02 - Selected Short Stories - Something to Worry About

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter two of the Man Upstairs. This is a LibriVox recording.
All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
by Mike Harris, The Man Upstairs by P. G. Woodhouse,
Story number two, Something to Worry About. A girl stood

(00:25):
on the shingle that fringes Millbourne Bay, gazing at the
red rufse of the little village across the water. She
was a pretty girl, small and trim. Just now some
secret sorrow seemed to be troubling her, for on her
forehead were wrinkles, and in her eyes a look of wistfulness.
She had, in fact, all the distinguishing marks of one
who was thinking of her sailor lover. But she was not.

(00:48):
She had no sailor lover. What she was thinking of
was that at about this time, they'd be lighting up
the shop windows in London, and that of all the deadly,
depressing spots she had ever visited, this village of Melbourne
was the deadliest. The evening shadows deepened, the incoming time
glistened oilily as it rolled over the mud flats. She
rose and shivered. Good, what a owl, she said, eyeing

(01:14):
the unconscious village morosely. What a hole. This was Sally
Preston's first evening in Millbourn. She arrived by the afternoon
train from London, not of her own free will. Left
to herself, she would not have come within sixty miles
of the place. London supplied all that she demanded from life.
She'd been born in London, she'd lived there ever since.

(01:36):
She hoped to die there. She liked fogs, motor buses, noise, policemen,
paper boys, shops, taxicabs, artificial light, stone pavements, houses in
long gray rows, mud, banana skins, and moving picture exhibitions,
especially moving picture exhibitions. It was indeed her taste for
these that had caused her banishment to Milbourne. The great

(01:58):
public is not yet unanim us on the subject of
moving picture exhibitions. Sallie, as I have said, approved of them.
Her father, on the other hand, did not an austere
ex butler who let lodgings in Ewbury Street and preached
on Sundays in Hyde Park. He looked askance at the movies.
It was his boast that he had never been inside

(02:19):
a theater in his life, and he classed cinema palaces
with theaters as wilds of the devil. Sallie, suddenly unmasked
as an habitual frequenter of these abandoned places, sprang with
one bound into prominence as the bad girl of the family.
Instant removal from the range of temptation being the only

(02:39):
possible plan, it seemed to mister Preston that a trip
to the country was indicated. He selected Melbourne because he
had been butler at the hall there, and because his
sister Jane, who had been a parlor maid at the rectory,
was now married and living in the village. Certainly he
could not have chosen a more promising reformatory for Sallie here.

(02:59):
If any one might she forget the heady joys of
the cinema. Tucked away in the corner of its little bay,
which an accommodating island converts into a still lagoon, Milbourne
lies dozing in all sleepy Hampshire. There is no sleepier spot.
It's a place of calm eyed men and drowsy dogs.
Things crumble away in are out replaced. Tradesmen book orders

(03:22):
and then lose interest and forget to deliver the goods.
Only centurions die and nobody worries about anything, or it
did not until Sally came and gave them something to
worry about. Next Door to Sallie's aunt Jane, in a
cozy little cottage with a wonderful little garden, lived Thomas Kitchener,
a large, grave, self sufficing young man who, by sheer

(03:43):
application to work, had become already, though only twenty five,
second gardener at the Hall, gardening absorbed him. When he
was not working at the Hall, he was working at home.
On the morning following Sallie's arrival, at being a Thursday,
in his day off, he was crouching in a constrained
attitude in his garden, every fiber of his being concentrated

(04:04):
on the interment of a plump, young bulb. Consequently, when
a chunk of mud came sailing over the fence, he
did not notice it. A second however, compelled attention by
bursting like a shell on the back of his neck.
He looked up, startled, and nobody was in sight. He
was puzzled. It could hardly be raining mud. Yet the

(04:24):
alternative theory that someone in the next garden was throwing
it was hardly less bizarre. The nature of his friendship
with Sally's aunt Jane and old mister Williams, her husband
was comfortable rather than rollicking. It was inconceivable that they
should be flinging clods at him as he stood wondering
whether he should go to the fence and look over

