The Good Companions

I

There, far below, is the knobbly backbone of England, the Pennine Range. At first, the whole dark length of it, from the Peak to Cross Fell, is visible. Then the Derbyshire hills and the Cumberland fells disappear, for you are descending, somewhere about the middle of the range, where the high moorland thrusts itself between the woollen mills of Yorkshire and the cotton mills of Lancashire. Great winds blow over miles and miles of ling and bog and black rock, and the curlews still go crying in that empty air as they did before the Romans came. There is a glitter of water here and there, from the moorland tarns that are now called reservoirs. In summer you could wander here all day, listening to the larks, and never meet a soul. In winter you could lose your way in an hour or two and die of exposure perhaps, not a dozen miles from where the Bradford trams end or the Burnley trams begin. Here are Bodkin Top and High Greave and Black Moor and Four Gates End, and though these are lonely places, almost unchanged since the Domesday Book was compiled, you cannot understand industrial Yorkshire and Lancashire, the wool trade and the cotton trade and many other things besides, such as the popularity of Handel’s Messiah or the Northern Union Rugby game, without having seen such places. They hide many secrets. Where the moor thins out are patches of ground called “Intake,” which means that they are land wrested from the grasp of the moor. Over to the right is a long smudge of smoke, beneath which the towns of the West Riding lie buried, and fleeces, tops, noils, yarns, stuffs, come and go, in and out of the mills, down to the railways and canals and lorries. All this too, you may say, is a kind of Intake.

At first the towns only seem a blacker edge to the high moorland, so many fantastic outcroppings of its rock, but now that you are closer you see the host of tall chimneys, the rows and rows of little houses, built of blackening stone, that are like tiny sharp ridges on the hills. These windy moors, these clanging dark valleys, these factories and little stone houses, this business of Intaking, have between them bred a race that has special characteristics. Down there are thousands and thousands of men and women who are stocky and hold themselves very stiffly, who have short upper lips and long chins, who use emphatic consonants and very broad vowels and always sound aggressive, who are afraid of nothing but mysterious codes of etiquette and any display of feeling. If it were night, you would notice strange constellations low down in the sky and little golden beetles climbing up to them. These would be street lamps and lighted tramcars on the hills, for here such things are little outposts in No Man’s Land and altogether more adventurous and romantic than ordinary street lamps and tramcars. It is not night, however, but a late September afternoon. Some of its sunshine lights up the nearest of the towns, most of it jammed into a narrow valley running up to the moors. It must be Bruddersford, for there, where so many roads meet, is the Town Hall, and if you know the district at all you must immediately recognize the Bruddersford Town Hall, which has a clock that plays “Tom Bowling” and “The Lass of Richmond Hill.” It has been called “a noble building in the Italian Renaissance style” and always looks as if it had no right to be there.

Yes, it is Bruddersford. Over there is the enormous factory of Messrs. Holdsworth and Co. Ltd., which has never been called a noble building in any style but nevertheless looks as if it had a perfect right to be there. The roof of the Midland Railway Station glitters in the sun, and not very far away is another glitter from the glass roof of the Bruddersford Market Hall, where, securely under cover, you may have a ham tea or buy boots and pans and mint humbugs and dress lengths and comic songs. That squat bulk to the left of the Town Hall is the Lane End Congregational Chapel, a monster that can swallow any two thousand people who happen to be in search of “hearty singing and a bright service.” That streak of slime must be the Leeds and Liverpool Canal or the Aire and Calder Canal, one of the two. There is a little forest of mill chimneys. Most of them are only puffing meditatively, for it is Saturday afternoon and nearly four hours since the workpeople swarmed out through the big gates. Some of the chimneys show no signs of smoke; they have been quiet for a long time, have stayed there like monuments of an age that has vanished, and all because trade is still bad. Perhaps some of these chimneys have stopped smoking because fashionable women in Paris and London and New York have cried to one another, “My dear, you can’t possibly wear that!” and less fashionable women have repeated it after them, and quite unfashionable women have finally followed their example, and it has all ended in machines lying idle in Bruddersford. Certainly, trade is still very bad. But as you look down on Bruddersford, you feel that it will do something about it, that it is only biding its time, that it will hump its way through somehow: the place wears a grim and resolute look. Yet this afternoon it is not thinking about the wool trade.

Something very queer is happening in that narrow thoroughfare to the west of the town. It is called Manchester Road because it actually leads you to that city, though in order to get there you will have to climb to the windy roof of England and spend an hour or two with the curlews. What is so queer about it now is that the road itself cannot be seen at all. A grey-green tide flows sluggishly down its length. It is a tide of cloth caps.

These caps have just left the ground of the Bruddersford United Association Football Club. Thirty-five thousand men and boys have just seen what most of them call “t’United” play Bolton Wanderers. Many of them should never have been there at all. It would not be difficult to prove by statistics and those mournful little budgets (How a Man May Live—or rather, avoid death—on Thirty-five Shillings a Week) that seem to attract some minds, that these fellows could not afford the entrance fee. When some mills are only working half the week and others not at all, a shilling is a respectable sum of money. It would puzzle an economist to discover where all these shillings came from. But if he lived in Bruddersford, though he might still wonder where they came from, he would certainly understand why they were produced. To say that these men paid their shillings to watch twenty-two hirelings kick a ball is merely to say that a violin is wood and catgut, that Hamlet is so much paper and ink. For a shilling the Bruddersford United A.F.C. offered you Conflict and Art; it turned you into a critic, happy in your judgement of fine points, ready in a second to estimate the worth of a well-judged pass, a run down the touch line, a lightning shot, a clearance kick by back or goalkeeper; it turned you into a partisan, holding your breath when the ball came sailing into your own goalmouth, ecstatic when your forwards raced away towards the opposite goal, elated, downcast, bitter, triumphant by turns at the fortunes of your side, watching a ball shape Iliads and Odysseys for you; and, what is more, it turned you into a member of a new community, all brothers together for an hour and a half, for not only had you escaped from the clanking machinery of this lesser life, from work, wages, rent, doles, sick pay, insurance cards, nagging wives, ailing children, bad bosses, idle workmen, but you had escaped with most of your mates and your neighbours, with half the town, and there you were, cheering together, thumping one another on the shoulders, swapping judgements like lords of the earth, having pushed your way through a turnstile into another and altogether more splendid kind of life, hurtling with Conflict and yet passionate and beautiful in its Art. Moreover, it offered you more than a shilling’s worth of material for talk during the rest of the week. A man who had missed the last home match of “t’United” had to enter social life on tiptoe in Bruddersford.

Somewhere in the middle of this tide of cloth caps is one that is different from its neighbours. It is neither grey nor green but a rather dirty brown. Then, unlike most of the others, it is not too large for its wearer, but, if anything, a shade too small, though it is true he has pushed it back from his forehead as if he were too hot—as indeed he is. This cap and the head it has almost ceased to decorate are both the property of a citizen of Bruddersford, an old and enthusiastic supporter of the United Football Club, whose name is Jesiah Oakroyd. He owes his curious Christian name to his father, a lanky weaving over-looker who divided his leisure, in alternating periods of sin and repentance, between The Craven Arms and the Lane End Primitive Methodist Chapel, where he chanced to hear the verse from First Chronicles, “Of the sons of Uzziel; Micah the first, and Jesiah the second,” the very day before his second son was born. To all his intimates, however, Mr. Oakroyd is known as “Jess.” He is a working man between forty-five and fifty years of age, a trifle under medium height but stockily built, neither ugly nor handsome, with a blunt nose, a moustache that may have been once brisk and fair but is now ragged and mousey, and blue eyes that regard the world pleasantly enough but with just a trace of either wonder or resentment or of both. He lives almost in the shadow of two great factories, in one of those districts known locally as “back o’ t’mill,” to be precise, at 51 Ogden Street. He has lived there these last twenty years, and is known to the whole street as a quiet man and a decent neighbour. He is on his way there now, returning from the match to his Saturday tea, which takes a high rank in the hierarchy of meals, being perhaps second only to Sunday dinner. He has walked this way, home from the match, hundreds of times, but this Saturday in late September is no ordinary day for him—although he does not know it—for it is the very threshold of great events. Chance and Change are preparing an ambush. Only a little way before him there dangles invitingly the end of a thread. He must be followed and watched.

II

As he moved slowly down Manchester Road, the press of fellow-spectators still thick about him, Mr. Oakroyd found himself brooding over the hollow vanities of this life. He felt unusually depressed. His physical condition may have had something to do with it, for he was hot, dusty, and tired; there had been a full morning’s hard work for him at the mill; he had hurried through his dinner; walked to the ground, and had been on his feet ever since. Manchester Road after a match had never seemed so narrow and airless; a chap could hardly breathe in such a crowd of folk. And what a match it had been! For once he was sorry he had come. No score at all. Not a single goal on either side. Even a goal against the United would have been something, would have wakened them up a bit. The first half had been nothing but exasperation, with the United all round the Wanderers’ goal but never able to score; centres clean flung away, open goals missed, crazy football. The second half had not been even that, nothing but aimless kicking about on both sides, a kid’s game. During the time that it took him to progress three hundred yards down the crowded road, Mr. Oakroyd gave himself up to these bitter reflections. A little farther along, where there was more room, he was able to give them tongue, for he jostled an acquaintance, who turned round and recognized him.

“Na Jess!” said the acquaintance, taking an imitation calabash pipe out of his mouth and then winking mysteriously.

“Na Jim!” returned Mr. Oakroyd. This “Na,” which must once have been “Now,” is the recognized salutation in Bruddersford, and the fact that it sounds more like a word of caution than a word of greeting is by no means surprising. You have to be careful in Bruddersford.

“Well,” said Jim, falling into step, “what did you think on ’em?”

“Think on ’em!” Mr. Oakroyd made a number of noises with his tongue to show what he thought of them.

