"See, I'll boil it now! There's time before he comes down! Thou wilt have half!"
Stoutly, "Nothing, nothing! It's yours!" The egg is boiled. Sacredly, as if duck-egg-eating were a holy rite, Mrs. Massel eats her duck's egg. Once or twice she throws in fervent appreciations of the race of katchkies. Philip half hopes her cheeks will here and now take on a shade more colour from the nourishment he has provided for her out of the disposal of Evangeline. Her face still is pale, and there are still drawn lines at the mouth. Ah well, only wait till she's taken a lot more cod-liver oil and a lot more new-laid eggs, including as many katchkies as discarded poets will provide....!
"Feivele, he comes!"
"Humph—ho! I'm going! Oh, look at your hands, how liny and seamy they are! Come, do leave those brasses alone, they're so much work! And you know, when you don't clean 'em the only difference is they look like copper instead of brass! Ototototoi! I must be off, I suppose! What fat cherries they were—like babies! Well, you huge bullying monster of a mother, till to-morrow, till to-morrow!"
So the months passed, with their half-surreptitious visits to Mrs. Massel, which gained something of their too short delight from their shallow secrecy. At the extremes of the day, there were, on the one hand, school, on the other hand, Walton Street. At school he generally maintained an unambitious head above the waters, still fitfully persecuted by his fellows, or ignored, or dimly tolerated as one who took no interest in societies, sports and camps, but from whom no positive evil was to be expected, saving sometimes an ugly spurt of temper which did not cringe even before the towering creatures who at all other times carried universal terror in their wake. At the other extreme of the day were the sporadic flirtations in Walton Street which began somewhat to lose their attractions as he moved towards his sixteenth year. There were subfusc rumours about the migration of Alec Segal's family to another town for reasons unspecified. Harry Sewelson became entangled with two barmaids and a German governess successively. The simpering graces of the Edie ménage, it is grievous to add, began to wear thinner and thinner, excepting for the grosser souls of a George or a Willy Levi the Barber. Moreover, Philip had received so feeble a move as a consequence of an Edie-deteriorated school year, that he determined violently to regain his academic self-esteem. Of the fact that he became a competitor for the five-pound prize to be awarded to the greatest authority on Chaucer in the middle school at Doomington, Philip had left Dorah unaware. She was ready to expend over him the vials of her maternal love (she had no children) only as soon as he consented to be what she termed "a Jew among Jews." The history of Angel Street had taught her the futility of positive compulsion in this direction. But she placed before her the definite policy of treating Philip in a manner neither hostile nor affectionate, until, maybe, the sheer force of frigidity brought him creeping to the warmth. Whilst Philip had spent all the evening in the pursuit of Edie's lips instead of in the pursuit of a high place in form, she had merely said nothing. When now till a late hour he began to concern himself with his school work and his tales of Chaucer, she said nothing still, and was told as little. But likewise Philip said nothing to his mother. Suppose, and after all many of his competitors were in senior forms, suppose he should fail badly! Only Channah was his confidante, and from her he obtained the gift of a certain most desirable complete Chaucer which Cartwright had displayed in his curiosity shop for fruitless months.
Philip still remembered the almost dizzy delight he had occasioned his mother by the winning of a mere form prize as second-in-class two years ago. She still treasured it alongside of her Yiddish translations of Holy Writ, in the most intimate recess of her cupboard. Not a word was intelligible to her, of course; she was capable even of holding the book upside down. Yet she would carefully wipe her spectacles and proceed to move her eyes in leisurely transports from page to hieroglyphic page. She was so much attached to the book that he had not had the heart to take it away with him on the melancholy handcart which had transported his goods to Longton.
The decision of the Chaucer prize was to be decided an hour after school on a certain day and the official announcement to be made at prayers the following day. In an agony of sick apprehension Philip slunk about the corridors of the school. He was in a state of comatose despair and was staring unseeingly into a case of stuffed beavers and stoats, when a hearty and heavy hand descended on his shoulder.
"Well, Philip!" exclaimed the robust voice of Mr. Furness, "and who do you think has won the Chaucer prize?"
"Albert Chapman, sir!" suggested Philip weakly.
"Try again!"