“Not a chance,” he said. “No absolute earthly, old sport.” And then he passed his hand in a reflective way over his nose. “But if only your missus could have joined,” he said, “she’d have been an inspector by now.”
The Probation of Jimmy Baker
By Albert Kinross
Army Service Corps
I
The bank was in the High Street, a broad, leafy place of stone houses and regularly planted trees. The most of Seacombe, however, is neither broad nor leafy nor regular. Old Town—so they call it—a picturesque welter of thatched and cream-washed cottages, climbs the hills and clusters round the harbour; New Town, with its bank and High Street and electric light and things, was added when the railway came. Into this bank, one bright September morning, stepped Miss Mamie Stuart Berridge, of Lansing, in the State of Michigan. From Lansing, in the State of Michigan, to Seacombe, in the county of Somerset, is a far and distant cry, and the transition requires money for its satisfactory accomplishment. Miss Mamie had money, a diminishing wad that folded up in a neat black leather case. She stepped into the bank, unfolded her wad, and handed an American Express Company’s cheque across the counter. The young man who did duty there reminded her that she must sign it. “That’s the second time I’ve forgotten,” said Mamie, and wrote her name in the appointed space.
“All gold, or would you like a note?” inquired the young man.
Miss Mamie thought that she would like a note; and then she altered her mind and exchanged the note for gold; and then she altered her mind once more and took the note. The young man smiled amiably and blushed a little; for the transaction was fast becoming confidential, and he was told that the note would “do for Mrs. Bilson.” He knew Mrs. Bilson as a party who let lodgings.
“Are you comfortable there?” he ventured.
“As comfortable as one can be in this old England of yours.”
A laugh, a snapping of her handbag, a swish of skirt, and she was gone. Other and duller customers engaged the young man till four o’clock. Once or twice that day he thought of Mamie, and wondered whether she was ever coming back again.
The next afternoon he caught a glimpse of her, seated high on a char-à-banc, and just returned from an excursion. “She’s been to Porlock Weir,” he said, and then went off to play tennis, a game that invariably occupied his leisure hours of daylight. After the bank had closed there was little else to do in Seacombe. The next day he met her face to face, and he blushed a deep pink, for she had recognised him. She gave him a bright little bow; he stopped; she inquired whether he had anything to do; and “Nothing at all,” was his answer. The tennis club could go hang was an inward ejaculation that escaped Miss Mamie Stuart Berridge.