We are going into a lady's bedroom, but I promise you the thing shall be nicely done: there shall not be a blush.
It was midnight when Bill Wyvern projected the scheme whose execution we have followed through sweetness to disaster. Two hours earlier the Marrapit household had sought its beds.
It was Mr. Marrapit's wise rule that each member of his establishment should pass before him as he or she sought their chambers. Night is the hour when the thoughts take on unbridled licence; and he would send his household to sleep each with some last admonition to curb fantastic wanderings of the mind.
Upon this night Mr. Marrapit was himself abed of the chill that Margaret had mentioned in her note to Bill. But the review was not therefore foregone. Upon his back, night-capped head on pillow propped, he lay as the minute-hand of his clock ticked towards ten.
His brow ruffled against a sound without his door. He called:
“Mrs. Armitage!”
“Sir?” spoke Mrs. Armitage through the oak.
“Breathe less stertorously.”
Mrs. Armitage, his cook, waiting outside upon the mat, gulped wrath; respirated through open mouth.
The clock at Mr. Marrapit's elbow gave the first chime of ten. Instantly Mrs. Armitage tapped.
“Enter,” said Mr. Marrapit.
She waddled her stout figure to him. Behind her Clara and Ada, those trim maids, took place.
Mr. Marrapit addressed her. “To-morrow, Mrs. Armitage, arouse your girls at six. Speed them at their toilet; set them to clean your flues.” He glanced at a tablet taken from beneath his pillow. “At 4.6 this afternoon I smelt soot.”
“The flues were cleaned this morning, sir.”
“Untrue. Your girls were late. Prone in suffering upon my couch, my ears tell me all that is accomplished in every part of the house. Ten minutes after your girls descended I heard the kitchen fire roar. I suspect paraffin.”
Mrs. Armitage wriggled to displace the blame. “I rose them at six, sir. They sleep that heavy and they take that long to dressing, it's a wonder to me they ever do get down.”
Mr. Marrapit addressed the sluggards. “Shun the enervating couch. Spring to the call. Cleanliness satisfied, adorn not the figure; pursue the duties. Ponder this. Seek help to effect it. Contrive a special prayer. To your beds.”
They left him; upon the mat encountered Frederick, and him, in abandon of relief, dug vitally with vulgar thumbs.
Squirming, Frederick, the gardener's boy, advanced to the bedside.
Mr. Marrapit sternly regarded him: “Recite your misdeeds.”
“I've done me jobs, sir.”
“Prostrated, I cannot check your testimony. One awful eye above alone can tell. Upon your knees this night search stringently your heart. Bend.”
Frederick inclined his neck until his forehead was upon the coverlet. Mr. Marrapit scanned the neck.
“Behind the ears are stale traces. Cleanse abundantly. To your bed.”
Without the door Frederick encountered Mr. Fletcher. “You let me catch you reading abed to-night,” Mr. Fletcher warned him.
“Cleanse yer blarsted ear-'oles,” breathed Frederick, pushing past.
Mr. Fletcher moved in to the presence.
“Is all securely barred, bolted and shuttered?” Mr. Marrapit asked.
“It's all right.”
“I am apprehensive. This is the first night I have not accompanied you upon your round. Colossal responsibility lies upon you. Should thieves break through and steal, upon your head devolves the crime.”
Wearily Mr. Fletcher repeated: “It's all right.”
Mr. Marrapit frowned: “You do not inspire confidence. Sleep films your eye. I shudder for you. Women and children are in your care this night. The maids, Mrs. Armitage, Mrs. Major, my daughter, the young life of Frederick, are in your hands. What if rapine and murder, concealed in the garden, are loosed beneath my roof this night?”
Mr. Fletcher passed a fist across his brow; spoke wearily: “It's all right, Mr. Marrapit. I can't say more; I can't do more. I tell you again it's all right.”
“Substantiate. Adduce evidence.”
Mr. Fletcher raised an appealing hand: “How can I prove it? My word's a good word, ain't it? I tell you the doors are locked. I can't bring 'em up to show you, can I? I'm a gardener, I am.”
