Chapter Nine: MR. SMEETH IS WORRIED

I

“Where you going to?” asked Mr. Smeeth, turning round in his chair to look at his wife, who had suddenly made her appearance in the doorway, wearing her hat and coat. She was still flushed with temper. It was surprising how young and smart she looked. Still, she could not go on like that, no matter how young and smart she looked.

“Out,” she replied, with that special look and special voice she had for him when they had quarrelled. Oh dear!

“Yes, I know that,” he pointed out, “but where you going to?”

Up she blazed then, with her colour flaming and her fine blue eyes flashing at him: “Just out, and that’s enough for you. Begrudge every penny you give me, keep me as short as you possibly can, tell me I mustn’t buy this and mustn’t buy that, go peeping and spying about and then lose your silly temper because you’ve seen something you don’t like to see—though—goodness me!—there can’t be a woman in this street who hasn’t a few bills like that in the house, and most of them a lot more and instalments, too, to pay and their husbands not bringing in anything like what you are⁠——” Here Mrs. Smeeth stopped, not because this fine rhetorical sentence had got out of control (it had, but she was capable of finishing it somehow), but simply because she wanted to draw a deep breath. “And then you want to know where I’m going! I suppose you’d like me to give an account of that as well, wouldn’t you? Yes, of course. Oh, of course!” Her head wagged as she brought out these vast sneers. “That would be very nice for you, wouldn’t it? I’ll come and ask if I can spend a penny or tuppence. Then I’ll ask if I can walk down the road⁠——”

“Oh, don’t be so silly, Edie,” cried Mr. Smeeth, who hated this sort of wild ridiculous talk and could not see what good it did. Even after all these years, he was still innocent enough to imagine that his wife was trying to argue and failing absurdly, and he did not realise that she was merely exploding into speech.

“Don’t be so silly!” she repeated indignantly, at the same time coming forward into the room. “I’d like to ask anybody who’s the silly one here. They’d soon tell you. And I’d rather be silly than mean. Yes—mean. If you’re not careful, Herbert Smeeth, you’ll soon be too mean to live. Pinching and scraping as if you didn’t know where the next penny was coming from! And the more money you’re getting, the worse you are. It’s growing on you, this meanness. My words, I’d like you to be married to some women, that’s all. They’d teach you something about spending.”

“No, they wouldn’t,” he said crossly, “’cos I wouldn’t have it, wouldn’t have it for a single minute. I’d soon put a stop to their little games. As for being mean, you know as well as I do, Edie, I’m not mean, and never have been. There’s nothing you’ve ever really wanted, or the children either, you haven’t had. But somebody’s got to be careful, that’s all. We’re not made of money. When I got this rise, I hoped we’d begin to save properly. Anybody’d think to hear you talk they’d given me the Bank of England instead of another pound a week. Have a bit of sense, Edie. If we’re going to spend every penny we have now and get into debt, where are we going to be if anything happens to us? Just tell me that.”

“And what is going to happen to us? Bless me, the way you talk! A proper old Jonah you’re turning into! You give me the pip, Dad, honestly you do. Anybody’d think to hear you talk that we’ll have to sell up any day. You can’t enjoy yourself a minute for thinking about what might happen to you the year after next or sometime. We’ve only got to live once and we’ve only got to die once, and for heaven’s sake let’s enjoy ourselves while we can, I say.”

“Yes, and when we can’t—what then? I’ve heard this kind of talk before, and I know where it lands people. And anyhow, I can enjoy myself as well as the next, only I can do it sensibly and I don’t need to spend every penny we get and go and ask any Fred Mittys to help me to do it.”

“That’s right. Bring him in. I’ve been waiting for that, I’ve just been waiting for that. I wondered how long you’d be able to keep Fred Mitty out of this. That’s you all over. You got your knife into him the first time he came here, and after that of course he had to be blamed for everything. Go on. Don’t mind me. Why don’t you say I give him all my housekeeping money, and have done with it. Go on.”

“Well, I’ll say this,” said Mr. Smeeth, his temper rising. “That bill from Sorley’s there’s been all this bother about wouldn’t have been that size and would have been paid before now, if you hadn’t taken it into your head to ask Mitty and his wife and their guzzling pals up here those two nights round Christmas. It’s bad enough them coming here at all—most men wouldn’t have it for a minute, not if they couldn’t stand the sight of ’em and never stayed in the house when they were there, like me—but it’s fifty times worse when you go and run yourself into debt to do it, just so they can all swill it down at my expense. It’s not good enough, and you know it isn’t.”

“Oh, isn’t it? Well, next time Christmas comes round, I’ll tell Fred and everybody else to keep away, and we’ll all go into the workhouse, and then you’ll be satisfied. If you wasn’t getting too mean to live, you’d have thought nothing about it. You talk as if I owed Sorley’s about fifty pounds. Three pounds fifteen, that’s all it is, and you make all this bother.”

“Well, it’s three pound fifteen more than you can pay, it seems,” he retorted.

“Who says it is? I haven’t even asked you to pay it yet. Keep your money. I can pay it all right in time. Sorley’s can wait, for all I care.”

“Well, they can’t for all I care. I believe in paying cash down and no debts running on, always have done, and you know it. And I’ll have that to pay, just because you’ve decided to open a free pub for Mitty and his fine little lot. That’s what it amounts to.”

“That’s right, start again now. You can argue with yourself for an hour or two, and see how you like it. I’m going out. And if you want to know, I’ll tell you where I’m going. I’m going,” she added deliberately, “down to Fred Mitty’s.”

He was furious, but he knew that he could not prevent her from going. He looked at her, and he had to twist round in his chair, for she had retreated towards the door: “Well, see you come back sober,” he said.

“What’s that?”

But he did not repeat it. He wished it unsaid. The instant after it had slipped out, he wanted to call it back. And, for all her “What’s that?” she had heard him all right; she was staring at him now, with some of her high colour gone and her mouth curiously drawn down; her whole attitude was different from what it had been during their noisy argument; she was really hurt, this time; he had gone too far, miles and miles too far.

“Yes, I heard you, though,” she said quietly, “and it’s the nastiest thing, by a long, long way, that you’ve said to me in twenty years. Did you ever know me come back in any other way but sober?”

“No, no,” he muttered. “I’m sorry ... bit of a joke.” He couldn’t look her in the face.

“Bit of a joke! I wish it was. But it wasn’t. You meant it, Herbert Smeeth. You meant to be as nasty as you could be. There’s only another thing worse you could say to your wife, and you’d better hurry up and get that said.”

“I tell you, I’m sorry.” He got up from his chair now, and looked at her, mumbling something about “going too far.”

“Yes, and I’m sorry too,” she said bitterly. “I didn’t think you’d got a nasty thing like that in your head to say. Oh, I know it slipped out, and now you wish it hadn’t. But it oughtn’t to have been there to slip out. That’s what hurts me.”

“Well, after all, you’ve as good as called me a miser—or at any rate, a mean devil—half a dozen times to-night,” he told her, but not with much confidence.

“Oh!—that’s different—and you know it is.”

“I don’t see that. Still, if you think so, all I can say, Edie, is—I’m sorry.”

But before he had finished, she had gone, slamming the door contemptuously behind her. A few seconds later, she was outside the house. Mr. Smeeth returned wretchedly to his chair by the fire. There was nothing he disliked more than a quarrel with his wife, and this looked like being a particularly bad one. That remark of his would, he knew, take some living down. If she had been a woman who never took a drink at all, there would have been nothing in that remark; but she liked a drink or two, especially in company, and was liable at times to get flushed and excited, as she well knew herself; and if he had thought for months, he could not have said a thing that would have hurt her more. He was still sorry that he had said it, though there was one part of him that could not help enjoying the fact that the shot had told so well. “That got home on her all right, didn’t it?” it chuckled, even while the rest of him, the part that loved Mrs. Smeeth and was her willing slave, grieved and repented. Mr. Smeeth did not often swear, but now he called Fred Mitty, under his breath, every foul name at his command. That earlier argument would not have taken such a bad turn if it had not been for Mitty. They had had these little squabbles about money before, like most couples, he imagined, one of whom is nearly always a spender and the other a saver. This had been a bit more serious than most of their squabbles, if only because the extra money had made her all the more eager to spend and had made him all the more anxious to begin saving. But Mitty and his wife even came into this part of the quarrel, for the whole thing began when he came across that bill from Sorley’s for three pounds fifteen, which she had not paid and couldn’t pay, and Sorley’s off licence and Mr. and Mrs. Swilling Mitty and their bright pals had been responsible for that bill. He had not seen what they had had because on both occasions, being duly warned, he had taken himself off, once to hear “The Messiah,” and the other time to play whist with Saunders, and had taken care each time, being a peaceable man, to arrive back home as late as possible, when Mitty and Co. were no longer there. He didn’t believe for a moment that his wife was so tremendously fond of the Mitty lot as all that, but just because he had grumbled at first and been a bit heavy-handed about them, she had kept it up, out of devilment and to show her independence. She was like that, if you took the wrong line with her, and he had admitted to himself for a week or two now that, if it was peace and quietness he wanted and not a tussle to decide who was master, he had certainly taken the wrong line.

