The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman

by H. G. Wells

It had been his intention to replenish his sovereign purse that afternoon at his club and he was only reminded of this abandoned plan when he paid off his taxi at the gates of Hampton Court. The fare was nine and tenpence and the only piece of gold he had was a half-sovereign. But there was a handful of loose silver in his trouser pocket and so the fare and tip were manageable. “Will you be going back, sir?” asked the driver.

And Mr. Brumley reflected too briefly and committed a fatal error. “No,” he said with his mind upon that loose silver. “We shall go back by train.”

Now it is the custom with taxi-cabs that take people to such outlying and remote places as Hampton Court, to be paid off and to wait loyally until their original passengers return. Thereby the little machine is restrained from ticking out twopences which should go in the main to the absent proprietor, and a feeling of mutuality is established between the driver and his fare. But of course this cab being released presently found another passenger and went away....

I have written in vain if I have not conveyed to you that Mr. Brumley was a gentleman of great and cultivated delicacy, that he liked the seemly and handsome side of things and dreaded the appearance of any flaw upon his prosperity as only a man trained in an English public school can do. It was intolerable to think of any hitch in this happy excursion which was to establish he knew not what confidence between himself and Lady Harman. From first to last he felt it had to go with an air—and what was the first class fare from Hampton Court to Putney—which latter station he believed was on the line from Hampton Court to London—and could one possibly pretend it was unnecessary to have tea? And so while Lady Harman talked about her husband’s business—“our business” she called it—and shrank from ever saying anything more about the more intimate question she had most in mind, the limits to a wife’s obedience, Mr. Brumley listened with these financial solicitudes showing through his expression and giving it a quality of intensity that she found remarkably reassuring. And once or twice they made him miss points in her remarks that forced him back upon that very inferior substitute for the apt answer, a judicious “Um.”

(It would be quite impossible to go without tea, he decided. He himself wanted tea quite badly. He would think better when he had had some tea....)

The crisis came at tea. They had tea at the inn upon the green that struck Mr. Brumley as being most likely to be cheap and which he pretended to choose for some trivial charm about the windows. And it wasn’t cheap, and when at last Mr. Brumley was faced by the little slip of the bill and could draw his money from his pocket and look at it, he knew the worst and the worst was worse than he had expected. The bill was five shillings (Should he dispute it? Too ugly altogether, a dispute with a probably ironical waiter!) and the money in his hand amounted to four shillings and sixpence.

He acted surprise with the waiter’s eye upon him. (Should he ask for credit? They might be frightfully disagreeable in such a cockney resort as this.) “Tut, tut,” said Mr. Brumley, and then—a little late for it—resorted to and discovered the emptiness of his sovereign purse. He realized that this was out of the picture at this stage, felt his ears and nose and cheeks grow hot and pink. The waiter’s colleague across the room became interested in the proceedings.

“I had no idea,” said Mr. Brumley, which was a premeditated falsehood.

“Is anything the matter?” asked Lady Harman with a sisterly interest.

“My dear Lady Harman, I find myself——Ridiculous position. Might I borrow half a sovereign?”