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diff --git a/26024.txt b/26024.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7867914 --- /dev/null +++ b/26024.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2770 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Marge Askinforit, by Barry Pain + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Marge Askinforit + +Author: Barry Pain + +Release Date: July 11, 2008 [EBook #26024] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARGE ASKINFORIT *** + + + + +Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + + +MARGE ASKINFORIT + +BY BARRY PAIN + +NEW YORK + +DUFFIELD AND COMPANY + +1921 + + + + +CONTENTS + + AUTHOR'S NOTE 7 + + I. THE CATASTROPHIC FAMILY 9 + + II. EBULLIENT YOUTH 18 + + III. GLADSTONE--LLOYD GEORGE--INMEMORISON--DR. + BENGER HORLICK 26 + + IV. THE SOLES 40 + + V. MISFIRES 50 + + VI. TESTIMONIALS--ROYAL APPRECIATION 64 + + VII. SELF-ESTIMATE 78 + LATE EXTRA 83 + + + + + "And every week you opened your hoard + Of truthful and tasteful tales-- + How you sat on the knees of the Laureate Lord, + How you danced with the Prince of Wales-- + And we knew that the Sunday Times had scored + In Literature and Sales." + + _To Margot in Heaven._ + + BY CLARENCE G. HENNESSY (circa 1985). + + + + +AUTHOR'S NOTE + +This book was suggested by the reading of some extracts from the +autobiography of a brilliant lady who had much to tell us about a number +of interesting people. There was a quality in that autobiography which +seemed to demand parody, and no doubt the autobiographer who cannot wait +for posterity and perspective will pardon a little contemporary +distortion. + +In adding my humble wreath to the flatteries--in their sincerest +form--which she has already received, I should like to point out that a +parody of an autobiography should not be a caricature of the people +biographed--some of whom must already have suffered enough. I have +lowered the social key of the original considerably, not only to bring +it within the compass of the executant, but also to make a distinction. +I have increased the remoteness from real life--which was sometimes +appreciable in the original--to such an extent that it should be +impossible to suppose that any of the grotesques of the parody is +intended for anybody in real life. Nobody in the parody is intended to +be a representation, or even a misrepresentation, of any real person +living or dead. For instance, Inmemorison is not intended to be a +caricature of Tennyson, but the passage which deals with him is intended +to parody some of the stuff that has been written about Tennyson. + +No doubt the author of the original has opened to the public several +doors through which it is not thinkable that a parodist would care to +follow her. Apart from that, parody should be brief, just as +autobiography should be long--_ars brevis, vita longa_. + + BARRY PAIN. +_October_ 8, 1920. + +_The quotations are from the articles which appeared in "The Sunday +Times." It does not of course follow that these passages will appear in +the same form, or will appear at all, when the complete autobiography is +published._ + + + + +MARGE ASKINFORIT + + + + +FIRST EXTRACT + +THE CATASTROPHIC FAMILY + + +I was christened Margarine, of course, but in my own circle I have +always been known as Marge. The name is, I am informed, derived from the +Latin word _margo_, meaning the limit. I have always tried to live right +up to it. + +We were a very numerous family, and I can find space for biographical +details of only a few of the more important. I must keep room for +myself. + +My elder sister, Casein--Casey, as we always called her--was supposed to +be the most like myself, and was less bucked about it than one would +have expected. I never made any mistake myself as to which was which. I +had not her beautiful lustrous eyes, but neither had she my wonderful +cheek. She had not my intelligence. Nor had she my priceless gift for +uttering an unimportant personal opinion as if it were the final verdict +of posterity with the black cap on. We were devoted to one another, and +many a time have I owed my position as temporary parlour-maid in an +unsuspicious family to the excellent character that she had written for +me. + +She married Moses Morgenstein, a naturalized British subject, who showed +his love for his adopted country by trading as Stanley Harcourt. He was +a striking figure with his coal-black hair and nails, his drooping +eye-lashes and under-lip, and the downward sweep of his ingratiating +nose. The war found him burning with enthusiasm, and I give here one +verse of a fine poem which he wrote and, as I will remember, recited in +Mrs. Mopworth's _salon_: + + I vos in Luntun since t'ree year, + In dis lant I holt so tear, + Inklant, my Inklant! + Mit her overbowering might + If she gonquer in der fight, + M. Morgenstein vill be all right-- + _Nicht?_-- + Inklant, my own! + +He was a man of diverse talents, and I used to regret that he gave to +the tripe-dressing what was meant for the muses. Alas, he was, though +indirectly, one of the many victims of the Great War. His scheme for the +concealment of excess profits was elaborate and ingenious, and practised +with assiduity. His simple mind could not apprehend that elemental +honesty was in process of modification. "Vot I maig for myself, dat I +keeb, _nicht?_" he often said to me. And then the blow fell. + +However, he has earned the utmost remission to which good conduct could +entitle him, and we are hoping that he will be out again by Christmas. + +My next sister, Saccharine, was of a filmy and prismatic beauty that was +sufficient evidence of her Cohltar origin--our mother, of course, was a +Cohltar. I never thought her mind the equal of my own. Indeed, at the +moment of going to press I have not yet met the mind that I thought the +equal of my own. But about her beauty there was no doubt. In those +days--I am speaking of the 'nineties--it was quite an ordinary event for +my sister, inadvertently, to hold up an omnibus. The horses pulled up as +soon as they saw her, and refused to move until they had drunk their +fill of her astounding beauty. I well remember one occasion on which the +horses in a West Kensington omnibus met her at Piccadilly Circus and +refused to leave her until she reached Highgate, in spite of the whip of +the driver, the blasphemy of the conductor, the more formal complaints +of the passengers, and direct police intervention. + +She was a sweet girl in those days, and I loved her. I never had any +feelings of jealousy. How can one who is definitely assured of +superiority to everybody be jealous of anybody? + +She married a Russian, Alexis Chopitoff. He was a perfect artist in his +own medium, which happened to be hair. It is to him that I owe what is +my only beauty, and I am assured that it defies detection. At one time +life's greatest prizes seemed to be within his reach. During the war his +skill in rendering the _chevelure_ of noted pianists fit for military +service attracted official attention, and if he had been made O.B.E. it +would have come as no surprise to any of us. Unhappily his interest in +the political affairs of his own country led him to annex at Waterloo a +despatch-case which, pedantically speaking, did not belong to him. The +case unfortunately happened to contain a diamond tiara, and this led to +misunderstandings. Nothing could have exceeded the courage of dear +Saccharine when she learned that at the end of his sentence he was to be +deported. + +"It will leave me," she said, with perfect calm and in words that have +since become historical, "in a position of greater freedom and less +responsibility." + +But I knew how near she was to a nervous breakdown. Indeed, nervous +breakdown was her successful defence when, a week later, she was +arrested at Whiteridge's with a tin of sardines, two cakes of +super-cream toilet-soap, and a bound copy of Keble's "Christian Year" in +her muff. The malice and animosity that Whiteridge's showed in the +prosecution are but partly excused by the fact that dear Saccharine had +pinched the muff first. + +Another sister, Chlorine, in later years became well known as a medium. +She communicated with the hereafter, or at the very least professed to +do so, by telephonic wireless. It used to be rather weird to hear her +ring up "Gehenna, 1 double 7, 6." I have not the least doubt that she +would have convinced a famous physicist who, curiously enough, is weak +on facts, or a writer of detective stories who, equally curiously, is +weak on imagination. I am sorry to say that she would never give me the +winner of the next Derby, nor do I remember that she ever used this +special and exclusive information for her own benefit. But, like other +mediums, she could always give a plausible reason for avoiding any test +that was really a test; and now that she has doubled her fees owing to +the increased cost of labour and materials, she ought to do very well, +particularly after the friendly boost that I have just given her. + +Then there was Methyll--this is the old Anglo-Saxon form of Ethel. She +was a charming child and made a profound study of natural history. I +remember her saying to me at a reception where the refreshments had been +somewhat restricted: "One cocktail doesn't make a swallow." Modern +biology has, I believe, confirmed this observation. She spent much of +her time at the Zoo, and it was thought that it would be an advantage if +she could be permanently resident there. But although she was not unlike +a flamingo in the face, and I had some interest with the man who +supplies the fish for the sea-lions, no vacant cage could be found. An +offer to let her share one with the cassowary--_missionara +timbuctana_--was refused. + +I must now speak of another sister, Caramel, though I do so with grief. +However, there is a skeleton in every fold--I mean to say, a black sheep +in every cupboard. She was undeniably beautiful, and had a romantic +postcard face. Her figure was perfect. Her intelligence was C 3. In a +weak moment she accepted a thinking part in a revue at the "Frivolity," +and her career ended, as might have been expected, in a shocking +_mesalliance_. She married the Marquis of Beanstrite, and has more than +once appeared on the back page of the "Daily Mail," but that is not +everything. She never sees anything of me now, and it brings the tears +to my eyes when I think what she is missing. + +My brothers were all of them sportsmen, but they were seldom at home. +They seemed to feel that they were wanted elsewhere, and they generally +were. You ask any policeman in the Kentish Town district, mentioning my +name, and he will tell you. + +There were seventy-three of us all together, of whom eighty-four +survive, including myself. And yet dear papa sometimes seems a little +irritable--I wonder why. + +My mamma was quite different from my papa. They were not even of the +same sex. But that so often happens, don't you think? + +My father had a curious fancy for naming all his sons after subsequent +winners of the Derby. No doubt it will be said that this is not always +practical; nor is it--the Derby is occasionally won by a gee-gee of the +sex which I have myself adopted, and in those cases the name is +unsuitable for a boy. But if it could be generally done, it would +absolutely preclude any betting on one of our classic races; it would +probably also preclude the race. After all, we do have to be moral in +the intervals, and reclaim factory-girls in the dinner-hour. But I fear +it will never happen--so few men have dear papa's wonderful foresight. + +Spearmint, my eldest surviving brother, came much under the influence of +Alexis Chopitoff, and entered the same profession. Simple and +unassuming, no one would have supposed that in one year he had backed +the winner in all the principal races. But such was veritably the case. + +"There's nothing in it, Marge," he said to me one evening. "There's only +one sure way to win--back every horse in the race with another man's +money. I tell a customer the tale that I was shaving a well-known +trainer that morning, and that the trainer had given me a certainty; all +I ask is that the customer will put half-a-crown on for me. I repeat the +process, changing the name of the certainty, until I have got all risks +covered. I know it's old fashioned, but I like it. It demands nothing +but patience, and it cannot possibly go wrong." + +But it did go wrong. He was telling the tale of how the well-known +trainer had given him the certainty to a new customer, whom Spearmint +had never shaved before. By a disastrous coincidence it happened that +the new customer actually was that well-known trainer. He seemed to +think that Spearmint had taken a liberty with his name, and even to +resent it. + +Spearmint did not lose the sight of the left eye, as was at one time +feared, but his looks have never been quite the same since his nose was +broken. + +My next brother, Orby, was born in 1870. He could do the most graceful +and charming things. When his namesake won the Derby in 1907, he +immediately acquired a complimentary Irish accent, and employed it in +the narration of humorous stories. An accent acquired at the age of +thirty-seven is perhaps liable to lack conviction, and I always thought +that my brother was over-scrupulous in beginning every sentence with the +word "Bedad." Like myself, he simply did not know what fear was, and in +consequence told his Irish stories in his own Irish accent to a real +Irishman. However, now that he has got his new teeth in you would never +know that he had been hit. It was said of him by a great legal +authority--I forget in which police-court--that he had the best manners +and the least honesty of any taxi-driver on the Knightsbridge rank. + +Another brother, Sunstar, acquired considerable reputation by his skill +in legerdemain. If you lent him a watch or a coin, with one turn of his +hand he would make it disappear; he could do the same thing when you +had not lent it. He could make anything disappear that was not +absolutely screwed to the floor, and at public-houses where he was known +the pewter from which he drank was always chained to the bar. He had +something of my own quixotic nature, and would probably have taken the +rest if he had