KIPPS Read online

  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 down-trodden, 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 coattails 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, their 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 around 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 to-morrow,” 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 discovered two young ladies, taller and fairer than any of the other young ladies, and with black trains to their dresses, who were engaged in writing at a little table. Whatever they told him to do, Kipps gathered he was to do. He was also, he understood, to do whatever Carshot and Booch told him to do. And there were also Buggins and Mr. Shalford. And not to forget or fumble!

  They descended into a cellar called “The Warehouse,” and Kipps had an optical illusion of errand boys fighting. Some aerial voice said, “Teddy!” and the illusion passed. He looked again and saw quite clearly that they were packing parcels and always would be, and that the last thing in the world that they would or could possibly do was to fight. Yet he gathered from the remarks Mr. Shalford addressed to their busy backs that they had been fighting—no doubt at some past period of their lives.

  Emerging in the shop again among a litter of toys and what are called “fancy articles,” Shalford withdrew a hand from beneath his coat tails to indicate an overhead change carrier. He entered into elaborate calculations to show how many minutes in one year were saved thereby and lost himself among the figures. “Seven tums eight seven nine—was it? Or seven eight nine? Now, now! Why, when I was a boy your age, I c’d do a sum like that as soon as hear it. We’ll soon get y’r into better shape than that. Make you Fishent. Well, y’r must take my word, it comes to pounds and pounds saved in the year—pounds and pounds. System! System everywhere. Fishency.” He went on murmuring “Fishency” and “System” at intervals for some time.

  They passed into a yard, and Mr. Shalford waved his hand to his three delivery vans, all striped green and yellow— “uniform—green, yell’r—System.” All over the premises were pinned absurd little cards. “This door locked after 7:30. By order, Edwin Shalford,” and the like.

  Mr. Shalford always wrote, “By order,” though it conveyed no earthly meaning to him. He was one of those people who collect technicalities upon them as the Reduvius bug collects dirt. He was the sort of man who is not only ignorant but absolutely incapable of English. When he wanted to say he had a sixpenny ha’penny long cloth to sell, he put it thus to startled customers: “Can do you one, six half if y’like.” He always omitted pronouns and articles and so forth; it seemed to him the very essence of the efficiently businesslike. His only preposition was “as” or the compound “as per.” He abbreviated every word he could; he would have considered himself the laughingstock of Wood Street if he had chanced to spell socks in any way but “sox.” But, on the other hand, if he saved words here, he wasted them there: he never acknowledged an order that was not an esteemed favor, nor sent a pattern without begging to submit it. He never stipulated for so many months’ credit, but bought in November “as Jan.” It was not only words he abbreviated in his London communications. In paying his wholesalers, his “System” admitted of a constant error in the discount of a penny or two pence, and it “facilitated business,” he alleged, to ignore odd pence in the cheques he wrote. His ledger clerk was so struck with the beauty of this part of the System, that he started a private one on his own account with the stamp box, that never came to Shalford’s knowledge.

  This admirable British merchant would glow with a particular pride of intellect when writing his London orders.

  “Ah! do y’r think you’ll ever be able to write London orders?” he would say with honest pride to Kipps, waiting impatiently long after closing time to take these triumphs of commercial efficiency to post, and so end the interminable day.

  Kipps shook his head, anxious for Mr. Shalford to get on.

  “Now, here, f’example, I’ve written—see?—1 piece 1 in, cott blk elas 1/- or.’; what do I mean by that or, eh?—d’ye know?”

  Kipps promptly hadn’t the faintest idea.

  “And then, ‘2 ea. silk net as per patts herewith’: ea., eh?”

  “Dunno, sir.”

  It was not Mr. Shalford’s way to explain things. “Dear, dear! Pity you couldn’t get some c’mercial education at your school, ’stid of all this lit’ry stuff. Well, my boy, if y’don’t ’ussel a bit y’ll never write London orders, that’s pretty plain. Just stick stamps on all those letters, and mind y’r stick ’em right way up and try and profit a little more by the opportunities your aunt and uncle have provided ye. Can’t say what’ll happen t’ye if ye don’t.” And Kipps, tired, hungry, and belated, set about stamping with vigor and dispatch.

