VI
"TINKER—TAILOR"
I
{{sc|"Tinker—tailor" She stopped short with the laugh of some one who has stumbled over a little joke and threw a glance at her companion on the other side of the table. He laughed back, and she continued to count her cherry stones solemnly: "Tinker—tailor—soldier—sailor—beggarman—thief—tinker—tailor—soldier". The cherry stones ran out. She counted them again, but they remained obstinately the same number, and she shook her head at them. "There, now—isn't that stupid? Only one wrong. If there'd been one less it would have been like a good omen, wouldn't it, Alf?"
"Oh, I don't know," he said. "Don't believe much in that sort of thing myself. A bit 'eathenish, I think. Why, you can see there isn't nothing in it. Soldier! Now, would you marry a soldier, Jenny—one of these sleek-'aired lampposts in clothes so tight they couldn't 'it a fly without bustin' theirselves? No, you wouldn't be seen doing it. No respectable girl would. And besides"—he insinuated his foot surreptitiously and tenderly against hers—"there's little me in the way, isn't there?"
She pushed the cherry stones disconsolately about her plate. She had a way of holding her spoon—the little finger genteelly extended—which always made him feel how unworthy he was of her. He withdrew his foot shamefacedly.
"P'raps if I hadn't taken that second lot it would have been all right," she lamented. "It was you who made me have them. I didn't want them. And now—I can't help it—I feel all unsettled. It's no good making fun of these things, Alf. There was my Aunt Sarah—very careful she was—but one day she walked under a ladder, and three days later she was took ill. She knew what it was. 'My dear,' she said, 'it's all over with me,' and just folded her hands and died. The doctor said—Alf, if you're laughing"
"I'm not laughing." He moved his plate on one side to make room for his elbows, and his small, Cockney face flushed with earnestness. He brought all his masculine logic to bear upon her. "Look 'ere, Jenny, we'll get this straight. You're going to marry me, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"And I'm not a soldier, am I?"
"No."
"Well, there you are, then! What's there to make a fuss about"
"I'm not making a fuss."
"I wouldn't be a soldier—not if I was paid ten quid a week for it," he went on. "I tell you what, Jenny—you won't have to be ashamed of me one of these days. I'm an artist—yes, I am—a sort of artist; any man wot's got 'is 'eart in 'is job like I 'ave is an artist. And sometimes, Jenny, sometimes I feel sort of—sort of inspired. Yes, I do. I get an idea—I see something in my mind's eye—and I just puts my scissors to the cloth and cuts out something that you couldn't better in Conduit Street—without measuring—hardly knowing what I'm doing. That's an artist all over, Jenny. And old Solomon knows—oh, he knows all right. 'E's got 'is eye on me. If I threatened to leave 'e'd double my salary. But I'm not going to leave. I'm going to stick to the old firm and put life into it. One of these days it'll be 'Solomon and Tinker, Bond Street,' you see."
She looked at him doubtfully from under her long charcoaled eyelashes.
"How you do talk, Alf!"
"It isn't talk, Jenny. Shall I tell you who came into the shop the other day? A grumpy old chap 'e was, but smart—my word—with a figure—well, there's many a Piccadilly knut 'ud envy him. I made a morning suit for him—the best thing I ever did; not a crease, one fitting—and he was as pleased as a baby with a new rattle. Do you know who 'e was? Lord Alvingstone. Give you my word. Do you know what it means? That every s welkin town will be buzzing round our shop before the month's out You'll see!"
She smiled; the cloud lifted a little. A waitress swept away the plate with the offending cherry stones.
"Sounds all right, Alf!"
"Of course it's all right, dear. One of these days it'll be Mrs. Alfred Tinker, The Lodge, Hampstead."
"Kensington, Alf. Kensington's classier than Hampstead."
"All right—Kensington, then."
"D'you think—really——?"
"Certain. And a run-about of our own—and—and—any other things—theatres—dress circle—and jolly little suppers afterwards—not in messy places like this—p'raps the Troc. and all that."
"Oh, Alf."
He smiled rather unsteadily. What with many lights and the many people and the string band sighing romantically through the buzz and clatter, he felt so happy that the tears rose and burnt the rims of his pale blue eyes.
"Better than Mrs. Sergeant-major, eh?"
They laughed together. He forgot the change which the waitress slapped down disrespectfully at his elbow. And all the way home Jenny Adams let him hold her hand.
II
He remembered that evening five months afterwards. He remembered the very table they had sat at and the number of stains on the tablecloth. As to the cherry stones, the mere thought of them sent an uncanny thrill through his nerves. Without having made Shakespeare's acquaintance, young Alfred Tinker agreed with him that there were more things in heaven and earth than an ordinary fellow could make head or tail of, and the cherry-stone episode was one of them. Because that very afternoon Jenny Adams had said to him quite plainly:
"The fact is I've got to marry a soldier, Alf. I don't like being seen walking about with a civvy. It isn't respectable. It makes me ashamed, and my friends talk. You'd better think it over."
He was thinking it over now. He sat at his cutting-table under the green-shaded light and snapped unhappily at the air with his enormous scissors. The beautiful pair of khaki slacks that lay before him, awaiting the master-hand, seemed to him to express symbolically the opposing duties which tore his soul in twain. He had had no idea that, outside a penny novelette, mere moral issues could make anyone so entirely wretched.
"It's a case of art against 'eart," he thought, with awful humour.
His five assistants threw him occasional, respectful glances. To them this little fellow, with his shock of fair hair, feverish little face, and fiery, mystic eyes, was as a god. An inspired god—a poet—a being into whom the immortals had sent a breath of genius. They had seen him perform sartorial feats which they knew to be unrivalled in the history of their race. They were proud to breathe the same air with him. They boasted of him. They had only to say, "Tinker, of Solomon's," and people looked at them with a new interest. His fidelity to the musty old firm, in the face of unprecedented offers of bribery, filled them with respect and astonishment.
"Brooding over something new," Mr. Simpson whispered tensely to his neighbour. "You'll see, I know the look."
They subsided into reverential silence, and there was no sound but the snip of scissors and the subdued whir of a sewing-machine from the despised women's quarters. Then quite suddenly and almost violently Alf. Tinker flung himself off his high stool, and without even waiting to put on his coat, opened the glass door which led into the chiefs office and disappeared.
"Well, he can do that sort of thing," Mr. Simpson remarked, sighing. "We'll never bang into the boss's lair without knocking—not in this life."
