half the day to get it for you. You're not worth it," she concluded with conviction.
"I ain't, Mrs. B.," replied Bindle good-humouredly, "I ain't worth 'alf the love wot women 'ave 'ad for me."
Mrs. Bindle sniffed. "You always was fond of your food," she continued, as if reluctant to let slip a topic so incontrovertible.
"I was, Mrs. B.," agreed Bindle; "an' wot is more I probably always shall be as long as you go on cookin' it. Wot I shall do when you go orf with the lodger, I don't know," and Bindle wagged his head from side to side in utter despondency.
Mrs. Bindle made an unprovoked attack upon the kitchen fire.
"Well," said Bindle after a pause, "if it's rations or a lodger, I suppose it's got to be a lodger," and he drew a deep sigh of resignation. He turned once more to The Gospel Sentinel. "Musical, too, ain't 'e," he continued. "I wonder wot 'e plays, the jews' 'arp or a drum? Seems a rare sport 'e does, chapel-goer, temperance, quiet, musical, fond of 'ome-comforts, good cookin'; an' don't want to pay much; regular blood I should call 'im."
"He's coming to-night to see the place," Mrs. Bindle announced, "and don't you go and make me feel ashamed. You'd better keep out of the room."
"'Ow could you!" cried Bindle reproachfully, as he proceeded to light his pipe. "Me – "
"Don't do that!" snapped Mrs. Bindle.
Bindle regarded her over the flaming match with eyebrows raised interrogatingly.
"Perhaps he doesn't smoke," she explained.
"But I ain't goin' to give up tobacco," said Bindle with decision. "'Oly Angels! me with a wife an a lodger an' no pipe!"
He looked about him as if in search of sympathy. Then turning to Mrs. Bindle, he demanded:
"You mean to say I got to give up smokin' for a lodger!" Indignation had smoothed out the wrinkles round his eyes and stilled the twitchings at the corners of his mouth.
"It doesn't matter after he's here," Mrs. Bindle responded sagely.
Slowly the set-expression vanished from Bindle's face; the wrinkles and twitches returned, and he breathed a sigh of elaborate relief.
"Mrs. B.," he said admiringly, "you 'aven't lived for nineteen years with your awful wedded 'usband, lovin', 'onourin' an' obeyin' 'im – I don't think – without learnin' a thing or two." He winked knowingly.
"Yes," he continued, apparently addressing a fly upon the ceiling, "we'll catch our lodger first an' smoke 'im afterwards, all of which is good business. Funny 'ow religion never seems to make you too simple to – "
Bindle was interrupted by a knocking at the outer-door. Mrs. Bindle performed a series of movements with amazing celerity. She removed and folded her kitchen-apron, placing it swiftly in the dresser-drawer, gave a hasty glance in the looking-glass over the mantelpiece to assure herself that all was well with her personal appearance and, finally, slipped into the parlour to light the gas. She was out again in a second and, as she passed into the passage leading to the outer-door, she threw back at Bindle the one word "Remember," pregnant with as much meaning as that uttered two and a half centuries before in Whitehall.
"Nippy on 'er feet is Mrs. B.," muttered Bindle admiringly, as he listened intently to the murmur of voices and the sound of footsteps in the passage. Presently the parlour-door closed and then – silence.
Bindle fidgeted about the kitchen. He was curious as to what was taking place in the parlour and, above all, what manner of man the prospective lodger would turn out to be. He picked up the evening paper, endeavouring to read what the Austrian Prime Minister thought of the prospects of peace, what Berlin thought of the Austrian Prime Minister, what the Kaiser thought of the Almighty, and what the Almighty was permitted to think of the Kaiser. But international politics and the War had lost their interest. Bindle was conscious that he was on the eve of a crisis in his home life.
"'Ow the injiarubber ostridge can a cove read when 'e ain't smokin'?" he muttered discontentedly as he paused to listen. He had detected a movement in the parlour.
