"BOOK I\n\nTHE MAKING OF KIPPS\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE LITTLE SHOP AT NEW ROMNEY\n\n\n§1\n\nUntil he was nearly arrived at adolescence it did not become clear to\nKipps how it was that he was under the care of an aunt and uncle instead\nof having a father and mother like other boys. Yet he had vague memories\nof a somewhere else that was not New Romney--of a dim room, a window\nlooking down on white buildings--and of a some one else who talked to\nforgotten people, and who was his mother. He could not recall her\nfeatures very distinctly, but he remembered with extreme definition a\nwhite dress she wore, with a pattern of little sprigs of flowers and\nlittle bows of ribbon upon it, and a girdle of straight-ribbed white\nribbon about the waist. Linked with this, he knew not how, were clouded\nhalf-obliterated recollections of scenes in which there was weeping,\nweeping in which he was inscrutably moved to join. Some terrible tall\nman with a loud voice played a part in these scenes, and either before\nor after them there were impressions of looking for interminable periods\nout of the windows of railway trains in the company of these two\npeople....\n\nHe knew, though he could not remember that he had ever been told, that\na certain faded, wistful face, that looked at him from a plush and gilt\nframed daguerreotype above the mantel of the \"sitting-room,\" was the\nface of his mother. But that knowledge did not touch his dim memories\nwith any elucidation. In that photograph she was a girlish figure,\nleaning against a photographer's stile, and with all the self-conscious\nshrinking natural to that position. She had curly hair and a face far\nyounger and prettier than any other mother in his experience. She swung\na Dolly Varden hat by the string, and looked with obedient respectful\neyes on the photographer-gentleman who had commanded the pose. She was\nvery slight and pretty. But the phantom mother that haunted his memory\nso elusively was not like that, though he could not remember how she\ndiffered. Perhaps she was older, or a little less shrinking, or, it may\nbe, only dressed in a different way....\n\nIt is clear she handed him over to his aunt and uncle at New Romney with\nexplicit directions and a certain endowment. One gathers she had\nsomething of that fine sense of social distinctions that subsequently\nplayed so large a part in Kipps' career. He was not to go to a \"common\"\nschool, she provided, but to a certain seminary in Hastings that was not\nonly a \"middle-class academy,\" with mortar boards and every evidence of\na higher social tone, but also remarkably cheap. She seems to have been\nanimated by the desire to do her best for Kipps, even at a certain\nsacrifice of herself, as though Kipps were in some way a superior sort\nof person. She sent pocket-money to him from time to time for a year or\nmore after Hastings had begun for him, but her face he never saw in the\ndays of his lucid memory.\n\nHis aunt and uncle were already high on the hill of life when first he\ncame to them. They had married for comfort in the evening or at any rate\nin the late afternoon of their days. They were at first no more than\nvague figures in the background of proximate realities, such realities\nas familiar chairs and tables, quiet to ride and drive, the newel of the\nstaircase, kitchen furniture, pieces of firewood, the boiler tap, old\nnewspapers, the cat, the High Street, the back yard and the flat fields\nthat are always so near in that little town. He knew all the stones in\nthe yard individually, the creeper in the corner, the dustbin and the\nmossy wall, better than many men know the faces of their wives. There\nwas a corner under the ironing-board which by means of a shawl could,\nunder propitious gods, be made a very decent cubby-house, a corner that\nserved him for several years as the indisputable hub of the world; and\nthe stringy places in the carpet, the knots upon the dresser, and the\nseveral corners of the rag hearthrug his uncle had made, became\nessential parts of his mental foundations. The shop he did not know so\nthoroughly--it was a forbidden region to him; yet somehow he managed to\nknow it very well.\n\nHis aunt and uncle were, as it were, the immediate gods of this world;\nand, like the gods of the world of old, occasionally descended right\ninto it, with arbitrary injunctions and disproportionate punishments.\nAnd, unhappily, one rose to their Olympian level at meals. Then one had\nto say one's \"grace,\" hold one's spoon and fork in mad, unnatural ways\ncalled \"properly,\" and refrain from eating even nice sweet things \"too\nfast.\" If he \"gobbled\" there was trouble, and at the slightest _abandon_\nwith knife, fork, and spoon, his aunt rapped his knuckles, albeit his\nuncle always finished up his gravy with his knife. Sometimes, moreover,\nhis uncle would come, pipe in hand, out of a sedentary remoteness in the\nmost disconcerting way, when a little boy was doing the most natural and\nattractive things, with \"Drat and drabbit that young rascal! What's he\na-doing of now?\" And his aunt would appear at door or window to\ninterrupt interesting conversation with children who were upon unknown\ngrounds considered \"low\" and undesirable, and call him in. The\npleasantest little noises, however softly you did them,--drumming on\ntea-trays, trumpeting your fists, whistling on keys, ringing chimes with\na couple of pails, or playing tunes on the window-panes,--brought down\nthe gods in anger. Yet what noise is fainter than your finger on the\nwindow--gently done? Sometimes, however, these gods gave him broken toys\nout of the shop, and then one loved them better--for the shop they kept\nwas, among other things, a toy shop. (The other things included books to\nread and books to give away and local photographs; it had some\npretensions also to be a china shop, and the fascia spoke of glass; it\nwas also a stationer's shop with a touch of haberdashery about it, and\nin the windows and odd corners were mats and terra-cotta dishes, and\nmilking-stools for painting; and there was a hint of picture-frames, and\nfire-screens, and fishing tackle, and air-guns, and bathing suits, and\ntents: various things, indeed, but all cruelly attractive to a small\nboy's fingers.) Once his aunt gave him a trumpet if he would _promise_\nfaithfully not to blow it, and afterwards took it away again. And his\naunt made him say his Catechism and something she certainly called the\n\"Colic for the Day\" every Sunday in the year.\n\nAs the two grew old while he grew up, and as his impression of them\nmodified insensibly from year to year, it seemed to him at last that\nthey had always been as they were when, in his adolescent days, his\nimpression of things grew fixed. His aunt he thought of as always lean,\nrather worried-looking, and prone to a certain obliquity of cap, and his\nuncle massive, many-chinned, and careless about his buttons. They\nneither visited nor received visitors. They were always very suspicious\nabout their neighbours and other people generally; they feared the \"low\"\nand they hated and despised the \"stuck-up,\" and so they \"kept themselves\n_to_ themselves,\" according to the English ideal. Consequently little\nKipps had no playmates, except through the sin of disobedience. By\ninherent nature he had a sociable disposition. When he was in the High\nStreet he made a point of saying \"Hello!\" to passing cyclists, and he\nwould put his tongue out at the Quodling children whenever their\nnursemaid was not looking. And he began a friendship with Sid Pornick,\nthe son of the haberdasher next door, that, with wide intermissions, was\ndestined to last his lifetime through.\n\nPornick, the haberdasher, I may say at once, was, according to old\nKipps, a \"blaring jackass\"; he was a teetotaller, a \"nyar, nyar,\n'im-singing Methodis',\" and altogether distasteful and detrimental, he\nand his together, to true Kipps ideals, so far as little Kipps could\ngather them. This Pornick certainly possessed an enormous voice, and he\nannoyed old Kipps greatly by calling, \"You--Arn\" and \"Siddee,\" up and\ndown his house. He annoyed old Kipps by private choral services on\nSunday, all his family \"nyar, nyar-ing\"; and by mushroom culture; by\nbehaving as though the pilaster between the two shops was common\nproperty; by making a noise of hammering in the afternoon, when old\nKipps wanted to be quiet after his midday meal; by going up and down\nuncarpeted stairs in his boots; by having a black beard; by attempting\nto be friendly; and by--all that sort of thing. In fact, he annoyed old\nKipps. He annoyed him especially with his shop doormat. Old Kipps never\nbeat his mat, preferring to let sleeping dust lie; and, seeking a motive\nfor a foolish proceeding, he held that Pornick waited until there was a\nsuitable wind in order that the dust disengaged in that operation might\ndefile his neighbour's shop. These issues would frequently develop into\nloud and vehement quarrels, and on one occasion came so near to violence\nas to be subsequently described by Pornick (who read his newspaper) as a\n\"Disgraceful Frackass.\" On that occasion he certainly went into his own\nshop with extreme celerity.\n\nBut it was through one of these quarrels that the friendship of little\nKipps and Sid Pornick came about. The two small boys found themselves\none day looking through the gate at the doctor's goats together; they\nexchanged a few contradictions about which goat could fight which, and\nthen young Kipps was moved to remark that Sid's father was a \"blaring\njackass.\" Sid said he wasn't, and Kipps repeated that he was, and quoted\nhis authority. Then Sid, flying off at a tangent rather alarmingly, said\nhe could fight young Kipps with one hand, an assertion young Kipps with\na secret want of confidence denied. There were some vain repetitions,\nand the incident might have ended there, but happily a sporting butcher\nboy chanced on the controversy at this stage, and insisted upon seeing\nfair play.\n\nThe two small boys under his pressing encouragement did at last button\nup their jackets, square and fight an edifying drawn battle, until it\nseemed good to the butcher boy to go on with Mrs. Holyer's mutton. Then,\naccording to his directions and under his experienced stage management,\nthey shook hands and made it up. Subsequently, a little tear-stained\nperhaps, but flushed with the butcher boy's approval (\"tough little\nkids\"), and with cold stones down their necks as he advised, they sat\nside by side on the doctor's gate, projecting very much behind,\nstaunching an honourable bloodshed, and expressing respect for one\nanother. Each had a bloody nose and a black eye--three days later they\nmatched to a shade--neither had given in, and, though this was tacit,\nneither wanted any more.\n\nIt was an excellent beginning. After this first encounter the attributes\nof their parents and their own relative value in battle never rose\nbetween them, and if anything was wanted to complete the warmth of their\nregard it was found in a joint dislike of the eldest Quodling. The\neldest Quodling lisped, had a silly sort of straw hat and a large pink\nface (all covered over with self-satisfaction), and he went to the\nNational School with a green baize bag--a contemptible thing to do. They\ncalled him names and threw stones at him, and when he replied by\nthreatenings (\"Look 'ere, young Art Kipth, you better _thtoppit_!\") they\nwere moved to attack and put him to flight.\n\nAnd after that they broke the head of Ann Pornick's doll, so that she\nwent home weeping loudly--a wicked and endearing proceeding. Sid was\nwhacked, but, as he explained, he wore a newspaper tactically adjusted\nduring the transaction, and really it didn't hurt him at all.... And\nMrs. Pornick put her head out of the shop door suddenly, and threatened\nKipps as he passed.\n\n\n§2\n\n\"Cavendish Academy,\" the school that had won the limited choice of\nKipps' vanished mother, was established in a battered private house in\nthe part of Hastings remotest from the sea; it was called an Academy for\nYoung Gentlemen, and many of the young gentlemen had parents in \"India,\"\nand other unverifiable places. Others were the sons of credulous widows,\nanxious, as Kipps' mother had been, to get something a little \"superior\"\nto a board school education as cheaply as possible; and others again\nwere sent to demonstrate the dignity of their parents and guardians. And\nof course there were boys from France.\n\nIts \"principal\" was a lean, long creature of indifferent digestion and\ntemper, who proclaimed himself on a gilt-lettered board in his front\ngarden George Garden Woodrow, F.S.Sc., letters indicating that he had\npaid certain guineas for a bogus diploma. A bleak white-washed outhouse\nconstituted his schoolroom, and the scholastic quality of its carved and\nworn desks and forms was enhanced by a slippery blackboard and two large\nyellow out-of-date maps, one of Africa and the other of Wiltshire, that\nhe had picked up cheap at a sale. There were other maps and globes in\nhis study, where he interviewed inquiring parents, but these his pupils\nnever saw. And in a glass cupboard in the passage was several\nshillingsworth of test tubes and chemicals, a tripod, a glass retort,\nand a damaged Bunsen burner, manifesting that the \"Scientific\nlaboratory\" mentioned in the prospectus was no idle boast.\n\nThis prospectus, which was in dignified but incorrect English, laid\nparticular stress on the sound preparation for a commercial career given\nin the Academy, but the army, navy and civil service were glanced at in\nan ambiguous sentence. There was something vague in the prospectus about\n\"examinational successes\"--though Woodrow, of course, disapproved of\n\"cram\"--and a declaration that the curriculum included \"art,\" \"modern\nforeign languages\" and \"a sound technical and scientific training.\" Then\ncame insistence upon the \"moral well-being\" of the pupils, and an\nemphatic boast of the excellence of the religious instruction, \"so often\nneglected nowadays even in schools of wide repute.\" \"That's bound to\nfetch 'em,\" Mr. Woodrow had remarked when he drew up the prospectus. And\nin conjunction with the mortarboards it certainly did. Attention was\ndirected to the \"motherly\" care of Mrs. Woodrow--in reality a small\npartially effaced woman with a plaintive face and a mind above cookery;\nand the prospectus concluded with a phrase intentionally vague, \"Fare\nunrestricted, and our own milk and produce.\"\n\nThe memories Kipps carried from that school into after life were set in\nan atmosphere of stuffiness and mental muddle; and included countless\npictures of sitting on creaking forms bored and idle, of blot licking\nand the taste of ink, of torn books with covers that set one's teeth on\nedge, of the slimy surface of the laboured slates, of furtive\nmarble-playing, whispered story-telling, and of pinches, blows, and a\nthousand such petty annoyances being perpetually \"passed on\" according\nto the custom of the place, of standing up in class and being hit\nsuddenly and unreasonably for imaginary misbehaviour, of Mr. Woodrow's\nraving days, when a scarcely sane injustice prevailed, of the cold\nvacuity of the hour of preparation before the bread-and-butter\nbreakfast, and of horrible headaches and queer, unprecedented, internal\nfeelings resulting from Mrs. Woodrow's motherly rather than intelligent\ncookery. There were dreary walks, when the boys marched two by two, all\ndressed in the mortarboard caps that so impressed the widowed mothers;\nthere were dismal half-holidays when the weather was wet and the spirit\nof evil temper and evil imagination had the pent boys to work its will\non; there were unfair, dishonourable fights and miserable defeats and\nvictories, there was bullying and being bullied. A coward boy Kipps\nparticularly afflicted, until at last he was goaded to revolt by\nincessant persecution, and smote Kipps to tolerance with whirling fists.\nThere were memories of sleeping three in a bed, of the dense leathery\nsmell of the schoolroom when one returned thither after ten minutes'\nplay, of a playground of mud and incidental sharp flints. And there was\nmuch furtive foul language.\n\n\"Our Sundays are our happiest days,\" was one of Woodrow's formulæ with\nthe inquiring parent, but Kipps was not called in evidence. They were to\nhim terrible gaps of inanity--no work, no play, a drear expanse of time\nwith the mystery of church twice and plum duff once in the middle. The\nafternoon was given up to furtive relaxations, among which \"Torture\nChamber\" games with the less agreeable, weaker boys figured. It was from\nthe difference between this day and common days that Kipps derived his\nfirst definite conceptions of the nature of God and heaven. His instinct\nwas to evade any closer acquaintance as long as he could.\n\nThe school work varied, according to the prevailing mood of Mr. Woodrow.\nSometimes that was a despondent lethargy; copy-books were distributed or\nsums were \"set,\" or the great mystery of bookkeeping was declared in\nbeing, and beneath these superficial activities lengthy conversations\nand interminable guessing games with marbles went on while Mr. Woodrow\nsat inanimate at his desk heedless of school affairs, staring in front\nof him at unseen things. At times his face was utterly inane, at times\nit had an expression of stagnant amazement, as if he saw before his eyes\nwith pitiless clearness the dishonour and mischief of his being....\n\nAt other times the F.S.Sc. roused himself to action, and would stand up\na wavering class and teach it, goading it with bitter mockery and blows\nthrough a chapter of Ann's \"First French Course,\" or \"France and the\nFrench,\" or a Dialogue about a traveller's washing, or the parts of an\nopera-house. His own knowledge of French had been obtained years ago in\nanother English private school, and he had refreshed it by occasional\nweeks of loafing and mean adventure in Dieppe. He would sometimes in\ntheir lessons hit upon some reminiscence of these brighter days, and\nthen he would laugh inexplicably and repeat French phrases of an\nunfamiliar type.\n\nAmong the commoner exercises he prescribed the learning of long passages\nof poetry from a \"Poetry Book,\" which he would delegate an elder boy to\n\"hear,\" and there was reading aloud from the Holy Bible, verse by\nverse--it was none of your \"godless\" schools!--so that you counted the\nverses up to your turn and then gave yourself to conversation--and\nsometimes one read from a cheap History of this land. They did, as Kipps\nreported, \"loads of catechism.\" Also there was much learning of\ngeographical names and lists, and sometimes Woodrow in an outbreak of\nenergy would see these names were actually found on a map. And once,\njust once, there was a chemistry lesson--a lesson of indescribable\nexcitement--glass things of the strangest shape, a smell like bad eggs,\nsomething bubbling in something, a smash and stench, and Mr. Woodrow\nsaying quite distinctly--they thrashed it out in the dormitory\nafterwards--\"Damn!\" followed by the whole school being kept in, with\nextraordinary severities, for an hour....\n\nBut interspersed with the memories of this grey routine were certain\npatches of brilliant colour--the holidays, his holidays, which in spite\nof the feud between their seniors, he spent as much as possible with\nSid Pornick, the son of the irascible black-bearded haberdasher next\ndoor. They seemed to be memories of a different world. There were\nglorious days of \"mucking about\" along the beach, the siege of\nunresisting Martello towers, the incessant interest of the mystery and\nmotion of windmills, the windy excursions with boarded feet over the\nyielding shingle to Dungeness lighthouse--Sid Pornick and he far adrift\nfrom reality, smugglers and armed men from the moment they left Great\nStone behind them--wanderings in the hedgeless reedy marsh, long\nexcursions reaching even to Hythe, where the machine guns of the Empire\nare forever whirling and tapping, and to Rye and Winchelsea, perched\nlike dream-cities on their little hills. The sky in these memories was\nthe blazing hemisphere of the marsh heavens in summer, or its wintry\ntumult of sky and sea; and there were wrecks, real wrecks, in it (near\nDymchurch pitched high and blackened and rotting were the ribs of a\nfishing smack flung aside like an empty basket when the sea had devoured\nits crew); and there was bathing all naked in the sea, bathing to one's\narmpits and even trying to swim in the warm sea-water (spite of his\naunt's prohibition), and (with her indulgence) the rare eating of dinner\nfrom a paper parcel miles away from home. Toke and cold ground rice\npudding with plums it used to be--there is no better food at all. And\nfor the background, in the place of Woodrow's mean, fretting rule, were\nhis aunt's spare but frequently quite amiable figure--for though she\ninsisted on his repeating the English Church Catechism every Sunday,\nshe had an easy way over dinners that one wanted to take abroad--and his\nuncle, corpulent and irascible, but sedentary and easily escaped. And\nfreedom!\n\nThe holidays were indeed very different from school. They were free,\nthey were spacious, and though he never knew it in these words--they had\nan element of beauty. In his memory of his boyhood they shone like\nstrips of stained glass window in a dreary waste of scholastic wall,\nthey grew brighter and brighter as they grew remoter. There came a time\nat last and moods when he could look back to them with a feeling akin to\ntears.\n\nThe last of these windows was the brightest, and instead of the\nkaleidoscopic effects of its predecessors its glory was a single figure.\nFor in the last of his holidays, before the Moloch of Retail Trade got\nhold of him, Kipps made his first tentative essays at the mysterious\nshrine of Love. Very tentative they were, for he had become a boy of\nsubdued passions, and potential rather than actual affectionateness.\n\nAnd the objects of these first stirrings of the great desire was no\nother than Ann Pornick, the head of whose doll he and Sid had broken\nlong ago, and rejoiced over long ago, in the days when he had yet to\nlearn the meaning of a heart.\n\n\n§3\n\nNegotiations were already on foot to make Kipps into a draper before he\ndiscovered the lights that lurked in Ann Pornick's eyes. School was\nover, absolutely over, and it was chiefly present to him that he was\nnever to go to school again. It was high summer. The \"breaking up\" of\nschool had been hilarious; and the excellent maxim, \"Last Day's Pay\nDay,\" had been observed by him with a scrupulous attention to his\nhonour. He had punched the heads of all his enemies, wrung wrists and\nkicked shins; he had distributed all his unfinished copybooks, all his\nschool books, his collection of marbles and his mortarboard cap among\nsuch as loved him; and he had secretly written in obscure pages of their\nbooks, \"remember Art Kipps.\" He had also split the anæmic Woodrow's\ncane, carved his own name deeply in several places about the premises,\nand broken the scullery window. He had told everybody so often that he\nwas to learn to be a sea captain that he had come almost to believe the\nthing himself. And now he was home, and school was at an end for him for\nevermore.\n\nHe was up before six on the day of his return, and out in the hot\nsunlight of the yard. He set himself to whistle a peculiarly penetrating\narrangement of three notes supposed by the boys of the Hastings Academy\nand himself and Sid Pornick, for no earthly reason whatever, to be the\noriginal Huron war-cry. As he did this he feigned not to be doing it,\nbecause of the hatred between his uncle and the Pornicks, but to be\nexamining with respect and admiration a new wing of the dustbin recently\nerected by his uncle--a pretence that would not have deceived a nestling\ntomtit.\n\nPresently there came a familiar echo from the Pornick hunting-ground.\nThen Kipps began to sing, \"Ar pars eight tra-la, in the lane be'ind the\nchurch.\" To which an unseen person answered, \"Ar pars eight it is, in\nthe lane be'ind the church.\" The \"tra-la\" was considered to render this\nsentence incomprehensible to the uninitiated. In order to conceal their\noperations still more securely, both parties to this duet then gave vent\nto a vocalisation of the Huron war-cry again, and after a lingering\nrepetition of the last and shrillest note, dispersed severally, as\nbecame boys in the enjoyment of holidays, to light the house fires for\nthe day.\n\nHalf-past eight found Kipps sitting on the sunlit gate at the top of the\nlong lane that runs towards the sea, clashing his boots in a slow\nrhythm, and whistling with great violence all that he knew of an\nexcruciatingly pathetic air. There appeared along by the churchyard wall\na girl in a short frock, brown-haired, quick-coloured, and with dark\nblue eyes. She had grown so that she was a little taller than Kipps, and\nher colour had improved. He scarcely remembered her, so changed was she\nsince last holidays--if indeed he had seen her last holidays, a thing he\ncould not clearly remember. Some vague emotion arose at the sight of\nher. He stopped whistling and regarded her, oddly tongue-tied.\n\n\"He can't come,\" said Ann, advancing boldly. \"Not yet.\"\n\n\"What--not Sid?\"\n\n\"No. Father's made him dust all his boxes again.\"\n\n\"What for?\"\n\n\"I dunno. Father's in a stew 'smorning.\"\n\n\"Oh!\"\n\nPause. Kipps looked at her, and then was unable to look at her again.\nShe regarded him with interest. \"You left school?\" she remarked after a\npause.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"So's Sid.\"\n\nThe conversation languished. Ann put her hands on the top of the gate,\nand began a stationary hopping, a sort of ineffectual gymnastic\nexperiment.\n\n\"Can you run?\" she said presently.\n\n\"Run you any day,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"Gimme a start?\"\n\n\"Where for?\" said Kipps.\n\nAnn considered, and indicated a tree. She walked towards it, and turned.\n\"Gimme to here?\" she called.\n\nKipps, standing now and touching the gate, smiled to express conscious\nsuperiority. \"Further!\" he said.\n\n\"Here?\"\n\n\"Bit more!\" said Kipps, and then, repenting of his magnanimity, said\n\"Orf!\" suddenly, and so recovered his lost concession.\n\nThey arrived abreast at the tree, flushed and out of breath.\n\n\"Tie!\" said Ann, throwing her hair back from her face with her hand.\n\n\"I won,\" panted Kipps.\n\nThey disputed firmly but quite politely.\n\n\"Run it again, then,\" said Kipps. \"_I_ don't mind.\"\n\nThey returned towards the gate.\n\n\"You don't run bad,\" said Kipps, temperately expressing sincere\nadmiration. \"I'm pretty good, you know.\"\n\nAnn sent her hair back by an expert toss of the head. \"You give me a\nstart,\" she allowed.\n\nThey became aware of Sid approaching them.\n\n\"You better look out, young Ann,\" said Sid, with that irreverent want of\nsympathy usual in brothers. \"You been out nearly 'arf-hour. Nothing\nain't been done upstairs. Father said he didn't know where you was, but\nwhen he did he'd warm y'r young ear.\"\n\nAnn prepared to go.\n\n\"How about that race?\" asked Kipps.\n\n\"Lor!\" cried Sid, quite shocked. \"You ain't been racing _her!_\"\n\nAnn swung herself round the end of the gate with her eyes on Kipps, and\nthen turned away suddenly and ran off down the lane.\n\nKipps' eyes tried to go after her, and came back to Sid's.\n\n\"I give her a lot of start,\" said Kipps apologetically. \"It wasn't a\nproper race.\" And so the subject was dismissed. But Kipps was\n_distrait_ for some seconds, perhaps, and the mischief had begun in him.\n\n\n§4\n\nThey proceeded to the question of how two accomplished Hurons might most\nsatisfactorily spend the morning. Manifestly their line lay straight\nalong the lane to the sea.\n\n\"There's a new wreck,\" said Sid, \"and my!--don't it smell just!\"\n\n\"Smell?\"\n\n\"Fair make you sick. It's rotten wheat.\"\n\nThey fell to talking of wrecks, and so came to ironclads and wars and\nsuchlike manly matters.\n\nHalf-way to the wreck Kipps made a casual irrelevant remark. \"Your\nsister ain't a bad sort,\" he said off-handedly.\n\n\"I clout her a lot,\" said Sidney modestly, and after a pause the talk\nreverted to more suitable topics.\n\nThe new wreck was full of rotting grain, and smelt abominably, even as\nSid had said. This was excellent. They had it all to themselves. They\ntook possession of it in force, at Sid's suggestion, and had speedily to\ndefend it against enormous numbers of imaginary \"natives,\" who were at\nlast driven off by loud shouts of _bang_, _bang_, and vigorous thrusting\nand shoving of sticks. Then, also at Sid's direction, they sailed with\nit into the midst of a combined French, German and Russian fleet,\ndemolishing the combination unassisted, and having descended to the\nbeach, clambered up the side and cut out their own vessel in brilliant\nstyle, they underwent a magnificent shipwreck (with vocalised thunder)\nand floated \"waterlogged\"--so Sid insisted--upon an exhausted sea.\n\nThese things drove Ann out of mind for a time. But at last, as they\ndrifted without food or water upon a stagnant ocean, haggard-eyed, chins\nbetween their hands, looking in vain for a sail, she came to mind again\nabruptly.\n\n\"It's rather nice 'aving sisters,\" remarked one perishing mariner.\n\nSid turned round and regarded him thoughtfully. \"Not it!\" he said.\n\n\"No?\"\n\n\"Not a bit of it.\" He grinned confidentially. \"Know too much,\" he said;\nand afterwards, \"Get out of things.\"\n\nHe resumed his gloomy scrutiny of the hopeless horizon. Presently he\nfell to spitting jerkily between his teeth, as he had read was the way\nwith such ripe manhood as chews its quid.\n\n\"Sisters,\" he said, \"is rot. That's what sisters are. Girls if you like,\nbut sisters--no!\"\n\n\"But ain't sisters girls?\"\n\n\"_N-eaow!_\" said Sid, with unspeakable scorn.\n\nAnd Kipps answered, \"Of course. I didn't mean---- I wasn't thinking of\nthat.\"\n\n\"You got a girl?\" asked Sid, spitting very cleverly again.\n\nKipps admitted his deficiency. He felt compunction.\n\n\"You don't know who _my_ girl is, Art Kipps--I bet.\"\n\n\"Who is, then?\" asked Kipps, still chiefly occupied by his own poverty.\n\n\"Ah!\"\n\nKipps let a moment elapse before he did his duty. \"Tell us!\"\n\nSid eyed him and hesitated. \"Secret?\" he said.\n\n\"Secret.\"\n\n\"Dying solemn?\"\n\n\"Dying solemn!\" Kipps' self-concentration passed into curiosity.\n\nSid administered a terrible oath. Even after that precaution he adhered\nlovingly to his facts. \"It begins with a Nem,\" he said, doling them out\nparsimoniously. \"M A U D,\" he spelt, with a stern eye on Kipps, \"C H A R\nT E R I S.\"\n\nNow, Maud Charteris was a young person of eighteen and the daughter of\nthe vicar of St. Bavon's,--besides which she had a bicycle,--so that as\nher name unfolded the face of Kipps lengthened with respect. \"Get out!\"\nhe gasped incredulously. \"She ain't your girl, Sid Pornick.\"\n\n\"She is!\" answered Sid, stoutly.\n\n\"What--truth?\"\n\n\"_Truth._\"\n\nKipps scrutinised his face. \"Reely?\"\n\nSid touched wood, whistled, and repeated a binding doggerel with great\nsolemnity.\n\nKipps still struggled with the amazing new light on the world about\nhim. \"D'you mean--she knows?\"\n\nSid flushed deeply, and his aspect became stern and gloomy. He resumed\nhis wistful scrutiny of the sunlit sea. \"I'd die for that girl, Art\nKipps,\" he said presently, and Kipps did not press a question he felt to\nbe ill timed. \"I'd do anything she asked me to do,\" said Sid--\"just\nanything. If she was to ask me to chuck myself into the sea.\" He met\nKipps' eye. \"I _would_,\" he said.\n\nThey were pensive for a space, and then Sid began to discourse in\nfragments of Love, a theme upon which Kipps had already in a furtive way\nmeditated a little, but which, apart from badinage, he had never yet\nheard talked about in the light of day. Of course many and various\naspects of life had come to light in the muffled exchange of knowledge\nthat went on under the shadow of Woodrow, but this of Sentimental Love\nwas not among them. Sid, who was a boy with an imagination, having once\nbroached this topic, opened his heart, or at any rate a new wing of his\nheart, to Kipps, and found no fault with Kipps for a lack of return. He\nproduced a thumbed novelette that had played a part in his sentimental\nawakening; he proffered it to Kipps, and confessed there was a character\nin it, a baronet, singularly like himself. This baronet was a person of\nvolcanic passions which he concealed beneath a demeanour of \"icy\ncynicism.\" The utmost expression he permitted himself was to grit his\nteeth; and now his attention was called to it, Kipps remarked that Sid\nalso had a habit of gritting his teeth--and indeed had had all the\nmorning. They read for a time, and presently Sid talked again. The\nconception of love Sid made evident was compact of devotion and much\nspirited fighting and a touch of mystery; but through all that cloud of\ntalk there floated before Kipps a face that was flushed and hair that\nwas tossed aside.\n\nSo they budded, sitting on the blackening old wreck in which men had\nlived and died, looking out to sea, talking of that other sea upon which\nthey must presently embark....\n\nThey ceased to talk, and Sid read; but Kipps falling behind with the\nreading and not wishing to admit that he read slowlier than Sid, whose\neducation was of the inferior elementary school brand, lapsed into\nmeditation.\n\n\"I _would_ like to 'ave a girl,\" said Kipps. \"I mean just to talk to and\nall that....\"\n\nA floating object distracted them at last from this obscure topic. They\nabandoned the wreck and followed the new interest a mile along the\nbeach, bombarding it with stones until it came to land. They had\ninclined to a view that it would contain romantic mysteries, but it was\nsimply an ill-preserved kitten--too much even for them. And at last they\nwere drawn dinnerward and went home hungry and pensive side by side.\n\n\n§5\n\nBut Kipps' imagination had been warmed by that talk of love, and in the\nafternoon, when he saw Ann Pornick in the High Street and said \"Hello!\"\nit was a different \"hello\" from that of their previous intercourse. And\nwhen they had passed they both looked back and caught each other doing\nso. Yes, he _did_ want a girl badly....\n\nAfterwards he was distracted by a traction engine going through the\ntown, and his aunt had got some sprats for supper. When he was in bed,\nhowever, sentiment came upon him again in a torrent quite abruptly and\nabundantly, and he put his head under the pillow and whispered very\nsoftly, \"I love Ann Pornick,\" as a sort of supplementary devotion.\n\nIn his subsequent dreams he ran races with Ann, and they lived in a\nwreck together, and always her face was flushed and her hair about her\nface. They just lived in a wreck and ran races, and were very, very fond\nof one another. And their favourite food was rock-chocolate, dates, such\nas one buys off barrows, and sprats--fried sprats....\n\nIn the morning he could hear Ann singing in the scullery next door. He\nlistened to her for some time, and it was clear to him that he must put\nthings before her.\n\nTowards dusk that evening they chanced on one another at the gate by the\nchurch; but though there was much in his mind, it stopped there with a\nresolute shyness until he and Ann were out of breath catching\ncockchafers, and were sitting on that gate of theirs again. Ann sat up\nupon the gate, dark against vast masses of flaming crimson and darkling\npurple, and her eyes looked at Kipps from a shadowed face. There came a\nstillness between them, and quite abruptly he was moved to tell his\nlove.\n\n\"Ann,\" he said, \"I _do_ like you. I wish you was my girl.... I say, Ann:\nwill you _be_ my girl?\"\n\nAnn made no pretence of astonishment. She weighed the proposal for a\nmoment with her eyes on Kipps. \"If you like, Artie,\" she said lightly.\n\"_I_ don't mind if I am.\"\n\n\"All right,\" said Kipps, breathless with excitement, \"then you are.\"\n\n\"All right,\" said Ann.\n\nSomething seemed to fall between them, and they no longer looked openly\nat one another. \"Lor'!\" cried Ann suddenly, \"see that one!\" and jumped\ndown and darted after a cockchafer that had boomed within a yard of her\nface. And with that they were girl and boy again....\n\nThey avoided their new relationship painfully.\n\nThey did not recur to it for several days, though they met twice. Both\nfelt that there remained something before this great experience was\ncomplete, but there was an infinite diffidence about the next step.\nKipps talked in fragments of all sorts of matters, telling particularly\nof the great things that were being done to make a man and a draper of\nhim, how he had two new pairs of trousers and a black coat and four new\nshirts. And all the while his imagination was urging him to that unknown\nnext step, and when he was alone and in the dark he became even an\nenterprising wooer. It became evident to him that it would be nice to\ntake Ann by the hand; even the decorous novelettes Sid affected egged\nhim on to that greater nearness of intimacy.\n\nThen a great idea came to him, in a paragraph called \"Lovers' Tokens\"\nthat he read in a torn fragment of _Tit Bits_. It fell in to the measure\nof his courage--a divided sixpence! He secured his aunt's best scissors,\nfished a sixpence out of his jejune tin money-box, and jabbed his finger\nin a varied series of attempts to get it in half. When they met again\nthe sixpence was still undivided. He had not intended to mention the\nmatter to her at that stage, but it came up spontaneously. He\nendeavoured to explain the theory of broken sixpences and his unexpected\nfailure to break one.\n\n\"But what you break it for?\" said Ann. \"It's no good if it's broke.\"\n\n\"It's a Token,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"Like...?\"\n\n\"Oh, you keep half and I keep half, and when we're sep'rated you look at\nyour half and I look at mine--see! Then we think of each other.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said Ann, and appeared to assimilate this information.\n\n\"Only _I_ can't get it in 'arf nohow,\" said Kipps.\n\nThey discussed this difficulty for some time without illumination. Then\nAnn had a happy thought. \"Tell you what,\" she said, starting away from\nhim abruptly and laying a hand on his arm, \"you let _me_ 'ave it, Artie.\nI know where father keeps his file.\"\n\nKipps handed her the sixpence, and they came upon a pause.\n\n\"I'll easy do it,\" said Ann.\n\nIn considering the sixpence side by side, his head had come near her\ncheek. Quite abruptly he was moved to take his next step into the\nunknown mysteries of love.\n\n\"Ann,\" he said, and gulped at his temerity, \"I _do_ love you. Straight.\nI'd do anything for you, Ann. Reely--I would.\"\n\nHe paused for breath. She answered nothing, but she was no doubt\nenjoying herself. He came yet closer to her--his shoulder touched hers.\n\"Ann, I wish you'd----\"\n\nHe stopped.\n\n\"What?\" said Ann.\n\n\"Ann--lemme kiss you.\"\n\nThings seemed to hang for a space; his tone, the drop of his courage,\nmade the thing incredible as he spoke. Kipps was not of that bold order\nof wooers who impose conditions.\n\nAnn perceived that she was not prepared for kissing after all. Kissing,\nshe said, was silly, and when Kipps would have displayed a belated\nenterprise, she flung away from him. He essayed argument. He stood afar\noff, as it were--the better part of a yard--and said she _might_ let him\nkiss her, and then that he didn't see what good it was for her to be his\ngirl if he couldn't kiss her.\n\nShe repeated that kissing was silly. A certain estrangement took them\nhomeward. They arrived in the dusky High Street not exactly together,\nand not exactly apart, but struggling. They had not kissed, but all the\nguilt of kissing was between them. When Kipps saw the portly contours of\nhis uncle standing dimly in the shop doorway, his footsteps faltered,\nand the space between our young couple increased. Above, the window over\nPornick's shop was open, and Mrs. Pornick was visible, taking the air.\nKipps assumed an expression of extreme innocence. He found himself face\nto face with his uncle's advanced outposts of waistcoat buttons.\n\n\"Where ye bin, my boy?\"\n\n\"Bin for a walk, uncle.\"\n\n\"Not along of that brat of Pornick's?\"\n\n\"Along of who?\"\n\n\"That gell\"--indicating Ann with his pipe.\n\n\"Oh, no, uncle!\"--very faintly.\n\n\"Run in, my boy.\"\n\nOld Kipps stood aside, with an oblique glance upward, and his nephew\nbrushed clumsily by him and vanished out of sight of the street, into\nthe vague obscurity of the little shop. The door closed behind old Kipps\nwith a nervous jangle of its bell, and he set himself to light the\nsingle oil lamp that illuminated his shop at nights. It was an\noperation requiring care and watching, or else it flared and \"smelt.\"\nOften it smelt after all. Kipps for some reason found the dusky\nliving-room with his aunt in it too populous for his feelings, and went\nupstairs.\n\n\"That brat of Pornick's!\" It seemed to him that a horrible catastrophe\nhad occurred. He felt he had identified himself inextricably with his\nuncle, and cut himself off from her for ever by saying \"Oh, no!\" At\nsupper he was so visibly depressed that his aunt asked him if he wasn't\nfeeling well. Under this imminent threat of medicine he assumed an\nunnatural cheerfulness.\n\nHe lay awake for nearly half an hour that night, groaning because things\nhad all gone wrong--because Ann wouldn't let him kiss her, and because\nhis uncle had called her a brat. It seemed to Kipps almost as though he\nhimself had called her a brat....\n\nThere came an interval during which Ann was altogether inaccessible.\nOne, two, three days passed, and he did not see her. Sid he met several\ntimes; they went fishing, and twice they bathed; but though Sid lent and\nreceived back two further love stories, they talked no more of love.\nThey kept themselves in accord, however, agreeing that the most\nflagrantly sentimental story was \"proper.\" Kipps was always wanting to\nspeak of Ann, but never daring to do so. He saw her on Sunday evening\ngoing off to chapel. She was more beautiful than ever in her Sunday\nclothes, but she pretended not to see him because her mother was with\nher. But he thought she pretended not to see him because she had given\nhim up for ever. Brat!--who could be expected ever to forgive that? He\nabandoned himself to despair, he ceased even to haunt the places where\nshe might be found.\n\n\n§6\n\nWith paralysing unexpectedness came the end.\n\nMr. Shalford, the draper at Folkestone to whom he was to be bound\napprentice, had expressed a wish to \"shape the lad a bit\" before the\nautumn sale. Kipps became aware that his box was being packed, and\ngathered the full truth of things on the evening before his departure.\nHe became feverishly eager to see Ann just once more. He made silly and\nneedless excuses to go out into the yard, he walked three times across\nthe street without any excuse at all, to look up at the Pornick windows.\nStill she was hidden. He grew desperate. It was within half an hour of\nhis departure that he came on Sid.\n\n\"Hello!\" he said; \"I'm orf!\"\n\n\"Business?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nPause.\n\n\"I say, Sid. You going 'ome?\"\n\n\"Straight now.\"\n\n\"D'you mind? Ask Ann about that.\"\n\n\"About what?\"\n\n\"She'll know.\"\n\nAnd Sid said he would. But even that, it seemed, failed to evoke Ann.\n\nAt last the Folkestone bus rumbled up, and he ascended. His aunt stood\nin the doorway to see him off. His uncle assisted with the box and\nportmanteau. Only furtively could he glance up at the Pornick windows,\nand still it seemed Ann hardened her heart against him. \"Get up!\" said\nthe driver, and the hoofs began to clatter. No--she would not come out\neven to see him off. The bus was in motion, and old Kipps was going back\ninto his shop. Kipps stared in front of him, assuring himself that he\ndid not care.\n\nHe heard a door slam, and instantly craned out his neck to look back. He\nknew that slam so well. Behold! out of the haberdasher's door a small,\nuntidy figure in homely pink print had shot resolutely into the road,\nand was sprinting in pursuit. In a dozen seconds she was abreast of the\nbus. At the sight of her Kipps' heart began to beat very quickly, but he\nmade no immediate motion of recognition.\n\n\"Artie!\" she cried breathlessly, \"Artie! Artie! You know! I got _that_!\"\n\nThe bus was already quickening its pace, and leaving her behind again,\nwhen Kipps realized what \"that\" meant. He became animated, he gasped,\nand gathered his courage together, and mumbled an incoherent request to\nthe driver to \"stop jest a jiff for sunthin'.\" The driver grunted, as\nthe disparity of their years demanded, and then the bus had pulled up,\nand Ann was below.\n\nShe leapt up upon the wheel. Kipps looked down into Ann's face, and it\nwas foreshortened and resolute. He met her eyes just for one second as\ntheir hands touched. He was not a reader of eyes. Something passed\nquickly from hand to hand, something that the driver, alert at the\ncorner of his eye, was not allowed to see. Kipps hadn't a word to say,\nand all she said was, \"I done it, 'smorning.\" It was like a blank space\nin which something pregnant should have been written and wasn't. Then\nshe dropped down, and the bus moved forward.\n\nAfter the lapse of about ten seconds it occurred to him to stand and\nwave his new bowler hat at her over the corner of the bus top, and to\nshout hoarsely, \"Goo-bye, Ann! Don' forget me--while I'm away!\"\n\nShe stood in the road looking after him, and presently she waved her\nhand.\n\nHe remained standing unstably, his bright, flushed face looking back at\nher, and his hair fluffing in the wind, and he waved his hat until at\nlast the bend of the road hid her from his eyes. Then he turned about\nand sat down, and presently he began to put the half sixpence he held\nclenched in his hand into his trouser pocket. He looked sideways at the\ndriver, to judge how much he had seen.\n\nThen he fell a-thinking. He resolved that, come what might, when he came\nback to New Romney at Christmas, he would by hook or by crook kiss Ann.\n\nThen everything would be perfect and right, and he would be perfectly\nhappy.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE EMPORIUM\n\n\n§1\n\nWhen Kipps left New Romney, with a small yellow tin box, a still smaller\nportmanteau, a new umbrella, and a keepsake half-sixpence, to become a\ndraper, he was a youngster of fourteen, thin, with whimsical drakes'\ntails at the poll of his head, smallish features, and eyes that were\nsometimes very light and sometimes very dark, gifts those of his birth;\nand by the nature of his training he was indistinct in his speech,\nconfused in his mind, and retreating in his manners. Inexorable fate had\nappointed him to serve his country in commerce, and the same national\nbias towards private enterprise and leaving bad alone, which entrusted\nhis general education to Mr. Woodrow, now indentured him firmly into the\nhands of Mr. Shalford, of the Folkestone Drapery Bazaar. Apprenticeship\nis still the recognised English way to the distributing branch of the\nsocial service. If Mr. Kipps had been so unfortunate as to have been\nborn a German he might have been educated in an elaborate and costly\nspecial school (\"over-educated--crammed up\"--Old Kipps) to fit him for\nhis end--such being their pedagogic way. He might.... But why make\nunpatriotic reflections in a novel? There was nothing pedagogic about\nMr. Shalford.\n\nHe was an irascible, energetic little man, with hairy hands, for the\nmost part under his coat tails, a long, shiny, bald head, a pointed,\naquiline nose a little askew, and a neatly trimmed beard. He walked\nlightly and with a confident jerk, and he was given to humming. He had\nadded to exceptional business \"push,\" bankruptcy under the old\ndispensation, and judicious matrimony. His establishment was now one of\nthe most considerable in Folkestone, and he insisted on every inch of\nfrontage by alternate stripes of green and yellow down the houses over\nthe shops. His shops were numbered 3, 5 and 7 on the street, and on his\nbillheads 3 to 7. He encountered the abashed and awestricken Kipps with\nthe praises of his system and himself. He spread himself out behind his\ndesk with a grip on the lapel of his coat and made Kipps a sort of\nspeech. \"We expect y'r to work, y'r know, and we expect y'r to study our\ninterests,\" explained Mr. Shalford in the regal and commercial plural.\n\"Our system here is the best system y'r could have. I made it, and I\nought to know. I began at the very bottom of the ladder when I was\nfourteen, and there isn't a step in it I don't know. Not a step. Mr.\nBooch in the desk will give y'r the card of rules and fines. Jest wait a\nminute.\" He pretended to be busy with some dusty memoranda under a\npaper-weight, while Kipps stood in a sort of paralysis of awe regarding\nhis new master's oval baldness. \"Two thous'n three forty-seven pounds,\"\nwhispered Mr. Shalford audibly, feigning forgetfulness of Kipps. Clearly\na place of great transactions!\n\nMr. Shalford rose, and handing Kipps a blotting-pad and an inkpot to\ncarry--mere symbols of servitude, for he made no use of them--emerged\ninto a counting-house where three clerks had been feverishly busy ever\nsince his door handle had turned. \"Booch,\" said Mr. Shalford, \"'ave y'r\ncopy of the rules?\" and a down-trodden, shabby little old man with a\nruler in one hand and a quill pen in his mouth, silently held out a\nsmall book with green and yellow covers, mainly devoted, as Kipps\npresently discovered, to a voracious system of fines. He became acutely\naware that his hands were full, and that everybody was staring at him.\nHe hesitated a moment before putting the inkpot down to free a hand.\n\n\"Mustn't fumble like _that_,\" said Mr. Shalford as Kipps pocketed the\nrules. \"Won't do here. Come along, come along,\" and he cocked his coat\ntails high, as a lady might hold up her dress, and led the way into the\nshop.\n\nA vast interminable place it seemed to Kipps, with unending shining\ncounters and innumerable faultlessly dressed young men and presently\nHouri-like young women staring at him. Here there was a long vista of\ngloves dangling from overhead rods, there ribbons and baby-linen. A\nshort young lady in black mittens was making out the account of a\ncustomer, and was clearly confused in her addition by Shalford's eagle\neye.\n\nA thickset young man with a bald head and a round, very wise face, who\nwas profoundly absorbed in adjusting all the empty chairs down the\ncounter to absolutely equal distances, awoke out of his preoccupation\nand answered respectfully to a few Napoleonic and quite unnecessary\nremarks from his employer. Kipps was told that this young man's name was\nMr. Buggins, and that he was to do whatever Mr. Buggins told him to do.\n\nThey came round a corner into a new smell, which was destined to be the\nsmell of Kipps' life for many years, the vague, distinctive smell of\nManchester goods. A fat man with a large nose jumped--actually\njumped--at their appearance, and began to fold a pattern of damask in\nfront of him exactly like an automaton that is suddenly set going.\n\n\"Carshot, see to this boy to-morrow,\" said the master. \"See he don't\nfumble. Smart'n 'im up.\"\n\n\"Yussir,\" said Carshot fatly, glanced at Kipps, and resumed his\npattern-folding with extreme zeal.\n\n\"Whatever Mr. Carshot says y'r to do, ye _do_,\" said Mr. Shalford,\ntrotting onward; and Carshot blew out his face with an appearance of\nrelief.\n\nThey crossed a large room full of the strangest things Kipps had ever\nseen. Ladylike figures, surmounted by black wooden knobs in the place of\nthe refined heads one might have reasonably expected, stood about with a\nlifelike air of conscious fashion.\n\n\"Costume room,\" said Shalford.\n\nTwo voices engaged in some sort of argument--\"I can assure you, Miss\nMergle, you are entirely mistaken--entirely, in supposing I should do\nanything so unwomanly,\"--sank abruptly, and they discovered two young\nladies, taller and fairer than any of the other young ladies, and with\nblack trains to their dresses, who were engaged in writing at a little\ntable. Whatever they told him to do, Kipps gathered he was to do. He was\nalso, he understood, to do whatever Carshot and Booch told him to do.\nAnd there were also Buggins and Mr. Shalford. And not to forget or\nfumble!\n\nThey descended into a cellar called \"The Warehouse,\" and Kipps had an\noptical illusion of errand boys fighting. Some aerial voice said,\n\"Teddy!\" and the illusion passed. He looked again, and saw quite clearly\nthat they were packing parcels and always would be, and that the last\nthing in the world that they would or could possibly do was to fight.\nYet he gathered from the remarks Mr. Shalford addressed to their busy\nbacks that they had been fighting--no doubt at some past period of their\nlives.\n\nEmerging in the shop again among a litter of toys and what are called\n\"fancy articles,\" Shalford withdrew a hand from beneath his coat tails\nto indicate an overhead change-carrier. He entered into elaborate\ncalculations to show how many minutes in one year were saved thereby,\nand lost himself among the figures. \"Seven tums eight seven nine--was\nit? Or seven eight nine? Now, _now_! Why, when I was a boy your age I\nc'd do a sum like that as soon as hear it. We'll soon get y'r into\nbetter shape than that. Make you Fishent. Well, y'r must take my word,\nit comes to pounds and pounds saved in the year--pounds and pounds.\nSystem! System everywhere. Fishency.\" He went on murmuring \"Fishency\"\nand \"System\" at intervals for some time.\n\nThey passed into a yard, and Mr. Shalford waved his hand to his three\ndelivery vans all striped green and yellow--\"uniform--green,\nyell'r--System.\" All over the premises were pinned absurd little cards.\n\"This door locked after 7:30.--By order, Edwin Shalford,\" and the like.\n\nMr. Shalford always wrote \"By order,\" though it conveyed no earthly\nmeaning to him. He was one of those people who collect technicalities\nupon them as the Reduvius bug collects dirt. He was the sort of man who\nis not only ignorant, but absolutely incapable of English. When he\nwanted to say he had a sixpenny-ha'penny longcloth to sell, he put it\nthus to startled customers: \"Can DO you one, six half if y' like.\" He\nalways omitted pronouns and articles and so forth; it seemed to him the\nvery essence of the efficiently businesslike. His only preposition was\n\"as\" or the compound \"as per.\" He abbreviated every word he could; he\nwould have considered himself the laughing-stock of Wood Street if he\nhad chanced to spell _socks_ in any way but \"sox.\" But, on the other\nhand, if he saved words here, he wasted them there: he never\nacknowledged an order that was not an esteemed favour, nor sent a\npattern without begging to submit it. He never stipulated for so many\nmonths' credit, but bought in November \"as Jan.\" It was not only words\nhe abbreviated in his London communications. In paying his wholesalers\nhis \"System\" admitted of a constant error in the discount of a penny or\ntwopence, and it \"facilitated business,\" he alleged, to ignore odd pence\nin the cheques he wrote. His ledger clerk was so struck with the beauty\nof this part of the System, that he started a private one on his own\naccount with the stamp box, that never came to Shalford's knowledge.\n\nThis admirable British merchant would glow with a particular pride of\nintellect when writing his London orders.\n\n\"Ah! do y'r think _you_'ll ever be able to write London orders?\" he\nwould say with honest pride to Kipps, waiting impatiently long after\nclosing time to take these triumphs of commercial efficiency to post,\nand so end the interminable day.\n\nKipps shook his head, anxious for Mr. Shalford to get on.\n\n\"Now, here, f' example, I've written--see?--'1 piece 1 in. cott. blk,\nelas. 1/ or.' What do I mean by that _or_, eh?--d'ye know?\"\n\nKipps promptly hadn't the faintest idea.\n\n\"And then, '2 ea. silk net as per patts herewith': _ea._, eh?\"\n\n\"Dunno, sir.\"\n\nIt was not Mr. Shalford's way to explain things. \"Dear, dear! Pity you\ncouldn't get some c'mercial education at your school. 'Stid of all this\nlit'ry stuff. Well, my boy, if y' don't 'ussel a bit y'll never write\nLondon orders, _that's_ pretty plain. Jest stick stamps on all those\nletters, and mind y'r stick 'em right way up, and try and profit a\nlittle more by the opportunities your aunt and uncle have provided ye.\nCan't say _what_'ll happen t'ye if ye don't.\"\n\nAnd Kipps, tired, hungry, and belated, set about stamping with vigour\nand despatch.\n\n\"Lick the _envelope_,\" said Mr. Shalford, \"lick the _envelope_,\" as\nthough he grudged the youngster the postage-stamp gum. \"It's the little\nthings mount up,\" he would say; and, indeed, that was his philosophy of\nlife--to bustle and save, always to bustle and save. His political creed\nlinked Reform, which meant nothing, with Efficiency which meant a\nsweated service, and Economy which meant a sweated expenditure, and his\nconception of a satisfactory municipal life was to \"keep down the\nrates.\" Even his religion was to save his soul, and to preach a similar\ncheese-paring to the world.\n\n\n§2\n\nThe indentures that bound Kipps to Mr. Shalford were antique and\ncomplex: they insisted on the latter gentleman's parental privileges;\nthey forbade Kipps to dice and game; they made him over body and soul\nto Mr. Shalford for seven long years, the crucial years of his life. In\nreturn there were vague stipulations about teaching the whole art and\nmystery of the trade to him; but as there was no penalty attached to\nnegligence, Mr. Shalford, being a sound, practical business man,\nconsidered this a mere rhetorical flourish, and set himself assiduously\nto get as much out of Kipps and to put as little into him as he could in\nthe seven years of their intercourse.\n\nWhat he put into Kipps was chiefly bread and margarine, infusions of\nchicory and tea-dust, colonial meat by contract at threepence a pound,\npotatoes by the sack, and watered beer. If, however, Kipps chose to buy\nany supplementary material for growth, Mr. Shalford had the generosity\nto place his kitchen resources at his disposal free--if the fire chanced\nto be going. He was also allowed to share a bedroom with eight other\nyoung Englishmen, and to sleep in a bed which, except in very severe\nweather, could be made with the help of his overcoat and private\nunderlinen, not to mention newspapers, quite sufficiently warm for any\nreasonable soul. In addition Kipps was taught the list of fines; and how\nto tie up parcels; to know where goods were kept in Mr. Shalford's\nsystematised shop; to hold his hands extended upon the counter and to\nrepeat such phrases as \"What can I have the pleasure...?\" \"No trouble, I\n'ssure you,\" and the like; to block, fold, and measure materials of all\nsorts; to lift his hat from his head when he passed Mr. Shalford abroad,\nand to practise a servile obedience to a large number of people. But he\nwas not, of course, taught the \"cost\" mark of the goods he sold, nor\nanything of the method of buying such goods. Nor was his attention\ndirected to the unfamiliar social habits and fashions to which his trade\nministered. The use of half the goods he saw sold and was presently to\nassist in selling he did not understand; materials for hangings,\ncretonnes, chintzes, and the like, serviettes and all the bright, hard\nwhite wear of a well-ordered house, pleasant dress materials, linings,\nstiffenings--they were to him from first to last no more than things\nheavy and difficult to handle in bulk, that one folded up, unfolded, cut\nin lengths, and saw dwindle and pass away out into that mysterious happy\nworld in which the customer dwells. Kipps hurried from piling linen\ntable-cloths, that were collectively as heavy as lead, to eat off\noil-cloth in a gas-lit dining-room underground; and he dreamt of combing\nendless blankets beneath his overcoat, spare undershirt, and three\nnewspapers. So he had at least the chance of learning the beginnings of\nphilosophy.\n\nIn return for these benefits he worked so that he commonly went to bed\nexhausted and footsore. His round began at half-past six in the morning,\nwhen he would descend unwashed and shirtless, in old clothes and a\nscarf, and dust boxes and yawn, and take down wrappers and clean the\nwindows until eight. Then in half an hour he would complete his toilet\nand take an austere breakfast of bread and margarine and what only an\nImperial Englishman would admit to be coffee, after which refreshment\nhe ascended to the shop for the labours of the day. Commonly these began\nwith a mighty running to and fro with planks and boxes and goods for\nCarshot, the window-dresser, who, whether he worked well or ill, nagged\npersistently by reason of a chronic indigestion, until the window was\ndone. Sometimes the costume window had to be dressed, and then Kipps\nstaggered down the whole length of the shop from the costume room with\none after another of those ladylike shapes grasped firmly, but\nshamefully, each about her single ankle of wood. Such days as there was\nno window-dressing, there was a mighty carrying and lifting of blocks\nand bales of goods into piles and stacks. After this there were terrible\nexercises, at first almost despairfully difficult: certain sorts of\ngoods that came in folded had to be rolled upon rollers, and for the\nmost part refused absolutely to be rolled, at any rate by Kipps; and\ncertain other sorts of goods that came from the wholesalers rolled had\nto be measured and folded, which folding makes young apprentices wish\nthey were dead. All of it, too, quite avoidable trouble, you know, that\nis not avoided because of the cheapness of the genteeler sorts of labour\nand the dearness of forethought in the world. And then consignments of\nnew goods had to be marked off and packed into proper parcels; and\nCarshot packed like conjuring tricks, and Kipps packed like a boy with\ntastes in some other direction--not ascertained. And always Carshot\nnagged.\n\nHe had a curious formula of appeal to his visceral oeconomy, had\nCarshot, that the refinement of the times and the earnest entreaties of\nmy friends induce me to render by an anæmic paraphrase.\n\n\"My heart and lungs! I never see such a boy,\" so I present Carshot's\nrefrain; and even when he was within a foot or so of the customer's face\nthe disciplined ear of Kipps would still at times develop a featureless,\nintercalary murmur into--well, \"my heart and lungs!\"\n\nThere came a blessed interval when Kipps was sent abroad \"matching.\"\nThis consisted chiefly in supplying unexpected defects in buttons,\nribbon, lining, and so forth in the dressmaking department. He was given\na written paper of orders with patterns pinned thereto, and discharged\ninto the sunshine and interest of the street. Then, until he thought it\nwise to return and stand the racket of his delay, he was a free man,\nclear of all reproach.\n\nHe made remarkable discoveries in topography, as for example that the\nmost convenient way from the establishment of Mr. Adolphus Davis to the\nestablishment of Messrs. Plummer, Roddis & Tyrrel, two of his principal\nplaces of call, is not as is generally supposed down the Sandgate Road,\nbut up the Sandgate Road, round by West Terrace, and along the Leas to\nthe lift, watch the lift up and down _twice_, but not longer, because\nthat wouldn't do, back along the Leas, watch the Harbour for a short\ntime, and then round by the churchyard, and so (hurrying) into Church\nStreet and Rendezvous Street. But on some exceptionally fine days the\nroute lay through Radnor Park to the pond where the little boys sail\nships and there are interesting swans.\n\nHe would return to find the shop settling down to the business of\nserving customers. And now he had to stand by to furnish any help that\nwas necessary to the seniors who served, to carry parcels and bills\nabout the shop, to clear away \"stuff\" after each engagement, to hold up\ncurtains until his arms ached, and what was more difficult than all, to\ndo nothing, and not stare disconcertingly at customers when there was\nnothing for him to do. He plumbed an abyss of boredom, or stood a mere\ncarcass, with his mind far away, fighting the enemies of the Empire, or\nsteering a dream ship perilously into unknown seas. To be recalled\nsharply to our higher civilisation by some bustling senior's \"Nar then,\nKipps. _Look_ alive! Ketch 'old. (My heart and lungs!)\"\n\nAt half-past seven o'clock--except on late nights--a feverish activity\nof \"straightening up\" began, and when the last shutter was up outside,\nKipps with the speed of an arrow leaving a bow would start hanging\nwrappers over the fixtures and over the piles of wares upon the\ncounters, preparatory to a vigorous scattering of wet sawdust and the\nsweeping out of the shop.\n\nSometimes people would stay long after the shop was closed--\"They don't\nmind a bit at Shalford's,\" these ladies used to say--it is always ladies\ndo this sort of thing--and while they loitered it was forbidden to\ntouch a wrapper, or take any measures to conclude the day until the\ndoors closed behind them.\n\nMr. Kipps would watch these later customers from the shadow of a stack\nof goods, and death and disfigurement was the least he wished for them.\nRarely much later than nine, a supper of bread and cheese and watered\nbeer awaited him upstairs, and, that consumed, the rest of the day was\nentirely at his disposal for reading, recreation, and the improvement of\nhis mind....\n\nThe front door was locked at half-past ten, and the gas in the dormitory\nextinguished at eleven.\n\n\n§3\n\nOn Sundays he was obliged to go to church once, and commonly he went\ntwice, for there was nothing else to do. He sat in the free seats at the\nback; he was too shy to sing, and not always clever enough to keep his\nplace in the prayer-book, and he rarely listened to the sermon. But he\nhad developed a sort of idea that going to church had a tendency to\nalleviate life. His aunt wanted to have him confirmed, but he evaded\nthis ceremony for some years.\n\nIn the intervals between services he walked about Folkestone with an air\nof looking for something. Folkestone was not so interesting on Sundays\nas on week-days, because the shops were shut; but on the other hand\nthere was a sort of confusing brilliance along the front of the Leas in\nthe afternoon. Sometimes the apprentice next above him would condescend\nto go with him; but when the apprentice next but one above him\ncondescended to go with the apprentice next above him, then Kipps, being\nhabited as yet in ready-made clothes without tails, and unsuitable\ntherefore to appear in such company, went alone.\n\nSometimes he would strike out into the country--still as if looking for\nsomething he missed--but the rope of meal-times haled him home again;\nand sometimes he would invest the major portion of the weekly allowance\nof a shilling that old Booch handed out to him, in a sacred concert on\nthe pier. He would sometimes walk up and down the Leas between twenty\nand thirty times after supper, desiring much the courage to speak to\nsome other person in the multitude similarly employed. Almost invariably\nhe ended his Sunday footsore.\n\nHe never read a book; there were none for him to read, and besides, in\nspite of Mr. Woodrow's guidance through a cheap and cheaply annotated\nedition of the _Tempest_ (English Literature) he had no taste that way;\nhe never read any newspapers, except occasionally _Tit-Bits_ or a\nha'penny \"comic.\" His chief intellectual stimulus was an occasional\nargey-bargey that sprang up between Carshot and Buggins at dinner. Kipps\nlistened as if to unparalleled wisdom and wit, and treasured all the\ngems of repartee in his heart against the time when he, too, should be a\nBuggins and have the chance and courage for speech.\n\nAt times there came breaks in this routine--sale times, darkened by\nextra toil and work past midnight, but brightened by a sprat supper and\nsome shillings in the way of 'premiums.' And every year--not now and\nthen, but every year--Mr. Shalford, with parenthetic admiration of his\nown generosity and glancing comparisons with the austerer days when _he_\nwas apprenticed, conceded Kipps no less than ten days' holiday--ten\nwhole days every year! Many a poor soul at Portland might well envy the\nfortunate Kipps. Insatiable heart of man! but how those days were\ngrudged and counted as they snatched themselves away from him one after\nanother!\n\nOnce a year came stock-taking, and at intervals gusts of \"marking off\"\ngoods newly arrived. Then the splendours of Mr. Shalford's being shone\nwith oppressive brilliancy. \"System!\" he would say, \"system. Come!\n'ussel!\" and issue sharp, confusing, contradictory orders very quickly.\nCarshot trotted about, confused, perspiring, his big nose up in the air,\nhis little eye on Mr. Shalford, his forehead crinkled, his lips always\ngoing to the formula \"Oh, my heart and lungs!\" The smart junior and the\nsecond apprentice vied with one another in obsequious alacrity. The\nsmart junior aspired to Carshot's position, and that made him almost\nviolently subservient to Shalford. They all snapped at Kipps. Kipps held\nthe blotting-pad and the safety inkpot and a box of tickets, and ran and\nfetched things. If he put the ink down before he went to fetch things\nMr. Shalford usually knocked it over, and if he took it away Mr.\nShalford wanted it before he returned. \"You make my tooth ache, Kipps,\"\nMr. Shalford would say. \"You gimme n'ralgia. You got no more System in\nyou than a bad potato.\" And at the times when Kipps carried off the\ninkpot Mr. Shalford would become purple in the face and jab round with\nhis dry pen at imaginary inkpots and swear, and Carshot would stand and\nvociferate, and the smart junior would run to the corner of the\ndepartment and vociferate, and the second apprentice would pursue Kipps,\nvociferating, \"Look Alive, Kipps! Look Alive! Ink, Man! Ink!\"\n\nA vague self-disgust, that shaped itself as an intense hate of Shalford\nand all his fellow-creatures, filled the soul of Kipps during these\nperiods of storm and stress. He felt that the whole business was unjust\nand idiotic, but the why and the wherefore was too much for his\nunfortunate brain. His mind was a welter. One desire, the desire to\ndodge some at least of a pelting storm of disagreeable comment, guided\nhim through a fumbling performance of his duties. His disgust was\ninfinite! It was not decreased by the inflamed ankles and sore feet that\nform a normal incident in the business of making an English draper; and\nthe senior apprentice, Minton, a gaunt, sullen-faced youngster with\nclose-cropped, wiry, black hair, a loose, ugly mouth, and a moustache\nlike a smudge of ink, directed his attention to deeper aspects of the\nquestion and sealed his misery.\n\n\"When you get too old to work they chuck you away,\" said Minton. \"Lor!\nyou find old drapers everywhere--tramps, beggars, dock labourers, 'bus\nconductors--Quod. Anywhere but in a crib.\"\n\n\"Don't they get shops of their own?\"\n\n\"Lord! '_Ow_ are they to get shops of their own? They 'aven't any\ncapital! How's a draper's shopman to save up five hundred pounds even? I\ntell you it can't be done. You got to stick to cribs until it's over. I\ntell you we're in a blessed drainpipe, and we've got to crawl along it\ntill we die.\"\n\nThe idea that fermented perpetually in the mind of Minton was to \"hit\nthe little beggar slap in the eye\"--the little beggar being Mr.\nShalford--\"and see how his blessed System met that.\"\n\nThe threat filled Kipps with splendid anticipations whenever Shalford\nwent marking off in Minton's department. He would look at Minton and\nlook at Shalford, and decide where he would best like Shalford hit....\nBut for reasons known to himself Shalford never pished and tushed with\nMinton, as he did at the harmless Carshot, and this interesting\nexperiment upon the System was never attempted.\n\n\n§4\n\nThere were times when Kipps would lie awake, all others in the dormitory\nasleep and snoring, and think dismally of the outlook Minton pictured.\nDimly he perceived the thing that had happened to him--how the great,\nstupid machine of retail trade had caught his life into its wheels, a\nvast, irresistible force which he had neither strength of will nor\nknowledge to escape. This was to be his life until his days should end.\nNo adventures, no glory, no change, no freedom. Neither--though the\nforce of that came home to him later--might he dream of effectual love\nand marriage. And there was a terrible something called the \"swap,\" or\n\"the key of the street,\" and \"crib hunting,\" of which the talk was\nscanty but sufficient. Night after night he would resolve to enlist, to\nrun away to sea, to set fire to the warehouse, or drown himself; and\nmorning after morning he rose up and hurried downstairs in fear of a\nsixpenny fine. He would compare his dismal round of servile drudgery\nwith those windy, sunlit days at Littlestone, those windows of happiness\nshining ever brighter as they receded. The little figure of Ann seemed\nin all these windows now.\n\nShe, too, had happened on evil things. When Kipps went home for the\nfirst Christmas after he was bound, that great suspended resolve of his\nto kiss her flared up to hot determination, and he hurried out and\nwhistled in the yard. There was a still silence, and then old Kipps\nappeared behind him.\n\n\"It's no good your whistling there, my boy,\" said Old Kipps in a loud,\nclear tone, designed to be audible over the wall. \"They've cleared out\nall you 'ad any truck with. _She's_ gone as help to Ashford, my boy.\n_Help!_ Slavey is what we used to call 'em, but times are changed.\nWonder they didn't say lady-'elp while they was about it. It 'ud be like\n'em.\"\n\nAnd Sid? Sid had gone, too. \"Arrand boy or somethink,\" said Old Kipps.\n\"To one of these here brasted cicycle shops.\"\n\n\"_Has_ 'e!\" said Kipps, with a feeling that he had been gripped about\nthe chest, and he turned quickly and went indoors.\n\nOld Kipps, still supposing him present, went on to further observations\nof an anti-Pornick hue....\n\nWhen Kipps got upstairs safe in his own bedroom, he sat down on the bed\nand stared at nothing. They were caught--they were all caught. All life\ntook on the hue of one perpetual, dismal Monday morning. The Hurons were\nscattered, the wrecks and the beach had passed away from him, the sun of\nthose warm evenings at Littlestone had set for evermore....\n\nThe only pleasure left for the brief remainder of his holiday after that\nwas to think he was not in the shop. Even that was transient. Two more\ndays--one more day--half a day. When he went back there were one or two\nvery dismal nights indeed. He went so far as to write home some vague\nintimation of his feelings about business and his prospects, quoting\nMinton. But Mrs. Kipps answered him, \"Did he want the Pornicks to say he\nwasn't good enough to be a draper?\" This dreadful possibility was of\ncourse conclusive in the matter. \"No,\" he resolved they should not say\nhe failed at that.\n\nHe derived much help from a \"manly\" sermon delivered in an enormous\nvoice by a large, fat, sun-red clergyman, just home from a colonial\nbishopric he had resigned on the plea of ill-health, exhorting him that\nwhatever his hand found to do, he was to do with all his might; and the\nrevision of his Catechism preparatory to his confirmation reminded him\nthat it behooved him \"to do his duty in that state of life unto which it\nshall please God to call him....\"\n\nAfter a time the sorrows of Kipps grew less acute, and save for a\nmiracle the brief tragedy of his life was over. He subdued himself to\nhis position even as his Church required of him, seeing moreover no way\nout of it.\n\nThe earliest mitigation of his lot was that his soles and ankles became\nindurated to the perpetual standing. The next was an unexpected weekly\nwhiff of freedom that came every Thursday. Mr. Shalford, after a brave\nstand for what he called \"Innyvishal lib'ty\" and the \"Idea of my\nSystem,\" a stand which he explained he made chiefly on patriotic\ngrounds, was at last, under pressure of certain of his customers,\ncompelled to fall in line with the rest of the local Early Closing\nAssociation, and Mr. Kipps could emerge in daylight and go where he\nlisted for long, long hours. Moreover Minton, the pessimist, reached the\nend of his appointed time and left--to enlist in a cavalry regiment and\ngo about this planet leading an insubordinate but interesting life, that\nended at last in an intimate, vivid and really you know by no means\npainful or tragic night grapple in the Terah Valley. In a little while\nKipps cleaned windows no longer; he was serving customers (of the less\nimportant sort) and taking goods out on approval; and presently he was\nthird apprentice, and his moustache was visible, and there were three\napprentices whom he might legally snub and cuff. But one was (most\ndishonestly) too big to cuff in spite of his greener years.\n\n\n§5\n\nThere came still other distractions, the natural distractions of\nadolescence, to take his mind off the inevitable. His costume, for\nexample, began to interest him more; he began to realise himself as a\nvisible object, to find an interest in the costume-room mirrors and the\neyes of the girl apprentices.\n\nIn this he was helped by counsel and example. Pierce, his immediate\nsenior, was by way of being what was called a Masher, and preached his\ncult. During slack times grave discussions about collars, ties, the cut\nof trouser legs, and the proper shape of a boot-toe, were held in the\nManchester department. In due course Kipps went to a tailor, and his\nshort jacket was replaced by a morning coat with tails. Stirred by this,\nhe purchased at his own expense three stand-up collars to replace his\nformer turn-down ones. They were nearly three inches high, higher than\nthose Pierce wore, and they made his neck quite sore and left a red mark\nunder his ears.... So equipped, he found himself fit company even for\nthis fashionable apprentice, who had now succeeded Minton in his\nseniority.\n\nMost potent help of all in the business of forgetting his cosmic\ndisaster was this, that so soon as he was in tail coats the young ladies\nof the establishment began to discover that he was no longer a \"horrid\nlittle boy.\" Hitherto they had tossed heads at him and kept him in his\nplace. Now they discovered that he was a \"nice boy,\" which is next door\nat least to being a \"feller,\" and in some ways even preferable. It is\npainful to record that his fidelity to Ann failed at their first onset.\nI am fully sensible how entirely better this story would be from a\nsentimental point of view if he had remained true to that early love.\nOnly then it would have been a different story altogether. And at least\nKipps was thus far true, that with none of these later loves was there\nany of that particular quality that linked Ann's flushed face and warmth\nand the inner things of life so inseparably together. Though they were\nnot without emotions of various sorts.\n\nIt was one of the young ladies in the costume-room who first showed by\nher manner that he was a visible object and capable of exciting\ninterest. She talked to him, she encouraged him to talk to her, she lent\nhim a book she possessed, and darned a sock for him, and said she would\nbe his elder sister. She allowed him to escort her to church with a\ngreat air of having induced him to go. Then she investigated his eternal\nwelfare, overcame a certain affectation of virile indifference to\nreligion, and extorted a promise that he would undergo \"confirmation.