Chapter II (4)

The thing happened like this. I had only leeve till 7.30, but Mr. Le Moser asked me to stop and Dine, and I thought I could work the squash at the Station, and being three tranes late for an extra 2 hours so consentid with thanx, as it is a Poor Heart that Never rejoices, as Regger says. Josie and Me were up in the Bows where there is just Room for 2, and Wenham-Biggs was sitting on the Steersman’s Box rubbing his chin against the Wheel, to make his Beard grow I suppose, and Getting more Sickeningly Sweet and Centimental in the things He was saying to Josie every Minute. I call it Nerve to go on like that with another fellow nearly as old as yourself listening to every Word. At last he Said he was ready to Die for the Woman he Loved--I like that, don’t you?--Whenever she asked the sacrafice, and I said it would be the Leest he could Do, if she had an objection to a red mustash. It must be being so much with Regger makes me bat off these Things I xpect. Wenham-Biggs was perfeckly wild, and Josie giggled so mutch that she Forgot she was Close to the Edge and the Rubber mat slipped or something, the Launch being polished like a Looking Glass, and she went plump into the River, and it is pretty Deep on the Bucks side, and there is a good deal of Streem.

I was Glad of all the Swimmers I had gone in for at Cuckoo Weir. I was Beestly sorry about my Swagger Flannelse and my new colors I had sported for the 1st time; but of corse I had to go in after Josie and thogh I don’t suppose I showed much skill, People made an awful Row, crowding to the Bullarks, and throwing life-boys and cork fenders at us like ennything. Mr. Le Moser kept offering rewards in lbs. and making it ginnies, and Mrs. Le Moser had histerrics in Lord Dennismore’s arms, which shows she was not quite unconshus because He was the best-bread and best-looking man of the Launch-party.

What price your Little Brother when Me and Josie were Hauled up into the Launch all over pslime and Duckweed. Everybody Shook Hands with Me and said things that Made me Tingal all Over, and all the Women kept kissing Josie who they took away and put to Bed. Mr. Le Moser lent me a Change of his Thingse. O crumbs! if you Had seen me in them ispeshally the Wastecoat and the etsetras with stripes down the Legs. And he rote me a letter to Take back to my Tutor, and left it ungummed. And the things He said about my Pluck and Daring and his Eternal obbligation made me feel quite Shy when I read them going back in the last trane. There were two other Lower Boys in the carriage, and besidse them, a Fellow of my house who is One of the Swells of the Sixth Form, who was awfully annoyed at being obbliged to travel with us.

The Butler was sitting up for us at my tutor’s, and everyone Else in Bed, as it was past 12, when we Got Back, but beyond a Slite Cold in my Head the Risults of the Outing were Not Paneful, my Letter putting Things in an awfully good light, which made the Other Fellows rather envious thogh they were let off with midling paenas.

I Forgot to say Mr. Le Moser tipped me £100, which will come in very usefull. Also I am to try and get leave to go and Spend the Day at their Place at Staines next week, and they will send me Home in one of their motor-carse. Xcuse Spelling and mistakes as my Cold is making me Sneaze pretty Frequently, and with love to Mother, and all at home.

Bilieve me,
Your loving Brother,
TOBY.

P.S.--You Never saw a Fellow with plenty of conceat and Nerve about Him look as small as Wenham-Biggs when Lord Dennismore asked Him why He did not Dive in after Josie too, and he Had to own up He Could not swim a Stroak. What price private Tutors and being Edducated at Home?

* * * * *

P.P.S.--I saw Josie before I came away, and Mrs. Le Moser kissed me, which was horrid, and so did the Duchess and Several Other Ladies, and then they told Josie to and she did and gave me a little Diamond Duck to wear on my watch chane. N.B.--I think I see myself doing it and getting fitted by my fagmaster for side. T.

* * * * *

P.P.S.S.--Lord Dennismore neerly rung my hand off when I said Good-bye, and said, “You’ve tumbled in for a good thing, you lucky little beggar, and I’m ½ inclined to billeve....” And then he left off without saying What. But he tipped me 3 soverins more, and asked me to come and lunch with Him when Next he is on Duty, and you bet I said delighted thanks.... T.

* * * * *

P.P.P.S.S.S.--As my Fagmaster seemed inclined to be Nasty about my not getting Up in Time to Fill his Bath and make his tost and cofy in the morning I gave Him Mr. Le Moser’s 8s. 6d. Partagga in the glass case. First he bitt the end of the case off and it neerly choaked Him, and then He had a lot of trouble in getting it to Lite, and before it was ½ through he had a lot more trubble of a different kind. (N.B.--Ask mother if it would Not be a good Thing for me _i. e._ marrying Josie Le Moser when I am of Age? I shall be fritefully poor and she will be awfully Rich, so her Father and Mother would not matter much. Also it would be Better than coming under the Married Women’s Propperty Act at 18, like poor Dennismore!) TYNSTONE.

THE FLY AND THE SPIDER

_Being a Confidential Letter from the Right Hon. Viscount Tynstone,
on board the Yacht “Spindrift,” Cowes Roads, to the Lady Mary
Cliffe-Bradlay, Silversands Park, Sussex._

TUESDAY, _August --_.

GOOD OLD POLL,--

I thought you were Rotting about Lord Dennismore and the Duchess at the baginning of your Letter, but your Locking him up in the Peech House was a Stunning Lark. The Duchess must Have been in a Regular Wax, and He must have been Fritefully Wild, only you can’t Hit a Girl, they are so Soft and Go down so Easily.

