I remember now that a poor greyhaired old woman who had an air of having been roused from a nap in the dust bin, came out into the area and looked up at us as we three went out from the front door to “see London” under my uncle’s direction. She was the sub-letting occupier; she squeezed out a precarious living by taking the house whole and sub-letting it in detail and she made her food and got the shelter of an attic above and a basement below by the transaction. And if she didn’t chance to “let” steadily, out she went to pauperdom and some other poor, sordid old adventurer tried in her place….
It is a foolish community that can house whole classes, useful and helpful, honest and loyal classes, in such squalidly unsuitable dwellings. It is by no means the social economy it seems, to use up old women, savings and inexperience in order to meet the landlord’s demands. But any one who doubts this thing is going on right up to to-day need only spend an afternoon in hunting for lodgings in any of the regions of London I have named.
But where has my story got to? My uncle, I say, decided I must be shown London, and out we three went as soon as my aunt had got her hat on, to catch all that was left of the day.
VI
It pleased my uncle extremely to find I had never seen London before. He took possession of the metropolis forthwith. “London, George,” he said, “takes a lot of understanding. It’s a great place. Immense. The richest town in the world, the biggest port, the greatest manufacturing town, the Imperial city — the centre of civilisation, the heart of the world! See those sandwich men down there! That third one’s hat! Fair treat! You don’t see poverty like that in Wimblehurst George! And many of them high Oxford honour men too. Brought down by drink! It’s a wonderful place, George — a whirlpool, a maelstrom! whirls you up and whirls you down.”
I have a very confused memory of that afternoon’s inspection of London. My uncle took us to and fro showing us over his London, talking erratically, following a route of his own. Sometimes we were walking, sometimes we were on the tops of great staggering horse omnibuses in a heaving jumble of traffic, and at one point we had tea in an Aerated Bread Shop. But I remember very distinctly how we passed down Park Lane under an overcast sky, and how my uncle pointed out the house of this child of good fortune and that with succulent appreciation.
I remember, too, that as he talked I would find my aunt watching my face as if to check the soundness of his talk by my expression.
“Been in love yet, George?” she asked suddenly, over a bun in the tea-shop.
“Too busy, aunt,” I told her.
She bit her bun extensively, and gesticulated with the remnant to indicate that she had more to say.
“How are You going to make your fortune?” she said so soon as she could speak again. “You haven’t told us that.”
“‘Lectricity,” said my uncle, taking breath after a deep draught of tea.
“If I make it at all,” I said. “For my part I think shall be satisfied with something less than a fortune.”
“We’re going to make ours — suddenly,” she said.
“So HE old says.” She jerked her head at my uncle.
“He won’t tell me when — so I can’t get anything ready. But it’s coming. Going to ride in our carriage and have a garden. Garden — like a bishop’s.”
She finished her bun and twiddled crumbs from her fingers. “I shall be glad of the garden,” she said. “It’s going to be a real big one with rosaries and things. Fountains in it. Pampas grass. Hothouses.”
“You’ll get it all right,” said my uncle, who had reddened a little.
“Grey horses in the carriage, George,” she said. “It’s nice to think about when one’s dull. And dinners in restaurants often and often. And theatres — in the stalls. And money and money and money.”
“You may joke,” said my uncle, and hummed for a moment.
“Just as though an old Porpoise like him would ever make money,” she said, turning her eyes upon his profile with a sudden lapse to affection. “He’ll just porpoise about.”
“I’ll do something,” said my uncle, “you bet! Zzzz!” and rapped with a shilling on the marble table.
“When you do you’ll have to buy me a new pair of gloves,” she said, “anyhow. That finger’s past mending. Look! you Cabbage — you.” And she held the split under his nose, and pulled a face of comical fierceness.
My uncle smiled at these sallies at the time, but afterwards, when I went back with him to the Pharmacy — the low-class business grew brisker in the evening and they kept open late — he reverted to it in a low expository tone. “Your aunt’s a bit impatient, George. She gets at me. It’s only natural…. A woman doesn’t understand how long it takes to build up a position. No…. In certain directions now — I am — quietly — building up a position. Now here…. I get this room. I have my three assistants. Zzzz. It’s a position that, judged by the criterion of imeedjit income, isn’t perhaps so good as I deserve, but strategically — yes. It’s what I want. I make my plans. I rally my attack.”
“What plans,” I said, “are you making?”
“Well, George, there’s one thing you can rely upon, I’m doing nothing in a hurry. I turn over this one and that, and I don’t talk — indiscreetly. There’s — No! I don’t think I can tell you that. And yet, why NOT?”
He got up and closed the door into the shop. “I’ve told no one,” he remarked, as he sat down again. “I owe you something.”
His face flushed slightly, he leant forward over the little table towards me.
“Listen!” he said.
I listened.
“Tono-Bungay,” said my uncle very slowly and distinctly.
I thought he was asking me to hear some remote, strange noise. “I don’t hear anything,” I said reluctantly to his expectant face. He smiled undefeated. “Try again,” he said, and repeated, “Tono-Bungay.”
“Oh, That!” I said.
“Eh?” said he.
“But what is it?”
“Ah!” said my uncle, rejoicing and expanding. “What IS it? That’s what you got to ask? What won’t it be?” He dug me violently