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Tono-Bungay Book 1 Chapter 3 - Parts 1-3 · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Book, first chapter, third Parts one to three of Tono Bungay.
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Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by William tom Coe. Tono
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Speaker 1: Bungay by H. G. Wells, Book, first chapter, third parts
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Speaker 1: one to three, Chapter the third The Wimblehurst Apprenticeship One
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Speaker 1: so far as I can remember now, except for that
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Speaker 1: one emotional phase by the graveside, I passed through all
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Speaker 1: these experiences rather callously. I had, already, with a facility
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Speaker 1: of youth, changed my world, ceased to think at all
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Speaker 1: of the old school routine, and put bladesover aside for digestion.
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Speaker 1: At a later stage, I took up my new world
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Speaker 1: in Wimblehurst, with a chemist's shop as its hub, set
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Speaker 1: to work at Latin and Materia medica, and concentrated upon
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Speaker 1: the present with all my heart. Wimblehurst is an exceptionally
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Speaker 1: quiet and gray Sussex town, rare among South of England towns.
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Speaker 1: In being largely built of stone. I found something very
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Speaker 1: agreeable and picturesque in its clean, cobbled streets, its odd
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Speaker 1: turnings and abrupt corners, and in the pleasant park that
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Speaker 1: crowds up one side of the town. The whole place
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Speaker 1: is under the Eastree dominion, and it was the Eastree
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Speaker 1: influence and dignity that kept its railway station a mile
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Speaker 1: and three quarters away. Eastreet House is so close that
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Speaker 1: it dominates the whole One goes across the market place
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Speaker 1: with its old lock up and stocks, past the great
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Speaker 1: pre Reformation Church, a fine gray shell, like some empty
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Speaker 1: skull from which the life has fled, And there at
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Speaker 1: once are the huge wrought iyce and gates, and one
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Speaker 1: peeps through them to see the facade of this place,
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Speaker 1: very white and large and fine down a long avenue
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Speaker 1: of Ewes. East Tree was far greater than Bladesover, and
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Speaker 1: an altogether completer example of the eighteenth century system. It
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Speaker 1: ruled not two villages, but a borough that had sent
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Speaker 1: its huns and cousins to Parliament almost as a matter
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Speaker 1: of right. So long as its franchise endured, every one
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Speaker 1: was in the system, everyone except my uncle. He stood
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Speaker 1: out and complained. My uncle was the first real breach
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Speaker 1: I found in the great front of Bladesover the world
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Speaker 1: had presented me. For Chatham was not so much a
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Speaker 1: breach as a confirmation. But my uncle had no respect
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Speaker 1: for bladesover and eastree none whatever. He did not believe
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Speaker 1: in them. He was blind even to what they were.
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Speaker 1: He propounded strange phrases about them. He exfoliated and wagged
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Speaker 1: about novel and in credible ideas. This place, said my uncle,
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Speaker 1: surveying it from his open doorway in the dignified stillness
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Speaker 1: of a summer afternoon, once waking up. I was sorting
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Speaker 1: up patent medicines in the corner. I like to let
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Speaker 1: a dozen young Americans loosen to it, said my uncle.
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Speaker 1: Then we'd see I made a tick against Mother Shipton's
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Speaker 1: sleeping syrup. We had cleared our forward stock. Things must
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Speaker 1: be happening somewhere, George, he broke out in a querulously
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Speaker 1: rising note. As he came back into the little shop,
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Speaker 1: he fiddled with the piled dummy boxes of fancy soap
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Speaker 1: and scent and so forth that adorned the end of
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Speaker 1: the counter, then turned about petulantly, stuck his hands deeply
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Speaker 1: into his pockets, and withdrew one to scratch his head.
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Speaker 1: I must do something, he said. I can't stand it.
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Speaker 1: I must invent something and shove it I could good
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Speaker 1: or a play. There's a deal of money in a play, George.
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Speaker 1: What would you think of me writing a play? Eh?
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Speaker 1: There's all sorts of things to be done. Or the
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Speaker 1: stog exchange. He fell into that meditative whistling of his
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Speaker 1: sacramental wine. He swore, this isn't the world. It's cold,
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Speaker 1: mutt and fat. That's what Wimblehurst is. Cold mutt and fat,
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Speaker 1: dead and stiff, and I'm buried in it. Up to
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Speaker 1: the armpits. Nothing ever happens. Nobody wants things to happen
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Speaker 1: except me up in London, George. Things happen America. I
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Speaker 1: wish to heaven, George. I'd been born American, where things hum?
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Speaker 1: What can one do here? How can one grow? While
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Speaker 1: we're sleeping here? With our capital oozing away into Lord
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Speaker 1: Eastry's pockets? For rent? Men are up there? He indicated
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Speaker 1: London as remotely over the top of the dispensing counter,
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Speaker 1: and then as a scene of great activity by a
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Speaker 1: whirl of the hand and a wink and a meaning
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Speaker 1: smile at me. What sort of things do they do?
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Speaker 1: I asked rush about? He said, do things somethin glorious?
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Speaker 1: There's cover gambling ever heard of that, George, he drew
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Speaker 1: the air in through his teeth. You put down a hundred, say,
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Speaker 1: and buy ten thousand pounds worth. See that's a cover
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Speaker 1: of one percent. Things go up one you sell, realize
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Speaker 1: cent percent down. Whiff, it's gone. Try again, scent percent, George.
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Speaker 1: Every day men are made or done for in an hour,
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Speaker 1: and the shoutin's well that's one way, George. Then another way.
