by H. G. Wells
He lay awake for nearly half an hour that night groaning because things had all gone wrong, because Ann wouldn't let him kiss her, and because his uncle had called her a brat. It seemed to Kipps almost as though he himself had called her a brat….
There came an interval during which Ann was altogether inaccessible. One, two, three days passed and he did not see her. Sid he met several times; they went fishing, and twice they bathed, but though Sid lent and received back two further love stories, they talked no more of love. They kept themselves in accord however, agreeing that the most flagrantly sentimental story was ‘proper.’ Kipps was always wanting to speak of Ann, and never daring to do so. He saw her on Sunday evening going off to chapel. She was more beautiful than ever in her Sunday clothes, but she pretended not to see him because her mother was with her. But he thought she pretended not to see him because she had given him up for ever. Brat! – who could be expected ever to forgive that? He abandoned himself to despair, he ceased even to haunt the places where she might be found….
With paralyzing unexpectedness came the end.
Mr Shalford, the draper at Folkestone 35 to whom he was to be bound apprentice, had expressed a wish to ‘shape the lad a bit’ before the autumn sale. Kipps became aware that his box was being packed, and gathered the full truth of things on the evening before his departure. He became feverishly eager to see Ann just once more. He made silly and needless excuses to go out into the yard, he walked three times across the street without any excuse at all to look up at the Pornick windows. Still she was hidden. He grew desperate. It was within half an hour of his departure that he came on Sid.
‘Hello!’ he said, ‘I'm orf!’
‘Business?’
‘Yes.’
Pause.
‘I say, Sid. You going ‘ome?’
‘Straight now.’
‘D'you mind—. Ask Ann about that.’
‘About what?’
‘She'll know.’
And Sid said he would. But even that, it seemed, failed to evoke Ann.
At last the Folkestone bus rumbled up, and he ascended. His aunt stood in the doorway to see him off. His uncle assisted with the box and portmanteau. 36 Only furtively could he glance up at the Pornick windows, and still it seemed Ann hardened her heart against him. ‘Get up!’ said the driver, and the hoofs began to clatter. No – she would not come out even to see him off. The bus was in motion, and old Kipps was going back into his shop. Kipps stared in front of him, assuring himself that he did not care.
He heard a door slam, and instantly craned out his neck to look back. He knew that slam so well. Behold! out of the haberdasher's door a small untidy figure in homely pink print had shot resolutely into the road and was sprinting in pursuit. In a dozen seconds she was abreast of the bus. At the sight of her Kipps' heart began to beat very quickly, but he made no immediate motion of recognition.
‘Artie!’ she cried breathlessly. ‘Artie! Artie! You know! I got that!’
The bus was already quickening its pace and leaving her behind again, when Kipps realized what ‘that’ meant. He became animated, he gasped, and gathered his courage together and mumbled an incoherent request to the driver to ‘stop jest a jiff for sunthin.’ The driver grunted, as the disparity of their years demanded, and then the bus had pulled up and Ann was below.
She leapt up upon the wheel. Kipps looked down into Ann's face, and it was foreshortened and resolute. He met her eyes just for one second as their hands touched. He was not a reader of eyes. Something passed quickly from hand to hand, something that the driver, alert at the corner of his eye, was not allowed to see. Kipps hadn't a word to say, and all she said was, ‘I done it, smorning.’ It was like a blank space in which something pregnant should have been written and wasn't. Then she dropped down, and the bus moved forward.
After the lapse of about ten seconds, it occurred to him to stand and wave his new bowler hat at her over the corner of the bus top, and to shout hoarsely, ‘Goo’-bye, Ann! Don't forget me – while I'm away!’
She stood in the road looking after him, and presently she waved her hand.
He remained standing unstably, his bright flushed face looking back at her and his hair fluffing in the wind, and he waved his hat until at last the bend of the road hid her from his eyes. Then he turned about and sat down, and presently he began to put the half-sixpence he held clenched in his hand into his trouser pocket. He looked sideways at the driver to judge how much he had seen.
Then he fell a-thinking. He resolved that, come what might, when he came back to New Romney at Christmas, he would, by hook or by crook, kiss Ann.
Then everything would be perfect and right, and he would be perfectly happy.
