Review of Review), lIBjuS. 



//I the Days of the Gomet. 



305 



■• How could you write to old Mr. Pettigrew like 

 that ?" she asked me. 



I said that old Pettigrew was a shameful old 

 rascal, or words to that effect, and I am afraid I 

 behaved in a very undutiful way to her when she 

 said that she had settled eventhing with him — she 

 wouldn't say how, but I could guess well enough — 

 and that I was to promise her, promise her faith- 

 fully, to do nothing more in the matter. I wouldn't 

 promise her. 



And — having nothing better to employ me then — 

 I presently went raging to old Pettigrew in order 

 to put the whole thing before him in what I con- 

 sidered a propert light. Old Pettigrew evaded my 

 illumination ; he saw me coming up his front steps 

 — I can still see his queer old nose and the crinkled 

 brow over his eye and the little wisp of grey hair 

 that showed over the corner of his window-blind-— 

 and he instructed his servant to put up the chain 

 when she answered the door, and to tell me he 

 would not see me. So I had to fall back upon my 



pen. 



Then it was, as I had no idea what were the 

 proper " proceedings " to take, the brilliant idea 

 occurred to me of appealing to Lord Redcar as the 

 ground landlord, and, as it were, our feudal chief, 

 and pointing out to him that his security for his 

 rent was depreciating in old Pettigrew's hands. I 

 added some general observations on leaseholds, the 

 taxation of ground rents, and the private owner- 

 ship of the soil. And Lord Redcar, whose spirit 

 revolted at democracy, and who cultivated a pert, 

 humiliating manner with his inferiors to show as 

 much, earned my distinguished hatred for ever by 

 causing his secretary to present his compliments to 

 me, and his request that I would mind my own busi- 

 ness and leave him to manage his. At which I was 

 so greatly enraged that I first tore this note into 

 minute, innumerable pieces, and then dashed it 

 dramatically all over the floor of my room — from 



which, to keep my mother from the job, I after- 

 ward had to pick it up laboriously on all fours . 



I was still meditating a tremendous retort, an 

 indictment of all Lord Redcar's class, their man- 

 ners, morals, economic and political crimes, when my 

 trouble with Nettie arose to swamp all minor trou- 

 bles. Yet not so completely but that I snarled 

 aloud when his lordship's motor-car whizzed by me, 

 as I went about upon my long, meandering quest 

 for a weapon. And I discovered after a time that 

 my mother had bruised her knee and was lame. 

 Fearing to irritate me by bringing the thing before 

 me again, she had set herself to move her bed out 

 of the way of the drip without my help, and she had 

 knocked her knee. All her poor furnishings, I dis- 

 covered, were cowering now close to the peeling 

 bedroom walls ; there had come a vast discoloration 

 of the ceiling and a washtub was in occupation of 

 the middle of her chamber. 



It is necessary that I should set these things before 

 you, should give the key of inconvenience and un- 

 easiness in which all things were arranged, should 

 suggest the breath of trouble that stirred along the 

 hot, summer streets, the anxiety about the strike, 

 the rumours and indignations, the gatherings and 

 meetings, the increasing gravity of the policemen's 

 faces, the combative headlines of the local papers, 

 the knots of picketers who scrutinised anyone who 

 passed near the silent, smokeless forges. But in 

 my mind, you must understand, such impressions 

 came and went irregularly ; they made a moving 

 background, changing undertones to my preoccupa- 

 tion by that darklv shaping purpose to which a re- 

 volver was so imperative an essential. 



Along the darkling :str©ets, amidst the sullen 

 crowds, the thought of Nettie, my Nettie, and her 

 gentleman lover made ever a vivid, inflammatory spot 

 of purpose in my brain. 



(To be continued.) 



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