Busman’s Honeymoon

Chapter XVIII. Straws In The Hair

‘The really essential thing,’ said Peter, executing sketch on the table-cloth with the handle of his soupspoon, ‘is to put in a workable hot-water system and build out a bathroom over the scullery. We can make the furnace house here, so as to get a straight fall from the cistern there. And that will give us a direct outfall for the bath to the sewer-if I may dignify it by that name. I think there’d be room to make another little bedroom near the bathroom; and when we want more space, we can convert the attics. The electric plant can live in the stable.’

Harriet agreed and offered her own contribution: ‘Bunter speaks none too kindly of the kitchen range. He says he would designate it as a period piece, my lady, but, if I will permit him to say so, of an inferior period. I think it’s mid-Victorian.’

‘We will take it a few periods back and have it Tudor. I propose to install an open fire and a roasting-spit and live in the baronial manner.’

‘With a scullion to turn the spit? Or one of those bandy-legged period dogs?’

‘Well-no; I was going to compromise about that, and have the spit turned by electricity. And an electric cooker for the days when we didn’t feel so period. I like the best of both worlds-I’m quite ready to be picturesque but I draw the line at inconvenience and hard work. I’m sure it would be hard work training a modem dog to turn a spit.’

‘Talking of dogs-are we keeping that terrific bull-mastiff?’

‘We’ve only hired him till after the funeral. Unless you feel a fancy for him. He is almost embarrassingly affectionate and demonstrative; but he’d do to play with the children. The goat, on the other hand, I have sent home. It got loose while we were out and ate a row of cabbages and Mrs Ruddle’s apron.’

‘Are you sure you don’t want to keep it to provide milk for the nursery tea?’

‘Quite sure. It’s a billy-goat.’

‘Oh! well, that’s very smelly and useless. I’m glad he’s gone. Are we going to keep things?’

‘What should you like to keep? Peacocks?’

‘Peacocks need a terrace. I was thinking of pigs. They’re comfortable; and when you feel dreamy and indolent you can go and scratch their backs like Mr Baldwin. And ducks make a pleasant noise. But I don’t care much for hens.’

‘Hens have peevish faces. By the way, I’m not sure you weren’t right before dinner. On principle, it’s the proper thing to give Kirk information, but I wish one knew how he was going to use it. If once he gets a fixed idea-’

‘There’s someone at the door. If that’s Kirk, we’ll have to make up our minds.’ Bunter entered, bringing with him the fragrance-but only the fragrance-of sage and onion.

‘My lord, there is an individual-’

‘Oh, send him away. I can’t stand any more individuals.’

‘My lord-’

‘We’re at dinner. Send him away. Tell him to call again later.’

There was the noise of swift steps on the gravel outside; and at the same moment a stout, elderly Hebrew burst into the room.

‘Very thorry to intrude,’ said this gentleman, in a breathless and hasty manner. ‘No wish to cause inconvenience. I,’ he added helpfully, ‘am Moss & Isaacs-’

‘You were wrong, Bunter. It’s not an individual-it’s a company.’

‘-and here in my hand I have’

‘Bunter; take the company’s hat.’

‘Very thorry,’ said the company, whose failure to uncover seemed due rather to oblivion than to want of natural courtesy. ‘No intention to offend. But I have here a bill of thale on the furniture in this house, and I have run-’

A thunderous knocking on the door caused him to fling up despairing hands. Bunter hurried out.

‘A bill of sale?’ cried Harriet. The intruder turned eagerly to her:

‘For a debt of theventy-three, thickteeh, thickth,’ he said, emotion choking his speech-’and I have run all the way from the buth-thtop-all the way-and there ith a man-’

He was right; there was a man. He pushed his way past Bunter, crying out in reproachful tones: ‘Mr Solomons, Mr Solomons! that’s not fair. Everything in this house is the property of my clients, and the executrix has agreed-’

‘Good evening, Mr MacBride,’ said the master of the house, politely.

‘I can’t help that,’ said Mr Solomons, his voice drowning Mr MacBride’s reply. He mopped his forehead with his handkerchief. ‘We hold a bill of sale on the furniture-look at the date on this document.’

Mr MacBride said firmly:

‘Ours has been running five years.’

‘I don’t care,’ retorted Mr Solomons, ‘if it’s been running as long as Charley’s Aunt!’

