o preoccupied by his own
intimate sensations that the idea of applauding never occurred to him,
until he perceived his conspicuousness in not applauding, whereupon he
clapped self-consciously.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

EIGHT.

Miss Florence Simcox, somewhat breathless, tripped away, with simulated
coyness and many curtseys. She had done her task, and as a woman she
had to go: this was a gathering of members of the Mutual Burial Club, a
masculine company, and not meet for females. The men pulled themselves
together, remembering that their proudest quality was a stoic
callousness that nothing could overthrow. They refilled pipes, ordered
more beer, and resumed the mask of invulnerable solemnity.

"Aye!" muttered Mr Enoch Peake.

Edwin, with a great effort, rose and walked out. He would have liked to
say good night to Big James; he did not deny that he ought to have done
so; but he dared not complicate his exit. On the pavement outside, in
the warm damp night, a few loitering listeners stood doggedly before an
open window, hearkening, their hands deep in their pockets, motionless.
And Edwin could hear Mr Enoch Peake: "Gentlemen all, Mester Arthur
Smallrice, Mester Abraham Harracles, Mester Jos Rampick, and Mester
James Yarlett--"

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER ELEVEN.

SON AND FATHER.

Later that evening, Edwin sat at a small deal table in the embrasure of
the dormer window of the empty attic next to his bedroom. During the
interval between tea and the rendezvous with Big James he had formally
planted his flag in that room. He had swept it out with a long-brush,
while Clara stood at the door giggling at the spectacle and telling him
that he had no right thus to annex territory in the absence of the
overlord. He had mounted a pair of steps, and put a lot of lumber
through a trap at the head of the stairs into the loft. And he had got
a table, a lamp, and a chair. That was all that he needed for the
moment. He had gone out to meet Big James with his head quite half-full
of this vague attic-project, but the night sights of Bursley, and
especially the music at the Dragon, and still more especially the
dancing at the Dragon, had almost expelled the attic-project from his
head. When he returned unobtrusively into the house and learnt from a
disturbed Mrs Nixon, who was sewing in the kitchen, that he was
understood to be in his new attic, and that his sisters had go