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Speaker 1: There's corners. They're rather big things, aren't they, I ventured? Oh,
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Speaker 1: if you go in for wheat or steel, yes, But
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Speaker 1: suppose you tackled a little thing, George, just some little
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Speaker 1: thing that only needed a few thousands drugs, for example,
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Speaker 1: shoved all you had into it, Stake your liver on it,
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Speaker 1: so to speak. Take a drug. Take ippcac, for example,
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Speaker 1: Take a lot of ippicac. Take all there is. See
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Speaker 1: there you are. There aren't unlimited supplies of ippicac. Guana
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Speaker 1: can't be And it's a thing people must have. Then
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Speaker 1: quinine again, you watch your chance. Wait for a tropical
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Speaker 1: war breaking out. Let's say and collar all the quinine.
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Speaker 1: Where are they must have quinine? You know, eh, z Lord,
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Speaker 1: there's no end of things, no end of little things,
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Speaker 1: dill water, all the suffering babes yowling for it, eucalyptus again,
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Speaker 1: cascara which hazel menthol, all the toothache things. Then there's
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Speaker 1: antiseptics and curare cocaine rather a nuisance to the doctor,
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Speaker 1: I reflected, they got to look out for themselves, by jove. Yes,
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Speaker 1: they'll do you if they can, and you do them
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Speaker 1: like brigands. That makes it romantic. That's the romance of commerce, George.
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Speaker 1: You're in the mountains there. Think of having all the
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Speaker 1: quinine in the world and some millionaire's pampered wife gone
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Speaker 1: ill with malaria. Eh. That's a squeeze, George. Eh. Eh,
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Speaker 1: millionaire on his motor car outside, offering you any price
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Speaker 1: you liked. That'd wake up Wimblehurst. Lord, you haven't an
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Speaker 1: idea down here, not an ideas. He passed into a
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Speaker 1: rapt dream from which escaped such fragments as fifty percent advance,
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Speaker 1: sir security tomorrow z. The idea of cornering a drug
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Speaker 1: struck upon my mind then as a sort of irresponsible
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Speaker 1: monkey trick that no one would ever be permitted to do.
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Speaker 1: In reality. It was a sort of dance one would
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Speaker 1: talk to make Ewert laugh and set him going on
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Speaker 1: to still outer possibilities. I thought it was part of
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Speaker 1: my uncle's way of talking, but I have learnt differently,
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Speaker 1: since the whole trend of modern money making is to
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Speaker 1: foresee something that will presently be needed and put it
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Speaker 1: out of reach, and then to haggle yourself wealthy. You
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Speaker 1: buy up land upon which people will presently want to
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Speaker 1: build houses, You secure rights that will bar vitally important developments,
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Speaker 1: and so on and so on. Of course, the naive
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Speaker 1: intelligence of a boy does not grasp the subtler developments
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Speaker 1: of human inadequacy. He begins life with a disposition to
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Speaker 1: believe in the wisdom of grown up people. He does
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Speaker 1: not realize how casual and disingenuous has been the development
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Speaker 1: of law and custom, and he thinks that somewhere in
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Speaker 1: the state there is a power as irresistible as a
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Speaker 1: head master's to check mischievous and foolish enterprises of every sort.
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Speaker 1: I will confess that when my uncle talked of cornering Quinine,
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Speaker 1: I had a clear impression that any one who contrived
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Speaker 1: to do that would pretty certainly go to jail. Now
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Speaker 1: I know that any one who could really bring it
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Speaker 1: off would be much more likely to go to the
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Speaker 1: House of Lords. My uncle ranged over the gilt labels
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Speaker 1: of his bottles and drawers for a while, dreaming of
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Speaker 1: corners in this and that. But at last he reverted
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Speaker 1: to Wimblehurst again. You got to be in London when
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Speaker 1: these things are in hand. Down here, ge Erusalem, he cried,
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Speaker 1: Why did I plant myself here? Everything's done, The game's over.
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Speaker 1: Here's Lord Eastry, and he's got everything except what his
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Speaker 1: lawyers get. And before you get any more change this way,
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Speaker 1: you'll have to dynamite him and them. He doesn't want
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Speaker 1: anything more to happen. Why should he any chance ad
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Speaker 1: be a loss to him. He wants everything to burbo
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Speaker 1: lulong and burbol along and go on as it's going
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Speaker 1: for the next ten thousand years. Eastree after Eastree, One
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Speaker 1: parson down another come one grosser dead, get another. Anyone
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Speaker 1: with any ideas better go away? They have gone away.
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Speaker 1: Look at all these blessed people in this place. Look
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Speaker 1: at em, all fast asleep, doing their business out of
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Speaker 1: habit in a sort of dream. Stuffed men would do
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Speaker 1: just as well. Just they've all shook down into their places.
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Speaker 1: They don't want anything to happen either they're all broken
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Speaker 1: in there, you are only what are they all alive for?
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Speaker 1: Why can't they get a clockwork chemist? He concluded, as
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Speaker 1: he often concluded these talks. I must invent something that's
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Speaker 1: about what I must do, some convenience, something people want.
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Speaker 1: Strike out. You can't think, George, of anything everybody wants
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Speaker 1: and hasn't got. I mean something you could turn out,
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Speaker 1: reach tale under a shilling, say well you think whenever
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Speaker 1: you haven't got anything better to do? See two. So
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Speaker 1: I remember my uncle in that first phase, young but
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Speaker 1: already a little fat, restless, fretful, garrulous, putting in my
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Speaker 1: fermenting head, all sorts of discrepant ideas. Certainly he was
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Speaker 1: educational for me. The years at Wimblehurst were years of
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Speaker 1: pretty active growth. Most of my leisure and much of
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Speaker 1: my time in the shop I spent in study. I
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Speaker 1: speedily mastered the modicum of Latin necessary for my qualifying examinations,
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Speaker 1: and a little assisted by the Government Science and Art Department.
