diff options
Diffstat (limited to '59332-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 59332-0.txt | 6637 |
1 files changed, 6637 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/59332-0.txt b/59332-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aabf203 --- /dev/null +++ b/59332-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6637 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59332 *** + + + +Note: Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive. See + https://archive.org/details/a00kiplbaftfunnelrich + + + + + +ABAFT THE FUNNEL +By RUDYARD KIPLING + + +ABAFT THE FUNNEL + +by + +RUDYARD KIPLING + + "Men in pajamas sitting abaft the funnel + and swapping lies of the purple seas" + + + + + + +New York +B. W. Dodge & Company +1909 + +Copyright, 1909, by +B. W. Dodge & Company + + + + +PREFACE + + +The measure of a man's popularity is not always--or indeed seldom--the +measure of his intrinsic worth. So, when the earlier work of any writer +is gathered together in more enduring form, catering to the enthusiasm +of his readers in his maturer years, there is always a suspicion that +the venture is purely a commercial one, without literary justification. + +Fortunately these stories of Mr. Kipling's form their own best excuse +for this, their first appearance together in book form. Not merely +because in them may be traced the origin of that style and subject +matter that later made their author famous; but because the stories are +in themselves worth while--worth writing, worth reading. "The Likes o' +Us" is as true to the type as any of the immortal Mulvaney stories; +the beginning of "New Brooms" is as succinctly fine as any prose Mr. +Kipling ever wrote; for searching out and presenting such splendid +pieces of fiction as "Sleipner, late Thurinda," and "A Little More +Beef" to a public larger than their original one in India, no apology +is necessary. + + A.F. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + Erastasius of the Whanghoa 1 + + Her Little Responsibility 12 + + A Menagerie Aboard 20 + + A Smoke of Manila 26 + + The Red Lamp 33 + + The Shadow of His Hand 41 + + A Little More Beef 49 + + The History of a Fall 58 + + Griffiths the Safe Man 66 + + It 77 + + The Fallen Idol 85 + + New Brooms 91 + + Tiglath Pileser 99 + + The Like o' Us 109 + + His Brother's Keeper 121 + + "Sleipner," Late "Thurinda" 141 + + A Supplementary Chapter 161 + + Chautauquaed 180 + + The Bow Flume Cable Car 204 + + In Partibus 213 + + Letters on Leave 218 + + The Adoration of the Mage 251 + + A Death in the Camp 258 + + A Really Good Time 265 + + On Exhibition 273 + + The Three Young Men 283 + + My Great and Only 292 + + The Betrayal of Confidences 305 + + The New Dispensation--I 313 + + The New Dispensation--II 322 + + The Last of the Stories 331 + + + + +ABAFT THE FUNNEL + + + + +ERASTASIUS OF THE _WHANGHOA_[1] + + +"The old cat's tumbled down the ventilator, sir, and he's swearing away +under the furnace-door in the stoke-hole," said the second officer to +the Captain of the _Whanghoa_. + +"Now what in thunder was Erastasius doing at the mouth of the +ventilator? It's four feet from the ground and painted red at that. +Any of the children been amusing themselves with him, d'you think? I +wouldn't have Erastasius disturbed in his inside for all the gold in +the treasury," said the Captain. "Tell some one to bring him up, and +handle him delicately, for he's not a quiet beast." + +In three minutes a bucket appeared on deck. It was covered with a +wooden lid. "Think he have make die this time," said the Chinese sailor +who carried the coffin, with a grin. "Catchee him topside coals--no +open eye--no spit--no sclatchee my. Have got bucket, allee same, and +make tight. See!" + +He dived his bare arm under the lid, but withdrew it with a yell, +dropping the bucket at the same time. "Hya! Can do. Maskee dlop +down--masky spilum coal. Have catchee my light there." + +Blood was trickling from his elbow. He moved aft, while the bucket, +mysteriously worked by hidden force, trundled to and fro across the +decks, swearing aloud. + +Emerged finally Erastasius, tom-cat and grandfather-in-chief of the +_Whanghoa_--a gaunt brindled beast, lacking one ear, with every hair on +his body armed and erect. He was patched with coal-dust, very stiff and +sore all over, and very anxious to take the world into his confidence +as to his wrongs. For this reason he did not run when he was clear of +the bucket, but sitting on his hunkers regarded the Captain, as who +would say: "You hold a master's certificate and call yourself a seaman, +and yet you allow this sort of thing on your boat." + +"Guess I must apologise, old man," said the Captain gravely. "Those +ventilators are a little too broad in the beam for a passenger of your +build. What made you walk down it? Not a rat, eh? You're too well fed +to trouble of rats. Drink was it." + +Erastasius turned his back on the Captain. He was a tailless Japanese +cat, and the abruptness of his termination gave him a specially brusque +appearance. + +"Shouldn't wonder if the old man hasn't been stealing something and +was getting away from the galley. He's the biggest reprobate that ever +shipped--and that's saying something. No, he isn't my property exactly. +I've got a notion that he owns the ship. Gathered that from the way he +goes round after six bells to see the lights out. The chief engineer +says he built the engines. Anyway, the old man sits in the engine-room +and sort of keeps an eye on the boilers. He was on the ship before I +joined her--that's seven years ago, when we were running up and down +and around and about the China Seas." + +Erastasius, his back to the company, was busied in cleaning his +disarranged fur. He licked and swore alternately. The ventilator +incident had hurt his feelings sorely. + +"He knows we are talking about him," continued the Captain. "He's a +responsible kind o' critter. That's natural when you come to think that +he has saved a quarter of a million of dollars. At present his wants +are few--guess he would like a netting over those ventilators first +thing--but some day he'll begin to live up to his capital." + +"Saved a quarter of a million dollars! What securities did he invest +'em in?" said a man from Foochow. + +"Here, in this bottom. He saved the _Whanghoa_ with a full cargo of +tea, silk and opium, and thirteen thousand dollars in bar silver. +Yes; that's about the extent of the old man's savings. I commanded. +The old man was the rescuer, and I was more grateful to him 'cause +it was my darned folly that nearly brought us into the trouble. I was +new to these waters, new to the Chinaman and his fascinating little +ways, being a New England man by raising. Erastasius was raised by the +Devil. That's who his sire was. Never ran across his dam. Ran across a +forsaken sea, though, in the _Whanghoa_, a little to the northeast of +this, with eight hundred steerage passengers, all Chinamen, for various +and undenominated ports. Had the pleasure of sending eighteen of 'em +into the water. Yes, that's so, isn't it, old man?" + +Erastasius finished licking himself and mewed affirmatively. + +"Yes, we carried four white officers--a Westerner, two Vermont men, and +myself. There were ten Americans, a couple of Danes and a half-caste +knocking round the ship, and the crew were Chinese, but most of 'em +good Chinese. Only good Chinese I ever met. We had our steerage +passengers 'tween-decks. Most of 'em lay around and played dominoes or +smoked opium. We had bad weather at the start, and the steerage were +powerful sick. I judged they would have no insides to them when the +weather lifted, so I didn't put any guards on them. Wanted all my men +to work the ship. Engines rotten as Congress, and under sail half the +time. Next time I carry Chinese steerage trash I'll hire a Gatling and +mount it on the 'tween-decks hatch. + +"We were fooling about between islands--about a hundred and fifty +thousand islands all wrapped up in fog. When the fog laid the wind, +the engines broke down. One of the passengers--we carried no ladies +that journey--came to me one evening. 'I calculate there's a conspiracy +'tween-decks,' he said. 'Those pigtails are talking together. No good +ever came of pigtails talking. I'm from 'Frisco. I authoritate on +these matters.' 'Not on this ship,' I said: 'I've no use for duplicate +authority.' 'You'll be homesick after nine this time to-morrow,' he +said and quit. I guess he told the other passengers his notions. + +"Erastasius shared my cabin in general. I didn't care to dispute +with a cat that went heeled the way he did. That particular night +when I came down he was not inclined for repose. When I shut the door +he scrabbled till I let him out. When he was out he scrabbled to +come back. When he was back, he jumped all round the shanty yowling. +I stroked him, and the sparks irrigated his back as if 'twas the +smoke-stack of a river steamer. 'I'll get you a wife, old man,' I +said, 'next voyage. It is no good for you to be alone with me.' +'_Whoopee, yoopee-yaw-aw-aw_,' said Erastasius. 'Let me get out of +this.' I looked him square between the eyes to fix the place where +I'd come down with a boot-heel (he was getting monotonous), and as I +looked I saw the animal was just possessed with deadly fear--human +fear--crawling, shaking fear. It crept out of the green of his eyes +and crept over me in billowing waves--each wave colder than the last. +'Unburden your mind, Erastasius,' I said. 'What's going to happen?' +'_Wheepee-yeepee-ya-ya-ya-woop!_' said Erastasius, backing to the door +and scratching. + +"I quit my cabin sweating big drops, and somehow my hand shut on my +six-shooter. The grip of the handle soothes a man when he is afraid. I +heard the whole ship 'tween-decks rustling under me like all the woods +of Maine when the wind's up. The lamp over the 'tween-decks was out. +The steerage watchman was lying on the ground, and the whole hive of +Celestials were on the tramp--soft-footed hounds. A lantern came down +the alley-way. Behind it was the passenger that had spoken to me, and +all the rest of the crowd, except the half-caste. + +"'Are you homesick any now?' said my passenger. The 'tween-decks woke +up with a yell at the light, and some one fired up the hatch-way. +Then we began our share of the fun--the ten passengers and I. Eleven +six-shooters. That cleared the first rush of the pigtails, but we +continued firing on principle, working our way down the steps. No one +came down from the spar-deck to assist, though I heard considerable of +a trampling. The pigtails below were growling like cats. I heard the +lookout man shout, 'Junk on the port bow,' and the bell ring in the +engine-room for full speed ahead. Then we struck something, and there +was a yell inside and outside the ship that would have lifted your +hair out. When the outside yell stopped, our pigtails were on their +faces. 'Run down a junk,' said my passenger--'_their_ junk.' He loosed +three shots into the steerage on the strength of it. I went up on deck +when things were quiet below. Some one had run our Dahlgren signal-gun +forward and pointed it to the break of the fo'c'sle. There was the +balance of a war junk--three spars and a head or two on the water, and +the first mate keeping his watch in regular style. + +"'What is your share?' he said. 'We've smashed up a junk that tried to +foul us. Seems to have affected the feelings of your friends below. +Guess they wanted to make connection.' 'It is made,' said I, 'on the +Glassy Sea. Where's the watch?' 'In the fo'c'sle. The half-caste is +sitting on the signal-gun smoking his cigar. The watch are speculatin' +whether he'll stick the business-end of it in the touch-hole or +continue smoking. I gather that gun is not empty.' 'Send 'em down below +to wash decks. Tell the quartermaster to go through their boxes while +they are away. They may have implements.' + +"The watch went below to clean things up. There were eighteen stiff +uns and fourteen with holes through their systems. Some died, some +survived. I did not keep particular count. The balance I roped up, and +it employed most of our spare rigging. When we touched port there was a +picnic among the hangmen. Seems that Erastasius had been yowling down +the cabins all night before he came to me, and kept the passengers +alive. The man that spoke to me said the old man's eyes were awful +to look at. He was dying to tell his fear, but couldn't. When the +passengers came forward with the light, the half-caste quit for topside +and got the quartermaster to load the signal-gun with handspikes and +bring it forward in case the fo'c'sle wished to assist in the row. +That was the best half-caste I ever met. But the fo'c'sle didn't +assist. They were sick. So were the men below--horror-sick. That was +the way the old man saved the _Whanghoa_." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: "Turnovers," Vol. VII.] + + + + +HER LITTLE RESPONSIBILITY[2] + +_And No Man May Answer for the Soul of His Brother_ + + +It was two in the morning, and Epstin's Dive was almost empty, when +a Thing staggered down the steps that led to that horrible place and +fawned on me disgustingly for the price of a drink. "I'm dying of +thirst," he said, but his tone was not that of a street loafer. There +is a freemasonry, the freemasonry of the public schools, stronger than +any that the Craft knows. The Thing drank whisky raw, which in itself +is not calculated to slake thirst, and I waited at its side because +I knew, by virtue of the one sentence above recorded, that it once +belonged to my caste. Indeed, so small is the world when one begins +to travel round it, that, for aught I knew, I might even have met +the Thing in that menagerie of carefully-trained wild beasts, Decent +Society. And the Thing drank more whisky ere the flood-gates of its +speech were loosed and spoke of the wonderful story of its fall. + +Never man, he said, had suffered more than he, or for slighter sin. +Whereat I winked beerily into the bottom of my empty glass, having +heard that tale before. I think the Thing had been long divided +from all social and moral restraint--even longer from the wholesome +influence of soap and water. + +"What I feel most down here," said It, and by "down here" I presume he +meant the Inferno of his own wretchedness, "is the difficulty about +getting a bath. A man can always catch a free lunch at any of the +bars in the city, if he has money enough to buy a drink with, and you +can sleep out for six or eight months of the year without harm, but +San Francisco doesn't run to free baths. It's not an amusing life any +way you look at it. I'm more or less used to things, but it hurts me +even now to meet a decent man who knows something of life in the old +country. I was raised at Harrow--Harrow, if you please--and I'm not +five-and-twenty yet, and I haven't got a penny, and I haven't got a +friend, and there is nothing in creation that I can command except a +drink, and I have to beg for that. Have you ever begged for a drink? +It hurts at first, but you get used to it. My father's a parson. I +don't think he knows I beg drink. He lives near Salisbury. Do you know +Salisbury at all? And then there's my mother, too. But I have not heard +from either of them for a couple of years. They think I'm in a real +estate office in Washington Territory, coining money hand over fist. +If ever you run across them--I suppose you will some day--there's the +address. Tell them that you've seen me, and that I am well and fit. +Understand?--well and fit. I guess I'll be dead by the time you see +'em. That's hard. Men oughtn't to die at five-and-twenty--of drink. +Say, were you ever mashed on a girl? Not one of these you see, girls +out here, but an English one--the sort of girl one meets at the +Vicarage tennis-party, don't you know. A girl of our own set. I don't +mean mashed exactly, but dead, clean gone, head over ears; and worse +than that I was once, and I fancy I took the thing pretty much as I +take liquor now. I didn't know when to stop. It didn't seem to me +that there was any reason for stopping in affairs of that kind. I'm +quite sure there's no reason for stopping half-way with liquor. Go the +whole hog and die. It's all right, though--I'm not going to get drunk +here. Five in the morning will suit me just as well, and I haven't the +chance of talking to one of you fellows often. So you cut about in fine +clothes, do you, and take your drinks at the best bars and put up at +the Palace? All Englishmen do. Well, here's luck; you may be what I +am one of these days. You'll find companions quite as well raised as +yourself. + + * * * * * + +"But about this girl. Don't do what I did. I fell in love with her. She +lived near us in Salisbury; that was when I had a clean shirt every day +and hired horses to ride. One of the guineas I spent on that amusement +would keep me for a week here. But about this girl. I don't think some +men ought to be allowed to fall in love any more than they ought to be +allowed to taste whisky. She said she cared for me. Used to say that +about a thousand times a day, with a kiss in between. I think about +those things now, and they make me nearly as drunk as the whisky does. +Do you know anything about that love-making business? I stole a copy +of Cleopatra off a book-stall in Kearney Street, and that priest-chap +says a very true thing about it. You can't stop when it's once started, +and when it's all over you can't give it up at the word of command. I +forget the precise language. That girl cared for me. I'd give something +if she could see me now. She doesn't like men without collars and odd +boots and somebody else's hat; but anyhow she made me what I am, and +some day she'll know it. I came out here two years ago to a real estate +office; my father bought me some sort of a place in the firm. We were +all Englishmen, but we were about a match for an average Yankee; but I +forgot to tell you I was engaged to the girl before I came out. Never +you make a woman swear oaths of eternal constancy. She'll break every +one of them as soon as her mind changes, and call you unjust for making +her swear them. I worked enough for five men in my first year. I got +a little house and lot in Tacoma fit for any woman. I never drank, I +hardly ever smoked, I sold real estate all day, and wrote letters at +night. She wrote letters, too, about as full of affection as they make +'em. You can tell nothing from a woman's letter, though. If they want +to hide anything, they just double the 'dears' and 'darlings,' and then +giggle when the man fancies himself deceived. + +"I don't suppose I was worse off than hundreds of others, but it seems +to me that she might have had the grace to let me down easily. She +went and got married. I don't suppose she knew exactly what she was +doing, because I got the letters just the same six weeks after she was +married! It was an odd copy of an English paper that showed me what had +happened. It came in on the same day as one of her letters, telling me +she would be true to the gates of death. Sounds like a novel, doesn't +it? But it did not amuse me in the least. I wasn't constructed to pitch +the letters into the fire and pick up with a Yankee girl. I wrote her a +letter; I rather wish I could remember what was in that letter. Then I +went to a bar in Tacoma and had some whisky, about a gallon, I suppose. +If I had anything approaching to a word of honour about me, I would +give it you that I did not know what happened until I was told that my +partnership with the firm had been dissolved, and that the house and +lot did not belong to me any more. I would have left the firm and sold +the house, anyhow, but the crash sobered me for about three days. Then +I started another jamboree. I might have got back after the first one, +and been a prominent citizen, but the second bust settled matters. Then +I began to slide on the downgrade straight off, and here I am now. +I could write you a book about what I have come through, if I could +remember it. The worst of it is I can see that she wasn't worth losing +anything in life for, but I've lost just everything, and I'm like the +priest-chap in Cleopatra--I can't get over what I remember. If she had +let me down easy, and given me warning, I should have been awfully cut +up for a time, but I should have pulled through. She didn't do that, +though. She lied to me all along, and married a curate, and I dare say +she'll be a virtuous she-vicar later on; but the little affair broke me +dead, and if I had more whisky in me I should be blubbering like a calf +all round this Dive. That would have disgusted you, wouldn't it?" + +"Yes," said I. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 2: "Turnovers," Vol. VII.] + + + + +A MENAGERIE ABOARD[3] + + +It was pyjama time on the _Madura_ in the Bay of Bengal, and the +incense of the very early morning cigar went up to the stainless skies. +Every one knows pyjama time--the long hour that follows the removal +of the beds from the saloon skylight and the consumption of _chota +hazri_. Most men know, too, that the choicest stories of many seas +may be picked up then--from the long-winded histories of the Colonial +sheep-master to the crisp anecdotes of the Californian; from tales of +battle, murder and sudden death told by the Burmah-returned subaltern, +to the bland drivel of the globe-trotter. The Captain, tastefully +attired in pale pink, sat up on the signal-gun and tossed the husk of a +banana overboard. + +"It looked in through my cabin-window," said he, "and scared me nearly +into a fit." We had just been talking about a monkey who appeared to +a man in an omnibus, and haunted him till he cut his own throat. The +apparition, amid howls of incredulity, was said to have been the result +of excessive tea-drinking. The Captain's apparition promised to be +better. + +"It was a menagerie--a whole turnout, lock, stock, and barrel, from the +big bear to the little hippopotamus; and you can guess the size of it +from the fact that they paid us a thousand pounds in freight only. We +got them all accommodated somewhere forward among the deck passengers, +and they whooped up terribly all along the ship for two or three days. +Among other things, such as panthers and leopards, there were sixteen +giraffes, and we moored 'em fore and aft as securely as might be; but +you can't get a purchase on a giraffe somehow. He slopes back too much +from the bows to the stern. We were running up the Red Sea, I think, +and the menagerie fairly quiet. One night I went to my cabin not +feeling well. About midnight I was waked by something breathing on my +face. I was quite calm and collected, for I had got it into my head +that it was one of the panthers, or at least the bear; and I reached +back to the rack behind me for a revolver. Then the head began to slide +against my cabin--all across it--and I said to myself: 'It's the big +python.' But I looked into its eyes--they were beautiful eyes--and saw +it was one of the giraffes. Tell you, though, a giraffe has the eyes of +a sorrowful nun, and this creature was just brimming over with liquid +tenderness. The seven-foot neck rather spoilt the effect, but I'll +always recollect those eyes." + +"Say, did you kiss the critter?" demanded the orchid-hunter en route to +Siam. + +"No; I remembered that it was darn valuable, and I didn't want to lose +freight on it. I was afraid it would break its neck drawing its head +out of my window--I had a big deck cabin, of course--so I shoved it out +softly like a hen, and the head slid out, with those Mary Magdalene +eyes following me to the last. Then I heard the quartermaster calling +on heaven and earth for his lost giraffe, and then the row began all +up and down the decks. The giraffe had sense enough to duck its head to +avoid the awnings--we were awned from bow to stern--but it clattered +about like a sick cow, the quartermaster jumping after it, and it +swinging its long neck like a flail. 'Catch it, and hold it!' said the +quartermaster. 'Catch a typhoon,' said I. 'She's going overboard.' The +spotted fool had heaved one foot over the stern railings and was trying +to get the other to follow. It was so happy at getting its head into +the open I thought it would have crowed--I don't know whether giraffes +crow, but it heaved up its neck for all the world like a crowing cock. +'Come back to your stable,' yelled the quartermaster, grabbing hold of +the brute's tail. + +"I was nearly helpless with laughing, though I knew if the concern +went over it would be no laughing matter for me. Well, by good luck +she came round--the quartermaster was a strong man at a rope's end. +First of all she slewed her neck round, and I could see those tender, +loving eyes under the stars sort of saying: 'Cruel man! What are you +doing to my tail?' Then the foot came on board, and she bumped herself +up under the awning, looking ready to cry with disappointment. The +funniest thing was she didn't make any noise--a pig would ha' roused +the ship in no time--only every time she dropped her foot on the deck +it was like firing a revolver, the hoofs clicked so. We headed her +towards the bows, back to her moorings--just like a policeman showing +a short-sighted old woman over a crossing. The quartermaster sweated +and panted and swore, but she never said anything--only whacked her +old head despairingly against the awning and the funnel case. Her feet +woke up the whole ship, and by the time we had her fairly moored fore +and aft the population in their night-gear were giving us advice. Then +we took up a yard or two in all the moorings and turned in. No other +animal got loose that voyage, though the old lady looked at me most +reproachfully every time I came that way, and 'You've blasted my young +and tender innocence' was the expression of her eyes. It was all the +quartermaster's fault for hauling her tail. I wonder she didn't kick +him open. Well, of course, that isn't much of a yarn, but I remember +once, in the city of Venice, we had a Malayan tapir loose on the deck, +and we had to lasso him. It was this way": + +"_Guzl thyar hai_," said the steward, and I fled down the companion and +missed the tale of the tapir. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 3: Vol. V., Jan.--March, 1889.] + + + + +A SMOKE OF MANILA[4] + + +The man from Manila held the floor. "Much care had made him very lean +and pale and hollow-eyed." Added to which he smoked the cigars of his +own country, and they were bad for the constitution. He foisted his +Stinkadores Magnificosas and his Cuspidores Imperiallissimos upon all +who would accept them, and wondered that the recipients of his bounty +turned away and were sad. "There is nothing," said he, "like a Manila +cigar." And the pink pyjamas and blue pyjamas and the spotted green +pyjamas, all fluttering gracefully in the morning breeze, vowed that +there was not and never would be. + +"Do the Spaniards smoke these vile brands to any extent?" asked the +Young Gentleman travelling for Pleasure as he inspected a fresh box of +Oysters of the East. "Smoke 'em!" said the man from Manila; "they do +nothing else day and night." "Ah!" said the Young Gentleman travelling +for Pleasure, in the low voice of one who has received mortal injury, +"that accounts for the administration of the country being what it is. +After a man has tried a couple of these things he would be ready for +any crime." + +The man from Manila took no heed of the insult. "I knew a case once," +said he, "when a cigar saved a man from the sin of burglary and landed +him in quod for five years." "Was he trying to kill the man who gave +him the cigar?" said the Young Gentleman travelling for Pleasure. "No, +it was this way: My firm's godowns stand close to a creek. That is to +say, the creek washes one face of them, and there are a few things +in those godowns that might be useful to a man, such as piece-goods +and cotton prints--perhaps five thousand dollars' worth. I happened +to be walking through the place one day when, for a miracle, I was +not smoking. That was two years ago." "Great Cæsar! then he has been +smoking ever since!" murmured the Young Gentleman travelling for +Pleasure. + +"Was not smoking," continued the man from Manila. "I had no business in +the godowns. They were a short cut to my house. When half-way through +them I fancied I saw a little curl of smoke rising from behind one of +the bales. We stack our bales on low saddles, much as ricks are stacked +in England. My first notion was to yell. I object to fire in godowns on +principle. It is expensive, whatever the insurance may do. Luckily I +sniffed before I shouted, and I sniffed good tobacco smoke." "And this +was in Manila, you say?" interrupted the Young Gentleman travelling for +Pleasure. + +"Yes, in the only place in the world where you get good tobacco. I knew +we had no bales of the weed in stock, and I suspected that a man who +got behind print bales to finish his cigar might be worth looking up. I +walked between the bales till I reached the smoke. It was coming from +the ground under one of the saddles. That's enough, I thought, and I +went away to get a couple of the Guarda Civile--policemen, in fact. I +knew if there was anything to be extracted from my friend the bobbies +would do it. A Spanish policeman carries in the day-time nothing more +than a six-shooter and _machete_, a dirk. At night he adorns himself +with a repeating rifle, which he fires on the slightest provocation. +Well, when the policemen arrived, they poked my friend out of his +hiding-place with their dirks, hauled him out by the hair, and kicked +him round the godown once or twice, just to let him know that he had +been discovered. They then began to question him, and under gentle +pressure--I thought he would be pulped into a jelly, but a Spanish +policeman always knows when to leave off--he made a clean breast of the +whole business. He was part of a gang, and was to lie in the godown all +that night. At twelve o'clock a boat manned by his confederates was to +drop down the creek and halt under the godown windows, while he was +to hand out our bales. That was their little plan. He had lain there +about three hours, and then he began to smoke. I don't think he noticed +what he was doing: smoking is just like breathing to a Spaniard. He +could not understand how he had betrayed himself and wanted to know +whether he had left a leg sticking out under the saddles. Then the +Guarda Civile lambasted him all over again for trifling with the +majesty of the law, and removed him after full confession. + +"I put one of my own men under a saddle with instructions to hand out +print bales to anybody who might ask for them in the course of the +night. Meantime the police made their own arrangements, which were very +comprehensive. + +"At midnight a lumbering old barge, big enough to hold about a hundred +bales, came down the creek and pulled up under the godown windows, +exactly as if she had been one of my own barges. The eight ruffians +in her whistled all the national airs of Manila as a signal to the +confederate, then cooling his heels in the lock-up. But my man was +ready. He opened the window and held quite a long confab with these +second-hand pirates. They were all half-breeds and Roman Catholics, +and the way they called upon all the blessed saints to assist them in +their work was edifying. My man began tilting out the bales quite as +quickly as the confederate would have done. Only he stopped to giggle +now and again, and they spat and swore at him like cats. That made him +worse, and at last he dropped yelling with laughter over the half door +of the godown goods window. Then one boat came up stream and another +down stream, and caught the barge stem and stern. Four Guarda Civiles +were in each boat; consequently, eight repeating rifles were pointed +at the barge, which was very nicely loaded with our bales. The pirates +called on the saints more fluently than ever, threw up their hands, and +threw themselves on their stomachs. That was the safest attitude, and +it gave them the chance of cursing their luck, the barge, the godown, +the Guarda Civile, and every saint in the calendar. They cursed the +saints most, for the Guarda Civile thumped 'em when their remarks +became too personal. We made them put all the bales back again. Then +they were handed over to justice and got five years apiece. If they had +any dollars they would get out the next day. If they hadn't, they would +serve their full time and no ticket-of-leave allowed. That's the whole +story." + +"And the only case on record," said the Young Gentleman travelling for +Pleasure, "where a Manila cigar was of any use to any one." The man +from Manila lit a fresh Cuspidore and went down to his bath. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 4: "Turnovers," Vol. VII.] + + + + +THE RED LAMP[5] + + +"A strong situation--very strong, sir--quite the strongest one in the +play, in fact." + +"What play?" said a voice from the bottom of the long chair under the +bulwarks. + +"_The Red Lamp._" + +"Oh!" + +Conversation ceased, and there was an industrious sucking of cheroots +for the space of half an hour before the company adjourned to the +card-room. It was decidedly a night for sleeping on deck--warm as the +Red Sea and more moist than Bengal. Unfortunately, every square foot +of the deck seemed to be occupied by earlier comers, and in despair I +removed myself to the extreme fo'c'sle, where the anchor-chains churn +rust-dyed water from the hawseholes and the lascars walk about with +slushpots. + +The throb of the engines reached this part of the world as a muffled +breathing which might be easily mistaken for the snoring of the +ship's cow. Occasionally one of the fowls in the coops waked and +cheeped dismally as she thought of to-morrow's entrées in the saloon, +but otherwise all was very, very still, for the hour was two in the +morning, when the crew of a ship are not disposed to be lively. None +came to bear me company save the bo'sun's pet kittens, and they were +impolite. From where I lay I could look over the whole length of +awning, ghostly white in the dark, and by their constant fluttering +judged that the ship was pitching considerably. The fo'c'sle swung up +and down like an uneasy hydraulic lift, and a few showers of spray +found their passage through the hawseholes from time to time. + +Have you ever felt that maddening sense of incompetence which follows +on watching the work of another man's office? The civilian is at +home among his despatch-boxes and files of pending cases. "How in +the world does he do it?" asks the military man. The budding officer +can arrange for the movements of two hundred men across country. +"Incomprehensible!" says the civilian. And so it is with all alien +employs from our own. So it was with me. I knew that I was lying among +all the materials out of which Clark Russell builds his books of the +sea--the rush through the night, the gouts of foam, the singing of the +wind in the rigging overhead, and the black mystery of the water--but +for the life of me I could make nothing of them all. + + "A topsail royal flying free + A bit of canvas was to me, + And it was nothing more." + +"Oh, that a man should have but one poor little life and one incomplete +set of experiences to crowd into it!" I sighed as the bells of the ship +lulled me to sleep and the lookout man crooned a dreary song. + +I slept far into the night, for the clouds gathered over the sky, the +stars died out, and all grew as black as pitch. But we never slackened +speed; we beat the foam to left and right with clanking of chains, +rattling of bow-ports, and savage noises of ripping and rending from +the cut-water ploughing up to the luminous sea-beasts. I was roused by +the words of the man in the smoking-room: "A strong situation, sir, +very strong--quite the strongest in the play, in fact--_The Red Lamp_, +y' know." + +I thought over the sentence lazily for a time, and then--surely there +was a red lamp in the air somewhere--an intolerable glare that singed +the shut eyelids. I opened my eyes and looked forward. The lascar was +asleep, his face bowed on his knees, though he ought to have been +roused by the hum of a rapidly approaching city, by the noises of men +and women talking and laughing and drinking. I could hear it not half a +mile away: it was strange that his ears should be closed. + +The night was so black that one could hardly breathe; and yet where +did the glare from the red lamp come from? Not from our ship: she was +silent and asleep--the officers on the bridge were asleep; there was +no one of four hundred souls awake but myself. And the glare of the +red lamp went up to the zenith. Small wonder. A quarter of a mile in +front of us rolled a big steamer under full steam, and she was heading +down on us without a word of warning. Would the lookout man never look +out? Would their crew be as fast asleep as ours? It was impossible, for +the other ship hummed with populous noises, and there was the defiant +tinkle of a piano rising above all. She should have altered her course, +or blown a fog-horn. + +I held my breath while an eternity went by, counted out by the +throbbing of my heart and the engines. I knew that it was my duty +to call, but I knew also that no one could hear me. Moreover, I was +intensely interested in the approaching catastrophe; interested, you +will understand, as one whom it did in no wise concern. By the light +of the luminous sea thrown forward in sheets under the forefoot of +the advancing steamer I could discern the minutest details of her +structure from cat-head to bridge. Abaft the bridge she was crowded +with merrymakers--seemed to be, in fact, a P. & O. vessel given up to a +ball. I wondered as I leaned over the bulwarks what they would say when +the crash came--whether they would shriek very loudly--whether the men +and women would try to rush to our decks, or whether we would rush on +to theirs. It would not matter in the least, for at the speed we were +driving both vessels would go down together locked through the deeps +of the sea. It occurred to me then that the sea would be cold, and +that instead of choking decently I might be one in a mad rush for the +boats--might be crippled by a falling spar or wrenched plate and left +on the heeling decks to die. Then Terror came to me--Fear, gross and +overwhelming as the bulk of the night--Despair unrelieved by a single +ray of hope. + +We were not fifty yards apart when the passengers on the stranger +caught sight of us and shrieked aloud. I saw a man pick up his child +from one of the benches and futilely attempt to climb the rigging. Then +we closed--her name-plate ten feet above ours, looking down into our +forehatch. I heard the grinding as of a hundred querns, the ripping of +the tough bow-plates, and the pistol-like report of displaced rivets +followed by the rush of the sea. We were sinking in mid-ocean. + + * * * * * + +"Beg y' pardon," said the quartermaster, shaking me by the arm, "but +you must have been sleeping in the moonlight for the last two hours, +and that's not good for the eyes. Didn't seem to make you sleep easy, +either." I opened my eyes heavily. My face was swollen and aching, for +on my forehead lay the malignant splendour of the moon. The glare of +the Red Lamp had vanished with the brilliantly-lighted ship, but the +ghastly shrieks of her drowning crew continued. + +"What's that?" I asked tremulously of the quartermaster. "Was it real?" + +"Pork chops in the saloon to-morrow," said the quartermaster. "The +butcher he got up at four bells to put the old squeaker out of the way. +Them's his dying ejaculations." + +I dragged my bedding aft and went to sleep. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 5: "Turnovers," Vol. VII.] + + + + +THE SHADOW OF HIS HAND[6] + + +"I come from San José," he said. "San José, Calaveras County, +California: that's my place." I pricked up my ears at the mention of +Calaveras County. Bret Harte has made that sacred ground. + +"Yes?" said I politely. Always be polite to a gentleman from Calaveras +County. For aught you know he may be a lineal descendant of the great +Colonel Starbottle. + +"Did you ever know Vermilyea of San Luis Obispo?" continued the +stranger, chewing the plug of meditation. + +"No," said I. Heaven alone knows where lies San Luis Obispo, but I was +not going to expose my ignorance. Besides, there might be a story at +the back of it all. "What was the special weakness of Mister Vermilyea?" + +"Vermilyea! He weak! Lot Vermilyea never had a weakness that you might +call a weakness until subsequent events transpired. Then that weakness +developed into White Rye. All Westerners drink White Rye. On the +Eastern coast they drink Bourbon. Lot tried both when his heart was +broken. Both--by the quart." + +"D'you happen to remember what broke his heart?" I said. + +"This must be your first trip to the States, sir, or you would +know that Lot's heart was broken by his father-in-law. Lot's +congregation--he took to Religion--always said that he had no business +fooling with a father-in-law. A good many other people said that too. +But I always adhered to Lot. 'Why don't you kill the animal, Lot?' I +used to say. 'I can't. He's the father of my wife,' Lot used to say. +'Loan him money then and settle him on the other side of the States,' I +used to say. 'The old clam won't move,' Lot used to say." + +"Half a minute. What was the actual trouble between Vermilyea and his +father-in-law? Did he borrow money?" + +"I'm coming to that," said the stranger calmly. "It arrived this way. +Lot had a notion to get married. Some men get that idea. He went to +'Frisco and pawned out his heart--Lot had a most feeling heart, and +that was his ruin--to a girl who lived at back of Kearney Street. I've +forgotten her given name, but the old man's name was Dougherty. Guess +he was a naturalised Irishman. The old man did not see the merits of +Lot when he went sparking after the girl evenings. He fired Lot out off +the stoop three or four times. Lot didn't hit him because he was fond +of the daughter. He just quit like a lamb; the old man welting into him +with anything that came handy--sticks and besoms, and such. Lot endured +that, being a tough man. Every time Lot was fired out he would wait +till the old man was pretty well pumped out. Then he used to turn round +and say, 'When's the wedding to be?' Dougherty used to ramp round Lot +while the girl hid herself till the breeze abated. He had a peculiar +aversion to domiciliary visits from Lot, had Dougherty. I've my own +theory on the subject. I'll explain it later on. At last Dougherty got +tired of Lot and his peacefulness. The girl stuck to him for all she +was worth. Lot never budged. 'If you want to marry her,' said the old +man, 'just drop your long-suffering for half an hour. Stand up to me, +Lot, and we'll run this thing through with our hands.' 