  “Lick the envelope,” said Mr. Shalford, “lick the envelope,” as though he grudged the youngster the postage-stamp gum. “It’s the little things mount up,” he would say, and, indeed, that was his philosophy of life—to bustle and save, always to bustle and save. His political creed linked reform, which meant nothing, with efficiency, which meant a sweated service, and economy, which meant a sweated expenditure, and his conception of a satisfactory municipal life was to “keep down the rates.” Even his religion was to save his soul and to preach a similar cheese-paring to the world.

  2

  The indentures that bound Kipps to Mr. Shalford were antique and complex: they insisted on the latter gentleman’s parental privileges; they forbade Kipps to dice and game; they made him over body and soul to Mr. Shalford for seven
long years, the crucial years of his life. In return there were vague stipulations about teaching the whole art and mystery of the trade to him; but as there was no penalty attached to negligence, Mr. Shalford, being a sound, practical businessman, considered this a mere rhetorical flourish, and set himself assiduously to get as much out of Kipps and to put as little into him as he could in the seven years of their intercourse.

  What he put into Kipps was chiefly bread and margarine, infusions of chicory and teadust, colonial meat by contract at threepence a pound, potatoes by the sack, and watered beer. If, however, Kipps chose to buy any supplementary material for growth, Mr. Shalford had the generosity to place his kitchen resources at his disposal free—if the fire chanced to be going. He was also allowed to share a bedroom with eight other young Englishmen, and to sleep in a bed which, except in very severe weather, could be made with the help of his overcoat and private underclothes, not to mention newspapers, quite sufficiently warm for any reasonable soul. In addition, Kipps was taught the list of fines; and how to tie up parcels; to know where goods were kept in Mr. Shalford’s systematized shop; to hold his hands extended upon the counter and to repeat such phrases as “What can I have the pleasure—?” “No trouble, I ’ssure you,” and the like, to block, fold, and measure materials of all sorts, to lift his hat from his head when he passed Mr. Shalford abroad, and to practice a servile obedience to a large number of people. But he was not, of course, taught the “cost” mark of the goods he sold, nor anything of the method of buying such goods. Nor was his attention directed to the unfamiliar social habits and fashions to which his trade ministered. The use of half the goods he saw sold and was presently to assist in selling he did not understand; materials for hangings, cretonnes, chintzes, and the like, serviettes and all the bright, hard white wear of a well-ordered house, pleasant dress materials, linings, stiffenings—they were to him from first to last no more than things heavy and difficult to handle in bulk, that one folded up, unfolded, cut in lengths, and saw dwindle and pass away out into that mysterious happy world in which the customer dwells. Kipps hurried from piling linen tablecloths, that were collectively as heavy as lead, to eat off oilcloth in a gas-lit dining room underground; and he dreamt of combing endless blankets beneath his overcoat, spare undershirt, and three newspapers. So, he had at least the chance of learning the beginnings of philosophy.

  In return for these benefits, he worked so that he commonly went to bed exhausted and footsore. His round began at half past six in the morning, when he would descend unwashed and shirtless, in old clothes and a scarf, and dust boxes and yawn, and take down wrappers and clean the windows until eight. Then in half an hour, he would complete his toilet and take an austere breakfast of bread and margarine and what only an Imperial Englishman would admit to be coffee, after which refreshment he ascended to the shop for the labors of the day. Commonly these began with a mighty running to and fro with planks and boxes and goods for Carshot, the window dresser, who, whether he worked well or ill, nagged persistently by reason of a chronic indigestion, until the window was done. Sometimes the costume window had to be dressed, and then Kipps staggered down the whole length of the shop from the costume room with one after another of those ladylike shapes grasped firmly, but shamefully, each about her single ankle of wood. Such days as there was no window dressing, there was a mighty carrying and lifting of blocks and bales of goods into piles and stacks. After this there were terrible exercises, at first almost despairfully difficult: certain sorts of goods that came in folded had to be rolled upon rollers, and for the most part refused absolutely to be rolled, at any rate by Kipps; and certain other sorts of goods that came from the wholesalers rolled had to be measured and folded, which folding makes young apprentices wish they were dead. All of it, too, quite avoidable trouble, you know, that is not avoided because of the cheapness of the genteeler sorts of labor and the dearness of forethought in the world. And then consignments of new goods had to be marked off and packed into proper parcels, and Carshot packed like conjuring tricks, and Kipps packed like a boy with tastes in some other direction—not ascertained. And always Carshot nagged.

