He addressed himself to Kipps in
+an undertone.
+
+"Mr. Coote, isn't he?" he asked.
+
+Coote addressed himself to Kipps directly and exclusively. His manner
+had the calm of extreme tension.
+
+"I'm rather late," he said. "I think we ought almost to be going on
+_now_."
+
+Kipps stood up. "That's all right," he said.
+
+"Which way are you going?" said Pierce, standing also, and brushing some
+crumbs of cigarette ash from his sleeve.
+
+For a moment Coote was breathless. "Thank you," he said, and gasped.
+Then he delivered the necessary blow; "I don't think we're in need of
+your society, you know," and turned away.
+
+Kipps found himself falling over chairs and things in the wake of Coote,
+and then they were clear of the crowd.
+
+For a space Coote said nothing; then he remarked abruptly and quite
+angrily for him, "I think that was _awful_ Cheek!"
+
+Kipps made no reply....
+
+The whole thing was an interesting little object lesson in distance, and
+it stuck in the front of Kipps' mind for a long time. He had
+particularly vivid the face of Pierce, with an expression between
+astonishment and anger. He felt as though he had struck Pierce in the
+face under circumstances that gave Pierce no power to reply. He did not
+attend very much to the duets and even forgot at the end of one of them
+to say how perfectly lovely it was.
+
+
+Sec.4
+
+But you must not imagine that the national ideal of a gentleman, as
+Coote developed it, was all a matter of deportment and selectness, a
+mere isolation from debasing associations. There is a Serious Side, a
+deeper aspect of the true, True Gentleman. The True Gentleman does not
+wear his heart on his sleeve. He is a polished surface above deeps. For
+example, he is deeply religious, as Coote was, as Mrs. Walshingham was,
+but outside the walls of a church it never appears, except perhaps now
+and then in a pause, in a profound look, in a sudden avoidance. In quite
+a little while Kipps also had learnt the pause, the profound look, the
+sudden avoidance, that final refinement of spirituality, impressionistic
+piety.
+
+And the True Gentleman is patriotic also. When one saw Coote lifting
+his hat to the National Anthem, then perhaps one got a glimpse of what
+patriotic emotions, what worship, the polish of a gentleman may hide. Or
+singing out his deep notes against the Hosts of Midian, in the St.
+Stylites choir; then indeed you plumbed his spiritual side.
+
+
+     Christian, dost thou heed them,
+       On the holy ground,
+     How the hosts of Mid-i-an,
+       Prowl and prowl around!
+     Christian, up and smai-it them....
+
+
+But these were but gleams. For the rest, Religion, Nationality, Passion,
+Money, Politics; much more so those cardinal issues, Birth and Death,
+the True Gentleman skirted about, and became facially rigid towards and
+ceased to speak and panted and blew.
+
+"One doesn't talk of that sort of thing," Coote would say with a gesture
+of the knuckly hand.
+
+"O' course," Kipps would reply, with an equal significance.
+
+Profundities. Deep as it were, blowing to deep.
+
+One does not talk, but on the other hand one is punctilious to do.
+Actions speak. Kipps--in spite of the fact that the Walshinghams were
+more than a little lax--Kipps, who had formerly flitted Sunday after
+Sunday from one Folkestone church to another, had now a sitting of his
+own, paid for duly at Saint Stylites. There he was to be seen, always at
+the surplice evening service, and sometimes of a morning, dressed with
+a sober precision, and with an eye on Coote in the chancel. No
+difficulties now about finding the place in his book. He became a
+communicant again--he had lapsed soon after his confirmation when the
+young lady in the costume-room, who was his adopted sister, left the
+Emporium--and he would sometimes go around to the Vestry for Coote after
+the service. One evening he was introduced to the Hon. and Rev.
+Densemore. He was much too confused to say anything, and the noble
+cleric had nothing to say, but indisputably they were introduced....
+
+No! you must not imagine our national ideal of a gentleman is without
+its "serious side," without even its stern and uncompromising side. The
+imagination no doubt refuses to see Coote displaying extraordinary
+refinements of courage upon the stricken field, but in the walks of
+peace there is sometimes sore need of sternness. Charitable as one may
+be, one must admit there are people who _do_ things, impossible things;
+people who place themselves "out of it" in countless ways; people,
+moreover, who are by a sort of predestination out of it from the
+beginning, and against these Society has invented a terrible protection
+for its Cootery, the Cut. The cut is no joke for anyone. It is
+excommunication. You may be cut by an individual, you may be cut by a
+set or you may be--and this is so tragic that beautiful romances have
+been written about it--"Cut by the County." One figures Coote
+discharging this last duty and cutting somebody--Coote, erect and pale,
+never speaking, going past with eyes of pitiless slate, lower jaw
+protruding a little, face pursed up and cold and stiff....
+
+It never dawned upon Kipps that he would one day have to face this
+terrible front, to be to Coote not only as one dead, but as one gone
+more than a stage or so in decay, cut and passed, banned and outcast for
+ever.
+
+Yet so it was to be!
+
+One cannot hide any longer that all this fine progress of Kipps is
+doomed to end in collapse. So far indeed you have seen him ascend. You
+have seen him becoming more refined and careful day by day, more
+carefully dressed, less clumsy in the ways and methods of social life.
+You have seen the gulf widening between himself and his former low
+associates. I have brought you at last to the vision of him, faultlessly
+dressed and posed, in an atmosphere of candlelight and chanting, in his
+own sitting in one of the most fashionable churches in Folkestone....
+All the time I have refrained from the lightest touch upon the tragic
+note that must now creep into my tale. Yet the net of his low
+connections has been about his feet, and moreover there was something
+interwoven in his being....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+DISCORDS
+
+
+Sec.1
+
+One day Kipps set out upon his newly-mastered bicycle to New Romney to
+break the news of his engagement to his Uncle and Aunt--this time
+positively. He was now a finished cyclist, but as yet an unseasoned one;
+the southwest wind, even in its summer guise, as one meets it in the
+Marsh, is the equivalent of a reasonable hill, and ever and again he got
+off and refreshed himself by a spell of walking. He was walking just
+outside New Romney preparatory to his triumphal entry (one hand off)
+when abruptly he came upon Ann Pornick.
+
+It chanced he was thinking about her at the time. He had been thinking
+curious things; whether, after all, the atmosphere of New Romney and the
+Marsh had not some difference, some faint impalpable quality that was
+missing in the great and fashionable world of Folkestone behind there on
+the hill. Here there was a homeliness, a familiarity. He had noted as he
+passed that old Mr. Cliffordown's gate had been mended with a fresh
+piece of string. In Folkestone he didn't take notice and he didn't care
+if they built three hundred houses. Come to think of it, that was odd.
+It was fine and grand to have twelve hundred a year; it was fine to go
+about on trams and omnibuses and think not a person aboard was as rich
+as oneself; it was fine to buy and order this and that and never have
+any work to do and to be engaged to a girl distantly related to the Earl
+of Beaupres, but yet there had been a zest in the old time out here, a
+rare zest in the holidays, in sunlight, on the sea beach and in the High
+Street, that failed from these new things. He thought of those bright
+windows of holiday that had seemed so glorious to him in the retrospect
+from his apprentice days. It was strange that now, amidst his present
+splendours, they were glorious still!
+
+All those things were over now--perhaps that was it! Something had
+happened to the world and the old light had been turned out. He himself
+was changed, and Sid was changed, terribly changed, and Ann no doubt was
+changed.
+
+He thought of her with the hair blown about her flushed cheeks as they
+stood together after their race....
+
+Certainly she must be changed, and all the magic she had been fraught
+with to the very hem of her short petticoats gone no doubt for ever. And
+as he thought that, or before and while he thought it, for he came to
+all these things in his own vague and stumbling way, he looked up, and
+there was Ann!
+
+She was seven years older and greatly altered; yet for the moment it
+seemed to him that she had not changed at all. "Ann!" he said, and she,
+with a lifting note, "It's Art Kipps!"
+
+Then he became aware of changes--improvements. She was as pretty as she
+had promised to be, her blue eyes as dark as his memory of them, and
+with a quick, high colour, but now Kipps by several inches was the
+taller again. She was dressed in a simple grey dress that showed her
+very clearly as a straight and healthy little woman, and her hat was
+Sundayfied with pink flowers. She looked soft and warm and welcoming.
+Her face was alight to Kipps with her artless gladness at their
+encounter.
+
+"It's Art Kipps!" she said.
+
+"Rather," said Kipps.
+
+"You got your holidays?"
+
+It flashed upon Kipps that Sid had not told her of his great fortune.
+Much regretful meditation upon Sid's behaviour had convinced him that he
+himself was to blame for exasperating boastfulness in that affair, and
+this time he took care not to err in that direction. He erred in the
+other.
+
+"I'm taking a bit of a 'oliday," he said.
+
+"So'm I," said Ann.
+
+"You been for a walk?" asked Kipps.
+
+Ann showed him a bunch of wayside flowers.
+
+"It's a long time since I seen you, Ann. Why, 'ow long must it be?
+Seven--eight years nearly."
+
+"It don't do to count," said Ann.
+
+"It don't look like it," said Kipps, with the slightest emphasis.
+
+"You got a moustache," said Ann, smelling her flowers and looking at him
+over them, not without admiration.
+
+Kipps blushed....
+
+Presently they came to the bifurcation of the roads.
+
+"I'm going down this way to mother's cottage," said Ann.
+
+"I'll come a bit your way if I may."
+
+In New Romney social distinctions that are primary realities in
+Folkestone are absolutely non-existent, and it seemed quite permissible
+for him to walk with Ann, for all that she was no more than a servant.
+They talked with remarkable ease to one another, they slipped into a
+vein of intimate reminiscence in the easiest manner. In a little while
+Kipps was amazed to find Ann and himself at this:
+
+"You r'ember that half sixpence? What you cut for me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I got it still."
+
+She hesitated. "Funny, wasn't it?" she said, and then, "you got yours,
+Artie?"
+
+"Rather," said Kipps. "What do you think?" and wondered in his heart of
+hearts why he had never looked at that sixpence for so long.
+
+Ann smiled at him frankly.
+
+"I didn't expect you'd keep it," she said. "I thought often--it was
+silly to keep mine. Besides," she reflected, "it didn't mean anything
+really."
+
+She glanced at him as she spoke and met his eye.
+
+"Oh, didn't it!" said Kipps, a little late with his response, and
+realising his infidelity to Helen even as he spoke.
+
+"It didn't mean much anyhow," said Ann. "You still in the drapery?"
+
+"I'm living at Folkestone," began Kipps and decided that that sufficed.
+"Didn't Sid tell you he met me?"
+
+"No! Here?"
+
+"Yes. The other day. 'Bout a week or more ago."
+
+"That was before I came."
+
+"Ah! that was it," said Kipps.
+
+"'E's got on," said Ann. "Got 'is own shop now, Artie."
+
+"'E tole me."
+
+They found themselves outside Muggett's cottages. "You going in?" said
+Kipps.
+
+"I s'pose so," said Ann.
+
+They both hung upon the pause. Ann took a plunge.
+
+"D'you often come to New Romney?" she said.
+
+"I ride over a bit at times," said Kipps.
+
+Another pause. Ann held out her hand.
+
+"I'm glad I seen you," she said.
+
+Extraordinary impulses arose in neglected parts of Kipps' being. "Ann,"
+he said and stopped.
+
+"Yes," said she, and was bright to him.
+
+They looked at one another.
+
+All and more than all of those first emotions of his adolescence had
+come back to him. Her presence banished a multitude of countervaling
+considerations. It was Ann more than ever. She stood breathing close to
+him, with her soft-looking lips a little apart and gladness in her eyes.
+
+"I'm awful glad to see you again," he said; "it brings back old times."
+
+"Doesn't it?"
+
+Another pause. He would have liked to have had a long talk to her, to
+have gone for a walk with her or something, to have drawn nearer to her
+in any conceivable way, and, above all, to have had some more of the
+appreciation that shone in her eyes, but a vestige of Folkestone still
+clinging to him told him it "wouldn't do." "Well," he said, "I must be
+getting on," and turned away reluctantly, with a will under
+compulsion....
+
+When he looked back from the corner she was still at the gate. She was
+perhaps a little disconcerted by his retreat. He felt that. He hesitated
+for a moment, half turned, stood and suddenly did great things with his
+hat. That hat! The wonderful hat of our civilisation!...
+
+In another minute he was engaged in a singularly absent-minded
+conversation with his Uncle about the usual topics.
+
+His Uncle was very anxious to buy him a few upright clocks as an
+investment for subsequent sale. And there were also some very nice
+globes, one terrestrial and the other celestial, in a shop at Lydd that
+would look well in a drawing-room and inevitably increase in value....
+Kipps either did or did not agree to this purchase; he was unable to
+recollect.
+
+The southwest wind perhaps helped him back, at any rate he found himself
+through Dymchurch without having noticed the place. There came an odd
+effect as he drew near Hythe. The hills on the left and the trees on the
+right seemed to draw together and close in upon him until his way was
+straight and narrow. He could not turn around on that treacherous,
+half-tamed machine, but he knew that behind him, he knew so well, spread
+the wide, vast flatness of the Marsh shining under the afternoon sky. In
+some way this was material to his thoughts. And as he rode through Hythe
+he came upon the idea that there was a considerable amount of
+incompatibility between the existence of one who was practically a
+gentleman and of Ann.
+
+In the neighbourhood of Seabrook he began to think he had, in some
+subtle way, lowered himself by walking along by the side of Ann....
+After all, she was only a servant.
+
+Ann!
+
+She called out all the least gentlemanly instincts of his nature. There
+had been a moment in their conversation when he had quite distinctly
+thought it would really be an extremely nice thing for someone to kiss
+her lips.... There was something warming about Ann--at least for Kipps.
+She impressed him as having somewhen during their vast interval of
+separation contrived to make herself in some distinctive way his.
+
+Fancy keeping that half sixpence all this time!
+
+It was the most flattering thing that had ever happened to Kipps.
+
+
+Sec.2
+
+He found himself presently sitting over "The Art of Conversing," lost in
+the strangest musings. He got up, walked about, became stagnant at the
+window for a space, roused himself and by way of something lighter tried
+"Sesame and Lilies." From that, too, his attention wandered. He sat
+back. Anon he smiled, anon sighed. He arose, pulled his keys from his
+pocket, looked at them, decided and went upstairs. He opened the little
+yellow box that had been the nucleus of all his possessions in the
+world, and took out a small "Escritoire," the very humblest sort of
+present, and opened it--kneeling. And there, in the corner, was a little
+packet of paper, sealed as a last defence against any prying invader,
+with red sealing wax. It had gone untouched for years. He held this
+little packet between finger and thumb for a moment, regarding it, and
+then put down the escritoire and broke the seal....
+
+As he was getting into bed that night he remembered something for the
+first time!
+
+"Dash it!" he said. "Dashed if I told 'em _this_ time.... _Well!_ I
+shall 'ave to go over to New Romney again!"
+
+He got into bed and remained sitting pensively on the pillow for a
+space.
+
+"It's a rum world," he reflected after a vast interval.
+
+Then he recalled that she had noticed his moustache and embarked upon a
+sea of egotistical musings.
+
+He imagined himself telling Ann how rich he was. What a surprise that
+would be for her!
+
+Finally he sighed profoundly, blew out his candle and snuggled down, and
+in a little while he was asleep....
+
+But the next morning and at intervals afterwards he found himself
+thinking of Ann--Ann, the bright, the desirable, the welcoming, and with
+an extraordinary streakiness he wanted quite badly to go and then as
+badly not to go over to New Romney again.
+
+Sitting on the Leas in the afternoon, he had an idea. "I ought to 'ave
+told 'er, I suppose, about my being engaged.
+
+"Ann!"
+
+All sorts of dreams and impressions that had gone clean out of his
+mental existence came back to him, changed and brought up to date to fit
+her altered presence. He thought of how he had gone back to New Romney
+for his Christmas holidays, determined to kiss her, and of the awful
+blankness of the discovery that she had gone away.
+
+It seemed incredible now, and yet not wholly incredible, that he had
+cried real tears for her--how many years was it ago?
+
+
+Sec.3
+
+Daily I should thank my Maker that He did not appoint me Censor of the
+world of men. I should temper a fierce injustice with a spasmodic
+indecision that would prolong rather than mitigate the bitterness of the
+Day. For human dignity, for all conscious human superiority I should
+lack the beginnings of charity, for bishops, prosperous schoolmasters,
+judges and all large respect-pampered souls. And more especially
+bishops, towards whom I bear an atavistic, Viking grudge, dreaming not
+infrequently and with invariable zest of galleys and landings and well
+known living ornaments of the episcopal bench sprinting inland on
+twinkling gaiters before my thirsty blade--all these people, I say,
+should treat below their deserts, but, on the other hand, for such as
+Kipps----. There the exasperating indecisions would come in. The
+Judgment would be arrested at Kipps. Everyone and everything would wait.
+_You_ would wait. The balance would sway and sway, and whenever it
+heeled towards an adverse decision, my finger would set it swaying
+again. Kings, warriors, statesmen, brilliant women of our first
+families, personalities, gallants, panting with indignation, headline
+humanity in general, would stand undamned, unheeded, or be damned in the
+most casual manner for their importunity, while my eye went about for
+anything possible that could be said on behalf of Kipps.... Albeit I
+fear nothing can save him from condemnation upon this present score,
+that within two days he was talking to Ann again.
+
+One seeks excuses. Overnight there had been an encounter of Chitterlow
+and young Walshingham in his presence, that had certainly warped his
+standards. They had called within a few minutes of each other, and the
+two swayed by virile attentions to Old Methuselah Four Stars, had talked
+against each other, over and at the hospitable presence of Kipps.
+Walshingham had seemed to win at the beginning, but finally Chitterlow
+had made a magnificent display of vociferation and swept him out of
+existence. At the beginning Chitterlow had opened upon the great profits
+of playwrights and young Walshingham had capped him at once with a
+cynical, but impressive, display of knowledge of the High Finance. If
+Chitterlow boasted his thousands, young Walshingham boasted his hundreds
+of thousands, and was for a space left in sole possession of the stage,
+juggling with the wealth of nations. He was going on by way of Financial
+Politics to the Overman, before Chitterlow recovered from his first
+check, and came back to victory. "Talking of Women," said Chitterlow,
+coming in abruptly upon some things not generally known, beyond
+Walshingham's more immediate circle, about a recently departed
+Empire-builder; "Talking of Women and the way they Get at a man----"
+
+[Though as a matter of fact they had been talking of the Corruption of
+Society by Speculation.]
+
+Upon this new topic Chitterlow was soon manifestly invincible. He knew
+so much, he had known so many. Young Walshingham did his best with
+epigrams and reservations, but even to Kipps it was evident that this
+was a book-learned depravity. One felt Walshingham had never known the
+inner realities of passion. But Chitterlow convinced and amazed. He had
+run away with girls, he had been run away with by girls, he had been in
+love with several at a time--"not counting Bessie"--he had loved and
+lost, he had loved and refrained, and he had loved and failed. He threw
+remarkable lights upon the moral state of America--in which country he
+had toured with great success. He set his talk to the tune of one of Mr.
+Kipling's best known songs. He told an incident of simple, romantic
+passion, a delirious dream of love and beauty in a Saturday to Monday
+steamboat trip up the Hudson, and tagged his end with, "I learnt about
+women from 'er!" After that he adopted the refrain and then lapsed into
+the praises of Kipling. "Little Kipling," said Chitterlow, with the
+familiarity of affection, "_he_ knows," and broke into quotation:
+
+
+     "I've taken my fun where I found it;
+     I've rogued and I've ranged in my time;
+     I've 'ad my picking of sweet'earts,
+     An' four of the lot was Prime."
+
+
+(These things, I say, affect the moral standards of the best of us.)
+
+"_I'd_ have liked to have written that," said Chitterlow. "That's Life,
+that is! But go and put it on the Stage, put even a bit of the Realities
+of Life on the Stage, and see what they'll do to you! Only Kipling could
+venture on a job like that. That Poem KNOCKED me! I don't say Kipling
+hasn't knocked me before and since, but that was a Fair Knock Out. And
+yet--you know--there's one thing in it ... this:
+
+
+     "I've taken my fun where I've found it,
+     And now I must pay for my fun,
+     For the more you 'ave known o' the others,
+     The less will you settle to one----"
+
+
+Well. In my case anyhow--I don't know how much that proves, seeing I'm
+exceptional in so many things and there's no good denying it--but so far
+as I'm concerned--I tell you two, but of course you needn't let it go
+any farther--I've been perfectly faithful to Muriel ever since I married
+her--ever since.... Not once. Not even by accident have I ever said or
+done anything in the slightest----." His little, brown eye became
+pensive after this flattering intimacy and the gorgeous draperies of his
+abundant voice fell into graver folds. "_I learnt about women from
+'er_," he said impressively.
+
+"Yes," said Walshingham, getting into the hinder spaces of that splendid
+pause, "a man must know about women. And the only sound way of learning
+is the experimental method."
+
+"If you want to know about the experimental method, my boy," said
+Chitterlow, resuming....
+
+So they talked. _Ex pede Herculem_, as Coote, that cultivated polyglot,
+would have put it. And in the small hours Kipps went to bed, with his
+brain whirling with words and whiskey, and sat for an unconscionable
+time upon his bed edge, musing sadly upon the unmanly monogamy of soul
+that had cast its shadow upon his career, musing with his thoughts
+pointing around more and more certainly to the possibility of at least
+duplicity with Ann.
+
+
+Sec.4
+
+For some days he had been refraining with some insistence from going off
+to New Romney again....
+
+I do not know if this may count in palliation of his misconduct. Men,
+real Strong-Souled, Healthy Men, should be, I suppose, impervious to
+conversational atmospheres, but I have never claimed for Kipps a place
+at these high levels. The unquenchable fact remains that the next day he
+spent the afternoon with Ann and found no scruple in displaying himself
+a budding lover.
+
+He had met her in the High Street, had stopped her, and almost on the
+spur of the moment had boldly proposed a walk, "for the sake of old
+times."
+
+"_I_ don't mind," said Ann.
+
+Her consent almost frightened Kipps. His imagination had not carried him
+to that. "It would be a lark," said Kipps, and looked up the street and
+down. "Now?" he said.
+
+"I don't mind a bit, Artie. I was just going for a walk along towards
+St. Mary's."
+
+"Let's go that way be'ind the church," said Kipps, and presently they
+found themselves drifting seaward in a mood of pleasant commonplace. For
+a while they talked of Sid. It went clean out of Kipps' head at that
+early stage even that Ann was a "girl" according to the exposition of
+Chitterlow, and for a time he remembered only that she was Ann. But
+afterwards, with the reek of that talk in his head, he lapsed a little
+from that personal relation. They came out upon the beach and sat down
+in a tumbled, pebbly place, where a meagre grass and patches of sea
+poppy were growing, and Kipps reclined on his elbow and tossed pebbles
+in his hand, and Ann sat up, sunlit, regarding him. They talked in
+fragments. They exhausted Sid, they exhausted Ann, and Kipps was chary
+of his riches.
+
+He declined to a faint love-making. "I got that 'arf sixpence still," he
+said.
+
+"Reely?"
+
+That changed the key. "I always kept mine, some'ow," said Ann, and there
+was a pause.
+
+They spoke of how often they had thought of each other during those
+intervening years. Kipps may have been untruthful, but Ann perhaps was
+not. "I met people here and there," said Ann; "but I never met anyone
+quite like you, Artie."
+
+"It's jolly our meeting again, anyhow," said Kipps. "Look at that ship
+out there. She's pretty close in...."
+
+He had a dull period, became indeed almost pensive, and then he was
+enterprising for a while. He tossed up his pebbles so that as if by
+accident they fell on Ann's hand. Then, very penitently, he stroked the
+place. That would have led to all sorts of coquetries on the part of Flo
+Banks, for example, but it disconcerted and checked Kipps to find Ann
+made no objection, smiled pleasantly down on him, with eyes half shut
+because of the sun. She was taking things very much for granted.
+
+He began to talk, and Chitterlow standards resuming possession of him he
+said he had never forgotten her.
+
+"I never forgotten you either, Artie," she said. "Funny, isn't it?"
+
+It impressed Kipps also as funny.
+
+He became reminiscent, and suddenly a warm summer's evening came back to
+him. "Remember them cockchafers, Ann?" he said. But the reality of the
+evening he recalled was not the chase of cockchafers. The great reality
+that had suddenly arisen between them was that he had never kissed Ann
+in his life. He looked up and there were her lips.
+
+He had wanted to very badly, and his memory leaped and annihilated an
+interval. That old resolution came back to him and all sorts of new
+resolutions passed out of mind. And he had learnt something since those
+boyish days. This time he did not ask. He went on talking, his nerves
+began very faintly to quiver and his mind grew bright.
+
+Presently, having satisfied himself that there was no one to see, he sat
+up beside her and remarked upon the clearness of the air, and how close
+Dungeness seemed to them. Then they came upon a pause again.
+
+"Ann," he whispered, and put an arm that quivered about her.
+
+She was mute and unresisting, and, as he was to remember, solemn.
+
+He turned her face towards him, and kissed her lips, and she kissed him
+back again--kisses frank and tender as a child's.
+
+
+Sec.5
+
+It was curious that in the retrospect he did not find nearly the
+satisfaction in this infidelity he had imagined was there. It was no
+doubt desperately doggish, doggish to an almost Chitterlowesque degree
+to recline on the beach at Littlestone with a "girl," to make love to
+her and to achieve the triumph of kissing her, when he was engaged to
+another "girl" at Folkestone, but somehow these two people were not
+"girls," they were Ann and Helen. Particularly Helen declined to be
+considered as a "girl." And there was something in Ann's quietly
+friendly eyes, in her frank smile, in the naive pressure of her hand,
+there was something undefended and welcoming that imparted a flavour to
+the business upon which he had not counted. He had learnt about women
+from her. That refrain ran through his mind and deflected his thoughts,
+but as a matter of fact he had learnt about nothing but himself.
+
+He wanted very much to see Ann some more and explain. He did not clearly
+know what it was he wanted to explain.
+
+He did not clearly know anything. It is the last achievement of the
+intelligence to get all of one's life into one coherent scheme, and
+Kipps was only in a measure more aware of himself as a whole than is a
+tree. His existence was an affair of dissolving and recurring moods.
+When he thought of Helen or Ann or any of his friends, he thought
+sometimes of this aspect and sometimes of that--and often one aspect was
+finally incongruous with another. He loved Helen, he revered Helen. He
+was also beginning to hate her with some intensity. When he thought of
+that expedition to Lympne, profound, vague, beautiful emotions flooded
+his being; when he thought of paying calls with her perforce, or of her
+latest comment on his bearing, he found himself rebelliously composing
+fierce and pungent insults, couched in the vernacular. But Ann, whom he
+had seen so much less of, was a simpler memory. She was pretty, she was
+almost softly feminine, and she was possible to his imagination just
+exactly where Helen was impossible. More than anything else, she carried
+the charm of respect for him, the slightest glance of her eyes was balm
+for his perpetually wounded self-conceit.
+
+Chance suggestions it was set the tune of his thoughts, and his state
+of health and repletion gave the colour. Yet somehow he had this at
+least almost clear in his mind, that to have gone to see Ann a second
+time, to have implied that she had been in possession of his thoughts
+through all this interval, and, above all, to have kissed her, was
+shabby and wrong. Only unhappily this much of lucidity had come now just
+a few hours after it was needed.
+
+
+Sec.6
+
+Four days after this it was that Kipps got up so late. He got up late,
+cut his chin while shaving, kicked a slipper into his sponge bath and
+said, "Desh!"
+
+Perhaps you know those intolerable mornings, dear Reader, when you seem
+to have neither the heart nor the strength to rise, and your nervous
+adjustments are all wrong and your fingers thumbs, and you hate the very
+birds for singing. You feel inadequate to any demand whatever. Often
+such awakenings follow a poor night's rest, and commonly they mean
+indiscriminate eating, or those subtle mental influences old Kipps
+ascribed to "Foozle Ile" in the system, or worry. And with Kipps--albeit
+Chitterlow had again been his guest overnight--assuredly worry had
+played a leading role. Troubles had been gathering upon him for days,
+there had been a sort of concentration of these hosts of Midian
+overnight, and in the grey small hours Kipps had held his review.
+
+The predominating trouble marched under this banner:
+
+
+     MR. KIPPS
+
+              MRS. BINDON BOTTING
+
+                     At Home
+
+            Thursday, September 16th
+
+     Anagrams, 4 to 6:30            R. S. V. P.
+
+
+a banner that was the fac-simile of a card upon his looking glass in the
+room below. And in relation to this terribly significant document things
+had come to a pass with Helen that he could only describe in his own
+expressive idiom as "words."
+
+It had long been a smouldering issue between them that Kipps was not
+availing himself with any energy or freedom of the opportunities he had
+of social exercises, much less was he seeking additional opportunities.
+He had, it was evident, a peculiar dread of that universal afternoon
+enjoyment, the Call, and Helen made it unambiguously evident that this
+dread was "silly" and had to be overcome. His first display of this
+unmanly weakness occurred at the Coote's on the day before he kissed
+Ann. They were all there, chatting very pleasantly, when the little
+servant with the big cap announced the younger Miss Wace.
+
+Whereupon Kipps manifested a lively horror and rose partially from his
+chair. "O Gum!" he protested. "Carn't I go upstairs?"
+
+Then he sank back, for it was too late. Very probably the younger Miss
+Wace had heard him as she came in.
+
+Helen said nothing of that, though her manner may have shown her
+surprise, but afterwards she told Kipps he must get used to seeing
+people, and suggested that he should pay a series of calls with Mrs.
+Walshingham and herself. Kipps gave a reluctant assent at the time and
+afterwards displayed a talent for evasion that she had not suspected in
+him. At last she did succeed in securing him for a call upon Miss
+Punchafer, of Radnor Park--a particularly easy call because Miss
+Punchafer being so deaf one could say practically what one liked--and
+then outside the gate he shirked again. "I can't go in," he said in a
+faded voice.
+
+"You _must_," said Helen, beautiful as ever, but even more than a little
+hard and forbidding.
+
+"I can't."
+
+He produced his handkerchief hastily, thrust it to his face, and
+regarded her over it with rounded, hostile eyes.
+
+"'Possible," he said in a hoarse, strange voice out of the handkerchief.
+"Nozzez bleedin'."
+
+But that was the end of his power of resistance, and when the rally for
+the Anagram Tea occurred she bore down his feeble protests altogether.
+She insisted. She said frankly, "I am going to give you a good talking
+to about this," and she did....
+
+From Coote he gathered something of the nature of Anagrams and Anagram
+parties. An anagram, Coote explained, was a word spelt the same way as
+another, only differently arranged, as, for instance, T. O. C. O. E.
+would be an anagram for his own name, Coote.
+
+"T. O. C. O. E.," repeated Kipps very carefully.
+
+"Or T. O. E. C. O.," said Coote.
+
+"Or T. O. E. C. O.," said Kipps, assisting his poor head by nodding it
+at each letter.
+
+"Toe Company like," he said in his efforts to comprehend.
