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Tono-Bungay Book 2 Chapter 2 - Parts 1-3 · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Book two, Chapter two, Parts one to three of Tono Bungay.
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Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All librevox 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 libravox dot org. Reading done by Jules Harlock of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.
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Speaker 1: Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells, Book two, Chapter two,
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Speaker 1: Part one. Throughout my student days, I had not seen
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Speaker 1: my uncle. I refrained from going to him, in spite
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Speaker 1: of an occasional regret that in this way I estranged
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Speaker 1: myself from my aunt Susan, and I maintained a sulky
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Speaker 1: attitude of mind towards him. And I don't think that
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Speaker 1: once in all that time I gave thought to that
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Speaker 1: mystic word of his that was to alter all the
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Speaker 1: world for us. Yet I had not altogether forgotten it.
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Speaker 1: It was with a touch of memory, dim transient perplexity,
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Speaker 1: if no more, Why did this thing seem in some
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Speaker 1: way personal? That I read a new inscription upon the hoardings,
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Speaker 1: the secret of vigor Tono Bungay. That was all. It
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Speaker 1: was simple, and yet in some way arresting. I found
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Speaker 1: myself repeating the word after I had passed. It roused
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Speaker 1: one's attention like the sound of distant guns. Tono, what's that?
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Speaker 1: And deep rich unhurrying bun gay. Then came my uncle's
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Speaker 1: amazing telegram, his answer to my hostile note, come to
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Speaker 1: me at once. You are wanted three hundred a year
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Speaker 1: to certain tono bungay by jove, I cried, of course,
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Speaker 1: it's something a patent medicine. I wonder what he wants
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Speaker 1: with me In his Napoleonic way, my uncle had omitted
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Speaker 1: to give an address. His telegram had been handed in
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Speaker 1: at Farringdon Road, and after complex meditations, I replied to
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Speaker 1: Ponderevel Farrington rode trusting to the rarity of our surname
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Speaker 1: to reach him. Where are you? I asked? His reply
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Speaker 1: came promptly one ninety two a Raggot Street e c
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Speaker 1: The next day I took an unsanctioned holiday. After the
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Speaker 1: morning's lecture, I discovered my uncle in a wonderfully new
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Speaker 1: silk hat, all a splendid hat with a rolling brim
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Speaker 1: that went beyond the common fashion. It was decidedly too
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Speaker 1: big for him. That was its only fault. It was
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Speaker 1: stuck on the back of his head, and he was
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Speaker 1: in a white waistcoat and shirt sleeves. He welcomed me
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Speaker 1: with a forgetfulness of my bitter satire and my hostile
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Speaker 1: abstinence that was almost divine. His glasses fell off at
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Speaker 1: the sight of me. His round and expressive eyes shone brightly.
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Speaker 1: He held out his plump shorthand here we are, George.
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Speaker 1: What did I tell you? Needn't whisper it now? My boy?
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Speaker 1: Shout it loud, Spread it about, Tell everyone. Tono, Tono, Tono.
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Speaker 1: Bungay Ragged Street, you must understand was a thoroughfare over
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Speaker 1: which someone had distributed large quantities of cabbage, stumps and leaves.
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Speaker 1: It opened out of the upper end of Farringdon Street
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Speaker 1: and one ninety two A was a shop with the
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Speaker 1: plate glass front colored chocolate on which several of the
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Speaker 1: same bills I had read upon the hoardings had been stuck.
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Speaker 1: Floor was covered by street mud that had been brought
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Speaker 1: in on dirty boots, and three energetic young men of
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Speaker 1: the hooligan type in nick wraps and caps were packing
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Speaker 1: wooden cases with papered up bottles amidst much straw and confusion.
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Speaker 1: The counter was littered with these same swathe bottles of
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Speaker 1: a pattern then novel, but now amazingly familiar in the world.
