“_I tell thee in thine ear, he is a man 'Tis wiser thou shoutdst drink
with than affront!_”
--Ben Verulam.
[Illustration: 9180]
UT what is in it?”
“I don't know, sir,” said Mr. Titch. I had just got back to my rooms and
stood facing a gigantic packing-case that had appeared in my absence. It
was labelled, “For Mr. Balfour, care of M. d'Haricot. Not to be opened.”
Not another word of explanation, not a letter, not a message, nothing to
throw light on the mystery. The three Titches and Halfred stood beside
me also gazing at this strange offering.
“Could it be fruit, sir?” suggested Mrs. Titch, in her foolishly wise
fashion.
“Fruit!” said Aramatilda, scornfully. “It must weigh near on a ton.”
“You 'aven't ordered any furniture inadvertently, as it were, sir?”
asked Halfred, scratching his head, sagely.
“If anybody has ordered this it is evidently Mr. Balfour,” I replied.
“Who is Mr. Balfour, sir?” said Aramatilda.
“Do you know?” I asked Mr. Titch.
My landlord looked solemn, as he always did when speaking of the great.
“There is the Right Honorable Arthur Balfour, nephew to the Marquis--”
“Yes, yes,” I interrupted; “but I do not think that admirable statesman
would confide his purchases to me.”
“Then, sir,” said Mr. Titch, with an air of washing his hands of all
lesser personages, “I give it up.”
“I wish you could,” I replied, “but I fear it must remain here for the
present.”
They left my room casting lingering glances at the monstrosity, and once
I was alone my curiosity quickly died away. I felt lonely and
depressed. Parting from a houseful of guests and the cheerful air of a
country-house, I realized how foreign, after all, this city was to me.
I had acquaintances; I could find my way through the streets; but what
else? Ah, if I were in Paris now! That name spelled Heaven as I said it
over and over to myself.
I said it the oftener that I might not say “woman.” What mockery in that
word! Yet I felt that I must find relief. I opened my journal and this
is what I wrote:
“To d'Haricot from d'Haricot.--Foolish friend, beware of those things
they call eyes, of that substance they term hair, of that abstraction
known as a smile, and, above all, beware of those twin lies styled lips.
They kiss but in the intervals of kissing others; they speak but to
deceive. Nevermore shall I regard a woman more seriously than I do this
pretty, revolving ring of cigarette smoke.
“I am twenty-five, and romance is over. Follow thou my counsel and my
example.”
Outside it rained--hard, continuously, without room for a hope of
sunshine, as it only rains in England, I think. Perhaps I may be unjust,
but certainly never before have I been so wet through to the soul.
I threw down my pen, I went to the piano, and I began to play “L'Air
Bassinette” of Verdi. Gently at first I played, and then more loudly and
yet more loudly. So carried away was I that I began to sing.
Now at last the rain is inaudible; my heart is growing light again, when
above my melody I hear a most determined knocking on the door. Before
I have time to rise, it opens, and there enters--my neighbor, the old
General. Is it that he loves music so much? No, I scarcely think so. His
face is not that of the ravished dolphin; on the contrary, his eyes are
bright with an emotion that is not pleasure, his face is brilliant with
a choleric flush. I turn and face him.
“Pray do not stop your pandemonium on my account,” he says, with
sarcastic politeness. “I have endured it for half an hour, and I now
purpose to leave this house and not return till you are exhausted, sir.”
“I am obliged to you for your permission,” I reply, with equal
politeness, “and I shall now endeavor to win my bet.”
“Your bet, sir?” he inquires, with scarcely stifled indignation.
“I have made a bet that I shall play and sing for thirty-six consecutive
hours,” I explain.
“Then, sir, I shall interdict you, as sure as there is law in England!”
“Have you now explained the object of this visit?” I inquire.
“No, sir, I have not. I came in here to request you to make yourself
personally known to your disreputable confederates in order that they
may not mistake _me_ for a damned Bulgarian anarchist--or whatever your
country and profession happen to be.”
“May I ask _you_ to explain this courteous yet ambiguous demand?”
“Certainly, sir; and I trust you may see fit to put an end to
the nuisance. Two days ago I was accosted as I was leaving this
house--leaving the door of my own house, sir, I would have you remark! A
dashed half-hanged scoundrel came up to me and had the impudence to tell
me he wanted to speak to me. 'Well,' I said, “what is your business,
sir?'
“'My name is Hankey,' said he.”
“Hankey!” I exclaimed.
“Yes, sir, Hankey. You know him, then?”
“By name only.”
“Then, sir, I had the advantage over you,” said the General, irately. “I
didn't know the scoundrel from Beelzebub--and I told him so. Upon that,
sir, he had the audacity to throw out a hint that my friends--as he
called his dashed gang of cut-throats--were keeping an _eye_ on me. I
pass the hint on to you, sir, having no acquaintance myself with such
gentry!”
“And was that all that passed?” I asked, feeling too amazed and too
interested to take offence.
“No, sir, not all--but quite enough for my taste, I assure you. I said
to him, 'Sir,' I said, 'I know your dashed name and I may now tell you
that mine is General Sholto; that I am not the man to be humbugged like
this, and that I propose to introduce you to the first policeman I see.'
