Pulled through! dizzily down-stairs. Pulled through! and too sick, too spent, too nerveless, to exchange words with those of his staff who had been up-stairs with him and were come down, thanking heaven it was over. Pulled through! and too spent, too finished, to clear up the litter of his room as he had intended—capable only of dropping into his chair and then, realising his state, of calling upon himself in actual whispers: "Wriford! Wriford! Wriford!" but no responding energy.
He began to think of going home and began to think of the task of taking down his coat from behind the door and of the task of getting into it. He began to think of the paper that had just gone to press and began in his mind to go slowly through it from the first page, enumerating the title of each article and of each picture. Somewhere after half-a-dozen pages he would lose the thread and find himself miles away, occupied with some other matter; then he would start again.
It was towards one o'clock when he realised that if he did not move, he would miss a good train at Waterloo and have a long wait before the next. He decided against the effort of taking down and getting into his coat. He took up his hat and stick and left the building by the trade entrance at the back, meeting no one. He followed his usual habit of walking to Waterloo along the Embankment, and it was nothing new to him—for a press-night—that occasionally he found he could not keep a straight course on the pavement. Too many cigarettes, he thought. He crossed to the river side, and when he was a little way from Waterloo Bridge, a more violent swerve of his unsteady legs scraped him roughly against the wall. He had no control then, even over his limbs! and at that realisation he stopped and laid his hands on the wall and looked across the river and cried to himself that frequent cry of these days: "Wriford! Wriford! Wriford!"
The wall was rough to his hands, and that produced the thought of how soft his hands were—how contemptibly soft he was all over and all through. "Wriford! Wriford! Wriford!" cried Mr. Wriford to himself and had a great surge through all his pulses that seemed—as frequently in these days but now more violently, more completely than ever before—to wash him asunder from himself, so that he was two persons: one within his body that was the Wriford he knew and hated, the other that was himself, his own, real self, and that cried to his vile, his hateful body: "Wriford! Wriford! Wriford!"
Intolerable—past enduring! Mr. Wriford jumped upwards, suspending his weight on his arms on the wall, and by the action was dispossessed of other thought than sudden recollection of exercises on the horizontal bar at school; seemed to be in the gymnasium, and saw the faces of forgotten school-fellows who were in his gym set waiting their turn. Then the Embankment again and realisation. Should he drop back to the pavement? "Wriford! Wriford! Wriford!" He mastered that vile, damned, craven body and threw up his right leg and scrambled and pitched himself forward; was conscious of striking his thigh violently against the wall, and at the pain and as he fell, thought: "Ha, that's one for you, damn you! I've got you this time! Got you!" And then was in the river, and then instinctively swimming, and then "Drown, damn you! Drown!" cried Mr. Wriford and stopped the action of his arms, and went down swallowing and struggling, and came up struggling and choking, and instinctively struck out again.
Shouts and running feet on the Embankment. "Drown, damn you! Drown, drown!" cried Mr. Wriford; went down again, came up facing the wall, and in the lamplight and in the tumult of his senses, saw quite clearly a bedraggled-looking individual peering down at him and quite clearly heard him call: "Nah, then. Nah, then. Wot yer up to dahn there?"
Shouts and running feet on the police pier not thirty yards away; sounds of feet in a boat; and then to Mr. Wriford's whirling, smashing intelligence, the sight of a boat—and what that meant.
Mr. Wriford thrust his hands that he could not stop from swimming into the tops of his trousers and twisted his wrists about his braces. "Drown, damn you! Drown!" cried Mr. Wriford, and the whirling, smashing scenes and noises lost coherence and only whirled and smashed, and then a hand was clutching him, and coherence returned, and Mr. Wriford screamed: "Let me go! Let me go!" and freed an arm from the entanglement of his braces and dashed it into the face bending over him and with his fist struck the face hard.
"Shove him under," said the man at the oars. "Shove him under. He'll 'ave us over else...."
Mr. Wriford was lying in the boat. "Let me go," cried Mr. Wriford. "Let me go. You're hurting me."
"You've hurt me, you pleader," said the man, but relaxed the knuckles that were digging into Mr. Wriford's neck.
Mr. Wriford moaned: "Well, why couldn't you let me drown? Why, in God's name, couldn't you let me drown?"
"Not arf grateful, you beggars ain't," said the man; and presently Mr. Wriford found himself pulled up from the bottom of the boat and handed out on to the police landing-stage to a constable with: "'Old 'im fast, Three-Four-One. Suicide, he is. 'Old 'im fast."
Three-Four-One responded with heavy hand ... conversation.... Mr. Wriford standing dripping, sick, cold, beyond thought, presently walking across the Embankment and up a street leading to the Strand in Three-Four-One's strong grasp.
"Where are you taking me?" said Mr. Wriford.
"Bow Street," said Three-Four-One.
"Let me go!" sobbed Mr. Wriford.
"Not arf," said Three-Four-One.
Then a police whistle, shouts, running feet. Round the corner two men racing at top speed into Mr. Wriford and Three-Four-One, and Mr. Wriford and Three-Four-One sent spinning. All to earth, and the two runners atop, and a pursuing constable, unable to stop, upon the four of them. Blows, oaths, struggles.
Mr. Wriford rolled free of the pack and got to his feet, viewed a moment the struggle in progress before him, then turned down the side-street whence the pursuit had come, and ran; doubled up to the Strand and across the Strand and ran and ran and ran; glanced over his shoulder and saw one running, not after him, but with him—wet as himself and very like himself. "What do you want?" gasped Mr. Wriford. The figure made no reply but steadily ran with Mr. Wriford, and Mr. Wriford recognised him and stopped. "You're Wriford, aren't you?" cried Mr. Wriford, and in sudden paroxysm screamed: "Why didn't you drown? Why didn't you drown when I tried to drown you, curse you?" and in paroxysm of hate struck the man across his face. He felt his own face struck but felt hurt no more than when he had bruised his thigh in leaping from the Embankment wall. "Come on, then!" cried Mr. Wriford. "Come on, then, if you can! I'll make you sorry for it, Wriford. Come on, then!"
And Mr. Wriford turned again, and with the figure steadily beside him, ran and ran and ran and ran and ran.
Most dreadful pains of distressed breathing, of bursting heart and of throbbing head, afflicted Mr. Wriford as he ran. He laboured on despite them. He forgot, too, that he had started running to escape arrest and had run on—across the Strand, up Kingsway, through Russell Square, across the Euston road and still on—in terror of pursuit. All that possessed him now was fear and hatred of the one that ran steadily at his elbow, whom constantly he looked at across his shoulder and then would try to run faster, whom presently he faced, halting in his run and at first unable to speak for the agonies of his exertions.
Then Mr. Wriford said gaspingly: "Look here—you're not to follow me. Do you understand?" and then cried, with sobbing breaths: "Go away! Go away, I tell you!"
