"If you please, sir," said Billy in his singing voice, "would you mind telling us the time?"
"Go to——" But at that moment the gentleman lowered his fierce old eyes and encountered the gaze of Billy, who was standing full in his path.
Have you ever seen a wild beast suddenly grow tame? I have not, but I saw something like it on the occasion of which I speak. Never did a swifter or more astonishing change pass over the countenance of any human being. I really think the old fellow suffered a physical shock, for he stepped back two paces and looked for a moment like one who has been seriously hurt. Then he recovered himself; lowered his spectacles to the tip of his nose; gazed over them, at me for a moment, at Billy for a quarter of a minute, and finally broke out into a hearty laugh.
"Well," he exclaimed, in the merriest of voices, "you're a couple of young rascals. What are your names, and how old are you, and what school do you belong to, and who are your fathers?"
We answered his questions in a fairly business-like manner until we came to that about the fathers. Here there was an interlude. For Billy had to explain, in succession, that he had no father, and no mother, and no brothers, and no sisters—indeed, no relations at all that he knew of. And there was some emotion at this point.
"Bless my soul," said the old gentleman, "that's very sad—very sad indeed. But who pays for your schooling?"
"A friend of my mater's," said Billy. "He's very good to me and has me to his house for the holidays."
"And gives you plenty of pocket-money?"
"Lots," answered Billy.
The old gentleman ruminated, and there was more emotion.
"Then you are not an unhappy boy?" he said at length.
"Not a bit," answered Billy.
"Thank God for that! Thank God for that! I should be very sorry to learn you were unhappy. I hope you never will be. You don'tlookunhappy."
"I'm not," repeated Billy.
All this time the old gentleman seemed quite unconscious of my existence. But I was not hurt by that. I was well used to being overlooked when Billy was with me, and never questioned for a moment the justice of the arrangement. But now the old gentleman seemed to recollect himself.
"What was it you asked me just now?" said he.
"We asked if you would mind telling us the time."
"Ha, just so. Now are you quite sure that what you asked for is what you want? You said 'thetime' not 'time.' For you must know, my dears, that there's a great difference between 'time' and 'thetime.'"
Billy and I looked at each other, perplexed and disgusted—perplexed by the subtle distinction just drawn by the old gentleman; disgusted at being addressed as "my dears." ("He might as well have given us a kiss while he was about it," we thought.)
"We wantthetime, if you please," we said at length.
"What,the whole of it?" said the old gentleman.
"No," answered Billy, "we only want the bit of it that's going on now."
"Which bit is that?" said our venerable friend.
"That's just what we want to know," answered Billy.
This fairly floored the old gentleman. "You'll be a great Parliamentary debater one day, my boy," he said, "but the bit of time that's going on now is not an easy thing to catch. My watch can't catch it."
"Give us the best your watch can do," answered Billy.
This made the old fellow laugh again. "Better and better," said he. "Well, the best my watch can do is a quarter past twelve. And that reminds me that you two young scamps have made me late for an appointment. Now be good boys, both of you; and don't forget to write every week to your moth—to your friends. And put that in your pockets." Whereupon he gave each of us half-a-sovereign.
We walked on in silence, not pondering what had happened, for we pondered nothing in those days, but serenely conscious of triumph. A potent secret was in our hands and the world was at our feet.
"It worked," said Billy at length.
"Rather!" I answered.
"It did him good."
"Rather!"
"We beat him."
"Rather!"
Presently we were greeted by the Park-keeper, who was a friend of ours.
"Well, young hopefuls," he said, "and who have you been asking the time of to-day?"
We pointed to the old gentleman whose figure was still visible in the distance.
"Him!" cried the Park-keeper. "Well, bless your rascal impudence! Do you know whoheis?"
"No."
"Why, he's Lord——."
The name mentioned was that of a distinguished member of the Cabinet which had recently gone out of office.
Did we quail and cower at the mention of that mighty name? Did we cover ourselves with confusion? Not we.
"I'm awfully glad we asked him," said Billy as we walked away.
"So am I—I say, Billy, I wish we could meet the Pope. He's jolly old, and I'll bet he's jolly miserable, too."
"You shut up about his being miserable," answered Billy, who, as we know, was a Roman Catholic. "He ain't half as miserable as the Archbishop of Canterbury. I wish we could meethim!"
"Or the Emperor of Germany," I suggested.
"Yes, he'd do. I'd ask him, and you bet he'd tell us. But"—and here Billy's manner became explosive—"I'll tell you what!I wish we could meet God!He's a jolly sight older than the Pope, or the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the Emperor of Germany. I believe he'd like to be asked more than any of them. And I'd ask him like a shot!"
"Buthe'snot miserable," I interposed.
"How do you know he isn't—sometimes? It would do him good anyhow."
I was getting out of my depth. As a speculator I had none of the boldness which prompted the explosions of Billy, and an instinct of decency suggested a change of conversation.
"What shall we do with those half-sovereigns?" I asked.
"Hush!" said Billy, "they'llhear you."
"Who'll hear me?"
"Never mind who. They're listening, you bet. Never say 'half-sovereigns' again."
"But what are we to do with them?"
"Keep them. Let's put a cross on each of them at once."
So we took out the coins, and with our penknives we scratched a cross on the cheek of her gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria.
Both coins are now in my possession. The cross on the cheek of Queen Victoria has worked wonders. It has brought me good luck. In return I have hedged the coins with safeguards both moral and material. When I am gone they will be——But I am anticipating.
And now the fever was in full possession of our souls. I believe we were secretly determined to bring all the old gentlemen in the world under the sway of our formula. We were beneficent magicians. Had we been older, a vast prospect of social regeneration would have opened before us. But all we knew at the time was that we possessed a power for rejuvenating the aged. An ardent missionary fervour burned in our bones; and we were swept along as by a whirlwind. Never was infatuation more complete.
As a preliminary step to the accomplishment of these great designs we resolved to ask ten thousand old gentlemen to tell us the time. Making a calculation, we reckoned that, at the normal rate of progress, nine years would be required to complete the task. We were a little disconcerted, and, in order to expedite matters, we resolved to include old ladies, and any young persons of either sex with grey hair, or who, in our opinion, showed other signs of prematurely growing old. This led on to further extensions. We agreed, first, that anyone who looked "miserable" should have the benefit of our formula; next, that all limitations whatsoever, save one, should be withdrawn, and the formula allowed a universal application. The outstanding limitation was that nobody should be asked the question until he had been previously viewed by Billy, who was a psychologist, and pronounced by him to be "the right sort." What constituted the "right sort" we never succeeded in defining; enough that Billy knew the "right sort" when he saw it and never made a mistake. We believed that all mankind were divided into two classes, the sheep and the goats; in other words, those who were worthy to be asked the time and those who were not, and Billy was the infallible judge for separating them the one from the other. To ask the question of any person was to seal that person's election and to put upon him the stamp of immortality.
