Chapter Six: MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE

I

Mr. Smeeth was happier than he had been for some time. The shadow of dismissal, unemployment, degradation, ruin, had gone, except in occasional dreams, when, after a bit of fried liver or toasted cheese had refused to be digested, he had found himself out of a job for ever and walking down vague dark streets with nothing on but his vest and pants. It had vanished from his waking hours. The firm had not only staved off bankruptcy, but it was doing a brisk trade—you might almost call it a roaring trade—in these new Baltic veneers and inlays. This meant that Mr. Smeeth had more and more columns of neat little figures to enter and then add up, and that no matter how hard he worked during the day he had to put in an extra half hour or so with the ledger and day books in the evening. He did not mind that, though sometimes when it was nearer seven than six and the electric light above his desk had been burning half the day and any real air there might have been in Angel Pavement during the morning had been used over and over again, well, he did find himself with a bit of a headache. Once or twice too he had that nasty little ticking sensation somewhere in his inside, but it never went on long, so he never said anything about it to anybody. If he had mentioned it to his wife, she would have dosed him with half a dozen different patent medicines and would have rushed out for half a dozen more. She did not care for doctors, but she loved patent medicines and would try one after another, not as an attempt to cure some definite ailment, for she could not claim to have one, but simply in the hope that there would be some mysterious magic in the bottle. Mrs. Smeeth called at the chemist’s in the same spirit in which she called on her fortune-telling friends. Mr. Smeeth was sceptical about both, though not so sceptical as he imagined himself to be.

Occasional little pains, however, were nothing compared with the relief of seeing the firm busy again. There had been times when he had almost hated going to the bank, for he felt that even the cashiers were telling one another that Twigg & Dersingham were looking pretty rocky, but now it was a pleasure again. “Just going round to the bank, Turgis,” he would say, trying not to sound too important. (Not that it mattered with Turgis, who really thought Mr. Smeeth was important. But once or twice, when he had said something like this, he had caught a certain look, a kind of gleam, in Miss Matfield’s eye. With that young madam you never knew.) Then he would button up his old brown overcoat, which had lasted very well but would have to be replaced as soon as he got a rise, put on his hat, fill his pipe as he went down the steps, stop and light it outside the Kwik-Work Razor Blade place, and then march cosily with it down the chilled and smoky length of Angel Pavement. Everywhere there would be a bustle and a jostling, with the roadway a bedlam of hooting and clanging and grinding gears, but he had his place in it all, his work to do, his position to occupy, and so he did not mind but turned on it a friendly eye and indulgent ear. The bank, secure in its marble and mahogany, would shut out the raw day and the raw sounds, and he would quietly, comfortably wait his turn, sending an occasional jet of fragrant T. Benenden towards the ornamental grill. “Morning, Mr. Smeeth,” they would say. “A bit nippy, this morning. How are things with you?” And then, if there was time for it, one of them might have a little story to tell, about one of those queer things that happen in the City. Then back again in the office, at his desk, and very cosy it was after the streets. The very sight of the blue ink, the red ink, the pencils and pens, the rubber, the paper fasteners, the pad and rubber stamps, all the paraphernalia of his desk, all there in their places, at his service, gave him a feeling of deep satisfaction. He felt dimly too that this was a satisfaction that none of the others there, Turgis, the girls, young Stanley, would ever know, simply because they never came to work in the right spirit. His own two children were just the same. They were all alike now. Earn a bit, grab it, rush out and spend it, that was their lives.

“And it beats me, Mr. Dersingham,” he said to that gentleman, one morning, “who is going to be responsible in this lot, when the time comes. And the time must come, mustn’t it? I mean, they can’t be young and careless all their lives.”

“Don’t you worry, Smeeth. They’ll all settle down,” replied Mr. Dersingham, who felt that he stood between these two different generations, and also felt that anyhow he knew a lot more about everything than Smeeth. “I can remember the time, and not so long ago, when I felt just the same,” he continued, evidently under the impression that he was now a tremendously responsible person. “When the time comes, we take the responsibility all right. That’s the English way, you know, Smeeth.”

“I hope that is so, Mr. Dersingham,” said Mr. Smeeth doubtfully, “but this new lot does seem different, I must say. I know from my own two. Anything for tuppence, that’s their style, and let next week look after itself. It frightens me to hear them talk, though I say their mother’s always been a bit like that and they may have got it from her.”

Both George and Edna, however, unsatisfactory as their general outlook might be, seemed to be going on all right just then, and this too was a great source of pleasure to Mr. Smeeth, who saw them—and had seen them ever since they were babies—surrounded by snares and pitfalls without number. He had to worry for two, for their mother never seemed to worry about them or anything else, for all her fortune tellings and bottles from the chemist’s, and to listen to her, you might think life was a fairy tale. To Mr. Smeeth—though he did not say so—life was a journey, unarmed and without guide or compass, through a jungle where poisonous snakes were lurking and man-eating tigers might spring out of every thicket. Only when he saw a little clear space in front of him could he be easy in mind. His was a naturally apprehensive nature, and in a religious age he would never have overlooked the least comforting observance. But he did not live in a religious age, and he had no faith of his own. In his universe, the gods had been banished but not the devils. He saw clearly enough all the signs and marks of evil in the world, having a mind that could foreshadow every stroke of malice out of the dark, and so was surrounded by demons that he was powerless either to placate or to vanquish. If, desiring as he did to be honest, decent, kind, good and happy, his courage failed, he could call upon nobody, nothing—but the police. Thus he lived, this man who went so cosily from his little house to his little office, more apprehensively, more dangerously, than one of Edward the Third’s bowmen. He touched wood, and desperately hoped for the best. Just now, it seemed to be arriving. He was happier than he had been for some time.

II

The morning after Mr. Golspie’s departure, two things happened to Mr. Smeeth. The first seemed of little importance at the time, though afterwards he remembered it only too well. George rang up from his garage, with a message from his mother. “She’s here now, only she doesn’t fancy herself at the phone,” said George. “So I’ve got to give you the message. This is it. Do you remember hearing her talk about her cousin, Fred Mitty? Well, he’s here in London with his wife. She’s just had a letter from them, and they want her to go round and see them to-night, somewhere Islington way. She didn’t think you’d want to go.”

“No, I don’t want to go,” Mr. Smeeth told him. “But that’s all right.”

“Yes, I know it is,” said George, “but the point is this. She’s going there to tea, and she’ll be gone some time before you get home. What she wants to know is this, has she to leave something for you, she says, or will you have your tea out somewhere and amuse yourself for once⁠——”

“Now then, George,” his father cried down the telephone sharply, “that’s enough of that.”

“I’m only telling you what she says,” George’s voice explained. “Keep cool, Dad. Nothing to do with me. You can either have your tea out and amuse yourself⁠——”

“I don’t want to amuse myself. As I’ve told some of you before,” he added rather grimly, “I like a quiet life.”

“All right then, she can leave something for you. You’ll only have to warm it up yourself. I shan’t be in and Edna won’t be either.”

“Here, all right,” said Mr. Smeeth, who was not fond of warming things up for himself. “I’ll stop out for once. Tell your mother that’s all right. And tell her I hope she enjoys herself with Mr. Mitty.”

He had heard his wife talk about her cousin, Fred Mitty—she was rather given to talking about her relations—but he had never met him. Mitty had been living in one of the big provincial towns, Birmingham or Manchester, for the last few years. He could have stopped there, for all Mr. Smeeth cared. However, his wife would enjoy herself. She liked nothing better than going out for the evening and having a good old gas with somebody fairly lively, and Mr. Smeeth remembered now that Fred Mitty—what a name!—was supposed to be very lively, one of the dashing members of his wife’s family, the chief comedian at all the weddings, and all the funerals, too, for that matter. So long as Mrs. Smeeth’s lot could all get together and eat and drink and gas and kiss one another, they didn’t much care whether they were marrying them or burying them. The Smeeths, what was left of them, were different. When they met, it meant business. Four of them had not spoken to one another for ten years, all because of two cottage houses in Highbury. His wife’s lot would have sold the pair and eaten and drunk away the proceeds in less than a week.

“But it wouldn’t do for us all to be alike, would it, young lady?” he cried, almost gaily, to Miss Poppy Sellers, who came up to him at that moment with some invoices she had just typed.

“That’s what my dad’s always saying, Mr. Smeeth,” she replied in her own queer fashion, half perky half shy. “And my mother always says, ‘Well, you might try a bit anyway.’”

“And what does she mean by that?” asked Mr. Smeeth, amused.

Miss Sellers shook her dark little head. “I might be able to give a guess, and then again I mightn’t. I’ve done all these, Mr. Smeeth. Are they all right?”

“Well, now, let’s have a look,” he said, adjusting his eyeglasses. “I might be able to tell you—and then again I mightn’t.”

She laughed. She was a nice little thing, even though Turgis had kept on grumbling about her. But he had not grumbled so much lately. He had not done anything much lately, except get on with his work—he had done that all right—and then sit mooning. The only time he looked lively and brisk and up-to-the-minute was when Mr. Golspie came in and asked him to do something. A queer lad, Turgis. But he was beginning to smarten himself up a bit, that was something; he had taken to brushing his hair and his clothes and changing his collars a little more often; and about time too. Mr. Smeeth shot a glance at him over his glasses, then read through the invoices.

“Please, Mr. Smeeth,” said Stanley, returning from the private office, “Mr. Dersingham wants to see you.”

And this was the second thing that happened that morning, this little interview with Mr. Dersingham.

