FOR A FEW DAYS ONLY.
ADMISSION ONE PENNY
An old man was standing in the doorway, with a tattered red curtain
behind him, supplying further details of the history and personal
appearance of the mermaid. He looked slightly military, distinctly
intemperate, and very unfortunate, yet he was energetic.
“What it comes to is this--for a few days only I am offering two
’igh-class entertainments at the price of one. The performance
commences with an exhibition by that most marvellous Spanish conjurer,
Madumarsell Rimbini, and concludes with that unparalleled wonder of
the world, the mermaid of the Western Pasuffolk. I have been asked
frequent if it pays me to do this. No, it does _not_ pay me. I am
doing it entirely as an advertisement. Kindly take notice that this
mermaid is not a shadder, faked up with lookin’ glasses. She is
real--solid--genuine--discovered by an English officer while cruisin’
in the Western Pasuffolk, and purchased direct from ’im by myself. The
performance will commence in one minute. If any gentleman is not able
to stay now, I may remark that the performances will be repeated agin
this evenin’ from seven to ten. What it comes to is this--for a few
days only, etc.”
Of course Bill had seen shows of a kind before. He had seen a ’bus
horse stumble, and almost pick itself up, and stumble again, and
finally go down half on the kerb-stone. That had been attractive, but
there had been nothing to pay for it. Again, in his Sunday-school days,
he had been present at an entertainment where the exhilaration of solid
buns and dissolving views had been gently tempered by a short address.
That too was attractive, but it had been free. And now it would not
be possible to see this beautiful buoyant creature swimming in clear
shrimp-haunted waters unless he paid a penny for it, the only penny
that he possessed. Never before had he paid anything to go anywhere.
The temptation was masterful. It gripped him, and drew him towards the
tattered red curtain that hung over the entrance. In another minute he
had paid his penny, and stood within.
At one end of the shop a low stage had been erected. On the stage was
something which looked like a large packing-case with a piece of red
baize thrown over it. There was a small table, on which were two packs
of playing-cards and a brightly coloured pill-box, and a tired fat
woman in a low dress of peculiar frowziness. As the audience entered
she put a smile on her face, where it remained fixed as if it had
been pinned. The performance commenced with three clumsy card-tricks.
Then she requested some one in the audience to put a halfpenny in the
painted pill-box and see it changed into a shilling. The audience felt
that they had been weak in paying a penny to see the show, and on
this last point they were adamant. They would put no halfpennies in no
pill-boxes. They were now firm. So also was the Spanish conjurer, and
this trick was omitted. She intimated that she would now proceed to
the second part of the entertainment, the exhibition of the mermaid of
the Western Pacific. She removed, dramatically, the red-baize cover,
disclosing a glass case. The audience pressed forward to examine its
contents. The case was filled for the most part with those romantic
rocks and grasses which conventionality has appointed to be a suitable
setting for stuffed canaries, or stuffed dogs, or anything that is
stuffed. There was a background of painted sky and sea; and in the
front there was a small, most horrible figure, looking straight
at Bill out of hideous, green, glassy eyes. It was not the lovely
creature depicted in the window outside. It was a monstrous thing,
a contemptible fraud to the practised intelligence, but to Bill’s
childish, excitable mind a thing of unspeakable horror and fascination.
The lower half was a wilted, withered fish; then came a girdle of
seaweed, and then something which was near to being human, yellow and
waxy, with a ghastly face, a bald head, and those eyes that would keep
looking at Bill. He shut his own eyes for a second; when he opened them
again the monstrous thing was still looking at him.
There were two men standing near to Bill. One of them was a very young
and very satirical carpenter, with a foot-rule sticking out of his
coat-pocket. “So that’s a mermaid!” he remarked. “Yer call that a
mermaid--oh!--indeed, a mermaid--oh, yes!”
“Seems to me,” said the other man, middle-aged, cadaverous, and
dressed in rusty black, “that it’s a sight more like a dead byeby.”
“Well, you _ought_ to know,” replied the satirical carpenter, grinning.
Bill heard this. So in that basement flat in Pond Buildings, Bill’s
home, there was something lying quite still and waiting for him, to
frighten him. He had never thought what a dead baby would be like. His
mind began to work in flashes. The first flash reminded him of some
horrible stories which his red-haired, vehement aunt had told him, to
terrify him into being good. He had objected at the close of one story
that dead people could not walk about.
