and at last Mr. Evans-Antrobus said: “Well if you insist upon waiting,
Mr. Simpkins, I must get the money for you. I can borrow it, I suppose,
boys, from Fazz, can’t I?”
Again they consulted in whispers, after which two of the young gents
said they ought to be going, and so they went.
“Wait here for me,” said Mr. Evans-Antrobus, “I shall not be five
minutes.”
But Mr. Simpkins was so firmly opposed to this course that the other
relented. “Damn you! come along with me, then; I must go and see Fazz.”
So off they went to some rooms higher up the same flight of stairs,
beyond a door that was marked “F. A. Zealander.” When they entered
Fazz sat moping in front of the fire; he was wrapped as deeply as an
Esquimaux in some plaid travelling rugs girt with the pink rope of a
dressing-gown that lay across his knees. The fire was good, but the
hearth was full of ashes. The end of the fender was ornamented with the
strange little iron face of a man whose eyes were shut but whose knobby
cheeks fondly glowed. Fazz’s eyes were not shut, they were covered by
dim glasses, and his cheeks had no more glow than a sponge.
“Hullo, Fazz. You better to-day?”
“No, dearie, I am not conscious of any improvement. This influenza’s
a thug; I am being deprived of my vitality as completely as a fried
rasher.”
“Oh, by the by,” said his friend, “you don’t know each other: Mr.
Simpkins—Mr. Zealander.”
The former bowed awkwardly and unexpectedly shook Mr. Zealander’s
hot limp hand. At that moment a man hurried in, exclaiming: “Mr.
Evans-Antrobus, sir, the Dean wants to see you in his rooms at once,
sir!”
“That is deuced awkward,” said that gentleman blandly. “Just excuse me
for a moment or two, Fazz.”
He hurried out, leaving Simpkins confronting Mr. Zealander in some
confusion. Fazz poked his flaming coal. “This fire! Did you ever see
such a morbid conflagration?”
“Rather nice, I thought,” replied Simpkins affably; “quite cool
to-night, outside, rather.”
The host peered at him through those dim glasses. “There’s a foggy
humidity about everything, like the inside of a cream tart. But sit
down,” said Fazz, With the geniality of a man who was about to be
hung and was rather glad that he was no longer to be exposed to the
fraudulent excess of life, “and tell me a bawdy story.”
Simpkins sank into an armchair and was silent.
“Perhaps you don’t care for bawdy stories?” continued Fazz. “I do, I
do. I love vulgarity; there is certainly a niche in life for vulgarity.
If ever I possess a house of my own I will arrange—I will, upon my
soul—one augustly vulgar room, divinely vulgar, upholstered in sallow
pigskin. Do tell me something. You haven’t got a spanner on you, I
suppose? There is something the matter with my bed. Once it was full
of goose feathers, but now I sleep, as it were, on the bulge of a
barrel; I must do something to it with a spanner. I hate spanners—such
dreadful democratic tools; they terrify me, they gape at you as if they
wanted to bite you. Spanners are made of iron, and this is a funny
world, for it is full of things like spanners.”
Simpkins timidly rose up through the waves of this discourse and asked
if he could “do” anything. He was mystified, amused, and impressed by
this person; he didn’t often meet people like that, he didn’t often
meet anybody; he rather liked him. On each side of the invalid there
were tables and bottles of medicine.
“I am just going to take my temperature,” said Fazz. “Do have a
cigarette, dearie, or a cigar. Can you see the matches? Yes; now do
you mind surrounding me with my medicines? They give such a hopeful
air to the occasion. There’s a phial of sodium salicylate tabloids, I
must take six of them in a minute or two. Then there are the quinine
capsules; the formalin, yes; those lozenges I suck—have one?—they are
so comforting, and that depressing laxative; surround me with them.
