Chapter Two: MR. SMEETH IS REASSURED

I

Mr. Smeeth, still puzzling and pondering over the sullen departure of Goath and the arrival of this mysterious Mr. Golspie, put his books away for the night, and, as his habit was, pulled out his pipe and tobacco pouch. The others had gone, and the office was in darkness except for the solitary light above his desk. His pouch, one of those oilskin affairs, was nearly empty, and he had to take out the last crumbs in order to get a decent pipeful. He had just lit up, blown out the first few delicious clouds, and switched off his light, when the telephone rang sharply, urgently, in the gloom. As he groped back to the receiver, he felt almost frightened. What was coming now? He found himself wishing he had gone earlier, just a little earlier, but nevertheless he had not the strength of mind to ignore the telephone’s peremptory challenge.

“Hello?” he began.

A huge voice cut him short, came roaring out of the dark. “Look ’ere, Charlie, what abart makin’ it fifty? Carm on, yer gotter do it, ol’ son, yer can’t get away from it⁠——”

“Wait a moment,” Mr. Smeeth told him. “This is Twigg and Dersingham. Who do you⁠——”

“I know, I know,” the voice continued, smashing its way across London and entirely ignoring Mr. Smeeth’s protest. “I know wotcher goin’ to say, but it’ll ’ave to be fifty this time. I been talkin’ ter Tommy Rawson s’afternoon, an’ ’e says yer’ll be lucky if yer get it at that. ‘Tell Charlie from me,’ ’e says, ‘’e won’t touch it under fifty an’ ’e’ll be lucky if ’e gets it at that.’ Tommy’s own words them. An’ I agree, I agree. Nar then, what d’yer say, Charlie?”

“You’ve got the wrong number,” cried Mr. Smeeth.

“What’s that? I want Mr. ’Iggins.”

“There’s no Mr. Higgins here. This is Twigg and Dersingham.”

“Wrong number again,” said the voice, disgusted. “Ring off—for gord’s sake.”

Mr. Smeeth, relieved, rang off with pleasure, and departed, chuckling a little. Who was Charlie, and what was it he had to pay fifty for, and why did Tommy Rawson think he’d be lucky if he got it? “Might easily be crooks,” he concluded, with a little romantic thrill, worthy of Stanley himself, and then smiled at himself. More likely to be fellows buying second-hand cars, loads of scrap iron, or something like that. At the bottom of the stairs, he ran into the tall fellow with the broad-brimmed hat, who was just coming out of his Kwik-Work Razor Blade place.

The tall man nodded. “Turning colder.”

“Just a bit,” replied Mr. Smeeth heartily. These little encounters and recognitions pleased him, making him feel that he was somebody. “Not so bad, though, for the time of year.”

“That’s right. Business good?”

“So-so. Not so good as it might be.” And then Mr. Smeeth let the tall man stride away down Angel Pavement, for he remembered that he was out of tobacco and so turned into the neighbouring shop, the one occupied by T. Benenden.

Mr. Smeeth was one of T. Benenden’s regular customers, a patron (perhaps the only one) of T. Benenden’s Own Mixture (Cool Sweet Smoking). “No,” he liked to tell some fellow pipe-smoker, “I don’t fancy your ounce-packet stuff. I like my tobacco freshly mixed, y’know, and so I always get it from a little shop near the office. It’s the chap’s own mixture and so it’s always fresh. Oh, fine stuff!—you try a pipeful—and very reasonable. Been getting it for years now. And the chap I get it from is a bit of a character in his way.” Saying this made Mr. Smeeth feel that he was a connoisseur of both tobacco and human nature, and it gave an added flavour to his pipe, which could do with it after being charged with nothing but T. Benenden’s own mixture. It was hardly possible that he was right about the tobacco being “freshly mixed,” for though mixed—and well mixed—it may have been, it could not come from T. Benenden’s little shop, with its hundreds of dusty dummy packets, its row of battered tin canisters, its dilapidated weight scales, its dirty counter, its solitary wheezing gas mantle, its cobwebs and dark corners, and still be fresh. On the other hand, he was certainly right when he described T. Benenden himself as a bit of a character in his way.

T. Benenden’s way was that of the philosophical financier turned shopkeeper. He was an oldish man who wore thick glasses (which only magnified eyes that protruded far enough without their help), a straggling pepper-and-salt beard, one of those old-fashioned single high collars and a starched front, and no tie. When Mr. Smeeth first visited the shop, years ago, he was at once startled and amused by this absence of tie, jumping to the conclusion that the man had forgotten his tie. Now, he would have been far more startled to see Benenden with a tie. He had often been tempted to ask the chap why he wore these formal collars and fronts and yet no tie, but somehow he had never dared. Benenden himself, though he was ready to talk on many subjects, never mentioned ties. Either he deliberately ignored them or he had never noticed the part these things were now playing in the world, simply did not understand about ties. What he did like to talk about, perhaps because his shop was in the City, was finance, a sort of Arabian Nights finance. He sat there behind his counter, steadily smoking his stock away, and peered at old copies of financial periodicals or the City news of ordinary papers, and out of this reading, and the bits of gossip he heard, and the grandiose muddle of his own mind, he concocted the most astonishing talk. It was difficult to buy an ounce of tobacco from him without his making you feel that the pair of you had just missed a fortune.

As soon as he recognised Mr. Smeeth, T. Benenden very deliberately pulled down his scales and then placed on the counter the particular dirty old canister set apart for his own mixture. “The usual, I suppose, Mr. Smeeth?” he said, picking up the pouch and then smoothing it out on the counter. “I saw your chief this morning, the young fellow—Mr. Dersingham. Came in for some Sahibs. Got somebody with him too, new to me, well set up gentleman, with a good cigar in his mouth, a very good cigar. You’ll know who I mean?”

“He called this morning at the office,” said Mr. Smeeth.

“Well, I didn’t say anything,” Benenden continued, very seriously as he weighed out the tobacco. “It’s not my business to say anything. I don’t say anything. But I keep my eyes open. And I said to myself, the minute they went out, ‘This looks to me as if Twigg and Dersingham’s are moving on a bit. This has the look of a merging job, or a syndicate job, or a trust job. And,’ I said, ‘if Mr. Smeeth does happen to come in for the usual, I’ll put it straight to him. It’s no concern of mine, but he’ll tell me. I’ll test my judgment,’ I said.”

“Sorry, Mr. Benenden,” said Mr. Smeeth, smiling at him, “but I’ve nothing to tell you. I don’t rightly know what’s happening, but you can depend on it, it’s nothing in that line.”

“Then,” cried Benenden, quite passionately, rolling up the pouch and then slapping it down on the counter, “you’re wrong. I don’t mean you, Mr. Smeeth, I mean the firm. That’s the way things are going all the time now, Mr. Smeeth, big combinations—merging away till you don’t know where you are—and sweeping the deck, until—dear me—there isn’t a picking, not a crumb, left. You see what I mean? Now there’s a bit here in one of the papers—I was just reading it when you came in—and I don’t suppose you’ve seen it. Just a minute and I’ll find it. Now here it is. Suppose, Mr. Smeeth, just suppose,” and here T. Benenden leaned across the counter and his eyes seemed colossal, “I’d come to you a fortnight since, a week since, and said to you, ‘What about picking up a bit on South Coast Laundries?’—what would you have said?”

“I’d have said it takes me all my time to pay my own laundry bill,” Mr. Smeeth replied, much amused by this retort of his.

T. Benenden made a slight gesture of contempt to show that this was mere trifling. Then he looked very solemn, very impressive. “You’d have said, ‘I can’t be bothered with South Coast Laundries. I’m not touching ’em—don’t want ’em—take your South Coast Laundries away. And you’d have been right—as far as you could see, then. But what happens, what happens? Read your paper. It’s there, under my very ’and. Along comes a big merger—a bit of syndicate and trust work—and up they go, right up to the top—bang! Now—you see—you can’t touch ’em. And there’s a feller here—you can see it in the paper—who’s been clearing anything out of it—a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand—a clean sweep, made for life. And he’s not the only one, not a bit of it! And we sit here, pretending to laugh at South Coast Laundries or whatever it might be, and what are we doing? We’re missing it, that’s what we’re doing, we’re missing it.” Here, a dramatic pause.