(04:44):
or simply accept the phenomenon as one of those things
which no fellow could understand. There popped up before him
the head and shoulders of a girl. Poised in her
right hand was a third clod, which, seeing that there
was now no need for his services, she allowed to
fall to the ground. Hello, she said, good morning. She

(05:05):
was a pretty girl, small and trim. Tom was by
way of being the strong, silent man with a career
to think up and no time for bothering about girls.
But he did see that there was moreover, a certain
alertness in her expression, rarely found in the feminine population
of Milburn, who were apt to be slightly bovine. What

(05:25):
do you think you're missin' about? At? She said affably.
Tom was a slow minded young man who liked to
have his thoughts well under control before he spoke. He
was not one of your gay rattlers. Besides, there was
something about this girl which confused him to an extraordinary extent.
He was conscious of new and strange emotions. He stood
staring silently. What's your name anyway? Gud answer that he

(05:49):
did so? Oh mind Sally Preston, missus Williams is my aunt.
I've come from London. Tom had no remarks to make
about London. Have you lived here all your life? Yes,
said Tom. My goodness, don't you ever feel fed up?
Don't you want to change? Tom considered the point. No,
He said, well I do I want one? Now? It's

(06:14):
a nice place, hazarded Tom. It's nothing of the sort.
It's the beastliest hold in existence. It's absolutely chronic. Perhaps
you wonder why I'm here? Don't think I wanted to
come here? Not me, I was sent it was like this.
She gave him a rapid summary of her troubles there.
Don't you call it a bit thick? She concluded. Tom

(06:34):
considered this point too. You must make the best of it,
he said, at length, I won't. I'll make father take
me back. Tom considered this point also. Rarely, if ever,
had he been given so many things to think about
him one morning? How he inquired at length, Oh I
don't know. I'll find somewhere, you see. If I don't,

(06:54):
I'll get away from here jolly quick. I give you
my word. Tom bent low over a row rose bush.
His face was hidden, but the brown of his neck
seemed to take on a richer hue, and his ears
were undeniably crimson. His feet moved restlessly, and from his
unseen mouth there preceded the first gallant speech his lips
had ever framed. Merely considered as a speech, it was

(07:16):
perhaps nothing wonderful, but from Tom it was a miracle
of chivalry and polish. What he said was I hope not,
and instinct telling him that he had made his supreme
effort and that anything further must be bathos. He turned
abruptly and stalked into his cottage, where he drank tea
and ate bacon and thought chaotic thoughts. And when his

(07:37):
appetite declined to carry him more than half way through
the third rasher, he understood he was in love. These strong,
silent men who mean to be had gardeners before they
are thirty, and eliminate woman from their lives as a
dangerous obstacle to the successful career, a heavy penalty when
they do fall in love the average irresponsible young man

(07:58):
who has hung about North Street on Saturday nights, walked
through the meadows and round by the mill and back home,
passed the creek on Sunday afternoons, taking his seat in
the break for the annual outing, shuffled his way through
the polka at the Tradesman's Ball, and generally seized all
legitimate opportunities for sporting with Amarillis in the shade as
a hundred advantages which your successful career lacks. There was

(08:22):
hardly a moment during the days which followed when Tom
did not regret his neglected education, for he was not
Sally's only victim. In Melbourne. There was the trouble. Her
beauty was not of that elusive type which steals imperceptibly
into the vision of the rare connoisseur. It was sudden
and compelling. It hit you. Bright brown eyes beneath a

(08:44):
mass of fair hair, a determined little chin, a slim figure.
These are disturbing things, and the youths of peaceful Milbourn
sat up and took notice. As one youth. Throw your
mind back to the last musical comedy you saw, recall
the leading ladies song with chorus of young men, all
proffering devotion simultaneously in a neat row. Well. That was

(09:07):
how the lads of the village comported themselves towards Sally.
Mister and missus Williams, till then a highly esteemed but
little frequented couple were astonished at the sudden influx of visitors.
The cottage became practically a salon. There was not an
evening when the little sitting room looking out on the
garden was not packed. It's true that the conversation lacked

