They had a walk of several hours, and on their return to the hotel were quite weary enough to rest awhile. Frank and Fred had a whispered conversation while the Doctor was talking with an old acquaintance; and as soon as he was at liberty they told him what they had been conversing about.
ONE:Your father doesnt like working hours interfered with, my dear, said Mrs Keeling. But well do what we can. Anyhow, Mr Silverdale will have to change before he goes to church.
TWO:
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ONE:"Ferry's scouts," I repeated. "F-e-r-r-y-apostrophe s, Ferry's--s-k-o-w-t-s--scouts.""Ah," said the Curate, kindly, "very likely that's what it is. The weather has been very trying. One does get these aberrations. But I do hope you will be able to struggle through the performance, for the children's sake. Dear me, how did you manage to do that?"
TWO:[Pg 75]
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ONE:He had grown to detest the time after dinner passed in the plushy, painted drawing-room. Hitherto, in all these years of increasing prosperity, during which the conscious effort of his brain had been directed to business and money-making, he had not objected after the work of the day to pass a quiescent hour or two before his early bedtime giving half an ear to his wifes babble, which, with her brain thickened with refreshment, always reached its flood-tide of voluble incoherence now, giving half an eye to Alice with her industrious{291} needle. All the time a vague simmer of mercantile meditation gently occupied him; his mind, like some kitchen fire with the damper pushed in, kept itself just alight, smouldered and burned low, and Alices needle was but like the bars of the grate, and his wifes prattle the mild rumble of water in the boiler. It was all domestic and normal, in accordance with the general destiny of prosperous men in middle age. Indeed, he was luckier in some respects than the average, for there had always been for him his secret garden, the hortus inclusus, into which neither his family nor his business interests ever entered. Now even that had been invaded, Norahs catalogue had become to him the most precious of his books: she was like sunshine in his secret garden or like a bitter wind, something, anyhow, that got between him and his garden beds, while here in the drawing-room in the domestic hour after dinner the fact of her made itself even more insistently felt, for she turned Lady Keelings vapidities, to which hitherto he had been impervious, into an active stinging irritation, and even poor Alices industrious needle and the ever-growing pattern of Maltese crosses on Mr Silverdales slippers was like some monotonous recurring drip of water that set his nerves on edge. This was a pretty state of mind, he told himself, for a hardheaded business man of fifty, and yet even as with all the force of resolution that was in him he tried to find something{292} in his wifes remarks that could awake a relevant reasonable reply, some rebellious consciousness in his brain would only concern itself with counting on the pink clock the hours that lay between the present moment and nine oclock next morning. And then the pink clock melodiously announced on the Westminster chime that it was half past ten, and Alice put her needle into the middle of the last Maltese cross, and Lady Keeling waddled across the room and tapped the barometer, which a marble Diana held in her chaste hand, to see if the weather promised well for the bazaar to-morrow. The evening was over, and there would not be another for the next twenty-four hours.
TWO:"It's a harmless enough assumption," laughed Allingham.
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TWO:"Do you mean she loves him; what sign of such a thing did she show yesterday or last evening?"
FORE:Whereat Ccile replied, "Ah--well! we cou'n' like you the leaz bit any-'ow.""General Austin believes it is. You're being used to bait a trap, Richard."
FORE:My dear Miss Alice, he said, I am infinitely distressed.
FORE:Its my Helper, he cried, my sly little Helper. Then pushing back his chair, he took off his evening shoes, and putting on the slippers went solemnly round the table, saying to each of his hosts and fellow-guests, May I introduce you to my slippers? But when he came to Alice he said, I think you and my slippers have met before! There was never anything so deliciously playful.... But when he had padded back to his place, Keeling saw poor Alices eye go wandering, looking at every one in turn round that festive table except{308} Master. Finally, for one half second, her eye rested on him, and Keeling, as one of those who run, could read, and his heart went out to poor Alice. She was prodigiously silly, yet that one self-revealing glance decorated her. She loved, and that distinguished and dignified her."I tell you what," said Frank, "I have made a discovery."