wanted it. One day at Ascot he made a stranger's watch +disappear. When he came to examine his newly-acquired property he was +disappointed to find that the watch was a four-and-sixpenny American +Everbright--"Puts you wrong, Day and night." He was on the point of +throwing it away when the kindly thought came to him that perhaps the +stranger attached some sentimental value to that watch; indeed, there +seemed to be no other possible reason for wearing it. Sunstar determined +to replace the watch in the stranger's pocket. He did his best, but he +was far more practised in removing than in replacing. The stranger--a +hulking, cowardly brute--caught my brother with his hand in his pocket, +and failed to grasp the altruism of his motives, and that is why poor +Sunnie walks a little lame. + +He is not with us at present. He had made quite a number of things +disappear, and a censorious world is ever prone to judge by +disappearances. It became expedient--and even necessary--for my brother +to make himself disappear, and he did so. + +The Second Extract, as they say on the film, will follow immediately. + + + + +SECOND EXTRACT + +EBULLIENT YOUTH + + +I have been studying the beautiful pages of the autobiography of my +Great Example--hereinafter to be called the G.E. It is wonderful to be +admitted to the circle of the elect, week after week, at the low rate of +twopence a time. Why, I've paid more to see the pictures. + +Considering the price, one ought not to carp. The G.E. says in one +extract that she has lost every female friend she ever had, with the +exception of four. In a subsequent extract she names six women whose +friendship has remained loving and true to her since girlhood. She +speaks of a four-line stanza as a couplet. She imputes a "blasphemous +tirade" to a great man of science who certainly never uttered one. She +says that she had a conversation with Lord Salisbury about the fiscal +controversy, in which he took no part, the year after his death. But why +make a fuss about little things like this? If you write in bed at the +rate of one thousand words an hour, accidents are sure to happen. + +But there is just one of the G.E.'s sentences that is worrying me and +keeping me awake at night. Here it is--read it carefully: + +"I wore the shortest of tweed skirts, knickerbockers of the same stuff, +top-boots, a cover-coat, and a coloured scarf round my head." + +And all very nice too, no doubt. But consider the terrific problem +involved. + +She does not say that the skirt and knickerbockers were made _of the +same kind of stuff_. If she had, I could have understood it, and my +natural delicacy would for ever have kept me from the slightest allusion +to the subject. + +What she does say is that the skirt and knickerbockers were made _of the +same stuff_. That is very different, and involves hideous complications. + +Firstly, it must mean that the knickerbockers were made out of the +skirt. Well, there may have been surplus material from that coloured +scarf, and it is not for me to say. But, secondly, it must also mean +that the skirt was made out of the knickerbockers. Oh, help! + +No, I positively refuse. I will not say another word. There are limits. +Only an abstruse theologian with a taste for the more recondite niceties +of obscure heresies could possibly do justice to it. + +All change, please. The next item on the programme will be a succinct +account of my ebullient girlhood. + +I cannot say that I loved the Warren, my ancestral home. The neighbours +called it the Warren, but I can't think why. The Post Office said it was +No. 4, Catley Mews, Kentish Town, and dear papa--who always had the +_mot juste_--sometimes said that it was hell. + +We were a high-spirited family with clean-cut personalities, penetrating +voices, short tempers, high nervous tension, and small feet. Don't you +wish you were like that? + +All the same, there were only the four rooms over the stable. At times +there were fifteen or sixteen of us at home, and also the lodger--I +shall speak of him presently. And when you have five personal quarrels, +baby, the family wash, a sewing-machine, three mouth-organs, fried +bacon, and a serious political argument occurring simultaneously in a +restricted establishment, something has to go. As a rule, dear papa +went. He would make for Regent's Park, and find repose in the old-world +calm of the parrot-house at the Zoo. + +But there is always room on the top--it is a conviction on which I have +ever acted. When I felt too cramped and stifled in the atmosphere of the +Warren, I would climb out on the roof. There, with nothing on but my +nightgown, tennis shoes, and the moonlight, I would dance frenetically. +The tiles would break loose beneath my gossamer tread and, accompanied +by sections of gutter, go poppity-swish into the street below and hit +all manner of funny things. I fancy that some of the funny things +complained. I know the police called, and I seem to remember rather a +nasty letter from the landlord's agent. I had a long interview with +mamma on the subject. She pointed out that if I slipped and fell I +should probably make a nasty dent in the pavement, and with many tears I +promised to relinquish the practice. + +I used to ride on the Heath when I had the opportunity, but I cannot +pretend that I was up to the standard of the G.E. I do not think I ever +rode up a staircase. I certainly never threw my horse down on the marble +floor of the hall of the Warren. There were several reasons for this. +Firstly, the Warren had not got a hall, and if it had had a hall, the +hall would not have had a marble floor. Secondly, the horses I rode were +likely to be wanted again, being in fact the ponies that unsuspecting +tradesmen stabled at Catley Mews. Bogey Nutter looked after them, and I +could always do what I liked with Bogey. He was perhaps the most profuse +proposer I ever met. At one time he always proposed to me once a day and +twice on Bank holidays. I was such a dashing, attractive creature, what? + +As to my education, a good deal depends on what is meant by education. +The kind that was ladled out at the County Council establishment made +little effect upon me. But I was pretty quick at figures, and knew that +an investment of half-a-crown at eleven to eight should bring me in a +profit of three-and-five--provided that the horse won and the man at the +fishmonger's round the corner paid up. My brother Lemberg had the same +talent. If he bought a packet of fags and paid with a ten-shilling note, +he could always negotiate the change so that he made ninepence for +himself and had the cigarettes thrown in. His only mistake was in trying +to do it twice at the same shop, but the scar over his right eye hardly +shows now. A sharp-cornered tobacco-tin was not the thing to have hit +him with anyhow. + +For autobiographical purposes always treat a deficiency as if it were a +gift. The G.E. was apparently a duffer at arithmetic, but she tells you +so in a way that makes you admire her for it. All the same I wish I had +been one of those factory-girls that she used to reclaim in their +dinner-hour; I am fundamentally honest, but I never could miss a chance +when it was thrown at me. + +My education in dancing was irregular, as that greasy Italian did not +wheel his piano round every week. However I acquired sufficient +proficiency to attract attention, and that is the great thing in life. +The Italian offered me twopence a day to go on his round with him and +dance while he turned the handle. I told Signor Hokey-pokey what I +thought of the offer, and I have some talent for language, if not for +languages. So, as he could not get me, he did the next best thing and +bought a monkey. + +I was by far the most spiritual of the family. But my brother Minoru +attended chapel regularly, until they stopped collecting the offertory +in open plates and substituted locked boxes with a slot in them. He +found another chapel that seemed more promising, but he attended it +only once. I shall always consider that the policeman was needlessly +rough with him, for Minoru said distinctly that he would go quietly. + +My sisters and myself had a fascination for the other sex that was +almost incredible. At one time we had a Proposal Competition every week; +each of us put in sixpence, and the girl who got the greatest number of +proposals took the pool. Casey or I generally won. Then one week I +encountered on the Heath the annual beanfeast of the Pottey Asylum for +the Feeble-minded, and won with a score of a hundred and seven, and I +think the others said it was not fair. Anyhow, the competitions were +discontinued. + +Really, the way our lodger pestered my sisters and myself with his +absolute inattentions is difficult to explain. Anyone might have thought +that he did not know we were there. While the Proposal Competitions were +on, not one of us thought it worth while to waste time on the man. We +could get a better return for the same amount of fascination in other +quarters. Afterwards I thought that possibly his employment in the +milk-trade might be the cause of his extraordinary mildness, and that it +would be kind to offer him a little encouragement. + +He usually went for a walk on Sunday mornings, and one Sunday I said +that I would accompany him. + +"Better not," he said. "Looks to me like rain." + +"But you have an umbrella," I pointed out. + +"Aye," he said, "and when two people share one umbrella, they both get +all the drippings from it and none of the protection. You take a nice +book and read for a bit." + +"No," I said. "I'm coming with you, and though it's Leap Year, I +definitely promise not to propose to you." + +"Well," he said, "that makes a difference." + +I thrust my arm into his gaily and confidentially, and he immediately +unhooked. We went on to the Heath together. + +"I was once told by a palmist," I said, "that I had a mysterious and +magnetic attraction for men." + +"Those palmists will say anything," he said. "It's just the other way +round really." + +"Perhaps," I said. "I know I have an unlimited capacity for love--and +nobody seems to want it." + +"Ah," he said, "it's a pity to be overstocked with a perishable article. +It means parting with it at a loss." + +What could I say to a brute like that? And I had nobody there to protect +me. + +"I wish," I said, "that you'd look if I've a fly in my eye." + +"If you had, you'd know," he answered. "The fly sees to that." + +Some minutes elapsed before I asked him to tie my shoe-lace. + +He looked down and said that it was not undone. + +I simply turned round and left him, I was not going to stay there to be +insulted. + +However, he must have been ashamed of himself, for two days later he +sub-let his part of the floor in one of the rooms at the Warren to an +Irish family. If he was not ashamed, he was frightened. + +Yet, curiously enough, that cowardly brute moulded my future. + +The influx of the Irish family into the Warren drove me out of it. It +made me feel the absolute necessity for a wider sphere. + +On leaving home I took an indeterminate position in a Bayswater +boarding-house. At any rate, my wages and food were determined, but my +hours of work were not. + +A boarding-house is a congeries of people who have come down. The +proprietoress never dreamed that she would have to earn her own living +like that--though she gets everything to a knife-edge certainty in the +first week. Then in the drawing-room you have military people who have +thundered, been saluted, been respected--and superseded. And nobody can +make worse clothes look better. The cook explains why she's not in +Grosvenor Square, and the elderly Swiss waiter says that he has been in +places where pace was not everytink. If you're out looking for +depression, try a boarding-house. + +I stayed there a week and then said I was going. The lady said she knew +the law and I couldn't. So I said I would stay, and was sorry that the +state of my nerves would mean a good deal in breakages. + +I left at the end of the week. + + + + +THIRD EXTRACT + +GLADSTONE--MR. LLOYD GEORGE--INMEMORISON--DR. BENGER HORLICK. + + +After this I had a long succession of different situations. It is +possible for a girl to learn the work of any branch of domestic +service in a week, if she wishes to do it, with the exception of the +work of a cook or a personal maid. But then, it is quite possible to +take a situation as a cook, and to keep it, without knowing anything +appreciable about the work. Thousands of women have done it, and +are still doing it. I never went as personal maid--I dislike +familiarity--but with that exception I played, so to speak, every +instrument in the orchestra. + +I acquired an excellent stock of testimonials, of which some were +genuine. The others were due to the kindly heart and vivid imagination +of my sister Casey, now Mrs. Morgenstein. + +I rarely kept my places, and never kept my friends. The only thing I +did keep was a diary. A diary is evidence. So if you see anything +about anybody in these pages, you can believe it without hesitation. +Do, please. You see, if you hesitate, you may never believe it. + +I well remember the first and only time that I met Gladstone. I was +staying with Lady Bilberry at the time at her house in Half Moon +Street. She was a woman with real charm and wit, but somewhat irritable. +Most of the people I've met were irritable or became so, and I can't +think why. I may add that I only stayed out my month as too much was +expected. Besides, I'd been told there was a boy for the rough work and +there never was. + +But to return to Gladstone. I wrote down every precious word of my +conversation with him at the time, and the eager and excited reader may +now peruse it in full. + + GLADSTONE: Lady Bilberry at home? + + MARGE: Yes, sir. + + GLADSTONE: Thanks. + + MARGE: What name, please? + +He gave me his name quite simply, without any attempt at rudeness or +facetiousness. I should say that this was typical of the whole character +of the man. With a beautiful and punctilious courtesy he removed his +hat--not a very good hat--on entering the house. I formed the impression +from the ease with which he did this that the practice must have been +habitual with him. + +The only thing that mars this cherished memory is that it was not the +Gladstone you mean, nor any