Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 8.djvu/150

 —on September the first, eighteen hundred and seventy-eight

"That's all right," said Chitterlow. "It's all, all right, and all you have to do is write to Watson and Bean and get it"

"Get what?"

"Whatever it is."

Kipps sought his moustache. "You'd write?" he asked.

"Ra-ther."

"But what d'you think it is?"

"That's the fun of it!" said Chitterlow, taking three steps in some as yet uninvented dance. "That's where the joke comes in. It may be anything—it may be a million. If so! Where does little Harry come in? Eh?"

Kipps was trembling slightly. "But—" he said, and thought. "If you was me—" he began. "About that Waddy?"

He glanced up and saw the second apprentice disappear with amazing swiftness from behind the goods in the window.

"What?" asked Chitterlow, but he never had an answer.

"Lor'! There's the guv-nor!" said Kipps, and made a prompt dive for the door.

He dashed in only to discover that Shalford, with the junior apprentice in attendance, had come to mark off remnants of Kipps' cotton dresses and was demanding him. "Hullo, Kipps," he said, "outside?"

"Seein' if the window was straight, sir," said Kipps.