Oh, glorious, benignant, isn’t it? Now I shall take my temperature; I
shall be as stolid as the sphinx for three minutes, so do tell me that
story. Where is my thermometer, oh!” He popped the thermometer into
his mouth, but pulled it out again. “Do you know L. G.? He’s a blithe
little fellow, oh, very blithe. He was in Jacobsen’s rooms the other
day—Jacobsen’s a bit of an art connoisseur, you know, and draws and
paints, and Jacobsen drew attention to the portrait of a lady that was
hanging on the wall. ‘Oh, dear,’ said L. G., ‘what a hag! Where did
you get that thing?’ just like that. Such a perfect fool, L. G. ‘It’s
my mother,’ says Jacobsen. ‘Oh, of course,’ explained L. G., ‘I didn’t
mean _that_, of course, my dear fellow; I referred to the horrible
treatment, entirely to the horrible treatment; it is a wretched daub.’
‘I did it myself!’ said Jacobsen. You don’t know L. G.? Oh, he is very
blithe. What were you going to tell me? I am just going to take my
temperature; yesterday it was ninety odd point something. I do hope it
is different now. I can’t bear those points, they seem so equivocal.”
Fazz sat with the tube of the thermometer projecting from his mouth.
At the end of the test he regarded it very earnestly before returning
it disconsolately to the table. Then he addressed his visitor with
considerable gloom.
“Pardon me, I did not catch your name.”
“Simpkins.”
“Simpkins!” repeated Fazz, with a dubious drawl. “Oh, I’m sorry, I
don’t like Simpkins, it sounds so minuscular. What are you taking?”
“I won’t take anything, sir, thank you,” replied Simpkins.
“I mean, what schools are you taking?”
“Oh, no school at all.”
Fazz was mystified: “What college are you?”
“I’m not at a college,” confessed the other. “I came to see Mr.
Evans-Antrobus with a note. I’m waiting for an answer.”
“Where do you come from?”
“From Bagshot and Buffle’s.” After a silence he added: “Bespoke boots.”
“Hump, you are very young to make bespoke boots, aren’t you, Simpkins,
surely? Are you an Agnostic? Have a cigar? You must, you’ve been very
good, and I am so interested in your career; but tell me now what it
exactly is that you are sitting in my room for?”
Simpkins told him all he could.
“It’s interesting, most fascinating,” declared Fazz, “but it is a
little beyond me all the same. I am afraid, Simpkins, that you have
been deposited with me as if I were a bank and you were something
not negotiable, as you really are, I fear. But you mustn’t tell the
Dean about Evans-Antrobus, no, you mustn’t, it’s never done. Tell
me, why do you make bespoke boots? It’s an unusual taste to display.
Wouldn’t you rather come to college, for instance, and study ... er ...
anthropology—nothing at all about boots in anthropology?”
“No,” said Simpkins. He shuffled in his chair and felt uneasy. “I’d be
out of my depth.” Fazz glared at him, and Simpkins repeated: “Out of my
depth, that would be, sure.”
“This is very shameful,” commented the other, “but it’s interesting,
most fascinating. You brazenly maintain that you would rather study
boots than ... than books and brains!”
“A cobbler must stick to his last,” replied Simpkins, recalling a
phrase of his father’s.
“Bravo!” cried Fazz, “but not to an everlasting last!”
“And I don’t know anything about all this; there’s nothing about it I’d
want to know, it wouldn’t be any good to me. It’s no use mixing things,
and there’s a lot to be learnt about boots—you’d be surprised. You
got to keep yourself to yourself and not get out of your depth—take a
steady line and stick to it, and not get out of your depth.”
“But, dearie, you don’t sleep with a lifebelt girt about your loins, do
you now? I’m not out of my depth; I shouldn’t be even if I started to
make boots....”
“Oh, wouldn’t you?” shouted Simpkins.
“I should find it rather a shallow occupation; mere business is the
very devil of a business; business would be a funny sort of life.”
“Life’s a funny business; you look after your business and that will
look after you.”