+
+When Kipps was clear what an anagram meant, Coote came to the second
+heading, the Tea. Kipps gathered there might be from thirty to sixty
+people present, and that each one would have an anagram pinned on. "They
+give you a card to put your guesses on, rather like a dance programme,
+and then, you know, you go around and guess," said Coote. "It's rather
+good fun."
+
+"Oo rather!" said Kipps, with simulated gusto.
+
+"It shakes everybody up together," said Coote.
+
+Kipps smiled and nodded....
+
+In the small hours all his painful meditations were threaded by the
+vision of that Anagram Tea; it kept marching to and fro and in and out
+of all his other troubles, from thirty to sixty people, mostly ladies
+and callers, and a great number of the letters of the alphabet, and
+more particularly P. I. K. P. S. and T. O. E. C. O., and he was trying
+to make one word out of the whole interminable procession....
+
+This word, as he finally gave it with some emphasis to the silence of
+the night, was _"Demn!"_
+
+Then, wreathed as it were in this lettered procession, was the figure of
+Helen as she had appeared at the moment of "words"; her face a little
+hard, a little irritated, a little disappointed. He imagined himself
+going around and guessing under her eye....
+
+He tried to think of other things, without lapsing upon a still deeper
+uneasiness that was wreathed with yellow sea poppies, and the figures of
+Buggins, Pierce and Carshot, three murdered Friendships, rose
+reproachfully in the stillness and changed horrible apprehensions into
+unspeakable remorse. Last night had been their customary night for the
+banjo, and Kipps, with a certain tremulous uncertainty, had put old
+Methuselah amidst a retinue of glasses on the table and opened a box of
+choice cigars. In vain. They were in no need, it seemed, of _his_
+society. But instead Chitterlow had come, anxious to know if it was all
+right about that syndicate plan. He had declined anything but a very
+weak whiskey and soda, "just to drink," at least until business was
+settled, and had then opened the whole affair with an effect of great
+orderliness to Kipps. Soon he was taking another whiskey by sheer
+inadvertency, and the complex fabric of his conversation was running
+more easily from the broad loom of his mind. Into that pattern had
+interwoven a narrative of extensive alterations in the Pestered
+Butterfly--the neck and beetle business was to be restored--the story of
+a grave difference of opinion with Mrs. Chitterlow, where and how to
+live after the play had succeeded, the reasons why the Hon. Thomas
+Norgate had never financed a syndicate, and much matter also about the
+syndicate now under discussion. But if the current of their conversation
+had been vortical and crowded, the outcome was perfectly clear. Kipps
+was to be the chief participator in the syndicate, and his contribution
+was to be two thousand pounds. Kipps groaned and rolled over and found
+Helen, as it were, on the other side. "Promise me," she had said, "you
+won't do anything without consulting me."
+
+Kipps at once rolled back to his former position, and for a space lay
+quite still. He felt like a very young rabbit in a trap.
+
+Then suddenly, with extraordinary distinctness, his heart cried out for
+Ann, and he saw her as he had seen her at New Romney, sitting amidst the
+yellow sea poppies with the sunlight on her face. His heart called out
+for her in the darkness as one calls for rescue. He knew, as though he
+had known it always, that he loved Helen no more. He wanted Ann, he
+wanted to hold her and be held by her, to kiss her again and again, to
+turn his back forever on all these other things....
+
+He rose late, but this terrible discovery was still there, undispelled
+by cockcrow or the day. He rose in a shattered condition, and he cut
+himself while shaving, but at last he got into his dining-room and could
+pull the bell for the hot constituents of his multifarious breakfast.
+And then he turned to his letters. There were two real letters in
+addition to the customary electric belt advertisement, continental
+lottery circular and betting tout's card. One was in a slight mourning
+envelope and addressed in an unfamiliar hand. This he opened first and
+discovered a note:
+
+
+                  MRS. RAYMOND WACE
+
+              Requests the pleasure of
+
+                    MR. KIPPS'
+
+                Company at Dinner
+
+     on Tuesday, September 21st, at 8 o'clock
+
+
+With a hasty movement Kipps turned his mind to the second letter. It was
+an unusually long one from his Uncle, and ran as follows:
+
+
+"MY DEAR NEPHEW:
+
+"We are considerably startled by your letter though expecting something
+of the sort and disposed to hope for the best. If the young lady is a
+relation to the Earl of Beaupres well and good but take care you are not
+being imposed upon for there are many who will be glad enough to snap
+you up now your circumstances are altered--I waited on the old Earl
+once while in service and he was remarkably close with his tips and
+suffered from corns. A hasty old gent and hard to please--I daresay he
+has forgotten me altogether--and anyhow there is no need to rake up
+bygones. To-morrow is bus day and as you say the young lady is living
+near by we shall shut up shop for there is really nothing doing now what
+with all the visitors bringing everything with them down to their very
+children's pails and say how de do to her and give her a bit of a kiss
+and encouragement if we think her suitable--she will be pleased to see
+your old uncle--We wish we could have had a look at her first but still
+there is not much mischief done and hoping that all will turn out well
+yet I am
+
+"Your affectionate Uncle
+     "EDWARD GEORGE KIPPS.
+
+
+"My heartburn still very bad. I shall bring over a few bits of rhubub I
+picked up, a sort you won't get in Folkestone and if possible a good
+bunch of flowers for the young lady."
+
+
+"Comin' over to-day," said Kipps, standing helplessly with the letter in
+his hand.
+
+"'Ow, the Juice----?
+
+"I carn't.
+
+"Kiss 'er!"
+
+"I carn't even face 'er----!"
+
+A terrible anticipation of that gathering framed itself in his mind--a
+hideous, impossible disaster.
+
+His voice went up to a note of despair, "And it's too late to telegrarf
+and stop 'em!"
+
+About twenty minutes after this, an outporter in Castle Hill Avenue was
+accosted by a young man, with a pale, desperate face, an exquisitely
+rolled umbrella and a heavy Gladstone bag.
+
+"Carry this to the station, will you?" said the young man. "I want to
+ketch the nex' train to London.... You'll 'ave to look sharp--I 'aven't
+very much time."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+LONDON
+
+
+Sec.1
+
+London was Kipps' third world. There were no doubt other worlds, but
+Kipps knew only these three; firstly, New Romney and the Emporium,
+constituting his primary world, his world of origin, which also
+contained Ann; secondly, the world of culture and refinement, the world
+of which Coote was chaperon, and into which Kipps was presently to
+marry, a world it was fast becoming evident absolutely incompatible with
+the first, and, thirdly, a world still to a large extent unexplored,
+London. London presented itself as a place of great, grey spaces and
+incredible multitudes of people, centring about Charing Cross station
+and the Royal Grand Hotel, and containing at unexpected arbitrary points
+shops of the most amazing sort, statuary, Squares, Restaurants--where it
+was possible for clever people like Walshingham to order a lunch item by
+item, to the waiters' evident respect and sympathy--exhibitions of
+incredible things--the Walshinghams had taken him to the Arts and
+Crafts and to a picture gallery--and theatres. London, moreover, is
+rendered habitable by hansom cabs. Young Walshingham was a natural cab
+taker, he was an all-round large minded young man, and he had in the
+course of their two days' stay taken Kipps into no less than nine, so
+that Kipps was singularly not afraid of these vehicles. He knew that
+whereever you were, so soon as you were thoroughly lost you said "Hi!"
+to a cab, and then "Royal Grand Hotel." Day and night these trusty
+conveyances are returning the strayed Londoner back to his point of
+departure, and were it not for their activity in a little while the
+whole population, so vast and incomprehensible is the intricate
+complexity of this great city, would be hopelessly lost forever. At any
+rate, that is how the thing presented itself to Kipps, and I have heard
+much the same from visitors from America.
+
+His train was composed of corridor carriages, and he forgot his trouble
+for a time in the wonders of this modern substitute for railway
+compartments. He went from the non-smoking to the smoking carriage and
+smoked a cigarette, and strayed from his second-class carriage to a
+first and back. But presently Black Care got aboard the train and came
+and sat beside him. The exhilaration of escape had evaporated now, and
+he was presented with a terrible picture of his Aunt and Uncle arriving
+at his lodgings and finding him fled. He had left a hasty message that
+he was called away suddenly on business, "ver' important business," and
+they were to be sumptuously entertained. His immediate motive had been
+his passionate dread of an encounter between these excellent but
+unrefined old people and the Walshinghams, but now that end was secured,
+he could see how thwarted and exasperated they would be.
+
+How to explain to them?
+
+He ought never to have written to tell them!
+
+He ought to have got married and told them afterwards.
+
+He ought to have consulted Helen.
+
+"Promise me," she had said.
+
+"Oh, _desh_!" said Kipps, and got up and walked back into the smoking
+car and began to consume cigarettes.
+
+Suppose, after all, they found out the Walshingham's address and went
+there!
+
+At Charing Cross, however, there were distractions again. He took a cab
+in an entirely Walshingham manner, and was pleased to note the enhanced
+respect of the cabman when he mentioned the Royal Grand. He followed
+Walshingham's routine on their previous visit with perfect success. They
+were very nice in the office, and gave him an excellent room at fourteen
+shillings the night.
+
+He went up and spent a considerable time in examining the furniture of
+his room, scrutinising himself in its various mirrors and sitting on the
+edge of the bed whistling. It was a vast and splendid apartment, and
+cheap at fourteen shillings. But, finding the figure of Ann inclined to
+resume possession of his mind, he roused himself and descended by the
+staircase after a momentary hesitation before the lift. He had thought
+of lunch, but he drifted into the great drawing-room and read a guide to
+the Hotels of Europe for a space, until a doubt whether he was entitled
+to use this palatial apartment without extra charge arose in his mind.
+He would have liked something to eat very much now, but his inbred
+terror of the table was very strong. He did at last get by a porter in
+uniform towards the dining-room, but at the sight of a number of waiters
+and tables, with remarkable complications of knives and glasses, terror
+seized him, and he backed out again, with a mumbled remark to the waiter
+in the doorway about this not being the way.
+
+He hovered in the hall and lounge until he thought the presiding porter
+regarded him with suspicion, and then went up to his room again by the
+staircase, got his hat and umbrella and struck boldly across the
+courtyard. He would go to a restaurant instead.
+
+He had a moment of elation in the gateway. He felt all the Strand must
+notice him as he emerged through the great gate of the Hotel. "One of
+these here rich swells," they would say. "Don't they do it just!" A
+cabman touched his hat. "No fear," said Kipps, pleasantly.
+
+Then he remembered he was hungry again.
+
+Yet he decided he was in no great hurry for lunch, in spite of an
+internal protest, and turned eastward along the Strand in a leisurely
+manner. He tried to find a place to suit him soon enough. He tried to
+remember the sort of things Walshingham had ordered. Before all things
+he didn't want to go into a place and look like a fool. Some of these
+places rook you dreadful, besides making fun of you. There was a place
+near Essex Street where there was a window brightly full of chops,
+tomatoes and lettuce. He stopped at this and reflected for a time, and
+then it occurred to him that you were expected to buy these things raw
+and cook them at home. Anyhow, there was sufficient doubt in the matter
+to stop him. He drifted on to a neat window with champagne bottles, a
+dish of asparagus and a framed menu of a two shilling lunch. He was
+about to enter, when fortunately he perceived two waiters looking at him
+over the back screen of the window with a most ironical expression, and
+he sheered off at once. There was a wonderful smell of hot food half way
+down Fleet Street and a nice looking Tavern with several doors, but he
+could not decide which door. His nerve was going under the strain.
+
+He hesitated at Farringdon Street and drifted up to St. Paul's and round
+the church yard, full chiefly of dead bargains in the shop windows, to
+Cheapside. But now Kipps was getting demoralised, and each house of
+refreshment seemed to promise still more complicated obstacles to food.
+He didn't know how you went in and what was the correct thing to do with
+your hat, he didn't know what you said to the waiter or what you called
+the different things; he was convinced absolutely he would "fumble," as
+Shalford would have said, and look like a fool. Somebody might laugh at
+him! The hungrier he got the more unendurable was the thought that
+anyone should laugh at him. For a time he considered an extraordinary
+expedient to account for his ignorance. He would go in and pretend to be
+a foreigner and not know English. Then they might understand....
+Presently he had drifted into a part of London where there did not seem
+to be any refreshment places at all.
+
+"Oh, _desh_!" said Kipps, in a sort of agony of indecisiveness. "The
+very nex' place I see, in I go."
+
+The next place was a fried fish shop in a little side street, where
+there were also sausages on a gas-lit grill.
+
+He would have gone in, but suddenly a new scruple came to him, that he
+was too well dressed for the company he could see dimly through the
+steam sitting at the counter and eating with a sort of nonchalant speed.
+
+
+Sec.2
+
+He was half minded to resort to a hansom and brave the terrors of the
+dining-room of the Royal Grand--they wouldn't know why he had gone out
+really--when the only person he knew in London appeared (as the only
+person one does know will do in London) and slapped him on the
+shoulder. Kipps was hovering at a window at a few yards from the fish
+shop, pretending to examine some really strikingly cheap pink baby
+linen, and trying to settle finally about those sausages.
+
+"Hullo, Kipps!" cried Sid; "spending the millions?"
+
+Kipps turned, and was glad to perceive no lingering vestige of the
+chagrin that had been so painful at New Romney. Sid looked grave and
+important, and he wore a quite new silk hat that gave a commercial touch
+to a generally socialistic costume. For a moment the sight of Sid
+uplifted Kipps wonderfully. He saw him as a friend and helper, and only
+presently did it come clearly into his mind that this was the brother of
+Ann.
+
+He made amiable noises.
+
+"I've just been up this way," Sid explained, "buying a second-hand
+'namelling stove.... I'm going to 'namel myself."
+
+"Lor'!" said Kipps.
+
+"Yes. Do me a lot of good. Let the customer choose his colour. See? What
+brings _you_ up?"
+
+Kipps had a momentary vision of his foiled Uncle and Aunt. "Jest a bit
+of a change," he said.
+
+Sid came to a swift decision. "Come down to my little show. I got
+someone I'd like to see talking to you."
+
+Even then Kipps did not think of Ann in this connection.
+
+"Well," he said, trying to invent an excuse on the spur of the moment.
+"Fact is," he explained, "I was jest looking 'round to get a bit of
+lunch."
+
+"Dinner, we call it," said Sid. "But that's all right. You can't get
+anything to eat hereabout. If you're not too haughty to do a bit of
+slumming, there's some mutton spoiling for me now----"
+
+The word "mutton" affected Kipps greatly.
+
+"It won't take us 'arf an hour," said Sid, and Kipps was carried.
+
+He discovered another means of London locomotion in the Underground
+Railway, and recovered his self-possession in that interest. "You don't
+mind going third?" asked Sid, and Kipps said, "Nort a _bit_ of it." They
+were silent in the train for a time, on account of strangers in the
+carriage, and then Sid began to explain who it was that he wanted Kipps
+to meet. "It's a chap named Masterman--do you no end of good.
+
+"He occupies our first floor front room, you know. It isn't so much for
+gain I let as company. We don't _want_ the whole 'ouse, and another, I
+knew the man before. Met him at our Sociological, and after a bit he
+said he wasn't comfortable where he was. That's how it came about. He's
+a first-class chap--first-class. Science! You should see his books!
+
+"Properly he's a sort of journalist. He's written a lot of things, but
+he's been too ill lately to do very much. Poetry he's written, all
+sorts. He writes for the _Commonweal_ sometimes, and sometimes he
+reviews books. 'E's got 'eaps of books--'eaps. Besides selling a lot.
+
+"He knows a regular lot of people, and all sorts of things. He's been a
+dentist, and he's a qualified chemist, an' I seen him often reading
+German and French. Taught 'imself. He was here----"
+
+Sid indicated South Kensington, which had come opportunely outside the
+carriage windows, with a nod of his head, "--three years. Studying
+science. But you'll see 'im. When he really gets to talking--he _pours_
+it out."
+
+"Ah!" said Kipps, nodding sympathetically, with his two hands on his
+umbrella knob.
+
+"He'll do big things some day," said Sid. "He's written a book on
+science already. 'Physiography,' it's called. 'Elementary Physiography'!
+Some day he'll write an Advanced--when he gets time."
+
+He let this soak into Kipps.
+
+"I can't introduce you to Lords and swells," he went on, "but I _can_
+show you a Famous Man, that's going to be. I _can_ do that.
+Leastways--unless----"
+
+Sid hesitated.
+
+"He's got a frightful cough," he said.
+
+"He won't care to talk with me," weighed Kipps.
+
+"That's all right; _he_ won't mind. He's fond of talking. He'd talk to
+anyone," said Sid, reassuringly, and added a perplexing bit of
+Londonized Latin. "He doesn't _pute_ anything, _non alienum_. You know."
+
+"_I_ know," said Kipps, intelligently, over his umbrella knob, though
+of course that was altogether untrue.
+
+
+Sec.3
+
+Kipps found Sid's shop a practical looking establishment, stocked with
+the most remarkable collection of bicycles and pieces of bicycle that he
+had ever beheld. "My hiring stock," said Sid, with a wave to this
+ironmongery, "and there's the best machine at a democratic price in
+London, The Red-Flag, built by _me_. See?"
+
+He indicated a graceful, grey-brown framework in the window. "And
+there's my stock of accessories--store prices.
+
+"Go in for motors a bit," added Sid.
+
+"Mutton?" said Kipps, not hearing him distinctly.
+
+"Motors, I _said_.... 'Owever, Mutton Department 'ere," and he opened a
+door that had a curtain guarded window in its upper panel, to reveal a
+little room with red walls and green furniture, with a white clothed
+table and the generous promise of a meal. "Fanny!" he shouted. "Here's
+Art Kipps."
+
+A bright-eyed young woman of five or six and twenty in a pink print
+appeared, a little flushed from cooking, and wiped a hand on an apron
+and shook hands and smiled, and said it would all be ready in a minute.
+She went on to say she had heard of Kipps and his luck, and meanwhile
+Sid vanished to draw the beer, and returned with two glasses for himself
+and Kipps.
+
+"Drink that," said Sid, and Kipps felt all the better for it.
+
+"I give Mr. Masterman _'is_ upstairs a hour ago," said Mrs. Sid. "I
+didn't think 'e ought to wait."
+
+A rapid succession of brisk movements on the part of everyone, and they
+were all four at dinner--the fourth person being Master Walt Whitman
+Pornick, a cheerful young gentleman of one and a half, who was given a
+spoon to hammer on the table with to keep him quiet, and who got "Kipps"
+right at the first effort and kept it all through the meal, combining it
+first with this previous acquisition, and then that. "Peacock Kipps"
+said Master Walt, at which there was great laughter, and also "More
+Mutton, Kipps."
+
+"He's a regular oner," said Mrs. Sid, "for catching up words. You can't
+say a word but what 'e's on to it."
+
+There were no serviettes and less ceremony, and Kipps thought he had
+never enjoyed a meal so much. Everyone was a little excited by the
+meeting and chatting, and disposed to laugh, and things went off easily
+from the very beginning. If there was a pause Master Walt filled it in.
+Mrs. Sid, who tempered her enormous admiration for Sid's intellect and
+his socialism and his severe business methods by a motherly sense of her
+sex and seniority, spoke of them both as "you boys," and dilated--when
+she was not urging Kipps to have some more of this or that--on the
+disparity between herself and her husband.
+
+"Shouldn't ha' thought there was a year between you," said Kipps; "you
+seem jest a match."
+
+"_I'm his_ match, anyhow," said Mrs. Sid, and no epigram of young
+Walshingham's was ever better received.
+
+"Match," said young Walt, coming in on the trail of the joke and getting
+a round for himself.
+
+Any sense of superior fortune had long vanished from Kipps' mind, and he
+found himself looking at host and hostess with enormous respect. Really,
+old Sid was a wonderful chap, here in his own house at two and twenty,
+carving his own mutton and lording it over wife and child. No legacies
+needed by him! And Mrs. Sid, so kind and bright and hearty! And the
+child, old Sid's child! Old Sid had jumped round a bit. It needed the
+sense of his fortune at the back of his mind to keep Kipps from feeling
+abject. He resolved he'd buy young Walt something tremendous in toys at
+the first opportunity.
+
+"Drop more beer, Art?"
+
+"Right you are, old man."
+
+"Cut Mr. Kipps a bit more bread, Sid."
+
+"Can't I pass _you_ a bit?"
+
+Sid was all right, Sid was, and there was no mistake about that.
+
+It was growing up in his mind that Sid was the brother of Ann, but he
+said nothing about her for excellent reasons. After all, because he
+remembered Sid's irritation at her name when they had met in New Romney
+seemed to show a certain separation. They didn't tell each other
+much.... He didn't know how things might be between Ann and Sid, either.
+
+Still, for all that, Sid was Ann's brother.
+
+The furniture of the room did not assert itself very much above the
+cheerful business at the table, but Kipps was impressed with the idea
+that it was pretty. There was a dresser at the end with a number of gay
+plates and a mug or so, a Labour Day poster, by Walter Crane, on the
+wall, and through the glass and over the blind of the shop door one had
+a glimpse of the bright coloured advertisement cards of bicycle dealers,
+and a shelfful of boxes labelled, The Paragon Bell, The Scarum Bell, and
+The Patent Omi! Horn....
+
+It seemed incredible that he had been in Folkestone that morning, and
+even now his Aunt and Uncle----!
+
+Brrr. It didn't do to think of his Aunt and Uncle.
+
+
+Sec.4
+
+When Sid repeated his invitation to come and see Masterman, Kipps, now
+flushed with beer and Irish stew, said he didn't mind if he did, and
+after a preliminary shout from Sid that was answered by a voice and a
+cough, the two went upstairs.
+
+"Masterman's a rare one," said Sid over his arm and in an undertone.
+"You should hear him speak at a meeting.... If he's in form, that is."
+
+He rapped and went into a large, untidy room.
+
+"This is Kipps," he said. "You know. The chap I told you of. With twelve
+'undred a year."
+
+Masterman sat gnawing at an empty pipe and as close to the fire as
+though it was alight and the season midwinter. Kipps concentrated upon
+him for a space, and only later took in something of the frowsy
+furniture, the little bed half behind, and evidently supposed to be
+wholly behind, a careless screen, the spittoon by the fender, the
+remains of a dinner on the chest of drawers and the scattered books and
+papers. Masterman's face showed him a man of forty or more, with curious
+hollows at the side of his forehead and about his eyes. His eyes were
+very bright; there was a spot of red in his cheeks, and the wiry black
+moustache under his short, red nose had been trimmed with scissors into
+a sort of brush along his upper lip. His teeth were darkened ruins. His
+jacket collar was turned up about a knitted white neck wrap, and his
+sleeves betrayed no cuffs. He did not rise to greet Kipps, but held out
+a thin wristed hand and pointed with the other to a bedroom arm chair.
+
+"Glad to see you," he said. "Sit down and make yourself at home. Will
+you smoke?"
+
+Kipps said he would, and produced his store. He was about to take one,
+and then, with a civil afterthought, handed the packet first to
+Masterman and Sid. Masterman pretended surprise to find his pipe out
+before he took one. There was an interlude of matches. Sid pushed the
+end of the screen out of his way, sat down on the bed thus frankly
+admitted, and prepared, with a certain quiet satisfaction of manner, to
+witness Masterman's treatment of Kipps.
+
+"And how does it feel to have twelve hundred a year?" asked Masterman,
+holding his cigarette to his nose tip in a curious manner.
+
+"It's rum," confided Kipps, after a reflective interval. "It feels
+juiced rum."
+
+"I never felt it," said Masterman.
+
+"It takes a bit of getting into," said Kipps. "I can tell you that."
+
+Masterman smoked and regarded Kipps with curious eyes.
+
+"I expect it does," he said presently.
+
+"And has it made you perfectly happy?" he asked, abruptly.
+
+"I couldn't 'ardly say _that_," said Kipps.
+
+Masterman smiled. "No," he said. "Has it made you much happier?"
+
+"It did at first."
+
+"Yes. But you got used to it. How long, for example, did the real
+delirious excitement last?"
+
+"Oo, _that_! Perhaps a week," said Kipps.
+
+Masterman nodded his head. "That's what discourages _me_ from amassing
+wealth," he said to Sid. "You adjust yourself. It doesn't last. I've
+always had an inkling of that, and it's interesting to get it confirmed.
+I shall go on sponging for a bit longer on _you_, I think."
+
+"You don't," said Sid. "No fear."
+
+"Twenty-four thousand pounds," said Masterman, and blew a cloud of
+smoke. "Lord! Doesn't it worry you?"
+
+"It is a bit worrying at times.... Things 'appen."
+
+"Going to marry?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"H'm. Lady, I guess, of a superior social position?"
+
+"Rather," said Kipps. "Cousin to the Earl of Beaupres."
+
+Masterman readjusted his long body with an air of having accumulated all
+the facts he needed. He snuggled his shoulder-blades down into the chair
+and raised his angular knees. "I doubt," he said, flicking cigarette ash
+into the atmosphere, "if any great gain or loss of money does--as things
+are at present--make more than the slightest difference in one's
+happiness. It ought to--if money was what it ought to be, the token for
+given service; one ought to get an increase in power and happiness for
+every pound one got. But the plain fact is the times are out of joint,
+and money--money, like everything else, is a deception and a
+disappointment."
+
+He turned his face to Kipps and enforced his next words with the index
+finger of his lean, lank hand. "If I thought otherwise," he said, "I
+should exert _myself_ to get some. But, if one sees things clearly, one
+is so discouraged. So confoundedly discouraged.... When you first got
+your money, you thought that it meant you might buy just anything you
+fancied?"
+
+"I was a bit that way," said Kipps.
+
+"And you found that you couldn't. You found that for all sorts of things
+it was a question of where to buy and how to buy, and what you didn't
+know how to buy with your money, straight away this world planted
+something else upon you----"
+
+"I got rather done over a banjo first day," said Kipps. "Leastways, my
+Uncle says."
+
+"Exactly," said Masterman.
+
+Sid began to speak from the bed. "That's all very well, Masterman," he
+said, "but, after all, money is Power, you know. You can do all sorts of
+things----"
+
+"I'm talking of happiness," said Masterman. "You can do all sorts of
+things with a loaded gun in the Hammersmith Broadway, but
+nothing--practically--that will make you or any one else very happy.
+Nothing. Power's a different matter altogether. As for happiness, you
+want a world in order before money or property, or any of those things
+that have any real value, and this world, I tell you, is hopelessly out
+of joint. Man is a social animal with a mind nowadays that goes around
+the globe, and a community cannot be happy in one part and unhappy in
+another. It's all or nothing, no patching any more for ever. It is the
+standing mistake of the world not to understand that. Consequently
+people think there is a class or order somewhere, just above them or
+just below them, or a country or place somewhere, that is really safe
+and happy. The fact is, Society is one body, and it is either well or
+ill. That's the law. This society we live in is ill. It's a fractious,
+feverish invalid, gouty, greedy and ill-nourished. You can't have a
+happy left leg with neuralgia, or a happy throat with a broken leg.
+That's my position, and that's the knowledge you'll come to. I'm so
+satisfied of it that I sit here and wait for my end quite calmly, sure
+that I can't better things by bothering--in my time, and so far as I am
+concerned, that is. I'm not even greedy any more--my egotism's at the
+bottom of a pond, with a philosophical brick around its neck. The world
+is ill, my time is short and my strength is small. I'm as happy here as
+anywhere."
+
+He coughed and was silent for a moment, then brought the index finger
+around to Kipps again. "You've had the opportunity of sampling two
+grades of society, and you don't find the new people you're among much
+better or any happier than the old?"
+
+"No," said Kipps, reflectively. "No. I 'aven't seen it quite like that
+before, but----. No. They're not."
+
+"And you might go all up the scale and down the scale and find the same
+thing. Man's a gregarious beast, a gregarious beast, and no money will
+buy you out of your own time--any more than out of your own skill. All
+the way up and all the way down the scale there's the same discontent.
+No one is quite sure where they stand, and everyone's fretting. The
+herd's uneasy and feverish. All the old tradition goes or has gone, and
+there's no one to make a new tradition. Where are your nobles now? Where
+are your gentlemen? They vanished directly the peasant found out he
+wasn't happy and ceased to be a peasant. There's big men and little men
+mixed up together, that's all. None of us know where we are. Your cads
+in a bank holiday train and your cads on a two thousand pound motor;
+except for a difference in scale, there's not a pin to choose between
+them. Your smart society is as low and vulgar and uncomfortable for a
+balanced soul as a gin palace, no more and no less; there's no place or
+level of honour or fine living left in the world; so what's the good of
+climbing?"
+
+"'Ear, 'ear," said Sid.
+
+"It's true," said Kipps.
+
+"_I_ don't climb," said Masterman, and accepted Kipps' silent offer of
+another cigarette.
+
+"No," he said. "This world is out of joint. It's broken up, and I doubt
+if it will heal. I doubt very much if it'll heal. We're in the beginning
+of the Sickness of the World."
+
+He rolled his cigarette in his lean fingers and repeated with
+satisfaction: "The Sickness of the World."
+
+"It's we've got to make it better," said Sid, and looked at Kipps.
+
+"Ah, Sid's an optimist," said Masterman.
+
+"So are you, most times," said Sid.
+
+Kipps lit another cigarette with an air of intelligent participation.
+
+"Frankly," said Masterman, recrossing his legs and expelling a jet of
+smoke luxuriously, "frankly, I think this civilisation of ours is on the
+topple."
+
+"There's Socialism," said Sid.
+
+"There's no imagination to make use of it."
+
+"We've got to _make_ one," said Sid.
+
+"In a couple of centuries perhaps," said Masterman. "But meanwhile we're
+going to have a pretty acute attack of confusion. Universal confusion.
+Like one of those crushes when men are killed and maimed for no reason
+at all, going into a meeting or crowding for a train. Commercial and
+Industrial Stresses. Political Exploitation. Tariff Wars. Revolutions.
+All the bloodshed that will come of some fools calling half the white
+world yellow. These things alter the attitude of everybody to everybody.
+Everybody's going to feel 'em. Every fool in the world panting and
+shoving. _We're_ all going to be as happy and comfortable as a household
+during a removal. What else can we expect?"
+
+Kipps was moved to speak, but not in answer to Masterman's enquiry.
+"I've never rightly got the 'eng of this Socialism," he said. "What's it
+going to do, like?"
+
+They had been imagining that he had some elementary idea in the matter,
+but as soon as he had made it clear that he hadn't, Sid plunged at
+exposition, and in a little while Masterman, abandoning his pose of the
+detached man ready to die, joined in. At first he joined in only to
+correct Sid's version, but afterwards he took control. His manner
+changed. He sat up and rested his elbow on his knees, and his cheek
+flushed a little. He expanded his case against Property and the property
+class with such vigour that Kipps was completely carried away, and never
+thought of asking for a clear vision of the thing that would fill the
+void this abolition might create. For a time he quite forgot his own
+private opulence. And it was as if something had been lit in Masterman.
+His languor passed. He enforced his words by gestures of his long, thin
+hands. And as he passed swiftly from point to point of his argument it
+was evident he grew angry.