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Speaker 1: The blue paper with the coruscating figure of a genially
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Speaker 1: nude giant and the printed directions of how under practically
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Speaker 1: all circumstances to take Tono Bungay. Beyond the counter on
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Speaker 1: one side opened a staircase down which I seemed to
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Speaker 1: remember a girl descending with a further consignment of bottles,
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Speaker 1: And the rest of the background was a high partition
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Speaker 1: also chocolate, with temper Laboratory inscribed upon it in white letters,
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Speaker 1: and opened a door that pierced it. Office. Here I
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Speaker 1: wrapped inaudible amid much hammering, and then entered an answer
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Speaker 1: to find my uncle dressed as I have described, one
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Speaker 1: hand gripping a sheath of letters, and the other scratching
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Speaker 1: his head as he dictated to one of the three
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Speaker 1: toiling typewriter girls. Behind him was a further partition, and
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Speaker 1: a door inscribed absolutely private, no admission thereon. This partition
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Speaker 1: was of wood painted the universal chocolate up to about
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Speaker 1: eight feet from the ground, and then of glass. Through
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Speaker 1: the glass I saw dimly a crowded suggestion of crucibles
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Speaker 1: and glass retorts, and by job yes, the dear old
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Speaker 1: Wimblehurst air pump. Still it gave me quite a little thrill,
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Speaker 1: that air pump, and beside it was the electrical machine.
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Speaker 1: But something some serious trouble had happened to that all
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Speaker 1: these were evidently placed on a shelf just at the
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Speaker 1: level to show. Come right into the sanctum, said my uncle,
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Speaker 1: after he had finished something about esteemed consideration, and whisked
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Speaker 1: me through the door into a room that quite amazingly
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Speaker 1: failed to verify the promise of that apparatus. It was
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Speaker 1: papered with dingy wallpaper that had peeled in places. It
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Speaker 1: contained a fireplace, an easy chair with a cushion, a
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Speaker 1: table on which stood two or three big bottles, a
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Speaker 1: number of cigar boxes on the mantel whisky tantalus, and
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Speaker 1: a row of soda siphons. He shut the door after
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Speaker 1: me carefully. Well here we are, he said, going strong.
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Speaker 1: Have a whist, George, no wise man, neither will I
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Speaker 1: you see me at it? Add it hard, hard, at
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Speaker 1: what read it? And he thrust into my hand a label,
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Speaker 1: that label that has now become one of the most
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Speaker 1: familiar objects of the chemist's shop, the greenish blue, rather
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Speaker 1: old fashioned bordering the legend, the name in good black type,
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Speaker 1: very clear, and the strong man all set about with
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Speaker 1: lightning flashes above the double column of skillful lies in
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Speaker 1: red the label of Tono Bungay. It's a float, he said,
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Speaker 1: as I stood puzzling at this. It's a float. I'm afloat.
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Speaker 1: And suddenly he burst out, singing in that throaty tenor
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Speaker 1: of his I'm afloat, I'm afloat on the fierce flowing tide.
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Speaker 1: The ocean's my home, and my bark is my bride
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Speaker 1: ripping song. That is George, not so much a bark
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Speaker 1: as a solution, but still it does here. We are
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Speaker 1: at it. By the bye half a mole. I've thought
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Speaker 1: of a thing, he whisked out, leaving me to examine
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Speaker 1: this nuclear spot at leisure, while his voice became dictatorial.
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Speaker 1: Without the den struck me as in its large, gray,
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Speaker 1: dirty way, quite unprecedented and extraordinary. The bottles were all
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Speaker 1: labeled simply A B, C and so forth, And that
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Speaker 1: dear old apparatus above, seen from this side, was even
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Speaker 1: more patiently on the shelf than when it had been
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Speaker 1: used to impress Wimblehurst. I saw nothing for it but
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Speaker 1: to sit down in the chair and await my uncle's explanations,
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Speaker 1: I remarked. A frock coat with satin lapels behind the door.
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Speaker 1: There was a dignified umbrella in the corner, and a
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Speaker 1: clothes brush and a hat brush stood on a side table.
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Speaker 1: My uncle returned in five minutes, looking at his watch,
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Speaker 1: a gold watch. Getting lunch time, George, he said, you'd
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Speaker 1: better come and have lunch with me. How's aunt Susan,
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Speaker 1: I asked, exuberant. Never saw her so larky. This has
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Speaker 1: bucked her up, something wonderful? All this all? What tono bungay?