(09:28):
some of the sparkle generally found in the better class
of salon. To be absolutely accurate, there was hardly any
conversation at all. The youths of Melbourne were sturdy and honest.
They were the backbone of England. England, in her hour
of need, could have called upon them with the comfortable
certainty that unless they happened to be otherwise engaged, they
would leap to her aid. But they did not shine

(09:51):
at small talk. Conversationally, they were a spent force. After
they had asked mister Williams how his rheumatism was. Thereafter
they contented themselves with sitting massively about in corners, glowering
at each other. Still, it was all very jolly and
sociable and helped to pass the long evenings. And as
Missus Williams pointed out in reply to some rather strong

(10:11):
remarks from mister Williams on the subject of packs of
young fools who made it impossible for a man to
get a quiet smoke in his own home, it kept
them out of the public houses. Tom Kitchener meanwhile, observed
the invasion with growing dismay. Shyness barred him from the
evening gatherings. And what was going on in that house

(10:32):
with young bloods like Ted Pringle, Albert Parsons, Arthur Brown
and Joe Blossom, to name just four of the most
assiduous exercising their fascinations at close range, He did not
like to think. Again and again he strove to brace
himself up to join the feasts of reason and flows
of soul, which he knew were taking place nightly around

(10:53):
the object of his devotions. But every time he failed.
Habit is a terrible thing. It shackles the strongest, and
Tom had fallen into the habit of inquiring. After mister
William's rheumatism over the garden fence first thing in the morning.
It was a civil, neighborly thing to do, but it
annihilated the only excuse he could think of for looking

(11:13):
in at night. He could not help himself. It was
like some frightful scourge, the mor fiene habit, or something
of that sort. Every morning he swore to himself that
nothing would induce him to mention the subject of rheumatism.
But no sooner had the stricken old gentleman's head appeared
above the fence than out it came morning, mister Williams.
Morning Tom, pause, indicative of a strong man struggling with himself.

(11:38):
Then how's the rheumatism, mister Williams better? Thank e Tom.
And there he was, with his guns spiked. However, he
did not give up. He brought to his wooing the
same determination which had made him second gardener at the
hall at twenty five. He was a novice at the game,
but instinct told him that a good line of action
was to shower gifts. He did so. All he had

(12:00):
to shower was vegetables, and he showered them in a
way that would have caused the Goddess Ceres to be
talked about his garden became a perfect crater irrupting vegetables.
Why vegetables, I think I heard some heckler cry, why
not flowers, fresh, fair, fragrant flowers. You can do a
lot with flowers. Girls love them. There is poetry in them.

(12:21):
And once more, there is a recognized language of flowers.
Shoot in a rose or a calceolaria, or an herbaceous
border or something I gathered, and you made a formal
proposal of marriage without any of the trouble of rehearsing
a long speech and practicing appropriate gestures in front of
your bedroom looking glass, Why then did not Thomas Kitchener

(12:42):
give Sally Preston flowers? Well, you see, unfortunately it was
now late autumn, and there were no flowers. Nature had
temporarily exhausted her floral blessings and was jogging along with
potatoes and artichokes and things. Love is like that, It
invariably comes just at the wrong time. A few months before,

(13:02):
there had been enough roses in Tom kitchen His garden
to win the hearts of a dozen girls. Now there
were only vegetables. Ah Twas Ever, thus it was not
to be expected that a devotion so practically displayed should
escape notice nor should it escape comment? This was supplied
by that shrewd observer, old mister Williams. He spoke seriously

(13:25):
to Tom across the fence on the subject of his passion,
Young Tom, he said, drop it. Tom muttered unintelligibly. Mister
Williams adjusted the top hat, without which he never stirred abroad,
even into his garden. He blinked benevolently at Tom, You'm
come up to that young gal at Jins. He proceeded.