"His sort's always impetuous," his neighbour added knowingly. "Can't expect 'em to behave like ordinary human beings. 'Cause they aren't ordinary. If a man tries to curb his nature" He broke off with a start. "Good gracious—what was that?"
They stared at each other. The sound had been explosive—agonised—was followed by a low yet passionate outburst, in which they recognised the Hebraic accents of Mr. Samuel Solomon. Once Alfred Tinker's clearer voice intervened, but it was swept away like a straw on a flood.
"It's come at last," said Mr. Simpson significantly. "He's going. And what can you expect? I know for a fact that Eversham offered him a cool thousand just to start with. A man can't afford to sneeze at that sort of thing."
"Poor old Solomon—he's taking it hard."
He was taking it very hard indeed. He was crying. And Alfred Tinker cried with him. He was terribly over-wrought on his own account, and the sight of this stout, bald-headed little man, with the bowed shoulders of one on whom Fortune has never smiled, shaking with sobs, completed his distress. He rubbed the tears off his cheek with his cuff and sniffed shamelessly.
"Now, Mr. Solomon—don't—don't you take it like that—I can't bear it. You know I wouldn't go—not for any money in the world; but this is different. You know how it is, Mr. Solomon, I'm a young chap—and—and—dash it—if the country needs you"
Mr. Solomon lifted his face out of his hands. In spite of its elderly fatness, it was a rather child-like, pathetic face, and the smear of grief was not altogether comic.
"And doesn't your country need you—here?" he quavered shrilly. "Think, Tinker, think! Do you want our fine young men to face the Germans with their breeches cut by that poor doddering Simpson? Don't you realise how it takes the heart out of the bravest to know that his tunic rucks at the back? Haven't you ever heard of the wonderful courage and confidence of a man in a perfect fit? Tinker, do you know what Captain Hodge said to me only this morning? 'Solomon, old bean,' he said, 'there's many a German 'll rue the day when I go over the top in these jolly old togs.' Those were his very words, Tinker. And could he have got those jolly old togs anywhere else? No, you know he couldn't. Nowhere. And do I overcharge? Do I profiteer? You know I don't. I make it possible for the poorest hero to face the enemy in the habiliments of a gentleman. Isn't that patriotic work, Tinker? And aren't you my partner? Yes, Tinker, I said my partner—in spirit and in fact, Tinker. And what more can I say?"
Alfred drew himself up gravely.
"You didn't need to say so much, Mr. Solomon," he said. "I'm not after partnerships—not now anyway. I want to do what's right. It's not easy to sit safe and cosy cutting out clothes for other chaps to fight in, and I don't like it—I don't like the feel of it."
Mr. Solomon appeared not to hear. He seemed to be immersed in a slough of hopeless meditation.
"It's hard, Tinker—very hard. All my life I've been fighting for the old business—trying to make it go, trying to make a decent living out of it—and everything's gone wrong—everything's been against me. Sometimes when I've thought of the future—of my poor wife and children and of their future when I'm gone—I've felt as though it were all too much for me. And now when a gleam of light breaks—when the right sort of customer comes along—you leave me—you leave me in the lurch, Tinker."
"No, sir, I don't—I wouldn't. Alfred choked in his emotion. "You know I wouldn't, not if I could help it; but my girl, Miss Adams, said"
Mr. Solomon pounced on him like a terrier on a rat.
"A woman! Aha, a woman! Didn't I know a woman was at the bottom of it? You—you, a grown man, you allow yourself to be hoodwinked by a vain, flighty creature like that? Don't you know what the Bible says about women? Have you not read of Samson and Delilah? From the days of Adam woman has been man's undoing, and now you, Tinker—you" He clenched his podgy hands and brought them down with a challenging bang on the table. "My son, look yourself in the face; ask yourself, is it patriotism or is it the bright eye of a woman that persuaded you to forsake your post in this, hour of crisis? I know that you are an honest boy. If you can answer me truthfully that it is pure patriotism—why, then, I will be silent; I will say no more; I will watch the foundering of my last hope in resignation. Think and answer."
Alfred found it difficult even to think. As to answering truthfully, it appeared that truth was not the simple, straightforward business that the Sunday School would have us imagine. "What is truth?" Alfred questioned in his own language. Was patriotism or Jenny Adams at the bottom of his resolution? Did he want to set forth to satisfy his conscience or Jenny Adams's predilection for khaki? What was the nation's most pressing need—a great tailor or a small fighter?
"Think!" repeated Mr. Solomon even more dramatically.
Alfred thought. Perspiration gathered beneath the shock of disordered hair. He pressed his fists down on Mr. Solomon's table as though he were trying to squeeze something out of it
"I—I'd like to 'ave a go at them blighters myself," he answered quite unexpectedly.
Mr. Solomon flapped his short arms like a wounded penguin.
"So it is to please yourself you go? You leave your post of national duty—you leave the poor old firm to ruin, to please—not even a woman—but your own vanity—a paltry love of excitement—a primitive lust for slaughter? Isn't that so? Answer me."
"No, no; it isn't—I mean—I don't want to really—I'd hate it—only—oh, Lord!"
For Mr. Solomon had began to cry again.
Now Alfred, like all true artists, was a man of feeling. Mr. Solomon's eloquence had shaken him. He went under completely in Mr. Solomon's tears. "I want to do what's right," he stammered hoarsely. "Look here, Mr. Solomon, I put it to you—what would you do in my place? I've confidence in you, Mr. Solomon. You've always dealt straight with me. I'll take your word. What would you do? You tell me that, and I'll do it."
Mr. Solomon became calm and judicial.
"Do?" he said. "I would wait. When my country pointed at me and said clearly, 'Samuel Solomon, we need your sword more than your scissors,' then I would go. Not before. My duty would be quite clear to me."
"Give you my word!" said Alfred Tinker between his teeth.
He offered a trembling hand, but Mr. Solomon rose up passionately and kissed him. He was almost as pathetic in his joy as he had been in his sorrow, and Alfred bore with him patiently. But when he went back to his work-table the five assistants gazed at their hero with anxious astonishment. He did not look like a man who had wrung a partnership or a thousand-pound bonus out of a desperate employer. He looked dejected—almost broken. And the khaki slacks that took shape in that hour were never reckoned among the master's great efforts. They lacked the inimitable touch. They were, as Mr. Simpson admirably phrased it, perfect, but uninspired.
