“Mr. Crowl,” said Mrs. Crowl, “then I’ll tell him.”
“No, no, my dear, not yet,” faltered Peter helplessly; “leave it to me.”
“I’ve left it to you long enough. You’ll never do nothing. If it was a question of provin’ to a lot o’ chuckleheads that Jollygee and Genesis, or some other dead and gone Scripture folk that don’t consarn no mortal soul, used to contradict each other, your tongue ’ud run thirteen to the dozen. But when it’s a matter of takin’ the bread out o’ the mouths o’ your own children, you ain’t got no more to say for yourself than a lamppost. Here’s a man stayin’ with you for weeks and weeks—eatin’ and drinkin’ the flesh off your bones—without payin’ a far—”
“Hush, hush, mother; it’s all right,” said poor Crowl, red as fire.
Denzil looked at her dreamily. “Is it possible you are alluding to me, Mrs. Crowl?” he said.
“Who then should I be alludin’ to, Mr. Cantercot? Here’s seven weeks come and gone, and not a blessed ’aypenny have I—”
“My dear Mrs. Crowl,” said Denzil, removing his cigarette from his mouth with a pained air, “why reproach me for your neglect?”
“My neglect! I like that!”
“I don’t,” said Denzil, more sharply. “If you had sent me in the bill you would have had the money long ago. How do you expect me to think of these details?”
“We ain’t so grand down here. People pays their way—they don’t get no bills,” said Mrs. Crowl, accentuating the word with infinite scorn.
Peter hammered away at a nail, as though to drown his spouse’s voice.
“It’s three pounds fourteen and eightpence, if you’re so anxious to know,” Mrs. Crowl resumed. “And there ain’t a woman in the Mile End Road as ’ud a-done it cheaper, with bread at fourpence threefarden a quartern and landlords clamorin’ for rent every Monday morning almost afore the sun’s up and folks draggin’ and slidderin’ on till their shoes is only fit to throw after brides, and Christmas comin’ and seven-pence a week for schoolin’!”
Peter winced under the last item. He had felt it coming—like Christmas. His wife and he parted company on the question of Free Education. Peter felt that, having brought nine children into the world, it was only fair he should pay a penny a week for each of those old enough to bear educating. His better half argued that, having so many children, they ought in reason to be exempted. Only people who had few children could spare the penny. But the one point on which the cobbler-skeptic of the Mile End Road got his way was this of the fees. It was a question of conscience, and Mrs. Crowl had never made application for their remission, though she often slapped her children in vexation instead. They were used to slapping, and when nobody else slapped them they slapped one another. They were bright, ill-mannered brats, who pestered their parents and worried their teachers, and were happy as the Road was long.
“Bother the school fees!” Peter retorted, vexed. “Mr. Cantercot’s not responsible for your children.”
“I should hope not, indeed, Mr. Crowl,” Mrs. Crowl said sternly. “I’m ashamed of you.” And with that she flounced out of the shop into the back parlor.
“It’s all right,” Peter called after her soothingly. “The money’ll be all right, mother.”
In lower circles it is customary to call your wife your mother; in somewhat superior circles it is the fashion to speak of her as “the wife” as you speak of “the Stock Exchange,” or “the Thames,” without claiming any peculiar property. Instinctively men are ashamed of being moral and domesticated.
Denzil puffed his cigarette, unembarrassed. Peter bent attentively over his work, making nervous stabs with his awl. There was a long silence. An organ-grinder played a waltz outside, unregarded; and, failing to annoy anybody, moved on. Denzil lit another cigarette. The dirty-faced clock on the shop wall chimed twelve.
“What do you think,” said Crowl, “of Republics?”
“They are low,” Denzil replied. “Without a Monarch there is no visible incarnation of Authority.”
“What! do you call Queen Victoria visible?”
“Peter, do you want to drive me from the house? Leave frivolousness to women, whose minds are only large enough for domestic difficulties. Republics are low. Plato mercifully kept the poets out of his. Republics are not congenial soil for poetry.”
“What nonsense! If England dropped its fad of Monarchy and became a Republic tomorrow, do you mean to say that—?”
“I mean to say that there would be no Poet Laureate to begin with.”
“Who’s fribbling now, you or me, Cantercot? But I don’t care a buttonhook about poets, present company always excepted. I’m only a plain man, and I want to know where’s the sense of givin’ any one person authority over everybody else?”
“Ah, that’s what Tom Mortlake used to say. Wait till you’re in power, Peter, with trade-union money to control, and working men bursting to give you flying angels and to carry you aloft, like a banner, huzzahing.”
“Ah, that’s because he’s head and shoulders above ’em already,” said Crowl, with a flash in his sad gray eyes. “Still, it don’t prove that I’d talk any different. And I think you’re quite wrong about his being spoiled. Tom’s a fine fellow—a man every inch of him, and that’s a good many. I don’t deny he has his weaknesses, and there was a time when he stood in this very shop and denounced that poor dead Constant. ‘Crowl,’ said he, ‘that man’ll do mischief. I don’t like these kid-glove philanthropists mixing themselves up in practical labor disputes they don’t understand.’ ”
Denzil whistled involuntarily. It was a piece of news.
“I daresay,” continued Crowl, “he’s a bit jealous of anybody’s interference with his influence. But in this case the