‘Gentlemen, gentlemen!’ said Peter, in conciliatory accents, ‘cannot this matter be amicably arranged?’

‘Our van,’ said Mr Solomons, ‘will call for the goods tomorrow.’

‘Our clients’ van,’ replied Mr MacBride, ‘is on the way NOW.’

Mr Solomons uttered a loud expostulatory howl, and Peter tried again:

‘I implore you, gentlemen, have some consideration for my wife, if not for me. We are in the middle of dinner, and you propose to remove the table and chairs. We have to sleep-will you not leave us so much as a bed to lie on? We also, if it comes to that, have some claim upon the furniture, since we hired it. Pray do not be so precipitate… Mr MacBride, you have known us long and (I hope) loved us well-you will, I am sure, have compassion on our nerves and feelings, and not turn us out dinnerless to sleep under the nearest haystack.’

‘My lord,’ said Mr MacBride, somewhat moved by this appeal, but conscious of his duty, ‘in the interests of our clients-’

‘In the interests of our firm,’ said Mr Solomons.

‘In all our interests,’ said Peter, ‘will you not sit down and share our roast duck with apple sauce and sage and onion stuffing? You, Mr Solomons, have run fast and far-your strength needs sustaining. You, Mr MacBride, spoke feelingly yesterday morning about our English family life will you not for once consent to see it at its best? Do not break up the happy home! Over a slice of the breast and a glass of the best any little differences may be adjusted.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Harriet. ‘Do join us. Bunter will break his heart if the bird gets dried up in the oven.’

Mr MacBride hesitated. ‘It’s very good of you,’ began Mr Solomons, wistfully. ‘If your ladyship-’

‘No, no, Solly,’ said Mr MacBride, ‘it ain’t fair.’

‘My dear,’ said Peter, with a polite inclination, ‘you know very well that it is a husband’s incurable habit to invite his business friends to dine under any circumstances and on the shortest possible notice. Without that habit, home life would not be what it is. Therefore I make no apology.’

‘Of course not,’ said Harriet. ‘Bunter, these gentlemen will dine with us.’

‘Very good, my lady.’ He laid dexterous hands on Mr Solomons and relieved him of his overcoat. ‘Allow me.’

Mr MacBride, without further argument, valeted himself and then helped Peter to bring two more chairs to the table, observing as he did so: ‘I don’t know what you advanced on these, Solly, but they weren’t worth it.’

‘So far as we are concerned,’ said Peter, ‘you may have the whole lot tomorrow and welcome. Now-are we all quite comfortable? Mr Solomons on the right, Mr MacBride on the left. Bunter-the claret!’

Mr Solomons and Mr MacBride, mellow with Leoville and cigars, departed fraternally at a quarter to ten, having previously made a brief tour of the house, so as to check their inventories together. Peter, who had accompanied them in order to establish his right to his own belongings, returned, bearing in his hand one of the little straw wig-warns in which wine-bottles are housed while travelling.

‘What’s that for, Peter?’

‘Me,’ said his lordship. He detached the straws methodically, one by one, and began to thread them through his hair. He had succeeded in making a very passable bird’s-nest of himself when Superintendent Kirk was announced.

‘Good evening, Mr Kirk,’ said Harriet, with as much warmth of welcome as she could put into the words.

‘Good evening,’ said the Superintendent. ‘I’m afraid I’m intruding.’ He looked at Peter, who made a horrible face at him. ‘It’s a bit late for a call.’

‘This,’ said Peter, wildly, ‘is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: he begins at Curfew and walks till the first cock. Have a straw. Superintendent. You’ll need one before you’ve finished.’

‘Have nothing of the sort.’ said Harriet. ‘You look tired. Have a glass of beer or some whisky or something and don’t mind my husband. He sometimes gets taken that way.’

The Superintendent thanked her absent-mindedly; he seemed to be in travail with an idea. He slowly opened his mouth, and looked at Peter again.

‘Sit down, sit down,’ said the latter, hospitably. I’ll talk a word with this same learned Theban.’

‘Got it!’ cried Mr Kirk. ‘King Lear!

Though their injunction be to bar my doors

And let this tyrannous night take hold upon you.

Yet have I ventur’d to come seek you out.’

‘You’re very nearly right about that,’ said Harriet. ‘We really thought we were going to be turned out into the tyrannous night. Hence the distraction and the straws.’

Mr Kirk inquired how this might be.