  He had a curious formula of appeal to his visceral economy, had Carshot, that the refinement of the times and the earnest entreaties of my friends induce me to render by an anemic paraphrase.

  “My heart and lungs! I never see such a boy,” so I present Carshot’s refrain; and even when he was within a foot or so of the customer’s face the disciplined ear of Kipps would still at times develop a featureless, intercalary murmur into—well, “my heart and lungs!”

  There came a blessed interval when Kipps was sent abroad “matching.” This consisted chiefly in supplying unexpected defects in buttons, ribbon, lining, and so forth in the dressmaking department. He was given a written paper of orders with patterns pinned thereto and discharged into the sunshine and interest of the street. Then, until he thought it wise to return and stand the racket of his delay, he was a free man, clear of all reproach.

  He made remarkable discoveries in topography, as for example that the most convenient way from the establishment of Mr. Adolphus Davis to the establishment of Messrs. Plummer, Roddis & Tyrrel, two of his principal places of call, is not as is generally supposed down the Sandgate Road, but up the Sandgate Road, round by West Terrace, and along the leas to the lift, watch the lift up and down twice, but not longer, because that wouldn’t do, back along the Leas, watch the Harbor for a short time, and then round by the churchyard, and so (hurrying) into Church Street and Rendezvous Street. But on some exceptionally fine days, the route lay through Radnor Park to the pond where the little boys sail ships, and there are interesting swans.

  He would return to find the shop settling down to the business of serving customers. And now he had to stand by to furnish any help that was necessary to the seniors who served, to carry parcels and bills about the shop, to clear away “stuff” after each engagement, to hold up curtains until his arms ached, and what was more difficult than all, to do nothing, and not stare disconcertingly at customers when there was nothing for him to do. He plumbed an abyss of boredom, or stood a mere carcass, with his mind far away, fighting the enemies of the Empire, or steering a dream ship perilously into unknown seas. To be recalled sharply to our higher civilization by some bustling senior’s “Nar then, Kipps. Look alive! Ketch ’old. (My heart and lungs!)”

  At half-past seven o’clock—except on late nights—a feverish activity of “straightening up” began, and when the last shutter was up outside, Kipps with the speed of an arrow leaving a bow would start hanging wrappers over the fixtures and over the piles of wares upon the counters, preparatory to a vigorous scattering of wet sawdust and the sweeping out of the shop.

  Sometimes people would stay long after the shop was closed—“They don’t mind a bit at Shalford’s,” these ladies used to say—it is always ladies do this sort of thing—and while they loitered it was forbidden to touch a wrapper, or take any measures to conclude the day until the doors closed behind them.

  Mr. Kipps would watch these later customers from the shadow of a stack of goods, and death and disfigurement were the least he wished for them. Rarely much later than nine, a supper of bread and cheese and watered beer awaited him upstairs, and, that consumed, the rest of the day was entirely at his disposal for reading, recreation, and the improvement of his mind …

  The front door was locked at half past ten, and the gas in the dormitory extinguished at eleven.

  3

  On Sundays, he was obliged to go to church once, and commonly he went twice, for there was nothing else to do. He sat in the free seats at the back; he was too shy to sing, and not always clever enough to keep his place in the prayer book, and he rarely listened to the sermon. But he had developed a sort of idea that going to church had a tendency to alleviate life. His aunt wanted to have him confirmed, but he evaded this ceremony for some years.

  In the intervals between services, he walked about Folkestone with an air
of looking for something. Folkestone was not so interesting on Sundays as on weekdays, because the shops were shut; but on the other hand, there was a sort of confusing brilliance along the front of the leas in the afternoon. Sometimes the apprentice next above him would condescend to go with him; but when the apprentice next but one above him condescended to go with the apprentice next above him, then Kipps, being habited as yet in ready-made clothes without tails, and unsuitable, therefore, to appear in such company, went alone.

  Sometimes he would strike out into the country—still as if looking for something he missed—but the rope of mealtimes haled him home again; and sometimes he would invest the major portion of the weekly allowance of a shilling that old Booch handed out to him, in a sacred concert on the pier. He would sometimes walk up and down the leas between twenty and thirty times after supper, desiring much the courage to speak to some other person in the multitude similarly employed. Almost invariably, he ended his Sunday footsore.