THE WIFE: Argue with 'im? Me? I don't argue with 'im. When I got anythink to say to 'im, 'e gets it aside o' the 'ead. I don't care, even if we 'ave retired from work. I go on the same now as what I did before; and so I shall when we've started the 'ardware. Sometimes I wish this misfortune to 'is father 'ad never 'appened. I liked 'im better in the chair-packin' days. I didn't see ser much of 'im. 'E wasn't ser pertickler. 'E took a pleasure in his tea them days. Sometimes he useder catch 'old of the kid.... And sometimes he useder lark about with me.... I liked the look of 'im them days. Sometimes, I wish we wasn't rich.
XXXI
AN INTERLUDE
One result of my acquaintanceship with Doctor Brink is not entirely pleasant. I have developed a sort of interest in poor people.
I am always lighting, in odd corners, upon what I call "Brink cases." Such experiences pursue me even into respectable places. I bumped into one, lately, within a stone's throw of the Houses of Parliament, to which place I was bound at midnight.
The clouds were showing heavy and black upon a moonlit sky as I turned on to the Thames Embankment by Hungerford Bridge, so that I shivered extensively. These September nights, at best, do not add much to the pleasures of a promenade. But this night was especially unconducive to philosophic loitering. There was wind, and that constant, dull foreshadowing of rain which is worse than a deluge. There were those hurrying, hump-backed clouds, and their indefinite reflection upon the greasy surface of the Thames. And the clock struck twelve, and a policeman by my elbow spat and swore. And some vessel far up stream gave harrowing expression to its feelings by means of that dismal instrument which is humorously called a syren. Like the mysterious stranger in the story books, I drew my travelling cloak around me, and shuddered at the windy vastness of it all.
And then I fell to smiling. For away yonder, in the mirk, figures were moving and bobbing, and, by all the saints that care for vagrants, it seemed to me that their movements suggested mirth.
"These must be weird people," thought I to myself, as I went towards them, "who can find anything to laugh at in this place?" As I drew close up to them their figures stood out more clearly against the great wall of the Embankment; and I saw that the prime cause of this apparent joyfulness was a girl—a girl who was very young, and rather graceful.
She wore an old straw hat and a heavy shawl, after the manner of her kind, and one end of the shawl was much longer than the other, and was caught up into a bundle beneath her arm. So that I guessed her to be carrying a baby.
One of her companions was a middle-aged man of round and rather stupid build. As I came up he was moving slowly from one foot to the other, and wagging his head. He wore a ragged overcoat, which was buttoned to his ears, and he was waving an arm about in a manner which appeared to be admonitory.