III
That night, at the corner of Oxford Circus, Jenny Adams decided briefly, but firmly, "that it wouldn't do," and that "it wasn't good enough". Her manner was distrait, and it was quite evident even to Alfred's blurred and aching perceptions that she had an appointment elsewhere. He was thankful for her indifference and the darkness which hid something of his abject misery.
"If you'd only wait a bit, Jenny," he pleaded, but without hope. "After all, it isn't always easy to do the right thing."
"Not for some chaps," she admitted scathingly. "But it's got to be for the chap I marry."
As a perfect lady she returned the engagement ring, to which she had tied, very neatly, a white feather.
After that night Alfred Tinker was a changed man. He worked feverishly, brilliantly. The fame of him reached the Marines and reverberated through the Guards' mess. From the dismal little shop in the City the firm migrated into Bond Street, and the gilded vestibule scintillated with everything naval and military from a snotty to a brass-hat. The staff took on twenty fresh workers, and in spite of increasing bulk Mr. Solomon gave the impression of one who keeps his feet on earth only by a conscious effort. But from Alfred Tinker the joy of life seemed to have departed utterly. He had been a gay little fellow—a good pal—up to any harmless lark; always ready with a helping hand or a good word. He became morose, brooding, unsociable. He came to the workroom with his pockets stuffed with morning papers, which he read passionately through the lunch hour. Anyone who interrupted him suffered terrifying results. When the war news was bad or some fresh atrocity had been committed his twenty-five assistants avoided him as they would have avoided an irritable tiger.
"Why" he burst out once in a gust of too long suppressed fury, "why, in Heaven's name, if they want men don't they fetch 'em? All this damn shilly-shallying! Why don't they get on with things—rake us all in? What the blazes are they waiting for? There's some blasted Germans behind all this mucking about, I know. Ought to call up every man in the country—they ought"
Mr. Simpson, though slightly shocked at the display of language, was nervously conciliatory.
"Well—it's a good thing for Solomon & Co. that they don't," he said. "Supposing they got you, Mr. Tinker?"
Alfred Tinker glared at him in awful silence.
About a month later a change came. His unapproachableness remained, but it had lost its ferocity. He went about his work like a man whose eyes are fixed on some distant vision. He did not answer when he was spoken to, simply because he did not hear, and a faint, persistent smile lit up his small, pugnacious features. He pored over the Parliamentary reports as a lover pores over the letters of his beloved.
On the night that the Conscription Bill passed its third reading the crisis came. Alfred Tinker went out and spent the night in a police-cell—gloriously speechlessly drunk.
IV
It was a rather curious roomful. The occupants had arrived in pairs, and they sat in pairs, close together like grotesque love-birds. Each pair was made up of an old man and a young man. The old men wore a look of grim responsibility, and the young men were nervous and self-conscious. They seemed to find a great difficulty in keeping still, and every time the door opened and a policeman peered through, searching for his quarry, they jerked from their seats a& though someone had run a pin into them. Whenever a pair returned from their visit to the inner sanctuary their bearing was intently scrutinised. Cheerfulness evidently aroused sullen dislike, depression, a rather malicious sympathy. As the day wore on sandwiches and converted medicine bottles were produced from bulging side-pockets, but were not successful in relieving the general tension and rapidly increasing gloom.
One pair, however, differed markedly from the rest. For one thing, their attitude towards one another was peculiar. When they spoke at all it was with a gravity tinged with dejection. But most of the time they were silent, and their expressions were then extraordinarily elate. They were like two mourners at the funeral of a wealthy unloved relative, who were constantly endeavouring to impress each other with their disinterested grief. The old man was stout, Hebraic, and wonderfully attired; his charge, whose upturned nose denied kinship, was small and wiry, with intense blue eyes and a sensitive mouth that from time to time quivered spasmodically, either with distrust or an incipient grin—it was hard to tell which. When the policeman demanded the forthcoming of one "Alfred Tinker," however, he rose briskly in answer to the summons, and his companion brought up a portentous rear.
"Seems mighty sure of himself!"
"Another bloomin' indispensable!"
"Call it fair play! I don't think!"
But the door slammed and the mutterers subsided again into indignant silence.
The adjoining room was furnished meagrely with a long table, accommodating three elderly gentlemen, and a small desk, placed a little to one side, which supported the elbows of an aloof, obviously disapproving onlooker in khaki. Alfred Tinker occupied the centre of the stage. Mr Samuel Solomon, top-hat in hand, stood at his elbow rather in an attitude of a best man at the altar, and to carry the simile further Alfred Tinker himself made a very representative bridegroom. He was elate, nervous, fidgety, and absent-minded. He answered questions as to his name and occupation with some difficulty, as though they were matters on which he could not be expected to possess any certain information. But on the whole his bearing was resigned and manly, and the khaki individual noted him with some approval.
"Graded A1?"
"Yes, sir."
"Claiming total exemption?"
"No, sir—I don't—at least"
"I do," said Mr. Solomon, "for my partner."
The khaki individual sneered openly.
"On what grounds?"
"As being indispensable to my business."
"And your business?"
"I consider indispensable to the well-being of His Majesty's Forces."
Everyone laughed. Mr. Solomon himself smiled, but it was the subtle smile of one who alone knows the true inwardness of his joke. Alfred Tinker looked at the military representative. He wanted badly to wink at him—to encourage him to extreme ruthlessness, and was rather daunted to observe that that individual's expression had undergone a sudden change. He frowned. He tapped his forehead with his penholder in the evident endeavour to remember. These symptoms Alfred Tinker noted with an unreasoning sinking of the heart, and from that moment his bearing lost its jauntiness.
"And what is your business?" the military gentleman demanded abruptly. "What's your name?"
"Solomon—Samuel Solomon," said Mr. Solomon, bowing to him.
"Samuel Solomon," murmured his questioner in the accents of dawning recollection.
"Of Bond Street," Mr. Solomon added softly.
"Then"—the pen-holder indicated Alfred—"this is the Tinker?"
"The Tinker," Mr. Solomon agreed, with the complacent gravity of one who, on invitation, lays a grand slam hand on the table. "The Tinker, as you say, sir."
"Well—then—of course."
