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Home -> Jerome K. Jerome -> Paul Kelver -> Chapter 9

Paul Kelver - Chapter 9

1. Contents

2. Prologue

3. Book I. Chapter 1

4. Chapter 2

5. Chapter 3

6. Chapter 4

7. Chapter 5

8. Chapter 6

9. Chapter 7

10. Chapter 8

11. Chapter 9

12. Book II. Chapter 1

13. Chapter 2

14. Chapter 3

15. Chapter 4

16. Chapter 5

17. Chapter 6

18. Chapter 7

19. Chapter 8

20. Chapter 9

21. Chapter 10







CHAPTER IX.



OF THE FASHIONING OF PAUL.



Loves of my youth, whither are ye vanished? Tubby of the golden

locks; Langley of the dented nose; Shamus stout of heart but faint of

limb, easy enough to "down," but utterly impossible to make to cry:

"I give you best;" Neal the thin; and Dicky, "dicky Dick" the fat;

Ballett of the weeping eye; Beau Bunnie lord of many ties, who always

fought in black kid gloves; all ye others, ye whose names I cannot

recollect, though I well remember ye were very dear to me, whither are

ye vanished, where haunt your creeping ghosts? Had one told me then

there would come a day I should never see again your merry faces,

never hear your wild, shrill whoop of greeting, never feel again the

warm clasp of your inky fingers, never fight again nor quarrel with

you, never hate you, never love you, could I then have borne the

thought, I wonder?



Once, methinks, not long ago, I saw you, Tubby, you with whom so often

I discovered the North Pole, probed the problem of the sources of the

Nile, (Have you forgotten, Tubby, our secret camping ground beside the

lonely waters of the Regent's Park canal, where discussing our frugal

meal of toasted elephant's tongue--by the uninitiated mistakable for

jumbles--there would break upon our trained hunters' ear the hungry

lion or tiger's distant roar, mingled with the melancholy, long-drawn

growling of the Polar Bear, growing ever in volume and impatience

until half-past four precisely; and we would snatch our rifles, and

with stealthy tread and every sense alert make our way through the

jungle--until stopped by the spiked fencing round the Zoological

Gardens?) I feel sure it was you, in spite of your side whiskers and

the greyness and the thinness of your once clustering golden locks.

You were hurrying down Throgmorton Street chained to a small black

bag. I should have stopped you, but that I had no time to spare,

having to catch a train at Liverpool Street and to get shaved on the

way. I wonder if you recognised me: you looked at me a little hard,

I thought. Gallant, kindly hearted Shamus, you who fought once for

half an hour to save a frog from being skinned; they tell me you are

now an Income Tax assessor; a man, it is reported, with power of

disbelief unusual among even Inland Revenue circles; of little faith,

lacking in the charity that thinketh no evil. May Providence direct

you to other districts than to mine.



So Time, Nature's handy-man, bustles to and fro about the many rooms,

making all things tidy, covers with sweet earth the burnt volcanoes,

turns to use the debris of the ages, smoothes again the ground above

the dead, heals again the beech bark marred by lovers.



In the beginning I was far from being a favourite with my schoolmates,

and this was the first time trouble came to dwell with me. Later, we

men and women generally succeed in convincing ourselves that whatever

else we may have missed in life, popularity in a greater or less

degree we have at all events secured, for without it altogether few of

us, I think, would care to face existence. But where the child

suffers keener than the man is in finding himself exposed to the cold

truth without the protecting clothes of self-deception. My ostracism

was painfully plain to me, and, as was my nature, I brooded upon it in

silence.



"Can you run?" asked of me one day a most important personage whose

name I have forgotten. He was head of the Lower Fourth, a tall youth

with a nose like a beak, and the manner of one born to authority. He

was the son of a draper in the Edgware Road, and his father failing,

he had to be content for a niche in life with a lower clerkship in the

Civil Service. But to us youngsters he always appeared a Duke of

Wellington in embryo, and under other circumstances might, perhaps,

have become one.



"Yes," I answered. As a matter of fact it was my one accomplishment,

and rumour of it maybe had reached him.



"Run round the playground twice at your fastest," he commanded; "let

me see you."



I clinched my fists and charged off. How grateful I was to him for

having spoken to me, the outcast of the class, thus publicly, I could

only show by my exertions to please him. When I drew up before him I

was panting hard, but I could see that he was satisfied.



"Why don't the fellows like you?" he asked bluntly.



If only I could have stepped out of my shyness, spoken my real

thoughts! "0 Lord of the Lower Fourth! You upon whom success--the

only success in life worth having--has fallen as from the laps of the

gods! You to whom all Lower Fourth hearts turn! tell me the secret of

this popularity. How may I acquire it? No price can be too great for

me to pay for it. Vain little egoist that I am, it is the sum of my

desires, and will be till the long years have taught me wisdom. The

want of it embitters all my days. Why does silence fall upon their

chattering groups when I draw near? Why do they drive me from their

games? What is it shuts me out from them, repels them from me? I

creep into the corners and shed scalding tears of shame. I watch with

envious eyes and ears all you to whom the wondrous gift is given.

What is your secret? Is it Tommy's swagger? Then I will swagger,

too, with anxious heart, with mingled fear and hope. But why--why,

seeing that in Tommy they admire it, do they wait for me with

imitations of cock-a-doodle-do, strut beside me mimicking a pouter

pigeon? Is it Dicky's playfulness?--Dicky, who runs away with their

balls, snatches their caps from off their heads, springs upon their

backs when they are least expecting it?



Why should Dicky's reward be laughter, and mine a bloody nose and a

widened, deepened circle of dislike? I am no heavier than Dicky; if

anything a pound or two lighter. Is it Billy's friendliness? I too

would fling my arms about their necks; but from me they angrily wrench

themselves free. Is indifference the best plan? I walk apart with

step I try so hard to render careless; but none follows, no little

friendly arm is slipped through mine. Should one seek to win one's

way by kind offices? Ah, if one could! How I would fag for them. I

could do their sums for them--I am good at sums--write their

impositions for them, gladly take upon myself their punishments, would

they but return my service with a little love and--more important

still--a little admiration."



But all I could find to say was, sulkily: "They do like me, some of

them." I dared not, aloud, acknowledge the truth.



"Don't tell lies," he answered; "you know they don't--none of them."

And I hung my head.



"I'll tell you what I'll do," he continued in his lordly way; "I'll

give you a chance. We're starting hare and hounds next Saturday; you

can be a hare. You needn't tell anybody. Just turn up on Saturday

and I'll see to it. Mind, you'll have to run like the devil."