I believed, and still believe, that many whom we accosted were instantly conscious of a change for the better in their general conditions. Years afterwards I met a man who remembered these things and bore testimony to the good we had done him. "It so happened," said he, "that just before I met you boys, that day, I had been speculating heavily on the Stock Exchange and had had a run of infernal bad luck. But the moment that little chap with the tilted eyes spoke to me I said to myself, 'The clouds are breaking.' And, by George, sir, my luck turned that very day. I walked straight to the telegraph office and sent my broker a wire which netted me a matter of £7000."
As became a firm of business-like magicians, Billy and I kept books, duly averaged and balanced, entering in them day by day the names of the persons to whom we had applied the formula. Are the names worthy of being recorded? Perhaps not. But a few specimens will do no harm and may incidentally serve to reveal the scope and catholicity of our operations. One of these books is before me now, and here are a few of the names, culled almost at random from its pages. It will be observed that in the last group our faculty of invention gave out and we were compelled to plagiarise.
Mr Smoky, Mr Shinytopper, Uncle Jelly-bones, Aunt Ginger, Lady Peppermint, Bishop Butter, Canon Sweaty, Dirty Boots, Holy Toad, Satan, Old Hurry, Old Bless-my-soul, Old Chronometer, Miss No-watch, Dr Beard, Lord Splutters, Aurora, Mrs Proud, Polly Sniggers, Diamond Pin, Cigar, Cuttyperoozle, Jim, Alfred Dear! Mr Just-engaged, Miss Ditto, Mr Catch-his-train, Mr Hot, The Reverend Hum, The Reverend Ha-ha, So-there-you-be, Mrs Robin, Mr High-mind, Mr Love-lust, Mr Heady.
All of a sudden, and in the most unexpected manner, these vast designs of ours contracted their dimensions, or, as one might say, our outlook became focussed on a solitary point. From a world-wide mission to all mankind we narrowed down at a single stroke to a concentrated operation on a strictly limited class. But I can tell you that what our mission lost in scope it gained in intensity. You shall hear how all this happened and judge for yourself.
One night Billy and I were lying awake as usual, and the question "shall we talk?" had been asked and duly answered in the affirmative. We had raised ourselves in bed, leaning toward each other, and the telepathic current was running strong.
"Billy," I whispered, "I've got a ripping notion, a regular stunner. I'm bursting to tell you."
"What is it?"
"Put your ear a little closer, Billy, and listen like mad. Suppose you were to meet a beautiful woman—what would you do?"
Quick as thought came the answer—"I should ask her to tell me the time."
"Why, that'sexactlywhatIshould do. We'll do it, the very next time we meet one. And, Billy, I'm sure we shall meet onesoon."
"So am I."
Next day, the instant we were freed from school we bolted for the Park, exalted in spirit and full of resolution. A lovely Presence floated in the light above us and accompanied us as we ran. Arrived in the Park, we seemed to have reached the threshold of a new world. We stood on a peak in Darien; and before us there shimmered an enchanted sea lit by the softest of lights and tinted with the fairest of colours. Forces as old as the earth and as young as the dawn were stirring within us; the breath of spring was in our souls, and a vision of living beauty, seen only in the faintest of glimpses, lured us on.
Think not that we lacked discrimination. "Let's wait, Billy," I said, as he made a dart forward at a girl in a white frock, "till we find one beautifulenough. That one won't do. Look at the size of her feet."
"Whackers!" said he, checking himself. And then he made a remark which I have often thought was the strangest thing Billy ever uttered. "I wouldn't be surprised," came the solemn whisper, "if her feet were made of clay."
So day by day we ranged the Park, sometimes together, sometimes separate, possessed of one thought only—that of a woman beautiful enoughto be asked the time. Hundreds of faces—and forms—were examined, sometimes to the surprise of their owners; but the more we examined, the more inexorable, the more difficult to satisfy, became our ideal. At each fresh contact with reality it rose higher and outran the facts of life, until we were on the point of concluding that the world contained no woman beautiful enough to be asked the time. Never were women stared at with greater innocence of heart, but never were they judged by a more fastidious taste. And yet we had no definable criterion. Of each new specimen examined all we could say was, "That one won't do." Butwhyshe wouldn't do we didn't know. We never disagreed. What wouldn't do for Billy wouldn't do for me, andvice versa.
Once we met a charming little girl about our own age, walking all alone. "That's the one!" cried I. "Come on, Billy."
I started forward, Billy close behind. Presently he clutched my jacket, "Stop!" he said, "What if she has no watch?"
The little girl was running away.
"We've frightened her," said Billy, who was a little gentleman. "We're two beasts."
"She heard what you said about the watch," I answered, "and thought we wanted to steal it. She had one after all. Billy, we've lost our chance."
As we went home that day, something gnawed cruelly at our hearts. Things had gone wrong. An ideal world had been on the point of realisation, and a freak of contingency had spoiled it. In another moment "time" would have been revealed to us by one worthy to make the revelation. But the sudden thought of a watch had ruined all. Once more we had tasted the tragic quality of life.
With ardour damped but not extinguished, we continued the quest day after day. But we were now half-hearted and we became aware of a strange falling-off in the beauty of the ladies who frequented the Park.
"We shall never find her here," said Billy. "Let's try the walk down by the river. They are better-looking down there, especially on Sunday afternoon. And I'll bet you most of them have watches."
The very day on which Billy made this proposal another nasty thing happened to us. We were summoned into the Headmaster's study and informed that complaints had reached him concerning two boys who were in the habit of walking about in the Park and staring in the rudest manner at the young ladies, and making audible remarks about their personal appearance. Were we the culprits? We confessed that we were. What did we mean by it? We were silent: not for a whole Archipelago packed full of buried treasure would we have answered that question. Did we consider it conduct worthy of gentlemen? We said we did not, though as a matter of fact we did. Dark hints of flagitiousness were thrown out, which our innocence wholly failed to comprehend. The foolish man then gave himself away by telling us that whenever we met Miss Overbury's school on their daily promenade we were to walk on the other side of the road.
Billy and I exchanged meaning glances: we knew now who had complained (as though we would ever think of askingthemto tell us the time!). Finally we were forbidden, under threat of corporal chastisement, to enter the Park under any pretexts or circumstances whatsoever.
"The old spouter doesn't know," said I to Billy as we left the room, "that we've already made up our minds not to go there again. What a 'suck-in' for him!"
Necessity having thus combined with choice, the scene of our quest was now definitely shifted to the river-bank, where a broad winding path, with seats at intervals, ran under the willows. Here a new order of beauty seemed to present itself, and our hopes ran high. Several promising candidates presented themselves at once. One, I remember, wore a scarlet feather; another carried a gray muff. The scarlet feather was my fancy; the gray muff Billy's.
I think it was on the occasion of our third visit to the river that the crisis came. We sat down on the bank and held a long consultation. "Well," said Billy at last, "I'm willing to ask Scarlet Feather. She's ripping. Hernosetakes the cake; but, mind you, Gray Muff has the prettierboots. And I know Scarlet Feather has a watch—I saw the chain when we passed her just now. But before deciding I'm going to have another look at Gray Muff. She's just round the bend. You wait here—I'll be back in half a second."
