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.Obviously it may be good for one not to know too much.And such a view accords very well with constitutional indolence.On that evening on which it may be said that Mrs.Verloc's mother having parted for good from her children had also departed this life, Winnie Verloc did not investigate her bother's psychology.The poor boy was excited, of course.After once more assuring the old woman on the threshold that she would know how to guard against the risk of Stevie losing himself for very long on his pilgrimages of filial piety, she took her brother's arm to walk away.Stevie did not even mutter to himself, but with the special sense of sisterly devotion developed in her earliest infancy, she felt that the boy was very much excited indeed.Holding tight to his arm, under the appearance of leaning on it, she thought of some words suitable to the occasion.»Now, Stevie, you must look well after me at the crossings, and get first into the 'bus, like a good brother.«This appeal to manly protection was received by Stevie with his usual docility.It flattered him.He raised his head and threw out his chest.»Don't be nervous, Winnie.Mustn't be nervous! 'Bus all right,« he answered in a brusque, slurring stammer partaking of the timorousness of a child and the resolution of a man.He advanced fearlessly with the woman on his arm, but his lower lip dropped.Nevertheless, on the pavement of the squalid and wide thoroughfare, whose poverty in all the amenities of life stood foolishly exposed by a mad profusion of gas-lights, their resemblance to each other was so pronounced as to strike the casual passers-by.Before the doors of the public-house at the corner, where the profusion of gas-light reached the height of positive wickedness, a four-wheeled cab standing by the curbstone, with no one on the box, seemed cast out into the gutter on account of irremediable decay.Mrs.Verloc recognized the conveyance.Its aspect was so profoundly lamentable, with such a perfection of grotesque misery and weirdness of macabre detail, as if it were the Cab of Death itself, that Mrs.Verloc, with that ready compassion of a woman for a horse (when she is not sitting behind him), exclaimed vaguely!»Poor brute.«Hanging back suddenly, Stevie inflicted an arresting jerk upon his sister.»Poor! Poor!« he ejaculated, appreciatively.»Cabman poor, too.He told me himself.«The contemplation of the infirm and lonely steed overcame him.Jostled, but obstinate, he would remain there, trying to express the view newly opened to his sympathies of the human and equine misery in close association.But it was very difficult.»Poor brute, poor people!« was all he could repeat.It did not seem forcible enough, and he came to a stop with an angry splutter: »Shame!« Stevie was no master of phrases, and perhaps for that very reason his thoughts lacked clearness and precision.But he felt with greater completeness and some profundity.That little word contained all his sense of indignation and horror at one sort of wretchedness having to feed upon the anguish of the other – at the poor cabman beating the poor horse in the name, as it were, of his poor kids at home.And Stevie knew what it was to be beaten.He knew it from experience.It was a bad world.Bad! Bad!Mrs.Verloc, his only sister, guardian, and protector, could not pretend to such depths of insight.Moreover, she had not experienced the magic of the cabman's eloquence.She was in the dark as to the inwardness of the word ›Shame.‹ And she said placidly:»Come along, Stevie.You can't help that.«The docile Stevie went along; but now he went along without pride, shamblingly, and muttering half words, and even words that would have been whole if they had not been made up of halves that did not belong to each other.It was as though he had been trying to fit all the words he could remember to his sentiments in order to get some sort of corresponding idea.And, as a matter of fact, he got it at last.He hung back to utter it at once.»Bad world for poor people.«Directly he had expressed that thought he became aware that it was familiar to him already in all its consequences.This circumstance strengthened his conviction immensely, but also augmented his indignation.Somebody, he felt, ought to be punished for it – punished with great severity.Being no sceptic, but a moral creature, he was in a manner at the mercy of his righteous passions.»Beastly!« he added, concisely.It was clear to Mrs.Verloc that he was greatly excited.»Nobody can help that,« she said.»Do come along.Is that the way you're taking care of me?«Stevie mended his pace obediently.He prided himself on being a good brother.His morality, which was very complete, demanded that from him.Yet he was pained at the information imparted by his sister Winnie – who was good.Nobody could help that! He came along gloomily, but presently he brightened up.Like the rest of mankind, perplexed by the mystery of the universe, he had his moments of consoling trust in the organized powers of the earth.»Police,« he suggested, confidently.»The police aren't for that,« observed Mrs.Verloc, cursorily, hurrying on her way.Stevie's face lengthened considerably.He was thinking.The more intense his thinking, the slacker was the droop of his lower jaw.And it was with an aspect of hopeless vacancy that he gave up his intelectual enterprise.»Not for that?« he mumbled, resigned but surprised.»Not for that?« He had formed for himself an ideal conception of the metropolitan police as a sort of benevolent institution for the suppression of evil.The notion of benevolence especially was very closely associated with his sense of the power of the men in blue.He had liked all police constables tenderly, with a guileless trustfulness.And he was pained.He was irritated, too, by a suspicion of duplicity in the members of the force.For Stevie was frank and as open as the day himself.What did they mean by pretending then? Unlike his sister, who put her trust in face values, he wished to go to the bottom of the matter.He carried on his inquiry by means of an angry challenge.»What are they for then, Winn? What are they for? Tell me.«Winnie disliked controversy.But fearing most a fit of black depression consequent on Stevie missing his mother very much at first, she did not altogether decline the discussion
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