Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 8.djvu/107

 CHAPTER IV

CHITTERLOW

§ 1

hour of the class on the following Thursday found Kipps in a state of nearly incredible despondency. He was sitting with his eyes on the reading-room clock, his chin resting on his fists and his elbows on the accumulated comic papers that were comic alas! in vain! He paid no heed to the little man in spectacles glaring opposite to him, famishing for Fun. In this place it was he had sat night after night, each night more precious than the last, waiting until it should be time to go to Her! And then—bliss! And now the hour had come and there was no class! There would be no class now until next October; it might be that for him there would never be a class again.

It might be there would never be a class again, for Shalford, taking exception at a certain absent-mindedness that led to mistakes and more particularly to the ticketing of several articles in Kipps' Manchester window upside down, had been "on to" him for the past few days in an exceedingly onerous manner

He sighed profoundly, pushed the comic papers back—they were instantly rent away from him by the little man in spectacles—and tried the old engravings of Folkestone in the past, that hung about the room.