'If I must, I +must,' said Lot, and with that they began the argument up and down the +parlour floor. Lot he was fighting for his wife. He set considerable +value on the girl. The old man he was fighting for the fun of the +affair. Lot whipped. He handled the old man tenderly out of regard +for his connections. All the same he fixed him up pretty thoroughly. +When he crawled off the old man he had received his permission to +marry the girl. Old man Dougherty ran round 'Frisco advertising Lot +for the tallest fighter in the town. Lot was a respectable sort of man +and considerable absorbed in preparing for his wedding. It didn't +please him any to receive invitations from the boss fighting men of +'Frisco--professional invitations, you must understand. I guess he +cussed the father-in-law to be. + +"When he was married, he concluded to locate in 'Frisco, and started +business there. A married man don't keep his muscle up any. Old man +Dougherty he must have counted on that. By the time Lot's first child +was born he came around suffering for a fight. He painted Lot's house +crimson. Lot endured that. He got a hold of the baby and began yanking +it around by the legs to see if it could squeal worth listening to. +Lot stretched him. Old man howled with delight. Lot couldn't well +hand his father-in-law over to the police, so they had it, knuckle +and tooth, all round the front floor, and the old man he quit by the +window, considerably mashed up. Lot was fair spent, not having kept up +his muscle. My notion is that old man Dougherty being a boss fighter +couldn't get his fighting regularly till Lot married into the family. +Then he reckoned on a running discussion to warm up his bones. Lot was +too fond of his wife to disoblige him. Any man in his senses would have +brought the old man before the courts, or clubbed him, or laid him out +stiff. But Lot was always tender-hearted. + +"Soon as old man Dougherty got his senses together off the pavement, +he argued that Lot was considerable less of a fighter than he had +been. That pleased the old man. He was plastered and caulked up by +the doctors, and as soon as he could move he interviewed Lot and made +remarks. Lot didn't much care what he said, but when he came to casting +reflections on the parentage of the baby, Lot shut the office door and +played round for half an hour till the walls glittered like the evening +sun. Old man Dougherty crawled out, but he crowed as he crawled. +'Praise the blessed saints,' he said, 'I kin get my fighting along o' +my meals. Lot, ye have prolonged my life a century.' + +"Guess Lot would like to see him dead now. He is an old man, but most +amazing tough. He has been fighting Lot for a matter of three years. +If Lot made a lucky bit of trade, the old man would come along and +fight him for luck. If Lot lost a little, the old man would fight him +to teach him safe speculation. It took all Lot's time to keep even with +him. No man in business can 'tend his business and fight in streaks. +Lot's trade fell off every time he laid himself out to stretch the old +man. Worst of it was that when Lot was made a Deacon of his church, the +old man fought him most terrible for the honour of the Roman Catholic +Church. Lot whipped, of course. He always whipped. Old man Dougherty +went round among the other Deacons and lauded Lot for a boss pugilist, +not meaning to hurt Lot's prospects. Lot had to explain the situation +to the church in general. They accepted it. + +"Old man Dougherty he fought on. Age had no effect on him. Lot always +whipped, but nothing would satisfy the old man. Lot shook all his teeth +out till his gums were as bare as a sand-bar. Old man Dougherty came +along lisping his invitation to the dance. They fought. + +"When Lot shifted to San Luis Obispo, old man Dougherty he came along +too--craving for his fight. It was cocktails and plug to him. It +grew on him. Lot handled him too gently because of the wife. The old +man could come to the scratch once a month, and always at the most +inconvenient time. They fought. + +"Last I heard of Lot he was sinking into the tomb. 'It's not the +fighting,' he said to me. 'It's the darned monotony of the circus. He +knows I can whip him, but he won't rest satisfied. 'Lay him out, Lot,' +said I; 'fracture his cranium or gouge him. This show is foolish all +round.' 'I can't lay him out,' said Lot. 'He's my father-in-law. But +don't it strike you I've a deal to be thankful for? If he had been a +Jew he'd have fought on Sundays when I was doing Deacon. I've been too +gentle with him; the old man knows my spot place, but I've a deal to be +thankful for.' + +"Strikes me that thankfulness of Lot's sort is nothing more nor less +than cussed affectation. Say!" + +I said nothing. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 6: "Turnovers," Vol. VII.] + + + + +A LITTLE MORE BEEF[7] + + +"A little more beef, please," said the fat man with the grey whiskers +and the spattered waistcoat. "You can't eat too much o' good beef--not +even when the prices are going up hoof over hock." And he settled +himself down to load in a fresh cargo. + +Now, this is how the fat man had come by his meal. One thousand miles +away, a red Texan steer was preparing to go to bed for the night in the +company of his fellows--myriads of his fellows. From dawn till late +dusk he had loafed across the leagues of grass and grunted savagely as +each mouthful proved to his mind that grass was not what he had known +it in his youth. But the steer was wrong. That summer had brought great +drought to Montana and Northern Dakota. The cattle feed was withering +day by day, and the more prudent stock owners had written to the East +for manufactured provender. Only the little cactus that grows with the +grasses appeared to enjoy itself. The cattle certainly did not; and the +cowboys from the very beginning of spring had used language considered +profane even for the cowboy. What their ponies said has never been +recorded. The ponies had the worst time of all, and at each nightly +camp whispered to each other their longings for the winter, when +they would be turned out on the freezing ranges--galled from wither +to croup, but riderless--thank Heaven, riderless. On these various +miseries the sun looked down impartial. His business was to cake the +ground and ruin the grasses. + +The cattle--the acres of huddled cattle--were restless. In the first +place, they were forced to scatter for graze; and in the second, the +heat told on their tempers and made them prod each other with their +long horns. In the heart of the herd you would have thought men were +fighting with single-sticks. On the outskirts, posted at quarter-mile +intervals, sat the cowboys on their ponies, the brims of their hats +tilted over their sun-skinned noses, their feet out of the big +brown-leather hooded stirrups, and their hands gripping the horn of the +heavy saddle to keep themselves from falling on to the ground--asleep. +A cowboy can sleep at full gallop; on the other hand, he can keep +awake also at full gallop for eight and forty hours and wear down six +unamiable bronchos in the process. + +Lafe Parmalee; Shwink, the German who could not ride but had a blind +affection for cattle from the branding-yard to the butcher's block; +Michigan, so called because he said he came from California but spoke +not the Californian tongue; Jim from San Diego, to distinguish him +from other Jims, and The Corpse, were the outposts of the herd. The +Corpse had won his name from a statement, made in the fulness of much +McBrayer whisky, that he had once been a graduate of Corpus Christi. He +spoke truth, but to the wrong audience. The inhabitants of the Elite +Saloon, after several attempts to get the hang of the name, dubbed the +speaker The Corpse, and as long as he cinched a broncho or jingled a +spur within four hundred miles of Livingston--yea, far in the south, +even to the unexplored borders of the sheep-eater Indians--he was known +by that unlovely name. How he had passed from college to cattle no man +knew, and, according to the etiquette of the West, no man asked. He was +not by any means a tenderfoot--had no unmanly weakness for washing, +did not in the least object to appearing at the wild and wonderful +reunions held nightly in "Miss Minnie's parlour," whose flaring +advertisement did not in the least disturb the proprieties of Wachoma +Junction, and, in common with his associates, was, when drunk, ready +to shoot at anything or anybody. He was not proud. He had condescended +to take in hand and educate a young and promising Chicago drummer, who +by evil fate had wandered into that wilderness, where all his cunning +was of no account; and from that youth's quivering hand--outstretched +by command--had shot away the top of a wine-glass. The Corpse was +recognised in the freemasonry of the craft as "one of the C.M.R.'s +boys, and tough at that." + +The C.M.R. controlled much cattle, and their slaughter-houses in +Chicago bubbled the blood of beeves all day long. Their salt-beef fed +the sailor on the sea, and their iced, best firsts, the housekeeper +in the London suburbs. Not even the firm knew how many cowboys they +employed, but all the firm knew that on the fourteenth day of July +their stockyards at Wachoma Junction were to be filled with two +thousand head of cattle, ready for immediate shipment to Chicago while +prices yet ruled high, and before the grass had withered utterly. +Lafe, Michigan, Jim, The Corpse and the others knew this too, and were +heartily glad of it, because they would be paid up in Chicago for their +half-year's work, and would then do their best towards painting that +town in purest vermilion. They would get drunk; they would gamble, and +would otherwise enjoy themselves till they were broke; and then they +would hire out again. + +The sun dropped behind the rolling hills; and the cattle halted for +the night, cheered and cooled by a little wandering breeze. The red +steer's mother had been caught in a hailstorm five years ago. Till she +went the way of all cow-flesh she missed no opportunity of telling her +son to beware of the hot day and the cold wind that does not know its +own mind. "When it blows five ways at once," said she, "and makes your +horns feel creepy, get away, my son. Follow the time-honoured instinct +of our tribe, and run. I ran"--she looked ruefully at the scars on her +side--"but that was in a barb-wire country, and it hurt me. None the +less, run." The red steer chewed his cud, and the little wind out of +the darkness played round his horns--all five ways at once. The cowboys +lifted up their voices in unmelodious song, that the cattle might know +where they were, and began slowly walking round the recumbent herd. "Do +anybody's horns feel creepy?" queried the red steer of his neighbours. +"My mother told me"--and he repeated the tale, to the edification of +the yearlings and the three-year-olds breathing heavily at his side. + +The song of the cowboys rose higher. The cattle bowed their heads. +Their men were at hand. They were safe. Something had happened to +the quiet stars. They were dying out one by one, and the wind was +freshening. "Bless my hoofs!" muttered a yearling, "my horns are +beginning to feel creepy." Softly the red steer lifted himself from +the ground. "Come away," quoth he to the yearling. "Come away to the +outskirts, and we'll move. My mother said...." The innocent fool +followed, and a white heifer saw them move. Being a woman she naturally +bellowed "Timber wolves!" and ran forward blindly into a dun steer +dreaming over clover. Followed the thunder of cattle rising to their +feet, and the triple crack of a whip. The little wind had dropped for a +moment, only to fall on the herd with a shriek and a few stinging drops +of hail, that stung as keenly as the whips. The herd broke into a trot, +a canter, and then a mad gallop. Black fear was behind them, black +night in front. They headed into the night, bellowing with terror; +and at their side rode the men with the whips. The ponies grunted as +they felt the raking spurs. They knew that an all-night gallop lay +before them, and woe betide the luckless cayuse that stumbled in that +ride. Then fell the hail--blinding and choking and flogging in one and +the same stroke. The herd opened like a fan. The red steer headed a +contingent he knew not whither. A man with a whip rode at his right +flank. Behind him the lightning showed a field of glimmering horns, and +of muzzles flecked with foam; a field of red terror-strained eyes and +shaggy frontlets. The man looked back also, and his terror was greater +than that of the beasts. The herd had surrounded him in the darkness. +His salvation lay in the legs of _Whisky Peat_--and _Whisky Peat_ knew +it--knew it until an unseen gopher hole received his near forefoot as +he strained every nerve--in the heart of the flying herd, with the red +steer at his flanks. Then, being only over-worked cayuse, _Whisky +Peat_ fell, and the red steer fancied that there was something soft on +the ground. + + * * * * * + +It was Michigan, Jim and Lafe who at last brought the herd to a +standstill as the dawn was breaking, "What's come to The Corpse?" quoth +Lafe. Jim loosened the girths of his quivering pony and made answer +slowly: "Onless I'm a blamed fool, the gentleman is now livin' up to +his durned appellation 'bout fifteen miles back--what there is of him +and the cayuse." "Let's go and look," said Lafe, shuddering slightly, +for the morning air, you must understand, was raw. "Let's go to--a +much hotter place than Texas," responded Jim. "Get the steers to the +Junction first. Guess what's left of The Corpse will keep." + +And it did. And that was how the fat man in Chicago got his beef. It +belonged to the red steer. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 7: "Turnovers," Vol. VII.] + + + + +THE HISTORY OF A FALL[8] + + +_Mere English will not do justice to the event. Let us attempt it +according to the custom of the French. Thus and so following:_ + +Listen to a history of the most painful--and of the most true. +You others, the Governors, the Lieutenant-Governors, and the +Commissionaires of the Oriental Indias. + +It is you, foolishly outside of the truth in prey to illusions so blind +that I of them remain so stupefied--it is to you that I address myself! + +Know you Sir Cyril Wollobie, K.C.S.I., C.M.G., and all the other little +things? + +He was of the Sacred Order of Yourself--a man responsible +enormously--charged of the conservation of millions.... + +Of people. That is understood. The Indian Government conserves not its +rupees. + +He was the well-loved of kings. I have seen the Viceroy--which is the +Lorr-Maire--embrace him of both arms. + +That was in Simla. All things are possible in Simla. + +Even embraces. + +His wife! Mon Dieu, his wife! + +The aheuried imagination prostrates itself at the remembrance of the +splendours Orientals of the Lady Cyril--the very respectable the Lady +Wollobie. + +That was in Simla. All things are possible in Simla. Even wives. In +those days I was--what you call--a Schnobb. I am now a much larger +Schnobb. _Voila_ the only difference. Thus it is true that travel +expands the mind. + +But let us return to our Wollobies. + +I admired that man there with the both hands. I crawled before the +Lady Wollobie--platonically. The man the most brave would be only +platonic towards that lady. And I was also afraid. Subsequently I +went to a dance. The wine equalled not the splendour of the Wollobies. +Nor the food. But there was upon the floor an open space--large and +park-like. It protected the dignity Wollobi-callisme. It was guarded by +Aides-de-Camp. With blue silk in their coat-tails--turned up. With pink +eyes and white moustaches to ravish. Also turned up. + +To me addressed himself an Aide-de-Camp. + +That was in Simla. To-day I do not speak to Aides-de-Camp. + +I confine myself exclusively to the cab-drivaire. He does not know so +much bad language, but he can drive better. + +I approached, under the protection of the Aide-de-Camp, the luminosity +of Sir Wollobie. + +The world entire regarded. + +The band stopped. The lights burned blue. A domestic dropped a plate. + +It was an inspiring moment. + +From the summit of Jakko forty-five monkies looked down upon the crisis. + +Sir Wollobie spoke. + +To me in that expanse of floor cultured and park-like. He said: "I have +long desired to make your acquaintance." + +The blood bouilloned in my head. I became pink. I was aneantied under +the weight of an embarras insubrimable. + +At that moment Sir Wollobie became oblivious of my personality. That +was his custom. + +Wiping my face upon my coat-tails I refugied myself among the foules. + +_I had been spoken to by Sir Wollobie._ That was in Simla. That also is +history. + + * * * * * + +Pass now several years. To the day before yesterday! + +This also is history--farcical, immense, tragi-comic, but true. + +Know you the Totnam Cortrode? + +Here lives Maple, who sells washing appliances and tables of exotic +legs. + +Here voyages also a Omnibuse Proletariat. + +That is to say for One penny. + +Two pence is the refined volupté of the Aristocrat. + +I am of the people. + +_Entre nous_ the connection is not desired by us. The people address to +me epithets, entirely unprintable. I reply that they should wash. The +situation is strained. Hence the Strike Docks and the Demonstrations +Laborious. + +Upon the funeste tumbril of the Proletariat I take my seat. + +I demand air outside upon the roof. + +I will have all my penny. + +The tumbril advances. + +A man aged loses his equilibrium and deposits himself into my lap. + +Following the custom of the Brutal Londoner I demand the Devil where he +shoves himself. + +He apologises supplicatorically. + +I grunt. + +Encore the tumbril shakes herself. + +I appropriate the desired seat of the old man. + +The conductaire cries to loud voice: "Fare, Guvnor." + +He produces one penny. + +A reminiscence phantasmal provokes itself. + +I beat him on the back. + +It is Sir Wollobie; the ex-Everything! + +Also the ex-Everything else! + +Figure you the situation! + +He clasps my hand. + +As a child clasps the hand of its nurse. + +He demands of me particular rensignments of my health. It is to him a +matter important. + +Other time he regulated the health of forty-five millions. + +I riposte. I enquire of his liver--his pancreas, his abdomen. + +The sacred internals of Sir Wollobie! + +He has them all. And they all make him ill. + +He is very lonely. He speaks of his wife. There is no Lady Wollobie, +but a woman in a flat in Bayswater who cries in her sleep for more +curricles. + +He does not say this, but I understand. + +He derides the Council of the Indian Office. He imprecates the +Government. + +He curses the journals. + +He has a clob. He curses that clob. + +Females with teeth monstrous explain to him the theory of Government. + +Men of long hair, the psychologues of the paint-pots, correct him +tenderly, but from above. + +He has known of the actualities of life--Death, Power, Responsibility, +Honour--the Good accomplished, the effacement of Wrong for forty years. + +There remains to him a seat in a penny 'bus. + +If I do not take him from that. + +I rap my heels on the knife-board. I sing "_tra la la_." I am also well +disposed to larmes. + +He courbes himself underneath an ulstaire and he damns the fog to +eternity. + +He wills not that I leave him. He desires that I come to dinner. + +I am grave. I think upon Lady Wollobie--shorn of chaprassies--at the +Clob. Not in Bayswater. + +I accept. He will bore me affreusely, but ... I have taken his seat. + +He descends from the tumbril of his humiliation, and the street hawker +rolls a barrow up his waistcoat. + +Then intervenes the fog--dense, impenetrable, hopeless, without end. + +It is because of the fog that there is a drop upon the end of my nose +so chiselled. + +Gentlemen the Governors, the Lieutenant-Governors and the Commissaires, +behold the doom prepared. + +I am descended to the gates of your Life in Death. Which is Brompton or +Bayswater. + +You do not believe? You will try the constituencies when you return; is +it not so? + +You will fail. As others failed. + +Your seat waits you on the top of an Omnibuse Proletariat. + +I shall be there. + +You will embrace me as a shipwrecked man embraces a log. You will be +"dam glad t' see me." + +I shall grin. + +Oh Life! Oh Death! Oh Power! Oh Toil! Oh Hope! Oh Stars! Oh Honour! Oh +Lodgings! Oh Fog! Oh Omnibuses! Oh Despair! Oh Skittles! + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 8: "Turnovers," Vol. VIII.] + + + + +GRIFFITHS THE SAFE MAN[9] + + +As the title indicates, this story deals with the safeness of Griffiths +the safe man, the secure person, the reliable individual, the sort of +man you would bank with. I am proud to write about Griffiths, for I owe +him a pleasant day. This story is dedicated to my friend Griffiths, the +remarkably trustworthy mortal. + +In the beginning there were points about Griffiths. He quoted proverbs. +A man who quotes proverbs is confounded by proverbs. He is also +confounded by his friends. But I never confounded Griffiths--not even +in that supreme moment when the sweat stood on his brow in agony and +his teeth were fixed like bayonets and he swore horribly. Even then, I +say, I sat on my own trunk, the trunk that opened, and told Griffiths +that I had always respected him, but never more than at the present +moment. He was so safe, y' know. + +Safeness is a matter of no importance to me. If my trunk won't lock +when I jump on it thrice, I strap it up and go on to something else. If +my carpet-bag is too full, I let the tails of shirts and the ends of +ties bubble over and go down the street with the affair. It all comes +right in the end, and if it does not, what is a man that he should +fight against Fate? + +But Griffiths is not constructed in that manner. He says: "Safe bind is +safe find." That, rather, is what he used to say. He has seen reason +to alter his views. Everything about Griffiths is safe--entirely safe. +His trunk is locked by two hermetical gun-metal double-end Chubbs; +his bedding-roll opens to a letter padlock capable of two million +combinations; his hat-box has a lever patent safety on it; and the +grief of his life is that he cannot lock up the ribs of his umbrella +safely. If you could get at his soul you would find it ready strapped +up and labelled for heaven. That is Griffiths. + +When we went to Japan together, Griffiths kept all his money under lock +and key. I carried mine in my coat-tail pocket. But all Griffiths' +contraptions did not prevent him from spending exactly as much as I +did. You see, when he had worried his way through the big strap, and +the little strap, and the slide-valve, and the spring lock, and the key +that turned twice and a quarter, he felt as though he had earned any +money he found, whereas I could get masses of sinful wealth by merely +pulling out my handkerchief--dollars and five dollars and ten dollars, +all mixed up with the tobacco or flying down the road. They looked much +too pretty to spend. + +"Safe bind, safe find," said Griffiths in the treaty port. + +He never really began to lock things up severely till we got our +passports to travel up-country. He took charge of mine for me, on the +ground that I was an imbecile. As you are asked for your passport at +every other shop, all the hotels, most of the places of amusement, and +on the top of each hill, I got to appreciate Griffiths' self-sacrifice. +He would be biting a strap with his teeth or calculating the +combinations of his padlocks among a ring of admiring Japanese while I +went for a walk into the interior. + +"Safe bind, safe find," said Griffiths. That was true, because I was +bound to find Griffiths somewhere near his beloved keys and straps. +He never seemed to see that half the pleasure of his trip was being +strapped and keyed out of him. + +We never had any serious difficulty about the passports in the whole +course of our wanderings. What I purpose to describe now is merely an +incident of travel. It had no effect on myself, but it nearly broke +Griffiths' heart. + +We were travelling from Kyoto to Otsu along a very dusty road full of +pretty girls. Every time I stopped to play with one of them Griffiths +grew impatient. He had telegraphed for rooms at the only hotel in Otsu, +and was afraid that there would be no accommodation. There were only +three rooms in the hotel, and "Safe bind, safe find," said Griffiths. +He was telegraphing ahead for something. + +Our hotel was three-quarters Japanese and one-quarter European. If +you walked across it it shook, and if you laughed the roof fell off. +Strange Japanese came in and dined with you, and Jap maidens looked +through the windows of the bathroom while you were bathing. + +We had hardly put the luggage down before the proprietor asked for +our passports. He asked me of all people in the world. "I have the +passports," said Griffiths with pride. "They are in the yellow-hide +bag. Turn it very carefully on to the right side, my good man. You +have no such locks in Japan, I'm quite certain." Then he knelt down +and brought out a bunch of keys as big as his fist. You must know that +every Japanese carries a little _belaiti_-made handbag with nickel +fastenings. They take an interest in handbags. + +"Safe bind, safe---- D----n the key! What's wrong with it?" said +Griffiths. + +The hotel proprietor bowed and smiled very politely for at least five +minutes, Griffiths crawling over and under and round and about his bag +the while. "It's a percussating compensator," said he, half to himself. +"I've never known a percussating compensator do this before." He was +getting heated and red in the face. + +"Key stuck, eh? I told you those fooling little spring locks are sure +to go wrong sooner or later." + +"Fooling little devils. It's a percussating comp---- There goes +the key. Now it won't move either way. I'll give you the passport +to-morrow. Passport _kul demang manana_--catchee in a little time. +Won't that do for you?" + +Griffiths was getting really angry. The proprietor was more polite than +ever. He bowed and left the room. "That's a good little chap," said +Griffiths. "Now we'll settle down and see what the mischief's wrong +with this bag. You catch one end." + +"Not in the least," I said. "'Safe bind, safe find.' You did the +binding. How can you expect me to do the finding? I'm an imbecile unfit +to be trusted with a passport, and now I'm going for a walk." The +Japanese are really the politest nation in the world. When the hotel +proprietor returned with a policeman he did not at once thrust the man +on Griffiths' notice. He put him in the verandah and let him clank his +sword gently once or twice. + +"Little chap's brought a blacksmith," said Griffiths, but when he saw +the policeman his face became ugly. The policeman came into the room +and tried to assist. Have you ever seen a four-foot policeman in white +cotton gloves and a stand-up collar lunging percussating compensator +look with a five-foot sword? I enjoyed the sight for a few minutes +before I went out to look at Otsu, which is a nice town. No one +hindered me. Griffiths was so completely the head of the firm that had +I set the town on fire he would have been held responsible. + +I went to a temple, and a policeman said "passport." I said, "The other +gentleman has got." "Where is other gentleman?" said the policeman, +syllable by syllable, in the Ollendorfian style. "In the ho-tel," +said I; and he waddled off to catch him. It seemed to me that I could +do a great deal towards cheering Griffiths all alone in his bedroom +with that wicked bad lock, the hotel proprietor, the policeman, the +room-boy, and the girl who helped one to bathe. With this idea I stood +in front of four policemen, and they all asked for my passport and were +all sent to the hotel, syllable by syllable--I mean one by one. + +Some soldiers of the 9th N.I. were strolling about the streets, and +they were idle. It is unwise to let a soldier be idle. He may get +drunk. When the fourth policeman said: "Where is other gentleman?" I +said: "In the hotel, and take soldiers--those soldiers." + +"How many soldiers?" said the policeman firmly. + +"Take all soldiers," I said. There were four files in the street just +then. The policeman spoke to them, and they caught up their big +sword-bayonets, nearly as long as themselves, and waddled after him. + +I followed them, but first I bought some sweets and gave one to a +child. That was enough. Long before I had reached the hotel I had a +tail of fifty babies. These I seduced into the long passage that ran +through the house, and then I slid the grating that answers to the big +hall-door. That house was full--pit, boxes and galleries--for Griffiths +had created an audience of his own, and I also had not been idle. + +The four files of soldiers and the five policemen were marking time on +the boards of Griffith's room, while the landlord and the landlord's +wife, and the two scullions, and the bath-girl, and the cook-boy, and +the boy who spoke English, and the boy who didn't, and the boy who +tried to, and the cook, filled all the space that wasn't devoted to +babies asking the foreigner for more sweets. + +Somewhere in the centre of the mess was Griffiths and a yellow-hide +bag. I don't think he had looked up once since I left, for as he +raised his eyes at my voice I heard him cry: "Good heavens! are they +going to train the guns of the city on me? What's the meaning of the +regiment? I'm a British subject." + +"What are you looking for?" I asked. + +"The passports--your passports--the double-dyed passports! Oh, give a +man room to use his arms. Get me a hatchet." + +"The passports, the passports!" I said. "Have you looked in your +great-coat? It's on the bed, and there's a blue envelope in it that +looks like a passport. You put it there before you left Kyoto." + +Griffiths looked. The landlord looked. The landlord took the passport +and bowed. The five policemen bowed and went out one by one; the 9th +N.I. formed fours and went out; the household bowed, and there was a +long silence. Then the bath-girl began to giggle. + +When Griffiths wanted to speak to me I was on the other side of the +regiment of children in the passage, and he had time to reflect before +he could work his way through them. + +They formed his guard-of-honour when he took the bag to the locksmith. + +I abode on the mountains of Otsu till dinner-time. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 9: "Turnovers," Vol. VII.] + + + + +IT![10] + + +There was no talk of it for a fortnight. We spoke of latitude and +longitude and the proper manufacture of sherry cobblers, while the +steamer cut open a glassy-smooth sea. Then we turned towards China and +drank farewell to the nearer East. + +"We shall reach Hongkong without being it," said the nervous lady. + +"Nobody of ordinary strength of mind ever was it," said the big fat man +with the voice. I kept my eye on the big fat man. He boasted too much. + +The China seas are governed neither by wind nor calm. Deep down under +the sapphire waters sits a green and yellow devil who suffers from +indigestion perpetually. When he is unwell he troubles the waters above +with his twistings and writhings. Thus it happens that it is never +calm in the China seas. + +The sun was shining brightly when the big fat man with the voice came +up the companion and looked at the horizon. + +"Hah!" said he, "calm as ditch water! Now I remember when I was in +the _Florida_ in '80, meeting a tidal-wave that turned us upside down +for five minutes, and most of the people inside out, by Jove!" He +expatiated at length on the heroism displayed by himself when "even the +Captain was down, sir!" + +I said nothing, but I kept my eyes upon the strong man. + +The sun continued to shine brightly, and it also kept an eye in the +same direction. I went to the far-off fo'c'sle, where the sheep and the +cow and the bo'sun and the second-class passengers dwell together in +amity. "Bo'sun," said I, "how's her head?" + +"Direckly in front of her, sir," replied that ill-mannered soul, +"but we shall be meetin' a head-sea in half an hour that'll put your +head atween of your legs. Go aft an' tell that to them first-class +passengers." + +I went aft, but I said nothing. We went, later, to tiffin, and there +was a fine funereal smell of stale curries and tinned meats in the air. +Conversation was animated, for most of the passengers had been together +for five weeks and had developed two or three promising flirtations. +I was a stranger--a minnow among Tritons--a third man in the cabin. +Only those who have been a third man in the cabin know what this means. +Suddenly and without warning our ship curtsied. It was neither a bob +nor a duck nor a lurch, but a long, sweeping, stately old-fashioned +curtsy. Followed a lull in the conversation. I was distinctly conscious +that I had left my stomach two feet in the air, and waited for the +return roll to join it. "Prettily the old hooper rides, doesn't she?" +said the strong man. "I hope she won't do it often," said the pretty +lady with the changing complexion. + +"Wha-hoop! Wha--wha--wha--willy _whoop_!" said the screw, that had +managed to come out of the water and was racing wildly. + +"Good heavens! is the ship going down?" said the fat lady, clutching +her own private claret bottle that she might not die athirst. The +ship went down at the word--with a drunken lurch down she went, and a +smothered yell from one of the cabins showed that there was water in +the sea. The portholes closed with a clash, and we rose and fell on +the swell of the bo'sun's head-sea. The conversation died out. Some +complained that the saloon was stuffy, and fled upstairs to the deck. +The strong man brought up the rear. + +"Ooshy--ooshy--wooshy--woggle _wop!_" cried a big wave without a head. +"Get up, old girl!" and he smacked the ship most disrespectfully under +the counter, and she squirmed as she took the drift of the next sea. + +"She--ah--rides very prettily," repeated the strong man as the +companion stairs spurned him from them and he wound his arms round the +nearest steward. + +"Damn prettily," said the necked officer. "I'm going to lie down. +Never could stand the China seas." + +"Most refreshing thing in the world," said the strong man faintly. + +I took counsel purely with myself, which is to say, my stomach, and +perceived that the worst would not befall me. + +"Come to the fo'c'sle, then, and feel the wind," said I to the strong +man. The plover's-egg eyes of three yellowish-green girls were upon him. + +"With pleasure," said he, and I bore him away to where the cut-water +was pulling up the scared flying-fishes as a spaniel flushes game. In +front of us was the illimitable blue, lightly ridged by the procession +of the big blind rollers. Up rose the stem till six feet of the red +paint stood clear above the blue--from twenty-three feet to eighteen I +could count as I leaned over. Then the sapphire crashed into splintered +crystal with a musical jar, and the white spray licked the anchor +channels as we drove down and down, sucking at the sea. I kept my eye +upon the strong man, and I noticed that his mouth was slightly open, +the better to inhale the rushing wind. When I looked a second time +he was gone. The driven spray was scarcely quicker in its flight. My +excellent stomach behaved with temperance and chastity. I enjoyed the +fo'c'sle, and my delight was the greater when I reflected on the strong +man. Unless I was much mistaken, he would know all about it in half an +hour. + +I went aft, and a lull between two waves heard the petulant pop of a +champagne cork. No one drinks champagne after tiffin except.... _It_. + +The strong man had ordered the champagne. There were bottles of it +flying about the quarter-deck. The engaged couple were sipping it out +of one glass, but their faces were averted like our parents of old. +They were ashamed. + +"You may go! You may go to Hongkong for me!" shouted half-a-dozen +little waves together, pulling the ship several ways at once. She +rolled stately, and from that moment settled down to the work of the +evening. I cannot blame her, for I am sure she did not know her own +strength. It didn't hurt her to be on her side, and play cat-and-mouse, +and puss-in-the corner, and hide-and-seek, but it destroyed the +passengers. One by one they sank into long chairs and gazed at the sky. +But even there the little white moved, and there was not one stable +thing in heaven above or the waters beneath. My virtuous and very +respectable stomach behaved with integrity and resolution. I treated +it to a gin cocktail, which I sucked by the side of the strong man, +who told me in confidence that he had been overcome by the sun at the +fo'c'sle. Sun fever does not make people cold and clammy and blue. I +sat with him and tried to make him talk about the _Florida_ and his +voyages in the past. He evaded me and went down below. Three minutes +later I followed him with a thick cheroot. Into his bunk I went, for I +knew he would be helpless. He was--he was--he was. He wallowed supine, +and I stood in the doorway smoking. + +"What is it?" said I. + +He wrestled with his pride--his wicked pride--but he would not tell a +lie. + +"It," said he. And it was so. + + * * * * * + +The rolling continues. The ship is a shambles, and I have six places on +each side of me all to myself. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 10: "Turnovers," Vol. I.] + + + + +A FALLEN IDOL[11] + + +Will the public be good enough to look into this business? It has sent +Crewe to bed, and Mottleby is applying for home leave, and I've lost +my faith in man altogether, and the Club gives it up. Trivey is the +only man who is unaffected by the catastrophe, and he says "I told you +so." We were all proud of Trivey at the Club, and would have crowned +him with wreaths of Bougainvillea had he permitted the liberty. But +Trivey was an austere man. The utmost that he permitted himself to say +was: "I can stretch a little bit when I'm in the humour." We called +him the Monumental Liar. Nothing that the Club offered was too good +for Trivey. He had the soft chair opposite the thermantidote in the +hot weather, and he made up his own four at whist. When visitors came +in--globe-trotters for choice--Trivey used to unmuzzle himself and tell +tales that sent the globe-trotter out of the Club on tiptoe looking for +snakes in his hat and tigers in the compound. Whenever a man from a +strange Club came in Trivey used to call for a whisky and ginger-wine +and rout that man on all points--from horses upward. There was a man +whose nickname was "Ananias," who came from the Prince's Plungers to +look at Trivey; and, though Trivey was only a civilian, the Plunger +man resigned his title to the nickname before eleven o'clock. He made +it over to Trivey on a card, and Trivey hung up the concession in his +quarters. We loved Trivey--all of us; and now we don't love him any +more. + +A man from the frontier came in and began to tell tales--some very +good ones, and some better than good. He was an outsider, but he had +a wonderful imagination--for the frontier. He told six stories before +Trivey brought up his first line, and three more before Trivey hurled +his reserves into the fray. + +"When I was at Anungaracharlupillay in Madras," said Trivey quietly, +"there was a rogue elephant cutting about the district. And I came +upon him asleep." All the Club stopped talking here, until Trivey had +finished the story. He told us that he, in the company of another +man, had found the rogue asleep, but just as they got up to the +brute's head it woke up with a scream. Then Trivey, who was careful to +explain that he was a "bit powerful about the arms," caught hold of +its ears as it rose, and hung there, kicking the animal in the eyes, +which so bewildered it that it stayed screaming and frightened until +Trivey's ally shot it behind the shoulder, and the villagers ran in +and hamstrung it. It evidently died from loss of blood. Trivey was +hanging on the ears and kicking hard for nearly fifteen minutes. When +the frontier man heard the story he put his hands in front of his +face and sobbed audibly. We gave him all the drinks he wanted, and he +recovered sufficiently to carry away eighty rupees at whist later on; +but his nerve was irretrievably shattered. He will be no use on the +frontier any more. The rest of the Club were very pleased with Trivey, +because these frontier men, and especially the guides, want a great +deal of keeping in order. Trivey was quite modest. He was a truly great +soul, and popular applause never turned his head. As I have said, we +loved Trivey, till that fatal day when Crewe announced that he had +been transferred for a couple of months to Anungaracharlupillay. "Oh!" +said Trivey, "I dare say they'll remember about my rogue elephant down +there. You ask 'em, Crewe." Then we felt sorry for Trivey, because we +were sure that he was arriving at that stage of mental decay when a man +begins to believe in his own fictions. That spoils a man's hand. Crewe +wrote up once or twice to Mottleby, saying that he would bring back a +story that would make our hair curl. Good stories are scarce in Madras, +and we rather scoffed at the announcement. When Crewe returned it was +easy to see that he was bursting with importance. He gave a big dinner +at the Club and invited nearly everybody but Trivey, who went off +after dinner to teach a young subaltern to play "snooker." At coffee +and cheroots, Crewe could not restrain himself any longer. "I say, you +Johnnies, it's all true--every single word of it--and you can throw the +decanter at my head and I'll apologise. The whole village was full of +it. There was a rogue elephant, and it slept, and Trivey did catch hold +of its ears and kick it in the eyes, and hang on for ten minutes, at +least, and all the rest of it. I neglected my regular work to sift that +story, and on my honour the tale's an absolute fact. The headsman said +so, all the shikaries said so, and all the villagers corroborated it. +Now would a whole village volunteer a lie that would do them no good?" + +You might have heard a cigar-ash fall after this statement. Then +Mottleby said, with deep disgust: "What can you do with a man like +that? His best and brightest lie, too!" "'Tisn't!" shrieked Crewe. +"It's a fact--a nickel-plated, teak-wood, Tantalus-action, forty-five +rupee fact." "That only makes it worse," said Mottleby; and we all +felt that was true. We ran into the billiard-room to talk to Trivey, +but he said we had put him off his stroke; and that was all the +satisfaction we got out of him. Later on he repeated that he was a "bit +powerful about the arms," and went to bed. We sat up half the night +devising vengeance on Trivey. We were very angry, and there was no hope +of hushing up the tale. The man had taken us in completely, and now +that we've lost our champion Ananias, all the frontier will laugh at +us, and we shall never be able to trust a word that Trivey says. + +I ask with Mottleby: "What can you do with a man like that?" + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 11: "Turnovers," Vol. I.] + + + + +NEW BROOMS[12] + + "If seven maids with seven mops + Swept it for half a year, + Do you suppose," the Walrus said, + "That they could sweep it clear?" + + +Ram Buksh, Aryan, went to bed with his buffalo, five goats, three +children and a wife, because the evening mists were chilly. His hut was +builded on the mud scooped from a green and smelly tank, and there were +microbes in the thin blood of Ram Buksh. + +Ram Buksh went to bed on a charpoy stretched across the blue tepid +drain, because the nights were hot; and there were more microbes in +his blood. Then the rains came, and Ram Buksh paddled, mid-thigh deep, +in water for a day or two with his buffaloes till he was aware of a +crampsome feeling at the pit of his stomach. "Mother of my children," +said Ram Buksh, "this is death." They gave him cardamoms and capsicums, +and gingelly-oil and cloves, and they prayed for him. "It is enough," +said Ram Buksh, and he twisted himself into a knot and died, and they +burned him slightly--for the wood was damp--and the rest of him floated +down the river, and was caught in an undercurrent at the bank, and +there stayed; and when Imam Din, the Jeweller, drank of the stream five +days later, he drank Lethe, and passed away, crying in vain upon his +gods. + +His family did not report his death to the Municipality, for they +desired to keep Imam Din with them. Therefore, they buried him under +the flagging in the court-yard, secretly and by night. Twelve days +later, Imam Din had made connection with the well of the house, and +there was typhus among the women in the zenana, but no one knew +anything about it--some died and some did not; and Ari Booj, the +Faquir, added to the interest of the proceedings by joining the +funeral procession and distributing gratis the more malignant forms of +smallpox, from which he was just recovering. He had come all the way +from Delhi, and had slept on no less than fifteen different charpoys; +and that was how they got the smallpox into Bahadurgarh. But Eshmith +Sahib's Dhobi picked it up from Ari Booj when Imam Din's wife was being +buried--for he was a merry man, and sent home a beautiful sample among +the Sunday shirts. So Eshmith Sahib died. + +He was only a link in the chain which crawled from the highest to the +lowest. The wonder was not that men died like sheep, but that they +did not die like flies; for their lives and their surroundings, their +deaths, were part of a huge conspiracy against cleanliness. And the +people loved to have it so. They huddled together in frowsy clusters, +while Death mowed his way through them till the scythe blunted against +the unresisting flesh, and he had to get a new one. They died by fever, +tens of thousands in a month; they died by cholera a thousand in a +week; they died of smallpox, scores in the mohulla, and by dysentery by +tens in a house; and when all other deaths failed they laid them down +and died because their hands were too weak to hold on to life. + +To and fro stamped the Englishman, who is everlastingly at war with the +scheme of things. "You shall not die," he said, and he decreed that +there should be no more famines. He poured grain down their throats, +and when all failed he went down into the strife and died with them, +swearing, and toiling, and working till the last. He fought the famine +and put it to flight. Then he wiped his forehead, and attacked the +pestilence that walketh in the darkness. Death's scythe swept to and +fro, around and about him; but he only planted his feet more firmly +in the way of it, and fought off Death with a dog-whip. "Live, you +ruffian!" said the Englishman to Ram Buksh as he rode through the +reeking village. "_Jenab!