The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories Part 44

In the breakfast-room Mrs Swann was invited, nay commanded by Mrs Clayton Vernon, to loosen her mantle. But she could not loosen her mantle. She could do nothing. In clutching the potato to prevent bits of it from falling out of the m.u.f.f, she of course effected the precise opposite of her purpose, and bits of the luscious and perfect potato began to descend the front of her mantle. The clock struck seven, and ages elapsed, during which Mrs Swann could not think of anything whatever to say, but the finger of the clock somehow stuck motionless at seven, though the pendulum plainly wagged.

"I'm not too warm," she said at length, feebly but obstinately resisting Mrs Clayton Vernon's command. This, to speak bluntly, was an untruth.

She was too warm.

"Are you sure that nothing is the matter?" urged Mrs Clayton Vernon, justifiably alarmed by the expression of her visitor's features. "I beg you to confide in me if--"

"Not at all," said Mrs Swann, trying to laugh. "I'm only sorry to disturb you. I didn't mean to disturb you."

"What on earth is that?" cried Mrs Clayton Vernon.

The other potato, escaping Mrs Swann's vigilance, had run out of the m.u.f.f and come to the carpet with a dull thud. It rolled half under Mrs Swann's dress. Almost hysterically she put her foot on it, thus making pulp of the second potato.

"What?" she inquired innocently.

"Didn't you hear anything? I trust it isn't a mouse! We have had them once."

Mrs Clayton Vernon thought how brave Mrs Swann was, not to be frightened by the word "mouse."

"I didn't hear anything," said Mrs Swann. Another untruth.

"If you aren't too warm, won't you come a little nearer the fire?"

But not for a thousand pounds would Mrs Swann have exposed the mush of potato on the carpet under her feet. She could not conceive in what ignominy the dreadful affair would end, but she was the kind of woman that nails her colours to the mast.

"Dear me!" Mrs Clayton Vernon murmured. "How delicious those potatoes do smell! I can smell them all over the house."

This was the most staggering remark that Mrs Swann had ever heard.

"Potatoes? very weakly.

"Yes," said Mrs Clayton Vernon, smiling. "I must tell you that Mr Millwain is very nervous about getting his hands cold in driving to Hanbridge. And he has asked me to have hot potatoes prepared. Isn't it amusing? It seems hot potatoes are constantly used for this purpose in winter by the pupils of the Royal College of Music, and even by the professors. My cousin says that even a slight chilliness of the hands interferes with his playing. So I am having potatoes done for your son too. A delightful boy he is!"

"Really!" said Mrs Swann. "How queer! But what a good idea!"

She might have confessed then. But you do not know her if you think she did. Gilbert came in, anxious and alarmed. Mrs Clayton Vernon left them together. The mother explained matters to the son, and in an instant of time the ruin of two magnificent potatoes was at the back of the fire.

Then, without saluting Mrs Clayton Vernon, Mrs Swann fled.

HALF-A-SOVEREIGN

The scene was the up-platform of Knype railway station on a summer afternoon, and, more particularly, that part of the platform round about the bookstall. There were three persons in the neighbourhood of the bookstall. The first was the princ.i.p.al bookstall clerk, who was folding with extraordinary rapidity copies of the special edition of the _Staffordshire Signal_; the second was Mr Sandbach, an earthenware manufacturer, famous throughout the Five Towns for his ingenious invention of teapots that will pour the tea into the cup instead of all over the table; and a very shabby man, whom Mr Sandbach did not know.

This very shabby man was quite close to the bookstall, while Mr Sandbach stood quite ten yards away. Mr Sandbach gazed steadily at the man, but the man, ignoring Mr Sandbach, allowed dreamy and abstracted eyes to rest on the far distance, where a locomotive or so was impatiently pushing and pulling waggons as an excitable mother will drag and shove an inoffensive child. The platform as a whole was spa.r.s.ely peopled; the London train had recently departed, and the station was suffering from the usual reaction; only a local train was signalled.

