The little shop was not paying. The realisation came insensibly.
Winslow was not the man for definite addition and subtraction
and sudden discovery. He became aware of the truth in his mind
gradually, as though it had always been there. A lot of facts had
converged and led him there. There was that line of cretonnes--four
half-pieces--untouched, save for half a yard sold to cover a stool.
There were those shirtings at 4¾d.--Bandersnatch, in the Broadway,
was selling them at 2¾d.--under cost, in fact. (Surely Bandersnatch
might let a man live!) Those servants' caps, a selling line, needed
replenishing, and that brought back the memory of Winslow's sole
wholesale dealers, Helter, Skelter, & Grab. Why! how about their
account?
Winslow stood with a big green box open on the counter before him
when he thought of it. His pale grey eyes grew a little rounder; his
pale, straggling moustache twitched. He had been drifting along, day
after day. He went round to the ramshackle cash-desk in the corner--it
was Winslow's weakness to sell his goods over the counter, give his
customers a duplicate bill, and then dodge into the desk to receive
the money, as though he doubted his own honesty. His lank forefinger,
with the prominent joints, ran down the bright little calendar
("Clack's Cottons last for All Time"). "One--two--three; three weeks
an' a day!" said Winslow, staring. "March! Only three weeks and a day.
It _can't_ be."
"Tea, dear," said Mrs. Winslow, opening the door with the glass window
and the white blind that communicated with the parlour.
"One minute," said Winslow, and began unlocking the desk.
An irritable old gentleman, very hot and red about the face, and in a
heavy fur-lined cloak, came in noisily. Mrs. Winslow vanished.
"Ugh!" said the old gentleman. "Pocket-handkerchief."
"Yes, sir," said Winslow. "About what price"--
"Ugh!" said the old gentleman. "Poggit-handkerchief, quig!"
Winslow began to feel flustered. He produced two boxes.
"These, sir"--began Winslow.
"Sheed tin!" said the old gentleman, clutching the stiffness of the
linen. "Wad to blow my nose--not haggit about."
"A cotton one, p'raps, sir?" said Winslow.
"How much?" said the old gentleman over the handkerchief.
"Sevenpence, sir. There's nothing more I can show you? No ties,
braces--?"
"Damn!" said the old gentleman, fumbling in his ticket-pocket, and
finally producing half a crown. Winslow looked round for his little
metallic duplicate-book which he kept in various fixtures, according
to circumstances, and then he caught the old gentleman's eye. He
went straight to the desk at once and got the change, with an entire
disregard of the routine of the shop.
Winslow was always more or less excited by a customer. But the open
desk reminded him of his trouble. It did not come back to him all at
once. He heard a finger-nail softly tapping on the glass, and, looking
up, saw Minnie's eyes over the blind. It seemed like retreat opening.
He shut and locked the desk, and went into the little room to tea.
But he was preoccupied. Three weeks and a day! He took unusually large
bites of his bread and butter, and stared hard at the little pot of
jam. He answered Minnie's conversational advances distractedly. The
shadow of Helter, Skelter, & Grab lay upon the tea-table. He was
struggling with this new idea of failure, the tangible realisation,
that was taking shape and substance, condensing, as it were, out
of the misty uneasiness of many days. At present it was simply one
concrete fact; there were thirty-nine pounds left in the bank, and that
day three weeks Messrs. Helter, Skelter, & Grab, those enterprising
outfitters of young men, would demand their eighty pounds.
After tea there was a customer or so--little purchases: some muslin
and buckram, dress-protectors, tape, and a pair of Lisle hose. Then,
knowing that Black Care was lurking in the dusky corners of the shop,
he lit the three lamps early and set to, refolding his cotton prints,
the most vigorous and least meditative proceeding of which he could
think. He could see Minnie's shadow in the other room as she moved
about the table. She was busy turning an old dress. He had a walk after
supper, looked in at the Y.M.C.A., but found no one to talk to, and
finally went to bed. Minnie was already there. And there, too, waiting
for him, nudging him gently, until about midnight he was hopelessly
awake, sat Black Care.
He had had one or two nights lately in that company, but this was
much worse. First came Messrs. Helter, Skelter, & Grab, and their
demand for eighty pounds--an enormous sum when your original capital
was only a hundred and seventy. They camped, as it were, before him,
sat down and beleaguered him. He clutched feebly at the circumambient
darkness for expedients. Suppose he had a sale, sold things for almost
anything? He tried to imagine a sale miraculously successful in some
unexpected manner, and mildly profitable, in spite of reductions below
cost. Then Bandersnatch Limited, 101, 102, 103, 105, 106, 107 Broadway,
joined the siege, a long caterpillar of frontage, a battery of shop
fronts, wherein things were sold at a farthing above cost. How could
he fight such an establishment? Besides, what had he to sell? He began
to review his resources. What taking line was there to bait the sale?
Then straightway came those pieces of cretonne, yellow and black, with
a bluish-green flower; those discredited skirtings, prints without
buoyancy, skirmishing haberdashery, some despairful four-button gloves
by an inferior maker--a hopeless crew. And that was his force against
Bandersnatch, Helter, Skelter, & Grab, and the pitiless world behind
them. Whatever had made him think a mortal would buy such things?
Why had he bought this and neglected that? He suddenly realised the
intensity of his hatred for Helter, Skelter, & Grab's salesman. Then
he drove towards an agony of self-reproach. He had spent too much
on that cash-desk. What real need was there of a desk? He saw his
vanity of that desk in a lurid glow of self-discovery. And the lamps?
Five pounds! Then suddenly, with what was almost physical pain, he
remembered the rent.
He groaned and turned over. And there, dim in the darkness, was the
hummock of Mrs. Winslow's shoulders. That set him off in another
direction. He became acutely sensible of Minnie's want of feeling. Here
he was, worried to death about business, and she sleeping like a little
child. He regretted having married, with that infinite bitterness that
only comes to the human heart in the small hours of the morning. That
hummock of white seemed absolutely without helpfulness, a burden, a
responsibility. What fools men were to marry! Minnie's inert repose
irritated him so much that he was almost provoked to wake her up and
tell her that they were "Ruined." She would have to go back to her
uncle; her uncle had always been against him: and as for his own
future, Winslow was exceedingly uncertain. A shop assistant who has
once set up for himself finds the utmost difficulty in getting into a
situation again. He began to figure himself "crib-hunting" again, going
from this wholesale house to that, writing innumerable letters. How
he hated writing letters! "Sir,--Referring to your advertisement in
the _Christian World_." He beheld an infinite vista of discomfort and
disappointment, ending--in a gulf.
He dressed, yawning, and went down to open the shop. He felt tired
before the day began. As he carried the shutters in, he kept asking
himself what good he was doing. The end was inevitable, whether he
bothered or not. The clear daylight smote into the place, and showed
how old and rough and splintered was the floor, how shabby the
second-hand counter, how hopeless the whole enterprise. He had been
dreaming these past six months of a bright little shop, of a happy
couple, of a modest but comely profit flowing in. He had suddenly
awakened from his dream. The braid that bound his decent black coat--it
was a little loose--caught against the catch of the shop door, and was
torn loose. This suddenly turned his wretchedness to wrath. He stood
quivering for a moment, then, with a spiteful clutch, tore the braid
looser, and went in to Minnie.
"Here," he said, with infinite reproach; "look here! You might look
after a chap a bit."
"I didn't see it was torn," said Minnie.
"You never do," said Winslow, with gross injustice, "until things are
too late."