Part 4 (2/2)

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 n.o.body 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 fas.h.i.+on 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, unembarra.s.sed. 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 to-morrow, 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 b.u.t.ton-hook 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 jealousy did wear off, you see, for the poor fellow and he got quite pals, as everybody knows. Tom's not the man to hug a prejudice. However, all that don't prove nothing against Republics. Look at the Czar and the Jews. I'm only a plain man, but I wouldn't live in Russia not for--not for all the leather in it! An Englishman, taxed as he is to keep up his Fad of Monarchy, is at least king in his own castle, whoever bosses it at Windsor. Excuse me a minute, the missus is callin'.”

”Excuse _me_ a minute. I'm going, and I want to say before I go--I feel it is only right you should know at once--that after what has pa.s.sed to-day I can never be on the same footing here as in the--shall I say pleasant?--days of yore.”

”Oh, no, Cantercot. Don't say that; don't say that!” pleaded the little cobbler.

”Well, shall I say unpleasant, then?”

”No, no, Cantercot. Don't misunderstand me. Mother has been very much put to it lately to rub along. You see she has such a growing family. It grows--daily. But never mind her. You pay whenever you've got the money.”

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