“Ah thowt t’United’d ’a’ made rings rahnd ’em,” Jim remarked.

“So they owt to ’a’ done,” said Mr. Oakroyd, with great bitterness. “And so they would ’a’ done if they’d nobbut tried a bit. I’ve seen ’em better ner this when they’ve lost. They were better ner this when they lost to Newcastle t’other week, better bi far.”

“Ay, a seet better,” said the other. “Did you ivver see sich a match! Ah’d as soon go and see ’tschooil lads at it. A shilling fair thrawn away, ah call it.” And for a moment he brooded over his lost shilling. Then, suddenly changing his tone and becoming very aggressive, he went on: “Yon new centre-forrard they’ve getten—MacDermott, or whativver he calls hissen—he’ll nivver be owt, nivver. He wer like a great lass on t’job. And what did they pay for him? Wer it two thahsand pahnd?”

“Ay.” Mr. Oakroyd made this monosyllable very expressive.

“Two thahsand pahnd. That’s abaht a hundred for ivvery goal he missed today. Watson were worth twenty on ’im—ah liked that lad, and if they’d let him alone, he’d ’a’ done summat for ’em. And then they go and get this MacDermott and pay two thahsand pahnd for him to kick t’ball ower top!” Jim lit his yellow monster of a pipe and puffed away with an air of great satisfaction. He had obviously found a topic that would carry him comfortably through that evening, in the taproom of The Hare and Hounds, the next morning, in the East Bruddersford Working Men’s Club, and possibly Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights.

Mr. Oakroyd walked on in silence, quickening his pace now that the crowd was not so thick and there was room to move. At the corner of Manchester Road and Shuttle Street both men halted, for here their paths diverged.

“Ah’ll tell tha what it is, Jess,” said his companion, pointing the stem of his pipe and becoming broader in his Yorkshire as he grew more philosophical. “If t’United had less brass to lake wi’, they’d lake better fooitball.” His eyes searched the past for a moment, looking for the team that had less money and had played better football. “Tha can remember when t’club had nivver set eyes on two thahsand pahnds, when t’job lot wor not worth two thahsand pahnds, pavilion an’ all, and what sort o’ fooitball did they lake then? We knaw, don’t we? They could gi’ thee summat worth watching then. Nah, it’s all nowt, like t’ale an’ baccy they ask so mich for—money fair thrawn away, ah calls it. Well, we mun ’a’ wer teas and get ower it. Behave thi-sen, Jess!” And he turned away, for that final word of caution was only one of Bruddersford’s familiar goodbyes.

“Ay,” replied Mr. Oakroyd dispiritedly. “So long, Jim!”

He climbed to the upper deck of a tram that would carry him through the centre of the town to within a few hundred yards of Ogden Street. There he sat, his little briar pipe, unlit and indeed empty, stuck in the corner of his mouth, his cap still pushed back from his glistening forehead, staring out of a disenchantment. At times the tram jerked him forward, but only to return him, with a bang, against the hard back of the seat. People who were larger than usual, and all parcels and elbows, pushed past or trod on his toes. It is no joke taking a tram on Saturday in Bruddersford.

“I call this two-pennorth o’ misery, missis,” he said to a very large woman who wedged herself into the seat beside him. She turned a damp scarlet face, and he saw that it was Mrs. Buttershaw, whose husband kept the little shop in Woolgate. Everybody in that district knew Buttershaw’s, for it was no ordinary shop. It catered to both body and soul, one half of it being given up to tripe and cow-heels and the other half to music, chiefly sixpenny songs and cheap gramophone records. Strangers frequently stopped in front of Buttershaw’s to stare and laugh, but strangers are easily amused: all the people round about recognized that this was a sensible arrangement, for some wanted tripe, some wanted music, and not a few wanted both.

“Eh, well, if it isn’t Mr. Oakroyd!” Mrs. Buttershaw knew him as both a patron (of the tripe counter) and an old neighbour. “I didn’t see yer. And ’ow are yer?”

“Middlin’, middlin’,” said Mr. Oakroyd, with the air of one determined to give nothing away.

“I’ve been meaning to ask yer for a long time,” she went on, “only I haven’t seen yer—’ow’s your Lily doin’ in where’s it?—Ameriky?”

“Canada,” Mr. Oakroyd announced promptly and rather proudly.

“Canada—that’s it. It’s all the same, isn’t it? Only some calls it one thing, and some calls it another. Well, ’ow’s she getting on there? Eh, it doesn’t seem more than a week or two since she was a bit of a lass coming in for a pantymine song—she liked a bit o’ music, didn’t she?—and now she’s a married woman in Canada.”

“She’s doing all right,” said Mr. Oakroyd, vainly trying to appear unconcerned. “I’d a letter t’other day.” But he did not add that that letter, which began, “My dear Father and Mother, I write these few lines to let you know we are alright as I hope you are,” was reposing in his coat pocket, having been carried there—and brought out and reread at frequent intervals—these last three days.

“She’s settled in, ’as she?” said Mrs. Buttershaw, who apparently thought of Canada as a sort of house.

“Ay. She’s settling nicely, is Lily. Been there nearly a year.”

“Eh, fancy that! A year! Well, I never did!” Mrs. Buttershaw seemed to have these exclamations shaken out of her by the jerky movements of the tram. “Who was it she married? I owt to know, but I’ve fergotten. I shall ferget me own name soon, I’m that bad at remembering.”

“Jack Clough, old Sammy’s youngest lad,” replied Mr. Oakroyd. “He were a fitter at Sharp’s.”

“Eh, of course!” she exclaimed triumphantly. “I knew ’im well. He were often in, buying a bit of comic song and suchlike. He were a nice lad, an’ a lively card. But then your Lily was a lively lass, full o’fun.”

“Ay, lively enough. You knew when she was abaht.” Mr. Oakroyd tried to speak offhandedly, but his voice warmed and his eyes were alight with affectionate reminiscence. He had always adored this only daughter of his. She had been the funniest baby, the cleverest child, and the prettiest girl in that part of Bruddersford, or, for that matter, in any other part. There was something wonderful about everything she did and said. Even her naughtiness—and she had always had a will of her own—had seemed to him only a special sort of fun and prettiness, as good as a play.

“Yer must miss ’er. I know I do meself. Even Joe was asking me about ’er t’other day. ’E didn’t know she’d got married and gone away, ’e knows nowt, doesn’t Joe; ’e’s always a year or two be’ind’and.” But she said this in such a way as to hint that Mr. Buttershaw, with one eye on his tripe and the other on his music, was rather above this business of knowing things, an absentminded genius. “Ther wasn’t a nicer little lass came into t’shop, and yer can put that feather in yer cap.”

Mr. Oakroyd was so shaken out of his reserve by this praise that he proclaimed very earnestly: “Ay. I miss her all right. I didn’t know ah could miss anybody so much. Place fair seems empty like sometimes.”

For a minute or two nothing more was said. No doubt both of them felt that this last speech had reached the limits to which confession might be pushed. Beyond were extravagance and indecency, and a good Bruddersfordian left such wild regions to actors and Londoners and suchlike. Mr. Oakroyd looked out of the window.

The day was just crossing the little magical bridge between afternoon and evening. The early autumn sunlight was bent on working a miracle. A moment of transformation had arrived. It hushed and gilded the moors above, and then, just when Mr. Oakroyd’s tram reached the centre of the town, passing on one side the Central Free Library and on the other the Universal Sixpenny Bazaar, it touched Bruddersford. All the spaces of the town were filled with smoky gold. Holmes and Hadley’s emporium, the Midland Railway Station, the Wool Exchange, Barclays Bank, the Imperial Music Hall, all shone like palaces. Smithson Square was like some quivering Western sea, and the Right Honourable Ebenezer Smithson himself, his marble scroll now a map of the Indies, was conjured into an Elizabethan admiral. The façades of Market Street towered strangely and spread a wealth of carven stone before the sun. Town Hall Square was a vast place of golden light; and its famous clock, as it moved to celebrate the enchanted moments, gave a great whirr and then shook down into the streets its more rapturous chimes, “The Lass of Richmond Hill.”

To all this sudden magic, Mr. Oakroyd, sucking at his empty pipe and staring through the window, might have seemed entirely unresponsive. He was not, however. One hand went fumbling up his shabby coat. It would have gone further, would have plunged into the inner pocket, if its owner had not been sharing a seat with Mrs. Buttershaw, who was of a breadth beyond the dreams of the Tramways Department. But if the hand could not bring out a letter, it could feel that it was there, and having done so, it dropped, satisfied.

“And ’ow,” said Mrs. Buttershaw, looking with disapproval at the warehouse of Messrs. Hoggleby, Sons and Co. Ltd., in whose shadow they were, “is that lad of yours gettin’ on?”

Mr. Oakroyd’s face immediately changed, putting on a grim and satirical expression. “I can’t say. He tells me nowt. I think he’ll be all right as long as there’s still a good supply o’ brilliantine an’ fancy socks, and plenty o’ young women wi’ nowt to do but look for chaps.” Leonard might be the darling of his mother’s heart, as indeed he was, but it was clear that his father had no great opinion of him.

Neither, it appeared, had Mrs. Buttershaw. “I seen ’im o’ Wednesday,” she said severely, “standing outside a picture place—I think it were t’Plazzer—and yer’d have thought ’e owned it. ‘That’s Mr. Oakroyd’s lad,’ I ses to Joe, but Joe didn’t know him. Joe knows nobody, and bin in a shop for thirty year! Nay, I nivver seen such a man. ‘Yer won’t know me next,’ I tell him. But when I showed ’im your lad, Joe ses, ‘Well, if that’s Jess Oakroyd’s lad, ’e’s nowt like his father. ’E looks a bit of a swankpot.’ ‘Nay, Joe,’ I ses, ‘yer know nowt about t’lad.’ But I knew what ’e meant. ’E doesn’t like to see these lads all toffed up, doesn’t Joe. Where’s your Leonard workin’ now? Is ’e still in t’ hair cutting?”

