Арчибальд Кронин - Hatter's Castle

landed full upon his backside at the very moment that Sir John Latta stepped out of his gig.

Latta laughed vociferously as he entered the shop and came close up to Brodie.

"It's the most amusing thing I've seen for ages, Brodie. The look on the poor man's face would have brought the house down at Drury's," he cried, slapping his thigh with his driving gloves. "But it's a blessing he wasn't hurt. Was he dunning you?" he asked slyly.

"Not at all, Sir John! He's just a bit blether of a man that's always making a public nuisance of himself."

"A little fellow like that?" He looked at the other appraisingly. "You know you can't realise your own strength, man! You're an uncommon powerful barbarian."

"I just flicked him with my pinkie," declared Brodie complacently, delighted to have so opportunely attracted the other's notice and feeling it sweet incense for his pride to receive attention from the distinguished principal of the famous Latta Shipyard. "I could whip up a dozen like him with one hand," he added carelessly "not that I would soil my fingers that way. It's beneath my consideration."

Sir John Latta was gazing at him quizzically along his finely chiselled nose. "You're a character, Brodie, you know! I suppose that's why we cherish you," he said. "The body of a Hercules and the mind of well " He smiled. "Shall we put a glove on it for you?

You know the tag, 'odi projanum vulgus et arceo'?"

"Quite so! Quite so!" replied Brodie agreeably. "You've a neat way o' puttin things, Sir John. There was something like that in the Herald this mornin'. I'm with you there!" He had not the least idea what the other was talking about.

"Don't let things run away with you though, Brodie," said Sir John, with a warning shake of his head. "A little of some things goes a long way. You're not to start knocking the borough about. And don't offer us too much baronial caviare. I hope you get my meaning. Well," he added, abruptly changing the subject and his manner, allowing the latter to become formal, more distant, "I

mustn't dally, for I'm in really a hurry I have a meeting but I want a Panama hat the real thing, you know. I haven't felt sun like this since I was in Barbados. Get some down from Glasgow if needs be. You have my size."

"You shall have a selection to choose from at Levenford House this very afternoon," replied Brodie complacently. "I'll not leave it to my staff. I'll see to it myself."

"Good! And by the by, Brodie," he continued, arresting himself on his way to the door. "I almost forgot that my agents write me from Calcutta that they're ready for your boy. He can leave on the Irrawaddy on June the fourteenth. She's a Denny-built packet, nineteen hundred tons, you know. Fine boat! Our people will look after his berth for him."

"That is more than kind of you, Sir John," purred Brodie, "I'm deeply grateful. I'm most indebted for the way you've put yourself about for me over that matter."

"Nothing! Nothing!" replied the other absently. "We've got plenty young fellows at this end, but we want them at our docks out there the right kind, that's to say! The climate's really nothing to speak of, but he'll need to watch the life out there. It sometimes knocks a young fellow off his feet. I'll have a word with him if I've time. I hope he docs well for your sake. By the way, how is that remarkably pretty daughter of yours?"

"Quite fair."

"And the clever little sprat?"

"Splendid, Sir John."

"And Mrs. Brodie?"

"Middling well, thank ye."

"Good! Well, I'm off now! Don't forget that hat of mine."

He was into his gig, a fine, spare, patrician figure of a man, had taken the reins from his groom and was off, spanking down the High Street, with the smooth, glossy flanks of the cob gleaming, and the high lights flashing on whirling spokes, gleaming metal, shining liveried cockade, and upon the rich lustre of varnished coachwork.

Rubbing his hands together, his eye dilating with a suppressed exultation, Brodie returned from the doorway, and to Perry, who had remained, a dropping, nebulous shadow in the background, he cried, with unwonted volubility:

"Did ye hear that conversation we had? Was it not grand? Was it not enough to make these long lugs o' yours stand out from your head? But I suppose the half of it was above ye. You'll not understand the Latin. No! But you heard what Sir John said to me gettin' that post for my son and sperin' all about my family. Answer me, ye puir fool," he called out. "Did you hear what Sir John Latta said to James Brodie?"

"Yes, sir," stammered Perry," I heard.”

“Did you see how he treated me?" whispered Brodie.

"Certainly I did, Mr. Brodie!" replied the other, with returning confidence, perceiving that he was not to be rebuked for eavesdropping. "I wasn't meaning to to overhear or to spy on you, but I did observe you both, sir, and I agree with you. Sir John is a fine man. He was more than good to my mother when my father died so sudden. Oh! Yes, indeed, Mr. Brodie, Sir John has a kind word and a kind action for everybody.”

Brodie eyed him scornfully.

"Faugh!" he said contemptuously. "What are you ravin' about, you witless creature! You don't know what I mean, you poor worm! You don't understand." Disregarding the other's crushed appearance as beneath his notice, he stepped upwards into his office once more, arrogantly, imperiously, and resumed his big chair; then, as he gathered together the sheets of his morning paper before his unseeing eyes, he muttered softly to himself, like one who dallies wantonly, yet seriously, with a profound and cherished secret: "They don't understand. They don't understand!"

For a full minute he remained staring blankly in front of him, while a dull glow lurked deeply in his eye; then, with a sudden toss of his head and a powerful effort of will, he seemed to thrust something violently from him as though he feared it might master him; shaking his body like a huge dog, he recollected himself, observed the paper in front of him, and, with a visage once more composed and tranquil, began again to read.

V

"MARY, put the kettle on the fire. We'll be back in time for me to give Matt some tea before he goes off to see Agnes," said Mrs. Brodie, drawing on her black kid gloves with prim lips and a correct air, adding, "Mind and have it boiling, now, we'll not be that long." She was dressed for one of her rare sorties into the public street, strangely unlike herself in black, flowing paletot and a plumed helmet of a hat, and beside her stood Matthew, looking stiff and sheepish in a brand-new suit, so new indeed that when he was not in motion his trouser legs stood to attention with edges sharp as parallel-presenting swords. It was an unwonted sight on the afternoon of a day in mid-

week, but the occasion was sufficiently memorable to warrant the most unusual event, being the eve of Matthew's departure for Calcutta. Two days ago he had, for the last time, laid down his pen and picked up his hat in the office at the shipyard and since then had lived in a state of perpetual movement and strange unreality, where life passed before him like a mazy dream, where, in his conscious moments, he became aware of himself in situations both unusual and alarming. Upstairs his case stood packed, his clothing protected by camphor balls, so numerous that they had invaded even the inside of the mandolin and so powerful that the entire house smelled like the new Levenford Cottage Hospital, greeting him whenever he entered the house with an odious reminder of his departure. Everything that the most experienced globe trotter could desire lay in that trunk, from the finest obtainable solar topee given by his father and a

Morocco-bound Bible by his mother to the patent automatic opening water bottle from Mary and the small pocket compass that Nessie had bought with the accumulation of her Saturday pennies.