‘Well,’ said Harriet, installing him on one of the settles, ‘there’s a Mr Solomons, of Moss & Isaacs, who holds a bill, of sale on the furniture, and your old friend Mr MacBride, who wants to distrain on the furniture for his writ, and they both came in together to take the furniture away. But we gave them dinner and they went peaceably.’

‘You may ask,’ added Peter, ‘why they rather choose to have a weight of carrion flesh than to receive three thousand ducats. I cannot tell you, but so it was.’

Mr Kirk paused so long this time that both Peter and Harriet thought he must have become stricken with aphasia; but at last, and with a wide smile of triumph, he gave tongue: ‘He is well paid that is well satisfied! Merchant of Venice!’

‘A Daniel come to Judgement! Harriet, the Superintendent has caught the hang of our half-witted manner of conversation. He is a man, take him for all in all, we shall not look upon his like again. Give him his drink-he has deserved it. Say when. Shall I make spirits fetch me what I please, Resolve me of all ambiguities?’

‘Thank you,’ said the Superintendent, ‘not too stiff, my lord, if you don’t mind. We’ll have it gentle and the elements so mixed-’

‘That a spoon might stand up in it,’ suggested Peter.

‘No,’ said Mr Kirk. “That bit doesn’t seem to finish up quite right. But thanks all the same. Here’s health.’

‘And what have you been doing all afternoon?’ inquired Peter, bringing a stool to the fire and seating himself on it between his wife and Kirk.

‘Well, my lord,’ said Kirk, ‘I’ve been up to London.’

To London?’ said Harriet. ‘That’s right, Peter. Come a little further this way and let me take the straws out.’

‘Il m’aime-un peu-beaucoup.’

‘But not to see the Queen,’ pursued the Superintendent. I went to see Frank Crutchley’s young woman. In Clerkenwell.’

‘Has he got one there?’

‘Passionement a la folie-’

‘He had,’ said Kirk.

‘Pas du tout. Il m’aime-’

‘I got the address from that chap Williams over at Hancock’s. Seems she’s a good-looking young woman.’

‘Un peu-beaucoup-’

‘With a bit of money-’

‘Passionement-’

‘Lived with ’er dad and seemed dead struck on Frank Crutchley. But there-’

‘A la folie-’

‘You know what girls are. Some other fellow turned up-’

Harriet paused, with the twelfth straw in her fingers.

‘And the long and short of it is, she married the other bloke three months back.’

‘Pas du tout!’ said Harriet; and flung the straws into the fire.

‘The devil she did” said Peter. He caught Harriet’s eye.

‘But what got me all worked up,’ said Kirk, ‘was finding out what ’er father was.’

‘It was a robber’s daughter, and her name was Alice Brown. Her father was the terror of a small Italian town.’

‘Not a bit of it. He’s a-There!’ said Mr Kirk, arresting his glass half way to his mouth, ‘of all the trades and professions open to a man, what should you say he was?’

‘From your air,’ replied Peter, ‘of having, so to speak, found the key that cuts the Gordian knot-’

‘I can’t imagine,’ said Harriet, hastily. ‘We give it up.’

‘Well,’ announced Kirk, eyeing Peter a little dubiously, ‘if you give it up, then I’ll tell you. ’Er father is an ironmonger and locksmith as cuts keys when wanted.’

‘Good God, you don’t say so!’

Kirk, putting down a mouthful, nodded emphatically. ‘And what’s more,’ he went on. setting the glass down on the table with a smack, ‘what’s more, none so long ago-six months more or less-young Crutchley comes along, bright as you please, and asks him to cut a key for him.’

‘Six months ago! Well, well!’

‘Six months. But,’ resumed the Superintendent, ‘now this. I’m going to tell you will surprise you. I don’t mind saying it surprised me… Thank you, I don’t mind if I do… Well-the old boy didn’t make no secret of the key. Seems there’d a-been a bit of a tin between the young people before they parted brass-rags. Anyhow, he didn’t seem to feel no special call to speak up for Frank Crutchley. So when I asked the question, he answered straight off, and, what’s more, he took me round to his workshop. He’s a methodical old bird, and when he makes a new key, he keeps a cast of it. Says people often lose their keys, and it come in ’andy to have a record. I dunno. Shouldn’t wonder if he’d had official inquiries round there before. But that’s neether here nor there. He took me round and he showed me the cast what he’d made of the key. And what do you think that key was like?’

