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diff --git a/77648-0.txt b/77648-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2cff453 --- /dev/null +++ b/77648-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2983 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77648 *** + + + + + THE FRIENDS + + [Illustration: Of this atmosphere White and Mapleson were part and + parcel] + + + + + THE FRIENDS + AND OTHER STORIES + + BY + STACY AUMONIER + + Author of “Olga Bardel,” etc. + + “_As a general rule, people, even + the wicked, are much more naïve + and simple-hearted than we suppose. + And we ourselves are, too._” + + DOSTOEVSKY. + + [Illustration: colophon] + + + NEW YORK + THE CENTURY CO. + 1917 + + + + + Copyright, 1915, 1917, by + THE CENTURY CO. + + _Published August, 1917_ + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE +THE FRIENDS 3 + +THE PACKET 69 + +“IN THE WAY OF BUSINESS” 121 + + + + +THE FRIENDS + +AND OTHER STORIES + + + + +THE FRIENDS + + +White and Mapleson often tried to recall the occasion when their +friendship began, but neither succeeded. Perhaps it had its origin in +some moment when the memory was to some extent blurred. Certain it is +that they drifted together across the miasma of commercial London and +founded a deep and lasting friendship that found its chief expression in +the clinking of glasses in the saloon and luncheon bars of various +hostelries off Oxford Street and Bloomsbury. + +White acted as an agent for a firm of wire-mattress manufacturers in Old +Street in the city, and as his business was conducted principally among +the furnishing and upholstering businesses in the West End, and as +Mapleson was the manager of the brass bed department at Tauntons, the +large Furnishing Emporium in Bloomsbury, it is not surprising that they +came in contact and that they had so many interests in common. There is, +alas, no doubt that the most absorbing interest of both was the +consumption of liquid refreshment, and there is also, alas, no doubt +that the friendship was quickened by the curious coincidence of their +mental vision when stimulated by alcoholic fumes. And it is here that +one or two curious facts relating to the personalities of the two men +should be noted. During the day, it would be no uncommon thing for +either man to consume anything between ten and fifteen whiskies and +sodas, and sometimes even more, yet of neither man could it be said +that he ever got really drunk. On the other hand, of neither man could +it be said that he was ever really sober. White was of medium height, +rather pale, and slight. He had a dark mustache and was always neatly +dressed in a dark blue suit with well-fitting boots and gloves. He was +extremely quiet and courteous in manner, and his manner varied but +little. The effect of alcohol upon him was only to accentuate his +courtesy and politeness. Toward the evening his lips would tremble a +little, but he would become more and more ingratiating. His voice would +descend to a refined gentle croon, his eyes would just glow with a +sympathetic light, and he would listen with his head slightly on one +side and an expression that conveyed the idea that the remarks of the +speaker were a matter of great moment to him. Not that he did not speak +himself; on the contrary, he spoke well, but always with a deferential +_timbre_ as though attuning himself to the mood and mental attitude of +his companion. + +On the other hand, Mapleson always started the day badly. He was a +large, florid man with a puffy face and strangely colorless eyes. He +wore a ponderous frock coat that was just a little out of date, with a +waistcoat that hung in folds, and the folds never seemed free from +sandwich crumbs and tobacco ash. He had an unfortunate habit with his +clothes of never being quite complete. That is to say, if he had on a +new top hat his boots were invariably shabby, or if his boots were a +recent acquisition his top hat would seem all brushed the wrong way. As +I say, he always started the day badly. He would be very late and +peevish and would fuss about with pills and cloves. He would complain of +not being quite “thumbs up.” Eleven fifteen would invariably find him +round at “The Monitor,” leaning against the mahogany bar and asking +Mrs. Wylde to mix him “a whisky and peppermint” or some other decoction +that between them they considered would be just the thing for his +special complaint that morning. “In the way of business,” he would treat +and be treated by several other pals in “the sticks,” as this +confraternity called the Furnishing Trade. It would be interesting to +know what proportion of Mapleson’s and White’s income was devoted to +this good cause. When Mapleson would arrive home, sometimes late at +night, breathing heavily, and carrying with him the penetrating +atmosphere of the taproom, he would say in response to the complaints of +his tired wife, “I hate the stuff, my dear. You have to do it though. +It’s all in the way of business.” + +A sociologist might have discovered (if he were searching for concrete +instances) that White and Mapleson spent on each other every year very +nearly eighty pounds, although the business they did together amounted +to rather less than thirty, an unsound premium surely! + +As the day wore on Mapleson would improve. And it was one of the assets +of the White-Mapleson friendship that they usually did not meet till +lunch-time. Then the two friends would clink glasses and stroll +arm-in-arm into Polati’s in Oxford Street, for, as Mapleson would say, +“When a man works hard he needs feeding,” and White would agree with him +deferentially, and then they would secure a seat not too near the band, +and, after thoroughly considering the menu, they would order a “mixed +grill” as being “something English and that you can get your teeth +into.” During the interval of waiting for the mixed grill, which took +fifteen minutes to prepare, Mapleson would insist on standing White a +gin and bitters, and of course it was only right and courteous of White +to return the compliment. The mixed grill would be washed down with a +tankard of ale or more often with whisky and soda, after which the +friends would sometimes share a Welsh rarebit or a savory; and it was +Mapleson who introduced the plan of finishing the meal with a coffee and +liqueur--“It stimulates one’s mind for the afternoon’s business,” he +would explain--and White flattered him on his good sense and insisted on +standing an extra liqueur, “Just to give value to one’s cigar.” Under +the influence of these good things Mapleson would become garrulous, and +White even more soothing and sympathetic. This luncheon interval +invariably lasted two hours or two hours and a half. They would then +part, each to his own business, while making an appointment to meet +later in the afternoon at “The Duke of Gadsburg.” + +And here a notable fact must be recorded. For an hour or two in the +afternoon each man _did_ do some work. And it is a remarkable point that +“Tauntons,” the great house in Bloomsbury, always considered Mapleson a +good salesman, as so indeed he was. The vast lapses of time that he +spent away from business were explained away on the score of active +canvassing. His turnover for the year compared favorably with that of +the other managers at “Tauntons.” While of White, strange rumors of the +enormous fortune that he was accumulating were always current. The +natural reserve of the wire-mattress agent, and his remarkable lucidity +on matters of finance, added to the fact that he took in and studied +“The Statist,” gave him a unique position in the upholstering world. Men +would whisper together over their glasses and say, “Ah, old White! he +knows a thing or two!” and grave speculations would go on as to whether +his income ran into four figures, and in what speculations he invested +his money. Considerable profundity was given to these rumors by the fact +that White always _had_ money and that he was always willing to lend it. +He carried a sovereign purse that seemed inexhaustible. + +Mapleson, on the other hand, though natively lavish, had periods of +“financial depression.” At these periods he would drink more and become +maudlin and mawkish, and it was invariably White who helped him out of +his troubles. The two friends would meet later in the afternoon “to take +a cup of tea,” and it often happened that Mapleson felt that tea would +not be just the thing for his nervous constitution, so White would +prescribe a whisky and soda, and they would adjourn to a place where +such things may be procured. It is remarkable how quickly the time +passed under these conditions, but just before six Mapleson would “run +back to the shop to see if any orders had come in.” With studious +consideration, White would wait for him. It was generally half-past six +or seven before Mapleson returned, thoroughly exhausted with his day’s +work. + +It was then that the suavity and charm of White’s manner was most +ingratiating. He would insist on Mapleson having a comfortable seat by +the fire in the saloon, and himself carrying across the drinks from the +bar. + +Mapleson soon became comforted and would suggest “a game of pills before +going home.” Nothing appealed to White more than this. For White was a +very remarkable billiard player. Young Charlie Maybird, who is a +furniture draughtsman and an expert on sport, used to say that “White +could give any pub. marker in London 40 in a 100 and beat him off the +mark.” He had a curious, feline way of following the balls round the +table; he seemed almost to purr over them, to nurse them and stroke +them, and make them perform most astounding twists and turns. And each +time he succeeded he would give a little sort of self-depreciatory +croon, as much as to say, “I’m so sorry. I really don’t know how the +balls happen to do all this.” And yet it is remarkable how often White +lost, especially against Mapleson. + +Mapleson was one of those players who gave one the impression of being +an expert on an off day. As a matter of fact, he never had an “on” day. +He was just a very third-rate player, only he would attempt most +difficult shots and then give vent to expressions of the utmost surprise +and disgust that they didn’t come off. + +The billiards would last till eight o’clock or half past, when a feeling +of physical exhaustion would prompt the arrangement that “a chop would +be a good idea.” They would then adjourn once more to the dining-room at +“The Monitor” and regale themselves with chops, cheese, and ale, by +which time Mapleson would arrive at the conclusion that it wasn’t worth +going home, so an adjournment would be made once more to the bar and the +business of the evening would commence. + +It might be worth while to recall one or two features of “The Monitor” +bar, which was invariably crowded by salesmen and assistants from +“Tauntons” and was looked upon as a sort of headquarters of the +upholstering trade at that time. It was a large room, fitted in the +usual way with glittering mahogany and small glass mirrors. Two long +seats upholstered in green leather were set around a cheerful fireplace +of blue tiles. There were also four small circular tables with marble +tops, and on either side of the fireplace two enormous bright blue +Doulton ware pots of hideous design containing palms. On the side facing +the bar was a florid staircase with a brass handrail leading up to the +dining-and billiard-rooms. + +The only difference that a stranger might have felt between this and any +other place of a similar description at that time lay perhaps in its +mental atmosphere. There was always a curious feeling of freemasonry. In +addition to Mrs. Wylde there were two other barmaids, Nancie and Olive, +who was also sometimes called “The Titmouse.” They were both tall, +rather thin girls, with a wealth of wonderful flaxen hair. They seemed +to spend a considerable amount of time (when not engaged in serving) in +brewing themselves cocoa and hot milk. Olive was a teetotaler and +confessed frankly with regard to alcohol that she “hated the muck,” but +Nancie would occasionally drink stout. + +To be served by Mrs. Wylde was a treat that only occasionally occurred +to the more favored devotees of “The Monitor.” She was a woman of +enormous proportions with a white-powdered face, and also a wealth of +flaxen hair. She invariably wore a rather shabby black dress trimmed +with lace, and a huge bunch of fresh flowers, usually lilies and +carnations. + +Now everybody who came into the bar of “The Monitor” seemed not only to +know Nancie and Olive and Mrs. Wylde by name, but everybody else by +their name or nickname. For instance, this sort of thing would happen. A +pale, thin, young man with pointed boots and a sort of semi-sporting +suit would creep furtively in and go up to the bar and lean across and +shake hands with Nancie and after a normal greeting would say, “Has the +Captain been in?” and Nancie would reply, “Yes, he was in with the +Rabbit about four o’clock,” and the young man would say, “Oh! didn’t he +leave nothing for me?” and Nancie would say, “No. I wouldn’t be +surprised if he came in later. ’Ere! I tell you what,” and she would +draw the young man to a corner of the bar and there would be a whispered +conversation for a few moments, and then the young man would go out. + +All of which would seem very mysterious to a casual visitor. + +Of this atmosphere White and Mapleson were part and parcel. They had +their own particular little round table near the fire, where, in spite +of Mapleson’s daily avowal to get home, one could rely on finding them +nearly every evening. And they gathered around them quite a small colony +of kindred spirits. Here they would sit very often till nearly twelve +o’clock when “The Monitor” shut, talking and drinking whisky. As the +evening advanced Mapleson expanded. One of his favorite themes was +Conscription. On this subject he and White were absolutely in accord. +“Every man ought to be made to serve his country,” Mapleson would say, +bringing his fist down with a bang on the marble table. “He ought to be +made to realize his civil responsibilities and what he owes to the +Empire! Every man under thirty-five should serve three years” (Mapleson +was forty-four). “It seems to me we’re becoming a nation of knock-kneed, +sentimental women.” + +And White would dilate upon what the Germans were doing and would give +precise facts and figures of the strength of the German army, and the +cost and probabilities of landing two army corps on the coast of +Suffolk. + +Another favorite theme was the action of “these silly women!” and +Mapleson would set the bar in roars of laughter with a description of +what _he_ would do if _he_ were Home Secretary. + +Mapleson was very fond of talking about “his principles.” In +conversation it seemed that his actions must be hedged in by these +iron-bound conventions. In effect they were practically as follows. + +Business comes first, always. + +Never fail to keep a business appointment. + +Never mix port and whisky. + +Never give anything to a stranger that you might give to a pal. + +He had other rules of life, but they were concerned exclusively with +rules of diet and drinking and need not concern us here. + +Thoroughly exhausted with the day’s business, Mapleson would leave the +imperturbable White just before twelve o’clock, and not infrequently +would find it necessary to take a cab to Baker Street to catch his last +train to Willesden Green where he lived, and where he would arrive at +night, having spent during the day a sum varying between twenty and +thirty shillings, which was precisely the amount he allowed his wife +every week to keep house for a family of five, and to include food, +clothing, and washing. + +White lived at Acton, and no one ever quite knew how he arrived there or +by what means. But he never failed to report himself at nine o’clock the +next morning at Old Street with all his notes, orders, and instructions +neatly written out. It was remarkable how long “The Monitor” remained +the headquarters of this fraternity, for, as one of them remarked, “the +licensing business is very sensitive”; in the same way that a flock of +crows will simultaneously and without any apparent reason fly from one +hill to another, it will be a sort of fashion for a group of men to +patronize a certain establishment and then suddenly to segregate +elsewhere. It is true that there were one or two attempts at +defection--Charlie Maybird once made an effort to establish a +headquarters as far away as “The Trocadero” even, but the birds soon +returned to the comforting hostelry of Mrs. Wylde. + +And then one summer Mapleson was very ill. He got wet through walking to +Baker Street one evening when, after having started, he found he had +only three coppers on him. He traveled home in his wet clothes and next +day developed a bad chill which turned into pneumonia. For days he lay +in a critical state, but thanks to the attention of Mrs. Mapleson, who +did not go to bed for three nights, and a careful doctor, he got over +the crisis. But the doctor forbade him to go back to business for a +fortnight and suggested that, if it were possible to arrange it, a few +days at the seaside might set him up. White called several times, and +was most anxious and solicitous, and assured Mrs. Mapleson that he would +do anything in his power to help his friend, and sent a large basket of +expensive fruits and some bottles of very old port wine. + +Mapleson’s illness, however, was of more troublesome a nature than +appeared at first. After a rather serious relapse, the doctor said that +his heart was not quite what it should be, and it was nearly a month +before the question of moving him could be considered. Tauntons treated +Mapleson very well over this, and his salary was paid every week, only +of course he lost his commissions, which in the ordinary way represented +the bulk of his income, and it became necessary for Mrs. Mapleson to +economize with the utmost skill, especially as the invalid required +plenty of good and well-cooked food on regaining his strength. The rest +of the family had therefore to go on shorter commons than usual, and +matters were not helped by the fact of one of the children developing +glands and being in an enfeebled condition. White called one evening and +was drinking a glass of the old port with the invalid, and they were +discussing how it could be arranged for Mapleson to get a week at +Brighton. “I think I could travel now,” said Mapleson, “only I don’t see +how the Missus is going to leave Flora.” + +It was then that White had an inspiration. If it would help matters in +the Mapleson family, he would be pleased to take a week off and go to +Brighton with Mapleson. Mapleson hailed this idea with delight, and Mrs. +Mapleson was informed on entering the room a little later, “You need not +bother about it any more, my dear; White has been good enough to offer +to go to Brighton with me.” Mrs. Mapleson was a woman who said very +little, and it was difficult on this occasion to know what she thought. +In fact her taciturnity at times irritated