“And if your Mr. Dersingham isn’t careful,” Benenden concluded, still impressive even if a trifle vague now, “he’s going to miss it. He wants to keep his eyes open. There’s one or two bits in this paper I’d like to show him. Let’s see, what was it you gave me? Half a crown, wasn’t it? That’s right then—one and six change. And good-night to you, Mr. Smeeth.” And T. Benenden, after stooping down to the tiny gas-jet to relight his pipe, retired to his corner to ruminate.

Mr. Smeeth made his way to Moorgate, where, as usual, he bought an evening paper and then climbed to the upper deck of a tram. There, when he was not being bumped by the conductor, jostled by outgoing and incoming passengers, thrown back or hurled forward by the tram itself, an irritable and only half tamed brute, he stared at the jogging print and tried to acquaint himself with the latest and most important news of the day. An excitable column and a half told him that a young musical comedy actress, whom he had never seen and had no particular desire to see, had got engaged, that it had been quite a romance, that she was very very happy and not sure yet whether she would leave the stage or not. Mr. Smeeth, not caring whether she left the stage or dropped dead on it, turned to another column. This discussed the problem of careers for married women, a problem that had been left absolutely untouched since the morning papers came out, ten hours before. It did not interest Mr. Smeeth, so he tried another column. This reported an action for divorce, in which it appeared that the petitioning wife had only been allowed a hundred and fifty pounds a year on which to dress herself. The judge had said that this seemed to him—a mere bachelor (laughter)—an adequate allowance, but the paper had collected the opinions of well-known society hostesses, who all said it was not adequate. Mr. Smeeth, who found he could not share the editor’s passionate interest in this topic, now tried another page, which promptly informed him that evening gowns would certainly be longer this winter, and then went on to tell him, to the tune of three solid columns, that the modern business girl (with her latch-key) had quite a different attitude towards marriage and therefore must not be confused with her grandmother (Victorian, with no latch-key). Mr. Smeeth, feeling sure that he had read all this before, passed on, and arrived at the sports page, where the prospects of certain women golfers were discussed at considerable length. Never having set eyes on any of these Amazons and not being interested in golf, Mr. Smeeth next tried the gossip columns. The tram was swaying now and the print fairly dancing, so that it was at the cost of some eye-strain and a slight headache that he learned from these paragraphs that Lord Winthrop’s brother, who was over six feet, intended to spend the winter in the West Indies, that the youngest son of Lady Nether Stowey could not only be seen very frequently at the Blue Pigeon Restaurant but was also renowned for the way in which he painted fans, that the member for the Tewborough Division, who must not be mistaken for Sir Adrian Putter, now in Egypt, had perhaps the best collection of teapots of any man in the House, and that he must not imagine, as so many people did, that Chingley Manor, where the fire had just occurred, was the Chingley Manor mentioned by Disraeli, for it was not, and the paragraphist, who seemed to go about a great deal, knew them both well. Indeed, he and his editor seemed to know all about everybody and everything, except Mr. Smeeth and all the other staring men on the tram, and the people they knew, and all their concerns and all the things in which they were interested. Nevertheless, Mr. Smeeth reflected, as he carefully folded the paper, there were a lot of things in it that his wife would like to read. They seemed to have stopped writing penny papers for men.

Mr. Smeeth occupied a six-roomed house (with bath) in a street full of six-roomed houses (with baths), in that part of Stoke Newington that lies between the High Street and Clissold Park—to be precise, at the postal address: 17, Chaucer Road, N. 16. Why the late Victorian speculative builder had fastened on Chaucer is a mystery, unless he had come to the conclusion that the Canterbury Pilgrims, who have never vanished from this island, might come to rest in the twentieth century behind his brick walls. But there it was, Chaucer Road, and Mr. Smeeth had once tried his hand at Chaucer, but what with one thing and another, the queer spelling and all that, had not made much of him. All that he remembered now was that Chaucer had called birds “Smally foulies,” and to this day, when he was in a waggish mood, Mr. Smeeth liked to bring in “smally foulies,” only to be countered with “You and your ‘smelly foulies!’” from a delighted Mrs. Smeeth. Towards 17, Chaucer Road, Mr. Smeeth now stepped out, swinging his folded newspaper, through the alternating lamplight and gloom, the crisping air, of the autumn evening. Dinner, with a cup of tea to follow, awaited him, for during the week, Mr. Smeeth, like a wise man, preferred to dine when work was done for the day.

II

“Cut some off for George,” said Mrs. Smeeth, “and I’ll keep it warm for him. He’s going to be late again. You’re a bit late yourself to-night, Dad.”

“I know. We’ve had a funny day to-day,” replied Mr. Smeeth, but for the time being he did not pursue the subject. He was busy carving, and though it was only cold mutton he was carving, he liked to give it all of his attention.

“Now then, Edna,” cried Mrs. Smeeth to her daughter, “don’t sit there dreaming. Pass the potatoes and the greens—careful, they’re hot. And the mint sauce. Oh, I forgot it. Run and get it, that’s a good girl. All right, don’t bother yourself. I can be there and back before you’ve got your wits together.”

Mr. Smeeth looked up from his carving and eyed Edna severely. “Why didn’t you go and get it when your mother told you. Letting her do everything.”

His daughter pulled down her mouth and wriggled a little. “I’d have gone,” she said, in a whining tone. “Didn’t give me time, that’s all.”

Mr. Smeeth grunted impatiently. Edna annoyed him these days. He had been very fond of her when she was a child—and, for that matter, he was still fond of her—but now she had arrived at what seemed to him a very silly awkward age. She had a way of acting, of looking, of talking, all acquired fairly recently, that irritated him. An outsider might have come to the conclusion that Edna looked like a slightly soiled and cheapened elf. She was between seventeen and eighteen, a smallish girl, thin about the neck and shoulders but with sturdy legs. She had a broad snub nose, a little round mouth that was nearly always open, and greyish-greenish-blueish eyes set rather wide apart; and scores of faces exactly like hers, pert, pretty-ish and under-nourished, may be seen within a stone’s-throw of any picture theatre any evening in any large town. She had left school as soon as she could, and had wandered in and out of various jobs, the latest and steadiest of them being one as assistant in a big draper’s Finsbury Park way. At home now, being neither child nor an adult, neither dependent nor independent, she was at her worst; languid and complaining, shrill and resentful, or sullen and tearful; she would not eat properly; she did not want to help her mother, to do a bit of washing-up, to tidy her room; and it was only when one of her silly little friends called, when she was going out, that she suddenly sprang into a vivid personal life of her own, became eager and vivacious. This contrast, as sharp as a sword, sometimes angered, sometimes saddened her father, who could not imagine how his home, for which he saw himself for ever planning and working, appeared in the eyes of fretful, secretive and ambitious adolescence. These changes in Edna annoyed and worried him far more than they did Mrs. Smeeth, who only took offence when she had a solid grievance, and turned a tolerant, sagely feminine eye on what she called Edna’s “airs and graces.”

There was a bustle and clatter, and Mrs. Smeeth returned to dump upon the table a little jug without a handle. “I’m getting properly mixed up in my old age,” she announced, breathlessly. “First I thought it was there, in front of the bottom shelf. Then when I went, I thought I couldn’t have made any, because it wasn’t there. And then—lo and behold—it was there all the time, right at the back of the second shelf. Oh, you’ve given me too much, Dad. Take some back. I’m not a bit hungry somehow to-night, haven’t been all day. You know how you get sometimes, can’t fancy anything. Here, Edna, you want more than that. Well, I dare say you don’t, but you’re going to have it, miss. None of this silly starving yourself, a girl your age! Because your mother doesn’t feel hungry for once in her life, it doesn’t mean you’re just going to sit there, pecking worse than a little sparrow.” And here she stopped, to take breath, to snatch Edna’s plate and put some more meat on it, to sit down, to do half a dozen other things, all in a flash.