Peter, having been once rebuked, did not this time venture on so much as a veiled guess. But Harriet felt that some sort of reply was called for. Mustering up all the astonishment the human voice is capable of expressing, she said:

‘You can’t mean it was the key to one of the doors in this house?’

Mr Kirk smote his thigh with a large hand. ‘Aha!’ he cried. ‘What did I say? I knew I should catch you there! No-it was not, and nothing like, neether. Now! What do you think of that?’

Peter picked up the remains of the bottle-straw and began to weave himself a fresh head-dress. Harriet felt that her effort had gone even better than she had intended.

‘How astonishing!’

‘Nothing like it,’ repeated the Superintendent. ‘A huge great thing it was, more like a church key.’

‘Was it,’ asked Peter, his fingers working rapidly among the straws, ‘made from a key or from a wax mould?’

‘From a key. He brought it along with him. Said it was the key of a barn he’d hired to keep some stuff in. Said the key belonged to the owner and he wanted another for himself.’

‘I should have thought it was the owner’s business to supply a key for the tenant,’ said Harriet.

‘So should I. Crutchley explained he’d had one once and lost it. And mind you, that might be true. Anyhow, that’s the only key the old man had cut for him-or so he said, and I don’t think he was lying, neether. So away I come, by the evening train, no wiser. But after I’d had me bit o’ supper, I says to myself. Well, I says, it’s a line-never leave a line, I says, till you’ve followed it up. So out I goes to Pagford to look for our young friend. Well, he wasn’t in the garage, but Williams said he’d seen him out on his bike along the road to Ambledon Overbrook-you may know it-about a mile and a half out o’ Pagford on the Lopsley road.’

‘We came through it this afternoon. Pretty little church with a brooch spire.’

‘Yes, it’s got a spire. Well, I thought I’d have a look for my gentleman, so I pushed along and-do you remember seeing a big old barn with a tiled roof about three-quarters to a mile out of Pagford?’

‘I noticed it,’ said Harriet. ‘It stands all by itself in a field.’

‘That’s right. Well. going past there, I see a light, as it might be a bicycle-lamp, going across that field, and it came to me all of a sudden that, about six months ago, Crutchley did a bit of work on a tractor for Mr Moffatt as owns that barn. See? I just put them things together in my mind. So I gets out of the car, and I follows the bicycle light across the field. He wasn’t going fast-just walking with it-and I went pretty quick, and when I was about half way across, he must a-heard me coming, because he stopped. So I come up and then I see who it was.’

The Superintendent paused again.

‘Go on,’ said Peter. ‘We’ll buy it this time. It wasn’t Crutchley. It was Mr Goodacre or the landlord of the Crown.’

‘Caught you again,’ said Kirk, jovially. ‘Crutchley it was, all right. I asked him what he was doing there, and he said that was his business and we argued a bit, and I said I’d like to know what he was doing with a key to Mr Moffatt’s barn, and he wanted to know what I meant by that and-anyhow, the long and short was, I said I was going to see what there was in the barn and he was damn’ well going to come with me. So we went along, and he sounded pretty sulky, but he says: “You’re barking up the wrong tree,” and I says, “We’ll see about that” So we got to the door and I says, “Give me that key,” and he says, “I tell you I ain’t got no key,” and I says, “Then what do you want in this field, because it don’t lead nowhere, and anyhow, I says, I’m going to see.” So I puts me ’and on the door and it come open as easy as winking. And what do you think was inside that barn?’ Peter contemplated his plait of straw and twisted the ends together to form a crown.

‘At a guess,’ he replied, ‘I should say-Polly Mason.’

‘Well, there!’ exclaimed the Superintendent. ‘Just as I was all set to catch you again! Polly Mason it was, and she wasn’t half scared to see me, neether. “Now, my girl,” I said to her, “I don’t like to see you here,” I says. “What’s all this?” And Crutchley says, “No business of yours, you stupid cop. She’s over the age of consent” “Maybe,” I said, “but she’s got a mother,” I said, “as brought her up decent; and, what’s more,” I said, “it’s breaking and entering, and that’s a civil trespass, and Mr Moffatt’ll have something to say, about it.” So there was more words passed, and I said to the girl. “You ’and over that key, which you ain’t got no right to, and if you’ve got any sense or feeling,” I said, “you’ll come along home with me.” And the end of it was, I brought her back-and a lot of sauce she gave me, the young piece. As for me lord, I left him to twiddle his thumbs-I beg your pardon, my lord-no offence intended.’

