Two hours later he was sitting in a ridiculous position two steps from the bottom of the hall stairs—ridiculous because the stair was not broad enough for his figure, because the blue ribbon was now firmly tied and ended in a large blue bow, because Mary’s hand was upon him, restraining him from his quite natural intention of disappearing.

They were grouped about the stair, Helen and Mary, Barbara and the nurse, Mr. and Mrs. Cole and Aunt Amy in the hall below. Helen, Mary and Barbara were wearing cocked hats made of coloured paper and carried silver tissue wands in their hands. Barbara was eating her tissue paper with great eagerness and a vivid, absorbed attention. Helen looked pretty and bored; Mary was in a state of the utmost nervousness, clutching Hamlet with one hand while in the other she held a toy trumpet and a crumpled piece of paper.

Everyone waited, staring at the door. Mr. Cole said:

“Five minutes late. I must go back to my sermon in a moment.”

Aunt Amy said: “I hope nothing can have happened.”

Mrs. Cole said tranquilly: “We should have heard if it had.”

The front door bell rang; a maid appeared from nowhere and opened the door. From the dusk there emerged a small, heavily coated figure. Mr. and Mrs. Cole moved forward. There were embraces. Mr. Cole said: “Well, my boy.” A husky voice was heard: “Oh, I say, mother, that old squeak of a cabman——”

The short, thick-set figure turned towards the staircase.

Instantly Mary blew on her trumpet. Barbara, suddenly disliking the tissue paper, began to cry. Hamlet barked.

Through the din the quavering voice of Mary could be heard reading the poem of welcome:

There should then have followed a blast on the trumpet and three rousing cheers. Alas! the welcome was a complete and devastating failure.

Jeremy could be heard to say:

“Thanks awfully.... By Jove, I am hungry. How soon’s tea, mother?”

Barbara’s howls were now so terrible as to demand immediate attention from everyone. Hamlet had slipped from control and was barking at Aunt Amy, whom he delighted to annoy. Mrs. Cole said: “Now that’s enough, children dear. I’m sure Jeremy’s tired now.” No one had heard Mary’s verses; no one noticed the cocked hats; no one applauded the silver wands. The work of weeks was disregarded. No one thought of Mary at all. She crept away to her room at the top of the house, flung herself upon her bed and howled, biting the counterpane between her teeth.

But are not these home-comings always most disappointing affairs? For weeks Jeremy had been looking to this moment. On the frayed wallpaper just above his bed in the school dormitory he had made thick black marks with a pencil, every mark standing for a day. Hard and cynical during his school-day, a barbarian at war with barbarians, at nights, when the lights were out, when the dormitory story-teller’s (unhappy Phipps minor) voice had died off into slumber, in those last few minutes before he too slept, he was sentimental, full of home-sick longings, painting to himself that very springing from the cab, his mother’s kiss, Hamlet’s bark, yes, and even the embraces of his sisters. On the morning of departure, after the excitement of farewells, the strange, almost romantic thrill of the empty schoolrooms, the race in the wagonette (his wagonette against the one with Cox major and Bates and Simpson) to the station, the cheeking of the station-master, the crowding into the railway carriage and leaning (five on top of you) out of the carriage window, the screams of “Bags I the corner,” the ensuing fights with Cox major, after all this gradual approach to known country, the gathering-in as though with an eager hand of remembered places and stations and roads, the half-hour stop at Drymouth (leaving now almost all your companions behind you—only young Marlowe and Sniffs major remaining), the crossing over into Glebeshire, then the beat of the heart, the tightening of the throat, as Polchester gradually approached—all this, yes and more, much more, than this, to end in that disappointment! Everyone looking the same as before, the hall the same, the pictures the same, father and mother and Aunt Amy the same, Mary and Helen the same only stupider! What did they dress up and make fools of themselves like that for? Mary always did the wrong thing, and now most certainly she would be crying in her bedroom because he had not said enough to her....

In one way there had been too much of a reception, in another not enough. It was silly of them to make that noise, but on the other hand there should have been more questions. How had he done in football? He had played half-back twice for the school. He had told them that in three different letters, and yet they had asked no questions. And there was Bates who had stolen jam out of a fellow’s tuck box. One of his letters had been full of that exciting incident, and yet they had asked no questions. It was true that they had had but little time for questions, nevertheless his father, at once after kissing him, had murmured something about his sermon—as though an old sermon mattered!