\"\nThis excited the other young lady in the costumes, her natural rival,\nand she set herself with great charm and subtlety to the capture of the\nripening heart of Kipps. She took a more worldly line. She went for a\nwalk with him to the pier on Sunday afternoon, and explained to him how\na gentleman must always walk \"outside\" a lady on a pavement, and how all\ngentlemen wore, or at least carried gloves, and generally the broad\nbeginnings of the British social ideal. Afterwards the ladies exchanged\n\"words,\" upon Sabbatical grounds. In this way was the _toga virilis_\nbestowed on Kipps, and he became recognised as a suitable object for\nthat Platonic Eros whose blunted darts devastate even the very\nhighest-class establishments. In this way, too, did that pervading\nambition of the British young man to be, if not a \"gentleman,\" at least\nmistakably like one, take root in his heart.\n\nHe took to these new interests with quite natural and personal zest. He\nbecame initiated into the mysteries of \"flirting,\" and--at a slightly\nlater stage, and with some leading hints from Pierce, who was of a\ncommunicative disposition in these matters--of the milder forms of\n\"spooning.\" Very soon he was engaged. Before two years were out he had\nbeen engaged six times, and was beginning to be rather a desperate\nfellow, so far as he could make out. Desperate, but quite gentlemanly,\nbe it understood, and without let or hindrance to the fact that he was,\nin four brief lessons, \"prepared\" by a distant-mannered and gloomy young\ncurate, and \"confirmed\" a member of the Established Church.\n\nThe engagements in drapery establishments do not necessarily involve a\nsubsequent marriage. They are essentially more refined, less coarsely\npractical, and altogether less binding than the engagements of the\nvulgar rich. These young ladies do not like not to be engaged--it is so\nunnatural; and Mr. Kipps was as easy to get engaged to as one could\nwish. There are, from the young lady's point of view, many conveniences\nin being engaged. You get an escort for church and walks and so forth.\nIt is not quite the thing to walk abroad with a \"feller,\" much more to\n\"spoon\" with him, when he is neither one's _fiancé_ nor an adopted\nbrother; it is considered either a little _fast_, or else as savouring\nof the \"walking-out\" habits of the servant girls. Now, such is the\nsweetness of human charity, that the shop young lady in England has just\nthe same horror of doing anything that savours of the servant girl as\nthe lady journalist, let us say, has of anything savouring of the shop\ngirl, or the really quite nice young lady has of anything savouring of\nany sort of girl who has gone down into the economic battlefield to earn\nherself a living.... But the very deepest of these affairs was still\namong the shallow places of love; at best it was paddling where it is\ndecreed that men must sink or swim. Of the deep and dangerous places,\nand of the huge buoyant lift of its waves, he tasted nothing. Affairs of\nclothes and vanities they were, jealousies about a thing said,\nflatteries and mutual boastings, climaxes in the answering grasp of\nhands, the temerarious use of Christian names, culminations in a walk,\nor a near confidence, or a little pressure more or less. Close-sitting\non a seat after twilight, with some little fondling, was indeed the\nboldest of a lover's adventures, the utmost limit of his enterprises in\nthe service of that stark Great Lady, who is daughter of Uranus and the\nsea. The \"young ladies\" who reigned in his heart came and went like\npeople in an omnibus: there was the vehicle, so to speak, upon the road,\nand they entered and left it without any cataclysm of emotion. For all\nthat, this development of the sex interest was continuously very\ninteresting to Kipps, and kept him going as much as anything through all\nthese servile years.\n\n\n§6\n\nFor a tailpiece to this chapter one may vignette one of those little\naffairs.\n\nIt is a bright Sunday afternoon; the scene is a secluded little seat\nhalf-way down the front of the Leas, and Kipps is four years older than\nwhen he parted from Ann. There is a quite perceptible down upon his\nupper lip, and his costume is just as tremendous a \"mash\" as lies within\nhis means. His collar is so high that it scars his inaggressive jawbone,\nand his hat has a curly brim, his tie shows taste, his trousers are\nmodestly brilliant, and his boots have light cloth uppers and button at\nthe side. He jabs at the gravel before him with a cheap cane, and\nglances sideways at Flo Bates, the young lady from the cash desk. She\nis wearing a brilliant blouse and a gaily trimmed hat. There is an air\nof fashion about her that might disappear under the analysis of a woman\nof the world, but which is quite sufficient to make Kipps very proud to\nbe distinguished as her particular \"feller,\" and to be allowed at\ntemperate intervals to use her Christian name.\n\nThe conversation is light and gay in the modern style, and Flo keeps on\nsmiling, good temper being her special charm.\n\n\"Ye see, you don' mean what _I_ mean,\" he is saying.\n\n\"Well, what do _you_ mean?\"\n\n\"Not what you mean!\"\n\n\"Well, tell me.\"\n\n\"_Ah!_ That's another story.\"\n\nPause. They look meaningly at one another.\n\n\"You _are_ a one for being roundabout,\" says the lady.\n\n\"Well, you're not so plain, you know.\"\n\n\"Not plain?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"You don't mean to say I'm roundabout?\"\n\n\"No. I mean to say ... though----\"\n\nPause.\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"You're not a bit plain--you're\" (his voice jumps up to a squeak)\n\"pretty. See?\"\n\n\"Oh, get _out_!\" her voice lifts also--with pleasure.\n\nShe strikes at him with her glove, then glances suddenly at a ring upon\nher finger. Her smile disappears momentarily. Another pause. Eyes meet\nand the smile returns.\n\n\"I wish I knew----\" says Kipps.\n\n\"Knew----?\"\n\n\"Where you got that ring.\"\n\nShe lifts the hand with the ring until her eyes just show (very\nprettily) over it. \"You'd just _like_ to know,\" she says slowly, and\nsmiles still more brightly with the sense of successful effect.\n\n\"I dessay I could guess.\"\n\n\"I dessay you couldn't.\"\n\n\"Couldn't I?\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"Guess it in three.\"\n\n\"Not the name.\"\n\n\"Ah!\"\n\n\"_Ah!_\"\n\n\"Well, anyhow lemme look at it.\"\n\nHe looks at it. Pause. Giggles, slight struggle, and a slap on Kipps'\ncoatsleeve. A passerby appears down the path, and she hastily withdraws\nher hand.\n\nShe glances at the face of the approaching man. They maintain a bashful\nsilence until he has passed.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTHE WOOD-CARVING CLASS\n\n\n§1\n\nThough these services to Venus Epipontia, the seaside Venus, and these\nstudies in the art of dress, did much to distract his thoughts and\nmitigate his earlier miseries, it would be mere optimism to present\nKipps as altogether happy. A vague dissatisfaction with life drifted\nabout him and every now and again enveloped him like a sea fog. During\nthese periods it was greyly evident that there was something, something\nvital in life, lacking. For no earthly reason that Kipps could discover,\nhe was haunted by a suspicion that life was going wrong or had already\ngone wrong in some irrevocable way. The ripening self-consciousness of\nadolescence developed this into a clearly felt insufficiency. It was all\nvery well to carry gloves, open doors, never say \"Miss\" to a girl, and\nwalk \"outside,\" but were there not other things, conceivably even deeper\nthings, before the complete thing was attained? For example, certain\nmatters of knowledge. He perceived great bogs of ignorance about him,\nfumbling traps, where other people, it was alleged, _real_ gentlemen and\nladies, for example, and the clergy, had knowledge and assurance, bogs\nwhich it was sometimes difficult to elude. A girl arrived in the\nmillinery department who could, she said, _speak_ French and German. She\nsnubbed certain advances, and a realisation of inferiority blistered\nKipps. But he tried to pass the thing off as a joke by saying,\n\"Parlez-vous Francey,\" whenever he met her, and inducing the junior\napprentice to say the same.\n\nHe even made some dim half-secret experiments towards remedying the\ndeficiencies he suspected. He spent five shillings on five serial\nnumbers of a Home Educator, and bought (and even thought of reading) a\nShakespeare and a Bacon's \"Advancement of Learning\" and the poems of\nHerrick from a chap who was hard up. He battled with Shakespeare all one\nSunday afternoon, and found the \"English Literature\" with which Mr.\nWoodrow had equipped him had vanished down some crack in his mind. He\nhad no doubt it was very splendid stuff, but he couldn't quite make out\nwhat it was all about. There was an occult meaning, he knew, in\nliterature, and he had forgotten it. Moreover, he discovered one day,\nwhile taunting the junior apprentice with ignorance, that his \"rivers of\nEngland\" had also slipped his memory, and he laboriously restored that\nfabric of rote learning: \"Ty Wear Tees 'Umber....\"\n\nI suppose some such phase of discontent is a normal thing in every\nadolescence. The ripening mind seeks something upon which its will may\ncrystallise, upon which its discursive emotions, growing more abundant\nwith each year of life, may concentrate. For many, though not for all,\nit takes a religious direction, but in those particular years the mental\natmosphere of Folkestone was exceptionally free from any revivalistic\ndisturbance that might have reached Kipps' mental being. Sometimes they\nfall in love. I have known this uneasiness end in different cases in a\nvow to read one book (not a novel) every week, to read the Bible through\nin a year, to pass in the Honours division of the London Matriculation\nexamination, to become an accomplished chemist, and never more to tell a\nlie. It led Kipps finally into Technical Education as we understand it\nin the south of England.\n\nIt was in the last year of his apprenticeship that he had pursued his\nresearches after that missing qualification into the Folkestone Young\nMen's Association, where Mr. Chester Coote prevailed. Mr. Chester Coote\nwas a young man of semi-independent means who inherited a share in a\nhouse agency, read Mrs. Humphry Ward, and took an interest in social\nwork. He was a whitish-faced young man with a prominent nose, pale blue\neyes, and a quivering quality in his voice. He was very active upon\ncommittees; he was very prominent and useful on all social occasions, in\nevidence upon platforms and upon all those semi-public occasions when\nthe Great descend. He lived with an only sister. To Kipps and his kind\nin the Young Men's Association he read a stimulating paper on\n\"Self-Help.\" He said it was the noblest of all our distinctive English\ncharacteristics, and he was very much down upon the \"over-educated\"\nGermans. At the close a young German hairdresser made a few commendatory\nremarks which developed somehow into an oration on Hanoverian politics.\nAs he became excited he became guttural and obscure; the meeting\nsniggered cheerfully at such ridiculous English, and Kipps was so much\namused that he forgot a private project to ask this Chester Coote how he\nmight set about a little self-help on his own private account in such\nnarrow margins of time as the System of Mr. Shalford spared him. But\nafterwards in the night-time it came to him again.\n\nIt was a few months later, and after his apprenticeship was over and Mr.\nShalford had with depreciatory observations taken him on as an improver\nat twenty pounds a year, that this question was revived by a casual\narticle on Technical Education in a morning paper that a commercial\ntraveller had left behind him. It played the _rôle_ of the word in\nseason. Something in the nature of conversion, a faint sort of\nconcentration of purpose, really occurred in him then. The article was\nwritten with penetrating vehemence, and it stimulated him to the pitch\nof inquiring about the local Science and Art Classes, and after he had\ntold everybody in the shop about it and taken the advice of all who\nsupported his desperate resolution, he joined. At first he attended the\nclass in Freehand, that being the subject taught on early closing night;\nand he had already made some progress in that extraordinary routine of\nreproducing freehand \"copies\" which for two generations had passed with\nEnglish people for instruction in art, when the dates of the classes\nwere changed. Thereby just as the March winds were blowing he was\nprecipitated into the wood-carving class, and his mind diverted first to\nthis useful and broadening pursuit, and then to its teacher.\n\n\n§2\n\nThe class in wood-carving was an extremely select class, conducted at\nthat time by a young lady named Walshingham, and as this young lady was\ndestined by fortune to teach Kipps a great deal more than wood carving,\nit will be well if the reader gets the picture of her correctly in mind.\nShe was only a year or so older than he was; she had a pale,\nintellectual face, dark grey eyes, and black hair, which she wore over\nher forehead in an original and striking way that she had adopted from a\npicture by Rossetti in the South Kensington Museum. She was slender, so\nthat without ungainliness she had an effect of being tall, and her hands\nwere shapely and white when they came into contrast with hands much\nexercised in rolling and blocking. She dressed in those loose and\npleasant forms and those soft and tempered shades that arose in England\nin the socialistic-æsthetic epoch and remain to this day among us as the\nbadge of those who read Turgenev's novels, scorn current fiction, and\nthink on higher planes. I think she was as beautiful as most beautiful\npeople, and to Kipps she was altogether beautiful. She had, Kipps\nlearnt, matriculated at London University, an astounding feat to his\nimagination; and the masterly way in which she demonstrated how to prod\nand worry honest pieces of wood into useless and unedifying patterns in\nrelief extorted his utmost admiration.\n\nAt first, when Kipps had learnt he was to be taught by a \"girl,\" he was\ninclined to resent it, the more so as Buggins had recently been very\nstrong on the gross injustice of feminine employment.\n\n\"We have to keep wives,\" said Buggins (though as a matter of fact he did\nnot keep even one), \"and how are we to do it with a lot of girls coming\nin to take the work out of our mouths?\"\n\nAfterwards Kipps, in conjunction with Pierce, looked at it from another\npoint of view, and thought it would be rather a \"lark.\" Finally, when he\nsaw her, and saw her teaching, and coming nearer to him with an\nimpressive deliberation, he was breathless with awe and the quality of\nher dark, slender femininity.\n\nThe class consisted of two girls and a maiden lady of riper years,\nfriends of Miss Walshingham's, and anxious rather to support her in an\ninteresting experiment than to become really expert wood-carvers; an\noldish young man with spectacles and a black beard, who never spoke to\nany one, and who was evidently too short-sighted to see his work as a\nwhole; a small boy who was understood to have a \"gift\" for wood-carving;\nand a lodging-house keeper who \"took classes\" every winter, she told\nMr. Kipps, as though they were a tonic, and \"found they did her good.\"\nAnd occasionally Mr. Chester Coote--refined and gentlemanly--would come\ninto the class, with or without papers, ostensibly on committee\nbusiness, but in reality to talk to the less attractive one of the two\ngirl students; and sometimes a brother of Miss Walshingham's, a slender,\ndark young man with a pale face, and fluctuating resemblances to the\nyoung Napoleon, would arrive just at the end of the class-time to see\nhis sister home.\n\nAll these personages impressed Kipps with a sense of inferiority that in\nthe case of Miss Walshingham became positively abysmal. The ideas and\nknowledge they appeared to have, their personal capacity and freedom,\nopened a new world to his imagination. These people came and went, with\na sense of absolute assurance, against an overwhelming background of\nplaster casts, diagrams and tables, benches and a blackboard--a\nbackground that seemed to him to be saturated with recondite knowledge\nand the occult and jealously guarded tips and secrets that constitute\nArt and the Higher Life. They went home, he imagined, to homes where the\npiano was played with distinction and freedom, and books littered the\ntables, and foreign languages were habitually used. They had complicated\nmeals, no doubt--with serviettes. They \"knew etiquette,\" and how to\navoid all the errors for which Kipps bought penny manuals, \"What to\nAvoid,\" \"Common Errors in Speaking,\" and the like. He knew nothing\nabout it all--nothing whatever; he was a creature of the outer darkness\nblinking in an unsuspected light.\n\nHe heard them speak easily and freely to one another of examinations, of\nbooks and paintings, of \"last year's Academy\"--a little contemptuously;\nand once, just at the end of the class-time, Mr. Chester Coote and young\nWalshingham and the two girls argued about something or other called, he\nfancied, \"Vagner\" or \"Vargner\"--they seemed to say it both ways--and\nwhich presently shaped itself more definitely as the name of a man who\nmade up music. (Carshot and Buggins weren't in it with them.) Young\nWalshingham, it appeared, said something or other that was an \"epigram,\"\nand they all applauded him. Kipps, I say, felt himself a creature of\nouter darkness, an inexcusable intruder in an altitudinous world. When\nthe epigram happened, he first of all smiled, to pretend he understood,\nand instantly suppressed the smile to show he did not listen. Then he\nbecame extremely hot and uncomfortable, though nobody had noticed either\nphase.\n\nIt was clear his only chance of concealing his bottomless baseness was\nto hold his tongue, and meanwhile he chipped with earnest care, and\nabased his soul before the very shadow of Miss Walshingham. She used to\ncome and direct and advise him, with, he felt, an effort to conceal the\nscorn she had for him; and, indeed, it is true that at first she thought\nof him chiefly as the clumsy young man with the red ears.\n\nAnd as soon as he emerged from the first effect of pure and awestricken\nhumility--he was greatly helped to emerge from that condition to a\nperception of human equality by the need the lodging-house keeper was\nunder to talk while she worked, and as she didn't like Miss Walshingham\nand her friends very much, and the young man with spectacles was deaf,\nshe naturally talked to Kipps--he perceived that he was in a state of\nadoration for Miss Walshingham that it seemed almost a blasphemous\nfamiliarity to speak of us being in love.\n\nThis state, you must understand, had nothing to do with \"flirting\" or\n\"spooning\" and that superficial passion that flashes from eye to eye\nupon the leas and pier--absolutely nothing. That he knew from the first.\nHer rather pallid, intelligent young face, beneath those sombre clouds\nof hair, put her in a class apart; towards her the thought of\n\"attentions\" paled and vanished. To approach such a being, to perform\nsacrifices and to perish obviously for her, seemed the limit he might\naspire to, he or any man. For if his love was abasement, at any rate it\nhad this much of manliness, that it covered all his sex. It had not yet\ncome to Kipps to acknowledge any man as his better in his heart of\nhearts. When one does that the game is played and one grows old indeed.\n\nThe rest of his sentimental interests vanished altogether in this great\nillumination. He meditated about her when he was blocking cretonne; her\nimage was before his eyes at tea-time, and blotted out the more\nimmediate faces, and made him silent and preoccupied, and so careless in\nhis bearing that the junior apprentice, sitting beside him, mocked at\nand parodied his enormous bites of bread and butter unreproved. He\nbecame conspicuously less popular on the \"fancy\" side, the \"costumes\"\nwas chilly with him and the \"millinery\" cutting. But he did not care. An\nintermittent correspondent with Flo Bates, that had gone on since she\nleft Mr. Shalford's desk for a position at Tunbridge \"nearer home,\" and\nwhich had roused Kipps in its earlier stages to unparalleled heights of\nepistolatory effort, died out altogether by reason of his neglect. He\nheard with scarcely a pang that, as a consequence perhaps of his\nneglect, Flo was \"carrying on with a chap who managed a farm.\"\n\nEvery Thursday he jabbed and gouged at his wood, jabbing and gouging\nintersecting circles and diamond traceries, and that laboured inane\nwhich our mad world calls ornament, and he watched Miss Walshingham\nfurtively whenever she turned away. The circles in consequence were\njabbed crooked; and his panels, losing their symmetry, became\ncomparatively pleasing to the untrained eye--and once he jabbed his\nfinger. He would cheerfully have jabbed all his fingers if he could have\nfound some means of using the opening to express himself of the vague\nemotions that possessed him. But he shirked conversation just as\nearnestly as he desired it; he feared that profound general ignorance of\nhis might appear.\n\n\n§3\n\nThere came a time when she could not open one of the class-room windows.\nThe man with the black beard pored over his chipping heedlessly....\n\nIt did not take Kipps a moment to grasp his opportunity. He dropped his\ngouge and stepped forward. \"Lem _me_,\" he said....\n\nHe could not open the window either!\n\n\"Oh, please don't trouble,\" she said.\n\n\"'Sno trouble,\" he gasped.\n\nStill the sash stuck. He felt his manhood was at stake. He gathered\nhimself together for a tremendous effort, and the pane broke with a\nsnap, and he thrust his hand into the void beyond.\n\n\"_There!_\" said Miss Walshingham, and the glass fell ringing into the\ncourtyard below.\n\nThen Kipps made to bring his hand back, and felt the keen touch of the\nedge of the broken glass at his wrist. He turned dolefully. \"I'm\ntremendously sorry,\" he said in answer to the accusation in Miss\nWalshingham's eyes. \"I didn't think it would break like that,\"--as if he\nhad expected it to break in some quite different and entirely more\nsatisfactory manner. The boy with the gift of wood-carving having stared\nat Kipps' face for a moment, became involved in a Laocoon struggle with\na giggle.\n\n\"You've cut your wrist,\" said one of the girl friends, standing up and\npointing. She was a pleasant-faced, greatly freckled girl, with a\nhelpful disposition, and she said \"You've cut your wrist,\" as brightly\nas if she had been a trained nurse.\n\nKipps looked down, and saw a swift line of scarlet rush down his hand.\nHe perceived the other man student regarding this with magnified eyes.\n\"You _have_ cut your wrist,\" said Miss Walshingham, and Kipps regarded\nhis damage with greater interest.\n\n\"He's cut his wrist,\" said the maiden lady to the lodging-house keeper,\nand seemed in doubt what a lady should do. \"It's----\" she hesitated at\nthe word \"bleeding,\" and nodded to the lodging-house keeper instead.\n\n\"Dreadfully,\" said the maiden lady, and tried to look and tried not to\nlook at the same time.\n\n\"Of _course_ he's cut his wrist,\" said the lodging-house keeper,\nmomentarily quite annoyed at Kipps; and the other young lady, who\nthought Kipps rather common, went on quietly with her wood-cutting with\nan air of its being the proper thing to do--though nobody else seemed to\nknow it.\n\n\"You must tie it up,\" said Miss Walshingham.\n\n\"We must tie it up,\" said the freckled girl.\n\n\"I 'adn't the slightest idea that window was going to break like that,\"\nsaid Kipps, with candour. \"Nort the slightest.\"\n\nHe glanced again at the blood on his wrist, and it seemed to him that it\nwas on the very point of dropping on the floor of that cultured\nclass-room. So he very neatly licked it off, feeling at the same time\nfor his handkerchief. \"Oh, _don't!_\" said Miss Walshingham as he did\nso, and the girl with the freckles made a movement of horror. The giggle\ngot the better of the boy with the gift, and celebrated its triumph by\nunseemly noises; in spite of which it seemed to Kipps at the moment that\nthe act that had made Miss Walshingham say \"Oh, _don't!_\" was rather a\ndesperate and manly treatment of what was after all a creditable injury.\n\n\"It ought to be tied up,\" said the lodging-house keeper, holding her\nchisel upright in her hand. \"It's a bad cut to bleed like that.\"\n\n\"We must tie it up,\" said the freckled girl, and hesitated in front of\nKipps. \"Have you got a handkerchief?\" she said.\n\n\"I dunno 'ow I managed _not_ to bring one,\" said Kipps. \"I---- Not\n'aving a cold I suppose some'ow I didn't think----\"\n\nHe checked a further flow of blood.\n\nThe girl with the freckles caught Miss Walshingham's eye, and held it\nfor a moment. Both glanced at Kipps' injury. The boy with the gift, who\nhad reappeared with a chastened expression from some noisy pursuit\nbeneath his desk, made the neglected motions of one who proffers shyly.\nMiss Walshingham under the spell of the freckled girl's eye produced a\nhandkerchief. The voice of the maiden lady could be heard in the\nbackground. \"I've been through all the technical education ambulance\nclasses twice, and I know you go _so_ if it's a vein, and _so_ if it's\nan artery--at least you go _so_ for one and _so_ for the other,\nwhichever it may be; but....\"\n\n\"If you will give me your hand,\" said the freckled girl, and proceeded\nwith Miss Walshingham's assistance to bandage Kipps in a most\nbusinesslike way. Yes, they actually bandaged Kipps. They pulled up his\ncuffs--happily they were not a very frayed pair--and held his wrist, and\nwrapped the soft handkerchief round it, and tightened the knot together.\nAnd Miss Walshingham's face, the face of that almost divine Over-human,\ncame close to the face of Kipps.\n\n\"We're not hurting you, are we?\" she said.\n\n\"Not a bit,\" said Kipps, as he would have said if they had been sawing\nhis arm off.\n\n\"We're not experts, you know,\" said the freckled girl.\n\n\"I'm sure it's a dreadful cut,\" said Miss Walshingham.\n\n\"It ain't much reely,\" said Kipps; \"and you're taking a lot of trouble.\nI'm sorry I broke that window. I can't think what I could have been\ndoing.\"\n\n\"It isn't so much the cut at the time, it's the poisoning afterwards,\"\ncame the voice of the maiden lady.\n\n\"Of course I'm quite willing to pay for the window,\" panted Kipps\nopulently.\n\n\"We must make it just as tight as possible, to stop the bleeding,\" said\nthe freckled girl.\n\n\"I don't think it's much reely,\" said Kipps. \"I'm awful sorry I broke\nthat window, though.\"\n\n\"Put your finger on the knot, dear,\" said the freckled girl.\n\n\"Eh?\" said Kipps; \"I mean----\"\n\nBoth the young ladies became very intent on the knot, and Mr. Kipps was\nvery red and very intent upon the two young ladies.\n\n\"Mortified, and had to be sawn off,\" said the maiden lady.\n\n\"Sawn off?\" said the lodging-house keeper.\n\n\"Sawn _right_ off,\" said the maiden lady, and jabbed at her mangled\ndesign.\n\n\"_There_,\" said the freckled girl, \"I think that ought to do. You're\nsure it's not too tight?\"\n\n\"Not a bit,\" said Kipps.\n\nHe met Miss Walshingham's eye, and smiled to show how little he cared\nfor wounds and pain. \"It's only a little cut,\" he added.\n\nThe maiden lady appeared as an addition to their group. \"You should have\nwashed the wound, dear,\" she said. \"I was just telling Miss Collis.\" She\npeered through her glasses at the bandage. \"That doesn't look _quite_\nright,\" she remarked critically. \"You should have taken the ambulance\nclasses. But I suppose it will have to do. Are you hurting?\"\n\n\"Not a bit,\" said Kipps, and he smiled at them all with the air of a\nbrave soldier in hospital.\n\n\"I'm sure it _must_ hurt,\" said Miss Walshingham.\n\n\"Anyhow, you're a very good patient,\" said the girl with the freckles.\n\nMr. Kipps became quite pink. \"I'm only sorry I broke the window--that's\nall,\" he said. \"But who would have thought it was going to break like\nthat?\"\n\nPause.\n\n\"I'm afraid you won't be able to go on carving to-night,\" said Miss\nWalshingham.\n\n\"I'll try,\" said Kipps. \"It reelly doesn't hurt--not anything to\nmatter.\"\n\nPresently Miss Walshingham came to him as he carved heroically with his\nhand bandaged in her handkerchief. There was a touch of a novel interest\nin her eyes. \"I'm afraid you're not getting on very fast,\" she said.\n\nThe freckled girl looked up and regarded Miss Walshingham.\n\n\"I'm doing a little, anyhow,\" said Kipps. \"I don't want to waste any\ntime. A feller like me hasn't much time to spare.\"\n\nIt struck the girls that there was a quality of modest disavowal about\nthat \"feller like me.\" It gave them a light into this obscure person,\nand Miss Walshingham ventured to commend his work as \"promising\" and to\nask whether he meant to follow it up. Kipps didn't \"altogether\nknow\"--\"things depended on so much,\" but if he was in Folkestone next\nwinter he certainly should. It did not occur to Miss Walshingham at the\ntime to ask why his progress in art depended upon his presence in\nFolkestone. There was some more questions and answers--they continued to\ntalk to him for a little time, even when Mr. Chester Coote had come into\nthe room--and when at last the conversation had died out it dawned upon\nKipps just how much his cut wrist had done for him....\n\nHe went to sleep that night revising that conversation for the twentieth\ntime, treasuring this and expanding that, and inserting things he might\nhave said to Miss Walshingham, things he might still say about\nhimself--in relation more or less explicit to her. He wasn't quite sure\nif he wouldn't like his arm to mortify a bit, which would make him\ninteresting, or to heal up absolutely, which would show the exceptional\npurity of his blood.\n\n\n§4\n\nThe affair of the broken window happened late in April, and the class\ncame to an end in May. In that interval there were several small\nincidents and great developments of emotion. I have done Kipps no\njustice if I have made it seem that his face was unsightly. It was, as\nthe freckled girl pointed out to Helen Walshingham, an \"interesting\"\nface, and that aspect of him which presented chiefly erratic hair and\nglowing ears ceased to prevail.\n\nThey talked him over, and the freckled girl discovered there was\nsomething \"wistful\" in his manner. They detected a \"natural delicacy,\"\nand the freckled girl set herself to draw him out from that time forth.\nThe freckled girl was nineteen, and very wise and motherly and\nbenevolent, and really she greatly preferred drawing out Kipps to\nwood-carving. It was quite evident to her that Kipps was in love with\nHelen Walshingham, and it struck her as a queer and romantic and\npathetic and extremely interesting phenomenon. And as at that time she\nregarded Helen as \"simply lovely,\" it seemed only right and proper that\nshe should assist Kipps in his modest efforts to place himself in a\nstate of absolute _abandon_ upon her altar.\n\nUnder her sympathetic management the position of Kipps was presently\ndefined quite clearly. He was unhappy in his position--misunderstood. He\ntold her he \"didn't seem to get on like\" with customers, and she\ntranslated this for him as \"too sensitive.\" The discontent with his fate\nin life, the dreadful feeling that education was slipping by him,\ntroubles that time and usage were glazing over a little, revived to\ntheir old acuteness but not to their old hopelessness. As a basis for\nsympathy indeed they were even a source of pleasure.\n\nAnd one day at dinner it happened that Carshot and Buggins fell talking\nof \"these here writers,\" and how Dickens had been a labeller of blacking\nand Thackeray \"an artist who couldn't sell a drawing,\" and how Samuel\nJohnson had walked to London without any boots, having thrown away his\nonly pair \"out of pride.\" \"It's luck,\" said Buggins, \"to a very large\nextent. They just happen to hit on something that catches on, and there\nyou are!\"\n\n\"Nice easy life they have of it, too,\" said Miss Mergle. \"Write just an\nhour or so, and done for the day! Almost like gentlefolks.\"\n\n\"There's more work in it than you'd think,\" said Carshot, stooping to a\nmouthful.\n\n\"I wouldn't mind changing, for all that,\" said Buggins. \"I'd like to see\none of these here authors marking off with Jimmy.\"\n\n\"I think they copy from each other a good deal,\" said Miss Mergle.\n\n\"Even then (chup, chup, chup),\" said Carshot, \"there's writing it out in\ntheir own hands.\"\n\nThey proceeded to enlarge upon the literary life, on its ease and\ndignity, on the social recognition accorded to those who led it, and on\nthe ample gratifications their vanity achieved. \"Pictures\neverywhere--never get a new suit without being photographed--almost like\nRoyalty,\" said Miss Mergle.\n\nAnd all this talk impressed the imagination of Kipps very greatly. Here\nwas a class that seemed to bridge the gulf. On the one hand essentially\nLow, but by factitious circumstances capable of entering upon those\nlevels of social superiority to which all true Englishmen aspire, those\nlevels from which one may tip a butler, scorn a tailor, and even commune\nwith those who lead \"men\" into battle. \"Almost like gentlefolks\"--that\nwas it! He brooded over these things in the afternoon, until they\nblossomed into daydreams. Suppose, for example, he had chanced to write\na book, a well-known book, under an assumed name, and yet kept on being\na draper all the time.... Impossible, of course, but _suppose_--it made\nquite a long dream.\n\nAnd at the next wood-carving class he let it be drawn from him that his\nreal choice in life was to be a Nawther--\"only one doesn't get a\nchance.\"\n\nAfter that there were times when Kipps had that pleasant sense that\ncomes of attracting interest. He was a mute, inglorious Dickens, or at\nany rate something of that sort, and they were all taking him at that.\nThe discovery of this indefinable \"something in\" him, the development of\nwhich was now painfully restricted and impossible, did much to bridge\nthe gulf between himself and Miss Walshingham. He was unfortunate, he\nwas futile, but he was not \"common.\" Even now with help...? The two\ngirls, and the freckled girl in particular, tried to \"stir him up\" to\nsome effort to do his imputed potentialities justice. They were still\nyoung enough to believe that to nice and niceish members of the male\nsex--more especially when under the stimulus of feminine\nencouragement--nothing is finally impossible.\n\nThe freckled girl was, I say, the stage manager of this affair, but Miss\nWalshingham was the presiding divinity. A touch of proprietorship came\nin her eyes at times when she looked at him. He was\nhers--unconditionally--and she knew it.\n\nTo her directly Kipps scarcely ever made a speech. The enterprising\nthings that he was continually devising to say to her, he usually did\nnot say, or he said them in a suitably modified form to the girl with\nthe freckles. And one day the girl with the freckles smote him to the\nheart. She said to him, with the faintest indication of her head across\nthe class-room to where her friend reached a cast from the shelf, \"I do\nthink Helen Walshingham is sometimes the most lovely person in the\nworld. Look at her now!\"\n\nKipps gasped for a moment. The moment lengthened, and she regarded him\nas an intelligent young surgeon might regard an operation without\nanæsthetics.\n\n\"You're right,\" he said, and then looked at her with an entire\nabandonment of visage.\n\nShe coloured under his glare of silent avowal, and he blushed brightly.\n\n\"I think so, too,\" he said hoarsely, cleared his throat, and after a\nmeditative moment proceeded sacramentally with his wood-carving.\n\n\"You _are_ wonderful,\" said the freckled girl to Miss Walshingham,\napropos of nothing, as they went on their way home together. \"He simply\nadores you.\"\n\n\"But, my dear, what have I done?\" said Helen.\n\n\"That's just it,\" said the freckled girl. \"What _have_ you done?\"\n\nAnd then with a terrible swiftness came the last class of the course, to\nterminate this relationship altogether. Kipps was careless of dates, and\nthe thing came upon him with an effect of abrupt surprise. Just as his\npetals were expanding so hopefully, \"Finis,\" and the thing was at an\nend. But Kipps did not fully appreciate that the end was indeed and\nreally and truly the end, until he was back in the Emporium after the\nend was over.\n\nThe end began practically in the middle of the last class, when the\nfreckled girl broached the topic of terminations. She developed the\nquestion of just how he was going on after the class ended. She hoped he\nwould stick to certain resolutions of self-improvement he had breathed.\nShe said quite honestly that he owed it to himself to develop his\npossibilities. He expressed firm resolve, but dwelt on difficulties. He\nhad no books. She instructed him how to get books from the public\nlibrary. He was to get a form of application for a ticket signed by a\nratepayer; and he said \"of course,\" when she said Mr. Shalford would do\nthat, though all the time he knew perfectly well it would \"never do\" to\nask Mr. Shalford for anything of the sort. She explained that she was\ngoing to North Wales for the summer, information he received without\nimmediate regret. At intervals he expressed his intention of going on\nwith wood-carving when the summer was over, and once he added \"If----\"\n\nShe considered herself extremely delicate not to press for the\ncompletion of that \"if----\"\n\nAfter that talk there was an interval of languid wood-carving and\nwatching Miss Walshingham.\n\nThen presently there came a bustle of packing, a great ceremony of\nhand-shaking all round by Miss Collis and the maiden lady of ripe years,\nand then Kipps found himself outside the class-room, on the landing\nwith his two friends. It seemed to him he had only just learnt that this\nwas the last class of all. There came a little pause, and the freckled\ngirl suddenly went back into the class-room, and left Kipps and Miss\nWalshingham alone together for the first time. Kipps was instantly\nbreathless. She looked at his face with a glance that mingled sympathy\nand curiosity, and held out her white hand.\n\n\"Well, good-bye, Mr. Kipps,\" she said.\n\nHe took her hand and held it. \"I'd do anything,\" said Kipps, and had not\nthe temerity to add, \"for you.\" He stopped awkwardly. He shook her hand\nand said, \"Good-bye.\"\n\nThere was a little pause.\n\n\"I hope you will have a pleasant holiday,\" she said.\n\n\"I shall come back to the class next year, anyhow,\" said Kipps\nvaliantly, and turned abruptly to the stairs.\n\n\"I hope you will,\" said Miss Walshingham.\n\nHe turned back towards her. \"Reelly?\" he said.\n\n\"I hope everybody will come back.\"\n\n\"I will--anyhow,\" said Kipps. \"You may count on that,\" and he tried to\nmake his tones significant.\n\nThey looked at one another through a little pause.\n\n\"Good-bye,\" she said.\n\nKipps lifted his hat. She turned towards the class-room.\n\n\"Well?\" said the freckled girl, coming back towards her.\n\n\"Nothing,\" said Helen. \"At least--presently.\" And she became very\nenergetic about some scattered tools on a desk.\n\nThe freckled girl went out and stood for a moment at the head of the\nstairs. When she came back she looked very hard at her friend. The\nincident struck her as important--wonderfully important. It was\nunassimilable, of course, and absurd, but there it was, the thing that\nis so cardinal to a girl, the emotion, the subservience, the crowning\ntriumph of her sex. She could not help feeling that Helen took it, on\nthe whole, a little too hardly.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nCHITTERLOW\n\n\n§1\n\nThe hour of the class on the following Thursday found Kipps in a state\nof nearly incredible despondency. He was sitting with his eyes on the\nreading room clock, his chin resting on his fists and his elbows on the\naccumulated comic papers that were comic alas! in vain! He paid no heed\nto the little man in spectacles glaring opposite to him, famishing for\n_Fun_. In this place it was he had sat night after night, each night\nmore blissful than the last, waiting until it should be time to go to\nHer! And then--bliss! And now the hour had come and there was no class!\nThere would be no class now until next October; it might be there would\nnever be a class so far as he was concerned again.\n\nIt might be there would never be a class again, for Shalford, taking\nexception at a certain absent-mindedness that led to mistakes and more\nparticularly to the ticketing of several articles in Kipps' Manchester\nwindow upside down, had been \"on to\" him for the past few days in an\nexceedingly onerous manner....\n\nHe sighed profoundly, pushed the comic papers back--they were rent away\nfrom him instantly by the little man in spectacles--and tried the old\nengravings of Folkestone in the past, that hang about the room. But\nthese, too, failed to minister to his bruised heart. He wandered about\nthe corridors for a time and watched the library indicator for awhile.\nWonderful thing that! But it did not hold him for long. People came and\nlaughed near him and that jarred with him dreadfully. He went out of the\nbuilding and a beastly cheerful barrel organ mocked him in the street.\nHe was moved to a desperate resolve to go down to the beach. There it\nmight be he would be alone. The sea might be rough--and attuned to him.\nIt would certainly be dark.\n\n\"If I 'ad a penny I'm blest if I wouldn't go and chuck myself off the\nend of the pier.... _She'd_ never miss me....\" He followed a deepening\nvein of thought.\n\n\"Penny though! It's tuppence,\" he said after a space.\n\nHe went down Dover Street in a state of profound melancholia--at the\npace and mood as it were of his own funeral procession--and he crossed\nat the corner of Tontine Street heedless of all mundane things. And\nthere it was that Fortune came upon him, in disguise and with a loud\nshout, the shout of a person endowed with an unusually rich, full voice,\nfollowed immediately by a violent blow in the back.\n\nHis hat was over his eyes and an enormous weight rested on his\nshoulders and something kicked him in the back of his calf.\n\nThen he was on all fours in some mud that Fortune, in conjunction with\nthe Folkestone corporation and in the pursuit of equally mysterious\nends, had heaped together even lavishly for his reception.\n\nHe remained in that position for some seconds awaiting further\ndevelopments and believing almost anything broken before his heart.\nGathering at last that this temporary violence of things in general was\nover, and being perhaps assisted by a clutching hand, he arose, and\nfound himself confronting a figure holding a bicycle and thrusting\nforward a dark face in anxious scrutiny.\n\n\"You aren't hurt, Matey?\" gasped the figure.\n\n\"Was that _you_ 'it me?\" said Kipps.\n\n\"It's these handles, you know,\" said the figure with an air of being a\nfellow sufferer. \"They're too _low_. And when I go to turn, if I don't\nremember, Bif!--and I'm _in_ to something.\"\n\n\"Well--you give me a oner in the back--anyhow,\" said Kipps, taking stock\nof his damages.\n\n\"I was coming down hill, you know,\" explained the bicyclist. \"These\nlittle Folkestone hills are a Fair Treat. It isn't as though I'd been on\nthe level. I came rather a whop.\"\n\n\"You did _that_,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"I was back pedalling for all I was worth anyhow,\" said the bicyclist.\n\"Not that I _am_ worth much back pedalling.\"\n\nHe glanced round and made a sudden movement almost as if to mount his\nmachine. Then he turned as rapidly to Kipps again, who was now stooping\ndown, pursuing the tale of his injuries.\n\n\"Here's the back of my trouser leg all tore down,\" said Kipps, \"and I\nbelieve I'm bleeding. You reely ought to be more careful----\"\n\nThe stranger investigated the damage with a rapid movement. \"Holy Smoke,\nso you are!\" He laid a friendly hand on Kipps' arm. \"I say--look here!\nCome up to my diggings and sew it up. I'm----. Of course I'm to blame,\nand I say----\" his voice sank to a confidential friendliness. \"Here's a\nslop. Don't let on I ran you down. Haven't a lamp, you know. Might be a\nbit awkward, for _me_.\"\n\nKipps looked up towards the advancing policeman. The appeal to his\ngenerosity was not misplaced. He immediately took sides with his\nassailant. He stood up as the representative of the law drew nearer. He\nassumed an air which he considered highly suggestive of an accident not\nhaving happened.\n\n\"All right,\" he said, \"go on!\"\n\n\"Right you are,\" said the cyclist promptly, and led the way, and then,\napparently with some idea of deception, called over his shoulder, \"I'm\ntremendous glad to have met you, old chap.\n\n\"It really isn't a hundred yards,\" he said after they had passed the\npoliceman, \"it's just round the corner.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" said Kipps, limping slightly. \"I don't want to get a chap\ninto trouble. Accidents _will_ happen. Still----\"\n\n\"Oh! _rather!_ I believe you. Accidents _will_ happen. Especially when\nyou get _me_ on a bicycle.\" He laughed. \"You aren't the first I've run\ndown not by any manner of means! I don't think you can be hurt much\neither. It isn't as though I was scorching. You didn't see me coming. I\nwas back pedalling like anything. Only naturally it seems to you I must\nhave been coming fast. And I did all I could to ease off the bump as I\nhit you. It was just the treadle I think came against your calf. But it\nwas All Right of you about that policeman, you know. That was a Fair Bit\nof All Right. Under the Circs, if you'd told him I was riding it might\nhave been forty bob! Forty bob! I'd have had to tell 'em Time is Money.\nJust now for Mr. H. C.\n\n\"I shouldn't have blamed you either, you know. Most men after a bump\nlike that might have been spiteful. The least I can do is to stand you a\nneedle and thread. And a clothes brush. It isn't everyone who'd have\ntaken it like you.\n\n\"Scorching! Why if I'd been scorching you'd have--coming as we\ndid--you'd have been knocked silly.\n\n\"But I tell you, the way you caught on about that slop was something\nworth seeing. When I asked you, I didn't half expect it. Bif! Right off.\nCool as a cucumber. Had your line at once. I tell you that there isn't\nmany men would have acted as you have done, I _will_ say that. You\nacted like a gentleman over that slop.\"\n\nKipps' first sense of injury disappeared. He limped along a pace or so\nbehind, making depreciatory noises in response to these flattering\nremarks and taking stock of the very appreciative person who uttered\nthem.\n\nAs they passed the lamps he was visible as a figure with a slight\nanterior plumpness, progressing buoyantly on knickerbockered legs, with\nquite enormous calves, legs that, contrasting with Kipps' own narrow\npractice, were even exuberantly turned out at the knees and toes. A\ncycling cap was worn very much on one side, and from beneath it\nprotruded carelessly straight wisps of dark red hair, and ever and again\nan ample nose came into momentary view round the corner. The muscular\ncheeks of this person and a certain generosity of chin he possessed were\nblue shaven and he had no moustache. His carriage was spacious and\nconfident, his gestures up and down the narrow deserted back street they\ntraversed, were irresistibly suggestive of ownership; a suggestion of\nbroadly gesticulating shadows were born squatting on his feet and grew\nand took possession of the road and reunited at last with the shadows of\nthe infinite, as lamp after lamp was passed. Kipps saw by the flickering\nlight of one of them that they were in Little Fenchurch Street, and then\nthey came round a corner sharply into a dark court and stopped at the\ndoor of a particularly ramshackle looking little house, held up between\ntwo larger ones, like a drunken man between policemen.\n\nThe cyclist propped his machine carefully against the window, produced a\nkey and blew down it sharply. \"The lock's a bit tricky,\" he said, and\ndevoted himself for some moments to the task of opening the door. Some\nmechanical catastrophe ensued and the door was open.\n\n\"You'd better wait here a bit while I get the lamp,\" he remarked to\nKipps; \"very likely it isn't filled,\" and vanished into the blackness of\nthe passage. \"Thank God for matches!\" he said, and Kipps had an\nimpression of a passage in the transitory pink flare and the bicyclist\ndisappearing into a further room. Kipps was so much interested by these\nthings that for the time he forgot his injuries altogether.\n\nAn interval and Kipps was dazzled by a pink shaded kerosene lamp. \"You\ngo in,\" said the red-haired man, \"and I'll bring in the bike,\" and for a\nmoment Kipps was alone in the lamp-lit room. He took in rather vaguely\nthe shabby ensemble of the little apartment, the round table covered\nwith a torn, red, glass-stained cover on which the lamp stood, a mottled\nlooking-glass over the fireplace reflecting this, a disused gas bracket,\nan extinct fire, a number of dusty postcards and memoranda stuck round\nthe glass, a dusty, crowded paper rack on the mantel with a number of\ncabinet photographs, a table littered with papers and cigarette ash and\na syphon of soda water. Then the cyclist reappeared and Kipps saw his\nblue-shaved, rather animated face and bright-reddish, brown eyes for\nthe first time. He was a man perhaps ten years older than Kipps, but his\nbeardless face made them in a way contemporary.\n\n\"You behaved all right about that policeman--anyhow,\" he repeated as he\ncame forward.\n\n\"I don't see 'ow else I could 'ave done,\" said Kipps quite modestly. The\ncyclist scanned his guest for the first time and decided upon hospitable\ndetails.\n\n\"We'd better let that mud dry a bit before we brush it. Whiskey there\nis, good old Methusaleh, Canadian Rye, and there's some brandy that's\nall right. Which'll you have?\"\n\n\"_I_ dunno,\" said Kipps, taken by surprise, and then seeing no other\ncourse but acceptance, \"well--whiskey, then.\"\n\n\"Right you are, old boy, and if you'll take my advice you'll take it\nneat. I may not be a particular judge of this sort of thing, but I do\nknow old Methusaleh pretty well. Old Methusaleh--four stars. That's me!\nGood old Harry Chitterlow and good old Methusaleh. Leave 'em together.\nBif! He's gone!\"\n\nHe laughed loudly, looked about him, hesitated and retired, leaving\nKipps in possession of the room and free to make a more precise\nexamination of its contents.\n\n\n§2\n\nHe particularly remarked the photographs that adorned the apartment.\nThey were chiefly photographs of ladies, in one case in tights, which\nKipps thought a \"bit 'ot,\" but one represented the bicyclist in the\ncostume of some remote epoch. It did not take Kipps long to infer that\nthe others were probably actresses and that his host was an actor, and\nthe presence of the half of a large, coloured playbill seemed to confirm\nthis. A note framed in an Oxford frame that was a little too large for\nit, he presently demeaned himself to read. \"Dear Mr. Chitterlow,\" it ran\nits brief course, \"if after all you will send the play you spoke of I\nwill endeavour to read it,\" followed by a stylish but absolutely\nillegible signature, and across this was written in pencil, \"What price,\nHarry, now?\" And in the shadow by the window was a rough and rather able\nsketch of the bicyclist in chalk on brown paper, calling particular\nattention to the curvature of the forward lines of his hull and calves\nand the jaunty carriage of his nose, and labelled unmistakably\n\"Chitterlow.\" Kipps thought it \"rather a take-off.\" The papers on the\ntable by the syphon were in manuscript. Kipps observed manuscript of a\nparticularly convulsive and blottesque sort and running obliquely across\nthe page.\n\nPresently he heard the metallic clamour as if of a series of irreparable\nbreakages with which the lock of the front door discharged its function,\nand then Chitterlow reappeared, a little out of breath as if from\nrunning and with a starry labelled bottle in his large, freckled hand.\n\n\"Sit down, old chap,\" he said, \"sit down. I had to go out for it after\nall. Wasn't a solitary bottle left. However, it's all right now we're\nhere. No, don't sit on that chair, there's sheets of my play on that.\nThat's the one--with the broken arm. I think this glass is clean, but\nanyhow wash it out with a squizz of syphon and shy it in the fireplace.\nHere! I'll do it! Lend it here!\"\n\nAs he spoke Mr. Chitterlow produced a corkscrew from a table drawer,\nattached and overcame good old Methusaleh's cork in a style a bartender\nmight envy, washed out two tumblers in his simple, effectual manner, and\npoured a couple of inches of the ancient fluid into each. Kipps took his\ntumbler, said \"Thenks\" in an off-hand way, and after a momentary\nhesitation whether he should say \"here's to you!\" or not, put it to his\nlips without that ceremony. For a space fire in his throat occupied his\nattention to the exclusion of other matters, and then he discovered Mr.\nChitterlow with an intensely bulldog pipe alight, seated on the opposite\nside of the empty fireplace and pouring himself out a second dose of\nwhiskey.\n\n\"After all,\" said Mr. Chitterlow, with his eye on the bottle and a\nlittle smile wandering to hide amidst his larger features, \"this\naccident might have been worse. I wanted someone to talk to a bit, and I\ndidn't want to go to a pub, leastways not a Folkestone pub, because as a\nmatter of fact I'd promised Mrs. Chitterlow, who's away, not to, for\nvarious reasons, though of course if I'd wanted to I'm just that sort I\nshould have all the same, and here we are! It's curious how one runs up\nagainst people out bicycling!\"\n\n\"Isn't it!\" said Kipps, feeling that the time had come for him to say\nsomething.\n\n\"Here we are, sitting and talking like old friends, and half an hour ago\nwe didn't know we existed. Leastways we didn't know each other existed.\nI might have passed you in the street perhaps and you might have passed\nme, and how was I to tell that, put to the test, you would have behaved\nas decently as you have behaved. Only it happened otherwise, that's all.\nYou're not smoking!\" he said. \"Have a cigarette?\"\n\nKipps made a confused reply that took the form of not minding if he did,\nand drank another sip of old Methusaleh in his confusion. He was able to\nfollow the subsequent course of that sip for quite a long way. It was as\nthough the old gentleman was brandishing a burning torch through his\nvitals, lighting him here and lighting him there until at last his whole\nbeing was in a glow. Chitterlow produced a tobacco pouch and cigarette\npapers and with an interesting parenthesis that was a little difficult\nto follow about some lady named Kitty something or other who had taught\nhim the art when he was as yet only what you might call a nice boy, made\nKipps a cigarette, and with a consideration that won Kipps' gratitude\nsuggested that after all he might find a little soda water an\nimprovement with the whiskey. \"Some people like it that way,\" said\nChitterlow, and then with voluminous emphasis, \"_I don't_.\"\n\nEmboldened by the weakened state of his enemy Kipps promptly swallowed\nthe rest of him and had his glass at once hospitably replenished. He\nbegan to feel he was of a firmer consistency than he commonly believed,\nand turned his mind to what Chitterlow was saying with the resolve to\nplay a larger part in the conversation than he had hitherto done. Also\nhe smoked through his nose quite successfully, an art he had only very\nrecently acquired.\n\nMeanwhile Chitterlow explained that he was a playwright, and the tongue\nof Kipps was unloosened to respond that he knew a chap, or rather one of\ntheir fellows knew a chap, or at least to be perfectly correct this\nfellow's brother did, who had written a play. In response to\nChitterlow's enquiries he could not recall the title of the play, nor\nwhere it had appeared nor the name of the manager who produced it,\nthough he thought the title was something about \"Love's Ransom\" or\nsomething like that.\n\n\"He made five 'undred pounds by it, though,\" said Kipps. \"I know that.\"\n\n\"That's nothing,\" said Chitterlow, with an air of experience that was\nextremely convincing. \"Nothing. May seem a big sum to _you_, but _I_ can\nassure you it's just what one gets any day. There's any amount of money,\nan-ny amount, in a good play.\"\n\n\"I dessay,\" said Kipps, drinking.\n\n\"Any amount of money!\"\n\nChitterlow began a series of illustrative instances. He was clearly a\nperson of quite unequalled gift for monologue. It was as though some\nconversational dam had burst upon Kipps, and in a little while he was\ndrifting along upon a copious rapid of talk about all sorts of\ntheatrical things by one who knows all about them, and quite incapable\nof anticipating whither that rapid meant to carry him. Presently somehow\nthey had got to anecdotes about well-known theatrical managers, little\nTeddy Bletherskite, artful old Chumps, and the magnificent Behemoth,\n\"petted to death, you know, fair sickened, by all these society women.\"\nChitterlow described various personal encounters with these personages,\nalways with modest self-depreciation, and gave Kipps a very amusing\nimitation of old Chumps in a state of intoxication. Then he took two\nmore stiff doses of old Methusaleh in rapid succession.\n\nKipps reduced the hither end of his cigarette to a pulp as he sat\n\"dessaying\" and \"quite believing\" Chitterlow in the sagest manner and\nadmiring the easy way in which he was getting on with this very novel\nand entertaining personage. He had another cigarette made for him, and\nthen Chitterlow, assuming by insensible degrees more and more of the\nmanner of a rich and successful playwright being interviewed by a young\nadmirer, set himself to answer questions which sometimes Kipps asked and\nsometimes Chitterlow, about the particulars and methods of his career.\nHe undertook this self-imposed task with great earnestness and vigour,\ntreating the matter indeed with such fulness that at times it seemed\nlost altogether under a thicket of parentheses, footnotes and episodes\nthat branched and budded from its stem. But it always emerged again,\nusually by way of illustration to its own degressions. Practically it\nwas a mass of material for the biography of a man who had been\neverywhere and done everything (including the Hon. Thomas Norgate, which\nwas a Record), and in particular had acted with great distinction and\nprofit (he dated various anecdotes, \"when I was getting thirty, or forty\nor fifty, dollars a week\") throughout America and the entire civilised\nworld.\n\nAnd as he talked on and on in that full, rich, satisfying voice he had,\nand as old Methusaleh, indisputably a most drunken old reprobate of a\nwhiskey, busied himself throughout Kipps, lighting lamp after lamp until\nthe entire framework of the little draper was illuminated and glowing\nlike some public building on a festival, behold Chitterlow and Kipps\nwith him and the room in which they sat, were transfigured! Chitterlow\nbecame in very truth that ripe, full man of infinite experience and\nhumour and genius, fellow of Shakespeare and Ibsen and Maeterlinck\n(three names he placed together quite modestly far above his own) and no\nlonger ambiguously dressed in a sort of yachting costume with cycling\nknickerbockers, but elegantly if unconventionally attired, and the room\nceased to be a small and shabby room in a Folkestone slum, and grew\nlarger and more richly furnished, and the fly-blown photographs were\ncurious old pictures, and the rubbish on the walls the most rare and\ncostly bric-à-brac, and the indisputable paraffin lamp, a soft and\nsplendid light. A certain youthful heat that to many minds might have\nweakened old Methusaleh's starry claim to a ripe antiquity, vanished in\nthat glamour, two burnt holes and a claimant darn in the table cloth,\nmoreover, became no more than the pleasing contradictions natural in the\nhouse of genius, and as for Kipps!--Kipps was a bright young man of\npromise, distinguished by recent quick, courageous proceedings not too\ndefinitely insisted upon, and he had been rewarded by admission to a\nsanctum and confidences, for which the common prosperous, for which\n\"society women\" even, were notoriously sighing in vain. \"Don't _want_\nthem, my boy; they'd simply play old Harry with the work, you know!\nChaps outside, bank clerks and university fellows, think the life's all\n_that_ sort of thing. Don't you believe 'em. Don't you believe 'em.\"\n\nAnd then----!\n\n\"Boom.... Boom.... Boom.... Boom.... right in the middle of a most\nentertaining digression on flats who join touring companies under the\nimpression that they are actors, Kipps much amused at their flatness as\nexposed by Chitterlow.\n\n\"Lor'!\" said Kipps like one who awakens, \"that's not eleven!\"\n\n\"Must be,\" said Chitterlow. \"It was nearly ten when I got that whiskey.\nIt's early yet----\"\n\n\"All the same I must be going,\" said Kipps, and stood up. \"Even\nnow--maybe. Fact is--I 'ad _no_ idea. The 'ouse door shuts at 'arf past\nten, you know. I ought to 'ave thought before.\"\n\n\"Well, if you _must_ go! I tell you what. I'll come, too.... Why!\nThere's your leg, old man! Clean forgot it! You can't go through the\nstreets like that. I'll sew up the tear. And meanwhile have another\nwhiskey.\"\n\n\"I ought to be getting on _now_,\" protested Kipps feebly, and then\nChitterlow was showing him how to kneel on a chair in order that the\nrent trouser leg should be attainable and old Methusaleh on his third\nround was busy repairing the temporary eclipse of Kipps' arterial glow.\nThen suddenly Chitterlow was seized with laughter and had to leave off\nsewing to tell Kipps that the scene wouldn't make a bad bit of business\nin a farcical comedy, and then he began to sketch out the farcical\ncomedy and that led him to a digression about another farcical comedy of\nwhich he had written a ripping opening scene which wouldn't take ten\nminutes to read. It had something in it that had never been done on the\nstage before, and was yet perfectly legitimate, namely, a man with a\nlive beetle down the back of his neck trying to seem at his ease in a\nroomful of people....\n\n\"_They_ won't lock you out,\" he said, in a singularly reassuring tone,\nand began to read and act what he explained to be (not because he had\nwritten it, but simply because he knew it was so on account of his\nexceptional experience of the stage) and what Kipps also quite clearly\nsaw to be, one of the best opening scenes that had ever been written.\n\nWhen it was over Kipps, who rarely swore, was inspired to say the scene\nwas \"damned fine\" about six times over, whereupon as if by way of\nrecognition, Chitterlow took a simply enormous portion of the inspiring\nantediluvian, declaring at the same time that he had rarely met a\n\"finer\" intelligence than Kipps' (stronger there might be, _that_ he\ncouldn't say with certainty as yet, seeing how little after all they had\nseen of each other, but a finer _never_); that it was a shame such a\ngallant and discriminating intelligence should be nightly either locked\nup or locked out at ten--well, ten thirty then--and that he had half a\nmind to recommend old somebody or other (apparently the editor of a\nLondon daily paper) to put on Kipps forthwith as a dramatic critic in\nthe place of the current incapable.\n\n\"I don't think I've ever made up anything for print,\" said Kipps;\n\"----ever. I'd have a thundering good try, though, if ever I got a\nchance. I would that! I've written window tickets often enough. Made 'em\nup and everything. But that's different.\"\n\n\"You'd come to it all the fresher for not having done it before. And the\nway you picked up every point in that scene, my boy, was a Fair Treat! I\ntell you, you'd knock William Archer into fits. Not so literary, of\ncourse, you'd be, but I don't believe in literary critics any more than\nin literary playwrights. Plays _aren't_ literature--that's just the\npoint they miss. Plays are plays. No! That won't hamper you anyhow.\nYou're wasted down here, I tell you. Just as I was, before I took to\nacting. I'm hanged if I wouldn't like your opinion on these first two\nacts of that tragedy I'm on to. I haven't told you about that. It\nwouldn't take me more than an hour to read....\"\n\n\n§3\n\nThen so far as he could subsequently remember, Kipps had \"another,\" and\nthen it would seem that suddenly, regardless of the tragedy, he insisted\nthat he \"reelly _must_ be getting on,\" and from that point his memory\nbecame irregular. Certain things have remained quite clearly, and as it\nis a matter of common knowledge that intoxicated people forget what\nhappens to them, it follows that he was not intoxicated. Chitterlow came\nwith him partly to see him home and partly for a freshener before\nturning in. Kipps recalled afterwards very distinctly how in Little\nFenchurch Street he discovered that he could not walk straight and also\nthat Chitterlow's needle and thread in his still unmended trouser leg\nwas making an annoying little noise on the pavement behind him. He tried\nto pick up the needle suddenly by surprise and somehow tripped and fell\nand then Chitterlow, laughing uproariously, helped him up. \"It wasn't a\nbicycle this time, old boy,\" said Chitterlow, and that appeared to them\nboth at the time as being a quite extraordinarily good joke indeed.\nThey punched each other about on the strength of it.\n\nFor a time after that Kipps certainly pretended to be quite desperately\ndrunk and unable to walk and Chitterlow entered into the pretence and\nsupported him. After that Kipps remembered being struck with the\nextremely laughable absurdity of going down hill to Tontine Street in\norder to go up hill again to the Emporium, and trying to get that idea\ninto Chitterlow's head and being unable to do so on account of his own\nmerriment or Chitterlow's evident intoxication, and his next memory\nafter that was of the exterior of the Emporium, shut and darkened, and,\nas it were, frowning at him with all its stripes of yellow and green.\nThe chilly way in which \"Shalford\" glittered in the moonlight printed\nitself with particular vividness on his mind. It appeared to Kipps that\nthat establishment was closed to him for evermore. Those gilded letters,\nin spite of appearances, spelt FINIS for him and exile from Folkestone.\nHe would never do wood-carving, never see Miss Walshingham again. Not\nthat he had ever hoped to see her again. But this was the knife, this\nwas final. He had stayed out, he had got drunk, there had been that row\nabout the Manchester window dressing only three days ago.... In the\nretrospect he was quite sure that he was perfectly sober then and at\nbottom extremely unhappy, but he kept a brave face on the matter\nnevertheless, and declared stoutly he didn't care if he _was_ locked\nout.\n\nWhereupon Chitterlow slapped him on the back very hard and told him\nthat was a \"Bit of All Right,\" and assured him that when he himself had\nbeen a clerk in Sheffield before he took to acting he had been locked\nout sometimes for six nights running.\n\n\"What's the result?\" said Chitterlow. \"I could go back to that place\nnow, and they'd be glad to have me.... Glad to have me,\" he repeated,\nand then added, \"that is to say, if they remember me--which isn't very\nlikely.\"\n\nKipps asked a little weakly, \"What am I to do?\"\n\n\"Keep out,\" said Chitterlow. \"You can't knock 'em up now--that would\ngive you Right away. You'd better try and sneak in in the morning with\nthe Cat. That'll do you. You'll probably get in all right in the morning\nif nobody gives you away.\"\n\nThen for a time--perhaps as the result of that slap in the back--Kipps\nfelt decidedly queer, and acting on Chitterlow's advice went for a bit\nof a freshener upon the Leas. After a time he threw off the temporary\nqueerness and found Chitterlow patting him on the shoulder and telling\nhim that he'd be all right now in a minute and all the better for\nit--which he was. And the wind having dropped and the night being now a\nreally very beautiful moonlight night indeed, and all before Kipps to\nspend as he liked and with only a very little tendency to spin round now\nand again to mar its splendour, they set out to walk the whole length of\nthe Leas to the Sandgate lift and back, and as they walked Chitterlow\nspoke first of moonlight transfiguring the sea and then of moonlight\ntransfiguring faces, and so at last he came to the topic of Love, and\nupon that he dwelt a great while, and with a wealth of experience and\nillustrative anecdote that seemed remarkably pungent and material to\nKipps. He forgot his lost Miss Walshingham and his outraged employer\nagain. He became as it were a desperado by reflection.\n\nChitterlow had had adventures, a quite astonishing variety of adventures\nin this direction; he was a man with a past, a really opulent past, and\nhe certainly seemed to like to look back and see himself amidst its\nopulence.\n\nHe made no consecutive history, but he gave Kipps vivid, momentary\npictures of relations and entanglements. One moment he was in\nflight--only too worthily in flight--before the husband of a Malay woman\nin Cape Town. At the next he was having passionate complications with\nthe daughter of a clergyman in York. Then he passed to a remarkable\ngrouping at Seaford.\n\n\"They say you can't love two women at once,\" said Chitterlow. \"But I\ntell you----\" He gesticulated and raised his ample voice. \"It's _Rot_!\n_Rot!_\"\n\n\"I know that,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"Why, when I was in the smalls with Bessie Hopper's company there were\nthree.\" He laughed and decided to add, \"Not counting Bessie, that is.\"\n\nHe set out to reveal Life as it is lived in touring companies, a quite\namazing jungle of interwoven \"affairs\" it appeared to be, a mere\namorous winepress for the crushing of hearts.\n\n\"People say this sort of thing's a nuisance and interferes with Work. I\ntell you it isn't. The Work couldn't go on without it. They _must_ do\nit. They haven't the Temperament if they don't. If they hadn't the\nTemperament they wouldn't want to act, if they have--Bif!\"\n\n\"You're right,\" said Kipps. \"I see that.\"\n\nChitterlow proceeded to a close criticism of certain historical\nindiscretions of Mr. Clement Scott respecting the morals of the stage.\nSpeaking in confidence and not as one who addresses the public, he\nadmitted regretfully the general truth of these comments. He proceeded\nto examine various typical instances that had almost forced themselves\nupon him personally, and with especial regard to the contrast between\nhis own character towards women and that of the Hon. Thomas Norgate,\nwith whom it appeared he had once been on terms of great intimacy....\n\nKipps listened with emotion to these extraordinary recollections. They\nwere wonderful to him, they were incredibly credible. Of course the\ntumultuous, passionate course was the way life ran--except in high-class\nestablishments! Such things happened in novels, in plays--only he had\nbeen fool enough not to understand they happened. His share in the\nconversation was now indeed no more than faint writing in the margin;\nChitterlow was talking quite continuously. He expanded his magnificent\nvoice into huge guffaws, he drew it together into a confidential\nintensity, it became drawlingly reminiscent, he was frank, frank with\nthe effect of a revelation, reticent also with the effect of a\nrevelation, a stupendously gesticulating, moonlit black figure,\nwallowing in itself, preaching Adventure and the Flesh to Kipps. Yet\nwithal shot with something of sentiment, with a sort of sentimental\nrefinement very coarsely and egotistically done. The Times he had\nhad!--even before he was as old as Kipps he had had innumerable times.\n\nWell, he said with a sudden transition, he had sown his wild oats--one\nhad to somewhen--and now he fancied he had mentioned it earlier in the\nevening, he was happily married. She was, he indicated, a \"born lady.\"\nHer father was a prominent lawyer, a solicitor in Kentish Town, \"done a\nlot of public house business\"; her mother was second cousin to the wife\nof Abel Jones, the fashionable portrait painter--\"almost Society people\nin a way.\" That didn't count with Chitterlow. He was no snob. What _did_\ncount was that she possessed, what he ventured to assert without much\nfear of contradiction, was the very finest, completely untrained\ncontralto voice in all the world. (\"But to hear it properly,\" said\nChitterlow, \"you want a Big Hall.\") He became rather vague and jerked\nhis head about to indicate when and how he had entered matrimony. She\nwas, it seemed, \"away with her people.\" It was clear that Chitterlow did\nnot get on with these people very well. It would seem they failed to\nappreciate his playwright, regarding it as an unremunerative pursuit,\nwhereas as he and Kipps knew, wealth beyond the dreams of avarice would\npresently accrue. Only patience and persistence were needful.\n\nHe went off at a tangent to hospitality. Kipps must come down home with\nhim. They couldn't wander about all night, with a bottle of the right\nsort pining at home for them. \"You can sleep on the sofa. You won't be\nworried by broken springs anyhow, for I took 'em all out myself two or\nthree weeks ago. I don't see what they even put 'em in for. It's a point\nI know about. I took particular notice of it when I was with Bessie\nHopper. Three months we were and all over England, North Wales and the\nIsle of Man, and I never struck a sofa in diggings anywhere that hadn't\na broken spring. Not once--all the time.\"\n\nHe added almost absently: \"It happens like that at times.\"\n\nThey descended the slant road towards Harbour Street and went on past\nthe Pavilion Hotel.\n\n\n§4\n\nThey came into the presence of old Methusaleh again, and that worthy\nunder Chitterlow's direction at once resumed the illumination of Kipps'\ninterior with the conscientious thoroughness that distinguished him.\nChitterlow took a tall portion to himself with an air of asbestos, lit\nthe bulldog pipe again, and lapsed for a space into meditation, from\nwhich Kipps roused him by remarking that he expected \"an acter 'as a\nlot of ups and downs like, now and then.\"\n\nAt which Chitterlow seemed to bestir himself. \"Ra-ther,\" he said. \"And\nsometimes it's his own fault and sometimes it isn't. Usually it is. If\nit isn't one thing it's another. If it isn't the manager's wife it's\nbar-bragging. I tell you things happen at times. I'm a fatalist. The\nfact is Character has you. You can't get away from it. You may think you\ndo, but you don't.\"\n\nHe reflected for a moment. \"It's that what makes tragedy Psychology\nreally. It's the Greek irony--Ibsen and--all that. Up to date.\"\n\nHe emitted this exhaustive summary of high-toned modern criticism as if\nhe was repeating a lesson while thinking of something else, but it\nseemed to rouse him as it passed his lips, by including the name of\nIbsen.\n\nHe became interested in telling Kipps, who was indeed open to any\ninformation whatever about this quite novel name, exactly where he\nthought Ibsen fell short, points where it happened that Ibsen was\ndefective just where it chanced that he, Chitterlow, was strong. Of\ncourse he had no desire to place himself in any way on an equality with\nIbsen; still the fact remained that his own experience in England and\nAmerica and the colonies was altogether more extensive than Ibsen could\nhave had. Ibsen had probably never seen \"one decent bar scrap\" in his\nlife. That, of course, was not Ibsen's fault or his own merit, but there\nthe thing was. Genius, he knew, was supposed to be able to do anything\nor to do without anything; still he was now inclined to doubt that. He\nhad a play in hand that might perhaps not please William Archer--whose\nopinion, after all, he did not value as he valued Kipps' opinion--but\nwhich he thought was at any rate as well constructed as anything Ibsen\never did.\n\nSo with infinite deviousness Chitterlow came at last to his play. He\ndecided he would not read it to Kipps, but tell him about it. This was\nthe simpler because much of it was still unwritten. He began to explain\nhis plot. It was a complicated plot and all about a nobleman who had\nseen everything and done everything and knew practically all that\nChitterlow knew about women; that is to say, \"all about women\" and\nsuchlike matters. It warmed and excited Chitterlow. Presently he stood\nup to act a situation--which could not be explained. It was an extremely\nvivid situation.\n\nKipps applauded the situation vehemently. \"Tha's dam' fine,\" said the\nnew dramatic critic, quite familiar with his part now, striking the\ntable with his fist and almost upsetting his third portion (in the\nsecond series) of old Methusaleh. \"Tha's dam' fine, Chit'low!\"\n\n\"You see it?\" said Chitterlow, with the last vestiges of that incidental\ngloom disappearing. \"Good, old boy! I thought you'd see it. But it's\njust the sort of thing the literary critic can't see. However, it's only\na beginning----\"\n\nHe replenished Kipps and proceeded with his exposition.\n\nIn a little while it was no longer necessary to give that\nover-advertised Ibsen the purely conventional precedence he had hitherto\nhad. Kipps and Chitterlow were friends and they could speak frankly and\nopenly of things not usually admitted. \"Any 'ow,\" said Kipps, a little\nirrelevantly and speaking over the brim of the replenishment, \"what you\nread jus' now was dam' fine. Nothing can't alter that.\"\n\nHe perceived a sort of faint, buzzing vibration about things that was\nvery nice and pleasant and with a little care he had no difficulty\nwhatever in putting his glass back on the table. Then he perceived\nChitterlow was going on with the scenario, and then that old Methusaleh\nhad almost entirely left his bottle. He was glad there was so little\nmore Methusaleh to drink because that would prevent his getting drunk.\nHe knew that he was not now drunk, but he knew that he had had enough.\nHe was one of those who always know when they have had enough. He tried\nto interrupt Chitterlow to tell him this, but he could not get a\nsuitable opening. He doubted whether Chitterlow might not be one of\nthose people who did not know when they had had enough. He discovered\nthat he disapproved of Chitterlow. Highly. It seemed to him that\nChitterlow went on and on like a river. For a time he was inexplicably\nand quite unjustly cross with Chitterlow and wanted to say to him, \"you\ngot the gift of the gab,\" but he only got so far as to say \"the gift,\"\nand then Chitterlow thanked him and said he was better than Archer any\nday. So he eyed Chitterlow with a baleful eye until it dawned upon him\nthat a most extraordinary thing was taking place. Chitterlow kept\nmentioning someone named Kipps. This presently began to perplex Kipps\nvery greatly. Dimly but decidedly he perceived this was wrong.\n\n\"Look 'ere,\" he said suddenly, \"_what_ Kipps?\"\n\n\"This chap Kipps I'm telling you about.\"\n\n\"What chap Kipps you're telling which about?\"\n\n\"I told you.\"\n\nKipps struggled with a difficulty in silence for a space. Then he\nreiterated firmly, \"_What_ chap Kipps?\"\n\n\"This chap in my play--man who kisses the girl.