“What I feel, Smeeth,” said Mr. Dersingham, after a few preliminaries, “is that you’ve been doing your bit for the firm, and the firm now ought to do its bit for you. You’ve had a good deal of extra work lately, haven’t you, just as we all have?”

“I have, Mr. Dersingham. It’s been a very busy time for me—and I’m glad to say so, sir.”

“For me too, I can tell you. I’ve been putting my back into it these last few weeks. Jolly heavy going, if you ask me. Particularly this last week, with the big drive—and it’s not over yet, not by a long chalk it isn’t. However, what I wanted to say is this, you’ve stood by the firm, done your best and all that, and now I propose to give you a rise.” He paused, and looked at his employee.

“Thank you very much, sir,” cried Mr. Smeeth, flushing. “I didn’t want to say anything just yet, knowing how things have been, but Mr. Golspie did say something, just after he came⁠——”

“Well, of course, this isn’t Golspie’s show at all. I mean to say, he has his work here and, to a certain extent, he’s in charge, but whether you get a rise or not or anybody else gets a rise or not has nothing to do with him. It’s my affair entirely.”

“Quite so, Mr. Dersingham. I quite understand that,” said Mr. Smeeth apologetically, though he was already silently thanking Mr. Golspie for this.

“Though it’s—er—only fair to tell you that Mr. Golspie did mention it to me. But, as a matter of fact, I’d practically made up my mind then. He mentioned you, and he also mentioned Miss Matfield. He seemed to think she had been doing some very good work.”

“Miss Matfield’s been working very well, sir. And she certainly isn’t getting as much as she might. We promised her a rise, if possible, after the first six months, when she was taken on.”

“Well, I thought from now on we’d give her three ten instead of three pounds. Perhaps you’ll tell her, Smeeth. Do it quietly. I don’t think I can give Turgis any more yet.”

“He’s improving, Mr. Dersingham.”

“He’ll have to wait, though. As for you, Smeeth, I thought we’d make it three seventy-five for you.”

This was a fine rise, well over a pound a week. “Thank you very much, Mr. Dersingham. I’m sure I’ll do my best⁠——”

But Mr. Dersingham, large, pink, benevolent, cut him short with a friendly wave of the hand. “That’s all right, Smeeth. I hope it won’t be the last, either. You’ll rise with the firm, and at the present rate there’s no telling where we shall land. Mr. Golspie has suggested several side-lines, quite profitable, handled properly, and I propose to look into our end of it while he’s away. Oh—by the way—I think those increases, both yours and Miss Matfield’s, had better begin this fortnight, eh?”

At odd intervals throughout the day, Mr. Smeeth thought about this extra money and delightedly considered what might be done with it. He was, of course, all in favour of saving it. They lived comfortably as they were but they saved little or nothing, and now at last they had a chance of really putting something away. Insurance? That ought to be looked into, for they had all kinds of schemes. National Savings? A good safe investment. They might buy a house through one of the Building Societies. He saw himself looking into all these things, smoking his pipe over them and then making notes and putting down a few rows of neat little figures. It almost made his mouth water.

It was not until late afternoon, when they were finishing off, that he began to tackle the major problem, for, like most people, he preferred to examine the little problems, the pleasant, cheerful little fellows, first. Plump in the middle of this major problem was Mrs. Smeeth. If she was told about this extra money, she would want to spend it. That was her nature; she was a born spender. She was not a grabber and she was not a grumbler; if the money was not there, she made no complaint, and could make a little go a long way with the best of them, if there was no help for it. Tell her there was more money coming into the house, and she would never rest until it had been all frittered away, on clothes and ornaments and meals in cafés and visits to the theatre and the pictures and trips to the seaside and chocolate and bottles of port wine. Insurance and National Savings and Building Societies!—he could hear her telling him what she thought about them, and what she thought about him too for suggesting such a miserable way of spending their money. (She never understood the idea of saving, except when it merely meant putting a few shillings in a vase until Saturday. Giving money to an insurance company or a bank seemed to her simply spending it and getting nothing in return.) She would make him appear a mean ageing sort of chap, almost an old miser, cutting a contemptible figure in her eyes, and would refer to other men of her acquaintance, big, open-handed, dashing fellows. That would be so hateful that, finally, he would give in, and then what would they have for the future, for the rainy day? Empty bottles and chocolate boxes and old programmes and souvenirs of Clacton. It wasn’t good enough. He saw one way out, of course, and that was not to tell her at all, to say nothing about his rise until he had made a good start with his savings; but he hated the thought of doing that. It meant lying to her, not once but perhaps scores of times. It would be all for the best, but he had an idea that he would feel mean all the time. Some chaps seemed to think of their wives as people you always felt mean with, and to hear them talk you would think they had married their worst enemies, but though he and Edie were often pulling different ways, that wasn’t their style at all. So what was he to do?

His mind was still busy with this problem when he left the office for the night and called in T. Benenden’s, round the corner. As he watched Benenden take down the familiar canister, he wondered if Benenden was married. He had exchanged remarks with him all these years and never found that out. Surely Benenden couldn’t be married. A man who never wore a tie couldn’t possibly have a wife, unless of course he left home with a tie and then took it off in the shop.

“You a married man, Mr. Benenden?” he inquired casually.

T. Benenden stopped his weighing at once. “Now that’s a queer question,” he said, staring.

“I beg your pardon, I’m sure,” said Mr. Smeeth, rather embarrassed. “No business of mine at all.”

“Not at all, not at all,” said T. Benenden, still staring. “No offence taken, I assure you. What I really meant was it’s a queer question for me to answer. You say to me ‘Are you a married man, Mr. Benenden?’ Well, the only answer I can give to that is, I am—and then again I’m not. What do you make of that?”

Before Mr. Smeeth had time to make anything of it, a youth rushed in, flung some coppers on the counter, and cried “Packet o’ gaspers. Ten.”

Mr. Benenden contemptuously threw down a packet of cigarettes, contemptuously swept the coppers away, and watched the youth rush out again with even greater contempt.

“You saw that, you ’eard it?” he said scornfully. “‘Packet o’ gaspers. Packet o’ gaspers.’ Rushes in, rushes out, never stops to say please or thank you, never stops to think. Just—packet o’ gaspers. Can’t even say of. A packet of gaspers. Now that,” he continued gravely, his eyes fixed on Mr. Smeeth’s apparently without once winking, “is the ruin of the tobacco trade to-day. I don’t mean there’s no money in it. There is money in it. That’s where the big forchewns ’ave been made—packets o’ gaspers. If you and me had had the sense to realise, when the War started, that this packet-o’-gasper business was bound to come, bound to come—men smoking ’em, women smoking ’em, boys and girls smoking ’em—we could have made out forchewns, as easy as that. You watch for the big dividends in our trade—where are they? It isn’t tobacco that’s behind ’em—it’s packets o’ gaspers. Same with the shops. Quick turnover, in and out, throw ’em down, pick ’em up, outchew go. Easy money. All right. But I say it’s the ruin of the tobacconist to-day. And why? It takes the ’eart out of the business. Some of ’em have started putting rows of automatic machines outside at closing time. You’ve seen ’em. Well, I say they might as well keep ’em all day and have done with it. Packet o’ gaspers. Ten. There’s your sixpence. Twenty. There’s your shilling. Am I a man or am I an automatic machine?”

“Quite so,” said Mr. Smeeth, nodding his head.

“I’m a man, and what’s more, I’m a man with expert knowledge, I am. You come to me, and you say, ‘I want such and such a smoke, a bit of Virginia, a bit of Lati-kee-ya’—or you mightn’t say that because you mightn’t know so much about it—but anyhow you’ve got your idea of what you want and you come to me and I fix you up, just as I’ve fixed you up with this mixture of mine. There’s some pleasure in that. But this packet o’ gasper business. I might as well stand in the door there, and every time you put sixpence in my mouth, a packet of ten drops out of my waistcoat.”

“You’d look well, wouldn’t you?” Mr. Smeeth watched him filling the pouch, and could not help thinking that T. Benenden’s Own looked dustier than usual.

“Getting a bit down with that,” T. Benenden admitted, rolling up the pouch, “though if you ask me, I’d tell you to give me the bottom of the tin every time. That’s not ordinary dust, y’know. That’s good short stuff, best Oriental. It’s rich, that, and the Prince of Wales wouldn’t want anything better than that in his pipe—and I believe he smokes one.”

“I believe he does,” said Mr. Smeeth, handing over his money. “But what was that you were saying about being married?”

“Ar, yes,” said T. Benenden, preparing to consume some of his own stock. “Well, my answer to that question of yours was, ‘I am and I’m not.’ And how do you puzzle that out?” he asked with the air of a man who had produced a rare riddle. “Bit of a facer that, eh?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’d say—offhand—that you say you are married because you’re still legally married and have a wife living, but at the same time you say you’re not married because you’re not living the life of a married man. In fact, you’re separated from your wife. How’s that Mr. Benenden?”

