Works of W. W. Jacobs

Home > Other > Works of W. W. Jacobs > Page 305
Works of W. W. Jacobs Page 305

by Jacobs, W. W.


  (Shouting.) Now then! You clear off; I’ve had about enough of it. The next man that shoves his head into my room will get it broken!

  (He closes the door, re-enters the room and sits down, choking.)

  (To JACK.) Three of ’em! Three of ’em!

  JACK. I wonder whether there’s enough money left to pay ’em all?

  EVANS (fiercely). That’s his look-out.

  (He rises and addresses FRED.)

  Look here! I’ve had enough of this. I think we can do without you, after all. I’ve no doubt you owe money all over England. You’re a cadger, that’s what you are. (He ‘produces FRED’S watch and chain, money, etc., and dumps them on the table.) Here you are. Take it and go.

  (FRED opens his mouth as though about to speak. Then slowly he takes the things from the table and crams them into his pocket. He stands looking from one to the other.)

  (Pointing.) There’s the door!

  (FRED blunders towards it.)

  JACK. And three of ’em waiting outside for you.

  NANCY (with gentle severity). Cheats never prosper.

  FRED (pausing at the door). Good-bye.

  NANCY (slowly). Good-bye. It’s your own fault, you know. If you hadn’t come here pretending to be Bert Simmons and calling me Nan, as if you had known me all your life, I wouldn’t have done it.

  FRED. It doesn’t matter. I wish I was Bert Simmons, that’s all. Good-bye.

  EVANS (listening in open-mouthed astonishment). Wish you was? Wish you was? Look here! Man to man — are you Bert Simmons or are — you — not?

  FRED. No.

  NANCY. Of course not. I told you he wasn’t.

  EVANS. Why did you come back and say you were, then?

  FRED (looking at NANCY). Because I thought I’d like to be.

  EVANS. And you didn’t owe that money I gave Wilson and Ben Prout?

  NANCY. Nobody owed it. I did it just to punish him.

  EVANS (roaring, as he goes to the door). I’ll have that money out of ’em if I have to turn ’em over and shake it out of their trouser pockets! You stay here. You, too, miss. I’ll talk to you when I come back. Come on, Jack!

  (He rushes out, followed by JACK.)

  NANCY (after a long pause). Well, you’ve got me into a nice mess.

  FEED. Never mind. Perhaps Bert Simmons will come back one day, and then you’ll be all right. No, that’s impossible; he can’t come back.

  NANCY. Can’t come back? Why not?

  FEED (solemnly). Because he’s dead.

  NANCY. Dead? How do you know?

  FEED. I’m certain of it.

  NANCY. Why?

  FEED. Why, because if he was alive he’d come back to you. Any man would. He couldn’t stay away.

  NANCY. I think you’re crazy.

  FEED (Softly). I wasn’t until I saw you.

  NANCY. H’m! Well, you’d better make the most of it; father’ll be back soon.

  FEED. I know, but this is the first day of my fortnight. (Musingly.) A hard-working, determined man can do a lot in a fortnight.

  NANCY. YOU won’t stay here. I can tell you that much.

  FEED. NO, but I shall be in the same town. That’s something. And perhaps I can call and see you.

  NANCY. I don’t think you will, then.

  FEED. Well, I can call and see your father. I’ve taken quite a fancy to him.

  NANCY. HOW nice! Perhaps you’d like to sit and hold his hand when you come?

  FEED (nodding). That’s a good idea. I shall close my eyes and try and think it’s yours.

  NANCY (hotly). Mine? Have you noticed the size of father’s hand?

  FEED. That doesn’t matter. I can imagine it’s yours easy enough. Look here! Sit down a moment.

  NANCY. What for?

  FEED. If you’ll sit down, you’ll see.

  (NANCY seats herself, scornfully. FEED takes a chair beside her.)

  NANCY. Well?