I was left alone, and for some minutes I continued to gaze at the flowing stream in front of me. Suddenly I saw, dancing about on the surface of the water—but doubtless the whole thing was hallucination! My nerves were in high tension at the moment, and in those days I could have dreams without going to sleep.
The dream was interrupted by the sudden return of Billy. He was white as the tablecloth and trembling all over.
"Come on!" he gasped. "I've found the very one! Quick, quick, or she'll be gone!"
"Is it Gray Muff?" I asked.
"No, no. It's another. The Very One, I tell you. The One we've been looking for."
"Billy," I said, "I've just seen a Good One too. She was dancing about on the water."
"Oh, rot!" cried Billy. "Mine's the One! Come on, I say! I'm certain she won't wait. She looked as though she wouldn't sit still for a single minute."
"What is she like, Billy?" I asked as we hurried away.
"She's—oh, she's the exact image of my mater!" he said.
Billy's mater had died about a year ago. At the age of twelve I had been deeply in love with her, and to this hour her image remains with me as the type of all that is most lovely and commendable in woman. O Billy's mater, will these eyes ever see you again? How glad I am to remember you! I know where you lie buried, but I doubt if there lives another soul who could find your resting-place. Harshly were you judged and conveniently were you forgotten! But I will scatter lilies on your grave this very night.
Well, we ran with all our might. Scarlet Feather, Gray Muff, and the dancing "good one" on the surface of the water were clean forgotten as if they had never existed—as perhaps one of them never did. "Justlike my mater!" Billy kept gasping. "Hurry up! I tell you she won't wait! She's on the seat watching the water; no, notthatseat. It's round the next bend but one."
We turned the bend and came in sight of the seat where Billy had seen what he saw. The seat was empty. We looked round us: not a soul was in sight. We checked our pace and in utter silence, and very slowly, crept up to the empty seat, gazing round us as we walked. Was there ever such a melancholy walk! Oh, what aVia Dolorosawe found it! Arrived at the seat, Billy felt it all over with his hands and, finding nothing, flung himself face downwards on the turf and uttered the most lamentable cry I have ever heard.
"I knew she wouldn't wait," he moaned. "Oh, why weren't we quicker! Oh, why didn't I ask her the time the minute I saw her!"
As, shattered and silent, we crawled back to school, continually loitering to gaze at a world that was all hateful, I realised with a feeling of awe that I had become privy to something deep in Billy's soul. And I inwardly resolved that, so far as I could, I would set the matter right, and put friendship on a footing of true equality, by telling Billy the deepest secret ofmine.
"Billy," I said, as we lay wakeful in the small hours of the next morning, "come and stay with us next holidays,and I will show you something."
"What is it?"
"You wait and see."
The great adventure was over. It had ended in disaster and tears. Never again did Billy and I ask any human being to tell us the time.
In those days I was a great metaphysician. Unassisted by any philosopher, ancient or modern, I had made a discovery in the metaphysical line. This discovery wasmysecret.
In the church-tower of the village where I was nurtured there was an ancient and curious clock, said to have been brought from Spain by a former owner of the parish. This clock was worked by an enormous pendulum which hung down, through a slit in the ceiling, into the body of the church, swinging to and fro at the west end of the nave. Its motion was even and beautiful; and the sight of it fascinated me continually through the hours of divine service. To those who were not attentive, the pendulum was inaudible; but if you listened you could detect a gentle tick, tock, between the pauses of the hymns or the parson's voice. "Let us pray," said the parson. "Tick," whispered the pendulum. "We beseech Thee—" cried the clerk, (tick!);—"to hear us, good Lord" (tock!). The clerk had unconsciously fallen into the habit of timing his cadence in the responses to correspond with these whispers of the pendulum. For my part, I used to think that this correspondence was the most beautiful arrangement in the universe. I loved the even motion of the pendulum; but I loved the faithful whispers more. To this day I have only to shut my eyes on entering a village church, and sit still for half a minute, and sure enough, stealing through the silence, comes the "tick, tock" of that ancient pendulum.
Of all the religious instruction I received during the eight or nine years we attended that church I confess I have not the faintest recollection. I cannot remember whether the sermons were good or bad, long or short, high, low, or broad. I know they never wearied me, for I never listened to a word that was said. The pendulum saw to that. There were two parsons in our time. The first, I have heard, was a very good man, but by no effort of memory can I recall what he was like. The second I do remember, and could draw his face on this sheet of paper, were I to try. I respected and admired him, not, I am sorry to say, for the purity of his life or his faithfulness in preaching the Gospel, but because he had fought and licked our gardener, whom I detested, outside the village Pub. With a little concentration of mind I can reconstruct the scene in church during this parson's tenure of office. I can see the rascal eminent in his pulpit, plodding through his task. I can hear the thud of the hymn-book which my father used to toss into the clerk's pew when he thought the sermon had lasted long enough: immediately the sermon stops and a great bull-voice roars out, "Now to God the Father," and so on. But all such incidents are as a fringe to the main theme of my memory—the restless curve of the swinging disc, and the whispered syllables of Time.
The question that haunted me was this: Did the pendulumstopon reaching the highest point of the ascending arc? Did it pause before beginning the descent? And if it stopped, didtimestop with it? I answered both questions in the affirmative. Well, then, what was asecond? Did the stoppage at the end of the swing make the second, or was the second made by the swing, the movement between the two points of rest? I concluded that it was the stoppage. For, mark you, ittakesa second for the pendulum to reach the stopping point on either side; therefore there can be no second till that point is reached; the second mustwaitfor the stoppage to do the business. I saw no other way of gettinganyseconds. And if no seconds, no minutes; and if no minutes, no hours, no days, and therefore no time at all—which is absurd.
I found great peace in this conclusion; but none the less I continued to support it by collateral reasonings, and by observation. In particular I determined, for reasons of my own, to make a careful survey of the hands of the clock. With this object I borrowed my father's field-glass, and, retiring to a convenient point of observation, focussed it on the clock-face. Instantly a startling phenomenon sprang into view. I saw that the big hand of the clock, instead of moving evenly as it seemed to do when viewed by the naked eye, was visiblyjerkingon its way, in time with the seconds that were being ticked off by the pendulum inside. By George, the hand was going jerk, jerk! The pendulum and the hand were moving together! Jerk went the hand: then a pause. What's happening now? thought I. Why the pendulum has just ticked and is going to tock. Tock it goes and—there you are!—jerk goes the hand again. "Why, of course," I said to myself, "that proves it. The handstops, as well as the pendulum. The evidence of the hand corroborates the evidence of the pendulum. The secondsmustbe the stoppages. They can't be anything else. There's nothing else for them to be. I'll tell Billy Burst this very day! But no, I won't. I'll wait till the holidays andshowit him."
Such was the secret which I resolved to impart to Billy in return for what he had disclosed to me.
