Und noch immer Keiner will 'mich;
Soll ich mich mit Bänden zieren
Soll ich einen Schleier führen?
Dann heisst's, die Alte putzt sich,
Sie ist fu'fzig, sie ist fu'fzig.
True enough, in Alvina's pig-tail of soft brown the grey hairs were
already showing. True enough, she still preferred to be thought of
as a girl. And the slow-footed years, so heavy in passing, were so
imperceptibly numerous in their accumulation.
But we are not going to follow our song to its fatal and dreary
conclusion. Presumably, the _ordinary_ old-maid heroine nowadays is
destined to die in her fifties, she is not allowed to be the
long-liver of the by-gone novels. Let the song suffice her.
James Houghton had still another kick in him. He had one last scheme
up his sleeve. Looking out on a changing world, it was the popular
novelties which had the last fascination for him. The Skating Rink,
like another Charybdis, had all but entangled him in its swirl as he
pushed painfully off from the rocks of Throttle-Ha'penny. But he had
escaped, and for almost three years had lain obscurely in port, like
a frail and finished bark, selling the last of his bits and bobs,
and making little splashes in warehouse-oddments. Miss Pinnegar
thought he had really gone quiet.
But alas, at that degenerated and shabby, down-at-heel club he met
another tempter: a plump man who had been in the music-hall line as
a sort of agent. This man had catered for the little shows of
little towns. He had been in America, out West, doing shows there.
He had trailed his way back to England, where he had left his wife
and daughter. But he did not resume his family life. Wherever he
was, his wife was a hundred miles away. Now he found himself more or
less stranded in Woodhouse. He had _nearly_ fixed himself up with a
music-hall in the Potteries--as manager: he had all-but got such
another place at Ickley, in Derbyshire: he had forced his way
through the industrial and mining townlets, prospecting for any sort
of music-hall or show from which he could get a picking. And now, in
very low water, he found himself at Woodhouse.
Woodhouse had a cinema already: a famous Empire run-up by Jordan,
the sly builder and decorator who had got on so surprisingly. In
James's younger days, Jordan was an obscure and illiterate nobody.
And now he had a motor car, and looked at the tottering James with
sardonic contempt, from under his heavy, heavy-lidded dark eyes. He
was rather stout, frail in health, but silent and insuperable, was
A. W. Jordan.
"I missed a chance there," said James, fluttering. "I missed a rare
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