FORE:Arthur's chief sensation now was one of pity for a fellow creature obviously in such a hopeless state. He almost forget his alarm in his sympathy for the difficulties of the strange figure. That struggle to get alive, to produce the elementary effects of existence, made him think of his own moods of failure, his own helplessness. He took a step nearer to the hurdle.Or it may be about the bouquet, continued his wife. Very likely he has found out that the princess has some favourite flower, in which case it would be only right to have it made of that instead of carnations and gypso-something, and I could say, Your favourite flower, your Royal Highness, or something of the sort. Pray open your letter, Thomas, and see what it is.
FORE:Oh, thank you so much. I am so grateful. CHAPTER FOUR
FORE:Why, Emmeline, whats the matter? he said.He found his razor, plunged it into cold waterhe had forgotten to ask Mrs. Flack for hot, and couldn't be bothered nowand lathered his face thoughtfully.
FORE:W. CLARKSON. Wig-maker to the Seventh International.At least, that was the vague conclusion that came into the Doctor's mind and stuck there. It was the only theory at all consonant with his own knowledge of human anatomy. All physiological action could be traced to the passage of nervous energy from one centre to another, and it was obvious that, in the case of the Clockwork man, such energy was subjected to enormous acceleration and probably distributed along specially prepared paths. There[Pg 158] was nothing in the science of neuropathy to account for such disturbances and reactions. There were neural freaksthe Doctor had himself treated some remarkable cases of nervous disorderbut the behaviour of the Clockwork man could not be explained by any principle within human knowledge. Not the least puzzling circumstance about him was the fact that now and again his speech and manner made it impossible to accept the supposition or mechanical origin; whilst at other times his antics induced a positive conviction that he was really a sort of highly perfected toy.
TWO:For a moment it was a mere tussle of will between them, and Norahs reasons were the stronger. She looked at him a moment, and knew she had won, and without more words went back to the library and put on her over-boots, and gathered up the book-slips she had made that evening. He followed her as far as the hall, and waited for her.
TWO:Frank was looking through the captain's glass at the persons who were moving about the deck of the bark. Suddenly he observed something and called out to his companions:"We stopped to look at some fortune-tellers, who were evidently doing a good business, as they had crowds around them, and were taking in small sums of money every few minutes. One of them had a little bird in a cage, and he had a table which he folded and carried on his back when he was moving from one place to another. When he opened business, he spread his table, and then laid out some slips of paper which were folded, so that nobody could see what there was inside. Next he let the bird out of the cage, which immediately went forward and picked up one of the slips and carried it to his master. The man then opened the paper and read what was written on it, and from this paper he made a prediction about the fortune of the person who had engaged him.
It followed upon this experiment that the Clockwork man presently emitted a faint, quavering protest. He had certainly dwindled in bulk. His clothes hung upon him, and there was a distressing feebleness of frame. Slowly it dawned upon the Doctor that the face peering up at him was that of a very old and decrepit individual. Painful lines crossed his forehead, and there were rheumy lodgements in the corner of each eye. The change was rapidly progressive."We spent a day at the Great Wall. We scrambled over the ruins and climbed to the top of one of the towers, and we had more than one tumble among the remains of the great enterprise of twenty centuries ago. Then we started back to Pekin, and returned with aching limbs and a general feeling that we had had a hard journey. But we were well satisfied that we had been there, and would not have missed seeing the Great Wall for twice the fatigue and trouble. They told us in Pekin that some travellers have been imposed on by seeing only a piece of a wall about thirty miles from the city, which the guides pretend is the real one. They didn't try the trick on us, and probably thought it would not be of any use to do so."Yes?" Arthur murmured, interested.This conversation went on while the party were engaged in the consumption of the dinner, and the presence of many of the things named gave it an additional point. When they were through dinner, they took a short period of lounging on the veranda, and soon retired to rest. We can be sure they slept well, for they had had a long and weary ride.FORTUNE-TELLING BY DISSECTING CHINESE CHARACTERS. FORTUNE-TELLING BY DISSECTING CHINESE CHARACTERS.
TWO:For a moment it was a mere tussle of will between them, and Norahs reasons were the stronger. She looked at him a moment, and knew she had won, and without more words went back to the library and put on her over-boots, and gathered up the book-slips she had made that evening. He followed her as far as the hall, and waited for her.