In the rays that came from an electric-light standard near which they stood, Figure of Wriford seemed only to grin in mock of these commands.
Mr. Wriford waited to recover more regular breathing. Then he said fiercely: "Look here! Look across the road. There's a policeman there watching us. D'you see him? Well, are you going to leave me, or am I going to give you in charge? Now, then!"
Figure of Wriford only looked mockingly at him; and first there came to Mr. Wriford a raging impulse to strike him again, and then the knowledge that the policeman was watching; and then Mr. Wriford stepped swiftly across the road to carry out his threat; and then, as he approached the policeman, had a sudden realisation of the spectacle he must present—clothes dripping, hat gone, collar ripped away—and for fear of creating a scene, changed his intention. But his first impulse had brought him right up to the policeman. He must say something. He knew he was in the direction of Camden Town. He said nervously, trying to control his laboured breathing: "Can you tell us the way to Camden Town, please?"
This chanced to be a constable much used to the oddities of London life and, by many years of senior officer bullying and magisterial correction, cautious of interference with the public unless supported by direct Act of Parliament. He awaited with complete unconcern the bedraggled figure whose antics he had watched across the road, and in reply to Mr. Wriford's hesitating: "We want to get to Camden Town. Can you tell us the way, please," remarked over Mr. Wriford's head and without bending his own: "Well, you've got what you want. It's all round you," and added, indulging the humour for which he had some reputation: "That's a bit of it you're holding down with your feet."
Mr. Wriford looked at Figure of Wriford standing by his side. He looked so long with hating eyes, and was so long occupied with the struggle to brave fear of a scene and give the man in charge for following him, that he felt some further explanation was due to the policeman before he could move away.
"Thanks," said Mr. Wriford. "Thank you, we rather thought we'd lost our way."
The policeman unbent a little and exercised his humour afresh. "Well, we've found it right enough," said he. "What are us, by any chance? King of Proosia or Imperial Hemperor of Wot O She Bumps?"
The constable's facetiousness was of a part with those slights to his dignity from inferiors which always caused Mr. Wriford insufferable humiliation. It angered him and gave him courage. "Take that man in charge," cried Mr. Wriford sharply. "He's following me. I'm afraid of him. Take him in charge."
"What man?" said the constable. "Don't talk so stupid. There's no man there."
"That man," cried Mr. Wriford. "Are you drunk or what? Where's your Inspector?"
The constable, roused by this behaviour: "My Inspector's where you'll be pretty sharp, if I have much more of it—at the station! Now, then! Coming to me with your us-es and your we-es! 'Op off out of it, d'ye see? 'Op it an' quick."
Mr. Wriford stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment and then screamed out: "I tell you that man's following me. What's he following me for? He's followed me miles. I'm afraid of him. Send him off. Send him away."
The constable tucked his gloves in his belt and caught Mr. Wriford strongly by the shoulder. "Now, look here," said the constable, "there's no man there, and if you go on with your nonsense, you're Found Wandering whilst of Unsound Mind, that's what you are. You're asking for it, that's what you're doing, and in less than a minute you'll get it, if you ain't careful. Why don't you behave sensible? What's the matter with you? Now, then, are you going to 'op it quiet, or am I going to take you along?"
All manner of confusing ideas whirled in Mr. Wriford's brain while the constable thus addressed him. How, if he went to the Police Station, was he going to explain who this man was that was following him? The man was himself—that hated Wriford. Then who was he? Very bewildering. Very difficult to explain. Best get out of this and somehow give the man the slip. He addressed the constable quietly and with a catch at his breath: "All right. It's all right. Never mind."
The constable released him. "Now do you know where you live?"
"Yes, I know; oh, I know," Mr. Wriford said.
"Got some one to look after you, waiting up for you?"
"Yes—yes."
"Goin' to 'op it quiet?"
"Yes—yes. It's all right."
"Not goin' to give nobody in charge?"
Mr. Wriford stood away and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He said miserably: "No, it's all right. Only a bit of a quarrel. It's nothing. We'll go on. We're all right."
"Well, let me see you 'op it," said the policeman.
"All right," said Mr. Wriford. "All right," and he walked on, still just catching his breath a little, and puzzling, and watching out of the corner of his eyes Figure of Wriford who came on beside him.
He walked on through Camden Town and through Kentish Town, Figure of Wriford at his elbow. Sometimes he would glance at Figure of Wriford and then would begin to run. Figure of Wriford ran with him. Sometimes he would stop and stand still. Figure of Wriford also stopped, halting a little behind him. Once as he looked back at Figure of Wriford, he saw a newspaper cart overtaking them, piled high with morning papers, driving fast. Mr. Wriford stepped off the pavement and began to cross the road. He judged very exactly the distance at which Figure of Wriford followed him. When Figure of Wriford was right in the cart's way, and he a pace or two beyond it, he suddenly turned back and rushed for the pavement again.
"Now you're done for!" he shouted in Figure of Wriford's face; but it was himself that the shaft struck a glancing blow, staggering him to the path as the horse was wrenched aside; and he was dizzied and scarcely heard the shouts of abuse cursed at him by the driver, as the cart went on and he was left groaning at the violent hurt and shock he had suffered, Figure of Wriford beside him.
Mr. Wriford walked on and on, planning schemes of escape as he walked, and presently thought of one. He was by now at Highgate Archway, and following the way he had pursued, came upon the road that runs through Finchley to Barnet and so in a great highway to the country beyond. Now early morning and early morning's solitude had given place to the warmth and opening activities of five o'clock—labourers passed to their work, occasional tram-cars, scraping on their overhead wires, came from Barnet or ran towards it. Mr. Wriford was glad of the sun. His running until he met the policeman had overcome the chill of his immersion in the river. Since then, he had felt his soaked clothing clinging about him, and his teeth chattered and he shivered, very cold. His exertions had run the water off him. Now the strong sun began to dry him. Gradually, as he went on, the shivering ceased to mingle with his breathing and only came to shake him in spasmodic convulsions, very violent. But his breathing remained in catching sobs, and that was because of his fear and hate of the one that trod at his elbow, and of effort and resolution on the plan that should escape him.
He began, as he approached the signs that indicated halting-stations for the tram-cars, to hurry past them, and when he was beyond a post, to dally and look behind him for an overtaking car. Several he allowed to pass. They were travelling too slowly for his purpose, and Figure of Wriford was watching him very closely. He came presently to a point where the road began to descend gently in a long and straight decline.
Here cars passed very swiftly, and as one came speeding while he was between halting-stations, Mr. Wriford bound up his purpose and launched it. The car whizzed up to them; Mr. Wriford, looking unconcernedly ahead, let it almost pass him, then he struck a savage blow at Figure of Wriford and made a sudden and a wild dash to scramble aboard. The pole on the conductor's platform was torn through his hands that clutched at it; he grasped desperately at the back rail, stumbled, was dragged, clung on, got a foot on the step, almost fell, grabbed at the pole, drew himself aboard, and threw himself against the conductor who had rushed down from the top and, with one hand clutched at Mr. Wriford, with the other was about to ring the bell.
