Part 4 (1/2)
”Want the car, sir? Setting in for a wet night!”
”No, thanks”
It was a lie He did want the car He wanted the car so that heworld, or at any rate into Hanbridge, centre of the pleasures, the wickedness and the commerce of the Five Towns But he dared not have the car He dared not have his own car He o to Dr Stirling's he dared not have the car Besides, he could have walked down the hill to Dr Stirling's in threeto Dr Stirling's No! His wife i But she washad failed to arrive, she would doubtless telephone and get her Dr Stirling Not, however, with Edward Henry's assistance!
He reviewed his conduct throughout the evening In what particular had it been sinful? In no particular True, the accident to the boy was a htly, htly? His blithe huht surely to have been an example to Nellie! And as for the episode of the funeral march on the Pianisto, really, really, the tiresoht to have better appreciated his whimsical drollery!
But Nellie was altered; he was altered; everything was altered
He remembered the ecstasy of their excursion to Switzerland He remembered the rapture hich, on their honey arm He could not possibly have such sensations now What was the rowing old Useless to pretend to hi old Only, she seemed to be placidly content, and he was not content And more and more the domestic atmosphere and the atht's affair was not unique But it was a cul the sliar Road, which sank northwards in the direction of Dr Stirling's, and southwards in the direction of joyous Hanbridge He loathed and despised Trafalgar Road What was the use ofthree hundred and forty-one pounds by a shrewd speculation?
None He could not employ three hundred and forty-one pounds to increase his happiness Money had becoht! He desired no more of it! He had a considerable income from investments, and also at least four thousand a year from the Five Towns Universal Thrift Club, that wonderful but unpretentious organization which now eeous invention for profitably taking care of the pennies of the working-classes--that excellent device, his own, for selling to the working-classes every kind of goods at credit prices after having received part of the e!” he said to hiar
After all, the bitterest thought in his heart was, perhaps, that, on that evening he had tried to be a ”card,” and, for the first time in his brilliant career as a ”card,” had failed He, Henry Machin, who had been the youngest Mayor of Bursley years and years ago, he, the recognized areatest ”characters” that the Five Towns had ever produced! He had failed of an effect!
He slipped out on to the pave of the football ground, a poster intiantic attraction at the E to the posters there was a gigantic attraction every week at the Empire, but Edward Henry happened to know that this week the attraction was indeed soht was Friday, the fashi+onable night for the bloods and the modishness of the Five Towns He looked at the church clock and then at his watch He would be in time for the ”second house,” which started at nine o'clock At the sa up out of Bursley He boarded it and was saluted by the conductor Rearette and tried to feel cheerful But he could not conquer his depression
”Yes,” he thought, ”what I want is change--and a lot of it, too!”
CHAPTER II
THE BANK-NOTE
I
Alderman Machin had to stand at the back, and somewhat towards the side, of that part of the auditoriue The attendants at the entrance, and in the lounge, where the salutation ”Welcoe cupid-surrounded ly told him that there was not a seat left in the house He had shared their exultation He had said to himself, full of honest pride in the Five Towns: ”This music-hall, admitted by the press to be one of the finest in the provinces, holds over two thousand five hundred people
And yet we can fill it to overflowing twice every night! And only a few years ago there wasn't a decent ress” flitted through his head
It was not strictly true that the Eht, but it was true that at that particular moment not a seat was unsold; and the aspect of a crowded auditoriueneralizations
Alderan instinctively to calculate the amount of money in the house, and to wonder whether there would be a chance for a second e He also wondered why the idea of a second e had never occurred to him before
The Grand Circle was so called because it was grand Its plush fauteuils cost a shi+lling, no mean price for a coht for sixpence, and the view of the stage therefrom was perfect But the Alderman's vieas far from perfect, since he had to peer as best he could between and above the shoulders of several men, each apparently, but not really, taller than hiht movements, to comply with the ments of various advertisements of soap, motor-cars, whisky, shi+rts, perfume, pills, bricks and tea--for the drop-curtain was down And, curiously, he felt obliged to keep his eyes on the drop-curtain and across the long intervening vista of hats and heads and sain, lest when it went up heas behind it
Nevertheless, despite the hter, he felt almost happy in this dense atmosphere of success He even found a certain peculiar and perverse satisfaction in the fact that he had as yet been recognized by nobody Once or twice the owners of shoulders had turned and deliberately glared at the worrying felloho had the i over theuished the fellow from any ordinary fellow Could they have known that he was the famous Alderman Edward Henry Machin, founder and sole proprietor of the Thrift Club, into which their wives were probably paying so lared to another tune, and they would have said with pride afterwards: ”That chap Machin o'Bursley was standing behind st the commonest nareat and ad that a personage so notorious should not have been instantly ”spotted” in such a resort as the E concentration of cities, and no longer a mere district where everybody knew everybody!
The curtain rose, and as it did so a thunderous, crashi+ng applause of greeting broke forth; applause that thrilled and impressed and inspired; applause that lad that he was there For the curtain had risen on the gigantic attraction, which many members of the audience were about to see for the fifth time that week; in fact, it was rumoured that certain men of fashi+on, whose habit was to refuse theantic attraction since the second house on Monday
The scene represented a restaurant of quiet aspect, into which entered a waiter bearing a pile of plates so intoxicated the tower of plates leaned this way and that as he staggered about, and the whole house really did hold its breath in the si s a pile of plates soh, and the risk of destruction was thus more than doubled--it was quadrupled, for each waiter, in addition to the risks of his own inebriety, was now subject to the dreadful peril of colliding with the other However, there was no catastrophe
Then arrived two custolass, and the other in a large violet hat, a diamond necklace and a yellow satin skirt The which custoht of drunken waiters tottering to and fro with towers of plates, sat down at a table and waited calmly for attention The popular audience, with that quick rasp for which popular audiences are so renowned, soon perceived that the table was in close proximity to a lofty sideboard, and that on either hand of the sideboard were two chairs, upon which the taiters were trying to climb in order to deposit their plates on the topmost shelf of the sideboard The waiters successfully mounted the chairs and successfully lifted their towers of plates to within half an inch of the desired shelf, and then the chairs began to show signs of insecurity By this time the audience was stimulated to an ecstasy of expectation, whose painfulness was only equalled by its extre were the custo attention at the restaurant table
One toas safely lodged on the shelf But was it? It was not! Yes?
No! It curved; it straightened; it curved again The exciteIt could not be borne any longer, and when it could not be borne any longer the tower sprawled irrevocably and seven dozen plates fell in a cascade on the violet hat, and so with an inconceivable clatter to the floor Al in the dress-suit and the eyeglass, becohtly unusual even in a restaurant, dropped his eyeglass, turned round to the sideboard and received the other waiter's seven dozen plates in the face and on the crown of his head