She opened the gate for him. “What you
can see in it!” she murmured.
He said, “Oh, well!”
But on the following day he was surprised and intensely
pleased to see his champion peg gleaming white in
the sunshine. Mabel was in the morning room,
sewing.
“Hullo, sewing? I say, did you paint my
peg? How jolly nice of you!”
She looked up. “Your peg? Whatever
do you mean?”
“That record distance peg of mine. Painted
it white, haven’t you?”
“No, I didn’t paint it!”
“Who the dickens—? Well, I’ll
just wash my hands. Not had tea, have you?
Good.”
When Low Jinks came to his room with hot water—a
detail of the perfect appointment of the house under
Mabel’s management was her rule that Rebecca
always came to the door for the master’s bicycle,
handed him the brush for his shoes and trousers, and
then took hot water to his room—he asked
her, “I say, Low Jinks, did you paint that peg
of mine?”
Low Jinks coloured and spoke apologetically:
“Well, I thought it would show up better, sir.
There was a drop of whitewash in—”
“By Jove, it does. It looks like a regular
winning-post. Jolly nice of you, Low.”
Two months afterwards the bicycle did the worst on
record. This was a surprising affair; the runs
had recently been excitingly good; and when Low Jinks
came out to take the bicycle he greeted her: “I
say, Low Jinks, I only got just up to Mr. Fargus’s
gate just now. Worst I’ve ever done.”
Low Jinks was enormously concerned. “Well!
I never did!” exclaimed Low Jinks. “If
those bicycles aren’t just things! You’ll
want a peg for that, sir. Like you had one for
the best.”
“That’s an idea, Low. What about
painting it?”
“Oh, I will, sir!”
But he did not mention the new record to Mabel.
The other end of the daily bicycle ride, the Tidborough
end, provided no feats of cycling interest. The
extremely narrow, cobbled thoroughfare in which the
offices of Fortune, East and Sabre were situated usually
caused Sabre’s approach to them to be made on
foot, wheeling his machine.
Fortune, East and Sabre, Ecclesiastical and Scholastic
Furnishers and Designers, had in Tidborough what is
called, in business and professional circles, a good
address. A good address for a metropolitan money
lender is the West End in the neighbourhood of Bond
Street; a good address for a solicitor is Bloomsbury
in the neighbourhood of Bedford Square: for an
architect Westminster in the neighbourhood of Victoria
Street, for commerce the City in the neighbourhood
of the Bank. The idea is that, though clothes
do not make the man, a good address makes, or rather
bestows the reputation, and conveys the impression
that the owner of the good address, being in that
neighbourhood, is not within many thousands of miles
(or pounds) of the neighbourhood of Bankruptcy.