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Speaker 1: Classes that were held in the grammar school went on
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Speaker 1: with my mathematics. There were classes in physics and chemistry,
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Speaker 1: in mathematics and machine drawing, and I took up these
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Speaker 1: subjects with considerable avidity. Exercise I got chiefly in the
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Speaker 1: form of walks. There was some cricket in the summer
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Speaker 1: and football in the winter, sustained by young men's clubs
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Speaker 1: that livied a parasitic blackmail of the big people and
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Speaker 1: the sitting member. But I was never very keen at
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Speaker 1: these games. I didn't find any very close companions among
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Speaker 1: the youths of Wimblehurst. They struck me, after my Cockney schoolmates,
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Speaker 1: as loutish and slow, servile and furtive, spiteful and mean.
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Speaker 1: We used to swagger, but these countrymen dragged their feet
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Speaker 1: and hated an equal who didn't. We talked loud, but
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Speaker 1: you only got the real thoughts of Wimblehurst in a
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Speaker 1: knowing undertone behind its hand, and even then they weren't
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Speaker 1: much in the way of thoughts. No, I didn't like
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Speaker 1: those young countrymen, and I'm no believer in the English
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Speaker 1: countryside under the blades over system as a breeding ground
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Speaker 1: for honorable men. One hears a frightful lot of nonsense
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Speaker 1: about the rural exodus and the degeneration wrought by town
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Speaker 1: life upon our population. To my the English townsmen, even
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Speaker 1: in the slums is infinitely better spiritually, more courageous, more imaginative,
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Speaker 1: and cleaner than his agricultural cousin. I've seen them both
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Speaker 1: when they didn't think they were being observed, and I
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Speaker 1: know there was something about my Wimblehurst companions that disgusted me.
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Speaker 1: It's hard to define. Heaven knows that at that Cocknye
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Speaker 1: boarding school at Goudhurst we were coarse enough. The Wimblehurst
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Speaker 1: youngsters had neither words nor courage for the sort of
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Speaker 1: thing we used to do for our bad language, for example.
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Speaker 1: But on the other hand they displayed a sort of
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Speaker 1: sluggish real lewdness. Ludness is the word, a baseness of attitude.
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Speaker 1: Whatever we exiled urbans did at Goudhurst was touched with something. However,
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Speaker 1: course of romantic imagination. We had read The Boys of
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Speaker 1: England and told each other's stories. In the English countryside
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Speaker 1: there are no books at all, no songs, no drama,
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Speaker 1: no valiant sin. Even all these things have never come,
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Speaker 1: or they were taken away and hidden generations ago. And
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Speaker 1: the imagination of boats and beastializes that, I think is
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Speaker 1: where the real difference against the English rural man lies.
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Speaker 1: It is because I know this that I do not
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Speaker 1: share in the common repinings because our countryside is being depopulated,
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Speaker 1: because our population is passing through the furnace of the towns.
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Speaker 1: They starve, they suffer, no doubt, but they come out
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Speaker 1: of it hardened. They come out of it with souls
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Speaker 1: of an evening. The Womblehurst blade, shiny faced from a wash,
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Speaker 1: and with some loud finery, a colored waistcoit, or a
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Speaker 1: vivid tie, would betake himself to the eastry Arms billiard room,
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Speaker 1: or to the bar parlor of some minor pub where
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Speaker 1: nap could be played. One soon sickened of his slow knowingness,
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Speaker 1: the cunning observation of his deadened eyes, his idea of
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Speaker 1: a good story always always to in undertones, poor dirty worm,
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Speaker 1: his shrewd elaborate maneuvers for some petty advantage, a drink
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Speaker 1: to the good, or such like deal. There rises before
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Speaker 1: my eyes as I write, young Hopley DoD, the son
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Speaker 1: of the Wimblehurst auctioneer, the pride of Wimblehurst, its finest flower,
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Speaker 1: with his fur waistcoat and his bulldog pipe, his riding breeches.
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Speaker 1: He had no horse, and his gaiters. As he used
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Speaker 1: to sit leaning forward and watching the billiard table from
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Speaker 1: under the brim of his artfully tilted hat. A half
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Speaker 1: dozen phrases constituted his conversation. Hard lines, he used to say,
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Speaker 1: and good baizeness in a base bleat. Moreover, he had
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Speaker 1: a long, slow whistle that was esteemed the very cream
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Speaker 1: of humorous comment. Night after night he was there. Also,
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Speaker 1: you knew he would not understand that I could play billiards,
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Speaker 1: and regarded every stroke I made as a fluke for
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Speaker 1: a beginner. I did play so badly, I thought, I'm
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Speaker 1: not so sure now. That was my opinion at the time.
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Speaker 1: But young Dodd's skepticism and the good bazeness finally cured
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Speaker 1: me of my disposition to frequent the Eastry arms, and
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Speaker 1: so these noises had their value in my world. I
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Speaker 1: made no friends among the young men of the place
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Speaker 1: at all, And though I was entering upon adolescence, I
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Speaker 1: have no love affair to tell of here, not that
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Speaker 1: I was not waking up to that aspect of life.
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Speaker 1: In my middle teens. I did, indeed, in various slightly
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Speaker 1: informal ways, scrape acquaintance with casual Wimblehurst girls. With a
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Speaker 1: little dressmaker's apprentice, I got upon shyly speaking terms, and
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Speaker 1: a pupil teacher in the National School went further and
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Speaker 1: was talked about in connection with me. But I was not,
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Speaker 1: by any means touched by any reality of passion for
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Speaker 1: either of these young people. Love love as yet came
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Speaker 1: to me only in my dreams. I only kissed these
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Speaker 1: girls once or twice. They rather disconcerted than developed those dreams.
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Speaker 1: They were so clearly not it. I shall have much
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Speaker 1: to say of love in this story, but I may
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Speaker 1: break it to the reader now that it is my
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Speaker 1: role to be a rather ineffectual lover. Desire I knew
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Speaker 1: well enough, indeed too well. But love I have been
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Speaker 1: shy of in all my early enterprises in the War
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Speaker 1: of the Sexes, I was torn between the urgency of
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Speaker 1: the body and a habit of romantic fantasy that wanted
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Speaker 1: every phase of the adventure to be generous and beautiful.
