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diff --git a/2830.txt b/2830.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c68a600 --- /dev/null +++ b/2830.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2007 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Reginald, by Saki + + +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: Reginald + + +Author: Saki + + + +Release Date: August 30, 2006 [eBook #2830] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REGINALD*** + + + + + +Transcribed from the 1911 Methuen & Co. (third) edition by David Price, +email ccx074@pglaf.org. Proofing by Margaret and David Price. + + + + + +REGINALD + + +BY +SAKI +(H. H. MUNRO) + +THIRD EDITION + +METHUEN & CO. LTD. +36 ESSEX STREET W.C. +LONDON + +_First Published_ . . . _September 1904_ + +_Second Edition_ . . . _July 1905_ + +_Third Edition_ . . . _1911_ + +_These sketches originally appeared in the_ "_Westminster Gazette_," _to +the courtesy of the Proprietor of which the author is indebted for +permission to republish them_. + +Contents: + +Reginald + +Reginald on Christmas Presents + +Reginald on the Academy + +Reginald at the Theatre + +Reginald's Peace Poem + +Reginald's Choir Treat + +Reginald on Worries + +Reginald on House-Parties + +Reginald at the Carlton + +Reginald on Besetting Sins + +Reginald's Drama + +Reginald on Tariffs + +Reginald's Christmas Revel + +Reginald's Rubaiyat + +The Innocence of Reginald + + + + +REGINALD + + +I did it--I who should have known better. I persuaded Reginald to go to +the McKillops' garden-party against his will. + +We all make mistakes occasionally. + +"They know you're here, and they'll think it so funny if you don't go. +And I want particularly to be in with Mrs. McKillop just now." + +"I know, you want one of her smoke Persian kittens as a prospective wife +for Wumples--or a husband, is it?" (Reginald has a magnificent scorn for +details, other than sartorial.) "And I am expected to undergo social +martyrdom to suit the connubial exigencies"-- + +"Reginald! It's nothing of the kind, only I'm sure Mrs. McKillop Would +be pleased if I brought you. Young men of your brilliant attractions are +rather at a premium at her garden-parties." + +"Should be at a premium in heaven," remarked Reginald complacently. + +"There will be very few of you there, if that is what you mean. But +seriously, there won't be any great strain upon your powers of endurance; +I promise you that you shan't have to play croquet, or talk to the +Archdeacon's wife, or do anything that is likely to bring on physical +prostration. You can just wear your sweetest clothes and moderately +amiable expression, and eat chocolate-creams with the appetite of a +_blase_ parrot. Nothing more is demanded of you." + +Reginald shut his eyes. "There will be the exhaustingly up-to-date young +women who will ask me if I have seen _San Toy_; a less progressive grade +who will yearn to hear about the Diamond Jubilee--the historic event, not +the horse. With a little encouragement, they will inquire if I saw the +Allies march into Paris. Why are women so fond of raking up the past? +They're as bad as tailors, who invariably remember what you owe them for +a suit long after you've ceased to wear it." + +"I'll order lunch for one o'clock; that will give you two and a half +hours to dress in." + +Reginald puckered his brow into a tortured frown, and I knew that my +point was gained. He was debating what tie would go with which +waistcoat. + +Even then I had my misgivings. + +* * * * * + +During the drive to the McKillops' Reginald was possessed with a great +peace, which was not wholly to be accounted for by the fact that he had +inveigled his feet into shoes a size too small for them. I misgave more +than ever, and having once launched Reginald on to the McKillops' lawn, I +established him near a seductive dish of _marrons glaces_, and as far +from the Archdeacon's wife as possible; as I drifted away to a diplomatic +distance I heard with painful distinctness the eldest Mawkby girl asking +him if he had seen _San Toy_. + +It must have been ten minutes later, not more, and I had been having +_quite_ an enjoyable chat with my hostess, and had promised to lend her +_The Eternal City_ and my recipe for rabbit mayonnaise, and was just +about to offer a kind home for her third Persian kitten, when I +perceived, out of the corner of my eye, that Reginald was not where I had +left him, and that the _marrons glaces_ were untasted. At the same +moment I became aware that old Colonel Mendoza was essaying to tell his +classic story of how he introduced golf into India, and that Reginald was +in dangerous proximity. There are occasions when Reginald is caviare to +the Colonel. + +"When I was at Poona in '76"-- + +"My dear Colonel," purred Reginald, "fancy admitting such a thing! Such +a give-away for one's age! I wouldn't admit being on this planet in +'76." (Reginald in his wildest lapses into veracity never admits to +being more than twenty-two.) + +The Colonel went to the colour of a fig that has attained great ripeness, +and Reginald, ignoring my efforts to intercept him, glided away to +another part of the lawn. I found him a few minutes later happily +engaged in teaching the youngest Rampage boy the approved theory of +mixing absinthe, within full earshot of his mother. Mrs. Rampage +occupies a prominent place in local Temperance movements. + +As soon as I had broken up this unpromising _tete-a-tete_ and settled +Reginald where he could watch the croquet players losing their tempers, I +wandered off to find my hostess and renew the kitten negotiations at the +point where they had been interrupted. I did not succeed in running her +down at once, and eventually it was Mrs. McKillop who sought me out, and +her conversation was not of kittens. + +"Your cousin is discussing _Zaza_ with the Archdeacon's wife; at least, +he is discussing, she is ordering her carriage." + +She spoke in the dry, staccato tone of one who repeats a French exercise, +and I knew that as far as Millie McKillop was concerned, Wumples was +devoted to a lifelong celibacy. + +"If you don't mind," I said hurriedly, "I think we'd like our carriage +ordered too," and I made a forced march in the direction of the croquet- +ground. + +I found everyone talking nervously and feverishly of the weather and the +war in South Africa, except Reginald, who was reclining in a comfortable +chair with the dreamy, far-away look that a volcano might wear just after +it had desolated entire villages. The Archdeacon's wife was buttoning up +her gloves with a concentrated deliberation that was fearful to behold. I +shall have to treble my subscription to her Cheerful Sunday Evenings Fund +before I dare set foot in her house again. + +At that particular moment the croquet players finished their game, which +had been going on without a symptom of finality during the whole +afternoon. Why, I ask, should it have stopped precisely when a counter- +attraction was so necessary? Everyone seemed to drift towards the area +of disturbance, of which the chairs of the Archdeacon's wife and Reginald +formed the storm-centre. Conversation flagged, and there settled upon +the company that expectant hush that precedes the dawn--when your +neighbours don't happen to keep poultry. + +"What did the Caspian Sea?" asked Reginald, with appalling suddenness. + +There were symptoms of a stampede. The Archdeacon's wife looked at me. +Kipling or someone has described somewhere the look a foundered camel +gives when the caravan moves on and leaves it to its fate. The +peptonised reproach in the good lady's eyes brought the passage vividly +to my mind. + +I played my last card. + +"Reginald, it's getting late, and a sea-mist is coming on." I knew that +the elaborate curl over his right eyebrow was not guaranteed to survive a +sea-mist. + +* * * * * + +"Never, never again, will I take you to a garden-party. Never . . . You +behaved abominably . . . What did the Caspian see?" + +A shade of genuine regret for misused opportunities passed over +Reginald's face. + +"After all," he said, "I believe an apricot tie would have gone better +with the lilac waistcoat." + + + + +REGINALD ON CHRISTMAS PRESENTS + + +I wish it to be distinctly understood (said Reginald) that I don't want a +"George, Prince of Wales" Prayer-book as a Christmas present. The fact +cannot be too widely known. + +There ought (he continued) to be technical education classes on the +science of present-giving. No one seems to have the faintest notion of +what anyone else wants, and the prevalent ideas on the subject are not +creditable to a civilised community. + +There is, for instance, the female relative in the country who "knows a +tie is always useful," and sends you some spotted horror that you could +only wear in secret or in Tottenham Court Road. It _might_ have been +useful had she kept it to tie up currant bushes with, when it would have +served the double purpose of supporting the branches and frightening away +the birds--for it is an admitted fact that the ordinary tomtit of +commerce has a sounder aesthetic taste than the average female relative +in the country. + +Then there are aunts. They are always a difficult class to deal with in +the matter of presents. The trouble is that one never catches them +really young enough. By the time one has educated them to an +appreciation of the fact that one does not wear red woollen mittens in +the West End, they die, or quarrel with the family, or do something +equally inconsiderate. That is why the supply of trained aunts is always +so precarious. + +There is my Aunt Agatha, _par exemple_, who sent me a pair of gloves last +Christmas, and even got so far as to choose a kind that was being worn +and had the correct number of buttons. But--_they were nines_! I sent +them to a boy whom I hated intimately: he didn't wear them, of course, +but he could have--that was where the bitterness of death came in. It +was nearly as consoling as sending white flowers to his funeral. Of +course I wrote and told my aunt that they were the one thing that had +been wanting to make existence blossom like a rose; I am afraid she +thought