Mr. Wriford's onset threw him violently against the door, and Mr. Wriford, collapsed against him, cried: "Don't ring! Don't stop!" and then turned and at what he saw, screamed: "Don't let that man get on! Don't let him! Throw him off! Throw him off! I tell you, throw him—" But the conductor, very angry, shaken in the nerves and bruised against the door, hustled Mr. Wriford within the car, and Mr. Wriford saw Figure of Wriford following on the heels of their scuffle; collapsed upon a seat and saw Figure of Wriford take a place opposite him; began to moan softly to himself and could not pay any attention to the conductor's abuse.
"Serve you right," said the conductor very heatedly, "if you'd broke your neck. Jumpin' on my car like that. Serve you to rights if you'd broke your neck. Nice thing for me if you had, I reckon. I reckon it's your sort what gets us poor chaps into trouble." He held on to an overhead strap, swayed indignantly above Mr. Wriford, and obtaining no satisfaction from him—sitting there very dejectedly, twisting his hands together, little moans escaping him, tears standing in his eyes—directed his remarks towards the single other passenger in the car, who was a very stout workman and who, responding with a refrain of: "Ah. That's right," induced the conductor to reiterate his charge in order to earn a full measure of the comfort which "Ah. That's right" evidently gave him.
"Serve you right if you'd broke your neck," declared the conductor.
"Ah. That's right," agreed the stout workman.
"Your sort what gets us chaps into trouble, I reckon."
"Ah. That's right," the stout workman affirmed.
"Nice thing for me an' my mate," declared the conductor, "to go before the Coroner. Lose a day's work and not 'arf lucky if we get off with that."
"Ah. That's right," said the stout workman and spat on the floor and rubbed it in with a stout boot, and as if intellectually enlivened by this discharge, varied his agreement to: "That's right, that is. Ah."
"Serve you right—" began the conductor again, and Mr. Wriford, acted upon by his persistence, said wearily: "Well, never mind. Never mind. I'm all right now."
"Well, I reckon you didn't ought to be," declared the conductor. "Not if I hadn't come down them steps pretty sharp, you didn't ought."
The stout workman: "Ah. That's right."
Now the conductor suddenly produced his tickets and sharply demanded of Mr. Wriford: "Penny one? Reckon you ought to pay double, you ought."
Mr. Wriford as suddenly roused himself, looked across at Figure of Wriford seated opposite, and as sharply replied: "I'm not going to pay for him! I won't pay for him, mind you!"
The conductor followed the direction of Mr. Wriford's eyes, looked thence towards the stout workman, and then turned upon Mr. Wriford with: "Pay for yourself. That's what you've got to do."
"Ah. That's right," agreed the workman.
Mr. Wriford, breathing very hard, paid a penny, and receiving his ticket, watched the conductor very feverishly while he said: "Takes you to Barnet," and while at last he turned away and stood against the entrance. Then Mr. Wriford pointed to where Figure of Wriford sat and cried: "Where's that man's ticket?"
The conductor looked at the stout workman and tapped himself twice upon the forehead.
"Ah. That's right," said the stout workman; and thus supported, the conductor, no less a humourist than the policeman of an hour before, informed Mr. Wriford, with a wink at the stout workman: "He don't want no ticket."
Mr. Wriford appealed miserably: "Oh, why not? Why not?"
"He rides free," said the conductor. "That's what he does," and while the stout workman agreed to this with his usual formula, Mr. Wriford rocked himself to and fro in his corner and said: "Oh, why did you let him on? Why did you let him on? I asked you not to. Oh, I asked you."
This caused much amusement to the conductor and the stout workman, and at Barnet the conductor very successfully launched two shafts of wit which he had elaborated with much care. As Mr. Wriford alighted, "Wait for your friend," the conductor said, and as Mr. Wriford paused with twisting face and then set off up the road, turned for the stout workman's appreciation and discharged his second brand. "Reckon he ought to ha' bin on a 'Anwell[1] car," said the conductor.
[1] Hanwell is the great lunatic asylum of London.
"Ah. That's right," said the stout workman.
Mr. Wriford passed through Barnet and walked on to the open country beyond, and still on and on throughout the day. He halted neither for rest nor refreshment. Night came, and still he walked. He had no thought of sleep, but sleep stole upon his limbs. He stumbled on a grassy roadside, fell, did not rise again, and slept. The hours marched and brought him to new day. He awoke, looked at Figure of Wriford who sat wide-eyed beside him, said "Oh—oh!" and walking all day long, said no other word.
Dusk of the second evening stole across the fields and massed ahead of him. Mr. Wriford's progression was now no more than a laboured dragging of one foot and a slow placing it before the other. He came at this gait over the brow of a hill, and it revealed to him one at whose arresting appearance and at whose greeting Mr. Wriford for the first time stopped of his own will and stood and stared, swaying upon his feet.
This was a somewhat tattered gentleman, very tall, seated comfortably against the hedge, long legs stretched before him, one terminating in a brown boot of good shape, the other in a black, through which a toe protruded. This gentleman was shaped from the waist upwards like a pear, in that his girth was considerable, his shoulders very narrow, and his head and face like a little round ball. He ate, as he reclined there, from a large piece of bread in one hand and a portion of cold sausage in the other; and he appeared to be no little incommoded as he did so, and as Mr. Wriford watched him, by a distressing affliction of the hiccoughs which, as they rent him, he pronouncedhup!
"Hup!" said this gentleman with his mouth full; and then again "hup!" He then cleared his mouth, and regarding Mr. Wriford with a jolly smile, upraised the sausage in greeting and trolled forth in a very deep voice and in the familiar chant:
"'O all ye tired strangers of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise Him and magnify Him for ever'—hup!
"But you can't do that," continued the pear-shaped gentleman, "when the famine has you in the vitals and the soreness in the legs, as it has you, unless you've practised it as much as I have. Then it is both food and rest. In this wise—
"Hup!—O all ye hungry of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise Him andhup-nify Him for ever.
"Hunger, I assure you," said the pear-shaped gentleman, "flee-eth before that shout as the wild goat before the hunter. Hunger or any ill. I have known every ill and defeated them all. Selah!"
There was about this unusual gentleman that which doubly attracted Mr. Wriford. The Mr. Wriford of a very few days ago, who avoided eyes, who shrank from strangers, would hurriedly and self-consciously have passed him by. The Mr. Wriford with whom Figure of Wriford walked was attracted by the pear-shaped gentleman's careless happiness and attracted much more by his last words. He came a slow step nearer the pear-shaped gentleman, looked at Figure of Wriford, and from him with eyes that signalled secrecy to the pear-shaped gentleman, and in a low voice demanded: "You have known every ill? Have you ever been followed?"