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Speaker 1: And I had a curiously haunting memory of Beatrice, of
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Speaker 1: her kisses in the Bracken and her kiss upon the wall,
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Speaker 1: that somehow pitched the standard too high for Wimblehurst's opportunities.
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Speaker 1: I will not deny I did, in a boyish way
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Speaker 1: attempt a shy rude adventure or so in love making
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Speaker 1: at Wimblehurst. But through these various influences I didn't bring
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Speaker 1: things off to any extent at all. I left behind
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Speaker 1: me no devasty dating memories, no splendid reputation. I came
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Speaker 1: away at last, still inexperienced and a little thwarted, with
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Speaker 1: only a natural growth of interest and desire in sexual things.
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Speaker 1: If I fell in love with any one in Wimblehurst,
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Speaker 1: it was with my aunt. She treated me with a
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Speaker 1: kindliness that was only half maternal. She petted my books,
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Speaker 1: she knew about my certificates. She made fun of me
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Speaker 1: in a way that stirred my heart to her. Quite unconsciously,
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Speaker 1: I grew fond of her. My adolescent years at Wimblehurst were,
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Speaker 1: on the whole, laborious, uneventful years that began in short
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Speaker 1: jackets and left me in many ways nearly a man.
18:41
Speaker 1: Years so uneventful that the calculus of variations is associated
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Speaker 1: with one winter and an examination in physics for Science
18:49
Speaker 1: and Art Department honors marks an epoch. Many divergent impulses
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Speaker 1: stirred within me, But the master impulse was a grave
18:58
Speaker 1: young disposition to work and learn, and thereby in some
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Speaker 1: not very clearly defined way get out of the Wimblehurst
19:05
Speaker 1: world into which I had fallen. I wrote with some
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Speaker 1: frequency to Ewart self conscious, but as I remember them,
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Speaker 1: not intelligent letters, dated in Latin, and with lapses into
19:17
Speaker 1: Latin quotation that roused Ewert to parody. There was something
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Speaker 1: about me in those days more than a little priggish.
19:25
Speaker 1: But it was to do myself justice, something more than
19:28
Speaker 1: the petty pride of learning. I had a very grave
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Speaker 1: sense of discipline and preparation that I am not ashamed
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Speaker 1: at all to remember. I was serious, more serious than
19:39
Speaker 1: I am at the present time, more serious indeed that
19:42
Speaker 1: any adult seems to be. I was capable then of
19:46
Speaker 1: efforts of nobilities they are beyond me now. I don't
19:50
Speaker 1: see why at forty I shouldn't confess I respect my
19:54
Speaker 1: own youth. I had dropped being a boy quite abruptly.
19:58
Speaker 1: I thought I was presently to go go out into
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Speaker 1: a larger and quite important world and do significant things there.
20:05
Speaker 1: I thought I was destined to do something definite to
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Speaker 1: a world that had a definite purpose. I did not
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Speaker 1: understand then as I do now, that life was to
20:14
Speaker 1: consist largely in the world's doing things to me, young
20:18
Speaker 1: people never do seem to understand that aspect of things.
20:22
Speaker 1: And as I say, among my educational influences, my uncle
20:26
Speaker 1: all unsuspected, played a leading part, and perhaps among other things,
20:31
Speaker 1: gave me discontent with Wimblehurst, my desire to get away
20:35
Speaker 1: from that clean and picturesque emptiness of form and expression.
20:40
Speaker 1: That helped to emphasize it in a way. That definition
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Speaker 1: made me patient. Presently, I shall get to London, I said,
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Speaker 1: echoing him. I remember him now as talking, always talking.
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Speaker 1: In those days. He talked to me of theology. He
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Speaker 1: talked of politics, of the wonders of science, and the
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Speaker 1: marvels of art, of the passions and the affections, of
21:04
Speaker 1: the immortality of the soul, and the peculiar actions of drugs.
21:08
Speaker 1: But predominantly and constantly he talked of getting on, of enterprises,
21:14
Speaker 1: of inventions, and great fortunes of wroth Childs, silver Kings, Vanderbilts, Golds, flotations, realizations,
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Speaker 1: and the marvelous ways of chance with men, and all localities,
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Speaker 1: that is to say, that are not absolutely sunk into
21:30
Speaker 1: the level of cold mutton fat. When I think of
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Speaker 1: those early talks, I figure him always in one of
21:37
Speaker 1: three positions. Either we were in the dispensing layer behind
21:41
Speaker 1: a high barrier, he pounding up things in a mortar, perhaps,
21:45
Speaker 1: and I rolling pill stuff into long rolls and cutting
21:48
Speaker 1: it up with a sort of broad fluted knife. Or
21:52
Speaker 1: he stood looking out of the shop door against the
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Speaker 1: case of sponges and spray diffusers while I surveyed him
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Speaker 1: from behind the counter, or he leant against the little
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Speaker 1: drawers behind the counter and I hovered dusting in front.
22:05
Speaker 1: The thought of those early days brings back to my nostrils,
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Speaker 1: the faint smell of scent that was always in the air,
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Speaker 1: marbled now with streaks of this drug and now of that.
