A sharp shower came on as I walked along the Strand, but I did not put up
my umbrella. The truth is I couldn't put up my umbrella. The frame would
not work for one thing, and if it had worked, I would not have put the
thing up, for I would no more be seen under such a travesty of an umbrella
than Falstaff would be seen marching through Coventry with his regiment of
ragamuffins. The fact is, the umbrella is not my umbrella at all. It is the
umbrella of some person who I hope will read these lines. He has got my
silk umbrella. I have got the cotton one he left in exchange. I imagine him
flaunting along the Strand under my umbrella, and throwing a scornful
glance at the fellow who was carrying his abomination and getting wet into
the bargain. I daresay the rascal chuckled as he eyed the said abomination.
"Ah," he said gaily to himself, "I did you in that time, old boy. I know
that thing. It won't open for nuts. And it folds up like a sack. Now, this
umbrella...."
But I leave him to his unrighteous communings. He is one of those people
who have what I may call an umbrella conscience. You know the sort of
person I mean. He would never put his hand in another's pocket, or forge a
cheque or rob a till--not even if he had the chance. But he will swop
umbrellas, or forget to return a book, or take a rise out of the railway
company. In fact he is a thoroughly honest man who allows his honesty the
benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he takes your umbrella at random from the
barber's stand. He knows he can't get a worse one than his own. He may get
a better. He doesn't look at it very closely until he is well on his way.
Then, "Dear me! I've taken the wrong umbrella," he says, with an air of
surprise, for he likes really to feel that he has made a mistake. "Ah,
well, it's no use going back now. He'd be gone. _And I've left him mine_!"
It is thus that we play hide-and-seek with our own conscience. It is not
enough not to be found out by others; we refuse to be found out by
ourselves. Quite impeccable people, people who ordinarily seem unspotted
from the world, are afflicted with umbrella morals. It was a well-known
preacher who was found dead in a first-class railway carriage with a
third-class ticket in his pocket.
And as for books, who has any morals where they are concerned? I remember
some years ago the library of a famous divine and literary critic, who had
died, being sold. It was a splendid library of rare books, chiefly
concerned with seventeenth-century writers, about whom he was a
distinguished authority. Multitudes of the books had the marks of libraries
all over the country. He had borrowed them and never found a convenient
opportunity of returning them. They clung to him like precedents to law.
Yet he was a holy man and preached admirable sermons, as I can bear
witness. And, if you press me on the point, I shall have to own that it
_is_ hard to part with a book you have come to love.
Indeed, the only sound rule about books is that adopted by the man who was
asked by a friend to lend him a certain volume. "I'm sorry," he said, "but
I can't." "Haven't you got it?" asked the other. "Yes, I've got it," he
said, "but I make it a rule never to lend books. You see, nobody ever
returns them. I know it is so from my own experience. Here, come with me."
And he led the way to his library. "There," said he, "four thousand
volumes. Every--one--of--'em--borrowed." No, never lend books. You can't
trust your dearest friend there. I know. Where is that _Gil Blas_ gone? Eh?
And that _Silvio Pellico_? And.... But why continue the list.... He knows.
HE KNOWS.
And hats. There are people who will exchange hats. Now that is
unpardonable. That goes outside that dim borderland of conscience where
honesty and dishonesty dissemble. No one can put a strange hat on without
being aware of the fact. Yet it is done. I once hung a silk hat up in the
smoking-room of the House of Commons. When I wanted it, it was gone. And
there was no silk hat left in its place. I had to go out bareheaded through
Palace Yard and Whitehall to buy another. I have often wondered who was the
gentleman who put my hat on and carried his own in his hand. Was he a Tory?
Was he a Radical? It can't have been a Labour man, for no Labour man could
put a silk hat on in a moment of abstraction. The thing would scorch his
brow. Fancy Will Crooks in a silk hat! One would as soon dare to play with
the fancy of the Archbishop of Canterbury in a bowler--a thought which
seems almost impious. It is possible, of course, that the gentleman who
took my silk umbrella did really make a mistake. Perhaps if he knew the
owner he would return it with his compliments. The thing has been done. Let
me give an illustration. I have myself exchanged umbrellas--often. I hope I
have done it honestly, but one can never be quite sure. Indeed, now I come
to think of it, that silk umbrella itself was not mine. It was one of a
long series of exchanges in which I had sometimes gained and sometimes
lost. My most memorable exchange was at a rich man's house where I had been
invited to dine with some politicians. It was summer-time, and the weather
being dry I had not occasion for some days afterwards to carry an umbrella.
Then one day a sensation reigned in our household. There had been
discovered in the umbrella-stand an umbrella with a gold band and a gold
tassle, and the name of a certain statesman engraved upon it. There had
never been such a super-umbrella in our house before. Before its golden
splendours we were at once humbled and terrified--humbled by its
magnificence, terrified by its presence. I felt as though I had been caught
in the act of stealing the British Empire. I wrote a hasty letter to the
owner, told him I admired his politics, but had never hoped to steal his
umbrella; then hailed a cab, and took the umbrella and the note to the
nearest dispatch office.
He was very nice about it, and in returning my own umbrella took all the
blame on himself. "What," he said, "between the noble-looking gentleman who
thrust a hat on my head, and the second noble-looking gentleman who handed
me a coat, and the third noble-looking gentleman who put an umbrella in my
hand, and the fourth noble-looking gentleman who flung me into a carriage,
I hadn't the least idea what I was taking. I was too bewildered by all the
noble flunkeys to refuse anything that was offered me."
Be it observed, it was the name on the umbrella that saved the situation in
this case. That is the way to circumvent the man with an umbrella
conscience. I see him eyeing his exchange with a secret joy; then he
observes the name and address and his solemn conviction that he is an
honest man does the rest. After my experience to-day, I think I will
engrave my name on my umbrella. But not on that baggy thing standing in the
corner. I do not care who relieves me of that. It is anybody's for the
taking.