_" said Ram Buksh, "it is as it was in the +days of our fathers!" "Then stand back while I alter it," said the +Englishman; and by force, and cunning, and a brutal disregard of vested +interests, he strove to keep Ram Buksh alive. "Clean your mohullas; pay +for clean water; keep your streets swept; and see that your food is +sound, or I'll make your life a burden to you," said the Englishman. +Sometimes he died; but more often Ram Buksh went down, and the +Englishman regarded each death as a personal insult. + +"Softly, there!" said the Government of India. "You're twisting his +tail. You mustn't do that. The spread of education forbids, and Ram +Buksh is an intelligent voter. Let him work out his own salvation." + +"H'm!" said the Englishman with his head in a midden; "collectively you +always were a fool. Here, Ram Buksh, the Sirkar says you are to do all +these things for yourself." + +"_Jenab!_" says Ram Buksh, and fell to breeding microbes with renewed +vigour. + +Curiously enough, it was in the centres of enlightenment that he +prosecuted his experiments most energetically. The education had been +spread, but so thinly that it could not disguise Ram Buksh's natural +instincts. He created an African village, and said it was the hub of +the universe, and all the dirt of all the roads failed to convince +him that he was not the most advanced person in the world. There was +a pause, and Ram Buksh got himself fearfully entangled among Boards +and Committees, but he valued them as a bower-bird values shells and +red rags. "See!" said the Englishman to the Government of India, +"he is blind on that side--blind by birth, training, instinct and +associations. Five-sixths of him is poor stock raised off poor soil, +and he'll die on the least provocation. You've no right to let him kill +himself." + +"But he's educated," said the Government of India. + +"I'll concede everything," said the Englishman. "He's a statesman, +author, poet, politician, artist, and all else that you wish him to +be, but he isn't a Sanitary Engineer. And while you're training him +he is dying. Goodness knows that my share in the Government is very +limited nowadays, but I'm willing to do all the work while he gets all +the credit if you'll only let me have some authority over him in his +mud-pie making." + +"But the liberty of the subject is sacred," said the Government of +India. + +"I haven't any," said the Englishman. "He can trail through my +compounds; start shrines in the public roads; poison my family; have +me in court for nothing; ruin my character; spend my money, and call +me an assassin when all is done. I don't object. Let me look after his +sanitation." + +"But the days of a paternal Government are over; we must depend on the +people. Think of what they would say at home," said the Government of +India. "We have issued a resolution--indeed we have!" + +The Englishman sat down and groaned. "I believe you'll issue a +resolution some day notifying your own abolition," said he. "What are +you going to do?" + +"Constitute more Boards," said the Government of India. "Boards of +Control and Supervision--Fund Boards--all sorts of Boards. Nothing +like system. It will be at work in three years or so. We haven't any +money, but that's a detail." + +The Englishman looked at the resolution and sniffed. "It doesn't touch +the weak point of the country." + +"What _will_ touch the weak point of the country, then?" said the +Government of India. + +"I used to," said the Englishman. "I was the District Officer, and I +twisted their tails. You have taken away my power, and now----" + +"Well," said the Government of India, "you seem to think a good deal of +yourself." + +"Never mind me," said the Englishman. "I'm an effete relic of the past. +But Ram Buksh will die, as he used to do." + +And now we all wait to see which is right. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 12: "Turnovers," Vol. III.] + + + + +TIGLATH PILESER[13] + + +Thank Heaven he is dead! The municipality sent a cart and a man only +this morning, and, all the servants aiding with ropes and tackle, the +carcase of Tiglath was borne away--a wobbling lump. His head was thrust +over the tailboard of the cart. Upon it was stamped an expression of +horror and surprise, unutterable and grotesque. I have put away my +rifle, I have cheered my heart with wine, and I sit down now to write +the story of Tiglath, the Utter Brute. His own kind, alas! will not +read it, and thus it will be shorn of instruction; but owners will +kindly take notice, and when it pleases Heaven to inflict them with +such an animal as Tiglath they will know what to do. + +To begin with, I bought him, his vices thick as his barsati, for a +hundred and seventy rupees, a five-chambered, muzzle-loading revolver, +and a Cawnpore saddle. + +"Of course, for that price," said Staveley, "you can't expect +everything. He's not what one would call absolutely sound, y' know, but +there's no end of work in him, and if you only give him the butt he'll +go like a steam-engine." + +"Staveley," I answered, "when you admit that he is not perfection +I perceive that I am in for a really Good Thing. Don't hurt your +conscience, Staveley. Tell me what is his chief vice--weakness, +partiality--anything you choose to call it. I shall get to know the +minor defects in the course of nature; but what is Tiglath's real +shouk?" + +Staveley reflected a moment. "Well, really, I can't quite say, old +man, straight off the reel, y' know. He's a oner to go when his head's +turned to home. He's a regular feeder, and vaseline will cure that +little eruption"--with its malignant barsati--"in no time. Oh, I forgot +his shouk: I don't know exactly how to describe it, but he yaws a good +deal," said Staveley. + +"He how muches?" I asked. + +"Yaws," said Staveley; "goes a bit wide upon occasions, but a good +coachwan will cure that in one drive. My man let him do what he liked. +One fifty and a hundred, ten and ten is twenty--one-seventy. Many +thanks, indeed. I'll send over his bedding and ropes. He's a powerful +upstanding horse, though rather picked up just at present." + +Staveley departed, and I was left alone with Tiglath. I called him +Tiglath because he resembled a lathy pig. Later on I called him Pileser +on account of his shouk; but my coachwan, a strong, masterless man, +called him "_haramzada chor, shaitan ké bap_" and "_oont ki beta_." +He certainly was a powerful horse, being full fifteen-two at the +withers, with the girth of a waler, and at first the docility of an +Arab. There was something wrong with his feet--permanently--but he +was a considerate beast, and never had more than one leg in hospital +at a time. The other three were still movable, and Tiglath never +grudged them in my service. I write this in justice to his memory; the +creaking of the wheels of the municipal cart being still in my ears. + +For a season--some twelve days--Tiglath was beyond reproach. He had +not a cheerful disposition, nor did his pendulous underlip add to +his personal beauty; but he made no complaints, and moved swiftly to +and from office. The hot weather gave place to the cool breezes of +October, and with the turn of the year the slumbering devil in the soul +of Tiglath spread its wings and crowed aloud. I fed him well, I had +aided his barsati, I had lapped his lame legs in thanda putties, and +adorned his sinful body with new harness. He rewarded me upon a day +with an exhibition so new and strange that I feared for the moment his +reason had been unhinged. Slowly, with a malevolent grin, Tiglath, the +pampered, turned at right angles to the carriage--a newly-varnished +one--and backed the front wheels up the verandah steps, letting them +down with a bump. He then wheeled round and round in the portico, and +all but brought the carriage over. The show lasted for ten minutes, at +the end of which time he trotted peacefully away. + +I was pained and grieved--nothing more, upon my honour. I forbade +the sais to kick Tiglath in the stomach, for I was persuaded that +the harness galled him, and, in this belief, at the end of the day, +undressed him tenderly and fitted sheepskin all over the said harness. +Tiglath ate the sheepskin next day, and I did not renew it. + +A week later I met the Judge. It was a purely accidental interview. +I would have avoided it, as the Judge and I did not love each other, +but the shafts of my carriage were through the circular front of his +brougham, and Tiglath was rubbing the boss of his headstall tenderly +against the newly-varnished panels of the same. The Judge complained +that he might have been impaled as he sat. My coachwan declared on oath +that the horse deliberately ran into the brougham. Tiglath tendered no +evidence, and I began to mistrust him. + +At the end of a month I perceived that my friends and acquaintances +avoided me markedly. The appearance of Tiglath at the band-stand was +enough to clear a space of ten yards in my immediate neighbourhood. I +had to shout to my friends from afar, and they shouted back the details +of the little bills which I had to pay their coach-builders. Tiglath +was suffering from carriagecidal mania, and the coachwan had asked for +leave. "Stay with me, Ibrahim," I said. "Thou seest how the sahib log +do now avoid us. Get a new and a stout chabuq, and instruct Tiglath in +the paths of straight walking." + +"He will smash the Heaven-born's carriage. He is an old and stale +devil, but in this matter extreme wise," answered Ibrahim. "Kitto +sahib's filton hath he smashed, and Burkitt sahib's brougham gharri, +and another tum-tum, and Staveley sahib's carriage is still being +mended. What profit is this horse? He feigns blindness and much fear, +and in the guise of innocency works evil. I will stay, sahib, but the +blood of this thy new carriage be upon the brute's head and not upon +mine own." + +I have no space to describe the war of the next few weeks. Foiled +in his desire to ruin only neighbours' property, Tiglath fell back +literally, upon his own--my carriage. He tried the verandah step +trick till he bent the springs, and wheeled round till the turning +action grew red-hot; he scraped stealthily by walls; he performed +between heavy-laden bullock-trains, but his chief delight was a _pas +de fantasie_ on a dark night and a high, level road. Yet what he did +he did staidly and without heat, as without remorse. He was vetted +thrice, and his eyes were pronounced sound. After this information +I laid my bones to the battle, and acquired a desperate facility of +leaping from the carriage and kicking Tiglath on the stomach as soon as +he wheeled around; leaping back at the risk of my life when he set off +at full speed. I pressed the lighted end of a cheroot just behind the +collar-buckle; I applied fusees to those flaccid nostrils, and I beat +him about the head with a stick continually. It was necessary, but it +was also demoralising. A year of Tiglath would have converted me into +a cold-blooded vivisectionist, or a native bullock-driver. Each day I +took stock of the injuries to my carriage. I had long since given up +all hope of keeping it in decent repair; and each day I devised fresh +torments for Tiglath. + +He never meant to injure himself, I am certain, and no one was more +astonished than he when he backed on the Balumon road, and dropped the +carriage into a nullah on the night of the Jamabundi Moguls' dance. I +did not go to the dance. I was bent considerably, and one side of the +coachwan's face was flayed. When he had pieced the wreck together, he +only said, "Sahib!" and I said only "Bohat acha." But we each knew +what the other meant. Next morn Tiglath was stiff and strained. I gave +him time to recover and to enjoy life. When I heard him squealing to +the grass-cutter's ponies I knew that the hour had come. I ordered +the carriage, and myself superintended the funeral toilet of Tiglath. +His harness brasses shone like gold, his coat like a bottle, and he +lifted his feet daintily. Had he even then, at the eleventh hour, given +promise of amendment, I should have held my hand. But as I entered +the carriage I saw the hunching of his quarters that presaged trouble. +"Go forward, Tiglath, my love, my pride, my delight," I murmured. "For +a surety it is a matter of life and death this day." The sais ran to +his head with a fragment of chupatti, saved from his all too scanty +rations; the man loved him. And Tiglath swung round to the left in the +portico; round and round swung he, till the near ear touched the muzzle +of the shot-gun that waited its coming. He never flinched; he pressed +his fate. The coachwan threw down the reins as, with four ounces of +No. 5 shot behind the hollow of the root of the ear, Tiglath fell. In +his death he accomplished the desire of his life, for he fell upon the +shaft and broke it into three pieces. I looked on him as he lay, and of +a sudden the reason of the horror in his eyes was made clear. Tiglath, +the breaker of carriages, the strong, the rebellious, had passed into +the shadowy spirit land, where there was nought to destroy and no power +to destroy it with. The ghastly fore-knowledge of the flitting soul +was written on the glazing eyeball. + +I repented me, then, that I had slain Tiglath, for I had no intention +of punishing him in the hereafter. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 13: "Turnovers," Vol. IV.] + + + + +THE LIKES O' US[14] + + +It was the General Officer Commanding, riding down the Mall, on the +Arab with the perky tail, and he condescended to explain some of the +mysteries of his profession. But the point on which he dwelt most +pompously was the ease with which the Private Thomas Atkins could be +"handled," as he called it. "Only feed him and give him a little work +to do, and you can do anything with him," said the General Officer +Commanding. "There's no refinement about Tommy, you know; and one +is very like another. They've all the same ideas and traditions and +prejudices. They're all big children. Fancy any man in his senses +shooting about these hills." There was the report of a shot-gun in the +valley. "I suppose they've hit a dog. Happy as the day is long when +they're out shooting dogs. Just like a big child is Tommy." He touched +up his horse and cantered away. There was a sound of angry voices down +the hillside. + +"All right, you _soor_--I won't never forget this--mind you, not as +long as I live, and s' 'elp me--I'll----" The sentence finished in what +could be represented by a blaze of asterisks. + +A deeper voice cut it short: "Oh, no, you won't, neither! Look a-here, +you young smitcher. If I was to take yer up now, and knock off your +'ead again' that tree, could ye say anythin'? No, nor yet do anythin'. +If I was to----Ah! you would, would you? There!" Some one had evidently +sat down with a thud, and was swearing nobly. I slid over the edge of +the _khud_, down through the long grass, and fetched up, after the +manner of a sledge, with my feet in the broad of the back of Gunner +Barnabas in the Mountain Battery, my friend, the very strong man. He +was sitting upon a man--a khaki-coloured volcano of blasphemy--and was +preparing to smoke. My sudden arrival threw him off his balance for a +moment. Then, readjusting his chair, he bade me good-day. + +"'Im an' me 'ave bin 'avin' an arg'ment," said Gunner Barnabas +placidly. "I was going for to half kill him an' 'eave 'im into the +bushes 'ere, but, seein' that you 'ave come, sir, and very welcome when +you _do_ come, we will 'ave a court-martial instead. Shacklock, are you +willin'?" The volcano, who had been swearing uninterruptedly through +this oration, expressed a desire, in general and particular terms, to +see Gunner Barnabas in Torment and the "civilian" on the next gridiron. + +Private Shacklock was a tow-haired, scrofulous boy of about +two-and-twenty. His nose was bleeding profusely, and the live air +attested that he had been drinking quite as much as was good for him. +He lay, stomach-down, on a little level spot on the hillside; for +Gunner Barnabas was sitting between his shoulder-blades, and his was +not a weight to wriggle under. Private Shacklock could barely draw +breath to swear, but he did the best that in him lay. "Amen," said +Gunner Barnabas piously, when an unusually brilliant string of oaths +came to an end. "Seein' that this gentleman 'ere has never seen the +inside o' the orsepitals you've gotten in, and the clinks you've been +chucked into like a hay-bundle, _per_-haps, Privite Shacklock, you will +stop. You are a-makin' of 'im sick." Private Shacklock said that he was +pleased to hear it, and would have continued his speech, but his breath +suddenly went from him, and the unfinished curse died out in a gasp. +Gunner Barnabas had put up one of his huge feet. "There's just enough +room now for you to breathe, Shacklock," said he, "an' not enough +for you to try to interrupt the conversashin I'm a-havin' with this +gentleman. _Choop!_" Turning to me, Gunner Barnabas pulled at his pipe, +but showed no hurry to open the "conversashin." I felt embarrassed, +for, after all, the thus strangely unearthed difference between the +Gunner and the Line man was no affair of mine. "Don't you go," said +Gunner Barnabas. He had evidently been deeply moved by something. He +dropped his head between his fists and looked steadily at me. + +"I met this child 'ere," said he, "at Deelally--a fish-back recruity +as ever was. I knowed 'im at Deelally, and I give 'im a latherin' +at Deelally all for to keep 'im straight, 'e bein' such as wants +a latherin' an' knowin' nuthin' o' the ways o' this country. Then +I meets 'im up here, a butterfly-huntin' as innercent as you +please--convalessin'. I goes out with 'im butterfly-huntin', and, as +you see 'ere, a-shootin'. The gun betwixt us." I saw then, what I had +overlooked before, a Company fowling-piece lying among some boulders +far down the hill. Gunner Barnabas continued: "I should ha' seen where +he had a-bin to get that drink inside o' 'im. Presently, 'e misses +summat. 'You're a bloomin' fool,' sez I. 'If that had been a Pathan, +now!' I sez. 'Damn your Pathans, an' you, too,' sez 'e. 'I strook it.' +'You did not,' I sez, 'I saw the bark fly.' 'Stick to your bloomin' +pop-guns,' sez 'e, 'an' don't talk to a better man than you.' I laughed +there, knowin' what I was an' what 'e was. 'You laugh?' sez he. 'I +laugh,' I sez, 'Shacklock, an' for what should I not laugh?' sez I. +'Then go an' laugh in Hell,' sez 'e, 'for I'll 'ave none of your +laughin'.' With that 'e brings up the gun yonder and looses off, and I +stretches 'im there, and guv him a little to keep 'im quiet, and puts +'im under, an' while I was thinkin' what nex', you comes down the 'ill, +an' finds us as we was." + +The Private was the Gunner's prey--I knew that the affair had fallen +as the Gunner had said, for my friend is constitutionally incapable of +lying--and I recognised that in his hands lay the boy's fate. + +"What do _you_ think?" said Gunner Barnabas, after a silence broken +only by the convulsive breathing of the boy he was sitting on. "I +think nothing," I said. "He didn't go at me. He's your property." Then +an idea occurred to me. "Hand him over to his own Company. They'll +school him half dead." "Got no Comp'ny," said Gunner Barnabas. "'E's +a conv'lessint draft--all sixes an' sevens. Don't matter to them what +he did." "Thrash him yourself, then," I said. Gunner Barnabas looked +at the man and smiled; then caught up an arm, as a mother takes up the +dimpled arm of a child, and ran the sleeve and shirt up to the elbow. +"Look at that!" he said. It was a pitiful arm, lean and muscleless. +"Can you mill a man with an arm like that--such as I would like to mill +him, an' such as he deserves? I tell you, sir, an' I am not smokin' +(swaggering), as you see--I could take that man--Sodger 'e is, Lord +'elp 'im!--an' twis' off 'is arms an' 'is legs as if 'e was a naked +crab. See here!" + +Before I could realise what was going to happen, Gunner Barnabas rose +up, stooped, and taking the wretched Private Shacklock by two points of +grasp, heaved him up above his head. The boy kicked once or twice, and +then was still. He was very white. "I could now," said Gunner Barnabas, +"I could now chuck this man where I like. Chuck him like a lump o' +beef, an' it would not be too much for him if I chucked. Can I thrash +such a man with both 'ands? No, nor yet with my right 'and tied behind +my back, an' my lef' in a sling." + +He dropped Private Shacklock on the ground and sat upon him as before. +The boy groaned as the weight settled, but there was a look in his +white-lashed, red eyes that was not pleasant. + +"I do not know _what_ I will do," said Gunner Barnabas, rocking himself +to and fro. "I know 'is breed, an' the way o' the likes o' them. If I +was in 'is Comp'ny, an' this 'ad 'appened, an' I 'ad struck 'im, as I +_would_ ha' struck him, 'twould ha' all passed off an' bin forgot till +the drink was in 'im again--a month, maybe, or six, maybe. An' when the +drink was frizzin' in 'is 'ead he would up and loose off in the night +or the day or the evenin'. _All acause of that millin' that 'e would ha +forgotten in betweens._ That I would be dead--killed by the likes o' +'im, an' me the next strongest man but three in the British Army!" + +Private Shacklock, not so hardly pressed as he had been, found breath +to say that if he could only get hold of the fowling-piece again the +strongest man but three in the British Army would be seriously crippled +for the rest of his days. "Hear that!" said Gunner Barnabas, sitting +heavily to silence his chair. "Hear that, you that think things is +funny to put into the papers! He would shoot me, 'e would, now; an' so +long as he's drunk, or comin' out o' the drink, 'e will want to shoot +me. Look a-here!" + +He turned the boy's head sideways, his hand round the nape of the +neck, his thumb touching the angle of the jaw. "What do you call those +marks?" They were the white scars of scrofula, with which Shacklock +was eaten up. I told Gunner Barnabas this. "I don't know what that +means. I call 'em murder-marks an' signs. If a man 'as these things on +'im, an' drinks, so long as 'e's drunk, 'e's mad--a looney. _But_ that +doesn't 'elp if 'e kills you. Look a-here, an' here!" The marks were +thick on the jaw and neck. "Stubbs 'ad 'em," said Gunner Barnabas to +himself, "an' Lancy 'ad 'em, an' Duggard 'ad 'em, an' wot's come to +_them_? _You've_ got 'em," he said, addressing himself to the man he +was handling like a roped calf, "an' sooner or later you'll go with the +rest of 'em. But this time I will not do anything--exceptin' keep you +here till the drink's dead in you." + +Gunner Barnabas resettled himself and continued: "Twice this afternoon, +Shacklock, you 'ave been so near dyin' that I know no man more so. Once +was when I stretched you, an' might ha' wiped off your face with my +boot as you was lyin'; an' once was when I lifted you up in my fists. +Was you afraid, Shacklock?" + +"I were," murmured the half-stifled soldier. + +"An' once more I will show you how near you can go to Kingdom Come in +my 'ands." He knelt by Shacklock's side, the boy lying still as death. +"If I was to hit you here," said he, "I would break your chest, an' +you would die. If I was to put my 'and here, an' my other 'and here, +I would twis' your neck, an' you would die, Privite Shacklock. If I +was to put my knees here an' put your 'ead _so_, I would pull off your +'ead, Privite Shacklock, an' you would die. If you think as how I am a +liar, say so, an' I'll show you. _Do_ you think so?" + +"No," whispered Private Shacklock, not daring to move a muscle, for +Barnabas's hand was on his neck. + +"Now, remember," went on Barnabas, "neither you will say nothing nor I +will say nothing o' what has happened. I ha' put you to shame before +me an' this gentleman here, an' that is enough. But I tell you, an' +you give 'eed now, it would be better for you to desert than to go on +a-servin' where you are now. If I meets you again--if my Batt'ry lays +with your Reg'ment, an' Privite Shacklock is on the rolls, I will first +mill you myself till you can't see, and then I will say why I strook +you. You must go, an' look bloomin' slippy about it, for if you stay, +so sure as God made Paythans an' we've got to wipe 'em out, you'll be +loosing off o' unauthorised amminition--in or out o' barricks, an' +you'll be 'anged for it. I know your breed, an' I know what these 'ere +white marks mean. You're mad, Shacklock, that's all--and here you +stay, under me. An' now _choop_, an' lie still." + +I waited and smoked, and Gunner Barnabas smoked till the shadows +lengthened on the hillside, and a chilly wind began to blow. At dusk +Gunner Barnabas rose and looked at his captive. "Drink's out o' 'im +now," he said. + +"I can't move," whimpered Shacklock. "I've got the fever back again." + +"I'll carry you," said Gunner Barnabas, swinging him up and preparing +to climb the hill. "Good-night, sir," he said to me. "It looks pretty, +doesn't it? But never you forget, an' I won't forget neither, that this +'ere shiverin', shakin', convalescent a-hangin' on to my neck is a +ragin', tearin' devil when 'e's lushy--an' 'e a boy!" + +He strode up to the hill with his burden, but just before he +disappeared he turned round and shouted: "It's the likes o' 'im +brings shame on the likes o' us. 'Tain't we ourselves, s'elp me Gawd, +'tain't!" + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 14: "Week's News," Feb. 4, 1888.] + + + + +HIS BROTHER'S KEEPER[15] + + +"Whist?" + +"Can't make up a four?" + +"Poker, then?" + +"Never again with you, Robin. 'Tisn't good enough, old man." + +"Seeking what he may devour," murmured a third voice from behind a +newspaper. "Stop the punkah, and make him go away." + +"Don't talk of it on a night like this. It's enough to give a man fits. +You've no enterprise. Here I've taken the trouble to come over after +dinner----" + +"On the off-chance of skinning some one. I don't believe you ever +crossed a horse for pleasure." + +"That's true, I never did--and there are only two Johnnies in the Club." + +"They've all gone off to the Gaff." + +"_Wah! Wah!_ They must be pretty hard up for amusement. Help me to a +split." + +"Split in this weather! Hi, bearer, _do burra--burra_ whiskey-peg +_lao_, and just put all the _barf_ into them that you can find." + +The newspaper came down with a rustle, as the reader said: + +"How the deuce d'you expect a man to improve his mind when you two are +_bukking_ about drinks? _Qui hai! Mera wasti bhi._" + +"Oh! you're alive, are you? I thought pegs would fetch you out of that. +Game for a little poker?" + +"Poker--poker--_red-hot_ poker! Saveloy, you're too generous. Can't you +let a man die in peace?" + +"Who's going to die?" + +"I am, please the pigs, if it gets much hotter and that bearer doesn't +bring the peg quickly." + +"All right. Die away, _mon ami_. Only don't do it in the Club, that's +all. Can't have it littered up with dead members. Houligan would +object." + +"By Jove! I think I can imagine old Houligan doing it. 'Member dead +in the ante-room? Good Gud! Bless my soul! Impossible to run a Club +this way. Call the Babu and see if his last month's bill is paid. Not +paid! Good Gud! Bless my soul! Impossible to run a Club this way. Babu, +attach that body till the bill is paid.' Revel, you might just hurry +up your dying once in a way to give us the pleasure of seeing Houligan +perform." + +"I'll die legitimately," said Revel. "I'm not going to create a fresh +scandal in the station. I'll wait for heat-apoplexy, or whatever is +going, to come and fetch me." + +"This is _pukka_ hot-weather talk," said Saveloy. "I come over for +a little honest poker, and find two moderately sensible men, Revel +and Dallston, talking tombs. I'm sorry I've thrown away my valuable +evening." + +"D'you expect us to talk about buttercups and daisies, then?" said +Dallston. + +"No, but there's some sort of medium between those and Sudden Death." + +"There isn't. I haven't seen a daisy for seven years, and now I want +to die," said Revel, plunging luxuriously into his peg. + +"I knew a Johnnie on the Frontier once who _did_," began Dallston +meditatively. + +"Half a minute. Bearer, _cherut lao_! Tobacco soothes the nerves when a +man is expecting to hear a whacker. We know what your Frontier stories +are, Martha." + +Dallston had once, in a misguided moment, taken the part of Martha in +the burlesque of _Faust_, and the nickname stuck. + +"'Tisn't a whacker, it's a fact. He told me so himself." + +"They always do, Martha. I've noticed that before. But what did he tell +you?" + +"He told me that he had died." + +"Was _that_ all? Explain him." + +"It was this way. The man went down with a bad go of fever and was +off his head. About the second day it struck him in the middle of the +night." + +"Steady the Buffs! Martha, you aren't an Irishman yet." + +"Never mind. It's too hot to put it correctly. In the middle of the +night he woke up quite calm, and it struck him that it would be a good +thing to die--just as it might ha' struck him that it would be a good +thing to put ice on his head. He lay on his bed and thought it over, +and the more he thought about it, the better sort of _bundobust_ it +seemed to be. He was quite calm, you know, and he said that he could +have sworn that he had no fever on him." + +"Well, what happened?" + +"Oh, he got up and loaded his revolver--he remembers all this--and let +fly, with the muzzle to his temple. The thing didn't go off, so he +turned it up and found he'd forgot to load one chamber." + +"Better stop the tale there. We can guess what's coming." + +"Hang it! It's a _true_ yarn. Well, he jammed the thing to his head +_again_, and it missed fire, and he said that he felt ready to cry with +rage, he was so disgusted. So he took it by the muzzle and hit himself +on the head with it." + +"Good man! Didn't it go off _then_?" + +"No, but the blow knocked him silly, and he thought he was dead. He was +awfully pleased, for he had been fiddling over the show for nearly half +an hour. He dropped down and died. When he got his wits again, he was +shaking with the fever worse than ever, but he had sense enough to go +and knock up the doctor and give himself into his charge as a lunatic. +Then he went clean off his head till the fever wore out." + +"That's a good story," said Revel critically. "I didn't think you had +it in you at this season of the year." + +"I can believe it," said the man they called Saveloy. "Fever makes one +do all sorts of queer things. I suppose your friend was mad with it +when he discovered it would be so healthy to die." + +"S'pose so. The fever must have been so bad that he felt all +right--same way that a man who is nearly mad with drink gets to look +sober. Well, anyhow, there was a man who died." + +"Did he tell you what it felt like?" + +"He said that he was awfully happy until his fever came back and shook +him up. Then he was sick with fear. I don't wonder. He'd had rather a +narrow escape." + +"That's nothing," said Saveloy. "I know a man who lived." + +"So do I," said Revel. "Lots of 'em, confound 'em." + +"Now, this takes Martha's story, and it's quite true." + +"They always are," said Martha. "I've noticed that before." + +"Never mind, I'll forgive you. But this happened to me. Since you _are_ +talking tombs, I'll assist at the séance. It was in '82 or '83, I have +forgotten which. Anyhow, it was when I was on the Utamamula Canal +Headworks, and I was chumming with a man called Stovey. You've never +met him because he belongs to the Bombay side, and if he isn't really +dead by this he ought to be somewhere there now. He was a _pukka_ +sweep, and I hated him. We divided the Canal bungalow between us, and +we kept strictly to our own side of the buildings." + +"Hold on! I call. What was Stovey to look at?" said Revel. + +"Living picture of the King of Spades--a blackish, greasy sort of +ruffian who hadn't any pretence of manners or form. He used to dine in +the kit he had been messing about the Canal in all day, and I don't +believe he ever washed. He had the embankments to look after, and I was +in charge of the headworks, but he was always contriving to fall foul +of me if he possibly could." + +"I know that sort of man. Mullane of Ghoridasah's built that way." + +"Don't know Mullane, but Stovey was a sweep. Canal work isn't exactly +cheering, and it doesn't take you into _much_ society. We were like a +couple of rats in a burrow, grubbing and scooping all day and turning +in at night into the barn of a bungalow. Well, this man Stovey didn't +get fever. He was so coated with dirt that I don't believe the fever +could have got at him. He just began to go mad." + +"Cheerful! What were the symptoms?" + +"Well, his naturally vile temper grew infamous. It was really unsafe to +speak to him, and he always seemed anxious to murder a coolie or two. +With me, of course, he restrained himself a little, but he sulked like +a bear for days and days together. As he was the only European society +within sixty miles, you can imagine how nice it was for me. He'd sit +at table and sulk and stare at the opposite wall by the hour--instead +of doing his work. When I pointed out that the Government didn't send +us into these cheerful places to twiddle our thumbs, he glared like +a beast. Oh, he was a thorough hog! He had a lot of other endearing +tricks, but the worst was when he began to pray." + +"Began to--how much?" + +"Pray. He'd got hold of an old copy of the _War Cry_ and used to +read it at meals; and I suppose that that, on the top of tough goat, +disordered his intellect. One night I heard him in his room groaning +and talking at a fearful rate. Next morning I asked him if he'd been +taken worse. 'I've been engaged in prayer,' he said, looking as black +as thunder. 'A man's spiritual concerns are his own property.' One +night--he'd kept up these spiritual exercises for about ten days, +growing queerer and queerer every day--he said 'Good-night' after +dinner, and got up and shook hands with me." + +"Bad sign, that," said Revel, sucking industriously at his cheroot. + +"At first I couldn't make out what the man wanted. No fellow shakes +hands with a fellow he's living with--least of all such a beast as +Stovey. However, I was civil, but the minute after he'd left the room +it struck me what he was going to do. If he hadn't shaken hands I'd +have taken no notice, I suppose. This unusual effusion put me on my +guard." + +"Curious thing! You can nearly always tell when a Johnnie means pegging +out. He gives himself away by some softening. It's human nature. What +did you do?" + +"Called him back, and asked him what the this and that he meant by +interfering with my coolies in the day. He was generally hampering +my men, but I had never taken any notice of his vagaries till then. +In another minute we were arguing away, hammer and tongs. If it had +been any other man I'd 'a' simply thrown the lamp at his head. He was +calling me all the mean names under the sun, accusing me of misusing my +authority and goodness only knows what all. When he had talked himself +down one stretch, I had only to say a few words to start him off again, +as fresh as a daisy. On my word, this jabbering went on for nearly +three hours." + +"Why didn't you get coolies and have him tied up, if you thought he was +mad?" asked Revel. + +"Not a safe business, believe me. Wrongful restraint on your own +responsibility of a man nearly your own standing looks ugly. Well, +Stovey went on bullying me and complaining about everything I'd ever +said or done since I came on the Canal, till--he went fast asleep." + +"Wha-at?" + +"Went off dead asleep, just as if he'd been drugged. I thought the +brute had had a fit at first, but there he was, with his head hanging +a little on one side and his mouth open. I knocked up his bearer and +told him to take the man to bed. We carried him off and shoved him on +his charpoy. He was still asleep, and I didn't think it worth while +to undress him. The fit, whatever it was, had worked itself out, and +he was limp and used up. But as I was going to leave the room, and +went to turn the lamp down, I looked in the glass and saw that he was +watching me between his eyelids. When I spun round he seemed asleep. +'That's your game, is it?' I thought, and I stood over him long enough +to see that he was shamming. Then I cast an eye round the room and +saw his Martini in the corner. We were all _bullumteers_ on the Canal +works. I couldn't find the cartridges, so to make all serene I knocked +the breech-pin out with the cleaning-rod and went to my own room. I +didn't go to sleep for some time. About one o'clock--our rooms were +only divided by a door of sorts, and my bed was close to it--I heard +my friend open a chest of drawers. Then he went for the Martini. Of +course, the breech-block came out with a rattle. Then he went back to +bed again, and I nearly laughed. + +"Next morning he was doing the genial, hail-fellow-well-met trick. +Said he was afraid he'd lost his temper overnight, and apologised for +it. About half way through breakfast--he was talking thickly about +everything and anything--he said he'd come to the conclusion that a +beard was a beastly nuisance and made one stuffy. He was going to shave +his. Would I lend him my razors? 'Oh, you're a crafty beast, you are,' +I said to myself. I told him that I was of the other opinion, and +finding my razors nearly worn out had chucked them into the Canal only +the night before. He gave me one look under his eyebrows and went on +with his breakfast. I was in a stew lest the man should cut his throat +with one of the breakfast knives, so I kept one eye on him most of the +time. + +"Before I left the bungalow I caught old Jeewun Singh, one of the +_mistries_ on the gates, and gave him strict orders that he was to +keep in sight of the Sahib wherever he went and whatever he did; and +if he did or tried to do anything foolish, such as jumping down the +well, Jeewun Singh was to stop him. The old man tumbled at once, and +I was easier in my mind when I saw how he was shadowing Stovey up and +down the works. Then I sat down and wrote a letter to old Baggs, the +Civil Surgeon at Chemanghath, about sixty miles off, telling him how +we stood. The runner left about three o'clock. Jeewun Singh turned up +at the end of the day and gave a full, true and particular account of +Stovey's doings. D'you know what the brute had done?" + +"Spare us the agony. Kill him straight off, Saveloy!" + +"He'd stopped the runner, opened the bag, read my letter and torn it +up! There were only two letters in the bag, both of which I'd written. +I was pretty _average_ angry, but I lay low. At dinner he said he'd got +a touch of dysentery and wanted some chlorodyne. For a man anxious to +depart this life he was _about_ as badly equipped as you could wish. +Hadn't even a medicine-chest to play with. He was no more suffering +from dysentery than I, but I said I'd give him the chlorodyne, and so +I did--fifteen drops, mixed in a wine-glass, and when he asked for the +bottle I said that I hadn't any more. + +"That night he began praying again, and I just lay in bed and +shuddered. He was invoking the most blasphemous curses on my head--all +in a whisper, for fear of waking me up--for frustrating what he called +his 'great and holy purpose.' You never heard anything like it. But as +long as he was praying I knew he was alive, and he ran his praying half +through the night. + +"Well, for the next ten days he was apparently quite rational; but I +watched him and told Jeewun Singh to watch him like a cat. I suppose he +wanted to throw me off my guard, but I wasn't to be thrown. I grew thin +watching him. Baggs wrote in to say he had gone on tour and couldn't be +found anywhere in particular for another six weeks. It was a ghastly +time. + +"One day old Jeewun Singh turned up with a bit of paper that Stovey +had given to one of the _lohars_ as a _naksha_. I thought it was mean +work spying into another man's very plans, but when I saw what was on +the paper I gave old Jeewun Singh a rupee. It was a be-auti-ful little +breech-pin. The one-idead idiot had gone back to Martini! I never +dreamt of such persistence. 