BALTAZAR had lived on the moor in peace and comfort for nearly a year
when he received his first unsolicited communication from the outside
world, in the shape of a long, cheap envelope, headed “On His Majesty’s
Service,” and containing Income Tax assessment forms. For a moment he
wondered how the representatives of His Majesty had managed to ferret
him out in his retreat.
“It’s a vile country,” said he to Quong Ho, who had handed him the
letter on returning from his weekly visit to the town. “It’s a
pettifogging, police-ridden land, where a man, if he so chooses, can’t
bury himself decently. I’m sure the King is not aware of this
unwarranted interference with the liberty of one of the most
self-effacing of his subjects.”
“My mind was in half,” replied Quong Ho, “to destroy the missive which I
conjectured would cause you annoyance.”
“It’s a good thing you didn’t. The King is an amiable gentleman, but the
High Mandarins from whom this proceeds are not to be trifled with.” He
glanced through the papers. “It is well,” said he, with a sigh of
relief. “The High Mandarins around the Throne are as yet ignorant of my
whereabouts; but if I refused to obey this invitation, they would soon
learn it. It is a pestilential minor official in the vicinity who for
the sake of money—it’s his disgusting mode of livelihood—has violated
my solitude.”
“In the New China,” said Quong Ho, “we hope to do away with the
bureaucracy, which is a parasite on civilization.”
“You won’t do it,” said Baltazar. “In the New Jerusalem—by which we
mean the Kingdom of Heaven—there is a Recording Angel, and you may bet
your boots he has got his staff of officials who write minutes and fill
up forms all Eternity long.”
“Perfection,” remarked Quong Ho, “is to be found neither in this world
nor the next, but only in that harmonious principle of the soul which is
termed _li_ in the Confucian philosophy.”
“Quong Ho,” said Baltazar in Chinese, “your wisdom befits rather the
honourable white beard of the teacher than the smooth-shaven chin of the
pupil of five-and-twenty.”
Quong Ho bowed respectfully at the compliment and withdrew.
“Confound the Income Tax!” said Baltazar, looking through the papers. He
had completely forgotten his liability. The sudden reminder vexed him.
Of course he must pay; but his income being exclusively derived from
investments, all of which were taxed at the source before the dividend
warrants were paid automatically into his account at his bankers’, why
should he be worried? He resented the intrusion on his privacy.
A week later Quong Ho posted the form in the ironically provided,
penny-saving official envelope, and Baltazar dismissed the incident from
his mind.
When some time afterwards his assessment paper arrived, it caused him
some astonishment. He cast his memory back twenty years. In 1896 the
Income Tax, if he remembered rightly, was inconsiderable, some sixpence
in the pound. Now it was half a crown. He filled up the form, an easy
task, thinking less than ever of the social condition of Modern England;
such high direct taxation could only mean the desperate financial
straits of a decadent country. Well, as far as he was concerned, the
loss of one-eighth of his income did not matter. The initial expenses of
his installation at Spendale Farm over, he scarcely spent a third of it.
The next disturbing document that found its way to Spendale Farm
contained a searching series of questions, headed “National
Registration.”
“I am ceasing to regard England as a fit place to live in,” said he,
with some petulance. “This is Mandarinism run riot.”
A few weeks afterwards he received a neat little card folded in two, on
the outside of which was printed a vile semblance of the Royal Coat of
Arms and “National Registration Act, 1915,” and inside a certificate of
the Registration of (_a_) John Baltazar, (_b_) Philosophical
Investigator—for as such had he irritably described himself—(_c_) of
Spendale Farm, Water-End. There was a space for the signature of Holder,
and below it in great capitals “God Save the King.” On the back were
directions as to change of address.
“God knows what’s coming over the country,” said he. “It appears that a
free-born Englishman has got to carry about his police papers, as people
have to do in disgusting countries like Germany and Russia. What about
you, Quong Ho? Have you got a pretty little document like this?”
“I am registered as an alien,” replied Quong Ho.
“It seems to me,” said Baltazar, “that when I used to gas to you about
our free British institutions I was nothing but an ignorant liar.”
“By no means, sir,” replied Quong Ho politely. “The keynote of the
modern world is change. What was true of material things yesterday is a
lie to-day.”
“How did you discover that?”
“I assume the little town of Water-End to be but a microcosm of Great
Britain.”
“Why,” laughed Baltazar, “what signs of change do you see there?”
