Sixpenny Pieces
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Title: Sixpenny Pieces
Creator: A. Neil Lyons
Release date: February 17, 2014 [eBook #44952]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44952
Credits: Produced by Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIXPENNY PIECES ***
Produced by Al Haines.
_SIXPENNY_
:: _PIECES_ ::
_BY A. NEIL LYONS_
_LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD_
_NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY: MCMIX_
WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
Arthur's. With a Cover-design
by W. Graham Robertson.
Crown 8vo. Second Edition.
TO
K. L. S.
_*CONTENTS*_
I. Introductory
II. Concerning James
III. First Impressions
IV. Sixpences
V. The Hypocrites
VI. Conatus
VII. On The Properties of Water
VIII. The Way of the East
IX. The 'Pothecary
X. The Mother's Trade Union
XI. The Diagnosis
XII. The Tuskers
XIII. Art Lovers
XIV. Three Babies
XV. Ingrates
XVI. Baffin's Find
XVII. Mr. West's Wife
XVIII. Three Dialogues
XIX. Curing the Curer
XX. Milk!
XXI. Two Patients
XXII. Lost!
XXIII. The Survivor
XXIV. More of Prudence
XXV. A Talk with James
XXVI. The April Barge
XXVII. The Case of Mrs. Roper
XXVIII. The Black Hat
XXIX. On Earning Sixpence
XXX. Dialogue with a Bride
XXXI. An Interlude
XXXII. Low Finance
XXXIII. The Mothers' Meeting
XXXIV. The Woes of Wilfered
XXXV. Still More of Prudence
XXXVI. A Birthday Party
XXXVII. The Moral Sense
XXXVIII. Love and Hate
XXXIX. On a Dead Policeman
XL. Mrs. Gluckstein
XLI. Of Human Kindness
XLII. The Last
_*SIXPENNY PIECES*_
*I*
*INTRODUCTORY*
I was a beautiful evening in the month of May.
The stars were shining.
The beautiful moon looked beautifully forth from her beautiful throne.
A nightingale greeted her with a beautiful sonnet. England--our
England--bore upon her bosom the beautiful perfume of woodruff and the
wild clover. In Bovingdon Street, London, E., a lover was kicking his
sweetheart.
That was the beginning of this book. I happened to be standing at Mr.
Wilson's coffee stall. And I heard the screaming. And I saw some
shadows moving briskly, like the funny silhouettes on the blind at a
pantomime. And some of us laughed and some of us whined and one of us
blew a whistle. And the constabulary arrived, and with their coming the
tumult died. And they brought the girl to the light of the stall, and
her face was bruised and swollen and she lost her voice. But before
doing so she was able to assure us that "'E done it in drink." "'E" was
removed under escort.
They did not take her to a hospital, because there was a round little
man at the stall who prevented them from doing so. "Lemme alone," the
lady had remarked, upon regaining speech. "Don't you worry me. I'm all
right, I am. I got my doctor 'ere: this genelman in the top 'at. Ain't
that right, sir? You are my doctor, ain't you?"
"That is so," said the round little man, "I'm her doctor. Shift your
dam carcases and give the woman some air."
"There you are," gasped the woman, "what did I tell you? He _is_ my
doctor. I got 'is confinement card in me pocket this minute."
"She can't stop 'ere you know, Dr. Brink," expostulated a constable.
"I'll take her home," said the round man.
"Be a lot better in the 'orspital," muttered the constable.
"I'm obliged for your opinion, officer; but I think I'll have my own way
_this_ time. Catch hold of her middle, will you, Sonny?"
It was your servant who had the honour to be addressed as Sonny, and he
hastened to do the little round man's bidding. When we had got the lady
into a perpendicular attitude, the doctor put his arm about her, and,
anticipating the little man's commands, your servant did the same. And
so we led her from the stall, all the cut-throats of Bovingdon Street
following reverently behind us. Happily our march was not a long one,
for the patient lived in Smith Street; and Smith Street, as everybody
knows, is the second turning past the African Chief beer-house in
Bovingdon Street. Short as the journey was, however, I could have
wished it to be shorter: for the cut-throats pressed us close, breathing
thickly about our ears; and the woman weighed heavy, having no manner of
use for her legs and being stupid in the head. She only spoke once
during the walk, and that was to say, in a drowsy sort of monotone: "'E
done it--in drink."
We came at last to 13, Smith Street, and the fact that eighteen eager
faces were already distributed among the six small windows of that
dwelling-house removed my latent fears that our arrival would disturb
"the neighbours." The owners of these faces were entirely mute, save
for one, an elderly woman, who, in a loud wail, made certain
representations to Providence in regard to one 'Erry Barber, whom I
understood to be the lusty gallant primarily responsible for this
adventure. Having repeated these commands a great number of times, and
having exercised undoubted talent in describing 'Erry and 'Erry's
parentage, the old woman proceeded to chronicle her views respecting a
vast number of alien subjects. At last this lady had the great
misfortune to "catch her breath," at which the doctor cut in.
"Stop that beastly noise!" he shouted, "and shut the window, and put on
a respectable garment, and come downstairs and let us in."
The lady looked benignly down upon us.
"Go' bless ye, doctor," she exclaimed, "you are a good man. But you
didn't ought to talk like that to _me_. I lorst a son in the Bower
war."
At that moment the door was opened by some other dweller in the house.
And the doctor and his patient entered in. Not knowing the
neighbourhood and not liking it, and being also of a curious nature, I
awaited the doctor's return. I had not long to wait. He came out very
soon, and we walked away together into clearer air. And the doctor
spoke.
"It is a deuced queer thing," he said, "that a man can't stop for five
minutes at a dam coffee stall without some fool or other finding work
for him. I'll never go to that stall again. I'll be damned if I will.
I ought to have got home half an hour ago."
"Yes," I said--I believe that vaguely I sought to comfort him--"and she
_would_ have been better off in the infirmary?"
"Don't talk foolishness, young man," replied the round little doctor.
"You are talking dam nonsense. Infirmary--pooh! With a baby almost
due, and with all those bruises! They would have made a complete job of
it there. They would have kept her there for the lying-in and all--a
six weeks' job at least."
"And would that matter?"
"Matter? Of course it would. That man will be out in a week, even if
our local humorist doesn't let him off with a fine. What's to become of
that poor girl's home, do you suppose, while she's in and he's out?"
"Would he touch it?"
"Do you live in this neighbourhood, sir?" The doctor wore a visage as
of painful wonder.
I explained that I didn't.
The doctor's wonder grew. "What under heaven are you doing in the
purlieus of Mile End Road at two in the morning, then?" he demanded.
"Sir," I said, with grand simplicity, "you behold in me the
representative of an inexpensive but celebrated newspaper. I am come
here, by editorial instruction, to seek out Blossom, the chimney-sweep
philosopher, whose opinion on horse-racing we are anxious to secure for
our magazine page. But Blossom has evaporated. Mrs. Blossom vainly
seeketh him. So does the other woman's husband. I have prepared a full
and detailed report of this disgraceful scandal, which will appear,
together with photographs, on our sermon page next Sunday. And as, when
I communicated by telephone with my editor, he was so kind as to relieve
me from further intellectual activity for the day, and as I do not know
Mile End, and as I----"
"Never mind the 'ases,'" interpolated the doctor. "My name is Brink. I
like your politics."
"I have no politics," I explained. "But ... I hate my job."
"That is what I mean," replied the doctor. "... So you want me to send
this woman to the infirmary, where they will feed her well and keep her
warm between white sheets, and give her copies of the _Nineteenth
Century_ to read. But during that time, you see, her 'man' and some
other woman would be pawning her home. She knows this, and I know it.
So I took her home. If she has concussion, of course, she'll _have_ to
go; but short of that we can get her through it at home. There's a
boilerman's wife in the room above who has rudimentary graces.
Infirmary, forsooth! Why, even the respectable married ones would
rather pawn their wedding rings than 'lie in' on a public bed. A woman
at home is a woman at home, even though she talks through the mouth of a
midwife; but when a woman is in hospital William's wages and the marble
ornaments are both at William's mercy. And so the women stop at home
and call in Brink--Brink--the sixpenny doctor."
I laughed. "Is it _really_ sixpence--your fee, I mean?"
"It is _really_ sixpence. And my income is twelve hundred a year. I
used to have a respectable half-guinea practice in Norfolk, and then I
was doing eight hundred, and spending it all on dog-carts and
dinner-parties. Here I have no expenses at all, except in the matter of
top-hats; they insist upon top-hats. And I like the place: I am charmed
with the people. Do you like smoked salmon and cold duck?"
"I do."
"Then come inside, and have some. And have a look at James. James will
do you good. James is unique. And I can give you a bed, and I can tell
you stories, and show you some fun, too--sideways sort of fun--at
sixpence a time."
"Sixpenny pieces," I suggested, as his key turned in the lock.
*II*
*CONCERNING JAMES*
I have confused impressions of that first visit to the house of Dr.
Brink. It was so late when we entered, you see, and all within the
house was strange and unexpected, and the duck and Burgundy were very
peace-provoking.
The sort of house which I had expected the doctor to inhabit was not at
all the sort of house he really lived in. I had, perhaps, no very
definite ideas at all. One knows the _ordinary_ doctor's house: a cool
and studious consulting-room, having leathern armchairs and a telephone
and a stethoscope and some framed engravings after Landseer and a silver
goblet which he won at tennis in the eighties and a case of text-books
and a mule canary and claret plush curtains and the centenary edition of
Sir Walter Scott. And a very quiet and lofty waiting-room, containing
all the illustrated papers for last April and a reading-glass and a
stereoscope, besides a decanter of water and three clean tumblers.
One knows that sort of house, I say, and likewise the gentle, murmuring
press of sufferers which lays siege to it. But the spot-cash
practitioners of Mile End Road are rather strange and foreign to us. We
do not go into their little, weird consulting-hatches nor sweat amid the
tumult of their vulgar patrons. We can imagine what the thing is like:
and there are some of us perhaps who imagine truthfully. I didn't.
My imagination did not run to Japanese colour prints and pastel studies,
and neatly framed examples of the art of Mr. Nicholson. And yet these
things were hung upon the white distempered walls of Dr. Brink's
infirmary. I figured the tumult as gazing speechlessly upon these
curious East End substitutes for Landseer. "What do they think of
them?" I asked the doctor.
"They are much amused," said he. We were standing before a pastel when
he spoke--a thing of heavy shadows with purple deeps, wherefrom there
stood forth dimly the figures of a crippled man and an old sick woman,
and the face of a child with brazen eyes. "Out Patients" was the title
of this drawing, and it preached of a divine torture. "They are much
amused," said the doctor.
But this was in the morning. That night we did not look at pictures,
nor at patients. We sat above and supped off duck and Burgundy. I saw
confusedly--it was a pleasant confusion--that there were many good
pictures in the house, and that books were everywhere--everywhere. And
the bottle was a full one. And we spoke of olives and the Norfolk
women.
Then he took me to a little brown room with more books in it, and a
bedstead which was of oak and carven.
"Good-night," said the doctor. "You shall see old James to-morrow. You
will like old James. Good-night."
* * * * *
When morning came, I had the pleasure of viewing Bovingdon Street in the
sunshine.
It was a queer sort of sunshine, to be sure--weak and uncertain and
rather dirty: a sort of actinic heel-taps. But I remember thinking that
any less shabby form of sunshine would have carried with it an air of
disrespect, as though it had come forth to mock at the gloom and
ugliness of the thing beneath it. A gloomier, sillier, dirtier street
than Bovingdon Street I do not wish to see. But I have seen such all the
same. Indeed, I have looked upon some filth and squalor beside which
Bovingdon Street is as the Mall compared to Worship Street. So much I
must admit in common fairness.
There was at least no actual squalor in the street on which I looked:
only dirt and gloom and ugliness. The houses which faced me were
comparatively new, and they were small and neat, and of a square and
thick-set build. But there happened to be one hundred and sixty of
them, each exactly like its neighbour, and having each before its
doorway a small pale or enclosure containing--cinders and rags and
pieces of paper and battered cans and smudgy babies and hungry cats.
And there was grime on all the windows, and in front of them a very
vulgar man was selling bloaters, loudly. Also, in all that soot-brown
avenue there was one white thing: a hawthorn tree in bloom, which
shuddered gently in the fog-shine like a discontented spectre. And
those ridiculous fat houses stood there stoutly, shoulder to shoulder,
one hundred and sixty of them, eyeing her with dolour. And a voice
beneath my window made speech, saying loudly: "You give me my daughter's
combings back, ye thievin' slut." So I left the window and lighted a
pipe and crawled back into bed.
* * * * *
And then, as the story writers say, a strange thing happened. There
came a sudden tap upon my bedroom door, and without further warning
there entered in a--a lady. She was rather a young lady, to be sure,
some fifteen years of age, perhaps. And she was wearing a petticoat--a
striped petticoat--and her hair was dressed into innumerable pigtails,
and her top was covered by--by a--a--don't they call it a camisole? And
she bade me "Good-morning," very calmly.
"G--G--Good-morning!" I responded. I hoped to heaven that I was not
blushing.
"Don't trouble to scream," said the lady, in an off-hand manner. "It is
all right: I have come for my stockings."
"Really," I began, a little hotly, "_I_ haven't ta----" And then I
stopped. A horrible thought presented itself to me.
Doctor Brink no doubt combined the practice of alienism with that of
spot-cash cures. And this lady was doubtless an "inmate." And----
The voice of the inmate interrupted me. "It's quite all right, really it
is. I'm not accusing you of theft or anything else. I only want to get
my stockings from this cupboard. Mrs. Gomm, our 'char,' she mixes
things up so. And I want a brown pair, because this is my day for being
respectable with my aunt at Ealing, and you wear your brown dress and a
neat toque for that sort of thing; and where the devil that woman
has--oh, here we are. Want darning, of course. Damn!"
Swearing seemed to be a widespread habit in this unusual household. I
coughed--the sort of cough you use when children are present and your
deaf Uncle David is reviving his recollections of India in the sixties.
"I say," protested my visitor, "you really needn't look so worried.
It's all right, really. This is my room, you know; theoretically, you
know. Only I always sleep in the bathroom (we've got a bath-room, you
know, and there's a lid to it, and I sleep on that), and I always sleep
there because it's a long way from Fatty, and I can't hear him raving
when the night-bell rings. And Fatty----"
"Pardon me," I cried, "but who is Fatty?"
The lady looked at me a little blankly. "Who is Fatty?" she repeated,
but then broke off, a light as of understanding in her eye. "I was
forgetting," she said. "Of course, you wouldn't know. Well, it is like
this, you see. This house belongs to a man called Brink, who is a
doctor and----"
"I know all that," I assured her.
"Oh, you do know all about it, then," quoth she; "I wasn't sure, you
know. Most of the strange people that I find in my bedroom if I happen
to look in for anything don't know anything at all about us. Fatty
finds them--gathers them up, you know--and brings them home and feeds
them and converts them to Socialism and puts them to bed, and when they
wake up in the morning they have to have it all explained to them.
Fatty is Dr. Brink, you know. One always calls him Fatty, because his
proper names are Theobald Henry de la Rue, and you simply haven't time
in the mumps season. You're a reformer, I suppose? What do you
reform?"
"Reform!" I cried, "what do _I_ reform? Why, I don't reform at all.
I've never reformed a blue-bottle."
"But surely you're against something or other. You _must_ be against
something!"
"Oh, well," I answered, "if it comes to that, I--I----"
"Just so," assented the lady. "Don't go into particulars. They _all_
particularise. I could stand much from you--more than usual, I
mean--because you are clean-shaven, and that is such a change from most
of the other powerful thinkers whom one finds here in the morning. They
are staunch, you know, and sound on the Education Question and all that
sort of thing, and they are a useful hobby for Fatty to take up; but
they're rather old and solemn, as a rule, you know. And they _do_ go
into details! Now _you_ seem rather jolly; and when you've got up and
we've been properly introduced and I've boiled your egg, I'll show you
my white rats. Do you like white rats?"
"I adore them," said your servant.
"Good. And, I say, I hope you won't mind, but you'll have to toilet
yourself in the kitchen sink. Our 'char's' such a rotter, you know, and
I see she hasn't filled your jug--she never does--and she doesn't come
till ten, and I've got to finish dressing, and Fatty's out on a call,
and there's all the breakfast to get; and when you've done your toilet
_do_ you mind just putting a match to the gas stove and sticking a
kettle on? Thanks awfully." ... My fair guest flung herself upon the
door. All of her, save a corner of the stripy petticoat, had
disappeared, when I put in _the_ important question.
"I say," I cried, "who _are_ you?"
"Me," cried a voice from behind the door--"me? Oh ... I am James."
*III*
*FIRST IMPRESSIONS*
With breakfast came the opportunity of renewing my _entente_ with James.
That young lady appeared now fully clothed in the conventional garments
of her age, even to a pinafore with seven pockets.
"What do you put in all those pockets?" I inquired, as she tripped in
with the bacon.
"Most of them," she answered, "contain white rats.... I thought," she
added, eyeing me closely, as I drifted in a thoughtful manner to the far
end of the table, "I thought you _adored_ white rats?"
"That is quite so," I responded. "The dear, dumb creatures! I--I
idolise them."
"_Why_ do you idolise them?" demanded James, putting on a very subtile
smile.
"Because," I answered, "because they--they are so dumb and--and so
white."
"Then why do you shudder at them?"
I explained my attitude towards white rats. "It is not fear which makes
me seem to shrink," I pointed out, "only a sense of--of--well, you see,
the white rats which I have previously adored were confined within a
cage, which contained a sort of treadmill, which they worked with their
feet, and you watched this talented display from a distance, and
wondered if they never grew tired. But----"
"Those wheel-cages," interpolated James, "are the most damnable
contrivances which were ever invented. Whenever I see one I buy it and
burn it. That is one reason why I happen to have so many rats. I think
that the people who make those things ought to be devoured by locusts.
I----"
"You also have the spirit of reform, then?" I ventured to suggest.
"Reform!" echoed James, with a bitter laugh. "Because one hates to see
things tortured? _I_ call it common decency. All of Fatty's friends
have got some wonderful new name for being decent. One of Fatty's most
particular friends is a rather awful man named Boag, and he is a public
accountant, and he wears spats, and he calls himself a Conative
Meliorist; and if you ask him why, he says it is because he believes in
making people happy. 'Conative Meliorist'! Think of it! Sounds so
expensive, doesn't it? He pronounces his name in two jerks--Bo--ag, and
it always reminds me of Asheg, Mesheg, and Abednedgo.... He looks
exactly like them, too! 'Conative Meliorist'! It is much easier to
call yourself just James."
"Why _do_ you call yourself 'James,' by the way?"
"Let us stick to the point," responded James. "It is so like a man to
dodge your arguments when he can't upset them. What was the point?"
"Conative Meliorism," I suggested.
"That was merely a passing reference. There was something else which
reminded me of Mr. Boag. Something which reminded me of something which
reminded me of something which remind--I remember now. We were talking
of white rats. You were pretending not to hate them. You were trying
to deceive me. Your pretendings don't take me in the leastest bit, so
you may just as well chuck them up. Be honest. Be a man. Stand up
like an English gentleman. Say what you feel about them. Do not fear to
shock my virgin ears because----"
"How old are you, James?" I hoped that my simple, honest, obvious wonder
would disarm the question of its point.
The lady gazed upon me with an air of bland surprise. "That is a
question," she answered, with great gravity, "which I never discuss. It
isn't fair to Fatty. _Do_ sit down. Was it sugar and no milk, you said;
or milk and no sugar? And will you have hysterics if Sunshine joins the
circle? He always breakfasts with his mother. Oh, de minna, tinna,
tooney Sunshine, den."
Sunshine was a rat--the whitest and roundest and fattest of them all.
* * * * *
I, nevertheless, contrived to breakfast well. Sunshine's mistress was
thoughtful enough to curtail the radius of that minna, tinna, tooney
animal's accustomed beat: with the result that I was able to keep my
seat. And his mistress stayed him with dainties and prattled cheerfully
upon a variety of strange subjects. It was no good waiting breakfast
for Fatty, she explained, because Fatty's "call" was a "midder."
"And what in heaven's name," I demanded, "may a 'midder' be?"
"That," explained James, "is what Fatty calls an 'obstetric term.' When
people have babies, you know. Do you know what 'B.B.A.' means?"
I didn't.
"That's another trade expression. It stands for 'Born Before Arrival,'
and it's what you always pray for, because it saves a lot of time, and
they have to pay you just the same. Our fee is half a guinea, and you
can pay it by instalments if you like. But if it is your first baby we
charge a guinea, because your husband is a lot more trouble to us, and
he is not always sober. And whatever the fee, we do our very best for
you, and pride ourselves on our results; but as we get about seven
'midders' every day, we are not able to make so many compliments as we
did in Norfolk.... Fatty calls it his Automatic Delivery System."
The girl, as she spoke, looked very "nice" and English: she was feeding
Sunshine from a fork. I began to wonder whether it was actually
possible that she did not realise the horrible impropriety of her
conversation. As an Englishman, I knew my duty. That duty was to
represent to her in suitable terms that her conduct was abandoned and
impure. But the religious duty of causing maidens to blush is one which
is best performed by the Righteous, who perform it so well and often....
I concealed my horror.
And the maiden prattled on. "Some of them are fearfully grateful. Do
you see that old stuffed owl in the dusty case, there? That's a
present--to me. It only came yesterday, and it's a token of gratitude
from a Jewish lady in the fish trade. This is her sixth, and the first
five were all girls. She used to deal with our opposition--Dr.
McWhite--but when the fifth female came along they changed over to
Fatty, and this stuffed owl is what he calls a tribute to professional
ability. And there's Fatty's key in the door. Seize his bacon, will
you--it's in the fender."
I was rather annoyed with Dr. Brink for returning just then. I had
mapped out a series of leading questions designed to elicit James's age
and identity.
But when the little hungry man came in, I felt that these questions were
unimportant and could wait. It was interesting enough to help that busy
scientist to mustard, and to hear him curse the Liberal Government with
his mouth full of bacon, and to watch the quiet motherliness of James.
"Regular multitude in the waiting-room," announced the doctor, as he
gulped his coffee. "Got to get back there quick. You'd better pop down
with me, youngster, and get a squint at it all."
"You sit on the gas-stove in the kitchen," explained James. "There's a
window just above it which gives on to the consulting-room, and it's
painted on the kitchen side, and I've scratched a little squint-hole in
the paint.... I often go down there when the drunks come in--the
_funny_ drunks, I mean. Sometimes they are not funny. And Mr. Boag, the
Conative Meliorist, sits there by the hour. He calls it 'supping with
misery.'"
