LAST year, travelling on the Underground Railway, I met a man; he was one
of the saddest-looking men I had seen for years. I used to know him well
in the old days when we were journalists together. I asked him, in a
sympathetic tone, how things were going with him. I expected his
response would be a flood of tears, and that in the end I should have to
fork out a fiver. To my astonishment, his answer was that things were
going exceedingly well with him. I did not want to say to him bluntly:
“Then what has happened to you to make you look like a mute at a
temperance funeral?” I said:
“And how are all at home?”
I thought that if the trouble lay there he would take the opportunity.
It brightened him somewhat, the necessity of replying to the question.
It appeared that his wife was in the best of health.
“You remember her,” he continued with a smile; “wonderful spirits, always
cheerful, nothing seems to put her out, not even—”
He ended the sentence abruptly with a sigh.
His mother-in-law, I learned from further talk with him, had died since I
had last met him, and had left them a comfortable addition to their
income. His eldest daughter was engaged to be married.
“It is entirely a love match,” he explained, “and he is such a dear, good
fellow, that I should not have made any objection even had he been poor.
But, of course, as it is, I am naturally all the more content.”
His eldest boy, having won the Mottle Scholarship, was going up to
Cambridge in the Autumn. His own health, he told me, had greatly
improved; and a novel he had written in his leisure time promised to be
one of the successes of the season. Then it was that I spoke plainly.
“If I am opening a wound too painful to be touched,” I said, “tell me.
If, on the contrary, it is an ordinary sort of trouble upon which the
sympathy of a fellow worker may fall as balm, let me hear it.”
“So far as I am concerned,” he replied, “I should be glad to tell you.
Speaking about it does me good, and may lead—so I am always in hopes—to
an idea. But, for your own sake, if you take my advice, you will not
press me.”
“How can it affect me?” I asked, “it is nothing to do with me, is it?”
“It need have nothing to do with you,” he answered, “if you are sensible
enough to keep out of it. If I tell you: from this time onward it will
be your trouble also. Anyhow, that is what has happened in four other
separate cases. If you like to be the fifth and complete the half dozen
of us, you are welcome. But remember I have warned you.”
“What has it done to the other five?” I demanded.
“It has changed them from cheerful, companionable persons into gloomy
one-idead bores,” he told me. “They think of but one thing, they talk of
but one thing, they dream of but one thing. Instead of getting over it,
as time goes on, it takes possession of them more and more. There are
men, of course, who would be unaffected by it—who could shake it off. I
warn you in particular against it, because, in spite of all that is said,
I am convinced you have a sense of humour; and that being so, it will lay
hold of you. It will plague you night and day. You see what it has made
of me! Three months ago a lady interviewer described me as of a sunny
temperament. If you know your own business you will get out at the next
station.”
I wish now I had followed his advice. As it was, I allowed my curiosity
to take possession of me, and begged him to explain. And he did so.
“It was just about Christmas time,” he said. “We were discussing the
Drury Lane Pantomime—some three or four of us—in the smoking room of the
Devonshire Club, and young Gold said he thought it would prove a mistake,
the introduction of a subject like the Fiscal question into the story of
Humpty Dumpty. The two things, so far as he could see, had nothing to do
with one another. He added that he entertained a real regard for Mr. Dan
Leno, whom he had once met on a steamboat, but that there were other
topics upon which he would prefer to seek that gentleman’s guidance.
Nettleship, on the other hand, declared that he had no sympathy with the
argument that artists should never intrude upon public affairs. The
actor was a fellow citizen with the rest of us. He said that, whether
one agreed with their conclusions or not, one must admit that the nation
owed a debt of gratitude to Mrs. Brown Potter and to Miss Olga Nethersole
for giving to it the benefit of their convictions. He had talked to both
ladies in private on the subject and was convinced they knew as much
about it as did most people.
“Burnside, who was one of the party, contended that if sides were to be
taken, a pantomime should surely advocate the Free-Food Cause, seeing it
was a form of entertainment supposed to appeal primarily to the tastes of
the Little Englander. Then I came into the discussion.
“‘The Fiscal question,’ I said, ‘is on everybody’s tongue. Such being
the case, it is fit and proper it should be referred to in our annual
pantomime, which has come to be regarded as a review of the year’s
doings. But it should not have been dealt with from the political
standpoint. The proper attitude to have assumed towards it was that of
innocent raillery, free from all trace of partisanship.’
“Old Johnson had strolled up and was standing behind us.
“‘The very thing I have been trying to get hold of for weeks,’ he said—‘a
bright, amusing _resumé_ of the whole problem that should give offence to
neither side. You know our paper,’ he continued; ‘we steer clear of
politics, but, at the same time, try to be up-to-date; it is not always
easy. The treatment of the subject, on the lines you suggest, is just
what we require. I do wish you would write me something.’
“He is a good old sort, Johnson; it seemed an easy thing. I said I
would. Since that time I have been thinking how to do it. As a matter
of fact, I have not thought of much else. Maybe you can suggest
something.”