I wish you would imitate your sister a little more.
Of course if you won't do your share in the shop, no one can make you.
If you choose to be an idler about the house, we shall have to endure it.
We can only advise you for your own good.
But as for this ..." She stopped, and let silence speak, and then finished: "Let me hear no more of it."
It was a powerful and impressive speech, enunciated clearly in such a tone as Mrs. Baines had not employed since dismissing a young lady assistant five years ago for light conduct.
"But, mother--"
A commotion of pails resounded at the top of the stone steps.
It was Maggie in descent from the bedrooms.
Now, the Baines family passed its life in doing its best to keep its affairs to itself, the assumption being that Maggie and all the shop-staff (Mr. Povey possibly excepted) were obsessed by a ravening appetite for that which did not concern them.
Therefore the voices of the Baineses always died away, or fell to a hushed, mysterious whisper, whenever the foot of the eavesdropper was heard.
Mrs. Baines put a floured finger to her double chin.
"That will do," said she, with finality.
Maggie appeared, and Sophia, with a brusque precipitation of herself, vanished upstairs.
II
"Now, really, Mr. Povey, this is not like you," said Mrs. Baines, who, on her way into the shop, had discovered the Indispensable in the cutting-out room.
It is true that the cutting-out room was almost Mr. Povey's sanctum, whither he retired from time to time to cut out suits of clothes and odd garments for the tailoring department.
It is true that the tailoring department flourished with orders, employing several tailors who crossed legs in their own homes, and that appointments were continually being made with customers for trying-on in that room.
But these considerations did not affect Mrs. Baines's attitude of disapproval.
"I'm just cutting out that suit for the minister," said Mr. Povey.
The Reverend Mr. Murley, superintendent of the Wesleyan Methodist circuit, called on Mr. Baines every week.
On a recent visit Mr. Baines had remarked that the parson's coat was ageing into green, and had commanded that a new suit should be built and presented to Mr. Murley.
Mr. Murley, who had a genuine mediaeval passion for souls, and who spent his money and health freely in gratifying the passion, had accepted the offer strictly on behalf of Christ, and had carefully explained to Mr. Povey Christ's use for multifarious pockets.
"I see you are," said Mrs. Baines tartly.
"But that's no reason why you should be without a coat--and in this cold room too.
You with toothache!"
The fact was that Mr. Povey always doffed his coat when cutting out.
Instead of a coat he wore a tape-measure.
"My tooth doesn't hurt me," said he, sheepishly, dropping the great scissors and picking up a cake of chalk.
"Fiddlesticks!" said Mrs. Baines.
This exclamation shocked Mr. Povey.
It was not unknown on the lips of Mrs. Baines, but she usually reserved it for members of her own sex.
Mr. Povey could not recall that she had ever applied it to any statement of his.
"What's the matter with the woman?" he thought.
The redness of her face did not help him to answer the question, for her face was always red after the operations of Friday in the kitchen.
"You men are all alike," Mrs. Baines continued.
"The very thought of the dentist's cures you.
Why don't you go in at once to Mr. Critchlow and have it out--like a man?"
Mr. Critchlow extracted teeth, and his shop sign said
"Bone-setter and chemist."
But Mr. Povey had his views.
"I make no account of Mr. Critchlow as a dentist," said he.
"Then for goodness' sake go up to Oulsnam's."
"When?
I can't very well go now, and to-morrow is Saturday."
"Why can't you go now?"
"Well, of course, I COULD go now," he admitted.
"Let me advise you to go, then, and don't come back with that tooth in your head.
I shall be having you laid up next.
Show some pluck, do!"