'Not bother! I've seen you botherin'! Don't think I havena seen you with a' your dirty messin'. It's been enough to scunner a man and I'll put up wi' it no longer. Ye can take yersel' off to another room. From to-night onwards ye'll get out of my bed. Ye can move out o' my road, ye fusty old faggot!'
She understood that he was casting her out of their marriage bed, the bed in which she had at first lain beside him in love, where she had borne for him her children. For nearly thirty years of her life it had been her resting place; in sorrow and in sickness her weary limbs had stretched themselves upon that bed. She did not think of the relief it would afford her to have her own, quiet seclusion at nights, away from his sulky oppression, to retire to Mary's old room and be alone in peace; she felt only the cutting disgrace of being thrown aside like a used and worn-out vessel. Her face burned with shame as though he had made some gross, obscene remark to her, but, as she looked deeply into his eyes, all that she said was:
'It's as you say, James! Will I make ye some more coffee?'
'No! Keep your demned coffee. Til do without any breakfast,' he bawled. Although he had already eaten a large bowl of porridge and milk, he felt that she had wilfully defrauded him out of his breakfast, that he was again suffering because of her incompetence, her malingering assumption of illness. 'I wouldna be surprised if ye tried to starve us next, with your blasted scrimpin',' he shouted finally, as he pranced out of the house.
His black resentment continued all the way to the shop, and although his mind left the incident, the sense of injustice still rankled, while the thought of the day before him did nothing to restore his serenity. Perry had now left him, amidst a storm of contumely and reproaches no doubt; but he had nevertheless gone and Brodie had been able to substitute for his rare and willing assistant only a small boy who merely opened the shop and ran the errands. Apart from the
loss of trade through the defection of the competent Perry, the onus of supporting the entire work of the shop now lay upon his broad but unaccustomed shoulders, and even to his dull comprehension it became painfully evident that he had entirely lost the knack of attending to such people as now drifted into his shop. He hated and despised the work, he never knew where to find things, he was too irritable, too impatient, altogether too big for this occupation.
He had, also, begun to find that his better class customers, upon whose social value he had so prided himself, were insufficient to keep his business going; he realised with growing dismay that they patronised him only upon odd occasions and were invariably neglectful, in quite a gentlemanly fashion, of course, of the settlement of their indebtedness to him. In the old days he had allowed these accounts to run on for two, three, or even four years, secure in the knowledge that he would eventually be paid; they would see, he had told himself in a lordly fashion, that James Brodie was not a petty tradesman grasping for his money, but a gentleman like themselves, who could afford to wait another gentleman's convenience. Now, however, with the acute drop in the cash income of the business, he was in such need of ready money that these large, outstanding accounts of the various county families became a source of great anxiety, and although he had sent out, with much laborious auditing and unaccustomed reckoning, a complete issue of them, apart from a few including the Latta account which were paid to him immediately, the entire bundle might have been posted into the middle of the Leven for all the result that immediately accrued to him. He fully realised that it was useless to send them out again, that these
people would pay in their time and not in his; the mere fact that he had already requested settlement with an unusual urgency might possibly estrange them from him altogether.
His own debts to the few conservative, wholesale houses whom he favoured had grown far beyond their usual limits. Never a good business man, his usual method had been to order goods when, and as, he pleased, and to pay no heed to amounts, invoices, or accounts until the dignified representative of each house visited him at recogirised intervals, in the accepted and friendly manner consonant between two firms of standing and reputation. Then, after a polite and cordial conversation upon the topics of the moment, Brodie would go to the small, green safe sunk in the wall of his office, unlock it grandly, and produce a certain canvas bag.
'Well,' he would remark imposingly, 'what is our obligation to-day?”
The other would murmur deprecatingly and, as if urged against his will to present the bill, would produce his handsome pocketbook, rustle importantly amongst its papers and reply suavely:
'Well, Mr. Brodie, since you wish it, here is your esteemed account;' whereupon Brodie, with one glance at the total, would count out a heap of sovereigns and silver from the bag in settlement.
