“Good evening, Mrs. Honey. I came to leave this—er—notice about the Empire Day performance at the schools. Perhaps you’ll be so kind as to show it in the window, and—er—come yourself.” “Thank you, sir. I’ll put it here by the tinned salmon. That’s what gets looked at most.” “Thank you, Mrs. Honey. Hullo, Beatup—I didn’t see you in this dim light.” “I’ll be gitting the lamp,” said Thyrza. Tom swept his parcels off the counter into his pockets, and muttered something about “hoame.” “This is your last day, isn’t it?” asked the curate. “Yessir. Off to-morrow.” “Sorry?” “Middling sorry, for some reasons.” “But it will be a big experience for you.” The curate was young, and sometimes vaguely hankered after that adventure in which no priests but those of godless France might share. It was hard to see it being wasted on a pudding-headed chap like Beatup. Tom only grunted his reply to this challenge. He was angry with the parson for having come into the shop, discreet as had been his entry. He did not think of waiting till he had gone, for somehow no one, especially a man, ever left Thyrza’s shop in a hurry, as if the tranquil dawdle of the shopkeeper communicated itself to her customers, making them lounge and linger long after their purchases were made. “Good-bye, Mrs. Honey.” “Good-bye, Tom.” “Good-bye, and good luck,” said the curate, shaking hands. The bell buzzed again, and Tom was out in the throb and shudder of the wind, while Thyrza lit the lamp in the house behind him. 10 When he reached home he found all the family at supper, except Harry, who after a fortnight’s doubtful virtue had, on his brother’s last night at home, escapaded off with two young Sindens from Little Worge. Mrs. Beatup was inclined to be tearful about it. “Wot we’ll do when you’re agone, Tom, Lord only knows.” Of late she had taken to treating Tom’s departure as a voluntary, not to say capricious, act, and her frequent lamentations were gabbled with reproach, vague hints that if he had liked he could have prevented the catastrophe—precisely how, she never told him. Mus’ Beatup was not drunk. Only a negative statement could describe him, for neither was he sober. An alcoholic Laodicean, neither hot nor cold, he lolled over the head of the table, and argued with Nell, the pupil-teacher, on the utter futility of the Church of England, or, indeed, any sort of Church. It was characteristic of Nell that she would argue with her father, drunk or sober. She had championed her causes against a far less responsible adversary than she had before her to-day. Her cheeks were pink with refutation, and her little sighs and exclamations and chipped beginnings of phrases popped like corks round Mus’ Beatup’s droning eloquence—that eloquence which so filled Tom with admiration and made him boast of his father’s book-learning among the farms.