Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/97

 So, Sorrell would be sent for more luggage, while Buck gracefully loaded that which had arrived, and took the tip or tips.

"What about the chap who carried the luggage down?"

If that question were asked Buck would have his answer ready.

"You can give it to me, sir. We pool our tips."

Needless to say Sorrell never saw that shilling or florin, and since Buck so contrived it that Sorrell was always fetching and carrying while he remained at the receipt of custom, Sorrell's pocket suffered very considerably. He had been making a pound or so a week in tips even in the slack season, and the drop in his revenue was serious. =

He took the matter up with Buck.

"We ought to have some arrangement."

"What d'you mean?"

"Well,—I seem to miss most of the tips."

"That's not my fault, my lad. If people don't pass it over to you—there must be a reason."

"I expect there is," said Sorrell grimly.

"I'll tell it you. A sulky face doesn't fetch out the silver"

"They pool their tips in the dining-room, and upstairs."

Buck trampled with loud dignity upon such a suggestion.

"Think—I—pool—with the chap under me? Not likely. I've worked for my position. I don't share out,—with the boot-boy."

And Sorrell left it at that, though he felt bitter.

For he had arrived at one of those periods of loneliness when he felt that the other humans about him had ceased to regard him as a distinct personality, though the impression was due to the fall in the level of his self-respect. He was eclipsed, and by the sort of man whom he hated and despised. His sense of failure returned. He was repressing himself, going about with a frown, and an air of melancholy self-absorption. There were no smiles in life—or at least it seemed to him that there was no smile, for he did not smile at other people, and a smile is a flash of vitality. He thought that he was being ignored, when it was he who hid himself behind a gloomy reserve.

Mr. Roland still played Chopin. He went about as usual,