Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. III, 1889.djvu/16

 third. He showed much ingenuity in varying the forms of menaced punishment. Not a child in the Gardens but was constantly threatened by its parents with a violent death; this was so familiar that it had lost its effect; where the nurse or mother in the upper world cries, “I shall scold you!” in the nether the phrase is, “I’ll knock yer ’ed orff!” To “I shall be very angry with you” in the one sphere, corresponds in the other, “I’ll murder you!” These are conventions,—matters of no importance. But Mr. Hope was a man of individuality; he could make his family tremble; he could bring lodgers about the door to listen and admire his resources.

In another room abode a mother with four children. This woman drank moderately, but was very conscientious in despatching her three younger children to school. True, there was just a little inconvenience in this punctuality of hers, at all events from the youngsters’ point of view, for only on the first three days of the week had they the slightest chance of a mouthful of breakfast before they departed. “Never mind, I’ll have some dinner for you,” their parent was wont to say. Common enough