“I’m goin’ to arsk ’er again,” he said.
* * *
“Who?” said William mystified.
* * *
“Someone I’ve arsked regl’ar every New Year’s Day for ten year.”
* * *
“Asked what?” said William, gazing sadly at his last sweet.
* * *
“Arsked to take me o’ course,” said Mr. Moss with an air of contempt for William’s want of intelligence.
* * *
“Take you where?” said William. “Where d’you want to go? Why can’t you go yourself?”
* * *
“Ter marry me, I means,” said Mr. Moss, blushing slightly as he spoke.
* * *
“Well,” said William with a judicial air, “I wun’t have asked the same one for ten years. I’d have tried someone else. I’d have gone on asking other people, if I wanted to get married. You’d be sure to find someone that wouldn’t mind you—with a sweet-shop, too. She must be a softie. Does she know you’ve got a sweet-shop?”
* * *
Mr. Moss merely sighed and popped a bull’s eye into his mouth with an air of abstracted melancholy.
* * *
The next morning William leapt out of bed with an expression of stern resolve. “I’m goin’ to be p’lite,” he remarked to his bedroom furniture. “I’m goin’ to be p’lite all day.”
* * *
He met his father on the stairs as he went down to breakfast.
* * *
“Good mornin’, Father,” he said, with what he fondly imagined to be a courtly manner. “Can I do anything for you to-day?”
* * *
His father looked down at him suspiciously.
* * *
“What do you want now?” he demanded.
* * *
William was hurt.
* * *
“I’m only bein’ p’lite. It’s—you know—one of those things you take on New Year’s Day. Well, I’ve took one to be p’lite.”
* * *
His father apologised. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You see, I’m not used to it. It startled me.”
* * *
At breakfast William’s politeness shone forth in all its glory.
* * *
“Can I pass you anything, Robert?” he said sweetly.
* * *
His elder brother coldly ignored him. “Going to rain again,” he said to the world in general.
* * *
“If you’ll ’scuse me contradicting of you Robert,” said William, “I heard the milkman sayin’ it was goin’ to be fine. If you’ll ’scuse me contradictin’ you.”
* * *
“Look here!” said Robert angrily, “Less of your cheek!”
* * *
“Seems to me no one in this house understands wot bein’ p’lite is,” said William bitterly. “Seems to me one might go on bein’ p’lite in this house for years an’ no one know wot one was doin’.”
* * *
His mother looked at him anxiously.
* * *
“You’re feeling quite well, dear, aren’t you?” she said. “You haven’t got a headache or anything, have you?”
* * *
“No. I’m bein’ p’lite,” he said irritably, then pulled himself up suddenly. “I’m quite well, thank you, Mother dear,” he said in a tone of cloying sweetness.
* * *
“Does it hurt you much?” inquired his brother tenderly.
* * *
“No thank you, Robert,” said William politely.
* * *
After breakfast he received his pocket-money with courteous gratitude.
* * *
“Thank you very much, Father.”
* * *
“Not at all. Pray don’t mention it, William. It’s quite all right,” said Mr. Brown, not to be outdone. Then, “It’s rather trying. How long does it last?”
* * *
“What?”
* * *
“The resolution.”
* * *
“Oh, bein’ p’lite! He said they didn’t often do it after the first day.”
* * *
“He’s quite right, whoever he is,” said Mr. Brown. “They don’t.”
* * *
“He’s goin’ to ask her again,” volunteered William.
* * *
“Who ask who what?” said Mr. Brown, but William had departed. He was already on his way to Mr. Moss’s shop.
* * *
Mr. Moss was at the door, hatted and coated, and gazing anxiously down the street.
* * *
“Goo’ mornin’ Mr. Moss,” said William politely.
* * *
Mr. Moss took out a large antique watch.
* * *
“He’s late!” he said. “I shall miss the train. Oh, dear! It will be the first New Year’s Day I’ve missed in ten years.”
* * *
William was inspecting the sweets with the air of an expert.
* * *
“Them pink ones are new,” he said at last. “How much are they?”