"You'll spend the day with us, I suppose?" suggested the little doctor.
And, as it was Saturday, and therefore a holiday in my trade, I supposed
that I would.
And then they introduced me to the gas-stove.
*IV*
*SIXPENCES*
I sat on the gas-stove, with James beside me, and we applied our eyes in
turn to the squint-hole and beheld the Doctor earning sixpences.
_Item:_ A young gentleman with the hiccoughs. Was feeling suicidal.
How was his appetite? Shocking, shocking! Digestion in good order? On
the contrary, it was shocking bad. What sort of nights? Shocking!
Spirits low? Shocking low. Did his head ache? Shockingly. Food taste
dull? Absolutely shocking. Young gentleman receives some advice on the
subject of alcoholic excess and a bottle of water, fortified by harmless
colouring matter. Young gentleman departs.
_Item:_ Tired woman with baby in convulsions. Baby's dietary discussed.
Woman indignant. "Why," she declares, "'e 'as the very same as us!"
Baby dismissed with a powder.
_Item:_ Slow-spoken man with a jellied thumb. "Door jamb," he explains.
"Want a stifficut. Works at the Brewery. Want another stifficut for
the Insurance. 'Urry up. 'Ow much? Good-day."
Then an old woman came in--a very old woman, with rosy cheeks and a
clean apron, and querulous, childish eyes.
"I want some morphium," she says, "to soothe meself down. Not that I
got a right to look for much--at my age."
The doctor became jocular. "What!" he cried. "A fine woman like you?
Morphia for you? What? With those cheeks? _What?_"
"I ain't got no happetite," said the old woman. "And there's shooting
pains in me 'ead, and I don't sleep proper, and I seems to feel
lonesome, and I wants some morphium to soothe meself down with."
"What's your favourite dinner dish?" inquired our inconsequent wag of a
doctor.
"I ain't got no favourites," replied the woman. "I'm old, I am; what
should I do with favourites at my age? I want some morphium to soothe
meself down."
"What _is_ your age--sixty?"
"I shall never see sixty again," said the woman. "Nor I shan't see
seventy. Nor eighty. I'm old."
"And you mean to tell me," cried the doctor, with sudden heat, "that you
do not care for tripe? Good tripe, mind you--tender tripe, very well
boiled, with just a flavouring of onions?"
"And if I did," protested the woman, "who's to cook it for me? There's
so many young women to get the favours now I find, and me so old. Can't
I have a little morphium, Doctor: the brown mixture, ye know? To soothe
meself down with."
"The young ones get the favouring, eh? Do you live with a young woman?"
"I lives with two on 'em--worse luck."
"Daughters?"
"Daughters? Me? No, sir. I'm a maiden, I am.... It's me landlady
what I lives with."
"Doesn't she cook for you? I've got some tripe in the kitchen, and I
thought--but, of course, if it can't be cooked, why---- What's all this
about?"
The rosy-cheeked old maiden was crying, "I'm too old," she sobbed; "it's
the young ones gets the favouring."
"Oh," said the doctor, "and so your landlady is unkind?"
"Not unkind, sir," said the woman, gently swallowing the doctor's bait;
"she's a good woman, as they go, only I'm growed so old, and a young
woman has come into our house, and I'm sorry to say, doctor, as she has
'leniated my landlady away from me. She is a young woman."
"Can't you get some other lodgings?" suggested the doctor. "You oughtn
t to be neglected."
"I do not say I ham neglected, Doctor. That would be huntrue. I am not
blaming anybody. I honly say I'm old. And this new lodger she's
'leniated my landlady away from me. She's young, you see. Well under
seventy, she is."
They're all alike, these minxes," said the doctor, with a wistful smile.
"I got nothing to say agin her, mind you," protested the old woman.
"Not agin neether. My landlady, she was very good and kind to me at one
time; but now this young one 'ave come, and I ham sorry to say as she
'ave 'leniated my landlady away from me."
"I shouldn't fret about the matter, anyhow," suggested Dr. Brink.
"You'll make friends with your landlady soon again; I'm sure you will."
"We was never bad friends," explained the woman. "We're friends to-day,
on'y not _sich_ friends, if you understand me. This new lodger, you
see, she has 'leniated my landlady away from me. That's what it is. She
'ave leniated her. She's a _young_ woman, you see! ... Will you give me
some morphium, Doctor; just to soothe meself down with?"
The maiden got her morphia.
The maiden was succeeded by another woman--a mother. She carried a
bundle, partly occupied by a baby. She was a lewd and dirty woman, and
engaged my friend in the following dialogue.
FEMALE: I warra soothin' surrup for my baby yere. 'E's fidgety.
DOCTOR: How fidgety?
FEMALE: Well: look at the little blighter. 'E's got the blasted jumps.
DOCTOR: Of course he's got the jumps. He's dying.
FEMALE: Warra mean--dyin'?
DOCTOR: I mean that he will soon be dead.
FEMALE: Whaffor?
DOCTOR: Because he's starving.
FEMALE: Warra mean--starving?
DOCTOR: I mean that he is squirming mad from hunger. Breast fed, of
course?
FEMALE: Warra mean, ye bleatin' image?
DOCTOR: Breast fed, of course?
FEMALE: Ye bleatin' image! 'Oo the 'ell you think _you_ are?
DOCTOR: Breast fed, of course?
FEMALE (_weeping wildly_): Me starve my baby? Ow, ow, ow, ow!
DOCTOR: Breast fed, of course?
FEMALE: Ow, ow--why cert'nly 'e's breast fed! 'Ow else d'ye think a
pore workin' woman's goin' ter manage? And 'im not five months old.
And one of yere own deliveries. Cert'nly e's breast fed.
DOCTOR: That's the trouble, you see. No baby can be nourished on gin
and stout. He's starving, I tell you.
FEMALE: And I tell ye it's a dirty lie. I'm for ever feedin' 'im. 'E's
for ever worryin'. Sich a happetite this little beggar's got. Warra
mean, me starve 'im? Warra mean, yere gin and beer? I suckle the little
dear meself.
DOCTOR: And what do you feed yourself on?
FEMALE: That's my business, ain't it?
DOCTOR: It's my business, too. If you want that baby to live, you'd
best look sharp and feed him. Get sober. I can't cure the baby. The
only person who can cure him is yourself. And to do that you must leave
off getting drunk. You must eat some decent food. You're living on
alcohol at present. No baby can be nourished on gin and stout.
FEMALE: S'elp me Gawd, Doctor--s'elp me Gawd, young man, if I die this
minute--s'elp me Gawd I ain't 'ad only two 'arf-pints since yisterday.
I take them a-purpose for the boy's own sake, young man. 'E don't seem
to fancy it, some'ow, unless I 'as me drop o' stout. See what I mean,
Doctor? I takes what I do for the baby's own sake: 'e _will_ 'ave it,
bless 'is little 'eart.
*V*
*THE HYPOCRITES*
During a lull in the sixpenny battle Dr. Brink held parley with me,
standing on the seat of his official chair and peering through the top
of his consulting-room window. "Are you comfortable on that gas-stove?"
inquired the learned doctor.
"The gas-stove," I said, "is very well; but--er--comfort, you know, is
not exactly the word. It--it--I say, you know, that woman with the
dying baby was rather quaint."
"This," said the doctor, "is a quaint sort of gas-stove. We often roast
chaps on it. Do you like beer?"
"Not much," I answered, "but my brother plays the flute."
"Because," pursued my host, ignoring this effort at repartee, "my
consultations are nearly over for this morning, and then I am going my
round, and that is a short one, and I shall be back here by one o'clock,
and after that I propose to brew some beer. Would you like to help me?"
The proposition was not without a certain suddenness, but I was getting
used to this household, and did not betray my surprise. Also, I accepted
the invitation.
"Righto! Come about yourself? How's your appetite?" said the doctor,
in one breath, as he disappeared from the window and readdressed himself
to business.
* * * * *
And in the afternoon we duly did this brewing.
"One brews in Baffin's studio," explained the doctor, with a slight
yawn, as he led me through the kitchen door into his little yard, all
bright with tulips. "Baffin's studio is really our washhouse, you
know."
"And who is Baffin?" I demanded.
"One of the Leicestershire Baffins," replied the doctor gravely. "His
mother was a Pillbrook. His uncle----"
I begged the doctor to restrain his gift of humour. "Where is Baffin?
What is he?" I demanded again.
"Oh," said the doctor, "if you are really commonplace enough to be
interested in a man himself when you ask, "who he is," I will expound
this Baffin to you. He has red hair and freckles, and he is one of the
Leicestershire Baffins, and he hates the Leicestershire Baffins, and he
is a youth of great talents, who is supposed to live here, but at
present he is reforming the Royal Academy, and reviving poster art in
England. And he never puts anything where he will find it again, or
shuts a drawer or folds his clothes. He is a genius. And---- Look out,
I say, that's Baffin's bag."
It _was_ Baffin's bag, and it assisted your servant in the performance
of a complicated somersault. Baffin had left it on his doorstep.
Baffin's doorstep led into quite the wildest washhouse which I have ever
viewed. Baffin's bed, consisting of three brown blankets strewn oddly
upon a damaged ottoman, occupied most of the foreground, and behind this
object lay, in some confusion, waistcoats, and easels, and broken
chairs, and bas-reliefs, and unclean collars, and portfolios, and
fencing sticks, and a rusty helm and vizor out of Wardour Street. And
the walls were covered with crayon drawings and printed posters, all of
them attached to the plaster by means of one corner and a pin, and all
of them being curled at the edges and tanned with exposure. It was
noticeable, also, that a bust of the Blessed Virgin, after Cinquevalli,
was situated within the font or cavity of the copper. We removed this
object in order to make room for the beer.
I observed also that Mr. Baffin's studio was beautified by one mural
design of a permanent nature. This consisted of a sum in compound
arithmetic, performed by means of charcoal. I studied this inscription
with interest. There was
L3 5
20
-----
L65 0
A fairly obvious, if unconventional, piece of mathematical deduction.
We were then faced with a new problem, somewhat more mysterious in its
workings. Thus:--
65
98
--
13)163(12 Carry 3
13
--
33
26
--
7
12
----
12/7
----
Total L1 12s. 7d.
I must own to being strangely touched by this pathetic effort on the
part of Baffin to solve the mysteries of an alien art. I also reflected
that the result of his calculations, though wayward and inscrutable in
itself, was probably touched with a profound and poignant importance to
Baffin. It represented cigarettes and dinners--L1 12s. 7d. worth, more
or less. A fellow-feeling made me fear it must be less. There was a
hurried, insignificant, shamefaced look about the figures wherewith
Baffin had recorded his results. They indubitably pointed to a debit
balance.
Presently Mr. Baffin himself strolled in, and we were presented to each
other, and he helped us boil the beer. He helped us in intention rather
than effect, for Mr. Baffin possessed a thoughtful, halting,
introspective mind, and, as Dr. Brink had observed, he did not put
things where they could be found again. Also, he was rather wrapped up
in me. "I say, you know," he had observed, "I wish you would sit for
me. You would make a splendid model for my oyster seller. I am doing
the New Cut by night, you know."
"Are you in love?" demanded Mr. Baffin, a little later. I said, "Of
course." "Will you bring her round, then?" continued Mr. Baffin. "And
to what end?" I said. "I am collecting lovers," explained this talented
and candid youth. "I want that rapt look. Paid models are no use at
all, you know. Amateurs aren't much better, of course, because they all
have prejudices against yearning in public. But I am hoping to find the
exception in time, and you have a natural sort of
expression--rather--and so I thought--I give you tea, you know, and
drinks when there are any. All you have to do is to sit on the throne
and embrace. I hope she's dark. Next Tuesday would be a good day."
I promised Mr. Baffin that I would submit his proposition to all the
ladies with whom I happened to be in love.
And then the liquid in the copper arrived at a perfect temperature and
we became all silent in the pursuit of brewing. And James came in to
help us, observing that the attractions of brewing transcended those of
her aunt at Ealing, and that she had postponed her visit to that
respectable lady. And some of the doctor's friends looked in, including
Mr. Pudsey, the lyric poet, and Boag (conative meliorist), who invited
me to dine with him, and Jenny Brown, the painter, and Miss Blick, of
the Women's Social and Political Union, and Mr. Webb, the local curate,
who explained to me, with an air of bold originality, that Christianity
and Socialism had points in common. And we partook of tea from Breton
mugs, and were secretly amused at each other. And in the midst of it
all a gas engine arrived at the surgery door, and said "Honk! Honk!"
And the doctor rushed out and came back looking sad.
"It is Lady Budge, the new member's wife," he said with dolour; "and she
has come in her motor to discuss the poor. James, old girl, I am awfully
sorry, but you have got to be respectable. Her ladyship is waiting
upstairs now."
A period of wild excitement followed, while we all helped James to comb
her hair and climb into the speckled pinafore of a blameless life. "I
will do my best," said James; "but I am sure I shall forget and call you
'Fatty.' Is it father or papa to-day?"
"Her ladyship," responded the doctor, "is, I think, the kind of ladyship
who would prefer papa. Let her do all the good she wants to. Mention
that we've got a curate here. Webb and I will come up in a little while
and collect the cheque. Don't harrow her. She's the kind of ladyship
who likes to do business with _respectable_ poverty."
When, a little later, we went upstairs, James was sedately sipping more
tea from a cup. And her ladyship was talking, and James was viewing her
with eyes of innocence and wonder. "I quite agree with you," said
James, "that alpaca is the most sensible thing for people of that
class."
Baffin was dragged in, and the doctor loudly proclaimed him as being of
the Leicestershire Baffins, and her ladyship suddenly looked interested
and human.
"You are an artist?" she said. "How very charming!"
Baffin, who had done very well up to then, became suddenly ponderful
again. "I say," he blurted forth, at last, "couldn't I persuade you to
sit for me some time? You are the very thing I have been looking out
for. For my angel's back, you know."
*VI*
*CONATUS*
I accepted Mr. Boag's invitation and dined with him--at the National
Liberal Club. They wine you at this place in a manner which is
singularly perfect. I cannot, at this distance of time, state exactly
what topics formed the subject of Mr. Boag's improving conversation; but
I can say that, regarded from the standpoint of Meliorism, his dinner
was an emphatic success. And when it was quite over I found myself upon
the Thames Embankment smiling cheerfully, as was becoming to the happy
circumstance of my conversion to Mr. Boag's cheerful doctrines.
And thus it was that I came to take part, unofficially, at another
dinner party; a repast _a deux_, with epigrams, and incident, all in the
most approved style of romance. The _tete-a-tete_ is consecrated to
literature by a thousand charming precedents. I shall certainly offer
no apology for submitting this one to your indulgent consideration.
They were dining off alabaster--or was it granite?--at the foot of
Cleopatra's Needle; and I remarked particularly the singular blueness of
Strephon's fingers. The glorious revelation, recently vouchsafed to me,
of Conative truths, had so warmed my heart, had set up such a tingling
within my veins (which were themselves protected from chill by several
layers of wool and cambric) that the few degrees of frost prevailing at
the moment had not yet become evident to my senses. Strephon, of
course, was in another case, being appropriately clad in garments
partaking of the nature of gossamer. And he, besides, had not been
privileged to receive the truths of Meliorism. Wherefore, he must blow
upon his nail, and pinch his scrubby cheek, and utter blasphemies,
crying, "Christ, mate, but this wind ain't 'arf a nipper."
And she (the Chloee of this story: the one whom he addressed as "mate")
made answer thus: "Then do as I tell you, an' drink that up!"
"But 'ere, 'old 'ard!" cried Strephon, as she poked a little bottle at
his lips--"that's your share, ain't it?"
"Not be rights," said the woman, blushing a little--or seeming to blush;
for she was a battered, sodden thing, and her cheek had lost its
quickness. "It ain't my share, be rights. I--I 'ad a sip at yourn.
Besides, I've lorst me liking fur that Irish stuff. Give me Scotch!"
"This _is_ Scotch, ain't it?" said the man.
"It is, bad luck to it," replied the woman quickly. "I've lost me
likin' fur it, I tell you. Give me Irish!"
"Oh!" said the man, and he swallowed her share.
He pocketed the empty bottle with a little shiver of contentment. The
woman shivered also, and plucked at an imaginary shawl. "Now then, boy,"
she cried, with sudden cheerfulness; "wake up, you ain't 'arf a eater.
Why don't ye punch into that other 'am bone."
"So I shall," responded Boy, with a full mouth, "when I done this."
"Righto, dearie," said the woman quietly, with a sideways look at the
ham bone and another little shiver. Then she drew closer to her
companion and looked at him silently, with pity in her awful eyes.
"It's a funny thing about you," she said at last; "you to be on the
rocks at your age--a boy like you!"
"I'm rather independent in me nature," explained the "Boy." "I've stood
fur me rights and suffered by it. 'Ad some good jobs in me time. 'Ad
some money too. I was a bit lucky over cards. Retired for a year an'
done it in. Ain't 'ad no luck since."
"Funny, ain't it," said the woman, still with that strange softness in
her shameful eyes. "Funny, ain't it," she repeated: "a boy like you."
"Not so much o' yere 'Boy,'" protested Strephon; "I'm twenty-four."
"Ha!" cried the woman, crouching closer, "what price yere 'umble then?
_I'm_ turned forty-four."
Strephon looked lazily at her, munching his ham bone steadily. She made
a queer figure, strange to see beside that world-old monument, with her
swollen, bloodless face, and button nose, and greedy eyes, and ravelled,
rusty hair, the colour of an old dog-fox's pelt. And that which was
upon her head, a time-worn sailor-hat, set at a ridiculous angle,
increased the queerness of her. "What price yere 'umble?" she cried
again, with a shrill little creak of laughter; "turned forty-four, I
am."
"Yus," said Strephon simply, "and you look it!"
He continued to munch at his ham bone, and she continued to leer at him,
showing neither anger nor surprise. But the flat smile on her face grew
gradually flatter, and again she shivered, plucking at the shawl which
was not there.
Suddenly the man looked up from his ham bone and spoke to her. "'Ow
much did 'e give you for it?" said he.
The woman uttered a sequence of scalding oaths.
"The stingy swine," cried she, "'e give me a tanner; that's what 'e give
me--a lousy tanner. See if I don't jolly well pop back there and 'ave a
shawl's worf out of 'is stinkin' till--the stingy Jew."
"What!" said the man, evincing a sort of interest. "Are you in that
line, then? Tills and ceterer?"
"I'm in any blessed line, I am," said the woman, "s' long as there's the
price of a fag in it. Never 'eard o' Nottingham Kate, I suppose?
That's me. I was well known in me time. 'Twas I what done that
drugging affair at Weedon, when we put them orficers through it. They
made a lot of that job at the time. I done five year for that."
"Well," commented Strephon, still gnawing patiently at his bone, "it
ain't much to yere credit. I'm on the straight ticket meself. Per'aps
if I'd knowed the sort of character you--but there: you ain't so bad as
some on 'em. Harlot, or thief, or what not, you've treated me quite
fair.... Gurrr! ... Christ, but it's cold!"
"Chronic!" said the woman, pressing her senseless fingers to her neck,
in the way which women have.
"That 'am," reflected Strephon, "just sooted me all right. Wish I 'ad a
fag now."
Without a word, the woman struggled to her feet, and descended the steps
of the pedestal, half walking, half crawling, like a child. She peered
into the darkness, and must have beheld a figure there; for she at once
came forward, with stiff, uncertain steps, and having spoken to him,
returned to her pedestal the possessor of all his cigarettes.
"Strike me now," cried Strephon, beholding her treasure with incredulous
eyes; "you _are_ a deep one. You don't 'arf know the ropes. Take one
yerself, won't ye?"
Chloee took a cigarette and lighted it; but Strephon, after fumbling
hopelessly with a matchbox, threw the thing away from him in petulant
despair. "See here," cried he. "Look at them things, there! Them's my
'ands; was once. Look at 'em. Gawd 'elp me, look at 'em. I can't bend
'em; I can't move 'em; Gawd 'elp me, I can't ser much as lift 'em.
I----"
Chide, taking the cigarette from her lips, placed it between his, which
silenced them. And then she took his hands, and with a little laugh--the
same old creak of a laugh--she widened the gaping juncture of her
bodice, and placed his senseless hands within it, where they lay warm
beside her bosom. The sudden contact of the ice-cold substance forced a
little shriek from her.
"That's a good idea, mate, that is," declared her Strephon. "'Ope you
won't catch cold?"
"Co-old?" cried the woman, with a little tremor. "Co-ld be damned. Us
women is different from you blo-o-kes. We kin sta-and more cold. We
got more warmth be na-ature."
"I see," said Strephon, and he blew forth a fat, contented cloud of
cigarette smoke.
There was a silence, disturbed by the chattering of the woman's teeth.
Then, at last, with a sudden catching of the breath, she spoke again--
"'Ere," she said, "'ere"--and she uttered the familiar creak--"I'm doin'
this because I like you. Wonder if you like me?"
"Ho," reflected Strephon, "you're all right--considering what you are."
*VII*
*ON THE PROPERTIES OF WATER*
"Doctor ... can you tell me if water is a safe thing for anybody to
drink?"
She was a wizened, alert little woman, having bright eyes and an eager
face. The back of the doctor's neck, which I spied through my peephole,
grew red under pressure of the secret emotions occasioned by this
question.
"As to that," replied the doctor, "I--ahem--er--I--well, in
fact--er--ahem--you see, er--Mrs.--Mrs.----"
"Mrs. Skelp, sir," interpolated the caller. "Mrs. Skelp, of Peacock
Street. You must remember me, sir. I've 'ad you in for me last three."
"Why, of course, I remember you, Mrs. Skelp," responded the shameless
physician; "your name had slipped my memory. And how are they all
doing?"
"Nicely, thank you, sir," said Mrs. Skelp. "Excepting," she added, as if
with a sudden afterthought--"the pore little thing what died. Although
I'm sure, doctor--and many's the time I said the same to Skelp--I'm sure
you done _your_ best. Though 'ow you made seven visits of it when the
child was on'y ill five days is a thing I never could--but, there, let
bygones be bygones. About this water now. You think that water's a
safe sort of thing for anybody to drink, Doctor?"
"It's--ahem--it's a--er--a natural sort of drink, you know," suggested
the doctor.
"Why, cert'nly, Doctor," admitted Mrs. Skelp. "On'y ... Well, so far as
that goes, you could say the same of milk."
"You could," assented Dr. Brink.
"And yet," pursued his patient, "it is well known to all of us what milk
will do for the system. Look 'ow it puffs you out. Look at that baby
of mine, the pore little thing what died. You did your best, Doctor, we
all know, but we've often thought since as milk was at the bottom of it.
