Part 11 (1/2)

”I came back just before you did,” said Hardy. ”Bra.s.s band playing you in and all that sort of thing, I suppose,” said the other. ”Alas, how the wicked prosper--and you were wicked. Do you remember how you used to knock me about?”

”Come round to my place and have a chat,” said Hardy.

Jack shook his head. ”They're expecting me in to tea,” he said, with a nod in the direction of Mr. Kybird's, ”and honest waterside labourers who earn their bread by the sweat of their brow--when the foreman is looking --do not frequent the society of the upper cla.s.ses.”

”Don't be a fool,” said Hardy, politely.

”Well, I'm not very tidy,” retorted Mr. Nugent, glancing at his clothes. ”I don't mind it myself; I'm a philosopher, and nothing hurts me so long as I have enough to eat and drink; but I don't inflict myself on my friends, and I must say most of them meet me more than half-way.”

”Imagination,” said Hardy.

”All except Kate and my aunt,” said Jack, firmly. ”Poor Kate; I tried to cut her the other day.”

”Cut her?” echoed Hardy.

Nugent nodded. ”To save her feelings,” he replied; ”but she wouldn't be cut, bless her, and on the distinct understanding that it wasn't to form a precedent, I let her kiss me behind a waggon. Do you know, I fancy she's grown up rather good-looking, Jem?”

”You are observant,” said Mr. Hardy, admiringly.

”Of course, it may be my partiality,” said Mr. Nugent, with judicial fairness. ”I was always a bit fond of Kate. I don't suppose anybody else would see anything in her. Where are you living now?”

”Fort Road,” said Hardy; ”come round any evening you can, if you won't come now.”

Nugent promised, and, catching sight of Miss Kybird standing in the doorway of the shop, bade him good-bye and crossed the road. It was becoming quite a regular thing for her to wait and have her tea with him now, an arrangement which was provocative of many sly remarks on the part of Mrs. Kybird.

”Thought you were never coming,” said Miss Kybird, tartly, as she led the way to the back room and took her seat at the untidy tea-tray.

”And you've been crying your eyes out, I suppose,” remarked Mr. Nugent, as he groped in the depths of a tall jar for black-currant jam. ”Well, you're not the first, and I don't suppose you'll be the last. How's Teddy?”

”Get your tea,” retorted Miss Kybird, ”and don't make that sc.r.a.ping noise on the bottom of the jar with your knife. It puts my teeth on edge.”

”So it does mine,” said Mr. Nugent, ”but there's a black currant down there, and I mean to have it. 'Waste not, want not.'”

”Make him put that knife down,” said Miss Kybird, as her mother entered the room. Mrs. Kybird shook her head at him. ”You two are always quarrelling,” she said, archly, ”just like a couple of--couple of----”

”Love-birds,” suggested Mr. Nugent.

Mrs. Kybird in great glee squeezed round to him and smote him playfully with her large, fat hand, and then, being somewhat out of breath with the exertion, sat down to enjoy the jest in comfort.

”That's how you encourage him,” said her daughter; ”no wonder he doesn't behave. No wonder he acts as if the whole place belongs to him.”

The remark was certainly descriptive of Mr. Nugent's behaviour. His easy a.s.surance and affability had already made him a prime favourite with Mrs. Kybird, and had not been without its effect upon her daughter. The constrained and severe company manners of Mr. Edward Silk showed up but poorly beside those of the paying guest, and Miss Kybird had on several occasions drawn comparisons which would have rendered both gentlemen uneasy if they had known of them.

Mr. Nugent carried the same easy good-fellows.h.i.+p with him the following week when, neatly attired in a second-hand suit from Mr. Kybird's extensive stock, he paid a visit to Jem Hardy to talk over old times and discuss the future.

”You ought to make friends with your father,” said the latter; ”it only wants a little common sense and mutual forbearance.”

”That's all,” said Nugent; ”sounds easy enough, doesn't it? No, all he wants is for me to clear out of Sunwich, and I'm not going to--until it pleases me, at any rate. It's poison to him for me to be living at the Kybirds' and pus.h.i.+ng a trolley down on the quay. Talk about love sweetening toil, that does.”

Hardy changed the subject, and Nugent, nothing loath, discoursed on his wanderings and took him on a personally conducted tour through the continent of Australia. ”And I've come back to lay my bones in Sunwich Churchyard,” he concluded, pathetically; ”that is, when I've done with 'em.”