It is a most remarkable thing. I sat down with the full intention of
writing something clever and original; but for the life of me I can't
think of anything clever and original--at least, not at this moment. The
only thing I can think about now is being hard up. I suppose having my
hands in my pockets has made me think about this. I always do sit with
my hands in my pockets except when I am in the company of my sisters,
my cousins, or my aunts; and they kick up such a shindy--I should say
expostulate so eloquently upon the subject--that I have to give in and
take them out--my hands I mean. The chorus to their objections is that
it is not gentlemanly. I am hanged if I can see why. I could understand
its not being considered gentlemanly to put your hands in other people's
pockets (especially by the other people), but how, O ye sticklers for
what looks this and what looks that, can putting his hands in his own
pockets make a man less gentle? Perhaps you are right, though. Now I
come to think of it, I have heard some people grumble most savagely when
doing it. But they were mostly old gentlemen. We young fellows, as a
rule, are never quite at ease unless we have our hands in our pockets.
We are awkward and shifty. We are like what a music-hall Lion Comique
would be without his opera-hat, if such a thing can be imagined. But let
us put our hands in our trousers pockets, and let there be some small
change in the right-hand one and a bunch of keys in the left, and we
will face a female post-office clerk.
It is a little difficult to know what to do with your hands, even in
your pockets, when there is nothing else there. Years ago, when my whole
capital would occasionally come down to "what in town the people call
a bob," I would recklessly spend a penny of it, merely for the sake of
having the change, all in coppers, to jingle. You don't feel nearly so
hard up with eleven pence in your pocket as you do with a shilling. Had
I been "La-di-da," that impecunious youth about whom we superior folk
are so sarcastic, I would have changed my penny for two ha'pennies.
I can speak with authority on the subject of being hard up. I have been
a provincial actor. If further evidence be required, which I do not
think likely, I can add that I have been a "gentleman connected with the
press." I have lived on 15 shilling a week. I have lived a week on 10,
owing the other 5; and I have lived for a fortnight on a great-coat.
It is wonderful what an insight into domestic economy being really hard
up gives one. If you want to find out the value of money, live on
15 shillings a week and see how much you can put by for clothes and
recreation. You will find out that it is worth while to wait for the
farthing change, that it is worth while to walk a mile to save a
penny, that a glass of beer is a luxury to be indulged in only at rare
intervals, and that a collar can be worn for four days.
Try it just before you get married. It will be excellent practice. Let
your son and heir try it before sending him to college. He won't grumble
at a hundred a year pocket-money then. There are some people to whom it
would do a world of good. There is that delicate blossom who can't drink
any claret under ninety-four, and who would as soon think of dining
off cat's meat as off plain roast mutton. You do come across these
poor wretches now and then, though, to the credit of humanity, they are
principally confined to that fearful and wonderful society known only
to lady novelists. I never hear of one of these creatures discussing a
_menu_ card but I feel a mad desire to drag him off to the bar of
some common east-end public-house and cram a sixpenny dinner down his
throat--beefsteak pudding, fourpence; potatoes, a penny; half a pint of
porter, a penny. The recollection of it (and the mingled fragrance of
beer, tobacco, and roast pork generally leaves a vivid impression) might
induce him to turn up his nose a little less frequently in the future
at everything that is put before him. Then there is that generous party,
the cadger's delight, who is so free with his small change, but who
never thinks of paying his debts. It might teach even him a little
common sense. "I always give the waiter a shilling. One can't give the
fellow less, you know," explained a young government clerk with whom I
was lunching the other day in Regent Street. I agreed with him as to the
utter impossibility of making it elevenpence ha'penny; but at the same
time I resolved to one day decoy him to an eating-house I remembered
near Covent Garden, where the waiter, for the better discharge of his
duties, goes about in his shirt-sleeves--and very dirty sleeves they
are, too, when it gets near the end of the month. I know that waiter.
If my friend gives him anything beyond a penny, the man will insist on
shaking hands with him then and there as a mark of his esteem; of that I
feel sure.
There have been a good many funny things said and written about
hardupishness, but the reality is not funny, for all that. It is not
funny to have to haggle over pennies. It isn't funny to be thought
mean and stingy. It isn't funny to be shabby and to be ashamed of your
address. No, there is nothing at all funny in poverty--to the poor. It
is hell upon earth to a sensitive man; and many a brave gentleman who
would have faced the labors of Hercules has had his heart broken by its
petty miseries.
It is not the actual discomforts themselves that are hard to bear.
Who would mind roughing it a bit if that were all it meant? What cared
Robinson Crusoe for a patch on his trousers? Did he wear trousers? I
forget; or did he go about as he does in the pantomimes? What did it
matter to him if his toes did stick out of his boots? and what if
his umbrella was a cotton one, so long as it kept the rain off? His
shabbiness did not trouble him; there was none of his friends round
about to sneer him.