He walked away without waiting for my answer, leaving me to meet Joy

running towards me with outstretched hands. The great moment comes to

all of us; to the politician, when the Party whip slips from

confabulation with the Front Bench to congratulate him, smiling, on

his really admirable little speech; to the youthful dramatist, reading

in his bed-sitting-room the managerial note asking him to call that

morning at eleven; to the subaltern, beckoned to the stirrup of his

chief--the moment when the sun breaks through the morning mists, and

the world lies stretched before us, our way clear.



Obeying orders, I gave no hint in school of the great fortune that had

come to me; but hurrying home, I exploded in the passage before the

front door could be closed behind me.



"I am to be a hare because I run so fast. Anybody can be a hound, but

there's only two hares, and they all want me. And can I have a

jersey? We begin next Saturday. He saw me run. I ran twice round

the playground. He said I was splendid! Of course, it's a great

honour to be a hare. We start from Hampstead Heath. And may I have a

pair of shoes?"



The jersey and the shoes my mother and I purchased that very day, for

the fear was upon me that unless we hastened, the last blue and white

striped jersey in London might be sold, and the market be empty of

running shoes. That evening, before getting into bed, I dressed

myself in full costume to admire myself before the glass; and from

then till the end of the week, to the terror of my mother, I practised

leaping over chairs, and my method of descending stairs was perilous

and roundabout. But, as I explained to them, the credit of the Lower

Fourth was at stake, and banisters and legs equally of small account

as compared with fame and honour; and my father, nodding his head,

supported me with manly argument; but my mother added to her prayers

another line.



Saturday came. The members of the hunt were mostly boys who lived in

the neighbourhood; so the arrangement was that at half-past two we

should meet at the turnpike gate outside the Spaniards. I brought my

lunch with me and ate it in Regent's Park, and then took the 'bus to

the Heath. One by one the others came up. Beyond mere glances, none

of them took any notice of me. I was wearing my ordinary clothes over

my jersey. I knew they thought I had come merely to see them start,

and I hugged to myself the dream of the surprise that was in store for

them, and of which I should be the hero. He came, one of the last,

our leader and chief, and I sidled up behind him and waited, while he

busied himself organising and constructing.



"But we've only got one hare," cried one of them. "We ought to have

two, you know, in case one gets blown."



"We've got two," answered the Duke. "Think I don't know what I'm

about? Young Kelver's going to be the other one."



Silence fell upon the meet.



"Oh, I say, we don't want him," at last broke in a voice. "He's a

muff."



"He can run," explained the Duke.



"Let him run home," came another voice, which was greeted with

laughter.



"You'll run home in a minute yourself," threatened the Duke, "if I

have any of your cheek. Who's captain here--you or me? Now, young

'un, are you ready?"



I had commenced unbuttoning my jacket, but my hands fell to my side.

"I don't want to come," I answered, "if they don't want me."



"He'll get his feet wet," suggested the boy who had spoken first.

"Don't spoil him, he's his mother's pet."



"Are you coming or are you not?" shouted the Duke, seeing me still

motionless. But the tears were coming into my eyes and would not go

back. I turned my face away without speaking.



"All right, stop then," cried the Duke, who, like all authoritative

people, was impatient above all things of hesitation. "Here, Keefe,

you take the bag and be off. It'll be dark before we start."



My substitute snatched eagerly at the chance, and away went the hares,

while I, still keeping my face hid, moved slowly off.



"Cry-baby!" shouted a sharp-eyed youngster.



"Let him alone," growled the Duke; and I went on to where the cedars

grew.



I heard them start off a few minutes later with a whoop. How could I

go home, confess my disappointment, my shame? My father would be

expecting me with many questions, my mother waiting for me with hot

water and blankets. What explanation could I give that would not

betray my miserable secret?



It was a chill, dismal afternoon, the Heath deserted, a thin rain

commencing. I slipped off my shirt and jacket, and rolling them under

my arm, trotted off alone, hare and hounds combined in one small

carcass, to chase myself sadly by myself.



I see it still, that pathetically ridiculous little figure, jogging

doggedly over the dank fields. Mile after mile it runs, the little

idiot; jumping--sometimes falling into the muddy ditches: it seems

anxious rather than otherwise to get itself into a mess; scrambling

through the dripping hedges; swarming over tarry fence and slimy

paling. On, on it pants--through Bishop's Wood, by tangled Churchyard

Bottom, where now the railway shrieks; down sloppy lanes, bordering

Muswell Hill, where now stand rows of jerry-built, prim villas. At

intervals it stops an instant to dab its eyes with its dingy little

rag of a handkerchief, to rearrange the bundle under its arm, its

chief anxiety to keep well out of sight of chance wanderers, to dodge

farmhouses, to dart across highroads when nobody is looking. And so

tear-smeared and mud-bespattered up the long rise of darkening Crouch

End Lane, where to-night the electric light blazes from a hundred

shops, and dead beat into the Seven Sisters Road station, there to

tear off its soaked jersey; and then home to Poplar, with shameless

account of the jolly afternoon that it has spent, of the admiration

and the praise that it has won.



You poor, pitiful little brat! Popularity? it is a shadow. Turn your

eyes towards it, and it shall ever run before you, escaping you. Turn

your back upon it, walk joyously towards the living sun, and it shall

follow you. Am I not right? Why, then, do you look at me, your

little face twisted into that quizzical grin?



When one takes service with Deceit, one signs a contract that one may

not break but under penalty. Maybe it was good for my health, those

lonely runs; but oh, they were dreary! By a process of argument not

uncommon I persuaded myself that truth was a matter of mere words,

that so long as I had actually gone over the ground I described I was

not lying. To further satisfy my conscience, I bought a big satchel

and scattered from it torn-up paper as I ran.



"And they never catch you?" asked my mother.



"Oh, no, never; they never even get within sight of me."



"Be careful, dear," would advise my mother; "don't overstrain

yourself." But I could see that she was proud of me.



And after awhile imagination came to my help, so that often I could

hear behind me the sound of pursuing feet, catch through gaps in the

trees a sight of a merry, host upon my trail, and would redouble my

speed.



Thus, but for Dan, my loneliness would have been unbearable. His

friendship was always there for me to creep to, the shadow of a great

rock in a weary land. To this day one may always know Dan's politics:

they are those of the Party out of power. Always without question one

may know the cause that he will champion, the unpopular cause; the man

he will defend, the man who is down.



"You are such an un-understandable chap," complained a fellow Clubman

to him once in my hearing. "I sometimes ask myself if you have any

opinions at all."



"I hate a crowd," was Dan's only confession of faith.



He never claimed anything from me in return for his affection; he was

there for me to hold to when I wanted him. When, baffled in all my

attempts to win the affections of others, I returned to him for

comfort, he gave it me, without even relieving himself of friendly

advice. When at length childish success came to me and I needed him

less, he was neither hurt nor surprised. Other people--their

thoughts, their actions, even when these concerned himself--never

troubled him. He loved to bestow, but as to response was strangely

indifferent; indeed, if anything, it bored him. His nature appeared

to be that of the fountain, which fulfils itself by giving, but is

unable to receive.



