by Gerald Kersh
Trew never forgave Middleton for the humiliations of that terrible morning. They had always been close friends, and continued to meet every lunch-hour. Trew cracked five hundred more successful jokes, and Middleton never cracked another. Still, Trew could not forget that Middleton had murdered his joke – cut the throat of his child.
But he was so discreet in his hate that Middleton continued to think of Trew as his best friend.
* * * * *
An aspiring clown’s best friend is the man that laughs longest and most constantly at his jokes. The time had been when Trew could not sneeze – he had a highly humorous sneeze – without choking his friend with laughter. Middleton was a sponge out of which he could squeeze tears of joy on any occasion. Since they had lodgings in the same shabby square, Wheeler Square off the Gray’s Inn Road, they made a point of meeting every morning at half-past eight and, on fine days, walked together to the City, where they parted reluctantly and went to their offices, to meet again in the lunch-hour, when they generally arranged to stroll home together at five o’clock. Middleton was an excellent companion for Trew: it was impossible to hurt his feelings. If you pulled away his chair just before he sat down, he would begin to laugh before he hit the floor.
But then Middleton fell in love with a pretty brown-haired waitress who worked in a restaurant where they used to eat an eighteen-penny lunch every Friday, when they had their pay envelopes in their pocket and felt prosperous.
Now Trew became grave and anxious, and gave his friend a great deal of good advice. “Look here, old man, I’m a little older than you . . .”
“Four years, Trewie, old boy. You’re only thirty.”
“I know a bit about life, you know, old man. Don’t be a mug, Middy. Laugh it off, laugh it off, old man. I know women – there’s nothing to ’em. They drag a man down. You and your Love’s Young Dream! Get out! Where does it get you?”
He was unpleasantly surprised when Middleton replied, with a certain asperity: “I don’t know and I don’t care, old boy. You and your gay bachelor life, where does that get you?”
“Good Lord, you’re not going to tell me you want to marry the girl!”
“What did you think I wanted to do with the girl, may I ask, old boy?”
“No, but I mean to say, old man,” said Trew, shocked. “A waitress!”
“Would you mind telling me what’s the matter with being a waitress? It’s an honest living, isn’t it?”
“Well, old man, so is sweeping the streets . . . and that reminds me. Did you hear the one about the two sparrows——?”
“ – No, I didn’t, Trewie, and with all due respect I don’t want to!” cried Middleton, astonishing his friend with an unprecedented flash of anger. “What were you saying about street sweepers? Do you mind repeating?”
“I only said it was an honest living. Keep your hair on, old man.”
“Never mind about my hair, old boy. Look after your own hair” – this was a hit, because Trew’s light, colourless hair was already thinning on top – “Louisa and I are going to get married, Trewie, and I won’t hear a word said against her!”
“But, old man, I was only speaking for your own good. How can you go and get married on four pounds a week? Answer me that.”
“Louisa says . . . Well, anyway, we’ll manage.”
“Got any money saved up?”
“I’ve got about sixteen pounds left in the bank out of what Mother left. We could start off with just two rooms . . . get the furniture on the never-never system. I won’t always be earning four pounds a week.”
Trew asked: “What about your rich uncle?”
Middleton had sometimes talked rather wistfully of his Uncle Joseph, his father’s brother, who had gone to Australia at an early age and made a fortune out of wool. His mother had made a point of sending an expensive greeting card with a carefully chosen message in verse every Christmas – a practice which he had continued, by habit rather than hope. Trew, of course, had made a joke out of it.
Mr. Joseph Hugh Middleton lived in a place called Wagga-Wagga. For months after he saw the address, Trew greeted Middleton with a joyous bark, shaking his hind quarters, and saying “Wagga-Wagga, old man, Wagga-Wagga!”
“No harm in trying,” said Middleton and he wrote a long, affectionate letter to his uncle, who did not reply. So, romantically penniless, he married Louisa at Caxton Hall. Trew was best man, very spruce in a light grey suit with a pink carnation which squirted water into Middleton’s face when, after a pressing invitation, he stooped to smell it.
