“BOOTS!” he roared, for the second time. His wife, opening the kitchen
door, looked in, and surveyed him.
“If I have to order you,” said Mr. Baynes, speaking with great
distinctness, “to come and take off my boots again, I shall dock half a
crown off your weekly allowance to-morrow.”
She did not answer.
“My best plan,” he went on, “will be to draw it all up in black and
white, so that we can have a clear and proper understandin’ one with the
other. We must have a proper system of fines, same as they do in every
well-regulated business. Fetch the pen and ink and paper.”
“How would it be to fetch it for yourself?”
He stared at her amazedly. Searching his pockets, he found there a small
memorandum-book and a short piece of pencil.
“I’m going to keep calm with you,” he said deliberately, “because, so far
as I can see, you’ve taken leave, for the present, of your senses.
You’ll be sorry for it when you come back to ’em. Now then, let’s make
out a list. ‘For not answering when called, one shilling.’”
He wrote this carefully on a page, regarding it with satisfaction at the
finish. “See what that means? That means, for every time you pretend to
be deaf when I shout at you, you’ll be docked a bob at the end of the
week.”
“I see.”
“Just as well you do,” remarked Baynes threateningly. “We will now
proceed to the next item: ‘Food not cooked to W. B.’s satisfaction,
one-and-six.’ How many t’s in ‘satisfaction’?”
“Many as you like.”
“Impudence,” he continued, writing as he spoke, “one-and-three. Wait a
bit; I haven’t finished yet. ‘Clean collar not ready when required,
sixpence.’”
“There won’t be anything left,” mentioned his wife, “if you put many more
down.”
“Rests with you,” giving a careless gesture. “All you’ve got to do is to
see that none of these rules are broken. I shall take the trouble
presently of copying out the list, and you’ll do well to stick it up on
the wall in some prominent position, so that you can be reminded of it
several times in the course of the day.”
“And when any of my relatives look in they can see it too?”
“Reminds me,” he said, taking his pencil again. “‘Relations, two a
month. All in excess of this number, fourpence per relation.’ Take the
list and read it out to me, and then kneel down and take off my boots as
I ordered you to do some considerable time ago.”
Mrs. Baynes accepted the list, inspected it; then tore the page into
several pieces and threw these into the fireplace. In the pocket of an
underskirt she found a purse, and from this brought four new banknotes.
“Have a good look at them, William,” she said. “You won’t get a chance
of seeing them again. I’m just going along to the Post Office to put
them away before it closes.”
“How—how did you come by them?”
“I’m not bound to answer you,” remarked Mrs. Baynes, “but perhaps I may
as well. The money has come to me from poor Uncle Ernest, who popped off
last month. He’s left a sim’lar amount to my two sisters.”
“You was his favourite,” said Baynes, “and if he’d got money to leave—and
this is the first I’ve heard of it—he ought to have left it all to you.
I must have a glance at his will and see whether we can’t dispute it.”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind.”
“In any case,” he went on, “there is, I’m bound to admit, a very decent
little nest-egg for us.”
“Not for us. For me,” corrected Mrs. Baynes. “It belongs to me and only
to me. You haven’t anything to do with it.”
“I’ve heard,” he remarked, “of sudden riches affecting the brain, but
this is the first time I’ve actually come across such an instance.” He
bent and started to unlace his boots. “We’ll talk the matter over again
later on. By the by,” relacing his boots, “there’s no reason why you
should go out on a wet night like this and catch your death of cold.
I’ll trot along to the Post Office for you. I’m more used to handling
money than what you are.”
“That’s been the case hitherto,” she admitted, “but I must learn how to
do it now. You stay here and enjoy your pipe, and when I come back I’ll
tell you how you’ve got to behave to me in the future.”
“I suppose,” he inquired with some bitterness, “I’ve got your precious
sisters to thank for all this?”
“No,” she answered, “poor Uncle Ernest.”
Baynes, on the following morning, before proceeding to work, denied
himself the luxury of issuing commands to his wife from the front gate in
a tone of voice that could be heard by neighbours; instead he blew a kiss
in her direction and walked off, whistling in a thoughtful way. Later in
the day he brought home the proportion of his weekly wage and placed it
on the mantelpiece, announcing no deductions and giving no warning to
make it last out. He tried to assist his wife in the performance of
domestic duties, persisting in this until she begged him to go out into
the park and give her a chance of finishing the work. On the next day he
accompanied her to chapel in the evening, and borrowed threepence from
her to put into the plate. Meeting two or three friends on the way back,
he declined their invitations and went home with his wife, discussing the
sermon and the singing. In response to her appeal he agreed to abstain
on future occasions from joining in the hymns. The Sunday paper was
still on the hat-stand, and on entering the house he asked whether she
would mind if he had a look at it during supper, his general habit being
to secure the journal and keep it for his own use throughout the day.
