Short Cruises

Short Cruises, by W. W. Jacobs

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Title: Short Cruises
Author: W. W. Jacobs
Release Date: June 25, 2007 [EBook #21927]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHORT
CRUISES ***

Produced by David Widger

SHORT CRUISES
W. W. JACOBS
1906
CONTENTS:

THE CHANGELING
MIXED RELATIONS
HIS LORDSHIP
ALF'S DREAM
A DISTANT RELATIVE
THE TEST
IN THE FAMILY
A LOVE-KNOT
THE DREAMER
ANGELS' VISITS

THE CHANGELING
MR. GEORGE HENSHAW let himself in at the front door, and stood
for some time wiping his boots on the mat The little house was
ominously still, and a faint feeling, only partially due to the lapse of
time since breakfast, manifested itself behind his waistcoat. He
coughed--a matter-of-fact cough--and, with an attempt to hum a tune,
hung his hat on the peg and entered the kitchen.
Mrs. Henshaw had just finished dinner. The neatly cleaned bone of a
chop was on a plate by her side; a small dish which had contained a
rice-pudding was empty; and the only food left on the table was a small
rind of cheese and a piece of stale bread. Mr. Henshaw's face fell, but
he drew his chair up to the table and waited.
His wife regarded him with a fixed and offensive stare. Her face was
red and her eyes were blazing. It was hard to ignore her gaze; harder

still to meet it. Mr. Henshaw, steering a middle course, allowed his
eyes to wander round the room and to dwell, for the fraction of a
second, on her angry face.
"You've had dinner early?" he said at last, in a trembling voice.
"Have I?" was the reply.
Mr. Henshaw sought for a comforting explanation. "Clock's fast," he
said, rising and adjusting it.
His wife rose almost at the same moment, and with slow deliberate
movements began to clear the table.
"What--what about dinner?" said Mr. Henshaw, still trying to control
his fears.
"Dinner!" repeated Mrs. Henshaw, in a terrible voice. "You go and tell
that creature you were on the 'bus with to get your dinner."
Mr. Henshaw made a gesture of despair. "I tell you," he said
emphatically, "it wasn't me. I told you so last night. You get an idea in
your head and--"
"That'll do," said his wife, sharply. "I saw you, George Henshaw, as
plain as I see you now. You were tickling her ear with a bit o' straw,
and that good-for-nothing friend of yours, Ted Stokes, was sitting
behind with another beauty. Nice way o' going on, and me at 'ome all
alone by myself, slaving and slaving to keep things respectable!"
"It wasn't me," reiterated the unfortunate.
"When I called out to you," pursued the unheeding Mrs. Henshaw, "you
started and pulled your hat over your eyes and turned away. I should
have caught you if it hadn't been for all them carts in the way and
falling down. I can't understand now how it was I wasn't killed; I was a
mask of mud from head to foot."
Despite his utmost efforts to prevent it, a faint smile flitted across the

pallid features of Mr. Henshaw.
"Yes, you may laugh," stormed his wife, "and I've no doubt them two
beauties laughed too. I'll take care you don't have much more to laugh
at, my man."
She flung out of the room and began to wash up the crockery. Mr.
Henshaw, after standing irresolute for some time with his hands in his
pockets, put on his hat again and left the house.
He dined badly at a small eating-house, and returned home at six
o'clock that evening to find his wife out and the cupboard empty. He
went back to the same restaurant for tea, and after a gloomy meal went
round to discuss the situation with Ted Stokes. That gentleman's
suggestion of a double alibi he thrust aside with disdain and a stern
appeal to talk sense.
"Mind, if my wife speaks to you about it," he said, warningly, "it wasn't
me, but somebody like me. You might say he 'ad been mistook for me
before."
Mr. Stokes grinned and, meeting a freezing glance from his friend, at
once became serious again.
"Why not say it was you?" he said stoutly. "There's no harm in going
for a 'bus-ride with a friend and a couple o' ladies."
"O' course there ain't," said the other, hotly, "else I shouldn't ha' done it.
But you know what