The bride and groom went to live in two rooms (with use of kitchen and bath) on the fourth floor of the same house in which Middleton had lived alone and unattached when he was a bachelor. Middleton carried her over the threshold, and they were happy.
But there came a pay-day two or three months later, when the friends met at lunch-time in a tea-shop and Trew ordered steak and kidney pie, fried potatoes, cabbage, bread-and-butter, boiled golden roll, and a large cup of coffee; while Middleton ordered a crust of bread-and-butter and a cup of tea.
“Lost your appetite? Falling in love again?” asked Trew, as if he did not know.
“I’m not very hungry, thanks, old boy,” said Middleton, picking up stray crumbs.
They were alone that afternoon. Trew said: “Look, old man, I’m broke myself, but I could lend you four or five bob till the middle of next week if you like.”
“Oh no, thanks all the same, Trewie old boy; I’m very much obliged to you for the offer, but I wouldn’t dream of borrowing where I couldn’t be sure of repaying.”
“Why, poor old man! Bad as all that?”
Middleton said: “Well . . . there was the down payment on the furniture, and a new suit, and a few flowers for Louie. The ring was an item, too . . . and, you know, a little present . . . a little wrist-watch, you know, and so we started housekeeping on a capital of five pounds ten.” He smiled wryly. “. . . Well, the rent’s a bit high, of course, and then there’s gas. A pound a month to pay off for the furniture. All kinds of little items – you know, things like soap, furniture polish – Louie’s proud of that furniture – needles, washing, thread, boot polish. And then again you’ve got to get your shoes mended, and get your hair cut. And shoe-laces, and metal polish. You can’t help it if a cup gets broken, or a plate – it mounts up, Trewie old boy, it mounts up like the devil. You have to get your suit cleaned once in a while, however careful you may be: and there goes three-and-sixpence! I’ve cut out smoking, it’s true . . . but there’s hairpins, darning wool. If it rains, as you know, old boy, a man’s got to take a bus. Newspapers, of course, a man can do without. But sometimes a girl must go and get herself all sorts of little things. . . . I mean a bit of face powder; that kind of stuff, etcetera etcetera. Things don’t last for ever, Trewie old boy. Take stockings; take underclothes. All in all, you need to economise, go easy, because apart from everything else you’ve got to eat, haven’t you? . . . Oh I don’t mean stuffing yourself up with meat and stuff in the middle of the day, which only makes you sleepy. I mean you’ve got to keep body and soul together. You know what I mean? But Louie’s a wonderful manager – marvellous! You ought to see her shopping! She can make one shilling do the work of five – honestly, I give you my word, old boy.”
“Couldn’t she get a job, just to help out for the time being?” asked Trew.
Middleton blushed, and said: “Well, I mean, job! . . . Run her legs off being a waitress, or in Woolworth’s for a few shillings a week? I don’t like the idea of it. Besides, Trewie old boy, Louie and I half believe that we’re going to – as man to man, Trewie – have a baby.”
“No!” said Trew, staring. “No!”
“Why ‘no’ in that tone of voice, Trewie?” asked Middleton, irritably.
“I was just thinking of you, that’s all, old man. Well, you can’t say I didn’t warn you, old man,” said Trew.
Middleton’s temper was uncertain this morning. He snapp
ed: “Warn me? What d’you mean? D’you suppose I have any regrets, or what?”
“Don’t put words into my mouth, Middy old man!”
“ – Well, I haven’t!” said Middleton.
“Laugh it off, laugh it off.”
“I won’t laugh anything off, Trewie, and I have not got one iota of regret,” said Middleton, snapping his fingers.
They parted with a handshake before two o’clock. Trew went his way with a malevolent inward chuckle. Middleton strode into his office, taut with screwed-up resolution. He was admitted to the general manager’s room.
“Well?” said the general manager.
Middleton’s fingers were numb, his nails were breaking; his courage, like a wet sail, was flapping away in a black wind, and an unfathomable gulf foamed below; but he found strength to say: “Mr. Mawson – sir. I hope you are satisfied with my work here——”
“You do your work, and are paid for it, I believe, Middleton?” said Mr. Mawson, who knew what was coming.