“By zeal give proof. Set your alarum-clock so that twice in the night you may be roused. Gird then yourself and patrol. But lightly slumber. Should my bell sound in your room spring instantly to my bedside. To your couch.”
Battling speech, Mr. Fletcher moved to the door. At the threshold protest overcame him. He gave it vent: “I should like to ast if I was engaged to work by night as well as day? Can't I even have me rest? 'Ow many nights am I to patrol the house? It's 'ard—damn 'ard. I'm a gardener, I am; not a watchdog.”
“Away, insolence.”
Insolence, upon the stairs, morosely descending, drew aside to give room to Margaret and George.
Margaret parted her lips at him in her appealing smile. “Oh, Mr. Fletcher,” in her pretty way she said, “you locked me out. Indeed you did.” She smiled again; tripped towards Mr. Marrapit's door.
Mr. Fletcher stayed George, following. “Mr. George, did you shut up secure behind Miss Margaret?”
George reassured him; questioned his earnestness.
Mr. Fletcher pointed through a window that gave upon the garden. “I've the 'orrors on me to-night,” he said. “According to Master there's rapine lurking in them bushes. Mr. George, what'll I do if there's rapine beneath this roof to-night?”
“Catch it firmly by the back of the neck and hold its head in a bucket of water,” George told him.
Mr. Fletcher passed, pondering the suggestion. “Only something to do with rats after all,” he cogitated with wan smile of relief.
Margaret, at her father's bedside, luxuriously mouthed the fine phrases of the Book of Job which nightly she read him. Her chapter finished, she inquired: “Shall I read on?”
“Does Job continue?”
“No, father. The next begins, 'Then answered Bildad, the Shuite.'”
George coughed upon the threshold.
“Terminate,” said Mr. Marrapit. “Bildad is without.”
“Oh, father, George is not!”
“He torments me. He is Bildad. Terminate. To your bed.”
She pressed a warm kiss upon Job's brow; took on her soft cheek the salute of his thin lips. “You have everything, dear father?”
“Prone on my couch I lack much. I am content. You are a good girl, Margaret.”
“Oh, father!” She tripped from the room in a warmth of satisfaction.
The rough head of Bildad the Shuite came round the door; spoke “Good night.”
“Approach,” said Job. Bildad's legs came over the mat. “You seek your room? But not your couch?”
“I'm going to bed, if that's what you mean,” George told him.
Mr. Marrapit groaned. “Spurn it. Shun sloth. In the midnight oil set the wick of knowledge. Burn it, trim it, tend it.”
George withdrew to his room; set the midnight pipe in his mouth; leaning from his window sped his thoughts to Battersea.
One member of the house remained to be sent to sleep. Mrs. Major put a soft knuckle to the door; came at the call; whispered “I thought I might disturb you.”
“You never disturb me, Mrs. Major.”
A little squeak sprung from the nutter in the masterly woman's heart.
“You sigh, Mrs. Major?”
“Oh, Mr. Marrapit, I can't bear to see you lying there. The”—she paused against an effort, then took the aspirate in a masterly rush—“the house is not the same without you.”
“Your sympathy is very consoling to me, Mrs. Major.”
“Oh, Mr. Marrapit!” She plunged a shaft that should try him: “I wish I had the right to give you more.”
“Your position in this house gives you free access to me, Mrs. Major. Regard your place as one of my own circle. Do not let deference stifle intercourse.”
The masterly woman hove a superb sigh. “If you knew how I feel your kindness, Mr. Marrapit. Truly, as I say to myself every night, fair is my lot and goodly is my—” Icy dismay took her. Was the missing word “hermitage” or “heritage”? With masterly decision she filled the blank with a telling choke; keyed her voice to a brilliant suggestion of brightness struggling with tears: “The sweetling cats are safely sleeping. I have come straight from them. Ah, how they miss you! How well they know you suffer!”
“They do?” A tremble of pleasure was in Mr. Marrapit's voice.
“They does—do.” Mrs. Major recited their day, gave their menu. “I must not tarry,” she concluded; “you need rest. Good night, Mr. Marrapit. Good night.”
“Good night, Mrs. Major.”
Mr. Marrapit put out his candle.