* * *
“Eightpence a quarter. Oh, dear, I shall miss the train.”
* * *
“They’re very small ones,” said William disparagingly “You’d think they’d be less than that—small ones like that.”
* * *
“Will you—will you do something for me and I’ll give you a quarter of those sweets.”
* * *
William gasped. The offer was almost too munificent to be true.
* * *
“I’ll do anythin’ for that,” he said simply.
* * *
“Well, just stay in the shop till my nephew Bill comes. ’E’ll be ’ere in two shakes an’ I’ll miss my train if I don’t go now. ’E’s goin’ to keep the shop for me till I’m back an’ ’e’ll be ’ere any minute now. Jus’ tell ’im I ’ad to run for to catch my train an’ if anyone comes into the shop before ’e comes jus’ tell ’em to wait or to come back later. You can weigh yourself a quarter o’ those sweets.”
* * *
Mr. Moss was certainly in a holiday mood. William pinched himself just to make sure that he was still alive and had not been translated suddenly to the realms of the blest.
* * *
Mr. Moss, with a last anxious glance at his watch, hurried off in the direction of the station.
* * *
William was left alone. He spent a few moments indulging in roseate day dreams. The ideal of his childhood—perhaps of everyone’s childhood—was realised. He had a sweet-shop. He walked round the shop with a conscious swagger, pausing to pop into his mouth a Butter Ball—composed, as the label stated, of pure farm cream and best butter. It was all his—all those rows and rows of gleaming bottles of sweets of every size and colour, those boxes and boxes of attractively arranged chocolates. Deliberately he imagined himself as their owner. By the time he had walked round the shop three times he believed that he was the owner.
* * *
At this point a small boy appeared in the doorway. William scowled at him.
* * *
“Well,” he said ungraciously, “what d’you want?” Then, suddenly remembering his resolution, “Please what d’you want?”
* * *
“Where’s Uncle?” said the small boy with equal ungraciousness. “’Cause our Bill’s ill an’ can’t come.”
* * *
William waved him off.
* * *
“That’s all right,” he said. “You tell ’em that’s all right. That’s quite all right. See? Now, you go off!”
* * *
The small boy stood, as though rooted to the spot. William pressed into one of his hands a stick of liquorice and into the other a packet of chocolate.
* * *
“Now, you go away! I don’t want you here. See? You go away you little—assified cow!”
* * *
William’s i
nvective was often wholly original.
* * *
The small boy made off, still staring and clutching his spoils. William started to the door and yelled to the retreating figure, “if you don’t mind me sayin’ so.”
* * *
He had already come to look upon the Resolution as a kind of god who must at all costs be propitiated. Already the Resolution seemed to have bestowed upon him the dream of his life—a fully-equipped sweet-shop.
* * *
He wandered round again and discovered a wholly new sweetmeat called Cokernut Kisses. Its only drawback was its instability. It melted away in the mouth at once. So much so that almost before William was aware of it he was confronted by the empty box. He returned to the more solid charms of the Pineapple Crisp.
* * *
He was interrupted by the entrance of a thin lady of uncertain age.
* * *
“Good morning,” she said icily. “Where’s Mr. Moss?”
* * *
William answered as well as the presence of five sweets in his mouth would allow him.
* * *
“I can’t hear a word you say,” she said—more frigidly than ever.
* * *
William removed two of his five sweets and placed them temporarily on the scale.
* * *
“Gone,” he said laconically, then murmured vaguely, “thank you,” as the thought of the Resolution loomed up in his mind.
* * *
“Who’s in charge?”
* * *
“Me,” said William ungrammatically.
* * *
She looked at him with distinct disapproval.
* * *
“Well, I’ll have one of those bars of chocolates.”
* * *
William looking round the shop, realised suddenly that his own depredations had been on no small scale. But there was a chance of making good any loss that Mr. Moss might otherwise have sustained.
* * *
He looked down at the twopenny bars.
* * *
“Shillin’ each,” he said firmly.
* * *
She gasped.
* * *
“They were only twopence yesterday.”
* * *
“They’re gone up since,” said William brazenly, adding a vague, “if you’ll kin’ly ’scuse me sayin’ so.”
