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                                GOSLINGS

                                   By

                            J. D. BERESFORD

               Author of "The Hampdenshire Wonder," etc.


                                 London
                           William Heinemann
                                  1913








BOOK I

THE NEW PLAGUE


I--THE GOSLING FAMILY


1

"Where's the gels gone to?" asked Mr Gosling.

"Up the 'Igh Road to look at the shops. I'm expectin' 'em in every
minute."

"Ho!" said Gosling. He leaned against the dresser; the kitchen was
hot with steam, and he fumbled for a handkerchief in the pocket of
his black tail coat. He produced first a large red bandanna with which
he blew his nose vigorously. "Snuff 'andkerchief; brought it 'ome to
be washed," he remarked, and then brought out a white handkerchief
which he used to wipe his forehead.

"It's a dirty 'abit snuff-taking," commented Mrs Gosling.

"Well, you can't smoke in the orfice," replied Gosling.

"Must be doin' somethin', I suppose?" said his wife.

When the recital of this formula had been accomplished--it was hallowed
by a precise repetition every week, and had been established now for
a quarter of a century--Gosling returned to the subject in hand.

"They does a lot of lookin' at shops," he said, "and then nothin' 'll
satisfy 'em but buyin' somethin'. Why don't they keep away from 'em?"

"Oh, well; sales begin nex' week," replied Mrs Gosling. "An' that's a
thing we 'ave to consider in our circumstances." She left the vicinity
of the gas-stove, and bustled over to the dresser. "'Ere, get out of
my way, do," she went on, "an' go up and change your coat. Dinner'll
be ready in two ticks. I shan't wait for the gells if they ain't in."

"Them sales is a fraud," remarked Gosling, but he did not stop to
argue the point.

He went upstairs and changed his respectable "morning" coat for a
short alpaca jacket, slipped his cuffs over his hands, put one inside
the other and placed them in their customary position on the chest of
drawers, changed his boots for carpet slippers, wetted his hair brush
and carefully plastered down a long wisp of grey hair over the top
of his bald head, and then went into the bathroom to wash his hands.

There had been a time in George Gosling's history when he had not been
so regardful of the decencies of life. But he was a man of position
now, and his two daughters insisted on these ceremonial observances.

Gosling was one of the world's successes. He had started life as
a National School boy, and had worked his way up through all the
grades--messenger, office-boy, junior clerk, clerk, senior clerk,
head clerk, accountant--to his present responsible position as head of
the counting-house, with a salary of £26 a month. He rented a house
in Wisteria Grove, Brondesbury, at £45 a year; he was a sidesman
of the church of St John the Evangelist, Kilburn; a member of Local
Committees; and in moments of expansion he talked of seeking election
to the District Council. A solid, sober, thoroughly respectable man,
Gosling, about whom there had never been a hint of scandal; grown
stout now, and bald--save for a little hair over the ears, and that
one persistent grey tress which he used as a sort of insufficient
wrapping for his naked skull.

Such was the George Gosling seen by his wife, daughters, neighbours,
and heads of the firm of wholesale provision merchants for whom he had
worked for forty-one years in Barbican, E.C. Yet there was another man,
hardly realized by George Gosling himself, and apparently so little
representative that even his particular cronies in the office would
never have entered any description of him, if they had been obliged
to give a detailed account of their colleague's character.

Nevertheless, if you heard Gosling laughing uproariously at some story
produced by one of those cronies, you might be quite certain that it
was a story he would not repeat before his daughters