Mapleson beyond endurance. +She merely paused, drew in her thin, pale lips, and murmured, “All +right, dear,” and then busied herself with preparing Mapleson’s evening +broth. + +The friends were very lucky with the weather. Fresh breezes off the +Channel tempered the fierce August sun and made the conditions on the +front delightful. It might be hinted that perhaps the weather might have +been otherwise for the interest that they took in it. + +For after the first day or so, finding his vitality returning to him, +Mapleson soon persuaded his companion that the choicest spot in Brighton +was the saloon bar of “The Old Ship.” And he could not show his +gratitude sufficiently. White was given _carte blanche_ to order +anything he liked. But White would not listen to such generosity. He +knew that the expenses that Mapleson had had to endure must be telling +on him, so he insisted on paying at least twice out of three times. +Mapleson acknowledged that it was “a hell of a worry and responsibility +having a family to keep. They simply eat up the money, my dear chap.” + +The week passed quickly enough and soon both were back at their +occupations in town. The friendship pursued the even tenor of its way, +and it was fifteen months before any incident came to disturb it.... + +Then one day in October something happened to White. He fell down in the +street and was taken to a hospital. It was rumored that he was dead. +Consternation prevailed in the upholstering confraternity, and Mapleson +made anxious enquiries at the hospital bureau. + +It was difficult to gather precise details, but it was announced that +White was very ill and that a very serious operation would have to be +performed. Mapleson returned to the bar of “The Monitor,” harboring a +nameless dread. A strange feeling of physical sickness crept over him. +He sat in the corner of the bar sipping his whisky, enveloped in a +lugubrious gloom. He heard the young sparks enter and laugh and joke +about White. It was a subject of constant and cynical mirth. “Hullo,” +they would say; “heard about old White? He’s done in at last!” and then +there would be whisperings and chucklings, and he would hear, “Drunk +himself to death,” “Doesn’t stand a dog’s chance, my dear chap; my uncle +had the same thing. Why, he’s been at it now for about twenty-five +years--can’t think how he’s lasted so long!” And then they would come +grinning up to Mapleson, hoping for more precise details. “Sorry to +hear about your friend, Mr. Mapleson; how did it happen?...” + +Mapleson could not stand it. He pushed back his half-filled glass and +stumbled out of the bar. He was not conscious of an affection for White, +or any sentiment other than a vast fear and a strange absorbing +depression. He crept into the saloon of a small house off the Charing +Cross Road, where no one would be likely to know him, and sat silently +sipping from his glass. It seemed to have no effect upon him. The vision +of White lying there--like Death--and perhaps even now the doctors were +busy with their little steel knives.... + +Mapleson shivered. He ordered more whisky and drank it neat. He stumbled +on into other bars all the way to Trafalgar Square, drinking and +wrestling with his fear. The spirits ultimately took their effect and +he sat somewhere, in some dark corner, he could never remember where, +with his mind in a state of trance. He remembered being turned out. It +must have been twelve o’clock--and engaging a cab--he could just +remember his address--and ordering the man to drive home. In the cab he +went sound asleep, hopelessly drunk, the first time for many years. He +knew nothing more till the next day. Some one must have come down to +help carry him in--he was no light weight--perhaps the cabman had to be +bribed, too. He woke up about one o’clock feeling very ill and scared. +He jumped up and called out, “What the devil’s the time? What are we all +doing? Why haven’t I been called?” + +Mrs. Mapleson came in--she put her hand on his forehead and said, “It’s +all right. I sent a telegram to say you were ill. You had better stop +here. I’ll get you some tea.” Mapleson fell back on the pillows, and +the sickening recollection of last night came back to him. + +Later in the evening Mrs. Mapleson came in again and said, “I hear that +Mr. White has had his operation and is going on as well as could be +expected.” Beads of perspiration streamed down Mapleson’s face and he +murmured, “My God! my God!” That was all that was said, and the next day +Mapleson went back to work. + +The officials at the hospital seemed curiously reticent about White. The +only information to be gleaned for some days was that he was alive. +Mapleson went about his work with nerveless indifference. He drank, but +his drinking was more automatic than spontaneous. He drank from habit, +but he gained neither pleasure nor profit from doing so. + +The nameless fear pursued him. Great bags appeared under his eyes which +were partly blood-shot. He stooped in his walk, and began to make +mistakes in his accounts, and to be abstracted in dealing with +customers. + +He was arraigned before two of the directors of Tauntons, and one of +them finished a harangue by suggesting that “it might be more +conformable to business methods if he would remove the traces of +yesterday’s breakfast from the folds of his waistcoat.” The large man +received these criticisms in apathetic silence. “Poor old Mapleson!” +they said round in the bar of “The Monitor.” “I’ve never seen a chap cut +up so about anything as he is about White,” and then abstract +discussions on friendship would follow and remarkable instances of +friendships formed in business. + +Of course White would die--that was a settled and arranged thing, and +curiously enough little sympathy was expressed, even by those to whom +White had lent money. In spite of his charm of manner and his +generosity, they all felt that there was something about White they +didn’t understand. He was too clever, too secretive. + +On Friday he was slightly better, but on Saturday he had a relapse, and +on Sunday morning when Mapleson called at the hospital he was informed +that White was sinking, and they didn’t expect him to last forty-eight +hours. + +Mapleson had inured himself to this thought; he had made up his mind to +this conclusion from the first, and this last intimation hardly affected +him. He went about like one stunned, without volition, without interest. +He was only conscious of a vast unhappiness and misery, of which White +was in some way a factor. + +For five days the wire mattress agent lay on the verge of death, and +then he began to rally slightly. The house surgeon said it was one of +the most remarkable constitutions he had ever come up against. For +three days there was a distinct improvement, followed by another +relapse. But still White fought on. At the end of another week he was +out of danger. But the convalescence was long and tedious. + +When at the end of six weeks he was well enough to leave the hospital, +the house-surgeon took him on one side and said, “Now, look here, my +friend; we’re going to let you out. And there’s no reason why you +shouldn’t get fairly well again. Only I want you quite to understand +this: If you touch alcohol again in any form--in any case for +years--well, you might as well put a bullet through your own head.” In +another ten days White was back at business, looking exactly the same as +ever, speaking in the same suave voice. He soon appeared in “The +Monitor,” but with the utmost courtesy declined all offers of drinks +except ginger ale. It need hardly be said that to Mapleson such an +event seemed a miracle. He had sunk into a low morbid condition from +which he had never hoped to rise. + +Out of courtesy the first evening Mapleson insisted on drinking ginger +ale himself so that his friend should not feel out of it. + +And they sat and had a long discussion into the night; White giving +luminous and precise details of the whole of his illness and operation, +eulogizing hospital methods and discussing the whole aspect of society +toward therapeutics in a calmly detached way. + +But Mapleson was not happy. He was glad to have White back, but the +element of fear that White had introduced him to was not eliminated. He +felt ill himself, and there somehow seemed a great gap between White in +the old days and White drinking ginger ale and talking medicine! For +three nights Mapleson kept this up and then thought he would have “just +a nightcap.” + +It gradually developed into the position that Mapleson resumed his +whisky and White stuck to his ginger ale. And it is a curious fact that +this arrangement depressed Mapleson more than it did White. He drank +copiously and more frequently to try and create an atmosphere of his +own, but always there was White looking just the same, talking just the +same. + +The ginger ale got on Mapleson’s nerves. He felt that he couldn’t stand +it, and a strange and enervating depression began to creep over him +again. For days this arrangement held good, White seeming utterly +indifferent as to what he drank, and Mapleson getting more and more +depressed because White didn’t drink whisky. At length Mapleson +suggested one evening that “surely just one” wouldn’t hurt White. But +White said with the deepest tone of regret that he was afraid it would +be rather unwise, and, as a matter of fact, he had got so used to doing +without it that he really hardly missed it. + +From that moment a settled gloom and depression took hold of Mapleson. +He just stood there looking at White and listening to him, but hardly +troubling to speak himself. He felt utterly wretched. He got into such a +state that White began to show a sympathetic alarm, and one evening +toward the end of February as they were sitting at their favorite table +in “The Monitor” White said, “Well, I’ll just have a whisky and soda +with you if you like.” + +That was one of the happiest evenings of Mapleson’s life. Directly his +friend began to drink some chord in his own nature responded, his eyes +glowed, he became garrulous and entertaining. + +They had another and then went to the Oxford Music Hall into the +lounge, but there was such a crowd that they could not see the stage so +they went to the bar at the back, and had another drink and a talk. How +they talked that night! They talked about business, and about dogs, and +conscription, and women, and the Empire, and tobacco, and the staff of +Tauntons. They had a wild orgy of talk and drink. That night White drank +eleven whiskies and sodas, and Mapleson got cheerfully and gloriously +drunk. + +It was perhaps as well that the friends enjoyed this bacchanale for it +was the last time they met. By four o’clock the next afternoon White was +dead.... + +Mapleson heard of it the following night. He was leaning against the +fireplace in “The Monitor,” expatiating upon the wonderful improvement +in White and extolling his virtues, when young Howard Aldridge, the +junior salesman to Mr. Vincent Pelt, of Tauntons, came in to say that +White’s brother-in-law had just rung up Mr. Pelt to say that White was +dead. When Mapleson heard this he muttered, “My Christ!” + +These were the last words that Mapleson ever uttered in the bar of “The +Monitor.” + +He picked up his hat and went out into the street. It was the same +feeling of numbed terror and physical sickness that assailed him. With +no plan of action arranged, he surprised his wife by arriving home +before ten o’clock, and by going to bed. He was shivering. She took him +up a hot-water bottle and she said, “I’m sorry to hear about White.” +Mapleson didn’t answer, but his teeth chattered. He lay awake half the +night thinking of Death.... + +The next day he got up and went to business as usual. But for the second +time the head of the firm felt it his duty to point out one or two cases +of negligence to Mapleson and to warn him that “these things must not +happen in the future.” + +Two days later Mapleson received a postcard signed by “F. Peabody” to +say that the funeral of the late G. L. White would take place at such +and such a church at East Acton and would leave the “Elms” Castlereach +Road, Acton, at 12 o’clock, and it was intimated that a seat for Mr. +Mapleson would be found in a carriage. + +A fine driving rain out of a leaden sky greeted Mapleson when he set out +for White’s funeral on the Saturday. His wife tried to persuade him not +to go, for he was really ill. But he made no comment. He fiddled about +with a Cassell’s time-table and could come to no satisfactory decision +about the way to get there. His wife ultimately looked him up a train to +Hammersmith from which terminus he could get a train. Before reaching +Hammersmith a strange revulsion came over him. Why, after all, should +he go to this funeral! White wouldn’t know about it, and what did he +know of White’s relations? A strange choking and giddiness came over +him, and at Hammersmith he found a comfortable refreshment room, where +he partook himself, and decided that after refreshing he would go on to +business. + +After having two whiskies, however, he changed his mind. “No,” he +muttered to himself, “I’ll see it through.” He boarded a tram that went +in the direction of Acton. He found that he had to change trams at one +point. It seemed an interminable journey. He kept wondering how White +managed to get home at night from Oxford Street at 12 o’clock. He felt +cold and wretched. The effect of the whisky wore off. + +At last he reached Acton and asked for Castlereach Road. Nobody seemed +to know it. He was directed first in one direction and then in another; +at last a postman put him on the right track, but suggested that as it +was some way he might get a ’bus to Gaddes Green and then it was only +about fifteen minutes’ walk. + +Mapleson set off, keeping a sharp lookout for a place of refreshment, +for the reactionary spirit was once more upon him. The ’bus put him down +at a forlorn looking corner where there was only a sort of workman’s +alehouse. “I expect I’ll pass one on the way,” he thought, and taking +his directions from the assistant of a greengrocer’s shop he set out +once more through the rain. + +The farther he went the meaner and more sordid did the streets become. +He did not pass a single public house that he felt he could approach. “I +expect the neighborhood will change soon,” he thought. “I expect I’ve +come the wrong way. Why, every one said White must be making at least +eight hundred a year! He wouldn’t live in a place like this.” + +At length he came to a break in the neighborhood where some newly built +villas crowded each other on the heels of the more ancient squalor. An +errand boy told him that “Castlereach Road was the second turning on the +right off Goldsmith’s havenue.” He found Goldsmith’s Avenue where a +barrel organ was vomiting lugubrious music to an audience listening from +the shelter of their windows, and swarms of dirty children were hurrying +through the rain on nameless errands. A slice of bread and jam was +thrown from a second story window to a little boy in the street and +missed Mapleson’s hat by inches. His progress was in any case the source +of considerable mirth to the inhabitants. + +At last he came to Castlereach Road. After the noise and bustle of +Goldsmith’s Avenue it seemed like the end of the world. It was a long +straight road of buff-colored villas with stucco facings and slate +roofs, all identically the same. From the end where Mapleson entered it, +it looked interminably and utterly deserted. Doubtless if it had been a +fine day the gutters would have been crowded with children, but with the +pouring rain there was not a soul in sight. + +Mapleson blundered on in search of number 227, and as he did so a +thought occurred to him that he and White had a common secret apart. He +always had felt in his inmost heart a little ashamed of his red-brick +villa in Willesden Green, and that was one reason why he had always kept +business well apart from domestic affairs, and White had casually +referred to “his place at Acton.” His place at Acton! Mapleson entered +it, horribly tired, horribly sober, horribly wretched. All the blinds +were down. It had taken so long to get there he half hoped that he was +too late. + +A tall, gaunt woman in black with a slight down on her upper lip opened +the door. She seemed surprised to see him. + +He explained who he was. + +She said, “Oh, yes. My! you are early. It’s only half-past twelve!” + +“Half-past twelve!” said Mapleson, “but I thought the funeral was to be +at twelve.” + +Then the gaunt woman called into a little side room, “’Ere, Uncle Frank, +what ’ave you been up to? Did you tell Mr. Maple that the funeral was at +twelve?” + +“Oh, don’t sye that! don’t sye that!” came a voice from the room, and a +small man with sandy hair and wizened features and small, dark, greedy +eyes came out into the hall. “Oh, don’t sye that, Mr. Mapleson; I’m +Peabody. I quite thought I said two o’clock!” + +Mapleson had a wild impulse to whistle for a cab or a fire-engine and to +drive away from this, anywhere. But the utter helplessness of his +position held him fast. Before he had time to give the matter serious +thought he was being shown into the drawing-room, a small stuffy room +with a blue floral wall paper and bamboo furniture, and many framed +photographs, and the gaunt woman was saying, “Oh, Uncle Frank, how could +you have made that mistyke!” And Uncle Frank was explaining how it might +have occurred and at the same time saying that they must make the best +of it, that Mr. Mapleson would have a bit of lunch, “there was a nice +cut of cold leg of mutton and of course no one under circumstances like +this would expect an _elaborate_ meal; in fact no one would _feel_ like +it apart from anything else.” And then the gaunt woman left the room, +and Mapleson was alone with Uncle Frank. + +Mapleson could not recollect ever having met any one whom he so +cordially hated at sight. He had a sort of smug perpetual grin, a habit +of running his hands down his thighs as far as his knees, and giving +vent to a curious clicking noise with his cheeks. “Well, this is a very +sad hoccasion, Mr. Mapleson,” he said; “very sad indeed. Poor George, +did you know him well? Eva, his wife, you know, she’s upstairs quite +prostrate; that was her sister who showed you in. Yes, yes, well, how +true it is that in the Midst of Life we are in Death! I’m afraid poor +George was careless, you know. Very careless! Clever, mind you, clever +as they make ’em, but careless. Do you know, Mr. Mapleson, he hadn’t +even insured his life! And he’s left no will! There isn’t enough to pay +his funeral expenses! Fortunately Eva’s clever, oh, yes, she’s clever +with her fingers; they say there’s no one in the neighborhood can touch +her in the millinery. Oh, yes, she’s been at it some time! Why, bless my +soul, do you know she’s paid the rent of this ’ouse for the last four +years. Oh, she’s a clever woman! Poor soul though, her great consolation +is that George didn’t die in the ’orspital. Yes, Mr. Mapleson, he died +upstairs quiet as a lamb. She was there at the end--it was