According to all the literary formulas, the wife of Mr. Smeeth should have been a grey and withered suburban drudge, a creature who had long forgotten to care for anything but a few household tasks, the welfare of her children, and the opinion of one or two chapel-going neighbours, a mere husk of womanhood, in whom Mr. Smeeth could not recognise the girl he had once courted. But Nature, caring nothing for literary formulas, had gone to work in another fashion with Mrs. Smeeth. There was nothing grey and withered about her. She was only in her early forties, and did not look a day older than her age, by any standards. She was a good deal plumper than the girl Mr. Smeeth had married, twenty-two years before, but she was no worse for that. She still had a great quantity of untidy brown hair, a bright blue eye, rosy cheeks, and a ripe moist lip. She came of robust country stock, and perhaps that is why she had been able to conjure any amount of bad food into healthy and jolly womanhood. By temperament, however, she was a real child of London, a daughter of Cockaigne. She adored oysters, fish and chips, an occasional bottle of stout or glass of port, cheerful gossip, hospitality, noise, jokes, sales, outings, comic songs, entertainments of any kind, in fact, the whole rattling and roaring, laughing and crying world of food and drink and bargaining and adventure and concupiscence. She liked to spend as much money as she could, but apart from that, would have been quite happy if the Smeeths had dropped to a lower social level. She never shared any of her husband’s worries, and was indeed rather impatient of them, sometimes openly contemptuous, but she had no contempt, beyond that experienced by all deeply feminine natures for the male, for the man himself. He had been her sweetheart, he was her husband; he had given her innumerable pleasures, had looked after her, had been patient with her, had always been fond of her; and she loved him and was proud of what seemed to her his cleverness. She knew enough about life to realise that Smeeth was a really good husband and that this was something to be thankful for. (North London does not form any part of that small hot-house world in which a good husband or wife is regarded as a bore, perhaps as an obstacle in the path of the partner’s self-development.) Chastity for its own sake made no appeal to her, and she recognised with inward pleasure (though not with any outward sign) the glances that flirtatious and challenging males, in buses and shops and tea-rooms, threw in her direction. If Mr. Smeeth had started any little games—as she frankly confessed—she would not have moaned and repined, but would have promptly “shown him” what she could do in that line. As it was, he did not require showing. He grumbled sometimes at her extravagance, her thoughtlessness, her rather slap-dash housekeeping, but in spite of all that, in spite too, of the fact that for two-and-twenty years they had been cooped up together in tiny houses, she still seemed to him an adorable person, at once incredible and delightful in the large, wilful, intriguing, mysterious mass of her femininity, the Woman among the almost indistinguishable crowd of mere women.

“And if this pudding tastes like nothing on earth,” cried Mrs. Smeeth, rushing it on to the table, “don’t blame me, blame Mrs. Newark at number twenty-three. She came charging in, like a fire brigade, just as I was in the middle of mixing it, and shrieked at me—you know what a voice she has?—she said, ‘What d’you think, Mrs. Smeeth!’ And I said, ‘I’m sure I don’t know, Mrs. Newark. What is it this time?’ I slipped that in just to remind her it wasn’t the first time she’d nearly frightened the life out of me, breaking the news about nothing. ‘Well,’ she said—just a minute, mind your hand, Dad, that’s hot. Pass the custard, Edna. Dad wants it. That’s right.” And Mrs. Smeeth sat down, flushed and panting.

“Bit on the heavy side, p’raps,” said Mr. Smeeth, who had now tasted his pudding, “but I’ve had worse from you, Mother, much worse.” Another spoonful. “Not so bad at all.”

“No, it isn’t, is it?” his wife replied. “But if it isn’t, it ought to be. I thought Mrs. Screaming Twenty-three had done it in properly. ‘Well,’ she said, and nearly bursting she was, ‘do you know, Mrs. Smeeth, I’ve had a letter from Albert, and he’s been in hospital in Rangoon, and now he’s all right, and the letter came not ten minutes since.’ ‘You don’t say!’ I said. ‘Where’s he been in hospital?’ And she said, ‘Rangoo-oon’—just like that. Reminded me of that Harry Tate sketch, you remember, Dad? Rangoo-oon! I nearly laughed in her face. And talk about sketches! If you want a sketch you couldn’t beat this Albert she’s making so much fuss about. ’Member him, Edna?—teeth sticking out a yard, and all cross-eyed. They saw something in Rangoo-oon when they saw Albert.”

“Oo, he was sorful!” cried Edna, shuddering in a refined way.

“Still, we can’t all be oil-paintings,” Mrs. Smeeth remarked philosophically. Then she looked mischievous. “And we can’t all look like Mr. Ronald Mawlborough either.”

“Who’s he when he’s at home?” Mr. Smeeth inquired.

“There you are, you see, Dad, you’re not up in these things. You’re behind the times. Matter of fact, you have seen him, ’cos I remember the two of us seeing him together, in that picture at the Empire.”

“Oh, one of those movie chaps, is he?” Mr. Smeeth was obviously more interested in pudding than in movie chaps.

“I should think he is. Isn’t he, Edna?”

“Oh, do shut up, Mother,” cried Edna, crimson now and wriggling.

“What’s this about?”

“He’s the latest, isn’t he, Edna?” said Mrs. Smeeth wickedly. “And I must say he’s a good-looking young fellow—curly hair, dark eyes, and all that. Free with his photographs too. Yours sincerely, Ronald Mawlborough, that’s him. Nothing stand-offish about him when he addresses his sweet young admirers⁠——”

“Mother!” Edna screamed, nothing now but two imploring eyes in a scarlet face.

“That’s what comes of not doing your bedroom out, miss,” her mother retorted. “I go up to her bedroom, Dad, and what do I find? Mr. Ronald Mawlborough, hers sincerely, on a big photo. You can nearly count his eyelashes. That’s the latest now. Not content with cutting ’em out of these movie papers, they send to Hollywood for them. Darling Mr. Ronald, they write, I shall die if you don’t send me your photo, signed in your own sweet handwriting. Yours truly, Edna Smeeth, seventeen Chaucer Road, Stoke Newington, England.”

Mr. Smeeth looked severe. “Well, I must say, Edna, I call that a silly game.”

“I only did it for fun,” she muttered, “just to see what would happen, that’s all. Some of our girls have got dozens⁠——”

“Pity they’ve got nothing better to do,” was her father’s comment.

“Oh, well, they might be doing worse,” said Mrs. Smeeth, rising from the table. “It won’t do them any good, but it won’t do them any harm either. We’ve all been a bit silly in our time. I’m sure I was when I was a girl. Girls are a bit silly, if you ask me, and it’s a good job for the men they are. But that doesn’t mean they can’t help to clear a table. Come on, Edna, get these things away while I make the tea.”

“Oh, all ri-ight,” Edna sighed wearily, and rose in slow-motion time. Ten minutes later, after gulping down her tea, she rushed out of the room, leaving her parents sitting at ease, Mrs. Smeeth over her second cup of tea, Mr. Smeeth over his pipe.

The room was small and contained far too much furniture and too many knick-knacks. Nearly everything in it was shoddy and ugly, manufactured hastily, in the mass, to catch a badly-informed eye, to be bought and exhibited for a brief season by the purchaser, and then to be in the way and finally rot out of the way. Nevertheless, the total effect of the room was not displeasing, because it had a cosy, homelike atmosphere, which Mr. Smeeth, whose imagination, heightened by fear, perhaps told him that outside beyond the firelight and the snug walls were stalking poverty, disgrace, shame, disease, and death, enjoyed even more than Mrs. Smeeth. It was probably this feeling, and not so much the strain of the day’s work, that made him a man difficult to rouse and get out of the house in the evening, as his wife, who was all for going out somewhere, or, failing that, inviting somebody in, knew to her cost.

“You’re an old home-bird, you are,” she said, with a sort of affectionate contempt, as she saw him settling deeper now into his chair. “Well, what’s been bothering you to-day? You started to tell me and then didn’t.”