+
+"To-day," he said, "the world is ruled by rich men; they may do almost
+anything they like with the world. And what are they doing? Laying it
+waste!"
+
+"Hear, hear!" said Sid, very sternly.
+
+Masterman stood up, gaunt and long, thrust his hands in his pockets and
+turned his back to the fireplace.
+
+"Collectively, the rich to-day have neither heart nor imagination. No!
+They own machinery, they have knowledge and instruments and powers
+beyond all previous dreaming, and what are they doing with them? Think
+what they are doing with them, Kipps, and think what they might do. God
+gives them a power like the motor car, and all they can do with it is
+to go careering about the roads in goggled masks killing children and
+making machinery hateful to the soul of man! ("True," said Sid, "true.")
+God gives them means of communication, power unparalleled of every sort,
+time and absolute liberty! They waste it all in folly! Here under their
+feet (and Kipps' eyes followed the direction of a lean index finger to
+the hearthrug) under their accursed wheels, the great mass of men
+festers and breeds in darkness, darkness those others make by standing
+in the light. The darkness breeds and breeds. It knows no better....
+Unless you can crawl or pander or rob you must stay in the stew you are
+born in. And those rich beasts above claw and clutch as though they had
+nothing! They grudge us our schools, they grudge us a gleam of light and
+air, they cheat us and then seek to forget us.... There is no rule, no
+guidance, only accidents and happy flukes.... Our multitudes of poverty
+increase, and this crew of rulers makes no provision, foresees nothing,
+anticipates nothing...."
+
+He paused and made a step, and stood over Kipps in a white heat of
+anger. Kipps nodded in a non-commital manner and looked hard and rather
+gloomily at his host's slipper as he talked.
+
+"It isn't as though they had something to show for the waste they make
+of us, Kipps. They haven't. They are ugly and cowardly and mean. Look at
+their women! Painted, dyed and drugged, hiding their ugly shapes under a
+load of dress! There isn't a woman in the swim of society at the
+present time, wouldn't sell herself, body and soul, who wouldn't lick
+the boots of a Jew or marry a nigger, rather than live decently on a
+hundred a year! On what would be wealth for you and me! They know it.
+They know we know it.... No one believes in them. No one believes in
+nobility any more. Nobody believes in kingship any more. Nobody believes
+there is justice in the law.... But people have habits, people go on in
+the old grooves, as long as there's work, as long as there's weekly
+money.... It won't last, Kipps."
+
+He coughed and paused. "Wait for the lean years," he cried. "Wait for
+the lean years." And suddenly he fell into a struggle with his cough and
+spat a gout of blood. "It's nothing," he said to Kipps' note of startled
+horror.
+
+He went on talking, and the protests of his cough interlaced with his
+words, and Sid beamed in an ecstasy of painful admiration.
+
+"Look at the fraud they have let life become, the miserable mockery of
+the hope of one's youth. What have _I_ had? I found myself at thirteen
+being forced into a factory like a rabbit into a chloroformed box.
+Thirteen!--when _their_ children are babies. But even a child of that
+age could see what it meant, that Hell of a factory! Monotony and toil
+and contempt and dishonour! And then death. So I fought--at thirteen!"
+
+Minton's "crawling up a drain pipe until you die" echoed in Kipps'
+mind, but Masterman, instead of Minton's growl, spoke in a high,
+indignant tenor.
+
+"I got out at last--somehow," he said, quietly, suddenly plumping back
+in his chair. He went on after a pause. "For a bit. Some of us get out
+by luck, some by cunning, and crawl on to the grass, exhausted and
+crippled to die. That's a poor man's success, Kipps. Most of us don't
+get out at all. I worked all day and studied half the night, and here I
+am with the common consequences. Beaten! And never once have I had a
+fair chance, never once!" His lean, clenched fist flew out in a gust of
+tremulous anger. "These Skunks shut up all the university scholarships
+at nineteen for fear of men like me. And then--do _nothin'_.... We're
+wasted for nothing. By the time I'd learnt something the doors were
+locked. I thought knowledge would do it--I did think that! I've fought
+for knowledge as other men fight for bread. I've starved for knowledge.
+I've turned my back on women; I've done even that. I've burst my
+accursed lung...." His voice rose with impotent anger. "I'm a better man
+than any ten princes alive! And I'm beaten and wasted. I've been
+crushed, trampled and defiled by a drove of hogs. I'm no use to myself
+or the world. I've thrown my life away to make myself too good for use
+in this huckster's scramble. If I had gone in for business, if I had
+gone in for plotting to cheat my fellow men--ah, well! It's too late.
+It's too late for that, anyhow. It's too late for anything now! And I
+couldn't have done it.... And over in New York now there's a pet of
+society making a corner in wheat!
+
+"By God!" he cried hoarsely, with a clutch of the lean hand. "By God! If
+I had his throat! Even now I might do something for the world."
+
+He glared at Kipps, his face flushed deep, his sunken eyes glowing with
+passion, and then suddenly he changed altogether.
+
+There was a sound of tea things rattling upon a tray outside the door,
+and Sid rose to open it.
+
+"All of which amounts to this," said Masterman, suddenly quiet and again
+talking against time. "The world is out of joint, and there isn't a soul
+alive who isn't half waste or more. You'll find it the same with you in
+the end, wherever your luck may take you.... I suppose you won't mind my
+having another cigarette?"
+
+He took Kipps' cigarette with a hand that trembled so violently it
+almost missed its object, and stood up, with something of guilt in his
+manner as Mrs. Sid came into the room.
+
+Her eye met his and marked the flush upon his face.
+
+"Been talking Socialism?" said Mrs. Sid, a little severely.
+
+
+Sec.5
+
+Six o'clock that day found Kipps drifting eastward along the southward
+margin of Rotten Row. You figure him a small, respectably attired
+figure going slowly through a sometimes immensely difficult and always
+immense world. At times he becomes pensive and whistles softly. At times
+he looks about him. There are a few riders in the Row, a carriage
+flashes by every now and then along the roadway, and among the great
+rhododendrons and laurels and upon the greensward there are a few groups
+and isolated people dressed in the style Kipps adopted to call upon the
+Walshinghams when first he was engaged. Amid the complicated confusion
+of Kipps' mind was a regret that he had not worn his other things....
+
+Presently he perceived that he would like to sit down; a green chair
+tempted him. He hesitated at it, took possession of it, and leant back
+and crossed one leg over the other.
+
+He rubbed his under lip with his umbrella handle and reflected upon
+Masterman and his denunciation of the world.
+
+"Bit orf 'is 'ead, poor chap," said Kipps, and added: "I wonder."
+
+He thought intently for a space.
+
+"I wonder what he meant by the lean years?"
+
+The world seemed a very solid and prosperous concern just here, and well
+out of reach of Masterman's dying clutch. And yet----
+
+It was curious he should have been reminded of Minton.
+
+His mind turned to a far more important matter. Just at the end Sid had
+said to him, "Seen Ann?" and as he was about to answer, "You'll see a
+bit more of her now. She's got a place in Folkestone."
+
+It had brought him back from any concern about the world being out of
+joint or anything of that sort.
+
+Ann!
+
+One might run against her any day.
+
+He tugged at his little moustache.
+
+He would like to run against Ann very much....
+
+"And it would be juiced awkward if I did!"
+
+In Folkestone! It was a jolly sight too close....
+
+Then, at the thought that he might run against Ann in his beautiful
+evening dress on the way to the band, he fluttered into a momentary
+dream, that jumped abruptly into a nightmare.
+
+Suppose he met her when he was out with Helen! "Oh, Lor'!" said Kipps.
+Life had developed a new complication that would go on and go on. For
+some time he wished with the utmost fervour that he had not kissed Ann,
+that he had not gone to New Romney the second time. He marvelled at his
+amazing forgetfulness of Helen on that occasion. Helen took possession
+of his mind. He would have to write to Helen, an easy, off-hand letter,
+to say that he had come to London for a day or so. He tried to imagine
+her reading it. He would write just such another letter to the old
+people, and say he had had to come up on business. That might do for
+_them_ all right, but Helen was different. She would insist on
+explanations.
+
+He wished he could never go back to Folkestone again. That would settle
+the whole affair.
+
+A passing group attracted his attention, two faultlessly dressed
+gentlemen and a radiantly expensive lady. They were talking, no doubt,
+very brilliantly. His eyes followed them. The lady tapped the arm of the
+left hand gentleman with a daintily tinted glove. Swells! No end....
+
+His soul looked out upon life in general as a very small nestling might
+peep out of its nest. What an extraordinary thing life was, to be sure,
+and what a remarkable variety of people there were in it!
+
+He lit a cigarette and speculated upon that receding group of three, and
+blew smoke and watched them. They seemed to do it all right. Probably
+they all had incomes of very much over twelve hundred a year. Perhaps
+not. Probably none of them suspected, as they went past, that he, too,
+was a gentleman of independent means, dressed, as he was, without
+distinction. Of course things were easier for them. They were brought up
+always to dress well and do the right thing from their very earliest
+years; they started clear of all his perplexities; they had never got
+mixed up with all sorts of different people who didn't go together. If,
+for example, that lady there got engaged to that gentleman, she would be
+quite safe from any encounter from a corpulent, osculatory Uncle, or
+Chitterlow, or the dangerously insignificant eye of Pierce.
+
+His thoughts came round to Helen.
+
+When they were married and Cuyps, or Cuyp--Coote had failed to justify
+his "s"--and in that west end flat and shaken free of all these low
+class associations, would he and she parade here of an afternoon dressed
+like that? It would be rather fine to do so. If one's dress was all
+right.
+
+Helen!
+
+She was difficult to understand at times.
+
+He blew extensive clouds of cigarette smoke.
+
+There would be teas, there would be dinners, there would be calls. Of
+course he would get into the way of it.
+
+But Anagrams were a bit stiff to begin with!
+
+It was beastly confusing at first to know when to use your fork at
+dinner, and all that. Still----
+
+He felt an extraordinary doubt whether he would get into the way of it.
+He was interested for a space by a girl and groom on horseback, and then
+he came back to his personal preoccupations.
+
+He would have to write to Helen. What could he say to explain his
+absence from the Anagram Tea? She had been pretty clear she wanted him
+to come. He recalled her resolute face without any great tenderness. He
+_knew_ he would look like a silly ass at that confounded tea! Suppose he
+shirked it and went back in time for the dinner! Dinners were beastly
+difficult, too, but not as bad as Anagrams. The very first thing that
+might happen when he got back to Folkestone would be to run against Ann.
+Suppose, after all, he did meet Ann when he was with Helen!
+
+What queer encounters were possible in the world!
+
+Thank goodness, they were going to live in London!
+
+But that brought him around to Chitterlow. The Chitterlows were coming
+to London, too. If they didn't get money they'd come after it; they
+weren't the sort of people to be choked off easily, and if they did
+they'd come to London to produce their play. He tried to imagine some
+seemly social occasion invaded by Chitterlow and his rhetoric, by his
+torrential thunder of self-assertion, the whole company flattened
+thereunder like wheat under a hurricane.
+
+Confound and hang Chitterlow! Yet, somehow, somewhen, one would have to
+settle accounts with him! And there was Sid! Sid was Ann's brother. He
+realised with sudden horror the social indiscretion of accepting Sid's
+invitation to dinner.
+
+Sid wasn't the sort of chap one could snub or cut, and besides--Ann's
+brother! He didn't want to cut him. It would be worse than cutting
+Buggins and Pierce--a sight worse. And after that lunch!
+
+It would be the next thing to cutting Ann herself. And even as to Ann!
+
+Suppose he was with Helen or Coote!...
+
+"Oh, Blow!" he said, at last, and then, viciously, "_Blow!_" and so rose
+and flung away his cigarette end, and pursued his reluctant, dubiating
+way towards the really quite uncongenial splendours of the Royal
+Grand....
+
+And it is vulgarly imagined that to have money is to have no troubles
+at all!
+
+
+Sec.6
+
+Kipps endured splendour at the Royal Grand Hotel for three nights and
+days, and then he retreated in disorder. The Royal Grand defeated and
+overcame and routed Kipps, not of intention, but by sheer royal
+grandeur, grandeur combined with an organisation for his comfort carried
+to excess. On his return he came upon a difficulty; he had lost his
+circular piece of cardboard with the number of his room, and he drifted
+about the hall and passages in a state of perplexity for some time,
+until he thought all the porters and officials in gold lace caps must be
+watching him and jesting to one another about him. Finally, in a quiet
+corner, down below the hairdresser's shop, he found a kindly looking
+personage in bottle green, to whom he broached his difficulty. "I say,"
+he said, with a pleasant smile, "I can't find my room nohow." The
+personage in bottle green, instead of laughing in a nasty way, as he
+might well have done, became extremely helpful, showed Kipps what to do,
+got his key, and conducted him by lift and passage to his chamber. Kipps
+tipped him half a crown.
+
+Safe in his room, Kipps pulled himself together for dinner. He had
+learnt enough from young Walshingham to bring his dress clothes, and now
+he began to assume them. Unfortunately, in the excitement of his flight
+from his Aunt and Uncle, he had forgotten to put in his other boots, and
+he was some time deciding between his purple cloth slippers, with a
+golden marigold, and the prospect of cleaning the boots he was wearing
+with the towel, but finally, being a little footsore, he took the
+slippers.
+
+Afterwards, when he saw the porters and waiters and the other guests
+catch a sight of the slippers, he was sorry he had not chosen the boots.
+However, to make up for any want of style at that end, he had his crush
+hat under his arm.
+
+He found the dining-room without excessive trouble. It was a vast and
+splendidly decorated place, and a number of people, evidently quite _au
+fait_, were dining there at little tables lit with electric, red shaded
+candles, gentlemen in evening dress, and ladies with dazzling,
+astonishing necks. Kipps had never seen evening dress in full vigour
+before, and he doubted his eyes. And there were also people not in
+evening dress who, no doubt, wondered what noble family Kipps
+represented. There was a band in a decorated recess, and the band looked
+collectively at the purple slippers, and so lost any chance they may
+have had of a collection, so far as Kipps was concerned. The chief
+drawback to this magnificent place was the excessive space of floor that
+had to be crossed before you got your purple slippers hid in under a
+table.
+
+He selected a little table--not the one where a rather impudent looking
+waiter held a chair, but another--sat down, and finding his gibus in
+his hand, decided after a moment of thought to rise slightly and sit on
+it. (It was discovered in his abandoned chair at a late hour by a supper
+party, and restored to him next day.)
+
+He put the napkin carefully on one side, selected his soup without
+difficulty, "Clear, please," but he was rather floored by the
+presentation of a quite splendidly bound wine card. He turned it over,
+discovered a section devoted to whiskey, and had a bright idea.
+
+"'Ere," he said to the waiter, with an encouraging movement of his head,
+and then in a confidential manner, "you haven't any Old Methuselah Three
+Stars, 'ave you?"
+
+The waiter went away to enquire, and Kipps went on with his soup with an
+enhanced self-respect. Finally, Old Methuselah being unobtainable, he
+ordered a claret from about the middle of the list. "Let's 'ave some of
+this," he said. He knew claret was a good sort of wine.
+
+"A half bottle?" said the waiter.
+
+"Right you are," said Kipps.
+
+He felt he was getting on. He leant back after his soup, a man of the
+world, and then slowly brought his eyes around to the ladies in evening
+dress on his right....
+
+He couldn't have thought it!
+
+They were scorchers. Jest a bit of black velvet over the shoulders!
+
+He looked again. One of them was laughing with a glass of wine half
+raised--wicked-looking woman she was--the other, the black velvet one,
+was eating bits of bread with nervous quickness and talking fast.
+
+He wished old Buggins could see them.
+
+He found a waiter regarding him and blushed deeply. He did not look
+again for some time, and became confused about his knife and fork over
+the fish. Presently he remarked a lady in pink to the left of him eating
+the fish with an entirely different implement.
+
+It was over the _vol au vent_ that he began to go to pieces. He took a
+knife to it; then saw the lady in pink was using a fork only, and
+hastily put down his knife, with a considerable amount of rich
+creaminess on the blade, upon the cloth. Then he found that a fork in
+his inexperienced hand was an instrument of chase rather than capture.
+His ears became violently red, and then he looked up, to discover the
+lady in pink glancing at him and then smiling as she spoke to the man
+beside her.
+
+He hated the lady in pink very much.
+
+He stabbed a large piece of the _vol au vent_ at last, and was too glad
+of his luck not to take a mouthful of it. But it was an extensive
+fragment, and pieces escaped him. Shirt front! "Desh it!" he said, and
+had resort to his spoon. His waiter went and spoke to two other waiters,
+no doubt jeering at him. He became very fierce suddenly. "Ere!" he said,
+gesticulating, and then, "clear this away!"
+
+The entire dinner party on his right, the party of the ladies in
+advanced evening dress, looked at him.... He felt that everyone was
+watching him and making fun of him, and the injustice of this angered
+him. After all, they had every advantage he hadn't. And then, when they
+got him there doing his best, what must they do but glance and sneer and
+nudge one another. He tried to catch them at it, and then took refuge in
+a second glass of wine.
+
+Suddenly and extraordinarily he found himself a socialist. He did not
+care how close it was to the lean years when all these things would end.
+
+Mutton came with peas. He arrested the hand of the waiter. "No peas," he
+said. He knew something of the difficulty and danger of eating peas.
+Then, when the peas went away again he was embittered again.... Echoes
+of Masterman's burning rhetoric began to reverberate in his mind. Nice
+lot of people these were to laugh at anyone! Women half undressed. It
+was that made him so beastly uncomfortable. How could one eat one's
+dinner with people about him like that? Nice lot they were. He was glad
+he wasn't one of them, anyhow. Yes, they might look. He resolved if they
+looked at him again he would ask one of the men who he was staring at.
+His perturbed and angry face would have concerned anyone. The band by an
+unfortunate accident was playing truculent military music. The mental
+change Kipps underwent was, in its way, what psychologists call a
+conversion. In a few moments all Kipps' ideals were changed. He who had
+been "practically a gentleman," the sedulous pupil of Coote, the
+punctilious raiser of hats, was instantly a rebel, an outcast, the hater
+of everything "stuck up," the foe of Society and the social order of
+to-day. Here they were among the profits of their robbery, these people
+who might do anything with the world....
+
+"No, thenks," he said to a dish.
+
+He addressed a scornful eye at the shoulders of the lady to his left.
+
+Presently he was refusing another dish. He didn't like it--fussed up
+food! Probably cooked by some foreigner. He finished up his wine and his
+bread.
+
+"No, thenks."
+
+"No, thenks."...
+
+He discovered the eye of a diner fixed curiously upon his flushed face.
+He responded with a glare. Couldn't he go without things if he liked?
+
+"What's this?" said Kipps to a great green cone.
+
+"Ice," said the waiter.
+
+"I'll 'ave some," said Kipps.
+
+He seized a fork and spoon and assailed the bombe. It cut rather
+stiffly. "Come up!" said Kipps, with concentrated bitterness, and the
+truncated summit of the bombe flew off suddenly, travelling eastward
+with remarkable velocity. Flop, it went upon the floor a yard away, and
+for awhile time seemed empty.
+
+At the adjacent table they were laughing together.
+
+Shy the rest of the bombe at them?
+
+Flight?
+
+At any rate a dignified withdrawal.
+
+"No!" said Kipps, "no more," arresting the polite attempt of the waiter
+to serve him with another piece. He had a vague idea he might carry off
+the affair as though he had meant the ice to go on the floor--not liking
+ice, for example, and being annoyed at the badness of his dinner. He put
+both hands on the table, thrust back his chair, disengaged a purple
+slipper from his napkin, and rose. He stepped carefully over the
+prostrate ice, kicked the napkin under the table, thrust his hands deep
+into his pockets, and marched out--shaking the dust of the place, as it
+were, from his feet. He left behind him a melting fragment of ice upon
+the floor, his gibus hat, warm and compressed in his chair, and in
+addition every social ambition he had ever entertained in the world.
+
+
+Sec.7
+
+Kipps went back to Folkestone in time for the Anagram Tea. But you must
+not imagine that the change of heart that came to him in the dining-room
+of the Royal Grand Hotel involved any change of attitude toward this
+promised social and intellectual treat. He went back because the Royal
+Grand was too much for him.
+
+Outwardly calm, or at most a little flushed and ruffled, inwardly Kipps
+was a horrible, tormented battleground of scruples, doubts, shames and
+self-assertions during that three days of silent, desperate grappling
+with the big hotel. He did not intend the monstrosity should beat him
+without a struggle, but at last he had sullenly to admit himself
+overcome. The odds were terrific. On the one hand himself--with, among
+other things, only one pair of boots; on the other a vast wilderness of
+rooms, covering several acres, and with over a thousand people, staff
+and visitors, all chiefly occupied in looking queerly at Kipps, in
+laughing at him behind his back, in watching for difficult corners at
+which to confront and perplex him, and inflict humiliations upon him.
+For example, the hotel scored over its electric light. After the dinner
+the chambermaid, a hard, unsympathetic young woman with a superior
+manner, was summoned by a bell Kipps had rung under the impression the
+button was the electric light switch. "Look 'ere," said Kipps, rubbing a
+shin that had suffered during his search in the dark, "why aren't there
+any candles or matches?" The hotel explained and scored heavily.
+
+"It isn't everyone is up to these things," said Kipps.
+
+"No, it isn't," said the chambermaid, with ill-concealed scorn, and
+slammed the door at him.
+
+"S'pose I ought to have tipped her," said Kipps.
+
+After that Kipps cleaned his boots with a pocket-handkerchief and went
+for a long walk and got home in a hansom, but the hotel scored again by
+his not putting out his boots and so having to clean them again in the
+morning. The hotel also snubbed him by bringing him hot water when he
+was fully dressed and looking surprised at his collar, but he got a
+breakfast, I must admit, with scarcely any difficulty.
+
+After that the hotel scored heavily by the fact that there are
+twenty-four hours in the day and Kipps had nothing to do in any of them.
+He was a little footsore from his previous day's pedestrianism, and he
+could make up his mind for no long excursions. He flitted in and out of
+the hotel several times, and it was the polite porter who touched his
+hat every time that first set Kipps tipping.
+
+"What 'e wants is a tip," said Kipps.
+
+So at the next opportunity he gave the man an unexpected shilling, and
+having once put his hand in his pocket, there was no reason why he
+should not go on. He bought a newspaper at the book-stall and tipped the
+boy the rest of the shilling, and then went up by the lift and tipped
+the man a sixpence, leaving his newspaper inadvertently in the lift. He
+met his chambermaid in the passage and gave her half a crown. He
+resolved to demonstrate his position to the entire establishment in this
+way. He didn't like the place; he disapproved of it politically,
+socially, morally, but he resolved no taint of meanness should disfigure
+his sojourn in its luxurious halls. He went down by the lift (tipping
+again), and, being accosted by a waiter with his gibus, tipped the
+finder half a crown. He had a vague sense that he was making a flank
+movement upon the hotel and buying over its staff. They would regard him
+as a character. They would get to like him. He found his stock of small
+silver diminishing, and replenished it at a desk in the hall. He tipped
+a man in bottle green who looked like the man who had shown him his room
+the day before, and then he saw a visitor eyeing him, and doubted
+whether he was in this instance doing right. Finally he went out and
+took chance 'buses to their destinations, and wandered a little in
+remote, wonderful suburbs and returned. He lunched at a chop house in
+Islington, and found himself back in the Royal Grand, now unmistakably
+footsore and London weary, about three. He was drawn towards the
+drawing-room by a neat placard about afternoon tea.
+
+It occurred to him that the campaign of tipping upon which he had
+embarked was perhaps after all a mistake. He was confirmed in this by
+observing that the hotel officials were watching him, not respectfully,
+but with a sort of amused wonder, as if to see whom he would tip next.
+However, if he backed out now, they would think him an awful fool.
+Everyone wasn't so rich as he was. It was his way to tip. Still----
+
+He grew more certain the hotel had scored again.
+
+He pretended to be lost in thought and so drifted by, and having put hat
+and umbrella in the cloak-room went into the drawing-room for afternoon
+tea.
+
+There he did get what for a time he held to be a point in his favour.
+The room was large and quiet at first, and he sat back restfully until
+it occurred to him that his attitude brought his extremely dusty boots
+too prominently into the light, so instead he sat up, and then people
+of the upper and upper middle classes began to come and group themselves
+about him and have tea likewise, and so revive the class animosities of
+the previous day.
+
+Presently a fluffy, fair-haired lady came into prominent existence a few
+yards away. She was talking to a respectful, low-voiced clergyman, whom
+she was possibly entertaining at tea. "No," she said, "dear Lady Jane
+wouldn't like that!"
+
+"Mumble, mumble, mumble," from the clergyman.
+
+"Poor dear Lady Jane was always so sensitive," the voice of the lady
+sang out clear and emphatic.
+
+A fat, hairless, important-looking man joined this group, took a chair
+and planted it firmly with its back in the face of Kipps, a thing that
+offended Kipps mightily. "Are you telling him," gurgled the fat,
+hairless man, "about dear Lady Jane's affliction?" A young couple, lady
+brilliantly attired and the man in a magnificently cut frock coat,
+arranged themselves to the right, also with an air of exclusion towards
+Kipps. "I've told him," said the gentleman in a flat, abundant voice.
+"My!" said the young lady, with an American smile. No doubt they all
+thought Kipps was out of it. A great desire to assert himself in some
+way surged up in his heart. He felt he would like to cut in on the
+conversation in some dramatic way. A monologue something in the manner
+of Masterman? At any rate, abandoning that as impossible, he would like
+to appear self-centred and at ease. His eyes, wandering over the black
+surfaces of a noble architectural mass close by, discovered a slot--an
+enamelled plaque of directions.
+
+It was some sort of musical box! As a matter of fact, it was the very
+best sort of Harmonicon and specially made to the scale of the Hotel.
+
+He scrutinised the plaque with his head at various angles and glanced
+about him at his neighbours.
+
+It occurred to Kipps that he would like some music, that to inaugurate
+some would show him a man of taste and at his ease at the same time. He
+rose, read over a list of tunes, selected one haphazard, pressed his
+sixpence--it was sixpence!--home, and prepared for a confidential,
+refined little melody.
+
+Considering the high social tone of the Royal Grand, it was really a
+very loud instrument indeed. It gave vent to three deafening brays and
+so burst the dam of silence that had long pent it in. It seemed to be
+chiefly full of the greatuncles of trumpets, megalo-trombones and
+railway brakes. It made sounds like shunting trains. It did not so much
+begin as blow up your counter-scarp or rush forward to storm under cover
+of melodious shrapnel. It had not so much an air as a _ricochette_. The
+music had, in short, the inimitable quality of Sousa. It swept down upon
+the friend of Lady Jane and carried away something socially striking
+into the eternal night of the unheard; the American girl to the left of
+it was borne shrieking into the inaudible. "HIGH cockalorum Tootletootle
+tootle loo. HIGH cockalorum tootle lootle loo. BUMP, bump, bump--BUMP."
+Joyous, exorbitant music it was from the gigantic nursery of the
+Future, bearing the hearer along upon its torrential succession of
+sounds, as if he was in a cask on Niagara. Whiroo! Yah and have at you!
+The strenuous Life! Yaha! Stop! A Reprieve! A Reprieve! No! Bang! Bump!
+
+Everybody looked around, conversation ceased and gave place to gestures.
+
+The friend of Lady Jane became terribly agitated.
+
+"Can't it be stopped?" she vociferated, pointing a gloved finger and
+saying something to the waiter about "That dreadful young man."
+
+"Ought not to be working," said the clerical friend of Lady Jane.
+
+The waiter shook his head at the fat, hairless gentleman. People began
+to move away. Kipps leant back luxurious, and then tipped with a half
+crown to pay. He paid, tipped like a gentleman, rose with an easy
+gesture, and strolled towards the door. His retreat evidently completed
+the indignation of the friend of Lady Jane, and from the door he could
+still discern her gestures as asking, "Can't it be stopped?" The music
+followed him into the passage and pursued him to the lift and only died
+away completely in the quiet of his own room, and afterwards from his
+window he saw the friend of Lady Jane and her party having their tea
+carried out to a little table in the court. BUMP, bump, bump, BUMP
+floated up to him, and certainly that was a point to him. But it was his
+only score; all the rest of the game lay in the hands of the upper
+classes and the big hotel. And presently he was doubting whether even
+this was really a point. It seemed a trifle vulgar, come to think it
+over, to interrupt people when they were talking.
+
+He saw a clerk peering at him from the office, and suddenly it occurred
+to him that the place might get back at him tremendously over the bill.
+
+They would probably take it out of him by charging pounds and pounds.
+
+Suppose they charged more than he had!
+
+The clerk had a particularly nasty face, just the face to take advantage
+of a vacillating Kipps.
+
+He became aware of a man in a cap touching it, and produced his shilling
+automatically, but the strain was beginning to tell. It was a deuce and
+all of an expense--this tipping.
+
+If the hotel chose to stick it on to the bill something tremendous what
+was Kipps to do? Refuse to pay? Make a row?
+
+If he did he couldn't fight all these men in bottle green....
+
+He went out about seven and walked for a long time and dined at last
+upon a chop in the Euston Road; then he walked along to the Edgeware
+Road and sat and rested in the Metropolitan Music Hall for a time until
+a trapeze performance unnerved him and finally he came back to bed. He
+tipped the lift man sixpence and wished him good-night. In the silent
+watches of the night he reviewed the tale of the day's tipping, went
+over the horrors of the previous night's dinner, and heard again the
+triumphant bray of the harmonicon devil released from its long
+imprisonment. Everyone would be told about him to-morrow. He couldn't go
+on! He admitted his defeat. Never in their whole lives had any of these
+people seen such a Fool as he! Ugh!...
+
+His method of announcing his withdrawal to the clerk was touched with
+bitterness.
+
+"I'm going to get out of this," said Kipps, blowing windily. "Let's see
+what you got on my bill."
+
+"One breakfast?" asked the clerk.
+
+"Do I _look_ as if I'd ate two?"...
+
+At his departure Kipps, with a hot face, convulsive gestures and an
+embittered heart, tipped everyone who did not promptly and actively
+resist, including an absent-minded South African diamond merchant, who
+was waiting in the hall for his wife and succumbed to old habit. He paid
+his cabman a four shilling piece at Charing Cross, having no smaller
+change, and wished he could burn him alive. Then in a sudden reaction of
+economy he refused the proffered help of a porter and carried his bag
+quite violently to the train.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+KIPPS ENTERS SOCIETY
+
+
+Sec.1
+
+Submission to Inexorable Fate took Kipps to the Anagram Tea.