a great +consolation!” + +And Uncle Frank nodded his head and his little eyes sparkled, but the +grin never left his lips. Mapleson said nothing, but the two men sat +there in a somber silence, Uncle Frank occasionally nodding his head and +muttering, “it’s a sad hoccasion.” + +The rain increased and it seemed unnaturally dark in the blue +drawing-room, and Mapleson felt that he had sat there an eternity, +consumed by desire to get away, when there was another knock at the +door, and a youth was let in. + +Uncle Frank called him “Chris,” and he seemed to be a cousin or some +near relation of White’s. He was a raw youth who had just gone to +business and was very conscious of his collars and cuffs. He seemed to +take to Mapleson and he sat watching him furtively. Mapleson seemed so +very much man of the world, so very desirable a personality. He made +many advances to draw the large man out, but the latter felt a +repugnance for him in only a slight less degree than in the case of +Uncle Frank. + +At length the gaunt sister asked them all into the dining-room, which +was a room on the other side of the passage that seemed even smaller and +stuffier than the drawing-room. It was papered with a dark red paper and +the woodwork painted chocolate. As they crossed the hall they passed +Mrs. White, who had apparently been persuaded by her sister “to try and +take something.” She was a little shriveled person with white cheeks +and her eyes were red with weeping. + +She hurried by the men without speaking, and a curious thought struck +Mapleson. During the twenty years or so that he had known White, he +could not recollect him speaking of his wife. He probably had done so, +but he could not recollect it. He remembered him talking about “his +place at Acton” but never of his wife. He did not feel entirely +surprised. White was probably ashamed. + +In the window of the dining-room were several bird-cages containing two +canaries, a bull-finch, and a small, highly colored bird, that hopped +from the floor of its cage on to a perch and kept up a toneless squeak, +with monotonous regularity. Uncle Frank went up to the cage and tapped +the wires and called out, “Ah, there he is! cheep! cheep! This is our +little Orstrylian bird, Mr. Mapleson! Isn’t he! Yes, yes, he’s our +clever little Orstrylian bird!” and during the course of the hurried +meal of cold mutton and cheese, the birds formed a constant diversion. +Uncle Frank would continually jump up and call out, “Oh, yes, he’s our +little Orstrylian bird!” + +Mapleson tried to recall whether he had ever discussed birds with White, +and he felt convinced that he had not. And yet it seemed a strange +thing, White apparently had had these birds for some time, three +different varieties in his own house! Mapleson would have enjoyed +talking about birds with White; he could almost hear White’s voice, and +his precise and suave manner of discussing their ways and peculiarities. +And the terrible thought came to him that he would never hear White talk +about birds, never, never. + +This breach of confidence on White’s part of never telling him that he +kept birds upset Mapleson even more than his breach of confidence in +not talking about his wife. + +“Oh, yes, he’s a clever little Orstrylian bird!” A terrible desire came +to Mapleson to throw Uncle Frank through the window the next time he +heard this remark. + +Before they had finished the meal three other male relations appeared, +and a craving came over Mapleson for a drink. Then the sister came down +with a decanter of sherry and said that perhaps the gentlemen would like +some. Uncle Frank poured out a glass all round. It was thin sickly stuff +and to the brass bed manager like a thimbleful of dew in a parched +desert. A horrible feeling of repugnance came over him; of repugnance +against all these people, against the discomfort he found himself in. + +After all, who was White? When all was said and done White was really +nothing to him, only a man he’d met in the course of business and had a +lot of drinks and talked with. At that moment he felt he disliked White +and all his sniveling relations. + +He wanted to go, to get away from it all, but he couldn’t see how. There +was half a glass of sherry left in the decanter. He unblushingly took it +as the funeral cortège arrived. There were two ramshackle carriages and +a hearse and a crowd of dirty children had collected. He tried to mumble +some excuse for not going, to Uncle Frank, but his words were lost by an +intensely painful scene that took place in the hall as the coffin was +being brought down. He did not notice that the sister with the down on +her upper lip became an inspired creature for a few moments, and her +face became almost beautiful.... + +He felt that he was an alien element among all these people, that they +were nothing to him, and that he was nothing to them, and he felt an +intense, insatiable desire for a drink. If he couldn’t get a drink he +felt he would go mad. + +Some one touched him on the arm and said, “Will you come with us in the +second carriage, Mr. Mapleson?” He felt himself walking out of the house +and through a row of dirty children. For a moment he contemplated +bolting up the street and out of sight, but the feeling that the +children would probably follow him and jeer paralyzed this action, and +then he was in the carriage, with Chris and another male relation who +was patently moved by the solemnity of the occasion. + +Chris wriggled about and tried to engage him in banal conversation with +an air that suggested, “Of course, Mr. Mapleson, this is a sad affair, +but we men of the world know how to behave.” + +The dismal cortège proceeded at an ambling trot, occasionally stopping. +Chris gave up for the moment trying to be entertaining, and the forlorn +relation talked about funeral services and the comfort of sympathy in +time of bereavement. They crawled past rows of congested villas and +miles of indescribable domesticity of every kind, till as they were +turning round a rather broader avenue than usual where there were shops, +the forlorn relation said, “We shall be in the cemetery in five +minutes.” + +And then Mapleson had an inspiration. They were ambling along this +dreary thoroughfare, when his eye suddenly caught a large and +resplendent public house. It was picked out in two shades of green and +displayed a gilt signboard denoting, “The Men of Kent.” + +Almost without thinking and certainly in less time than it takes to +chronicle, Mapleson muttered something to his two companions and called +out of the window to the driver to stop. He jumped out and called out +to the driver of the hearse and the other carriage to stop, and then, +before any one realized what it was all about, he darted into the saloon +bar of “The Men of Kent.” + +The bar was fortunately empty, but through the little glass shutters two +women and a man in the private bar watched the performance. + +There was a moment of dazed surprise followed by a high shriek of +laughter and a woman’s voice in strident crescendo, “Oh, Gawd! He’s +stopped the funeral to come in an’ ’ave a drink! Oh, my Gawd!” +Mapleson’s tongue seemed to cling to the roof of his mouth but he gasped +out an order for a whisky and soda. To the barman these incidents were +nothing and he served the drink instantly, but to the three in the +private bar it was a matter of intense enjoyment. The other woman took +it up. “Well, I’m damned! That’s the first time I’ve known that +’appen--Gawd! fancy stoppin’ a funeral to come and ’ave a drink!” and +then the other woman, “Lap it up, Charlie! won’t you let me ’ave a drop, +old bird?” and the man bawled out, “’Ere, I sye, ain’t the others comin’ +in! Let’s make a dye of it!” + +The women continued shrieking with laughter, and the appalling ignominy +of his position came home to him. He knew that he was damned in the eyes +of White’s friends. + +Curiously enough the thought of White had passed out of his mind +altogether. He was a thing in revolt against Society, without feelings, +and without principles. + +Yet when the whisky was put in front of him, his hand trembled and he +could not drink it. He fumbled with the glass, threw down sixpence and +darted out of the bar again. + +In the meanwhile, Uncle Frank and other members of the funeral party +had got out of the carriages and were having a whispered consultation on +the curb. Instructions had evidently been given for the cortège to +proceed, for Uncle Frank was talking to the driver of the hearse when +Mapleson appeared. + +As they all got back into the carriages, the three people came out of +the bar and raised a cheer, and one of the women called out, “Oh, don’t +go, dearie! come back and fondle me!” and the other two started a song +and dance on the pavement. Mapleson lay all of a heap in the corner of +the carriage and he noticed that he was alone with Chris. The forlorn +relation had gone into the other carriage. + +In a few minutes they arrived at a church, a large new building with +early Victorian Gothic arches and a profusion of colored glass. The +funeral party huddled together in the gloom of the large church, and +somehow the paucity of their numbers seemed even more depressing than +the wretchedness of their appearance. + +Mapleson sat a little way back, and curiously enough his mind kept +reverting during the service to the little birds. He felt a distinct +grievance against White on account of the little birds. Why hadn’t White +told him? especially about the small Australian bird? It would have made +a distinctly interesting subject of conversation. + +The service seemed interminably long, and it was a relief when the tall, +rather good-looking young clergyman led the way out into the cemetery. +The rain was still driving in penetrating gusts, and as they stood by +the graveside the relations looked askance at each other, uncertain +whether it was the proper thing to do to hold up an umbrella. As to +Mapleson, he was indifferent. For one thing he had not brought an +umbrella. But it seemed frightfully cold. + +They lowered the coffin into the grave and earth was sprinkled. For a +second it flashed through his mind, “That’s White being let down,” and +then a feeling of indifference and repugnance followed, and the craving +desire to get away from all these sordid happenings. Then he suddenly +thought of White’s wife. “A miserable looking slattern, she was!” he +thought. “Why, what was _she_ sniveling about? What could she have been +to White, or White to her? Why, he never mentioned her during twenty +years!” + +He experienced a slight feeling of relief when the service finished and +the party broke up, and he hastily made for the cemetery gates, knowing +that White’s friends would be as anxious to avoid him as he was to avoid +them, but he had not reached them before some one came hurrying behind +and caught him up. + +It was the young man named Chris. “I expect you ’re going up west, Mr. +Mapleson,” he said. “If it’s not putting myself in the way, I’ll come +too.” Mapleson gave an inarticulate grunt that conveyed nothing at all, +but the young man was not to be put off. + +There was something about the bulk of Mapleson and the pendulous lines +of his clothes and person that made Chris feel when he was walking with +him that he was “knocking about town” and “mixing with the world.” He +was himself apprenticed to a firm of wall-paper manufacturers, and he +felt that Mapleson would be able to enlighten him on the prospects and +the outlook of the furnishing and decorating trade. He talked gaily of +antique furniture till they came to a gaunt yellow brick station. + +On enquiry there seemed to be no trains that went from it to any +recognizable or habitable spot, but outside were two melancholy hackney +carriages. By this time Mapleson was desperate and a strange feeling of +giddiness possessed him. + +He got in and told the driver vaguely “to drive up to London.” Chris +came to the rescue and explained to him that he might drive to +Shepherd’s Bush first. They started off and rattled once more through +the wilderness of dreary villas. + +The young man accepted the position he found himself in with perfect +composure. He attributed Mapleson’s silence to an expansive boredom, and +he talked with discretion and with a sort of callous tact. Before they +reached Shepherd’s Bush, however, Mapleson muttered something about +feeling faint, and Chris immediately suggested that they should go and +have a drink. “You might bring me something in,” said Mapleson. “I’ll +have a brandy neat.” They drove helplessly through neat avenues and +roads for nearly ten minutes without passing anything in the way of a +public house. At last they came to a grocer’s shop, licensed to sell +spirits not to be consumed on the premises. “Go and buy me a bottle of +brandy,” said Mapleson. The young man got out and soon returned with a +six-and-sixpenny bottle of Hennessy’s three star brandy and a corkscrew. +He paid for it himself, relying on the natural honor of Mapleson to +settle up afterwards, but the matter was never mentioned again. + +He drew the cork, and Mapleson took a long swig and then wiped the mouth +of the bottle and offered it to Chris. Chris behaved like a man and also +took a draft but spluttered rather. + +For the rest of the journey Mapleson at regular intervals took +thoughtful and meditative swigs and gradually began to revive. He went +so far as to ask Chris if he knew anything about the little birds and +how long White had had them. Chris said he knew he had had the canaries +for four or five years and the bull-finch for two years. He didn’t know +much about the little Australian bird. This information seemed to cause +Mapleson to revert to his former gloom. + +When they reached Shepherd’s Bush the cabman refused to go farther. So +they got out and got into another cab, Mapleson carrying the brandy +bottle under his arm. He took it upon himself to tell the cabman--this +time a taxi--“to drive round the Outer Circle of Hyde Park and to take +the damned hood down.” + +It was about half-past four when they reached Hyde Park and the rain had +ceased a little. It was the fashionable hour for the afternoon drive. +Magnificent motors and two-horse phaëtons were ambling round well +within the regulation limit. Their cab was soon almost hemmed in by the +equipages of the great world. But after they had completed the circle +once, and Mapleson lay back with his feet on the opposite seat, and his +hat all brushed the wrong way, and without the slightest compunction +held the large brandy bottle to his lips every few yards, Chris began to +feel that there was a limit to his desire to “mix with the world.” + +He got the cab to stop near the Marble Arch, and explained to Mapleson +that he must get out and take the tube to business. + +And then there was a scene. Mapleson, who up to that time had not +addressed a personal word to Chris, suddenly became maudlin. He cried, +and said that he had never taken to any one as he had to Chris; he was +the dearest fellow in the world; he mustn’t leave him; now that White +was dead he was the only friend he had. + +But people began to collect on the sidewalk and Chris simply ran off. +The taxi-driver began to be suspicious about his fare which was +registered fourteen shillings. But Mapleson gave him a sovereign on +account and told him to drive to Cleopatra’s Needle on the Embankment. + +By the time they reached there the brandy bottle was three quarters +empty and tears were streaming down his cheeks. He offered the driver a +drink, but the driver was not “one of that sort” and gruffly suggested +that Mapleson “had better drive ’ome.” So he got out of the cab +pathetically and settled with the driver and sat on a seat of the +Embankment, hugging his bottle and staring at the river. + +Now it is very difficult to know exactly what Mapleson did the rest of +that afternoon between the time when he dismissed the cabman and +half-past eight when he turned up in the bar of “The Monitor.” + +It is only known that he struggled in there at that time, looking as +white as a sheet. He was wet through, and his clothes were covered with +mud. He struggled across to the corner where he and White used to sit, +and sat down. The bar was fairly crowded at the time, and young Chris +made his début there. He felt that he would be a person of interest. +When Mapleson appeared he went up to him, but Mapleson didn’t know him, +and said nothing. + +Several others came up and advised Mapleson to go home and change his +clothes and have a drink first, but he just stared stupidly ahead and +made no comment. Some one brought some whisky and put it before him, but +he ignored it. They then came to the conclusion that he was ill, so +they sent for a cab and two of them volunteered to see him home. + +Just as they were about to lead him out, he stood up. He then stretched +out his arms and waved them away. He picked up the glass of whisky and +raised it slowly to his lips. But before it reached them he dropped it +and fell backwards across the table. + + * * * * * + +“Women, you know,” said Charlie Maybird the other day, addressing two +friends in “The Monitor,” “are silly creatures. They think love and +friendship is all a question of kissin’ and cuddlin’. They think +business is all buyin’ and sellin’; they don’t think men can make +friendships in business. Crikey! I reckon there’s more friendships made +in business--real friendships, I mean--than ever there is outside. Look +at the case of White and Mapleson! I tell you those two men loved each +other! For over twenty years they were inseparable; there was nothing +they would not have done for each other; hand and glove they was over +everything. I’ve never seen a chap crumple up so as Mapleson did when +White died; in fact, from the very day when White was took ill. He went +about like a wraithe. I’ll never forget that night when he came in here +after the funeral. He sat over there, look, by the fireplace. He looked +as though his ’eart was broken! Suddenly he stood up and lifted his +glass and then dropped it and then fell backwards crash on to the floor! +They carried him and took him to the ’orspital, but he never regained +consciousness. The doctors said it was fatty degeneration of the ’eart, +’elped on by some kidney trouble. But I know better! He died of a broken +’eart. Lord, yes; I tell you there’s a lot of romance in the furnishing +trade!” + +“Did he leave any money?” asked one of the friends. + +“My word, yes! More than White,” answered the genial Charles. “White +never left a bean, and it seems his missus had not only been paying the +rent out of her millinery but allowed White some. White was a card, he +was!” + +“And what did Mapleson leave?” + +“Mapleson left nearly four pounds!” + +“’S truth! is that all?” + +“Four pounds and a wife and five kids, the eldest twelve!” + +“A wife and five kids! How the hell does she manage to keep things +going?” + +“Oh, Gawd knows! Come on, let’s go over to the Oxford and see what’s +on!” + + + + +THE PACKET + + + + +THE PACKET + + +I + +Mr. Bultishaw stood leaning heavily against the bar in “The Duchess of +Teck,” talking