was just a case of looks being deceptive.
Albert Simpkins was forty-five, but prematurely thinning hair made him look ten years older. He held the not too lofty position of chief projectionist in a local cinema, a position to which he clung with all his might because here, in his own little domain, he was absolute boss. At least he had reached the top as far as buildings were concerned. Here he had the chance to exercise traits of character that were normally crushed—and the boy and youth who worked with him as assistants were fairly obedient, mainly because they rather liked “Old Simmy.”
It was at home where Albert Simpkins received the biggest blows. At twenty-five he had married Emily Dawson. At that time she had been a fetching cashier with curly blonde hair and an infectious smile. Albert had then been a second projectionist, and they had walked home together. Inevitably, they had seen the future as all sunbeams, romance, and progress—and now, twenty years later, in the present-day hurrying scientific world, they found themselves very much wearied with each other, just about able to get along, and saddled with the responsibility of three daughters and a son. Yes, Albert Simpkins had a lot on his mind and little in his pocket.
“It wouldn’t be so bad, Emily,” he said one evening, when he had returned from his usual night’s work at the Premier Cinema, “if Bob could be made to cough up what rightly belongs to me. We’d have plenty then.”
“Dreams!” Emily sighed. “Like everything else you indulge in! Empty, silly dreams! Bob will never give you anything, and you know it!”
Albert was silent, realising that Emily was probably right. Bob Simpkins was Albert’s elder brother, possessed of all the terrific self-assurance that Albert completely lacked. He was a big man in the grocery distribution business somewhere in North London, and spent his time making his money, and his spare moments sneering at failures. By some kind of legal know-how that Albert had never been able to fathom, his brother had claimed all the money left in Mrs. Simpkins’ will. It had been a fair sum, for Mrs. Simpkins had had plenty at her death. The net result was that the roaring, domineering Bob had got the lot and—as usual—Albert had got nothing. Emily knew the facts, and so did the children. Because of them Albert was considered to be an even bigger fool than his appearance suggested.
“No,” Emily decided, hauling her fat back as she rolled in her chair at the supper table, “Bob will never give you a thing—unless it’s a slap on the back that will knock you silly. Sillier, that is, than you are already.”
Albert looked at her and did not like what he saw. In twenty years Emily had become gray-haired, and so fat it was difficult to tell where her head ended and her shoulders began. Of course her eyes were still blue, but this was all that remained of the once-laughing girl who had waved a torch so adroitly for the latecomers at the Premier Cinema.
As for Albert, he was pinched and pale. His lack of color was not so much due to ill health as to the constant inhalation of carbon fumes from the projectors. Twenty years of breathing in poison had left their mark. He looked unhappy and somewhat vacant, though actually his uncomprehending gaze was born of the fact that lie was always dreaming—dreaming of that which he had not got. Money, fame, fortune, all the world at his feet. Yet—and here was the unusual thing—Albert believed he could have all these things if he could only pin together several really bright ideas that for years had been chasing around in his mind in dissociated form. It was just a matter of linking them up, and some day he would.
“Where are the kids?” he asked presently, apropos of nothing, and Emily yawned.
“Dick and Betty are in bed. Ethel’s not got back yet from night school, and Vera’s been out since seven with young Hal Morrison. They’re in a dancing competition or something.”
“Mmmm.” Albert finished drinking his tea. “Be a help if Hal would take Vera off our hands. One less to bother about.”
“Wouldn’t make any difference. Ethel makes enough to keep herself. If she went, we’d still be where we are now—on the edge of the rocks.”
Albert muttered something to himself and got to his feet. He wandered about the untidy little kitchen for a moment or two, then selected one of the dozens of scientific magazines lying in a haphazard pile in a corner and sat in the worn armchair to read. Emily’s blue eyes followed his movements and her cushiony lips compressed.
“That’s what I complain about with you, Albert. When you haven’t your job to do, you waste your time instead of improving it! Most men, when the day’s work is done, spend their time thinking up ways to get more money and improve the lot of themselves and their families. But not you! Oh, no! You have to read all this scientific trash—day in, night out. Every spare moment! What good does it do you?”
Albert turned the worn magazine pages slowly but did not look up. “It never hurts to improve the mind, Emmy. I don’t get much chance to relax, remember. Matinees and evening shows swallow up a lot of time, and on my day off, I’ve things to do—tidying the garden, titivating the house, and so on. ’Sides, I like reading about scientific things when we live in a scientific age. Won’t be long now the way rocketry is progressing before travel into space becomes an everyday thing.”
“I’m not interested in reaching the moon! I’m only interested that you should better things. You’ve got to forty-five and haven’t done it yet. Doesn’t leave much time, you know. Dreams! Always dreams!”
“Uh-huh,” Albert sighed. “Pretty well all I have left these days, Emmy.… Yet, you know,” he continued, his eyes brightening a little, “there’s one dream which I believe I shall one day make come true. And if I do I’ll be—”
“Oh, such rubbish!” Emily surged to her feet, disgusted, her immense bosom flopping. “It’s a waste of time talking to you. Here, give me a hand with these crocks and leave that scientific rubbish until later. It’ll keep.”
Uncomplaining, Albert tossed the magazine down upon its battered companions and struggled out of the armchair. Thereafter, in pensive silence, he helped his ample spouse with the washing-up, and such was the scientific slant in his mentality he actually seemed to find something intriguing in the way the soapsuds exploded on her fleshy forearms as she savagely swabbed the plates and cups.
“If you’d get an automatic washer instead of dreaming, we’d be better off!” she commented acidly. “I’m getting past doing all the washing, cleaning, pot washing, ironing, and chores ad infinitum. Sometimes I wonder why I ever quit working as a cashier. Might even go back to it. They take ’em at forty-five even now. Some cinemas prefer them. You’re not prone to goings-on in the dark when you’re forty-five.”
“Know something, Emmy? Those suds explode on your skin because of the air pressure inside being greater than that outside. A simple scientific fact, and yet it has interest.”
“Has it?” Emily stared at her wet forearms. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“Just thinking out loud. The idea I have chasing around in my mind hasn’t anything to do with soapsuds, but the basic principle is just as simple.”
This time Emily did not say anything. She was accustomed to Albert talking in this vague fashion, and since none of his theories seemed to crystallize into anything, she considered them beneath her notice.
“I suppose,” she resumed presently, as the washing-up came to an end, “that you propose to end your days at the Premier, if the management tolerate you that long?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Depends how much I learn. It can be quite interesting in a projection