Gad, you should have seen the rogue jump! Then it seemed that he had
done me the honor of mistaking me for you, sir, and I must ask you to
have the kindness to take such steps as will enable your confederates to
know you when they see you, or, by George! I'll put the whole business
into the hands of the police!”
I felt strongly tempted to let my indignant fellow-lodger adopt this
course, for my feelings towards the absentee tenant of Mount Olympus
House could not be described as cordial, and the impudence of his
attempt to threaten me took my breath away; but then the thought struck
me, “This man is an agent--though I fear an unworthy one--of the Cause.
I must sink my own grievances!” Accordingly, with a polite air, I
endeavored to lull my neighbor's suspicions, assuring him that it was
only a tailor's debt the conspiring Hankey sought from me, and that I
would settle the account and abate the nuisance that very afternoon.
He seemed a little mollified; to the extent, at least, that his thunder
became a more distant rumble.
“I don't want to ask too many favors at once, sir,” he said; “but I fear
I must also request you to remove your piano to the basement for the
next six-and-thirty hours. I shall not stand it, sir, I warn you!”
“My dear sir,” I cried, “that was but a--how does the immortal
Shakespeare call it?--a countercheck quarrelsome--that was all. I should
not have sung at all had I known you disliked music.”
“Music! music!” exclaimed my visitor, with an expressive blending of
contempt and indignation. Then, in a milder tone, yet with the most
crushing, irony, continued: “I go to every musical piece in London--and
enjoy 'em sir; all of 'em. I've even sat out a concert in the Albert
Hall; so if I'm not musical, what the deuce am I?”
“It is evident,” I replied.
“I might even appreciate your efforts, sir. Very possibly I would, very
possibly, supposing I heard 'em at a reasonable hour,” said the General,
with magnanimity that will one day send him to heaven. “But it is my
habit, sir, to take a--ah--a rest in the afternoon, and--er--er--well,
it's deuced disturbing.”
This is but the echo of the storm among the hills. The wrath of my
gallant neighbor is evidently all but evaporated.
“A thousand apologies, sir. If you will be good enough to tell me at
what hours my playing is disturbing to you, I shall regulate my melody
accordingly.”
“Much obliged; much obliged. I don't want to stop you altogether,
don't you know,” says my visitor, and abruptly inquires, “Professional
musician, I presume?”
“Did I sound like it?”
“Beg pardon; being a foreigner, I fancied you'd probably be--er--” He
evidently wants to say “a Bohemian,” but fears to wound my feelings.
“'A damned Bulgarian anarchist,'” I suggest.
He snorts, laughs, and apparently is already inclined to smile at his
recent heat.
“I'm a bad-tempered old boy,” he says. “Pardon, mossoo.”
He is ashamed, I can see, that John Bull should have condescended
to lose his temper with a mere foreigner. This point of view is not
flattering; but the naïveté of the old boy amuses me.
“Take a seat, sir,” I now venture to suggest, “and allow me to offer you
a little whiskey and a little soda water.”
He hesitates for a moment, for he has not intended that pacification
should go to this length; but his kindness of heart prevails. He has
erred and he feels he must do this penance for his lack of discretion.
So he says, “Thank you,” and down he sits.
And that was the beginning of my acquaintance with my martial neighbor,
General Sholto. In half an hour we were talking away like old friends;
indeed, I soon began to suspect that the old gentleman felt as pleased
as I did to have company on that wet afternoon.
“I understand that you adorn the British army,” I remark.
“I was a soldier, sir; I was a soldier. I would be now if I'd had the
luck of some fellows. A superannuated fossil; that's what I am, mossoo;
an old wreck, no use to any one.”
As he says this, he draws himself up to show that the wreck still
contains beans, as the English proverb expresses it, but the next moment
the fire dies out of his eyes and he sits meditatively, looking suddenly
ten years older. He did not intend me to believe his words, but to
himself they have a meaning.
I am silent.
“I am one of the unemployed,” he adds, in a minute.
“I also,” I reply.
I like my neighbor; I am in need of a companion; and I tell him frankly
my story. His sympathies are entirely with me.
“I'm happy to meet a young man who sticks up for the decencies
nowadays,” he says. “Bring back your King, sir, give him a free hand,
and set us an example in veneration and respect and all the rest of it.
You'll make a clean sweep, I suppose. Guillotine, eh? Not a bad thing if
used on the proper people.”
I am ashamed to confess how half-hearted my own theories of restoration
are, compared with this out-and-out suggestion. I can but twist my
mustache, and, looking as truculent as possible, mutter:
“Well, well, we shall see when the time comes.”
When at last he rises to leave me, he repeats with emphasis his
conviction that republicanism should be trodden out under a heavy boot,
and so mollified is he by my tactful treatment that as we part he even
invites me into that carefully guarded room of his. It is not yet a
specific invitation.
“Some day soon I'll hope to see you in my own den, mossoo. Au revoir,
sir; happy to have met you.”
Yet I cannot help thinking that even this is a triumph of diplomacy. My
spirits rise; my ridiculous humors have been charmed quite away. As for
woman, she seems not even worth cynical comment in my journal. “Give me
man!” I say to myself.
[Illustration: 8000]