to his friend, Mr. Ticknett. Their friendship had endured +for nearly twenty-seven years, and they still called each other “_Mr._” +Bultishaw and “_Mr._” Ticknett. They were on the surface a curiously +ill-matched couple, and the other salesmen and buyers from Cotterway’s +could never see what they had in common. Bultishaw was a big puffy man, +shabbily florid. He had a fat babyish face, with large bright eyes which +always seemed to be on the verge of tears, but whether this condition of +liquefaction was due to his excessive emotionalism, or to the generally +liquid state of his whole body, it would be difficult to decide. He was +of an excitable nature, and though his voice seemed to come wheezing +through various local derangements of his system, and was always pitched +in a low key, it suggested a degree of excitement--usually of a +querulous kind--quite remarkable in a person of his appearance. He was a +man of moods, too.... He was not always querulous, in fact his +querulousness might generally be traced to an occasional revolt of his +organic system against the treatment to which it was normally subjected. +There were times when he was genial, playful, kind, sentimental, and +maudlin. His clothes had a certain pretentiousness of style and wealth, +not sustained by the dilapidated condition of their linings and edges, +and the many stains of alcohol and the burns from matches and tobacco +carelessly dropped. He was the manager of the linoleum department at +Cotterway’s. + +Ticknett had a similar position with regard to “soft goods” in the same +firm. But in appearance and character he was entirely dissimilar to +Bultishaw. One of the junior salesmen one day called him “The Chinese +God,” and there was indeed something a little Eastern in his reserved +manner, his suavity, and his great capacity for apparently minding his +own business and yet at the same time--well, nobody liked Ticknett, but +they all admired his ability, and most of them feared him. He was +admired because he had risen from the position of being a “packer” in +the yard to that of great influence, and he even shared the confidence +of Mr. Joseph Cotterway himself. His skin was rather yellow, and he had +very heavy black eyebrows and mustache and deep-set eyes with a slight +cast. His clothes were so well cut that in the bar of “The Duchess of +Teck” they seemed almost assertively unobtrusive. + +Bultishaw was a prolific talker, and Ticknett was a patient listener. +This was perhaps one of their principal bonds of mutual understanding. +They had, of course, one common interest of an absorbing nature. It +bubbled and sparkled in the innumerable glasses which, at all hours of +the day, Mrs. Clarke and Daphne and Gladys handed to them across the bar +of “The Duchess of Teck,” which in those days was always crowded with +the salesmen and the staff of Cotterway’s. + +On this particular morning, Bultishaw was holding a glass in his fat +fingers, and breathing heavily between each sentence. He was saying: + +“’Sperience is the thing that counts in the furnishing trade, like +anywhere else--ugh! Take any line you like--ugh!--buying cork carpets, +eating oysters, or extending the Empire--ugh!--it’s the man with +’sperience who counts. These young fellers!... ugh!...” + +Bultishaw shrugged his shoulders expressively, and glanced round the +bar. Immediately a change came over his expression. His eyes sparkled +angrily, and he shook the dregs of whisky in his glass, and drank them +off with a spluttering gulp. Ticknett followed the glance of his friend +and was quickly observant of the reason of Bultishaw’s sudden +trepidation. “Percy” had entered the bar. Percy was Bultishaw’s +assistant and also his _bête-noir_. + +He was a slim young man dressed in a most extravagant manner. He had a +pale face, and a slightly receding chin. He wore a small bowler hat with +a very narrow brim, pointed patent leather boots, a very shapely +overcoat which almost suggested that he wore corsets, a pale lemon tie +held together by a gold pin, and a spotted green waistcoat. + +Percy was a very high-spirited young person--an irrepressible--with a +genius for taking stage center. He was invariably accompanied by several +friends of his own age, and he had a habit of greeting a whole barful of +men, whether he knew them or not, with a cheering cry of: + +“Hullo! hullo! HULLO! So here we all are!” + +He would deliver this greeting with such a gay abandon that every one +would look up and laugh. Men would nod, and call out: + +“Hullo! here’s Percy! How do, Percy?” + +And even those who did not know him would be conscious of some +contagious fever of geniality. The conversation would grow louder and +livelier, and Percy would invariably become the center of a laughing +group. + +In spite of his extravagance of manner, his irresponsibility, his +passion for misquoting poetry, he had been marked down by several +discriminating heads of the firm as “a smart boy.” + +He was indeed a very smart boy, from his gay clothes to his sparkling +repartée with Daphne and Gladys. To Daphne it was known that he was an +especial favorite. He would hold her hand across the bar, and smile at +her engagingly, and say: + +“And how is the moon of my delight?” And other enigmatic and brilliant +things. + +And Daphne would look at him with her sleepy, passionate eyes, and say: + +“Oh, go on! You are a one!” + +She was a silent little thing, incredibly ignorant. She was not pretty, +but she had masses of gold-brown hair, and a figure rather +over-developed. There was about her something extremely attractive to +the men who frequented “The Duchess of Teck,” a kind of brooding +motherliness. She had an appealing way of sighing, and her eyes were +always watchful, as though in the face of every stranger she might +discover the solution of her troubles. + +Bultishaw hated Percy for several reasons. One was essentially a +question of personality. He hated his aggressive exuberance, his +youthfulness, his ridiculous clothes, his way of brushing back his hair, +and incidentally of scoring off Bultishaw. He hated him because he had +the habit of upsetting the placid calm of “The Duchess of Teck.” He +created a restlessness. People did not listen so well when Percy was in +the room. + +Moreover, he hated the way he took possession of Daphne. It is difficult +to know what Bultishaw’s ideas were with regard to Daphne. He was +himself a widower, aged fifty-six, and he lived in a small flat in +Bloomsbury with his two daughters, who were both about Daphne’s age. He +never made love to her, but he treated her with a sort of proprietary +sense of confidence. He told her all about himself. In the morning when +the bar was empty he would expatiate on the various ailments which had +assailed him overnight, his sleeplessness, his indigestion, his loss of +appetite. And he found her very sympathetic. She would say: + +“Oh, reely, Mr. Bultishaw! I _am_ sorry! It’s too bad! Have you ever +tried Ponk’s Pills?” + +They would discuss Ponk’s Pills exhaustively, and their effect on the +system, but eventually Mr. Bultishaw would say that he thought he would +try “just a wee drop of Scotch.” And so he would start his day. + +It must, alas! be acknowledged that the accumulated years of his +convivial mode of life were beginning to tell on Bultishaw. He was not +the man he was. At his best he was a good salesman. He knew the cork +lino industry inside out. He had had endless experience. But there were +days of fuddlement, days when he would make grievous mistakes, forget +appointments, go wrong in his calculations. And the directors were not +unobservant of the deterioration of his work and of his personal +appearance. There was a very big rumor that Bultishaw was to be +superseded by a younger man. This rumor had reached Bultishaw himself, +and he accepted it with ironic incredulity. + +“How can any one manage lino without ’sperience?” he said. + +Nevertheless the rumor had worried him of late, and had increased his +sleeplessness. He was conscious of himself--the vast moral bulk of +himself rolling down the hill. He knew he would never be able to give up +drinking. He had no intention of trying. He had been at it too long. He +had managed in his time to save nearly a thousand pounds. If he were +sacked it would bring in a little bit, but not enough to live on. About +fifty pounds a year, but he spent quite this amount in the bar of “The +Duchess of Teck” alone. He would have to hunt round for another job. It +would be ignominious, and it might be difficult to secure at his age. + +This was, then, another reason for disliking Percy, for “the smart +boy’s” name had been mentioned in this very connection. And what did +this soapy-headed young fool know about cork carpets? What ’sperience +had he had? A paltry two years. He was, too, so insufferably familiar +and insolent. He had even once had the audacity to address Bultishaw as +“Mr. Bulky-chops,” a pseudonym that was not only greeted with roars of +laughter but had been adopted by others. + +On this morning then when Percy made his accustomed entrance with its +bravura accompaniment: “Hullo! hullo! HULLO! So here we all are!” Mr. +Bultishaw’s hand trembled, and he turned his back and muttered: + +“That young--!” + +The yellow face of Ticknett turned in the direction of Percy, but it was +quite expressionless and he made no comment. He lighted another +cigarette and looked across the bar at Daphne. The girl’s cheeks were +dimpled with smiles. Percy was talking to her. Suddenly Ticknett said to +her in his chilling voice: + +“I want two more Scotch whiskies and a split soda.” + +The girl looked up, and the dimples left her cheeks. She seemed almost +imperceptibly to shrink within herself. She poured out the drinks and +handed them to Ticknett. Bultishaw continued his querulous complaints +about the insolence of young and ignorant men, trying to oust older and +more experienced men from their hardly fought for positions. + +And Ticknett listened, and his dark mustache moved in a peculiar way as +he said: + +“Yes, yes, I quite agree with you, Mr. Bultishaw. It’s too bad.” + + +II + +A week later there was a sudden and dramatic turn of events in the firm +of Cotterway’s. Much to everybody’s surprise, Percy was suddenly sacked +without any reason being given, and Bultishaw was retained. In fact, +Bultishaw was given another two years’ contract on the same terms as +before. + +To what extent Ticknett was responsible for this development or what was +really at the back of it all, nobody was ever quite clear. It is +certain that on the day of Percy’s dismissal these two friends dined +together, and spent an evening of a somewhat bacchanalian character. It +is known that at that time Ticknett had been conspicuously successful +over some deal in tapestries with a French firm, and that he had lunched +one day alone with Mr. Joseph Cotterway. It is doubtful even whether he +ever gave the precise details of his machinations to Bultishaw himself. +The result certainly had the appearance of quickening their friendship. +They called each other “dear old feller,” and there were many whispered +implications about “insolent young swine.” + +The career of Percy was watched with interest. Of course he took his +dismissal with a laugh, and entertained a party of his friends to a +hilarious farewell supper. + +But it happened that that summer was a peculiarly stagnant one in the +furnishing world. The brilliant youth did not find it so easy to secure +another situation. He was observed at first swinging about the West End +in his splendidly nonchalant manner, and he still frequented the bar of +“The Duchess of Teck.” But gradually these appearances became more rare. +As the months went by he began to lose a little of his self-assurance +and swagger, and it is even to be regretted that his gay clothes began +to show evidences of wear. He once secured a situation at a small firm +in Bayswater, but at the end of three weeks he was again dismissed, the +proprietor going bankrupt owing to some unfortunate speculation. It +would be idle to imagine what Percy’s career would have been had not the +war broken out in August when he was still out of employment. He +volunteered for service the morning after war was declared, and then +indeed there was a great scene of bibulous enthusiasm in “The Duchess +of Teck.” He was toasted and treated, and every one was crying out: + +“Well, good luck, Percy, old man.” + +And Percy was in the highest spirits, and borrowed money from every one +to stand treat to every one else. And Daphne cried quite openly, and in +the corner of the bar Bultishaw was whispering to Ticknett: + +“This’ll knock the starch out of the young swine.” + +And Ticknett replied: + +“He’ll get killed.” + +There was at times a certain curious finality about Ticknett’s +statements that had a way of making people shudder. + +Bultishaw laughed uncomfortably and repeated: + +“It’ll knock the starch out of him.” + +The departure of Percy was soon almost forgotten in the bewilderment of +drama that began to convulse Europe. Others went also. There was +upheaval, and something of a panic in the furnishing world. Every man +had his own interests to consider, and there was the big story unfolding +day by day to absorb all spare attention. Perhaps the only man among all +the devotees of “The Duchess of Teck” who thought considerably about +Percy was Bultishaw. It was very annoying, but he could not dismiss the +young man from his thoughts. + +When the autumn came on, and the cold November rains washed the London +streets, Bultishaw would suddenly think of Percy and he would shiver. +Percy had been sent to some camp in Essex for his training, and often in +the night Bultishaw would wake up and visualize Percy sleeping out in +the open, getting wet through to the skin, possibly getting rheumatic +fever. He was a ridiculously delicate-looking young man, quite unfitted +to be a soldier. It occurred to Bultishaw more than once that if he and +Ticknett hadn’t ... if Percy had secured _his_ position, which everybody +said was his due ... he wouldn’t have been sent out into all this. + +And “all this” was a terrible thing to Bultishaw. During the fifty-six +years of his life he had made a god of comfort. He loved warmth, good +cheer, food, drink, security. The alternative seemed to him hell. He +could not believe that there could be any sort of compensation in +discomfort, and hardship, in restraint, and discipline, and +self-abnegation. It was the thing he could not understand. And then at +the end was the Awful Thing itself. He could not bear to dwell on that. +He drank more prodigiously than ever. + +The firm of Cotterway’s was reorganized, and Bultishaw would undoubtedly +have had the sack if it had not been for his two years’ contract. As it +was, expenses in every respect were cut down, and Bultishaw’s royalties +only amounted to a very small sum. He lived above his salary, and broke +into his capital. He seemed more and more to rely on Ticknett. The +manager of soft goods seemed to him the one stable thing in a shifting +world. + +When Percy one day made his sudden, meteoric, and final appearance in +“The Duchess of Teck” the whole thing seemed like a dream. The usual +crowd was gathered just before lunch, drinking gins and bitters, and +whisky, and beer, and talking about “_our_” navy, and “_our_” army, and +“_our_” Government, and what “_we_” should do to the Germans, when the +level hum of conversation was broken by a loud and breezy: + +“Hullo! hullo! HULLO! So here we all are!” + +And lo! and behold, there was Percy, looking somehow bigger than usual, +the general gaiety of his appearance emphasized by a pink complexion, a +distinct increase of girth, and a beautiful khaki suit. And Bultishaw +found himself clapped on the back and the same voice was exclaiming: + +“Well, ’ow are you, Bulky-chops? Lookin’ better than ever, ’pon my +word!” + +And then the bar was immediately in a roar of conviviality. Everybody +struggled for the honor of standing Percy drinks, for he explained that +he was off the next day to France. It is to be feared that during that +afternoon Percy got rather drunk. He certainly indulged in violent moods +between boisterous hilarity and a certain sullen pugnacity. At intervals +he would continually ask for Ticknett, but to Bultishaw’s surprise, +Ticknett had disappeared almost immediately Percy entered the bar, and +was not seen again that day. While, on the other side, Daphne stood +cowering against the mahogany casings, looking deadly pale, with great +black rings around her eyes. + +Percy was quite friendly to Bultishaw, and introduced him to a friend of +his in the same regiment, named Prosser, a young man who had previously +been in a drapery store. It was not till later in the evening that the +dull rumble of some imminent tragedy caused the vast bulk of the +linoleum manager’s body to tremble. He had been conscious of it all the +afternoon. He was frightened. He did not like the way Percy had asked +for Ticknett. He did not like Ticknett’s disappearance, and above all he +did not like the way Daphne had cowered against the wall. There was +something at the back of all this, something uncomfortable. He dreaded +things of this nature. Why couldn’t people go on quietly, eating and +drinking and being comfortable? He avoided “The Duchess of Teck,” and +actually stayed late at his work and caught up some arrears. He decided +to go quickly home. When he got outside he commenced to walk, when +suddenly Percy came out of a doorway and took hold of his arm. Bultishaw +started. + +“What is it? What do you want?” he said. + +There was something very curious about Percy. He had never seen him like +that before. He had been drinking, but he was not drunk. In fact, +Bultishaw had never seen him in some ways so sober, so grimly serious. +His lips were trembling, and his eyes were unnaturally bright. He +gripped Bultishaw’s coat and said: + +“Where is your friend Ticknett?” + +“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since this morning,” Bultishaw +answered. + +“Will you swear he isn’t in the building? and that you don’t know where +he is?” + +“Yes,” gasped the cork-lino manager. + +Percy looked into his eyes for some moments, and then he said queerly: + +“Ticknett knows that I’ve got to report first thing in the morning. I’ve +just seen Daphne home. There’ll be a packet for Ticknett, do you see? I +say there’ll be a packet for him. D’ you understand, Bulky-chops?” + +Bultishaw was very frightened. He did not know a bit what the young man +meant. He only knew that he wanted to get away. He didn’t want to be +mixed up in this. He mumbled: + +“I see--er--a packet?... I’ll tell him.” + +“No, you needn’t tell him,” answered the soldier. “I’m sayin’ this for +your benefit. I say there’ll be a packet for him. D’ you understand? +There’ll be a packet for him.” + +And he melted into the night.... + + +III + +From the day when Percy disappeared with these mysterious words on his +lips to the day when the news came that he had been killed there was an +interval of time that varied according to the occupation and the +preoccupation of his particular acquaintances. To Bultishaw it appeared +a very long time, but this may have been partly due to the fact that in +the interval he had spent most of the time in bed with a very serious +illness. He had been lying on his back, staring at the ceiling, and he +had not been allowed to drink. The time had consequently hung very +heavily on his hands, and his thoughts had been feeding on each other. +The exact time was in effect eleven weeks. + +During the latter part of this period his friend Ticknett paid him many +visits, and had been very kind and attentive. And it was he indeed who +brought the news that Percy had been killed. + +It was one evening when it was nearly dark, and Bultishaw was sitting up +in his dressing-gown in front of the fire, and his daughter Elsie was +sitting on the other side of the fireplace, sewing. Ticknett paid one of +his customary visits. Elsie showed him to an easy chair between the two, +and after Ticknett’s solicitous enquiries regarding Bultishaw’s health, +the two men reverted to their usual discussion of the staff of +Cotterway’s and their friends. Suddenly Ticknett remarked quite +casually: + +“Oh, by the way, young Percy has been killed at the front.” + +And then the room seemed to become violently darker. Bultishaw struggled +to frame some suitable comment upon this but the words failed to come. +He sat there with his fat, puffy hands pressing the sides of his easy +chair. At last he said: + +“Elsie, you might go and get my beef-tea ready.” + +When his daughter had gone out of the room, he still had nothing to say. +He had not dismissed her for the purpose of speaking about the matter to +Ticknett, but simply because a strange mood had come to him that he +could not trust himself. In the gathering darkness he could see the +sallow mask of his friend’s face looking at the fire, and his cold eyes +peering beneath his heavy brows. Bultishaw at length managed to say: + +“Any particulars?” + +And Ticknett replied: + +“No. It was in the papers yesterday.” + +And then Ticknett smiled and added: + +“So you won’t have to bother about your job any longer, Mr. Bultishaw.” + +And Bultishaw thought: + +“There’ll be a packet for you, Ticknett. A packet. Do you understand? +And by God! you’ll deserve it!” + +He was still uncertain of what “the packet” would contain, but he had +thought a lot about it during his illness, and he was sure the packet +would contain something unpleasant, if not terrible. And yet Ticknett +was his friend, in fact his only friend; the man who had saved him in a +crisis, and who waited on him in his sickness. He tried to pull himself +together, and he managed to say in his normally wheezy voice: + +“I hope to be back next week.” + +And indeed on the following Tuesday he did once more report himself to +the heads of the firm. He was still very weak and ill, and the doctor +had warned him to avoid alcohol in any form. But by half-past twelve he +felt so exhausted he decided that a little whisky and milk might help to +get him through the day. He crawled round to “The Duchess of Teck” and +was soon amongst his congenial acquaintances. It was very warm, very +pleasant and ingratiating, the atmosphere of the bar. He ordered his +whisky and milk, and then became aware of a striking vacancy. Daphne was +not there. Mrs. Clarke and Gladys were busy serving drinks, and a tall +thin girl was helping them. A peculiar sense of misgiving came to +Bultishaw. He did not like to say anything about it to Mrs. Clarke, but +he turned to an old habitué, named Benjamin Strigge, and he whispered: + +“Where’s Daphne to-day, Mr. Strigge?” + +And Mr. Strigge answered: + +“Daphne? She ain’t been here for nearly three months. There was some +story about her and young Percy. I’ve really forgotten what it was all +about. Of course, you’ve been away, Mr. Bultishaw. You’ve missed all the +spicy news, eh? They never interest me. Ha, ha, ha! Can I order you +another whisky and milk?” + +Bultishaw declined with thanks, and stood there sucking his pipe. In a +few minutes Ticknett entered the bar. He appeared to be quite cheerful, +and for him garrulous. He was very solicitous about Bultishaw’s health, +and insistent that he should not stand near a draught. He talked +optimistically about the war, and Bultishaw replied in monosyllables. +And all the time the ridiculous thought kept racing through his mind: + +“You’re going to get a packet, my friend.” + +It was a week later that Prosser turned up. He was one of eleven men, +the sole survivors of a regiment--Percy’s regiment. Prosser was slightly +wounded in the foot, and strangely altered. He stammered and was no +longer a gay companion. He had a wild, abstracted look, as though he had +lost the power of listening, and was entirely occupied with inner +visions. They could get little information out of him about Percy. He +described certain scenes and experiences very vividly, but the +description did not convey much to most of the men, for the reason that +they were entirely devoid of imagination. The regiment had, as a matter +of fact, been ambushed, and practically annihilated. A mine had done +some deadly work. He had seen Percy and another man come into the lines +in the morning. It was just daybreak. They had been on listening patrol. +He had seen them both making their way along a trench to a dug-out, to +the very spot where five minutes later the mine blew up. + +“Didn’t you never see Percy again?” some one asked. + +“No,” answered the warrior. “But I ’eard ’im laugh.” + +“Laugh!” + +“Yes. You know the way he used to laugh. Loud and clear-like. He must +have been two hundred yards away. Suddenly he laughed, and I says to +Peters, who was on my right, ‘’Ark at that blighter, Percy! Seems to +think even this is amusin’.’ I ’adn’t got the words out of my mouth when +... just as though the whole bally earth had burst into a gas ... not a +quarter of a mile away--thought I was gone myself ... right over in the +quarter where Percy had gone ... thousands of tons of mud flung up into +the sky ... you could ’ear the earth being ripped to pieces, and there +were men in it.... Oh, Gawd!” + +Bultishaw shuddered and felt faint, and the rest of the company seemed +to think they were hearing a rather highly colored account of some quite +inconceivable phenomenon. Prosser was further detailing his narrative, +when he happened to drop a phrase that was very illuminating to +Bultishaw. He was speaking of another man some of them knew, named +Bates. The phrase he used was: + +“Charley Bates got a packet too!” + +A packet! Bultishaw paid for his drink and went out into the street. He +felt rather hot and cold round the temples. He took a cab home, and went +straight to bed, explaining to his daughters that he had had “a very +heavy day.” When he rolled between the sheets the true meaning of that +sinister phrase “getting a packet” kept revolving through his mind. It +was evidently the military expression, and very terse and grim and +sardonic it was. These men who met a violent end “got a packet.” Percy +had got a packet, Bates had got a packet, but why should Ticknett, +dividing his days between a furnishing house and a saloon bar, get a +packet? It was incredible, preposterous. Men who went out to fight for +their country, well--they might expect it. But not men who lead simple, +honest, commercial lives. If Ticknett got a packet, why should he not +himself get a packet? He passed a sleepless night, but there was one +problem he determined to try and solve on the morrow. + + +IV + +Somehow Bultishaw could not bring himself to ask Mrs. Clarke about +Daphne, and Gladys, whom he always suspected of laughing at him, he +would certainly not question. He eventually got her address from a +potman, who had carried some of her things home for her. + +When he did get her address, it took him over a week to make up his mind +to visit her. He thumbed the envelope and breathed heavily on it, put it +back in his pocket and took it out again, and tried to dismiss it from +his mind, but the very touch of it seemed to burn his body. At length, +on the following Saturday night, he tucked it finally into his waistcoat +pocket, and set out in the direction of Kilburn. + +It was very dark when he found the obscure street. And the number of the +address was a gaunt house of four stories above a low-class restaurant +where sausages and slabs of fish were frying in the window, to tempt +hungry passers-by. He stumbled up the dark stairs, and was told by two +children whom he could not see that “Miss Allen” lived on the third +floor. He rang the wrong bell on the third floor (there were two lots of +inhabitants) and was told by a lady that “she liked his bleeding cheek +waking her in her first sleep, ringing the wrong bell,” and the door was +slammed in his face. + +He tried the other bell, and the door was opened immediately by a gaunt +woman who said: + +“Who’s that? Oh, I thought it was the doctor!” + +Bultishaw asked if Miss Daphne Allen lived there, and gave his own name. + +The woman stared at him and then said: + +“Wait a minute.” + +She shut the door and left him outside. After a time she came back and +said: + +“What do you want?” + +Bultishaw said, “I just want to speak to her for a few minutes.” + +The woman again retired, and left him for nearly five minutes. He stood +there shivering with cold on the stone stairs, and listening to the +strange mixture of noises: children quarreling in the street below, and +in the room opposite some one playing a mouth organ. At last the woman +came back. She said: + +“Come in.” + +He followed her into a poky room, dimly lighted by a tin paraffin lamp +with a pink glass. In the corner of the room was a bed on which a woman +was lying, feeding a baby. Her face looked white and thin and her hair +was bound up in a shawl. It was Daphne. She looked at him listlessly, +and said: + +“Well, have you brought any money from him?” + +Bultishaw stood blinking at her, unable to comprehend. Whom did she mean +by “him”? He coughed, and tried to formulate some sympathetic enquiry, +when suddenly the gaunt woman who had shown him in turned on him and +cried: + +“Well, what the hell are you standing there like that for? You’ve come +from him, I suppose? You’re ’is greatest pal, ain’t yer? We’ve never +seen a farthing of ’is money yet since the dirty blackguard did ’er in. +What ’ave you come slobbering up ’ere for, if it ain’t to bring some +money? The b--y ’ound! If it ’adn’t been for ’im, she might be the wife +of a respectable sowljer, and gettin’ ’er maintenance and pension, and +all that.” + +There was a mild sob from the bed, and a pleading voice that cried: + +“Aunty! Aunty!” + +And the baby started to cry. While these little things were happening, +the slow-moving mind of Bultishaw for once worked rapidly, came to a +conclusion, and formed a resolution. He moved ponderously to the lamp, +and took out his purse. He looked across the lamp at Daphne and said: + +“He sends you this. He’s sorry not to have sent before. He....” + +The elder woman dashed toward the table, and looked at the money. + +“How much is it?” she said, and then turning to Daphne, she rasped: +“It’s two quid. That’s better than nothing. Is there any more to come?” + +Bultishaw again looked at Daphne. She was bending over the child. She +seemed indifferent. A strand of her hair had broken loose beneath the +shawl. Bultishaw stammered: + +“Yes--er--of course. There’ll be--er--the same again.” + +“’Ow often?” whined the elder woman. + +“Er--two pounds--every fortnight. Er--I’ll bring it myself.” + +The big man blew his nose, and shuffled from one foot to another. + +“Are you getting better? Is there anything else?” he mumbled. + +“Oh, no,” whined the elder woman. “We’re living in the lap of luxury. +Everything we could want. Ain’t we, Cissy?” + +The woman on the bed did not answer, and Bultishaw fumbled his way out +of the room. + +That night Bultishaw had a mild return of his illness. He was very +feverish. His mind became occupied with visions of Percy. Percy, the +gay, the debonair. There was a long line of poplars by a canal, and some +low buildings of a factory on the left. The earth was seamed with jagged +cuts and holes. Men were burrowing their way underground like moles. The +thing was like a torn fringe of humanity, wildly insane. It was very +dark, but one was conscious that vast numbers of men were scratching +their way toward each other, zigzagging in a drunken, frenzied manner. +There was a stench of decaying matter, and of some chemical even more +penetrating. There were millions and millions of men, but they were all +invisible, silently scratching and listening. Suddenly amidst the dead +silence there was the loud burst of Percy’s laughter--just as he had +laughed in the bar of “The Duchess of Teck”--and his voice rang through +the night: + +“Hullo! hullo! HULLO! So here we all are!” + +And this challenge seemed to awaken the lurking passions of the night. +Bultishaw groaned, and started up in bed, and cried out: + +“O God! a thousand tons of mud! a thousand tons of mud!” + +On the following day Bultishaw made a grievous mistake in his accounts. +He was severely hauled over the coals by the directors. As the weeks +proceeded he made other mistakes. He became morose and abstracted. He +drank his whisky with less and less soda, till he was drinking it almost +neat. + +“Old Bulky-chops’s brain’s going,” said some of the other salesmen. + +He would lean up against the bar, and stare at Ticknett. Their old +conversational relationship became reversed. It was Bultishaw who +listened, and Ticknett who did the talking. The soft goods manager +appeared to be in excellent trim at the time. He seemed more +light-hearted than he had been for years. He spoke in his quiet voice +about the tactics of Russian generals, and the need for general +compulsion in this country for everybody up to the age of forty-five +(Ticknett was forty-seven). At Christmas-time he sent Bultishaw a case +of old port wine. His position in the firm became more assured. It was +said that Ticknett had bought a large block of shares in Cotterway’s, +Limited, and that he stood a good chance of being put on the board of +directorship. + +And Bultishaw watched his upward progress with a curious intentness. He +himself was blundering down the hill. He had made a large inroad into +his capital, and the day could not be far distant when he would be +dismissed. Every fortnight he went out to Kilburn and took two +sovereigns, and he never spoke of this to Ticknett. + + +V + +Elsie Bultishaw was very mysterious. In her black crêpe dress she +bustled about the small room, holding the teapot in her hand. + +“They say you should never speak ill of the dead,” she whispered to her +visitor. She emptied a packet of tea into a caddy, and tipped three +teaspoonsful into the pot. + +“Of course,” she continued, “it’s very hard on me and Dorothy. It’s +lucky Dorothy’s got that job at the War Office, or I don’t know what +we’d do.” + +“Your pore father was not a careful man, I know, my dear,” said the +visitor. + +Elsie poured the boiling water on to the tea-leaves, and sighed. + +“It wasn’t only that, my dear,” she answered. She coughed and then added +in a low voice: + +“There was some woman in the case. A barmaid, in fact. Of course, pore +father’s illness cost a lot of money, what with doctors, and +specialists, and loss of time and that. But it seems he’d been keeping +this woman too, taking her money every fortnight. When everything’s +settled up, there won’t be more’n twenty pounds a year for me and +Dorothy.” + +“Dear, dear!” said the visitor. “It’s all very tragic, my dear.” + +“You can’t think,” Elsie continued, warming to the excitement of her +narrative, “what we’ve been through. We could never have _lived_ through +it, if it hadn’t been for Mr. Ticknett. He’s been kindness itself. And +such an extraordinary hallucination pore father had about him. I didn’t +tell you, did I, dear?” + +“No, dear.” + +“I’ll never forget that night father came home. He’d been drinking, of +course. But it wasn’t only that. I’ve never seen him like it. He just +raved. It was very late, and me and Dorothy were going to bed. He came +stumbling into this room, his eyes lookin’ all bright and glassy-like. +He started by saying that the dead could speak. He said he’d only obeyed +the voice of the dead. And then he said something about a packet, and +about Mr. Ticknett. I was terrified. He described something he said he’d +just done. He walked about the room. He pointed to that corner. ‘Look,’ +he says, ‘Ticknett was standin’ there.’ There’d been a dinner to +celebrate Mr. Ticknett’s election on to the board of directors of +Cotterway’s. ‘I never take my eyes off him all the evening,’ father +says. ‘It was after the dinner, and we went into the saloon. Ticknett +was surrounded by his friends. I watched his lying, treacherous, yellow +face smirkin’ all around. And suddenly a voice spoke to me, a voice from +some dim field in France. It says, “Ticknett’s going to have a packet.” +And then I drew my revolver and shot him through the face!’ Dorothy +shrieked, and I tried to get father to bed. Of course it was all +rubbish. He’d never shot no one. It was just raving. Everybody knows +that Mr. Ticknett’s been father’s best friend. He’s helped him crowds of +times. A nicer man you couldn’t meet. He’s coming to tea on Sunday. We +managed to get poor father to bed, and to get a doctor. But it was no +good. He babbled like a child all night. It was so funny like. He really +was like a child. He kept on repeating, ‘A thousand tons of mud!’ and +then suddenly, about mornin’, he got quite quiet, and his face looked +like some great baby’s lying there.... He died quite peaceful.” + +Elsie performed a little mild weep, and the visitor indulged in various +exclamations of sympathy and interest. + +“Oh, dear,” she concluded, “it’s dreadful the things people imagine +when--they’re like that.” + +Elsie went over all the details again, and the visitor recounted a +tragic episode she had heard of in connection with a corporal’s widow, +who was a relation of her own landlady. They discussed the dreadful war, +and its effect on the price of bacon and margarine. + +After her departure, Elsie washed out and ironed some handkerchiefs, and +then prepared her sister’s supper. Dorothy arrived home about seven, and +the two sisters discussed the events of the day. They sat in front of +the fire and listened to a pot stewing. At a sudden pause, Dorothy +looked into the fire, and said: + +“Do you think Ticknett’s really keen on me, Elsie?” + +Elsie giggled, and kissed her sister. + +“You’d have to be blind not to see that,” she said; and then she +whispered: + +“Are you really keen on him?” + +The younger sister continued staring into the fire. + +“I don’t know. I think I am. I--Isn’t this stew nearly done?” + +Elsie again giggled, and proceeded to dish up the stew. Before this +operation was completed, there was a knock at the door. + +Elsie said, “Oh, curse!” and went, and opened it. + +In the doorway stood a woman with a small parcel. Her face was deadly +white and her lips colorless. She looked like a woman to whom everything +that could happen had happened long ago, and the result had left her +lifeless and indifferent. She said listlessly: + +“Are you Miss Bultishaw?” + +And Elsie said, “Yes.” + +The woman entered, and looked round the room. + +“May I speak to you a moment? Is this your sister?” she said. + +Elsie answered: “Yes; what do you want?” + +“I want to make an explanation, and to give you some money.” + +She untied the packet, and placed some notes on to the table-cloth. + +“What the hell’s this?” exclaimed Elsie. + +“This is all I could find,” muttered the listless woman. “I found them +in his breast-pocket. They belonged to your father. It wasn’t your +father at all who--ought to have paid. _He_ ought to have paid. So I’ve +taken them from him. I hope there’s enough. I’m afraid there may not +be. It’s all I have. It’s only right you should have it.” + +The two sisters stared at her, and involuntarily drew closer together. +It was Dorothy who eventually managed to speak: + +“What are you talking about?” she said. “Who do you mean by ‘him’?” + +“Ticknett!” + +The sisters gasped, and Dorothy gave a little cry. + +“Here! what do you mean?” she said breathlessly. “Have you pinched this +money from Ticknett? You’d better be careful. He’s coming here. We’ll +have you arrested.” + +The listless woman shook her head. + +“No, no,” she said in her toneless voice. “Don’t you believe that. He +won’t come here.” + +“Why won’t he come here?” rasped Dorothy, with a note of challenge. + +The strange visitor stood staring vacantly at the fire. She seemed not +to have heard. Her lips were trembling. Suddenly she answered in the +same dull, lifeless manner: + +“Because he’s lying on my bed with a bullet through his heart.” + + + + +“IN THE WAY OF BUSINESS” + + + + +“IN THE WAY OF BUSINESS” + + +As the large, thick-set man with the red face, the bushy mustache, and +the very square chin swung round on his swivel chair, at the great +roll-top desk with its elaborate arrangements of telephones, receivers, +and electric buttons, he conveyed to the little mild-eyed man waiting on +a chair by the door the sense of infinite power. + +And surely it must be a position requiring singular gifts and remarkable +capacity. For was this not Dollbones, the house famous throughout the +civilized world for supplying trimmings, gimp, embroidery, buttons, and +other accessories to nearly every retail furnisher in England and the +colonies? and was not this Mr. Godfrey Hylam, the London manager? To +hold such a position a man must have not only brains, and an infinite +capacity for work and driving power, but he must have character, a +genius for judging people and making quick decisions. + +“Almost like a general,” thought the mild-eyed man by the door. He had +waited fifty minutes in the outer office for his interview, and on being +at length shown in, had been told to “sit down a minute.” This minute +had been protracted into thirty-five minutes, but it was very +interesting to watch the great man grappling with the myriad affairs +that came whispering through the wires, and giving sharp instructions to +the two flurried clerks who sat in the same office, or dictating to the +young lady stenographer who sat furtively on a small chair by his side +scribbling into a book with a fountain-pen. + +“She looks ill and worried,” thought the little man. He was indulging in +a dreamy speculation on the girl’s home life, when he was suddenly +pulled up by the percussion of Mr. Hylam’s voice. He realized that the +great man was speaking to him. He was saying: + +“Let’s see, what’s your name?” + +“Thomas Pinwell, sir,” he answered, and stood up. + +“_What_ name?” repeated the big man. + +“Pinwell--Thomas Pinwell,” he said in a rather louder voice. + +Mr. Hylam looked irritably among some papers and sighed. He then +continued dictating a letter to the stenographer. When that was finished +he got up, and went out of the room. He was absent about ten minutes, +and then came hurrying in with some more papers. He called out as he +walked: + +“Jackson, have you got that statement from Jorrocks, Musgrove & +Bellwither?” + +One of the clerks jumped up and said: + +“I’ll find it, sir.” + +The clerk took some time to do this, and in the meanwhile Mr. Hylam +dictated another report to the young lady. Then the clerk brought the +statement, and he and Mr. Hylam discussed it at some length. He gave the +clerk some further instructions, which were twice interrupted by the +telephone bell. When this was finished, Mr. Hylam again caught sight of +the little man by the door. He looked at him with surprise, and said: + +“Let’s see, what’s your name?” + +“Pinwell--Thomas Pinwell, sir,” he answered patiently. + +Mr. Hylam again sighed and fingered a lot of papers in pigeon-holes. At +that moment there was a knock, and a boy in buttons entered and said: + +“There’s Mr. Curtis, of Curtis, Tonks & Curtis, called.” + +“Oh!” exclaimed Mr. Hylam. “Yes. All right. Er--ask him to come in. I +want to see him.” He turned to the telephone, and asked some one to put +him on to some one else, and while waiting with the receiver to his ear, +his eye once more caught sight of the little man by the door. He called +out to him: + +“Oh!--er--just wait outside a minute, Mr.--er--Hullo! is that you, +Thomson?” + +Finding himself temporarily dismissed, Mr. Pinwell took up his hat and +went into the outer office. There was a tall, elderly man with a +fur-lined overcoat standing there, and he was immediately shown in. He +remained with Mr. Hylam just one hour. At the end of that time, one of +the directors called and went out to lunch with Mr. Hylam. A clerk gave +Mr. Pinwell the tip that he had better call back about four o’clock. He +said he would do so. He had had thirty years’ experience in the +furnishing trade, and he knew that “business was business.” One had to +be patient, to conform to its prescripts. A gentleman like Mr. Hylam +lived under continual pressure. He was acting according to his +conscience in the best interests of the firm. One had to take one’s +chance with him. After all, it would be very nice to get the job. He had +been out so long, and he was not so young as he used to be. He thought +of his placid wife and the two children. They were indeed getting into a +very penurious state. He understood that the salary would be thirty +shillings per week, and a small royalty on the sales. Not a princely +emolument but it would make all the difference. Besides, what might not +the royalties amount to? If he worked hard and energetically he might +make between two and three pounds per week--who knows? He went into an +äerated bread shop and had a cup of tea and a piece of seed cake, and +read the morning paper. He stayed there as long as he dare, and then +went for a stroll round the streets. At four o’clock precisely he +presented himself at the managerial office at Dollbones once more. Mr. +Hylam had not returned. They expected him every minute. There were five +other people waiting to see him. At half-past four Mr. Hylam came in, +smoking a cigar. He was accompanied by another gentleman. They walked +right through the waiting crowd and went into the inner office and shut +the door. As a matter of fact, Mr. Pinwell did not see the manager at +all that day. So great was the congestion of business in the trimming, +gimp, embroidery, and button business that afternoon that he was advised +by one of the least aggressive clerks, at about a quarter to six, to try +his luck in the morning. It was a quarter-past three on the following +afternoon that he eventually obtained his interview with Mr. Hylam, and +it was from his point of view entirely satisfactory. Mr. Hylam said: + +“Let’s see. You told me your name?” + +“Yes, sir,” he answered. “Thomas Pinwell.” + +Mr. Hylam seemed at last to find the papers he desired. He said: + +“Er--just come here. Show me your references.” + +Mr. Pinwell approached the great desk deferentially. On it was a chart +of London with one section shaded red. Mr. Hylam read the references +carefully and then asked one or two searching questions. At last he +said: + +“Well, now, look here. This is your section. Go to Mr. Green, and he +will give you the cards and samples. Then go to Rodney in the Outer +London department upstairs, and he will give you a list of several +hundred furnishing houses with the names of the buyers and a few +particulars. Everything else you must find out. The salary is thirty +shillings a week and two per cent. on sales completed. Settlement +monthly. Good-day, Mr.--er--” + +He turned to the telephone, and Mr. Pinwell’s heart beat rapidly. He had +really got a job again! As he walked to the door he had a vision of the +expression of delight on his wife’s face as he told her the news. He +visualized a certain day in a certain month when he would bring home a +lot of sovereigns and buy the children things. Two per cent.! For every +hundred pounds’ worth of orders, two golden sovereigns of his very own! +It seemed too good to be true! + +His wife indeed did share with him the comforting joys of this new vista +of commercial prosperity. They occupied now two rooms in Camling Town, +and Tom had been out so long there was no immediate prospect of a +removal. But the rent was now secure and just the barest necessities of +life, and everything depended on the two per cent. commission. He was to +start on the following Monday, and the intervening days were filled with +active preparations. There were shirts to mend, an overcoat to be +stitched, a pair of boots to have the heels set up, and three new +collars to be bought. These were vital things pertinent to the active +propaganda of the bread-winner. Other things were urgent,--a new piece +of oil-cloth for the bedroom, some underclothes for the girls, and +several small debts--but all these things _could_ wait, at any rate a +month or two, till the commissions started coming in. For Mrs. Pinwell +herself there never seemed necessities. She always managed to look +somehow respectable, and, as Mr. Pinwell once remarked to a neighbor, +“My wife is a marvel, sir, with a string bag. She always believes in +bringing the things home herself. She goes out into the High Street, +Camling Town, on a Saturday night, and I assure you, sir, it’s +surprising what she will bring back. She will make a shilling go further +than many of them would half-a-crown. She is a remarkable woman. It +surprises me how she manages to bargain, being so unassuming, so +diffident, as it were, in the home.” + +There was nothing, then, missing in the necessary equipment of Mr. +Pinwell as he set out with his leather case of samples on the following +Monday. It was a cold, bright day, and he enjoyed the exercise of +walking. He was not by nature a pushful man and he found the business of +calling on people whom he did not know somewhat irksome. Fortunately he +was by temperament patient and understanding, and he made allowances +when people were rude to him, or kept him waiting indefinitely and then +gave him no orders. “It’s all in the way of business,” he thought as he +shuffled out of the shop and sought the next street. + +At the end of the first week he explained to his wife: + +“You see, my dear, there’s a lot of spade-work to be done yet. I’m +afraid Flinders, who had the round before me, must have neglected it +disgracefully. It all requires working up again. One has to get to +_know_ people, the right people, of course. They seem prejudiced against +one like, at first.” + +“Was that Mr. Flinders who used to--” began Mrs. Pinwell in a whisper. + +“Yes, my dear, I’m afraid he drank. It was a very distressing story, +very distressing indeed. They say he drank himself to death. A very +clever salesman too--very clever! They tell me he worked this district +up splendidly, and then gradually let it go to pieces.” + +“Dear, dear! I can’t think how people do such things?” murmured Mrs. +Pinwell. + +“It was a great recommendation in my case,” continued her husband, “that +I was a teetotaler. Mr. Hylam made a great point of that. He asked me +several times, and read the letter of Judkins & Co. vouching for my +honesty and sobriety for a period of twenty-two years. He seemed very +pleased about that.” + +At the end of the first month the orders that Mr. Pinwell had secured +for Dollbones were of a negligible character. He felt discouraged--as +though conscious of there being something fundamentally wrong in his +method of doing business--but his wife cheered him by expressing her +view that it would probably take _months_ before his initial spade-work +would take effect. + +He started on his rounds a little earlier after that, and stayed a +little later. He became more persistent and more patient. He went back +again and again to see people who seemed inaccessible. He tried to be a +little more assertive and plausible in his solicitations, but at the end +of the second month there was little improvement in his returns, and his +commissions amounted to scarcely enough to pay for the new oil-cloth in +the sitting-room. + +The optimism of Mrs. Pinwell was in no way affected by this failure, but +a more alarming note was struck by Mr. Rodney of the “Outer London +Department.” He told Mr. Pinwell that Mr. Hylam was _not at all +satisfied_ with his work so far, and he would have to show greater +energy and enterprise during the ensuing month, or the firm would be +impelled to try a new traveler for that district, one who could show +better results. + +Mr. Pinwell was very alarmed. The idea of being “out” again kept him +awake at night. It was a very serious thing. He put in longer hours +still, and hurried more rapidly between his calls. He increased his +stock of samples till they amounted to a very considerable weight. He +made desperate appeals for orders, ringing the changes on various ways +of expressing himself. But at the end of the next week there was still +no improvement on the pages of his order-book. There was one firm in +particular who caused him considerable heart-burning--Messrs. Carron and +Musswell. These were quite the biggest people in the neighborhood, and +had five different branches, each doing a prosperous business. Mr. +Pinwell for the life of him could not find out how to get into the good +graces of this firm. No one seemed to know who bought for them, and he +was referred from one person to another, and sent dashing from one +branch to another, all to no purpose. + +He had one friend who had a small retail business of his own, a Baptist +named Senner, who gave him small orders occasionally. He went into Mr. +Senner’s shop one Friday, and feeling thoroughly tired and discouraged, +he poured out his tale of woe to Mr. Senner. Mr. Senner was a large +doleful man, to whom the sorrows of others were as balm. He listened to +Mr. Pinwell’s misfortunes in sympathetic silence, breathing heavily. At +the end of the peroration his son entered the shop. He was a +white-faced, dissipated-looking young man who wore lavender ties and +brushed his hair back. One might have imagined that he would have been a +source of disappointment to Mr. Senner, but quite the contrary was the +case. The son had a genius for concealing his vices from his father, and +his father had a great opinion of the boy’s intelligence and character. +He certainly had a faculty of securing orders for his father’s business. + +On this occasion Mr. Senner turned to his son and said: + +“Harry, who buys for Carron & Musswell?” + +The son looked at Mr. Pinwell and fidgeted with his nails. Then he +grinned weakly and said: + +“Oh, you want to get hold of Clappe.” + +Mr. Pinwell came forward and said: + +“Oh, indeed! I’m really very much obliged to you. It’s very kind! Mr. +Clappe, you say? Dear me! yes. Thank you very much. I’ll go and ask for +Mr. Clappe.” And he shook the young man’s hand. + +The young man continued grinning in rather a superior manner, and at +that moment Mr. Senner’s attention was attracted by a customer who +entered the shop. Mr. Pinwell picked up his bags and went out. He had +not gone more than a dozen yards when he became aware of Senner junior +at his side. The young man still grinned, and he said: + +“I say, you know, it’s no good your going to Carron & Musswell’s and +asking for Clappe. You’ll never get hold of him in that way.” + +“Really!” exclaimed Mr. Pinwell. “Now tell me, what would you suggest?” + +The young man sniffed and looked up and down the street, and a curiously +leery expression came over his face. Then he said: + +“I expect I could fix it for you all right, Pinwell. You’d better come +with me into the bar of the ‘Three Amazons’ after lunch. I’ll introduce +you. Of course, you know, Mr. Pinwell,--er--you know, business is +business. We always like to oblige our friends, and so on--” + +He looked at Mr. Pinwell furtively and bit his nails. For the moment Mr. +Pinwell could not catch the drift of these smiles and suggestions, but +he had been in the upholstery line for twenty-seven years, and it +suddenly dawned upon him that of course the young man was suggesting +that if he introduced him, and business came out of it, he would expect +a commission or a bonus. He was quite reasonable. He had a sort of +ingrained repugnance to these things himself, but he knew that it was +done in business. It was quite a usual thing. Some of the best firms--He +took the young man’s hand and said: + +“Er--of course--Mr. Senner, I shall be very pleased to accommodate you. +It’s--er--only natural, only natural of course. Business is business. +Where shall I meet you?” + +The appointment was made for the corner of Mulberry Road at half-past +two; and at that hour Mr. Pinwell arrived with two heavily laden bags. +He walked by the side of the young man down the street, and then crossed +over into the High Road. Right opposite them was a large gaudy public +house called “The Three Amazons,” and they crossed over to it. A feeling +of diffidence and shyness came over Mr. Pinwell. He had only entered a +public house on about three occasions in his life, and then under some +very stringent business demands, or else to get a bottle of brandy when +his wife was very ill. Nevertheless he followed the young man through a +passage and entered the saloon bar, in the corner of which he deposited +his bags. The bar was fairly crowded with business men, but there was +one figure that by its personality immediately arrested Mr. Pinwell’s +attention. He was a very big man in a new shiny top-hat with a curl to +it. He was leaning heavily against the center of the bar, and was +surrounded by three or four other men who seemed to be hanging on his +words. He had a large red face and small, dark, expressionless eyes. The +skin seemed to be tight and moist, and to bind up his features in +inelastic bags, except round the eyes, where it puckered up into dark +yellowish layers of flesh. His hands were fat and stiff and blue like +the hands of a gouty subject. His gray hair curled slightly under the +brim of his hat, and his clothes were ponderously impressive from the +silk reveres of his tail coat to the dark-brown spats that covered his +square-toed