NOUGHTS AND CROSSES***
E-text prepared by Lionel Sear
NOUGHTS AND CROSSES
Stories, Studies and Sketches
by
ARTHUR THOMAS QUILLER-COUCH (Q)
Two of the following stories were first published in _Longman's Magazine_; the rest are selected from a number contributed to _The Speaker_. For permission to reprint them I must sincerely thank the two Editors. Q.
TO MY WIFE.
CONTENTS.
The Omnibus.
Fortunio.
The Outlandish Ladies.
Statement of Gabriel Foot, Highwayman.
The Return of Joanna.
Psyche.
The Countess of Bellarmine.
A Cottage in Troy--
I. A. Happy Voyage.
II. These-An'-That's Wife.
III. "Doubles" and Quits.
IV. The Boy by the Beach.
Old Aeson.
Stories of Bleakirk--
I. The Affair of Bleakirk-on-Sands.
II. The Constant Post-Boy.
A Dark Mirror.
The Small People.
The Mayor of Gantick.
The Doctor's Foundling.
The Gifts of Feodor Himkoff.
Yorkshire Dick.
The Carol.
The Paradise of Choice.
Beside the Bee Hives.
The Magic Shadow.
NOUGHTS AND CROSSES.
THE OMNIBUS.
It was not so much a day as a burning, fiery furnace. The roar of London's traffic reverberated under a sky of coppery blue; the pavements threw out waves of heat, thickened with the reek of restaurants and perfumery shops; and dust became cinders, and the wearing of flesh a weariness. Streams of sweat ran from the bellies of 'bus-horses when they halted. Men went up and down with unbuttoned waistcoats, turned into drinking-bars, and were no sooner inside than they longed to be out again, and baking in an ampler oven. Other men, who had given up drinking because of the expense, hung about the fountains in Trafalgar Square and listened to the splash of running water. It was the time when London is supposed to be empty; and when those who remain in town feel there is not room for a soul more.
We were eleven inside the omnibus when it pulled up at Charing Cross, so that legally there was room for just one more. I had travelled enough in omnibuses to know my fellow-passengers by heart-- a governess with some sheets of music in her satchel; a minor actress going to rehearsal; a woman carrying her incurable complaint for the hundredth time to the hospital; three middle-aged city clerks; a couple of reporters with weak eyes and low collars; an old loose-cheeked woman exhaling patchouli; a bald-headed man with hairy hands, a violent breast-pin, and the indescribable air of a matrimonial agent. Not a word passed. We were all failures in life, and could not trouble to dissemble it, in that heat. Moreover, we were used to each other, as types if not as persons, and had lost curiosity. So we sat listless, dispirited, drawing difficult breath and staring vacuously. The hope we shared in common--that nobody would claim the vacant seat--was too obvious to be discussed.
