to the sink where his wife was washing up.
"What, are thee there!" he said boisterously. "Sluthe off an' let me
wesh mysen."
"You may wait till I've finished," said his wife.
"Oh, mun I? An' what if I shonna?"
This good-humoured threat amused Mrs. Morel.
"Then you can go and wash yourself in the soft-water tub."
"Ha! I can' an' a', tha mucky little 'ussy."
With which he stood watching her a moment, then went away to wait for
her.
When he chose he could still make himself again a real gallant. Usually
he preferred to go out with a scarf round his neck. Now, however, he
made a toilet. There seemed so much gusto in the way he puffed and
swilled as he washed himself, so much alacrity with which he hurried to
the mirror in the kitchen, and, bending because it was too low for him,
scrupulously parted his wet black hair, that it irritated Mrs. Morel. He
put on a turn-down collar, a black bow, and wore his Sunday tail-coat.
As such, he looked spruce, and what his clothes would not do, his
instinct for making the most of his good looks would.
At half-past nine Jerry Purdy came to call for his pal. Jerry was
Morel's bosom friend, and Mrs. Morel disliked him. He was a tall,
thin man, with a rather foxy face, the kind of face that seems to lack
eyelashes. He walked with a stiff, brittle dignity, as if his head were
on a wooden spring. His nature was cold and shrewd. Generous where he
intended to be generous, he seemed to be very fond of Morel, and more or
less to take charge of him.
Mrs. Morel hated him. She had known his wife, who had died of
consumption, and who had, at the end, conceived such a violent dislike
of her husband, that if he came into her room it caused her haemorrhage.
None of which Jerry had seemed to mind. And now his eldest daughter,
a girl of fifteen, kept a poor house for him, and looked after the two
younger children.
"A mean, wizzen-hearted stick!" Mrs. Morel said of him.
"I've never known Jerry mean in MY life," protested Morel. "A
opener-handed and more freer chap you couldn't find anywhere, accordin'
to my knowledge."
"Open-handed to you," retorted Mrs. Morel. "But his fist is shut tight
enough to his children, poor things."
"Poor things! And what for are they poor things, I should like to know."
But Mrs. Morel would not be appeased on Jerry's score.
The subject of argument was seen, craning his thin neck over the
scullery curtain. He caught Mrs. Morel's eye.
"Mornin', missis! Mester in?"
"Yes--he is."
Jerry entered unasked, and stood by the kitchen doorway. He was not
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