The other’s face fell at being robbed so quickly of the chance of explaining himself. “That was a bit of smart thinking on your part, Mr. Smeeth,” he said, brightening up. “There aren’t many men about here who could have got on to it like that. And you’re right. I’ve been separated for nearly ten years. She goes her way, and I go mine. We were only married three years, and that was quite enough for me, a regular cat-and-dog life that was. If she wanted to go out, I wanted to stay in, and if she wanted to stay in, I wanted to go out. Well, that’s all right, isn’t it? If she wants to go out, let her go out. If she wants to stay in, let her stay in. What’s the matter with that? Ar, but that’s a man’s point of view. This is where the unfairness of the sex comes in. I was ready to let her go out or stay in, just as she pleased. But what about her? Had she the same fair-minded attitude, the same broad principles?” Mr. Benenden here removed his pipe to make room for a short bitter laugh. “When she wanted to go out, I’d to go out too, and when she wanted to stay in, I’d to stay in as well. That was her idear. Dog in the manger, she was, all the time, and specially on Saturdays and Sundays, just when you wanted a bit of give and take. We didn’t get on. Why some men like to tell you they get on well with women’s a mystery to me. I never did get on with ’em, and I don’t care who knows it.”

“That’s the spirit,” said Mr. Smeeth, for no particular reason except that he felt Benenden ought to be encouraged.

“Yes, well, as I say, we’d three years of it, and she left me three times and I left her twice during them three years. Interfering relations always ‘brought us together’—as they called it—but it was a miserable business. One of us was always packing up. I never knew whether I was going home to find a bit of supper or a note to say she’d gone to her sister’s at Saffron Walden. So the last time, I left a note saying she’d better stay for good at Saffron Walden and I went into lodgings down Camberwell way for a week and didn’t go back for over a week. When I did go back, she’d just gone again to Saffron Walden—she’d been back, you see, and waited a few days—and she stayed there.”

“And don’t you ever see her now?”

“Let me see,” said T. Benenden, tickling his beard with the stem of his pipe. “Last time I ran across her by accident, a year or two ago, or it might be three years ago. I was walking round the Confectionery and Grocery Exhibition at the Agricultural Hall, and I suddenly saw her and her sister—they’re in that line—and another woman all eating free samples of custard or jelly or potted meat or something, which is what I might have known they would be doing. I gave them one look and then went the other way.”

“Didn’t you stop at all?” said Mr. Smeeth.

“If I’d gone up to them there,” said Mr. Benenden earnestly, “what would have happened? A lot of argument. ‘You did this—Oh, did I?—Well, you did that.’ What she wouldn’t have said, her sister’ud said for her. Her sister had a tongue a yard long, noted for it up in Saffron Walden. I know that because a man from there came into this very shop one morning. Well, you can’t have that sort of argument at a free custard and jelly stall, can you? I had a picture postcard from her last year, from Cromer—all show-off, y’know. No, I’m better without them. Let’s see, Mr. Smeeth, I think you’re married, aren’t you? I seem to recollect you’re a family man.”

“That’s right,” said Mr. Smeeth, feeling very much at that moment the affectionate father and husband. “And I like it.”

“Oh, it suits some people,” said Mr. Benenden judicially. “They have the knack or an inclination that way. I’m not laying down any rules about it. But it never suited me. I like a quiet life of my own, to do what I like when I like, and have time to think things over. Good-night.”

As Mr. Smeeth walked away, he came to the conclusion that he had solved the mystery of the absent tie. Benenden did not wear a tie just to show his independence. Mr. Smeeth, however, did not envy him, although the question of Mrs. Smeeth and the extra money had yet to be settled. He was glad that he was not going home for once and would not have to meet his wife until late that night. He dismissed the problem and asked himself instead how he should spend the evening. The first thing to do was to have a meal and as he had once or twice had a respectable sort of high tea in a place in Holborn, he decided to go there again, so turned down Aldermanbury and Milk Street, caught a bus in Cheapside and, ten minutes later, was seated snugly at a little table in the teashop.

He could not help feeling richer than he had done that morning. Now he was practically a four-hundred-a-year man instead of a three-hundred-a-year man. He felt that he was entitled to celebrate this promotion in his own quiet way. So he began by ordering a good solid high tea, and then searched his paper to discover what was happening that night in the world of entertainment. There was a symphony concert at the Queen’s Hall. He would go there. He had never been to the Queen’s Hall, had always thought of the concerts there as being a bit above his head. Symphony concerts at the Queen’s Hall—it did sound rather heavy, rather alarming too, but he would try it. After all, though he didn’t pretend to know much about it, he did like music, indeed liked nothing better than music, and there would sure to be something he could enjoy, and the Queen’s Hall, expensive and highbrow as it sounded, couldn’t kill him. So far, he had got his music from gramophone records and the wireless, bands in the park or at the seaside, popular concerts in North London or occasionally at the Kingsway Hall and the Central Hall, and nights in the gallery in the old days to hear the Carl Rosa Company do Carmen and Rigoletto and that one about the pierrots, Pag-lee-atchy he supposed they called it. Well, this would be a new move, this symphony concert in the Queen’s Hall, a bit of an adventure. He ate his tea deliberately, as usual, but with a little inner glow of excitement.

He arrived at the Queen’s Hall in what he imagined to be very good time, but was surprised to find, after paying what seemed to him a stiffish price, that there was only just room for him in the gallery. Another ten minutes and he would have been too late, a thought that gave him a good deal of pleasure as he climbed the steps, among all the eager, chattering symphony concert-goers.

III

His seat was not very comfortable, high up too, but he liked the look of the place, with its bluey-green walls and gilded organ-pipes and lights shining through holes in the roof like fierce sunlight, its rows of little chairs and music stands, all ready for business. It was fine. He did not buy a programme—they were asking a shilling each for them, and a man must draw a line somewhere—but spent his time looking at the other people and listening to snatches of their talk. They were a queer mixture, quite different from anybody you were likely to see either in Stoke Newington or Angel Pavement; a good many foreigners (the kind with brown baggy stains under their eyes), Jewy people, a few wild-looking young fellows with dark khaki shirts and longish hair, a sprinkling of quiet middle-aged men like himself, and any number of pleasant young girls and refined ladies; and he studied them all with interest. On one side of him were several dark foreigners in a little party, a brown wrinkled oldish woman who never stopped talking Spanish or Italian or Greek or some such language, a thin young man who was carefully reading the programme, which seemed to be full of music itself, and, on the far side, two yellow girls. On the other side, his neighbour was a large man whose wiry grey hair stood straight up above a broad red face, obviously an Englishman but a chap rather out of the common, a bit cranky perhaps and fierce in his opinions.

This man, moving restlessly in the cramped space, bumped against Mr. Smeeth and muttered an apology.

“Not much room, is there?” said Mr. Smeeth amiably.

“Never is here, sir,” the man replied fiercely.

“Is that so,” said Mr. Smeeth. “I don’t often come here.” He felt it would not do to admit that this was the very first time.

“Always crowded at these concerts, full up, packed out, not an inch of spare room anywhere. And always the same. What the devil do they mean when they say they can’t make these concerts pay? Whose fault is it?” he demanded fiercely, just as if Mr. Smeeth were partly responsible. “We pay what they ask us to pay. We fill the place, don’t we? What do they want? Do they want people to hang down from the roof or sit on the organ pipes? They should build a bigger hall or stop talking nonsense.”

Mr. Smeeth agreed, feeling glad there was no necessity for him to do anything else.

“Say that to some people,” continued the fierce man, who needed no encouragement, “and they say, ‘Well, what about the Albert Hall? That’s big enough, isn’t it?’ The Albert Hall! The place is ridiculous. I was silly enough to go and hear Kreisler there, a few weeks ago. Monstrous! They might as well have used a race course and sent him up to play in a captive balloon. If it had been a gramophone in the next house but one, it couldn’t have been worse. Here you do get the music, I will say that. But it’s damnably cramped up here.”

The orchestral players were now swarming in like black beetles, and Mr. Smeeth amused himself trying to decide what all the various instruments were. Violins, ’cellos, double-basses, flutes, clarinets, bassoons, trumpets or cornets, trombones, he knew them, but he was not sure about some of the others—were those curly brass things the horns?—and it was hard to see them at all from where he was. When they had all settled down, he solemnly counted them, and there were nearly a hundred. Something like a band, that! This was going to be good, he told himself. At that moment, everybody began clapping. The conductor, a tall foreign-looking chap with a shock of grey hair that stood out all round his head, had arrived at his little railed-in platform, and was giving the audience a series of short jerky bows. He gave two little taps. All the players brought their instruments up and looked at him. He slowly raised his arms, then brought them down sharply and the concert began.

First, all the violins made a shivery sort of noise that you could feel travelling up and down your spine. Some of the clarinets and bassoons squeaked and gibbered a little, and the brass instruments made a few unpleasant remarks. Then all the violins went rushing up and up, and when they got to the top, the stout man at the back hit a gong, the two men near him attacked their drums, and the next moment every man jack of them, all the hundred, went at it for all they were worth, and the conductor was so energetic that it looked as if his cuffs were about to fly up to the organ. The noise was terrible, shattering: hundreds of tin buckets were being kicked down flights of stone steps; walls of houses were falling in; ships were going down; ten thousand people were screaming with toothache; steam hammers were breaking loose; whole warehouses of oilcloth were being stormed and the oilcloth all torn into shreds; and there were railway accidents innumerable. Then suddenly the noise stopped; one of the clarinets, all by itself, went slithering and gurgling; the violins began their shivery sound again and at last shivered away into silence. The conductor dropped his arms to his side. Nearly everybody clapped.

Neither Mr. Smeeth nor his neighbour joined in the applause. Indeed, the fierce man snorted a good deal, obviously to show his disapproval.

“I didn’t care for that much, did you?” said Mr. Smeeth, who felt he could risk it after those snorts.

