I seem to remember very quick changes of mind after that lunch. The
muzzy exaltation of the unaccustomed stimulants gave way very rapidly
to a model of pellucid and impartial clairvoyance which is one of my
habitual mental states. It is intermittent; it leaves me for weeks
together, I know, but back it comes at last like justice on circuit,
and calls up all my impression, all my illusions, all my willful and
passionate proceedings. We came downstairs again into that inner room
which pretended to be a scientific laboratory through its high glass
lights, and indeed was a lurking place. My uncle pressed a cigarette on
me, and I took it and stood before the empty fireplace while he propped
his umbrella in the corner, deposited the new silk hat that was a
little too big for him on the table, blew copiously and produced a
second cigar.
It came into my head that he had shrunken very much in size since the
Wimblehurst days, that the cannon ball he had swallowed was rather more
evident and shameless than it had been, his skin less fresh and the
nose between his glasses, which still didn’t quite fit, much redder.
And just then he seemed much laxer in his muscles and not quite as
alertly quick in his movements. But he evidently wasn’t aware of the
degenerative nature of his changes as he sat there, looking suddenly
quite little under my eyes.
“Well, George!” he said, quite happily unconscious of my silent
criticism, “what do you think of it all?”
“Well,” I said, “in the first place—it’s a damned swindle!”
“Tut! tut!” said my uncle. “It’s as straight as—It’s fair trading!”
“So much the worse for trading,” I said.
“It’s the sort of thing everybody does. After all, there’s no harm in
the stuff—and it may do good. It might do a lot of good—giving people
confidence, f’rinstance, against an epidemic. See? Why not? don’t see
where your swindle comes in.”
“H’m,” I said. “It’s a thing you either see or don’t see.”
“I’d like to know what sort of trading isn’t a swindle in its way.
Everybody who does a large advertised trade is selling something common
on the strength of saying it’s uncommon. Look at Chickson—they made him
a baronet. Look at Lord Radmore, who did it on lying about the alkali
in soap! Rippin’ ads those were of his too!”
“You don’t mean to say you think doing this stuff up in bottles and
swearing it’s the quintessence of strength and making poor devils buy
it at that, is straight?”
“Why not, George? How do we know it mayn’t be the quintessence to them
so far as they’re concerned?”
“Oh!” I said, and shrugged my shoulders.
“There’s Faith. You put Faith in ’em.... I grant our labels are a bit
emphatic. Christian Science, really. No good setting people against the
medicine. Tell me a solitary trade nowadays that hasn’t to be—emphatic.
It’s the modern way! Everybody understands it—everybody allows for it.”
“But the world would be no worse and rather better, if all this stuff
of yours was run down a conduit into the Thames.”
“Don’t see that, George, at all. ’Mong other things, all our people
would be out of work. Unemployed! I grant you Tono-Bungay _may_ be—not
_quite_ so good a find for the world as Peruvian bark, but the point
is, George—it _makes trade!_ And the world lives on trade. Commerce! A
romantic exchange of commodities and property. Romance. ’Magination.
See? You must look at these things in a broad light. Look at the
wood—and forget the trees! And hang it, George! we got to do these
things! There’s no way unless you do. What do _you_ mean to do—anyhow?”
“There’s ways of living,” I said, “Without either fraud or lying.”
“You’re a bit stiff, George. There’s no fraud in this affair, I’ll bet
my hat. But what do you propose to do? Go as chemist to some one who
_is_ running a business, and draw a salary without a share like I offer
you. Much sense in that! It comes out of the swindle as you call
it—just the same.”
“Some businesses are straight and quiet, anyhow; supply a sound article
that is really needed, don’t shout advertisements.”
“No, George. There you’re behind the times. The last of that sort was
sold up ‘bout five years ago.”
“Well, there’s scientific research.”
“And who pays for that? Who put up that big City and Guilds place at
South Kensington? Enterprising business men! They fancy they’ll have a
bit of science going on, they want a handy Expert ever and again, and
there you are! And what do you get for research when you’ve done it?
Just a bare living and no outlook. They just keep you to make
discoveries, and if they fancy they’ll use ’em they do.”
“One can teach.”
“How much a year, George? How much a year? I suppose you must respect
Carlyle! Well, you take Carlyle’s test—solvency. (Lord! what a book
that French Revolution of his is!) See what the world pays teachers and
discoverers and what it pays business men! That shows the ones it
really wants. There’s a justice in these big things, George, over and
above the apparent injustice. I tell you it wants trade. It’s Trade
that makes the world go round! Argosies! Venice! Empire!”
My uncle suddenly rose to his feet.
“You think it over, George. You think it over! And come up on Sunday to
the new place—we got rooms in Gower Street now—and see your aunt. She’s
often asked for you, George often and often, and thrown it up at me
about that bit of property—though I’ve always said and always will,
that twenty-five shillings in the pound is what I’ll pay you and
interest up to the nail. And think it over. It isn’t me I ask you to
help. It’s yourself. It’s your aunt Susan. It’s the whole concern. It’s
the commerce of your country. And we want you badly. I tell you
straight, I know my limitations. You could take this place, you could
make it go! I can see you at it—looking rather sour. Woosh is the word,
George.”
And he smiled endearingly.
“I got to dictate a letter,” he said, ending the smile, and vanished
into the outer room.