“But what in the world are we in the world at all for, Simpkins?
Isn’t it surely to do just the things we most intensely want to do?
And you do boots and boots and boots. Don’t you ever get out and
about?—theatres—girls—sport—or do you insist on boot, the whole boot,
and nothing but boot?”
“No, none of them,” replied Simpkins. “Don’t care for theatres, I’ve
never been. Don’t care for girls, I like a quiet life. I keep myself to
myself—it’s safer, don’t get out of your depth then. I do go and have
a look at the football match sometimes, but it’s only because we make
the boots for some of your crack players, and you want to know what you
are making them for. Work doesn’t trouble me, nothing troubles me, and
I got money in the bank.”
“Damme, Simpkins, you have a terrible conviction about you; if I listen
to you much longer I shall bind myself apprentice to you. I feel sure
that you make nice, soft, watertight, everlasting boots, and then
we should rise in the profession together. Discourse, Simpkins; you
enchant mine ears—both of them.”
“What I say is,” concluded Simpkins, “you can’t understand everything.
I shouldn’t want to; I’m all right as it is.”
“Of course you are, you’re simply too true. This is a place flowing
with afternoon tea, tutors, and clap-trap. It’s a city in which
everything is set upon a bill. You’re simply too true, if we are not
out of our depth we are in up to our ears—I am. It’s most fascinating.”
Soon afterwards Simpkins left him. Descending the stairs to the rooms
of Evans-Antrobus he switched on the light. It was very quiet and snug
in those rooms, with the soft elegant couch, the reading-lamp with the
delicious violet shade, the decanter with whiskey, the box of chocolate
biscuits, and the gramophone. He sat down by the fire, waiting and
waiting. Simpkins waited so long that he got used to the room, he even
stole a sip of whiskey and some of the chocolate biscuits. Then to show
his independence, his contempt for Mr. Evans-Antrobus and his trickery,
he took still more of the whiskey—a drink he had never tasted before—he
really took quite a lot. He heaped coal upon the fire, and stalked
about the room with his hands in his pockets or examined the books,
most of which were about something called Jurisprudence, and suchlike.
Simpkins liked books; he began reading:
That the Pleuronectidæ are admirably adapted by their flattened and
asymmetrical structure for their habits of life, is manifest from
several species, such as soles and flounders, etc., being extremely
common.
He did not care much for science; he opened another:
It is difficult indeed to imagine that anything can oscillate so
rapidly as to strike the retina of the eye 831,479,000,000,000 in
one second, as must be the case with violet light according to this
hypothesis.
Simpkins looked at the light and blinked his eyes. That had a violet
shade. He really did not care for science, and he had an inclination to
put the book down as his head seemed to be swaying, but he continued to
turn the pages.
Snowdon is the highest mountain in England or Wales. Snowdon is not so
high as Ben Nevis.
Therefore the highest mountain in England or Wales is not so high as
Ben Nevis.
“Oh, my head!” mumbled Simpkins.
Water must be either warm or not warm, but it does not follow that it
must be warm or cold.
Simpkins felt giddy. He dropped the book, and tottered to the couch.
Immediately the room spun round and something in his head began to hum,
to roar like an aeroplane a long way up in the sky. He felt that he
ought to get out of the room, quickly, and get some water, either not
or cold warm—he didn’t mind which! He clapped on his hat and, slipping
into his overcoat, he reached a door. It opened into a bedroom, very
bare indeed compared with this other room, but Simpkins rolled in; the
door slammed behind him, and in the darkness he fell upon a bed, with
queer sensations that seemed to be dividing and subtracting in him.
When he awoke later—oh, it seemed much later—he felt quite well again.