Some months after this amazing discovery Billy came down for the holidays. He arrived late in the afternoon, and I could hardly restrain my impatience while he was having his tea. Hardly had he swallowed the last mouthful when I had him by the jacket. "Come on, Billy," I cried. "I'm going to show you something"—and we ran together to the church. Arrived there, I placed him in front of the pendulum, which seemed to be swinging that afternoon with an even friendlier motion than usual.
"There!" I said, "look at him."
Billy stood spell-bound. Oh, you should have seen his face! You should have seen his eyes slowly moving their lambent lights as they followed the rhythm of the pendulum from side to side. If Billy was hypnotised by the pendulum, I was hypnotised by Billy. Suddenly he clutched my arm in his wonted way.
"I say," he whispered, "it knows us. Here, old chap" (addressing the pendulum), "you know us, don't you? You're glad to see us, aren't you?"
"Tick, tock," said the pendulum.
"Can't he talk—just!" said Billy. "Look at his eye! He winked at me that time, I'll swear." And, by the Powers, the very next time the pendulum reached the top of the arc I saw the crumpled metal in the middle of the disc double itself up and wink atmealso, plain as plain.
"Billy," I said, "if we stare at him much longer we shall both go cracked. Let's go into the churchyard. I've something else to show you."
So to the churchyard we went, and there, among the mouldering tombstones, I expounded to Billy my new theory as to the nature of Time, reserving the crowning evidence until Billy had grasped the main principle.
"So you see," I concluded, "the seconds are the stoppages."
"There aren't any stoppages," said he. "Pendulums don't stop."
"How can they go down after coming up unless they stop between?" I asked.
"Wait till you get to the Higher Mathematics."
"Then where do the seconds come in?"
"They don'tcomein: theyarein all along."
"Then," I said triumphantly, "look at that clock face. Can't you see how the big hand goes jerk, jerk?"
"Well, what of that?"
"What of that? Why, if the seconds aren't the stoppages, what becomes of time between the jerks?"
"Why," answered Billy, "it's plugging ahead all the time."
"Allwhattime?" I countered, convinced now that I had him in a vicious circle.
"Blockhead!" cried Billy. "Don't you remember what that old Johnny told us in the Park? There's all the difference in the world betweenthetime andtime."
"I'll bet you can't tell me what the difference is."
"Yes, I can. It's the difference between the pendulum and the clock-hand. Look at the jerking old idiot!Thatthing can't talk;thatthing can't wink;thatthing doesn't know us. Why, you silly, it only does what the pendulum tells it to do. The pendulumknowswhat it's doing. Butthatthing doesn't. Here, let's go back into the church and have another talk with the jolly old chap!"
Ten years later when Billy, barely twenty-three, had half finished a book which would have made him famous, I handed him an essay by a distinguished philosopher, and requested him to read it. The title was "On translating Time into Eternity." When Billy returned it, I asked him how he had fared. "Oh," he answered, "I translated time into eternity without much difficulty.But it was plugging ahead all the time."
Shortly after that, Billy rejoined his mater—a victim to the same disease. Poor Billy! You brought luck to others; God knows you had little yourself. He died in a hospital, without kith or kin to close his eyes. The Sister who attended him brought me a small purse which she said Billy had very urgently requested her to give me. On opening the purse I found in it a gold coin, marked with a cross. The nurse also told me that an hour before he died Billy sat up suddenly in his bed and, opening his eyes very wide, said in a singing voice:
"If you please, Sir, would you mind telling me the time?"
"'To be or not to be—that is thequestion,' said Hamlet:'To be is not to be—that is theanswer,' said Hegel."
"'To be or not to be—that is thequestion,' said Hamlet:'To be is not to be—that is theanswer,' said Hegel."
Dr Phippeny Piecraft invented this couplet one night for his own edification, as, inert in body and despondent in mind, he lay back in the arm-chair of his consulting-room. "There is more point," he went on, "in Hamlet's 'question' than in Hegel's 'answer.' But the gospel is not in either. Both are futile as physic. At all events, neither of them brings any consolation to me."
Dr Piecraft was reflecting on the hardness of his lot. Ten years had elapsed since he first mounted his brass plate, and he was still virtually without a practice. He earned just enough from casual patients to pay his rent and keep body and soul together. To be sure, his father had left him a hundred a year; but Piecraft had given the old man a promise "that he would look after Jim." Now Jim was a half-brother, many years younger than himself; and he was also the one being in the world whom Piecraft loved with an undivided heart. So the whole of his income from that source was ear-marked for the boy's education; not for worlds would the doctor have spent a penny of it on himself. He even denied himself cigars, of which he was exceedingly fond, restricting himself to the cheapest of tobacco, in order that Jim might have plenty of pocket-money; and whenever the question arose as to who was to have a new suit of clothes, Jim or the doctor, it was always Jim who went smart and the doctor who went shabby.
He was over forty years of age, and, in his own eyes, a failure. Yet no man could have done more to deserve success. His medical qualifications were of the widest and highest; diplomas of all sorts covered the walls of his consulting-room; a gold medal for cerebral pathology lay in a glass case on his writing-table. He was actively abreast of advancing medical science; he had run into debt that he might keep himself supplied with the best literature of his profession, and he was prepared at a moment's notice to treat a difficult case in the light of the latest discoveries at Paris, St Petersburg, or New York. Moreover, he had led a clean life, and was known among his friends as a man of irreproachable honour. But somehow the patients seemed to avoid him, and only once in two years had he been summoned to a consultation.
To account for Piecraft's failure as a medical man several theories were in circulation, and it is probable that each of them contained an element of truth. Some persons would set it down to the shabbiness of his appearance, or to the brusqueness of his manners, or to the fact that his consulting-room often reeked with the fumes of cheap tobacco. Others would say that Piecraft was constitutionally unable to practise those "intelligent hesitations" so often needed in the application of medical principles. They would remind you of his fatal tendency to determine diagnosis on a sudden impulse, which Piecraft called "psychological intuition," and in illustration of this they would tell you a story: how once, when the vicar's wife had brought her petted daughter to be treated for hysteria, the fit happening to come on in the consulting-room, Piecraft had cured the young lady on the spot by soundly boxing her ears. Concerning this incident he had been taken severely to task by an intimate friend of his, an old practitioner of standing. "It will be time enough to adopt those methods of treatment," the friend had said to him, "when you are earning five thousand a year. At the present stage of your career it is almost fatal. Learn so to treat a patient that the story of the cure when subsequently related after dinner may have the characteristics of High Tragedy, or at all events may reflect some credit on the sufferer. Help him to create a drama, and see to it that he comes out ultimately as its hero. Don't you see that in the present instance you have spoilt a moving story, than which nothing gives greater offence, turning the whole situation into Low Comedy and making the patient a laughing-stock? People will never stand that, Piecraft. It is idle to insist that the cure was efficacious and permanent. So no doubt it was. A better remedy for that type of hysteria could not be devised. But reflect on the fact that you have deprived the vicar's family of a legitimate opportunity for dramatic expression and dethroned the vicar's daughter from her place as heroine. In short, you have committed an outrage on the artistic rights of medicine, and, mark my words, you will have to pay for it. Always remember, Piecraft, that in medicine, as in many other things, it is not the act alone which ensures success, but the gesture with which the act is accompanied."