And now in every room, save one, Sleep drew her velvet fingers down recumbent forms; pressed eyelids with her languorous kiss; upon her warm breast pillowed willing heads; about her bedfellows drew her Circe arms.
Mrs. Major's room was that single exception, and it is that masterly woman's apartment we now shall penetrate.
Hurrying to semi-toilet; again assuring herself that the key was turned; peering a last time for lurking ravishers beneath the bed, Mrs. Major then fumbled with keys before her box—threw up the lid.
Down through a pile of garments plunged her arm. Her searching fingers closed about her quest and a very beautiful smile softened her face—a smile of quiet confidence and of trust.
In greater degree than men, women have this power of taking strength from the mere contact of an inanimate object. A girl will smile all through her sleep because, hand beneath pillow, her fingers are about a photograph or letter; no need, as with Mrs. Major there was no need, even to see the thing that thus inspires. The pretty hand will delve to recesses of a drawer, and the thrill that brings the smile will run up from, it may be, a Bible, a diary, or a packet of letters touched. Dependent since Eden, woman is more emotionally responsive to aught that gives aid than is man; for man is accustomed to battle for his prizes, not to receive them.
Mrs. Major drew up, that smile still upon her face, and the moon through uncurtained window gave light upon the little joy she fetched from the depths of her trunk.
“Old Tom Gin.”
The neck of Old Tom's bottle clinked against a glass; Old Tom gurgled generously; passed away through the steady smile he had inspired.
Mrs. Major set a carafe of water upon a little table; partnered it with Old Tom; reclined beside the pair on a comfortable seat; closed her eyes.
At intervals, as the hand crept between eleven and twelve of the clock, she would open them; when she did so diluted Old Tom in the glass fell lower, full-bodied Old Tom in the bottle marched steadily behind.
The further Old Tom crept downwards from the neck of his captivity, with the greater circumspection did Mrs. Major open her eyes. Considerable practice had told this masterly woman that Old Tom must be commanded with a steady will: else he took liberties. Eyes suddenly opened annoyed Old Tom, and he would set the furniture ambulating round the room in a manner at once indecorous in stable objects and calculated to bewilder the observer. Therefore, upon setting down her glass, this purposeful woman would squarely fix the bureau that stood opposite her, would for a moment keep her gaze upon it with a sternness that forbade movement, then gently would close her eyes. When Old Tom must be again interviewed she would lift the merest corner of an eyelid; catch through it the merest fraction of the bureau; determine from the behaviour of this portion the stability of the whole.
Thus if the corner she sighted showed indecorous propensities—as, swelling and receding, fluttering in some ghostly breeze, or altogether disappearing from view,—she would drop her lid and wait till she might catch it more seemly. This effected, she would work from that fixed point, inch by inch, until the whole bureau was revealed—swaying a little, perhaps, but presently quiescent.
When, and not until, it was firmly anchored she would slowly start her eye in review around the other objects of her apartment. If the wash-stand had tendency to polka with the bed, or the wardrobe unnaturally to stretch up its head through the ceiling, Mrs. Major would march her gaze steadily back to the bureau, there to take fresh strength and start again. When all was orderly—then Old Tom.
Masterly in all things, this woman was most masterly in her cups.
Into Mr. Marrapit's dreams there came a whistle.
He pushed at Sleep; she crooned to him and he snuggled against her.
Upon his brain there rapped a harsh Wow!
He wriggled from his bedfellow; she put an arm about him, drew him to her.
Now there succeeded a steady wash of sound—rising, falling, murmuring persistent against his senses.
He turned his back upon Sleep. She crooned; he wriggled from her. Seductively she followed; he kicked a leg and jarred her, threw an arm and hurt her. Disgusted, she slipped from bed and left him, leaving a chilly space where she had warmly lain.
Mr. Marrapit shivered; felt for Sleep; found her gone; with a start sat upright.
The breakwater gone, that wash of sound which had lapped around his senses rushed in upon them. Lingering traces of the touch of Sleep still offered resistance—a droning hum. The wash surged over, poured about him—VOICES!
Mr. Marrapit violently cleared his throat. The voices continued. Violently again. They still continued. Tremendously a third time. They yet continued. From this he argued that they could not be very close to his door. Intently he listened, then located them—they came from the garden. He felt for the bell-push that carried to Mr. Fletcher's room; put his thumb upon it; steadily pressed.