(13:45):
You can't to save money, all these taties and what not.
I seen your game fast enough. Just you drop it,
young Tom, Why, muttered Tom rebelliously. A sudden distaste for
old mister Williams blazed within him. Why cause you'll only
burn your fingers if you doubt. That's why I've been
watching this young Gali Jans, and I've seen what sort

(14:07):
of a young gal she be. She's a flippery piece,
that's what she be. You marry that young gal, Tom,
and you'll never have no more quieter happiness. She just
take and turned the place up. See down on ye.
The man as marry as that young girl has got
to be master in his own home he's got to
show her what's what now. Ye ain't got the devil
in yo to do that. Tom. You're what I might

(14:28):
call a sort of a sheep. I admires it in you, Tom.
I like to see a young man steady and quiet,
same as what you be. So that's how it is,
you see. Just you'll drop this foolishness, young Tom, and
leave that young galby else you'll burn your fingers same
as what I say. In giving his top hat a
rakish tilt, the old gentleman ambled indoors, satisfied that he

(14:50):
had dropped a guarded into a pleasant and tactful manner.
It's to be supposed that this interview stung Tom to
swift action. Otherwise, one cannot explain why he should not
have been just as reticent on the subject nearest his
heart when bestowing on Sally the twenty seventh cabbage as
he had been when he administered the hundred and sixtieth potato.

(15:11):
At any rate, the fact remains that, as that fateful
vegetable changed hands across the fence, something resembling a proposal
of marriage did actually proceed from him as a sustained
piece of emotional prose, it fell short of the highest standing.
Most of it was lost at the back of his throat,
and what did emerge was mainly inaudible. However, as she
distinctly caught the word love twice, and as Tom was

(15:35):
shuffling his feet and streaming with perspiration and looking everywhere,
at once accepted her. Salih grasped the situation, whereupon, without
any visible emotion, she accepted him. Tom had to ask
her to repeat her remark. He could not believe his luck.
It was singular how diffident a normally self confident man

(15:55):
can become once he is in love. When Colonel Milvery
of the Hall had informed of his promotion to the
post of second Gardener, Tom had demanded no encore. He
knew his worth. He was perfectly aware that he was
a good gardener, and official recognition of the fact left
him gratified but unperturbed. But this affair of Sallie was
quite another matter. It had revolutionized his standards of value,

(16:19):
forced him to consider himself as a man entirely apart
from his skill as a gardener. And until this moment
he had had grave doubt as to whether apart from
his skill as a gardener, he amounted to much. He
was overwhelmed. He kissed Sallie across the fence humbly. Sally,
for her part, seemed very unconcerned about it all. A
more critical man than Thomas Kitchener might have said that,

(16:41):
to all appearances, the thing rather aboard. Sally, don't tell
anybody just yet, She stipulated. Tom would have given much
to be allowed to announce his triumph defiently to old
mister Williams, to say nothing of making a considerable noise
about it in the village. But her wish was law,
and he reluctantly agreed. There are moments in a man's

(17:03):
life when, however enthusiastic a gardener, he may be his
soul sores above vegetables. Tom's shot with a jerk into
the animal kingdom. The first present he gave Sallie in
his capacity of fiancee was a dog. It was a
half grown puppy with long legs and a long tail,
belonging to no one species, but generously distributing itself among

(17:24):
about six Sallie loved it and took it with her
wherever she went, And on one of those rambles down
swooped Constable Cobb, the village policeman, pointing out that, contrary
to regulation, the puppy had no collar. It's possible that
a judicious meekness on Sallie's part might have averted disaster.
Mister Cobb was human, and Salli was looking particularly attractive

(17:47):
that morning. Meekness, however, did not come easy to Sally.
In a speech which began as argument and ended mister
Cobb proving solid and unyielding as pure cheek, she utterly
wrote to the Constable, but her victory was only a
moral one, for as she turned to go, mister Cobb,
dull red and puffing slightly, was already entering particulars of

(18:09):
the affair in his note book, and Sally knew that
the last word was with him. On her way back,
she met Tom Kitchener. He was looking very tough and strong,
and at the sight of him, a half formed idea
which she had regretfully dismissed as impracticable of assaulting Constable Cobb,
returned to her in an amended form. Tom did not
know it, but the reason why she smiled so radiantly

(18:31):
upon him at that moment was that she had just
elected him to the post of hired assassin. While she
did not want Constable Cobb actually assassinated, she earnestly desired
him to have his helmet smashed down over his eyes,
and it seemed to her that Tom was the man
to do it. She poured out her grievance to him
and suggested his scheme. She even elaborated it. Why shouldn't

