“That’s right! Ours was Imshee kelb.[3] Not so ’ard to remember as your Jane stuff.”
“Jane wasn’t so very ’ard—not the way Macklin used to put ’er,” Humberstall resumed. “I ’ad only six books to remember. I learned the names by ’eart as Macklin placed ’em. There was one, called Persuasion, first; an’ the rest in a bunch, except another about some Abbey or other—last by three lengths. But, as I was sayin’, what beat me was there was nothin’ to ’em nor in ’em. Nothin’ at all, believe me.”
“You seem good an’ full of ’em, any’ow,” said Anthony.
“I mean that ’er characters was no use! They was only just like people you run across any day. One of ’em was a curate—the Reverend Collins—always on the make an’ lookin’ to marry money. Well, when I was a Boy Scout, ’im or ’is twin brother was our troop-leader. An’ there was an upstandin’ ’ard-mouthed Duchess or a Baronet’s wife that didn’t give a curse for any one ’oo wouldn’t do what she told ’em to; the Lady—Lady Catherine (I’ll get it in a minute) De Bugg. Before Ma bought the ’airdressin’ business in London I used to know of an ’olesale grocer’s wife near Leicester (I’m Leicestershire myself) that might ’ave been ’er duplicate. And—oh yes—there was a Miss Bates; just an old maid runnin’ about like a hen with ’er ’ead cut off, an’ her tongue loose at both ends. I’ve got an aunt like ’er. Good as gold—but, you know.”
“Lord, yes!” said Anthony, with feeling. “An’ did you find out what Tilniz meant? I’m always huntin’ after the meanin’ of things meself.”
“Yes, ’e was a swine of a Major-General, retired, and on the make. They’re all on the make, in a quiet way, in Jane. ’E was so much of a gentleman by ’is own estimation that ’e was always be’avin’ like a hound. You know the sort. ’Turned a girl out of ’is own ’ouse because she ’adn’t any money—after, mark you, encouragin’ ’er to set ’er cap at his son, because ’e thought she had.”
“But that ’appens all the time,” said Anthony. “Why, me own mother——”
“That’s right. So would mine. But this Tilney was a man, an’ some’ow Jane put it down all so naked it made you ashamed. I told Macklin that, an’ he said I was shapin’ to be a good Janeite. ’Twasn’t his fault if I wasn’t. ’Nother thing, too; ’avin’ been at the Bath Mineral Waters ’Ospital in ’Sixteen, with trench-feet, was a great advantage to me, because I knew the names o’ the streets where Jane ’ad lived. There was one of ’em—Laura, I think, or some other girl’s name—which Macklin said was ’oly ground. ‘If you’d been initiated then,’ he says, ‘you’d ha’ felt your flat feet tingle every time you walked over those sacred pavin’-stones.’
“‘My feet tingled right enough,’ I said, ‘but not on account of Jane. Nothin’ remarkable about that,’ I says.
“‘’Eaven lend me patience!’ he says, combin’ ’is ’air with ’is little hands. ‘Every dam’ thing about Jane is remarkable to a pukka Janeite! It was there,’ he says, ‘that Miss What’s-her-Name’ (he had the name; I’ve forgotten it), ‘made up ’er engagement again, after nine years, with Captain T’other Bloke.’ An’ he dished me out a page an’ a half of one of the books to learn by ’eart—Persuasion, I think it was.”