The Unclassed Part 55

Waymark glanced back and shrugged his shoulders.

"Pooh! Never mind," he said. "You're used to it."

"Used to it! Yes," Julian returned, his face flus.h.i.+ng suddenly a deep red, the effect of extraordinary excitement; "and it is driving me mad."

Then, after a fit of coughing--

"She found my poem last night, and burnt it."

"Burnt it?"

"Yes; simply because she could not understand it. She said she thought it was waste paper, but I saw, I saw."

The 'bus they waited for came up, and they went on their way. On reaching the neighbourhood of Peckham, they struck off through a complex of small new streets, apparently familiar to Waymark, and came at length to a little shop, also very new, the windows of which displayed a fresh-looking a.s.sortment of miscellaneous goods. There was half a large cheese, marked by the incisions of the tasting-knife; a boiled ham, garlanded; a cone of brawn; a truncated pyramid of spiced beef, released from its American tin; also German sausage and other dainties of the kind. Then there were canisters of tea and coffee, tins of mustard, a basket of eggs, some onions, boxes of baking-powder and of blacking; all arranged so as to make an impression on the pa.s.sers-by; everything clean and bright. Above the window stood in imposing gilt letters the name of the proprietor: O'Gree.

They entered. The shop was very small and did not contain much stock.

The new shelves showed a row of biscuit-tins, but little else, and from the ceiling hung b.a.l.l.s of string. On the counter lay an inviting round of boiled beef. Odours of provisions and of fresh paint were strong in the air. Every thing gleamed from resent scrubbing and polis.h.i.+ng; the floor only emphasised its purity by a little track where a child's shoes had brought in mud from the street; doubtless it had been washed over since the Sunday morning's custom had subsided. Wherever the walls would have confessed their bareness the enterprising tradesman had hung gorgeous advertising cards. At the sound of the visitors' footsteps, the door leading out of the shop into the parlour behind opened briskly, a head having previously appeared over the red curtain, and Mr. O'Gree, in the glory of Sunday attire, rushed forward with eager hands. His welcome was obstreperous.

"Waymark, you're a brick! Mr. Casti, I'm rejoiced to receive you in my establishment! You're neither a minute too soon nor a minute too late.

Mrs. O'Gree only this moment called out from the kitchen that the kettle was boiling and the crumpets at the point of perfection! I knew your punctuality of old, Waymark. Mr. Casti, how does it strike you?

Roaring trade, Waymark! Done two s.h.i.+llings and threepence three farthings this Sunday morning. Look here, me boy,--ho, ho!"

He drew out the till behind the counter, and jingled his hand in coppers. Then he rushed about in the wildest fervour from object to object, opening tins which he had forgotten were empty, making pa.s.ses at the beef and the ham with a formidable carving-knife, demonstrating the use of a sugar-chopper and a coffee-grinder, and, lastly, calling attention with infinite glee to a bad halfpenny which he had detected on the previous afternoon, and had forthwith nailed down to the counter, _in terrorem_. Then he lifted with much solemnity a hinged portion of the counter, and requested his visitors to pa.s.s into the back-parlour. Here there was the same perfect cleanliness, though the furniture was scant and very simple. The round table was laid for tea, with a spotless cloth, plates of a very demonstrative pattern, and knives and forks which seemed only just to have left the ironmonger's shop.

"We pa.s.s, you observe, Mr. Casti," cried the ex-teacher, "from the region of commerce to that of domestic intimacy. Here Mrs. O'Gree reigns supreme, as indeed she does in the other department, as far as presiding genius goes. She's in all places at once, like a birrud! Mr.

Casti," in a whisper, "I shall have the pleasure of introducing you to one of the most remarkable women it was ever your lot to meet; a phenomenon of--"

The inner door opened, and the lady herself interrupted these eulogies.

Sally was charming. Her trim little body attired in the trimmest of homely dresses, her sharp little face s.h.i.+ning and just a little red with excitement, her quick movements, her laughing eyes, her restless hands graced with the new wedding-ring--all made up a picture of which her husband might well be proud. He stood and gazed at her in frank admiration; only when she sprang forward to shake hands with Waymark did he recover himself sufficiently to go through the ceremony of introducing Julian. It was done with all stateliness.

"An improvement this on the masters' room, eh, Waymark?" cried Mr.

O'Gree. Then, suddenly interrupting him self, "And that reminds me!

We've got a lodger."

"Already?"

"And who d'ye think? Who d'ye think? You wouldn't guess if you went on till Christmas. Ho, ho, ho! I'm hanged if I tell you. Wait and see!"

"Shall I call him down?" asked Sally, who in the meantime had brought in the tea-pot, and the crumpets, and a dish of slices from the round of beef on the counter, and boiled eggs, and sundry other dainties.