me frivolous--she comes from the North, where they live in the +fear of Heaven and the Earl of Durham. (Reginald affects an exhaustive +knowledge of things political, which furnishes an excellent excuse for +not discussing them.) Aunts with a dash of foreign extraction in them +are the most satisfactory in the way of understanding these things; but +if you can't choose your aunt, it is wisest in the long-run to choose the +present and send her the bill. + +Even friends of one's own set, who might be expected to know better, have +curious delusions on the subject. I am _not_ collecting copies of the +cheaper editions of Omar Khayyam. I gave the last four that I received +to the lift-boy, and I like to think of him reading them, with +FitzGerald's notes, to his aged mother. Lift-boys always have aged +mothers; shows such nice feeling on their part, I think. + +Personally, I can't see where the difficulty in choosing suitable +presents lies. No boy who had brought himself up properly could fail to +appreciate one of those decorative bottles of liqueurs that are so +reverently staged in Morel's window--and it wouldn't in the least matter +if one did get duplicates. And there would always be the supreme moment +of dreadful uncertainty whether it was _creme de menthe_ or +Chartreuse--like the expectant thrill on seeing your partner's hand +turned up at bridge. People may say what they like about the decay of +Christianity; the religious system that produced green Chartreuse can +never really die. + +And then, of course, there are liqueur glasses, and crystallised fruits, +and tapestry curtains, and heaps of other necessaries of life that make +really sensible presents--not to speak of luxuries, such as having one's +bills paid, or getting something quite sweet in the way of jewellery. +Unlike the alleged Good Woman of the Bible, I'm not above rubies. When +found, by the way, she must have been rather a problem at Christmas-time; +nothing short of a blank cheque would have fitted the situation. Perhaps +it's as well that she's died out. + +The great charm about me (concluded Reginald) is that I am so easily +pleased. But I draw the line at a "Prince of Wales" Prayer-book. + + + + +REGINALD ON THE ACADEMY + + +"One goes to the Academy in self-defence," said Reginald. "It is the one +topic one has in common with the Country Cousins." + +"It is almost a religious observance with them," said the Other. "A kind +of artistic Mecca, and when the good ones die they go"-- + +"To the Chantrey Bequest. The mystery is _what_ they find to talk about +in the country." + +"There are two subjects of conversation in the country: Servants, and Can +fowls be made to pay? The first, I believe, is compulsory, the second +optional." + +"As a function," resumed Reginald, "the Academy is a failure." + +"You think it would be tolerable without the pictures?" + +"The pictures are all right, in their way; after all, one can always +_look_ at them if one is bored with one's surroundings, or wants to avoid +an imminent acquaintance." + +"Even that doesn't always save one. There is the inevitable female whom +you met once in Devonshire, or the Matoppo Hills, or somewhere, who +charges up to you with the remark that it's funny how one always meets +people one knows at the Academy. Personally, I _don't_ think it funny." + +"I suffered in that way just now," said Reginald plaintively, "from a +woman whose word I had to take that she had met me last summer in +Brittany." + +"I hope you were not too brutal?" + +"I merely told her with engaging simplicity that the art of life was the +avoidance of the unattainable." + +"Did she try and work it out on the back of her catalogue?" + +"Not there and then. She murmured something about being 'so clever.' +Fancy coming to the Academy to be clever!" + +"To be clever in the afternoon argues that one is dining nowhere in the +evening." + +"Which reminds me that I can't remember whether I accepted an invitation +from you to dine at Kettner's to-night." + +"On the other hand, I can remember with startling distinctness not having +asked you to." + +"So much certainty is unbecoming in the young; so we'll consider that +settled. What were you talking about? Oh, pictures. Personally, I +rather like them; they are so refreshingly real and probable, they take +one away from the unrealities of life." + +"One likes to escape from oneself occasionally." + +"That is the disadvantage of a portrait; as a rule, one's bitterest +friends can find nothing more to ask than the faithful unlikeness that +goes down to posterity as oneself. I hate posterity--it's so fond of +having the last word. Of course, as regards portraits, there are +exceptions." + +"For instance?" + +"To die before being painted by Sargent is to go to heaven prematurely." + +"With the necessary care and impatience, you may avoid that catastrophe." + +"If you're going to be rude," said Reginald, "I shall dine with you to- +morrow night as well. The chief vice of the Academy," he continued, "is +its nomenclature. Why, for instance, should an obvious trout-stream with +a palpable rabbit sitting in the foreground be called 'an evening dream +of unbeclouded peace,' or something of that sort?" + +"You think," said the Other, "that a name should economise description +rather than stimulate imagination?" + +"Properly chosen, it should do both. There is my lady kitten at home, +for instance; I've called it Derry." + +"Suggests nothing to my imagination but protracted sieges and religious +animosities. Of course, I don't know your kitten"-- + +"Oh, you're silly. It's a sweet name, and it answers to it--when it +wants to. Then, if there are any unseemly noises in the night, they can +be explained succinctly: Derry and Toms." + +"You might almost charge for the advertisement. But as applied to +pictures, don't you think your system would be too subtle, say, for the +Country Cousins?" + +"Every reformation must have its victims. You can't expect the fatted +calf to share the enthusiasm of the angels over the prodigal's return. +Another darling weakness of the Academy is that none of its luminaries +must 'arrive' in a hurry. You can see them coming for years, like a +Balkan trouble or a street improvement, and by the time they have painted +a thousand or so square yards of canvas, their work begins to be +recognised." + +"Someone who Must Not be Contradicted said that a man must be a success +by the time he's thirty, or never." + +"To have reached thirty," said Reginald, "is to have failed in life." + + + + +REGINALD AT THE THEATRE + + +"After all," said the Duchess vaguely, "there are certain things you +can't get away from. Right and wrong, good conduct and moral rectitude, +have certain well-defined limits." + +"So, for the matter of that," replied Reginald, "has the Russian Empire. +The trouble is that the limits are not always in the same place." + +Reginald and the Duchess regarded each other with mutual distrust, +tempered by a scientific interest. Reginald considered that the Duchess +had much to learn; in particular, not to hurry out of the Carlton as +though afraid of losing one's last 'bus. A woman, he said, who is +careless of disappearances is capable of leaving town before Goodwood, +and dying at the wrong moment of an unfashionable disease. + +The Duchess thought that Reginald did not exceed the ethical standard +which circumstances demanded. + +"Of course," she resumed combatively, "it's the prevailing fashion to +believe in perpetual change and mutability, and all that sort of thing, +and to say we are all merely an improved form of primeval ape--of course +you subscribe to that doctrine?" + +"I think it decidedly premature; in most people I know the process is far +from complete." + +"And equally of course you are quite irreligious?" + +"Oh, by no means. The fashion just now is a Roman Catholic frame of mind +with an Agnostic conscience: you get the mediaeval picturesqueness of the +one with the modern conveniences of the other." + +The Duchess suppressed a sniff. She was one of those people who regard +the Church of England with patronising affection, as if it were something +that had grown up in their kitchen garden. + +"But there are other things," she continued, "which I suppose are to a +certain extent sacred even to you. Patriotism, for instance, and Empire, +and Imperial responsibility, and blood-is-thicker-than-water, and all +that sort of thing." + +Reginald waited for a couple of minutes before replying, while the Lord +of Rimini temporarily monopolised the acoustic possibilities of the +theatre. + +"That is the worst of a tragedy," he observed, "one can't always hear +oneself talk. Of course I accept the Imperial idea and the +responsibility. After all, I would just as soon think in Continents as +anywhere else. And some day, when the season is over and we have the +time, you shall explain to me the exact blood-brotherhood and all that +sort of thing that exists between a French Canadian and a mild Hindoo and +a Yorkshireman, for instance." + +"Oh, well, 'dominion over palm and pine,' you know," quoted the Duchess +hopefully; "of course we mustn't forget that we're all part of the great +Anglo-Saxon Empire." + +"Which for its part is rapidly becoming a suburb of Jerusalem. A very +pleasant suburb, I admit, and quite a charming Jerusalem. But still a +suburb." + +"Really, to be told one's living in a suburb when one is conscious of +spreading the benefits of civilisation all over the world! Philanthropy--I +suppose you will say _that_ is a comfortable delusion; and yet even you +must admit that whenever want or misery or starvation is known to exist, +however distant or difficult of access, we instantly organise relief on +the most generous scale, and distribute it, if need be, to the uttermost +ends of the earth." + +The Duchess paused, with a sense of ultimate triumph. She had made the +same observation at a drawing-room meeting, and it had been extremely +well received. + +"I wonder," said Reginald, "if you have ever walked down the Embankment +on a winter night?" + +"Gracious, no, child! Why do you ask?" + +"I didn't; I only wondered. And even your philanthropy, practised in a +world where everything is based on competition, must have a debit as well +as a credit account. The young ravens cry for food." + +"And are fed." + +"Exactly. Which presupposes that something else is fed upon." + +"Oh, you're simply exasperating. You've been reading Nietzsche till you +haven't got any sense of moral proportion left. May I ask if you are +governed by _any_ laws of conduct whatever?" + +"There are certain fixed rules that one observes for one's own comfort. +For instance, never be flippantly rude to any inoffensive grey-bearded +stranger that you may meet in pine forests or hotel smoking-rooms on the +Continent. It always turns out to be the King of Sweden." + +"The restraint must be dreadfully irksome to you. When I was younger, +boys of your age used to be nice and innocent." + +"Now we are only nice. One must specialise in these days. Which reminds +me of the man I read of in some sacred book who was given a choice of +what he most desired. And because he didn't ask for titles and honours +and dignities, but only for immense wealth, these other things came to +him also." + +"I am sure you didn't read about him in any sacred book." + +"Yes; I fancy you will find him in Debrett." + + + + +REGINALD'S PEACE POEM + + +"I'm writing a poem on Peace," said Reginald, emerging from a sweeping +operation through a tin of mixed biscuits, in whose depths a macaroon or +two might yet be lurking. + +"Something of the kind seems to have been attempted already," said the +Other. + +"Oh, I know; but I may never have the chance again. Besides, I've got a +new fountain pen. I don't pretend to have gone on any very original +lines; in writing about Peace the thing is to say what everybody else is +saying, only to say it better. It begins with the usual ornithological +emotion-- + + 'When the widgeon westward winging + Heard the folk Vereeniginging, + Heard the shouting and the singing'"-- + +"Vereeniginging is good, but why widgeon?" + +"Why not? Anything that winged westward would naturally begin with a +_w_." + +"Need it wing westward?" + +"The bird must go somewhere. You wouldn't have it hang around and look +foolish. Then I've brought in something about the heedless hartebeest +galloping over the deserted veldt." + +"Of course you know it's practically extinct in those regions?" + +"I can't help _that_, it gallops so nicely. I make it have all sorts of +unexpected yearnings-- + + 'Mother, may I go and maffick, + Tear around and hinder traffic?' + +Of course you'll say there would be no traffic worth bothering about on +the bare and sun-scorched veldt, but there's no other word that rhymes +with maffick." + +"Seraphic?" + +Reginald considered. "It might do, but I've got a lot about angels later +on. You must have angels in a Peace poem; I know dreadfully little about +their habits." + +"They can do unexpected things, like the hartebeest." + +"Of course. Then I turn on London, the City of Dreadful Nocturnes, +resonant with hymns of joy and thanksgiving-- + + 'And the sleeper, eye unlidding, + Heard a voice for ever bidding + Much farewell to Dolly Gray; + Turning weary on his truckle- + Bed he heard the honey-suckle + Lauded in apiarian lay.' + +Longfellow at his best wrote nothing like that." + +"I agree with you." + +"I wish you wouldn't. I've a sweet temper, but I can't stand being +agreed with. And I'm so worried about the aasvogel." + +Reginald stared dismally at the biscuit-tin, which now presented an +unattractive array of rejected cracknels. + +"I believe," he murmured, "if I could find a woman with an unsatisfied +craving for cracknels, I should marry her." + +"What is the tragedy of the aasvogel?" asked the Other sympathetically. + +"Oh, simply that there's no rhyme for it. I thought about it all the +time I was dressing--it's dreadfully bad for one to think whilst one's +dressing--and all lunch-time, and I'm still hung up over it. I feel like +those unfortunate automobilists who achieve an unenviable motoriety by +coming to a hopeless stop with their cars in the most crowded +thoroughfares. I'm afraid I shall have to drop the aasvogel, and it did +give such lovely local colour to the thing." + +"Still you've got the heedless hartebeest." + +"And quite a decorative bit of moral admonition--when you've worried the +meaning out-- + + 'Cease, War, thy bubbling madness that the wine shares, + And bid thy legions turn their swords to mine shares.' + +Mine shares seems to fit the case better than ploughshares. There's lots +more about the blessings of Peace, shall I go on reading it?" + +"If I must make a choice, I think I would rather they went on with the +war." + + + + +REGINALD'S CHOIR TREAT + + +"Never," wrote Reginald to his most darling friend, "be a pioneer. It's +the Early Christian that gets the fattest lion." + +Reginald, in his way, was a pioneer. + +None of the rest of his family had anything approaching Titian hair or a +sense of humour, and they used primroses as a table decoration. + +It follows that they never understood Reginald, who came down late to +breakfast, and nibbled toast, and said disrespectful things about the +universe. The family ate porridge, and believed in everything, even the +weather forecast. + +Therefore the family was relieved when the vicar's daughter undertook the +reformation of Reginald. Her name was Amabel; it was the vicar's one +extravagance. Amabel was accounted a beauty and intellectually gifted; +she never played tennis, and was reputed to have read Maeterlinck's _Life +of the Bee_. If you abstain from tennis _and_ read Maeterlinck in a +small country village, you are of necessity intellectual. Also she had +been twice to Fecamp to pick up a good French accent from the Americans +staying there; consequently she had a knowledge of the world which might +be considered useful in dealings with a worldling. + +Hence the congratulations in the family when Amabel undertook the +reformation of its wayward member. + +Amabel commenced operations by asking her unsuspecting pupil to tea in +the vicarage garden; she believed in the healthy influence of natural +surroundings, never having been in Sicily, where things are different. + +And like every woman who has ever preached repentance to unregenerate +youth, she dwelt on the sin of an empty life, which always seems so much +more scandalous in the country, where people rise early to see if a new +strawberry has happened during the night. + +Reginald recalled the lilies of the field, "which simply sat and looked +beautiful, and defied competition." + +"But that is not an example for us to follow," gasped Amabel. + +"Unfortunately, we can't afford to. You don't know what a world of +trouble I take in trying to rival the lilies in their artistic +simplicity." + +"You are really indecently vain of your appearance. A good life is +infinitely preferable to good looks." + +"You agree with me that the two are incompatible. I always say beauty is +only sin deep." + +Amabel began to realise that the battle is not always to the +strong-minded. With the immemorial resource of her sex, she abandoned +the frontal attack, and laid stress on her unassisted labours in parish +work, her mental loneliness, her discouragements--and at the right moment +she produced strawberries and cream. Reginald was obviously affected by +the latter, and when his preceptress suggested that he might begin the +strenuous life by helping her to supervise the annual outing of the +bucolic infants who composed the local choir, his eyes shone with the +dangerous enthusiasm of a convert. + +Reginald entered on the strenuous life alone, as far as Amabel was +concerned. The most virtuous women are not proof against damp grass, and +Amabel kept her bed with a cold. Reginald called it a dispensation; it +had been the dream of his life to stage-manage a choir outing. With +strategic insight, he led his shy, bullet-headed charges to the nearest +woodland stream and allowed them to bathe; then he seated himself on +their discarded garments and discoursed on their immediate future, which, +he decreed, was to embrace a Bacchanalian procession through the village. +Forethought had provided the occasion with a supply of tin whistles, but +the introduction of a he-goat from a neighbouring orchard was a brilliant +afterthought. Properly, Reginald explained, there should have been an +outfit of panther skins; as it was, those who had spotted handkerchiefs +were allowed to wear them, which they did with thankfulness. Reginald +recognised the impossibility, in the time at his disposal, of teaching +his shivering neophytes a chant in honour of Bacchus, so he started them +off with a more familiar, if less appropriate, temperance hymn. After +all, he said, it is the spirit of the thing that counts. Following the +etiquette of dramatic authors on first nights, he remained discreetly in +the background while the procession, with extreme diffidence and the +goat, wound its way lugubriously towards the village. The singing had +died down long before the main street was reached, but the miserable +wailing of pipes brought the inhabitants to their doors. Reginald said +he had seen something like it in pictures; the villagers had seen nothing +like it in their lives, and remarked as much freely. + +Reginald's family never forgave him. They had no sense of humour. + + + + +REGINALD ON WORRIES + + +I have (said Reginald) an aunt who worries. She's not really an aunt--a +sort of amateur one, and they aren't really worries. She is a social +success, and has no domestic tragedies worth speaking of, so she adopts +any decorative sorrows that are going, myself included. In that way +she's the antithesis, or whatever you call it, to those sweet, +uncomplaining women one knows who have seen trouble, and worn blinkers +ever since. Of course, one just loves them for it, but I must confess +they make me uncomfy; they remind one so of a duck that goes flapping +about with forced cheerfulness long after its head's been cut off. Ducks +have _no_ repose. Now, my aunt has a shade of hair that suits her, and a +cook who quarrels with the other servants, which is always a hopeful +sign, and a conscience that's absentee for about eleven