Sleep toyed no tricks in Mr. Fletcher's bed. Like some wanton mistress discovered in the very act of betrayal, she at the first tearing clamour of the electric bell bounded from the sheets, scuttled from the room.
“Rapine!” cried Mr. Fletcher; plunged his head beneath the bedclothes and wrestled in prayer.
The strident gong faltered not nor failed. Steady and penetrating it dinned its hideous call. Mr. Fletcher waited for screams. None came. He pushed the sheet between his chattering teeth, listened for cudgelling and heavy falls. None came. That bell had single possession of the night. The possibility that only patrolling was required of him nerved him to draw from his concealment. He lit a candle; into trousers pushed his quivering legs; upon tottering limbs passed up the stairs to Mr. Marrapit's room.
“Judas!” Mr. Marrapit greeted him.
Mr. Fletcher sighed relief: “I thought it was rapine.”
“You have betrayed your trust. You are Iscariot.”
“I come when you rung.”
“Silence. I have heard voices.”
“God help us,” Mr. Fletcher piously groaned; the candle in his shaking hand showered wax.
“Blasphemer! He will not help the craven. Gird yourself.”
“I'll call Mr. George.”
“Refrain. I will attend to that. Gird yourself. Take the musket from the hall. It is loaded. Patrol!”
“I don't want the musket.”
“Be not overbold. Outside you may be at their mercy.”
“Outside!”
“Assuredly.”
“Me patrol outside!”
“That is your task. Forward!”
By now Mr. Marrapit had risen; swathed himself in a dressing-gown. Sternly he addressed Mr. Fletcher: “As you this night quit yourself so will I consider the question of your dismissal. If blood is spilt this night it will be upon your head.”
Mr. Fletcher trembled. “That's just it. It's 'ard—damn 'ard—”
“Forward, Iscariot.” Mr. Marrapit drove Judas before him; in the hall took down the gun and pressed it into the shaking hands. He drew the bolts, impelled Iscariot outward, and essayed to close the door.
Mr. Fletcher clutched the handle. Mr. Marrapit pushed; hissed through the crack: “Away! Search every nook. Penetrate each fastness. Use stealth. Track, trace, follow!”
Discarding entreaty, Mr. Fletcher put hoarse protest through the slit of aperture that remained: “I should like to ast if I was engaged for this, Mr. Marrapit,” he panted. “I'm a gardener, I am—”
“I recognise that. To your department. With your life forefend it.”
Mr. Marrapit fetched the door against the lintel; in the brief moment he could hold it close slid the lock.
No tremor of fear or of excitement ruffled this remarkable man. Calm in the breezes of life he was calm also in its tempests. This is a natural corollary. As a man faces the smaller matters of his life so he will face its crises. Each smallest act accomplished imprints its stamp upon the pliable mass we call character; our manner of handling each tiniest common-place of our routine helps mould its form; each fleeting thought helps shape the mould.
The process is involuntary and we are not aware of its working. Character is not made by tremendous thumps, but by the constant patterings of minutest touches. The athlete does not build his strength by enormous exertions, but by consistent and gentle training. Huge strains at spasmodic intervals, separated by periods in which he lies fallow in sloth, add nothing to his capacity for endurance; it is by the tally of each minute of his preparation that you may read how he will acquit himself against the test. Thus also with the shaping of character, and thus was Mr. Marrapit, collected in minor affairs, mighty in this crisis.
Turning from the door he marched steadily across the hall towards the stairs to arouse George.
At the lowermost step a movement on the landing above made him pause. He was to be spared the trouble. Placing the candle upon a table he looked up. He spoke. “George!”
“Wash it?” said a voice. “Wash it?”
“Wash nothing,” Mr. Marrapit commanded. “Who is this?”
The answer, starting low, ascended a shrill scale: “Wash it? Wash it? Wash it?”
“Silence!” Mr. Marrapit answered. “Descend!”
He craned upwards. The curl-papered head of Mrs. Major poked at him over the banisters.
“Darling,” breathed Mrs. Major. “Darling—um!”