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Speaker 1: What is tono bungay? I asked my uncle, hesitated, tell
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Speaker 1: you after lunch, George, he said, come along, and, having
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Speaker 1: locked up the sanctum after himself, led the way along
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Speaker 1: a narrow, dirty pavement, lined with barrels and swept at
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Speaker 1: times by avalanche like porters bearing burdens to vans. To
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Speaker 1: Farringdon Street. He hailed a passing cab superbly, and the
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Speaker 1: cabman was infinitely respectful. Shaffers, he said, and off we went,
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Speaker 1: side by side, and with me more and more amazed
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Speaker 1: at all these things, to Shaffer's Hotel, the second of
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Speaker 1: the two big places with huge lace curtained windows near
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Speaker 1: the corner of Black Friar's Bridge. I will confess I
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Speaker 1: felt a magic charm in our relative proportions, as the
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Speaker 1: two colossal, pale blue and red liveried porters of shafers
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Speaker 1: held open the inner doors for us with a respectful
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Speaker 1: salutation that in some manner they seemed to confine wholly
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Speaker 1: to my uncle. Instead of being about four inches taller,
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Speaker 1: I felt at least the same size as he, and
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Speaker 1: very much slenderer. Still more respectful waiters relieved him of
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Speaker 1: the new hat and the dignified umbrella and took his
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Speaker 1: order for our lunch. He gave them with a fine assurance.
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Speaker 1: He nodded to several of the waiters. They know me,
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Speaker 1: George already, he said, point me out live place I
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Speaker 1: for coming men. The detailed business of the lunch engaged
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Speaker 1: our attention for a while, and then I leant across
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Speaker 1: my plate and now said I it's the secret of Vigor.
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Speaker 1: Didn't you read that label? Yes, but it's selling like
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Speaker 1: hot cakes. And what is it? I pressed, well, said
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Speaker 1: my uncle, and then leant forward and spoke softly under
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Speaker 1: cover of his hand. It's nothing more or less then,
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Speaker 1: But here an unfortunate scruple intervenes. After all, Tono bungay
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Speaker 1: is still a marketable commodity and in the hands of
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Speaker 1: purchasers who bought it from among other vendors. Me, no,
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Speaker 1: I'm afraid I cannot give it away. You see, said
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Speaker 1: my uncle in a slow, old confidential whisper, with eyes
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Speaker 1: very wide and creased forehead. It's nice because of the
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Speaker 1: here he mentioned, a flavoring matter and an aromatic spirit.
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Speaker 1: It's stimulating because of here he mentioned two very vivid tonics,
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Speaker 1: one with marked action on the kidney, and the here
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Speaker 1: he mentioned two other ingredients. Makes it pretty intoxicating. Coxs
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Speaker 1: their tails. Then there's but I touched on the essential secret,
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Speaker 1: and there you are. I've got it out of an
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Speaker 1: old book of recipes, all except the here he mentioned
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Speaker 1: the more virulent substance, the one that assails the kidneys,
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Speaker 1: which is my idea modern touch. There you are. He
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Speaker 1: reverted to the direction of our lunch. Presently he was
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Speaker 1: leading the way to the lounge, sumptuous piece in red
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Speaker 1: Morocco and yellow blazed crockery with incredible vistas of setis
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Speaker 1: and sofas and things. And there I found myself grouped
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Speaker 1: with him in two excessively upholstered chairs, with an earthenware
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Speaker 1: Moorish table between us, bearing coffee and benedictine, and I
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Speaker 1: was tasting the delights of a tenpenny cigar. My uncle
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Speaker 1: smoked a similar cigar in an habituated manner, and he
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Speaker 1: looked energetic and gnawing and luxurious, and most unexpectedly a
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Speaker 1: little bounder round the end of it. It was just
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Speaker 1: a trivial flaw upon our swagger, perhaps that we both
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Speaker 1: were clear our cigars had to be mild. He got
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Speaker 1: obliquely across the spaces of his great armchair so as
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Speaker 1: to incline confidentially to my ear. He curled up his
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Speaker 1: little legs, and I, in my longer way, adopted a
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Speaker 1: corresponding receptive obliquity. I felt that we should strike an
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Speaker 1: unbiased observer as a couple of very deep and wily
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Speaker 1: and developing and repulsive persons. I want to let you
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Speaker 1: into this sh George, said my uncle, round the end
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Speaker 1: of his cigar. For many reasons, his voice grew lower
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Speaker 1: and more cunning. He made explanations that, to my inexperience,
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Speaker 1: did not completely explain I retained an impression of a
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Speaker 1: long credit and a share with a firm of wholesale chemists,
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Speaker 1: of a credit and a prospective share with some pirate printers,
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Speaker 1: of a third share for a leading magazine and newspaper proprietor.