My popularity came to me unexpectedly after I had given up hoping for

it; surprising me, annoying me. Gradually it dawned upon me that my

company was being sought.



"Come along, Kelver," would say the spokesman of one group; "we're

going part of your way home. You can walk with us."



Maybe I would go with them, but more often, before we reached the

gate, the delight of my society would be claimed by a rival troop.



"He's coming with us this afternoon. He promised."



"No, he didn't."



"Yes, he did."



"Well, he ain't, anyhow. See?"



"Oh, isn't he? Who says he isn't?"



"I do."



"Punch his head, Dick!"



"Yes, you do, Jimmy Blake, and I'll punch yours. Come, Kelver."



I might have been some Queen of Beauty offered as prize for knightly

contest. Indeed, more than once the argument concluded thus

primitively, I being carried off in triumph by the victorious party.



For a period it remained a mystery to me, until I asked explanation of

Norval--we called him "Norval," he being one George Grampian: it was

our wit. From taking joy in teasing me, Norval had suddenly become

one of my greatest admirers. This by itself was difficult enough to

understand. He was in the second eleven, and after Dan the best

fighter in the lower school. If I could understand Norval's change of

attitude all would be plain to me; so when next time, bounding upon me

in the cloakroom and slipping his arm into mine, he clamoured for my

company to Camden Town, I put the question to him bluntly.



"Why should I walk home with you? Why do you want me?"



"Because we like you."



"But why do you like me?"



"Why! Why, because you're such a funny chap. You say such funny

things."



It struck me like a slap in the face. I had thought to reach

popularity upon the ladder of heroic qualities. In all the school

books I had read, Leonard or Marmaduke (we had a Marmaduke in the

Lower Fifth--they called him Marmalade: in the school books these

disasters are not contemplated), won love and admiration by reason of

integrity of character, nobility of sentiment, goodness of heart,

brilliance of intellect; combined maybe with a certain amount of

agility, instinct in the direction of bowling, or aptitude for

jumping; but such only by the way. Not one of them had ever said a

funny thing, either consciously or unconsciously.



"Don't be disagreeable, Kelver. Come with us and we will let you into

the team as an extra. I'll teach you batting."



So I was to be their Fool--I, dreamer of knightly dreams, aspirant to

hero's fame! I craved their wonder; I had won their laughter. I had

prayed for popularity; it had been granted to me--in this guise. Were

the gods still the heartless practical jokers poor Midas had found

them?



Had my vanity been less I should have flung their gift back in their

faces. But my thirst for approbation was too intense. I had to

choose: Cut capers and be followed, or walk in dignity, ignored. I

chose to cut the capers. As time wore on I found myself striving to

cut them quicker, quainter, thinking out funny stories, preparing

ingenuous impromptus, twisting all ideas into odd expression.



I had my reward. Before long my company was desired by all the

school. But I was never content. I would rather have been the

Captain of their football club, even his deputy Vice; would have given

all my meed of laughter for stuttering Jerry's one round of applause

when in our match against Highbury he knocked up his century, and so

won the victory for us by just three.



Till the end I never quite abandoned hope of exchanging my vine leaves

for the laurels. I would rise an hour earlier in the morning to

practise throwing at broomsticks set up in waste places. At another

time, the sport coming into temporary fashion, I wearied body and mind

for weeks in vain attempts to acquire skill on stilts. That even fat

Tubby could out-distance me upon them saddened my life for months.



A lad there was, a Sixth Form boy, one Wakeham by name, if I remember

rightly, who greatly envied me my gift of being able to amuse. He was

of the age when the other sex begins to be of importance to a fellow,

and the desire had come to him to be regarded as a star of wit among

the social circles of Gospel Oak. Need I say that by nature he was a

ponderously dull boy.



One afternoon I happened to be the centre of a small group in the

playground. I had been holding forth and they had been laughing.

Whether I had delivered myself of anything really entertaining or not

I cannot say. It made no difference; they had got into the habit of

laughing when I talked. Sometimes I would say quite serious things on

purpose; they would laugh just the same. Wakeham was among them, his

eyes fixed on me, watching me as boys watch a conjurer in the hope of

finding out "how he does it." Later in the afternoon he slipped his

arm through mine, and drew me away into an empty corner of the ground.



"I say, Kelver," he broke out, the moment we were beyond hearing, "you

really are funny!"



It gave me no pleasure. If he had told me that he admired my bowling

I might not have believed him, but should have loved him for it.



"So are you," I answered savagely, "only you don't know it."



"No, I'm not," he replied. "Wish I was. I say, Kelver"--he glanced

round to see that no one was within earshot--"do you think you could

teach me to be funny?"



I was about to reply with conviction in the negative when an idea

occurred to me. Wakeham was famous among us for one thing; he could,

inserting two fingers in his mouth, produce a whistle capable of

confusing dogs a quarter of a mile off, and of causing people near at

hand to jump from six to eighteen inches into the air.



This accomplishment of his I envied him as keenly as he envied me

mine. I did not admire it; I could not see the use of it. Generally

speaking, it called forth irritation rather than affection. A

purple-faced old gentleman, close to whose ear he once performed,

promptly cuffed his head for it; and for so doing was commended by the

whole street as a public benefactor. Drivers of vehicles would

respond by flicking at him, occasionally with success. Even youth,

from whom sympathy might have been expected, appeared impelled, if

anything happened to be at all handy, to take it up and throw it at

him. My own social circle would, I knew, regard it as a vulgar

accomplishment, and even Wakeham himself dared not perform it in the

hearing of his own classmates. That any human being should have

desired to acquire it seems incomprehensible. Yet for weeks in secret

I had wrestled to produce the hideous sound. Why? For three reasons,

so far as I can analyse this youngster of whom I am writing:



Firstly, here was a means of attracting attention; secondly, it was

something that somebody else could do and that he couldn't; thirdly,

it was a thing for which he evidently had no natural aptitude

whatever, and therefore a thing to acquire which his soul yearned the

more. Had a boy come across his path, clever at walking on his hands

with his heels in the air, Master Paul Kelver would in all probability

have broken his neck in attempts to copy and excel. I make no

apologies for the brat: I merely present him as a study for the

amusement of a world of wiser boys--and men.



I struck a bargain with young Wakeham; I undertook to teach him to be

funny in return for his teaching me this costermonger's whistle.



Each of us strove conscientiously to impart knowledge. Neither of us

succeeded. Wakeham tried hard to be funny; I tried hard to whistle.

He did all I told him; I followed his instructions implicitly. The

result was the feeblest of wit and the feeblest of whistles.