He had forgotten where he was. It was a strange place he was in,
utterly dark; but there was a great noise sounding quite close to him—a
gramophone, people shouting choruses and dancing about in the adjoining
room. He could hear a lady’s voice too. Then he remembered that he
ought not to be in that room at all; it was, why, yes, it was criminal;
he might be taken for a burglar or something! He slid from the bed,
groped in the darkness until he found his hat, unbuttoned his coat, for
he was fearfully hot, and stood at the bedroom door trembling in the
darkness, waiting and listening to that tremendous row. He _had_ been
a fool to come in there! How was he to get out—how the deuce was he to
get out? The gramophone stopped. He could hear the voices more plainly.
He grew silently panic-stricken; it was awful, they’d be coming in to
him perhaps, and find him sneaking there like a thief—he must get out,
he must, he must get out; yes, but how?
The singing began again. The men kept calling out “Lulu! Lulu!” and
a lady’s gay voice would reply to a Charley or a George, and so on,
when all at once there came a peremptory knock at the outer door.
The noise within stopped immediately. Deep silence. Simpkins could
hear whispering. The people in there were startled; he could almost
feel them staring at each other with uneasiness. The lady laughed out
startlingly shrill. “Sh-s-s-sh!” the others cried. The loud knocking
began again, emphatic, terrible. Simpkins’ already quaking heart began
to beat ecstatically. Why, oh why, didn’t they open that door?—open it!
open it! There was shuffling in the room, and when the knocking was
repeated for the third time the outer door was apparently unlocked.
“Fazz! Oh, Fazz, you brute!” cried the relieved voices in the room.
“You fool, Fazz! Come in, damn you, and shut the door.”
“Good gracious!” exclaimed the apparently deliberating Fazz, “what is
that?”
“Hullo, Rob Roy!” cried the lady, “it’s me.”
“Charmed to meet you, madame. How interesting, most fascinating; yes,
I am quite charmed, but I wish somebody would kindly give me the
loose end of it all. I’m suffering, as you see, dearies, and I don’t
understand all this, I’m quite out of my depth. The noise you’ve been
making is just crushing me.”
Several voices began to explain at once: “We captured her, Fazz,
yes—Rape of the Sabines, what!—from the Vaudeville. Had a rag,
glorious—corralled all the attendants and scene-shifters—rushed the
stage—we did! we did!—everybody chased somebody, and we chased Lulu—we
did! we did!”
“Oh, shut up, everybody!” cried out Fazz.
“Yes, listen,” cried the voice of Evans-Antrobus. “This is how it
happened: they chased the eight Sisters Victoria off the stage, and we
spied dear little Lulu—she was one of those eight Victorias—bolting
down a passage to the stage entrance. She fled into the street just
as she was—isn’t she a duck? There was a taxi standing there, and
Lulu, wise woman, jumped in—and we jumped in too. (We did! We did!)
‘Where for?’ says taximan. ‘Saviour’s College,’ say we, and here you
are—Lulu—what do you think of her?”
“Charming, utterly charming,” replied Fazz. “The details are most
clarifying; but how did you manage to usher her into the college?”
“My overcoat on,” explained one voice.
“And my hat,” cried another.
“And we dazzled the porter,” said a third. There were lots of other
jolly things to explain: Lulu had not resisted at all, she had enjoyed
it; it was a lark!
“Oh, beautiful! Most fascinating!” agreed Fazz. “But how you propose
to get her out of the college I have no more notion than Satan has of
sanctity—it’s rather late, isn’t it?”
Simpkins, in his dark room, could hear someone rushing up the stairs
with flying leaps that ceased at the outer door. Then a breathless
voice hissed out: “You fellows, scat, scat! Police are in the lodge
with the proctors and that taximan!”
In a moment Evans-Antrobus began to groan. “Oh, my God, what can we
do with her? We must get her out at once—over the wall, eh, at once,
quick! Johnstone, quick, go and find a rope, quick, a rope.”
And Fazz said: “It does begin to look a little foolish. Oh, I am
feeling so damn bad—but you can’t blame a fool for anything it does,
can you? But I am bad; I am going to bed instantly, I feel quite out of
my depth here. Oh, that young friend of yours, that Simpkins, charming
young person! Very blithe he was, dear Evans-Antrobus!”