“Yes, sir,” said Middleton. “But I’m a married man, sir, and I thought——”
“Married? What do you mean?” said Mr. Mawson.
“I’m a married man, sir,” said Middleton, pale but still resolute. “And I hoped that you might see your way clear——”
“ – Excuse me, Middleton. How long have you been married?”
“Three months, sir; and——”
Mr. Mawson said: “But if I remember rightly, your salary is in the region of two hundred pounds a year, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir. That is why——”
“Excuse me, Middleton. How could you think of getting married on two hundred a year? Your wife has a little money of her own, no doubt?”
“No, sir, and so I hoped——”
Middleton did not know how to put things into words. All but one frayed handful of courage had gone fluttering down into the gulf. “ – I hoped that you might see your way clear to raising my salary a little, sir,” he said.
Mr. Mawson looked at him steadily, shaking his head slowly, and said with terrible deliberation: “Middleton. You have been with us for quite a while, I believe.”
“Yes, sir. Nearly ten years, sir – since I was sixteen, sir.”
“And your salary has been increased according to our system of annual increments, I think. You are now . . . how old?”
“Nearly twenty-six and a half, sir.”
“Now look here, Mr. Middleton; I’m surprised at you. I’m disappointed in you. At your age, with the whole world before you, you get married on two hundred a year! And what if there should be little ones?”
“I’m afraid – I mean I hope – I think there are . . . there is going to be,” said Middleton.
“Just as I said! Middleton, I like my little team of assistants to come and tell me their little troubles. But I think you have been rash, very rash. You must realise, of course, that you have prejudiced your entire career. I have had confidence in you, Middleton. How am I to have confidence in you in the future? Do you realise that some of the greatest banks in the world do not allow their clerks to marry until they have attained certain positions of responsibility? And rightly so! A young man in a position of trust is unsettled by family responsibilities. He is more easily tempted than a young man without responsibilities. You, Middleton, in the mail order department, are in much the same situation as the cashier of a bank. Middleton, I’m glad you told me of this marriage of yours. Pity, pity, pity . . .”
Middleton said: “Mr. Mawson, sir! If you feel that I am not to be trusted, just because I happen to be married——”
Then his throat closed, and he had to swallow to get it open, while he blew his nose hard to ease a certain pressure at the back of his eyes.
“God forbid, Middleton! I am glad that you have been candid enough to make a clean breast of it,” said Mr. Mawson.
“Sir, excuse me – I wasn’t making a clean breast of anything,” said Middleton. “I thought that since I’d been with you so long, you might find it convenient, all things considered, to raise my salary——”
The general manager shook his head, and said: “Quite out of the question. Not within my power to do it, even if I wanted to, Middleton. You should have controlled yourself, Middleton, you should have played the man. I was forty before I thought of marriage.”
“Yes, sir,” said Middleton, and then a high-pitched buzzer sounded. Mr. Mawson turned to a little oblong box bristling with levers grouped about a hole covered with gauze. He knocked down one of the levers and a voice, strained thin through the gauze, said: “Oh Mr. Mawson, Mrs. Mawson is here to see you.”
The general manager changed colour and said: “Ask Mrs. Mawson if she wouldn’t mind waiting just a moment,” and snapped the lever back. “. . . So, Middleton, you’d better get back to your work. I’m sorry if you’re in trouble, but you have no one but yourself to blame. That will be all.”
“Yes sir.”
“ – Oh, one other thing, Middleton. I know that young men who have been foolish enough to place themselves in your position are frequently foolish enough to get even deeper into the mire – buy things they can’t pay for, fall into the hands of moneylenders. I don’t say you’re as foolish as all that, but I give you fair warning; if I hear of your doing any such thing, you leave this office at a second’s notice. You know Lord Herring’s sentiments. Go along now. On your way out ask Mrs. Mawson if she’ll kindly step in, will you?”
“Yes, sir.”
