day he
seemed to have sunk into a soulless machine rather than a man. No
great question had ever stirred him. At the end of this snug century,
self-contained in his own narrow circle, it seemed impossible that any
of the mighty, primitive passions of mankind could ever reach him. Yet
birth, and lust, and illness, and death are changeless things, and when
one of these harsh facts springs out upon a man at some sudden turn of
the path of life, it dashes off for the moment his mask of civilisation
and gives a glimpse of the stranger and stronger face below.

Johnson's wife was a quiet little woman, with brown hair and gentle
ways. His affection for her was the one positive trait in his
character. Together they would lay out the shop window every Monday
morning, the spotless shirts in their green cardboard boxes below, the
neckties above hung in rows over the brass rails, the cheap studs
glistening from the white cards at either side, while in the background
were the rows of cloth caps and the bank of boxes in which the more
valuable hats were screened from the sunlight. She kept the books and
sent out the bills. No one but she knew the joys and sorrows which
crept into his small life. She had shared his exultations when the
gentleman who was going to India had bought ten dozen shirts and an
incredible number of collars, and she had been as stricken as he when,
after the goods had gone, the bill was returned from the hotel address
with the intimation that no such person had lodged there. For five
years they had worked, building up the business, thrown together all
the more closely because their marriage had been a childless one. Now,
however, there were signs that a change was at hand, and that speedily.
She was unable to come downstairs, and her mother, Mrs. Peyton, came
over from Camberwell to nurse her and to welcome her grandchild.

Little qualms of anxiety came over Johnson as his wife's time
approached. However, after all, it was a natural process. Other men's
wives went through it unharmed, and why should not his? He was himself
one of a family of fourteen, and yet his mother was alive and hearty.
It was quite the exception for anything to go wrong. And yet in spite
of his reasonings the remembrance of his wife's condition was always
like a sombre background to all his other thoughts.

Dr. Miles of Bridport Place, the best man in the neighbourhood, was
retained five months in advance, and, as time st