“That? Muck. Absolute muck,” the fierce man bellowed into Mr. Smeeth’s left ear. “If they’ll swallow that they’ll swallow anything, any mortal thing. Downright sheer muck. Listen to ’em.” And as the applause continued, the fierce man, in despair, buried his huge head in his hands and groaned.

The next item seemed to Mr. Smeeth to be a member of the same unpleasant family as the first, only instead of being the rowdy one, it was the thin sneering one. He had never heard a piece of music before that gave such an impression of thinness, boniness, scragginess, and scratchiness. It was like having thin wires pushed into your ears. You felt as if you were trying to chew ice-cream. The violins hated the sight of you and of one another; the reedy instruments were reedier than they had ever been before but expressed nothing but a general loathing; the brass only came in to blow strange hollow sounds; and the stout man and his friends at the top hit things that had all gone flat, dead, as if their drums were burst. Very tall thin people sat about drinking quinine and sneering at one another, and in the middle of them, on the cold floor, was an idiot child than ran its finger-nail up and down a slate. One last scratch from the slate, and the horror was over. Once more, the conductor, after wiping his brow, was acknowledging the applause.

This time, Mr. Smeeth did not hesitate. “And I don’t like that either,” he said to his neighbour.

“You don’t?” The fierce man was almost staggered. “You don’t like it? You surprise me, sir, you do indeed. If you don’t like that, what in the name of thunder are you going to like—in modern music. Come, come, you’ve got to give the moderns a chance. You can’t refuse them a hearing altogether, can you?”

Mr. Smeeth admitted that you couldn’t, but said it in such a way as to suggest that he was doing his best to keep them quiet.

“Very well, then,” the fierce man continued, “you’ve got to confess that you’ve just listened to one of the two or three things written during these last ten years or so that is going to live. Come now, you must admit that.”

“Well, I dare say,” said Mr. Smeeth, knitting his brows.

Here the fierce man began tapping him on the arm. “Form? Well, of course, the thing hasn’t got it, and it’s no good pretending it has, and that’s where you and I”—Mr. Smeeth was given a heavier tap, almost a bang, to emphasise this—“find ourselves being cheated. But we’re asking for something that isn’t there. But the tone values, the pure orchestral colouring—superb! Damn it, it’s got poetry in it. Romantic, of course. Romantic as you like—ultra-romantic. All these fellows now are beginning to tell us they’re classical, but they’re all romantic really, the whole boiling of ’em, and Berlioz is their man only they don’t know it, or won’t admit it. What do you say?”

Mr. Smeeth observed very cautiously that he had no doubt there was a lot to be said for that point of view. When the interval came and he went out to smoke a pipe, he took care to keep moving so that the fierce man, who appeared to be on the prowl, did not find him.

The concert was much better after the interval. It began with a longish thing in which a piano played about one half, and most of the orchestra, for some of them never touched their instruments, played the other half. A little dark chap played the piano and there could be no doubt about it, he could play the piano. Terrum, ter-rum, terrum, terrum, trum, trum, trrrrr, the orchestra would go, and the little chap would lean back, looking idly at the conductor. But the second the orchestra stopped he would hurl himself at the piano and crash out his own Terrum, ter-rum, terrum, terrum, trum trum trrr. Sometimes the violins would play very softly and sadly, and the piano would join in, scattering silver showers of notes or perhaps wandering up and down a ladder of quiet chords, and then Mr. Smeeth would feel himself very quiet and happy and sad all at the same time. In the end, they had a pell-mell race, and the piano shouted to the orchestra and then went scampering away, and the orchestra thundered at the piano and went charging after it, and they went up hill and down dale, shouting and thundering, scampering and charging, until one big bang, during which the little chap seemed to be almost sitting on the piano and the conductor appeared to be holding the whole orchestra up in his two arms, brought it to an end. This time Mr. Smeeth clapped furiously, and so did the fierce man, and so did everybody else, even the violin players in the orchestra; and the little chap, now purple in the face, ran in and out a dozen times, bowing all the way. But he would not play again, no matter how long and loud they clapped, and Mr. Smeeth, for his part, could not blame him. The little chap had done his share. My word, there was talent for you!

“Our old friend now,” said the fierce man, turning abruptly.

“Where?” cried Mr. Smeeth, startled.

“On the programme,” the other replied. “It’s the Brahms Number One next.”

“Is it really,” said Mr. Smith. “That ought to be good.” He had heard of Brahms, knew him as the chap who had written some Hungarian dances. But, unless he was mistaken, these dances were only a bit of fun for Brahms, who was one of your very heavy classical men. The Number One part of it he did not understand, and did not like to ask about it, but as the elderly foreign woman on his right happened to be examining the programme, he had a peep at it and had just time to discover that it was a symphony, Brahms’ First Symphony in fact, they were about to hear. It would probably be clean above his head, but it could not possibly be so horrible to listen to as that modern stuff in the first half of the programme.

It was some time before he made much out of it. The Brahms of this symphony seemed a very gloomy, ponderous, rumbling sort of chap, who might now and then show a flash of temper or go in a corner and feel sorry for himself, but for the most part simply went on gloomily rumbling and grumbling. There were moments, however, when there came a sudden gush of melody, something infinitely tender swelling out of the strings or a ripple of laughter from the flutes and clarinets or a fine flare up by the whole orchestra, and for these moments Mr. Smeeth waited, puzzled but excited, like a man catching glimpses of some delectable strange valley through the swirling mists of a mountain side. As the symphony went on, he began to get the hang of it more and more, and these moments returned more frequently, until at last, in the final section, the great moment arrived and justified everything, the whole symphony concert.

It began, this last part, with some muffled and doleful sounds from the brass instruments. He had heard some of those grim snatches of tune earlier on in the symphony, and now when they were repeated in this fashion they had a very queer effect on him, almost frightened him. It was as if all the workhouses and hospitals and cemeteries of North London had been flashed past his eyes. Those brass instruments didn’t think Smeeth had much of a chance. All the violins were sorry about it; they protested, they shook, they wept; but the horns and trumpets and trombones came back and blew them away. Then the whole orchestra became tumultuous, and one voice after another raised itself above the menacing din, cried in anger, cried in sorrow, and was lost again. There were queer little intervals, during one of which only the strings played, and they twanged and plucked instead of using their bows, and the twanging and plucking, quite soft and slow at first, got louder and faster until it seemed as if there was danger everywhere. Then, just when it seemed as if something was going to burst, the twanging and plucking was over, and great mournful sounds came reeling out again, like doomed giants. After that the whole thing seemed to be slithering into hopelessness, as if Brahms had got stuck in a bog and the light was going. But then the great moment arrived. Brahms jumped clean out of his bog, set his foot on the hard road, and swept the orchestra and the fierce man and the three foreigners and Mr. Smeeth and the whole Queen’s Hall along with him, in a noble stride. This was a great tune. Ta tum ta ta tum tum, ta tum ta-ta tum ta tum. He could have shouted at the splendour of it. The strings in a rich deep unison sweeping on, and you were ten feet high and had a thousand glorious years to live. But in a minute or two it had gone, this glory of sound, and there was muddle and gloom, a sudden sweetness of violins, then harsh voices from the brass. Mr. Smeeth had given it up, when back it came again, swelling his heart until it nearly choked him, and then it was lost once more and everything began to be put in its place and settled, abruptly, fiercely, as if old Brahms had made up his mind to stand no nonsense from anybody or anything under the sun. There, there, there there, There. It was done. They were all clapping and clapping and the conductor was mopping his forehead and bowing and then signalling to the band to stand up, and old Brahms had slipped away, into the blue.

There was a cold drizzle of rain outside in Langham Place, where the big cars of the rich were nosing one another like shiny monsters, and it was a long and dreary way to Chaucer Road, Stoke Newington, but odd bits of the magic kept floating back into his mind, and he felt more excited and happy than he had done when he had heard about the rise that morning. Undoubtedly a lot of this symphony concert stuff was either right above his head or just simply didn’t mean anything to anybody. But what was good was good. Ta tum ta ta—now how did that go? All the way from the High Street to Chaucer Road, as he hurried down the darkening streets and tried to make his overcoat collar reach the back of his hat, he was also trying to capture that tune. He could feel it still beating and glowing somewhere inside him.

His wife and Edna were in. He heard their voices as he shut the front door. George was probably still out. “Hello, there. Only me,” he shouted. “George in yet?” They told him that George was in bed (George was always out very late or in bed quite early. A puzzling lad), so he carefully locked and bolted the front door.

“Well, here’s the wanderer,” cried Mrs. Smeeth gaily. She had still got her hat and coat on, and was refreshing herself with a piece of cake and half a tumbler of stout. “And where did you get to, Dad?”

“Went to a concert,” he replied, a trifle self-consciously. He drew nearer the fire and began taking off his boots.

“Get your dad his slippers, Edna, that’s a good girl,” said her mother. “And where was this concert then?”

“Queen’s Hall.”

“Oo! classy, aren’t we?” cried Mrs. Smeeth. “Did you like it?”

“I’ll bet he didn’t,” said Edna, an aggressive low-brow.

“How do you know he didn’t, miss. Some people like a bit of good music, even if you don’t. We’re not all jazz-mad. There’s nobody round here who enjoys good music, classical pieces, better than your father. Isn’t that so, Dad? Nobody knows that better than I do, the times I’ve had to listen to it as well, and a little bit goes a long way with me. Now you get off to bed, Edna, now, else you won’t be getting up in the morning and then you’ll be in a bit more trouble at the shop.”

“What’s this?” asked Mr. Smeeth, looking at his wife and then at his daughter. “Has she been getting into any trouble?”

