THE MATADOR OF THE FIVE TOWNS - The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories

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THE MATADOR OF THE FIVE TOWNS AND OTHER STORIES

by

ARNOLD BENNETT

1912

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

NOVELS

A MAN FROM THE NORTH
ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS
LEONORA
A GREAT MAN
SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE
WHOM GOD HATH JOINED
BURIED ALIVE
THE OLD WIVES' TALE
THE GLIMPSE
HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND
CLAYHANGER
HILDA LESSWAYS
THE CARD

FANTASIAS

THE GRAND BABYLON HOTEL
THE GATES OF WRATH
TERESA OF WATLING STREET
THE LOOT OF CITIES
HUGO
THE GHOST
THE CITY OF PLEASURE

SHORT STORIES

TALES OF THE FIVE TOWNS
THE GRIM SMILE OF THE FIVE TOWNS

BELLES-LETTRES

JOURNALISM FOR WOMEN
FAME AND FICTION
HOW TO BECOME AN AUTHOR
THE TRUTH ABOUT AN AUTHOR
THE REASONABLE LIFE
HOW TO LIVE ON TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY
THE HUMAN MACHINE
LITERARY TASTE
THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND

DRAMA

POLITE FARCES
CUPID AND COMMON SENSE
WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS
THE HONEYMOON

(In Collaboration with EDEN PHILLPOTTS)

THE SINEWS OF WAR: A ROMANCE
THE STATUE: A ROMANCE

CONTENTS

TRAGIC

THE MATADOR OF THE FIVE TOWNS
MIMI
THE SUPREME ILLUSION
THE LETTER AND THE LIE
THE GLIMPSE

FROLIC

JOCK-AT-A-VENTURE
THE HEROISM OF THOMAS CHADWICK
UNDER THE CLOCK
THREE EPISODES IN THE LIFE OF MR COWLISHAW, DENTIST
CATCHING THE TRAIN
THE WIDOW OF THE BALCONY
THE CAT AND CUPID
THE FORTUNE-TELLER
THE LONG-LOST UNCLE
THE TIGHT HAND
WHY THE CLOCK STOPPED
HOT POTATOES
HALF-A-SOVEREIGN
THE BLUE SUIT
THE TIGER AND THE BABY
THE REVOLVER
AN UNFAIR ADVANTAGE

THE MATADOR OF THE FIVE TOWNS

I

Mrs Brindeley looked across the lunch-table at her husband with glinting, eager eyes, which showed that there was something unusual in the brain behind them.

"Bob," she said, factitiously calm. "You don't know what I've just remembered!"

"Well?" said he.

"It's only grandma's birthday to-day!"

My friend Robert Brindley, the architect, struck the table with a violent fist, making his little boys blink, and then he said quietly:

"_The_ deuce!"

I gathered that grandmamma's birthday had been forgotten and that it was not a festival that could be neglected with impunity. Both Mr and Mrs Brindley had evidently a humorous appreciation of crises, contretemps, and those collisions of circumstances which are usually called "junctures" for short. I could have imagined either of them saying to the other: "Here's a funny thing! The house is on fire!" And then yielding to laughter as they ran for buckets. Mrs Brindley, in particular, laughed now; she gazed at the table-cloth and laughed almost silently to herself; though it appeared that their joint forgetfulness might result in temporary estrangement from a venerable ancestor who was also, birthdays being duly observed, a continual fount of rich presents in specie.

		There is no more important rule of conduct in the world than this: attach yourself as much as you can to people who are abler than you and yet not so very different that you cannot understand them. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg