Transcribed from the 1908 Hurst and Blackett edition by David Price,
email ccx074@pglaf.org
THE ANGEL AND THE AUTHOR
--AND OTHERS
BY
JEROME K. JEROME
Author of
"Paul Kelver," "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow," "The Passing
of the Third Floor Back," and others.
LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED
182, HIGH HOLBORN, W.C.
1908
CHAPTER I
I had a vexing dream one night, not long ago: it was about a fortnight
after Christmas. I dreamt I flew out of the window in my nightshirt. I
went up and up. I was glad that I was going up. "They have been
noticing me," I thought to myself. "If anything, I have been a bit too
good. A little less virtue and I might have lived longer. But one
cannot have everything." The world grew smaller and smaller. The last I
saw of London was the long line of electric lamps bordering the
Embankment; later nothing remained but a faint luminosity buried beneath
darkness. It was at this point of my journey that I heard behind me the
slow, throbbing sound of wings.
I turned my head. It was the Recording Angel. He had a weary look; I
judged him to be tired.
"Yes," he acknowledged, "it is a trying period for me, your Christmas
time."
"I am sure it must be," I returned; "the wonder to me is how you get
through it all. You see at Christmas time," I went on, "all we men and
women become generous, quite suddenly. It is really a delightful
sensation."
"You are to be envied," he agreed.
"It is the first Christmas number that starts me off," I told him; "those
beautiful pictures--the sweet child looking so pretty in her furs, giving
Bovril with her own dear little hands to the shivering street arab; the
good old red-faced squire shovelling out plum pudding to the crowd of
grateful villagers. It makes me yearn to borrow a collecting box and go
round doing good myself.
"And it is not only me--I should say I," I continued; "I don't want you
to run away with the idea that I am the only good man in the world.
That's what I like about Christmas, it makes everybody good. The lovely
sentiments we go about repeating! the noble deeds we do! from a little
before Christmas up to, say, the end of January! why noting them down
must be a comfort to you."
"Yes," he admitted, "noble deeds are always a great joy to me."
"They are to all of us," I said; "I love to think of all the good deeds I
myself have done. I have often thought of keeping a diary--jotting them
down each day. It would be so nice for one's children."
He agreed there was an idea in this.
"That book of yours," I said, "I suppose, now, it contains all the good
actions that we men and women have been doing during the last six weeks?"
It was a bulky looking volume.
Yes, he answered, they were all recorded in the book.
The Author tells of his Good Deeds.
It was more for the sake of talking of his than anything else that I kept
up with him. I did not really doubt his care and conscientiousness, but
it is always pleasant to chat about one's self. "My five shillings
subscription to the _Daily Telegraph's_ Sixpenny Fund for the
Unemployed--got that down all right?" I asked him.
Yes, he replied, it was entered.
"As a matter of fact, now I come to think of it," I added, "it was ten
shillings altogether. They spelt my name wrong the first time."
Both subscriptions had been entered, he told me.
"Then I have been to four charity dinners," I reminded him; "I forget
what the particular charity was about. I know I suffered the next
morning. Champagne never does agree with me. But, then, if you don't
order it people think you can't afford it. Not that I don't like it.
It's my liver, if you understand. If I take more--"
He interrupted me with the assurance that my attendance had been noted.
"Last week I sent a dozen photographs of myself, signed, to a charity
bazaar."
He said he remembered my doing so.
"Then let me see," I continued, "I have been to two ordinary balls. I
don't care much about dancing, but a few of us generally play a little
bridge; and to one fancy dress affair. I went as Sir Walter Raleigh.
Some men cannot afford to show their leg. What I say is, if a man can,
why not? It isn't often that one gets the opportunity of really looking
one's best."
He told me all three balls had been duly entered: and commented upon.
"And, of course, you remember my performance of Talbot Champneys in _Our
Boys_ the week before last, in aid of the Fund for Poor Curates," I went
on. "I don't know whether you saw the notice in the _Morning Post_,
but--"
He again interrupted me to remark that what the _Morning Post_ man said
would be entered, one way or the other, to the critic of the _Morning
Post_, and had nothing to do with me. "Of course not," I agreed; "and
between ourselves, I don't think the charity got very much. Expenses,
when you come to add refreshments and one thing and another, mount up.
But I fancy they rather liked my Talbot Champneys."
He replied that he had been present at the performance, and had made his
own report.
I also reminded him of the four balcony seats I had taken for the monster
show at His Majesty's in aid of the Fund for the Destitute British in
Johannesburg. Not all the celebrated actors and actresses announced on
the posters had appeared, but all had sent letters full of kindly wishes;
and the others--all the celebrities one had never heard of--had turned up
to a man. Still, on the whole, the show was well worth the money. There
was nothing to grumble at.
There were other noble deeds of mine. I could not remember them at the
time in their entirety. I seemed to have done a good many. But I did
remember the rummage sale to which I sent all my old clothes, including a
coat that had got mixed up with them by accident, and that I believe I
could have worn again.
And also the raffle I had joined for a motor-car.
