It pleased my uncle extremely to find I had never seen London before.
He took possession of the metropolis forthwith. “London, George,” he
said, “takes a lot of understanding. It’s a great place. Immense. The
richest town in the world, the biggest port, the greatest manufacturing
town, the Imperial city—the centre of civilisation, the heart of the
world! See those sandwich men down there! That third one’s hat! Fair
treat! You don’t see poverty like that in Wimblehurst George! And many
of them high Oxford honour men too. Brought down by drink! It’s a
wonderful place, George—a whirlpool, a maelstrom! whirls you up and
whirls you down.”
I have a very confused memory of that afternoon’s inspection of London.
My uncle took us to and fro showing us over his London, talking
erratically, following a route of his own. Sometimes we were walking,
sometimes we were on the tops of great staggering horse omnibuses in a
heaving jumble of traffic, and at one point we had tea in an Aerated
Bread Shop. But I remember very distinctly how we passed down Park Lane
under an overcast sky, and how my uncle pointed out the house of this
child of good fortune and that with succulent appreciation.
I remember, too, that as he talked I would find my aunt watching my
face as if to check the soundness of his talk by my expression.
“Been in love yet, George?” she asked suddenly, over a bun in the
tea-shop.
“Too busy, aunt,” I told her.
She bit her bun extensively, and gesticulated with the remnant to
indicate that she had more to say.
“How are _you_ going to make your fortune?” she said so soon as she
could speak again. “You haven’t told us that.”
“’Lectricity,” said my uncle, taking breath after a deep draught of
tea.
“If I make it at all,” I said. “For my part I think shall be satisfied
with something less than a fortune.”
“We’re going to make ours—suddenly,” she said.
“So _he_ old says.” She jerked her head at my uncle.
“He won’t tell me when—so I can’t get anything ready. But it’s coming.
Going to ride in our carriage and have a garden. Garden—like a
bishop’s.”
She finished her bun and twiddled crumbs from her fingers. “I shall be
glad of the garden,” she said. “It’s going to be a real big one with
rosaries and things. Fountains in it. Pampas grass. Hothouses.”
“You’ll get it all right,” said my uncle, who had reddened a little.
“Grey horses in the carriage, George,” she said. “It’s nice to think
about when one’s dull. And dinners in restaurants often and often. And
theatres—in the stalls. And money and money and money.”
“You may joke,” said my uncle, and hummed for a moment.
“Just as though an old Porpoise like him would ever make money,” she
said, turning her eyes upon his profile with a sudden lapse to
affection. “He’ll just porpoise about.”
“I’ll do something,” said my uncle, “you bet! Zzzz!” and rapped with a
shilling on the marble table.
“When you do you’ll have to buy me a new pair of gloves,” she said,
“anyhow. That finger’s past mending. Look! you Cabbage—you.” And she
held the split under his nose, and pulled a face of comical fierceness.
My uncle smiled at these sallies at the time, but afterwards, when I
went back with him to the Pharmacy—the low-class business grew brisker
in the evening and they kept open late—he reverted to it in a low
expository tone. “Your aunt’s a bit impatient, George. She gets at me.
It’s only natural.... A woman doesn’t understand how long it takes to
build up a position. No.... In certain directions now—I
am—quietly—building up a position. Now here.... I get this room. I have
my three assistants. Zzzz. It’s a position that, judged by the
criterion of imeedjit income, isn’t perhaps so good as I deserve, but
strategically—yes. It’s what I want. I make my plans. I rally my
attack.”
“What plans,” I said, “are you making?”
“Well, George, there’s one thing you can rely upon, I’m doing nothing
in a hurry. I turn over this one and that, and I don’t
talk—indiscreetly. There’s—No! I don’t think I can tell you that. And
yet, why NOT?”
He got up and closed the door into the shop. “I’ve told no one,” he
remarked, as he sat down again. “I owe you something.”
His face flushed slightly, he leant forward over the little table
towards me.
“Listen!” he said.