relative of his, but a gentleman of the same +name who had called to see if he could interest her ladyship in a scheme +for the recovery of some buried treasure. He did not stay long, and Lady +Bilberry said I ought to have known better. + +About this time I received by post a set of verses which bear quite a +resemblance to the senile vivacity of the verses which the real +Gladstone addressed to my illustrious example of autobiographical art. +The verses I received were anonymous, and as a matter of fact the +postmark on the envelope was Beaconsfield. Still, you never know, do +you? + + + MARGE. + + When Pentonville's over and comes the release, + With a year's supervision perhaps by the p'lice, + Your longing to meet all your pals may be large, + But make an exception, and do not ask Marge. + + She's Aspasia, Pavlova, Tom Sayers, Tod Sloan, + Spinoza, and Barnum, and Mrs. Chapone; + For a bloke that has only just got his discharge, + She's rather too dazzling a patchwork, is Marge. + + Never mind, never mind, you have got to go slow, + One section a year is the most you can know; + + If you study a life-time, you'll jest on the barge + Of Charon with madd'ningly manifold Marge. + +By the way, whenever we change houses a special pantechnicon has to be +engaged to take all the complimentary verses that have from time to time +been addressed to me. Must be a sort of something about me somehow, +don't you think? + +I cannot pretend that I was on the same terms of intimate friendship +with Mr. Lloyd George. I spoke to him only once. + +It was when we were in Downing Street. There was quite a crowd of us +there, and it had been an evening of exalted and roseate patriotism. I +gazed up at the window of No. 10 and said, as loudly as I could: + +"Lloyd George! Lloyd George!" + +Most of the others in the crowd said the same thing with equal force. +Then an uneducated policeman came up to me and asked me to pass along, +please, adding that Mr. Lloyd George was not in London. So, simply +replying "All right, face," I passalongpleased. + +However, in spite of all that bound me so closely to the great political +world, I could not help feeling the claims of literature. I am sensitive +to every claim. It is the claim of history, for example, that compels me +to write my autobiography. I seem to see all around me a thousand human +arts and activities crying for my help and interest. They seem to say +"Marge, Marge, more Marge!" in the words that Goethe himself might have +used. And whenever I hear the call I have to give myself. + +I doubt if any girl ever gave herself away quite as much as I have done. + +One day in November I met Chummie Popbright in the neighbourhood of +Cambridge Circus. He was a man with very little _joie de vivre_, _ventre +a terre_, or _esprit de corps_. He had fair hair and no manners, and was +very, very fond of me. He held a position in the Post Office, and was, +in fact, emptying a pillar-box when I met him. I record the +conversation. + + CHUMMIE: Blessed if it ain't Marge! And what would you like + for a Christmas present? + + MARGE: I want to spend a week or so at the house of the + great poet, Lord Inmemorison. If you really wish to please me, you + will use your influence to get me a job there. Your uncle being + Inmemorison's butler, you ought to be able to work it. + + CHUMMIE: Might. What would you go as? + + MARGE: Anything--but temporary parlour-maid is my strong suit. + + CHUMMIE: And what's your game? + + MARGE: I'm sick of patronizing politicians and want to patronize a + poet. When all's said and done, Inmemorison is a proper certificated + poet. Besides, I want to put something by for my rainy + autobiography. + + CHUMMIE: Oh, well. I'll try and lay a pipe for it. May come off or + may not. + +Chummie managed the thing to perfection. My sister Casey wrote me one of +the best testimonials I have ever had, and by Christmas I was safely +installed for a week. Chummie's uncle treated me with the utmost +consideration, and it is to him that I owe many of the thrilling details +that I am now able to present to the panting public. Although there was +a high leather screen in the drawing-room which was occasionally useful +to me, my opportunities for direct observation were limited. + +Lord Inmemorison had a magnificent semi-detached mansion (including a +bath-room, h. and c.) in one of the wildest and loneliest parts of +Wandsworth Common. The rugged beauty of the scenery around is reflected +in many of his poems. + +There were, as was to be expected, several departures from ordinary +convention in the household. Dinner was at seven. The poet went to bed +immediately after dinner, and punctually at ten reappeared in the +drawing-room and began reading his poems aloud. + +The family generally went to bed at ten sharp. + +I heard him read once. There were visitors in the house who wished to +hear the great man, and it was after midnight before a general +retirement could take place. He had a rich, sonorous, over-proof, +pre-war voice, considerable irritability, and a pretty girl sitting on +his knee. The last item was, of course, an instance of poetical licence. + +The girl had asked him to read from "Maud" and he had consented. He +began with his voice turned down so low that in my position behind the +screen I could only just catch the opening lines: + + "Hail to thee, blithe spirit! + Bird thou never wert..." + +He opened the throttle a little wider when he came to the passage: + + "His head was bare, his matted hair + Was buried in the sand." + +He read that last line "was serried in the band," but immediately +corrected himself. And the poignant haunting repetition of the last +lines of the closing stanza were given out on the full organ: + + "And everywhere that Mary went-- + And everywhere that Mary went-- + And everywhere that Mary went-- + The lamb was sure to go." + +It was a great--a wonderful experience for me, and I shall never forget +it. + +I have spoken of his irritability. It is not unnatural in a great poet. +He must live with his exquisite sentient nerves screwed up to such a +pitch that at any moment something may give. + +For example, one evening he was sitting with a girl on his knee, and had +just read to her these enchanting lines in which he speaks of hearing +the cuckoo call. + + INMEMORISON (_gruffly and suddenly_): What bird says cuckoo? + + GIRL (_with extreme nervous agitation_): The rabbit. + + INMEMORISON: No, you fool--it's the nightingale. + +The girl burst into tears and said she would not play any more. I think +she was wrong. Whenever I hear any criticism of myself I always take it +meekly and gently, whether it is right or wrong--it has never been right +yet--and try to see if I cannot learn something from it. What the girl +should have said was: "Now it's your turn to go out, and we'll think of +something." + +Another occasion when Inmemorison was perhaps more pardonably annoyed +was when a young undergraduate asked him to read out one of his poems. + +"Which?" said Inmemorison. + +I am told that the thirty seconds of absolute silence which followed +this question seemed like an eternity, and that the agony on the young +man's face was Aeschylean. He did not know any precise answer to the +question. + +"Which?" repeated Inmemorison, like the booming of a great bell at a +young man's funeral. + +The young man made a wild and misjudged effort, and got right off the +target. + +"Well," he said, "one of my greatest favourites of course is +'Kissingcup's Race.'" + +"Is it, indeed?" said the Poet. "If you turn to the left on leaving the +house, the second on the right will take you straight to the station." + +The young man never forgave it. And that, so I have always been told, is +how the first Browning Society came to be founded. + +It was a meeting with this undergraduate--purely accidental on my +part--in the romantic garden of the poet's house that first turned my +mind towards the university town of Oxbridge. I had no difficulty in +finding employment as a waitress there in a restaurant where knowledge +of the business was considered less essential than a turn for repartee +and some gift for keeping the young of our great nobility in their +proper place. It was not long before I had made the acquaintance of +quite a number of undergraduates. Some of them had a marked tendency +towards rapidity, but soon learned that the regulation of the pace would +remain with me. + +One Sunday morning I had consented to go for a walk with one of my young +admirers--a nice boy, with more nerve than I have ever encountered in +any human being except myself. It happened by chance that we encountered +the Dean of his college. The Dean, with an unusual condescension--for +which there may possibly have been a reason--stopped to speak to my +companion, who without the least hesitation introduced the Dean to me as +his sister. + +That was my first meeting with Dr. Benger Horlick, the celebrated Dean +of Belial. + +No social occasion has ever yet found me at a loss. The more difficult +and dramatic it is, the more thoroughly do I enjoy its delicate +manipulation. I could not deny the relationship which had been asserted, +without involving my young friend. The only alternative was to play up +to it, and I played up. The perfect management of old men is best +understood by young girls. + +I told him that I was staying with mamma, and mentioned a suitable +hotel, adding that I was so sorry I had to return to town that +afternoon, as I had begun to love the scholastic peace of Oxbridge and +valued so much the opportunity of meeting its greatest men. I was bright +and poetical in streaks, and every shy--if I may use the expression--hit +the coco-nut. Sometimes I glanced at Willie, my pseudo-brother. His face +twitched a little, but he never actually gave way to his feelings. The +Dean had ceased to pay much attention to him. + +For about a quarter of an hour the Dean strolled along with us. At +parting, he held my hand--for a minute longer than was strictly +necessary--and said: + +"You have interested me--er--profoundly. May I hope that when you get +back to Grosvenor Square, you will sometimes spare a few moments from +the fashionable circles in which you move, and write to me?" + +I said that it would be a great honour to me to be permitted to do so. + +"I hope," he added, "that you will visit Oxbridge again, and that you +will then renew an acquaintance which, though accidental in its origin, +has none the less impressed me--er--very much." + +After his departure Willie became hilarious and I became very angry +with him. He persisted that everything was all right. I had put up a +fine performance and had only to continue it. The Dean would no doubt +write to me at Grosvenor Square, and Willie assured me that he had his +father's butler on a string, and that the butler sorted the letters. I +would receive the Dean's epistles at any address I would give him, and +would reply on the Grosvenor Square notepaper. + +"I've got chunks of it in a writing-case at my rooms," he said, "and +I'll send it round to you." + +I had to consent to this. However, the next day I skipped for London, +somewhat to the disappointment of the restaurant that I adorned, and +still more to the disappointment of Willie. But, as I wrote to him, he +had brought it on himself. I could not take the risk of another +accidental meeting with Dr. Benger Horlick. + +Nor, as a matter of fact, did we ever meet again. But for three years we +corresponded with some frequency; it was a thin-ice, high-wire business, +but I pulled it through. + +No doubt the task was made easier for me by the fact that the Dean was a +singularly simple-minded man. Reverence for the aristocracy had become +with him almost a religion. When he was brought--or believed himself to +be brought--in contact with the aristocracy, his intellectual vision +closed in a swoon of ecstasy. Snob? Oh, dear, no! Of course not. What +can have made you think that? It was simply that the aristocracy +appealed to him very much as romance did--he was outside it, but liked +to get a near view. + +The G.E. found that letters, however delightful, bored her when they +were scattered through a biography. For that reason she gave one set of +letters all together. I do not see myself why, if a thing bores you when +you get a little of it at a time, it should bore you less when you get a +lot of it. But, determined to follow my brilliant model with simple +faith and humility, I now append extracts from the letters I received +from Dr. Benger Horlick. + + "I wish I could persuade you to be less precise in your language. + If you say what your opinion is, you should take care to be + beautiful but unintelligible. Commit yourself to nothing. Words + were given us to conceal our thoughts, and with a little practice + and self-discipline will conceal them even from ourselves. A candid + friend once complained to me that in my translation from the Greek + it was sometimes impossible for him to know which of two different + _lectiones_ I was translating. As a matter of fact, though I did + not tell him this, I did not know either. Especially useful is this + when one is confronted with a rude, challenging, direct question as + to any point in religion or politics; I reply with a sonorous and, + I hope, well-balanced sentence, from which the actual meaning has + been carefully extracted, and so escape in the fog. It is indeed + from one point of view a mercy that most people are too cowardly + or too ashamed to say that they have failed to comprehend. Yet if + they had my passion for truth it might be better. Truth is very + precious to me--sometimes too precious to give away. + + "It is good of you to say that the fourteen pages of good advice + did not bore you. Can it have been that you did not read them? No + Dean--and perhaps no don--who has been in that portentous position + as long as I have can fail to become a perennial stream of advice. + It is the Nemesis of those who have all their lives been treated + with more respect than they have deserved. I am the only exception + with which I am acquainted. Child, why do you not make more use of + your noble gifts for dancing, amateur theatricals, and general + conversation? And yet I'm not grumbling. Only I mean to say, don't + you know? Of course, they all do it--the