Chapter 4

THE END OF AN IDYLL

Tommy never saw Reddy again owing to a fright he got about this time,
for which she was really to blame, though a woman who lived in his house
was the instrument.

It is, perhaps, idle to attempt a summary of those who lived in that
house, as one at least will be off, and another in his place, while we
are giving them a line apiece. They were usually this kind who lived
through the wall from Mrs. Sandys, but beneath her were the two rooms of
Hankey, the postman, and his lodger, the dreariest of middle-aged clerks
except when telling wistfully of his ambition, which was to get out of
the tea department into the coffee department, where there is an easier
way of counting up the figures. Shovel and family were also on this
floor, and in the rooms under them was a newly married couple. When the
husband was away at his work, his wife would make some change in the
furniture, taking the picture from this wall, for instance, and hanging
it on that wall, or wheeling the funny chair she had lain in before she
could walk without a crutch, to the other side of the fireplace, or
putting a skirt of yellow paper round the flower pot, and when he
returned he always jumped back in wonder and exclaimed: "What an immense
improvement!" These two were so fond of one another that Tommy asked
them the reason, and they gave it by pointing to the chair with the
wheels, which seemed to him to be no reason at all. What was this young
husband's trade Tommy never knew, but he was the only prettily dressed
man in the house, and he could be heard roaring in his sleep, "_And_ the
next article?" The meanest looking man lived next door to him. Every
morning this man put on a clean white shirt, which sounds like a
splendid beginning, but his other clothes were of the seediest, and he
came and went shivering, raising his shoulders to his ears and spreading
his hands over his chest as if anxious to hide his shirt rather than to
display it. He and the happy husband were nicknamed Before and After,
they were so like the pictorial advertisement of Man before and after he
has tried Someone's lozenges. But it is rash to judge by outsides; Tommy
and Shovel one day tracked Before to his place of business, and it
proved to be a palatial eating-house, long, narrow, padded with red
cushions; through the door they saw the once despised, now in beautiful
black clothes, the waistcoat a mere nothing, as if to give his shirt a
chance at last, a towel over his arm, and to and fro he darted,
saying "Yessirquitesosir" to the toffs on the seats, shouting
"Twovegonebeef--onebeeronetartinahurry" to someone invisible, and
pocketing twopences all day long, just like a lord. On the same floor as
Before