FOOTNOTES:[26]"Turnovers," No. IX.
FOOTNOTES:
[26]"Turnovers," No. IX.
[26]"Turnovers," No. IX.
MY GREAT AND ONLY[27]
WhetherMacdougal 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 tobelong 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 everythingand 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 'andleAn' 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 theclink of the lager-glasses: "Notme, Bill. Notme!" 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. Imust 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 lineThat 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 strongAn' 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 theevening, 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:[27]"Turnovers," No. IX.
FOOTNOTES:
[27]"Turnovers," No. IX.
[27]"Turnovers," No. IX.
"THE BETRAYAL OF CONFIDENCES"[28]
Thatwas 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 hishat 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 dunghillsen 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:[28]"Turnovers," No. IX.
FOOTNOTES:
[28]"Turnovers," No. IX.
[28]"Turnovers," No. IX.
THE NEW DISPENSATION—I[29]
LONDON IN A FOG—NOVEMBER
Thingshave happened—but that is neither here nor there. What I urgently require is a servant—a nice, fat Mussulmankhitmatgar, 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 theKoh-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 recommenddawai. 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 toBelaitbecause, "though the sahib says he will never return to India, yet I know, and all the othernauker logknow, 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. Shetramps 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, thesais, or the chances of a little cold-weather expedition, or the wisdom of retaining a freshchaprassi—some intimate friend of Kadir Baksh. But now I have no horses and nochaprassis, 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 aswell 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 Englishmem sahibswho 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 hischits, 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 ofizzat; 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 newkummerbundon 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 thechamarregards themehter. 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 heathenwhen 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 thedurzieencouraged 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:[29]"Turnovers," Vol. VIII.
FOOTNOTES:
[29]"Turnovers," Vol. VIII.
[29]"Turnovers," Vol. VIII.
THE NEW DISPENSATION—II[30]
Writingof Kadir Baksh so wrought up my feelings that I could not rest till I had at least made an attempt to get abudliof 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 yourjat," said I.
"I am Tamil," said he, "and my name is Ramasawmy."
It was an awful thing to lower oneself tothe 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 mehis 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,Itake"; 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 thedocks. He must wait at the docks every time a British-India steamer came in. A lascar on theRewahhad 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 flyhimwith 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 theRewah, 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 theChyebassawould 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 theChyebassahad told him that theRewahwas 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 urgedme 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.Ido not like this place. Let us traveldamquick. Let us go on the sea.Icook 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 theRewah'sarrival 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 theother 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:[30]"Turnovers," Vol. VIII.
FOOTNOTES:
[30]"Turnovers," Vol. VIII.
[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.
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.
"Kenchwith 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 aminute you will disappear. You are anignis fatuus."
"Fatuous yourself!" answered the Devil blandly. "Do you mean to say you don't knowme?" 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 thanyoucan 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. "Isthatall 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 infeuilletonsor 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 andthe 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. Butisit 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-durrieand 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'sonly 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 aresoanxious to reach their reward. H'm, I don't think he likeshis'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'llunderstand 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 ofUs, 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 arequitesure 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 inmydepartment. 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 hisvery 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 pickhimup, 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 theBormalacks—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." "Kinyou 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 sightnow? Let the galoot go. You kin see by his eyes he'sno 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 Frenchfeuilletonwomen and scourings of the Opera Comique. He has been lecturing 'em, and they don't like it." "He lecturedme!" 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 theweight 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 shamfight 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.Youcould 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 madethat!" "'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 shewants to speak to you," said the Devil. My face must have betrayed my dismay, for the Devil went on soothingly: "That's as sheis, remember. Iknewyou 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'llhaveto 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 herhips, 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. "AmI 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! Youarea 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 maybe 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 youeverunderstood 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 ofmypower, 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 thispre-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 thedistant 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 thinkthat you understood? Areallmen 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'msurehe didn't, Pip," while Poor Dear Mamma, still in her riding-habit, hissed: "I'm sure he didn't understandme." 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, theblind 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'hesays I'm only just borrowed. I'misn'tborrowed. 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? Areyougoing to make fun of me, too?" "'Tis not for me to make fun av you, sorr," said the Irishman, "knowin' as Iduknow, 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 dollagain! 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.