months of the +year, and only turns up at Lent to annoy her husband's people, who are +considerably Lower than the angels, so to speak: with all these natural +advantages--she says her particular tint of bronze is a natural +advantage, and there can be no two opinions as to the advantage--of +course she has to send out for her afflictions, like those restaurants +where they haven't got a licence. The system has this advantage, that +you can fit your unhappinesses in with your other engagements, whereas +real worries have a way of arriving at meal-times, and when you're +dressing, or other solemn moments. I knew a canary once that had been +trying for months and years to hatch out a family, and everyone looked +upon it as a blameless infatuation, like the sale of Delagoa Bay, which +would be an annual loss to the Press agencies if it ever came to pass; +and one day the bird really did bring it off, in the middle of family +prayers. I say the middle, but it was also the end: you can't go on +being thankful for daily bread when you are wondering what on earth very +new canaries expect to be fed on. + +At present she's rather in a Balkan state of mind about the treatment of +the Jews in Roumania. Personally, I think the Jews have estimable +qualities; they're so kind to their poor--and to our rich. I daresay in +Roumania the cost of living beyond one's income isn't so great. Over +here the trouble is that so many people who have money to throw about +seem to have such vague ideas where to throw it. That fund, for +instance, to relieve the victims of sudden disasters--what is a sudden +disaster? There's Marion Mulciber, who _would_ think she could play +bridge, just as she would think she could ride down a hill on a bicycle; +on that occasion she went to a hospital, now she's gone into a +Sisterhood--lost all she had, you know, and gave the rest to Heaven. +Still, you can't call it a sudden calamity; _that_ occurred when poor +dear Marion was born. The doctors said at the time that she couldn't +live more than a fortnight, and she's been trying ever since to see if +she could. Women are so opinionated. + +And then there's the Education Question--not that I can see that there's +anything to worry about in that direction. To my mind, education is an +absurdly over-rated affair. At least, one never took it very seriously +at school, where everything was done to bring it prominently under one's +notice. Anything that is worth knowing one practically teaches oneself, +and the rest obtrudes itself sooner or later. The reason one's elders +know so comparatively little is because they have to unlearn so much that +they acquired by way of education before we were born. Of course I'm a +believer in Nature-study; as I said to Lady Beauwhistle, if you want a +lesson in elaborate artificiality, just watch the studied unconcern of a +Persian cat entering a crowded salon, and then go and practise it for a +fortnight. The Beauwhistles weren't born in the Purple, you know, but +they're getting there on the instalment system--so much down, and the +rest when you feel like it. They have kind hearts, and they never forget +birthdays. I forget what he was, something in the City, where the +patriotism comes from; and she--oh, well, her frocks are built in Paris, +but she wears them with a strong English accent. So public-spirited of +her. I think she must have been very strictly brought up, she's so +desperately anxious to do the wrong thing correctly. Not that it really +matters nowadays, as I told her: I know some perfectly virtuous people +who are received everywhere. + + + + +REGINALD ON HOUSE-PARTIES + + +The drawback is, one never really _knows_ one's hosts and hostesses. One +gets to know their fox-terriers and their chrysanthemums, and whether the +story about the go-cart can be turned loose in the drawing-room, or must +be told privately to each member of the party, for fear of shocking +public opinion; but one's host and hostess are a sort of human hinterland +that one never has the time to explore. + +There was a fellow I stayed with once in Warwickshire who farmed his own +land, but was otherwise quite steady. Should never have suspected him of +having a soul, yet not very long afterwards he eloped with a lion-tamer's +widow and set up as a golf-instructor somewhere on the Persian Gulf; +dreadfully immoral, of course, because he was only an indifferent player, +but still, it showed imagination. His wife was really to be pitied, +because he had been the only person in the house who understood how to +manage the cook's temper, and now she has to put "D.V." on her dinner +invitations. Still, that's better than a domestic scandal; a woman who +leaves her cook never wholly recovers her position in Society. + +I suppose the same thing holds good with the hosts; they seldom have more +than a superficial acquaintance with their guests, and so often just when +they do get to know you a bit better, they leave off knowing you +altogether. There was _rather_ a breath of winter in the air when I left +those Dorsetshire people. You see, they had asked me down to shoot, and +I'm not particularly immense at that sort of thing. There's such a +deadly sameness about partridges; when you've missed one, you've missed +the lot--at least, that's been my experience. And they tried to rag me +in the smoking-room about not being able to hit a bird at five yards, a +sort of bovine ragging that suggested cows buzzing round a gadfly and +thinking they were teasing it. So I got up the next morning at early +dawn--I know it was dawn, because there were lark-noises in the sky, and +the grass looked as if it had been left out all night--and hunted up the +most conspicuous thing in the bird line that I could find, and measured +the distance, as nearly as it would let me, and shot away all I knew. +They said afterwards that it was a tame bird; that's simply _silly_, +because it was awfully wild at the first few shots. Afterwards it +quieted down a bit, and when its legs had stopped waving farewells to the +landscape I got a gardener-boy to drag it into the hall, where everybody +must see it on their way to the breakfast-room. I breakfasted upstairs +myself. I gathered afterwards that the meal was tinged with a very +unchristian spirit. I suppose it's unlucky to bring peacock's feathers +into a house; anyway, there was a blue-pencilly look in my hostess's eye +when I took my departure. + +Some hostesses, of course, will forgive anything, even unto pavonicide +(is there such a word?), as long as one is nice-looking and sufficiently +unusual to counterbalance some of the others; and there _are_ others--the +girl, for instance, who reads Meredith, and appears at meals with +unnatural punctuality in a frock that's made at home and repented at +leisure. She eventually finds her way to India and gets married, and +comes home to admire the Royal Academy, and to imagine that an +indifferent prawn curry is for ever an effective substitute for all that +we have been taught to believe is luncheon. It's then that she is really +dangerous; but at her worst she is never quite so bad as the woman who +fires _Exchange and Mart_ questions at you without the least provocation. +Imagine the other day, just when I was doing my best to understand half +the things I was saying, being asked by one of those seekers after +country home truths how many fowls she could keep in a run ten feet by +six, or whatever it was! I told her whole crowds, as long as she kept +the door shut, and the idea didn't seem to have struck her before; at +least, she brooded over it for the rest of dinner. + +Of course, as I say, one never really _knows_ one's ground, and one may +make mistakes occasionally. But then one's mistakes sometimes turn out +assets in the long-run: if we had never bungled away our American +colonies we might never have had the boy from the States to teach us how +to wear our hair and cut our clothes, and we must get our ideas from +somewhere, I suppose. Even the Hooligan was probably invented in China +centuries before we thought of him. England must wake up, as the Duke of +Devonshire said the other day; wasn't it? Oh, well, it was someone else. +Not that I ever indulge in despair about the Future; there always have +been men who have gone about despairing of the Future, and when the +Future arrives it says nice, superior things about their having acted +according to their lights. It is dreadful to think that other people's +grandchildren may one day rise up and call one amiable. + +There are moments when one sympathises with Herod. + + + + +REGINALD AT THE CARLTON + + +"A most variable climate," said the Duchess; "and how unfortunate that we +should have had that very cold weather at a time when coal was so dear! +So distressing for the poor." + +"Someone has observed that Providence is always on the side of the big +dividends," remarked Reginald. + +The Duchess ate an anchovy in a shocked manner; she was sufficiently old- +fashioned to dislike irreverence towards dividends. + +Reginald had left the selection of a feeding-ground to her womanly +intuition, but he chose the wine himself, knowing that womanly intuition +stops short at claret. A woman will cheerfully choose husbands for her +less attractive friends, or take sides in a political controversy without +the least knowledge of the issues involved--but no woman ever cheerfully +chose a claret. + +"Hors d'oeuvres have always a pathetic interest for me," said Reginald: +"they remind me of one's childhood that one goes through, wondering what +the next course is going to be like--and during the rest of the menu one +wishes one had eaten more of the hors d'oeuvres. Don't you love watching +the different ways people have of entering a restaurant? There is the +woman who races in as though her whole scheme of life were held together +by a one-pin despotism which might abdicate its functions at any moment; +it's really a relief to see her reach her chair in safety. Then there +are the people who troop in with an-unpleasant-duty-to-perform air, as if +they were angels of Death entering a plague city. You see that type of +Briton very much in hotels abroad. And