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Words: 17236 in 12 pages
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had secured the entire control of the business. He had no partners, though Sharper had a small interest in the firm. He had achieved this position by unscrupulousness and low cunning. For of real ability he had not a trace. In fact, the staff mostly called him Cain, because he was not able. Another point of resemblance was that he was not much of a hand at a sacrifice. He looked after the financial side of the business, and did a good deal of general interference in every branch of it.
The manufacturing side was under the control of Arthur Dobson, a red-faced man who had been with the firm for twenty years. He very wisely maintained its tradition of the very highest quality coupled with the very highest prices. "Perfect Purity." It was an admitted fact that Pentlove, Postlethwaite and Sharper actually used limes in the manufacture of lime juice. Another startling innovation was the use of calves' feet in the preparation of calf's-foot jelly. This was the more extravagant because, of course, only the front feet of the calf may be used for this purpose. Three back feet make one back-yard. Naturally the price was ruinous. But it all added to the reputation of the firm. And the best hotels thought it worth while to advertise that the pickles and preserves they provided were by Messrs. Pentlove, Postlethwaite and Sharper. It may be as well to add that Arthur Dobson was a knave. When he was talking to Cain he always slated Sharper. When he was talking to Sharper he always slated Cain. His specialty was the continuous discovery of some cheaper place in which to lunch. He would ask Luke Sharper to join him in these perilous adventures, but Luke, in his sunny way, always refused.
"Standoffish," said Dobson. "Damn standoffish."
Luke kept a set of these booklets, bound in lilac morocco, in his room at the office. He loved them. He was proud of them. He regarded them as his children, and would sit for hours patting them gently. As the issue of each booklet was limited to one hundred copies, and it was customary to present one of them with each order of ?20 or upwards, some of them were out of print, and difficult to obtain. This had been enough to start the collectors. In book catalogues there would sometimes appear a complete set of the Pentlove, Postlethwaite and Sharper booklets. And the price asked was gratifying. Luke fainted with joy the first time he saw this in the catalogue.
At one time he had been in the habit of taking the booklet home in order to read it aloud to Mabel. He never did it now. It was hopeless. No insight. No sympathy. No appreciation. No anything. Blind and deaf to beauty. But she really was a good housekeeper.
Luke bicycled from home to business every morning, and from business to home every evening. He enjoyed this immensely. Every morning as he rode off he said to himself: "Further from Mabel. Further and further from Mabel. Every day, in every way, I'm getting further and further." On his return journey in the evening he experienced the same relief in getting further from old Cain, and further from the office.
At the middle point of his journey it always seemed to him that he did not belong to the office any more, and that he did not belong to Mabel either. He was all his own, in a world by himself. He would go on in a snow-white ecstasy. Then he would get up, dust his clothes, and re-mount.
He had some habits, which, to the stupid and censorious, might almost seem childish. He cut for himself with his little hatchet a number of pegs, and always carried some of them in his pocket. At every point on the road where he fell off, he drove in a peg. It seemed to him a splendid idea. In a wave of enthusiasm he told Mabel all about it.
"Isn't it absolutely splendid?" he asked.
"Dotty," said Mabel, briefly.
He went out into the woodshed and cut more pegs.
One Monday morning as he started on his ride he saw before him at intervals all down the road little white specks. Yes, every one of those pegs had been painted white by somebody.
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