Tono-Bungay
(2) There was a fumbling at the latch of the front door.
“’Ere’s my lord,” said Mrs Coombes. “Went out like a lion and comes back like a lamb, I’ll lay.”
Something fell over in the shop: a chair, it sounded like. Then there was a sound as of some complicated step exercise in the passage. Then the door opened and Coombes appeared. But it was Coombes transfigured. The immaculate collar had been torn carelessly from his throat. His carefully brushed silk hat, half-full of a crush of fungi, was under one arm; his coat was inside out, and his waistcoat adorned with bunches of yellow-blossomed furze. These little eccentricities of Sunday costume, however, were quite overshadowed by the change in his face; it was livid white, his eyes were unnaturally large and bright, and his pale blue lips were drawn back in a cheerless grin. “Merry!” he said. He had stopped dancing to open the door. “Rational ’njoyment. Dance.” He made three fantastic steps into the room and stood bowing.
“Jim!” shrieked Mrs Coombes, and Mr Clarence sat petrified, with a drooping lower jaw.
“Tea,” said Mr Coombes. “Jol’ thing, tea. Tose-stools, too. Brosher.”
“He’s drunk,” said Jennie in a weak voice. Never before had she seen this intense pallor in a drunken man, or such shining, dilated eyes.
The Purple Pileus
OTHER NOVELISTS
1. George Gissing (1857–1903) was born at Wakefield, and concluded his education at Owens College, Manchester. He took to literature, but with little success, and for years lived in dire poverty. In time his books met with a somewhat wider acceptance, though they were never popular; and his scholarship and the high quality of his literary criticism always commanded respect. He died in the Pyrenees, whither failing health had compelled him to go.