"Do you think anybody would laugh at that?" Wakeham would pathetically

enquire at the termination of his supremest effort. And honestly I

would have to confess I did not think any living being would.



"How far off do you think any one could hear that?" I would demand

anxiously, on recovering sufficient breath to speak at all.



"Well, it would depend upon whether you knew it was coming," Wakeham

would reply kindly, not wishing to discourage me.



We abandoned the scheme by mutual consent at about the end of a

fortnight.



"I suppose it's something that you've got to have inside you," I

suggested to Wakeham in consolation.



"I don't think the roof of your mouth can be quite the right shape for

it," concluded Wakeham.



My success as story-teller, commentator, critic, jester, revived my

childish ambition towards authorship. My first stirrings in this

direction I cannot rightly place. I remember when very small falling

into a sunk dust-bin--a deep hole, rather, into which the gardener

shot his rubbish. The fall twisted my ankle so that I could not move;

and the time being evening and my prison some distance from the house,

my predicament loomed large before me. Yet one consolation remained

with me: the incident would be of value to me in the autobiography

upon which I was then engaged. I can distinctly recollect lying on my

back among decaying leaves and broken glass, framing my account. "On

this day a strange adventure befell me. Walking in the garden, all

unheeding, I suddenly"--I did not want to add the truth--"tumbled into

a dust-hole, six feet square, that any one but a moon calf might have

seen." I puzzled to evolve a more dignified situation. The dust-bin

became a cavern, the entrance to which had been artfully concealed;

the six or seven feet I had really fallen, "an endless descent,

terminating in a vast and gloomy chamber." I was divided between

opposing desires: One, for rescue followed by sympathy and supper;

the other, for the alarming experience of a night of terror where I

lay. Nature conquering Art, I yelled; and the episode terminated

prosaically with a warm bath and arnica. But from it I judge that

desire for the woes and perils of authorship was with me somewhat

early.



Of my many other dreams I would speak freely, discussing them at

length with sympathetic souls, but concerning this one ambition I was

curiously reticent. Only to two--my mother and a grey-bearded

Stranger--did I ever breathe a word of it. Even from my father I kept

it a secret, close comrades in all else though we were. He would have

talked of it much and freely, dragged it into the light of day; and

from this I shrank.



My talk with the Stranger came about in this wise. One evening I had

taken a walk to Victoria Park--a favourite haunt of mine at summer

time. It was a fair and peaceful evening, and I fell a-wandering

there in pleasant reverie, until the waning light hinted to me the

question of time. I looked about me. Only one human being was in

sight, a man with his back towards me, seated upon a bench overlooking

the ornamental water.



I drew nearer. He took no notice of me, and interested--though why, I

could not say--I seated myself beside him at the other end of the

bench. He was a handsome, distinguished-looking man, with wonderfully

bright, clear eyes and iron-grey hair and beard. I might have thought

him a sea captain, of whom many were always to be met with in that

neighbourhood, but for his hands, which were crossed upon his stick,

and which were white and delicate as a woman's. He turned his face

and glanced at me. I fancied that his lips beneath the grey moustache

smiled; and instinctively I edged a little nearer to him.



"Please, sir," I said, after awhile, "could you tell me the right

time?"



"Twenty minutes to eight," he answered, looking at his watch. And his

voice drew me towards him even more than had his beautiful strong

face. I thanked him, and we fell back into silence.



"Where do you live?" he turned and suddenly asked me.



"Oh, only over there," I answered, with a wave of my arm towards the

chimney-fringed horizon behind us. "I needn't be in till half-past

eight. I like this Park so much," I added, "I often come and sit here

of an evening.'



"Why do you like to come and sit here?" he asked. "Tell me."



"Oh, I don't know," I answered. "I think."



I marvelled at myself. With strangers generally I was shy and silent;

but the magic of his bright eyes seemed to have loosened my tongue.



I told him my name; that we lived in a street always full of ugly

sounds, so that a gentleman could not think, not even in the evening

time, when Thought goes a-visiting.



"Mamma does not like the twilight time," I confided to him. "It

always makes her cry. But then mamma is--not very young, you know,

and has had a deal of trouble; and that makes a difference, I

suppose."



He laid his hand upon mine. We were sitting nearer to each other now.

"God made women weak to teach us men to be tender," he said. "But

you, Paul, like this 'twilight time'?"



"Yes," I answered, "very much. Don't you?"



"And why do you like it?" he asked.



"Oh," I answered, "things come to you."



"What things?"



"Oh, fancies," I explained to him. "I am going to be an author when I

grow up, and write books."



He took my hand in his and shook it gravely, and then returned it to

me. "I, too, am a writer of books," he said.



And then I knew what had drawn me to him.



So for the first time I understood the joy of talking "shop" with a

fellow craftsman. I told him my favourite authors--Scott, and Dumas,

and Victor Hugo; and to my delight found they were his also; he

agreeing with me that real stories were the best, stories in which

people did things.



"I used to read silly stuff once," I confessed, "Indian tales and that

sort of thing, you know. But mamma said I'd never be able to write if

I read that rubbish."



"You will find it so all through life, Paul," he replied. "The things

that are nice are rarely good for us. And what do you read now?"



"I am reading Marlowe's Plays and De Quincey's Confessions just now,"

I confided to him.



"And do you understand them?"



"Fairly well," I answered. "Mamma says I'll like them better as I go

on. I want to learn to write very, very well indeed," I admitted to

him; "then I'll be able to earn heaps of money."



He smiled. "So you don't believe in Art for Art's sake, Paul?"



I was puzzled. "What does that mean?" I asked.



"It means in our case, Paul," he answered, "writing books for the

pleasure of writing books, without thinking of any reward, without

desiring either money or fame."



It was a new idea to me. "Do many authors do that?" I asked.



He laughed outright this time. It was a delightful laugh. It rang

through the quiet Park, awaking echoes; and caught by it, I laughed

with him.



"Hush!" he said; and he glanced round with a whimsical expression of

fear, lest we might have been overheard. "Between ourselves, Paul,"

he continued, drawing me more closely towards him and whispering, "I

don't think any of us do. We talk about it. But I'll tell you this,

Paul; it is a trade secret and you must remember it: No man ever made

money or fame but by writing his very best. It may not be as good as

somebody else's best, but it is his best. Remember that, Paul."



I promised I would.



"And you must not think merely of the money and the fame, Paul," he

added the next moment, speaking more seriously. "Money and fame are

very good things, and only hypocrites pretend to despise them. But if

you write books thinking only of money, you will be disappointed. It

is earned easier in other ways. Tell me, that is not your only idea?"



I pondered. "Mamma says it is a very noble calling, authorship," I

remembered, "and that any one ought to be very proud and glad to be

able to write books, because they give people happiness and make them

forget things; and that one ought to be very good if one is going to

be an author, so as to be worthy to help and teach others."