The pear-shaped gentleman stared curiously at Mr. Wriford for a moment. Then he said: "Not so much followed, which implies interest or curiosity, as chased—which betokens vengeance or heat. With me that is a common lot. By dogs often and frequently bitten of them. By farmers a score time and twice assaulted. By—"
"Have you ever been followed by yourself?" Mr. Wriford interrupted him.
The pear-shaped gentleman inclined his head to one side and examined Mr. Wriford more curiously than before. "Have you come far?" he inquired.
"From Barnet," said Mr. Wriford.
"Spare us!" said the pear-shaped gentleman with much piety. "Long on the road?"
Mr. Wriford looked at Figure of Wriford, and for the first time since the event on the Embankment cast his mind back along their companionship. It seemed immensely long ago; and at the thought of it, there overcame Mr. Wriford a full and a sudden sense of his misery that somehow unmanned him the more by virtue of this, the first sympathetic soul he had met since he had fled—since, as somehow it seemed to him, very long before his flight. He said, with a break in his voice and his voice very weak: "I don't know how long we've been. We've been a long time."
The pear-shaped gentleman inclined his head with a jerk to the opposite side and took a long gaze at Mr. Wriford from that position. He then said: "How many of you?"
Mr. Wriford, a little surprise in his tone: "Why, just we two."
"Hup!" said the pear-shaped gentleman, said it with the violence of one caught unawares and considerably startled, and then, recovering himself, directed upon Mr. Wriford the same jolly smile with which he had first greeted him, and again upraising the sausage, trolled forth very deeply:
"O all ye loonies of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise Him and magnify Him for ever."
The pear-shaped gentleman then jumped to his feet with an agility very conspicuous in one of his girth, and of considerable purpose, in that he had no sooner obtained his balance on his feet than Mr. Wriford lost his balance upon his feet, swayed towards the arms outstretched to him, was assisted to the hedgeside, and there collapsed with a groan of very great fatigue.
The pear-shaped gentleman on his knees, busying himself with a long bottle and a tin can taken from the grass, with a clasp knife, the cold sausage, and the portion of bread: "I will have that groan into a shout of praise before I am an hour nearer the grave or I am no man. Furthermore," continued the pear-shaped gentleman, filling the can very generously and assisting it very gently to Mr. Wriford's lips, "furthermore, I will have no man groan other than myself, who groaneth often and with full cause. Your groan and your countenance betokeneth much misery, and I will not be bested by any man either in misery or in any other thing. I will run you, jump you, wrestle you, drink you, eat you, whistle you, sing you, dance you—I will take you or any man at any challenge; and this I will do with you or any man for—win or lose—three fingers of whisky, the which,hup!is at once my curse and my sole delight. Selah!"
As he delivered himself of these remarkable sentiments, the pear-shaped gentleman cut from the sausage and the bread the portions to which his teeth had attended, conveyed these to his own mouth, which again became as full as when Mr. Wriford had first seen it, and pressed the remainders upon Mr. Wriford with a cordiality much aided by his jolly speech and by the tin can of whisky which now ran very warmly through Mr. Wriford's veins. These combinations, indeed, and the sight and then the taste of food awakened very ferociously in Mr. Wriford the hunger which had now for two days been gathering within him. He ate hungrily, and, in proportion as his faintness became satisfied, something of an irresponsible light-headedness came to him; he began to give little spurts of laughter at the whimsicality of the pear-shaped gentleman and for the first time to forget the presence of Figure of Wriford; he accepted with no more reluctance than the same nervous humour a final absurdity which, as night closed about them, and as his meal was finished, the pear-shaped gentleman pressed upon him.
"I can hardly keep awake," said Mr. Wriford and lay back against the hedge.
The pear-shaped gentleman answered him from the darkness: "Well, this is where we sleep—a softer couch than any of your beds, and I have experienced every sort. The painful eructations which, to my great though lawful punishment, my proneness for the whisky puts upon me, are now,hup!almost abated, and I, too, incline to slumber."
Mr. Wriford said sleepily: "You've been awfully kind."
"I have conceived a fancy for you," said the pear-shaped gentleman. "I like your face, boy. I call you boy because you are youthful, and I am older than you: in sin, curse me, as old as any man. I also call you loony, which it appears to me you are, and for which I like you none the worse. As an offset to the liberty, you shall call me by any term you please."
Mr. Wriford scarcely heard him. "Well, I'd like to know your name," said he.
"Puddlebox," said the pear-shaped gentleman; and to Mr. Wriford's little spurt of sleepy laughter replied: "A name that I claim to be all my own, for I will not be beat at a name, nor at any thing, as I have told you, by any man."
To this there was but a dreamy sigh from Mr. Wriford, and Mr. Puddlebox inquired of him: "Sleepy?"
"Dog-tired," said Mr. Wriford.
"Happy?"
"I'm all right," said Mr. Wriford.
"Well, then, you are much better, loony," said Mr. Puddlebox. He then put out a hand in the darkness, and touching Mr. Wriford's ribs, obtained his fuller attention. "You are much better," repeated Mr. Puddlebox, "and if you will give me your interest for a last moment, we will continue in praise the cure which we have begun very satisfactorily in good whisky, cold sausage, and new bread. A nightly custom of mine which I suit according to the circumstances and in which, being suited to you, you shall now accompany me."
"Well?" said Mr. Wriford, aroused, and laughed again in light-hearted content. "Well?"
"Well," said Mr. Puddlebox, "thusly," and trolled forth very deeply into the darkness:
"O all ye loonies of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise Him and magnify Him for ever."
"Now you," said Mr. Puddlebox.
Mr. Wriford protested with nervous laughter: "It's too ridiculous!"
"It's wonderfully comforting," said Mr. Puddlebox; and Mr. Wriford laughed again and in a voice that contrasted very thinly with the volume of Mr. Puddlebox's gave forth as requested:
"O all ye loonies of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise Him and magnify Him for ever."
"Scarcely body enough," adjudged Mr. Puddlebox, "but that will come with appreciation of its value. Now one other, and this time touching that friend of yours whom I name Spook. We have starved him to his great undoing, for you have fed while he has hungered, and his bowels are already weakened upon you. We will now further discomfort him with praise. This time together—O all ye Spooks. Now, then."
"It's absurd," said Mr. Wriford. "It's too ridiculous"; but in the midst of his laughter at it had a sudden return to Figure of Wriford who was the subject of it and cried out: "Oh, what shall I do? Oh, what shall I do?"
"Why, there you go!" cried Mr. Puddlebox. "There's the necessity of it. Fight against him, boy. Let him not beat you, nor any such. Quick now—O all ye—"
And Mr. Wriford groaned, then laughed in a nervous little spurt, then groaned again, then weakly quavered while Mr. Puddlebox strongly belled:
"O all ye spooks of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise Him and magnify Him for ever."
