“Luney, my son,” said Mr. James Dodson one afternoon, “young Davis’s
days are numbered. This morning Octavius found him smoking in his room.”
Notwithstanding the manner in which Mr. Dodson imparted this item of
news, it failed to promote the curiosity of which it was undoubtedly
worthy.
“Yes, Luney,” Mr. Dodson proceeded, “young Davis has numbered his days.
He’ll come down from up-stairs. He is not geared up to a position of
that kind. He hasn’t got the--the intellectual quality. You can get
anything by a fluke; but you can keep nothing without you’ve got this.”
Mr. Dodson laid a finger on the centre of his forehead with a
significance that was almost sinister.
“And whom do you suppose, Luney,” Mr. Dodson continued, “will succeed
that young upstart when he comes down from up-stairs? Give a guess, my
son.”
William Jordan, Junior, did not accept his mentor’s cordial invitation,
for the sufficient reason that the point involved was too abstruse for
his knowledge of the practical sciences.
“Between you and me and the paste-pot, my worthy lunatic,” said Mr.
Dodson, “there is only one candidate in the running at present. And
he is the deadest of dead certainties. And the name of that dead
certainty, my son, is Matthew Arnold Dodson, known familiarly out of
office hours as Jimmy.”
Even this announcement, although it exacted William Jordan, Junior’s
courteous attention, as every announcement did, failed to stimulate his
feeble faculties to divine all that it implied.
“There is also another dead certainty, my son,” said Mr. Dodson, “and
that is that William Jordan, Junior, will never rise in this world,
whatever he may do in the next.”
However, upon the following morning, during the luncheon hour,
this drastic opinion underwent a modification as serious as it was
unexpected. It occurred in the following manner. Of late the boy had
refrained from going forth to seek his luncheon in public places,
being content with a few pieces of bread-and-butter which he brought
from home in his pocket, and with a glass of water which he obtained
on the premises. From this method of procedure, although it exposed
him to the scorn of Mr. Dodson, and others eminent in the world, he
derived several advantages. Foremost, and beyond all things, he was
spared actual contact with the ever-surging crowd of street-persons,
and from the necessity of plucking, as it were, his food from the
cannon’s mouth of shops and restaurants, a feat which, if attempted
by himself, invariably ended in total failure and annihilation; and
if undertaken in the company of Mr. Dodson, as it sometimes was by
an act of condescension on the part of that gentleman, was apt to
prove expensive. Again, it enabled him to bestow more time on his
duties, which seemed to demand so much; while again, so far had he
been initiated already into the meaning of “what two and two made”--in
the phrase of Mr. Dodson--that he divined that the less he went out
to luncheon the more pieces of silver would there be for the service
of the little room in the grave hour which he felt that Fate was so
inexorably devising. Further, it happened in the days subsequent to
his first entrancing insight into what he called “the Book of the
Ages,” he occasionally took the courage to carry in his pocket a small
volume of the ancient authors, that he might receive sustenance in the
thrice-blessed hour between one and two, when he was left to his own
devices in the counting-house of Crumpett and Hawker.
It was this habit that so unexpectedly shattered the faith of the
eminent worldling in whose charge he still was. It befell that he was
immersed in a small black, time-stained, musty-smelling volume, with
his hands over his ears, as he sat on his high stool, and his eyes
pressed close to the page, when all of a sudden, he received a smart
blow on the cheek which made him start with surprise and wince with
pain.
“None of that,” said the stern voice of Mr. Dodson, who had crept up
behind him, he having returned by a special dispensation on the part of
providence, which took the form of a lack of means, some twenty minutes
before his usual time. In consequence, the philosophic calm, upon which
Mr. Dodson justly prided himself, was a little ruffled. “If Pa sees you
there’ll be trouble,” he said, taking his charge by the ear for due
admonishment. “_Dick Deadeye, The Adventures of Jack Sheppard_, and
that sort of truck, doesn’t do in the counting-house of Crumpett and
Hawker. I am surprised at you, Luney, I really am.”
Each of these sentences was punctuated by a solemn blow on the ear,
which made the recipient gasp.
