Kipps by H. G. Wells (the chimp paradox TXT) đ
- Author: H. G. Wells
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âIâll try,â said Kipps, looking rather hard at the tea-pot. âIâll do my best to try.â
âI know you will,â she said; and laid a hand for an instant upon his shoulder and withdrew it.
He did not perceive her caress. âOne has to learn,â he said. His attention was distracted by the strenuous efforts that were going on in the back of his head to translate, âI say, didnât you ought to name the day?â into easy as well as elegant English, a struggle that was still undecided when the time came for them to partâŠ
He sat for a long time at the open window of his sitting-room with an intent face, recapitulating that interview. His eyes rested at last almost reproachfully on the silk hat beside him. â âOw is one to know?â he asked. His attention was caught by a rubbed place in the nap, and, still thoughtful, he rolled up his handkerchief skilfully into a soft ball and began to smooth this down.
â âOw the Juice is one to know?â he said, putting down the hat with some emphasis.
He rose up, went across the room to the sideboard, and, standing there, opened and began to read in Manners and Rules.
1
So Kipps embarked upon his engagement, steeled himself to the high enterprise of marrying above his breeding. The next morning found him dressing with a certain quiet severity of movement, and it seemed to his landladyâs housemaid that he was unusually dignified at breakfast. He meditated profoundly over his kipper and his kidney and bacon. He was going to New Romney to tell the old people what had happened and where he stood. And the love of Helen had also given him courage to do what Buggins had once suggested to him as a thing he would do were he in Kippsâ place, and that was to hire a motor-car for the afternoon. He had an early cold lunch, and then, with an air of quiet resolution, assumed a cap and coat he had purchased to this end, and, thus equipped, strolled round, blowing slightly, to the motor shop. The transaction was unexpectedly easy, and within the hour, Kipps, spectacled and wrapped about, was tootling through Dymchurch.
They came to a stop smartly and neatly outside the little toyshop. âMake that thing âoot a bit, will you?â said Kipps. âYes. Thatâs it.â âWhup,â said the motor-car. âWhurrup.â Both his aunt and uncle came out on the pavement. âWhy, itâs Artie!â cried his aunt; and Kipps had a moment of triumph.
He descended to hand-claspings, removed wraps and spectacles, and the motor-driver retired to take âan hour off.â Old Kipps surveyed the machinery and disconcerted Kipps for a moment by asking him, in a knowing tone, what they asked him for a thing like that. The two men stood inspecting the machine and impressing the neighbours for a time, and then they strolled through the shop into the little parlour for a drink.
âThey ainât settled,â old Kipps had said at the neighbours. âThey ainât got no further than experiments. Thereâs a bit of take-in about each. You take my advice and wait, me boy, even if itâs a year or two before you buy one for your own use.â
(Though Kipps had said nothing of doing anything of the sort.)
âOw dâyou like that whisky I sent?â asked Kipps, dodging the old familiar bunch of childrenâs pails.
Old Kipps became tactful. âItâs very good whisky, my boy,â said old Kipps. âI âavenât the slightest doubt itâs a very good whisky, and cost you a tidy price. Butâdashed if it soots me! They put this here Foozle Ile in it, my boy, and it ketches me jest âere.â He indicated his centre of figure. âGives me the heartburn,â he said, and shook his head rather sadly.
âItâs a very good whisky,â said Kipps. âItâs what the actor-manager chaps drink in London, I âappen to know.â
âI dessay they do, my boy,â said old Kipps, âbut then theyâve âad their livers burnt outâand I avenât. They ainât dellicat like me. My stummik always âas been extrydellicat. Sometimes itâs almost been as though nothing would lay on it. But thatâs in passing. I liked those segars. You can send me some more of them segarsâŠâ
You cannot lead a conversation straight from the gastric consequences of Foozle Ile to Love, and so Kipps after a friendly inspection of a rare old engraving after Morland (perfect except for a hole kicked through the centre) that his Uncle had recently purchased by private haggle, came to the topic of the old peopleâs removal.
At the outset of Kippsâ great fortunes there had been much talk of some permanent provision for them. It had been conceded they were to be provided for comfortably, and the phrase, âretire from business,â had been very much in the air. Kipps had pictured an ideal cottage with a creeper always in exuberant flower about the door, where the sun shone for ever, and the wind never blew, and a perpetual welcome hovered in the doorway. It was an agreeable dream, but when it came to the point of deciding upon this particular cottage or that, and on this particular house or that, Kipps was surprised by an unexpected clinging to the little home, which he had always understood to be the worst of all possible houses.
âWe donât want to move in a âurry,â said Mrs. Kipps.
âWhen we want to move, we want to move for life. Iâve had enough moving about in my time,â said old Kipps.
âWe can do here a bit more now we done here so long,â said Mrs. Kipps.
âYou lemme look about a bit fust,â said old Kipps.
