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The Country of the Blind and Other Stories - The Purple Pileus · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Section seventeen of the Country of the Blind and Other
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  Speaker 1: Stories by H. G. Wells. This LibriVox recording is in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. Read by Peter Yearsley the Purple Pylius,
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  Speaker 1: mister Coombs was sick of life. He walked away from
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  Speaker 1: his unhappy home, and sick not only of his own existence,
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  Speaker 1: but of everybody else's. Turned aside down Gaswark Lane to
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  Speaker 1: avoid the town, and crossing the wooden bridge that goes
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  Speaker 1: over the canal to Starling's cottages. Was presently alone in
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  Speaker 1: the damp pine woods and out of sight and sound
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  Speaker 1: of human habitation. He would stand it no longer, he
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  Speaker 1: repeated aloud, with blasphemies unusual to him, that he would
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  Speaker 1: stand it no longer. He was a pale faced little
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  Speaker 1: man with dark eyes and a fine and very black mustache.
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  Speaker 1: He had a very stiff upright collar, slightly frayed that
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  Speaker 1: gave him an illusory double chin, and his overcoat, albeit shabby,
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  Speaker 1: was trimmed with astrakhan. His gloves were a bright brown
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  Speaker 1: with black stripes over the knuckles and split at the
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  Speaker 1: finger ends. His appearance, his wife had said once in
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  Speaker 1: the dear dead days beyond recall before he married her,
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  Speaker 1: that is was military. But now she called him. It
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  Speaker 1: seems a dreadful thing to tell of between husband and wife.
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  Speaker 1: But she called him a little grub. It wasn't the
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  Speaker 1: only thing she had called him either. The row had
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  Speaker 1: arisen about that beastly Jenny. Again, Jenny was his wife's friend,
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  Speaker 1: and by no invitation of mister Coomb's, she came in
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  Speaker 1: every blessed Sunday to dinner and made a shindy all
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  Speaker 1: the afternoon. She was a big, noisy girl with a
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  Speaker 1: taste for loud colors and a strident laugh. And this
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  Speaker 1: Sunday she had out on all her previous intrusions by
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  Speaker 1: bringing in a fellow with her, a chap as showy
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  Speaker 1: as herself, and mister Coombs, in a starchy, clean collar
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  Speaker 1: and his Sunday frock coat, had sat dumb and wrathful
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  Speaker 1: at his own table while his wife and her guests
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  Speaker 1: talked foolishly and undesirably and laughed aloud. Well he stood that,
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  Speaker 1: And after dinner, which as usual was late, what must
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  Speaker 1: miss Jenny do but go to the piano and play
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  Speaker 1: banjo tunes for all the world as if it were
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  Speaker 1: a week day. Flesh and blood could not endure such
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  Speaker 1: goings on. They would hear next door, they would hear
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  Speaker 1: in the road. It was a public announcement of their disrepute.
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  Speaker 1: He had to speak. He had felt himself go pale,
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  Speaker 1: and a kind of rigor had affected his respiration. As
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  Speaker 1: he delivered himself. He had been sitting on one of
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  Speaker 1: the chairs by the window. The new guest had taken
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  Speaker 1: possession of the arm chair. He turned his head. Sunday,
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  Speaker 1: he said over the collar, in the voice of one
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  Speaker 1: who warns Sunday. What people call a nasty tone? It was.
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  Speaker 1: Jenny had kept on playing, but his wife, who was
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  Speaker 1: looking through some music that was piled on the top
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  Speaker 1: of the piano, had stared at him. What's wrong, ne'er?
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  Speaker 1: She said, can't people enjoy themselves? I don't mind rational
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  Speaker 1: enjoyment at all, said little Coombs, But I ain't going
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  Speaker 1: to have week day tunes playing on a Sunday in
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  Speaker 1: this house. What's wrong with my playing now? Said Jenny,
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  Speaker 1: stopping and twirling round on the music stool with a
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  Speaker 1: monstrous rustle of flounces. Combs saw it was going to
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  Speaker 1: be a row, and opened too vigorously, as is common
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  Speaker 1: with your timid, nervous men all the world over. Steady
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  Speaker 1: on with that music, stool said he. It ain't made
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  Speaker 1: for evy eights. Never you mind about eats, said Jenny, incensed.
