A Great Man: A Frolic. Arnold Bennett

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      At seven Mr. Knight put on his hat.

      'Are you going out, father?' his wife asked, shocked.

      'It is only fair,' said Mr. Knight, 'to warn the school people that Henry will not be able to be present to-night. They will have to alter their programme. Of course I shan't stay.'

      In pitying the misfortune of the school, thus suddenly and at so critical a moment deprived of Henry's presence and help, Mrs. Knight felt less keenly the pang of her own misfortune and that of her son. Nevertheless, it was a night sufficiently tragic in Oxford Street.

      Mr. Knight returned with Henry's two prizes — Self-Help and The Voyage of the 'Fox' in the Arctic Seas.

      The boy had wakened once, but dozed again.

      'Put them on the chair where he can see them in the morning,' Aunt Annie suggested.

      'Yes,' said the father, brightening. 'And I'll wind up his watch for him… Bless us! what's he been doing to the watch? What is it, Annie?

      'Why did you do it?' Mr. Knight asked Tom. 'That's what I can't understand. Why did you do it?'

      They were alone together the next morning in the sitting-room. ('I will speak to that young man privately,' Mr. Knight had said to the two women in a formidable tone.) Henry was still in bed, but awake and reading Smiles with precocious gusto.

      'Did the kid tell you all about it, then?'

      'The kid,' said Mr. Knight, marking by a peculiar emphasis his dissatisfaction with Tom's choice of nouns, 'was very loyal. I had to drag the story out of him bit by bit. I repeat: why did you do it? Was this your idea of a joke? If so, I can only say – '

      'You should have seen how he enjoyed them! It was tremendous,' Tom broke in. 'Tremendous! I've no doubt the afternoon was terrible, but the morning was worth it. Ask Henry himself. I wanted to give him a treat, and it seems I gave you all one.'

      'And then the headmaster!' Mr. Knight complained. 'He was very upset. He told me he didn't know what they should do without Henry last night.'

      'Oh yes. I know old Pingles. Pingles is a great wit. But seriously, uncle,' said Tom – he gazed at the carpet; 'seriously – ' He paused. 'If I had thought of the dreadful calamity to the school, I would only have bought half a pound.'

      'Pah!' Mr. Knight whiffed out.

      'It's a mercy we're all still alive,' murmured Tom.

      'And may I ask, sir – ' Mr. Knight began afresh, in a new vein, sarcastic and bitter. 'Of course you're an independent member of society, and your own master; but may I venture to ask what you were doing in Hyde Park yesterday at eleven o'clock?'

      'You may,' Tom replied. 'The truth is, Bollingtons Limited and me, just me, have had a row. I didn't like their style, nor their manners. So the day before yesterday I told them to go to the devil – '

      'You told them to go to the – !'

      'And I haven't seen anything of Bollingtons since, and I don't want to.'

      'That is where you are going to yourself, sir,' thundered Mr. Knight. 'Mark my words. That is where you are going to yourself. Two guineas a week, at your age, and you tell them – ! I suppose you think you can get a place like that any day.'

      'Look here, uncle. Listen. Mark my words. I have two to say to you, and two only. Good-morning.'

      Tom hastened from the room, and went down into the shop by the shop-stairs. The cashier of the establishment was opening the safe.

      'Mr. Perkins,' said Tom lightly, 'uncle wants change for a ten-pound note, in gold.'

      'Certainly, Mr. Tom. With pleasure.'

      'Oh!' Tom explained, as though the notion had just struck him, taking the sovereigns, 'the note! I'll bring it down in a jiffy.'

      'That's all right, Mr. Tom,' said the cashier, smiling with suave confidence.

      Tom ran up to his room, passing his uncle on the way. He snatched his hat and stick, and descended rapidly into the street by the house-stairs. He chose this effective and picturesque method of departing for ever from the hearth and home of Mr. Knight.

      CHAPTER VII

      CONTAGIOUS

      'There's only the one slipper here,' said Aunt Annie, feeling in the embroidered slipper-bag which depended from a glittering brass nail in the recess to the right of the fireplace. And this fireplace was on the ground-floor, and not in Oxford Street.

      'I was mending the other this morning,' said Mrs. Knight, springing up with all her excessive stoutness from the easy-chair. 'I left it in my work-basket, I do believe.'

      'I'll get it,' said Aunt Annie.

      'No, I'll get it,' said Mrs. Knight.

      So it occurred that Aunt Annie laid the left slipper (sole upwards) in front of the brisk red fire, while Mrs. Knight laid the right one.

      Then the servant entered the dining-room – a little simple fat thing of sixteen or so, proud of her cap and apron and her black afternoon dress. She was breathing quickly.

      'Please'm, Dr. Dancer says he'll come at nine o'clock, or as soon after as makes no matter.'

      In delivering the message the servant gave a shrewd, comprehending, sympathetic smile, as if to say: 'I am just as excited about your plot as you are.'

      'Thank you, Sarah. That will do.' Aunt Annie dismissed her frigidly.

      'Yes'm.'

      Sarah's departing face fell to humility, and it said now: 'I'm sorry I presumed to be as excited about your plot as you are.'

      The two sisters looked at each other interrogatively, disturbed, alarmed, shocked.

      'Can she have been listening at doors?' Aunt Annie inquired in a whisper.

      Wherever the sisters happened to be, they never discussed Sarah save in a whisper. If they had been in Alaska and Sarah in Timbuctoo, they would have mentioned her name in a whisper, lest she might overhear. And, by the way, Sarah's name was not Sarah, but Susan. It had been altered in deference to a general opinion that it was not nice for a servant to bear the same name as her mistress, and, further, that such an anomaly had a tendency to subvert the social order.

      'I don't know,' said Mrs. Knight 'I put her straight about those lumps of sugar.'

      'Did you tell her to see to the hot-water bottle?'

      'Bless us, no!'

      Aunt Annie rang the bell.

      'Sarah, put a hot-water bottle in your master's bed. And be sure the stopper is quite tight.'

      'Yes'm. Master's just coming down the street now, mum.'

      Sarah spoke true. The master was in fact coming down the wintry gaslit street. And the street was Dawes Road, Fulham, in the day of its newness. The master stopped at the gate of a house of two storeys with a cellar-kitchen. He pushed open the creaking iron device and entered the garden, sixteen foot by four, which was СКАЧАТЬ