Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/53

 "That chaps of yours seems full of juice, Flo."

"Well,—why not? He doesn't belong to a Trade Union."

"Queer sort of beggar. Looks as though he thought your pub wanted a wash."

"That's not unlikely."

"Oh,—I say! That's a bit thick. Hallo, Bob, old bean. Crush in here. What's yours?"

In this vulgar world Sorrell's nausea became too chronic and too real. He began to be afraid of his meals, and to wake at night with a knotted pain under his ribs. He thought of going to see a doctor, but it was not a doctor that he needed, and he knew it, but he did arrive at the more economical expedient of slipping into a chemist's shop. There were no other customers, and Sorrell made his confession across trays of soap and washing gloves and tooth-brushes.

"I've got indigestion. Can you give me something?"

The chemist was a colourless little man with thin and peculiarly compressed lips.

"Pain after meals?"

"Yes."

"How long?"

"Oh, it varies."

He met the man's scrutinizing eyes.

"Looks as though you wanted a tonic. Run down. I'll give you something."

Sorrell sacrificed a precious three and ninepence for a bottle of tonic and some tablets.

"Help you to get rid of the wind, you know."

The stuff did him no good, for he was worried, and overworking himself, and eating bad food and rushing about after he had eaten it. The constant pain and the discomfort began to depress him; he felt less and less of a man, and more and more of a sick animal in a cage. He had mocds of melancholic apathy when a voice within him played tempter, saying—"What's the use? You are a failure. Even your wretched body is a failure. Why not give in, slide, go down the shoot? After all, what is the fuss about? A woman and a boy and an adventure that most men would laugh at? You're a fool."

Kit saw a change in his father. Sorrell's eyes looked strained, and the whites of them were muddy; he stooped