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Speaker 1: I played him off, one against the other, said my uncle.
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Speaker 1: I took his point in an instant. He had gone
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Speaker 1: to each of them in turn and said the others
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Speaker 1: had come in. I put up four hundred pounds, said
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Speaker 1: my uncle, myself and my all. And you know, he
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Speaker 1: assumed a brisk confidence. I hadn't five hundred pence, at
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Speaker 1: least for a moment. He really was just a little embarrassed.
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Speaker 1: I did, he said, produce capital. You see, there was
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Speaker 1: that trust affair of yours. I ought, I suppose, in
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Speaker 1: strict legality to have put that straight first. Z it
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Speaker 1: was a bold thing to do, said my uncle, shifting
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Speaker 1: the venue from the region of honor to the region
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Speaker 1: of courage, and then with a characteristic outburst of piety,
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Speaker 1: Thank God, it's all come right. And now I suppose
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Speaker 1: you ask where do you come in? Well, fact is,
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Speaker 1: I've always believed in you, George. You've got it's a
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Speaker 1: sort of dismal grit, bark your shins, rouse you and
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Speaker 1: you'll go. You'd rush any position you had a mind
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Speaker 1: to rush. I know a bit about character, George, trust
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Speaker 1: me you've got He clenched his hands and thrust them
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Speaker 1: out suddenly, and at the same time said, with explosive violence, whosh.
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Speaker 1: Yes you have the way you put away that Latin
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Speaker 1: at Wimblehurst. I've never forgotten it. Whosh, your science and
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Speaker 1: all that whosh. I know my limitations. There's things I
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Speaker 1: can do, and he spoke in a whisper, as though
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Speaker 1: this was the first hint of his life. Secret, there's
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Speaker 1: things I can't well. I can create this business, but
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Speaker 1: I can't make it go. I'm too voluminous. I'm a
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Speaker 1: boiler over, not a simmering stick at it. You keep
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Speaker 1: on hotting up and hotting up. Papin's digest. That's you,
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Speaker 1: steady and long and piling up. Then whoosh, come in
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Speaker 1: and stiffen these niggers. Teach them that whoosh, there you are.
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Speaker 1: That's what I'm after you. Nobody else believes you're more
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Speaker 1: than a boy. Come right in with me and be
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Speaker 1: a man. Hey, George, think of the fun of it.
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Speaker 1: A thing on the goal, a real live thing, whushing
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Speaker 1: it up, making a buzz and spin woo. He made alluring,
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Speaker 1: expanding circles in the air with his hand. Eh. His proposal,
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Speaker 1: sinking to confidential undertones, again took more definite shape. I
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Speaker 1: was to give all my time and energy to developing
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Speaker 1: and organizing. You shan't write a single advertisement or give
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Speaker 1: a single assurance, he declared. I can do all that,
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Speaker 1: And the telegram was no flourish. I was to have
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Speaker 1: three hundred a year. Three hundred a year, that's nothing,
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Speaker 1: said my uncle. The thing to freeze onto when the
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Speaker 1: time comes is your tenth of the vendor's share. Three
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Speaker 1: hundred a year. Certain. Anyhow, it was an enormous income
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Speaker 1: to me. For a moment, I was altogether staggered. Could
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Speaker 1: there be that much money in the whole concern? I
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Speaker 1: looked about me at the sumptuous furniture of Schaeffer's hotel.