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Speaker 1: And to my eyes the rows of Jejune glass bottles
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Speaker 1: with gold labels mirror reflected that stood behind him. My aunt,
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Speaker 1: I remember, used some time to come into the shop
22:27
Speaker 1: in a state of aggressive sprightliness, a sort of connubial
22:31
Speaker 1: ragging expedition, and get much fun over the abbreviated latinity
22:36
Speaker 1: of those gilt inscriptions ol and jig George, she would
22:40
Speaker 1: read derisively. And he pretends it's almond oil, snap, and
22:46
Speaker 1: that's mustard. Did you ever, George look at him? George,
22:50
Speaker 1: looking dignified I'd like to put an old label on
22:53
Speaker 1: to him round the middle, like his bottles are with
22:56
Speaker 1: ol pondo on it. That's Latin for em George must
23:01
Speaker 1: be he'd looked lovely with a stopper. You want a stopper,
23:07
Speaker 1: said my uncle, projecting his face. My aunt, dear soul
23:12
Speaker 1: was in those days quite thin and slender, with a
23:15
Speaker 1: delicate rosebud complexion, at a disposition to connubial badinage, to
23:20
Speaker 1: a sort of gentle skylarking. There was a silvery ghost
23:24
Speaker 1: of lisping in her speech. She was a great humorist,
23:27
Speaker 1: and as a constraint of my presence at meals woar off,
23:30
Speaker 1: I became more and more aware of a filmy but
23:33
Speaker 1: extensive net of nonsense she had woven about her domestic
23:37
Speaker 1: relations until it had become the reality of her life.
23:41
Speaker 1: She affected a derisive attitude to the world at large,
23:44
Speaker 1: and applied the epithet old to more things than I
23:48
Speaker 1: have ever heard linked to it before. Or since here's
23:52
Speaker 1: the old newspaper, she used to say to my uncle. Now,
23:56
Speaker 1: don't go and get it in the butter, you silly
23:59
Speaker 1: old sardine. What's the day of the week, Susan, my
24:03
Speaker 1: uncle would ask, old Monday sausage, she would say, and add,
24:08
Speaker 1: I got all my old washing to do, don't I
24:11
Speaker 1: know it? She had evidently been the wit and joy
24:15
Speaker 1: of a large circle of schoolfellows, and this style had
24:18
Speaker 1: become a second nature with her. It made her very
24:22
Speaker 1: delightful to me in that quiet place. Her customary walk
24:26
Speaker 1: even had a sort of hello in it. Her chief
24:29
Speaker 1: preoccupation in life was I believe to make my uncle laugh.
24:33
Speaker 1: And when by some new nickname, some new quaintness or absurdity,
24:38
Speaker 1: she achieved that end. She was, behind a mask of
24:41
Speaker 1: sober amazement, the happiest woman on earth. My Uncle's laugh,
24:45
Speaker 1: when it did come, I must admit, was, as Bettaker says, rewarding.
24:52
Speaker 1: It began with gusty blowings and snortings, and open into
24:55
Speaker 1: a clear ha ha. But in fullest development it included
24:59
Speaker 1: in those youthful days falling about anyhow and doubling up tightly,
25:04
Speaker 1: and whackings of the stomach, and tears and cries of anguish.
25:09
Speaker 1: I never in my life heard my uncle laugh to
25:11
Speaker 1: his maximum, except at her. He was commonly too much
25:15
Speaker 1: in earnest for that, and he didn't laugh much at
25:18
Speaker 1: all to my knowledge. After those early years, also she
25:22
Speaker 1: threw things at him to an enormous extent, in her
25:25
Speaker 1: resolve to keep things lively in spite of Wimblehurst's sponges
25:29
Speaker 1: out of stock, she threw cushions, balls of paper, clean
25:33
Speaker 1: washing bread, and once up the yard, when they thought
25:37
Speaker 1: that I and the errand boy and the diminutive maid
25:40
Speaker 1: of all work were safely out of the way, she
25:42
Speaker 1: smashed a boxful of eight ounce bottles I had left
25:45
Speaker 1: to drain, assaulting my uncle with a new soft broom.
25:49
Speaker 1: Sometimes she would shy things at me, but not often.
25:54
Speaker 1: There seemed always laughter round and about her, all three
25:58
Speaker 1: of us, which share hysterics at times. And on one
26:01
Speaker 1: occasion the two of them came home from church shockingly
26:04
Speaker 1: ashamed of themselves because of a storm of mirth. During
26:08
Speaker 1: the sermon, the vicar, it seems, had tried to blow
26:11
Speaker 1: his nose with a black glove as well as a
26:13
Speaker 1: customary pocket handkerchief, and afterwards she had picked up her
26:17
Speaker 1: own glove by the finger, and, looking innocently but intently sideways,
26:22
Speaker 1: had suddenly, by this simple expedient exploded my uncle. Altogether.
26:27
Speaker 1: We had it all over again at dinner, but it
26:30
Speaker 1: shows you cried my uncle suddenly becoming grave. What Wimblehurst
26:35
Speaker 1: is to have us all laughing at a little thing
26:38
Speaker 1: like that. We weren't the only ones that giggled, not
26:41
Speaker 1: by any means, And Lord, it was funny. Socially, my
26:47
Speaker 1: uncle and aunt were almost completely isolated in places like Wimblehurst.
26:52
Speaker 1: The tradesmen's lives always are isolated socially, all of them,
26:56
Speaker 1: unless they have a sister or a bosom friend among
26:59
Speaker 1: the other wives. But the husbands met in various bar
27:02
Speaker 1: parlors or in the billiard room of the Eastry Arms.
27:06
Speaker 1: But my uncle, for the most part, spent his evenings
27:09
Speaker 1: at home. When first he arrived in Wimblehurst, I think
27:13
Speaker 1: he had spread his effect of abounding ideas and enterprise
27:16
Speaker 1: rather too aggressively, and Wimblehurst, after a temporary subjugation, had
27:22
Speaker 1: rebelled and done its best to make a butt of him.