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  Speaker 1: What was you saying behind my back about my play?
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  Speaker 1: Surely you don't old with not having a bit of
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  Speaker 1: music on a Sunday, mister Coombs, said the new guest,
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  Speaker 1: leaning back in the arm chair, blowing a cloud of
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  Speaker 1: cigarette smoke and smiling in a kind of pitying way.
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  Speaker 1: And simultaneously his wife said something to Jenny about never
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  Speaker 1: mind him. You go on, Jinny, I do, said mister Coombs,
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  Speaker 1: addressing the new guest. May I ask why, said the
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  Speaker 1: new guest, evidently enjoying both his cigarette and the prospect
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  Speaker 1: of an argument. He was, by the bye, a lank
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  Speaker 1: young man, very stylishly dressed in bright drab, with a
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  Speaker 1: white cravat and a pearl and silver pin. It had
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  Speaker 1: been better taste to come in a black coat, mister
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  Speaker 1: Coombe's thought, because began mister Coombs, It don't suit me.
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  Speaker 1: I'm a business man. I have to study my connection,
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  Speaker 1: rational enjoyment his connection, said missus Coombs, scornfully. That's what
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  Speaker 1: he's always a saying. We got to do this, and
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  Speaker 1: we got to do that. If you don't mean to
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  Speaker 1: study my connection, said mister Coombs. What did you marry
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  Speaker 1: me for, I wonder, said Jenny, and turned back to
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  Speaker 1: the piano. I never saw such a man as you,
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  Speaker 1: said Missus Coombs. You've altered all round since we were
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  Speaker 1: married before. Then Jenny began at the turn, turn, turn again.
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  Speaker 1: Look here, said mister Coombs, driven at last to revolt,
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  Speaker 1: standing up and raising his voice. I tell you I
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  Speaker 1: won't have that. The frock coat heaved with his indignation.
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  Speaker 1: No violence now, said the long young man in drab
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  Speaker 1: sitting up. Who the deuce are you, said mister Coombs fiercely,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: whereupon they all began talking at once. The new guest
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  Speaker 1: said he was Jenny's intended and meant to protect her,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: and mister Coombs said he was welcome to do so
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  Speaker 1: anywhere but in his mister Coombs's house, and Missus Coombs
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: said he ought to be ashamed of insulting his guests,
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  Speaker 1: and as I have already mentioned that he was getting
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  Speaker 1: a regular little grub. And the end was that mister
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Coombs ordered his visitors out of the house and they
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't go and so he said he would go himself.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: With his face burning and tears of excitement in his eyes,
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  Speaker 1: he went into the passage, and as he struggled with
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  Speaker 1: his overcoat his frock coat sleeves got concertinaed up his
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  Speaker 1: arm and gave a brush at his silk hat. Jenny
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  Speaker 1: began again at the piano and strummed him insultingly out
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  Speaker 1: of the house. Turned, turned, turn, he slammed the shop
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  Speaker 1: door so that the house quivered. That, briefly was the
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  Speaker 1: immediate making of his mood. You will perhaps begin to
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  Speaker 1: understand his disgust with existence. As he walked along the
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  Speaker 1: muddy path under the firs. It was late October, and
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  Speaker 1: the ditches and heaps of fur needles were gorgeous with
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  Speaker 1: clumps of fungi. He recapitulated the melancholy history of his marriage.
