realized that she
was desirable, and that a man might desire her, and that her lonely
existence in that house was not all that she had the right to demand
from life. And I was ashamed of my characteristic filial selfish
egoism. So I decided that I would not intrude my joys on hers until the
next morning. We live and learn.

BEGINNING THE NEW YEAR

I

We are a stolid and a taciturn race, we of the Five Towns. It may be
because we are geographically so self contained; or it may be because
we work in clay and iron; or it may merely be because it is our nature
to be stolid and taciturn. But stolid and taciturn we are; and some of
the instances of our stolidity and our taciturnity are enough to
astound. They do not, of course, astound us natives; we laugh at them,
we think they are an immense joke, and what the outer world may think
does not trouble our deep conceit of ourselves. I have often wondered
what would be the effect, other than an effect of astonishment, on the
outer world, of one of these narratives illustrating our Five Towns
peculiarities of deportment. And I intend for the first time in history
to make such a narrative public property. I have purposely not chosen
an extreme example; just an average example. You will see how it
strikes you.

Toby Hall, once a burgess of Turnhill, the northernmost and smallest of
the Five Towns, was passing, last New Year's Eve, through the district
by train on his way from Crewe to Derby. He lived at Derby, and he was
returning from the funeral of a brother member of the Ancient Order of
Foresters at Crewe. He got out of the train at Knype, the great railway
centre of the Five Towns, to have a glass of beer in the second-class
refreshment-room. It being New Year's Eve, the traffic was heavy and
disorganized, especially in the refreshment-room, and when Toby Hall
emerged on to the platform again the train was already on the move.
Toby was neither young nor active. His years were fifty, and on account
of the funeral he wore broadcloth and a silk hat, and his overcoat was
new and encumbering. Impossible to take a flying leap into the train!
He missed the train. And then he reflectively stroked his short grey
beard (he had no moustache, and his upper lip was very long), and then
he smoothed down his new overcoat over his rotund form.

'Young man,' he asked a porter. 'When's next train Derby way?'

'Ain't none afore tomorrow.'

Toby went and had another glass of beer