Notably his wife’s nephew, Willie Partridge, whom he looked on as a specious loafer. He had a stubborn disbelief in the explosive that was to revolutionise war. He knew, as all the world did, that Willie’s late father had been a great inventor, but he did not accept the fact that Willie had inherited the dead man’s genius. He regarded the experiments on Partridgite, as it was to be called, with the profoundest scepticism, and considered that the only thing Willie had ever invented or was likely to invent was a series of ingenious schemes for living in fatted idleness on other people’s money.
“Exactly,” said Mrs. Pett, delighted at the suggestion. “The very thing.”
“Will you write and suggest it?” said Mr. Pett, basking in the sunshine of unwonted commendation.
“What would be the use of writing? Eugenia would pay no attention. Besides, I could not say all I wished to in a letter. No, the only thing is to go over to England and see her. I shall speak very plainly to her. I shall point out what an advantage it will be to the boy to be in your office and to live here….”
Ann started.
“You don’t mean live here–in this house?”
“Of course. There would be no sense in bringing the boy all the way over from England if he was to be allowed to run loose when he got here.”
Mr. Pett coughed deprecatingly.
“I don’t think that would he very pleasant for Ann, dear.”
“Why in the name of goodness should Ann object?”
Ann moved towards the door.
“Thank you for thinking of it, uncle Peter. You’re always a dear. But don’t worry about me. Do just as you want to. In any case I’m quite certain that you won’t be able to get him to come over here. You can see by the paper he’s having far too good a time in London. You can call Jimmy Crockers from the vasty deep, but will they come when you call for them?”
Mrs. Pett looked at the door as it closed behind her, then at her husband.
“What do you mean, Peter, about Ann? Why wouldn’t it be pleasant for her if this Crocker boy came to live with us?”
Mr. Pett hesitated.
“Well, it’s like this, Nesta. I hope you won’t tell her I told you. She’s sensitive about it, poor girl. It all happened before you and I were married. Ann was much younger then. You know what schoolgirls are, kind of foolish and sentimental. It was my fault really, I ought to have…”
“Good Heavens, Peter! What are you trying to tell me?”
“She was only a child.”
Mrs. Pett rose in slow horror.
“Peter! Tell me! Don’t try to break it gently.”
“Ann wrote a book of poetry and I had it published for her.”
Mrs. Pett sank back in her chair.
“Oh!” she said–it would have been hard to say whether with relief or disappointment. “Whatever did you make such a fuss for? Why did you want to be so mysterious?”
“It was all my fault, really,” proceeded Mr. Pett. “I ought to have known better. All I thought of at the time was that it would please the child to see the poems in print and be able to give the book to her friends. She did give it to her friends,” he went on ruefully, “and ever since she’s been trying to live it down. I’ve seen her bite a young fellow’s head off when he tried to make a grand-stand play with her by quoting her poems which he’d found in his sister’s book-shelf.”
“But, in the name of goodness, what has all this to do with young Crocker?”
“Why, it was this way. Most of the papers just gave Ann’s book a mention among ‘Volumes Received,’ or a couple of lines that didn’t amount to anything, but the -Chronicle- saw a Sunday feature in it, as Ann was going about a lot then and was a well-known society girl. They sent this Crocker boy to get an interview from her, all about her methods of work and inspirations and what not. We never suspected it wasn’t the straight goods. Why, that very evening I mailed an order for a hundred copies to be sent to me when the thing appeared. And–” pinkness came upon Mr. Pett at the recollection “it was just a josh from start to finish. The young hound made a joke of the poems and what Ann had told him about her inspirations and quoted bits of the poems just to kid the life out of them…. I thought Ann would never get over it. Well, it doesn’t worry her any more–she’s grown out of the school-girl stage–but you can bet she isn’t going to get up and give three cheers and a tiger if you bring young Crocker to live in the same house.”