“Why, what the dooce is it?” said Mr. Dodson, as his eye fell on the
curious old black volume. “It looks like a Bible for the blind, or a
privately printed copy of Magna Charta. Give it to me!”
The boy, oppressed with a dreadful sense of guilt and humiliation that
he should be detected in the act of reading in the ancient authors
almost on the first occasion he had attempted to do so outside the
little room, yielded his treasure with a sinking heart into the
ruthless grasp of his mentor.
“I k-k-knew it was w-wrong, wicked,” he gasped, “to b-b-ring the
ancient authors into the great world out of doors, but--but they give
me such a great s-s-strength in my veins that----”
“What are you burbling about, you lunatic?” said Mr. Dodson
truculently. “Stow it; and tell me the name of this very fishy-looking
volume. Is it a Russian hymn-book, or a bit of Chinese, or a copy of
the last will and testament of Omar Khayyam, or what the dooce is it? I
hope there is nothing in it there shouldn’t be, that’s all.”
“It is the _Adventures of Odysseus_,” said the boy, with the blood
springing to his cheeks. Even as he spoke he speculated as to what
dire fate would overtake him for having dared to expose his sacred
intercourse with heroes to the scorn of the great world out of doors;
yet he was fain to marvel also that one such as his mentor should not
recognize at a glance the nature of his crime.
“Who’s he?” said his mentor sternly. “Who in the name of thunder is
Odys---- Stars above! I never saw such rum-looking stuff in my life. I
should say it is a pretty fair imitation of a bad dream.”
“I k-k-know it is an offence against the gods,” said the culprit, with
a scared face, “to bring the sacred words of Homer into the great world
out of doors; but you do not know how he sustains me in my heavy tasks.”
“Homer, did you say?” inquired his mentor incredulously. “Homer; why
then, that’s Greek!”
“Oh y-y-yes,” said the boy, his fear yielding somewhat to bewilderment
that one of his mentor’s attainments should ply him with a question so
unnecessary.
“You are not going to come it over James Dodson, my son, that you read
Greek,” said that gentleman, renouncing his own magisterial air for one
of protest and astonishment.
“I b-b-bear every word of all the sacred writings of Homer imprinted
in my heart,” said the boy, with only a partial understanding of Mr.
Dodson’s very visible surprise. “P-p-perchance after the callow days
of our childhood have passed, when the mind is like sand, it is a
violation of the dream knowledge that has grown up all about our hearts
to turn yet again to those pages in which the great wonders were first
revealed to us. But even to this hour I love to gaze on the printed
pages which these long years have lain in my soul.”
Mr. Dodson paid no heed to the strange and incoherent phrases which
proceeded from the lips of William Jordan, Junior. He was too greatly
preoccupied with an examination of the curious volume that was now in
his hands. After turning it over and inspecting it inside and out a
look of immense perplexity settled upon his wizened countenance.
“My aunt!” he said, “it _is_ Homer.”
He looked from the book to the boy, from the boy to the book.
“Luney,” he said, with slow-drawn solemnity, “you beat cock-fighting,
you do.”
The boy quailed under a gaze, whose blank surprise he misinterpreted as
some more truculent emotion.
“Why, do you know, my son,” said Mr. Dodson, “it takes Pa himself all
his time to read Homer without a crib.”
This contribution to national biography awoke no response in the breast
of the boy.
“And yet, Luney,” said Mr. Dodson, in a voice that had a thrill
of emotion in it, “here are you in your dinner hour reading it as
naturally as I read the _Sporting Times_. Let me look at you, you
lunatic.”
Mr. Dodson grasped his _protégé_ by the chin in the manner in which a
veterinary surgeon grasps a horse, and peered somewhat aggressively
into the gentle and pale countenance of William Jordan, Junior.
“Well, all I can say is, my son,” said Mr. Dodson, after he had
conducted his researches with a thoroughness which made the subject of
them tremble, “all I can say is you can’t be such a blighter as you
look.”
William Jordan, Junior, could frame no reply to this profound judgment.
“How old are you, Luney?” Mr. Dodson inquired.
“E-eighteen years and f-fifty-nine days, sir,” stammered William
Jordan, Junior.
