“Shut the door after you,” said the Chief, “and close it quietly, there’s a good chap.”
Turmoilof the mind that followed in the next few days was increased by the worry of a Society engagement. To the servants’ party in Eaton Square, Erb, having been formally invited, sent answer that he was busy with meetings of one sort and another, and begged, therefore, to be excused: this to his sister Louisa’s great content. Arrived another post card from Alice, saying that if this meant that he would not come unless Louisa were invited, then she supposed there was nothing to do but to ask them both; she would send a few things down by Carter Paterson the day before the party, that Louisa might adorn herself with something like distinction, and do as little harm as possible to the repute of Alice. To this, after an enthusiastic discussion, that was not a discussion, in that Louisa did all the talking, a reply was sent, stating that Louisa and himself would arrive by a series of ’buses on the night mentioned, and that Louisa begged her sister would not deprive herself of articles of attire, “me having,” said Louisa’s note, “ample.” The incident had its fortunate side, insomuch that it absorbed the whole mind of the delighted young sister, and prevented her from giving much attention to the matter of Erb’s forcedresignation. Lady experts called every evening at the model dwellings to give advice in regard to costume, and, in the workshop, other white-faced girls pushed aside the relation of their love affairs in order to give their minds to this subject: Louisa’s current young man received stern orders not so much as dare show his face in Page’s Walk for a good fortnight. It was only on the evening of the party, when Louisa, gorgeously apparelled, sat in the living-room, ready a full hour before the time for starting, and Erb in his bedroom about to start on the work of changing from a parcels carman to a private gentleman, that the short girl found leisure and opportunity to review Erb’s affairs.
“And all the rest,” said Louisa severely in conclusion, “all the rest of these ’umbugs reaping the fruits of your labours, and you thrown out neck and crop. I can’t think how you come to be such a idiot. You don’t see me doing such silly things. What do you think your poor mother would say if she were ’ere?”
“You haven’t seen the evening paper, I s’pose?” asked the voice of Erb, muffled by soap-suds.
“Evening paper,” echoed the short sister, fractiously. “Is this a time for bothering about evening papers? The question is what are you going to do next, Erb? Been round to any of the other stations?” A grunt from the bedroom intimated a negative answer. “You’ll come to rack and ruin, Erb, that’s what you’ll come to if I don’t look after you.”
“Catch hold.” A bare arm held out from the bedroom doorway a pink evening paper.
“What d’you want me to read now? I don’t want to go botherin’ my ’ead about murders when I’m full of this party.”
“Where my thumb is,” said Erb’s voice. A damp mark guided her attention, and she read it, her lips moving silently as she went through the paragraph, her head giving its uncontrollable shake.
“We understand that a Society of Railway Carmen has been formed, and that the first meeting will be held at the Druid’s Arms, Southwark, on Saturday evening, at half-past nine o’clock, a late hour fixed in order to secure the attendance of the men. There are two candidates for the position of secretary—Messrs. Herbert Barnes and James Spanswick. The former is losing his situation for taking part in a labour movement, and his case has excited a great deal of interest.”
“I say,” cried Louisa, in an awed voice, “that’s never meant for you, Erb?”
“It ain’t meant for anyone else,” called Erb. “Seen anything of my stud?”
“Where did you put it last? But, just fancy, in print too. And underneath is something about Royalty.” Louisa clicked her tongue amazedly. “You never said anything about it, either.”
“No use talking too much. Why, here’s the collar stud in the shirt all the time. No usetalking too much beforehand. Besides, it isn’t what you may call definitely settled yet. Spanswick’s got very strong support, and he hates me as much as he likes beer. I said something rather caustic on one occasion about his grammar.”
“I shall snip this out,” said Louisa, as Erb appeared struggling into his coat, “and I shall show it privately to everybody I come across in Eaton Square to-night.”
“I don’t know that that’s worth while,” he said doubtfully.
“It’ll let ’em see,” said Louisa, with decision, “that they ain’t everybody. When you’ve done trimming your cuffs with the scissors—”
No further word of disparagement came from the short girl as she trotted along proudly by the side of her brother to the junction where New Kent Road starts for Walworth and town. Indeed, outside the tram she expressed some surprise at the fact that so many people were not acquainted with her brother; she consoled herself by the assurance that once Erb obtained a start the whole world would join her in an attitude of respect; she also enjoyed, in anticipation, the reflected glory that would be hers in the workshop the following morning. Being as outspoken in praise as in blame, it resulted, as they walked over Westminster Bridge and took an omnibus, that not only Louisa, but Erb himself, had attained a glowing state of content, and when they arrived eventually at the house in Eaton Square (lighted recklessly below andsparsely illuminated above) they felt that the world might possibly contain their equals, but they were certainly not prepared to look on anybody as a superior.
“Jackson,” said the buttoned boy who opened the door as they descended the area, “this looks like your lot.”
“They call her Jackson,” whispered Louisa to her brother, interrupting his protest. “Parlour-maid here is always called Jackson.”
Alice came forward. A spray of wild flowers meandered from the waist of her pale blue dress to her neck; she took her brother’s hand up high in the air before shaking it. A few tightly-collared young men stood about the entrance to the cleared kitchen, encouraging white gloves to cover their hands; they also had bunches of flowers in buttonholes, and one of them wore an open dress waistcoat. A Japanese screen masked the big range; nails in the walls had been relieved of their duties, a white cloth’d table with refreshments stood at the end near a pianoforte.
“You’re early,” said Alice, kissing her sister casually. Louisa took the brown paper parcel from Erb’s arm.
“Thought you’d like the evening to start well,” she said. “Any gentlemen coming?”
“Haven’t you got eyes?” asked Alice, leading the way upstairs and waving a hand in the direction of the shy youths.
“Gentlemen,Isaid,” remarked Louisa.
“I shall begin to wish I hadn’t asked you,” said Alice pettishly, “if you’re going on like that all the evening. I believe you only do it to annoy me.”
“What else could I do it for?” asked the short sister.
“Erb,” ordered the tall sister from the stairs, “you leave your hat and coat in that room. Thank goodness I’ve got a brother who knows how to behave. Good mind now not to titivate your hair for you.”
“You mustn’t mind me,” said Louisa, relenting at this threat. “It’s only me manner.”
They were received on returning downstairs by the housekeeper, a large important lady in black silk and with so many chains that she might have been a contented inmate of some amazingly gorgeous and generous prison; the housekeeper having been informed that Erb was an official on a South of England railway begged him to explain why, in travelling through Ireland during the winter, it was so difficult to obtain foot-warmers, and seemed not altogether satisfied with the reply that it was probably because the Irish railways did not keep them in sufficient quantities. The cook, also stout but short, engaged Erb for the first two dances, assuring him (this proved indeed to be a fact) that she was, in spite of appearances, very light on her toes, and quoting a compliment that had been paid to her by a perfect stranger, and therefore unbiased, at Holborn Town Hall in the early eighties.