O'Gree, unable to speak for mirth, nodded his head, and presently Sally returned, followed by--Mr. Egger. Waymark scarcely recognised his old friend, so much had the latter changed: instead of the old woe-begone look, Egger's face wore a joyous smile, and his outer man was so vastly improved that he had evidently fallen on a more lucrative profession.

Waymark remembered O'Gree's chance meeting with the Swiss, but had heard nothing of him since; nor indeed had O'Gree till a day or two ago.

"How do things go?" Waymark inquired heartily. "Found a better school?"

"No, no, my friend," returned Egger, in his very bad English. "At the school I made my possible; I did till I could no more. I have made like Mr. O'Gree; it is to say, quite a change in my life. I am waiter at a restaurant. And see me; am I not the better quite? No fear!" This c.o.c.kneyism came in with comical effect. "I have enough to eat and to drink, and money in my pocket. The school may go to ----"

O'Gree coughed violently to cover the last word, and looked reproachfully at his old colleague. Poor Egger, who had been carried away by his joyous fervour, was abashed, and glanced timidly at Sally, who replied by giving him half a dozen thick rounds of German sausage.

On his requesting mustard, she fetched some from the shop and mixed it, but, in doing so, had the misfortune to pour too much water.

"There!" she exclaimed; "I've doubted the miller's eye."

O'Gree laughed when he saw Waymark looking for an explanation.

"That's a piece of Weymouth," he remarked. "Mrs. O'Gree comes from the south-west of England," he added, leaning towards Casti. "She's constantly teaching me new and interesting things. Now, if I was to spill the salt here--"

He put his Ii and on the salt-cellar, as if to do so, but Sally rapped his knuckles with a fork.

"None of your nonsense, sir! Give Mr. Casti some more meat, instead."

It was a merry party. The noise of talk grew so loud that it was only the keenness of habitual attention on Sally's part which enabled her to observe that a customer was knocking on the counter. She darted out, but returned with a disappointed look on her face.

"Pickles?" asked her husband, frowning.

Sally nodded.

"Now, look here, Waymark," cried O'Gree, rising in indignation from his seat. "Look here, Mr. Casti. The one drop of bitterness in our cup is--pickles; the one thing that threatens to poison our happiness is--pickles. We're always being asked for pickles; just as if the people knew about it, and came on purpose!"

"Knew About what?" asked Waymark, in astonishment.

"Why, that we mayn't sell 'em! A few doors off there's a scoundrel of a grocer. Now, his landlord's the same as ours, and when we took this shop there was one condition attached. Because the grocer sells pickles, and makes a good thing of them, we had to undertake that, in that branch of commerce, we wouldn't compete with him. Pickles are forbidden."

Waymark burst into a most unsympathetic roar of laughter, but with O'Gree the grievance was evidently a serious one, and it was some few moments before he recovered his equanimity. Indeed it was not quite restored till the entrance of another customer, who purchased two ounces of b.u.t.ter. When, in the dead silence which ensued, Sally was heard weighing out the order, O'Gree's face beamed; and when there followed the c.h.i.n.k of coins in the till, he brought his fist down with a triumphant crash upon the table.

When tea was over, O'Gree managed to get Waymark apart from the rest, and showed him a small photograph of Sally which had recently been taken.

"Sally's great ambition," he whispered, "is to be taken cabinet-size, and in a snow-storm. You've seen the kind of thing in the shop-windows?

We'll manage that before long, but this will do for the present. You don't see a face like that every day; eh, Waymark?"

Sally, her housewifery duly accomplished in the invisible regions, came back and sat by the fireside. She had exchanged her work-a-day costume for one rather more ornate. Noticeable was a delicate gold chain which hung about her neck, and Waymark smiled when he presently saw her take out her watch and seem to compare its time with that of the clock on the mantelpiece. It was a wedding present from Ida.

Sally caught the smile, and almost immediately came over to a seat by Waymark; and, whilst the others were engaged in loud talk, spoke with him privately.

"Have you seen her lately?" she asked.

"Not for some weeks," the other replied, shaking his head.

"Well, it's the queerest thing I ever knew, s'nough! But, there," she added, with an arch glance, "some men are that stupid--"

Waymark laughed slightly, and again shook his head.

"All a mistake," he said.

"Yes, that's just what it is, you may depend upon it. I more'n half believe you're telling fibs."

Tumblers of whisky were soon smoking on the table, and all except Casti laughed and talked to their heart's content. Casti was no kill-joy; he smiled at all that went on, now and then putting in a friendly word; but the vitality of the others was lacking in him, and the weight which crushed him night and day could not so easily be thrown aside. O'Gree was abundant in reminiscences of academic days, and it would not have been easy to resist altogether the comical vigour of his stories, all without one touch of real bitterness or malice.

"Bedad," he cried, "I sent old Pendy a business prospectus, with my compliments written on the bottom of it. I thought he might perhaps be disposed to give me a contract for victualling the Academy. I wish he had, for the boys' sake."