After brooding over it all for about quarter of an hour, he felt so uncomfortable that if his wife had gone anywhere else but the Mitty’s, he would have gone after her, to call for her and then to try and make it up on the way home. But he had his pride, and it refused to allow him to call for her at the Mitty’s. He tried to dismiss the whole wretched business. He lit his pipe and picked up the evening paper. There was nothing in it he wanted to read and had not read before. He tried the wireless, and the first station plunged him into the middle of a talk on modern sculpture by a young gentleman who was apparently very tired. Finding no satisfaction in him, Mr. Smeeth went over to the other station, which was running a sort of pierrot show. The pierrots themselves seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely and so did their audience, who laughed and clapped unceasingly, but Mr. Smeeth merely felt rather out of it and thought the jokes not good enough, for all that laughing, and the songs not worth all that applause. “Overdoing it,” he muttered darkly at the loud speaker, which replied by bombarding him with more tinny laughter and applause. But he was the master; he had only to make a little movement and the pierrots and their cackling friends were banished at once, simply hurled into silence; and now he made this little movement, and the loud speaker was at once emptied of sound, nothing more than a bit of a horn. He had a book from the Public Library somewhere about, and now, in despair, he found it and began reading. It was My Singing Years by the great soprano, Madame Regina Sarisbury, whom he had once heard in an oratorio years ago, and the young woman at the Library had told him it was a most interesting book, on the word of her sister, who was taking singing lessons and had two or three professional engagements. But so far it had not appealed to him very much. As a matter of fact, he was a reluctant and unenterprising reader, one of those people who hold their books almost at arm’s-length and examine them in a very guarded manner, as if at any moment a sentence might explode with a loud report; and he had probably returned more books half-read than any other member of the local Public Library. Nevertheless, he liked to have a Library book about, and to be discovered reading it.

He was discovered now. Edna came in, pulling off her close-fitting little hat, and fussy and breathless, as usual. In a few minutes, she would swing completely round, becoming slack, indifferent, languid, as if the house bored her. Mr. Smeeth knew this, and it irritated him, though he was very fond of the girl.

“Where’s mother?”

“Your mother’s out.”

“Where’s she gone to? She said she wasn’t going out to-night!”

“The question is, not where she’s gone to, but where you’ve been too,” he said, rather severely, looking at her over the top of his eyeglasses.

Edna did not stop to examine the logic of this, or if she did, she did not comment upon it, being still young enough to recognize the right of parents to talk in this fashion. “Been to the pictures—first house,” she replied.

“What again! I’m surprised you don’t go and live there. You’ve been once this week, haven’t you? Yes, I thought so. And I suppose you’ll be wanting to go on Saturday. That’ll be three times in one week—three times. Paid ninepence too, I suppose. And who gave you the money to go to-night?”

“Mother did.” And Edna looked slightly confused. Her father, noticing this, jumped at once to the wrong conclusion, namely, that Edna had been told to say nothing about this extra visit to the pictures to him and had suddenly realized what she had done. The truth was, however, that Edna was confused, not because she had spent another ninepence, but because the money was still in her possession, for she had gone to the pictures as the guest of one Harry Gibson, Minnie Watson’s friend’s friend, who, in his turn, was supposed, by his parents in their turn, to have been attending an evening class in accountancy on this particular night.

Mr. Smeeth nodded grimly and tightened his lips. “There’ll have to be something said about this, Edna. When I agreed to let you go and learn this millinery business, I didn’t agree to let you go to the pictures every night in the week, too.”

“I don’t go every night, and you know very well I don’t, Dad. Some weeks I only go once.”

“It’s a funny thing I never seem to notice those weeks,” said Mr. Smeeth with fine irony. It would have been still finer irony if he had stopped to consider that it really was not funny at all but quite natural. “But apart from the waste of money, I don’t like all this picture-going. Doing you no good at all. Doing you harm. I don’t object to a girl having her amusement,” he continued, dropping into that noble, broad-minded tone of voice that all parents, schoolmasters, clergymen, and other public moralists have at their command. “I go to the pictures now and again myself. But going to the pictures now and again’s one thing, and living for pictures is another thing altogether. Teaches you nothing but silliness. Get false ideas into your head. Why don’t you settle down with a book?” He held out his own book. “Do a bit of quiet reading. Amuse yourself and learn something about the world at the same time. Take this book I’m reading, f’r’instance—My Singing Years by Madame Regina Sarisbury—this is a book that tells you something worth knowing, all about the—er—musical career.”

“I read a book last week,” Edna announced.

“Yes, and been to the pictures three times since then,” said her father, who was determined to have his grievance. “Too much going out and amusing yourself altogether, my girl. Why, you’re worse than George was at your age. It’s my belief you girls are worse than the boys nowadays, more set on having amusement, pictures and dances and what not. I walked from the tram to-night with Mr. Gibson, who lives in the corner house at the bottom of the next street, and he was telling me that his son—I forget his name, but he’s about your age, perhaps a year or so older⁠——”

“Do you mean Harry Gibson?” asked Edna.

“Is it Harry? Yes, I think it is. Well, Mr. Gibson was telling me that this boy of his is attending three evening classes a week—accountancy, book-keeping, and something else—three evening classes. That boy means to get on and be somebody in the world. He’s not wasting all his time, he’s using it to some purpose. I’m not saying that you ought to go to evening classes⁠——”

Here he broke off because he noticed that a mysterious smile that had been hovering for the last minute now seemed to have definitely settled on Edna’s face. This smile made him angry, or rather gave him an excuse for exploding the anger that had been waiting inside him. “And for goodness’ sake, Edna, take that silly grin off your face when I’m trying to talk sense to you,” he shouted, making her jump. “You’re not at the pictures now. You’re nothing but a great silly baby.”

“What have I done now?” she began indignantly.

“Any more of that impudence from you,” Mr. Smeeth shouted at her, glaring. But there was no more of that impudence, which suddenly melted to tears. Edna, not a strong character at any time and now completely taken aback by her father’s sudden rage, hastily left the room, whimpering.

Mr. Smeeth spent the next few minutes telling himself all the things that were wrong with his daughter and that justified any man getting angry with her now and then. He worked hard, but he did not succeed in convincing himself. He put away My Singing Years and turned the wireless on again. At half-past ten, George came in, got a grunt or two from his father (who was, in truth, afraid of talking), retired to the kitchen in search of food and then went to bed. At eleven Mrs. Smeeth returned.

“Have you had anything to eat?” she asked. Sometimes he had a little snack just before going to bed.

He shook his head.

“Can I get you something?” she enquired politely.

He knew now that he was in for a serious quarrel. Mrs. Smeeth easily lost her temper and squabbled, but she recovered it with equal swiftness and ease. If she had marched in and called him a few names and looked as if she was about to throw something at him, he would have known that the whole thing could have been settled before they went to sleep. But when Mrs. Smeeth was quietly polite to him, it meant that for once she had really hardened her heart. She would now turn herself into a very efficient housewife. Nothing would be allowed to go wrong; every meal would be on the table at the proper time and every dish done to a turn; he would not be given the slightest chance to grumble. But as a wife, a real wife, she would cease to exist. Not a smile, not a friendly glance, would come his way; and they would be estranged for days, perhaps weeks.

“No, thanks. I don’t want anything. Don’t feel like it.” Which was true enough, but he hoped it would suggest that he was not very well. She remained quite stony, however.

“Both the children in?” she asked.

“Look here, Edie,” he began desperately, “don’t be silly.”

“I’m not silly. I’m going to bed now.” And off she went.

He was in for it now, days of it, perhaps weeks of it; and in order to get out of it, not only would he have to apologize at great length, but he would probably have to buy something as well, in short to spend more money. Yet the root of the whole trouble was that too much money was being spent already. He wished he had never set eyes on Sorley’s miserable bill. He wished he had gone out and paid it without a word. He wished—“Oh, damn and blast!” he cried, and in his sudden spasm of fury he screwed up his face so hard and shook his head so violently that his eyeglasses fell off and he spent several minutes groping about the black wool rug before he could find them. Oh—a miserable evening!

II

Between Thursday evening, when hostilities began, and Saturday morning, Mr. Smeeth had tried unsuccessfully once or twice to make his peace and to replace this strange polite woman by his real wife. On Saturday morning he determined to do no more; she could have her sulk, if she wanted it; he would simply make the best of his position as a sort of super-lodger. He trotted down Chaucer Road, on his way to the tram, hardening his heart. The morning, which already had a companionable Saturday look about it, smiled upon him, if only faintly. For a day in late January, it was beginning well; no fog, snow or rain; but a slight sparkle and nip of frost and the early ghost of a sun somewhere above. Mr. Smeeth was very fond of Saturday; he liked the morning in the office (he always had a pipe at about half-past eleven, unless he was very busy), and he liked the afternoon out of the office. It was difficult for him to forget that his wife had quarrelled with him, but he hardened his heart and did his best to forget. Unfortunately—as he knew only too well, for he had said it often enough—it never rains but it pours. This treacherous Saturday was destined to give him a series of shocks, of varying degrees of severity.

The first, and slightest, of these shocks arrived when he walked over to his desk, rubbing his hands as usual and exchanging a remark or two with everybody. His inkwells had not been filled up, and no fresh blotting-paper had been put on his desk.

“Hello!” he cried, looking round. “Where’s Stanley?”

“Hasn’t turned up,” replied Turgis.

“Well, well, well, well,” said Mr. Smeeth fussily. “Does anybody know what’s happened to him? Is he ill or something?”

Nobody knew. Miss Sellers thought he had probably caught a cold, because she was sure she had heard him sneeze several times while he was copying the letters the night before. Turgis said with gloomy satisfaction that he had probably been knocked down and run over while trying to shadow somebody on his way to the office.

“I don’t suppose for a minute he has,” said Mr. Smeeth sharply. “But you needn’t seem so pleased about it, Turgis. Not a nice way of saying a thing like that at all. I don’t like to hear anybody talking like that in this office. Don’t know what has come over you lately, Turgis.” And it was true. He hadn’t liked the way Turgis had looked and talked for some time now.