“I got a real fright this morning, I don’t mind telling you, Edie,” he began. “Not that I hadn’t seen it coming the way things were going on,” he added, with a gloomy pride.

“Now then, don’t start on,” she warned him, shaking a teaspoon. “You see too much coming. Always looking into the middle of next week and noticing how black it’s getting. Talk about depressions in Iceland! They ought to give you the job, and then there’d be plenty. However, go on, my dear. Mustn’t interrupt.”

“Well, somebody’s got to look, haven’t they?” he replied. “And if Mr. Dersingham had looked a bit harder, we’d all be better off.”

“Do you mean to say you won’t get that rise at Christmas he was talking about?”

“Rise at Christmas! I thought this morning I was in for a rise outside. I tell you, Edie, when he started, my heart went into my boots.” And he plunged into an account of the scene in Mr. Dersingham’s room that morning and then discussed the mysterious events that followed it, all of which Mrs. Smeeth punctuated with nods and ejaculations, such as “Did he really?”, “Well, I never!”, and “Silly old geezer!” She gave him more of her attention than she usually did, because she could see that he was seriously concerned, but at the same time she did not really bother her own head about it, as he knew very well. To her it was all rather unreal, and he was convinced that the idea that he might lose his job, be thrown into the street with only the gloomiest prospect of getting anything half as good, never really entered her head. And this indifference, this childlike confidence in his ability to produce the usual six or seven pounds every week, did nothing to restore his own self-confidence, at least not at such moments as these, but only made him feel that he had to think for two, and in the end left him lonely with his fear.

“All I’m hoping now,” he went on, earnestly, “is that this chap who called has got something up his sleeve. It’s so funny Goath going like that. Looks to me as if this chap, Golspie, thought Goath wasn’t any good—and I’ve thought so once or twice myself lately—and worked it so that Mr. Dersingham got rid of him. Perhaps he’s going to take his place. I must say, it’s a funny business. In all my experience⁠——”

“Don’t you worry, it’ll be all right,” cried Mrs. Smeeth. “We’re going to be lucky, we are. I don’t care if Mr. Dersingham goes mental, we’re going to be lucky. Soon too! I don’t think I told you, but Mrs. Dalby’s sister—the one with the fringe and the jet ear-rings, who reads the cards—told me my fortune the other afternoon, and she said luck was coming, money and good luck, and all through a stranger, a middling-coloured man in a strange bed. Is this man you’re talking about middling-coloured?”

“Don’t ask me, I never noticed what colour he was. He hadn’t any colour. He’d got a big moustache, if that’s any use to you. But what puzzles me is this, why did Mr. Dersingham⁠——”

“Don’t you worry yourself, Dad, why Mr. Dersingham did anything,” his wife interrupted. “Think he’s spending his time worrying about you? Not him! And don’t you bother your old head about him, either. Let’s have a bit o’ music. It’ll cheer us up.” She bounced over to the corner in which George, who had a head for these things, had fixed up that tangle of wires which still passes by the name of “wireless,” a loud speaker apparatus. “What starts it? I can never remember,” she said, with one hand hovering over the various knobs. “Is it this thing you pull out?”

It must have been, for she pulled it, and immediately a loud, patronising voice filled the room. “Let us turn to anothuh aspect of this problam,” it shouted. “As we have already seen—ah—a company cannot barrow unless it is aixpressly authorised—that is, authorised by its memorandum of association—ah—to do so. Let us see what this invalves. Suppose a companay has been formed for the purpose—we will say—ah—of discounting cammercial bills⁠——”

“Oh, help!” cried Mrs. Smeeth, and promptly turned the voice out of the room. “A lot of cheering up you’ll do!” she told the loud speaker severely. “Look in the paper and see when the singing and playing comes on.”

There was a glimpse of Edna, all dressed up, very white about the nose, very red about the lips.

“Where you’re going, Edna?” her mother shrieked.

“Out.”

“Who with?”

“Minnie Watson.”

“Well, don’t be late then, you and your Minnie Watson.” A bang of the front door was Edna’s only reply. “It’s Minnie Watson ev’ry night now,” said Mrs. Smeeth. “Next month it’ll be all somebody else. I said to her last night, ‘Where’s Annie Frost now you used to be so friendly with?’”

“Is that Frost’s girl?” inquired Mr. Smeeth. “The chap who keeps the Hand and Glove?”

“That’s right, Jimmy Frost. So when I said that to her, the little madam turns up her nose at once and says, ‘Catch me going with Annie Frost!’ Just like that. And it doesn’t seem a minute since they were as thick as thieves. I could have died laughing. Just the same, I was, at her age.”

“You won’t make me believe that,” said Mr. Smeeth sturdily. “You’d more sense. Seems to me these young girls now haven’t a scrap of sense. The bit they leave school with is knocked out of them by pictures nowadays. They think about pictures—movies and talkies—from morning till night. They’re getting jazzed off their little heads.”

“That sounds like Georgie,” cried Mrs. Smeeth, starting up. “I’ll go and get his dinner out of the oven. Come on, boy, hurry up if you want any dinner to-night. It’s nearly cinders now.”

Left to himself, Mr. Smeeth slowly knocked out his pipe in the coal-scuttle and then stared into the fire, brooding. He was always catching himself grumbling about the children now, and he did not want to be a grumbling father. He had enjoyed them when they were young, but now, although there were times when he felt a touch of pride, he no longer understood them. George especially, the elder of the two, and once a very bright promising boy, was both a disappointment and a mystery. George had had opportunities that he himself had never had. But George had shown an inclination from the first, to go his own way, which seemed to Mr. Smeeth a very poor way. He had no desire to stick to anything, to serve somebody faithfully, to work himself steadily up to a good safe position. He simply tried one thing after another, selling wireless sets, helping some pal in a garage (he was in a garage now, and it was his fourth or fifth), and though he always contrived to earn something and appeared to work hard enough, he was not, in his father’s opinion, getting anywhere. He was only twenty, of course, and there was time, but Mr. Smeeth, who knew very well that George would continue to go his own way without any reference to him, did not see any possibility of improvement. The point was, that to George, there was nothing wrong, and his father was well aware of the fact that he could not make him see there was anything wrong. That was the trouble with both his children. There was obviously nothing bad about either of them; they compared very favourably with other people’s boys and girls; and he would have been quick to defend them; but nevertheless, they were growing up to be men and women he could not understand, just as if they were foreigners. And it was all very perplexing and vaguely saddening.

The truth was, of course, that Mr. Smeeth’s children were foreigners, not simply because they belonged to a younger generation but because they belonged to a younger generation that existed in a different world. Mr. Smeeth was perplexed because he applied to them standards they did not recognise. They were the product of a changing civilisation, creatures of the post-war world. They had grown up to the sound of the Ford car rattling down the street, and that Ford car had gone rattling away, to the communal rubbish heap, with a whole load of ideas that seemed still of supreme importance to Mr. Smeeth. They were the children of the Woolworth stores and the moving pictures. Their world was at once larger and shallower than that of their parents. They were less English, more cosmopolitan. Mr. Smeeth could not understand George and Edna, but a host of youths and girls in New York, Paris and Berlin would have understood them at a glance. Edna’s appearance, her grimaces and gestures, were temporarily based on those of an Americanised Polish Jewess, who, from her mint in Hollywood, had stamped them on these young girls all over the world. George’s knowing eye for a machine, his cigarette and drooping eyelid, his sleek hair, his ties and shoes and suits, the smallest details of his motor-cycling and dancing, his staccato impersonal talk, his huge indifferences, could be matched almost exactly round every corner in any American city or European capital.

Mrs. Smeeth returned with the food, and a minute or two later, George descended from his bedroom, shining, sleek, brushed. He was better looking, better built, tougher in body, than his father had ever been, and he owed far more to his mother, though there was about her a certain generosity of the blood, a suggestion of ruddy mounting sap, that was absent in him: he was drier, more compressed and blanched; and though he was a good-looking youth, who moved easily, quickly, he had hardly any more of the bloom of twenty than had the moving pictures of Mr. Ronald Mawlborough and his kind. In short, he looked too old for an English boy of that age. It was as if the Americanised world he had grown up to discover about him, had contrived to introduce into North London the drying and ageing American climate.

