Not that I am in the least ashamed of my legs.

9. A BIRTHDAY.

Andreas Binzer woke slowly. He turned over on the narrow bed and stretched himself--yawned--opening his mouth as widely as possible and bringing his teeth together afterwards with a sharp "click." The sound of that click fascinated him; he repeated it quickly several times, with a snapping movement of the jaws. What teeth! he thought. Sound as a bell, every man jack of them. Never had one out, never had one stopped.

That comes of no tomfoolery in eating, and a good regular brushing night and morning. He raised himself on his left elbow and waved his right arm over the side of the bed to feel for the chair where he put his watch and chain overnight. No chair was there--of course, he'd forgotten, there wasn't a chair in this wretched spare room. Had to put the confounded thing under his pillow. "Half-past eight, Sunday, breakfast at nine--time for the bath"--his brain ticked to the watch. He sprang out of bed and went over to the window. The venetian blind was broken, hung fan-shaped over the upper pane... "That blind must be mended. I'll get the office boy to drop in and fix it on his way home to-morrow--he's a good hand at blinds. Give him twopence and he'll do it as well as a carpenter... Anna could do it herself if she was all right. So would I, for the matter of that, but I don't like to trust myself on rickety step-ladders." He looked up at the sky: it shone, strangely white, unflecked with cloud; he looked down at the row of garden strips and backyards. The fence of these gardens was built along the edge of a gully, spanned by an iron suspension bridge, and the people had a wretched habit of throwing their empty tins over the fence into the gully. Just like them, of course! Andreas started counting the tins, and decided, viciously, to write a letter to the papers about it and sign it--sign it in full.

The servant girl came out of their back door into the yard, carrying his boots. She threw one down on the ground, thrust her hand into the other, and stared at it, sucking in her cheeks. Suddenly she bent forward, spat on the toecap, and started polishing with a brush rooted out of her ap.r.o.n pocket... "s.l.u.t of a girl! Heaven knows what infectious disease may be breeding now in that boot. Anna must get rid of that girl--even if she has to do without one for a bit--as soon as she's up and about again. The way she chucked one boot down and then spat upon the other!

She didn't care whose boots she'd got hold of. SHE had no false notions of the respect due to the master of the house." He turned away from the window and switched his bath towel from the washstand rail, sick at heart. "I'm too sensitive for a man--that's what's the matter with me.

Have been from the beginning, and will be to the end."

There was a gentle knock at the door and his mother came in. She closed the door after her and leant against it. Andreas noticed that her cap was crooked, and a long tail of hair hung over her shoulder. He went forward and kissed her.

"Good morning, mother; how's Anna?"

The old woman spoke quickly, clasping and unclasping her hands.

"Andreas, please go to Doctor Erb as soon as you are dressed."

"Why," he said, "is she bad?"

Frau Binzer nodded, and Andreas, watching her, saw her face suddenly change; a fine network of wrinkles seemed to pull over it from under the skin surface.

"Sit down on the bed a moment," he said. "Been up all night?"

"Yes. No, I won't sit down, I must go back to her. Anna has been in pain all night. She wouldn't have you disturbed before because she said you looked so run down yesterday. You told her you had caught a cold and been very worried."

Straightway Andreas felt that he was being accused.

"Well, she made me tell her, worried it out of me; you know the way she does."

Again Frau Binzer nodded.

"Oh yes, I know. She says, is your cold better, and there's a warm undervest for you in the left-hand corner of the big drawer."

Quite automatically Andreas cleared his throat twice.

"Yes," he answered. "Tell her my throat certainly feels looser. I suppose I'd better not disturb her?"

"No, and besides, TIME, Andreas."

"I'll be ready in five minutes."

They went into the pa.s.sage. As Frau Binzer opened the door of the front bedroom, a long wail came from the room.

That shocked and terrified Andreas. He dashed into the bathroom, turned on both taps as far as they would go, cleaned his teeth and pared his nails while the water was running.

"Frightful business, frightful business," he heard himself whispering.

"And I can't understand it. It isn't as though it were her first--it's her third. Old Schafer told me, yesterday, his wife simply 'dropped' her fourth. Anna ought to have had a qualified nurse. Mother gives way to her. Mother spoils her. I wonder what she meant by saying I'd worried Anna yesterday. Nice remark to make to a husband at a time like this.

Unstrung, I suppose--and my sensitiveness again."

When he went into the kitchen for his boots, the servant girl was bent over the stove, cooking breakfast. "Breathing into that, now, I suppose," thought Andreas, and was very short with the servant girl.