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  Speaker 1: It was brief and commonplace enough. He now perceived with
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  Speaker 1: sufficient clearness that his wife had married him out of
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  Speaker 1: a natural curiosity and in order to escape from her worrying, laborious,
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  Speaker 1: and uncertain life in the workroom. And like the majority
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  Speaker 1: of her class, she was far too stupid to realize
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  Speaker 1: that it was her duty to cooperate with him. In
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  Speaker 1: his business. She was greedy of enjoyment, loquacious and socially minded,
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  Speaker 1: and evidently disappointed to find the restraints of poverty still
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  Speaker 1: hanging about her. His worries exasperated her, and the slightest
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  Speaker 1: attempt to control her proceedings resulted in a charge of grumbling.
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  Speaker 1: Why couldn't he be nice as he used to be?
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  Speaker 1: And Coombs was such a harmless little man, too, nourished
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  Speaker 1: mentally on self help and with a meager ambition of
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  Speaker 1: self denial and competition that was to end in a sufficiency.
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  Speaker 1: Then Jenny came in as a female Mephistopheles, a gabbling
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  Speaker 1: chronicle of fellas, and was always wanting his wife to
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  Speaker 1: go to theaters and all that. And in addition were
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  Speaker 1: aunts of his wife and cousins male and female, to
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  Speaker 1: eat up capital, insult him personally, upset business arrangements, annoy
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  Speaker 1: good customers, and generally blight his life. It was not
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  Speaker 1: the first occasion by many that mister Coombs had fled
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  Speaker 1: his home in wrath and indignation and something like fear,
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  Speaker 1: vowing furiously and even aloud that he wouldn't stand it,
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  Speaker 1: and so frothing away his energy along the line of
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  Speaker 1: least resistance. But never before had he been quite so
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  Speaker 1: sick of life as on this particular Sunday afternoon. The
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  Speaker 1: Sunday dinner may have had its share in his despair,
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  Speaker 1: and the grayness of the sky. Perhaps too, he was
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  Speaker 1: beginning to realize his unendurable frustration as a business man
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  Speaker 1: as the consequence of his marriage presently bankruptcy, and after that,
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  Speaker 1: perhaps she might have reason to repent when it was
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  Speaker 1: too late. And destiny, as I have already intimated, had
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  Speaker 1: planted the path through the wood with evil smelling fungi,
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  Speaker 1: thickly and variously planted it, not only on the right side,
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  Speaker 1: but on the left. A small shopman is in such
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  Speaker 1: a melancholy position if his wife turns out a disloyal partner.
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  Speaker 1: His capital is all tied up in his business, and
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  Speaker 1: to leave her means to join the unemployed in some
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  Speaker 1: strange part of the earth. The luxuries of divorce are
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  Speaker 1: beyond him altogether, so that the good old tradition of
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  Speaker 1: marriage for better or worse holds inexorably for him, and
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  Speaker 1: things work up to tragic culminations. Bricklayers kick their wives
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  Speaker 1: to death, and dukes betray theirs. But it is among
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  Speaker 1: the small clerks and shopkeepers nowadays that it comes most
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  Speaker 1: often to a cutting of throats. Under the circumstances, it
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  Speaker 1: is not so very remarkable, and you must take it
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  Speaker 1: as charitably as you can. That the mind of mister
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  Speaker 1: Coombs ran for a while on some such glorious clothes
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  Speaker 1: to his disappointed hopes, and that he thought of raisors, pistols,
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  Speaker 1: bread knives, and touching letters to the coroner, denouncing his
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  Speaker 1: enemies by name, and praying piously for forgiveness. After a time,
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  Speaker 1: his fierceness gave way to melancholia. He had been married
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  Speaker 1: in this very overcoat, in his first and only frockcoat
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  Speaker 1: that was buttoned up beneath it. He began to recall
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  Speaker 1: their courting along this very walk, his years of penurious
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  Speaker 1: saving to get capital, and the bright hopefulness of his
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  Speaker 1: marrying days. For it all to work out like this.