“Mrs. Major! What is this?”
“Thash what I want to know,” said Mrs. Major coquettishly. “Wash it? Wash ish it?”
“You are distraught, Mrs. Major. Have no fear. To your room.”
The curl-papered head waggled. Mrs. Major beamed. “Darling. Darling—um!”
“Exercise control,” Mr. Marrapit told her. “Banish apprehension. There are thieves; but we are alert.”
The head withdrew. Mrs. Major gave a tiny scream: “Thieves!” She took a brisk little run down the short flight which gave from where she stood; flattened against the wall that checked her impulse; pressed carefully away from it; stood at the head of the stairs facing Mr. Marrapit.
He gazed up. “I fear you have been walking in your sleep, Mrs. Major.”
Mrs. Major did not reply. She pointed a slippered toe at the stair below her; swayed on one leg; dropped to the toe; steadied; beamed at Mr. Marrapit; and in a high treble coquettishly announced, “One!”
Mr. Marrapit frowned: “Retire, Mrs. Major.”
Mrs. Major plumped another step, beamed again: “Two!”
“You dream. Retire.”
Mrs. Major daintily lifted her skirt; poised again. The projected slipper swayed a dangerous circle. Mrs. Major alarmingly rocked. That infamous Old Tom presented three sets of banisters for her support; she clutched at one; it failed her; “Three four five six seven eight nine ten—darling!” she cried; at breakneck speed plunged downwards, and with the “Darling!” flung her arms about Mr. Marrapit's neck.
Back before the shock, staggering beneath the weight, Mr. Marrapit went with digging heels. They could not match the pace of that swift blow upon his chest. Its backward speed outstripped them. With shattering thud he plumped heavily to his full length upon the floor; Mrs. Major pressed him to earth.
But that shock was a whack on the head for Old Tom that temporarily quieted him. “What has happened?” Mrs. Major asked, clinging tightly.
Mr. Marrapit gasped: “Release my neck. Remove your arms.”
“Where are we?”
“You are upon my chest. I am prone beneath you. Release!”
“It's all dark,” Mrs. Major cried; gripped firmer.
“It is not dark. I implore movement. Our juxtaposition unnaturally compromises us. It is abhorrent.”
Mrs. Major opened the eyes she had tightly closed during that staggering journey and that shattering fall. She loosed her clutch; got to her knees; thence tottered to a chair. That infamous Old Tom raised his head again; tickled her brain with misty fingers.
Mr. Marrapit painfully rose. He put a sympathetic hand upon the seat of his injury; with the other took up the candle. He regarded Mrs. Major; suspiciously sniffed the air, pregnant with strange fumes; again regarded his late burden.
Upon her face that infamous Old Tom set a beaming smile,
“Follow me, Mrs. Major,” Mr. Marrapit commanded; turned for the dining-room; from its interior faced about upon her.
With rare dignity the masterly woman slowly arose; martially she poised against the hat-rack; with stately mien marched steadily towards him.
Temporarily she had the grip of Old Tom—was well aware, at least, of his designs upon her purity, and superbly she combated him.
With proud and queenly air she drew on—Mr. Marrapit felt that the swift suspicion which had taken him had misjudged her.
Mrs. Major reached the mat. Old Tom gave a playful little twitch of her legs, and she jostled the doorpost.
With old-world courtesy she bowed apology to the post. “Beg pardon,” she graciously murmured; stood swaying.
Step by step with her as she had crossed the hall, Mr. Fletcher, recovering from the coward fear in which he shivered outside the door, had crept forward along the path around the house. As Mrs. Major stood swaying upon the threshold of the dining-room he reached the angle; peered round it; in horror sighted Bill's figure pendant from Margaret's window.
Thrice the bell-mouth of his gun described a shivering circle; tightly he squeezed his eyelids—pressed the trigger.
Mr. Marrapit bounded six inches—hardly reached the earth again when, with a startled scream, Mrs. Major was upon him, again her arms about his neck.
And now shriek pursued shriek, tearing upwards through her throat. Old Tom had loosed the ends of all her nerves. Like bolting rabbit in young corn the tearing discharge of that gun went madly through them, and lacerated she gave tongue.