27:26
Speaker 1: His appearance in a public house led to a pause
27:28
Speaker 1: in any conversation that was going on. Come to tell
27:32
Speaker 1: us about everything, mister podrevo, some one would say, politely,
27:37
Speaker 1: you wait. My uncle used to answer, disconcerted and sulk
27:41
Speaker 1: for the rest of his visit. Or some one with
27:44
Speaker 1: an immense air of innocence, would remark to the world
27:47
Speaker 1: generally their talking of rebuilding Wimblehurst all over again. I'm
27:51
Speaker 1: told anybody heard anything of it going to make it
27:55
Speaker 1: a regular, smart going enterprise and place kind of crystal palace,
28:01
Speaker 1: earthquake and a pestilence. Before you get that, my uncle
28:04
Speaker 1: would mutter to the infinite delight of every one, and
28:07
Speaker 1: had something inaudible about cold mutton fat. Three we were
28:13
Speaker 1: torn apart by a financial accident to my uncle, of
28:16
Speaker 1: which I did not at first grasp the full bearings.
28:20
Speaker 1: He had developed what I regarded as an innocent, intellectual recreation,
28:24
Speaker 1: which he called stock market meteorology. I think he got
28:29
Speaker 1: the idea from one use of curves in the graphic
28:31
Speaker 1: presentation of associated variations that he saw me plotting. He
28:36
Speaker 1: secured some of my squared paper, and, having cast about
28:39
Speaker 1: for a time, decided to trace the rise and fall
28:42
Speaker 1: of certain lines and railways. There's something in this, George,
28:47
Speaker 1: he said, and I little dreamt that, among other things
28:50
Speaker 1: that were in it was the whole of his spare
28:52
Speaker 1: money and most of what my mother had left to
28:55
Speaker 1: him in trust. For me. It's as plain as can be,
28:58
Speaker 1: he said, See here's one system of waves, and here's another.
29:04
Speaker 1: These are prices for Union pacifics extended over a month.
29:08
Speaker 1: Now next week, mark my words, they'll be down one
29:11
Speaker 1: whole point. We're getting near the steep part of the
29:14
Speaker 1: curve again. See it's absolutely scientific, it's verifiable. Well and
29:20
Speaker 1: apply it. You buy in the hollow and sell on
29:23
Speaker 1: the crest, and there you are. I was so convinced
29:28
Speaker 1: of the triviality of this amusement that to find at
29:31
Speaker 1: last that he had taken it in the most disastrous
29:34
Speaker 1: earnest overwhelmed me. He took me for a long walk
29:38
Speaker 1: to break it to me, over the hills, towards the
29:41
Speaker 1: air and across the great Gorse Commons by Hazel Brow.
29:46
Speaker 1: There are ups and downs in life, George, he said,
29:50
Speaker 1: half way across that great open space, and paused against
29:53
Speaker 1: the sky. I left out one factor in the Union
29:56
Speaker 1: Pacific analysis, did you, I said, struck by the sudden
30:01
Speaker 1: chance in his voice. But you don't mean. I stopped
30:05
Speaker 1: and turned on him in the narrow, sandy rut of pathway,
30:08
Speaker 1: and he stopped likewise, I do, George, I do mean.
30:13
Speaker 1: It's bust me. I'm a bankrupt here and now then
30:18
Speaker 1: the shop's bust too. I shall have to get out
30:21
Speaker 1: of that, and me, oh, you you're all right, you
30:26
Speaker 1: can transfer your apprenticeship and er well, I'm not the
30:30
Speaker 1: sort of man to be careless with trust funds. You
30:32
Speaker 1: can be sure I kept that aspect in mind. There's
30:36
Speaker 1: some of it left, George, trust me, quite a decent
30:39
Speaker 1: little sum. But you and Aunt it isn't quite the
30:44
Speaker 1: way we meant to leave Wimblehurst, George. But we shall
30:47
Speaker 1: have to go sail. All the things shoved about and
30:51
Speaker 1: ticketed not a hundred and one. Ugh. It's been a
30:55
Speaker 1: larky little house in some ways. The first we had
30:58
Speaker 1: furnishing in its way. Very happy, his face winced at
31:03
Speaker 1: some memory. Let's go on, George, he said, shortly near choking,
31:08
Speaker 1: I could see. I turned my back on him and
31:11
Speaker 1: did not look round again for a little while. That's
31:15
Speaker 1: how it is, you see, George. I heard him after
31:18
Speaker 1: a time, when we were back in the high road again,
31:22
Speaker 1: he came alongside, and for a time we walked in silence.
31:27
Speaker 1: Don't say anything home yet, he said, presently, fortunes of war.
31:32
Speaker 1: I got to pick the proper time with Susan, else
31:34
Speaker 1: she'll get depressed, not that she isn't a first rate brick.
31:38
Speaker 1: Whatever comes along, all right, I said, I'll be careful,
31:43
Speaker 1: And it seemed to me, for the time altogether too
31:45
Speaker 1: selfish to bother him with any further inquiries about his
31:48
Speaker 1: responsibility as my trustee. He gave a little sigh of
31:52
Speaker 1: relief at my note of assent, and was presently talking
31:55
Speaker 1: quite cheerfully of his plans. But he had I remember
31:59
Speaker 1: one lap into moodiness that came and went suddenly. Those others,
32:04
Speaker 1: he said, as though the thought had stung him for
32:07
Speaker 1: the first time. What others? I asked, Damn them, said he?