(18:53):
you wait for him one night and throw him into
the creek. It isn't deep and it's jolly muddy, um,
said Tom. Doubtfully. It would just teach him, she pointed
at But the prospect of undertaking the higher education of
the police did not seem to appeal to Tom. In
his heart. He rather sympathized with Constable Cobb. He saw
the policeman's point of view. It's all very well to talk,

(19:16):
but when you are stationed in a sleepy village where
no one ever murders or robs, or commits arson, or
even gets drunk and disorderly in the street, a puppy
without a collar is simply a godsend. The man must
look out for himself. He tried to make this side
of the question clear to Sallie, but failed. Signally, she
took a deplorable view of his attitude. I might announ

(19:38):
that you'd have been afraid, she said, with a contemptuous
jerk of her chin. Good morning. Tom flushed. He knew
he had never been afraid of anything in his life
except her, but nevertheless the accusation stung, and as he
was still afraid of her, he stammered as he began
to deny the charge. Oh leave off, said Sallie irritably.
Suck a lozenge. I'm not afraid, said Tom, condensing his

(20:02):
remarks to their minimum as his only chance of being intelligible.
You are, I am not. It's just that I A
nasty gleam came into Sallie's eyes. Her manner was haughty.
It doesn't matter, she paused, I've no doubt ted Pringle
will do what I want. For all her contempt, she
could not keep a touch of uneasiness from her eyes

(20:23):
as she prepared to make her next remark. There was
a look about Tom's set jaw which made her hesitate.
But her temper had run away with her, and she
went on. I'm sure he will, she said. When we
become engaged, he said that he'd do anyth inform me.
There are some speeches that are such conversational knock out
blows that one can hardly believe that life will ever

(20:43):
pick itself up and go on again after them. Yet
it does. The dramatist brings down the curtain on such speeches.
The novelist blocks his reader's path with a zareba of stars.
But in life there are no curtains, no stars, nothing
final and definite, only ragged pauses and discomfort. There was

(21:04):
such a pause. Now, what do you mean, said Tom?
At last, you promised to marry me. I know I did,
and I promised to marry Ted Pringle that touch of
panic which she could not wholly repress, the panic that
comes to every one when the situation has run away
with them, like a strange, unmanageable machine infused to shade

(21:24):
too much of the defiant into Sally's manner. She had
wished to be cool, even casual, But she was beginning
to be afraid. Why, she could not have said. Certainly
she had not anticipate violence on Tom's part. Perhaps that
was it. Perhaps it was just because he was so
quiet that she was afraid. She had always looked on
him contemptuously as an amiable transparent lout, and now he

(21:48):
was puzzling her. She got an impression of something formidable
behind his stolidity, something that made her feel mean and insignificant.
She fought against the feeling, but it gripped her, and
in spite of herself, she found her voice growing shrill
and out of control. I promised to marry Ted Pringle,
and I promised to marry Joe Blossom, and I promised
to marry Albert Parson's and I was going to promise

(22:11):
to marry Arthur Brown and anybody else who asked me so.
Now you know I told you I'd make father take
me back to London. Well, when hears that I promised
to marry four different men, I bet it have me
home by the first train, she stopped. She had more
to say, but she could not say it. She stood
looking at him, and he looked at her. His face
was gray, and his mouth oddly twisted. Silence seemed to

(22:34):
fall on the whole universe. Sally was really afraid now,
and she knew it. She was feeling very small and
defenseless in her extremely alarming world. She could not have
said what it was that had happened to her. She
only knew that life had become of a sudden, very vivid,
and that her ideas as to what was amusing had
undergone a striking change. A man's development is a slow

(22:57):
and steady process of the years. A woman's a thing
of an instant. In the silence which followed her words,
Sallie had grown up, Tom broke the silence. Is this true?
He said? His voice made her start. He'd spoken quietly,
but there was a new note in it, strange to her.
Just as she could not have said that what it

(23:17):
was that had happened to her, so now she could
not have said what had happened to Tom? He too
had changed, but how she did not know yet. The
explanation was simple. He also had, in a sense grown up.
He was no longer afraid of her. He stood thinking,
Ours seemed to pass. Come along, he said at last,

(23:39):
and he began to move off down the road. Sallie followed.
The possibility of refusing did not enter her mind. Where
are you going? She asked? It was unbearable this silence.
He did not answer. In this fashion, he leading, she following.
They went down the road into a lane and through
a gate into a field. They passed into a second field,
and as they did so, Allily's heart gave a leap.

