TURGIS SEES HER 1^1

slowly, partly because he suffered from rheumatism, and
partly because he was a man of great dignity. To look
at him, at his slack and dingy figure, at his watery eyes,
bottle nose, ragged and drooping grey moustache, to
mark his leisurely air, was to imagine at once that Mr.
Pelumpton was one of those men who do not work
themselves, but merely see that their wives and children
work for them. But this was not the truth. Mr. Pelump-
ton did work, as his talk would quickly inform you.
He was a dealer. He had no shop of his own, but he had
some vague connection with a shop, where an astonish-
ing variety of second, third, or fourth hand goods were
sold, owned by a friend of his. He passed his time in a
dusty underworld in which battered chests of drawers
and broken gramophones changed hands and the deals
were in shillings and the commission in pence. He
interviewed parties who had for sale a cracked toilet set
or an old bicycle or five mildewed volumes of The
Stately Homes of England. He could sometimes be
found in the humblest auction rooms, ready to bid up
to half a crown for the odds and ends. Every Friday
he became a bona fide merchant by making an appear-
ing in Caledonian Market, where, on that grey and
windy height, he stood beside a small but very varied
stock, consisting perhaps of a Banjo Tutor, two chipped
pink vases, a silk under-skirt, a large photograph of
General Buller, five dirty tennis balls, a zither with
most of the strings missing, and the Letters of Charles
Kingsley. Dealing thus in things that were only one
remove from the dust-bin. Mr. Pelumpton did not con-
trive to make much money, and indeed he had been
dependent for some time on Mrs. Pelumpton and
Edgar; but, on the other hand, you could not say he