The military individual left his position at the desk. He went and sat down by the three elderly gentlemen, and addressed them in an undertone. He made little movements with his hands, as though his feelings had got the better of his natural stoicism, and the three elderly gentlemen looked at Alfred Tinker intently and almost respectfully. Their quite obvious intention to give short shrift to a flagrant young shirker had vanished. They nodded rhythmically to the military representative's earnest ejaculations, amongst which the listeners caught: "Perfect cut—inimitable—I assure you—at half a day's notice—no fitting—had it from the fellow himself—breeches—nothing like them in England—no profiteering—a national institution, by Jove!"
"Exactly—exactly," murmured one of the elderly gentlemen.
Mr. Solomon stared into the crown of his top-hat with an expression of almost superhuman detachment.
"Look here now," Alfred Tinker began passionately.
The chairman smiled at him.
"As the military representative himself recommends your exemption," he said, "we shall of course, raise no objection, and you will be"
"If you know wot I'd gone through with this damn business?" Alfred Tinker interrupted violently, "worrying and fussing, eating my 'eart out over the 'ole thing, dyin' to 'ave a go on my own and be able to look the girls—the other chaps—in the face—and now when I think my time's come at last"
"The fact is," said Mr. Solomon, interposing himself with unexpected grace, "my partner's position is a very painful one. He is a patriot and he has a conscience. From the beginning of the war he has wished to throw himself and, I may say, his art into the carnage. I confess I have endeavoured to restrain him. We old people have a duty to perform towards hot-headed youth, gentlemen, and I felt it my duty to point out that a man with a poor physique but an inimitable talent is of more use to his country in his workshop than in the trenches. Mr. Tinker had to admit the force of my argument and gave his word that he would hold back until his country called him directly. The decision is now in your hands, and I am sure my partner will abide by it. Won't you, Alfred?"
"Oh, damn!" said Alfred Tinker bitterly.
The chairman's expression was genuinely touched. He removed his glasses and wiped them with a silk handkerchief.
"Your impulse does you credit, Mr. Tinker," he said; "at the same time we must none of us be swayed by mere sentimentality. It is our duty to see that each man is fixed in the place in which he can use his faculties to the utmost, and it is quite clear to me that for the present, at any rate, you are doing the most good where you are. We therefore grant you six months' exemption, at the end of which time you can appeal again"
"But it may all be over by then!" Alfred Tinker protested hoarsely.
"Let us hope so," The chairman indulged in a mild facetiousness. "I'm afraid we shan't want to continue the war even to oblige you, Mr. Tinker."
Mr. Solomon took Alfred by the elbow.
"Come my dear fellow," he urged gently. "Come"
Alfred Tinker came. His thick, fair hair stood on end as though he had been through some physical struggle. His eyes were red-rimmed and so desperately wretched that the remaining supplicants in the adjoining room had no doubt as to his fate.
"Got it full in the neck, he has!" they whispered.
"And serve him right too. A young upstanding fellow like him! Now there are cases of real 'ardship. Take a man like myself with a wife and child and a varicose vein."
Outside, Mr. Solomon had hailed a taxi. It was an unusual extravagance, but he felt that the occasion and Alfred Tinker's appearance warranted it. He had the tact to withhold congratulations, and even the twenty-five assistants welcomed their rescued hero in awed silence.
For two months Alfred Tinker stood it Then on the day of the sinking of the "Lovena" he dramatically and completely vanished.
V
The Redmonthshires—otherwise known in the Service as the "Always-too-late-to-mends"—was not a distinguished regiment when Alfred Tinker joined it. In the present war it had not as yet seen active service, and its banners were innocent of battle honours. The only martial episode with which it had been connected was the supression of an insignificant riot in a manufacturing district for which, however, it arrived several hours too late. At other more critical periods in the Empire's history the Redmonthshires were equally unfortunate. They were either ordered elsewhere at the opening of hostilities or they arrived with the armistice, and their appearance came to be regarded as synonymous with peace. Probably, as a direct result of this reputation, it was an inexpensive regiment, with low messing bills and a relatively low standard in dress. It followed also that only determined, if impecunious, soldiers sought admission to its ranks, and that there was no body of men in the British Army more passionately athirst for glory. Their attitude towards all facetiousness was one of grim reticence touched with acerbity. They became fanatics with one thought, one hope, one purpose, and, like most fanatics, they were not popular.
It cannot be said that the advent of Alfred Tinker—alias Alfred Taylor at this period—added substantially to the Redmonthshires' chances of renown. He was smaller than any other man in the regiment, and for all the passionate goodwill which he put into his work it never roused his N.C.O. to anything but more or less tolerant disgust. An artist remained an artist. Alfred, in the midst of an intricate manœuvre, would catch sight of his lieutenant's tunic, and in a minute all would be forgotten, but the craving to get at it and at least relieve its worst symptoms. The ensuing disaster to himself and his whole company worried but could not cure him. Only on route marches, with a will to endure and a mind free to wander, did he come out with flying colours.
And Alfred was happy. He had never been so happy in his life. An intolerable burden seemed to have been lifted from him. In times of deep disgrace, with the wrath of his sergeant breaking over him in veritable cascades, it was difficult to conceal his deep inner contentment. His light-headedness became proverbial, and on peculiarly trying occasions was suspected as half-witted. When he walked abroad he swaggered, and at night time he lay awake and dreamed dreams that had the advantage of being based on real possibilities. Sometimes it was a V.C., and sometimes, in the less giddy moments, a D.C.M. Sometimes he contented himself with a sergeant's stripes, but more often he had a commission and a uniform made with his own hands. Always he met Jenny Adams. A chance meeting, you understand. He saw her start, her look of amazement, followed, as her eye counted his decorations, by grief, pride, shame, and unavailing regret. Sometimes he passed on with a grave, unrecognising countenance. Or, because he had a faithful heart, he took her into the old familiar café, and at the self-same table told her the story of his exploits.
"Do you remember the cherry stones?" he would ask, with a sad playfulness.
And then she would cry, and he would squeeze her hand under the table and assure her that all was forgiven and forgotten.
At this point the dream ended. Alfred Tinker-Taylor came back to the necessary preliminaries, and his last thought was a» most earnest prayer.
"Oh, God, give a fellow a chance! Make them blighters send us out soon——"
VI
The tragedy came, as tragedies often come, with a deceptively auspicious countenance. First as a wild rumour, and then as a glorious certainty, it became known to the rank and file of the Redmonthshires that they were destined for the front. A wave of excitement swept the regiment. At last the time had come for them to show the world what (hey were made of. Haunted by their unhappy past, they scanned the newspaper for a suggestion that hostilities might cease before their arrival, and the very word "peace," even when uttered accidentally, reduced them to a state of blasphemous fury.
First there was to be an inspection. As a rule an inspection meant for the Redmonthshires a great deal of extra polishing, a tiresome afternoon spent in the broiling sun or the pouring rain (it was always one or the other), and some dug-out old general or a camouflaged civilian pacing up and down their lines trying to look eagle-eyed and intelligent They had a poor opinion of inspection. But as a preliminary to greater things—as a sort of "send off"—it was to be endured, and a certain solemnity marked the final preparations. According to custom, Alfred Tinker was arranged carefully where his insignificant stature and mental aberrations were least likely to excite attention.
"And if you so much as blink an eyelid when the General passes," remarked Sergeant Nobbins unpleasantly, "I'll make you wish you'd never seen the light".
Alfred had no intention of blinking. If ever a man was filled with martial ardour, with the determination to bring glory upon his company and himself, that man was Alfred as the inspecting General, with Colonel MacHamish, bore down the line. And yet a moment later—suddenly, incredibly—he bent down. Deliberately, fastidiously, he brushed an imaginary speck of dust from his immaculate boots. A roar like that of a goaded bull came from somewhere in the near distance, and he stood up again, not erect, however, but with bowed head like a man plunged in profound reflection.
There are some events which pass beyond the range of language, and even of human emotion. For this reason possibly Sergeant Nobbins was almost gentle with Alfred as he escorted him to the Colonel's quarters.
"I don't know what he'll do to you," he reflected. "They put a man up against a wall for almost anything these days, and I'm sorry for you—though maybe it'll be all for the best in the end." He looked at Alfred's haggard face attentively. "Something on your conscience, eh?" he jerked out.
"Yes," said Alfred.
"Hiding from justice?" pursued the sergeant triumphantly.
"Something like it."
"Murder?"
"Oh, worse—worse!" Alfred answered with passionate bitterness.
"Good Lord!" exclaimed Sergeant Nobbins respectfully.
Colonel MacHamish and his Adjutant received Alfred. They had evidently been in close discussion, and their manner in dismissing Sergeant Nobbins convinced that personage that the matter in hand was of international importance. Alfred remained alone to face his judges. He looked hunted and stubborn, and piteous, like a small animal in a large trap.
"To begin with,' said Colonel MacHamish, referring to a charge sheet, "your name is not Taylor."
"I enlisted as A. Taylor," Alfred stated in a high, anxious voice. "I am A. Taylor and if anyone says I'm not"
"That will do. 'A. Taylor, a tailor.' Very pretty!" Colonel MacHamish nodded at the Adjutant, who relaxed his usual air of aloof dignity and laughed quite boyishly. "No evasions now; your real name, please, and no nonsense." The Colonel's voice was severe, his expression almost playful. Alfred lost all self-control.
"I shan't," he said. "I don't see whose business it is who I am. I haven't done anything to anyone. I've got as much right as anyone else to be a soldier; it's not fair."
"You're asking for court-martial, my man," the Adjutant interrupted coldly.
"I don't care. Then p'raps I'd get justice."
"Besides you're recognised," Colonel MacHamish remarked. "Lord Alvingstone recognised you."
Alfred made a noise like a choked sob.
"I knew he would; it was that damned morning suit. He said he'd never forget it."
"Your real name is Alfred Tinker?"
"Yes, it is, and I don't see"
"The Tinker?"
"Yes," said Alfred brokenly.
Colonel MacHamish paced thoughtfully backwards and forwards. Suddenly he stopped short and looked over his shoulder like a man trying to inspect the small of his back.
"What do you think of it?" he asked.
Alfred Tinker's glazed eyes followed the Colonel's gaze, and brightened with contempt and a dawning eagerness.
"Awful," he said; "the left sleeve's put in wrong."
"I knew it," said Colonel MacHamish. "I felt it. Could anything be done?"
"If I were alone with that tunic for half an hour," Alfred Tinker began, and then dropped into a stricken silence.
Colonel MacHamish resumed his pacing.
"Yesterday you disgraced the regiment, Tinker," he said. "You realise that, don't you?"
The easy tears were in Alfred's eyes.
"Yes, sir—I do—only"
"And you'd do anything in your power to make reparation?"
"Yes, sir?" said Alfred sadly and hopelessly.
"It lies in your power. The fact is, Tinker, you're a poor soldier. You always will be a poor soldier. I don't see that you have a single soldierly quality. Yet your enlistment under an assumed name proves that your intentions are most creditable. And your cut, of course, is world-famous. Now, Tinker, the regiment you have joined is—is going to be one of the famous regiments of the war—it ought to go out equipped in a way worthy of its—ah—its future. Unfortunately—I speak to you, Tinker, as one man to another—we are not a wealthy regiment. Our officers cannot afford to procure themselves uniforms from the best men. You have no doubt observed the result. Beside Guardsmen we cut a poor figure. This is not as it should be. It lies with you, Tinker, whether things remain as they are or whether the Redmonthshires become the smartest, as well as the finest, regiment in the British Army. You see my meaning?"
"Yes, sir," said Alfred tonelessly.
"In fact," said the Colonel with a triumphant and solemn gesture, "I have determined to detail you for special service. I create a post for you. From henceforward you will serve your country as regimental tailor."
In an incredibly short space of time the news spread to wherever the British Army upheld the glory of the Empire. The Guards heard it and looked askance. Line regiments gnashed their teeth. Mr. Samuel Solomon put his head down on a roll of valuable cloth and wept.
And Alfred Tinker stood at the window of his commodious workroom where his five assistants toiled day and night for the splendour of the Redmonthshires, and watched the regiment swing out grandly through the barrack gates. He listened to the call of the bugles and the martial thunder of the band as it played the tired men home. He felt in his very blood the stir and thrill of the great hour for which eight hundred men had lived and worked and prayed.
But what was in Alfred Tinker's heart must not be told. It was too sad.
VII
She stood, arms akimbo, and watched him. He did not know that he was being watched, and his depression was unconsciously and pathetically conspicuous. It isolated him from his fellows. He sat hunched up in the corner, and the bowl of soup that steamed up into his face might have been a witch's cauldron in which a most unpleasant future had been brewed for him. But he was a nice-looking fellow, she considered, and anyhow life's no joke for anyone.
"Well," she said finally, "what's the matter? Thinking about the Ritz? Isn't it good enough for you?"
He jumped up violently and went red to the roots of his fair hair.