While he might more easily have paid by cheque, he disdained this as a mean, pettifogging instrument and preferred the magnanimous action of disbursing the clean, bright coins as the worthier manner of the settlement of a gentleman's debts. 'That's money,' he had once said in answer to a question, 'and value for value. What's the point o' writin' on a small slip of printed paper. Let them use it that likes it but the braw, bright siller was good enough for my forbears, and it'll be good enough for me.' Then, when it was stamped and signed, he would negligently stuff the other's receipt in his waist-coat pocket and the two gentlemen would shake hands warmly and part with mutual expressions of regard. That, considered Brodie, was how a man of breeding conducted such affairs.
To-day, however, although he expected a visit of this nature, he took no proud satisfaction from the thought but, instead, dreaded it. Mr. Soper himself, of Bilsland and Soper, Ltd., the largest and most conservative firm with whom he dealt, was coming to see him and, contrary to the usual procedure, he had actually been advised of this call by letter, an unexpected and unwonted injury to his pride. He well knew the reason of such a step, but nevertheless he felt the full bitterness of the blow to his self-esteem; anticipated too, with sombre dismay, the interview which was in prospect.
When he reached the shop he sought to lose his unhappy forebodings in the work of the day, but there was little to occupy him; business was at a standstill. Yet, attempting some show of activity, he walked cumbersomely about the shop with the ponderous movements of a restless leviathan. This spurious display did not deceive even the small errand boy who, peering fearfully through the door of the back shop, saw Brodie stop every few moments whilst in the midst of some unnecessary operation and gaze blankly in front of him, heard him mutter to himself in a vague yet intense abstraction. With the street urchin's cunning he guessed that his employer was on the verge of disaster and he felt, with a strong measure of relief, that it would not be long before he was obliged to set about finding for himself another, and a more congenial, situation.
After an interminable, dragging hiatus, during which it seemed as if the entire hours of the forenoon would pass without a customer appearing, a man entered whom Brodie recognised as an old customer. Thinking that here was some one who, if not important, was at least loyal, he advanced with a great show of hearti-
ness, and greeted him.
'Well, my man,' he said, 'what can we do for you?'
The other, somewhat taken aback by such cordiality, asserted laconically that he only required a cloth cap, a plain ordinary cap like the one he had purchased some time before, a grey check, size six and seven-eighths.
'Like the one you're wearing?' asked Brodie encouragingly.
The other looked uncomfortable.
'Naw,' he replied, 'this is a different yin; this is ma Sunday bonnet.'
'Let me see,' said Brodie, and struck by a dim idea he put out his hand, suddenly removed the cap from the other's head, and looked at it. Inside, on the shiny sateen lining, was stamped M. H. & H. the hated symbol of his rival next door. Immediately his face flooded with angry resentment and he flung the cap back at its owner.
'So!' he cried. 'Ye’ve been goin' next door for your braw and fancy stuff, have ye? To wear on Sundays, forsooth! And then ye've the impertinence to come in to me for a plain, ordinary bonnet after ye've given them the best o' your trade. Do ye think I'm goin' to take their leavin's? Go back and buy a' the trashy rubbish in their waxworks museum. I'll not serve ye for a pound note.'
The other looked exceedingly discomfited. 'Aw! Mr. Brodie. I didna mean it like that. I juist gie'n them a trial for a kind o' novelty. It was really the wife's doin'. She egged me on to see what the new place was like. That's like the women, ye ken but I've come back to ye.'
'And I'm not goin' to have ye,' roared Brodie. 'Do ye think ye can treat me like that? I'll not stand it. It's a man that's before ye, not a demned monkey on a stick like they've got next door,' and he banged his fist on the counter.
It was a ridiculous position. It was as though he expected the man to fawn at his feet and implore to be reinstated as a customer; as though, in his absurd rage, he expected the other to beg to be allowed the honour of buying from him. Something of this amazement dawned in the workman's face; he shook his head
