Part 65 (1/2)
Kipps meditated. ”I don't see why it shouldn't be,” he decided, and handed Ann a piece of bread on the tip of his knife.
”But we'll keep on the shop,” he said after an interval for further reflection, ”all the same.... I 'aven't much trust in money after the things we've seen.”
--7
That was two years ago, and as the whole world knows, the ”Pestered b.u.t.terfly” is running still. It _was_ true. It has made the fortune of a once declining little theatre in the Strand, night after night the great beetle scene draws happy tears from a house packed to repletion, and Kipps--for all that Chitterlow is not what one might call a business man--is almost as rich as he was in the beginning. People in Australia, people in Lancas.h.i.+re, Scotland, Ireland, in New Orleans, in Jamaica, in New York and Montreal, have crowded through doorways to Kipps'
enrichment, lured by the hitherto unsuspected humours of the entomological drama. Wealth rises like an exhalation all over our little planet, and condenses, or at least some of it does, in the pockets of Kipps.
”It's rum,” said Kipps.
He sat in the little kitchen out behind the bookshop and philosophised and smiled, while Ann gave Arthur Waddy Kipps his evening tub before the fire. Kipps was always present at this ceremony unless customers prevented; there was something in the mixture of the odours of tobacco, soap and domesticity that charmed him unspeakably.
”Chuckerdee, o' man,” he said, affably, wagging his pipe at his son, and thought incidentally, after the manner of all parents, that very few children could have so straight and clean a body.
”Dadda's got a cheque,” said Arthur Waddy Kipps, emerging for a moment from the towel.
”'E gets 'old of everything,” said Ann. ”You can't say a word----”
”Dadda got a cheque,” this marvellous child repeated.
”Yes, o' man, I got a cheque. And it's got to go into a bank for you, against when you got to go to school. See? So's you'll grow up knowing your way about a bit.”
”Dadda's got a cheque,” said the wonder son, and then gave his mind to making mighty splashes with his foot. Every time he splashed, laughter overcame him, and he had to be held up for fear he should tumble out of the tub in his merriment. Finally he was towelled to his toe-tips, wrapped up in warm flannel, and kissed, and carried off to bed by Ann's cousin and lady help, Emma. And then after Ann had carried away the bath into the scullery, she returned to find her husband with his pipe extinct and the cheque still in his hand.
”Two fousand pounds,” he said. ”It's dashed rum. Wot 'ave _I_ done to get two fousand pounds, Ann?”
”What 'aven't you--not to?” said Ann.
He reflected upon this view of the case.
”I shan't never give up this shop,” he said at last.
”We're very 'appy 'ere,” said Ann.
”Not if I 'ad _fifty_ fousand pounds.”
”No fear,” said Ann.
”You got a shop,” said Kipps, ”and you come along in a year's time and there it is. But money--look 'ow it come and goes! There's no sense in money. You may kill yourself trying to get it, and then it comes when you aren't looking. There's my 'riginal money! Where is it now? Gone!
And it's took young Wals.h.i.+ngham with it, and 'e's gone, too. It's like playing skittles. 'Long comes the ball, right and left you fly, and there it is rolling away and not changed a bit. No sense in it! 'E's gone, and she's gone--gone off with that chap Revel, that sat with me at dinner. Merried man! And Chit'low rich! Lor'!--what a fine place that Gerrik Club is, to be sure, where I 'ad lunch wiv' 'im! Better'n _any_ 'otel. Footmen in powder they got--not waiters, Ann--footmen! 'E's rich and me rich--in a sort of way.... Don't seem much sense in it, Ann, 'owever you look at it.” He shook his head.
”I know one thing,” said Kipps.
”What?”
”I'm going to put it in jest as many different banks as I can. See?
Fifty 'ere, fifty there. 'Posit. I'm not going to 'nvest it--no fear.”
”It's only frowing money away,” said Ann.