The Grim Smile of the Five Towns

The Grim Smile of the Five Towns

Project Gutenberg's The Grim Smile of the Five Towns, by Arnold Bennett #4 in our series by Arnold Bennett
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Title: The Grim Smile of the Five Towns
Author: Arnold Bennett
Release Date: December, 2003 [Etext #4734] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on March 10, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT THE GRIM SMILE OF THE FIVE ***

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THE GRIM SMILE OF THE FIVE TOWNS
ARNOLD BENNETT

To my old and constant friend JOSEPH DAWSON a student profoundly versed in the human nature of the Five Towns

CONTENTS
The Lion's Share Baby's Bath The Silent Brothers The Nineteenth Hat Vera's First Christmas Adventure The Murder of the Mandarin Vera's Second Christmas Adventure The Burglary News of the Engagement Beginning the New Year From One Generation to Another The Death of Simon Fuge In a New Bottle

THE LION'S SHARE
I
In the Five Towns the following history is related by those who know it as something side-splittingly funny--as one of the best jokes that ever occurred in a district devoted to jokes. And I, too, have hitherto regarded it as such. But upon my soul, now that I come to write it down, it strikes me as being, after all, a pretty grim tragedy. However, you shall judge, and laugh or cry as you please.
It began in the little house of Mrs Carpole, up at Bleakridge, on the hill between Bursley and Hanbridge. Mrs Carpole was the second Mrs Carpole, and her husband was dead. She had a stepson, Horace, and a son of her own, Sidney. Horace is the hero, or the villain, of the history. On the day when the unfortunate affair began he was nineteen years old, and a model youth. Not only was he getting on in business, not only did he give half his evenings to the study of the chemistry of pottery and the other half to various secretaryships in connection with the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel and Sunday-school, not only did he save money, not only was he a comfort to his stepmother and a sort of uncle to Sidney, not only was he an early riser, a total abstainer, a non-smoker, and a good listener; but, in addition to the practice of these manifold and rare virtues, he found time, even at that tender age, to pay his tailor's bill promptly and to fold his trousers in the same crease every night--so that he always looked neat and dignified. Strange to say, he made no friends. Perhaps he was just a thought too perfect for a district like the Five Towns; a sin or so might have endeared him to the entire neighbourhood. Perhaps his loneliness was due to his imperfect sense of humour, or perhaps to the dull, unsmiling heaviness of his somewhat flat features.
Sidney was quite a different story. Sidney, to use his mother's phrase, was a little jockey. His years were then eight. Fair- haired and blue-eyed, as most little jockeys are, he had a smile and a scowl that were equally effective in tyrannizing over both his mother and Horace, and he was beloved by everybody. Women turned to look at him in the street. Unhappily, his health was not good. He was afflicted by a slight deafness, which, however, the doctor said he would grow out of; the doctor predicted for him a lusty manhood. In the meantime, he caught every disease that happened to be about, and nearly died of each one. His latest acquisition had been scarlet fever. Now one afternoon, after he had 'peeled' and his room had been disinfected, and he was beginning to walk again, Horace came home and decided that Sidney should be brought downstairs for tea as a treat, to celebrate his convalescence, and that he, Horace, would carry him downstairs. Mrs Carpole was delighted with the idea, and Sidney also, except that Sidney did