Part 37 (1/2)
”Go to yer dinner, I tell ye.”
Stifford had three-quarters of an hour for his dinner.
TWO.
Darius combined the slip with the book and made a total.
”Petty cash,” he muttered shortly.
Edwin produced the petty cash-book, a volume of very trifling importance.
”Now bring me the till.”
Edwin went out of the cubicle and brought the till, which was a large and battered j.a.panned cash-box with a lid in two independent parts, from its well-concealed drawer behind the fancy-counter. Darius counted the coins in it and made calculations on blotting-paper, breathing stertorously all the time.
”What on earth are you trying to get at?” Edwin asked, with innocent familiarity. He thought that the Club-share crisis had been postponed by one of his father's swift strange caprices.
Darius turned on him glaring: ”I'm trying to get at where ye got the bra.s.s from to buy them there books as I saw last night. Where did ye get it from? There's nowt wrong here, unless ye're a mighty lot cleverer than I take ye for. Where did ye get it from? Ye don't mean to tell me as ye saved it up!”
Edwin had had some shocks in his life. This was the greatest. He could feel his cheeks and his hands growing dully hot, and his eyes smarting; and he was suddenly animated by an almost murderous hatred and an inexpressible disgust for his father, who in the grossness of his perceptions and his notions had imagined his son to be a thief.
”Loathsome beast!” he thought savagely.
”I'm waiting,” said his father.
”I've drawn my Club money,” said Edwin.
For an instant the old man was at a loss; then he understood. He had entirely forgotten the maturing of the Club share, and a.s.suredly he had not dreamed that Edwin would accept and secrete so vast a sum as fifty pounds without uttering a word. Darius had made a mistake, and a bad one; but in those days fathers were never wrong; above all they never apologised. In Edwin's wicked act of concealment Darius could choose new and effective ground, and he did so.
”And what dost mean by doing that and saying nowt? Sneaking--”
”What do you mean by calling me a thief?” Edwin and Darius were equally startled by this speech. Edwin knew not what had come over him, and Darius, never having been addressed in such a dangerous tone by his son, was at a loss.
”I never called ye a thief.”
”Yes, you did! Yes, you did!” Edwin nearly shouted now. ”You starve me for money, until I haven't got sixpence to bless myself with. You couldn't get a man to do what I do for twice what you pay me. And then you call me a thief. And then you jump down my throat because I spend a bit of money of my own.” He snorted. He knew that he was quite mad, but there was a strange drunken pleasure in this madness.
”Hold yer tongue, lad!” said Darius, as stiffly as he could. But Darius, having been unprepared, was intimidated. Darius vaguely comprehended that a new and disturbing factor had come into his life.
”Make a less row!” he went on more strongly. ”D'ye want all th' street to hear ye?”
”I won't make a less row. You make as much noise as you want, and I'll make as much noise as I want!” Edwin cried louder and louder. And then in bitter scorn, ”Thief, indeed!”
”I never called ye a--”
”Let me come out!” Edwin shouted. They were very close together.
Darius saw that his son's face was all drawn. Edwin s.n.a.t.c.hed his hat off its hook, pushed violently past his father and, sticking his hands deep in his pockets, strode into the street.