"And do you try to be good, Paul?" he enquired.



"Yes," I answered; "but it's very hard to be quite good--until of

course you're grown up."



He smiled, but more to himself than to me. "Yes," he said, "I suppose

it is difficult to be good until you are grown up. Perhaps we shall

all of us be good when we're quite grown up." Which, from a gentleman

with a grey beard, appeared to me a puzzling observation.



"And what else does mamma say about literature?" he asked. "Can you

remember?"



Again I pondered, and her words came back to me. "That he who can

write a great book is greater than a king; that the gift of being able

to write is given to anybody in trust; that an author should never

forget he is God's servant."



He sat for awhile without speaking, his chin resting on his folded

hands supported by his gold-topped cane. Then he turned and laid a

hand upon my shoulder, and his clear, bright eyes were close to mine.



"Your mother is a wise lady, Paul," he said. "Remember her words

always. In later life let them come back to you; they will guide you

better than the chatter of the Clubs."



"And what modern authors do you read?" he asked after a silence: "any

of them--Thackeray, Bulwer Lytton, Dickens?"



"I have read 'The Last of the Barons,'" I told him; "I like that. And

I've been to Barnet and seen the church. And some of Mr. Dickens'."



"And what do you think of Mr. Dickens?" he asked. But he did not seem

very interested in the subject. He had picked up a few small stones,

and was throwing them carefully into the water.



"I like him very much," I answered; "he makes you laugh."



"Not always?" he asked. He stopped his stone-throwing, and turned

sharply towards me.



"Oh, no, not always," I admitted; "but I like the funny bits best. I

like so much where Mr. Pickwick--"



"Oh, damn Mr. Pickwick!" he said.



"Don't you like him?" I asked.



"Oh, yes, I like him well enough, or used to," he replied; "I'm a bit

tired of him, that's all. Does your mamma like Mr.--Mr. Dickens?"



"Not the funny parts," I explained to him. "She thinks he is

occasionally--"



"I know," he interrupted, rather irritably, I thought; "a trifle

vulgar."



It surprised me that he should have guessed her exact words. "I don't

think mamma has much sense of humour," I explained to him. "Sometimes

she doesn't even see papa's jokes."



At that he laughed again. "But she likes the other parts?" he

enquired, "the parts where Mr. Dickens isn't--vulgar?"



"Oh, yes," I answered. "She says he can be so beautiful and tender,

when he likes."



Twilight was deepening. It occurred to me to enquire of him again the

time.



"Just over the quarter," he answered, looking at his watch.



"I'm so sorry," I said. "I must go now."



"So am I sorry, Paul," he answered. "Perhaps we shall meet again.

Good-bye." Then as our hands touched: "You have never asked me my

name, Paul," he reminded me.



"Oh, haven't I?" I answered.



"No, Paul," he replied, "and that makes me think of your future with

hope. You are an egotist, Paul; and that is the beginning of all

art."



And after that he would not tell me his name. "Perhaps next time we

meet," he said. "Good-bye, Paul. Good luck to you!"



So I went my way. Where the path winds out of sight I turned. He was

still seated upon the bench, but his face was towards me, and he waved

his hand to me. I answered with a wave of mine. And then the

intervening boughs and bushes gradually closed in around me. And

across the rising mist there rose the hoarse, harsh cry:



"All out! All out!"







CHAPTER X.



IN WHICH PAUL IS SHIPWRECKED, AND CAST INTO DEEP WATERS.



My father died, curiously enough, on the morning of his birthday. We

had not expected the end to arrive for some time, and at first did not

know that it had come.



"I have left him sleeping," said my mother, who had slipped out very

quietly in her dressing-gown. "Washburn gave him a draught last

night. We won't disturb him."



So we sat round the breakfast table, speaking in low tones, for the

house was small and flimsy, all sound easily heard through its thin

partitions. Afterwards my mother crept upstairs, I following, and

cautiously opened the door a little way.



The blinds were still down, and the room dark. It seemed a long time

that my mother stood there listening, her ear against the jar. The

first costermonger--a girl's voice, it sounded--passed, crying

shrilly: "Watercreases, fine fresh watercreases with your

breakfast-a'penny a bundle watercreases;" and further off a hoarse

youth was wailing: "Mee-ilk-mee-ilk-oi."



Inch by inch my mother opened the door wider and we stole in. He was

lying with his eyes still closed, the lips just slightly parted. I

had never seen death before, and could not realise it. All that I

could see was that he looked even younger than I had ever seen him

look before. By slow degrees only, it came home to me, the knowledge

that he was gone away from us. For days--for weeks, I would hear his

step behind me in the street, his voice calling to me, see his face

among the crowds, and hastening to meet him, stand bewildered because

it had mysteriously disappeared. But at first I felt no pain

whatever.



To my mother it was but a short parting. Into her placid faith had

never fallen fear nor doubt. He was waiting for her. In God's good

time they would meet again. What need of sorrow! Without him the

days passed slowly: the house must ever be a little dull when the

good man's away. But that was all. So my mother would speak of him

always--of his dear, kind ways, of his oddities and follies we loved

so to recall, not through tears, but smiles, thinking of him not as of

one belonging to the past, but as of one beckoning to her from the

future.



We lived on still in the old house though ever planning to move, for

the great brick monster had crept closer round about us year by year,

devouring in his progress all things fair. Field and garden, tree and

cottage, time-mellowed house suggesting story, kind hedgerow hiding

hideousness beyond--the few spots yet in that doomed land lingering to

remind one of the sunshine, one by one had he scrunched them between

his ugly teeth. A world apart, this east end of London, this ghetto

of the poor for ever growing, dreariness added year by year to

dreariness, hopelessness stretching ever farther its long, shrivelled

arms, these endless rows of reeking cells where London herds her

slaves. Often of a misty afternoon when we knew that without this

city of the dead life was stirring in the sunshine, we would fare

forth to house-hunt in pleasant suburbs, now themselves added to the

weary catacomb of narrow streets--to Highgate, then a tiny town

connected by a coach with leafy Holloway; to Hampstead with its rows

of ancient red-brick houses, from whose wind-blown heath one saw

beyond the woods and farms, far London's domes and spires, to Wood

Green among the pastures, where smock-coated labourers discussed their

politics and ale beneath wide-spreading elms; to Hornsey, then a

village consisting of an ivy-covered church and one grass-bordered

way. But though we often saw "the very thing for us" and would

discuss its possibilities from every point of view and find them good,

we yet delayed.



"We must think it over," would say my mother; "there is no hurry; for

some reasons I shall be sorry to leave Poplar."



"For what reasons, mother?"