"Feel better?" questioned Mr. Puddlebox.
In the darkness only some stifled sounds answered him.
"Crying, loony?"
Only those sounds.
Mr. Puddlebox put out a large hand, felt for Mr. Wriford's hands and clasped it upon them. "Hold my hand, boy."
Sleep came to them.
This was a large, fat, kindly and protective hand in whose comfort Mr. Wriford slept, beneath which he awoke, and whose aid he was often to enjoy in immediate days to come. Yet its influence over him was by no means always apparent. Increasing acquaintance with Mr. Puddlebox was needed for its development, and this had illustration in the manner of his first sleep by Mr. Puddlebox's side.
Thus at first Mr. Wriford, clutching like a child at the hand which came to him in the darkness, and no little operated upon by intense fatigue, by the whisky, and by the meal of cold sausage and bread, slept for some hours very soundly and without dreams. Next his state became troubled. His mind grew active while yet his body slept. Very disturbing visions were presented to him, and beneath them he often moaned. They rode him hard, and ridden by them he began to find his unaccustomed couch first comfortless and then distressing. A continuous, tremendous, and rasping sound began to mingle with and to be employed by his visions. He sat up suddenly, threw off Mr. Puddlebox's hand in bewildered fear of it, then saw that the enormous raspings proceeded from Mr. Puddlebox's nose and open mouth, and then remembered, and then saw Figure of Wriford seated before him.
Mr. Wriford caught terribly at his breath and with the action drew up his knees. He placed his elbows on them and covered his face with his hands. He pressed his fingers together, but through their very flesh he yet could see Figure of Wriford quite plainly, grinning at him. Hatred and fear gathered in Mr. Wriford amain. With them he drew up all the fibres of his body, drew his heels closer beneath him, prepared to spring fiercely at the intolerable presence, then suddenly threw his hands from him and at the other's throat, and cried aloud and sprung.
He struggled. He fought. Figure of Wriford was screaming at him, and in that din, and in the din of bursting blood within his brain, he heard Mr. Puddlebox also shouting at him strangely. "Glumph him, boy," Mr. Puddlebox shouted. "Glumph him, glumph him!" And there was Mr. Puddlebox hopping bulkily about him as he fought and struggled and staggered, and desperately sickened, and desperately strove to keep his feet.
"Help me!" choked Mr. Wriford. "Help me! Help me! Kill him! Kill! Kill!"
"Kill yourself!" came Mr. Puddlebox's voice. "You're killing yourself! You're killing yourself! Why, what the devil? You're fighting yourself, boy. You're fighting yourself. Loose him, boy! Loose him! You've got him beat! Loose him now, loose him—Ooop!"
This bitter cry of "Ooop!" unheeded by Mr. Wriford, was shot out of agony to Mr. Puddlebox's black-booted foot, upon the emerging toes of which Mr. Wriford's heel came with grinding force. "Ooop!" bawled Mr. Puddlebox and hopped away upon the shapely brown boot, the other foot clutched in his hands, and then"Ooop!" again—"Ooop! Erp! Blink!" For there crashed upon his nose a smashing fist of Mr. Wriford's arm, and down he went, blood streaming, and Mr. Wriford atop of him, and Mr. Wriford's head with stunning force against a telegraph pole, thence to an ugly stone.
Stillness then of movement; and of sounds only immense gurgling and snuffling from Mr. Puddlebox, lamentably engaged upon his battered nose.
Mr. Wriford sat up. He pressed a hand to his head and presently, his chest heaving, spoke with sobbing breaths. "You might have helped me," he sobbed. "You might have helped me."
From above his dripping nose, Mr. Puddlebox regarded him dolorously. He had no speech.
"You might have helped me," Mr. Wriford moaned.
"Glug," said Mr. Puddlebox thickly. "Glug. Blink!"
"When you saw me—" Mr. Wriford cried.
"Glug," said Mr. Puddlebox. "Blink! Helped you!" he then cried. "Why, look what the devil I have helped you! Glug. If I have bled a pint, I have bled a quart, and at this flood I shall ungallon myself to death. Glug. Blink. Why, I was no less than a fool ever to come near you. Might have helped you! Glug!"
Mr. Wriford's common politeness came to him. With some apology in his tone, "I don't know how you got that," he said. "I only—"
Mr. Puddlebox, very woefully from behind a blood-red cloth: "I don't know how I shall ever get over it." But he was by now a little better of it, the flow somewhat staunched, and he said with a vexation that he justified by glances at the soaking cloth between dabs of it at his nose: "Why, I helped you in all I could. You fought like four devils. I was in the very heart of it.
"I heard you," said Mr. Wriford, "shouting 'Glumph him!' or some such word. It was no help to—"
Mr. Puddlebox returned crossly. "Glumph him! Certainly I—glug. Blink! There it is off again. Glug. Certainly I shouted glumph him. A glumph is a fat hit—a hit without art or science, and the only sort of which I am capable, or you, either, as I saw at a glance. Glug."
"I was fighting," said Mr. Wriford. "I was being killed, and you—"
"Why, I was being killed also," returned Mr. Puddlebox. "Look at my foot. Look at my nose. Fighting! Why, there never was such senseless fighting—never. Glug. Blink! Why, beyond that you fought with me whenever I came near you, who to the devil do you think you were fighting with?"
Mr. Wriford looked at him with very troubled eyes. After a little while, "Why, tell me whom," he said. "I want to know." His voice ran up and he cried: "It's not right! I want to know."
"Why, loony," said Mr. Puddlebox kindly, suddenly losing his heat and his vexation, "why, loony, you were fighting yourself."
"Yes," Mr. Wriford answered him hopelessly. "Yes. That's it. Myself that follows me," and he moaned and wrung his hands, rocking himself where he sat.
Mr. Puddlebox supported his nose with his blood-red cloth and waddled to Mr. Wriford on his knees. He sat himself on his heels and wagged a grave finger before Mr. Wriford's face. "Now look here, boy," said Mr. Puddlebox. "When I say you, I mean you—that you," and he dug the finger at Mr. Wriford's chest. "When I say fought yourself, I mean your own hands—those hands, at your own throat—that throat."
Mr. Puddlebox spoke so impressively, looking so strongly and yet so kindly at Mr. Wriford, that great wonder and trouble came into Mr. Wriford's eyes, and he put his fingers to his throat, that was red and scarred and tender, and said wonderingly, doubtfully, pitifully: "Do you mean that I did this to myself—with my own hands?"
"Why, certainly I do," returned Mr. Puddlebox, "and with your own hands this to my nose. Why, I awoke with a kick that you gave me, and there you were, dancing over there with sometimes your hands squeezing the life out of yourself, black in the face, and your eyes like to drop out, and sometimes your hands smashing at nothing except when they smashed me, and screaming at the top of your voice, and your feet staggering and plunging—why, you were like to have torn yourself to bits, but that you fell, and the pole here knocked sense into you. Like this you had yourself," and Mr. Puddlebox took his throat in his hands in illustration, "and shook yourself so," and shook his head violently and ended "Glug. Curse me. I've started it again. Glug," and mopped his nose anew.