Moreover, Piecraft held a theory which he never took the least pains to conceal, though it was extremely provoking to his patients both rich and poor. His theory was that more than half the ailments of the human body are best treated by leaving them alone. For example, a certain old gentleman having consulted him about some senile malady, the doctor had dismissed him with the following remark: "My dear sir, the best remedy for the troubles of old age is to grow still older. The matter is in your own hands." Many suchlike epigrams were reported of him, and often they constituted the sole return which the patients received for the two guineas deposited on the table of the consulting-room. Obviously this kind of thing could not go on. As most of his patients consulted Piecraft because they wished to be extensively interfered with, and objected to nothing so much as being left alone, with or without an epigram to console them, it followed of course that they seldom consulted him a second time.
But beneath these peripheral causes of irritation there lay a deeper offence. The truth is that Piecraft had made himself highly obnoxious to the members of his own profession, and had acquired—though I doubt if he fully deserved it—the reputation of a traitor. "Futile as physic" was a phrase constantly on his lips; and the words, offensive as they were, were only the foam that broke forth from the deeper waters of his treachery. He had gone so far as to embark on a propaganda for what he called "the Simplification of Medical Practice," publicly proposing that a Society should be founded for that object; and in pursuance of this proposal he had published a series of articles in which he had argued that the healing art is still dominated by the spirit of Magic and encumbered with a mass of dogmatic assumptions and superstitious observances. "The Seat of Authority in Therapeutics," "Medicine without Priest and without Ritual," "Big Words and Little Bottles," were the titles of some of these abominable essays. The last-named especially had aroused great indignation, not only by the excessively vehement language in which Piecraft pleaded for "simple and rational" principles, but far more by a caustic parallel he had drawn between the doings of a successful London practitioner and the ritual of a medicine-man among the Australian aborigines. The offence went deep, and the matter became the more serious for Piecraft because the indignation extended from the doctors to the theologians, who suspected—though the suspicion was utterly unfounded—that under the cover of an attack on orthodox medicine he was really engaged in putting a knife, from the back, into official religion; a suspicion which deprived the unfortunate doctor of every one of his clerical patients, including their wives and daughters, at a single stroke.
The combined effect of all these causes was, of course, disastrous. If, for example, you happened to be suffering from a severe pain in the head—le mal des beaux esprits—which your family doctor had failed to cure, and suggested to the latter that Piecraft, as a distinguished cerebral pathologist, should be summoned to a consultation, you were pretty certain to be met with this rejoinder: "Yes, Piecraft has beyond all question an unrivalled knowledge of the human brain. But please understand that if you call him in I shall have to retire from the case." And if you pressed for further explanation you would at first be put off with airs of mystery which would gradually consolidate into some such statement as this: "Well, in the profession we don't regard Piecraft as a medical man in the strict sense of the term. He is really a literary man who has mistaken his vocation"; or, "Nature intended Piecraft for a popular agitator"; or, "Piecraft's forte is journalism"; or, "Piecraft's title of 'doctor' should always be written in inverted commas"; or, "Piecraft is trying to live in two worlds, the world of imagination and the world of pure science; he will come to grief in both of them." And once the prophetic remark was made: "Piecraft's proper rôle is that of a character in the Arabian Nights." I have been told, too, that one day the Senior Physician of the hospital where Piecraft held a minor appointment overheard him muttering his favourite phrase by the bedside of a patient, "Futile as physic! futile as physic!" Whereupon the Senior Physician stepped up to him and, laying his hand on his shoulder in the kindest possible manner, whispered in his ear, "Resign, Piecraft; resign!"
Dr Phippeny Piecraft had no belief in the immortality of the soul: his studies in cerebral pathology had disposed of that question long ago. "What a philosopher most requires," he used to reflect, "is not so much a big brain of his own as a little knowledge of the brains of other people. Hamlet, for example, if he had studied Yorick's brain instead of sentimentalising over his skull, might have framed his question differently. And as to Hegel—well, that thing knocked all the Hegelism out of me," and he glanced at the gold medal in the glass case.
But, like many another man who disbelieves in the future life, Dr Piecraft was not a little curious as to what might happen to him after death. He was indulging that curiosity on the very evening we first encounter him. "There is a pill in that little bottle," he was thinking, "which would end the whole wretched business in something less than thirty seconds. I wonder I don't swallow it. I should do it if it were not for Jim. But no, I shouldn't! Hamlet, old boy, you were quite right. I'm as big a coward as the rest of them. There's just a chance that if I were to swallow that pill I should find myself in hell-fire in half a minute—and I'm not fool enough, or not hero enough, to run it. Of course, there's just a chance of heaven too; for, after all, I've been a decent sort of chap, and, as Stevenson says, there's an ultimate decency in the Universe.Heaven!—my stars, heaven doesn't attract me! I've never yet heard a description of heaven which doesn't make it almost as bad as the other place. Extraordinary, that when people try to conceive a better world than this they almost invariably picture something infinitely worse! Mahomet knew that: 'cute fellow, Mahomet. And yet he was no more successful than the rest."
Piecraft's reflections, once started on that line, plunged further. "I wonder what sort of heavenwouldattract me," he thought. "Let me see. Why, yes! If I could be sure of going to a place where I should be professionally busy all day long, plenty of interesting and difficult cases, and no need to worry about Jim's education and his future—I'd swallow the pill this instant.By heaven, I would! I'd do harder things than that. I'd stick it out in this wretched hole for another ten years, I'd give up smoking shag, I'd give up everything, except Jim—if only at the end of the time I could go to some heaven where the stream of patients would never cease! I really don't think I could accept salvation on any other terms. But wait! Yes, there is just one other offer I would look at. If only they'd let me go back to the old home in Gower Street, if they'd make the old streetlookas it did in those days, andsmellas it did, and give tobacco the same taste it had then, and show me Dad standing at the window with Jim in his arms, and let me be in love again with that nice girl at the Slade School—yes, and if they'd let me go into the shilling seats at the Lyceum to see Mary Anderson as Perdita—by Gad, I'd take the pill for that, indeed I would!"
