Arnold Bennett - Son of Stoke-on-Trent



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The Matador of the Five Towns


The Matador of the Five Towns and other stories
- short stories -
1912

"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."


Titles of the stories in The Matador of the Five Towns:
  • The Matador of the Five Towns.
  • Mimi.
  • The Supreme Illusion.
  • The Letter and The Lie.
  • The Glimpse.
  • Jock-at-a-Venture.
  • The Heroism of Thomas Chadwick.
  • Under the Clock.
  • Three Eposodes 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.

 



next: These Twain
previous: Hilda Lessways
contents: Bennett's 'Five Towns' books

index page for Arnold Bennett