Tales of Space and Time | Page 2

without excessive assurance, asserted his
right to manage his business in his own way. An altercation began. The
two customers watched the scene with interest and some amusement,
occasionally assisting Mrs. Cave with suggestions. Mr. Cave, hard
driven, persisted in a confused and impossible story of an enquiry for

the crystal that morning, and his agitation became painful. But he stuck
to his point with extraordinary persistence. It was the young Oriental
who ended this curious controversy. He proposed that they should call
again in the course of two days--so as to give the alleged enquirer a fair
chance. "And then we must insist," said the clergyman. "Five pounds."
Mrs. Cave took it on herself to apologise for her husband, explaining
that he was sometimes "a little odd," and as the two customers left, the
couple prepared for a free discussion of the incident in all its bearings.
Mrs. Cave talked to her husband with singular directness. The poor
little man, quivering with emotion, muddled himself between his
stories, maintaining on the one hand that he had another customer in
view, and on the other asserting that the crystal was honestly worth ten
guineas. "Why did you ask five pounds?" said his wife. "Do let me
manage my business my own way!" said Mr. Cave.
Mr. Cave had living with him a step-daughter and a step-son, and at
supper that night the transaction was re-discussed. None of them had a
high opinion of Mr. Cave's business methods, and this action seemed a
culminating folly.
"It's my opinion he's refused that crystal before," said the step-son, a
loose-limbed lout of eighteen.
"But Five Pounds!" said the step-daughter, an argumentative young
woman of six-and-twenty.
Mr. Cave's answers were wretched; he could only mumble weak
assertions that he knew his own business best. They drove him from his
half-eaten supper into the shop, to close it for the night, his ears aflame
and tears of vexation behind his spectacles. "Why had he left the crystal
in the window so long? The folly of it!" That was the trouble closest in
his mind. For a time he could see no way of evading sale.
After supper his step-daughter and step-son smartened themselves up
and went out and his wife retired upstairs to reflect upon the business
aspects of the crystal, over a little sugar and lemon and so forth in hot
water. Mr. Cave went into the shop, and stayed there until late,

ostensibly to make ornamental rockeries for gold-fish cases but really
for a private purpose that will be better explained later. The next day
Mrs. Cave found that the crystal had been removed from the window,
and was lying behind some second-hand books on angling. She
replaced it in a conspicuous position. But she did not argue further
about it, as a nervous headache disinclined her from debate. Mr. Cave
was always disinclined. The day passed disagreeably. Mr. Cave was, if
anything, more absent-minded than usual, and uncommonly irritable
withal. In the afternoon, when his wife was taking her customary sleep,
he removed the crystal from the window again.
The next day Mr. Cave had to deliver a consignment of dog-fish at one
of the hospital schools, where they were needed for dissection. In his
absence Mrs. Cave's mind reverted to the topic of the crystal, and the
methods of expenditure suitable to a windfall of five pounds. She had
already devised some very agreeable expedients, among others a dress
of green silk for herself and a trip to Richmond, when a jangling of the
front door bell summoned her into the shop. The customer was an
examination coach who came to complain of the non-delivery of
certain frogs asked for the previous day. Mrs. Cave did not approve of
this particular branch of Mr. Cave's business, and the gentleman, who
had called in a somewhat aggressive mood, retired after a brief
exchange of words--entirely civil so far as he was concerned. Mrs.
Cave's eye then naturally turned to the window; for the sight of the
crystal was an assurance of the five pounds and of her dreams. What
was her surprise to find it gone!
She went to the place behind the locker on the counter, where she had
discovered it the day before. It was not there; and she immediately
began an eager search about the shop.
When Mr. Cave returned from his business with the dog-fish, about a
quarter to, two in the afternoon, he found the shop in some confusion,
and his wife, extremely exasperated and on her knees behind the
counter, routing among his taxidermic material. Her face came up hot
and angry over the counter, as the jangling bell announced his return,
and she forthwith accused him of "hiding it."

"Hid what?" asked Mr. Cave.
"The crystal!"
At that