“And this, Erb, is Jessie,” said Alice,introducing a large-eyed young woman in pale green. “Jessie is myverygreat friend.” She added, “Just at present.”
“I think you speak, Mr. Barnes?” said the large-eyed young woman earnestly.
“I open my mouth now and again,” admitted Erb, “just for the sake of exercising my face.”
“Ah!” she sighed, looking at him in a rapt, absorbed way. “Somehow you put it all in a nutshell. I should simply love to be able to say the true, the right, the inevitable thing. I could almost—perhaps, I ought not to say it—but I could almost worship a clever man.”
Erb, reddening, said that there were precious few of them about.
“Talk to me, please!” she said appealingly. “Button this glove of mine, and then tell me all about yourself. I shall be frightfully interested.”
“You don’t want to hear about me,” said Erb, essaying the task set him.
“If you only knew!” she said.
This was really very gratifying. Erb had wondered whether the evening would interfere for a time with consideration of his great crisis: he soon found that the evening was to put that subject entirely out of his thoughts. This was in itself a relief, for, despite confidence in himself, he felt nervous about the result of the forthcoming meeting; to-night he could dismiss worry and give his mind a holiday. He found that Jessie’s surname was Luker, and the house called her Masters; the tallyoung woman declared that she positively hated the name of Luker, and confessed to a special admiration for the name of Barnes, strongly contesting Erb’s suggestion that Barnes was a second-class sort of name, and worthy of but little esteem. Near the cottage pianoforte that had been fixed in the corner of the kitchen, a sombre young person in black sat on a chair that had to be improved and made suitable by an enormous dictionary, fetched by the pageboy from upstairs, and, receiving orders to play just what she liked for the first, this lady struck violently into the prelude of a waltz, choosing a square in the pattern of the wall-paper before her at which she could yawn. Couples, standing up, waited impatiently for the real waltz to commence; young women moving a smartly-slippered foot; Louisa formulating her first protest against convention by saying aloud to her partner, a precise footman, “Oh, let me and you make a start!” The others said, “S-s-s-h!” and watched the butler. The butler gave a pull at his yellow waistcoat and advanced solemnly to the housekeeper.
“Mrs. Margetson,” he said, “I’m not so handy on me feet as I used to be, but I trust I may have the honour of opening the dance with you?”
“Mr. Rackham,” replied the housekeeper with a slight bow, “thank you very much for asking, but, as you know, the leastest excitement makes my head a torture. Would you mind,” with a wave of the fan, “asking Mamselle to take my place?”
“I shall have much plaisure,” said the Frenchlady’s maid, promptly. “A deux tempsora trois temps, Meestair R-rackham?”
“Leave it to you, Mamselle,” replied the butler.
The two went half way round the kitchen before the other couples ventured to move: a nod from the housekeeper then gave permission. Erb found himself rather unfortunate at first, and this was his own fault, for, with his usual manner of taking charge, he endeavoured to pilot the agreeable Miss Luker and ran her into rocks and whirlpools and on to the quicksands of ladies’ trains; it was only after the fourth disaster, when the fiancé of the upper-housemaid (who was one of the tightly-collared men and wore his short hair brushed forward in the manner of grooms) said to him audibly, “Not accustomed to drive, apparently!” that he permitted Miss Luker to take up the duty of guidance, and thereafter they went in and out the swinging dancers with no accident. Miss Luker was quite a marvellous young woman, for she could dance and talk calmly at the same time, a trick so impossible to Erb that, when he attempted it, he found he could only stammer acquiescence to some contestable theory advanced by his partner, or ejaculate some words in acceptance of an undeserved compliment.
“It seems like fate,” sighed Miss Luker, as she saved Erb from sweeping the pianiste from her dictionary and chair, “but do you know you have exactly my step? It seems like fate,” repeated Miss Luker, as the music stopped and couples began to walk around the room, “and itisfate.”
“I don’t quite follow you,” said Erb, trying to regain his breath and dodging the long train of Mamselle. “To my mind, most things depend on us, and if we want anything to happen we can generally make it happen. Otherwise, where would ambition, and energy, and what not come in?”
“You mustn’t talk above my head,” said Miss Luker, winningly. “You forget how stupid we poor women are.” An accidental lull came in the clatter of conversation.
“You’re an exception,” declared Erb.
His sister looked over their shoulders at him with surprise, and the footman giggled. The others, with an elaborate show of tact, began to speak hurriedly on the first subject that occurred to them, and the lady at the pianoforte, checked half way through a yawn, was ordered by the housekeeper to play a set of Lancers. Erb, in his life, had many trying moments, but none seemed so acute as this, when he had been caught paying a compliment to a lady. It was the first time he had ever done it, and when his self-control returned, and, taking sides, he and cook went through the devious ways of the set dance, he warned himself to use more care in future. Nevertheless, some excuse could be urged: whenever he glanced at Miss Luker, now with the gloomy young man for partner, he found that her large eyes were looking at him, and she turned away quickly with great show of confusion. When the Lancers had, by gracious permission of the housekeeper, repeated its last figure, cook,beckoned aside by the footman, introduced her partner with due formality. Mr. Danks—the footman bowed.
“We—er—know each other by reputation, Mr. Barnes.”
“Very kind of you to say so,” said Erb.
“When you feel inclined for a cigarette,” said the footman, “give me the tip. What I mean to say is—tip me the wink! They won’t let us smoke here, but we can go into the pantry, or we can take a whiff round the square if you prefer it.” Here the footman giggled, “I often wonder whether ’round the square’ is a correct expression. Find any trouble, may I ask, in choosin’ your language?”
“It comes to me pretty free,” said Erb, “if I’m at all ’eated.”
“Heated,” corrected Mr. Danks, “heated! Before I went to my uncle’s in Southampton Street, Camberwell, to take lessons, I used to drop ’em like—like anything.”
“Never trouble about trifles meself.”
“For public men like me and you,” said Mr. Danks. He stopped a giggle, perceiving that what he had thought to be a humorous remark did not, judging from Erb’s expression, really bear that character. “Like me and you,” he went on, “the letter aitch is one of the toughest difficulties that we have to encounter. In my profession, at one time, it was looked on, to use your words, as a trifle. Those times, Mr. Barnes, are gone and done with. The ability to aspirate the letter aitch in the rightplace—in therightplace, mind you—has done more to break down the barriers that separated class from class than any other mortal thing in this blessed world.”
“I wonder, now,” said Erb, with some interest, “whether you’re talking rot, or whether there’s something in what you say?”
“If you think anything more of it,” said Mr. Danks, feeling in his waistcoat pocket, “take my uncle’s card, and go on and chat it over with him.”