Uncle Todmore Has the Usual Yacht Party for the Rigatta, and the old _Spindrift_ looks A.1. painted white with a new Copper Rail and a New Sett of Lifeboyse, etc. I asked Uncle Todmore How Much it had Cost, and He Heeved a Sigh, and said sufficient to the Day was the evil Thereof, so I xpect it comes to a Lump, and He and Aunt Honoria will Have to spend the Winter down at that Beestly Place of His in Devonshire instead of Going to the Riviara or Egipt this time.

I said He Had the Usual Party on Board; but there are Two New People--a Captain Clanarthur, late of the Malta Artillery, a Man who Parts His Hair Down the Back, and Wares a Gold Braselet on his Left Wrist, and his Wife. Mrs. Clanarthur is a simply Fritefully pretty woman, with Long Black ilashes that Curl at the endse, and Eyes you Cant tell the right Colour of, never Being the Same Twise Running. Aunt Honoria is a Great Friend of Hers. And she Wares a Silver Belt with her Ruff weather Serge Gown that was a saint Bernard Dog’s Collar--so you may immagine How Small her waste is. She says I am a Mear Boy, and Ought Not to Notice Such Things; but I shall be Sixteen in September, and lots of Our Fellows at My Tutors are in love. Greening Minor, Who is a Regular Shrimp, regularly rites verses To the Barmade in the Slough Station refreshment room. First class--I mean the Refreshment Room, not the Verses. One Poem bigins--

“How Nobly Does Thy Fair Form Tower,
Whenare I Gaze On Thee.
I Wish thou Wert a Lilly Flower,
& I a Hunney Bee.”

Which is Not Half Bad for a Lower Boy. And Regger is Secretly ingaged to his Sisters Jerman Guverness, who is 30 if a Day. She Has Promised to Wate for Regger, who is a Year Older than Me, and simply awfully Divoted to Her. She Makes Splendid Gingerbred with Nuts in it, which will come in Usefull if Regger’s Pater Cuts Him Off with a Shilling.

Mrs. Clanarthur’s Christian Name is Ermengarde, but Her Friends call Her Nini for short. The Divise on Her Note Paper is a Gold Spider in a silver Web, and she Wares a little Broach with a Diamond Spider in a Gold Web. She keeps on Telling me she is Not Young, but That must be All Rot, because She is so mutch moar Girlish than the 2 Girls on Board. They are the Pope-Baggotes, and Lady Jane is Fatter than ever.

WEDNESDAY.

I can’t Immajin Why Mrs. Clanarthur ever married such a regular Scug as Captain Clanarthur, though she Says she was a mear Child, and did It to Pleese Her Family. They have been 10 Yearse married, so if she was so young at the time she cannot be as old as she says she is. She says she Had Her Hair Done up and wore Long Skirts For the first Time on her Wedding Day, and thought more of the Cake and the Presents than what was to Come. She cried when she Told me that, after dinner on Deck, when an Italian Opera Fellow, whose Name I can’t spell, was singing Love songs to the Acompaniment of the Mandolin, and the Starse were shining more Brightly than I ever remember to Have Seen Them. Her Hair has a Scent like Violets, and when Her Head Comes Near you it makes you Feel Hot and cold and Swimmy--at leest it does Me. Clanarthur was Away Racing a Yawl of His at the Royal Portsmouth Corinthian Yacht Club Rigatta, and I thoght if He should Get Drowned what a Jolly Good thing it would Be. He Ought to be Kicked for Making that woman so frightfully wretchid when She is 10,000 times Too Good For Him. N.B.--Of course She did Not Tell me what he has Done, but I bet you ½ a crown it is sumthing Beastly caddish.

I think the Men on Board a Not very Well Bred Sett, as they chaff Me like mad about Mrs. Clanarthur; and even when she is Within Earshott, which makes Me want Frightfully to Kick them all Round. I Cannot Sleep at Night as I used to Do, and my Head Aches in a Beastly way in the Morning. I have got a handkerchief of Mrs. Clanarthur’s I Stole when She was Not Looking, and I Keep it Under My Pillow at Night and Switch the illectric light On and Look at it every Now and Then. There is “Nini” imbroidered in the Corner, and it Smells of Violets, like her Hair. If I was married to a Lovely Woman like that I should not be a Beast like Clanarthur. She Told Me that she Never has suffered Him to Kiss her on the Lips Since She Knew Him to be Unworthy of a Pure Woman’s Love. Sumhow I am glad of that, thogh it is Rough on Clanarthur.

SATURDAY.

Last Night Sumthing Happened I am Now Going to tell you about. They were Throwing Coloured Lites on the Sea from the Victoria Pier, and all the Big Steam Yachts Had Fairy lamps Hung Out, and the Music of the Bands and things Comming Over the Water quite made it simply ripping. It was after dinner, and I was Sitting on Deck with Mrs. Clanarthur, and She thought She would like a Moonlight Pull in the Yacht’s dinghy, as the Sea was so Beautifully Smooth. So I tipped two of the _Spindrift_ men to get the boat reddy, and not say ennything to ennybody and We Started. There was a Fritefully Stiff Tide on. I Rowed Her Round and Down a Lane made of Torpedo Gun-boats on One Side and 1st Class Cruisers on the other, All Reddy for the King to inspect on Saturday. It was Ripping Fun, and Nini was Delighted. Then we Drifted dreemily along Towards Ryde, and I Forgot there was such a Fritefully Stiff Tide Running out to Spithead because I was Holding Nini’s Hand--she let me--and thinking there were Worse Things than Coming under the Married Women’s Property Act after All.

When We Had got a Good Distance Out I found I could Not Get Back For Nuts, However Hard I Pulled.