people in the great world + to which you, and occasionally I, belong. Still, there it is, isn't + it? And you write me such soothing full-cream letters with only an + occasional snag in them. So bless you, my child. I do trust that + the report which comes to me that you are going with the Prince of + Wales, Mrs. H. Ward, and a Mr. Arthur Roberts to shoot kangaroos in + Australia is at least exaggerated. These marsupials, though their + appearance is sufficiently eccentric to suggest the conscientious + objector, will--I am credibly informed--fight desperately in + defence of their young. If I may venture to suggest, try rabbits. + + "I am delighted to hear that you are not the author of the two + articles attacking Society. The fact that they happen to be signed + with the name of another well-known lady had made me think it + possible that this might be the case. Society? It is a great + mystery. I can hardly think of it without taking off my boots and + prostrating myself orientally. To criticize it is a mistake; it is + even, if I may for once use a harsh word, subversive. It is the + only one we've got. Oh, hush! Only in whispers at the dead of night + to the most trusted friend under the seal of secrecy can we think + of criticizing it. But holding, as I do, perhaps the most important + public position in the Continent of Europe, if not in the whole + world--responsible, as I am, for what may be called the sustenance + of the next generation--I do feel called upon to carry out any + repairs and re-decoration of the social fabric that may be + required. You with your universal influence which--until Einstein + arrives--will be the only possible explanation of the vagaries in + the orbit of Mercury, can do as much, or nearly as much. Do it. But + never speak of it. Oh, hush! (Sorry--I forgot I'd mentioned that + before.) + + "In reply to your inquiry, I never read 'Robert Elsmere,' but + understand from a private source that it saved many young men from + reading 'David Grieve.' Your second inquiry as to the lady-love of + my first youth is violent--very violent. Suppose you mind your own + business." + + + + +FOURTH EXTRACT + +THE SOLES + + +I do not know why we were called the Soles. Enemies said it was because +we were flat, fishy, and rather expensive. + +Our set comprised the upper servants of some of the best houses in +Mayfair. Looking back at it now, I can see that no similar body ever had +such a tremendous influence. It may not have been entirely due to us +that gravity varies inversely as the square of the distance, but at +least we acquiesced. And what we did in home and foreign politics has +scarcely yet been suspected. + +The reason for our influence is sufficiently obvious. Our great leader, +James Arthur Bunting, was perhaps the most perfect butler that the world +has yet seen; his magnificent presence, plummy voice, exquisite tact, +and wide knowledge made him beyond price. We had other butlers whom it +would have been almost equally difficult to replace. We had chefs who +with a chain of marvellous dinners bound their alleged employers to +their chariot-wheels. Nominally, Parliament ruled the country, but we +never had any doubt who ruled Parliament. + +To take but one instance, the sudden _volte face_ of Lord Baringstoke on +the Home Rule Question. This created a great sensation at the time, and +various explanations were suggested to account for it. Nobody guessed +the truth. The fact is that Mr. Bunting tendered his resignation. + +Lord Baringstoke was much distressed. An increase of salary was +immediately suggested and waved aside. + +"It is not that, m'lord," said Bunting. "It is a question of principle. +Your lordship's expressed views as to Ireland are not, if I may say so, +the views of my friends and of myself. And on that subject we feel +deeply. Preoccupied with that difference, if I remained, I could no +longer do justice to your lordship nor to myself. My wounded and +bleeding heart----" + +"Oh, never mind your bleeding heart, Bunting," said Baringstoke. "Do I +understand that this is your only reason for wanting to go?" + +"That is so, m'lord." + +"Then, supposing that I reconsidered my views as to Ireland and found +that they were in fact the opposite of what I had previously supposed, +you would remain?" + +"With very great pleasure." + +"Then in that case you had better wait a few days. I'm inclined to think +that everything can be arranged." + +"Very good, m'lord." + +Less than a week later, Lord Baringstoke's public recantation was the +talk of London. In a speech of considerable eloquence he showed how the +merciless logic of facts had convinced his intellect, and his conscience +had compelled him to abandon the position he had previously taken up. +Fortunately, you can prove absolutely anything about Ireland. It is +merely a question of what facts you will select and what you will +suppress. + +Mr. Bunting is, I believe, still with Lord Baringstoke. This was, +perhaps, one of the principal triumphs of the Soles. There were many +others. We had our own secret service, and I should here acknowledge +with respect and admiration the Gallic ingenuity of two of the Soles, +Monsieur Colbert and Monsieur Normand, in reconstructing fragmentary +letters taken from the waste-paper baskets of the illustrious. + +Naturally, we had to suffer from the jealousy and malice of those who +had not been asked to join us, and a rumour even was spread abroad that +we played bridge for sixpence a hundred. There was no truth in it. There +have been, and still are, gambling clubs among the younger men-servants +of the West-end, but we never gambled. Mr. Bunting would not have liked +it at all. We were serious. We did try to live up to our ideals, and +some of our members actually succeeded in living beyond their incomes. +Our principal recreation was pencil-games, mostly of our own invention. + +In this connection I have rather a sad incident to relate. On one +occasion we had a competition to see which of us could write the +flattest and least pointed epigram in rhyme. The prize for men consisted +of two out-size Havannah cigars, formerly the property of Lord +Baringstoke, kindly presented by Mr. Bunting. + +Percy Binder, first footman to the Earl of Dilwater, was extremely +anxious to secure this prize. He took as the subject of his epigram the +sudden death of a man on rising from prayer. This was in such lamentably +bad taste that he did not win the prize, but otherwise it would have +certainly been his. His four lines could not have been surpassed for +clumsy and laboured imbecility. The last two ran: + + "But when for aid he ceased to beg, + The wily devil broke his leg." + +And then came a terrible discovery. Percy Binder had stolen these lines +from the autobiography of my own G.E. She says, by the way, that their +author was "the last of the wits." But how can you be last in a race in +which you never start? It is always safe to say what you think, but +sometimes dangerous to give your reasons for thinking it. + +That, however, is a digression. Percy Binder was given to understand +that we did not know him in future. Mr. Bunting was so upset that he +declared the competition cancelled, and smoked the prize himself. He +said afterwards that what annoyed him most was the foolishness of Mr. +Binder's idea that his plagiarism would be undetected. + +"He is," said Mr. Bunting, "like the silly ostrich that lays its eggs +in the sand in order to escape the vigilance of its pursuers." + +One of our pencil-games was known as Inverted Conundrums, and played as +follows. One person gave the answer to a riddle, and mentioned one word +to be used in the question. The rest then had to write down what they +thought the question would be. The deafness of dear Violet Orpington +sometimes spoiled this game. + +For instance, I had once given as an answer "bee-hive," and said that +one word in the question was "correct." + +The first question I read out was from George Leghorn. He had written: +"If a cockney nurse wished to correct a child, what insect-home would +she name?" This was accepted. + +The next question was from Violet Orpington: "If you had never corrected +a naughty boy before, where would you correct him?" + +"But, Violet," I said, "the answer to that could not be 'bee-hive.'" + +"Oh," she said, "you said 'hive,' did you? I thought you said something +else." + +I have never been able to guess what it was she thought I had said; and +she refused to tell me. + +Another of our pencil-games was Missing Rhymes. One of us would write a +deccasyllabic couplet--we always called it a quatrain, as being a +better-class word--and the rhyme in the second line would not be +actually given but merely indicated. + +For example, I myself wrote the following little sonnet: + + "I have an adoration for + One person only, namely _je_." + +To any reader who is familiar with the French language, this may seem +almost too easy, but I doubt if anybody who knew no language but modern +Greek would guess it. For the benefit of the uninitiated I may add that +the French word _je_ is pronounced "mwor," thus supplying the missing +rhyme. + +Millie Wyandotte disgraced herself with the following lyric: + + "After her dance, Salome, curtseying, fell, + And shocked the Baptist with her scream of 'Bother!'" + +She had no sooner read it out than Mr. Bunting rose in his place and +said gravely: + +"I can only speak definitely for myself, but it is my firm belief that +all present, with the exception of Miss Wyandotte, have too much +refinement to be able to guess correctly the missing rhyme in this +case." Loud and prolonged applause. + +George Leghorn was particularly happy at these pencil games, and to him +is due this very clever combination of the lyrical and the acrostical: + + "My first a man is, and my next a trap; + My whole's forbidden, lest it cause trouble." + +The answer to the acrostic is "mantrap"; the missing rhyme is "mishap." +The entire solution was given in something under half an hour by Popsie +Bantam. She was a very bright girl, and afterwards married a man in the +Guards (L.N.W.R.). + +Mr. Bunting, a rather strong party-politician, one night submitted this +little triolet: + + "When the Great War new weapons bade us forge, + Whom did the nation trust? 'Twas thou, Asquith!" + +The missing rhyme was guessed immediately, in two places, as the +auctioneers say. + +However, by our next quinquennial meeting Nettie Minorca had thought out +the following rejoinder: + + "When history's hand corrects the current myth, + Whose name will she prefer? 'Tis thine, Lloyd George." + +Yes, dear Nettie had a belated brilliance--the wit of the staircase, +only more so. We always said that Nettie could do wonderful things if +only she were given time. + +She was given time ultimately, and is still doing it, but that was in a +totally different connection. She inserted an advertisement stating that +she was a thorough good cook. First-class references. Eight years in +present situation in Exeter, and leaving because the family was going +abroad. Wages asked, L36 per annum. No kitchen-maid required. No less +than twelve families were so anxious to receive the treasure that they +offered her return-fare between Exeter and London, and her expenses, to +secure a personal interview with her. She collected the boodle from all +twelve. And she was living in Bryanstone Square at the time. She is lost +to us now. + +As dear old Percy Cochin, also one of the Soles, once said to me: "We +are here to-day, and gone at the end of our month." + +Violet Orpington had an arresting appearance, and walked rather like a +policeman also. Her hair was a rich raw sienna, and any man would have +made love to her had she but carried an ear-trumpet. She is the +"retiring Violet" of verse seven.[A] Millie Wyandotte was malicious and +unintelligent; she looked well in white, but was too heavily built for +my taste. I may add, as evidence of my impartiality, that she laid a +table better than any woman I ever knew; in fact, she took first prize +in a laying competition. Nettie Minorca was "black but comely," and had +Spanish blood in her veins. She is the "gipsy" mentioned in verse +one-and-a-half. Popsie Bantam was _petite_. Her profile was admired, but +I always thought it a little beaky myself. I myself was the least +beautiful, but the most attractive. Allusions to me will be found in +verses 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 12-19, 24, 57-60, 74, 77, 87, 97, and 102-3468. + +[Footnote A: + _Publisher_: But you don't give the verses. + + _Author_: I know. It's a little idea I got from an excellent Sunday + newspaper.] + +George Leghorn was an Albino, but his figure was very graceful. From the +specimen which I have already given, it will be easy to believe that his +wit was fluorescent, detergent, and vibratory. He afterwards became a +well-known personality on the turf. He gained a considerable fortune by +laying the odds; his family were all reputed to be good layers. + +Dear old Peter Cochin was staunch and true. He reminds me of something +that my illustrious model says of another man. She says that he "would +risk telling me or anyone he loved, before confiding to an inner circle, +faults which both he and I think might be corrected." Grammar was no +doubt made for slaves--not for the brilliant and autobiographical. All +the same, a prize should be offered to anybody who can find the missing +"risk" in mentioning to another a point on which both are agreed. + +She adds that she has had "a long experience of inner circles." There, +it must be admitted, she is ahead of me. But the only inner circle of +which I have had a long experience has been much improved since it was +electrified. + +In congratulating Peter upon a new appointment, with three under him, I +asked when I first met him. His reply was particularly staunch, and I +quote from it: + + "It was in May 28, 1913. The hour was 1.38.5 Greenwich Time, and I + shall never forget it. You were sixteen then, and the effect as you + came into the room was quintessential. Suddenly the sunlight + blazed, the electric light went on automatically till the fuses + gave way, the chimney caught fire, the roof fell in, the petrol + tank exploded, old R--y said that he should never care to speak to + his wife again, and the butler