and Day began to tuck the apron round him to make him ready, thinking to himself all the time, "The swine! The fat swine!" Wilmot began to complain of the heat. "It's terribly hard on us stout ones, you know; and then, if you could believe it, I've got a cold on top of it," he said. As if to emphasize this, he drew in violently through his nose, and swallowed phlegm with odious noise, that touched Day's frayed nerves on the raw. He suppressed a shudder with difficulty, and felt nausea rising within him. "God, how I hate you, you fat, flabby beast," he thought, as he worked up a lather on his chin. Wilmot's face was an unlovely sight, with its rolls of fat around the neck, and the pouches beneath his small, glistening eyes. Perspiration streamed freely over his forehead and down his cheeks. One of the blue-bottles, having at last escaped from the window, alighted with a buzz on his face, and was half drowned in the lather. With great care and precision Day removed it, apologizing in a colorless voice which did not betray that all the time he was finding it difficult not to put his fingers round the man's throat and strangle him. He took up his razor and began to shave. Wilmot looked up, leering. "Don't cut me, whatever you do. I'm going out with a bit of fluff to-night." This was almost too much for Day. To hear this fat beast of a man, who had robbed him of Harriet, sitting there talking of his amours, exasperated him to the point of madness. As he gazed down at the greasy, perspiring face, he thought he had never seen anything that filled him with such sickening, terrible loathing. Mad thoughts whirled and danced in his brain, urging him to kill this leering beast while he had him at his mercy. He felt suffocated with his rage and the heat. The sound of the clock ticking seemed to grow louder and louder. Wilmot's breath came stertorously, and the noise of it tore at his nerves. It seemed like the breathing of a hundred filthy, ravenous pigs. It was the most loathsome, detestable noise he had ever heard. He shaved on, with deft, professional strokes, all the time thinking, "One plunge, one slash, and he's a dead man.” "Razor all right, sir?" he asked, and his voice sounded to himself strange and leering as he put the professional question. Yet Wilmot noticed nothing amiss, and answered that it was just right, once more clearing his throat in his objectionable manner. It seemed to Day the beastliest sound he had ever heard from a human being. He could hear the phlegm rolling about slimily within the man's throat as he snorted and gagged and swallowed. The heat in the room seemed to be growing still more intense, and the sound of the children playing on the Rye had ceased, for one by one they had stopped their games and wandered listlessly away. Day was now almost decided on murder. His brain seemed on fire, and his skin pricked all over uncomfortably. Every contact between his clothing and his body seemed to be intense agony. He began to laugh exultingly within himself as he contemplated the helplessness of his victim. "The fat swine," he thought. "Little does he know how near he is to death. Just one slash and it's all up. But I'll play with him. He won't suspect." He made another application of lather, saying aloud: "You have quite a growth, sir, but this shave'll last you a long time." To himself, he was picturing how the fellow would lok with his disgusting throat all slit open, and his eyes rolling. The picture came before his eyes so vividly that he thought for one moment that he had actually committed the murder. As his vision cleared, he began to think that after all he could not commit such a horrible crime. He went on shaving, decided that he would spare the man, after all. Yet the mad thought still whirled in his brain, mingling with the buzzing of the blue-bottles at the window. "Sweeney Todd! Sweeney Todd! Sweeney Todd the barber! Kill him like Sweeney Todd the barber!" Again Wilmot cleared his throat, deliberately, with gusto, it seemed to the other. "If he does it again I'll do it," he thought. "I swear if he clears his throat again I'll do him in.” He put on a third application of lather. "What's this for?" asked Wilmot, querulously. "Haven't you done yet? I can't stand the heat here much longer. You're taking a hell of a time." "This is to see if you clear your throat again," said Day savagely. "What's that?" grunted the other, making as if to rise. "No you don't," said Day, pushing him back. "I've not quite done with you yet." “All right. All right. No need to be so damned emphatic about it. I'm quite at your mercy, you know." "Yes, aren't you?" Carefully, lightly, the razor passed once more over each wrinkle. Deftly it scraped at the loose, sensual upper lip, then down over the two chins and the fat, flabby throat. Day found himself marvelling that he could hold the razor so steadily. His throat was parched, and his eyeballs throbbed. He began to speak. "Yes, it's hot to-day, very hot. Give you some idea of what hell might be like, doesn't it, Mr. Wilmot? Fat men must suffer horribly down there, I should say." "Here, come off it," said the other, fretfully. "You needn't have such thoughts, even if it is a bit warm to-day. Anyhow, we ain't in hell yet. No need to think about the future. The present's bad enough for me." "Oh, it was just a thought that struck me. That's all," said Day. "Curse the fat, slimy beast!" he thought. "Why doesn't he clear his throat and have done with it?" He was fanatically determined not to commit the murder until he heard this signal he had arranged with himself. He awaited it with apprehension and longing. All his nerves seemed tensed for the shock of it. Yet he had almost finished the shave, and soon his victim would be walking safely out of his power. "O God, make him do it," he repeated over and over to himself. Suddenly, there was a tremendous thunder-clap outside, and the rain came beating down in torrents. Day's fingers were oozing with sweat. The tension had ended, and he laid down his razor, and wiped Wilmot's face. As the fat man rose to his feet, he said, glancing at the barber, "Crikey, you do look bad. You're as white as a sheet. What's the matter? Frightened of the thunder?" "No," said Day. "This'll make it cooler." Wilmot waddled over to the door, mopping his brow. "I should advise you to lie down a bit," he said, in a friendly tone. He cleared his throat. "You don't look at all well." The rain had stopped as suddenly as it began. "I'd better get home before some more comes on," he said, and stepped out into the street. Day crossed slowly to the window and closed it carefully. The blue-bottle flew dizzily upwards with a loud buzzing. He swatted it with a rolled up newspaper, and then gazed out of the window. Long after the ungainly form of Wilmot had disappeared from view he stood there, looking out, a dark and brooding stare in his eyes. H. H. THOMAS. The Castaways HERE is an island where long meadows sleep THERE About the knees of forest covered hills. Is murmurous with waves that rise and fall, That slowly gather to its pebbled floor, And climb the smooth worn rocks, and whitely sprawl, And draw their fingers, as so oft before, Through pale green seaweed banks that drift away no more. Here when a sudden summer tempest rose, Unreal as laughter in a vacant land, A battered trading vessel found repose And most forlornly settled on the strand. The storm winds fell, the sun shone out, but those Who clambered from the wreckage sad thanksgiving chose : "How may it be that we can rise again, When hopes are dead? Can strive, when only memories remain To tell of visions fled? Our eyes are dim-we scarce can see through pain That still the poppies of the field are red." |