"
The boy vanished, but was back in an instant.
"Please, sir, he won't go."
"Won't go! What d'you mean?" Cullingworth sat with
his mouth open and his knife and fork sticking up. "What
d'you mean, you brat? What are you boggling about?"
"It's his bill, sir," said the frightened boy.
Cullingworth's face grew dusky, and the veins began
to swell on his forehead.
"His bill, eh! Look here!" He took his watch out
and laid it on the table. "It's two minutes to eight.
At eight I'm coming out, and if I find him there I'll
strew the street with him. Tell him I'll shred him over
the parish. He has two minutes to save his life in, and
one of them is nearly gone."
The boy bolted from the room, and in an instant
afterwards we heard the bang of the front door, with a
clatter of steps down the stairs. Cullingworth lay back
in his chair and roared until the tears shone on his
eyelashes, while his wife quivered all over with
sympathetic merriment.
"I'll drive him mad," Cullingworth sobbed at last.
"He's a nervous, chicken-livered kind of man; and when I
look at him he turns the colour of putty. If I pass
his shop I usually just drop in and stand and look at
him. I never speak, but just look. It paralyses him.
Sometimes the shop is full of people; but it is just the
same."
"Who is he, then?" I asked.
"He's my corn merchant. I was saying that I paid my
tradesmen as I go, but he is the only exception.
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