"I asked him what was the matter. And if he spent the entire day leaning out of that window.

"'Yes, Jingle,' he said. 'I have to lean out. Do you know the smell of size? They use it a good deal in spring-cleaning. It's like glue and decayed fish. House is full of it. It hurts. Horribly. d.a.m.nably. I'm glad you've come, Jingle. I was to have had lunch in the housemaid's cupboard. But Mabel is an excellent housekeeper. Thorough.'

"Tried to cheer him up. Told him it would soon be over. And Summer would come.

"'Ah,' he said, 'but if Summer don't! Size and spring-cleaning for ever and ever. Do you believe in eternal punishment?'

"Lunched at the 'Crown.' Stuffed a whiskey into him. Had six myself.

No good. Said the cold beef tasted of size. Tried to switch him off; on to politics. Hadn't anything to say on that subject, because there was no room in his house in which there was enough s.p.a.ce left to open a paper.

"'Everything's put where everything else ought to be,' he said. 'Place for everything, and my foot in a pail of soapsuds. Did you know that Washo worked by itself? Have you tried Pingo for the paint? These pickles taste of Pingo. Had to do the walls of my study-room with it.

Mabel made me. She's an excellent housekeeper. But the world does seem to be entirely filled with dust, and the smell of decayed fish, don't you think?'

"Cheerful talk for a luncheon party, wasn't it? That man's on the verge of a breakdown. Don't like it at all. That wife of his is overdoing it. Shall look him up again next week. His mind's not right.

He forgot to pay for the lunch. I suggested that I should do it, and he let me. Something seriously wrong there. Seriously. Have a drink."

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Three days later Mr. Alfred Jingle resumed the subject.

"I told you things were bad with Sharper. They're worse. Much. I was there this morning. Enquired at his business place. They said their Mr. Sharper had gone out. Took a cab to Halfpenny Hole. Halfway there spotted Sharper sitting on a bank by the roadside with his bicycle beside him. Face like a tortured hyena. I got out and asked him what he was doing there.

"'Nowhere else to go,' he said. 'Spring-cleaning at home. And now they've started spring-cleaning at the office. All my dear little children piled up on the floor in the dust.'

"Told him I didn't know he had a family.

"'I mean my books. Lilac morocco. At my own expense. The firm wouldn't stick it. Decorators were sending out for more size when I left. I can't go back there. Even if there were no spring-cleaning I couldn't go to Jawbones. Mabel gave me a list of things to buy in Dilborough.

Gla.s.s soap and soft paper. I mean soft soap and gla.s.s paper. Lots of other things. I've forgotten to get any of them. All I can do is to sit here until the world comes to an end.'

"Well, I shoved him into my cab, and drove back to the 'Crown' at Dilborough. On the way I tried to buck him up a bit, but it was no use. He was absolutely broken-down. I asked him whose turn it was to pay for lunch, and he said he thought it was mine. Memory going. Well, I stuffed a drink into him and took nine myself. I can tell you I needed them. Then I got him to go back to business. Said he must save those lilac-bound children of his. Bright idea, what? Then I told him he could buy the things for his wife afterwards. He went like a lamb, too broken to resist. I confess I am worried about him. I must try to see him again if

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a chance of doing so."

(And that shows you again, how the number of a chapter-section may be used economically.)

CHAPTER X

Luke knocked at the door of Mr. Diggle's room, and entered.

"I'm back," he said. "Been lunching with a man. Can I have a partnership?"

"Not to-day, Mr. Sharper," said Diggle. "You should be more reasonable. The whole office is more or less disorganized by the spring-cleaning. It seems to me that you try to make more trouble. You go out a great deal for a business man."

"I have to. Things for my wife, you know. Soft gla.s.s and paper soap.

Things of that kind."

"I don't wish to hear about it. They will not be actually beginning on your room till Monday. It may be in some slight disorder, but that need not prevent you from going back there and getting on with your work. You have to write that full-page advertis.e.m.e.nt for the _'Church Times'_, you remember."

He went on to his own room. He picked up the little booklets from the floor, dusted each one carefully, and wrapped it in white paper. As he was finishing the last a letter was brought in to him. The messenger was waiting for an answer. It was in Jona's handwriting.

"Darling Lukie," she wrote, "I can bear it no more. Take me away, please. Shall I come along to your office, or will you call for the goods? Jona."

He collapsed in a chair, his head buried in his hands.

Half-an-hour later the clerk came in to say that the messenger was still waiting.

"Sit down," said Luke.

The clerk sat down for half-an-hour. Luke still meditated. Then the office boy came in to fetch the clerk. It was necessary to do something, to decide at once. His promise to Mabel had been quite definite. He would bring back the spring-cleaning requisites on his bicycle that evening. There had been a sardonic cruelty in sending him to purchase the materials for his own torture. Still, he had promised.

Drawing a sheet of the firm's paper with the memo. head on it towards him, he wrote as follows:

"Jona: I can't get away to elope with you to-day. My wife won't let me. If you are still of the same mind on Sat.u.r.day, the train I shall take for Brighton leaves Victoria at eleven."

He sent the letter down to the messenger, and then Diggle entered.

"Do you want to see me about the partnership?" said Sharper.

"No. I wanted to see you about the full-page advertis.e.m.e.nt for the _'Church Times.'_ Have you written it?"

"I've not, so to speak, written it."

"Well, Sharper, I've been talking to Dobson about you. I don't want to hurt your feelings, but our office s.p.a.ce here is very limited. We are of the opinion that perhaps the amount of room you occupy here is intrinsically of more value than any services which you render to the business, or even the pleasure that your society naturally gives us. I don't know if you take my meaning."

"Do you want to turn me out?" said Sharper.

"Don't put it like that. You don't seem to know anything about business. You never do any work. You're playing about with Lady Tyburn in a way that'll bring scandal on the firm. But we don't want to turn you out. We don't want to do anything harsh. All we say is that we think it would be better for all concerned if you don't come here again. I think that will be all. Good evening, Mr. Sharper."

Luke went out and purchased the articles Mabel had asked him to buy.

He then went to four different chemists, and at each one purchased a little oxalic acid, saying in each case that he wanted it to clean a straw hat.

With his bicycle laden considerably above the Plimsoll mark, he pedalled wearily homewards. He only fell off once, and it was a pity that this broke the bottle of turpentine, for he happened to be carrying it in the inside pocket of his coat.

CHAPTER XI

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