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  Speaker 1: Was there no sympathetic ruler anywhere in the world. He
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: reverted to death as a topic. He thought of the
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  Speaker 1: canal he had just crossed, and doubted whether he shouldn't
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  Speaker 1: stand with his head out even in the middle. And
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: it was while drowning was in his mind that the
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  Speaker 1: purple pylaeus caught his eye. He looked at it mechanically
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  Speaker 1: for a moment, and stopped and stooped towards it to
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  Speaker 1: pick it up, under the impression that it was some
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  Speaker 1: such small leather object as a purse. Then he saw
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  Speaker 1: that it was the purple top of a fungus, a
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  Speaker 1: peculiarly poisonous looking purple, slimy, shiny, and emitting a sour odor.
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  Speaker 1: He hesitated with his hand an inch or so from it,
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  Speaker 1: and the thought of poison crossed his mind. With that
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  Speaker 1: he picked the thing and stood up again with it
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  Speaker 1: in his hand. The odor was certainly strong, acrid, but
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  Speaker 1: by no means disgusting. He broke off a piece, and
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  Speaker 1: the fresh surface was a creamy white that changed like
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  Speaker 1: magic in the space of ten seconds to a yellowish
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  Speaker 1: green color. It was even an inviting looking change. He
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  Speaker 1: broke off two other pieces to see it repeated. They
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  Speaker 1: were wonderful things, these fungi, thought mister Coombs, and all
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  Speaker 1: of them the deadliest poisons, as his father had often
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  Speaker 1: told him, deadly poisons. There is no time like the
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  Speaker 1: present for a rash resolve. Why not here and now,
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  Speaker 1: thought mister Coombs. He tasted a little piece, a very
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  Speaker 1: little piece, indeed, a mere crumb. It was so pungent
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  Speaker 1: that he almost spat it out again. Then merely hot
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  Speaker 1: and full flavored, a kind of German mustard with a
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  Speaker 1: touch of horseradish and well mushroom. He swallowed it in
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  Speaker 1: the excitement of the moment. Did he like it? Or
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: did he not? His mind was curiously careless. He would
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  Speaker 1: try another bit. It really wasn't bad, it was good.
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  Speaker 1: He forgot his troubles in the interest of the immediate moment.
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  Speaker 1: Playing with death it was. He took another bite, and
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  Speaker 1: then deliberately finished a mouthful. A curious tingling sensation began
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  Speaker 1: in his finger tips and toes. His pulse began to
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  Speaker 1: move faster. The blood in his ears sounded like a
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  Speaker 1: mill race. Try bit more, said mister Coombs. He turned
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  Speaker 1: and looked about him, and found his feet unsteady. He
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  Speaker 1: saw and struggled towards a little patch of purple a
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  Speaker 1: dozen yards away, jolker staff, said mister Coombs. He no moreior.
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  Speaker 1: He pitched forward and fell on his face, his hands
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  Speaker 1: outstretched towards the cluster of pylie. But he did not
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  Speaker 1: eat any more of them, he forgot forthwith He rolled
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  Speaker 1: over and sat up with a look of astonishment on
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: his face. His carefully brushed silk hat had rolled away
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  Speaker 1: towards the ditch. He pressed his hand to his brow.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Something had happened, but he could not rightly determine what
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  Speaker 1: it was. Anyhow, he was no longer dull. He felt bright, cheerful,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: and his throat was a fire. He laughed in the
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: sudden gaiety his heart. Had he been dull, he did
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: not know, But at any rate he would be dull
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  Speaker 1: no longer. He got up and stood unsteadily, regarding the
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: universe with an agreeable smile. He began to remember. He
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: could not remember very well because of a steam roundabout
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: that was beginning in his head. And he knew he
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: had been disagreeable at home, just because they wanted to
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: be happy. They were quite right, life should be as
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: gay as possible. He would go home and make it
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: up and reassure them, And why not take some of
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: this delightful toadstool with him for them to eat, a hatful,
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  Speaker 1: no less, some of those red ones with white spots
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: as well, and a few yellow. He had been a
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: dull dog, an enemy to merriment, he would make up
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  Speaker 1: for it. It would be gay to turn his coat
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: sleeves inside out and stick some yellow gorse into his
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: waistcoat pockets. Then home singing for a jolly evening. After
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: the departure of mister Coombs, Jenny discontinued playing and turned