Stifled by the bony shoulder that pressed against his face, Mr. Marrapit went black. He jerked his head free, put up his face, and giving cry for cry, shrilled, “George! George! George!”
The din reached George where from his window he leaned, crying on Abiram in the man-hunt across the garden. He drew in his head, bounded down the stairs. Over Mrs. Major's back, bent inwards from the toes to the rock about which she clung, Mr. Marrapit's empurpled face stared at him.
Upon George's countenance the sight struck a great grin; his legs it struck to dead halt.
Mrs. Major's shrieks died to moans.
“Action!” Mr. Marrapit gasped. “Remove this creature!”
George put a hand upon her back. It shot a fresh shriek from her; she clung closer.
“Pantaloon!” Mr. Marrapit strained. “Crush that grin! Action! Remove this woman! She throttles me! The pressure is insupportable. I am Sinbad.”
George again laid hands. Again Mrs. Major shrieked; tighter clung.
Mr. Marrapit, blacker, cried, “Zany!”
“Well, what the devil can I do?” George asked, hopping about the pair; Mrs. Major's back as responsive to his touch as the keys of a piano to idle fingers.
“You run to and fro and grin like a dog,” Mr. Marrapit told him. “Each time you touch her she screams, grips me closer. I shall be throttled. Use discretion. Add to mine your assurance of her safety. She is not herself.”
George chuckled. “She's not. She's tight as a drum.”
“Liar!” moaned Mrs. Major.
“Intoxicated?” Mr. Marrapit asked.
“Blind.”
Sharp words will move where entreaty cannot stir.
Mrs. Major relaxed her hold; spun round. “Monster” and “Perjurer” rushed headlong to her lips. “Ponsger!” she cried; tottered back against the sofa; was struck by it at the bend of her knees; collapsed upon it. Her head sunk sideways; she closed her eyes.
“You can see for yourself,” George said.
Mr. Marrapit sniffed: “My nose corroborates.”
“Ponsger!” the prone figure wailed.
Mr. Marrapit started: “Mrs. Major!”
She opened her eyes: “Call me Lucy. Darling-um!” She began to snore.
“Abhorrent!” Mr. Marrapit pronounced.
Whisperings without made him step to the door. White figures were upon the stairs. “To your beds!” he cried.
“Oh, whatever is it, sir?” Mrs. Armitage panted.
“Away! You outrage decency.” Mr. Marrapit set a foot upon the stairs. The affrighted figures fled before him.
George, when his uncle returned, was peering through the blind. “Who the devil loosed off that gun? It is immaterial. All events are buried beneath this abhorrent incident. The roof of my peace has crashed about me.” Mr. Marrapit regarded the prone figure. “Her inspirations grate upon me; her exhalations poison the air. Rouse her. Thrust her to her room.”
“You'll never wake her now till she's slept it off.”
“Let us then essay to carry her. She cannot remain here. My shame shall not be revealed, nor hers uncovered.”
George began: “To-morrow—”
“To-morrow I speed her from my gates. My beloved cats have been in the care of this swinish form. They have been in jeopardy. I tremble at their escape. To-morrow she departs.”
A sudden tremendous idea swept over George, engulfing speech.
With no word he moved to the sofa; grasped the prone figure; put it upon its weak legs. They gave beneath it. “You must take her feet,” he said.
Averting his gaze, Mr. Marrapit took the legs that Old Tom had devitalised. The procession moved out; staggered up the stairs.
Heavy was the burden; bursting with vulgar laughter was George; but that huge idea that suddenly had come to him swelled his muscles, lent him strength.
He heaved the form upon the bed.
On the dressing-table a candle burned. By its light Mr. Marrapit discovered Old Tom's bottle, two fingers of the villain yet remaining.
He beat his breast. “Extinguish that light. I to my room. Seek Fletcher. He patrols the garden for malefactors. In the morning I will see you. Before this disaster my chill is sped. You are of my flesh. Cleave unto me. In our bosoms let this abhorrent sore be buried. Seek Fletcher.”
The distraught man tottered to his room.