dropped the Veuve Clicquot. After + that the shooting party came in, but for some reason or other the + sentence was not carried out." + +I have very few staunch friends, and many of them have had to be +discarded from weakness; but when they are staunch--well, they really +are. The only trouble with Peter Cochin was that he was too cautious. He +was given to under-statement. I do not think he gives a really full and +rich idea of the effect I habitually produced. + +I sometimes think that I am almost too effective. Still, as I said +before, the Latin word "margo" does mean "the limit." + + + + +FIFTH EXTRACT + +MISFIRES + + +My family had a curious dread that I should marry a groom. I never did. +To be quite honest, I never had the opportunity. But I did get engaged +to quite a lot of other things. + +My first engagement was when I was very, very young. He was a humorous +man, and perhaps I was wrong in taking him so seriously. Still, he must +have adored me. When I accepted him his hair turned completely white--an +infallible test of the depth of emotion. + +He was an excellent whip. It used to be a wonderful sight to see him +taking a pair of young horses down Ludgate Hill on a greasy day at noon, +with the whole road chock-a-block with traffic, lighting a pipe with a +wooden match with one hand, carrying on an animated conversation with +the other with a fare on the front seat, dropping white-hot satire on +the heads of drivers less efficient than himself, and always getting the +'bus through safely with about an inch to spare on each side. + +On the other hand, he was almost entirely ignorant of Marcus Aurelius, +Henry James, Step-dancing, Titian, the Manners and Customs of Polite +Society, Factory-Girl Reclamation, Cardinal Newman, or the Art of +Self-advertisement. He said, with an entire absence of pretension, that +these things were not on his route. + +When I announced our engagement the members of my family who were +present, about seventeen of them, all swooned, except dear papa, who +said in his highly-strung way that if I married anybody he would put the +R.S.P.C.A. on to me. + +I said what I thought, and fled for consolation to Casey, my married +sister. But she also was discouraging. + +"Marge," she said, "give it a miss. You have a rich nature, beautiful +hair, a knowledge of the world, nervous tension, some of the appearance +of education, and four pound fifteen put by in the Post Office. You must +look higher." + +I have always detested scenes--which, perhaps, seems strange in a girl +as fond of the limelight as I was. I began to re-consider the question. +Accidentally, I discovered that he had a wife already. What with one +thing and another, I thought it best to write and give him up. He +immediately resigned his appointment with the London General, gave me a +long-priced certainty for the Oaks, and left for New York. When he +returned, two years later, his hair was pale green. + +But if the engagement did not come off, the certainty for the Oaks did. +In consequence of this I left for Ramsgate by the "Marguerite" some days +later. Dressed? Well, you should have seen me. + +It chanced that one of the passengers on the boat was Mr. Aaron Birsch. +He had been presented to me some weeks before by Mr. Bunting. I knew +that he was a turf commissioner, had speculated with success in cottage +property, and was commonly reported to be much richer than he looked. +Beyond that, I know very little of him. Apparently, however, he had made +it his business to know quite a good deal of me. Mr. Bunting was his +informant, and I had always been a quite special favourite of the +_doyen_ of the Soles. + +Mr. Birsch came up to me at once. We chatted on various topics, and he +told me of something which was likely to be quite useful for Goodwood. +Then he said suddenly: + +"Matter of fact, there was a bit of private business I wanted a word +with you about. This boat's too full of what I call riff-raff. +Mouth-organs. Bad taste. Can't hear yourself speak. But we get an hour +at Ramsgate, and if you'll take a snack with me there, I can tell you +what I've got to say." + +More from curiosity than from anything else, I accepted. And I must say +that our luncheon conversation was rather remarkable. + + BIRSCH: To come to the point, you're the very identical girl that I + want Alfred to marry. + + MARGE (_innocently_): Alfred? + + BIRSCH: Yes, my son. + + MARGE: But I have never even seen him. + + BIRSCH: And when you have you'll probably wish you hadn't. But + don't let that prejudice you. It's the inside of the head that + counts. That boy's got a perfect genius for cottage property and + real tact with it. Only last week he raised an old woman's rent a + shilling a week, and when he left she gave him a rosebud and said + she'd pray for him. It takes some doing--a thing like that. Now, I + want a public career for that boy, and if he marries you he can't + miss it. Do you know what Mr. Bunting said to me about you? + + MARGE (_breathlessly_): But he's so flattering. I think he likes + me--I don't know why. I sometimes wonder---- + + BIRSCH (_just as if I'd never spoken_): Bunting said to me: "That + girl, Marge, will get into the newspapers. It may be in the Court + News, and it may be in the Police-court News. That will depend on + which she prefers. But she'll get there, and she'll stick there!" + That's what I want for Alfred. Everything's ready for him to start + firing, but he needs you to sight the gun. + + MARGE: And if you can't get me, whom would you like? + + BIRSCH: Well, Lady Artemis Morals has some gift for publicity. But + Alfred won't marry a title--say's he rather thinks of making a + title for himself. The boy's got ambition. The cash is forthcoming. + And you can do the rest. + + MARGE: It is a flattering offer. You'll let me think over it? + +He kindly consented, and we returned to the boat. However, on the way +back the sea became very rough and unpleasant; and I threw up the idea. + +(By the way, you don't mind me writing the dialogue, as above, just as +if it were a piece out of a play? I've always brought the sense of the +theatre into real life.) + +Poor Aaron Birsch! He was only one of the very many men who have been +extremely anxious that I should marry somebody else. Two years later +Alfred died of cerebral tumescence--a disease to which the ambitious are +peculiarly liable. That cat, Millie Wyandotte, happened to say to Birsch +that if I had married his son I should now have been a wealthy young +widow. + +"Anybody who married Marge," said Birsch, "would not die at the end of +two years." + +"I suppose not," said Millie. "He'd be more likely to commit suicide at +the end of one." + +I never did like that girl. + +But I must speak now of what was perhaps my most serious engagement. +Hugo Broke--his mother was one of the Stoneys--was intended from birth +for one of the services and selected domestic service. Here it was +thought that his height--he was seven foot one--would tell in his +favour. However, the Duchess of Exminster, in ordering that the new +footman should be dismissed, said that height was desirable, but that +this was prolixity. + +However, it was not long before he found a congenial sphere for his +activities with the London branch of the Auto-extensor Co. of America. +The Auto-extensor Co. addresses itself to the abbreviated editions of +humanity. It is claimed for the Auto-extensor system that there is +absolutely no limit to the increase in height which may be obtained by +it, provided of course, that the system is followed exactly, that +nothing happens to prevent it, and that the rain keeps off. + +Hugo walked into the Regent Street establishment of the Auto-extensor +people, and said: + +"Good morning. I think I could be of some service to this company as an +advertisement." + +"I am sure you could," said the manager. "If you will kindly wait a +moment while the boy fetches the step-ladder I will come up and arrange +terms." + +In the result, the large window of the Regent Street establishment was +furnished as a club smoking-room or thereabouts. In the very centre, in +a chair of exaggerated comfort but doubtful taste, sat Hugo. He was +exquisitely attired. He read a newspaper and smoked cigarettes. By his +side, in a magnificent frame, was a printed notice, giving a rather +fanciful biography of the exhibit. + +"This gentleman," the notice ran, "was once a dwarf. For years he +suffered in consequence agonies of humiliation, and then a friend called +his attention to the Auto-extensor System of increasing height. He did +not have much faith in it, but in desperation he gave it a trial--and it +made him what he now is. Look for yourselves. Facts speak louder than +words. All we ask you to do is to trust the evidence of your own eyes." + +The window proved a great attraction. The crowd before it was most +numerous about four o'clock, because every day at that hour a dramatic +and exciting scene was witnessed. Putting down his newspaper, Hugo +struck a bell on a little table by his side. A page entered through the +excessively plush curtains at the back, and Hugo gave a brief and +haughty order. The boy somewhat overacted respectful acquiescence, +retired through the curtains, and reappeared again with tea and thin +bread and butter. Of these delicacies Hugo partook _coram populo_. This +carried conviction with it. One onlooker would say to another: "Shows +you he's real, don't it? At one time I thought it was only a dummy." And +for some time afterwards the assistant in the shop would be kept busy, +handing out the gratis explanatory booklet of the Auto-extensor Co. + +It was in this window that I first saw Hugo. I arrived a little late +that afternoon, and missed the first act, where he puts down the +newspaper and rings the bell. But I saw the conclusion of the piece. + +My eyes filled with tears. Here--here at last--I had met somebody whose +chilled-steel endurance of publicity equalled, and perhaps exceeded, my +own. + +I entered the shop, procured the explanatory booklet, and asked at what +hour they closed. At that hour I met him as he left business, and my +first feelings were of disappointment. His clothes were not the +exquisite raiment that he had worn as an exhibit in the window. The +white spats, the sponge-bag trousers with the knife-edge crease, the +gold-rimmed eye-glass, the well-cut morning coat, the too assertive +waistcoat--all were the property of the Auto-extensor Co. and not to be +worn out of business hours. He now wore a shabby tweed suit and a cap. +But he was still a noticeable figure; a happy smile came into the faces +of little boys as he went past. + +"Like your job?" I said shyly, as I took the seat next to him on the top +of the omnibus. + +He replied rather gruffly that he supposed a bloke had to work for his +living, and all work was work, whatever way you looked at it. Further +questions elicited that the pay was satisfactory, but that he did not +regard the situation as permanent. The public would get tired of it and +some other form of advertisement would be found. He complained, too, +that he was supposed to keep up the appearance of a wealthy toff smoking +cigarettes continually for a period of seven hours, and the management +provided only one small packet of woodbines per diem for him to do it +on. + +I produced my cigarette-case. It was one which Lord Baringstoke--always +a careless man--had lost. It had been presented to me by dear Mr. +Bunting. Hugo said he had not intended anything of that sort, but helped +himself. + +A quarter of an hour later we had our first quarrel. I asked him if it +was cold up where he was. He said morosely that he had heard that joke +on his stature a few times before. I told him that if he lived long +enough--and I'd never seen anybody living much longer--he was likely to +hear it a few times again. He then said that either I could hop off the +'bus or he would, and he didn't care which. After that we both were +rather rude. He got me by the hair, and I had just landed a straight +left to the point when the conductor came up and said he would not have +it. + +I became engaged to Hugo that night at 10.41. I remember the time +exactly, because Mrs. Pettifer had a rule that all her maids were to be +in the house by ten sharp, and I was rather keeping an eye on my watch +in consequence. + +To tell the truth, we quarrelled very frequently. Different though we +were in many respects, we both had irritable, overstrung, tri-chord +natures, with hair-spring nerves connected direct to the high-explosive +language-mine. + +On one occasion I went with him to a paper fancy-dress dance at the +rooms attached to the Hopley Arms. I went as "The Sunday Times," my +dress being composed of two copies of that excellent, though +inexpensive journal, tastefully arranged on a concrete foundation. + +When Millie Wyandotte saw me, she called out: "Hello, Marge! Got into +the newspapers at last?" I shall be even with that girl one of these +days. + +I declined to dance with Hugo at all. I said frankly that I preferred to +dance with somebody who could touch the top of my head without stooping. +I went off with Georgie Leghorn, and Hugo sat and sulked. + +Later in the evening he came up to me and asked if he should get my +cloak. + +I said irritably: "Of course not. Why should you?" + +"Well," he said, "I don't know whether you're aware of it, but you've +got three split infinitives in your City article." + +"Ah!" I replied. "The next time Millie Wyandotte telephones up to your +head, give her my love and tell her not to over-strain herself." + +Things went from bad to worse, and after he had alluded to my backbone +as my Personal Column, any possibility of reconciliation seemed at an +end. I did not know then what a terribly determined person Hugo was. + +Georgie Leghorn saw me home. I parted with him at the house, let myself +in by the area-gate, locking it after me, and so down the steps and into +the kitchen. + +There I had just taken off my hair when I heard a shrill whistle in the +street outside. Hurriedly replacing my only beauty, I drew up the blind +and looked out. There, up above me on the pavement, was Hugo, stretching +away into the distance. + +"Called for the reconciliation," he said. "Just open this area gate, +will you?" + +"At this time of night?" I