Slowly Richard passed back the half-crown; and two coppers.... Thought hard for a moment—then, with a yell, pounced on his companion, wrenched his fingers open, and extracted the pence....
“Got it!” he gasped. “So that’s where you were cheating me, was it? Well, I’m damned! I pay for your fares, yes, but I don’t pay them to you, no. Or I’d be paying ’em twice over. Got you, David Redbury!”
“Trustful little lad, aren’t you?” David mocked him delightedly. “How long did it take your homely wits? Twenty minutes. And we’re miles past the shop I wanted. Here’s the two and twopence I owe you. ‘La commedia è finita!’” he sang lustily in his beautiful tenor.
“Shut up! Don’t you see the sandwichmen are shying.”
“I’ve got to get farewell presents for everybody, you included, Marcus. What would you like? An Old Testament to revive your slothful patriotism for the tribes of Israel?—Burst of gratitude! In here, then.” He dragged Richard into Hatchard’s; bought the Old Testament, and forthwith presented it to him; chose also a richly-embossed W.B. Yeats for Nell; and was with difficulty dissuaded from a selection of Carlyle’s “Frederick the Great” as a tactful gift for his father. Then, in a different shop, he bought a rich piece of Chinese embroidery to form a window curtain for one of Beatrice’s rooms, and a scarf for Hedda. Richard was amazed at his certainty of choice among the vivid colours and luxurious sheeny textures; as well as his delight in them. His personality was as surely at home among the rich Oriental fabrics, as were Richard and the vendor obviously incidental.
“‘Not Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like unto these,’” murmured David, as the shopman departed with the bill and a five-pound note. “Ever heard the story of the kid in a Jewish school? They read him that chapter, and then asked him: ‘What did Solomon say when the Queen of Sheba tumbled down her treasures before him?’ ‘Pleath, teacher’—he thed: ‘Vot do you vant for de lot?’”
No one could tell a Jewish story with such perfect inflexion and gesture and look, as David; and Richard’s appreciation echoed through the department.
“Do you think I might offer the Comtesse a little tribute in vermilion, to match her hair? She had glorious hair, that woman. In two long plaits and a pitcher balanced on her head.... I shall probably send for her when I’m established out there—the time will come when I shall long for the relief of a snub profile to gaze at, as Rupert Brooke longed for Grantchester. She shall be a wife to me——”
“A wife?”
“The wife shall be Rachel, and her hair will be dusky, not vermilion; and her throat golden-brown. And she shall walk on the gold-brown sand so that the pitcher of water be not spilt of a single drop. You know, Richard, most of our lady friends in Hampstead and Maida Vale and Bayswater have grown waddlesome with generations of menials to attend them, so that they’ll have to practise an awful lot with a sort of wire-frame arrangement on their heads, before they can balance their pitchers properly.”