“‘Professor of Elocution. Declamation Taught!’” read Erb.
“His daughter knows you; heard you speak in Southwark Park.”
“Not a lame girl?”
“If I hadn’t gone to him,” said Mr. Danks nodding affirmatively, “I should never have known how to recite.”
“Nice drawback that would have been. So her name’s Danks?”
“Rosalind Danks.”
“Rosalind,” repeated Erb thoughtfully.
“As it is,” said the other with a giggle of satisfaction, “my ‘King Robert of Sicily’ gets me more invites out than I know what to do with. I suppose your sister has told you all about it.”
“Talks of nothing else,” declared Erb inventively.
To his surprise, Mr. Danks shook him very warmly by the hand, giggling the while withsatisfaction, and, with the remark that he must now do the amiable to the remaining member of the family, left Erb and went across to Louisa—Louisa, flushed and almost attractive looking from the excitement of dancing. Erb calculated the distance between himself and the fair Miss Luker, and, with an attempt to imitate the easy manner of Mr. Danks, lounged across in her direction, but before he reached her three of the young men had formed up defensively, and Erb had to lean clumsily against the wall near to his short sister and her new companion. Mr. Danks had placed a footstool for Louisa.
“You are rather short,” explained the excellently mannered footman.
“I stopped growin’ a purpose,” said Louisa, kicking the footstool aside.
“You don’t resemble your sister at all.”
“Mustn’t let her hear you say that,” remarked Louisa, “else she’ll be mad.”
“It’s been a very dull season in town,” said Mr. Danks regretfully.
“Have you been away, then?”
“I suppose you get a good many engagements, Miss Barnes? What I mean to say is, don’t you find it a great tax? The demands of society seem to increase year by year.”
“It’s some’ing awful,” agreed Louisa. “I shall be out again—let me see—”
“To-morrow night?”
“In about six weeks’ time, to a cantata at MazePond Chapel. Scarcely gives you time to breathe, does it?”
Alice perceived that her brother was growing moody in his solitude, and brought up to him the French lady’s maid, who, discovering that he had once spent a day at Boulogne—conveyed to and fro by a free pass—talked to him vivaciously on the superiority of her native country over all others. The young woman at the pianoforte, aroused from a brief nap, was ordered to play a schottische.
At this point the evening suffered a check. It was Cook’s fault. Cook, fearing that the hours were not moving with enough rapidity, suggested games; suggested also one called the Stool of Repentance. Necessary for one person to leave the room, and Mr. Danks being selected for this honour, went out, and the others thereupon selected libellous statements, of which Erb took charge.
“Come in, King Robert of Sicily,” called Erb. Mr. Danks entered, and was ordered by Cook (hugging herself with enjoyment) to take a chair in the centre of the kitchen. “Someone says you’re conceited.”
“That’s you,” said Mr. Danks pointing to Alice.
“Wrong!” remarked Erb. “Someone says all the gels laugh at you.”
“That’s you,” decided Mr. Danks, pointing at Cook. Cook now convulsed with amusement.
“Wrong again! Someone says you can’t recite for nuts.”
“I say,” urged Mr. Danks, wriggling on the chair, “I’m as fond of a joke as anyone, but really— That sounds like you, miss.” Louisa shook her head negatively.
“You’re not lucky, old man. Someone says you’ll never get married in all your life for the simple reason that no one wants you.”
“That’s you this time, at any rate,” cried Mr. Danks, with melancholy triumph. And, as Louisa it was, the short young woman had to go out.
“Come in!” cried Erb, when the accusations had been decided upon. “Some of ’em have been making it warm for you, Louiser.”
“I’ll make it hot for them, Erb.”
“Someone says you’d be a fine looking gel if you were twice as broad and three times as long.”
“Cook!” exclaimed Louisa.
Cook, slightly disappointed at this swift identification, made her way out with a large sigh of regret at enforced exercise. It was determined now to show more ingenuity, and Cook had to knock two or three times ere permission could be given for her return.
“Someone says,” remarked Erb, “that you’re the finest woman in Eaton Square, bar none.”
Cook laughed coquettishly. “That sounds like you, Mr. Barnes.”
“No fear,” said Erb. “Someone says that you’ll get engaged some day—”
“What nonsense!” interrupted Cook delightedly.
“If you only wear a thick veil over your face.”
“Look here!” said Cook definitely. “That’s enough of it. If I find out who said that I shall make no bones about it, but I shall go straight upstairs and complain to Lady Frances, so there now.”
“Someone says,” Erb went on, “that you’ve got such an uncommon size mouth that it would take three men and a boy to kiss you.”
“I don’t want to lose me temper,” said Cook heatedly, and speaking with no stops, “and I’m not going to but once I know who dared say that and I’ll go to the County Court first thing to-morrow morning and take out a summons against them people shan’t go saying just what they like about me behind me back without having to prove every single— No, no, I’m not getting cross nothing of the kind but once I know who so much as dared— It’s a silly stupid game and I can’t think why it was ever suggested.”
They were going back to dancing after this unsuccessful essay, when a quiet tap came at the door of the kitchen; and the couples, standing up to begin, suddenly released each other, the French lady’s maid crying humorously, “Ciel! c’est mon mari!” Conversation ceased, and Cook bustled forward and opened the door.
“May I come in, Cook, I wonder?”
“Why,” cried Cook; hysterical with delight, “as though you need ask, my dear, I mean, m’lady!”
It seemed to Erb that the West End possessed some exceptional forcing properties that made all of its young women grow tall. He stood upright, as though on parade, unconsciously following the lead given by the tightly collared men and by Mr. Danks. As the very tall young woman went across the silent room to the housekeeper his gaze followed her; he would have given half his savings to have been permitted to assume a light, unconcerned, and, if possible, a defiant manner.
“Do you know,” she said brightly, “that I have not been down here since I was ten years old?”
“That’s twelve years ago, Lady Frances,” said the housekeeper. The housekeeper adjusted a bow at the white shoulders of the new arrival with an air of privilege.
“You sometimes used to let me bake things, didn’t you, Cook?”
“I had to take care you didn’t eat ’em,” said Cook, admiring her from the opposite side of the room. The strain on severe countenances around the kitchen relaxed slightly. “The others,” added Cook proudly, “don’t remember. It was before their time, Lady Frances.”
“And now that I am here,” said Lady Frances, “it seems that I am to spoil your party.” The servants and their visitors murmured, “Oh, no!” in an unconvincing way.
“What I thought was,” she went on brightly, “that I might play to you.”
“We have taken the liberty,” said the housekeeper, “of hiring a musical person.”
“But you will be glad of a rest,” said Lady Frances, touching the pianiste on the hand and stopping her in a yawn. “When I was at school at Cheltenham I used to be rather good at dance music.” She turned suddenly and looked down at Louisa. “Perhaps you play?”
