He said, "I don't know you; my memory's gone. Send for twopenn'orth or a
penn'orth of beer. Pray do."
My young friends, that man who begged for a pennyworth of muddy ale was
first of all a brilliant soldier, then a brilliant lawyer, then a
brilliant historian. His doctor's degree--he was Doctor of Laws--was
gained by fair hard work. Think of that, and then look at my picture of
the sodden, filthy scarecrow! Yes; that man began my education, and had
I only gone straight on I should not be loafing about The Chequers. You
ask how he could have anything to do with my education? Well, long ago I
was a little bookworm, living in a lonely country house, and I had the
run of some good shelves. I was only nine years old, but a huge history
in two volumes attracted me most. I read and read that book until I
could repeat whole pages easily, and even now I can go off at score if
you give me a start.
The Scarecrow wrote that history!
Years afterwards I was fighting my way in London, and had charge of a
journal which made a name in its day. Sometimes I had to deal with a
message from a Minister of State, sometimes with a petition from a
starving penny-a-liner. One day a little man was shown into my room,
which room was instantly scented with whisky. He was well introduced,
and I said, "Are you the Doctor ---- who wrote the 'History of ----'?"
"I am, sir, and proud I shall be to write for you."
"What can you do?"
"Here's a specimen."
The MS. was a bundle of bills from a public-house, and the blank side
was utilised. The Doctor never wasted money on paper when he could avoid
it. The stuff was feeble, involved, useless. My face must have fallen,
for the piteous Scarecrow said, "I have not your approval."
"We cannot use this."
Bending forward and clasping his hands, he said, "Could you not give me
two shillings for it? There are two columns good. A shilling a column;
surely that can't hurt you."
"I'll give you two shillings, and you can come back again if you are
needy, but the MS. is of no use to us."
He took the money, and returned again and again for more. I found that
he used to put fourpence in one pocket to meet the expense of his
lodging-house bed, and he bought ten two-pennyworths of gin with the
rest of the money. He always asked for two shillings, and always got
it. I was not responsible for his mode of spending it.
And now the Doctor had turned up in the region of The Chequers. He was
piteously, doggishly thankful for his drink, and he cried as he bleated
out his prayers for my good health. Men cry readily when they come to be
in the Doctor's condition. I asked him to take some soup. "I'm no great
eater," he said; "but I'd like just one more with you--only one."
"Where do you lodge, Doctor?"
"To tell you the truth, I'm forced to put up with a berth in the old
fowl-house at the bottom of the garden here. They let me stay there, but
'tis cold--cold."
"Do you work at all now?"
"Sometimes. But there is little doing--very little."
"How did you come to cease practising at the Bar, Doctor?"
"How do I come to be here? 'Tis the old thing--the old thing--and has
been all along."
This poor wretch could not be allowed to go about half-naked, so I let
the potman run out and get him a slop suit. (The Doctor sold the
clothes next day for half-a-crown, and was speechless when I went to see
him.) A hopeless, helpless wretch was the Doctor--the most hopeless I
ever knew. He entered the army, early in life, and for a time he was
petted and courted in Dublin society. The man was handsome,
accomplished, and brilliantly clever, and success seemed to follow him.
He sold out of the army and went to the Bar, where he succeeded during
many years. No one could have lived a happier, fuller, or more fruitful
life than he did before he slid into loose habits. His only pastime was
the pursuit of literature, and he finished his big history of a certain
great war while he was in full practice at the Chancery Bar. Power
seemed to reside in him; fortune poured gifts on him; and he lost all.
In an incredibly short space of time he drank away his practice, his
reputation, his hopes of high honour, his last penny.
Thus it was that my historian came to beg of me for that muddy
penn'orth.
I may as well finish the Doctor's story. If I were writing fiction the
tale would be scouted as improbable, yet I am going to state plain
facts. A firm of lawyers hunted up the Doctor, and informed him that he
had succeeded to the sum of £30,000. There was no mistake about the
matter; the long years of vile degradation, the rags, the squalor, the
scorn, of men were all to disappear. The solicitors dressed the Doctor
properly and advanced him money; he set off for Ireland to make some
necessary arrangements, and he solemnly swore that he would become a
total abstainer. At Swindon he chose to break his journey, took to
drinking, and kept on for many hours. It was long since he had had such
a chance of unlimited drink, and he greedily seized it. When he went to
bed he took a bottle with him, and in the morning he was dead.
