Арчибальд Кронин - Hatter's Castle

The remainder of his person was pleasing and his dress suited soberly his position; but about him clung a peculiar, sour odour occasioned by a tendency towards free perspiration, particularly from his feet, a regrettable but unavoidable misfortune that occasionally induced Brodie to fling him out of the back door, which abutted upon the Leven, together with a cake of soap and a profane injunction to wash the offending members. This was Peter Perry, messenger, assistant, salesman, disciple of the stove and ironing board, lackey of the master, and general factotum rolled in one.

As Brodie entered he inclined his body forward, his hands pressed deeply on the counter, fingers extended, elbows flexed, showing more of the top of his head than his face and, in a passion of obsequiousness, awaited his master's greeting.

"Mornin', Perry."

"Good morning, Mr. Brodie, sir," replied Perry with nervous haste, showing a little less of his hair and a little more of his face.

"A very beautiful morning again, sir! Wonderful for the time of year. Delightful!" He paused appreciatively before continuing, "Mr. Dron has been in to see you this morning, on business he said, sir."

"Dron! What the devil does he want?"

"I'm sure I couldn't say, sir. He said he'd come back later."

"Humph!" grunted Brodie. He strode into his office, flung himself into a chair and, disregarding the several business letters that lay on the desk, lit his pipe. Then he tilted his hat well back on his head it was a sign of personal superiority that he never removed it at his business and took up the Glasgow Herald, that had been placed carefully to his hand.

He read the leading article slowly, moving his lips over the words; although occasionally he was obliged to go over an involved sentence twice in order to grasp its meaning, he persisted tenaciously. At times he would lower the paper and look blankly at the wall in front, using the full power of his sluggish mentality, striving to comprehend fully the sense of the context. It was a stern, matutinal task which Brodie set himself to assimilate the Herald's political editorial, but he considered it his duty as a man of standing to do so. Besides, it was thus that he provided himself with weighty argument for his

more serious conversation, and to this purpose he never failed to accomplish the task, although by next morning he had completely forgotten the gist of what he had read.

Half a column had been battled with in this dogged fashion when a diffident tap upon the glass panel disturbed him.

"What is it?" shouted Brodie.

Perry, for only Perry could have knocked like that, replied through the closed door:

"Mr. Dron to see you, sir."

"What the devil does he want? Does he not know I'm at the Herald's leader and can't be disturbed?"

Dron, a dejected, insignificant individual, was standing close behind Perry and could hear every word, a fact of which Brodie was maliciously aware, and which induced him, with a satirical humour, to couch his replies in the most disagreeable terms and in the loudest tones he could. Now, with a faint grin upon his face, he listened over his lowered paper to the muffled consultation outside the door.

"He says, Mr. Brodie, he won't keep you a minute," insinuated Perry.

"A minute, does he say ! Dearie me, now. He'll be lucky if he gets a second. I havena the least desire to see him," bawled Brodie. "Ask him what he wants and if it's not important the little runt can save his breath to cool his porridge." Again there was a whispered colloquy, during which Perry, with vigorous pantomime more expressive than his words, indicated that he had done everything to further the other's interests compatible with his own safety and security.

"Speak to him yourself, then," he mumbled finally, in self-acquittal, seceding from the cause and backing away to his counter. Dron opened the door an inch and peered in with one eye.

"You're there, are you?" remarked Brodie, without removing his eyes from the paper, which he had again raised in a grand pretence of reading. Dron cleared his throat and opened the door a little further.

"Mr. Brodie, could I have a word wi' you just for a wee minute? I'll not keep ye more nor that," he exclaimed, working himself gradually into the office through the slight opening he had cautiously made.

"What is it, then?" growled Brodie, looking up in annoyance. "I've no dealings wi' you that I'm aware of. You and me are birds that don't fly together."

"I ken that well, Mr. Brodie," replied the other humbly, "and that’s the very reason I've come to see ye. I came more or less to ask your advice and to put a small suggestion before ye."

"What is't, then? Don't stand there like a hen on a hot griddle."

Dron fumbled nervously with his cap. "Mr. Brodie, I havena been doin' too well lately at my trade, and I really came in regarding that little property o' mine next door."

Brodie looked up. "You mean the tumble-down shop that's been empty these three months past. Who could help seeing it ? Man, it's an eyesore in the street."

"I ken it's been empty a long time," replied Dron meekly, "but it's an asset in a way in fact, it's about the only asset I've got now and what wi' gettin' a bit desperate one way and another, an idea struck me that I thocht might interest you."

"Indeed, now," sneered Brodie, "Is not that interestin'! Ye have the lang head on ye, sure enough, to get all these inspirations it'll be the Borough Council for ye next. Well! What is the great idea?"

"I was thinking," returned the other diffidently, "that with your grand business and perhaps a shop that was a little too small for ye, ye might consider extendin' by taking in my place and making one big premises with perhaps a plate-glass window or two."

Brodie looked at him cuttingly for a long moment.

"Dear, dear! And it was to extend my business you worked out all this and came in twice in the one mornin'," he said at last.

"Indeed, no, Mr. Brodie. I've just told ye things have been goin' rather ill with me lately, and what with one thing and another, and the wife expecting again soon, I must get a bend on to let my property."

"Now that's too bad," purred Brodie. "It's you small, snuffy men that will have the large families. I hope ye're not makin' me responsible for your latest addition, though. Ay, ye're fond o' the big family, I know. I've heard tell ye've that many weans ye can't count them. But," he continued in a changed voice, "don't make me responsible for them. My business is my own and I manage it my own way. I would as soon think of a cheap-lookin' plate-glass window as I would of giving away pokes o' sweeties with my hats. Damn you, man, don't you know I've the most distinguished people in the borough as my clients and my friends? Your empty shop's been a fester on my respectable office for months. Let it, for God's sake. Let it by all means. Let it to auld Nick, if ye like, but you'll never let it to me. Now get out and don't ever bother me like this again. I'm a busy man and I've no time for your stupid yammerin'!"

"Very well, Mr. Brodie," replied the other quietly, twisting his bat in his hands. "I'm sorry if I've offended ye, but I thought there was no harm in asking but you're a hard man to speak to." He turned disconsolately to depart, but at that moment an agitated Perry shot himself into the room.

"Sir John's gig is at the door, Mr. Brodie," he stammered. "I saw it drive up this very minute!"

The assistant might deal with the less important, with, indeed, the bulk of the customers, to whom it was his duty to attend without disturbing Brodie, but when a personage came into the shop he knew his orders and raced for his master like a startled greyhound.

Brodie lifted his eyebrows with a look at Dron which said, "You see!"; then, taking him firmly by the elbow, as he had no wish to be confronted by Sir John in the other's undistinguished company, he hurried him out of the office and through the shop, expediting his passage through the outer door with a final push. The indignity of this last, powerful, unexpected shove completely upset Dron, and, with a stagger, he slipped, his legs shot from under him, and he