He even went in one day and expostulated with Mr. Bottome for having the Daily Herald in his window. Mr. Bottome agreed with him that it was not a "nice" paper, but he also added that sinister sentence that Absalom was getting now so tired of hearing that "these were strange times. 'E didn't know what we were coming to."
"Nonsense, my good man," said Absalom rather tartly, "England isn't Russia."
"Looks damned like it sometimes," said Mr. Bottome.
Then as the year 1919 extended Absalom began to feel terribly lonely. This fear of loneliness was rapidly becoming a concrete and definite terror, lurking behind the curtains in his flat, ready to spring out upon him at any moment. Absalom had never in all his life been alone. There had always been people around him. Where now were they all? Men now were being demobilised, houses were opening again, hospitals were closing, dances were being given, and still his gold mirror remained innocent of invitations. He fancied, too (he was becoming very sensitive to impressions), that the men in the "Warrington" were not so eager to see him as they had been. He went to the "Warrington" a great deal now "to be cheered up." He talked to men to whom five years ago he would not have condescended to say "Good-morning"—to Isaac Monteluke, for instance, and Bandy Manners. Where were all his old friends? They did not come to the club any longer, it seemed. He could never find a bridge four now with whom he was really at home. This may have been partly because he was nervous these days of losing money—he could not afford it—and he did not seem to have his old control of his temper. Then his brain was not quite so active as it had been. He could not remember the cards....
One day he heard some fellow say: "Well, if I'd had my way I'd chloroform everyone over sixty. We've had enough of the old duds messing all the world up."
Chloroform all the old duds! What a terrible thing to say? Why, five years ago it had been the other way. Who cared then what a young man said? What could he know? After all, it was the older men who had had the experience, who knew life, who could tell the others....
He found himself laying down the law about things—giving ultimatums like—"They ought to be strung up on lamp-posts—pandering to the ignorant lower classes—that's what it is."
If there had been one thing above all others that Absalom had hated all his life it had been rudeness—there was the unforgivable sin. As a young man he had been deferential to his elders, and so in his turn he expected young men to be to him now. But they were not. No, they were not. He had positively to give up the "Warrington" because of the things that the young men said.
There was a new trouble now—the trouble of money. His investments were paying very badly, and the income tax was absurd. He wrote to the Times about his income tax, and they did not print his letter—did not print it when they printed the letters of every sort of nobody. Everything was so expensive that it took all his courage to look at his weekly bill. He must eat less; one ate, he read in the paper, far more than one needed. So he gave up his breakfast, having only a cup of coffee and a roll, as he had often done in France in the old days. He was aware suddenly that his clothes were beginning to look shabby. Bacon, the valet, informed him of this. He did not like Bacon; he found himself, indeed, sighing for the departed Rose. Bacon was austere and inhuman. He spoke as seldom as possible. He had no faults, he pressed clothes perfectly, kept drawers in absolute order, did not drink Absalom's claret nor smoke Absalom's cigarettes. No faults—but what an impossible man! Absalom was afraid of him. He drew his little body together under the bedclothes when Bacon called him in the morning because of Bacon's ironical eyes. Bacon gave him his Times as though he said: "How dare you take in the Times—spend threepence a day when you are as poor as you are?"
It was because of Bacon that Absalom gave up Merritt. He did not dare to have him when Bacon knew his poverty.