+
+At any rate he would meet Helen there in the presence of other people
+and be able to carry off the worst of the difficulty of explaining his
+little jaunt to London. He had not seen her since his last portentous
+visit to New Romney. He was engaged to her, he would have to marry her,
+and the sooner he faced her again the better. Before wild plans of
+turning socialist, defying the world and repudiating all calling for
+ever, his heart on second thoughts sank. He felt Helen would never
+permit anything of the sort. As for the Anagrams he could do no more
+than his best and that he was resolved to do. What had happened at the
+Royal Grand, what had happened at New Romney, he must bury in his memory
+and begin again at the reconstruction of his social position. Ann,
+Buggins, Chitterlow, all these, seen in the matter-of-fact light of the
+Folkestone train, stood just as they stood before; people of an inferior
+social position who had to be eliminated from his world. It was a
+bother about Ann, a bother and a pity. His mind rested so for a space on
+Ann until the memory of these Anagrams drew him away. If he could see
+Coote that evening he might, he thought, be able to arrange some sort of
+connivance about the Anagrams, and his mind was chiefly busy sketching
+proposals for such an arrangement. It would not, of course, be
+ungentlemanly cheating, but only a little mystification. Coote very
+probably might drop him a hint of the solution of one or two of the
+things, not enough to win a prize, but enough to cover his shame. Or
+failing that he might take a humorous, quizzical line and pretend he was
+pretending to be very stupid. There were plenty of ways out of it if one
+kept a sharp lookout....
+
+The costume Kipps wore to the Anagram Tea was designed as a compromise
+between the strict letter of high fashion and seaside laxity, a sort of
+easy, semi-state for afternoon. Helen's first reproof had always
+lingered in his mind. He wore a frock coat, but mitigated it by a Panama
+hat of romantic shape with a black band, grey gloves, but for relaxation
+brown button boots. The only other man besides the clergy present, a new
+doctor with an attractive wife, was in full afternoon dress. Coote was
+not there.
+
+Kipps was a little pale, but quite self-possessed, as he approached Mrs.
+Bindon Botting's door. He took a turn while some people went in and then
+faced it manfully. The door opened and revealed--Ann!
+
+In the background through a draped doorway behind a big fern in a great
+art pot the elder Miss Botting was visible talking to two guests; the
+auditory background was a froth of feminine voices....
+
+Our two young people were much too amazed to give one another any
+formula of greeting, though they had parted warmly enough. Each was
+already in a state of extreme tension to meet the demands of this great
+and unprecedented occasion of an Anagram Tea. "Lor'!" said Ann, her sole
+remark, and then the sense of Miss Botting's eye ruled her straight
+again. She became very pale, but she took his hat mechanically, and he
+was already removing his gloves. "Ann," he said in a low tone, and then
+"Fency!" The eldest Miss Botting knew Kipps was the sort of guest who
+requires nursing, and she came forward vocalising charm. She said it was
+"Awfully jolly of him to come, awfully jolly. It was awfully difficult
+to get any good men!"
+
+She handed Kipps forward, mumbling in a dazed condition, to the
+drawing-room, and there he encountered Helen looking unfamiliar in an
+unfamiliar hat. It was as if he had not met her for years.
+
+She astonished him. She didn't seem to mind in the least his going to
+London. She held out a shapely hand, and smiled encouragingly. "You've
+faced the anagrams?" she said.
+
+The second Miss Botting accosted them, a number of oblong pieces of
+paper in her hand, mysteriously inscribed. "Take an anagram," she said;
+"take an anagram," and boldly pinned one of these brief documents to
+Kipps' lapel. The letters were "Cypshi," and Kipps from the very
+beginning suspected this was an anagram for Cuyps. She also left a thing
+like a long dance programme, from which dangled a little pencil in his
+hand. He found himself being introduced to people, and then he was in a
+corner with the short lady in a big bonnet, who was pelting him with
+gritty little bits of small talk that were gone before you could take
+hold of them and reply.
+
+"Very hot," said this lady. "Very hot, indeed--hot all the
+summer--remarkable year--all the years remarkable now--don't know what
+we're coming to--don't you think so, Mr. Kipps?"
+
+"Oo rather," said Kipps, and wondered if Ann was still in the hall. Ann!
+
+He ought not to have stared at her like a stuck fish and pretended not
+to know her. That couldn't be right. But what _was_ right?
+
+The lady in the big bonnet proceeded to a second discharge. "Hope you're
+fond of anagrams, Mr. Kipps--difficult exercise--still one must do
+something to bring people together--better than Ludo anyhow. Don't you
+think so, Mr. Kipps?"
+
+Ann fluttered past the open door. Her eyes met his in amazed enquiry.
+Something had got dislocated in the world for both of them....
+
+He ought to have told her he was engaged. He ought to have explained
+things to her. Perhaps even now he might be able to drop her a hint.
+
+"Don't you think so, Mr. Kipps?"
+
+"Oo rather," said Kipps for the third time.
+
+A lady with a tired smile, who was labelled conspicuously "Wogdelenk,"
+drifted towards Kipps' interlocutor and the two fell into conversation.
+Kipps found himself socially aground. He looked about him. Helen was
+talking to a curate and laughing. Kipps was overcome by a vague desire
+to speak to Ann. He was for sidling doorward.
+
+"What are _you_, please?" said an extraordinarily bold, tall girl, and
+arrested him while she took down "Cypshi."
+
+"I'm sure I don't know what it means," she explained. "I'm Sir Bubh.
+Don't you think anagrams are something chronic?"
+
+Kipps made stockish noises, and the young lady suddenly became the
+nucleus of a party of excited friends who were forming a syndicate to
+guess, and barred his escape. She took no further notice of him. He
+found himself jammed against an occasional table and listening to the
+conversation of Mrs. "Wogdelenk" and his lady with the big bonnet.
+
+"She packed her two beauties off together," said the lady in the big
+bonnet. "Time enough, too. Don't think much of this girl; she's got as
+housemaid now. Pretty, of course, but there's no occasion for a
+housemaid to be pretty--none whatever. And she doesn't look particularly
+up to her work either. Kind of 'mazed expression."
+
+"You never can tell," said the lady labelled "Wogdelenk;" "you never
+can tell. My wretches are big enough, Heaven knows, and do they work?
+Not a bit of it!"...
+
+Kipps felt dreadfully out of it with regard to all these people, and
+dreadfully in it with Ann.
+
+He scanned the back of the big bonnet and concluded it was an extremely
+ugly bonnet indeed. It got jerking forward as each short, dry sentence
+was snapped off at the end and a plume of osprey on it jerked
+excessively. "She hasn't guessed even one!" followed by a shriek of
+girlish merriment, came from the group about the tall, bold girl. They'd
+shriek at him presently, perhaps. Beyond thinking his own anagram might
+be Cuyps, he hadn't a notion. What a chatter they were all making! It
+was just like a summer sale! Just the sort of people who'd give a lot of
+trouble and swap you! And suddenly the smouldering fires of rebellion
+leapt to flame again. These were a rotten lot of people, and the
+anagrams were rotten nonsense, and he, Kipps, had been a rotten fool to
+come. There was Helen away there, still laughing, with her curate. Pity
+she couldn't marry a curate and leave him (Kipps) alone! Then he'd know
+what to do. He disliked the whole gathering collectively and in detail.
+Why were they all trying to make him one of themselves? He perceived
+unexpected ugliness everywhere about him. There were two great pins
+jabbed through the tall girl's hat, and the swirls of her hair below the
+brim with the minutest piece of tape tie-up showing did not repay close
+examination. Mrs. "Wogdelenk" wore a sort of mumps bandage of lace, and
+there was another lady perfectly dazzling with beads, and jewels and
+bits of trimming. They were all flaps and angles and flounces--these
+women. Not one of them looked as neat and decent a shape as Ann's clean,
+trim, little figure. Echoes of Masterman woke up in him again. Ladies
+indeed! Here were all these chattering people, with money, with leisure,
+with every chance in the world, and all they could do was to crowd like
+this into a couple of rooms and jabber nonsense about anagrams.
+
+"Could Cypshi really mean Cuyps?" floated like a dissolving wreath of
+mist across his mind.
+
+Abruptly resolution stood armed in his heart. He was going to get out of
+this!
+
+"'Scuse me," he said, and began to wade neck deep through the bubbling
+tea party.
+
+He was going to get out of it all!
+
+He found himself close by Helen. "I'm orf," he said, but she gave him
+the briefest glance. She did not appear to hear him. "Still, Mr.
+Spratlingdown, you _must_ admit there's a limit even to conformity," she
+was saying....
+
+He was in a curtained archway, and Ann was before him carrying a tray
+supporting several small sugar bowls.
+
+He was moved to speech. "_What_ a Lot!" he said, and then mysteriously,
+"I'm engaged to _her_." He indicated Helen's new hat, and became aware
+of a skirt he had stepped upon.
+
+Ann stared at him helplessly, borne past in the grip of
+incomprehensible imperatives.
+
+Why shouldn't they talk together?
+
+He was in a small room, and then at the foot of the staircase in the
+hall. He heard the rustle of a dress, and what was conceivable his
+hostess was upon him.
+
+"But you're not going, Mr. Kipps?" she said.
+
+"I must," he said; "I got to."
+
+"But, Mr. Kipps!"
+
+"I must," he said. "I'm not well."
+
+"But before the guessing! Without any tea!"
+
+Ann appeared and hovered behind him.
+
+"I got to go," said Kipps.
+
+If he parleyed with her Helen might awake to his desperate attempt.
+
+"Of course if you _must_ go."
+
+"It's something I've forgotten," said Kipps, beginning to feel regrets.
+"Reely I must."
+
+Mrs. Botting turned with a certain offended dignity, and Ann in a state
+of flushed calm that evidently concealed much came forward to open the
+door.
+
+"I'm very sorry," he said; "I'm very sorry," half to his hostess and
+half to her, and was swept past her by superior social forces--like a
+drowning man in a mill-race--and into the Upper Sandgate Road. He half
+turned upon the step, and then slam went the door....
+
+He retreated along the Leas, a thing of shame and perplexity--Mrs.
+Botting's aggrieved astonishment uppermost in his mind....
+
+Something--reinforced by the glances of the people he was
+passing--pressed its way to his attention through the tumultuous
+disorder of his mind.
+
+He became aware that he was still wearing his little placard with the
+letters "Cypshi."
+
+"Desh it!" he said, clutching off this abomination. In another moment
+its several letters, their task accomplished, were scattering gleefully
+before the breeze down the front of the Leas.
+
+
+Sec.2
+
+Kipps was dressed for Mrs. Wace's dinner half an hour before it was time
+to start, and he sat waiting until Coote should come to take him around.
+"Manners and Rules of Good Society" lay before him neglected. He had
+read the polished prose of the Member of the Aristocracy, on page 96, as
+far as--
+
+
+     "the acceptance of an invitation is in the eyes of diners out, a
+     binding obligation which only ill-health, family bereavement, or
+     some all-important reason justifies its being set on one side or
+     otherwise  evaded"--
+
+
+and then he had lapsed into gloomy thoughts.
+
+That afternoon he had had a serious talk with Helen.
+
+He had tried to express something of the change of heart that had
+happened to him. But to broach the real state of the matter had been
+altogether too terrible for him. He had sought a minor issue. "I don't
+like all this Seciety," he had said.
+
+"But you must _see_ people," said Helen.
+
+"Yes, but----. It's the sort of people you see." He nerved himself. "I
+didn't think much of that lot at the Enegram Tea."
+
+"You have to see all sorts of people if you want to see the world," said
+Helen.
+
+Kipps was silent for a space and a little short of breath.
+
+"My dear Arthur," she began, almost kindly, "I shouldn't ask you to go
+to these affairs if I didn't think it good for you, should I?"
+
+Kipps acquiesced in silence.
+
+"You will find the benefit of it all when we get to London. You learn to
+swim in a tank before you go out into the sea. These people here are
+good enough to learn upon. They're stiff and rather silly and dreadfully
+narrow and not an idea in a dozen of them, but it really doesn't matter
+at all. You'll soon get Savoir Faire."
+
+He made to speak again, and found his powers of verbal expression
+lacking. Instead he blew a sigh.
+
+"You'll get used to it all very soon," said Helen helpfully....
+
+As he sat meditating over that interview and over the vistas of London
+that opened before him, on the little flat, and teas and occasions and
+the constant presence of Brudderkins and all the bright prospect of his
+new and better life, and how he would never see Ann any more, the
+housemaid entered with a little package, a small, square envelope to
+"Arthur Kipps, Esquire."
+
+"A young woman left this, Sir," said the housemaid, a little severely.
+
+"Eh?" said Kipps; "what young woman?" and then suddenly began to
+understand.
+
+"She looked an ordinary young woman," said the housemaid coldly.
+
+"Ah!" said Kipps. "_That's_ orlright."
+
+He waited till the door had closed behind the girl, staring at the
+envelope in his hand, and then, with a curious feeling of increasing
+tension, tore it open. As he did so, some quicker sense than sight or
+touch told him its contents. It was Ann's half sixpence. And, besides,
+not a word!
+
+Then she must have heard him----!
+
+She had kept the half sixpence all these years!
+
+He was standing with the envelope in his hand, trying to get on from
+that last inference, when Coote became audible without.
+
+Coote appeared in evening dress, a clean and radiant Coote, with large,
+greenish, white gloves and a particularly large white tie, edged with
+black. "For a third cousin," he presently explained. "Nace, isn't it?"
+He could see Kipps was pale and disturbed and put this down to the
+approaching social trial. "You keep your nerve up, Kipps, my dear chap,
+and you'll be all right," said Coote, with a big, brotherly glove on
+Kipps' sleeve.
+
+
+Sec.3
+
+The dinner came to a crisis so far as Kipps' emotions were concerned,
+with Mrs. Bindon Botting's talk about servants, but before that there
+had been several things of greater or smaller magnitude to perturb and
+disarrange his social front. One little matter that was mildly insurgent
+throughout the entire meal was, if I may be permitted to mention so
+intimate a matter, the behaviour of his left brace. The webbing--which
+was of a cheerful scarlet silk--had slipped away from its buckle,
+fastened no doubt in agitation, and had developed a strong tendency to
+place itself obliquely in the manner rather of an official decoration,
+athwart his spotless front. It first asserted itself before they went in
+to dinner. He replaced this ornament by a dexterous thrust when no one
+was looking and thereafter the suppression of his novel innovation upon
+the stereotyped sombreness of evening dress became a standing
+preoccupation. On the whole, he was inclined to think his first horror
+excessive; at any rate no one remarked upon it. However you imagine him
+constantly throughout the evening, with one eye and one hand, whatever
+the rest of him might be doing, predominantly concerned with the weak
+corner.
+
+But this, I say, was a little matter. What exercised him much more was
+to discover Helen quite terribly in evening dress.
+
+The young lady had let her imagination rove Londonward, and this
+costume was perhaps an anticipation of that clever little flat not too
+far west which was to become the centre of so delightful a literary and
+artistic set. It was, of all the feminine costumes present, most
+distinctly an evening dress. One was advised Miss Walshingham had arms
+and shoulders of a type by no means despicable, one was advised Miss
+Walshingham was capable not only of dignity but charm, even a certain
+glow of charm. It was, you know, her first evening dress, a tribute paid
+by Walshingham finance to her brightening future. Had she wanted keeping
+in countenance, she would have had to have fallen back upon her hostess,
+who was resplendent in black and steel. The other ladies had to a
+certain extent compromised. Mrs. Walshingham had dressed with just a
+refined, little V and Mrs. Bindon Botting, except for her dear mottled
+arms, confided scarcely more of her plump charm to the world. The elder
+Miss Botting stopped short of shoulders, and so did Miss Wace. But Helen
+didn't. She was--had Kipps had eyes to see it--a quite beautiful human
+figure; she knew it and she met him with a radiant smile that had
+forgotten all the little difference of the afternoon. But to Kipps her
+appearance was the last release. With that, she had become as remote, as
+foreign, as incredible as a wife and mate, as though the Cnidian Venus
+herself, in all her simple elegance, was before witnesses, declared to
+be his. If, indeed, she had ever been credible as a wife and mate.
+
+She ascribed his confusion to modest reverence, and having blazed
+smiling upon him for a moment turned a shapely shoulder towards him and
+exchanged a remark with Mrs. Bindon Botting. Ann's poor little half
+sixpence came against Kipps' fingers in his pocket and he clutched at it
+suddenly as though it was a talisman. Then he abandoned it to suppress
+his Order of the Brace. He was affected by a cough. "Miss Wace tells me
+Mr. Revel is coming," Mrs. Botting was saying.
+
+"Isn't it delightful?" said Helen. "We saw him last night. He's stopped
+on his way to Paris. He's going to meet his wife there."
+
+Kipps' eyes rested for a moment on Helen's dazzling deltoid, and then
+went enquiringly, accusingly almost to Coote's face. Where, in the
+presence of this terrible emergency, was the gospel of suppression
+now--that Furtive treatment of Religion and Politics, and Birth and
+Death and Bathing and Babies, and "all those things" which constitutes
+your True Gentleman? He had been too modest even to discuss this
+question with his Mentor, but surely, surely this quintessence of all
+that is good and nice could regard these unsolicited confidences only in
+one way. With something between relief and the confirmation of his worst
+fears he perceived, by a sort of twitching of the exceptionally abundant
+muscles about Coote's lower jaw, in a certain deliberate avoidance of
+one particular direction by these pale, but resolute, grey eyes, by the
+almost convulsive grip of the ample, greenish white gloves behind him,
+a grip broken at times for controlling pats at the black-bordered tie
+and the back of that spacious head, and by a slight but increasing
+disposition to cough, that _Coote did not approve_!
+
+To Kipps Helen had once supplied a delicately beautiful dream, a thing
+of romance and unsubstantial mystery. But this was her final
+materialisation, and the last thin wreath of glamour about her was
+dispelled. In some way (he had forgotten how and it was perfectly
+incomprehensible) he was bound to this dark, solid and determined young
+person whose shadow and suggestion he had once loved. He had to go
+through with the thing as a gentleman should. Still----
+
+And when he was sacrificing Ann!
+
+He wouldn't stand this sort of thing, whatever else he stood.... Should
+he say something about her dress to her--to-morrow?
+
+He could put his foot down firmly. He could say, "Look 'ere. I don't
+care. I ain't going to stand it. See?"
+
+She'd say something unexpected, of course. She always did say something
+unexpected.
+
+Suppose for once he overrode what she said? Simply repeated his point?
+
+He found these thoughts battling with certain conversational aggressions
+from Mrs. Wace, and then Revel arrived and took the centre of the stage.
+
+The author of that brilliant romance, "Red Hearts a-Beating," was a less
+imposing man than Kipps had anticipated, but he speedily effaced that
+disappointment by his predominating manners. Although he lived
+habitually in the vivid world of London, his collar and tie were in no
+way remarkable, and he was neither brilliantly handsome nor curly nor
+long-haired. His personal appearance suggested arm chairs, rather than
+the equestrian exercises and amorous toyings and passionate intensities
+of his masterpiece; he was inclined to be fat, with whitish flesh, muddy
+coloured straight hair, he had a rather shapeless and truncated nose and
+his chin was asymmetrical. One eye was more inclined to stare than the
+other. He might have been esteemed a little undistinguished looking were
+it not for his beeswaxed moustache, which came amidst his features with
+a pleasing note of incongruity, and the whimsical wrinkles above and
+about his greater eye. His regard sought and found Helen's as he entered
+the room and they shook hands presently with an air of intimacy Kipps,
+for no clear reason, found objectionable. He saw them clasp their hands,
+heard Coote's characteristic cough--a sound rather more like a very,
+very old sheep, a quarter of a mile away, being blown to pieces by a
+small charge of gunpowder than anything else in the world--did some
+confused beginnings of a thought, and then they were all going in to
+dinner and Helen's shining bare arm lay along his sleeve. Kipps was in
+no state for conversation. She glanced at him, and, though he did not
+know it, very slightly pressed his elbow. He struggled with strange
+respiratory dislocations. Before them went Coote, discoursing in
+amiable reverberations to Mrs. Walshingham, and at the head of the
+procession was Mrs. Bindon Botting talking fast and brightly beside the
+erect military figure of little Mr. Wace. (He was not a soldier really,
+but he had caught a martinet bearing by living so close to Shorncliffe.)
+Revel came last, in charge of Mrs. Wace's queenly black and steel,
+politely admiring in a flute-like cultivated voice the mellow wall paper
+of the staircase. Kipps marvelled at everybody's self-possession.
+
+From the earliest spoonful of soup it became evident that Revel
+considered himself responsible for the table talk. And before the soup
+was over it was almost as manifest that Mrs. Bindon Botting inclined to
+consider his sense of responsibility excessive. In her circle Mrs.
+Bindon Botting was esteemed an agreeable rattle, her manner and
+appearance were conspicuously vivacious for one so plump, and she had an
+almost Irish facility for humorous description. She would keep people
+amused all through an afternoon call, with the story of how her jobbing
+gardener had got himself married and what his home was like, or how her
+favourite butt, Mr. Stigson Warder, had all his unfortunate children
+taught almost every conceivable instrument because they had the
+phrenological bump of music abnormally large. "They got to trombones, my
+dear!" she would say, with her voice coming to a climax. Usually her
+friends conspired to draw her out, but on this occasion they neglected
+to do so, a thing that militated against her keen desire to shine in
+Revel's eyes. After a time she perceived that the only thing for her to
+do was to cut in on the talk, on her own account, and this she began to
+do. She made several ineffectual snatches at the general attention and
+then Revel drifted towards a topic she regarded as particularly her own,
+the ordering of households.
+
+They came to the thing through talk about localities. "We are leaving
+our house in The Boltons," said Revel, "and taking a little place at
+Wimbledon, and I think of having rooms in Dane's Inn. It will be more
+convenient in many ways. My wife is furiously addicted to golf and
+exercise of all sorts, and I like to sit about in clubs--I haven't the
+strength necessary for these hygienic proceedings--and the old
+arrangement suited neither of us. And, besides, no one could imagine the
+demoralisation the domestics of West London have undergone during the
+last three years."
+
+"It's the same everywhere," said Mrs. Bindon Botting.
+
+"Very possibly it is. A friend of mine calls it the servile tradition in
+decay and regards it all as a most hopeful phenomenon----"
+
+"He ought to have had my last two criminals," said Mrs. Bindon Botting.
+
+She turned to Mrs. Wace while Revel came again a little too late with a
+"Possibly----"
+
+"And I haven't told you, my dear," she said, speaking with voluble
+rapidity, "I'm in trouble again."
+
+"The last girl?"
+
+"The last girl. Before I can get a cook, my hard won housemaid"--she
+paused--"chucks it."
+
+"Panic?" asked young Walshingham.
+
+"Mysterious grief! Everything merry as a marriage bell until my Anagram
+Tea! Then in the evening a portentous rigour of bearing, a word or so
+from my Aunt, and immediately--Floods of Tears and Notice!" For a moment
+her eye rested thoughtfully on Kipps, as she said: "Is there anything
+heartrending about Anagrams?"
+
+"I find them so," said Revel. "I----"
+
+But Mrs. Bindon Botting got away again. "For a time it made me quite
+uneasy----"
+
+Kipps jabbed his lip with his fork rather painfully, and was recalled
+from a fascinated glare at Mrs. Botting to the immediate facts of
+dinner.
+
+"----whether anagrams might not have offended the good domestic's Moral
+Code--you never can tell. We made enquiries. No. No. No. She _must_ go
+and that's all!"
+
+"One perceives," said Revel, "in these disorders, dimly and distantly,
+the last dying glow of the age of Romance. Let us suppose, Mrs. Botting,
+let us at least try to suppose--it is Love."
+
+Kipps clattered with his knife and fork.
+
+"It's love," said Mrs. Botting; "what else can it be? Beneath the
+orderly humdrum of our lives these romances are going on, until at last
+they bust up and give Notice and upset our humdrum altogether. Some
+fatal, wonderful soldier----"
+
+"The passions of the common or house domestic," said Revel, and
+recovered possession of the table.
+
+Upon the troubled disorder of Kipps' table manners there had supervented
+a quietness, an unusual calm. For once in his life he had distinctly
+made up his mind on his own account. He listened no more to Revel. He
+put down his knife and fork and refused anything that followed. Coote
+regarded him with tactful concern and Helen flushed a little.
+
+
+Sec.4
+
+About half-past nine that night came a violent pull at the bell of Mrs.
+Bindon Botting, and a young man in a dress suit, a gibus and other marks
+of exalted social position stood without. Athwart his white expanse of
+breast lay a ruddy bar of patterned silk that gave him a singular
+distinction and minimised the glow of a few small stains of burgundy.
+His gibus was thrust back and exposed a disorder of hair that suggested
+a reckless desperation. He had, in fact, burnt his boats and refused to
+join the ladies. Coote, in the subsequent conversation, had protested
+quietly, "You're going on all right, you know," to which Kipps had
+answered he didn't care a "Eng" about that, and so, after a brief tussle
+with Walshingham's detaining arm, had got away. "I got something to do,"
+he said. "'Ome." And here he was--panting an extraordinary resolve. The
+door opened, revealing the pleasantly furnished hall of Mrs. Bindon
+Botting, lit by rose-tinted lights, and in the centre of the picture,
+neat and pretty in black and white, stood Ann. At the sight of Kipps her
+colour vanished.
+
+"Ann," said Kipps, "I want to speak to you. I got something to say to
+you right away. See? I'm----"
+
+"This ain't the door to speak to me at," said Ann.
+
+"But, Ann! It's something special."
+
+"You spoke enough," said Ann.
+
+"Ann!"
+
+"Besides. That's my door, down there. Basement. If I was caught talking
+at _this_ door----!"
+
+"But, Ann, _I'm_----"
+
+"Basement after nine. Them's my hours. I'm a servant and likely to keep
+one. If you're calling here, what name please? But you got your friends
+and I got mine and you mustn't go talking to _me_."
+
+"But, Ann, I want to ask you----"
+
+Someone appeared in the hall behind Ann. "Not here," said Ann. "Don't
+know anyone of that name," and incontinently slammed the door in his
+face.
+
+"What was that, Ann?" said Mrs. Bindon Botting's invalid Aunt.
+
+"Ge'm a little intoxicated, Ma'am--asking for the wrong name, Ma'am."
+
+"What name did he want?" asked the lady, doubtfully.
+
+"No name that _we_ know, Ma'am," said Ann, hustling along the hall
+towards the kitchen stairs.
+
+"I hope you weren't too short with him, Ann."
+
+"No shorter than he deserved, considering 'ow he be'aved," said Ann,
+with her bosom heaving.
+
+And Mrs. Bindon Botting's invalid Aunt, perceiving suddenly that this
+call had some relation to Ann's private and sentimental trouble, turned,
+after one moment of hesitating scrutiny, away.
+
+She was an extremely sympathetic lady, was Mrs. Bindon Botting's invalid
+Aunt; she took an interest in the servants, imposed piety, extorted
+confessions and followed human nature, blushing and lying defensively,
+to its reluctantly revealed recesses, but Ann's sense of privacy was
+strong and her manner under drawing out and encouragement, sometimes
+even alarming....
+
+So the poor old lady went upstairs again.
+
+
+Sec.5
+
+The basement door opened and Kipps came into the kitchen. He was flushed
+and panting.
+
+He struggled for speech.
+
+"'Ere," he said, and held out two half sixpences.
+
+Ann stood behind the kitchen table--face pale and eyes round, and
+now--and it simplified Kipps very much--he could see she had indeed been
+crying.
+
+"Well?" she said.
+
+"Don't you see?"
+
+Ann moved her head slightly.
+
+"I kep' it all these years."
+
+"You kep' it too long."
+
+His mouth closed and his flush died away. He looked at her. The amulet,
+it seemed, had failed to work.
+
+"Ann!" he said.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Ann."
+
+The conversation still hung fire.
+
+"Ann," he said, made a movement with his hands that suggested appeal,
+and advanced a step.
+
+Ann shook her head more defiantly, and became defensive.
+
+"Look here, Ann," said Kipps. "I been a fool."
+
+They stared into each other's miserable eyes.
+
+"Ann," he said. "I want to marry you."
+
+Ann clutched the table edge. "You can't," she said faintly.
+
+He made as if to approach her around the table, and she took a step that
+restored their distance.
+
+"I must," he said.
+
+"You can't."
+
+"I must. You _got_ to marry me, Ann."
+
+"You can't go marrying everybody. You got to marry 'er."
+
+"I shan't."
+
+Ann shook her head. "You're engaged to that girl. Lady, rather. You
+can't be engaged to me."
+
+"I don't want to be engaged to you. I _been_ engaged. I want to be
+married to you. See? Rightaway."
+
+Ann turned a shade paler. "But what d'you mean?" she asked.
+
+"Come right off to London and marry me. Now."
+
+"What d'you mean?"
+
+Kipps became extremely lucid and earnest.
+
+"I mean come right off and marry me now before anyone else can. _See?_"
+
+"In London?"
+
+"In London."
+
+They stared at one another again. They took things for granted in the
+most amazing way.
+
+"I couldn't," said Ann. "For one thing my month's not up for mor'n free
+weeks yet."
+
+They hung before that for a moment as though it was insurmountable.
+
+"Look 'ere, Ann! Arst to go. Arst to go!"
+
+"_She_ wouldn't," said Ann.
+
+"Then come without arsting," said Kipps.
+
+"She's keep my box----"
+
+"She won't."
+
+"She will."
+
+"She won't."
+
+"You don't know 'er."
+
+"Well, desh'er--let'er! LET'ER! Who cares? I'll buy you a 'undred boxes
+if you'll come."
+
+"It wouldn't be right towards Her."
+
+"It isn't Her you got to think about, Ann. It's me."
+
+"And you 'aven't treated me properly," she said. "You 'aven't treated me
+properly, Artie. You didn't ought to 'ave----"
+
+"I didn't say I _'ad_," he interrupted, "did I, Ann?" he appealed. "I
+didn't come to arguefy. I'm all wrong. I never said I wasn't. It's yes
+or no. Me or not.... I been a fool. There! See? I been a fool. Ain't
+that enough? I got myself all tied up with everyone and made a fool of
+myself all around...."
+
+He pleaded, "It isn't as if we didn't care for one another, Ann."
+
+She seemed impassive and he resumed his discourse.
+
+"I thought I wasn't likely ever to see you again, Ann. I reely did. It
+isn't as though I was seein' you all the time. I didn't know what I
+wanted, and I went and be'aved like a fool--jest as anyone might. I know
+what I want and I know what I don't want now."
+
+"Ann!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Will you come?... Will you come?..."
+
+Silence.
+
+"If you don't answer me, Ann--I'm desprit--if you don't answer me now,
+if you don't say you'll come I'll go right out now----"
+
+He turned doorward passionately as he spoke, with his threat incomplete.
+
+"I'll go," he said; "I 'aven't a friend in the world! I been and throwed
+everything away. I don't know why I done things and why I 'aven't. All I
+know is I can't stand nothing in the world any more." He choked. "The
+pier," he said.
+
+He fumbled with the door latch, grumbling some inarticulate self-pity,
+as if he sought a handle, and then he had it open.
+
+Clearly he was going.
+
+"Artie!" said Ann, sharply.
+
+He turned about and the two hung, white and tense.
+
+"I'll do it," said Ann.
+
+His face began to work, he shut the door and came a step back to her,
+staring; his face became pitiful and then suddenly they moved together.
+"Artie!" she cried, "don't go!" and held out her arms, weeping.
+
+They clung close to one another....