“Ay, he’s still at Bobsfill’s i’ Woolgate,” said Mr. Oakroyd, who did not seem to resent these remarks.

“Well,” said Mrs. Buttershaw, gathering together her assortment of packages and her immense form, “ ’e’ll niwer get fat on what old Bobsfill gives ’im. I niwer reckoned nowt o’ barbers, and Bobsfill’s one o’ t’ meanest. ’E’d go blind lookin’ for a thripenny bit.” And she heaved herself out of the seat and, as the tram slowed up, went waddling down the aisle.

Mr. Oakroyd, beginning to expand again into what he felt to be his natural size, fell to thinking of his daughter and her letter. As soon as Lily had gone, 51 Ogden Street had suddenly shrunk and darkened, and there was no family life in it, no real home, only the three of them there, eating and sleeping and sometimes squabbling, with Leonard and his doting mother on one side and him on the other. “Don’t you have it, Dad. Don’t you put up with it. You look after yourself,” Lily had whispered just before she went, breaking up an old and happy alliance. Since then he had had a certain mournful pleasure in not putting up with it, in trying to look after himself. But it was a poor sort of business now.

He took the letter out of his pocket, but did not read it again. He had secretly hoped it would contain an invitation to him to go out there. He was ready to go at a word. A handy man like him could easily get work there. Six months’ full time at the mill would easily raise the passage money. But no invitation had come, not a word about it. He hoped she had thought of it, had suggested it, and that it was only because Jack Clough, who was a decent young chap but, like the rest, bent on looking after Number One, had put his foot down that she had never said anything. He had mentioned it once or twice when he had written, just making a sort of little joke of it—“What would your old Father look like in Canada!”—and he did not feel like doing more than that. They had their own way to make, and a baby was coming. He looked down at the letter and then slowly tore it up and slipped the fragments under the seat.

The tram had ground its way to the Black Swan Inn (known locally as “t’Mucky Duck”), and this was his stop. He walked, rather slowly and heavily, the few hundred yards that brought him to Ogden Street.

Nobody could consider Ogden Street very attractive; it was very long and very drab, and contained two rows of singularly ugly black little houses; yet Ogden Street had its boasts, and its residents could claim to have both feet on the social ladder. You could, in fact, have a “comedown” from Ogden Street, and there were some people who even saw it as a symbol of a prosperity long vanished. To begin with, it was a respectable street, not one of those in which you heard sudden screams in the night or the sound of police whistles. Then too, it was entirely composed of proper houses, all with doors opening on to the street; and in this respect it was unlike its neighbours at the back, Velvet Street and Merino Street, which had nothing but “passage” or “back-to-back” houses, the product of an ingenious architectural scheme that crammed four dwelling-places into the space of two and enabled some past citizens to drive a carriage-and-pair and take their wives and daughters to the Paris Exhibition in 1867. When you lived in Ogden Street, you did not disdain to talk to the occupants of passage houses, but nevertheless, if you were a woman who knew how to enjoy yourself, you could afford to be sympathetic towards a humble passage-houser or put a presumptuous one in her place. Many of these things had been known to Mr. Oakroyd, an old resident, for many years, but he did not entertain himself now with any recollection of them.

The door, which led directly into the single living-room, stood ajar. There was no one in the room, but voices were coming from upstairs. Somebody shouted “Hello!” as he flung his cap down on the end of the shiny black sofa. He grunted a reply, went through to the scullery, where he hastily washed, returning, with eyes still smarting from the yellow soap, to look very dubiously at the table. What he saw made him shake his head. It was indeed the miserable ruin of a Saturday tea. Three dirty cups, pushed to one end of the table, announced that there had been earlier arrivals, and everything had the air of having been closely examined and then rejected. There were two pieces of bread-and-butter on one plate, half a buttered currant teacake and a squashed lemon-cheese tart on another; and on a third—for the tasty bit, the glory of the meal—were the mere remains, the washy flotsam and jetsam, of a tin of salmon. Mr. Oakroyd poked about with a fork in this pink mush, shook his head again, and made little clicking noises. Then he lifted the teapot from the fender, where it had been stewing its contents for some time, sat him down and summoned what was left of a rapidly vanishing appetite.

“You’re back, are you!” This was Mrs. Oakroyd, who had come downstairs. She was a thin woman, with gleaming eyes, prominent cheekbones, a pinched nose reddened at the tip, and a long prow of a chin. She had two passions, one for her son, Leonard, and the other for virtuous discomfort. “I’m house-proud,” she reported of herself; and if she could fill the living-room with steaming clothes a few minutes before her husband arrived home from work, she was happy. She had long regarded him neither as a friend nor as a partner but as a nuisance, somebody who was always coming in to upset the house, always demanding food and drink.

The nuisance gave her one quick glance, and saw at once that she was pleased about something, though ready at any moment to be quarrelsome about it. “Leonard’s in this,” he told himself, gave a nod, then gloomily poured some of the salmon on to his plate.

“We ’ad our teas,” remarked Mrs. Oakroyd, coming forward into the room.

“Ay, so I see,” returned her husband dryly. “I wish I’d been here. Ther seems to ha’ been a bit of a party like.”

“Leonard’s ’ere, come home this afternoon and brought Albert Tuggridge with ’im, so we all ’ad our teas together.”

“Oh, Leonard’s here, is he?” Mr. Oakroyd stared rather aggressively at his wife. “And what’s Leonard doing here at this time o’ day? I suppose nobody i’ Woolgate district wants a shave now o’ Saturday.” As this was the only day on which many Woolgate residents ever did want a shave, this remark was the grimmest irony.

There was an added gleam in his wife’s eyes. “Leonard’s done wi’ Woolgate. Left this morning. And not afore ’e told old Bobsfill a thing or two either. Trust ’im,” she added proudly.

Mr. Oakroyd laid down his knife and fork. “Gotten t’sack, has he, or marched out? And what’s he going to do now? I call that daft. Lad’s got too big for his boots.”

The gleam was really triumphant now. She raised her voice: “I’ll tell yer what he’s going to do. He’s going to work at Gregson’s. There’s a chap finishing there today, and our Leonard takes his place o’ Monday. Gets two pound and what he makes, and you know what Gregson’s is. Now then, what ’ave you got to say to that?”

He had nothing to say to it. He did know what Gregson’s was, though he had never been a patron of such a lordly establishment. Gregson’s City Toilet Rooms were in the centre of the town, not two hundred yards from Town Hall Square, and heads worth a mint of money were continually being trimmed there. It was impossible to say a word against Gregson’s.

“Two pounds and tips galore!” cried Mrs. Oakroyd. “It’ll be four pound ten, sometimes five pound, ’e tells me, in a good week, wi’ regular customers coming in, wool men and travellers and suchlike. ‘Well,’ I tells him, ‘if it is, it’s better money than your poor father ever brought home, and you only fower-and-twenty.’ Nay, I were that surprised! When I seen ’im walk in wi’ Albert Tuggridge, middle o’ t’afternoon, you could ha’ knocked me down wi’ a feather—”

“Ay,” her husband put in, “ ’an’ when I see the way they’d both walked into that salmon, you could ’a’ knocked me down wi’ t’same feather.”

“Go on, go on! That’s right! Go on!” she cried, with the shrillest irony. “Next time t’lad gets a better job I’ll turn ’im and ’is friend out without a bit o’ tea. I’ll tell him ’e can’t ’a’ any, tell him it’s all for his father. You’ve got as much there as we ’ad. What you wan’s a caffy. What we sit down to isn’t good enough for a man as can afford a shilling every week for a football match. He ought to ’ave ’am and eggs every night, he ought, steaks and chips every night, he ought, when he’s so well off—”

“All right, all right, all right,” growled Mr. Oakroyd and tried to look like a man who had had enough of that nonsense. His wife gave a sniff, collected some dirty cups and plates, gave another sniff, then marched the things into the scullery, where she contrived to make an extraordinary clatter. Mr. Oakroyd let his features relapse into their ordinary appearance, loudly yet mournfully sucked at a hollow tooth, then took an immense bite of currant teacake and washed it down with a gulp of tea.

“I’ll bet t’young women o’ Bruddersford will find it hard to keep their heads screwed on tonight,” he observed, when his wife returned. He nodded towards the stairs. “Is that Albert Tuggridge up there now wi’ Leonard?”

“Yes. Leonard’s getting ready to go out. They’re off to a social an’ dance at Shuttle Street Rooms.”

Mr. Oakroyd smiled grimly. “I thought as much. There’ll be some ’earts broken i’ Shuttle Street tonight. It’s fair cruel to let them two loose on t’same night, and a Saturday an’ all. It don’t give lasses a chance. Them as doesn’t prostrate therselves afore Leonard ’ull fall afore the all-conquering Albert. It’s an absolute walkover for the male sex.”

His wife bristled. “A body’ud think you’d never been young, Jess Oakroyd, the way you go on about them lads.”

“Nay, I’ve been young. None so old yet, I’m thinking. But I were never so dam’ soft as yon two. Lady-killers, I calls ’em—Shuttle Street heart-breakers! Tut‑t‑t‑t!”

