In these times of change and stress I have been remembering with much
relief a curious character who haunted the British Museum Reading Room a
quarter of a century ago. He cannot be there still, for he was elderly
then: a military-looking man with a very upright, almost corsetted,
form, a reddish face and a gingery moustache that in its prime might
have graced a major. His eye however, was not martial, but blue and
mild, watery and wandering, its quest being, I fancy, a convivial
acquaintance with enough money and generosity for two instalments of
refreshment. His hair, which was scanty, was carefully brushed, and
parted at the back even to his collar, and upon it was perched at a
slight angle a tall hat ironed beyond endurance. His erect body was
encased in a tightly-buttoned frock-coat so shiny that it glistened, and
as for his boots, no really softhearted observer could bear to look
twice at them, so inadequate were they to our city of rain.
Such was this jaunty thread-bare scholar; but what was his special
branch of learning I never discovered, nor did he make the discovery
easy, for, though he had a desk, it seldom had books upon it, and he was
rarely there: drifting instead about the vast room, exchanging a few
words with this or that crony, and too often leaving it with them on
brief expeditions across the road. He may merely have been a
sermon-copyist, busy only towards Sunday. He may have been a loafer pure
and simple. I say I don't know; but he was a landmark of the place,
idiosyncratic enough to be stamped indelibly on at any rate one retina.
One other touch is needed to complete his appearance. He always wore
gloves, which my memory inclines me to believe had once been pale
yellow, and he was always accompanied by a copy of _The Times._ This,
however, he did not carry in his hand, but he tucked it between the
first and second buttons of his frock-coat, so folded that the title was
visible, thus guaranteeing to the world that he was one who went to the
fountain-head for his politics and foreign information. By this
sign-mark, in spite of the wear and tear which were only too visible in
his clothes, he became a man apart, for few regular readers among us
could afford such an organ, even if we were attracted by anything so
august and severe. But naturally we all thought the more of him for his
journal. The suggestion of poverty became merely eccentricity.
And then one day, standing by him closely, I made the humiliating
discovery--as humiliating to me as to him--that the date of the
protruding copy of _The Times_ was a year or so past, and, looking more
narrowly at the paper itself, I realised that it had been folded thus
for months and months and months ...
Innocent deception! I wish I had never detected it, and I am glad to
think that the gallant old gentleman never knew that it was pierced. But
how comforting it is to know that he was well in his grave before the
great revolution of this month set in, to reduce his proof of gentility
to a penny, and thus reducing it, to render it invalid evermore!
* * * * *
[Illustration: LOYALTY.
"IS THAT RIGHT, CHARLIE, 'AS YOUR MISSUS 'ITS YOU WIV A FLAT-IRON?"
"ER--YUS--BUT ONLY WITH THE BLUNT END OF IT."]
* * * * *
Commercial Threat.
"General Bakery and Confectionery. We carry a large stock in both
lines. Get the Richardson Bread habit. It will tickle you."
_Daily News (Port Arthur, Canada)._
* * * * *
"ITALIAN WAR MEDALS.
(From Our Own Correspondent).
War vessels were distributed to the troops to-day in the Piazza
Pledisato."
_Standard of Buenos Aires._
Much better to have stuck to the first idea and given them medals.
* * * * *
The Oxford Ducks.
"Going up a good water they rowed a minute at 32, but otherwise
were only waddling."--_Yorkshire Evening Post._
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Recruiting Sergeant._ "NOW, I CAN TELL CHARACTER WHEN I
SEE IT, SO MARK MY WORDS. IF YOU JOIN NOW YOU'LL BE A SWANKIN' GENERAL
IN FIVE YEARS."]
* * * * *