The mystery of Stanley was cleared up when Mr. Dersingham, very much the Saturday man in plus fours, arrived to go through the letters, for among these was one from Stanley’s father, apparently a man of few words, who announced that Stanley was needed badly by his uncle, just returned to the ironmongering in Homerton, where the boy would be nearer home and have a better chance of getting on than in Angel Pavement—and sorry no better notice given but half fortnight’s wages due could be kept but please send Insurance Card all filled in—Yrs truly, Thos. Poole.

“That means getting another boy,” said Mr. Dersingham. “I’m sorry about that one, too. He was a lazy little devil like all of ’em, but he looked rather bright, didn’t he?”

“Wasn’t a bad boy at all, Mr. Dersingham,” said Mr. Smeeth, meditatively. “I’m sorry he’s left us, too. We might get a lot worse. He fancied himself as a budding detective, Stanley did—we used to pull his leg about shadowing people and all that.”

“Did he? A detective, eh? And I never knew that. He’d got that from reading about ’em, you know. I’m fond of a good detective yarn myself. But I never wanted to be one when I was a boy. They weren’t quite so much the thing then, were they? I remember I wanted to be an explorer—you know, expeditions across the desert and all that sort of thing. All the exploring I’ve done lately, Smeeth, has been looking for some of those mouldy Jew cabinet-making places in back streets in North London. Ah—well!” And for a moment the large pink face of Mr. Dersingham looked clouded, as if he had suddenly discovered that life was quite different from what he imagined it would be when he was in the Fourth at Worrell.

“We live and learn, sir, don’t we?” said Mr. Smeeth vaguely.

“Do we? I dunno. People always say we do, don’t they? But I dunno. I doubt it sometimes, I do, Smeeth, honestly,” the other replied, first glancing at Mr. Smeeth and then looking out of the window, through which nothing could be seen but a ramshackle roof and a few chimney pots beyond. A queer melancholy, quite unlike the proper spirit of any office on Saturday morning, invaded the room, and for a minute the pair of them were lost in it.

“Well, well,” cried Mr. Dersingham with a sudden briskness, “you’ll have to see about getting another boy. I’m sorry about that, though. That boy might have been a useful chap later on. He’s missed a good opening. If that other fellow, Turgis, had gone, I don’t think I’d have minded very much. How’s he getting on, that fellow? I don’t see much of him, but I must say I don’t like the look of him these days. He slouches about, looking like nothing on earth. What’s the matter with him?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Dersingham. I’ve noticed it, too. There’s been something wrong with him lately. He does his work, but only after a fashion, and it’s not a fashion I like, I must say. Something on his mind, I should say.”

“And a thoroughly nasty mind too, by the look of him! Well, look here, Smeeth, you’d better take him on one side and have a good talk to him. Tell him I’m not satisfied with him and you’re not satisfied with him, and that if he doesn’t buck up pretty soon, he’ll have to clear out. Tell him he’s a fool to himself, too, with the business growing as it is and all sorts of chances coming along for smart fellows. You know the kind of thing to say. Threaten him with the sack, if you like; I don’t mind. I shouldn’t care if I saw the last of the fellow this morning. I never did think much of him. Got a Bolshie look about him. All right, then, Smeeth—see about that, and about getting another boy. And I shall be off in about half an hour or so, and Mr. Golspie won’t be in, this morning. So just—er—carry on, will you.”

Mr. Smeeth was really sorry that Stanley had gone, and not merely because it meant getting another boy and showing him what to do. He realized now that he had liked Stanley and would miss that freckled snub nose of his, that sandy bullet head, and all the ridiculous detective talk. But that was not all. Nobody knew better than Mr. Smeeth that office boys come and go, are here to-day and gone to-morrow, but nevertheless this sudden departure of Stanley troubled him, if only because he disliked change of any kind and found himself visited by a vague mistrust, a flicker or two of apprehension, whenever it occurred. Stanley had become part of the office for him, and now Stanley had gone. It was not important, but still, he did not like it.

“If we finish in good time this morning,” he said to Turgis, after he had told them all about Stanley and had handed over the copying and posting of the letters to little Poppy Sellers, “I want to have a little talk with you, Turgis. You’re not in a great hurry to get away, are you?”

Turgis wasn’t. Indeed, the outside world appeared to have lost as much favour with him as the office had.

It was an easy morning. At twelve, Miss Matfield had nothing more to do, and was allowed to go, looking rather more pleased with herself and the world than she usually did. Turgis lounged up and gave Miss Sellers a hand with the copying, for which he received several grateful glances from the brown eyes beneath the fringe. Mr. Smeeth, sending out a fragrant drift of Benenden’s Own Mixture, fussed about and locked up, then gave the letters to Poppy and packed her off.

“Now then,” he said to Turgis, as soon as they were alone.

“Yes, Mr. Smeeth?” replied Turgis mournfully.

Mr. Smeeth looked at him, and perhaps saw him clearly for the first time for weeks. There were dark rings under his eyes, and the eyes themselves had a queer reddish look, as if their owner was not getting enough sleep. He never had much colour, but now he was very pale, and the bony ridge of his rather large nose shone as it caught the light, as if the skin had been drawn back from it at each side. The lad didn’t look at all well. Mr. Smeeth, who knew that Turgis lived in lodgings and was a lonely sort of chap, felt sorry for him.

“Here, Turgis,” he said, “there’s plenty of time. We’ll go out and talk there. Can you drink a glass of beer?”

Turgis, pleased and flattered by this invitation, said that he could.

“Well, we’ll go across the road and have a glass of beer there. Do us no harm. Everything’s locked up, I think, isn’t it? All right, then. We’ll go.” And so they went down the stairs, Mr. Smeeth kept up a cheerful clatter of talk: “I’ll just pop round the corner to Benenden’s to get some tobacco first. Always get my tobacco there, have done for years. His own mixture, y’know—mixes it himself. Better than this ounce packet stuff. You get it fresh. You don’t smoke a pipe, do you? Cigarettes, eh? You ought to try a pipe. Cheaper and a better smoke and better for your health, too. I’ve tried to get my boy George to start a pipe, but he won’t drop his cigarettes. Gaspers all the time. Too much trouble just to fill and light a pipe, that’s it. I wonder how these Kwik-Work people are going on? Always seem to be busy enough, but I never knew anybody that used their blades. I stick to the old-fashioned razor. I’ve used the same two for twenty years. I call it a silly waste of money buying these safety razor blades. No wonder they give the razors away nowadays. They know once you’ve got the razor you’ll have to keep on buying their blades. That’s the catch, you see. Well, just wait a minute. I’ll call on my old friend, Mr. Benenden.”

But he didn’t, because his old friend Mr. Benenden was not there. Behind the counter was a plump young woman with bright ginger hair, and if Cleopatra herself in full regalia had been standing there, Mr. Smeeth could not have stared at her in greater astonishment.

“Yes?” said the plump young woman.

To explain what he wanted in T. Benenden’s, when year after year he had merely had to put his pouch on the counter, was in itself so novel an action that Mr. Smeeth found himself at a loss to perform it. “But—where’s Mr. Benenden?”

The young woman smiled. “You a regular customer here?” she asked.

“I should think I am,” said Mr. Smeeth. “I’ve been coming in here, week in and week out, for Mr. Benenden’s Own Mixture for years. It made me jump to see anybody else here. What’s happened? He’s not given it up, has he?”

“No, he’s not given it up,” she explained. “He’s in hospital. He got knocked down by a car last night in Cheapside, and they took him to St. Bartholomew’s.”

“Well, you surprise me! I’m sorry to hear that. Is he bad?”

“We don’t know yet. He didn’t seem so bad last night, because he got a message through to my mother and she went to see him and he gave her the key here and asked if I’d look after the shop for him, because he knew I wasn’t doing anything and I’d worked once in a tobacconist’s before—well, tobacconist’s and sweets’, it was, not like this, y’know—so it didn’t sound as if it was bad, with him being able to talk and arrange things like that, but the doctor told my mother it was worse than it looked, for all that, and it might be a nasty long job, and she’s going again to-day. I’m his niece, you see.”

“Poor old chap! I am sorry about this,” said Mr. Smeeth, who was indeed genuinely distressed. “You must let me know how he goes on.” He had to point out to her the tin canister that held T. Benenden’s Own Mixture and had even to tell her the price of it. When he rejoined Turgis outside, he could talk of nothing else for the next five minutes. This one morning, not content with removing Stanley from Angel Pavement for ever, had gone and swept Benenden out of sight, put a plump young woman with ginger hair behind that counter, and turned Benenden into a mysterious suffering figure in a hospital. Benenden and Angel Pavement had been inseparable in his mind for years, and now the thought of Benenden not being there, no longer waiting, tie-less, behind his dusty counter, gave the whole place a queer look. Turgis had been in the shop many a time for cigarettes, but, being one of the “packet o’ gaspers” customers, he could not really claim to be acquainted with Benenden. By the time Mr. Smeeth had finished talking to him about the tobacconist, the pair of them were in the private bar of the White Horse across the road and had two glasses of bitter placed in front of them.

Mr. Smeeth had not been in this bar since that night, two or three months before, when Mr. Golspie took him in, gave him a double whisky and a cigar, and talked about the business. It was still as cosy as ever, but this time it was not so quiet. It was entirely dominated by a large man with an enormous red face, who roared and spluttered and coughed and wheezed very loudly at his two companions, men of ordinary size, who could only make ordinary noises back at him. All conversation in the bar was provided with a thundering accompaniment by this large man. There was no escaping him.