He was pursuing these reflections when his housekeeper entered the room with three or four letters. He looked them over, and his face brightened when he saw that one of them was from his half-brother Jim. A pipe was instantly filled and Piecraft re-settled himself in his arm-chair with the open letter in his hand. Jim's letter was dated from Harrow and ran as follows:—
"Dear Phip,—Many thanks for your congratulations on my eighteenth birthday and for the enclosure of two pounds. Don't be angry, old chap, when I tell you how I spent them. I got leave at once to go down town, and bought you a silk hat, a pair of gloves, some collars, and a couple of ties. You will get them all to-morrow, and I hope the hat and gloves are the right size. I am pretty sure they are. I was half inclined to buy you a box of cigars, but I thought you needed the other things more."The fact of the case is, Phip, I have definitely made up my mind to be a burden on you no longer. True, I might get a scholarship at the 'Varsity, as I got one at Harrow. But you would still have to pinch to maintain me; and when I remember how long you have done it already, I feel a perfect beast. I am old enough now to understand what it means, and I tell you, Phip, that nothing will induce me to come back to Harrow after the present term. So please give notice at once. I mean to go out to the Colonies with a man from the Modern Side, and I shall earn my living somehow—as a labourer if need be, for I am big and strong enough. Indeed, I would rather enlist than go on with this."Have you ever thought of trying to make a bitby writing, Phip? I believe you could write a novel. Don't you remember what bully stories you used to tell me when I was a kid? Have a shot at it, old boy. There's a person here in the Sixth who has a knack that way, and he made a hundred pounds by a thing he wrote. He got the tip for it out of a book on the art of novel-writing, the advertisement of which I have cut out of theDaily Mailand send you enclosed. I would have sent you the book itself had there been enough left out of the two pounds. But there was only fourpence."The Head preached a capital sermon last night on the text, 'Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.' The instant he gave out the words I thought of you, old Phip. And I went on thinking of you till he had done. That's how I know the sermon was a good one, though I didn't listen to another word. Anything that makes me think of youmustbe good. Phip,you are a dead cert. for heaven when you die. But don't die yet, there's a good chap. For if you go, I shall go too.—Ever yours,Jim."P.S.—Don't forget to give notice that I am leaving this term."
"Dear Phip,—Many thanks for your congratulations on my eighteenth birthday and for the enclosure of two pounds. Don't be angry, old chap, when I tell you how I spent them. I got leave at once to go down town, and bought you a silk hat, a pair of gloves, some collars, and a couple of ties. You will get them all to-morrow, and I hope the hat and gloves are the right size. I am pretty sure they are. I was half inclined to buy you a box of cigars, but I thought you needed the other things more.
"The fact of the case is, Phip, I have definitely made up my mind to be a burden on you no longer. True, I might get a scholarship at the 'Varsity, as I got one at Harrow. But you would still have to pinch to maintain me; and when I remember how long you have done it already, I feel a perfect beast. I am old enough now to understand what it means, and I tell you, Phip, that nothing will induce me to come back to Harrow after the present term. So please give notice at once. I mean to go out to the Colonies with a man from the Modern Side, and I shall earn my living somehow—as a labourer if need be, for I am big and strong enough. Indeed, I would rather enlist than go on with this.
"Have you ever thought of trying to make a bitby writing, Phip? I believe you could write a novel. Don't you remember what bully stories you used to tell me when I was a kid? Have a shot at it, old boy. There's a person here in the Sixth who has a knack that way, and he made a hundred pounds by a thing he wrote. He got the tip for it out of a book on the art of novel-writing, the advertisement of which I have cut out of theDaily Mailand send you enclosed. I would have sent you the book itself had there been enough left out of the two pounds. But there was only fourpence.
"The Head preached a capital sermon last night on the text, 'Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.' The instant he gave out the words I thought of you, old Phip. And I went on thinking of you till he had done. That's how I know the sermon was a good one, though I didn't listen to another word. Anything that makes me think of youmustbe good. Phip,you are a dead cert. for heaven when you die. But don't die yet, there's a good chap. For if you go, I shall go too.—Ever yours,Jim.
"P.S.—Don't forget to give notice that I am leaving this term."
When Dr Piecraft laid down the letter his eyes were full of tears. "The only bit of heaven that's left me," he said aloud, "is going to be taken away. There's one person in the world, anyhow, who doesn't think me a failure. If you go to the Colonies, Jim, I shall take the pill, come what may. You're a warm-hearted boy, Jim, but cruel too. I'd rather spend a hundred a year on you and go threadbare in consequence, than earn ten thousand a year and not have you to spend it on. At the same time, my only chance of making you relent is to earn some money.—What the deuce is all this about novel-writing?"
He took up the advertisement which had fallen in his lap, and read as follows: "How to Write Novels—a Guide to Fortune in Literature. Containing Practical Instructions for Amateurs, whereby Success is assured. By an Old Hand."
Next morning Piecraft bought the book. As no patients came that day he had ample leisure to read it. "Easy as lying," he said to himself when he had finished. "I see the trick of it. And, by George, I'll make the first attempt this very night. I have half a dozen ideas already. Cerebral pathology is no bad training for a novelist."
So he sat down to work, and by two in the morning had written the first chapter of a very promising novel. In ten days more the novel was complete.
Reading over his manuscript, and severely criticising himself by the rules of his Manual, he found that he had put in too much scenery, had undercoloured the beauty of the heroine, had forgotten to describe her dress, and had introduced no action to break the tedious sentiment of the love-dialogues. These errors he at once set himself to correct, pruning down the excesses and making good the defects. Then, reviewing the whole, he satisfied himself that he had done well. The plot turned on a love affair, and was easily intelligible. The sexes were evenly balanced, and every character had its foil. There was plenty of incident and continuous action. And the whole was unified by a single purpose or controlling idea.
This last gave Piecraft peculiar satisfaction. He had feared when he began that unity of purpose would be of all the rules the most difficult to satisfy. In the purpose of his life he had failed; was it likely, he asked himself, that he would do any better in romance? Judge, then, of his pleasure on discovering that a clear thread of intention ran through the novel from the first sentence to the last, and came to adequate fulfilment in the final catastrophe. "Purpose," he reflected, "is going to be my strongest point. I shall score heavily on that."
He sent his manuscript to a publisher, and was rejoiced to hear of its acceptance within a week. In the six months that followed, having little else to do, he produced two more novels. Each of them had a Purpose. The publisher bought the manuscripts outright for fifty pounds apiece.
"It's the Purpose that pays," thought Piecraft. "It's the Purpose that works the oracle. It's the Purpose the public like. Next time I'll introduce more Purpose and stand out for better terms with the publisher."
Meanwhile he had been compelled, much against his will, to give notice of Jim's withdrawal from school. In spite of the brightening of his prospects the half-brother had proved inexorable. "I will borrow from you," wrote Jim, "enough to pay my third-class fare across the ocean and leave me with a pound or two on landing. After that, not another penny." "All right, Jim; have it your own way," was Phippeny's answer. "I shall work away until I have saved £500, and then, my boy,I'll join you on the other side and life will begin again for both of us. Meanwhile, I'm growing uncommonly prolific in the way of pot-boilers. But I'm not exactly in love with it, and shall abandon my new profession without a sigh. I wish I could produce something really good. Perhaps when I join you I shall get a new inspiration. I believe one can find a pen and ink in the Colonies."—Thus the matter was arranged.
Dr Phippeny Piecraft was not in the habit of going to church, but one Sunday evening, shortly after these events, he found himself there by accident and heard a sermon, some sentences of which caught his attention. It happened that just then he was gravelled for lack of matter; and he was busy during the service in vainly attempting to construct a plot in which a gamekeeper's daughter was to be betrayed by a young lord under circumstances of excruciating novelty. In spite of the novelty of the circumstances he could not help recognising that the main theme was a trifle stale; and as they were singing the hymn before the sermon he confessed to himself that the plot was not worth elaboration, and began to think about other things.