It was not a bad description of Leonard and his friend, Albert. With them and their like was perishing, miserably and obscurely, an old tradition. Though they did not know it, they were in truth the last of a long line, the last of the Macaronis, the Dandies, the Swells, the Mashers, the Knuts. Their old home, the West End, knows these figures no longer; their canes and yellow gloves, their pearl-buttoned fawn overcoats, their brilliantine and scent and bouquets, their music-hall promenades, and their hansoms, their ladies, with elaborate golden coiffures, full busts, and naughty frills, all have gone, all went floating to limbo, long ago, on their last tide of champagne; and some foolish and almost forgotten song, in perky six-eight time, of “boys and girls upon the spree, in Peek-a-deely or Le-hester Squer-hare,” is their requiem. But just as a tide of fashion, raging fiercely in Mayfair for a season, will go rolling on and on, depositing black vases or orange cushions in drawing-rooms more and more remote year after year, so too the tradition of dandyism and lady-killing, after it had forsaken its old home, lingered on in towns like Bruddersford and among such young men as Leonard and Albert. They lived for dress and girls, above all—not having the opportunities of a Brummell—for girls. They ogled and pursued and embraced girls at the Bruddersford dances and socials, in all the local parks and woods, picture theatres and music halls; they followed them on the Bridlington sands, along the Morecambe piers, into the Blackpool ballrooms, and even went as far as Douglas, I.O.M., to treat them to eighteen-penny glasses of champagne and other notorious aphrodisiacs; they knew, and frequently discussed among themselves, the precise difference between the factory girls of Bruddersford and the factory girls of Bradford or Huddersfield, between the tailoresses of Leeds and the shopgirls of Manchester; they were masters of the art of “picking up” and, young as they were, already veteran strategists in the war against feminine chastity or prudence, and were untiring in the chase, tracking these bright creatures for weeks through the dark jungle of West Riding streets, but apt to be either bored or frightened by the kill. In the end, most of them—as they said—“got caught,” and were to be seen walking out of their old lives, those epics of gallantry, pushing a perambulator.

The two young men now descended the stairs. Leonard walked in first, still patting his purple silk tie. He is a thin youth, with a very elaborate and greasy arrangement of curls and waves in his hair, a hardening eye and a loosening mouth, and an unfortunate habit of becoming spotty about the forehead. His friend, Albert, clerk to Swullans, the noisiest and shadiest auctioneer in the town, is larger and louder, and likes to brighten all social occasions by imitating the public manner of his master. Having no family in Bruddersford, he lives in lodgings, a few streets away, where he says he is very uncomfortable. Already it has been suggested several times, both by Leonard and his mother, that Albert might lodge with them, but Mr. Oakroyd, who does not want a lodger and especially does not want to see any more of Albert, rages at the mere hint of such a proceeding.

“My words, Leonard,” cried Mrs. Oakroyd, wiping her hands at the scullery door, “you’re a swell tonight all right!” To see him standing there, in his new chocolate-coloured suit, with his purple socks and tie and handkerchief, was as good as an evening out to her, better than the pictures.

“Not so dusty, Mar,” said Leonard, tapping a cigarette against the back of his hand.

“Well, well, well, well!” shouted Albert, winking at Mr. Oakroyd, who was pushing his chair back. “ ’Ere we are, ’ere we are! All merry and bright, the old firm! And ’ow many runs did the old United make today?” And he winked at everybody. Mr. Oakroyd, who wanted to kick him, bent over his pipe and his packet of Old Salt tobacco, and grunted: “Drew. Nil, nil.”

“Not much for a bob there then, what do you say, Len?” Albert went to the hearth and straddled there. “The poor old United will ’ave to do better before they see my money.”

“Rorther, rorther!” said Leonard, who was fond of entertaining company, at times, with an imitation of a musical-comedy duke. This was one of the times.

“Quaite, quaite!” roared Albert, who knew his cue.

Mr. Oakroyd, with the air of a man who had heard all this too many times already, very deliberately lit his pipe, then relieved his feelings by blowing out a cloud of smoke. “Well, they’ll ’a’ to try and get on without your money, Albert,” he remarked, relishing his irony. “They’ll ’a’ to manage somehow, though it’ll be a bad lookout for ’em, I can see that. Ha’ you told ’em yet, or are you letting ’em find it out for themselves?”

At this moment Mrs. Oakroyd and Leonard disappeared into the scullery, where they could be heard whispering. Albert cocked an ear in that direction then opened fire himself. “You’ve ’eard the news? Len’s new job. Good biz, good biz! Got a rise meself last week. Good biz! We’re making money, making money. What d’you say?”

It was plain that Mr. Oakroyd had very little to say and that it was not a subject that inspired him. He took out his pipe, looked at it and then looked at Albert, and asked very quietly if Mr. Swullans had sold any more mahogany wardrobes lately. This was a malicious question because Mr. Swullans had once got into trouble and a half-column report in the Bruddersford Evening Express because he sold a certain mahogany wardrobe.

But Albert was not abashed. “Now then, now then! We all know about that. Tricks in all trades! Did you know I was looking for fresh digs?”

“Ay, I heard summat about it.”

“Well then, what d’you say to having this little drop o’ sunshine in the old ’ome? What d’you think of that? Good company and a good payer, right on the nail every Friday night.”

Mr. Oakroyd shook his head. “It won’t wash, lad.”

“Right on the nail every Friday,” Albert repeated with gusto. “And all the family in favour.”

“It won’t wash. We don’t want no lodgers ’ere. There’s plenty as takes ’em without us. We don’t want ’em.”

“Oh, we don’t, don’t we!” This was from Mrs. Oakroyd, standing, belligerent, in the scullery doorway.

Her husband gave a steady look, then raised his voice. “No, we don’t.”

“Well, some of us thinks we do.”

“Then you mun think again, and think different,” said Mr. Oakroyd, with an air of finality. And before any of them could reply, he had taken his cap from the end of the sofa, clapped it on his head, and walked out.

He told himself that he wanted a little stroll, another ounce of Old Salt, an early edition of the Evening Express Sports. But he knew he was afraid of what was coming. Having fired, manfully, his one big gun, he felt compelled to retreat. All the way down Ogden Street, he kept repeating to himself, “Better money than your poor father ever brought home”; and didn’t like the look of things at all.

III

The weekend had begun badly for Mr. Oakroyd, and it did not improve. The depression of Saturday afternoon could not be shaken off. He could think of nothing to look forward to. He was troubled by a vague foreboding. It was just as if a demoniac black dog went trotting everywhere at his heels. Normally he was happy enough when he was smoking a pipe or two of Old Salt over the Evening Express Sports, learning how “Kelly pushed the ball out to the homesters’ left wing and Macdonald shot hard from a fine centre, but the visiting custodian made a great clearance.” But this Saturday night he could not settle down to the welcome pink sheets. It followed him, this black dog, when he tried another stroll later, into the centre of the town, and it even found its way with him into the singing-room of The Boy and Barrel, where he had a half-pint of bitter and listened to a purple-faced tenor, the victim of two passions, one for Doreen, His Darling and His Queen, and the other for Home, Just a Tumble-down Cottage. Nor had it departed when he called, on his return home, at Thwaites’ Fish and Chip Shop (it called itself the West End Supper Bar, but nobody took any notice of that), and ate three-pennorth o’ chips and a tail while exchanging some remarks on t’United with Sam Thwaites, that excellent critic of the game.

Sunday morning was no better. To begin with, there was a bit of an argument about Albert Tuggridge at breakfast. Then the Imperial News, with which, like two million other Britons, he spent Sunday morning, for once gave him no pleasure. Listlessly, he turned from “Secrets of European Courts” to “Dope Dens of Mayfair,” from “What the Husband Saw” to “Scandals of the Boxing Ring,” and the most startling revelations, the most terrible disclosures, failed to brighten his eye. At half past eleven he went to the Woolgate Working Men’s Club and sat there over a half-pint, only to learn, to his disgust, that young Maundery had been made secretary of the local branch of his Trade Union, the Textile, Wagon, and Warehouse Workers. Mr. Oakroyd had not been on good terms with his Union for some time, and this appointment of Maundery, a hatchet-faced young fanatic who had an unqualified admiration of Russian methods, meant that very soon he would be on even worse terms. He disliked the chap, and only a fortnight ago, in this very club, they had had a long and loud argument, during which Mr. Oakroyd had horrified his opponent by calling “proletariat”—a term that Maundery used in every other sentence and regarded as sacred—“a bloody daft word.” After that cheerless half-pint, he went home to a dinner that was a sulky silent affair and none too good. This was what he had expected. He knew he had now seen the last of his wife’s best efforts in cookery for some time. In the afternoon, he dozed uneasily for an hour or so, suddenly decided to walk to the park, found he had gone far enough when only halfway there, and came back, dusty and gloomy, to a solitary tea. Leonard had gone off for the day, and Mrs. Oakroyd was taking tea with some fellow-worshipper at the Woolgate Congregational Chapel. Mr. Oakroyd ate and drank a good deal in an absentminded fashion, then smoked two pipes of Old Salt while he gave himself to a mournful survey of this life.

It was nearly seven o’clock when he finally decided how to spend the evening. He would go and see his friend Sam Oglethorpe out at Wabley. Having arrived at this decision, he immediately felt more cheerful, for to go as far as Wabley, which is four miles out of Bruddersford and almost on the edge of the moors, was something to do, indeed quite a little adventure, and he knew that Sam would be in and ready to welcome him. What he did not know was that this was a most momentous decision, that here was not a little adventure but the beginning of all manner of great adventures, that the thread now dangling in the empty space of his life was almost within reach, that Destiny was hard at work as he had his wash at the scullery sink, walked, took a tram, walked again, out to Wabley.

Yes, Sam was in, and glad to see him, and together they went down to the run and looked at hens. The two had worked side-by-side for years in the wagon department of Higden and Co., but two or three years ago they had parted company, for Sam had come into money, having been left four hundred pounds by an uncle who had kept an off-licence shop, and had boldly walked out of Higden’s, never to return. He was now on his own at Wabley, the proud proprietor of a large hen-run, a little cottage, and a sign that said Joinery and Jobbing Work Promptly Attended To. That was why Mr. Oakroyd regarded his friend with admiration and envy, for he too would like to walk out of Higden’s for the last time, to have done with wages and foremen and the tyrannical buzzer. Deep in his heart was a sign about Joinery and Jobbing Work. The hoisting of that sign, proclaiming Jes. Oakroyd, the independent craftsman, to the world, was one of his constant dreams. And he was a better craftsman than Sam, too; give him a saw, a hammer, a few nails, and he could do anything. But Sam, assisted by the off-licence uncle, had managed to scramble out, while he was still in, in up to the neck, and lucky perhaps to be keeping on at Higden’s at all.