“You see, Turgis,” said Mr. Smeeth, “I thought I’d better have a little talk to you, because, for one thing, I’ve been noticing a few little things myself, and for another thing, Mr. Dersingham’s been saying something to me about you. If you remember, I said something when we had a little talk a month or two ago.”

“I remember that, Mr. Smeeth. When you said they’d been thinking of giving me the push.”

“That’s right. Well, Mr. Dersingham talked to me about you this morning—rather in the same strain, Turgis, and I said I’d have a talk to you.”

“But what have I done wrong?” cried Turgis bitterly. “Why’s he always picking on me? I do my work all right, don’t I? You’ve never said anything about it to me, Mr. Smeeth. Seems to me they want to get rid of me whether I’ve done anything wrong or not⁠——”

“Outch-ch-ch-ch,” went the large man. “Wait a minute, Charlie, wait a minute, let me tell it. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. ’Ere, this is it. Simmy come up to me, that morning, and I’m standing as I might be ’ere, see—and old Simmy⁠—— Just a minute, Charlie, let me tell it⁠——”

“This is the point, Turgis,” said Mr. Smeeth earnestly. “And, mind you, I’m talking in a friendly way. Nobody’s got anything against you at all. Put that out of your head. But as Mr. Dersingham says—you’ve got to buck up. Just lately, you’ve not been taking your work in the right spirit at all. I know you’re not a lazy chap and I know you can do your work all right, but if I hadn’t known it, I don’t mind telling you, I might have come to a wrong conclusion just lately. Now, we all have our troubles. I’ve plenty of my own, I can tell you,” he continued, with the air of a modest hero, “though you mightn’t think it. That’s because I’ve learned not to bring ’em to the office with me. I’m old enough and experienced enough not to let my troubles interfere with my work. You’re not, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. My opinion is, Turgis—you’ve not been feeling up to the mark lately.”

“That is so, Mr. Smeeth,” said Turgis. “You’re right there. I haven’t.”

“Didn’t he, Charlie?” roared the large man, drowning everybody. “He did. It’s as true as I’m standing ’ere. Next time you see Simmy, you say to ’im ‘What price Lady Flatiron at Newbury?’—that’s all. Just say that. Laugh! O Gord! Outch-ch-ch-ch-ch.” The enormous face was purple now.

“It’s no business of mine, Turgis,” said Mr. Smeeth in his ear, “and I’m only asking in a friendly spirit. But it’s my opinion you’ve got yourself into trouble somehow. If it isn’t that, you’d better go round and see a doctor. Perhaps you’re just not feeling well.”

“I’m not feeling so well, Mr. Smeeth, but it isn’t that, really. It’s just—oh, I dunno—well, you see, Mr. Smeeth, it’s a girl. That’s what’s been bothering me just lately.”

“Oh, that’s it, is it? Ought you to be marrying her or something of that sort? No? Nothing like that, eh? Oh, well, had a bit of a quarrel, eh?”

“Yes, in a way,” replied Turgis, guardedly, looking very uncomfortable.

“Oh, well, don’t you let that bother you,” cried Mr. Smeeth, astonished to discover that this was nothing but a lovers’ tiff. “I know what it is, of course. You’re talking to an old married man now, my boy. I’ve got a son nearly as old as you. It doesn’t matter how you’ve quarrelled, you don’t want to take it as hard as that. Bless me!—you’ll be making yourself ill over it.”

“That’s what I think sometimes,” said Turgis bitterly.

“Ridiculous! It’ll soon blow over. And if it doesn’t, why, go and find another girl who isn’t so quarrelsome. I can tell you this, if she’s quarrelsome now, she’ll be past living with, if you’re not careful, later on. You’re too sensitive about it, Turgis—that’s your trouble.”

Turgis produced a smile that was abject misery itself, the tortured ghost of a grin.

“No, no, not at all,” the large man shouted. “We’ve ten minutes yet. Plenty of time for another. What is it? Same again? Three double Scotches, miss. I ’aven’t told you yet what ’appened the other night, ’ave I? I mean, with Jack Pearce and old Joe, down at Staines—oh dear!—splooch-ooch-ooch-ooch-ooch!”

“He seems to be enjoying himself all right,” said Turgis. “I don’t know how some of these chaps do it—spending money all day, no work, knocking about all the time, and not giving a damn for anybody. How do they do it, Mr. Smeeth?”

“Don’t ask me,” replied Mr. Smeeth, a trifle irritably, as if he too had felt a sudden spasm of envy at the thought of this rich careless life, but would not admit it to himself. “Racing chaps, I suppose. Easy come and easy go—that’s their motto. All right while it lasts—but how long does it last?”

“How long does anything last?” Turgis muttered.

“Now that’s silly talk from a young fellow like you,” said Mr. Smeeth. “It’s that sort of talk that lets you down with everybody. Now listen to me. I believe if you’ll only smarten yourself up a bit, don’t be so gloomy, look as if you didn’t hate the sight of everybody⁠——”

“I don’t, Mr. Smeeth, honestly I don’t.”

“—and settle down to your work properly, there’s a good steady job waiting for you with Twigg and Dersingham. As Mr. Dersingham said, only this morning, what with all this new business, the firm’ll be growing and expanding, and that’ll be just the opportunity for a young fellow like yourself.”

Turgis swallowed desperately. “I’m not so sure about that,” he declared.

“What d’you mean?” cried Mr. Smeeth, staring at him.

“I don’t think it’s all so rosy as all that. I’ve been thinking it over. All this new business—and as far as I can see, it’s about all the business we’re doing—came with Mr. Golspie.” He brought out this name with a sudden jerk.

“Well, what if it did? You’re not telling me anything now, Turgis. I know that as well as you do—and better.”

“If he goes, what happens then, Mr. Smeeth?”

“If he goes? That would depend. A lot might happen, or nothing might happen. But, anyhow, Mr. Golspie’s not going.”

“I think he is—soon, too.”

Mr. Smeeth stared at him. Turgis was obviously quite serious. “Where did you get that idea from?”

“I think he is.”

“What’s the good of talking like that! You think he is! Why should he now? What’s the object? He’s making plenty of money out of the business, as I know better than you do. He’s making a surprising amount, for a trade like this—I don’t mind telling you. He’d been a fool if he did go, unless, of course—well⁠——” And Mr. Smeeth thought of several possibilities, but kept them to himself. “No, that’s silly talk, Turgis. What put that into your head?”

“It isn’t silly, Mr. Smeeth,” cried Turgis, goaded into saying more than he had ever intended to say. “I know he’s going. At least, I know he’s not staying with the firm long. I know he doesn’t think much of Mr. Dersingham either. I know that, too.”

“But where have you got all this from?” Mr. Smeeth was more angry than alarmed. “This is the first I’ve heard of it. How did you learn it? You’re not trying to be funny, are you?”

“Well,” roared the large man. “Get a move on, eh? You coming to eat with me, Charlie? That’s right. See you Monday, Tom, eh? Course I’ll be there. You betcher life, boy! Wouldn’t miss it. Am I what? Oh—you wicked feller, Tom, you wicked feller! So long, boy. Morning, miss. Morning, Sam.” And the silence he left behind him was almost startling.

In this silence, Mr. Smeeth and Turgis looked at one another. Then Turgis turned his eyes elsewhere, but Mr. Smeeth continued looking at him.

“I don’t make head or tail of this, Turgis.”

Turgis frowned, shut his mouth tight for once, and moved uneasily. Finally, he said: “I—heard something, Mr. Smeeth, that’s all. I can’t tell where I heard it or anything. I’m sorry I spoke now.”

Mr. Smeeth saw that Turgis was terribly in earnest. There could be no doubt about that. “Do you mean to say you won’t tell me where you heard it, how you heard it, or anything?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Smeeth. I oughtn’t to have said anything. I can’t tell you any more, honestly I can’t. Don’t mention it to anybody, please, Mr. Smeeth. If you do, you might get me into trouble, though I haven’t done anything really wrong, I haven’t, honestly. Only I did hear that about Mr. Golspie.”

“When was that? You can tell me so much, anyhow.”

“Not long before Christmas, a week or two.”

“Mr. Golspie was away then, was he?”

“Yes,” Turgis admitted sullenly. “It was while he was away.”

“Then somebody told you while Mr. Golspie was away,” said Mr. Smeeth sharply, not taking his eyes off the unhappy Turgis for a second. He thought quickly. “It must have been his daughter, that time when you took the money to her. You got talking and then she told you. Is that it?”

Turgis said nothing, but he had no need to, for his face replied for him. “Well, what did she say exactly?” Mr. Smeeth continued, far more concerned now that he knew Mr. Golspie’s daughter was the informant. “Come on, Turgis, you might as well tell me now. What did she say?”

“I don’t remember any more,” Turgis mumbled miserably. “That was all. It was nothing. I oughtn’t to have said anything. Mr. Smeeth, please don’t you say anything, please don’t, will you? Promise.”

“All right. I don’t suppose there’s anything in it. I know what these girls are. They’ll say anything. Well⁠——”

“Yes, I must be getting on now,” said Turgis. “And thank you for telling me—you know about what Mr. Dersingham said. I’ll do my best, Mr. Smeeth. I’m a bit worried just now, that’s all.”