nowadays there are always the +Johannesbourgeois, who bring a Cape-to-Cairo atmosphere with them--what +may be called the Rand Manner, I suppose." + +"Talking about hotels abroad," said the Duchess, "I am preparing notes +for a lecture at the Club on the educational effects of modern travel, +dealing chiefly with the moral side of the question. I was talking to +Lady Beauwhistle's aunt the other day--she's just come back from Paris, +you know. Such a sweet woman"-- + +"And so silly. In these days of the over-education of women she's quite +refreshing. They say some people went through the siege of Paris without +knowing that France and Germany were at war; but the Beauwhistle aunt is +credited with having passed the whole winter in Paris under the +impression that the Humberts were a kind of bicycle . . . Isn't there a +bishop or somebody who believes we shall meet all the animals we have +known on earth in another world? How frightfully embarrassing to meet a +whole shoal of whitebait you had last known at Prince's! I'm sure in my +nervousness I should talk of nothing but lemons. Still, I daresay they +would be quite as offended if one hadn't eaten them. I know if I were +served up at a cannibal feast I should be dreadfully annoyed if anyone +found fault with me for not being tender enough, or having been kept too +long." + +"My idea about the lecture," resumed the Duchess hurriedly, "is to +inquire whether promiscuous Continental travel doesn't tend to weaken the +moral fibre of the social conscience. There are people one knows, quite +nice people when they are in England, who are so _different_ when they +are anywhere the other side of the Channel." + +"The people with what I call Tauchnitz morals," observed Reginald. "On +the whole, I think they get the best of two very desirable worlds. And, +after all, they charge so much for excess luggage on some of those +foreign lines that it's really an economy to leave one's reputation +behind one occasionally." + +"A scandal, my dear Reginald, is as much to be avoided at Monaco or any +of those places as at Exeter, let us say." + +"Scandal, my dear Irene--I may call you Irene, mayn't I?" + +"I don't know that you have known me long enough for that." + +"I've known you longer than your god-parents had when they took the +liberty of calling you that name. Scandal is merely the compassionate +allowance which the gay make to the humdrum. Think how many blameless +lives are brightened by the blazing indiscretions of other people. Tell +me, who is the woman with the old lace at the table on our left? Oh, +_that_ doesn't matter; it's quite the thing nowadays to stare at people +as if they were yearlings at Tattersall's." + +"Mrs. Spelvexit? Quite a charming woman; separated from her husband"-- + +"Incompatibility of income?" + +"Oh, nothing of that sort. By miles of frozen ocean, I was going to say. +He explores ice-floes and studies the movements of herrings, and has +written a most interesting book on the home-life of the Esquimaux; but +naturally he has very little home-life of his own." + +"A husband who comes home with the Gulf Stream _would_ be rather a tied- +up asset." + +"His wife is exceedingly sensible about it. She collects postage-stamps. +Such a resource. Those people with her are the Whimples, very old +acquaintances of mine; they're always having trouble, poor things." + +"Trouble is not one of those fancies you can take up and drop at any +moment; it's like a grouse-moor or the opium-habit--once you start it +you've got to keep it up." + +"Their eldest son was such a disappointment to them; they wanted him to +be a linguist, and spent no end of money on having him taught to +speak--oh, dozens of languages!--and then he became a Trappist monk. And +the youngest, who was intended for the American marriage market, has +developed political tendencies, and writes pamphlets about the housing of +the poor. Of course it's a most important question, and I devote a good +deal of time to it myself in the mornings; but, as Laura Whimple says, +it's as well to have an establishment of one's own before agitating about +other people's. She feels it very keenly, but she always maintains a +cheerful appetite, which I think is so unselfish of her." + +"There are different ways of taking disappointment. There was a girl I +knew who nursed a wealthy uncle through a long illness, borne by her with +Christian fortitude, and then he died and left his money to a swine-fever +hospital. She found she'd about cleared stock in fortitude by that time, +and now she gives drawing-room recitations. That's what I call being +vindictive." + +"Life is full of its disappointments," observed the Duchess, "and I +suppose the art of being happy is to disguise them as illusions. But +that, my dear Reginald, becomes more difficult as one grows older." + +"I think it's more generally practised than you imagine. The young have +aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what +never happened. It's only the middle-aged who are really conscious of +their limitations--that is why one should be so patient with them. But +one never is." + +"After all," said the Duchess, "the disillusions of life may depend on +our way of assessing it. In the minds of those who come after us we may +be remembered for qualities and successes which we quite left out of the +reckoning." + +"It's not always safe to depend on the commemorative tendencies of those +who come after us. There may have been disillusionments in the lives of +the mediaeval saints, but they would scarcely have been better pleased if +they could have foreseen that their names would be associated nowadays +chiefly with racehorses and the cheaper clarets. And now, if you can +tear yourself away from the salted almonds, we'll go and have coffee +under the palms that are so necessary for our discomfort." + + + + +REGINALD ON BESETTING SINS: THE WOMAN WHO TOLD THE TRUTH + + +There was once (said Reginald) a woman who told the truth. Not all at +once, of course, but the habit grew upon her gradually, like lichen on an +apparently healthy tree. She had no children--otherwise it might have +been different. It began with little things, for no particular reason +except that her life was a rather empty one, and it is so easy to slip +into the habit of telling the truth in little matters. And then it +became difficult to draw the line at more important things, until at last +she took to telling the truth about her age; she said she was forty-two +and five months--by that time, you see, she was veracious even to months. +It may have been pleasing to the angels, but her elder sister was not +gratified. On the Woman's birthday, instead of the opera-tickets which +she had hoped for, her sister gave her a view of Jerusalem from the Mount +of Olives, which is not quite the same thing. The revenge of an elder +sister may be long in coming, but, like a South-Eastern express, it +arrives in its own good time. + +The friends of the Woman tried to dissuade her from over-indulgence in +the practice, but she said she was wedded to the truth; whereupon it was +remarked that it was scarcely logical to be so much together in public. +(No really provident woman lunches regularly with her husband if she +wishes to burst upon him as a revelation at dinner. He must have time to +forget; an afternoon is not enough.) And after a while her friends began +to thin out in patches. Her passion for the truth was not compatible +with a large visiting-list. For instance, she told Miriam Klopstock +_exactly_ how she looked at the Ilexes' ball. Certainly Miriam had asked +for her candid opinion, but the Woman prayed in church every Sunday for +peace in our time, and it was not consistent. + +It was unfortunate, everyone agreed, that she had no family; with a child +or two in the house, there is an unconscious check upon too free an +indulgence in the truth. Children are given us to discourage our better +emotions. That is why the stage, with all its efforts, can never be as +artificial as life; even in an Ibsen drama one must reveal to the +audience things that one would suppress before the children or servants. + +Fate may have ordained the truth-telling from the commencement and should +justly bear some of the blame; but in having no children the Woman was +guilty, at least, of contributory negligence. + +Little by little she felt she was becoming a slave to what had once been +merely an idle propensity; and one day she knew. Every woman tells +ninety per cent. of the truth to her dressmaker; the other ten per cent. +is the irreducible minimum of deception beyond which no self-respecting +client trespasses. Madame Draga's establishment was a meeting-ground for +naked truths and over-dressed fictions, and it was here, the Woman felt, +that she might make a final effort to recall the artless mendacity of +past days. Madame herself was in an inspiring mood, with the air of a +sphinx who knew all things and preferred to forget most of them. As a +War Minister she might have been celebrated, but she was content to be +merely rich. + +"If I take it in here, and--Miss Howard, one moment, if you please--and +there, and round like this--so--I really think you will find it quite +easy." + +The Woman hesitated; it seemed to require such a small effort to simply +acquiesce in Madame's views. But habit had become too strong. "I'm +afraid," she faltered, "it's just the least little bit in the world too"-- + +And by that least little bit she measured the deeps and eternities of her +thraldom to fact. Madame was not best pleased at being contradicted on a +professional matter, and when Madame lost her temper you usually found it +afterwards in the bill. + +And at last the dreadful thing came, as the Woman had foreseen all along +that it must; it was one of those paltry little truths with which she +harried her waking hours. On a raw Wednesday morning, in a few +ill-chosen words, she told the cook that she drank. She remembered the +scene afterwards as vividly as though it had been painted in her mind by +Abbey. The cook was a good cook, as cooks go; and as cooks go she went. + +Miriam Klopstock came to lunch the next day. Women and