“This is very nice and comfortable,” he said, after the meal. “Somehow,
that little legacy of yours, if you’ll pardon the expression, my dear,
seems to me likely to prove a blessing in disguise.”
“No disguise about it.”
“You don’t quite follow me,” he remarked patiently. “What I mean is that
it’s going to have bigger results than I at first anticipated. Of
course, it’s a pity there isn’t more of it.”
“Seeing that I never expected nothing—”
“Quite so, quite so. Only that the Post Office pays such a trifling rate
of interest.”
“The money’s safe there,” she interrupted, “that’s the great thing.”
“I should be the last to recommend anything that wasn’t perfectly and
absolutely sound,” declared Baynes. “We’re on good terms with each other
now, and your interests are my interests. We two are one, so to speak.
Only that, getting about as I do, I keep my ears open—”
“Listeners never hear any good of themselves.”
“But sometimes they hear good about other matters. Two chaps were
talking on the tramcar last week, and I was sitting just at the back.
Jockeys from the look of ’em. They didn’t know I was taking in all they
were saying, and they talked quite freely to each other, just as I might
to you in this room. Vinolia was what they were chatting about.”
“Old Brown Windsor is as good as anything.”
“Vinolia, it appears,” he continued, “is being kept very dark, but the
owner’s made an arrangement, so far as I could gather, for it to win the
race it’s running in next week, and no one except those that are in the
stable— Why, bless my soul, if this isn’t the rummiest coincidence I
ever come across in all my born days. I’m talking to you about Vinolia,
and here my eye lights on the very name. Thirty-three to one. Let’s see
what it says about it. ‘Vinolia appears to stand no earthly chance, and
we are at a loss to comprehend why the owner should take the trouble to
run him.’”
“What does thirty-three to one mean, William?”
“Thirty-three to one means,” he explained, “that if you handed me your
money and I placed it for you, and Vinolia came in first, you’d get
thirty-three times the amount, together with your original money, back.
But the risk is a jolly sight too great, and I recommend you, speaking as
a friend, to have nothing whatever to do with it. Besides, with me, it’s
a matter of principle. I object to gambling _in toto_. I look on
gambling as one of the curses of the country. People win money at it,
and it thor’ly demoralises ’em. They bring off something successful that
means they’ve cleared as much as they could earn by honest labour in six
or seven weeks, perhaps more; consequence is that they get altogether
unhinged. Upsets ’em. Knocks ’em off the main line. So my advice to
you, old girl, is to put what I’ve been saying clean out of your head,
and not trouble any further about it. After all, supposing you had
thirty-three times as much as you’ve got at present, it doesn’t by any
means follow you’d be thirty-three times as happy. That’s the way you’ve
got to look at it!”
“But supposing—”
“My dear,” he said, putting down the newspaper, “we’ve been getting on
particular well together this last forty-eight hours or so; don’t let us
begin arguing and spoil it. I’ve been into the law of the matter, and I
find I’ve got no right to touch your money in any way whatsoever, but
it’s my positive duty to see that you don’t do anything silly and stupid
with it.”
“It’s mine to do what I like with.”
“Let’s change the subject,” urged Baynes, “and have a nice talk over old
times. When do you reckon it was you first felt drawn towards me?”
Mrs. Baynes brought downstairs an hour later her Post Office book, and
announced that she had been giving five minutes of serious thought to the
matter. Seemed to her that here was a chance of a lifetime, and to
neglect it would only mean perpetual remorse. He pointed out once more
the serious risks run by those who backed horses, and submitted a large
number of objections. These she brushed aside. On asking how she
proposed to set about backing Vinolia, it was admitted that here his help
would be required. Baynes declared he intended to take no share or part
in the undertaking.
“Very well, then,” she said, “I shall have to make inquiries and see
about doing it myself.”
“Rather than you should be taken in by a set of rogues,” he conceded,
“I’ll do as you wish. But, mind you, I’m acting in entire opposition to
my better judgment!”
* * * * *
Baynes, back from work on the day of the race, found his wife waiting at
the front gate, tapping at it impatiently; as he came within six houses
of his home, he shook his head. She took up the hem of her apron, and
with this to her eyes ran indoors. From the kitchen he roared a command
to her to come down and leave off snivelling and make herself useful.