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Speaker 1: No doubt there were many such incomes. My head was
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Speaker 1: spinning with unwonted Benedictine and Burgundy. Let me go back
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Speaker 1: and look at the game again, I said, Let me
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Speaker 1: see upstairs and round about, I did, What do you
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Speaker 1: think of it? All? My uncle asked at last, Well,
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Speaker 1: for one thing, I said, why don't you have those
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Speaker 1: girls working in a decently ventilated room Apart from any
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Speaker 1: other consideration. They'd work twice as briskly, And they ought
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Speaker 1: to cover the corks before labeling round the bottle. Why,
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Speaker 1: said my uncle, because they sometimes make a mucker of
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Speaker 1: the cork job and then the label's wasted. Come and
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Speaker 1: change it, George, said my uncle, with sudden fervor. Come
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Speaker 1: here and make a machine of it. You can make
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Speaker 1: it all slick and then make it whoosh. I know
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Speaker 1: you can. Oh, I know you can. Part two. I
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Speaker 1: seem to remember very quick changes of mind after that lunch.
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Speaker 1: The muzzy exaltation of the unaccustomed stimulants gave way very
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Speaker 1: rapidly to a model of pellucid and impartial clairvoyance, which
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Speaker 1: is one of my habitual mental states. It is intermittent,
19:56
Speaker 1: It leaves me for weeks together, I know, but back
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Speaker 1: it comes at last, like justice on circuit, and calls
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Speaker 1: up all my impression, all my illusions, all my wilful
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Speaker 1: and passionate proceedings. We came downstairs again into that inner room,
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Speaker 1: which pretended to be a scientific laboratory through its high
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Speaker 1: glass lights, and indeed was a lurking place. My uncle
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Speaker 1: pressed a cigarette on me, and I took it and
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Speaker 1: stood before the empty fireplace while he propped his umbrella
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Speaker 1: in the corner, deposited the new silk hat that was
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Speaker 1: a little too big for him on the table, blew copiously,
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Speaker 1: and produced a second cigar. It came into my head
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Speaker 1: that he had shrunken very much in size since the
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Speaker 1: Wimblehurst days, that the cannonball he had swallowed was rather
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Speaker 1: more evident and shameless than it had been. His skin
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Speaker 1: less fresh and the nose between his glasses, which still
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Speaker 1: didn't quite fit much redder, and just then he seemed
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Speaker 1: much laxer in his muscles, and not quite as alertly
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Speaker 1: quick in his movements. But he evidently wasn't aware of
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Speaker 1: the degenerative nature of his changes, as he sat there,
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Speaker 1: looking suddenly quite little under my eyes. Well, George, he said,
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Speaker 1: quite happily, unconscious of my silent criticism, What do you
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Speaker 1: think of it all? Well, I said, in the first place,
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Speaker 1: it's a damn swindle. Tut tut, said my uncle. It's
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Speaker 1: as straight as it's fair trading. So much the worse
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Speaker 1: for trading. I said, it's the sort of thing everybody does.
21:47
Speaker 1: After all, there's no harm in the stuff, and it
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Speaker 1: may do good. It might do a lot of good,
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Speaker 1: giving people confidence, for instance, against an epidemic. See why not,
22:01
Speaker 1: don't see where your swindle comes in? Hmm, I said,
22:06
Speaker 1: it's a thing you either see or don't see. I'd
22:10
Speaker 1: like to know what sort of trading isn't a swindle
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Speaker 1: in its way. Everybody who does a large advertised trade
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Speaker 1: is selling something common on the strength of saying it's uncommon.
22:23
Speaker 1: Look at Chickson, they made him a baronet. Look at
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Speaker 1: Lord Radmore, who did it on lying about the alkali
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Speaker 1: and soap ripping ads. Those were of his too. You
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Speaker 1: don't mean to say you think doing this stuff up
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Speaker 1: in bottles and swearing it's the quintessence of strength and
22:44
Speaker 1: making poor devils buy it at that is straight? Why not, George?