elephants never +forget an injury. + + + + +REGINALD'S DRAMA + + +Reginald closed his eyes with the elaborate weariness of one who has +rather nice eyelashes and thinks it useless to conceal the fact. + +"One of these days," he said, "I shall write a really great drama. No +one will understand the drift of it, but everyone will go back to their +homes with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction with their lives and +surroundings. Then they will put up new wall-papers and forget." + +"But how about those that have oak panelling all over the house?" said +the Other. + +"They can always put down new stair-carpets," pursued Reginald, "and, +anyhow, I'm not responsible for the audience having a happy ending. The +play would be quite sufficient strain on one's energies. I should get a +bishop to say it was immoral and beautiful--no dramatist has thought of +that before, and everyone would come to condemn the bishop, and they +would stay on out of sheer nervousness. After all, it requires a great +deal of moral courage to leave in a marked manner in the middle of the +second act, when your carriage isn't ordered till twelve. And it would +commence with wolves worrying something on a lonely waste--you wouldn't +see them, of course; but you would hear them snarling and scrunching, and +I should arrange to have a wolfy fragrance suggested across the +footlights. It would look so well on the programmes, 'Wolves in the +first act, by Jamrach.' And old Lady Whortleberry, who never misses a +first night, would scream. She's always been nervous since she lost her +first husband. He died quite abruptly while watching a county cricket +match; two and a half inches of rain had fallen for seven runs, and it +was supposed that the excitement killed him. Anyhow, it gave her quite a +shock; it was the first husband she'd lost, you know, and now she always +screams if anything thrilling happens too soon after dinner. And after +the audience had heard the Whortleberry scream the thing would be fairly +launched." + +"And the plot?" + +"The plot," said Reginald, "would be one of those little everyday +tragedies that one sees going on all round one. In my mind's eye there +is the case of the Mudge-Jervises, which in an unpretentious way has +quite an Enoch Arden intensity underlying it. They'd only been married +some eighteen months or so, and circumstances had prevented their seeing +much of each other. With him there was always a foursome or something +that had to be played and replayed in different parts of the country, and +she went in for slumming quite as seriously as if it was a sport. With +her, I suppose, it was. She belonged to the Guild of the Poor Dear +Souls, and they hold the record for having nearly reformed a washerwoman. +No one has ever really reformed a washerwoman, and that is why the +competition is so keen. You can rescue charwomen by fifties with a +little tea and personal magnetism, but with washerwomen it's different; +wages are too high. This particular laundress, who came from Bermondsey +or some such place, was really rather a hopeful venture, and they thought +at last that she might be safely put in the window as a specimen of +successful work. So they had her paraded at a drawing-room "At Home" at +Agatha Camelford's; it was sheer bad luck that some liqueur chocolates +had been turned loose by mistake among the refreshments--really liqueur +chocolates, with very little chocolate. And of course the old soul found +them out, and cornered the entire stock. It was like finding a whelk- +stall in a desert, as she afterwards partially expressed herself. When +the liqueurs began to take effect, she started to give them imitations of +farmyard animals as they know them in Bermondsey. She began with a +dancing bear, and you know Agatha doesn't approve of dancing, except at +Buckingham Palace under proper supervision. And then she got up on the +piano and gave them an organ monkey; I gather she went in for realism +rather than a Maeterlinckian treatment of the subject. Finally, she fell +into the piano and said she was a parrot in a cage, and for an impromptu +performance I believe she was very word-perfect; no one had heard +anything like it, except Baroness Boobelstein who has attended sittings +of the Austrian Reichsrath. Agatha is trying the Rest-cure at Buxton." + +"But the tragedy?" + +"Oh, the Mudge-Jervises. Well, they were getting along quite happily, +and their married life was one continuous exchange of picture-postcards; +and then one day they were thrown together on some neutral ground where +foursomes and washerwomen overlapped, and discovered that they were +hopelessly divided on the Fiscal Question. They have thought it best to +separate, and she is to have the custody of the Persian kittens for nine +months in the year--they go back to him for the winter, when she is +abroad. There you have the material for a tragedy drawn straight from +life--and the piece could be called 'The Price They Paid for Empire.' And +of course one would have to work in studies of the struggle of hereditary +tendency against environment and all that sort of thing. The woman's +father could have been an Envoy to some of the smaller German Courts; +that's where she'd get her passion for visiting the poor, in spite of the +most careful upbringing. _C'est le premier pa qui compte_, as the cuckoo +said when it swallowed its foster-parent. That, I think, is quite +clever." + +"And the wolves?" + +"Oh, the wolves would be a sort of elusive undercurrent in the background +that would never be satisfactorily explained. After all, life teems with +things that have no earthly reason. And whenever the characters could +think of nothing brilliant to say about marriage or the War Office, they +could open a window and listen to the howling of the wolves. But that +would be very seldom." + + + + +REGINALD ON TARIFFS + + +I'm not going to discuss the Fiscal Question (said Reginald); I wish to +be original. At the same time, I think one suffers more than one +realises from the system of free imports. I should like, for instance, a +really prohibitive duty put upon the partner who declares on a weak red +suit and hopes for the best. Even a free outlet for compressed verbiage +doesn't balance matters. And I think there should be a sort of bounty- +fed export (is that the right expression?) of the people who impress on +you that you ought to take life seriously. There are only two classes +that really can't help taking life seriously--schoolgirls of thirteen and +Hohenzollerns; they might be exempt. Albanians come under another +heading; they take life whenever they get the opportunity. The one +Albanian that I was ever on speaking terms with was rather a decadent +example. He was a Christian and a grocer, and I don't fancy he had ever +killed anybody. I didn't like to question him on the subject--that +showed my delicacy. Mrs. Nicorax says I have no delicacy; she hasn't +forgiven me about the mice. You see, when I was staying down there, a +mouse used to cake-walk about my room half the night, and none of their +silly patent traps seemed to take its fancy as a bijou residence, so I +determined to appeal to the better side of it--which with mice is the +inside. So I called it Percy, and put little delicacies down near its +hole every night, and that kept it quiet while I read Max Nordau's +_Degeneration_ and other reproving literature, and went to sleep. And +now she says there is a whole colony of mice in that room. + +That isn't where the indelicacy comes in. She went out riding with me, +which was entirely her own suggestion, and as we were coming home through +some meadows she made a quite unnecessary attempt to see if her pony +would jump a rather messy sort of brook that was there. It wouldn't. It +went with her as far as the water's edge, and from that point Mrs. +Nicorax went on alone. Of course I had to fish her out from the bank, +and my riding-breeches are not cut with a view to salmon-fishing--it's +rather an art even to ride in them. Her habit-skirt was one of those +open questions that need not be adhered to in emergencies, and on this +occasion it remained behind in some water-weeds. She wanted me to fish +about for that too, but I felt I had done enough Pharaoh's daughter +business for an October afternoon, and I was beginning to want my tea. So +I bundled her up on to her pony, and gave her a lead towards home as fast +as I cared to go. What with the wet and the unusual responsibility, her +abridged costume did not stand the pace particularly well, and she got +quite querulous when I shouted back that I had no pins with me--and no +string. Some women expect so much from a fellow. When we got into the +drive she wanted to go up the back way to the stables, but the ponies +_know_ they always get sugar at the front door, and I never attempt to +hold a pulling pony; as for Mrs. Nicorax, it took her all she knew to +keep a firm hand on her seceding garments, which, as her maid remarked +afterwards, were more _tout_ than _ensemble_. Of course nearly the whole +house-party were out on the lawn watching the sunset--the only day this +month that it's occurred to the sun to show itself, as Mrs. Nic. +viciously observed--and I shall never forget the expression on her +husband's face as we pulled up. "My darling, this is too much!" was his +first spoken comment; taking into consideration the state of her toilet, +it was the most brilliant thing I had ever heard him say, and I went into +the library to be alone and scream. Mrs. Nicorax says I have no +delicacy. + +Talking about tariffs, the lift-boy, who reads extensively between the +landings, says it won't do to tax raw commodities. What, exactly, is a +raw commodity? Mrs. Van Challaby says men are raw commodities till you +marry them; after they've struck Mrs. Van C., I can fancy they pretty +soon become a finished article. Certainly she's had a good deal of +experience to support her opinion. She lost one husband in a railway +accident, and mislaid another in the Divorce Court, and the current one +has just got himself squeezed in a Beef Trust. "What was he doing in a +Beef Trust, anyway?" she asked