As his tram climbed the swarming City Road, Mr. Smeeth considered this Golspie gossip. It made him feel uneasy, although he was still ready to dismiss it as girls’ nonsense. It seemed unlikely that Mr. Golspie would leave them, but then it seemed unlikely that Stanley would be spirited away by an uncle in Homerton and that Benenden would be lying in Bart’s Hospital. There was no connection between these events, as Mr. Smeeth knew very well, but the sudden disappearance of Stanley and Benenden had left him with a feeling of insecurity. They made him realise the fact that things simply happened and that he had no control over them, no more than he would have if the tram suddenly left the lines and charged the nearest shop. In the dark hollows of his mind, apprehension stirred again. He decided to talk all this over with his wife, who, perhaps because she was so unreasonable, had got something that he had never had, a large confidence in life. With all her faults, there was nobody like Edie for him at these times, when he felt a bit down in the mouth. Then he remembered that they were still not on proper speaking terms, and that, in her present state of mind, he could no more talk to her about what he felt than he could talk to the strange woman sitting in front of him in the tram. “We just would be quarrelling now, wouldn’t we!” he cried to himself, with that gloomy satisfaction, that faint sweetness which comes with the last bitter drop, known only to the pessimist. Life could do many dreadful things to Herbert Norman Smeeth, but it couldn’t take him in. He was one of those people who are always there first, who are standing at the grave before the doctor has even begun shaking his head.

III

This treacherous Saturday, however, was still capable of giving him another shock, from an unexpected quarter. Mrs. Smeeth was out when he arrived home, and he had a solitary dinner, with Edna flitting about and trying to keep out of his way. After dinner, he smoked his pipe and pottered about for half an hour or so, and then, as the afternoon sent some gleams of pale sunlight creeping, like a returned convalescent, into Chaucer Road, he went out for a walk. Fate, which had for once an easy task, directed him to Clissold Park, where his shock was awaiting him.

The fifty green acres of Clissold Park are surrounded by miles and miles of slates and bricks, chimney-pots and paving stones, and so, in the middle of it, placed there perhaps as a sign that the round green world of mountains, forests and oceans still exists somewhere, or at least once had an existence, there are a number of animals and bright birds. If you are a Stoke Newington ratepayer, you have only to turn a corner or two to catch the soft shining glances of deer, to meditate upon the spectacle of birds so fantastically fashioned and coloured that it is impossible to believe that both they and North London are equally real, that one or the other is not a crazy dream. You stand there, a litter of peanut shells and paper bags all round you, with a Stoke Newington dinner inside you struggling with your digestive juices, and you suddenly hear a scream from the jungle and a green and scarlet wing from the Orinoco is flashed at you.

There are links, however, between these two worlds. One of them was standing beside Mr. Smeeth, and wore a short grey beard and a dusty bowler. “Yus,” he remarked, looking at the gorgeous birds, then at Mr. Smeeth, then at the birds again, and doing it masterfully, as if to keep both the birds and Mr. Smeeth there, “yus, I been where them things comes from. Common as sparrers there, yer might say. Bigger than these, too—yus, and brighter colours on ’em. Yus, I been where them birds comes from.”

“Is that so?” said Mr. Smeeth. “And when was this? Not lately, I’ll bet.”

“And you’d win, mister. Forty years ago, that was, in good old Queen Victoria’s time. Ah, yer little devils!” he cried, addressing the birds now. “What d’yer think o’ that, eh? Forty years ago. I left the sea thirty-five years ago, mister, but I’d stopped going to them places five years before I left the sea for good an’ all. Yus, the last five years I was on the North Atlantic run, and you don’t see any o’ them little dazzlers up there—fog and icebergs is what you see up there, mister. But I’ve seen the time when I’ve brought them things ’ome, proper old sailor style. Yus, I have. If yer don’t believe me, ask the pleece; they know everything there is to know, isn’t that so, Sergeant?”

Mr. Smeeth discovered that an acquaintance of his, a Stoke Newington man and a very good hand at a whist drive, Sergeant Gailey of the local division, had strolled up. “Now then, Mr. Lee, telling lies again! Dear, dear, dear! Oh, it’s you, Mr. Smeeth, is it? You’re the victim, this time.”

“That’ll do, Sergeant,” retorted Mr. Lee amiably, “yer only giving away your ignorance. Yer’ve seen nothing yet, and I don’t think yer ever will now. Good afternoon.” And off he toddled.

“You know him, don’t you, Mr. Smeeth?” said Sergeant Gailey. “Oh, he’s a rum old devil. Keeps a second-hand shop—furniture and curios and all that stuff—down by the Green. His daughter runs it now, but it’s his shop, and he’s better off than you’d think, that old devil is. Won’t part with nothing, you know, but his reminiscences and good advice. He’s a character.”

“When he started, I thought he was going to try and cadge a bob,” said Mr. Smeeth, moving away slowly with the sergeant.

“He’d have it all right if you offered it him, though he could buy you and me up, Mr. Smeeth, a good many times. But how are you getting on, these days? Here, what’s the name of that boy of yours?”

“You mean George?”

“That’s right. George Smeeth, Chaucer Road—eh? I saw the name a day or two ago, and thought it must be that boy of yours. We’re having him up at the North London next week, Tuesday, I think.”

“At the North London!” Mr. Smeeth stopped, and gaped at him. “Do you mean the police court?”

“That’s right. Case comes on on Tuesday, I think. What, didn’t you know?”

“No, of course, I didn’t know,” cried Mr. Smeeth in horrified amazement. “Do you mean—my boy George?”

“Here, steady, steady, Mr. Smeeth! We’re not charging him. He’s only up as a witness.”

Mr. Smeeth breathed again, but he was still puzzled and worried, and the sergeant, noticing this, began to explain.

“I don’t know why he’s not told you. It’s one of these car stealing jobs. We’re always getting ’em now. What with cars running over people and then skipping off, and cars in these smash-and-grab outfits, and cars being lost and pinched—coo!—we get a proper packet of cars! I don’t know what the Force did in the old horse traffic days. ’Owever, this is one of the car stealing jobs and by a bit o’ luck and judgment, we traced this particular car to that garage where your lad’s been working lately. Chap o’ the name of Barrett runs it, and between you and me, we’ve had an eye on him for some time. Well, he bought this car—a good car, nearly new; I don’t remember the make, but it was a good car, worth money—for fifteen quid. He doesn’t deny it. Now we’re taking the line that he bought that car knowing it to be stolen, not the property o’ the chap that offered it to him. It’s our belief he’s done this before, and a good many times, too. As I say, we’ve had an eye on him. If he’s not a wrong ’un, I give it up. Whether we’ll get him this time or not, I don’t know. I wasn’t on the case myself. But that fifteen quid’ll take a bit of explaining. They’ll be saying they get cars given ’em soon.”

“But where does George come in?” said Mr. Smeeth, who did not care what happened in the car-stealing world, but cared a great deal about his son.

“Oh, that’s nothing. He worked there, see, and was there when the car went into the garage, and so on. We’ve nothing against him, of course. He’ll only be asked to say what he saw.”

“Thank goodness for that! You gave me a fright, I can tell you, Sergeant. I don’t mean by that, mind you, that I thought for a minute my boy’d be mixed up in anything dishonest. I don’t see as much of him as I ought these days, and he just goes his own way, but I know the boy’s as straight as you like.”

“I’ll bet he is,” said Sergeant Gailey with a certain forced heartiness, which he immediately dropped for a more serious, cautionary tone. “But, all the same, Mr. Smeeth, he ought to have told you, you know. And another thing. You get him away from that garage and that chap Barrett. He’s in bad company there. Doesn’t matter if Barrett walks out of that court next Tuesday with the case against him in bits; never mind about that; you get your boy out of it and away from that chap. If we can’t prove it this time, we’ll prove it next time, and there always is a next time with those cocky birds. I wouldn’t let a boy of mine put his nose in a dump like that.”

“Don’t you worry about that, Sergeant,” cried Mr. Smeeth, his voice trembling with excitement. “George doesn’t stay there another day. I should think not! And I’m very much obliged to you for telling me, Sergeant, very much obliged.”

“That’s all right, Mr. Smeeth. Thought you ought to know. Which way you going now?”

“Straight home. That’s my way now,” replied Mr. Smeeth, and he went as fast as he could go to Chaucer Road. He was still rather alarmed and astonished, for police court affairs were remote from his experience and he had a horror of them, but he was chiefly indignant, indignant at the thought that this business, which took George to court and might take his employer to gaol, should have been kept from him. Did his wife know all about it, and had she deliberately hidden it out of his sight? He could hear her saying to George, “Now don’t you say a word to your father about this. You know what he is.” Yes, something like that. If she really had done that, then they would have a quarrel. This was serious. My word, what a life! You never knew what was happening.

He arrived home to find his wife still absent and Edna and her friend, Minnie Watson, screaming with laughter in the dining-room. “Just a minute, Edna, I want you,” he said sternly. She followed him into the other room.

“Where’s George?”

“I don’t know, Dad. Working, I suppose, down at the garage. What’s the matter?”

“Did you know anything about this police court business?”

Edna stared at him, her chocolate-stained mouth open. “What police court business? What are you talking about, Dad? Has it something to do with George?”

“Never mind about that. You don’t know anything about it, eh?” It certainly didn’t look as if she did, but Mr. Smeeth told himself wearily that you could never tell, not with children like these, such a strange secretive lot. “All right, it doesn’t matter. Where is this garage? You can tell me that, I suppose?”

She gave him precise directions, and ten minutes later he was there, confronting a queer George in greasy overalls, who was doing something incomprehensible to the inside of a car. He was probably astonished to see his father, but he only raised his eyebrows and grinned. George had ceased for some time to show any signs of surprise.

Telling himself that this was his son, who had been a child only yesterday, Mr. Smeeth looked sternly at him, and summoning all the forces of parental authority, he said curtly: “Just clean yourself up and get your hat and coat on, George.”

“What d’you mean, Dad? What’s up? Anything wrong at home?”

“No, there isn’t, but just do what I tell you.”

“Well, I don’t understand.”