Piecraft's mind, indeed, was just then in a state of extreme confusion. Now he would be listening to the words of the preacher, now giving way to anxieties about Jim, now returning to the plot of his novel like a moth to a candle-light, and now reflecting, with the acute discomfort of a double consciousness, on his inability to concentrate his thoughts. "There is nothing," he mused, "which sooner demoralises a man's intelligence than the discovery that he can make money by following the demand of a degenerate public taste. It leads to mental incoherence and to the most extraordinary self-deception. I am afraid that that cursed Manual has undone me. It seems to have resurrected another personality who belongs to a lower order of being than my true and proper self. Having failed to earn my living by being the man I am, I am now in a way to make money by being the man I am not. What business have I to be constructing these ridiculous plots? And how is it that, once started on that line, I am unable to prevent myself going further? I had thought that a scientific training was the best safeguard against obsession. But I perceive it is no such thing. Is it possible that I am so far like Frate Alberigo—my proper soul expelled to another world, and perhaps practising medicine there, while a demon holds possession of my body and writes third-rate novels in this?"
A moment later he was thinking about Jim.
"I hope the boy won't forget to send me a cable when he reaches the port; somehow I feel unaccountably anxious about him." Then he turned to wondering how much he would be able to screw out of the publishers for the next novel, and how everything would depend on the breadth of the Purpose.
Suddenly a sentence of the sermon caught his ear: "Illusion is an integral part of Reality."
"Tip-top," thought Piecraft. "So it is." And in a moment his imagination began to cast about for a reality of which three parts should be illusion. But he could think of nothing that answered the description, and again he said to himself, "I am not in a normal condition to-day. One should never force a reluctant brain. And I can't help being anxious about Jim. I had better turn my attention to the sermon."
"For example," the preacher was just then saying, "many a man who has determined to abandon the pursuit of happiness has subsequently realised that he was still pursuing happiness in another form. Others have found that actions which they thought they were doing for the love of God were really done out of hatred of the devil.... Nor can we ever be sure that we are the authors of our own acts. No doubt we usually think we are. But if the testimony of holy men—and of bad men too—counts for anything, we shall be forced to the conclusion that many acts which we thinkwehave performed have really been performed by some person who is not ourselves, or by some force or motivation whose source is not in our own souls. This, my friends, applies to our bad actions as well as to our good ones. Thus we see how of all reality, even of moral reality, illusion is an integral part."
Dr Phippeny Piecraft did not trouble himself for one instant about the truth or error of these doctrines. An idea suddenly leaped into his mind as he heard them, and the preacher had hardly concluded the last period before the novelist saw himself secure of at least eighty pounds for his next manuscript. Such are the strange reactions which the best-meant sermons often provoke in the minds of the hearers, especially when there is genius in the congregation.
The title of his new novel was the first thing that came into Piecraft's head. It was to be calledDual Personality, and cerebral pathology was to supply the atmosphere. The plot came next—at least the outline of it. The main actors were to be two young lords, or something of that sort, the one as good as they make them and the other as bad. Each of these young lords was to play the part of motivating force to the actions of the other. "We'll call them A and B," reflected Phippeny. "A, the good young lord, shall intend nothing but good and do nothing but evil. B, the bad one, shall intend nothing but evil and do nothing but good: that is, A's actions shall represent B's character, andvice versa. Each, of course, must be exhibited as under the influence of the other; and this mutual influence must be so strong that A's virtues are converted by B's influence into vices, and B's vices by A's influence into virtues. Thus each of them shall be the author, not of his own actions, but of the actions of his friend. A splendid idea, and one that has never yet occurred to any novelist living or dead! It is certain to lead to some tremendous situations."
Before the sermon concluded the pot was beginning to simmer. Several situations had been rapidly sketched by way of experiment: a trial trip, so to say, had been taken. For example: Scene, a labyrinthine wood. Time, the dead of night. An intermittent moonlight, and a gale causing strange voices in the tree-tops. The bad young lord, on his way to the gamekeeper's daughter, is stealing among the trees. Suddenly a figure steps into his path. It is the good young lord. Conversation: upshot—the bad young lord resolves to take Holy Orders. Takes them, but becomes a worse villain than before; psychology to be arranged later. Second situation: good young lord now leader of Labour movement: the bad young lord (in Orders) persuades the other, by casuistry, to misapply trust funds to support coal-strike. And so on and so on. End: Archbishopric for villain, penal servitude for hero. Reader all the time kept in doubt as to which is villain and which hero; and sometimes led to think, by cerebral pathology, that the two men are one personality—the two halves of one brain. Counter-plot for the women—each lord in love with the woman who is matched to the other. Keynote of whole—tragic irony.
Piecraft had advanced thus far when his mind received another jostle. His attention was again caught by the words of the sermon. "I have heard," the preacher was saying, "of a distinguished author who, on reading one of his own books ten years after it was written, entirely failed to recognise it as his own work, and insisted that it had been written by somebody else. Such is the force of illusion."
"The fellow's an idiot," thought Piecraft, "to believe such a story. The thing couldn't happen. At least, I'm pretty sure it will never happen tome. None the less, it might be worked in for a literary effect." And again he fell to musing.
The preacher was now coming to the end of his sermon. He had been saying something about the relations of St Paul to the older apostles, and about the various illusions current at the time; and then, after alluding to St Paul's sojourn in the wilderness of Arabia, was winding up a period with the following questions: "But meanwhile, my brethren, where is Peter? Where is John? Where is James? And what are they doing?"
"Where is James?" These, and what followed them, were the only words that penetrated to Piecraft's intelligence, and they struck so sharply into the current of his thoughts that he almost forgot himself. He sat bolt upright, opened his mouth, and was on the point of shouting an answer to the question, when he suddenly remembered where he was and checked himself in time. The answer he had on the tip of his tongue was this: "James, so far as I can judge, is just getting into wireless touch with New York, but I would to God I knew what he was doing!"
A moment later he was thinking, "I'm getting light-headed, and shall be making an ass of myself if I'm not careful. I'm certainly not in my usual health. What the deuce is the matter with me? When, I wonder, shall I have news of Jim's arrival?"
When Piecraft left the church he was in a state of acute depression and distress. His pulse was throbbing and his head aching, and it seemed to him as he paced the streets that the preacher was following close behind him, and constantly repeating the question, "Where is James, where is James?" Sometimes the voice would sound like a distant echo, sometimes like a mocking cry.
On reaching home he said to his housekeeper: "Mrs Avory, I shall be glad if you will sit up till you hear me go to bed. For the first time in my life I am afraid of being left alone. I can't imagine what has come over me."
He tried to read the paper, to write a letter, to play the piano; paced the floor; wandered into the housekeeper's sitting-room; went out for a walk and came back after going twenty yards. Then he took up a volume of his favouriteArabian Nightsand found, after reading a page, that he had not understood a sentence of the print. Towards midnight his agitation was so great that he could bear it no longer. He rang the bell.