Quong Ho remained for a moment silent, and his face assumed its Oriental
impassivity. If he reported to his master the astounding events that
were taking place, even at Water-End, whose quiet High Street was
a-bustle with newly fledged soldiery from the moorland camp three miles
on the further side, he would not only risk the dissolution of the
establishment, but would be guilty of filial disobedience, which was
impiety. And the European War, after all, how could it concern him, Li
Quong Ho? Perhaps, too, his master, foreseeing the tempest, particularly
desired to take shelter and hear nothing at all about it. He was
fortunate enough, however, to find a perfectly true reply to Baltazar’s
question. He smiled in some relief; for an intellectual Chinaman,
trained in the lofty morality of the Chinese classics, does not
willingly lie.
“It is a woman and not a man who now delivers the letters in Water-End.”
Baltazar continued to laugh: “They’ll be driving the motor-cars soon.”
“I’ve seen them doing it,” said Quong Ho.
“I’m not surprised,” said his master. “They were tending that way a year
ago. These new women are out for the devirilization of man. Perhaps by
this time they’re in Parliament, passing firework legislation and
playing the devil with all our laws and customs. You haven’t yet heard,
by any chance, whether the occupation of monthly nursing is confined
exclusively to the male sex?”
“The enactment, if such there be,” replied Quong Ho solemnly, “is not,
to my knowledge, in force in this remote locality.”
“Let us thank the gods, Quong Ho,” said Baltazar, “that we’re out of
this feminist hurly-burly. The little I saw of the movement was
antipathetic to my philosophy of life. A society in which women regard
the bearing of children as a physical accident of no account, and deny
the responsibilities which such an event entails, must be doomed to
decay, or, at the best, to bitter disillusionment. The more I hear of
contemporary England the less I like it. It seems to be woman-ridden;
curiously enough by two camps in apparent opposition, but in reality
waging joint warfare on man. The world has never yet beheld such a sex
campaign. One section demands luxury beyond the dreams of Byzantium at
its rottenest, and the other claims supreme political power.”
“It is well, sir,” said Quong Ho, “that you repudiated the imbecile
suggestion of the House Agent to the effect that you should employ a
woman housekeeper of mature age to superintend this establishment.”
“It is lucky for you, Quong Ho, that I did,” grinned Baltazar. “She
would have made you sit up.”
Quong Ho, with clasped hands and lowered head, respectfully asserted
himself. “If I do not sit up sufficiently for your satisfaction, sir, it
is for you to reprimand me.”
“I only spoke in jest, Quong Ho,” said Baltazar. “Our Western humour is
rather subtle.”
“I will make a note of it,” replied Quong Ho.
“By such notation and accumulation of detail one gathers knowledge,”
said Baltazar. “By co-ordination one acquires wisdom. Continue on this,
the only path of philosophy, and your old age will be blessed. In the
meantime, please keep your observations of changes at Water-End to
yourself.”
“Obedience to your honourable commands, my master,” replied Quong Ho, in
Chinese, “is the sacred duty of this entirely inconsiderable person. But
may one so inferior as myself humbly remind your illustrious greatness
that it was you who originally propounded to me a question which I was
bound to answer.”
“The fact that I did so,” replied Baltazar, “you may note as an instance
of the human fallibility of the sublimest minds. Fear not but that I
will profit by your lesson.”
He waved a dismissing hand. Quong Ho bowed with the perfect ceremonial
of pupil taking leave of master and retired. Baltazar threw himself into
his arm-chair and laughed aloud.
“You’re a joy, Quong Ho. A perfect joy. A museum specimen of a joy.”
So while Baltazar delighted in the unhumorous literalness of the
Chinaman, it never occurred to him that he was the dupe of the
unhumorous literalness of the Chinaman’s fidelity; that while he was
inveighing against speculative phenomena of an ill-understood movement,
the trumpet of war had transformed that movement into an apotheosis of
feminine effort of which Quong Ho, keenly intellectual, was perfectly
well aware; and that it was only by the pious grace of his pupil and
servant that he lived a day in his fool’s paradise.
When Quong Ho, a week afterwards, brought him his meagre mail, he
angrily crushed in his fist and threw aside the enclosure of the first
envelope which he had opened.
“I’m hanged if this isn’t a begging circular! It’s infernal impudence!
It’s an intolerable outrage on one’s personal liberty. Here, Quong
Ho!”—he swept the remainder of the mail into the Chinaman’s hand.
“Don’t let me be worried with any more letters. I’ve come down here to
be quiet and not to be badgered. If there are bills to pay, make out the
cheques and I’ll sign them. If there are circulars, throw them away.
About anything else use your discretion.”
“I will exactly execute your orders,” replied Quong Ho.