called, in a tense whisper. "Certainly not." + +He stepped back, and in one leap jumped over the area-railings and down +on to the window-sill of the kitchen. The next moment he had flung the +window up, entered, and stood beside me. + +"What do you think of that?" he said calmly. + +"Hugo," I said, "I've known some bounders in my time, but not one who +could have done that." + +We sat down and began discussing the Disestablishment of the Welsh +Church, when suddenly the area-gate was rattled and a stern voice +outside said "Police." + +Instantly, Hugo concealed as much of himself as he could under the +kitchen table. There was no help for it. I had to let the policeman in, +or he would have roused the household. + +"I'm just going to have a look in your kitchen," he said. + +"No use," I replied. "The rabbit-pie was finished yesterday." + +"Saucy puss, ain't you?" he said, as he entered. + +"Well, you might be a sport and tell a girl what you're after." + +"Cabman, driving past here a few minutes ago, saw a man jump the +area-railings and make a burglarious entry by the kitchen window." + +"Is that all?" I said. "A man did enter that way a few minutes ago, but +it was not a burglar. It was Master Edward, Mrs. Pettifer's eldest son. +He'd lost his latch-key--he's always doing it--and that's how it +happened. He went straight upstairs to bed, or he'd confirm what I say." + +"Went straight up to bed, did he? Did he take his legs off first? I +notice there's a pair of them sticking out from under the kitchen +table." + +"Yes," I admitted, "I've told better lies in my time. Oh, Mr. Policeman, +don't be hard. I never wanted my young man to come larking about like +this. But--he's not a burglar. He's the exhibit from the Auto-extensor +Co.'s in Regent Street. You can pull out the rest of him and see if he +isn't." + +"That's what I told the cabman," said the policeman. "I said to him: +'You juggins,' I said, 'do you think a burglar who wants to get into a +house waits till a cab's going past and then gives a acrobatic +exhibition to attract the driver's attention? That's some young fool +after one of the maids.' No, I don't want to see the rest of the young +man--not if he's like the sample. Get him unwound as soon as you can, +and send him about his business. If he's not out in two minutes, I +shall ring the front door, and you'll be in the cart. And don't act so +silly another time." + +Hugo was out in 1 min. 35 sec. He stopped to chat with the policeman, +jumped the seven-foot railings into the square garden, and jumped back +again, just to show what he could do, and went off. + +I gave a long, deep sigh. I always do that when an incident in my life +fails to reach the best autobiographical level. I neither knew nor cared +what the policeman thought. You see, I would never deserve a bad +reputation, but there's nothing else I wouldn't do to get one. + +For eighty-four years--my memory for numbers is not absolutely accurate, +but we will say eighty-four--for eighty-four years I wrote him a letter +every morning and evening of every day, with the exception of Sundays, +bank holidays, and the days when I did not feel like it. + +But it was not to be. He was not without success in the circus which he +subsequently joined, but he was improvident. His income increased in +arithmetical progression, and his expenditure in geometrical. This, as +Dr. Micawber and Professor Malthus have shown us, must end in disaster. +Looking at it from the noblest point of view--the autobiographical--I +saw that a marriage with Hugo would inevitably cramp my style. + +And so the great sacrifice was made. Our feelings were so intense as we +said farewell that my native reserve and reticence forbid me to +describe them. But we parted one night in June, with a tear in the +throat and a catch in the eye. As he strode from the park, I looked +upward and saw in the brown crags above me some graceful animal +silhouetted against an opal sky. I always have said that those Mappin +Terraces were an improvement. + + + + +SIXTH EXTRACT + +TESTIMONIALS--ROYAL APPRECIATION + + +Being what I am, it may readily be supposed that I have received many +tributes to the qualities that I possess. I have already exposed many of +these to the public gaze, still have some left, and it seems to me a +pity that my readers should miss any of the evidence. The first +testimonial is from my sister Casey, and a melancholy interest is +attached to it. It was the last one she wrote for me before I took the +momentous step which will be described in my last chapter: + + "Marge Askinforit has been in my service for eight years. I should + not be parting with her but for the fact that I am compelled by + reasons of health to leave England. Askinforit is clean, sober, + honest, an early riser, an excellent plate-cleaner and valet, has + perfect manners and high intelligence, takes a great pride in her + work, and is most willing, obliging and industrious. She was with + me as parlour-maid (first of two), and now seeks temporary + employment in that capacity; but there is no branch of domestic + service with which she is not thoroughly well acquainted, and when + the occasion has arisen she has always been willing to undertake + any duties, and has done so with unfailing success. She is tall, of + good appearance, Church of England (or anything else that is + required), and anybody who secures such a treasure will be + exceptionally fortunate. I shall be pleased at any time to give any + further information that may be desired. + + "(Mrs.) C. MORGENSTEIN." + +I do not say that dear Casey's estimate had the arid accuracy of the +pedant, but she had a rich and helpful imagination. In rare moments of +depression and unhappiness I have found that by reading one of her +testimonials I can always recover my tone. And they were effective for +their purpose. By this time I was accepting no situations except with +titled people; and some of the language that I heard used suggested to +me that the reclamation of baronets during their dinner-hour might after +all be my life's work. + +The next exhibit will be a letter from a famous author, a complete +stranger to me, whose work I had long known and admired: + + "Dear Madam, For a long time past it has been my privilege to + express in the daily newspapers my keen and heartfelt appreciation + of a certain departmental store. I thought that I knew my work. I + believe even that it gave satisfaction. I could begin an article + with fragments of moral philosophy, easily intelligible and certain + of general acceptance, modulate with consummate skill into the key + of _crepe de chine_, and with a further natural and easy transition + reach the grand theme of the glorious opportunities offered by a + philanthropical Oxford Street to a gasping and excited public. Or I + would adopt with grace and facility the attitude of a prejudiced + and hostile critic, show how cold facts and indisputable figures + reversed my judgment, and end with a life-like picture of myself + heading frantically in a No. 16 'bus for the bargain basement, + haunted by the terror that I might be too late. With what + dignity--even majesty--did I not invest an ordinary transaction in + _lingerie_, when I spoke of 'the policy of this great House'! Yes, + I believed I knew what there was to know of the supreme art of + writing an advertisement. + + "But now the mists roll away and I see as it were remote peaks of + delicate and implicating advertising the existence of which I had + never suspected. It is to you I owe it. You have a theme that you + probably find inexhaustible. Fired by your example I shall turn to + my own subject (Government linen at the moment) with a happy + consciousness that I shall do a far, far better thing than I have + ever done before. + + "Your obedient servant, + "CALLISTHENIDES." + +Of this letter I will only say that few have the courage and candour to +acknowledge an inferiority and an indebtedness, and fewer still could +have done it in the vicious and even succulent style of the above. It is +a letter that I read often and value highly. The only trouble about it +is that I sometimes wonder if it was not really intended for another +lady whose name has one or two points of similarity with my own. + +I cannot refrain from quoting also one of the many letters that I +received from my dear old friend, Mr. J. A. Bunting: + + "And now I must turn to your request for a statement of my opinion + of you, to be published in case an autobiography should set in. It + was I who introduced you to a certain circle. That circle, though + to me an open sessimy, was no doubt particular, and I confess that + I felt some hesitation. Through no fault of your own, you were at + that time in a position which was hardly up to our level. But I + admired your spirit and thought your manners, of which I can claim + to be a good judge, had the correct cashy, though with rather too + much tendency to back-chat. At any rate, I took the step, and I + have never regretted it. You soon made your way to the front, and + it is my firm belief that if you had been dropped into a den of + raging lions you would have done the same thing. You are much + missed. You have my full permission to make what use you please of + this testimonial, which is quite unsolicited, and actuated solely + by an appreciation of the goods supplied. + + "Society in London is very so-so at present, and we leave for + Scotland at the end of the week. His lordship's had one fit of his + tantrums, but I had a look in my eye that ipsum factum soon put an + end to it. I wish it was as easy to put a stop to his leaning to + third-class company. Three ordinary M.P.'s at dinner last night and + one R.A. I always did hate riff-raff, and should say it was in my + blood." + +Unfortunately, it is not everybody who will put into writing, with the +simple manliness of Mr. Bunting, the very high opinion of me which they +must inevitably have formed. Even George Leghorn has proved a +disappointment. But in his case I am inclined to think there was a +misunderstanding. + +I asked him to send his opinion of me as I thought of making a book. He +replied on a postcard: "Don't approve of women in the profession, and +you'd better cut it out. It's hard enough for a man bookmaker to scrape +a living, with everybody expecting the absurd prices quoted in the +press." + +Many of the contemporary testimonials that I have received are so +cautiously framed and so wanting in warmth that I decline to make any +use of them. I have always hated cowardice. I have the courage of my +opinions. Why cannot others have the same. + +However, I have through my sister Chlorine succeeded in securing the +opinions of some of the greatest in another century. I can only say that +they confirm my belief in her powers as a medium, and in her wonderful +system of wireless telephony. + +The first person that I asked her to ring up was Napoleon. She had some +difficulty in getting through. He spoke as follows: + +"Yes, I am Napoleon. Oh, that's you, Chlorine, is it?... Quite well, +thank you, but find the heat rather oppressive.... You want my opinion +of your sister Marge? She is wonderful--wonderful! Tell her from me that +if I had but married her when I was a young man, I am confident that +Wellington would have met his Waterloo." + +I think he would have liked to say more, but unfortunately the receiver +fused. I think it showed such nice feeling in him that he spoke English. +Poor Chlorine knows no French. + +After the apparatus had been repaired, Chlorine got into communication +with Sir Joshua Reynolds. She said that his voice had a fruity +ceremoniousness, and I wish I could have heard it. But I have not +Chlorine's gift of mediumship. Sir Joshua said: + +"The more I see of your sister Marge, the more I regret the time that I +spent on Mrs. Siddons, who was also theatrical; my compliment that I +should go down to posterity on the hem of her garment was not +ill-turned, but she is more likely to go down to posterity as the +subject of my art. Why, even Romney would have been good enough for her. +Could I but have painted Marge, my fame had been indeed immortal. Who's +President?... Well, you surprise me." + +To prevent any possibility of incredulity, I may add that I wrote those +words down at the time, added the date and address, and signed them; so +there can be no mistake. + +But far more interesting is the important and exclusive communication +which Chlorine next received. It was only after much persuasion that I +got her to ring him up; she said it was contrary to etiquette. However, +she at last put through a call to Sir Herbert Taylor, who kindly +arranged the matter for us. + +He--not Sir Herbert--showed the greatest readiness to converse. Chlorine +says that he spoke in a quick staccato. He was certainly voluble, and +this is what he said: + +"What, what, what? Want my opinion of marriage, do you, Miss +Forget-your-name? I had a long experience of it. Estimable woman, +Charlotte, very estimable, and made a good mother, though she showed +partiality. If I'd had my own way though--between ourselves, what, +what?