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Red-armed, and aproned in coarse sacking up to the arm-pits, she exhaled the anguish of the poor in a breath of soap-suds and rum, in the uproar of scrubbing, in the clatter of tin pails. Mrs Verloc, full of deep purpose, spoke in the tone of the shallowest indifference. “There is no need to have the woman here all day. I shall do very well with Stevie.”
Joseph and Dave?" "Uncle Joe and Dave!" "Hurrah!" exclaimed Kate and Stevie in the same breath; and Eva having scrambled down from the window, the three children collected at the head of the stairs to watch, with breathless interest, the procession which came slowly up.
She was rather confirmed in her belief that things did not stand being looked into. Practical and subtle in her way, she brought Stevie to the front without loss of time, because in her the singleness of purpose had the unerring nature and the force of an instinct. “What I am going to do to cheer up that boy for the first few days I’m sure I don’t know.
And it was even possible that Stevie would not have believed them. As far as Mr Verloc was concerned, nothing could stand in the way of Stevie’s belief. Mr Verloc was obviously yet mysteriously good. And the grief of a good man is august. Stevie gave glances of reverential compassion to his brother-in-law. Mr Verloc was sorry.
That little word contained all his sense of indignation and horror at one sort of wretchedness having to feed upon the anguish of the other—at the poor cabman beating the poor horse in the name, as it were, of his poor kids at home. And Stevie knew what it was to be beaten. He knew it from experience. It was a bad world. Bad! Bad!
Afterwards Stevie had to be kept from making himself a nuisance to the single gentlemen lodgers, who are themselves a queer lot, and are easily aggrieved. And there was always the anxiety of his mere existence to face.
"Don't tell her foolish things about yourself things that aren't any longer true. Don't worry her with old dead dreadfulness. To please me don't." "Just tonight I won't, then." "Stevie, dear, please me more don't take her with you." At this he laughed impertinently. "I suppose I'm being kept in line," she called, and, though he could not see her, she stretched her arms towards him.
They sat silent themselves, keeping a watchful eye on poor Stevie, lest he should break out into one of his fits of loquacity. He faced Mr Verloc across the table, and remained very good and quiet, staring vacantly.
And for a time the walls of St Stephen’s, with its towers and pinnacles, contemplated in immobility and silence a cab that jingled. It rolled too, however. But on the bridge there was a commotion. Stevie suddenly proceeded to get down from the box. There were shouts on the pavement, people ran forward, the driver pulled up, whispering curses of indignation and astonishment.
Mr Verloc will be sorry to hear of this nonsense, Stevie,—I can tell you. He won’t be happy at all.” The idea of Mr Verloc’s grief and unhappiness acting as usual powerfully upon Stevie’s fundamentally docile disposition, he abandoned all resistance, and climbed up again on the box, with a face of despair.
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