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Speaker 1: How do we know it may be the quintessence to them?
22:54
Speaker 1: So far as they're concerned, Oh, I said, and shrugged
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Speaker 1: my shoulders. There's faith. You put faith in them. I
23:04
Speaker 1: grant our labels are a bit emphatic. Christian science really
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Speaker 1: no good. Setting people against the medicine tell me a
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Speaker 1: solitary trade nowadays. That hasn't to be emphatic. It's the
23:19
Speaker 1: modern way. Everybody understands it, everybody allows for it. But
23:25
Speaker 1: the world would be no worse and rather better if
23:28
Speaker 1: all this stuff of yours was run down a conduit
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Speaker 1: into the Thames. Don't see that, George at all. Among
23:36
Speaker 1: other things, all our people would be out of work, unemployed.
23:41
Speaker 1: I grant you Tono bungay may be not quite so
23:45
Speaker 1: good a find for the world as Peruvian bark. But
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Speaker 1: the point is, George, it makes trade, and the world
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Speaker 1: lives on trade. Commerce, a romantic exchange of commodities and property, romance, imagination. See,
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Speaker 1: you must look at these things in a broad light.
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Speaker 1: Look at the wood and forget the trees and hang it. George.
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Speaker 1: We got to do these things. There's no way unless
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Speaker 1: you do. What do you mean to do? Anyhow? There's
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Speaker 1: ways of living I said, without either fraud or lying.
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Speaker 1: You're a bit stiff, George. There's no fraud in this affair.
24:29
Speaker 1: I'll bet my hat. But what do you propose to do?
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Speaker 1: Go as a chemist to someone who is running a
24:36
Speaker 1: business and draw a salary without a share like I
24:40
Speaker 1: offer you much sense in that it comes out of
24:44
Speaker 1: the swindle, as you call it, just the same some
24:48
Speaker 1: businesses are straight and quiet. Anyhow, supply a sound article
24:54
Speaker 1: that is really needed. Don't shout advertisements, no, George, there
24:59
Speaker 1: you're behind the times. The last of that sort was
25:03
Speaker 1: sold out about five years ago. Well there's scientific research,
25:08
Speaker 1: and who pays for that? Who put up that big
25:11
Speaker 1: city and guilds place at South Kensington? Enterprising businessmen They
25:18
Speaker 1: fancy they'll have a bit of science going on. They
25:21
Speaker 1: want a handy expert, ever and again, and there you are.
25:25
Speaker 1: And what do you get for research when you've done it?
25:28
Speaker 1: Just a bear living and no outlook. They just keep
25:31
Speaker 1: you to make discoveries. And if they fancy they'll use them,
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Speaker 1: they do. One can teach how much a year, George,
25:40
Speaker 1: how much a year? I suppose you must respect Carlyle.
25:44
Speaker 1: Well you take Carlile's test solvency. Lord, what a book
25:50
Speaker 1: that French revolution of is is see what the world
25:54
Speaker 1: pays teachers and discoverers and what it pays businessmen. That
25:59
Speaker 1: shows the world ones it really wants. There's a justice
26:03
Speaker 1: in these big things, George, over and above the apparent injustice,
26:08
Speaker 1: I tell you it wants trade. It's trade that makes
26:11
Speaker 1: the world go round. Argacy's Venice Empire. My uncle suddenly
26:17
Speaker 1: rose to his feet. You think it over, George, You
26:21
Speaker 1: think it over, and come up on Sunday to the
26:24
Speaker 1: new place. We've got rooms in Gower Street. Now and
26:28
Speaker 1: see your aunt. She's often asked for you, George, often
26:33
Speaker 1: and often, and thrown it up at me about that
26:36
Speaker 1: bit of property. Though I've always said, and always will
26:40
Speaker 1: that twenty five shillings in the pound is what I'll
26:43
Speaker 1: pay you an interest up to the nail, and think
26:47
Speaker 1: it over. It isn't me I ask you to help.
26:50
Speaker 1: It's yourself, it's your aunt, Susan. It's the whole concern.
