sat down and thought. He thought
and thought, with his dome-like forehead resting on his long thin
hand; and what came out of his forehead at last, sprang out of it
as complete in every detail as Pallas Athene when she very
similarly sprang, was that now well-known object on every breakfast
table, Twist's Non-Trickler Teapot.
In five years Mr. Twist made a fortune out of the teapot. His
mother passed from her straitened circumstances to what she still
would only call a modest competence, but what in England would have
been regarded as wallowing in money. She left off being
middle-class, and was received into the lower upper-class, the
upper part of this upper-class being reserved for great names like
Astor, Rockefeller and Vanderbilt. With these Mrs. Twist could not
compete. She would no doubt some day, for Edward was only thirty
and there were still coffee-pots; but what he was able to add to
the family income helped her for a time to bear the loss of the
elder Twist with less of bleakness in her resignation. It was as
though an east wind veered round for a brief space a little to the
south.
Being naturally, however, inclined to deprecation, when every
other reason for it was finally removed by her assiduous son she
once more sought out and firmly laid hold of the departed Twist,
and hung her cherished unhappiness up on him again as if he were a
peg. When the novelty of having a great many bedrooms instead of
six, and a great deal of food not to eat but to throw away, and ten
times of everything else instead of only once, began to wear off,
Mrs. Twist drooped again, and pulled the departed Twist out of the
decent forgetfulness of the past, and he once more came to dinner
in the form of his favourite dishes, and assisted in the family
conversations by means of copious quotations from his alleged
utterances.
Mr. Twist's income was anything between sixty and seventy
thousand pounds a year by the time the war broke out. Having
invented and patented the simple device that kept the table-cloths
of America, and indeed of Europe, spotless, all he had to do was to
receive his percentages; sit still, in fact, and grow richer. But
so much had he changed since his adolescence that he preferred to
stick to his engineering and his office in New York rather than go
home and be happy with his mother.
She could not understand this behaviour in Edward. She
understood his behaviour still less when he went off to France in
1915, himself equipping and giving the ambulance he drove.
For a year his absence, and the dangers he was running, divided
Mrs. Twist's sorrows into halves. Her position as a widow with
an only son in danger touched the imagination of Clark, and she was
never so much called upon as during this year. Now Edward was
coming home for a rest, and there was a subdued flutter about her,
rather like the stirring of the funeral plumes on the heads of
hearse-horses.
While he was crossing the Atlantic and Red-Crossing the
Twinklers--this was one of Anna-Felicitas's epigrams and she
tried Anna-Rose's patience severely by asking her not once but
several times whether she didn't think it funny, whereas
Anna-Rose disliked it from the first because of the suggestion it
contained that Mr. Twist regarded what he did for them as works of
mercy--while Mr. Twist was engaged in these activities, at his home
in Clark all the things Edith could think of that he used most to
like to eat were being got ready. There was an immense slaughtering
of chickens, and baking and churning. Edith, who being now the head
servant of many instead of three was more than double as
hard-worked as she used to be, was on her feet those last few days
without stopping. And she had to go and meet Edward in New York as
well. Whether Mrs. Twist feared that he might not come straight
home or whether it was what she said it was, that dear Edward must
not be the only person on the boat who had no one to meet him, is
not certain; what is certain is that when it came to the
and thought, with his dome-like forehead resting on his long thin
hand; and what came out of his forehead at last, sprang out of it
as complete in every detail as Pallas Athene when she very
similarly sprang, was that now well-known object on every breakfast
table, Twist's Non-Trickler Teapot.
In five years Mr. Twist made a fortune out of the teapot. His
mother passed from her straitened circumstances to what she still
would only call a modest competence, but what in England would have
been regarded as wallowing in money. She left off being
middle-class, and was received into the lower upper-class, the
upper part of this upper-class being reserved for great names like
Astor, Rockefeller and Vanderbilt. With these Mrs. Twist could not
compete. She would no doubt some day, for Edward was only thirty
and there were still coffee-pots; but what he was able to add to
the family income helped her for a time to bear the loss of the
elder Twist with less of bleakness in her resignation. It was as
though an east wind veered round for a brief space a little to the
south.
Being naturally, however, inclined to deprecation, when every
other reason for it was finally removed by her assiduous son she
once more sought out and firmly laid hold of the departed Twist,
and hung her cherished unhappiness up on him again as if he were a
peg. When the novelty of having a great many bedrooms instead of
six, and a great deal of food not to eat but to throw away, and ten
times of everything else instead of only once, began to wear off,
Mrs. Twist drooped again, and pulled the departed Twist out of the
decent forgetfulness of the past, and he once more came to dinner
in the form of his favourite dishes, and assisted in the family
conversations by means of copious quotations from his alleged
utterances.
Mr. Twist's income was anything between sixty and seventy
thousand pounds a year by the time the war broke out. Having
invented and patented the simple device that kept the table-cloths
of America, and indeed of Europe, spotless, all he had to do was to
receive his percentages; sit still, in fact, and grow richer. But
so much had he changed since his adolescence that he preferred to
stick to his engineering and his office in New York rather than go
home and be happy with his mother.
She could not understand this behaviour in Edward. She
understood his behaviour still less when he went off to France in
1915, himself equipping and giving the ambulance he drove.
For a year his absence, and the dangers he was running, divided
Mrs. Twist's sorrows into halves. Her position as a widow with
an only son in danger touched the imagination of Clark, and she was
never so much called upon as during this year. Now Edward was
coming home for a rest, and there was a subdued flutter about her,
rather like the stirring of the funeral plumes on the heads of
hearse-horses.
While he was crossing the Atlantic and Red-Crossing the
Twinklers--this was one of Anna-Felicitas's epigrams and she
tried Anna-Rose's patience severely by asking her not once but
several times whether she didn't think it funny, whereas
Anna-Rose disliked it from the first because of the suggestion it
contained that Mr. Twist regarded what he did for them as works of
mercy--while Mr. Twist was engaged in these activities, at his home
in Clark all the things Edith could think of that he used most to
like to eat were being got ready. There was an immense slaughtering
of chickens, and baking and churning. Edith, who being now the head
servant of many instead of three was more than double as
hard-worked as she used to be, was on her feet those last few days
without stopping. And she had to go and meet Edward in New York as
well. Whether Mrs. Twist feared that he might not come straight
home or whether it was what she said it was, that dear Edward must
not be the only person on the boat who had no one to meet him, is
not certain; what is certain is that when it came to the
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