Everybody now seemed to rush away from the room except the girl Lulu
and Evans-Antrobus. He was evidently very agitated and in a bad humour.
He clumped about the room exclaiming, “Oh, damnation, do hurry up,
somebody. What am I to do with her, boozy little pig! Do hurry up!”
“Who’s a pig? I want to go out of here,” shrilled Lulu, and apparently
she made for the door.
“You can’t go like that!” he cried; “you can’t, you mustn’t. Don’t be a
fool, Lulu! Lulu! Now, isn’t this a fearful mess?”
“I’m not going to stop here with you, ugly thing! I don’t like it; I’m
going now, let go.”
“But you can’t go, I tell you, in these things, not like that. Let me
think, let me think, can’t you! Why don’t you let me think, you little
fool! Put something on you, my overcoat; cover yourself up. I shall be
ruined, damn you! Why the devil did you come here, you ...!”
“And who brought me here, Mr. Antibus? Oh yes, I know you; I shall
have something to say to the vicar, or whoever it is you’re afraid of,
baby-face! Let me go; I don’t want to be left here alone with you!” she
yelled. Simpkins heard an awful scuffle. He could wait no longer; he
flung open the door, rushed into the room, and caught up a syphon, the
first handy weapon. They saw him at once, and stood apart amazed.
“Fine game!” said the trembling Simpkins to the man, with all
the sternness at his command. As nobody spoke he repeated, quite
contemptuously: “Fine game!”
Lulu was breathing hard, with her hands resting upon her bosom. Her
appearance was so startling to the boy that he nearly dropped the
syphon. He continued to face her, hugging it with both hands against
his body. She was clad in pink tights—they were of silk, they glistened
in the sharper light from under the violet shade—a soft white tarlatan
skirt that spread around her like a carnation, and a rose-coloured
bodice. She was dainty, with a little round head and a little round
face like a briar rose; but he guessed she was strong, though her
beauty had apparently all the fragility of a flower. Her hair, of dull
dark gold, hung in loose tidiness without pin or braid, the locks cut
short to her neck, where they curved in to brush the white skin; a deep
straight fringe of it was combed upon the childish brow. Grey were her
surprised eyes, and wide the pouting lips. Her lovely naked arms—oh, he
could scarcely bear to look at them. She stood now, with one hand upon
her hip and the other lying against her cheek, staring at Simpkins.
Then she danced delightfully up to him and took the syphon away.
“Look here,” said Evans-Antrobus to Lulu—he had recovered his
nerve, and did not express any astonishment at Simpkins’ sudden
appearance—“he is just your size, you dress up in his clothes, quick,
then it’s simple.”
“No,” said the girl.
“And no for me,” said Simpkins fiercely—almost.
Just then the door was thrust partly open and a rope was flung into the
room. The bringer of it darted away downstairs again.
“Hi! here!” called Evans-Antrobus, rushing to the door; but nobody
stayed for him, nobody answered him. He came back and picked up the
rope.
“Put on that coat,” he commanded Lulu, “and that hat. Now, look here,
not a word, not a giggle even, or we are done, and I might just as well
screw your blessed neck!”
“Would you?” snorted Simpkins, with not a little animosity.
“Yes, would you!” chimed Lulu, but nevertheless she obeyed and followed
him down the stairs. When she turned and beckoned, Simpkins followed
too. They crossed a dark quadrangle, passed down a passage that was
utter darkness, through another quad, another passage, and halted in a
gloomy yard behind the chapel, where Evans-Antrobus struck a match, and
where empty boxes, bottles, and other rubbish had accumulated under a
wall about ten feet high.