“It wasn’t my fault at all, and you needn’t have mentioned it, Mother,” Edna began, but she was cut short by her mother.

“I didn’t say it was, but it will be if you don’t pop off upstairs.” She waited then until Edna had disappeared. “Tells me she’s had some bother with the buyer or floor manager, all something and nothing, but she thinks one or two of them there are getting their knife into her, and I’ve just been telling her to keep quiet a bit and not give any back answers until it’s blown over. Well,” she continued, settling back in her chair, after disposing of the stout, “I think George told you I was going to see Fred Mitty and his wife.”

“He did,” said Mr. Smeeth. “And how’s Cousin Fred? What’s brought him here?”

“I can’t quite make out what it is. Something to do with advertising and something to do with picture theatres and all that. He didn’t explain it properly. But he’s looking well, and so is his wife, and the daughter. Quite grown up, she is, about Edna’s age but bigger than Edna. But laugh!” Her face lit up. “Laugh! I thought I’d have died. I wish you’d been there, Dad. Oh, dear, dear, dear! Fred was always a lively card, never knew him when he wasn’t, but he gets funnier as he gets older, and he set us off to-night and I thought we’d never have stopped. He started taking off a man he knew in Birmingham—I believe he worked for him—and it seems this man talks on one side of his mouth, can’t help it, you see, and Fred started⁠——”

“I think, if you don’t mind, we’ll have all this to-morrow, Edie,” said Mr. Smeeth, standing up. “I feel like going to bed. I’m tired.”

“Oh, all right, Mister Methodical,” cried Mrs. Smeeth good-humouredly. “Fat lot of good it is saving a joke for you, isn’t it? Never mind, you’ll see for yourself on Saturday. I’ll ask Fred to do it again. They’re all coming up on Saturday night.”

“Oh, they are, are they,” said Mr. Smeeth with an entire lack of enthusiasm.

“Oh, I know what you’d like to say,” she told him, as they moved to the door. “But I had to ask them back, hadn’t I? Besides, we’ve got to have a bit of life sometime.”

That was true enough. He didn’t want to spoil her fun. He hadn’t told her about the rise yet, and he wasn’t sure if he was going to tell her. Somebody had to do the worrying and saving at 17, Chaucer Road. Tum tum tum tum—no, he couldn’t get it. He turned out the light and followed his wife upstairs.

IV

All the following day, he told himself that he would not say a word to Mrs. Smeeth about the extra money until he had made arrangements to save most of it. Once he had committed himself, it would be safe—though not pleasant—to tell her. In the meantime, if she asked him why he wasn’t getting the rise he had been promised, he would have to put her off with some tale or other. That wouldn’t be very pleasant either and not at all simple. To look at Mrs. Smeeth, with her free and easy style, you would think she was easy to lie to, but she wasn’t—or so it seemed to Mr. Smeeth. Whenever he tried he found himself, at his age too, still blushing and stammering. But there it was; that was the plan. And he spent some of his lunch time, all that could be spared from the usual poached egg and cup of coffee, “looking into” one or two things, insurance and National Savings chiefly, and when he returned to the office and made a few notes and calculations in his neat little script, he felt vaguely rich and rather important for once in his life.

The only person in the office who noticed any change in him was Stanley. Stanley’s interest in the affairs of Twigg and Dersingham, never strong at any time, had almost entirely lapsed now that Mr. Golspie was away, and that afternoon he found Mr. Smeeth unbearably tyrannical. He had to comfort himself by imagining a certain dramatic scene in the future, in which Mr. Smeeth, now the victim of a desperate gang, called in despair on the great detective, S. Poole, only to discover, after bowing humbly, that he was face to face with Stanley, the boy he had once bullied and despised. “Yes, Smeeth,” said S. Poole, lighting another cigar, “you little imagined then who it was copying your letters and filling your inkwells. But we will let bygones be bygones. Come, I will rid you of these pests.” And the great S. Poole, after slipping a revolver into the pocket of his fur coat, strode out, followed by an amazed and trembling Smeeth. “Courage, man, courage,” said S. Poole, as he climbed into the driving seat of his powerful roadster. “I can never thank you enough, Mr. Poole⁠——”

“And just get on with your work, Stanley,” said the same voice. But oh!—the difference in intonation. “I told you those letters have to catch the country post. Be ready to slip out with them. Got the envelopes there?”

On his tram, going home, Mr. Smeeth turned the pages of his evening paper, looking for those appeals to “The Saving Man” and “The Small Investor.” One of the advertisements asked him, not for the first time, what he was going to do in the Evening of Life, and though he still had no answer ready, for once he could look at it without feeling himself shrinking somewhere. Already he carried a good insurance for a man in his position; he had a bit, for emergencies, in the Post Office Savings Bank; and now he would have over a pound a week to put away. Now if he did that for ten years, fifteen years, perhaps increased it if the firm went on doing so well and gave him another rise, why, then, surely—and he lost himself in pleasant speculations.

He arrived home to find Edna sitting over the fire, hugging herself in misery, and red and swollen about the eyes.

“Hello, hello,” he cried. “What’s the matter here?”

“Lost my job,” Edna mumbled into the fire.

“Yes, she’s a fine one, isn’t she?” And Mrs. Smeeth bounced into the room with a saucepan in her hand. “I told her to be careful, last night, the way they were getting their knife into her, and in she comes, half an hour ago, and tells me they’ve had a regular dust-up and the long and short of it all is, my lady’s sacked.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” said Edna, who had obviously said this a great many times before.

“Just you go upstairs and tidy yourself up,” cried her mother. “Dinner will be ready in a minute and the face you’ve got now isn’t fit to be seen at a table. It would put us off our food. And don’t start telling me you don’t want any dinner, just because you’ve got sacked. Get along upstairs and don’t keep us waiting all night when you do get up.”

“What’s all this about?” Mr. Smeeth asked, with the quiet despair of a man who has known something like it happen before, and not a few times before. He put on that look familiar to all wives, who are left wondering why men should imagine that domestic life, unlike any other kind of life, ought really to be entirely lacking in disturbing events.

“Look at me with this saucepan in my hand,” cried Mrs. Smeeth, laughing at herself. “Just you sit down and keep calm, and I’ll have dinner on the table in a minute, though what it’ll be like, Lord only knows, the way I’ve been badgered and rushed.”

Left to himself, Mr. Smeeth came to the conclusion once again that his wife was to be envied. She made a great fuss, far more noise than he ever did, but she didn’t really dislike these disturbances and strokes of bad luck. Any sort of happening, even an apparent misfortune, braced her up and left her really enjoying it. What she didn’t like was a quiet life, the same thing day after day.

She came in now like a savoury whirlwind. “Draw up, Dad. We won’t wait for Edna. She’ll be down in a minute. Help yourself to that stew and take plenty of it because the meat’s nearly all bone. Dig down and you’ll get the barley, and that’ll do your old inside good.”

“What’s this about Edna, then?”

“Far as I can see, you can’t really blame her, though she’s probably been acting a bit too independent. Edna is independent, though better that, in the long run, than too much the other way. But she’s only a child, when all’s said and done, and I know she liked the work and wanted to stop on there. For two pins, I’d slip down to Finsbury Park to-morrow and give that floor manager or whoever he is a piece of my mind. All favouritism really, that’s what it boils down to, and of course Edna hadn’t been there long and ought to have kept quiet—though a girl’s a right to speak up for herself, and I’d be the last to say she hasn’t—but they begin picking on her and she stands up for herself and lets out one or two things she oughtn’t to and the next thing is, she’s told to go.”

This was not a very clear account of how a girl came to be suddenly dismissed from an important firm of retail drapers, but it seemed to satisfy Mr. Smeeth, who did not ask for any details. The truth is, he had gone through this scene before, and he knew now that it was not worth trying to discover exactly what had happened. Edna returned, looking her usual self except that she wore a slightly tragic air.

“When do you finish then, Edna?” her father asked.

“This week. And the sooner the better. I wouldn’t go to-morrow if I hadn’t to get my week’s money. Lot of pigs, they are. I knew one or two girls—Ivy Armitage, for one—who’s been there and they told me what it was like, but of course I wouldn’t believe ’em but it didn’t take me long to see they weren’t talking so silly as I thought.”

“And what’s the next move, then?” demanded Mr. Smeeth rather wearily.

“Don’t you worry, Dad. I’m not going to stick about home long. I’ll find something.”

“What she’d like to do is to go to Madame Rivoli’s in the High Street,” Mrs. Smeeth explained, “and learn the business properly.”

“What business? I’ll trouble you for the greens, Edna.”

“Millinery. You know Madame Rivoli’s in the High Street, the place where I got that very nice purple hat of mine that fell into the water at Hastings that time? Mrs. Talbot keeps it now. You know, her husband died of eating oysters about four years ago, and nobody round here would touch ’em for months—well, that’s Mrs. Talbot, a little woman, looks a bit Frenchified—smart, y’know, Dad, but overdoes it a bit. I pointed her out to you one day, and you said if you’d legs as thin as that you’d take the trouble to hide ’em and I thought she heard you.”

“And then you talk about me talking,” cried Edna. “That’s a nice way to talk, isn’t it? And about Mrs. Talbot, too. You couldn’t want anybody nicer than Mrs. Talbot.”

“All we want is for you to mind your own business,” said Mrs. Smeeth, forgetting that this really was Edna’s business. “But if you want something to do, you can be fetching that pudding in and making yourself useful, while I finish this. And be careful getting it out. Use the cloth.”