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: round on the music stool again. What a fuss about nothing,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: said Jenny. You see, mister Clarence, what I've got to
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: put up with, said missus Coombs. He is a bit hasty,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: said mister Clarence. Judicially, he ain't got the slightest sense
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: of our position, said missus Coombs. That's what I complain of.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: He cares for nothing but his old shop. And if
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: I have a bit of company, or buy anything to
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: keep myself decent, or get any little thing I want
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: out of the housekeeping money, there's disagreeables economy, he says,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: struggle for life and all that. He lies awake of
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: nights about it, worrying how he can screw me out
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: with shilling. He wanted us to eat Dorset butter once,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: if once I was to give in to him, there,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: of course, said Jenny. If a man values a woman,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: said mister Clarence, lounging back in the arm chair. He
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: must be prepared to make sacrifices for her. For my
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: own part, said mister Clarence, with his eye on Jenny,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: I shouldn't think of marrying till I was in a
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: position to do the thing in style. It's downright selfishness.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: A man ought to go through the rough and tumble
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: by himself, and not drag her. I don't agree altogether
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: with that, said Jenny. I don't see why a man
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: shouldn't have a woman's help, provided he doesn't treat her meanly.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: You know, it's meanness you wouldn't believe, said missus Coombs.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: But I was a fool to have him. I might
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: have known if it hadn't been for my father, we
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: shouldn't have had not a carriage to our wedding. Lord,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: he didn't stick out at the hat, said mister Clarence,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: quite shocked. Said he wanted the money for his stock
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: or some such rubbish. Why he wouldn't have a woman
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: in to help me once a week if it wasn't
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: for my standing out plucky and the fussies he makes
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: about money comes to me well pretty near crying with
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: sheets of paper and figures. If only we can tide
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: over this year, he says, the business is bound to go.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: If only we can tide over this year, I says,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: then it will be if only we can tide over
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: next year. I know you, I says, And you don't
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: catch me screwing myself lean and ugly. Why didn't you
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: marry a slavey, I says, if you wanted one instead
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: of a respectable girl. I says, so, Missus Coombs. But
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: we will not follow this unedifying conversation further. Suffice it
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: that mister Coombs was very satisfactorily disposed of, and they
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: had a snug little time round the fire. Then Missus
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Coombs went to get to the tea, and Jenny sat
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: coquettishly on the arm of mister Clarence's chair until the
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: tea things clattered outside. What was that I heard, asked
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Missus Coombs playfully as she entered, And there was patinage
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: about kissing. They were just sitting down to the little
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: circular table when the first intimation of mister Coombs's return
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: was heard. This was a fumbling at the latch of
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: the front door. Here's my lord, said Missus Coombs when
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: out like a lion and comes back like a lamb.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: A lay, something fell over in the shop, a chair,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: it sounded like. Then there was a sound as of
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: some complicated step exercise in the passage. Then the door
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: opened and Coombs appeared. But it was Coomb's transfigured. The
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: immaculate collar had been torn carelessly from his throat. His
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: carefully brushed silk hat, half full of a crush of fungi,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: was under one arm. His coat was inside out, and
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: his waistcoat adorned with bunches of yellow blossomed furs. These
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: little eccentricities of Sunday costume, however, were quite overshadowed by
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: the change in his face. It was livid white, his
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: eyes were unnaturally large and bright, and his pale blue
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: lips were drawn back in a cheerless grin Marry. He
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: said he had stopped dancing to open the door, rational
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: enjoyment dance. He made three fantastic steps into the room
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: and stood bowing. Jim shrieked Missus Coombs, and mister Clarence
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: sat petrified with a dropping lower jaw. Tea, said mister Coombs.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Joel thing tea toast doors too brusher. He's drunk, said
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Jenny in a weak voice. Never before had she seen
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: this intense pallor in a drunken man, or such shining
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: dilated eyes. Mister Coombs held out a handful of scarlet