(24:01):
Ted Pringle was there. Ted Pringle was a big young man,
bigger even than Tom Kitchener, and like Tom, he was
of silent habit. He eyed the little procession inquiringly, but
spoke no word. There was a pause, Ted said Tom,
there's been a mistake. He stepped quickly to Sallie's side,
and the next moment he had swung her off her

(24:22):
feet and kissed her. To the type of mind that
Milbourne breeds, the actions speak louder than words, and Ted Pringle,
who had gaped, gaped no more. He sprang forward, and Tom,
pushing Sallie aside, turned to meet him. I cannot help
feeling a little sorry for Ted Pringle. In the light
of what happened. I could wish that it were possible

(24:42):
to portray him as a hulking bruit of evil appearance
and worse morals, the sort of person concerning whom one
could reflect comfortably that he deserved all he got. I
should like to make him an unsympathetic character over whose
downfall the reader would bloat. But honesty compels me to
own that Ted was a thoroughly decent young man. In
every way. He was a good citizen, the dutiful son,

(25:04):
and would certainly have made an excellent husband. Furthermore, in
the dispute on hand, he had right on his side,
fully as much as Tom. The whole affair was one
of those elemental clashings of man and man where the
historian cannot sympathize with either side at the expense of
the other, but must confine himself to a mere statement
of what occurred. And briefly, what occurred was that Tom,

(25:27):
bringing to the fray a pent up fury which his
adversary had no time to generate, fought Ted to a
complete stand still in the space of two minutes and
a half. Sally had watched the proceedings sick and horrified.
She had never seen men fight before, and the terror
of it overwhelmed her. Her vanity received no pleasant stimulation
from the thought that it was for her sake that

(25:48):
this storm had been let loose. For the moment, her
vanity was dead, stunned by collision with the realities. She
found herself watching in a dream. She saw Ted fall, rise,
fall again, and lie where he had fallen, And then
she was aware that Tom was speaking, come along. She
hung back. Ted was lying very still. Gruesome ideas presented themselves.

(26:11):
She had just accepted them as truth. When Ted wriggled,
he wriggled again. Then he sat up, suddenly looked at
her with unseeing eyes, and said something in a thick voice.
She gave a little sob of relief. It was ghastly,
but not so ghastly as what she had been imagining.
Somebody touched her arm. Tom was by her side, grim
and formidable. He was wiping blood from his face. Come along.

(26:35):
She followed him without a word, and presently behold in
another field, whistling meditatively, and regardless of impending ill will
Albert Parsons. In everything that he did, Tom was a
man of method. He did not depart from his chosen formula. Albert,
he said, there's been a mistake, and Albert gaped as
Ted had gaped. Tom kissed Sally with the gravity of

(26:56):
one performing a ritual. The uglinesses of life, as we
grow accustomed to them, lose their power to shock, And
there is no doubt that Sally looked with a different
eye upon this second struggle. She was conscious of a
thrill of excitement, very different from the shrinking horror which
had seized her before her stunned vanity began to tingle
into life again. The fight was raging furiously over the

(27:17):
trampled turf, and quite suddenly, as she watched, she was
aware that her heart was with Tom. It was no
longer two strange brutes fighting in the field. It was
her man, battling for her sake. She desired overwhelmingly that
he should win, that he should not be hurt, and
that he should sweep triumphantly over Albert Parsons as he
had swept over Ted Pringle. Unfortunately, it was evident even

(27:41):
to her that he was being hurt, and that he
was very far from sweeping triumphantly over Albert Parson. He
had not allowed himself time to recover from his first battle,
and his blows were slow and weary. Albert, moreover, was
made of sterner stuff than Ted, though now a peaceful
tender of cows, There had been a time in his
hot youth went traveling with a circus. He had fought