“You first, and quiet, quiet,” growled Evans-Antrobus to Simpkins. No
one spoke again. Night was thickly dark, the stars were dim, the air
moist and chill. Simpkins, assisted by the other man, clambered over
rickety boxes and straddled the high thick wall. The rope was hungover,
too, and when the big man had jumped to earth again, dragging his
weight against it, Simpkins slid down on the other side. He was now
in a narrow street, with a dim lamp at one end that cast no gleam to
the spot where he had descended. There were dark high-browed buildings
looming high around him. He stood holding the end of the rope and
looking up at the stars—very faint they were. The wall was much higher
on this side, looked like a mountain, and he thought of Ben Nevis
again. This was out of your depth, if you like, out of your depth
entirely. It was all wrong somehow, or, at any rate, it was not all
right; it couldn’t be right. Never again would he mess about with a lot
of lunatics. He hadn’t done any good, he hadn’t even got the money—he
had forgotten it. He had not got anything at all except a headache.
The rope tightened. Lulu was astride the wall, quarrelling with the man
on the other side.
“Keep your rotten coat!” She slipped it off and flung it down from the
wall. “And your rotten hat, too, spider-face!” She flung that down from
the wall, and spat into the darkness. Turning to the other side, she
whispered: “I’m coming,” and scrambled down, sliding into Simpkins’
arms. And somehow he stood holding her so, embracing her quite tightly.
She was all softness and perfume, he could not let her go; she had
scarcely anything on—he would not let her go. It was marvellous and
beautiful to him; the glimmer of her white face was mysterious and
tender in the darkness. She put her arms around his neck:
“Oh ... I rather love you,” she said.
_Simple Simon_
This simple man lived lonely in a hut in the depths of a forest, just
underneath three hovering trees, a pine tree and two beeches. The sun
never was clear in the forest, but the fogs that rose in its unshaken
shade were neither sweet nor sour. Lonely was Simon, for he had given
up all the sweet of the world and had received none of the sweet of
heaven. Old now, and his house falling to ruin, he said he would go
seek the sweet of heaven, for what was there in the mortal world to
detain him? Not peace, certainly, for time growled and scratched at him
like a mangy dog, and there were no memories to cherish; he had had a
heavy father, a mother who was light, and never a lay-by who had not
deceived him. So he went in his tatters and his simplicity to the lord
of the manor.
“I’m bound for heaven, sir,” says Simon, “will you give me an old coat,
or an odd rag or so? There’s a hole in my shoe, sir, and good fortune
slips out of it.”
No—the lord of the manor said—he could not give him a decent suit, nor
a shoe, nor the rags neither. Had he not let him dwell all life long in
his forest? With not a finger of rent coming? Snaring the conies—(May
your tongue never vex you, sir!)—and devouring the birds—(May God see
me, sir!)—and cutting the fuel, snug as a bee in a big white hive.
(Never a snooze of sleep, with the wind howling in the latch of it and
the cracks gaping, sir!) What with the taxes and the ways of women—said
the lord—he had but a scrimping time of it himself, so he had. There
was neither malt in the kiln nor meal in the hopper, and there were
thieves in the parish. Indeed, he would as lief go with Simon, but it
was such a diggins of a way off.
So Simon went walking on until he came to the godly man who lived in
a blessed mansion, full of delights for the mind and eye as well as a
deal of comfort for his belly.
No—the godly man said—he would not give him anything, for the Lord took
no shame of a man’s covering.
“Ah, but your holiness,” said Simon, “I’ve a care to look decent when I
go to the King of All.”
“My poor man, how will you get there, my poor man?” he said.
“Maybe,” says Simon, “I’ll get a lift on my way.”
“You’ll get no lift,” the godly man said, “for it’s a hard and lonely
road to travel.”
“My sorrow! And I heard it was a good place to go to!”
“It is a good place, my simple man, but the road to it is difficult and
empty and hard. You will get no lift, you will lose your way, you will
be taken with a sickness.”
“Ah, and I heard it was a good kind road, and help in the end of it and
warmth and a snap of victuals.”