32:13
Speaker 1: But what others? All those dams stick in the mud
32:16
Speaker 1: and die slowly. Trades people ruck, the butcher marble, the
32:20
Speaker 1: grocer snape, gourd George, how they'll grin? I thought him
32:27
Speaker 1: over in the next few weeks, and I remember now
32:29
Speaker 1: in great detail the last talk we had together before
32:32
Speaker 1: he handed over the shop and me to his successor,
32:36
Speaker 1: For he had the good luck to sell his business
32:38
Speaker 1: lock stock and barrel, in which expression I found myself
32:42
Speaker 1: and my indentures included the horrors of a sail by
32:45
Speaker 1: auction of the furniture, even were avoided. I remember that,
32:49
Speaker 1: either coming or going on that occasion, Ruck the Butcher
32:53
Speaker 1: stood in his doorway and regarded us with a grin
32:56
Speaker 1: that showed his long teeth. You half witted, hau, said
33:00
Speaker 1: my uncle, you grinning Hyaena. And then pleasant day, mister Ruck,
33:07
Speaker 1: going to make your fortune in London, then said mister Ruck,
33:10
Speaker 1: with slow enjoyment. That last excursion took us along the
33:15
Speaker 1: causeway to Beeching, and so up the downs and round
33:18
Speaker 1: almost as far as Steadthurst home. My moods as we
33:22
Speaker 1: went made a mingled web. By this time I had
33:25
Speaker 1: really grasped the fact that my uncle had, in plain English,
33:29
Speaker 1: robbed me. The little accumulations of my mother, six hundred
33:33
Speaker 1: pounds and more that would have educated me and started
33:37
Speaker 1: me in business had been eaten into, and was mostly
33:40
Speaker 1: gone into the unexpected hollow that ought to have been
33:43
Speaker 1: a crest of the Union Pacific curve, and of the remainder.
33:46
Speaker 1: He still gave no account. I was too young and
33:50
Speaker 1: inexperienced to insist on this or know how to get it.
33:53
Speaker 1: But the thought of it all made streaks of decidedly
33:56
Speaker 1: black anger in that scheme of interwoven feelings. And you
34:00
Speaker 1: know I was also acutely sorry for him, almost as
34:03
Speaker 1: sorry I was for my Aunt Susan. Even then I
34:07
Speaker 1: had quite found him out. I knew him to be
34:10
Speaker 1: weaker than myself. His incurable, irresponsible childishness was as clear
34:15
Speaker 1: to me then as it was on his death bed,
34:18
Speaker 1: his redeeming and excusing imaginative silliness. Through some odd metal twist.
34:24
Speaker 1: Perhaps I was disposed to exonerate him, even at the
34:27
Speaker 1: cost of blaming my poor old mother, who had left
34:30
Speaker 1: things in his untrustworthy hands. I should have forgiven him altogether,
34:34
Speaker 1: I believe if he had been in any manner apologetic
34:38
Speaker 1: to me. But he wasn't. That he kept reassuring me
34:41
Speaker 1: in a way I found irritating. Mostly, however, his solicitude
34:46
Speaker 1: was for Aunt Susan and himself. It's these crises, George,
34:51
Speaker 1: he said, try character. Your aunt's come out well, my boy.
34:56
Speaker 1: He made meditative noises for a space. Had her cried,
35:00
Speaker 1: of course, the thing had been only too painfully evident
35:03
Speaker 1: to me in her eyes and swollen face. Who wouldn't,
35:06
Speaker 1: But now buoyant again, she's a corker. We'll be sorry
35:11
Speaker 1: to leave the little house. Of course. It's a bit
35:13
Speaker 1: like Adam and Eve. You know, Lord, what a chap
35:17
Speaker 1: old Milton was. The world was all before them. Where
35:21
Speaker 1: to choose their place of rest, and Providence their guide.
35:25
Speaker 1: It sounds George providence their guide. Well, thank goodness, there's
35:31
Speaker 1: no immediate prospect of either Cain or Abel. After all,
35:35
Speaker 1: it won't be so bad up there. Not the scenery perhaps,
35:38
Speaker 1: or the air we get here, but life. We've got
35:42
Speaker 1: very comfortable little rooms, very comfortable considering, and I shall rise.
35:47
Speaker 1: We're not done yet, We're not beaten. Don't think that, George.
35:52
Speaker 1: I shall pay twenty shillings in the pound before I've
35:54
Speaker 1: done you. Mark my words, George, twenty five to you.
35:59
Speaker 1: I got this situation within twenty four hours. Others offered,
36:03
Speaker 1: it's an important firm, one of the best in London.
36:07
Speaker 1: I looked to that. I might have got four or
36:09
Speaker 1: five shillings a week more elsewhere quarters I could name.
36:14
Speaker 1: But I said to them, plainly, wages to go on with,
36:17
Speaker 1: but opportunities my game development. We understood each other. He
36:23
Speaker 1: threw out his chest, and the little round eyes behind
36:25
Speaker 1: his glasses rested valiantly on imaginary employers. We would go
36:30
Speaker 1: on in silence for a space while he revised and
36:33
Speaker 1: restated that encounter. Then he would break out abruptly with
36:36
Speaker 1: some banal phrase, the battle of life, George, my boy.
36:41
Speaker 1: He would cry, or ups and downs. He ignored or
36:46
Speaker 1: waived the poor little attempts I made to ascertain my
36:48
Speaker 1: own position. That's all right, he would say, Or leave
36:52
Speaker 1: it all that to me. I'll look after them, and
36:56
Speaker 1: he would drift away towards the philosophy and moral of
36:59
Speaker 1: the situation. What was I to do? Never put all
37:03
Speaker 1: your resources into one chance, George. That's the lesson I'd
37:07
Speaker 1: draw from this. Have forces in reserve. It was one
37:11
Speaker 1: hundred to one, George, that I was right, a hundred
37:14
Speaker 1: to one. I worked it out afterwards, and here we
37:18
Speaker 1: are spiked on the off chance. If I'd have only
37:22
Speaker 1: kept back a little, I'd have had it on you, peety,
37:25
Speaker 1: next day like a shot, and come out on the rise.