  FRED. It’s just a little experiment. I want to hold your hand and see if I can imagine it’s your father’s. Then if I can do that it’ll prove to me that I can imagine his hand is yours.

  NANCY. DO you think I’m as crazy as you are?

  FRED (wistfully). No, but I wish you were. But, of course, if you’re afraid to let me hold your hand —

  NANCY. Afraid!

  (She gives him her hand.)

  FRED (after a pause). No: I’m afraid the experiment has failed. I couldn’t possibly imagine that it is your father’s — or anybody’s but yours. It’s so soft and small, and — and —

  NANCY (derisively). Go on! Surely you haven’t finished yet.

  FRED (still holding her hand). I can think of a lot more if you will only give me time.

  (There is a long pause.)

  NANCY. Well?

  FRED. I shall think of the words in a minute; they’re just on the tip of my tongue. I hope your father won’t get into any trouble trying to get that money back.

  NANCY. Don’t you worry about father; he can look after himself all right.

  FRED. Yes, I suppose so; he looks strong. It’s curious that he and Jack took me for Bert Simmons, and you knew that I wasn’t. Pity it wasn’t the other way about. But life’s like that. (He sighs.) Look here! Why not close your eyes and try and think I’m Bert?

  NANCY (dryly). Couldn’t be done.

  FRED. Why not?

  NANCY. Because I know that Bert wouldn’t just sit holding my hand.

  FRED. Oh! He — he — he —

  NANCY. Well?

  FRED. He’d be a bit more venturesome, I suppose.

  NANCY (half-closing her eyes and speaking dreamily). He would.

  FRED (kissing her). Like that?

  NANCY (starting up and pulling her hand away). Well, of all the impudence! How dare you?

  (FRED rises as EVANS and JACK return.)

  EVANS (putting the money on the table). Here you are. I gave Prout a black eye for his lot, and... Hallo! What’s the matter?

  NANCY (dramatically). He — he kissed me!

  EVANS (calmly). Well, you must have given him some encouragement.

  NANCY (rising voice). Encouragement?

  EVANS. Yes, I know you, my gal. You wouldn’t be kissed unless you wanted to be.

  NANCY (breathlessly). O-oh!

  EVANS (nodding). Yes, you can say “Oh,” as much as you like.

  NANCY (loftily). I was taken by surprise — I never dreamt —— (She turns to FRED.) If you were a man you’d tell my father how you did it.

  (FRED puts his arm round NANCY’S waist, draws her head on to his shoulder, and, very slowly, kisses her.)

  FRED (turning to EVANS). Like this, sir.

  CURTAIN.

  The Delphi Classics Catalogue

  We are proud to present a listing of our complete catalogue of English titles, with new titles being added every month. Buying direct from our website means you can make great savings and take advantage of our instant Updates service. You can even purchase an entire series (Super Set) at a special discounted price.

  Only from our website can readers purchase the special Parts Edition of our Complete Works titles. When you buy a Parts Edition, you will receive a folder of your chosen author’s works, with each novel, play, poetry collection, non-fiction book and more divided into its own special volume. This allows you to read individual novels etc. and to know precisely where you are in an eBook. For more information, please visit our Parts Edition page.

  Series One

  Anton Chekhov

  Charles Dickens

  D.H. Lawrence

  Dickensiana Volume I

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Elizabeth Gaskell

  Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  George Eliot

  H. G. Wells

  Henry James

  Ivan Turgenev

  Jack London

  James Joyce

  Jane Austen

  Joseph Conrad

  Leo Tolstoy

  Louisa May Alcott

&nb
sp; Mark Twain

  Oscar Wilde

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

  Sir Walter Scott

  The Brontës

  Thomas Hardy

  Virginia Woolf

  Wilkie Collins

  William Makepeace Thackeray

  Series Two

  Alexander Pushkin

  Alexandre Dumas (English)