CHAPTER THE SECOND
THE EMPORIUM
§ 1
When Kipps left New Romney, with a small yellow tin box, a still smaller portmanteau, a new umbrella, and a keepsake half-sixpence, to become a draper, he was a youngster of fourteen, thin, with whimsical drakes'-tails1 at the poll of his head, smallish features, and eyes that were sometimes very light and sometimes very dark, gifts those of his birth; and by the nature of his training he was indistinct in his speech, confused in his mind, and retreating in his manners. Inexorable fate had appointed him to serve his country in commerce, and the same national bias towards private enterprise and leaving bad alone, which had left his general education to Mr Woodrow, now indentured him firmly into the hands of Mr Shalford of the Folkestone Drapery Bazaar. Apprenticeship is still the recognized English way to the distributing branch of the social service. If Mr Kipps had been so unfortunate as to have been born a German2 he might have been educated in an elaborate and costly special school (‘over-educated – crammed up’ – old Kipps) to fit him for his end – such being their pedagogic way. He might—. But why make unpatriotic reflections in a novel? There was nothing pedagogic about Mr Shalford.
He was an irascible, energetic little man with hairy hands, for the most part under his coat-tails, a long shiny bald head, a pointed aquiline nose a little askew, and a neatly trimmed beard. He walked lightly and with a confident jerk, and he was given to humming. He had added to exceptional business ‘push,’ bankruptcy under the old dispensation,3 and judicious matrimony. His establishment was now one of the most considerable in Folkestone, and he insisted on every inch of frontage by alternate stripes of green and yellow down the houses over the shops. His shops were numbered 3,5, and 7 on the street, and on his bill-heads 3 to 7. He encountered the abashed and awe-stricken Kipps with the praises of his System and himself. He spread himself out behind his desk with a grip on the lapel of his coat and made Kipps a sort of speech. ‘We expect y'r to work, y'r know, and we expect y'r to study our interests,’ explained Mr Shalford, in the regal and commercial plural. ‘Our System here is the best system y'r could have. I made it, and I ought to know. I began at the very bottom of the ladder when I was fourteen, and there isn't a step in it I don't know. Not a step. Mr Booch in the desk will give y'r the card of rules and fines. Jest wait a minute.’ He pretended to be busy with some dusty memoranda under a paper-weight, while Kipps stood in a sort of paralysis of awe regarding his new master's oval baldness. ‘Two thous'n three forty-seven pounds,’ whispered Mr Shalford, audibly, feigning forgetfulness of Kipps. Clearly a place of great transactions!
Mr Shalford rose, and, handing Kipps a blotting-pad and an inkpot to carry, mere symbols of servitude, for he made no use of them, emerged into a counting-house where three clerks had been feverishly busy ever since his door-handle had turned. ‘Booch,’ said Mr Shalford, ‘ave y'r copy of the Rules?’ and a down-trodden, shabby little old man, with a ruler in one hand and a quill pen in his mouth, silently held out a small book with green and yellow covers, mainly devoted, as Kipps presently discovered, to a voracious system of Fines. He became acutely aware that his hands were full and that everybody was staring at him. He hesitated a moment before putting the inkpot down to free a hand.
‘Mustn't fumb
le like that,’ said Mr Shalford as Kipps pocketed the Rules. ‘Won't do here. Come along, come along,’ cocked his coat-tails high, as a lady might hold up her dress, and led the way into the shop.
A vast interminable place it seemed to Kipps, with unending shining counters and innumerable faultlessly dressed young men and, presently, Houri-like4 young women staring at him. Here there was a long vista of gloves dangling from overhead rods, there ribbons and baby-linen. A short young lady in black mittens was making out the account of a customer, and was clearly confused in her addition by Shalford's eagle eye.
A thick-set young man with a bald head and a round, very wise face, who was profoundly absorbed in adjusting all the empty chairs down the counter to absolutely equal distances, awoke out of his preoccupation and answered respectfully to a few Napoleonic5 and quite unnecessary remarks from his employer. Kipps was told that this young man's name was Mr Buggins, and that he was to do whatever Mr Buggins told him to do.
They came round a corner into a new smell, which was destined to be the smell of Kipps' life for many years, the vague distinctive smell of Manchester goods.6 A fat man with a large nose jumped – actually jumped – at their appearance, and began to fold a pattern of damask in front of him exactly like an automaton that is suddenly set going. ‘Carshot, see to this boy to-morrow,’ said the master. ‘See he don't fumble. Smart'n im up.’
‘Yussir,’ said Carshot fatly, glanced at Kipps, and resumed his pattern-folding with extreme zeal.
‘Whatever Mr Carshot says y'r to do, ye do,’ said Mr Shalford, trotting onward; and Carshot blew out his face with an appearance of relief.
