Tales of the Five Towns

n Keats's Bazaar the fawning smile of a myth who knows himself to be exploded; but beyond these and similar efforts to remedy the forgetfulness of a careless cl

y with the aid of his son Harry, who now managed the works, but he never admitted that he was making it. No one has yet succeeded, and no one ever will succeed, in catching an earthenware manufacturer in the act of making money; he may confess with a sigh that he has performed the feat in the past, he may give utterance to a vague, preposterous hope that he will perform it again in the remote future, but as for surprising him in the very act, you would as easily surprise a hen laying an egg. Nowadays Mr. Curtenty, commercially secure, spent most of his energy in helping to shape and control the high destinies of

ul person, rather shy; a municipal mediocrity, perhaps a little inflated that day by r

ey came out into the portico of the Tiger, the famous Calypso-like barmaid of the Tiger a hovering enchantment in the background, it occurred that a flock of geese were meditating, as geese will, in the middle of th

?' Mr. Curtenty inqui

takes the place of weathe

echoed the

profound and subtle emphasis, contrived to express the fact that he existed in a world of dead illusions, that h

no business

such an assertion of the entire absence o

'ere town this morning.' (Here he exaggerated the number of miles traversed.) 'Twel

zed at him in reproach, for that he, a Town Councillor, had thus

g a side-glance at Callear the poulterer's close by, whic

'I'st tak' my lot over to Hanbridge, whe

g could be better calculated to straighten the back of a Bursley man than a ref

r the lot?'

, the renowned Deputy-Mayor of Bursley, to stand on the steps of the Tiger and pretend to chaffer with a gooseherd for a flock of geese. His imagination caug

rd faced hi

again, his eyes twinklin

omily and suspici

sum startlingly les

seherd, in a tone that close

e and two ganders-one Brent, one Barnacle. It was a shock,

ome, Curtenty?' asked Gordon, w

r. Curtent

en, Gas

k ever since to the Chairman of the Gas and Lighting Committee. Mr. Gordon wished, and has never ceased to wis

they might be made to serve, no smallest corner for them in his universe. Nevertheless, since he had rashly stumbled into a ditch, he determined to emerge from it grandly, impressively, magnificently. He instantaneously formed a plan by which he would snatch victo

le of many great humorists to assume. Mr. Gordon lifted his head several times very quickly, as if to say, '

seherd

rtenty," mester,' said he,

heard,' Jos said to himself

t simply at his geese, and thus the quidnuncs of the market-place and the supporters of shop-fronts were unable to catch his eye. He tried to feel like a gooseherd; and such was his histrionic quality, his instinct for the dramatic, he was a gooseherd, despite his blue Melton overcoat, his hard felt hat with the flattened top, and that opulent-curving collar which was the secret despair of the young dandies of Hillport. He had the most natural air in the world. The geese were the victims of this imaginative effort of Mr. Curtenty's. They took him seriously as a gooseherd. These fourteen intel

By this time rumour had passed in front of him and run off down side-streets like water let into an irrigation system. At every corner was a knot of peop

ing from its temporary gripper, swirled with an extraordinary sound into the roadway, and writhed there in spirals. Several of Mr. Curtenty's geese were knocked down, and rose obviously annoyed; but the Barnacle gander fell with a clinging circle of wire round his muscular, glossy neck, and did not rise again. It was a

r it,' he sai

rds uttered by him dur

uefully raised the velvet of his Melton. As he did so a brougham rolled into Oldcastle Street, a little in front of him, from the direction of St. P

ast bit glad she

curs even to optimists, that h

not reckoned with this diurnal phenomenon; he had not thought upon the undesirability of being

se. It was five-thirty when at last he reached The Firs, and the garden of The Firs was filled

sir,' s

hat, he shot the fluid contents of the brim into Pond's face.

e but just rubbe

surrounding geese, all forl

here for Christmas,' said Mr. Curtenty after a

s,

th' orchard,

s,

mun put th' horse in the tra

s,

re on it in Oldcastle Street. He'll

s,

er got into th

s,

on the railway-line-happe

s,

of her way to Oldcastle.

s,

lect

s,

alked away tow

led after him, fla

l, l

o gander i

Mr. Curtenty answered blithely f

He had kept his temper, his dignity, his cheerfulness. He had got a bargain in geese. So much was indisputable ground for satisfaction. And yet the feeling of an anticlimax would not be dismissed. Upon the whole, his tran

rent gander was n