"Oh, well, no particular reason, Paul. Only we have lived there so

long, you know. It will be a wrench leaving the old house."



To the making of man go all things, even to the instincts of the

clinging vine. We fling our tendrils round what is the nearest

castle-keep or pig-stye wall, rain and sunshine fastening them but

firmer. Dying Sir Walter Scott--do you remember?--hastening home from

Italy, fearful lest he might not be in time to breathe again the damp

mists of the barren hills. An ancient dame I knew, they had carried

her from her attic in slumland that she might be fanned by the sea

breezes, and the poor old soul lay pining for what she called her

"home." Wife, mother, widow, she had lived there till the alley's

reek smelt good to her nostrils, till its riot was the voices of her

people. Who shall understand us save He who fashioned us?



So the old house held us to its dismal bosom; and not until within its

homely but unlovely arms, first my aunt, and later on my mother had

died, and I had said good-bye to Amy, crying in the midst of littered

emptiness, did I leave it.



My aunt died as she had lived, grumbling.



"You will be glad to get rid of me, all of you!" she said, dropping

for the first and last time I can recollect into the retort direct;

"and I can't say I shall be very sorry to go myself. It hasn't been

my idea of life."



Poor old lady! That was only a couple of weeks before the end. I do

not suppose she guessed it was so certain or perhaps she might have

been more sentimental.



"Don't be foolish," said my mother, "you're not going to die!"



"What's the use of talking like an idiot," retorted my aunt, "I've got

to do it some time. Why not now, when everything's all ready for it.

It isn't as if I was enjoying myself."



"I am sure we do all we can for you," said my mother. "I know you

do," replied my aunt. "I'm a burden to you. I always have been."



"Not a burden," corrected my mother.



"What does the woman call it then," snapped back my aunt. "Does she

reckon I've been a sunbeam in the house? I've been a trial to

everybody. That's what I was born for; it's my metier."



My mother put her arms about the poor old soul and kissed her. "We

should miss you very much," she said.



"I'm sure I hope they all will!" answered my aunt. "It's the only

thing I've got to leave 'em, worth having."



My mother laughed.



"Maybe it's been a good thing for you, Maggie," grumbled my aunt; "if

it wasn't for cantankerous, disagreeable people like me, gentle,

patient people like you wouldn't get any practice. Perhaps, after

all, I've been a blessing to you in disguise."



I cannot honestly say we ever wished her back; though we certainly did

miss her--missed many a joke at her oddities, many a laugh at her

cornery ways. It takes all sorts, as the saying goes, to make a

world. Possibly enough if only we perfect folk were left in it we

would find it uncomfortably monotonous.



As for Amy, I believe she really regretted her.



"One never knows what's good for one till one's lost it," sighed Amy.



"I'm glad to think you liked her," said my mother.



"You see, mum," explained Amy, "I was one of a large family; and a bit

of a row now and again cheers one up, I always think. I'll be losing

the power of my tongue if something doesn't come along soon."



"Well, you are going to be married in a few weeks now," my mother

reminded her.



But Amy remained despondent. "They're poor things, the men, at a few

words, the best of them," she replied. "As likely as not just when

you're getting interested you turn round to find that they've put on

their hat and gone out."



My mother and I were very much alone after my aunt's death. Barbara

had gone abroad to put the finishing touches to her education--to

learn the tricks of the Nobs' trade, as old Hasluck phrased it; and I

had left school and taken employment with Mr. Stillwood, without

salary, the idea being that I should study for the law.



"You are in luck's way, my boy, in luck's way," old Mr. Gadley had

assured me. "To have commenced your career in the office of

Stillwood, Waterhead and Royal will be a passport for you anywhere.

It will stamp you, my boy."



Mr. Stillwood himself was an extremely old and feeble gentleman--so

old and feeble it seemed strange that he, a wealthy man, had not long

ago retired.



"I am always meaning to," he explained to me one day soon after my

advent in his office. "When your poor father came to me he told me

very frankly the sad fact--that he had only a few more years to live.

'Mr. Kelver,' I answered him, 'do not let that trouble you, so far as

I am concerned. There are one or two matters in the office I should

like to see cleared up, and in these you can help me. When they are

completed I shall retire! Yet, you see, I linger on. I am like the

old hackney coach horse, Mr. Weller--or is it Mr. Jingle--tells us of;

if the shafts were drawn away I should probably collapse. So I jog

on, I jog on.'"



He had married late in life a common woman much younger than himself,

who had brought to him a horde of needy and greedy relatives, and no

doubt, as a refuge from her noisy neighbourhood, the daily peace of

Lombard Street was welcome to him. We saw her occasionally. She was

one of those blustering, "managing" women who go through life under

the impression that making a disturbance is somehow "putting things to

rights." Ridiculously ashamed of her origin, she sought to hide it

under what her friends assured her was the air of a duchess, but

which, as a matter of fact, resembled rather the Sunday manners of an

elderly barmaid. Mr. Gadley alone was not afraid of her; but, on the

contrary, kept her always very much in fear of him, often speaking to

her with refreshing candour. He had known her in the days it was her

desire should be buried in oblivion, and had always resented as a

personal insult her entry into the old established aristocratic firm

of Stillwood & Co.



Her history was peculiar. Mr. Stillwood, when a blase man about town,

verging on forty, had first seen her, then a fair-haired,

ethereal-looking child, in spite of her dirt, playing in the gutter.

To his lasting self-reproach it was young Gadley himself, accompanying

his employer home from Westminster, who had drawn Mr. Stillwood's

attention to the girl by boxing her ears for having, as he passed,

slapped his face with a convenient sprat. Stillwood, acting on the

impulse of the moment, had taken the child by the hand and dragged

her, unwilling, to her father's place of business--a small coal shed

in the Horseferry Road. The arrangement he there made amounted

practically to the purchase of the child. She was sent abroad to

school and the coal shed closed. On her return, ten years later, a

big, handsome young woman, he married her, and learned at leisure the

truth of the old saying, "what's bred in the bone will come out in the

flesh," scrub it and paint it and hide it away under fine clothes as

you will.



Her constant complaint against her husband was that he was only a

solicitor, a profession she considered vulgar; and nothing "riled" old

Gadley more than hearing her views upon this point.



"It's not fair to the gals," I once heard her say to him. I was

working in the next room, with the door not quite closed, added to

which she talked at the top of her voice on all subjects. "What real

gentleman, I should like to know, is going to marry the daughter of a

City attorney? As I told him years ago, he ought to have retired and

gone into the House."



"The very thing your poor father used to talk of doing whenever things

were going a bit queer in the retail coal and potato business,"

grunted old Gadley.



Mrs. Stillwood called him a "low beast" in her most aristocratic

tones, and swept out of the room.



Not that old Stillwood himself ever expressed fondness for the law.



