Hole and Corner Read Free

feeling that they wouldn’t make such an awful muck of everything if you’d let them have a proper meal sometimes.”
    Jasper ran his inky fingers through his hair. A slightly sheepish expression struggled through the frown.
    â€œAs a matter of fact it wasn’t the book. It ought to have been, but it wasn’t. I got an idea for a poem. It isn’t worked out or anything, but it’s an idea.” His hand came down from his hair, fished in a gaping pocket, and produced a smeared and crumpled piece of paper. “I could read it to you if you’ve time.”
    Shirley said, “’M—not more than five minutes. Mustn’t be late, because I was late yesterday, and she said everything you can say then. If she had to think of some more to-day, something might go pop, and then I’d be out of a job. I suppose you know you’ve got a button just hanging.”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter.”
    â€œIt does. You’ll lose it, and then you’ll have to buy another. Wait a sec and I’ll sew it on while you read me your stuff.”
    She ran upstairs with even less regard for Miss Maltby’s nerves than she had shown when coming down, and was back in a minute with a threaded needle.
    â€œWhat does it matter about the button?” said Jasper. He gloomed self-consciously at the smudged sheet in his hand, and added with impatience, “Come in and shut the door.”
    Shirley made a very fine Woggy Doodle at Miss Maltby’s doors. Then she skipped into the room, left the door ostentatiously open, and said in a reproving voice,
    â€œJas, I’m surprised at you! Just think what the Maltby would say! I’ve got a character if you haven’t. Now hurry up with the poem, because I’m not going to be late even for you.”
    He shrugged a pettish shoulder.
    â€œHow can I read anything with the whole house listening?”
    Shirley pricked him sharply on the arm with her needle.
    â€œDarling Jas, I shall probably stab you to the heart if you do that again. Nobody’s listening, but if they were , you ought to be pleased . Don’t you want to have a public? Come on—get it off your chest!” She bent to the button.
    Over her head Mr Wrenn declaimed in tones rendered hoarse by emotion:
    â€œWake in the night and find
    That you are blind.
    No left, no right,
    No up, no down,
    No shape or form—
    And there you drown
    In a despair
    That says ‘ You are not ,’
    And, ‘ You never were .’
    Wake in the night and find
    That you are blind.
    Nothing is real at all,
    Nothing is true.
    There never was a day,
    There is no you.
    Wake in the night and find
    That you are blind!”
    â€œGlory!” said Shirley. “How damp !”
    He pulled furiously away from her, and the cotton broke.
    â€œHow do you mean damp ?”
    â€œNow look what you’ve done! As a matter of fact I’d just finished, so it doesn’t matter, except that I might have pricked you to the bone. When people are kindly sewing buttons on for you, you ought to stand still.”
    â€œWhat do you mean by damp ? That’s what I want to know!”
    Shirley wrinkled her nose at him.
    â€œWell, it gave me a sort of creep down the middle of my spine—like getting into a wet bathing-dress.”
    Jasper scowled.
    â€œIf it gave you a creep, that’s what it was meant to do. Why drag in bathing-dresses?”
    Shirley gurgled.
    â€œI didn’t drag them in—they came. That’s the way my mind works—if I don’t think of something practical at once it just goes floating up in the air like a balloon, and then I feel giddy.” She darned the needle in behind the revers of her coat and kissed her finger-tips to the frown. “ Some day the wind will change and you’ll get stuck like that. And nobody’ll ever fall in love with you. Must fly—I’m a wage-slave.” She ran down the remaining stairs and