The Perspirashun was Running off me like Water and my Arms Ached like Mad. Nini--she had said I might call her Nini the Evening Before--Nini Could not See ennything was Wrong, but I knew we were being Carried Out to Sea at About 100 miles an Hour and it Kept Getting Darker. N.B.--Of course, I did Not Care For myself, but I Kept Thinking of Nini. She said the Poetry of the illimittible Oshan made Her Trill like a Smitten Lute, and I said, “Does it?” and Kept Slogging Away against the Tide without making 1 Not in 1,000 Hours, as the Signals in Coes Roads kept getting Smaller. Then a Southampton Liner came Rushing out of the Dark. I Saw Both her Port and Starboard Litse as I Turned my Head, so she must have been Coming Straight down on Us. You may Suppose I had Fits, thinking of Mrs. Clanarthur, and I would have tried to Shout, but I Had Lost my Wind completely.

“How pretty,” said Nini--Mrs. Clanarthur I mean--“that must be the _Campania_ for New York from Southampton.” And she went on Gassing about the Beauty of the Seen without an Idea that we might be cut in 2 Next Minute. But we got off. The liner swerved to port and went by us lighted up like a sea Alhambra, all her deckse crowded with People and her Band Playing ‘The Merry Widow,’ and Clanarthur lost his chance of being a Merry Widower. But she passed so jolly close to us that a lot of Wash slopped in, and Nini screamed and called out, “You silly boy, it’s all your Fault!” which I like, considering the sittuation. And She Pulled her White Evening Wrap round her and said, “Let’s get back to the yacht; it’s shockingly cold and the sea is getting abominably Rough!” And then I had to own up what a jolly Hat we were in, and that we had been steddily Drifting Out to Sea for Some time Past.

What price me? I felt small enough to get into a cricket-ball case already, but I felt something worse when Mrs. Clanarthur Boxed my Ears. She said I was a Little Idiot, and that she had been culpably Reckless to alow Me to Take Her on the Water, and what would Freddy say? Freddy is Captain Clanarthur. So I said I would stand up to Him with or without Gloves, Fight Him with Rivolverse across a necktie if he liked, and that He could Divorse Her afterwardse and then she could marry me, and everything would be jolly well settled all Round, as she Had Told me He was aborrent to Her only the night before when she kissed me under the Aft Awning three Times--which she Had Done, though she called me an untruthful little Retch for saying so, and then she had Histericks, and then what Uncle Podmore calls the Mallady of the Wave came on, and I had to ship the oars and Hold Her Up, and she was Awfully Bad. Mother on the Turbean xing to Boulogne was Nothing To it. I am not Joking When I Tell You that We Drifted About in That beestly Dinghy all night at the immanent Risk of Being Run Down by anything from a Tramp Steamer to a Government Crooser, and if the Tide Had Not Turned, which it did at 4 o’clock in the Morning, we should be as dead now as Two People can be.

O crumbs, when I looked at Nini, who After jawing at me till she was Tired Had Gone to sleep with Her Head on my Shoulder! By the Glimmaring Light of Dawn she Looked as Old as Aunt Honoria, and not Half as Nice. Her Swagger Evening Gown and Mantal were Ruined with Seawater, and one Long Tale of her Lovely Hair was Washing about in the Bilje at the Bottom of the Dinghy, we had shipped such a lot in the Night. Her Forhead and one Eye were nearly Hidden by a Top Piece with curls that had come off, though there was lots of Hair underneath it, and she was Perfectly Blue with Cold and Fright.

I thought she must have been Pretty Old when she Married Captain Clanarthur after all, and when I Remembered how mad I had been about Her, and how I wanted to Snipe Clanarthur and Marry Her, I felt awfully sick at having been such an unlimited ass.

She woke up and called me some more Names and then a Pilot cutter came along bound for Portsmouth Pier, and I Haled the Pilot and He agreed to take us back to Cowes Road for £1. And they Hawled us on Board because we were too jolly stiff to clime up the cutter’s side and we Got back to the Yacht in Time for Breakfast.

You may guess if the men of the Party chaffed me Before how frightfully they chaff Now, I am Roasted about the Beastly Business from morning till Night. Uncle Podmore told me they had sent out 2 Boats to Find us and burned blue Lights. All Captain Clanarthur Said when He saw Mrs. Clanarthur come up the yacht’s side like a Ragbag, was, “So there You are, are you?” But suppose he is Lying Low to bring an Axion for Divorse, do you suppose I shall have to marry Mrs. Clanarthur?

I do jolly well Hope Not. She is old enough to be my mother, and Has a Perfectly awful temper.

Fancy me being as Pleased as a Fox-terrier with 2 tails when she let me Kiss Her under the Deck Awning after dinner. Fellows with lots of good sense can be asses at times.

Of course I tell you All this in Confidence on the Strict Q.T., because you are Not like other Girls about Keeping a Secret. There is a Big Review of the Home Fleet and the Swedish Squadron by the King to-day, and the Fleet will be elluminated in the Evening after dinner, and there will be Fireworks from the Victoria Pier. But whether it is my having been Out all Night with Nini--I mean Mrs. Clanarthur--in that rotten Dinghy or something else I don’t ixactly know, but I feel jolly miserable.

I wish Greening minor was here, it would do me Good to give the little Brute a regular licking. Fancy him Being in love with a Barmade and writing her verses. And Regger, who has the nerve to make up to his sister’s Jerman Governess. I can’t think why Fellows do such idiotic Things.

I Think rather than Have to marry Mrs. Clanarthur I would Run away and be a stoker like that Fellow in the newspapers. She looks quite young again this afternoon and her Hair is beautifully done, but I keep on seeing Her as she was at 4 this morning, when that pilot-cutter Found us.

I am getting rather sorry for Clanarthur tied up to a Woman who Boxes a Fellow’s ears and calls him Names for Nothing--that is, I should feel sorry for him if I was quite Eesy in my mind about his bringing an Axion for Divorse.