\"\n\n\"Never kissed a girl,\" said Kipps; \"leastwise----\" and subsided for a\nspace. He could not remember whether he had kissed Ann or not--he knew\nhe had meant to. Then suddenly in a tone of great sadness and addressing\nthe hearth he said, \"_My_ name's Kipps.\"\n\n\"Eh?\" said Chitterlow.\n\n\"Kipps,\" said Kipps, smiling a little cynically.\n\n\"What about him?\"\n\n\"He's me.\" He tapped his breastbone with his middle finger to indicate\nhis essential self.\n\nHe leant forward very gravely towards Chitterlow. \"Look 'ere, Chit'low,\"\nhe said, \"you haven't no business putting my name into play. You\nmustn't do things like that. You'd lose me my crib, right away.\" And\nthey had a little argument--so far as Kipps could remember. Chitterlow\nentered upon a general explanation of how he got his names. These, he\nhad for the most part got out of a newspaper that was still, he\nbelieved, \"lying about.\" He even made to look for it, and while he was\ndoing so Kipps went on with the argument, addressing himself more\nparticularly to the photograph of the girl in tights. He said that at\nfirst her costume had not commended her to him, but now he perceived she\nhad an extremely sensible face. He told her she would like Buggins if\nshe met him; he could see she was just that sort. She would admit, all\nsensible people would admit, that using names in plays was wrong. You\ncould, for example, have the law of him.\n\nHe became confidential. He explained that he was already in sufficient\ntrouble for stopping out all night without having his name put in plays.\nHe was certain to be in the deuce of a row, the deuce of a row. Why had\nhe done it? Why hadn't he gone at ten? Because one thing leads to\nanother. One thing, he generalized, always does lead to another....\n\nHe was trying to tell her that he was utterly unworthy of Miss\nWalshingham, when Chitterlow gave up the search and suddenly accused him\nof being drunk and talking \"Rot----.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\n\"SWAPPED\"\n\n\n§1\n\nHe awoke on the thoroughly comfortable sofa that had had all its springs\nremoved, and although he had certainly not been intoxicated, he awoke\nwith what Chitterlow pronounced to be, quite indisputably, a Head and a\nMouth. He had slept in his clothes and he felt stiff and uncomfortable\nall over, but the head and mouth insisted that he must not bother over\nlittle things like that. In the head was one large, angular idea that it\nwas physically painful to have there. If he moved his head the angular\nidea shifted about in the most agonising way. This idea was that he had\nlost his situation and was utterly ruined and that it really mattered\nvery little. Shalford was certain to hear of his escapade, and that\ncoupled with that row about the Manchester window----!\n\nHe raised himself into a sitting position under Chitterlow's urgent\nencouragement.\n\nHe submitted apathetically to his host's attentions. Chitterlow, who\nadmitted being a \"bit off it\" himself and in need of an egg-cupful of\nbrandy, just an egg-cupful neat, dealt with that Head and Mouth as a\nmother might deal with the fall of an only child. He compared it with\nother Heads and Mouths that he had met, and in particular to certain\nexperienced by the Hon. Thomas Norgate. \"Right up to the last,\" said\nChitterlow, \"he couldn't stand his liquor. It happens like that at\ntimes.\" And after Chitterlow had pumped on the young beginner's head and\ngiven him some anchovy paste piping hot on buttered toast, which he\npreferred to all the other remedies he had encountered, Kipps resumed\nhis crumpled collar, brushed his clothes, tacked up his knee, and\nprepared to face Mr. Shalford and the reckoning for this wild,\nunprecedented night, the first \"night out\" that ever he had taken.\n\nActing on Chitterlow's advice to have a bit of a freshener before\nreturning to the Emporium, Kipps walked some way along the Leas and back\nand then went down to a shop near the Harbour to get a cup of coffee. He\nfound that extremely reinvigorating, and he went on up the High Street\nto face the inevitable terrors of the office, a faint touch of pride in\nhis depravity tempering his extreme self-abasement. After all, it was\nnot an unmanly headache; he had been out all night, and he had been\ndrinking and his physical disorder was there to witness the fact. If it\nwasn't for the thought of Shalford he would have been even a proud man\nto discover himself at last in such a condition. But the thought of\nShalford was very dreadful. He met two of the apprentices snatching a\nwalk before shop began. At the sight of them he pulled his spirits\ntogether, put his hat back from his pallid brow, thrust his hands into\nhis trouser pockets and adopted an altogether more dissipated carriage;\nhe met their innocent faces with a wan smile. Just for a moment he was\nglad that his patch at the knee was, after all, visible and that some at\nleast of the mud on his clothes had refused to move at Chitterlow's\nbrushing. What wouldn't they think he had been up to? He passed them\nwithout speaking. He could imagine how they regarded his back. Then he\nrecollected Mr. Shalford....\n\nThe deuce of a row certainly and perhaps----! He tried to think of\nplausible versions of the affair. He could explain he had been run down\nby rather a wild sort of fellow who was riding a bicycle, almost stunned\nfor the moment (even now he felt the effects of the concussion in his\nhead) and had been given whiskey to restore him, and \"the fact is,\nsir\"--with an upward inflection of the voice, an upward inflection of\nthe eyebrows and an air of its being the last thing one would have\nexpected whiskey to do, the manifestation indeed of a practically unique\nphysiological weakness--\"it got into my _'ed_!\"\n\nPut like that it didn't look so bad.\n\nHe got to the Emporium a little before eight and the housekeeper with\nwhom he was something of a favourite (\"There's no harm in Mr. Kipps,\"\nshe used to say) seemed to like him if anything better for having broken\nthe rules and gave him a piece of dry toast and a good hot cup of tea.\n\n\"I suppose the G. V.----\" began Kipps.\n\n\"He knows,\" said the housekeeper.\n\nHe went down to shop a little before time, and presently Booch summoned\nhim to the presence.\n\nHe emerged from the private office after an interval of ten minutes.\n\nThe junior clerk scrutinised his visage. Buggins put the frank question.\n\nKipps answered with one word.\n\n\"Swapped!\" said Kipps.\n\n\n§2\n\nKipps leant against the fixtures with his hands in his pockets and\ntalked to the two apprentices under him.\n\n\"I don't care if I _am_ swapped,\" said Kipps. \"I been sick of Teddy and\nhis System some time. I was a good mind to chuck it when my time was up.\nWish I 'ad now.\"\n\nAfterwards Pierce came round and Kipps repeated this.\n\n\"What's it for?\" said Pierce. \"That row about the window tickets?\"\n\n\"No fear!\" said Kipps and sought to convey a perspective of splendid\ndepravity. \"I wasn't in las' night,\" he said and made even Pierce, \"man\nabout town\" Pierce, open his eyes.\n\n\"Why! where did you get to?\" asked Pierce.\n\nHe conveyed that he had been \"fair round the town.\" \"With a Nactor chap,\nI know.\"\n\n\"One can't _always_ be living like a curit,\" he said.\n\n\"No fear,\" said Pierce, trying to play up to him.\n\nBut Kipps had the top place in that conversation.\n\n\"My Lor'!\" said Kipps, when Pierce had gone, \"but wasn't my mouth and\n'ed bad this morning before I 'ad a pick-me-up!\"\n\n\"Whad jer 'ave?\"\n\n\"Anchovy on 'ot buttered toast. It's the very best pick-me-up there is.\nYou trust me, Rodgers. I never take no other and I don't advise you to.\nSee?\"\n\nAnd when pressed for further particulars, he said again he had been\n\"fair all _round_ the town, with a Nactor chap\" he knew. They asked\ncuriously all he had done and he said, \"Well, what do _you_ think?\" And\nwhen they pressed for still further details he said there were things\nlittle boys ought not to know and laughed darkly and found them some\nhuckaback to roll.\n\nAnd in this manner for a space did Kipps fend off the contemplation of\nthe \"key of the street\" that Shalford had presented him.\n\n\n§3\n\nThis sort of thing was all very well when junior apprentices were about,\nbut when Kipps was alone with himself it served him not at all. He was\nuncomfortable inside and his skin was uncomfortable, and Head and Mouth\npalliated perhaps, but certainly not cured, were still with him. He\nfelt, to tell the truth, nasty and dirty and extremely disgusted with\nhimself. To work was dreadful and to stand still and think still more\ndreadful. His patched knee reproached him. These were the second best of\nhis three pairs of trousers, and they had cost him thirteen and\nsixpence. Practically ruined they were. His dusting pair was unfit for\nshop and he would have to degrade his best. When he was under inspection\nhe affected the slouch of a desperado, but directly he found himself\nalone, this passed insensibly into the droop.\n\nThe financial aspect of things grew large before him. His whole capital\nin the world was the sum of five pounds in the Post Office Savings Bank\nand four and sixpence cash. Besides there would be two months' screw.\nHis little tin box upstairs was no longer big enough for his belongings;\nhe would have to buy another, let alone that it was not calculated to\nmake a good impression in a new \"crib.\" Then there would be paper and\nstamps needed in some abundance for answering advertisements and railway\nfares when he went \"crib hunting.\" He would have to write letters, and\nhe never wrote letters. There was spelling for example to consider.\nProbably if nothing turned up before his month was up he would have to\ngo home to his Uncle and Aunt.\n\nHow would they take it?...\n\nFor the present at any rate he resolved not to write to them.\n\nSuch disagreeable things as this it was that lurked below the fair\nsurface of Kipps' assertion, \"I've been wanting a chance. If 'e 'adn't\nswapped me, I should very likely 'ave swapped _'im_.\"\n\nIn the perplexed privacies of his own mind he could not understand how\neverything had happened. He had been the Victim of Fate, or at least of\none as inexorable--Chitterlow. He tried to recall the successive steps\nthat had culminated so disastrously. They were difficult to recall....\n\nBuggins that night abounded in counsel and reminiscence.\n\n\"Curious thing,\" said Buggins, \"but every time I've had the swap I've\nnever believed I should get another Crib--never. But I have,\" said\nBuggins. \"Always. So don't lose heart, whatever you do....\n\n\"Whatever you do,\" said Buggins, \"keep hold of your collars and\ncuffs--shirts if you can, but collars anyhow. Spout them last. And\nanyhow, it's summer!--you won't want your coat.... You got a good\numbrella....\n\n\"You'll no more get a shop from New Romney, than--anything. Go straight\nup to London, get the cheapest room you can find--and hang out. Don't\neat too much. Many a chap's put his prospects in his stomach. Get a cup\no' coffee and a slice--egg if you like--but remember you got to turn up\nat the Warehouse tidy. The best places _now_, I believe, are the old\ncabmen's eating houses. Keep your watch and chain as long as you can....\n\n\"There's lots of shops going,\" said Buggins. \"Lots!\"\n\nAnd added reflectively, \"But not this time of year perhaps.\"\n\nHe began to recall his own researches. \"'Stonishing lot of chaps you\nsee,\" he said. \"All sorts. Look like Dukes some of 'em. High hat. Patent\nboots. Frock coat. All there. All right for a West End crib.\nOthers--Lord! It's a caution, Kipps. Boots been inked in some reading\nrooms--_I_ used to write in a Reading Room in Fleet Street, regular\npenny club--hat been wetted, collar frayed, tail coat buttoned up, black\nchest-plaster tie--spread out. Shirt, you know, gone----\" Buggins\npointed upward with a pious expression.\n\n\"No shirt, I expect?\"\n\n\"Eat it,\" said Buggins.\n\nKipps meditated. \"I wonder where old Merton is,\" he said at last. \"I\noften wondered about 'im.\"\n\n\n§4\n\nIt was the morning following Kipps' notice of dismissal that Miss\nWalshingham came into the shop. She came in with a dark, slender lady,\nrather faded, rather tightly dressed, whom Kipps was to know some day as\nher mother. He discovered them in the main shop at the counter of the\nribbon department. He had come to the opposite glove counter with some\ngoods enclosed in a parcel that he had unpacked in his own department.\nThe two ladies were both bent over a box of black ribbon.\n\nHe had a moment of tumultuous hesitations. The etiquette of the\nsituation was incomprehensible. He put down his goods very quietly and\nstood hands on counter, staring at these two ladies. Then, as Miss\nWalshingham sat back, the instinct of flight seized him....\n\nHe returned to his Manchester shop wildly agitated. Directly he was out\nof sight of her he wanted to see her. He fretted up and down the\ncounter, and addressed some snappish remarks to the apprentice in the\nwindow. He fumbled for a moment with a parcel, untied it needlessly,\nbegan to tie it up again and then bolted back again into the main shop.\nHe could hear his own heart beating.\n\nThe two ladies were standing in the manner of those who have completed\ntheir purchases and are waiting for their change. Mrs. Walshingham\nregarded some remnants with impersonal interest; Helen's eyes searched\nthe shop. They distinctly lit up when they discovered Kipps.\n\nHe dropped his hands to the counter by habit and stood for a moment\nregarding her awkwardly. What would she do? Would she cut him? She came\nacross the shop to him.\n\n\"How are _you_, Mr. Kipps?\" she said, in her clear, distinct tones, and\nshe held out her hand.\n\n\"Very well, thank you,\" said Kipps; \"how are you?\"\n\nShe said she had been buying some ribbon.\n\nHe became aware of Mrs. Walshingham very much surprised. This checked\nsomething allusive about the class and he said instead that he supposed\nshe was glad to be having her holidays now. She said she was, it gave\nher more time for reading and that sort of thing. He supposed that she\nwould be going abroad and she thought that perhaps they _would_ go to\nKnocke or Bruges for a time.\n\nThen came a pause and Kipps' soul surged within him. He wanted to tell\nher he was leaving and would never see her again. He could find neither\nwords nor voice to say it. The swift seconds passed. The girl in the\nribbons was handing Mrs. Walshingham her change. \"Well,\" said Miss\nWalshingham, \"Good-bye,\" and gave him her hand again.\n\nKipps bowed over her hand. His manners, his counter manners, were the\neasiest she had ever seen upon him. She turned to her mother. It was no\ngood now, no good. Her mother! You couldn't say a thing like that before\nher mother! All was lost but politeness. Kipps rushed for the door. He\nstood at the door bowing with infinite gravity, and she smiled and\nnodded as she went out. She saw nothing of the struggle within him,\nnothing but a satisfactory emotion. She smiled like a satisfied goddess\nas the incense ascends.\n\nMrs. Walshingham bowed stiffly and a little awkwardly.\n\nHe remained holding the door open for some seconds after they had passed\nout, then rushed suddenly to the back of the \"costume\" window to watch\nthem go down the street. His hands tightened on the window rack as he\nstared. Her mother appeared to be asking discreet questions. Helen's\nbearing suggested the off-hand replies of a person who found the world a\nsatisfactory place to live in. \"Really, Mumsie, you cannot expect me to\ncut my own students dead,\" she was in fact saying....\n\nThey vanished round Henderson's corner.\n\nGone! And he would never see her again--never!\n\nIt was as though someone had struck his heart with a whip. Never! Never!\nNever! And she didn't know! He turned back from the window and the\ndepartment with its two apprentices was impossible. The whole glaring\nworld was insupportable.\n\nHe hesitated and made a rush head down for the cellar that was his\nManchester warehouse. Rodgers asked him a question that he pretended not\nto hear.\n\nThe Manchester warehouse was a small cellar apart from the general\nbasement of the building and dimly lit by a small gas flare. He did not\nturn that up, but rushed for the darkest corner, where on the lowest\nshelf the sale window tickets were stored. He drew out the box of these\nwith trembling hands and upset them on the floor, and so having made\nhimself a justifiable excuse for being on the ground, with his head well\nin the dark, he could let his poor bursting little heart have its way\nwith him for a space.\n\nAnd there he remained until the cry of \"Kipps! Forward!\" summoned him\nonce more to face the world.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nTHE UNEXPECTED\n\n\n§1\n\nNow in the slack of that same day, after the midday dinner and before\nthe coming of the afternoon customers, this disastrous Chitterlow\ndescended upon Kipps with the most amazing coincidence in the world. He\ndid not call formally, entering and demanding Kipps, but privately, in a\nconfidential and mysterious manner.\n\nKipps was first aware of him as a dark object bobbing about excitedly\noutside the hosiery window. He was stooping and craning and peering in\nthe endeavour to see into the interior between and over the socks and\nstockings. Then he transferred his attention to the door, and after a\nhovering scrutiny, tried the baby-linen display. His movements and\ngestures suggested a suppressed excitement.\n\nSeen by daylight, Chitterlow was not nearly such a magnificent figure as\nhe had been by the subdued nocturnal lightings and beneath the glamour\nof his own interpretation. The lines were the same indeed, but the\ntexture was different. There was a quality about the yachting cap, an\nindefinable finality of dustiness, a shiny finish on all the salient\nsurfaces of the reefer coat. The red hair and the profile, though still\nforcible and fine, were less in the quality of Michael Angelo and more\nin that of the merely picturesque. But it was a bright brown eye still\nthat sought amidst the interstices of the baby-linen.\n\nKipps was by no means anxious to interview Chitterlow again. If he had\nfelt sure that Chitterlow would not enter the shop he would have hid in\nthe warehouse until the danger was past, but he had no idea of\nChitterlow's limitations. He decided to keep up the shop in the shadows\nuntil Chitterlow reached the side window of the Manchester department\nand then to go outside as if to inspect the condition of the window and\nexplain to him that things were unfavourable to immediate intercourse.\nHe might tell him he had already lost his situation....\n\n\"Ullo, Chit'low,\" he said, emerging.\n\n\"Very man I want to see,\" said Chitterlow, shaking with vigour. \"Very\nman I want to see.\" He laid a hand on Kipps' arm. \"How _old_ are you,\nKipps?\"\n\n\"One and twenty,\" said Kipps. \"Why?\"\n\n\"Talk about coincidences! And your name now? Wait a minute.\" He held out\na finger. \"_Is_ it Arthur?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"You're the man,\" said Chitterlow.\n\n\"What man?\"\n\n\"It's about the thickest coincidence I ever struck,\" said Chitterlow,\nplunging his extensive hand into his breast coat pocket. \"Half a jiff\nand I'll tell you your mother's Christian name.\" He laughed and\nstruggled with his coat for a space, produced a washing book and two\npencils, which he deposited in his side pocket; then in one capacious\nhandful, a bent but by no means finally disabled cigar, the rubber\nproboscis of a bicycle pump, some twine and a lady's purse, and finally\na small pocket book, and from this, after dropping and recovering\nseveral visiting cards, he extracted a carelessly torn piece of\nnewspaper. \"Euphemia,\" he read and brought his face close to Kipps'.\n\"Eh?\" He laughed noisily. \"It's about as fair a Bit of All Right as\nanyone _could_ have--outside a coincidence play. Don't say her name\nwasn't Euphemia, Kipps, and spoil the whole blessed show.\"\n\n\"Whose name--Euphemia?\" asked Kipps.\n\n\"Your mother's.\"\n\n\"Lemme see what it says on the paper.\"\n\nChitterlow handed him the fragment and turned away. \"You may say what\nyou like,\" he said, addressing a vast, deep laugh to the street\ngenerally.\n\nKipps attempted to read. \"'WADDY or KIPPS. If Arthur Waddy or Arthur\nKipps, the son of Margaret Euphemia Kipps, who----'\"\n\nChitterlow's finger swept over the print. \"I went down the column and\nevery blessed name that seemed to fit my play I took. I don't believe in\nmade-up names. As I told you. I'm all with Zola in that. Documents\nwhenever you can. I like 'em hot and real. See? Who was Waddy?\"\n\n\"Never heard his name.\"\n\n\"Not Waddy?\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\nKipps tried to read again and abandoned the attempt. \"What does it\nmean?\" he said. \"I don't understand.\"\n\n\"It means,\" said Chitterlow, with a momentary note of lucid exposition,\n\"so far as I can make out that you're going to strike it Rich. Never\nmind about the Waddy--that's a detail. What does it usually mean? You'll\nhear of something to your advantage--very well. I took that newspaper up\nto get my names by the merest chance. Directly I saw it again and read\nthat--I knew it was you. I believe in coincidences. People say they\ndon't happen. _I_ say they do. Everything's a coincidence. Seen\nproperly. Here you are. Here's one! Incredible? Not a bit of it! See?\nIt's you! Kipps! Waddy be damned! It's a Mascot. There's luck in my\nplay. Bif! You're there. _I'm_ there. Fair _in_ it! Snap!\" And he\ndischarged his fingers like a pistol. \"Never you mind about the\n'Waddy.'\"\n\n\"Eh?\" said Kipps, with a nervous eye on Chitterlow's fingers.\n\n\"You're all right,\" said Chitterlow; \"you may bet the seat of your only\nbreeches on that! Don't you worry about the Waddy--that's as clear as\nday. You're about as right side up as a billiard ball--whatever you do.\nDon't stand there gaping, man! Read the paper if you don't believe me.\nRead it!\"\n\nHe shook it under Kipps' nose.\n\nKipps became aware of the second apprentice watching them from the shop.\nHis air of perplexity gave place to a more confident bearing.\n\n\"'---- who was born at East Grinstead.' I certainly was born there. I've\n'eard my Aunt say----\"\n\n\"I knew it,\" said Chitterlow, taking hold of one edge of the paper and\nbringing his face close alongside Kipps'.\n\n\"'----on September the first, eighteen hundred and seventy-eight----'\"\n\n\"_That's_ all right,\" said Chitterlow. \"It's all, all right, and all you\nhave to do is write to Watson and Bean and get it----\"\n\n\"Get what?\"\n\n\"Whatever it is.\"\n\nKipps sought his moustache. \"You'd write?\" he asked.\n\n\"Ra-ther.\"\n\n\"But what d'you think it is?\"\n\n\"That's the fun of it!\" said Chitterlow, taking three steps in some as\nyet uninvented dance. \"That's where the joke comes in. It may be\nanything--it may be a million. If so! Where does little Harry come in?\nEh?\"\n\nKipps was trembling slightly. \"But----\" he said, and thought. \"If you\nwas me----\" he began. \"About that Waddy----?\"\n\nHe glanced up and saw the second apprentice disappear with amazing\nswiftness from behind the goods in the window.\n\n\"_What?_\" asked Chitterlow, but he never had an answer.\n\n\"Lor'! There's the guv'nor!\" said Kipps, and made a prompt dive for the\ndoor.\n\nHe dashed in only to discover that Shalford, with the junior apprentice\nin attendance, had come to mark off remnants of Kipps' cotton dresses\nand was demanding him. \"Hullo, Kipps,\" he said, \"outside----?\"\n\n\"Seein' if the window was straight, Sir,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"Umph!\" said Shalford.\n\nFor a space Kipps was too busily employed to think at all of Chitterlow\nor the crumpled bit of paper in his trouser pocket. He was, however,\npainfully aware of a suddenly disconcerted excitement at large in the\nstreet. There came one awful moment when Chitterlow's nose loomed\ninterrogatively over the ground glass of the department door, and his\nbright, little, red-brown eye sought for the reason of Kipps'\ndisappearance, and then it became evident that he saw the high light of\nShalford's baldness and grasped the situation and went away. And then\nKipps (with that advertisement in his pocket) was able to come back to\nthe business in hand.\n\nHe became aware that Shalford had asked a question. \"Yessir, nosir,\nrightsir. I'm sorting up zephyrs to-morrow, Sir,\" said Kipps.\n\nPresently he had a moment to himself again, and, taking up a safe\nposition behind a newly unpacked pile of summer lace curtains, he\nstraightened out the piece of paper and reperused it. It was a little\nperplexing. That \"Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps\"--did that imply two\npersons or one? He would ask Pierce or Buggins. Only----\n\nIt had always been impressed upon him that there was something demanding\nsecrecy about his mother.\n\n\"Don't you answer no questions about your mother,\" his aunt had been\nwont to say. \"Tell them you don't know, whatever it is they ask you.\"\n\n\"Now this----?\"\n\nKipps' face became portentously careful and he tugged at his moustache,\nsuch as it was, hard.\n\nHe had always represented his father as being a \"gentleman farmer.\" \"It\ndidn't pay,\" he used to say with a picture in his own mind of a penny\nmagazine aristocrat prematurely worn out by worry. \"I'm a Norfan, both\nsides,\" he would explain, with the air of one who had seen trouble. He\nsaid he lived with his uncle and aunt, but he did not say that they kept\na toy shop, and to tell anyone that his uncle had been a butler--_a\nservant!_--would have seemed the maddest of indiscretions. Almost all\nthe assistants in the Emporium were equally reticent and vague, so great\nis their horror of \"Lowness\" of any sort. To ask about this \"Waddy or\nKipps\" would upset all these little fictions. He was not, as a matter of\nfact, perfectly clear about his real status in the world (he was not,\nas a matter of fact, perfectly clear about anything), but he knew that\nthere was a quality about his status that was--detrimental.\n\nUnder the circumstances----?\n\nIt occurred to him that it would save a lot of trouble to destroy the\nadvertisement there and then.\n\nIn which case he would have to explain to Chitterlow!\n\n\"Eng!\" said Mr. Kipps.\n\n\"Kipps,\" cried Carshot, who was shopwalking; \"Kipps, Forward!\"\n\nHe thrust back the crumpled paper into his pocket and sallied forth to\nthe customers.\n\n\"I want,\" said the customer, looking vaguely about her through glasses,\n\"a little bit of something to cover a little stool I have. Anything\nwould do--a remnant or anything----\"\n\nThe matter of the advertisement remained in abeyance for half an hour,\nand at the end the little stool was still a candidate for covering and\nKipps had a thoroughly representative collection of the textile fabrics\nin his department to clear away. He was so angry about the little stool\nthat the crumpled advertisement lay for a space in his pocket,\nabsolutely forgotten.\n\n\n§2\n\nKipps sat on his tin box under the gas bracket that evening, and looked\nup the name Euphemia and learnt what it meant in the \"Enquire Within\nAbout Everything\" that constituted Buggins' reference library. He hoped\nBuggins, according to his habit, would ask him what he was looking for,\nbut Buggins was busy turning out his week's washing. \"Two collars,\" said\nBuggins, \"half pair socks, two dickeys. Shirt?... M'm. There ought to be\nanother collar somewhere.\"\n\n\"Euphemia,\" said Kipps at last, unable altogether to keep to himself\nthis suspicion of a high origin that floated so delightfully about him,\n\"Eu--phemia; it isn't a name _common_ people would give to a girl, is\nit?\"\n\n\"It isn't the name any decent people would give to a girl,\" said\nBuggins, \"----common or not.\"\n\n\"Lor'!\" said Kipps. \"Why?\"\n\n\"It's giving girls names like that,\" said Buggins, \"that nine times out\nof ten makes 'em go wrong. It unsettles 'em. If ever I was to have a\ngirl, if ever I was to have a dozen girls, I'd call 'em all Jane. Every\none of 'em. You couldn't have a better name than that. Euphemia indeed!\nWhat next?... Good Lord!... That isn't one of my collars there, is it?\nunder your bed?\"...\n\nKipps got him the collar.\n\n\"I don't see no great 'arm in Euphemia,\" he said as he did so.\n\nAfter that he became restless. \"I'm a good mind to write that letter,\"\nhe said, and then, finding Buggins preoccupied wrapping his washing up\nin the \"half sox,\" added to himself, \"a thundering good mind.\"\n\nSo he got his penny bottle of ink, borrowed the pen from Buggins and\nwith no very serious difficulty in spelling or composition, did as he\nhad resolved.\n\nHe came back into the bedroom about an hour afterwards a little out of\nbreath and pale. \"Where you been?\" said Buggins, who was now reading the\n_Daily World Manager_, which came to him in rotation from Carshot.\n\n\"Out to post some letters,\" said Kipps, hanging up his hat.\n\n\"Crib hunting?\"\n\n\"Mostly,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"Rather,\" he added, with a nervous laugh; \"what else?\"\n\nBuggins went on reading. Kipps sat on his bed and regarded the back of\nthe _Daily World Manager_ thoughtfully.\n\n\"Buggins,\" he said at last.\n\nBuggins lowered his paper and looked.\n\n\"I say, Buggins, what do these here advertisements mean that say\nso-and-so will hear of something greatly to his advantage?\"\n\n\"Missin' people,\" said Buggins, making to resume reading.\n\n\"How d'yer mean?\" asked Kipps. \"Money left and that sort of thing?\"\n\nBuggins shook his head. \"Debts,\" he said, \"more often than not.\"\n\n\"But that ain't to his advantage.\"\n\n\"They put that to get 'old of 'em,\" said Buggins. \"Often it's wives.\"\n\n\"What you mean?\"\n\n\"Deserted wives, try and get their husbands back that way.\"\n\n\"I suppose it _is_ legacies sometimes, eh? Perhaps if someone was left a\nhundred pounds by someone----\"\n\n\"Hardly ever,\" said Buggins.\n\n\"Well, 'ow----?\" began Kipps and hesitated.\n\nBuggins resumed reading. He was very much excited by a leader on Indian\naffairs. \"By Jove!\" he said, \"it won't do to give these here Blacks\nvotes.\"\n\n\"No fear,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"They're different altogether,\" said Buggins. \"They 'aven't the sound\nsense of Englishmen, and they 'aven't the character. There's a sort of\ntricky dishonesty about 'em--false witness and all that--of which an\nEnglishman has no idea. Outside their courts of law--it's a pos'tive\nfact, Kipps--there's witnesses waitin' to be 'ired. Reg'lar trade. Touch\ntheir 'ats as you go in. Englishmen 'ave no idea, I tell you--not\nord'nary Englishmen. It's in their blood. They're too timid to be\nhonest. Too slavish. They aren't used to being free like we are, and if\nyou gave 'em freedom they wouldn't make a proper use of it. Now\n_we_----. Oh, _Damn_!\"\n\nFor the gas had suddenly gone out and Buggins had the whole column of\nSociety Club Chat still to read.\n\nBuggins could talk of nothing after that but Shalford's meanness in\nturning off the gas, and after being extremely satirical indeed about\ntheir employer, undressed in the dark, hit his bare toe against a box\nand subsided after unseemly ejaculations into silent ill-temper.\n\nThough Kipps tried to get to sleep before the affair of the letter he\nhad just posted resumed possession of his mind he could not do so. He\nwent over the whole thing again, quite exhaustively. Now that his first\nterror was abating he couldn't quite determine whether he was glad or\nsorry that he had posted that letter. If it _should_ happen to be a\nhundred pounds!\n\nIt _must_ be a hundred pounds!\n\nIf it was he could hold out for a year, for a couple of years even,\nbefore he got a Crib.\n\nEven if it was fifty pounds----!\n\nBuggins was already breathing regularly when Kipps spoke again.\n\"_Bug_-gins,\" he said.\n\nBuggins pretended to be asleep, and thickened his regular breathing (a\nlittle too hastily) to a snore.\n\n\"I say Buggins,\" said Kipps after an interval.\n\n\"_What's_ up now?\" said Buggins unamiably.\n\n\"'Spose _you_ saw an advertisement in a paper, with your name in it,\nsee, asking you to come and see someone, like, so as to hear of\nsomething very much to your----\"\n\n\"Hide,\" said Buggins shortly.\n\n\"But----\"\n\n\"I'd hide.\"\n\n\"Er?\"\n\n\"Goonight, o' man,\" said Buggins, with convincing earnestness. Kipps lay\nstill for a long time, then blew profoundly, turned over and stared at\nthe other side of the dark.\n\nHe had been a fool to post that letter!\n\nLord! _Hadn't_ he been a fool!\n\n\n§3\n\nIt was just five days and a half after the light had been turned out\nwhile Buggins was reading, that a young man with a white face and eyes\nbright and wide-open, emerged from a side road upon the Leas front. He\nwas dressed in his best clothes, and, although the weather was fine, he\ncarried his umbrella, just as if he had been to church. He hesitated and\nturned to the right. He scanned each house narrowly as he passed it, and\npresently came to an abrupt stop. \"Hughenden,\" said the gateposts in\nfirm, black letters, and the fanlight in gold repeated \"Hughenden.\" It\nwas a stucco house fit to take your breath away, and its balcony was\npainted a beautiful sea-green, enlivened with gilding. He stood looking\nup at it.\n\n\"Gollys!\" he said at last in an awestricken whisper.\n\nIt had rich-looking crimson curtains to all the lower windows and brass\nrailed blinds above. There was a splendid tropical plant in a large,\nartistic pot in the drawing-room window. There was a splendid bronzed\nknocker (ring also) and two bells--one marked \"servants.\" Gollys!\n_Servants_, eh?\n\nHe walked past away from it, with his eyes regarding it, and then turned\nand came back. He passed through a further indecision, and finally\ndrifted away to the sea front and sat down on a seat a little way along\nthe Leas and put his arm over the back and regarded \"Hughenden.\" He\nwhistled an air very softly to himself, put his head first on one side\nand then on the other. Then for a space he scowled fixedly at it.\n\nA very stout old gentleman, with a very red face and very protuberant\neyes, sat down beside Kipps, removed a Panama hat of the most abandoned\ndesperado cut, and mopped his brow and blew. Then he began mopping the\ninside of his hat. Kipps watched him for a space, wondering how much he\nmight have a year, and where he bought his hat. Then \"Hughenden\"\nreasserted itself.\n\nAn impulse overwhelmed him. \"I say,\" he said, leaning forward, to the\nold gentleman.\n\nThe old gentleman started and stared.\n\n\"_Whad_ do you say?\" he asked fiercely.\n\n\"You wouldn't think,\" said Kipps, indicating with his forefinger, \"that\nthat 'ouse there belongs to me.\"\n\nThe old gentleman twisted his neck round to look at \"Hughenden.\" Then he\ncame back to Kipps, looked at his mean, little garments with apoplectic\nintensity and blew at him by way of reply.\n\n\"It does,\" said Kipps, a little less confidently.\n\n\"Don't be a Fool,\" said the old gentleman, and put his hat on and wiped\nout the corners of his eyes. \"It's hot enough,\" panted the old gentleman\nindignantly, \"without Fools.\" Kipps looked from the old gentleman to the\nhouse and back to the old gentleman. The old gentleman looked at Kipps\nand snorted and looked out to sea, and again, snorting very\ncontemptuously, at Kipps.\n\n\"Mean to say it doesn't belong to me?\" said Kipps.\n\nThe old gentleman just glanced over his shoulder at the house in dispute\nand then fell to pretending Kipps didn't exist. \"It's been lef' me this\nvery morning,\" said Kipps. \"It ain't the only one that's been lef' me,\nneither.\"\n\n\"Aw!\" said the old gentleman, like one who is sorely tried. He seemed to\nexpect the passers-by presently to remove Kipps.\n\n\"It _'as_,\" said Kipps. He made no further remark to the old gentleman\nfor a space, but looked with a little less certitude at the house....\n\n\"I got----\" he said and stopped.\n\n\"It's no good telling you if you don't believe,\" he said.\n\nThe old gentleman, after a struggle with himself, decided not to have a\nfit. \"Try that game on with me,\" he panted. \"Give you in charge.\"\n\n\"What game?\"\n\n\"Wasn't born yesterday,\" said the old gentleman, and blew. \"Besides,\" he\nadded, \"_look_ at you! I know you,\" and the old gentleman coughed\nshortly and nodded to the horizon and coughed again.\n\nKipps looked dubiously from the house to the old gentleman and back to\nthe house. Their conversation, he gathered, was over. Presently he got\nup and went slowly across the grass to its stucco portal again. He stood\nand his mouth shaped the precious word, \"Hughenden.\" It was all _right_!\nHe looked over his shoulder as if in appeal to the old gentleman, then\nturned and went his way. The old gentleman was so evidently past all\nreason!\n\nHe hung for a moment some distance along the parade, as though some\ninvisible string was pulling him back. When he could no longer see the\nhouse from the pavement he went out into the road. Then with an effort\nhe snapped the string.\n\nHe went on down a quiet side street, unbuttoned his coat furtively, took\nout three bank notes in an envelope, looked at them and replaced them.\nThen he fished up five new sovereigns from his trouser pocket and\nexamined them. To such a confidence had his exact resemblance to his\ndead mother's portrait carried Messrs. Watson and Bean.\n\nIt was right enough.\n\nIt really was _all_ right.\n\nHe replaced the coins with grave precaution and went his way with a\nsudden briskness. It was all right--he had it now--he was a rich man at\nlarge. He went up a street and round a corner and along another street,\nand started towards the Pavilion and changed his mind and came round\nback, resolved to go straight to the Emporium and tell them all.\n\nHe was aware of someone crossing a road far off ahead of him, someone\ncuriously relevant to his present extraordinary state of mind. It was\nChitterlow. Of course it was Chitterlow who had told him first of the\nwhole thing! The playwright was marching buoyantly along a cross street.\nHis nose was in the air, the yachting cap was on the back of his head\nand the large freckled hand grasped two novels from the library, a\nmorning newspaper, a new hat done up in paper and a lady's net bag full\nof onions and tomatoes....\n\nHe passed out of sight behind the wine merchant's at the corner, as\nKipps decided to hurry forward and tell him of the amazing change in the\nOrder of the Universe that had just occurred.\n\nKipps uttered a feeble shout, arrested as it began, and waved his\numbrella. Then he set off at a smart pace in pursuit. He came round the\ncorner and Chitterlow had gone; he hurried to the next and there was no\nChitterlow, he turned back unavailingly and his eyes sought some other\npossible corner. His hand fluttered to his mouth and he stood for a\nspace at the pavement edge, staring about him. No good!\n\nBut the sight of Chitterlow was a wholesome thing, it connected events\ntogether, joined him on again to the past at a new point, and that was\nwhat he so badly needed....\n\nIt was all right--all right.\n\nHe became suddenly very anxious to tell everybody at the Emporium,\nabsolutely everybody, all about it. That was what wanted doing. He felt\nthat telling was the thing to make this business real. He gripped his\numbrella about the middle and walked very eagerly.\n\nHe entered the Emporium through the Manchester department. He flung open\nthe door (over whose ground glass he had so recently, in infinite\napprehension, watched the nose of Chitterlow) and discovered the second\napprentice and Pierce in conversation. Pierce was prodding his hollow\ntooth with a pin and talking in fragments about the distinctive\ncharacteristics of Good Style.\n\nKipps came up in front of the counter.\n\n\"I say,\" he said; \"what d'yer think?\"\n\n\"What?\" said Pierce over the pin.\n\n\"Guess.\"\n\n\"You've slipped out because Teddy's in London.\"\n\n\"Something more.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Been left a fortune.\"\n\n\"Garn!\"\n\n\"I 'ave.\"\n\n\"Get out!\"\n\n\"Straight. I been lef' twelve 'undred pounds--twelve 'undred pounds a\nyear!\"\n\nHe moved towards the little door out of the department into the house,\nmoving, as heralds say, _regardant passant_. Pierce stood with mouth\nwide open and pin poised in air. \"No!\" he said at last.\n\n\"It's right,\" said Kipps, \"and I'm going.\"\n\nAnd he fell over the doormat into the house.\n\n\n§4\n\nIt happened that Mr. Shalford was in London buying summer sale\ngoods--and no doubt also interviewing aspirants to succeed Kipps.\n\nSo that there was positively nothing to hinder a wild rush of rumour\nfrom end to end of the Emporium. All the masculine members began their\nreport with the same formula. \"Heard about Kipps?\"\n\nThe new girl in the cash desk had had it from Pierce and had dashed out\ninto the fancy shop to be the first with the news on the fancy side.\nKipps had been left a thousand pounds a year, twelve thousand pounds a\nyear. Kipps had been left twelve hundred thousand pounds. The figures\nwere uncertain, but the essential facts they had correct. Kipps had gone\nupstairs. Kipps was packing his box. He said he wouldn't stop another\nday in the old Emporium, not for a thousand pounds! It was said that he\nwas singing ribaldry about old Shalford.\n\nHe had come down! He was in the counting house. There was a general\nmovement thither. Poor old Buggins had a customer and couldn't make out\nwhat the deuce it was all about! Completely out of it was Buggins.\n\nThere was a sound of running to and fro and voices saying this, that\nand the other thing about Kipps. Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger went the\ndinner bell all unheeded. The whole of the Emporium was suddenly\nbright-eyed, excited, hungry to tell somebody, to find at any cost\nsomebody who didn't know and be first to tell them, \"Kipps has been left\nthirty--forty--fifty thousand pounds!\"\n\n\"_What!_\" cried the senior porter, \"Him!\" and ran up to the counting\nhouse as eagerly as though Kipps had broken his neck.\n\n\"One of our chaps just been left sixty thousand pounds,\" said the first\napprentice, returning after a great absence, to his customer.\n\n\"Unexpectedly?\" said the customer.\n\n\"Quite,\" said the first apprentice....\n\n\"I'm sure if Anyone deserves it, it's Mr. Kipps,\" said Miss Mergle, and\nher train rustled as she hurried to the counting house.\n\nThere stood Kipps amidst a pelting shower of congratulations. His face\nwas flushed and his hair disordered. He still clutched his hat and best\numbrella in his left hand. His right hand was anyone's to shake rather\nthan his own. (Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger ding, ding, ding, dang you!\nwent the neglected dinner bell.)\n\n\"Good old Kipps,\" said Pierce, shaking; \"Good old Kipps.\"\n\nBooch rubbed one anæmic hand upon the other. \"You're sure it's all\nright, Mr. Kipps,\" he said in the background.\n\n\"I'm sure we all congratulate him,\" said Miss Mergle.\n\n\"Great Scott!\" said the new young lady in the glove department. \"Twelve\nhundred a year! Great Scott! You aren't thinking of marrying anyone, are\nyou, Mr. Kipps?\"\n\n\"Three pounds, five and ninepence a day,\" said Mr. Booch, working in his\nhead almost miraculously....\n\nEveryone, it seemed, was saying how glad they were it was Kipps, except\nthe junior apprentice, upon whom--he being the only son of a widow and\nused to having the best of everything as a right--an intolerable envy, a\nsense of unbearable wrong, had cast its gloomy shade. All the rest were\nquite honestly and simply glad--gladder perhaps at that time than Kipps\nbecause they were not so overpowered....\n\nKipps went downstairs to dinner, emitting fragmentary, disconnected\nstatements. \"Never expected anything of the sort.... When this here old\nBean told me, you could have knocked me down with a feather.... He says,\n'You b'en lef' money.' Even then I didn't expect it'd be mor'n a hundred\npounds perhaps. Something like that.\"\n\nWith the sitting down to dinner and the handing of plates the excitement\nassumed a more orderly quality. The housekeeper emitted congratulations\nas she carved and the maidservant became dangerous to clothes with the\nplates--she held them anyhow, one expected to see one upside down\neven--she found Kipps so fascinating to look at. Everyone was the\nbrisker and hungrier for the news (except the junior apprentice) and the\nhousekeeper carved with unusual liberality. It was High Old Times there\nunder the gaslight, High Old Times. \"I'm sure if Anyone deserves it,\"\nsaid Miss Mergle--\"pass the salt, please--it's Kipps.\"\n\nThe babble died away a little as Carshot began barking across the table\nat Kipps. \"You'll be a bit of a Swell, Kipps,\" he said. \"You won't\nhardly know yourself.\"\n\n\"Quite the gentleman,\" said Miss Mergle.\n\n\"Many real gentlemen's families,\" said the housekeeper, \"have to do with\nless.\"\n\n\"See you on the Leas,\" said Carshot. \"My gu--!\" He met the housekeeper's\neye. She had spoken about that before. \"My eye!\" he said tamely, lest\nwords should mar the day.\n\n\"You'll go to London, I reckon,\" said Pierce. \"You'll be a man about\ntown. We shall see you mashing 'em, with violets in your button'ole down\nthe Burlington Arcade.\"\n\n\"One of these West End Flats. That'd be my style,\" said Pierce. \"And a\nfirst-class club.\"\n\n\"Aren't these clubs a bit 'ard to get into?\" asked Kipps, open-eyed,\nover a mouthful of potato.\n\n\"No fear. Not for Money,\" said Pierce. And the girl in the laces who had\nacquired a cynical view of Modern Society from the fearless exposures\nof Miss Marie Corelli, said, \"Money goes everywhere nowadays, Mr.\nKipps.\"\n\nBut Carshot showed the true British strain.\n\n\"If I was Kipps,\" he said, pausing momentarily for a knifeful of gravy,\n\"I should go to the Rockies and shoot bears.\"\n\n\"I'd certainly 'ave a run over to Boulogne,\" said Pierce, \"and look\nabout a bit. I'm going to do that next Easter myself, anyhow--see if I\ndon't.\"\n\n\"Go to Oireland, Mr. Kipps,\" came the soft insistence of Biddy Murphy,\nwho managed the big workroom, flushed and shining in the Irish way, as\nshe spoke. \"Go to Oireland. Ut's the loveliest country in the world.\nOutside Car-rs. Fishin', shootin', huntin'. An' pretty gals! Eh! You\nshould see the Lakes of Killarney, Mr. Kipps!\" And she expressed ecstasy\nby a facial pantomime and smacked her lips.\n\nAnd presently they crowned the event.\n\nIt was Pierce who said, \"Kipps, you ought to stand Sham!\"\n\nAnd it was Carshot who found the more poetical word, \"Champagne.\"\n\n\"Rather!\" said Kipps hilariously, and the rest was a question of detail\nand willing emissaries. \"Here it comes!\" they said as the apprentice\ncame down the staircase. \"How about the shop?\" said someone. \"Oh! _hang_\nthe shop!\" said Carshot and made gruntulous demands for a corkscrew with\na thing to cut the wire. Pierce, the dog! had a wire cutter in his\npocket knife. How Shalford would have stared at the gold tipped bottles\nif he had chanced to take an early train! Bang with the corks, and bang!\nGluck, gluck, gluck, and sizzle!\n\nWhen Kipps found them all standing about him under the gas flare, saying\nalmost solemnly \"Kipps!\" with tumblers upheld--\"Have it in tumblers,\"\nCarshot had said; \"have it in tumblers. It isn't a wine like you have in\nglasses. Not like port and sherry. It cheers you up, but you don't get\ndrunk. It isn't hardly stronger than lemonade. They drink it at dinner,\nsome of 'em, every day.\"\n\n\"What! At three and six a bottle!\" said the housekeeper incredulously.\n\n\"_They_ don't stick at _that_,\" said Carshot; \"not the champagne sort.\"\n\nThe housekeeper pursed her lips and shook her head....\n\nWhen Kipps, I say, found them all standing up to toast him in that\nmanner, there came such a feeling in his throat and face that for the\nlife of him he scarcely knew for a moment whether he was not going to\ncry. \"Kipps!\" they all said, with kindly eyes. It was very good of them,\nit was very good of them, and hard there wasn't a stroke of luck for\nthem all!\n\nBut the sight of upturned chins and glasses pulled him together\nagain....\n\nThey did him honour. Unenviously and freely they did him honour.\n\nFor example, Carshot being subsequently engaged in serving cretonne and\ndesiring to push a number of rejected blocks up the counter in order to\nhave space for measuring, swept them by a powerful and ill-calculated\nmovement of the arm, with a noise like thunder partly on to the floor\nand partly on to the foot of the still gloomily preoccupied junior\napprentice. And Buggins, whose place it was to shopwalk while Carshot\nserved, shopwalked with quite unparalleled dignity, dangling a new\nseason's sunshade with a crooked handle on one finger. He arrested each\ncustomer who came down the shop with a grave and penetrating look.\n\"Showing very 'tractive line new sheason's shun-shade,\" he would remark,\nand, after a suitable pause, \"'Markable thing, one our 'sistant leg'sy\ntwelve 'undred a year. V'ry 'tractive. Nothing more to-day, mum? No!\"\nAnd he would then go and hold the door open for them with perfect\ndecorum and with the sunshade dangling elegantly from his left hand....\n\nAnd the second apprentice, serving a customer with cheap ticking, and\nbeing asked suddenly if it was strong, answered remarkably,\n\n\"Oo! _no_, mum! Strong! Why it ain't 'ardly stronger than lemonade....\"\n\nThe head porter, moreover, was filled with a virtuous resolve to break\nthe record as a lightning packer and make up for lost time. Mr.\nSwaffenham, of the Sandgate Riviera, for example, who was going out to\ndinner that night at seven, received at half-past six, instead of the\nurgently needed dress shirt he expected, a corset specially adapted to\nthe needs of persons inclined to embonpoint. A parcel of summer\nunderclothing selected by the elder Miss Waldershawe, was somehow\ndistributed in the form of gratis additions throughout a number of\nparcels of a less intimate nature, and a box of millinery on approval to\nLady Pamshort (at Wampachs) was enriched by the addition of the junior\nporter's cap....\n\nThese little things, slight in themselves, witness perhaps none the less\neloquently to the unselfish exhilaration felt throughout the Emporium at\nthe extraordinary and unexpected enrichment of Mr. Kipps.\n\n\n§5\n\nThe 'bus that plies between New Romney and Folkestone is painted a\nBritish red and inscribed on either side with the word \"Tip-top\" in gold\namidst voluptuous scrolls. It is a slow and portly 'bus. Below it swings\na sort of hold, hung by chains between the wheels, and in the summer\ntime the top has garden seats. The front over the two dauntless\nunhurrying horses rises in tiers like a theatre; there is first a seat\nfor the driver and his company, and above that a seat and above that,\nunless my memory plays me false, a seat. There are days when this 'bus\ngoes and days when it doesn't go--you have to find out. And so you get\nto New Romney.\n\nThis 'bus it was, this ruddy, venerable and immortal 'bus, that came\ndown the Folkestone hill with unflinching deliberation, and trundled\nthrough Sandgate and Hythe, and out into the windy spaces of the Marsh,\nwith Kipps and all his fortunes on its brow. You figure him there. He\nsat on the highest seat diametrically above the driver and his head was\nspinning and spinning with champagne and this stupendous Tomfoolery of\nLuck and his heart was swelling, swelling indeed at times as though it\nwould burst him, and his face towards the sunlight was transfigured. He\nsaid never a word, but ever and again as he thought of this or that, he\nlaughed. He seemed full of chuckles for a time, detached and independent\nchuckles, chuckles that rose and burst in him like bubbles in a wine....\nHe held a banjo sceptre-fashion and restless on his knee. He had always\nwanted a banjo, and now he had got one at Malchior's while he was\nwaiting for the 'bus.\n\nThere sat beside him a young servant who was sucking peppermint and a\nlittle boy with a sniff, whose flitting eyes showed him curious to know\nwhy ever and again Kipps laughed, and beside the driver were two young\nmen in gaiters talking about \"tegs.\" And there sat Kipps, all\nunsuspected, twelve hundred a year, as it were, disguised as a common\nyoung man. And the young man in gaiters to the left of the driver eyed\nKipps and his banjo, and especially his banjo, ever and again as if he\nfound it and him, with his rapt face, an insoluble enigma. And many a\nKing has ridden into a conquered city with a lesser sense of splendour\nthan Kipps.\n\nTheir shadows grew long behind them and their faces were transfigured in\ngold as they rumbled on towards the splendid West. The sun set before\nthey had passed Dymchurch, and as they came lumbering into New Romney\npast the windmill the dusk had come.\n\nThe driver handed down the banjo and the portmanteau, and Kipps having\npaid him--\"That's aw right,\" he said to the change, as a gentleman\nshould--turned about and ran the portmanteau smartly into Old Kipps,\nwhom the sound of the stopping of the 'bus had brought to the door of\nthe shop in an aggressive mood and with his mouth full of supper.\n\n\"Ullo, Uncle, didn't see you,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"Blunderin' ninny,\" said Old Kipps. \"What's brought _you_ here? Ain't\nearly closing, is it? Not Toosday?\"\n\n\"Got some news for you, Uncle,\" said Kipps, dropping the portmanteau.\n\n\"Ain't lost your situation, 'ave you? What's that you got there? I'm\nblowed if it ain't a banjo. Goo-lord! Spendin' your money on banjoes!\nDon't put down your portmanty there--anyhow. Right in the way of\neverybody. I'm blowed if ever I saw such a boy as you've got lately.\nHere! Molly! And, look here! What you got a portmanty for? Why!\nGoo-lord! You ain't _really_ lost your place, 'ave you?\"\n\n\"Somethin's happened,\" said Kipps slightly dashed. \"It's all right,\nUncle. I'll tell you in a minute.\"\n\nOld Kipps took the banjo as his nephew picked up the portmanteau again.\n\nThe living room door opened quickly, showing a table equipped with\nelaborate simplicity for supper, and Mrs. Kipps appeared.\n\n\"If it ain't young Artie,\" she said. \"Why! Whatever's brought _you_\n'ome?\"\n\n\"Ullo, Aunt,\" said Artie. \"I'm coming in. I got somethin' to tell you.\nI've 'ad a bit of Luck.\"\n\nHe wouldn't tell them all at once. He staggered with the portmanteau\nround the corner of the counter, set a bundle of children's tin pails\ninto clattering oscillation, and entered the little room. He deposited\nhis luggage in the corner beside the tall clock, and turned to his Aunt\nand Uncle again. His Aunt regarded him doubtfully, the yellow light from\nthe little lamp on the table escaped above the shade and lit her\nforehead and the tip of her nose. It would be all right in a minute. He\nwouldn't tell them all at once. Old Kipps stood in the shop door with\nthe banjo in his hand, breathing noisily. \"The fact is, Aunt, I've 'ad a\nbit of Luck.\"\n\n\"You ain't been backin' gordless 'orses, Artie?\" she asked.\n\n\"No fear.\"\n\n\"It's a draw he's been in,\" said Old Kipps, still panting from the\nimpact of the portmanteau; \"it's a dratted draw. Jest look here, Molly.\nHe's won this 'ere trashy banjer and thrown up his situation on the\nstrength of it--that's what he's done. Goin' about singing. Dash and\nplunge! Jest the very fault poor Pheamy always 'ad. Blunder right in and\nno one mustn't stop 'er!\"\n\n\"You ain't thrown up your place, Artie, 'ave you?\" said Mrs. Kipps.\n\nKipps perceived his opportunity. \"I 'ave,\" he said; \"I've throwed it\nup.\"\n\n\"What for?\" said Old Kipps.\n\n\"So's to learn the banjo!\"\n\n\"Goo _Lord_!\" said Old Kipps, in horror to find himself verified.\n\n\"I'm going about playing!\" said Kipps with a giggle. \"Goin' to black my\nface, Aunt, and sing on the beach. I'm going to 'ave a most tremenjous\nlark and earn any amount of money--you see. Twenty-six fousand pounds\nI'm going to earn just as easy as nothing!\"\n\n\"Kipps,\" said Mrs. Kipps, \"he's been drinking!\"\n\nThey regarded their nephew across the supper table with long faces.\nKipps exploded with laughter and broke out again when his Aunt shook her\nhead very sadly at him. Then suddenly he fell grave. He felt he could\nkeep it up no longer. \"It's all right, Aunt. Reely. I ain't mad and I\nain't been drinking. I been lef' money. I been left twenty-six fousand\npounds.\"\n\nPause.\n\n\"And you thrown up your place?\" said Old Kipps.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Kipps. \"Rather!\"\n\n\"And bort this banjer, put on your best noo trousers and come right on\n'ere?\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Mrs. Kipps, \"_I_ never did.\"\n\n\"These ain't my noo trousers, Aunt,\" said Kipps regretfully. \"My noo\ntrousers wasn't done.\"\n\n\"I shouldn't ha' thought that _even you_ could ha' been such a fool as\nthat,\" said Old Kipps.\n\nPause.\n\n\"It's _all_ right,\" said Kipps a little disconcerted by their\ndistrustful solemnity. \"It's all right--reely! Twenny-six fousan'\npounds. And a 'ouse----\"\n\nOld Kipps pursed his lips and shook his head.\n\n\"A 'ouse on the Leas. I could have gone there. Only I didn't. I didn't\ncare to. I didn't know what to say. I wanted to come and tell you.\"\n\n\"How d'yer know the 'ouse----?\"\n\n\"They told me.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Old Kipps, and nodded his head portentously towards his\nnephew, with the corners of his mouth pulled down in a portentous,\ndiscouraging way. \"Well, you _are_ a young Gaby.\"\n\n\"I didn't _think_ it of you, Artie!\" said Mrs. Kipps.\n\n\"Wadjer mean?\" asked Kipps faintly, looking from one to the other with a\nwithered face.\n\nOld Kipps closed the shop door. \"They been 'avin' a lark with you,\" said\nOld Kipps in a mournful undertone. \"That's what I mean, my boy. They\njest been seein' what a Gaby like you 'ud do.\"\n\n\"I dessay that young Quodling was in it,\" said Mrs. Kipps. \"'E's jest\nthat sort.\"\n\n(For Quodling of the green baize bag had grown up to be a fearful dog,\nthe terror of New Romney.)\n\n\"It's somebody after your place very likely,\" said Old Kipps.\n\nKipps looked from one sceptical, reproving face to the other, and round\nhim at the familiar shabby, little room, with his familiar cheap\nportmanteau on the mended chair, and that banjo amidst the supper things\nlike some irrevocable deed. Could he be rich indeed? Could it be that\nthese things had really happened? Or had some insane fancy whirled him\nhither?\n\nStill--perhaps a hundred pounds----\n\n\"But,\" he said. \"It's all right, reely, Uncle. You don't think----? I\n'ad a letter.\"\n\n\"Got up,\" said Old Kipps.\n\n\"But I answered it and went to a norfis.\"\n\nOld Kipps felt staggered for a moment, but he shook his head and chins\nsagely from side to side. As the memory of old Bean and Shalford\nrevived, the confidence of Kipps came back to him.\n\n\"I saw a nold gent, Uncle--perfect gentleman. And 'e told me all about\nit. Mos' respectable 'e was. Said 'is name was Watson and\nBean--leastways 'e was Bean. Said it was lef' me----\" Kipps suddenly\ndived into his breast pocket. \"By my Grandfather----\"\n\nThe old people started.\n\nOld Kipps uttered an exclamation and wheeled round towards the mantel\nshelf above which the daguerreotype of his lost younger sister smiled\nits fading smile upon the world.\n\n\"Waddy 'is name was,\" said Kipps, with his hand still deep in his\npocket. \"It was _'is_ son was my father----\"\n\n\"Waddy!\" said Old Kipps.\n\n\"Waddy!\" said Mrs. Kipps.\n\n\"She'd never say,\" said Old Kipps.\n\nThere was a long silence.\n\nKipps fumbled with a letter, a crumpled advertisement and three bank\nnotes. He hesitated between these items.\n\n\"Why! That young chap what was arsting questions----\" said Old Kipps,\nand regarded his wife with an eye of amazement.\n\n\"Must 'ave been,\" said Mrs. Kipps.\n\n\"Must 'ave been,\" said Old Kipps.\n\n\"James,\" said Mrs. Kipps, in an awestricken voice, \"after\nall--perhaps--it's true!\"\n\n\"_'Ow_ much did you say?\" asked Old Kipps. \"'Ow much did you say 'ed\nlef' you, me b'y?\"\n\nIt was thrilling, though not quite in the way Kipps had expected. He\nanswered almost meekly across the meagre supper things, with his\ndocumentary evidence in his hand:\n\n\"Twelve 'undred pounds. 'Proximately, he said. Twelve 'undred pounds a\nyear. 'E made 'is will, jest before 'e died--not more'n a month ago.\nWhen 'e was dying, 'e seemed to change like, Mr. Bean said. 'E'd never\nforgiven 'is son, never--not till then. 'Is son 'ad died in Australia,\nyears and years ago, and _then_ 'e 'adn't forgiven 'im. You know--'is\nson what was my father. But jest when 'e was ill and dying 'e seemed to\nget worried like and longing for someone of 'is own. And 'e told Mr.\nBean it was 'im that had prevented them marrying. So 'e thought. That's\n'ow it all come about....\"\n\n\n§6\n\nAt last Kipps' flaring candle went up the narrow uncarpeted staircase to\nthe little attic that had been his shelter and refuge during all the\ndays of his childhood and youth. His head was whirling. He had been\nadvised, he had been warned, he had been flattered and congratulated, he\nhad been given whiskey and hot water and lemon and sugar, and his health\nhad been drunk in the same. He had also eaten two Welsh Rabbits--an\nunusual supper. His Uncle was chiefly for his going into Parliament, his\nAunt was consumed with a great anxiety. \"I'm afraid he'll go and marry\nbeneath 'im.\"\n\n\"Y'ought to 'ave a bit o' shootin' somewheer,\" said Old Kipps.\n\n\"It's your _duty_ to marry into a county family, Artie. Remember that.\"\n\n\"There's lots of young noblemen'll be glad to 'ang on to you,\" said Old\nKipps. \"You mark my words. And borry your money. And then, good day to\nye.\"\n\n\"I got to be precious Careful,\" said Kipps. \"Mr. Bean said that.\"\n\n\"And you got to be precious careful of this old Bean,\" said Old Kipps.\n\"We may be out of the world in Noo Romney, but I've 'eard a bit about\ns'licitors, for all that. You keep your eye on old Bean, me b'y.\n\n\"'Ow do we know what 'e's up to, with your money, even now?\" said Old\nKipps, pursuing this uncomfortable topic.\n\n\"'E _looked_ very respectable,\" said Kipps....\n\nKipps undressed with great deliberation, and with vast gaps of pensive\nmargin. Twenty-six thousand pounds!\n\nHis Aunt's solicitude had brought back certain matters into the\nforeground that his \"Twelve 'Undred a year!\" had for a time driven away\naltogether. His thoughts went back to the wood-carving class. Twelve\nHundred a Year. He sat on the edge of the bed in profound meditation and\nhis boots fell \"whop\" and \"whop\" upon the floor, with a long interval\nbetween each \"whop.\" Twenty-five thousand pounds. \"By Gum!\" He dropped\nthe remainder of his costume about him on the floor, got into bed,\npulled the patchwork quilt over him and put his head on the pillow that\nhad been first to hear of Ann Pornick's accession to his heart. But he\ndid not think of Ann Pornick now.\n\nIt was about everything in the world except Ann Pornick that he seemed\nto be trying to think of--simultaneously. All the vivid happenings of\nthe day came and went in his overtaxed brain; \"that old Bean\" explaining\nand explaining, the fat man who wouldn't believe, an overpowering smell\nof peppermint, the banjo, Miss Mergle saying he deserved it,\nChitterlow's vanishing round a corner, the wisdom and advice and\nwarnings of his Aunt and Uncle. She was afraid he would marry beneath\nhim, _was_ she? She didn't know....\n\nHis brain made an excursion into the wood-carving class and presented\nKipps with the picture of himself amazing that class by a modest yet\nclearly audible remark, \"I been left twenty-six thousand pounds.\"\n\nThen he told them all quietly but firmly that he had always loved Miss\nWalshingham, always, and so he had brought all his twenty-six thousand\npounds with him to give to her there and then. He wanted nothing in\nreturn.... Yes, he wanted nothing in return. He would give it to her all\nin an envelope and go. Of course he would keep the banjo--and a little\npresent for his Aunt and Uncle--and a new suit perhaps--and one or two\nother things she would not miss. He went off at a tangent. He might buy\na motor car, he might buy one of these here things that will play you a\npiano--that would make old Buggins sit up! He could pretend he had\nlearnt to play--he might buy a bicycle and a cyclist suit....\n\nA terrific multitude of plans of what he might do and in particular of\nwhat he might buy, came crowding into his brain, and he did not so much\nfall asleep as pass into a disorder of dreams in which he was driving a\nfour-horse Tip-Top coach down Sandgate Hill (\"I shall have to be\nprecious careful\"), wearing innumerable suits of clothes, and through\nsome terrible accident wearing them all wrong. Consequently he was being\nlaughed at. The coach vanished in the interest of the costume. He was\nwearing golfing suits and a silk hat. This passed into a nightmare that\nhe was promenading on the Leas in a Highland costume, with a kilt that\nkept shrinking, and Shalford was following him with three policemen.\n\"He's my assistant,\" Shalford kept repeating; \"he's escaped. He's an\nescaped Improver. Keep by him and in a minute you'll have to run him in.\nI know 'em. We say they wash, but they won't.\"... He could feel the kilt\ncreeping up his legs. He would have tugged at it to pull it down only\nhis arms were paralysed. He had an impression of giddy crisis. He\nuttered a shriek of despair. \"_Now!_\" said Shalford. He woke in horror,\nhis quilt had slipped off the bed.\n\nHe had a fancy he had just been called, that he had somehow overslept\nhimself and missed going down for dusting. Then he perceived it was\nstill night and light by reason of the moonlight, and that he was no\nlonger in the Emporium. He wondered where he could be. He had a curious\nfancy that the world had been swept and rolled up like a carpet and that\nhe was nowhere. It occurred to him that perhaps he was mad. \"Buggins!\"\nhe said. There was no answer, not even the defensive snore. No room, no\nBuggins, nothing!\n\nThen he remembered better. He sat on the edge of his bed for some time.\nCould anyone have seen his face they would have seen it white and drawn\nwith staring eyes. Then he groaned weakly. \"Twenty-six thousand pounds?\"\nhe whispered.\n\nJust then it presented itself in an almost horribly overwhelming mass.\n\nHe remade his bed and returned to it. He was still dreadfully wakeful.\nIt was suddenly clear to him that he need never trouble to get up\npunctually at seven again. That fact shone out upon him like a star\nthrough clouds. He was free to lie in bed as long as he liked, get up\nwhen he liked, go where he liked, have eggs every morning for breakfast\nor rashers or bloater paste or.... Also he was going to astonish Miss\nWalshingham....\n\nAstonish her and astonish her....\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHe was awakened by a thrush singing in the fresh dawn. The whole room\nwas flooded with warm, golden sunshine. \"I say!\" said the thrush. \"I\nsay! I say! Twelve 'undred a year! Twelve 'Undred a Year. Twelve 'UNDRED\na Year! I say! I say! I say!\"\n\nHe sat up in bed and rubbed the sleep from his eyes with his knuckles.\nThen he jumped out of bed and began dressing very eagerly. He did not\nwant to lose any time in beginning the new life.\n\n\nEND OF BOOK I\n\n\n\n\nBOOK II\n\nMR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE NEW CONDITIONS\n\n\n§1\n\nThere comes a gentlemanly figure into these events and for a space takes\na leading part therein, a Good Influence, a refined and amiable figure,\nMr. Chester Coote. You must figure him as about to enter our story,\nwalking with a curious rectitude of bearing through the evening dusk\ntowards the Public Library, erect, large-headed--he had a great, big\nhead full of the suggestion of a powerful mind, well under control--with\na large, official-looking envelope in his white and knuckly hand. In the\nother he carries a gold-handled cane. He wears a silken grey jacket\nsuit, buttoned up, and anon he coughs behind the official envelope. He\nhas a prominent nose, slatey grey eyes and a certain heaviness about the\nmouth. His mouth hangs breathing open, with a slight protrusion of the\nlower jaw. His straw hat is pulled down a little in front, and he looks\neach person he passes in the eye, and directly his look is answered\nlooks away.\n\nThus Mr. Chester Coote, as he was on the evening when he came upon\nKipps. He was a local house agent and a most active and gentlemanly\nperson, a conscious gentleman, equally aware of society and the serious\nside of life. From amateur theatricals of a nice, refined sort to\nscience classes, few things were able to get along without him. He\nsupplied a fine, full bass, a little flat and quavery perhaps, but very\nabundant, to the St. Stylites' choir....\n\nHe passes on towards the Public Library, lifts the envelope in\nsalutation to a passing curate, smiles and enters....\n\nIt was in the Public Library that he came upon Kipps.\n\nBy that time Kipps had been rich a week or more, and the change in his\ncircumstances was visible upon his person. He was wearing a new suit of\ndrab flannels, a Panama hat and a red tie for the first time, and he\ncarried a silver-mounted stick with a tortoise shell handle. He felt\nextraordinarily different, perhaps more different than he really was,\nfrom the meek Improver of a week ago. He felt as he felt Dukes must\nfeel, yet at bottom he was still modest. He was leaning on his stick and\nregarding the indicator with a respect that never palled. He faced round\nto meet Mr. Coote's overflowing smile.\n\n\"What are you doang hea?\" said Mr. Chester Coote.\n\nKipps was momentarily abashed. \"Oh,\" he said slowly, and then, \"Mooching\nround a bit.\"\n\nThat Coote should address him with this easy familiarity was a fresh\nreminder of his enhanced social position. \"Jes' mooching round,\" he\nsaid. \"I been back in Folkestone free days now. At my 'ouse, you know.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said Mr. Coote. \"I haven't yet had an opportunity of\ncongratulating you on your good fortune.\"\n\nKipps held out his hand. \"It was the cleanest surprise that ever was,\"\nhe said. \"When Mr. Bean told me of it--you could have knocked me down\nwith a feather.\"\n\n\"It must mean a tremendous change for you.\"\n\n\"Oo. Rather. Change. Why, I'm like the chap in the song they sing, I\ndon't 'ardly know where I are. _You_ know.\"\n\n\"An extraordinary change,\" said Mr. Coote. \"I can quite believe it. Are\nyou stopping in Folkestone?\"\n\n\"For a bit. I got a 'ouse, you know. What my gran'father 'ad. I'm\nstopping there. His housekeeper was kep' on. Fancy--being in the same\ntown and everything!\"\n\n\"Precisely,\" said Mr. Coote. \"That's it!\" and coughed like a sheep\nbehind four straight fingers.\n\n\"Mr. Bean got me to come back to see to things. Else I was out in New\nRomney, where my Uncle and Aunt live. But it's a Lark coming back. In a\nway....\"\n\nThe conversation hung for a moment.\n\n\"Are you getting a book?\" asked Coote.\n\n\"Well, I 'aven't got a ticket yet. But I shall get one all right, and\nhave a go in at reading. I've often wanted to. Rather. I was just 'aving\na look at this Indicator. First-class idea. Tells you all you want to\nknow.\"\n\n\"It's simple,\" said Coote, and coughed again, keeping his eyes fixed on\nKipps. For a moment they hung, evidently disinclined to part. Then Kipps\njumped at an idea he had cherished for a day or more,--not particularly\nin relation to Coote, but in relation to anyone.\n\n\"You doing anything?\" he asked.\n\n\"Just called with a papah about the classes.\"\n\n\"Because----. Would you care to come up and look at my 'ouse and 'ave a\nsmoke and a chat. Eh?\" He made indicative back jerks of the head, and\nwas smitten with a horrible doubt whether possibly this invitation might\nnot be some hideous breach of etiquette. Was it, for example, the\ncorrect hour? \"I'd be awfully glad if you would,\" he added.\n\nMr. Coote begged for a moment while he handed the official-looking\nenvelope to the librarian and then declared himself quite at Kipps'\nservice. They muddled a moment over precedence at each door they went\nthrough and so emerged to the street.\n\n\"It feels awful rum to me at first, all this,\" said Kipps \"'Aving a\n'ouse of my own and all that. It's strange, you know. 'Aving all day.\nReely I don't 'ardly know what to do with my time.\n\n\"D'ju smoke?\" he said suddenly, proffering a magnificent gold decorated\npigskin cigarette case, which he produced from nothing, almost as\nthough it was some sort of trick. Coote hesitated and declined, and\nthen, with great liberality, \"Don't let me hinder you....\"\n\nThey walked a little way in silence, Kipps being chiefly concerned to\naffect ease in his new clothes and keeping a wary eye on Coote. \"It's\nrather a big windfall,\" said Coote presently. \"It yields you an\nincome----?\"\n\n\"Twelve 'undred a year,\" said Kipps. \"Bit over--if anything.\"\n\n\"Do you think of living in Folkestone?\"\n\n\"Don't know 'ardly yet. I _may_. Then again, I may not. I got a\nfurnished 'ouse, but I may let it.\"\n\n\"Your plans are undecided?\"\n\n\"That's jest it,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"Very beautiful sunset it was to-night,\" said Coote, and Kipps said,\n\"Wasn't it?\" and they began to talk of the merits of sunsets. Did Kipps\npaint? Not since he was a boy. He didn't believe he could now. Coote\nsaid his sister was a painter and Kipps received this intimation with\nrespect. Coote sometimes wished he could find time to paint\nhimself,--but one couldn't do everything and Kipps said that was \"jest\nit.\"\n\nThey came out presently upon the end of the Leas and looked down to\nwhere the squat dark masses of the Harbour and Harbour Station, gemmed\nwith pinpoint lights, crouched against the twilit grey of the sea. \"If\none could do _that_,\" said Coote, and Kipps was inspired to throw his\nhead back, cock it on one side, regard the Harbour with one eye shut\nand say that it would take some doing. Then Coote said something about\n\"Abend,\" which Kipps judged to be in a foreign language and got over by\nlighting another cigarette from his by no means completed first one.\n\"You're right, _puff_, _puff_.\"\n\nHe felt that so far he had held up his end of the conversation in a very\ncreditable manner, but that extreme discretion was advisable.\n\nThey turned away and Coote remarked that the sea was good for crossing,\nand asked Kipps if he had been over the water very much. Kipps said he\nhadn't been--\"much,\" but he thought very likely he'd have a run over to\nBoulogne soon, and Coote proceeded to talk of the charms of foreign\ntravel, mentioning quite a number of unheard-of places by name. He had\nbeen to them! Kipps remained on the defensive, but behind his defences\nhis heart sank. It was all very well to pretend, but presently it was\nbound to come out. _He_ didn't know anything of all this....\n\nSo they drew near the house. At his own gate Kipps became extremely\nnervous. It was a fine, impressive door. He knocked neither a single\nknock nor a double, but about one and a half--an apologetic half. They\nwere admitted by an irreproachable housemaid, with a steady eye, before\nwhich Kipps cringed dreadfully. He hung up his hat and fell about over\nhall chairs and things. \"There's a fire in the study, Mary?\" he had the\naudacity to ask, though evidently he knew, and led the way upstairs\npanting. He tried to shut the door and discovered the housemaid behind\nhim coming to light his lamp. This enfeebled him further. He said\nnothing until the door closed behind her. Meanwhile to show his _sang\nfroid_ he hummed and flitted towards the window, and here and there.\n\nCoote went to the big hearthrug and turned and surveyed his host. His\nhand went to the back of his head and patted his occiput--a gesture\nfrequent with him.\n\n\"'Ere we are,\" said Kipps, hands in his pockets and glancing round him.\n\nIt was a gaunt Victorian room, with a heavy, dirty cornice, and the\nceiling enriched by the radiant plaster ornament of an obliterated gas\nchandelier. It held two large glass fronted bookcases, one of which was\nsurmounted by a stuffed terrier encased in glass. There was a mirror\nover the mantel and hangings and curtains of magnificent crimson\npatternings. On the mantel were a huge black clock of classical design,\nvases in the Burslem Etruscan style, spills and toothpicks in large\nreceptacles of carved rock, large lava ash trays and an exceptionally\nbig box of matches. The fender was very great and brassy. In a\nfavourable position, under the window, was a spacious rosewood writing\ndesk, and all the chairs and other furniture were of rosewood and well\nstuffed.\n\n\"This,\" said Kipps, in something near an undertone, \"was the o'\ngentleman's study--my grandfather that was. 'E used to sit at that desk\nand write.\"\n\n\"Books?\"\n\n\"No. Letters to the _Times_, and things like that. 'E's got 'em all cut\nout--stuck in a book.... Leastways, he _'ad_. It's in that bookcase....\nWon't you sit down?\"\n\nCoote did, bowing very slightly, and Kipps secured his vacated position\non the extensive black skin rug. He spread out his legs compass-fashion\nand tried to appear at his ease. The rug, the fender, the mantel and\nmirror conspired with great success to make him look a trivial and\nintrusive little creature amidst their commonplace hauteur, and his own\nshadow on the opposite wall seemed to think everything a great lark and\nmocked and made tremendous fun of him....\n\n\n§2\n\nFor a space Kipps played a defensive game and Coote drew the lines of\nthe conversation. They kept away from the theme of Kipps' change of\nfortune, and Coote made remarks upon local and social affairs. \"You must\ntake an interest in these things now,\" was as much as he said in the way\nof personalities. But it speedily became evident that he was a person of\nwide and commanding social relationships. He spoke of \"society\" being\nmixed in the neighbourhood and of the difficulty of getting people to\nwork together, and \"do\" things; they were cliquish. Incidentally he\nalluded quite familiarly to men with military titles, and once even to\nsomeone with a title, a Lady Punnet. Not snobbishly, you understand,\nnor deliberately, but quite in passing. He had, it appeared, talked to\nLady Punnet about private theatricals! In connection with the Hospitals.\nShe had been unreasonable and he had put her right, gently of course,\nbut firmly. \"If you stand up to these people,\" said Coote, \"they like\nyou all the better.\" It was also very evident he was at his ease with\nthe clergy; \"My friend, Mr. Densemore--a curate, you know, and rather\ncurious, the Reverend _and_ Honourable.\" Coote grew visibly in Kipps'\neyes as he said these things; he became, not only the exponent of\n\"Vagner or Vargner,\" the man whose sister had painted a picture to be\nexhibited at the Royal Academy, the type of the hidden thing called\nculture, but a delegate, as it were, or at least an intermediary from\nthat great world \"up there,\" where there were men servants, where there\nwere titles, where people dressed for dinner, drank wine at meals, wine\ncosting very often as much as three and sixpence the bottle, and\nfollowed through a maze of etiquette, the most stupendous practices....