37:29
Speaker 1: There you are. His thoughts took a graver turn. It's
37:33
Speaker 1: where you'll bump up against a chance like this, George,
37:36
Speaker 1: that you feel the need of religion. Your hard and
37:39
Speaker 1: fast scientific men, your Spencer's and Huxley's, they don't understand
37:44
Speaker 1: that I do. I've thought of it a lot lately
37:48
Speaker 1: in bed and about. I was thinking of it this
37:51
Speaker 1: morning while I shaved. It's not irreverent for me to
37:54
Speaker 1: say it, I hope, but God comes in on the
37:58
Speaker 1: off chance, George, See, don't you be too cock sure
38:02
Speaker 1: of anything good or bad. That's what I make out
38:06
Speaker 1: of it. I could have sworn, well, do you think I,
38:10
Speaker 1: particular as I am, would have touched those Union pacifics
38:14
Speaker 1: with trust money at all? If I hadn't thought it
38:17
Speaker 1: a thoroughly good thing, good without spot or blemish, and
38:21
Speaker 1: it was bad. It's a lesson to me. You start
38:25
Speaker 1: in to get a hundred percent and you come out
38:27
Speaker 1: with that, it means, in a way, a reproof for pride.
38:31
Speaker 1: I've thought of that, George in the night watches. I
38:35
Speaker 1: was thinking this morning when I was shaving, that that's
38:37
Speaker 1: where the good of it all comes in at the bottom.
38:40
Speaker 1: I'm a mystic in these affairs. You calculate you're going
38:44
Speaker 1: to do this or that, But at bottom, who knows
38:47
Speaker 1: at all what he's doing. When you most think you're
38:50
Speaker 1: doing things, they're being done right over your head. You're
38:55
Speaker 1: being done in a sense. Take a hundred to one
38:58
Speaker 1: chance or one to a hundred, what does it matter
39:02
Speaker 1: your being led? It's odd that I heard this at
39:05
Speaker 1: the time with unutterable contempt, and now that I recall it, well,
39:10
Speaker 1: I ask myself, what have I got better? I wish,
39:14
Speaker 1: said I, becoming for a moment outrageous. You were being
39:17
Speaker 1: led to give me some account of my money, uncle,
39:21
Speaker 1: not without a bit of paper to figure on, George,
39:23
Speaker 1: I can't. But you trust me about that, Never fear
39:27
Speaker 1: you trust me, And in the end I had to.
39:32
Speaker 1: I think the bankruptcy hit my aunt pretty hard. There was,
39:35
Speaker 1: so far as I can remember now, a complete cessation
39:39
Speaker 1: of all those cheerful outbreaks of elasticity, no more skylarking
39:43
Speaker 1: in the shop, nor scampering about the house. But there
39:47
Speaker 1: was no fuss that I saw, and only little signs
39:49
Speaker 1: in her complexion of the fits of weeping that must
39:52
Speaker 1: have taken her. She didn't cry at the end, though
39:56
Speaker 1: to me her face, with its strain of self possession,
39:59
Speaker 1: was more pathetic than any weeping. Well, she said to
40:03
Speaker 1: me as she came through the shop to the cab.
40:06
Speaker 1: Here's old orph, George Orf to mum number two, good bye,
40:12
Speaker 1: And she took me in her arms and kissed me
40:14
Speaker 1: and pressed me to her. Then she dived straight for
40:17
Speaker 1: the cab before I could answer her. My uncle followed,
40:21
Speaker 1: and he seemed to me a trifle too valiant and
40:23
Speaker 1: confident in his bearing for reality. He was unusually white
40:27
Speaker 1: in the face. He spoke to his successor at the counter.
40:31
Speaker 1: Here we go, he said, one down, the other up.
40:35
Speaker 1: You'll find it a quiet little business, so long as
40:38
Speaker 1: you run it on quiet lines, A nice, quiet little business.
40:43
Speaker 1: There's nothing more. No. Well, if you want to know anything,
40:47
Speaker 1: write to me. I'll always explain fully anything, business, place
40:52
Speaker 1: or people. You'll find pill at to Bill a little
40:56
Speaker 1: over stocked by the by. I found it soothed my
40:59
Speaker 1: mind the day before yesterday, making him, and I made
41:03
Speaker 1: him all day thousands and where's George, Ah, there you are.
41:08
Speaker 1: I'll write to you, George fully about all that affair. Fully,
41:14
Speaker 1: it became clear to me, as if for the first time,
41:17
Speaker 1: that I was really parting from my Aunt Susan. I
41:20
Speaker 1: went out to the pavement and saw her head crane forward,
41:23
Speaker 1: her wide open blue eyes and her little face intent
41:26
Speaker 1: on the shop that had combined for her all the
41:29
Speaker 1: charms of a big doll's house and a little home
41:32
Speaker 1: of her very own, good bye, she said, to it
41:36
Speaker 1: and to me. Our eyes met for a moment. Perplexed,
41:40
Speaker 1: my uncle bustled out and gave a few totally unnecessary
41:44
Speaker 1: directions to the cabman, and got in beside her. All right,
41:48
Speaker 1: asked the driver, Write, said I, and he woke up
41:52
Speaker 1: the horse with a flick of his whip. My aunt's
41:55
Speaker 1: eyes surveyed me again. Stick to your old science and things, George,
42:00
Speaker 1: and write and tell me when they make you a professor,
42:03
Speaker 1: she said, cheerfully. She stared at me for a second longer,
42:07
Speaker 1: with eyes growing wider and brighter, and a smile that
42:11
Speaker 1: had become fixed. Glanced again at the bright little shop,
42:15
Speaker 1: still saying ponderevo with all the emphasis of its fascia,
42:19
Speaker 1: and then flopped back hastily, out of sight of me,
42:22
Speaker 1: into the recesses of the cab. Then it had gone
42:25
Speaker 1: from before me, and I beheld mister Snape, the hair dresser,
42:29
Speaker 1: inside his store, regarding his departure with a quiet satisfaction,
42:34
Speaker 1: and exchanging smiles and significant head shakes with mister Marble.
42:40
Speaker 1: End of book, first chapter, third Parts one to three