"Mrs Avory," he said, "something has gone wrong with me—or with somebody else. I can't help thinking about James—and fancying all sorts of things. I believe I am going mad. In heaven's name, what am I to do?"
"Well, sir," said the woman, "you are a doctor and should know better than I. But if I were you, sir, I'd take a sleeping draught and go to bed."
In despair Piecraft took the woman's advice. As a doctor he avoided the use of every kind of drug on principle, and was terrified when he realised how much morphia he had put into the draught. "Now indeed I am mad," he thought, "for the smallest dose of morphia was always enough to give me the horrors."
His fears were not ungrounded. There is no record of what he saw, fancied, or suffered during the night and the following day; but when he entered his dining-room late next evening, Mrs Avory started as though she had seen a ghost. "Give me the newspaper," he cried, and before she could prevent him he snatched it out of her hand.
"'Titanic' sinks after collision with iceberg. Enormous loss of life"—were the first words he read.
"I knew it!" he exclaimed.
Those who saw the tragic throng of men and women who for the next few days hung round the doors of the White Star offices in London will not have forgotten that poor fellow who was beside himself—how he would walk among the crowd accosting this person and that, and how he would then take off his hat, or his gloves, or pull at his tie and say, "Look at this hat, sir; look at those gloves; look at that tie! Jim gave me those, sir. He bought them with two pounds I gave him to spend on himself. What do you think of that for a noble act? And I tell you that Jim's lying at this moment fathoms deep in the ocean. He's among the lost, sir; by God, I know it. A mere boy in years, madam, only eighteen last birthday; but a man in character. Loyal to the core! And take my word for one thing. Jim played the man at the last, sir; you bet your stars he did! He didn't wear a lifebelt; not he—that is, if there was a woman around who hadn't got one! A man who would spend his money as he spent those two pounds wouldn't keep a lifebelt for himself. Would he, now? Look at this hat! Look at these gloves! Look at that tie!...."
For two whole days Piecraft maintained this requiem. On the evening of the second day some kind-hearted fellow-sufferer persuaded him to go home, and volunteered to bear him company. It was a long hour's journey to the other end of London. A telegraph boy arrived at the house at the same moment as the two men and handed Piecraft a telegram. He broke it open and read. Then he suddenly tore off his hat, and, handing it with a quick movement to his companion, staggered forward and collapsed on the doorstep.
When he came to himself he was lying on the sofa in his study. In the room were several people who, as soon as Piecraft opened his eyes, gazed upon him attentively for a few moments and then, nodding to each other, as though to say "all right," quietly withdrew.
The novelist looked round him. Yes, he was assuredly in his own familiar room. But one thing struck him as strange. The room was usually in a state of extreme disorder—dust everywhere, books and papers lying about in confusion, hats, sticks, pipes, photographs and golf-balls mingling in the chaos. Now everything was neat and orderly. The furniture had been polished, the carpet cleaned, the hearth swept up and the fire-irons in their place. On the table, too, was a vase of flowers. "There must have been a spring cleaning," he thought.
He felt remarkably well. "I believe that I fell asleep during a sermon. Well, the sleep has done me good and cleared my brain. But who on earth brought me here? Strange: but I'll think it out when I have time. Just now I want to write. That was a capital idea for my new novel. I must work it out at once while the inspiration is still active; for I never felt keener and fitter in my life. Let me see.—Yes,Dual Personalitywas to be the title." These were his first reflections.
Then without more ado he sat down to the table; lit his pipe; ruminated for five minutes, and began to write.
He wrote rapidly and continuously for many hours, and midnight had passed when Piecraft flung down the last sheet on the floor and uttered a triumphant "Done!"
"I thought," he said aloud, "that it would run to at least 100,000 words. But I don't believe there's a fifth that number. The thing has come out a Short Story. Never mind, I'm safe for a twenty-pound note anyhow. Not so bad for one day's work. I'll read it over in the morning." Then, feeling hungry, he rang the bell.
To his great surprise there entered not the fussy old lady who usually waited on him, but a girl neatly dressed and with a remarkably intelligent face.
"Are you the new servant?" said he.
The girl made no reply, but, having placed food on the table, withdrew. "As modest as she is pretty," thought Piecraft as he ate his meal. "Well, I'll give her no cause to complain of me. And I hope she'll continue to wait on me. For in all my life I never knew bread and wine to taste so delicious."
On the following morning he had barely finished his breakfast, supplied him in the same silent manner, when a tap came at the door and a young man stepped into the room. "Is there anything I can do for you, sir?" said he.
"Who are you?" said Piecraft. "I have never seen you before."
"Oh," said the young man, "I'm a messenger. Your friends have sent me to look after you."
"It's the first time they have ever done such a thing," returned the other, "and I'm much obliged to them. Anyhow, you came at the right time. Thereissomething you can do for me; at least I think so. Can you read aloud?"
"I like nothing better," said the young man.
"Well, then, you are the very man I want. It so happens that I wrote a story for the press last night, and I was just wishing that I had a kind friend who would do me the service of reading it aloud. There's nothing that gives an author a better idea of the effect of his work than to hear it read aloud."
"I will read it with the greatest pleasure," said the youth.
"Then let us get to work at once," said Piecraft—and he handed his manuscript across the table.
The young man settled himself in a good light and began to read. The first sentence ran as follows:
"For the fourth time that day, Abdulla, the water-seller of Damascus, had come to the river's bank to fill his water-skin."
"Stop!" cried Piecraft. "I never wrote that! I must have given you the wrong manuscript. What is the title on the outside?"
"The Hole in the Water-skin," answered the reader.
"It's not the title of my story," said Piecraft. "Here, hand the papers over to me and let me look at them. Extraordinary! Where did this thing come from? I presume you're attempting some kind of practical joke. What have you done with the manuscript I gave you?"
"The confusion will soon pass," said the other.
"Confusion, indeed!" answered Piecraft, as his eye glanced over the sheets. "You've hit the right word this time, my boy. For the odd thing is that the whole piece is written in my hand and on my paper, and is, I could swear, the identical bundle of sheets I laid away last night. And yet there is not a word in it I can recognise as my own. But wait—what's this on page 32? I see something about 'dual personality.' That was the title of my story. But no! The words are scratched out. Yes, a whole page—two pages—more pages—are deleted at that point. What on earth does it all mean?"
"Perhaps," said the young man, "if you allow me to read the whole to you, your connection with the story will gradually become clear."
"You had better do so," answered Piecraft. "At all events, read on till I stop you. For, from what I see, I don't like the fellow's style, and may soon grow tired of it. And make a point of reading the portions that are scratched out."
"I shall remember your wishes," said the other; "and as to not liking the fellow's style, I think you may find that it is to some extent founded on your own."
"I don't believe it," said Piecraft. "Anyhow, if he hasn't been copying my style, he has been stealing my ideas. The passage about 'dual personality' proves it. But go ahead, and let us hear what it's all about."
The young man again settled himself in a good light and read as follows.