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Gabbitas was absolutely ignorant even of the name of Nietzsche, although that writer presented a separate and distinct attitude of attack upon the faith that was in the reverend gentleman's keeping. "I'm a disciple of Nietzsche," said I, with an air of extensive explanation. He shied away so awkwardly at the name that I repeated it at once. "But do you know what Nietzsche says?"
Smith was already asleep, and so safe from my loquacity I carefully folded the two magnificent rainbow-hued silk handkerchiefs which good Mrs. Gabbitas had given me, and stowed them away at the very bottom of my ancient carpet-bag. The sort of remarks which I had been addressing to the moon were not remarks which I ever should have dreamed of addressing to any human being.
Gabbitas; and -I may as well confess it I could not have brought myself to buy that, but for the fact that it was called 'slightly shop-soiled, and had been 'marked down' from 8s. 11d. to 4s. 10 1/2d. Yes, for a youth of sixteen years, I fear it must be admitted that I was unnaturally parsimonious, and a good deal of what schoolboys used to call a smug and a swatter.
Gabbitas answered, "Well, I don't know. I've been in the Four Towns some time, and I must say I don't think the balance of injustice falls on the masters' side." "It falls on the men," I agreed, wilfully misunderstanding him. And so we worked our way toward an argument. "Confound this argument!" I thought; but I had no skill in self-extraction, and my irritation crept into my voice.
Gabbitas, you see, did sometimes, as the phrase went, "take notice" of me, he had induced me to go on reading after I left school, and with the best intentions in the world and to anticipate the poison of the times, he had lent me Burble's "Scepticism Answered," and drawn my attention to the library of the Institute in Clayton. The excellent Burble was a great shock to me.
Her eyes were screwed tightly shut while the words of the gabbled invocation passed her lips, and opened widely as, with its last mysterious syllables, she dropped the wooden spoon she had been holding and turned to her fire. The fire was always 'my' fire to worthy Mrs. Gabbitas. So was the kitchen, for that matter, the scullery, the pantry, and all the things that therein were.
It needed a particularly dry and dusty east wind, a Sunday dinner of exceptional virulence, a conclusive letter from Konk, Maybrick, Ghool and Gabbitas, his principal and most urgent creditors, and a conversation with Miriam arising out of arrears of rent and leading on to mutual character sketching, before Mr. Polly could be brought to the necessary pitch of despair to carry out his plans.
Gabbitas looked at me suddenly round his dull red curtains with a sort of alarmed resolution in his eye and vanished, and as I walked along the passage he opened his door upon me suddenly and intercepted me. You are figuring me, I hope, as a dark and sullen lout in shabby, cheap, old-world clothes that are shiny at all the wearing surfaces, and with a discolored red tie and frayed linen.
The front of the house was veiled by a Virginian creeper that defied the Clayton air and clustered in untidy dependent masses over the wooden porch. As I came up the steps I had a glimpse of Mr. Gabbitas printing photographs by candle light in his room.
His wife had become a permanent invalid very shortly after their marriage, yet no person could possibly have made the mistake of thinking George Perkins's marriage a failure. I doubt if a happier married pair could have been found in Australia. Gabbitas and myself at half-past five, and by Mr. and Mrs. Perkins at six o'clock.
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