Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul by H. G. Wells

Author:H. G. Wells
Language: eng
Format: azw3
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.

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