“And where does Madame Rivoli come in?” asked Mr. Smeeth.

“She doesn’t come in. It’s just a name, y’see, Dad. Miss Murgatroyd had it before Mrs. Talbot. It catches people, makes them think all the hats are Paris models. For all that, it’s the best little hat shop we’ve got about here. If you know of a better one in Stoke Newington, I’d like to know where it is, I would really. Only thing that keeps me away from that shop is the prices they ask—oh, wicked, they are—you might as well go to the West End and have done with it. But Mrs. Talbot does a fine business—I don’t think it’s altogether her shop, I think she just manages it, and somebody told me two Jews really owned it. Now then, Edna,” and Mrs. Smeeth sprang to her feet and took the pudding from her daughter, “just nip back for the plates and then we’re all right. There we are. It’ll taste better than it looks. This pudding always does. Plenty for you, Dad?”

“Just middling, Mother,” said Mr. Smeeth.

“Well, if that isn’t enough, you can always come again, can’t you? What about you, Edna? Don’t want any, I suppose? Well, you’re going to have some. You eat that and see if it doesn’t make you feel better.”

“I’ve tasted worse,” said Mr. Smeeth judicially. “Bit heavy, though, isn’t it?”

“Oo, Mother, you can’t have mixed it properly,” cried the fastidious Edna. “It’s like lead. It is really. I’ll have a bit more of the apple, please. I can’t eat the crust.”

“Now if you’d been me and I’d been my mother,” said Mrs. Smeeth with an attempt at severity, “you’d have been made to eat what was on your plate and not gone picking and choosing like that. But it’s not come out as well as it might, I must say.”

“Well, to get back to what we were talking about,” said Mr. Smeeth, laying down his spoon and shaking his head at an offer of more pudding. “Where does this Mrs. Talbot or Madame Rivoli or whoever it is come in? What’s she got to do with us? I’ve forgotten how it all started. You go on and on and what with purple hats and oysters and legs and Jews, I don’t know where I am. Now then, start again, if we must have it.”

“Oh, you tell him, Edna, while I go and make the tea. And for goodness’ sake be careful you don’t mention purple hats and oysters or else your father will be leaving home. Old silly!” And Mrs. Smeeth, as deft as a juggler, swept herself and half a dozen plates and a few dishes out of the room.

“It’s like this, Dad,” Edna began. “My friend, Minnie Watson, knows this Mrs. Talbot who’s managing Madame Rivoli’s because her mother has known her a long time and Minnie Watson introduced me to Mrs. Talbot and we got on talking and Minnie Watson told her afterwards I wanted to go in for the millinery if I could⁠——”

“Ah, we’re coming to it at last, are we?”

“Well, the point is, Mrs. Talbot told Minnie Watson that she liked the look of me and that if I wanted to go as an apprentice, I could do, and they’d teach me the business. Only I’d have to go for six months first without getting any money at all, and then they’d pay me something after that—not much at the start, but afterwards I could earn a lot, because you can if you’re a proper milliner and know the business.”

“That’s the idea now, you see, Dad,” said Mrs. Smeeth, coming in with the tea. “Learning the millinery. I don’t say it’s a bad idea, because it’s not, and, if you ask me, I should say Edna had as good a chance of making something out of it as any girl I know, because she’s good with her fingers—when she cares to use ’em and that’s not often in the house—and she likes altering hats, which is more than I ever did.”

“Everybody says I’m clever at it,” said Edna, looking rather defiant.

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘everybody,’ but if you mean your Minnie Watsons and such like, I don’t think whatever they say amounts to much. They’d tell you anything for tuppence. But still, Dad, it’s not a bad idea—but, as I told her, this apprenticeship business is coming a bit hard on us because it’s working for nothing and now that she’s been earning money, she’s used to having it to spend, and we’ve got to keep her looking decent and she’ll still want to be spending something and she’ll be bringing nothing in for a long time. You say I haven’t a head for business, Dad—and I dare say I haven’t and I don’t know that I want to have—but I saw that as soon as she mentioned it and asked her what she thought we were going to get out of it.”

“Dad can’t talk,” cried Edna, looking across at him triumphantly, “’cos he wanted me to be a teacher and if I’d started to be a teacher, I’d have been going to college now, and then he’d have had to be paying for me, never mind me not earning anything.”

“Yes, but you didn’t want to be a teacher, did you?” said Mrs. Smeeth, as if that somehow settled the matter.

“Besides, my girl,” Mr. Smeeth began, rather pompously.

“Take your tea, Dad.” It was a curious thing, but whenever Mr. Smeeth had some really dignified statement to make, Mrs. Smeeth invariably broke in to hand him a cup or a plate or to ask him to put some coal on the fire or to see if there was somebody at the front door.

“Go on, Dad, what were you saying?” said Mrs. Smeeth, observing that he was frowning a little at his cup.

“I was going to say that teaching’s one thing and millinery’s another thing. If you’d have decided to be a teacher, Edna, I was ready to make a sacrifice to see that you became one. Teaching’s a profession. Safe, too. Once you become a teacher, you’re safe for the rest of your life⁠——”

“Awful old maids they look too, some of the old ones. Lord help us, what a life!” Mrs. Smeeth shuddered, shook her head, then smiled at her husband, encouraging him to continue with his little speech.

“But this millinery business is quite a different thing. There may be money in it and there may not—I don’t know. What I do know is, it’s in a different class altogether, not the same standing at all. I’d do for one what I wouldn’t do for the other. So don’t throw that teaching affair in my face because it’s outside the argument altogether.”

“Oh, all right.” Edna wriggled her shoulders. “Don’t go on and on about it. If I can’t go, I suppose I can’t, that’s all.” She pushed her cup away and rose from the table. Then she stopped and looked at them, and Mr. Smeeth saw, to his dismay, that her eyes were filling with tears. Like that, she looked hardly a day older than she had done when he still played childish games with her. “But I did want to go. It’s the only thing I’ve really wanted to do since I left school. And if I went, I might be earning quite a lot in a year or two and some day I might be able to have a shop of my own. If George had wanted to do something like this, you wouldn’t have said no to him—oh⁠——”

She was making for the door, but her father’s shout stopped her.

“Here, wait a minute,” he called out. Then, when she halted, he threw a quick glance at her streaming little face, looked across at her mother and then down at the table-cloth, and said: “Well, I suppose you’d better have a try at it then, Edna.”

“Oo, can I?” She was all delighted eagerness now, and darted across to him. “I can, can’t I?”

Awkward, a trifle shamefaced, Mr. Smeeth made a movement as if to put his arm round her, but apparently thought better of it and merely patted her nearest shoulder-blade. “That’s all right,” he muttered. “That’s all right.”

“Can I go round and see her now?” said Edna, her eyes shining and her feet dancing with impatience. Then she flew out of the room.

“Well, Dad,” said Mrs. Smeeth. “I won’t say I’m sorry you’ve decided that way, because I’m not. I believe it’s what she’s wanted some time. She doesn’t know whether she’s on her head or her heels now. Ah!—” and she gave a tremendous sigh—“I like to see them happy. After all, we’ve only got to live once⁠——”

“How do you know?” demanded her husband.

“Well, I don’t know, if it comes to that, Mister Clever,” she retorted good-humouredly. “All the same, I’ve a very good idea. But what I wanted to say is this, Dad. I wasn’t going to give her permission to start this business. And don’t say I persuaded you, because I didn’t. You did it yourself. You know what it means. She’ll be earning next to nothing for a year or two, and though she’ll have to pull herself in a bit now she’s not earning anything, she can’t be kept on nothing. So don’t you turn round on me and tell me I don’t know that twelve pennies make a shilling or something of that sort. It’s your own doing, this time. I made up my mind I wouldn’t say a word. And if you think you can do it all right, well and good; I’m glad.”

“Of course I can do it,” he told her, rather indignantly. Then out it came. “Matter of fact, I’ve got that rise.”

“You’ve not?”

“Yes, I have.”

“How much?”

“I’ve been put up to three seventy-five, that’s more than a pound a week more than I’ve been getting.” And as he said it, Mr. Smeeth asked himself if he wasn’t behaving like a complete fool.

Mrs. Smeeth descended on him impetuously and gave him a resounding kiss. “I knew there was something coming,” she cried jubilantly. “I told you about Mrs. Dalby’s sister, didn’t I? She told me again that money and good luck were coming through a stranger, a middling-coloured man in a strange bed. And that was this Mr. Golspie of yours, I’ll bet. Nearly four hundred a year, isn’t it, now? That’s something like. My cousin, Fred Mitty, was boasting the other night about what he could make sometimes, and now this will be something to tell him to-morrow night. And fancy you just sitting there as if nothing had happened and never saying a word! I never knew anybody so close, you old oyster you! But that shows what they think of you, doesn’t it? And you always worrying about your job and talking as if you were going to be out in the street next minute!” She ran on and on, happy and excited, while he filled his pipe and tried to appear very cool and collected. Actually he was being pulled two ways. One half of him was gratified, no, more than gratified, delighted by her pleasure and her pride in him, and the other half was dubious and demanded to know if he realised what he had done.

“Now look here, Dad,” said Mrs. Smeeth, “we must celebrate the great occasion somehow to-night. It’s no good luck coming to the house if we’re not going to take any notice of it. Let’s go out somewhere. Let’s enjoy ourselves.”

“I thought we were going to do that to-morrow,” he told her drily, “when Fred Mitty and company arrive.”