“Me?” echoed Louisa confusedly. Louisa’s sister Alice lifted her eyes in silent appeal to the fates. “I draw the line at a mouth organ.” Her sister frowned at the ceiling. “And even that I’m out of practice with.” Louisa found her handkerchief in a back pocket, and with some idea of hiding her confusion, rubbed her little nose vigorously.
“I think you have dropped this,” said Lady Frances, stooping.
“Oh, that’s only a bit out of this evening’s newspaper. About my brother,” added the girl.
“Really! May I read it, I wonder.”
“Spell the words you can’t pronounce,” said Louisa. The room waited. Erb shifted his feet and endeavoured to look unconcerned.
“Are you— Are you Miss Spanswick, then?” pleasantly and encouragingly.
“Am I Miss Spanswick?” echoed Louisa with despair in her voice. “Give it ’old!Thisis my brother’s name—Herbert Barnes—and, consequently, my name is Barnes. Not Spanswick.”
“I see! tell me what can I play?”
“Play something you know,” advised Louisa.
“Rackham! please suggest something.”
“If it wasn’t troubling your ladyship,” said Mr. Rackham, taking off the dictionary, “and putting you to a great amount of ill-convenience, I should venture to suggest—hem!—a set of quadrilles.”
Something in the playing, once the couples had persuaded themselves to make up sets and to dance to such an august musician, that had escaped the art of the hired pianiste. An emphasis at the right place; a marvellous ability for bringing the music of each figure to an end just as the dancing ceased, so that there was no longer necessity for clapping of hands to intimate that further melody was useless, or to go on dancing with no music at all. For the next, Lady Frances played a well-marked air for a new dance that had possessed town, and in this Miss Luker gave up her partner and undertook to teach Erb, who was not fully informed on the subject. It occurred to Erb, as he tried to lift his foot at the appointed moment, and prepared immediately afterwards to swing the agreeable upper housemaid round by the waist, that although his partner had modelled her style on that of the young woman seated at the pianoforte, there existed between them a long interval. Both had the same interested way of speaking, the same attention in listening, but, with Miss Luker, there seemed to be nothing at the back of the eyes. Erb, finding himself possessed with a hope that Lady Frances might presently speak to him, tried to compensate for this weaknessby telling Miss Luker, when they were lifting one foot and swinging round at the far end of the kitchen, that the title meant nothing to him, and that, for his part, he preferred to mix with everybody on a common platform, to which Miss Luker replied, “Ah! that’s because you’re a railway man.” Presently, in one of those sudden blanks of general talk that surprise the unwary, his raised voice was heard to say,—
“—Consequence is that the few revel in luxury, while the many—” He hesitated, and went on floundering through the silence. “Whilst the many ’ave not the wherewithal to buy their daily bread.”
The awkward silence continued, broken only by the music from the pianoforte and the swishing of skirts.
“Erb,” said his sister Alice, frowning over Mr. Danks’s shoulder, “remember where you are.”
“Exercise tack, my dear sir,” recommended the butler. “Exercise tack.”
“Even visitors,” remarked the housekeeper severely, so that the young woman at the pianoforte should hear, “even visitors ought to draw the line somewhere. We can’t help our opinions, but we can all stop ourselves from expressing them.”
The music stopped, and the household looked rather nervously towards the chair, with an endeavour to ascertain whether the occupant had overheard the discordant remarks. To their relief, she leaned engagingly back, and beckoned to Louisa. Louisa, her head twitching with pride and agitation,went across the floor, and stood swinging her programme round and round.
“Youcanplay!” admitted Louisa. “Where did you pick it up?”
“I want you to bring your brother over to me,” said Lady Frances.
Quite useless for the kitchen to pretend that it was giving its entire mind to the subject of refreshments. The situation demanded their eyes and ears; they ate oblong pieces of cake in a detached way, rather as though they were feeding someone else; the housekeeper looked at Alice, and shook her head desolately.
“I have been reading about you,” said Lady Frances in her alert, interested way.
“Licker to me how these things get into the papers,” he mumbled.
“I should be tremendously interested in life,” said the girl, “if I occupied your position. There’s something sporting about it.” She looked at him intently, and he rubbed his nose under a vague impression that it bore some defect. “I wish you the best of good luck.”
“Then I shall have it,” said Erb. Alice looked round the room triumphantly, as who should say,Nowwe are scoring. “Not acquainted much with the working-classes, p’raps, me lady?”
“To my regret, no!”
“They’re made up of all sorts,” went on Erb, wishing that he dared to look at her white shoulders as she looked at his face, “and for the most partthey are very easily led. It’s only now and again that you find one step out of the common ruck.” He hesitated, seeing no way out of the sentence except by a self-congratulatory exit.
“If I should ever want to see through Bermondsey,” she said, clasping her knee, her head up attractively, “will you be my guide?”
“It would be a proud moment,” said Erb. He added, hastily, “For me, I mean.”
“Cook, shall I play one more, and then go back upstairs and leave off bothering you?”
“The idea,” said Cook reproachfully; “the idea, m’lady, of calling it botherin’ us.”
The others murmured polite sympathy with Cook’s view, but when Lady Frances had played the four figures in a manner that seemed to Erb quite without flaw, she said good-night, giving a special word to Louisa that made the short girl redden with delight; coming back to the doorway after Cook had seen her out to say to Erb:
“Won’t forget your promise, will you?”
The dance finished at half-past eleven, and the yawning pianiste went off to another engagement in Eccleston Street that began at midnight and was to last until the hour of four. The servants came up the steps of the area to see their visitors go, Alice now so proud of her brother that she declined to acknowledge the compliments of Mr. Danks, ignoring that gentleman’s fervent assurance that she had been, as he expressed it, the belle of the evening.
“Good-bye, Mr. Barnes,” said Miss Luker fervently. She walked on a few steps with him. “This evening will always, always remain in my mind as a precious memory.”
“Ishan’t forget it in a hurry.”
“Oh, thank you for those words,” whispered Miss Luker.
“Don’t mention it.”
“But promise. You won’t think harshly of me, will you?”
“As a matter of fact, I don’t suppose I shall ’ave time to think of you at all, ’arshly or otherwise. To-morrow night there’s an important meeting on, and—”
“But if you should want to write to me,” went on Miss Luker, undeterred and looking back at the gossiping bunch of visitors near the area entrance, “let me know and I’ll send you some addressed envelopes. We live in a censorious world, Mr. Barnes, and— Here comes your young sister. Think of me at four o’clock every afternoon, and I’ll promise to think of you.”
“Well, but,” protested Erb, “what’s the use?”
“Bah!” said Miss Luker, with a sudden burst of undisguised contempt, “I wouldn’t be a dunderheaded man for anything.”
