MOTHS
In ill-health or convalescence, or worry or tribulation, the ordinary
mind does not turn to Milton or Shakespeare, or even to the sermons of
Charles Haddon Spurgeon. There are few classics that will stand the test
of a cold in the head, or a fit of depression, or a worrying husband, or
a minor tragedy. Here the writer of "light fiction" stands firm.
Jones had never been a great reader, he had read a cheap novel or two,
but his browsings in the literary fields had been mainly confined to the
uplands where the grass is improving.
Colour, poetry, and construction in fiction were unknown to him, and
now--he suddenly found himself on the beach at Trouville.
On the beach at Trouville with Lady Dolly skipping before him in the
sea.
He had reached the forced engagement of the beautiful heroine to the
wicked Russian Prince, when the door opened and the supper tray entered,
followed by Mrs. Henshaw. Left to honour and her own initiative she had
produced a huge lobster, followed by cheese, and three little dull
looking jam tarts on a willow pattern plate.
When Jones had ruined the lobster and devoured the tarts he went on with
the book. The lovely heroine had become for him Teresa, Countess of
Rochester, the Opera singer himself, and the Russian Prince Maniloff.
Then the deepening dusk tore him from the book. Work had to be done.
He rang the bell, told Mrs. Henshaw that he was going to the railway
station to see after his luggage, took his cap, and went out. Strangely
enough he did not feel nervous. The first flurry had passed, and he had
adapted himself to the situation, the deepening darkness gave him a
sense of security, and the lights of the shops cheered him somehow.
He turned to the left towards the sea.
Fifty yards down the street he came across a Gentlemen's Outfitters, in
whose windows coloured neckties screamed, and fancy shirts raised their
discordant voices with Gent's summer waistcoats and those panama hats,
adored in the year of this story by the river and sea-side youth.
Jones, under the hands of Rochester's valet, and forced by circumstances
to use Rochester's clothes, was one of the best dressed men in London.
Left to himself in this matter he was lost. He had no idea of what to
wear or what not to wear, no idea of the social damnation that lies in
tweed trousers not turned up at the bottom, fancy waistcoats, made
evening ties, a bowler worn with a black morning coat, or dog-skin
gloves. Heinenberg and Obermann of Philadelphia had dressed him till
Stultz unconsciously took the business over. He was barely conscious of
the incongruity of his present get-up topped by the tweed shooting cap
of Hoover's, but he was quite conscious of the fact that some alteration
in dress was imperative as a means towards escape from
Sandbourne-on-Sea.
He entered the shop of Towler and Simpkinson, bought a six and
elevenpenny panama, put it on and had the tweed cap done up in a parcel.
Then a flannel coat attracted him, a grey flannel tennis coat price
fifteen shillings. It fitted him to a charm, save for the almost
negligible fact that the sleeves came down nearly to his knuckles. Then
he bought a night shirt for three and eleven, and had the whole lot done
up in one parcel.
At a chemist's next door he bought a tooth brush. In the mirror across
the counter he caught a glimpse of himself in the panama. It seemed to
him that not only had he never looked so well in any other head gear,
but that his appearance was completely altered.
Charmed and comforted he left the shop. Next door to the chemist's and
at the street corner was a public house.
Jones felt certain from his knowledge of Hoover that the very last place
to come across one of his assistants would be a public house. He entered
the public bar, took a seat by the counter and ordered a glass of beer
and a packet of cigarettes. The place was rank with the fumes of cheap
tobacco and cigarettes and the smell of beer. Hard gas light shewed no
adornment, nothing but pitch pine panelling, spittoons, bottles on
shelves and an almanac. The barmaid, a long-necked girl with red hands,
and cheap rings and a rose in her belt, detached herself from earnest
conversation with a youth in a bowler inhabiting the saloon bar, pulled
a handle, dumped a glass of beer before Jones and gave him change
without word or glance, returning to her conversation with the bowlered
youth. She evidently had no eyes at all for people in the public bar.
There are grades, even in the tavern.
Close to where Jones had taken his seat was standing a person in broken
shoes, an old straw hat, a coat, with parcels evidently in the tail
pockets, and trousers frayed at the heels. He had a red unshaven face,
and was reading the _Evening Courier_.
Suddenly he banged the paper with the tips of the fingers of his right
hand and cast it on the counter.
"Govinment! Govinment! nice sort of govinment, payin' each other four
hundred a year for followin' Asquith and robbin' the landowners to get
the money--God lumme."
He paused to light a filthy clay pipe. He had his eyes on Jones, and
evidently considered him, for some occult reason, of the same way of
political thinking as himself, and he addressed him in that impersonal
way in which one addresses an audience.
"They've downed and outed the House o' Lords, an' now they're scraggin'
the Welsh Church, after that they'll go for the Landed Prepriotor and
finish _him_. And who's to blame? the Radicals--no, they ain't to
blame, no more than rats for their instincts; we're to blame, the
Conservatives is to blame, we haven't got a fightin' man to purtect us.
The Radicals has got all the tallant--you look at the fight Bonna Lor's
been makin' this week. Fight! A blind Tom cat with his head in an old
t'marter tin would make a better fight than Bonna Lor's put up. Look at
Churchill, that chap was one of us once, he was born to lead the
clarses, an' now look at him leadin' the marses, up to his neck in
Radical dirt and pretendin' he likes it. He doesn't, but he's a man with
an eye in his head and he knows what we are, a boneless lot without
organisation. I say it myself, I said it only larst night in this here
bar, and I say it again, for two pins I'd chuck my party. I would so.
For two pins I'd chuck the country, and leave the whole lot to stew in
their own grease."
He addressed himself to his beer, and Jones, greatly marvelling, lit a
cigarette.
"Do you live here?" asked he.
"Sh'd think I did," replied the other. "Born here and bred here, and
been watchin' the place going down for the last twenty years, turnin'
from a decent residential neighbourhood to a collection of schools and
lodgin' houses, losin' clarse every year. Why the biggest house here is
owned by a chap that sells patent food, there's two socialists on the
town council, and the Mayor last year was Hoover, a chap that owns a
lunatic 'sylum. One of his loonies got out last March and near did for a
child on the Southgate Road before he was collared; and yet they make a
Mayor of him."
"Have another drink?" said Jones.
"I don't mind if I do."
"Well, here's luck," said he, putting his nose into the new glass.
"Luck!" said Jones. "Do Hoover's lunatics often escape?"
"Escape--why I heard only an hour ago another of them was out. Gawd help
him if the town folk catch him at any of his tricks, and Gawd help
Hoover. A chap has no right comin' down and settin' up a business like
that in a place like this full of nursemaids and children. People bring
their innercent children down here to play on the sands, and any minit
that place may break loose like a bum-shell. _That's_ not marked down on
the prospectices they publish with pictures done in blue and yaller, and
lies about the air and water, and the salubriarity of the South Coast."
"No, I suppose not," said Jones.
"Well, I must be goin'," said the other, emptying his glass and wiping
his mouth on the back of his hand. "Good night to you."
"Good night."
The upholder of Church and State shuffled out, leaving Jones to his
thoughts. Wind of the business had got about the town, and even at that
moment no doubt people were carefully locking back doors and looking in
out houses.
It was unfortunate that the last man to escape from the Hoover
establishment had been violently inclined, that was the one thing needed
to stimulate Rumour and make her spread.
Having sat for ten minutes longer and consumed another glass of tepid
beer, he took his departure.
Mrs. Henshaw let him in, and having informed her of his journey to the
station, the fruitlessness of his quest, and his opinion of the railway
company, its servants and its methods, he received his candle and went
to bed.