They crossed a large room full of the strangest things Kipps had ever seen. Ladylike figures, surmounted by black wooden knobs in the place of the refined heads one might have reasonably expected, stood about with a lifelike air of conscious fashion. ‘Costume Room,’ said Shalford. Two voices engaged in some sort of argument – ‘I can assure you, Miss Mergle, you are entirely mistaken – entirely, in supposing I should do anything so unwomanly,’ – sank abruptly, and they discovered two young ladies, taller and fairer than any of the other young ladies, and with black trains to their dresses, who were engaged in writing at a little table. Whatever they told him to do Kipps gathered he was to do. He was also, he understood, to do whatever Carshot and Booch told him to do. And there were also Buggins and Mr Shalford. And not to forget or fumble!
They descended into a cellar called ‘The Warehouse,’ and Kipps had an optical illusion of errand-boys fighting. Some aërial voice said ‘Teddy!’ and the illusion passed. He looked again, and saw quite clearly that they were packing parcels, and always would be, and that the last thing in the world that they would or could possibly do was to fight. Yet he gathered from the remarks Mr Shalford addressed to their busy backs that they had been fighting – no doubt at some past period of their lives.
Emerging in the shop again among a litter of toys and what are called ‘fancy articles,’ Shalford withdrew a hand from beneath his coat-tails to indicate an overhead change carrier. He entered into elaborate calculations to show how many minutes in one year were saved thereby, and lost himself among the figures. ‘Seven turns eight seven nine – was it? Or seven eight nine? Now, now! Why, when I was a boy your age I c'd do a sum like that as soon as hear it. We'll soon get y'r into better shape than that. Make you Fishent. Well, y'r must take my word it comes to pounds and pounds saved in the year pounds and pounds. System! System everywhere. Fishency.’ He went on murmuring ‘Fishency’ and ‘System’ at intervals for some time. They passed into a yard, and Mr Shalford waved his hand to his three delivery vans, all striped green and yellow – ‘uniform – green, yell'r – System.’ All over the premises were pinned absurd little cards, ‘This door locked after 7.30. By order, Edwin Shalford,’ and the like.
Mr Shalford always wrote ‘By Order,’ though it conveyed no earthly meaning to him. He was one of those people who collect technicalities upon them as the Reduvius bug collects dirt.7 He was the sort of man who is not only ignorant but absolutely incapable of English. When he wanted to say he had a sixpenny-ha ‘penny longcloth8 to sell, he put it thus to startled customers: ‘Can DO you one, six-half, if y’ like.’ He always omitted pronouns and articles and so forth; it seemed to him the very essence of the efficiently business-like. His only preposition was ‘as’ or the compound ‘as per.’ He abbreviated every word he could; he would have considered himself the laughing-stock of Wood Street if he had chanced to spell socks in any way but ‘sox.’ But, on the other hand, if he saved words here he wasted them there; he never acknowledged an order that was not an esteemed favour, nor sent a pattern without begging to submit it. He never stipulated for so many months' credit, but bought in November ‘as Jan.’ It was not only words he abbreviated in his London communications. In paying his wholesalers his ‘System’ admitted of a constant error in the discount of a penny or twopence, and it ‘facilitated business,’ he alleged, to ignore odd pence in the cheques he wrote. His ledger clerk was so struck with the beauty of this part of the System that he started a private one on his own account with the stamp-box that never came to Shalford's knowledge.
This admirable British merchant would glow with a particu-ar pride of intellect when writing his London orders.
‘Ah! do y'r think you'll ever be able to write London orders?’ he would say with honest pride to Kipps, waiting impatiently long after closing-time to take these triumphs of commercial efficiency to post, and so end the interminable day.
Kipps shook his head, anxious for Mr Shalford to get on.
‘Now, here, f'example, I've written – see? “i piece 1 in. cott blk elas I/or”; what do I mean by that or – eh? d‘ye know?’
Kipps promptly hadn't the faintest idea.
‘And then, “2 ea silk net as per patts herewith”; ea – eh?’
‘Dunno, sir.’
It was not Mr Shalford's way to explain things. ‘Dear, dear! Pity you couldn't get some c'mercial education at your school. ‘Stid of all this lit'ry stuff. Well, my boy, if y'r not a bit sharper, y'll never write London orders, that's pretty plain. Jest stick stamps on all those letters, and mind y'r stick ‘em right way up, and try and profit a little more by the opportunities your aunt and uncle have provided ye. Can't say what'll happen t‘ye if ye don't.’
And Kipps, tired, hungry, and belated, set about stamping with vigour and despatch.