Thethird round of deliveries was finished, and, arrived at his last evening, Erb, coat and collar off, washed away the traces of work in the stable pail with the aid of some aggressive soft soap that seemed to have its own way in everything. He had brought with him that morning a parcel of private clothes, and just before going out with the six o’clock turn, he had changed, and had handed in the corduroy uniform. A relief to feel that he no longer wore the brass buttons of servitude; of late they had seemed to reproach him. He had driven round the Surrey side with the air of a sporting gentleman taking out his own horse and trap; the private clothes helped him to say his good-byes with dignity to all, and especially to his old enemy, the van foreman.
“Youwouldgo on in your own tin-pot way,” said the van foreman regretfully, “no matter what I said. Your case ought to act as a warnin’.”
“Toyou?”
“Ishould’ave thought,” said the van foreman, with a wistful air, “after all that’s passed between us we might as well part good friends, at any rate.”
“Look here, old chap,” said Erbgood-temperedly, “Itried to out you, andyoutried to out me; and you’ve got the best of it. I don’t complain, but I’m not going to pretend I’m on friendly terms with a man when I ain’t.”
“That’s what I say,” retorted the van foreman argumentatively. “You’ve got no discretion.”
The manners of William Henry had about them a fine blend of condescension; the lad came forward from the tail of the van and sat on a hamper, big with news. He had been approached that afternoon and informed that, consequent on the departure of Erb, there would be some changes, and would he, William Henry, accept the position of junior porter at fourteen shillings a week.
“I shall probably work on from that,” said William Henry, “to some even higher position, and then on again. See? And if ever you want a friend, Erb—”
“I don’t let boys call me Erb. Mr. Barnes, if you please.”
“If I’m a boy,” said William Henry thoughtfully, “I don’t quite see where you’re going to find your men. As I was a sayin’, if ever you should be down in the gutter—and, mind you, there’s unlikelier things than that—you come to me. It may be in my power to ’elp you. And I tell you what you can do for me in exchange. You might take the van ’ome to the stables by yourself, so that I can run round to Rotherhithe New Road and tell my young lady.”
“Youryoung lady!”
“And why not?” demanded William Henry with some indignation. “We ain’t all like you.”
It gratified Erb, as he parted his hair with an imperfect pocket comb, and tried to make the obstinate wisp at the back of his head remain flat, to think that he had the reputation of one who exhibited no sort of weakness in regard to women; this came in well with his profound attitude towards the world. He had had a letter from the tall upper housemaid at Eaton Square, to which he had sent no reply; indeed, the communication scarcely demanded an answer, for it furnished only information in regard to the weather, and a fervent hope that his health had not been impaired by his presence at the dance; it would not have remained in his memory but for one sentence, “Her young ladyship has spoken of you once or twice.” An incomplete way of conveying a fact: something, of course, to know that she had referred to him, but it would have been more interesting to know the precise terms. He flushed at the appalling thought that she might have made some humorous comment on his behaviour.
Men balanced themselves on the edge of the kerb outside the “Druid’s Arms,” and whilst a swollen-faced cornet blared patriotic tunes at them from the opposite side in a ferocious way that permitted of no argument, some of the youngest tried to do a few steps of a dance. Two butchers, affecting to be rivals, chaffed each other derisively in raucous voices, one demanding to know how thewidow was, and, on the second man replying incautiously, “What widder?” the first explained that he referred to the widow of the man who bought a joint at the second man’s shop last Saturday week. A hoarse-voiced man sold cough tablets for the voice; a mild, sightless old man, with bootlaces, had an eager little girl with him, who cried shrilly and commandingly and unceasingly, “Petronise the belind, petronise the belind, petronise the—” Boys and girls thrust bunches of flowers against the noses of passers by; a depressed woman cried, “Twenty-four comic papers for a punny,” with a catch in her voice that expressed regret at the small demand for humour. Erb nodded to the uniformed men whom he recognised, and, going into the bar, found his competitor Spanswick. Always a short, stout man, Spanswick to-night had every sign of his insufficient neck covered with white collar; Erb was pleased to see that Spanswick’s tie had rucked up at the back.
Spanswick stopped suddenly in the remarks he was making to an interested group who stood leaning over him in the manner of palm trees, and, coming away, shook hands publicly and elaborately with Erb, as men in the boxing ring salute their opponents.
“Feeling fit?”
“Never better,” said Erb. “How’s yourself?”
“Bit of a cold,” said Spanswick with important reserve; “but otherwise—”
If there is time, one would like to explain hereSpanswick’s position amongst the men. It was of that assured kind that newcomers do not dare to question, and contemporaries have agreed to respect. If this ever exhibited signs of waning, Spanswick would gather an audience together and beat the bounds of the incident that had made him a man to be treated with consideration, and the story had been re-told so many times, and so many improvements and additions had been made to it, that for the sake of true history the real facts may as well be set down.
Spanswick had given way to drink. To say this meant much, for at the time the limits set upon the consumption of beer by many of the carmen was only that fixed by their own capabilities. Spanswick’s case must have been exceptional, and, indeed, he was so inclined, not so much to the bottle, perhaps, as to the quart, that his appearance on the morning following these carousals was truly deplorable: his strong-minded wife taking these opportunities to damage his face, with the eventual result that his van boy and his horse sneered at him openly. Wherefore Payne and a man named Kirby and another called Old Jim, decided, in the best interests of mankind at large, and of Spanswick in particular, that some steps should be taken, that it was for them to take these steps, and that the following Friday evening (being pay day) was the time to be selected. Payne’s idea was this. They would run Spanswick to earth in one of his resorts, they would form a ring (or as much of a ring asthree could make) around him, and by wise counsel and urgent illustration force upon him a recognition of the downward career that was his, and its inevitable end. It took some time to arrive at this decision, because Old Jim, who was not abreast of the times and of modern methods, had a remedy that included the dropping of the patient in the canal; whilst Kirby had another proposal. “Let us set the teetotal chaps on him,” urged Kirby. Payne’s scheme was adopted, and, the Friday night arriving, the three, after they had finished work, had a shave and a wash, and put on their best clothes (Payne himself wore a silk hat of adequate age, but of insufficient size), and they set out solemnly to take up their self-appointed duties.
“Now,” said Old Jim, “the likeliest place is ‘The World Turned Upside Down.’”
“Pardon me,” said Kirby, with the politeness that comes with the wearing of Sunday clothes, “pardon me, but ‘The Chequers’ is his ’ouse.”
“I thought,” remarked Payne, “the ‘Dun Cow’ was.”
“I’m prutty sure I’m right,” said Old Jim.
“I’m jolly well certain you’re both wrong,” declared Kirby with emphasis.
“Standing here all night arguin’,” decided Payne, “won’t settle the matter. Let’s make a start at one of them.”