“My aunt!” said Mr. Dodson, with incredulity, “you don’t look a day
more than twelve and a half. You might travel half-fare on the District
Railway.”
Suddenly Mr. Dodson clenched his hands.
“Luney,” said he vehemently, “do you suppose if _I_ were you _I_ should
be sitting down-stairs on a high stool? Not me. You ought to go far, my
son, you ought. But you never will. You haven’t got it about you; and,”
concluded Mr. Dodson grimly, “it is a good thing for some of us you
ain’t.”
Having permitted himself a freedom of speech which he felt to be highly
injudicious, Mr. Dodson returned Homer to the boy without seeing fit to
administer further physical correction, and retired to the fire-place
to stand with his back thereto and his coat-tails outspread, that
favourite attitude of so many searching intellects, and proceeded, in
his own phrase, “to take his bearings.”
Mr. Dodson’s first and most natural instinct was to heighten his
already considerable reputation as an after-luncheon _raconteur_, by
advertising this new facet to the character of him upon whom he had
bestowed the title of “The Marvel.” But however great his thirst for
the notoriety of a little brief applause, the mature outlook of the man
of the world was soon able to correct it. “Mum is the word, my son,”
said the philosopher, as the warmth of the fire communicated itself
pleasantly to his being. “Mum is the word. If it should come to the
ears of Octavius that that kid reads Greek in his luncheon hour for his
own amusement, he will go up-stairs and no earthly power can prevent
it. And,” he added, “if that kid does go up-stairs where will you be,
Matthew Arnold Dodson?”
The philosopher did not deem it necessary to frame a reply to these
reflections, but sauntered across the room to the high stool on which
was seated the subject of them.
“Luney,” he said, slowly and impressively, “you are a highly-educated
youth, I quite recognize that, but it is not considered the thing to
read Greek in the counting-house of Crumpett and Hawker. I have only
one word of advice to give you. If by any chance you should _ever_ let
Pa catch you reading it, it will mean serious trouble for you, my son,
for you must not forget that it is as much as Pa himself can do to read
Homer in the original.”
It reassured Mr. Dodson’s sense of propriety to observe that the boy
had already returned the opprobrious volume to his pocket. “Let us hope
he will keep it there,” he said under his breath piously.
That evening, as the clock told the hour of seven, William Jordan,
Junior, was honoured by the most signal act of condescension on the
part of his mentor that had as yet been vouchsafed to him.
“Luney,” said Mr. Dodson, “your best way to Milton Street, E.C., is to
go down the Strand and to take a ’bus from Ludgate Circus. I am going
down the Strand myself; if you like we will toddle down together.”
A few minutes later William Jordan, Junior, might have been discerned
walking down the Strand in association with his mentor. The eminent
worldling had his arm within that of his _protégé_.
“Luney,” he said, “out of office hours you can call me Jimmy.”
As they went their way, with the whole of the conversation furnished
entirely by one only of the parties to it, Mr. Dodson produced an
elaborate silver case.
“Smoke?” he said.
“Oh n-n-no,” said the boy, startled in much the same way as he would
have been had he been asked whether he committed murders.
“Pity,” said Mr. Dodson, as he selected a cigarette from the silver
case with the unmistakable air of the connoisseur. “Ought to. Great
thing for the nerves. Though perhaps you are not troubled with ’em. I
shouldn’t say myself that you lived at very high pressure.”
At the end of Fleet Street master and pupil parted company.
“Ta ta, old boy,” said Mr. Dodson, with a genial wave of the hand. “I
go round the corner to the station. Nice time for the 7.50 to Peckham.
That’s your ’bus--the green one. Ta ta; one of these days we will do a
music-hall together.”
Mr. Dodson stood to watch the frail figure enter the green ’bus.
“Absolutely the rummest kid I ever struck,” said he. “Fancy a thing
like that able to read Homer in the original! Well, I will say this--he
don’t put on side about it like most chaps would.”
With this reflection the philosopher turned the corner, immediately to
engage in a war of words, in which he did not come off second best,
with the driver of a “growler,” who nearly ran over him as he stepped
somewhat unwarily off the pavement.