"Oh—no—it's fine"
"Well, then—why don't you eat it up? Don't like to see good food wasted. Besides, I cooked it, you know. Not very polite of you."
He glanced up at her anxiously, and then, seeing that she was not really offended at all, he smiled and began to rattle his spoon with conciliatory energy.
"It's first class. I'm just off my feed, that's all."
"But you've marched fifteen miles since your last meal. The boys told me so."
"I didn't. Came in a transport wagon."
"Sick?" she asked.
"Sick of things," he muttered.
"Oh, well," she said. "Cheer up!"
She bustled off with a trayload of dirty plates that might have staggered a coalheaver and presently bustled back with more plates and steaming bowls, which she set out before the new arrivals with skill and much kindly facetiousness. At first the Redmonthshires looked at her silently and wistfully, like tired children. They did not seem quite to understand how she came to be there. They had worked their way through such a slough of misery that a woman at the end of it all—and an English-woman to boot, rosy-cheeked, clear-eyed, frank-hearted—seemed as paradoxical and incredible as an angel in hell. More than warmth and food, she re-lit the courage in them. They began to forget themselves. In a dim, speechless way they were as proud of her as though she had belonged to them.
"Got pluck, that girl," said Sergeant Nobbins concisely. "Any 'uman being that sticks it out 'ere must 'ave pluck. Come on; let's 'ave a song, boys, just to show er we ain't down-'earted neither."
So after fifteen miles of ankle-deep mud they sang. The wooden shanty rang with their voices, and the much-tried piano tinkled a cracked but cheerful accompaniment.
But the little fellow with the fair hair continued to stare into his bowl of soup. And as distress attracts a woman as honey attracts a bee, it was not surprising that the rosy-cheeked girl in the khaki overall came back to the attack. In the first place, she took his ice-cold soup from him firmly but not unkindly.
"It's no use clinging to things you don't want," she said. "But you can't go on like this, you know. What's the tragedy anyhow? Anything anyone can help about? You can talk to me if you like. I shan't laugh."
"Laugh?" he said drearily. "Laugh?"
"Oh, well—you know, men are that queer. Sentimental as any girl. Only they 'aven't the pluck to show it. What I mean is—if your worrying about your mammy—or—or anyone, you can pour it all out and I shall understand— seems it's part of my job here."
"What is your job?" he asked gloomily.
"Looking after you fellows. I'm a W.A.A.C. Never heard of them in your village, I suppose. Look at my uniform."
He looked.
"Wants taking in on the shoulders," he commented.
She laughed.
"Fancy your seeing that; yes, it does. Only I haven't time. What's 'er name?"
"What's 'oose name?"
"Oh, you know, you're worrying about 'ef now—your girl."
"I 'aven't got a girl."
"Well, it's your mammy, then."
"I 'aven't got a mammy."
"Oh!" she said. She became grave and sympathetic. "Must be rotten being all alone like that."
"There's worse things than being alone," he muttered.
"Yes; I know, I've 'eard the other chaps talk about it—before they go up. When they come back they're different—quite cockahoop. You see, they've found out they aren't 'alf as afraid as they thought they were."
The little man gave a sudden hoot of satiric laughter.
"So you think I'm afraid, eh?"
"Well, I don't know, of course. Lots are, and no shame to 'em; it don't mean anything. There was a chap 'ere six months ago who cried on my shoulder like a baby the day before they went up. Got the V.C., 'e did."
"Oh, damn him!" said the depressed young man with increased bitterness.
She shook her head disapprovingly.
"That's rude. Besides, I knows myself what it feels like. I used to think if ever I 'eard a bomb go off I'd faint right away, but I didn't, and I don't take no more notice of bombs than if they were tyres bursting. And we've been shelled too, often enough."
"Shelled?" he echoed alertly. "Wot—'ere?"
"I should say so. Only five miles be'ind the line, we are. But, of course, it's nothing to the real thing"
He relapsed dismally.
"S'ppose not."
"And, any'ow, you oughtn't to grouse," she went on. "It ain't fair. It's a sort of going back on your pals"
"I 'aven't got no pals." He turned his head away so that she should not see his face. "Sometimes I feel as though I was the only 'uman being in the whole bloomin' world," he said huskily.
She knew then that he had a secret sorrow, she had read about secret sorrows—mostly in the upper circles of society, but she had never hoped to meet one. Her heart went out to the mysteriously unhappy soldier. But she was not of a weak, sloppy nature. She gave him a firm, consoling pat on the shoulder.
"Well, as long as you're 'ere you can count on Cissie Edwards," she said cheerfully. "And when you're not here—as you haven't got no one—you can write to me if you like. I'm no great shakes at letter writing, but if it'll buck you up a bit"
"Why—you don't know who I am—or—what I am!" he said incredulously.
"Yes—I do," she said. "You're lonely—and you're a soldier fightin' for old England—and—and any'ow I likes the look of you"
Thereat unexpectedly she blushed.
Now Jenny Adams had never blushed. Her make-up, both spiritual and material, did not allow for such an expression of feeling. And a broken, unromantic, yet very illuminating thought came to Alfred Tinker.
"Now if this girl was to wash 'er face she'd be rosier than ever—but if Jenny washed 'ers—if she ever did"
He was chivalrous enough to leave it at that. But from that moment the ghost of Jenny Adams may be said to have faded out of Alfred Tinker's life for ever.
VIII
The Redmonthshires rested three days before they were sent forward for the consummation of their passionate hopes. All the time that he could spare from his extemporary tailoring department in the Mairie, Alfred Tinker spent in the canteen. He resented with increasing bitterness the repairs and alterations which each officer seemed to consider a "necessary enemy". He became more than ever morose, and absent-minded. A roll of khaki corduroy, which had been specially ordered from England, was ruined in a fit of depression, and the Adjutant shook his head prophetically.
"If we don't take care," he said, "he'll break out"
"And if he does," said the Colonel, who was in no temper to stand nonsense from anyone, "I'll have him shot".
The saying was judiciously brought to Alfred Tinker's notice and did little to increase his cheerfulness.
He spent his money on food he never ate. He would sit for an hour over a meat-pie, apparently purposeless, in reality waiting for the moment when Cissie Edwards would come his way. Or he would lean against the canteen counter, sipping an interminable cup of cocoa, watching her. And, though Cissie Edwards had never time for more than a nod and a smile, she knew. Moreover, Alfred knew that she knew. Between them there was, in fact, that most wonderful understanding which goes by the name of love-at-first-sight. Only it was overshadowed by the secret sorrow, and between the two of them, Alfred seemed to grow smaller and more intense and feverish-looking with every hour.