Ever your affeckshionate Brother,
TYNSTONE.

FOR VALOR!

The city of Smutborough was holding a solemn public function in honor of one of her sons. Formerly a soldier in the Smutborough Regiment, he had won his V. C. a long time back in the early days of the last South African War. At the conclusion of hostilities, having, like many other men, attained perfect competency and ripe experience with the expiration of the age-limit, Color-Sergeant Stoneham was naturally shelved as being of no further use to the nation, except in an emergency like the last.

The rear of the Town Hall, Smutborough, formed one side of an unsavory blind alley: a dingy _cul-de-sac_ blocked at the end by the high, sooty, spike-bordered wall of what was termed, with mordant but unconscious humor, the Workhouse Recreation Yard. The Workhouse loomed large upon the opposite side. Though the great main entrance for misery was in another street, a solid oaken door, hospitably garnished with large nails and a double row of bristling prongs, exhibited upon a mud-splashed fanlight above it the black-lettered legend, “Casual Ward.”

It was only one o’clock, and the door would not open before seven, but a queue of deplorable applicants had already mustered before it. A tall, upright, gaunt man of about forty, dressed in a weather-stained jacket-suit of tweed, and wearing a shabby deerstalker low over his haggard eyes, had been one of the last to attach himself to Poverty’s kite-tail.

Against the wall of the Workhouse Recreation Yard was the excuse for a considerable expenditure of public funds at a moment felt by the humbler citizens of Smutborough to be extremely inopportune. The excuse was let into the sooty brick masonry. It made a queerly-shaped bulge in the middle of an oppressively new Union Jack which covered it, and upon each side of this tantalizing mystery stood a large, pink, shining police-constable, in the largest size obtainable of brand-new white woolen gloves.

At the bottom of the blind alley were more constables, ready in case of the mob of unemployed making a rush round from the front of the Town Hall. But at present it surged, a human sea lashed to fury by the whip of hunger and the voice of Socialism, in the square outside the long row of first-floor windows where the sumptuous luncheon was laid for a hundred guests.

“A’a’ah! T’ss’s! Ya’-’aah!”

“Close up here, close up!” A police-sergeant, hurrying from the bottom of the alley, herded the struggling queue before the door of the casual ward into a compact bunch. Then the rearward portals of the Town Hall, before which a red-and-white striped awning had suddenly sprouted, were thrown wide. A crush of rosetted stewards, carrying very shiny hats, preceded the Mace-Bearer; the Mayor, a plump and rosy personage, in his furred robes and chain of office, appeared, walking between a lovely lady in sumptuous sables and an accurately-attired gentleman, whose intense vacuity of eye, mechanical bow and smile, and inability to utter anything without being first prompted by an attendant secretary from behind, denoted him a Personage of the first importance.... The Sheriff followed with the Mayoress, the Aldermen and the guests trooped after. And the mob at the other side of the Town Hall, making a charge round the corner, and being repulsed by the police, vented its indignation in such an outburst of boo’s that the Mayor’s speech was delivered in dumb show. Everybody clapped when he had done, though. Upon which the Personage, prompted by his attendant spirit, delivered himself in short, House of Commons gasps of the contents of a Be-ribboned roll of typoscript. The last sentence was audible: “And let this! Be a perpetual! Reminder to this! And succeeding generations! How our! Mother country! Rewards her! Heroic sons!” Everybody clapped and applauded the Personage. The Personage, then, advancing upon exquisitely-polished boots to the Union Jack with the mysterious bulge under it pulled a white cord with a lavender kid glove, and brought the flag down, revealing a square block of Caen stone bearing some sculptural figures in low relief set in the masonry above a neat little drinking fountain. Then the Personage, the lovely lady in furs, the Mayor and Mayoress, Sheriff, Aldermen, guests, and stewards trooped back into the Town Hall to luncheon, and the crowd surged back again to boo the banqueters. But after the last of these had, under a cross-fire of gibes and taunts, taken himself away, the turbulent ocean of humanity rolled back into its foodless garrets and cellars, and the Socialist leaders who had urged on the ring-leaders retired to dine at a hotel. Subsequently the alley behind the Town Hall became gorged with homeless persons seeking shelter for the night, and when seven o’clock struck and the Casual Ward door opened, one rush of misery packed it instantly from wall to wall, and Stoneham, V. C., late Color-Sergeant in the Smutborough Regiment, found himself shut out.

He wondered, as he ruefully felt in his empty pockets, whether it would end in his having to sell the Cross? He had never failed to raise money on his reserve-pension when the General Brushmaker’s Union had forced him to come out with the other men, because a non-union _employé_ had been taken on at the factory. Since then he had navvied, stoked, scavenged, done everything and anything that a capable man might do to get bare bread and common shelter for himself and his. Now the wife was in Clogham Infirmary with two of the children, and another was dead of clemming, and ... and the old wound from the cross-nicked Mauser bullet pained him horribly. He was giddy and sick with starvation, and the world was spinning round....

Just in time he caught at the edge of the new drinking fountain, and saved himself from falling. The grudging glimmer from the fanlight over the door of the Casual Ward showed him something that roused him as a swooning man may be roused by a splash of icy water in his face. It was his own name in shining gold letters, boldly incised upon a handsome tablet under the sculptured block that jutted from the sooty brick wall.

“Lord above, what’s this?” gasped the man whom Smutborough had that day toasted. He struck a match, the last he had, and read, beneath the bas-relief which represented the city’s hero in the act of shielding a wounded officer with his body from a supposititious volley of Boer bullets:

TO COMMEMORATE THE GALLANT ACTION
BY WHICH COLOUR-SERGEANT H. STONEHAM,
OF THE SMUTBOROUGH REGIMENT,
AND A NATIVE OF THIS CITY,
WON THE VICTORIA CROSS.