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: her garrick to mister Clarence. Joe Stuff said he taste some.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: At that moment he was genial. Then at the sight
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: of their startled faces, he changed with the swift transition
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: of insanity into over bearing fury, and it seemed as
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: if he had suddenly recalled the quarrel of his departure.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: In such a huge voice as Missus Coombs had never
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: heard before. He shouted, my house, I'm master here, eat
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: what I give you. He bawled this, as it seemed,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: without an effort, without a violent gesture, Standing there as
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: motionless as one who whispers, holding out a handful of fungus,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Clarence approved himself a coward. He could not meet the
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: mad fury in Coombs's eyes. He rose to his feet,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: pushing back his chair and turned stooping. At that Coombs
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: rushed at him. Jenny saw her opportunity, and with the
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: ghost of a shriek, made for the door. Missus Coombs
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: followed her. Clarence tried to dodge overwent the tea table
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: with a smash, as Coombs clutched him by the collar
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: and tried to thrust the fungus into his mouth. Clarence
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: was content to leave his collar behind him and shot
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: out into the passage, with red patches of flier garrick
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: still adherent to his face. Shut him in, cried Missus Coombs,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: and would have closed the door, but her supports deserted her.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Jenny saw the shop door open and vanished thereby locking
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: it behind her, while Clarence went on hastily into the kitchen.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Mister Coombs came heavily against the door, and Missus Coombs,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: finding the key was inside, fled upstairs and locked herself
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: in the spare bedroom. So the new convert to Joi
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: de vivre emerged upon the passage, his decorations a little scattered,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: but that respectable hatful of fungi still under his arms.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: He hesitated at the three ways and decided on the kitchen,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: whereupon Clarence, who was fumbling with the key, gave up
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: the attempt to imprison his host and fled into the scullery,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: only to be captured before he could open the door
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: into the yard. Mister Clarence is singularly reticent of the
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: details of what occurred. It seems that mister Coombe's transitory
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: irritation had vanished again, and he was once more a
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: genial playfellow, and as there were knives and meat choppers about,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Clarence very generously resolved to humor him and so avoid
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: anything tragic. It is beyond dispute that mister Coombe's played
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: with mister Clarence to his heart's content. They could not
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: have been more playful and familiar if they had known
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: each other for years. He insisted gaily on Clarence trying
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: the fungi, and after a friendly tussle, was smitten with
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: remorse at the mess he was making of his guest's face.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: It also appears that Clarence was dragged under the sink
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: and his face scrubbed with the blacking brush, he being
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: still resolved to humor the lunatic at any cost, and
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: that finally, in a somewhat disheveled, chipped and discolored condition,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: he was assisted to his coat and shown out by
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: the back door, the shopway being barred by Jenny. Mister
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Coombs's wandering thoughts then turned to Jenny. Jenny had been
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: unable to unfasten the shop door, but she shot the
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: bolts against mister Coombs's latch key and remained in possession
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: of the shop for the rest of the evening. It
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: would appear that mister Coombs then returned to the kitchen,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: still in pursuit of gaiety, and albeit a strict good templar,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: drank or spilt down the front of the first and
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: only frock coat no less than five bottles of the
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: stout Missus Coombs insisted upon having for her health's sake.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: He made cheerful noises by breaking off the necks of
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: the bottles with several of his wife's wedding present dinner plates,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: and during the earlier part of this great drunk he
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: sang diverse merry ballads. He cut his fingers rather badly
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: with one of the bottles, the only bloodshed in this story.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: And what with that and the systematic convulsion of his
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: inexperienced physiology by the licorice brand of Missus Coombs's stout,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: it may be the evil of the fungus poison was
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: somewhat allayed, But we prefer to draw a veil over
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: the concluding incidents of this Sunday afternoon. They ended in
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: the coal cellar in a deep and healing sleep. An
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: interval of five years elapsed. Again. It was a Sunday