“You don’t know,” his aunt had replied, “nobody knows, what dead people
can do.” In the second flash he imagined that he had gone home, had
been lectured by his aunt, and beaten by his father, and had cried
himself to sleep. He would wake up at night, when all was quiet--he
felt sure of it--and the room would not be quite dark. He would see
by the white moonlight a horrible, yellow, waxy thing crawling across
the floor. It would not go to the right or to the left, but straight
towards him. It would be his dead baby sister, and it would have a face
like the face of the mermaid, and it would stare at him. He would be
unable to call out. It would come nearer and nearer, and at last it
would touch him. Then he would die of fright.
No, he would not go home, not until the dead baby had been taken away.
As the audience crowded out through the narrow doorway, Bill touched
the man in shabby black:
“Please, sir, ’ow long is it afore they bury dead babies?”
The man stared at him searchingly. “What do yer want to know that for?
Depends on the weather partly, and on the inclinations of the bereaved
party. ‘Soon as possible’ ’s allus my advice, but they let it go for
days frequent.”
Bill thanked him, and walked aimlessly away. He could not get the
terror out of his mind. He walked through street after street, so
absorbed in horrible thoughts that he hardly noticed what direction he
was taking, and only just escaped being run over. He had been wandering
for over an hour when he came across two boys, whom he knew, playing
marbles. This was companionship and diversion for his thoughts. For
some time he watched the game with interest, and then one of the
players pulled from his pocket two large marbles of greenish glass, and
set them rolling. Bill turned away at once, for he had been reminded
of those green eyes. He imagined that they were still looking at him;
but, in his imagination, they belonged not to the mermaid, but to the
dead baby. He wished again and again that he had never been to that
show. He was growing almost desperate with terror. Of course, his state
of mind was to some extent due to the fact that he had eaten nothing
for eight hours. But then, Bill did not know this. Suddenly he gave
a great start, and a gasp for breath, for he had been touched on the
shoulder. He looked up and saw his father. Now Bill’s father had drunk
two glasses of bad beer during his dinner hour, and in consequence he
was feeling somewhat angry and somewhat self-righteous, for his head
was exceedingly weak and poor. He addressed Bill very solemnly--
“Loit’rin’ in the streets! loit’rin’ and playin’ in the streets!
What’s the good o’ my bringing of yer up in the fear o’ Gawd?”
Bill had no answer to make; so his father aimed a blow at him, which
Bill dodged.
“All right,” his father continued, “I’m sent out on a jorb, and I ain’t
got the time to wallup yer now. But you mark my words--this very night,
as sure as my name’s what it is, I’ll knock yer blawstid ’ead off.”
At any other time this would have frightened Bill. But now it came as a
positive relief. There is no fear so painful, so maddening, as the fear
of the supernatural. The promise that he should have his head knocked
off had in itself but little charm or attraction. But in that case he
knew what to fear and from whence to fear it. It took his thoughts away
for a few minutes from the horror of that dead baby, whose ghastly face
he pictured to himself so clearly. But it was only for a few minutes;
the face came back again to his mind and haunted him. He could not
escape from it. He was more than ever determined that he would not go
home; he dared not spend a night in the next room to it. Already the
afternoon was closing in, and Bill had no notion where he was to go for
the night. For the present he decided to make his way to the green; he
would probably meet other boys there that he knew.
The green to which he went is much frequented by the poor of the
south-west. The railway skirts one side of it, and gives it an
additional attraction to children. Bill was tired out with walking.
He flung himself down on the grass to rest. His exhaustion at last
overcame his fears, and he fell asleep. He slept for a long time, and
in his sleep he had a dream.
It was, so it seemed to him in his dream, late in the evening, and he
was standing outside the door of the basement flat. He had knocked,
and was waiting to be admitted. Suddenly he noticed that the door was
just ajar. He pushed it open and entered. He called, but there was no
answer. All was dark. The outer door swung to with a bang behind him.
He thought that he would wait in the kitchen by the light of the fire
until some one came. He felt his way to the kitchen and sat down in
front of the fire.