Mr. Wriford said in horror, more to himself than aloud: "Why, that's madness!"
"Why—glug, blink!" said Mr. Puddlebox. "Why, that's what it will be if you let it run, boy. That's what will be, if you are by yourself, which you shall not be, for I like your face, and I will teach you to glumph it out of you. This is a spook that you think you see, and that is why I call you loony, and it is no more a real thing than the several things I see when the whisky is in me, as I have taught myself—glug, I shall bleed to death—as I have taught myself to know, and as I shall teach you. Wherefore we are henceforward comrades, for you are not fit to take care of yourself till this thing is out of you. We shall now breakfast," continued Mr. Puddlebox, beginning with one hand, the other kept very gingerly to his nose, to feel towards his bundle on the grass, "and you shall tell me who you are, and why you are spooked, first unspooking yourself, as last night, with praise. Come now, we will have them both together—O ye loonies and spooks—"
"I won't!" said Mr. Wriford. He sat with his hands to his chin, his knees drawn up, wrestling in a fevered mind with what facts came out of Mr. Puddlebox's jargon. "I won't!"
"It is very comforting," said Mr. Puddlebox, not at all offended. "Try breakfast first, then."
"Oh, let me alone," cried Mr. Wriford. "I don't want breakfast."
"I do," returned Mr. Puddlebox. "The more so that I have lost vast blood. There is enough whisky here to invigorate me, yet, under Providence, not to plague me with the hiccoughs. Also good cold bacon. Come, boy, cold bacon."
"I don't want it," Mr. Wriford said.
"More for me," said Mr. Puddlebox, "and I want much. While I eat, you shall tell me how you come to be loony, and I will then tell you how I come to be what I am. And I will tell a better story than you or than any man. Come now!"
An immense bite of the cold bacon then went to Mr. Puddlebox's mouth, and Mr. Wriford, looking up, found himself so jovially and affectionately beamed upon through the bite, that he suddenly turned towards Mr. Puddlebox and said: "I'll tell you. I'd like to tell you. You've been very kind to me. I've never said thank you. I'm ill. I don't know what I am."
Gratified sounds from Mr. Puddlebox's distended mouth—inarticulate for the cold bacon that impeded them, but sufficiently interpreted by quick nods of the funny little round head and by smiles.
"It's very strange to me," said Mr. Wriford in a low voice, "to be sitting here like this and talking to you. I don't know how I do it. A little while ago I was in London, and I couldn't have done it then. I never spoke to anybody that I could help—I remember that. I say I can remember that, because there are a lot of things I can't remember. I've been like that a long time. I've never told anybody before. I don't know how I tell you now—I said that just now, didn't I?" and Mr. Wriford stopped and looked at Mr. Puddlebox in a puzzled way.
Mr. Puddlebox, cheeks much distended, first shook his head very vigorously and then as vigorously nodded it. This thoughtfully left it to Mr. Wriford to choose whichever distressed him less, and he said: "In the middle of thinking of a thing it goes." There was a rather pitiful note in Mr. Wriford's voice, and he sat dejectedly in silence. When next he spoke, he shook himself, and as though the action shook off his former mood, he said excitedly, bending forward towards Mr. Puddlebox: "Look here, I've never done things! I've been shut up. I've had things to look after. I've never been able to rest. I've never been able to be quiet. There's always been something else. There's always been something all round me, like walls—oh, like walls! Always getting closer. I've never been able to stop. No peace. There's always been some trouble—something to think about that grinds me up, and in the middle of it something else. There's always been something hunting me. Always something, and always something else waiting behind that. Like walls, closer and closer. I never could get away. I tell you, every one I ever met had something for me that kept me. I wanted to scream at them to let me alone. I never could get away. I was shut up. I'm a writer. I write newspapers and books. People know me—people who write. I hate them all. I've often looked at people and hated everybody. They look at me and see what I am and laugh at me. They know I'm frightened of them. I'm frightened because I've been shut up, and that's made me different from other people. I'm a writer. I've made much more money than I want. I've looked at people in trains and places and known I could have bought them all up ten times over. And the money's never been any use to me—not when you're shut up, not when there's always something else, not when you're always trembling. I never can make people understand. They don't know I'm shut up. They don't see that there's always something else. They think—"
Mr. Wriford stopped and looked again in a puzzled way at Mr. Puddlebox and then said apologetically: "I don't know how I've come here. I don't understand it just at present. I'll think of it in a minute;" and then broke out suddenly and very fiercely: "But I tell you, although you say it isn't, and God only knows why you should interfere or what it's got to do with you, I tell you that I've had myself walking with me and want to kill it. And I will kill it! It's done things to me. It's kept me down. I hate it. It's been me for a long time. But it isn't me! I'm different. I can look back when you never knew me, and God knows how different I've been—young and happy! I want to die. If you want to know, though what the devil it's got to do with—I want to die, die, die! I want to get out of it all. Yes, now I remember. That's it. I want to get out of it all. Everything's all round me, close to me. I can scarcely breathe. I want to get out of it. I've been in it long enough. I want to smash it all up. Smash it with my hands to blazes. My name's Wriford. If you don't believe it, you can ask any one in London who knows about newspapers and books, and they'll tell you. I'm Wriford, and I want to get out of it all. I want to kill myself and get away alone. I won't have myself with me any longer! Damn him, he's a vile devil, and he isn't me at all. I'm Wriford! Good Lord, before I began all this, I used to be— He's a vile, cowardly devil. I want to get away from him and get away by myself. I want to smash it all up. With my hands I want to smash it and get away alone—alone;" and then Mr. Wriford stopped with chest heaving and with burning eyes, and then tore open his coat and then his shirt, as though his body burned and he would have the air upon it.
All this time Mr. Puddlebox had been champing steadily with mouth prodigiously filled. Now he washed down last fragments of cold bacon with last dregs of good whisky and, with no sort of comment upon Mr. Wriford's story or condition, announced: "Now I will tell you my story. That's fair. Then we shall know each other as comrades should; which, as I have said, we are to be henceforward and until I have unspooked you. Furthermore, as I also said, I will tell a better story than you—yes, or than any man, for I will take you or any man at any thing and give best to none. Selah."
"My name is Puddlebox," said Mr. Puddlebox. He settled his back comfortably against the hedge and looked with a very bright eye at Mr. Wriford, who sat bowed before him and who at this beginning, and catching Mr. Puddlebox's merry look, shook himself impatiently and averted his eyes, that were pained and troubled, to the ground, as though he would hear nothing of it and wished to be wrapped in his own concerns.