It doesn't do for the likes of us to set ourselves up against the
doctor, but you'll remember yerself that I had my suspicions about you
ordering so much milk. 'What _I_ think she wants,' I said, is one of
your biggest bottles of good dark red, and---- But there, let bygones
be bygones. What I really come 'ere for is about this water question.
I says to mine last night, I says--'e's a drayman, you know, Doctor.'"
The Doctor nodded.
"Well," suggested Mrs. Skelp, "you know what _draymen_ are. Water's no
drink for a drayman, Doctor."
"I--I suppose not," ventured the doctor.
"And mine, 'e's a 'eavy, full-bodied build o' man. And so I says to
'im--but what's the good o' sayin' _anythink_ to 'im. The long and the
short o' it is, Doctor, as 'e's took to the water 'abit.
"I meantosay," continued Mrs. Skelp, having marked the doctor's grin, "I
meantosay as 'e's sworn off 'is licker.
"'E's a great reader is mine, you see. 'E sets up in bed for hours o' a
Sunday morning and gets through as much as three-pennyworth o' papers at
a setting. Not that I 'olds with so much readin', mind you. 'Moody boys
an' readin' gals,' we used to say--well, you know the rest, Doctor.
It's a thankless 'abit.
"But, at the same time, mind you, I believe in the notion that Sunday is
a day of rest. A man's 'ouse is 'is own of a Sunday, I always say. And
so I ain't never raised no objections to mine amusin' 'isself; and I
can't say that no 'arm 'as ever come of my good nature. Not till now.
But now we see the fruits of it.
"You see, Doctor, 'e's bin reading up the subject o' his vitals. And
the long and short of it is as 'e's took to what 'e calls 'is nature
treatment. Not a tea-cup full o' beer will 'e 'ave inside the 'ouse,
Doctor. Not a spoonful. It's water--water, always water. That an'
cocoa. Fancy a drayman drinking cocoa, Doctor!"
"Cocoa is a very wholesome drink," asserted the doctor.
"For supper--yes," assented Mrs. Skelp. "I agree with you there, Doctor.
But 'ooever 'eard of cocoa for breakfast and water for dinner and water
for tea? And not a drop of beer from one week's end to the other?
Fancy a drayman without 'is beer, Doctor!"
"He is probably much better without it," suggested Dr. Brink.
"_Better_ without it?" echoed the visitor. "Without beer? A drayman?
Workin' ten an' twelve hours on the stretch? You _live_ with 'im,
Doctor, and see if 'e's better without it ... Not that I wish you no
'arm."
"And what," said the doctor, looking earnestly at his watch,
"and--er--what----"
"Well, Doctor," interpolated Mrs. Skelp, "I really come to see if you
could give me a stifficut. We must do something-."
"A certificate of what?" demanded the doctor.
"To say 'e needs it--fur the good o' 'is 'ealth, you know. We can never
go on like this. A little stifficut, Doctor, to say 'e needs it."
"Needs what?" exclaimed the doctor, yawning wearily.
"The beer," responded Mrs. Skelp. "This water will be the ruin of 'im,
Doctor, and me, too. 'E gets so down'earted, Doctor, so solemn-minded,
so short-spoken."
"I have already told you, Mrs. Skelp"--the Doctor put on his heaviest
consulting-room manner--"I have already told you that your husband is
probably better off without the beer. How, then, can you expect
me--especially since I haven't seen him--to give you the certificate
which you ask for? And what difference would it make if I did?"
"'E wouldn't go against the doctor's orders, sir. Skelp is not that
sort of man. 'E knows 'is place, sir. I on'y got to show him a brief
from you, Doctor, to say that what he wants is so many pints to nourish
'is system, and there would be a end to all this nonsense. A drayman
must 'ave beer, Doctor."
"A drayman must have nothing of the sort, Mrs. Skelp. What a drayman
must have is plenty of rump steak and jam roll and a quiet life and a
jolly time. Why do you want him to have this beer? Are you any better
off when he does have it? The more he spends on beer the less there is
for the home, you know."
"Mine ain't that sort," asserted Mrs. Skelp, with a touch of asperity in
her tone: "_I_ keep Skelp's money. What he wants--is beer. The man's
got that down-'earted 'e isn't fit to live with. A drayman must 'ave
beer."
Dr. Brink inspected his watch again. "Well, Mrs. Skelp," he said,
"you've had more than your share of my time. Send him round to-morrow
evening, and I'll tell you what I think about it. Good-night."
"My own idea, Doctor," said Mrs. Skelp, as she made her exit, "is a pint
an' a 'arf--let us say two pints--of stout and bitter. But I leave the
particklers to you, sir."
When she had really gone the doctor saw some other patients--droves of
them. And the last of the drove was a large red man, who had called in
to discuss his "constitootion."
"It's run down, Doctor," he explained. "That's what it is. Me
constitootion is run down. Whenever I draws a slow, long breath, it is
the same as if there was snakes and scorpions inside me. Very painful
it is."
"Then take a quick, short breath," suggested Dr. Brink.
The patient ignored this obvious response. He did not pay his sixpence
to be treated to the obvious. "Also," he continued, "it 'urts me when I
whistle."
"Then don't whistle," said the doctor.
"The long and the short of it is," pursued the patient, again ignoring
the voice of science, "that my constitootion is thoroughly run down....
I ... I was wondering, Doctor.... Can you tell me if water is a safe
thing for anybody to drink?"
The Doctor started. "Water is Nature's beverage," he observed.
"But don't you think, Doctor," suggested the invalid, "that when a man
'as got 'is constitootion into a thoroughly onnatural state, the same as
what mine is, that a pint or so of onnatural licker----"
"Oh ... a pint or so ... yes," put in the doctor.
"I bin drinking a lot o' water lately," continued the patient. "I
thought I would give it a trial, Doctor, being Nature's beverage and
what not, and so highly spoke of in the papers. But I come to the
conclusion, Doctor, as it don't get on wiv my constitootion. I got a
very peculiar constitootion, Doctor, and it is very much run down.
Whenever I turn me eyes up, Doctor, a 'orrible sickly feeling comes over
me."
"Turn 'em down then," said the doctor.
"You don't approve of all this water, then?" inquired the patient. "You
think, per'aps, a pint or two of ale----"
"A pint or two of ale? Oh, certainly."
"Or stout, Doctor? Say stout and bitter. A couple o' pints o' stout and
bitter, Doctor; what? To brace up me constitootion like. What?"
"Stout and bitter," pronounced the doctor, "has, in certain
circumstances, a high tonic value."
"Thank you, Doctor. Would you be kind enough to put it in writin',
Doctor? I'm a family man, ye see, and seein' as I shall be takin' this
tonic for the good o' my constitootion, I thought per'aps--you see my
meanin', Doctor?"
"Quite," said the doctor, reaching out for a half-sheet of notepaper.
"Your name and address?"
"Skelp," responded the patient. "Samuel Skelp, of Peacock Street. My
missus is one o' your oldest customers."
*VIII*
*THE WAY OF THE EAST*
We had eaten a belated supper and drunk of a belated cup, and the
doctor, yawning cheerfully, had doffed the vestments of respectability,
when there came a ring upon the night-bell. The doctor's comment on
this happening is of no historical importance. It possessed but a
topical interest. Myself, I stumbled down the darkling stairs, and,
upon opening the street door, was confronted by a respectfully
intoxicated giant, who gave the name of Potter. "Potter, of Mulberry
Street," he added, as a more explicit afterthought. He demanded Dr.
Brink, explaining the urgent requirements of Mrs. Potter.
"Have you your card?" I inquired in the cold, commercial tone which this
occasion warranted.
Mr. Potter removed his cap--a peaked object, of nautical aspect--and
from the lining of this he extracted a square of pink pasteboard. This
voucher represented at once a receipt and a warranty, being in the first
sense an acknowledgment of the sum of ten shillings and sixpence, paid
to Dr. Brink in anticipation of certain services, and recording,
secondly, a promise from the doctor duly and solemnly to render and
perform those services. "And beggin' yere pardon, young man," said Mr.
Potter, in a voice of gloom, "I was to tell you from me aunt that the
pains is comin' on a treat."
I had scarcely conveyed this joyful intelligence to Dr. Brink, ere that
gentleman announced himself as being ready to embark upon the enterprise
demanded of him, having clad himself in a fanciful costume consisting of
unlaced boots, slack trousers, a pyjama jacket, an overcoat, and the
inevitable top hat. He cheerfully accepted my offer to bear him company
upon his journey through the night-bound alleyways, and together we
sallied forth.
But when we came to the first dim street lamp a sudden monstrous shape
appeared within the circle of its radiance, and fawned upon us silently.
I wondered, not too hopefully, whether the things which rattled within
the doctor's bag were of sound and sterling substance. For we were not
regularly armed, and this monster--but he spoke, and thereby set my
doubts at rest.
"It is only Potter," murmured the monster, with an apologetic shuffle.
"There's some funny birds as stands abaht the corners yere be night, and
Mulberry Street is rather a confusin' street to come at, and I thought
per'aps as you would be alone, Doctor, and so I took the liberty. It is
a cold night for the time o' the year: what? I was to tell you, Doctor,
that the pains is comin' on most beautiful."
Mr. Potter committed other information to our confidence. He was a
stevedore, he said; and he described the trials of that calling.
"It is a 'ard life, a stevedore, what with the 'eat and 'urry and all.
Me and my mates, we shifted two 'underd an' twenty tons o' sugar this
very day. But I'm 'oping for a wink o' sleep to-night. What with the
pains so good and all. I could do with some sleep. Not that I wish the
pore woman no 'arm. She bin a decent wife to me. But I seems to want
some sleep. We shifted two 'underd an' twenty tons o' sugar to-day, me
an' my mates. I see you brought your tool kit, Doctor. I find it cold
for the time o' the year. Christ, but I do feel sleepy."
"I think that I can promise you a wink or two," replied the doctor
cheerfully. "You'll be in bed and asleep before two o'clock."
"Much obliged to you, Doctor, I'm sure, Doctor," said the stevedore
gratefully. "Me aunt is certainly of opinion that the pains look very
promising. I could do wiv a few hours' sleep. Bin shifting sugar all
the day. Two 'underd and twenty ton we moved, and there's as much
standin' by what I got to punch into termorrow. I'm 'opin' fur a gel."
We came to Mulberry Street, wherein the residence of Mr. Potter could be
immediately detected, by reason of the fact that its door stood open--a
certain signal in this land of an expected visit from the doctor. We
entered the open doorway, and were greeted cheerfully by auntie--an old,
untidy, work-stained woman, very drunk.
The stevedore conducted me into a dishevelled kitchen, musty and cramped
and cobwebby. He accepted a cigarette, and spat into the fire, and
looked at me stupidly. "Two 'underd an' twenty ton!" he exclaimed.
"Don't I deserve some blessed sleep?" And there came from some adjacent
place an answering moan.
I looked through the door of the kitchen and into the grimy little
passage beyond it, wherein an open door gave access to another room.
The doctor was in this room, and auntie, and also, I supposed, the
stevedore's wife. There came from this apartment certain sounds as of
joy and suffering commingled. It is but fair to state that most of the
joyful sounds appeared to be uttered by auntie. Auntie had chased away
dull care.
It was, indeed, a perfectly refulgent auntie who subsequently lolloped
in upon us, carrying a bundle. "'Ere y' are, ole glum-face," chirruped
auntie; "take young Joe. An' mind as 'e don't 'oller. Where you put
that jug?"
Mr. Potter seized the bundle, and, loosening its folds, exposed a rather
maculate small boy, having the paternal cast of feature.
"Look at 'is chest," observed the father simply. "This is ye're sort
for punchin' into sugar. Auntie, where's the other one?"
"Alf," responded auntie, "is all right where 'e is. Alfie's old enough
to be'ave 'isself. Mind young Joe don't 'oller. Where you put that
jug?"
Joe's reply was drowned by a pitiful cry which came from the other room.
But auntie found the jug all right. "'Ere's to a gel, ole dear!" quoth
auntie. But ... there came that cry again.... At which the old woman
regretfully parted from us and the jug and returned to her pious duty of
hindering Dr. Brink.
And Mr. Potter once more directed my attention to the physical
perfections of his offspring. "I'm proud o' this bloke," he said. "My
on'y longin' is to see 'im grow up straight and punch the coal abaht. I
do not grudge 'im nuthink. Y' oughter see 'im of a Sunday: 'e ain't
'arf a nib o' Sundays. Velvets and all, ye know. I 'ope the Doctor 'll
look sharp. I got a 'eavy day termorrer. My missus is a decent woman,
and I don't wish 'er no 'arm; but Gawd knows as I want some sleep be
this time. 'Ere's Fred."
Fred was a listless youth, kin to the stevedore. And he came in tired
and pale, having "done a whack o' overtime at the pickle works." And he
said no word to anybody, but set a saucepan on the sullen fire and sat
beside it, stupidly, waiting for an egg to boil. "She don't 'arf sing
about it." "What?" demanded the husband, almost savagely. "Ah!"
responded Fred.
Then there rang out another sound--the voice of auntie, raised in
raucous laughter. "My Gawd!" she cried, "'ow's that for a beauty?"
Mr. Potter shook the drowsy, silent child upon his knee. "Cheer up,
Joe," he cried; "you're cut out now, me lad. You ain't the baby any
more. D'jeer? Then gimme a bleedin' kiss."
Auntie appeared for a moment in the doorway. "Boy," said she.
Mr. Potter's joy was, for a moment, modified by this announcement. "It
was a gel I wished for," he said. "It was a gel we wanted." He rubbed
his chin upon young Joseph's yellow head.
"But," he continued, beholding suddenly a pleasant truth, "we shall get
some blessed sleep at ennyrate.... Ain't it time that little beggar
started in to cry?"
But the boy Fred, to whom Mr. Potter presumably addressed himself,
offered no reply. He was engaged in boiling his egg.
"I _should_ like to 'ear the beggar cry, though," said Mr. Potter
wistfully, after a pause. He rubbed his chin on Joseph's head again.
The boy Fred stirred his saucepan. "Funny, ain't it," mused the
stevedore, "that the little chap don't 'oller?" But as he spoke, the
little chap responded. "That's done it," cried the stevedore, and
rubbed his chin on Joseph's head.
And then I clearly heard the voice of auntie. "That young man what's
with you, Doctor, is 'e a doctor, too?"
"Not exactly a doctor," responded Brink; "but he knows quite as much
about medicine as any doctor."
"Because," pursued auntie, "the young man might like to step in and see
this baby. It's the biggest baby ever _I_ see."
"So it is," assented the doctor. "So he would."
He thought, God help him, that it would please me to see inside that
room.
And so he called to me, and I stepped forward and found myself in front
of a reality. You know the thing, of course: a poor, white woman in a
poor, white bed. And---- But need I describe it? You know it all,
don't you?
You do not know it.
I know it--now. I know what is the way of the East. I will tell you
what I saw.
I saw a bare brown mattress, and on it lay a moaning woman, fully
dressed: _entirely_ dressed. And at her head there lay the new-born
babe, and at the baby's head another child--a child of six. And when I
entered in this child made speech. "Auntie's gointer dress him soon,"
he said.
"This, my pure young friend," said Doctor Brink, "is a typical _mise en
scene_. Every detail is correct."
"Correct?" squawked the triumphant auntie. "It's a double-adjectived
marvel ... You're a genelman, Doctor!"
I ran away from this sick-room. I ran out into the rain.... I
observed, as I ran past him, that the boy Frederick had boiled his egg
and was eating it.
*IX*
*THE 'POTHECARY*
The curious establishment of Dr. Brink contained one curiosity which I
have not yet described to you. His name was Gilkes--Samuel de Quincey
Gilkes--and he was poor and unwashed, and angular and polite, and full
of wonder.
He was Dr. Brink's dispenser, or, as the natives preferred to have it,
the 'Pothecary.
Gilkes was a tall man, especially for a 'Pothecary, the races of
'Pothecaries being commonly little and round and complacent. But Gilkes
was a giant of his species; albeit, he was timid and obliging, and
carried his stature with an air of not wishing to create comment. He
had long brown hair and a vague mouth, and very lean hands, with which
he stroked the furniture when he spoke to you. His eyes were blue, but
of an exceptional paleness, and they were restless, seeking eyes, which
looked beyond you, as if they saw the sea with ships upon it. I think
that Mr. Gilkes deserves a little paper to himself.
I should have told you that he was not a very young man, having reached,
perhaps, his fortieth year. But his heart was filled with a serene and
youthful hope; for he cherished the belief that he would one day pass
his final examination in surgery and medicine, and would take his degree
and figure upon the rolls as a fully licenced practitioner. In the
meantime he was humble.
I have often listened to his sorrowful reproaches when Dr. Brink, weary
of the delays occasioned by his apothecary's interest in distant ships,
would hurl himself into the little dispensary and concoct the bottles of
light brown with his own hand.
"You shouldn't, sir," the 'Pothecary would say; "you shouldn't. You
mustn't. It isn't fitting, sir. It isn't proper. It isn't the thing.
I know I'm remiss. I know I'm slow. You ought to discharge me. You
ought to discharge me. I must pass my final. I certainly must. You
oughtn't to do it. Two grains calomel. Two grains calomel. I
certainly must. Certainly. Certainly." And then, his utterance growing
fainter and finally ceasing, the 'Pothecary would rest his chin upon a
hand and look out once again upon the ships at sea, and somebody would
go without his calomel.
Mr. Gilkes had also the habit of rising late--a detestable habit. And
it therefore happened that the doctor's waiting-room would be filled
with impatient women before his dispenser arrived to make up the "light
browns" and "dark reds," upon which they lavished so much faith.
But when the 'Pothecary did arrive there was always an apology upon his
lips--the same apology every time. "I'm late again, sir; late again.
Forty minutes late. I'm awful, sir; awful. You will have to discharge
me. I'm always late. I'm awful. It won't do. It isn't fair. I shall
have to go. I must pass my final. Sach. Ust. For Mr. Jenner, sir?
Yes, sir. Sach. Ust. Sach. Ust. I'm awful; awful."
The doctor and James invariably observed the form of asking him up to
tea. But with equal regularity he would reply with a formula of
plaintive, almost passionate protest. "Impossible, sir. Not for a
minute. You mustn't. You can't. I'm not worth it, sir. It isn't
usual, sir. It isn't the thing. When I've passed my final,
sir--perhaps then. Perhaps then. I _will_ pass my final, sir. I
must."
And Mr. Gilkes would sight a sail and watch it eagerly with a little
fluttering smile.
He always dressed himself in shabby black. This emphasised his stature
and the exceeding leanness of him. It also served to disguise the
unnatural colour of his linen, He did not smoke, and they naturally say
that he drank. But I never saw him drunk. He would sometimes look out
upon his ship with the gaze of one who is intoxicated with the splendour
of his visions. But this is not the same as being drunk.
Wilfered, his successor in the post of 'Pothecary (for you will
understand that Mr. Gilkes became impossible), has placed on record that
"Gilkes fair give you the 'errors, a-talkin' to 'isself the livelong day
and strokin' the bottles and seein' snakes." But Wilfered is young and
strenuous, and efficient. His heart is in his work. He adds the water
to the sugar with extreme exactitude, and, not being versed in the
language of pharmacy, he is convinced that not merely the reputation of
Dr. Brink, but the very lives of all his patients are bound up in the
exact and scrupulous decoction of the liquids committed to his care.
But he does not interest himself in distant ships.
For myself, I am sorry that Mr. Gilkes became impossible. I like dumb
animals.
I shall always remember the evening when, coming unexpectedly to the
house, I saw him sitting by a window with the light from the setting sun
upon his face and shabby coat. He was talking to James. And James has
the knack of making people talk much.
"He writes, does he?" said the 'Pothecary. (I think that the question
must have applied to your servant.) "He would. Of course he would.
Quite naturally. Just so. Of course. Some people can write. They have
the trick. Some people can do anything. Anything. I must pass my
final. They thought I was going to be a writer myself once. To write
poetry, I suppose. 'He's half a poet,' they use to say, 'half a poet.'
"But I wasn't worth the compliment. I couldn't find the rhymes, you
know. I could see it all--sometimes, you know; but I couldn't find the
rhymes. Once I nearly reached it, but only once--only nearly. You see,
I--I haven't even passed my final. Not yet. But I will. I must. I
nearly did it last time--nearly. Nearly."
His voice dropped low; so low that you could hardly hear it. And he
looked out to sea again; but not with gladness. I think he saw some
sort of hulk or derelict.
*X*
*THE MOTHER'S TRADE UNION*
"My motter," said 'Ost 'Uggins decisively, "is 'Live an' let live.' We
won't deny but what the young woman 'as acted wrongful. She 'as broke an
important commandment, as we all know, besides puttin' my 'ole
establishment to expense and inconvenience. Besides upsettin' my good
lady. Besides disgracin' 'er fambily.
"But at the same time I can't forget that my mother's father was 'isself
a fondling. And we live in a Keristian age. And the one as is most to
blame is the _man_, 'ooever 'e may be, the ugly 'ound. What'll you
take, Doctor?"
"Ginger b----," began the doctor, having knowledge of the Mile End drink
traffic. But he checked himself, yielding, I suppose, to the reflection
that duty called for a more enthusiastic response to 'Ost 'Uggins's
hospitality.
"I will have a glass of--of whatever you drink yourself," said the
doctor.
'Ost 'Uggins favoured us with a heavy wink. His face and figure as he
stood there behind the marble counter of his "saloon compartment"
suggested coarseness and obesity and vulgarity and opulence and
ignorance, and--and manhood.
They used to say that pigs could fly,
Oh, aye, oh!
They used to say that pigs could fly
A hundred years ago.
It is certain that _this_ pig could fly. For "Live and let live" was
his motto. The pig is an animal which is held in unwarrantable disdain
by pious men.
Having concluded the wink, 'Ost 'Uggins inserted a ponderous hand into a
nook concealed by a framed portrait of himself--it represented Mr.
Huggins in the costume of an Arch Grand something or other of the
Ancient and Vociferous Order of Somebodies--and produced therefrom a
special, private, and particular bottle. This vessel, 'Ost 'Uggins was
at pains to make clear, contained "real licker." He did not pour its
precious golden drops into the muddy stream of commerce; but, on the
contrary, he kept them tightly corked, and in strict reserve for the
appreciative palates of his kindred and convives. "This is the real
thing," said Mr. Huggins; "no sale for it yere."
"'Ere's to your 'ealth, Doctor," pursued 'Ost 'Uggins, "and to this
young man's as well. And 'ere's wishin' that foolish young female well
over 'er whack o' trouble. What's the missus 'ad to say to you
_to-day_?"