Being poor is a mere trifle. It is being known to be poor that is the
sting. It is not cold that makes a man without a great-coat hurry along
so quickly. It is not all shame at telling lies--which he knows will
not be believed--that makes him turn so red when he informs you that
he considers great-coats unhealthy and never carries an umbrella on
principle. It is easy enough to say that poverty is no crime. No; if
it were men wouldn't be ashamed of it. It's a blunder, though, and is
punished as such. A poor man is despised the whole world over; despised
as much by a Christian as by a lord, as much by a demagogue as by a
footman, and not all the copy-book maxims ever set for ink stained youth
will make him respected. Appearances are everything, so far as human
opinion goes, and the man who will walk down Piccadilly arm in arm with
the most notorious scamp in London, provided he is a well-dressed one,
will slink up a back street to say a couple of words to a seedy-looking
gentleman. And the seedy-looking gentleman knows this--no one
better--and will go a mile round to avoid meeting an acquaintance. Those
that knew him in his prosperity need never trouble themselves to look
the other way. He is a thousand times more anxious that they should not
see him than they can be; and as to their assistance, there is nothing
he dreads more than the offer of it. All he wants is to be forgotten;
and in this respect he is generally fortunate enough to get what he
wants.
One becomes used to being hard up, as one becomes used to everything
else, by the help of that wonderful old homeopathic doctor, Time. You
can tell at a glance the difference between the old hand and the novice;
between the case-hardened man who has been used to shift and struggle
for years and the poor devil of a beginner striving to hide his misery,
and in a constant agony of fear lest he should be found out. Nothing
shows this difference more clearly than the way in which each will pawn
his watch. As the poet says somewhere: "True ease in pawning comes from
art, not chance." The one goes into his "uncle's" with as much composure
as he would into his tailor's--very likely with more. The assistant is
even civil and attends to him at once, to the great indignation of the
lady in the next box, who, however, sarcastically observes that she
don't mind being kept waiting "if it is a regular customer." Why, from
the pleasant and businesslike manner in which the transaction is carried
out, it might be a large purchase in the three per cents. Yet what a
piece of work a man makes of his first "pop." A boy popping his first
question is confidence itself compared with him. He hangs about outside
the shop until he has succeeded in attracting the attention of all the
loafers in the neighborhood and has aroused strong suspicions in the
mind of the policeman on the beat. At last, after a careful examination
of the contents of the windows, made for the purpose of impressing the
bystanders with the notion that he is going in to purchase a diamond
bracelet or some such trifle, he enters, trying to do so with a careless
swagger, and giving himself really the air of a member of the swell mob.
When inside he speaks in so low a voice as to be perfectly inaudible,
and has to say it all over again. When, in the course of his rambling
conversation about a "friend" of his, the word "lend" is reached, he is
promptly told to go up the court on the right and take the first door
round the corner. He comes out of the shop with a face that you could
easily light a cigarette at, and firmly under the impression that the
whole population of the district is watching him. When he does get
to the right place he has forgotten his name and address and is in a
general condition of hopeless imbecility. Asked in a severe tone how he
came by "this," he stammers and contradicts himself, and it is only a
miracle if he does not confess to having stolen it that very day. He is
thereupon informed that they don't want anything to do with his sort,
and that he had better get out of this as quickly as possible, which he
does, recollecting nothing more until he finds himself three miles off,
without the slightest knowledge how he got there.
By the way, how awkward it is, though, having to depend on public-houses
and churches for the time. The former are generally too fast and the
latter too slow. Besides which, your efforts to get a glimpse of
the public house clock from the outside are attended with great
difficulties. If you gently push the swing-door ajar and peer in you
draw upon yourself the contemptuous looks of the barmaid, who at once
puts you down in the same category with area sneaks and cadgers. You
also create a certain amount of agitation among the married portion of
the customers. You don't see the clock because it is behind the door;
and in trying to withdraw quietly you jam your head. The only other
method is to jump up and down outside the window. After this latter
proceeding, however, if you do not bring out a banjo and commence to
sing, the youthful inhabitants of the neighborhood, who have gathered
round in expectation, become disappointed.
I should like to know, too, by what mysterious law of nature it is that
before you have left your watch "to be repaired" half an hour, some one
is sure to stop you in the street and conspicuously ask you the time.
Nobody even feels the slightest curiosity on the subject when you've got
it on.
Dear old ladies and gentlemen who know nothing about being hard up--and
may they never, bless their gray old heads--look upon the pawn-shop
as the last stage of degradation; but those who know it better (and my
readers have no doubt, noticed this themselves) are often surprised,
like the little boy who dreamed he went to heaven, at meeting so many
people there that they never expected to see. For my part, I think it a
much more independent course than borrowing from friends, and I always
try to impress this upon those of my acquaintance who incline toward
"wanting a couple of pounds till the day after to-morrow." But they
won't all see it. One of them once remarked that he objected to the
principle of the thing. I fancy if he had said it was the interest that
he objected to he would have been nearer the truth: twenty-five per
cent. certainly does come heavy.
There are degrees in being hard up. We are all hard up, more or
less--most of us more. Some are hard up for a thousand pounds; some for
a shilling. Just at this moment I am hard up myself for a fiver. I only
want it for a day or two. I should be certain of paying it back within a
week at the outside, and if any lady or gentleman among my readers would
kindly lend it me, I should be very much obliged indeed. They could send
it to me under cover to Messrs. Field & Tuer, only, in such case, please
let the envelope be carefully sealed. I would give you my I.O.U. as
security.