The last night came. The Redmonthshires who were to move out at midnight, enjoyed their last rest in dry billets, and the canteen was in half-darkness and very quiet so that the dull, monotonous gunfire which one forgot in the usual bustle and clatter struck the consciousness with a new and sinister force.
Alfred found Cissie Edwards at the counter counting prune stones and crying.
"Tinker—tailor—soldier—sailor"
He put his hand over hers.
"Oh, please, don't!" he said.
They looked at each other. They were both very white and unhappy-eyed. If there were other people in the world at that moment they did not know it. Alfred found that he could not remove his hand.
"It's a silly game," said Cissie Edwards hoarsely. "I don't know why I did it."
Alfred shook his head.
"It's not silly. It comes true sometimes. I couldn't bear it—if it didn't come wot I wanted."
"It makes 'soldier'," she said faintly.
But he did not answer. To her amazement she realised that he was trembling as though she had struck him, and her warm heart went out to him in deep pity and infinite misunderstanding.
"Mr. Tinker, don't take it like that," she said. "You'll come through; you'll come through; I'm sure you will."
"Oh, I'll come through," he muttered. "No fear of that." His grip on her hand tightened till it hurt, but she did not protest. "I made up my mind I wouldn't say nothing," he jerked out painfully, "and I won't, I won't. I 'aven't the right. If you knew wot I was you wouldn't look at me again. If you knew what I'd been doing all this time you'd 'ate the sight of me. I know you would; you couldn't 'elp yourself."
"I wouldn't," she said firmly and with much dignity. "I don't care wot you are or wot you've done. I know you're risking your life like a brave man, and anything you've done you shouldn't do, you'll make right when you get your chance. I know that."
"Oh, Gawd!" he groaned. Then, suddenly, he stood very straight. "Miss Edwards," he said, "either I wipes out my past or you don't see me again. If—if—I don't come back—you'll understand—I tried—won't you? And you'll know why—and not think hard things of a fellow. I've been a poor sort of skunk; I know that better than anyone—but I'll make good now—and if the Colonel himself tries to take my chance away from me I'll brain him. See?"
She saw very imperfectly, but she nodded, and her eyes were blind with tears.
And Alfred Tinker kissed her toil-roughened hand like a gallant knight of old and fled.
IX
Alfred Tinker had just completed his arrangements when the Adjutant, in full war-kit, with a brown paper parcel under his arm, banged into the tailoring department at the Maine. He was preoccupied, and beyond the fact that a light burned unusually late over the work-table and that someone stood in the shadow in apparent idleness, the circumstances at first made no particular impression on him.
"The riding breeches," he explained briefly. "New leathers. Better be getting on with them. A nice quiet job for you, Tinker. And, look here, there's this blessed tunic that Peters made for me. I don't know whether you can do anything to it. Have a try anyhow; there's a good fellow. It's awful, and I shall want it when I come out. Bound to get fearfully messed up in the best of cases."
The expected "Yes, sir," failed, and the Adjutant looked up. He saw then an Alfred Tinker whom he hardly recognised—a small, warlike figure, muffled to the eyes in a greatcoat, a haversack on its shoulders, a rifle in its hand. For a moment the two men stared at each other in grim silence. Then the Adjutant laughed. "What on earth do you think you're up to, Tinker?" he asked. "Play-acting?"
"I'm going with you, sir," was the reply.
"Oh, no, you're not. Don't be a silly ass. You're a good man where you are. You'd be a nuisance anywhere else. Besides, I want these breeches done."
"For God's sake, let me come with you, sir!"
"I can't. It's not my business anyhow. You've got your job. You stick to it and be thankful."
"You mustn't stop me, sir," said Alfred Tinker in a stifled voice of hysterical despair, "it's—it's ruining my life, sir—you mustn't do it. After all I'm a man, sir, even if I am a damned tailor—I must go. I 'listed for a soldier, and I'm going to be a soldier. I don't care if I'm shot for it. Every one's been against me—right from the very first—but I've had enough this time, I'm off—and no one's going to stop me either"
Now, men going into action are subject to various moods. Some are jocular, some irritable, some strung up to snapping points, some merely apathetic. The Adjutant's mood at that moment was one of peevish obtuseness. He saw nothing of the tragedy which underlay this extraordinary burst of insubordination, and the insubordination itself hardly affected him. He could only think of his breeches. For a moment their fate overshadowed the whole war. He tapped his revolver significantly.
"You've been drinking, Tinker," he said "It's disgraceful—almost in the face of the enemy, too. You really ought to be shot for it. You are a soldier, and if you disobey orders I shall have you arrested—though I must say it would be a damned nuisance. Your orders are to stay here and put in these leathers. You understand—you stay here whatever happens. Got that clear?"
The habit of obedience is a poisonous one. It rots the soul. To his own horror and shame Alfred Tinker answered "Yes, sir," and the butt end of his rifle struck the floor in dull surrender. The Adjutant nodded, not unkindly.
"Better get to bed and sleep it off," he said. "You'll make no end of a mess of those breeches if you don't."
He went off, slamming the door, and Alfred Tinker heard him clatter heavily down the wooden stairs. He heard, too, the sharp word of command and the muffled rhythmic tread of the Redmonthshires as they set off through the black night in search of glory.
And he prepared to shoot himself. He had made up his mind to shoot himself. But then his eye caught sight of the Adjutant's tunic spread out in all its shameful imperfection. He perceived the remedy. Art waged war against despair and triumphed. Very well. He would do his duty as a tailor and a soldier to the end. And his last work should be a masterpiece.
With tears of rage and grief running down his cheeks, Alfred Tinker took up the scissors.
X
It began shortly after one o'clock. Alfred had just nipped off the Adjutant's sleeve. It was gunfire, but it was not familiar. It came from a new direction and it sounded close at hand and very menacing. Alfred stopped in his work to listen to it. He then perceived other sounds. At one bound the little town seemed to have leapt to its feet. People who had been sleeping five minutes before were running down the street, shouting to one another.
Alfred filled his mouth with pins. The war had no further interest for him. It had rejected him. To all intents and purposes he was a ghost clearing up the affairs of a former existence, and he did not even look up when a red-faced, much flustered Y.M.C.A. worker burst in upon him with a series of gasping exclamations.
