Page:Herbert Jenkins - Bindle.djvu/64

 remover instead of a greengrocer; for it seemed to produce endless diversions.

Little Millie would sit on a stool at her mother's feet drinking in Uncle Joe's stories, uttering an occasional half-laughing, half-reproachful, "Oh, Uncle Joe!"

If Mrs. Hearty had a weakness for Bindle's stories, Mrs. Bindle found in Alfred Hearty her ideal of what a man should be. When a girl she had been called upon to choose between Alfred Hearty, then a greengrocer's assistant, and Joseph Bindle, and she never quite forgave herself for having taken the wrong man.

In those days Bindle's winning tongue had left Alfred Hearty without even a sporting chance. To Mrs. Bindle her mistaken choice was the canker-worm in her heart, and it was not a little responsible for her uncompromising attitude towards Bindle.

In a moment of pride at his conquest Bindle had said to Hearty:

"It's no good goin' after a woman wi' one eye on the golden gates of 'eaven, 'Earty, and that's why I won."

Since then Bindle had resented Hearty's apathetic courtship, which had brought about his own victory. Many times Bindle had thought over the folly of his wooing, and he always came to the same conclusion, a muttered:

"If 'e 'ad 'ad a little more ginger 'e might 'ave won. They'd 'ave made a tasty pair."