Spanswick was not in “The World Turned Upside Down,” but the three had a drink there, because it would be notoriously a gross breach ofetiquette to go from a public-house without ordering refreshment; to do this were to deride the landlord openly, and insinuate libels on his stock. At the next place the three went into each bar to make sure, and, having money in their pockets, it seemed like doing the thing well and completely to have a drink here in every bar, still discussing the painful case of poor old Spanny, regretting deeply the curse that liquor brought upon men who could not use it with discretion.
“It’s good servant,” said Old Jim, raising his glass and shutting one eye in order to see it clearly, “but bad mas’er. That’s what I always says about it. It’s a good mas’r, but— What I mean to say is it’s a bad servant—”
“Every man,” declared Kirby, attempting to slap the counter, but missing it, “ought to know where to draw line.”
“The chap who don’t,” agreed Payne, “(You’re upsetting your glass, Jim, old man)—the chap who don’t is like the beas’s of field.”
“Worse!” said Old Jim.
“No, not worse!” urged Payne obstinately.
“Fight you for it,” offered Old Jim.
Kirby interfered and made peace, and throughout the evening, wherever they went in search of Spanswick, it happened that some two of the three were always quarrelling, whilst the third endeavoured to appease and conciliate. They were on the very edge of a triangular dispute in the last house of call when Payne, sobering himself for a moment,pointed out to the others that it was closing time, and they must not go to bed without feeling that something accomplished, something done, had earned a night’s repose; necessary that they should proceed now with as much directness as possible to Spanswick’s house, and (if they found him) there deliver the calculated words of warning, the prepared sentences of advice.
“’Ullo, old man,” said Payne, as the door of Spanswick’s house opened. “Many ’appy returns day.”
“What’s all this?” demanded Spanswick coldly. “Brought anything with you in a bottle?”
“We’ve brought good ’dvice,” said Old Jim, seating himself on the sill. “How is it we didn’t see you at any of the places?”
“The wife locked up me boots,” replied Spanswick surlily. “That’s why. But surely one of you’s got a bottle about him somewheres. Search!”
“We want you, old chap,” said Payne, steadying himself with a hand on either side of the doorway, “to give up the drink. ‘Oh that man should put an en’my into his mouth to steal out his brains.’ Chuck it, my friend, chuck it, before it is too late. Shun the flowing bowl, and save your money to buy harmonium with.”
“I’ll harmonium you,” said Spanswick threateningly, “if you don’t all three of you make yourselves precious scarce. How dare you come round here in this disgraceful condition to annoy a sober, honest man? Go to your ’omes and take anexample by me. I never saw such a painful exhibition in all me life.”
“How was we to know you’d be sober?” asked Kirby, swaying.
Spanswick emphasised the situation by remaining comparatively sober for a week; a busy week in other ways, for he lost no opportunity of reciting the incident of his own pure and heroic action, establishing thus a concrete foundation for the building up of a character that had never entirely disappeared.
(This is the story of carman Spanswick.)
One or two men standing at the zinc bar called on Erb to have a drink, but Erb replied, “Afterwards,” and went up the wooden staircase to the club room. There, on the landing, men were consulting in undertones, which they changed for much louder speech on seeing Erb, commencing to talk noisily of contests with superiors whom they had, it appeared, worsted in argument; of fresh young horses that required a somewhat similar treatment; of trouble in regard to Shuts-up, to water allowances, to Brought-backs, and other technical matters. A late colleague of Erb’s introduced him to those who were strangers, and Erb made quite a considerable effort to exhibit friendly manners, until a South Western man, mistaking him for Spanswick, told him some of the things that were being said about young Barnes, whereupon Erb left and went into the club room. In the club room tables had been arranged in something of the shapeof a capital U, and at the base a wooden hammer had been placed and a decanter and tumbler; sheets of blue foolscap and scarlet blotting paper gave the room an official, business-like appearance. Payne was there in mufti as to coat, in uniform as to waistcoat and corduroy trousers; he was to be proposed as Chairman, and he stood now with his face to a Scotch whisky advertisement, his lips moving silently; he nodded to Erb, and went on with his rehearsal. Spanswick coming up with hisentourage, took one of the sheets of paper and, with the stump of a pencil, began to make calculations which were audited, as he went on, by his friends. A few of the men marked the special nature of the proceedings by smoking cigars. The alert clock on the mantelpiece struck the half-hour in a sharp, energetic way and hurried on.
“I beg to move that Jack Payne do take the chair.”
“I beg to second.”
“All in favour,” said the first voice. “On the contrary? Carried unanimously and nem. con. Jack” (turning to Mr. Payne), “in you go.”
“In ordinary circs,” said Payne, after he had taken the chair and had risen to some applause, “I’m perfectly well aware that the proper course to pursue at an affair like this is for the chair to call on the secretary to read the minutes of the last meeting. I know that without any of you telling me. But we’re in the position to-night of not ’aving no secretary and not ’aving no previous meetin’.”
The heads around the table nodded agreement. A gloomy man seated in the position that a vice-chairman might have occupied half rose and said, “Mr. Chairman, sir,” and was at once pulled back into his chair by those near him.
“I was never a man,” went on the Chairman, his forehead damp with nervousness, “to what you may call force me opinions on any body of men. ’Cepting once, and that was at New Cross in ’89. I forget exactly what it was about, and I forget who was there, and I forget what I said, but the entire incident is quite fresh in my memory, and, as I say, that was the only occasion on which—”
“Question, question,” cried the gloomy man at the other end of the room. His neighbours hushed him into silence.
“I’m coming to the question as fast as ever I can. Few know better than me how to conduct a meeting of this kind, although I say it p’raps as shouldn’t, because it sounds like flattery, but it ain’t flattery, it’s only the truth. I’ve had it said to me over and over again, not once or twice, but many times—”
“Mr. Chairman, reely,” said the gloomy man, “I must call you to order. We shall never get the business done this side of Chris’mas if—”
“Kindly sed down,” ordered Mr. Payne, in tones of command, “or else resume your seat; one or the other. It’s me,” tapping his waistcoat, “me, sir, that calls people to order, not you.”
The gloomy man argued in a loud whisper withhis neighbours, and, on these counselling that he should simmer down, sat back in his chair, surveying the ceiling, his lips closed determinedly.
“First thing is shall we, being all of a trade, form a separate society, or shall we jolly well do the other thing? That’s the point. Now then, who’s going to give us a start? You, my friend, of the Great Eastern, down at the bottom of this left ’and table, you seem to have a lot to say, p’raps we might give you ten minutes and see whether or not there’s any sense in you.”
The gloomy man affected deafness until this had been explained to him by those sitting near, on which he told them rather haughtily that he spoke when he liked, and not when he was called upon.
“Then we must throw the ’andkerchief to somebody else. Spanswick, you might set the ball a-rolling. Don’t be longer than you can ’elp.”