It had burnt very low, and the furniture was only just distinguishable
by the light of it. As he was waiting he heard very faintly the sound
of breathing. It did not frighten him; but he could not understand it,
because as far as he could see there was no living thing in the room
except himself. He thought that he would strike a light and discover
what it was. The matches were in a cupboard on the right-hand side of
the fireplace. He could only just reach the fastening, and it took him
some little time to undo it. The moment the fastening was undone the
door flew open, and something yellowish-white fell or rather leapt
out upon him, fixing little quickly-moving fingers in his hair. With
a scream he fell to the floor. He had shut his eyes in horror, but he
felt compelled to open them again to see what this thing was that clung
to him, writhing and panting. A little spurt of flame had shot up, and
showed him the face. Its eyes were blinking and rolling. Its mouth
moved horribly and convulsively, and there was foam on the white lips.
The face was close to his own; it drew nearer; it touched him. It was
wet.
Bill suddenly woke and sprang to his feet, shivering and maddened
with terror. The green was dark and deserted. A cold, strong wind
had sprung up, and he heard it howling dismally. An impulse seized
him to run--to run for his life. For a moment he hesitated; and then,
under the shadow of the wall, slinking along in the darkness, he saw
something white coming towards him, and with a quick gasp he turned and
ran. He paid no heed to the direction in which he was going; he dared
not look behind, for he felt sure that the nameless horror was behind
him; he ran until he was breathless, and then walked a few paces, and
ran again. As he crossed the road on the outer edge of the green, a
policeman stopped and looked at him suspiciously. Bill did not even see
the policeman. His one idea was escape.
It happened that he ran in the direction of the river. He had left the
road now, and was following a muddy track that led through some grimy,
desolate market-gardens. All around him there was horror. It screamed
in the screaming wind with a voice that was half human; it took shape
in the darkness, and lean, white arms, convulsively active, seemed to
be snatching at him as he passed; the pattering of blown leaves was
changed by it into the pattering of something ghastly, coming very
quickly after him. For one second he paused on the river’s brink; and
then, pressing both his hands tightly over his eyes, he flung himself
into the water.
And the river went on unconcerned, and the laws of Nature did not
deviate from their regular course. So the boy was drowned. It was
a pity; for he was in some ways a lovable boy, and there were
possibilities in him.
* * * * *
Bill’s aunt was putting the untidy bedroom straight when his mother,
opening her eyes and turning a little on the bed, said, in a low, tired
voice--
“I want Bill. Wheer’s Bill?”
“I sent ’im out, dearie; ’e’ll be back d’rectly. Don’t you worry
yourself about Bill. Why, that drattid lamp’s a-shinin’ strite onto
your eyes. I’ll turn it down.”
There was a moment’s pause, while the vehement woman--quiet enough
now--arranged the lamp and took her place by the bedside. She smoothed
the young mother’s faded hair with one hand. “Go to sleep, dearie,” she
said.
Then she began to sing in a hushed, quavering voice. It was a favourite
hymn, and for devotional purposes she rarely used more than one
vowel-sound--
“Urbud wuth me! Fust fulls thur uvvun-tud.”
THE GIRL AND THE BEETLE.
_A STORY OF HERE AND HEREAFTER._
On the brushwood and groups of trees that here and there broke the
monotony of the flat and sandy common were the marks of autumn. The
wind was soft and mild, and the leaves fell gently, and the white
clouds sailed away into the distance steadily and unquestioningly. Far
off the glint of sunlight fell on the narrow, sluggish river. Winds and
leaves, clouds and river--all were going home, with a calm meekness
that aggravated the dying beetle. It was a good day to die on, and the
beetle knew it; but yet he was dissatisfied.
Above him there hovered two unkempt birds, tormented by a sense of
what in all the circumstances was the correct thing to do. Each bird
had sighted the beetle, and neither would come and take it; for each
thought that the other would suppose him to be greedy. Of these two
birds the one was magnanimous and the other was nervous, and both were
hungry.
“There’s a large beetle down there,” the first remarked, “but I don’t
know that I care about it particularly. Won’t you take it?”
There was nothing that his companion would have liked better, but his
unfortunate nervousness prevented him from availing himself of the
generous offer. “No, thanks,” he stammered, “I couldn’t deprive you.”
“But I really don’t want it,” said Magnanimity.