Mr Gale, a friend of Mr Sandbach's, came briskly on to the platform from the booking-office, caught sight of Mr Sandbach, and accosted him.

"h.e.l.lo, Sandbach!"

"How do, Gale?"

To a slight extent they were rivals in the field of invention. But both had succeeded in life, and both had the alert and prosperous air of success. Born about the same time, they stood nearly equal after forty years of earthly endeavour.

"What are you doing here?" asked Gale, casually.

"I've come to meet someone off the Crewe train."

"And I'm going by it--to Derby," said Mr Gale. "They say it's thirteen minutes late."

"Look here," said Mr Sandbach, taking no notice of this remark, "you see that man there?"

"Which one--by the bookstall?"

"Yes."

"Well, what about him?"

"I bet you you can't make him move from where he is--no physical force, of course."

Mr Gale hesitated an instant, and then his eye glistened with response to the challenge, and he replied:

"I bet you I can."

"Well, try," said Mr Sandbach.

Mr Sandbach and Mr Gale frequently threw down the glove to each other in this agreeable way. Either they asked conundrums, or they set test questions, or they suggested feats. When Mr Sandbach discovered at a Christmas party that you cannot stand with your left side close against a wall and then lift your right leg, his first impulse was to confront Mr Gale with the trick. When Mr Gale read in a facetious paper an article on the lack of accurate observation in the average man, ent.i.tled, "Do 'bus horses wear blinkers?" his opening remark to Mr Sandbach at their next meeting was: "I say, Sandbach, do 'bus horses wear blinkers? Answer quick!" And a phrase constantly in their mouths was, "I'll try that on Gale;" or, "I wonder whether Sandbach knows that?" All that was required to make their relations artistically complete was an official referee for counting the scores. Such a basis of friendship may seem bizarre, but it is by no means uncommon in the Five Towns, and perhaps elsewhere.

So that when Mr Sandbach defied Mr Gale to induce the shabby man to move from where he stood, the nostrils of the combatants twitched with the scent of battle.

Mr Gale conceived his tactics instantly and put them into execution. He walked along the platform some little distance, then turned, and taking a handful of silver from his pocket, began to count it. He pa.s.sed slowly by the shabby man, almost brushing his shoulder; and, just as he pa.s.sed, he left fall half-a-crown. The half-crown rolled round in a circle and lay down within a yard and a half of the shabby man. The shabby man calmly glanced at the half-crown and then at Mr Gale, who, strolling on, magnificently pretended to be unaware of his loss; and then the shabby man resumed his dreamy stare into the distance.

"Hi!" cried Mr Sandbach after Mr Gale. "You've dropped something."

It was a great triumph for Mr Sandbach.

"I told you you wouldn't get him to move!" said Mr Sandbach, proudly, having rejoined his friend at another part of the platform.

"What's the game?" demanded Mr Gale, frankly acknowledging by tone and gesture that he was defeated.

"Perfectly simple," answered Mr Sandbach, condescendingly, "when you know. I'll tell you--it's really very funny. Just as everyone was rushing to get into the London express I heard a coin drop on the platform, and I saw it rolling. It was half-a-sovereign. I couldn't be sure who dropped it, but I think it was a lady. Anyhow, no one claimed it. I was just going to pick it up when that chap came by. He saw it, and he put his foot on it as quick as lightning, and stood still. He didn't notice that I was after it too. So I drew back. I thought I'd wait and see what happens."

"He looks as if he could do with half-a-sovereign," said Mr Gale.

"Yes; he's only a station loafer."

"Then why doesn't he pick up his half-sovereign and hook it?"

"Can't you see why?" said Mr Sandbach, patronizingly. "He's afraid of the bookstall clerk catching him at it. He's afraid it's the bookstall clerk that has dropped that half-sovereign. You wait till the bookstall clerk finishes those papers and goes inside, and you'll see."