+
+"Oh! I _been_ so mis'bel," cried Kipps, clinging to this lifebuoy, and
+suddenly his emotion, having no further serious work in hand, burst its
+way to a loud _boohoo_! His fashionable and expensive gibus flopped off
+and fell and rolled and lay neglected on the floor.
+
+"I been so mis'bel," said Kipps, giving himself vent. "Oh! I _been_ so
+mis'bel, Ann."
+
+"Be quiet," said Ann, holding his poor, blubbering head tightly to her
+heaving shoulder, and herself all a-quiver; "be quiet. She's there!
+Listenin'. She'll 'ear you, Artie, on the stairs...."
+
+
+Sec.6
+
+Ann's last words when, an hour later, they parted, Mrs. and Miss Bindon
+Botting having returned very audibly upstairs, deserve a section to
+themselves.
+
+"I wouldn't do this for everyone, mind you," whispered Ann.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE LABYRINTHODON
+
+
+Sec.1
+
+You imagine them fleeing through our complex and difficult social
+system, as it were, for life, first on foot and severally to the
+Folkestone Central Station; then in a first-class carriage, with Kipps'
+bag as sole chaperone to Charing Cross, and then in a four-wheeler, a
+long, rumbling, palpitating, slow flight through the multitudinous
+swarming London streets to Sid. Kipps kept peeping out of the window.
+"It's the next corner after this, I believe," he would say. For he had a
+sort of feeling that at Sid's he would be immune from the hottest
+pursuits. He paid the cabman in a manner adequate to the occasion and
+turned to his prospective brother-in-law. "Me and Ann," he said, "we're
+going to marry."
+
+"But I thought----" began Sid.
+
+Kipps motioned him towards explanations in the shop....
+
+"It's no good, my arguing with you," said Sid, smiling delightedly as
+the case unfolded. "You done it now." And Masterman being apprised of
+the nature of the affair descended slowly in a state of flushed
+congratulation.
+
+"I thought you might find the Higher Life a bit difficult," said
+Masterman, projecting a bony hand. "But I never thought you'd have the
+originality to clear out.... Won't the young lady of the superior
+classes swear! Never mind--it doesn't matter anyhow.
+
+"You were starting a climb," he said at dinner, "that doesn't lead
+anywhere. You would have clambered from one refinement of vulgarity to
+another and never got to any satisfactory top. There isn't a top. It's a
+squirrel's cage. Things are out of joint, and the only top there is is a
+lot of blazing card playing women and betting men--you should read
+Modern Society--seasoned with archbishops and officials and all that
+sort of glossy, pandering Bosh.... You'd have hung on, a disconsolate,
+dismal, little figure, somewhere up the ladder, far below even the
+motor-car class, while your wife larked about--or fretted because she
+wasn't a bit higher than she was.... I found it all out long ago. I've
+seen women of that sort. And I don't climb any more."
+
+"I often thought about what you said last time I saw you," said Kipps.
+
+"I wonder what I said," said Masterman in parenthesis. "Anyhow, you're
+doing the right and sane thing, and that's a rare spectacle. You're
+going to marry your equal, and you're going to take your own line, quite
+independently of what people up there, or people down there, think you
+ought or ought not to do. That's about the only course one can take
+nowadays with everything getting more muddled and upside down every day.
+Make your own little world and your own house first of all, keep that
+right side up whatever you do, and marry your mate.... That, I suppose,
+is what _I_ should do--if _I_ had a mate.... But people of my sort,
+luckily for the world, don't get made in pairs. No!
+
+"Besides----! However----" And abruptly, taking advantage of an
+interruption by Master Walt, he lapsed into thought.
+
+Presently he came out of his musings.
+
+"After all," he said, "there's hope."
+
+"What about?" said Sid.
+
+"Everything," said Masterman.
+
+"Where there's life there's hope," said Mrs. Sid. "But none of you
+aren't eating anything like you ought to."
+
+Masterman lifted his glass.
+
+"Here's to Hope!" he said, "The Light of the World!"
+
+Sid beamed at Kipps as who should say, "You don't meet a character like
+_this_ every dinner time."
+
+"Here's to Hope," repeated Masterman. "The best thing one can have. Hope
+of life--yes."
+
+He imposed his movement of magnificent self-pity on them all. Even young
+Walt was impressed.
+
+They spent the days before their marriage in a number of agreeable
+excursions together. One day they went to Kew by steamboat, and admired
+the house full of paintings of flowers extremely; and one day they went
+early to have a good, long day at the Crystal Palace, and enjoyed
+themselves very much indeed. They got there so early that nothing was
+open inside, all the stalls were wrappered up and all the minor
+exhibitions locked and barred; they seemed the minutest creatures even
+to themselves in that enormous empty aisle and their echoing footsteps
+indecently loud. They contemplated realistic groups of plaster savages,
+and Ann thought they'd be queer people to have about. She was glad there
+were none in this country. They meditated upon replicas of classical
+statuary without excessive comment. Kipps said at large, it must have
+been a queer world then, but Ann very properly doubted if they really
+went about like that. But the place at that early hour was really
+lonely. One began to fancy things. So they went out into the October
+sunshine of the mighty terraces, and wandered amidst miles of stucco
+tanks and about those quiet Gargantuan grounds. A great, grey emptiness
+it was, and it seemed marvellous to them, but not nearly so marvellous
+as it might have seemed. "I never see a finer place, never," said Kipps,
+turning to survey the entirety of the enormous glass front with Paxton's
+vast image in the centre.
+
+"What it must 'ave cost to build!" said Ann, and left her sentence
+eloquently incomplete.
+
+Presently they came to a region of caves and waterways, and amidst these
+waterways strange reminders of the possibilities of the Creator. They
+passed under an arch made of a whale's jaws, and discovered amidst
+herbage, as if they were browsing or standing unoccupied and staring as
+if amazed at themselves, huge effigies of iguanodons and deinotheria and
+mastodons and suchlike cattle, gloriously done in green and gold.
+
+"They got everything," said Kipps. "Earl's Court isn't a patch on it."
+
+His mind was very greatly exercised by these monsters, and he hovered
+about them and returned to them. "You'd wonder 'ow they ever got enough
+to eat," he said several times.
+
+
+Sec.2
+
+It was later in the day, and upon a seat in the presence of the green
+and gold Labyrinthodon that looms so splendidly above the lake, that the
+Kippses fell into talk about their future. They had made a sufficient
+lunch in the palace, they had seen pictures and no end of remarkable
+things, and that and the amber sunlight made a mood for them, quiet and
+philosophical, a heaven mood. Kipps broke a contemplative silence with
+an abrupt illusion to one principal preoccupation. "I shall offer an
+'pology and I shall offer 'er brother damages. If she likes to bring an
+action for Breach after that, well--I done all I can.... They can't get
+much out of reading my letters in court, because I didn't write none. I
+dessay a thousan' or two'll settle all that, anyhow. I ain't much
+worried about that. That don't worry me very much, Ann--No."
+
+And then, "It's a lark, our marrying. It's curious 'ow things come
+about. If I 'adn't run against you, where should I 'ave been now. Eh?...
+Even after we met, I didn't seem to see it like--not marrying you I
+mean--until that night I came. I didn't--reely."
+
+"I didn't neither," said Ann, with thoughtful eyes on the water.
+
+For a time Kipps' mind was occupied by the prettiness of her thinking
+face. A faint, tremulous network of lights reflected from the ripples of
+a passing duck, played subtly over her cheek and faded away.
+
+Ann reflected. "I s'pose things 'ad to be," she said.
+
+Kipps mused. "It's curious 'ow ever I got on to be engaged to 'er."
+
+"She wasn't suited to you," said Ann.
+
+"Suited. No fear! That's jest it. 'Ow did it come about?"
+
+"I expect she led you on," said Ann.
+
+Kipps was half-minded to assent. Then he had a twinge of conscience. "It
+wasn't that, Ann," he said. "It's curious. I don't know what it was, but
+it wasn't that. I don't recollect.... No.... Life's jolly rum; that's
+one thing any'ow. And I suppose I'm a rum sort of feller. I get excited
+sometimes, and then I don't seem to care _what_ I do. That's about what
+it was reely. Still----"
+
+They meditated, Kipps with his arms folded and pulling at his scanty
+moustache. Presently a faint smile came over his face.
+
+"We'll get a nice _little_ 'ouse out Ithe way."
+
+"It's 'omelier than Folkestone," said Ann.
+
+"Jest a nice _little_ 'ouse," said Kipps. "There's Hughenden, of course.
+But that's let. Besides being miles too big. And I wouldn't live in
+Folkestone again some'ow--not for anything."
+
+"I'd like to 'ave a 'ouse of my own," said Ann. "I've often thought,
+being in service, 'ow much I'd like to manage a 'ouse of my own."
+
+"You'd know all about what the servants was up to, anyhow," said Kipps,
+amused.
+
+"Servants! We don't want no servants," said Ann, startled.
+
+"You'll 'ave to 'ave a servant," said Kipps. "If it's only to do the
+'eavy work of the 'ouse."
+
+"What! and not be able 'ardly to go into my own kitchen?" said Ann.
+
+"You ought to 'ave a servant," said Kipps.
+
+"One could easy 'ave a woman in for anything that's 'eavy," said Ann.
+"Besides---- If I 'ad one of the girls one sees about nowadays I should
+want to be taking the broom out of 'er 'and and do it all over myself.
+I'd manage better without 'er."
+
+"We ought to 'ave one servant anyhow," said Kipps, "else 'ow should we
+manage if we wanted to go out together or anything like that?"
+
+"I might get a _young_ girl," said Ann, "and bring 'er up in my own
+way."
+
+Kipps left the matter at that and came back to the house.
+
+"There's little 'ouses going into Hythe, just the sort we want, not too
+big and not too small. We'll 'ave a kitching and a dining-room and a
+little room to sit in of a night."
+
+"It mustn't be a 'ouse with a basement," said Ann.
+
+"What's a basement?"
+
+"It's a downstairs, where there's not arf enough light and everything
+got to be carried--up and down, up and down, all day--coals and
+everything. And it's got to 'ave a watertap and sink and things
+upstairs. You'd 'ardly believe, Artie, if you 'adn't been in service,
+'ow cruel and silly some 'ouses are built--you'd think they 'ad a spite
+against servants the way the stairs are made."
+
+"We won't 'ave one of that sort," said Kipps....
+
+"We'll 'ave a quiet little life. Now go out a bit--now come 'ome again.
+Read a book perhaps if we got nothing else to do. 'Ave old Buggins in
+for an evening at times. 'Ave Sid down. There's bicycles----"
+
+"I don't fancy myself on a bicycle," said Ann.
+
+"'Ave a trailer," said Kipps, "and sit like a lady. I'd take you out to
+New Romney easy as anything jest to see the old people."
+
+"I wouldn't mind that," said Ann.
+
+"We'll jest 'ave a sensible little 'ouse, and sensible things. No art
+or anything of that sort, nothing stuck-up or anything, but jest
+sensible. We'll be as right as anything, Ann."
+
+"No socialism," said Ann, starting a lurking doubt.
+
+"No socialism," said Kipps; "just sensible, that's all."
+
+"I dessay it's all right for them that understand it, Artie, but I don't
+agree with this socialism."
+
+"I don't neither, reely," said Kipps. "I can't argue about it, but it
+don't seem real like to me. All the same Masterman's a clever fellow,
+Ann."
+
+"I didn't like 'im at first, Artie, but I do now--in a way. You don't
+understand 'im all at once."
+
+"'E's so clever," said Kipps. "Arf the time I can't make out what 'e's
+up to. 'E's the cleverest chap I ever met. I never 'eard such talking.
+'E ought to write a book.... It's a rum world, Ann, when a chap like
+that isn't 'ardly able to earn a living."
+
+"It's 'is 'ealth," said Ann.
+
+"I expect it is," said Kipps, and ceased to talk for a little while.
+
+Then he spoke with deliberation, "Sea air might be the saving of 'im,
+Ann."
+
+He glanced doubtfully at Ann, and she was looking at him even fondly.
+
+"You think of other people a lot," said Ann. "I been looking at you
+sittin' there and thinking."
+
+"I suppose I do. I suppose when one's 'appy one does."
+
+"_You_ do," said Ann.
+
+"We shall be 'appy in that little 'ouse, Ann. Don't y' think?"
+
+She met his eyes and nodded.
+
+"I seem to see it," said Kipps, "sort of cosy like. 'Bout tea time and
+muffins, kettle on the 'ob, cat on the 'earthrug. We must get a cat,
+Ann, and _you_ there. Eh?"
+
+They regarded each other with appreciative eyes and Kipps became
+irrelevant.
+
+"I don't believe, Ann," he said, "I 'aven't kissed you not for 'arf an
+hour. Leastways not since we was in those caves."
+
+For kissing had already ceased to be a matter of thrilling adventure for
+them.
+
+Ann shook her head. "You be sensible and go on talking about Mr.
+Masterman," she said....
+
+But Kipps had wandered to something else. "I like the way your 'air
+turns back just there," he said, with an indicative finger. "It was like
+that, I remember, when you was a girl. Sort of wavy. I've often thought
+of it----.... 'Member when we raced that time--out be'ind the church?"
+
+Then for a time they sat idly, each following out agreeable meditations.
+
+"It's rum," said Kipps.
+
+"What's rum?"
+
+"'Ow everything's 'appened," said Kipps. "Who'd 'ave thought of our
+being 'ere like this six weeks ago?... Who'd 'ave thought of my ever
+'aving any money?"
+
+His eyes went to the big Labyrinthodon. He looked first carelessly and
+then suddenly with a growing interest in its vast face.
+
+"I'm deshed," he murmured. Ann became interested. He laid a hand on her
+arm and pointed. Ann scrutinised the Labyrinthodon and then came around
+to Kipps' face in mute interrogation.
+
+"Don't you see it?" said Kipps.
+
+"See what?"
+
+"'E's jest _like_ old Coote."
+
+"It's extinct," said Ann, not clearly apprehending.
+
+"I dessay 'e is. But 'e's jest like old Coote all the same for that."
+
+Kipps meditated on the monstrous shapes in sight. "I wonder 'ow all
+these old antediluvium animals got extinct," he asked. "No one couldn't
+possibly 'ave killed 'em."
+
+"Why! _I_ know that," said Ann. "They was overtook by the Flood...."
+
+Kipps meditated for a while. "But I thought they had to take two of
+everything there was----"
+
+"Within reason they 'ad," said Ann....
+
+The Kippses left it at that.
+
+The great green and gold Labyrinthodon took no notice of their
+conversation. It gazed with its wonderful eyes over their heads into the
+infinite--inflexibly calm. It might indeed have been Coote himself
+there, Coote, the unassuming, cutting them dead....
+
+
+Sec.3
+
+And in due course these two simple souls married, and Venus Urania, the
+Goddess of Wedded Love, the Goddess of Tolerant Kindliness or Meeting
+Half Way, to whom all young couples should pray and offer sacrifices of
+self, who is indeed a very great and noble and kindly goddess, was in
+some manner propitiated, and bent down and blessed them in their union.
+
+
+END OF BOOK II.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+KIPPSES
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE HOUSING PROBLEM
+
+
+Sec.1
+
+Honeymoons and all things come to an end, and you see at last Mr. and
+Mrs. Arthur Kipps descending upon the Hythe platform--coming to Hythe to
+find that nice _little_ house--to realise that bright dream of a home
+they had first talked about in the grounds of the Crystal Palace. They
+are a valiant couple, you perceive, but small, and the world is a large
+incongruous system of complex and difficult things. Kipps wears a grey
+suit, with a wing-poke collar and a neat, smart tie. Mrs. Kipps is the
+same bright and healthy little girl woman you saw in the marsh; not an
+inch has been added to her stature in all my voluminous narrative. Only
+now she wears a hat.
+
+It is a hat very unlike the hats she used to wear on her Sundays out, a
+flourishing hat with feathers and buckle and bows and things. The price
+of that hat would take many people's breath away--it cost two guineas!
+Kipps chose it. Kipps paid for it. They left the shop with flushed
+cheeks and smarting eyes, glad to be out of range of the condescending
+saleswoman.
+
+"Artie," said Ann, "you didn't ought to 'ave----"
+
+That was all. And you know, the hat didn't suit Ann a bit. Her clothes
+did not suit her at all. The simple, cheap, clean brightness of her
+former style had given place not only to this hat, but to several other
+things in the same key. And out from among these things looked her
+pretty face, the face of a wise little child--an artless wonder
+struggling through a preposterous dignity.
+
+They had bought that hat one day when they had gone to see the shops in
+Bond street. Kipps had looked at the passers-by and it had suddenly
+occurred to him that Ann was dowdy. He had noted the hat of a very
+proud-looking lady passing in an electric brougham and had resolved to
+get Ann the nearest thing to that.
+
+The railway porters perceived some subtle incongruity in Ann, the knot
+of cabmen in the station doorway, the two golfers and the lady with
+daughters, who had also got out of the train. And Kipps, a little pale,
+blowing a little, not in complete possession of himself, knew that they
+noticed her and him. And Ann----. It is hard to say just what Ann
+observed of these things.
+
+"'Ere!" said Kipps to a cabman, and regretted too late a vanished "H."
+
+"I got a trunk up there," he said to a ticket inspector, "marked A. K."
+
+"Ask a porter," said the inspector, turning his back.
+
+"Demn!" said Kipps, not altogether inaudibly.
+
+
+Sec.2
+
+It is all very well to sit in the sunshine and talk of the house you
+will have, and another altogether to achieve it. We English--all the
+world indeed to-day--live in a strange atmosphere of neglected great
+issues, of insistent, triumphant petty things, we are given up to the
+fine littlenesses of intercourse; table manners and small correctitudes
+are the substance of our lives. You do not escape these things for long
+even by so catastrophic a proceeding as flying to London with a young
+lady of no wealth and inferior social position. The mists of noble
+emotion swirl and pass and there you are divorced from all your deities
+and grazing in the meadows under the Argus eyes of the social system,
+the innumerable mean judgments you feel raining upon you, upon your
+clothes and bearing, upon your pretensions and movements.
+
+Our world to-day is a meanly conceived one--it is only an added meanness
+to conceal that fact. For one consequence, it has very few nice little
+houses, such things do not come for the asking, they are not to be
+bought with money during ignoble times. Its houses are built on the
+ground of monstrously rich, shabbily extortionate landowners, by poor,
+parsimonious, greedy people in a mood of elbowing competition. What can
+you expect from such ridiculous conditions? To go househunting is to spy
+out the nakedness of this pretentious world, to see what our
+civilization amounts to when you take away curtains and flounces and
+carpets and all the fluster and distraction of people and fittings. It
+is to see mean plans meanly executed for mean ends, the conventions torn
+aside, the secrets stripped, the substance underlying all such Chester
+Cootery, soiled and worn and left.
+
+So you see our poor, dear Kippses going to and fro, in Hythe, in
+Sandgate, in Ashford and Canterbury and Deal and Dover--at last even in
+Folkestone, with "orders to view," pink and green and white and yellow
+orders to view, and labelled keys in Kipps' hand and frowns and
+perplexity upon their faces.... They did not clearly know what they
+wanted, but whatever it was they saw, they knew they did not want that.
+Always they found a confusing multitude of houses they could not take,
+and none they could. Their dreams began to turn mainly on empty,
+abandoned-looking rooms, with unfaded patches of paper to mark the place
+of vanished pictures and doors that had lost their keys. They saw rooms
+floored with boards that yawned apart and were splintered, skirtings
+eloquent of the industrious mouse, kitchens with a dead black-beetle in
+the empty cupboard, and a hideous variety of coal holes and dark
+cupboards under the stairs. They stuck their little heads through roof
+trap-doors and gazed at disorganised ball taps, at the bleak filthiness
+of unstoppered roofs. There were occasions when it seemed to them that
+they must be the victims of an elaborate conspiracy of house agents, so
+bleak and cheerless is a second-hand empty house in comparison with the
+humblest of inhabited dwellings.
+
+Commonly the houses were too big. They had huge windows that demanded
+vast curtains in mitigation, countless bedrooms, acreage of stone steps
+to be cleaned, kitchens that made Ann protest. She had come so far
+towards a proper conception of Kipps' social position as to admit the
+prospect of one servant--"but lor'!" she would say, "you'd want a
+manservant in this 'ouse." When the houses were not too big, then they
+were almost invariably the product of speculative building, of that
+multitudinous hasty building for the extravagant multitude of new births
+that was the essential disaster of the nineteenth century. The new
+houses Ann refused as damp, and even the youngest of these that had been
+in use showed remarkable signs of a sickly constitution, the plaster
+flaked away, the floors gaped, the paper mouldered and peeled, the doors
+dropped, the bricks scaled and the railings rusted, Nature in the form
+of spiders, earwigs, cockroaches, mice, rats, fungi and remarkable
+smells, was already fighting her way back....
+
+And the plan was invariably inconvenient, invariably. All the houses
+they saw had a common quality for which she could find no word, but for
+which the proper word is incivility. "They build these 'ouses," she
+said, "as though girls wasn't 'uman beings." Sid's social democracy had
+got into her blood perhaps, and anyhow they went about discovering the
+most remarkable inconsiderateness in the contemporary house. "There's
+kitching stairs to go up, Artie!" Ann would say. "Some poor girl's got
+to go up and down, up and down, and be tired out, jest because they
+haven't the sense to leave enough space to give their steps a proper
+rise--and no water upstairs anywhere--every drop got to be carried! It's
+'ouses like this wear girls out.
+
+"It's 'aving 'ouses built by men, I believe, makes all the work and
+trouble," said Ann....
+
+The Kippses, you see, thought they were looking for a reasonably simple
+little contemporary house, but indeed they were looking either for
+dreamland or 1975 A.D. or thereabouts, and it hadn't come.
+
+
+Sec.3
+
+But it was a foolish thing of Kipps to begin building a house.
+
+He did that out of an extraordinary animosity for house agents he had
+conceived.
+
+Everybody hates house agents just as everybody loves sailors. It is no
+doubt a very wicked and unjust hatred, but the business of a novelist is
+not ethical principle but facts. Everybody hates house agents because
+they have everybody at a disadvantage. All other callings have a certain
+amount of give and take; the house agent simply takes. All other
+callings want you; your solicitor is afraid you may change him, your
+doctor cannot go too far, your novelist--if only you knew it--is mutely
+abject towards your unspoken wishes--and as for your tradespeople,
+milkmen will fight outside your front door for you, and green-grocers
+call in tears if you discard them suddenly; but who ever heard of a
+house agent struggling to serve anyone? You want to get a house; you go
+to him, you dishevelled and angry from travel, anxious, enquiring; he
+calm, clean, inactive, reticent, quietly doing nothing. You beg him to
+reduce rents, whitewash ceilings, produce other houses, combine the
+summer house of No. 6 with the conservatory of No. 4--much he cares! You
+want to dispose of a house; then he is just the same, serene,
+indifferent--on one occasion I remember he was picking his teeth all the
+time he answered me. Competition is a mockery among house agents, they
+are all alike, you cannot wound them by going to the opposite office,
+you cannot dismiss them, you can at most dismiss yourself. They are
+invulnerably placed behind mahogany and brass, too far usually even for
+a sudden swift lunge with an umbrella, and to throw away the keys they
+lend you instead of returning them is larceny and punishable as such.
+
+It was a house agent in Dover who finally decided Kipps to build.
+Kipps, with a certain faltering in his voice, had delivered his
+ultimatum, no basement, not more than eight rooms, hot and cold water
+upstairs, coal cellar in the house but with intervening doors to keep
+dust from the scullery and so forth. He stood blowing. "You'll have to
+build a house," said the house agent, sighing wearily, "if you want all
+that." It was rather for the sake of effective answer than with any
+intention at the time that Kipps mumbled, "That's about what I shall
+do--this goes on."
+
+Whereupon the house agent smiled. He smiled!
+
+When Kipps came to turn the thing over in his mind he was surprised to
+find quite a considerable intention had germinated and was growing up in
+him. After all, lots of people _have_ built houses. How could there be
+so many if they hadn't? Suppose he "reely" did! Then he would go to the
+house agent and say, "'Ere, while you been getting me a sootable 'ouse,
+blowed if I 'aven't built one!" Go round to all of them; all the house
+agents in Folkestone, in Dover, Ashford, Canterbury, Margate, Ramsgate,
+saying that! Perhaps then they might be sorry. It was in the small hours
+that he awoke to a realisation that he had made up his mind in the
+matter.
+
+"Ann," he said, "Ann," and also used the sharp of his elbow.
+
+Ann was at last awakened to the pitch of an indistinct enquiry what was
+the matter.
+
+"I'm going to build a house, Ann."
+
+"Eh?" said Ann, suddenly, as if awake.
+
+"Build a house."
+
+Ann said something incoherent about he'd better wait until the morning
+before he did anything of the sort, and immediately with a fine
+trustfulness went fast asleep again.
+
+But Kipps lay awake for a long while building his house, and in the
+morning at breakfast he made his meaning clear. He had smarted under the
+indignities of house agents long enough, and this seemed to promise
+revenge--a fine revenge. "And, you know, we might reely make rather a
+nice little 'ouse out of it--like we want."
+
+So resolved, it became possible for them to take a house for a year,
+with a basement, no service lift, blackleading to do everywhere, no
+water upstairs, no bathroom, vast sash windows to be cleaned from the
+sill, stone steps with a twist and open to the rain into the coal
+cellar, insufficient cupboards, unpaved path to the dustbin, no
+fireplace to the servant's bedroom, no end of splintery wood to
+scrub--in fact, a very typical English middle-class house. And having
+added to this house some furniture, and a languid young person with
+unauthentic golden hair named Gwendolen, who was engaged to a
+sergeant-major and had formerly been in an hotel, having "moved in" and
+spent some sleepless nights varied by nocturnal explorations in search
+of burglars, because of the strangeness of being in a house for which
+they were personally responsible, Kipps settled down for a time and
+turned himself with considerable resolution to the project of building a
+home.
+
+
+Sec.4
+
+At first Kipps had gathered advice, finding an initial difficulty in how
+to begin. He went into a builder's shop at Seabrook one day, and told
+the lady in charge that he wanted a house built; he was breathless but
+quite determined, and he was prepared to give his order there and then,
+but she temporised with him and said her husband was out, and he left
+without giving his name. Also he went and talked to a man in a cart who
+was pointed out to him by a workman as the builder of a new house near
+Saltwood, but he found him first sceptical and then overpoweringly
+sarcastic. "I suppose you build a 'ouse every 'oliday," he said, and
+turned from Kipps with every symptom of contempt.
+
+Afterwards Carshot told alarming stories about builders, and shook
+Kipps' expressed resolution a good deal, and then Pierce raised the
+question whether one ought to go in the first instance to a builder at
+all and not rather to an architect. Pierce knew a man at Ashford whose
+brother was an architect, and as it is always better in these matters to
+get someone you know, the Kippses decided, before Pierce had gone, and
+Carshot's warning had resumed their sway, to apply to him. They did
+so--rather dubiously.
+
+The architect who was brother of Pierce's friend appeared as a small,
+alert individual with a black bag and a cylindrical silk hat, and he sat
+at the dining-room table, with his hat and his bag exactly equidistant
+right and left of him, and maintained a demeanour of impressive
+woodenness, while Kipps on the hearthrug, with a quaking sense of
+gigantic enterprise, vacillated answers to his enquiries. Ann held a
+watching brief for herself, in a position she had chosen as suitable to
+the occasion beside the corner of the carved oak sideboard. They felt,
+in a sense, at bay.
+
+The architect began by asking for the site, and seemed a little
+discomposed to discover this had still to be found. "I thought of
+building just anywhere," said Kipps. "I 'aven't made up my mind about
+that yet." The architect remarked that he would have preferred to see
+the site in order to know where to put what he called his "ugly side,"
+but it was quite possible of course to plan a house "in the air," on the
+level, "simply with back and front assumed"--if they would like to do
+that. Kipps flushed slightly, and secretly hoping it would make no great
+difference in the fees, said a little doubtfully that he thought that
+would be all right.
+
+The architect then marked off as it were the first section of his
+subject, with a single dry cough, opened his bag, took out a spring tape
+measure, some hard biscuits, a metal flask, a new pair of dogskin
+gloves, a clockwork motor-car partially wrapped in paper, a bunch of
+violets, a paper of small brass screws, and finally a large, distended
+notebook; he replaced the other objects carefully, opened his notebook,
+put a pencil to his lips and said: "And what accommodation will you
+require?" To which Ann, who had followed his every movement with the
+closest attention and a deepening dread, replied with the violent
+suddenness of one who has long lain in wait, "Cubbuds!"
+
+"Anyhow," she added, catching her husband's eye.
+
+The architect wrote it down.
+
+"And how many rooms?" he said, coming to secondary matters.
+
+The young people regarded one another. It was dreadfully like giving an
+order.
+
+"How many bedrooms, for example?" asked the architect.
+
+"One?" suggested Kipps, inclined now to minimise at any cost.
+
+"There's Gwendolen," said Ann.
+
+"Visitors perhaps," said the architect, and temperately, "You never
+know."
+
+"Two, p'raps?" said Kipps. "We don't want no more than a _little_ 'ouse,
+you know."
+
+"But the merest shooting-box----," said the architect.
+
+They got to six; he beat them steadily from bedroom to bedroom, the word
+"nursery" played across their imaginative skies--he mentioned it as the
+remotest possibility--and then six being reluctantly conceded, Ann came
+forward to the table, sat down and delivered herself of one of her
+prepared conditions: "'Ot and cold water," she said, "laid on to each
+room--any'ow."
+
+It was an idea long since acquired from Sid.
+
+"Yes," said Kipps, on the hearthrug, "'Ot and cold water laid on to each
+bedroom--we've settled on that."
+
+It was the first intimation to the architect that he had to deal with a
+couple of exceptional originality, and as he had spent the previous
+afternoon in finding three large houses in _The Builder_, which he
+intended to combine into an original and copyright design of his own, he
+naturally struggled against these novel requirements. He enlarged on the
+extreme expensiveness of plumbing, on the extreme expensiveness of
+everything not already arranged for in his scheme, and only when Ann
+declared she'd as soon not have the house as not have her requirements,
+and Kipps, blenching the while, had said he didn't mind what a thing
+cost him so long as he got what he wanted, did he allow a kindred
+originality of his own to appear beneath the acquired professionalism of
+his methods. He dismissed their previous talk with his paragraphic
+cough. "Of course," he said, "if you don't mind being
+unconventional----"
+
+He explained that he had been thinking of a Queen Anne style of
+architecture (Ann directly she heard her name shook her head at Kipps in
+an aside) so far as the exterior went. For his own part, he said, he
+liked to have the exterior of a house in a style, not priggishly in a
+style, but mixed, with one style uppermost, and the gables and dormers
+and casements of the Queen Anne style, with a little rough cast and sham
+timbering here and there and perhaps a bit of an overhang diversified a
+house and made it interesting. The advantages of what he called a Queen
+Anne style was that it had such a variety of features.... Still, if they
+were prepared to be unconventional it could be done. A number of houses
+were now built in the unconventional style and were often very pretty.