"Same as before," replied the doctor. "She says the girl's a hussy. She
says she always knew it. She says you are pig-headed and obstinate, and
she _will_ be mistress in her own house, and why don't you put up a
notice saying, 'Beds for lying-in kept here,' and be done with it. And
if the girl had done her duty and attended to business and kept the
glasses washed instead of for ever gossiping with the Jew boys on the
saloon side, this thing would never have happened. And if girls are to
be petted and pampered for being bad, what is the use of having marriage
lines and living decent? She also intimates that your attitude in this
matter is not becoming to a married man. If she were a jealous woman
she _might_ begin to wonder if----"
Mr. Huggins smiled broadly. "My good lady, as the sayin' goes," quoth
he, "would talk the 'ind leg off a donkey. But we understand each
other, 'er and me, and ... we've buried three. I bin in this business
for forty year, man and boy. I know life. We understand each other,
Doctor. What? 'Ave another.
"'Live and let live' is _my_ motter. She bin with us three years, that
silly kid. She could go further with the eighteen gallons nor any young
woman as ever served in my bar. Where's she to go if my wife as 'er
way? And the kid? We buried three ourselves, which is a thing what you
might think would soften a woman's 'eart. But it don't, not in circs.
like this. These good women they _got_ no 'eart--not when it comes to
bad women. It's a sort of--a sort of----"
"Trade unionism," suggested Dr. Brink. And 'Ost 'Uggins, who at first
looked solemn and inquiring, gradually smiled his assent to Dr. Brink's
suggestion.
"I s'pose poor Phoebe _is_ a blackleg," he mused. "But my motter is
'Live and let live.' She was wonderful coaxing with the disorderlies.
What else my missus say to you?"
"She said you were looking for trouble."
"What else?"
"She said, 'Minx!' 'Damned devil!' 'Disgraceful slut!'"
"Anythink else?"
"She said that either the hussy or she would leave this house."
"And what did _you_ say, Doctor?"
"I said that the girl was not fit to be moved, and that SHE couldn't be
spared."
"And what did she say to that?"
"She said that we had made up a fine old tale between us, I and her old
man."
"Is that the lot?"
"That's the lot."
"Very well then," commented Mr. Huggins. "Do you know what I shall say
to it all, Doctor? I shall say: 'Tut, woman; tut!'"
"Meaning?" queried the doctor.
"Meaning?" echoed 'Ost 'Uggins, as he thumped his fist upon the counter,
not without menace to its marble surface, "meaning that I am a man of
few words: that I _will_ be master in me own 'ouse: that my motter is
'Live and let live.' That I won't see a pore girl drove to ruin not for
all the cantankerous whims of all the cantankerous wives in all----.
"Below there! 'Ush!" he added, with a sudden dropping of his voice.
"'Ere _is_ the missus!"
* * * * *
"Where you gointer, you George?" demanded the missus, as George prepared
to leave us.
"Goin' to find that fat-'eaded boy, my dear," responded George.
"There's a barrel wants tappin'."
"There's a lot more than barrels wants tappin' in this 'ouse," said
Mistress Huggins, with an air which was evidently intended to be
significant of much. "What you done with that gel?"
"Me, my dear?" responded the fist-strong Huggins. "Me? _I_ ain't moved
'er."
"Time you did, then. When's she gointer leave this 'ouse?"
'Ost 'Uggins gently but firmly retreated. "I bin discussin' it over with
the doctor, my dear," he explained, upon gaining the little glass door
which led into their private parlour. "'_E'll_ tell you all about it.
That's right, ain't it, Doctor? You'll tell 'er all about it. Don't
forget my motter, Doctor." And Mr. Huggins obliterated himself.
Mrs. Huggins, upon the contrary, and as it might be, intensified
herself. "Look here, Doctor What-its-name," she said, "I kin spot the
little game what is bein' played between the landlord an' you, same's if
I was partner. You are gettin' up a conspiracy. See? _I_ know it.
_I_ can't be fooled."
Mrs. Muggins was a mud-coloured woman, with a smouldering eye. She had
rings on every finger and more knuckles than rings.
"_I_ can't be fooled!" she repeated. "What you doin' with that gel?"
"Leaving her where she is," responded the doctor. "She really isn't fit
to be moved." He added this information in the tone of one imparting
confidences to a friend.
"Fit or not fit, do you suppose I'm gointer _let_ 'er stop there? A
low, ondecent 'ussy like what she is, to lie between my honest sheets!
Take the gel away, I tell you! Do you want to make trouble between a man
and 'is wife? Take the gel away!"
Dr. Brink assumed a highly authoritative tone. "It is my duty as a
doctor, madam," said he, "to warn you that the girl is not fit to be
moved. And your husband, who in law is the responsible head of this
house, agrees with me that----"
"Why ain't she fit to be moved? Answer me that?" rasped the woman.
"Because," said the doctor, as 'Ost 'Uggins's expressive features came
peeking round the doorpost, "because a poor girl of twenty who has just
given birth to----"
"Given birth!" shrieked the woman. _"Given birth_! And in my 'ouse!
"The disgraceful, shameless thing! And me to be kept in ignorance! And
now I think of it, I did seem to think or fancy as I heered a squallin'.
In _my_ 'ouse above all! May the Lord---- 'Ssh! What's that?"
"That," explained 'Ost 'Uggins, obtruding a further portion of his face,
"is the little bleater callin' for 'is vittles."
Mrs. Muggins's face grew strangely red, her lip grew strangely
tremulous. "It's a funny thing to me," she said, "to think as I wasn't
allowed to know.... 'Oo's with 'er?"
"Mrs. Tuck, from the cabyard," responded 'Ost 'Uggins, "'as laid the
fondling out an' that."
Mrs. Huggins stamped a foot. "You clumsy fool!" she cried. "What do we
want your Mrs. Tucks for? A drunken piece like she is! Ain't you got
enough to do in the bar without pokin' your nose into a woman's business
like what this is?
"And me the last to 'ear of it! In me own 'ouse, too! Me that has
buried three.
"Mrs. Tuck! Fools! Let me pass, you George! That child 'll 'ave
convulsions in a minute! ... Mrs. Tuck in my 'ouse!"
* * * * *
"I wish," murmured the doctor hopelessly, as he mopped his forehead,
"that I could understand the rules of their Society."
*XI*
*THE DIAGNOSIS*
I have heard it said by the enemies of Dr. Brink that he is surly, or,
as some prefer to have it, brusque. I cannot too strongly express my
disagreement with this view. I know the doctor intimately, and I can
assert with confidence that in private intercourse he is the soul of
courtesy, exactitude, and punctilio. If, during business hours, he
becomes what Mrs. Duke calls "crisp"--and I won't deny that this thing
sometimes happens--it behoves us, as an audience of Christian people, to
view this failing with the eye of charity, and to think of the
temptations which the poor man has to face.
Bovingdon Street has many graces; but gifts of mind are not conspicuous
amongst them. The capacity for giving evidence is possibly an instinct
and possibly an art, and even more possibly it is both. But it is a
certain thing that working a mangle makes you stupid. Which, of course,
accounts for Mrs. Rafferty.
She called in yesterday--a little, jug-shaped woman, having a limp
fringe and mysterious pains. She is a fine example of the sort of
temptation which is always luring on the Doctor to display his horrible
power of crispness. She is a fine example of the Bovingdon Street
matron.
I happened to be helping James to make a pancake when she came along,
and I was therefore privileged to overhear the particulars of Mrs.
Rafferty's disorder. And if I record exactly the dialogue to which I
listened, you will be able to judge as well as I or Mrs. Rafferty
whether the Doctor's sixpennyworth of diagnosis was value for money.
Behold, the chronicles:--
MRS. RAFFERTY: It's my pore back I come to see you for, Doctor: that and
a sort of dizziness what takes me in the leg. And me throat is sore.
And I gits sich 'orrid nightmares, Doctor, and I was goin' to arst you,
Doctor, do you think it right for anyone to be always feeling thirsty?
Because----
DR. BRINK: How long has this been going on?
MRS. R.: I don't say as the feelin' thirsty is a unpleasant feelin',
mind you; but I wondered if it was nat'ral. That's all I'm wonderin'
about, Doctor. You can't 'elp noticin' anythin' like that, and anybody
would fancy it's a bit queer to be _always_ feelin' thirsty. And then
the 'eadaches, Doctor! They comes on all so sudden, Doctor--unexpected,
like; and if it wasn't----
DOCTOR: How long has this been going on?
MRS. R.: You can see yerself 'ow pale I'm lookin', Doctor. I 'ad a drop
o' stout for me breakfast 'smornin'--no more'n would fill a teacup,
Doctor--and believe me or believe me not, it brought on the pains that
fearful I was obliged to scream. What do you think is the matter with
me, Doctor?
DOCTOR: I shall be better able to tell you when you've answered a few
questions. In the first place, how long has this sort of thing been
going on?
MRS. R.: It's the pain more'n the longness of it, Doctor, which I look
to. And if I close my eyes and touch anythink cold with me 'ands I kin
see a lot of funny green things all in front--floatin', if you
understand me, Doctor. Me 'usband, when 'e was a sowjer abroad in
Dublin, 'e got took with the same thing, along o' eatin' 'ysters in a
onfit state.
DOCTOR: How is your appetite, by the way?
MRS. R.: I was wonderin' if me lungs is affected, Doctor. If ever I
drink a cup of very 'ot tea I kin feel a funny sensation right down me
froat. What I reely want is change of hair.
DOCTOR: Do you drink much tea?
MRS. R.: It's good tea what we 'ave.
DOCTOR: Do you drink much tea?
MRS. R.: And besides, Doctor, I don't see as tea kin 'urt me, because me
an' my 'usband we're rather partickler about the class of----
DOCTOR: Do you drink much tea?
MRS. R.: And then again, Doctor, why should me 'air be fallin' out? I'm
not a old woman. Thirty-six is my age, and I ain't ashamed to own it.
It's a pity me 'air is fallin' out because they say as I'm a
young-looking woman for my age. And----
DOCTOR: When did you first notice that your hair was falling?
MRS. R.: I don't think that the state of me 'air is anythink to be
ashamed of, even now, mind you. But still it ain't a very pleasant
thing, especially at my age. Is it anythink to do with what I eat, do
you think, Doctor? I often wonder.
DOCTOR: How is your appetite?
MRS. R.: It isn't the quantity I was thinkin' of, Doctor, so much as the
class of food as we go in for. We both of us got a taste for 'am an'
bloaters, and so forth.
DOCTOR: Do you enjoy your food?
MRS. R.: But if me 'air is fallin' out on that account----
DOCTOR: Are you a hearty eater?
MRS. R.: Of course, Doctor, I on'y want to know what's right.
DOCTOR: You say that your appetite is good?
MRS. R.: I was sayin' about us bein' partial to 'am and so forth,
Doctor. If you think I oughter stop it, I kin easy do so. I on'y
wanter do what's right. What's your opinion about me, Doctor? You can
see I'm very ill.
DOCTOR: I'm giving you some medicine, Mrs. Rafferty--you've brought your
bottle, I see--it's a strong tonic, and there are three pills with it,
which----
MRS. R.: I forgot to arst you, Doctor. Do you think a drop of stout--as
much as you kin get into a egg-cup--would 'urt a little boy of five
years old what's got a poverty of 'is blood? There's a neighbour o'
mine--a very nice woman--wh----
DOCTOR: About these pills, Mrs. Rafferty: I want you to take one when
you get in, one before you go to bed, and one----
MRS. R.: Can I take a little slice of 'am, Doctor, or must I live on
slops and that?
DOCTOR: You can eat exactly what you please. This medicine will put you
right. It is a very strong, dark red tonic. Do you understand about the
pills, now?
MRS. R.: She's a nice woman, and it's sad to see her strugglin' along by
'erself wiv that boy to keep. And so I told 'er----
DOCTOR: Send her round to see me. You'll get your medicine from the
dispenser.
MRS. R.: About me wrists, Doctor: I find that one is thicker than----
DOCTOR: Come and see me again when you've finished that medicine. Pay
outside.
MRS. R.: And, Doctor, is there anything more besides the physic? I
thought perhaps you would give me a pill.
DOCTOR: I am giving you three pills. One of them I want you to take
when you get in, another at night, and----
MRS. R.: About the money, Doctor: I s'pose as it'll do if I pay next
week?
*XII*
*THE TUSKERS*
It has not been the fortune of the present historian to enjoy a personal
experience of the state of matrimony. But he has never been lacking in
awe for the wonders attaching to that institution. It has always seemed
to him, looking upward, as it were, from the mire of bachelordom, that
the married mind is subject to rare emotions, productive of a singular
philosophy which one must view with astonishment, if not with envy.
In illustration of my meaning, permit me to cite the case of the
Tuskers.
The Tuskers, as we were definitely informed by Mr. Tusker, have been
tasting the wedded blisses for nearly eighteen years. And Mr. Tusker
called in recently at Doctor Brink's in the matter, as he expressed it,
of "any old bottles, any old rags; old bones, rabbit-skins, waste paper
to buy," which somehow looks wrong. Let us try again--
Any old bottles?
Any old rags?
Old bones,
Rabbit-skins,
Waste paper,
To buy!
That is better. Mr. Tusker is nothing if not lyrical.
Also, he is a massy-jawed person in a muffler, having a dent over one
eye and a limpy walk. Likewise, he is accompanied by an objectionable
smell, arising partly from his trade, profession, or occupation. It is
an impressionist sort of smell. The impression it suggested to me was
that Mr. Tusker had been subjected to long, long years of solitary
confinement in an over-heated chicken-coop.
Mr. Tusker, having recited his little poem, was rewarded by a "Not
to-day, thank you," from Doctor Brink.
"What?" cried Mr. Tusker. "Not any old bottles; any old rags?"
"No," insisted Doctor Brink.
"Ho," quoth Mr. Tusker. "Right you are, then. One minute, Doctor. The
missus. Ahtside. Can I trouble you?"
"How?" inquired the doctor.
"You know, mate," expounded Mr. Tusker. "Below par. Orfer oats. See?
Jes' run the rule over 'er, Doctor; will ye?"
"Certainly," replied the doctor, the light of intelligence at last
illuminating his eye. "Bring the lady inside."
Mr. Tusker accordingly repaired to the roadway, where his barrow was in
waiting. It was a roomy barrow, filled to overflowing with bulging
sacks, one of which, being pushed, came to life as Mrs. Tusker, and
walked into Doctor Brink's consulting-room.
She was a tired old sack, was Mrs. Tusker, much patched, even as to her
face, which was further distinguished by being bruised in several
places, a fact which accentuated its native homeliness.
"Below par. Orfer oats," repeated Mr. Tusker, with a jerk of the thumb
in the direction of the old sack. "Jes' run yere rule over 'er, Doc."
"Had a bad accident, hasn't she?" began the doctor. "That plaster----"
"Never mind the plaster," said the husband.
"No," repeated Mrs. Tusker, "never mind that."
"Orfer oats, see?" prompted Mr. Tusker.
"Ain't got no appetite," confirmed the lady.
"'Er system. See?" added Mr. Tusker.
"Yus," assented Mrs. Tusker. "Me system."
"Jes' run yere rule over 'er," said Mr. Tusker.
"Well," mused the doctor, "want of appetite doesn't produce itself, you
know. I mean to say---- Her face now. It's very swollen. The lower
part espec----"
"Never mind 'er face, ole man," suggested Mr. Tusker.
"No," said the patient; "never mind me face."
"_I_ done that, ye see," remarked Mr. Tusker.
"Yus," replied Mrs. Tusker, "'e done that."
Doctor Brink, after staring hard at Mr. Tusker, resumed his inspection
of the wife. "I don't know what sort of appetite you expect to have," he
said, "with those four bruises. Her face is simply pul----"
"Oh!" reflected Mr. Tusker, "them marks is out o' date. They put me
away for them."
Mrs. Tusker nodded.
"I--I don't quite understand," exclaimed the doctor.
"I done 'em of a Saturday night, ye see," explained the husband. "And
they put me away to the Scrubs. Three weeks I was in."
"Three weeks," repeated Mrs. Tusker.
"They on'y let me out s'mornin'."
This statement was audited and found correct by Mrs. Tusker. "On'y this
mornin'," she said.
"This is the state I find 'er in," continued Mr. Tusker. "Orfer oats.
They put me away. See? And there wasn't no one to look arter 'er."
"Nobody to look arter me," agreed the wife.
"Her neck must be troubling her too," began the doctor. "I see she's
been rather badly sca----"
"Never mind the scalding," protested Mr. Tusker. "Give 'er some physic,
Doctor."
"Yus," echoed Mrs. Tusker. "Gimme some physic."
"You see," explained the husband, evidently determined that this
important detail in the history of the case should not be overlooked, "I
bin away. They put me away for three weeks. And this is 'ow I find
'er. She ain't 'ad no one to look arter 'er. See? Give 'er some
physic, Doctor."
So they had their physic, and they went away.
I watched them passing up the road, Mr. Tusker limping behind his barrow
and this peculiar old sack of his limping behind Mr. Tusker. And Mr.
Tusker, as he limped, was declaiming a kind of poem--a rude sort of
piece; but I've no doubt that in the ears of the old sack-thing at his
heel, that which he uttered was as the music of the spheres. And the
words of his poem were these:--
Any old bottles?
Any old rags?
Old bones,
Rabbit-skins,
Waste paper,
To buy!
As they receded into the endless perspective of Bovingdon Street, the
sacks became confused in my sight, and I wondered which of them
contained the rags and bones and bottles, or which was occupied by
rabbit-skins and Mrs. Tusker.... Not that it really mattered.
*XIII*
*ART LOVERS*
Mr. Clarence Gordon Prince appeared first in the capacity of a patient.
He came to have a tooth out. "Three teeth out, to tell ye the troof,
Doctor," he added, and with the air of a man who had given a liberal
order and knew it, he seated himself, throwing back his head and
shutting both eyes.
"Want 'em all out now--at once?" demanded the doctor.
"Cert'nly," responded Clarence. "I'm a gunner."
Dr. Brink evidently perceived the point of this observation, for he made
no further speech, but drew the teeth forthwith. And Clarence kept on
smiling.
He performed his subsequent ablutions in silence, but, having completed
them and deposited three sixpences upon the consulting-room table, he
again spoke.
"Well, Doctor," he said, "I'll say good-night, and pop off," which he
did.
But when he reached the door-step, Baffin found him, and Baffin rejoiced
in the find. "You've been a soldier?" exclaimed Baffin.
"Gun-layer. 'Owitzer Battery, R.A. Nine year. Invalided." Clarence
smiled again.
"I want you," said Baffin. "Wait there."
Mr. Prince accordingly waited, and his patience was rewarded by the
reappearance of Baffin, with whom was Dr. Brink. "This gentleman," said
the doctor, "is an artist. He wants you to sit for him. How tall are
you?"
"Six-one-and-a-'arf."
"How much round the chest?"
"Forty-two."
"Round the arm?"
"Twenty."
"Got a shovel?"
Mr. Prince's smile gave place to a suspicious frown. "I could _get_
one," he said, at last.
"Bring it along to-morrow," commanded the doctor. "We want you to sit.
You'll be well paid. You're out of work, I suppose?"
"I'm out of work all right," responded Mr. Prince. "But--but ... what
you want me to do?" demanded Mr. Prince.
"Never mind that," he was told. "Just come along. And wear your oldest
clothes. And bring the spade."
To the surprise of both Baffin and the doctor, Clarence did come along,
accompanied by the spade. He was very out of work indeed, it seemed,
and had sold his medals to pay for the comfort of having his teeth out,
and for subsequent treatment at the "African Chief." He wanted work,
and was willing, but this yere sitting game--"what was it?"
Baffin took him to the "studio," _nee_ wash-house, and there he drank
some tea, and was confronted by an easel, and was induced to seat
himself upon the extreme corner of a small chair, whilst Baffin
pretended to sketch him. This proceeding is technically described as
putting your model at his ease.
At the end of an hour the soldier was asked to stand up and drink beer
out of a jug, a function which he performed with very tolerable grace.
He was then allowed to go home.
"But come here early to-morrow morning," said Baffin. "Do you think
you'll like the work?"
"Work seems all right," responded Mr. Prince. "I'll come at nine
o'clock."
He arrived at the time stated, having carefully attired himself in his
Sunday "blacks," and a white turn-down collar. He had likewise operated
with sand upon the metal parts of his shovel, so that that instrument
glittered exceedingly. Also, he had perfumed his hair. And Baffin
ordered him to go home again and reinvest himself with the habiliments
of toil.
The spade we kept and improved upon in a corner of the doctor's little
garden--a corner in which rare bulbs were buried. Clarence returned to
us looking natural and dirty, and wearing a resigned expression.
Then he sat, or rather stood, in earnest, whilst Baffin "studied" him in
pencil and charcoal and crayon, and in every other sort of pigment.
And when the artist had tired of this employment, Mr. Prince came down
from his platform and studied the pictures with an air of cold reserve.
He said that he thought he might as well be going. And he went.
The subsequent sittings were in all respects a repetition of the first.
But at the end of the week, a strange thing happened. Mr. Clarence
Gordon Prince permitted himself to give utterance to a remark. He had
been paid his first week's wages--a sovereign, and, having spat upon
this coin and donned his jacket, he tapped Mr. Baffin with his knuckle
and performed the feat in question. "One day--me lad," he said, "I'll
show ye _my_ pictures."
And on the last day of his engagement he duly fulfilled the promise. He
had spat upon a sovereign and donned his jacket, just as before, and he
had walked towards the door, but half-way there he stopped and faced his
late employer.
"Look here," he said, as he quietly divested himself of his jacket and
waistcoat, "look 'ere, ole man, you've acted very fair to me, and now
I'm gointer show ye my pictures."
With this preface he removed his shirt.
The wondering Baffin was then confronted with a naked chest--a chest of
many colours. "The Duchess of Gainsborough," said Mr. Prince. "There's
eight weeks' work in 'er. Done in Ceylon. I was soldiering in Ceylon.
If you look round the corner you will see a picture of Eve bein' tempted
by the serpent. On me right arm there's 'Erod's daughter, and on me
left a photo of Jim Sayers. 'Ow's all this for picture work?
"I was under the needle for pretty near a twelve-month, and time I left
the service there was on'y one man in the battery as could show the 'arf
of what I can. I always 'ad a fancy for colour work."
The model slowly resumed his clothes. "I love a well-done chest, I do,"
he said.
"Not, mind you, as I am one to turn 'is nose up at a picture on the
wall, same's you might make yesself. Not at all. But me own fancy is
for breast and arm work. That has always bin my fancy.
"And I look upon you as a very fair and civil-spoken young man, which is
why I let you see me. I'm a bit particular 'oo I show my pictures to.