'Tell me when the _lohar_ gives it to the +Sahib,' I said, and I felt more comfy for a few days. Even if Jeewun +Singh hadn't split I should have known when the new breech-pin was +made. The brute came in to dinner with a dashed confident, triumphant +air, as if he'd done me in the eye at last; and all through dinner he +was fiddling in his waistcoat pocket. He went to bed early. I went, +too, and I put my head against the door and listened like a woman. I +must have been shivering in my pyjamas for about two hours before my +friend went for the dismantled Martini. He could not get the breech-pin +to fit at first. He rummaged about, and then I heard a file go. That +seemed to make too much noise to suit his fancy, so he opened the door +and went out into the compound, and I heard him, about fifty yards off, +filing in the dark at that breech-pin as if he had been possessed. +Well, he _was_, you know. Then he came back to the light, cursing me +for keeping him out of his rest and the peace of Abraham's bosom. As +soon as I heard him taking up the Martini, I ran round to his door and +tried to enter gaily, as the stage directions say. 'Lend me your gun, +old man, if you're awake,' I said. 'There's a howling big brute of a +pariah in my room, and I want to get a shot at it.' I pretended not +to notice that he was standing over the gun, but just pranced up and +caught hold of it. He turned round with a jump and said: 'I'm sick of +this. I'll see that dog, and if it's another of your lies I'll----' You +know I'm not a moral man." + +"Hear! hear!" drowsily from Martha. + +"But I simply daren't repeat what he said. 'All right!' I said, still +hanging on to the gun. 'Come along and we'll bowl him over.' He +followed me into my room with a face like a fiend in torment. And, +as truly as I'm yarning here, there _was_ a huge brindled beast of a +pariah sitting _on my bed_!" + +"Tall, sir, tall. But go on. The audience is now awake." + +"Hang it! Could I have invented that pariah? Stovey dropped of the gun +and flopped down in a corner and yowled. I went '_ee ki ri ki re!_' +like a woman in hysterics, pitched the gun forward and loosed off +through a window." + +"And the pariah?" + +"He quitted for the time being. Stovey was in an awful state. He swore +the animal hadn't been there when I called him. That was true enough. I +firmly believe Providence put it there to save me from being killed by +the infuriated Stovey." + +"You've too lively a belief in Providence altogether. What happened?" + +"Stovey tried to recover himself and pass it all over, but he let me +keep the gun and went to bed. About two days afterwards old Baggs +turned up on tour, and I told him Stovey wanted watching--more than +I could give him. I don't know whether Baggs or the _pi_ did it, but +he didn't throw any more suicidal splints. I was transferred a little +while afterwards." + +"Ever meet the man again?" + +"Yes; once at Sheik Katan dâk bungalow--trailing the big brindle _pi_ +after him." + +"Oh, it was real, then. I thought it was arranged for the occasion." + +"Not a bit. It was a _pukka pi_. Stovey seemed to remember me in the +same way that a horse seems to remember. I fancy his brain was a +little cloudy. We tiffined together--_after_ the _pi_ had been fed, +if you please--and Stovey said to me: 'See that dog? He saved my life +once. Oh, by the way, I believe you were there, too, weren't you?' I +shouldn't care to work with Stovey again." + + * * * * * + +There was a holy pause in the smoking-room of the Toopare Club. + +"What I like about Saveloy's play," said Martha, looking at the +ceiling, "is the beautifully artistic way in which he follows up a +flush with a full. Go to bed, old man!" + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 15: From the "Week's News," April 7, 1888.] + + + + +"SLEIPNER," LATE "THURINDA"[16] + + There are men, both good and wise, who hold that in a future state + Dumb creatures we have cherished here below + Will give us joyous welcome as we pass the Golden Gate. + Is it folly if I hope it may be so? + + --_The Place Where the Old Horse Died._ + + +If there were any explanation available here, I should be the first +person to offer it. Unfortunately, there is not, and I am compelled to +confine myself to the facts of the case as vouched for by Hordene and +confirmed by "Guj," who is the last man in the world to throw away a +valuable horse for nothing. + +Jale came up with _Thurinda_ to the Shayid Spring meeting; and +besides _Thurinda_ his string included _Divorce_, _Meg's Diversions_ +and _Benoni_--ponies of sorts. He won the Officers' Scurry--five +furlongs--with _Benoni_ on the first day, and that sent up the price of +the stable in the evening lotteries; for _Benoni_ was the worst-looking +of the three, being a pigeon-toed, split-chested _dâk_ horse, with a +wonderful gift of blundering in on his shoulders--ridden out to the +last ounce--but _first_. Next day Jale was riding _Divorce_ in the +Wattle and Dab Stakes--round the jump course; and she turned over at +the on-and-off course when she was leading and managed to break her +neck. She never stirred from the place where she dropped, and Jale did +not move either till he was carried off the ground to his tent close +to the big _shamiana_ where the lotteries were held. He had ricked his +back, and everything below the hips was as dead as timber. Otherwise he +was perfectly well. The doctor said that the stiffness would spread and +that he would die before the next morning. Jale insisted upon knowing +the worst, and when he heard it sent a pencil note to the Honorary +Secretary, saying that they were not to stop the races or do anything +foolish of that kind. If he hung on till the next day the nominations +for the third day's racing would not be void, and he would settle up +all claims before he threw up his hand. This relieved the Honorary +Secretary, because most of the horses had come from a long distance, +and, under any circumstance, even had the Judge dropped dead in the +box, it would have been impossible to have postponed the racing. There +was a great deal of money on the third day, and five or six of the +owners were gentlemen who would make even one day's delay an excuse. +Well, settling would not be easy. No one knew much about Jale. He was +an outsider from down country, but every one hoped that, since he was +doomed, he would live through the third day and save trouble. + +Jale lay on his charpoy in the tent and asked the doctor and the man +who catered to the refreshments--he was the nearest at the time--to +witness his will. "I don't know how long my arms will be workable," +said Jale, "and we'd better get this business over." The private +arrangements of the will concern nobody but Jale's friends; but there +was one clause that was rather curious. "Who was that man with the +brindled hair who put me up for a night until the tent was ready? The +man who rode down to pick me up when I was smashed. Nice sort of fellow +he seemed." "Hordene?" said the doctor. "Yes, Hordene. Good chap, +Hordene. He keeps Bull whisky. Write down that I give this Johnnie +Hordene _Thurinda_ for his own, if he can sell the other ponies. +_Thurinda's_ a good mare. He can enter her--post-entry--for the All +Horse Sweep if he likes--on the last day. Have you got that down? I +suppose the Stewards'll recognise the gift?" "No trouble about that," +said the doctor. "All right. Give him the other two ponies to sell. +They're entered for the last day, but I shall be dead then. Tell him to +send the money to----" Here he gave an address. "Now I'll sign and you +sign, and that's all. This deadness is coming up between my shoulders." + +Jale lived, dying very slowly, till the third day's racing, and up +till the time of the lotteries on the fourth day's racing. The doctor +was rather surprised. Hordene came in to thank him for his gift, and +to suggest it would be much better to sell _Thurinda_ with the others. +She was the best of them all, and would have fetched twelve hundred on +her looking-over merits only. "Don't you bother," said Jale. "You take +her. I rather liked you. I've got no people, and that Bull whisky was +first-class stuff. I'm pegging out now, I think." + +The lottery-tent outside was beginning to fill, and Jale heard the +click of the dice. "That's all right," said he. "I wish I was there, +but--I'm--going to the drawer." Then he died quietly. Hordene went into +the lottery-tent, after calling the doctor. "How's Jale?" said the +Honorary Secretary. "Gone to the drawer," said Hordene, settling into +a chair and reaching out for a lottery paper. "Poor beggar!" said the +Honorary Secretary. "'Twasn't the fault of our on-and-off, though. The +mare blundered. Gentlemen! gentlemen! Nine hundred and eighty rupees +in the lottery, and _River of Years_ for sale!" The lottery lasted +far into the night, and there was a supplementary lottery on the All +Horse Sweep, where _Thurinda_ sold for a song, and was not bought by +her owner. "It's not lucky," said Hordene, and the rest of the men +agreed with him. "I ride her myself, but I don't know anything about +her and I wish to goodness I hadn't taken her," said he. "Oh, bosh! +Never refuse a horse or a drink, however you come by them. No one +objects, do they? Not going to refer this matter to Calcutta, are we? +Here, somebody, bid! Eleven hundred and fifty rupees in the lottery, +and _Thurinda_--absolutely unknown, acquired under the most romantic +circumstances from about _the_ toughest man it has ever been my good +fortune to meet--for sale. Hullo, Nurji, is that you? Gentlemen, where +a Pagan bids shall enlightened Christians hang back? Ten! Going, going, +gone!" "You want ha-af, sar?" said the battered native trainer to +Hordene. "No, thanks--not a bit of her for me." + +The All Horse Sweep was run, and won by _Thurinda_ by about a street +and three-quarters, to be very accurate, amid derisive cheers, which +Hordene, who flattered himself that he knew something about riding, +could not understand. On pulling up he looked over his shoulder and +saw that the second horse was only just passing the box. "Now, how did +I make such a fool of myself?" he said as he returned to weigh out. +His friends gathered round him and asked tenderly whether this was +the first time that he had got up, and whether it was _absolutely_ +necessary that the winning horse should be ridden out when the field +were hopelessly pumped, a quarter of a mile behind, etc., etc. +"I--I--thought _River of Years_ was pressing me," explained Hordene. +"_River of Years_ was wallowing, absolutely wallowing," said a man, +"before you turned into the straight. You rode like a--hang it--like a +Militia subaltern!" + +The Shayid Spring meeting broke up and the sportsmen turned their +steps towards the next carcase--the Ghoriah Spring. With them went +_Thurinda's_ owner, the happy possessor of an almost perfect animal. +"She's as easy as a Pullman car and about twice as fast," he was wont +to say in moments of confidence to his intimates. "For all her bulk, +she's as handy as a polo-pony; a child might ride her, and when she's +at the post she's as cute--she's as cute as the bally starter himself." +Many times had Hordene said this, till at last one unsympathetic +friend answered with: "When a man _bukhs_ too much about his wife or +his horse, it's a sure sign he's trying to make himself like 'em. I +mistrust your _Thurinda_. She's too good, or else----" "Or else what?" +"You're trying to believe you like her." "Like her! I _love_ her! I +trust that darling as I'm shot if I'd trust you. I'd hack her for +tuppence." "Hack away, then. I don't want to hurt your feelings. I +don't hack my stable myself, but some horses go better for it. Come and +peacock at the band-stand this evening." To the band-stand accordingly +Hordene came, and the lovely _Thurinda_ comported herself with all the +gravity and decorum that might have been expected. Hordene rode home +with the scoffer, through the dusk, discoursing on matters indifferent. +"Hold up a minute," said his friend, "there's Gagley riding behind +us." Then, raising his voice: "Come along, Gagley! I want to speak +to you about the Race Ball." But no Gagley came; and the couple went +forward at a trot. "Hang it! There's that man behind us still." +Hordene listened and could clearly hear the sound of a horse trotting, +apparently just behind them. "Come on, Gagley! Don't play bo-peep in +that ridiculous way," shouted the friend. Again no Gagley. Twenty yards +farther there was a crash and a stumble as the friend's horse came down +over an unseen rat-hole. "How much damaged?" asked Hordene. "Sprained +my wrist," was the dolorous answer, "and there is something wrong with +my knee-cap. There goes my mount to-morrow, and this gee is cut like a +cab-horse." + +On the first day of the Ghoriah meeting _Thurinda_ was hopelessly +ridden out by a native jockey, to whose care Hordene had at the last +moment been compelled to confide her. "You forsaken idiot!" said +he, "what made you begin riding as soon as you were clear? She had +everything safe, if you'd only left her alone. You rode her out before +the home turn, you hog!" "What could I do?" said the jockey sullenly. +"I was pressed by another horse." "Whose 'other horse'? There were +twenty yards of daylight between you and the ruck. If you'd kept her +there even then 'twouldn't ha' mattered. But you rode her out--you +rode her out!" "There was another horse and he pressed me to the end, +and when I looked round he was no longer there." Let us, in charity, +draw a veil over Hordene's language at this point. "Goodness knows +whether she'll be fit to pull out again for the last event. D----n you +and your other horses! I wish I'd broken your neck before letting you +get up!" _Thurinda_ was done to a turn, and it seemed a cruelty to +ask her to run again in the last race of the day. Hordene rode this +time, and was careful to keep the mare within herself at the outset. +Once more _Thurinda_ left her field--with one exception--a grey horse +that hung upon her flanks and could not be shaken off. The mare was +done, and refused to answer the call upon her. She tried hopelessly +in the straight and was caught and passed by her old enemy, _River +of Years_--the chestnut of Kurnaul. "You rode well--like a native, +Hordene," was the unflattering comment. "The mare was ridden out before +_River of Years_." "But the grey," began Hordene, and then ceased, for +he knew that there was no grey in the race. _Blue Point_ and _Diamond +Dust_, the only greys at the meeting, were running in the Arab Handicap. + +He caught his native jockey. "What horse, d'you say, pressed you?" "I +don't know. It was a grey with nutmeg tickings behind the saddle." +That evening Hordene sought the great Major Blare-Tyndar, who knew +personally the father, mother and ancestors of almost every horse, +brought from _ekka_ or ship, that had ever set foot on an Indian +race-course. "Say, Major, what is a grey horse with nutmeg tickings +behind the saddle?" "A curiosity. _Wendell Holmes_ is a grey, with +nutmeg on the near shoulder, but there is no horse marked your way, +now." Then, after a pause: "No, I'm wrong--you ought to know. The pony +that got you _Thurinda_ was grey and nutmeg." "How much?" "_Divorce_, +of course. The mare that broke her neck at the Shayid meeting and +killed Jale. A big thirteen-three she was. I recollect when she was +hacking old Snuffy Beans to office. He bought her from a dealer, who +had her left on his hands as a rejection when the Pink Hussars were +buying team up country and then----Hullo! The man's gone!" Hordene +had departed on receipt of information which he already knew. He only +demanded extra confirmation. Then he began to argue with himself, +bearing in mind that he himself was a sane man, neither gluttonous nor +a wine-bibber, with an unimpaired digestion, and that _Thurinda_ was to +all appearance a horse of ordinary flesh and exceedingly good blood. +Arrived at these satisfactory conclusions, he reargued the whole matter. + +Being by nature intensely superstitious, he decided upon scratching +_Thurinda_ and facing the howl of indignation that would follow. He +also decided to leave the Ghoriah meet and change his luck. But it +would have been sinful--positively wicked--to have left without waiting +for the polo-match that was to conclude the festivities. At the last +moment before the match, one of the leading players of the Ghoriah team +and Hordene's host discovered that, through the kindly foresight of his +head _sais_, every single pony had been taken down to the ground. "Lend +me a hack, old man," he shouted to Hordene as he was changing. "Take +_Thurinda_," was the reply. "She'll bring you down in ten minutes." +And _Thurinda_ was accordingly saddled for Marish's benefit. "I'll +go down with you," said Hordene. The two rode off together at a hand +canter. "By Jove! Somebody's _sais_ 'll get kicked for this!" said +Marish, looking round. "Look there! He's coming for the mare! Pull +out into the middle of the road." "What on earth d'you mean?" "Well, +if _you_ can take a strayed horse so calmly, I can't. Didn't you see +what a lather that grey was in?" "What grey?" "The grey that just +passed us--saddle and all. He's got away from the ground, I suppose. +Now he's turned the corner; but you can hear his hoofs. Listen!" There +was a furious gallop of shod horses, gradually dying into silence. +"Come along," said Hordene. "We're late as it is. We shall know all +about it on the ground." "Anybody lost a tat?" asked Marish cheerily +as they reached the ground. "No, we've lost _you_. Double up. You're +late enough as it is. Get up and go in. The teams are waiting." Marish +mounted his polo-pony and cantered across. Hordene watched the game +idly for a few moments. There was a scrimmage, a cloud of dust, and a +cessation of play, and a shouting for _saises_. The umpire clattered +forward and returned. "What has happened?" "Marish! Neck broken! +Nobody's fault. Pony crossed its legs and came down. Game's stopped. +Thank God, he hasn't got a wife!" Again Hordene pondered as he sat on +his horse's back. "Under any circumstances it was written that he was +to be killed. I had no interest in his death, and he had his warning, +I suppose. I can't make out the system that this infernal mare runs +under. Why _him_? Anyway, I'll shoot her." He looked at _Thurinda_, the +calm-eyed, the beautiful, and repented. "No! I'll sell her." + +"What in the world has happened to _Thurinda_ that Hordene is so keen +on getting rid of her?" was the general question. "I want money," said +Hordene unblushingly, and the few who knew how his accounts stood saw +that this was a varnished lie. But they held their peace because of +the great love and trust that exists among the ancient and honourable +fraternity of sportsmen. + +"There's nothing wrong with her," explained Hordene. "Try her as much +as you like, but let her stay in my stable until you've made up your +mind one way or the other. Nine hundred's my price." + +"I'll take her at that," quoth a red-haired subaltern, nicknamed +Carrots, later Gaja, and then, for brevity's sake, Guj. "Let me have +her out this afternoon. I want her more for hacking than anything else." + +Guj tried _Thurinda_ exhaustively and had no fault to find with her. +"She's all right," he said briefly. "I'll take her. It's a cash deal." +"Virtuous Guj!" said Hordene, pocketing the cheque. "If you go on like +this you'll be loved and respected by all who know you." + +A week later Guj insisted that Hordene should accompany him on a ride. +They cantered merrily for a time. Then said the subaltern: "Listen to +the mare's beat a minute, will you? Seems to me that you've sold me two +horses." + +Behind the mare was plainly audible the cadence of a swiftly trotting +horse. "D'you hear anything?" said Guj. "No--nothing but the regular +triplet," said Hordene; and he lied when he answered. Guj looked at +him keenly and said nothing. Two or three months passed and Hordene +was perplexed to see his old property running, and running well, under +the curious title of "_Sleipner_--late _Thurinda_." He consulted the +Great Major, who said: "I don't know a horse called _Sleipner_, but +I know _of_ one. He was a northern bred, and belonged to Odin." "A +mythological beast?" "Exactly. Like _Bucephalus_ and the rest of 'em. +He was a great horse. I wish I had some of his get in my stable." +"Why?" "Because he had eight legs. When he had used up one set, he let +down the other four to come up the straight on. Stewards were lenient +in those days. _Now_ it's all you can do to get a crock with _three_ +sound legs." + +Hordene cursed the red-haired Guj in his heart for finding out the +mare's peculiarity. Then he cursed the dead man Jale for his ridiculous +interference with a free gift. "If it was given--it was given," said +Hordene, "and he has no right to come messing about after it." When Guj +and he next met, he enquired tenderly after _Thurinda_. The red-haired +subaltern, impassive as usual, answered: "I've shot her." "Well--you +know your own affairs best," said Hordene. "You've given yourself +away," said Guj. "What makes you think I shot a sound horse? She might +have been bitten by a mad dog, or lamed." "You didn't say that." "No, +I didn't, because I've a notion that you knew what was wrong with her." +"Wrong with her! She was as sound as a bell----" "I know that. Don't +pretend to misunderstand. You'll believe _me_, and I'll believe _you_ +in this show; but no one else will believe _us_. That mare was a bally +nightmare." "Go on," said Hordene. "I stuck the noise of the other +horse as long as I could, and called her _Sleipner_ on the strength +of it. _Sleipner_ was a stallion, but that's a detail. When it got to +interfering with every race I rode it was more than I could stick. +I took her off racing, and, on my honour, since that time I've been +nearly driven out of my mind by a grey and nutmeg pony. It used to trot +round my quarters at night, fool about the Mall, and graze about the +compound. You _know_ that pony. It isn't a pony to catch or ride or +hit, is it?" "No," said Hordene; "I've seen it." "So I shot _Thurinda_; +that was a thousand rupees out of my pocket. And old Stiffer, who's got +his new crematorium in full blast, cremated her. I say, what _was_ the +matter with the mare? Was she bewitched?" + +Hordene told the story of the gift, which Guj heard out to the end. +"Now, that's a nice sort of yarn to tell in a messroom, isn't it? +They'd call it jumps or insanity," said Guj. "There's no reason in it. +It doesn't lead up to anything. It only killed poor Marish and made you +stick me with the mare; and yet it's true. Are you mad or drunk, or am +I? That's the only explanation." "Can't be drunk for nine months on +end, and madness would show in that time," said Hordene. + +"All right," said Guj recklessly, going to the window. "I'll lay that +ghost." He leaned out into the night and shouted: "Jale! Jale! Jale! +Wherever you are." There was a pause and then up the compound-drive +came the clatter of a horse's feet. The red-haired subaltern blanched +under his freckles to the colour of glycerine soap. "_Thurinda's_ +dead," he muttered, "and--and all bets are off. Go back to your grave +again." + +Hordene was watching him open-mouthed. + +"Now bring me a strait-jacket or a glass of brandy," said Guj. "That's +enough to turn a man's hair white. What did the poor wretch mean by +knocking about the earth?" + +"Don't know," whispered Hordene hoarsely. "Let's get over to the Club. +I'm feeling a bit shaky." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 16: "Week's News," May 12, 1888.] + + + + +A SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER[17] + + Shall I not one day remember thy Bower-- + One day when all days are one day to me? + Thinking I stirred not and yet had the power, + Yearning--ah, God, if again it might be! + + --_The Song of the Bower_. + + +This is a base betrayal of confidence, but the sin is Mrs. Hauksbee's +and not mine. + +If you remember a certain foolish tale called "The Education of Otis +Yeere," you will not forget that Mrs. Mallowe laughed at the wrong +time, which was a single, and at Mrs. Hauksbee, which was a double, +offence. An experiment had gone wrong, and it seems that Mrs. Mallowe +had said some quaint things about the experimentrix. + +"I am not angry," said Mrs. Hauksbee, "and I admire Polly in spite +of her evil counsels to me. But I shall wait--I shall wait, like the +frog footman in _Alice in Wonderland_, and Providence will deliver +Polly into my hands. It always does if you wait." And she departed +to vex the soul of the "Hawley boy," who says that she is singularly +"_uninstruite_ and childlike." He got that first word out of a Ouida +novel. I do not know what it means, but am prepared to make an +affidavit before the Collector that it does not mean Mrs. Hauksbee. + +Mrs. Hauksbee's ideas of waiting are very liberal. She told the "Hawley +boy" that he dared not tell Mrs. Reiver that "she was an intellectual +woman with a gift for attracting men," and she offered another man +two waltzes if he would repeat the same thing in the same ears. But +he said: "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes," which means "Mistrust all +waltzes except those you get for legitimate asking." + +The "Hawley boy" did as he was told because he believes in Mrs. +Hauksbee. He was the instrument in the hand of a Higher Power, and +he wore _jharun_ coats, like "the scoriac rivers that roll their +sulphurous torrents down Yahek, in the realms of the Boreal Pole," +that made your temples throb when seen early in the morning. I will +introduce him to you some day if all goes well. He is worth knowing. + +Unpleasant things have already been written about Mrs. Reiver in other +places. + +She was a person without invention. She used to get her ideas from the +men she captured, and this led to some eccentric changes of character. +For a month or two she would act _à la_ Madonna, and try Theo for a +change if she fancied Theo's ways suited her beauty. Then she would +attempt the dark and fiery Lilith, and so and so on, exactly as she +had absorbed the new notion. But there was always Mrs. Reiver--hard, +selfish, stupid Mrs. Reiver--at the back of each transformation. Mrs. +Hauksbee christened her the Magic Lantern on account of this borrowed +mutability. "It just depends upon the slide," said Mrs. Hauksbee. "The +case is the only permanent thing in the exhibition. But that, thank +Heaven, is getting old." + +There was a Fancy Ball at Government House and Mrs. Reiver came +attired in some sort of '98 costume, with her hair pulled up to the +top of her head, showing the clear outline on the back of the neck +like the Récamier engravings. Mrs. Hauksbee had chosen to be loud, not +to say vulgar, that evening, and went as The Black Death--a curious +arrangement of barred velvet, black domino and flame-coloured satin +puffery coming up to the neck and the wrists, with one of those +shrieking keel-backed cicalas in the hair. The scream of the creature +made people jump. It sounded so unearthly in a ballroom. + +I heard her say to some one: "Let me introduce you to Madame Récamier," +and I saw a man dressed as Autolycus bowing to Mrs. Reiver, while The +Black Death looked more than usually saintly. It was a very pleasant +evening, and Autolycus and Madame Récamier--I heard her ask Autolycus +who Madame Récamier was, by the way--danced together ever so much. +Mrs. Hauksbee was in a meditative mood, but she laughed once or twice +in the back of her throat, and that meant trouble. + +Autolycus was Trewinnard, the man whom Mrs. Mallowe had told Mrs. +Hauksbee about--the Platonic Paragon, as Mrs. Hauksbee called him. He +was amiable, but his moustache hid his mouth, and so he did not explain +himself all at once. If you stared at him, he turned his eyes away, +and through the rest of the dinner kept looking at you to see whether +you were looking again. He took stares as a tribute to his merits, +which were generally known and recognised. When he played billiards he +apologised at length between each bad stroke, and explained what would +have happened if the red had been somewhere else, or the bearer had +trimmed the third lamp, or the wind hadn't made the door bang. Also +he wriggled in his chair more than was becoming to one of his inches. +Little men may wriggle and fidget without attracting notice. It doesn't +suit big-framed men. He was the Main Girder Boom of the Kutcha, Pukka, +Bundobust and Benaoti Department and corresponded direct with the Three +Taped Bashaw. Every one knows what _that_ means. The men in his own +office said that where anything was to be gained, even temporarily, he +would never hesitate for a moment over handing up a subordinate to be +hanged and drawn and quartered. He didn't back up his underlings, and +for that reason they dreaded taking responsibility on their shoulders, +and the strength of the Department was crippled. + +A weak Department can, and often does, do a power of good work simply +because its chief sees it through thick and thin. Mistakes may be +born of this policy, but it is safe and sounder than giving orders +which may be read in two ways and reserving to yourself the right of +interpretation according to subsequent failure or success. Offices +prefer administration to diplomacy. They are very like Empires. + +Hatchett of the Almirah and Thannicutch--a vicious little +three-cornered Department that was always stamping on the toes of the +Elect--had the fairest estimate of Trewinnard, when he said: "I don't +believe he is as good as he is." They always quoted that verdict as +an instance of the blind jealousy of the Uncovenanted, but Hatchett +was quite right. Trewinnard was just as good and no better than Mrs. +Mallowe could make him; and she had been engaged on the work for three +years. Hatchett has a narrow-minded partiality for the more than +naked--the anatomised Truth--but he can gauge a man. + +Trewinnard had been spoilt by over-much petting, and the devil of +vanity that rides nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand +made him behave as he did. He had been too long one woman's property; +and that belief will sometimes drive a man to throw the best things in +the world behind him, from rank perversity. Perhaps he only meant to +stray temporarily and then return, but in arranging for this excursion +he misunderstood both Mrs. Mallowe and Mrs. Reiver. The one made no +sign, she would have died first; and the other--well, the high-falutin +mindsome lay was her craze for the time being. She had never tried it +before and several men had hinted that it would eminently become her. +Trewinnard was in himself pleasant, with the great merit of belonging +to somebody else. He was what they call "intellectual," and vain to +the marrow. Mrs. Reiver returned his lead in the first, and hopelessly +out-trumped him in the second suit. Put down all that comes after this +to Providence or The Black Death. + +Trewinnard never realised how far he had fallen from his allegiance +till Mrs. Reiver referred to some official matter that he had been +telling her about as "ours." He remembered then how that word had been +sacred to Mrs. Mallowe and how she had asked his permission to use it. +Opium is intoxicating, and so is whisky, but more intoxicating than +either to a certain build of mind is the first occasion on which a +woman--especially if she have asked leave for the "honour"--identifies +herself with a man's work. The second time is not so pleasant. The +answer has been given before, and the treachery comes to the top and +tastes coppery in the mouth. + +Trewinnard swallowed the shame--he felt dimly that he was not doing +Mrs. Reiver any great wrong by untruth--and told and told and continued +to tell, for the snare of this form of open-heartedness is that no man, +unless he be a consummate liar, knows where to stop. The office door of +all others must be either open wide or shut tight with a _shaprassi_ to +keep off callers. + +Mrs. Mallowe made no sign to show that she felt Trewinnard's desertion +till a piece of information that could only have come from _one_ +quarter ran about Simla like quicksilver. She met Trewinnard at a +dinner. "Choose your _confidantes_ better, Harold," she whispered as +she passed him in the drawing-room. He turned salmon-colour, and swore +very hard to himself that Babu Durga Charan Laha must go--must go--must +go. He almost believed in that grey-headed old oyster's guilt. + +And so another of those upside-down tragedies that we call a Simla +Season wore through to the end--from the Birthday Ball to the +"tripping" to Naldera and Kotghar. And fools gave feasts and wise men +ate them, and they were bidden to the wedding and sat down to bake, and +those who had nuts had no teeth and they staked the substance for the +shadow, and carried coals to Newcastle, and in the dark all cats were +grey, as it was in the days of the great Curé of Meudon. + +Late in the year there developed itself a battle-royal between the +K.P.B. and B. Department and the Almirah and Thannicutch. Three columns +of this paper would be needed to supply you with the outlines of the +difficulty; and then you would not be grateful. Hatchett snuffed the +fray from afar and went into it with his teeth bared to the gums, while +his Department stood behind him solid to a man. They believed in him, +and their answer to the fury of men who detested him was: "Ah! But +you'll admit he's d----d right in what he says." + +"The head of Trewinnard in a Government Resolution," said Hatchett, +and he told the _daftri_ to put a new pad on his blotter, and smiled +a bleak smile as he spread out his notes. Hatchett is a Thug in his +systematic way of butchering a man's reputation. + +"What are you going to do?" asked Trewinnard's Department. "Sit tight," +said Trewinnard, which was tantamount to saying "Lord knows." The +Department groaned and said: "Which of us poor beggars is to be Jonahed +_this_ time?" They knew Trewinnard's vice. + +The dispute was essentially not one for the K.P.B. and B. under its +then direction to fight out. It should have been compromised, or at the +worst sent up to the Supreme Government with a private and confidential +note directing justice into the proper paths. + +Some people say that the Supreme Government is the Devil. It is more +like the Deep Sea. Anything that you throw into it disappears for +weeks, and comes to light hacked and furred at the edges, crusted with +weeds and shells and almost unrecognisable. The bold man who would dare +to give it a file of love-letters would be amply rewarded. It would +overlay them with original comments and marginal notes, and work them +piecemeal into D.O. dockets. Few things, from a setter or a whirlpool +to a sausage-machine or a hatching hen, are more interesting and +peculiar than the Supreme Government. + +"What shall we do?" said Trewinnard, who had fallen from grace into +sin. "Fight," said Mrs. Reiver, or words to that effect; and no one +can say how far aimless desire to test her powers, and how far belief +in the man she had brought to her feet prompted the judgment. Of the +merits of the case she knew just as much as any _ayah_. + +Then Mrs. Mallowe, upon an evil word that went through Simla, put on +her visiting-garb and attired herself for the sacrifice, and went to +call--to call upon Mrs. Reiver, knowing what the torture would be. +From half-past twelve till twenty-five minutes to two she sat, her +hand upon her cardcase, and let Mrs. Reiver stab at her, all for the +sake of the information. Mrs. Reiver double-acted her part, but she +played into Mrs. Mallowe's hand by this defect. The assumptions of +ownership, the little intentional slips, were overdone, and so also +was the pretence of intimate knowledge. Mrs. Mallowe never winced. She +repeated to herself: "And he has trusted this--this Thing. She knows +nothing and she cares nothing, and she has digged this trap for him." +The main feature of the case was abundantly clear. Trewinnard, whose +capacities Mrs. Mallowe knew to the utmost farthing, to whom public +and departmental petting were as the breath of his delicately-cut +nostrils--Trewinnard, with his nervous dread of dispraise, was +to be pitted against the Paul de Cassagnac of the Almirah and +Thannicutch--the unspeakable Hatchett, who fought with the venom of a +woman and the skill of a Red Indian. Unless his cause was triply just, +Trewinnard was already under the guillotine, and if he had been under +this "Thing's" dominance, small hope for the justice of his case. "Oh, +why did I let him go without putting out a hand to fetch him back?" +said Mrs. Mallowe, as she got into her 'rickshaw. + +Now, _Tim_, her fox-terrier, is the only person who knows what Mrs. +Mallowe did that afternoon, and as I found him loafing on the Mall in +a very disconsolate condition and as he recognised me effusively and +suggested going for a monkey-hunt--a thing he had never done before--my +impression is that Mrs. Mallowe stayed at home till the light fell and +thought. If she did this, it is of course hopeless to account for her +actions. So you must fill in the gap for yourself. + +That evening it rained heavily, and horses mired their riders. But not +one of all the habits was so plastered with mud as the habit of Mrs. +Mallowe when she pulled up under the scrub oaks and sent in her name by +the astounded bearer to Trewinnard. "Folly! downright folly!" she said +as she sat in the steam of the dripping horse. "But it's all a horrible +jumble together." + +It may be as well to mention that ladies do not usually call upon +bachelors at their houses. Bachelors would scream and run away. +Trewinnard came into the light of the verandah with a nervous, +undecided smile upon his lips, and he wished--in the bottomless bottom +of his bad heart--he wished that Mrs. Reiver was there to see. A minute +later he was profoundly glad that he was alone, for Mrs. Mallowe was +standing in his office room and calling him names that reflected no +credit on his intellect. "What have you done? What have you said?" she +asked. "Be quick! Be _quick_! And have the horse led round to the back. +Can you speak? What have you written? Show me!" + +She had interrupted him in the middle of what he was pleased to call +his reply; for Hatchett's first shell had already fallen in the camp. +He stood back and offered her the seat at the _duftar_ table. Her elbow +left a great wet stain on the baize, for she was soaked through and +through. + +"Say exactly how the matter stands," she said, and laughed a weak +little laugh, which emboldened Trewinnard to say loftily: "Pardon me, +Mrs. Mallowe, but I hardly recognise your----" + +"Idiot! Will you show me the papers, will you speak, and _will_ you be +quick?" + +Her most reverent admirers would hardly have recognised the +soft-spoken, slow-gestured, quiet-eyed Mrs. Mallowe in the indignant +woman who was drumming on Trewinnard's desk. He submitted to the voice +of authority, as he had submitted in the old times, and explained as +quickly as might be the cause of the war between the two Departments. +In conclusion he handed over the rough sheets of his reply. As she read +he watched her with the expectant sickly half-smile of the unaccustomed +writer who is doubtful of the success of his work. And another smile +followed, but died away as he saw Mrs. Mallowe read his production. +All the old phrases out of which she had so carefully drilled him had +returned; the unpruned fluency of diction was there, the more luxuriant +for being so long cut back; the reckless riotousness of assertion that +sacrificed all--even the vital truth that Hatchett would be so sure +to take advantage of--for the sake of scoring a point, was there; and +through and between every line ran the weak, wilful vanity of the man. +Mrs. Mallowe's mouth hardened. + +"And you wrote this!" she said. Then to herself: "_He_ wrote this!" + +Trewinnard stepped forward with a gesture habitual to him when he +wished to explain. Mrs. Reiver had never asked for explanations. She +had told him that all his ways were perfect. Therefore he loved her. + +Mrs. Mallowe tore up the papers one by one, saying as she did so: +"_You_ were going to cross swords with Hatchett. Do you know your +own strength? Oh, Harold, Harold, it is _too_ pitiable! I thought--I +thought----" Then the great anger that had been growing in her broke +out, and she cried: "Oh, you fool! You blind, blind, _blind_, trumpery +fool! Why do I help you? Why do I have anything to do with you? You +miserable man! Sit down and write as I dictate. Quickly! And I had +chosen _you_ out of a hundred other _men_! Write!" It is a terrible +thing to be found out by a mere unseeing male--Thackeray has said it. +It is worse, far worse, to be found out by a woman, and in that hour +after long years to discover her worth. For ten minutes Trewinnard's +pen scratched across the paper, and Mrs. Mallowe spoke. "And that +is all," she said bitterly. "As you value yourself--your noble, +honourable, modest self--keep within that." + +But that was not all--by any means. At least as far as Trewinnard was +concerned. + +He rose from his chair and delivered his soul of many mad and futile +thoughts--such things as a man babbles when he is deserted of the gods, +has missed his hold upon the latch-door of Opportunity--and cannot see +that the ways are shut. Mrs. Mallowe bore with him to the end, and he +stood before her--no enviable creature to look upon. + +"A cur as well as a fool!" she said. "Will you be good enough to +tell them to bring my horse? I do not trust to your honour--you have +none--but I believe that your sense of shame will keep you from +speaking of my visit." + +So he was left in the verandah crying "Come back" like a distracted +guinea-fowl. + + * * * * * + +"He's done us in the eye," grunted Hatchett as he perused the K.P.B. +and B. reply. "Look at the cunning of the brute in shifting the issue +on to India in that carneying, blarneying way! Only wait until I can +get my knife into him again. I'll stop every bolt-hole before the hunt +begins." + + * * * * * + +Oh, I believe I have forgotten to mention the success of Mrs. +Hauksbee's revenge. It was so brilliant and overwhelming that she had +to cry in Mrs. Mallowe's arms for the better part of half an hour; +and Mrs. Mallowe was just as bad, though she thanked Mrs. Hauksbee +several times in the course of the interview, and Mrs. Hauksbee said +that she would repent and reform, and Mrs. Mallowe said: "Hush, dear, +hush! I don't think either of us had anything to be proud of." And Mrs. +Hauksbee said: "Oh, but I didn't _mean_ it, Polly, I didn't _mean_ it!" +And I stood with my hat in my hand trying to make two very indignant +ladies understand that the bearer really _had_ given me "_salaam +bolta_." + +That was an evil quarter minute. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 17: "Week's News," May 19, 1888.] + + + + +CHATAUQUAED[18] + + Tells how the Professor and I found the Precious Rediculouses and + how they Chautauquaed at us. Puts into print some sentiments better + left unrecorded, and proves that a neglected theory will blossom in + congenial soil. Contains fragments of three lectures and a confession. + + "_But these, in spite of careful dirt, + Are neither green nor sappy; + Half conscious of the garden squirt, + The Spendlings look unhappy._" + + +Out of the silence under the apple-trees the Professor spake. One leg +thrust from the hammock netting kicked lazily at the blue. There was +the crisp crunch of teeth in an apple core. + +"Get out of this," said the Professor lazily. As it was on the +banks of the Hughli, so on the green borders of the Musquash and +the Ohio--eternal unrest, and the insensate desire to go ahead. I +was lapped in a very trance of peace. Even the apples brought no +indigestion. + +"Permanent Nuisance, what is the matter now?" I grunted. + +"G'long out of this and go to Niagara," said the Professor in jerks. +"Spread the ink of description through the waters of the Horseshoe +falls--buy a papoose from the tame wild Indian who lives at the Clifton +House--take a fifty-cent ride on the _Maid of the Mist_--go over the +falls in a tub." + +"Seriously, is it worth the trouble? Everybody who has ever been within +fifty miles of the falls has written his or her impressions. Everybody +who has never seen the falls knows all about them, and--besides, I want +some more apples. They're good in this place, ye big fat man," I quoted. + +The Professor retired into his hammock for a while. Then he reappeared +flushed with a new thought. "If you want to see something quite new +let's go to Chautauqua." + +"What's that?" + +"Well, it's a sort of institution. It's an educational idea, and it +lives on the borders of a lake in New York State. I think you'll find +it interesting; and I know it will show you a new side of American +life." + +In blank ignorance I consented. Everybody is anxious that I should +see as many sides of American life as possible. Here in the East they +demand of me what I thought of their West. I dare not answer that it is +as far from their notions and motives as Hindustan from Hoboken--that +the West, to this poor thinking, is an America which has no kinship +with its neighbour. Therefore I congratulated them hypocritically upon +"their West," and from their lips learn that there is yet another +America, that of the South--alien and distinct. Into the third +country, alas! I shall not have time to penetrate. The newspapers and +the oratory of the day will tell you that all feeling between the +North and South is extinct. None the less the Northerner, outside his +newspapers and public men, has a healthy contempt for the Southerner +which the latter repays by what seems very like a deep-rooted aversion +to the Northerner. I have learned now what the sentiments of the great +American nation mean. The North speaks in the name of the country; the +West is busy developing its own resources, and the Southerner skulks in +his tents. His opinions do not count; but his girls are very beautiful. + +So the Professor and I took a train and went to look at the educational +idea. From sleepy, quiet little Musquash we rattled through the coal +and iron districts of Pennsylvania, her coke ovens flaring into the +night and her clamorous foundries waking the silence of the woods in +which they lay. Twenty years hence woods and cornfields will be gone, +and from Pittsburg to Shenango all will be smoky black as Bradford +and Beverly: for each factory is drawing to itself a small town, and +year by year the demand for rails increases. The Professor held forth +on the labour question, his remarks being prompted by the sight of a +train-load of Italians and Hungarians going home from mending a bridge. + +"You recollect the Burmese," said he. "The American is like the Burman +in one way. He won't do heavy manual labour. He knows too much. +Consequently he imports the alien to be his hands--just as the Burman +gets hold of the Madrassi. If he shuts down all labour immigration he +will have to fill up his own dams, cut his cuttings and pile his own +embankments. The American citizen won't like that. He is racially unfit +to be a labourer in _muttee_. He can invent, buy, sell and design, but +he cannot waste his time on earth-works. _Iswaste_, this great people +will resume contract labour immigration the minute they find the aliens +in their midst are not sufficient for the jobs in hand. If the alien +gives them trouble they will shoot him." + +"Yes, they will shoot him," I said, remembering how only two days +before some Hungarians employed on a line near Musquash had seen fit +to strike and to roll down rocks on labourers hired to take their +places, an amusement which caused the sheriff to open fire with a +revolver and wound or kill (it really does not much matter which) two +or three of them. Only a man who earns ten pence a day in sunny Italy +knows how to howl for as many shillings in America. + +The composition of the crowd in the cars began to attract my attention. +There were very many women and a few clergymen. Where you shall find +these two together, there also shall be a fad, a hobby, a theory, or a +mission. + +"These people are going to Chautauqua," said the Professor. "It's a +sort of open-air college--they call it--but you'll understand things +better when you arrive." A grim twinkle in the back of his eye awakened +all my fears. + +"Can you get anything to drink there?" + +"No." + +"Are you allowed to smoke?" + +"Ye-es, in certain places." + +"Are we staying there over Sunday?" + +"_No._" This very emphatically. + +Feminine shrieks of welcome: "There's Sadie!" "Why, Maimie, is that +yeou!" "Alf's in the smoker. Did you bring the baby?" and a profligate +expenditure of kisses between bonnet and bonnet told me we had struck +a gathering place of the clans. It was midnight. They swept us, this +horde of clamouring women, into a Black Maria omnibus and a sumptuous +hotel close to the borders of a lake--Lake Chautauqua. Morning +showed as pleasant a place of summer pleasuring as ever I wish to +see. Smooth-cut lawns of velvet grass, studded with tennis-courts, +surrounded the hotel and ran down to the blue waters, which were dotted +with rowboats. Young men in wonderful blazers, and maidens in more +wonderful tennis costumes; women attired with all the extravagance of +unthinking Chicago or the grace of Washington (which is Simla) filled +the grounds, and the neat French nurses and exquisitely dressed little +children ran about together. There was pickerel-fishing for such as +enjoyed it; a bowling-alley, unlimited bathing and a toboggan, besides +many other amusements, all winding up with a dance or a concert at +night. Women dominated the sham mediæval hotel, rampaged about the +passages, flirted in the corridors and chased unruly children off the +tennis-courts. This place was called Lakewood. It is a pleasant place +for the unregenerate. + +"_We_ go up the lake in a steamer to Chautauqua," said the Professor. + +"But I want to stay here. This is what I understand and like." + +"No, you don't. You must come along and be educated." + +All the shores of the lake, which is eighteen miles long, are dotted +with summer hotels, camps, boat-houses and pleasant places of rest. You +go there with all your family to fish and to flirt. There is no special +beauty in the landscape of tame cultivated hills and decorous, woolly +trees, but good taste and wealth have taken the place in hand, trimmed +its borders and made it altogether delightful. + +The institution of Chautauqua is the largest village on the lake. +I can't hope to give you an idea of it, but try to imagine the +Charlesville at Mussoorie magnified ten times and set down in the +midst of hundreds of tiny little hill houses, each different from its +neighbour, brightly painted and constructed of wood. Add something of +the peace of dull Dalhousie, flavour with a tincture of missions and +the old Polytechnic, Cassell's Self Educator and a Monday pop, and +spread the result out flat on the shores of Naini Tal Lake, which you +will please transport to the Dun. But that does not half describe the +idea. We watched it through a wicket gate, where we were furnished with +a red ticket, price forty cents, and five dollars if you lost it. I +naturally lost mine on the spot and was fined accordingly. + +Once inside the grounds on the paths that serpentined round the +myriad cottages I was lost in admiration of scores of pretty girls, +most of them with little books under their arms, and a pretty air +of seriousness on their faces. Then I stumbled upon an elaborately +arranged mass of artificial hillocks surrounding a mud puddle and a +wormy streak of slime connecting it with another mud puddle. Little +boulders topped with square pieces of putty were strewn over the +hillocks--evidently with intention. When I hit my foot against one such +boulder painted "Jericho," I demanded information in aggrieved tones. + +"Hsh!" said the Professor. "It's a model of Palestine--the Holy +Land--done to scale and all that, you know." + +Two young people were flirting on the top of the highest mountain +overlooking Jerusalem; the mud puddles were meant for the Dead Sea and +the Sea of Galilee, and the twisting gutter was the Jordan. A small boy +sat on the city "Safed" and cast his line into Chautauqua Lake. On the +whole it did not impress me. The hotel was filled with women, and a +large blackboard in the main hall set forth the exercises for the day. +It seemed that Chautauqua was a sort of educational syndicate, _cum_ +hotel, _cum_ (very mild) Rosherville. There were annually classes of +young women and young men who studied in the little cottages for two +or three months in the year and went away to self-educate themselves. +There were other classes who learned things by correspondence, and yet +other classes made up the teachers. All these delights I had missed, +but had arrived just in time for a sort of debauch of lectures which +concluded the three months' education. The syndicate in control had +hired various lecturers whose names would draw audiences, and these men +were lecturing about the labour problem, the servant-girl question, the +artistic and political aspect of Greek life, the Pope in the Middle +Ages and similar subjects, in all of which young women do naturally +take deep delight. Professor Mahaffy (what the devil was he doing in +that gallery?) was the Greek art side man, and a Dr. Gunsaulus handled +the Pope. The latter I loved forthwith. He had been to some gathering +on much the same lines as the Chautauqua one, and had there been +detected, in the open daylight, smoking a cigar. One whole lighted +cigar. Then his congregation or his class, or the mothers of both of +them, wished to know whether this was the sort of conduct for a man +professing temperance. I have not heard Dr. Gunsaulus lecture, but he +must be a good man. Professor Mahaffy was enjoying himself. I sat close +to him at tiffin and heard him arguing with an American professor as +to the merits of the American Constitution. Both men spoke that the +table might get the benefit of their wisdom, whence I argued that even +eminent professors are eminently human. + +"Now, for goodness' sake, behave yourself," said the Professor. +"You are not to ask the whereabouts of a bar. You are not to laugh +at anything you see, and you are not to go away and deride this +Institution." + +Remember that advice. But I was virtuous throughout, and my virtue +brought its own reward. The parlour of the hotel was full of committees +of women; some of them were Methodist Episcopalians, some were +Congregationalists, and some were United Presbyterians; and some were +faith healers and Christian Scientists, and all trotted about with +notebooks in their hands and the expression of Atlas on their faces. +They were connected with missions to the heathen, and so forth, and +their deliberations appeared to be controlled by a male missionary. The +Professor introduced me to one of them as their friend from India. + +"Indeed," said she; "and of what denomination are you?" + +"I--I live in India," I murmured. + +"You are a missionary, then?" + +I had obeyed the Professor's orders all too well. "I am not a +missionary," I said, with, I trust, a decent amount of regret in +my tones. She dropped me and I went to find the Professor, who had +cowardly deserted me, and I think was laughing on the balcony. It is +very hard to persuade a denominational American that a man from India +is not a missionary. The home-returned preachers very naturally convey +the impression that India is inhabited solely by missionaries. + +I heard some of them talking and saw how, all unconsciously, they were +hinting the thing which was not. But prejudice governs me against my +will. When a woman looks you in the face and pities you for having to +associate with "heathen" and "idolaters"--Sikh Sirdar of the north, if +you please, Mahommedan gentlemen and the simple-minded _Jat_ of the +Punjab--what can you do? + +The Professor took me out to see the sights, and lest I should be +further treated as a denominational missionary I wrapped myself in +tobacco smoke. This ensures respectful treatment at Chautauqua. +An amphitheatre capable of seating five thousand people is the +centre-point of the show. Here the lecturers lecture and the concerts +are held, and from here the avenues start. Each cottage is decorated +according to the taste of the owner, and is full of girls. The +verandahs are alive with them; they fill the sinuous walks; they hurry +from lecture to lecture, hatless, and three under one sunshade; they +retail little confidences walking arm-in-arm; they giggle for all the +world like uneducated maidens, and they walk about and row on the lake +with their very young men. The lectures are arranged to suit all +tastes. I got hold of one called "The Eschatology of Our Saviour." It +set itself to prove the length, breadth and temperature of Hell from +information garnered from the New Testament. I read it in the sunshine +under the trees, with these hundreds of pretty maidens pretending to +be busy all round; and it did not seem to match the landscape. Then +I studied the faces of the crowd. One-quarter were old and worn; the +balance were young, innocent, charming and frivolous. I wondered how +much they really knew or cared for the art side of Greek life, or the +Pope in the Middle Ages; and how much for the young men who walked with +them. Also what their ideas of Hell might be. We entered a place called +a museum (all the shows here are of an improving tendency), which had +evidently been brought together by feminine hands, so jumbled were the +exhibits. There was a facsimile of the Rosetta stone, with some printed +popular information; an Egyptian camel saddle, miscellaneous truck +from the Holy Land, another model of the same, photographs of Rome, +badly-blotched drawings of volcanic phenomena, the head of the pike +that John Brown took to Harper's Ferry that time his soul went marching +on, casts of doubtful value, and views of Chautauqua, all bundled +together without the faintest attempt at arrangement, and all very +badly labelled. + +It was the apotheosis of Popular Information. I told the Professor +so, and he said I was an ass, which didn't affect the statement in +the least. I have seen museums like Chautauqua before, and well I +know what they mean. If you do not understand, read the first part of +_Aurora Leigh_. Lectures on the Chautauqua stamp I have heard before. +People don't get educated that way. They must dig for it, and cry for +it, and sit up o' nights for it; and when they have got it they must +call it by another name or their struggle is of no avail. You can get +a degree from this Lawn Tennis Tabernacle of all the arts and sciences +at Chautauqua. Mercifully the students are women-folk, and if they +marry the degree is forgotten, and if they become school-teachers they +can only instruct young America in the art of mispronouncing his own +language. And yet so great is the perversity of the American girl that +she can, scorning tennis and the allurements of boating, work herself +nearly to death over the skittles of archæology and foreign tongues, to +the sorrow of all her friends. + +Late that evening the contemptuous courtesy of the hotel allotted me +a room in a cottage of quarter-inch planking, destitute of the most +essential articles of toilette furniture. Ten shillings a day was the +price of this shelter, for Chautauqua is a paying institution. I heard +the Professor next door banging about like a big jack-rabbit in a very +small packing-case. Presently he entered, holding between disgusted +finger and thumb the butt end of a candle, his only light, and this in +a house that would burn quicker than cardboard if once lighted. + +"Isn't it shameful? Isn't it atrocious? A dâk bungalow _khansamah_ +wouldn't dare to give me a raw candle to go to bed by. I say, when you +describe this hole rend them to pieces. A candle stump! Give it 'em +hot." + +You will remember the Professor's advice to me not long ago. "'Fessor," +said I loftily (my own room was a windowless dog-kennel), "this +is unseemly. We are now in the most civilised country on earth, +enjoying the advantages of an Institootion which is the flower of the +civilisation of the nineteenth century; and yet you kick up a fuss over +being obliged to go to bed by the stump of a candle! Think of the Pope +in the Middle Ages. Reflect on the art side of Greek life. Remember +the Sabbath day to keep it holy, and get out of this. You're filling +two-thirds of my room." + + * * * * * + +_Apropos_ of Sabbath, I have come across some lovely reading which +it grieves me that I have not preserved. Chautauqua, you must know, +shuts down on Sundays. With awful severity an eminent clergyman has +been writing to the papers about the beauties of the system. The +stalls that dispense terrible drinks of Moxie, typhoidal milk-shakes +and sulphuric-acid-on-lime-bred soda-water are stopped; boating is +forbidden; no steamer calls at the jetty, and the nearest railway +station is three miles off, and you can't hire a conveyance; the +barbers must not shave you, and no milkman or butcher goes his rounds. +The reverend gentleman enjoys this (he must wear a beard). I forget +his exact words, but they run: "And thus, thank God, no one can supply +himself on the Lord's day with the luxuries or conveniences that he has +neglected to procure on Saturday." Of course, if you happen to linger +inside the wicket gate--verily Chautauqua is a close preserve--over +Sunday, you must bow gracefully to the rules of the place. But what are +you to do with this frame of mind? The owner of it would send missions +to convert the "heathen," or would convert you at ten minutes' notice; +and yet if you called him a heathen and an idolater he would probably +be very much offended. + +Oh, my friends, I have been to one source of the river of missionary +enterprise, and the waters thereof are bitter--bitter as hate, narrow +as the grave! Not now do I wonder that the missionary in the East is at +times, to our thinking, a little intolerant towards beliefs he cannot +understand and people he does not appreciate. Rather it is a mystery +to me that these delegates of an imperious ecclesiasticism have not +a hundred times ere this provoked murder and fire among our wards. +If they were true to the iron teachings of Centreville or Petumna or +Chunkhaven, when they came they would have done so. For Centreville or +Smithson or Squeehawken teach the only true creeds in all the world, +and to err from their tenets, as laid down by the bishops and the +elders, is damnation. How it may be in England at the centres of supply +I cannot tell, but shall presently learn. Here in America I am afraid +of these grim men of the denominations, who know so intimately the will +of the Lord and enforce it to the uttermost. Left to themselves they +would prayerfully, in all good faith and sincerity, slide gradually, +ere a hundred years, from the mental inquisitions which they now +work with some success to an institootion--be sure it would be an +"institootion" with a journal of its own--not far different from what +the Torquemada ruled aforetime. Does this seem extravagant? I have +watched the expression on the men's faces when they told me that they +would rather see their son or daughter dead at their feet than doing +such and such things--trampling on the grass on a Sunday, or something +equally heinous--and I was grateful that the law of men stood between +me and their interpretation of the law of God. They would assuredly +slay the body for the soul's sake and account it righteousness. And +this would befall not in the next generation, perhaps, but in the next, +for the very look I saw in a Eusufzai's face at Peshawar when he turned +and spat in my tracks I have seen this day at Chautauqua in the face of +a preacher. The will was there, but not the power. + +The Professor went up the lake on a visit, taking my ticket of +admission with him, and I found a child, aged seven, fishing with a +worm and pin, and spent the rest of the afternoon in his company. He +was a delightful young citizen, full of information and apparently +ignorant of denominations. We caught sun fish and catfish and pickerel +together. + +The trouble began when I attempted to escape through the wicket on the +jetty and let the creeds fight it out among themselves. Without that +ticket I could not go, unless I paid five dollars. That was the rule to +prevent people cheating. + +"You see," quoth a man in charge, "you've no idea of the meanness of +these people. Why, there was a lady this season--a prominent member of +the Baptist connection--we know, but we can't prove it that she had two +of her hired girls in a cellar when the grounds were being canvassed +for the annual poll-tax of five dollars a head. So she saved ten +dollars. We can't be too careful with this crowd. You've got to produce +that ticket as a proof that you haven't been living in the grounds for +weeks and weeks." + +"For weeks and weeks!" The blue went out of the sky as he said it. "But +I wouldn't stay here for one week if I could help it," I answered. + +"No more would I," he said earnestly. + +Returned the Professor in a steamer, and him I basely left to make +explanations about that ticket, while I returned to Lakewood--the nice +hotel without any regulations. I feared that I should be kept in those +terrible grounds for the rest of my life. + +And it turned out an hour later that the same fear lay upon the +Professor also. He arrived heated but exultant, having baffled the +combined forces of all the denominations and recovered the five-dollar +deposit. "I wouldn't go inside those gates for anything," he said. "I +waited on the jetty. What do you think of it all?" + +"It has shown me a new side of American life," I responded. "I never +want to see it again--and I'm awfully sorry for the girls who take it +seriously. I suppose the bulk of them don't. They just have a good +time. But it would be better----" + +"How?" + +"If they all got married instead of pumping up interest in a +bric-à-brac museum and advertised lectures, and having their names in +the papers. One never gets to believe in the proper destiny of woman +until one sees a thousand of 'em doing something different. I don't +like Chautauqua. There's something wrong with it, and I haven't time to +find out where. But it is wrong." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 18: No. XXXIX appeared in the "Pioneer Mail," Vol. XVII, No. +14, April 2, 1890.] + + + + +THE BOW FLUME CABLE-CAR[19] + + +"See those things yonder?" He looked in the direction of the Market +Street cable-cars which, moved without any visible agency, were +conveying the good people of San Francisco to a picnic somewhere +across the harbour. The stranger was not more than seven feet high. +His face was burnished copper, his hands and beard were fiery red and +his eyes a baleful blue. He had thrust his large frame into a suit of +black clothes which made no pretensions toward fitting him, and his +cheek was distended with plug-tobacco. "Those cars," he said, more to +himself than to me, "run upon a concealed cable worked by machinery, +and that's what broke our syndicate at Bow Flume. Concealed machinery, +no--concealed ropes. Don't you mix yourself with them. They are +ontrustworthy." + +"These cars work comfortably," I ventured. "They run over people now +and then, but that doesn't matter." + +"Certainly not, not in 'Frisco--by no means. It's different out +yonder." He waved a palm-leaf fan in the direction of Mission +Dolores among the sandhills. Then without a moment's pause, and in +a low and melancholy voice, he continued: "Young feller, all patent +machinery is a monopoly, and don't you try to bust it or else it will +bust you. 'Bout five years ago I was at Bow Flume--a minin'-town +way back yonder--beyond the Sacramento. I ran a saloon there with +O'Grady--Howlin' O'Grady, so called on account of the noise he made +when intoxicated. I never christened my saloon any high-soundin' +name, but owing to my happy trick of firing out men who was too full +of bug-juice and disposed to be promiscuous in their dealin's, the +boys called it 'The Wake Up an' Git Bar.' O'Grady, my partner, was an +unreasonable inventorman. He invented a check on the whisky bar'ls +that wasn't no good except lettin' the whisky run off at odd times and +shutting down when a man was most thirstiest. I remember half Bow Flume +city firing their six-shooters into a cask--and Bourbon at that--which +was refusing to run on account of O'Grady's patent double-check tap. +But that wasn't what I started to tell you about--not by a long ways. +O'Grady went to 'Frisco when the Bow Flume saloon was booming. He hed +a good time in 'Frisco, kase he came back with a very bad head and no +clothes worth talkin' about. He had been jailed most time, but he had +investigated the mechanism of these cars yonder--when he wasn't in the +cage. He came back with the liquor for the saloon, and the boys whooped +round him for half a day, singing songs of glory. 'Boys,' says O'Grady, +when a half of Bow Flume were lying on the floor kissing the cuspidors +and singing 'Way Down the Swanee River,' being full of some new stuff +O'Grady had got up from 'Frisco--'boys,' says O'Grady, 'I have the +makings of a company in me. You know the road from this saloon to Bow +Flume is bad and 'most perpendicular.' That was the exact state of +the case. Bow Flume city was three hundred feet above our saloon. The +boys used to roll down and get full, and any that happened to be sober +rolled them up again when the time came to get. Some dropped into the +cañon that way--bad payers mostly. You see, a man held all the hill +Bow Flume was built on, and he wanted forty thousand dollars for a +forty-five by hundred lot o' ground. We kept the whisky and the boys +came down for it. The exercise disposed them to thirst. 'Boys,' says +O'Grady, 'as you know, I have visited the great metropolis of 'Frisco.' +Then they had drinks all round for 'Frisco. 'And I have been jailed a +few while enjoying the sights.' Then they had drinks all round for the +jail that held O'Grady. 'But,' he says, 'I have a proposal to make.' +More drinks on account of the proposal. 'I have got a hold of the idea +of those 'Frisco cable-cars. Some of the idea I got in 'Frisco. The +rest I have invented,' says O'Grady. Then they drank all round for the +invention. + +"I am coming to the point. O'Grady made a company--the drunkest I ever +saw--to run a cable-car on the 'Frisco model from 'Wake Up an' Git +Saloon' to Bow Flume. The boys put in about four thousand dollars, +for Bow Flume was squirling gold then. There's nary shanty there now. +O'Grady put in four thousand dollars of his own, and I was roped in for +as much. O'Grady desired the concern to represent the resources of Bow +Flume. We got a car built in 'Frisco for two thousand dollars, with an +elegant bar at one end--nickel-plated fixings and ruby glass. + +"The notion was to dispense liquor _en route_. A Bow Flume man could +put himself outside two drinks in a minute and a half, the same not +being pressed for urgent business. The boys graded the road for love, +and we run a rope in a little trough in the middle. That rope ran +swift, and any blame fool that had his foot cut off, fooling in the +middle of the road, might ha' found salvation by using our Bow Flume +Palace Car. The boys said that was square. O'Grady took the contract +for building the engine to wind the rope. He called his show a mule--it +was a crossbreed between a threshing machine and an elevator ram. +I don't think he had followed the 'Frisco patterns. He put all our +dollars into that blamed barroom on the car, knowing what would please +the boys best. They didn't care much about the machinery, so long as +the car hummed. + +"We charged the boys a dollar a head per trip. One free drink included. +That paid--paid like--Paradise. They liked the motion. O'Grady was +engineer, and another man sort of tended to the rope engine when he +wasn't otherwise engaged. Those cable-cars run by gripping on to the +rope. You know that. When the grip's off the car is braked down and +stands still. There ought to have been two cars by right--one to run up +and the other down. But O'Grady had a blamed invention for reversing +the engine, so the cable ran both ways--up to Bow Flume and down to +the saloon--the terminus being in front of our door. A man could kick +a friend slick from the bar into the car. The boys appreciated that. +The Bow Flume Palace Car Company earned twenty on the hundred in three +months, besides the profits of the drinks. We might have lasted to this +day if O'Grady hadn't tinkered his blamed engine up on top of Bow Flume +Hill. The boys complained the show didn't hum sufficient. They required +railroad speed. O'Grady ran 'em up and down at fourteen miles an hour; +and his latest improvement was to touch twenty-four. The strain on the +brakes was terrible--quite terrible. But every time O'Grady raised the +record, the boys gave him a testimonial. 'Twasn't in human nature not +to crowd ahead after that. Testimonials demoralise the publickest of +men. + +"I rode on the car that memorial day. Just as we started with a double +load of boys and a razzle-dazzle assortment of drinks, something +went _zip_ under the car bottom. We proceeded with velocity. All the +prominent members of the company were aboard. 'The grip has got +snubbed on the rope,' says O'Grady quite quietly. 'Boys, this will +be the biggest smash on record. Something's going to happen.' We +proceeded at the rate of twenty-four miles an hour till the end of +our journey. I don't know what happened there. We could get clear of +the rope anyways at the point where it turned round a pulley to start +up hill again. We struck--struck the stoop of the 'Wake Up an' Git +Saloon'--_my_ saloon--and the next thing I knew was feeling of my legs +under an assortment of matchwood and broken glass, representing liquor +and fixtures to the tune of eight thousand. The car had been flicked +through the saloon, bringing down the entire roof on the floor. It +had then bucked out into the firmament, describing a parabola over +the bluff at the back of the saloon, and was lying at the foot of +that bluff, three hundred feet below, like a busted kaleidoscope--all +nickel, shavings and bits of red glass. O'Grady and most of the +prominent members of the company were dead--very dead--and there wasn't +enough left of the saloon to pay for a drink. I took in the situation +lying on my stomach at the edge of the bluff, and I suspicioned that +any lawsuits that might arise would be complicated by shooting. So I +quit Bow Flume by the back trail. I guess the coroner judged that there +were no summons--leastways I never heard any more about it. Since that +time I've had a distrust to cable-cars. The rope breaking is no great +odds, bekase you can stop the car, but it's getting the grip tangled +with the running rope that spreads ruin and desolation over thriving +communities and prevents the development of local resources." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 19: "Turnovers," Vol. VII.] + + + + +IN PARTIBUS[20] + + + _The 'buses run to Battersea, + The 'buses run to Bow, + The 'buses run to Westbourne Grove, + And Nottinghill also; + But I am sick of London town, + From Shepherd's Bush to Bow._ + + I see the smut upon my cuff + And feel him on my nose; + I cannot leave my window wide + When gentle zephyr blows, + Because he brings disgusting things + And drops 'em on my "clo'es." + + The sky, a greasy soup-toureen, + Shuts down atop my brow. + Yes, I have sighed for London town + And I have got it now: + And half of it is fog and filth, + And half is fog and row. + + And when I take my nightly prowl, + 'Tis passing good to meet + The pious Briton lugging home + His wife and daughter sweet, + Through four packed miles of seething vice, + Thrust out upon the street. + + Earth holds no horror like to this + In any land displayed, + From Suez unto Sandy Hook, + From Calais to Port Said; + And 'twas to hide their heathendom + The beastly fog was made. + + I cannot tell when dawn is near, + Or when the day is done, + Because I always see the gas + And never see the sun, + And now, methinks, I do not care + A cuss for either one. + + But stay, there was an orange, or + An aged egg its yolk; + It might have been a Pears' balloon + Or Barnum's latest joke: + I took it for the sun and wept + To watch it through the smoke. + + It's Oh to see the morn ablaze + Above the mango-tope, + When homeward through the dewy cane + The little jackals lope, + And half Bengal heaves into view, + New-washed--with sunlight soap. + + It's Oh for one deep whisky peg + When Christmas winds are blowing, + When all the men you ever knew, + And all you've ceased from knowing, + Are "entered for the Tournament, + And everything that's going." + + But I consort with long-haired things + In velvet collar-rolls, + Who talk about the Aims of Art, + And "theories" and "goals," + And moo and coo with women-folk + About their blessed souls. + + But that they call "psychology" + Is lack of liver pill, + And all that blights their tender souls + Is eating till they're ill, + And their chief way of winning goals + Consists in sitting still. + + It's Oh to meet an Army man, + Set up, and trimmed and taut, + Who does not spout hashed libraries + Or think the next man's thought, + And walks as though he owned himself, + And hogs his bristles short. + + Hear now, a voice across the seas + To kin beyond my ken, + If ye have ever filled an hour + With stories from my pen, + For pity's sake send some one here + To bring me news of men! + + _The 'buses run to Islington, + To Highgate and Soho, + To Hammersmith and Kew therewith, + And Camberwell also, + But I can only murmur "'Bus" + From Shepherd's Bush to Bow._ + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 20: "Turnovers," Vol. VIII.] + + + + +LETTERS ON LEAVE[21] + +I + + + To Lieutenant John McHail, + 151st (Kumharsen) P.N.I., + _Hakaiti via Tharanda_, + _Assam_. + + +Dear Old Man: Your handwriting is worse than ever, but as far as I can +see among the loops and fish-hooks, you are lonesome and want to be +comforted with a letter. I knew you wouldn't write to me unless you +needed something. You don't tell me that you have left your regiment, +but from what you say about "my battalion," "my men," and so forth, it +seems as if you were raising military police for the benefit of the +Chins. If that's the case, I congratulate you. The pay is good. Ouless +writes to me from some new fort something or other, saying that he +has struggled into a billet of Rs. 700 (Military Police), and instead +of being chased by writters as he used to be, is ravaging the country +round Shillong in search of a wife. I am very sorry for the Mrs. Ouless +of the future. + +That doesn't matter. You probably know more about the boys yonder than +I do. If you'll only send me from time to time some record of their +movements I'll try to tell you of things on this side of the water. You +say "You don't know what it is to hear from town." I say "You don't +know what it is to hear from the _dehat_." Now and again men drift +in with news, but I don't like hot-weather _khubber_. It's all of +the domestic occurrence kind. Old "Hat" Constable came to see me the +other day. You remember the click in his throat before he begins to +speak. He sat still, clicking at quarter-hour intervals, and after each +click he'd say: "D'ye remember Mistress So-an'-So? Well, she's dead o' +typhoid at Naogong." When it wasn't "Mistress So-an'-So" it was a man. +I stood four clicks and four deaths, and then I asked him to spare me +the rest. You seem to have had a bad season, taking it all round, and +the women seem to have suffered most. Is that so? + +We don't die in London. We go out of town, and we make as much fuss +about it as if we were going to the Neva. Now I understand why the +transport is the first thing to break down when our army takes the +field. The Englishman is cumbrous in his movements and very particular +about his baskets and hampers and trunks--not less than seven of +each--for a fifty-mile journey. Leave season began some weeks ago, and +there is a _burra-choop_ along the streets that you could shovel with +a spade. All the people that say they are everybody have gone--quite +two hundred miles away. Some of 'em are even on the Continent--and the +clubs are full of strange folk. I found a Reform man at the Savage a +week ago. He didn't say what his business was, but he was dusty and +looked hungry. I suppose he had come in for food and shelter. + +Like the rest I'm on leave too. I converted myself into a Government +Secretary, awarded myself one month on full pay with the chance of an +extension, and went off. Then it rained and hailed, and rained again, +and I ran up and down this tiny country in trains trying to find a dry +place. After ten days I came back to town, having been stopped by the +sea four times. I was rather like a kitten at the bottom of a bucke +chasing its own tail. So I'm sitting here under a grey, muggy sky +wondering what sort of time they are having at Simla. It's August now. +The rains would be nearly over, all the theatricals would be in full +swing, and Jakko Hill would be just Paradise. You're probably pink with +prickly heat. Sit down quietly under the punkah and think of Umballa +station, hot as an oven at four in the morning. Think of the dak-gharry +slobbering in the wet, and the first little cold wind that comes round +the first corner after the tonga is clear of Kalka. There's a wind +you and I know well. It's blowing over the grass at Dugshai this +very moment, and there's a smell of hot fir trees all along and along +from Solon to Simla, and some happy man is flying up that road with +fragments of a tonga-bar in his eye, his pet terrier under his arm, his +thick clothes on the back-seat and the certainty of a month's pure joy +in front of him. _Instead of which_ you're being stewed at Hakaiti and +I'm sitting in a second-hand atmosphere above a sausage-shop, watching +three sparrows playing in a dirty-green tree and pretending that it's +summer. I have a view of very many streets and a river. Except the +advertisements on the walls, there isn't one speck of colour as far +as my eye can reach. The very cat, who is an amiable beast, comes +off black under my hand, and I daren't open the window for fear of +smuts. And this is better than a soaked and sobbled country, with the +corn-shocks standing like plover's eggs in green moss and the oats +lying flat in moist lumps. We haven't had any summer, and yesterday I +smelt the raw touch of the winter. Just one little whiff to show that +the year had turned. "Oh, what a happy land is England!" + +I cannot understand the white man at home. You remember when we went +out together and landed at the Apollo Bunder with all our sorrows +before us, and went to Watson's Hotel and saw the snake-charmers? You +said: "It'll take me all my lifetime to distinguish one nigger from +another." That was eight years ago. Now you don't call them niggers +any more, and you're supposed--quite wrongly--to have an insight into +native character, or else you would never have been allowed to recruit +for the Kumharsens. I feel as I felt at Watson's. They are so deathlily +alike, especially the more educated. They all seem to read the same +books, and the same newspapers telling 'em what to admire in the same +books, and they all quote the same passages from the same books, and +they write books on books about somebody else's books, and they are +penetrated to their boot-heels with a sense of the awful seriousness +of their own views of the moment. Above that they seem to be, most +curiously and beyond the right of ordinary people, divorced from the +knowledge or fear of death. Of course, every man conceives that every +man except himself is bound to die (you remember how Hallatt spoke the +night before he went out), but these men appear to be like children in +that respect. + +I can't explain exactly, but it gives an air of unreality to their +most earnest earnestnesses; and when a young man of views and culture +and aspirations is in earnest, the trumpets of Jericho are silent +beside him. Because they have everything done for them they know how +everything ought to be done; and they are perfectly certain that wood +pavements, policemen, shops and gaslight come in the regular course +of nature. You can guess with these convictions how thoroughly and +cocksurely they handle little trifles like colonial administration, the +wants of the army, municipal sewage, housing of the poor, and so forth. +Every third common need of average men is, in their mouths, a tendency +or a movement or a federation affecting the world. It never seems to +occur to 'em that the human instinct of getting as much as possible for +money paid, or, failing money, for threats and fawnings, is about as +old as Cain; and the burden of their _bat_ is: "Me an' a few mates o' +mine are going to make a new world." + +As long as men only write and talk they must think that way, I suppose. +It's compensation for playing with little things. And that reminds me. +Do you know the University smile? You don't by that name, but sometimes +young civilians wear it for a very short time when they first come +out. Something--I wonder if it's our brutal chaff, or a billiard-cue, +or which?