She did not notice. She was full of terrified joy and importance in the goings on upstairs. She felt she was learning the secrets of life with every breath she drew. Had laid the table that morning saying, "Boy,"

as she put down the first dish, "Girl," as she placed the second--it had worked out with the saltspoon to "Boy." "For two pins I'd tell the master that, to comfort him, like," she decided. But the Master gave her no opening.

"Put an extra cup and saucer on the table," he said; "the doctor may want some coffee."

"The doctor, sir?" The servant girl whipped a spoon out of a pan, and spilt two drops of grease on the stove. "Shall I fry something extra?"

But the master had gone, slamming the door after him. He walked down the street--there was n.o.body about at all--dead and alive this place on a Sunday morning. As he crossed the suspension bridge a strong stench of fennel and decayed refuse streamed from the gulley, and again Andreas began concocting a letter. He turned into the main road. The shutters were still up before the shops. Sc.r.a.ps of newspaper, hay, and fruit skins strewed the pavement; the gutters were choked with the leavings of Sat.u.r.day night. Two dogs sprawled in the middle of the road, scuffling and biting. Only the public-house at the corner was open; a young barman slopped water over the doorstep.

Fastidiously, his lips curling, Andreas picked his way through the water. "Extraordinary how I am noticing things this morning. It's partly the effect of Sunday. I loathe a Sunday when Anna's tied by the leg and the children are away. On Sunday a man has the right to expect his family. Everything here's filthy, the whole place might be down with the plague, and will be, too, if this street's not swept away. I'd like to have a hand on the government ropes." He braced his shoulders. "Now for this doctor."

"Doctor Erb is at breakfast," the maid informed him. She showed him into the waiting-room, a dark and musty place, with some ferns under a gla.s.s-case by the window. "He says he won't be a minute, please, sir, and there is a paper on the table."

"Unhealthy hole," thought Binzer, walking over to the window and drumming his fingers on the gla.s.s fern-shade. "At breakfast, is he?

That's the mistake I made: turning out early on an empty stomach."

A milk cart rattled down the street, the driver standing at the back, cracking a whip; he wore an immense geranium flower stuck in the lapel of his coat. Firm as a rock he stood, bending back a little in the swaying cart. Andreas craned his neck to watch him all the way down the road, even after he had gone, listening for the sharp sound of those rattling cans.

"H'm, not much wrong with him," he reflected. "Wouldn't mind a taste of that life myself. Up early, work all over by eleven o'clock, nothing to do but loaf about all day until milking time." Which he knew was an exaggeration, but he wanted to pity himself.

The maid opened the door, and stood aside for Doctor Erb. Andreas wheeled round; the two men shook hands.

"Well, Binzer," said the doctor jovially, brushing some crumbs from a pearl-coloured waistcoat, "son and heir becoming importunate?"

Up went Binzer's spirits with a bound. Son and heir, by Jove! He was glad to have to deal with a man again. And a sane fellow this, who came across this sort of thing every day of the week.

"That's about the measure of it, Doctor," he answered, smiling and picking up his hat. "Mother dragged me out of bed this morning with imperative orders to bring you along."

"Gig will be round in a minute. Drive back with me, won't you?

Extraordinary, sultry day; you're as red as a beetroot already."

Andreas affected to laugh. The doctor had one annoying habit--imagined he had the right to poke fun at everybody simply because he was a doctor. "The man's riddled with conceit, like all these professionals,"

Andreas decided.

"What sort of night did Frau Binzer have?" asked the doctor. "Ah, here's the gig. Tell me on the way up. Sit as near the middle as you can, will you, Binzer? Your weight tilts it over a bit one side--that's the worst of you successful business men."

"Two stone heavier than I, if he's a pound," thought Andreas. "The man may be all right in his profession--but heaven preserve me."

"Off you go, my beauty." Doctor Erb flicked the little brown mare. "Did your wife get any sleep last night?"

"No; I don't think she did," answered Andreas shortly. "To tell you the truth, I'm not satisfied that she hasn't a nurse."

"Oh, your mother's worth a dozen nurses," cried the doctor, with immense gusto. "To tell you the truth, I'm not keen on nurses--too raw--raw as rump-steak. They wrestle for a baby as though they were wrestling with Death for the body of Patroclus... Ever seen that picture by an English artist. Leighton? Wonderful thing--full of sinew!"

"There he goes again," thought Andreas, "airing off his knowledge to make a fool of me."