“You’re late to-night, George,” said his father.

“Been busy,” he replied, dispatching his dinner quickly, quietly, efficiently, but with no signs of taking any pleasure in his food. After a few minutes’ silence, he continued: “Feller came in with an old Lumbden, twelve horse. Could have had it for fifteen quid. Nothing much wrong with it. Wanted new plugs and mag. and brakes re-lining and something doing to the differential, and just cleanin’ up a bit. All right then. Take you anywhere. Thought once of sellin’ the ol’ bike and having a shot at this Lumbden.”

“I wish you would, Georgie,” cried Mrs. Smeeth. “You could take us all out then. See us going out in style, eh, Dad? Besides, I hate that stinking rattling ol’ bike of yours. Nasty dangerous things they are too. Get rid of it, Georgie, before it gets rid of you.”

“That’s all right,” said George, “but the ol’ bike goes—travels like a bird. This Lumbden couldn’t look at her. No, me for the little ol’ bike, till I can put my hand on something in the super-sports style. And don’t worry, I shan’t do that in a hurry—costs too much. Doesn’t matter, though—Barrett’s buying this Lumbden. We’ll do her up a bit, paint her up, and sell her. There won’t be any hurry either, so when we’ve put a few works in her, if you want a ride, pass the word on, and we’ll have a run in her.”

“We’ll go down to Brighton and see your aunt Flo,” cried Mrs. Smeeth, her eyes brightening at the thought of an outing. “Now don’t forget, Georgie boy. That’s a promise to your old mother. Don’t go spending all your time taking the girls out in it. Give your mother a chance. She can enjoy a ride as well as the next.”

“Righto,” said George briskly. He rose from the table.

“Here, you want some pudding.”

“Not to-night. Off pudding to-night. Couldn’t look it in the face. ’Sides, I haven’t time.”

“Time!” cried his mother. “You’re never in. Where you going?”

“Out.”

“Out where?”

“Just knocking about with some of the fellers.”

Mr. Smeeth looked at him, rather gravely. He felt it was his turn to speak now. “Just a minute,” he said sharply. “What does ‘knocking about’ mean exactly, may I ask?”

At this, George looked a shade less confident, a trifle younger, as he stood there tapping his cigarette. “I dunno. Might do one thing, might do another. Might have a game of billiards at the Institute, or look in at the pictures, or go down to the second house at Finsbury Park. Depends what everybody wants to do. No harm in that, Dad.” He lit his cigarette.

“Course there isn’t,” said Mrs. Smeeth. “Your father never said there was.”

“No, I didn’t,” said Mr. Smeeth slowly. “That’s all right, George. Only don’t take all night about it, that’s all. Oh!—there’s just another thing.” He hesitated a moment. “Somebody told me he’d seen you once or twice with that flash bookie chap—what’s his name?—y’know—Shandon. Well, you keep away from that chap, George. I don’t interfere—and you know I don’t—but that chap’s a wrong ’un, and I don’t want to see a boy of mine in his company.”

“Shandon’s no friend of mine,” said George, flushing. “I don’t knock about with him. He comes into the garage sometimes, that’s all. He’s a friend of Barrett’s.”

“Well, if half of what I hear’s true,” Mr. Smeeth remarked, “he’s a friend to nobody, that chap. And you just keep out of his way, George, see?”

“First I’ve heard of this,” said Mrs. Smeeth, looking severely at her son.

“All ri’, Dad,” George muttered, nodding. “So long, Ma.” And he was off.

Mrs. Smeeth promptly rushed the remaining dirty plates into the kitchen, and then returned, five minutes later, to find her husband looking at a battered copy of a detective story that had somehow found its way into the room. You could not say he was reading it. So far, he was merely glancing suspiciously at it. Mrs. Smeeth took up the evening paper, pecked at it here and there, then pottered about a minute or two, then turned on the wireless, which only let loose another patronising gentleman, switched it off, brought two socks and some darning wool from the top of the little bookcase, examined them with distaste, looked across at her husband, then said: “I can’t settle down to anything to-night, somehow. How d’you feel about a little walk round? We might look in at Fred’s for an hour. What d’you say? Oh no, I thought not—won’t stir, the old stick-in-the-mud. One of these days I’ll be finding a nice young man to take me to the pictures. Well, if you won’t stir, I will. I think I’ll just slip round to Mrs. Dalby’s for an hour. She asked me if I would.”

“You do,” said Mr. Smeeth. “I’m all right here.”

He lit his pipe again, made up the fire, and tried to settle down with the detective story, which at once hustled him into the library of the old Manor House, where the baronet’s body was waiting to be discovered. But he did not make much headway with it. Goath and Mr. Dersingham and this Golspie kept appearing in that library. Angel Pavement was just outside the old Manor House. So he put the book away and tried the wireless. This time the patronising gentlemen had all gone home, and in their place was a rich and adventurous flood of sound. It was not unfamiliar to Mr. Smeeth, and, after a pleasant tussle with his memory, he recognised it as something by Mendelssohn, an overture it was, a sea piece, either Whats-It’s Cave or Hebrides or something. Unlike his wife and children and most of his friends, Mr. Smeeth had a genuine, if unambitious, passion for music, and this was the kind of music he knew and liked best. He sank into his chair, and the sharp lines on his face softened as the music came swirling out of the little cone and there arrived with it the old mysterious enchantment of the ear. A phantom sea rolled about his chair: the room was filled with foam and salt air, the green glitter of the waves, the white flash and the crying of great sea birds. And Mr. Smeeth, a magically drowned man, worried no longer, and for a brief space was happy.

III

The next day Mr. Smeeth struggled out of sleep to find himself faced with one of those dark spouting mornings which burst over unhappy London like gigantic bombs filled with dirty water. At the first sign of the approach of one of these outrages, all clocks ought to be put back three hours, so that everybody might stay in bed until their fury is spent. There is no end to their malice. They sweep, lash, and machine-gun the streets with rain; they send up fountains of mud from every passing wheel; they contrive that fires shall not burn and water boil, that tea shall be lukewarm, bacon fat congealed, and warranted fresh eggs change in their very cups to mere eggs and dubious; they make the husband turn on the wife, the father on the child, and thus help to ruin all family life; and they lavishly sow all the ills that townsmen know, colds, indigestion, rheumatism, influenza, bronchitis, pneumonia, and are indeed the industrious hirelings of Death.

“Got your umbrella?” said Mrs. Smeeth. She had been out of bed over an hour, but somehow looked as if her real self was still there, as if this was a mysteriously wrapped wraith of herself she had projected downstairs. “Goo’-bye, then. You’ll have to run for it, Dad.”

Dad did not run for it, but he managed to trot down Chaucer Road and then along the neighbouring street, but after that he had a pain over his heart and was reduced to a sort of quick shamble. Before he reached the High Street and his tram, the bottom of his trousers were unpleasantly heavy, his boots (one of Mrs. Smeeth’s bargains and made of cardboard) gave out a squelching sound, and the newspaper he carried was being rapidly reconverted into its original pulp. The tram, its windows steaming and streaming, was more crowded than usual, of course, and carried its maximum cargo of wet clothes, the wearers of which were simply so many irritable ghosts. After enormous difficulty, Mr. Smeeth succeeded in filling and lighting his morning pipe of T. Benenden’s Own, and then—so stubborn is the spirit of man—succeeded in unfolding and examining his pulpy newspaper. Before he had reached the end of City Road, he had learned that the cost of a public school education was too high, that the night clubs on Broadway were not doing the business they had done, that a man in Birmingham had cut his wife’s throat, that students in Cairo were again on strike, that an old woman in Hammersmith had died of starvation, that a policeman in Suffolk had found six pound notes in the prisoner’s left sock, and that bubonic plague is conveyed to human beings by fleas from infected rats. And Angel Pavement, when he arrived there, looked as if it had been plucked, grey and dripping, from the bottom of an old cistern.

