The translation of Mr. Pardoe from a serious man with business responsibilities and a taste for party politics into a kind of domestic pet, thinker of thoughts too deep for tears, and lover of children—this translation might have continued apace had not the cook suddenly, wantonly, left to get married. Adela, luxuriating in her new freedom, decided to manage without a cook; but Adela’s cooking was no more precise than her spelling. It played havoc with Mr. Pardoe’s digestive apparatus, and—by that transmutation of matter into spirit which is the most disconcerting fact in life—Mr. Pardoe’s digestive apparatus played havoc with Mr. Pardoe’s temper. He became angry with the world and with the life that crawled upon its surface.
Nevertheless the world continued to revolve, and life was not extinct. Timothy, in particular, was far from extinct. For five years he flourished, and on his fifth birthday, at an hour well past his bedtime, he entered Mr. Pardoe’s study and demanded to be told a story.
Mr. Pardoe, interrupted in the reading of his favourite periodical, The Bondholder’s Register, was annoyed. Birthday or no birthday, this was an outrage: the sanctuary violated, the high priest disturbed at his devotions. Yet, in spite of his dyspepsia, he exhibited an admirable restraint.
‘No, Timothy,’ he said, holding up a cautionary finger. ‘I shall not tell you a story. You know I do not like to be disturbed in the evening. You will go to bed, and at the proper moment I shall come to kiss you good night. But tell you a story I will not. I see your mother’s hand in this—this act of rebellion. If you wanted stories you could go to your toy-cupboard, where you would find several volumes of stories: ridiculous enough, no doubt, but suited to your age. Although you cannot yet read with facility you could easily amuse yourself with the pictures. Really, Timothy, I can’t imagine why you should suppose that I should tell you a story, a thing I have never done in my life.’
As a substitute for an applauding public meeting of the company’s shareholders, Timothy was not a success. He clung to his simple thesis with the brutal tenacity of the very young. ‘Mummy says you are to tell me a story.’
The fluffy girl appeared suddenly in the doorway. ‘Yes, John, you really might, this once. He’s tired of my stories. And it’s his birthday, after all, poor little thing!’
‘Poor little thing!’ sneered Mr. Pardoe. This was sheer domestic tyranny: he wouldn’t suffer it. ‘Let me tell you, Adela,’ he cried, pointing at her accusingly with The Bondholder’s Register, ‘you are spoiling the poor little thing, as you call him. It’s eight o’clock, an hour past his bedtime. The way to bring a child up....’
But here Mr. Pardoe was interrupted, and a valuable homily on the training of children thereby lost to the world. The clock began striking. Now it was one of Mr. Pardoe’s nervous weaknesses, of which there were many, that he could never raise his voice above the sound of a striking clock. He disliked clocks. He resented their unmannerly habit of cutting his sentences in half and making him lose the thread of his discourse. And now he had to wait several seconds until that clock chose to let him proceed with what he was saying. Very well: he resigned himself to the delay. His face was that of a martyr too well-bred even to invoke his God. He mentally counted the strokes: ‘One, two, three, four, five, six, seven....’
‘Why!’ cried Mr. Pardoe, ‘that clock’s wrong. An hour slow. I’m sure it’s eight o’clock. I set my watch this morning by Greenwich Time....’