Peter finished his crown and put it on.

‘It’s an odd thing,’ he observed, ‘that men like Crutchley, with quantities of large white teeth, are practically always gay Lotharios.’

‘Not frivolously gay, either,’ said Harriet. ‘Two strings to the bow for use and one for pleasure.’

‘Frank Crutchley,’ said Kirk, ‘has got too much o’ what the cat cleans ’er paws with. Stupid cop, indeed-I’ll cop ’im, the cheeky ’ound, one o’ these days.’

‘There is a certain lack of the finer feelings,’ said Peter. ‘Euphelia serves to grace my measure but Chloe is my real flame, no doubt. But to get Euphelia’s father to cut the key for Chloe is-tactless.’

‘ Tain’t my business to run a Sunday school,’ said the Superintendent, ‘but that Polly Mason’s asking for trouble. “The banns is going up next Sunday,” says she, bold as brass. “Are they?” says I, “Well, if I was you, my girl, I’d run round to parson with ’em myself, straight away, before your young man changes his mind. If you and him’s walking out in a proper way, there’s no need to have keys to other folks’ barns.” I didn’t say anything about the young lady in London, because that’s over and done with, but where there’s one there might be two.’

‘There were two,’ said Harriet, resolutely; ‘and the other one was here, in Pagford.’

‘What’s that?’ said Kirk.

Harriet told her story for the second time that evening.

‘Well, I’m bothered!’ exclaimed Mr Kirk, laughing heartily. ‘Poor old Aggie Twitterton! Kissing Frank Crutchley in the churchyard. That’s a good ‘un!’

Neither of the other two made any comment. Presently, Kirk’s mirth subsided and he showed signs of being once more in a state of mental gestation. His eyes became fixed and his lips moved silently.’

’Alf a moment, ’alf a moment,’ said Kirk while they watched him breathlessly; ‘Aggie Twitterton, eh? And young Crutchley? Now, that’s made me think of something, that has… Now, don’t you tell me… There! I knew I’d get it!’

‘I thought you would,’ said Peter, only half aloud.

•Twelfth Night!’ cried Mr Kirk, exultantly. ‘Orsino, that’s it! “Too old, by heaven. Let still the woman take An elder than herself”-I knew there was something in Shakespeare.’ He fell silent again. ‘Hullo!’ he said, in a changed tone, ‘that’s all right, but see here! If Aggie Twitterton wanted the money for Frank Crutchley and had the keys to the house, what was to prevent her-eh?’

‘Nothing whatever,’ said Peter. ‘Only you’ve got to prove it, you know.’

‘I’ve had my eye on Aggie Twitterton all along,’ said the Superintendent. ‘After all, you can’t get over them things she said. And her knowing about the will and all. And, come to look at it, whoever did it had to get into the house, now, hadn’t they?’

‘Why?’ demanded Peter. ‘How do you know Noakes didn’t come out and get killed in the garden?’

‘No,’ said Kirk, ‘that’s the one thing he couldn’t, and you know that as well as I do; and for why? There wasn’t no earth nor gravel on his shoes nor yet on his coat where he fell on it. And this time of the year, and with the rain we had last week there would a-been. No, my lord, springes to catch woodcocks! You don’t catch me that way.’

‘Hamlet,’ said Peter, meekly. ‘Very well. Now we’d better tell you all the ways we’ve thought of for getting into the house.’

After nearly an hour, the Superintendent was shaken, but not convinced. ‘See here, my lord,’ he said at last. ‘I see your point, and you’re quite right. It’s no good saying. He might or She might, because there’d always be a clever counsel to say, might ain’t necessarily right. And I see I been a bit hasty, overlooking that window and the trap-door and about something having been thrown at the deceased. Better late than never. I’ll be round again in the morning, and we’ll go into all them points. And here’s another thing. I’ll bring Joe Sellon with me, and you can try for yourself about him gettin’ through them-mullions, d’you call them? Because, not to put too fine a point upon it, he’d make two of you, my lord-and what’s more, it’s my belief you could get through pretty well almost anything, including a judge and jury, if you’ll pardon me saying so… No, don’t you mistake me. I ain’t out to put nothing on Aggie Twitterton-I’m out to find who killed deceased, and prove it. And I will prove it, if I have to go through the place with a tooth-comb.’