+In the unconventional style one frequently had what perhaps he might
+call Internal Features, for example, an Old English oak staircase and
+gallery. White rough-cast and green paint were a good deal favoured in
+houses of this type.
+
+He indicated that this excursus on style was finished by a momentary use
+of his cough, and reopened his notebook, which he had closed to wave
+about in a moment of descriptive enthusiasm while expatiating on the
+unbridled wealth of External Features associated with Queen Anne. "Six
+bedrooms," he said, moistening his pencil. "One with barred windows
+suitable for a nursery if required."
+
+Kipps endorsed this huskily and reluctantly.
+
+There followed a most interesting discussion upon house building, in
+which Kipps played a minor part. They passed from bedrooms to the
+kitchen and scullery, and there Ann displayed an intelligent
+exactingness that won the expressed admiration of the architect. They
+were particularly novel upon the position of the coal cellar, which Ann
+held to be altogether too low in the ordinary house, necessitating much
+heavy carrying. They dismissed as impracticable the idea of having coal
+cellar and kitchen at the top of the house, because that would involve
+carrying all the coal through the house, and therewith much subsequent
+cleaning, and for a time they dealt with a conception of a coal cellar
+on the ground floor with a light staircase running up outside to an
+exterior shoot. "It might be made a Feature," said the architect, a
+little doubtfully, jotting down a note of it. "It would be apt to get
+black, you know."
+
+Thence they passed to the alternative of service lifts, and then by an
+inspiration of the architect to the possibilities of gas heating. Kipps
+did a complicated verbal fugue on the theme, "gas heating heats the
+air," with variable aspirates; he became very red and was lost to the
+discussion altogether for a time, though his lips kept silently on.
+
+Subsequently the architect wrote to say that he found in his notebook
+very full and explicit directions for bow windows to all rooms, for
+bedrooms, for water supply, lift, height of stairs and absence of twists
+therein, for a well-ventilated kitchen twenty feet square, with two
+dressers and a large box-window seat, for scullery and outhouses and
+offices, but nothing whatever about drawing-room, dining-room, library
+or study, or approximate cost, and he awaited further instructions. He
+presumed there would be a breakfast-room, dining-room, drawing-room,
+and study for Mr. Kipps, at least that was his conception, and the
+young couple discussed this matter long and ardently.
+
+Ann was distinctly restrictive in this direction. "I don't see what you
+want a drawin'-room and a dinin' _and_ a kitchen for. If we was going to
+let in summer--well and good. But we're not going to let. Consequently
+we don't want so many rooms. Then there's a 'all. What use is a 'all? It
+only makes work. And a study!"
+
+Kipps had been humming and stroking his moustache since he had read the
+architect's letter. "I think I'd like a little bit of a study--not a big
+one, of course, but one with a desk and book-shelves, like there was in
+Hughenden. I'd like that."
+
+It was only after they had talked to the architect again and seen how
+scandalised he was at the idea of not having a drawing-room that they
+consented to that Internal Feature. They consented to please him. "But
+we shan't never use it," said Ann.
+
+Kipps had his way about a study. "When I get that study," said Kipps, "I
+shall do a bit of reading I've long wanted to do. I shall make a habit
+of going in there and reading something an hour every day. There's
+Shakespeare and a lot of things a man like me ought to read. Besides, we
+got to 'ave _somewhere_ to put the Encyclopaedia. I've always thought a
+study was about what I've wanted all along. You can't 'elp reading if
+you got a study. If you 'aven't, there's nothing for it, so far's _I_
+can see, but treshy novels."
+
+He looked down at Ann and was surprised to see a joyless thoughtfulness
+upon her face.
+
+"Fency, Ann!" he said, not too buoyantly, "'aving a little 'ouse of our
+own!"
+
+"It won't be a little 'ouse," said Ann, "not with all them rooms."
+
+
+Sec.5
+
+Any lingering doubt in that matter was dispelled when it came to plans.
+
+The architect drew three sets of plans on a transparent bluish sort of
+paper that smelt abominably. He painted them very nicely; brick red and
+ginger, and arsenic green and a leaden sort of blue, and brought them
+over to show our young people. The first set were very simple, with
+practically no External Features--"a plain style," he said it was--but
+it looked a big sort of house nevertheless; the second had such extras
+as a conservatory, bow windows of various sorts, one rough-cast gable
+and one half-timbered ditto in plaster, and a sort of overhung verandah,
+and was much more imposing; and the third was quite fungoid with
+External Features, and honeycombed with Internal ones; it was, he said,
+"practically a mansion," and altogether a very noble fruit of the
+creative mind of man. It was, he admitted, perhaps almost too good for
+Hythe; his art had run away with him and produced a modern mansion in
+the "best Folkestone style"; it had a central hall with a staircase, a
+Moorish gallery, and Tudor stained glass window, crenelated battlements
+to the leading over the portico, an octagonal bulge with octagonal bay
+windows, surmounted by an oriental dome of metal, lines of yellow bricks
+to break up the red and many other richnesses and attractions. It was
+the sort of house, ornate and in its dignified way voluptuous, that a
+city magnate might build, but it seemed excessive to the Kippses. The
+first plan had seven bedrooms, the second eight, the third eleven; that
+had, the architect explained, "worked in" as if they were pebbles in a
+mountaineer's boat.
+
+"They're big 'ouses," said Ann directly the elevations were unrolled.
+
+Kipps listened to the architect with round eyes and an exuberant caution
+in his manner, anxious not to commit himself further than he had done to
+the enterprise, and the architect pointed out the Features and other
+objects of interest with the scalpel belonging to a pocket manicure set
+that he carried. Ann watched Kipps' face and communicated with him
+furtively over the architect's head. "_Not so big_," said Ann's lips.
+
+"It's a bit big for what I meant," said Kipps, with a reassuring eye on
+Ann.
+
+"You won't think it big when you see it up," said the architect; "you
+take my word for that."
+
+"We don't want no more than six bedrooms," said Kipps.
+
+"Make this one a box-room, then," said the architect.
+
+A feeling of impotence silenced Kipps for a time.
+
+"Now which," said the architect, spreading them out, "is it to be?"
+
+He flattened down the plans of the most ornate mansion to show it to
+better effect.
+
+Kipps wanted to know how much each would cost "at the outside," which
+led to much alarmed signalling from Ann. But the architect could
+estimate only in the most general way.
+
+They were not really committed to anything when the architect went away;
+Kipps had promised to think it over, that was all.
+
+"We can't 'ave that 'ouse," said Ann.
+
+"They're miles too big--all of them," agreed Kipps.
+
+"You'd want----. Four servants wouldn't be 'ardly enough," said Ann.
+
+Kipps went to the hearthrug and spread himself. His tone was almost
+offhand. "Nex' time 'e comes," said Kipps, "I'll 'splain to him. It
+isn't at all the sort of thing we want. It's--it's a misunderstanding.
+You got no occasion to be anxious 'bout it, Ann."
+
+"I don't see much good reely in building an 'ouse at all," said Ann.
+
+"Oo, we _got_ to build a 'ouse now we begun," said Kipps. "But, now,
+supposin' we 'ad----."
+
+He spread out the most modest of the three plans and scratched his
+cheek.
+
+
+Sec.6
+
+It was unfortunate that old Kipps came over the next day.
+
+Old Kipps always produced peculiar states of mind in his nephew, a rash
+assertiveness, a disposition towards display unlike his usual self.
+There had been great difficulty in reconciling both these old people to
+the Pornick mesalliance, and at times the controversy echoed in old
+Kipps' expressed thoughts. This perhaps it was, and no ignoble vanity,
+that set the note of florid successfulness going in Kipps' conversation
+whenever his uncle appeared. Mrs. Kipps was, as a matter of fact, not
+reconciled at all, she had declined all invitations to come over on the
+'bus, and was a taciturn hostess on the one occasion when the young
+people called at the toy shop _en route_ for Mrs. Pornick. She displayed
+a tendency to sniff that was clearly due to pride rather than catarrh,
+and except for telling Ann she hoped she would not feel too "stuck up"
+about her marriage, confined her conversation to her nephew or the
+infinite. The call was a brief one and made up chiefly of pauses, no
+refreshment was offered or asked for, and Ann departed with a singularly
+high colour. For some reason she would not call at the toy shop when
+they found themselves again in New Romney.
+
+But old Kipps, having adventured over and tried the table of the new
+_menage_ and found it to his taste, showed many signs of softening
+towards Ann. He came again and then again. He would come over by the
+'bus, and except when his mouth was absolutely full, he would give his
+nephew one solid and continuous mass of advice of the most subtle and
+disturbing description, until it was time to toddle back to the High
+Street for the afternoon 'bus. He would walk with him to the sea front,
+and commence _pourparlers_ with boatmen for the purchase of one of their
+boats. "You ought to keep a boat of your own," he said, though Kipps was
+a singularly poor sailor--or he would pursue a plan that was forming in
+his mind in which he should own and manage what he called "weekly"
+property in the less conspicuous streets of Hythe. The cream of that was
+to be a weekly collection of rents in person, the nearest approach to
+feudal splendour left in this democratised country. He gave no hint of
+the source of the capital he designed for this investment and at times
+it would appear he intended it as an occupation for his nephew rather
+than himself.
+
+But there remained something in his manner towards Ann; in the glances
+of scrutiny he gave her unawares, that kept Kipps alertly expansive
+whenever he was about. And in all sorts of ways. It was on account of
+old Kipps, for example, that our Kipps plunged one day, a golden plunge,
+and brought home a box of cummerbundy ninepenny cigars, and substituted
+blue label old Methusaleh Four Stars for the common and generally
+satisfactory white brand.
+
+"Some of this is whiskey, my boy," said old Kipps when he tasted it,
+smacking critical lips.
+
+"Saw a lot of young officer fellers coming along," said old Kipps. "You
+ought to join the volunteers, my boy, and get to know a few."
+
+"I dessay I shall," said Kipps. "Later."
+
+"They'd make you an officer, you know, 'n no time. They want officers,"
+said old Kipps. "It isn't everyone can afford it. They'd be regular glad
+to 'ave you.... Ain't bort a dog yet?"
+
+"Not yet, uncle. 'Ave a segar?"
+
+"Not a moty car?"
+
+"Not yet, uncle."
+
+"There's no 'urry 'bout that. And don't get one of these 'ere trashy
+cheap ones when you do get it, my boy. Get one as'll last a lifetime....
+I'm surprised you don't 'ire a bit more."
+
+"Ann don't seem to fency a moty car," said Kipps.
+
+"Ah!" said old Kipps, "I expect not," and glanced a comment at the door.
+"She ain't used to going out," he said. "More at 'ome indoors."
+
+"Fact is," said Kipps, hastily, "we're thinking of building a 'ouse."
+
+"I wouldn't do that, my boy," began old Kipps, but his nephew was
+routing in the cheffonier drawer amidst the plans. He got them in time
+to check some further comment on Ann. "Um," said the old gentleman, a
+little impressed by the extraordinary odour and the unusual transparency
+of the tracing paper Kipps put into his hands. "Thinking of building a
+'ouse, are you?"
+
+Kipps began with the most modest of the three projects.
+
+Old Kipps read slowly through his silver-rimmed spectacles: "Plan of a
+'ouse for Arthur Kipps Esquire--Um."
+
+He didn't warm to the project all at once, and Ann drifted into the room
+to find him still scrutinising the architect's proposals a little
+doubtfully.
+
+"We couldn't find a decent 'ouse anywhere," said Kipps, leaning against
+the table and assuming an offhand note. "I didn't see why we shouldn't
+run up one for ourselves." Old Kipps could not help liking the tone of
+that.
+
+"We thought we might see----" said Ann.
+
+"It's a spekerlation, of course," said old Kipps, and held the plan at a
+distance of two feet or more from his glasses and frowned. "This isn't
+exactly the 'ouse I should expect you to 'ave thought of, though," he
+said. "Practically it's a villa. It's the sort of 'ouse a bank clerk
+might 'ave. 'Tisn't what I should call a gentleman's 'ouse, Artie."
+
+"It's plain, of course," said Kipps, standing beside his uncle and
+looking down at this plan, which certainly did seem a little less
+magnificent now than it had at the first encounter.
+
+"You mustn't 'ave it too plain," said old Kipps.
+
+"If it's comfortable----," Ann hazarded.
+
+Old Kipps glanced at her over his spectacles. "You ain't comfortable,
+my gal, in this world, not if you don't live up to your position," so
+putting compactly into contemporary English that fine old phrase,
+_noblesse oblige_. "A 'ouse of this sort is what a retired tradesman
+might 'ave, or some little whippersnapper of a s'liciter. But _you_----"
+
+"Course that isn't the o'ny plan," said Kipps, and tried the middle one.
+
+But it was the third one which won over old Kipps. "Now that's a
+_'ouse_, my boy," he said at the sight of it.
+
+Ann came and stood just behind her husband's shoulder while old Kipps
+expanded upon the desirability of the larger scheme. "You ought to 'ave
+a billiard-room," he said; "I don't see that, but all the rest's all
+right. A lot of these 'ere officers 'ere 'ud be glad of a game of
+billiards."...
+
+"What's all these dots?" said old Kipps.
+
+"S'rubbery," said Kipps. "Flow'ing s'rubs."
+
+"There's eleven bedrooms in that 'ouse," said Ann. "It's a bit of a lot,
+ain't it, uncle?"
+
+"You'll want 'em, my girl. As you get on, you'll be 'aving visitors.
+Friends of your 'usband, p'raps, from the School of Musketry, what you
+want 'im to get on with. You can't never tell."
+
+"If we 'ave a great s'rubbery," Ann ventured, "we shall 'ave to keep a
+gardener."
+
+"If you don't 'ave a s'rubbery," said old Kipps, with a note of patient
+reasoning, "'ow are you to prevent every jackanapes that goes by,
+starin' into your drorin'-room winder--p'raps when you get someone a
+bit special to entertain?"
+
+"We ain't _used_ to a s'rubbery," said Ann, mulishly; "we get on very
+well 'ere."
+
+"It isn't what you're used to," said old Kipps, "it's what you ought to
+'ave _now_." And with that Ann dropped out of the discussion.
+
+"Study and lib'ry," old Kipps read. "That's right. I see a Tantalus the
+other day over Brookland, the very thing for a gentleman's study. I'll
+try and get over and bid for it."...
+
+By 'bus time old Kipps was quite enthusiastic about the house building,
+and it seemed to be definitely settled that the largest plan was the one
+decided upon. But Ann had said nothing further in the matter.
+
+
+Sec.7
+
+When Kipps returned from seeing his uncle into the 'bus--there always
+seemed a certain doubt whether that portly figure would go into the
+little red "Tip-Top" box--he found Ann still standing by the table,
+looking with an expression of comprehensive disapproval at the three
+plans.
+
+"There don't seem much the matter with uncle," said Kipps, assuming the
+hearthrug, "spite of 'is 'eartburn. 'E 'opped up them steps like a
+bird."
+
+Ann remained staring at the plans.
+
+"You don't like them plans?" hazarded Kipps.
+
+"No, I don't, Artie."
+
+"We got to build somethin' now."
+
+"But--it's a gentleman's 'ouse, Artie!"
+
+"It's--it's a decent size, o' course."
+
+Kipps took a flirting look at the drawing and went to the window.
+
+"Look at the cleanin'. Free servants'll be lost in that 'ouse, Artie."
+
+"We must _'ave_ servants," said Kipps.
+
+Ann looked despondently at her future residence.
+
+"We got to keep up our position, any'ow," said Kipps, turning towards
+her. "It stands to reason, Ann, we got a position. Very well! I can't
+'ave you scrubbin' floors. You got to 'ave a servant and you got to
+manage a 'ouse. You wouldn't 'ave me ashamed----"
+
+Ann opened her lips and did not speak.
+
+"What?" asked Kipps.
+
+"Nothing," said Ann, "only I did want it to be a _little_ 'ouse, Artie.
+I wanted it to be a 'andy little 'ouse, jest for us."
+
+Kipps' face was suddenly flushed and mulish. He took up the curiously
+smelling tracings again. "I'm not a-going to be looked down upon," he
+said. "It's not only Uncle I'm thinking of!"
+
+Ann stared at him.
+
+Kipps went on. "I won't 'ave that young Walshingham f'r instance,
+sneering and sniffling at me. Making out as if we was all wrong. I see
+'im yesterday.... Nor Coote neether. I'm as good--we're as good.
+Whatever's 'appened."
+
+Silence and the rustle of plans.
+
+He looked up and saw Ann's eyes bright with tears. For a moment the two
+stared at one another.
+
+"We'll 'ave the big 'ouse," said Ann, with a gulp. "I didn't think of
+that, Artie."
+
+Her aspect was fierce and resolute, and she struggled with emotion.
+"We'll 'ave the big 'ouse," she repeated. "They shan't say I dragged you
+down wiv' me--none of them shan't say that. I've thought--I've always
+been afraid of that."
+
+Kipps looked again at the plan, and suddenly the grand house had become
+very grand indeed. He blew.
+
+"No, Artie, none of them shan't say that," and with something blind in
+her motions Ann tried to turn the plan round to her....
+
+After all, Kipps thought there might be something to say for the milder
+project.... But he had gone so far that now he did not know how to say
+it.
+
+And so the plans went out to the builders, and in a little while Kipps
+was committed to two thousand five hundred pounds worth of building. But
+then, you know, he had an income of twelve hundred a year.
+
+
+Sec.8
+
+It is extraordinary what minor difficulties cluster about house
+building.
+
+"I say, Ann," remarked Kipps one day, "we shall 'ave to call this little
+'ouse by a name. I was thinking of 'Ome Cottage. But I dunno whether
+'Ome Cottage is quite the thing like. All these little fishermen's
+places are called Cottages."
+
+"I like cottage," said Ann.
+
+"It's got eleven bedrooms, d'see," said Kipps. "I don't see 'ow you can
+call it a cottage with more bedrooms than four. Prop'ly speaking, it's a
+Large Villa. Prop'ly, it's almost a Big 'Ouse. Leastways a 'Ouse."
+
+"Well," said Ann, "if you must call it Villa--Home Villa.... I wish it
+wasn't."
+
+Kipps meditated.
+
+"'Ow about Eureka Villa?" he said, raising his voice.
+
+"What's Eureka?"
+
+"It's a name," he said. "There used to be Eureka Dress Fasteners.
+There's lots of names, come to think of it, to be got out of a shop.
+There's Pyjama Villa. I remember that in the hosiery. No, come to think,
+that wouldn't do. But Maraposa--sort of oatmeal cloth, that was.... No!
+Eureka's better."
+
+Ann meditated. "It seems silly like to 'ave a name that don't mean
+much."
+
+"Perhaps it does," said Kipps. "Though it's what people 'ave to do."
+
+He became meditative. "I got it!" he cried.
+
+"Not Oreeka!" said Ann.
+
+"No! There used to be a 'ouse at Hastings opposite our school--quite a
+big 'ouse it was--St. Ann's. Now _that_----"
+
+"No," said Mrs. Kipps with decision. "Thanking you kindly, but I don't
+have no butcher boys making game of me."...
+
+They consulted Carshot, who suggested after some days of reflection,
+Waddycombe, as a graceful reminder of Kipps' grandfather; Old Kipps, who
+was for "Upton Manor House," where he had once been second footman;
+Buggins, who favoured either a stern simple number, "Number One"--if
+there were no other houses there, or something patriotic, as "Empire
+Villa," and Pierce, who inclined to "Sandringham"; but in spite of all
+this help they were still undecided when, amidst violent perturbations
+of the soul, and after the most complex and difficult hagglings,
+wranglings, fears, muddles and goings to and fro, Kipps became the
+joyless owner of a freehold plot of three-eighths of an acre, and saw
+the turf being wheeled away from the site that should one day be his
+home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE CALLERS
+
+
+Sec.1
+
+The Kippses sat at their midday dinner-table and amidst the vestiges of
+rhubarb pie, and discussed two postcards the one o'clock post had
+brought. It was a rare bright moment of sunshine in a wet and windy day
+in the March that followed their marriage. Kipps was attired in a suit
+of brown, with a tie of fashionable green, while Ann wore one of those
+picturesque loose robes that are usually associated with sandals and
+advanced ideas. But there weren't any sandals on Ann or any advanced
+ideas, and the robe had come quite recently through the counsels of Mrs.
+Sid Pornick. "It's Artlike," said Kipps, giving way. "It's more
+comfortable," said Ann. The room looked out by French windows upon a
+little patch of green and the Hythe parade. The parade was all shiny wet
+with rain, and the green-grey sea tumbled and tumbled between parade and
+sky.
+
+The Kipps' furniture, except for certain chromo lithographs of Kipps'
+incidental choice that struck a quiet note amidst the wall paper, had
+been tactfully forced by an expert salesman, and it was in a style of
+mediocre elegance. There was a sideboard of carved oak that had only one
+fault, it reminded Kipps at times of wood-carving, and its panel of
+bevelled glass now reflected the back of his head. On its shelf were two
+books from Parsons' Library, each with a "place" marked by a slip of
+paper; neither of the Kippses could have told you the title of either
+book they read, much less the author's name. There was an ebonised
+overmantel set with phials and pots of brilliant colour, each duplicated
+by looking-glass, and bearing also a pair of Chinese jars made in
+Birmingham, a wedding present from Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Pornick, and
+several sumptuous Japanese fans. And there was a Turkey carpet of great
+richness. In addition to these modern exploits of Messrs. Bunt and
+Bubble, there were two inactive tall clocks, whose extreme dilapidation
+appealed to the connoisseur; a terrestrial and a celestial globe, the
+latter deeply indented; a number of good old iron moulded and dusty
+books, and a stuffed owl wanting one (easily replaceable) glass eye,
+obtained by the exertions of Uncle Kipps. The table equipage was as much
+as possible like Mrs. Bindon Botting's, only more costly, and in
+addition there were green and crimson wine glasses--though the Kippses
+never drank wine.
+
+Kipps turned to the more legible of his two postcards again.
+
+"'Unavoidably prevented from seein' me to-day,' 'e says. I like 'is
+cheek. After I give 'im 'is start and everything."
+
+He blew.
+
+"'E certainly treats you a bit orf'and," said Ann.
+
+Kipps gave vent to his dislike of young Walshingham. "He's getting too
+big for 'is britches," he said. "I'm beginning to wish she _'ad_ brought
+an action for breach. Ever since _'e_ said she wouldn't, 'e's seemed to
+think I've got no right to spend my own money."
+
+"'E's never liked your building the 'ouse," said Ann.
+
+Kipps displayed wrath. "What the goodness 'as it got to do wiv' 'im?"
+
+"Overman indeed!" he added. "Overmantel!... 'E trys that on with me,
+I'll tell 'im something 'e won't like."
+
+He took up the second card. "Dashed if I can read a word of it. I can
+jest make out Chit-low at the end and that's all."
+
+He scrutinised it. "It's like someone in a fit writing. This here might
+be W H A T--_what_. P R I C E--_I_ got it! What price Harry now? It was
+a sort of saying of 'is. I expect 'e's either done something or not done
+something towards starting that play, Ann."
+
+"I expect that's about it," said Ann.
+
+Kipps grunted with effort. "I can't read the rest," he said at last,
+"nohow."
+
+A thoroughly annoying post. He pitched the card on the table, stood up
+and went to the window, where Ann, after a momentary reconnaisance at
+Chitterlow's hieroglyphics, came to join him.
+
+"Wonder what I shall do this afternoon," said Kipps, with his hands deep
+in his pockets.
+
+He produced and lit a cigarette.
+
+"Go for a walk, I s'pose," said Ann.
+
+"I _been_ for a walk this morning.
+
+"S'pose I must go for another," he added, after an interval.
+
+They regarded the windy waste of sea for a space.
+
+"Wonder why it is 'e won't see me," said Kipps, returning to the problem
+of young Walshingham. "It's all lies about 'is being too busy."
+
+Ann offered no solution.
+
+"Rain again!" said Kipps, as the lash of the little drops stung the
+window.
+
+"Oo, bother!" said Kipps, "you got to do something. Look 'ere, Ann! I'll
+go orf for a reg'lar tramp through the rain, up by Saltwood, 'round by
+Newington, over the camp, and so 'round and back, and see 'ow they're
+getting on about the 'ouse. See? And look 'ere! you get Gwendolen to go
+out a bit before I come back. If it's still rainy, she can easy go
+'round and see 'er sister. Then we'll 'ave a bit of tea, with tea
+cake--all buttery, see? Toce it ourselves, p'raps. Eh?"
+
+"I dessay I can find something to do in the 'ouse," said Ann,
+considering. "You'll take your mackintosh and leggin's, I s'pose. You'll
+get wet without your mackintosh over those roads."
+
+"Righ-O," said Kipps, and went to ask Gwendolen for his brown leggings
+and his other pair of boots.
+
+
+Sec.2
+
+Things conspired to demoralise Kipps that afternoon.
+
+When he got outside the house everything looked so wet under the drive
+of the southwester that he abandoned the prospect of the clay lanes
+towards Newington altogether, and turned east to Folkestone along the
+Seabrook digue. His mackintosh flapped about him, the rain stung his
+cheek; for a time he felt a hardy man. And then as abruptly the rain
+ceased and the wind fell, and before he was through Sandgate High Street
+it was a bright spring day. And there was Kipps in his mackintosh and
+squeaky leggings, looking like a fool!
+
+Inertia carried him another mile to the Leas, and there the whole world
+was pretending there had never been such a thing as rain--ever. There
+wasn't a cloud in the sky; except for an occasional puddle the asphalt
+paths looked as dry as a bone. A smartly dressed man in one of those
+overcoats that look like ordinary cloth and are really most deceitfully
+and unfairly waterproof, passed him and glanced at the stiff folds of
+his mackintosh. "Demn!" said Kipps. His mackintosh swished against his
+leggings, his leggings piped and whistled over his boot-tops.
+
+"Why do I never get anything right?" Kipps asked of a bright implacable
+universe.
+
+Nice old ladies passed him, refined people with tidy umbrellas, bright,
+beautiful, supercilious-looking children. Of course! the right thing for
+such a day as this was a light overcoat and an umbrella. A child might
+have known that. He had them at home, but how could one explain that? He
+decided to turn down by the Harvey monument and escape through Clifton
+Gardens towards the hills. And thereby he came upon Coote.
+
+He already felt the most abject and propitiatory of social outcasts when
+he came upon Coote, and Coote finished him. He passed within a yard of
+Coote. Coote was coming along towards the Leas, and when Kipps saw him
+his legs hesitated about their office and he seemed to himself to
+stagger about all over the footpath. At the sight of him Coote started
+visibly. Then a sort of _rigor vitae_ passed through his frame, his jaw
+protruded and errant bubbles of air seemed to escape and run about
+beneath his loose skin. (Seemed I say--I am perfectly well aware that
+there is really connective tissue in Coote as in all of us to prevent
+anything of the sort.) His eyes fixed themselves on the horizon and
+glazed. As he went by Kipps could hear his even, resolute breathing. He
+went by, and Kipps staggered on into a universe of dead cats and dust
+heaps, rind and ashes--_cut!_ Cut!
+
+It was part of the inexorable decrees of Providence that almost
+immediately afterwards the residuum of Kipps had to pass a very, very
+long and observant-looking girls' school.
+
+Kipps recovered consciousness again on the road between Shorncliffe
+Station and Cheriton, though he cannot remember, indeed to this day he
+has never attempted to remember, how he got there. And he was back at
+certain thoughts suggested by his last night's novel reading, that
+linked up directly with the pariah-like emotions of these last
+encounters. The novel lay at home upon the cheffonier; it was one of
+society and politics--there is no need whatever to give the title or
+name the author--written with a heavy-handed thoroughness that overrode
+any possibility of resistance on the part of the Kipps mind. It had
+crushed all his poor little edifice of ideals, his dreams of a sensible,
+unassuming existence, of snugness, of not caring what people said and
+all the rest of it, to dust; it had reinstated, squarely and strongly
+again, the only proper conception of English social life. There was a
+character in the book who trifled with Art, who was addicted to reading
+French novels, who dressed in a loose, careless way, who was a sorrow to
+his dignified, silvery-haired, politico-religious mother, and met the
+admonitions of bishops with a front of brass. He treated a "nice girl,"
+to whom they had got him engaged, badly; he married beneath him--some
+low thing or other. And sank....
+
+Kipps could not escape the application of the case. He was enabled to
+see how this sort of thing looked to decent people; he was enabled to
+gauge the measure of the penalties due. His mind went from that to the
+frozen marble of Coote's visage.
+
+_He deserved it!_...
+
+That day of remorse! Later it found him coming upon the site of his
+building operations and surveying it in a mood near to despair, his
+mackintosh over his arm.
+
+Hardly anyone was at work that day--no doubt the builders were having
+him in some obscure manner--and the whole place seemed a dismal and
+depressing litter. The builder's shed, black-lettered WILKINS, BUILDER,
+HYTHE, looked like a stranded thing amidst a cast-up disorder of
+wheelbarrows and wheeling planks, and earth and sand and bricks. The
+foundations of the walls were trenches full of damp concrete, drying in
+patches; the rooms--it was incredible they could ever be rooms--were
+shaped out as squares and oblongs of coarse, wet grass and sorrel. They
+looked absurdly small--dishonestly small. What could you expect? Of
+course the builders were having him, building too small, building all
+wrong, using bad materials! Old Kipps had told him a wrinkle or two. The
+builders were having him, young Walshingham was having him, everybody
+was having him! They were having him and laughing at him because they
+didn't respect him. They didn't respect him because he couldn't do
+things right. Who could respect him?...
+
+He was an outcast, he had no place in the world. He had had his chance
+in the world and turned his back on it. He had "behaved badly"--that was
+the phrase....
+
+Here a great house was presently to arise, a house to be paid for, a
+house neither he nor Ann could manage--with eleven bedrooms, and four
+disrespectful servants having them all the time!
+
+How had it all happened exactly?
+
+This was the end of his great fortune! What a chance he had had! If he
+had really carried out his first intentions and stuck to things, how
+much better everything might have been! If he had got a tutor--that had
+been in his mind originally--a special sort of tutor to show him
+everything right; a tutor for gentlemen of neglected education. If he
+had read more and attended better to what Coote had said!
+
+Coote, who had just cut him!...
+
+Eleven bedrooms! What had possessed him? No one would ever come to see
+them, no one would ever have anything to do with them. Even his aunt cut
+him! His uncle treated him with a half-contemptuous sufferance. He had
+not a friend worth counting in the world! Buggins, Carshot, Pierce; shop
+assistants! The Pornicks--a low socialist lot! He stood among his
+foundations like a lonely figure among ruins; he stood among the ruins
+of his future, and owned himself a foolish and mistaken man. He saw
+himself and Ann living out their shameful lives in this great crazy
+place--as it would be--with everybody laughing secretly at them and
+their eleven rooms, and nobody approaching them--nobody nice and right
+that is, for ever. And Ann!
+
+What was the matter with Ann? She'd given up going for walks lately, got
+touchy and tearful, been fitful with her food. Just when she didn't
+ought to. It was all a part of the judgment upon wrongdoing, it was all
+part of the social penalties that Juggernaut of a novel had brought home
+to his mind.
