“A rare rush whilst it lasts,” mentioned Mrs. Crowther, assisting in the task of clearing tables. “My dear husband used to reckon up how much we should be making profit in a year if, instead of being from twelve to two, it went on from what he called early morn to dewy eve.” She sighed. “Mr. Crowther had a lot of poetry in his disposition—much more so than most eating-house keepers in Millwall.”
“Did he make bits up out of his own ’ead?” asked the girl deferentially.
“Ethel,” said the proprietress, nursing a column of plates and speaking with resolution, “you’re new to the place, and you’re not full acquainted with the rules. Understand, once for all, please, that I don’t allow a word to be said against my late husband—nor whispered.”
p. 203“Here’s a stray customer coming in, ma’am,” remarked the assistant. “Give me that armful, and you see to him.”
A stout man, after examining the day’s announcement outside, entered and sat down with the relieved air common to those who have walked a great distance and to those who find in any form of exercise a source of trouble; he took off his hat, hung up his overcoat, and said, with relish, “Here comes the busy part of my day!”
Mrs. Crowther rested one palm on the table and gazed at the reversed notice on the window: “The Best of Everything and Everything of the Best,” giving him the space to make up his mind.
“You’ve got a nice little show here.”
“Not bad, sir,” she replied briefly. “What can I get for you?”
“Been all done up recently, too, if I mistake not. If it hadn’t been that I remembered it was exactly opposite the entrance to the works I shouldn’t have recognised it. Spent some of the ’appiest hours of my life, I did, over the way.”
“The steak and kidney pudding is off,” she said, glancing over his shoulder. She p. 204took the bill of fare from his hand and deleted the entry, returning the pencil to its position in the fastening of her blouse. Frowning at the impetuosity exhibited, he gave an order. She left, and returned with the liver and bacon and a basket containing squares of household bread.
“Any idea where my old friend Crowther is at the present moment?” he asked jovially. “Him and me were great chums in the old days that are past and done with.”
“He’s gone.”
“Where to?”
She pointed upward reverently.
“That isn’t exactly the place where I should have thought of looking for him.”
“What do you mean by that?” she demanded sharply.
“Oh, nothing,” he said, beginning to eat. “Only very few of us in this world, ma’am, if you don’t mind putting yourself out of the question, can be looked upon as perfect. My name’s Hards,” he went on, his mouth full. “Hards, with an aitch. Daresay you’ve heard him mention me. I’m speaking now of—what shall I say?—four, or it might be the early part of five. We were what p. 205they call inseparable, him and me, at that period.”
“Crowther gave up all his former companions when I married him.”
“He used to complain that you ruled him with a rod of iron.”
“I only wish,” she declared vehemently, “that the dear man was here to contradict you.”
“Crowther was the sort of chap,” said the other, with deliberation, “who’d contradict anything. Never better pleased than when he was arguing that black was white. I’ve known Crowther say one thing to a girl one minute, and another the—”
The customer found his plate snatched away, the remainder of his chunk of bread swept to the floor.
“Go off out of my dining-rooms,” she ordered. “Don’t you stay here another minute, or else I may use language that I shall be sorry for afterwards, and that you’ll be sorry for afterwards. There’s your hat, hanging up just behind you. Now move, sharp!”
The sleeves of his overcoat, owing to some defect in the lining, were difficult to manage, p. 206and this gave him time to protest. He had come, he declared, with no other intention than that of giving patronage to an establishment which he remembered, with affection, in the time of Crowther’s mother, and to enjoy a talk over the past; if, in the course of conversation, he had over-stepped the mark, no one regretted it more acutely than himself. A plain man, accustomed to speaking his mind, he often found that he gave offence where none was intended.
“Jack Blunt they used to call me over at the works,” he added penitently. “Owing to me having the awk’ard trick of always telling the truth!”
Mrs. Crowther so far relented as to call the new girl; she instructed her to attend to the customer the while she herself retired to the back to wash up dishes. Mr. Hards said in a whisper to the attendant: “Don’t seem to have quite pulled it off, first go!” and Ethel, also in an undertone, replied: “Mustn’t get discouraged, uncle. Mother always says it’s your one fault. Unsettle her mind about him, that’s what you’ve got to do.”
He read a newspaper after the meal, and sent to the proprietress a deferential inquiry, p. 207asking whether he might be allowed to smoke, and presently hit upon a device for securing another interview.
“Your memory seems not quite what it ought to be,” said Mrs. Crowther, following him to the doorway. “If I were you I’d see a chemist about it.”
“I should have recollected that I hadn’t settled up,” he declared, “just about as I was coming up from the subway at Greenwich.” He found coins. “No,” gazing at a shilling reverently, “mustn’t let you have that one with the hole through it. I was told it would bring me luck. Crowther was wrong for once, but he meant well.”
“Did that really once belong to my dear husband?” she asked, with eagerness. “Oh, do let me look. I’d give almost anything to be allowed to keep it.”
“Kindly accept it, ma’am, as a present from me, and as a kind of apology for the blunder I made just now.”
“I treasure everything he left behind,” said Mrs. Crowther tearfully, “since he went, last December, and I don’t know in the least how to thank you. drop in any day you’re passing by, and let’s have another quiet chat; p. 208I’m never ’appier than when I’m talking about him.”
“My time’s practically my own,” answered Mr. Hards. “Since I retired from over opposite, owing to a slight disagreement years ago, I’ve done a bit of work, book-canvassing, but that don’t take up the entire day. So long!”
A few of the men came into the restaurant, after leaving the works; these were folk who had no expectations of finding tea or supper waiting at home, and they would have stayed on in comfort, gazing admiringly at the young proprietress, only that Mrs. Crowther offered a broad hint by instructing Ethel to find the shutters. They were drifting off, reluctantly, and one was saying to the rest that he would certainly make a dash for it (implying by this that he would make a proposal of marriage) if the lady were not so obviously devoted to a memory, when Mr. Hards appeared at the doorway, heated and exhausted by the effort to arrive before closing-time. With him a shy-looking companion, who had to be taken by the arm because he exhibited inclination to refrain, at the last moment, from entering. “Be a sport,” urged p. 209Mr. Hards. The other intimated by his manner that the task was, for him, considerable.
“Looking younger than ever,” declared Mr. Hards effusively. “How are you, ma’am, by this time? Still keeping well? Allow me to introduce you to my friend Ashton.”
“Very pleased,” said Mrs. Crowther with a nod. “What will you gentlemen take—tea or coffee?”
“Don’t suppose,” he remarked still in complimentary tones, “that we shall be able to tell any difference. Ashton, you decide.”
Ashton, looking around, inquired whether the place did not possess a licence; Mrs. Crowther gave the answer, and he said that perhaps coffee would do him as little harm as anything.
“Happened to run across him,” explained Mr. Hards, “and mentioned that I’d met you by chance, ma’am, and he says ‘Not the widow of silly old Millwall Crowther?’ he says. Just like that. Didn’t you, Ashton?”
Mrs. Crowther turned abruptly, and went to furnish the order. “Mind you say ‘yes’ to everything,” ordered Hards privately and strenuously, “or else I’ll make it hot for you.”
p. 210The two greeted Mrs. Crowther with frank and open countenances.
“The late lamented,” went on Mr. Hards, with a confidential air, “as you may or may not be aware, used to be in the ’abit of paying attentions to my friend Ashton’s sister.”
“I know all about that,&rd............