Erb watched. The impression that his rival made now would affect the later decision, and Erb could not help wishing that Spanswick might prove halting in utterance and clumsy of speech. Cheers greeted Spanswick; some of the men looked at Erb, as they slapped the table with the palms of their hands to see howhetook it, and Erb remembered, just in time, to join in the compliment. He recovered his hopefulness as soon as Spanswick spoke, for he noted that his opponent started with great rapidity of utterance, speaking also overloudly—encouraging facts both. Spanswick was, of course, urging that they should form a separate society, buthe had no arguments, only hurried expressions of his own opinion. Erb, with his eyes on a sheet of foolscap paper, noticed that the room relaxed its attention; the gloomy man had his watch out, and was clearly preparing to shout at the appropriate moment, “Time, time!” Spanswick halted and went over one sentence twice, word for word. Then he stopped altogether, and the silent room saw him endeavour to recall his fleeting memory, saw him take from the inside pocket of his coat the entire speech and laboriously find the place.
“Beg pardon,” cried the gloomy man, starting up, “but is a member entitled to read—”
Spanswick, with now and again an anxious glance at Erb, read the remainder of his speech in a shamed undertone. There was but little cheering when he finished; he was called up again because he had forgotten to move the resolution. Four men competed for the honour of seconding this.
“Now then!” said the Chairman, with relish, “let’s go on in a orderly manner. First thing is, any amendment? No amendment? Vurry well, then! Now, is there any further remarks? The subject hasn’t been, if I may say so, thor’ly threshed out yet, and if— Thank you! Friend Barnes will now address the meeting.”
Erb rose with the slight nervousness that he always felt in commencing a speech. He began slowly and quietly: the Great Eastern man saw his chance for an interruption, and shouted, “Let’s ’earyou,” but Erb took no notice. They were there, he said, to inaugurate a great work, a work to which some of them had given a considerable amount of care, and the scheme was so far advanced that he thought he could place a few details before them for consideration. There had been the grave question whether they should join the general society of London carmen, or whether they should form an independent society of their own.
“On a point of order, sir—” began the gloomy man.
“If there is one man,” said Erb, raising his voice, “in this room who is absolutely ignorant of order it is our Great Eastern friend at the other end of the room. A yelping little terrier that runs after a van doesn’t make the van go faster.”
The room, now very crowded with uniformed men, especially near the doorway, approved this, and the Great Eastern man first looked round for support from his own colleagues, and, obtaining none, began to take desperate notes as Erb went on.
“I can’t waste time over a man who can only interrupt: I address myself to you. First, let me put my friend Spanswick right on a small detail. He urged that we should work quietly and secretly”—(cheers from Spanswick’s supporters)—“I disagree! I fail to see the usefulness of that. I think that all we do should be fair and above board, and I say this because if you combine, and let the railway companies see that you are combining, you will be treated with greater respect. Seewhat’s happened in the case of my own late fellow carmen! It’s true I was sacrificed, but let that pass; see what advantagestheygot, just for the asking. They got—”
Payne’s watch must have been suddenly affected, for he allowed Erb to speak for more than the period of ten minutes; no one complained; they were all too much interested. When Erb, in a fiery peroration, appealed to them to extend the recent action and make it general, with a strong reference to individualism, which they did not understand, and about which Erb himself was not quite sure, then the supporters of Spanswick forgot their reticence and cheered with the rest.
“And I trust,” added Erb modestly and finally, “that I ’aven’t took up too much of your time.”
The resolution was carried.
“Now,” said the Chair, “if any of you thought of standing me a drink, or even of ’aving one yourself, p’raps you’ll seize the opportunity whilst the waiters are in the room, and then we can shut them out whilst we go on to the next bisness.”
“Erb!” cried Spanswick along the table, “what’s yours?”
It was felt that this was a great piece of strategy on Spanswick’s part, and Erb’s refusal counted nothing for righteousness; one or two of Erb’s supporters shook their heads to intimate that this was not diplomacy. The waiters brought in japanned trays of glasses on their high, outstretched palms, carrying change everywhere, in their pockets, intheir tweed caps, in a knot in their handkerchiefs, in their mouths. They completed their work in a few minutes and went, obeying leisurely the Chairman’s imperious wave of the hammer.
“We come, now,” said Payne loudly, “to what I venture to term the principal item on the agender. That is, the appointment of seceretary.” Both Erb and Spanswick showed signs of puzzled astonishment. “There’s no less than two suggestions that have been ’anded up: one is that we should ’ave a honery seceretary, which I may explain for the benefit of some, means one who will perform his services in a honery way: the other is that we should ’ave a paid seceretary, which means that we should have to plank down about a ’undred a year, otherwise, two quid a week, and that’d cover his slight travelling expenses. There’s a good deal,” added the Chair impartially, “to be said on both sides, and, at this stage of the proceedings, I don’t attempt to dictate. This room’s a bit warmish, and if you don’t mind me taking off my coat, why, I shall be more comfortable than what I am at the present moment.”
The men around the table imitated example, and, hanging their jackets on the backs of the chairs, addressed themselves to the new subject.
“What?” said the Chair. “You woke up again?”
“I should like to ask,” said the gloomy Great Eastern man, ignoring this remark, “whether there’s any sense in paying a ’undred pounds a yearfor a article that we can get for nothing? That’s all I want to know.”
“Argue the point, my good sir,” urged the Chair, “argue in a speech.”
“I’ve said my say,” retorted the other stubbornly.
“If it was the self-same article,” said the Chair, shaking his hammer in a friendly way towards the Great Eastern man, “then I should be with you. But is it?” The shirt sleeves rested on the tables; the men began to show renewed interest.
“I asked a plain question, I want a plain answer!”
“Oh!” said the Chair, disgustedly, “you go to—well, I won’t say where. You’ve got no more idea of conducting a meeting than this ’ammer. Why don’t someone prepose a resolution?”
“Beg—propose,” said a young man desperately, “my friend Spanswick—honery sec’tary—new society.”
“Beg second that,” jerked another youth.
“In view of the fac’,” said a South Eastern man, half rising, “that if you want a thing done well you ought to pay for it, I think we ought to ’ave a man who’ll devote his whole energies to the work. Therefore, I beg to suggest Erb Barnes as—as—”
“Organisin’ secretary!” whispered a neighbour.
“I second that vote—mean to say, resolution.”
“Any other names?” asked the Chair. “Very good then! Now, I shall ask these two chaps tokindly retire, in other words, to leave the room, so as to leave us free to discuss—”
“Point of order occurs to me,” interrupted the gloomy Great Eastern man acutely, “Can they leave the room?”
The room watched Erb and Spanswick as the two made their way behind the chairs to the doorway. Erb opened the door, and motioned to Spanswick to go first, but Spanswick, not to be outdone in politeness, declined absolutely, insisting that Erb should take precedence, and when they decided to stop the display of courtesy, both blundered out at the same moment. As they closed the door behind them they heard several voices addressing the chair.