\n\nCoote sat back in the armchair smoking luxuriously and expanding\npleasantly, with the delightful sense of Savoir Faire; Kipps sat\nforward, his elbows on his chair arm alert, and his head a little on one\nside. You figure him as looking little and cheap and feeling smaller and\ncheaper amidst his new surroundings. But it was a most stimulating and\ninteresting conversation. And soon it became less general and more\nserious and intimate. Coote spoke of people who had got on, and of\npeople who hadn't, of people who seemed to be _in_ everything and people\nwho seemed to be _out_ of everything, and then he came round to Kipps.\n\n\"You'll have a good time,\" he said abruptly, with a smile that would\nhave interested a dentist.\n\n\"I dunno,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"There's mistakes, of course.\"\n\n\"That's jest it.\"\n\nCoote lit a new cigarette. \"One can't help being interested in what you\nwill do,\" he remarked. \"Of course--for a young man of spirit, come\nsuddenly into wealth--there's temptations.\"\n\n\"I got to go careful,\" said Kipps. \"O' Bean told me that at the very\nfirst.\"\n\nCoote went on to speak of pitfalls, of Betting, of Bad Companions. \"I\nknow,\" said Kipps, \"I know.\" \"There's Doubt again,\" said Coote. \"I know\na young fellow--a solicitor--handsome, gifted. And yet, you\nknow--utterly sceptical. Practically altogether a Sceptic.\"\n\n\"Lor'!\" said Kipps, \"not a Natheist?\"\n\n\"I fear so,\" said Coote. \"Really, you know, an awfully fine young\nfellow--Gifted! But full of this dreadful Modern Spirit--Cynical! All\nthis Overman stuff. Nietzsche and all that.... I wish I could do\nsomething for him.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said Kipps and knocked the ash off his cigarette. \"I know a\nchap--one of our apprentices he was--once. Always scoffing.... He lef'!\"\n\nHe paused. \"Never wrote for his refs,\" he said, in the deep tone proper\nto a moral tragedy, and then, after a pause--\"Enlisted!\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said Coote.\n\n\"And often,\" he said, after a pause, \"it's just the most spirited chaps,\njust the chaps one likes best, who Go Wrong.\"\n\n\"It's temptation,\" Kipps remarked.\n\nHe glanced at Coote, leant forward, knocked the ash from his cigarette\ninto the mighty fender. \"That's jest it,\" he said; \"you get tempted.\nBefore you know where you are.\"\n\n\"Modern life,\" said Coote, \"is so--complex. It isn't everyone is Strong.\nHalf the young fellows who go wrong, aren't really bad.\"\n\n\"That's jest it,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"One gets a tone from one's surroundings----\"\n\n\"That's exactly it,\" said Kipps.\n\nHe meditated. \"_I_ picked up with a chap,\" he said. \"A Nacter. Leastways\nhe writes plays. Clever fellow. But----\"\n\nHe implied extensive moral obloquy by a movement of his head. \"Of course\nit's seeing life,\" he added.\n\nCoote pretended to understand the full implications of Kipps' remark.\n\"Is it _worth_ it?\" he asked.\n\n\"That's jest it,\" said Kipps.\n\nHe decided to give some more. \"One gets talking,\" he said. \"Then it's\n''ave a drink!' Old Methusaleh four stars--and where _are_ you? _I_\nbeen drunk,\" he said in a tone of profound humility, and added, \"lots\nof times.\"\n\n\"Tt. Tt.,\" said Coote.\n\n\"Dozens of times,\" said Kipps, smiling sadly, and added, \"lately.\"\n\nHis imagination became active and seductive. \"One thing leads to\nanother. Cards, p'raps. Girls----\"\n\n\"I know,\" said Coote; \"I know.\"\n\nKipps regarded the fire and flushed slightly. He borrowed a sentence\nthat Chitterlow had recently used. \"One can't tell tales out of school,\"\nhe said.\n\n\"I can imagine it,\" said Coote.\n\nKipps looked with a confidential expression into Coote's face. \"It was\nbad enough when money was limited,\" he remarked. \"But now----\" He spoke\nwith raised eyebrows, \"I got to steady down.\"\n\n\"You _must_,\" said Coote, protruding his lips into a sort of whistling\nconcern for a moment.\n\n\"I must,\" said Kipps, nodding his head slowly with raised eyebrows. He\nlooked at his cigarette end and threw it into the fender. He was\nbeginning to think he was holding his own in this conversation rather\nwell, after all.\n\nKipps was never a good liar. He was the first to break silence. \"I don't\nmean to say I been reely bad or reely bad drunk. A 'eadache\nperhaps--three or four times, say. But there it is!\"\n\n\"I have never tasted alcohol in my life,\" said Coote, with an immense\nfrankness, \"never!\"\n\n\"No?\"\n\n\"Never. I don't feel _I_ should be likely to get drunk at all--it isn't\nthat. And I don't go so far as to say even that in small quantities--at\nmeals--it does one harm. But if I take it, someone else who doesn't know\nwhere to stop--you see?\"\n\n\"That's jest it,\" said Kipps, with admiring eyes.\n\n\"I smoke,\" admitted Coote. \"One doesn't want to be a Pharisee.\"\n\nIt struck Kipps what a tremendously Good chap this Coote was, not only\ntremendously clever and educated and a gentleman and one knowing Lady\nPunnet, but Good. He seemed to be giving all his time and thought to\ndoing good things to other people. A great desire to confide certain\nthings to him arose. At first Kipps hesitated whether he should confide\nan equal desire for Benevolent activities or for further\nDepravity--either was in his mind. He rather affected the pose of the\nGood Intentioned Dog. Then suddenly his impulses took quite a different\nturn, fell indeed into what was a far more serious rut in his mind. It\nseemed to him Coote might be able to do for him something he very much\nwanted done.\n\n\"Companionship accounts for so much,\" said Coote.\n\n\"That's jest it,\" said Kipps. \"Of course, you know, in my new\nposition----. That's just the difficulty.\"\n\nHe plunged boldly at his most secret trouble. He knew that he wanted\nrefinement--culture. It was all very well--but he knew. But how was one\nto get it? He knew no one, knew no people----. He rested on the broken\nsentence. The shop chaps were all very well, very good chaps and all\nthat, but not what one wanted. \"I feel be'ind,\" said Kipps. \"I feel out\nof it. And consequently I feel it's no good. And then if temptation\ncomes along----\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" said Coote.\n\nKipps spoke of his respect for Miss Walshingham and her freckled friend.\nHe contrived not to look too self-conscious. \"You know, I'd like to talk\nto people like that, but I can't. A chap's afraid of giving himself\naway.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" said Coote, \"of course.\"\n\n\"I went to a middle-class school, you know. You mustn't fancy I'm one of\nthese here board-school chaps, but you know it reely wasn't a\nfirst-class affair. Leastways he didn't take pains with us. If you\ndidn't want to learn you needn't--I don't believe it was _much_ better\nthan one of these here national schools. We wore mortarboards, o'\ncourse. But what's _that_?\n\n\"I'm a regular fish out of water with this money. When I got it--it's a\nweek ago--reely I thought I'd got everything I wanted. But I dunno what\nto _do_.\"\n\nHis voice went up into a squeak. \"Practically,\" he said, \"it's no good\nshuttin' my eyes to things--I'm a gentleman.\"\n\nCoote indicated a serious assent.\n\n\"And there's the responsibilities of a gentleman,\" he remarked.\n\n\"That's jest it,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"There's calling on people,\" said Kipps. \"If you want to go on knowing\nSomeone you knew before like. People that's refined.\" He laughed\nnervously. \"I'm a regular fish out of water,\" he said, with expectant\neyes on Coote.\n\nBut Coote only nodded for him to go on.\n\n\"This actor chap,\" he meditated, \"is a good sort of chap. But 'e isn't\nwhat _I_ call a gentleman. I got to 'old myself in with 'im. 'E'd make\nme go it wild in no time. 'E's pretty near the on'y chap I know. Except\nthe shop chaps. They've come round to 'ave supper once already and a bit\nof a sing song afterwards. I sang. I got a banjo, you know, and I vamp a\nbit. Vamping--you know. Haven't got far in the book--'Ow to Vamp--but\nstill I'm getting on. Jolly, of course, in a way, but what does it lead\nto?... Besides that, there's my Aunt and Uncle. _They're_ very good old\npeople--very--jest a bit interfering p'r'aps and thinking one isn't\ngrown up, but Right enough. Only----. It isn't what I _want_. I feel\nI've got be'ind with everything. I want to make it up again. I want to\nget with educated people who know 'ow to do things--in the regular,\nproper way.\"\n\nHis beautiful modesty awakened nothing but benevolence in the mind of\nChester Coote.\n\n\"If I had someone like you,\" said Kipps, \"that I knew regular like----\"\n\nFrom that point their course ran swift and easy. \"If I _could_ be of any\nuse to you,\" said Coote....\n\n\"But you're so busy and all that.\"\n\n\"Not _too_ busy. You know, your case is a very interesting one. It was\npartly that made me speak to you and draw you out. Here you are with all\nthis money and no experience, a spirited young chap----\"\n\n\"That's jest it,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"I thought I'd see what you were made of, and I must confess I've rarely\ntalked to anyone that I've found quite so interesting as you have\nbeen----\"\n\n\"I seem able to say things to you like somehow,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"I'm glad. I'm tremendously glad.\"\n\n\"I want a Friend. That's it--straight.\"\n\n\"My dear chap, if I----\"\n\n\"Yes, but----\"\n\n\"_I_ want a Friend, too.\"\n\n\"Reely?\"\n\n\"Yes. You know, my dear Kipps--if I may call you that.\"\n\n\"Go on,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"I'm rather a lonely dog myself. _This_ to-night----. I've not had\nanyone I've spoken to so freely of my Work for months.\"\n\n\"No?\"\n\n\"You. And, my dear chap, if I can do anything to guide or help you----\"\n\nCoote displayed all his teeth in a kindly tremulous smile and his eyes\nwere shiny. \"Shake 'ands,\" said Kipps, deeply moved, and he and Coote\nrose and clasped with mutual emotion.\n\n\"It's reely too good of you,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"Whatever I can do I will,\" said Coote.\n\nAnd so their compact was made. From that moment they were Friends,\nintimate, confidential, high-thinking, _sotto voce_ friends. All the\nrest of their talk (and it inclined to be interminable) was an expansion\nof that. For that night Kipps wallowed in self-abandonment and Coote\nbehaved as one who had received a great trust. That sinister passion for\npedagoguery to which the Good Intentioned are so fatally liable, that\npassion of infinite presumption that permits one weak human being to\narrogate the direction of another weak human being's affairs, had Coote\nin its grip. He was to be a sort of lay confessor and director of Kipps,\nhe was to help Kipps in a thousand ways, he was in fact to chaperon\nKipps into the higher and better sort of English life. He was to tell\nhim his faults, advise him about the right thing to do----\n\n\"It's all these things I don't know,\" said Kipps. \"I don't know, for\ninstance, what's the right sort of dress to wear--I don't even know if\nI'm dressed right now----\"\n\n\"All these things\"--Coote stuck out his lips and nodded rapidly to show\nhe understood--\"Trust me for that,\" he said, \"trust me.\"\n\nAs the evening wore on Coote's manner changed, became more and more the\nmanner of a proprietor. He began to take up his rôle, to survey Kipps\nwith a new, with a critical affection. It was evident the thing fell in\nwith his ideas. \"It will be awfully interesting,\" he said. \"You know,\nKipps, you're really good stuff.\" (Every sentence now he said \"Kipps\" or\n\"my dear Kipps\" with a curiously authoritative intonation.)\n\n\"I know,\" said Kipps, \"only there's such a lot of things I don't seem to\nbe up to some'ow. That's where the trouble comes in.\"\n\nThey talked and talked, and now Kipps was talking freely. They rambled\nover all sorts of things. Among others Kipps' character was dealt with\nat length. Kipps gave valuable lights on it. \"When I'm reely excited,\"\nhe said, \"I don't seem to care _what_ I do. I'm like that.\" And again,\n\"I don't like to do anything under'and. I _must_ speak out....\"\n\nHe picked a piece of cotton from his knee, the fire grimaced behind his\nback, and his shadow on the wall and ceiling was disrespectfully\nconvulsed.\n\n\n§3\n\nKipps went to bed at last with an impression of important things\nsettled, and he lay awake for quite a long time. He felt he was lucky.\nHe had known--in fact Buggins and Carshot and Pierce had made it very\nclear indeed--that his status in life had changed and that stupendous\nadaptations had to be achieved, but how they were to be effected had\ndriven that adaptation into the incredible. Here in the simplest,\neasiest way was the adapter. The thing had become possible. Not of\ncourse easy, but possible.\n\nThere was much to learn, sheer intellectual toil, methods of address,\nbowing, an enormous complexity of laws. One broken, you are an outcast.\nHow, for example, would one encounter Lady Punnet? It was quite possible\nsome day he might really have to do that. Coote might introduce him.\n\"Lord!\" he said aloud to the darkness between grinning and dismay. He\nfigured himself going into the Emporium to buy a tie, for example, and\nthere in the face of Buggins, Carshot, Pierce and the rest of them,\nmeeting \"my friend, Lady Punnet!\" It might not end with Lady Punnet! His\nimagination plunged and bolted with him, galloped, took wings and soared\nto romantic, to poetical altitudes....\n\nSuppose some day one met Royalty. By accident, say! He soared to that!\nAfter all,--twelve hundred a year is a lift, a tremendous lift. How did\none address Royalty? \"Your Majesty's Goodness,\" it will be, no\ndoubt--something like that--and on the knees. He became impersonal. Over\na thousand a year made him an Esquire, didn't it? He thought that was\nit. In which case, wouldn't he have to be presented at Court? Velvet\ncycling breeches like you wear cycling, and a sword! What a curious\nplace a court must be! Kneeling and bowing, and what was it Miss Mergle\nused to talk about? Of course!--ladies with long trains walking about\nbackward. Everybody walked about backward at court, he knew, when not\nactually on their knees. Perhaps, though, some people regular stood up\nto the King! Talked to him, just as one might talk to Buggins, say.\nCheek of course! Dukes, it might be, did that--by permission?\nMillionnaires?...\n\nFrom such thoughts this free citizen of our Crowned Republic passed\ninsensibly into dreams, turgid dreams of that vast ascent which\nconstitutes the true-born Briton's social scheme, which terminates with\nretrogressive progression and a bending back.\n\n\n§4\n\nThe next morning he came down to breakfast looking grave--a man with\nmuch before him in the world....\n\nKipps made a very special thing of his breakfast. Daily once hopeless\ndreams came true then. It had been customary in the Emporium to\nsupplement Shalford's generous, indeed unlimited, supply of bread and\nbutter-substitute, by private purchases, and this had given Kipps very\nbroad, artistic conceptions of what the meal might be. Now there would\nbe a cutlet or so or a mutton chop--this splendour Buggins had reported\nfrom the great London clubs--haddock, kipper, whiting or fish-balls,\neggs, boiled or scrambled, or eggs and bacon, kidney also frequently and\nsometimes liver. Amidst a garland of such themes, sausages, black and\nwhite puddings, bubble-and-squeak, fried cabbage and scallops came and\nwent. Always as camp followers came potted meat in all varieties, cold\nbacon, German sausage, brawn, marmalade and two sorts of jam, and when\nhe had finished these he would sit among his plates and smoke a\ncigarette and look at all these dishes crowded round him with a beatific\napproval. It was his principal meal. He was sitting with his cigarette\nregarding his apartment with that complacency begotten of a generous\nplan of feeding successfully realized, when newspapers and post arrived.\n\nThere were several things by the post, tradesmen's circulars and cards\nand two pathetic begging letters--his luck had got into the papers--and\nthere was a letter from a literary man and a book to enforce his request\nfor 10/--to put down Socialism. The book made it very clear that prompt\naction on the part of property owners was becoming urgent, if property\nwas to last out the year. Kipps dipped in it and was seriously\nperturbed. And there was a letter from old Kipps saying it was difficult\nto leave the shop and come over and see him again just yet, but that he\nhad been to a sale at Lydd the previous day and bought a few good old\nbooks and things it would be difficult to find the equal of in\nFolkestone. \"They don't know the value of these things out here,\" wrote\nold Kipps, \"but you may depend upon it they are valuable,\" and a brief\nfinancial statement followed. \"There is an engraving someone might come\nalong and offer you a lot of money for one of these days. Depend upon\nit, these old things are about the best investment you could make....\"\n\nOld Kipps had long been addicted to sales, and his nephew's good\nfortune had converted what had once been but a looking and a craving--he\nhad rarely even bid for anything in the old days except the garden tools\nor the kitchen gallipots or things like that, things one gets for\nsixpence and finds a use for--into a very active pleasure. Sage and\npenetrating inspection, a certain mystery of bearing, tactical bids and\nPurchase!--Purchase!--the old man had had a good time.\n\nWhile Kipps was rereading the begging letters and wishing he had the\nsound, clear common sense of Buggins to help him a little, the Parcels\nPost brought along the box from his uncle. It was a large, insecure\nlooking case held together by a few still loyal nails, and by what the\nBritish War Office would have recognised at once as an Army Corps of\nstring, rags and odds and ends tied together. Kipps unpacked it with a\ntable knife, assisted at a critical point by the poker, and found a\nnumber of books and other objects of an antique type.\n\nThere were three bound volumes of early issues of Chambers' Journal, a\ncopy of Punch's Pocket Book for 1875, Sturm's Reflections, an early\nversion of Gill's Geography (slightly torn), an illustrated work on\nSpinal Curvature, an early edition of Kirke's Human Physiology, The\nScottish Chiefs and a little volume on the Language of Flowers. There\nwas a fine steel engraving, oak-framed and with some rusty spots, done\nin the Colossal style and representing the Handwriting on the Wall.\nThere were also a copper kettle, a pair of candle snuffers, a brass\nshoehorn, a tea caddy to lock, two decanters (one stoppered) and what\nwas probably a portion of an eighteenth century child's rattle.\n\nKipps examined these objects one by one and wished he knew more about\nthem. Turning over the pages of the Physiology again he came upon a\nstriking plate in which a youth of agreeable profile displayed his\ninterior in an unstinted manner to the startled eye. It was a new view\nof humanity altogether for Kipps, and it arrested his mind.\n\nThis anatomised figure made him forget for a space that he was\n\"practically a gentleman\" altogether, and he was still surveying its\nextraordinary complications when another reminder of a world quite\noutside those spheres of ordered gentility into which his dreams had\ncarried him overnight, arrived (following the servant) in the person of\nChitterlow.\n\n\n§5\n\n\"Ul-_lo_!\" said Kipps, rising.\n\n\"Not busy?\" said Chitterlow, enveloping Kipps' hand for a moment in one\nof his own and tossing the yachting cap upon the monumental carved oak\nsideboard.\n\n\"Only a bit of reading,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"Reading, eh?\" Chitterlow cocked the red eye at the books and other\nproperties for a moment and then, \"I've been expecting you 'round again\none night.\"\n\n\"I been coming 'round,\" said Kipps. \"On'y there's a chap 'ere----. I\nwas coming 'round last night on'y I met 'im.\"\n\nHe walked to the hearthrug. Chitterlow drifted around the room for a\ntime, glancing at things as he talked. \"I've altered that play\ntremendously since I saw you,\" he said. \"Pulled it all to pieces.\"\n\n\"What play's that, Chit'low?\"\n\n\"The one we were talking about. You know. You said something--I don't\nknow if you meant it--about buying half of it. Not the tragedy. I\nwouldn't sell my twin brother a share in that. That's my investment.\nThat's my Serious Work. No! I mean that new farce I've been on to. Thing\nwith the business about a beetle.\"\n\n\"Oo yes,\" said Kipps. \"_I_ remember.\"\n\n\"I thought you would. Said you'd take a fourth share for a hundred\npounds. _You_ know.\"\n\n\"I seem to remember something----\"\n\n\"Well, it's all different. Every bit of it. I'll tell you. You remember\nwhat you said about a butterfly? You got confused, you know--Old Meth.\nKept calling the beetle a butterfly and that set me off. I've made it\nquite different. Quite different. Instead of Popplewaddle--thundering\ngood farce name that, you know; for all that it came from a Visitors'\nList--instead of Popplewaddle getting a beetle down his neck and rushing\nabout, I've made him a collector--collects butterflies, and this one you\nknow's a rare one. Comes in at window, centre.\" Chitterlow began to\nillustrate with appropriate gestures. \"Pop rushes about after it.\nForgets he mustn't let on he's in the house. After that----. Tells 'em.\nRare butterfly, worth lots of money. Some are, you know. Everyone's on\nto it after that. Butterfly can't get out of room, every time it comes\nout to have a try, rush and scurry. Well, I've worked on that. Only----\"\n\nHe came very close to Kipps. He held up one hand horizontally and tapped\nit in a striking and confidential manner with the fingers of the other.\n\"Something else,\" he said. \"That's given me a Real Ibsenish Touch--like\nthe Wild Duck. You know that woman--I've made her lighter--and she sees\nit. When they're chasing the butterfly the third time, she's on! She\nlooks. 'That's me!' she says. Bif! Pestered Butterfly. _She's_ the\nPestered Butterfly. It's legitimate. Much more legitimate than the Wild\nDuck--where there isn't a duck!\n\n\"Knock 'em! The very title ought to knock 'em. I've been working like a\nhorse at it.... You'll have a gold mine in that quarter share, Kipps....\n_I_ don't mind. It's suited me to sell it, and suited you to buy. Bif!\"\n\nChitterlow interrupted his discourse to ask, \"You haven't any brandy in\nthe house, have you? Not to drink, you know. But I want just an\neggcupful to pull me steady. My liver's a bit queer.... It doesn't\nmatter, if you haven't. Not a bit. I'm like that. Yes, whiskey'll do.\nBetter!\"\n\nKipps hesitated for a moment, then turned and fumbled in the cupboard\nof his sideboard. Presently he disinterred a bottle of whiskey and\nplaced it on the table. Then he put out first one bottle of soda water\nand after the hesitation of a moment another. Chitterlow picked up the\nbottle and read the label. \"Good old Methusaleh,\" he said. Kipps handed\nhim the corkscrew and then his hand fluttered up to his mouth. \"I'll\nhave to ring now,\" he said, \"to get glasses.\" He hesitated for a moment\nbefore doing so, leaning doubtfully as it were towards the bell.\n\nWhen the housemaid appeared he was standing on the hearthrug with his\nlegs wide apart, with the bearing of a desperate fellow. And after they\nhad both had whiskeys--\"You know a decent whiskey,\" Chitterlow remarked\nand took another \"just to drink.\"--Kipps produced cigarettes and the\nconversation flowed again.\n\nChitterlow paced the room. He was, he explained, taking a day off; that\nwas why he had come around to see Kipps. Whenever he thought of any\nextensive change in a play he was writing he always took a day off. In\nthe end it saved time to do so. It prevented his starting rashly upon\nwork that might have to be rewritten. There was no good in doing work\nwhen you might have to do it over again, none whatever.\n\nPresently they were descending the steps by the Parade _en route_ for\nthe Warren, with Chitterlow doing the talking and going with a dancing\ndrop from step to step....\n\nThey had a great walk, not a long one, but a great one. They went up by\nthe Sanatorium, and over the East Cliff and into that queer little\nwilderness of slippery and tumbling clay and rock under the chalk\ncliffs, a wilderness of thorn and bramble, wild rose and wayfaring tree,\nthat adds so greatly to Folkestone's charm. They traversed its\nintricacies and clambered up to the crest of the cliffs at last by a\nprecipitous path that Chitterlow endowed in some mysterious way with\nsuggestions of Alpine adventure. Every now and then he would glance\naside at sea and cliffs with a fresh boyishness of imagination that\nbrought back New Romney and the stranded wrecks to Kipps' memory; but\nmostly he bored on with his great obsession of plays and playwriting,\nand that empty absurdity that is so serious to his kind, his Art. That\nwas a thing that needed a monstrous lot of explaining. Along they went,\nsometimes abreast, sometimes in single file, up the little paths, and\ndown the little paths, and in among the bushes and out along the edge\nabove the beach, and Kipps went along trying ever and again to get an\ninsignificant word in edgeways, and the gestures of Chitterlow flew wide\nand far and his great voice rose and fell, and he said this and he said\nthat and he biffed and banged into the circumambient Inane.\n\nIt was assumed that they were embarked upon no more trivial enterprise\nthan the Reform of the British Stage, and Kipps found himself classed\nwith many opulent and even royal and noble amateurs--the Honourable\nThomas Norgate came in here--who had interested themselves in the\npractical realisation of high ideals about the Drama. Only he had a\nfiner understanding of these things, and instead of being preyed upon by\nthe common professional--\"and they _are_ a lot,\" said Chitterlow; \"I\nhaven't toured for nothing\"--he would have Chitterlow. Kipps gathered\nfew details. It was clear he had bought the quarter of a farcical\ncomedy--practically a gold mine--and it would appear it would be a good\nthing to buy the half. A suggestion, or the suggestion of a suggestion,\nfloated out that he should buy the whole play and produce it forthwith.\nIt seemed he was to produce the play upon a royalty system of a new\nsort, whatever a royalty system of any sort might be. Then there was\nsome doubt, after all, whether that farcical comedy was in itself\nsufficient to revolutionise the present lamentable state of the British\nDrama. Better perhaps for such a purpose was that tragedy--as yet\nunfinished--which was to display all that Chitterlow knew about women,\nand which was to centre about a Russian nobleman embodying the\nfundamental Chitterlow personality. Then it became clearer that Kipps\nwas to produce several plays. Kipps was to produce a great number of\nplays. Kipps was to found a National Theatre.\n\nIt is probable that Kipps would have expressed some sort of disavowal,\nif he had known how to express it. Occasionally his face assumed an\nexpression of whistling meditation, but that was as far as he got\ntowards protest.\n\nIn the clutch of Chitterlow and the Incalculable, Kipps came round to\nthe house in Fenchurch Street and was there made to participate in the\nmidday meal. He came to the house, forgetting certain confidences, and\nwas reminded of the existence of a Mrs. Chitterlow (with the finest\ncompletely untrained Contralto voice in England) by her appearance. She\nhad an air of being older than Chitterlow, although probably she wasn't,\nand her hair was a reddish brown, streaked with gold. She was dressed in\none of those complaisant garments that are dressing gowns or tea gowns\nor bathing wraps or rather original evening robes according to the\nexigencies of the moment--from the first Kipps was aware that she\npossessed a warm and rounded neck, and her well-moulded arms came and\nvanished from the sleeves--and she had large, expressive brown eyes that\nhe discovered ever and again fixed in an enigmatical manner upon his\nown.\n\nA simple but sufficient meal had been distributed with careless\nspontaneity over the little round table in the room with the photographs\nand looking glass, and when a plate had by Chitterlow's direction been\ntaken from under the marmalade in the cupboard and the kitchen fork and\na knife that was not loose in its handle had been found for Kipps they\nbegan and she had evidently heard of Kipps before, and he made a\ntumultuous repast. Chitterlow ate with quiet enormity, but it did not\ninterfere with the flow of his talk. He introduced Kipps to his wife\nvery briefly; made it vaguely evident that the production of the comedy\nwas the thing chiefly settled. His reach extended over the table, and he\ntroubled nobody. When Mrs. Chitterlow, who for a little while seemed\nsocially self-conscious, reproved him for taking a potato with a jab of\nhis fork, he answered, \"Well, you shouldn't have married a man of\nGenius,\" and from a subsequent remark it was perfectly clear that\nChitterlow's standing in this respect was made no secret of in his\nhousehold.\n\nThey drank old Methusaleh and syphon soda, and there was no clearing\naway, they just sat among the plates and things, and Mrs. Chitterlow\ntook her husband's tobacco pouch and made a cigarette and smoked and\nblew smoke and looked at Kipps with her large, brown eyes. Kipps had\nseen cigarettes smoked by ladies before, \"for fun,\" but this was real\nsmoking. It frightened him rather. He felt he must not encourage this\nlady--at any rate in Chitterlow's presence.\n\nThey became very cheerful after the repast, and as there was now no\nwaste to deplore, such as one experiences in the windy, open air,\nChitterlow gave his voice full vent. He fell to praising Kipps very\nhighly and loudly. He said he had known Kipps was the right sort, he had\nseen it from the first, almost before he got up out of the mud on that\nmemorable night. \"You can,\" he said, \"sometimes. That was why----\" he\nstopped, but he seemed on the verge of explaining that it was his\ncertainty of Kipps being the right sort had led him to confer this\ngreat Fortune upon him. He left that impression. He threw out a number\nof long sentences and material for sentences of a highly philosophical\nand incoherent character about Coincidences. It became evident he\nconsidered dramatic criticism in a perilously low condition....\n\nAbout four Kipps found himself stranded, as it were, by a receding\nChitterlow on a seat upon the Leas.\n\nHe was chiefly aware that Chitterlow was an overwhelming personality. He\npuffed his cheeks and blew.\n\nNo doubt this was seeing life, but had he particularly wanted to see\nlife that day? In a way Chitterlow had interrupted him. The day he had\ndesigned for himself was altogether different from this. He had been\ngoing to read through a precious little volume called \"Don't\" that Coote\nhad sent round for him, a book of invaluable hints, a summary of British\ndeportment that had only the one defect of being at points a little out\nof date.\n\nThat reminded him he had intended to perform a difficult exercise called\nan Afternoon Call upon the Cootes, as a preliminary to doing it in\ndeadly earnest upon the Walshinghams. It was no good to-day, anyhow,\nnow.\n\nHe came back to Chitterlow. He would have to explain to Chitterlow he\nwas taking too much for granted, he would have to do that. It was so\ndifficult to do in Chitterlow's presence though; in his absence it was\neasy enough. This half share, and taking a theatre and all of it, was\ngoing too far.\n\nThe quarter share was right enough, he supposed, but even that----! A\nhundred pounds! What wealth is there left in the world after one has\npaid out a hundred pounds from it?\n\nHe had to recall that in a sense Chitterlow had indeed brought him his\nfortune before he could face even that.\n\nYou must not think too hardly of him. To Kipps you see there was as yet\nno such thing as proportion in these matters. A hundred pounds went to\nhis horizon. A hundred pounds seemed to him just exactly as big as any\nother large sum of money.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE WALSHINGHAMS\n\n\n§1\n\nThe Cootes live in a little house in Bouverie Square with a tangle of\nVirginia creeper up the verandah.\n\nKipps had been troubled in his mind about knocking double or single--it\nis these things show what a man is made of--but happily there was a\nbell.\n\nA queer little maid, with a big cap, admitted Kipps and took him through\na bead curtain and a door into a little drawing-room, with a black and\ngold piano, a glazed bookcase, a Moorish cosy corner and a draped\nlooking glass over-mantel bright with Regent Street ornaments and\nphotographs of various intellectual lights. A number of cards of\ninvitation to meetings and the match list of a Band of Hope cricket club\nwere stuck into the looking glass frame with Coote's name as a\nVice-President. There was a bust of Beethoven over the bookcase and the\nwalls were thick with conscientiously executed but carelessly selected\n\"views\" in oil and water colours and gilt frames. At the end of the room\nfacing the light was a portrait that struck Kipps at first as being\nCoote in spectacles and feminine costume and that he afterwards decided\nmust be Coote's mother. Then the original appeared and he discovered\nthat it was Coote's elder and only sister who kept house for him. She\nwore her hair in a knob behind, and the sight of the knob suggested to\nKipps an explanation for a frequent gesture of Coote's, a patting\nexploratory movement to the back of his head. And then it occurred to\nhim that this was quite an absurd idea altogether.\n\nShe said \"Mr. Kipps, I believe,\" and Kipps laughed pleasantly and said,\n\"That's it!\" and then she told him that \"Chester\" had gone down to the\nart school to see about sending off some drawings or other and that he\nwould be back soon. Then she asked Kipps if he painted, and showed him\nthe pictures on the wall. Kipps asked her where each one was \"of,\" and\nwhen she showed him some of the Leas slopes he said he never would have\nrecognised them. He said it was funny how things looked in a picture\nvery often. \"But they're awfully _good_,\" he said. \"Did you do them?\" He\nwould look at them with his neck arched like a swan's, his head back and\non one side and then suddenly peer closely into them. \"They _are_ good.\nI wish I could paint.\" \"That's what Chester says,\" she answered. \"I tell\nhim he has better things to do.\" Kipps seemed to get on very well with\nher.\n\nThen Coote came in and they left her and went upstairs together and had\na good talk about reading and the Rules of Life. Or rather Coote talked,\nand the praises of thought and reading were in his mouth....\n\nYou must figure Coote's study, a little bedroom put to studious uses,\nand over the mantel an array of things he had been led to believe\nindicative of culture and refinement, an autotype of Rossetti's\n\"Annunciation,\" an autotype of Watt's \"Minotaur,\" a Swiss carved pipe\nwith many joints and a photograph of Amiens Cathedral (these two the\nspoils of travel), a phrenological bust and some broken fossils from the\nWarren. A rotating bookshelf carried the Encyclopædia Britannica (tenth\nedition), and on the top of it a large official looking, age grubby,\nenvelope bearing the mystic words, \"On His Majesty's Service,\" a number\nor so of the \"Bookman,\" and a box of cigarettes were lying. A table\nunder the window bore a little microscope, some dust in a saucer, some\ngrimy glass slips and broken cover glasses, for Coote had \"gone in for\"\nbiology a little. The longer side of the room was given over to\nbookshelves, neatly edged with pinked American cloth, and with an array\nof books--no worse an array of books than you find in any public\nlibrary; an almost haphazard accumulation of obsolete classics,\ncontemporary successes, the Hundred Best Books (including Samuel\nWarren's \"Ten Thousand a Year\") old school books, directories, the Times\nAtlas, Ruskin in bulk, Tennyson complete in one volume, Longfellow,\nCharles Kingsley, Smiles and Mrs. Humphry Ward, a guide book or so,\nseveral medical pamphlets, odd magazine numbers, and much indescribable\nrubbish--in fact a compendium of the contemporary British mind. And in\nfront of this array stood Kipps, ill-taught and untrained, respectful,\nawestricken and, for a moment at any rate, willing to learn, while\nCoote, the exemplary Coote, talked to him like a bishop of reading and\nthe virtue in books.\n\n\"Nothing enlarges the mind,\" said Coote, \"like Travel and Books.... And\nthey're both so easy nowadays, and so cheap!\"\n\n\"I've often wanted to 'ave a good go in at reading,\" Kipps replied.\n\n\"You'd hardly believe,\" Coote said, \"how much you can get out of books.\nProvided you avoid trashy reading, that is. You ought to make a rule,\nKipps, and read one Serious Book a week. Of course, we can Learn even\nfrom Novels, Nace Novels that is, but it isn't the same thing as serious\nreading. I made a rule, One Serious Book and One Novel--no more. There's\nsome of the serious books I've been reading lately--on that table;\nSartor Resartus--Mrs. Twaddletome's Pond Life, the Scottish Chiefs, Life\nand Letters of Dean Farrar....\"\n\n\n§2\n\nThere came at last the sound of a gong and Kipps descended to tea in\nthat state of nervous apprehension at the difficulties of eating and\ndrinking that his Aunt's knuckle rappings had implanted in him forever.\nOver Coote's shoulder he became aware of a fourth person in the Moorish\ncosy corner, and he turned, leaving incomplete something incoherent he\nwas saying to Miss Coote about his modest respect and desire for\nliterature to discover this fourth person was Miss Helen Walshingham,\nhatless and looking very much at home.\n\nShe rose at once with an extended hand to meet his hesitation.\n\n\"You're stopping in Folkestone, Mr. Kipps?\"\n\n\"'Ere on a bit of business,\" said Kipps. \"I thought you was away in\nBruges.\"\n\n\"That's later,\" said Miss Walshingham. \"We're stopping until my\nbrother's holiday begins and we're trying to let our house. Where are\nyou staying in Folkestone?\"\n\n\"I got a 'ouse of mine--on the Leas.\"\n\n\"I've heard all about your good fortune--this afternoon.\"\n\n\"Isn't it a Go!\" said Kips. \"I 'aven't nearly got to believe its reely\n'appened yet. When that Mr. Bean told me of it you could 'ave knocked me\ndown with a feather.... It's a tremenjous change for me.\"\n\nHe discovered Miss Coote was asking him whether he took milk and sugar.\n\"_I_ don't mind,\" said Kipps. \"Just as you like.\"\n\nCoote became active handing tea and bread and butter. It was thinly cut,\nand the bread was rather new, and the half of the slice that Kipps took\nfell upon the floor. He had been holding it by the edge, for he was not\nused to this migratory method of taking tea without plates or table.\nThis little incident ruled him out of the conversation for a time, and\nwhen he came to attend to it again they were talking about something or\nother prodigious--a performer of some sort--that was coming, called, it\nseemed, \"Padrooski.\" So Kipps, who had quietly dropped into a chair, ate\nhis bread and butter, said \"No, thenk you\" to any more, and by this\ndiscreet restraint got more freedom with his cup and saucer.\n\nApart from the confusion natural to tea, he was in a state of tremulous\nexcitement on account of the presence of Miss Walshingham. He glanced\nfrom Miss Coote to her brother and then at Helen. He regarded her over\nthe top of his cup as he drank. Here she was, solid and real. It was\nwonderful. He remarked, as he had done at times before, the easy flow of\nthe dark hair back from her brow over her ears, the shapeliness of the\nwhite hands that came out from her simple white cuffs, the delicate\npencilling of her brow.\n\nPresently she turned her face to him almost suddenly, and smiled with\nthe easiest assurance of friendship.\n\n\"You will go, I suppose,\" she said, and added, \"to the Recital.\"\n\n\"If I'm in Folkestone I shall,\" said Kipps, clearing away a little\nhoarseness. \"I don't _know_ much about music, but what I do know I\nlike.\"\n\n\"I'm sure you'll like Paderewski,\" she said.\n\n\"If you do,\" he said, \"I dessay I shall.\"\n\nHe found Coote very kindly taking his cup.\n\n\"Do you think of living in Folkestone?\" asked Miss Coote, in a tone of\nproprietorship, from the hearthrug.\n\n\"No,\" said Kipps, \"that's jest it--I hardly know.\" He also said that he\nwanted to look around a bit before doing anything. \"There's so much to\nconsider,\" said Coote, smoothing the back of his head.\n\n\"I may go back to New Romney for a bit,\" said Kipps. \"I got an Uncle and\nAunt there. I reely don't know.\"\n\nHelen regarded him thoughtfully for a moment.\n\n\"You must come and see us,\" she said, \"before we go to Bruges.\"\n\n\"Oo, rather!\" said Kipps. \"If I may.\"\n\n\"Yes, do,\" she said, and suddenly stood up before Kipps could formulate\nan enquiry when he should call.\n\n\"You're sure you can spare that drawing board?\" she said to Miss Coote,\nand the conversation passed out of range.\n\nAnd when he had said \"Good-bye\" to Miss Walshingham and she had repeated\nher invitation to call, he went upstairs again with Coote to look out\ncertain initiatory books they had had under discussion. And then Kipps,\nblowing very resolutely, went back to his own place, bearing in his arm\n(1) Sesame and Lilies, (2) Sir George Tressady, (3) an anonymous book\non \"Vitality\" that Coote particularly esteemed. And, having got to his\nown sitting-room, he opened Sesame and Lilies and read it with ruthless\ndetermination for some time.\n\n\n§3\n\nPresently he leant back and gave himself up to the business of trying to\nimagine just exactly what Miss Walshingham could have thought of him\nwhen she saw him. Doubts about the precise effect of the grey flannel\nsuit began to trouble him. He turned to the mirror over the mantel, and\nthen got into a chair to study the hang of the trousers. It looked all\nright. Luckily, she had not seen the Panama hat. He knew that he had the\nbrim turned up wrong, but he could not find out which way the brim was\nright. However, that she had not seen. He might perhaps ask at the shop\nwhere he bought it.\n\nHe meditated for awhile on his reflected face--doubtful whether he liked\nit or not--and then got down again and flitted across to the sideboard\nwhere there lay two little books, one in a cheap, magnificent cover of\nred and gold, and the other in green canvas. The former was called, as\nits cover witnessed, \"Manners and Rules of Good Society, by a Member of\nthe Aristocracy,\" and after the cover had indulged in a band of gilded\ndecoration, light-hearted but natural under the circumstances, it added\n\"TWENTY-FIRST EDITION.\" The second was that admirable classic, \"The Art\nof Conversing.\" Kipps returned with these to his seat, placed the two\nbefore him, opened the latter with a sigh and flattened it under his\nhand.\n\nThen with knitted brows he began to read onward from a mark, his lips\nmoving.\n\n\"Having thus acquired possession of an idea, the little ship should not\nbe abruptly launched into deep waters, but should be first permitted to\nglide gently and smoothly into the shallows, that is to say, the\nconversation should not be commenced by broadly and roundly stating a\nfact, or didactically expressing an opinion, as the subject would be\nthus virtually or summarily disposed of, or perhaps be met with a\n'Really' or 'Indeed,' or some equally brief monosyllabic reply. If an\nopposite opinion were held by the person to whom the remark were\naddressed, he might not, if a stranger, care to express it in the form\nof a direct contradiction, or actual dissent. To glide imperceptibly\ninto conversation is the object to be attained.\"\n\nAt this point Mr. Kipps rubbed his fingers through his hair with an\nexpression of some perplexity and went back to the beginning.\n\n\n§4\n\nWhen Kipps made his call on the Walshinghams, it all happened so\ndifferently from the \"Manners and Rules\" prescription (\"Paying Calls\")\nthat he was quite lost from the very outset. Instead of the footman or\nmaidservant proper in these cases, Miss Walshingham opened the door to\nhim herself. \"I'm so glad you've come,\" she said, with one of her rare\nsmiles.\n\nShe stood aside for him to enter the rather narrow passage.\n\n\"I thought I'd call,\" he said, retaining his hat and stick.\n\nShe closed the door and led the way to a little drawing-room, which\nimpressed Kipps as being smaller and less emphatically coloured than\nthat of the Cootes, and in which at first only a copper bowl of white\npoppies upon the brown tablecloth caught his particular attention.\n\n\"You won't think it unconventional to come in, Mr. Kipps, will you?\" she\nremarked. \"Mother is out.\"\n\n\"I don't mind,\" he said, smiling amiably, \"if you don't.\"\n\nShe walked around the table and stood regarding him across it, with that\nsame look between speculative curiosity and appreciation that he\nremembered from the last of the art class meetings.\n\n\"I wondered whether you would call or whether you wouldn't before you\nleft Folkestone.\"\n\n\"I'm not leaving Folkestone for a bit, and any'ow, I should have called\non you.\"\n\n\"Mother will be sorry she was out. I've told her about you, and she\nwants, I know, to meet you.\"\n\n\"I saw 'er--if that was 'er--in the shop,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"Yes--you did, didn't you!... She has gone out to make some duty calls,\nand I didn't go. I had something to write. I write a little, you know.\"\n\n\"Reely!\" said Kipps.\n\n\"It's nothing much,\" she said, \"and it comes to nothing.\" She glanced at\na little desk near the window, on which there lay some paper. \"One must\ndo something.\" She broke off abruptly. \"Have you seen our outlook?\" she\nasked and walked to the window, and Kipps came and stood beside her. \"We\nlook on the Square. It might be worse, you know. That outporter's truck\nthere is horrid--and the railings, but it's better than staring one's\nsocial replica in the face, isn't it? It's pleasant in early\nspring--bright green, laid on with a dry brush--and it's pleasant in\nautumn.\"\n\n\"I like it,\" said Kipps. \"That laylock there is pretty, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Children come and pick it at times,\" she remarked.\n\n\"I dessay they do,\" said Kipps.\n\nHe rested on his hat and stick and looked appreciatively out of the\nwindow, and she glanced at him for one swift moment. A suggestion that\nmight have come from the Art of Conversing came into his head. \"Have you\na garden?\" he said.\n\nShe shrugged her shoulders. \"Only a little one,\" she said, and then,\n\"perhaps you would like to see it.\"\n\n\"I like gardenin',\" said Kipps, with memories of a pennyworth of\nnasturtiums he had once trained over his uncle's dustbin.\n\nShe led the way with a certain relief.\n\nThey emerged through a four seasons coloured glass door to a little iron\nverandah that led by iron steps to a minute walled garden. There was\njust room for a patch of turf and a flower-bed; one sturdy variegated\nEuonymus grew in the corner. But the early June flowers, the big\nnarcissus, snow upon the mountains, and a fine show of yellow\nwallflowers shone gay.\n\n\"That's our garden,\" said Helen. \"It's not a very big one, is it?\"\n\n\"I like it,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"It's small,\" she said, \"but this is the day of small things.\"\n\nKipps didn't follow that.\n\n\"If you were writing when I came,\" he remarked, \"I'm interrupting you.\"\n\nShe turned round with her back to the railing and rested, leaning on her\nhands. \"I had finished,\" she said. \"I couldn't get on.\"\n\n\"Were you making up something?\" asked Kipps.\n\nThere was a little interval before she smiled. \"I try--quite vainly--to\nwrite stories,\" she said. \"One must do something. I don't know whether I\nshall ever do any good--at that--anyhow. It seems so hopeless. And, of\ncourse, one must study the popular taste. But, now my brother has gone\nto London, I get a lot of leisure.\"\n\n\"I seen your brother, 'aven't I?\"\n\n\"He came to the class once or twice. Very probably you have. He's gone\nto London to pass his examinations and become a solicitor. And then, I\nsuppose, he'll have a chance. Not much, perhaps, even then. But he's\nluckier than I am.\"\n\n\"You got your classes and things.\"\n\n\"They ought to satisfy me. But they don't. I suppose I'm ambitious. We\nboth are. And we hadn't much of a springboard.\" She glanced over his\nshoulder at the cramped little garden with an air of reference in her\ngesture.\n\n\"I should think you could do anything if you wanted to,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"As a matter of fact I can't do anything I want to.\"\n\n\"You done a good deal.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Well, didn't you pass one of these here University things?\"\n\n\"Oh! I matriculated!\"\n\n\"I should think I was no end of a swell if _I_ did, I know that.\"\n\n\"Mr. Kipps, do you know how many people matriculate into London\nUniversity every year?\"\n\n\"How many then?\"\n\n\"Between two and three thousand.\"\n\n\"Well, just think how many don't!\"\n\nHer smile came again, and broke into a laugh. \"Oh, _they_ don't count,\"\nshe said, and then, realising that might penetrate Kipps if he was left\nwith it, she hurried on to, \"The fact is, I'm a discontented person, Mr.\nKipps. Folkestone, you know, is a Sea Front, and it values people by\nsheer vulgar prosperity. We're not prosperous, and we live in a back\nstreet. We have to live here because this is our house. It's a mercy we\nhaven't to 'let.' One feels one hasn't opportunities. If one had, I\nsuppose one wouldn't use them. Still----\"\n\nKipps felt he was being taken tremendously into her confidence. \"That's\njest it,\" he said, very sagely.\n\nHe leant forward on his stick and said, very earnestly, \"I believe you\ncould do anything you wanted to, if you tried.\"\n\nShe threw out her hands in disavowal.\n\n\"I know,\" said he, very sagely and nodding his head. \"I watched you once\nor twice when you were teaching that wood-carving class.\"\n\nFor some reason this made her laugh--a rather pleasant laugh, and that\nmade Kipps feel a very witty and successful person. \"It's very evident,\"\nshe said, \"that you're one of those rare people who believe in me, Mr.\nKipps,\" to which he answered, \"Oo, I _do_!\" and then suddenly they\nbecame aware of Mrs. Walshingham coming along the passage. In another\nmoment she appeared through the four seasons door, bonneted and\nladylike, and a little faded, exactly as Kipps had seen her in the shop.\nKipps felt a certain apprehension at her appearance, in spite of the\nreassurances he had had from Coote.\n\n\"Mr. Kipps has called on us,\" said Helen, and Mrs. Walshingham said it\nwas very kind of him, and added that new people didn't call on them very\nmuch nowadays. There was nothing of the scandalised surprise Kipps had\nseen in the shop; she had heard, perhaps, he was a gentleman now. In the\nshop he had thought her rather jaded and haughty, but he had scarcely\ntaken her hand, which responded to his touch with a friendly pressure,\nbefore he knew how mistaken he had been. She then told her daughter that\nsomeone called Mrs. Wace had been out, and turned to Kipps again to ask\nhim if he had had tea. Kipps said he had not, and Helen moved towards\nsome mysterious interior. \"But _I_ say,\" said Kipps; \"don't you on my\naccount----!\"\n\nHelen vanished, and he found himself alone with Mrs. Walshingham, which,\nof course, made him breathless and Boreas-looking for a moment.\n\n\"You were one of Helen's pupils in the wood-carving class?\" asked Mrs.\nWalshingham, regarding him with the quiet watchfulness proper to her\nposition.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Kipps, \"that's 'ow I 'ad the pleasure----\"\n\n\"She took a great interest in her wood-carving class. She is so\nenergetic, you know, and it gives her an Outlet.\"\n\n\"I thought she taught something splendid.\"\n\n\"Everyone says she did very well. Helen, I think, would do anything well\nthat she undertook to do. She's so very clever. And she throws herself\ninto things so.\"\n\nShe untied her bonnet strings with a pleasant informality.\n\n\"She has told me all about her class. She used to be full of it. And\nabout your cut hand.\"\n\n\"Lor'!\" said Kipps; \"fancy, telling that!\"\n\n\"Oh, yes! And how brave you were.\"\n\n(Though, indeed, Helen's chief detail had been his remarkable expedient\nfor checking bloodshed.)\n\nKipps became bright pink. \"She said you didn't seem to feel it a bit.\"\n\nKipps felt he would have to spend weeks over \"The Art of Conversing.\"\n\nWhile he still hung fire Helen returned with the apparatus for afternoon\ntea upon a tray.\n\n\"Do you mind pulling out the table?\" asked Mrs. Walshingham.\n\nThat, again, was very homelike. Kipps put down his hat and stick in the\ncorner and, amidst an iron thunder, pulled out a little, rusty,\ngreen-painted table, and then in the easiest manner followed Helen in to\nget chairs.\n\nSo soon as he had got rid of his teacup--he refused all food, of course,\nand they were merciful--he became wonderfully at his ease. Presently he\nwas talking. He talked quite modestly and simply about his changed\ncondition and his difficulties and plans. He spread what indeed had an\nair of being all his simple little soul before his eyes. In a little\nwhile his clipped, defective accent had become less perceptible to\ntheir ears, and they began to realise, as the girl with the freckles had\nlong since realised, that there were passable aspects of Kipps. He\nconfided, he submitted, and for both of them he had the realest, the\nmost seductively flattering undertone of awe and reverence.\n\nHe stopped about two hours, having forgotten how terribly incorrect it\nis to stay at such a length. They did not mind at all.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nENGAGED\n\n\n§1\n\nWithin two months, within a matter of three and fifty days, Kipps had\nclambered to the battlements of Heart's Desire.\n\nIt all became possible by the Walshinghams--it would seem at Coote's\ninstigation--deciding, after all, not to spend the holidays at Bruges.\nInstead, they remained in Folkestone, and this happy chance gave Kipps\njust all these opportunities of which he stood in need.\n\nHis crowning day was at Lympne, and long before the summer warmth began\nto break, while indeed August still flamed on high. They had\norganized--no one seemed to know who suggested it first--a water party\non the still reaches of the old military canal at Hythe, the canal that\nwas to have stopped Napoleon if the sea failed us, and they were to\npicnic by the brick bridge, and afterwards to clamber to Lympne Castle.\nThe host of the gathering, it was understood very clearly, was Kipps.\n\nThey went, a merry party. The canal was weedy, with only a few inches of\nwater at the shallows, and so they went in three Canadian canoes. Kipps\nhad learned to paddle--it had been his first athletic accomplishment,\nand his second--with the last three or four of ten private lessons still\nto come--was to be cycling. But Kipps did not paddle at all badly;\nmuscles hardened by lifting pieces of cretonne could cut a respectable\nfigure by the side of Coote's executions, and the girl with the\nfreckles, the girl who understood him, came in his canoe. They raced the\nWalshinghams, brother and sister; and Coote, in a liquefying state and\nblowing mightily, but still persistent and always quite polite and\nconsiderate, toiled behind with Mrs. Walshingham. She could not be\nexpected to paddle (though, of course, she \"offered\") and she reclined\nupon specially adjusted cushions under a black and white sunshade and\nwatched Kipps and her daughter, and feared at intervals that Coote was\ngetting hot.\n\nThey were all more or less in holiday costume, the eyes of the girls\nlooked out under the shade of wide-brimmed hats; even the freckled girl\nwas unexpectedly pretty, and Helen, swinging sunlit to her paddle, gave\nKipps, almost for the first time, the suggestion of a graceful body.\nKipps was arrayed in the completest boating costume, and when his\nfashionable Panama was discarded and his hair blown into disorder he\nbecame, in his white flannels, as sightly as most young men. His\ncomplexion was a notable asset.\n\nThings favoured him, the day favoured him, everyone favoured him. Young\nWalshingham, the girl with the freckles, Coote and Mrs. Walshingham,\nwere playing up to him in the most benevolent way, and between the\nlanding place and Lympne, Fortune, to crown their efforts, had placed a\nsmall, convenient field entirely at the disposal of an adolescent bull.\nNot a big, real, resolute bull, but, on the other hand, no calf; a young\nbull, in the same stage of emotional development as Kipps, \"standing\nwhere the two rivers meet.\" Detachedly our party drifted towards him.\n\nWhen they landed young Walshingham, with the simple directness of a\nbrother, abandoned his sister to Kipps and secured the freckled girl,\nleaving Coote to carry Mrs. Walshingham's light wool wrap. He started at\nonce, in order to put an effectual distance between himself and his\ncompanion, on the one hand, and a certain persuasive chaperonage that\nwent with Coote, on the other. Young Walshingham, I think I have said,\nwas dark, with a Napoleonic profile, and it was natural for him,\ntherefore, to be a bold thinker and an epigrammatic speaker, and he had\nlong ago discovered great possibilities of appreciation in the freckled\ngirl. He was in a very happy frame that day because he had just been\nentrusted with the management of Kipps' affairs (old Bean inexplicably\ndismissed), and that was not a bad beginning for a solicitor of only a\nfew months' standing, and, moreover, he had been reading Nietzsche, and\nhe thought that in all probability he was the Non-Moral Overman referred\nto by that writer. He wore fairly large-sized hats. He wanted to expand\nthe theme of the Non-Moral Overman in the ear of the freckled girl, to\nsay it over, so to speak, and in order to seclude his exposition they\nwent aside from the direct path and trespassed through a coppice,\navoiding the youthful bull. They escaped to these higher themes but\nnarrowly, for Coote and Mrs. Walshingham, subtle chaperones both, and\neach indisposed for excellent reasons to encumber Kipps and Helen, were\nhot upon their heels. These two kept direct route to the stile of the\nbull's field, and the sight of the animal at once awakened Coote's\ninnate aversion to brutality in any shape or form. He said the stiles\nwere too high, and that they could do better by going around by the\nhedge, and Mrs. Walshingham, nothing loath, agreed.\n\nThis left the way clear for Kipps and Helen, and they encountered the\nbull. Helen did not observe the bull, but Kipps did; but, that afternoon\nat any rate, he was equal to facing a lion. And the bull really came at\nthem. It was not an affair of the bull-ring exactly, no desperate rushes\nand gorings; but he came; he regarded them with a large, wicked, bluish\neye, opened a mouth below his moistly glistening nose and booed, at any\nrate, if he did not exactly bellow, and he shook his head wickedly and\nshowed that tossing was in his mind. Helen was frightened, without any\nloss of dignity, and Kipps went extremely white. But he was perfectly\ncalm, and he seemed to her to have lost the last vestiges of his accent\nand his social shakiness. He directed her to walk quietly towards the\nstile, and made an oblique advance towards the bull.\n\n\"You be orf!\" he said....\n\nWhen Helen was well over the stile Kipps withdrew in good order. He got\nover the stile under cover of a feint, and the thing was done--a small\nthing, no doubt, but just enough to remove from Helen's mind an\nincorrect deduction that a man who was so terribly afraid of a teacup as\nKipps must necessarily be abjectly afraid of everything else in the\nworld. In her moment of reaction she went perhaps too far in the\nopposite direction. Hitherto Kipps had always had a certain flimsiness\nof effect for her. Now suddenly he was discovered solid. He was\ndiscovered possible in many new ways. Here, after all, was the sort of\nback a woman can get behind!...\n\nAs so these heirs of the immemorial ages went past the turf-crowned mass\nof Portus Lemanus up the steep slopes towards the mediæval castle on the\ncrest the thing was also manifest in her eyes.\n\n\n§2\n\nEveryone who stays in Folkestone gets, sooner or later, to Lympne. The\ncastle became a farmhouse long ago, and the farmhouse, itself now ripe\nand venerable, wears the walls of the castle as a little man wears a big\nman's coat. The kindliest of farm ladies entertains a perpetual stream\nof visitors and shows her vast mangle, and her big kitchen, and takes\nyou out upon the sunniest little terrace garden in all the world, and\nyou look down the sheep-dotted slopes to where, beside the canal and\nunder the trees, the crumpled memories of Rome sleep forever. For hither\nto this lonely spot the galleys once came, the legions, the emperors,\nmasters of the world. The castle is but a thing of yesterday, King\nStephen's time or thereabout, in that retrospect. One climbs the pitch\nof perforation, and there one is lifted to the centre of far more than a\nhemisphere of view. Away below one's feet, almost at the bottom of the\nhill, the Marsh begins, and spreads and spreads in a mighty crescent\nthat sweeps about the sea, the Marsh dotted with the church towers of\nforgotten mediæval towns and breaking at last into the low, blue hills\nof Winchelsea and Hastings; east hangs France, between the sea and the\nsky, and round the north, bounding the wide prospectives of farms and\nhouses and woods, the Downs, with their hangers and chalk pits, sustain\nthe passing shadows of the sailing clouds.\n\nAnd here it was, high out of the world of everyday, and in the presence\nof spacious beauty, that Kipps and Helen found themselves agreeably\nalone. All six, it had seemed, had been coming for the Keep, but Mrs.\nWalshingham had hesitated at the horrid little stairs, and then suddenly\nfelt faint, and so she and the freckled girl had remained below, walking\nup and down in the shadow of the house, and Coote had remembered they\nwere all out of cigarettes, and had taken off young Walshingham into the\nvillage. There had been shouting to explain between ground and parapet,\nand then Helen and Kipps turned again to the view, and commended it and\nfell silent.\n\nHelen sat fearlessly in an embrasure, and Kipps stood beside her.\n\n\"I've always been fond of scenery,\" Kipps repeated, after an interval.\n\nThen he went off at a tangent. \"D'you reely think that was right what\nCoote was saying?\"\n\nShe looked interrogation.\n\n\"About my name?\"\n\n\"Being really C-U-Y-P-S? I have my doubts. I thought at first----. What\nmakes Mr. Coote add an S to Cuyp?\"\n\n\"I dunno,\" said Kipps, foiled. \"I was jest thinking----\"\n\nShe shot one wary glance at him and then turned her eyes to the sea.\n\nKipps was out for a space. He had intended to lead from this question to\nthe general question of surnames and change of names; it had seemed a\nlight and witty way of saying something he had in mind, and suddenly he\nperceived that this was an unutterably vulgar and silly project. The\nhitch about that \"s\" had saved him. He regarded her profile for a\nmoment, framed in weather-beaten stone, and backed by the blue elements.\n\nHe dropped the question of his name out of existence and spoke again of\nthe view. \"When I see scenery, and things that are beautiful, it makes\nme feel----\"\n\nShe looked at him suddenly, and saw him fumbling for his words.\n\n\"Silly like,\" he said.\n\nShe took him in with her glance, the old look of proprietorship it was,\ntouched with a certain warmth. She spoke in a voice as unambiguous as\nher eyes. \"You needn't,\" she said. \"You know, Mr. Kipps, you hold\nyourself too cheap.\"\n\nHer eyes and words smote him with amazement. He stared at her like a man\nwho awakens. She looked down.\n\n\"You mean----\" he said; and then, \"don't you hold me cheap?\"\n\nShe glanced up again and shook her head.\n\n\"But--for instance--you don't think of me--as an equal like.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Oo! But reely----\"\n\nHis heart beat very fast.\n\n\"If I thought,\" he said, and then, \"you know so much.\"\n\n\"That's nothing,\" she said.\n\nThen, for a long time, as it seemed to them, both kept silence, a\nsilence that said and accomplished many things.\n\n\"I know what I am,\" he said, at length.... \"If I thought it was\npossible.... If I thought _you_.... I believe I could do anything----\"\n\nHe stopped, and she sat downcast and strikingly still.\n\n\"Miss Walshingham,\" he said, \"is it possible that you ... could care for\nme enough to--to 'elp me? Miss Walshingham, do you care for me at all?\"\n\nIt seemed she was never going to answer. She looked up at him. \"I\nthink,\" she said, \"you are the most generous--look at what you have done\nfor my brother--the most generous and the most modest of men. And this\nafternoon--I thought you were the bravest.\"\n\nShe turned her head, glanced down, waved her hand to someone on the\nterrace below, and stood up.\n\n\"Mother is signalling,\" she said. \"We must go down.\"\n\nKipps became polite and deferential by habit, but his mind was a tumult\nthat had nothing to do with that.\n\nHe moved before her towards the little door that opened on the winding\nstairs--\"always precede a lady down or up stairs\"--and then on the\nsecond step he turned resolutely. \"But,\" he said, looking up out of the\nshadow, flannel-clad and singularly like a man.\n\nShe looked down on him, with her hand upon the stone lintel.\n\nHe held out his hand as if to help her. \"Can you tell me?\" he said. \"You\nmust know----\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"If you care for me?\"\n\nShe did not answer for a long time. It was as if everything in the\nworld had drawn to the breaking point, and in a minute must certainly\nbreak.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said, at last, \"I know.\"\n\nAbruptly, by some impalpable sign, he knew what the answer would be, and\nhe remained still.\n\nShe bent down over him and softened to her wonderful smile.\n\n\"Promise me,\" she insisted.\n\nHe promised with his still face.\n\n\"If _I_ do not hold you cheap, you will never hold yourself cheap----\"\n\n\"If you do not hold me cheap, you mean?\"\n\nShe bent down quite close beside him. \"I hold you,\" she said, and then\nwhispered, \"_dear_.\"\n\n\"Me?\"\n\nShe laughed aloud.\n\nHe was astonished beyond measure. He stipulated, lest there might be\nsome misconception, \"You will marry me?\"\n\nShe was laughing, inundated by the sense of bountiful power, of\npossession and success. He looked quite a nice little man to have.\n\"Yes,\" she laughed. \"What else could I mean?\" and, \"Yes.\"\n\nHe felt as a praying hermit might have felt, snatched from the midst of\nhis quiet devotions, his modest sackcloth and ashes, and hurled neck and\ncrop over the glittering gates of Paradise, smack among the iridescent\nwings, the bright-eyed Cherubim. He felt like some lowly and righteous\nman dynamited into Bliss....\n\nHis hand tightened upon the rope that steadies one upon the stairs of\nstone. He was for kissing her hand and did not.\n\nHe said not a word more. He turned about, and with something very like a\nscared expression on his face led the way into the obscurity of their\ndescent.\n\n\n§3\n\nEveryone seemed to understand. Nothing was said, nothing was explained,\nthe merest touch of the eyes sufficed. As they clustered in the castle\ngateway Coote, Kipps remembered afterwards, laid hold of his arm as if\nby chance and pressed it. It was quite evident he knew. His eyes, his\nnose, shone with benevolent congratulations, shone, too, with the sense\nof a good thing conducted to its climax. Mrs. Walshingham, who had\nseemed a little fatigued by the hill, recovered, and was even obviously\nstirred by affection for her daughter. There was, in passing, a motherly\ncaress. She asked Kipps to give her his arm in walking down the steep.\nKipps in a sort of dream obeyed. He found himself trying to attend to\nher, and soon he was attending.\n\nShe and Kipps talked like sober, responsible people and went slowly,\nwhile the others drifted down the hill together, a loose little group of\nfour. He wondered momentarily what they would talk about and then sank\ninto his conversation with Mrs. Walshingham. He conversed, as it were,\nout of his superficial personality, and his inner self lay stunned in\nunsuspected depths within. It had an air of being an interesting and\nfriendly talk, almost their first long talk together. Hitherto he had\nhad a sort of fear of Mrs. Walshingham, as of a person possibly\nsatirical, but she proved a soul of sense and sentiment, and Kipps, for\nall of his abstraction, got on with her unexpectedly well. They talked a\nlittle upon scenery and the inevitable melancholy attaching to the old\nruins and the thought of vanished generations.\n\n\"Perhaps they jousted here,\" said Mrs. Walshingham.\n\n\"They was up to all sorts of things,\" said Kipps, and then the two came\nround to Helen. She spoke of her daughter's literary ambitions. \"She\nwill do something, I feel sure. You know, Mr. Kipps, it's a great\nresponsibility to a mother to feel her daughter is--exceptionally\nclever.\"\n\n\"I dessay it is,\" said Kipps. \"There's no mistake about that.\"\n\nShe spoke, too, of her son--almost like Helen's twin--alike, yet\ndifferent. She made Kipps feel quite fatherly. \"They are so quick, so\nartistic,\" she said, \"so full of ideas. Almost they frighten me. One\nfeels they need opportunities--as other people need air.\"\n\nShe spoke of Helen's writing. \"Even when she was quite a little dot she\nwrote verse.\"\n\n(Kipps, sensation.)\n\n\"Her father had just the same tastes----\" Mrs. Walshingham turned a\nlittle beam of half-pathetic reminiscence on the past. \"He was more\nartist than business man. That was the trouble.... He was misled by his\npartner, and when the crash came everyone blamed him.... Well, it\ndoesn't do to dwell on horrid things--especially to-day. There are\nbright days, Mr. Kipps, and dark days. And mine have not always been\nbright.\"\n\nKipps presented a face of Coote-like sympathy.\n\nShe diverged to talk of flowers, and Kipps' mind was filled with the\npicture of Helen bending down towards him in the Keep....\n\nThey spread the tea under the trees before the little inn, and at a\ncertain moment Kipps became aware that everyone in the party was\nsimultaneously and furtively glancing at him. There might have been a\ncertain tension had it not been first of all for Coote and his tact, and\nafterwards for a number of wasps. Coote was resolved to make this\nmemorable day pass off well, and displayed an almost boisterous sense of\nfun. Then young Walshingham began talking of the Roman remains below\nLympne, intending to lead up to the Overman. \"These old Roman chaps,\" he\nsaid, and then the wasps arrived. They killed three in the jam alone.\n\nKipps killed wasps, as if it were in a dream, and handed things to the\nwrong people, and maintained a thin surface of ordinary intelligence\nwith the utmost difficulty. At times he became aware, aware with an\nextraordinary vividness, of Helen. Helen was carefully not looking at\nhim and behaving with amazing coolness and ease. But just for that one\ntime there was the faintest suggestion of pink beneath the ivory of her\ncheeks....\n\nTacitly the others conceded to Kipps the right to paddle back with\nHelen; he helped her into the canoe and took his paddle, and, paddling\nslowly, dropped behind the others. And now his inner self stirred again.\nHe said nothing to her. How could he ever say anything to her again? She\nspoke to him at rare intervals about reflections and the flowers and the\ntrees, and he nodded in reply. But his mind moved very slowly forward\nnow from the point at which it had fallen stunned in the Lympne Keep,\nmoving forward to the beginnings of realisation. As yet he did not say\neven in the recesses of his heart that she was his. But he perceived\nthat the goddess had come from her altar amazingly, and had taken him by\nthe hand!\n\nThe sky was a vast splendour, and then close to them were the dark,\nprotecting trees and the shining, smooth, still water. He was an erect,\nblack outline to her; he plied his paddle with no unskilful gesture, the\nwater broke to snaky silver and glittered far behind his strokes.\nIndeed, he did not seem bad to her. Youth calls to youth the wide world\nthrough, and her soul rose in triumph over his subjection. And behind\nhim was money and opportunity, freedom and London, a great background of\nseductively indistinct hopes. To him her face was a warm dimness. In\ntruth, he could not see her eyes, but it seemed to his love-witched\nbrain he did and that they shone out at him like dusky stars.\n\nAll the world that evening was no more than a shadowy frame of darkling\nsky and water and dripping bows about Helen. He seemed to see through\nthings with an extraordinary clearness; she was revealed to him\ncertainly, as the cause and essence of it all.\n\nHe was indeed at his Heart's Desire. It was one of those times when\nthere seems to be no future, when Time has stopped and we are at an end.\nKipps, that evening, could not have imagined a to-morrow, all that his\nimagination had pointed towards was attained. His mind stood still and\ntook the moments as they came.\n\n\n§4\n\nAbout nine that night Coote came around to Kipps' new apartment in the\nUpper Sandgate Road--the house on the Leas had been let furnished--and\nKipps made an effort toward realisation. He was discovered sitting at\nthe open window and without a lamp, quite still. Coote was deeply moved,\nand he pressed Kipps' palm and laid a knobby, white hand on his shoulder\nand displayed the sort of tenderness becoming in a crisis. Kipps was too\nmoved that night, and treated Coote like a very dear brother.\n\n\"She's splendid,\" said Coote, coming to it abruptly.\n\n\"Isn't she?\" said Kipps.\n\n\"I couldn't help noticing her face,\" said Coote.... \"You know, my dear\nKipps, that this is better than a legacy.\"\n\n\"I don't deserve it,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"You can't say that.\"\n\n\"I don't. I can't 'ardly believe it. I can't believe it at all. No!\"\n\nThere followed an expressive stillness.\n\n\"It's wonderful,\" said Kipps. \"It takes me like that.\"\n\nCoote made a faint blowing noise, and so again they came for a time of\nsilence.\n\n\"And it began--before your money?\"\n\n\"When I was in 'er class,\" said Kipps, solemnly.\n\nCoote, speaking out of a darkness which he was illuminating strangely\nwith efforts to strike a match, said that it was beautiful. He could not\nhave _wished_ Kipps a better fortune....\n\nHe lit a cigarette, and Kipps was moved to do the same, with a\nsacramental expression. Presently speech flowed more freely.\n\nCoote began to praise Helen and her mother and brother. He talked of\nwhen \"it\" might be, he presented the thing as concrete and credible.\n\"It's a county family, you know,\" he said. \"She is connected, you know,\nwith the Beaupres family--you know Lord Beaupres.\"\n\n\"No!\" said Kipps, \"reely!\"\n\n\"Distantly, of course,\" said Coote. \"Still----\"\n\nHe smiled a smile that glimmered in the twilight.\n\n\"It's too much,\" said Kipps, overcome. \"It's so all like that.\"\n\nCoote exhaled. For a time Kipps listened to Helen's praises and matured\na point of view.\n\n\"I say, Coote,\" he said. \"What ought I to do now?\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" said Coote.\n\n\"I mean about calling on 'er and all that.\"\n\nHe reflected. \"Naturally, I want to do it all right.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" said Coote.\n\n\"It would be awful to go and do something--now--all wrong.\"\n\nCoote's cigarette glowed as he meditated. \"You must call, of course,\" he\ndecided. \"You'll have to speak to Mrs. Walshingham.\"\n\n\"'Ow?\" said Kipps.\n\n\"Tell her you mean to marry her daughter.\"\n\n\"I dessay she knows,\" said Kipps, with defensive penetration.\n\nCoote's head was visible, shaking itself judiciously.\n\n\"Then there's the ring,\" said Kipps. \"What 'ave I to do about that?\"\n\n\"What ring do you mean?\"\n\n\"'Ngagement Ring. There isn't anything at all about that in 'Manners and\nRules of Good Society'--not a word.\"\n\n\"Of course you must get something--tasteful. Yes.\"\n\n\"What sort of a ring?\"\n\n\"Something nace. They'll show you in the shop.\"\n\n\"Of course. I 'spose I got to take it to 'er, eh? Put it on her finger.\"\n\n\"Oh, no! Send it. Much better.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said Kipps, for the first time, with a note of relief.\n\n\"Then, 'ow about this call--on Mrs. Walshingham, I mean. 'Ow ought one\nto go?\"\n\n\"Rather a ceremonial occasion,\" reflected Coote.\n\n\"Wadyer mean? Frock coat?\"\n\n\"I _think_ so,\" said Coote, with discrimination.\n\n\"Light trousers and all that?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Rose?\"\n\n\"I think it might run to a buttonhole.\"\n\nThe curtain that hung over the future became less opaque to the eyes of\nKipps. To-morrow, and then other days, became perceptible at least as\nexisting. Frock coat, silk hat and a rose! With a certain solemnity he\ncontemplated himself in the process of slow transformation into an\nEnglish gentleman, Arthur Cuyps, frock-coated on occasions of ceremony,\nthe familiar acquaintance of Lady Punnet, the recognised wooer of a\ndistant connection of the Earl of Beaupres.\n\nSomething like awe at the magnitude of his own fortune came upon him. He\nfelt the world was opening out like a magic flower in a transformation\nscene at the touch of this wand of gold. And Helen, nestling beautiful\nin the red heart of the flower. Only ten weeks ago he had been no more\nthan the shabbiest of improvers and shamefully dismissed for\ndissipation, the mere soil-burned seed, as it were, of these glories. He\nresolved the engagement ring should be of expressively excessive quality\nand appearance, in fact, the very best they had.\n\n\"Ought I to send 'er flowers?\" he speculated.\n\n\"Not necessarily,\" said Coote. \"Though, of course, it's an\nattention.\"...\n\nKipps meditated on flowers.\n\n\"When you see her,\" said Coote, \"you'll have to ask her to name the\nday.\"\n\nKipps started. \"That won't be just yet a bit, will it?\"\n\n\"Don't know any reason for delay.\"\n\n\"Oo, but--a year, say.\"\n\n\"Rather a long time,\" said Coote.\n\n\"Is it?\" said Kipps, turning his head sharply. \"But----\"\n\nThere was quite a long pause.\n\n\"I say,\" he said, at last, and in an unaltered voice, \"you'll 'ave to\n'elp me about the wedding.\"\n\n\"Only too happy,\" said Coote.\n\n\"Of course,\" said Kipps, \"I didn't think----\" He changed his line of\nthought. \"Coote,\" he asked, \"wot's a 'state-eh-tate'?\"\n\n\"A 'tate-ah-tay'!\" said Coote, improvingly, \"is a conversation alone\ntogether.\"\n\n\"Lor'!\" said Kipps, \"but I thought----. It says _strictly_ we oughtn't\nto enjoy a tater-tay, not sit together, walk together, ride together or\nmeet during any part of the day. That don't leave much time for meeting,\ndoes it?\"\n\n\"The books says that?\" asked Coote.\n\n\"I jest learnt it by 'eart before you came. I thought that was a bit\nrum, but I s'pose it's all right.\"\n\n\"You won't find Miss Walshingham so strict as all that,\" said Coote. \"I\nthink that's a bit extreme. They'd only do that now in very strict old\naristocratic families. Besides, the Walshinghams are so\nmodern--advanced, you might say. I expect you'll get plenty of chances\nof talking together.