“Nor do I,” replied Nervousness. “Let’s go for a little fly.”
So they flew slowly away, feeling empty and mistaken, with a sense that
the world must be out of joint where there were nearly always two birds
to one beetle, and both the birds understood etiquette. And the beetle
went on dying.
He had not during his previous life been a good beetle. He was strongly
built, and his constitution, which had now given way, had always been
considered robust. Female beetles had thought him uncommonly handsome;
yet with all these gifts he had not been a good beetle; on the contrary
he had been extremely immoral. He lay stretched on the sand by the edge
of the pathway, enjoying the warmth of the afternoon sunlight.
“Mary,” he called, a little querulously, “come out.”
It is difficult to understand how the beetle could call without making
any noise. It should be remembered, however, that sound is to beetles
very much what silence is to us. A certain kind of silence, on the
other hand, answers to what we call conversation, and can be varied so
as to express all that we can do by changing the tone of the voice.
The small female of depressed appearance, who hurried from the shelter
of a stone in answer to this summons, quite understood that she had
been called querulously. The two unkempt birds should undoubtedly have
waited.
“Thomas,” said the beetle who had been addressed as Mary, “I think you
called me?”
“Have you stopped crying?”
“Yes, dear; I won’t cry any more, if you don’t like it.”
“You know I don’t like it. Have you got any new ideas?”
“Well, Thomas, nothing that could be absolutely called new, perhaps;
but I remember a little story that my poor dear mother used to----”
“Stop!” said Thomas, “you’re a stale, heavy-minded female, and you can
get back under the stone. I was going to let you see me die. I shan’t
now!”
“Do let me stop!” pleaded Mary.
“No, I won’t!--stay, what’s that pestilential insect creeping towards
us?”
“It’s the Dear Friend. He looks small and meagre, but we must not judge
from looks, Thomas. Beauty fades.”
Thomas surveyed Mary slowly. “It does,” he said.
The Dear Friend was so named from his habit of calling indiscriminately
on other beetles, and excusing himself on the ground that he wanted to
be their dear friend. He lived a very good life, and he wanted other
beetles to be good. The want was noble, but he had not sufficient tact
to conceal it. Some beetles thought him a bore, and did not care to
hear him discuss their sins in his plain way. Others, seeing that he
knew so little about this life, thought that he might have unusual
knowledge of the next. Beetles, as a class, have a tendency towards
mysticism. Mary had a firm belief in the goodness and spirituality of
the Dear Friend, although she was dimly conscious that he was not
clever. She was very anxious that he should have a few words with the
dying Thomas.
“You will see him, dear, won’t you?” she said. “You’re drawing near to
your end, you know, and it would do you good to experience a word in
season. You have been such a bad beetle.”
“I have,” said Thomas, with a chuckle of intense self-satisfaction,
“I’ve been a devilish bad beetle.”
The thought of his own exceeding immorality seemed quite to have
restored his good temper. “Heavy-minded female, you are become
brilliant. Never before have I experienced a word in season. You may
stop, and we’ll interview the Dear Friend.”
Mary, like some females of higher organisations, was rarely able to
understand the precise value of a satirical silence. Everything was
cloudy in her brain, and nothing precise. She had vague ideas that she
ought to be good, and that served her for aspirations. She had at least
three decided opinions--that her mother had been very good and very
kind to her, that Thomas was horribly bad and very unkind to her, and
that of the two she infinitely preferred Thomas. She was emotional and
rather self-seeking. At present she was very pleased at being praised,
and welcomed the little visitor kindly as he crept across towards them.
They formed an extraordinary trio even for beetles. It is not generally
known that the lower the physical organisation the more complicated is
the character. A beetle is as a rule much more contrary and difficult
than a man. The character of a tubercular bacillus is so complex as to
absolutely defy analysis.
“Mr. Thomas,” the Dear Friend began solemnly, “I am pleased to see
you--in fact, I have come a long way with that intention. I had heard
that you were very ill and like to die, and I had also heard--you will
excuse me--of your past life.”
“Quite right,” said Thomas encouragingly, “I am guilty of having had
a past life. Oh, sir, you can’t think how many beetles of my age have
had a past of some kind or other. It is true that it was my own life--I
have not taken any one else’s, not yet--but still I’ve had it. I feel
that deeply.”
