Bert began to light matches from a borrowed boxful, and search for a half-crown that still eluded him among the charred remains.
His face was grave and melancholy.
“I WISH that 'adn't 'appened,” said Flossie, riding on with Grubb. …
And at last Bert was left almost alone, a sad, blackened Promethean figure, cursed by the gift of fire. He had entertained vague ideas of hiring a cart, of achieving miraculous repairs, of still snatching some residual value from his one chief possession. Now, in the darkening night, he perceived the vanity of such intentions. Truth came to him bleakly, and laid her chill conviction upon him. He took hold of the handle-bar, stood the thing up, tried to push it forward. The tyreless hind-wheel was jammed hopelessly, even as he feared. For a minute or so he stood upholding his machine, a motionless despair. Then with a great effort he thrust the ruins from him into the ditch, kicked at it once, regarded it for a moment, and turned his face resolutely Londonward.
He did not once look back.
“That's the end of THAT game!” said Bert. “No more teuf-teuf-teuf for Bert Smallways for a year or two. Good-bye 'olidays! … Oh! I ought to 'ave sold the blasted thing when I had a chance three years ago.”
3
The next morning found the firm of Grubb & Smallways in a state of profound despondency. It seemed a small matter to them that the newspaper and cigarette shop opposite displayed such placards as this:———————————————————— REPORTED AMERICAN ULTIMATUM.
BRITAIN MUST FIGHT.
OUR INFATUATED WAR OFFICE STILL
REFUSES TO LISTEN TO MR. BUTTERIDGE.
GREAT MONO-RAIL DISASTER AT TIMBUCTOO.———————————————————
or this:———————————————————— WAR A QUESTION OF HOURS.
NEW YORK CALM.
EXCITEMENT IN BERLIN.———————————————————
or again:———————————————————— WASHINGTON STILL SILENT.
WHAT WILL PARIS DO?
THE PANIC ON THE BOURSE.
THE KING'S GARDEN PARTY TO THE MASKED TWAREGS. MR. BUTTERIDGE TAKES AN OFFER. LATEST BETTING FROM TEHERAN.———————————————————
or this:———————————————————— WILL AMERICA FIGHT?
ANTI-GERMAN RIOT IN BAGDAD.
THE MUNICIPAL SCANDALS AT DAMASCUS.
MR. BUTTERIDGE'S INVENTION FOR AMERICA.———————————————————
Bert stared at these over the card of pump-clips in the pane in the door with unseeing eyes. He wore a blackened flannel shirt, and the jacketless ruins of the holiday suit of yesterday. The boarded-up shop was dark and depressing beyond words, the few scandalous hiring machines had never looked so hopelessly disreputable. He thought of their fellows who were “out,” and of the approaching disputations of the afternoon. He thought of their new landlord, and of their old landlord, and of bills and claims. Life presented itself for the first time as a hopeless fight against fate. …
“Grubb, o' man,” he said, distilling the quintessence, “I'm fair sick of this shop.”
“So'm I,” said Grubb.
“I'm out of conceit with it. I don't seem to care ever to speak to a customer again.”
“There's that trailer,” said Grubb, after a pause.
“Blow the trailer!” said Bert. “Anyhow, I didn't leave a deposit on it. I didn't do that. Still—”
He turned round on his friend. “Look 'ere,” he said, “we aren't gettin' on here. We been losing money hand over fist. We got things tied up in fifty knots.”
“What can we do?” said Grubb.
“Clear out. Sell what we can for what it will fetch, and quit. See? It's no good 'anging on to a losing concern. No sort of good. Jest foolishness.”
“That's all right,” said Grubb—“that's all right; but it ain't your capital been sunk in it.”
“No need for us to sink after our capital,” said Bert, ignoring the point.
“I'm not going to be held responsible for that trailer, anyhow. That ain't my affair.”
“Nobody arst you to make it your affair. If you like to stick on here, well and good. I'm quitting. I'll see Bank Holiday through, and then I'm O-R-P-H. See?”
“Leavin' me?”
“Leavin' you. If you must be left.”
Grubb looked round the shop. It certainly had become distasteful. Once upon a time it had been bright with hope and new beginnings and stock and the prospect of credit. Now—now it was failure and dust. Very likely the landlord would be round presently to go on with the row about the window. … “Where d'you think of going, Bert?” Grubb asked.
Bert turned round and regarded him. “I thought it out as I was walking 'ome, and in bed. I couldn't sleep a wink.”
“What did you think out?”
“Plans.”
“What plans?”
“Oh! You're for stickin, here.”
“Not if anything better was to offer.”
“It's only an ideer,” said Bert.
“You made the girls laugh yestiday, that song you sang.”
“Seems a long time ago now,” said Grubb.
“And old Edna nearly cried—over that bit of mine.”
“She got a fly in her eye,” said Grubb; “I saw it. But what's this got to do with your plan?”
“No end,” said Bert.
“'Ow?”
“Don't you see?”
“Not singing in the streets?”
“Streets! No fear! But 'ow about the Tour of the Waterin' Places of England, Grubb? Singing! Young men of family doing it for a lark? You ain't got a bad voice, you know, and mine's all right. I never see a chap singing on the beach yet that I couldn't 'ave sung into a cocked hat. And we both know how to put on the toff a bit. Eh? Well, that's my ideer. Me and you, Grubb, with a refined song and a breakdown. Like we was doing for foolery yestiday. That was what put it into my 'ead. Easy make up a programme—easy. Six choice items, and one or two for encores and patter. I'm all right for the patter anyhow.”
Grubb remained regarding his darkened and disheartening shop; he thought of his former landlord and his present landlord, and of the general disgustingness of business in an age which re-echoes to The Bitter Cry of the Middle Class; and then it seemed to him that afar off he heard the twankle, twankle of a banjo, and the voice of a stranded siren singing. He had a sense of hot sunshine upon sand, of the children of at least transiently opulent holiday makers in a circle round about him, of the whisper, “They are really gentlemen,” and then dollop, dollop came the coppers in the hat. Sometimes even silver. It was all income; no outgoings, no bills. “I'm on, Bert,” he said.
“Right