--takes it out of their faces, and when they next differ with +you they do so without smiling. But that smile flourishes in London. +I've met it again and again. It expresses tempered grief, sorrow at +your complete inability to march with the march of progress at the +Universities, and a chastened contempt. There is one man who wears it +as a garment. He is frivolously young--not more than thirty-five or +forty--and all these years no one has removed that smile. He knows +everything about everything on this earth, and above all he knows all +about men under any and every condition of life. He knows all about +the aggressive militarism of you and your friends; he isn't quite sure +of the necessity of an army; he is certain that colonial expansion +is nonsense; and he is more than certain that the whole step of all +our Empire must be regulated by the knowledge and foresight of the +workingman. Then he smiles--smiles like a seraph with an M.A. degree. +What can you do with a man like that? He has never seen an unmade road +in his life; I think he believes that wheat grows on a tree and that +beef is dug from a mine. He has never been forty miles from a railway, +and he has never been called upon to issue an order to anybody except +his well-fed servants. Isn't it wondrous? And there are battalions +and brigades of these men in town removed from the fear of want, +living until they are seventy or eighty, sheltered, fed, drained and +administered, expending their vast leisure in talking and writing. + +But the real fun begins much lower down the line. I've been associating +generally and very particularly with the men who say that they are +the only men in the world who work--and they call themselves _the_ +workingman. Now the workingman in America is a nice person. He says he +is a man and behaves accordingly. That is to say, he has some notion +that he is part and parcel of a great country. At least, he talks that +way. But in this town you can see thousands of men meeting publicly +on Sundays to cry aloud that everybody may hear that they are poor, +downtrodden helots--in fact, "the pore workin'man." At their clubs and +pubs the talk is the same. It's the utter want of self-respect that +revolts. My friend the tobacconist has a cousin, who is, apparently, +sound in mind and limb, aged twenty-three, clear-eyed and upstanding. +He is a "skibbo" by trade--a painter of sorts. He married at twenty, +and he has two children. He can spend three-quarters of an hour talking +about his downtrodden condition. He works under another _Raj-mistri_, +who has saved money and started a little shop of his own. He hates that +_Raj-mistri_; he loathes the police; and his views on the lives and +customs of the aristocracy are strange. He approves of every form of +lawlessness, and he knows that everybody who holds authority is sure +to be making a good thing out of it. Of himself as a citizen he never +thinks. Of himself as an Ishmael he thinks a good deal. He is entitled +to eight hours' work a day and some time off--said time to be paid for; +he is entitled to free education for his children--and he doesn't want +no bloomin' clergyman to teach 'em; he is entitled to houses especially +built for himself because he pays the bulk of the taxes of the country. +He is not going to emigrate, not he; he reserves to himself the right +of multiplying as much as he pleases; the streets must be policed for +him while he demonstrates, immediately under my window, by the way, for +ten consecutive hours, and _I_ am probably a thief because my clothes +are better than his. The proposition is a very simple one. He has no +duties to the State, no personal responsibility of any kind, and he'd +sooner see his children dead than soldiers of the Queen. The Government +owes him everything because he is a pore workin'man. When the Guards +tried their Board-school mutiny at the Wellington Barracks my friend +was jubilant. "What did I tell you?" he said. "You see the very +soldiers won't stand it." + +"What's it?" + +"Bein' treated like machines instead of flesh and blood. 'Course they +won't." + +The popular evening paper wrote that the Guards, with perfect justice, +had rebelled against being treated like machines instead of flesh and +blood. Then I thought of a certain regiment that lay in Mian Mir for +three years and dropped four hundred men out of a thousand. It died of +fever and cholera. There were no pretty nursemaids to work with it in +the streets, because there were no streets. I saw how the Guards amused +themselves and how their sergeants smoked in uniform. I pitied the +Guards with their cruel sentry-goes, their three nights out of bed, +and their unlimited supply of love and liquor. + +Another man, not a workman, told me that the Guards' riot--it's +impossible, as you know, to call this kick-up of the fatted flunkies +of the army a mutiny--was only "a schoolboy's prank"; and he could not +see that if it was what he said it was, the Guards were no regiment +and should have been wiped out decently and quietly. There again the +futility of a sheltered people cropped up. You mustn't treat a man like +a machine in this country, but you can't get any work out of a man till +he has learned to work like a machine. D---- has just come home for a +few months from the charge of a mountain battery on the frontier. He +used to begin work at eight, and he was thankful if he got off at six; +most of the time on his feet. When he went to the Black Mountain he was +extensively engaged for nearly sixteen hours a day; and that on food +at which the "pore workin'man" would have turned up his state-lifted +nose. D---- on the subject of labour as understood by the white man in +his own home is worth hearing. Though coarse--considerably coarse! But +D---- doesn't know all the hopeless misery of the business. When the +small pig, oyster, furniture, carpet, builder or general shopman works +his way out of the ruck he turns round and makes his old friends and +employes sweat. He knows how near he can go to flaying 'em alive before +they kick; and in this matter he is neither better nor worse than a +_bunnia_ or a _havildar_ of our own blessed country. It's the small +employer of labour that skins his servant, exactly as the forty-pound +householder works her one white servant to the bone and goes to drop +pennies into the plate to convert the heathen in the East. + +Just at present, as you have read, the person who calls himself the +pore workin'man--the man I saw kicking fallen men in the mud by the +docks last winter--has discovered a real, fine, new original notion; +and he is working it for all he is worth. He calls it the solidarity +of labour _bundobast_; but it's caste--four thousand years old, caste +of Menu--with old _shetts_, _mahajuns_, guildtolls, excommunication +and all the rest of it. All things considered, there isn't anything +much older than caste--it began with the second generation of man on +earth--but to read the "advance" papers on the subject you'd imagine it +was a revelation from Heaven. The real fun will begin--as it has begun +and ended many times before--when the caste of skilled labour--that's +the pore workin'man--are pushed up and knocked about by the lower and +unrecognised castes, who will form castes of their own and outcaste on +the decision of their own _punchayats_. How these castes will scuffle +and fight among themselves, and how astonished the Englishman will be! + +He is naturally lawless because he is a fighting animal; and his +amazingly sheltered condition has made him inconsequent. I don't like +inconsequent lawlessness. I've seen it down at Bow Street, at the +docks, by the G.P.O., and elsewhere. Its chief home, of course, is in +that queer place called the House of Commons, but no one goes there who +isn't forced by business. It's shut up at present, and the persons +who belong to it are loose all over the face of the country. I don't +think--but I won't swear--that any of them are spitting at policemen. +One man appears to have been poaching, others are advocating various +forms of murder and outrage--and nobody seems to care. The residue +talk--just heavens, how they talk, and what wonderful fictions they +tell! And they firmly believe, being ignorant of the mechanism of +Government, that they administer the country. In addition, certain of +their newspapers have elaborately worked up a famine in Ireland that +could be engineered by two Deputy Commissioners and four average Stunts +into a "woe" and a "calamity" that is going to overshadow the peace of +the nation--even the Empire. I suppose they have their own sense of +proportion, but they manage to keep it to themselves very successfully. +What do you, who have seen half a countryside in deadly fear of its +life, suppose that this people would do if they were _chukkered_ and +_gabraowed_? If they really knew what the fear of death and the dread +of injury implied? If they died very swiftly, indeed, and could not +count their futile lives enduring beyond next sundown? Some of the men +from your--I mean our--part of the world say that they would be afraid +and break and scatter and run. But there is no room in the island to +run. The sea catches you, midwaist, at the third step. I am curious to +see if the cholera, of which these people stand in most lively dread, +gets a firm foothold in London. In that case I have a notion that +there will be scenes and panics. They live too well here, and have too +much to make life worth clinging to--clubs, and shop fronts, and gas, +and theatres, and so forth--things that they affect to despise, and +whereon and whereby they live like leeches. But I have written enough. +It doesn't exhaust the subject; but you won't be grateful for other +epistles. De Vitre of the Poona Irregular Moguls will have it that +they are a tiddy-iddy people. He says that all their visible use is +to produce loans for the colonies and men to be used up in developing +India. I honestly believe that the average Englishman would faint +if you told him it was lawful to use up human life for any purpose +whatever. He believes that it has to be developed and made beautiful +for the possessor, and in that belief talkatively perpetrates cruelties +that would make Torquemada jump in his grave. Go to Alipur if you want +to see. I am off to foreign parts--forty miles away--to catch fish for +my friend the char-cat; also to shoot a little bird if I have luck. + + Yours, + Rudyard Kipling. + + +II + + To Captain J. McHail, + 151st (Kumharsen) N.I., + _Hakaiti via Tharanda_. + +Captain Sahib Bahadur! The last _Pi_ gives me news of your step, and +I'm more pleased about it than many. You've been "cavalry quick" in +your promotion. Eight years and your company! Allahu! But it must have +been that long, lean horse-head of yours that looks so wise and says so +little that has imposed upon the authorities. My best congratulations. +Let out your belt two holes, and be happy, as I am not. + +Did I tell you in my last about going to Woking in search of a grave? +The dust and the grime and the grey and the sausage-shop told on +my spirits to such an extent that I solemnly took a train and went +grave-hunting through the Necropolis--locally called the Necrapolis. +I wanted an eligible, entirely detached site in a commanding +position--six by three and bricked throughout. I found it, but the only +drawback was that I must go back to town to the head office to buy it. +One doesn't go to town to haggle for tomb-space, so I deferred the +matter and went fishing. All the same, there are very nice graves at +Woking, and I shall keep my eye on one of 'em. + +Since that date I seem to have been in four or five places, because +there are labels on the bag. One of the places was Plymouth, where +I found half a regiment at field exercises on the Hoe. They were +practising the attack in three lines with the mixed rush at the end, +even as it is laid down in the drill-book, and they charged subduedly +across the Hoe. The people laughed. I was much more inclined to cry. +Except the Major, there didn't seem to be anything more than twenty +years old in the regiment; and oh! but it was pink and white and chubby +and undersized--just made to die succulently of disease. I fancied +that some of our battalions out with you were more or less young and +exposed, but a home battalion is a _crêche_, and it scares one to +watch it. Eminent and distinguished Generals get up after dinner--I've +listened to two of 'em--and explain that though the home battalion can +only be regarded as a feeder to the foreign, yet all our battalions can +be regarded as efficient; and if they aren't efficient we shall find +in our military reserve the nucleus--how I loath that lying word!--of +the Lord knows what, but the speeches always end with allusions to the +spirit of the English, their glorious past, and the certainty that when +the hour of need comes the nation will "emerge victorious." If (_sic_) +the Engineer of the Hungerford Bridge told the Southeastern Railway +that because a main girder had stood for thirty years without need of +renewal it was therefore sure to stand for another fifty, he would +probably get the sack. Our military authorities don't get the sack. +They are allowed to make speeches in public. Some day, if we live long +enough, we shall see the glories of the past and the "sublime instinct +of an ancient people" without one complete army corps, pitted against +a few unsentimental long-range guns and some efficiently organised +troops. Then the band will begin to play, and it will not play _Rule +Britannia_ until it has played some funny tunes first. + +Do you remember Tighe? He was in the Deccan Lancers and retired because +he got married. He is in Ireland now, and I met him the other day, +idle, unhappy and dying for some work to do. Mrs. Tighe is equally +miserable. She wants to go back to Poona instead of administering a +big barrack of a house somewhere at the back of a bog. I quote Tighe +here. He has, you may remember, a pretty tongue about him, and he was +describing to me at length how a home regiment behaves when it is +solemnly turned out for a week or a month training under canvas: + +"About four in the mornin', me dear boy, they begin pitchin' their +tents for the next day--four hours to pitch it, and the tent ropes a +howlin' tangle when all's said and sworn. Then they tie their horses +with strings to their big toes and go to bed in hollows and caves in +the earth till the rain falls and the tents are flooded, and then, me +dear boy, the men and the horses and the ropes and the vegetation of +the country cuddle each other till the morning for the company's sake. +And next day it all begins again. Just when they are beginning to +understand how to camp they are all put back into their boxes, and half +of 'em have lung disease." + +But what is the use of snarling and grumbling? The matter will adjust +itself later on, and the one nation on earth that talks and thinks most +of the sanctity of human life will be a little astonished at the waste +of life for which it will be responsible. In those days, my captain, +the man who can command seasoned troops and have made the best use of +those troops will be sought after and petted and will rise to honour. +Remember the Hakaiti when next you measure the naked recruit. + +Let us revisit calmer scenes. I've been down for three perfect days +to the seaside. Don't you remember what a really fine day means? A +milk-white sea, as smooth as glass, with blue-white heat haze hanging +over it, one little wave talking to itself on the sand, warm shingle, +four bathing machines, cliff in the background, and half the babies +in Christendom paddling and yelling. It was a queer little place, +just near enough to the main line of traffic to be overlooked from +morning till night. There was a baby--an Ollendorfian baby--with whom +I fell madly in love. She lived down at the bottom of a great white +sun-bonnet; talked French and English in a clear, bell-like voice, and +of such I fervently hope will the Kingdom of Heaven be. When she found +that my French wasn't equal to hers she condescendingly talked English +and bade me build her houses of stones and draw cats for her through +half the day. After I had done everything that she ordered she went +off to talk to some one else. The beach belonged to that baby, and +every soul on it was her servant, for I know that we rose with shouts +when she paddled into three inches of water and sat down, gasping: +"_Mon Dieu! Je suis mort!_" I know you like the little ones, so I +don't apologise for yarning about them. She had a sister aged seven +and one-half--a lovely child, without a scrap of self-consciousness, +and enormous eyes. Here comes a real tragedy. The girl--and her name +was Violet--had fallen wildly in love with a little fellow of nine. +They used to walk up the single street of the village with their arms +round each other's necks. Naturally, she did all the little wooings, +and Hugh submitted quietly. Then devotion began to pall, and he didn't +care to paddle with Violet. Hereupon, as far as I can gather, she +smote him on the head and threw him against a wall. Anyhow, it was +very sweet and natural, and Hugh told me about it when I came down. +"She's so unrulable," he said. "I didn't hit her back, but I was very +angry." Of course, Violet repented, but Hugh grew suspicious, and at +the psychological moment there came down from town a destroyer of +delights and a separator of companions in the shape of a tricycle. +Also there were many little boys on the beach--rude, shouting, romping +little chaps--who said: "Come along!" "Hullo!" and used the wicked word +"beastly!" Among these Hugh became a person of importance and began to +realise that he was a man who could say "beastly," and "Come on!" with +the best of 'em. He preferred to run about with the little boys on wars +and expeditions, and he wriggled away when Violet put her arm round +his waist. Violet was hurt and angry, and I think she slapped Hugh. +Relations were strained when I arrived because one morning Violet, +after asking permission, invited Hugh to come to lunch. And that bad, +Spanish-eyed boy deliberately filled his bucket with the cold sea-water +and dashed it over Violet's pink ankles. (Joking apart, this seems to +be about the best way of refusing an invitation that civilisation can +invent. Try it on your Colonel.) She was madly angry for a moment, and +then she said: "Let me carry you up the beach, 'cause of the shingles +in your toes." This was divine, but it didn't move Hugh, and Violet +went off to her mother. She sat down with her chin in her hand, looking +out at the sea for a long time very sorrowfully. Then she said, and +it was her first experience: "I know that Hugh cares more for his +horrid bicycle than he does for me, and if he said he didn't I wouldn't +believe him." + +Up to date Hugh has said nothing. He is running about playing with the +bold, bad little boys, and Violet is sitting on a breakwater, trying +to find out why things are as they are. It's a nice tale, and tales +are scarce these days. Have you noticed how small and elemental is the +stock of them at the world's disposal? Men foregathered at that little +seaside place, and, manlike, exchanged stories. They were all the same +stories. One had heard 'em in the East with Eastern variations, and in +the West with Western extravagances tacked on. Only one thing seemed +new, and it was merely a phrase used by a groom in speaking of an +ill-conditioned horse: "No, sir; he's not ill in a manner o' speaking, +but he's so to speak generally unfriendly with his innards as a usual +thing." + +I entrust this to you as a sacred gift. See that it takes root in the +land. "Unfriendly with his innards as a usual thing." Remember. It's +better than laboured explanations in the rains. And I fancy it's raw. + +And now. But I had nearly forgotten. We're a nation of grumblers, and +that's why other people call Anglo-Indians bores. I write feelingly +because M----, just home on long leave, has for the second time sat on +my devoted head for two hours simply and solely for the purpose of +swearing at the Accountant-General. He has given me the whole history +of his pay, prospects and promotion twice over, and in case I should +misunderstand wants me to dine with him and hear it all for the third +time. If M---- would leave the A.-G. alone he is a delightful man, +as we all know; but he's loose in London now, button-holing English +friends and quoting leave and pay-codes to them. He wants to see +a Member of Parliament about something or other, and I believe he +spends his nights rolled up in a _rezai_ on the stairs of the India +Office waiting to catch a secretary. I like the India Office. They +are so beautifully casual and lazy, and their rooms look out over the +Green Park, and they are never tired of admiring the view. Now and +then a man comes in to report himself, and the secretaries and the +under-secretaries and the _chaprassies_ play battledore and shuttlecock +with him until they are tired. + +Some time since, when I was better, more serious and earnest than I +am now, I preached a _jehad_ up and down those echoing corridors, +and suggested the abolition of the India Office and the purchase of a +four-pound-ten American revolving bookcase to hold all the documents on +India that were of public value or could be comprehended by the public. +Now I am more frivolous because I am dropping gently into that grave at +Woking; and yet I believe in the bookcase. India is bowed down with too +much _duftar_ as it is, and the House of Correction, Revision, Division +and Supervision cannot do her much good. I saw a committee or a council +file in the other day. Only one desirable tale came to me out of that +office. If you've heard it before stop me. It began with a cutting +from an obscure Welsh paper, I think. A man--a gardener--went mad, +announced that Lord Cross was the Messiah and burned himself alive on a +pile of garden refuse. That's the first part. I never could get at the +second, but I am credibly informed that the work of the India Office +stood still for three weeks, while the entire staff took council how to +break the news to the Secretary of State. I believe it still remains +unbroken. + + * * * * * + +Decidedly, leave in England is a disappointing thing. I've wandered +into two stations since I wrote the last. Nothing but the labels on the +bag remain--oh, and a memory of a weighing-in at an East End fishing +club. That was an experience. I foregathered with a man on the top +of a 'bus, and we became great friends because we both agreed that +gorge-tackle for pike was only permissible in very weedy streams. He +repeated his views, which were my views, nearly ten times, and in +the evening invited me to this weighing-in, at, we'll say, rooms of +the Lea and Chertsey Piscatorial Anglers' Benevolent Brotherhood. We +assembled in a room at the top of a public-house, the walls ornamented +with stuffed fish and water-birds, and the anglers came in by twos and +threes, and I was introduced to all of 'em as "the gen'elman I met just +now." This seemed to be good enough for all practical purposes. There +were ten and five shilling prizes, and the affable and energetic clerk +of the scales behaved as though he were weighing-in for the Lucknow +races. The take of the day was one pound fifteen ounces of dace and +roach, about twenty fingerlings, and the winner, who is in charge of a +railway book-stall, described minutely how he had caught each fish. As +a matter of fact, roach-fishing in the Lea and Thames is a fine art. +Then there were drinks--modest little drinks--and they called upon me +for a sentiment. You know how things go at the sergeants' messes and +some of the lodges. In a moment of brilliant inspiration I gave "free +fishing in the parks" and brought down the whole house. Sah! free +fishing for coarse fish in the Serpentine and the Green Park water +would hurt nobody and do a great deal of good to many. The stocking +of the water--but what does this interest you? The Englishman moves +slowly. He is just beginning to understand that it is not sufficient +to set apart a certain amount of land for a lung of London and to turn +people into it with "There, get along and play," unless he gives 'em +something to play with. Thirty years hence he will almost allow _cafés_ +and hired bands in Hyde Park. + +To return for a moment to the fish club. I got away at eleven, and in +darkness and despair had to make my way west for leagues and leagues +across London. I was on the Mile End Road at midnight and there lost +myself, and learned something more about the policeman. He is haughty +in the East and always afraid that he is being chaffed. I honestly +only wanted sailing directions to get homeward. One policeman said: +"Get along. You know your way as well as I do." And yet another: "You +go back to the country where you comed from. You ain't doin' no good +'ere!" It was so deadly true that I couldn't answer back, and there +wasn't an expensive cab handy to prove my virtue and respectability. +Next time I visit the Lea and Chertsey Affabilities I'll find out +something about trains. Meantime I keep holiday dolefully. There is not +anybody to play with me. They have all gone away to their own places. +Even the Infant, who is generally the idlest man in the world, writes +me that he is helping to steer a ten-ton yacht in Scottish seas. When +she heels over too much the Infant is driven to the O.P. side and she +rights herself. The Infant's host says: "Isn't this bracing? Isn't this +delightful?" And the Infant, who lives in dread of a chill bringing +back his Indian fever, has to say "Ye-es," and pretend to despise +overcoats. + +Wallah! This is a cheerful world. + + Rudyard Kipling. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 21: The "Pioneer Mail," Vol. XVII, No. 40, Oct. 2, 1890, page +436.] + + + + +THE ADORATION OF THE MAGE[22] + + +This is a slim, thin little story, but it serves to explain a great +many things. I picked it up in a four-wheeler in the company of an +eminent novelist, a pink-eyed young gentleman who lived on his income, +and a gentleman who knew more than he ought; and I preserved it, +thinking it would serve to interest you. It may be an old story, but +the G.W.K.T.H.O., whom, for the sake of brevity, we will call Captain +Kydd, declared that his best friend had heard it himself. Consequently, +I doubted its newness more than ever. For when a man raises his voice +and vows that the incident occurred opposite his own Club window, all +the listening world know that they are about to hear what is vulgarly +called a cracker. This rule holds good in London as well as in Lahore. +When we left the house of the highly distinguished politician who had +been entertaining us, we stepped into a London Particular, which has +nothing whatever to do with the story, but was interesting from the +little fact that we could not see our hands before our faces. The +black, brutal fog had turned each gas-jet into a pin-prick of light, +visible only at six inches range. There were no houses, there were no +pavements. There were no points of the compass. There were only the +eminent novelist, the young gentleman with the pink eyes, Captain Kydd +and myself, holding each other's shoulders in the gloom of Tophet. Then +the eminent novelist delivered himself of an epigram. + +"Let's go home," said he. + +"Let us try," said Captain Kydd, and incontinently fell down an area +into somebody's kitchen yard and disappeared into chaos. When he +had climbed out again we heard a something on wheels swearing even +worse than Captain Kydd was, all among the railings of a square. So +we shouted, and presently a four-wheeler drove gracefully on to the +pavement. + +"I'm trying to get 'ome," said the cabby. "But if you gents make it +worth while ... though heaven knows 'ow we ever shall. Guess 'arf +a crown apiece might ... and any'ow I won't promise anywheres in +particular." + +The cabby kept his word nobly. He did not find anywheres in particular, +but he found several places. First he discovered a pavement kerb and +drove pressing his wheel against it till we came to a lamp-post, +and that we hit grievously. Then he came to what ought to have been +a corner, but was a 'bus, and we embraced the thing amid terrific +language. Then he sailed out into nothing at all--blank fog--and there +he commended himself to heaven and his horse to the other place, +while the eminent novelist put his head out of the window and gave +directions. I begin to understand now why the eminent novelist's +villains are so lifelike and his plots so obscure. He has a marvellous +breadth of speech, but no ingenuity in directing the course of events. +We drove into the island of refuge near the Brompton Oratory just when +he was telling the cabby to be sure and avoid the Regents' Park Canal. + +Then we began to talk about the weather and Mister Gladstone. +If an Englishman is unhappy he always talks about Mister +Gladstone in terms of reproof. The eminent novelist was a +socialistic-Neo-Plastic-Unionistic-Demagoglot Radical of the Extreme +Left, and that is the latest novelty of the thing yet invented. He +withdrew his head to answer Captain Kydd's arguments, which were +forcible. "Well, you'll admit he's all sorts of a madman," said Captain +Kydd sweetly. + +"He's a saint," said the eminent novelist, "and he moves in an +atmosphere that you and those like you cannot breathe." + +"Yes, I always said it was a pretty thick fog. Now I know it's as thick +as this one. I say, we're on the pavement again; we shall be in a shop +in a minute," said Captain Kydd. + +But I wanted to see the eminent novelist fight, so I reintroduced +Mister Gladstone while the cab crawled up a wall. + +"It's not exactly a wholesome atmosphere," said Captain Kydd when the +novelist had finished speaking. "That reminds me of a story--perfectly +true story. In the old days, before he went off his chump--" + +"Yah-h-h!" said the eminent novelist, wrapping himself in his Inverness. + +"--went off his nut, he used to consort a good deal with his friends +on his own side--visit 'em, y' know, and deliver addresses out of +their own bedroom windows, and steal their postcards, and generally be +friendly. Well, one man he stayed with had a house, a country house, y' +know, and in the garden there was a path which was supposed to divide +Kent and Surrey or some counties. They led the old man forth for his +walk, y' know, and followed him in gangs to hear that the weather was +fine, and of course his host pointed out the path, the old man took in +the situation, and put one I daresay they had strewn rose-leaves on it, +or spread it with homespun trousers. Anyhow, one leg on one side of +the path and the other on the other, and with one of those wonderful +flashes of humour that come to him when he chooses to frisk among his +friends, he said: 'Now I am in Kent and in Surrey at the same time.'" + +Captain Kydd ceased speaking as the cab tried to force a way into the +South Kensington Museum. + +"Well, what's there in that?" said the eminent novelist. + +"Oh, nothing much. Let's see how it goes afterwards. Mrs. Gladstone, +who was close behind him, turned round and whispered to the hostess in +an ecstatic shriek: 'Oh, Mrs. Whateverhernamewas, you _will_ plant a +tree there, won't you?'" + +"By Jove!" said the young gentleman with the pink eyes. + +"I don't believe it," said the eminent novelist. + +I said nothing, but it seemed very likely. Captain Kydd laughed: "Well, +I don't consider that sort of atmosphere exactly wholesome, y' know." + +And when the cab had landed us in the drinking-fountain in High Street, +Kensington, and the horse fell down, and the cabby collected our +half-crowns and gave us his beery blessing, and I had to grope my way +home on foot, it occurred to me that perhaps you might be interested +in that anecdote. As I have said, it explains a great deal more than +appears at first sight. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 22: "Turnovers," No. IX.] + + + + +A DEATH IN THE CAMP[23] + + +Two awful catastrophes have occurred. One Englishman in London is dead, +and I have scandalised about twenty of his nearest and dearest friends. + +He was a man nearly seventy years old, engaged in the business of an +architect, and immensely respected. That was all I knew about him till +I began to circulate among his friends in these parts, trying to cheer +them up and make them forget the fog. + +"Hush!" said a man and his wife. "Don't you know he died yesterday of a +sudden attack of pneumonia? Isn't it shocking?" + +"Yes," said I vaguely. "Aw'fly shocking. Has he left his wife provided +for?" + +"Oh, he's very well off indeed, and his wife is quite old. But just +think--it was only in the next street it happened!" Then I saw that +their grief was not for Strangeways, deceased, but for themselves. + +"How old was he?" I said. + +"Nearly seventy, or maybe a little over." + +"About time for a man to rationally expect such a thing as death," I +thought, and went away to another house, where a young married couple +lived. + +"Isn't it perfectly ghastly?" said the wife. "Mr. Strangeways died last +night." + +"So I heard," said I. "Well, he had lived his life." + +"Yes, but it was such a shockingly short illness. Why, only three weeks +ago he was walking about the street." And she looked nervously at her +husband, as though she expected him to give up the ghost at any minute. + +Then I gathered, with the knowledge of the length of his sickness, that +her grief was not for the late Mr. Strangeways, and went away thinking +over men and women I had known who would have given a thousand years in +Purgatory for even a week wherein to arrange their affairs, and who +were anything but well off. + +I passed on to a third house full of children, and the shadow of death +hung over their heads, for father and mother were talking of Mr. +Strangeway's "end." "Most shocking," said they. "It seems that his wife +was in the next room when he was dying, and his only son called her, +so she just had time to take him in her arms before he died. He was +unconscious at the last. Wasn't it awful?" + +When I went away from that house I thought of men and women without +a week wherein to arrange their affairs, and without any money, who +were anything but unconscious at the last, and who would have given a +thousand years in Purgatory for one glimpse at their mothers, their +wives or their husbands. I reflected how these people died tended by +hirelings and strangers, and I was not in the least ashamed to say +that I laughed over Mr. Strangeways' death as I entered the house of a +brother in his craft. + +"Heard of Strangeways' death?" said he. "Most hideous thing. Why, he +had only a few days before got news of his designs being accepted by +the Burgoyne Cathedral. If he had lived he would have been working out +the details now--with me." And I saw that this man's fear also was not +on account of Mr. Strangeways. And I thought of men and women who had +died in the midst of wrecked work; then I sought a company of young +men and heard them talk of the dead. "That's the second death among +people I know within the year," said one. "Yes, the second death," said +another. + +I smiled a very large smile. + +"And you know," said a third, who was the oldest of the party, "they've +opened the new road by the head of Tresillion Road, and the wind +blows straight across that level square from the Parks. Everything is +changing about us." + +"He was an old man," I said. + +"Ye-es. More than middle-aged," said they. + +"And he outlived his reputation?" + +"Oh, no, or how would he have taken the designs for the Burgoyne +Cathedral? Why, the very day he died...." + +"Yes," said I. "He died at the end of a completed work--his design +finished, his prize awarded?" + +"Yes; but he didn't live to...." + +"And his illness lasted seventeen days, of twenty-four hours each?" + +"Yes." + +"And he was tended by his own kith and kin, dying with his head on his +wife's breast, his hand in his only son's hand, without any thought of +their possible poverty to vex him. Are these things so?" + +"Ye-es," said they. "Wasn't it shocking?" + +"Shocking?" I said. "Get out of this place. Go forth, run about and +see what death really means. You have described such dying as a god +might envy and a king might pay half his ransom to make certain of. +Wait till you have seen men--strong men of thirty-five, with little +children, die at two days' notice, penniless and alone, and seen it not +once, but twenty times; wait till you have seen the young girl die +within a fortnight of the wedding; or the lover within three days of +his marriage; or the mother--sixty little minutes--before her son can +come to her side; wait till you hesitate before handling your daily +newspaper for fear of reading of the death of some young man that you +have dined with, drank with, shot with, lent money to and borrowed +money from, and tested to the uttermost--till you dare not hope for the +death of an old man, but, when you are strongest, count up the tale of +your acquaintances and friends, wondering how many will be alive six +months hence. Wait till you have heard men calling in the death hour on +kin that cannot come; till you have dined with a man one night and seen +him buried on the next. Then you can begin to whimper about loneliness +and change and desolation." Here I foamed at the mouth. + +"And do you mean to say," drawled a young gentleman, "that there is any +society in which that sort of holocaust goes on?" + +"I do," said I. "It's not society; it's life." And they laughed. + +But this is the old tale of Pharaoh's chariot-wheel and flying-fish. + +If I tell them yarns, they say: "How true! How true!" If I try to +present the truth, they say: "What superb imagination!" + +But you understand, don't you? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 23: "Turnovers," No. IX.] + + + + +A REALLY GOOD TIME[24] + + +There are times when one wants to get into pyjamas and stretch and +loll, and explain things generally. This is one of those times. It +is impossible to stand at ease in London, and the inhabitants are so +abominably egotistical that one cannot shout "I, I, I" for two minutes +without another man joining in with "Me, too!" Which things are an +allegory. + +The amusement began with a gentleman of infinite erudition offering to +publish my autobiography. I was to write a string of legends--he would +publish them; and would I forward a cheque for five guineas "to cover +incidental expenses?" To him I explained that I wanted five guinea +cheques myself very much indeed, and that, emboldened by his letter, +which gave me a very fair insight into his character, I was even then +maturing _his_ autobiography, which I hoped to publish before long +with illustrations, and would he forward a cheque for five guineas "to +cover incidental expenses?" This brought me an eight-page compilation +of contumely. He was grieved to find that he had been mistaken in my +character, which he had believed was, at least, elevated. He begged me +to remember that the first letter had been written in the strictest +confidence, and that if I notated one tittle of the said "repository" +he would unkennel the bloodhounds of the law and hunt me down. An +autobiography on the lines that I had "so flippantly proposed" was +libel without benefit of authorship, and I had better lend him two +guineas--I.O.U. enclosed--to salve his lacerated feelings. I replied +that I had his autobiography by me in manuscript, and would post it +to his address, V.P.P., two guineas and one-half. He evidently knew +nothing about the V.P.P., and the correspondence stopped. It is really +very hard for an Anglo-Indian to get along in London. Besides, my +autobiography is not a thing I should care to make public before +extensive Bowdlerisation. + +These things, however, only led up to much worse. I dare not grin over +them unless I step aside Eastward. I wrote stories, all about little +pieces of India, carefully arranged and expurgated for the English +public. Then various people began to write about them. One gentleman +pointed out that I had taken "the well-worn themes of passion, love, +despair and fate," and, thanks to the "singular fascination" of my +style had "wrought them into new and glowing fabricks instinct with the +eternal vitality of the East." For three days after this _chit_ I was +almost too proud to speak to the housemaid with the fan-teeth (there +is a story about her that I will tell another time). On the fourth day +another gentleman made clear that that beautiful style was "tortuous, +elaborated and inept," and it was only on account of the "newness of +the subjects handled so crabbedly" that I "arrested the attention of +the public for a day." Then I wept before the housemaid, and she +called me a "real gentleman" because I gave her a shilling. + +Then I tried an all-round cannon--published one thing under one name +and another under another, and sat still to watch. A gentleman, who +also speaks with authority on Literature and Art, came to me and said: +"I don't deny that there is a great deal of clever and superficial +fooling in that last thing of yours in the--I've forgotten what it was +called--but do you yourself think that you have that curious, subtle +grip on and instinct of matters Oriental that that other man shows in +his study of native life?" And he mentioned the name of my Other Self. +I bowed my head, and my shoulders shook with repentance and grief. +"No," said I. "It's so true," said he. "Yes," said I. "So feeling," +said he. "Indeed it is," said I. "Such honest work, too!" said he. +"Oh, awful!" said I. "Think it over," said he, "and try to follow his +path." "I will," said I. And when he left I danced sarabands with the +housemaid of the fan-teeth till she wanted to know whether I had bought +"spirruts." + +Then another man came along and sat on my sofa and hailed me as a +brother. "And I know that we are kindred souls," said he, "because I +feel sure that you have evolved all the dreamy mystery and curious +brutality of the British soldier from the pure realm of fancy." "I +did," I said. "If you went into a barrack-room you would see at +once." "Faugh!" said he. "What have we to do with barrack-rooms? The +pure air of fancy feeds us both; keep to that. If you are trammelled +by the bitter, _bornée_ truth, you are lost. You die the death of +Zola. Invention is the only test of creation." "Of course," said I. +"Zola's a bold, bad man. Not a patch on _you_." I hadn't caught his +name, but I fancied that would prevent him flinging himself about +on my sofa, which is a cheap one. "I don't say that altogether," he +said. "He has his strong points. But he is deficient in imaginative +constructiveness. _You_, I see from what you have said, will belong +to the Neo-Gynekalistic school." I knew "Gyne" meant something about +cow-killing, and was prepared to hedge when he said good-bye, and +wrote an article about my ways and works, which brought another man to +my door spouting foam. + +"Great Landor's ghost!" he said. "What under the stars has possessed +you to join the Gynekalistic lot?" "I haven't," I said. "I believe in +municipal regulation of slaughter-houses, if there is a strong Deputy +Commissioner to control the Muhammadan butchers, especially in the +hot weather, but...." "This is madness," said he. "Your reputation is +at stake. You must make it clear to the world that you have nothing +whatever to do with the flatulent, unballasted fiction of...." "Do you +suppose the world cares a tuppeny dam?" said I. + +Then he raged afresh, and left me, pointing out that the Gynewallahs +wrote about nothing but women--which seems rather an unlimited +subject--and that I would die the death of a French author whose name I +have forgotten. But it wasn't Zola this time. + +I asked the housemaid what in the world the Gynekalisthenics were. "La, +sir," said she, "it's only their way of being rude. That fat gentleman +with the long hair tried to kiss me when I opened the door. I slapped +his fat chops for him." + +Now the crisis is at its height. All the entire round world, composed, +as far as I can learn, of the Gynekalistic and the anti-Gynekalistic +man, and two or three loafers, are trying to find out to what school +I rightly belong. They seem to use what they are pleased to call my +reputation as a bolster through which to stab at the foe. One gentleman +is proving that I am a bit of a blackguard, probably reduced from the +ranks, rather an impostor, and a considerable amount of plagiarist. The +other man denies the reduction from the ranks, withholds judgment about +the plagiarism, but would like, in the interest of the public--who +are at present exclusively occupied with Barnum--to prove it true, +and is convinced that my style is "hermaphroditic." I have all the +money on the first man. He is on the eve of discovering that I stole a +dead Tommy's diary just before I was drummed out of the service for +desertion, and have lived on the proceeds ever since. "Do _yew_ know," +as the Private Secretary said at Simla this year, "it's remarkably hard +for an Anglo-Indian to get along in England." + +_Shakl hai lekin ukl nahin hai!_ + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 24: "Turnovers," No. IX.] + + + + +ON EXHIBITION[25] + + +It makes me blush pink all over to think about it, but, none the less, +I have brought the tale to you, confident that you will understand. An +invitation to tea arrived at my address. The English are very peculiar +people about their tea. They don't seem to understand that it is a +function at which any one who is passing down the Mall may present +himself. They issue formal cards--just as if tea-drinking were like +dancing. My invitation said that I was to tea from 4:30 till 6 P.M., +and there was never a word of lawn-tennis on the whole of the card. I +knew the English were heavy eaters, but this amazed me. "What in the +wide world," thought I, "will they find to do for an hour and a half? +Perhaps they'll play games, as it's near Christmas time. They can't +sit out in the verandah, and _chabutras_ are impossible." + +Wherefore I went to this house prepared for anything. There was a +fine show of damp wraps in the hall, and a cheerful babble of voices +from the other side of the drawing-room door. The hostess ran at me, +vehemently shouting: "Oh, I am so glad you have come. We were all +talking about you." As the room was entirely filled with strangers, +chiefly female, I reflected that they couldn't have said anything very +bad. Then I was introduced to everybody, and some of the people were +talking in couples, and didn't want to be interrupted in the least, +and some were behind settees, and some were in difficulty with their +tea-cups, and one and all had exactly the same name. That is the worst +of a lisping hostess. + +Almost before I had dropped the last limp hand, a burly ruffian, with a +beard, rumbled in my ear: "I trust you were satisfied with my estimate +of your powers in last week's _Concertina_?" + +Now I don't see the _Concertina_ because it's too expensive, but I +murmured: "Immense! immense! Most gratifying. Totally undeserved." And +the ruffian said: "In a measure, yes. Not wholly. I flatter myself +that----" + +"Oh, not in the least," said I. "No sugar, thanks." This to the +hostess, who was waving Sally Lunns under my nose. A female, who could +not have been less than seven feet high, came on, half speed ahead, +through the fog of the tea-steam, and docked herself on the sofa just +like an Inman liner. + +"Have you ever considered," said she, "the enormous moral +responsibility that rests in the hands of one who has the gift +of literary expression? In my own case--but you surely know my +collaborator." + +A much huger woman arrived, cast anchor, and docked herself on the +other side of the sofa. She was the collaborator. Together they +confided to me that they were desperately in earnest about the +amelioration of something or other. Their collective grievance against +me was that I was not in earnest. + +"We have studied your works--all," said the five-thousand-ton +four-master, "and we cannot believe that you are in earnest." "Oh, no," +I said hastily, "I never was." Then I saw that that was the wrong thing +to say, for the eight-thousand-ton palace Cunarder signalled to the +sister ship, saying: "You see, my estimate was correct." + +"Now, my complaint against him is that he is too savagely _farouche_," +said a weedy young gentleman with tow hair, who ate Sally Lunns like a +workhouse orphan. "_Faroucherie_ in his age is a fatal mistake." + +I reflected a moment on the possibility of getting that young gentleman +out into a large and dusty maidan and gently _chukkering_ him before +_chota hazri_. He looked too sleek to me as he then stood. But I said +nothing, because a tiny-tiny woman with beady-black eyes shrilled: "I +disagree with you entirely. He is too much bound by the tradition of +the commonplace. I have seen in his later work signs that he is afraid +of his public. You must _never_ be afraid of your public." + +Then they began to discuss me as though I were dead and buried under +the hearth-rug, and they talked of "tones" and "notes" and "lights" and +"shades" and tendencies. + +"And which of us do you think is correct in her estimate of your +character?" said the tiny-tiny woman when they had made me out (a) a +giddy Lothario; (b) a savage; (c) a pre-Rafaelite angel; (d) co-equal +and co-eternal with half a dozen gentlemen whose names I had never +heard; (e) flippant; (f) penetrated with pathos; (g) an open atheist; +(h) a young man of the Roman Catholic faith with a mission in life. + +I smiled idiotically, and said I really didn't know. + +Then a man entered whom I knew, and I fled to him for comfort. "Have I +missed the fun?" he asked with a twinkle in his eye. + +I explained, snorting, what had befallen. + +"Ay," said he quietly, "you didn't go the right way to work. You should +have stood on the hearth-rug and fired off epigrams. That's what I did +after I had written _Down in the Doldrums_, and was fed with crumpets +in consequence." + +A woman plumped down by my side and twisted her hands into knots, and +hung her eyes over her cheek-bones. I thought it was too many muffins, +till she said: "Tell me, oh, tell me, was such-and-such in such a one +of your books--was he _real_? Was he _quite_ real? Oh, how lovely! How +sweet! How precious!" She alluded to that drunken ruffian Mulvaney, who +would have driven her into fits had he ever set foot on her doorstep in +the flesh. I caught the half of a wink in my friend's eye as he removed +himself and left me alone to tell fibs about the evolution of Private +Mulvaney. I said anything that came uppermost, and my answers grew so +wild that the woman departed. + +Then I heard the hostess whispering to a girl, a nice, round, healthy +English maiden. "Go and talk to him," she said. "Talk to him about his +books." + +I gritted my teeth, and waited till the maiden was close at hand and +about to begin. There was a lovely young man at the end of the room +sucking a stick, and I felt sure that the maiden would much have +preferred talking to him. She smiled prefatorily. + +"It's hot here," I said; "let's go over to the window"; and I plumped +down on a three-seated settee, with my back to the young man, leaving +only one place for the maiden. I was right. I signalled up the man who +had written _Down in the Doldrums_, and talked to him as fast as I knew +how. When he had to go, and the young man with him, the maiden became +enthusiastic, not to say gushing. But I knew that those compliments +were for value received. Then she explained that she was going out to +India to stay with her married aunt, wherefore she became as a sister +unto me on the spot. Her mamma did not seem to know much about Indian +outfits, and I waxed eloquent on the subject. + +"It's all nonsense," I said, "to fill your boxes with things that can +be made just as well in the country. What you want are walking-dresses +and dinner-dresses as good as ever you can get, and gloves tinned +up, and odds and ends of things generally. All the rest, unless +you're extravagant, the _dharzee_ can make in the verandah. Take +underclothing, for instance." I was conscious that my loud and cheerful +voice was ploughing through one of those ghostly silences that +sometimes fall upon a company. The English only wear their outsides in +company. They have nothing to do with underclothing. I could feel that +without being told. So the silence cut short the one matter in which I +could really have been of use. + +On the pavement my friend who wrote _Down in the Doldrums_ was waiting +to walk home with me. "What in the world does it all mean?" I said. +"Nothing," said he. "You've been asked there as a small deputy lion to +roar in place of a much bigger man. You growled, though." + +"I should have done much worse if I'd known," I grunted. "Ah," said he, +"you haven't arrived at the real fun of the show. Wait till they've +made you jump through hoops and your turn's over, and you can sit on +a sofa and watch the new men being brought up and put through their +paces. You've nothing like that in India. How do you manage your +parties?" + +And I thought of smooth-cut lawns in the gloaming, and tables spread +under mighty trees, and men and women, all intimately acquainted with +each other, strolling about in the lightest of raiment, and the old +dowagers criticising the badminton, and the young men in riding-boots +making rude remarks about the claret cup, and the host circulating +through the mob and saying: "Hah, Piggy," or Bobby or Flatnose, as the +nickname might be, "have another peg," and the hostess soothing the +bashful youngsters and talking _khitmatgars_ with the Judge's wife, and +the last new bride hanging on her husband's arm and saying: "Isn't it +almost time to go home, Dicky, dear?" and the little fat owls chuckling +in the _bougainvilleas_, and the horses stamping and squealing in +the carriage-drive, and everybody saying the most awful things about +everybody else, but prepared to do anything for anybody else just the +same; and I gulped a great gulp of sorrow and homesickness. + +"You wouldn't understand," said I to my friend. "Let's go to a +pot-house, where cabbies call, and drink something." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 25: "Turnovers," No. IX.] + + + + +THE THREE YOUNG MEN[26] + +LONDON IN THE FOG + + +"Curiouser and curiouser," as Alice in Wonderland said when she found +her neck beginning to grow. Each day under the smoke brings me new and +generally unpleasant discoveries. The latest are most on my mind. I +hasten to transfer them to yours. + +At first, and several times afterwards, I very greatly desired to talk +to a thirteen-two subaltern--not because he or I would have anything +valuable to say to each other, but just because he was a subaltern. I +wanted to know all about that evergreen polo-pony that "can turn on +a sixpence," and the second-hand second charger that, by a series of +perfectly unprecedented misfortunes, just failed to win the Calcutta +Derby. Then, too, I wished to hear of many old friends across the +sea, and who had got his company, and why and where the new Generals +were going next cold weather, and how the Commander-in-Chief had been +enlivening the Simla season. So I looked east and west, and north and +south, but never a thirteen-two subaltern broke through the fog; except +once--and he had grown a fifteen-one cot down, and wore a tall hat +and frock coat, and was begging for coppers from the Horse-Guards. By +the way, if you stand long enough between the mounted sentries--the +men who look like reflectors stolen from Christmas trees--you will +presently meet every human being you ever knew in India. When I am +not happy--that is to say, once a day--I run off and play on the +pavement in front of the Horse-Guards, and watch the expressions on the +gentlemen's faces as they come out. But this is a digression. + +After some days--I grew lonelier and lonelier every hour--I went away +to the other end of the town, and catching a friend, said: "Lend me a +man--a young man--to play with. I don't feel happy. I want rousing. I +have liver." And the friend said: "Ah, yes, of course. What you want +is congenial society, something that will stir you up--a fellow-mind. +Now let me introduce you to a thoroughly nice young man. He's by way of +being an ardent Neo-Alexandrine, and has written some charming papers +on the 'Ethics of the Wood Pavement.'" Concealing my almost visible +rapture, I murmured "Oh, bliss!" as they used to say at the Gaiety, and +extended the hand of friendship to a young gentleman attired after the +fashion of the Neo-Alexandrines, who appear to be a sub-caste of social +priests. His hand was a limp hand, his face was very smooth because +he had not yet had time to grow any hair, and he wore a cloak like a +policeman's cloak, but much more so. On his finger was a cameo-ring +about three inches wide, and round his neck, the weather being warm, +was a fawn, olive and dead-leaf comforter of soft silk--the sort of +thing any right-minded man would give to his mother or his sister +without being asked. + +We looked at each other cautiously for some minutes. Then he said: +"What do you think of the result of the Brighton election?" "Beautiful, +beautiful," I said, watching his eye, which saddened. "One of the +worst--that is, entirely the most absurd _reductio ad absurdum_ of the +principle of the narrow and narrow-minded majority imposing a will +which is necessarily incult on a minority animated by...." I forget +exactly what he said they were animated by, but it was something very +fine. + +"When I was at Oxford," he said, "Haward of Exeter"--he spoke as one +speaks of Smith of Asia--"always inculcated at the Union----By the way, +you do not know, I suppose, anything of the life at Oxford?" "No," I +said, anxious to propitiate, "but I remember some boys once who seduced +an ekka and a pony into a Major's tent at a camp of exercise, laced +up the door, and let the Major fight it out with the horse." I told +that little incident in my best style, and was three parts through it +before I discovered that he was looking pained and shocked. + +"That--ah--was not the side of Oxford that I had in mind when I was +saying that Haward of Exeter----" And he explained all about Mr. +Haward, who appeared to be a young gentleman, rising twenty-three, +of wonderful mental attainments, and as pernicious a prig as I ever +dreamed about. Mr. Haward had schemes for the better management of +creation; my friend told me them all--social, political and economical. + +Then, just as I was feeling faint and very much in need of a drink, +he launched without warning upon the boundless seas of literature. +He wished to know whether I had read the works of Messrs. Guy de +Maupassant, Paul Bourget and Pierre Loti. This in the tone of a teacher +of Euclid. I replied that all my French was confined to the Vie +Parisienne and translations of Zola's novels with illustrations. Here +we parted. London is very large, and I do not think we shall meet any +more. + +I thanked our Mutual Friend for his kindness, and asked for another +young man to play with. This gentleman was even younger than the +last, but quite as cocksure. He told me in the course of half a +cigar that only men of mediocre calibre went into the army, which +was a brutalising profession; that he suffered from nerves, and "an +uncontrollable desire to walk up and down the room and sob" (that was +too many cigarettes), and that he had never set foot out of England, +but knew all about the world from his own theories. Thought Dickens +coarse; Scott jingling and meretricious; and had not by any chance read +the novels of Messrs. Guy de Maupassant, Paul Bourget and Pierre Loti. + +Him I left quickly, but sorry that he could not do a six weeks' +training with a Middlesex militia regiment, where he would really get +something to sob for. The novel business interested me. I perceived +that it was a fashion, like his tie and his collars, and I wanted +to work it to the fountain-head. To this end I procured the whole +Shibboleth from Guy de Maupassant even unto Pierre Loti by way of +Bourget. Unwholesome was a mild term for these interesting books, which +the young men assured me that they read for style. When a fat Major +makes that remark in an Indian Club, everybody hoots and laughs. But +you must not laugh overseas, especially at young gentlemen who have +been to Oxford and listened to Mr. Haward of Exeter. + +Then I was introduced to another young man who said he belonged to +a movement called Toynbee Hall, where, I gathered, young gentlemen +took an indecent interest in the affairs of another caste, whom, with +rare tact, they called "the poor," and told them generally how to +order their lives. Such was the manner and general aggressiveness of +this third young gentleman, that if he had told me that coats were +generally worn and good for the protection of the body, I should have +paraded Bond Street in my shirt. What the poor thought of him I could +not tell, but there is no room for it in this letter. He said that +there was going to be an upheaval of the classes--the English are +very funny about their castes. They don't know how to handle them +one little bit, and never allow them to draw water or build huts in +peace--and the entire social fabric was about to be remodelled on +his recommendations, and the world would be generally altered past +recognition. No, he had never seen anything of the world, but close +acquaintance with authorities had enabled him to form dispassionate +judgments on the subjects, and had I, by any chance, read the novels of +Guy de Maupassant, Pierre Loti and Paul Bourget? + +It was a mean thing to do, but I couldn't help it. I had read 'em. I +put him on, so to speak, far back in Paul Bourget, who is a genial sort +of writer. I pinned him to one book. He could not escape from Paul +Bourget. He was fed with it till he confessed--and he had been quite +ready to point out its beauties--that we could not take much interest +in the theories put forward in that particular book. Then I said: "Get +a dictionary and read him," which severed our budding friendship. + +Thereafter I sought our Mutual Friend and walked up and down his room +sobbing, or words to that effect. "Good gracious!" said my friend. "Is +that what's troubling you? Now, I hold the ravaging rights over half +a dozen fields and a bit of a wood. You can pot rabbits there in the +evenings sometimes, and anyway you get exercise. Come along." + +So I went. I have not yet killed anything, but it seems wasteful to +drive good powder and shot after poor little bunnies when there are so +many other things in the world that would be better for an ounce and +a half of number five at sixty yards--not enough to disable, but just +sufficient to sting, and be pricked out with a penknife. + +I should like to wield that penknife. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 26: "Turnovers," No. IX.] + + + + +MY GREAT AND ONLY[27] + + +Whether Macdougal or Macdoodle be his name, the principle remains the +same, as Mrs. Nickleby said. The gentleman appeared to hold authority +in London, and by virtue of his position preached or ordained that +music-halls were vulgar, if not improper. Subsequently, I gathered +that the gentleman was inciting his associates to shut up certain +music-halls on the ground of the vulgarity aforesaid, and I saw with +my own eyes that unhappy little managers were putting notices into the +corners of their programmes begging the audience to report each and +every impropriety. That was pitiful, but it excited my interest. + +Now, to the upright and impartial mind--which is mine--all the +diversions of Heathendom--which is the British--are of equal +ethnological value. And it is true that some human beings can be +more vulgar in the act of discussing etchings, editions of luxury, +or their own emotions, than other human beings employed in swearing +at each other across the street. Therefore, following a chain of +thought which does not matter, I visited very many theatres whose +licenses had never been interfered with. There I discovered men and +women who lived and moved and behaved according to rules which in no +sort regulate human life, by tradition dead and done with, and after +the customs of the more immoral ancients and Barnum. At one place the +lodging-house servant was an angel, and her mother a Madonna; at a +second they sounded the loud timbrel o'er a whirl of bloody axes, mobs, +and brown-paper castles, and said it was not a pantomime, but Art; +at a third everybody grew fabulously rich and fabulously poor every +twenty minutes, which was confusing; at a fourth they discussed the +Nudities and Lewdities in false-palate voices supposed to belong to +the aristocracy and that tasted copper in the mouth; at a fifth they +merely climbed up walls and threw furniture at each other, which is +notoriously the custom of spinsters and small parsons. Next morning the +papers would write about the progress of the modern drama (that was the +silver paper pantomime), and "graphic presentment of the realities of +our highly complex civilisation." That was the angel housemaid. By the +way, when an Englishman has been doing anything more than unusually +Pagan, he generally consoles himself with "over-civilisation." It's the +"martyr-to-nerves-dear" note in his equipment. + +I went to the music-halls--the less frequented ones--and they were +almost as dull as the plays, but they introduced me to several +elementary truths. Ladies and gentlemen in eccentric, but not +altogether unsightly, costumes told me (a) that if I got drunk I should +have a head next morning, and perhaps be fined by the magistrate; (b) +that if I flirted promiscuously I should probably get into trouble; +(c) that I had better tell my wife everything and be good to her, or +she would be sure to find out for herself and be very bad to me; (d) +that I should never lend money; or (e) fight with a stranger whose form +I did not know. My friends (if I may be permitted to so call them) +illustrated these facts with personal reminiscences and drove them home +with kicks and prancings. At intervals circular ladies in pale pink and +white would low to their audience to the effect that there was nothing +half so sweet in life as "Love's Young Dream," and the billycock hats +would look at the four-and-elevenpenny bonnets, and they saw that it +was good and clasped hands on the strength of it. Then other ladies +with shorter skirts would explain that when their husbands + + "Stagger home tight about two, + An' can't light the candle, + We taik the broom 'andle + An' show 'em what women can do." + +Naturally, the billycocks, seeing what might befall, thought things +over again, and you heard the bonnets murmuring softly under the clink +of the lager-glasses: "Not _me_, Bill. Not _me_!" Now these things are +basic and basaltic truths. Anybody can understand them. They are as old +as Time. Perhaps the expression was occasionally what might be called +coarse, but beer is beer, and best in a pewter, though you can, if you +please, drink it from Venetian glass and call it something else. The +halls give wisdom and not too lively entertainment for sixpence--ticket +good for four pen'orth of refreshments, chiefly inky porter--and the +people who listen are respectable folk living under very grey skies who +derive all the light side of their life, the food for their imagination +and the crystallised expression of their views on Fate and Nemesis, +from the affable ladies and gentlemen singers. They require a few +green and gold maidens in short skirts to kick before them. Herein +they are no better and no worse than folk who require fifty girls very +much undressed, and a setting of music, or pictures that won't let +themselves be seen on account of their age and varnish, or statues and +coins. All animals like salt, but some prefer rock-salt, red or black +in lumps. But this is a digression. + +Out of my many visits to the hall--I chose one hall, you understand, +and frequented it till I could tell the mood it was in before I had +passed the ticket-poll--was born the Great Idea. I served it as a slave +for seven days. Thought was not sufficient; experience was necessary. +I patrolled Westminster, Blackfriars, Lambeth, the Old Kent Road, and +many, many more miles of pitiless pavement to make sure of my subject. +At even I drank my lager among the billycocks, and lost my heart to +a bonnet. Goethe and Shakespeare were my precedents. I sympathised +with them acutely, but I got my Message. A chance-caught refrain of a +song which I understand is protected--to its maker I convey my most +grateful acknowledgments--gave me what I sought. The rest was made up +of four elementary truths, some humour, and, though I say it who should +leave it to the press, pathos deep and genuine. I spent a penny on a +paper which introduced me to a Great and Only who "wanted new songs." +The people desired them really. He was their ambassador, and taught +me a great deal about the property-right in songs, concluding with +a practical illustration, for he said my verses were just the thing +and annexed them. It was long before he could hit on the step-dance +which exactly elucidated the spirit of the text, and longer before he +could jingle a pair of huge brass spurs as a dancing-girl jingles her +anklets. That was my notion, and a good one. + +The Great and Only possessed a voice like a bull, and nightly roared +to the people at the heels of one who was winning triple encores +with a priceless ballad beginning deep down in the bass: "We was +shopmates--boozin' shopmates." I feared that song as Rachel feared +Ristori. A greater than I had written it. It was a grim tragedy, +lighted with lucid humour, wedded to music that maddened. But my "Great +and Only" had faith in me, and I--I clung to the Great Heart of the +People--my people--four hundred "when it's all full, sir." I had not +studied them for nothing. I must reserve the description of my triumph +for another "Turnover." + +There was no portent in the sky on the night of my triumph. A +barrowful of onions, indeed, upset itself at the door, but that was +a coincidence. The hall was crammed with billycocks waiting for "We +was shopmates." The great heart beat healthily. I went to my beer the +equal of Shakespeare and Molière at the wings in a first night. What +would my public say? Could anything live after the abandon of "We +was shopmates"? What if the redcoats did not muster in their usual +strength. O my friends, never in your songs and dramas forget the +redcoat. He has sympathy and enormous boots. + +I believed in the redcoat; in the great heart of the people: above all +in myself. The conductor, who advertised that he "doctored bad songs," +had devised a pleasant little lilting air for my needs, but it struck +me as weak and thin after the thunderous surge of the "Shopmates." +I glanced at the gallery--the redcoats were there. The fiddle-bows +creaked, and, with a jingle of brazen spurs, a forage-cap over his +left eye, my Great and Only began to "chuck it off his chest." Thus: + + "At the back o' the Knightsbridge Barricks, + When the fog was a-gatherin' dim, + The Lifeguard talked to the Undercook, + An' the girl she talked to 'im." + +"_Twiddle-iddle-iddle-lum-tum-tum!_" said the violins. + +"_Ling-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling-ting-ling!_" said the spurs of the Great +and Only, and through the roar in my ears I fancied I could catch a +responsive hoof-beat in the gallery. The next four lines held the +house to attention. Then came the chorus and the borrowed refrain. +It took--it went home with a crisp click. My Great and Only saw his +chance. Superbly waving his hand to embrace the whole audience, he +invited them to join him in: + + "You may make a mistake when you're mashing a tart, + But you'll learn to be wise when you're older, + And don't try for things that are out of your reach, + And that's what the girl told the soldier, soldier, soldier, + And that's what the girl told the soldier." + +I thought the gallery would never let go of the long-drawn howl on +"soldier." They clung to it as ringers to the kicking bell-rope. Then +I envied no one--not even Shakespeare. I had my house hooked--gaffed +under the gills, netted, speared, shot behind the shoulder--anything +you please. That was pure joy! With each verse the chorus grew louder, +and when my Great and Only had bellowed his way to the fall of the +Lifeguard and the happy lot of the Undercook, the gallery rocked again, +the reserved stalls shouted, and the pewters twinkled like the legs +of the demented ballet-girls. The conductor waved the now frenzied +orchestra to softer Lydian strains. My Great and Only warbled piano: + + "At the back o' Knightsbridge Barricks, + When the fog's a-gatherin' dim, + The Lifeguard waits for the Undercook, + But she won't wait for 'im." + +"_Ta-ra-rara-rara-ra-ra-rah!_" rang a horn clear and fresh as a +sword-cut. 'Twas the apotheosis of virtue. + + "She's married a man in the poultry line + That lives at 'Ighgate 'Ill, + An' the Lifeguard walks with the 'ousemaid now, + An' (_awful pause_) she can't foot the bill!" + +Who shall tell the springs that move masses? I had builded better +than I knew. Followed yells, shrieks and wildest applause. Then, as a +wave gathers to the curl-over, singer and sung to fill their chests +and heave the chorus through the quivering roof--alto, horns, basses +drowned, and lost in the flood--to the beach-like boom of beating feet: + + "Oh, think o' my song when you're gowin' it strong + An' your boots is too little to 'old yer; + An' don't try for things that is out of your reach, + An' that's what the girl told the soldier, soldier, so-holdier!" + +Ow! Hi! Yi! Wha-hup! Phew! Whew! Pwhit! Bang! Wang! Crr-rash! There was +ample time for variations as the horns uplifted themselves and ere the +held voices came down in the foam of sound-- + + "_That's what the girl told the soldier._" + +Providence has sent me several joys, and I have helped myself to +others, but that night, as I looked across the sea of tossing +billycocks and rocking bonnets, my work, as I heard them give tongue, +not once, but four times--their eyes sparkling, their mouths twisted +with the taste of pleasure--I felt that I had secured Perfect Felicity. +I am become greater than Shakespeare. I may even write plays for +the Lyceum, but I never can recapture that first fine rapture that +followed the Upheaval of the Anglo-Saxon four hundred of him and her. +They do not call for authors on these occasions, but I desired no need +of public recognition. I was placidly happy. The chorus bubbled up +again and again throughout the evening, and a redcoat in the gallery +insisted on singing solos about "a swine in the poultry line," whereas +I had written "man," and the pewters began to fly, and afterwards the +long streets were vocal with various versions of what the girl had +really told the soldier, and I went to bed murmuring: "I have found my +destiny." + +But it needs a more mighty intellect to write the Songs of the People. +Some day a man will rise up from Bermondsey, Battersea or Bow, and he +will be coarse, but clearsighted, hard but infinitely and tenderly +humorous, speaking the people's tongue, steeped in their lives and +telling them in swinging, urging, dinging verse what it is that their +inarticulate lips would express. He will make them songs. Such songs! +And all the little poets who pretend to sing to the people will scuttle +away like rabbits, for the girl (which, as you have seen, of course, +is wisdom) will tell that soldier (which is Hercules bowed under his +labours) all that she knows of Life and Death and Love. + +And the same, they say, is a Vulgarity! + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 27: "Turnovers," No. IX.] + + + + +"THE BETRAYAL OF CONFIDENCES"[28] + + +That was its real name, and its nature was like unto it; but what else +could I do? You must judge for me. + +They brought a card--the housemaid with the fan-teeth held it gingerly +between black finger and blacker thumb--and it carried the name Mr. +R.H. Hoffer in old Gothic letters. A hasty rush through the file of +bills showed me that I owed nothing to any Mr. Hoffer, and assuming my +sweetest smile, I bade Fan of the Teeth show him up. Enter stumblingly +an entirely canary-coloured young person about twenty years of age, +with a suspicious bulge in the bosom of his coat. He had grown no hair +on his face; his eyes were of a delicate water-green, and his hat +was a brown billycock, which he fingered nervously. As the room was +blue with tobacco-smoke (and Latakia at that) he coughed even more +nervously, and began seeking for me. I hid behind the writing-table and +took notes. What I most noted was the bulge in his bosom. When a man +begins to bulge as to that portion of his anatomy, hit him in the eye, +for reasons which will be apparent later on. + +He saw me and advanced timidly. I invited him seductively to the only +other chair, and "What's the trouble?" said I. + +"I wanted to see you," said he. + +"I am me," said I. + +"I--I--I thought you would be quite otherwise," said he. + +"I am, on the contrary, completely this way," said I. "Sit still, take +your time and tell me all about it." + +He wriggled tremulously for three minutes, and coughed again. I +surveyed him, and waited developments. The bulge under the bosom +crackled. Then I frowned. At the end of three minutes he began. + +"I wanted to see what you were like," said he. + +I inclined my head stiffly, as though all London habitually climbed the +storeys on the same errand and rather wearied me. + +Then he delivered himself of a speech which he had evidently got by +heart. He flushed painfully in the delivery. + +"I am flattered," I said at the conclusion. "It's beastly gratifying. +What do you want?" + +"Advice, if you will be so good," said the young man. + +"Then you had better go somewhere else," said I. + +The young man turned pink. "But I thought, after I had read your +works--all your works, on my word--I had hoped that you would +understand me, and I really have come for advice." The bulge crackled +more ominously than ever. + +"I understand perfectly," said I. "You are oppressed with vague and +nameless longings, are you not?" + +"I am, terribly," said he. + +"You do not wish to be as other men are? You desire to emerge from the +common herd, to make your mark, and so forth?" + +"Yes," said he in an awestricken whisper. "That is my desire." + +"Also," said I, "you love, excessively, in several places at once +cooks, housemaids, governesses, schoolgirls, and the aunts of other +people." + +"But one only," said he, and the pink deepened to beetroot. + +"Consequently," said I, "you have written much--you have written +verses." + +"It was to teach me to write prose, only to teach me to write prose," +he murmured. "You do it yourself, because I have bought your works--all +your works." + +He spoke as if he had purchased dunghills _en bloc_. + +"We will waive that question," I said loftily. "Produce the verses." + +"They--they aren't exactly verses," said the young man, plunging his +hand into his bosom. + +"I beg your pardon, I meant will you be good enough to read your +five-act tragedy." + +"How--how in the world did you know?" said the young man, more +impressed than ever. + +He unearthed his tragedy, the title of which I have given, and began +to read. I felt as though I were walking in a dream; having been till +then ignorant of the fact that earth held young men who held five-act +tragedies in their insides. The young man gave me the whole of the +performance, from the preliminary scene, where nothing more than an +eruption of Vesuvius occurs to mar the serenity of the manager, till +the very end, where the Roman sentry of Pompeii is slowly banked up +with ashes in the presence of the audience, and dies murmuring through +his helmet-vizor: "S.P.Q.R.R.I.P.R.S.V.P.," or words to that effect. + +For three hours and one-half he read to me. And then I made a mistake. + +"Sir," said I, "who's your Ma and Pa?" + +"I haven't got any," said he, and his lower lip quivered. + +"Where do you live?" I said. + +"At the back of Tarporley Mews," said he. + +"How?" said I. + +"On eleven shillings a week," said he. + +"I was pretty well educated, and if you don't stay too long they will +let you read the books in the Holywell Street stalls." + +"And you wasted your money buying my books," said I with a lump the +size of a bolster in my throat. + +"I got them second-hand, four and sixpence," said he, "and some I +borrowed." + +Then I collapsed. I didn't weep, but I took the tragedy and put it in +the fire, and called myself every name that I knew. + +This caused the young man to sob audibly, partly from emotion and +partly from lack of food. + +I took off my hat to him before I showed him out, and we went to a +restaurant and I arranged things generally on a financial basis. + +Would that I could let the tale stop here. But I cannot. + +Three days later a man came to see me on business, an objectionable man +of uncompromising truth. Just before he departed he said: "D' you know +anything about the struggling author of a tragedy called 'The Betrayal +of Confidences'?" + +"Yes," said I. "One of the few poor souls who in the teeth of grinding +poverty keep alight." + +"At the back of Tarporley Mews," said he. "On eleven shillings a week." + +"On the mischief!" said I. + +"He didn't happen to tell you that he considered you the finest, +subtlest, truest, and so forth of all the living so forths, did he?" + +"He may have said something out of the fulness of an overladen heart. +You know how unbridled is the enthusiasm of----" + +"Young gentlemen who buy your books with their last farthing. You +didn't soak it all in by any chance, give him a good meal and half a +sovereign as well, did you?" + +"I own up," I said. "I did all that and more. But how do you know?" + +"Because he victimised me in the same way a fortnight ago." + +"Thank you for that," I said, "but I burned his disgusting manuscripts. +And he wept." + +"There, unless he keeps a duplicate, you have scored one." + +But considering the matter impartially, it seems to me that the game is +not more than "fifteen all" in any light. + +It makes me blush to think about it. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 28: "Turnovers," No. IX.] + + + + +THE NEW DISPENSATION--I[29] + +LONDON IN A FOG--NOVEMBER + + +Things have happened--but that is neither here nor there. What I +urgently require is a servant--a nice, fat Mussulman _khitmatgar_, +who is not above doing bearer's work on occasion. Such a man I would +go down to Southampton or Tilbury to meet, would usher tenderly into +a first-class carriage (I always go third myself), and wrap in the +warmest of flannel. He should be "_Jenab_" and I would be "_O Tum_." +When he died, as he assuredly would in this weather, I would bury him +in my best back garden and write mortuary verses for publication in the +_Koh-i-Nur_, or whatever vernacular paper he might read. I want, in +short, a servant; and this is why I am writing to you. + +The English, who, by the way, are unmitigated barbarians, maintain +cotton-print housemaids to do work which is the manifest portion of a +man. Besides which, no properly constructed person cares to see a white +woman waiting upon his needs, filling coal-scuttles (these are very +mysterious beasts) and tidying rooms. The young homebred Englishman +does not object, and one of the most tantalising sights in the world +is that of the young man of the house--the son newly introduced to +shaving-water and great on the subject of maintaining authority--it is +tantalising, I say, to see this young cub hectoring a miserable little +slavey for not having lighted a fire or put his slippers in their +proper place. The next time a big, bold man from the frontier comes +home I shall hire him to kick a few young gentlemen of my acquaintance +all round their own drawing-rooms while I lecture on my theory that +this sort of thing accounts for the perceptible lack of chivalry in +the modern Englishman. Now, if you or I or anybody else raved over and +lectured at Kadir Baksh, or Ram Singh, or Jagesa on the necessity of +obeying orders and the beauty of reverencing our noble selves, our men +would laugh; or if the lecture struck them as too long-winded would ask +us if our livers were out of order and recommend _dawai_. The housemaid +must stand with her eyes on the ground while the young whelp sticks +his hands under the tail of his dressing-gown and explains her duty to +her. This makes me ill and sick--sick for Kadir Baksh, who rose from +the earth when I called him, who knew the sequence of my papers and +the ordering of my paltry garments, and, I verily believed, loved me +not altogether for the sake of lucre. He said he would come with me to +_Belait_ because, "though the sahib says he will never return to India, +yet I know, and all the other _nauker log_ know, that return is his +fate." + +Being a fool, I left Kadir Baksh behind, and now I am alone with +housemaids, who will under no circumstances sleep on the mat outside +the door. Even as I write, one of these persons is cleaning up my room. +Kadir Baksh would have done his work without noise. She tramps and +scuffles; and, what is much worse, snuffles horribly. Kadir Baksh would +have saluted me cheerfully and began some sort of a yarn of the "It +hath reached me, O Auspicious King!" order, and perhaps we should have +debated over the worthlessness of Dunni, the _sais_, or the chances of +a little cold-weather expedition, or the wisdom of retaining a fresh +_chaprassi_--some intimate friend of Kadir Baksh. But now I have no +horses and no _chaprassis_, and this smutty-faced girl glares at me +across the room as though she expected I was going to eat her. + +She must have a soul of her own--a life of her own--and perhaps a few +amusements. I can't get at these things. She says: "Ho, yuss," and +"Ho, no," and if I hadn't heard her chattering to the lift-boy on the +stairs I should think that her education stopped at these two phrases. +Now, I knew all about Kadir Baksh, his hopes and his savings--his +experiences in the past, and the health of the little ones. He was a +man--a human man remarkably like myself, and he knew that as well as +I. A housemaid is of course not a man, but she might at least be a +woman. My wanderings about this amazing heathen city have brought me +into contact with very many English _mem sahibs_ who seem to be eaten +up with the fear of letting their servants get "above their position," +or "presume," or do something which would shake the foundations of the +four-mile cab radius. They seem to carry on a sort of cat-and-mouse war +when the husband is at office and they have nothing much to do. Later, +at places where their friends assemble, they recount the campaign, and +the other women purr approvingly and say: "You did quite right, my +dear. It is evident that she forgets her place." + +All this is edifying to the stranger, and gives him a great idea of +the dignity that has to be bolstered and buttressed, eight hours of +the twenty-four, against the incendiary attacks of an eighteen-pound +including-beer-money sleeps-in-a-garret-at-the-top-of-the-house +servant-girl. There is a fine-crusted, slave-holding instinct in the +hearts of a good many deep-bosomed matrons--a "throw back" to the +times when we trafficked in black ivory. At tea-tables and places +where they eat muffins it is called dignity. Now, your Kadir Baksh or +my Kadir Baksh, who is a downtrodden and oppressed heathen (the young +gentlemen who bullyrag white women assure me that we are in the habit +of kicking our dependents and beating them with umbrellas daily), +would ask for his _chits_, and probably say something sarcastic ere he +drifted out of the compound gate, if you nagged or worried his noble +self. He does not know much about the meaner forms of dignity, but +he is entirely sound on the subject of _izzat_; and the fact of his +cracking an azure and Oriental jest with you in the privacy of your +dressing-room, or seeing you at your incoherent worst when you have an +attack of fever, does not in the least affect his general deportment in +public, where he knows that the honour of his sahib is his own honour, +and dons a new _kummerbund_ on the strength of it. + +I have tried to deal with those housemaids in every possible way. +To sling a blunt "Annie" or "Mary" or "Jane" at a girl whose only +fault is that she is a heavy-handed incompetent, strikes me as rather +an insult, seeing that the girl may have a brother, and that if you +had a sister who was a servant you would object to her being howled +at upstairs and downstairs by her given name. But only ladies' maids +are entitled to their surnames. They are not nice people as a caste, +and they regard the housemaids as the _chamar_ regards the _mehter_. +Consequently, I have to call these girls by their Christian names, and +cock my feet up on a chair when they are cleaning the grate, and pass +them in the halls in the morning as though they didn't exist. Now, the +morning salutation of your Kadir Baksh or my Kadir is a performance +which Turveydrop might envy. These persons don't understand a nod; they +think it as bad as a wink, I believe. Respect and courtesy are lost +upon them, and I suppose I must gather my dressing-gown into a tail and +swear at them in the bloodless voice affected by the British female +who--have I mentioned this?--is a highly composite heathen when she +comes in contact with her sister clay downstairs. + +The softer methods lay one open to harder suspicions. Not long +ago there was trouble among my shirts. I fancied buttons grew on +neck-bands. Kadir Baksh and the _durzie_ encouraged me in the belief. +When the lead-coloured linen (they cannot wash, by the way, in this +stronghold of infidels) shed its buttons I cast about for a means +of renewal. There was a housemaid, and she was not very ugly, and +I thought she could sew. I knew I could not. Therefore I strove to +ingratiate myself with her, believing that a little interest, combined +with a little capital, would fix those buttons more firmly than +anything else. Subsequently, and after an interval--the buttons were +dropping like autumn leaves--I kissed her. The buttons were attached at +once. So, unluckily, was the housemaid, for I gathered that she looked +forward to a lifetime of shirt-sewing in an official capacity, and my +Revenue Board contemplated no additional establishment. My shirts are +buttonsome, but my character is blasted. Oh, I wish I had Kadir Baksh! + +This is only the first instalment of my troubles. The heathen in these +parts do not understand me; so if you will allow I will come to you for +sympathy from time to time. I am a child of calamity. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 29: "Turnovers," Vol. VIII.] + + + + +THE NEW DISPENSATION--II[30] + + +Writing of Kadir Baksh so wrought up my feelings that I could not rest +till I had at least made an attempt to get a _budli_ of some sort. +The black man is essential to my comfort. I fancied I might in this +city of barbarism catch a brokendown native strayed from his home and +friends, who would be my friend and humble pardner--the sort of man, y' +know, who would sleep on a rug somewhere near my chambers (I have forty +things to tell you about chambers, but they come later), and generally +look after my things. In the intervals of labour I would talk to him in +his own tongue, and we would go abroad together and explore London. + +Do you know the Albert Docks? The British-India steamers go thence +to the sunshine. They sometimes leave a lascar or two on the wharf, +and, in fact, the general tone of the population thereabouts is brown +and umber. I was in no case to be particular. Anything dusky would do +for me, so long as it could talk Hindustani and sew buttons. I went +to the docks and walked about generally among the railway lines and +packing-cases, till I found a man selling tooth-combs, which is not a +paying trade. He was ragged even to furriness, and very unwashed. But +he came from the East. "What are you?" I said, and the look of the +missionary that steals over me in moments of agitation deluded that +tooth-comb man into answering, "Sar, I am native ki-li-sti-an," but he +put five more syllables into the last word. + +There is no Christianity in the docks worth a tooth-comb. "I don't want +your beliefs. I want your _jat_," said I. + +"I am Tamil," said he, "and my name is Ramasawmy." + +It was an awful thing to lower oneself to the level of a Colonel of +the Madras Army, and come down to being tended by a Ramasawmy; but +beggars cannot be choosers. I pointed out to him that the tooth-comb +trade was a thing lightly to be dropped and taken up. He might injure +his health by a washing, but he could not much hurt his prospects by +coming along with me and trying his hand at bearer's work. "Could he +work?" Oh, yes, he didn't mind work. He had been a servant in his time. +Several servants, in fact. + +"Could he wash himself?" + +"Ye-es," he might do that if I gave him a coat--a thick +coat--afterwards, and especially took care of the tooth-combs, for they +were his little all. + +"Had he any character of any kind?" + +He thought for a minute and then said cheerfully: "Not a little dam." +Thereat I loved him, because a man who can speak the truth in minor +matters may be trusted with important things, such as shirts. + +We went home together till we struck a public bath, mercifully divided +into three classes. I got him to go into the third without much +difficulty. When he came out he was in the way of cleanliness, and +before he had time to expostulate I ran him into the second. Into the +first he would not go till I had bought him a cheap ulster. He came +out almost clean. That cost me three shillings altogether. The ulster +was half a sovereign, and some other clothes were thirty shillings. +Even these things could not hide from me that he looked an unusually +villainous creature. + +At the chambers the trouble began. The people in charge had race +prejudices very strongly, and I had to point out that he was a +civilised native Christian anxious to improve his English--it was +fluent but unchastened--before they would give him some sort of a crib +to lie down in. The housemaids called him the Camel. I introduced him +as "the Tamil," but they knew nothing of the ethnological sub-divisions +of India. They called him "that there beastly camel," and I saw by the +light in his eye he understood only too well. + +Coming up the staircase he confided to me his views about the +housemaids. He had lived at the docks too long. I said they weren't. He +said they were. + +Then I showed him his duties, and he stood long in thought before +the wardrobe. He evidently knew more than a little of the work, but +whenever he came to a more than unusually dilapidated garment, he said: +"No good for you, _I_ take"; and he took. Then he put all the buttons +on in the smoking of a pipe, and asked if there was anything else. I +weakly said "No." He said: "Good-bye," and faded out of the house. The +housekeeper of the chambers said he would never return. + +But he did. At three in the morning home he came, and, naturally, +possessing no latch-key, rang the bell. A policeman interfered, taking +him for a burglar, and I was roused by the racket. I explained he was +my servant, and the policeman said: "He do swear wonderful. 'Tain't +any language. I know most of it, but some I've heard at Poplar." Then +I dragged the Camel upstairs. He was quite sober, and said he had +been waiting at the docks. He must wait at the docks every time a +British-India steamer came in. A lascar on the _Rewah_ had stabbed him +in the side three voyages ago, and he was waiting for his man. "Maybe +he have died," he said; "but if he have not died I catch him and cut +his liver out." Then he curled himself up on the mat, and slept as +noiselessly as a child. + +Next morning he inspected the humble breakfast bloater, which did not +meet with his approval, for he instantly cut it in two pieces, fried +it with butter, dusted it with pepper, and miraculously made of it a +dish fit for a king. When the shock-headed boy came to take away the +breakfast things, he counted every piece of crockery into his quaking +hand and said: "If you break one dam thing I cut your dam liver out and +fly _him_ with butter." Consequently, the housemaids said they were not +going to clean the rooms as long as the Camel abode within. The Camel +put his head out of the door and said they need not. He cleaned the +rooms with his own hand and without noise, filled my pipe, made the +bed, filled a pipe for himself, and sat down on the hearth-rug while +I worked. When thought carried him away to the lascar of the _Rewah_, +he would brandish the poker or take out his knife and whet it on the +brickwork of the grate. It was a soothing sound to work to. At one +o'clock he said that the _Chyebassa_ would be in, and he must go. He +demanded no money, saw that my tiffin was served, and fled. He returned +at six o'clock singing a hymn. A lascar on the _Chyebassa_ had told +him that the _Rewah_ was due in four days, and that his friend was not +dead, but ripe for the knife. That night he got very drunk while I was +out, and frightened the housemaids. All the chambers were in an uproar, +but he crawled out of the skylight on the roof, and sat there till I +came home. + +In the dawn he was very penitent. He had misarranged his drink: the +original intention being to sleep it off on my hearth-rug, but a +housemaid had invited a friend up to the chambers to look at him, and +the whispered comments and giggles made him angry. All next day he was +restless but attentive. He urged me to fly to foreign shores, and take +him with me. When other inducements failed, he reiterated that he was a +"native ki-lis-ti-an," and whetted his knife more furiously than ever. +"You do not like this place. _I_ do not like this place. Let us travel +_dam_ quick. Let us go on the sea. _I_ cook blotters." I told him this +was impossible, but that if he stayed in my service we might later go +abroad and enjoy ourselves. + +But he would not rest and sleep on the rug and tend my shirts. On the +morning of the _Rewah's_ arrival he went away, and from his absence I +fancied he had fallen into the hands of the law. But at midnight he +came back, weak and husky. + +"Have got him," said he simply, and dragged his ulster down from the +wall, wrapping it very tightly round him. "Now I go 'way." + +He went into the bedroom, and began counting over the tale of the +week's wash, the boots, and so forth. "All right," he called into the +other room. Then came in to say good-bye, walking slowly. + +"What's your name, marshter?" said he. I told him. He bowed and +descended the staircase painfully. I had not paid him a penny, and +since he did not ask for it, counted on his returning at least for +wages. + +It was not till next morning that I found big dark drops on most of my +clean shirts, and the housemaid complained of a trail of blood all down +the staircase. + +"The Camel" had received payment in full from other hands than mine. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 30: "Turnovers," Vol. VIII.] + + + + +THE LAST OF THE STORIES[31] + + + _Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better than that a man + should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion._ + + --_Ecc._ iii, 22. + +"Kench with a long hand, lazy one," I said to the punkah coolie. "But +I am tired," said the coolie. "Then go to Jehannum and get another man +to pull," I replied, which was rude and, when you come to think of it, +unnecessary. + +"Happy thought--go to Jehannum!" said a voice at my elbow. I turned +and saw, seated on the edge of my bed, a large and luminous Devil. +"I'm not afraid," I said. "You're an illusion bred by too much tobacco +and not enough sleep. If I look at you steadily for a minute you will +disappear. You are an _ignis fatuus_." + +"Fatuous yourself!" answered the Devil blandly. "Do you mean to say +you don't know _me_?" He shrivelled up to the size of a blob of +sediment on the end of a pen, and I recognised my old friend the Devil +of Discontent, who lived in the bottom of the inkpot, but emerges +half a day after each story has been printed with a host of useless +suggestions for its betterment. + +"Oh, it's you, is it?" I said. "You're not due till next week. Get back +to your inkpot." + +"Hush!" said the Devil. "I have an idea." + +"Too late, as usual. I know your ways." + +"No. It's a perfectly practicable one. Your swearing at the coolie +suggested it. Did you ever hear of a man called Dante--charmin' fellow, +friend o' mine?" + +"'Dante once prepared to paint a picture,'" I quoted. + +"Yes. I inspired that notion--but never mind. Are you willing to play +Dante to my Virgil? I can't guarantee a nine-circle Inferno, any more +than _you_ can turn out a cantoed epic, but there's absolutely no risk +and--it will run to three columns at least." + +"But what sort of Hell do you own?" I said. "I fancied your operations +were mostly above ground. You have no jurisdiction over the dead." + +"Sainted Leopardi!" rapped the Devil, resuming natural size. "Is +_that_ all you know? I'm proprietor of one of the largest Hells in +existence--the Limbo of Lost Endeavor, where the souls of all the +Characters go." + +"Characters? What Characters?" + +"All the characters that are drawn in books, painted in novels, +sketched in magazine articles, thumb-nailed in _feuilletons_ or in +any way created by anybody and everybody who has had the fortune or +misfortune to put his or her writings into print." + +"That sounds like a quotation from a prospectus. What do you herd +Characters for? Aren't there enough souls in the Universe?" + +"Who possess souls and who do not? For aught you can prove, man may be +soulless and the creatures he writes about immortal. Anyhow, about a +hundred years after printing became an established nuisance, the loose +Characters used to blow about interplanetary space in legions which +interfered with traffic. So they were collected, and their charge +became mine by right. Would you care to see them? _Your own are there._" + +"That decides me. But _is_ it hotter than Northern India?" + +"On my Devildom, no. Put your arms round my neck and sit tight. I'm +going to dive!" + +He plunged from the bed headfirst into the floor. There was a smell of +jail-_durrie_ and damp earth; and then fell the black darkness of night. + + * * * * * + +We stood before a door in a topless wall, from the further side of +which came faintly the roar of infernal fires. + +"But you said there was no danger!" I cried in an extremity of terror. + +"No more there is," said the Devil. "That's only the Furnace of First +Edition. Will you go on? No other human being has set foot here in the +flesh. Let me bring the door to your notice. Pretty design, isn't it? A +joke of the Master's." + +I shuddered, for the door was nothing more than a coffin, the backboard +knocked out, set on end in the thickness of the wall. As I hesitated, +the silence of space was cut by a sharp, shrill whistle, like that of +a live shell, which rapidly grew louder and louder. "Get away from the +door," said the Devil of Discontent quickly. "Here's a soul coming to +its place." I took refuge under the broad vans of the Devil's wings. +The whistle rose to an ear-splitting shriek and a naked soul flashed +past me. + +"Always the same," said the Devil quietly. "These little writers +are _so_ anxious to reach their reward. H'm, I don't think he likes +_his'n_, though." A yell of despair reached my ears and I shuddered +afresh. "Who was he?" I asked. "Hack-writer for a pornographic firm in +Belgium, exporting to London, you'll understand presently--and now +we'll go in," said the Devil. "I must apologise for that creature's +rudeness. He should have stopped at the distance-signal for line-clear. +You can hear the souls whistling there now." + +"Are they the souls of men?" I whispered. + +"Yes--writer-men. That's why they are so shrill and querulous. Welcome +to the Limbo of Lost Endeavour!" + +They passed into a domed hall, more vast than visions could embrace, +crowded to its limit by men, women and children. Round the eye of the +dome ran, a flickering fire, that terrible quotation from Job: "Oh, +that mine enemy had written a book!" + +"Neat, isn't it?" said the Devil, following my glance. "Another joke +of the Master's. Man of _Us_, y' know. In the old days we used to put +the Characters into a disused circle of Dante's Inferno, but they grew +overcrowded. So Balzac and Théophile Gautier were commissioned to write +up this building. It took them three years to complete, and is one of +the finest under earth. Don't attempt to describe it unless you are +_quite_ sure you are equal to Balzac and Gautier in collaboration. Look +at the crowds and tell me what you think of them." + +I looked long and earnestly, and saw that many of the multitude were +cripples. They walked on their heels or their toes, or with a list to +the right or left. A few of them possessed odd eyes and parti-coloured +hair; more threw themselves into absurd and impossible attitudes; and +every fourth woman seemed to be weeping. + +"Who are these?" I said. + +"Mainly the population of three-volume novels that never reach the +six-shilling stage. See that beautiful girl with one grey eye and one +brown, and the black and yellow hair? Let her be an awful warning to +you how you correct your proofs. She was created by a careless writer a +month ago, and he changed all colours in the second volume. So she came +here as you see her. There will be trouble when she meets her author. +He can't alter her now, and she says she'll accept no apology." + +"But when will she meet her author?" + +"Not in _my_ department. Do you notice a general air of expectancy +among all the Characters? They are waiting for their authors. Look! +That explains the system better than I can." + +A lovely maiden, at whose feet I would willingly have fallen and +worshipped, detached herself from the crowd and hastened to the door +through which I had just come. There was a prolonged whistle without, +a soul dashed through the coffin and fell upon her neck. The girl with +the parti-coloured hair eyed the couple enviously as they departed arm +in arm to the other side of the hall. + +"That man," said the Devil, "wrote one magazine story, of twenty-four +pages, ten years ago when he was desperately in love with a flesh and +blood woman. He put all his heart into the work, and created the girl +you have just seen. The flesh and blood woman married some one else and +died--it's a way they have--but the man has this girl for his very +own, and she will everlastingly grow sweeter." + +"Then the Characters are independent?" + +"Slightly! Have you never known one of your Characters--even yours--get +beyond control as soon as they are made?" + +"That's true. Where are those two happy creatures going?" + +"To the Levels. You've heard of authors finding their levels? We keep +all the Levels here. As each writer enters, he picks up his Characters, +or they pick _him_ up, as the case may be, and to the Levels he goes." + +"I should like to see----" + +"So you shall, when you come through that door a second +time--whistling. I can't take you there now." + +"Do you keep only the Characters of living scribblers in this hall?" + +"We should be crowded out if we didn't draft them off somehow. Step +this way and I'll take you to the Master. One moment, though. There's +John Ridd with Lorna Doone, and there are Mr. Maliphant and the +Bormalacks--clannish folk, those Besant Characters--don't let the twins +talk to you about Literature and Art. Come along. What's here?" + +The white face of Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, broke through the press. +"I wish to explain," said he in a level voice, "that had I been +consulted I should never have blown out my brains with the Duchess and +all that Poker Flat lot. I wish to add that the only woman I ever loved +was the wife of Brown of Calaveras." He pressed his hand behind him +suggestively. "All right, Mr. Oakhurst," I said hastily; "I believe +you." "_Kin_ you set it right?" he asked, dropping into the Doric of +the Gulches. I caught a trigger's cloth-muffled click. "Just heavens!" +I groaned. "Must I be shot for the sake of another man's Characters?" +Oakhurst levelled his revolver at my head, but the weapon was struck +up by the hand of Yuba Bill. "You durned fool!" said the stage-driver. +"Hevn't I told you no one but a blamed idiot shoots at sight _now_? +Let the galoot go. You kin see by his eyes he's no party to your +matrimonial arrangements." Oakhurst retired with an irreproachable bow, +but in my haste to escape I fell over Caliban, his head in a melon and +his tame orc under his arm. He spat like a wildcat. + +"Manners none, customs beastly," said the Devil. "We'll take the Bishop +with us. They all respect the Bishop." And the great Bishop Blougram +joined us, calm and smiling, with the news, for my private ear, that +Mr. Gigadibs despised him no longer. + +We were arrested by a knot of semi-nude Bacchantes kissing a clergyman. +The Bishop's eyes twinkled, and I turned to the Devil for explanation. + +"That's Robert Elsmere--what's left of him," said the Devil. "Those are +French _feuilleton_ women and scourings of the Opera Comique. He has +been lecturing 'em, and they don't like it." "He lectured _me_!" said +the Bishop with a bland smile. "He has been a nuisance ever since he +came here. By the Holy Law of Proportion, he had the audacity to talk +to the Master! Called him a 'pot-bellied barbarian'! That is why he +is walking so stiffly now," said the Devil. "Listen! Marie Pigeonnier +is swearing deathless love to him. On my word, we ought to segregate +the French characters entirely. By the way, your regiment came in very +handy for Zola's importations." + +"My regiment?" I said. "How do you mean?" + +"You wrote something about the Tyneside Tail-Twisters, just enough to +give the outline of the regiment, and of course it came down here--one +thousand and eighty strong. I told it off in hollow squares to pen +up the Rougon-Macquart series. There they are." I looked and saw the +Tyneside Tail-Twisters ringing an inferno of struggling, shouting, +blaspheming men and women in the costumes of the Second Empire. Now and +again the shadowy ranks brought down their butts on the toes of the +crowd inside the square, and shrieks of pain followed. "You should have +indicated your men more clearly; they are hardly up to their work," +said the Devil. "If the Zola tribe increase, I'm afraid I shall have +to use up your two companies of the Black Tyrone and two of the Old +Regiment." + +"I am proud----" I began. + +"Go slow," said the Devil. "You won't be half so proud in a little +while, and I don't think much of your regiments, anyway. But they are +good enough to fight the French. Can you hear Coupeau raving in the +left angle of the square? He used to run about the hall seeing pink +snakes, till the children's story-book Characters protested. Come +along!" + +Never since Caxton pulled his first proof and made for the world a +new and most terrible God of Labour had mortal man such an experience +as mine when I followed the Devil of Discontent through the shifting +crowds below the motto of the Dome. A few--a very few--of the faces +were of old friends, but there were thousands whom I did not recognise. +Men in every conceivable attire and of every possible nationality, +deformed by intention, or the impotence of creation that could not +create--blind, unclean, heroic, mad, sinking under the weight of +remorse, or with eyes made splendid by the light of love and fixed +endeavour; women fashioned in ignorance and mourning the errors of +their creator, life and thought at variance with body and soul; perfect +women such as walk rarely upon this earth, and horrors that were women +only because they had not sufficient self-control to be fiends; little +children, fair as the morning, who put their hands into mine and made +most innocent confidences; loathsome, lank-haired infant-saints, +curious as to the welfare of my soul, and delightfully mischievous +boys, generalled by the irrepressible Tom Sawyer, who played among +murderers, harlots, professional beauties, nuns, Italian bandits and +politicians of state. + +The ordered peace of Arthur's Court was broken up by the incursions +of Mr. John Wellington Wells, and Dagonet, the jester, found that his +antics drew no attention so long as the "dealer in magic and spells," +taking Tristram's harp, sang patter-songs to the Round Table; while a +Zulu Impi, headed by Allan Quatermain, wheeled and shouted in sham +fight for the pleasure of Little Lord Fauntleroy. Every century and +every type was jumbled in the confusion of one colossal fancy-ball +where all the characters were living their parts. + +"Aye, look long," said the Devil. "You will never be able to describe +it, and the next time you come you won't have the chance. Look long, +and look at"--Good's passing with a maiden of the Zu-Vendi must have +suggested the idea--"look at their legs." I looked, and for the second +time noticed the lameness that seemed to be almost universal in the +Limbo of Lost Endeavour. Brave men and stalwart to all appearance had +one leg shorter than the other; some paced a few inches above the +floor, never touching it, and others found the greatest difficulty in +preserving their feet at all. The stiffness and laboured gait of these +thousands was pitiful to witness. I was sorry for them. I told the +Devil as much. + +"H'm," said he reflectively, "that's the world's work. Rather cockeye, +ain't it? They do everything but stand on their feet. _You_ could +improve them, I suppose?" There was an unpleasant sneer in his tone, +and I hastened to change the subject. + +"I'm tired of walking," I said. "I want to see some of my own +Characters, and go on to the Master, whoever he may be, afterwards." + +"Reflect," said the Devil. "Are you certain--do you know how many they +be?" + +"No--but I want to see them. That's what I came for." + +"Very well. Don't abuse me if you don't like the view. There are +one-and-fifty of your make up to date, and--it's rather an appalling +thing to be confronted with fifty-one children. However, here's a +special favourite of yours. Go and shake hands with her!" + +A limp-jointed, staring-eyed doll was hirpling towards me with a +strained smile of recognition. I felt that I knew her only too well--if +indeed she were she. "Keep her off, Devil!" I cried, stepping back. "I +never made _that_!" "'She began to weep and she began to cry, Lord ha' +mercy on me, this is none of I!' You're very rude to--Mrs. Hauksbee, +and she wants to speak to you," said the Devil. My face must have +betrayed my dismay, for the Devil went on soothingly: "That's as she +_is_, remember. I _knew_ you wouldn't like it. Now what will you give +if I make her as she ought to be? No, I don't want your soul, thanks. +I have it already, and many others of better quality. Will you, when +you write your story, own that I am the best and greatest of all +the Devils?" The doll was creeping nearer. "Yes," I said hurriedly. +"Anything you like. Only I can't stand her in that state." + +"You'll _have_ to when you come next again. Look! No connection with +Jekyll and Hyde!" The Devil pointed a lean and inky finger towards the +doll, and lo! radiant, bewitching, with a smile of dainty malice, her +high heels clicking on the floor like castanets, advanced Mrs. Hauksbee +as I had imagined her in the beginning. + +"Ah!" she said. "You are here so soon? Not dead yet? That will come. +Meantime, a thousand congratulations. And now, what do you think of +me?" She put her hands on her hips, revealed a glimpse of the smallest +foot in Simla and hummed: "'Just look at that--just look at this! And +then you'll see I'm not amiss.'" + +"She'll use exactly the same words when you meet her next time," said +the Devil warningly. "You dowered her with any amount of vanity, if +you left out----Excuse me a minute! I'll fetch up the rest of your +menagerie." But I was looking at Mrs. Hauksbee. + +"Well?" she said. "_Am_ I what you expected?" I forgot the Devil and +all his works, forgot that this was not the woman I had made, and +could only murmur rapturously: "By Jove! You _are_ a beauty." Then, +incautiously: "And you stand on your feet." "Good heavens!" said +Mrs. Hauksbee. "Would you, at my time of life, have me stand on my +head?" She folded her arms and looked me up and down. I was grinning +imbecilely--the woman was so alive. "Talk," I said absently; "I want to +hear you talk." "I am not used to being spoken to like a coolie," she +replied. "Never mind," I said, "that may be for outsiders, but I made +you and I've a right----" + +"You have a right? You made me? My dear sir, if I didn't know that we +should bore each other so inextinguishably hereafter I should read +you an hour's lecture this instant. You made me! I suppose you will +have the audacity to pretend that you understand me--that you _ever_ +understood me. Oh, man, man--foolish man! If you only knew!" + +"Is that the person who thinks he understands us, Loo?" drawled a voice +at her elbow. The Devil had returned with a cloud of witnesses, and it +was Mrs. Mallowe who was speaking. + +"I've touched 'em all up," said the Devil in an aside. "You couldn't +stand 'em raw. But don't run away with the notion that they are your +work. I show you what they ought to be. You must find out for yourself +how to make 'em so." + +"Am I allowed to remodel the batch--up above?" I asked anxiously. + +"_Litera scripta manet._ That's in the Delectus and Eternity." He +turned round to the semi-circle of Characters: "Ladies and gentlemen, +who are all a great deal better than you should be by virtue of _my_ +power, let me introduce you to your maker. If you have anything to say +to him, you can say it." + +"What insolence!" said Mrs. Hauksbee between her teeth. "This isn't +a Peterhoff drawing-room. I haven't the slightest intention of being +leveed by this person. Polly, come here and we'll watch the animals +go by." She and Mrs. Mallowe stood at my side. I turned crimson with +shame, for it is an awful thing to see one's Characters in the solid. + +"Wal," said Gilead P. Beck as he passed, "I would not be you at this +_pre_-cise moment of time, not for all the ile in the univarsal airth. +_No_, sirr! I thought my dinner-party was soul-shatterin', but it's +mush--mush and milk--to your circus. Let the good work go on!" + +I turned to the company and saw that they were men and women, standing +upon their feet as folks should stand. Again I forgot the Devil, who +stood apart and sneered. From the distant door of entry I could hear +the whistle of arriving souls, from the semi-darkness at the end of +the hall came the thunderous roar of the Furnace of First Edition, +and everywhere the restless crowds of Characters muttered and rustled +like windblown autumn leaves. But I looked upon my own people and was +perfectly content as man could be. + +"I have seen you study a new dress with just such an expression of +idiotic beatitude," whispered Mrs. Mallowe to Mrs. Hauksbee. "Hush!" +said the latter. "He thinks he understands." Then to me: "Please trot +them out. Eternity is long enough in all conscience, but that is no +reason for wasting it. _Pro_-ceed, or shall I call them up? Mrs. +Vansuythen, Mr. Boult, Mrs. Boult, Captain Kurrel and the Major!" The +European population in Kashima in the Dosehri hills, the actors in the +Wayside Comedy, moved towards me; and I saw with delight that they were +human. "So you wrote about us?" said Mrs. Boult. "About my confession +to my husband and my hatred of that Vansuythen woman? Did you think +that you understood? Are _all_ men such fools?" "That woman is bad +form," said Mrs. Hauksbee, "but she speaks the truth. I wonder what +these soldiers have to say." Gunner Barnabas and Private Shacklock +stopped, saluted, and hoped I would take no offence if they gave it as +their opinion that I had not "got them down quite right." I gasped. + +A spurred Hussar succeeded, his wife on his arm. It was Captain +Gadsby and Minnie, and close behind them swaggered Jack Mafflin, the +Brigadier-General in his arms. "Had the cheek to try to describe our +life, had you?" said Gadsby carelessly. "Ha-hmm! S'pose he understood, +Minnie?" Mrs. Gadsby raised her face to her husband and murmured: +"I'm _sure_ he didn't, Pip," while Poor Dear Mamma, still in her +riding-habit, hissed: "I'm sure he didn't understand _me_." And these +also went their way. + +One after another they filed by--Trewinnard, the pet of his Department; +Otis Yeere, lean and lanthorn-jawed; Crook O'Neil and Bobby Wick arm in +arm; Janki Meah, the blind miner in the Jimahari coal fields; Afzul +Khan, the policeman; the murderous Pathan horse-dealer, Durga Dass; the +bunnia, Boh Da Thone; the dacoit, Dana Da, weaver of false magic; the +Leander of the Barhwi ford; Peg Barney, drunk as a coot; Mrs. Delville, +the dowd; Dinah Shadd, large, red-cheeked and resolute; Simmons, Slane +and Losson; Georgie Porgie and his Burmese helpmate; a shadow in a high +collar, who was all that I had ever indicated of the Hawley Boy--the +nameless men and women who had trod the Hill of Illusion and lived in +the Tents of Kedar, and last, His Majesty the King. + +Each one in passing told me the same tale, and the burden thereof was: +"You did not understand." My heart turned sick within me. "Where's Wee +Willie Winkie?" I shouted. "Little children don't lie." + +A clatter of pony's feet followed, and the child appeared, habited as +on the day he rode into Afghan territory to warn Coppy's love against +the "bad men." "I've been playing," he sobbed, "playing on ve Levels +wiv Jackanapes and Lollo, an' _he_ says I'm only just borrowed. I'm +_isn't_ borrowed. I'm Willie Wi-_inkie_! Vere's Coppy?" + +"'Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings,'" whispered the Devil, who +had drawn nearer. "You know the rest of the proverb. Don't look as if +you were going to be shot in the morning! Here are the last of your +gang." + +I turned despairingly to the Three Musketeers, dearest of all my +children to me--to Privates Mulvaney, Ortheris and Learoyd. Surely the +Three would not turn against me as the others had done! I shook hands +with Mulvaney. "Terence, how goes? Are _you_ going to make fun of me, +too?" "'Tis not for me to make fun av you, sorr," said the Irishman, +"knowin' as I _du_ know, fwat good friends we've been for the matter av +three years." + +"Fower," said Ortheris, "'twas in the Helanthami barricks, H block, we +was become acquaint, an' 'ere's thankin' you kindly for all the beer +we've drunk twix' that and now." + +"Four ut is, then," said Mulvaney. "He an' Dinah Shadd are your +friends, but----" He stood uneasily. + +"But what?" I said. + +"Savin' your presence, sorr, an' it's more than onwillin' I am to be +hurtin' you; you did not ondersthand. On my sowl an' honour, sorr, you +did not ondersthand. Come along, you two." + +But Ortheris stayed for a moment to whisper: "It's Gawd's own trewth, +but there's this 'ere to think. 'Tain't the bloomin' belt that's wrong, +as Peg Barney sez, when he's up for bein' dirty on p'rade. 'Tain't the +bloomin' belt, sir; it's the bloomin' pipeclay." Ere I could seek an +explanation he had joined his companions. + +"For a private soldier, a singularly shrewd man," said Mrs. Hauksbee, +and she repeated Ortheris's words. The last drop filled my cup, and I +am ashamed to say that I bade her be quiet in a wholly unjustifiable +tone. I was rewarded by what would have been a notable lecture on +propriety, had I not said to the Devil: "Change that woman to a d----d +doll again! Change 'em all back as they were--as they are. I'm sick of +them." + +"Poor wretch!" said the Devil of Discontent very quietly. "They are +changed." + +The reproof died on Mrs. Hauksbee's lips, and she moved away +marionette-fashion, Mrs. Mallowe trailing after her. I hastened after +the remainder of the Characters, and they were changed indeed--even as +the Devil had said, who kept at my side. + +They limped and stuttered and staggered and mouthed and staggered round +me, till I could endure no more. + +"So I am the master of this idiotic puppet-show, am I?" I said +bitterly, watching Mulvaney trying to come to attention by spasms. + +"_In saecula saeculorum_," said the Devil, bowing his head; "and you +needn't kick, my dear fellow, because they will concern no one but +yourself by the time you whistle up to the door. Stop reviling me and +uncover. Here's the Master!" + +Uncover! I would have dropped on my knees, had not the Devil prevented +me, at sight of the portly form of Maitre François Rabelais, some +time Curé of Meudon. He wore a smoke-stained apron of the colours +of Gargantua. I made a sign which was duly returned. "An Entered +Apprentice in difficulties with his rough ashlar, Worshipful Sir," +explained the Devil. I was too angry to speak. + +Said the Master, rubbing his chin: "Are those things yours?" "Even so, +Worshipful Sir," I muttered, praying inwardly that the Characters would +at least keep quiet while the Master was near. He touched one or two +thoughtfully, put his hand upon my shoulder and started: "By the Great +Bells of Notre Dame, you are in the flesh--the warm flesh!--the flesh I +quitted so long--ah, so long! And you fret and behave unseemly because +of these shadows! Listen now! I, even I, would give my Three, Panurge, +Gargantua and Pantagruel, for one little hour of the life that is in +you. And _I_ am the Master!" + +But the words gave me no comfort. I could hear Mrs. Mallowe's joints +cracking--or it might have been merely her stays. + +"Worshipful Sir, he will not believe that," said the Devil. "Who live +by shadows lust for shadows. Tell him something more to his need." + +The Master grunted contemptuously: "And he is flesh and blood! Know +this, then. The First Law is to make them stand upon their feet, and +the Second is to make them stand upon their feet, and the Third is to +make them stand upon their feet. But, for all that, Trajan is a fisher +of frogs." He passed on, and I could hear him say to himself: "One +hour--one minute--of life in the flesh, and I would sell the Great +Perhaps thrice over!" + +"Well," said the Devil, "you've made the Master angry, seen about all +there is to be seen, except the Furnace of First Edition, and, as the +Master is in charge of that, I should avoid it. Now you'd better go. +You know what you ought to do?" + +"I don't need all Hell----" + +"Pardon me. Better men than you have called this Paradise." + +"All _Hell_, I said, and the Master to tell me what I knew before. +What I want to know is _how_?" "Go and find out," said the Devil. We +turned to the door, and I was aware that my Characters had grouped +themselves at the exit. "They are going to give you an ovation. Think +o' that, now!" said the Devil. I shuddered and dropped my eyes, while +one-and-fifty voices broke into a wailing song, whereof the words, so +far as I recollect, ran: + + But we brought forth and reared in hours + Of change, alarm, surprise. + What shelter to grow ripe is ours-- + What leisure to grow wise? + +I ran the gauntlet, narrowly missed collision with an impetuous soul (I +hoped he liked his Characters when he met them), and flung free into +the night, where I should have knocked my head against the stars. But +the Devil caught me. + + * * * * * + +The brain-fever bird was fluting across the grey, dewy lawn, and the +punkah had stopped again. "Go to Jehannum and get another man to +pull," I said drowsily. "Exactly," said a voice from the inkpot. + +Now the proof that this story is absolutely true lies in the fact that +there will be no other to follow it. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 31: From "Week's News," Sept. 15, 1888.] + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59332 *** |