Suffocated by alcohol, they said. He had no living soul related to him,
and I believe his money went to the Crown.
I have written this last fragment on separate sheets, and my journal is
interleaved for the first time.
The Gentleman and I became very friendly. I never tried to keep him from
drinking: it was useless. When he was sober his company was pleasant,
and I was very sorry when he mysteriously migrated, and many of our crew
missed his help badly.
Some time after the Gentleman's flight, I was in a common lodging-house
in Holborn, and in the kitchen I met a delightful vagabond of a
Frenchman with whom I had a long talk. He happened to say, "One of our
old friends died last week. He was a good man, and very well bred.
Figure it to yourself, he was brother of one of your judges!" Then I
knew that the Gentleman had gone. I wish I could have seen him again. As
I look back at the old leaves of my journal I seem to see that sweet,
patient smile which he wore as he told the story of his fall. There are
some things almost too sad to bear thinking about. This is one.
* * * * *
Our friend Dicky had a bad misfortune lately. I should say that Dicky is
an oldish man, who drifted into this ugly quarter some time ago, and
took his place in the parlour, which is a room that I now prefer to the
bar. I was holding a friendly discussion with a butcher when a strident
voice said, "You are absolutely and irredeemably ignorant of the
rudiments of your subject." I started. Where had I heard that voice
before? The man was clad in an old shooting-jacket; his trousers were
out at the knee, and his linen was very dirty; yet there was a something
about him--a kind of distinction--which was impressive. After launching
his expression of contempt at us, he buried his face in his pot and took
a mighty drink. Slowly my memory aided me, and under that knobby,
pustuled skin I traced the features of Dicky Nash, the most dreaded
political journalist of my time. Often I had heard that voice roaring
blasphemies with a vigour that no other man could equal; often had I
seen that sturdy form extended beside the editorial chair, while the
fumes in the office told tales as to the cause of the fall. And now here
was Dicky--ragged, dirty, and evidently down on his luck. I soon made
friends with him by owning his superior authority, and he kindly took a
quart of ale at my expense. This was a man who used to earn £2,000 a
year after he resigned his University fellowship. He was the friend and
adviser of statesmen; he might have ended as a Cabinet Minister, for no
man ever succeeded in gauging the extent of his miraculous ability; he
seemed to be the most powerful, as well as the most dreaded man in
England. Woe is me! We had to carry him up to bed; and he stayed on
until he spent a three-guinea cheque, which Mr. Landlord cashed for him.
I knew no good would come of his Fleet-street games, though he used to
laugh things off himself. He would come in about seven in the evening,
and seat himself at his table. Then he would hiccup, "Can't write
politics; no good. Give us a nice light subject."
"Try an article on the country at this season of the year."
"Good. I can't hold the damned pen. You sit down, I'll dictate: In this
refulgent season, when the barred clouds bloom the soft dying day, it is
pleasant to wander by the purple hedgerows where the stars of the (What
damned flower is it that twinkles now? What do you say? Ragged Robin?
Not poetic enough. Clematis? That'll do. Damn it, ride on!)--the stars
of the clematis modestly twinkle, and the trailing--(What the h---- is
it that trails? Honeysuckle? Good. Weigh in!)--trailing honeysuckle
flings down that rich scent that falls like sweet music on the
nerves.'"
And so on. He managed in this way to turn out the regulation column of
flummery, but I knew it could not last. And now he had come to be a sot
and an outcast. Worse has befallen him. He screwed up his nerve to write
an article in the old style, and I helped him by acting as amanuensis.
He violently attacked an editor who had persistently befriended him;
then he wrote a London Letter for that editor's paper; then he sent the
violent attack away in the envelope intended for the letter. There was a
terrible quarrel.
So far did the Gentleman, the Doctor, and Dicky come down. I may say
that Dicky, the companion of statesmen, the pride of his university,
died of cold and hunger in a cellar in the Borough. Oh, young man, boast
not of thy strength!