Thus Baltazar finally severed relations between himself and the outside
world. Quong Ho acted the perfect Private Secretary. The only letters
presented to his master for perusal were rare business communications
from booksellers instructed to purchase some out-of-the-way and possibly
expensive book. Circular letters, containing appeals for subscriptions,
which poured in, as soon as Baltazar’s name eventually found its way on
the address-lists of the neighbourhood, Quong Ho conscientiously
destroyed. Using his discretion, he withheld letters from the Bank
inviting investments in War Loans. Such, in his opinion, were further
intrusions on the sacred privacy of his master. And thus the weeks and
months passed by; and Quong Ho, in touch with even such an outpost of
civilization as the tiny moorland town and bringing to that contact the
most highly trained incuriosity, could not avoid gathering the current
tidings of the vast world conflict; but, faithful to his commands, he
said never a word to Baltazar, gave never a hint of the stupendous
convulsion in which the world was involved. And while his master, serene
doctrinaire, discoursed on the political science of the nineties, now
being blown to smithereens by German guns, he maintained the reverential
attitude of the disciple, drinking in as gospel truth the wisdom of his
inspired teacher.
One evening, when Baltazar had praised the clear solution of certain
problems which he had set in Differential Equations, and prophesied a
glorious career for the most brilliant mathematician China had ever
produced, Quong Ho, after gratefully acknowledging the encomium, said:
“If you will forgive my indiscretion, I should like to ask a question.
Why is it, sir, that you, who take such great interest in the
future—for example, my inconsiderable and negligible prospects, and the
benefits that will accrue to humanity on the publication of the
thought-shaking results of your own profound researches,—should be so
indifferent to the present condition of the world?”
“For the simple reason, my good fellow,” replied Baltazar, “that, from
what I have observed, the present condition of mankind—from China to
Peru, as your newly found friend Dr. Johnson says—is putrescent. The
best way in which we can serve mankind is to do what we’re doing now—to
provide for the intellectual development of the future generation.”
“The proposition is unanswerable,” said Quong Ho. “But suppose, sir, for
the sake of argument, that a philosophic observation of the civilized
world as it is should result in the conclusion that, in the English
idiom, it is proceeding fast to the devils—what is the duty of the man
of high morality?”
“To let it go slap-dash,” said Baltazar. “The faster and surer, the
better. For then the sooner will the eternal rhythm, the eternal
principle of balance, assert itself. When a society is rushing down to
Gadarene suicide——”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” interrupted the alert Quong Ho. “Gad—I do not
understand the word.”
“Read the Gospel according to St. Mark to-morrow. You’ve heard of St.
Mark?”
“You might as well ask me, sir, if I had heard of Confucius or Homer, or
the immortal Todhunter of my childhood.”
Baltazar rubbed his brown thatch and turned his luminous grey eyes on
his disciple.
“The immensity of your purview, Quong Ho, is only equalled by your
lightning perception of landmarks. Anyhow, read St. Mark over again, and
tell me your opinion of the swine of Gadara. For the moment, I’d have
you know that you’ve interrupted my argument. I was saying that if
everything’s going to the devil—that’s the correct idiom—not
proceeding to devils——”
“May I make a note of it?” said Quong Ho, scribbling the phrase across
his mathematical manuscript.
Baltazar rose from his chair by the long deal table and relit his pipe
over the chimney of a lamp.
“You’ve put me out. What the blazes were we talking about?”
“The present world condition,” replied Quong Ho.
“Then I assert,” said Baltazar, “that the present state of the world is
rotten. It’s no place for intellectual reformers like you and me. What
are the words of Confucius known to every schoolboy? ‘_With sincerity
and truth unite a desire for self-culture. Lay down your life rather
than quit the path of virtue. Enter not a state which is tottering to
its fall. When Law obtains in the Empire let yourself be seen: when
lawlessness reigns, retire into obscurity._’”
“But supposing,” persisted Quong Ho, “the state of the devil-driven
world is of vital interest?”
“It can be of vital interest only to those hurtling down to destruction.
To us, who have retired into the obscure aloofness recommended by the
great philosopher, it can be of no possible concern.”
“It is well,” said Quong Ho.
“I know it is,” remarked Baltazar, with a yawn. “Another night let us
have a slightly more intelligent conversation.”
Quong Ho retired, his conscience finally set at rest. After all, was not
his master right? What could he do of any use in the world rudely at
war? Was he not serving the truest interests of humanity by retiring at
this juncture and devoting the harvest of his great learning to a future
generation?
“Soldiers,” said Quong Ho the next day, looking into the unspeculative
topaz eyes of the goat which he had been milking, “are as numerous as
the sands of the desert, and politicians as the mosquitoes in a swamp;
they are swept away and the world misses them not; but philosophers are
rare, and the loss of one of them is a supreme world calamity.”