It was an unpleasant morning at the office. To begin with, the situation was more puzzling than ever. Once more, Mr. Dersingham did not appear, but telephoned about half past ten to say that he would not be there until late afternoon and would Mr. Smeeth “just carry on.” Goath did not reappear, and Mr. Smeeth felt sure now that he had vanished for ever. Then Miss Matfield was haughtier than usual, and very cross. Young Turgis, who had contrived to get wetter than anybody else on his way up to the office, went slouching about with a long pale face, and every now and then startled and intimidated everybody by sneezing explosively. Stanley, at odds with the weather, the world, and his present destiny, hung about and got in people’s way, and when told to get on with his work, pointed out, not very respectfully, that he hadn’t any work, and Mr. Smeeth did not find it easy to supply him with any. Several inquiries by telephone could not be properly answered, always an unsatisfactory state of affairs. Mr. Smeeth had sufficient routine work to carry him through the morning, but he felt queerly insecure, not at all happy with his books, his neat little figures, his pencil, rubber, blue ink and red ink, now that he no longer knew what was happening to the firm. It was like trying to post a ledger swinging above a dark gulf.

Lunch time found him at his usual teashop, sitting at a wet marble-topped table and waiting for his poached egg on toast and cup of coffee. The wet morning had perished outside, where there was even a faint gleam of sunshine, but it had found a haven in this teashop, which seemed to be four hours behind the weather in the street, for it was all damp and steaming. Mr. Smeeth was jammed into a corner with another regular patron, a man with a glass eye, bright blue and with such a fixed glare about it that the thing frightened you. Mr. Smeeth was sitting on the same side as the glass eye, and as the owner of it, who was busy eating two portions of baked beans on toast and drinking a glass of cold milk, never turned his head as he talked, the effect was disconcerting and rather horrible.

“Firm we’ve been doing business with,” said the man, disposing of a few beans that had quitted their toast, “has come a nasty cropper—a ve-ery nasty cropper. Claridge and Molton—d’you know ’em? Oh, very nasty.”

“Is that so?” said Mr. Smeeth politely, looking from his poached egg at the glaring blue eye and then looking away again. “Don’t think I know the firm.”

“No, well, you mightn’t,” the eye continued, as if it had its doubts about that, though. “But they’ve been a well-known house in the wholesale umbrella trade for donkeys’ years, specially for ribs, handles, and tips. I remember the time when they carried a line of ribs nobody else could touch—same with the tips. If you’d come to us ten years ago, or five years ago, or even three years ago, and said, ‘We can offer you a line in ribs and tips that’ll make Claridge and Molton look silly,’ if you’d said that, we’d have laughed at you.”

“No doubt,” said Mr. Smeeth, quite seriously.

“And up to eighteen months ago, I’d have told you that Claridge and Molton was one of the soundest concerns in the business. And look at ’em now. Properly in Queer Street. Absolutely down the river.”

Mr. Smeeth manfully faced the blue glare. “How d’you account for it?” he inquired, not out of mere politeness but because he really wanted to know.

“This milk doesn’t taste right this morning,” his neighbour remarked mournfully. “They’ve had it near something. I’m giving it a miss. What was that?” And here the eye turned balefully. “Oh, about Claridge and Molton. Well, young Molton’s the one that’s upset their little apple-cart. He took charge about a couple of years ago, then began staying away all day—likes his whisky, y’know—drew heavily on the firm—sacked their oldest man, old Johnny Fowler, for something and nothing. Probably tight at the time—young Molton, I mean, not Johnny Fowler—he never took a drop. And there you are! You can’t do it, y’know, you can’t do it. Can you?”

“No,” said Mr. Smeeth sadly, “you can’t.”

“Course you can’t,” the eye concluded. “Not nowadays. It’s all too keen, too much competition. You’ve got to watch yourself all the time. Isn’t that so? Eh, miss, miss! My check, miss. And, I say, what about this milk?”

Mr. Smeeth finished his coffee, mechanically filled and lit his pipe, then pushed his way out of the place. He felt miserable. For all he knew to the contrary, Mr. Dersingham might be following the example of this young Molton. Hadn’t Mr. Dersingham just started staying away from the office all day? Hadn’t he just sacked their oldest man, Goath? As he moved slowly along, sometimes staring into the windows of shops that meant nothing to him, Mr. Smeeth found himself going over all the possible ways in which a firm might come a nasty cropper, arrive at Queer Street, go down the river, and they seemed so numerous, so inevitable, that he saw himself joining the wretched army of the hangers-on, the dispossessed, at any moment. And, at the corner of Chiswell Street, he gave a man twopence for a box of matches.

When he let himself quietly into the office, he heard loud voices, and thought for a moment that something exciting was happening. But then he caught the words.

“I shaddered him all down Victoria Park Road,” Stanley was saying triumphantly, “and he never knew.”

“Well, why should he?” Turgis demanded, contemptuously. “He didn’t know you were following him, you little chump.”

“I know he didn’t,” cried Stanley. “That’s it. That’s where shadderin’ comes in⁠——”

“Well, shadowing can come out,” Mr. Smeeth announced. “And if you don’t get on with some work, my boy, you’ll be finding yourself shadowing down those steps. Come on, Turgis, you ought to know a bit better. Standing there talking a lot of nonsense!”

“I was telling him it was nonsense,” said Turgis, rather sullenly. “He’s got this shadowing on the brain. He goes following some chap for miles, and then because this chap doesn’t take any notice of him—he doesn’t know he’s there, of course, and doesn’t care, anyhow—he thinks he’s a little Sexton Blake.”

“No, I don’t,” said Stanley, wrinkling up his freckled face until it achieved a look of intense disgust.

“The best thing you can do, Stanley,” said Mr. Smeeth, sitting down at his desk, “is to drop these silly tricks. They’ll get you into trouble one of these days. Why don’t you do something sensible in your spare time? Get a hobby. Do a bit of fretwork or collect foreign stamps or butterflies or something like that.”

“Huh! Nobody does them things now. Out of date,” Stanley muttered.

“Well, work’s not out of date, not here, anyhow,” Mr. Smeeth retorted, in time-old schoolmaster fashion. “So just get on with a bit.”

Miss Matfield arrived, quarter of an hour late, as usual. “Don’t talk to me, anybody,” she commanded. “I’m furious. Of all the foul lunches I’ve ever had in this city, to-day’s was the foulest. It makes me sick to think about it. Look here, is Mr. Dersingham ever coming here again? It’s absurd—I’ve got umpteen things for him to sign. Can you do anything with them, Mr. Smeeth?”

“I’ll have a look at them, Miss Matfield,” said Mr. Smeeth wearily. The afternoon dragged on.

IV

At five o’clock, Mr. Dersingham arrived, bursting in like a large pink bomb. He was breathless, perspiring, and all smiles. “Afternoon, ev’rybody,” he gasped. “Is there a late spot of tea goin’? Doesn’t matter if there isn’t. I say, Miss Matfield, just drop ev’rything, will you, and bring your notebook to my room. I want to dictate some letters and a circular. Stanley, you get ready to copy the circular. And, Turgis, you ring up Brown and Gorstein and say I want to speak to Mr. Gorstein. And Smeeth, I shall want you when I’m through with these letters, about a quarter of an hour’s time, and will you bring that statement of the outstanding accounts right up to date and let me know all about Gorstein’s and Nickman’s payments this last year? Good man!”

Mr. Dersingham liked to signalise his arrival in this fashion—it looked as if he was starting the day for everybody, and it still looked like that even if he did it at five o’clock—but now there was a difference. His voice had a triumphant ring, in spite of the fact that he was short of breath. There was about his whole manner a Napoleonic abruptness and self-confidence. He presented the spectacle—rare enough too—of an Old Worrelian in big business. At one bound the temperature of the office rose about ten degrees, and Mr. Smeeth, as he investigated the firm’s somewhat melancholy relations with Brown & Gorstein and Nickman & Sons, was visited once more by quite wildly optimistic fancies. Undoubtedly, something had happened.

When at last he was called into Mr. Dersingham’s room, he soon learned what it was that had happened. It was, as he had suspected more than once, this Mr. Golspie.