+
+
+Sec.3
+
+He let himself in with his latchkey. He went moodily into the
+dining-room and got out the plans to look at them. He had a vague hope
+that there would prove to be only ten bedrooms. But he found there were
+still eleven. He became aware of Ann standing over him. "Look 'ere,
+Artie!" said Ann.
+
+He looked up and found her holding a number of white oblongs. His
+eyebrows rose.
+
+"It's Callers," said Ann.
+
+He put his plans aside slowly and took and read the cards in silence,
+with a sort of solemnity. Callers after all! Then perhaps he wasn't to
+be left out of the world after all. Mrs. G. Porrett Smith, Miss Porrett
+Smith, Miss Mabel Porrett Smith, and two smaller cards of the Rev. G.
+Porrett Smith. "Lor'!" he said, "_Clergy!_"
+
+"There was a lady," said Ann, "and two growed-up gals--all dressed up!"
+
+"And 'im?"
+
+"There wasn't no _'im_."
+
+"Not----?" He held out the little card.
+
+"No; there was a lady and two young ladies."
+
+"But--these cards! Wad they go and leave these two little cards with the
+Rev. G. Smith on for? Not if 'e wasn't with 'em."
+
+"'E wasn't with 'em."
+
+"Not a little chap--dodgin' about be'ind the others? And didn't come
+in?"
+
+"I didn't see no gentleman with them at all," said Ann.
+
+"Rum!" said Kipps. A half-forgotten experience came back to him. "_I_
+know," he said, waving the reverend gentleman's card; "'e give 'em the
+slip, that's what he'd done. Gone off while they was rapping before you
+let 'em in. It's a fair call, any'ow." He felt a momentary base
+satisfaction at his absence. "What did they talk about, Ann?"
+
+There was a pause. "I didn't let 'em in," said Ann.
+
+He looked up suddenly and perceived that something unusual was the
+matter with Ann. Her face was flushed, her eyes were red and hard.
+
+"Didn't let 'em in?"
+
+"No! They didn't come in at all."
+
+He was too astonished for words.
+
+"I answered the door," said Ann; "I'd been upstairs 'namelling the
+floor. 'Ow was I to think about Callers, Artie? We ain't never 'ad
+Callers all the time we been 'ere. I'd sent Gwendolen out for a bref of
+fresh air, and there I was upstairs 'namelling that floor she done so
+bad, so's to get it done before she came back. I thought I'd 'namel that
+floor and then get tea and 'ave it quiet with you, toce and all, before
+she came back. 'Ow was I to think about Callers?"
+
+She paused. "Well," said Kipps, "what them?"
+
+"They came and rapped. 'Ow was I to know? I thought it was a tradesman
+or something. Never took my apron off, never wiped the 'namel off my
+'ands--nothing. There they was!"
+
+She paused again. She was getting to the disagreeable part.
+
+"Wad they say?" said Kipps.
+
+"She says, 'Is Mrs. Kipps at home?' See? To me."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And me all painty and no cap on and nothing, neither missis nor servant
+like. There, Artie, I could 'a sunk through the floor with shame, I
+really could. I could 'ardly get my voice. I couldn't think of nothing
+to say but just 'Not at 'Ome,' and out of 'abit like I 'eld the tray.
+And they give me the cards and went, and 'ow I shall ever look that lady
+in the face again I don't know.... And that's all about it, Artie! They
+looked me up and down, they did, and then I shut the door on 'em."
+
+"Goo!" said Kipps.
+
+Ann went and poked the fire needlessly with a passion quivering hand.
+
+"I wouldn't 'ave 'ad that 'appen for five pounds," said Kipps. "A
+clergyman and all!"
+
+Ann dropped the poker into the fender with some _eclat_ and stood up and
+looked at her hot face in the glass. Kipps' disappointment grew. "You
+did ought to 'ave known better than that, Ann! You reely did."
+
+He sat forward, cards in hand, with a deepening sense of social
+disaster. The things were laid upon the table, toast sheltered under a
+cover, at mid fender, the teapot warmed beside it, and the kettle just
+lifted from the hob, sang amidst the coals. Ann glanced at him for a
+moment, then stooped with the kettle-holder to wet the tea.
+
+"Tcha!" said Kipps, with his mental state developing.
+
+"I don't see it's any use getting in a state about it now," said Ann.
+
+"Don't you? I do. See? 'Ere's these people, good people, want to
+'sociate with us, and 'ere you go and slap 'em in the face!"
+
+"I didn't slap 'em in the face."
+
+"You do--practically. You slams the door in their face, and that's all
+we see of 'em ever. I wouldn't 'ave 'ad this 'appen not for a ten-pound
+note."
+
+He rounded his regrets with a grunt. For a while there was silence, save
+for the little stir of Ann's movements preparing the tea.
+
+"Tea, Artie," said Ann, handing him a cup.
+
+Kipps took it.
+
+"I put sugar _once_," said Ann.
+
+"Oo, dash it! Oo cares?" said Kipps, taking an extraordinarily large
+additional lump with fury quivering fingers, and putting his cup with a
+slight excess of force on the recess cupboard. "Oo cares?
+
+"I wouldn't 'ave 'ad that 'appen," he said, bidding steadily against
+accomplished things, "for twenty pounds."
+
+He gloomed in silence through a long minute or so. Then Ann said the
+fatal thing that exploded him. "Artie!" she said.
+
+"What?"
+
+"There's Buttud Toce down there! By your foot!" There was a pause,
+husband and wife regarded one another.
+
+"Buttud Toce!" he said. "You go and mess up them callers and then you
+try and stuff me up with Buttud Toce! Buttud Toce indeed! 'Ere's our
+first chance of knowing anyone that's at all fit to 'sociate with----.
+Look 'ere, Ann! Tell you what it is--you got to return that call."
+
+"Return that call!"
+
+"Yes, you got to return that call. That's what you got to do! I
+know----" He waved his arm vaguely towards the miscellany of books in
+the recess. "It's in Manners and Rools of Good S'ity. You got to find
+jest 'ow many cards to leave and you got to go and leave 'em. See?"
+
+Ann's face expressed terror. "But, Artie, 'ow _can_ I?"
+
+"'Ow _can_ you? 'Ow _could_ you? You got to do it, any'ow. They won't
+know you--not in your Bond Street 'at! If they do, they won't say
+nothing."
+
+His voice assumed a note of entreaty. "You mus', Ann."
+
+"I can't."
+
+"You mus'."
+
+"I can't and I won't. Anything in reason I'll do, but face those people
+again I can't--after what 'as 'appened."
+
+"You won't?"
+
+"No!"...
+
+"So there they go--orf! And we never see them again! And so it goes on!
+So it goes on! We don't know nobody and we _shan't_ know anybody! And
+you won't put yourself out not a little bit, or take the trouble to find
+out anything 'ow it ought to be done."
+
+Terrible pause.
+
+"I never ought to 'ave merried you, Artie, that's the troof."
+
+"Oh! _don't_ go into that."
+
+"I never ought to 'ave merried you, Artie. I'm not equal to the
+position. If you 'adn't said you'd drown yourself----" She choked.
+
+"I don' see why you shouldn't _try_, Ann. _I've_ improved. Why don't
+you? 'Stead of which you go sending out the servant and 'namelling
+floors, and then when visitors come----"
+
+"'Ow was _I_ to know about y'r old visitors?" cried Ann in a wail, and
+suddenly got up and fled from amidst their ruined tea, the tea of which
+"toce, all buttery," was to be the crown and glory.
+
+Kipps watched her with a momentary consternation. Then he hardened his
+heart. "Ought to 'ave known better," he said, "goin' on like that!" He
+remained for a space rubbing his knees and muttering. He emitted
+scornfully: "I carn't an' I won't." He saw her as the source of all his
+shames.
+
+Presently, quite mechanically, he stooped down and lifted the flowery
+china cover. "Ter dash 'er Buttud Toce!" he shouted at the sight of it,
+and clapped the cover down again hard....
+
+When Gwendolen came back she perceived things were in a slightly unusual
+poise. Kipps sat by the fire in a rigid attitude reading a casually
+selected volume of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, and Ann was upstairs
+and inaccessible--to reappear at a later stage with reddened eyes.
+Before the fire and still in a perfectly assimilable condition was what
+was evidently an untouched supply of richly buttered toast under a
+cracked cover.
+
+"They've 'ad a bit of a tiff," said Gwendolen, attending to her duties
+in the kitchen, with her outdoor hat still on and her mouth full.
+"They're rummuns--if ever! My eye!"
+
+And she took another piece of Ann's generously buttered toast.
+
+
+Sec.4
+
+The Kippses spoke no more that day to one another.
+
+The squabble about cards and buttered toast was as serious to them as
+the most rational of differences. It was all rational to them. Their
+sense of wrong burnt within them; their sense of what was owing to
+themselves, the duty of implacability, the obstinacy of pride. In the
+small hours Kipps lay awake at the nadir of unhappiness and came near
+groaning. He saw life as an extraordinarily desolating muddle; his
+futile house, his social discredit, his bad behaviour to Helen, his low
+marriage to Ann....
+
+He became aware of something irregular in Ann's breathing....
+
+He listened. She was awake and quietly and privately sobbing!
+
+He hardened his heart; resolutely he hardened his heart.
+
+The stupid little tragedies of these clipped and limited lives!
+
+What is the good of keeping up the idyllic sham and pretending that
+ill-educated, misdirected people "get along very well," and that all
+this is harmlessly funny and nothing more? You think I'm going to write
+fat, silly, grinning novels about half-educated, under-trained people
+and keep it up all the time, that the whole thing's nothing but funny!
+
+As I think of them lying unhappily there in the darkness, my vision
+pierces the night. See what I can see! Above them, brooding over them, I
+tell you there is a monster, a lumpish monster, like some great, clumsy
+griffin thing, like the Crystal Palace labyrinthodon, like Coote, like
+the leaden goddess Dulness Pope Abhorred, like some fat, proud flunkey,
+like pride, like indolence, like all that is darkening and heavy and
+obstructive in life. It is matter and darkness, it is the anti-soul,
+Stupidity. My Kippses live in its shadow. Shalford and his
+apprenticeship system, the Hastings Academy, the ideas of Coote, the
+ideas of the old Kippses, all the ideas that have made Kipps what he is,
+all these are its shadow. But for that monster they might not be groping
+among false ideas and hurt one another so sorely and so stupidly; but
+for that, the glowing promise of childhood and youth might have had a
+happier fruition, thought might have awakened in them to meet _the_
+thought of the world, the quickening sunshine of literature pierced to
+the substance of their souls, their lives might not have been divorced,
+as now they are divorced for ever, from the apprehension of beauty that
+we favoured ones are given--the vision of the Grail that makes life fine
+for ever. I have laughed, and I laugh at these two people; I have sought
+to make you laugh....
+
+But I see through the darkness the souls of my Kippses, as they are, as
+little pink strips of living stuff, like the bodies of little,
+ill-nourished, ailing, ignorant children, children who feel pain, who
+are naughty and muddled and suffer and do not understand why. And the
+claw of this Beast rests upon them!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+TERMINATIONS
+
+
+Sec.1
+
+Next morning came a remarkable telegram from Folkestone. "Please come at
+once, urgent, Walshingham," said the telegram, and Kipps, after an
+agitated but still ample breakfast, departed....
+
+When he returned his face was very white and his countenance disordered.
+He let himself in with his latchkey and came into the dining-room where
+Ann sat, affecting to work at a little thing she called a bib. She heard
+his hat fall in the hall before he entered, as though he had missed the
+peg. "I got something to tell you, Ann," he said, disregarding their
+overnight quarrel, and went to the hearthrug and took hold of the
+mantel, and stared at Ann as though the sight of her was novel.
+
+"Well?" said Ann, not looking up and working a little faster.
+
+"'E's gone!"
+
+Ann looked up sharply and her hands stopped. "_Who's_ gone?" For the
+first time she perceived Kipps' pallor.
+
+"Young Walshingham--I saw 'er and she tole me."
+
+"Gone? What d'you mean?"
+
+"Cleared out! Gone off for good!"
+
+"What for?"
+
+"For 'is 'ealth," said Kipps, with sudden bitterness. "'E's been
+speckylating. He's speckylated our money and 'e's speckylated their
+money, and now 'e's took 'is 'ook. That's all about it, Ann."
+
+"You mean?"
+
+"I mean 'e's orf and our twenty-four thousand's orf, too! And 'ere we
+are! Smashed up! That's all about it, Ann." He panted.
+
+Ann had no vocabulary for such an occasion. "Oh, Lor'!" she said, and
+sat still.
+
+Kipps came about and stuck his hands deeply in his trouser pockets.
+"Speckylated every penny--lorst it all--and gorn."
+
+Even his lips were white.
+
+"You mean we ain't got nothin' left, Artie?"
+
+"Not a penny! Not a bloomin' penny, Ann. No!"
+
+A gust of passion whirled across the soul of Kipps. He flung out a
+knuckly fist. "If I 'ad 'im 'ere," he said, "I'd--I'd--I'd wring 'is
+neck for 'im. I'd--I'd----" His voice rose to a shout. He thought of
+Gwendolen in the kitchen and fell to "Ugh!"
+
+"But, Artie," said Ann, trying to grasp it, "d'you mean to say he's
+took our money?"
+
+"Speckylated it!" said Kipps, with an illustrative flourish of the arm,
+that failed to illustrate. "Bort things dear and sold 'em cheap, and
+played the 'ankey-pankey jackass with everything we got. That's what I
+mean 'e's done, Ann." He repeated this last sentence with the addition
+of violent adverbs.
+
+"D'you mean to say our money's _gone_, Artie?"
+
+"Ter-dash it, _Yes_, Ann!" swore Kipps, exploding in a shout. "Ain't I
+tellin' you?"
+
+He was immediately sorry. "I didn't mean to 'oller at you, Ann," he
+said, "but I'm all shook up. I don't 'ardly know what I'm sayin'. Ev'ry
+penny."...
+
+"But, Artie----"
+
+Kipps grunted. He went to the window and stared for a moment at a sunlit
+sea. "Gord!" he swore.
+
+"I mean," he said, coming back to Ann and with an air of exasperation,
+"that he's 'bezzled and 'ooked it. That's what I mean, Ann."
+
+Ann put down the bib. "But wot are we going to _do_, Artie?"
+
+Kipps indicated ignorance, wrath and despair with one comprehensive
+gesture of his hands. He caught an ornament from the mantel and replaced
+it. "I'm going to bang about," he said, "if I ain't precious careful."
+
+"You saw _'er_, you say?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What did she say 'xactly?" said Ann.
+
+"Told me to see a s'licitor--tole me to get someone to 'elp me at once.
+She was there in black--like she used to be--and speaking cool and
+careful-like. 'Elen!... She's precious 'ard, is 'Elen. She looked at me
+straight. 'It's my fault,' she said, 'I ought to 'ave warned you....
+Only under the circumstances it was a little difficult.' Straight as
+anything. I didn't 'ardly say anything to 'er. I didn't seem to begin to
+take it in until she was showing me out. I 'adn't anything to say. Jest
+as well, perhaps. She talked like a call a'most. She said--what _was_ it
+she said about her mother? 'My mother's overcome with grief,' she said,
+'so naturally everything comes on me.'"
+
+"And she told you to get someone to 'elp you?"
+
+"Yes. I been to old Bean."
+
+"O' Bean?"
+
+"Yes. What I took my business away from!"
+
+"What did he say?"
+
+"He was a bit off'and at first, but then 'e come 'round. He couldn't
+tell me anything till 'e knew the facts. What I know of young
+Walshingham, there won't be much 'elp in the facts. No!"
+
+He reflected for a space. "It's a smash-up, Ann. More likely than not,
+Ann, 'e's left us over'ead in debt. We got to get out of it just 'ow we
+can....
+
+"We got to begin again," he went on. "_'Ow_, I don't know. All the way
+'ome my 'ead's been going. We got to get a living some'ow or other.
+'Aving time to ourselves, and a bit of money to spend, and no hurry and
+worry, it's all over for ever, Ann. We was fools, Ann. We didn't know
+our benefits. We been caught. Gord!... Gord!"
+
+He was on the verge of "banging about" again.
+
+They heard a jingle in the passage, the large soft impact of a servant's
+indoor boots. As if she were a part, a mitigatory part of Fate, came
+Gwendolen to lay the midday meal. Kipps displayed self-control
+forthwith. Ann picked up the bib again and bent over it, and the Kippses
+bore themselves gloomily perhaps, but not despairfully, while their
+dependant was in the room. She spread the cloth and put out the cutlery
+with a slow inaccuracy, and Kipps, after a whisper to himself, went
+again to the window. Ann got up and put away her work methodically in
+the cheffonier.
+
+"When I think," said Kipps, as soon as the door closed again behind
+Gwendolen, "when I think of the 'ole people and 'aving to tell 'em of it
+all--I want to smesh my 'ead against the nearest wall. Smesh my silly
+brains out! And Buggins--Buggins what I'd 'arf promised to start in a
+lill' outfitting shop in Rendezvous Street."...
+
+Gwendolen returned and restored dignity.
+
+The midday meal spread itself slowly before them. Gwendolen, after her
+custom, left the door open and Kipps closed it carefully before sitting
+down.
+
+He stood for a moment, regarding the meal doubtfully.
+
+"I don't feel as if I could swaller a moufful," he said.
+
+"You got to eat," said Ann....
+
+For a time they said little, and once swallowing was achieved, ate on
+with a sort of melancholy appetite. Each was now busy thinking.
+
+"After all," said Kipps, presently, "whatever 'appens, they can't turn
+us out or sell us up before nex' quarter-day. I'm pretty sure about
+that."
+
+"Sell us up!" said Ann.
+
+"I dessey we're bankrup'," said Kipps, trying to say it easily and
+helping himself with a trembling hand to unnecessary potatoes.
+
+Then a long silence. Ann ceased to eat, and there were silent tears.
+
+"More potatoes, Artie?" choked Ann.
+
+"I couldn't," said Kipps. "No."
+
+He pushed back his plate, which was indeed replete with potatoes, got up
+and walked about the room. Even the dinner-table looked distraught and
+unusual.
+
+"What to do, I _don't_ know," he said.
+
+"Oh, _Lord_!" he ejaculated, and picked up and slapped down a book.
+
+Then his eye fell upon another postcard that had come from Chitterlow
+by the morning's post, and which now lay by him on the mantel-shelf. He
+took it up, glanced at its imperfectly legible message, and put it down.
+
+"Delayed!" he said, scornfully. "Not prodooced in the smalls. Or is it
+smells 'e says? 'Ow can one understand that? Any'ow 'e's 'umbugging
+again.... Somefing about the Strand. No! Well, 'e's 'ad all the money
+'e'll ever get out of me!... I'm done."
+
+He seemed to find a momentary relief in the dramatic effect of his
+announcement. He came near to a swagger of despair upon the hearthrug,
+and then suddenly came and sat down next to Ann and rested his chin on
+the knuckles of his two clenched hands.
+
+"I been a fool, Ann," he said in a gloomy monotone. "I been a brasted
+fool. But it's 'ard on us, all the same. It's 'ard."
+
+"'Ow was you to know?" said Ann.
+
+"I ought to 'ave known. I did in a sort of way know. And 'ere we are! I
+wouldn't care so much if it was myself, but it's _you_, Ann! 'Ere we
+are! Regular smashed up! And you----" He checked at an unspeakable
+aggravation of their disaster. "I knew 'e wasn't to be depended upon and
+there I left it! And you got to pay.... What's to 'appen to us all, I
+don't know."
+
+He thrust out his chin and glared at fate.
+
+"'Ow do you know 'e's speckylated everything?" said Ann, after a silent
+survey of him.
+
+"'E 'as," said Kipps, irritably, holding firm to disaster.
+
+"She say so?"
+
+"She don't know, of course, but you depend upon it that's it. She told
+me she knew something was on, and when she found 'im gone and a note
+lef' for her she knew it was up with 'im. 'E went by the night boat. She
+wrote that telegram off to me straight away."
+
+Ann surveyed his features with tender, perplexed eyes; she had never
+seen him so white and drawn before, and her hand rested an inch or so
+away from his arm. The actual loss was still, as it were, afar from her.
+The immediate thing was his enormous distress.
+
+"'Ow do you know----?" she said and stopped. It would irritate him too
+much.
+
+Kipps' imagination was going headlong.
+
+"Sold up!" he emitted presently, and Ann flinched.
+
+"Going back to work, day after day--I can't stand it, Ann, I can't. And
+you----"
+
+"It don't do to think of it," said Ann.
+
+Presently he came upon a resolve. "I keep on thinking of it, and
+thinking of it, and what's to be done and what's to be done. I shan't be
+any good 'ome s'arfernoon. It keeps on going 'round and 'round in my
+'ead, and 'round and 'round. I better go for a walk or something. I'd be
+no comfort to you, Ann. I should want to 'owl and 'ammer things if I
+'ung about 'ome. My fingers is all atwitch. I shall keep on thinking
+'ow I might 'ave stopped it and callin' myself a fool."...
+
+He looked at her between pleading and shame. It seemed like deserting
+her.
+
+Ann regarded him with tear-dimmed eyes.
+
+"You'd better do what's good for you, Artie," she said.... "_I'll_ be
+best cleaning. It's no use sending off Gwendolen before her month, and
+the top room wants turning out." She added with a sort of grim humour:
+"May as well turn it out now while I got it."
+
+"I _better_ go for a walk," said Kipps....
+
+And presently our poor exploded Kipps was marching out to bear his
+sudden misery. Habit turned him up the road towards his growing house,
+and then suddenly he perceived his direction--"Oh, Lor'!"--and turned
+aside and went up the steep way to the hill crest and the Sandling Road,
+and over the line by that tree-embowered Junction, and athwart the wide
+fields towards Postling--a little, black, marching figure--and so up the
+Downs and over the hills, whither he had never gone before....
+
+
+Sec.2
+
+He came back long after dark, and Ann met him in the passage.
+
+"Where you been, Artie?" she asked, with a strained note in her voice.
+
+"I been walking and walking--trying to tire myself out. All the time I
+been thinking what shall I do. Trying to fix something up all out of
+nothing."
+
+"I didn't know you meant to be out all this time."
+
+Kipps was gripped by compunction....
+
+"I can't think what we ought to do," he said, presently.
+
+"You can't do anything much, Artie, not till you hear from Mr. Bean."
+
+"No; I can't do anything much. That's jest it. And all this time I keep
+feelin' if I don't do something the top of my 'ead'll bust.... Been
+trying to make up advertisements 'arf the time I been out--'bout finding
+a place, good salesman and stock-keeper, and good Manchester dresses,
+window-dressing--Lor'! Fancy that all beginning again!... If you went to
+stay with Sid a bit--if I sent every penny I got to you--I dunno! I
+dunno!"
+
+When they had gone to bed there was an elaborate attempt to get to
+sleep.... In one of their great waking pauses Kipps remarked in a
+muffled tone: "I didn't mean to frighten you, Ann, being out so late. I
+kep' on walking and walking, and some'ow it seemed to do me good. I went
+out to the 'illtop ever so far beyond Stanford, and sat there ever so
+long, and it seemed to make me better. Just looking over the marsh like,
+and seeing the sun set."...
+
+"Very likely," said Ann, after a long interval, "it isn't so bad as you
+think it is, Artie."
+
+"It's bad," said Kipps.
+
+"Very likely, after all, it isn't quite so bad. If there's only a
+little----"
+
+There came another long silence.
+
+"Ann," said Kipps in the quiet darkness.
+
+"Yes," said Ann.
+
+"Ann," said Kipps, and stopped as though he had hastily shut a door upon
+speech.
+
+"I kep' thinking," he said, trying again, "I kep' thinking--after all--I
+been cross to you and a fool about things--about them cards, Ann;
+but"--his voice shook to pieces--"we _'ave_ been 'appy, Ann ... some'ow
+... togever."
+
+And with that he and then she fell into a passion of weeping. They clung
+very tightly together--closer than they had been since ever the first
+brightness of their married days turned to the grey of common life
+again.
+
+All the disaster in the world could not prevent their going to sleep at
+last with their poor little troubled heads close together on one pillow.
+There was nothing more to be done, there was nothing more to be thought;
+Time might go on with his mischiefs, but for a little while at least
+they still had one another.
+
+
+Sec.3
+
+Kipps returned from his second interview with Mr. Bean in a state of
+strange excitement. He let himself in with his latch-key and slammed the
+door. "Ann!" he shouted, in an unusual note; "Ann!"
+
+Ann replied distantly.
+
+"Something to tell you," said Kipps; "something noo!"
+
+Ann appeared apprehensive from the kitchen.
+
+"Ann," he said, going before her into the little dining-room, for his
+news was too dignified for the passage, "very likely, Ann, o' Bean says,
+we shall 'ave----" He decided to prolong the suspense. "Guess!"
+
+"I can't, Artie."
+
+"Think of a lot of money!"
+
+"A 'undred pounds p'raps?"
+
+He spoke with immense deliberation. "O v e r a f o u s a n d p o u n d
+s!"
+
+Ann stared and said nothing, only went a shade whiter.
+
+"Over, he said. A'most certainly over."
+
+He shut the dining-room door and came forward hastily, for Ann, it was
+clear, meant to take this mitigation of their disaster with a complete
+abandonment of her self-control. She came near flopping; she fell into
+his arms.
+
+"Artie," she got to at last and began to weep, clinging tightly to him.
+
+"Pretty near certain," said Kipps, holding her. "A fousand pounds!"
+
+"I _said_, Artie," she wailed on his shoulder with the note of
+accumulated wrongs, "very likely it wasn't so bad."...
+
+"There's things," he said, when presently he came to particulars, "'e
+couldn't touch. The noo place! It's freehold and paid for, and with the
+bit of building on it, there's five or six 'undred pound p'raps--say
+worf free 'undred, for safety. We can't be sold up to finish it, like we
+thought. O' Bean says we can very likely sell it and get money. 'E says
+you often get a chance to sell a 'ouse lessen 'arf done, 'specially
+free'old. _Very_ likely, 'e say. Then there's Hughenden. Hughenden
+'asn't been mortgaged not for more than 'arf its value. There's a
+'undred or so to be got on that, and the furniture and the rent for the
+summer still coming in. 'E says there's very likely other things. A
+fousand pounds, that's what 'e said. 'E said it might even be more."...
+
+They were sitting now at the table.
+
+"It alters everything," said Ann.
+
+"I been thinking that, Ann, all the way 'ome. I came in the motor car.
+First ride I've 'ad since the smash. We needn't send off Gwendolen,
+leastways not till _after_. You know. We needn't turn out of 'ere--not
+for a long time. What we been doing for the o' people we can go on doing
+a'most as much. And your mother!... I wanted to 'oller coming along. I
+pretty near run coming down the road by the hotel."
+
+"Oh, I _am_ glad we can stop 'ere and be comfortable a bit," said Ann.
+"I _am_ glad for that."
+
+"I pretty near told the driver on the motor--only 'e was the sort won't
+talk.... You see, Ann, we'll be able to start a shop, we'll be able to
+get _into_ something like. All about our 'aving to go back to places
+and that; all that doesn't matter any more."
+
+For a while they abandoned themselves to ejaculating transports. Then
+they fell talking to shape an idea to themselves of the new prospect
+that opened before them.
+
+"We must start a sort of shop," said Kipps, whose imagination had been
+working. "It'll 'ave to be a shop."
+
+"Drapery?" said Ann.
+
+"You want such a lot of capital for the drapery, mor'n a thousand pounds
+you want by a long way--to start it anything like proper."
+
+"Well, outfitting. Like Buggins was going to do."
+
+Kipps glanced at that for a moment, because the idea had not occurred to
+him. Then he came back to his prepossession.
+
+"Well, I thought of something else, Ann," he said. "You see, I've always
+thought a little book-shop. It isn't like the drapery--'aving to be
+learnt. I thought--even before this smash-up--'ow I'd like to 'ave
+something to do, instead of always 'aving 'olidays always like we 'ave
+been 'aving."
+
+He reflected.
+
+"You don't know _much_ about books, do you, Artie?"
+
+"You don't want to." He illustrated. "I noticed when we used to go to
+that Lib'ry at Folkestone, ladies weren't anything like what they was in
+a draper's--if you 'aven't got _just_ what they want it's 'Oh, no!' and
+out they go. But in a book shop it's different. One book's very like
+another--after all, what is it? Something to read and done with. It's
+not a thing that matters like print dresses or serviettes--where you
+either like 'em or don't, and people judge you by. They take what you
+give 'em in books and lib'ries, and glad to be told _what_ to. See 'ow
+we was--up at that lib'ry."...
+
+He paused. "You see, Ann----
+
+"Well, I read 'n 'dvertisement the other day. I been asking Mr. Bean. It
+said--five 'undred pounds."
+
+"What did?"
+
+"Branches," said Kipps.
+
+Ann failed to understand. "It's a sort of thing that gets up book shops
+all over the country," said Kipps. "I didn't tell you, but I arst about
+it a bit. On'y I dropped it again. Before this smash, I mean. I'd
+thought I'd like to keep a shop for a lark, on'y then I thought it
+silly. Besides it 'ud 'ave been beneath me."
+
+He blushed vividly. "It was a sort of projek of mine, Ann.
+
+"On'y it wouldn't 'ave done," he added.
+
+It was a tortuous journey when the Kippses set out to explain anything
+to each other. But through a maze of fragmentary elucidations and
+questions, their minds did presently begin to approximate to a picture
+of a compact, bright, little shop, as a framework for themselves.
+
+"I thought of it one day when I was in Folkestone. I thought of it one
+day when I was looking in at a window. I see a chap dressin' a window
+and he was whistlin' reg'lar light-'arted.... I thought then I'd like to
+keep a bookshop, any'ow, jest for something to do. And when people
+weren't about, then you could sit and read the books. See? It wouldn't
+be 'arf bad."...
+
+They mused, each with elbows on table and knuckles to lips, looking with
+speculative eyes at each other.
+
+"Very likely we'll be 'appier than we should 'ave been with more money,"
+said Kipps presently.
+
+"We wasn't 'ardly suited," reflected Ann, and left her sentence
+incomplete.
+
+"Fish out of water like," said Kipps....
+
+"You won't 'ave to return that call now," said Kipps, opening a new
+branch of the question. "That's one good thing."
+
+"Lor'!" said Ann, visibly brightening, "no more I shan't!"
+
+"I don't s'pose they'd want you to, even if you did--with things as they
+are."
+
+A certain added brightness came into Ann's face. "Nobody won't be able
+to come leaving cards on us, Artie, now, any more. We are out of
+_that_!"
+
+"There isn't no necessity for us to be stuck up," said Kipps, "any more
+for ever! 'Ere we are, Ann, common people, with jest no position at all,
+as you might say, to keep up. No sev'nts, not if you don't like. No
+dressin' better than other people. If it wasn't we been robbed--dashed
+if I'd care a rap about losing that money. I b'lieve"--his face shone
+with the rare pleasure of paradox--"I reely b'lieve, Ann, it'll prove a
+savin' in the end."