“But that’s different. I mean, just ourselves, just you and me. Let’s go and see a good picture or down to the second house at Finsbury Park or something like that, and sit in the best seats, and you buy yourself a cigar and buy me some chocolates for once, and let’s do it properly. Come on, boy. What do you say?”

The Saving Man and the Small Investor in Mr. Smeeth went down before the affectionate husband and the proud male. When she looked at him like that, it would be a sin and a shame to refuse her. “All right, Edie. You decide where you want to go, and we’ll go.”

“I’ll just put George’s dinner out and put the dirty things under the tap,” she announced breathlessly, flushed and bright-eyed, a girl again, “and while I’m doing that, you look at the paper and see where you’d like to go. Give me those two cups. No, I can manage. You just sit there and have a quiet smoke.”

He could hear her singing, in her own cheerful vague fashion, above the faint clatter of crockery in the kitchen, while he had his quiet smoke. He did not look at the paper to see where he would like to go. She could decide that, and she would soon enough when she had washed up. For a week or two, she would be feeling rich and would be bringing out all sorts of plans. If by the end of this night she had not thought of twenty different ways of getting rid of a good deal more than an extra pound or so a week, he would be surprised. She had a weakness for hire purchase schemes, to begin with, and he detested them, both as a man of business and a careful householder. Well, after the first excitement had gone he would have to put his foot down; no more of these fairy tale views of life; somebody had to do the thinking. Now his thoughts took on a sombre colouring. He had never envied the rich their luxurious pleasures; he was a simple chap, and their way of life seemed to him ridiculous; he did not want a great deal for himself; but what he did want—and for this he was prepared to envy anybody—was security, to know that decency and self-respect were his to the end of his days. To be safe in his job while he was fit for it, and after that to have a little place of his own, with a garden (he had never done any real gardening, but he always found it easy to imagine himself doing it very well and enjoying it) and a bit of music whenever he wanted it—that was not asking much, and yet, for all the firm’s increased turnover and its rises, he could not help thinking it was really like asking for the moon.

“’Lo, Dad,” cried George, entering briskly. “How’s things?”

“Pretty good, boy. How’s the car trade?”

“Not so dusty. You don’t know anybody who’d like to lend me sixty quid, do you, Dad?”

“I don’t,” replied Mr. Smeeth very decidedly.

“Pity,” said George, who showed no signs of disappointment. “If I could put my hand on sixty quid this minute, I could make money. A cert. Sounds like horse racing, doesn’t it, but it isn’t⁠——”

“And I should hope not,” said his father, looking at him severely.

“Second-hand car deal. Money for nothing. Ah, well—you wait a bit.”

“Well, you be careful, with your money for nothing.”

“Leave it to me, Dad,” said George coolly.

Mr. Smeeth looked wonderingly at him. It seemed only yesterday when he was filling his stocking and putting the Meccano set by the boy’s bedside. And now—leave it to him, sixty quid, a cert! Mr. Smeeth took his pipe out, stared at it, and then whistled softly.

V

“Come along, Dad,” cried Mrs. Smeeth, pouring out the Rich Ruby Port for the ladies. “Buck up. Join in the fun.” She had herself a rich ruby look, for what with eating and drinking and shouting and laughing and singing, her face was crimson and almost steaming.

Unfortunately, Mr. Mitty overheard her. “That’s right,” he roared, drowning every other voice in the room. “Come on, Pa. Take your turn. No shirking. Take your turn, Pa. Show us a conjuring trick.”

“Oh, shut up, Fred,” Mrs. Mitty screamed, pretending to chide him, as usual, and really drawing attention to his astonishing drollery. “You’ve gone far enough.”

Mr. Smeeth could not do any conjuring, but if he had been given unlimited powers, he knew one trick he would have liked to perform that instant, a trick that involved the immediate disappearance of Mr. Fred Mitty. It was Saturday night, the little party was in full swing, and they were all in the front room, all, that is except the Mitty girl and Edna, who had gone out together for an hour or so, probably round to the pictures. In addition to the Mitty pair, there were Dalby and Mrs. Dalby (whose sister told fortunes with cards). Mr. Smeeth had seen the room when it had had more people in it, but he had never known it when it had seemed so full. He had always thought of Dalby, who lived at 11, Chaucer Road, was a bandy-legged insurance agent, and fancied himself as a wag and a great hand at parties, as a noisy chap, but compared with Fred Mitty he was quiet and decent and merely another Smeeth. It had not taken Mr. Smeeth ten minutes to discover that he disliked Mitty intensely, and every thing that Mitty had done and said since (and for the last hour or so he had insisted on calling Mr. Smeeth “Pa”) had only increased that dislike, which did not stop short at Fred, but extended to Mrs. Mitty and the girl, Dot. He had never known three people he had disliked more.

Mrs. Smeeth’s cousin was a fellow in his early forties who had probably not been bad-looking once in a cheap flashy style. He had curly fair hair, very small, light-coloured greedy eyes, a broken nose, and a large loose mouth that went all out to one side when he talked. He reminded Mr. Smeeth at once of those cheap auctioneer chaps who take an empty shop for a week or two and pretend they are giving everything away. Mr. Mitty’s complexion seemed to be permanently rich and ruby, and it had evidently cost somebody a good deal in its time, though—as Mr. Smeeth assured himself, vindictively—not necessarily Mr. Mitty himself, who clearly brought out visiting with him a colossal thirst and appetite. He was a funny man, a determined wag, and the noisiest Mr. Smeeth had ever known. He shouted all the time, just like one of those cheap auctioneers. His jokes gave you a pain in the stomach and his voice a headache. Moreover, he seemed to Mr. Smeeth quite obviously a silly boaster, a liar, and a man not to be trusted a yard. Such men frequently ally themselves to quiet little women, but Fred Mitty—fortunately for some quiet little woman—had found a female of his own kind. Mrs. Mitty, who had a long blue nose and hair that was bright auburn at the ends and grey-brown near the roots, was as brassy as her husband. Her scream accompanied his roar. If she said anything playful to you, she hit your nearest rib with her bony elbow; and if you said anything playful to her, she slapped you on the arm. Here she differed from Fred, who banged you on the back and poked you in the ribs, unless you were a woman and not too old, and then he hugged you or invited you to sit on his knee. Dot, the solitary offspring of this brassy pair, was about Edna’s age and was all legs and golden curls and a hard blue stare. She talked of becoming a film actress. Mr. Smeeth, who did not know much about Hollywood, but nevertheless had a horror of the place, told her quite sincerely that he hoped she would get there, and added, with perfect truth, that she reminded him of those Broadway girls on the pictures. Edna of course—the silly child—had been fascinated at once by Dot; and as for Mrs. Smeeth, who really had no more sense about people at times than a baby, she seemed to be infatuated with all three of them.

“Will you have a little port wine, Mrs. Dalby?” said Mr. Smeeth, who felt that he must do something.

“Just the tiniest, weeniest sip, Mr. Smeeth,” she replied. And when he had brought her the Rich Ruby she continued, “Lively to-night, aren’t we?”

“Very,” he told her.

She gave him a quick look. “Well, it’s nice to see people enjoying themselves. But you look a bit tired to-night, Mr. Smeeth.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Do I? Feel all right, y’know, Mrs. Dalby.” Did he feel all right? What about that little tick-tick of pain somewhere inside him? “I’ve been working hard just lately. We’ve been busy, for once.”

“You’re inside all the time, aren’t you?” said Mrs. Dalby seriously and sympathetically. “And that’s what tells on you. Tom works very hard—though you wouldn’t think so, to hear him talk—but he’s out most of the time, on his round, you know, and so it’s not so bad for him, unless we get a spell of nasty damp weather and then he begins to feel it in the chest. He’s had chest trouble before.”

“Has he really?” said Mr. Smeeth. This was not a very cheerful conversation, but nevertheless it pleased him. Mrs. Dalby was a nice, quiet, ladylike sort of woman, and talking to her in this company was like having a few words with a sane person in a madhouse.

“That’s right, Fred,” Mrs. Smeeth shouted. “Do help yourself.”

“Trust me!” roared Fred, who was pouring himself out some whisky. Yes, there was a bottle of whisky, as well as some beer and the Rich Ruby. So far as Mr. Smeeth could see, half the week’s housekeeping money must have been spent on this racket.

“Yes, trust ’im,” screamed Mrs. Fred, putting down her empty glass. “If you don’t take that bottle away from him, he’ll have it all before you know where you are.”

“Ah like ma droap o’ Scoatch, d’ye ken,” Fred bellowed in a very hoarse voice and in what he imagined to be a Scots accent. “Wha’ day ye say, Meesees Macphairson? Hoch aye!”

“Oh, stop it, Fred,” cried his wife.

“Good as a turn, you are, Fred,” said Mrs. Smeeth admiringly.

“Reminds me of the chap from Aberdeen,” Dalby began. But it was no use. It was not his evening.

“There was a Scottie I knew in Brum,” Fred shouted.

Mrs. Fred let out a piercing shriek. “Oh, yes, tell ’em about him.”

Fred did, but Mr. Smeeth, by a tremendous effort, contrived not to listen, although Fred’s voice more than filled the room. Indeed, there was so much of it that it was possible not to take it in properly. Mr. Smeeth thought about other things, and paid no attention until he suddenly discovered that he was being addressed.

“Yes, do let’s have that,” cried Mrs. Smeeth, her face very red and her eyes moist with laughter. “Y’know, that one you did the other night for me—that man in Birmingham. Laugh! I thought I’d have died. Dad, you remember me telling you? Do listen to this.”