26:55
Speaker 1: It's the commerce of your country. And we want you badly.
26:59
Speaker 1: I tell you straight. I know my limitations. You could
27:03
Speaker 1: take this place, you could make it go. I can
27:07
Speaker 1: see you at it looking rather sour. Wush is the word, George,
27:12
Speaker 1: and he smiled endearingly. I've got to dictate a letter,
27:16
Speaker 1: he said, ending the smile, and vanish into the outer room.
27:22
Speaker 1: Part three. I didn't succumb without a struggle to my
27:27
Speaker 1: uncle's allurements. Indeed, I held out for a week while
27:31
Speaker 1: I contemplated life and my prospects. It was a crowded
27:36
Speaker 1: and muddled contemplation. It invaded even my sleep. My interview
27:41
Speaker 1: with the registrar, my talk with my uncle, my abrupt
27:45
Speaker 1: discovery of the hopeless futility of my passion for Marion
27:50
Speaker 1: had combined to bring me to sense of crisis. What
27:55
Speaker 1: was I going to do with life? I remember certain
27:59
Speaker 1: phases of my indecisions very well. I remember going home
28:04
Speaker 1: from our talk. I went down Farringdon Street to the
28:09
Speaker 1: embankment because I thought to go home by Holborn and
28:13
Speaker 1: Oxford Street would be too crowded. For thinking that piece
28:18
Speaker 1: of embankment from Blackfriars to Westminster still reminds me of
28:23
Speaker 1: that momentous hesitation. You know, from first to last, I
28:28
Speaker 1: saw the business with my eyes open. I saw its
28:32
Speaker 1: ethical and moral values quite clearly. Never for a moment
28:37
Speaker 1: do I remember myself faltering from my persuasion that the
28:41
Speaker 1: sale of Tono Bungay was a thoroughly dishonest proceeding. The
28:46
Speaker 1: stuff was I perceived a mischievous trash, slightly stimulating, aromatic
28:54
Speaker 1: and attractive, likely to become a bad habit and train
28:58
Speaker 1: people in the habitual use of stronger tonics and insidiously
29:04
Speaker 1: dangerous to people with defective kidneys. It would cost about
29:09
Speaker 1: sevenpence the large bottle to make, including bottling, and we
29:14
Speaker 1: were to sell it at half a crown plus the
29:17
Speaker 1: cost of the patent medicine stamp, a thing that I
29:21
Speaker 1: will confess deterred me from the outset. Far more than
29:25
Speaker 1: the sense of dishonesty in this affair was the supreme
29:29
Speaker 1: silliness of the whole concern. I still clung to the
29:33
Speaker 1: idea that the world of men was, or should be,
29:37
Speaker 1: a sane and just organization, and the idea that I
29:41
Speaker 1: should set myself gravely just, at the fine springtime of
29:46
Speaker 1: my life, to developing a monstrous bottling and packing warehouse
29:52
Speaker 1: bottling rubbish for the consumption of foolish, credulous and depressed people,
29:58
Speaker 1: had in it a touch of insanity. My early belief
30:02
Speaker 1: still clung to me. I felt assured that somewhere there
30:06
Speaker 1: must be a hitch in the fine prospect of ease
30:09
Speaker 1: and wealth under such conditions, that somewhere, a little overgrown, perhaps,
30:16
Speaker 1: but still traceable, lea a neglected, wasted path of use
30:22
Speaker 1: and honor for me. My inclination to refuse. The whole
30:26
Speaker 1: thing increased rather than diminished. At first, as I went
30:30
Speaker 1: along the embankment in my uncle's presence there had been
30:35
Speaker 1: a sort of glamor that had prevented an outright refusal.
30:40
Speaker 1: It was a revival of affection for him. I felt
30:43
Speaker 1: in his presence, I think in part and in part
30:48
Speaker 1: an instinctive feeling that I must consider him as my host.