But Mrs. Mawson did not wait to be asked; she shouldered Middleton aside and went right in. He caught a glimpse of a massive, elderly woman with the jowls and bulging eyes of an old white bulldog; her head was thrown back so that she might have been straining to balance a preposterous little hat on her powdery forehead. Then the door slammed, and Middleton went back to his desk, his throat tight, his eyes hot; perilously near tears.
The firm of Coulton Utilities manufactured, or caused to be manufactured, almost everything a housewife needs – kitchen cabinets, enamel-top tables, ironing boards, blankets, sheets, canteens of cutlery, brass-plated fire-irons, carving sets, washing machines – all the dreary, necessary paraphernalia of the pinched, half-hungry household. Coulton Utilities also conducted a prosperous mail-order hire-purchase clothing business: you sent sixpence in stamps for a Measure Yourself Chart, a Fashion Book (“State whether Ladies or Gents”), a book of patterns, a free tape-measure, and a hire-purchase form. Coulton Utilities managed to make a profit even on the bait, since the whole envelopeful, postage and overheads included, cost them exactly fourpence farthing. Thus they sold hundreds of thousands of suits of ladies’ and gents’ outfits, on the easiest of easy terms. A million hard-working, hard-up readers of the advertisements in the Sunday papers were still half-heartedly paying the two shillings a week that had seemed so little in the first flush of enthusiasm, months after their suits, costumes, and overcoats were worn out.
At the same time the president of Coulton Utilities, Lord Herring, a staunch Baptist, sternly warned his employees that they had better not get into debt. Debt led to worry, and worry to loss of concentration; loss of concentration led to day-dreaming; day-dreaming led to the loss of your job, and so, by easy stages to hunger, theft, murder, the gallows, and hell. Every month he sent to every one of his twenty-five hundred employees a little printed sermon full of good advice and biblical references, and pregnant with thinly-veiled menace. A man who let himself be persuaded to buy an article for which he was not absolutely sure he could pay was a weakling and a cheat, said Lord Herring. Also, he was a coward, because in trying to buy what he could not afford to buy, he was cringing away from his duty as a private soldier in the battle of life. He was guilty of cowardice in the face of the enemy; and soldiers in battle are put to death for that. To sum up: weaklings fall by the wayside, and perish; thieves go to prison, and sink lower and lower until they murder and are hanged; cowards are shot. “The Wages of Debt is Death,” said Lord Her
ring, in one of the best-worded of his monthly sermons.
“Liars and hypocrites!” thought Middleton as he cut the string that bound one of the bundles of letters on his desk. The bundle – two hundred tightly-bound sealed envelopes – jerked upwards and over, opening like a concertina. The music, the agonised wailing of that paper concertina, was yet to come. Middleton knew that more than half of the letters contained postal orders. Last Sunday Coulton Utilities had advertised another bargain, not to be missed. Don’t delay, write to-day – for a twenty-three-piece genuine MacLennan tea service, genuine willow pattern, only ten shillings post free! He knew that the lid of the teapot was included as a “piece”.
All over the country housewives would be rushing out to look for the parcel-post. Here were God knows how many pinched pennies of pin-money, saved for little surprises, or bits of finery.
Middleton knew how it went: on Sunday afternoon the tired woman sits down to read the paper for the first time in seven days, easing her poor old feet; she sees the Coulton Utilities advertisement, with the cut depicting a family sitting down to tea at a table covered with fine china. The husband, comfortable and happy, sits at one end of the table. She, young and gay, pours tea from a pretty teapot at the other end. A sturdy son and a pretty daughter and a couple of hale and hearty grandparents sit in their places, smiling in anticipation. Somewhere in the background a cosy fire burns bright. . . . Free Offer – Real Stamped Willow Pattern Tray. . . . And that settles it! Out come two-shilling-pieces squeezed down out of twenty-four pennies, worn shillings, smooth sixpences, and silver threepenny bits that appear no bigger than drops of sweat and evaporate faster. One morning the poor woman goes to the post office, changes her silver for a paper postal order, fills in the coupon, scrapes up the price of a stamp to mail it; and waits, dreaming of something pretty for the house.