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

Then he fell a-thinking. He resolved that, come what might, when he came back to New Romney at Christmas, he would by hook or by crook kiss Ann.

Then everything would be perfect and right, and he would be perfectly happy.

When Kipps left New Romney, with a small yellow tin box, a still smaller portmanteau, a new umbrella, and a keepsake half-sixpence, to become a draper, he was a youngster of fourteen, thin, with whimsical drakes’ tails at the poll of his head, smallish features, and eyes that were sometimes very light and sometimes very dark, gifts those of his birth; and by the nature of his training he was indistinct in his speech, confused in his mind, and retreating in his manners. Inexorable fate had appointed him to serve his country in commerce, and the same national bias towards private enterprise and leaving bad alone, which entrusted his general education to Mr. Woodrow, now indentured him firmly into the hands of Mr. Shalford, of the Folkestone Drapery Bazaar. Apprenticeship is still the recognised English way to the distributing branch of the social service. If Mr. Kipps had been so unfortunate as to have been born a German he might have been educated in an elaborate and costly special school (“over-educated⁠—crammed up”⁠—Old Kipps) to fit him for his end⁠—such being their pedagogic way. He might.⁠ ⁠… But why make unpatriotic reflections in a novel? There was nothing pedagogic about Mr. Shalford.

He was an irascible, energetic little man, with hairy hands, for the most part under his coat tails, a long, shiny, bald head, a pointed, aquiline nose a little askew, and a neatly trimmed beard. He walked lightly and with a confident jerk, and he was given to humming. He had added to exceptional business “push,” bankruptcy under the old dispensation, and judicious matrimony. His establishment was now one of the most considerable in Folkestone, and he insisted on every inch of frontage by alternate stripes of green and yellow down the houses over the shops. His shops were numbered 3, 5 and 7 on the street, and on his billheads 3 to 7. He encountered the abashed and awestricken Kipps with the praises of his system and himself. He spread himself out behind his desk with a grip on the lapel of his coat and made Kipps a sort of speech. “We expect y’r to work, y’r know, and we expect y’r to study our interests,” explained Mr. Shalford in the regal and commercial plural. “Our system here is the best system y’r could have. I made it, and I ought to know. I began at the very bottom of the ladder when I was fourteen, and there isn’t a step in it I don’t know. Not a step. Mr. Booch in the desk will give y’r the card of rules and fines. Jest wait a minute.” He pretended to be busy with some dusty memoranda under a paperweight, while Kipps stood in a sort of paralysis of awe regarding his new master’s oval baldness. “Two thous’n three forty-seven pounds,” whispered Mr. Shalford audibly, feigning forgetfulness of Kipps. Clearly a place of great transactions!

Mr. Shalford rose, and handing Kipps a blotting-pad and an inkpot to carry⁠—mere symbols of servitude, for he made no use of them⁠—emerged into a countinghouse where three clerks had been feverishly busy ever since his door handle had turned. “Booch,” said Mr. Shalford, “ ’ave y’r copy of the rules?” and a downtrodden, shabby little old man with a ruler in one hand and a quill pen in his mouth, silently held out a small book with green and yellow covers, mainly devoted, as Kipps presently discovered, to a voracious system of fines. He became acutely aware that his hands were full, and that everybody was staring at him. He hesitated a moment before putting the inkpot down to free a hand.

“Mustn’t fumble like that,” said Mr. Shalford as Kipps pocketed the rules. “Won’t do here. Come along, come along,” and he cocked his coat tails high, as a lady might hold up her dress, and led the way into the shop.

A vast interminable place it seemed to Kipps, with unending shining counters and innumerable faultlessly dressed young men and presently Houri-like young women staring at him. Here there was a long vista of gloves dangling from overhead rods, there ribbons and baby-linen. A short young lady in black mittens was making out the account of a customer, and was clearly confused in her addition by Shalford’s eagle eye.

A thickset young man with a bald head and a round, very wise face, who was profoundly absorbed in adjusting all the empty chairs down the counter to absolutely equal distances, awoke out of his preoccupation and answered respectfully to a few Napoleonic and quite unnecessary remarks from his employer. Kipps was told that this young man’s name was Mr. Buggins, and that he was to do whatever Mr. Buggins told him to do.

They came round a corner into a new smell, which was destined to be the smell of Kipps’ life for many years, the vague, distinctive smell of Manchester goods. A fat man with a large nose jumped⁠—actually jumped⁠—at their appearance, and began to fold a pattern of damask in front of him exactly like an automaton that is suddenly set going.

“Carshot, see to this boy tomorrow,” said the master. “See he don’t fumble. Smart’n ’im up.”

“Yussir,” said Carshot fatly, glanced at Kipps, and resumed his pattern-folding with extreme zeal.

“Whatever Mr. Carshot says y’r to do, ye do,” said Mr. Shalford, trotting onward; and Carshot blew out his face with an appearance of relief.

They crossed a large room full of the strangest things Kipps had ever seen. Ladylike figures, surmounted by black wooden knobs in the place of the refined heads one might have reasonably expected, stood about with a lifelike air of conscious fashion.

“Costume room,” said Shalford.

Two voices engaged in some sort of argument⁠—“I can assure you, Miss Mergle, you are entirely mistaken⁠—entirely, in supposing I should do anything so unwomanly,”⁠—sank abruptly, and they