The Angel said I really need not be alarmed, that everything had been
noted, together with other matters I, may be, had forgotten.
The Angel appears to have made a slight Mistake.
I felt a certain curiosity. We had been getting on very well together--so
it had seemed to me. I asked him if he would mind my seeing the book. He
said there could be no objection. He opened it at the page devoted to
myself, and I flew a little higher, and looked down over his shoulder. I
can hardly believe it, even now--that I could have dreamt anything so
foolish:
He had got it all down wrong!
Instead of to the credit side of my account he had put the whole bag of
tricks to my debit. He had mixed them up with my sins--with my acts of
hypocrisy, vanity, self-indulgence. Under the head of Charity he had but
one item to my credit for the past six months: my giving up my seat
inside a tramcar, late one wet night, to a dismal-looking old woman, who
had not had even the politeness to say "thank you," she seemed just half
asleep. According to this idiot, all the time and money I had spent
responding to these charitable appeals had been wasted.
I was not angry with him, at first. I was willing to regard what he had
done as merely a clerical error.
"You have got the items down all right," I said (I spoke quite friendly),
"but you have made a slight mistake--we all do now and again; you have
put them down on the wrong side of the book. I only hope this sort of
thing doesn't occur often."
What irritated me as much as anything was the grave, passionless face the
Angel turned upon me.
"There is no mistake," he answered.
"No mistake!" I cried. "Why, you blundering--"
He closed the book with a weary sigh.
I felt so mad with him, I went to snatch it out of his hand. He did not
do anything that I was aware of, but at once I began falling. The faint
luminosity beneath me grew, and then the lights of London seemed shooting
up to meet me. I was coming down on the clock tower at Westminster. I
gave myself a convulsive twist, hoping to escape it, and fell into the
river.
And then I awoke.
But it stays with me: the weary sadness of the Angel's face. I cannot
shake remembrance from me. Would I have done better, had I taken the
money I had spent upon these fooleries, gone down with it among the poor
myself, asking nothing in return. Is this fraction of our superfluity,
flung without further thought or care into the collection box, likely to
satisfy the Impracticable Idealist, who actually suggested--one shrugs
one's shoulders when one thinks of it--that one should sell all one had
and give to the poor?
The Author is troubled concerning his Investments.
Or is our charity but a salve to conscience--an insurance, at decidedly
moderate premium, in case, after all, there should happen to be another
world? Is Charity lending to the Lord something we can so easily do
without?
I remember a lady tidying up her house, clearing it of rubbish. She
called it "Giving to the Fresh Air Fund." Into the heap of lumber one of
her daughters flung a pair of crutches that for years had been knocking
about the house. The lady picked them out again.
"We won't give those away," she said, "they might come in useful again.
One never knows."
Another lady, I remember coming downstairs one evening dressed for a
fancy ball. I forget the title of the charity, but I remember that every
lady who sold more than ten tickets received an autograph letter of
thanks from the Duchess who was the president. The tickets were twelve
and sixpence each and included light refreshments and a very substantial
supper. One presumes the odd sixpence reached the poor--or at least the
noisier portion of them.
"A little _decolletee_, isn't it, my dear?" suggested a lady friend, as
the charitable dancer entered the drawing-room.
"Perhaps it is--a little," she admitted, "but we all of us ought to do
all we can for the Cause. Don't you think so, dear?"
Really, seeing the amount we give in charity, the wonder is there are any
poor left. It is a comfort that there are. What should we do without
them? Our fur-clad little girls! our jolly, red-faced squires! we should
never know how good they were, but for the poor? Without the poor how
could we be virtuous? We should have to go about giving to each other.
And friends expect such expensive presents, while a shilling here and
there among the poor brings to us all the sensations of a good Samaritan.
Providence has been very thoughtful in providing us with poor.
Dear Lady Bountiful! does it not ever occur to you to thank God for the
poor? The clean, grateful poor, who bob their heads and curtsey and
assure you that heaven is going to repay you a thousandfold. One does
hope you will not be disappointed.
An East-End curate once told me, with a twinkle in his eye, of a smart
lady who called upon him in her carriage, and insisted on his going round
with her to show her where the poor hid themselves. They went down many
streets, and the lady distributed her parcels. Then they came to one of
the worst, a very narrow street. The coachman gave it one glance.
"Sorry, my lady," said the coachman, "but the carriage won't go down."
The lady sighed.
"I am afraid we shall have to leave it," she said.
So the gallant greys dashed past.
Where the real poor creep I fear there is no room for Lady Bountiful's
fine coach. The ways are very narrow--wide enough only for little Sister
Pity, stealing softly.
I put it to my friend, the curate:
"But if all this charity is, as you say, so useless; if it touches but
the fringe; if it makes the evil worse, what would you do?"
And questions a Man of Thought.
"I would substitute Justice," he answered; "there would be no need for
Charity."
"But it is so delightful to give," I answered.
"Yes," he agreed. "It is better to give than to receive. I was thinking
of the receiver. And my ideal is a long way off. We shall have to work
towards it slowly."