“That’s right, Pa,” roared Fred, with mock severity. “A little of your attention, please, while I endeavour to give you a slight impersonation of—Mis-ter Snook-um of Brum.”

“That wasn’t his real name, you know,” Mrs. Fred screamed, turning on Mr. Smeeth so that he got the full force of it. “That was the name these chaps gave him. Do it properly, Fred, this time. Dress up for it.”

“Shall I? What about it?”

“Yes, go on, do. Like you did that time at Mr. Slingsby’s. I’ll tell you all about that night in a minute,” Mrs. Fred added, with the air of one about to confer a great favour. “That was a night. But go on, Fred.”

“All right,” replied Fred, noisily finishing his whisky. “I will—by special request.”

“Looks as though we’re going to have a performance,” said Dalby, not very pleasantly. There had been rather too much of Fred for his taste.

“That’s right,” Fred shouted at him, not too pleasantly either. “Any objections?”

“Hurry up, Fred,” cried Mrs. Smeeth beaming at him. “We’re all waiting.”

“Allow me one minute in which to change my costume,” Fred replied, “and I will oblige.” And out he went, and the others were moved about to allow a clear space near the door, and Mrs. Dalby and Mrs. Mitty were pressed to take a little more of the Rich Ruby or to have a sandwich or a piece of cake, and Mrs. Dalby had a sandwich and Mrs. Mitty, whose long nose was a much deeper shade of blue than it had originally been, accepted another glass of the Rich Ruby.

“I ought to tell you that this chap he’s going to take off,” Mrs. Fred explained to them, “was a chap Fred had some business dealings with in Birmingham. He owned one of the picture theatres there. He wasn’t a bad sort of chap really, but he was an absolute comic—didn’t mean to be, y’know, didn’t know he was funny—but he was, and Fred and the other fellows used to make game of him. To start with, he always talked, you see, with his mouth on one side⁠——”

“Well, so does Fred,” said Mr. Smeeth, bluntly and boldly.

“Now, Dad,” cried Mrs. Smeeth, “how can you say that!”

“That’s right, Mrs. Smeeth,” said Dalby. “He does talk with his mouth on one side. I noticed it myself. Just a habit, you know. Easy to get into. Probably you never notice it now,” he remarked considerately to Mrs. Fred. “You’ve got used to it.”

“Oh, that’s quite different,” she said stiffly. But she did not continue with her explanation. “Wait till he comes in. You’ll see what I mean.”

What Mr. Smeeth did see when Fred came in was that Fred was wearing his best overcoat and hat. He must have chosen these things because they were obviously too small for him and so added to the comic effect. The coat was strained across his shoulders, and the hat, a good grey soft felt, which Mr. Smeeth only wore at the week-end and for special occasions, had been jammed on his head and punched in at the top in a horrible manner. Mr. Smeeth was so annoyed he could hardly sit still.

“Good evening, you people,” said Fred, speaking in a queer voice and throwing his mouth round to the other side. “I’m Mister Snookums of Brum, and I’d loike you to understand that I’m the propreeotor of the Luxydrome Peecture Palaice, situated in one of our main thoroughfares of the city and built ree-gardless of expense. Hem!” Here Fred coughed in a silly way, with a quick movement of one hand to his mouth, a movement that nearly split the seams of the overcoat. His wife and Mrs. Smeeth shrieked with laughter; Dalby and his wife smiled; and Mr. Smeeth merely looked glum. This went on for several minutes, at the end of which, Fred, in a frantic attempt to capture the whole audience, was shouting at the top of his voice, nearly bursting the overcoat, and punching the hat out of any recognisable shape. At last, Mr. Smeeth could stand it no longer.

“Just a minute,” he said, advancing upon Fred. “I’m sorry to interrupt, if you’ve not finished. But, y’know, that’s my hat, my best hat—when you’ve done with it.” And he held out his hand for it.

“All right, old sport,” said Fred, giving it to him and resuming his normal appearance. “No damage done. And ber-lieve me, people,” he added, mopping his brow, “that’s nearly like work. Yes, I think I will, Cousin Edie.” And he made for the whisky.

Edna and Dot returned now from the pictures. It was Dot’s turn to entertain the company. “Oo, I say,” she cried, like a suddenly galvanised doll, “oo, I say, you oughter see Ducie Dellwood in this picture we’ve just seen. A college girl, what they call over there a co-ed.”

“I thought she was sorful,” said Edna. “Didn’t you, Dot?”

“I didn’t like her much. This was her. Watch me, everybody. Just watch me a minute. This was her.” And Dot, after screaming everybody into attention, began jazzing about and rolling her eyes and flinging herself into a chair and then jumping out of it again. “That song’s in this picture, mother,” she gasped. “You know—what is it?—It’s Necking or Nothing Now—and Ducie Dellwood sings it—like this.” She stood facing them with her legs apart and knees bent, crooked her elbows, spread out her fingers, then swayed as she sang, or tried to sing in a little nasal voice, what she remembered of the song. Mr. Smeeth, after noticing that Edna was regarding this performance with open admiration, told himself that in spite of the fact that he was a quiet and good-tempered man, he would dearly like to get up and give this Dot girl a good box on the ears and then pack her off to bed.

“Well, I really think we’d better be getting along now,” said Mrs. Dalby.

“Yes, time to be off,” said her husband.

“No, don’t go yet, Mrs. Dalby,” cried Mrs. Smeeth.

“The night is yet young,” roared Fred. “I thought you London people kept it up till all hours. Why, up in Brum, when a few of us got together, some of the bo-hoys and some of the ger-hirls, we used to be settling down to it now, I give you my word.”

“And how much longer does he think he’s going to stay here?” Mr. Smeeth asked himself bitterly, as the irrepressible Fred went roaring on. Mrs. Dalby was firm about going and edged towards the door, smiling at her hostess; Dalby followed her and when they did finally go, Mr. Smeeth, glad to escape even for a minute or two, saw them to the door. The night was beautifully dark and quiet, delighted in its entire lack of Mitties.

“Lively card, all right,” said Dalby, as they halted a moment.

“A bit too lively for me,” said Mr. Smeeth in a low, confidential tone. “A little of him goes a long way, it seems to me. Mrs. Smeeth’s cousin, y’know,” he added, disclaiming all responsibility.

“Well, to be quite truthful, Mr. Smeeth,” Mrs. Dalby declared, “I must say I thought the way they allowed that girl to carry on was ridiculous. My words, if she’d been a girl of mine⁠——!”

“Or mine,” said Mr. Smeeth grimly.

“Still, we’ve had a very enjoyable evening, haven’t we, Tom?” said Mrs. Dalby, who had plainly had nothing of the kind but was a polite woman.

After they had said good night, Mr. Smeeth remained at the door for a few minutes, enjoying the quiet and the cool fresh air. When he returned to the others he made straight for the fire and raked it together with the poker, but did not put any more coal on it. Then he yawned once or twice, and did not try very hard to pretend he was not yawning. Ten minutes later, he told Edna to get upstairs to bed, pointing out very firmly that on any other night she would have been there some time. There were signs then, after Edna had reluctantly and with much wriggling of shoulders taken her departure, that the Mitty family was about to go, but unfortunately George made his appearance and that kept them another half-hour, towards the end of which Mr. Smeeth merely stared at them in despair. When they did go Mrs. Smeeth and George saw them to the door, and Mr. Smeeth stayed where he was.

Somehow the room looked as if fifty people had been eating and drinking and smoking in it for days. There were two sandwiches and a flattened cigarette end on the carpet; somebody had spilled some port on the little table; there was the glass that Fred had broken; there were the forlorn bottles, the dirty glasses, the remnants of food, the cigarette ash, the smoke rapidly going stale: the whole room, the pride of the house and as nice a parlour as you would find in the length of Chaucer Road, looked tipsy, bedraggled, and forlorn, and as its disgusted owner wearily moved about, throwing bits of stuff into the fire and straightening things, he felt as if the Mitty crew had left their sign and mark on it for ever. He threw open the windows and was just in time to hear from outside the last good nights.

His wife came in. “George has gone to bed,” she announced. “I was telling him he seemed quite struck with young Dot.”

Mr. Smeeth grunted.

She followed her usual practice on these occasions, sitting down by the fire with a last sandwich, prepared for a cosy little gossip about the evening. “I’m not going to touch a thing to-night. It’ll have to wait until the morning. Well, well, I must say I’ve enjoyed myself to-night; whether other people have or not.” For a moment her face was alight with reminiscent mirth, that pleasant afterglow of jolly evenings, but it died out as she looked at her husband. “But I must say, too, Dad, I never saw you in such a mood. I expect you thought I wasn’t noticing you, but I was. Couldn’t help it. Quite grumpy you were, half the time, and downright rude, if you ask me, once or twice. Fred’s wife noticed it, too.”

Mr. Smeeth mumbled something to the effect that he did not much care what Fred’s wife noticed.

“Perhaps you’re tired. Are you, boy?” she said, her manner changing. “I thought once or twice you looked tired, and Mrs. Dalby told me she thought you were looking a bit tired to-night.”

“I expect I am,” said Mr. Smeeth.

“Ah, well, that’s different, isn’t it, when you’re tired and you don’t feel in the humour for it? Never mind; next time I expect you’ll be ready to join in the fun. They’ve asked us all down for one night next week—they’ll let us know which night—to meet some people they know who used to be in Birmingham, too.”