“And the position is this, Smeeth,” Mr. Dersingham continued. “He’s got the sole agency for all this new Baltic stuff. They won’t sell it to anybody here but Golspie. It’s good wood, all of it, quite up to standard, and he can get it at prices, thirty, forty and fifty per cent. lower than we’ve been paying. I don’t mind telling you that when he first explained what he was after, I wasn’t keen at all, not a bit keen. It sounded fishy to me.”

“Does seem a bit queer he should come along like that, doesn’t it, sir?”

“It does, Smeeth, and that’s what I thought. But we’ve been going round with some of his samples at prices we could sell the stuff at on his figures, and they’ve been absolutely leaping at them. We can cut everybody out, absolutely clean cut. We can do more business, Smeeth, with this new stuff in a fortnight than the firm’s ever done, even in its best days, in a month. And you know what business we’ve been doing lately? Awful! A ghastly show! By the way, Smeeth, Goath was partly to blame for that. Oh yes, he was. Thirty years in the trade and all that—but the fact is, they were all tired of seeing his depressing old mug, and he’d given up trying. Golspie soon showed me that, though I must say I’d had my suspicions for some time.”

“So had I, sir.”

“Exactly! Goath had to be booted out, and as it was he booted himself out. He’ll be feeling very sorry for himself soon. Now then, this is what’s happening. Golspie came along here to see me quite by chance. He’d got this contract, but he wanted some firm already in the trade to join up with. All this is—er—in—y’know—between ourselves, Smeeth.”

“I understand, sir,” said Mr. Smeeth, flattered and delighted.

“Golspie—Mr. Golspie—doesn’t want a partnership, can’t be bothered with it. He’s coming in here as a sort of general manager, working on a jolly good commission. You’ll have to know all about that, of course, because of the books. It’s a hefty commission all right, but then he’s bringing all the business really, and he’ll be responsible for getting the wood over and all that side of it. And the two of us will be working together, running things here. I’ll go out a good deal myself for the next few months, and we’ll have to get some fellow—somebody young and keen—to take Goath’s place.”

“You won’t be cutting down the office staff then?” said Mr. Smeeth, greatly relieved.

“Cutting it down! We’ll have to jolly well increase it, and quickly too. That far sample room will have to be cleared out and tidied up this week, we shall want that. You’d better get another typist to help Miss Matfield—a young girl will do—as soon as possible. This next week or two, Smeeth,” and here Mr. Dersingham sprang up and clenched his fists, just as if he had never seen a decent public school, “we’ve got to drive it hard, go all out, and I’m depending on you for the office side of it. You people have got to stand behind me in this. It’s a great chance for all of us, and, of course, a tremendous stroke of luck, Golspie’s coming here. He’s going all out himself on this—he’s that sort of chap, very keen and all that—and we’ve got to keep pace.”

“You can count on me doing my best, Mr. Dersingham,” Mr. Smeeth assured him fervently. “There’s one or two things I’d like to know about, of course. F’r’instance, what’s his arrangement with these foreign people of his about payments?”

“He’s going to talk to you about that, Smeeth. We’ve only just touched on that, so far.”

“And another thing, sir,” Mr. Smeeth continued, more hesitantly now. “You know how we stand at the bank just now. If we’re branching out, we’ve got to have something behind us there.”

“I’ve been looking into that this afternoon,” said Mr. Dersingham. “We can’t do anything more with the bank at present, but I think I can borrow a bit to see us through. We’ve got to have something to jolly well play with, this next month or so, particularly as Mr. Golspie talks about wanting some of his commission in advance, so to speak.”

Mr. Smeeth looked grave, then coughed. “Do you think that would be wise, Mr. Dersingham? I mean—er—after all, you’ve no guarantee⁠——”

“You mean—the whole thing may be just a swindle. Come on, isn’t that it?” cried the other, grinning. “Well of course I thought of that. I thought of God knows how many swindles yesterday morning, because, as I said, the whole thing seemed fishy to me, and, between ourselves, I thought Golspie himself a terrible outsider at first. But I’ve gone into all that. He doesn’t draw his commission until the stuff has been delivered to our people, of course, but he wants his money then, without waiting until the account’s finally settled. Though, by the way, Smeeth, we’re not going to give these fellows so much rope in future. With this new stuff on our hands, we can afford to tighten it up a bit, don’t you think?”

“That’s so, Mr. Dersingham. I’d like to see one or two of these accounts closed altogether. They’re more bother than they’re worth,” Mr. Smeeth hesitated. “I’m not quite clear yet about this Mr. Golspie, sir. Is he going to be in charge of the office?”

“In a way, yes,” the other replied, with the air of a man who had given this question a great deal of thought. “You can take it, he is. Though of course it’s still my show⁠——”

“Of course, Mr. Dersingham.”

“Suppose, by any chance, you disagree violently with anything he suggests, you’ll come to me,” said Mr. Dersingham, looking at that moment like a large pink conspirator. “But you needn’t tell that to the other people out there.”

“I see what you mean, sir,” said Mr. Smeeth, who felt that he would see in time.

“Mr. Golspie has a good deal to learn, of course,” Mr. Dersingham continued, airily. “He doesn’t know the trade, and he doesn’t know the City. But—he seems to have knocked up and down all over the place in his time, and he’s got ideas, y’know, and colossal push. Rum sort of chap, I must say.” Then he became business-like again. “Now look here, Smeeth, I want to push off as soon as I can because I want that money—or some of it—into the bank by to-morrow afternoon. Ask Miss Matfield to hurry up with those letters so that I can sign ’em. And just see those circulars get away to-night, will you?”

“I will, Mr. Dersingham.” And Mr. Smeeth turned away, but stopped before he reached the door. “And if you don’t mind me saying so, sir, I’m very pleased things are looking up like this. I was beginning to feel worried, very worried, sir.”

“Thanks, Smeeth! Good man!” You could not mistake the Old Worrelian now. “Things will be humming here soon, you’ll see. Colossal luck, of course, his turning up like this! Oh, by the way, he’s probably coming in soon.”

Mr. Golspie did come in, but only after Mr. Dersingham had gone and for about half an hour or so, during which he merely asked Mr. Smeeth a few questions. He came again the next morning, and Mr. Smeeth had to join him and Mr. Dersingham in a little conference. Mr. Golspie then returned about half past four, dictated some letters, nosed about the office, examined the far room, and did some telephoning at Mr. Dersingham’s table, Mr. Dersingham himself being out visiting Nickman and Sons. The others had gone, and Mr. Smeeth was putting away his books for the night, when Mr. Golspie came out of the private office and began asking more questions, chiefly about accounts. The two of them stayed there another twenty-five minutes, at the end of which Mr. Golspie suggested they should round off the proceedings by having a drink.

When they were at the bottom of the stairs, Mr. Smeeth remembered that he was nearly out of tobacco (he smoked two and a half ounces of T. Benenden’s Own Mixture every week) and said he would slip in for some. Mr. Golspie followed him in, and T. Benenden was so surprised to see this massive and large-moustached stranger again, in company with Mr. Smeeth this time, too, that he weighed out the tobacco and put it in the pouch without saying a word.

“You got any good cigars, good cigars?” Mr. Golspie demanded in his resonant bass, at the same time staring hard, even harder than the tobacconist had stared at him.

“Certainly, I have,” replied T. Benenden with dignity. And he produced two or three boxes.

Mr. Golspie chose two cigars, cut them, then popped one into his own mouth, stuck the other into Mr. Smeeth’s, and lit the pair of then, without a word. Then, after blowing a stream of smoke at Benenden, he said: “How much?”

“Three shillings, for the two.”

Mr. Golspie slapped down two half-crowns on the counter. This was the tobacconist’s opportunity.

“What about this big Cement slump, gentlemen?” he began. “Where’s that going to land us⁠——?”

“It’s not going to land me anywhere,” said Mr. Golspie. “Where’s it going to land you?”

T. Benenden looked rather pained, and still nursed the two shillings change in his hand. “Well, what I mean is this. That’s a big combine, isn’t it? A year ago, they were bang at the top, like nearly all the big combines. All right. But what’s happening now? A slump. And why⁠——?”