IN ACTION, PAARDFONTEIN, TRANSVAAL, SOUTH AFRICA, 1901.

“Move on, you!” said the voice of a police-constable behind him. And Stoneham, V. C., drove his freezing hands deep into his ragged pockets, wheeled and obeyed.

“It’s a rum world!” He reeled a little in his gait, and whispered thickly to himself, as if some of the champagne and grub that had been consumed that day in his honor had got into his head by proxy. “Damned queer from start to finish! But, in the long run, I’m a bit better off than the bloke in the Bible. He asked for bread, and they gave him a stone. And I’ve got a drinking fountain into the bargain!”

And the wet night swallowed him up.

MELLICENT

“Happy is the corpse, they say, that the rain rains on,” observed Mr. Popham, “but knowing his rheumatic nature, I could have wished him a drier day. However, we must take what comes, and it’s curious that what comes is generally what one would have preferred to be without. Life is very like a switchback railway,” continued Mr. Popham. “Now you’re up, a-looking down upon other human beings; and now you’re down a-looking up at ’em. And similarly your fellow-creatures as regards you. It’s a curious reflection that I shan’t ever measure out his colchicum again; or soothe the morning twinges in his knees and elbers with a lithia lollipop in a glass of warm water; or hear him swear when I tighten his straps and buckles; or fetch and carry his wigs between this and the hairdresser’s in Regent Place. Who do those wigs belong to now? Yesterday his coffin, an extra-sized, double oak casket, metal-lined, with plated handles and silver name-plate, stood in there!” He jerked his head at the double doors leading into the bedroom. “This morning we accompanied him to Woking Cemetery. This afternoon they are a-reading of the Will in Portland Place, and Odlett gave me his solemn word that John Henry shouldn’t remove his ear from the library keyhole without finding out whether a little bit on account of faithful services rendered hadn’t been left to Frederick T. Popham, valet to the above. For he promised to leave me something all along, and almost with his last breath, ‘I haven’t forgotten you, Popham,’ says he. ‘You’ve been remembered, you’ll find, in the Will.’ And ... Lord! Was that you? What a turn you gave me, Miss Mellicent!”

“Why, you’re quite nervous, Mr. Popham, sir,” said Miss Mellicent.

Miss Mellicent had bumped at the door with the end of a coal-scuttle, and now apologized, bringing it in. Miss Mellicent was a thin person of some thirty London summers, dressed in a worn black gown with stray threads sticking out where crape had been ripped off. Her hair would have been a nice brown if it had been less dusty, her gray eyes were timid and kind, and her dingy pale face had a look of belated girlhood--was sometimes quite transfigured into prettiness when she smiled.

“I’ll own I am a little unlike myself,” agreed Mr. Popham. “Perhaps it’s his luggage all ready in a pile near the door, as if we were off to a foreign Spa within the next five minutes, or going down to Helsham to stop in his usual rooms in the south wing. Perhaps it’s his going off so sudden in quite a mild attack. Perhaps it’s the strain of the funeral this morning, perhaps it’s sympathy for Sir George and the family, perhaps it’s a little anxiety on my own account! I know what he had, and I’ve my notions as to how he’s disposed of it! The likeliest way to bring about a lawsuit and get it into Chancery would be his way, bless you! The embroilingest way; the way to bring about the greatest amount of jealousy and bitterness; the way to cost the most to all concerned and bring about the smallest return in the way of satisfaction and profit to ’em, would be the way he’d give the preference to over all. And if he was a-listening to me at this minute,” said Mr. Popham, with a slight uncomfortable glance toward the folding doors that led into the bedroom--“and I’m sure I hope he’s better employed!--he’d own I’ve done him no more than justice!”

“The many years I’ve known General Bastling,” said Miss Mellicent, “and it’s going on for twenty that he’s lodged with us four months in each twelvemonth--I’ve never asked or cared to know. Was he a rich gentleman?”

“Why, I should call him pretty snug at that,” said Mr. Popham. “Ten thousand in Home Rails; a pretty little nest-egg of five thousand in Government Three per Cents; a matter of sixteen hundred invested in the Chillianmugger Anthracite Mining Company; and a nice little bit of loose cash in the current account at Cox’s. That’s what I’ve my eye on, to tell you the truth; and I don’t think it’s unnatural or greedy.”

“I would never believe you selfish or money-seeking,” said Miss Mellicent, folding her hard-worked red hands upon her worn stuff apron, “not if an Angel was to come down out of the stained-glass window in church--I sit under it on a Sunday evening sometimes, when I’m not wanted at home--and tell me so!”

“I hope I’m not naturally more of a groveler than other men in my situation--my late situation--would be,” returned Mr. Popham. “But forty odd is getting on in years, and I’m reluctant at my time of life to go looking for another middle-aged gentleman to valet. The young ones are too harum-scarum and given to late hours for a man like me; and if they weren’t, they’d be unnatural phenomenons. A nice little inn in a country town, with a decentish bar custom and a solid bottle-and-jug department, and a cold lunch in the coffee-room on market-days, would suit me; with Hunt, Harriers, Freemasons, and Friendly Societies’ dinners to cater for; and a private understanding with a few gamekeepers anxious to promote their own interests in a quiet, unassuming way--the guards of the late and early Expresses--and one or two West End poulterers and greengrocers as I have met in what I might call the butterfly stage of my existence, when I wore silk stockings and livery, floured my hair regular, wore a bookay on Levée and Drawing-Room days, and would as soon have eaten cold joint or cleaned the carriage as taken up coals. And why I haven’t relieved you of the scuttle before this, is a question between me and my conscience. Let me take it and put it down. It won’t be the first time, if it is the last, will it?”

