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He made more than a dozen brave attempts to resume his old occupation. But in the smallest lop of a sea he was useless, so that it became dangerous to take him. Month by month he fell further back in arrears of rent. And now the end seemed to have arrived with Mr Pamphlett's notice of ejectment. Nicky-Nan, of course, held that Mr Pamphlett had a personal grudge against him.
But you're playin' Pamphlett's game, ma'am, to turn me out," wound up Nicky-Nan wrathfully, turning away: "that's what you're doin': and I'll see you " He closed the oath upon a slam of the door. "There was never a man in this world," sighed Mrs Penhaligon as she regained her own kitchen, "but hisself came afore all the world." She arrested her hand on the cover of the flour-barrel.
They had a few more days to abide, let Pamphlett's men be never so sharp: but this was his last night under them. His enemies some of them until this morning unsuspected were closing in around him. They had him, now, in this last corner. But that was for to-morrow.
He would step down to the Bank to-morrow, slap seven sovereigns down on the counter but not too boldly; for Pamphlett must not suspect and demand the change in silver, with his receipt. Full quittance he could see Pamphlett's face as he fetched forth the piece of paper and made out that quittance, signing his name across a postage stamp.
"Here, hold hard a moment Is it in Pamphlett's hand-writin' by any chance?" The question wounded Lippity-Libby's feelings, and he showed it. "As if I shouldn' ha' told you!" he protested, gently reproachful. "Nor his clerk's?" "What, Hendy? Hendy makes all his long letters straight up an' down, while these be made with loops.
The Kaiser's been layin' up for this, these years past: and by my reck'nin' 'tis goin' to be a long business. . . . I don't tell the Missus that, you'll understand? But I'd take it friendly if you kept an eye on 'em, as a naybour. . . . O' course 'tis settled we must clear out from here." "I don't see it," said Nicky-Nan, pursing his lips. "Pamphlett's a strong man.
His presence had somewhat eased a trying situation at Lawhilly Farm, where his young fool of a nephew an only son, too fired by the war, had gone so far as to distress his parents with talk of enlisting. "Business as usual!" had been Mr Pamphlett's advice to the young man. "There was, for a day or two I won't deny it a certain er tendency to what I may call nervousness in the City.
"But I haven't," said Miss Oliver cheerfully. "And, anyway, you weren't there, and I did my best for you. . . . Well, now, I'm glad sure enough to know from you that 'tis vulgar to make much of your wealth, and I'll remember it against the time my ship comes home. . . . Somebody did explain now I come to think of it that maybe you'd be all the more dependent on Pamphlett's advice, seein' that you hadn't been used to handle money before you were married, and it all came from your husband."
Nicky-Nan paused a moment, hobbled back to bed and sat on the edge of it, steadying himself, yet half-awake. "It's some trick of Pamphlett's to get me out," he decided, and went downstairs cautiously. In the passage he found Mrs Penhaligon standing, alone, rigid as a statue. By her attitude she seemed to be listening.
He went past Pamphlett's Bank, never so much as turnin' to look at it." Nicky-Nan belonged, congenitally and unconsciously, to that happy brotherhood of men felices sua si bona norint whom a little liquor exhilarates, but even a great deal has no power to bemuse. But what avails an immunity above your fellows, if life seldom or never gives you opportunity to prove it?
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