\"\n\n\"There's a tremendous lot to think about,\" said Kipps, blowing a\nprofound sigh. \"D'you mean--p'raps we might be married in a few months\nor so.\"\n\n\"You'll _have_ to be,\" said Coote. \"Why not?\"...\n\nMidnight found Kipps alone, looking a little tired and turning over the\nleaves of the red-covered textbook with a studious expression. He paused\nfor a moment on page 233, his eye caught by the words:\n\n\"FOR AN UNCLE OR AUNT BY MARRIAGE the period is six weeks black, with\njet trimmings.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Kipps, after a vigorous mental effort. \"That's not it.\" The\npages rustled again. He stopped and flattened out the little book\ndecisively at the beginning of the chapter on \"Weddings.\"\n\nHe became pensive. He stared at the lamp wick. \"I suppose I ought to go\nover and tell them,\" he said, at last.\n\n\n§5\n\nKipps called on Mrs. Walshingham, attired in the proper costume for\nceremonial Occasions in the Day. He carried a silk hat, and he wore a\ndeep-skirted frock coat, his boots were patent leather and his trousers\ndark grey. He had generous white cuffs with gold links, and his grey\ngloves, one thumb in which had burst when he put them on, he held\nloosely in his hand. He carried a small umbrella rolled to an exquisite\ntightness. A sense of singular correctness pervaded his being and warred\nwith the enormity of the occasion for possession of his soul. Anon he\ntouched his silk cravat. The world smelt of his rosebud.\n\nHe seated himself on a new re-covered chintz armchair and stuck out the\nelbow of the arm that held his hat.\n\n\"I know,\" said Mrs. Walshingham, \"I know everything,\" and helped him out\nmost amazingly. She deepened the impression he had already received of\nher sense and refinement. She displayed an amount of tenderness that\ntouched him.\n\n\"This is a great thing,\" she said, \"to a mother,\" and her hand rested\nfor a moment on his impeccable coat sleeve.\n\n\"A daughter, Arthur,\" she explained, \"is so much more than a son.\"\n\nMarriage, she said, was a lottery, and without love and toleration\nthere was much unhappiness. Her life had not always been bright--there\nhad been dark days and bright days. She smiled rather sweetly. \"This is\na bright one,\" she said.\n\nShe said very kind and flattering things to Kipps, and she thanked him\nfor his goodness to her son. (\"That wasn't anything,\" said Kipps.) And\nthen she expanded upon the theme of her two children. \"Both so\naccomplished,\" she said, \"so clever. I call them my Twin Jewels.\"\n\nShe was repeating a remark that she had made at Lympne, that she always\nsaid her children needed opportunities, as other people needed air, when\nshe was abruptly arrested by the entry of Helen. They hung on a pause,\nHelen perhaps surprised by Kipps' weekday magnificence. Then she\nadvanced with outstretched hand.\n\nBoth the young people were shy. \"I jest called 'round,\" began Kipps, and\nbecame uncertain how to end.\n\n\"Won't you have some tea?\" asked Helen.\n\nShe walked to the window, looked out at the familiar outporter's barrow,\nturned, surveyed Kipps for a moment ambiguously, said \"I will get some\ntea,\" and so departed again.\n\nMrs. Walshingham and Kipps looked at one another and the lady smiled\nindulgently. \"You two young people mustn't be shy of each other,\" said\nMrs. Walshingham, which damaged Kipps considerably.\n\nShe was explaining how sensitive Helen always had been, even about\nquite little things, when the servant appeared with the tea things, and\nthen Helen followed, and taking up a secure position behind the little\nbanboo tea table, broke the ice with officious teacup clattering. Then\nshe introduced the topic of a forthcoming open-air performance of \"As\nYou Like It,\" and steered past the worst of the awkwardness. They\ndiscussed stage illusion. \"I mus' say,\" said Kipps, \"I don't quite like\na play in a theayter. It seems sort of unreal, some'ow.\"\n\n\"But most plays are written for the stage,\" said Helen, looking at the\nsugar.\n\n\"I know,\" admitted Kipps.\n\nThey finished tea. \"Well,\" said Kipps, and rose.\n\n\"You mustn't go yet,\" said Mrs. Walshingham, rising and taking his hand.\n\"I'm sure you two must have heaps to say to each other,\" and so she\nescaped towards the door.\n\n\n§6\n\nAmong other projects that seemed almost equally correct to Kipps at that\nexalted moment was one of embracing Helen with ardour as soon as the\ndoor closed behind her mother and one of headlong flight through the\nopen window. Then he remembered he ought to hold the door open for Mrs.\nWalshingham, and turned from that duty to find Helen still standing,\nbeautifully inaccessible, behind the tea things. He closed the door and\nadvanced toward her with his arms akimbo and his hands upon his coat\nskirts. Then, feeling angular, he moved his right hand to his\nmoustache. Anyhow, he was dressed all right. Somewhere at the back of\nhis mind, dim and mingled with doubt and surprise, appeared the\nperception that he felt now quite differently towards her, that\nsomething between them had been blown from Lympne Keep to the four winds\nof heaven....\n\nShe regarded him with an eye of critical proprietorship.\n\n\"Mother has been making up to you,\" she said, smiling slightly.\n\nShe added, \"It was nice of you to come around to see her.\"\n\nThey stood through a brief pause, as though each had expected something\ndifferent in the other and was a little perplexed at its not being\nthere. Kipps found he was at the corner of the brown covered table, and\nhe picked up a little flexible book that lay upon it to occupy his mind.\n\n\"I bought you a ring to-day,\" he said, bending the book and speaking for\nthe sake of saying something, and then he was moved to genuine speech.\n\"You know,\" he said, \"I can't 'ardly believe it.\"\n\nHer face relaxed slightly again. \"No?\" she said, and may have breathed,\n\"Nor I.\"\n\n\"No,\" he went on. \"It's as though everything 'ad changed. More even than\nwhen I got my money. 'Ere we are going to marry. It's like being someone\nelse. What I feel is----\"\n\nHe turned a flushed and earnest face to her. He seemed to come alive to\nher with one natural gesture. \"I don't _know_ things. I'm not good\nenough. I'm not refined. The more you'll see of me the more you'll find\nme out.\"\n\n\"But I'm going to help you.\"\n\n\"You'll 'ave to 'elp me a fearful lot.\"\n\nShe walked to the window, glanced out of it, made up her mind, turned\nand came towards him, with her hands clasped behind her back.\n\n\"All these things that trouble you are very little things. If you don't\nmind--if you will let me tell you things----\"\n\n\"I wish you would.\"\n\n\"Then I will.\"\n\n\"They're little things to you, but they aren't to me.\"\n\n\"It all depends, if you don't mind being told.\"\n\n\"By you?\"\n\n\"I don't expect you to be told by strangers.\"\n\n\"Oo!\" said Kipps, expressing much.\n\n\"You know, there are just a few little things. For instance, you know,\nyou are careless with your pronunciation.... You don't mind my telling\nyou?\"\n\n\"I like it,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"There's aitches.\"\n\n\"I know,\" said Kipps, and then, endorsingly, \"I been told. Fact is, I\nknow a chap, a Nacter, _he's_ told me. He's told me, and he's going to\ngive me a lesso nor so.\"\n\n\"I'm glad of that. It only requires a little care.\"\n\n\"Of course. On the stage they got to look out. They take regular\nlessons.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" said Helen, a little absently.\n\n\"I dessay I shall soon get into it,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"And then there's dress,\" said Helen, taking up her thread again.\n\nKipps became pink, but he remained respectfully attentive.\n\n\"You don't mind?\" she said.\n\n\"Oo, no.\"\n\n\"You mustn't be too--too dressy. It's possible to be over-conventional,\nover-elaborate. It makes you look like a shop--like a common, well-off\nperson. There's a sort of easiness that is better. A real gentleman\nlooks right, without looking as though he had tried to be right.\"\n\n\"Jest as though 'e'd put on what came first?\" said the pupil, in a faded\nvoice.\n\n\"Not exactly that, but a sort of ease.\"\n\nKipps nodded his head intelligently. In his heart he was kicking his\nsilk hat about the room in an ecstasy of disappointment.\n\n\"And you must accustom yourself to be more at your ease when you are\nwith people,\" said Helen. \"You've only got to forget yourself a little\nand not be anxious----\"\n\n\"I'll try,\" said Kipps, looking rather hard at the teapot. \"I'll do my\nbest to try.\"\n\n\"I know you will,\" she said, and laid a hand for an instant upon his\nshoulder and withdrew it.\n\nHe did not perceive her caress. \"One has to learn,\" he said. His\nattention was distracted by the strenuous efforts that were going on in\nthe back of his head to translate, \"I say, didn't you ought to name the\nday?\" into easy as well as elegant English, a struggle that was still\nundecided when the time came for them to part....\n\nHe sat for a long time at the open window of his sitting-room with an\nintent face, recapitulating that interview. His eyes rested at last\nalmost reproachfully on the silk hat beside him. \"'Ow is one to know?\"\nhe asked. His attention was caught by a rubbed place in the nap, and,\nstill thoughtful, he rolled up his handkerchief skilfully into a soft\nball and began to smooth this down.\n\nHis expression changed slowly.\n\n\"'Ow the Juice is one to know?\" he said, putting down the hat with some\nemphasis.\n\nHe rose up, went across the room to the sideboard, and, standing there,\nopened and began to read \"Manners and Rules.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTHE BICYCLE MANUFACTURER\n\n\n§1\n\nSo Kipps embarked upon his engagement, steeled himself to the high\nenterprise of marrying above his breeding. The next morning found him\ndressing with a certain quiet severity of movement, and it seemed to his\nlandlady's housemaid that he was unusually dignified at breakfast. He\nmeditated profoundly over his kipper and his kidney and bacon. He was\ngoing to New Romney to tell the old people what had happened and where\nhe stood. And the love of Helen had also given him courage to do what\nBuggins had once suggested to him as a thing he would do were he in\nKipps' place, and that was to hire a motor car for the afternoon. He had\nan early cold lunch, and then, with an air of quiet resolution, assumed\na cap and coat he had purchased to this end, and thus equipped strolled\naround, blowing slightly, to the motor shop. The transaction was\nunexpectedly easy, and within the hour Kipps, spectacled and wrapped\nabout, was tootling through Dymchurch.\n\nThey came to a stop smartly and neatly outside the little toy shop.\n\"Make that thing 'oot a bit, will you,\" said Kipps. \"Yes, that's it.\"\n\"Whup,\" said the motor car. \"Whurrup!\"\n\nBoth his Aunt and Uncle came out on the pavement. \"Why, it's Artie,\"\ncried his Aunt, and Kipps had a moment of triumph.\n\nHe descended to hand claspings, removed wraps and spectacles, and the\nmotor driver retired to take \"an hour off.\" Old Kipps surveyed the\nmachinery and disconcerted Kipps for a moment by asking him in a knowing\ntone what they asked him for a thing like that. The two men stood\ninspecting the machine and impressing the neighbours for a time, and\nthen they strolled through the shop into the little parlour for a drink.\n\n\"They ain't settled,\" old Kipps had said to the neighbours. \"They ain't\ngot no further than experiments. There's a bit of take-in about each.\nYou take my advice and wait, me boy, even if it's a year or two, before\nyou buy one for your own use.\"\n\n(Though Kipps had said nothing of doing anything of the sort.)\n\n\"'Ow d'you like that whiskey I sent?\" asked Kipps, dodging the old\nfamiliar bunch of children's pails.\n\nOld Kipps became tactful. \"It's a very good whiskey, my boy,\" said old\nKipps. \"I 'aven't the slightest doubt it's a very good whiskey and cost\nyou a tidy price. But--dashed if it soots me! They put this here Foozle\nIle in it, my boy, and it ketches me jest 'ere.\" He indicated his centre\nof figure. \"Gives me the heartburn,\" he said, and shook his head rather\nsadly.\n\n\"It's a very good whiskey,\" said Kipps. \"It's what the actor manager\nchaps drink in London, I 'appen to know.\"\n\n\"I dessay they do, my boy,\" said old Kipps, \"but then they've 'ad their\nlivers burnt out, and I 'aven't. They ain't dellicat like me. My stummik\nalways _'as_ been extrey dellicat. Sometimes it's almost been as though\nnothing would lay on it. But that's in passing. I liked those segars.\nYou can send me some of them segars....\"\n\nYou cannot lead a conversation straight from the gastric consequences of\nFoozle Ile to Love, and so Kipps, after a friendly inspection of a rare\nold engraving after Morland (perfect except for a hole kicked through\nthe centre) that his Uncle had recently purchased by private haggle,\ncame to the topic of the old people's removal.\n\nAt the outset of Kipps' great fortunes there had been much talk of some\npermanent provision for them. It had been conceded they were to be\nprovided for comfortably, and the phrase \"retire from business\" had been\nvery much in the air. Kipps had pictured an ideal cottage, with a\ncreeper always in exuberant flower about the door, where the sun shone\nforever and the wind never blew and a perpetual welcome hovered in the\ndoorway. It was an agreeable dream, but when it came to the point of\ndeciding upon this particular cottage or that, and on this particular\nhouse or that, Kipps was surprised by an unexpected clinging to the\nlittle home, which he had always understood to be the worst of all\npossible houses.\n\n\"We don't want to move in a 'urry,\" said Mrs. Kipps.\n\n\"When we want to move, we want to move for life. I've had enough moving\nabout in my time,\" said old Kipps.\n\n\"We can do here a bit more, now we done here so long,\" said Mrs. Kipps.\n\n\"You lemme look about a bit _fust_,\" said old Kipps.\n\nAnd in looking about old Kipps found perhaps a finer joy than any mere\npossession could have given. He would shut his shop more or less\neffectually against the intrusion of customers, and toddle abroad\nseeking new matter for his dream; no house was too small and none too\nlarge for his knowing enquiries. Occupied houses took his fancy more\nthan vacancies, and he would remark, \"You won't be a livin' 'ere\nforever, even if you think you will,\" when irate householders protested\nagainst the unsolicited examination of their more intimate premises....\n\nRemarkable difficulties arose of a totally unexpected sort.\n\n\"If we 'ave a larger 'ouse,\" said Mrs. Kipps with sudden bitterness, \"we\nshall want a servant, and I don't want no gells in the place larfin' at\nme, sniggerin' and larfin' and prancin' and trapesin', lardy da! If we\n'ave a smaller 'ouse, there won't be room to swing a cat.\"\n\nRoom to swing a cat it seemed was absolutely essential. It was an\ninfrequent but indispensable operation.\n\n\"When we _do_ move,\" said old Kipps, \"if we could get a bit of\nshootin'----. I don't want to sell off all this here stock for nothin'.\nIt's took years to 'cumulate. I put a ticket in the winder sayin'\n'sellin' orf,' but it 'asn't brought nothing like a roosh. One of these\n'ere dratted visitors pretendin' to want an air gun, was all we 'ad in\nyesterday. Jest an excuse for spyin' round and then go away and larf at\nyou. No-thanky to everything, it didn't matter what.... That's 'ow _I_\nlook at it, Artie.\"\n\nThey pursued meandering fancies about the topic of their future\nsettlement for a space and Kipps became more and more hopeless of any\nproper conversational opening that would lead to his great announcement,\nand more and more uncertain how such an opening should be taken. Once\nindeed old Kipps, anxious to get away from this dangerous subject of\nremovals, began: \"And what are you a-doin' of in Folkestone? I shall\nhave to come over and see you one of these days,\" but before Kipps could\nget in upon that, his Uncle had passed into a general exposition of the\nproper treatment of landladies and their humbugging, cheating ways, and\nso the opportunity vanished. It seemed to Kipps the only thing to do was\nto go out into the town for a stroll, compose an effectual opening at\nleisure, and then come back and discharge it at them in its consecutive\ncompleteness. And even out of doors and alone, he found his mind\ndistracted by irrelevant thoughts.\n\n\n§2\n\nHis steps led him out of the High Street towards the church, and he\nleant for a time over the gate that had once been the winning post of\nhis race with Ann Pornick, and presently found himself in a sitting\nposition on the top rail. He had to get things smooth again, he knew;\nhis mind was like a mirror of water after a breeze. The image of Helen\nand his great future was broken and mingled into fragmentary reflections\nof remoter things, of the good name of Old Methusaleh Three Stars, of\nlong dormant memories the High Street saw fit, by some trick of light\nand atmosphere, to arouse that afternoon....\n\nAbruptly a fine, full voice from under his elbow shouted, \"What--O Art!\"\nand, behold, Sid Pornick was back in his world, leaning over the gate\nbeside him, and holding out a friendly hand.\n\nHe was oddly changed and yet oddly like the Sid that Kipps had known. He\nhad the old broad face and mouth, abundantly freckled, the same short\nnose, and the same blunt chin, the same odd suggestion of his sister Ann\nwithout a touch of her beauty; but he had quite a new voice, loud and a\nlittle hard, and his upper lip carried a stiff and very fair moustache.\n\nKipps shook hands. \"I was jest thinking of _you_, Sid,\" he said, \"jest\nthis very moment and wondering if ever I should see you again, ever.\nAnd 'ere you are!\"\n\n\"One likes a look 'round at times,\" said Sid. \"How are _you_, old chap?\"\n\n\"All right,\" said Kipps. \"I just been lef'----\"\n\n\"You aren't changed much,\" interrupted Sid.\n\n\"Ent I?\" said Kipps, foiled.\n\n\"I knew your back directly I came 'round the corner. Spite of that 'at\nyou got on. Hang it, I said, that's Art Kipps or the devil. And so it\nwas.\"\n\nKipps made a movement of his neck as if he would look at his back and\njudge. Then he looked Sid in the face. \"You got a moustache, Sid,\" he\nsaid.\n\n\"I s'pose you're having your holidays?\" said Sid.\n\n\"Well, partly. But I just been lef'----\"\n\n\"_I'm_ taking a bit of a holiday,\" Sid went on. \"But the fact is, I have\nto give _myself_ holidays nowadays. I've set up for myself.\"\n\n\"Not down here?\"\n\n\"No fear! I'm not a turnip. I've started in Hammersmith, manufacturing.\"\nSid spoke offhand as though there was no such thing as pride.\n\n\"Not drapery?\"\n\n\"No fear! Engineer. Manufacture bicycles.\" He clapped his hand to his\nbreast pocket and produced a number of pink handbills. He handed one to\nKipps and prevented him reading it by explanations and explanatory dabs\nof a pointing finger. \"That's our make, my make to be exact, The Red\nFlag, see?--I got a transfer with my name--Pantocrat tyres, eight\npounds--yes, _there_--Clinchers ten, Dunlop's eleven, Ladies' one pound\nmore--that's the lady's. Best machine at a democratic price in London.\nNo guineas and no discounts--honest trade. I build 'em--to order. I've\nbuilt,\" he reflected, looking away seaward--\"seventeen. Counting orders\nin 'and.... Come down to look at the old place a bit. Mother likes it at\ntimes.\"\n\n\"Thought you'd all gone away----\"\n\n\"What! after my father's death? No! My mother's come back, and she's\nliving at Muggett's cottages. The sea air suits 'er. She likes the old\nplace better than Hammersmith ... and I can afford it. Got an old crony\nor so here.... Gossip ... have tea.... S'pose _you_ ain't married,\nKipps?\"\n\nKipps shook his head, \"I----\" he began.\n\n\"_I_ am,\" said Sid. \"Married these two years and got a nipper. Proper\nlittle chap.\"\n\nKipps got his word in at last. \"I got engaged day before yesterday,\" he\nsaid.\n\n\"Ah!\" said Sid airily. \"That's all right. Who's the fortunate lady?\"\n\nKipps tried to speak in an offhand way. He stuck his hands in his\npockets as he spoke. \"She's a solicitor's daughter,\" he said, \"in\nFolkestone. Rather'r nice set. County family. Related to the Earl of\nBeaupres----\"\n\n\"Steady on!\" cried Sid.\n\n\"You see, I've 'ad a bit of luck, Sid. Been lef' money.\"\n\nSid's eye travelled instinctively to mark Kipps' garments. \"How much?\"\nhe asked.\n\n\"'Bout twelve 'undred a year,\" said Kipps, more offhandedly than ever.\n\n\"Lord!\" said Sid, with a note of positive dismay, and stepped back a\npace or two.\n\n\"My granfaver it was,\" said Kipps, trying hard to be calm and simple.\n\"'Ardly knew I _'ad_ a granfaver. And then--bang! When o' Bean, the\nsolicitor, told me of it, you could 'ave knocked me down----\"\n\n\"_'Ow_ much?\" demanded Sid, with a sharp note in his voice.\n\n\"Twelve 'undred pound a year--'proximately, that is....\"\n\nSid's attempt at genial unenvious congratulation did not last a minute.\nHe shook hands with an unreal heartiness and said he was jolly glad.\n\"It's a blooming stroke of Luck,\" he said.\n\n\"It's a bloomin' stroke of Luck,\" he repeated; \"that's what it is,\" with\nthe smile fading from his face. \"Of course, better you 'ave it than me,\no' chap. So I don't envy you, anyhow. _I_ couldn't keep it, if I did\n'ave it.\"\n\n\"'Ow's that?\" said Kipps, a little hipped by Sid's patent chagrin.\n\n\"I'm a Socialist, you see,\" said Sid. \"I don't 'old with Wealth. What\n_is_ Wealth? Labour robbed out of the poor. At most it's only yours in\nTrust. Leastways, that 'ow _I_ should take it.\" He reflected. \"The\nPresent distribution of Wealth,\" he said and stopped.\n\nThen he let himself go, with unmasked bitterness. \"It's no sense at\nall. It's jest damn foolishness. Who's going to work and care in a\nmuddle like this? Here first you do--something anyhow--of the world's\nwork, and it pays you hardly anything, and then it invites you to do\nnothing, nothing whatever, and pays you twelve hundred pounds a year.\nWho's going to respect laws and customs when they come to damn silliness\nlike that?\" He repeated, \"Twelve hundred pounds a year!\"\n\nAt the sight of Kipps' face he relented slightly.\n\n\"It's not you I'm thinking of, o' man; it's the system. Better you than\nmost people. Still----\"\n\nHe laid both hands on the gate and repeated to himself, \"Twelve 'undred\na year.... Gee-Whizz, Kipps! You'll be a swell!\"\n\n\"I shan't,\" said Kipps with imperfect conviction. \"No fear.\"\n\n\"You can't 'ave money like that and not swell out. You'll soon be too\nbig to speak to--'ow do they put it?--a mere mechanic like me.\"\n\n\"No fear, Siddee,\" said Kipps with conviction. \"I ain't that sort.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said Sid, with a sort of unwilling scepticism, \"money'll be too\nmuch for you. Besides--you're caught by a swell already.\"\n\n\"'Ow d'you mean?\"\n\n\"That girl you're going to marry. Masterman says----\"\n\n\"Oo's Masterman?\"\n\n\"Rare good chap I know--takes my first floor front room. Masterson says\nit's always the wife pitches the key. Always. There's no social\ndifferences--till women come in.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said Kipps profoundly. \"You don't know.\"\n\nSid shook his head. \"Fancy!\" he reflected, \"Art Kipps!... Twelve 'Undred\na Year!\"\n\nKipps tried to bridge that opening gulf. \"Remember the Hurons, Sid?\"\n\n\"Rather,\" said Sid.\n\n\"Remember that wreck?\"\n\n\"I can smell it now--sort of sour smell.\"\n\nKipps was silent for a moment with reminiscent eyes on Sid's still\ntroubled face.\n\n\"I say, Sid, 'ow's Ann?\"\n\n\"_She's_ all right,\" said Sid.\n\n\"Where is she now?\"\n\n\"In a place ... Ashford.\"\n\n\"Oh!\"\n\nSid's face had become a shade sulkier than before.\n\n\"The fact is,\" he said, \"we don't get on very well together. _I_ don't\nhold with service. We're common people, I suppose, but I don't like it.\nI don't see why a sister of mine should wait at other people's tables.\nNo. Not even if they got Twelve 'Undred a Year.\"\n\nKipps tried to change the point of application. \"Remember 'ow you came\nout once when we were racing here?... She didn't run bad for a girl.\"\n\nAnd his own words raised an image brighter than he could have supposed,\nso bright it seemed to breathe before him and did not fade altogether,\neven when he was back in Folkestone an hour or so later.\n\nBut Sid was not to be deflected from that other rankling theme by any\nreminiscences of Ann.\n\n\"I wonder what you will do with all that money,\" he speculated. \"I\nwonder if you will do any good at all. I wonder what you _could_ do. You\nshould hear Masterman. He'd tell you things. Suppose it came to me, what\nshould I do? It's no good giving it back to the state as things are.\nStart an Owenite profit-sharing factory perhaps. Or a new Socialist\npaper. We want a new Socialist paper.\"\n\nHe tried to drown his personal chagrin in elaborate exemplary\nsuggestions....\n\n\n§3\n\n\"I must be gettin' on to my motor,\" said Kipps at last, having to a\nlarge extent heard him out.\n\n\"What! Got a motor?\"\n\n\"No!\" said Kipps apologetically. \"Only jobbed for the day.\"\n\n\"'Ow much?\"\n\n\"Five pounds.\"\n\n\"Keep five families for a week! Good Lord!\" That seemed to crown Sid's\ndisgust.\n\nYet drawn by a sort of fascination he came with Kipps and assisted at\nthe mounting of the motor. He was pleased to note it was not the most\nmodern of motors, but that was the only grain of comfort. Kipps mounted\nat once, after one violent agitation of the little shop-door to set the\nbell a-jingle and warn his Uncle and Aunt. Sid assisted with the great\nfurlined overcoat and examined the spectacles.\n\n\"Good-bye, o' chap!\" said Kipps.\n\n\"Good-bye, o' chap!\" said Sid.\n\nThe old people came out to say good-bye.\n\nOld Kipps was radiant with triumph. \"'Pon my Sammy, Artie! I'm a goo'\nmind to come with you,\" he shouted, and then, \"I got something you might\ntake with you!\"\n\nHe dodged back into the shop and returned with the perforated engraving\nafter Morland.\n\n\"You stick to this, my boy,\" he said. \"You get it repaired by someone\nwho knows. It's the most vallyble thing I got you so far, you take my\nword.\"\n\n\"Warrup!\" said the motor, and tuff, tuff, tuff, and backed and snorted\nwhile old Kipps danced about on the pavement as if foreseeing complex\ncatastrophes, and told the driver, \"That's all right.\"\n\nHe waved his stout stick to his receding nephew. Then he turned to Sid.\n\"Now, if you could make something like that, young Pornick, you _might_\nblow a bit!\"\n\n\"I'll make a doocid sight better than _that_ before I done,\" said Sid,\nhands deep in his pockets.\n\n\"Not _you_,\" said old Kipps.\n\nThe motor set up a prolonged sobbing moan and vanished around the\ncorner. Sid stood motionless for a space, unheeding some further remark\nfrom old Kipps. The young mechanic had just discovered that to have\nmanufactured seventeen bicycles, including orders in hand, is not so big\na thing as he had supposed, and such discoveries try one's manhood....\n\n\"Oh well!\" said Sid at last, and turned his face towards his mother's\ncottage.\n\nShe had got a hot teacake for him, and she was a little hurt that he was\ndark and preoccupied as he consumed it. He had always been such a boy\nfor teacake, and then when one went out specially and got him one----!\n\nHe did not tell her--he did not tell anyone--he had seen young Kipps. He\ndid not want to talk about Kipps for a bit to anyone at all.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTHE PUPIL LOVER\n\n\n§1\n\nWhen Kipps came to reflect upon his afternoon's work he had his first\ninkling of certain comprehensive incompatibilities lying about the\ncourse of true love in his particular case. He had felt without\nunderstanding the incongruity between the announcement he had failed to\nmake and the circle of ideas of his Aunt and Uncle. It was this rather\nthan the want of a specific intention that had silenced him, the\nperception that when he travelled from Folkestone to New Romney he\ntravelled from an atmosphere where his engagement to Helen was sane and\nexcellent to an atmosphere where it was only to be regarded with\nincredulous suspicion. Coupled and associated with this jar was his\nsense of the altered behaviour of Sid Pornick, the evident shock to that\nancient alliance caused by the fact of his enrichment, the touch of\nhostility in his \"You'll soon be swelled too big to speak to a poor\nmechanic like me.\" Kipps was unprepared for the unpleasant truth; that\nthe path of social advancement is and must be strewn with broken\nfriendships. This first protrusion of that fact caused a painful\nconfusion in his mind. It was speedily to protrude in a far more serious\nfashion in relation to the \"hands\" from the Emporium, and Chitterlow.\n\nFrom the day at Lympne Castle his relations with Helen had entered upon\na new footing. He had prayed for Helen as good souls pray for Heaven,\nwith as little understanding of what it was he prayed for. And now that\nperiod of standing humbly in the shadows before the shrine was over, and\nthe Goddess, her veil of mystery flung aside, had come down to him and\ntaken hold of him, a good, strong, firm hold, and walked by his side....\nShe liked him. What was singular was that very soon she had kissed him\nthrice, whimsically upon the brow, and he had never kissed her at all.\nHe could not analyse his feelings, only he knew the world was\nwonderfully changed about them, but the truth was that, though he still\nworshipped and feared her, though his pride in his engagement was\nridiculously vast, he loved her now no more. That subtle something woven\nof the most delicate strands of self-love and tenderness and desire, had\nvanished imperceptibly; and was gone now for ever. But that she did not\nsuspect in him, nor as a matter of fact did he.\n\nShe took him in hand in perfect good faith. She told him things about\nhis accent, she told him things about his bearing, about his costume and\nhis way of looking at things. She thrust the blade of her intelligence\ninto the tenderest corners of Kipps' secret vanity, she slashed his\nmost intimate pride to bleeding tatters. He sought very diligently to\nanticipate some at least of these informing thrusts by making great use\nof Coote. But the unanticipated made a brave number....\n\nShe found his simple willingness a very lovable thing.\n\nIndeed she liked him more and more. There was a touch of motherliness in\nher feelings towards him. But his upbringing and his associations had\nbeen, she diagnosed, \"awful.\" At New Romney she glanced but little; that\nwas remote. But in her inventory--she went over him as one might go over\na newly taken house, with impartial thoroughness--she discovered more\nproximate influences, surprising intimations of nocturnal\n\"sing-songs\"--she pictured it as almost shocking that Kipps should sing\nto the banjo--much low-grade wisdom treasured from a person called\nBuggins--\"Who _is_ Buggins?\" said Helen--vague figures of indisputable\nvulgarity, Pierce and Carshot, and more particularly, a very terrible\nsocial phenomenon, Chitterlow.\n\nChitterlow blazed upon them with unheralded oppressive brilliance the\nfirst time they were abroad together.\n\nThey were going along the front of the Leas to see a school play in\nSandgate--at the last moment Mrs. Walshingham had been unable to come\nwith them--when Chitterlow loomed up into the new world. He was wearing\nthe suit of striped flannel and the straw hat that had followed Kipps'\npayment in advance for his course in elocution, his hands were deep in\nhis side pockets and animated the corners of his jacket, and his\nattentive gaze at the passing loungers, the faint smile under his boldly\ndrawn nose, showed him engaged in studying character--no doubt for some\nforthcoming play.\n\n\"What HO!\" said he, at the sight of Kipps, and swept off the straw hat\nwith so ample a clutch of his great, flat hand that it suggested to\nHelen's startled mind a conjurer about to palm a half-penny.\n\n\"'Ello, Chitt'low,\" said Kipps a little awkwardly and not saluting.\n\nChitterlow hesitated. \"Half a mo', my boy,\" he said, and arrested Kipps\nby extending a large hand over his chest. \"Excuse me, my dear,\" he said,\nbowing like his Russian count by way of apology to Helen and with a\nsmile that would have killed at a hundred yards. He affected a\nsemi-confidential grouping of himself and Kipps while Helen stood in\nwhite amazement.\n\n\"About that play,\" he said.\n\n\"'Ow about it?\" asked Kipps, acutely aware of Helen.\n\n\"It's all right,\" said Chitterlow. \"There's a strong smell of syndicate\nin the air, I may tell you--Strong.\"\n\n\"That's aw right,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"You needn't tell everybody,\" said Chitterlow with a transitory,\nconfidential hand to his mouth, which pointed the application of the\n\"everybody\" just a trifle too strongly. \"But I think it's coming off.\nHowever----. I mustn't detain you now. So long. You'll come 'round, eh?\"\n\n\"Right you are,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"To-night?\"\n\n\"At eight.\"\n\nAnd then, and more in the manner of a Russian prince than any common\ncount, Chitterlow bowed and withdrew. Just for a moment he allowed a\nconquering eye to challenge Helen's and noted her for a girl of\nquality....\n\nThere was a silence between our lovers for a space.\n\n\"That,\" said Kipps with an allusive movement of the head, \"was\nChitterlow.\"\n\n\"Is he--a friend of yours?\"\n\n\"In a way.... You see--I met 'im. Leastways 'e met me. Run into me with\na bicycle, 'e did, and so we got talking together.\"\n\nHe tried to appear at his ease. The young lady scrutinised his profile.\n\n\"What is he?\"\n\n\"'E's a Nacter chap,\" said Kipps. \"Leastways 'e writes plays.\"\n\n\"And sells them?\"\n\n\"Partly.\"\n\n\"Whom to?\"\n\n\"Different people. Shares he sells.... It's all right, reely--I meant to\ntell you about him before.\"\n\nHelen looked over her shoulder to catch a view of Chitterlow's\nretreating aspect. It did not compel her complete confidence.\n\nShe turned to her lover and said in a tone of quiet authority, \"You must\ntell me all about Chitterlow. Now.\"\n\nThe explanation began....\n\nThe School Play came almost as a relief to Kipps. In the flusterment of\ngoing in he could almost forget for a time his Laocoon struggle to\nexplain, and in the intervals he did his best to keep forgetting. But\nHelen, with a gentle insistence, resumed the explanation of Chitterlow\nas they returned towards Folkestone.\n\nChitterlow was confoundedly difficult to explain. You could hardly\nimagine!\n\nThere was an almost motherly anxiety in Helen's manner, blended with the\nresolution of a schoolmistress to get to the bottom of the affair.\nKipps' ears were soon quite brightly red.\n\n\"Have you seen one of his plays?\"\n\n\"'E's tole me about one.\"\n\n\"But on the stage.\"\n\n\"No. He 'asn't 'ad any on the stage yet. That's all coming....\"\n\n\"Promise me,\" she said in conclusion, \"you won't do anything without\nconsulting me.\"\n\nAnd of course Kipps promised. \"Oo--no!\"\n\nThey went on their way in silence.\n\n\"One can't know everybody,\" said Helen in general.\n\n\"Of course,\" said Kipps; \"in a sort of way it was him that helped me to\nmy money.\" And he indicated in a confused manner the story of the\nadvertisement. \"I don't like to drop 'im all at once,\" he added.\n\nHelen was silent for a space, and when she spoke she went off at a\ntangent. \"We shall live in London--soon,\" she remarked. \"It's only while\nwe are here.\"\n\nIt was the first intimation she gave him of their post-nuptial\nprospects.\n\n\"We shall have a nice little flat somewhere, not too far west, and there\nwe shall build up a circle of our own.\"\n\n\n§2\n\nAll that declining summer Kipps was the pupil lover. He made an\nextraordinarily open secret of his desire for self-improvement; indeed\nHelen had to hint once or twice that his modest frankness was excessive,\nand all this new circle of friends did, each after his or her manner,\neverything that was possible to supplement Helen's efforts and help him\nto ease and skill in the more cultivated circles to which he had come.\nCoote was still the chief teacher, the tutor--there are so many little\ndifficulties that a man may take to another man that he would not care\nto propound to the woman he loves--but they were all, so to speak, upon\nthe staff. Even the freckled girl said to him once in a pleasant way,\n\"You mustn't say \"contre temps,\" you must say \"contraytom,\"\" when he\nborrowed that expression from \"Manners and Rules,\" and she tried at his\nown suggestion to give him clear ideas upon the subject of \"as\" and\n\"has.\" A certain confusion between these words was becoming evident, the\nfirst fruits of a lesson from Chitterlow on the aspirate. Hitherto he\nhad discarded that dangerous letter almost altogether, but now he would\npull up at words beginning with \"h\" and draw a sawing breath--rather\nlike a startled kitten--and then aspirate with vigour.\n\nSaid Kipps one day, \"_As_ 'e?--I should say, ah--Has 'e? Ye know I got a\nlot of difficulty over them two words, which is which?\"\n\n\"Well, 'as' is a conjunction and 'has' is a verb.\"\n\n\"I know,\" said Kipps, \"but when is 'has' a conjunction and when is 'as'\na verb?\"\n\n\"Well,\" said the freckled girl, preparing to be very lucid. \"It's _has_\nwhen it means one has, meaning having, but if it isn't it's _as_. As for\ninstance one says 'e--I mean _he_--He has. But one says 'as he has.'\"\n\n\"I see,\" said Kipps. \"So I ought to say 'as 'e?'\"\n\n\"No, if you are asking a question you say _has_ 'e--I mean he--'as he?\"\nShe blushed quite brightly, but still clung to her air of lucidity.\n\n\"I see,\" said Kipps. He was about to say something further, but he\ndesisted. \"I got it much clearer now. _Has_ 'e? _Has_ 'e as. Yes.\"\n\n\"If you remember about having.\"\n\n\"Oo I will,\" said Kipps.\n\nMiss Coote specialised in Kipps' artistic development. She had early\nfound an opinion that he had considerable artistic sensibility, his\nremarks on her work had struck her as decidedly intelligent, and\nwhenever he called around to see them she would show him some work of\nart, now an illustrated book, now perhaps a colour print of a\nBotticelli, now the Hundred Best Paintings, now \"Academy Pictures,\" now\na German art handbook and now some magazine of furniture and design. \"I\nknow you like these things,\" she used to say, and Kipps said, \"Oo I\n_do_.\" He soon acquired a little armoury of appreciative sayings. When\npresently the Walshinghams took him up to the Arts and Crafts, his\ndeportment was intelligent in the extreme. For a time he kept a wary\nsilence and suddenly pitched upon a colour print. \"That's rather nace,\"\nhe said to Mrs. Walshingham. \"That lill' thing. There.\" He always said\nthings like that by preference to the mother rather than the daughter\nunless he was perfectly sure.\n\nHe quite took to Mrs. Walshingham. He was impressed by her conspicuous\ntact and refinement; it seemed to him that the ladylike could go no\nfurther. She was always dressed with a delicate fussiness that was never\ndisarranged and even a sort of faded quality about her hair and face and\nbearing and emotions contributed to her effect. Kipps was not a big man,\nand commonly he did not feel a big man, but with Mrs. Walshingham he\nalways felt enormous and distended, as though he was a navvy who had\ntaken some disagreeable poison which puffed him up inside his skin as a\npreliminary to bursting. He felt, too, as though he had been rolled in\nclay and his hair dressed with gum. And he felt that his voice was\nstrident and his accent like somebody swinging a crowded pig's pail in a\nfree and careless manner. All this increased and enforced his respect\nfor her. Her hand, which flitted often and again to his hand and arm,\nwas singularly well shaped and cool. \"Arthur,\" she called him from the\nvery beginning.\n\nShe did not so much positively teach and tell him as tactfully guide and\ninfect him. Her conversation was not so much didactic as exemplary. She\nwould say, \"I _do_ like people to do\" so and so. She would tell him\nanecdotes of nice things done, of gentlemanly feats of graceful\nconsideration; she would record her neat observations of people in\ntrains and omnibuses; how, for example, a man had passed her change to\nthe conductor, \"quite a common man he looked,\" but he had lifted his\nhat. She stamped Kipps so deeply with the hat-raising habit that he\nwould uncover if he found himself in the same railway ticket office with\na lady had to stand ceremoniously until the difficulties of change drove\nhim to an apologetic provisional oblique resumption of his headgear....\nAnd robbing these things of any air of personal application, she threw\nabout them an abundant talk about her two children--she called them her\nTwin Jewels quite frequently--about their gifts, their temperaments,\ntheir ambition, their need of opportunity. They needed opportunity, she\nwould say, as other people needed air....\n\nIn his conversations with her Kipps always assumed, and she seemed to\nassume, that she was to join that home in London Helen foreshadowed, but\nhe was surprised one day to gather that this was not to be the case. \"It\nwouldn't do,\" said Helen, with decision. \"We want to make a circle of\nour own.\"\n\n\"But won't she be a bit lonely down here?\" asked Kipps.\n\n\"There's the Waces, and Mrs. Prebble and Mrs. Bindon Botting and--lots\nof people she knows.\" And Helen dismissed this possibility....\n\nYoung Walshingham's share in the educational syndicate was smaller. But\nhe shone out when they went to London on that Arts and Crafts\nexpedition. Then this rising man of affairs showed Kipps how to buy the\nmore theatrical weeklies for consumption in the train, how to buy and\nwhat to buy in the way of cigarettes with gold tips and shilling cigars,\nand how to order hock for lunch and sparkling Moselle for dinner, how to\ncalculate the fare of a hansom cab--penny a minute while he goes--how to\nlook intelligently at an hotel tape, and how to sit still in a train\nlike a thoughtful man instead of talking like a fool and giving yourself\naway. And he, too, would glance at the good time coming when they were\nto be in London for good and all.\n\nThat prospect expanded and developed particulars. It presently took up a\nlarge part of Helen's conversation. Her conversations with Kipps were\nnever of a grossly sentimental sort; there was a shyness of speech in\nthat matter with both of them, but these new adumbrations were at least\nas interesting and not so directly disagreeable as the clear-cut\nintimations of personal defect that for a time had so greatly chastened\nKipps' delight in her presence. The future presented itself with an\nalmost perfect frankness as a joint campaign of Mrs. Walshingham's Twin\nJewels upon the Great World, with Kipps in the capacity of baggage and\nsupply. They would still be dreadfully poor, of course--this amazed\nKipps, but he said nothing--until \"Brudderkins\" began to succeed, but if\nthey were clever and lucky they might do a great deal.\n\nWhen Helen spoke of London a brooding look, as of one who contemplates a\ndistant country, came into her eyes. Already it seemed they had the\nnucleus of a set. Brudderkins was a member of the Theatrical Judges, an\nexcellent and influential little club of journalists and literary\npeople, and he knew Shimer and Stargate and Whiffle, of the \"Red\nDragon,\" and besides these were the Revels. They knew the Revels quite\nwell. Sidney Revel before his rapid rise to prominence as a writer of\nepigrammatic essays that were quite above the ordinary public, had been\nan assistant master at one of the best Folkestone schools, Brudderkins\nhad brought him home to tea several times, and it was he had first\nsuggested Helen should try and write. \"It's perfectly easy,\" Sidney had\nsaid. He had been writing occasional things for the evening papers, and\nfor the weekly reviews even at that time. Then he had gone up to London\nand had almost unavoidedly become a dramatic critic. Those brilliant\nessays had followed, and then \"Red Hearts a-Beating,\" the romance that\nhad made him. It was a tale of spirited adventure, full of youth and\nbeauty and naïve passion and generous devotion, bold, as the _Bookman_\nsaid, and frank in places, but never in the slightest degree morbid. He\nhad met and married an American widow with quite a lot of money, and\nthey had made a very distinct place for themselves, Kipps learnt, in the\nliterary and artistic society of London. Helen seemed to dwell on the\nRevels a great deal; it was her exemplary story, and when she spoke of\nSidney--she often called him Sidney--she would become thoughtful. She\nspoke most of him naturally because she had still to meet Mrs. Revel....\nCertainly they would be in the world in no time, even if the distant\nconnection with the Beaupres family came to nothing.\n\nKipps gathered that with his marriage and the movement to London they\nwere to undergo that subtle change of name Coote had first adumbrated.\nThey were to become \"Cuyps,\" Mr. and Mrs. Cuyps. Or, was it Cuyp?\n\n\"It'll be rum at first,\" said Kipps. \"I dessay I shall soon get into\nit.\"...\n\nSo in their several ways they all contributed to enlarge and refine and\nexercise the intelligence of Kipps. And behind all these other\ninfluences, and, as it were, presiding over and correcting these\ninfluences, was Kipps' nearest friend, Coote, a sort of master of the\nceremonies. You figure his face, blowing slightly with solicitude, his\nslate coloured, projecting but not unkindly eye intent upon our hero.\nThe thing he thought was going off admirably. He studied Kipps'\ncharacter immensely. He would discuss him with his sister, with Mrs.\nWalshingham, with the freckled girl, with anyone who would stand it. \"He\nis an interesting character,\" he would say, \"likable--a sort of\ngentleman by instinct. He takes to all these things. He improves every\nday. He'll soon get Sang Froid. We took him up just in time. He wants\nnow--well----. Next year, perhaps, if there is a good Extension\nLiterature course, he might go in for it. He wants to go in for\nsomething like that.\"\n\n\"He's going in for his bicycle now,\" said Mrs. Walshingham.\n\n\"That's all right for summer,\" said Coote, \"but he wants to go in for\nsome serious, intellectual interest, something to take him out of\nhimself a little more. Savoir Faire and self-forgetfulness is more than\nhalf the secret of Sang Froid.\"\n\n\n§3\n\nThe world as Coote presented it was in part an endorsement, in part an\namplification and in part a rectification of the world of Kipps, the\nworld that derived from the old couple in New Romney and had been\ndeveloped in the Emporium; the world, in fact, of common British life.\nThere was the same subtle sense of social graduation that had moved Mrs.\nKipps to prohibit intercourse with labourers' children and the same\ndread of anything \"common\" that had kept the personal quality of Mr.\nShalford's establishment so high. But now a certain disagreeable doubt\nabout Kipps' own position was removed and he stood with Coote inside the\nsphere of gentlemen assured. Within the sphere of gentlemen there are\ndistinctions of rank indeed, but none of class; there are the Big People\nand the modest, refined, gentlemanly little people like Coote, who may\neven dabble in the professions and counterless trades; there are lords\nand magnificences, and there are gentle folk who have to manage, but\nthey can all call on one another, they preserve a general equality of\ndeportment throughout, they constitute that great state within the\nstate, Society, or at any rate they make believe they do.\n\n\"But reely,\" said the Pupil, \"not what you call being in Society?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Coote. \"Of course, down here one doesn't see much of it, but\nthere's local society. It has the same rules.\"\n\n\"Calling and all that?\"\n\n\"Precisely,\" said Coote.\n\nKipps thought, whistled a bar, and suddenly broached a question of\nconscience. \"I often wonder,\" he said, \"whether I oughtn't to dress for\ndinner--when I'm alone 'ere.\"\n\nCoote protruded his lips and reflected. \"Not full dress,\" he\nadjudicated; \"that would be a little excessive. But you should _change_,\nyou know. Put on a mess jacket and that sort of thing--easy dress. That\nis what _I_ should do, certainly, if I wasn't in harness--and poor.\"\n\nHe coughed modestly and patted his hair behind.\n\nAnd after that the washing bill of Kipps quadrupled, and he was to be\nseen at times by the bandstand with his light summer overcoat unbuttoned\nto give a glimpse of his nice white tie. He and Coote would be smoking\nthe gold-tipped cigarettes young Walshingham had prescribed as _chic_,\nand appreciating the music highly. \"That's--puff--a very nice bit,\"\nKipps would say, or better, \"That's nace.\" And at the first grunts of\nthe loyal anthem up they stood with religiously uplifted hats. Whatever\nelse you might call them, you could never call them disloyal.\n\nThe boundary of Society was admittedly very close to Coote and Kipps,\nand a leading solicitude of the true gentleman was to detect clearly\nthose \"beneath\" him, and to behave towards them in a proper spirit.\n\"It's jest there it's so 'ard for me,\" said Kipps. He had to cultivate a\ncertain \"distance,\" to acquire altogether the art of checking the\npresumption of bounders and old friends. It was difficult, Coote\nadmitted. \"That's what, so harkward--I mean awkward.\"\n\n\"I got mixed up with this lot 'ere,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"You could give them a hint,\" said Coote.\n\n\"'Ow?\"\n\n\"Oh!--the occasion will suggest something.\"\n\nThe occasion came one early closing night when Kipps was sitting in a\ncanopy chair near the bandstand, with his summer overcoat fully open and\na new Gibus pulled slightly forward over his brow, waiting for Coote.\nThey were to hear the band for an hour and then go down to assist Miss\nCoote and the freckled girl in trying over some of Beethoven's duets, if\nthey remembered them, that is, sufficiently well. And as Kipps lounged\nback in his chair and occupied his mind with his favourite amusement on\nsuch evenings, which consisted chiefly in supposing that everyone about\nhim was wondering who he was, came a rude rap at the canvas back and the\nvoice of Pierce.\n\n\"It's nice to be a gentleman,\" said Pierce, and swung a penny chair into\nposition while Buggins appeared smiling agreeably on the other side and\nleant upon his stick. _He was smoking a common briar pipe!_\n\nTwo real ladies, very fashionably dressed and sitting close at hand,\nglanced quickly at Pierce, and then away again, and it was evident\n_their_ wonder was at an end.\n\n\"_He's_ all right,\" said Buggins, removing his pipe and surveying Kipps.\n\n\"'Ello, Buggins!\" said Kipps, not too cordially. \"'Ow goes it?\"\n\n\"All right. Holiday's next week. If you don't look out, Kipps, I shall\nbe on the Continong before you. Eh?\"\n\n\"You going t' Boologne?\"\n\n\"Ra-ther. Parley vous Francey. You bet.\"\n\n\"_I_ shall 'ave a bit of a run over there one of these days,\" said\nKipps.\n\nThere came a pause. Pierce applied the top of his stick to his mouth for\na space and regarded Kipps. Then he glanced at the people about them.\n\n\"I say, Kipps,\" he said in a distinct, loud voice, \"see 'er Ladyship\nlately?\"\n\nKipps perceived the audience was to be impressed, but he responded\nhalf-heartedly, \"No, I 'aven't,\" he said.\n\n\"She was along of Sir William the other night,\" said Pierce, still loud\nand clear, \"and she asked to be remembered to you.\"\n\nIt seemed to Kipps that one of the two ladies smiled faintly and said\nsomething to the other, and then certainly they glanced at Pierce. Kipps\nflushed scarlet. \"_Did_ she?\" he answered.\n\nBuggins laughed good-humouredly over his pipe.\n\n\"Sir William suffers a lot from his gout,\" Pierce continued unabashed.\n\n(Buggins much amused with his pipe between his teeth.)\n\nKipps became aware of Coote at hand.\n\nCoote nodded rather distantly to Pierce. \"Hope I haven't kept you\nwaiting, Kipps,\" he said.\n\n\"I kep' a chair for you,\" said Kipps and removed a guardian foot.\n\n\"But you've got your friends,\" said Coote.\n\n\"Oh! _we_ don't mind,\" said Pierce cordially, \"the more the merrier,\"\nand, \"why don't you get a chair, Buggins?\" Buggins shook his head in a\nsort of aside to Pierce and Coote coughed behind his hand.\n\n\"Been kep' late at business?\" asked Pierce.\n\nCoote turned quite pale and pretended not to hear. His eyes sought in\nspace for a time and with a convulsive movement he recognised a distant\nacquaintance and raised his hat.\n\nPierce had also become a little pale. He addressed himself to Kipps in\nan undertone.\n\n\"Mr. Coote, isn't he?\" he asked.\n\nCoote addressed himself to Kipps directly and exclusively. His manner\nhad the calm of extreme tension.\n\n\"I'm rather late,\" he said. \"I think we ought almost to be going on\n_now_.\"\n\nKipps stood up. \"That's all right,\" he said.\n\n\"Which way are you going?\" said Pierce, standing also, and brushing some\ncrumbs of cigarette ash from his sleeve.\n\nFor a moment Coote was breathless. \"Thank you,\" he said, and gasped.\nThen he delivered the necessary blow; \"I don't think we're in need of\nyour society, you know,\" and turned away.\n\nKipps found himself falling over chairs and things in the wake of Coote,\nand then they were clear of the crowd.\n\nFor a space Coote said nothing; then he remarked abruptly and quite\nangrily for him, \"I think that was _awful_ Cheek!\"\n\nKipps made no reply....\n\nThe whole thing was an interesting little object lesson in distance, and\nit stuck in the front of Kipps' mind for a long time. He had\nparticularly vivid the face of Pierce, with an expression between\nastonishment and anger. He felt as though he had struck Pierce in the\nface under circumstances that gave Pierce no power to reply. He did not\nattend very much to the duets and even forgot at the end of one of them\nto say how perfectly lovely it was.\n\n\n§4\n\nBut you must not imagine that the national ideal of a gentleman, as\nCoote developed it, was all a matter of deportment and selectness, a\nmere isolation from debasing associations. There is a Serious Side, a\ndeeper aspect of the true, True Gentleman. The True Gentleman does not\nwear his heart on his sleeve. He is a polished surface above deeps. For\nexample, he is deeply religious, as Coote was, as Mrs. Walshingham was,\nbut outside the walls of a church it never appears, except perhaps now\nand then in a pause, in a profound look, in a sudden avoidance. In quite\na little while Kipps also had learnt the pause, the profound look, the\nsudden avoidance, that final refinement of spirituality, impressionistic\npiety.\n\nAnd the True Gentleman is patriotic also. When one saw Coote lifting\nhis hat to the National Anthem, then perhaps one got a glimpse of what\npatriotic emotions, what worship, the polish of a gentleman may hide. Or\nsinging out his deep notes against the Hosts of Midian, in the St.\nStylites choir; then indeed you plumbed his spiritual side.\n\n\n     Christian, dost thou heed them,\n       On the holy ground,\n     How the hosts of Mid-i-an,\n       Prowl and prowl around!\n     Christian, up and smai-it them....\n\n\nBut these were but gleams. For the rest, Religion, Nationality, Passion,\nMoney, Politics; much more so those cardinal issues, Birth and Death,\nthe True Gentleman skirted about, and became facially rigid towards and\nceased to speak and panted and blew.\n\n\"One doesn't talk of that sort of thing,\" Coote would say with a gesture\nof the knuckly hand.\n\n\"O' course,\" Kipps would reply, with an equal significance.\n\nProfundities. Deep as it were, blowing to deep.\n\nOne does not talk, but on the other hand one is punctilious to do.\nActions speak. Kipps--in spite of the fact that the Walshinghams were\nmore than a little lax--Kipps, who had formerly flitted Sunday after\nSunday from one Folkestone church to another, had now a sitting of his\nown, paid for duly at Saint Stylites. There he was to be seen, always at\nthe surplice evening service, and sometimes of a morning, dressed with\na sober precision, and with an eye on Coote in the chancel. No\ndifficulties now about finding the place in his book. He became a\ncommunicant again--he had lapsed soon after his confirmation when the\nyoung lady in the costume-room, who was his adopted sister, left the\nEmporium--and he would sometimes go around to the Vestry for Coote after\nthe service. One evening he was introduced to the Hon. and Rev.\nDensemore. He was much too confused to say anything, and the noble\ncleric had nothing to say, but indisputably they were introduced....\n\nNo! you must not imagine our national ideal of a gentleman is without\nits \"serious side,\" without even its stern and uncompromising side. The\nimagination no doubt refuses to see Coote displaying extraordinary\nrefinements of courage upon the stricken field, but in the walks of\npeace there is sometimes sore need of sternness. Charitable as one may\nbe, one must admit there are people who _do_ things, impossible things;\npeople who place themselves \"out of it\" in countless ways; people,\nmoreover, who are by a sort of predestination out of it from the\nbeginning, and against these Society has invented a terrible protection\nfor its Cootery, the Cut. The cut is no joke for anyone. It is\nexcommunication. You may be cut by an individual, you may be cut by a\nset or you may be--and this is so tragic that beautiful romances have\nbeen written about it--\"Cut by the County.\" One figures Coote\ndischarging this last duty and cutting somebody--Coote, erect and pale,\nnever speaking, going past with eyes of pitiless slate, lower jaw\nprotruding a little, face pursed up and cold and stiff....\n\nIt never dawned upon Kipps that he would one day have to face this\nterrible front, to be to Coote not only as one dead, but as one gone\nmore than a stage or so in decay, cut and passed, banned and outcast for\never.\n\nYet so it was to be!\n\nOne cannot hide any longer that all this fine progress of Kipps is\ndoomed to end in collapse. So far indeed you have seen him ascend. You\nhave seen him becoming more refined and careful day by day, more\ncarefully dressed, less clumsy in the ways and methods of social life.\nYou have seen the gulf widening between himself and his former low\nassociates. I have brought you at last to the vision of him, faultlessly\ndressed and posed, in an atmosphere of candlelight and chanting, in his\nown sitting in one of the most fashionable churches in Folkestone....\nAll the time I have refrained from the lightest touch upon the tragic\nnote that must now creep into my tale. Yet the net of his low\nconnections has been about his feet, and moreover there was something\ninterwoven in his being....\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nDISCORDS\n\n\n§1\n\nOne day Kipps set out upon his newly-mastered bicycle to New Romney to\nbreak the news of his engagement to his Uncle and Aunt--this time\npositively. He was now a finished cyclist, but as yet an unseasoned one;\nthe southwest wind, even in its summer guise, as one meets it in the\nMarsh, is the equivalent of a reasonable hill, and ever and again he got\noff and refreshed himself by a spell of walking. He was walking just\noutside New Romney preparatory to his triumphal entry (one hand off)\nwhen abruptly he came upon Ann Pornick.\n\nIt chanced he was thinking about her at the time. He had been thinking\ncurious things; whether, after all, the atmosphere of New Romney and the\nMarsh had not some difference, some faint impalpable quality that was\nmissing in the great and fashionable world of Folkestone behind there on\nthe hill. Here there was a homeliness, a familiarity. He had noted as he\npassed that old Mr. Cliffordown's gate had been mended with a fresh\npiece of string. In Folkestone he didn't take notice and he didn't care\nif they built three hundred houses. Come to think of it, that was odd.\nIt was fine and grand to have twelve hundred a year; it was fine to go\nabout on trams and omnibuses and think not a person aboard was as rich\nas oneself; it was fine to buy and order this and that and never have\nany work to do and to be engaged to a girl distantly related to the Earl\nof Beauprés, but yet there had been a zest in the old time out here, a\nrare zest in the holidays, in sunlight, on the sea beach and in the High\nStreet, that failed from these new things. He thought of those bright\nwindows of holiday that had seemed so glorious to him in the retrospect\nfrom his apprentice days. It was strange that now, amidst his present\nsplendours, they were glorious still!\n\nAll those things were over now--perhaps that was it! Something had\nhappened to the world and the old light had been turned out. He himself\nwas changed, and Sid was changed, terribly changed, and Ann no doubt was\nchanged.\n\nHe thought of her with the hair blown about her flushed cheeks as they\nstood together after their race....\n\nCertainly she must be changed, and all the magic she had been fraught\nwith to the very hem of her short petticoats gone no doubt for ever. And\nas he thought that, or before and while he thought it, for he came to\nall these things in his own vague and stumbling way, he looked up, and\nthere was Ann!\n\nShe was seven years older and greatly altered; yet for the moment it\nseemed to him that she had not changed at all. \"Ann!\" he said, and she,\nwith a lifting note, \"It's Art Kipps!\"\n\nThen he became aware of changes--improvements. She was as pretty as she\nhad promised to be, her blue eyes as dark as his memory of them, and\nwith a quick, high colour, but now Kipps by several inches was the\ntaller again. She was dressed in a simple grey dress that showed her\nvery clearly as a straight and healthy little woman, and her hat was\nSundayfied with pink flowers. She looked soft and warm and welcoming.\nHer face was alight to Kipps with her artless gladness at their\nencounter.\n\n\"It's Art Kipps!\" she said.\n\n\"Rather,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"You got your holidays?\"\n\nIt flashed upon Kipps that Sid had not told her of his great fortune.\nMuch regretful meditation upon Sid's behaviour had convinced him that he\nhimself was to blame for exasperating boastfulness in that affair, and\nthis time he took care not to err in that direction. He erred in the\nother.\n\n\"I'm taking a bit of a 'oliday,\" he said.\n\n\"So'm I,\" said Ann.\n\n\"You been for a walk?\" asked Kipps.\n\nAnn showed him a bunch of wayside flowers.\n\n\"It's a long time since I seen you, Ann. Why, 'ow long must it be?\nSeven--eight years nearly.\"\n\n\"It don't do to count,\" said Ann.\n\n\"It don't look like it,\" said Kipps, with the slightest emphasis.\n\n\"You got a moustache,\" said Ann, smelling her flowers and looking at him\nover them, not without admiration.\n\nKipps blushed....\n\nPresently they came to the bifurcation of the roads.\n\n\"I'm going down this way to mother's cottage,\" said Ann.\n\n\"I'll come a bit your way if I may.\"\n\nIn New Romney social distinctions that are primary realities in\nFolkestone are absolutely non-existent, and it seemed quite permissible\nfor him to walk with Ann, for all that she was no more than a servant.\nThey talked with remarkable ease to one another, they slipped into a\nvein of intimate reminiscence in the easiest manner. In a little while\nKipps was amazed to find Ann and himself at this:\n\n\"You r'ember that half sixpence? What you cut for me?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I got it still.\"\n\nShe hesitated. \"Funny, wasn't it?\" she said, and then, \"you got yours,\nArtie?\"\n\n\"Rather,\" said Kipps. \"What do you think?\" and wondered in his heart of\nhearts why he had never looked at that sixpence for so long.\n\nAnn smiled at him frankly.\n\n\"I didn't expect you'd keep it,\" she said. \"I thought often--it was\nsilly to keep mine. Besides,\" she reflected, \"it didn't mean anything\nreally.\"\n\nShe glanced at him as she spoke and met his eye.\n\n\"Oh, didn't it!\" said Kipps, a little late with his response, and\nrealising his infidelity to Helen even as he spoke.\n\n\"It didn't mean much anyhow,\" said Ann. \"You still in the drapery?\"\n\n\"I'm living at Folkestone,\" began Kipps and decided that that sufficed.\n\"Didn't Sid tell you he met me?\"\n\n\"No! Here?\"\n\n\"Yes. The other day. 'Bout a week or more ago.\"\n\n\"That was before I came.\"\n\n\"Ah! that was it,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"'E's got on,\" said Ann. \"Got 'is own shop now, Artie.\"\n\n\"'E tole me.\"\n\nThey found themselves outside Muggett's cottages. \"You going in?\" said\nKipps.\n\n\"I s'pose so,\" said Ann.\n\nThey both hung upon the pause. Ann took a plunge.\n\n\"D'you often come to New Romney?\" she said.\n\n\"I ride over a bit at times,\" said Kipps.\n\nAnother pause. Ann held out her hand.\n\n\"I'm glad I seen you,\" she said.\n\nExtraordinary impulses arose in neglected parts of Kipps' being. \"Ann,\"\nhe said and stopped.\n\n\"Yes,\" said she, and was bright to him.\n\nThey looked at one another.\n\nAll and more than all of those first emotions of his adolescence had\ncome back to him. Her presence banished a multitude of countervaling\nconsiderations. It was Ann more than ever. She stood breathing close to\nhim, with her soft-looking lips a little apart and gladness in her eyes.\n\n\"I'm awful glad to see you again,\" he said; \"it brings back old times.\"\n\n\"Doesn't it?\"\n\nAnother pause. He would have liked to have had a long talk to her, to\nhave gone for a walk with her or something, to have drawn nearer to her\nin any conceivable way, and, above all, to have had some more of the\nappreciation that shone in her eyes, but a vestige of Folkestone still\nclinging to him told him it \"wouldn't do.\" \"Well,\" he said, \"I must be\ngetting on,\" and turned away reluctantly, with a will under\ncompulsion....\n\nWhen he looked back from the corner she was still at the gate. She was\nperhaps a little disconcerted by his retreat. He felt that. He hesitated\nfor a moment, half turned, stood and suddenly did great things with his\nhat. That hat! The wonderful hat of our civilisation!...\n\nIn another minute he was engaged in a singularly absent-minded\nconversation with his Uncle about the usual topics.\n\nHis Uncle was very anxious to buy him a few upright clocks as an\ninvestment for subsequent sale. And there were also some very nice\nglobes, one terrestrial and the other celestial, in a shop at Lydd that\nwould look well in a drawing-room and inevitably increase in value....\nKipps either did or did not agree to this purchase; he was unable to\nrecollect.\n\nThe southwest wind perhaps helped him back, at any rate he found himself\nthrough Dymchurch without having noticed the place. There came an odd\neffect as he drew near Hythe. The hills on the left and the trees on the\nright seemed to draw together and close in upon him until his way was\nstraight and narrow. He could not turn around on that treacherous,\nhalf-tamed machine, but he knew that behind him, he knew so well, spread\nthe wide, vast flatness of the Marsh shining under the afternoon sky. In\nsome way this was material to his thoughts. And as he rode through Hythe\nhe came upon the idea that there was a considerable amount of\nincompatibility between the existence of one who was practically a\ngentleman and of Ann.\n\nIn the neighbourhood of Seabrook he began to think he had, in some\nsubtle way, lowered himself by walking along by the side of Ann....\nAfter all, she was only a servant.\n\nAnn!\n\nShe called out all the least gentlemanly instincts of his nature. There\nhad been a moment in their conversation when he had quite distinctly\nthought it would really be an extremely nice thing for someone to kiss\nher lips.... There was something warming about Ann--at least for Kipps.\nShe impressed him as having somewhen during their vast interval of\nseparation contrived to make herself in some distinctive way his.\n\nFancy keeping that half sixpence all this time!\n\nIt was the most flattering thing that had ever happened to Kipps.\n\n\n§2\n\nHe found himself presently sitting over \"The Art of Conversing,\" lost in\nthe strangest musings. He got up, walked about, became stagnant at the\nwindow for a space, roused himself and by way of something lighter tried\n\"Sesame and Lilies.\" From that, too, his attention wandered. He sat\nback. Anon he smiled, anon sighed. He arose, pulled his keys from his\npocket, looked at them, decided and went upstairs. He opened the little\nyellow box that had been the nucleus of all his possessions in the\nworld, and took out a small \"Escritoire,\" the very humblest sort of\npresent, and opened it--kneeling. And there, in the corner, was a little\npacket of paper, sealed as a last defence against any prying invader,\nwith red sealing wax. It had gone untouched for years. He held this\nlittle packet between finger and thumb for a moment, regarding it, and\nthen put down the escritoire and broke the seal....\n\nAs he was getting into bed that night he remembered something for the\nfirst time!\n\n\"Dash it!\" he said. \"Dashed if I told 'em _this_ time.... _Well!_ I\nshall 'ave to go over to New Romney again!\"\n\nHe got into bed and remained sitting pensively on the pillow for a\nspace.\n\n\"It's a rum world,\" he reflected after a vast interval.\n\nThen he recalled that she had noticed his moustache and embarked upon a\nsea of egotistical musings.\n\nHe imagined himself telling Ann how rich he was. What a surprise that\nwould be for her!\n\nFinally he sighed profoundly, blew out his candle and snuggled down, and\nin a little while he was asleep....\n\nBut the next morning and at intervals afterwards he found himself\nthinking of Ann--Ann, the bright, the desirable, the welcoming, and with\nan extraordinary streakiness he wanted quite badly to go and then as\nbadly not to go over to New Romney again.\n\nSitting on the Leas in the afternoon, he had an idea. \"I ought to 'ave\ntold 'er, I suppose, about my being engaged.\n\n\"Ann!\"\n\nAll sorts of dreams and impressions that had gone clean out of his\nmental existence came back to him, changed and brought up to date to fit\nher altered presence. He thought of how he had gone back to New Romney\nfor his Christmas holidays, determined to kiss her, and of the awful\nblankness of the discovery that she had gone away.\n\nIt seemed incredible now, and yet not wholly incredible, that he had\ncried real tears for her--how many years was it ago?\n\n\n§3\n\nDaily I should thank my Maker that He did not appoint me Censor of the\nworld of men. I should temper a fierce injustice with a spasmodic\nindecision that would prolong rather than mitigate the bitterness of the\nDay. For human dignity, for all conscious human superiority I should\nlack the beginnings of charity, for bishops, prosperous schoolmasters,\njudges and all large respect-pampered souls. And more especially\nbishops, towards whom I bear an atavistic, Viking grudge, dreaming not\ninfrequently and with invariable zest of galleys and landings and well\nknown living ornaments of the episcopal bench sprinting inland on\ntwinkling gaiters before my thirsty blade--all these people, I say,\nshould treat below their deserts, but, on the other hand, for such as\nKipps----. There the exasperating indecisions would come in. The\nJudgment would be arrested at Kipps. Everyone and everything would wait.\n_You_ would wait. The balance would sway and sway, and whenever it\nheeled towards an adverse decision, my finger would set it swaying\nagain. Kings, warriors, statesmen, brilliant women of our first\nfamilies, personalities, gallants, panting with indignation, headline\nhumanity in general, would stand undamned, unheeded, or be damned in the\nmost casual manner for their importunity, while my eye went about for\nanything possible that could be said on behalf of Kipps.... Albeit I\nfear nothing can save him from condemnation upon this present score,\nthat within two days he was talking to Ann again.\n\nOne seeks excuses. Overnight there had been an encounter of Chitterlow\nand young Walshingham in his presence, that had certainly warped his\nstandards. They had called within a few minutes of each other, and the\ntwo swayed by virile attentions to Old Methuselah Four Stars, had talked\nagainst each other, over and at the hospitable presence of Kipps.\nWalshingham had seemed to win at the beginning, but finally Chitterlow\nhad made a magnificent display of vociferation and swept him out of\nexistence. At the beginning Chitterlow had opened upon the great profits\nof playwrights and young Walshingham had capped him at once with a\ncynical, but impressive, display of knowledge of the High Finance. If\nChitterlow boasted his thousands, young Walshingham boasted his hundreds\nof thousands, and was for a space left in sole possession of the stage,\njuggling with the wealth of nations. He was going on by way of Financial\nPolitics to the Overman, before Chitterlow recovered from his first\ncheck, and came back to victory. \"Talking of Women,\" said Chitterlow,\ncoming in abruptly upon some things not generally known, beyond\nWalshingham's more immediate circle, about a recently departed\nEmpire-builder; \"Talking of Women and the way they Get at a man----\"\n\n[Though as a matter of fact they had been talking of the Corruption of\nSociety by Speculation.]\n\nUpon this new topic Chitterlow was soon manifestly invincible. He knew\nso much, he had known so many. Young Walshingham did his best with\nepigrams and reservations, but even to Kipps it was evident that this\nwas a book-learned depravity. One felt Walshingham had never known the\ninner realities of passion. But Chitterlow convinced and amazed. He had\nrun away with girls, he had been run away with by girls, he had been in\nlove with several at a time--\"not counting Bessie\"--he had loved and\nlost, he had loved and refrained, and he had loved and failed. He threw\nremarkable lights upon the moral state of America--in which country he\nhad toured with great success. He set his talk to the tune of one of Mr.\nKipling's best known songs. He told an incident of simple, romantic\npassion, a delirious dream of love and beauty in a Saturday to Monday\nsteamboat trip up the Hudson, and tagged his end with, \"I learnt about\nwomen from 'er!\" After that he adopted the refrain and then lapsed into\nthe praises of Kipling. \"Little Kipling,\" said Chitterlow, with the\nfamiliarity of affection, \"_he_ knows,\" and broke into quotation:\n\n\n     \"I've taken my fun where I found it;\n     I've rogued and I've ranged in my time;\n     I've 'ad my picking of sweet'earts,\n     An' four of the lot was Prime.\"\n\n\n(These things, I say, affect the moral standards of the best of us.)\n\n\"_I'd_ have liked to have written that,\" said Chitterlow. \"That's Life,\nthat is! But go and put it on the Stage, put even a bit of the Realities\nof Life on the Stage, and see what they'll do to you! Only Kipling could\nventure on a job like that. That Poem KNOCKED me! I don't say Kipling\nhasn't knocked me before and since, but that was a Fair Knock Out. And\nyet--you know--there's one thing in it ... this:\n\n\n     \"I've taken my fun where I've found it,\n     And now I must pay for my fun,\n     For the more you 'ave known o' the others,\n     The less will you settle to one----\"\n\n\nWell. In my case anyhow--I don't know how much that proves, seeing I'm\nexceptional in so many things and there's no good denying it--but so far\nas I'm concerned--I tell you two, but of course you needn't let it go\nany farther--I've been perfectly faithful to Muriel ever since I married\nher--ever since.... Not once. Not even by accident have I ever said or\ndone anything in the slightest----.\" His little, brown eye became\npensive after this flattering intimacy and the gorgeous draperies of his\nabundant voice fell into graver folds. \"_I learnt about women from\n'er_,\" he said impressively.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Walshingham, getting into the hinder spaces of that splendid\npause, \"a man must know about women. And the only sound way of learning\nis the experimental method.\"\n\n\"If you want to know about the experimental method, my boy,\" said\nChitterlow, resuming....\n\nSo they talked. _Ex pede Herculem_, as Coote, that cultivated polyglot,\nwould have put it. And in the small hours Kipps went to bed, with his\nbrain whirling with words and whiskey, and sat for an unconscionable\ntime upon his bed edge, musing sadly upon the unmanly monogamy of soul\nthat had cast its shadow upon his career, musing with his thoughts\npointing around more and more certainly to the possibility of at least\nduplicity with Ann.\n\n\n§4\n\nFor some days he had been refraining with some insistence from going off\nto New Romney again....\n\nI do not know if this may count in palliation of his misconduct. Men,\nreal Strong-Souled, Healthy Men, should be, I suppose, impervious to\nconversational atmospheres, but I have never claimed for Kipps a place\nat these high levels. The unquenchable fact remains that the next day he\nspent the afternoon with Ann and found no scruple in displaying himself\na budding lover.\n\nHe had met her in the High Street, had stopped her, and almost on the\nspur of the moment had boldly proposed a walk, \"for the sake of old\ntimes.\"\n\n\"_I_ don't mind,\" said Ann.\n\nHer consent almost frightened Kipps. His imagination had not carried him\nto that. \"It would be a lark,\" said Kipps, and looked up the street and\ndown. \"Now?\" he said.\n\n\"I don't mind a bit, Artie. I was just going for a walk along towards\nSt. Mary's.\"\n\n\"Let's go that way be'ind the church,\" said Kipps, and presently they\nfound themselves drifting seaward in a mood of pleasant commonplace. For\na while they talked of Sid. It went clean out of Kipps' head at that\nearly stage even that Ann was a \"girl\" according to the exposition of\nChitterlow, and for a time he remembered only that she was Ann. But\nafterwards, with the reek of that talk in his head, he lapsed a little\nfrom that personal relation. They came out upon the beach and sat down\nin a tumbled, pebbly place, where a meagre grass and patches of sea\npoppy were growing, and Kipps reclined on his elbow and tossed pebbles\nin his hand, and Ann sat up, sunlit, regarding him. They talked in\nfragments. They exhausted Sid, they exhausted Ann, and Kipps was chary\nof his riches.\n\nHe declined to a faint love-making. \"I got that 'arf sixpence still,\" he\nsaid.\n\n\"Reely?\"\n\nThat changed the key. \"I always kept mine, some'ow,\" said Ann, and there\nwas a pause.\n\nThey spoke of how often they had thought of each other during those\nintervening years. Kipps may have been untruthful, but Ann perhaps was\nnot. \"I met people here and there,\" said Ann; \"but I never met anyone\nquite like you, Artie.\"\n\n\"It's jolly our meeting again, anyhow,\" said Kipps. \"Look at that ship\nout there. She's pretty close in....\"\n\nHe had a dull period, became indeed almost pensive, and then he was\nenterprising for a while. He tossed up his pebbles so that as if by\naccident they fell on Ann's hand. Then, very penitently, he stroked the\nplace. That would have led to all sorts of coquetries on the part of Flo\nBanks, for example, but it disconcerted and checked Kipps to find Ann\nmade no objection, smiled pleasantly down on him, with eyes half shut\nbecause of the sun. She was taking things very much for granted.