Yes; the door had been opened. There was again the murmur of voices, steps along the passage and, finally, the sound of the outer-door closing. A moment later Mrs. Bindle entered.
Bindle looked up expectantly; but remembering that curiosity was the last thing calculated to open Mrs. Bindle's set lips, he became engrossed in his paper.
Mrs. Bindle seated herself opposite to him and, smoothing her skirt, "folded 'er 'ands on 'er supper," as Bindle had once expressed it.
"He's coming Monday," she proclaimed with the air of one announcing an event of grave national importance.
"Does 'e smoke?" enquired Bindle anxiously.
"He does not," replied Mrs. Bindle with undisguised satisfaction; "but," she added, as if claiming for some hero the virtue of self-abnegation, "he doesn't object to it – in moderation," she added significantly.
"Well, that's somethink," admitted Bindle as he proceeded to light his long-neglected pipe. "There was pore 'ole Alf Gorley wot beer made sick; but 'e used to like to see other coves with a skinful."
"Don't be disgusting, Bindle," snapped Mrs. Bindle, piqued that his apparent lack of interest in the lodger gave her no opportunity of imparting the information she was bursting to divulge.
"Wot's disgustin'?" demanded Bindle.
"Him, watching men making beasts of themselves," retorted Mrs. Bindle.
"Them makin' beasts o' themselves!" Bindle exclaimed. "If you'd ever seen Alf after 'alf a pint o' beer, you wouldn't 'ave said it was them wot was makin' beasts o' – "
"Mr. Hearty will like him," interrupted Mrs. Bindle, unable longer to keep off the subject of the lodger. Mr. Hearty had married Mrs. Bindle's sister, and had become a prosperous greengrocer.
"'Earty like Alf! 'Old me, 'Orace!" cried Bindle.
"I meant Mr. Gupperduck," said Mrs. Bindle with dignity.
"Mr. Wot-a-duck!" Bindle cried, his interest too evident for concealment.
"Mr. Josiah Gupperduck," repeated Mrs. Bindle with unction. "That is his name."
Bindle whistled, a long low sound of joy and wonder. "Well, I'm damned!" he exclaimed.
"Don't you swear before me, Joseph Bindle," cried Mrs. Bindle angrily; "for I won't stand it."
"Gupperduck!" repeated Bindle with obvious enjoyment. "Sounds like a patent mackintosh."
"Oh! you may laugh," said Mrs. Bindle, drawing her lips, "you may laugh; but he'll be company for me. He plays too." She could no longer restrain her desire to tell all she knew about Mr. Gupperduck.
"Is it the jew's 'arp, or the drum wot 'e plays?" enquired Bindle presently.
"It's neither," replied Mrs. Bindle, "it's the accordion."
Bindle groaned. Mentally he visualised Mr. Hearty's hymn-singing Sunday evenings, plus Mr. Gupperduck and his accordion.
"Well, well!" he remarked philosophically, "I suppose we're none of us perfect."
"He's a very good man, an' he's goin' to join our chapel," announced Mrs. Bindle with satisfaction.
Bindle groaned again. "'Earty, an' Mrs. B., an' Ole Buttercup," he muttered. "Joe Bindle, you'll be on the saved-bench before you know where you are"; and rising he went out, much to the disappointment of Mrs. Bindle, who was prepared to talk "lodger" until bed-time.
To Bindle the lodger was something between a convention and an institution. He was a being around whom a vast tradition had accumulated. In conjunction with the mother-in-law he was, "on the halls," the source from which all humour flowed. His red nose, umbrella and bloater were ageless.
He was a sower of discord in other men's houses, waxing fat on the produce of a stranger's labour. He would as cheerfully go off with his landlord's wife for ever, as with the unfortunate man's shirt or trousers for a few hours, thus losing him a day's work.
Nemesis seemed powerless to dog the footsteps of the lodger, retribution was incapable