  Andrew Lang

  Anthony Trollope

  Bram Stoker

  Christopher Marlowe

  Daniel Defoe

  Edith Wharton

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  G. K. Chesterton

  Gustave Flaubert (English)

  H. Rider Haggard

  Herman Melville

  Honoré de Balzac (English)

  J. W. von Goethe (English)

  Jules Verne

  L. Frank Baum

  Lewis Carroll

  Marcel Proust (English)

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Nikolai Gogol

  O. Henry

  Rudyard Kipling

  Tobias Smollett

  Victor Hugo

  William Shakespeare

  Series Three

  Ambrose Bierce

  Ann Radcliffe

  Ben Jonson

  Charles Lever

  Émile Zola

  Ford Madox Ford

  Geoffrey Chaucer

  George Gissing

  George Orwell

  Guy de Maupassant

  H. P. Lovecraft

  Henrik Ibsen

  Henry David Thoreau

  Henry Fielding

  J. M. Barrie

  James Fenimore Cooper

  John Buchan

  John Galsworthy

  Jonathan Swift

  Kate Chopin

  Katherine Mansfield

  L. M. Montgomery

  Laurence Sterne

  Mary Shelley

  Sheridan Le Fanu

  Washington Irving

  Series Four

  Arnold Bennett

  Arthur Machen

  Beatrix Potter

  Bret Harte

  Captain Frederick Marryat

  Charles Kingsley

  Charles Reade

  G. A. Henty

  Edgar Rice Burroughs

  Edgar Wallace

  E. M. Forster

  E. Nesbit

  George Meredith

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Jerome K. Jerome

  John Ruskin

  Maria Edgeworth

  M. E. Braddon

  Miguel de Cervantes

  M. R. James

  R. M. Ballantyne

  Robert E. Howard

  Samuel Johnson

  Stendhal

  Stephen Crane

  Zane Grey

  Series Five

  Algernon Blackwood

  Anatole France

  Beaumont and Fletcher

  Charles Darwin

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton

  Edward Gibbon

  E. F. Benson

  Frances Hodgson Burnett

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  George Bernard Shaw

  George MacDonald

  Hilaire Belloc

  John Bunyan

  John Webster

  Margaret Oliphant

  Maxim Gorky

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Radclyffe Hall

  Robert W. Chambers

  Samuel Butler

  Samuel Richardson

  Sir Thomas Malory

  Thomas Carlyle

  William Harrison Ainsworth

  William Dean Howells

  William Morris

  Series Six

  Anthony Hope

  Aphra Behn

  Arthur Morrison

  Baroness Emma Orczy

  Captain Mayne Reid

  Charlotte M. Yonge

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  E. W. Hornung

  Ellen Wood

  Frances Burney

  Frank Norris

  Frank R. Stockton

  Hall Caine

  Horace Walpole

  One Thousand and One Nights

  R. Austin Freeman

  Rafael Sabatini

  Saki

  Samuel Pepys

  Sir Issac Newton

  Stanley J. Weyman

  Thomas De Quincey

  Thomas Middleton

  Voltaire

  William Hazlitt

  William Hope Hodgson

  Series Seven

  Adam Smith

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Confucius

  David Hume

  E. M. Delafield

  E. Phillips Oppenheim

  Edmund Burke

  Ernest Hemingway

  Frances Trollope

  Galileo Galilei

  Guy Boothby

  Hans Christian Andersen

  Ian Fleming

  Immanuel Kant

  Karl Marx

  Kenneth Grahame

  Lytton Strachey

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Michel de Montaigne

  René Descartes

  Richard Marsh

  Sax Rohmer

  Sir Richard Burton

  Talbot Mundy

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  W. W. Jacobs

  Ancient Classics

  Achilles Tatius

  Aeschylus

  Ammianus Marcellinus

  Apollodorus

  Appian

  Apuleius

  Apollonius of Rhodes

  Aristophanes

  Aristotle

  Arrian

  Augustine

  Aulus Gellius

  Bede

  Cassius Dio

  Cato

  Catullus

  Cicero