Not at all discouraged, "My name is Puddlebox," Mr. Puddlebox continued. "I was born many highly virtuous years ago in the ancient town of Hitchin, which lies not far from us as we sit. My father was an ironmonger, of good business and held in high esteem by all who knew him. My mother was an ironer, and love, which, as I have marked, will make use of any bond, perhaps attracted these two by medium of the iron upon which each depended for livelihood. My mother sang in the choir of her chapel, and my father, who sometimes preached there, has told me that she presented a very holy and beautiful picture as the sun streamed through the window and fell upon her while she hymned. Here again," continued Mr. Puddlebox, "the ingenuity of love is to be observed, for this same sunlight, though it adorned my mother, also incommoded her, and my father, in his capacity as ironmonger, was called upon to fit a blind for her greater convenience. This led to their acquaintance and, in process of lawful time, to me whom they named Eric. Little Eric. Five followed me. I was the eldest, and the most dutiful, of six. Offspring of God-fearing parents, I was brought up in the paths of diligence and rectitude—trained in the way I should go and from my earliest years pursued that way without giving my parents one single moment's heart-burning or doubt. I was, and I have ever been, a little ray of sunshine in their lives."
"You're a tramp, aren't you?" said Mr. Wriford.
On the previous evening Mr. Puddlebox had induced in Mr. Wriford a mood in which his griefs had disappeared before little spurts of involuntary laughter. The same, arising out of Mr. Puddlebox's whimsical narration of his grotesque story, threatened him now, and he resisted it. He resisted it as a vexed child, made to laugh despite himself, seeks by cross yet half-laughing rejoinders to preserve his ill-humour and not be wheedled out of it.
"You're a tramp, aren't you?" said Mr. Wriford; but Mr. Puddlebox, with no notice of the interruption, continued: "A little ray of sunshine. My dear parents in time sent me to school. Here, by my diligence and aptitude, I brought at once great shame upon my elder classmates and great pride to the little parlour behind the ironmonger's shop. It became furnished, that pleasant parlour, with my prize-books, and decorated with my medals and certificates of punctuality and good conduct. As I grew older, so the ray of sunshine which I effulged waxed brighter and warmer. My father, encouraged and advised by my teachers, offered me the choice of many lucrative and gentlemanly professions. It was suggested that I should embrace a few of the many scholarships that were at the easy command of my abilities and my industry, proceed to the University, and become pedagogue, pastor, or lawyer. I well remember, and I remember it with pride and happiness, the grateful mingling of my parents' tears when I announced that I spurned these attractions, desiring only to be apprenticed to my dear father's business, perpetuate the grand old name of Puddlebox, ironmonger, Hitchin, and become the prop and comfort of the evening of my parents' years.
"This was the time," proceeded Mr. Puddlebox, "when, in common with all youth, I was subjected to the temptations of gross and idle companions. As I had shamed my classmates at school, so I shamed my would-be betrayers in the street. They called me to the pleasures of the public-house. I pointed to the blue-ribbon badge of my pledges against intoxicating liquors. They enticed me to ribaldry, to card-playing, to laughter with dangerous women. I openly rebuked them and besought them for their own good instead to sit with me of an evening, while I read aloud from devotional works to my dear parents. My spare time I devoted to my Sunday-school class, to the instruction of my younger brothers and sisters, and to profitable reading. My recreation took the form of adorning our chapel with the arts of turnery and joinery which I had learnt together with that of pure ironmongery."
All this was more and more punctuated with spurts of laughter from Mr. Wriford, and now, laughing openly, "Well, when did all this stop?" he said.
"It never stopped," returned Mr. Puddlebox. "A calamitous incident diverted it to another train; that is all. Five sovereigns, nine shillings, and fourpence were one day found to be missing from the till. It was in the till when the shop was shut at seven o'clock one Saturday night, and it was out of the till when my father went to transfer it to the cash-box at eight o'clock. We kept no servant. No stranger had entered the house. The theft lay with one of my brothers and sisters. My father's passion was terrible to witness. That a child of his should rob his own father produced in him a paroxysm of wrath such as even I, well knowing his sternly religious nature, did not believe him capable of. With shaking voice he demanded of my brothers and sisters severally and collectively who had brought this shame upon him. All denied it. I was in an adjoining room—as horrified and as trembling as my father. I knew the culprit. I had seen a Puddlebox—a Puddlebox!—with his hand in his father's till. My long discipline in virtue and in filial and fraternal devotion told me at once what I must do. I must shield the culprit; I must take the blame upon myself."
"Why?" said Mr. Wriford.
"I did not hesitate a moment," said Mr. Puddlebox, disregarding the question. "Breathing a rapid prayer for my dear ones' protection and for the forgiveness of the culprit, I turned instantly and fled from the house. I have never seen my parents since. I have never again revisited the ancestral home of the Puddleboxes. Yet am I content and would not have it otherwise, for I am happy in the knowledge that I have saved the culprit. Since then, I have devoted my life over a wider area to the good works which formerly I practised within the municipal boundaries of beloved Hitchin. I tour the countryside in a series of carefully planned ambits, seeking, by ministration to the sick and needy, to shed light and happiness wherever I go, supporting myself by those habits of diligence and sobriety which became rooted in me in my childhood's years. You say your name is Wriford, and that you are of repute in London. My name is Puddlebox, and I am known, respected, and welcomed in a hundred villages, boroughs, and urban districts. Now that is my story," concluded Mr. Puddlebox, "and I challenge you to say that yours is a better."
Mr. Wriford was by this time completely won out of the fierce and tumultuous thoughts that had possessed him when Mr. Puddlebox began. His little spurts of involuntary laughter had become more frequent and more openly daring as Mr. Puddlebox proceeded, and now, quite given over to a nervously light-headed state such as may be produced in one by incessant tickling, he laughed outright and declared: "I don't believe a word of it!"
"Well," said Mr. Puddlebox, merrier than ever in the eye, and speaking with a curious note of triumph as though this were precisely what he had been aiming at, "Well, I don't believe a word of yours!"
"Mine's true," cried Mr. Wriford, quick and sharp, and got indignantly to his feet. Habit of thought of the kind that had helped work his destruction in him jumped at him at this, as he took it, flat insult to his face, and in the old way set him surging in head and heart at the slight to his dignity. "Mine's true!" he cried and looked down hotly at Mr. Puddlebox.
"And mine's as true," said Mr. Puddlebox equably and giving him only the same merry eye.
Mr. Wriford, heaving: "Why, you said yourself—only last night—that whisky was your curse. You've told me a lot of rubbish; you couldn't have meant it for anything else. I've told you facts. What don't you believe?"
"I don't believe any of it," said Mr. Puddlebox, and at Mr. Wriford's start and choke, added quickly: "as you tell it."
