Trained Midwife.
Arthur stumbled into the room, dropped his straw hat on to the
broken-down couch that occupied the entire side of one wall, and sat
down at the table.
"Well?" enquired Mrs. Flack, as she poured him out a cup of tea, "who
won?"
"Nobody," remarked Arthur, cramming bread and butter into his mouth.
"Game off."
Mr. Flack, who was seated in his arm-chair by the fire-place, looked
up in amazement. His interest in cricket was immense, but chronic
rheumatism prevented him from getting as far as the ground. He was
dependent upon Arthur's reports and the local paper. "'Ow's that,
then?" he demanded, slowly.
Arthur swallowed quickly and tried to explain. But, although the
affair was still hot in his mind, he found it exceedingly difficult
to describe exactly what had taken place. The doings of the Clockwork
man were at once obvious and inexplicable. It was almost impossible
to intrigue people who had not actually witnessed the affair into a
realisation of such extraordinary happenings. Arthur had to resort to
abrupt movements of his arms and legs in order to produce an effect.
But he made a great point of insistence upon the ear-flapping.
"_Go hon!_" exclaimed Mrs. Flack, leaning her red folded arms upon the
table, "well I never!"
"'Tain't possible," objected her husband, "'e's pulling your leg, ma."
But Arthur persisted in his imitations, without caring very much
whether his observers believed him or not. It at least afforded an
entertaining occupation. Mrs. Flack's motherly bosom rose and fell
with merriment. "It's as good as the pictures," she announced at last,
wiping her eyes. But when Arthur spoke about the loud noise, and hinted
that the Clockwork man's internal arrangements consisted of some kind
of machinery, Mr. Flack sat bolt upright and shook his head gravely.
"You're a masterpiece," he remarked, "that's what you are." This was
his usual term for anything out the way. "You ain't a going to get me
to believe that, not at my age.
"If you saw him," said Arthur, emphatically, "you'd _have_ to believe.
It's just that, and nothing else. He's like one of those mechanical
toys come to life. And it's so funny. You'd never guess."
Mr. Flack shook his head thoughtfully. Presently he got up, walked to
the end of the mantelpiece, placed his smoked-out pipe on the edge and
took an empty one from behind an ornament. Then he returned to his seat
and sat for a long time with the empty pipe in his mouth.
"'T'ain't possible," he ruminated, at last, "not for a bloke to 'ave
machinery inside 'im. At least, not to my way of thinking."
Arthur finished his tea and got up from his chair. Conscious that his
efforts so far had not carried conviction, he spent a few moments of
valuable time in an attempt to supplement them.
"He went like this," he explained, imitating the walk of the Clockwork
man, and at the same time snapping his fingers to suggest sharp
clicking noises. "And the row! Well, you know what a motor sounds like
when it's being wound up. Like that, only worse."
Mrs. Flack held the greater part of herself in a semicircle of red
arm. "You are a one," she declared. Then she looked at Mr. Flack, who
sat unmoved. "Why don't _you_ laugh. It would do you good. You take
everything so serious."
"I ain't a going to laugh," said Mr. Flack, "not unless I see fit
to laugh." And he continued to stare gravely at Arthur's elaborate
posturing. Presently the latter remembered his urgent appointment and
disappeared through the narrow door that led upstairs.
"Whoever 'e be," said Mr. Flack, referring to the strange visitor to
Great Wymering, "I should judge 'im to be a bit of a masterpiece."