“Don’t, Mr. Popham, sir!” pleaded Miss Mellicent; “don’t speak in that downhearted way.” Her red hands plucked at a corner of her dingy stuff apron, her gray eyes were already pink about the rims. Tears rose in them. She coughed and swallowed nervously.

“The Bastling Arms is the name of that there little inn,” said Mr. Popham. “The sign is the same as the crest on _his_ notepaper and his seal-ring and the lock of that despatch-box.” He pointed to the despatch-box crowning the pile of solid, well-used, much be-labeled portmanteaux and imperials that occupied the corner near the door of the room--a comfortably furnished, rather dingy second-floor apartment in a quiet street above, and running parallel with, Oxford Circus. “The landlord died the day before yesterday--as if to oblige or aggravate me, I don’t know which!--and the widow, knowing my ambitions, dropped me a postcard to inform. Three hundred is wanted for the lease, stock, and goodwill, and fifty for the furniture, stable and yard-effects. A bargain, Miss Mellicent, if I only had the money! But as it goes, I’m a hundred and fifty short--unless John Henry’s ear is tingling at this moment with tidings of comfort and joy. Now, what do you mean by lighting a fire as if I wanted coddling, when you’ve a dozen people to look after, if you’ve one?”

Miss Mellicent was down on her knees at the old-fashioned grate, laying a fire. She struck a match and lighted the kindling, and, though it was mid-June, the bright blaze was welcome in the dingy sitting-room, whose window-panes streamed with torrents of rain.

“The gentlemen are all out but the third-floor front,” she said, “and when the rain began, and I thought of you sitting up here in the dim light alone, it seemed as if I might do this much to make things cheerfuller. For you’ve done so much for me ever since I came here”--her red and blackened knuckles went up to her pink-rimmed eyes--“you always done so much for me!”

“For you, my dear soul!” ejaculated Mr. Popham, with circular eyes. “You make too much of things, Miss Mellicent!”

“That’s one of ’em,” cried grateful Mellicent, turning upon him a thin, blushing face down which two tears openly trickled. “You’ve called me ‘Miss Mellicent’ from the first. From the time I came here to Mr. and Mrs. Davis, an orphan, ten years old, in my cheap black frock, made out of the skirt of poor mother’s mourning for poor father, you’ve always called me ‘Miss.’ It helped me, somehow; just as your carrying up the heavy cans of hot water and the coals did.”

“You was a bright-eyed, grateful little mouse, too,” said Mr. Popham retrospectively, “and many’s the time I’ve had it in my mind to speak to Mr. and Mrs. Davis about their driving a little thing like you so hard. They’re past driving now, that’s one comfort! It’s years since I’ve set eyes on either of ’em, now I come to think of it!”

“It’s years!” Mellicent echoed in a slightly bewildered way. “Why of course it would be years!”

“She was a mountain, was the venerable lady, and the old gentleman was a mere lath,” said Mr. Popham meditatively. “He used to answer the letters we wrote year by year, season in and season out, from the family seat at Helsham, from the Engadine, Aix, or Ems, Paris, or the Riviera, to say we were coming on such a day. Ten years ago the writing of the letters changed to a feminine hand--and since then I haven’t seen him.”

“Why--don’t you know--he died?” said Mellicent.

“Did he really?” cried Mr. Popham. “Well, it was like him to keep it so quiet, and like the old lady, too. Reminds me--I haven’t set eyes on _her_ for a matter of five year and over!”

“Oh dear, Mr. Popham! she’s dead too!” gasped Mellicent in distress.

“She’d be pleased to know how little we’ve missed her, I know,” responded Mr. Popham cheerfully. “Now, quite between ourselves, Miss Mellicent, since for the first time since I’ve known you we’re indulging in a confidential conversation--who’s carrying on the house?”

“Don’t you know? No--you’ve never asked or thought to ask in all these years,” returned Mellicent. “The person who carries on the house is--not quite--but I suppose she would be called so--a lady!”

“And very sensibly she manages,” approved Mr. Popham, “in keeping out of the way and letting you do it for her. And a nice income she makes, I’ll be bound! Why, the house has never been empty since first I come here. Old gentlemen with ample means on every floor, toddling out to their clubs when their various complaints permit, and dining at home--and dining comfortably, too--when they don’t. Such a polish on the boots, such a crispness of the breakfast bacon, such a flavor about the coffee and the curries, such a tenderness about the joints, such a dryness about the daily newspaper, and such an absence of over-statement about the total of the weekly bill as, with all my experience, I’ve never found elsewhere. And all owing to You! If your modesty allowed you to think over yourself for one moment--which I truly believe you’ve never done since you were born--you’d admit, Miss Mellicent--that you’re a wonder!”

“Oh! do you truly mean it?” she cried, with her heart upon her lips.

“I do,” answered Mr. Popham, with warmth. “And if the present proprietor of the lodgings wasn’t a lady--and knew what was good for him--he’d----”

“Oh no! No, Mr. Popham, sir, no! He wouldn’t. No one could ever think of me in such a way!” Her red and blackened hands went up to the piteous, quivering face, and her lean bosom heaved behind the meager bib of her scorched stuff apron. “Never!”

“Tell me now, upon your honor,” Mr. Popham pressed. “Haven’t you never looked at nobody in that way yourself?”

Miss Mellicent fairly writhed and shuddered with nervousness. But she laughed, looking away from Mr. Popham and into the old-fashioned but handsome glass over the mantelshelf, in which, within an Early Victorian frame of fly-spotted gilding, the reflection of Mr. Popham’s alert, well-featured, respectable profile and her own poor, wistful face appeared together.

“If you won’t ask me no more--yes, then! but he never dreamed o’ me!”