One of those sudden blanks, one of those sudden snappings of the train of thought—click!like an actual snapping in the brain—came to Mr. Wriford. One of those floodings about his mind of immense and whirling darkness in which desperately his mental eye sought to peer, and desperately his mental hands to grope. He tried to remember what it was that he had told Mr. Puddlebox. He tried to search back among recent moments that he could remember—or thought he remembered—for words he must have spoken but could not recollect. His indignation at Mr. Puddlebox's refusal to believe him disappeared before this anguish and the trembling that it gave. He made an effort to hold his own, not to betray himself, and with it cried indignantly: "Well, what did I say?" then, unable to sustain it, abandoned himself to the misery and the helplessness, and used again the same words, but pitiably. "Well, what did I say?" Mr. Wriford asked and caught his breath in a sob.
Mr. Puddlebox put that large, soft, fat, kindly and protective hand against Mr. Wriford's leg that stood over him and pulled on the trouser. "Now, look here, boy," said Mr. Puddlebox very soothingly, "sit here by me, and I will tell you what you said, and we will put this to the rights of it."
Very dejectedly Mr. Wriford sat down; very protectively Mr. Puddlebox put the large hand on his knee and patted it. "Now, look here, my loony," said Mr. Puddlebox, "I'll tell you what you said, and what I mean by saying I don't believe a word of it as you tell it. What I mean, my loony, is that there's one thing the same in your story and in mine, and it is the same in every story that I hear from folks along the road, and I challenge you or any man to hear as many as I have heard. It is that we've both been glumphed, boy. We've both led beautiful, virtuous lives and ought to be angels with beautiful wings—'stead of which, here we are: glumphed; folks have got up and given us fat hits and glumphed us.
"Well, there's two ways," continued Mr. Puddlebox with great good humour, "there's two ways of telling a glumphed story, my loony: the way of the glumphed, which I have told to you, and the way of the glumpher, which I now shall tell you. Take my story first, boy. Glumphed, which is me, tells you of a child and a boy and a youth which was the pride and the comfort and the support of his parents; glumphers, which is they, would tell you I was their shame and their despair. Glumphed: diligent, shaming his classmates, adorning the parlour with prize-books; glumphers: never learning but beneath the strap, idle, disobedient. Glumphed: spurning companions who would entice him; glumphers: leading companions astray. Glumphed: putting away nobler callings and desirous only to serve his father in the shop; glumphers: wasting his parents' savings that would educate him for the ministry, and of the shop sick and ashamed. Glumphed: reading devotional books to his mother; glumphers: breaking her heart. Glumphed: knowing the culprit who robbed his father and fleeing to save him; glumphers: himself the thief and running away from home. Glumphed: journeying the countryside in good works and everywhere respected; glumphers: a tramp and a vagabond, plagued with whisky and everywhere known to the police.
"There's a difference for you, boy," concluded Mr. Puddlebox; and he had recited it all so comically as once again to bring Mr. Wriford out of dejection and set him to the mood of little spurts of laughter. "Glumphed," Mr. Puddlebox had said, raising one fat hand to represent that individual and speaking for him in a very high squeak; and then "glumphers" with the other fat hand brought forward and his voice a very sepulchral bass. Now he turned his merry eyes full upon Mr. Wriford: and Mr. Wriford met them laughingly and laughed aloud.
"I see what you're driving at," Mr. Wriford laughed; "but it doesn't apply to me, you know. You don't suppose I've—er—robbed tills, or—well—done your kind of thing, do you?"
"I don't know what you've done," said Mr. Puddlebox. "But this I do know, that your story is the same as my story, and the same as everybody's story, in this way that you've never done anything wrong in your life, and that all your troubles are what other folks—glumphers—have done to you. Well, whoa, my loony, whoa!" cried Mr. Puddlebox, observing protest and indignation blackening again on Mr. Wriford's face. "The difference in your case is that what you've done and think you haven't done has spooked you, boy, and now I will tell you how you are spooked; and how I will unspook you. You think too much about yourself, boy. That's what is spooking you. You think about yourself until you've come to see yourself and to be followed by yourself. Well, you've got to get away from yourself. That's what you want, boy—you know that?"
"Yes, I'm followed," Mr. Wriford cried. He clutched at Mr. Puddlebox's last words; and, at the understanding that seemed to be in them, forgot all else that had been said and cried entreatingly: "I'm followed, followed!"
"I will shake him off," said Mr. Puddlebox. "You want to get away?"
"I must!" said Mr. Wriford. "I must!"
"And you don't mind what happens to you?"
"I don't mind anything."
"Why, then, cheer up," cried Mr. Puddlebox with a sudden infectious burst of spirits, "for I don't, either; and so there are two of us, and the world is full of fun for those who mind nothing. I will teach you to sing, and I will teach you to find in everything measure for my song, which is of praise and which is:
"O ye world of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise Him and magnify Him for ever.
"Up, my loony, and I will teach you to forget yourself, which is what is the matter with you and with most of us."
Mr. Puddlebox with these words got very nimbly to his feet, and there took Mr. Wriford a sudden infection of Mr. Puddlebox's spirits, which made him also jump up and stand with this jolly and pear-shaped figure who minded nothing, and look at him and laugh in irresponsible glee. Mr. Puddlebox wore a very long and very large tail-coat, in the pockets of which he now began to stuff his empty bottle, a spare boot, what appeared to be a shirt in which other articles were rolled, and sundry other packets which he picked up from the grass about him. Upon his head he wore a hard felt hat whose rim was gone, so that it sat upon him like an inverted basin; and about his considerable waist he now proceeded to wind a great length of string. He presented, when his preparations were done, so completely odd and so jolly a figure that Mr. Wriford laughed aloud again and felt run through him a surge of reckless irresponsibility; and Mr. Puddlebox laughed in return, loud and long, and looking down the hill observed: "We will now leave this place of blood and wounds and almost of unseemly quarrel. Ascending towards us I observe a wagon, stoutly horsed. We will attach ourselves to the back of it and place ourselves entirely at its disposal; first greeting the wagoner in song, for the very juice of life is to be extracted by finding matter for praise in all things. Now, then, when he reaches us—'O ye wagoners—'"
The wagon reached them. Piled high with sacks, it was drawn by three straining horses and driven by a very burly gentleman who sat on a seat above his team and midway up the sacks and scowled very blackly at the pair who awaited him and who, as he drew abreast, gave him, Mr. Puddlebox with immense volume and Mr. Wriford with gleeful irresponsibility:
"O ye wagoners of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise Him and magnify Him for ever!"
The wagoner's reply was to spit upon the ground for the singers' benefit and very brutally to lash his team for his own. The horses strained into a frightened and ungainly plunging, and the wagon lumbered ahead. Mr. Puddlebox plunged after it, and Mr. Wriford, with light-headed squirms of laughter, after Mr. Puddlebox. The tail-board of the wagon was not high above the road. In a very short space Mr. Wriford was seated upon it and then clutching and hauling in assistance of the prodigious bounds and scrambles with which, at last, Mr. Puddlebox also effected the climb.
And so away, with dangling legs.