tearfully, and I suggested that perhaps he +had an unhappy home. I only said it for the sake of making conversation; +which it did. Mrs. Van Challaby said things about me which in her calmer +moments she would have hesitated to spell. It's a pity people can't +discuss fiscal matters without getting wild. However, she wrote next day +to ask if I could get her a Yorkshire terrier of the size and shade +that's being worn now, and that's as near as a woman can be expected to +get to owning herself in the wrong. And she will tie a salmon-pink bow +to its collar, and call it "Reggie," and take it with her everywhere--like +poor Miriam Klopstock, who _would_ take her Chow with her to the +bathroom, and while she was bathing it was playing at she-bears with her +garments. Miriam is always late for breakfast, and she wasn't really +missed till the middle of lunch. + +However, I'm not going any further into the Fiscal Question. Only I +should like to be protected from the partner with a weak red tendency. + + + + +REGINALD'S CHRISTMAS REVEL + + +They say (said Reginald) that there's nothing sadder than victory except +defeat. If you've ever stayed with dull people during what is alleged to +be the festive season, you can probably revise that saying. I shall +never forget putting in a Christmas at the Babwolds'. Mrs. Babwold is +some relation of my father's--a sort of to-be-left-till-called-for +cousin--and that was considered sufficient reason for my having to accept +her invitation at about the sixth time of asking; though why the sins of +the father should be visited by the children--you won't find any +notepaper in that drawer; that's where I keep old menus and first-night +programmes. + +Mrs. Babwold wears a rather solemn personality, and has never been known +to smile, even when saying disagreeable things to her friends or making +out the Stores list. She takes her pleasures sadly. A state elephant at +a Durbar gives one a very similar impression. Her husband gardens in all +weathers. When a man goes out in the pouring rain to brush caterpillars +off rose-trees, I generally imagine his life indoors leaves something to +be desired; anyway, it must be very unsettling for the caterpillars. + +Of course there were other people there. There was a Major Somebody who +had shot things in Lapland, or somewhere of that sort; I forget what they +were, but it wasn't for want of reminding. We had them cold with every +meal almost, and he was continually giving us details of what they +measured from tip to tip, as though he thought we were going to make them +warm under-things for the winter. I used to listen to him with a rapt +attention that I thought rather suited me, and then one day I quite +modestly gave the dimensions of an okapi I had shot in the Lincolnshire +fens. The Major turned a beautiful Tyrian scarlet (I remember thinking +at the time that I should like my bathroom hung in that colour), and I +think that at that moment he almost found it in his heart to dislike me. +Mrs. Babwold put on a first-aid-to-the-injured expression, and asked him +why he didn't publish a book of his sporting reminiscences; it would be +_so_ interesting. She didn't remember till afterwards that he had given +her two fat volumes on the subject, with his portrait and autograph as a +frontispiece and an appendix on the habits of the Arctic mussel. + +It was in the evening that we cast aside the cares and distractions of +the day and really lived. Cards were thought to be too frivolous and +empty a way of passing the time, so most of them played what they called +a book game. You went out into the hall--to get an inspiration, I +suppose--then you came in again with a muffler tied round your neck and +looked silly, and the others were supposed to guess that you were "Wee +MacGreegor." I held out against the inanity as long as I decently could, +but at last, in a lapse of good-nature, I consented to masquerade as a +book, only I warned them that it would take some time to carry out. They +waited for the best part of forty minutes, while I went and played +wineglass skittles with the page-boy in the pantry; you play it with a +champagne cork, you know, and the one who knocks down the most glasses +without breaking them wins. I won, with four unbroken out of seven; I +think William suffered from over-anxiousness. They were rather mad in +the drawing-room at my not having come back, and they weren't a bit +pacified when I told them afterwards that I was "At the end of the +passage." + +"I never did like Kipling," was Mrs. Babwold's comment, when the +situation dawned upon her. "I couldn't see anything clever in +_Earthworms out of Tuscany_--or is that by Darwin?" + +Of course these games are very educational, but, personally, I prefer +bridge. + +On Christmas evening we were supposed to be specially festive in the Old +English fashion. The hall was horribly draughty, but it seemed to be the +proper place to revel in, and it was decorated with Japanese fans and +Chinese lanterns, which gave it a very Old English effect. A young lady +with a confidential voice favoured us with a long recitation about a +little girl who died or did something equally hackneyed, and then the +Major gave us a graphic account of a struggle he had with a wounded bear. +I privately wished that the bears would win sometimes on these occasions; +at least they wouldn't go vapouring about it afterwards. Before we had +time to recover our spirits, we were indulged with some thought-reading +by a young man whom one knew instinctively had a good mother and an +indifferent tailor--the sort of young man who talks unflaggingly through +the thickest soup, and smooths his hair dubiously as though he thought it +might hit back. The thought-reading was rather a success; he announced +that the hostess was thinking about poetry, and she admitted that her +mind was dwelling on one of Austin's odes. Which was near enough. I +fancy she had been really wondering whether a scrag-end of mutton and +some cold plum-pudding would do for the kitchen dinner next day. As a +crowning dissipation, they all sat down to play progressive halma, with +milk-chocolate for prizes. I've been carefully brought up, and I don't +like to play games of skill for milk-chocolate, so I invented a headache +and retired from the scene. I had been preceded a few minutes earlier by +Miss Langshan-Smith, a rather formidable lady, who always got up at some +uncomfortable hour in the morning, and gave you the impression that she +had been in communication with most of the European Governments before +breakfast. There was a paper pinned on her door with a signed request +that she might be called particularly early on the morrow. Such an +opportunity does not come twice in a lifetime. I covered up everything +except the signature with another notice, to the effect that before these +words should meet the eye she would have ended a misspent life, was sorry +for the trouble she was giving, and would like a military funeral. A few +minutes later I violently exploded an air-filled paper bag on the +landing, and gave a stage moan that could have been heard in the cellars. +Then I pursued my original intention and went to bed. The noise those +people made in forcing open the good lady's door was positively +indecorous; she resisted gallantly, but I believe they searched her for +bullets for about a quarter of an hour, as if she had been an historic +battlefield. + +I hate travelling on Boxing Day, but one must occasionally do things that +one dislikes. + + + + +REGINALD'S RUBAIYAT + + +The other day (confided Reginald), when I was killing time in the +bathroom and making bad resolutions for the New Year, it occurred to me +that I would like to be a poet. The chief qualification, I understand, +is that you must be born. Well, I hunted up my birth certificate, and +found that I was all right on that score, and then I got to work on a +Hymn to the New Year, which struck me as having possibilities. It +suggested extremely unusual things to absolutely unlikely people, which I +believe is the art of first-class catering in any department. Quite the +best verse in it went something like this-- + + "Have you heard the groan of a gravelled grouse, + Or the snarl of a snaffled snail + (Husband or mother, like me, or spouse), + Have you lain a-creep in the darkened house + Where the wounded wombats wail?" + +It was quite improbable that anyone had, you know, and that's where it +stimulated the imagination and took people out of their narrow, humdrum +selves. No one has ever called me narrow or humdrum, but even I felt +worked up now and then at the thought of that house with the stricken +wombats in it. It simply wasn't nice. But the editors were unanimous in +leaving it alone; they said the thing had been done before and done +worse, and that the market for that sort of work was extremely limited. + +It was just on the top of that discouragement that the Duchess wanted me +to write something in her album--something Persian, you know, and just a +little bit decadent--and I thought a quatrain on an unwholesome egg would +meet the requirements of the case. So I started in with-- + + "Cackle, cackle, little hen, + How I wonder if and when + Once you laid the egg that I + Met, alas! too late. Amen." + +The Duchess objected to the Amen, which I thought gave an air of +forgiveness and _chose jugee_ to the whole thing; also she said it wasn't +Persian enough, as though I were trying to sell her a kitten whose mother +had married for love rather than pedigree. So I recast it entirely, and +the new version read-- + + "The hen that laid thee moons ago, who knows + In what Dead Yesterday her shades repose; + To some election turn thy waning span + And rain thy rottenness on fiscal foes." + +I thought there was enough suggestion of decay in that to satisfy a +jackal, and to me there was something infinitely pathetic and appealing +in the idea of the egg having a sort of St. Luke's summer of commercial +usefulness. But the Duchess begged me to leave out any political +allusions; she's the president of a Women's Something or other, and she +said it might be taken as an endorsement of deplorable