--I should have preferred Sarah. More lively, more entertaining. +Holland would have been pleased. But it couldn't be done. Monarchs are +the servants of ministers now. Never admitted that doctrine myself. +Kicked against it all my life. Ah, if North had been the strong man I +was! But as to marriage.... + +"What, what? You said 'Marge'--not 'marriage'--your sister Marge? You +should speak more clearly. Get nearer the receiver--age plays havoc with +the hearing. Fine woman, Marge, and you can tell her I said so. Great +spirit. Plenty of courage. Always admired courage. If I were a young man +and back on earth again, I might do worse, what, what?" + +And then I am sorry to say he changed the subject abruptly. He went on: + +"What's this about King Edward potatoes? Stuff and nonsense! I knew all +about potatoes. Grew them at Windsor. Kew too. Wrote an article about +them. Why can't they name a potato after me? What?" + +Here Chlorine interposed: "Do you wish for another three minutes, sir, +or have you finished?" + +I hoped he would say, "Don't cut us off," but, possibly from habits of +economy, he did not. I have not given his name, for fear of being +thought indiscreet, but possibly those who are deeply read in history +may guess it. + +It is the greatest tribute but one that I have ever received, and I +think brings me very nearly up to the level of my Great Example. If I +could only feel that for once I had done that, I could fold my little +hands and be content. + +But it is not quite the greatest tribute of all. The greatest is my own +self-estimate of me myself. It demands and shall receive a chapter all +to itself. Wipe your feet, take off your hat, assume a Sunday +expression, and enter upon it reverently. + +After all, the gift of seeing ourselves as others see us is not to be +desired. In your case for certain it would cause you the most intense +depression. Even in my own case I doubt if it would give me the same +warm, pervading glow of satisfaction that obtain from a more Narcissan +procedure. + +By the way, ought one to say "self-estimate" or "self-esteem"? What a +silly girl I am! I quite forgot. + + + + +SEVENTH EXTRACT + +SELF-ESTIMATE + + +More trouble. Determined to give an estimate of myself based on the best +models, I turned to the pages of my Great Example, and ran into the +following sentence: + +"I do not propose to treat myself like Mr. Bernard Shaw in this +account." + +Does this mean that she does not propose to treat herself as if she were +Mr. Bernard Shaw? It might. Does it mean that she does not propose to +treat herself as Mr. Bernard Shaw treats her? It is not impossible. + +What one wants it to mean is: "I do not propose to treat myself as Mr. +Bernard Shaw treats himself." But if she had meant that, she would have +said it. + +I backed away cautiously, and, a few lines further on, fell over her +statement that she has a conception of beauty "not merely in poetry, +music, art and nature, but in human beings." No doubt. And I have a +conception of slovenly writing not merely in her autobiography, but in +its seventeenth chapter. + +I had not gone very much further in that same chapter before I was +caught in the following thicket: + +"I have got china, books, whips, knives, matchboxes, and clocks given me +since I was a small child." + +If these things were given her since she was a small child, they might +have been given her on the day she wrote--in which case it would not +have been remarkable that she still possessed them. The nearest way out +of the jungle would be to substitute "when" for "since." But it is +incredible that she should have thought of two ways of saying the same +thing, let them run into one another, and sent "The Sunday Times" the +mess resulting from the collision. + +She must be right. Mr. Balfour said she was the best letter-writer he +knew. With generous reciprocity she read Mr. Balfour's books and +realized without external help "what a beautiful style he wrote." + +And for goodness sake don't ask me how you write a style. You do it in +precisely the same way that you cook a saucepan--that is, by the +omission of the word "in." + +Yet one more quotation from the last column of the last extract: + +"If I had to confess and expose one opinion of myself which might +differentiate me a little from other people, I should say it was my +power of love coupled with my power of criticism." + +No, never mind. The power of love is not an opinion; and in ending a +sentence it is just as well to remember how you began it. But I +absolutely refuse to let my simple faith be shaken. She records the +bones that she has broken, but John Addington Symonds told her that she +retained "_l'oreille juste_." Her husband said she wrote well, and he +must know. Besides, am I to be convinced in my penultimate chapter that +anything can be wrong with the model I have followed? Certainly not. It +would be heartbreaking. + +Besides, the explanation is quite simple. When she wrote that last +instalment in "The Sunday Times," the power of criticism had gone to +have the valves ground in. + +I will now ask your kind attention for my estimate of me, Marge +Askinforit, by myself. + +There is just one quality which I claim to have in an even greater +degree than my prototype. She is unlike real life--no woman was ever +like what any woman supposes herself to be--but I am far more unlike +real life. I have more inconsistency, more self-contradiction, more +anachronism, more impossibility. In fact, I sometimes feel as if some +fool of a man were just making me up as he went along. + +And the next article? Yes, my imagination. + +I have imagination of a certain kind. It has nothing to do with +invention or fancy. It is not a mental faculty at all. It is not +physical. Neither is it paralysis, butterscotch, or three spades +re-doubled. I should so much like to give some idea of it if I +had any. Perhaps an instance will help. + +I remember that I once said to the Dean of Belial that I thought the +naming of a Highland hotel "The Light Brigade" showed a high degree of +imagination. + +"Half a moment," said the Dean. "I think I know that one. No--can't get +it. Why was the hotel called that?" + +"Because of its terrific charges." + +"Yes," he said wearily. "I've heard it. But"--more brightly--"can you +tell me why a Highland regiment was called 'The Black Watch'?" + +"I can, Massa Johnson. Because there's a 'b' in both." + +"Wrong again. It's because there's an 'e' in each." + +I gave him a half-nelson to the jaw and killed him, and the entire +company then sung "Way down upon de Swannee Ribber," with harmonium +accompaniment, thus bringing the afternoon performance to a close. The +front seats were half empty, but then it was late in the season, and +looked like rain, and-- + +Certainly, I can stop if you like. But you do see what I mean, don't +you? The imagination is something that runs away with you. If I were to +let mine get away with me, it would knock this old autobiography all to +splinters. + +But I do not appear to have the kind of imagination that makes me know +what will hurt people's feelings. If I love people I always tell them +what their worst faults are, and repeat what everybody says about them +behind their back. That ought to make people say: "Thank you, Marge, for +your kind words. They will help me to improve myself." It has not +happened yet. It is my miraculous power of criticism that causes the +trouble. Whenever I let it off the lead it seems to bite somebody; a +muzzle has been suggested. + +The other day I said to Popsie Bantam: "You're quite right to bob your +hair, Popsie. When you have not got enough of anything, always try to +persuade people that you want less. But your rouge-et-noir make-up is +right off the map. If you could manage to get some of the colours in +some of the right places, people would laugh less. And I can never quite +decide whether it's your clothes that are all wrong, or if it's just +your figure. I wish you'd tell me. Anyhow, you should try for a job at a +photographer's--you're just the girl for a dark-room." + +Really, that's all I said--just affectionate, lambent, helpful +criticism, with a little Tarragon in it. Yet next day when I met her on +the staircase she said she didn't want to talk to me any more. So I +heaved her over the balustrade and she had a forty-foot drop on to the +marble below. I am too impulsive--I have always said so. Rather a +pathetic touch was that she died just as the ambulance reached the +hospital. I have lost quite a lot of nice friends in this way. + +With the exception of a few teeny-weeny murders, I do not think I have +done anything in my life that I regret. And even the murders--such as +they were--were more the fault of my circumstances than of myself. If, +as I have always wished, I had lived alone on a desert island, I should +never have killed anybody at all. But when you go into the great world +(basement entrance) and have a bad night, or the flies are troublesome, +you do get a feeling of passionate economy; you realize that there are +people you can do without, and you do without them. This is the whole +truth about a little failing of which my detractors have made the most. +Calumny and exaggeration have been carried to such an extent that more +than once I have been accused of being habitually irritable. + +My revered model wrote that she had always been a collector "of letters, +old photographs of the family, famous people and odds and ends." I have +not gone quite as far as this. + +I have collected odds, and almost every autumn I roam over the moors and +fill a large basket with them, but I have never collected ends. + +I do want to collect famous people, but for want of a little education I +have not been able to do it. I simply do not know whether it is best to +keep them in spirits of wine, or to have them stuffed in glass +cases--like the canaries and the fish that you could not otherwise +believe in. I have been told that really the best way is to press them +between the leaves of some very heavy book, such as an autobiography, +but I fancy they lose much of their natural brilliance when treated in +this way. + +Another difficulty is that the ordinary cyanide bottles that you buy at +the naturalist's, though excellent for moths, are not really large +enough to hold a full-sized celebrity. At the risk of being called a +sentimentalist, I may say that I do not think I could kill famous people +by any method that was not both quick and painless. If anything like +cruelty were involved in their destruction, I would sooner not collect +them at all, but just make a study of them in their wild state. + +I am only a poor little girl, and I can find nothing whatever on the +subject in any reference book in the public reading-room. I need expert +advice. There is quite a nice collection of famous--and infamous--people +near Baker Street Station, but I am told these are only simulacra. That +would not suit me at all. I am far too genuine, downright, and truthful +to put up with anything less than the real thing. + +There must be some way of doing it. I should like to have a stuffed M.P. +in a glass case at each end of the mantelpiece in my little boudoir. +They need not be of the rarest and most expensive kinds. A pretty Labour +Member with his mouth open and a rustic background, and a Coalitionist +lightly poised on the fence, would please me. + +It would be so interesting to display one's treasures when people came +to tea. + +"Never seen a real leader-writer?" I should say. "They're plentiful +locally, but mostly come out at night, and so many people miss them. It +is not of the least use to put treacle on the trees. The best way is to +drive a taxi slowly down Fleet Street about one in the morning and look +honest. That's how I got the big leader-writer in the hall. Just press +his top waistcoat button and he'll prove that the lost election was a +moral victory. + +"In the next case? Oh, they're just a couple of little Georgian poets. +They look wild, but they're quite tame really. Sprinkle an advance on +account of royalties on the window-sill and they'll come for it. It used +to be pretty to watch those two, pouring adulatory articles over each +other. They sing chopped prose, and it seemed almost a pity to kill +them; but there are plenty more. + +"And that very pretty creature is an actress; if you drop an interviewer +into the left hand corner of the dressing-room you will hear her say: 'I +love a country life, and am never happier than when I am working in my +little garden,'--insert here the photograph in the sun-bonnet--'I don't +think the great public often realizes what a vast amount of----'" + +But I am talking about collecting other people. I am wandering from my +subject. I must collect myself. + +At a very early age I caught the measles and a little later on the +public eye. The latter I still hold. But I do not often lose anything +except friends, and occasionally the last 'bus, and of course my +situations. My great model says it is a positive punishment to her to +be in one position for long at a time, and I must be something like +that--I rarely keep a place much longer than a month. On the other hand, +I still have quite a number of metal discs that formed the wheels of a +toy railway train which I had when I was quite a child. I should have +had them all, but I used some to get chocolates out of the automatic +machines. + +I should have liked to have appended here a list of my accomplishments, +but I must positively keep room for my last chapter. So to save space I +will merely give a list of the accomplishments which I have not got, or +have not got to perfection. + +The E flat clarionet is not really my instrument, but I will give you +three guesses what is. + +I skate beautifully, but not so well as I dance. However, I am saving +the I's out of my autobiography for further practice. + +Some people perhaps have better memories. But that's no reason why they +should write to the "Sunday Times" about it. + +I cannot write Chinese as fluently as English, though I might +conceivably write it more correctly. + +I think I have mentioned everything in which I am not perfectly +accomplished. Truth and modesty make me do it. + +I would conclude this estimate of myself as follows. If I had to confess +and expose one opinion of myself which would record what I believe to +be my differentiation from other people, it would be the opinion that I +am a law unto myself and a judgment to everybody else. + + + + +LATE EXTRA + +TRAGIC DISAPPEARANCE OF MARGE ASKINFORIT + + +I sometimes think that it must have been a sense of impending +autobiography which made me seek employment in the Lightning Laundry. +After all, the autobiographist merely does in public what the laundry +does in the decent seclusion of its works at Wandsworth or Balham. + +The principal difference would appear to be that a respectable laundress +does know where to draw the line. + +But I admit that I had other motives in seeking a new career. My attempt +to reclaim baronets in their dinner-hour had broken down completely; in +spite of everything I could do, the dirty dogs would persist in eating +their dinner at that time. Then again, the beautiful and imaginative +essays which dear Casey wrote, under different names and with varying +addresses, on my suitability for domestic service, had begun to attract +too much attention; and a censorious world stigmatized as false and +dishonest what was really poetical. I wanted too, a position of