I'll be getting along now. Good-night, sir."
On the threshold of the door he paused again.
"One more thing, young man. I ain't the sort of bloke to show me chest
around; but you've treated me decent, man to man, as the saying goes.
And, therefore, if ever the fancy takes you to show me to your friends,
why say the word and--'ere I am.
"I'll say good-night now."
*XIV*
*THREE BABIES*
One of the disadvantages attaching to Dr. Brink's profession is its
stay-at-home character. A doctor has not time to travel. And it is a
well-known fact that travelling improves the mind.
Think, for instance, how my doctor's mind would relish the improvement
associated with a short spell of travel on the London, Tilbury, and
Something Railroad! I travelled on this system only yesterday--it is
the direct route to Dr. Brink's--and I protest that one of my
fellow-travellers--a baby--was really _most_ improving.
This baby came into our compartment head downwards, and advertised his
displeasure with this state of things by means at his command.
A little pale-faced girl who followed Baby uttered remonstrances, which
were answered by the little rickety boy who carried him. I saw and heard
these things but vaguely, because our carriage was filled with noise and
smell, and its lights were dim. And many people had breathed within it,
and the gentlemen about me were smoking shag tobacco.
The little pale-faced girl expressed herself with emphasis, coughing and
gasping between each adjective. There was a great deal of fringe upon
her forehead and a great deal of feather on her head, and some broken
teeth within her mouth. She dug at her companion with a bony elbow, as
they stood there, being supported in an upright attitude by means of
other people's knees and also by means of a rack provided for light
articles only. "You clumsy tyke, you!" shrilled the girl, by way of
concluding her address.
"Hee-haw!" responded the youth, with satire. It was made evident by
certain signs, such as the cheerfulness of his conversation and a sort
of _neglige_ as to his fringe, that he had spent his evening amid
congenial surroundings. '"Old the kid yeself, then," he added. And his
companion took the child.
"What you done with them suckers?" she then demanded; upon which the
young man brought forth bull's-eyes from his trouser pocket. With one
of these the little girl essayed to comfort Baby, holding the evil thing
between his toothless gums. But Baby continued, as before, to moan and
writhe.... "I fink that beetroot ain't agreein' wiv 'im," said the girl.
The little rickety boy made no reply. He was busy, having a handful of
cigarette-ends to strip and bind anew with paper. "Why don't you stop
'is noise?" he at length demanded, applying his tongue to the completed
"fag." "Call yeself a mother?"
The fact as to Baby's authorship I had, of course, suspected. I
perceived, however, that our fellow-passengers did not mind.
The girl did not allow the young man's question to remain unanswered.
"Never trouble," she said, "what I call myself. What do you call yeself?
A man, I suppose. Funny sort of man, ain't you? More like a ape. More
like a crab. Fine 'usband for a person, ain't you? 'Usband, eh?"
An elderly man at my right hand removed his pipe and grinned. The
gentleman opposite to him winked; and a woman in the corner giggled
rustily. You might have supposed them to be tickled by a sense of the
deeper irony which underlay this mother's sarcasm. But, as a matter of
fact, the reflections which moved them were not of this character. The
elderly man at my right explained his sentiments publicly. "Puts me in
mind," he said, "of my fust. 'E were jest sich a skinny one."
And Rickets spoke again. "Why can't you stop the beggar's noise?" he
demanded. "Worse nor a waggon-load o' tomcats, that row is."
"What," demanded the girl, "d'you expect me to do? Put a muzzle on 'im?
Why don't you take an' stop 'im yeself? 'Andy enough wiv yere tongue,
you are. S'pose you show us 'ow to do the business."
"My way o' stoppin' 'im would be easy," said the boy, with a stupid
grin. "I should lay a strap acrost 'is back."
His companion reapplied the elbow treatment. "You do!" she squeaked
between the digs. "You do, you little ape. Let me see you. On'y let
me see you. There'd be a strap 'crost your back blessed soon. Not 'arf,
there wouldn't. You baboon, you!"
The girl looked helplessly at nothing, "hushing" the baby upon her
breast by means of sudden, horrible, little jerks. Such a pitiful
parody of rock-a-bye. She was too young and pale properly to know or
understand the business of mothering, which is a difficult business to
learn in your spare time, especially when they shut you out for a
"quarter" if you are two minutes late at the factory. So that this
London mother sucked at a bull's-eye, and yawned, and jerked, while the
London baby lay in her arms and moaned.... "I fink it is the beetroot,"
reiterated the mother presently. "He looks so cold, Sam."
"It's wind," pronounced the boy, bringing forth a mouth-organ and
carefully wiping it upon his sleeve. "Give 'im a tap, same's I told
you. 'Seaweed,' mates." With which announcement the husband and father
proceeded to wring out the melody of that name. We all tapped time with
our feet, and the mother sucked her bull's-eye, and the baby moaned.
"He looks so cold," repeated the mother, as the mouth-organ subsided.
"Give us 'Cock o' the North,' Sam."
Sam obeyed this summons with alacrity.
"If you will pardon me, young woman," observed the elderly man at my
right hand, having duly applauded the soloist--"if you will pardon me,
young woman, I will take the liberty of recommending a cold key. It
catches the breath, if you take my meanin'. See?"
"No; I don't see," responded the mother sharply. It resented the
preferment of counsel. This reflected upon its competence: this
offended its sense of dignity. It was a married woman.
The husband readdressed himself to his mouth-organ. But as he put that
instrument of melody unto his lips, the girl reached sharply forth and
stayed him.
"E--'e seems to be a-chokin', Sam," she said. "I think--I
b'lieve--I--what you grinnin' for, you ugly ape? When'll we get to Bow?
'Ow many stations? You old 'im, Sam: I b'lieve--I--he looks so cold.
He looks _so_ cold."
"Give 'im another bull's-eye," suggested Sam. "There's peppermint in
bull's-eyes. Next station's Bow. What are you grizzlin' for?"
"'E--'e looks so cold," explained the wife. There was a flame in her
eye. A new flame--a flame of fear and joy. It was as though a match
had been put to her soul. She was learning the business.
The woman in the corner left off giggling. She spoke to the mother.
"You run along to bed with 'im, my gel. Never you mind about 'is looks.
Run along to bed with 'im, so's 'e can be warm."
And the girl tightened her hold upon the parcels rack; and swayed her
body gently, like a real mother. The boy, her husband, drew forth a
series of discords from the mouth-organ. But she did not scream at him
as before. She stood there, dumbly, rocking her baby like a real
mother.
And the baby did not moan. The baby lay there on her bosom, silent and
strangely still.
Then, with a jerk, our train pulled up. And the girl let go of the
rack-rail and stumbled out. "Come on, Sam," she said, "we gotter 'urry.
'E looks so cold."
"Wait till I light me fag, then," said the boy. He struck a match on
his boot-heel, and followed her, whistling cheerfully.
* * * * *
Our train moved on. And the elderly man at my right hand imparted a
secret to me.
"That's their fust," he said.
I nodded, patiently.
"'E lay quiet enough when the music started. Did you notice?"
"Yes," I said, "I noticed."
"They're funny devils," said the man.
*XV*
*INGRATES*
"DR. BRINK. Important.
"DEAR DOCTOR,--Ther is a lady keeps on coming in a motor car, and her
names is Mrs. Dudenay-Jones, and she is always at our place, and we
think she 'as got a good intention, but my husband says he has had
enough, and he thinks if we was to speak to you then perhaps you was to
speak to her so perhaps she would stop it. She is a real lady, and
always civil and polite, but my husband says we've had ennough. His
mates has got to hear about it, and they call him Gordon Bennett, and he
is a hardworking man.
"It is my daughter Kate she takes the interest in, the same what you
give the light-brown mixture to for loosing her appetite. She wants to
put her in a home at Margate, but my daughter has got a good home of her
own, and she do not want to be beholding. And if a person goes to
Margate you always bring back vermin, and there is enough work to keep a
decent home without anybody need go to Margate and bring back vermin.
And further and more, my Kate 'as got a bank book of her own, thank God,
and when she wants to take a fortnight she can do it independent, and
her young fellar the same, him what has the bottles of red from you for
spots on the face.
"And so it is kindly to be hoped as you will kindly talk about it to the
lady, you being reguly engaged by us for all these year, and knowing
well that we are hardworking and independent, and not the kind as would
wish to be beholding. And she come 4 times a week from Sat., and now it
is only Tue., and she has been twice. It is no wonder as my daughter
loose her appetite.
"And thanking with compts,
"Your faithl,
"SARAH BENNET,
13, Markham Street, over against the Dairy.
"P.S.--Boy got 6d. Please send a bot. light brown for my daughter. Did
my daughter ought to drink a wineglass full of vineger? They tell me it
is good.
"The lady has always acted civil, so I hope you'll be the same.
"S. BENNETT."
* * * * *
It was this missive, reaching the doctor at his breakfast table, which
caused a beautiful philanthropist to enter his surgery at tea-time. She
came in immediate response to the doctor's invitation; she came with a
rush, having been carried hither by her 80-h.p. 8-cylinder light touring
car.
"And, oh, _dear_ Dr. Brink," she said, "how simply charming it is to
meet you! One has so often read your bright little speeches about this
shocking poverty. One simply yearns to do something. How one envies
you your strength, your power, your splendid opportunities. How you
must _revel_ in your work here, Doctor! It must be simply charming!"
"About as charming," said the doctor, "as keeping pigs and sleeping with
them."
The beautiful philanthropist broke into appreciative titters. "_Pigs_,
Doctor!" she cried, with the archest look. "_Pigs_! He! he! And you
call yourself a Socialist! Of course, I'm not a Socialist myself.
One's husband cannot be expected to approve of such extremes as that.
But one need not be a Socialist in order to feel sorry for them. Now,
need one, Doctor? But when one is a woman, it is all so difficult. Oh,
Doctor, can one do _nothing_?"
"One _can_," replied the doctor; "but one won't. That, madame, is the
difficulty."
"I don't quite understand you," said the lady.
"You ask me," explained the doctor, "whether one can do nothing. I
reply that one can: that this is all we ask of one--to do nothing."
"To do _nothing_? _D-o-c-t-o-r_!"
"It does sound revolutionary, perhaps," admitted the doctor. "But it is
really true. We ask one to do _nothing_. We ask one to be so kind as to
sit at home and draw threads out of teacloths. And to draw cheques. But
not to leave one's blameless hearth. We ask one to keep away. The
pig-stye is a dirty pig-stye, and it's got to be cleaned by dirty
people. Nice people--manicured people---are best out of it. See?"
"I see that you want to be rude," said the lady, "but I don't---- What
is it all about, Doctor?"
"This," said Dr. Brink. And he gave her Mrs. Bennett's letter. And she
read it silently. And she stood up.
"Really, Doctor," she observed, "one doesn't quite know what to say.
I'm sorry, I suppose. I will write and apologise to Mrs. Bennett. I'll
go home and draw threads.
"Don't trouble to get up," she continued, as the doctor rose from his
chair. "Don't trouble to get up. You are quite the rudest man I've
ever met. Please don't trouble to get up."
She reached the door, but paused upon its threshold and turned to him
again. "You are quite the rudest man I've ever met," she said again.
"Quite the rudest.... I'll send you some money for your pigs."
*XVI*
*BAFFIN'S FIND*
Baffin came home one evening in a state of wild-eyed exaltation.
He had found _the_ face for his "Mist Maiden." Its name was Prudence
Croft.
It was coming to sit next day, and certain brothers of the brush were
coming also to inspect and criticise Prudence.
Baffin's panegyrics quite interested me. I invited myself to join the
party and my invitation was accepted.
So that I first saw Prudence under romantic circumstances. She was
sitting on a sugar-box with her bodice off. The combination of her
charms and a red flannel under-garment was startling to the eye.
Prudence was occupied, it seemed, in a proceeding called "sitting for
the neck and shoulders." The process was not a restful one, for
Prudence had "nerves" and "fidgets" and a constant flow of anecdote.
Mr. Baffin made free with expressions of entreaty, disapprobation, and
despair.
For myself, I sat and stared at Prudence, being consumed with a great
wonder. It wasn't the flannel which provoked this wonder. Red flannel
is a hideous material, and highly moral and depressing at that. And I
am sure that the spectacle of a poor, anaemic rat of an artist's model
seated in "half-costume" on a sugar-box is not (in itself) an attractive
one. But Prudence fascinated me as no human being had fascinated me for
many days.
If any of you have felt the poignant, horrible appeal of Ophelia during
the "mad scene," you will know how I felt about Prudence. Her spare,
consumptive body was crowned by a neck and face and head as beautiful as
any that ever were. But it was a beauty that was monstrous in its
perfection, and that, therefore, hurt like some monstrosity of ugliness.
Prudence's beauty was the beauty of imbecility--that which Rossetti
loved so much to draw. To look at her for long was like looking at some
exotic, over-nurtured lily in a hot-house: one felt sick and restless
and unmanned, and fell to longing for some robuster blossom on a
hedgerow.
She had the genuine Rossetti neck--a thing which rose and swelled and
died away in exquisite, maddening curves. She had the genuine Rossetti
nose--straight, and small, and delicate, and sinful. She had hair, a
full arm's length, that crept and clung and strayed and floated like the
tendrils of a vine. She had wide, inscrutable eyes: wondering as a
child's, yet filled with an awful something that was not of childhood.
She had, above all else, a mouth which stung you with its
beauty--blood-red lips that were open and moist and eager, like a
lover's wound.
To all these charms she added the mind and speech of a mud-lark: the
intelligence of a backward infant.
"Ow, Mr. Baffin," she was saying when I saw her first, "ow, Mr. Baffin,
you _do_ frighten me when you swear so. I _will_ keep still: I will,
reely. I won't fidget or move or talk--I won't even breathe--for a 'ole
ten minnits. On'y I must tell you about me an' my sister an' the
penny-in-the-slot machine. Mother give us tuppence, see, 'cos it was
washin' day, an'---- ... Ow, now you're angry, Mr. Baffin. Down't be
angry, Mr. Baffin. I am a wicked girl, I know I am, an' I _will_ keep
still: an' Gawd knows what's to become of me when my mother dies, an'
everybody 'ates me, an' I _am_ un'eppy."
The remainder of Prudence's observations were mingled with the sound of
noisy sobs.
Mr. Baffin, that eminent painter, put down his palette and brush. "I'll
wait," he said, "until you are dry again."
"Down't be engry with me, Mr. Baffin," moaned Prudence. "I'll be a good
gel now--I will, reely--if on'y yew wown't be engry with me."
"Very well, then," answered Baffin. "You can begin to be a good girl
now. I 'm not angry with you _any_ more, and if only you keep still for
five little minutes while I get in the curves of the chin, I'll let you
talk and wriggle as much as you like for a whole ten minutes. Now hold
your head up."
So Prudence ceased her lamentations, and held her head up--for
five-and-thirty seconds. At the end of that period an interesting
thought occurred to her.
"It'll be Christmas in four months," she observed, wriggling
delightedly. "I'm gownter give my muvver something _sow_ nice fur
Christmas' I'm gownter give 'er a---- Ow, Mr. Baffin, you're angry with
me agen. I _am_ a bad gel, I know I am; but----"
"You can leave off helping me for a minute or two," said Baffin quietly.
"I've got to do some scraping here, so you can have the wriggle now.
What is this about Christmas?"
"I got two guineas comin' to _me_ fur Christmas--per'aps. I sat to Mr.
Baker fur 'is 'Birth of Wonder,' an' when 'e sells it 'e is gointer
gimme two guineas!"
Baffin looked at me, and I nodded in appreciation of his glance.
Everybody knows, of course, that Mr. Wilberforce Baker, the eminent
Academician, disposed of his "Birth of Wonder" last June. It was his
tenth annual contribution to that remarkable collection of pictures now
being formed under a bequest of the late Mr. Bantry--Mr. Wilberforce
Baker himself being a trustee of the fund bequeathed for that purpose.
Baffin excommunicated that distinguished artist in dumb show.
"I shouldn't count on the two guineas," was all he said to Prudence.
"... How long is it since you sat for Mr. Baker?"
"Ow, _ever_ so lung!" answered Prudence. "Down't know why 'tis, I'm
sure, on'y I down't seem to be able to get now sittin's _now_'ow. They
all say I'm pretty an' that; an' they all rave about me neck: an' they
all tell me to call agen; but nothink ever comes of it. Can't make it
out at _all_, I can't?"
"You are lacking in the quality of perception, my dear," explained
Baffin.
"Beg your pardon?" queried Prudence.
"I say," repeated Baffin, "that you are lacking--that you are damned
slow at seeing things!"
"Ow, Mr. Baffin, you _are_ a naughty man. Fancy usin' such wicked words.
My mother says it is on'y bad people what uses words like that. My
mother cut 'er finger yesterday, makin' toast. We got the drains up in
_our_ 'ouse. Ugly things, them little kittens, ain't they? I 'ates 'em
when they're crawly, like those."
Prudence, making a wry face, pointed to a basket beside the sugar-box.
This contained a family of illegitimate kittens which James had adopted
out of Christian charity.
"I _'ate_ cats," continued Prudence in her childish, sing-song voice.
"I ate all animals. I like goin' to the theayter, though. I like goin'
to church too. I like----"
She would have provided us, doubtless, with an exhaustive list of her
enthusiasms; but the door of the studio opened, and gave entrance to
those brothers of the brush whose coming was expected.
They looked upon Prudence, and were staggered.
"Where in Hell did you find her?" they inquired of Baffin, and
discharged a volley of most wonderful expletives in evidence of their
surprise and appreciation and envy. And they hanked her off the
sugar-box, and turned her this way and that way, inspecting her "form"
in much the same manner as that adopted by farmers when buying
horseflesh.
"Chin up, please; more to the right. Now to the left. Ah! Get over
there, under that top light. Profile, please. Ah! How about shoulders:
salt-cellars, I expect; they always have. Pull that thing down. Ah!
Not so bad as I feared. No good for the figure, but--but that neck!
Trust old Baffin to find 'em, eh, John?"
There was to me something inexplicably delightful in the utter
sexlessness of this admiration. To say the least, it was ungallant and
sane. And Prudence evidently shared this feeling. The childish vanity
in her eyes was unmistakable, and she walked back to her throne on the
sugar-box with a strut that real queens might have envied.
Baffin tried to resume work on the picture; but Prudence's gifts of
anecdote were as yet unexhausted, and she found it necessary to tell
what Mr. Wilberforce Baker had said to Mr. Jerningham Jukes, and what
Mr. J. J. had said to Mr. W. B., and what she had said to both of them,
and what her mother had suffered under chloroform. And she giggled, and
she wriggled, and she apologised, and she wept, and she wriggled and she
giggled again. And Comrade of Brush No. 1 observed to Comrade of Brush
No. 2 that this sort of thing would not be good enough at any price.
Comrade No. 2 sniffed assentingly. "And what the blazes," he inquired,
"does she want to wear that beastly flannel for?"
"Ah!" grunted No. 1. "I say, Baffin, why does she wear red flannel?
Makes chaps sick."
Baffin referred the matter to headquarters. "What do you dress yourself
up like a sore throat for, Prudence?" he inquired. "Why do you wear red
flannel?"
Prudence's eyes were wide with amazement. "Ow, Mr. Baffin," she
tittered, "yew _are_ a funny men! ... I got pretty things at 'owm. But
what's the good o' wearin' 'em out in the studios?"
"You are lacking, my dear girl, in the quality of perception." Baffin
uttered these words with an oracular air.
The Comrades made their adieux. "Not if she _paid_ me to paint her,"
whispered No. 1, with a jerk of the head towards Prudence. "But, Lord,
_what_ a profile! A tricky man could work wonders with that head."
"Pity she spoils herself," added Comrade No. 2. And they departed.
"Hear what those gentlemen said?" demanded Baffin, as the door
closed.... "You are too talkative, and you giggle too much, and you
wriggle too much. And you should leave off red flannel, and make
yourself nice. You could make a lot of money if you took care of
yourself. Think of the nice things you could give your mother then!"
"My mother's got a abscess," moaned Prudence, "an' I believe she'll die,
an' then I'll starve, 'cause I'm a good-for-nothin' gel, an' I wown't
sit still, an'--an' me figure's too flat. But I'm learnin' to croshy,
an' I _will_ be better. Shall I come termorrer, Mr. Baffin?"
"Come on Friday," answered Baffin. "And," he added, "come in a nice,
unwrigglesome frame of mind. You shall have cream and tea and muffins
if you are a good girl."
"Ooer!" cried Prudence. "I like muffins. And I like cream, and I like
claret... 'Ere"--her face suddenly grew grave, grave as a child's at
play with toys--"'ere, Mr. Baffin, do you believe in auctioneers?"
"Do I believe in _what_?" shouted Baffin.
"Auctioneers," repeated Prudence, with a pout. "Don't be angry with me;
I won't ask agen, if you don't like.
"On'y ... what you want to look at me so queer for? I can't 'elp bein'
silly. I _am_ silly. On'y ... I wonder if a auctioneer is the sort of
man that anybody ought to trust?"
*XVII*
*MR. WEST'S WIFE*
"Is this the young man?" said Mrs. West, of Mulberry Street, sitting up
in bed and shading a very white face with a very hot hand. "Oh, I
daresay 'e'll do! 'Tain't much, I'm told. No doubt 'e'll manage it."
That task which Mrs. West, of Mulberry Street, thus coldly confided to
my management was the witnessing of her will. Dr. Brink had volunteered
to execute this document for her; and a sniggering youth had haled me
from the snugness of the doctor's waiting chariot to come upstairs and
sign.
After my formal presentation to Mrs. West, there was an interval of
silence, broken only by the scratchy-scratchy of the doctor's pen, as he
hastily constructed a form of bequest.
I employed this interval in taking stock of the testator's estate, the
whole of which was contained within her room. There were two bedsteads,
one (a little folding thing) being devoted to the uses of the sniggering
boy who, be it stated, figured in the document which was now being
prepared as sole legatee. The other bedstead--that on which the patient
lay--was obviously a veteran bedstead which had seen much of the world.
It was a circumstantial, ponderous bedstead, and wore still a pompous
air, although its ironwork was rusted and its lacquered parts had quite
lost their complexion. This bedstead also bore a superstructure
designed to carry a canopy; but all that hung there now were certain
moth-eaten petticoats. There was a chest of drawers among the assets,
and a cork model of the Tower of London, and a wash-basin and two soap
dishes, and two dumb clocks and the mechanism of another, and a work of
art designed in multi-coloured wools, and having reference to the
parable of the fig tree.
"Make it all over to 'im," said Mrs. West; "all what I, the undersigned,
may die possessed of. I won't 'ave 'is stuck-up sister touch a stick of
it. 'E's bin a good boy to me, Bert 'as. It'll be a 'ome for 'im.
