"Snipson did," replied Fenton. "He said you had been cheeky about him,
and he had you over and licked you. He said you seemed disposed to show
fight, but he soon took that out of you."
I listened with amazement at this speech of Fenton's; it was my first
experience of the gross misrepresentation of facts which was possible
when only two people were present, and I was astonished and amused at
the absurdity of the report. It was my first experience of the wilful
perversion of truth possible when two persons were together without
witnesses. I wish it had been my last. There will probably be many
among the readers of this book who have themselves had similar
experiences, for, if they have not, their career must have been
singularly limited and lucky. There are men--ay, and women too--who
from an inability to represent facts correctly, or from interested
motives, or from vanity, will misrepresent occurrencies and make out
that black was white, and yes, no. There are men and women whom it is
dangerous to speak to or be with without witnesses, and we believe that
when all secrets are revealed it will be found that more perjury has
been committed in connexion with _tete-a-tete_ interviews than with any
other event in life, from the days of Joseph to the present time.
During the day D'Arcy came to me, and laughed immensely as he told me
that Snipson had told the old cadets what a licking he had given me.
"He said you tried to escape from the room, but he locked the door and
just polished you off. You are quite certain," said D'Arcy, "that
everything occurred as you told me?"
"Quite," I replied, "and Snipson is a liar!"
"I believe you," replied D'Arcy; "but you had better keep quiet, and you
will now escape being thrashed by the old cadets, which is no joke, I
can tell you."
I followed d'Arcy's advice, and did not even deny that I had been
thrashed by Snipson, although I could not help adding, on one or two
occasions, that "I should not mind such a licking being repeated."
This was my last adventure with Snipson, who had been a thorn in my side
since my first joining the Academy. As, however, it was not the last
that I knew of his career, I may here mention what I knew of his future,
and then expunge his name from these pages.
Before the end of the half-year Snipson was found drunk by the officer
on duty. As he had been nearly four years at the Academy, and had but
little chance of qualifying, it was intimated to his friends that they
had better withdraw him from the Academy. Following this hint, Snipson
suddenly disappeared, and his name was soon forgotten where it had once
been a terror to all last-joined.
Twenty years after the events related in this book I was walking down
Oxford Street when I saw coming towards me a man with a seedy,
threadbare frock-coat, the arms of which were much too short for the
wearer, and the collar of which came too high. The coat had evidently
previously graced the form of another wearer, and when its youthful
beauties had faded had become the property of its present owner. A
portion of shirt was visible, and plainly indicated that it had been far
too long absent from the washerwoman. A hat bent and without gloss
surmounted a red face, with eyes somewhat like those of a crying child,
and a beard of about four days' growth. Brown trowsers, creased and
frayed, stained and patched, hung over a pair of split, misshapen shoes,
and completed the attire of a man whose type is now and then seen in
London.
Something about the man at once attracted me, and I thus noted his
appearance. The face, though altered, and indicating the effect of
drink, I yet recognised; and as the man walked past me and turned his
head so as to avoid showing me his face, I knew this wretched failure of
a man was my once bully, Snipson. He had failed as a cadet and he had
failed as a man; and from his appearance it was evident he had not done
what some men do, who in their young days have failed, etc, begin again
at the bottom of the ladder, and by steady work endeavour to recover,
themselves; but he was always scheming to recover himself by one grand
coup, and was always being disappointed.
I turned round quickly after I had passed Snipson, and saw him peeping
at me from a shop-door. When he caught my eye he turned and walked on
with an air and style that showed he had not yet suffered enough to make
him sensible of his own defects, nor was he yet in a state deserving of
sympathy.
One of the singular and yet universal peculiarities in the character of
such men as Snipson is, that they assert, and evidently believe, that
their unfortunate state is in no manner due to any fault or failing of
their own. They can always assure you that if this man had not done
so-and-so, or that man had not failed them in the most unexpected way,
they would have been all right. They are themselves never wrong; they
don't ever admit a mistake; they are convinced of their own cleverness,
and satisfied with their own knowledge. Former companions who have "got
on" in life they speak of as "lucky beggars," and have usually something
to say in disparagement of such men, as a sort of attempt to drag down
the successful to their own low level. They rarely, if ever, admit any
merit or skill in others, and attribute all that others may win, by hard
work and thought, to "luck," and all their own failures to "bad luck."
This was Snipson's state twenty years after he was a bully--idle and
untruthful as a gentleman cadet.