Now, the last hen dismissed, they were cosily talking over pipes and a jug of beer. They were not in Mr. Oglethorpe’s cottage, which was simply a place to eat and sleep in and not meant, as anybody in Wabley would tell you, for social life. No, they were sitting snugly in Mr. Oglethorpe’s combined henhouse and workshop, with the jug of beer on a bench between them. If you want to know what independent men in Bruddersford and district think about life, you must listen to the talk that comes floating out of henhouses at night. A man can afford to let himself go in a henhouse. Sam had been letting himself go, enlarging upon his plans and prospects, his hens, his Joinery, his Jobbing, to all of which Mr. Oakroyd had been listening with deep and admiring attention. It was now time he had a look in, and Mr. Oglethorpe, like the good fellow he was, knew it and gave him his cue.

“Ay,” said Mr. Oglethorpe, who had the slow meditative manner that properly belongs to Jobbing Work, “that’s what ’appens i’ this sort o’ business i’ Wabley, ay, and i’ Bruddersford too. Did you give it any ittention, Jess, when you was down South? It’ll be a bit diff’rent there, I’m thinking.”

Mr. Oakroyd’s face lit up at once. This “down South” was the cue. This was where he came in and more than held his own, for if, in this company, Mr. Oglethorpe was the independent man, the owner of hens and a sign, the craftsman at large, who could smoke his pipe when he liked, Mr. Oakroyd was the travelled man, who had knocked up and down a bit, who could talk of what were to Mr. Oglethorpe, who had never been anywhere, foreign parts. It was only in the company of his friend Sam that Mr. Oakroyd felt that he really had seen the world. He had not often been away from Bruddersford, though he had had a few little holidays at Morecambe, Blackpool, and Scarborough, had been on football trips to Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield, and had once gone on a wonderful midnight excursion to London and had actually seen St. Paul’s and London Bridge before he fell asleep in an eating-house; but it happened that for a whole six months he had worked in Leicester, where his firm had a branch, and ever after he had referred to this exciting period as the time when he was “down South.” It was another of his dreams, companion to that of the hoisted sign, this happy business of travelling, of knocking about, of seeing this place and that, of telling how you once went there and then moved on somewhere else, and although he knew he had seen nothing much yet and probably never would now, yet he was able, nourished as he was by his secret dream, to capture the manner of the true wanderer. During his six months in Leicester, he had lodged in a street that could hardly be distinguished from his own Ogden Street, had worked in another Higden’s mill that was just like the one in Bruddersford except that it was smaller and cleaner. Yet when he said “down South,” he seemed to conjure up a vast journey towards the tropics and at the end of it a life entirely alien, fantastic.

“Ay, it’s different there, Sam,” said Mr. Oakroyd, puzzling his brains to discover some proof of this difference. “It’s altogether different there, it is.”

“ ’Old on a bit afore you tell me,” the other cried, reaching for the jug. “There’s another sup i’ this for both of us, I’m thinking. Nah then!” And he put a match to his pipe and looked across at his friend, his honest red face aglow.

“Well, then you see,” began Mr. Oakroyd, but thought better of it and drank some beer instead. Then he reflected a moment. “Well, what I’d say is this. Yer asking me how this sort o’ trade, Joinery and Jobbing, ’ud go down South, aren’t yer?”

“That’s right, Jess.” And Mr. Oglethorpe looked very profound as he said this.

“Well, what I’d say is this; that ther mayn’t be so much of it down there but what ther is ’ud be a better class o’ thing. D’you follow me, Sam?”

Sam did follow him and looked more profound than ever as he slowly puffed at his short clay pipe. Nothing was said for a minute or two. Then Mr. Oglethorpe proceeded to light a very old and evil-smelling paraffin lamp that hung from the roof, and when he had done this, he broke the silence. “It’ll be all different, I’m thinking, Jess. I could nivver settle to it. But I’ll bet tha liked it.”

“I like a bit of a change, Sam.”

“I’ll bet tha’d like to be off down there ag’in next week,” said Mr. Oglethorpe, with an air of great artfulness, as if he had caught his friend at last.

“I might an’ I might not,” replied Mr. Oakroyd, who was not for giving himself away at once, not even in Sam’s henhouse. But then the hour and his mood worked together to fling down his reserve. He leaned forward and looked at once eager and wistful. “I’ll tell you what it is, Sam. I’d give owt to see a bit more afore I’m too old.”

“Yer’ve seen summat already, Jess.” Mr. Oglethorpe spoke proudly, as if his friendship gave him a share in these vast migrations.

“Nowt much when you look at it.”

“Why, look at me,” cried Mr. Oglethorpe. “I’ve nivver been farther ner Wetherby, to t’races there. Nay, I’m lying; I have. I once went for a day to Southport to see t’sea, but I nivver saw it, not a drop. It were a take-in, that.”

“I’d like to knock up an’ down a bit,” Mr. Oakroyd went on, “an’ see what there is to see afore I’m too old an’ daft. I’ve gotten fair sick o’ Bruddersford lately, Sam, I have that. I’d like to get on t’move.”

“Where d’yer want to go, Jess? Down South ag’in? What is’t yer want to see?”

“Nay, I don’t know,” said Mr. Oakroyd, gloomily. “I’d like to see summat fresh. I’d like to have a look at—oh, I don’t know—Bristol.”

“Ar,” said Mr. Oglethorpe knowingly. “Bristol.”

“Or I’d like to see—yer know—some of them places—Bedfordshire,” he added, at a venture.

The other shook his head at this. “I nivvr heard tell much o’ that place,” he said gravely. “Is ther owt special i’ Bedfordshire, Jess?”

“Nay, I don’t know,” replied Mr. Oakroyd, a trifle impatiently. “But it’s summat to see. I’d like to go and have a look so I’d know if ther was owt there or not. And I’ll tell you another thing, Sam. I’d like to go to Canada.”

“Yer nivver would, yer nivver would, Jess!” Mr. Oglethorpe slapped his thigh in appreciation of this audacity. “An’ if yer got there, yer’d want to be back i’ no time. Nowt to sup, they tell me, and snaw months and months on end. Plenty o’ money, I dare say, but nowt to spend it on. Nay, Jess, I’ll nivver believe yer’d go as far as that.”

“I’ve a lass o’ mine there, Sam.”

“Ay, so you have, I’d fergetten. But I’ll tell yer what it is. Y’owt to ’a’ been a wool-buyer, Jess, and then yer could ’a’ gone off all ower t’place and been paid for it. It’ud ’a’ suited thee down to t’ground.”

“I dare say,” said Mr. Oakroyd grimly. “An’ I owt to have a motorcar and twenty pound a week and nowt to do and plenty o’ time to do it in—”

At this moment, a voice cried “Hello!” and a face appeared in the doorway.

“Who’s that? Oh, it’s you, is it, Ted? Come in, lad, come in. Yer know my nephew Ted, Jess?” And when Ted had sat himself down on an old coop, Mr. Oglethorpe went on: “Now, here’s a lad as can tell you a thing or two about knocking up and down. He’s nivver at home five minutes. Off wi’ t’lorry all ower t’country, aren’t yer, Ted?”

Ted, who was part-owner of a lorry that called itself the Wabley Transport Co., admitted that he knocked about a bit and knew a thing or two.

“This lorrying owt to ’a’ been your line o’ business, Jess,” Mr. Oglethorpe continued, winking at his nephew for no particular reason. “Where d’yer go next, lad?”

“Off tomorrow,” replied Ted, a laconic youth who preferred to talk, like a ventriloquist, with a cigarette in his mouth. “Load at Bruddersford. Merryweather’s Tapp Street. Going to Nuneaton. Shan’t get off till late tomorrow night.”

“What time, Ted?” asked his uncle, rather in the manner of counsel in court, as if he already knew the answer himself.

“Ten or eleven. Perhaps twelve. Merryweather’s got a rush on. That’s how we got the job. Travel all night. Deliver in the morning. Hell of a game.” And Ted, having finished his speech, took out his cigarette to whistle.

“There y’are, Jess. ’Ell of a game,” Mr. Oglethorpe repeated triumphantly.

“It ’ud do me,” muttered Mr. Oakroyd.

“It ’ud suit ’im,” said Mr. Oglethorpe, turning to his nephew. “Yer’ll a’ ter give ’im a job on t’lorry, Ted.”

“Nothing doing,” replied Ted. “Wouldn’t thank us if we did. He can have a trip when he likes, of course. See for himself then. Nothing in it. Been all over, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Leicester, Coventry, even taken it to London twice. Dozens o’ smaller places. All over. Nothing in it. Get sick of it. Same old carry-on every time. Places all alike when you come to know ’em.”

“Nay, I’ll be damned if they are,” Mr. Oakroyd protested. “You may ’a’ seen a sight more ner I have, but you must ’a’ given it a funny sort o’ look to think that. Places is as different as chalk and cheese. I soon picked that out when I were down South.”

“Ay, that’s right,” Mr. Oglethorpe observed. “I’ve heard Jess ’ere tell many a time ’ow diff’rent it is. I’ve seen nowt much, but yer can nivver tell me places is all alike. Why, ther’s Wabley ’ere is as diff’rent as owt from all t’other small places round Bruddersford. Amazin’ it is, fair amazin’! Then Bruddersford’s ner more like Leeds or Halifax than I’m like Billy Baxter.”

“Who’s Billy Baxter?” This was from Ted, who ought to have known better.