‘Then,’ said Peter, ‘you have to be up pretty early in the morning, to stop our London friends from carrying away the furniture, lock, stock and barrel.’

‘I’ll see they don’t take the trap-door,’ retorted the Superintendent. ‘Nor yet the doors and windows. And now I’ll be getting off home, and I’m very sorry for keeping you and her ladyship up like this.’

‘Not at all,’ said Peter. ‘Parting is such sweet sorrow-we’ve had quite a Shakespearean evening, haven’t we?’

‘Well,’ said Harriet, as her lord returned from seeing the Superintendent to the door, ‘he wasn’t unreasonable, after all. But oh! I do hope there won’t be any more people tonight.’

‘Nous menons une vie assez mouvementé. I’ve never known such a day. Bunter looks quite haggard-I have sent him to bed. As for me, I don’t feel like the same person I was before breakfast.’

‘I don’t even feel the same person I was before dinner. Peter-about that. It’s frightened me rather. I’ve always so loathed and dreaded any sort of possessiveness. You know how I’ve always run away from it.’

‘I’ve reason to know.’ He made a wry face. ‘You ran like the Red Queen.’

‘I know I did. And now-I start it, of all people! I simply can’t think what came over me. It’s frightful. Is that sort of thing always going to happen to me?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said, lightly. ‘I can’t imagine. In an experience of women extending, like the good Dr Watson’s, over many nations, and three separate continents-’

‘Why separate? Do ordinary continents come blended, like teas?’

‘I don’t know. That’s what it says in the book. Three separate continents. In all my experience, you are completely unprecedented. I never met anybody like you.’

‘Why? Possessiveness isn’t unprecedented.’

‘On the contrary-it’s as common as mud. But to recognise it in one’s self and chuck it overboard is-unusual. If you want to be a normal person, my girl, you should let it rip and give yourself and everybody else hell with it. And you should call it something eke-devotion or self-sacrifice and that sort of thing. If you go on behaving with all this reason and generosity, everybody will think we don’t give a damn for one another.’

‘Well-if ever I do anything like that again, for heaven’s sake don’t give in… you wouldn’t have, really?’

‘If it had come to the point-yes, I should. I couldn’t live in a wrangle. Not with you, anyway.’

‘I wouldn’t have believed you could be so weak. As if a possessive person is ever going to be satisfied. If you gave in once, you’d have to do it again and again. Like Danegeld.’

‘Don’t be harsh with me, Domina. If it happens again, I’ll take a stick to you. I promise. But I wasn’t sure what I was up against-la femme jalouse de l’oeuvre, or a perfectly reasonable objection, or just marriage as such. I can’t expect being married to be just like not being married, can I? I thought I might be heading the wrong way. I thought if I showed you where the hitch was-I don’t know what I thought. It doesn’t matter. I only know what you said, and that it took my breath away.’

‘I only know that I started to behave like a pig and thought better of it. Peter-it hasn’t upset the-the things you said before? It hasn’t spoilt anything?’

‘To know that I can trust you better than myself? What do you think?… But listen, dear-for God’s sake let’s take the word “possess” and put a brick round its neck and drown it. I will not use it or hear it used-not even in the crudest physical sense. It’s meaningless. We can’t possess one another. We can only give and hazard all we have-Shakespeare, as Kirk would say… I don’t know what’s the matter with me tonight. Something seems to have got off the chain. I’ve said things I didn’t think I could say if I lived to be a hundred-by which time most of them wouldn’t be worth saying.’

‘It seems to be that kind of day. I’ve said things too. I think I’ve said everything, except-’

‘That’s true. You never have said it. You’ve always found some other phrase for it. Un peu d’audace, que diable!… Well?’

‘I love you.’

‘Bravely said-though I had to screw it out of you like a cork out of a bottle. Why should that phrase be so difficult? I-personal pronoun, subjective case; L-O-V-E, love, verb, active, meaning-Well, on Mr Squeers’s principle, go to bed and work it out.’

The window was still open; for October, the air was strangely mild and still. From somewhere close at hand a cat-probably the ginger torn-lifted its voice in a long-drawn wail of unappeasable yearning. Peter’s right hand searched the sill, and closed upon the granite paperweight. But even in the act, he changed his mind, released his grip and with the other hand drew the casement to and fastened it

‘Who am I,’ said he aloud, ‘to cast stones at my fellow-mortal?’