“I live for the sake of a good many people,” said Erb, dodging into the road to evade a square of girls carrying hymn books, and returning with his chair to the pavement. “What I’m anxious to do is to see the world better and brighter, to organise either by word of mouth or otherwise—”
“Old man!” protested the others indignantly, “give us a rest. You ain’t in the park now.”
He gave up the wooden chair to one of the men, who took it inside the passage of a house in Upper Grange Road. The others stepped across to a public-house; he nodded and went on.
“Won’t change your mind and ’ave one, Erb?”
“My mind,” he called back, “is the one thing I never ’ardly change.”
He did not relax his seriousness of demeanour until he had passed the high-walled enclosure of Bricklayers’ Arms Goods Station and had turned into Page’s Walk. There the fact was borne on the air that dinner-time was near, for attractive scents of cooking issued out of every doorway; he moved his lips appreciatively and hurried on with a more cheerful air. Women slipped along with their aprons hiding plates of well-baked joints and potatoes: children waited anxiously in doorways for the signal to approach the one gay, over-satisfying meal of the week, at which there was always an unusual exhibition of geniality and good temper that would eventually conciliate the worried mother, who had devoted the morning to providing the meal. Men returned from a morning at their clubs, where the hours had been chased by a third-rate music-hall entertainment; these walked slowly and hummed or whistled some enticing air with which they desired better acquaintance. Erb scraped his boots carefully on the edge of the pavement, and went up the stone steps of some model dwellings. From No. 17 came a broad hint of rabbit pie: a veiled suggestion of pickled pork.
“Well, young six foot,” he said cheerfully, “is the banquet prepared, and are all our honoured guests assembled?”
“Wouldn’t be you,” remarked his short sister, quickly, “if you didn’t come ’ome long before you were wanted.” She stood on tiptoe and glanced at herself in the glass over the mantelpiece, and rolled up her sleeves again; her head was covered with steel hair-curlers, which had held it fiercely since the previous morning. “And me in me disables.”
“You look all right,” said Erb.
“I shall ’ave to be this afternoon.”