At this the Dear Friend warmed to his work, but made a fatal
mistake--he grew slightly enthusiastic. Now Thomas could stand no
manner of enthusiasm, because it always seemed to him to show an
exaggerated conception of the value of things.
“Oh, Mr. Thomas, I am so very glad to hear you talk like that. This is
indeed no time for idle compliments, and you recognise the fact. You
have the sense of guilt. You see how disgusting, and loathsome, and
abominable the whole of your life has----”
Here he was interrupted by a curious stridulating noise which Thomas
made, thereby rendering it impossible to catch the remainder of the
Dear Friend’s silence. The poor little insect cooled down again at
once. He saw that enthusiasm would not do; that he had been taking
matters too fast, and that Thomas was a beetle who required to be
treated with a good deal of tact. The Dear Friend himself was unable
to stridulate, and had sometimes felt the want of it; but it is not a
gift which belongs to every kind of beetle. Perhaps it would be as well
to show some interest in the process, and then gradually to lead up to
more serious subjects. He waited till the last whir had died away, and
then he said:
“May I inquire how you make that noise? It is most interesting.”
Thomas knew all about it.
“It is caused,” he answered drily, “by the friction of a transversely
striated elevation on the posterior border of the hinder coxa against
the hinder margin of the acetabulum, into which it fits.”
“Ah!” gasped the Dear Friend; but he speedily recovered himself. “That
is indeed interesting--really, extremely interesting.” He was trying
to think in what way it would be possible to connect this with more
important matters. “Talking about fits,” he said, “I have just come
away from such a sad case, quite a young----”
“I was not talking about fits, sir,” interrupted Thomas, a little
irritably. The Dear Friend hastened to agree with him.
“No, Mr. Thomas, you were not. I see what you mean, and it’s very good
of you to correct me. I was wrong. I was quite wrong. But you happened
to use the word fits, and that suggests----”
“And talking about jests,” retorted Thomas severely, “I don’t think
this is the time for them. When you’re calmer, my friend, and have got
over your inclination to make sport of serious subjects, you will see
this. Please don’t get excited; I’m not equal to it. You come to see
me on my death-bed, and when I try to talk about my past life, you wax
ribald, and begin to make puns that a school-girl would be ashamed of.
I’m sorry for you, sir,--very sorry. Mary, show that bug out. I want
to think of my latter end, and he interrupts me.”
“Oh, dear, dear!” said the poor, well-meaning little insect, almost
whimpering, “I’m afraid I’ve made a very bad beginning. I didn’t intend
to offend you, and I do hope you’ll make allowances. I know I’m not
very clever, and I’m very young, and I’ve never had any education to
speak of, because I’ve always been going about in my humble way trying
to teach others. But I do want to be your really dear friend, and my
heart does yearn to----”
“Mary,” said the exasperated Thomas, “I asked you to show that bug
out. Will you kindly go away, sir, and drown yourself? I insist upon
thinking of my latter end, and I simply cannot do it when you are here.”
“I will go away, if you wish it, Mr. Thomas, but you will let me come
back this evening?”
“You won’t be able to come back, if you drown yourself.”
“But I’m not going to drown myself.”
“Well, you said you were, and you ought to, any way.”
“Oh, Mr. Thomas, I never, never----”
“Don’t contradict. It’s excessively rude, especially in a young bug
like yourself. You promised to drown yourself, if I’d bequeath Mary to
you in my will. You can take her now, if you like, and you may both go
away and drown yourselves. I shall be dead before this evening; and if
I am quite dead, you may come back. Now go.”
The Dear Friend turned slowly and sadly away.
“Are you going to take Mary?” Thomas called after him. “You can if
you like. She’s nearly as fat-headed as yourself, and you’d get on
splendidly together. Pray take her. I’m nearly dead, and I don’t want
her.”
The Dear Friend made no reply. The wretched Mary was crying again.
Thomas had worked himself up to the climax of fury, and was now lapsing
from it into a series of chuckles. “Moist one,” he said, turning to
Mary, “you don’t love me.”
“Indeed I do,” sobbed Mary. “I love you ever so much too well--but
you’re so cruel--and you make fun of a good cause--and you’re going to
die.”