‘Lick the envelope,’ said Mr Shalford, ‘lick the envelope,’ as though he grudged the youngster the postage-stamp gum. ‘It's the little things mount up,’ he would say; and indeed that was his philosophy of life – to hustle and save, always to hustle and save. His political creed linked Reform, which meant nothing, with Peace and Economy, which meant a sweated9 expenditure, and his conception of a satisfactory municipal life was to ‘keep down the rates.’ Even his religion was to save his soul, and to preach a similar cheeseparing to the world.
§ 2
The indentures that bound Kipps to Mr Shalford were antique and complex; they insisted on the latter gentleman's parental privileges, they forbade Kipps to dice and game, they made him over, body and soul, to Mr Shalford for seven long years, the crucial years of his life. In return there were vague stipulations about teaching the whole art and mystery of the trade to him, but as there was no penalty attached to negligence, Mr Shalford, being a sound practical business man, considered this a mere rhetorical flourish, and set himself assiduously to get as much out of Kipps and to put as little into him as he could in the seven years of their intercourse.
What he put into Kipps was chiefly bread and margarine, infusions of chicory10 and tea-dust, colonial meat by contract at threepence a pound, potatoes by the sack, and watered beer. If, however, Kipps chose to buy any supplementary material for growth, Mr Shalford had the generosity to place his kitchen resources at his disposal free – if the fire chanced to be going. He was also allowed to share a bedroom with eight other young men, and to sleep in a bed wh
ich, except in very severe weather, could be made, with the help of his overcoat and private under-linen, not to mention newspapers, quite sufficiently warm for any reasonable soul. In addition, Kipps was taught the list of fines, and how to tie up parcels; to know where goods were kept in Mr Shalford's systematized shop, to hold his hands extended upon the counter, and to repeat such phrases as ‘What can I have the pleasure—?’ No trouble, I ‘ssure you,’ and the like; to block, fold, and measure materials of all sorts, to lift his hat from his head when he passed Mr Shalford abroad, and to practise a servile obedience to a large number of people. But he was not, of course, taught the ‘cost’ mark11 of the goods he sold, nor anything of the method of buying such goods. Nor was his attention directed to the unfamiliar social habits and fashions to which his trade ministered. The use of half the goods he saw sold and was presently to assist in selling he did not understand; materials for hangings, cretonnes, chintzes, and the like; serviettes, and all the bright hard whitewear of a well-ordered house; pleasant dress materials, linings, stiffenings; they were to him from first to last no more than things, heavy and difficult to handle in bulk, that one folded up, unfolded, cut into lengths, and saw dwindle and pass away out into that mysterious happy world in which the Customer dwells. Kipps hurried from piling linen table-cloths, that were, collectively, as heavy as lead, to eat off oil-cloth in a gas-lit dining-room underground, and beneath his overcoat, spare undershirt, and three newspapers he dreamt of combing endless blankets. So he had at least the chance of learning the beginnings of philosophy.
In return for these benefits he worked so that he commonly went to bed exhausted and footsore. His round began at half-past six in the morning, when he would descend, unwashed and shirtless, in old clothes and a scarf, and dust boxes and yawn, and take down wrappers and clean the windows until eight. Then in half an hour he would complete his toilet, and take an austere breakfast of bread and margarine and what only an Imperial Englishman would admit to be coffee, after which refreshment he ascended to the shop for the labours of the day. Commonly these began with a mighty running to and fro with planks and boxes and goods for Carshot the window-dresser, who, whether he worked well or ill, nagged persistently, by reason of a chronic indigestion, until the window was done. Sometimes the costume window had to be dressed, and then Kipps staggered down the whole length of the shop from the costume-room with one after another of those ladylike shapes grasped firmly but shamefully each about her single ankle of wood. Such days as there was no window-dressing there was a mighty carrying and lifting of blocks and bales of goods into piles and stacks. After this there were terrible exercises, at first almost despairfully difficult; certain sorts of goods that came in folded had to be rolled upon rollers, and for the most part refused absolutely to be rolled, at any rate by Kipps; certain other sorts of goods that came from the wholesalers rolled had to be measured and folded, and folding makes young apprentices wish they were dead. All of it, too, quite avoidable trouble, you know, that is not avoided because of the cheapness of the genteeler sorts of labour and the dearness of forethought in the world. And then consignments of new goods had to be marked off and packed into paper parcels, and Carshot packed like conjuring tricks, and Kipps packed like a boy with tastes in some other direction – not ascertained. And always Carshot nagged—.