“Ever gone in for scarlet runners?” asked Spanswick. “I’ve only got a little bit of a garden, but I suppose there isn’t another man in Rotherhithe that grows the scarlet runners I do; people come from far and near to see ’em. There’s a good deal of art, mind you, in the stickin’ of ’em. Sunflowers, too! I’ve had tremendous luck with my sunflowers. I believe I could grow most anything in my little back place if it wasn’t for the cats. Vurry good plan of dealin’ with cats—”
Erb allowed his rival to make conversation whilst he himself considered the importance of these moments that were passing. He looked hard at a picture on the walls of the landing, a picture representing a cheerful Swiss valley and advertising Somebody’s Ginger Beer; the villagers heldgoblets containing (presumably) this beverage, and toasted the snow-topped mountains at the back. He forced himself to recognise that his chances were small; unless he had made a particularly good impression by his speech he had no chance at all; he would have to commence to-morrow morning a round of calls on master carmen and on contracting firms with the obsequious inquiry, “You don’t ’appen to want a hand, I s’pose?” and receiving the negative reply. He had obtained a clean character from the Railway Company, and the Chief had wished him good-luck, but the information that he was a stirabout would fly round in advance of him, and all the best places would be on the defensive. It might come to driving a cheap coal van, otherwise known as working in the slate business. There was an alternative even less agreeable to think of. He knew one or two men who had just missed being leaders of labour, who sometimes opened debates at Clubs, and were paid fairly liberal expenses, who were sometimes approached by the capitalists to stump through London in an endeavour to lash working men into a state of indignation in regard to Foreign Competition, Sugar Bounties, or the tyranny of Trades Unions, or some other subject for which the capitalists had affection: these men at times coalesced and, urged by a common jealousy, denounced some prominent men of their own party, and found their names mentioned in the opposition journals, the reporters of which bribed them in order to obtain exclusive information ofsemi-public meetings. Erb told the Swiss valley that it would be long ere he came down to that.
“You take a spade,” exclaimed his companion, “an ornery spade will do, and you dig it in the garden like so, and what do you find? Why you find—”
Young Louisa would be disappointed too. Louisa had been less successful since the servants’ dance at Eaton Square in cloaking her admiration for her brother, and the last young man had been dismissed with ignominy because he showed hesitation in sacrificing his own views on political subjects and accepting those held by Erb. If he had not already passed from the memory of Lady Frances, she might perhaps inquire of Alice the result of the meeting, and, hearing it, would smile agreeably and push him away from her thoughts. To be shown through Bermondsey by an official in the labour world would be one thing; to be conducted by a grimy-faced carman was another. And there was Rosalind—Rosalind—what was her other name?
“Now, in regard to meenure,” said Spanswick dogmatically, “the long and short of the matter is simply this.”
He had found in Southampton Street, Camberwell, on the previous day (being on the Surrey side round), a painted board on a house announcing here, “Elocution and Public Speaking Taught! Pupils prepared for the Dramatic Stage! Apply within to Professor Danks!” and it then occurred to him that this was the address given him by thefootman in Eaton Square. The front garden was filled with monumental statues belonging to an undertaker next door, and engraved with names and dates, tombstones which for some inexplicable reason had not been used. He had gone up the uneven pavement from the front gate to the door and had knocked there, but the door being opened by the tall, bright-eyed girl, plainly and economically dressed, and with a suggestion of care near to her bright eyes, he had for some extraordinary reason, muttered “Beg pardon. Wrong number!” and had stumbled back to the gate, hot-faced with confusion. He knew that his powers of speech lacked refinement, and one or two finishing lessons would work miracles: he might perhaps learn how to aspirate without the show of pain and anxiety that he exhibited now when he endeavoured to observe the trying rule. The bright-eyed girl, he remembered, had stood at the doorway looking after him rather reproachfully.
“Of course,” said the injured voice of Spanswick, “if it’s too much trouble for you to listen, why it isn’t any use me talking.”
“Sorry,” he said absently. “Fact is, I don’t take very much interest in gardening.”
“I was talking about poultry.”
“They both come under the same head,” remarked Erb.
“I suppose, as a matter of fact, you’re pretty keen on this ’ere job?”
“They’re a long time deciding,” said Erb.
“I’ve been expectin’,” Spanswick made circles on the landing with his right foot in a hesitating way, “I’ve been expectin’ that you’d approach me and ask me to withdraw from the contest.”
“What’d be the use of that?”
“Well,” said Spanswick in a mysterious whisper, “you know what Shakespeare says?”
“He said a lot.”
“You’re a mere kid in these matters,” remarked the other contemptuously, walking away to the other end of the landing. “Haven’t you never ’eard of buying off the opposition? In the present case, suppose you was to say, ‘Spanny, old man, is twen’y-five bob any use to you?’ and I should answer ‘Well, I could do with it,’ and you paid the money over ’ere.” Spanswick held out one hand. “And I said, ‘Well, now, come to think of it, what’s the good of this job to me? I shan’t make nothing out of it, unless it is a silver teapot for the missus; I’ll withdraw my nomination and leave you a clear field.’ See?”
“Upon my word,” exclaimed Erb indignantly, “upon my word if you ain’t the biggest—”
“Mind you,” interrupted the other, “I was only putting a suppositious case.” The door of the club room opened, and a voice said importantly, “Spanswick and Barnes, this way, please.” They turned to obey. “There y’are,” said Spanswick reproachfully, “you’ve left it too late.”
Looking over the banisters, Erb saw that women-folk had arrived, charged with the double dutyof listening to the coming concert and of conveying their male relatives home at a reasonable hour. Louisa’s white young face glanced up at him with a twitch, and asked anxiously whether it was all over; Erb replied that, on the contrary, it was just about to begin.
“Kindly take your former seats,” said the Chairman importantly. The chattering room became quiet as the two men entered, and Payne rapped with his hammer for silence. “The voting has come out,” he went on, looking at some figures on the sheet of foolscap before him, “the voting has come out 29 on one side and 14 on the other.”
The rattle of conversation recommenced.
“Less noise there, less noise!” cried the Chair urgently. “I can’t ’ear meself talk.”
“Wish we couldn’t,” remarked the Great Eastern man from his end of the table.
“Be careful, my friend,” said the Chair warningly. “Be careful, or else I shall rule you out of order. I have the pleasure now of calling on my friend Erb Barnes.” The room cheered. “Order, please, for Erb Barnes.”
“What have I got to talk about?” demanded Erb.
“Talk about?” echoed the Chair amazedly. “Talk about? Why, you’ve got to acknowledge in a few appropriate words your appointment as paid organisin’ secretary of the Railway Carmen’s Society.”