“What! Nivver heard o’ Billy Baxter!” cried Mr. Oglethorpe, in great glee. “Well, well, well! Billy Baxter were the fellow that could nivver stand up without getting on his feet.” And Mr. Oglethorpe began to punch himself, and shake and splutter and cough, until at last he was purple and helpless.

“Tha hasn’t selled that to anybody for years, Sam,” said Mr. Oakroyd approvingly. “Ted’s learned summat tonight, anyway.”

Ted, still with a cigarette in his mouth, was shaking his head and at the same time making a loud tut-tutting noise. He was not abashed—as a man of the world, he could afford to ignore such primitive jests—but he knew that his prestige was gone for the remainder of the evening, and so, after giving his uncle a resounding slap or two on the back, he took his leave.

Mr. Oakroyd stayed long enough to smoke another pipe, and was then steered through the darkness—for it was late now—by his host, who accompanied him as far as the tram terminus. The tram that was waiting there, however, only took him to the outskirts of Bruddersford, where it went groaning into its shed. Mr. Oakroyd would have to walk the rest of the way. As a rule he liked to go to bed early on Sunday night, but now he was in no mood to consider Monday morning, more especially as he had just left the company of an independent craftsman and a man of travel. The night was fine and he was not tired. Off he went, with his old brown cap at the back of his head, whistling softly, and watching his shadow that grew and then dwindled between one streetlamp and the next. He was walking back into something that was beginning to look like slavery, but the large quiet night was his, and a man might fancy himself anything, proprietor of a Joinery and Jobbing sign, owner of a lorry commanded to go to Bristol or Bedfordshire, even a chap going out to Canada to see his daughter, as he walked in peace through such a night.

He was now in the Merton Park district, Bruddersford’s best suburb, where the wool merchants and the manufacturers and the bank managers had their detached villas. These pleasant avenues were full of leafy shadows, for there were trees in the gardens and trees alternating with streetlamps on the pavement itself. Now and then he heard the distant sound of a piano. Two or three cars rolled past. Sometimes from the deeper shadows there came a whispering and sound of kissing, for lovers in Bruddersford favoured the Merton Park district. There were very few of them about now, however; it was too late. Learoyd Avenue, longest and leafiest of these opulent roads, was very quiet. Yet it was in Learoyd Avenue, nearly at the end, just before it turns into Park Drive, that Mr. Oakroyd’s adventures really began.

He had just stepped from the lamplit pavement into the shadow of a tree, when he tripped over something and went sprawling.

“What the bl—!” he began, startled and shaken.

“Shush! Shush!” said a voice, close to his ear. “Naughty! Naughty!”

Mr. Oakroyd scrambled to his feet and peered through the gloom at the figure beside him. “ ’Ere, Mister, get up.”

The other giggled quietly. “Can’t gerrup,” he said. “Can’t poshibly gerrup.”

“Well, you can’t stay there all t’night, Mister,” said Mr. Oakroyd, who now understood the situation. “Can you now?”

“I dunno, I dunno,” said the other meditatively. “P’raps I can, p’raps I can’t. Who knows?” Then in a tone of great melancholy he added: “Nobody knowsh. And nobody—nobody—caresh. Nobody.” He seemed to be overcome by the pathos of this reflection.

“Well, you’ve got a load on and no mistake,” said Oakroyd. Then he reached out a hand. “Come on, come on. This’ll nivver do. ’Oist yerself up.”

“That’s ri’. Gimme a hand, the hand of frien’ship. Up we go!” And, aided by Mr. Oakroyd, he struggled to his feet, clapped Mr. Oakroyd on the shoulder, nearly lost his balance again, and finally clung to his companion’s arm and began staggering down the road. The lamplight revealed him as a large red-faced man, very smart in a light grey felt hat, check suit, and spats.

“You’re a good fella,” he cried. “A very good fella. And I—I’m a good fella too. Both good fellas. Wass’r name? Mine’s George. I’ve had a mos’ extr’or’—extr’or’—’stonishin’ time. Mos’ ’stonishin’. Been away nearly a week. Racesh. Yes, I’m a rayshing man. Been to Doncaster—all over. An’ lucky ev’ry time, ev’ry ev’ry time. D’you know, d’you know”—and here George separated himself from his companion and stood swaying—“wha’ I made thish week?” He waved a finger at Mr. Oakroyd, then repeated, quite sternly: “D’you know?”

“Nay, I don’t know,” replied Mr. Oakroyd, good-humouredly. “But I’ll bet it were more ner I did.”

“Well, I’ll tell you,” said George, gravely swaying. “I’ll tell you. No, I won’t, ’cos I’ve fergorren. But hundredsh, hundredsh an’ hundredsh. Lucky, very very lucky. And now—here I am, here I am, my frien’, home again.” And he steadied himself by grasping Mr. Oakroyd’s arm again.

“But where do you live, Mister?”

“Roun’ the corner, roun’ the corner. Had mosh ’stonishin’ adventures, these lash few days. Came back in car. With palsh, goo’ old palsh. But gone, all gone. We had li’l’ dishpute. Fact is”—and he lowered his voice and almost rested his head on his companion’s shoulder—“fact is, ol’ man, they were drunk, yes, dr’r‑unk. An’ they dropped me out of the car. Bur I said to them, I says, ‘I’m berrer without you ’cos you’re all drunk and this is reshpec—reshpec’able neighbererer-hood.’ Thash wor I says, my frien’, an’ I think you’ll agree thar it was well spoken—on my par’.” These three last words came with a rush, for he had suddenly released his hold and had swung round alarmingly.

“Nay, that won’t do, Mister,” said Mr. Oakroyd, making a grab at him. “You’ll nivver get home at that rate. Now where is it you live?”

“Jus’ roun’ the corner, roun’ the good ol’ Johnny Horner,” replied George, with enthusiasm. “We’re all ri’, we’re all ri’. You’re a good fella. You been to racesh thish time?”

“No, I’ve not, nor nowhere else either for a long time. Hold up, Mister, hold up.”

But George had swung right over and was now slowly collapsing against the railings. His legs slowly slid over the pavement, but he still kept on talking. “You’re a wise man, a wise man—to stay at home.” And he said this several times as his head sank lower and lower.

“Nay, brace up, brace up!” Mr. Oakroyd tried to pull him up but the man was heavy and a dead-weight now. For a moment it looked as if he were going to sleep, but Mr. Oakroyd gave him a series of nudges and shakings and at last succeeded in arousing him a little. After he had made an effort, and Mr. Oakroyd had put out all his strength to assist him, George rose very unsteadily to his feet and staggered one or two paces forward.

“ ’Ere, wha’s this?” said Mr. Oakroyd, picking up an unusually bulky pocketbook. “This must be yours.” And he handed it over.

The other waved it in the air. “My notecase. Full, full to the brim with money. Hundredsh of pounds, hundredsh. Must have dropped ou’ pocket.” Then he came closer and held the pocketbook only about two inches from Mr. Oakroyd’s nose. “I thank you. I thank you. Knew you were good fella. An honesh man. Come here,” he added, ignoring the fact that it would be impossible for his companion to be any closer than he already was. Indeed, he himself stepped back a pace as he continued: “Come here. You gave me thish, I give you something. Yes, I do. Fair’s fair. Thash George’s motto.” He fumbled in the pocketbook. “Come here. Hold hand out.”

Mr. Oakroyd found himself clasping some crisp pieces of paper. They felt like banknotes, and there were four of them. He did not stop to examine them but held them out to the donor, who was busying himself with the pocketbook. “Look here, Mister, I can’t take these,” he said, for his code demanded that he should help a drunken man if he possibly could and also that he should not take advantage of a man’s drunken freaks of generosity.

“Warrer say?” George was still busy fastening his pocketbook and putting it away.

“I say I can’t take these,” he repeated, almost pushing the notes in the other’s face.

“Warrer mean can’t take ’em? I tell you, I give ’em. Li’l’ presen’ for good boy.”

“If I take these,” said Mr. Oakroyd earnestly and somewhat unwisely, “you’ll be sorry in the morning.”

This offended George. “Warrer mean sorry in the morning?” he cried aggressively. “Money’s mine, isn’t it? Do warrer like with it, can’t I? Can I or can’t I? Ish it mine or ishn’t it? Can I or can’t I? Answer plain queshuns.” And he brought his face as near as he could.

Mr. Oakroyd stepped back and began to feel impatient, but said nothing.

“Come on, come on. Le’sh have answer plain queshuns. Can I or can’t I? Have I gorrer ask you warrer do with it?”

“Oh, don’t be such a damn fool, Mister,” cried Mr. Oakroyd, tired of this daft catechism.

“Damn fool, eh? All ri’, all ri’. Thash finish, ab‑so‑lutely finish.” And he made a sweeping gesture that nearly threw him off his feet. “You go to hell now, anywhere. Finish. No frien’ o’ mine.” He turned away and staggered forward at a surprising pace.

Mr. Oakroyd, stuffing the notes in his pocket, hurried after him. “Half a minute, half a minute,” he cried to the swaying figure.

The indignant George stopped for a moment to shout: “You go to hell. I don’t want you. Don’t you follow me.” And off he went again, round the corner into Park Drive. A few yards farther on, he stopped again: “Don’t you follow me. You’re a bad fella, you are. You leave me alone.” But Mr. Oakroyd only increased his pace and was almost up to him, when a large figure stepped out of a shadowy gateway and confronted the pair of them.

“ ’Ere, ’ere! What’s all this about?” said the policeman, flashing his lamp on their faces.

George pulled himself up and saluted. “Good evening, Conshtable. Jus’ going home. You know me, don’t you?”

The policeman took another look at him. “Yes, I think I know you, sir. You live down ’ere, don’t you? Well, the sooner you’re ’ome the better, if you ask me. And what’s all this noise about? Who’s this ’ere?”

