Kipps by H. G. Wells

Author:H. G. Wells
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Orphans -- Fiction, Great Britain -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction, Bildungsromans, England -- Fiction, Working class -- Fiction, Young men -- Fiction
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
Published: 2018-07-25T19:56:49+00:00

IV The Bicycle Manufacturer

So Kipps em­barked upon his en­gage­ment, steeled him­self to the high en­ter­prise of mar­ry­ing above his breed­ing. The next morn­ing found him dress­ing with a cer­tain quiet sever­ity of move­ment, and it seemed to his land­lady’s house­maid that he was un­usu­ally dig­ni­fied at break­fast. He med­it­ated pro­foundly over his kip­per and his kid­ney and ba­con. He was go­ing to New Rom­ney to tell the old people what had happened and where he stood. And the love of Helen had also given him cour­age to do what Bug­gins had once sug­ges­ted to him as a thing he would do were he in Kipps’ place, and that was to hire a mo­tor car for the af­ter­noon. He had an early cold lunch, and then, with an air of quiet res­ol­u­tion, as­sumed a cap and coat he had pur­chased to this end, and thus equipped strolled around, blow­ing slightly, to the mo­tor shop. The trans­ac­tion was un­ex­pec­tedly easy, and within the hour Kipps, spec­tacled and wrapped about, was toot­ling through Dymchurch.

They came to a stop 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.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.