"It's bin a near touch for me, what, Doctor?" pursued the testator.
"Pooh!" murmured the doctor, still writing rapidly, "you're not going
this time."
"I know that," said the woman. "Not as I take any notice what _you_
say--you an' your soft soap. But I know in _meself_ as it's all right
this time. On'y you never know what's gointer 'appen with the next
attack, do you, now? And it'll be a 'ome for the boy. 'E's gettin'
good money at the dye works now. 'E'll be all right if 'e's got a 'ome.
You ain't puttin' it so's _she_ can touch a share, I 'ope, Doctor?"
"Who's she?"
"'Er what I spoke about--what calls 'erself my daughter. 'Er what's
married into the perlice. 'Er what's ashamed of 'er own father!"
"I am putting it," explained the doctor, "so that you leave all of which
you may die possessed to your son Albert. It's quite definite. You may
sign now. This gentleman and myself will witness your signature."
"Lift me up, then," said Mrs. West.
She signed her name in a shaky but accomplished hand. "Be careful,
young man," she admonished me, when my turn arrived.
All the formalities being concluded, Mrs. West sank back upon her pillow
with a grunt of contentment. "It'll be a 'ome for the boy," she said.
"And if 'is father _should_ turn up----"
"Has he got a father, then?" questioned the doctor, rather, I think,
with the object of displaying an intelligent interest than from any
genuine curiosity. You _are_ apt to lose your genuine curiosity when
this sort of confidence is thrust upon you ten times daily.
"Got a father!" echoed Mrs. West, with evident amazement at the doctor's
ignorance. "Ain't you 'eard, then?"
"Heard what?" demanded Dr. Brink.
"About my 'usband. The Midland Malt Comp'ny, you know!'
"Well, really now," replied the doctor, looking painfully confused,
"upon my word, I _don't_ know."
"You must go about your business in a very funny way, then," reflected
Mrs. West. "It's bin the talk o' Limus. 'E done 'em in for eight
'undred quid--'im an' another man."
"Done 'em in!" repeated the doctor. "Who? What?"
"The Midland Malt Company, same's I told you," expounded Mrs. West. "'E
was night watchman, Mr. West was--'im an' another man--an' they took
eight 'undred quid. 'E got away with 'arf of it, too. The perlice 'as
bin investigatin' ever since."
Dr. Brink still looked a little puzzled. "You mean, in fact--do I
understand that your husband stole eight hundred pounds?"
"Mr. West an' another man--yes," responded the woman, quite without
feeling. "'Im an' 'is mate, they done in eight 'undred. On'y 'is mate,
I'm sorry to say, 'e never got 'is share. The perlice got that. They
got 'im, too. But they never got Mr. West."
"How did he escape?" demanded the doctor. And I held my breath. I
wondered that the desperado's wife could talk so quietly. "How did he
escape?" asked the doctor again.
"Mr. West?" queried the woman. "Oh," she said, with great simplicity,
"'e went away.
"It was like this yere," said Mr. West's wife:--
"I was asleep, you see--in this bed yere, an' it was dark--all in the
middle o' the night, you see. An' he struck a match an' he woke me up.
"'What's that?' I says, with a start like, an' when I see it was Mr.
West I lay down again.
"'Ann,' 'e says, 'wake up. I've got some money 'ere,' 'e says. An' 'e
lights a bit o' candle, an' I sits up, an' there on the table--that very
table--there was a 'eap o' sovereigns what 'e'd rolled out of a sack.
'I've took these from the company. I'm goin' away,' says Mr. West.
"An' 'e gets into 'is Sunday shoot an' 'e shaves 'isself. An' 'e puts a
lot o' the money more'n four 'undred pounds--into a little brown bag,
an' 'e puts the rest in the coal cupboard. 'The perlice 'll come for
that in the mornin',' says Mr. West. 'Let 'em find it there. An' you,'
'e says, 'you don't know nothink.'
"'An' what about you?' I says.
"'I'm goin' away,' says Mr. West. 'I'll write you when it's safe. Give
my love to Rosa.'
"Rosa is my sister's niece, what 'e'd always carried on with--innocent
like, in a jokin' sort o' way, if you understand me.
"'An' remember,' says Mr. West to me again, 'as you don't know a thing.
They'll find the money in the coal 'ole, so don't you try to stop 'em.'
"An' then Mr. West, 'e kissed me same as usual, an' 'e blowed out the
light. An' 'e went away."
* * * * *
"I suppose that the police turned up all right?" suggested Dr. Brink,
when he had duly considered this simple story.
"The perlice," responded the woman, who had talked more than was good
for her, and now looked paler, if possible, than before--"the perlice
was very rude an' rough to me. They found the money in the coal
cupboard, an' they took it away. But that didn't satisfy them. It on'y
seemed to aggerivate them. An' night after night they come round 'ere,
an' they was very rough to me. But they ain't got 'old o' Mr. West.
"'E's bin gone a year now, all but five weeks. An' they ain't caught
'im, an' they never will. I believe it would please that daughter o'
mine--the wicked, vain, unfeelin' thing--if they _was_ to catch 'm.
"Mr. West, 'e 'aven't wrote me, nor I don't suppose 'e will. Mr. West
is a careful sort. I _did_ send round the other day to a place where I
thought there might be noos o' 'im; but there wasn't no noos o' 'im.
"Not that I worry meself about _'im_, if you understand. Mr. West would
be all right, wherever it was. 'E's the sort that kin take care o'
'isself, 'e is. It's the boy--young Bert--I'm thinkin' of. Mr. West
would be very cut up, 'e would, to think as Bert should come to any
'arm."
This reference to the nice paternal feeling of Mr. West affected us both
strangely.
"But," continued Mrs. West, "I'm leavin' 'im the 'ome, at all events.
Bert can't come to no pertickler 'arm so long's 'e's got a home.
"Mr. West 'isself was always a rare one for 'ome. The boy takes arter
'im."
*XVIII*
*THREE DIALOGUES*
The Mission of the Healer is a fine and a noble one, and I have often
confided this original thought to my friend Doctor Brink, who declares
that such confidences are helpful to him. And I now desire to record,
without comment, three dialogues which drifted in to me at intervals one
Sunday, when I was sitting on the doctor's gas-stove.
I.--MORNING
VISITOR: And 'e's ser fretful, Doctor, and 'is breathin's ser sick, and
'e don't appear to 'ave no appetite.
DOCTOR: Bring him to the light here. I just want--ah!
VISITOR: I give 'im a soothin' powder, too, last night--a large one. I
bought it at the chimmis. They're supposed to be very good, them
Parker's soothin' powders.
DOCTOR: I'm afraid that this is rather serious.
VISITOR: Down't you think they're very good, Doctor--them Parker's
soothin' powders?
DOCTOR: I'm afraid there's not much doubt that this child has got
diphtheria.
VISITOR: I bin very careful with 'im, Doctor. I give 'im a soothin'
powder.
DOCTOR: Where do you live?
VISITOR: Fourteen Mulberry Street. It's next to the oil shop.
DOCTOR: How many rooms?
VISITOR: Was you gointer send 'im away then, Doctor? Oh, down't send
'im away?
DOCTOR: How many rooms?
VISITOR: Down't send 'im away, Doctor!
DOCTOR: I haven't said anything about sending him away--so far. Answer
my questions like a sensible woman. You want him to get better, don't
you?
VISITOR: I down't want you to send 'im away. I kin look arter 'im
meself. There's on'y six of us, an' we got three rooms, an the other
two boys kin sleep with me mother in the kitchen? Down't send him away!
DOCTOR: I'm very much afraid, Mrs.--ah--Mrs. Cooper, that it doesn't
quite rest with me whether the boy is taken away or not. He's got
diphtheria, that's certain, and I'm legally compelled to report the
case. It is for the Public Health people to decide whether they take
the boy or leave him. _I_ think you ought to be glad to let him go.
He'll be well looked after.
VISITOR: Down't send 'im away!
DOCTOR: But why not, Mrs. Cooper? You want him to get better, don't you.
You can't possibly nurse him yourself. You have the other children to
attend to, and the home to take care of, and your husband----
VISITOR: Yus, an' there's me 'usband, too. 'E won't let you take 'im.
DOCTOR (_very patiently_): I've said before that I don't want to take
him. It is the health officers who will take him if he's taken at all.
My duty is done when I've reported the case.
VISITOR: What you wanter tell 'em for? What you wanter put the little
chap away for?
DOCTOR: I'm telling them because I shall be punished if I don't. But I
think it's very foolish and ungrateful of you to make this fuss. I only
want to do the best I can for you and your baby. You want him to get
better, don't you?
VISITOR: Down't send 'im away! Let me send me 'usband round to talk to
you. Never mind about the punishment an' that, Doctor. My 'usband won't
tell nobody. I'd like you to talk to me 'usband, Doctor.
DOCTOR: And I would rather like to talk to your husband. I can explain
things more clearly to him, perhaps. Send him round at once.
VISITOR: Very likely it ain't the diftheria at all, Doctor. I'm sure me
'usband won't 'ave 'im took away.
II.--MIDDAY
DOCTOR: And what can I do for _you_?
VISITOR: I come round yere to talk about the boy Cooper. I'm 'is
father. The child ain't to be took away, see? 'E ain't got diftheria
at all.
DOCTOR: I'm sorry to have to differ from your diagnosis, Mr. Cooper, but
the child _has_ got diphtheria. And I'm very much afraid that he's got
to be taken away. It doesn't rest with me; I merely have to report----
VISITOR: If you wanter know the troof, Doctor, we've called in Doctor
Popham. See? And Doctor Popham don't believe as the boy 'ave got
diftheria at all. And 'e's sent the boy some physic. And 'e's gointer
'ave another look at 'im termorrer. And we've took the case outer your
'ands, see? So you needn't trouble to send in no reports to nobody.
That child ain't bein' took away. You needn't trouble to interfere no
more. The boy is stoppin' 'ome, along of 'is lawful parents. See?
DOCTOR: Did Doctor Popham examine the child's throat?
VISITOR: What's that gotter do with you? The boy ain't got diftheria.
And 'e ain't gotter be moved.
DOCTOR: It has got this much to do with me--that I _did_ examine the
child's throat. I'm not suggesting to you that I think he has
diphtheria; I'm telling you that he jolly well _has_ got it. I _know_.
When you go home you can see for yourself. Look in the little chap's
throat and you will see a round white patch about the size of a
sixpence. That, my friend, is diphtheria.
VISITOR: The boy ain't gotter be moved.
DOCTOR: That's not my business. Somebody else will decide about that.
But I don't suppose he'll let you murder the child, even if you are its
father.
VISITOR: 'E's my child, ain't 'e? And 'e's in my 'ouse. Nobody ain't
gointer take my child away without I tells 'em to. See?
DOCTOR: It isn't only this one child we have to consider. What about
your two other children? What about all the other children in the
house?
VISITOR: Let other people look after their own, same's what I'm willing
to do fur _my_ own. A man's got a right to 'is own children and nobody
ain't gointer touch no child o' mine without I lets 'em.
DOCTOR: You stand on your rights, do you?
VISITOR: That's it. All the corpuscular 'ealth orficers in England
ain't gointer take my lawful child away from me. See?
DOCTOR: I don't know whether it's ever been mentioned to you before, but
you are rather by way of being a Social Problem.
VISITOR: It ain't your place to be saucy. I know me rights, and neither
you nor any man is going to tell me as it's right to rob a person of
their lawful child. And I don't want none of your sneers nor I don't
want none of your nicknames. You're out o' this job, see? I've called
in Dr. Popham. You and yere Latin nicknames!
DOCTOR: I can put it into English if you like. You're a pudding-headed
fool. Good-day.
VISITOR: What about my child? Are you gointer promise to leave 'im
alone?
DOCTOR: Of course I am. You can kill your whole family for all I care.
I've sent in my report to the authorities, and there's an end of it.
Good-day.
VISITOR: You've reported, 'ave ye? Oh, very well, then. We'll see.
That boy ain't gotter be shifted. See?
DOCTOR: All right. Get out.
VISITOR: We've called in Dr. Popham, and 'e's weighed _you_ up. See?
The boy ain't got diftheria at all. Nor 'e ain't gotter be shifted.
DOCTOR (_in simpler terms_): May Heaven administer to your requirements.
Get out.
III.--EVENING
VISITOR: If you please, Doctor, I come round ere about the boy Cooper.
I'm the father, sir. We want you to come round and see 'im. 'E's very
bad, sir.
DOCTOR: Made rather fools of yourselves, haven't you?
VISITOR: We ain't give 'im none o' Dr. Popham's medsun, sir; not a drop.
We want you to come round, Doctor. 'E's very bad.
DOCTOR: All right. I'll be round in half an hour.
VISITOR: Can't you come round at once, sir? 'E's very bad. 'E don't
seem able to swaller, sir, and there's lumps in 'is neck. And the man
from the 'ealth orfice ain't ser much as bin near us.
DOCTOR: That's your fault. I told him you were going to make a fuss,
and I suppose he's busy and has put it off until to-morrow.
VISITOR: Can't you make 'im come to-night, Doctor? The boy is very bad.
And one of the other boys is sneezin', and the other one 'e says there
is a funny feelin' in 'is thumb. Can't you come at once, Doctor?
DOCTOR: Wait one minute, then, till I've written these prescriptions.
VISITOR: Go' bless you, Doctor. We ain't ser much as looked at Dr.
Popham's physic. We ain't, straight. The boy is very bad. 'Is face 'as
gone a very funny colour. 'Ot this evenin', ain't it? Much obliged to
you, I'm sure, Doctor. Think you kin put it right? The boy _is_ bad.
It's a 'ot evenin'. What they playin' at in the 'ealth orfice,
Doctor--leavin' a man's child to die?
*XIX*
*CURING THE CURER*
"Yes, Aunt Isobel," said James--"I quite agree with you. The silly old
duffer ought certainly to take an anti-something. He's as down-hearted
and high-tempered as possible."
"Certainly," quoth Aunt Isobel--a thin and very definite lady, with a
wire-woven manner--"_something_ ought to be done. Your father is looking
very unwell. I attribute his condition to overwork and
undernourishment."
"Nourishment's all right, Aunt Isobel," protested James. "He eats
enough to fill an ox."
Aunt Isobel winced and raised an arresting forearm, as if to ward off
some physical menace. "You really do employ the most trying phrases, my
dear," she said. "Personally, I am a stronger believer in Anti-Nervo.
Two tablets, three times a day--one before each meal, and one after. It
is really a quite remarkable remedy. Poverty of blood is one of a great
number of complaints for which the makers themselves especially
recommend it. Poverty of blood is, of course, your father's chief
trouble. He is much under-nourished."
"You ought to see him walk into a steak," said James.
"If," pursued Aunt Isobel, "he really does receive a proper quantity of
food, then I'm inclined to fear that it is food of poor quality. If,
indeed, both the quality _and_ quantity of his food should prove to be
adequate, I can only suppose that he is suffering from insufficient
sleep. Or is it brain fag? It _might_, of course, be liver or weak
heart. Or some secret trouble, perhaps. Anti-Nervo is strongly
recommended for all these complaints. He must certainly be made to take
some Anti-Nervo."
"He must certainly be made to do something violent," admitted James.
"He's certainly got hold of a most phenomenal hump."
Aunt Isobel was again forced to push off imaginary assailants. "Where
_did_ you learn, my dear," she inquired, in a poignant sort of tone, "to
use such fearfully emancipated expressions? Another remedy in which I
have the greatest possible faith is Sal-Toxine. Do you know Sal-Toxine?
But, of course, you don't; it is quite a novel remedy. I myself have
only--why, here is your dear father."
And here, indeed, that gentleman was; wearing the gloomiest possible
air, and a very dirty collar. He blundered heavily through the door,
and cast himself heavily upon a chair. Having disembarrassed himself of
a hat and a stethoscope, he delivered an original and entertaining
monologue.
"May my bones burn in hell," he said, "if I conduct this profitable
enterprise for another damned minute. I've got the largest and dirtiest
and sickest collection of common drunks in London. I've got all the
Phthisics from here to Limehouse. Every pre-ordained son of a witch of
a bricklayer within hail of the parish has broken his bandy leg, and
called me in to set it. Every single woman that ever worked in a jam
factory is 'expecting' to-morrow, and there isn't a pint of milk or a
handful of coal between six of 'em. I haven't slept a wink since
yesterday morning, or sat down since last night. I haven't had a wash
since Monday, or a drink since last April. I'm fed up."
This speech was listened to by James with polite attention, but perfect
calm. Aunt Isobel, upon the other hand, was unable to suppress a
loudish shudder.
"Hullo!" cried Dr. Brink, with evident surprise. "Here's Isobel. How
are you, Isobel? Hear you've changed parsons again. What a rabid young
flirt you are."
"We have been discussing the subject of your deplorable poverty of
health," responded the flirt. "We have decided that you must be made to
take a tonic--Anti-Nervo, say, or Sal-Toxine. We have the very greatest
faith in them, especially Anti-Nervo. You take two tablets, three times
daily: one before and one after each meal."
"Can't I have one in my bath, as well?" asked Doctor Brink.
"The directions," responded Aunt Isobel, "are very explicit. Two
tablets three times daily--one before and one after each meal. It is a
wonderful remedy. My own doctor at Chiswick--a _really_ clever man--is
perfectly charmed with it. He has analysed it several times. He has
the most perfectly refined voice that I have ever met with in a man.
_He_ takes his profession quite seriously. He is an M.B. of Edinburgh,
and a surgeon as well, and they say he is quite the youngest man who has
ever attempted the two things at once. He plays the banjo most
delightfully."
"Good at cracking nuts, too, isn't he?" suggested the doctor in a tired
voice.
"Of course," continued Aunt Isobel, "we don't want to insist upon
Anti-Nervo if there is any other genuine tonic in which you have more
faith. I know many extremely intelligent people who simply swear by
Sal-Toxine; and then, of course, there is Pherantidote. I have heard
that Our Queen uses that. What is your opinion of Pherantidote?"
"Well," responded Doctor Brink, "it's a dam small bottle for
one-and-eight. Do you really think I'm seedy, Isobel?"
"We are both agreed that you require----"
"What I require, old girl," said Doctor Brink, rising slowly to his
feet, "is a job in the City. I want to try a new system of
exploitation. My game's too deadly simple: I'm tired of pumping aniline
dye and water into hungry bellies for a thousand a year. I'm tired of
the filthy working-man--tired of seeing him so close. He smells of
beer, and his hands are so cold. His eyes are awful, and they give me
nightmares.... I want to kill the cad more profitably. I want to start
a trouser-button works, or some chutney mills, or something. I can't
stand it any longer--this deadly boredom: this watching the dumb beast
die."
"Well," said Aunt Isobel, "I can seriously recommend you to pin your
faith to Anti-Nervo. You take two tablets three times daily."
*XX*
*MILK*
I have long been interested in Mr. Binney. He is the only milkman I have
ever seen who looks any different from other milkmen. His very voice is
different; for, whereas other milkmen are sudden and shrill of
utterance, Mr. Binney has cultivated a profounder, more scholarly
method, and he has a voice of deep bass quality.
I have sat at an upper window of the Bovingdon Street dispensary and
watched this tradesman closely when he has been conducting milkcans to
the houses opposite. I have observed his slow, deliberate tread, so
thoroughly in keeping with the fulness of his girth and stature. I have
noted his extensive face, so plain and wise and red. I have remarked
his drooping eyelid and crimson neck, his scant white locks, and row
upon row of chins--features insignificant in themselves, but, when
combined, imparting to his countenance a strangely judicial character.
This effect of power (such is the individuality of the man) receives
additional strength even from the trivial business of his calling. Mr.
Binney, when handing a milkcan through some parlour window, looks less
like a milkman than any other imaginable human thing. He handles the
pewter vessel gingerly, daintily, as if it were a precious casket, and a
sort of trembling eagerness is sometimes to be observed in his
demeanour.
There is nothing commercial in Mr. Binney's manner.
He does not seem to sell his milk. He bestows it.
To see him gingerly proffering his battered cans is to see, as it were,
an earthly Providence--a conscious benefactor, distributing Nature's
bounty to her helpless children.
He accepts the copper tokens which reward his ministrations with an air
of gracious calm as far removed from any taint of barter as are his
actions. You might suppose him to be a priest receiving offertory.
The same spirit of gentleness distinguishes his method of proclamation.
Mr. Binney does not use the cry of "Milk-ho!" which his fellow-milkmen
favour. I have already stated that the tone of his voice is deeper and
more profound than that which they employ. Pushing his little handcart
before him, he causes his utterance to correspond with his gait--which
is majestic.
"Milk! milk! _milk!_" he exclaims--or, rather, utters--in a tone which
is at once appealing and authoritative.
Mr. Binney so interested me that I reported him to the doctor. "What is
the mystery of this unusual milkman?" I said. But the doctor only
smiled.
A day or two afterwards, however, when I was seated in anxious
expectancy at the upper window, Doctor Brink came up and brought me my
answer. "Waiting for your milkman?" he said.... "Ha! I've just been
sent for to him. Come round with me now and see him in his little
home.... I shall want some help."
As we walked along, the doctor carried his explanation a little further.
"We shall have to take his clothes off," he observed. "If once we can
get him undressed he's fixed for a week, because he cannot hold things
steady, and he's fat, and his trousers are tight, and--oh, here we are."
A perfectly quiet and collected old lady received us on the doorstep.
"He's cut 'isself this time," she announced; "fell agin the railings by
the church. But he's very jolly and 'igh-sperited, Doctor, and I'm sure
the sewing won't be any trouble to you. Is this your assistant?"
The doctor nodded. "Where is he?" he demanded.
"In 'is own old armchair," replied the woman. "Per'aps you'll get 'is
clothes off, Doctor. It's on'y the trousers that matter. They'll puzzle
'im till Sunday _this_ time, they will."
We found Mr. Binney in the situation reported. He received us with
cheers and a poetic outburst.
"Dr. Brink,
Full of chink,
I _don't_ think"--
he exclaimed; adding a personal couplet--
"I'm old Binney,
Not so damned skinny."
"Doctor," he continued, "'ave a drink?" Upon the doctor declining this
offer, Mr. Binney chuckled loudly and extended--or tried to extend--an
arm. "Feel me pulse, old buck," he shouted. "Let's see if you know
yere business. If ye can feel old Binney's pulse I'll give you 'arf a
dollar, 'cause I'll be damned if ole Binney kin feel it 'isself."
"Loss of feeling, eh?" said the doctor, in his suavest tone. "Ha!
you'll feel _this_ all right." With which words he inserted a surgical
needle in Mr. Binney's cheek.