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: afternoon in October, and again mister Coombs walked through the
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: pine wood beyond the canal. He was still the same
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: dark eyed, black mustached little man that he was at
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: the outset of the story, but his double chin was
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: now scarcely so illusory as it had been. His overcoat
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: was new, with a velvet l had a stylish collar
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: with turned down corners free of any coarse starchiness, had
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: replaced the original all round article. His hat was glossy,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: his gloves newish, though one finger had split and been
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: carefully mended. And a casual observer would have noticed about
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: him a certain rectitude of bearing, a certain erectness of
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: head that marks the man who thinks well of himself.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: He was a master. Now with three assistants beside him,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: walked a larger, sunburnt parody of himself. His brother Tom,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: just back from Australia. They were recapitulating their early struggles
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: and mister Coombs had just been making a financial statement.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: It's a very nice little business, Jim, said, brother Tom.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: In these days of competition, you're jolly lucky to have
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: worked it up so, and your jolly lucky too to
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: have a wife who's willing to help like yours does.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: Between ourselves, said mister Coombs. It wasn't always so. It
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: wasn't always like this to begin with. The missus was
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: a bit giddy. Girls are funny creatures, dear me. Yes,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: you'd hardly think it. But she was downright extravagant and
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: always having slaps at me. I was a bit too
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: easy in loving and all that, And she thought the
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: whole blessed show was run for her. Turned the house
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: into a regular caravansery, always having her relations and girls
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: from business in and their chaps comic songs. A Sunday
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: it was getting too and driving trade away, and she
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: was making eyes at the chaps too. I tell you, Tom,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: the place wasn't my own. Shouldn't have thought it it
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: was so well. I've reasoned with her, I said, I
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: ain't a duke to keep a wife like a pet animal.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: I married you for help and company. I said, you've
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: got welp and pulled the business through. She wouldn't hear
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: of it very well, I says. I'm a mild man
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: till I'm roused, I says, And it's getting to that.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: But you wouldn't hear of no warnings. Well, it's the
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: way with women. She didn't think I had it in
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: me to be roused. Women of her sort between ourselves,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: tom don't respect a man till they're a bit afraid
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: of him. So I just broke out to show her.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: In comes a girl named Jenny that used to work
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: with her and her chap. We had a bit of
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: a row, and I came out ere. It was just
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: such another day as this, and I thought it all out.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Then I went back and pitched into them. You did,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: I did? I was mad. I can tell you I
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: wasn't going to hit her if I could help it.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: So I went back and licked into this chap just
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: to show her what I could do. He was a
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: big chap too. Well. I chucked him and smashed things
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: about and gave her a scaring and she ran up
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: and locked herself into the spare room. Well that's all
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: I says to her. The next morning. Now you know,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: I says what I'm like when I'm roused, and I
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: didn't have to say anything more. And you've been happy
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: ever after. Eh. So it was speak. There's nothing like
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: putting your foot down with them. If it hadn't been
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: for that afternoon, I should have been tramping the roads now,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: and she'd have been grumbling at me and all her family,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: grumbling for bringing her a poverty. I know their little ways,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: but we're all right now, and it's a very decent
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: little business, as you say. They proceeded on their way meditatively.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: We're meen are funny creatures, said brother Tom. They want
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: a firm hand, says Coombs. What a lot of these
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: funguses there are about here, remarked brother Tom. Presently I
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: can't see what use they are in the world, mister
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Coombs looked. I daresay they're sent for some wise purpose,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: said mister Coombs. And that was as much thanks as
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: the Purple Pyleaeus ever got for maddening this absurd little
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: man to the pitch of decisive action, and so altering
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: the whole course of his life. End of Section seventeen.