Obtaining no reply, he took the trouble to go to the foot of the stairs
and make the formal announcement that, unless she descended at once, he
would break every bone in her body. She came, red-eyed, and, kneeling,
unlaced his boots.
“You can’t say I didn’t warn you,” he remarked sternly. “Every word I
uttered has proved to be true. All your money gone, and your poor Uncle
Ernest, if he’s looking down, or up, as the case may be, must feel
sorry—”
“Don’t, William, don’t!”
“Oh, but I’m going to tell you the truth,” he said with determination.
“I’m not the man to mince my words. You get no sympathy out of me.
There’s only yourself to blame, and you’ve got to recognise the fact.
I’m not going to have you going about saying that you was recommended to
back the horse by other people. What you did, you did with your eyes
open.”
“Where did it come in?”
“Don’t interrupt me,” shouted Baynes, “when I’m talking! Been and lost
the thread of my argument now. Besides, what does it matter where it
came in? You asked me to back the horse to win; there was nothing said
about backing it for a place. As I told you, I couldn’t get thirty-three
to one; but I did, after a lot of trouble, manage to put your money on at
twenty-five. I’ve behaved straightforward throughout the entire
business, and, now it’s over, all I ask is that nothing more shall be
said about it. I’m sick and tired of the whole affair. Perhaps another
time you’ll listen to me when I give you good advice.”
“I shall never back a horse again,” she declared tearfully.
“You’ll never get the chance. Take the jug, and hurry off, and mind
you’re back here sharp. I shall give you five minutes; if you’re a
second later, there’ll be a fine of sixpence. That’s an item to be added
to the list. ‘Loitering and gossiping when sent on errands, six d.’
Go!” he ordered, placing his watch on the table.
He was pinning the sheet of notepaper to the wall at the side of the
looking-glass when his wife returned. Glancing at the watch, he waited
grimly for her explanation.
“Had to wait,” she said, “and find a boy selling evening newspapers.”
“And what might you want, pray, with evening newspapers? Furthermore,
where’s the jug?”
“If you want beer, fetch it!” she replied. “That was a good joke of
yours about the horse, but you’d better not let me catch you being quite
so funny again. It upset me, and I don’t like being upset.”
He snatched the journal from her. She compelled him to give it back and
to take it properly. In the stop-press space he read out: “Vinolia, one;
Gay Lothario, two; Messenger Boy, three.”
Baynes stood gazing at the fire, making the clicking noises with his
tongue which folk adopt when, in disconcerting circumstances, speech
fails.
“I’ve been figuring it out in my head,” she went on, “but I can’t make it
come twice alike. Tear down that bit of paper and sit yourself there and
reckon it up for me. Twenty-five times—”
“I can’t do it. I can’t do it.”
“Don’t you start being stupid,” commanded Mrs. Baynes. “Do as I tell
you.”
Baynes had written the figures, and was about to enter on the task of
multiplication, with one hand gripping the top of his head, when he
suddenly threw away the pencil.
“My dear,” he said, “I want you to be so kind as to listen to me, and I
must ask you not to be madder than you can possibly help. I admit the
case is somewhat trying; but you have to remember that we all have our
cross to bear. I never backed that horse!”
A pause of some moments in length.
“You mean,” said his wife slowly, “to look me in the face and to tell me
that, after what you overheard on the tramcar—”
“I never overheard nothing of the kind on the tramcar.”
“Perhaps, William, you’ll kindly tell me what horse you did put the money
on?”
“I never,” he answered, “put no money on any horse whatsoever.”
“Then where is the money?”
“In the inside pocket of the jacket I’m wearing at the present moment,”
he said sulkily.
“But what did you intend to do with it?”
“Hadn’t quite made up my mind about that. Idea was to prevent you from
lording it over me. You see, my dear, I’d got accustomed to being
master, and the sudden change was a bit trying. And in picking out what
I thought was the unlikeliest gee-gee, I acted from the purest of
motives, and for what I reckoned the best for all parties concerned. If
I made a mistake, I’m sorry for it.”
“Do you realise, William, that if you’d obeyed my orders we should have
been in a position to buy a nice little house of our own here in Old
Ford, and never had to pay a week’s rent again? Do you understand how
much you owe me? Do you comprehend—”
“My dear,” he appealed, putting his hands together, “let me off as light
as you can. I won’t go lording it about the place any more. In future,
I’ll only lord it over myself.”