+
+
+Sec.4
+
+The remarkable advertisement which had fired Kipps' imagination with
+this dream of a bookshop opened out in the most alluring way. It was one
+little facet in a comprehensive scheme of transatlantic origin, which
+was to make our old-world methods of book-selling "sit up," and it
+displayed an imaginative briskness, a lucidity and promise that aroused
+the profoundest scepticism in the mind of Mr. Bean. To Kipps' renewed
+investigations it presented itself in an expository illustrated pamphlet
+(far too well printed, Mr. Bean thought, for a reputable undertaking) of
+the most convincing sort. Mr. Bean would not let him sink his capital in
+shares in its projected company that was to make all things new in the
+world of books, but he could not prevent Kipps becoming one of their
+associated booksellers. And so when presently it became apparent that an
+epoch was not to be made, and the "Associated Booksellers' Trading Union
+(Limited)" receded and dissolved and liquidated (a few drops) and
+vanished and went away to talk about something else, Kipps remained
+floating undamaged in this interestingly uncertain universe as an
+independent bookseller.
+
+Except that it failed, the Associated Booksellers' Trading Union had all
+the stigmata of success. Its fault, perhaps, was that it had them all
+instead of only one or two. It was to buy wholesale for all its members
+and associates and exchange stock, having a common books-in-stock list
+and a common lending library, and it was to provide a uniform registered
+shop front to signify all these things to the intelligent passer-by.
+Except that it was controlled by buoyant young Over-men with a touch of
+genius in their arithmetic, it was, I say, a most plausible and hopeful
+project. Kipps went several times to London and an agent came to Hythe;
+Mr. Bean made some timely interventions, and then behind a veil of
+planks and an announcement in the High Street, the uniform registered
+shop front came rapidly into being. "Associated Booksellers' Trading
+Union," said this shop front, in a refined, artistic lettering that
+bookbuyers were going to value, as wise men over forty value the proper
+label for Berncasteler Doctor, and then, "Arthur Kipps."
+
+Next to starting a haberdasher's shop I doubt if Kipps could have been
+more truly happy than during those weeks of preparation.
+
+There is, of course, nothing on earth, and I doubt at times if there is
+a joy in Heaven, like starting a small haberdasher's shop. Imagine, for
+example, having a drawerful of tapes (one whole piece most exquisitely
+blocked of every possible width of tape), or, again, an army of neat,
+large packages, each displaying one sample of hooks and eyes. Think of
+your cottons, your drawer of coloured silks, the little, less, least of
+the compartments and thin packets of your needle drawer! Poor princes
+and wretched gentlefolk mysteriously above retail trade, may taste only
+the faint unsatisfactory shadow of these delights with trays of stamps
+or butterflies. I write, of course, for those to whom these things
+appeal; there are clods alive who see nothing, or next to nothing, in
+spools of mercerised cotton and endless bands of paper-set pins. I write
+for the wise, and as I write I wonder that Kipps resisted haberdashery.
+He did. Yet even starting a bookshop is at least twenty times as
+interesting as building your own house to your own design in unlimited
+space and time, or any possible thing people with indisputable social
+position and sound securities can possibly find to do. Upon that I rest.
+
+You figure Kipps "going to have a look to see how the little shop is
+getting on," the shop that is not to be a loss and a spending of money,
+but a gain. He does not walk too fast towards it; as he comes into view
+of it his paces slacken and his head goes to one side. He crosses to the
+pavement opposite in order to inspect the fascia better, already his
+name is adumbrated in faint white lines; stops in the middle of the road
+and scrutinises imaginary details for the benefit of his future next
+door neighbour, the curiosity-shop man, and so at last, in.... A smell
+of paint and of the shavings of imperfectly seasoned pinewood! The shop
+is already glazed and a carpenter is busy over the fittings for
+adjustable shelves in the side windows. A painter is busy on the
+fixtures round about (shelving above and drawers below), which are to
+accommodate most of the stock, and the counter--the counter and desk are
+done. Kipps goes inside the desk, the desk which is to be the strategic
+centre of the shop, brushes away some sawdust, and draws out the
+marvellous till; here gold is to be, here silver, here copper--notes
+locked up in a cash-box in the well below. Then he leans his elbows on
+the desk, rests his chin on his fist and fills the shelves with
+imaginary stock; books beyond reading. Every day a man who cares to wash
+his hands and read uncut pages artfully may have his cake and eat it,
+among that stock. Under the counter to the right, paper and string are
+to lurk ready to leap up and embrace goods sold; on the table to the
+left, art publications, whatever they may prove to be! He maps it out,
+serves an imaginary customer, receives a dream seven and six pence,
+packs, bows out. He wonders how it was he ever came to fancy a shop a
+disagreeable place.
+
+"It's different," he says at last, after musing on that difficulty,
+"being your own."
+
+It _is_ different....
+
+Or, again, you figure Kipps with something of the air of a young
+sacristan, handling his brightly virginal account-books, and looking,
+and looking again, and then still looking, at an unparalleled specimen
+of copperplate engraving, ruled money below and above, bearing the words
+"In Account with, ARTHUR KIPPS" (loud flourishes), "The Booksellers'
+Trading Union" (temperate decoration). You figure Ann sitting and
+stitching at one point of the circumference of the light of the lamp,
+stitching queer little garments for some unknown stranger, and over
+against her sits Kipps. Before him is one of those engraved memorandum
+forms, a moist pad, wet with some thick and greasy greenish purple ink
+that is also spreading quietly but steadily over his fingers, a
+cross-nibbed pen for first-aid surgical assistance to the patient in his
+hand, a dating rubber stamp. At intervals he brings down this latter
+with great care and emphasis upon the paper, and when he lifts it there
+appears a beautiful oval design of which "Paid, Arthur Kipps, The
+Associated Booksellers' Trading Union," and a date, are the essential
+ingredients, stamped in purple ink.
+
+Anon he turns his attention to a box of small, round, yellow labels,
+declaring "This book was bought from the Associated Booksellers' Trading
+Union." He licks one with deliberate care, sticks it on the paper before
+him and defaces it with great solemnity. "I can do it, Ann," he says,
+looking up brightly. For the Associated Booksellers' Trading Union,
+among other brilliant notions and inspirations, devised an ingenious
+system of taking back its books again in part payment for new ones
+within a specified period. When it failed, all sorts of people were left
+with these unredeemed pledges in hand.
+
+
+Sec.5
+
+Amidst all this bustle and interest, all this going to and fro before
+they "moved in" to the High Street, came the great crisis that hung over
+the Kippses, and one morning in the small hours Ann's child was born....
+
+Kipps was coming to manhood swiftly now. The once rabbit-like soul that
+had been so amazed by the discovery of "chubes" in the human interior
+and so shocked by the sight of a woman's shoulder-blades, that had found
+shame and anguish in a mislaid Gibus and terror in an Anagram Tea, was
+at last facing the greater realities. He came suddenly upon the master
+thing in life, birth. He passed through hours of listening, hours of
+impotent fear in the night and in the dawn, and then there was put into
+his arms something most wonderful, a weak and wailing creature,
+incredibly, heart-stirringly soft and pitiful, with minute appealing
+hands that it wrung his heart to see. He held this miracle in his arms
+and touched its tender cheek as if he feared his lips might injure it.
+And this marvel was his Son!
+
+And there was Ann, with a greater strangeness and a greater familiarity
+in her quality than he had ever found before. There were little beads of
+perspiration on her temples and her lips, and her face was flushed, not
+pale as he had feared to see it. She had the look of one who emerges
+from some strenuous and invigorating act. He bent down and kissed her,
+and he had no words to say. She wasn't to speak much yet, but she
+stroked his arm with her hand and had to tell him one thing:
+
+"He's over nine pounds, Artie," she whispered. "Bessie's--Bessie's
+wasn't no more than eight."
+
+To have given Kipps a pound of triumph over Sid seemed to her almost to
+justify Nunc Dimittis. She watched his face for a moment, then closed
+her eyes in a kind of blissful exhaustion as the nurse, with something
+motherly in her manner, pushed Kipps out of the room.
+
+
+Sec.6
+
+Kipps was far too much preoccupied with his own life to worry about the
+further exploits of Chitterlow. The man had got his two thousand; on the
+whole Kipps was glad he had had it rather than young Walshingham, and
+there was an end to the matter. As for the complicated transactions he
+achieved and proclaimed by mainly illegible and always incomprehensible
+postcards, they were like passing voices heard in the street as one goes
+about one's urgent concerns. Kipps put them aside and they got in
+between the pages of the stock and were lost forever and sold in with
+the goods to customers who puzzled over them mightily.
+
+Then one morning as he was dusting round before breakfast, Chitterlow
+returned, appeared suddenly in the shop doorway.
+
+Kipps was overcome with amazement.
+
+It was the most unexpected thing in the world. The man was in evening
+dress, evening dress in that singularly crumpled state it assumes after
+the hour of dawn, and above his dishevelled red hair, a smallish Gibus
+hat tilted remarkably forward. He opened the door and stood, tall and
+spread, with one vast white glove flung out as if to display how burst a
+glove might be, his eyes bright, such wrinkling of brow and mouth as
+only an experienced actor can produce, and a singular radiance of
+emotion upon his whole being, an altogether astonishing spectacle.
+
+It was amazing beyond the powers of Kipps. The bell jangled for a bit
+and then gave it up and was silent. For a long, great second everything
+was quietly attentive. Kipps was amazed to his uttermost; had he had ten
+times the capacity he would still have been fully amazed. "It's
+Chit'low!" he said at last, standing duster in hand.
+
+But he doubted whether it was not a dream.
+
+"Tzit!" gasped that most excitable and extraordinary person, still in an
+incredibly expanded attitude, and then with a slight forward jerk of the
+starry split glove, "Bif!"
+
+He could say no more. The tremendous speech he had had ready vanished
+from his mind. Kipps stared at his extraordinary facial changes, vaguely
+conscious of the truth of the teachings of Nisbet and Lombroso
+concerning men of genius.
+
+Then suddenly Chitterlow's features were convulsed, the histrionic fell
+from him like a garment, and he was weeping. He said something
+indistinct about "Old Kipps! _Good_ old Kipps! Oh, old Kipps!" and
+somehow he managed to mix a chuckle and a sob in the most remarkable
+way. He emerged from somewhere near the middle of his original attitude,
+a merely life-size creature. "My play, boo-hoo!" he sobbed, clutching at
+his friend's arm. "My play, Kipps! (sob) You know?"
+
+"Well?" cried Kipps, with his heart sinking in sympathy, "it ain't----"
+
+"No," howled Chitterlow; "no. It's a success! My dear chap! my dear boy!
+oh! it's a--bu--boo-hoo!--a big success!" He turned away and wiped
+streaming tears with the back of his hand. He walked a pace or so and
+turned. He sat down on one of the specially designed artistic chairs of
+the Associated Booksellers' Trading Union and produced an exiguous
+lady's handkerchief, extraordinarily belaced. He choked. "_My_ play,"
+and covered his face here and there.
+
+He made an unsuccessful effort to control himself, and shrank for a
+space to the dimensions of a small and pathetic creature. His great nose
+suddenly came through a careless place in the handkerchief.
+
+"I'm knocked," he said in a muffled voice, and so remained for a
+space--wonderful--veiled.
+
+He made a gallant effort to wipe his tears away. "I had to tell you,"
+he said, gulping.
+
+"Be all right in a minute," he added, "calm," and sat still....
+
+Kipps stared in commiseration of such success. Then he heard footsteps
+and went quickly to the house doorway. "Jest a minute," he said. "Don't
+go in the shop, Ann, for a minute. It's Chitterlow. He's a bit essited.
+But he'll be better in a minute. It's knocked him over a bit. You
+see"--his voice sank to a hushed note as one who announces death--"'e's
+made a success with his play."
+
+He pushed her back lest she should see the scandal of another male's
+tears....
+
+Soon Chitterlow felt better, but for a little while his manner was even
+alarmingly subdued. "I _had_ to come and tell you," he said. "I _had_ to
+astonish someone. Muriel--she'll be firstrate, of course. But she's over
+at Dymchurch." He blew his nose with enormous noise, and emerged
+instantly a merely garrulous optimist.
+
+"I expect she'll be precious glad."
+
+"She doesn't know yet, my dear boy. She's at Dymchurch--with a friend.
+She's seen some of my first nights before.... Better out of it.... I'm
+going to her now. I've been up all night--talking to the boys and all
+that. I'm a bit off it just for a bit. But--it Knocked 'em. It Knocked
+everybody."
+
+He stared at the floor and went on in a monotone. "They laughed a bit at
+the beginning--but nothing like a settled laugh--not until the second
+act--you know--the chap with the beetle down his neck. Little Chisholme
+did that bit to rights. Then they began--_to_ rights." His voice warmed
+and increased. "Laughing! It made _me_ laugh! We jumped 'em into the
+third act before they had time to cool. Everybody was on it. I never saw
+a first night go so fast. Laugh, laugh, laugh, LAUGH, LAUGH, LAUGH" (he
+howled the last word with stupendous violence). Everything they laughed
+at. They laughed at things that we hadn't meant to be funny--not for one
+moment. Bif! Bizz! Curtain. A Fair Knock-Out!... I went on--but I didn't
+say a word. Chisholme did the patter. Shouting! It was like walking
+under Niagara--going across that stage. It was like never having seen an
+audience before....
+
+"Then afterwards--the Boys!"
+
+His emotion held him for a space. "Dear old Boys!" he murmured.
+
+His words multiplied, his importance increased. In a little while he was
+restored to something of his old self. He was enormously excited. He
+seemed unable to sit down anywhere. He came into the breakfast-room so
+soon as Kipps was sure of him, shook hands with Mrs. Kipps
+parenthetically, sat down and immediately got up again. He went to the
+bassinette in the corner and looked absentmindedly at Kipps, junior, and
+said he was glad if only for the youngster's sake. He immediately
+resumed the thread of his discourse.... He drank a cup of coffee
+noisily and walked up and down the room talking, while they attempted
+breakfast amidst the gale of his excitement. The infant slept
+marvellously through it all.
+
+"You won't mind my sitting down, Mrs. Kipps. I couldn't sit down for
+anyone, or I'd do it for you. It's you I'm thinking of more than anyone,
+you and Muriel, and all Old Pals and Good Friends. It means wealth, it
+means money--hundreds and thousands.... If you'd heard 'em, _you'd
+know_."
+
+He was silent through a portentous moment while topics battled for him
+and finally he burst and talked of them all together. It was like the
+rush of water when a dam bursts and washes out a fair-sized provincial
+town; all sorts of things floated along on the swirl. For example, he
+was discussing his future behaviour. "I'm glad it's come now. Not
+before. I've had my lesson. I shall be very discreet now, trust me.
+We've learnt the value of money." He discussed the possibility of a
+country house, of taking a Martello tower as a swimming-box (as one
+might say a shooting-box) of living in Venice because of its artistic
+associations and scenic possibilities, of a flat in Westminster or a
+house in the West End. He also raised the question of giving up smoking
+and drinking, and what classes of drink were especially noxious to a man
+of his constitution. But discourses on all this did not prevent a
+parenthetical computation of the probable profits on the supposition of
+a thousand nights here and in America, nor did it ignore the share
+Kipps was to have, nor the gladness with which Chitterlow would pay that
+share, nor the surprise and regret with which he had learnt, through an
+indirect source which awakened many associations, of the turpitude of
+young Walshingham, nor the distaste Chitterlow had always felt for young
+Walshingham and men of his type. An excursus upon Napoleon had got into
+the torrent somehow and kept bobbing up and down. The whole thing was
+thrown into the form of a single complex sentence, with parenthetical
+and subordinate clauses fitting one into the other like Chinese boxes,
+and from first to last it never even had an air of approaching anything
+in the remotest degree partaking of the nature of a full stop.
+
+Into this deluge came the _Daily News_, like the gleam of light in
+Watts' picture, the waters were assuaged while its sheet was opened, and
+it had a column, a whole column, of praise. Chitterlow held the paper
+and Kipps read over his left hand, and Ann under his right. It made the
+affair more real to Kipps; it seemed even to confirm Chitterlow against
+lurking doubts he had been concealing. But it took him away. He departed
+in a whirl, to secure a copy of every morning paper, every blessed rag
+there is, and take them all to Dymchurch and Muriel forthwith. It had
+been the send-off the Boys had given him that had prevented his doing as
+much at Charing Cross--let alone that he only caught it by the skin of
+his teeth.... Besides which the bookstall wasn't open. His white face,
+lit by a vast excitement, bid them a tremendous farewell, and he
+departed through the sunlight, with his buoyant walk, buoyant almost to
+the tottering pitch. His hair, as one got it sunlit in the street,
+seemed to have grown in the night.
+
+They saw him stop a newsboy.
+
+"Every blessed rag," floated to them on the notes of that gorgeous
+voice.
+
+The newsboy, too, had happened on luck. Something like a faint cheer
+from the newsboy came down the air to terminate that transaction.
+
+Chitterlow went on his way swinging a great budget of papers, a figure
+of merited success. The newsboy recovered from his emotion with a jerk,
+examined something in his hand again, transferred it to his pocket,
+watched Chitterlow for a space, and then in a sort of hushed silence
+resumed his daily routine....
+
+Ann and Kipps watched that receding happiness in silence, until he
+vanished round the bend of the road.
+
+"I _am_ glad," said Ann at last, speaking with a little sigh.
+
+"So'm I," said Kipps, with emphasis. "For if ever a feller 'as worked
+and waited--it's 'im."...
+
+They went back through the shop rather thoughtfully, and after a peep at
+the sleeping baby, resumed their interrupted breakfast. "If ever a
+feller 'as worked and waited, it's 'im," said Kipps, cutting bread.
+
+"Very likely it's true," said Ann, a little wistfully.
+
+"What's true?"
+
+"About all that money coming."
+
+Kipps meditated. "I don't see why it shouldn't be," he decided, and
+handed Ann a piece of bread on the tip of his knife.
+
+"But we'll keep on the shop," he said after an interval for further
+reflection, "all the same.... I 'aven't much trust in money after the
+things we've seen."
+
+
+Sec.7
+
+That was two years ago, and as the whole world knows, the "Pestered
+Butterfly" is running still. It _was_ true. It has made the fortune of a
+once declining little theatre in the Strand, night after night the great
+beetle scene draws happy tears from a house packed to repletion, and
+Kipps--for all that Chitterlow is not what one might call a business
+man--is almost as rich as he was in the beginning. People in Australia,
+people in Lancashire, Scotland, Ireland, in New Orleans, in Jamaica, in
+New York and Montreal, have crowded through doorways to Kipps'
+enrichment, lured by the hitherto unsuspected humours of the
+entomological drama. Wealth rises like an exhalation all over our little
+planet, and condenses, or at least some of it does, in the pockets of
+Kipps.
+
+"It's rum," said Kipps.
+
+He sat in the little kitchen out behind the bookshop and philosophised
+and smiled, while Ann gave Arthur Waddy Kipps his evening tub before
+the fire. Kipps was always present at this ceremony unless customers
+prevented; there was something in the mixture of the odours of tobacco,
+soap and domesticity that charmed him unspeakably.
+
+"Chuckerdee, o' man," he said, affably, wagging his pipe at his son, and
+thought incidentally, after the manner of all parents, that very few
+children could have so straight and clean a body.
+
+"Dadda's got a cheque," said Arthur Waddy Kipps, emerging for a moment
+from the towel.
+
+"'E gets 'old of everything," said Ann. "You can't say a word----"
+
+"Dadda got a cheque," this marvellous child repeated.
+
+"Yes, o' man, I got a cheque. And it's got to go into a bank for you,
+against when you got to go to school. See? So's you'll grow up knowing
+your way about a bit."
+
+"Dadda's got a cheque," said the wonder son, and then gave his mind to
+making mighty splashes with his foot. Every time he splashed, laughter
+overcame him, and he had to be held up for fear he should tumble out of
+the tub in his merriment. Finally he was towelled to his toe-tips,
+wrapped up in warm flannel, and kissed, and carried off to bed by Ann's
+cousin and lady help, Emma. And then after Ann had carried away the bath
+into the scullery, she returned to find her husband with his pipe
+extinct and the cheque still in his hand.
+
+"Two fousand pounds," he said. "It's dashed rum. Wot 'ave _I_ done to
+get two fousand pounds, Ann?"
+
+"What 'aven't you--not to?" said Ann.
+
+He reflected upon this view of the case.
+
+"I shan't never give up this shop," he said at last.
+
+"We're very 'appy 'ere," said Ann.
+
+"Not if I 'ad _fifty_ fousand pounds."
+
+"No fear," said Ann.
+
+"You got a shop," said Kipps, "and you come along in a year's time and
+there it is. But money--look 'ow it come and goes! There's no sense in
+money. You may kill yourself trying to get it, and then it comes when
+you aren't looking. There's my 'riginal money! Where is it now? Gone!
+And it's took young Walshingham with it, and 'e's gone, too. It's like
+playing skittles. 'Long comes the ball, right and left you fly, and
+there it is rolling away and not changed a bit. No sense in it! 'E's
+gone, and she's gone--gone off with that chap Revel, that sat with me at
+dinner. Merried man! And Chit'low rich! Lor'!--what a fine place that
+Gerrik Club is, to be sure, where I 'ad lunch wiv' 'im! Better'n _any_
+'otel. Footmen in powder they got--not waiters, Ann--footmen! 'E's rich
+and me rich--in a sort of way.... Don't seem much sense in it, Ann,
+'owever you look at it." He shook his head.
+
+"I know one thing," said Kipps.
+
+"What?"
+
+"I'm going to put it in jest as many different banks as I can. See?
+Fifty 'ere, fifty there. 'Posit. I'm not going to 'nvest it--no fear."
+
+"It's only frowing money away," said Ann.
+
+"I'm 'arf a mind to bury some of it under the shop. Only I expect one
+'ud always be coming down at nights to make sure it was there.... I
+don't seem to trust anyone--not with money." He put the cheque on the
+table corner and smiled and tapped his pipe on the grate with his eyes
+on that wonderful document. "S'pose old Bean started orf," he
+reflected.... "One thing, 'e _is_ a bit lame."
+
+"'E wouldn't," said Ann; "not 'im."
+
+"I was only joking like." He stood up, put his pipe among the
+candlesticks on the mantel, took up the cheque and began folding it
+carefully to put it back in his pocket-book.
+
+A little bell jangled.
+
+"Shop!" said Kipps. "That's right. Keep a shop and the shop'll keep you.
+That's 'ow I look at it, Ann."
+
+He drove his pocket-book securely into his breast pocket before he
+opened the living-room door....
+
+But whether indeed it is the bookshop that keeps Kipps or whether it is
+Kipps who keeps the bookshop is just one of those commercial mysteries
+people of my unarithmetical temperament are never able to solve. They do
+very well, the dears, anyhow, thank Heaven!
+
+The bookshop of Kipps is on the left-hand side of the Hythe High Street
+coming from Folkestone, between the yard of the livery stable and the
+shop-window full of old silver and such like things--it is quite easy to
+find--and there you may see him for yourself and speak to him and buy
+this book of him if you like. He has it in stock, I know. Very
+delicately I've seen to that. His name is not Kipps, of course, you must
+understand that, but everything else is exactly as I have told you. You
+can talk to him about books, about politics, about going to Boulogne,
+about life, and the ups and downs of life. Perhaps he will quote you
+Buggins--from whom, by the bye, one can now buy everything a gentleman's
+wardrobe should contain at the little shop in Rendezvous Street,
+Folkestone. If you are fortunate to find Kipps in a good mood he may
+even let you know how he inherited a fortune "once." "Run froo it,"
+he'll say with a not unhappy smile. "Got another
+afterwards--speckylating in plays. Needn't keep this shop if I didn't
+like. But it's something to do."...
+
+Or he may be even more intimate. "I seen some things," he said to me
+once. "Raver! Life! Why! once I--I _'loped_! I did--reely!"
+
+(Of course you will not tell Kipps that he _is_ "Kipps," or that I have
+put him in this book. He does not know. And you know, one never knows
+how people are going to take that sort of thing. I am an old and trusted
+customer now, and for many amiable reasons I should prefer that things
+remained exactly on their present footing.)
+
+
+Sec.8
+
+One early-closing evening in July they left the baby to the servant
+cousin, and Kipps took Ann for a row on the Hythe canal. It was a
+glorious evening, and the sun set in a mighty blaze and left a world
+warm, and very still. The twilight came. And there was the water,
+shining bright, and the sky a deepening blue, and the great trees that
+dipped their boughs towards the water, exactly as it had been when he
+paddled home with Helen, when her eyes had seemed to him like dusky
+stars. He had ceased from rowing and rested on his oars, and suddenly he
+was touched by the wonder of life, the strangeness that is a presence
+stood again by his side.
+
+Out of the darknesses beneath the shallow, weedy stream of his being
+rose a question, a question that looked up dimly and never reached the
+surface. It was the question of the wonder of the beauty, the
+purposeless, inconsecutive beauty, that falls so strangely among the
+happenings and memories of life. It never reached the surface of his
+mind, it never took to itself substance or form, it looked up merely as
+the phantom of a face might look, out of deep waters, and sank again to
+nothingness.
+
+"Artie," said Ann.
+
+He woke up and pulled a stroke. "What?" he said.
+
+"Penny for your thoughts, Artie."
+
+He considered.
+
+"I reely don't think I was thinking of anything," he said at last with a
+smile. "No."
+
+He still rested on his oars.
+
+"I expect," he said, "I was thinking jest what a Rum Go everything is. I
+expect it was something like that."
+
+"Queer old Artie!"
+
+"Ain't I? I don't suppose there ever was a chap quite like me before."
+
+He reflected for just another minute. "Oo! I dunno," he said, and roused
+himself to pull.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENTS
+
+
+By H. G. WELLS
+
+"Imagination--that is his master quality."--WILLIAM ARCHER.
+
+The Food of the Gods,
+
+and How it Came to Earth
+
+12mo. $1.50
+
+
+"A remarkably diverting fantasy, to the spell of which it is as easy as
+it is pleasant to yield."--New York _Tribune_.
+
+"A strikingly good imaginative novel."--Philadelphia _Press_.
+
+"This is a book well worth reading for those who like something that
+stimulates mentally as well as entertains."--Chicago _Inter-Ocean_.
+
+"Mr. Wells never fails to see the romantic as well as mechanical
+implications of his imaginary changes in the fate of the world, and this
+is one of his most suggestive and satisfactory
+stories."--_Congregationalist._
+
+"It is apparent from 'The Food of the Gods' that Mr. Wells's powers of
+invention show no sign of relaxation.... Best of all, however, it is an
+entertaining story and a far-seeing outlook toward the scientific
+possibilities of the future."--Boston _Transcript_.
+
+"'The Food of the Gods,' like Mr. Wells's other books, proves that the
+inventor of the romance of science is always able to respond to any call
+made upon it, however complex. In the interest of its central idea, no
+less than in the careful working out of every part of the subject, 'The
+Food of the Gods' proves itself a notable and popular addition to the
+author's many successful novels."--Philadelphia _Public Ledger_.
+
+
+Charles Scribner's Sons, New York
+
+
+By H. G. WELLS
+
+Twelve Stories and a Dream
+
+12mo. $1.50
+
+
+THE STORIES
+
+FILMER
+THE MAGIC SHOP
+THE VALLEY OF SPIDERS
+THE TRUTH ABOUT PYECRAFT
+MR. LEDBETTER'S VACATION
+MR. SKELMERSDALE IN FAIRYLAND
+THE INEXPERIENCED GHOST
+JIMMY GOGGLES THE GOD
+THE NEW ACCELERATOR
+THE STOLEN BODY
+MR. BRISHER'S TREASURE
+MISS WINCHELSEA'S HEART
+A DREAM OF ARMAGEDDON
+
+"It is distinctly into another world of fancy and humor that the reader
+steps when he turns the title-page of 'TWELVE STORIES AND A DREAM' and
+finds himself held by the spell of Mr. Wells's wonderful imagination....
+Each tale shows Mr. Wells in a mood that is wholly his own, and they
+each give expression to a diverse fancy that displays exceptional
+literary skill and ingenuity."--Boston _Transcript_.
+
+"Mr. Wells's technique is admirable, and one scarcely recalls a
+better-handled absurdity than 'The Truth About Pyecraft.'"--_Life._
+
+"All are written with an effectiveness and skill that are beyond
+criticism."--New York _Times Review_.
+
+"Each of these stories is unique and thoroughly enjoyable."--Boston
+_Herald_.
+
+
+Charles Scribner's Sons, New York
+
+
+By H. G. WELLS
+
+"A book which everyone should read."--London _Daily Telegraph_.
+
+Mankind in the Making
+
+12mo. $1.50 Net (postage, 13 cents)
+
+
+"The development of this interesting theory in detail must be left to
+the reader, who may anticipate a lively succession of sensations, some
+assenting and some dissenting, as he reads how mankind is to be made
+over.... Mr. Wells carries his readers with him and does not allow the
+least flagging of interest."--_Outlook._
+
+"He shows a wide knowledge of facts and an admirable temper from first
+to last ... his book is exceedingly interesting and
+stimulating."--Baltimore _Sun_.
+
+"Mr. Wells's discussions of vital themes are suggestive, original, and
+plain spoken, and seamed with a racy vigor of style."--Boston _Herald_.
+
+"The first tribute this book draws from us is one of sincere respect....
+Mr. Wells's duty as a thinker and a writer lay in the producing of this
+brilliant revolutionary book."--London _Daily News_.
+
+"He has an acute eye for prevailing weaknesses and absurdities ... an
+admirable knack of showing the absurd side of cant and pedantry."--New
+York Evening _Sun_.
+
+"Contains a good deal of plain truth and many suggestions worthy of
+consideration."--Boston _Transcript_.
+
+
+Charles Scribner's Sons, New York
+
+
+By H. G. WELLS
+
+"Mr. Wells's masterpiece."--_Review of Reviews._
+
+A Modern Utopia
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY E. J. SULLIVAN
+
+12mo. $1.50 net. Postage, 12 cents
+
+
+"This, the last of Mr. Wells's speculations regarding the future of the
+human race, will take its place at the head of the long list of works of
+its class, beginning with Plato's 'Republic.'"--_Evening Mail._
+
+"There has been no work of this importance published in the last thirty
+years, and it is possible and permissible to hope that some ideas
+sketched in it will fructify in the future."--London _Athenaeum_.
+
+"Quite the most fascinating, and also most rich in suggestion, will be
+found this latest of Mr. Wells's anticipatory writings."--New York
+_Globe_.
+
+"Mr. Wells's 'UTOPIA' is far the most interesting, imaginative, and
+possible of all the Utopias written since the inventions and discoveries
+of science began to color our conceptions of the future."--The London
+_Times Literary Supplement_.
+
+"Mr. Wells has the gift of making his philosophical, or rather
+sociological, speculations of absorbing interest to the general reader.
+His literary imagination, which was born in him, works on the positive,
+scientific education to which his mind was subjected at its most
+receptive period, and the rare combination gives to his writings a
+peculiar distinction."--_The Academy._
+
+
+Charles Scribner's Sons, New York
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Kipps, by H. G. Wells
+
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