“Ah,” Jim sighed. “Won’t carry true, eh?”
“Not on your bloody life, Jim, they’ll about go round corners if they clear the muzzle.”
“Pity,” agreed Jim, working overtime with the toothpick. Then, “How much can you take this week?” he asked.
Cocking his head Joe affected to consider: “You better send me 150 tons.”
Mawson nodded.
“And look here, Jim,” went on Joe, “invoice it as 350 this week. I’m sick of piking at an extra hundred.”
Jim’s enigmatic eye inquired, is it safe?
“We don’t want to go too quick,” he said at last, thoughtfully. “There’s Dobbie.”
“Ah, what about him? If the invoice comes in he doesn’t know what the hell we’re using in the foundry. So long as his bloody figures add up right he thinks he’s got the whole issue taped.” Perhaps Joe spoke a little violently: his early tentative efforts to corrupt Dobbie, the angular, pince-nezed, finicking cashier, had proved singularly unsuccessful. Fortunately Dobbie, if interfering, was easy to hoodwink. His whole being was bound up in the scrupulosity of his returns. But he knew nothing of the practical side. For months past Joe had been conducting these amusing little deals with Mawson. To-day, for instance, he had ordered 150 tons of scrap iron, but the invoice which he would initial as correct would be for 350 tons. Dobbie would pay for 350 tons and Mawson and Joe would split even on 200 tons at £7 a ton. A trifling matter of £1,400 profit. Only a side, issue perhaps, in the combined activities of Jim and Joe. But for all that enough to make them mildly grateful for the boon of war.
Business satisfactorily concluded, Mawson lay back in his chair holding his stomach tenderly. A silence.
“Here’s them two — comin’ over,” he declared at length.
Stokes and Bostock had risen and now came over and stood by their table. Both were flushed by food and drink, happy yet important. Stokes offered his cigar case to Joe and Mawson. As Joe put away his half-smoked Havana and bent selectively over the gold-bound crocodile case, Stokes said with quite an unnecessary wink:
“You don’t have to smell them, they cost me half-a-dollar apiece.”
“It’s no bloody joke, these prices,” Bostock said with great solemnity. He had only had four brandies. He swayed slightly but he was superbly grave. “Do you know that one bloody egg costs fivepence?”
“You can afford it,” Joe said.
“I don’t eat eggs myself,” Bostock said. “Bilious things eggs, and besides I’m too busy. I’m buying myself a bloody big house in Kenton, and the wife wants it and the daughter. Ah, wimen, wimen. But what I mean is, how in hell is the war going on if an egg costs fivepence?”
Cutting his cigar, Mawson said:
“You can insure that risk. I’ve done it myself. Fifteen per cent. against the war ending this year. It’s worth it.”
Bostock argued very soberly:
“I’m talking about eggs, Jim.”
Stokes winked at Joe. He said:
“Why does a hen cross the road?”
Bostock looked at Stokes. He said very solemnly:
“B — s.”
“B — s yourself,” Stokes answered, steadying himself lovingly against Bostock’s shoulder.
Instinctively Joe and Mawson exchanged a quick glance of contempt: Stokes and Bostock could not carry their money, they were braggers, they would not last the pace, one of these days they would go up in a puff of smoke. Joe’s self-esteem was immensely flattered by this silent interchange of understanding between Mawson and himself. He began almost to despise Stokes and Bostock, he was above them now, above them both. He caressed his cigar opulently between his lips and let out a cool derisive puff.
“Wha’ y’ doin’ this afternoon, Jim?” Stokes benignantly inquired of Mawson.
Mawson looked inquiringly at Joe.
“The County, I suppose.”
“Tha’ suits us,” said Bostock. “Le’s all go roun’ th’ Club.”
Joe and Mawson rose and they strolled in a bunch to the door of the Grill. A woman commissionaire revolved the door obsequiously to these four triumphant males, magnificently fed and clothed, masters of the universe. They made an impressive group on the steps of the Central Grill, Joe a little behind, adjusting his blue silk scarf.
Mawson turned, intimately:
“Come on, Joe, we may as well. We’ll have a four at pool.”
Joe inspected his neat platinum wrist watch with an air of regret.
“Sorry, Jim, I’ve got business.”
Bostock neighed with laughter, wagging a fat forefinger:
“It’s a skirt, it’s a lady called Brown.”
Joe shook his head.
“Business,” he said suavely.
“’S war work,” Stokes suggested with a ribald leer. “’S war work wish a wack.”
They inspected him with envy.
“Cheerio, then,” Bostock said. “Na poo, toodeloo, good-bye-ee.”
Mawson, Bostock and Stokes went off to the Club. Joe watched them go, then he stepped on to the pavement and crossed briskly to where his car stood parked. He started the engine and set out for Wirtley: he had promised to pick up Laura at the canteen. Driving thoughtfully through the quiet Sunday streets, his head filled with Mawson’s scheme, by money, business, shells, steel, and his belly with rich food and drink, he found himself comfortably aware of the afternoon before him. He smiled: a glossy self-satisfied smile. She was all right, Laura, he owed a bit to her. She’d shown him so many things, from how to tie his new dress tie to where to find the little self-contained flat which he had now occupied for six months. She’d improved him. Well, it pleased her, didn’t it, to do things for him, like getting him put up for the County and, by an equally discreet approach, invited to the Howards’, the Penningtons’, even to Mrs. John Rutley’s house. She was completely gone on him. His smile deepened. He understood Laura perfectly now. He had always flattered himself that he knew women: the frightened ones, the cold ones — these were the commonest — the “pretenders”; but never before had he met a type like Laura. No wonder she hadn’t been able to hold out against him, or rather against herself.
As he slid into the square below Wirtley Munition Works — for obvious reasons they always met here — Laura turned the corner, walking smartly. Her punctuality pleased him. He lifted his hat and, not getting out of the car, held the door open for her. She got in and, without a word, he drove off towards his flat.
For some minutes they did not speak, the silence of complete familiarity. He liked having her beside him; she was a damned well-turned-out woman; these navy costumes always suited her. His feeling for her now was that of a husband still quite fond of his wife. Naturally there was not so much excitement now, the very consciousness of her attachment to him took the edge off his appetite.
“Where did you lunch?” she asked at length.
“The Central.” He answered casually. “What about you?”
“I had a bacon sandwich at the canteen.”
He laughed graciously: he knew her interest did not lie in food.
“Aren’t you fed up with that place yet?” he said. “Standing serving swill to the canaries?”
“No.” She deliberated. “I like to think I still have some decent instincts in me.”
He laughed again, dropped the subject, and they began to talk of ordinary things until they reached the far end of Northern Road where, in a quiet crescent behind the main thoroughfare, Joe’s flat was situated. It was actually the lower half of a subdivided house, with high-ceilinged rooms, fireplaces and mouldings in the Adams style and a discreet sense of space accentuated by open gardens fore and aft. Laura had furnished it for him in decided taste — Laura had a flair for that sort of thing. It was easily run. A woman came in the forenoons to do for him, and as it lay a full five miles from Yarrow it was, from the point of their intimacy, absolutely safe. To those who saw Laura come and go she passed, in the nicest possible way, as Joe’s sister.