30:53
Speaker 1: But much more was it a curious persuasion. He had
30:57
Speaker 1: the knack of inspiring a persuade, not so much of
31:01
Speaker 1: his integrity and capacity as of the reciprocal and yielding
31:05
Speaker 1: foolishness of the world. One felt that he was silly
31:09
Speaker 1: and wild, but in some ways silly and wild after
31:13
Speaker 1: the fashion of the universe. After all, one must live. Somehow,
31:19
Speaker 1: I astonished him and myself by temporizing no, said I,
31:25
Speaker 1: I'll think it over. And as I went along the
31:28
Speaker 1: embankment the first effect was all against my uncle. He
31:32
Speaker 1: shrank for a little while. He continued to shrink in perspective,
31:38
Speaker 1: until he was only a very small, shabby little man
31:41
Speaker 1: in a dirty back street, sending off a few hundred
31:45
Speaker 1: bottles of rubbish to foolish buyers. The great buildings on
31:49
Speaker 1: the right of us, the inns and the school Board
31:53
Speaker 1: Place as it was then Somerset House, the big hotels,
31:58
Speaker 1: the Great Bridges. Westminster's outlines ahead had an effect of
32:04
Speaker 1: gray largeness that reduced him to the proportions of a
32:08
Speaker 1: busy black beetle in a crack in the floor. And
32:12
Speaker 1: then my eye caught the advertisements on the south side
32:15
Speaker 1: of Sober's Food of Cracknell's feric wine. Very bright and
32:21
Speaker 1: prosperous signs illuminated at night, and I realized how astonishingly
32:27
Speaker 1: they looked at home there. How evidently part they were
32:31
Speaker 1: in the whole thing. I saw a man come charging
32:35
Speaker 1: out of palace yard. The policeman touched his helmet to him,
32:40
Speaker 1: with a hat and a bearing astonishing like my uncle's.
32:44
Speaker 1: After all, didn't Cracknell himself sit in the house? Tono
32:49
Speaker 1: Bungay shouted at me from a hoarding near Eldelphi Terrace.
32:53
Speaker 1: I saw it afar off near Carfax Street. It cried
32:58
Speaker 1: out again upon me in Kensington High Street and burst
33:03
Speaker 1: into a perfect clamor six or seven times. I saw
33:07
Speaker 1: it as I drew near my diggings. It certainly had
33:11
Speaker 1: an air of being something more than a dream. Yes,
33:14
Speaker 1: I thought it over thoroughly enough. Trade rules the world
33:20
Speaker 1: wealth rather than trade. The thing was true. And true
33:24
Speaker 1: too was my uncle's proposition that the quickest way to
33:29
Speaker 1: get wealth is to sell the cheapest thing possible in
33:32
Speaker 1: the dearest bottle. He was frightfully right, after all. Pecunia
33:38
Speaker 1: non Olette, a Roman emperor, said that perhaps my great
33:44
Speaker 1: heroes in Plutarque were no more than such men fine
33:49
Speaker 1: now only because they are distanced. Perhaps, after all, this
33:53
Speaker 1: socialism to which I had been drawn was only a
33:57
Speaker 1: foolish dream, only the more foolish because all its promises
34:02
Speaker 1: were conditionally true. Morris and these others played with it wittingly.
34:08
Speaker 1: It gave a zest, a touch of substance to their
34:12
Speaker 1: esthetic pleasures. Never would there be good faith enough to
34:16
Speaker 1: bring such things about. They knew it. Everyone except a
34:22
Speaker 1: few young fools knew it. As I crossed the corner
34:26
Speaker 1: of Saint James Park, wrapped in thought, I dodged back
34:31
Speaker 1: just in time to escape a prancing pair of grays.
34:36
Speaker 1: A stout, common looking woman, very magnificently dressed, regarded me
34:41
Speaker 1: from the carriage with a scornful eye. No doubt, thought
34:46
Speaker 1: I a pill Vender's wife. Running through all my thoughts,
34:51
Speaker 1: surging out like a refrain, was my uncle's master stroke,
34:56
Speaker 1: his admirable touch of praise, make it all slick and
35:01
Speaker 1: then make it go whosh. I know you can, Oh,
35:05
Speaker 1: I know you can. End of Book two, Chapter two,
35:12
Speaker 1: Parts one, two and three.