Of course he did not think all this out. He only sat on his bed kicking his legs, looking at the well-remembered furniture of his room, vaguely discontented and unhappy. What fun it had been that morning, ragging Miss Taylor, laughing at the guard of the train, saying good-bye to old Mumpsey Thompson who recently spoke to him as though he were a man, asking him whether his parents had decided upon the public school to which, in two years’ time, he would be going—Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Craxton, Rugby, Crale and so on. Time to decide, time to decide!

One’s public! The world widening and widening, growing ever more terribly exciting—and here Mary, sobbing in her room, and father with his sermons and the long evenings. At least no work—only a silly holiday task, a book called “The Talisman,” or some rot. No work. His spirits revived a little. No work and lots of food, and Hamlet....

Hamlet! He jumped off his bed. Why, he had never noticed the dog! He had forgotten. He rushed from the room.

When he was half-way down the stairs he caught the echo of a voice: “Tea, Jeremy. All ready in the schoolroom.” But he did not pause. In the hall he saw the housemaid. “I say, where’s Hamlet?” he cried.

“In the kitchen, I expect, Master Jeremy,” she answered.

In the kitchen, she expected! Why should she expect it? Hamlet never used to be in the kitchen. His heart began to beat angrily. The kitchen? That was not the place for a dog like Hamlet. He stumbled down the dark stairs into the basement. Mrs. Hounslow was standing beside the kitchen table, her sleeves rolled up above her elbows; she was pounding and pounding. Jeremy cried, at once challenging:

“I say, where’s my dog?”

His dog? Mrs. Hounslow, already too scarlet for further colour, nevertheless crimsoned internally. His dog! She hated little boys. Her sister, the one that married the postman, had had one. Two indeed. She loved Hamlet, who had become now, by the rights both of psychology and environment, hers.

“’E’s lying there right in front of the fire, Master Jeremy—the poor little worm,” she added.

“The poor little worm” was indeed stretched out gnawing at a bone.

“He oughtn’t to be in front of the fire,” said Jeremy. “It’s bad for dogs. It gives them rheumatism.”

She stopped her pounding. They had not met before, but it was one of those old hostilities born in the air, fostered by the crystal moon, roughened by the golden sun.

Jeremy stood, his legs apart, looking down upon his dog. He saw how fat he was, how deeply engrossed in his bone, how dribbling at the jaws.

“Hamlet!” he said. He repeated the name three times. At the third call the dog looked up, then went back to his bone. Mrs. Hounslow sniffed.

Meanwhile in Hamlet’s soul something was stirring—memories, affections, sentiments.... He licked the bone again. It no longer tasted so sweet as before. He looked up at Mrs. Hounslow imploringly.

She declared herself. “He do love the kitchen. If there’s one place where he loves to be, it’s the kitchen. Only last night I was saying to my sister, ‘Anne,’ I said, ‘it’s a most curious thing how that dog do love the kitchen.’ A little kindness goes a long way with animals, poor things. As I said to my sister——”

“But he oughtn’t to love the kitchen!” Jeremy burst out indignantly. “He isn’t a kitchen dog!”

Mrs. Hounslow had received the Last Insult. Her face darkened sub rosa. She to be reproached, she who had been the only one to show affection to the poor deserted lamb, she who had protected him and fed him and given him warm places in which to sleep. A kitchen dog! And her kitchen the cleanest, shiniest, most bescoured kitchen in Polchester!

She had, however, her dignity.

“That’s as may be, Master Jeremy,” she said. “But it’s natural, both in dogs and humans, that they should go to them as cares for them best and takes trouble over them.”

She went on with her pounding, breathing deeply.

Jeremy looked at her. He had hurt her feelings. He was sorry for that. After all, she had been kind to the dog—in her own way. She naturally could not understand the point of view that he must take.

“Thank you very much,” he said huskily, “for having been so kind to Hamlet all this time.... He’s going to live upstairs now—but it was very good of you to take so much trouble.”

Hamlet was deep in his bone once more. When Jeremy put his hand on his collar he growled. That roused Jeremy’s temper. He dragged the dog across the floor; Hamlet pushed out his legs, and behind his hair his eyes glared. The door closed on them both.