“Oh, come outside if you’re going to argue about it,” said Mr. Smeeth impatiently, and led the way out into the street. “It’s the police court business. I’ve just heard all about it.”

“Oh—I see,” said George slowly.

“I’m glad you do see. I’d like to have seen a bit earlier,” said his father bitterly. “Why didn’t you tell me? Have to have a police sergeant telling me what’s happening to my own son!”

“Well, you needn’t go at me, Dad. I’ve done nothing, and they’ll tell you I haven’t.”

“I know all about that. And you’re not going to do anything either. That’s why I came round. You’re finishing here now, George. I was warned not to let you stop on—though I didn’t need any warning. I’m not going to have you mixed up with this sort of business. So you can just tell them you’re finishing now, this minute.”

“Oh, I can’t do that, Dad. We’re busy.”

“I don’t care how busy you are, George. You’ve got to stop.”

“Oh, all right—if you feel like that about it. But look here, Dad, I must finish that job I’m doing now.”

“How long will that take you?”

“Ten minutes. Quarter of an hour. Shouldn’t be longer.”

“All right,” said Mr. Smeeth grimly, “I’ll wait.” And he waited twenty minutes; but at the end of that time George came out, washed and brushed and without his overalls.

“I might have lost the week’s money, walking out like that,” he told his father, “but they paid up—like good sports.”

“Who are ‘they’?”

“There’s another chap running this besides Barrett, a chap called McGrath—proper motor mechanic, he is.”

“And is he a wrong ’un, too?”

“Not more than most. McGrath’s all right.”

“Tell me this, George,” said Mr. Smeeth, halting and looking very earnestly at his son, “did your mother know anything about this police court business?”

“Course she didn’t, Dad. I wasn’t going to tell her.”

“I see,” said Mr. Smeeth, relieved to find there had been no general conspiracy. “But why didn’t you tell me, boy? I can’t understand you keeping a thing like this to yourself.”

They were walking on again now. “Oh, I didn’t want to bother you about it,” replied George coolly. “I knew there’d be a lot of gassing and fussing if I did. And there was nothing to get excited about. I hadn’t done anything. They weren’t running me in, were they?”

It was incredible. Mr. Smeeth gave it up. Here was this boy of his, who had been playing with clockwork trains on the floor only the day before yesterday, so to speak, and now he could talk in this strain, as cool as you please, as if he were Sergeant Gailey or somebody! Mr. Smeeth waited a minute or two, then said very quietly: “About that car, George—did you know it was stolen?”

George grinned; no wincing, shrinking, anything of that kind; just a plain grin. “I didn’t know, but I had a few ideas of my own about it. And about one or two others, too.”

“Do you mean to tell me that you’d a good idea of what was going on there and you didn’t do anything about it?” Mr. Smeeth was shocked and astounded.

“What could I do about it, Dad? If I’d been dragged into it, that would have been different. But they didn’t try. And you needn’t worry—I wouldn’t have had it. Buying cars that have been pinched like that is a mug’s game, if you ask me. Barrett’s a fool, though he’s not a bad sort, really, and he’s treated me all right. Doesn’t know anything about cars though, not like McGrath does. I believe he had to take over some of those cars. I saw one or two fellows who called to see him, and I didn’t like the look of them at all—real toughs, they were. But mind you, Dad, I don’t know anything about those cars, don’t forget that.”

The boy talked about buying stolen cars as if it was simply a little weakness on Barrett’s part, a silly hobby. He didn’t seem to be in the least shocked or frightened. Mr. Smeeth could not make it out at all. It was just as if he had brought up a boy who had suddenly turned into an Indian. The boy was all right, really; he had left the garage without making a fuss; but, nevertheless, his point of view appeared to be whole worlds away from anything his father could understand. “I must say I don’t like to hear you talking like that, George,” he said. “Seems to me you don’t understand the seriousness of this business. It’s criminal, this is, work for the police, and you talk about it as if it was a tea-party or something. Talk like that, and you don’t know where you’ll land yourself.”

“That’s all right, Dad,” said George tolerantly. “Don’t you worry. I can look after myself.”

“Well, you’re going to do it outside that place now,” Mr. Smeeth told him.

“Oh, I meant to leave there soon, anyhow,” George remarked airily.

“I should think so! And the next job you find for yourself, I hope, will be in a concern that the police aren’t interested in. You’d better tell me something about it, first. Easy to get yourself a bad name, y’know, boy, even if you don’t do anything wrong yourself.”

George, who seemed to live in a world in which bad names didn’t count, a world his father didn’t know, made no reply, but merely whistled softly as he walked along. When they arrived home, tea was waiting for them, with Mrs. Smeeth sitting behind the teapot. She was surprised to see George walk in with his father. Mr. Smeeth gave her a look that said “Quarrel or no quarrel, you’ve got to recognize that this is serious,” and cut short her inquiries by remarking, “We’ll have a talk about this afterwards, Mother.”

As soon as the two children were out of the room, he told her what had happened, and she gave him all her attention, realizing at once that this affair transcended any quarrel.

“You did right, Dad,” she told him, when he had finished.

“I hope you realize,” he added, not without bitterness, “that this means the boy may be out of a job for some time, and that means both of them earning nothing. It’s all right, of course, but still—we’ll have to be careful.”

“George’ll soon get something. He always does,” she said confidently. “I shouldn’t wonder if he hasn’t got a better job in his eye now. You were right to do what you did, but you leave him alone now and don’t worry. He’ll find something.”

This seemed a good opportunity to tell what had happened during the earlier part of this eventful day, with special reference to the disturbing rumour about Mr. Golspie. But she wouldn’t listen. She turned herself again into a woman who had quarrelled with him, merely listened to a few words with a distant politeness, excused herself and then gathered up the tea things in a very grand, dignified manner, rather like a duchess visiting a poor cottager. Mr. Smeeth was left to smoke his pipe, alone, a solitary little figure in a huge, dark, mysterious world of cracking walls and slithering foundations, with echoes and rumours of catastrophe in every wind.

IV

On Tuesday morning, Mr. Golspie and Mr. Dersingham spent more than an hour talking together in the private office, and Mr. Smeeth, whose chief duty during that time was to examine a number of replies to Twigg & Dersingham’s advertisement for an office boy, found it difficult to concentrate his attention upon these rather monotonous letters, all in round handwriting that began well, but always wobbled towards the end. He was curious to know what was happening in the private office. Now and again he had heard voices raised, and once the door had opened, so that Mr. Golspie’s booming tones had come flying out into the general office, but the next minute the door had been closed again. Just after half-past eleven, the bell in the private office rang dramatically. Miss Sellers, now the junior, answered it, and came back to say: “Mr. Smeeth, Mr. Dersingham wants to see you.”

The private office was filled with cigar and cigarette smoke, and Mr. Golspie, who stood in front of the fire, his legs wide apart, clearly dominating the scene. Mr. Dersingham, sitting at his table, was rather rumpled and flushed and obviously not at ease.

“A-ha!” Mr. Golspie cried, “here’s Smeeth. He’s the man. He’ll tidy us up a bit. You know, Smeeth, if I’d been as tidy as you, as good at putting down little figures every day, never forgetting ’em, adding ’em up, I’d have been a rich man now.”

“Well, I’m not a rich man, Mr. Golspie,” said Mr. Smeeth, smiling nervously.

“No, but I didn’t say—if I could do that and nothing else, d’you follow me? What I meant was, if I could do what you do, plus what I can already do. I’d be a very rich man now, and you wouldn’t find me in a dustbin, eh? Now if you want to make money, Dersingham, really make money, pile up a big fortune, you’ve only to be like me and like Smeeth here both together, two in one. Quite simple.”

Mr. Dersingham nodded vaguely. He was not interested in this talk and did not like the sound of it, for Mr. Golspie’s voice had dropped into a jeering tone. He caught Mr. Smeeth’s eye, and then began: “Look here, Smeeth, Mr. Golspie and I have come to a new arrangement. I’ll just explain it⁠——”

“Oh, I’ll explain it,” Mr. Golspie broke in roughly. “It’s simple enough. Up to now, I’ve been drawing commission on all this Baltic stuff as soon as it’s delivered to your customers, haven’t I? That’s right. Well, that’s too slow for me. I don’t want to have to wait for my money like that. Some of these new orders are spread over months.”

“Yes, and don’t forget how long we’ll have to wait for our money, Golspie,” said Mr. Dersingham, “or rather, I’ll have to wait for mine.”

“Quite so, sir,” said Mr. Smeeth, who knew how long it took to get accounts settled better than they did.

“That’s up to you,” Mr. Golspie replied, in his hearty brutal way. “I don’t want to point out again that if it hadn’t been for me there’d have been no orders and no money to come in, whether it comes in this year or next.”

“Yes, yes, that’s all right, Golspie. I agree. You needn’t harp on it, needn’t rub it in.”

“Rub it in!” Golspie laughed. “You’re talking now as if you were sore somewhere. There’s nothing to rub in but a lot of good new business. Anyhow, Smeeth, this is the point. I can’t wait now for all this big lot of orders to be delivered. I want my commission on the orders as they stand. They’ve gone through; the stuff’s on the other side all right, as you know; and your people are here all right; so I want my cut now. I’m not as good as you at figures, but that’s what I make it, right up to date.” He handed over a slip of paper. “That’s a rough total, of course.”

It may have been a rough total, but what leaped to Mr. Smeeth’s eye was the fact that it was a surprisingly large total.

“Pretty big, eh? Bigger than you thought, eh? That shows you the business that’s come into this office just lately.”

“It does, Mr. Golspie,” said Smeeth, glancing down at the figure again.