"I am not at all sure, Kelver," I remember his saying to me on one

occasion, "that you have done wisely in choosing the law. It makes

one regard humanity morally as the medical profession regards it

physically:--as universally unsound. You suspect everybody of being a

rogue. When people are behaving themselves, we lawyers hear nothing

of them. All we hear of is roguery, trickery and hypocrisy. It

deteriorates the character, Kelver. We live in a perpetual atmosphere

of transgression. I sometimes fancy it may be infectious."



"It does not seem to have infected you, sir," I replied; for, as I

think I have already mentioned, the firm of Stillwood, Waterhead and

Royal was held in legal circles as the synonym for rectitude of

dealing quite old-fashioned.



"I hope not, Kelver, I hope not," the old gentleman replied; "and yet,

do you know, I sometimes suspect myself--wonder if I may not perhaps

be a scamp without realising it. A rogue, you know, Kelver, can

always explain himself into an honest man to his own satisfaction. A

scamp is never a scamp to himself."



His words for the moment alarmed me, for, acting on old Gadley's

advice, I had persuaded my mother to put all her small capital into

Mr. Stillwood's hands for re-investment, a transaction that had

resulted in substantial increase of our small income. But, looking

into his smiling eyes, my momentary fear vanished.



Laughing, he laid his hand upon my shoulder. "One person always be

suspicious of, Kelver--yourself. Nobody can do you so much harm as

yourself."



Of Washburn we saw more and more. "Hal" we both called him now, for

removing with his gentle, masterful hands my mother's shyness from

about her, he had established himself almost as one of the family, my

mother regarding him as she might some absurdly bearded boy entrusted

to her care without his knowing it, I looking up to him as to some

wonderful elder brother.



"You rest me, Mrs. Kelver," he would say, lighting his pipe and

sinking down into the deep leathern chair that always waited for him

in our parlour. "Your even voice, your soft eyes, your quiet hands,

they soothe me."



"It is good for a man," he would say, looking from one to the other of

us through the hanging smoke, "to test his wisdom by two things: the

face of a good woman, and the ear of a child--I beg your pardon,

Paul--of a young man. A good woman's face is the white sunlight.

Under the gas-lamps who shall tell diamond from paste? Bring it into

the sunlight: does it stand that test? Then it is good. And the

children! they are the waiting earth on which we fling our store. Is

it chaff and dust or living seed? Wait and watch. I shower my

thoughts over our Paul, Mrs. Kelver. They seem to me brilliant, deep,

original. The young beggar swallows them, forgets them. They were

rubbish. Then I say something that dwells with him, that grows. Ah,

that was alive, that was a seed. The waiting earth, it can make use

only of what is true."



"You should marry, Hal," my mother would say. It was her panacea for

all mankind.



"I would, Mrs. Kelver," he answered her on one occasion, "I would

to-morrow if I could marry half a dozen women. I should make an ideal

husband for half a dozen wives. One I should neglect for five days,

and be a burden to upon the sixth."



From any other than Hal my mother would have taken such a remark, made

even in jest, as an insult to her sex. But Hal's smile was a coating

that could sugar any pill.



"I am not one man, Mrs. Kelver, I am half a dozen. If I were to marry

one wife she would be married to six husbands. It is too many for any

woman to manage."



"Have you never fallen in love?" asked my mother.



"Three of me have, but on each occasion the other five of me out-voted

him."



"You're sure six would be sufficient?" queried my mother, smiling.



"Just the right number, Mrs. Kelver. There is one of me must worship,

adore a woman madly, abjectly; grovel before her like the Troubadour

before his Queen of Song, eat her slipper, drink the water she has

washed in, scourge himself before her window, die for a kiss of her

glove flung down with a laugh. She must be scornful, contemptuous,

cruel. There is another I would cherish, a tender, yielding creature,

one whose face would light at my coming, cloud at my going; one to

whom I should be a god. There is a third I, a child of Pan--an ugly

little beast, Mrs. Kelver; horns on head and hoofs on feet, leering

through the wood, seeking its fit mate. And a fourth would wed a

wholesome, homely wench, deep of bosom, broad of hip; fit mother of a

sturdy brood. A fifth could only be content with a true friend, a

comrade wise and witty, a sharer and understander of all joys and

thoughts and feelings. And a last, Mrs. Kelver, yearns for a woman

pure and sweet, clothed in love and crowned with holiness. Shouldn't

we be a handful, Mrs. Kelver, for any one woman in an eight-roomed

house?"



But my mother was not to be discouraged. "You will find the woman one

day, Hal, who will be all of them to you--all of them that are worth

having, that is. And your eight-roomed house will be a kingdom!"



"A man is many, and a woman but one," answered Hal.



"That is what men say who are too blind to see more than one side of a

woman," retorted my mother, a little sharply; for the honour and

credit of her own sex in all things was very dear to my mother. And

indeed this I have learned, that the flag of Womanhood you shall ever

find upheld by all true women, flouted only by the false. For a judge

in petticoats is ever but a witness in a wig.



Hal laid aside his pipe and leant forward in his chair. "Now tell us,

Mrs. Kelver, for our guidance, we two young bachelors, what must the

lover of a young girl be?"



Always very serious on this subject of love, my mother answered

gravely: "She asks for the whole of a man, Hal, not merely for a

sixth, nor any other part of him. She is a child asking for a lover

to whom she can look up, who will teach her, guide her, protect her.

She is a queen demanding homage, and yet he is her king whom it is her

joy to serve. She asks to be his partner, his fellow-worker, his

playmate, and at the same time she loves to think of him as her child,

her big baby she must take care of. Whatever he has to give she

has also to respond with. You need not marry six wives, Hal; you will

find your six in one.



"'As the water to the vessel, woman shapes herself to man;' an old

heathen said that three thousand years ago, and others have repeated

him; that is what you mean."



"I don't like that way of putting it," answered my mother. "I mean

that as you say of man, so in every true woman is contained all women.

But to know her completely you must love her with all love."



Sometimes the talk would be of religion, for my mother's faith was no

dead thing that must be kept ever sheltered from the air, lest it

crumble.



One evening "Who are we that we should live?" cried Hal. "The spider

is less cruel; the very pig less greedy, gluttonous and foul; the

tiger less tigerish; our cousin ape less monkeyish. What are we but

savages, clothed and ashamed, nine-tenths of us?"



"But Sodom and Gomorrah," reminded him my mother, "would have been

spared for the sake of ten just men."



"Much more sensible to have hurried the ten men out, leaving the

remainder to be buried with all their abominations under their own

ashes," growled Hal.



"And we shall be purified," continued my mother, "the evil in us

washed away."



