"Will you name the yappy day, my darlin'? Will you, my darlin', name the yappy day?"
Martha wiped her eyes and became more composed. "Some time afore we dies, I suppose," she said with a disconsolate whimper, "I can't promise more'n that, Adam Bate--an' don't ee see the kettle bilin'."
[CHAPTER XXII]
When Ned Blackborough left Cwmfairnog he left behind him also the very desire for dreams. He remained simply a rich man with no wants save for what wealth can bring. All the rest--the capacity for imagination inclusive--was mere moonshine. For the first time in his life the pompous luxury of New Park did not offend him, he drank a bottle of ludicrously high-priced champagne for supper, he smoked a good many ludicrously highly-drugged cigarettes, not as he generally did almost unconsciously, but of set purpose, taking a solid joy in the fuddled state to which they reduced him.
He woke, of course, with a headache next morning, and having had breakfast he looked at his bank-book, a thing he had not done for months. It was not exactly exhilarating to a man who had just made up his mind to enjoy what he could as a millionaire!
But, even as he looked at the balance, something in him rose up and mocked at him. How long would this phase last? How long could this pompous acquiescence in wealth as a means of pleasure last? How could eyes that had once seen, ears that had once heard, remain blind and deaf to the only realities, the only pleasures of life?
He put the question aside in an attempt to find anything but party in the politics of the morning paper, and coming to the conclusion that they were synonymous terms, he ordered the motor and went round to Egworth to St. Helena's Hospital. Woods, the little secretary, always had a tonic effect on him, and he really wanted to see how things had been going on in his absence. He found the secretary's office full up with business, and little Wood's face keener than ever.
"It is going on all right, sir, and I have kept strictly to the lines you laid down; but it involves a good deal of--of tact and correspondence"--he pulled a file towards him and fingered it. "This, for instance, contains nothing but applications to me personally for fairly fair contracts of sorts, based on secret commission. These I answer myself, as the firms sending the suggestions are really quite respectable. The minor tradesmen, and all applications made through the servants I leave to the clerks."
"You leave to the clerks," echoed Ned thoughtfully, "and some, no doubt, never come into the office at all."
Woods shrugged his high shoulders, "One can expect nothing else. It is impossible to gauge the extent to which dislike to what they call 'splitting' obtains amongst domestic servants. They will never tell on another. A great many of them, of course, refuse these monstrous suggestions for taking toll, but they would never dream of speaking to their employers about them, as they should." He sighed impatiently. "But what can you expect? Where are the fundamental principles of fair dealing taught in England? Nowhere!"