“Yes, that’s true.” Mr. Dersingham’s face cleared at the thought. “Jolly good. Of course, it’s—what-is-it?—phenomenal—a sudden rush, y’know, because they’ve been booking this stuff of yours ahead as fast as they can.”

“Don’t blame ’em,” said Mr. Golspie, looking at his cigar.

“You want me to check this, I suppose?” said Mr. Smeeth, glancing from one to the other.

Mr. Golspie yawned. “That’s it. When can you have it done, with the figures right bang up to date, Smeeth? By to-morrow morning, eh? All right. And you’ll see how you can arrange the payment, Dersingham, eh? Yes, yes, I know how it is—you told me—but if you can split it into three, say, and let me have the first cheque this week and the other two as soon as you can, that’ll do me. I’ll leave you to work it out. I’ll be looking in this afternoon.”

They said nothing until they heard the outer door close behind him and his footsteps die away on the landing. They seemed to be in a much larger room now. Mr. Dersingham himself was much larger. “Get a chair, Smeeth,” he said, and lit another cigarette. They looked at one another through the sudden spurt of smoke from it.

Mr. Dersingham gave a short laugh. “Friend Golspie’s putting the screw on this morning. My God! Smeeth—I’ll tell you candidly—and this is very much between ourselves, you understand—that chap’s getting on my nerves. He’s such a damned outsider, he really is. He’s brought all this business here, it’s true, but—my God!—he doesn’t let you forget it either. If we hadn’t been in such a rotten bad way before he came, well—I don’t know—I think I’d have told him to take his stuff somewhere else. Don’t repeat a word of this, Smeeth, for the love of Mike! But that’s just how I feel, and I must let steam off for a minute. He gets worse. Talk about rough riding or whatever they call it! He’s the complete bouncing bounder. Business may be business, but give me a gentleman to deal with in it, every time. Friend of mine, Major Trape—we were at Worrell together—met the chap at my house, just after he came and I asked him to dinner, the first and the last time, and Trape summed him up after half an hour, and several times since he’s said to me that he wouldn’t have a chap like that working with him, sharing the same office, not if he brought a quarter of a million pounds’ worth of business in his pocket. He’s getting worse, too. Ouf!”

“Well, Mr. Dersingham, you’ve got to meet all kinds in business, haven’t you?” said Mr. Smeeth, astonished at this outburst.

“Looks like it,” replied Mr. Dersingham bitterly. He remained silent for a minute, and his face gradually cleared. “Still, there’s no doubt we’re doing the business. Golspie’s total—and I don’t suppose it’s far out, even though it is rough—surprised me, and of course he’s drawn a fair amount of commission, on the actual deliveries here, already, hasn’t he?”

“I suppose this new arrangement’s all right,” said Mr. Smeeth dubiously.

“If you mean it’s a damned nuisance, I agree with you, Smeeth. It’s that all right. Look what we’ve got to pay him, and he wants it all these next two or three weeks—says he’s a lot of old debts to meet, though God knows where they are. That’s what I want to talk to you about. We’ll have to go into this pretty carefully. I don’t know how much you expect to get in these next two weeks, but I imagine we’ll have to ask the bank to help us out. That’ll be all right, of course, because I can explain to Townley there how we stand.”

Mr. Smeeth nodded. “Well, I suppose it’s all right, sir,” he said once more, still dubiously.

“What do you mean, Smeeth?” Mr. Dersingham was impatient.

“Well,” he hesitated, “I don’t quite know. I’m just wondering if it’s all right.”

“Oh, don’t keep saying that,” cried Dersingham angrily. “Of course it’s all right. I’m not a fool. It’s a nuisance, and I wouldn’t do it if I could help it, but it’s all right. Plenty of fellows who work on commission have this arrangement and get their money as soon as the order goes through.”

“I suppose they do, Mr. Dersingham. But you’re thinking of ordinary travellers, aren’t you, sir, chaps who just get a very small commission, not like this?”

“No, I’m not. I’m thinking of other fellows who—er—work in a big way,” said Mr. Dersingham rather vaguely.

“Suppose Mr. Golspie leaves us? I can’t help thinking about that, you know, sir.”

“Why should he? My hat!—he’s doing well, isn’t he? He’s making more out of this firm than I am, just now. No, I know what you’re thinking, Smeeth, and I know what you’re going to say. You mean, there’s nothing to prevent him walking over to some other firm in our business, if they made it worth his while. Or another thing. He might sell out the whole agency—he’s got a tight grip on that, y’know, Smeeth; I know that for a fact—for this Baltic stuff to somebody else, and then clear out.”

“That’s right, sir. I thought of both those things.”

“And so did I, Smeeth. Don’t you worry about that. I don’t blame you for being cautious—does you credit, and I know you’re a good safe chap—but you mustn’t think I was born yesterday, you know. I don’t pretend to be one of these born City men, the real old cunning sharks—that’s not my style at all, Smeeth, and if I could afford it, I’d be out of business to-morrow and be in some snug little country place—but I’ve had some experience and I’m no fool, y’know. Oh no!” he cried confidently to Mr. Smeeth and perhaps to the listening gods. “I’ve thought about that for some time, and this morning, when he brought up this commission idea and wanted to clear our account at one swoop, for that’s what it amounts to—though he’s earned it fairly, y’know, we must admit that—I tackled him on those points.”

“Oh, I’m glad about that, Mr. Dersingham,” said Mr. Smeeth, greatly relieved.

“Yes, and he agreed to meet me half-way. I agree to pay this commission over to him as soon as possible, and he’ll sign an agreement, promising not to take the agency elsewhere and to see that we keep the agency on here if he decides to clear out. That’s fair enough, isn’t it? You can’t get away from that. In fact, we stand to gain by this new arrangement, don’t we? We’re only paying out, a little in advance, what’s due to him, and on the other hand, we make the business safe for ourselves. If Golspie goes after he’s signed this agreement—and I’m going over to my solicitors this afternoon to have it drafted out; we’ll do it properly—then he leaves us with the new business in our hands, and all I can say is, the sooner he goes the better. And I’ll tell you another thing, Smeeth. When he’s signed this agreement, he’s going to drop some of his little blighterish tricks, that nasty jeering tone of his, because I’m not going to put up with it any longer. I shan’t need to, after this. By George!” and Mr. Dersingham’s voice had a triumphant ring now and he tried to look like a very crafty man of affairs. “I’d never thought of that, not properly. It didn’t occur to me that, after this, if he doesn’t like it, he can lump it, if you see what I mean. He’ll have to change his tune, thank God!”

“Yes, I see, Mr. Dersingham,” said Mr. Smeeth slowly. “It’s funny he didn’t think of that, too, isn’t it?”

“Oh, he wants his money in his pocket. That’s what he’s thinking about. And then he probably imagines I like that nice cheerful manner of his, and like to be told every day or so that if it hadn’t been for him the firm wouldn’t be paying its way. I tell you, these loud bounders never think what’s going on in other people’s minds.”

“I shouldn’t think Mr. Golspie cared very much, certainly,” said Mr. Smeeth thoughtfully. “But I don’t know that I quite see him in that light, though you know him better than I do, I’ll admit that, Mr. Dersingham. But—I don’t know⁠——”

“If you don’t mind my saying so, Smeeth,” said Mr. Dersingham, grinning at him, “there are times when you’re just a bit of an old washerwoman, and I’m not sure this isn’t one of them. No, no, don’t mind that—I know you’re a good chap, and I can honestly say I wouldn’t like to run this show without you. Now, look here, will you work out that total properly, as soon as you can, and let me know what we’re likely to get in these next two weeks, what we’ve got in hand, and so on, and then we’ll settle the whole thing. Right you are.”

The latter part of this speech was all so friendly that Mr. Smeeth could not take offence at the “bit of an old washerwoman.” He left the room feeling that he ought to be convinced, and almost ashamed of himself because he could not share Mr. Dersingham’s sudden burst of confidence. The fact remained, though, that he still felt dubious. There was something in Mr. Dersingham’s tone of voice that made him wince. He did not like this easy dismissal of Mr. Golspie; there was a catch in it somewhere; and he felt that Mr. Dersingham was taking the wrong line with Mr. Golspie. What was it that Turgis had said, reporting the daughter? He wondered if he ought to have mentioned that, but then quickly dismissed the possibility. Mr. Dersingham knew what he was doing. He talked as if he did. Indeed, he talked too much as if he did. Mr. Smeeth, with his apprehensive mind, always felt a slight alarm when anybody was triumphantly confident. You had to be careful.

He settled down at his desk, with the various books in front of him, to work out the exact figures. For the next hour he was lost in them, quite happy, at home in this familiar little world of unchanging numerals and balancing columns, this world in which you had only to have patience enough and everything worked out beautifully, perfectly.

V

“And how’s Mr. Benenden?” Mr. Smeeth asked. He had called in the shop as he returned from lunch on Wednesday, and had found the plump niece still behind the counter there.

She remembered him, and at once smiled at the prospect of a little chat and then looked sad because the subject would be her stricken uncle. After that, she compromised neatly between the two. “He’s not as well as he might be, thank you,” she replied. “Now they’ve got him in there and had a good look at him, they’ve found a lot of things wrong with him. He never would go to a doctor himself, didn’t believe in them, he said—you know—silly. No, it isn’t just with him being knocked down like that, though that was bad enough, but they examined him, you see, and now they say he’s not in a good way at all. They may have to operate.”

“That’s bad, isn’t it? What’s wrong exactly?”

“Now I couldn’t tell you. You know what they are in these hospitals. If they know themselves, they don’t let on. I went to see him on Sunday, and I told him about the shop and who’d been in and all that. You’re not Mr. Bromfield, are you?”