\n\nHe began to talk, and Chitterlow standards resuming possession of him he\nsaid he had never forgotten her.\n\n\"I never forgotten you either, Artie,\" she said. \"Funny, isn't it?\"\n\nIt impressed Kipps also as funny.\n\nHe became reminiscent, and suddenly a warm summer's evening came back to\nhim. \"Remember them cockchafers, Ann?\" he said. But the reality of the\nevening he recalled was not the chase of cockchafers. The great reality\nthat had suddenly arisen between them was that he had never kissed Ann\nin his life. He looked up and there were her lips.\n\nHe had wanted to very badly, and his memory leaped and annihilated an\ninterval. That old resolution came back to him and all sorts of new\nresolutions passed out of mind. And he had learnt something since those\nboyish days. This time he did not ask. He went on talking, his nerves\nbegan very faintly to quiver and his mind grew bright.\n\nPresently, having satisfied himself that there was no one to see, he sat\nup beside her and remarked upon the clearness of the air, and how close\nDungeness seemed to them. Then they came upon a pause again.\n\n\"Ann,\" he whispered, and put an arm that quivered about her.\n\nShe was mute and unresisting, and, as he was to remember, solemn.\n\nHe turned her face towards him, and kissed her lips, and she kissed him\nback again--kisses frank and tender as a child's.\n\n\n§5\n\nIt was curious that in the retrospect he did not find nearly the\nsatisfaction in this infidelity he had imagined was there. It was no\ndoubt desperately doggish, doggish to an almost Chitterlowesque degree\nto recline on the beach at Littlestone with a \"girl,\" to make love to\nher and to achieve the triumph of kissing her, when he was engaged to\nanother \"girl\" at Folkestone, but somehow these two people were not\n\"girls,\" they were Ann and Helen. Particularly Helen declined to be\nconsidered as a \"girl.\" And there was something in Ann's quietly\nfriendly eyes, in her frank smile, in the naïve pressure of her hand,\nthere was something undefended and welcoming that imparted a flavour to\nthe business upon which he had not counted. He had learnt about women\nfrom her. That refrain ran through his mind and deflected his thoughts,\nbut as a matter of fact he had learnt about nothing but himself.\n\nHe wanted very much to see Ann some more and explain. He did not clearly\nknow what it was he wanted to explain.\n\nHe did not clearly know anything. It is the last achievement of the\nintelligence to get all of one's life into one coherent scheme, and\nKipps was only in a measure more aware of himself as a whole than is a\ntree. His existence was an affair of dissolving and recurring moods.\nWhen he thought of Helen or Ann or any of his friends, he thought\nsometimes of this aspect and sometimes of that--and often one aspect was\nfinally incongruous with another. He loved Helen, he revered Helen. He\nwas also beginning to hate her with some intensity. When he thought of\nthat expedition to Lympne, profound, vague, beautiful emotions flooded\nhis being; when he thought of paying calls with her perforce, or of her\nlatest comment on his bearing, he found himself rebelliously composing\nfierce and pungent insults, couched in the vernacular. But Ann, whom he\nhad seen so much less of, was a simpler memory. She was pretty, she was\nalmost softly feminine, and she was possible to his imagination just\nexactly where Helen was impossible. More than anything else, she carried\nthe charm of respect for him, the slightest glance of her eyes was balm\nfor his perpetually wounded self-conceit.\n\nChance suggestions it was set the tune of his thoughts, and his state\nof health and repletion gave the colour. Yet somehow he had this at\nleast almost clear in his mind, that to have gone to see Ann a second\ntime, to have implied that she had been in possession of his thoughts\nthrough all this interval, and, above all, to have kissed her, was\nshabby and wrong. Only unhappily this much of lucidity had come now just\na few hours after it was needed.\n\n\n§6\n\nFour days after this it was that Kipps got up so late. He got up late,\ncut his chin while shaving, kicked a slipper into his sponge bath and\nsaid, \"Desh!\"\n\nPerhaps you know those intolerable mornings, dear Reader, when you seem\nto have neither the heart nor the strength to rise, and your nervous\nadjustments are all wrong and your fingers thumbs, and you hate the very\nbirds for singing. You feel inadequate to any demand whatever. Often\nsuch awakenings follow a poor night's rest, and commonly they mean\nindiscriminate eating, or those subtle mental influences old Kipps\nascribed to \"Foozle Ile\" in the system, or worry. And with Kipps--albeit\nChitterlow had again been his guest overnight--assuredly worry had\nplayed a leading rôle. Troubles had been gathering upon him for days,\nthere had been a sort of concentration of these hosts of Midian\novernight, and in the grey small hours Kipps had held his review.\n\nThe predominating trouble marched under this banner:\n\n\n     MR. KIPPS\n\n              MRS. BINDON BOTTING\n\n                     At Home\n\n            Thursday, September 16th\n\n     Anagrams, 4 to 6:30            R. S. V. P.\n\n\na banner that was the fac-simile of a card upon his looking glass in the\nroom below. And in relation to this terribly significant document things\nhad come to a pass with Helen that he could only describe in his own\nexpressive idiom as \"words.\"\n\nIt had long been a smouldering issue between them that Kipps was not\navailing himself with any energy or freedom of the opportunities he had\nof social exercises, much less was he seeking additional opportunities.\nHe had, it was evident, a peculiar dread of that universal afternoon\nenjoyment, the Call, and Helen made it unambiguously evident that this\ndread was \"silly\" and had to be overcome. His first display of this\nunmanly weakness occurred at the Coote's on the day before he kissed\nAnn. They were all there, chatting very pleasantly, when the little\nservant with the big cap announced the younger Miss Wace.\n\nWhereupon Kipps manifested a lively horror and rose partially from his\nchair. \"O Gum!\" he protested. \"Carn't I go upstairs?\"\n\nThen he sank back, for it was too late. Very probably the younger Miss\nWace had heard him as she came in.\n\nHelen said nothing of that, though her manner may have shown her\nsurprise, but afterwards she told Kipps he must get used to seeing\npeople, and suggested that he should pay a series of calls with Mrs.\nWalshingham and herself. Kipps gave a reluctant assent at the time and\nafterwards displayed a talent for evasion that she had not suspected in\nhim. At last she did succeed in securing him for a call upon Miss\nPunchafer, of Radnor Park--a particularly easy call because Miss\nPunchafer being so deaf one could say practically what one liked--and\nthen outside the gate he shirked again. \"I can't go in,\" he said in a\nfaded voice.\n\n\"You _must_,\" said Helen, beautiful as ever, but even more than a little\nhard and forbidding.\n\n\"I can't.\"\n\nHe produced his handkerchief hastily, thrust it to his face, and\nregarded her over it with rounded, hostile eyes.\n\n\"'Possible,\" he said in a hoarse, strange voice out of the handkerchief.\n\"Nozzez bleedin'.\"\n\nBut that was the end of his power of resistance, and when the rally for\nthe Anagram Tea occurred she bore down his feeble protests altogether.\nShe insisted. She said frankly, \"I am going to give you a good talking\nto about this,\" and she did....\n\nFrom Coote he gathered something of the nature of Anagrams and Anagram\nparties. An anagram, Coote explained, was a word spelt the same way as\nanother, only differently arranged, as, for instance, T. O. C. O. E.\nwould be an anagram for his own name, Coote.\n\n\"T. O. C. O. E.,\" repeated Kipps very carefully.\n\n\"Or T. O. E. C. O.,\" said Coote.\n\n\"Or T. O. E. C. O.,\" said Kipps, assisting his poor head by nodding it\nat each letter.\n\n\"Toe Company like,\" he said in his efforts to comprehend.\n\nWhen Kipps was clear what an anagram meant, Coote came to the second\nheading, the Tea. Kipps gathered there might be from thirty to sixty\npeople present, and that each one would have an anagram pinned on. \"They\ngive you a card to put your guesses on, rather like a dance programme,\nand then, you know, you go around and guess,\" said Coote. \"It's rather\ngood fun.\"\n\n\"Oo rather!\" said Kipps, with simulated gusto.\n\n\"It shakes everybody up together,\" said Coote.\n\nKipps smiled and nodded....\n\nIn the small hours all his painful meditations were threaded by the\nvision of that Anagram Tea; it kept marching to and fro and in and out\nof all his other troubles, from thirty to sixty people, mostly ladies\nand callers, and a great number of the letters of the alphabet, and\nmore particularly P. I. K. P. S. and T. O. E. C. O., and he was trying\nto make one word out of the whole interminable procession....\n\nThis word, as he finally gave it with some emphasis to the silence of\nthe night, was _\"Demn!\"_\n\nThen, wreathed as it were in this lettered procession, was the figure of\nHelen as she had appeared at the moment of \"words\"; her face a little\nhard, a little irritated, a little disappointed. He imagined himself\ngoing around and guessing under her eye....\n\nHe tried to think of other things, without lapsing upon a still deeper\nuneasiness that was wreathed with yellow sea poppies, and the figures of\nBuggins, Pierce and Carshot, three murdered Friendships, rose\nreproachfully in the stillness and changed horrible apprehensions into\nunspeakable remorse. Last night had been their customary night for the\nbanjo, and Kipps, with a certain tremulous uncertainty, had put old\nMethuselah amidst a retinue of glasses on the table and opened a box of\nchoice cigars. In vain. They were in no need, it seemed, of _his_\nsociety. But instead Chitterlow had come, anxious to know if it was all\nright about that syndicate plan. He had declined anything but a very\nweak whiskey and soda, \"just to drink,\" at least until business was\nsettled, and had then opened the whole affair with an effect of great\norderliness to Kipps. Soon he was taking another whiskey by sheer\ninadvertency, and the complex fabric of his conversation was running\nmore easily from the broad loom of his mind. Into that pattern had\ninterwoven a narrative of extensive alterations in the Pestered\nButterfly--the neck and beetle business was to be restored--the story of\na grave difference of opinion with Mrs. Chitterlow, where and how to\nlive after the play had succeeded, the reasons why the Hon. Thomas\nNorgate had never financed a syndicate, and much matter also about the\nsyndicate now under discussion. But if the current of their conversation\nhad been vortical and crowded, the outcome was perfectly clear. Kipps\nwas to be the chief participator in the syndicate, and his contribution\nwas to be two thousand pounds. Kipps groaned and rolled over and found\nHelen, as it were, on the other side. \"Promise me,\" she had said, \"you\nwon't do anything without consulting me.\"\n\nKipps at once rolled back to his former position, and for a space lay\nquite still. He felt like a very young rabbit in a trap.\n\nThen suddenly, with extraordinary distinctness, his heart cried out for\nAnn, and he saw her as he had seen her at New Romney, sitting amidst the\nyellow sea poppies with the sunlight on her face. His heart called out\nfor her in the darkness as one calls for rescue. He knew, as though he\nhad known it always, that he loved Helen no more. He wanted Ann, he\nwanted to hold her and be held by her, to kiss her again and again, to\nturn his back forever on all these other things....\n\nHe rose late, but this terrible discovery was still there, undispelled\nby cockcrow or the day. He rose in a shattered condition, and he cut\nhimself while shaving, but at last he got into his dining-room and could\npull the bell for the hot constituents of his multifarious breakfast.\nAnd then he turned to his letters. There were two real letters in\naddition to the customary electric belt advertisement, continental\nlottery circular and betting tout's card. One was in a slight mourning\nenvelope and addressed in an unfamiliar hand. This he opened first and\ndiscovered a note:\n\n\n                  MRS. RAYMOND WACE\n\n              Requests the pleasure of\n\n                    MR. KIPPS'\n\n                Company at Dinner\n\n     on Tuesday, September 21st, at 8 o'clock\n\n\nWith a hasty movement Kipps turned his mind to the second letter. It was\nan unusually long one from his Uncle, and ran as follows:\n\n\n\"MY DEAR NEPHEW:\n\n\"We are considerably startled by your letter though expecting something\nof the sort and disposed to hope for the best. If the young lady is a\nrelation to the Earl of Beauprés well and good but take care you are not\nbeing imposed upon for there are many who will be glad enough to snap\nyou up now your circumstances are altered--I waited on the old Earl\nonce while in service and he was remarkably close with his tips and\nsuffered from corns. A hasty old gent and hard to please--I daresay he\nhas forgotten me altogether--and anyhow there is no need to rake up\nbygones. To-morrow is bus day and as you say the young lady is living\nnear by we shall shut up shop for there is really nothing doing now what\nwith all the visitors bringing everything with them down to their very\nchildren's pails and say how de do to her and give her a bit of a kiss\nand encouragement if we think her suitable--she will be pleased to see\nyour old uncle--We wish we could have had a look at her first but still\nthere is not much mischief done and hoping that all will turn out well\nyet I am\n\n\"Your affectionate Uncle\n     \"EDWARD GEORGE KIPPS.\n\n\n\"My heartburn still very bad. I shall bring over a few bits of rhubub I\npicked up, a sort you won't get in Folkestone and if possible a good\nbunch of flowers for the young lady.\"\n\n\n\"Comin' over to-day,\" said Kipps, standing helplessly with the letter in\nhis hand.\n\n\"'Ow, the Juice----?\n\n\"I carn't.\n\n\"Kiss 'er!\"\n\n\"I carn't even face 'er----!\"\n\nA terrible anticipation of that gathering framed itself in his mind--a\nhideous, impossible disaster.\n\nHis voice went up to a note of despair, \"And it's too late to telegrarf\nand stop 'em!\"\n\nAbout twenty minutes after this, an outporter in Castle Hill Avenue was\naccosted by a young man, with a pale, desperate face, an exquisitely\nrolled umbrella and a heavy Gladstone bag.\n\n\"Carry this to the station, will you?\" said the young man. \"I want to\nketch the nex' train to London.... You'll 'ave to look sharp--I 'aven't\nvery much time.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nLONDON\n\n\n§1\n\nLondon was Kipps' third world. There were no doubt other worlds, but\nKipps knew only these three; firstly, New Romney and the Emporium,\nconstituting his primary world, his world of origin, which also\ncontained Ann; secondly, the world of culture and refinement, the world\nof which Coote was chaperon, and into which Kipps was presently to\nmarry, a world it was fast becoming evident absolutely incompatible with\nthe first, and, thirdly, a world still to a large extent unexplored,\nLondon. London presented itself as a place of great, grey spaces and\nincredible multitudes of people, centring about Charing Cross station\nand the Royal Grand Hotel, and containing at unexpected arbitrary points\nshops of the most amazing sort, statuary, Squares, Restaurants--where it\nwas possible for clever people like Walshingham to order a lunch item by\nitem, to the waiters' evident respect and sympathy--exhibitions of\nincredible things--the Walshinghams had taken him to the Arts and\nCrafts and to a picture gallery--and theatres. London, moreover, is\nrendered habitable by hansom cabs. Young Walshingham was a natural cab\ntaker, he was an all-round large minded young man, and he had in the\ncourse of their two days' stay taken Kipps into no less than nine, so\nthat Kipps was singularly not afraid of these vehicles. He knew that\nwhereever you were, so soon as you were thoroughly lost you said \"Hi!\"\nto a cab, and then \"Royal Grand Hotel.\" Day and night these trusty\nconveyances are returning the strayed Londoner back to his point of\ndeparture, and were it not for their activity in a little while the\nwhole population, so vast and incomprehensible is the intricate\ncomplexity of this great city, would be hopelessly lost forever. At any\nrate, that is how the thing presented itself to Kipps, and I have heard\nmuch the same from visitors from America.\n\nHis train was composed of corridor carriages, and he forgot his trouble\nfor a time in the wonders of this modern substitute for railway\ncompartments. He went from the non-smoking to the smoking carriage and\nsmoked a cigarette, and strayed from his second-class carriage to a\nfirst and back. But presently Black Care got aboard the train and came\nand sat beside him. The exhilaration of escape had evaporated now, and\nhe was presented with a terrible picture of his Aunt and Uncle arriving\nat his lodgings and finding him fled. He had left a hasty message that\nhe was called away suddenly on business, \"ver' important business,\" and\nthey were to be sumptuously entertained. His immediate motive had been\nhis passionate dread of an encounter between these excellent but\nunrefined old people and the Walshinghams, but now that end was secured,\nhe could see how thwarted and exasperated they would be.\n\nHow to explain to them?\n\nHe ought never to have written to tell them!\n\nHe ought to have got married and told them afterwards.\n\nHe ought to have consulted Helen.\n\n\"Promise me,\" she had said.\n\n\"Oh, _desh_!\" said Kipps, and got up and walked back into the smoking\ncar and began to consume cigarettes.\n\nSuppose, after all, they found out the Walshingham's address and went\nthere!\n\nAt Charing Cross, however, there were distractions again. He took a cab\nin an entirely Walshingham manner, and was pleased to note the enhanced\nrespect of the cabman when he mentioned the Royal Grand. He followed\nWalshingham's routine on their previous visit with perfect success. They\nwere very nice in the office, and gave him an excellent room at fourteen\nshillings the night.\n\nHe went up and spent a considerable time in examining the furniture of\nhis room, scrutinising himself in its various mirrors and sitting on the\nedge of the bed whistling. It was a vast and splendid apartment, and\ncheap at fourteen shillings. But, finding the figure of Ann inclined to\nresume possession of his mind, he roused himself and descended by the\nstaircase after a momentary hesitation before the lift. He had thought\nof lunch, but he drifted into the great drawing-room and read a guide to\nthe Hotels of Europe for a space, until a doubt whether he was entitled\nto use this palatial apartment without extra charge arose in his mind.\nHe would have liked something to eat very much now, but his inbred\nterror of the table was very strong. He did at last get by a porter in\nuniform towards the dining-room, but at the sight of a number of waiters\nand tables, with remarkable complications of knives and glasses, terror\nseized him, and he backed out again, with a mumbled remark to the waiter\nin the doorway about this not being the way.\n\nHe hovered in the hall and lounge until he thought the presiding porter\nregarded him with suspicion, and then went up to his room again by the\nstaircase, got his hat and umbrella and struck boldly across the\ncourtyard. He would go to a restaurant instead.\n\nHe had a moment of elation in the gateway. He felt all the Strand must\nnotice him as he emerged through the great gate of the Hotel. \"One of\nthese here rich swells,\" they would say. \"Don't they do it just!\" A\ncabman touched his hat. \"No fear,\" said Kipps, pleasantly.\n\nThen he remembered he was hungry again.\n\nYet he decided he was in no great hurry for lunch, in spite of an\ninternal protest, and turned eastward along the Strand in a leisurely\nmanner. He tried to find a place to suit him soon enough. He tried to\nremember the sort of things Walshingham had ordered. Before all things\nhe didn't want to go into a place and look like a fool. Some of these\nplaces rook you dreadful, besides making fun of you. There was a place\nnear Essex Street where there was a window brightly full of chops,\ntomatoes and lettuce. He stopped at this and reflected for a time, and\nthen it occurred to him that you were expected to buy these things raw\nand cook them at home. Anyhow, there was sufficient doubt in the matter\nto stop him. He drifted on to a neat window with champagne bottles, a\ndish of asparagus and a framed menu of a two shilling lunch. He was\nabout to enter, when fortunately he perceived two waiters looking at him\nover the back screen of the window with a most ironical expression, and\nhe sheered off at once. There was a wonderful smell of hot food half way\ndown Fleet Street and a nice looking Tavern with several doors, but he\ncould not decide which door. His nerve was going under the strain.\n\nHe hesitated at Farringdon Street and drifted up to St. Paul's and round\nthe church yard, full chiefly of dead bargains in the shop windows, to\nCheapside. But now Kipps was getting demoralised, and each house of\nrefreshment seemed to promise still more complicated obstacles to food.\nHe didn't know how you went in and what was the correct thing to do with\nyour hat, he didn't know what you said to the waiter or what you called\nthe different things; he was convinced absolutely he would \"fumble,\" as\nShalford would have said, and look like a fool. Somebody might laugh at\nhim! The hungrier he got the more unendurable was the thought that\nanyone should laugh at him. For a time he considered an extraordinary\nexpedient to account for his ignorance. He would go in and pretend to be\na foreigner and not know English. Then they might understand....\nPresently he had drifted into a part of London where there did not seem\nto be any refreshment places at all.\n\n\"Oh, _desh_!\" said Kipps, in a sort of agony of indecisiveness. \"The\nvery nex' place I see, in I go.\"\n\nThe next place was a fried fish shop in a little side street, where\nthere were also sausages on a gas-lit grill.\n\nHe would have gone in, but suddenly a new scruple came to him, that he\nwas too well dressed for the company he could see dimly through the\nsteam sitting at the counter and eating with a sort of nonchalant speed.\n\n\n§2\n\nHe was half minded to resort to a hansom and brave the terrors of the\ndining-room of the Royal Grand--they wouldn't know why he had gone out\nreally--when the only person he knew in London appeared (as the only\nperson one does know will do in London) and slapped him on the\nshoulder. Kipps was hovering at a window at a few yards from the fish\nshop, pretending to examine some really strikingly cheap pink baby\nlinen, and trying to settle finally about those sausages.\n\n\"Hullo, Kipps!\" cried Sid; \"spending the millions?\"\n\nKipps turned, and was glad to perceive no lingering vestige of the\nchagrin that had been so painful at New Romney. Sid looked grave and\nimportant, and he wore a quite new silk hat that gave a commercial touch\nto a generally socialistic costume. For a moment the sight of Sid\nuplifted Kipps wonderfully. He saw him as a friend and helper, and only\npresently did it come clearly into his mind that this was the brother of\nAnn.\n\nHe made amiable noises.\n\n\"I've just been up this way,\" Sid explained, \"buying a second-hand\n'namelling stove.... I'm going to 'namel myself.\"\n\n\"Lor'!\" said Kipps.\n\n\"Yes. Do me a lot of good. Let the customer choose his colour. See? What\nbrings _you_ up?\"\n\nKipps had a momentary vision of his foiled Uncle and Aunt. \"Jest a bit\nof a change,\" he said.\n\nSid came to a swift decision. \"Come down to my little show. I got\nsomeone I'd like to see talking to you.\"\n\nEven then Kipps did not think of Ann in this connection.\n\n\"Well,\" he said, trying to invent an excuse on the spur of the moment.\n\"Fact is,\" he explained, \"I was jest looking 'round to get a bit of\nlunch.\"\n\n\"Dinner, we call it,\" said Sid. \"But that's all right. You can't get\nanything to eat hereabout. If you're not too haughty to do a bit of\nslumming, there's some mutton spoiling for me now----\"\n\nThe word \"mutton\" affected Kipps greatly.\n\n\"It won't take us 'arf an hour,\" said Sid, and Kipps was carried.\n\nHe discovered another means of London locomotion in the Underground\nRailway, and recovered his self-possession in that interest. \"You don't\nmind going third?\" asked Sid, and Kipps said, \"Nort a _bit_ of it.\" They\nwere silent in the train for a time, on account of strangers in the\ncarriage, and then Sid began to explain who it was that he wanted Kipps\nto meet. \"It's a chap named Masterman--do you no end of good.\n\n\"He occupies our first floor front room, you know. It isn't so much for\ngain I let as company. We don't _want_ the whole 'ouse, and another, I\nknew the man before. Met him at our Sociological, and after a bit he\nsaid he wasn't comfortable where he was. That's how it came about. He's\na first-class chap--first-class. Science! You should see his books!\n\n\"Properly he's a sort of journalist. He's written a lot of things, but\nhe's been too ill lately to do very much. Poetry he's written, all\nsorts. He writes for the _Commonweal_ sometimes, and sometimes he\nreviews books. 'E's got 'eaps of books--'eaps. Besides selling a lot.\n\n\"He knows a regular lot of people, and all sorts of things. He's been a\ndentist, and he's a qualified chemist, an' I seen him often reading\nGerman and French. Taught 'imself. He was here----\"\n\nSid indicated South Kensington, which had come opportunely outside the\ncarriage windows, with a nod of his head, \"--three years. Studying\nscience. But you'll see 'im. When he really gets to talking--he _pours_\nit out.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said Kipps, nodding sympathetically, with his two hands on his\numbrella knob.\n\n\"He'll do big things some day,\" said Sid. \"He's written a book on\nscience already. 'Physiography,' it's called. 'Elementary Physiography'!\nSome day he'll write an Advanced--when he gets time.\"\n\nHe let this soak into Kipps.\n\n\"I can't introduce you to Lords and swells,\" he went on, \"but I _can_\nshow you a Famous Man, that's going to be. I _can_ do that.\nLeastways--unless----\"\n\nSid hesitated.\n\n\"He's got a frightful cough,\" he said.\n\n\"He won't care to talk with me,\" weighed Kipps.\n\n\"That's all right; _he_ won't mind. He's fond of talking. He'd talk to\nanyone,\" said Sid, reassuringly, and added a perplexing bit of\nLondonized Latin. \"He doesn't _pute_ anything, _non alienum_. You know.\"\n\n\"_I_ know,\" said Kipps, intelligently, over his umbrella knob, though\nof course that was altogether untrue.\n\n\n§3\n\nKipps found Sid's shop a practical looking establishment, stocked with\nthe most remarkable collection of bicycles and pieces of bicycle that he\nhad ever beheld. \"My hiring stock,\" said Sid, with a wave to this\nironmongery, \"and there's the best machine at a democratic price in\nLondon, The Red-Flag, built by _me_. See?\"\n\nHe indicated a graceful, grey-brown framework in the window. \"And\nthere's my stock of accessories--store prices.\n\n\"Go in for motors a bit,\" added Sid.\n\n\"Mutton?\" said Kipps, not hearing him distinctly.\n\n\"Motors, I _said_.... 'Owever, Mutton Department 'ere,\" and he opened a\ndoor that had a curtain guarded window in its upper panel, to reveal a\nlittle room with red walls and green furniture, with a white clothed\ntable and the generous promise of a meal. \"Fanny!\" he shouted. \"Here's\nArt Kipps.\"\n\nA bright-eyed young woman of five or six and twenty in a pink print\nappeared, a little flushed from cooking, and wiped a hand on an apron\nand shook hands and smiled, and said it would all be ready in a minute.\nShe went on to say she had heard of Kipps and his luck, and meanwhile\nSid vanished to draw the beer, and returned with two glasses for himself\nand Kipps.\n\n\"Drink that,\" said Sid, and Kipps felt all the better for it.\n\n\"I give Mr. Masterman _'is_ upstairs a hour ago,\" said Mrs. Sid. \"I\ndidn't think 'e ought to wait.\"\n\nA rapid succession of brisk movements on the part of everyone, and they\nwere all four at dinner--the fourth person being Master Walt Whitman\nPornick, a cheerful young gentleman of one and a half, who was given a\nspoon to hammer on the table with to keep him quiet, and who got \"Kipps\"\nright at the first effort and kept it all through the meal, combining it\nfirst with this previous acquisition, and then that. \"Peacock Kipps\"\nsaid Master Walt, at which there was great laughter, and also \"More\nMutton, Kipps.\"\n\n\"He's a regular oner,\" said Mrs. Sid, \"for catching up words. You can't\nsay a word but what 'e's on to it.\"\n\nThere were no serviettes and less ceremony, and Kipps thought he had\nnever enjoyed a meal so much. Everyone was a little excited by the\nmeeting and chatting, and disposed to laugh, and things went off easily\nfrom the very beginning. If there was a pause Master Walt filled it in.\nMrs. Sid, who tempered her enormous admiration for Sid's intellect and\nhis socialism and his severe business methods by a motherly sense of her\nsex and seniority, spoke of them both as \"you boys,\" and dilated--when\nshe was not urging Kipps to have some more of this or that--on the\ndisparity between herself and her husband.\n\n\"Shouldn't ha' thought there was a year between you,\" said Kipps; \"you\nseem jest a match.\"\n\n\"_I'm his_ match, anyhow,\" said Mrs. Sid, and no epigram of young\nWalshingham's was ever better received.\n\n\"Match,\" said young Walt, coming in on the trail of the joke and getting\na round for himself.\n\nAny sense of superior fortune had long vanished from Kipps' mind, and he\nfound himself looking at host and hostess with enormous respect. Really,\nold Sid was a wonderful chap, here in his own house at two and twenty,\ncarving his own mutton and lording it over wife and child. No legacies\nneeded by him! And Mrs. Sid, so kind and bright and hearty! And the\nchild, old Sid's child! Old Sid had jumped round a bit. It needed the\nsense of his fortune at the back of his mind to keep Kipps from feeling\nabject. He resolved he'd buy young Walt something tremendous in toys at\nthe first opportunity.\n\n\"Drop more beer, Art?\"\n\n\"Right you are, old man.\"\n\n\"Cut Mr. Kipps a bit more bread, Sid.\"\n\n\"Can't I pass _you_ a bit?\"\n\nSid was all right, Sid was, and there was no mistake about that.\n\nIt was growing up in his mind that Sid was the brother of Ann, but he\nsaid nothing about her for excellent reasons. After all, because he\nremembered Sid's irritation at her name when they had met in New Romney\nseemed to show a certain separation. They didn't tell each other\nmuch.... He didn't know how things might be between Ann and Sid, either.\n\nStill, for all that, Sid was Ann's brother.\n\nThe furniture of the room did not assert itself very much above the\ncheerful business at the table, but Kipps was impressed with the idea\nthat it was pretty. There was a dresser at the end with a number of gay\nplates and a mug or so, a Labour Day poster, by Walter Crane, on the\nwall, and through the glass and over the blind of the shop door one had\na glimpse of the bright coloured advertisement cards of bicycle dealers,\nand a shelfful of boxes labelled, The Paragon Bell, The Scarum Bell, and\nThe Patent Omi! Horn....\n\nIt seemed incredible that he had been in Folkestone that morning, and\neven now his Aunt and Uncle----!\n\nBrrr. It didn't do to think of his Aunt and Uncle.\n\n\n§4\n\nWhen Sid repeated his invitation to come and see Masterman, Kipps, now\nflushed with beer and Irish stew, said he didn't mind if he did, and\nafter a preliminary shout from Sid that was answered by a voice and a\ncough, the two went upstairs.\n\n\"Masterman's a rare one,\" said Sid over his arm and in an undertone.\n\"You should hear him speak at a meeting.... If he's in form, that is.\"\n\nHe rapped and went into a large, untidy room.\n\n\"This is Kipps,\" he said. \"You know. The chap I told you of. With twelve\n'undred a year.\"\n\nMasterman sat gnawing at an empty pipe and as close to the fire as\nthough it was alight and the season midwinter. Kipps concentrated upon\nhim for a space, and only later took in something of the frowsy\nfurniture, the little bed half behind, and evidently supposed to be\nwholly behind, a careless screen, the spittoon by the fender, the\nremains of a dinner on the chest of drawers and the scattered books and\npapers. Masterman's face showed him a man of forty or more, with curious\nhollows at the side of his forehead and about his eyes. His eyes were\nvery bright; there was a spot of red in his cheeks, and the wiry black\nmoustache under his short, red nose had been trimmed with scissors into\na sort of brush along his upper lip. His teeth were darkened ruins. His\njacket collar was turned up about a knitted white neck wrap, and his\nsleeves betrayed no cuffs. He did not rise to greet Kipps, but held out\na thin wristed hand and pointed with the other to a bedroom arm chair.\n\n\"Glad to see you,\" he said. \"Sit down and make yourself at home. Will\nyou smoke?\"\n\nKipps said he would, and produced his store. He was about to take one,\nand then, with a civil afterthought, handed the packet first to\nMasterman and Sid. Masterman pretended surprise to find his pipe out\nbefore he took one. There was an interlude of matches. Sid pushed the\nend of the screen out of his way, sat down on the bed thus frankly\nadmitted, and prepared, with a certain quiet satisfaction of manner, to\nwitness Masterman's treatment of Kipps.\n\n\"And how does it feel to have twelve hundred a year?\" asked Masterman,\nholding his cigarette to his nose tip in a curious manner.\n\n\"It's rum,\" confided Kipps, after a reflective interval. \"It feels\njuiced rum.\"\n\n\"I never felt it,\" said Masterman.\n\n\"It takes a bit of getting into,\" said Kipps. \"I can tell you that.\"\n\nMasterman smoked and regarded Kipps with curious eyes.\n\n\"I expect it does,\" he said presently.\n\n\"And has it made you perfectly happy?\" he asked, abruptly.\n\n\"I couldn't 'ardly say _that_,\" said Kipps.\n\nMasterman smiled. \"No,\" he said. \"Has it made you much happier?\"\n\n\"It did at first.\"\n\n\"Yes. But you got used to it. How long, for example, did the real\ndelirious excitement last?\"\n\n\"Oo, _that_! Perhaps a week,\" said Kipps.\n\nMasterman nodded his head. \"That's what discourages _me_ from amassing\nwealth,\" he said to Sid. \"You adjust yourself. It doesn't last. I've\nalways had an inkling of that, and it's interesting to get it confirmed.\nI shall go on sponging for a bit longer on _you_, I think.\"\n\n\"You don't,\" said Sid. \"No fear.\"\n\n\"Twenty-four thousand pounds,\" said Masterman, and blew a cloud of\nsmoke. \"Lord! Doesn't it worry you?\"\n\n\"It is a bit worrying at times.... Things 'appen.\"\n\n\"Going to marry?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"H'm. Lady, I guess, of a superior social position?\"\n\n\"Rather,\" said Kipps. \"Cousin to the Earl of Beauprés.\"\n\nMasterman readjusted his long body with an air of having accumulated all\nthe facts he needed. He snuggled his shoulder-blades down into the chair\nand raised his angular knees. \"I doubt,\" he said, flicking cigarette ash\ninto the atmosphere, \"if any great gain or loss of money does--as things\nare at present--make more than the slightest difference in one's\nhappiness. It ought to--if money was what it ought to be, the token for\ngiven service; one ought to get an increase in power and happiness for\nevery pound one got. But the plain fact is the times are out of joint,\nand money--money, like everything else, is a deception and a\ndisappointment.\"\n\nHe turned his face to Kipps and enforced his next words with the index\nfinger of his lean, lank hand. \"If I thought otherwise,\" he said, \"I\nshould exert _myself_ to get some. But, if one sees things clearly, one\nis so discouraged. So confoundedly discouraged.... When you first got\nyour money, you thought that it meant you might buy just anything you\nfancied?\"\n\n\"I was a bit that way,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"And you found that you couldn't. You found that for all sorts of things\nit was a question of where to buy and how to buy, and what you didn't\nknow how to buy with your money, straight away this world planted\nsomething else upon you----\"\n\n\"I got rather done over a banjo first day,\" said Kipps. \"Leastways, my\nUncle says.\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" said Masterman.\n\nSid began to speak from the bed. \"That's all very well, Masterman,\" he\nsaid, \"but, after all, money is Power, you know. You can do all sorts of\nthings----\"\n\n\"I'm talking of happiness,\" said Masterman. \"You can do all sorts of\nthings with a loaded gun in the Hammersmith Broadway, but\nnothing--practically--that will make you or any one else very happy.\nNothing. Power's a different matter altogether. As for happiness, you\nwant a world in order before money or property, or any of those things\nthat have any real value, and this world, I tell you, is hopelessly out\nof joint. Man is a social animal with a mind nowadays that goes around\nthe globe, and a community cannot be happy in one part and unhappy in\nanother. It's all or nothing, no patching any more for ever. It is the\nstanding mistake of the world not to understand that. Consequently\npeople think there is a class or order somewhere, just above them or\njust below them, or a country or place somewhere, that is really safe\nand happy. The fact is, Society is one body, and it is either well or\nill. That's the law. This society we live in is ill. It's a fractious,\nfeverish invalid, gouty, greedy and ill-nourished. You can't have a\nhappy left leg with neuralgia, or a happy throat with a broken leg.\nThat's my position, and that's the knowledge you'll come to. I'm so\nsatisfied of it that I sit here and wait for my end quite calmly, sure\nthat I can't better things by bothering--in my time, and so far as I am\nconcerned, that is. I'm not even greedy any more--my egotism's at the\nbottom of a pond, with a philosophical brick around its neck. The world\nis ill, my time is short and my strength is small. I'm as happy here as\nanywhere.\"\n\nHe coughed and was silent for a moment, then brought the index finger\naround to Kipps again. \"You've had the opportunity of sampling two\ngrades of society, and you don't find the new people you're among much\nbetter or any happier than the old?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Kipps, reflectively. \"No. I 'aven't seen it quite like that\nbefore, but----. No. They're not.\"\n\n\"And you might go all up the scale and down the scale and find the same\nthing. Man's a gregarious beast, a gregarious beast, and no money will\nbuy you out of your own time--any more than out of your own skill. All\nthe way up and all the way down the scale there's the same discontent.\nNo one is quite sure where they stand, and everyone's fretting. The\nherd's uneasy and feverish. All the old tradition goes or has gone, and\nthere's no one to make a new tradition. Where are your nobles now? Where\nare your gentlemen? They vanished directly the peasant found out he\nwasn't happy and ceased to be a peasant. There's big men and little men\nmixed up together, that's all. None of us know where we are. Your cads\nin a bank holiday train and your cads on a two thousand pound motor;\nexcept for a difference in scale, there's not a pin to choose between\nthem. Your smart society is as low and vulgar and uncomfortable for a\nbalanced soul as a gin palace, no more and no less; there's no place or\nlevel of honour or fine living left in the world; so what's the good of\nclimbing?\"\n\n\"'Ear, 'ear,\" said Sid.\n\n\"It's true,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"_I_ don't climb,\" said Masterman, and accepted Kipps' silent offer of\nanother cigarette.\n\n\"No,\" he said. \"This world is out of joint. It's broken up, and I doubt\nif it will heal. I doubt very much if it'll heal. We're in the beginning\nof the Sickness of the World.\"\n\nHe rolled his cigarette in his lean fingers and repeated with\nsatisfaction: \"The Sickness of the World.\"\n\n\"It's we've got to make it better,\" said Sid, and looked at Kipps.\n\n\"Ah, Sid's an optimist,\" said Masterman.\n\n\"So are you, most times,\" said Sid.\n\nKipps lit another cigarette with an air of intelligent participation.\n\n\"Frankly,\" said Masterman, recrossing his legs and expelling a jet of\nsmoke luxuriously, \"frankly, I think this civilisation of ours is on the\ntopple.\"\n\n\"There's Socialism,\" said Sid.\n\n\"There's no imagination to make use of it.\"\n\n\"We've got to _make_ one,\" said Sid.\n\n\"In a couple of centuries perhaps,\" said Masterman. \"But meanwhile we're\ngoing to have a pretty acute attack of confusion. Universal confusion.\nLike one of those crushes when men are killed and maimed for no reason\nat all, going into a meeting or crowding for a train. Commercial and\nIndustrial Stresses. Political Exploitation. Tariff Wars. Revolutions.\nAll the bloodshed that will come of some fools calling half the white\nworld yellow. These things alter the attitude of everybody to everybody.\nEverybody's going to feel 'em. Every fool in the world panting and\nshoving. _We're_ all going to be as happy and comfortable as a household\nduring a removal. What else can we expect?\"\n\nKipps was moved to speak, but not in answer to Masterman's enquiry.\n\"I've never rightly got the 'eng of this Socialism,\" he said. \"What's it\ngoing to do, like?\"\n\nThey had been imagining that he had some elementary idea in the matter,\nbut as soon as he had made it clear that he hadn't, Sid plunged at\nexposition, and in a little while Masterman, abandoning his pose of the\ndetached man ready to die, joined in. At first he joined in only to\ncorrect Sid's version, but afterwards he took control. His manner\nchanged. He sat up and rested his elbow on his knees, and his cheek\nflushed a little. He expanded his case against Property and the property\nclass with such vigour that Kipps was completely carried away, and never\nthought of asking for a clear vision of the thing that would fill the\nvoid this abolition might create. For a time he quite forgot his own\nprivate opulence. And it was as if something had been lit in Masterman.\nHis languor passed. He enforced his words by gestures of his long, thin\nhands. And as he passed swiftly from point to point of his argument it\nwas evident he grew angry.\n\n\"To-day,\" he said, \"the world is ruled by rich men; they may do almost\nanything they like with the world. And what are they doing? Laying it\nwaste!\"\n\n\"Hear, hear!\" said Sid, very sternly.\n\nMasterman stood up, gaunt and long, thrust his hands in his pockets and\nturned his back to the fireplace.\n\n\"Collectively, the rich to-day have neither heart nor imagination. No!\nThey own machinery, they have knowledge and instruments and powers\nbeyond all previous dreaming, and what are they doing with them? Think\nwhat they are doing with them, Kipps, and think what they might do. God\ngives them a power like the motor car, and all they can do with it is\nto go careering about the roads in goggled masks killing children and\nmaking machinery hateful to the soul of man! (\"True,\" said Sid, \"true.\")\nGod gives them means of communication, power unparalleled of every sort,\ntime and absolute liberty! They waste it all in folly! Here under their\nfeet (and Kipps' eyes followed the direction of a lean index finger to\nthe hearthrug) under their accursed wheels, the great mass of men\nfesters and breeds in darkness, darkness those others make by standing\nin the light. The darkness breeds and breeds. It knows no better....\nUnless you can crawl or pander or rob you must stay in the stew you are\nborn in. And those rich beasts above claw and clutch as though they had\nnothing! They grudge us our schools, they grudge us a gleam of light and\nair, they cheat us and then seek to forget us.... There is no rule, no\nguidance, only accidents and happy flukes.... Our multitudes of poverty\nincrease, and this crew of rulers makes no provision, foresees nothing,\nanticipates nothing....\"\n\nHe paused and made a step, and stood over Kipps in a white heat of\nanger. Kipps nodded in a non-commital manner and looked hard and rather\ngloomily at his host's slipper as he talked.\n\n\"It isn't as though they had something to show for the waste they make\nof us, Kipps. They haven't. They are ugly and cowardly and mean. Look at\ntheir women! Painted, dyed and drugged, hiding their ugly shapes under a\nload of dress! There isn't a woman in the swim of society at the\npresent time, wouldn't sell herself, body and soul, who wouldn't lick\nthe boots of a Jew or marry a nigger, rather than live decently on a\nhundred a year! On what would be wealth for you and me! They know it.\nThey know we know it.... No one believes in them. No one believes in\nnobility any more. Nobody believes in kingship any more. Nobody believes\nthere is justice in the law.... But people have habits, people go on in\nthe old grooves, as long as there's work, as long as there's weekly\nmoney.... It won't last, Kipps.\"\n\nHe coughed and paused. \"Wait for the lean years,\" he cried. \"Wait for\nthe lean years.\" And suddenly he fell into a struggle with his cough and\nspat a gout of blood. \"It's nothing,\" he said to Kipps' note of startled\nhorror.\n\nHe went on talking, and the protests of his cough interlaced with his\nwords, and Sid beamed in an ecstasy of painful admiration.\n\n\"Look at the fraud they have let life become, the miserable mockery of\nthe hope of one's youth. What have _I_ had? I found myself at thirteen\nbeing forced into a factory like a rabbit into a chloroformed box.\nThirteen!--when _their_ children are babies. But even a child of that\nage could see what it meant, that Hell of a factory! Monotony and toil\nand contempt and dishonour! And then death. So I fought--at thirteen!\"\n\nMinton's \"crawling up a drain pipe until you die\" echoed in Kipps'\nmind, but Masterman, instead of Minton's growl, spoke in a high,\nindignant tenor.\n\n\"I got out at last--somehow,\" he said, quietly, suddenly plumping back\nin his chair. He went on after a pause. \"For a bit. Some of us get out\nby luck, some by cunning, and crawl on to the grass, exhausted and\ncrippled to die. That's a poor man's success, Kipps. Most of us don't\nget out at all. I worked all day and studied half the night, and here I\nam with the common consequences. Beaten! And never once have I had a\nfair chance, never once!\" His lean, clenched fist flew out in a gust of\ntremulous anger. \"These Skunks shut up all the university scholarships\nat nineteen for fear of men like me. And then--do _nothin'_.... We're\nwasted for nothing. By the time I'd learnt something the doors were\nlocked. I thought knowledge would do it--I did think that! I've fought\nfor knowledge as other men fight for bread. I've starved for knowledge.\nI've turned my back on women; I've done even that. I've burst my\naccursed lung....\" His voice rose with impotent anger. \"I'm a better man\nthan any ten princes alive! And I'm beaten and wasted. I've been\ncrushed, trampled and defiled by a drove of hogs. I'm no use to myself\nor the world. I've thrown my life away to make myself too good for use\nin this huckster's scramble. If I had gone in for business, if I had\ngone in for plotting to cheat my fellow men--ah, well! It's too late.\nIt's too late for that, anyhow. It's too late for anything now! And I\ncouldn't have done it.... And over in New York now there's a pet of\nsociety making a corner in wheat!\n\n\"By God!\" he cried hoarsely, with a clutch of the lean hand. \"By God! If\nI had his throat! Even now I might do something for the world.\"\n\nHe glared at Kipps, his face flushed deep, his sunken eyes glowing with\npassion, and then suddenly he changed altogether.\n\nThere was a sound of tea things rattling upon a tray outside the door,\nand Sid rose to open it.\n\n\"All of which amounts to this,\" said Masterman, suddenly quiet and again\ntalking against time. \"The world is out of joint, and there isn't a soul\nalive who isn't half waste or more. You'll find it the same with you in\nthe end, wherever your luck may take you.... I suppose you won't mind my\nhaving another cigarette?\"\n\nHe took Kipps' cigarette with a hand that trembled so violently it\nalmost missed its object, and stood up, with something of guilt in his\nmanner as Mrs. Sid came into the room.\n\nHer eye met his and marked the flush upon his face.\n\n\"Been talking Socialism?\" said Mrs. Sid, a little severely.\n\n\n§5\n\nSix o'clock that day found Kipps drifting eastward along the southward\nmargin of Rotten Row. You figure him a small, respectably attired\nfigure going slowly through a sometimes immensely difficult and always\nimmense world. At times he becomes pensive and whistles softly. At times\nhe looks about him. There are a few riders in the Row, a carriage\nflashes by every now and then along the roadway, and among the great\nrhododendrons and laurels and upon the greensward there are a few groups\nand isolated people dressed in the style Kipps adopted to call upon the\nWalshinghams when first he was engaged. Amid the complicated confusion\nof Kipps' mind was a regret that he had not worn his other things....\n\nPresently he perceived that he would like to sit down; a green chair\ntempted him. He hesitated at it, took possession of it, and leant back\nand crossed one leg over the other.\n\nHe rubbed his under lip with his umbrella handle and reflected upon\nMasterman and his denunciation of the world.\n\n\"Bit orf 'is 'ead, poor chap,\" said Kipps, and added: \"I wonder.\"\n\nHe thought intently for a space.\n\n\"I wonder what he meant by the lean years?\"\n\nThe world seemed a very solid and prosperous concern just here, and well\nout of reach of Masterman's dying clutch. And yet----\n\nIt was curious he should have been reminded of Minton.\n\nHis mind turned to a far more important matter. Just at the end Sid had\nsaid to him, \"Seen Ann?\" and as he was about to answer, \"You'll see a\nbit more of her now. She's got a place in Folkestone.\"\n\nIt had brought him back from any concern about the world being out of\njoint or anything of that sort.\n\nAnn!\n\nOne might run against her any day.\n\nHe tugged at his little moustache.\n\nHe would like to run against Ann very much....\n\n\"And it would be juiced awkward if I did!\"\n\nIn Folkestone! It was a jolly sight too close....\n\nThen, at the thought that he might run against Ann in his beautiful\nevening dress on the way to the band, he fluttered into a momentary\ndream, that jumped abruptly into a nightmare.\n\nSuppose he met her when he was out with Helen! \"Oh, Lor'!\" said Kipps.\nLife had developed a new complication that would go on and go on. For\nsome time he wished with the utmost fervour that he had not kissed Ann,\nthat he had not gone to New Romney the second time. He marvelled at his\namazing forgetfulness of Helen on that occasion. Helen took possession\nof his mind. He would have to write to Helen, an easy, off-hand letter,\nto say that he had come to London for a day or so. He tried to imagine\nher reading it. He would write just such another letter to the old\npeople, and say he had had to come up on business. That might do for\n_them_ all right, but Helen was different. She would insist on\nexplanations.\n\nHe wished he could never go back to Folkestone again. That would settle\nthe whole affair.\n\nA passing group attracted his attention, two faultlessly dressed\ngentlemen and a radiantly expensive lady. They were talking, no doubt,\nvery brilliantly. His eyes followed them. The lady tapped the arm of the\nleft hand gentleman with a daintily tinted glove. Swells! No end....\n\nHis soul looked out upon life in general as a very small nestling might\npeep out of its nest. What an extraordinary thing life was, to be sure,\nand what a remarkable variety of people there were in it!\n\nHe lit a cigarette and speculated upon that receding group of three, and\nblew smoke and watched them. They seemed to do it all right. Probably\nthey all had incomes of very much over twelve hundred a year. Perhaps\nnot. Probably none of them suspected, as they went past, that he, too,\nwas a gentleman of independent means, dressed, as he was, without\ndistinction. Of course things were easier for them. They were brought up\nalways to dress well and do the right thing from their very earliest\nyears; they started clear of all his perplexities; they had never got\nmixed up with all sorts of different people who didn't go together. If,\nfor example, that lady there got engaged to that gentleman, she would be\nquite safe from any encounter from a corpulent, osculatory Uncle, or\nChitterlow, or the dangerously insignificant eye of Pierce.\n\nHis thoughts came round to Helen.\n\nWhen they were married and Cuyps, or Cuyp--Coote had failed to justify\nhis \"s\"--and in that west end flat and shaken free of all these low\nclass associations, would he and she parade here of an afternoon dressed\nlike that? It would be rather fine to do so. If one's dress was all\nright.\n\nHelen!\n\nShe was difficult to understand at times.\n\nHe blew extensive clouds of cigarette smoke.\n\nThere would be teas, there would be dinners, there would be calls. Of\ncourse he would get into the way of it.\n\nBut Anagrams were a bit stiff to begin with!\n\nIt was beastly confusing at first to know when to use your fork at\ndinner, and all that. Still----\n\nHe felt an extraordinary doubt whether he would get into the way of it.\nHe was interested for a space by a girl and groom on horseback, and then\nhe came back to his personal preoccupations.\n\nHe would have to write to Helen. What could he say to explain his\nabsence from the Anagram Tea? She had been pretty clear she wanted him\nto come. He recalled her resolute face without any great tenderness. He\n_knew_ he would look like a silly ass at that confounded tea! Suppose he\nshirked it and went back in time for the dinner! Dinners were beastly\ndifficult, too, but not as bad as Anagrams. The very first thing that\nmight happen when he got back to Folkestone would be to run against Ann.\nSuppose, after all, he did meet Ann when he was with Helen!\n\nWhat queer encounters were possible in the world!\n\nThank goodness, they were going to live in London!\n\nBut that brought him around to Chitterlow. The Chitterlows were coming\nto London, too. If they didn't get money they'd come after it; they\nweren't the sort of people to be choked off easily, and if they did\nthey'd come to London to produce their play. He tried to imagine some\nseemly social occasion invaded by Chitterlow and his rhetoric, by his\ntorrential thunder of self-assertion, the whole company flattened\nthereunder like wheat under a hurricane.\n\nConfound and hang Chitterlow! Yet, somehow, somewhen, one would have to\nsettle accounts with him! And there was Sid! Sid was Ann's brother. He\nrealised with sudden horror the social indiscretion of accepting Sid's\ninvitation to dinner.\n\nSid wasn't the sort of chap one could snub or cut, and besides--Ann's\nbrother! He didn't want to cut him. It would be worse than cutting\nBuggins and Pierce--a sight worse. And after that lunch!\n\nIt would be the next thing to cutting Ann herself. And even as to Ann!\n\nSuppose he was with Helen or Coote!...\n\n\"Oh, Blow!\" he said, at last, and then, viciously, \"_Blow!_\" and so rose\nand flung away his cigarette end, and pursued his reluctant, dubiating\nway towards the really quite uncongenial splendours of the Royal\nGrand....\n\nAnd it is vulgarly imagined that to have money is to have no troubles\nat all!\n\n\n§6\n\nKipps endured splendour at the Royal Grand Hotel for three nights and\ndays, and then he retreated in disorder. The Royal Grand defeated and\novercame and routed Kipps, not of intention, but by sheer royal\ngrandeur, grandeur combined with an organisation for his comfort carried\nto excess. On his return he came upon a difficulty; he had lost his\ncircular piece of cardboard with the number of his room, and he drifted\nabout the hall and passages in a state of perplexity for some time,\nuntil he thought all the porters and officials in gold lace caps must be\nwatching him and jesting to one another about him. Finally, in a quiet\ncorner, down below the hairdresser's shop, he found a kindly looking\npersonage in bottle green, to whom he broached his difficulty. \"I say,\"\nhe said, with a pleasant smile, \"I can't find my room nohow.\" The\npersonage in bottle green, instead of laughing in a nasty way, as he\nmight well have done, became extremely helpful, showed Kipps what to do,\ngot his key, and conducted him by lift and passage to his chamber. Kipps\ntipped him half a crown.\n\nSafe in his room, Kipps pulled himself together for dinner. He had\nlearnt enough from young Walshingham to bring his dress clothes, and now\nhe began to assume them. Unfortunately, in the excitement of his flight\nfrom his Aunt and Uncle, he had forgotten to put in his other boots, and\nhe was some time deciding between his purple cloth slippers, with a\ngolden marigold, and the prospect of cleaning the boots he was wearing\nwith the towel, but finally, being a little footsore, he took the\nslippers.\n\nAfterwards, when he saw the porters and waiters and the other guests\ncatch a sight of the slippers, he was sorry he had not chosen the boots.\nHowever, to make up for any want of style at that end, he had his crush\nhat under his arm.\n\nHe found the dining-room without excessive trouble. It was a vast and\nsplendidly decorated place, and a number of people, evidently quite _au\nfait_, were dining there at little tables lit with electric, red shaded\ncandles, gentlemen in evening dress, and ladies with dazzling,\nastonishing necks. Kipps had never seen evening dress in full vigour\nbefore, and he doubted his eyes. And there were also people not in\nevening dress who, no doubt, wondered what noble family Kipps\nrepresented. There was a band in a decorated recess, and the band looked\ncollectively at the purple slippers, and so lost any chance they may\nhave had of a collection, so far as Kipps was concerned. The chief\ndrawback to this magnificent place was the excessive space of floor that\nhad to be crossed before you got your purple slippers hid in under a\ntable.\n\nHe selected a little table--not the one where a rather impudent looking\nwaiter held a chair, but another--sat down, and finding his gibus in\nhis hand, decided after a moment of thought to rise slightly and sit on\nit. (It was discovered in his abandoned chair at a late hour by a supper\nparty, and restored to him next day.)\n\nHe put the napkin carefully on one side, selected his soup without\ndifficulty, \"Clear, please,\" but he was rather floored by the\npresentation of a quite splendidly bound wine card. He turned it over,\ndiscovered a section devoted to whiskey, and had a bright idea.\n\n\"'Ere,\" he said to the waiter, with an encouraging movement of his head,\nand then in a confidential manner, \"you haven't any Old Methuselah Three\nStars, 'ave you?\"\n\nThe waiter went away to enquire, and Kipps went on with his soup with an\nenhanced self-respect. Finally, Old Methuselah being unobtainable, he\nordered a claret from about the middle of the list. \"Let's 'ave some of\nthis,\" he said. He knew claret was a good sort of wine.\n\n\"A half bottle?\" said the waiter.\n\n\"Right you are,\" said Kipps.\n\nHe felt he was getting on. He leant back after his soup, a man of the\nworld, and then slowly brought his eyes around to the ladies in evening\ndress on his right....\n\nHe couldn't have thought it!\n\nThey were scorchers. Jest a bit of black velvet over the shoulders!\n\nHe looked again. One of them was laughing with a glass of wine half\nraised--wicked-looking woman she was--the other, the black velvet one,\nwas eating bits of bread with nervous quickness and talking fast.\n\nHe wished old Buggins could see them.\n\nHe found a waiter regarding him and blushed deeply. He did not look\nagain for some time, and became confused about his knife and fork over\nthe fish. Presently he remarked a lady in pink to the left of him eating\nthe fish with an entirely different implement.\n\nIt was over the _vol au vent_ that he began to go to pieces. He took a\nknife to it; then saw the lady in pink was using a fork only, and\nhastily put down his knife, with a considerable amount of rich\ncreaminess on the blade, upon the cloth. Then he found that a fork in\nhis inexperienced hand was an instrument of chase rather than capture.\nHis ears became violently red, and then he looked up, to discover the\nlady in pink glancing at him and then smiling as she spoke to the man\nbeside her.\n\nHe hated the lady in pink very much.\n\nHe stabbed a large piece of the _vol au vent_ at last, and was too glad\nof his luck not to take a mouthful of it. But it was an extensive\nfragment, and pieces escaped him. Shirt front! \"Desh it!\" he said, and\nhad resort to his spoon. His waiter went and spoke to two other waiters,\nno doubt jeering at him. He became very fierce suddenly. \"Ere!\" he said,\ngesticulating, and then, \"clear this away!\"\n\nThe entire dinner party on his right, the party of the ladies in\nadvanced evening dress, looked at him.... He felt that everyone was\nwatching him and making fun of him, and the injustice of this angered\nhim. After all, they had every advantage he hadn't. And then, when they\ngot him there doing his best, what must they do but glance and sneer and\nnudge one another. He tried to catch them at it, and then took refuge in\na second glass of wine.\n\nSuddenly and extraordinarily he found himself a socialist. He did not\ncare how close it was to the lean years when all these things would end.\n\nMutton came with peas. He arrested the hand of the waiter. \"No peas,\" he\nsaid. He knew something of the difficulty and danger of eating peas.\nThen, when the peas went away again he was embittered again.... Echoes\nof Masterman's burning rhetoric began to reverberate in his mind. Nice\nlot of people these were to laugh at anyone! Women half undressed. It\nwas that made him so beastly uncomfortable. How could one eat one's\ndinner with people about him like that? Nice lot they were. He was glad\nhe wasn't one of them, anyhow. Yes, they might look. He resolved if they\nlooked at him again he would ask one of the men who he was staring at.\nHis perturbed and angry face would have concerned anyone. The band by an\nunfortunate accident was playing truculent military music. The mental\nchange Kipps underwent was, in its way, what psychologists call a\nconversion. In a few moments all Kipps' ideals were changed. He who had\nbeen \"practically a gentleman,\" the sedulous pupil of Coote, the\npunctilious raiser of hats, was instantly a rebel, an outcast, the hater\nof everything \"stuck up,\" the foe of Society and the social order of\nto-day. Here they were among the profits of their robbery, these people\nwho might do anything with the world....\n\n\"No, thenks,\" he said to a dish.\n\nHe addressed a scornful eye at the shoulders of the lady to his left.\n\nPresently he was refusing another dish. He didn't like it--fussed up\nfood! Probably cooked by some foreigner. He finished up his wine and his\nbread.\n\n\"No, thenks.\"\n\n\"No, thenks.\"...\n\nHe discovered the eye of a diner fixed curiously upon his flushed face.\nHe responded with a glare. Couldn't he go without things if he liked?\n\n\"What's this?\" said Kipps to a great green cone.\n\n\"Ice,\" said the waiter.\n\n\"I'll 'ave some,\" said Kipps.\n\nHe seized a fork and spoon and assailed the bombe. It cut rather\nstiffly. \"Come up!\" said Kipps, with concentrated bitterness, and the\ntruncated summit of the bombe flew off suddenly, travelling eastward\nwith remarkable velocity. Flop, it went upon the floor a yard away, and\nfor awhile time seemed empty.\n\nAt the adjacent table they were laughing together.\n\nShy the rest of the bombe at them?\n\nFlight?\n\nAt any rate a dignified withdrawal.\n\n\"No!\" said Kipps, \"no more,\" arresting the polite attempt of the waiter\nto serve him with another piece. He had a vague idea he might carry off\nthe affair as though he had meant the ice to go on the floor--not liking\nice, for example, and being annoyed at the badness of his dinner. He put\nboth hands on the table, thrust back his chair, disengaged a purple\nslipper from his napkin, and rose. He stepped carefully over the\nprostrate ice, kicked the napkin under the table, thrust his hands deep\ninto his pockets, and marched out--shaking the dust of the place, as it\nwere, from his feet. He left behind him a melting fragment of ice upon\nthe floor, his gibus hat, warm and compressed in his chair, and in\naddition every social ambition he had ever entertained in the world.\n\n\n§7\n\nKipps went back to Folkestone in time for the Anagram Tea. But you must\nnot imagine that the change of heart that came to him in the dining-room\nof the Royal Grand Hotel involved any change of attitude toward this\npromised social and intellectual treat. He went back because the Royal\nGrand was too much for him.\n\nOutwardly calm, or at most a little flushed and ruffled, inwardly Kipps\nwas a horrible, tormented battleground of scruples, doubts, shames and\nself-assertions during that three days of silent, desperate grappling\nwith the big hotel. He did not intend the monstrosity should beat him\nwithout a struggle, but at last he had sullenly to admit himself\novercome. The odds were terrific. On the one hand himself--with, among\nother things, only one pair of boots; on the other a vast wilderness of\nrooms, covering several acres, and with over a thousand people, staff\nand visitors, all chiefly occupied in looking queerly at Kipps, in\nlaughing at him behind his back, in watching for difficult corners at\nwhich to confront and perplex him, and inflict humiliations upon him.\nFor example, the hotel scored over its electric light. After the dinner\nthe chambermaid, a hard, unsympathetic young woman with a superior\nmanner, was summoned by a bell Kipps had rung under the impression the\nbutton was the electric light switch. \"Look 'ere,\" said Kipps, rubbing a\nshin that had suffered during his search in the dark, \"why aren't there\nany candles or matches?\" The hotel explained and scored heavily.\n\n\"It isn't everyone is up to these things,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"No, it isn't,\" said the chambermaid, with ill-concealed scorn, and\nslammed the door at him.\n\n\"S'pose I ought to have tipped her,\" said Kipps.\n\nAfter that Kipps cleaned his boots with a pocket-handkerchief and went\nfor a long walk and got home in a hansom, but the hotel scored again by\nhis not putting out his boots and so having to clean them again in the\nmorning. The hotel also snubbed him by bringing him hot water when he\nwas fully dressed and looking surprised at his collar, but he got a\nbreakfast, I must admit, with scarcely any difficulty.\n\nAfter that the hotel scored heavily by the fact that there are\ntwenty-four hours in the day and Kipps had nothing to do in any of them.\nHe was a little footsore from his previous day's pedestrianism, and he\ncould make up his mind for no long excursions. He flitted in and out of\nthe hotel several times, and it was the polite porter who touched his\nhat every time that first set Kipps tipping.\n\n\"What 'e wants is a tip,\" said Kipps.\n\nSo at the next opportunity he gave the man an unexpected shilling, and\nhaving once put his hand in his pocket, there was no reason why he\nshould not go on. He bought a newspaper at the book-stall and tipped the\nboy the rest of the shilling, and then went up by the lift and tipped\nthe man a sixpence, leaving his newspaper inadvertently in the lift. He\nmet his chambermaid in the passage and gave her half a crown. He\nresolved to demonstrate his position to the entire establishment in this\nway. He didn't like the place; he disapproved of it politically,\nsocially, morally, but he resolved no taint of meanness should disfigure\nhis sojourn in its luxurious halls. He went down by the lift (tipping\nagain), and, being accosted by a waiter with his gibus, tipped the\nfinder half a crown. He had a vague sense that he was making a flank\nmovement upon the hotel and buying over its staff. They would regard him\nas a character. They would get to like him. He found his stock of small\nsilver diminishing, and replenished it at a desk in the hall. He tipped\na man in bottle green who looked like the man who had shown him his room\nthe day before, and then he saw a visitor eyeing him, and doubted\nwhether he was in this instance doing right. Finally he went out and\ntook chance 'buses to their destinations, and wandered a little in\nremote, wonderful suburbs and returned. He lunched at a chop house in\nIslington, and found himself back in the Royal Grand, now unmistakably\nfootsore and London weary, about three. He was drawn towards the\ndrawing-room by a neat placard about afternoon tea.\n\nIt occurred to him that the campaign of tipping upon which he had\nembarked was perhaps after all a mistake. He was confirmed in this by\nobserving that the hotel officials were watching him, not respectfully,\nbut with a sort of amused wonder, as if to see whom he would tip next.\nHowever, if he backed out now, they would think him an awful fool.\nEveryone wasn't so rich as he was. It was his way to tip. Still----\n\nHe grew more certain the hotel had scored again.\n\nHe pretended to be lost in thought and so drifted by, and having put hat\nand umbrella in the cloak-room went into the drawing-room for afternoon\ntea.\n\nThere he did get what for a time he held to be a point in his favour.\nThe room was large and quiet at first, and he sat back restfully until\nit occurred to him that his attitude brought his extremely dusty boots\ntoo prominently into the light, so instead he sat up, and then people\nof the upper and upper middle classes began to come and group themselves\nabout him and have tea likewise, and so revive the class animosities of\nthe previous day.\n\nPresently a fluffy, fair-haired lady came into prominent existence a few\nyards away. She was talking to a respectful, low-voiced clergyman, whom\nshe was possibly entertaining at tea. \"No,\" she said, \"dear Lady Jane\nwouldn't like that!\"\n\n\"Mumble, mumble, mumble,\" from the clergyman.\n\n\"Poor dear Lady Jane was always so sensitive,\" the voice of the lady\nsang out clear and emphatic.\n\nA fat, hairless, important-looking man joined this group, took a chair\nand planted it firmly with its back in the face of Kipps, a thing that\noffended Kipps mightily. \"Are you telling him,\" gurgled the fat,\nhairless man, \"about dear Lady Jane's affliction?\" A young couple, lady\nbrilliantly attired and the man in a magnificently cut frock coat,\narranged themselves to the right, also with an air of exclusion towards\nKipps. \"I've told him,\" said the gentleman in a flat, abundant voice.\n\"My!\" said the young lady, with an American smile. No doubt they all\nthought Kipps was out of it. A great desire to assert himself in some\nway surged up in his heart. He felt he would like to cut in on the\nconversation in some dramatic way. A monologue something in the manner\nof Masterman? At any rate, abandoning that as impossible, he would like\nto appear self-centred and at ease. His eyes, wandering over the black\nsurfaces of a noble architectural mass close by, discovered a slot--an\nenamelled plaque of directions.\n\nIt was some sort of musical box! As a matter of fact, it was the very\nbest sort of Harmonicon and specially made to the scale of the Hotel.\n\nHe scrutinised the plaque with his head at various angles and glanced\nabout him at his neighbours.\n\nIt occurred to Kipps that he would like some music, that to inaugurate\nsome would show him a man of taste and at his ease at the same time. He\nrose, read over a list of tunes, selected one haphazard, pressed his\nsixpence--it was sixpence!--home, and prepared for a confidential,\nrefined little melody.\n\nConsidering the high social tone of the Royal Grand, it was really a\nvery loud instrument indeed. It gave vent to three deafening brays and\nso burst the dam of silence that had long pent it in. It seemed to be\nchiefly full of the greatuncles of trumpets, megalo-trombones and\nrailway brakes. It made sounds like shunting trains. It did not so much\nbegin as blow up your counter-scarp or rush forward to storm under cover\nof melodious shrapnel. It had not so much an air as a _ricochette_. The\nmusic had, in short, the inimitable quality of Sousa. It swept down upon\nthe friend of Lady Jane and carried away something socially striking\ninto the eternal night of the unheard; the American girl to the left of\nit was borne shrieking into the inaudible. \"HIGH cockalorum Tootletootle\ntootle loo. HIGH cockalorum tootle lootle loo. BUMP, bump, bump--BUMP.\"\nJoyous, exorbitant music it was from the gigantic nursery of the\nFuture, bearing the hearer along upon its torrential succession of\nsounds, as if he was in a cask on Niagara. Whiroo! Yah and have at you!\nThe strenuous Life! Yaha! Stop! A Reprieve! A Reprieve! No! Bang! Bump!\n\nEverybody looked around, conversation ceased and gave place to gestures.\n\nThe friend of Lady Jane became terribly agitated.\n\n\"Can't it be stopped?\" she vociferated, pointing a gloved finger and\nsaying something to the waiter about \"That dreadful young man.\"\n\n\"Ought not to be working,\" said the clerical friend of Lady Jane.\n\nThe waiter shook his head at the fat, hairless gentleman. People began\nto move away. Kipps leant back luxurious, and then tipped with a half\ncrown to pay. He paid, tipped like a gentleman, rose with an easy\ngesture, and strolled towards the door. His retreat evidently completed\nthe indignation of the friend of Lady Jane, and from the door he could\nstill discern her gestures as asking, \"Can't it be stopped?\" The music\nfollowed him into the passage and pursued him to the lift and only died\naway completely in the quiet of his own room, and afterwards from his\nwindow he saw the friend of Lady Jane and her party having their tea\ncarried out to a little table in the court. BUMP, bump, bump, BUMP\nfloated up to him, and certainly that was a point to him. But it was his\nonly score; all the rest of the game lay in the hands of the upper\nclasses and the big hotel. And presently he was doubting whether even\nthis was really a point. It seemed a trifle vulgar, come to think it\nover, to interrupt people when they were talking.\n\nHe saw a clerk peering at him from the office, and suddenly it occurred\nto him that the place might get back at him tremendously over the bill.\n\nThey would probably take it out of him by charging pounds and pounds.\n\nSuppose they charged more than he had!\n\nThe clerk had a particularly nasty face, just the face to take advantage\nof a vacillating Kipps.\n\nHe became aware of a man in a cap touching it, and produced his shilling\nautomatically, but the strain was beginning to tell. It was a deuce and\nall of an expense--this tipping.\n\nIf the hotel chose to stick it on to the bill something tremendous what\nwas Kipps to do? Refuse to pay? Make a row?\n\nIf he did he couldn't fight all these men in bottle green....\n\nHe went out about seven and walked for a long time and dined at last\nupon a chop in the Euston Road; then he walked along to the Edgeware\nRoad and sat and rested in the Metropolitan Music Hall for a time until\na trapeze performance unnerved him and finally he came back to bed. He\ntipped the lift man sixpence and wished him good-night. In the silent\nwatches of the night he reviewed the tale of the day's tipping, went\nover the horrors of the previous night's dinner, and heard again the\ntriumphant bray of the harmonicon devil released from its long\nimprisonment. Everyone would be told about him to-morrow. He couldn't go\non! He admitted his defeat. Never in their whole lives had any of these\npeople seen such a Fool as he! Ugh!...\n\nHis method of announcing his withdrawal to the clerk was touched with\nbitterness.\n\n\"I'm going to get out of this,\" said Kipps, blowing windily. \"Let's see\nwhat you got on my bill.\"\n\n\"One breakfast?\" asked the clerk.\n\n\"Do I _look_ as if I'd ate two?\"...\n\nAt his departure Kipps, with a hot face, convulsive gestures and an\nembittered heart, tipped everyone who did not promptly and actively\nresist, including an absent-minded South African diamond merchant, who\nwas waiting in the hall for his wife and succumbed to old habit. He paid\nhis cabman a four shilling piece at Charing Cross, having no smaller\nchange, and wished he could burn him alive. Then in a sudden reaction of\neconomy he refused the proffered help of a porter and carried his bag\nquite violently to the train.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nKIPPS ENTERS SOCIETY\n\n\n§1\n\nSubmission to Inexorable Fate took Kipps to the Anagram Tea.\n\nAt any rate he would meet Helen there in the presence of other people\nand be able to carry off the worst of the difficulty of explaining his\nlittle jaunt to London. He had not seen her since his last portentous\nvisit to New Romney. He was engaged to her, he would have to marry her,\nand the sooner he faced her again the better. Before wild plans of\nturning socialist, defying the world and repudiating all calling for\never, his heart on second thoughts sank. He felt Helen would never\npermit anything of the sort. As for the Anagrams he could do no more\nthan his best and that he was resolved to do. What had happened at the\nRoyal Grand, what had happened at New Romney, he must bury in his memory\nand begin again at the reconstruction of his social position. Ann,\nBuggins, Chitterlow, all these, seen in the matter-of-fact light of the\nFolkestone train, stood just as they stood before; people of an inferior\nsocial position who had to be eliminated from his world. It was a\nbother about Ann, a bother and a pity. His mind rested so for a space on\nAnn until the memory of these Anagrams drew him away. If he could see\nCoote that evening he might, he thought, be able to arrange some sort of\nconnivance about the Anagrams, and his mind was chiefly busy sketching\nproposals for such an arrangement. It would not, of course, be\nungentlemanly cheating, but only a little mystification. Coote very\nprobably might drop him a hint of the solution of one or two of the\nthings, not enough to win a prize, but enough to cover his shame. Or\nfailing that he might take a humorous, quizzical line and pretend he was\npretending to be very stupid. There were plenty of ways out of it if one\nkept a sharp lookout....\n\nThe costume Kipps wore to the Anagram Tea was designed as a compromise\nbetween the strict letter of high fashion and seaside laxity, a sort of\neasy, semi-state for afternoon. Helen's first reproof had always\nlingered in his mind. He wore a frock coat, but mitigated it by a Panama\nhat of romantic shape with a black band, grey gloves, but for relaxation\nbrown button boots. The only other man besides the clergy present, a new\ndoctor with an attractive wife, was in full afternoon dress. Coote was\nnot there.\n\nKipps was a little pale, but quite self-possessed, as he approached Mrs.\nBindon Botting's door. He took a turn while some people went in and then\nfaced it manfully. The door opened and revealed--Ann!