* * *
“Gone up——?” she repeated indignantly.
* * *
“Have you heard from the makers they’re gone up?”
* * *
“Yes’m,” said William politely.
* * *
“When did you hear?”
* * *
“This mornin’—if you don’t mind me saying so.”
* * *
William’s manner of fulsome politeness seemed to madden her.
* * *
“Did you hear by post?”
* * *
“Yes’m. By post this mornin’.”
* * *
She glared at him with vindictive triumph.
* * *
“I happen to live opposite, you wicked, lying boy, and I know that the postman did not call here this morning.”
* * *
William met her eye calmly.
* * *
“No, they came round to see me in the night—the makers did. You cou’n’t of heard them,” he added hastily. “It was when you was asleep. If you’ll ’scuse me contradictin’ of you.”
* * *
It is a great gift to be able to lie so as to convince other people. It is a still greater gift to be able to lie so as to convince oneself. William was possessed of the latter gift.
* * *
“I shall certainly not pay more than twopence,” said his customer severely, taking a bar of chocolate and laying down twopence on the counter. “And I shall report this shop to the Profiteering Committee. It’s scandalous. And a pack of wicked lies!”
* * *
William scowled at her.
* * *
“They’re a shillin’,” he said. “I don’t want your nasty ole tuppences. I said they was a shillin’.”
* * *
He followed her to the door. She was crossing the street to her house. “You—you ole thief!” he yelled after her, though, true to his Resolution, he added softly with dogged determination, “if you don’t mind me sayin’ so.”
* * *
“I’ll set the police on you,” his late customer shouted angrily back across the street. “You wicked, blasphemous boy!”
* * *
William put out his tongue at her, then returned to the shop and closed the door.
* * *
Here he discovered that the door, when opened, rang a bell, and, after filling his mouth with Liquorice All Sorts, he spent the next five minutes vigorously opening and shutting the door till something went wrong with the mechanism of the bell. At this he fortified himself with a course of Nutty Footballs and, standing on a chair, began ruthlessly to dismember the bell. He was disturbed by the entry of another customer. Swallowing a Nutty Football whole, he hastened to his post behind the counter.
* * *
The newcomer was a little girl of about nine—a very dainty little girl, dressed in a white fur coat and cap and long white gaiters. Her hair fell in golden curls over her white fur shoulders. Her eyes were blue. Her cheeks were velvety and rosy. Her mouth was like a baby’s. William had seen this vision on various occasions in the town, but had never yet addressed it. Whenever he had seen it, his heart in the midst of his body had been even as melting wax. He smiled—a self-conscious, sheepish smile. His freckled face blushed to the roots of his short stubby hair. She seemed to find nothing odd in the fact of a small boy being in charge of a sweet-shop. She came up to the counter.
* * *
“Please, I want two twopenny bars of chocolate.”
* * *
Her voice was very clear and silvery.
* * *
Ecstasy rendered William speechless. His smile grew wider and more foolish. Seeing his two half-sucked Pineapple Crisps exposed upon the scales, he hastily put them into his mouth.
* * *
She laid four pennies on the counter.
* * *
William found his voice.
* * *
“You can have lots for that,” he said huskily. “They’ve gone cheap. They’ve gone ever so cheap. You can take all the boxful for that,” he went on recklessly. He pressed the box into her reluctant hands. “An’—what else would you like? You jus’ tell me that. Tell me what else you’d like?”
* * *
“Please, I haven’t any more money,” gasped a small, bewildered voice.
* * *
“Money don’t matter,” said William. “Things is cheap to-day. Things is awful cheap to-day. Awful cheap! You can have—anythin’ you like for that fourpence. Anythin’ you like.”
* * *
“’Cause it’s New Year’s Day?” said the vision, with a gleam of understanding.
* * *
“Yes,” said William, “’cause it’s that.”
* * *
“Is it your shop?”
* * *
“Yes,” said William with an air of importance. “It’s all my shop.”
* * *
She gazed at him in admiration and envy.
The Big Book of Christmas Page 354