boots. As they entered, this impressive individual looked in +their direction and gave young Mr. Senner a faint nod, and then +continued his conversation. + +“That’s Clappe,” whispered Mr. Pinwell’s cicerone, and dusted the knees +of his trousers. He then added: + +“We’d better wait a bit.” + +They stood there in the corner of the bar, and the young man produced a +silver cigarette-case and offered its contents to Mr. Pinwell, an overt +act of kindness which that gentleman appreciated but did not take +advantage of. They waited there twenty minutes before an opportunity +presented itself of making any approach to the great man. But in the +meantime Mr. Pinwell watched the conversation with considerable +interest. The four men stood very close together, smoking, and speaking +in thick whispers. He was alarmed at moments by the way in which one +would hold a glass of whisky-and-water at a perilous angle over the +waistcoat of another, while fumbling with a cigarette in the unoccupied +hand. He could not hear the conversation, but occasional sentences +reached him: “It’s the cheapest line there is.” “Here! I tell you where +you can get--” “D’you know what they paid last year?” “I ’ad ’im by the +short ’airs that time.” “’E says to me--” + +It occurred to Mr. Pinwell that there was something distressing about +this scene, something repelling and distasteful, but he consoled himself +with the reflection that after all business had to be conducted somehow. +Money had to be made to pay for the streets and the lamp-posts, and the +public baths and the battleships. “Business is not always pleasant,” he +reflected, “but it has to be done.” + +At the end of twenty minutes two of the men went away and left Mr. +Clappe talking apathetically to the remaining man. + +“Now’s our chance,” said Senner junior, and he walked across the bar. He +seized on a lull in the conversation to step forward and touch Mr. +Clappe on the arm. + +“Er--excuse me, Mr. Clappe,” he said. “This is my friend Mr. Pinwell, of +Dollbones.” + +The big man glanced from Senner junior to Mr. Pinwell and gave that +gentleman an almost imperceptible nod. He then sighed, breathed heavily, +and took a long drink from the glass in front of him. + +“I’m very pleased to meet you, Mr. Clappe,” said Pinwell nervously. +“I’ve heard about you. I’m with Dollbones, you know, _the_ Dollbones. We +have--er--several very good lines just now.” + +The great Clappe fixed him with his lugubrious eyes and suddenly said in +a thick voice: + +“What’ll you drink?” + +It is curious that Mr. Pinwell with all his experience should have been +taken back by this hospitable request. He stammered and said: + +“Oh! thank you very much, sir. I don’t think I’ll--at least, I’ll +have--er--a lime-juice and soda.” + +And then Mr. Clappe behaved in a very extraordinary way. An expression +of utter dejection came over his face. He puffed his cheeks out and +suddenly muttered, “Oh, my God!” + +And then he rolled round and _deliberately turned his back on Mr. +Pinwell and his friend_! It was a very trying moment. Mr. Pinwell was at +his wit’s end how to act, and Senner junior did not help him in any way. +On the contrary he seemed to be taking Mr. Clappe’s side. He gave a sort +of snigger of disgust, and called across the bar in a jaunty voice: + +“Johnny Walker and soda, please, Miss Parritt.” + +Mr. Pinwell gaped ineffectually at the back of the great man, and +hesitated whether to make any further advance. But he was relieved of +the necessity of coming to a decision by the act of Mr. Clappe himself, +who slowly drained the remnants of refreshment in his glass, and then +walked heavily out of the bar, without looking round. + +In the meantime young Senner had acquired his drink, and was feverishly +tapping the end of a cigarette on the rail. He took a long drink and +spluttered slightly, and then, turning on Mr. Pinwell, he said: + +“What particular brand of blankety fool are you?” + +“I beg your pardon?” exclaimed Mr. Pinwell, amazed. + +“I tell you,” said the young man, “you’re a particular type of blankety +fool. You’ve missed the chance of yer life! Don’t you know when a man +like Clappe asks yer to have a drink yer a blankety fool not to? D’you +know that man places thousands and thousands of pounds a year for Carron +& Musswell? Thousands, I tell yer! It don’t matter to ’im where he +places the orders. He puts it all out among ’is pals. You ’ad a chance +of being a pal, and you’ve muffed it!” + +“But--but--but--” spluttered Mr. Pinwell. “I really--I--had no +idea. I said I would have a drink. It was only that I ordered +a--er--non-alcoholic drink. I really can’t--” + +“Psaugh!” + +Young Mr. Senner swirled the whisky round in his glass and drank it at a +gulp. Then he muttered: + +“Gawd! Asking Clappe for a lime-juice and soda!” + +Mr. Pinwell thought about this meditatively. He wondered whether he had +been in the wrong. After all, people all had their notions of the way to +conduct business. Business was a very big thing. It had “evolved”--that +was the word!--evolved out of all sorts of complicated social +conditions, supply and demand, and so on. A man perhaps who had been in +the habit of taking alcoholic refreshment and expecting others to--it +might perhaps be difficult for him to understand. + +“Don’t you never drink?” suddenly exclaimed Mr. Senner. + +“I--er--occasionally have a glass of stout,” murmured Mr. Pinwell. “Last +Christmas my wife’s sister brought us a bottle of canary sac. I have no +particular taste for--er--things of this sort--” + +“Anyway,” said Mr. Senner, “you’re not under any bally pledge?” + +“Oh, dear me, no!” exclaimed Mr. Pinwell. + +“Well, then,” answered his youthful adviser. “I should advise you next +time Clappe or any one like him asks you to have a drink, lap it up like +a poodle and stand him a quick one in return.” + +Mr. Pinwell surveyed his friend over the rim of his glasses, and thought +for some minutes. Then he said: + +“I’m afraid Mr. Clappe is not likely to ask me to have a drink again.” + +But the young man of precocious experience answered: + +“If you come in here to-morrer, I’ll bet yer he’ll have forgotten who +you are.” + +It was all a very astounding experience, and that night in bed Mr. +Pinwell gave the matter long and serious consideration. If his +circumstances had been normal he would have hardly thought about it for +five consecutive minutes, but his circumstances were anything but +normal. They were somewhat desperate. He was on his last month’s trial. +If he should be out again!... Both the children wanted new clothes, and +Eileen’s boots were all to pieces. And then there was that bill of +Batson’s for three pounds seventeen shillings, for which payment was +demanded by the seventeenth; there were other bills less urgent perhaps +but--the little man kept turning restlessly in bed and even in his +sleep he made febrile calculations. + +It must be acknowledged that the result of Mr. Pinwell’s nocturnal +meditations tended to loosen certain moral tendencies in himself. He set +out on the morrow in a peculiarly equivocal frame of mind, wavering +between conflicting impulses, but already predisposed to temporize with +his conscience if by so doing he could advance what he considered to be +the larger issues of business considerations. These first concessions, +curiously enough, were not made at the instance of the great Mr. Clappe, +however, but at that of a certain Mr. Cherish whom he met during that +day. He was a breezy, amiable person, and the manager of the +International Hardwood Company. He was just going out to lunch as Mr. +Pinwell called, and being in a particularly buoyant mood, owing to a +successful business deal, he took hold of our hero’s arm and drew him +into the street. As they walked along he asked what it was that Pinwell +wanted, and that gentleman immediately expatiated on the virtues of the +goods he had at his disposal. While talking he found himself almost +unconsciously led into the bar of a public-house called “The Queen of +Roumania.” And when asked by Mr. Cherish, “What he was going to have,” a +sudden desperate instinct of adventure came over him, and he called for +whisky. When it was brought he drank it in little sips, and thought it +the most detestable drink he had ever tasted. But he determined to see +the matter through, and salved his conscience with the reflection that +it was just “in the way of business.” He certainly had to acknowledge +that after drinking it he felt a certain elevated sense of assurance. He +talked to Mr. Cherish quite unselfconsciously and listened to him with +concentrated attention. This mental attitude was quickened by the +discovery that Mr. Cherish was actually in need of certain embroideries +that Dollbones were in a position to supply. It would be quite a big +order. He promised to bring samples of the embroideries on the following +day, and took his departure. During the afternoon he felt a sudden +reaction from the whisky and was very tired. He went home early, +complaining to his wife of “a bad headache, as though something had +disagreed with him.” Nevertheless the prospect of securing the order for +the embroideries excited him considerably, and he went so far as to tell +her that he hoped things were soon going to take a turn for the better. +He arrived at his appointment the next day to the minute, carrying a +very heavy valise stuffed with machine embroideries. He was kept waiting +by Mr. Cherish for nearly an hour, and was then ushered into his +presence. Mr. Cherish was still in a very jovial mood and had another +gentleman with him. He shook Mr. Pinwell’s hand and immediately told him +three obscene stories that he had just heard--Mr. Cherish was reputed to +have the largest repertoire of obscene stories in the trade--and the +other gentleman also told two. Pinwell laughed at them to the best of +his ability, although they did not appear to him to be particularly +humorous. He then felt peculiarly uncomfortable in that for the life of +him he could not think of a story in reply. He never could remember +these stories. So he opened his valise and displayed the tapestries. The +other two gentlemen took a desultory interest in them as tapestries, but +a rapacious interest in them as regards value. They were figured +tapestries and the price was four pounds seventeen and sixpence a yard. +Mr. Cherish mentioned casually that they would want about seventy +yards. And then Mr. Pinwell made the rapidest mental calculation he had +ever made in his life. Seventy yards at £4,17_s._ 6_d._ would be +£341,5_s._ which, at two per cent, would mean just on seven pounds for +himself! It was dazzling! Seven gold sovereigns! However, the order was +not yet given. The two gentlemen talked about it at some length, and +looked up other quotations. At last Mr. Cherish said: + +“Well, I think we’ll go and see what the ‘Queen of Roumania’ has got up +her sleeve.” + +Mr. Pinwell and the other gentleman laughed, and they all went out. Mr. +Pinwell dreaded the prospect of drinking more whisky, but--seven golden +sovereigns! enough to pay that bill of Batson’s and to buy the children +all the clothes they wanted! He knew in any case the etiquette of the +trade, and when they arrived in the resplendent bar it was he who +insisted on ordering “three Scotch whiskies and a split soda.” On the +arrival of these regenerating beverages the other two gentlemen resumed +their sequence of improper stories. And it was just after the glasses +had been re-charged at the instance of Mr. Cherish that he suddenly +recollected a story he had heard nearly twenty years ago. It was a +disgusting story, and it had impressed itself on his memory for the +reason that it struck him when he heard it as being so incredibly vulgar +that he could not understand how any one could appreciate it. But as he +neared the end of his second glass of whisky it suddenly flashed into +his mind that here was the story that Mr. Cherish and his friend would +like. He had by this time arrived at an enviable state of +unselfconsciousness, and he told the story as well as he had ever told +anything in his life. The result amazed him. The other two gentlemen +roared with laughter, and Mr. Cherish tilted his hat back and slapped +his leg. + +“Gawd’s truth! that’s a damn good story, Pinwell!” he cried out several +times. + +Other people came into the bar, and Mr. Pinwell found himself something +of a hero. Every one seemed to know Mr. Cherish, and he introduced him, +and on several occasions said, “I say, Pinwell, tell Mr. Watson that +story about the sea captain.” + +The story was an unqualified success, and seemed in some way to endear +him to Mr. Cherish. That gentleman became more confidential and +confiding, and they talked about business. + +Mr. Pinwell believed he drank four whiskies-and-sodas that afternoon. In +any case, he arrived home feeling very bilious and ill. He told his wife +he had felt faint, and had taken some brandy--“Thank heaven,” he +thought, “she doesn’t know the difference in smell between brandy and +whisky!” He said he would go to bed at once, he thought, and he kissed +her in rather a maudlin fashion, and said he knew she would be glad to +hear that he had that afternoon taken an order for £341--that would mean +nearly seven pounds to them! Enough to buy clothes for the children and +pay Batson’s bill; he laughed a little hysterically after that, and +rolled into bed. + +On the following day he was very unwell and unable to get up, and Mrs. +Pinwell wrote to the firm and explained that her husband had got his +feet wet on his rounds and had contracted a chill. She also inclosed his +order-book. + +It was three days before he was well enough to resume his rounds, and +then he avoided the company of Mr. Cherish and set out on a pilgrimage +to the meaner parts of the district. But the orders there seemed few +and far between, and a feeling of depression came over him. + +On the 21st of the month he was bidden to the presence of Mr. Rodney. +That gentleman said that the firm was still dissatisfied with his +efforts, but on the strength of the order he had secured from the +International Hardwood Co. they were willing to keep him on for another +month’s trial. But unless at the end of that time he had secured further +orders of a similar nature, he must consider his engagement at an end. + +It would be tedious and extremely disconcerting to follow the precise +movements of Thomas Pinwell during the ensuing four weeks. It need only +be said that, utterly discouraged by his lonely peregrinations in the +paths of honest effort, he eventually once more sought the society of +young Mr. Senner and Mr. Cherish. In their company he discovered what +might be called “a cheering fluidity.” He found that whisky made him so +ill that he simply could not drink it, but he drank ale, stout, brandy, +and gin. None of these things agreed with him, but he found that by +drinking as little as possible and ringing the changes on them he could +just manage to keep going. The direct result of this moral defection was +that his circle of business acquaintances increased at an enormous rate. +He gradually got to know the right place and the right hour to catch the +right people. His efforts on behalf of Messrs. Dollbones during the +following three months were eminently satisfactory, and his own +commissions amounted to no mean sum. Neither was his conscience +seriously affected by this change of habit. He considered it an +inevitable development of his own active progress “in the way of +business.” The very word “business” had a peculiarly mesmerizing effect +upon him. It was a fetish. He looked upon it as an acolyte might look +upon the dogma of some faith he blindly believed in. He believed that +people were in some mysterious way pale adjuncts to the idea that +whatever happens, “Business” must go on. He would stand in the corner of +the bar of “The Queen of Roumania” and look across the street at the +Camling Town public wash-houses, a mid-Victorian Gothic building in +stucco and red brick, and then, turning his mild watery eyes towards +Senner junior, he would say: + +“It’s a wonderful thing--business, you know, Mr. Senner, a very +wonderful thing indeed. Now look at the wash-houses! They simply have +been the result of business. No progress is made, nothing is done except +through business. If it weren’t for business we should all be +Barbarians.” + +And then he would take a little sip at the gin-and-water in front of +him. + +After copious trials he found that gin affected him less than any of the +other drinks, so he stuck to that. He did not like it, but he found that +people simply would not do business with him in Camling Town unless he +drank and stood drinks. It was very trying, and the most trying part was +the necessity of concealing these aberrations from his wife. When he +first started he was conscious that he often returned home smelling of +the disgusting stuff. He tried cloves, but they were not very effective. +Then one day he had a brilliant inspiration. He was unwell again. It +happened very often now--at least once a week--and the doctor gave him +some medicine. Then it occurred to him that medicine might smell like +anything else. He would keep up the medicine. His wife was very +unsuspecting. He hated deceiving her. He had never deceived her about +anything, but he thought, “Women don’t understand business. It is for +her benefit that I take it.” + +Sunday was a great joy to him. He would take the children out for a walk +in the morning while his wife cooked the dinner. In the afternoon he +would have a nap; but the greatest luxury of the day seemed to him that +he need drink nothing except water. + +At the end of six months there came a proud day when Mr. Rodney informed +him that Mr. Hylam was quite satisfied with his progress, and his +ordinary salary was raised to two pounds. It was summertime, and the +accumulation of his commissions justified the family moving into larger +rooms, one of which was to be a bathroom. But Mr. Pinwell was beginning +to feel his health very much affected, and he looked forward with +intense avidity to the two weeks’ holiday which was his due in +September. In July he achieved a great triumph. He met and got into the +good graces of the great Mr. Clappe. As Senner junior predicted, that +gentleman had quite forgotten their previous meeting, and it happened in +the company of the good Mr. Cherish. They all met in the bar of “The +Cormorant,” and after several drinks Cherish said: + +“I say, Pinwell, tell Mr. Clappe that story about the sea captain!” + +Mr. Pinwell complied, and when he had finished he saw the shiny bags of +flesh on Mr. Clappe’s face shaking. He was evidently very much amused, +although his eyes looked hard and tired. He said hoarsely: + +“Damn good! What’s yours?” + +Mr. Pinwell did not fail on this occasion, and asked for some gin. And +directly he noticed that the great man’s glass was nearly empty, he +insisted on ordering some more all round. He found Mr. Clappe an +expensive client. He drank prodigiously, in a splendid nonchalant +manner, hardly noticing it, or taking any interest