“More shame for him!” asseverated Mr. Popham stoutly. “Why, what a put-upon young woman you are, Miss Mellicent! Since you were ten years old, I do verily believe you’ve never had a pleasure, never had a present, never had a friend, never had an outing--no more than you’ve had a sweetheart.”

“Ah, but,” she cried, with a happy laugh, “I have had a friend! You’ve been my friend, haven’t you? And I have had pleasure in knowing that. And I’ve had an outing--twice. Once Uncle Davis took me to the World’s Fair--it was my twelfth birthday--and once, two years later, you treated me to the pantomime.”

“Did I? And uncommon generous and considerate it was of me, I must say, to have done that much for you, you poor little neglected, lonely creature!” uttered the remorseful Mr. Popham.

“I never forgot it,” Mellicent cried, with beaming eyes. “The glory and the splendor, the living roses and the talking animals and the shining fairies, and you to explain it all and be so kind. I never forgot it! Who could?”

“Why, I’m beginning to remember something about it myself!” said Mr. Popham, clearing. “We partook of a dozen oysters and some shandy-gaff at a fish-bar on the way home. According to present views, we ought to have shaken carbolic powder over that shellfish instead of pepper, and washed it down with Condy’s Fluid; but, being behind the present times, we enjoyed ourselves.”

“Didn’t we!” Mellicent clapped her hands. “I have gone back to that beautiful evening in memory hundreds and hundreds of times! It has helped me through such a lot of hard things--for things are hard sometimes. Sometimes, when you aren’t here, and there isn’t no one to speak to on the stairs, and the gentlemen are over-particular about their boots and changeable about the hours for their meals, things get the better of me to that extent that I scream and run!”

“Scream and run, do you?” said the puzzled Mr. Popham. “And how do you do it? Or do you do it without knowing how, eh?”

“I shriek out loud and hear myself as though my voice came from a long way off,” said Mellicent, opening her large eyes, “and then my feet begin to run. I scream, and I run screaming up to the little top attic I slept in when I came here as a child, where my old rag doll is still, and mother’s patchwork counterpane covers the truckle-bed. And I hide my head in that, and cry myself quiet and patient again!”

“And Lord have mercy on your lonely little soul!” cried Mr. Popham. “Patient you are, and that’s the truth!” He took the knotty red hand and held it in both of his for an instant, looking at the downcast face. “But don’t scream and run any more. It isn’t good for you!”

“I haven’t screamed and runned for quite a long time now,” she answered. “But”--her poor lips trembled--“I think I shall when you are gone for good.”

“Nonsense, nonsense!” Mr. Popham squeezed the red hand and dropped it gently. “I’ll come and see you from time to time.”

“And leave your little country inn?” said Mellicent, trying to smile. “You won’t be able!”

“I could leave the landlady in charge,” suggested Mr. Popham. “Stop, though, a landlady is the kind of article that doesn’t go with the furniture and fixtures. I shall have to look out for her myself.” His face changed. “Upon my word I shall!”

“I know the kind you’ll choose,” sighed Miss Mellicent. “And the best won’t be good enough for you, Mr. Popham. She must be young and fair and plump and rosy and blue-eyed, with golden curls like the Fairy Queen in that pantomime, or the lovely dolls I see in the shop windows when I’m out buying meat and groceries for the gentlemen. And her hands must be as white and soft as mine are red and hard. And----”

“Don’t cry, my dear!” begged Mr. Popham. He stooped over her as she hid her flaming cheeks in the hard-worked hands. “You have pretty hair, Miss Mellicent,” he said, with a sensation of surprise at the discovery.

“I’ve been turning out rooms,” she sobbed, “and it’s full of dust!”

“And you’d have a pretty figure,” said Mr. Popham, now embarked upon a career of discovery, “if you took the trouble to pull ’em in. And you’re young--barely thirty--and I’m ten years older. And you’re a first-class double extra A.1. housekeeper, cook, and manager. See here! Give the lady proprietor a month’s notice, and come and be landlady of the Bastling Arms at Helsham!”

“You--you’re not in earnest?”

She faced him, quivering, transfigured, panting.

“Ain’t I?” remarked Mr. Popham simply. “Say ‘Yes,’ Miss Mellicent, give me a kiss, and we shall both begin to believe it. Run and change your dress, and we’ll call a cab and make another evening of it, and if the Alhambra ballet won’t do as well as the pantomime, under the present circumstances, I shall be surprised! There’s John Henry’s knock at the hall-door. He brings good news, or it wouldn’t be such a loud one. It takes the girl ten minutes to get up the kitchen stairs; she’s a born crawler, if ever there was one, and I’ve a fancy I should like you to let the boy in--if you’ve no objection?”

“Oh, no, no!” she cried gladly, and flashed out of the room.

“She’s wonderfully nimble on her feet,” mused Mr. Popham; “and though I’ve never seen ’em to my knowledge, I shouldn’t mind putting a bit on the chance of their being pretty ones. Lord! I seem in for discoveries to-day. Come in, John Henry!”

But it was not John Henry, but the butler from Portland Place.

“Odlett! Well, this is kind; and you with such an objection to getting your feet damp!” Mr. Popham shook the large dough-colored hand of Mr. Odlett until the butler secured the member from further assault by putting it into his pocket.

“The boy was wanted to go upon an errand,” explained Mr. Odlett, in the voice of the description known as rich. “And as a friend!”--his smile creased his large pale cheeks, and caused the temporary disappearance of his small twinkling eyes--“as a friend, no more port being wanted for the party in the library, I thought I’d come and put you out of your misery!”

“That was uncommon kind of you, Odlett!” breathed the acutely-anxious Mr. Popham. He wiped his brow, and fixed an intense gaze on the particular feature from which intelligence might be expected.