methods. I never +can remember which Party Irene discourages with her support, but I shan't +forget an occasion when I was staying at her place and she gave me a +pamphlet to leave at the house of a doubtful voter, and some grapes and +things for a woman who was suffering from a chill on the top of a patent +medicine. I thought it much cleverer to give the grapes to the former +and the political literature to the sick woman, and the Duchess was quite +absurdly annoyed about it afterwards. It seems the leaflet was addressed +"To those about to wobble"--I wasn't responsible for the silly title of +the thing--and the woman never recovered; anyway, the voter was +completely won over by the grapes and jellies, and I think that should +have balanced matters. The Duchess called it bribery, and said it might +have compromised the candidate she was supporting; he was expected to +subscribe to church funds and chapel funds, and football and cricket +clubs and regattas, and bazaars and beanfeasts and bellringers, and +poultry shows and ploughing matches, and reading-rooms and choir outings, +and shooting trophies and testimonials, and anything of that sort; but +bribery would not have been tolerated. + +I fancy I have perhaps more talent for electioneering than for poetry, +and I was really getting extended over this quatrain business. The egg +began to be unmanageable, and the Duchess suggested something with a +French literary ring about it. I hunted back in my mind for the most +familiar French classic that I could take liberties with, and after a +little exercise of memory I turned out the following:-- + + "Hast thou the pen that once the gardener had? + I have it not; and know, these pears are bad. + Oh, larger than the horses of the Prince + Are those the general drives in Kaikobad." + +Even that didn't altogether satisfy Irene; I fancy the geography of it +puzzled her. She probably thought Kaikobad was an unfashionable German +spa, where you'd meet matrimonial bargain-hunters and emergency Servian +kings. My temper was beginning to slip its moorings by that time. I +look rather nice when I lose my temper. (I hoped you would say I lose it +very often. I mustn't monopolise the conversation.) + +"Of course, if you want something really Persian and passionate, with red +wine and bulbuls in it," I went on to suggest; but she grabbed the book +away from me. + +"Not for worlds. Nothing with red wine or passion in it. Dear Agatha +gave me the album, and she would be mortified to the quick"-- + +I said I didn't believe Agatha had a quick, and we got quite heated in +arguing the matter. Finally, the Duchess declared I shouldn't write +anything nasty in her book, and I said I wouldn't write anything in her +nasty book, so there wasn't a very wide point of difference between us. +For the rest of the afternoon I pretended to be sulking, but I was really +working back to that quatrain, like a fox-terrier that's buried a +deferred lunch in a private flower-bed. When I got an opportunity I +hunted up Agatha's autograph, which had the front page all to itself, +and, copying her prim handwriting as well as I could, I inserted above it +the following Thibetan fragment:-- + + "With Thee, oh, my Beloved, to do a dak + (a dak I believe is a sort of uncomfortable post-journey) + On the pack-saddle of a grunting yak, + With never room for chilling chaperone, + 'Twere better than a Panhard in the Park." + +That Agatha would get on to a yak in company with a lover even in the +comparative seclusion of Thibet is unthinkable. I very much doubt if +she'd do it with her own husband in the privacy of the Simplon tunnel. +But poetry, as I've remarked before, should always stimulate the +imagination. + +By the way, when you asked me the other day to dine with you on the 14th, +I said I was dining with the Duchess. Well, I'm not. I'm dining with +you. + + + + +THE INNOCENCE OF REGINALD + + +Reginald slid a carnation of the newest shade into the buttonhole of his +latest lounge coat, and surveyed the result with approval. "I am just in +the mood," he observed, "to have my portrait painted by someone with an +unmistakable future. So comforting to go down to posterity as 'Youth +with a Pink Carnation' in catalogue--company with 'Child with Bunch of +Primroses,' and all that crowd." + +"Youth," said the Other, "should suggest innocence." + +"But never act on the suggestion. I don't believe the two ever really go +together. People talk vaguely about the innocence of a little child, but +they take mighty good care not to let it out of their sight for twenty +minutes. The watched pot never boils over. I knew a boy once who really +was innocent; his parents were in Society, but they never gave him a +moment's anxiety from his infancy. He believed in company prospectuses, +and in the purity of elections, and in women marrying for love, and even +in a system for winning at roulette. He never quite lost his faith in +it, but he dropped more money than his employers could afford to lose. +When last I heard of him, he was believing in his innocence; the jury +weren't. All the same, I really am innocent just now of something +everyone accuses me of having done, and so far as I can see, their +accusations will remain unfounded." + +"Rather an unexpected attitude for you." + +"I love people who do unexpected things. Didn't you always adore the man +who slew a lion in a pit on a snowy day? But about this unfortunate +innocence. Well, quite long ago, when I'd been quarrelling with more +people than usual, you among the number--it must have been in November, I +never quarrel with you too near Christmas--I had an idea that I'd like to +write a book. It was to be a book of personal reminiscences, and was to +leave out nothing." + +"Reginald!" + +"Exactly what the Duchess said when I mentioned it to her. I was +provoking and said nothing, and the next thing, of course, was that +everyone heard that I'd written the book and got it in the press. After +that, I might have been a gold-fish in a glass bowl for all the privacy I +got. People attacked me about it in the most unexpected places, and +implored or commanded me to leave out things that I'd forgotten had ever +happened. I sat behind Miriam Klopstock one night in the dress circle at +His Majesty's, and she began at once about the incident of the Chow dog +in the bathroom, which she insisted must be struck out. We had to argue +it in a disjointed fashion, because some of the people wanted to listen +to the play, and Miriam takes nines in voices. They had to stop her +playing in the 'Macaws' Hockey Club because you could hear what she +thought when her shins got mixed up in a scrimmage for half a mile on a +still day. They are called the Macaws because of their blue-and-yellow +costumes, but I understand there was nothing yellow about Miriam's +language. I agreed to make one alteration, as I pretended I had got it a +Spitz instead of a Chow, but beyond that I was firm. She megaphoned back +two minutes later, 'You promised you would never mention it; don't you +ever keep a promise?' When people had stopped glaring in our direction, +I replied that I'd as soon think of keeping white mice. I saw her +tearing little bits out of her programme for a minute or two, and then +she leaned back and snorted, 'You're not the boy I took you for,' as +though she were an eagle arriving at Olympus with the wrong Ganymede. +That was her last audible remark, but she went on tearing up her +programme and scattering the pieces around her, till one of her +neighbours asked with immense dignity whether she should send for a +wastepaper basket. I didn't stay for the last act." + +"Then there is Mrs.--oh, I never can remember her name; she lives in a +street that the cabmen have never heard of, and is at home on Wednesdays. +She frightened me horribly once at a private view by saying mysteriously, +'I oughtn't to be here, you know; this is one of my days.' I thought she +meant that she was subject to periodical outbreaks and was expecting an +attack at any moment. So embarrassing if she had suddenly taken it into +her head that she was Cesar Borgia or St. Elizabeth of Hungary. That +sort of thing would make one unpleasantly conspicuous even at a private +view. However, she merely meant to say that it was Wednesday, which at +the moment was incontrovertible. Well, she's on quite a different tack +to the Klopstock. She doesn't visit anywhere very extensively, and, of +course, she's awfully keen for me to drag in an incident that occurred at +one of the Beauwhistle garden-parties, when she says she accidentally hit +the shins of a Serene Somebody or other with a croquet mallet and that he +swore at her in German. As a matter of fact, he went on discoursing on +the Gordon-Bennett affair in French. (I never can remember if it's a new +submarine or a divorce. Of course, how stupid of me!) To be +disagreeably exact, I fancy she missed him by about two +inches--over-anxiousness, probably--but she likes to think she hit him. +I've felt that way with a partridge which I always imagine keeps on +flying strong, out of false pride, till it's the other side of the hedge. +She said she could tell me everything she was wearing on the occasion. I +said I didn't want my book to read like a laundry list, but she explained +that she didn't mean those sort of things." + +"And there's the Chilworth boy, who can be charming as long as he's +content to be stupid and wear what he's told to; but he gets the idea now +and then that he'd like to be epigrammatic, and the result is like +watching a rook trying to build a nest in a gale. Since he got wind of +the book, he's been persecuting me to work in something of his about the +Russians and the Yalu Peril, and is quite sulky because I won't do it." + +"Altogether, I think it would be rather a brilliant inspiration if you +were to suggest a fortnight in Paris." + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REGINALD*** + + +******* This file should be named 2830.txt or 2830.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/8/3/2830 + + + +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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