greater +independence. + +Of course, I had to learn the work. At first I was taught the leading +principles of button-removal. Then I went on to the rough-edging. This +consists in putting a rough edge on starched collars and cuffs with a +coarse file. Afterwards I was promoted to the mixing department. This is +where the completed articles are packed for delivery. It requires great +quickness and a nice sense of humour. For instance, you take up a pair +of socks and have to decide instantly whether you will send them both to +an elderly unmarried lady, or divide them impartially between two men. +Our skill in creating odd socks and stockings was gratefully recognized +by the Amalgamated Hosiers' Institution, who paid the laundry an annual +subsidy. A good memory was essential for the work. Every girl was +required to memorize what size in collars each male client took, so +that the fifteen-inch collars might be sent to the man with the +seventeen-inch neck and vice-versa. As the manager said to me once: +"What we are here for is to teach people self-control. The rest is +merely incidental." + +I did not remain very long in the mixing department. My head for figures +soon earned me a place in the office. Much of it was routine work. Four +times every year we had to send out the notices that owing to the +increased cost of labour and materials we were reluctantly compelled to +increase our prices 22-1/2 per cent. We made it 22-1/2 per cent. with +the happy certainty that very few of our customers would be able to +calculate the amount of the increase, and still fewer would take the +trouble; this left a little room for the play of our fancy. As one of +our directors--a man with a fine, scholarly head--once said to me: +"Bring the larger vision into the addition of a customer's account. The +only natural limit to the charge for washing a garment is the cost of +the garment. Keep your eyes ever on the goal. Our present prices are but +milestones on the road." He had a beautiful, ecclesiastical voice. +Nobody would have guessed that he was an engineer and the inventor of +the Button-pulper and Hem-render which have done so much to make our +laundries what they are. + +From the very first day that I took up my work in the office I became +conscious that Hector, the manager, had his eye upon me. He would +generally read a page or two of Keats or Shelley to us girls, before we +began to make out the customers' accounts. This was all in accord with +the far-seeing and generous policy of the laundry. The reading took a +little time, but it filled us with the soaring spirit. It made pedantic +precision and things-that-are repulsive to us. After I heard Hector read +the "Ode to a Nightingale" I could not bring myself to say that two and +two were four; nothing less than fourteen seemed to give me any +satisfaction. Hector knew how quickly responsive and keenly sentient I +was. A friend once told me that he had said of me that I made arithmetic +a rhapsody. "This," I replied quietly, "means business." + +It did. One Saturday afternoon I had tea with him--not on the Terrace, +as the A.B.C. shop in the High Street was so much nearer. He was very +wonderful. He talked continuously for two hours, and would have gone on +longer. But the waitress pointed out that the charge for a cup of tea +and a scone did not include a twenty-one years' lease of the chair you +sat on. + +He was, of course, a man of great scientific attainments. His work on +the use of acids in fabric-disintegration has a reputation throughout +the laundries of Europe. But he had not the habit of screaming +blasphemies which my Great Example failed to convince anybody that she +had discovered in Huxley. In brief, he did not conform to the +unscientific idea of what a scientific man must be like. He was a +cultured idealist. I will try to recall a few of the marvellous things +he said that afternoon. + +In reply to some remark of mine, he said with authority and conviction: +"Marge, you really _are_." + +And, indeed, I had to admit that very often I am. + +He was saying that in this world gentle methods have effected more than +harsh, and added this beautiful thought: "In the ordeal by laundry the +soft-fronted often outlasts the starched." + +Later, I led him on to speak of ambition. + +"I am ambitious. That is to say, I live not in the present, but in the +future. At one time I had a bicycle, but in imagination I drove a +second-hand Ford; and now I possess the Ford, and in imagination I have +a Rolls-Royce. I once held a subordinate position in the laundry, but in +imagination I was the manager; and now I am the manager, and in +imagination am asked to join the Board of Directors. As the poet +Longfellow so wisely said--Excelsior. Engraved in letters of gold on the +heart of the ambitious are these words: 'And the next article?' At this +present moment I am having a cup of tea with by far the most brilliant +and beautiful girl of my acquaintance, but in imagination----" + +And it was just there that the tactless waitress interrupted us so +rudely. It was in vain that I tried to lead him back to the subject. +Almost his last words to me that afternoon were: + +"I suppose you don't happen to know what the time is?" + +Nor did I. It was just an instance of his subtle intuition. He +understood me at once and without effort. Many men have made a hobby of +it for years and never been within three streets of it. + +The clock at the post-office gave him the information he required, and, +raising his hat, he said: "Well, I must be getting on." + +The whole of the man's life was in that sentence. Always, he was getting +on--and always with a compulsion, as of destiny, shoving behind. + +Knowing my keen appreciation of art, of which I have always been a just +and unfailing critic, he took me on the following Saturday to see the +pictures. It was not a good show--too many comics for my taste, and I'd +seen the Charlie Chaplin one before. However, in the dim seclusion of +the two-shilling seats just as the eighteenth episode of "The Woman +Vampire" reached its most pathetic passage, and the girl at the piano +appropriately shifted to the harmonium, Hector asked me if I would marry +him. + +(No, I shan't. I know I'm an autobiographer and that you have paid to +come in, but there are limits. You know how shy and retiring I am. No +nice girl would tell you what the man said or did on such an occasion, +or how she responded. There will be no details. And you ought to be +ashamed of yourself.) + +But just one of Hector's observations struck me particularly: "You know, +Marge, there are not many girls in the laundry I would say as much to." + +That statement of preference, admitting me as it were to a small circle +of the elect, meant very much to me. I could only reply that there were +some men I wouldn't even allow to take me to a cinema. I asked, and was +accorded, time for consideration. + +I was face to face with the greatest problem of my life. There was, I +know, one great drawback to my marriage with Hector. An immense risk was +involved. When the end of this chapter is reached the reader will know +what the risk and drawback were. + +At the same time, everybody knew well that Hector was marked out for a +great position. I had already, with a view to eventualities, had some +discussion with one of the Directors, Mr. Cashmere, whom I have already +quoted. I was a special favourite of his. But it is quite an ordinary +thing in business, of course, for a Director to discuss the internal +affairs of the Board with one of the Company's junior clerks. + +Mr. Cashmere expressed the highest opinion of Hector, and said he had no +doubt that Hector would become a Director, as a result of a complicated +situation that had arisen. Two of the Directors, Mr. Serge and Mr. +Angora, while remaining on the best possible social terms with the +chairman, Sir Charles Cheviot, were bitterly opposed to him on questions +of policy. On the other hand, though agreed on questions of policy, Mr. +Serge and Mr. Angora were bitterly jealous of each other, and a rupture +was imminent. Under the circumstances, Mr. Cashmere, while assuring +everybody of his whole-hearted support, had a private reservation of +judgment to be finally settled by the directional feline saltation. + +Whichever turn the crisis took, he regarded it as certain that there +would be a resignation, and that Hector would get the vacant place. + +"Why," I said, "it's rather like the Government of the British Empire." + +"Hush!" he said, warningly. "It is exactly like it, but in the interests +of the shareholders we do not wish that to be generally known. It would +destroy confidence." + +I myself felt quite certain that if Hector did become a Director he +would very shortly be chairman of the Board. He was a man that naturally +took anything there was. + +It was in my power to marry a man who would become the chairman of a +Laundry Company with seventeen different branches. It was a great +position. Had I any right to refuse it? If I did not take it, I felt +sure that somebody else would. Was anybody else as good as I was? Truth +compelled me to answer in the negative. The voice of conscience said: +"Take a good thing when you see it. People have lost fortunes by opening +their mouths too wide." + +On the other hand there were two considerations of importance. I might +possibly receive a better offer. If I had been quite sure that Hector +would have taken it nicely, I would have asked him for a three months' +option to see if anything better turned up, but I knew that with his +sensitive nature he might be offended. + +The second consideration was the terrible risk to which I have already +referred. Do be patient. You will know all about it when the time comes. + +I had to decide one way or the other, and--as the world knows now--I +decided in favour of Hector. And immediately the storm broke. + +Every old cat that I knew--and I knew some--began to give me advice. +Now, nobody takes advice better than I do, when I am conscious that I +need it and am sure that the advice is good. Of this I feel as sure as +if such an occasion had ever actually arrived. In an International +Sweet-nature Competition I would back myself for money every time. + +I was told that in the dignified position which was to be mine I must +give up larking about and the use of wicked words when irritated. It +seemed to me that if I was to surrender all my accomplishments I might +just as well never marry Hector at all. I avoid a certain freedom of +speech which my great predecessor uses on a similar occasion. + +Dear old Mr. Cashmere found me in almost a bad temper about it, and +listened gravely to my complaint. Placing one hand on my shoulder, he +said: + +"Marge, I have lived long, and in the course of my life I have received +much advice. My invariable rule has always been to thank for it, +expressing my gratitude with some warmth and every appearance of +sincerity. This is all that the adviser requires. It gives him, or her, +complete satisfaction. It costs nothing. Afterwards, I proceed precisely +as if no advice had been given." + +That freak, Millie Wyandotte, sent me a plated toast-rack and a letter +from which I extract the following: + + "If you were half as extraordinary as you think you are, this + would be a miserable marriage. Anybody who married it would get + lost, bewildered, and annoyed, and the hymn for those at sea should + be sung at the wedding ceremony. But cheer up, old girl. Really + extraordinary people never think it worth while to prove that they + are extraordinary, and mostly would resent being told it. You'll + do. Psychologies like yours can be had from any respectable dealer + at a shilling a dozen, including the box. They wear very well and + give satisfaction. Here's luck." + +Mr. J. A. Banting sent me a travelling-clock at one time the property of +Lord Baringstoke, and a letter of such fervent piety and tender +affection that it is too sacred for me to quote. + +Fifty-eight rejected suitors combined to send me a hand-bag of no great +intrinsic value. I cannot but think that the principle of syndication is +more suited to business than to generosity. + +But I will not weary the reader with a list of the numerous and costly +gifts that I received. Suffice it to say that one of my brothers, an +excellent judge, offered me a fiver for the lot, and said that he +expected to lose money by it. + + * * * * * + +Immediately after the wedding ceremony the blow fell. I had foreseen the +danger of disaster from the very first, and that disaster came. I can +hardly bring myself to write of it. + +I have spoken of my husband as Hector, but his surname was Harris--his +mother was one of the Tweeds. Consequently, I had become Mrs. Harris. + +The tendency of a Mrs. Harris to become mythical was first noticed by an +English writer of some repute in the nineteenth century. I forget his +precise name, but believe that it was Thackeray. + +It was in the vestry that I seemed to hear the voice of an elderly and +gin-bemused female telling me that there was no sich person. I did not +cease to exist, but I became aware that I never had, and never could +have, existed. I was merely mythical. Gently whispering "The Snark was a +Boojum," I faded away. + +The last sound I heard was the voice of Hector calling to me: + +"Hullo, hullo! Are you there? Harris speaking.... Hullo, hullo.... Are +you there?" + +And, as not infrequently happens, there was no answer. + + + + + H. G. WELLS' + Best Novels + + + TONO BUNGAY + (11th Edition) + + THE NEW MACHIAVELLI + (10th Edition) + + MARRIAGE + (12th Edition) + + MR. POLLY + (9th Edition) + + THE + ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU + (10th Edition) + + DUFFIELD AND COMPANY + + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: + +Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise, +every effort has been made to be true to the author's words and intent. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Marge Askinforit, by Barry Pain + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARGE ASKINFORIT *** + +***** This file should be named 26024.txt or 26024.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/0/2/26024/ + +Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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