The Essential W. Somerset Maugham Collection. W. Somerset Maugham

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СКАЧАТЬ foresaw that everything would run on wheels, an idea dear to his peace-loving soul.

      Not that he was not sorry to lose Frank. In the first place, he liked him, and then he was a good, steady, hard-working fellow, one of the kind you didn't have to stand over. But, naturally, he wanted to get back to his own place, now that he had saved up a bit. Every man liked being his own master.

      Taylor alone had remained at his place at the table. Nora had cleared away everything except the dishes at his place. She never went near him if she could avoid it.

      "I guess I'm in your way," he said, rising.

      "Not more than usual, thank you."

      Taylor gave a little laugh.

      "I guess you'll not be sorry to see the last of me."

      Nora paused in her work, and leaning on the table with both hands, looked him steadily in the face.

      "I can't honestly say that it makes the least difference to me whether you go or stay," she said coldly.

      "When does your train go, Frank?" asked Hornby from his corner.

      "Half-past three; I'll be starting from here in about an hour."

      "Reg can go over with you and drive the rig back again," said Marsh.

      "All right. I'll go and dress myself in a bit."

      "I guess you'll be glad to get back to your own place," said Gertie warmly.

      She had always liked Frank Taylor--a man who worked hard and earned his money. She did not begrudge him a cent of it, nor the pleasure he had in the thought of getting back to his own place. He was the kind of man who should set up for himself.

      "Well, I guess I'll not be sorry." He sat looking out of the window with a sort of dreamy air, as if seeing far to the westward his own land.

      So that was the reason for his going. He had a place of his own. He was only a hired man for the moment. Eddie had told her that a man frequently had to hire out after a succession of bad seasons. What of it? His keeping it to himself was the crowning impertinence!

      CHAPTER VIII

      "I'll do the washing, Nora, and you can dry," said Gertie in that peculiar tone which Nora had learned to recognize as the preface to something disagreeable.

      "All right."

      "I've noticed the things aren't half clean when I leave them to you to do."

      "I'm sorry; why didn't you tell me?"

      "I suppose yon never did the washing-up in England. Too grand?"

      But Nora was not to be ruffled just now. Her resentment against Taylor, who was sitting watching her as if he read her thoughts--she often wondered how much of them he _did_ read--made anything Gertie said seem momentarily unimportant.

      "I don't suppose anyone would wash up if they could help it. It's not very amusing."

      "You always want to be amused?"

      "No, but I want to be happy."

      "Well," said Gertie sharply, "you've got a roof over your head and a comfortable bed to sleep in, three good meals a day and plenty to do. That's all anybody wants to make them happy, I guess."

      "Oh, Lord!" exclaimed Reggie from his corner.

      "Well," said Gertie, turning sharply on him, "if you don't like Canada, why did you come out?"

      "You don't suppose," said Hornby, rising slowly to his feet, "I'd have let them send me if I'd have known what I was in for, do you? Not much. Up at five in the morning and working about the place like a navvy till your back feels as if it 'ud break, and then back again in the afternoon. And the same thing day after day. What was the good of sending me to Harrow and Oxford if that's what I've got to do all my life?"

      There was a tragic dignity in his tone which for the moment held even Gertie silent. It was her husband who answered him, and Gertie's jealous ear detected a certain wistfulness in his voice.

      "You'll get used to it soon enough, Reg. It _is_ a bit hard at first, I'll admit. But when you get your foot in, you wouldn't change it for any other life."

      "This isn't a country for a man to go to sleep in and wait for something to turn up," said Gertie aggressively.

      "I wouldn't go back to England now, not for nothing," said Trotter, stung to an unusual burst of eloquence. "England! Eighteen bob a week, that's what I earned. And no prospects. Out of work five months in the year."

      "What did you do in England!" asked Nora curiously.

      "Bricklayer, Miss."

      "You needn't call her Miss," said Gertie heatedly. "You call me Gertie, don't you? Well, _her_ name's Nora."

      "What with strikes and bad times," went on Trotter unheeding, "you never knew where you was. And the foreman always bullying you. I don't know what all. I 'ad about enough of it, I can tell you. I've never been out of work since the day I landed. I've 'ad as much to eat as I wanted and I'm saving money. In this country everybody's as good as everybody else."

      "If not better," said Nora dryly.

      "In two years I shall be able to set up for myself. Why, there's old man Thompson, up at Pratt. _He_ started as a bricklayer, same as I. Come from Yorkshire, he did. He's got seven thousand dollars in the bank now."

      "Believe me, you fellows who come out now have a much softer thing of it than I did when I first came. In those days they wouldn't have an Englishman, they'd have a Galician rather. In Winnipeg, when they advertised in the paper for labor, you'd see often as not: 'No English need apply.'"

      "Well, it was their own fault," stormed Gertie. "They wouldn't work or anything. They just soaked."

      "It _was_ their own fault, right enough. This was the dumping ground for all the idlers, drunkards and scallywags in England. They had the delusion over there that if a man was too big a rotter to do anything at all at home, he'd only got to be sent out here and he'd make a fortune."

      "I guess things ain't as bad as that now," spoke up Taylor. "They send us a different class. It takes an Englishman two years longer than anybody else to get the hang of things, but when once he tumbles to it, he's better than any of them."

      "Ah, well!" said Marsh, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, "I guess nowadays everyone's glad to see the Englishman make good. When I nearly smashed up three years ago, I had no end of offers of help."

      "How _did_ you nearly smash up?" asked Hornby interestedly.

      "Oh, I had a run of bad luck. One year the crop was frosted and the next year I was hailed out. It wants a good deal of capital to stand up against that."

      "That's СКАЧАТЬ