"Oy!" cried Mr. Binney, "keep orf the grarse!"
But the doctor continued to ply his busy thread, and Mr. Binney, being
temporarily incapable of performing any but the most elementary
movements, was constrained to endure this treatment. When the doctor
had completed it--Mr. Binney having several times admonished him to
"keep orf the grarse!"--and we had removed that garment which exerted
such a powerful influence upon the question of Mr. Binney's freedom,
that gentleman once more expressed himself in verse, saying--
"Doctor Brink,
Tip 'im the wink,
Give 'im a drink,
I don't think.
Put 'im in clink,
Tiddely-wink,
Tiddely-wink,
Give 'im a drink.
Give 'im a----
Good-bye, old pal, an' come agin termorrer."
We went again upon the morrow, and Binney expressed himself as being
glad to see us.
"I dunno 'oo your soft-lookin' friend may be," said Mr. Binney, "but I
know 'oo you are, Doctor, an' you done me a power o' good, an' I'm
grateful to you. Gettin' on fine, I am."
"That's _right_," exclaimed the doctor, looking as if he believed it.
"Keeping off the drink, of course, as I advised you?"
"Keepin' orf tadpoles!" cried Mr. Binney, with disdain. "I've 'ad five
brandies auready this mornin', an' not you, nor the ole woman, nor the
King 'isself would stop me. I know the cure for _my_ complaint."
The next morning Dr. Brink paid his third and last visit to this
patient. The patient willed it so, having reconstructed the frame of
his mind.
"Look 'ere, me man," said Mr. Binney upon this occasion, "I'm grateful
for what you done for me, and so on. See? But I've 'ad enough of you.
See? I'm very much obliged to you, and all that; but I don't want you.
I'm better now. I'm all right now. _I_ don't want no blinkin' doctors.
See what I mean? You're a clever fellow, no doubt, and I quite agree,
and you 'ave my thanks. But you can 'op it. See?"
Dr. Brink accordingly hopped it. But that his treatment had not been
wholly useless was testified by Mrs. Binney, who, when calling in that
evening for some more dark brown, announced, with a sigh of
satisfaction, that "'is trembles" was as bad as ever. "It'll be another
week 'fore ever 'e can put them trousers on," she cried triumphantly.
That was a week ago. This very day has witnessed Mr. Binney's return to
public life--properly habited and full of dignity.
I have been watching him, as, with his finest and most benevolent air,
he bestowed a can of wholesome, grass-fed nourishment upon one of the
numerous Barnstein children, who live opposite.
His hands, I thought, showed signs of more than usual eagerness as he
hooked a trembling finger round the handle of the can. There was an
expression as of reverence upon his face, and he yielded the liquid into
Miss Barnstein's keeping with a hesitancy, as of one loth to part from
his treasure.
His lips moved, and I could almost have believed that he had breathed a
blessing--a Latin blessing. Then I heard him speak--in deep, impressive
tones he spake.
"Be careful with it, missy," he said. "If you spill some, what'll
mother say? Now do be careful!"
With that he returned to his little hand-cart and pushed it slowly up
the road, walking with a measured gait and uttering, in rich and
reverent tones, his exhortation:--
"Milk! Milk! _Milk!_"
*XXI*
*TWO PATIENTS*
My friend, Mrs. Isadore Muntz, has been very ill, poor girl.
She is always rather ill, of course; there would not otherwise be much
point in being married to so rich and elderly a man as Isadore. But the
illness which I now have to record was a real one--a horrid one. It
involved the use of a surgeon's knife. It involved the complete
collapse of Isadore, whose world-famous bill-brokery was carried on
without the stimulus of his presence for nearly fourteen days.
For more than seven days of that period, it is said, he kept to his
chamber, and cried without ceasing. And he admitted, between his sobs,
to my aunt Elizabeth, that Sir Marmaduke Wilkins's fee for the operation
had amounted to a hundred guineas, besides an additional charge of
twenty guineas for the anaesthetist.
But Mrs. Isadore--Constance she used to let me call her--is getting
slowly better. Because she used to let me call her Constance and
because--because I am sorry for her, I went to the "At Home," which was
held at West Hampstead, in order--I suppose--to celebrate the result of
Sir Marmaduke Wilkins's efforts.
Less than eight weeks having elapsed since the occasion of Sir
Marmaduke's skilful treatment, she was still forbidden to be very
active. So she lay on a sofa, embowered with blossoms, and we rustled
up and cried over her. Isadore, the faithful creature, stood fast by
her right hand. This was perhaps responsible for Constance's notable
depression.
It is also possible that she thought of all those low-necked gowns
hanging useless on their pegs upstairs.
"You don't mean to say _you've_ come!" Constance exclaimed when I took
her hand; "I thought you hated Hampstead."
"And so I do," replied the tactful guest. "But I heard a funny story
yesterday, and----"
"That's all right," she said. "I'm sick of funny stories. Tell me
something tragic. Haven't you fallen in love lately?"
"Yes," I said, "and I've bought another dog."
"Tell me about the dog," she said.
So I described the dog for nearly twenty minutes, much to the enragement
of many mourners, who were waiting for an audience. When the laws of
decency compelled me to retreat, she was so kind as to ask me to convey
a form of greeting to the new dog.
"I will come and see him one day," she said. "But they won't let me
move for weeks yet, and when they do I've got to go to Bournemouth and
be wheeled about in a bath-chair. Isn't it horrid?"
"It is," I admitted, and I turned away to meet the cod-fish eye and
collected expression of Sir Marmaduke Wilkins, M.R.C.S. That scientist
was eating an ice with relish.
* * * * *
You may wonder what connection I trace between this episode and the life
of Bovingdon Street. There is a connection; but it traced itself. I
left the Muntz's stately mansion feeling in need of distraction, and
that distraction I sought from Doctor Brink and James. And James was
full of news.
"I've begun my professional education," she said. "I administered
chloroform to a case last week. Fee sixpence. Fatty still owes it me."
I turned to Fatty for his explanations.
"Pity me," said that gentleman, "I have a hussy for a daughter. One who
makes sport of her poor old father's need. I do owe her the money. I
shall continue to owe it. I am entitled to owe it. I only got
half-a-crown for the whole thing--anaesthetist's fee included.
"Men like Marmaduke Wilkins get a hundred guineas for the same
operation. And then the patient has to pay another ten or twenty for
the anaesthetist. When a high-class, if modest surgeon, like myself,
consents to perform these things for a wage which would offend the
dignity of a dustman, why, damme, it is his _duty_ to swindle the
anaesthetist. Why----"
"What was your patient?" I asked.
"The patient? Oh, a girl in Mulberry Street. Works at the pickle
factory. Pretty girl, only eighteen. James cried. Rather
unprofessional, what? Now she has the cheek to ask for sixpence!"
"What was--er--the result of your high-class surgery? Is the girl
alive?"
"Alive! Why, my insulting young friend, she's back again at the pickle
works. Went to work on the sixth day. _My_ girls don't die."
"At work again in six days--after--after _that_! And you let her!"
"Better work than starve," said the doctor brusquely.... "How did you
enjoy yourself at Hampstead this afternoon?"
*XXII*
*LOST!*
It isn't often that Dr. Brink permits himself to have emotions during
business hours, but even the doctor looked astonished when O'Flannigan
came into his consulting-room. We called him O'Flannigan, because he did
not leave a visiting-card, and we had to call him _something_. And he
spoke with a trace of the Irish accent. He was a very tall man and very
stout, having dead-white hair, which he wore in curls, and a very red
face. His clothes were all of them black, and they shone in places with
a sort of oily lustre. He wore black gloves and a black tie, and he
carried a black umbrella.
"Evenin', Doctorrr," said he; "ut's a fine place ye got hearrr!"
The doctor bowed.
"Ut is a fine place," repeated the visitor, tapping the oilcloth with
his umbrella point; "but, begad, 'tis a mericle how you kin do ut.
Privut inkum purrhaps?"
"Why, yes," acknowledged Dr. Brink, "my income is certainly a private
matter."
"The divil ut is!" commented the visitor. "Me own's so damned privut
Oi've lost sight of ut this ten yeers past. Midwifery connection is
good, Oi onderstand. Ut's a sound, domestic practus, Doctorrr?"
The doctor nodded. Wonder had made him speechless.
"That's good now," ejaculated the visitor, holding tight to the
mantelpiece as he fished with his umbrella for a chair. "Give me a
sound domestic practus. It's these damned Alcoholics and so forth which
Oi deprecate, Doctorrr. They're no use to a man. They nevorrr pay up,
they nevorrr git bettorrr, and, be jabers, they nevorrr damned well die.
Ye put the takuns at three hunderrrd, Doctorrr? Begad, 'tis a poor
inkum. Faith, Oi've known a man do bettorrr cuttin' corns. 'Tis a cash
trade, is ut not, Doctorrr?"
"It is," said Dr. Brink. "What can I do for you?"
"Do for me?" echoed the visitor. "Whoi, if tis a drink yure profferin'
me, Doctorrr, Oi will name the ush'll. Three hunderrrd, eh? Begad,
'tis a paltry inkum--a damned dirrrty, snivelling sneakin' wasp-waisted
inkum for a gentleman to live upon. But 'tis a cash trade, to be shure,
and there's no anxiety, to be shure. If they die, why, dammit, they
die. You take yure thruppence and they take their chance. A veterinary
trade, in fact, Doctorrr. Do ye walk yure rounds, Doctorrr?"
"Cab 'em," snapped out Dr. Brink.
The visitor held on to the mantelpiece with both hands. "Holy
Motherrr!" he cried. "A cab is ut, ye say? On three hunderrrd? And Oi
been surgeon-majorrr in th' Army! Whoi, begad, Doctorrr, I have known
the toimes when half a dozen of us in th' Eightieth could drink yure cab
away at a sittin'. Cab did Oi say? Be the grace of Heaven, there was
gentlemen with us would dispose of a pair-horse brougham in the same
period. Cab? To the divil with cabs. Oi must stump ut. Stump ut on me
ten old toes. Meself, moind ye--a retired surgeon-majorrr of her late
Majesty's Army. And me over sixty, Doctorrr! It is thus that Britain
treats her warriors. Begad, they've even stole me pension from me.
When do Oi take overr, Doctorrr?"
"Take over what?"
"Why, dammit, man," began the visitor, but his flush of anger suddenly
died down. A look of bewilderment took its place. "Will ye pardon me,
Doctorrr," said the visitor slowly, in a voice which sounded husky.
"But tell me am Oi roight in assuming that I was privileged to meet ye
hearrr lost noight?"
The doctor shook his head.
"Then," cried the visitor, moved this time by an evidently powerful
emotion, "then tell me, man, for God's sake, tell me, is this not the
practus I bought from ye last noight?"
"You certainly haven't bought _this_ practice," responded Dr. Brink.
"It isn't for sale."
"Begad," mused the visitor, slowly rubbing his chin, "begad, Oi might
have known as much. It is a fine place ye have hearrr. Ye wouldn't be
for sellin' ut. Not be any means. 'Tis a fine place and a fine
practus. Indeed you would be foolish to part with ut, Doctorrr. At any
rate, for the sum Oi paid ye yesterday. But, begad, Oi never paid ut
ye. Indeed I didn't. Was I so drunk then? Oi doubt ut.
"Hearrr am Oi, an honest, Christian man, a professor of the healun art,
the noblest art which---- Begad, Oi _know_ Oi paid ut ye. And be
jabers, hearrr's--hearrr's the front-door key--yure front-door key--his,
Oi should say, Doctorrr, which he gave me when Oi, when Oi----
"For the love of Hiven, Doctorrr, tell me--tell me truly, Doctorrr,
where in Satan's name is the dirty little practus which I bought and
paid for yesterday?"
*XXIII*
*THE SURVIVOR*
Everybody must still remember the sensational explosion at Stoat's
cordite factory in Limehouse. It was quite the talk of last year's
gooseberry season. I may remind you that one departmental manager, one
bookkeeper, one lady typist, and eighteen hands were utterly and
instantaneously atomised; that the managing director himself sustained a
shock; and that more than seventy operatives had to be removed in
ambulances at the company's expense.
It will be remembered that very High Personages sent telegrams of
sympathy. A sum of money was publicly subscribed for the relief and
burial of the sufferers. The great heart of England was touched, though
it did not leave off beating.
But those whose recollection of that horrible, soul-thrilling
catastrophe is as keen as mine will remember that, viewed from the broad
and enlightened standpoint of news-value, its most important feature was
Mr. John Boyle. This honest artisan went up with the gentleman
book-keeper and the lady typist and the hands. But unlike them he came
down unbroken and almost unhurt, being so fortunate as to alight upon a
providential mound of cotton-waste.
Few people will need to be reminded how this clever action was rewarded.
A special (_D---- M----_) collection, amounting to nearly L300, was
raised in three weeks and presented to Mr. Boyle in recognition of his
courage and ingenuity. Pictures of Mr. Boyle in all varieties of dress,
attitude, and employment were published in the journals. I have an
especially vivid recollection of one picture, appearing in a Sunday
newspaper. The photographer had caught the noteworthy features of Mr.
Boyle at a particularly happy moment; and with consummate art he had
represented our hero as emerging from a bad fog with a patch on his
chest. This study bore the following inscription: "John Boyle at Home:
He nurses the baby."
The next stage in Mr. Boyle's development, or (to state it more
correctly) in the development of the public attitude towards Mr. Boyle,
was his engagement to appear at the Shoreditch Hippodrome in a dramatic
entertainment called "The Man Who was Blown Up."
But by the time he had reached this altitude of greatness the fame of
Mr. Boyle was already well established; his name had become familiar to
the national ear. For months before the day of Mr. Boyle's historic
decision to blend his destiny with that of the national drama it had
been a common thing to hear men say to other men: "'Ullo, Charlie; been
'avin' one with Boyle?"
This oft-repeated sally, which never failed to provoke laughter, was
popularly supposed to embody a charge of alcoholic excess.
In these days, when Mr. Boyle as "The Man Who was Blown Up" has enjoyed
three hundred consecutive nights of fame, it is regarded as a silly
thing to joke about him. He is now a solemn National fact.
But it was my own particular good fortune to meet Mr. Boyle at a period
when the hand of Fame had barely touched him. I made his acquaintance
within twenty-four hours after the tremendous moment which had so
exalted Mr. Boyle and his fortunes.
Mr. Boyle, having been detained for a brief period at a local infirmary,
was anointed with surgical balm and dismissed; when he immediately came
round to the sixpenny surgery of Dr. Brink, demanding a certificate of
injuries which should enable him to extract some monetary compensation
from the coffers of Stoat's Cordite Works, Limited. Mr. Boyle was not
then prognostic of the public rewards which awaited him.
Mr. Boyle having stated his business, the doctor became excited and
summoned me to leave the hiding-place and join him openly in the
consulting-room.
"This chap," he explained, "is John Boyle, who was blown up with other
employed objects at the cordite works, and who is still alive. If you
are a real journalist you will get 'copy' out of him."
I took Mr. Boyle by the hand and I said to him--
"You have had an awful experience, old chap. My God, you have lived
through an awful thing."
Mr. Boyle said: "I believe you, guv'nor. Now this is a funny thing,
ain't it. I was 'it on the leg by somethink; and whatever it was, it
went right through me trouser but never 'urt the sock. Funny thing,
that, ain't it?"
"Quite extraordinary," I admitted. "All the other poor chaps in your
shop are dead, aren't they?"
"Twelve chaps and four females; all dead," admitted Mr. Boyle. "Funny
thing, wasn't it? Right through me trouser and never touched the sock!"
"Eighty injured from the other shops!" I reflected. "What did you
think--how did you feel, when--when you realised it all?"
"I never thought much abaht it," responded Mr. Boyle. "Me leg was
'urtin'."
"It isn't a matter one need encourage him to think about," suggested the
doctor.
"I can't 'elp thinking about one thing, though," interpolated Mr. Boyle.
"Such a funny thing: Right through----"
"It must have been an awful moment," I hazarded, "when you came to your
senses and looked about and saw the--the awfulness of it. What did you
do?"
"I don't remember, not clearly," responded Mr. Boyle.... "I know I
laughed. It seemed so queer for anything to rip right through a
person's trouser-leg and not go near 'is sock."
*XXIV*
*MORE OF PRUDENCE*
Prudence and midday post arrived together at Baffin's washhouse on the
day appointed for her second stance.
"Oo-er, Mr. Baffin," was her greeting: "_I_ got your letters. Gimme the
stamps, wown't you? Me an' my friend we allus c'lect stamps. We ain't
gointer stop till we got ten thousand, and then we're gointer make a
bonfire when my mother's out. 'Ere, an' I ain't bin 'avin' _'arf_ a
lark with your postman, Mr. Baffin. Oo, an' the conductor on the bus
what I come by, 'e wasn't 'arf drunk, I tell you. I was frightened, I
was, 'cos my father useder git drunk, an' once 'e bit my mother. 'E
_was_ a bad man, my father, an' they made 'im go out an' be a soldier in
Egypt, an' 'e got the fever in 'is 'ead, an' we got a picture of 'im at
'ome before 'e was buried, an' you ought to see the funny black man
a-settin' alongside of 'im. 'Ere, I'm all in a knot at the back, Mr.
Baffin: arst your friend to undo me. An' don't you foget to keep them
stamps, an' I spoge it's the chin agen, an' I 'ope you've remembered the
muffins!"
"Yes," responded Baffin, "I remembered to get the muffins, and I've also
remembered to get an empty flour-sack. Know what that's for?"
Prudence shook her head--gravely, wonderingly.
"To smother up tiresome girls in that _will_ wriggle and _will_ talk,"
explained Baffin.
"He! he!" giggled Prudence. "Wown't tie up _me_, I know. 'Cos if you
was to do that you couldn't paint me. See?" She gurgled with triumph.
"And now," said Baffin, "it is time to leave off playing. Sit up, like
a good girl, and keep quiet. Get rid of that bull's-eye."
"Yes," said Prudence. And the lollipop was "got rid of" of by a simple
and effective means. "I _should_ laugh if someone was to tread on it,"
observed Prudence. "If my mother was to see---- Oo-er, Mr. Baffin,
down't 'oller at me, please, Mr. Baffin. I _will_ be good, I will;
on'y, if you look like that I shall cry, 'Cos you frighten me."
Silence reigned for a little space, whilst Prudence, with clenched
hands, maintained an attitude of strenuous repose. Baffin's actions
alternated between brief and seemingly motiveless dabs at his canvas,
and a critical inspection of his model, for the purposes of which he
spread out his legs and wagged his head--slowly and pensively, from side
to side--like an elderly cockerel surveying the domestic landscape.
This proceeding terminated in a sigh that had all the eloquence of a
shout, and Baffin pounced, as it were, upon his canvas.
Prudence selected this moment in which to throw up both her hands, and
wail with sorrow. "Ooh," she moaned, "ooh, I am a bad gel, I am. Ooh,
what will my mother say when I go 'ome? She give me a letter to powst,
she did, an' I never powsted it, an' it's a letter for our landlord, it
is, an' I promised faithful to put it into the first box I come to. An'
now I've fogot it, I 'ave, an' my mother 'll be cross. An' I love my
mother, I do, an' she's got a bad place on her arm, an' I am a bad,
wicked gel to tease an' trouble 'er, I am. Oo-er, I must get up and go
out, Mr. Baffin. I must, 'cause I fogot to powst my mother's letter."
Baffin did the philosophic thing: put away his canvas, and put on the
kettle, and invited his sitter to unsit and rejoice. That young person
responded to this invitation by sitting wonderfully silent--strangely
still--for ten minutes. It was only at the very end of this unique
performance that we perceived her to be shedding tears. Real tears,
this time.
It was possible in that moment to realise that Prudence had passed her
twenty-second year. Baffin touched her shoulder, and she shrank from
him and shuddered. She spoke, and her voice was the voice of a woman.
"Lemme alone: lemme alone. You donnow what a un'eppy gel I am.
You--you----"
It finished in a gurgle.
Then, with the laudable motive of clearing the air, Baffin referred in a
tone of banter to the still visible presence of red flannel. The
success of his experiment amazed us both. All in a moment the whims and
capers of infancy possessed her again, and she succumbed to an ecstasy
of wriggles.
"Ooh, 'ere, 'ere, Mr. Baffin; 'ere, I say, what do you think some man
'as done? Some man 'as sent me a--a something: a underneath something,
all white. Yes, reely!"
"An' my mother says it didn't 'arf cost somethink, neether. But ain't
'e got a cheek to do it? 'Cos it ain't right for a man to send presents
like that to a gel when she's grown up: 'cos my mother says it's takin'
a liberty. Whoever sent me it, 'e must 'a' been a artist because of the
tasty yoke. My mother says as I'm a grown-up gel now, an' I got to be
very pertickler.
"Oo, it is pretty, though, I tell you: pink ribbon on the shoulders, an'
my mother says 'ooever 'e is 'e oughter be ashamed of 'isself, an' all
my gel cousins from Catford are comin' on Sunday to 'ave a look, an'
when I find out 'oo it is, my mother says I can tell 'im what I think of
'im."
Stimulated and cheered by the thought of this exciting prospect,
Prudence fell upon the muffins. Her appetite, at any rate, was
thoroughly grown up, and, having performed a veritable gastronomic feat,
she curled herself up on the musty old curtain which carpeted Baffin's
"throne" and--went to sleep.
Whereupon, the unauthorised kittens--they crawled everywhere--you found
them in the milk jug--promptly employed the skirts of Prudence as a
playground.
"Move those kittens away, like a good chap," Baffin called out to me.
"They'll worry Prudence when she wakes up. Hates the silly beggars, you
know."
But to our surprise, when Prudence did wake up, she stretched forth a
foot, and began to tease the plumpest of them with the point of her
shoe.
"Funny objec's, ain't they, when they're fat and soft, like this?" said
Prudence. "Breakable, ain't they? No strength in their legs. On'y fit
to lie on their backs an' be tickled."
And Prudence stooped down, and lifted the plump one into her lap.
"Ooh, my! 'is little pores ain't 'arf soft!" She spoke in the woman's
voice that we had heard but once before. "'Is little pores ain't 'arf
soft; you could bite 'em."
She kissed a paw.
"Ain't 'e got a funny morsel of a nose. Sich a cheeky nose; such a teeny
one. You could bite it. You--you----"
She lifted the absurd little animal to her face, and rubbed her cheek
against his cosy side, and she kissed his impertinent nose.
"Oo's a precious, then!" continued Prudence. "Oo's a sleepy precious.
My, 'e's a sleepy little 'elpless little lump of fat! Ain't you, boy?
What price a see-saw, fat boy?"
