The Weaker Vessel

"Uncle George dead," he said, at last, shaking his head. "Hadn't pleasure acquaintance, but good man. Good man."

He shook his head again and gazed mistily at his wife.

"He was a teetotaller," she remarked, casually.

"He was tee-toiler," repeated Mr. Gribble, regarding her equably. "Good man. Uncle George dead-tee-toller."

Mrs. Gribble gathered up her work and began to put it away.

"Bed-time," said Mr. Gribble, and led the way upstairs, singing.

His good-humour had evaporated by the morning, and, having made a light breakfast of five cups of tea, he went off, with lagging steps, to work. It was a beautiful spring morning, and the idea of a man with two hundred a year and a headache going off to a warehouse instead of a day's outing seemed to border upon the absurd. What use was money without freedom? His toil was sweetened that day by the knowledge that he could drop it any time he liked and walk out, a free man, into the sunlight.

By the end of a week his mind was made up. Each day that passed made his hurried uprising and scrambled breakfast more and more irksome; and on Monday morning, with hands in trouser-pockets and legs stretched out, he leaned back in his chair and received his wife's alarming intimations as to the flight of time with a superior and sphinx-like smile.

"It's too fine to go to work to-day," he said, lazily. "Come to that, any day is too fine to waste at work."

Mrs. Gribble sat gasping at him.

"So on Saturday I gave 'em a week's notice," continued her husband, "and after Potts and Co. had listened while I told 'em what I thought of 'em, they said they'd do without the week's notice."

"You've never given up your job?" said Mrs. Gribble.

"I spoke to old Potts as one gentleman of independent means to another," said Mr. Gribble, smiling. "Thirty-five bob a week after twenty years' service! And he had the cheek to tell me I wasn't worth that. When I told him what he was worth he talked about sending for the police. What are you looking like that for? I've worked hard for you for thirty years, and I've had enough of it. Now it's your turn."

"You'd find it hard to get another place at your age," said his wife; "especially if they wouldn't give you a good character."

"Place!" said the other, staring. "Place! I tell you I've done with work. For a man o' my means to go on working for thirty-five bob a week is ridiculous."

"But suppose anything happened to me," said his wife, in a troubled voice.

"That's not very likely," said Mr. Gribble.

"You're tough enough. And if it did your money would come to me."

Mrs. Gribble shook her head.

"WHAT?" roared her husband, jumping up.

"I've only got it for life, Henry, as I told you," said Mrs. Gribble, in alarm. "I thought you knew it would stop when I died."

"And what's to become of me if anything happens to you, then?" demanded the dismayed Mr. Gribble. "What am I to do?"

Mrs. Gribble put her handkerchief to her eyes.

"And don't start weakening your constitution by crying," shouted the incensed husband.

"What are you mumbling?"

"I sa—sa—said, let's hope—you'll go first," sobbed his wife. "Then it will be all right."

Mr. Gribble opened his mouth, and then, realizing the inadequacy of the English language for moments of stress, closed it again. He broke his silence at last in favour of Uncle George.

"Mind you," he said, concluding a peroration which his wife listened to with her fingers in her ears—"mind you, I reckon I've been absolutely done by you and your precious Uncle George. I've given up a good situation, and now, any time you fancy to go off the hooks, I'm to be turned into the street."

"I'll try and live, for your sake, Henry," said his wife.

"Think of my worry every time you are ill," pursued the indignant Mr. Gribble.

Mrs. Gribble sighed, and her husband, after a few further remarks concerning Uncle George, his past and his future, announced his intention of going to the lawyers and seeing whether anything could be done. He came back in a state of voiceless gloom, and spent the rest of a beautiful day indoors, smoking a pipe which had lost much of its flavour, and regarding with a critical and anxious eye the small, weedy figure of his wife as she went about her work.

The second month's payment went into his pocket as a matter of course, but on this occasion Mrs. Gribble made no requests for new clothes or change of residence. A little nervous cough was her sole comment.

"Got a cold?" inquired her husband, starting.

"I don't think so," replied his wife, and, surprised and touched at this unusual display of interest, coughed again.

"Is it your throat or your chest?" he inquired, gruffly.

Mrs. Gribble coughed again to see. After five coughs she said she thought it was her chest.

"You'd better not go out o' doors to-day, then," said Mr. Gribble. "Don't stand about in draughts; and I'll fetch you in a bottle of cough mixture when I go out. What about a lay-down on the sofa?"

His wife thanked him, and, reaching the sofa, watched with half-closed eyes as he cleared the breakfast-table. It was the first time he had done such a thing in his life, and a little honest pride in the possession of such a cough would not be denied. Dim possibilities of its vast usefulness suddenly occurred to her.

She took the cough mixture for a week, by which time other symptoms, extremely disquieting to an ease-loving man, had manifested themselves. Going upstairs deprived her of breath; carrying a loaded tea-tray produced a long and alarming stitch in the side. The last time she ever filled the coal-scuttle she was discovered sitting beside it on the floor in a state of collapse.

"You'd better go and see the doctor," said Mr. Gribble.

Mrs. Gribble went. Years before the doctor had told her that she ought to take life easier, and she was now able to tell him she was prepared to take his advice.

"And, you see, I must take care of myself now for the sake of my husband," she said, after she had explained matters.

"I understand," said the doctor.

"If anything happened to me—" began the patient.

"Nothing shall happen," said the other. "Stay in bed to-morrow morning, and I'll come round and overhaul you."

Mrs. Gribble hesitated. "You might examine me and think I was all right," she objected; "and at the same time you wouldn't know how I feel."

"I know just how you feel," was the reply. "Good-bye."

He came round the following morning and, following the dejected Mr. Gribble upstairs, made a long and thorough investigation of his patient.

"Say 'ninety-nine,'" he said, adjusting his stethoscope.

Mrs. Gribble ticked off "ninety-nines" until her husband's ears ached with them. The doctor finished at last, and, fastening his bag, stood with his beard in his hand, pondering. He looked from the little, whitefaced woman on the bed to the bulky figure of Mr. Gribble.