\n\nIn the background through a draped doorway behind a big fern in a great\nart pot the elder Miss Botting was visible talking to two guests; the\nauditory background was a froth of feminine voices....\n\nOur two young people were much too amazed to give one another any\nformula of greeting, though they had parted warmly enough. Each was\nalready in a state of extreme tension to meet the demands of this great\nand unprecedented occasion of an Anagram Tea. \"Lor'!\" said Ann, her sole\nremark, and then the sense of Miss Botting's eye ruled her straight\nagain. She became very pale, but she took his hat mechanically, and he\nwas already removing his gloves. \"Ann,\" he said in a low tone, and then\n\"Fency!\" The eldest Miss Botting knew Kipps was the sort of guest who\nrequires nursing, and she came forward vocalising charm. She said it was\n\"Awfully jolly of him to come, awfully jolly. It was awfully difficult\nto get any good men!\"\n\nShe handed Kipps forward, mumbling in a dazed condition, to the\ndrawing-room, and there he encountered Helen looking unfamiliar in an\nunfamiliar hat. It was as if he had not met her for years.\n\nShe astonished him. She didn't seem to mind in the least his going to\nLondon. She held out a shapely hand, and smiled encouragingly. \"You've\nfaced the anagrams?\" she said.\n\nThe second Miss Botting accosted them, a number of oblong pieces of\npaper in her hand, mysteriously inscribed. \"Take an anagram,\" she said;\n\"take an anagram,\" and boldly pinned one of these brief documents to\nKipps' lapel. The letters were \"Cypshi,\" and Kipps from the very\nbeginning suspected this was an anagram for Cuyps. She also left a thing\nlike a long dance programme, from which dangled a little pencil in his\nhand. He found himself being introduced to people, and then he was in a\ncorner with the short lady in a big bonnet, who was pelting him with\ngritty little bits of small talk that were gone before you could take\nhold of them and reply.\n\n\"Very hot,\" said this lady. \"Very hot, indeed--hot all the\nsummer--remarkable year--all the years remarkable now--don't know what\nwe're coming to--don't you think so, Mr. Kipps?\"\n\n\"Oo rather,\" said Kipps, and wondered if Ann was still in the hall. Ann!\n\nHe ought not to have stared at her like a stuck fish and pretended not\nto know her. That couldn't be right. But what _was_ right?\n\nThe lady in the big bonnet proceeded to a second discharge. \"Hope you're\nfond of anagrams, Mr. Kipps--difficult exercise--still one must do\nsomething to bring people together--better than Ludo anyhow. Don't you\nthink so, Mr. Kipps?\"\n\nAnn fluttered past the open door. Her eyes met his in amazed enquiry.\nSomething had got dislocated in the world for both of them....\n\nHe ought to have told her he was engaged. He ought to have explained\nthings to her. Perhaps even now he might be able to drop her a hint.\n\n\"Don't you think so, Mr. Kipps?\"\n\n\"Oo rather,\" said Kipps for the third time.\n\nA lady with a tired smile, who was labelled conspicuously \"Wogdelenk,\"\ndrifted towards Kipps' interlocutor and the two fell into conversation.\nKipps found himself socially aground. He looked about him. Helen was\ntalking to a curate and laughing. Kipps was overcome by a vague desire\nto speak to Ann. He was for sidling doorward.\n\n\"What are _you_, please?\" said an extraordinarily bold, tall girl, and\narrested him while she took down \"Cypshi.\"\n\n\"I'm sure I don't know what it means,\" she explained. \"I'm Sir Bubh.\nDon't you think anagrams are something chronic?\"\n\nKipps made stockish noises, and the young lady suddenly became the\nnucleus of a party of excited friends who were forming a syndicate to\nguess, and barred his escape. She took no further notice of him. He\nfound himself jammed against an occasional table and listening to the\nconversation of Mrs. \"Wogdelenk\" and his lady with the big bonnet.\n\n\"She packed her two beauties off together,\" said the lady in the big\nbonnet. \"Time enough, too. Don't think much of this girl; she's got as\nhousemaid now. Pretty, of course, but there's no occasion for a\nhousemaid to be pretty--none whatever. And she doesn't look particularly\nup to her work either. Kind of 'mazed expression.\"\n\n\"You never can tell,\" said the lady labelled \"Wogdelenk;\" \"you never\ncan tell. My wretches are big enough, Heaven knows, and do they work?\nNot a bit of it!\"...\n\nKipps felt dreadfully out of it with regard to all these people, and\ndreadfully in it with Ann.\n\nHe scanned the back of the big bonnet and concluded it was an extremely\nugly bonnet indeed. It got jerking forward as each short, dry sentence\nwas snapped off at the end and a plume of osprey on it jerked\nexcessively. \"She hasn't guessed even one!\" followed by a shriek of\ngirlish merriment, came from the group about the tall, bold girl. They'd\nshriek at him presently, perhaps. Beyond thinking his own anagram might\nbe Cuyps, he hadn't a notion. What a chatter they were all making! It\nwas just like a summer sale! Just the sort of people who'd give a lot of\ntrouble and swap you! And suddenly the smouldering fires of rebellion\nleapt to flame again. These were a rotten lot of people, and the\nanagrams were rotten nonsense, and he, Kipps, had been a rotten fool to\ncome. There was Helen away there, still laughing, with her curate. Pity\nshe couldn't marry a curate and leave him (Kipps) alone! Then he'd know\nwhat to do. He disliked the whole gathering collectively and in detail.\nWhy were they all trying to make him one of themselves? He perceived\nunexpected ugliness everywhere about him. There were two great pins\njabbed through the tall girl's hat, and the swirls of her hair below the\nbrim with the minutest piece of tape tie-up showing did not repay close\nexamination. Mrs. \"Wogdelenk\" wore a sort of mumps bandage of lace, and\nthere was another lady perfectly dazzling with beads, and jewels and\nbits of trimming. They were all flaps and angles and flounces--these\nwomen. Not one of them looked as neat and decent a shape as Ann's clean,\ntrim, little figure. Echoes of Masterman woke up in him again. Ladies\nindeed! Here were all these chattering people, with money, with leisure,\nwith every chance in the world, and all they could do was to crowd like\nthis into a couple of rooms and jabber nonsense about anagrams.\n\n\"Could Cypshi really mean Cuyps?\" floated like a dissolving wreath of\nmist across his mind.\n\nAbruptly resolution stood armed in his heart. He was going to get out of\nthis!\n\n\"'Scuse me,\" he said, and began to wade neck deep through the bubbling\ntea party.\n\nHe was going to get out of it all!\n\nHe found himself close by Helen. \"I'm orf,\" he said, but she gave him\nthe briefest glance. She did not appear to hear him. \"Still, Mr.\nSpratlingdown, you _must_ admit there's a limit even to conformity,\" she\nwas saying....\n\nHe was in a curtained archway, and Ann was before him carrying a tray\nsupporting several small sugar bowls.\n\nHe was moved to speech. \"_What_ a Lot!\" he said, and then mysteriously,\n\"I'm engaged to _her_.\" He indicated Helen's new hat, and became aware\nof a skirt he had stepped upon.\n\nAnn stared at him helplessly, borne past in the grip of\nincomprehensible imperatives.\n\nWhy shouldn't they talk together?\n\nHe was in a small room, and then at the foot of the staircase in the\nhall. He heard the rustle of a dress, and what was conceivable his\nhostess was upon him.\n\n\"But you're not going, Mr. Kipps?\" she said.\n\n\"I must,\" he said; \"I got to.\"\n\n\"But, Mr. Kipps!\"\n\n\"I must,\" he said. \"I'm not well.\"\n\n\"But before the guessing! Without any tea!\"\n\nAnn appeared and hovered behind him.\n\n\"I got to go,\" said Kipps.\n\nIf he parleyed with her Helen might awake to his desperate attempt.\n\n\"Of course if you _must_ go.\"\n\n\"It's something I've forgotten,\" said Kipps, beginning to feel regrets.\n\"Reely I must.\"\n\nMrs. Botting turned with a certain offended dignity, and Ann in a state\nof flushed calm that evidently concealed much came forward to open the\ndoor.\n\n\"I'm very sorry,\" he said; \"I'm very sorry,\" half to his hostess and\nhalf to her, and was swept past her by superior social forces--like a\ndrowning man in a mill-race--and into the Upper Sandgate Road. He half\nturned upon the step, and then slam went the door....\n\nHe retreated along the Leas, a thing of shame and perplexity--Mrs.\nBotting's aggrieved astonishment uppermost in his mind....\n\nSomething--reinforced by the glances of the people he was\npassing--pressed its way to his attention through the tumultuous\ndisorder of his mind.\n\nHe became aware that he was still wearing his little placard with the\nletters \"Cypshi.\"\n\n\"Desh it!\" he said, clutching off this abomination. In another moment\nits several letters, their task accomplished, were scattering gleefully\nbefore the breeze down the front of the Leas.\n\n\n§2\n\nKipps was dressed for Mrs. Wace's dinner half an hour before it was time\nto start, and he sat waiting until Coote should come to take him around.\n\"Manners and Rules of Good Society\" lay before him neglected. He had\nread the polished prose of the Member of the Aristocracy, on page 96, as\nfar as--\n\n\n     \"the acceptance of an invitation is in the eyes of diners out, a\n     binding obligation which only ill-health, family bereavement, or\n     some all-important reason justifies its being set on one side or\n     otherwise  evaded\"--\n\n\nand then he had lapsed into gloomy thoughts.\n\nThat afternoon he had had a serious talk with Helen.\n\nHe had tried to express something of the change of heart that had\nhappened to him. But to broach the real state of the matter had been\naltogether too terrible for him. He had sought a minor issue. \"I don't\nlike all this Seciety,\" he had said.\n\n\"But you must _see_ people,\" said Helen.\n\n\"Yes, but----. It's the sort of people you see.\" He nerved himself. \"I\ndidn't think much of that lot at the Enegram Tea.\"\n\n\"You have to see all sorts of people if you want to see the world,\" said\nHelen.\n\nKipps was silent for a space and a little short of breath.\n\n\"My dear Arthur,\" she began, almost kindly, \"I shouldn't ask you to go\nto these affairs if I didn't think it good for you, should I?\"\n\nKipps acquiesced in silence.\n\n\"You will find the benefit of it all when we get to London. You learn to\nswim in a tank before you go out into the sea. These people here are\ngood enough to learn upon. They're stiff and rather silly and dreadfully\nnarrow and not an idea in a dozen of them, but it really doesn't matter\nat all. You'll soon get Savoir Faire.\"\n\nHe made to speak again, and found his powers of verbal expression\nlacking. Instead he blew a sigh.\n\n\"You'll get used to it all very soon,\" said Helen helpfully....\n\nAs he sat meditating over that interview and over the vistas of London\nthat opened before him, on the little flat, and teas and occasions and\nthe constant presence of Brudderkins and all the bright prospect of his\nnew and better life, and how he would never see Ann any more, the\nhousemaid entered with a little package, a small, square envelope to\n\"Arthur Kipps, Esquire.\"\n\n\"A young woman left this, Sir,\" said the housemaid, a little severely.\n\n\"Eh?\" said Kipps; \"what young woman?\" and then suddenly began to\nunderstand.\n\n\"She looked an ordinary young woman,\" said the housemaid coldly.\n\n\"Ah!\" said Kipps. \"_That's_ orlright.\"\n\nHe waited till the door had closed behind the girl, staring at the\nenvelope in his hand, and then, with a curious feeling of increasing\ntension, tore it open. As he did so, some quicker sense than sight or\ntouch told him its contents. It was Ann's half sixpence. And, besides,\nnot a word!\n\nThen she must have heard him----!\n\nShe had kept the half sixpence all these years!\n\nHe was standing with the envelope in his hand, trying to get on from\nthat last inference, when Coote became audible without.\n\nCoote appeared in evening dress, a clean and radiant Coote, with large,\ngreenish, white gloves and a particularly large white tie, edged with\nblack. \"For a third cousin,\" he presently explained. \"Nace, isn't it?\"\nHe could see Kipps was pale and disturbed and put this down to the\napproaching social trial. \"You keep your nerve up, Kipps, my dear chap,\nand you'll be all right,\" said Coote, with a big, brotherly glove on\nKipps' sleeve.\n\n\n§3\n\nThe dinner came to a crisis so far as Kipps' emotions were concerned,\nwith Mrs. Bindon Botting's talk about servants, but before that there\nhad been several things of greater or smaller magnitude to perturb and\ndisarrange his social front. One little matter that was mildly insurgent\nthroughout the entire meal was, if I may be permitted to mention so\nintimate a matter, the behaviour of his left brace. The webbing--which\nwas of a cheerful scarlet silk--had slipped away from its buckle,\nfastened no doubt in agitation, and had developed a strong tendency to\nplace itself obliquely in the manner rather of an official decoration,\nathwart his spotless front. It first asserted itself before they went in\nto dinner. He replaced this ornament by a dexterous thrust when no one\nwas looking and thereafter the suppression of his novel innovation upon\nthe stereotyped sombreness of evening dress became a standing\npreoccupation. On the whole, he was inclined to think his first horror\nexcessive; at any rate no one remarked upon it. However you imagine him\nconstantly throughout the evening, with one eye and one hand, whatever\nthe rest of him might be doing, predominantly concerned with the weak\ncorner.\n\nBut this, I say, was a little matter. What exercised him much more was\nto discover Helen quite terribly in evening dress.\n\nThe young lady had let her imagination rove Londonward, and this\ncostume was perhaps an anticipation of that clever little flat not too\nfar west which was to become the centre of so delightful a literary and\nartistic set. It was, of all the feminine costumes present, most\ndistinctly an evening dress. One was advised Miss Walshingham had arms\nand shoulders of a type by no means despicable, one was advised Miss\nWalshingham was capable not only of dignity but charm, even a certain\nglow of charm. It was, you know, her first evening dress, a tribute paid\nby Walshingham finance to her brightening future. Had she wanted keeping\nin countenance, she would have had to have fallen back upon her hostess,\nwho was resplendent in black and steel. The other ladies had to a\ncertain extent compromised. Mrs. Walshingham had dressed with just a\nrefined, little V and Mrs. Bindon Botting, except for her dear mottled\narms, confided scarcely more of her plump charm to the world. The elder\nMiss Botting stopped short of shoulders, and so did Miss Wace. But Helen\ndidn't. She was--had Kipps had eyes to see it--a quite beautiful human\nfigure; she knew it and she met him with a radiant smile that had\nforgotten all the little difference of the afternoon. But to Kipps her\nappearance was the last release. With that, she had become as remote, as\nforeign, as incredible as a wife and mate, as though the Cnidian Venus\nherself, in all her simple elegance, was before witnesses, declared to\nbe his. If, indeed, she had ever been credible as a wife and mate.\n\nShe ascribed his confusion to modest reverence, and having blazed\nsmiling upon him for a moment turned a shapely shoulder towards him and\nexchanged a remark with Mrs. Bindon Botting. Ann's poor little half\nsixpence came against Kipps' fingers in his pocket and he clutched at it\nsuddenly as though it was a talisman. Then he abandoned it to suppress\nhis Order of the Brace. He was affected by a cough. \"Miss Wace tells me\nMr. Revel is coming,\" Mrs. Botting was saying.\n\n\"Isn't it delightful?\" said Helen. \"We saw him last night. He's stopped\non his way to Paris. He's going to meet his wife there.\"\n\nKipps' eyes rested for a moment on Helen's dazzling deltoid, and then\nwent enquiringly, accusingly almost to Coote's face. Where, in the\npresence of this terrible emergency, was the gospel of suppression\nnow--that Furtive treatment of Religion and Politics, and Birth and\nDeath and Bathing and Babies, and \"all those things\" which constitutes\nyour True Gentleman? He had been too modest even to discuss this\nquestion with his Mentor, but surely, surely this quintessence of all\nthat is good and nice could regard these unsolicited confidences only in\none way. With something between relief and the confirmation of his worst\nfears he perceived, by a sort of twitching of the exceptionally abundant\nmuscles about Coote's lower jaw, in a certain deliberate avoidance of\none particular direction by these pale, but resolute, grey eyes, by the\nalmost convulsive grip of the ample, greenish white gloves behind him,\na grip broken at times for controlling pats at the black-bordered tie\nand the back of that spacious head, and by a slight but increasing\ndisposition to cough, that _Coote did not approve_!\n\nTo Kipps Helen had once supplied a delicately beautiful dream, a thing\nof romance and unsubstantial mystery. But this was her final\nmaterialisation, and the last thin wreath of glamour about her was\ndispelled. In some way (he had forgotten how and it was perfectly\nincomprehensible) he was bound to this dark, solid and determined young\nperson whose shadow and suggestion he had once loved. He had to go\nthrough with the thing as a gentleman should. Still----\n\nAnd when he was sacrificing Ann!\n\nHe wouldn't stand this sort of thing, whatever else he stood.... Should\nhe say something about her dress to her--to-morrow?\n\nHe could put his foot down firmly. He could say, \"Look 'ere. I don't\ncare. I ain't going to stand it. See?\"\n\nShe'd say something unexpected, of course. She always did say something\nunexpected.\n\nSuppose for once he overrode what she said? Simply repeated his point?\n\nHe found these thoughts battling with certain conversational aggressions\nfrom Mrs. Wace, and then Revel arrived and took the centre of the stage.\n\nThe author of that brilliant romance, \"Red Hearts a-Beating,\" was a less\nimposing man than Kipps had anticipated, but he speedily effaced that\ndisappointment by his predominating manners. Although he lived\nhabitually in the vivid world of London, his collar and tie were in no\nway remarkable, and he was neither brilliantly handsome nor curly nor\nlong-haired. His personal appearance suggested arm chairs, rather than\nthe equestrian exercises and amorous toyings and passionate intensities\nof his masterpiece; he was inclined to be fat, with whitish flesh, muddy\ncoloured straight hair, he had a rather shapeless and truncated nose and\nhis chin was asymmetrical. One eye was more inclined to stare than the\nother. He might have been esteemed a little undistinguished looking were\nit not for his beeswaxed moustache, which came amidst his features with\na pleasing note of incongruity, and the whimsical wrinkles above and\nabout his greater eye. His regard sought and found Helen's as he entered\nthe room and they shook hands presently with an air of intimacy Kipps,\nfor no clear reason, found objectionable. He saw them clasp their hands,\nheard Coote's characteristic cough--a sound rather more like a very,\nvery old sheep, a quarter of a mile away, being blown to pieces by a\nsmall charge of gunpowder than anything else in the world--did some\nconfused beginnings of a thought, and then they were all going in to\ndinner and Helen's shining bare arm lay along his sleeve. Kipps was in\nno state for conversation. She glanced at him, and, though he did not\nknow it, very slightly pressed his elbow. He struggled with strange\nrespiratory dislocations. Before them went Coote, discoursing in\namiable reverberations to Mrs. Walshingham, and at the head of the\nprocession was Mrs. Bindon Botting talking fast and brightly beside the\nerect military figure of little Mr. Wace. (He was not a soldier really,\nbut he had caught a martinet bearing by living so close to Shorncliffe.)\nRevel came last, in charge of Mrs. Wace's queenly black and steel,\npolitely admiring in a flute-like cultivated voice the mellow wall paper\nof the staircase. Kipps marvelled at everybody's self-possession.\n\nFrom the earliest spoonful of soup it became evident that Revel\nconsidered himself responsible for the table talk. And before the soup\nwas over it was almost as manifest that Mrs. Bindon Botting inclined to\nconsider his sense of responsibility excessive. In her circle Mrs.\nBindon Botting was esteemed an agreeable rattle, her manner and\nappearance were conspicuously vivacious for one so plump, and she had an\nalmost Irish facility for humorous description. She would keep people\namused all through an afternoon call, with the story of how her jobbing\ngardener had got himself married and what his home was like, or how her\nfavourite butt, Mr. Stigson Warder, had all his unfortunate children\ntaught almost every conceivable instrument because they had the\nphrenological bump of music abnormally large. \"They got to trombones, my\ndear!\" she would say, with her voice coming to a climax. Usually her\nfriends conspired to draw her out, but on this occasion they neglected\nto do so, a thing that militated against her keen desire to shine in\nRevel's eyes. After a time she perceived that the only thing for her to\ndo was to cut in on the talk, on her own account, and this she began to\ndo. She made several ineffectual snatches at the general attention and\nthen Revel drifted towards a topic she regarded as particularly her own,\nthe ordering of households.\n\nThey came to the thing through talk about localities. \"We are leaving\nour house in The Boltons,\" said Revel, \"and taking a little place at\nWimbledon, and I think of having rooms in Dane's Inn. It will be more\nconvenient in many ways. My wife is furiously addicted to golf and\nexercise of all sorts, and I like to sit about in clubs--I haven't the\nstrength necessary for these hygienic proceedings--and the old\narrangement suited neither of us. And, besides, no one could imagine the\ndemoralisation the domestics of West London have undergone during the\nlast three years.\"\n\n\"It's the same everywhere,\" said Mrs. Bindon Botting.\n\n\"Very possibly it is. A friend of mine calls it the servile tradition in\ndecay and regards it all as a most hopeful phenomenon----\"\n\n\"He ought to have had my last two criminals,\" said Mrs. Bindon Botting.\n\nShe turned to Mrs. Wace while Revel came again a little too late with a\n\"Possibly----\"\n\n\"And I haven't told you, my dear,\" she said, speaking with voluble\nrapidity, \"I'm in trouble again.\"\n\n\"The last girl?\"\n\n\"The last girl. Before I can get a cook, my hard won housemaid\"--she\npaused--\"chucks it.\"\n\n\"Panic?\" asked young Walshingham.\n\n\"Mysterious grief! Everything merry as a marriage bell until my Anagram\nTea! Then in the evening a portentous rigour of bearing, a word or so\nfrom my Aunt, and immediately--Floods of Tears and Notice!\" For a moment\nher eye rested thoughtfully on Kipps, as she said: \"Is there anything\nheartrending about Anagrams?\"\n\n\"I find them so,\" said Revel. \"I----\"\n\nBut Mrs. Bindon Botting got away again. \"For a time it made me quite\nuneasy----\"\n\nKipps jabbed his lip with his fork rather painfully, and was recalled\nfrom a fascinated glare at Mrs. Botting to the immediate facts of\ndinner.\n\n\"----whether anagrams might not have offended the good domestic's Moral\nCode--you never can tell. We made enquiries. No. No. No. She _must_ go\nand that's all!\"\n\n\"One perceives,\" said Revel, \"in these disorders, dimly and distantly,\nthe last dying glow of the age of Romance. Let us suppose, Mrs. Botting,\nlet us at least try to suppose--it is Love.\"\n\nKipps clattered with his knife and fork.\n\n\"It's love,\" said Mrs. Botting; \"what else can it be? Beneath the\norderly humdrum of our lives these romances are going on, until at last\nthey bust up and give Notice and upset our humdrum altogether. Some\nfatal, wonderful soldier----\"\n\n\"The passions of the common or house domestic,\" said Revel, and\nrecovered possession of the table.\n\nUpon the troubled disorder of Kipps' table manners there had supervented\na quietness, an unusual calm. For once in his life he had distinctly\nmade up his mind on his own account. He listened no more to Revel. He\nput down his knife and fork and refused anything that followed. Coote\nregarded him with tactful concern and Helen flushed a little.\n\n\n§4\n\nAbout half-past nine that night came a violent pull at the bell of Mrs.\nBindon Botting, and a young man in a dress suit, a gibus and other marks\nof exalted social position stood without. Athwart his white expanse of\nbreast lay a ruddy bar of patterned silk that gave him a singular\ndistinction and minimised the glow of a few small stains of burgundy.\nHis gibus was thrust back and exposed a disorder of hair that suggested\na reckless desperation. He had, in fact, burnt his boats and refused to\njoin the ladies. Coote, in the subsequent conversation, had protested\nquietly, \"You're going on all right, you know,\" to which Kipps had\nanswered he didn't care a \"Eng\" about that, and so, after a brief tussle\nwith Walshingham's detaining arm, had got away. \"I got something to do,\"\nhe said. \"'Ome.\" And here he was--panting an extraordinary resolve. The\ndoor opened, revealing the pleasantly furnished hall of Mrs. Bindon\nBotting, lit by rose-tinted lights, and in the centre of the picture,\nneat and pretty in black and white, stood Ann. At the sight of Kipps her\ncolour vanished.\n\n\"Ann,\" said Kipps, \"I want to speak to you. I got something to say to\nyou right away. See? I'm----\"\n\n\"This ain't the door to speak to me at,\" said Ann.\n\n\"But, Ann! It's something special.\"\n\n\"You spoke enough,\" said Ann.\n\n\"Ann!\"\n\n\"Besides. That's my door, down there. Basement. If I was caught talking\nat _this_ door----!\"\n\n\"But, Ann, _I'm_----\"\n\n\"Basement after nine. Them's my hours. I'm a servant and likely to keep\none. If you're calling here, what name please? But you got your friends\nand I got mine and you mustn't go talking to _me_.\"\n\n\"But, Ann, I want to ask you----\"\n\nSomeone appeared in the hall behind Ann. \"Not here,\" said Ann. \"Don't\nknow anyone of that name,\" and incontinently slammed the door in his\nface.\n\n\"What was that, Ann?\" said Mrs. Bindon Botting's invalid Aunt.\n\n\"Ge'm a little intoxicated, Ma'am--asking for the wrong name, Ma'am.\"\n\n\"What name did he want?\" asked the lady, doubtfully.\n\n\"No name that _we_ know, Ma'am,\" said Ann, hustling along the hall\ntowards the kitchen stairs.\n\n\"I hope you weren't too short with him, Ann.\"\n\n\"No shorter than he deserved, considering 'ow he be'aved,\" said Ann,\nwith her bosom heaving.\n\nAnd Mrs. Bindon Botting's invalid Aunt, perceiving suddenly that this\ncall had some relation to Ann's private and sentimental trouble, turned,\nafter one moment of hesitating scrutiny, away.\n\nShe was an extremely sympathetic lady, was Mrs. Bindon Botting's invalid\nAunt; she took an interest in the servants, imposed piety, extorted\nconfessions and followed human nature, blushing and lying defensively,\nto its reluctantly revealed recesses, but Ann's sense of privacy was\nstrong and her manner under drawing out and encouragement, sometimes\neven alarming....\n\nSo the poor old lady went upstairs again.\n\n\n§5\n\nThe basement door opened and Kipps came into the kitchen. He was flushed\nand panting.\n\nHe struggled for speech.\n\n\"'Ere,\" he said, and held out two half sixpences.\n\nAnn stood behind the kitchen table--face pale and eyes round, and\nnow--and it simplified Kipps very much--he could see she had indeed been\ncrying.\n\n\"Well?\" she said.\n\n\"Don't you see?\"\n\nAnn moved her head slightly.\n\n\"I kep' it all these years.\"\n\n\"You kep' it too long.\"\n\nHis mouth closed and his flush died away. He looked at her. The amulet,\nit seemed, had failed to work.\n\n\"Ann!\" he said.\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"Ann.\"\n\nThe conversation still hung fire.\n\n\"Ann,\" he said, made a movement with his hands that suggested appeal,\nand advanced a step.\n\nAnn shook her head more defiantly, and became defensive.\n\n\"Look here, Ann,\" said Kipps. \"I been a fool.\"\n\nThey stared into each other's miserable eyes.\n\n\"Ann,\" he said. \"I want to marry you.\"\n\nAnn clutched the table edge. \"You can't,\" she said faintly.\n\nHe made as if to approach her around the table, and she took a step that\nrestored their distance.\n\n\"I must,\" he said.\n\n\"You can't.\"\n\n\"I must. You _got_ to marry me, Ann.\"\n\n\"You can't go marrying everybody. You got to marry 'er.\"\n\n\"I shan't.\"\n\nAnn shook her head. \"You're engaged to that girl. Lady, rather. You\ncan't be engaged to me.\"\n\n\"I don't want to be engaged to you. I _been_ engaged. I want to be\nmarried to you. See? Rightaway.\"\n\nAnn turned a shade paler. \"But what d'you mean?\" she asked.\n\n\"Come right off to London and marry me. Now.\"\n\n\"What d'you mean?\"\n\nKipps became extremely lucid and earnest.\n\n\"I mean come right off and marry me now before anyone else can. _See?_\"\n\n\"In London?\"\n\n\"In London.\"\n\nThey stared at one another again. They took things for granted in the\nmost amazing way.\n\n\"I couldn't,\" said Ann. \"For one thing my month's not up for mor'n free\nweeks yet.\"\n\nThey hung before that for a moment as though it was insurmountable.\n\n\"Look 'ere, Ann! Arst to go. Arst to go!\"\n\n\"_She_ wouldn't,\" said Ann.\n\n\"Then come without arsting,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"She's keep my box----\"\n\n\"She won't.\"\n\n\"She will.\"\n\n\"She won't.\"\n\n\"You don't know 'er.\"\n\n\"Well, desh'er--let'er! LET'ER! Who cares? I'll buy you a 'undred boxes\nif you'll come.\"\n\n\"It wouldn't be right towards Her.\"\n\n\"It isn't Her you got to think about, Ann. It's me.\"\n\n\"And you 'aven't treated me properly,\" she said. \"You 'aven't treated me\nproperly, Artie. You didn't ought to 'ave----\"\n\n\"I didn't say I _'ad_,\" he interrupted, \"did I, Ann?\" he appealed. \"I\ndidn't come to arguefy. I'm all wrong. I never said I wasn't. It's yes\nor no. Me or not.... I been a fool. There! See? I been a fool. Ain't\nthat enough? I got myself all tied up with everyone and made a fool of\nmyself all around....\"\n\nHe pleaded, \"It isn't as if we didn't care for one another, Ann.\"\n\nShe seemed impassive and he resumed his discourse.\n\n\"I thought I wasn't likely ever to see you again, Ann. I reely did. It\nisn't as though I was seein' you all the time. I didn't know what I\nwanted, and I went and be'aved like a fool--jest as anyone might. I know\nwhat I want and I know what I don't want now.\"\n\n\"Ann!\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"Will you come?... Will you come?...\"\n\nSilence.\n\n\"If you don't answer me, Ann--I'm desprit--if you don't answer me now,\nif you don't say you'll come I'll go right out now----\"\n\nHe turned doorward passionately as he spoke, with his threat incomplete.\n\n\"I'll go,\" he said; \"I 'aven't a friend in the world! I been and throwed\neverything away. I don't know why I done things and why I 'aven't. All I\nknow is I can't stand nothing in the world any more.\" He choked. \"The\npier,\" he said.\n\nHe fumbled with the door latch, grumbling some inarticulate self-pity,\nas if he sought a handle, and then he had it open.\n\nClearly he was going.\n\n\"Artie!\" said Ann, sharply.\n\nHe turned about and the two hung, white and tense.\n\n\"I'll do it,\" said Ann.\n\nHis face began to work, he shut the door and came a step back to her,\nstaring; his face became pitiful and then suddenly they moved together.\n\"Artie!\" she cried, \"don't go!\" and held out her arms, weeping.\n\nThey clung close to one another....\n\n\"Oh! I _been_ so mis'bel,\" cried Kipps, clinging to this lifebuoy, and\nsuddenly his emotion, having no further serious work in hand, burst its\nway to a loud _boohoo_! His fashionable and expensive gibus flopped off\nand fell and rolled and lay neglected on the floor.\n\n\"I been so mis'bel,\" said Kipps, giving himself vent. \"Oh! I _been_ so\nmis'bel, Ann.\"\n\n\"Be quiet,\" said Ann, holding his poor, blubbering head tightly to her\nheaving shoulder, and herself all a-quiver; \"be quiet. She's there!\nListenin'. She'll 'ear you, Artie, on the stairs....\"\n\n\n§6\n\nAnn's last words when, an hour later, they parted, Mrs. and Miss Bindon\nBotting having returned very audibly upstairs, deserve a section to\nthemselves.\n\n\"I wouldn't do this for everyone, mind you,\" whispered Ann.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nTHE LABYRINTHODON\n\n\n§1\n\nYou imagine them fleeing through our complex and difficult social\nsystem, as it were, for life, first on foot and severally to the\nFolkestone Central Station; then in a first-class carriage, with Kipps'\nbag as sole chaperone to Charing Cross, and then in a four-wheeler, a\nlong, rumbling, palpitating, slow flight through the multitudinous\nswarming London streets to Sid. Kipps kept peeping out of the window.\n\"It's the next corner after this, I believe,\" he would say. For he had a\nsort of feeling that at Sid's he would be immune from the hottest\npursuits. He paid the cabman in a manner adequate to the occasion and\nturned to his prospective brother-in-law. \"Me and Ann,\" he said, \"we're\ngoing to marry.\"\n\n\"But I thought----\" began Sid.\n\nKipps motioned him towards explanations in the shop....\n\n\"It's no good, my arguing with you,\" said Sid, smiling delightedly as\nthe case unfolded. \"You done it now.\" And Masterman being apprised of\nthe nature of the affair descended slowly in a state of flushed\ncongratulation.\n\n\"I thought you might find the Higher Life a bit difficult,\" said\nMasterman, projecting a bony hand. \"But I never thought you'd have the\noriginality to clear out.... Won't the young lady of the superior\nclasses swear! Never mind--it doesn't matter anyhow.\n\n\"You were starting a climb,\" he said at dinner, \"that doesn't lead\nanywhere. You would have clambered from one refinement of vulgarity to\nanother and never got to any satisfactory top. There isn't a top. It's a\nsquirrel's cage. Things are out of joint, and the only top there is is a\nlot of blazing card playing women and betting men--you should read\nModern Society--seasoned with archbishops and officials and all that\nsort of glossy, pandering Bosh.... You'd have hung on, a disconsolate,\ndismal, little figure, somewhere up the ladder, far below even the\nmotor-car class, while your wife larked about--or fretted because she\nwasn't a bit higher than she was.... I found it all out long ago. I've\nseen women of that sort. And I don't climb any more.\"\n\n\"I often thought about what you said last time I saw you,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"I wonder what I said,\" said Masterman in parenthesis. \"Anyhow, you're\ndoing the right and sane thing, and that's a rare spectacle. You're\ngoing to marry your equal, and you're going to take your own line, quite\nindependently of what people up there, or people down there, think you\nought or ought not to do. That's about the only course one can take\nnowadays with everything getting more muddled and upside down every day.\nMake your own little world and your own house first of all, keep that\nright side up whatever you do, and marry your mate.... That, I suppose,\nis what _I_ should do--if _I_ had a mate.... But people of my sort,\nluckily for the world, don't get made in pairs. No!\n\n\"Besides----! However----\" And abruptly, taking advantage of an\ninterruption by Master Walt, he lapsed into thought.\n\nPresently he came out of his musings.\n\n\"After all,\" he said, \"there's hope.\"\n\n\"What about?\" said Sid.\n\n\"Everything,\" said Masterman.\n\n\"Where there's life there's hope,\" said Mrs. Sid. \"But none of you\naren't eating anything like you ought to.\"\n\nMasterman lifted his glass.\n\n\"Here's to Hope!\" he said, \"The Light of the World!\"\n\nSid beamed at Kipps as who should say, \"You don't meet a character like\n_this_ every dinner time.\"\n\n\"Here's to Hope,\" repeated Masterman. \"The best thing one can have. Hope\nof life--yes.\"\n\nHe imposed his movement of magnificent self-pity on them all. Even young\nWalt was impressed.\n\nThey spent the days before their marriage in a number of agreeable\nexcursions together. One day they went to Kew by steamboat, and admired\nthe house full of paintings of flowers extremely; and one day they went\nearly to have a good, long day at the Crystal Palace, and enjoyed\nthemselves very much indeed. They got there so early that nothing was\nopen inside, all the stalls were wrappered up and all the minor\nexhibitions locked and barred; they seemed the minutest creatures even\nto themselves in that enormous empty aisle and their echoing footsteps\nindecently loud. They contemplated realistic groups of plaster savages,\nand Ann thought they'd be queer people to have about. She was glad there\nwere none in this country. They meditated upon replicas of classical\nstatuary without excessive comment. Kipps said at large, it must have\nbeen a queer world then, but Ann very properly doubted if they really\nwent about like that. But the place at that early hour was really\nlonely. One began to fancy things. So they went out into the October\nsunshine of the mighty terraces, and wandered amidst miles of stucco\ntanks and about those quiet Gargantuan grounds. A great, grey emptiness\nit was, and it seemed marvellous to them, but not nearly so marvellous\nas it might have seemed. \"I never see a finer place, never,\" said Kipps,\nturning to survey the entirety of the enormous glass front with Paxton's\nvast image in the centre.\n\n\"What it must 'ave cost to build!\" said Ann, and left her sentence\neloquently incomplete.\n\nPresently they came to a region of caves and waterways, and amidst these\nwaterways strange reminders of the possibilities of the Creator. They\npassed under an arch made of a whale's jaws, and discovered amidst\nherbage, as if they were browsing or standing unoccupied and staring as\nif amazed at themselves, huge effigies of iguanodons and deinotheria and\nmastodons and suchlike cattle, gloriously done in green and gold.\n\n\"They got everything,\" said Kipps. \"Earl's Court isn't a patch on it.\"\n\nHis mind was very greatly exercised by these monsters, and he hovered\nabout them and returned to them. \"You'd wonder 'ow they ever got enough\nto eat,\" he said several times.\n\n\n§2\n\nIt was later in the day, and upon a seat in the presence of the green\nand gold Labyrinthodon that looms so splendidly above the lake, that the\nKippses fell into talk about their future. They had made a sufficient\nlunch in the palace, they had seen pictures and no end of remarkable\nthings, and that and the amber sunlight made a mood for them, quiet and\nphilosophical, a heaven mood. Kipps broke a contemplative silence with\nan abrupt illusion to one principal preoccupation. \"I shall offer an\n'pology and I shall offer 'er brother damages. If she likes to bring an\naction for Breach after that, well--I done all I can.... They can't get\nmuch out of reading my letters in court, because I didn't write none. I\ndessay a thousan' or two'll settle all that, anyhow. I ain't much\nworried about that. That don't worry me very much, Ann--No.\"\n\nAnd then, \"It's a lark, our marrying. It's curious 'ow things come\nabout. If I 'adn't run against you, where should I 'ave been now. Eh?...\nEven after we met, I didn't seem to see it like--not marrying you I\nmean--until that night I came. I didn't--reely.\"\n\n\"I didn't neither,\" said Ann, with thoughtful eyes on the water.\n\nFor a time Kipps' mind was occupied by the prettiness of her thinking\nface. A faint, tremulous network of lights reflected from the ripples of\na passing duck, played subtly over her cheek and faded away.\n\nAnn reflected. \"I s'pose things 'ad to be,\" she said.\n\nKipps mused. \"It's curious 'ow ever I got on to be engaged to 'er.\"\n\n\"She wasn't suited to you,\" said Ann.\n\n\"Suited. No fear! That's jest it. 'Ow did it come about?\"\n\n\"I expect she led you on,\" said Ann.\n\nKipps was half-minded to assent. Then he had a twinge of conscience. \"It\nwasn't that, Ann,\" he said. \"It's curious. I don't know what it was, but\nit wasn't that. I don't recollect.... No.... Life's jolly rum; that's\none thing any'ow. And I suppose I'm a rum sort of feller. I get excited\nsometimes, and then I don't seem to care _what_ I do. That's about what\nit was reely. Still----\"\n\nThey meditated, Kipps with his arms folded and pulling at his scanty\nmoustache. Presently a faint smile came over his face.\n\n\"We'll get a nice _little_ 'ouse out Ithe way.\"\n\n\"It's 'omelier than Folkestone,\" said Ann.\n\n\"Jest a nice _little_ 'ouse,\" said Kipps. \"There's Hughenden, of course.\nBut that's let. Besides being miles too big. And I wouldn't live in\nFolkestone again some'ow--not for anything.\"\n\n\"I'd like to 'ave a 'ouse of my own,\" said Ann. \"I've often thought,\nbeing in service, 'ow much I'd like to manage a 'ouse of my own.\"\n\n\"You'd know all about what the servants was up to, anyhow,\" said Kipps,\namused.\n\n\"Servants! We don't want no servants,\" said Ann, startled.\n\n\"You'll 'ave to 'ave a servant,\" said Kipps. \"If it's only to do the\n'eavy work of the 'ouse.\"\n\n\"What! and not be able 'ardly to go into my own kitchen?\" said Ann.\n\n\"You ought to 'ave a servant,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"One could easy 'ave a woman in for anything that's 'eavy,\" said Ann.\n\"Besides---- If I 'ad one of the girls one sees about nowadays I should\nwant to be taking the broom out of 'er 'and and do it all over myself.\nI'd manage better without 'er.\"\n\n\"We ought to 'ave one servant anyhow,\" said Kipps, \"else 'ow should we\nmanage if we wanted to go out together or anything like that?\"\n\n\"I might get a _young_ girl,\" said Ann, \"and bring 'er up in my own\nway.\"\n\nKipps left the matter at that and came back to the house.\n\n\"There's little 'ouses going into Hythe, just the sort we want, not too\nbig and not too small. We'll 'ave a kitching and a dining-room and a\nlittle room to sit in of a night.\"\n\n\"It mustn't be a 'ouse with a basement,\" said Ann.\n\n\"What's a basement?\"\n\n\"It's a downstairs, where there's not arf enough light and everything\ngot to be carried--up and down, up and down, all day--coals and\neverything. And it's got to 'ave a watertap and sink and things\nupstairs. You'd 'ardly believe, Artie, if you 'adn't been in service,\n'ow cruel and silly some 'ouses are built--you'd think they 'ad a spite\nagainst servants the way the stairs are made.\"\n\n\"We won't 'ave one of that sort,\" said Kipps....\n\n\"We'll 'ave a quiet little life. Now go out a bit--now come 'ome again.\nRead a book perhaps if we got nothing else to do. 'Ave old Buggins in\nfor an evening at times. 'Ave Sid down. There's bicycles----\"\n\n\"I don't fancy myself on a bicycle,\" said Ann.\n\n\"'Ave a trailer,\" said Kipps, \"and sit like a lady. I'd take you out to\nNew Romney easy as anything jest to see the old people.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't mind that,\" said Ann.\n\n\"We'll jest 'ave a sensible little 'ouse, and sensible things. No art\nor anything of that sort, nothing stuck-up or anything, but jest\nsensible. We'll be as right as anything, Ann.\"\n\n\"No socialism,\" said Ann, starting a lurking doubt.\n\n\"No socialism,\" said Kipps; \"just sensible, that's all.\"\n\n\"I dessay it's all right for them that understand it, Artie, but I don't\nagree with this socialism.\"\n\n\"I don't neither, reely,\" said Kipps. \"I can't argue about it, but it\ndon't seem real like to me. All the same Masterman's a clever fellow,\nAnn.\"\n\n\"I didn't like 'im at first, Artie, but I do now--in a way. You don't\nunderstand 'im all at once.\"\n\n\"'E's so clever,\" said Kipps. \"Arf the time I can't make out what 'e's\nup to. 'E's the cleverest chap I ever met. I never 'eard such talking.\n'E ought to write a book.... It's a rum world, Ann, when a chap like\nthat isn't 'ardly able to earn a living.\"\n\n\"It's 'is 'ealth,\" said Ann.\n\n\"I expect it is,\" said Kipps, and ceased to talk for a little while.\n\nThen he spoke with deliberation, \"Sea air might be the saving of 'im,\nAnn.\"\n\nHe glanced doubtfully at Ann, and she was looking at him even fondly.\n\n\"You think of other people a lot,\" said Ann. \"I been looking at you\nsittin' there and thinking.\"\n\n\"I suppose I do. I suppose when one's 'appy one does.\"\n\n\"_You_ do,\" said Ann.\n\n\"We shall be 'appy in that little 'ouse, Ann. Don't y' think?\"\n\nShe met his eyes and nodded.\n\n\"I seem to see it,\" said Kipps, \"sort of cosy like. 'Bout tea time and\nmuffins, kettle on the 'ob, cat on the 'earthrug. We must get a cat,\nAnn, and _you_ there. Eh?\"\n\nThey regarded each other with appreciative eyes and Kipps became\nirrelevant.\n\n\"I don't believe, Ann,\" he said, \"I 'aven't kissed you not for 'arf an\nhour. Leastways not since we was in those caves.\"\n\nFor kissing had already ceased to be a matter of thrilling adventure for\nthem.\n\nAnn shook her head. \"You be sensible and go on talking about Mr.\nMasterman,\" she said....\n\nBut Kipps had wandered to something else. \"I like the way your 'air\nturns back just there,\" he said, with an indicative finger. \"It was like\nthat, I remember, when you was a girl. Sort of wavy. I've often thought\nof it----.... 'Member when we raced that time--out be'ind the church?\"\n\nThen for a time they sat idly, each following out agreeable meditations.\n\n\"It's rum,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"What's rum?\"\n\n\"'Ow everything's 'appened,\" said Kipps. \"Who'd 'ave thought of our\nbeing 'ere like this six weeks ago?... Who'd 'ave thought of my ever\n'aving any money?\"\n\nHis eyes went to the big Labyrinthodon. He looked first carelessly and\nthen suddenly with a growing interest in its vast face.\n\n\"I'm deshed,\" he murmured. Ann became interested. He laid a hand on her\narm and pointed. Ann scrutinised the Labyrinthodon and then came around\nto Kipps' face in mute interrogation.\n\n\"Don't you see it?\" said Kipps.\n\n\"See what?\"\n\n\"'E's jest _like_ old Coote.\"\n\n\"It's extinct,\" said Ann, not clearly apprehending.\n\n\"I dessay 'e is. But 'e's jest like old Coote all the same for that.\"\n\nKipps meditated on the monstrous shapes in sight. \"I wonder 'ow all\nthese old antediluvium animals got extinct,\" he asked. \"No one couldn't\npossibly 'ave killed 'em.\"\n\n\"Why! _I_ know that,\" said Ann. \"They was overtook by the Flood....\"\n\nKipps meditated for a while. \"But I thought they had to take two of\neverything there was----\"\n\n\"Within reason they 'ad,\" said Ann....\n\nThe Kippses left it at that.\n\nThe great green and gold Labyrinthodon took no notice of their\nconversation. It gazed with its wonderful eyes over their heads into the\ninfinite--inflexibly calm. It might indeed have been Coote himself\nthere, Coote, the unassuming, cutting them dead....\n\n\n§3\n\nAnd in due course these two simple souls married, and Venus Urania, the\nGoddess of Wedded Love, the Goddess of Tolerant Kindliness or Meeting\nHalf Way, to whom all young couples should pray and offer sacrifices of\nself, who is indeed a very great and noble and kindly goddess, was in\nsome manner propitiated, and bent down and blessed them in their union.\n\n\nEND OF BOOK II.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK III\n\nKIPPSES\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE HOUSING PROBLEM\n\n\n§1\n\nHoneymoons and all things come to an end, and you see at last Mr. and\nMrs. Arthur Kipps descending upon the Hythe platform--coming to Hythe to\nfind that nice _little_ house--to realise that bright dream of a home\nthey had first talked about in the grounds of the Crystal Palace. They\nare a valiant couple, you perceive, but small, and the world is a large\nincongruous system of complex and difficult things. Kipps wears a grey\nsuit, with a wing-poke collar and a neat, smart tie. Mrs. Kipps is the\nsame bright and healthy little girl woman you saw in the marsh; not an\ninch has been added to her stature in all my voluminous narrative. Only\nnow she wears a hat.\n\nIt is a hat very unlike the hats she used to wear on her Sundays out, a\nflourishing hat with feathers and buckle and bows and things. The price\nof that hat would take many people's breath away--it cost two guineas!\nKipps chose it. Kipps paid for it. They left the shop with flushed\ncheeks and smarting eyes, glad to be out of range of the condescending\nsaleswoman.\n\n\"Artie,\" said Ann, \"you didn't ought to 'ave----\"\n\nThat was all. And you know, the hat didn't suit Ann a bit. Her clothes\ndid not suit her at all. The simple, cheap, clean brightness of her\nformer style had given place not only to this hat, but to several other\nthings in the same key. And out from among these things looked her\npretty face, the face of a wise little child--an artless wonder\nstruggling through a preposterous dignity.\n\nThey had bought that hat one day when they had gone to see the shops in\nBond street. Kipps had looked at the passers-by and it had suddenly\noccurred to him that Ann was dowdy. He had noted the hat of a very\nproud-looking lady passing in an electric brougham and had resolved to\nget Ann the nearest thing to that.\n\nThe railway porters perceived some subtle incongruity in Ann, the knot\nof cabmen in the station doorway, the two golfers and the lady with\ndaughters, who had also got out of the train. And Kipps, a little pale,\nblowing a little, not in complete possession of himself, knew that they\nnoticed her and him. And Ann----. It is hard to say just what Ann\nobserved of these things.\n\n\"'Ere!\" said Kipps to a cabman, and regretted too late a vanished \"H.\"\n\n\"I got a trunk up there,\" he said to a ticket inspector, \"marked A. K.\"\n\n\"Ask a porter,\" said the inspector, turning his back.\n\n\"Demn!\" said Kipps, not altogether inaudibly.\n\n\n§2\n\nIt is all very well to sit in the sunshine and talk of the house you\nwill have, and another altogether to achieve it. We English--all the\nworld indeed to-day--live in a strange atmosphere of neglected great\nissues, of insistent, triumphant petty things, we are given up to the\nfine littlenesses of intercourse; table manners and small correctitudes\nare the substance of our lives. You do not escape these things for long\neven by so catastrophic a proceeding as flying to London with a young\nlady of no wealth and inferior social position. The mists of noble\nemotion swirl and pass and there you are divorced from all your deities\nand grazing in the meadows under the Argus eyes of the social system,\nthe innumerable mean judgments you feel raining upon you, upon your\nclothes and bearing, upon your pretensions and movements.\n\nOur world to-day is a meanly conceived one--it is only an added meanness\nto conceal that fact. For one consequence, it has very few nice little\nhouses, such things do not come for the asking, they are not to be\nbought with money during ignoble times. Its houses are built on the\nground of monstrously rich, shabbily extortionate landowners, by poor,\nparsimonious, greedy people in a mood of elbowing competition. What can\nyou expect from such ridiculous conditions? To go househunting is to spy\nout the nakedness of this pretentious world, to see what our\ncivilization amounts to when you take away curtains and flounces and\ncarpets and all the fluster and distraction of people and fittings. It\nis to see mean plans meanly executed for mean ends, the conventions torn\naside, the secrets stripped, the substance underlying all such Chester\nCootery, soiled and worn and left.\n\nSo you see our poor, dear Kippses going to and fro, in Hythe, in\nSandgate, in Ashford and Canterbury and Deal and Dover--at last even in\nFolkestone, with \"orders to view,\" pink and green and white and yellow\norders to view, and labelled keys in Kipps' hand and frowns and\nperplexity upon their faces.... They did not clearly know what they\nwanted, but whatever it was they saw, they knew they did not want that.\nAlways they found a confusing multitude of houses they could not take,\nand none they could. Their dreams began to turn mainly on empty,\nabandoned-looking rooms, with unfaded patches of paper to mark the place\nof vanished pictures and doors that had lost their keys. They saw rooms\nfloored with boards that yawned apart and were splintered, skirtings\neloquent of the industrious mouse, kitchens with a dead black-beetle in\nthe empty cupboard, and a hideous variety of coal holes and dark\ncupboards under the stairs. They stuck their little heads through roof\ntrap-doors and gazed at disorganised ball taps, at the bleak filthiness\nof unstoppered roofs. There were occasions when it seemed to them that\nthey must be the victims of an elaborate conspiracy of house agents, so\nbleak and cheerless is a second-hand empty house in comparison with the\nhumblest of inhabited dwellings.\n\nCommonly the houses were too big. They had huge windows that demanded\nvast curtains in mitigation, countless bedrooms, acreage of stone steps\nto be cleaned, kitchens that made Ann protest. She had come so far\ntowards a proper conception of Kipps' social position as to admit the\nprospect of one servant--\"but lor'!\" she would say, \"you'd want a\nmanservant in this 'ouse.\" When the houses were not too big, then they\nwere almost invariably the product of speculative building, of that\nmultitudinous hasty building for the extravagant multitude of new births\nthat was the essential disaster of the nineteenth century. The new\nhouses Ann refused as damp, and even the youngest of these that had been\nin use showed remarkable signs of a sickly constitution, the plaster\nflaked away, the floors gaped, the paper mouldered and peeled, the doors\ndropped, the bricks scaled and the railings rusted, Nature in the form\nof spiders, earwigs, cockroaches, mice, rats, fungi and remarkable\nsmells, was already fighting her way back....\n\nAnd the plan was invariably inconvenient, invariably. All the houses\nthey saw had a common quality for which she could find no word, but for\nwhich the proper word is incivility. \"They build these 'ouses,\" she\nsaid, \"as though girls wasn't 'uman beings.\" Sid's social democracy had\ngot into her blood perhaps, and anyhow they went about discovering the\nmost remarkable inconsiderateness in the contemporary house. \"There's\nkitching stairs to go up, Artie!\" Ann would say. \"Some poor girl's got\nto go up and down, up and down, and be tired out, jest because they\nhaven't the sense to leave enough space to give their steps a proper\nrise--and no water upstairs anywhere--every drop got to be carried! It's\n'ouses like this wear girls out.\n\n\"It's 'aving 'ouses built by men, I believe, makes all the work and\ntrouble,\" said Ann....\n\nThe Kippses, you see, thought they were looking for a reasonably simple\nlittle contemporary house, but indeed they were looking either for\ndreamland or 1975 A.D. or thereabouts, and it hadn't come.\n\n\n§3\n\nBut it was a foolish thing of Kipps to begin building a house.\n\nHe did that out of an extraordinary animosity for house agents he had\nconceived.\n\nEverybody hates house agents just as everybody loves sailors. It is no\ndoubt a very wicked and unjust hatred, but the business of a novelist is\nnot ethical principle but facts. Everybody hates house agents because\nthey have everybody at a disadvantage. All other callings have a certain\namount of give and take; the house agent simply takes. All other\ncallings want you; your solicitor is afraid you may change him, your\ndoctor cannot go too far, your novelist--if only you knew it--is mutely\nabject towards your unspoken wishes--and as for your tradespeople,\nmilkmen will fight outside your front door for you, and green-grocers\ncall in tears if you discard them suddenly; but who ever heard of a\nhouse agent struggling to serve anyone? You want to get a house; you go\nto him, you dishevelled and angry from travel, anxious, enquiring; he\ncalm, clean, inactive, reticent, quietly doing nothing. You beg him to\nreduce rents, whitewash ceilings, produce other houses, combine the\nsummer house of No. 6 with the conservatory of No. 4--much he cares! You\nwant to dispose of a house; then he is just the same, serene,\nindifferent--on one occasion I remember he was picking his teeth all the\ntime he answered me. Competition is a mockery among house agents, they\nare all alike, you cannot wound them by going to the opposite office,\nyou cannot dismiss them, you can at most dismiss yourself. They are\ninvulnerably placed behind mahogany and brass, too far usually even for\na sudden swift lunge with an umbrella, and to throw away the keys they\nlend you instead of returning them is larceny and punishable as such.\n\nIt was a house agent in Dover who finally decided Kipps to build.\nKipps, with a certain faltering in his voice, had delivered his\nultimatum, no basement, not more than eight rooms, hot and cold water\nupstairs, coal cellar in the house but with intervening doors to keep\ndust from the scullery and so forth. He stood blowing. \"You'll have to\nbuild a house,\" said the house agent, sighing wearily, \"if you want all\nthat.\" It was rather for the sake of effective answer than with any\nintention at the time that Kipps mumbled, \"That's about what I shall\ndo--this goes on.\"\n\nWhereupon the house agent smiled. He smiled!\n\nWhen Kipps came to turn the thing over in his mind he was surprised to\nfind quite a considerable intention had germinated and was growing up in\nhim. After all, lots of people _have_ built houses. How could there be\nso many if they hadn't? Suppose he \"reely\" did! Then he would go to the\nhouse agent and say, \"'Ere, while you been getting me a sootable 'ouse,\nblowed if I 'aven't built one!\" Go round to all of them; all the house\nagents in Folkestone, in Dover, Ashford, Canterbury, Margate, Ramsgate,\nsaying that! Perhaps then they might be sorry. It was in the small hours\nthat he awoke to a realisation that he had made up his mind in the\nmatter.\n\n\"Ann,\" he said, \"Ann,\" and also used the sharp of his elbow.\n\nAnn was at last awakened to the pitch of an indistinct enquiry what was\nthe matter.\n\n\"I'm going to build a house, Ann.\"\n\n\"Eh?\" said Ann, suddenly, as if awake.\n\n\"Build a house.\"\n\nAnn said something incoherent about he'd better wait until the morning\nbefore he did anything of the sort, and immediately with a fine\ntrustfulness went fast asleep again.\n\nBut Kipps lay awake for a long while building his house, and in the\nmorning at breakfast he made his meaning clear. He had smarted under the\nindignities of house agents long enough, and this seemed to promise\nrevenge--a fine revenge. \"And, you know, we might reely make rather a\nnice little 'ouse out of it--like we want.\"\n\nSo resolved, it became possible for them to take a house for a year,\nwith a basement, no service lift, blackleading to do everywhere, no\nwater upstairs, no bathroom, vast sash windows to be cleaned from the\nsill, stone steps with a twist and open to the rain into the coal\ncellar, insufficient cupboards, unpaved path to the dustbin, no\nfireplace to the servant's bedroom, no end of splintery wood to\nscrub--in fact, a very typical English middle-class house. And having\nadded to this house some furniture, and a languid young person with\nunauthentic golden hair named Gwendolen, who was engaged to a\nsergeant-major and had formerly been in an hotel, having \"moved in\" and\nspent some sleepless nights varied by nocturnal explorations in search\nof burglars, because of the strangeness of being in a house for which\nthey were personally responsible, Kipps settled down for a time and\nturned himself with considerable resolution to the project of building a\nhome.\n\n\n§4\n\nAt first Kipps had gathered advice, finding an initial difficulty in how\nto begin. He went into a builder's shop at Seabrook one day, and told\nthe lady in charge that he wanted a house built; he was breathless but\nquite determined, and he was prepared to give his order there and then,\nbut she temporised with him and said her husband was out, and he left\nwithout giving his name. Also he went and talked to a man in a cart who\nwas pointed out to him by a workman as the builder of a new house near\nSaltwood, but he found him first sceptical and then overpoweringly\nsarcastic. \"I suppose you build a 'ouse every 'oliday,\" he said, and\nturned from Kipps with every symptom of contempt.\n\nAfterwards Carshot told alarming stories about builders, and shook\nKipps' expressed resolution a good deal, and then Pierce raised the\nquestion whether one ought to go in the first instance to a builder at\nall and not rather to an architect. Pierce knew a man at Ashford whose\nbrother was an architect, and as it is always better in these matters to\nget someone you know, the Kippses decided, before Pierce had gone, and\nCarshot's warning had resumed their sway, to apply to him. They did\nso--rather dubiously.\n\nThe architect who was brother of Pierce's friend appeared as a small,\nalert individual with a black bag and a cylindrical silk hat, and he sat\nat the dining-room table, with his hat and his bag exactly equidistant\nright and left of him, and maintained a demeanour of impressive\nwoodenness, while Kipps on the hearthrug, with a quaking sense of\ngigantic enterprise, vacillated answers to his enquiries. Ann held a\nwatching brief for herself, in a position she had chosen as suitable to\nthe occasion beside the corner of the carved oak sideboard. They felt,\nin a sense, at bay.\n\nThe architect began by asking for the site, and seemed a little\ndiscomposed to discover this had still to be found. \"I thought of\nbuilding just anywhere,\" said Kipps. \"I 'aven't made up my mind about\nthat yet.\" The architect remarked that he would have preferred to see\nthe site in order to know where to put what he called his \"ugly side,\"\nbut it was quite possible of course to plan a house \"in the air,\" on the\nlevel, \"simply with back and front assumed\"--if they would like to do\nthat. Kipps flushed slightly, and secretly hoping it would make no great\ndifference in the fees, said a little doubtfully that he thought that\nwould be all right.\n\nThe architect then marked off as it were the first section of his\nsubject, with a single dry cough, opened his bag, took out a spring tape\nmeasure, some hard biscuits, a metal flask, a new pair of dogskin\ngloves, a clockwork motor-car partially wrapped in paper, a bunch of\nviolets, a paper of small brass screws, and finally a large, distended\nnotebook; he replaced the other objects carefully, opened his notebook,\nput a pencil to his lips and said: \"And what accommodation will you\nrequire?\" To which Ann, who had followed his every movement with the\nclosest attention and a deepening dread, replied with the violent\nsuddenness of one who has long lain in wait, \"Cubbuds!\"\n\n\"Anyhow,\" she added, catching her husband's eye.\n\nThe architect wrote it down.\n\n\"And how many rooms?\" he said, coming to secondary matters.\n\nThe young people regarded one another. It was dreadfully like giving an\norder.\n\n\"How many bedrooms, for example?\" asked the architect.\n\n\"One?\" suggested Kipps, inclined now to minimise at any cost.\n\n\"There's Gwendolen,\" said Ann.\n\n\"Visitors perhaps,\" said the architect, and temperately, \"You never\nknow.\"\n\n\"Two, p'raps?\" said Kipps. \"We don't want no more than a _little_ 'ouse,\nyou know.\"\n\n\"But the merest shooting-box----,\" said the architect.\n\nThey got to six; he beat them steadily from bedroom to bedroom, the word\n\"nursery\" played across their imaginative skies--he mentioned it as the\nremotest possibility--and then six being reluctantly conceded, Ann came\nforward to the table, sat down and delivered herself of one of her\nprepared conditions: \"'Ot and cold water,\" she said, \"laid on to each\nroom--any'ow.\"\n\nIt was an idea long since acquired from Sid.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Kipps, on the hearthrug, \"'Ot and cold water laid on to each\nbedroom--we've settled on that.\"\n\nIt was the first intimation to the architect that he had to deal with a\ncouple of exceptional originality, and as he had spent the previous\nafternoon in finding three large houses in _The Builder_, which he\nintended to combine into an original and copyright design of his own, he\nnaturally struggled against these novel requirements. He enlarged on the\nextreme expensiveness of plumbing, on the extreme expensiveness of\neverything not already arranged for in his scheme, and only when Ann\ndeclared she'd as soon not have the house as not have her requirements,\nand Kipps, blenching the while, had said he didn't mind what a thing\ncost him so long as he got what he wanted, did he allow a kindred\noriginality of his own to appear beneath the acquired professionalism of\nhis methods. He dismissed their previous talk with his paragraphic\ncough. \"Of course,\" he said, \"if you don't mind being\nunconventional----\"\n\nHe explained that he had been thinking of a Queen Anne style of\narchitecture (Ann directly she heard her name shook her head at Kipps in\nan aside) so far as the exterior went. For his own part, he said, he\nliked to have the exterior of a house in a style, not priggishly in a\nstyle, but mixed, with one style uppermost, and the gables and dormers\nand casements of the Queen Anne style, with a little rough cast and sham\ntimbering here and there and perhaps a bit of an overhang diversified a\nhouse and made it interesting. The advantages of what he called a Queen\nAnne style was that it had such a variety of features.... Still, if they\nwere prepared to be unconventional it could be done. A number of houses\nwere now built in the unconventional style and were often very pretty.\nIn the unconventional style one frequently had what perhaps he might\ncall Internal Features, for example, an Old English oak staircase and\ngallery. White rough-cast and green paint were a good deal favoured in\nhouses of this type.\n\nHe indicated that this excursus on style was finished by a momentary use\nof his cough, and reopened his notebook, which he had closed to wave\nabout in a moment of descriptive enthusiasm while expatiating on the\nunbridled wealth of External Features associated with Queen Anne. \"Six\nbedrooms,\" he said, moistening his pencil. \"One with barred windows\nsuitable for a nursery if required.\"\n\nKipps endorsed this huskily and reluctantly.\n\nThere followed a most interesting discussion upon house building, in\nwhich Kipps played a minor part. They passed from bedrooms to the\nkitchen and scullery, and there Ann displayed an intelligent\nexactingness that won the expressed admiration of the architect. They\nwere particularly novel upon the position of the coal cellar, which Ann\nheld to be altogether too low in the ordinary house, necessitating much\nheavy carrying. They dismissed as impracticable the idea of having coal\ncellar and kitchen at the top of the house, because that would involve\ncarrying all the coal through the house, and therewith much subsequent\ncleaning, and for a time they dealt with a conception of a coal cellar\non the ground floor with a light staircase running up outside to an\nexterior shoot. \"It might be made a Feature,\" said the architect, a\nlittle doubtfully, jotting down a note of it. \"It would be apt to get\nblack, you know.\"\n\nThence they passed to the alternative of service lifts, and then by an\ninspiration of the architect to the possibilities of gas heating. Kipps\ndid a complicated verbal fugue on the theme, \"gas heating heats the\nair,\" with variable aspirates; he became very red and was lost to the\ndiscussion altogether for a time, though his lips kept silently on.\n\nSubsequently the architect wrote to say that he found in his notebook\nvery full and explicit directions for bow windows to all rooms, for\nbedrooms, for water supply, lift, height of stairs and absence of twists\ntherein, for a well-ventilated kitchen twenty feet square, with two\ndressers and a large box-window seat, for scullery and outhouses and\noffices, but nothing whatever about drawing-room, dining-room, library\nor study, or approximate cost, and he awaited further instructions. He\npresumed there would be a breakfast-room, dining-room, drawing-room,\nand study for Mr. Kipps, at least that was his conception, and the\nyoung couple discussed this matter long and ardently.\n\nAnn was distinctly restrictive in this direction. \"I don't see what you\nwant a drawin'-room and a dinin' _and_ a kitchen for. If we was going to\nlet in summer--well and good. But we're not going to let. Consequently\nwe don't want so many rooms. Then there's a 'all. What use is a 'all? It\nonly makes work. And a study!\"\n\nKipps had been humming and stroking his moustache since he had read the\narchitect's letter. \"I think I'd like a little bit of a study--not a big\none, of course, but one with a desk and book-shelves, like there was in\nHughenden. I'd like that.\"\n\nIt was only after they had talked to the architect again and seen how\nscandalised he was at the idea of not having a drawing-room that they\nconsented to that Internal Feature. They consented to please him. \"But\nwe shan't never use it,\" said Ann.\n\nKipps had his way about a study. \"When I get that study,\" said Kipps, \"I\nshall do a bit of reading I've long wanted to do. I shall make a habit\nof going in there and reading something an hour every day. There's\nShakespeare and a lot of things a man like me ought to read. Besides, we\ngot to 'ave _somewhere_ to put the Encyclopædia. I've always thought a\nstudy was about what I've wanted all along. You can't 'elp reading if\nyou got a study. If you 'aven't, there's nothing for it, so far's _I_\ncan see, but treshy novels.\"\n\nHe looked down at Ann and was surprised to see a joyless thoughtfulness\nupon her face.\n\n\"Fency, Ann!\" he said, not too buoyantly, \"'aving a little 'ouse of our\nown!\"\n\n\"It won't be a little 'ouse,\" said Ann, \"not with all them rooms.\"\n\n\n§5\n\nAny lingering doubt in that matter was dispelled when it came to plans.\n\nThe architect drew three sets of plans on a transparent bluish sort of\npaper that smelt abominably. He painted them very nicely; brick red and\nginger, and arsenic green and a leaden sort of blue, and brought them\nover to show our young people. The first set were very simple, with\npractically no External Features--\"a plain style,\" he said it was--but\nit looked a big sort of house nevertheless; the second had such extras\nas a conservatory, bow windows of various sorts, one rough-cast gable\nand one half-timbered ditto in plaster, and a sort of overhung verandah,\nand was much more imposing; and the third was quite fungoid with\nExternal Features, and honeycombed with Internal ones; it was, he said,\n\"practically a mansion,\" and altogether a very noble fruit of the\ncreative mind of man. It was, he admitted, perhaps almost too good for\nHythe; his art had run away with him and produced a modern mansion in\nthe \"best Folkestone style\"; it had a central hall with a staircase, a\nMoorish gallery, and Tudor stained glass window, crenelated battlements\nto the leading over the portico, an octagonal bulge with octagonal bay\nwindows, surmounted by an oriental dome of metal, lines of yellow bricks\nto break up the red and many other richnesses and attractions. It was\nthe sort of house, ornate and in its dignified way voluptuous, that a\ncity magnate might build, but it seemed excessive to the Kippses. The\nfirst plan had seven bedrooms, the second eight, the third eleven; that\nhad, the architect explained, \"worked in\" as if they were pebbles in a\nmountaineer's boat.\n\n\"They're big 'ouses,\" said Ann directly the elevations were unrolled.\n\nKipps listened to the architect with round eyes and an exuberant caution\nin his manner, anxious not to commit himself further than he had done to\nthe enterprise, and the architect pointed out the Features and other\nobjects of interest with the scalpel belonging to a pocket manicure set\nthat he carried. Ann watched Kipps' face and communicated with him\nfurtively over the architect's head. \"_Not so big_,\" said Ann's lips.\n\n\"It's a bit big for what I meant,\" said Kipps, with a reassuring eye on\nAnn.\n\n\"You won't think it big when you see it up,\" said the architect; \"you\ntake my word for that.\"\n\n\"We don't want no more than six bedrooms,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"Make this one a box-room, then,\" said the architect.\n\nA feeling of impotence silenced Kipps for a time.\n\n\"Now which,\" said the architect, spreading them out, \"is it to be?\"\n\nHe flattened down the plans of the most ornate mansion to show it to\nbetter effect.\n\nKipps wanted to know how much each would cost \"at the outside,\" which\nled to much alarmed signalling from Ann. But the architect could\nestimate only in the most general way.\n\nThey were not really committed to anything when the architect went away;\nKipps had promised to think it over, that was all.\n\n\"We can't 'ave that 'ouse,\" said Ann.\n\n\"They're miles too big--all of them,\" agreed Kipps.\n\n\"You'd want----. Four servants wouldn't be 'ardly enough,\" said Ann.\n\nKipps went to the hearthrug and spread himself. His tone was almost\noffhand. \"Nex' time 'e comes,\" said Kipps, \"I'll 'splain to him. It\nisn't at all the sort of thing we want. It's--it's a misunderstanding.\nYou got no occasion to be anxious 'bout it, Ann.\"\n\n\"I don't see much good reely in building an 'ouse at all,\" said Ann.\n\n\"Oo, we _got_ to build a 'ouse now we begun,\" said Kipps. \"But, now,\nsupposin' we 'ad----.\"\n\nHe spread out the most modest of the three plans and scratched his\ncheek.\n\n\n§6\n\nIt was unfortunate that old Kipps came over the next day.\n\nOld Kipps always produced peculiar states of mind in his nephew, a rash\nassertiveness, a disposition towards display unlike his usual self.\nThere had been great difficulty in reconciling both these old people to\nthe Pornick mesalliance, and at times the controversy echoed in old\nKipps' expressed thoughts. This perhaps it was, and no ignoble vanity,\nthat set the note of florid successfulness going in Kipps' conversation\nwhenever his uncle appeared. Mrs. Kipps was, as a matter of fact, not\nreconciled at all, she had declined all invitations to come over on the\n'bus, and was a taciturn hostess on the one occasion when the young\npeople called at the toy shop _en route_ for Mrs. Pornick. She displayed\na tendency to sniff that was clearly due to pride rather than catarrh,\nand except for telling Ann she hoped she would not feel too \"stuck up\"\nabout her marriage, confined her conversation to her nephew or the\ninfinite. The call was a brief one and made up chiefly of pauses, no\nrefreshment was offered or asked for, and Ann departed with a singularly\nhigh colour. For some reason she would not call at the toy shop when\nthey found themselves again in New Romney.\n\nBut old Kipps, having adventured over and tried the table of the new\n_menage_ and found it to his taste, showed many signs of softening\ntowards Ann. He came again and then again. He would come over by the\n'bus, and except when his mouth was absolutely full, he would give his\nnephew one solid and continuous mass of advice of the most subtle and\ndisturbing description, until it was time to toddle back to the High\nStreet for the afternoon 'bus. He would walk with him to the sea front,\nand commence _pourparlers_ with boatmen for the purchase of one of their\nboats. \"You ought to keep a boat of your own,\" he said, though Kipps was\na singularly poor sailor--or he would pursue a plan that was forming in\nhis mind in which he should own and manage what he called \"weekly\"\nproperty in the less conspicuous streets of Hythe. The cream of that was\nto be a weekly collection of rents in person, the nearest approach to\nfeudal splendour left in this democratised country. He gave no hint of\nthe source of the capital he designed for this investment and at times\nit would appear he intended it as an occupation for his nephew rather\nthan himself.\n\nBut there remained something in his manner towards Ann; in the glances\nof scrutiny he gave her unawares, that kept Kipps alertly expansive\nwhenever he was about. And in all sorts of ways. It was on account of\nold Kipps, for example, that our Kipps plunged one day, a golden plunge,\nand brought home a box of cummerbundy ninepenny cigars, and substituted\nblue label old Methusaleh Four Stars for the common and generally\nsatisfactory white brand.\n\n\"Some of this is whiskey, my boy,\" said old Kipps when he tasted it,\nsmacking critical lips.\n\n\"Saw a lot of young officer fellers coming along,\" said old Kipps. \"You\nought to join the volunteers, my boy, and get to know a few.\"\n\n\"I dessay I shall,\" said Kipps. \"Later.\"\n\n\"They'd make you an officer, you know, 'n no time. They want officers,\"\nsaid old Kipps. \"It isn't everyone can afford it. They'd be regular glad\nto 'ave you.... Ain't bort a dog yet?\"\n\n\"Not yet, uncle. 'Ave a segar?\"\n\n\"Not a moty car?\"\n\n\"Not yet, uncle.\"\n\n\"There's no 'urry 'bout that. And don't get one of these 'ere trashy\ncheap ones when you do get it, my boy. Get one as'll last a lifetime....\nI'm surprised you don't 'ire a bit more.\"\n\n\"Ann don't seem to fency a moty car,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"Ah!\" said old Kipps, \"I expect not,\" and glanced a comment at the door.\n\"She ain't used to going out,\" he said. \"More at 'ome indoors.\"\n\n\"Fact is,\" said Kipps, hastily, \"we're thinking of building a 'ouse.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't do that, my boy,\" began old Kipps, but his nephew was\nrouting in the cheffonier drawer amidst the plans. He got them in time\nto check some further comment on Ann. \"Um,\" said the old gentleman, a\nlittle impressed by the extraordinary odour and the unusual transparency\nof the tracing paper Kipps put into his hands. \"Thinking of building a\n'ouse, are you?\"\n\nKipps began with the most modest of the three projects.\n\nOld Kipps read slowly through his silver-rimmed spectacles: \"Plan of a\n'ouse for Arthur Kipps Esquire--Um.\"\n\nHe didn't warm to the project all at once, and Ann drifted into the room\nto find him still scrutinising the architect's proposals a little\ndoubtfully.\n\n\"We couldn't find a decent 'ouse anywhere,\" said Kipps, leaning against\nthe table and assuming an offhand note. \"I didn't see why we shouldn't\nrun up one for ourselves.\" Old Kipps could not help liking the tone of\nthat.\n\n\"We thought we might see----\" said Ann.\n\n\"It's a spekerlation, of course,\" said old Kipps, and held the plan at a\ndistance of two feet or more from his glasses and frowned. \"This isn't\nexactly the 'ouse I should expect you to 'ave thought of, though,\" he\nsaid. \"Practically it's a villa. It's the sort of 'ouse a bank clerk\nmight 'ave. 'Tisn't what I should call a gentleman's 'ouse, Artie.\"\n\n\"It's plain, of course,\" said Kipps, standing beside his uncle and\nlooking down at this plan, which certainly did seem a little less\nmagnificent now than it had at the first encounter.\n\n\"You mustn't 'ave it too plain,\" said old Kipps.\n\n\"If it's comfortable----,\" Ann hazarded.\n\nOld Kipps glanced at her over his spectacles. \"You ain't comfortable,\nmy gal, in this world, not if you don't live up to your position,\" so\nputting compactly into contemporary English that fine old phrase,\n_noblesse oblige_. \"A 'ouse of this sort is what a retired tradesman\nmight 'ave, or some little whippersnapper of a s'liciter. But _you_----\"\n\n\"Course that isn't the o'ny plan,\" said Kipps, and tried the middle one.