Kipps by H. G. Wells (distant reading txt) 📕

smartly and neatly outside the little toy shop. “Make that thing ’oot a bit, will you,” said Kipps. “Yes, that’s it.” “Whup,” said the motor car. “Whurrup!”

Both his Aunt and Uncle came out on the pavement. “Why, it’s Artie,” cried his Aunt, and Kipps had a moment of triumph.

He descended to hand claspings, removed wraps and spectacles, and the motor driver retired to take “an hour off.” Old Kipps surveyed the machinery and disconcerted Kipps for a moment by asking him in a knowing tone what they asked him for a thing like that. The two men stood inspecting the machine and impressing the neighbours for a time, and then they strolled through the shop into the little parlour for a drink.

“They ain’t settled,” old Kipps had said to the neighbours. “They ain’t got no further than experiments. There’s a bit of take-in about each. You take my advice and wait, me boy, even if it’s a year or two, before you buy one for your own use.”

(Though Kipps had said nothing of doing anything of the sort.)

“ ’Ow d’you like that whiskey I sent?” asked Kipps, dodging the old familiar bunch of children’s pails.

Old Kipps became tactful. “It’s a very good whiskey, my boy,” said old Kipps. “I ’aven’t the slightest doubt it’s a very good whiskey and cost you a tidy price. But⁠—dashed if it soots me! They put this here Foozle Ile in it, my boy, and it ketches me jest ’ere.” He indicated his centre of figure. “Gives me the heartburn,” he said, and shook his head rather sadly.

“It’s a very good whiskey,” said Kipps. “It’s what the actor manager chaps drink in London, I ’appen to know.”

“I dessay they do, my boy,” said old Kipps, “but then they’ve ’ad their livers burnt out, and I ’aven’t. They ain’t dellicat like me. My stummik always ’as been extrey dellicat. Sometimes it’s almost been as though nothing would lay on it. But that’s in passing. I liked those segars. You can send me some of them segars.⁠ ⁠…”

You cannot lead a conversation straight from the gastric consequences of Foozle Ile to Love, and so Kipps, after a friendly inspection of a rare old engraving after Morland (perfect except for a hole kicked through the centre) that his Uncle had recently purchased by private haggle, came to the topic of the old people’s removal.

At the outset of Kipps’ great fortunes there had been much talk of some permanent provision for them. It had been conceded they were to be provided for comfortably, and the phrase “retire from business” had been very much in the air. Kipps had pictured an ideal cottage, with a creeper always in exuberant flower about the door, where the sun shone forever and the wind never blew and a perpetual welcome hovered in the doorway. It was an agreeable dream, but when it came to the point of deciding upon this particular cottage or that, and on this particular house or that, Kipps was surprised by an unexpected clinging to the little home, which he had always understood to be the worst of all possible houses.

“We don’t want to move in a ’urry,” said Mrs. Kipps.

“When we want to move, we want to move for life. I’ve had enough moving about in my time,” said old Kipps.

“We can do here a bit more, now we done here so long,” said Mrs. Kipps.

“You lemme look about a bit fust,” said old Kipps.

And in looking about old Kipps found perhaps a finer joy than any mere possession could have given. He would shut his shop more or less effectually against the intrusion of customers, and toddle abroad seeking new matter for his dream; no house was too small and none too large for his knowing enquiries. Occupied houses took his fancy more than vacancies, and he would remark, “You won’t be a livin’ ’ere forever, even if you think you will,” when irate householders protested against the unsolicited examination of their more intimate premises.⁠ ⁠…

Remarkable difficulties arose of a totally unexpected sort.

“If we ’ave a larger ’ouse,” said Mrs. Kipps with sudden bitterness, “we shall want a servant, and I don’t want no gells in the place larfin’ at me, sniggerin’ and larfin’ and prancin’ and trapesin’, lardy da! If we ’ave a smaller ’ouse, there won’t be room to swing a cat.”

Room to swing a cat it seemed was absolutely essential. It was an infrequent but indispensable operation.

“When we do move,” said old Kipps, “if we could get a bit of shootin’⁠—. I don’t want to sell off all this here stock for nothin’. It’s took years to ’cumulate. I put a ticket in the winder sayin’ ‘sellin’ orf,’ but it ’asn’t brought nothing like a roosh. One of these ’ere dratted visitors pretendin’ to want an air gun, was all we ’ad in yesterday. Jest an excuse for spyin’ round and then go away and larf at you. No-thanky to everything, it didn’t matter what.⁠ ⁠… That’s ’ow I look at it, Artie.”

They pursued meandering fancies about the topic of their future settlement for a space and Kipps became more and more hopeless of any proper conversational opening that would lead to his great announcement, and more and more uncertain how such an opening should be taken. Once indeed old Kipps, anxious to get away from this dangerous subject of removals, began: “And what are you a-doin’ of in Folkestone? I shall have to come over and see you one of these days,” but before Kipps could get in upon that, his Uncle had passed into a general exposition of the proper treatment of landladies and their humbugging, cheating ways, and so the opportunity vanished. It seemed to Kipps the only thing to do was to go out into the town for a stroll, compose an effectual opening at leisure, and then come back and discharge it at them in its consecutive completeness. And even out of doors and alone, he found his mind distracted by irrelevant thoughts.

His steps led him