“The boy did his duty faithful from first to last,” said Mr. Odlett, selecting a chair and carefully separating his coat-tails as a preliminary to sitting down; “and when he laughed, ’ad the presence of mind to drop his ’ead to the level of the library door mat, consequently it was supposed to be the pug a-sneezing!”

“Well,” gasped Mr. Popham. “Well?”

“The Will come up to our fondest expectations,” continued Mr. Odlett. “Sir George, who never shoots, ’ave the General’s old saloon-pistols and sporting Mantons, and _Bell’s Life_ and the _Army Gazette_ for twenty year back. Mr. Roderick is left the Chinese and Indian curiosities on condition of his dusting ’em hisself regularly. My Lady ’ave ten pounds to purchase a mourning-ring, provided she’ll undertake to wear it; the young ladies ditto; and the money----”

“The money----” choked Mr. Popham.

“The money, with the exception of several smaller legacies, goes, with the consent of the Mayor and Corporation of Helsham, to purchase and lay out a Public Park for the people in memory of the Testator. There’s to be a mausoleum in the middle of it, in which his crematory urn is to be kep’, and a bandstand at each end, because he always loved to see people cheerful about him. Also, he bequeaths to Miss Mellicent Davis, at his lodgings in Margaret Place, five guineas and a set of ivory chessmen; and to his old and valued friend, William Odlett, which is me, the sum of two hundred pounds. He adds, he hopes I’ll drink myself to death on it, inside of a month; but he always was a playful old gentleman. No--you’re not forgotten!”

Mr. Popham wiped his brow with an air of relief.

“You’re not forgotten--which ought to be a consolation to you!” repeated Mr. Odlett, creasing all over with a vast, comprehensive smile. “You’re to ’ave his walking-sticks, clothes, wigs, the rugs and plaids, and the spare set of teeth, hoping you’ll always have something to employ ’em on. I came over a-purpose to tell you; you’re so fond of a joke, Popham.”

“I don’t deny it,” said the crushed and disappointed Mr. Popham; “but where the humor of this one is, hang me if I know!”

“You’ll see by-and-by,” said Mr. Odlett consolingly. “When you’ve ’ad time to think it over. Meanwhile I’ll stand a couple of whiskies hot. A man don’t come into two hundred, cool, every day, and this windfall is particularly welcome. You know Madgell, the landlord of the Bastling Arms at Helsham, is gone over to the majority?”

Mr. Popham nodded a pale face.

“The lease, stock, goodwill, and fixtures of that pleasant little ’ouse is to be ’ad for what I call a song. And I’m going--in a week or so, when I’ve laid my hand secure on this here little legacy--to pop in and settle down. Plummer, the cook, a plump and capable young woman, ’ave expressed her willingness to be the landlady. I did suppose she had had a bit of an understanding with you. But she’s quite come round my way since the reading of the will, and I thought you’d like to know it!”

“You’re uncommon considerate,” said the rasped and tingling Mr. Popham, “but I’ve made arrangements elsewhere.”

“Perhaps the Other One will change her mind when she finds out you’re diddled in your expectations!” said the comforting Mr. Odlett, shaking hands heartily. “Good-night. I shan’t hear of you coming to the door!”

But Mr. Popham did come, and slammed it behind the departing form of Mr. Odlett with great heartiness.

“Damn his wigs and walking-sticks!” he said in the murky passage, “and his spare teeth as well! A nice Job’s comforter, Odlett! ‘Perhaps she’ll change her mind when she knows you’ve been diddled in your expectations.’ Beg pardon, Miss Mellicent, I didn’t see you were there! You’re not hurt, are you?”

“Only by your thinking I could change!” said Miss Mellicent, with a sob.

The ground-floor sitting-room door stood ajar; the room was unoccupied. Mr. Popham led Miss Mellicent in, turned up one of the blackened incandescent gas-jets, and stood petrified at the sight its hissing white glare revealed.

“A gray silk gown, trimmed with real lace, and a gold chain!” cried the bewildered Mr. Popham. “A diamond brooch, as I’m a living sinner! and an opera-mantle and kid gloves and a fan! And your pretty brown hair done up quite tastefully, and your eyes a-shining over the roses in your cheeks! What’s done it? Who’s responsible for it? How did it come about?”

If she had been less shy of him, she would have answered in two words, “Through love!” But she only faltered:

“I’m so glad you think I look a bit nice in them. They--they belonged to poor Aunt Davis, and I’ve had ’em altered to fit. She--she left them to me when she died!”

“And handed over the lodging-house and furniture to the present lady proprietor,” observed Mr. Popham, searching in his trouser pocket for a cab whistle, “whom I don’t happen to know by sight.”

“Oh, yes, you do!” Miss Mellicent’s blush and smile made quite a pretty little face of hers, and Mr. Popham boldly kissed it on the spot. “Oh yes, you do, for she’s me! I should say, I am her! Law bless you, dear Mr. Popham, I didn’t mean to startle you like that! Who cares about your being left a lot of old clothes and wigs instead of a sum of money--though you deserved it, true and faithful as you was to him that’s gone! Haven’t I plenty for both? And landlord of the Bastling Arms you shall be to-morrow, if you’ve set your heart on it! and we shall be late for the beautiful sights at the theater if you don’t whistle for a taxicab.”

“Life is certainly a switchback!” said Mr. Popham, as he breathed and trilled alternately on the damp doorstep. “Now you’re down a-lookin’ up at your fellow-mortals, and now you’re up, a-lookin’ down upon ’em!... We’ll have a bit of supper at that very fish-bar, if it’s still in existence, on our way home, carefully drawing the line at oysters as risky and uncertain articles of diet for two middle-aged people about to enter upon the duties and privileges of married life!”

THE COLLAPSE OF THE IDEAL