\n\nBut it was the third one which won over old Kipps. \"Now that's a\n_'ouse_, my boy,\" he said at the sight of it.\n\nAnn came and stood just behind her husband's shoulder while old Kipps\nexpanded upon the desirability of the larger scheme. \"You ought to 'ave\na billiard-room,\" he said; \"I don't see that, but all the rest's all\nright. A lot of these 'ere officers 'ere 'ud be glad of a game of\nbilliards.\"...\n\n\"What's all these dots?\" said old Kipps.\n\n\"S'rubbery,\" said Kipps. \"Flow'ing s'rubs.\"\n\n\"There's eleven bedrooms in that 'ouse,\" said Ann. \"It's a bit of a lot,\nain't it, uncle?\"\n\n\"You'll want 'em, my girl. As you get on, you'll be 'aving visitors.\nFriends of your 'usband, p'raps, from the School of Musketry, what you\nwant 'im to get on with. You can't never tell.\"\n\n\"If we 'ave a great s'rubbery,\" Ann ventured, \"we shall 'ave to keep a\ngardener.\"\n\n\"If you don't 'ave a s'rubbery,\" said old Kipps, with a note of patient\nreasoning, \"'ow are you to prevent every jackanapes that goes by,\nstarin' into your drorin'-room winder--p'raps when you get someone a\nbit special to entertain?\"\n\n\"We ain't _used_ to a s'rubbery,\" said Ann, mulishly; \"we get on very\nwell 'ere.\"\n\n\"It isn't what you're used to,\" said old Kipps, \"it's what you ought to\n'ave _now_.\" And with that Ann dropped out of the discussion.\n\n\"Study and lib'ry,\" old Kipps read. \"That's right. I see a Tantalus the\nother day over Brookland, the very thing for a gentleman's study. I'll\ntry and get over and bid for it.\"...\n\nBy 'bus time old Kipps was quite enthusiastic about the house building,\nand it seemed to be definitely settled that the largest plan was the one\ndecided upon. But Ann had said nothing further in the matter.\n\n\n§7\n\nWhen Kipps returned from seeing his uncle into the 'bus--there always\nseemed a certain doubt whether that portly figure would go into the\nlittle red \"Tip-Top\" box--he found Ann still standing by the table,\nlooking with an expression of comprehensive disapproval at the three\nplans.\n\n\"There don't seem much the matter with uncle,\" said Kipps, assuming the\nhearthrug, \"spite of 'is 'eartburn. 'E 'opped up them steps like a\nbird.\"\n\nAnn remained staring at the plans.\n\n\"You don't like them plans?\" hazarded Kipps.\n\n\"No, I don't, Artie.\"\n\n\"We got to build somethin' now.\"\n\n\"But--it's a gentleman's 'ouse, Artie!\"\n\n\"It's--it's a decent size, o' course.\"\n\nKipps took a flirting look at the drawing and went to the window.\n\n\"Look at the cleanin'. Free servants'll be lost in that 'ouse, Artie.\"\n\n\"We must _'ave_ servants,\" said Kipps.\n\nAnn looked despondently at her future residence.\n\n\"We got to keep up our position, any'ow,\" said Kipps, turning towards\nher. \"It stands to reason, Ann, we got a position. Very well! I can't\n'ave you scrubbin' floors. You got to 'ave a servant and you got to\nmanage a 'ouse. You wouldn't 'ave me ashamed----\"\n\nAnn opened her lips and did not speak.\n\n\"What?\" asked Kipps.\n\n\"Nothing,\" said Ann, \"only I did want it to be a _little_ 'ouse, Artie.\nI wanted it to be a 'andy little 'ouse, jest for us.\"\n\nKipps' face was suddenly flushed and mulish. He took up the curiously\nsmelling tracings again. \"I'm not a-going to be looked down upon,\" he\nsaid. \"It's not only Uncle I'm thinking of!\"\n\nAnn stared at him.\n\nKipps went on. \"I won't 'ave that young Walshingham f'r instance,\nsneering and sniffling at me. Making out as if we was all wrong. I see\n'im yesterday.... Nor Coote neether. I'm as good--we're as good.\nWhatever's 'appened.\"\n\nSilence and the rustle of plans.\n\nHe looked up and saw Ann's eyes bright with tears. For a moment the two\nstared at one another.\n\n\"We'll 'ave the big 'ouse,\" said Ann, with a gulp. \"I didn't think of\nthat, Artie.\"\n\nHer aspect was fierce and resolute, and she struggled with emotion.\n\"We'll 'ave the big 'ouse,\" she repeated. \"They shan't say I dragged you\ndown wiv' me--none of them shan't say that. I've thought--I've always\nbeen afraid of that.\"\n\nKipps looked again at the plan, and suddenly the grand house had become\nvery grand indeed. He blew.\n\n\"No, Artie, none of them shan't say that,\" and with something blind in\nher motions Ann tried to turn the plan round to her....\n\nAfter all, Kipps thought there might be something to say for the milder\nproject.... But he had gone so far that now he did not know how to say\nit.\n\nAnd so the plans went out to the builders, and in a little while Kipps\nwas committed to two thousand five hundred pounds worth of building. But\nthen, you know, he had an income of twelve hundred a year.\n\n\n§8\n\nIt is extraordinary what minor difficulties cluster about house\nbuilding.\n\n\"I say, Ann,\" remarked Kipps one day, \"we shall 'ave to call this little\n'ouse by a name. I was thinking of 'Ome Cottage. But I dunno whether\n'Ome Cottage is quite the thing like. All these little fishermen's\nplaces are called Cottages.\"\n\n\"I like cottage,\" said Ann.\n\n\"It's got eleven bedrooms, d'see,\" said Kipps. \"I don't see 'ow you can\ncall it a cottage with more bedrooms than four. Prop'ly speaking, it's a\nLarge Villa. Prop'ly, it's almost a Big 'Ouse. Leastways a 'Ouse.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Ann, \"if you must call it Villa--Home Villa.... I wish it\nwasn't.\"\n\nKipps meditated.\n\n\"'Ow about Eureka Villa?\" he said, raising his voice.\n\n\"What's Eureka?\"\n\n\"It's a name,\" he said. \"There used to be Eureka Dress Fasteners.\nThere's lots of names, come to think of it, to be got out of a shop.\nThere's Pyjama Villa. I remember that in the hosiery. No, come to think,\nthat wouldn't do. But Maraposa--sort of oatmeal cloth, that was.... No!\nEureka's better.\"\n\nAnn meditated. \"It seems silly like to 'ave a name that don't mean\nmuch.\"\n\n\"Perhaps it does,\" said Kipps. \"Though it's what people 'ave to do.\"\n\nHe became meditative. \"I got it!\" he cried.\n\n\"Not Oreeka!\" said Ann.\n\n\"No! There used to be a 'ouse at Hastings opposite our school--quite a\nbig 'ouse it was--St. Ann's. Now _that_----\"\n\n\"No,\" said Mrs. Kipps with decision. \"Thanking you kindly, but I don't\nhave no butcher boys making game of me.\"...\n\nThey consulted Carshot, who suggested after some days of reflection,\nWaddycombe, as a graceful reminder of Kipps' grandfather; Old Kipps, who\nwas for \"Upton Manor House,\" where he had once been second footman;\nBuggins, who favoured either a stern simple number, \"Number One\"--if\nthere were no other houses there, or something patriotic, as \"Empire\nVilla,\" and Pierce, who inclined to \"Sandringham\"; but in spite of all\nthis help they were still undecided when, amidst violent perturbations\nof the soul, and after the most complex and difficult hagglings,\nwranglings, fears, muddles and goings to and fro, Kipps became the\njoyless owner of a freehold plot of three-eighths of an acre, and saw\nthe turf being wheeled away from the site that should one day be his\nhome.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE CALLERS\n\n\n§1\n\nThe Kippses sat at their midday dinner-table and amidst the vestiges of\nrhubarb pie, and discussed two postcards the one o'clock post had\nbrought. It was a rare bright moment of sunshine in a wet and windy day\nin the March that followed their marriage. Kipps was attired in a suit\nof brown, with a tie of fashionable green, while Ann wore one of those\npicturesque loose robes that are usually associated with sandals and\nadvanced ideas. But there weren't any sandals on Ann or any advanced\nideas, and the robe had come quite recently through the counsels of Mrs.\nSid Pornick. \"It's Artlike,\" said Kipps, giving way. \"It's more\ncomfortable,\" said Ann. The room looked out by French windows upon a\nlittle patch of green and the Hythe parade. The parade was all shiny wet\nwith rain, and the green-grey sea tumbled and tumbled between parade and\nsky.\n\nThe Kipps' furniture, except for certain chromo lithographs of Kipps'\nincidental choice that struck a quiet note amidst the wall paper, had\nbeen tactfully forced by an expert salesman, and it was in a style of\nmediocre elegance. There was a sideboard of carved oak that had only one\nfault, it reminded Kipps at times of wood-carving, and its panel of\nbevelled glass now reflected the back of his head. On its shelf were two\nbooks from Parsons' Library, each with a \"place\" marked by a slip of\npaper; neither of the Kippses could have told you the title of either\nbook they read, much less the author's name. There was an ebonised\novermantel set with phials and pots of brilliant colour, each duplicated\nby looking-glass, and bearing also a pair of Chinese jars made in\nBirmingham, a wedding present from Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Pornick, and\nseveral sumptuous Japanese fans. And there was a Turkey carpet of great\nrichness. In addition to these modern exploits of Messrs. Bunt and\nBubble, there were two inactive tall clocks, whose extreme dilapidation\nappealed to the connoisseur; a terrestrial and a celestial globe, the\nlatter deeply indented; a number of good old iron moulded and dusty\nbooks, and a stuffed owl wanting one (easily replaceable) glass eye,\nobtained by the exertions of Uncle Kipps. The table equipage was as much\nas possible like Mrs. Bindon Botting's, only more costly, and in\naddition there were green and crimson wine glasses--though the Kippses\nnever drank wine.\n\nKipps turned to the more legible of his two postcards again.\n\n\"'Unavoidably prevented from seein' me to-day,' 'e says. I like 'is\ncheek. After I give 'im 'is start and everything.\"\n\nHe blew.\n\n\"'E certainly treats you a bit orf'and,\" said Ann.\n\nKipps gave vent to his dislike of young Walshingham. \"He's getting too\nbig for 'is britches,\" he said. \"I'm beginning to wish she _'ad_ brought\nan action for breach. Ever since _'e_ said she wouldn't, 'e's seemed to\nthink I've got no right to spend my own money.\"\n\n\"'E's never liked your building the 'ouse,\" said Ann.\n\nKipps displayed wrath. \"What the goodness 'as it got to do wiv' 'im?\"\n\n\"Overman indeed!\" he added. \"Overmantel!... 'E trys that on with me,\nI'll tell 'im something 'e won't like.\"\n\nHe took up the second card. \"Dashed if I can read a word of it. I can\njest make out Chit-low at the end and that's all.\"\n\nHe scrutinised it. \"It's like someone in a fit writing. This here might\nbe W H A T--_what_. P R I C E--_I_ got it! What price Harry now? It was\na sort of saying of 'is. I expect 'e's either done something or not done\nsomething towards starting that play, Ann.\"\n\n\"I expect that's about it,\" said Ann.\n\nKipps grunted with effort. \"I can't read the rest,\" he said at last,\n\"nohow.\"\n\nA thoroughly annoying post. He pitched the card on the table, stood up\nand went to the window, where Ann, after a momentary reconnaisance at\nChitterlow's hieroglyphics, came to join him.\n\n\"Wonder what I shall do this afternoon,\" said Kipps, with his hands deep\nin his pockets.\n\nHe produced and lit a cigarette.\n\n\"Go for a walk, I s'pose,\" said Ann.\n\n\"I _been_ for a walk this morning.\n\n\"S'pose I must go for another,\" he added, after an interval.\n\nThey regarded the windy waste of sea for a space.\n\n\"Wonder why it is 'e won't see me,\" said Kipps, returning to the problem\nof young Walshingham. \"It's all lies about 'is being too busy.\"\n\nAnn offered no solution.\n\n\"Rain again!\" said Kipps, as the lash of the little drops stung the\nwindow.\n\n\"Oo, bother!\" said Kipps, \"you got to do something. Look 'ere, Ann! I'll\ngo orf for a reg'lar tramp through the rain, up by Saltwood, 'round by\nNewington, over the camp, and so 'round and back, and see 'ow they're\ngetting on about the 'ouse. See? And look 'ere! you get Gwendolen to go\nout a bit before I come back. If it's still rainy, she can easy go\n'round and see 'er sister. Then we'll 'ave a bit of tea, with tea\ncake--all buttery, see? Toce it ourselves, p'raps. Eh?\"\n\n\"I dessay I can find something to do in the 'ouse,\" said Ann,\nconsidering. \"You'll take your mackintosh and leggin's, I s'pose. You'll\nget wet without your mackintosh over those roads.\"\n\n\"Righ-O,\" said Kipps, and went to ask Gwendolen for his brown leggings\nand his other pair of boots.\n\n\n§2\n\nThings conspired to demoralise Kipps that afternoon.\n\nWhen he got outside the house everything looked so wet under the drive\nof the southwester that he abandoned the prospect of the clay lanes\ntowards Newington altogether, and turned east to Folkestone along the\nSeabrook digue. His mackintosh flapped about him, the rain stung his\ncheek; for a time he felt a hardy man. And then as abruptly the rain\nceased and the wind fell, and before he was through Sandgate High Street\nit was a bright spring day. And there was Kipps in his mackintosh and\nsqueaky leggings, looking like a fool!\n\nInertia carried him another mile to the Leas, and there the whole world\nwas pretending there had never been such a thing as rain--ever. There\nwasn't a cloud in the sky; except for an occasional puddle the asphalt\npaths looked as dry as a bone. A smartly dressed man in one of those\novercoats that look like ordinary cloth and are really most deceitfully\nand unfairly waterproof, passed him and glanced at the stiff folds of\nhis mackintosh. \"Demn!\" said Kipps. His mackintosh swished against his\nleggings, his leggings piped and whistled over his boot-tops.\n\n\"Why do I never get anything right?\" Kipps asked of a bright implacable\nuniverse.\n\nNice old ladies passed him, refined people with tidy umbrellas, bright,\nbeautiful, supercilious-looking children. Of course! the right thing for\nsuch a day as this was a light overcoat and an umbrella. A child might\nhave known that. He had them at home, but how could one explain that? He\ndecided to turn down by the Harvey monument and escape through Clifton\nGardens towards the hills. And thereby he came upon Coote.\n\nHe already felt the most abject and propitiatory of social outcasts when\nhe came upon Coote, and Coote finished him. He passed within a yard of\nCoote. Coote was coming along towards the Leas, and when Kipps saw him\nhis legs hesitated about their office and he seemed to himself to\nstagger about all over the footpath. At the sight of him Coote started\nvisibly. Then a sort of _rigor vitae_ passed through his frame, his jaw\nprotruded and errant bubbles of air seemed to escape and run about\nbeneath his loose skin. (Seemed I say--I am perfectly well aware that\nthere is really connective tissue in Coote as in all of us to prevent\nanything of the sort.) His eyes fixed themselves on the horizon and\nglazed. As he went by Kipps could hear his even, resolute breathing. He\nwent by, and Kipps staggered on into a universe of dead cats and dust\nheaps, rind and ashes--_cut!_ Cut!\n\nIt was part of the inexorable decrees of Providence that almost\nimmediately afterwards the residuum of Kipps had to pass a very, very\nlong and observant-looking girls' school.\n\nKipps recovered consciousness again on the road between Shorncliffe\nStation and Cheriton, though he cannot remember, indeed to this day he\nhas never attempted to remember, how he got there. And he was back at\ncertain thoughts suggested by his last night's novel reading, that\nlinked up directly with the pariah-like emotions of these last\nencounters. The novel lay at home upon the cheffonier; it was one of\nsociety and politics--there is no need whatever to give the title or\nname the author--written with a heavy-handed thoroughness that overrode\nany possibility of resistance on the part of the Kipps mind. It had\ncrushed all his poor little edifice of ideals, his dreams of a sensible,\nunassuming existence, of snugness, of not caring what people said and\nall the rest of it, to dust; it had reinstated, squarely and strongly\nagain, the only proper conception of English social life. There was a\ncharacter in the book who trifled with Art, who was addicted to reading\nFrench novels, who dressed in a loose, careless way, who was a sorrow to\nhis dignified, silvery-haired, politico-religious mother, and met the\nadmonitions of bishops with a front of brass. He treated a \"nice girl,\"\nto whom they had got him engaged, badly; he married beneath him--some\nlow thing or other. And sank....\n\nKipps could not escape the application of the case. He was enabled to\nsee how this sort of thing looked to decent people; he was enabled to\ngauge the measure of the penalties due. His mind went from that to the\nfrozen marble of Coote's visage.\n\n_He deserved it!_...\n\nThat day of remorse! Later it found him coming upon the site of his\nbuilding operations and surveying it in a mood near to despair, his\nmackintosh over his arm.\n\nHardly anyone was at work that day--no doubt the builders were having\nhim in some obscure manner--and the whole place seemed a dismal and\ndepressing litter. The builder's shed, black-lettered WILKINS, BUILDER,\nHYTHE, looked like a stranded thing amidst a cast-up disorder of\nwheelbarrows and wheeling planks, and earth and sand and bricks. The\nfoundations of the walls were trenches full of damp concrete, drying in\npatches; the rooms--it was incredible they could ever be rooms--were\nshaped out as squares and oblongs of coarse, wet grass and sorrel. They\nlooked absurdly small--dishonestly small. What could you expect? Of\ncourse the builders were having him, building too small, building all\nwrong, using bad materials! Old Kipps had told him a wrinkle or two. The\nbuilders were having him, young Walshingham was having him, everybody\nwas having him! They were having him and laughing at him because they\ndidn't respect him. They didn't respect him because he couldn't do\nthings right. Who could respect him?...\n\nHe was an outcast, he had no place in the world. He had had his chance\nin the world and turned his back on it. He had \"behaved badly\"--that was\nthe phrase....\n\nHere a great house was presently to arise, a house to be paid for, a\nhouse neither he nor Ann could manage--with eleven bedrooms, and four\ndisrespectful servants having them all the time!\n\nHow had it all happened exactly?\n\nThis was the end of his great fortune! What a chance he had had! If he\nhad really carried out his first intentions and stuck to things, how\nmuch better everything might have been! If he had got a tutor--that had\nbeen in his mind originally--a special sort of tutor to show him\neverything right; a tutor for gentlemen of neglected education. If he\nhad read more and attended better to what Coote had said!\n\nCoote, who had just cut him!...\n\nEleven bedrooms! What had possessed him? No one would ever come to see\nthem, no one would ever have anything to do with them. Even his aunt cut\nhim! His uncle treated him with a half-contemptuous sufferance. He had\nnot a friend worth counting in the world! Buggins, Carshot, Pierce; shop\nassistants! The Pornicks--a low socialist lot! He stood among his\nfoundations like a lonely figure among ruins; he stood among the ruins\nof his future, and owned himself a foolish and mistaken man. He saw\nhimself and Ann living out their shameful lives in this great crazy\nplace--as it would be--with everybody laughing secretly at them and\ntheir eleven rooms, and nobody approaching them--nobody nice and right\nthat is, for ever. And Ann!\n\nWhat was the matter with Ann? She'd given up going for walks lately, got\ntouchy and tearful, been fitful with her food. Just when she didn't\nought to. It was all a part of the judgment upon wrongdoing, it was all\npart of the social penalties that Juggernaut of a novel had brought home\nto his mind.\n\n\n§3\n\nHe let himself in with his latchkey. He went moodily into the\ndining-room and got out the plans to look at them. He had a vague hope\nthat there would prove to be only ten bedrooms. But he found there were\nstill eleven. He became aware of Ann standing over him. \"Look 'ere,\nArtie!\" said Ann.\n\nHe looked up and found her holding a number of white oblongs. His\neyebrows rose.\n\n\"It's Callers,\" said Ann.\n\nHe put his plans aside slowly and took and read the cards in silence,\nwith a sort of solemnity. Callers after all! Then perhaps he wasn't to\nbe left out of the world after all. Mrs. G. Porrett Smith, Miss Porrett\nSmith, Miss Mabel Porrett Smith, and two smaller cards of the Rev. G.\nPorrett Smith. \"Lor'!\" he said, \"_Clergy!_\"\n\n\"There was a lady,\" said Ann, \"and two growed-up gals--all dressed up!\"\n\n\"And 'im?\"\n\n\"There wasn't no _'im_.\"\n\n\"Not----?\" He held out the little card.\n\n\"No; there was a lady and two young ladies.\"\n\n\"But--these cards! Wad they go and leave these two little cards with the\nRev. G. Smith on for? Not if 'e wasn't with 'em.\"\n\n\"'E wasn't with 'em.\"\n\n\"Not a little chap--dodgin' about be'ind the others? And didn't come\nin?\"\n\n\"I didn't see no gentleman with them at all,\" said Ann.\n\n\"Rum!\" said Kipps. A half-forgotten experience came back to him. \"_I_\nknow,\" he said, waving the reverend gentleman's card; \"'e give 'em the\nslip, that's what he'd done. Gone off while they was rapping before you\nlet 'em in. It's a fair call, any'ow.\" He felt a momentary base\nsatisfaction at his absence. \"What did they talk about, Ann?\"\n\nThere was a pause. \"I didn't let 'em in,\" said Ann.\n\nHe looked up suddenly and perceived that something unusual was the\nmatter with Ann. Her face was flushed, her eyes were red and hard.\n\n\"Didn't let 'em in?\"\n\n\"No! They didn't come in at all.\"\n\nHe was too astonished for words.\n\n\"I answered the door,\" said Ann; \"I'd been upstairs 'namelling the\nfloor. 'Ow was I to think about Callers, Artie? We ain't never 'ad\nCallers all the time we been 'ere. I'd sent Gwendolen out for a bref of\nfresh air, and there I was upstairs 'namelling that floor she done so\nbad, so's to get it done before she came back. I thought I'd 'namel that\nfloor and then get tea and 'ave it quiet with you, toce and all, before\nshe came back. 'Ow was I to think about Callers?\"\n\nShe paused. \"Well,\" said Kipps, \"what them?\"\n\n\"They came and rapped. 'Ow was I to know? I thought it was a tradesman\nor something. Never took my apron off, never wiped the 'namel off my\n'ands--nothing. There they was!\"\n\nShe paused again. She was getting to the disagreeable part.\n\n\"Wad they say?\" said Kipps.\n\n\"She says, 'Is Mrs. Kipps at home?' See? To me.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And me all painty and no cap on and nothing, neither missis nor servant\nlike. There, Artie, I could 'a sunk through the floor with shame, I\nreally could. I could 'ardly get my voice. I couldn't think of nothing\nto say but just 'Not at 'Ome,' and out of 'abit like I 'eld the tray.\nAnd they give me the cards and went, and 'ow I shall ever look that lady\nin the face again I don't know.... And that's all about it, Artie! They\nlooked me up and down, they did, and then I shut the door on 'em.\"\n\n\"Goo!\" said Kipps.\n\nAnn went and poked the fire needlessly with a passion quivering hand.\n\n\"I wouldn't 'ave 'ad that 'appen for five pounds,\" said Kipps. \"A\nclergyman and all!\"\n\nAnn dropped the poker into the fender with some _éclat_ and stood up and\nlooked at her hot face in the glass. Kipps' disappointment grew. \"You\ndid ought to 'ave known better than that, Ann! You reely did.\"\n\nHe sat forward, cards in hand, with a deepening sense of social\ndisaster. The things were laid upon the table, toast sheltered under a\ncover, at mid fender, the teapot warmed beside it, and the kettle just\nlifted from the hob, sang amidst the coals. Ann glanced at him for a\nmoment, then stooped with the kettle-holder to wet the tea.\n\n\"Tcha!\" said Kipps, with his mental state developing.\n\n\"I don't see it's any use getting in a state about it now,\" said Ann.\n\n\"Don't you? I do. See? 'Ere's these people, good people, want to\n'sociate with us, and 'ere you go and slap 'em in the face!\"\n\n\"I didn't slap 'em in the face.\"\n\n\"You do--practically. You slams the door in their face, and that's all\nwe see of 'em ever. I wouldn't 'ave 'ad this 'appen not for a ten-pound\nnote.\"\n\nHe rounded his regrets with a grunt. For a while there was silence, save\nfor the little stir of Ann's movements preparing the tea.\n\n\"Tea, Artie,\" said Ann, handing him a cup.\n\nKipps took it.\n\n\"I put sugar _once_,\" said Ann.\n\n\"Oo, dash it! Oo cares?\" said Kipps, taking an extraordinarily large\nadditional lump with fury quivering fingers, and putting his cup with a\nslight excess of force on the recess cupboard. \"Oo cares?\n\n\"I wouldn't 'ave 'ad that 'appen,\" he said, bidding steadily against\naccomplished things, \"for twenty pounds.\"\n\nHe gloomed in silence through a long minute or so. Then Ann said the\nfatal thing that exploded him. \"Artie!\" she said.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"There's Buttud Toce down there! By your foot!\" There was a pause,\nhusband and wife regarded one another.\n\n\"Buttud Toce!\" he said. \"You go and mess up them callers and then you\ntry and stuff me up with Buttud Toce! Buttud Toce indeed! 'Ere's our\nfirst chance of knowing anyone that's at all fit to 'sociate with----.\nLook 'ere, Ann! Tell you what it is--you got to return that call.\"\n\n\"Return that call!\"\n\n\"Yes, you got to return that call. That's what you got to do! I\nknow----\" He waved his arm vaguely towards the miscellany of books in\nthe recess. \"It's in Manners and Rools of Good S'ity. You got to find\njest 'ow many cards to leave and you got to go and leave 'em. See?\"\n\nAnn's face expressed terror. \"But, Artie, 'ow _can_ I?\"\n\n\"'Ow _can_ you? 'Ow _could_ you? You got to do it, any'ow. They won't\nknow you--not in your Bond Street 'at! If they do, they won't say\nnothing.\"\n\nHis voice assumed a note of entreaty. \"You mus', Ann.\"\n\n\"I can't.\"\n\n\"You mus'.\"\n\n\"I can't and I won't. Anything in reason I'll do, but face those people\nagain I can't--after what 'as 'appened.\"\n\n\"You won't?\"\n\n\"No!\"...\n\n\"So there they go--orf! And we never see them again! And so it goes on!\nSo it goes on! We don't know nobody and we _shan't_ know anybody! And\nyou won't put yourself out not a little bit, or take the trouble to find\nout anything 'ow it ought to be done.\"\n\nTerrible pause.\n\n\"I never ought to 'ave merried you, Artie, that's the troof.\"\n\n\"Oh! _don't_ go into that.\"\n\n\"I never ought to 'ave merried you, Artie. I'm not equal to the\nposition. If you 'adn't said you'd drown yourself----\" She choked.\n\n\"I don' see why you shouldn't _try_, Ann. _I've_ improved. Why don't\nyou? 'Stead of which you go sending out the servant and 'namelling\nfloors, and then when visitors come----\"\n\n\"'Ow was _I_ to know about y'r old visitors?\" cried Ann in a wail, and\nsuddenly got up and fled from amidst their ruined tea, the tea of which\n\"toce, all buttery,\" was to be the crown and glory.\n\nKipps watched her with a momentary consternation. Then he hardened his\nheart. \"Ought to 'ave known better,\" he said, \"goin' on like that!\" He\nremained for a space rubbing his knees and muttering. He emitted\nscornfully: \"I carn't an' I won't.\" He saw her as the source of all his\nshames.\n\nPresently, quite mechanically, he stooped down and lifted the flowery\nchina cover. \"Ter dash 'er Buttud Toce!\" he shouted at the sight of it,\nand clapped the cover down again hard....\n\nWhen Gwendolen came back she perceived things were in a slightly unusual\npoise. Kipps sat by the fire in a rigid attitude reading a casually\nselected volume of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, and Ann was upstairs\nand inaccessible--to reappear at a later stage with reddened eyes.\nBefore the fire and still in a perfectly assimilable condition was what\nwas evidently an untouched supply of richly buttered toast under a\ncracked cover.\n\n\"They've 'ad a bit of a tiff,\" said Gwendolen, attending to her duties\nin the kitchen, with her outdoor hat still on and her mouth full.\n\"They're rummuns--if ever! My eye!\"\n\nAnd she took another piece of Ann's generously buttered toast.\n\n\n§4\n\nThe Kippses spoke no more that day to one another.\n\nThe squabble about cards and buttered toast was as serious to them as\nthe most rational of differences. It was all rational to them. Their\nsense of wrong burnt within them; their sense of what was owing to\nthemselves, the duty of implacability, the obstinacy of pride. In the\nsmall hours Kipps lay awake at the nadir of unhappiness and came near\ngroaning. He saw life as an extraordinarily desolating muddle; his\nfutile house, his social discredit, his bad behaviour to Helen, his low\nmarriage to Ann....\n\nHe became aware of something irregular in Ann's breathing....\n\nHe listened. She was awake and quietly and privately sobbing!\n\nHe hardened his heart; resolutely he hardened his heart.\n\nThe stupid little tragedies of these clipped and limited lives!\n\nWhat is the good of keeping up the idyllic sham and pretending that\nill-educated, misdirected people \"get along very well,\" and that all\nthis is harmlessly funny and nothing more? You think I'm going to write\nfat, silly, grinning novels about half-educated, under-trained people\nand keep it up all the time, that the whole thing's nothing but funny!\n\nAs I think of them lying unhappily there in the darkness, my vision\npierces the night. See what I can see! Above them, brooding over them, I\ntell you there is a monster, a lumpish monster, like some great, clumsy\ngriffin thing, like the Crystal Palace labyrinthodon, like Coote, like\nthe leaden goddess Dulness Pope Abhorred, like some fat, proud flunkey,\nlike pride, like indolence, like all that is darkening and heavy and\nobstructive in life. It is matter and darkness, it is the anti-soul,\nStupidity. My Kippses live in its shadow. Shalford and his\napprenticeship system, the Hastings Academy, the ideas of Coote, the\nideas of the old Kippses, all the ideas that have made Kipps what he is,\nall these are its shadow. But for that monster they might not be groping\namong false ideas and hurt one another so sorely and so stupidly; but\nfor that, the glowing promise of childhood and youth might have had a\nhappier fruition, thought might have awakened in them to meet _the_\nthought of the world, the quickening sunshine of literature pierced to\nthe substance of their souls, their lives might not have been divorced,\nas now they are divorced for ever, from the apprehension of beauty that\nwe favoured ones are given--the vision of the Grail that makes life fine\nfor ever. I have laughed, and I laugh at these two people; I have sought\nto make you laugh....\n\nBut I see through the darkness the souls of my Kippses, as they are, as\nlittle pink strips of living stuff, like the bodies of little,\nill-nourished, ailing, ignorant children, children who feel pain, who\nare naughty and muddled and suffer and do not understand why. And the\nclaw of this Beast rests upon them!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTERMINATIONS\n\n\n§1\n\nNext morning came a remarkable telegram from Folkestone. \"Please come at\nonce, urgent, Walshingham,\" said the telegram, and Kipps, after an\nagitated but still ample breakfast, departed....\n\nWhen he returned his face was very white and his countenance disordered.\nHe let himself in with his latchkey and came into the dining-room where\nAnn sat, affecting to work at a little thing she called a bib. She heard\nhis hat fall in the hall before he entered, as though he had missed the\npeg. \"I got something to tell you, Ann,\" he said, disregarding their\novernight quarrel, and went to the hearthrug and took hold of the\nmantel, and stared at Ann as though the sight of her was novel.\n\n\"Well?\" said Ann, not looking up and working a little faster.\n\n\"'E's gone!\"\n\nAnn looked up sharply and her hands stopped. \"_Who's_ gone?\" For the\nfirst time she perceived Kipps' pallor.\n\n\"Young Walshingham--I saw 'er and she tole me.\"\n\n\"Gone? What d'you mean?\"\n\n\"Cleared out! Gone off for good!\"\n\n\"What for?\"\n\n\"For 'is 'ealth,\" said Kipps, with sudden bitterness. \"'E's been\nspeckylating. He's speckylated our money and 'e's speckylated their\nmoney, and now 'e's took 'is 'ook. That's all about it, Ann.\"\n\n\"You mean?\"\n\n\"I mean 'e's orf and our twenty-four thousand's orf, too! And 'ere we\nare! Smashed up! That's all about it, Ann.\" He panted.\n\nAnn had no vocabulary for such an occasion. \"Oh, Lor'!\" she said, and\nsat still.\n\nKipps came about and stuck his hands deeply in his trouser pockets.\n\"Speckylated every penny--lorst it all--and gorn.\"\n\nEven his lips were white.\n\n\"You mean we ain't got nothin' left, Artie?\"\n\n\"Not a penny! Not a bloomin' penny, Ann. No!\"\n\nA gust of passion whirled across the soul of Kipps. He flung out a\nknuckly fist. \"If I 'ad 'im 'ere,\" he said, \"I'd--I'd--I'd wring 'is\nneck for 'im. I'd--I'd----\" His voice rose to a shout. He thought of\nGwendolen in the kitchen and fell to \"Ugh!\"\n\n\"But, Artie,\" said Ann, trying to grasp it, \"d'you mean to say he's\ntook our money?\"\n\n\"Speckylated it!\" said Kipps, with an illustrative flourish of the arm,\nthat failed to illustrate. \"Bort things dear and sold 'em cheap, and\nplayed the 'ankey-pankey jackass with everything we got. That's what I\nmean 'e's done, Ann.\" He repeated this last sentence with the addition\nof violent adverbs.\n\n\"D'you mean to say our money's _gone_, Artie?\"\n\n\"Ter-dash it, _Yes_, Ann!\" swore Kipps, exploding in a shout. \"Ain't I\ntellin' you?\"\n\nHe was immediately sorry. \"I didn't mean to 'oller at you, Ann,\" he\nsaid, \"but I'm all shook up. I don't 'ardly know what I'm sayin'. Ev'ry\npenny.\"...\n\n\"But, Artie----\"\n\nKipps grunted. He went to the window and stared for a moment at a sunlit\nsea. \"Gord!\" he swore.\n\n\"I mean,\" he said, coming back to Ann and with an air of exasperation,\n\"that he's 'bezzled and 'ooked it. That's what I mean, Ann.\"\n\nAnn put down the bib. \"But wot are we going to _do_, Artie?\"\n\nKipps indicated ignorance, wrath and despair with one comprehensive\ngesture of his hands. He caught an ornament from the mantel and replaced\nit. \"I'm going to bang about,\" he said, \"if I ain't precious careful.\"\n\n\"You saw _'er_, you say?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"What did she say 'xactly?\" said Ann.\n\n\"Told me to see a s'licitor--tole me to get someone to 'elp me at once.\nShe was there in black--like she used to be--and speaking cool and\ncareful-like. 'Elen!... She's precious 'ard, is 'Elen. She looked at me\nstraight. 'It's my fault,' she said, 'I ought to 'ave warned you....\nOnly under the circumstances it was a little difficult.' Straight as\nanything. I didn't 'ardly say anything to 'er. I didn't seem to begin to\ntake it in until she was showing me out. I 'adn't anything to say. Jest\nas well, perhaps. She talked like a call a'most. She said--what _was_ it\nshe said about her mother? 'My mother's overcome with grief,' she said,\n'so naturally everything comes on me.'\"\n\n\"And she told you to get someone to 'elp you?\"\n\n\"Yes. I been to old Bean.\"\n\n\"O' Bean?\"\n\n\"Yes. What I took my business away from!\"\n\n\"What did he say?\"\n\n\"He was a bit off'and at first, but then 'e come 'round. He couldn't\ntell me anything till 'e knew the facts. What I know of young\nWalshingham, there won't be much 'elp in the facts. No!\"\n\nHe reflected for a space. \"It's a smash-up, Ann. More likely than not,\nAnn, 'e's left us over'ead in debt. We got to get out of it just 'ow we\ncan....\n\n\"We got to begin again,\" he went on. \"_'Ow_, I don't know. All the way\n'ome my 'ead's been going. We got to get a living some'ow or other.\n'Aving time to ourselves, and a bit of money to spend, and no hurry and\nworry, it's all over for ever, Ann. We was fools, Ann. We didn't know\nour benefits. We been caught. Gord!... Gord!\"\n\nHe was on the verge of \"banging about\" again.\n\nThey heard a jingle in the passage, the large soft impact of a servant's\nindoor boots. As if she were a part, a mitigatory part of Fate, came\nGwendolen to lay the midday meal. Kipps displayed self-control\nforthwith. Ann picked up the bib again and bent over it, and the Kippses\nbore themselves gloomily perhaps, but not despairfully, while their\ndependant was in the room. She spread the cloth and put out the cutlery\nwith a slow inaccuracy, and Kipps, after a whisper to himself, went\nagain to the window. Ann got up and put away her work methodically in\nthe cheffonier.\n\n\"When I think,\" said Kipps, as soon as the door closed again behind\nGwendolen, \"when I think of the 'ole people and 'aving to tell 'em of it\nall--I want to smesh my 'ead against the nearest wall. Smesh my silly\nbrains out! And Buggins--Buggins what I'd 'arf promised to start in a\nlill' outfitting shop in Rendezvous Street.\"...\n\nGwendolen returned and restored dignity.\n\nThe midday meal spread itself slowly before them. Gwendolen, after her\ncustom, left the door open and Kipps closed it carefully before sitting\ndown.\n\nHe stood for a moment, regarding the meal doubtfully.\n\n\"I don't feel as if I could swaller a moufful,\" he said.\n\n\"You got to eat,\" said Ann....\n\nFor a time they said little, and once swallowing was achieved, ate on\nwith a sort of melancholy appetite. Each was now busy thinking.\n\n\"After all,\" said Kipps, presently, \"whatever 'appens, they can't turn\nus out or sell us up before nex' quarter-day. I'm pretty sure about\nthat.\"\n\n\"Sell us up!\" said Ann.\n\n\"I dessey we're bankrup',\" said Kipps, trying to say it easily and\nhelping himself with a trembling hand to unnecessary potatoes.\n\nThen a long silence. Ann ceased to eat, and there were silent tears.\n\n\"More potatoes, Artie?\" choked Ann.\n\n\"I couldn't,\" said Kipps. \"No.\"\n\nHe pushed back his plate, which was indeed replete with potatoes, got up\nand walked about the room. Even the dinner-table looked distraught and\nunusual.\n\n\"What to do, I _don't_ know,\" he said.\n\n\"Oh, _Lord_!\" he ejaculated, and picked up and slapped down a book.\n\nThen his eye fell upon another postcard that had come from Chitterlow\nby the morning's post, and which now lay by him on the mantel-shelf. He\ntook it up, glanced at its imperfectly legible message, and put it down.\n\n\"Delayed!\" he said, scornfully. \"Not prodooced in the smalls. Or is it\nsmells 'e says? 'Ow can one understand that? Any'ow 'e's 'umbugging\nagain.... Somefing about the Strand. No! Well, 'e's 'ad all the money\n'e'll ever get out of me!... I'm done.\"\n\nHe seemed to find a momentary relief in the dramatic effect of his\nannouncement. He came near to a swagger of despair upon the hearthrug,\nand then suddenly came and sat down next to Ann and rested his chin on\nthe knuckles of his two clenched hands.\n\n\"I been a fool, Ann,\" he said in a gloomy monotone. \"I been a brasted\nfool. But it's 'ard on us, all the same. It's 'ard.\"\n\n\"'Ow was you to know?\" said Ann.\n\n\"I ought to 'ave known. I did in a sort of way know. And 'ere we are! I\nwouldn't care so much if it was myself, but it's _you_, Ann! 'Ere we\nare! Regular smashed up! And you----\" He checked at an unspeakable\naggravation of their disaster. \"I knew 'e wasn't to be depended upon and\nthere I left it! And you got to pay.... What's to 'appen to us all, I\ndon't know.\"\n\nHe thrust out his chin and glared at fate.\n\n\"'Ow do you know 'e's speckylated everything?\" said Ann, after a silent\nsurvey of him.\n\n\"'E 'as,\" said Kipps, irritably, holding firm to disaster.\n\n\"She say so?\"\n\n\"She don't know, of course, but you depend upon it that's it. She told\nme she knew something was on, and when she found 'im gone and a note\nlef' for her she knew it was up with 'im. 'E went by the night boat. She\nwrote that telegram off to me straight away.\"\n\nAnn surveyed his features with tender, perplexed eyes; she had never\nseen him so white and drawn before, and her hand rested an inch or so\naway from his arm. The actual loss was still, as it were, afar from her.\nThe immediate thing was his enormous distress.\n\n\"'Ow do you know----?\" she said and stopped. It would irritate him too\nmuch.\n\nKipps' imagination was going headlong.\n\n\"Sold up!\" he emitted presently, and Ann flinched.\n\n\"Going back to work, day after day--I can't stand it, Ann, I can't. And\nyou----\"\n\n\"It don't do to think of it,\" said Ann.\n\nPresently he came upon a resolve. \"I keep on thinking of it, and\nthinking of it, and what's to be done and what's to be done. I shan't be\nany good 'ome s'arfernoon. It keeps on going 'round and 'round in my\n'ead, and 'round and 'round. I better go for a walk or something. I'd be\nno comfort to you, Ann. I should want to 'owl and 'ammer things if I\n'ung about 'ome. My fingers is all atwitch. I shall keep on thinking\n'ow I might 'ave stopped it and callin' myself a fool.\"...\n\nHe looked at her between pleading and shame. It seemed like deserting\nher.\n\nAnn regarded him with tear-dimmed eyes.\n\n\"You'd better do what's good for you, Artie,\" she said.... \"_I'll_ be\nbest cleaning. It's no use sending off Gwendolen before her month, and\nthe top room wants turning out.\" She added with a sort of grim humour:\n\"May as well turn it out now while I got it.\"\n\n\"I _better_ go for a walk,\" said Kipps....\n\nAnd presently our poor exploded Kipps was marching out to bear his\nsudden misery. Habit turned him up the road towards his growing house,\nand then suddenly he perceived his direction--\"Oh, Lor'!\"--and turned\naside and went up the steep way to the hill crest and the Sandling Road,\nand over the line by that tree-embowered Junction, and athwart the wide\nfields towards Postling--a little, black, marching figure--and so up the\nDowns and over the hills, whither he had never gone before....\n\n\n§2\n\nHe came back long after dark, and Ann met him in the passage.\n\n\"Where you been, Artie?\" she asked, with a strained note in her voice.\n\n\"I been walking and walking--trying to tire myself out. All the time I\nbeen thinking what shall I do. Trying to fix something up all out of\nnothing.\"\n\n\"I didn't know you meant to be out all this time.\"\n\nKipps was gripped by compunction....\n\n\"I can't think what we ought to do,\" he said, presently.\n\n\"You can't do anything much, Artie, not till you hear from Mr. Bean.\"\n\n\"No; I can't do anything much. That's jest it. And all this time I keep\nfeelin' if I don't do something the top of my 'ead'll bust.... Been\ntrying to make up advertisements 'arf the time I been out--'bout finding\na place, good salesman and stock-keeper, and good Manchester dresses,\nwindow-dressing--Lor'! Fancy that all beginning again!... If you went to\nstay with Sid a bit--if I sent every penny I got to you--I dunno! I\ndunno!\"\n\nWhen they had gone to bed there was an elaborate attempt to get to\nsleep.... In one of their great waking pauses Kipps remarked in a\nmuffled tone: \"I didn't mean to frighten you, Ann, being out so late. I\nkep' on walking and walking, and some'ow it seemed to do me good. I went\nout to the 'illtop ever so far beyond Stanford, and sat there ever so\nlong, and it seemed to make me better. Just looking over the marsh like,\nand seeing the sun set.\"...\n\n\"Very likely,\" said Ann, after a long interval, \"it isn't so bad as you\nthink it is, Artie.\"\n\n\"It's bad,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"Very likely, after all, it isn't quite so bad. If there's only a\nlittle----\"\n\nThere came another long silence.\n\n\"Ann,\" said Kipps in the quiet darkness.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Ann.\n\n\"Ann,\" said Kipps, and stopped as though he had hastily shut a door upon\nspeech.\n\n\"I kep' thinking,\" he said, trying again, \"I kep' thinking--after all--I\nbeen cross to you and a fool about things--about them cards, Ann;\nbut\"--his voice shook to pieces--\"we _'ave_ been 'appy, Ann ... some'ow\n... togever.\"\n\nAnd with that he and then she fell into a passion of weeping. They clung\nvery tightly together--closer than they had been since ever the first\nbrightness of their married days turned to the grey of common life\nagain.\n\nAll the disaster in the world could not prevent their going to sleep at\nlast with their poor little troubled heads close together on one pillow.\nThere was nothing more to be done, there was nothing more to be thought;\nTime might go on with his mischiefs, but for a little while at least\nthey still had one another.\n\n\n§3\n\nKipps returned from his second interview with Mr. Bean in a state of\nstrange excitement. He let himself in with his latch-key and slammed the\ndoor. \"Ann!\" he shouted, in an unusual note; \"Ann!\"\n\nAnn replied distantly.\n\n\"Something to tell you,\" said Kipps; \"something noo!\"\n\nAnn appeared apprehensive from the kitchen.\n\n\"Ann,\" he said, going before her into the little dining-room, for his\nnews was too dignified for the passage, \"very likely, Ann, o' Bean says,\nwe shall 'ave----\" He decided to prolong the suspense. \"Guess!\"\n\n\"I can't, Artie.\"\n\n\"Think of a lot of money!\"\n\n\"A 'undred pounds p'raps?\"\n\nHe spoke with immense deliberation. \"O v e r a f o u s a n d p o u n d\ns!\"\n\nAnn stared and said nothing, only went a shade whiter.\n\n\"Over, he said. A'most certainly over.\"\n\nHe shut the dining-room door and came forward hastily, for Ann, it was\nclear, meant to take this mitigation of their disaster with a complete\nabandonment of her self-control. She came near flopping; she fell into\nhis arms.\n\n\"Artie,\" she got to at last and began to weep, clinging tightly to him.\n\n\"Pretty near certain,\" said Kipps, holding her. \"A fousand pounds!\"\n\n\"I _said_, Artie,\" she wailed on his shoulder with the note of\naccumulated wrongs, \"very likely it wasn't so bad.\"...\n\n\"There's things,\" he said, when presently he came to particulars, \"'e\ncouldn't touch. The noo place! It's freehold and paid for, and with the\nbit of building on it, there's five or six 'undred pound p'raps--say\nworf free 'undred, for safety. We can't be sold up to finish it, like we\nthought. O' Bean says we can very likely sell it and get money. 'E says\nyou often get a chance to sell a 'ouse lessen 'arf done, 'specially\nfree'old. _Very_ likely, 'e say. Then there's Hughenden. Hughenden\n'asn't been mortgaged not for more than 'arf its value. There's a\n'undred or so to be got on that, and the furniture and the rent for the\nsummer still coming in. 'E says there's very likely other things. A\nfousand pounds, that's what 'e said. 'E said it might even be more.\"...\n\nThey were sitting now at the table.\n\n\"It alters everything,\" said Ann.\n\n\"I been thinking that, Ann, all the way 'ome. I came in the motor car.\nFirst ride I've 'ad since the smash. We needn't send off Gwendolen,\nleastways not till _after_. You know. We needn't turn out of 'ere--not\nfor a long time. What we been doing for the o' people we can go on doing\na'most as much. And your mother!... I wanted to 'oller coming along. I\npretty near run coming down the road by the hotel.\"\n\n\"Oh, I _am_ glad we can stop 'ere and be comfortable a bit,\" said Ann.\n\"I _am_ glad for that.\"\n\n\"I pretty near told the driver on the motor--only 'e was the sort won't\ntalk.... You see, Ann, we'll be able to start a shop, we'll be able to\nget _into_ something like. All about our 'aving to go back to places\nand that; all that doesn't matter any more.\"\n\nFor a while they abandoned themselves to ejaculating transports. Then\nthey fell talking to shape an idea to themselves of the new prospect\nthat opened before them.\n\n\"We must start a sort of shop,\" said Kipps, whose imagination had been\nworking. \"It'll 'ave to be a shop.\"\n\n\"Drapery?\" said Ann.\n\n\"You want such a lot of capital for the drapery, mor'n a thousand pounds\nyou want by a long way--to start it anything like proper.\"\n\n\"Well, outfitting. Like Buggins was going to do.\"\n\nKipps glanced at that for a moment, because the idea had not occurred to\nhim. Then he came back to his prepossession.\n\n\"Well, I thought of something else, Ann,\" he said. \"You see, I've always\nthought a little book-shop. It isn't like the drapery--'aving to be\nlearnt. I thought--even before this smash-up--'ow I'd like to 'ave\nsomething to do, instead of always 'aving 'olidays always like we 'ave\nbeen 'aving.\"\n\nHe reflected.\n\n\"You don't know _much_ about books, do you, Artie?\"\n\n\"You don't want to.\" He illustrated. \"I noticed when we used to go to\nthat Lib'ry at Folkestone, ladies weren't anything like what they was in\na draper's--if you 'aven't got _just_ what they want it's 'Oh, no!' and\nout they go. But in a book shop it's different. One book's very like\nanother--after all, what is it? Something to read and done with. It's\nnot a thing that matters like print dresses or serviettes--where you\neither like 'em or don't, and people judge you by. They take what you\ngive 'em in books and lib'ries, and glad to be told _what_ to. See 'ow\nwe was--up at that lib'ry.\"...\n\nHe paused. \"You see, Ann----\n\n\"Well, I read 'n 'dvertisement the other day. I been asking Mr. Bean. It\nsaid--five 'undred pounds.\"\n\n\"What did?\"\n\n\"Branches,\" said Kipps.\n\nAnn failed to understand. \"It's a sort of thing that gets up book shops\nall over the country,\" said Kipps. \"I didn't tell you, but I arst about\nit a bit. On'y I dropped it again. Before this smash, I mean. I'd\nthought I'd like to keep a shop for a lark, on'y then I thought it\nsilly. Besides it 'ud 'ave been beneath me.\"\n\nHe blushed vividly. \"It was a sort of projek of mine, Ann.\n\n\"On'y it wouldn't 'ave done,\" he added.\n\nIt was a tortuous journey when the Kippses set out to explain anything\nto each other. But through a maze of fragmentary elucidations and\nquestions, their minds did presently begin to approximate to a picture\nof a compact, bright, little shop, as a framework for themselves.\n\n\"I thought of it one day when I was in Folkestone. I thought of it one\nday when I was looking in at a window. I see a chap dressin' a window\nand he was whistlin' reg'lar light-'arted.... I thought then I'd like to\nkeep a bookshop, any'ow, jest for something to do. And when people\nweren't about, then you could sit and read the books. See? It wouldn't\nbe 'arf bad.\"...\n\nThey mused, each with elbows on table and knuckles to lips, looking with\nspeculative eyes at each other.\n\n\"Very likely we'll be 'appier than we should 'ave been with more money,\"\nsaid Kipps presently.\n\n\"We wasn't 'ardly suited,\" reflected Ann, and left her sentence\nincomplete.\n\n\"Fish out of water like,\" said Kipps....\n\n\"You won't 'ave to return that call now,\" said Kipps, opening a new\nbranch of the question. \"That's one good thing.\"\n\n\"Lor'!\" said Ann, visibly brightening, \"no more I shan't!\"\n\n\"I don't s'pose they'd want you to, even if you did--with things as they\nare.\"\n\nA certain added brightness came into Ann's face. \"Nobody won't be able\nto come leaving cards on us, Artie, now, any more. We are out of\n_that_!\"\n\n\"There isn't no necessity for us to be stuck up,\" said Kipps, \"any more\nfor ever! 'Ere we are, Ann, common people, with jest no position at all,\nas you might say, to keep up. No sev'nts, not if you don't like. No\ndressin' better than other people. If it wasn't we been robbed--dashed\nif I'd care a rap about losing that money. I b'lieve\"--his face shone\nwith the rare pleasure of paradox--\"I reely b'lieve, Ann, it'll prove a\nsavin' in the end.\"\n\n\n§4\n\nThe remarkable advertisement which had fired Kipps' imagination with\nthis dream of a bookshop opened out in the most alluring way. It was one\nlittle facet in a comprehensive scheme of transatlantic origin, which\nwas to make our old-world methods of book-selling \"sit up,\" and it\ndisplayed an imaginative briskness, a lucidity and promise that aroused\nthe profoundest scepticism in the mind of Mr. Bean. To Kipps' renewed\ninvestigations it presented itself in an expository illustrated pamphlet\n(far too well printed, Mr. Bean thought, for a reputable undertaking) of\nthe most convincing sort. Mr. Bean would not let him sink his capital in\nshares in its projected company that was to make all things new in the\nworld of books, but he could not prevent Kipps becoming one of their\nassociated booksellers. And so when presently it became apparent that an\nepoch was not to be made, and the \"Associated Booksellers' Trading Union\n(Limited)\" receded and dissolved and liquidated (a few drops) and\nvanished and went away to talk about something else, Kipps remained\nfloating undamaged in this interestingly uncertain universe as an\nindependent bookseller.\n\nExcept that it failed, the Associated Booksellers' Trading Union had all\nthe stigmata of success. Its fault, perhaps, was that it had them all\ninstead of only one or two. It was to buy wholesale for all its members\nand associates and exchange stock, having a common books-in-stock list\nand a common lending library, and it was to provide a uniform registered\nshop front to signify all these things to the intelligent passer-by.\nExcept that it was controlled by buoyant young Over-men with a touch of\ngenius in their arithmetic, it was, I say, a most plausible and hopeful\nproject. Kipps went several times to London and an agent came to Hythe;\nMr. Bean made some timely interventions, and then behind a veil of\nplanks and an announcement in the High Street, the uniform registered\nshop front came rapidly into being. \"Associated Booksellers' Trading\nUnion,\" said this shop front, in a refined, artistic lettering that\nbookbuyers were going to value, as wise men over forty value the proper\nlabel for Berncasteler Doctor, and then, \"Arthur Kipps.\"\n\nNext to starting a haberdasher's shop I doubt if Kipps could have been\nmore truly happy than during those weeks of preparation.\n\nThere is, of course, nothing on earth, and I doubt at times if there is\na joy in Heaven, like starting a small haberdasher's shop. Imagine, for\nexample, having a drawerful of tapes (one whole piece most exquisitely\nblocked of every possible width of tape), or, again, an army of neat,\nlarge packages, each displaying one sample of hooks and eyes. Think of\nyour cottons, your drawer of coloured silks, the little, less, least of\nthe compartments and thin packets of your needle drawer! Poor princes\nand wretched gentlefolk mysteriously above retail trade, may taste only\nthe faint unsatisfactory shadow of these delights with trays of stamps\nor butterflies. I write, of course, for those to whom these things\nappeal; there are clods alive who see nothing, or next to nothing, in\nspools of mercerised cotton and endless bands of paper-set pins. I write\nfor the wise, and as I write I wonder that Kipps resisted haberdashery.\nHe did. Yet even starting a bookshop is at least twenty times as\ninteresting as building your own house to your own design in unlimited\nspace and time, or any possible thing people with indisputable social\nposition and sound securities can possibly find to do. Upon that I rest.\n\nYou figure Kipps \"going to have a look to see how the little shop is\ngetting on,\" the shop that is not to be a loss and a spending of money,\nbut a gain. He does not walk too fast towards it; as he comes into view\nof it his paces slacken and his head goes to one side. He crosses to the\npavement opposite in order to inspect the fascia better, already his\nname is adumbrated in faint white lines; stops in the middle of the road\nand scrutinises imaginary details for the benefit of his future next\ndoor neighbour, the curiosity-shop man, and so at last, in.... A smell\nof paint and of the shavings of imperfectly seasoned pinewood! The shop\nis already glazed and a carpenter is busy over the fittings for\nadjustable shelves in the side windows. A painter is busy on the\nfixtures round about (shelving above and drawers below), which are to\naccommodate most of the stock, and the counter--the counter and desk are\ndone. Kipps goes inside the desk, the desk which is to be the strategic\ncentre of the shop, brushes away some sawdust, and draws out the\nmarvellous till; here gold is to be, here silver, here copper--notes\nlocked up in a cash-box in the well below. Then he leans his elbows on\nthe desk, rests his chin on his fist and fills the shelves with\nimaginary stock; books beyond reading. Every day a man who cares to wash\nhis hands and read uncut pages artfully may have his cake and eat it,\namong that stock. Under the counter to the right, paper and string are\nto lurk ready to leap up and embrace goods sold; on the table to the\nleft, art publications, whatever they may prove to be! He maps it out,\nserves an imaginary customer, receives a dream seven and six pence,\npacks, bows out. He wonders how it was he ever came to fancy a shop a\ndisagreeable place.\n\n\"It's different,\" he says at last, after musing on that difficulty,\n\"being your own.\"\n\nIt _is_ different....\n\nOr, again, you figure Kipps with something of the air of a young\nsacristan, handling his brightly virginal account-books, and looking,\nand looking again, and then still looking, at an unparalleled specimen\nof copperplate engraving, ruled money below and above, bearing the words\n\"In Account with, ARTHUR KIPPS\" (loud flourishes), \"The Booksellers'\nTrading Union\" (temperate decoration). You figure Ann sitting and\nstitching at one point of the circumference of the light of the lamp,\nstitching queer little garments for some unknown stranger, and over\nagainst her sits Kipps. Before him is one of those engraved memorandum\nforms, a moist pad, wet with some thick and greasy greenish purple ink\nthat is also spreading quietly but steadily over his fingers, a\ncross-nibbed pen for first-aid surgical assistance to the patient in his\nhand, a dating rubber stamp. At intervals he brings down this latter\nwith great care and emphasis upon the paper, and when he lifts it there\nappears a beautiful oval design of which \"Paid, Arthur Kipps, The\nAssociated Booksellers' Trading Union,\" and a date, are the essential\ningredients, stamped in purple ink.\n\nAnon he turns his attention to a box of small, round, yellow labels,\ndeclaring \"This book was bought from the Associated Booksellers' Trading\nUnion.\" He licks one with deliberate care, sticks it on the paper before\nhim and defaces it with great solemnity. \"I can do it, Ann,\" he says,\nlooking up brightly. For the Associated Booksellers' Trading Union,\namong other brilliant notions and inspirations, devised an ingenious\nsystem of taking back its books again in part payment for new ones\nwithin a specified period. When it failed, all sorts of people were left\nwith these unredeemed pledges in hand.\n\n\n§5\n\nAmidst all this bustle and interest, all this going to and fro before\nthey \"moved in\" to the High Street, came the great crisis that hung over\nthe Kippses, and one morning in the small hours Ann's child was born....\n\nKipps was coming to manhood swiftly now. The once rabbit-like soul that\nhad been so amazed by the discovery of \"chubes\" in the human interior\nand so shocked by the sight of a woman's shoulder-blades, that had found\nshame and anguish in a mislaid Gibus and terror in an Anagram Tea, was\nat last facing the greater realities. He came suddenly upon the master\nthing in life, birth. He passed through hours of listening, hours of\nimpotent fear in the night and in the dawn, and then there was put into\nhis arms something most wonderful, a weak and wailing creature,\nincredibly, heart-stirringly soft and pitiful, with minute appealing\nhands that it wrung his heart to see. He held this miracle in his arms\nand touched its tender cheek as if he feared his lips might injure it.\nAnd this marvel was his Son!\n\nAnd there was Ann, with a greater strangeness and a greater familiarity\nin her quality than he had ever found before. There were little beads of\nperspiration on her temples and her lips, and her face was flushed, not\npale as he had feared to see it. She had the look of one who emerges\nfrom some strenuous and invigorating act. He bent down and kissed her,\nand he had no words to say. She wasn't to speak much yet, but she\nstroked his arm with her hand and had to tell him one thing:\n\n\"He's over nine pounds, Artie,\" she whispered. \"Bessie's--Bessie's\nwasn't no more than eight.\"\n\nTo have given Kipps a pound of triumph over Sid seemed to her almost to\njustify Nunc Dimittis. She watched his face for a moment, then closed\nher eyes in a kind of blissful exhaustion as the nurse, with something\nmotherly in her manner, pushed Kipps out of the room.\n\n\n§6\n\nKipps was far too much preoccupied with his own life to worry about the\nfurther exploits of Chitterlow. The man had got his two thousand; on the\nwhole Kipps was glad he had had it rather than young Walshingham, and\nthere was an end to the matter. As for the complicated transactions he\nachieved and proclaimed by mainly illegible and always incomprehensible\npostcards, they were like passing voices heard in the street as one goes\nabout one's urgent concerns. Kipps put them aside and they got in\nbetween the pages of the stock and were lost forever and sold in with\nthe goods to customers who puzzled over them mightily.\n\nThen one morning as he was dusting round before breakfast, Chitterlow\nreturned, appeared suddenly in the shop doorway.\n\nKipps was overcome with amazement.\n\nIt was the most unexpected thing in the world. The man was in evening\ndress, evening dress in that singularly crumpled state it assumes after\nthe hour of dawn, and above his dishevelled red hair, a smallish Gibus\nhat tilted remarkably forward. He opened the door and stood, tall and\nspread, with one vast white glove flung out as if to display how burst a\nglove might be, his eyes bright, such wrinkling of brow and mouth as\nonly an experienced actor can produce, and a singular radiance of\nemotion upon his whole being, an altogether astonishing spectacle.\n\nIt was amazing beyond the powers of Kipps. The bell jangled for a bit\nand then gave it up and was silent. For a long, great second everything\nwas quietly attentive. Kipps was amazed to his uttermost; had he had ten\ntimes the capacity he would still have been fully amazed. \"It's\nChit'low!\" he said at last, standing duster in hand.\n\nBut he doubted whether it was not a dream.\n\n\"Tzit!\" gasped that most excitable and extraordinary person, still in an\nincredibly expanded attitude, and then with a slight forward jerk of the\nstarry split glove, \"Bif!\"\n\nHe could say no more. The tremendous speech he had had ready vanished\nfrom his mind. Kipps stared at his extraordinary facial changes, vaguely\nconscious of the truth of the teachings of Nisbet and Lombroso\nconcerning men of genius.\n\nThen suddenly Chitterlow's features were convulsed, the histrionic fell\nfrom him like a garment, and he was weeping. He said something\nindistinct about \"Old Kipps! _Good_ old Kipps! Oh, old Kipps!\" and\nsomehow he managed to mix a chuckle and a sob in the most remarkable\nway. He emerged from somewhere near the middle of his original attitude,\na merely life-size creature. \"My play, boo-hoo!\" he sobbed, clutching at\nhis friend's arm. \"My play, Kipps! (sob) You know?\"\n\n\"Well?\" cried Kipps, with his heart sinking in sympathy, \"it ain't----\"\n\n\"No,\" howled Chitterlow; \"no. It's a success! My dear chap! my dear boy!\noh! it's a--bu--boo-hoo!--a big success!\" He turned away and wiped\nstreaming tears with the back of his hand. He walked a pace or so and\nturned. He sat down on one of the specially designed artistic chairs of\nthe Associated Booksellers' Trading Union and produced an exiguous\nlady's handkerchief, extraordinarily belaced. He choked. \"_My_ play,\"\nand covered his face here and there.\n\nHe made an unsuccessful effort to control himself, and shrank for a\nspace to the dimensions of a small and pathetic creature. His great nose\nsuddenly came through a careless place in the handkerchief.\n\n\"I'm knocked,\" he said in a muffled voice, and so remained for a\nspace--wonderful--veiled.\n\nHe made a gallant effort to wipe his tears away. \"I had to tell you,\"\nhe said, gulping.\n\n\"Be all right in a minute,\" he added, \"calm,\" and sat still....\n\nKipps stared in commiseration of such success. Then he heard footsteps\nand went quickly to the house doorway. \"Jest a minute,\" he said. \"Don't\ngo in the shop, Ann, for a minute. It's Chitterlow. He's a bit essited.\nBut he'll be better in a minute. It's knocked him over a bit. You\nsee\"--his voice sank to a hushed note as one who announces death--\"'e's\nmade a success with his play.\"\n\nHe pushed her back lest she should see the scandal of another male's\ntears....\n\nSoon Chitterlow felt better, but for a little while his manner was even\nalarmingly subdued. \"I _had_ to come and tell you,\" he said. \"I _had_ to\nastonish someone. Muriel--she'll be firstrate, of course. But she's over\nat Dymchurch.\" He blew his nose with enormous noise, and emerged\ninstantly a merely garrulous optimist.\n\n\"I expect she'll be precious glad.\"\n\n\"She doesn't know yet, my dear boy. She's at Dymchurch--with a friend.\nShe's seen some of my first nights before.... Better out of it.... I'm\ngoing to her now. I've been up all night--talking to the boys and all\nthat. I'm a bit off it just for a bit. But--it Knocked 'em. It Knocked\neverybody.\"\n\nHe stared at the floor and went on in a monotone. \"They laughed a bit at\nthe beginning--but nothing like a settled laugh--not until the second\nact--you know--the chap with the beetle down his neck. Little Chisholme\ndid that bit to rights. Then they began--_to_ rights.\" His voice warmed\nand increased. \"Laughing! It made _me_ laugh! We jumped 'em into the\nthird act before they had time to cool. Everybody was on it. I never saw\na first night go so fast. Laugh, laugh, laugh, LAUGH, LAUGH, LAUGH\" (he\nhowled the last word with stupendous violence). Everything they laughed\nat. They laughed at things that we hadn't meant to be funny--not for one\nmoment. Bif! Bizz! Curtain. A Fair Knock-Out!... I went on--but I didn't\nsay a word. Chisholme did the patter. Shouting! It was like walking\nunder Niagara--going across that stage. It was like never having seen an\naudience before....\n\n\"Then afterwards--the Boys!\"\n\nHis emotion held him for a space. \"Dear old Boys!\" he murmured.\n\nHis words multiplied, his importance increased. In a little while he was\nrestored to something of his old self. He was enormously excited. He\nseemed unable to sit down anywhere. He came into the breakfast-room so\nsoon as Kipps was sure of him, shook hands with Mrs. Kipps\nparenthetically, sat down and immediately got up again. He went to the\nbassinette in the corner and looked absentmindedly at Kipps, junior, and\nsaid he was glad if only for the youngster's sake. He immediately\nresumed the thread of his discourse.... He drank a cup of coffee\nnoisily and walked up and down the room talking, while they attempted\nbreakfast amidst the gale of his excitement. The infant slept\nmarvellously through it all.\n\n\"You won't mind my sitting down, Mrs. Kipps. I couldn't sit down for\nanyone, or I'd do it for you. It's you I'm thinking of more than anyone,\nyou and Muriel, and all Old Pals and Good Friends. It means wealth, it\nmeans money--hundreds and thousands.... If you'd heard 'em, _you'd\nknow_.\"\n\nHe was silent through a portentous moment while topics battled for him\nand finally he burst and talked of them all together. It was like the\nrush of water when a dam bursts and washes out a fair-sized provincial\ntown; all sorts of things floated along on the swirl. For example, he\nwas discussing his future behaviour. \"I'm glad it's come now. Not\nbefore. I've had my lesson. I shall be very discreet now, trust me.\nWe've learnt the value of money.\" He discussed the possibility of a\ncountry house, of taking a Martello tower as a swimming-box (as one\nmight say a shooting-box) of living in Venice because of its artistic\nassociations and scenic possibilities, of a flat in Westminster or a\nhouse in the West End. He also raised the question of giving up smoking\nand drinking, and what classes of drink were especially noxious to a man\nof his constitution. But discourses on all this did not prevent a\nparenthetical computation of the probable profits on the supposition of\na thousand nights here and in America, nor did it ignore the share\nKipps was to have, nor the gladness with which Chitterlow would pay that\nshare, nor the surprise and regret with which he had learnt, through an\nindirect source which awakened many associations, of the turpitude of\nyoung Walshingham, nor the distaste Chitterlow had always felt for young\nWalshingham and men of his type. An excursus upon Napoleon had got into\nthe torrent somehow and kept bobbing up and down. The whole thing was\nthrown into the form of a single complex sentence, with parenthetical\nand subordinate clauses fitting one into the other like Chinese boxes,\nand from first to last it never even had an air of approaching anything\nin the remotest degree partaking of the nature of a full stop.\n\nInto this deluge came the _Daily News_, like the gleam of light in\nWatts' picture, the waters were assuaged while its sheet was opened, and\nit had a column, a whole column, of praise. Chitterlow held the paper\nand Kipps read over his left hand, and Ann under his right. It made the\naffair more real to Kipps; it seemed even to confirm Chitterlow against\nlurking doubts he had been concealing. But it took him away. He departed\nin a whirl, to secure a copy of every morning paper, every blessed rag\nthere is, and take them all to Dymchurch and Muriel forthwith. It had\nbeen the send-off the Boys had given him that had prevented his doing as\nmuch at Charing Cross--let alone that he only caught it by the skin of\nhis teeth.... Besides which the bookstall wasn't open. His white face,\nlit by a vast excitement, bid them a tremendous farewell, and he\ndeparted through the sunlight, with his buoyant walk, buoyant almost to\nthe tottering pitch. His hair, as one got it sunlit in the street,\nseemed to have grown in the night.\n\nThey saw him stop a newsboy.\n\n\"Every blessed rag,\" floated to them on the notes of that gorgeous\nvoice.\n\nThe newsboy, too, had happened on luck. Something like a faint cheer\nfrom the newsboy came down the air to terminate that transaction.\n\nChitterlow went on his way swinging a great budget of papers, a figure\nof merited success. The newsboy recovered from his emotion with a jerk,\nexamined something in his hand again, transferred it to his pocket,\nwatched Chitterlow for a space, and then in a sort of hushed silence\nresumed his daily routine....\n\nAnn and Kipps watched that receding happiness in silence, until he\nvanished round the bend of the road.\n\n\"I _am_ glad,\" said Ann at last, speaking with a little sigh.\n\n\"So'm I,\" said Kipps, with emphasis. \"For if ever a feller 'as worked\nand waited--it's 'im.\"...\n\nThey went back through the shop rather thoughtfully, and after a peep at\nthe sleeping baby, resumed their interrupted breakfast. \"If ever a\nfeller 'as worked and waited, it's 'im,\" said Kipps, cutting bread.\n\n\"Very likely it's true,\" said Ann, a little wistfully.\n\n\"What's true?\"\n\n\"About all that money coming.\"\n\nKipps meditated. \"I don't see why it shouldn't be,\" he decided, and\nhanded Ann a piece of bread on the tip of his knife.\n\n\"But we'll keep on the shop,\" he said after an interval for further\nreflection, \"all the same.... I 'aven't much trust in money after the\nthings we've seen.\"\n\n\n§7\n\nThat was two years ago, and as the whole world knows, the \"Pestered\nButterfly\" is running still. It _was_ true. It has made the fortune of a\nonce declining little theatre in the Strand, night after night the great\nbeetle scene draws happy tears from a house packed to repletion, and\nKipps--for all that Chitterlow is not what one might call a business\nman--is almost as rich as he was in the beginning. People in Australia,\npeople in Lancashire, Scotland, Ireland, in New Orleans, in Jamaica, in\nNew York and Montreal, have crowded through doorways to Kipps'\nenrichment, lured by the hitherto unsuspected humours of the\nentomological drama. Wealth rises like an exhalation all over our little\nplanet, and condenses, or at least some of it does, in the pockets of\nKipps.\n\n\"It's rum,\" said Kipps.\n\nHe sat in the little kitchen out behind the bookshop and philosophised\nand smiled, while Ann gave Arthur Waddy Kipps his evening tub before\nthe fire. Kipps was always present at this ceremony unless customers\nprevented; there was something in the mixture of the odours of tobacco,\nsoap and domesticity that charmed him unspeakably.\n\n\"Chuckerdee, o' man,\" he said, affably, wagging his pipe at his son, and\nthought incidentally, after the manner of all parents, that very few\nchildren could have so straight and clean a body.\n\n\"Dadda's got a cheque,\" said Arthur Waddy Kipps, emerging for a moment\nfrom the towel.\n\n\"'E gets 'old of everything,\" said Ann. \"You can't say a word----\"\n\n\"Dadda got a cheque,\" this marvellous child repeated.\n\n\"Yes, o' man, I got a cheque. And it's got to go into a bank for you,\nagainst when you got to go to school. See? So's you'll grow up knowing\nyour way about a bit.\"\n\n\"Dadda's got a cheque,\" said the wonder son, and then gave his mind to\nmaking mighty splashes with his foot. Every time he splashed, laughter\novercame him, and he had to be held up for fear he should tumble out of\nthe tub in his merriment. Finally he was towelled to his toe-tips,\nwrapped up in warm flannel, and kissed, and carried off to bed by Ann's\ncousin and lady help, Emma. And then after Ann had carried away the bath\ninto the scullery, she returned to find her husband with his pipe\nextinct and the cheque still in his hand.\n\n\"Two fousand pounds,\" he said. \"It's dashed rum. Wot 'ave _I_ done to\nget two fousand pounds, Ann?\"\n\n\"What 'aven't you--not to?\" said Ann.\n\nHe reflected upon this view of the case.\n\n\"I shan't never give up this shop,\" he said at last.\n\n\"We're very 'appy 'ere,\" said Ann.\n\n\"Not if I 'ad _fifty_ fousand pounds.\"\n\n\"No fear,\" said Ann.\n\n\"You got a shop,\" said Kipps, \"and you come along in a year's time and\nthere it is. But money--look 'ow it come and goes! There's no sense in\nmoney. You may kill yourself trying to get it, and then it comes when\nyou aren't looking. There's my 'riginal money! Where is it now? Gone!\nAnd it's took young Walshingham with it, and 'e's gone, too. It's like\nplaying skittles. 'Long comes the ball, right and left you fly, and\nthere it is rolling away and not changed a bit. No sense in it! 'E's\ngone, and she's gone--gone off with that chap Revel, that sat with me at\ndinner. Merried man! And Chit'low rich! Lor'!--what a fine place that\nGerrik Club is, to be sure, where I 'ad lunch wiv' 'im! Better'n _any_\n'otel. Footmen in powder they got--not waiters, Ann--footmen! 'E's rich\nand me rich--in a sort of way.... Don't seem much sense in it, Ann,\n'owever you look at it.\" He shook his head.\n\n\"I know one thing,\" said Kipps.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I'm going to put it in jest as many different banks as I can. See?\nFifty 'ere, fifty there. 'Posit. I'm not going to 'nvest it--no fear.\"\n\n\"It's only frowing money away,\" said Ann.\n\n\"I'm 'arf a mind to bury some of it under the shop. Only I expect one\n'ud always be coming down at nights to make sure it was there.... I\ndon't seem to trust anyone--not with money.\" He put the cheque on the\ntable corner and smiled and tapped his pipe on the grate with his eyes\non that wonderful document. \"S'pose old Bean started orf,\" he\nreflected.... \"One thing, 'e _is_ a bit lame.\"\n\n\"'E wouldn't,\" said Ann; \"not 'im.\"\n\n\"I was only joking like.\" He stood up, put his pipe among the\ncandlesticks on the mantel, took up the cheque and began folding it\ncarefully to put it back in his pocket-book.\n\nA little bell jangled.\n\n\"Shop!\" said Kipps. \"That's right. Keep a shop and the shop'll keep you.\nThat's 'ow I look at it, Ann.\"\n\nHe drove his pocket-book securely into his breast pocket before he\nopened the living-room door....\n\nBut whether indeed it is the bookshop that keeps Kipps or whether it is\nKipps who keeps the bookshop is just one of those commercial mysteries\npeople of my unarithmetical temperament are never able to solve. They do\nvery well, the dears, anyhow, thank Heaven!\n\nThe bookshop of Kipps is on the left-hand side of the Hythe High Street\ncoming from Folkestone, between the yard of the livery stable and the\nshop-window full of old silver and such like things--it is quite easy to\nfind--and there you may see him for yourself and speak to him and buy\nthis book of him if you like. He has it in stock, I know. Very\ndelicately I've seen to that. His name is not Kipps, of course, you must\nunderstand that, but everything else is exactly as I have told you. You\ncan talk to him about books, about politics, about going to Boulogne,\nabout life, and the ups and downs of life. Perhaps he will quote you\nBuggins--from whom, by the bye, one can now buy everything a gentleman's\nwardrobe should contain at the little shop in Rendezvous Street,\nFolkestone. If you are fortunate to find Kipps in a good mood he may\neven let you know how he inherited a fortune \"once.\" \"Run froo it,\"\nhe'll say with a not unhappy smile. \"Got another\nafterwards--speckylating in plays. Needn't keep this shop if I didn't\nlike. But it's something to do.\"...\n\nOr he may be even more intimate. \"I seen some things,\" he said to me\nonce. \"Raver! Life! Why! once I--I _'loped_! I did--reely!\"\n\n(Of course you will not tell Kipps that he _is_ \"Kipps,\" or that I have\nput him in this book. He does not know. And you know, one never knows\nhow people are going to take that sort of thing. I am an old and trusted\ncustomer now, and for many amiable reasons I should prefer that things\nremained exactly on their present footing.)\n\n\n§8\n\nOne early-closing evening in July they left the baby to the servant\ncousin, and Kipps took Ann for a row on the Hythe canal. It was a\nglorious evening, and the sun set in a mighty blaze and left a world\nwarm, and very still. The twilight came. And there was the water,\nshining bright, and the sky a deepening blue, and the great trees that\ndipped their boughs towards the water, exactly as it had been when he\npaddled home with Helen, when her eyes had seemed to him like dusky\nstars. He had ceased from rowing and rested on his oars, and suddenly he\nwas touched by the wonder of life, the strangeness that is a presence\nstood again by his side.\n\nOut of the darknesses beneath the shallow, weedy stream of his being\nrose a question, a question that looked up dimly and never reached the\nsurface. It was the question of the wonder of the beauty, the\npurposeless, inconsecutive beauty, that falls so strangely among the\nhappenings and memories of life. It never reached the surface of his\nmind, it never took to itself substance or form, it looked up merely as\nthe phantom of a face might look, out of deep waters, and sank again to\nnothingness.\n\n\"Artie,\" said Ann.\n\nHe woke up and pulled a stroke. \"What?\" he said.\n\n\"Penny for your thoughts, Artie.\"\n\nHe considered.\n\n\"I reely don't think I was thinking of anything,\" he said at last with a\nsmile. \"No.\"\n\nHe still rested on his oars.\n\n\"I expect,\" he said, \"I was thinking jest what a Rum Go everything is. I\nexpect it was something like that.\"\n\n\"Queer old Artie!\"\n\n\"Ain't I? I don't suppose there ever was a chap quite like me before.\"\n\nHe reflected for just another minute. \"Oo! I dunno,\" he said, and roused\nhimself to pull.\n\n\nTHE END"