“Thash the point,” replied George gravely. “Who is he? I dunno who he is. I’ve jus’ told him he’s a bad fella, an’ I don’t want him following me. You tell him he’s a bad fella.” The policeman flashed his lamp over Mr. Oakroyd again. “Now then, what’s the game?”

“There’s no game,” said Mr. Oakroyd, rather sulkily. “I found him rolling drunk up the road and gave him a hand, that’s all.”

“Rollin’ drunk!” exclaimed George, horror-stricken. “You’re bad bad fella, an’ I told you not to keep following me.”

“You be off,” said the policeman to Mr. Oakroyd, “and leave him alone. And you get off home, sir, afore somebody else starts follering you. You’ve not far to go.”

“Ay, ay, Cap’en.” And George gave another salute and zigzagged down the road. Mr. Oakroyd moved on after him, but a shout from the policeman behind pulled him up.

“Didn’t I tell you to be off?” cried the policeman, who had now caught up to him. “Get off and leave ’im alone afore you get into trouble.”

“He’s not the only chap as is going home.” Mr. Oakroyd was indignant. “I’ve as much right to walk down this street as he has. I’m going home too. I’m not going to bother with him. He’s daft drunk.”

“Where d’you live?”

“Ogden Street.”

“That’s a good way from ’ere,” said the policeman suspiciously.

“Ay, but this is nearest way to it, and that’s all I care about.”

“Well, walk on the other side then. I shall stand ’ere and watch you. And don’t let me see you round ’ere again tonight.”

“I don’t want ivver to set eyes on thee agen, lad,” Mr. Oakroyd muttered to himself as he crossed the road. He walked as fast as he could now, and took the first possible turning out of Park Drive. “I wonder who that were,” he said to himself. “Eh, I’ve seen some silly drunks in my time, but I nivver saw one sillier.” He had to slow down a little because his heart, which had been given a bump or two by that unpleasant talk with the policeman, kept missing a beat and seemed to make him short of breath. Thus it was very late indeed when he finally arrived at 51 Ogden Street, and even Leonard was obviously in bed.

He found a piece of buttered currant teacake, took a large and comforting bite out of it, and then smoothed out on the table four five-pound notes. Twenty pounds. Only twice before had he ever possessed such a sum, and then it had been scraped together, shilling added to shilling. But here was twenty pounds that had fallen to him out of the blue. What should he do with it? He crept upstairs pondering.

IV

“An’ serve ’im right, too,” Mrs. Oakroyd muttered. “I haven’t a bit of patience with him.” It was the third time she had turned over this kipper, now blackened on both sides. It awaited, this kipper, the arrival of Mr. Oakroyd from work, being indeed the usual centrepiece of Monday evening’s tea; but obviously it had long ceased to care whether he came or not. An hour earlier this kipper might have been said to be wasted on him. Now, as Mrs. Oakroyd has suggested, it could only be described as something that served him right. Mr. Oakroyd generally arrived home before six, but now it was after seven. His wife, who had been washing all day and had organized a particularly fine display of steaming clothes round the fire at a quarter to six, had lost more and more of her temper with every passing quarter of an hour. Had she known that four five-pound notes had found their way into her husband’s pockets, late last night, she might have been alarmed. She knows nothing, however, and has not exchanged a dozen words with her husband, who has to rise very early and take both breakfast and dinner to the mill, since they disposed of the Sunday dinner. She is not alarmed but simply annoyed. “A body can’t get on,” she tells herself fretfully. Very soon she will have to prepare tea for Leonard, who will return from his first day at Gregson’s to find a kipper, and a much larger and fatter kipper than the one we have already seen, waiting for him, done to a turn. Meanwhile, his father, like the nuisance he is, must take it into his head—for that is how Mrs. Oakroyd saw the matter—to be over an hour late.

“Not ’ome yet!” she cried to Mrs. Sugden, who had looked in from next door. “His tea’s been ready nearly an hour and a half. Eh, men’s a bother, they are! Is yours ’ome!”

“Long sin’,” said Mrs. Sugden, a woman of few illusions. “Been and gone out again. Trust ’im! When ’e’s more ner an half-hour late, I know I shan’t see ’im afore all pubs an’ clubs is closed. But that nivver happens o’ Monday ’cos ’e has nowt. They can’t be working over at Higden’s, can they?”

“Not they!” Mrs. Oakroyd knew all about the state of the wool trade. “They can’t get a full week in, and a lot on ’em’s been stopped. It’s not that, I’m sure. Some piece o’ silliness, I’ll be bound.”

“ ’E’s ’ere,” Mrs. Sugden whispered dramatically, then promptly vanished from the doorway.

The next moment he was there, a grimy, hot, and angry man who flung his cap and his bag of joiner’s tools down on the sofa, then closed the outer door with a bang.

“Where in the name o’ goodness have you been?” his wife demanded. “And your tea waiting ’ere a full hour and a half!”

“Been on to t’Union office,” he answered shortly.

She glanced at his face and then moderated her tone, “What d’you want to go there for at this time?”

“ ’Cos I’ve been stopped.” He bent down and began to unlace his heavy working boots.

“You’ve been what?” his wife shrieked.

“Stopped, sacked, paid off, whativver you want to call it!” He straightened himself and threw an insurance card and some money on the table. “I’m not even under notice. Higden’s has finished wi’ me, and I’ve finished wi’ them. There’s a week’s money there.” He began to unlace the other boot.

“Well, I nivver did!” cried Mrs. Oakroyd. She flopped down into a chair and regarded him with the utmost astonishment. “What ’a’ you been doing?”

“I’ll tell you all about it in a minute. I want a wash and summat to eat.” He marched in his stockinged feet towards the scullery. “Get my tea ready and then you’ll soon know what I’ve been doing,” he added grimly.

In Bruddersford wives do not stand on ceremony at such moments of crisis, and Mrs. Oakroyd, without a word of protest, made the tea and released the kipper from its long ordeal.

“If this ’ere fish had ’a’ been by t’fire a minute longer,” said Mr. Oakroyd, now seated at the table, “it ’ud ’ave started warping. It’s like a bit o’ burnt wood.”

“Happen it’s last you’ll see for a bit,” his wife retorted, having been roused by this gratuitous sally. “Never mind about that. What ’ave you gotten stopped for?”

“For nowt, just nowt,” he began. “Or, if you like, for bein’ a man and not a damned monkey.” He stopped to take a drink of tea, then, pointing his fork at Mrs. Oakroyd, he resumed: “This morning I hadn’t a wagon in, and so were doin’ nowt for a bit. Simpson, t’under-manager, comes up an’ ses, ‘What are you on with, Oakroyd?’ and I tells him, ‘Nowt, just now.’ They’re puttin’ up a temporary shed for t’wagons, and so Simpson ses, ‘Well, help wi’ t’shed. You can start by getting this into shape.’ And he points to a beam they pulled out o’ t’old shed, and he finds measurements for me. So I borrows an axe an’ a big crosscut saw and gets to work on this ’ere beam. I haven’t been at it more ner ten minutes when a chap taps me on t’back. I don’t know him but I know he’s one t’shop-stewards. ‘An when did you join t’Carpenters’ Union, comrade?’ he ses, very nasty. ‘What d’you mean?’ I ses, though I knew what was coming. He pointed to t’beam: ‘That’s a carpenter’s job,’ he ses, ‘an’ you keep off it, comrade.’ I give him a look. ‘Comrade!’ I ses, ‘My God!’ ‘I’ve noticed you once or twice,’ he ses, ‘an it’s struck me you’ve got the makings of a blackleg,’ he ses. ‘An summat else’ll strike you in a minute, mate, if you stay here callin’ me names,’ I ses. ‘Well, leave that job alone,’ he ses, an’ walks off. And of course I had to.”

He paused for refreshment, and his wife stared at him and said that she didn’t know whatever things were coming to.

“Well, let me finish,” said Mr. Oakroyd, as if she had been preventing him. “So I’d nowt to do again. By an’ by, Simpson comes round again, this time wi’ manager hisself, old Thorley. They’re takking a quick look round and seem a bit flustered. Thorley sees me. ‘What’s this man doing?’ he asks. ‘Eh, Oakroyd,’ Simpson shouts across, ‘get on wi’ that job an’ sharp about it.’ ‘I can’t get on wi’ it,’ I shout back, and moves across to tell ’em. ‘Go on, man, go on, man, go on!’ ses old Thorley, waving his hand at me, and out they goes. At dinnertime I hears that the great man hisself, Sir Joseph Higden, Bart—an’ his father were nobbut a weaving over-looker like mine—is on the premises. I knew now why t’managers were so flustered. ‘I’ll bet they’re cuttin’ summat down,’ I ses. About three o’clock they lands in our department, Sir Joseph and Thorley, wi’ Simpson behind. I see Sir Joseph wave his hand. Then Thorley looks round, an’ I see him look at me and then say summat to Simpson. In a minute or two, Simpson comes up an’ ses, ‘I’m sorry, Oakroyd, but you’ll ’a’ to take a week’s notice.’ ‘What for?’ I ses. ‘What have I done?’ ‘It’s your own fault,’ he ses, ‘there’s so many to be stopped, an’ you shouldn’t have let Mr. Thorley see you this morning.’ ‘It were no fault o’ mine,’ I ses, ‘an’ I’m going to have a word wi’ Mr. Thorley.’ And I did have a word wi’ him, an’ a fat lot o’ good it did me. I begins to tell him how long I’d been there, an’ he cuts me short an’ ses some of us older men is as idle as young uns instead o’ setting an example. That were enough for me, and I ses summat I shouldn’t ha’ said. ‘Pay ’im off an’ give him his card,’ he ses. ‘This man’s finished wi’ Higden’s for good an’ all.’ ”

“That comes o’ not keeping a civil tongue in your head, Jess Oakroyd,” said his wife reproachfully. “I’ve warned you afore now.”

