6i8 



The Review of Reviews. 



December I, 1906, 



solved to Start by the five train for Birmingham in 

 any case, but still dissatisfied about my money. I 

 thought of pawning a book or something of that 

 sort, but I could think of nothing of obvious value 

 in the house. My mother's silver — two gravy-spoons 

 and a saltcellar — had been pawned for some weeks, 

 since, in fact, the June quarter-day. But my mind 

 was full of hypothetical opportunities. 



As I came up the steps to our door, I remarked 

 that Mr. Gabbitas looked at me suddenly round his 

 dull red curtains with a sort of alarmed resolution 

 in his eye and vanished, and as I walked along the 

 passage, he opened his door upon me suddenly and 

 intercepted me. 



He was in the clerical dress of that time, that 

 costume that seems almost the strangest of all our 

 old-world clothing, and he presented it in its cheap- 

 est form — black, of a poor texture, ill-fitting, 

 strangely cut. Its long skirts accentuated the tub- 

 biness of his body, the shortness of his legs. The 

 white tie below his all-round collar, beneath his 

 innocent, large-spectacled face, was a little grubby, 

 and between his not very clean teeth he held a briar 

 pipe. His complexion was whitish, and although 

 hewas only thirt)--three or four perhaps, his sandy 

 hair was already thinning from the top of his head. 



To your eye, now. he would seem the strangest 

 figure, in the utter disregard of all physical beauty 

 of dignity about him. You would find him extraor- 

 dinarily odd, but, in the old days, he met not only 

 with acceptance but respect. He was alive until within 

 a year or sp ago, but his later appearance changed. 

 As I saw him that afternoon, he was a verv slovenly, 

 ungainly little human being. You had an instinc- 

 tive sense that so he had been from the beginning. 

 You felt that he was not only drifting through life 

 eating what came in his way, believing what came 

 m his way, doing without any vigour what came 

 in his way, but that rnio life he also had drifted. 

 You could not believe him the child of pride and 

 high resolve, or of any splendid passion of love. 

 He had just happened. But we all happened then. 

 Why am I taking this tone over this poor little 

 curate in particular? 



" Hullo !" he said, with an assumption of friendly 

 ease. " Haven't seen you for weeks \ Come in and 

 have a gossip.' 



\\\ invitation from the drawingroom lodger was 

 in the nature of a command. I would have liked 

 \ery_ greatly to have refused it. N'ever was an in- 

 vitation more inopportune. But I had not the wit 

 to think of an excuse. "All right," I said awk- 

 wardly, and he held the door open for me. 



"I'd be very glad if you would," he amplified. 

 "One doesn't get much opportunitv of intelligent 

 talk in this parish." 



^Vhat the devil was he up to. was mv secret pre- 

 orcupation. He fussed about me w^ith a nervous 

 hospitality, talking in jumpv fragments, rubbinc 



his hands together, and taking peeps at me over and 

 round his glasses. 



"They're going to give us trouble in the North 

 Sea, It seems," he remarked with a sort of innocent 

 zest. " I'm glad they naean fighting." 



There was an air of culture about his room that 

 always cowed me, and that made me constrained 

 even on this occasion. The table under the window 

 was littered with photographic material and the 

 later albums of his Continental souvenirs. On the 

 American cloth-trimmed shelves that fiJled the re- 

 cesses on either side of the fireplace were what I 

 used to think in those davs a quite incredible num- 

 ber of books— perhaps eight hundred altogether, in- 

 cluding the reverend gentleman's photograph, al- 

 bums and college .ind school text-books. This sugc^es- 

 gestion of learning was enforced bv the little wooden 

 shield bearing a college coat-of-arms that hung over 

 the looking-glass, and by a photograph of Mr. Gab- 

 bitas in cap and gown in an Oxford frame that 

 adorned the opposite wall. And in the middle of 

 that wall stood his writing-desk, which I knew to 

 have pigeonholes when it was open, and which made 

 him seem not merely cultured, but literary. At 

 that, he ^ wrote sermons, composing them himself! 



"Yes," he said, taking possession of the hearth 

 rug, " the war had to come sooner or later. If we 

 smash their fleet for them now. well, there's an end 

 to the matter !" 



He stood on his toes and then bumped down on 

 his heels, and looked blandlv through his spectacles 

 at a water-colour by his sister— the subject was a 

 bunch of violets— above the sideboard which was 

 his pantry and tea chest and cellar. "Yes," he said 

 as he did so. 



I coughed, and wondered how I might presentlv 

 get away. 



He invited me to smoke^— that queer old prac- 

 tice !— and then when I declined, began talkino- in 

 a confidential tone of this "dreadful business" of 

 the strikes. " The war won't improve that outlook," 

 he said, and was very gra\-e for a moment. 



He spoke of the want of thought for their wives 

 and children shown by the colliers in striking mere- 

 ly for the sake of the union, and this stirred me to 

 controversy, and distracted me a little from mv re- 

 solution to escape. 



" I don't quite agree with that," 1 said, clearing 

 my throat. " If the men didn't strike for the union 

 now, if the>' let that be broken up, where would 

 thev be when the pinch of reductions did come:>" 



To which he replied that thev couldn't expect to 

 get top-price wages when the masters were selling 

 bottom-price coal. I replied : " That isn't it. The 

 masters don't treat them fairly. Thev have to pro- 

 tect themselves." 



To which Mr. Gabbitas answered: "Well, I don't 

 know. I've been in the Four Towns some time, and 

 I must say I don't think the balance of injustice 

 falls on the masters' side." 