(28:01):
week in, week out relays of just such rustic warriors
as Tom. He knew their methods, their headlong rushes, their
swinging blows. They were the merest commonplaces of life to him.
He slipped Tom, he sidestepped Tom, he jabbed Tom. He
did everything to Tom that a trained boxer can do
to a reckless novice, except knock the fight out of him,

(28:21):
until presently, through the sheer labor of hitting, he too
grew weary. Now in the days when Albert Parsons had
fought whole families of Tom's in an evening, he had
fought in rounds with the boss holding the watch, and
half minute rests and water to refresh him, and all
orderly and proper. To day, there were no rounds, no rests,
no water, and the peaceful tending of cows had caused

(28:44):
flesh to grow where there had been only muscle. Tom's
headlong rushes became less easy to sidestep, his swinging blows,
more difficult than the scientific counter that shot out to
check them. As he tired, Tom seemed to regain strength.
The tire of the battle began to ebb. He clinched,
and Tom threw him off. He fainted, and while he
was fainting, Tom was on him. It was the climax

(29:05):
of the battle. The last rally down went Albert and
stayed down. Physically, he was not finished, but in his
mind a question had framed itself, the question was it
worth it? Then he was answering No, there were other
girls in the world. No girl was worth all this trouble.
He did not rise. Come along, said Tom. He spoke thickly.

(29:28):
His breath was coming in gasps. He was a terrible spectacle.
But Sally was past the weaker emotions. She was back
in the stone age, and her only feeling was one
of passionate pride. She tried to speak, She struggled to
put all she felt into words, but something kept her dumb,
and she followed him in silence. In the lane outside
his cottage, down by the creek, Joe Blossom was clipping

(29:49):
a hedge. The sound of footsteps made him turn. He
did not recognize Tom till he spoke, Joel, there's been
a mistake, said Tom Benter gumpop explosion, more like, said Joe,
A simple practical man. What human doing to your face?
She's going to marry me, Joe. Joe eyed Sally, inquiringly, Eh,

(30:11):
you promised to marry me. She promised to marry all
of us. Hugh me ted Pringle, Albert Parsons promise to
marry all of us. That's where the mistake was. She's
only going to marry me. I I've arranged it with
Ted and Albert, and now I've come to explain to you, Joe,
you promised to marry the colossal nature of Sally's deceit

(30:33):
was plainly troubling Joe Blossom. He expelled his breath in
a long note of amazement. Then he summed up, why
you're nothing more or less than a Joshua. The years
that had passed since Joe had attended the village Sunday
School had weakened his once easy familiarity with the characters
of the Old Testament. It's possible that he had somebody

(30:53):
else in mind. Tom stuck doggedly to his point, you
can't marry a Joe. Joe Blossom raised his shears and
clipped a protruding branch. The point under discussion seemed to
have ceased to interest him. Who wants to? He said,
good riddance. They went down the lane. Silence still brooded
over them. The words she wanted continued to evade her.

(31:16):
They came to a grassy bank. Tom sat down. He
was feeling unutterably tired Tom. He looked up. His mind
was working dizzily. You're going to marry me, he muttered.
She sat down beside him. I know, she said, Tom,
dare lay ahead on my lap and go to sleep.
If this story proves anything beyond the advantage of being

(31:38):
in good training when you fight, it proves that you
cannot get away from the moving pictures, even in her
place like Milburn. For As Sally sat there nursing Tom,
it suddenly struck her that this was the very situation
with which the Romance of the Middle Ages film ended,
you know the one I mean, Sir Percival. Yet something
which has slipped my memory for the moment goes out

(31:59):
after the Holy Rail meets Damsel in distress, overcomes her persecutors,
rescues her, gets wounded, and has nursed back to life
in her arms. Sally had seen it a dozen times,
and every time she had reflected that the days of
romance are dead, and that that sort of thing can't
happen nowadays. End of section two, Story two Something to

(32:20):
Worry About recording by Mike Harris,