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Page 8
He looked round in silence. Then he said: 'Yes.' There did not seem
much else to say.
'It's a nice room,' said the pantomime dame. Which was a black lie. It
was not a nice room. It never had been a nice room. And it did not seem
at all probable that it ever would be a nice room. But it looked cheap.
That was the great thing. Nobody could have the assurance to charge
much for a room like that. A landlady with a conscience might even have
gone to the length of paying people some small sum by way of
compensation to them for sleeping in it.
'About what?' queried Mike. Cheapness was the great consideration. He
understood that his salary at the bank would be about four pounds ten a
month, to begin with, and his father was allowing him five pounds a
month. One does not do things _en prince_ on a hundred and
fourteen pounds a year.
The pantomime dame became slightly more animated. Prefacing her remarks
by a repetition of her statement that it was a nice room, she went on
to say that she could 'do' it at seven and sixpence per week 'for
him'--giving him to understand, presumably, that, if the Shah of Persia
or Mr Carnegie ever applied for a night's rest, they would sigh in vain
for such easy terms. And that included lights. Coals were to be looked
on as an extra. 'Sixpence a scuttle.' Attendance was thrown in.
Having stated these terms, she dribbled a piece of fluff under the bed,
after the manner of a professional Association footballer, and relapsed
into her former moody silence.
Mike said he thought that would be all right. The pantomime dame
exhibited no pleasure.
''Bout meals?' she said. 'You'll be wanting breakfast. Bacon, aigs,
an' that, I suppose?'
Mike said he supposed so.
'That'll be extra,' she said. 'And dinner? A chop, or a nice steak?'
Mike bowed before this original flight of fancy. A chop or a nice steak
seemed to be about what he might want.
'That'll be extra,' said the pantomime dame in her best Wilkie Bard
manner.
Mike said yes, he supposed so. After which, having put down seven and
sixpence, one week's rent in advance, he was presented with a grubby
receipt and an enormous latchkey, and the _seance_ was at an end.
Mike wandered out of the house. A few steps took him to the railings
that bounded the College grounds. It was late August, and the evenings
had begun to close in. The cricket-field looked very cool and spacious
in the dim light, with the school buildings looming vague and shadowy
through the slight mist. The little gate by the railway bridge was not
locked. He went in, and walked slowly across the turf towards the big
clump of trees which marked the division between the cricket and
football fields. It was all very pleasant and soothing after the
pantomime dame and her stuffy bed-sitting room. He sat down on a bench
beside the second eleven telegraph-board, and looked across the ground
at the pavilion. For the first time that day he began to feel really
home-sick. Up till now the excitement of a strange venture had borne
him up; but the cricket-field and the pavilion reminded him so sharply
of Wrykyn. They brought home to him with a cutting distinctness, the
absolute finality of his break with the old order of things. Summers
would come and go, matches would be played on this ground with all the
glory of big scores and keen finishes; but he was done. 'He was a jolly
good bat at school. Top of the Wrykyn averages two years. But didn't do
anything after he left. Went into the city or something.' That was what
they would say of him, if they didn't quite forget him.
The clock on the tower over the senior block chimed quarter after
quarter, but Mike sat on, thinking. It was quite late when he got up,
and began to walk back to Acacia Road. He felt cold and stiff and very
miserable.
4. First Steps in a Business Career
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