George went slowly down the stairs, bathing in the delicious thrills of unfolding the wrappings from about his great idea. He had yet had time but to feel its shape and hug it as a child will feel and hug a doll packed in paper. Now he stripped the coverings, and his pulses thumped as he saw how fine was it. Almost unconscious to his actions he unbarred the door; stepped into the thin light; was not aroused until, treading upon Mr. Fletcher's musket, his idea was suddenly jolted from him.
Here the gun that gave the echoes; where the hand that started it?
A hoarse cry came to him: “Mr. George! Mr. George!”
He looked along the sound. Above a hedge below the lawn an apple-tree raised its branches. Within them he could espy a dark mass that as he approached took form. Mr. Fletcher.
The grass hushed George's footsteps. Rounding the hedge he came upon the little drama that gave that note of dread to Mr. Fletcher's calls.
Beneath the gardener's armpits one branch of the apple-tree passed; behind his knees another. Between them hung his heavy seat. Whitely a square of it peered downwards; melancholy upon the sward lay the lid of corduroy that should have warmed the space. For ten paces outwards from the tree-trunk there stretched a pitted path. Abiram, as George came, turned at this path's extremity; set his sloe eye upon the dull white patch in Mr. Fletcher's stern; hurled forward up the track; sprang and snapped jaws an inch below the mark as Mr. Fletcher mightily heaved.
A lesser dog would have yapped bafflement, fruitlessly scratched upwards from hind legs. Abiram was perfect dog of the one breed of dog that is in all things perfect. Silently he plodded back; turned; ran; leapt again. Again Mr. Fletcher heaved, and again the fine jaws snapped an inch beneath the pallid square of flesh.
As once more uncomplaining he turned, Abiram sighted George; ruffled. George spoke his name. Abiram wagged that short tail that marked his Champion Victor Wild blood, shook the skull that spoke to the same mighty strain.
This dog expected in his human friends that same devotion to duty which is the governing trait of his breed. His shake implied, “No time for social niceties, sir. I have a job in hand.”
“Call 'im off, Mr. George,” Mr. Fletcher implored. “Call 'im—ur!”—he heaved upward as Abiram again sprang—“off,” he concluded, sinking once more as the bull-terrier trotted up the little path.
It was a fascinating scene. “You're quite safe,” George told him.
“Safe! I'm tired! I can't keep on risin' and fallin' all night. It's 'ard—damn 'ard. I'm a gardener, I am; not a—ur!” He heaved again.
George told him: “You do it awfully well, though; so neat.”
“Call 'im off,” Mr. Fletcher moaned. “He'll have me in a minute. He's 'ad a bit off of me calf; he's 'ad a piece out of me trousers. He'll go on. He's a methodical dog—ur!”
George took a step; caught Abiram's collar. “How on earth did you get up there?”
“Jumped.”
“Jumped! You couldn't jump up there!”
Mr. Fletcher took a look to see that Abiram was securely held; then started to wriggle to a pose of greater comfort. “I'd jump a house with that 'orror after me,” he said bitterly. By intricate squirmings he laid a hand upon the cold patch of flesh that gazed starkly downwards from his stern. “If I ain't got hydrophobia I've got frost-bite,” he moaned. “Cruel draught I've had through this 'ole. Take 'im off, Mr. George.”
George was scarcely listening. His thoughts had returned to the delicious task of fingering his great idea.
“Take 'im off, Mr. George,” Mr. Fletcher implored.
George passed a handkerchief under Abiram's collar; tugged for the gate; there dispatched the dog down the road.
Abiram shook his head; trotted with dejected stern. A job had been left unfinished.
Hallooing safety to the apple-tree, too preoccupied to inquire further into the reason for the gun and the presence of Bill's dog, George turned for the house.
Awakening birds carolled his presence. They hymned the adventures of the day that Dawn, her handmaiden, came speeding, silver-footed, perfume-bearing, fresh from her dewy bath, to herald.
George put up an answering pipe. For him also the day was adventure-packed and must lustily be hymned. Entering Mr. Marrapit's study he drew the blinds; upon a telegraph form set Mary's name and her address; pondered; then to these words compressed his great idea:
“Go agency this morning. Get name on books. Meet you there. Think can get you situation here. George.”
“Immediately the office opens,” said George; trod up to his room.
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