She held him so that he hung by his shoulders in an attitude that was
not suggestive of dignity. And she dandled and bounced him in a manner
with which kittens are not familiar. She lifted him to her face again,
and made as if to kiss the nose once more.
But the lips, half bunched for that purpose, parted suddenly, as if with
pain--as if with wonder--as if with horror. The kitten slipped from her
fingers, and fell with an indignant mew into the soft, warm haven of her
lap. And Prudence's hands went up to her startled face, and her hair
fell over her like a shroud, and she sobbed as women sob.
"Oh, Gawd!" she cried; "its eyes, its eyes! Its little, winkin' eyes!
Oh, mother, _mother_!"
*XXV*
*A TALK WITH JAMES*
I had extinguished the flame of the doctor's gas-stove, and was warming
myself on the lid, when James burst in and interrupted me.
"Come off it, like a dear, and listen," said James. "I've had a
proposal!"
I wondered, for a moment, whether this flippant manner of stating a
serious fact did not call for some form of fatherly rebuke. But all that
I actually said was: "Well, I hope you think you've started soon
enough."
"Started!" echoed James, regarding me with an air as of dignified
amazement. "My dear young man, I _started_ years ago. Why, Baffin was
my third; and Baffin began to woo me before I was eleven."
"How long ago was that?" I meekly inquired.
"Don't you be rude," said James. "I take a grown-up size in almost
everything. If Baffin perseveres, I suppose I shall really have to
accept him--if it's only to make him leave off wearing those New Art
ties. But, really and truly, I'd rather not be married at all. I don't
believe I've got a married mind. I'm much too fond of rats."
"But," I ventured to point out, "people have been known to combine the
two interests."
"Not successfully," asserted James. "Rats require a fearful lot of
attention. Another thing about Baffin is his hands. I really
_couldn't_ be married to them."
"Why 'another' thing?" I inquired. "You haven't stated any firstly."
"I daresay my grammar isn't quite correct, but I haven't noticed that
yours is perfect," rejoined James. "And, anyhow, my ideas are sound
even if my grammar is weak. Of course, one could _train_ him to take
care of his nails; but with rats you have more to show for your trouble.
He really was most touching."
"Baffin has a fine vein of sentiment," I admitted.
"Why Baffin?" demanded James. "I was talking about Mr. Grimsdick."
"Pardon me," I said. "You think so rapidly, and my hands are cold. Who
is Mr. Grimsdick?"
"The one I was telling you about," explained James. "He's our grocer."
"But you never were telling me about him," I protested. "He is quite a
new character."
"Nonsense," cried James. "Why, the very first thing I said to you was
that Mr. Grimsdick had proposed to me. At least, I take it as a
proposal. He held my hand and----"
"Excuse me," I ventured to observe, "but do you think it quite correct
in the daughter of a respected family physician that she should go about
the country holding hands with grocers? Now had it been----"
James cut short my speech with characteristic impatience. "Mr.
Grimsdick," she said, "has been holding my hand for years."
"Does he sell lard?" I inquired.
"He is a very religious man, and when his wife died, when I was about
seven, he used to give me raisins and pat my head to comfort himself.
And this afternoon, when he gave me my change, he held my hand and he
said, 'R! Miss, I expect we shall soon see you round yere shopping on
your own account. How time do fly, to be shaw. You'll be having your
hair up soon. And yet it don't seem no time since the days when you
used to sit on the cheese barrels and swing your little legs and heat my
raisins. 'E'll be a lucky young fellar whoever 'e is. They'll 'ave to
'urry up, miss, some of 'em--what? I on'y wish I was a young man--_I'd_
give some of 'em a lead.'
"So I said, 'Never mind, Mr. Grimsdick. I shall always come to you for
my soap and tea.'
"And he laughed. And he said, 'R! We shan't see much of you round 'ere,
I reckon, miss. You'll be marrying into the aristocracy and goin' to
live at Herne Bay or Clacton.'
"So then I gave him Fatty's well-known speech about the Idle Rich.
"And he said, 'Oh! If that's your way of thinkin' there's a chance for
all of us. Well, miss, there's a empty chair in my parlour and a seat
be'ind the cash desk.' _I_ call that a proposal."
"A most definite and unequivocal proposal," I agreed. "What did you say
next?"
"Oh," said James, "there was nothing else of importance. We got off on
to the subject of Carlsbad plums: they were beauties, but too dear. He
wouldn't reduce them."
"Pooh!" I cried. "And he calls himself a lover!"
"_All_ men aren't like Baffin and other people, thank goodness," said
James disdainfully. "Mr. Grimsdick thinks about the future. But I'd
rather go in for rats, I think. There's Baffin, for instance: he never
shuts a door after him."
"Rats don't either," I submitted.
"But cats don't open them," argued James, not without logic. "And then
there's always having to be at home on the second Tuesday. Really, I
can't decide about my future at all. Most girls haven't any
difficulties, because they can make up their minds to be nurses and
relieve the sufferings of the poor. But I've been brought up to that
sort of thing, and it bores me. Of course, you can always get an
opium-eater, or drunkard, or something, and devote your life to
reforming him. But then, again, they always smell of it. Really, it's
very hard. And Baffin's so irritable. Look at the way men fuss over
trifles. And if you get one who is clean and not fussy, and not a
grocer, and decently young, he is sure to be ugly and a bore."
I said, "You are referring now, I suppose, to Boag, the Conative
Meliorist?"
"No," replied James. "Mr. Boag is a bore, but he isn't downright ugly.
As a matter of fact, I was thinking of _you_."
"Oh!" I said.
"Yes," said James. "I know you like one to be frank. Apart from
everything else, men make me sick. It will really have to be rats."
*XXVI*
*THE APRIL BARGE*
I set out, sedately enough, one April morning, to rescue James from her
aunt at Bayswater. I set out grandly enthroned upon a 'bus.
But I came quite unexpectedly upon this April Barge, and James and her
aunt were forgotten.
The April sun had come out sharp to time, you see, and was winking
fitfully upon all of us, like the unsettled, rakish fellow that he is.
And a girl with two great baskets full of wondering daffodils had come
out, too; and some conscienceless vagabond was extracting melody from a
cornet. So that even the Regent's Canal, with its sombre vicinage and
sulky craft, seemed, as if by some surprising effort, to have taken on
an air of sweetness and youth and hope.
You could consider this fact at leisure as our 'bus toiled slowly up the
rise of a road which spans the canal. There was a public-house in front
of us--the public-house and the cornet seem to be inseparably united in
this neighbourhood--but the canal was to one's left, and appeared,
somehow, to convey that air of refreshment which the tavern so
conspicuously lacked.
As one looked down upon the face of these waters, so strangely heartened
by the sunlight, a sort of certainty grew upon him that they would break
suddenly into perspective; that their vista would cease to be obscured
by coal wharves and cranes and hoardings; that somebody's whisky,
commended to your notice in large white letters on a blue-enamelled
background, would fade and fade and fade, until it merged with the white
clouds and the blue sky behind it. Then need you but sigh and sit back,
beholding a silver streak set snugly between hills, and flowing,
flowing, flowing to the edge of the world. Instead of which----
Pooh! There was no instead. The April sun kept winking at the
daffodils, and the daffodils kept staring at the sun, and the cornet-man
made music by the waterside. So that even a poet might have smiled at it
all. For here, I'll swear, was none of your mere "waterways," created
by syndicates for profit; here was none of your world capitals. Just a
little old river, sunning itself gratefully in a little old town that
God had made.
And, as if to strengthen this conceit, a woman came up through the
hatchway of a barge that I was looking at. She was wearing a
sun-bonnet, in accordance with the custom of barge-women, and she stood
up gracefully, one hand on her hip, the other before her eyes, to seek
out the cornet player.
We are the boys of the bulldawg breed
What's made ole Hengland's Nime.
Those were the words which had inspired the melody which the
cornet-blower was blowing. The woman tapped her foot in time with the
notes.
Her husband came up then, accompanied by tobacco clouds and a baby. He
seemed to be a fortunate sort of husband, for I noticed that the woman
laughed appreciatively at some joke which he made.
Then the man's eye wandered to the canal-side, and he caught sight of
the daffodil-girl, who was standing there. And what must the fellow do
but throw kisses to her, which gallantry was reciprocated by the
flower-girl. The barge-woman laughed at this new jest with even more
good humour (if that were possible) than that which she had shown
before. The man shouted some message or other to the flower-girl, and
she replied, whereupon he handed the baby to his wife, saying, "Catch
'old, Fatty!"--an utterance which I heard without hearing, as one can
when an April sun is shining on men's hearts. And, advancing to the
side of the boat, the man held out his arms, and the girl threw
daffodils towards him.
The first bloom fell into the water, and the second; the third he
caught. One more poor daffodil was drowned, and he caught the two next.
So that there was one for his cap, and one for the missus, and one for
the baby, who, being now safely delivered from the paternal arms (which
were not built for cradling babies), needed but the additional stimulus
of a yellow thing to marvel at ere it smiled as largely as any of them.
And upon my word I smiled, too, and could, indeed, have laughed
outright. But I sat in awe of a fat man on the adjacent seat. He did
not belong to that order of lunatics who laugh for nothing in the
sunshine. "What we want," he was saying to his companion, "what we
want," he said, with his eyes fixed tight upon this April barge, "what
we want is a total _change of Government_. Nothin' won't ever be right
again till we get it."
I had a heavy parcel of books on my knee, and to drop them heavily upon
his foot had been, as it were, the accident of a moment. But the sweet
temperance of springtime had stolen into my blood, and I forbore.
Besides which there were the barges and the daffodils, and they were
better worth a man's consideration than this fool.
So I looked over the side again, and saw that the barge-man had turned
his attention to the cornet-blower, with whom he was exchanging highly
flavoured sarcasms. With a view, probably, of adding zest to his
humours, and because a springtime madness was upon him, he had changed
headgear with his wife, and stood there in her sun-bonnet, grimacing and
laughing. He had a long barge-pole in his hand, and somehow--I don't
quite know how it happened--in assuming to hurl that weapon at the
cornet-blower, he overbalanced himself, and fell sideways into the
water, striking his head as he fell against the side of another barge,
which was moored close to his own in that jumble fashion which is
peculiar to barges.
He came up again almost directly, looking queer in his wife's sun-bonnet
(for he had tied the tapes beneath his chin), and then immediately sank
again. The nerveless ineptitude of it all made one angry with the man:
it seemed to be wilful.
As for the wife, she looked wonderingly over the side, and realisation
came to her so slowly that a laugh still flickered faintly on her face
when he came up again. Even then, the sound which she uttered was as
much like a chuckle as a cry. And when words came to her, they were few
enough. "Oh, my pore man!" she moaned. "Oh, my pore man! Oh, my pore
man!"
And the baby lay on its back, and chuckled knowingly into the petals of
a dishevelled daffodil.
Our 'bus had made the bend of the canal bank by this time, and now was
parallel with the water, and exactly opposite to this barge. Under the
united stimulus of instinctive curiosity and instinctive horror, the
driver pulled up sharp; and so the 'bus stood still, and we passengers
sat there, gaping at that funny thing in the sun-bonnet as it came up
for a second time and sank again.
"Oh, my pore man! Oh, my pore man!" moaned the wife.
And the cornet-blower, pale with horror, still applied himself
automatically to the cornet. He had changed his tune since first I
heard him, and the aquatic feats of the man in the sun-bonnet were
conducted to music, the strains of which, being interpreted into words,
ran as follows--
Hi! Hi! clear the road
For the rowdy, dowdy boys.
It came up again for the third time, and the woman on the barge grabbed
frantically at nothing, and tore her arm in the effort, so that a
crimson splash mingled with the eddying waters as he sank again.
And then the cornet-blower remembered himself, and dropped his cornet
hastily, as though it burned him. And, of all queer things for a
cornet-blower to do, he blubbered weakly, like a woman found out.
And the mischievous sun cast his shadow upon the water, and caused it to
dance joyously thereon, so that you would have deemed it to be the
shadow of one consumed with joy.
"Oh, my pore man!" cried the wife. "Oh, my pore man! Oh, my pore man!"
And the fat person from the next seat said to his friend, "I saw it
comin'. The giddy fool was larkin' about like a ape." And, in the
meantime, the giddy fool did not come up again.
Suddenly the flower-girl spoke. "My Gawd!" she screamed, struggling
feverishly to disentangle herself from her shawl and the straps of her
basket and her fringe; "my Gawd! where's all the blarsted men got to?
What's 'appened to you? For Christ's sake find a _man_, you fools!"
The 'bus emptied itself, and men ran into each other along the roadway,
and somebody ran for a policeman. So that there was a great deal of
noise and bustle shorewards. But at the same time certain male persons
of a much more silent and effective character made their appearance upon
the barges adjacent to the April barge. They did not shout, and they
did not run about much. They fetched poles and produced ropes, and one
of their number climbed into the water at the end of one; and presently,
after much probing and searching and jerking (and not a little
swearing), they brought him up at the end of a barge-pole, with a slime
concealing all of him except the sun-bonnet, which had slipped upon one
side, and looked more comical than ever.
"Oh, my pore man!" cried the barge-woman, who by now was surrounded by a
stimulating coterie of other barge-women.
"_E's_ done for!" said my fat neighbour, and spat contentedly.
And the baby snatched at its mother's head, which was still covered with
her husband's hat, from which a single daffodil was dangling.
In the meantime, they laid him down upon the deck of a barge, and relays
of men, acting under the direction of a policeman, jerked at his arms,
and pulled his legs, and pummelled his chest. But, as the fat man had
said, _he_ was done for, and these exhausting efforts only made the baby
laugh. So they lifted him hurriedly, with a change of manner, as
befitted a changed burden, and conveyed him to the shore, where he was
placed upon an ambulance and deported.
The fat man formed himself into an impromptu committee of inspection.
He returned to his friend (and my side) after a lengthy dalliance by the
ambulance, and spoke as one well pleased.
"Crack in 'is 'ead as long as my 'and. 'Orrible! Never noted afore that
blood 'ad such a salty smell to it. Quite sickly, ain't it? To think
of it, poor fool! ... And on a day like this, too!"
And he took off his hat and sunned himself. "I'm for a drink arter all
that," he added; and, his companion agreeing with him, he walked over to
the tavern, in company with many other of the 'bus passengers, and the
driver and conductor of that vehicle, and most of the barge-men.
They took the cornet-blower with them, and somebody collected a store of
coppers in that musician's interest, with which he was presented upon
the understanding that he should "bite off a yard o' somethink lively"
to cheer the mourning host withal.
So while the woman on the barge was being carried below deck by her
sympathisers; whilst faint gurgles issued from the daffodil-girl,
standing over her baskets by the water-side; whilst the sun winked down
upon all of us--the cornet-blower threw out his chest with an air
something at variance with the muddy tears upon his cheek, and blared
out a song of mourning.
Leave off tickerlin', leave off tickerlin',
Leave off tickerlin', Jock!
sang the mourners; and the jolly young sun must have winked itself into
a headache.
By the time our 'bus went on again every note of tragedy save one had
departed from the scene. That solitary note was supplied by the
daffodil-girl, who stood by her garden dabbing disconsolately at her
nose and eyes with an apron-end.
Nought was stirring on the April barge, save one plump little figure,
which squatted all by itself in the centre of the deck. They had
forgotten the baby in this coil. But the baby was quite happy--happier
than any of them. For it sat there, eating its father's cap, and
smiling amiably at the sunshine, as who should know that there is a
benign and beautiful purpose in everything, even unto the falling of a
sparrow.
The daffodils upon the waterside, pressing each other close within their
baskets, stared up into the heavens more wonderingly than ever.
*XXVII*
*THE CASE OF MRS. ROPER*
"Beg pardon, young fellar," said Mrs. Roper, "but ain't you the young
fellar from the doctor's?"
Mrs. Roper is a sullen-eyed lady with very many chins. She is, _vide_
her shop sign, a dealer in antiques, and, to quote the same authority,
old metal, old teeth, old glass and china, and every variety of new and
second-hand wearing apparel are bought and sold by her. She is not the
cleanest woman in London, nor is her shop the cleanest in Bovingdon
Street. But there is charm in the variety and abundance of Mrs. Roper's
assets, which are the working parts, as it were, of our complex
civilisation, amongst which tokens Mrs. Roper is always sitting,
silently, mournfully, by day and night, like a lonely widow on a coral
reef, surrounded by mementoes of a shipwreck.
I hastened to reply with civility to Mrs. Roper's question, for that
lady had just sold to me for ninepence an ancient brass tobacco jar,
which expert opinion has since valued at half a guinea.
"Then," said Mrs. Roper, "I will thank you to send the doctor round
'ere. Tell 'im that the stuff what 'e calls medicine is makin' me
worse."
"Madam," said I, thinking rather of my benefactress than of my friend,
"the doctor is outside now. Shall I----?"
"I thought I seed the shadder of 'is 'at," said Mrs. Roper; "call 'im
in."
I called the doctor, as directed, and he came in with a brisk and
cheerful air, kicking me brutally upon the shin in passing. I then,
very naturally, prepared to retire; but Mrs. Roper held me back.
"_You_ needn't run away, young man," she said. "I ain't ashamed for
anybody to 'ear _my sufferings_.... Doctor, what's to be done about me?
I'm very ill."
"Where?" said Dr. Brink, a little brusquely.
"It's a funny question for a doctor to ask," responded Mrs. Roper. "I
thought we paid you to find things out. But we do not want to waste
each other's time, and so I'll tell you.
"What's the matter with me is that I'm dying. That yellow medicine what
you sent me 'as brought the pains on worse than ever. You will 'ave to
try me with some red. Not that I look to that or any other doctor's
stuff to cure me now. Nothing can't cure me now. I've been neglected
too long. The on'y thing I got to look forward to now is me little
wooden ulster. It'll be a great pleasure to some people, I know, the
day the undertaker comes to measure me for it. What are you laughin'
at?"
"I wasn't laughing," protested the doctor. "I was yawning."
"Then what are you yawning at?"
"Up all night," explained the doctor.
"Ah!" quoth Mrs. Roper mysteriously, "I see, _you're_ one of the jolly
sort.... What you gointer do about me?"
The doctor equivocated. "Where's your husband?" he said.
Mrs. Roper closed both eyes and shook her head. "Wherever the man may
be," she responded, "you may be sure as it ain't be the bedside of 'is
dying wife. '_E's_ one of your jolly sort, likewise. 'E's one o' them
good-tempered, popular fellars, 'e is. _'E_ don't want no medicine."
"I was not proposing to give him any medicine," explained the doctor.
"I would like to talk to him concerning the painful state of--ah--health
in which--ah--you find yourself. When will he be in?"
"Ain't you got some more riddles you would like to ask a person?"
responded Mrs. Roper, with a bitter laugh. "How in gracious do _I_ know
when the man will be in? 'E's one of these _pleasant_ men, I tell you.
The sort as is always ready with a laugh or a joke or a funny remark.
'E ain't got time, bless you, to trouble 'is jolly self about no wives.
'E's one of your 'appy men--the sort that makes friends, and so on. 'E
would rather be out with 'is friends, 'e would, listenin' to their
flattery, than sit at 'ome 'ere with 'is lawful wife and 'ear the
_truth_ about 'isself. 'E's a plain man, too, and stammers 'orrible."
"I think," suggested Dr. Brink, "that I shall have to call again when he
is in, and talk things over with him. I can see," added my excellent
and ambiguous friend, "that what you want is more attention."
"What I want," retorted Mrs. Roper, "is me wooden ulster. The sooner
the better. Attention won't save me now--even if I could get it. I'm
gone too far. And what is the use of a 'usband's idea of attention? If
you want to see the kind of attention 'e gives me, just cast your eye on
the table there. Them things in the corner is supposed to be lemons.
'_E_ sent them in. _Look at 'em_! 'E on'y sent 'em 'cause I asked 'im,
mind you. Is it much to ask, d'ye think, Doctor? And me at death's
door! Look at 'em, I say. They're furrin lemons."
There was a pause. Then said Mrs. Roper again, "They're furrin lemons.
I would say it to 'is face. I ask 'im on me death-bed for lemons and 'e
sends me them! Furrin ones! Don't you think they're furrin, Doctor?"
"I'm sure of it," replied the doctor.
There was another pause, during which Mrs. Roper applied a variety of
new and second-hand wearing apparel to her eyes. But the gift of
articulation soon returned to her.
"I," she explained, with biting irony, "am on'y 'is wife. _I_ ain't
jolly. _I_ don't flatter 'im. _I_ don't make a fuss of 'im. _I_ don't
make meself agreeable. _I'm_ on'y 'is wife. _I_ on'y tell 'im the
truth. What does 'e wanter give good lemons to _me_ for?"
"If you could let me know when he returns," submitted Dr. Brink, "I
would talk these matters over with him. In the meantime, I will send
you round some medicine, which----"
"What's the good of medicine to _me_?" demanded Mrs. Roper. "I'm on'y
'is wife. You go round to the undertaker's, Doctor, and tell 'im to send
me round a wooden ulster. That's the on'y thing as'll bring _me_ any
peace. I ain't one of your jolly sort, you see. _I_ don't go round to
me cousin Alfered's and make meself agreeable and play nap. 'Is cousin
Alfered's, indeed! It isn't 'is cousin Alfered as 'e goes to visit,
Doctor; you take my word for _that_, Doctor; I s'pose I'm blind, eh,
Doctor? An' deaf an' dumb an' parulised? I s'pose I ain't aware that
cousin Alfered 'as got a wife? _A wife_! That's what 'e calls 'er! If
she's a honest married woman, Doctor, 'ow d'you account for 'er bein'
ser very lovin' to 'er 'usband?"
"I have left off trying to account for these things," explained the
doctor. "About your medicine now. I want you----"
But Mrs. Roper had struck a more fascinating theme than that of
medicine. "Married!" she ejaculated. "Ha! Married! And she ser jolly!
Ser good-tempered, ser fussy, ser full o' compliments! No wonder as my
man likes to play nap at 'is cousin Alfered's. There's two or three
jolly ones together in _that_ 'ouse.
"She's a 'igh-spirited lady too. Ser full of romps an' all. She reads
the papers, too, and listens to their jokes, _and laughs_.
"Well, well, Doctor, it's time that wooden ulster come. It won't arrive
before I'm ready for it. This world ain't no fit place for me.
"I ain't jolly enough.
"I'm only a honest wife, I am, what sits at 'ome all day an' tells the
truth while other people makes theirselves ser popular. This world is
no fit place for honest wives.
"The other ladies are ser jolly; they makes theirselves ser pleasant.
They fuss about and flatter you, and laugh at all your jokes. They
makes theirselves ser pleasant....
"Wha
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