“No. My name’s Smeeth.”

“Mr. Smeeth. Yes, that’s right. He mentioned you as well.”

“Did he now?” Mr. Smeeth felt all the gratification of a person who has been singled out, no matter by whom. “Asked if I’d been in, I suppose, eh? Well, I wish you’d tell him how sorry I am to hear he’s laid up. Tell him I say that Angel Pavement doesn’t seem the same place without him. And I hope he’s stirring again soon.”

“Yes, I will.” The plump young woman hesitated a moment. “I’ll tell you what, Mr. Smeeth, if you just happened to have a spare half-hour this afternoon, perhaps you might like to go and see him. It’s visiting day up there to-day, you know. Three to four. My mother’s going about half-past three, but if you could have a look at him, just to give him a word or two and pass the time of day, sometime before then, just after three, he’d be ever so pleased. But perhaps you’re busy.”

“I don’t know.” Mr. Smeeth thought it over, then looked at his watch. “I think I will, you know. It wouldn’t take me long to slip round to Bart’s. Where shall I find him?”

She gave him elaborate directions. He remembered then that he had wanted to have a word with Brown & Gorstein, whose place was just off Old Street. He could go round to Bart’s first, and then up to Brown & Gorstein’s. It did not look like being a very busy afternoon, and he had still three-quarters of an hour in which to clear up a few odds and ends of jobs in the office before he went.

At three o’clock he came out into Little Britain, beneath the innumerable blue-curtained windows of Bart’s new building. As he crossed the road, something huge in the sky, to the left, caught his eye and made him stop and look that way when he reached the other pavement. It was the dome of St. Paul’s, and never before had he seen it look so massive and majestic; it was almost frightening. He had never seen the dome from that distance and that particular angle before, and it was as if he was seeing it for the first time. He might have been in a strange city. For once his sense of wonder was quickened, and after that, throughout the afternoon, until he returned to the office, it never slept. The wide space between the main entrance to the hospital and Smithfield Market was filled with carts coming from the market, a very decided smell of meat, and a narrowing stream of people, mostly women carrying paper bags and little bunches of flowers, who were pouring into the hospital entrance. It was all very strange to him, for he had not been near a hospital for years and had never visited one of this size before. It was like walking into a fantastic little town, a strange city within the city. He went through an archway and found himself in a great courtyard or quadrangle with a fountain in it. Here there was all the bustle of a market-place, but not of any market-place he had ever seen before. Doctors in white coats and bare-headed students ran in and out of the many doorways; nurses fluttered snowily across the quadrangle; and now and then he caught a glimpse of a patient, strapped and rigid on a stretcher, being wheeled away to God knows where. One passed him close, and he saw a face cut out of yellow bone and staring unfathomable eyes. It was terrifying. The whole place, this little town of white uniforms and mysterious silent traffic within the roaring city, terrified him. He could have sworn that the little pain somewhere inside began tick-ticking again; and for a moment or two it seemed to him astonishing that he should still be one of the uneasy invaders swarming in here, one of the workers, eaters, drinkers, smokers, pleasure lovers, movers about, from outside. Any day now, he felt, he would be on one of those stretchers.

Somehow it had never occurred to him that he would see Benenden actually in bed. He had vaguely imagined a hospital and had imagined Benenden in it, but he had really thought of him as being still behind a counter, the familiar half-length figure, beginning about the second button of the waistcoat and then going on to the old-fashioned high collar and stiff front (with no tie), the straggling sandy-grey beard and the thick glasses. In all the time he had known him, Mr. Smeeth had never once seen Benenden away from his counter; and for all he knew to the contrary, Benenden might have had no legs at all. Now, as he approached the white-enamelled iron bed, he saw less of Benenden than ever, but what he did see gave him a shock. It was not that Benenden looked very ill (for that matter, he had never looked very well), but simply that he looked quite different. Mr. Smeeth wanted to laugh. That head of Benenden’s above the sheet looked idiotic. It was as if Benenden had taken to wild joking.

“Hello, Mr. Benenden. Your niece in the shop suggested I might call and see you. How are you feeling now?”

The enormous eyes behind the glasses had slowly swivelled round, and now there was a slow faint creasing of the face that did duty for a smile. “Very pleased to see you, Mr. Smeeth. Very good of you to call.” This came in tiny high explosions of sound, as if Benenden’s ordinary tones had been raised an octave or two and only allowed to emerge in separate little puffs.

Mr. Smeeth could see that he really was ill. Every movement of the face and his speech were so slow, as if they had to be thought out first. And though he had been away from his shop such a little time, he gave the impression that he had been away for years and years, had gone round and round the world, had even changed his nationality. He did not belong any more to the workers and bustlers and movers about. He was now a citizen of this inner city.

“Not a bit,” said Mr. Smeeth, wanting to be cheerful and hearty, but not outrageously so, “not a bit. I’m only too glad. I’ve missed you at the shop. Quite a shock to hear what had happened to you. How are you feeling then?”

“Not good, Mr. Smeeth. No, not good. Baddish.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Benenden. I suppose that accident of yours was a shock to the system, eh?”

“That was nothing, that wasn’t,” replied Benenden, speaking in a slow, oracular fashion. “They say there’s all sorts o’ things wrong with me. Heart bad. Kidneys bad. Inside all wrong. They don’t tell me much. When they do, they think they’re teaching me something.” The eyes behind the thick glasses seemed to gleam with pride. “They’re not teaching me anything. I could have told ’em that, Mr. Smeeth. I could have told ’em that—yes, and a bit more—a long time since. I’ve known all about it for years, years and years.”

“You don’t say so!” Mr. Smeeth looked concerned.

“Yes, I’ve known it for years. They can’t tell me anything about that heart of mine. It’s rotten. There’s many and many a man—and I’ve known some of ’em—who’s dropped in the street with a heart not so bad as mine. Been missing the beat for years, missing it all over the place. Same with the kidneys. They’re rotten, too. But, mind you, Mr. Smeeth, it’s not all the kidneys. There’s the liver to be taken into consideration. They’re overlooking that, so far they are, but I’m just waiting for ’em to come round to my opinion. I’m not saying anything. I’m just letting ’em find out a few things for themselves. One of these days, that young doctor’s going to notice my liver and then he’s going to have another surprise. And that isn’t all, either.” Here the astonishing image, after a little effort, produced something like a chuckle. T. Benenden was exiled from his shop and his financial columns and his chats with customers, but now he had discovered in his ailments and dubious organs a new and absorbing interest, and, stretched out there, he saw himself as a romantic and exciting figure. Within sight of death, he was beginning life all over again.

Mr. Smeeth caught a fleeting glimpse of this fact, but he was in no mood to appreciate it. The spectacle of Benenden, suddenly transformed from a familiar Angel Pavement character, and comic at that, to this infirm shadow of himself, filled him with dismay and foreboding. Try as he might, he could not help believing that he would never see T. Benenden behind that counter again. As he listened—for Benenden did most of the talking, slowly boasting of the severity and complication of his ailments—Mr. Smeeth told himself that never again would the tobacconist bring out the canister of Benenden’s Own Mixture for him.

Yet there was no real evidence for this. “How is he?” he asked the nurse who had first shown him the bed.

“Who? Seventy-five? Oh, getting along all right,” she replied briskly. “We’re operating at the end of this week or early next week. He’ll be all right.”

She sounded confident enough, but Mr. Smeeth did not know whether to believe her or not. As he left the hospital, a clammy air of dissolution and mortality clung to him. Barbican and Golden Lane, through which he passed on his way to Old Street and Brown & Gorstein’s, spoke to him only of decay. It was a curious afternoon, belonging to one of those days that are in the very dead heart of winter. The air was chilled and leaden. The sky above the City was a low ceiling of tarnished brass. All the usual noises were there, and the trams and carts that went along Old Street made as much din as ever, yet it seemed as if every sound was besieged by a tremendous thick silence. Cold as it was, it was not an afternoon that made a man want to move sharply, to hurry about his business; there was something about it, something slowed down and muffled in the heavy air, the brooding yellowish sky, the stone buildings that seemed to be retreating into their native rock again, that impelled a man to linger and stare and lose himself in shadowy thought.

Mr. Smeeth found himself doing this, after he had left Brown & Gorstein’s, and had turned down Bunhill Row on his way back to the office. He halted opposite that large building boldly labelled The Star Works, and wondered what was made there and whether it had anything starry about it. Then he turned round, idly, and stared through the iron railings at the old graves there. He had been this way before, many a time, in fact, but he never remembered noticing before that the earth of the burying-ground was high above the street. The railings were fastened into a wall between two or three feet high, and the ground of the cemetery was as high as the top of this little wall. There was something very mournful about the sooty soil, through which only a few miserable blades of grass found their way. It was very untidy. There were bits of paper there, broken twigs, rope ends, squashed cigarettes, dried orange peel, and a battered tin that apparently had once contained Palm Chocolate Nougat. This dingy litter at the foot of the grave-stones made him feel sad. It was as if the paper and cigarette ends and the empty tin, there in the old cemetery, only marked in their shabby fashion the passing of a later life, as if the twentieth century was burying itself in there too, and not even doing it decently. He moved a step or two, then stopped near the open space, where there is a public path across the burying-ground. He stared at the mouldering headstones. Many of them were curiously bright, as if their stone were faintly luminous in the gathering darkness, but it was hard to decipher their lettering. One of them, which attracted his attention because it was not upright in the ground but leaned over at a very decided angle, he found he could read: In Memory of Mr. John Willm. Hill, who died May 26th, 1790, in the eighteenth year of his age. That had been a poor look-out for somebody.