CHAPTER XLII
Wherein we are shown an Emotional Hairdresser at Loggerheads with Destiny
Itwas close upon midnight when Noll, baffled in his attempt to find Gomme, his feet jigging restlessly to a new music that was in his ears, stepped it out through London town, as a man will go on the eve of momentous decision in his life, to visit the old haunts of his boyhood.
As he came into the street where had been his old home, he wondered whether his mother lay asleep—what she was doing—what thinking.
He saw a light in her rooms; walked across the street; halted before the door, half inclined to take her into his delight——
In the black shadows flung by the street lamp there sat in a huddle on the topmost doorstep the silent figure of a man.
Noll bent forward and peered at him:
“Devlin?”
The barber nodded; he was very pale.
He attempted to speak—uttered a rending hiccup—and was still.
“What are you doing here?”
Devlin hiccupped:
“Sittin’ on my—mistress’s—doorstep.”
“Why?”
“To cool the ferment of my imagination,” said the barber sadly.
Noll laughed:
“What’s the matter with your imagination?” he asked. “It looks all right.”
“It’s torrid——”
“Oho!”
His pale face nodded:
“Quite so—quite damned torrid,” said the hairdresser, and hiccupped fearsomely. “It ferments.”
“Rather unpleasant!” said Noll.
“On the contr’y,” said the barber—“quite pleasant.... It’s in the morning my head will be bursting.”
“Very awkward indeed!” said Noll drily, humouring him.
“Of awkward I know nothing,” said the barber—“but it will be more than unpleasant when the cock-y-doo’s begin their—hiccup—morning song. Damn this hiccup!”
“Come, Devlin—wake up!”
Devlin laughed sadly:
“I wish them lamps would stop sliding down the street. Would you mind,” said he—“I’m afraid it’s a great trouble I’m putting ye to—would you mind givin’ me your arm?”
“Why?”
Devlin blinked:
“The man who is intoxicated with love should avoid mixing his intoxication with spirits.... I want to take my head carefully in both hands and put it in yon horse-trough.”
“Don’t be an ass, Devlin,” said Noll, and sat down beside him on the step. “What’s the meaning of all this?”
The barber coughed:
“It’s anarchic I am—and filled with philosophic gloom,” he said. “It’s rollin’ round the intestines of me——”
“Oho! This is serious indeed!”
“It is.... It’s damn terrible.... I’m all at sea—like a great bumping motor-cart going down a great slithery waterfall.”
“Bad as that?” said Noll.
“It’s worse than that,” said Devlin, and hiccupped. “I wish I could get rid of this damn hiccup,” he added irritably—“it nearly pushes me off the steps each time.”
“Well, Devlin—can nothing be done for you?”
“It can. And I’m doing it.”
“What?”
“I’m face to face with my great hairy destiny, and, begod, I’ve hit it and floored it.”
“But that is rather rough treatment of your destiny!”
“The divil take it, yes. I’ve kicked it out of my life.”
Noll put his hand on the other’s shoulder:
“Come, Devlin,” he said—“let us have good honest talk. What’s the trouble between you and your destiny?”
Devlin coughed:
“Well, sir; it’s this way.” He tried to tell off the points under discussion upon his fingers; but, missing his aim, he sadly gave up gesticulation, and put his hands in his pockets. “Ye see, sir, life is only once for the living. That’s a square fact on a fine solid foundation. Even the Presbyterians, God forgive them, can’t get round that with any number of testimonials—nor the Methodies can’t leap that obstruction.... Well, that’s so anyway. That’s the sort of statement on which all the churches meet—the sort of statement that don’t strain the bowels of any tax-payin’ householder to grip between his two fists and look at with the two unblinking eyes in his head.... Now, I, Mike Devlin, said to myself—hiccup—said I—why should this whole mortal journey of me be passed in cuttin’ the stray bits of hair off every damned fool whose hair grows? and wid that, up gets Echo on his hind legs in the dirty old shop and answers: whyindeed?... Then, by the holy army of martyrs, up comes the trump of doom and starts buglin’ in me ears like the leadin’ trombone in the band of a travellin’ circus: Mike, me boy, says the trump, there’ll be a funeral one day, and the shabby section of the world that lives in your dirty old sooty street will be passing by the ugly corpse of ye, one by one, and they’ll stare at the damn comical old relics of ye, and say: And this man was contint to crawl through life and sneak into his grave clippin’ the hair off the head of any ass every week, rain or sunshine, for a triflin’ and mean remuneration!... And wid that, I scratched me head, and thinks Mike Devlin to himself, thinks he: begod, it’s a queer kind of poetry ye’re livin’, says he; and wid that he up and kicked me destiny in the intestines and drapped the hair-cuttin’.”
“When was that, Devlin?”
Devlin hiccupped:
“It might have been three days ago; and it might have been less; but it seems a godlike fortnight av dreams interspersed wid hiccup and one or two nightmares, Mr. Noll.”
“And what are you going to do, Devlin?”
“Live,” said the emotional hairdresser splendidly.
“Hoho!” said Noll.
“I mean to live—to take the stage in the drama of life,” said the barber largely; and he swept his hand towards the pitchy reek of the slumbering universe. “There’s a great hairy soul in me, tearin’ to get out—and it’s above hair-cuttin’. I am moved with the spirit of art.” He hiccupped, apologized, and went on: “I have joined me life with the legitimate drama—I mean to dance the mighty fling of man’s destiny to the tune of a nightly orchestra. I go out to-morrow wid a theatrical company to play the immortal masterpieces of Mr. Sheridan, Doctor Goldsmith, and the Swan of Avon. And, by the gospels, Victoria May Alice goes with me.”
Noll whistled.
Devlin scowled:
“That’s so,” said he. “It’s an ignominious destiny she’s got a holt of—cleanin’ the boots of mediocrities and lodgers.... I’ve been christenin’ the great event all week wid the heavy man of the company—but I lost the fellow about Tuesday——”
Noll coughed:
“And—er—is Victoria May Alice to be your lawfully wedded wife, Devlin?”
“Well, sir—of course it would have been more dramatic not. I’ve struggled with the damned poetry in me; but, in case of the children comin’, I thought I’d have a commonplace corner in me destiny and the marriage certificate.” He leaned over confidentially. “Ye see, sir—no one in the profession need know.”
Noll nodded:
“And—er—what part are you to play, Devlin?”
“I begin as baggage man,” he said loftily—“risin’ to great parts according to me genius.”
“And Victoria May Alice?”
“Next to being married to me,” he said with dignity—“begad it’s wardrobe mistress she starts at—straight away—wid a chance of walkin’ on the boards as a silent duchess if the leadin’ lady’s understudy gits the nervous prostration.... By the glory of God, as the heavy man says, it’s a great life—wid great chances—excitin’ as a dog-fight, wid the great passions jostlin’ each other in the seat of yer emotions, like a blurry tom-cat knockin’ the ornamental feathers out of a barndoor fowl.”