“I shan’t want dinner,” Polly remarked
in an off-hand way as she moved towards the door.
“Going to see Mrs. Clover?” Gammon inquired.
“I’m sick of going there. It’s
always the same talk.”
“Wait till your ’usband runs away
from you and stays away for five years,” said
Mrs. Bubb with a renewal of anger, “and then
see what you find to talk about.”
Polly laughed and went away humming.
“If it wasn’t that I feel afraid for her,”
continued Mrs. Bubb in a lower voice, “I’d
give that young woman notice to quit. Her cheek’s
getting past everything. Did you see her gold
watch and chain?”
“Yes, I did; where does it come from?”
“That’s more than I can tell you,
Mr. Gammon. I don’t want to think ill of
the girl, but there’s jolly queer goin’s-on.
And she’s so brazen about it! I don’t
know what to think.”
Gammon knitted his brows and gazed round the kitchen.
“I think Polly’s straight,” he observed
at length. “I don’t seem to notice
anything wrong with her except her cheek and temper.
She’ll have to be taken down a peg one of these
days, but I don’t envy the man that’ll
have the job. It won’t be me, for certain,”
he added with a laugh.
Moggie came into the room, bringing a telegram.
“For me?” said Gammon. “Just
what I expected.” Reading, he broadened
his visage into a grin of infinite satisfaction. “’Please
explain absence. Hope nothing wrong.’
How kind of them, ain’t it! Yesterday they
chucked me; now they’re polite. Reply-paid
too; very considerate. They shall have their
reply.”
He laid the blank form on the table and wrote upon
it in pencil, every letter beautifully shaped in a
first-rate commercial hand:
“Go to Bath and get your heads shaved.”
“You ain’t a-goin’ to send that!”
exclaimed Mrs. Bubb, when he had held the message to
her for perusal.
“It’ll do them good. They’re
like Polly—want taking down a peg.”
Moggie ran off with the paper to the waiting boy,
and Mr. Gammon laughed for five minutes uproariously.
“Would you like a little bull-pup, Mrs. Bubb?
he asked at length.
“Not me, Mr. Gammon. I’ve enough
pups of my own, thank you all the same.”
THE CHINA SHOP
Mr. Gammon took his way down Kennington Road, walking
at a leisurely pace, smiting his leg with his doubled
dog-whip, and looking about him with his usual wideawake,
contented air. He had in perfection the art of
living for the moment, no art in his case, but a natural
characteristic, for which it never occurred to him
to be grateful. Indeed, it is a common characteristic
in the world to which Mr. Gammon belonged. He
and his like take what the heavens send them, grumbling
or rejoicing, but never reflecting upon their place
in the sum of things. To Mr. Gammon life was
a wonderfully simple matter. He had his worries
and his desires, but so long as he suffered neither
from headache nor stomach-ache, these things interfered
not at all with his enjoyment of a fine morning.