in who paid for it. +It took Mr. Pinwell several weeks, and cost him the price of several +whole bottles of whisky, before he became sufficiently established in +favor to solicit orders. But once having arrived there, the rest was +easy, for Mr. Clappe had the reputation of being “loyal to his pals,” +and he had the power of placing very large orders. + +There came a day when Mr. Pinwell received an order for over eight +hundred pounds’ worth of goods, and for the first time in his life he +got very drunk. He arrived home in a cab very late at night and was just +conscious enough to tell his wife that he had been taken ill, and some +one had given him some brandy, and it had gone to his head. She helped +him to bed, and seemed rather surprised and alarmed. + +On the following day he was very ill, and a doctor was sent for. He +examined him carefully, and looked stern. Out in the hall he said to +Mrs. Pinwell: + +“Excuse me, Mrs. Pinwell, but does your husband drink rather a lot?” + +“Drink!” exclaimed the lady. “My Tom!... Why, he’s practically a +teetotaler.” + +The doctor looked at her thoughtfully and murmured, “Oh!” Then, as he +turned to go, he said: + +“Well, we’ll pull him through this, I hope, but he must be very careful. +You must advise him never to touch alcohol in any form. It’s poison to +him,” and he left Mrs. Pinwell speechless with indignation. + +Mr. Pinwell’s illness proved more obstinate than was anticipated, and it +was some weeks before he was well enough to get about. When he arrived +at that stage the firm of Dollbones were considerate enough to suggest +that he might take his holiday earlier than had been arranged, and go +away at once. + +Consequently, on a certain fine morning in August, Mr. and Mrs. Pinwell, +with the two children, set out for a fortnight’s holiday to Herne Bay. +The firm paid his salary while he was away, and in addition he had now +nearly thirty-five pounds in the bank, and all his debts were paid. It +was many years since the family had been in such an affluent position, +and everything pointed to the prospect of a joyous and beneficial time. +And so indeed, to a large extent, it was. Mr. Pinwell felt very shaky +when he arrived, and he spent most of his time sitting in a deck chair +on the sands, watching the children, while his wife sat on the sands by +his side, sewing. The fresh breezes from the Channel made him very +sleepy at first, but he gradually got used to them. It was extremely +pleasant sitting there listening to the waves breaking on the shore and +watching the white sails of yachts gliding hither and thither; very +pleasant and very refreshing. It was only after some days that when he +was left alone a certain moroseness came over him. He could not explain +this to himself; it seemed so unreasonable. But he felt a curious and +restless desire and an irritability. These moods became more pronounced +as the week advanced, in spite of the fact that his strength returned to +him. He had moods when he wished to be alone and the children tired him. + +On the fifth day, he and his wife were strolling up from the beach late +in the afternoon, and they were nearing their lodgings when he suddenly +said: + +“I think I’ll just stroll round and get a paper.” + +“Oh! Shall I come with you?” his wife asked. + +“No, no, my dear. Don’t. Er--I’ll just stroll round by myself--” + +He seemed so anxious to go by himself that she did not insist, and he +sauntered round the corner. He looked back to see that she had gone in, +and then he walked rather more quickly round into the High Street. He +hummed to himself and glanced rather furtively at the contents of the +newspaper bills, then, after looking up and down the street, he suddenly +darted into the saloon bar of the principal hotel.... + +After his second glass of gin-and-water a feeling of comfortable +security crept over him. After all, it was a very ingratiating +atmosphere this, ingratiating and sociable. He glanced round the bar and +carried on a brief but formal conversation with a florid individual +standing near him. He hesitated for a moment whether he would tell him +the story about the sea captain, but on second thoughts decided to +reserve it to a more intimate occasion. Besides, he must not be away +long. + +After that it became a habit with Mr. Pinwell for the rest of the +holiday for him at some time during the day, and occasionally twice or +three times during the day, to “go for a stroll round by himself.” His +wife never for one moment suspected the purpose of these wanderings, +though she was informed that he was taking another bottle of the +medicine. + +When they returned to town Mr. Pinwell certainly seemed better and more +eager about his work. It may be that he had the measure of his +constitution more under control. He knew what was the least damaging +drink he could take, and he knew how much he dare consume without +immediately disastrous results. He gradually became a well-known +habitué of all the best-known saloon bars in the neighborhood of his +rounds. His character altered. He always remained mild and unassertive, +but his face became pinched and thin, and he began to enjoy the +reputation of being a “knowing one.” He did not make a fortune in his +solicitations for orders for gimp, trimmings, buttons, and embroidery, +but he certainly earned a very fair competence. In two years’ time he +was entirely intimate with every buyer of importance in the Camling Town +district and out as far as the “Teck Arms” at Highgate. The family still +occupied the larger rooms (with the bathroom) that they had moved to, +and both the girls attended the Camling Town Collegiate School for +Girls, and showed every promise of being worthy and attractive members +of society. + +It was not till the end of the second year that two events following +rapidly on each other’s heels tended to disturb the normal conditions +of the Pinwell family. A letter arrived one day from a lawyer. It +appeared that a brother of Mr. Pinwell’s whom he had not seen for twelve +years, and who had owned a farm in Northamptonshire, had died intestate. +He was not married, and Tom Pinwell was his only living relative. Under +the circumstances he inherited the whole of his brother’s property. When +this had been assessed it was proved to be worth £140 per year. Needless +to say this news brought great joy to the traveler’s family. Visions of +great splendor opened out before them, wealth, comfort, security. The +day after the settlement was made, Tom Pinwell entertained Mr. Cherish, +Mr. Clappe, and a few others of his friends to a supper at “The Queen of +Roumania,” and the next day he was taken very ill. He lay in a critical +state for ten days, nursed with a sort of feline intensity by his wife. +The doctor then said that he might recover--he was a different doctor to +the one who had so exasperated Mrs. Pinwell with his outrageous +suggestions--but that he would be an invalid all his life. He would have +to live on special food and must not touch either sweets or alcohol in +any form. + +On a certain evening Mr. Pinwell showed traces of convalescence and was +allowed to sit up in bed. His wife as usual sat by his bedside, +knitting. He seemed more cheerful than he had ever been before, and Mrs. +Pinwell took the opportunity of saying: + +“What a blessing it is, dear, about this money!” + +“Yes, dear,” answered her spouse. + +“Do you know, Tom,” she said suddenly, “there is a thing I’ve wanted to +do all my life. And now perhaps is the opportunity.” + +“What is that, my dear?” + +“To go and live in the country.” + +“Yes, dear.” + +“Think of it! When you’re better, we can go and get a little cottage +somewhere, with a bit of a garden, you know--grow our own vegetables and +that. You can live fine in some parts of the country for £140 a year. +You’ll be able to give up this nasty tiring old business. It’ll be +lovely.” + +“Yes, my dear.” + +Mr. Pinwell’s voice sounded rather faint, and she busied herself with +his beef-tea. Nothing more was said about the idea that night. But +gradually, as he got stronger, Mrs. Pinwell enlarged on the idea. She +talked about the flowers they could grow, and the economy of having your +own fowls and potatoes. It would have to be right in the country, but +not _too_ far from a village or town, so that the girls could continue +their schooling and meet other girls. To all of this Mr. Pinwell agreed +faintly, and he even made a suggestion that he thought Surrey was nicer +than Buckinghamshire. + +Mr. Pinwell was confined to his bedroom for nearly two months. And then +one day a letter came from Messrs. Dollbones. It was to say that in view +of the short time that Mr. Pinwell had been in their service they could +not see their way to continue paying his salary after the end of the +month, unless he were well enough to continue his work. + +Mrs. Pinwell said: + +“No, and they needn’t continue to pay it at all, for all we care!” + +A troubled look came over her husband’s face, and he said: + +“Um--they’ve treated me very well, Emma, very well indeed. There’s many +firms don’t pay their employees at all when they’re ill.” + +“Well, then, they jolly well ought to,” answered Mrs. Pinwell. “People +get ill through doing the firm’s work.” + +Mr. Pinwell sniffed. It was the one subject upon which he and his wife +were inclined to differ. Mrs. Pinwell did not understand business; she +had no reverence for it. + +By the end of the month Mr. Pinwell was up again and going for short +walks up and down the street. One day he said: + +“Let me see, my dear--next Thursday is the first of the new month, isn’t +it?” + +“Yes,” answered Mrs. Pinwell. “And thank goodness you haven’t got to go +back to that horrid old business!” + +Mr. Pinwell said nothing at the time, but a few hours later he said: + +“Er--I’ve been thinking, my dear. I rather think I ought perhaps +to--er--to try and see if I could go for a little while on Thursday. You +see, the firm have treated me very generously, very generously +indeed--and--er--business is business.” + +“What does it matter?” answered his wife. “I’m sure they’ve got some one +else doing your job by now. Besides, you’re not strong enough.” + +Mr. Pinwell fidgeted with his watch-chain and walked up the street. +During the next two days Mrs. Pinwell could tell that he was fretting. +He seemed distracted and inclined to be irritable. He gave +demonstrations of his walking powers and stayed out longer and moved +more quickly. He got into such a state on the Wednesday evening, that in +a weak moment Mrs. Pinwell made the mistake of her life. + +She agreed that he might try and go the next day just for an hour or so, +but he was to come home directly he felt tired. + +Tom started out on the Thursday morning, and he seemed in a great state +of elation. In spite of his weakness he insisted on taking one of his +bags of samples. He walked more quickly down the street than she had +seen him walk for a long time. Mrs. Pinwell then turned to her household +duties. She was disappointed, but not entirely surprised, that her +husband did not come home to lunch, but at half-past three a sudden +curious feeling of alarm came over her. She tried to reason with herself +that it was all nonsense; nothing had happened, Tom was a little +late--that was all. But her reason quailed before some more insidious +sense of calamity. The children came home from school at a quarter-past +four, and still he had not returned. She gave them their tea and somehow +their gay chatter irritated her for the first time. She would not convey +to them her sense of fear. She washed up the tea-things and busied +herself in the house. + +It was a quarter to six when Tom came home. He staggered into the hall. +His eyes had a strange look she had not seen before. He was trembling +violently. She did not ask any questions. She took his arm and led him +into the bedroom and untied his collar and tie. He lay on the bed and +his teeth chattered. She got him a hot-water bottle and gradually +undressed him. Then she sent one of the girls for the doctor. + +In the meantime he started talking incoherently, although he repeated on +one or two occasions, “I’ve taken another bottle of the medicine, Emm’.” + +The doctor was on duty in the surgery when the child called, and he did +not come round till half-past eight. + +When he looked at Pinwell and took his pulse, he said: + +“What’s he been doing?” + +“He’s been out,” said Mrs. Pinwell. “He said he’d taken another bottle +of the medicine.” + +“Medicine? what medicine?” The doctor seemed to examine the lips of the +sick man very closely, then he shook his head. He turned to Mrs. Pinwell +as though he were going to make a statement, then he changed his mind. +It did not require any great astuteness to determine from the doctor’s +face that the case was critical. He gave the patient a powder, and after +a few instructions to Mrs. Pinwell he went, and said he would return +later in the evening. After the doctor had gone, Mr. Pinwell was +delirious for an hour, and then he sank into a deep sleep. The doctor +returned just after eleven. He examined him and said that nothing more +could be done that night. He would return in the morning. In the +meantime, if things took a more definite turn, they could send for him. + +Tom Pinwell lay unconscious for nearly twenty-four hours, sometimes +mumbling feverishly, at other times falling into a deep coma. But +suddenly, late on the following evening, he seemed to alter. His face +cleared, and he sighed peacefully. Mrs. Pinwell noticed the change and +she went up close to the bed. He looked at her and said suddenly: + +“I don’t think it would do, my dear, to go and live in the country.” + +“No, no, dear; all right. We’ll live where you like.” + +“You see,” he said after a pause, “business has to be gone through.... +There was Judkins & Co., they treated me very fair, then they went +bankrupt. It was very unfortunate, very unfortunate indeed.... I +wouldn’t like these people--what’s their name, Emma?...” + +“Dollbones.” + +“Ah, yes, Dollbones!... Dollbones. No, I wouldn’t like them to think I’d +let them in like. Just because I had a little money.... It’s a very +serious thing--business....” + +Mr. Pinwell seemed about to say something, but he smiled instead and +looked up at the ceiling. He became very still after that, and Mrs. +Pinwell placed a book so that the candle-light should not shine on his +face. All through the night she sat there watching and doing the little +things the doctor had told her to. But he was very still. Once he +sighed, and on another occasion she thought he said: + +“That was very amusin’ about that invoice of Barrel and Beelswright, Mr. +Cherish ... oh, dear me!” + +About dawn, thoroughly exhausted with her vigil, Mrs. Pinwell fell into +a fitful sleep, sitting up in her chair. She only slept for a few +minutes, and then awakened with a start. The short end of candle was +spluttering in its socket, and its light was contending with the cold +blue glimmer of the early day. She shivered, her frame racked by +physical fatigue, and her mind benumbed by the incredible stillness of +the little room. + + * * * * * + +“Consequently, ladies and gentlemen, after placing £17,500 in the +reserve fund, for the reasons which I have indicated to you, I feel +justified in recommending a dividend of 12½ per cent. on the ordinary +shares.” + +The big man with the square chin dabbed his forehead with his +handkerchief and took a sip of water as he resumed his seat. A faint +murmur of approval and applause ran round the room; papers rustled, and +people spoke in low, breathless voices. Twelve and a half per cent.! It +was a good dividend, a very good dividend! A hundred different brains +visualized rapidly what it meant to them personally. To some it meant a +few extra luxuries, to others comforts, and to some a distinct social +advance. If Dollbones could only keep this up! + +Sir Arthur Schelling was seconding the adoption of this report, but it +was a mere formality. No one took any interest in the white-haired +financier, except to nudge each other and say, “That’s Schelling. They +say he’s worth half a million.” It was a curiously placid meeting, there +was no criticism, and every one seemed on the best of terms. It broke +up, and the share-holders dispersed into little knots, or scattered to +spread the good news that Dollbones were paying twelve and a half per +cent. + +Sir Arthur took the chairman’s hand and murmured: + +“I must congratulate you, Hylam. An excellent report!” + +The large man almost blushed with pleasure, and said: + +“It’s very kind of you, Sir Arthur. Are you lunching in town?” + +“I was going to suggest that you lunch with me at the Carlton. I have my +car here.” + +“Oh! thank you very much. I shall be delighted.” + +Mr. Hylam turned and gave a few instructions to his lawyer and his +private secretary, and handed various papers to each; then he followed +his host out of the Cannon Street Hotel. + +They got into the great car, and each man lighted a well-merited cigar. +As they drove through the city, Sir Arthur discussed a few details of +the balance-sheet, and then added: + +“I really think you have shown a remarkable genius of organization in +conducting this business, Hylam. It is a business which I should imagine +requires considerable technical knowledge and great--er--tact.” + +Mr. Hylam laughed deprecatingly and muttered: + +“Oh, we have our little difficulties!” He puffed at his cigar and looked +out of the window. + +“So many--er--varieties of employees, I should imagine?” said Sir +Arthur. + +“Yes, you’re right, sir. There are varieties. I’ve had a lot of +difficulty with the travelers this year.” He gave a vicious puff at his +cigar and stamped on the ash on the floor, and suddenly exclaimed: + +“Drunken swine!” + +Sir Arthur readjusted his gold-rimmed pince-nez and looked at his +friend. + +“Is that so indeed?” + +“Yes,” answered Mr. Hylam. “I don’t know how it is. They nearly all +drink. In one district alone, I’ve had two travelers practically drink +themselves to death, one after the other.” + +“I’m very distressed to hear that,” said Sir Arthur; “very distressed. +It’s a very great social evil. My wife, as you may know, is on a board +of directorship of the Blue Riband Evangelists. They do a lot of good +work. They have a branch in Camling Town. They have pleasant evenings, +you know--cocoa and bagatelle, and so on; and lectures on Sunday. But, I +don’t know, it doesn’t seem to eradicate the evil.” + +“No; I’m afraid it’s in the blood with many of them,” said the managing +director. + +“Yes, that’s very true. I often tell my wife I’m afraid she wastes her +time. It seems inexplicable. I can’t see why they should do it. What +satisfaction can it be to--er--drink to excess? And then it must hamper +them so in the prosecution of their work. It seems in a way +so--ungrateful, to the people who employ them, I mean. Ah! here we are +at the Carlton! Champneys, come back for me at--er--three-thirty. Yes, +it’s a great social evil, a very great social evil indeed!” + + +THE END + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77648 *** |