Tales of Mean Streets

m as a model husband, and certainly Mrs. Simmons was a most conscientious wife. She toiled and slaved for that man, as any woman in the whole stre

l hands off the cape — a judgment, the widow woman feared, for long years of contumacy which had culminated in the wickedness of taking to the sea, and taking to it

parse, limp whiskers. He had no vices (even his pipe departed him after his marriage), and Mrs. Simmons had ingrafted on him divers exotic virtues. He went solemnly to chapel every Sunday, under a tall hat, and put a penny — one returned to him for the purpose out of his week’s wages — in the plate. Then, Mrs. Simmons overseeing, he too

-made clothes shop, and had selected and paid for his clothes — for the reason that man are such perfect fools, and shopkeepers do as they like with them. But she presently improved on that. She found a man selling cheap remnants at a street corner, and straightway she conceived the idea of making Simmons’s clothes herself. Decision was one of her virtues, and a suit of uproarious check tweeds was begun that afternoon from the pattern furnished by an old one. More: it was finished by Sunday, when Simmons, overcome by astonishment at the feat, was indued in it, and pushed off to chapel ere he could recover his senses. The things were not altogether comfortable, he found; the trousers clung tight against his shins, but hung loose behind his heels; and when he sat, it was on a wilderness of hard folds and seams. Also his waistcoat collar tickled his nape, but his coat collar went straining across from shoulder to shoulder, while the main garment bagged generously below his waist. Use made a habit of his discomfort, but it never reconciled him to the c

nd the parlor door. There they hung, in all their decent innocence of shape in the seat, and they were shorter of leg, longer of waist, and wilder of pattern than he had ever worn before. And as he looked on them the small devil of original sin awoke and clamored in his breast. He was ashamed of it, of course, for

said the small devil, at last

saw from the landing that the front door was standing open, probably by the fault of the child down-stairs. Now, a front door standing open was a thing that Mrs. Simmons would

ts of his unbraced blue trousers, and well back on his head he wore the high-crowned peaked cap topped with a knob of wool, whi

r a matter of five secon

s, then — Simmon

ve leer that Simmons neit

mmons, “she a

her ‘usba

us

” And with that he grinned again. Then, seeing that Simmons made ready to shut the door, he put a foot on the sill and a hand against the

he door would not shut, so he parleyed.

his cap with a bob of mock humility. “I’m Bob Ford,” he said, “come back out o’ kingdom-come, s

he poked his fingers up through his hair, looked down at the mat, then up at the fanl

an repeated. “So now we can

s brain, and the small devil woke again. Suppose this man was Ford? Suppose he did claim his wife? Would it be a knock-down blow? Would it hit him out? — o

is arm, and asked, in a hoarse wh

ving first of all repeated the question in hi

his pipe, and presently: “Well,” he continued, “’ere I am agin, ol’ Bob Ford dead an’ done for — gawn down in the ‘Mooltan.’ On’y I ain’t done for, see?”— and he pointed the stem of his pipe at Simmons’s waistcoat —“I ain’t done

oke in ’ere,” said Simmo

m his mouth, and holding it low in his hand. “I know ‘Ann

uneasily, I— I do ‘elp ‘

”— he rose and bent to look behind Simmons’s head —“s’elp me, I b’li

f the trousers hanging behind the door. “I’d bet a trifle,” he said, “she made these ’e

ll its own way. If this man took his wife ba

e ain’t got no milder.

‘Anner was this other man’s wife, and he was bound in honor to ackn

as you’re a well-meanin’ young man, so to speak, an’ all settled an’ a-livin ’ere quiet an’ matrimonual, I’ll”— this with a burst of generosity —“da

“An’ I wouldn’t think for to come between a man an’ ‘is wife,” he added,

onable, ain’t it? Three quid ain’t much compensation for me goin’ away forever — where the stormy winds do blow, so to say — an’ never

goin’ to take a mean advantage o’ your good-‘artedness, Mr. Ford. She’s your wife, an’ I oughtn’t to ‘a’ come between you. I

be to you with no ‘ome to go to, an’ nobody to look after ye, an’ all that. It’ll be dreadful. Say a cou

the clock ‘ud pretty nigh do

ront door. In the East End a double-kn

sked Bob Ford,

mmons in reply, and he mad

low him, he saw the crown of a bonnet. It vanished, and borne to him from withi

with no ‘at?” aske

immons answered. And, as Bob Ford could see, a man went scuttling dow

window, dropped from the wash-house roof into the back-yard, scrambled desperately over the fence, and disappeared into the gloom. He was seen by no