Essential Stories Read Online Free PDF

there the weekend so as to be sharp on the job on Monday morning. What’s more it pays in these small towns to turn up at church on Sundays, Presbyterians in the morning, Methodists in the evening. Say “Good morning” and “Good evening” to them. “Ah!” they say. “Church-goer! Pleased to see that! TT, too.” Makes them have a second look at your lines in the morning. “Did you like our service, Mister—er—er?” “Humphrey’s my name.” “Mr. Humphrey.” See? It pays.
    “Come into the office, Mr. Humphrey,” she said, bringing me a cup. “Listen to that rain.”
    I went inside.
    “Sugar?” she said.
    “Three,” I said. We settled to a very pleasant chat. She told me all about herself, and we got on next to families.
    “My father was on the railway,” she said.
    “ ‘The engine gave a squeal,’ ” I said. “ ‘The driver took out his pocket-knife and scraped him off the wheel.’ ”
    “That’s it,” she said. “And what is your father’s business? You said he had a business.”
    “Undertaker,” I said.
    “Undertaker?” she said.
    “Why not?” I said. “Good business. Seasonable like everything else. High class undertaker,” I said.
    She was looking at me all the time wondering what to say and suddenly she went into fits of laughter.
    “Undertaker,” she said, covering her face with her hands and went on laughing.
    “Here,” I said. “What’s up?”
    “Undertaker!” she laughed and laughed. Struck me as being a pretty thin joke.
    “Don’t mind me,” she said. “I’m Irish.”
    “Oh, I see,” I said. “That’s it, is it? Got a sense of humour.”
    Then the bell rang and a woman called out “Muriel! Muriel!” and there was a motor bike making a row at the front door.
    “All right,” the girl called out. “Excuse me a moment, Mr. Humphrey,” she said. “Don’t think me rude. That’s my boy friend. He wants the bird turning up like this.”
    She went out but there was her boy friend looking over the window ledge into the office. He had come in. He had a cape on, soaked with rain and the rain was in beads in his hair. It was fair hair. It stood up on end. He’d been economising on the brilliantine. He didn’t wear a hat. He gave me a look and I gave him a look. I didn’t like the look of him. And he didn’t like the look of me. A smell of oil and petrol and rain and mackintosh came off him. He had a big mouth with thick lips. They were very red. I recognised him at once as the son of the man who ran the Kounty Garage. I saw this chap when I put my car away. The firm’s car. A lock-up, because of the samples. Took me ten minutes to ram the idea into his head. He looked as though he’d never heard of samples. Slow,—you know the way they are in the provinces. Slow on the job.
    “Oh Colin,” says she. “What do you want?”
    “Nothing,” the chap said. “I came in to see you.”
    “To see me?”
    “Just to see you.”
    “You came in this morning.”
    “That’s right,” he said. He went red. “You was busy,” he said.
    “Well, I’m busy now,” she said.
    He bit his tongue, and licked his big lips over and took a look at me. Then he started grinning.
    “I got the new bike, Muriel,” he said. “I’ve got it outside.”
    “It’s just come down from the works,” he said.
    “The laddie wants you to look at his bike,” I said. So she went out and had a look at it.
    When she came back she had got rid of him.
    “Listen to that rain,” she said.
    “Lord, I’m fed up with this line,” she said.
    “What line?” I said. “The hotel line?”
    “Yes,” she said. “I’m fed right up to the back teeth with it.”
    “And you’ve got good teeth,” I said.
    “There’s not the class of person there used to be in it,” she said. “All our family have got good teeth.”
    “Not the class?”
    “I’ve been in it five years and there’s not the same class at all. You never meet any fellows.”
    “Well,” said I. “If they’re