“Baa-a-a!” said the goat.
“I perceive that you too have wisdom,” said Quong Ho. “You appreciate
the privilege of living under the same roof as the illustrious
Baltazar.”
He burst into an unaccustomed laugh. Conversation with a goat appealed
to his prim sense of humour. But all the same, he expressed his own
deeply-rooted conviction. To the keen-brained young Chinaman, Baltazar
appeared as a man of stupendous intellectual force. His knowledge of the
abstract sciences of the Western world would have commanded his respect;
but his vast Chinese erudition, acknowledged with admiration by
Mandarins and scholars and other Great Ones of China, gave Quong Ho
cause for a veneration reaching almost to idolatry.
Also Baltazar, for all his patriarchal years, earned his pupil’s respect
as a man of marvellous muscle and endurance. During the winter, when the
inclemency of the weather forbade agricultural pursuits—and on that
moorland waste the weather abandoned itself to every capricious devildom
within meteorological possibilities—Baltazar, having ordered a set of
gloves from London, gave boxing lessons to his disciple. At first Quong
Ho was shocked. How could so contemptible a person as he ever make a
pretence of smiting the highly honourable face of his master? Baltazar
bade him try. He would give him an hour’s extra private tuition for
every hit. And Quong Ho, encouraged by so splendid a prize, tried, at
first diffidently, then earnestly, then zealously, then desperately,
then bald-headedly, but never a wild blow could pass the easy guard of
his smiling master.
“You see, Quong Ho, it’s a science,” said Baltazar. “Now I’m going to
hit you.” And he feinted and struck out with his left and sent his
disciple swinging across the room. “It is also a game,” he added,
holding up his hand, “because what I have just done did not hurt you in
the least.”
Quong Ho rubbed his jaw. “It was like the kiss of a butterfly,” said he.
“Here endeth the First Lesson,” said Baltazar. “The English etiquette
now requires that we should shake hands.”
When they had gone through the formality Baltazar continued:
“You of all non-English people oughtn’t to be astonished. Did not the
same ceremony exist in your country over two thousand years ago? Is it
not referred to in the Analects?”
“Sir,” said the breathless and perspiring Quong Ho, “I have unworthily
forgotten.”
“Did not the Master say: ‘_The true gentleman is never contentious. If a
spirit of rivalry is anywhere unavoidable, it is at a shooting-match.
Yet even here he courteously salutes his opponents before taking up his
position_’—we ought to have shaken hands before starting, but we’ll do
it next time—‘_and again when, having lost, he retires to drink the
forfeit-cup_’—your forfeit-cup being the loss of the extra hours of
tuition. ‘_So that even when competing, he remains a true gentleman._’”
“I remember now,” said Quong Ho.
“I’m glad you do,” replied Baltazar. “That is the lofty spirit in which
we shall continue this exceedingly health-giving science and pastime.”
And they continued. The young Chinaman, lithe, hard, physically perfect,
little more than half the age of his tutor, devoted himself, with his
Chinese assiduity, to the mastery of the fascinating art, and succeeded
eventually in giving Baltazar most interesting encounters; he realized
that fierce blows planted on venerable features were taken, nay
applauded, in the spirit of the Confucian gentleman; he also accepted in
the same gentlemanly way the hammering that he invariably received. It
was after some months of this training, when he was able to discount
merely superior science, that he bowed down before Baltazar not only as
before an intellect, but as before a marvellous physical man.
There came a truce, however—the following winter—when Baltazar, wise
in his elderly generation, foresaw the inevitable supremacy of youth,
and ordered new toys from London—foils, masks and fencing jackets. The
gloves mouldered in a broken-down potting-shed, and Quong Ho again
started, as a tyro, to learn a new athletic accomplishment. Thus in his
disciple’s sound body Baltazar contrived to maintain a sound and humble
mind. He knew that he was held in deep respect by Quong Ho. But it never
occurred to his careless mind that Quong Ho regarded him as a kind of
god. He accepted the homage as a matter of course.
In these idyllic conditions John Baltazar accounted himself serenely
happy. His scholarly solitude was undisturbed by the windy ways of men
or the windy ways of moorland nature. The former spent themselves before
reaching him; at the latter he snapped his fingers. What to him was the
seasons’ difference? So absorbed was he in his work, so circumscribed in
his walled enclosure beyond which he seldom set foot, that he barely
even noticed the hourly change on the sensitive face of the moor. And
season followed season, and the piles of manuscript, exquisitely
corrected for the printer, grew in height, and Quong Ho assimilated
Higher Mathematics as though it were rice; and everything was for the
best in the best of all possible little intellectual worlds.