"Why have made us ill merely to mend us? If the Almighty were so

anxious for our company, why not have made us decent in the

beginning?" He had just come away from a meeting of Poor Law

Guardians, and was in a state of dissatisfaction with human nature

generally.



"It is His way," answered my mother. "The precious stone lies hid in

clay. He has His purpose."



"Is the stone so very precious?"



"Would He have taken so much pains to fashion it if it were not? You

see it all around you, Hal, in your daily practice--heroism,

self-sacrifice, love stronger than death. Can you think He will waste

it, He who uses again even the dead leaf?"



"Shall the new leaf remember the new flower?"



"Yes, if it ever knew it. Shall memory be the only thing to die?"



Often of an evening I would accompany Hal upon his rounds. By the

savage tribe he both served and ruled he had come to be regarded as

medicine man and priest combined. He was both their tyrant and their

slave, working for them early and late, yet bullying them

unmercifully, enforcing his commands sometimes with vehement tongue,

and where that would not suffice with quick fists; the counsellor,

helper, ruler, literally of thousands. Of income he could have made

barely enough to live upon; but few men could have enjoyed more sense

of power; and that I think it was that held him to the neighbourhood.



"Nature laid me by and forgot me for a couple of thousand years," was

his own explanation of himself. "Born in my proper period, I should

have climbed to chieftainship upon uplifted shields. I might have

been an Attila, an Alaric. Among the civilised one can only climb by

crawling, and I am too impatient to crawl. Here I am king at once by

force of brain and muscle." So in Poplar he remained, poor in fees

but rich in honour.



The love of justice was a passion with him. The oppressors of the

poor knew and feared him well. Injustice once proved before him,

vengeance followed sure. If the law would not help, he never

hesitated to employ lawlessness, of which he could always command a

satisfactory supply. Bumble might have the Board of Guardians at his

back, Shylock legal support for his pound of flesh; but sooner or

later the dark night brought punishment, a ducking in dock basin or

canal, "Brutal Assault Upon a Respected Resident" (according to the

local papers), the "miscreants" always making and keeping good their

escape, for he was an admirable organiser.



One night it seemed to him necessary that a child should go at once

into the Infirmary.



"It ain't no use my taking her now," explained the mother, "I'll only

get bullyragged for disturbing 'em. My old man was carried there

three months ago when he broke his leg, but they wouldn't take him in

till the morning."



"Oho! oho! oho!" sang Hal, taking the child up in his arms and putting

on his hat. "You follow me; we'll have some sport. Tally ho! tally

ho!" And away we went, Hal heading our procession through the

streets, shouting a rollicking song, the baby staring at him

openmouthed.



"Now ring," cried Hal to the mother on our reaching the Workhouse

gate. "Ring modestly, as becomes the poor ringing at the gate of

Charity." And the bell tinkled faintly.



"Ring again!" cried Hal, drawing back into the shadow; and at last the

wicket opened.



"Oh, if you please, sir, my baby--"



"Blast your baby!" answered a husky voice, "what d'ye mean by coming

here this time of night?"



"Please, sir, I'm afraid it's dying, and the Doctor--"



The man was no sentimentalist, and to do him justice made no

hypocritical pretence of being one. He consigned the baby and its

mother and the doctor to Hell, and the wicket would have closed but

for the point of Hal's stick.



"Open the gate!" roared Hal. It was idle pretending not to hear Hal

anywhere within half a mile of him when he filled his lungs for a cry.

"Open it quick, you blackguard! You gross vat-load of potato spirit,

you--"



That the Governor should speak a language familiar to the governed was

held by the Romans, born rulers of men, essential to authority. This

theory Hal also maintained. His command of idiom understanded by his

people was one of his rods of power. In less time than it took the

trembling porter to loosen the bolts, Hal had presented him with a

word picture of himself, as seen by others, that must have lessened

his self-esteem.



"I didn't know as it was you, Doctor," explained the man.



"No, you thought you had only to deal with some helpless creature you

could bully. Stir your fat carcass, you ugly cur! I'm in a hurry."



The House Surgeon was away, but an attendant or two were lounging

about, unfortunately for themselves, for Hal, being there, took it

upon himself to go round the ward setting crooked things straight; and

a busy and alarming time they had of it. Not till a couple of hours

later did he fling himself forth again, having enjoyed himself

greatly.



A gentleman came to reside in the district, a firm believer in the

wisdom of the couplet: "A woman, a spaniel and a walnut tree, The

more you beat them the better they be." The spaniel and the walnut

tree he did not possess, so his wife had the benefit of his undivided

energies. Whether his treatment had improved her morally, one cannot

say; her evident desire to do her best may have been natural or may

have been assisted; but physically it was injuring her. He used to

beat her about the head with his strap, his argument being that she

always seemed half asleep, and that this, for the time being, woke her

up. Sympathisers brought complaint to Hal, for the police in that

neighbourhood are to keep the streets respectable. With the life in

the little cells that line them they are no more concerned than are

the scavengers of the sewers with the domestic arrangements of the

rats.



"What's he like?" asked Hal.



"He's a big 'un," answered the woman who had come with the tale, "and

he's good with his fists--I've seen him. But there's no getting at

him. He's the sort to have the law on you if you interfere with him,

and she's the sort to help him."



"Any likely time to catch him at it?" asked Hal.



"Saturdays it's as regular as early closing," answered the woman, "but

you might have to wait a bit."



"I'll wait in your room, granny, next Saturday," suggested Hal.



"All right," agreed the woman, "I'll risk it, even if I do get a

bloody head for it."



So that week end we sat very still on two rickety chairs listening to

a long succession of sharp, cracking sounds that, had one not known,

one might have imagined produced by some child monotonously exploding

percussion caps, each one followed by an answering groan. Hal never

moved, but sat smoking his pipe, an ugly smile about his mouth. Only

once he opened his lips, and then it was to murmur to himself: "And

God blessed them and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply."



The horror ceased at last, and later we heard the door unlock and a

man's foot upon the landing above. Hal beckoned to me, and swiftly we

slipped out and down the creaking stairs. He opened the front door,

and we waited in the evil-smelling little passage. The man came

towards us whistling. He was a powerfully built fellow, rather

good-looking, I remember. He stopped abruptly upon catching sight of

Hal, who stood crouching in the shadow of the door.



"What are you doing here?" he demanded.



"Waiting to pull your nose!" answered Hal, suiting the action to the

word. And then laughing he ran down the street, I following.



The man gave chase, calling to us with a string of imprecations to

stop. But Hal only ran the faster, though after a street or two he

slackened, and the man gained on us a little.



So we continued, the distance between us and our pursuer now a little

more, now a little less. People turned and stared at us. A few boys,

scenting grim fun, followed shouting for awhile; but these we soon

out-paced, till at last in deserted streets, winding among warehouses

bordering the river, we three ran alone, betw




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