"The Germans—flank attack—broken through—here in half an hour—whole town to be evacuated—we're getting the W.A.A.Cs out now—no time to lose—come on lend a a hand, for God's sake.
Alfred removed the pins.
"Sorry," he said. "I'm a non-combatant." The Y.M.C.A. official gaped.
"What—in uniform!"
"Yes, it is a bit confusing," Alfred admitted. He stood in an attitude of reflection, holding on to his tape-measure as a curate holds to the two ends of his stole. "I find it confusing myself," he added with withering sarcasm. "I'm a civilian under military orders. I'm not to fight. Oh dear, no, certainly not—but I've got to do as I'm told. And I'm under orders to finish this tunic. I'm to stay here whatever happens. You see how it is"
"You're mad!"
"Of course, I'm mad," said Alfred bitterly. "Everyone who joins the blinkin' British Army's mad. Didn't you know that?"
"I s'ppose you're a spy, then," said the Y.M.C.A. man tauntingly, "waiting for your friends."
Alfred remained unruffled.
"I don't know," he said. "Never had any orders on the subject. Don't know what I am. But I'll be shot if I don't finish this tunic"
"What's the good of the tunic if the Germans get it?"
"Don't know. Never had any orders"
"Oh, come on, for Heaven's sake, man!"
"Do you want to make me a deserter?" Alfred demanded, waving his scissors indignantly. "Get out!" On second thoughts, however, he followed his would-be rescuer to the top of the stairs. "You look after the W.A.A.C.'s, he shouted, "especially the one with the curly hair."
Then he went back and shut the door.
A man who is done with life is like a general. He stands on a prominence in absolute security and can take a calm, bird's-eye view of the whole situation Alfred Tinker whistled to himself as he worked. Beyond two blazing spots of colour in either cheek and occasional outbursts of muttered taunts addressed, apparently, to the world in general, he showed no signs of excitement or hurry. But there was so much method in his procedure that he really worked with incredible swiftness. The rolls of khaki blocked the one window as effectively as sandbags. The dusty bureaux and cupboards, in which resided the archives of the little town, made an admirable bullet-proof barricade for the door and staircase head. Alfred pushed and heaved them into position with a maniac's strength. Their heaviness and resistance raised a Berserk fury in him. They might have been his personal enemies. He kicked them. When their resistance was broken he gibed at them.
"Aha, you would, would you? Thought you'd done me, did you? Thought I'd stay a damn little tailor all my life, eh? You and your bloomin' orders. I'll show you the sort of chap I am"
In a quarter of an hour the tailoring department in the Mairie had been transformed into a veritable fortress. By this time the sharper music of rifle-firing had begun to play a staccato accompaniment to the rumble of the guns. Through an aperture in his defences Alfred made his way downstairs into the street. The dawn had broken. Fugitives and stragglers stumbled past like ghosts. For the most part they were wounded, but they were above all things leaderless, disheartened, too bewildered to know even where they were going or what had happened. The avalanche had fallen on a section where the French and British armies met. French and English jostled each other.
Alfred Tinker stood on the steps of the Mairie and yelled at them. He was like a showman at a fair—like a cheapjack selling his wares.
"Now, then, gentlemen, walk up, walk up! Entrance free! No charges! Anyone wanting another pot at the Hun step this way! Anyone with guts in him come and look at General Tinker's famous shooting range! All for nothing! You can fire till you drop! For to-day only! Walk up! Walk up!"
He danced, he gyrated. He waved his arms. He was possessed, he was irresistible—a dynamic force conscious of no limitations. His supreme joyousness was a prairie fire seizing upon everything that came within its reach. The Frenchmen, who could not understand a word he said, stopped at first to laugh, then to cheer. The English answered to a man. The dogged soul in them that loathed retreat seized avariciously on the frail chance that this strange Cockney apparition offered them. They caught the joke of it all. Laughing, jesting, drunk with the sudden revulsion of feeling, they poured up the steps of the Mairie—as many as their new commander asked for. The rest, no longer stragglers, but men imbued with grim purpose, hurried on to join whatever force was coming to the rescue.
All this passed between three o'clock and three-thirty. At three-thirty-five the town was deserted, the Mairie, with unguarded doors, stood wrapped in desolate silence. At four o'clock the German advance guards entered the Market Place. They, too, were perhaps intoxicated with their own swift success. At any rate, their hurried inspection betrayed nothing suspicious. They continued their pursuit of the broken enemy, whilst the main body of their forces, with a car load of be-ribboned officers, took formal possession of the conquered town. It was not until the staff, spur-jingling and arrogantly assured, entered the Mairie and stood in the empty hall issuing their orders that something happened.
The advance guards heard it, and they knew at once what it signified. The retreat had been a feint—a trap. The treacherous English had fallen mysteriously in their rear. They faltered—finally fell back precipitately on the town, which offered a spectacle of incredible tumult. The Market Place had become a battlefield in which one man fought panic-stricken against another. The twilight added to the confusion. It took the raging, blaspheming officers twenty minutes to regain their mastery and organise the siege of the stronghold, which had blazed up in their very midst. The siege itself was short and terrible. But the twenty minutes had been fatal. Just as the last line of defence had broken down, the British and French reinforcements counter-attacked, sweeping all before them.
The hall and staircase of the Mairie were a shambles. The victors had much ado to make their way over the hideous m&lee of broken bodies and broken furniture to the remnants of the little garrison. They found Alfred Tinker lying face downwards across a table on which the Adjutant's tunic still waited completion. In one hand he clutched his scissors. Either he had seized upon them as a last available weapon or in the gathering night had returned instinctively to his natural profession.
As they lifted him his eyes opened an instant.
The man who had held him described his expression afterwards as one of unearthly happiness.
"Tinker—tailor" he said very faintly, "soldier"
And passed into merciful unconsciousness.
XI
Mr. Alfred Tinker has gone back to Solomon's. He has now thirty assistants under him who worship the ground he walks on. For a tailor who is at once a genius and a V.C. with five bayonet scars on his body is a leader to be proud of.
And, of course, everyone who cares for his personal appearance and a chat about the old fighting days, goes to Solomon's.
Mr. Samuel Solomon has moved his private residence from Pimlico to Mayfair. Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Tinker (née Edwards), whose tastes are of a less ostentatious nature, have a house in Hampstead.
It is understood that they are ridiculously happy.