  Clement of Alexandria

  Demosthenes

  Diodorus Siculus

  Diogenes Laërtius

  Euripides

  Frontius

  Herodotus

  Hesiod

  Hippocrates

  Homer

  Horace

  Josephus

  Julius Caesar

  Juvenal

  Livy

  Longus

  Lucan

  Lucian

  Lucretius

  Marcus Aurelius

  Martial

  Nonnus

  Ovid

  Pausanias

  Petronius

  Pindar

  Plato

  Plautus

  Pliny the Elder

  Pliny the Younger

  Plotinus

  Plutarch

  Polybius

  Procopius

  Propertius

  Quintus Smyrnaeus

  Sallust

  Sappho

  Seneca the Younger

  Septuagint

  Sophocles

  Statius

  Strabo

  Suetonius

  Tacitus

  Terence

  Theocritus

  Thucydides

  Tibullus

  Virgil

  Xenophon

  Delphi Poets Series

  A. E. Housman

  Alexander Pope

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson

  Algernon Charles Swinburne

  Andrew Marvell

  Beowulf

  Charlotte Smith

  Christina Rossetti

  D. H Lawrence (poetry)

  Dante Alighieri (English)

  Dante Gabriel Rossetti

  Delphi Poetry Anthology

  Edgar Allan Poe (poetry)

  Edmund Spenser

  Edward Lear

  Edward Thomas

  Edwin Arlington Robinson

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  Emily Dickinson

  Ezra Pound

  Friedrich Schiller (English)

  George Chapman

  George Herbert


  Gerard Manley Hopkins

  Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Isaac Rosenberg

  James Russell Lowell

  Johan Ludvig Runeberg

  John Clare

  John Donne

  John Dryden

  John Keats

  John Milton

  John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester

  Leigh Hunt

  Lord Byron

  Ludovico Ariosto

  Luís de Camões

  Matthew Arnold

  Michael Drayton

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Petrarch

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Robert Browning

  Robert Burns

  Robert Frost

  Robert Southey

  Rumi

  Rupert Brooke

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Sir Philip Sidney

  Sir Thomas Wyatt

  Sir Walter Raleigh

  Thomas Chatterton

  Thomas Gray

  Thomas Hardy (poetry)

  Thomas Hood

  Thomas Moore

  Torquato Tasso

  T. S. Eliot

  W. B. Yeats

  Walter Savage Landor

  Walt Whitman

  Wilfred Owen

  William Blake

  William Cowper

  William Wordsworth

  Masters of Art

  Albrecht Dürer

  Amedeo Modigliani

  Camille Pissarro

  Canaletto

  Caravaggio

  Caspar David Friedrich

  Claude Monet

  Dante Gabriel Rossetti

  Diego Velázquez

  Edgar Degas

  Édouard Manet

  Eugène Delacroix

  Francisco Goya

  Giotto

  Gustave Courbet

  Gustav Klimt

  J. M. W. Turner

  Johannes Vermeer

  John Constable

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Michelangelo

  Paul Cézanne

  Paul Gauguin

  Paul Klee

  Peter Paul Rubens

  Piero della Francesca

  Pierre-Auguste Renoir

  Sandro Botticelli

  Raphael

  Rembrandt van Rijn

  Thomas Gainsborough

  Titian

  Vincent van Gogh

  Wassily Kandinsky

  www.delphiclassics.com

  Is there an author or artist you would like to see in a series? Contact us at [email protected] (or via the social network links below) and let us know!

  Be the first to learn of new releases and special offers:

  Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/delphiebooks

  Follow our Tweets: https://twitter.com/delphiclassics

  Explore our exciting boards at Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/delphiclassics/

  Jacobs’ body was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, the first crematorium to be opened in London, Barnet

  Jacobs’ ashes were scattered in the garden of Golders Green Crematorium

 

‹ Prev