“Whatd’you think I’m made of?” demanded Mr. Oakroyd. “When a chap’s called a blackleg in t’morning an’ an idler i’ t’afternoon, he’s got to say summat. Well, I gets my week’s money and my card at five o’clock, and sets off for t’Union office to tell my tale there. Secretary’s not in. That’s young Maundery, him as talks so much about the proletariat. I waits about and waits about. By and by in he comes, an’ who’s with him? That shop-steward, the comrade. In they come, laughing and talking, two bloody comrades together. A fat lot o’ good my trying to tell ’em my tale! Started pulling me up right an’ left. ‘Notify this, that, an’ t’other.’ ‘Oh, you go to Hell,’ I ses at finish. What wi’ one an’ another, and being badgered this way an’ that, I hadn’t a bit o’ patience left. ‘Oh, you go to Hell,’ I ses, and marches out. And now you know.”

His wife sat there rigid, her eyes fixed on his. For a few moments her face softened and she looked as if she were about to cry. But as she watched him dispose of the remainder of his tea, deal aggressively with a piece of pastry and a second cup, the hard lines came back into her face, the unfriendly gleam into her eyes. “Well, and what are you going to do now then?” she asked.

Mr. Oakroyd pushed aside his cup. It was a little gesture of despair. “Line up for t’dole till another job turns up.”

“And ’ow long ’ull that be?”

“Don’t ask me. You know what it is now. That bag o’ tools ’ull be there a long time, I’m thinking.” He stood up now and looked across at his tools, lying on the sofa. Then he glanced down at his dirty old working clothes, and suddenly arrived, he knew not how or why, at a queer little decision. “I’m off upstairs to change my clothes,” he announced, and departed.

When he came down again, he found his wife preparing Leonard’s tea. He saw at a glance that she had made up her mind about something: her lips were tightly folded upon some recent decision. He waited for her to speak, turning, in his misery, to the old-time comfort of Old Salt.

“Well, that settles it,” she began.

“What settles what?” he asked uneasily.

“Albert Tuggridge comes ’ere,” she announced. Then, before he had time to do more than remove his pipe, she charged in, working herself up to a fury of justification. “Now, don’t start on again, don’t start on. You’ve just thrown your job away, you’re not going to throw this away an’ all, that you’re not. If t’lad’s still willing to come, ’ere he comes, and sooner the better. If it takes any more work it’ll be mine and I’ll have it to stand, so it’s more my business ner yours, and I say he can come. We’ve got to live, ’aven’t we? You’d got little room to talk when you were in work, and you’ve less now.”

“You might ’a’ let me off Albert for this one night anyhow,” he said quietly.

This only made her angrier. “It’s got to be settled, ’asn’t it? An’ let me tell you this, if Albert don’t come, Leonard might be going. I heard ’em saying summat t’other night. I don’t think t’lad would leave his mother, but ’e might, wi’ you always on to him. And then where should we be? Just when he’s getting a good wage, too!”

So that was it. He was angry too now. “If Albert comes ’ere,” he said firmly, “I go.”

“Don’t talk so soft. Where are you going? Are you going to live at t’Midland Hotel on your dole money?”

“Not so much about the dole! It’s first time it’s had to be mentioned in this ’ouse, let me tell you.” He took his wounded pride to the door and there brooded over his pipe. When he swivelled his pipe from one corner of his mouth to the other, his elbow set something rustling in his inside coat pocket. There were four five-pound notes there.

“ ’Ere we are at last, the old firm!” This was Leonard. His father followed him into the living-room. “Tea ready, Mar?” cried the youth, gaily. “That’s the stuff!”

“Got on all right, Len?” asked his mother, bringing the large fat kipper from the fire.

“Ab‑so‑lutely! D’you know what I made in tips? Guess. Eight-and-threepence. Eight-shillings-and-threepence. Not so dusty. Good old Gregson’s!” His mother poured out a cup of tea for the conquering hero.

“Good job we’re gettin’ it from somewhere,” she remarked. “Your father’s finished at Higden’s.”

“What’s this?” A close observer might have noticed a subtle change at once in Leonard’s manner.

His father, for once, was a close observer. “All right, all right,” he said. “Give it a rest for a minute. Is that t’paper you’ve got there?” It was, and Mr. Oakroyd, claiming it, retired to a corner of the sofa, plodding steadily and miserably down the columns of the Bruddersford Evening Express and trying to shut his ears to the whispering of the other two at the table.

Quarter of an hour later, on arriving at the fifth page, it was not necessary for him to try to fix his attention on the paper. His attention was securely riveted there. He stared and stared at a report headed: “Street Robbery. Local Sportsman’s Loss.” Phrases leaped up to meet his eye: “The well-known local sportsman, Mr. George Jobley … returning to his home in Park Drive, Merton Park, Bruddersford, last night … Mr. Jobley had been attending various race-meetings … had left his friends to walk the short distance to his home … attacked and robbed … at least £120 missing … strange affair … most important street robbery in Bruddersford for years … Mr. Jobley not injured but some shock.” And the last sentence of all held his eye longest: “The police announce that they possess a valuable clue to the identity of the assailant.” What was this?

“ ’Ere, who’s this chap, George Jobley?” he demanded.

“That’s the bookie feller that’s been robbed,” replied Leonard. “I know him well by sight. He’s one o’ the lads.”

“What’s’e like?”

“Tallish feller with a red face. Always dressed in a check suit and spats. What’s up?”

“Nowt!” Mr. Oakroyd returned untruthfully. George! He stared at the report again. “The police announce that they possess a valuable clue …” Nay, but a hundred and twenty pounds! It had nothing to do with him, nothing at all. There were a thousand things a perfectly innocent citizen might do to clear himself, but now Mr. Oakroyd could not consider them, for his little world was shaking, collapsing, and now another prop had been kicked away. One thing coming on top of another!

As if to confirm this, a voice came roaring from the doorway. “Hello, hello, hello, hello! Ev’rybody at ’ome, and smilin’! Oh, I do like a kipper for my tea! What’o, Len! ’Evening, Mrs. Oakroyd!” And who could this be but Albert?

“Oh, my God!” And groaning thus, Mr. Oakroyd flung down his paper and rose to his feet.

“Hello, hello!” cried Albert, still loudly but this time indignantly. “What ’ave I done wrong?”

“Take no notice of ’im, Albert.” Mrs. Oakroyd gave her husband a furious glance, then, with an astonishing quick-change, smiled at her visitor. “Come in and sit yer down. You know you’re welcome. An’ another thing, if you want to stay ’ere, you can do.”

“Oh!” cried her husband. “And who says so?”

“I say so.”

“And so do I,” Leonard added truculently.

Mr. Oakroyd took a quick step towards his son, who immediately dropped his truculence and, indeed, seemed to flinch, like a very small boy. But then Mr. Oakroyd pulled himself up and stood still, a man at bay, thinking hard. The next moment he had dashed upstairs.

Once there he began looking about him eagerly. “I must ’a’ summat,” he muttered. There was a suitcase, Mrs. Oakroyd’s pride. No, he wouldn’t take that. There was the old round tin trunk. Too heavy and cumbersome. Then he remembered the basket thing, and pulled it out of the corner where it had been for the last fifteen years. It was very light and quite small, only eighteen inches long and a foot deep, and it would hold all he wanted to carry. Into this absurd receptacle—or at least one half of it, for the other half would have to be jammed on as a lid—he stuffed a nightshirt and day shirt, three collars and some handkerchiefs, a muffler, a vest and a pair of pants, and his shaving kit. When he had jammed on the top half, he bethought him of his old mackintosh, and folded it round the little basket trunk before he fastened it with the strap, which was still intact and boasted of a holder for the hand. Then he put on a pair of strong boots and hurried downstairs, basket in hand, to confront three astonished faces.

“What in the name o’ goodness—!” cried his wife.

“I’m off,” he announced.

“Where to?” asked Leonard, still staring. “Yer can’t go like that, Par. Where can you go to?”

“Never mind, never mind!” Mrs. Oakroyd was white with temper. “Let ’im go, let ’im go! Tryin’ ’is tricks! ’E won’t hear a word from me about stayin’. Let ’im go. ’E’ll be in a diff’rent frame o’ mind when ’e comes back. And that won’t be so long either.”

“You can do what you like wi’ t’place now,” said Mr. Oakroyd. “It’s yer own. There’s a week’s money there and no doubt you’ll manage after that.”

“Manage!” cried his wife, in a fury of scorn. “Of course we can manage. Nivver better off. You’ve been wanting a lesson some time and now you’re runnin’ to get it. Go on, go on.”

Mr. Oakroyd said nothing, but moved over to the sofa and took up his bag of tools, dumping it beside the basket trunk. Then he stuck his old brown cap at the back of his head, and prepared to depart.

“ ’Ere,” said Albert, pointing to the table. “What about that?”

“That’s right,” said Leonard. “You’ll ’ave to ’ave that.” And he held out the insurance card.

Mr. Oakroyd stood staring at the greenish-blue card in his hand, staring as if he were in a dream. Man—Age 16 to 65. … Failure to surrender this card promptly … If the Insured Person … The Insured Person … All so familiar and yet so strange. He stood staring, baffled, lost in the dark of a world of notices and notifying, of sneering Comrades and stupid autocratic managers, of buzzers that kept your feet from the road, of signs that could never be hoisted, of daughters that grew up, laughing and singing, and then vanished over the sea. Then something inside him flared and went shooting through this bewildered dark like a rocket, and Mr. Oakroyd committed a crime.

“Oh, to hell wi’ t’card!” he cried, and tore it across and threw the pieces into the fire. Then, leaving horror-stricken amazement behind him, he picked up his bag of tools and his little basket trunk and made for the door.

“Now you’ve done it,” they were crying. “Where yer going?”

“Down South,” he replied, and vanished into the night.