And in looking about old Kipps found perhaps a finer joy than any mere possession could have given. He would shut his shop more or less effectually against the intrusion of customers, and toddle abroad seeking a new matter for his dream; no house was too small and none too large for his knowing inquiries. Occupied houses took his fancy more than vacant ones, and he would remark. âYou wonât be a-livinâ âere for ever, even if you think you will,â when irate householders protested against the unsolicited examination of their more intimate premisesâŠ
Remarkable difficulties arose, of a totally unexpected sort.
âIf we âave a larger âouse,â said Mrs. Kipps, with sudden bitterness, âwe shall want a servant, and I donât want no gells in the place larfinâ at me, sniggerinâ and larfinâ and prancinâ and trapesinâ, lardy da!â
âIf we âave a smaller âouse,â said Mrs. Kipps, âthere wonât be room to swing a cat.â
Room to swing a cat, it seemed, was absolutely essential. It was an infrequent but indispensable operation.
âWhen we do move,â said old Kipps, âif we could get a bit of shootinâââ
âI donât want to sell off all this here stock for nothinâ,â said old Kipps. âItâs took years to âcumulate. I put a ticket in the winder sayinâ, âsellinâ orf,â but it âasnât brought nothing like a roosh. One of these âere dratted visitors, pretendinâ to want an air-gun, was all me âad in yesterday. Jest an excuse for spyinâ round, and then go away and larf at you. No thanky to everything, it didnât matter what⊠Thatâs âow I look at it, Artie.â
They pursued meandering fancies about the topic of their future settlement for a space, and Kipps became more and more hopeless of any proper conversational opening that would lead to his great announcement, and more and more uncertain how such an opening should be taken. Once, indeed, old Kipps, anxious to get away from this dangerous subject of removals, began, âAnd what are you a-doinâ of in Folkestone? I shall have to come over and see you one of these days,â but before Kipps could get in upon that, his uncle had passed into a general exposition of the proper treatment of landladies and their humbugging, cheating ways, and so the opportunity vanished. It seemed to Kipps the only thing to do was to go out into the town for a stroll, compose an effectual opening at leisure, and then come back and discharge it at them in its consecutive completeness. And even out-of-doors and alone, he found his mind distracted by irrelevant thoughts.
His steps led him out of the High Street towards the church, and he leant for a time over the gate that had once been the winning-post of his race with Ann Pornick, and presently found himself in a sitting position on the top rail. He had to get things smooth again, he knew; his mind was like a mirror of water after a breeze. The image of Helen and his great future was broken and mingled into fragmentary reflections of remoter things, of the good name of Old Methuselah Three Stars, of long-dormant memories the High Street saw fit, by some trick of light and atmosphere, to arouse that afternoonâŠ
Abruptly a fine full voice from under his elbow shouted, âWhat-o, Art!â and behold Sid Pornick was back in his world, leaning over the gate beside him, and holding out a friendly hand.
He was oddly changed, and yet oddly like the Sid that Kipps had known. He had the old broad face and mouth, abundantly freckled, the same short nose, and the same blunt chin, the same odd suggestion of his sister Ann without a touch of her beauty; but he had quite a new voice, loud, and a little hard, and his upper lip carried a stiff and very fair moustache.
Kipps shook hands. âI was jest thinking of you, Sid,â he said, âjest this very moment, and wondering if ever I should see you againâever. And âere you are!â
âOne likes a look round at times,â said Sid. âHow are you, old chap?â
âAll right,â said Kipps. âI just been lefââ
âYou arenât changed much,â interrupted Sid.
âEnt I?â said Kipps, foiled.
âI knew your back directly I came round the corner. Spite of that âat you got on. Hang it, I said, thatâs Art Kipps or the devil. And so it was.â
Kipps made a movement of his neck as if he would look at his back and judge. Then he looked Sid in the face. âYou got a moustache, Sid,â he said.
âI sâpose youâre having your holidays?â said Sid.
âWell, partly. But I just been lefââ
âIâm taking a bit of a holiday,â Sid went on. âBut the fact is, I have to give myself holidays nowadays. Iâve set up for myself.â
âNot down here?â
âNo fear! Iâm not a turnip. Iâve started in Hammersmith, manufacturing.â Sid spoke off-hand, as though there was no such thing as pride.
âNot drapery?â
âNo fear! Engineer. Manufacture bicycles.â He clapped his hand to his breast pocket and produced a number of pink handbills. He handed one to Kipps, and prevented him reading it by explanations and explanatory dabs of a pointing finger. âThatâs our makeâmy make, to be exactâthe Red Flagâsee? I got a transfer with my nameâPantocrat tyres, eight pounds âyes, thereâClinchers ten, Dunlops eleven, Ladiesâ one pound moreâthatâs the ladyâs. Best machine at a democratic price in London. No guineas and no discountsâhonest trade. I build âemâto order. Iâve built,â he reflected, looking away seaward, âseventeen. Counting orders in âandâŠ
âCome down to look at the old place a bit,â said Sid. âMother likes it at times.â
âThought youâd all gone awayââ
âWhat! after my fatherâs death? No! My motherâs come back, and sheâs living at Muggettâs cottages. The sea-air suits âer. She likes the old place better than Hammersmith⊠and I can
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