“I don’t know, and I’ll bet you don’t know,” said Mr. Golspie heartily. Then he gave a short bellow of a laugh. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he roared, “I’ve been puzzling my head for the last five minutes wondering what was wrong with you.”

“Me?” T. Benenden was startled.

“Yes, you. Didn’t you notice I was staring at you?” He turned to Mr. Smeeth. “Couldn’t make it out. I knew there was something wrong. You see it, don’t you?” He now returned to Benenden, at whom he pointed a thick brutal finger. “Why, man, you’ve forgotten to put your tie on. Have a look at yourself. I knew there was something. Is that my change? That’s correct—two shillings.”

Mr. Smeeth followed him out of the shop, gasping. He had been visiting Benenden’s shop two or three times a week, year after year, and never once had he dared mention the word “tie.” And now this chap comes along with his “You’ve forgotten to put your tie on.” Mr. Smeeth began to chuckle softly.

Mr. Golspie piloted him across the road and into the private bar of the White Horse.

“Give it a name,” said Mr. Golspie.

“Thanks, Mr. Golspie. Oh—er—just a glass of bitter,” said Mr. Smeeth modestly, from behind his large cigar.

“Don’t have a glass of bitter. Too cold a night like this and after a hard day’s work, too. Have a whisky. That’s right. Two double whiskies and some soda.”

It was quiet and cosy in the White Horse. Mr. Smeeth had not been in for a long time, and he was enjoying this. The fire winked cheerfully over the grate; the rows of liqueur bottles glimmered and glittered; the glasses shone softly; there was a pleasant hum of talk; the cigars plunged them at once into an atmosphere of rich, fragrant, luxurious conviviality; the whisky tasted good, and washed away that foggy, smoky, railway tunnel flavour of Angel Pavement; and Mr. Golspie, still mysterious and masterful but genial now too, was obviously anxious they should be on friendly terms.

“You’ve got a fellow working in the Midlands and the North, haven’t you?” Mr. Golspie inquired, after they had both taken a pull at their whiskies. “What’s he like?”

“Dobson? He’s a decent young chap, and he’s got a good connection up there. He’s not sold much lately, but it’s not been for the want of trying.”

“We ought to be hearing from him soon, then,” said Mr. Golspie. “If he can’t sell these new veneers, he’d better be walking. They sell themselves. We’ve orders pouring in, just pouring. But, mind you, Smeeth, we’ve got to get a move on. We’ve got to pile up the orders now—make hay while the sun shines. We want another man for London and district, soon as we can get one. And one that’s alive, too, not like that dreary old devil I booted out the first day. You might as well send the dustbin round looking for orders. There ought to be three of us, me, Dersingham, and this other man, whoever he is, doing London and neighbourhood these next few months. Rush ’em. That’s the way, isn’t it?”

Mr. Smeeth, taking out his cigar and trying to look keen and aggressive, said it was.

“I’ll tell you what I believe in,” Mr. Golspie continued, not troubling to lower his voice, or rather to moderate it, for it was low enough. “I believe in working like hell and in playing like hell. If you’re going to work, for God’s sake—work. And if you’re going to enjoy yourself, well, for the love of Mike, enjoy yourself, get on with it.”

At this point, Mr. Smeeth started back, for suddenly a head, a large head wearing a very dirty cap, but only about the height of his shoulder, stuck itself between him and Mr. Golspie. “That’s all very well, gents,” it said, with an impudent whine, “but what if yer can’t get work, ’ow yer goin’ ter enjoy yerself then, eh? Wotcher goin’ ter do then, eh?”

“There’s one thing you can do,” said Mr. Golspie promptly.

“Wha’s that?”

“You can mind your own bloody business,” said Mr. Golspie, pushing his face out in a most intimidating and disagreeable fashion. The intruder shrank back at once. “Here y’are,” Mr. Golspie said in a milder, contemptuous tone, “here’s threepence. Go away and buy yourself something.”

“Thank yer, mister.” And the head vanished.

“This city’s got more and more rats like that in it every time I come back to it.”

“There isn’t the work, you know,” said Mr. Smeeth earnestly. “I don’t say they all want it, but there isn’t the work. I’ll tell you candidly, Mr. Golspie, it frightens me sometimes to see all the chaps looking for work. If we’ve to take on a few new people, and we advertise for them, you’ll see what I mean. Crowds and crowds—ready to work for next to nothing. It’s a heart-breaking job interviewing them.”

“I dare say,” Mr. Golspie replied, in the tone of a man whose heart is not easily broken. “But I know this. A man who’s ready to work for next to nothing is no good to me. I wouldn’t have him as a gift. And that reminds me, Smeeth. What’s this firm paying you?”

Mr. Smeeth hesitated a moment, then told him.

“And do you think that’s enough?”

Mr. Smeeth hesitated again. “Well, if business was good, I was going to ask for a rise this Christmas, but as you know, it’s not been good.”

“No, but it’s going to be good, don’t make any mistake about that,” cried Mr. Golspie. “It’s going to be a dam’ sight better than Twigg and Dersingham have ever seen it before. Who the devil was Twigg? Never mind about him, though. I’m going to tell you straight out, I don’t think you’re getting enough. I know a good man when I see one, and when people stand by me—you know what I do?—that’s right—I stand by them. And I’m going to stand by you.”

“Very good of you, Mr. Golspie,” muttered the embarrassed Smeeth.

“The minute these orders that are coming now are turned into solid business—and, mind you, it means more work and responsibility for you all along the line—the minute they do, you’re going to get a rise, a good rise, a hundred or two a year right off, or I’m not Jimmy Golspie. And we shake hands on that.”

Mr. Smeeth, overwhelmed, found himself shaking hands on it.

“And now,” Mr. Golspie added masterfully, “we’ll just sign and seal that by having a little quick one.”

“All right. But—er—it’s my turn.”

“Not a bit of it. Not to-night. You haven’t a turn to-night. Wait till the big rise comes. Two singles, please. Married man, aren’t you, Smeeth?”

“I am. Wife and two children, boy just out of his teens and girl nearly eighteen.”

“All I’ve got’s a girl. I’m expecting her over soon. Does this girl of yours take much notice of you?”

“Not much. Seems to me they don’t, nowadays.”

“You’re right there. That girl of mine doesn’t—the wilful, artful little devil. She’s been spoilt all her life, and always will be. Too good-lookin’, that’s her trouble. Doesn’t take after her father, y’know,” and here Mr. Golspie disturbed the whole bar with a sudden deep guffaw. “Well, here’s the best! This is a dam’ rum business, y’know, Smeeth, when you come to think of it. I’ve had a finger in all sorts of trades, all over the place, and this is a bit more respectable than some of ’em. But when you think of it—it’s a dam’ rum trade—selling thin bits of wood to glue on to other bits of wood, eh?”

“I’ve often thought that,” said Mr. Smeeth eagerly, the philosopher waking in him too. “I’ve often thought—well, I dunno—but this trade’s like a good deal of the rest of life. Veneers? Well, Mr. Golspie, just think of them. They’re only there to make a piece of furniture look as if it was made of better wood than it is made of, a sort of fake. But everybody knows about it. There’s no deception. And I’ve often thought a lot of life’s like that, particularly when I’ve gone into company. You know, everybody setting up to be mahogany and walnut through and through⁠——”

“And the lot of ’em veneered to hell,” cried Mr. Golspie jovially. “Never mind, let’s see if we can’t slap all our stuff on to their rotten chairs and wardrobes and sideboards, and make money and enjoy ourselves. That’s the game.”

With that, they swung out into the little night of Angel Pavement, where the diapason of Mr. Golspie could be heard thundering out again that it was the game. With rich Havana still in his nostrils, the golden liquor of the glens wandering round his inside like an enchanted Gulf Stream, and Mr. Golspie’s promises singing their madrigals in his head, Mr. Smeeth felt for once that it really might be all a game.

Waiting for his tram that night, he bought two evening papers instead of one, and read neither of them.