The Rev. Charles Gapworthy, B.A., sometime fellow and chaplain of St
Lazarus Hys Hostel, Bermondsey, S.E., tells us in his “Political
Economy for Schools” (chap. ii. “Capital,” p. 28) that “economic
force resides ultimately, not in material accumulation, but in a
certain bold prevision of the mind.” The truth is but one more
example of the power residing in what we denominate, in this country,
the “Christian virtue of Hope.”
The M’Korio Delta Development Company had been but an idea. That idea
had even seemed, for some months, to languish, when the accession
of Mr Burden’s reputation, his Faith (which had made the formation
of the syndicate possible), and, for that matter, his twenty-five
thousand pounds, though they were but the outward sign of inward
spiritual things, lent to the whole adventure body and life. Its
aspect changed; it became concrete, as it were: a thing to be named,
handled, criticised, combated, defended with passionate enthusiasm; a
national Force in Being.
[Illustration: THE REV. CHARLES GAPWORTHY, B.A. (FROM A BLOCK VERY
KINDLY LENT BY “THE ST LAZARUS HYS HOSTEL MAGAZINE; A REVIEW OF
SOCIAL PROGRESS”)]
Mr Barnett was the first to sacrifice himself in the cause for which
so many in the end laid down their all. He left the Edgeware Road,
and took a considerable mansion overlooking the Park, convenient to
the Twopenny Tube, possessing a southern aspect, and so near to the
Marble Arch as to boast nobility of site. He thought it his duty
(and the future has proved him wise) to hire a carriage with two
horses, men in livery, and a box at the Opera: nor did he hesitate
to ensure to the daily papers, even to those with whose editors he
was intimate, a fixed contract of advertisement, in return for which,
as the courtesy of journalism demands, certain of his doings were
published, and commentary upon others omitted.
If it be true, as Canon Cone has so beautifully put it in his
Christmas sermon on Kingdom, that “we can serve England better with
our heads than with our hearts,” most nobly did Mr Barnett serve her.
His dinners, the principal of which were given weekly upon Fridays,
when Parliament was resting from its labours and before the
well-earned week-end had begun, his dinners, I say, recruited their
guests with a peculiar discretion. Rarely did more than twenty sit
down together, never, even when that number was exceeded, did men or
cooking of inferior value weaken the effect of the meal.
Gatherings less formal distinguished or enlivened the remaining
evenings, saving that of the Sabbath, which, in fine contrast to so
many around him, Mr Barnett remembered to keep it holy.
His suggestions were an inspiration, not only to the young men whom
he had launched into our world of Letters, but to a multitude who had
hitherto known him only by repute, and who, in spite of the legendary
difficulty of approaching so great a man, were introduced to him in
batches—before lunch, at tea times, and (by appointment) in the early
morning.
By a happy coincidence, the very force of things seemed to fight
upon his side. “The stars in their courses,” as Canon Cone, careless
of political opposition,[9] magnificently put it, “fought for,” the
tradition of which Mr Barnett was but a part, however distinguished.
Men influenced by Mr Barnett in no way; men who had never met him,
were caught by the flame of his genius.
[Illustration: CANON CONE DELIVERING HIS CHIVALROUS ATTACK UPON
THE INCARNATION (A THUMBNAIL SKETCH TAKEN BY THE REPORTER OF
“CHRISTENDOM,” AND CALLED BY HIM “CANON CONE IN ACTION”)]
[Illustration: CANON CONE IN REPOSE, DISCUSSING MATTERS UNCONNECTED
WITH DOGMA AT THE DUCHESS OF LAVINGTON’S (A SKETCH PURCHASED FROM
HER GRACE’S SECRETARY AT THE TIME, NOW DOOR-KEEPER AT THE VARIETY,
BISMARK, PA., U.S.A.)]
Sir Philip Marshall, for example, if anything a recluse, sent to _The
Nineteenth Century_ (and after) from his distant home at the Land’s
End, his famous article upon Germany and the M’Korio valley.
Young Coster chose for his principal picture of the year the title,
“Moonrise upon the Marshes of the M’Korio.” It was hung upon the
line ... and so upwards to the ceiling, and though its dimensions
caused a considerable portion of its area to escape the eyes of the
spectator, its main features attracted universal attention. Indeed,
it was in stepping back to obtain a comprehensive view of it, that
Sir Henry Baile cannoned into the aged Duchess of Lavington, who was
herself lost in contemplation of the canvas. The contretemps and the
unhappy scene it led to, would be too trivial to find a mention here
did they not serve to show the public zeal for all that concerned
the M’Korio. That picture also furnishes, by the way, what I believe
to be the only example of any direct interference on the part of Mr
Burden himself with a national enthusiasm which he rightly regarded
as the stronger for its spontaneity: I mean the little note in which
he begged the artist to change the word “marshes” to “lagoons,” a
request which was at once complied with.
In the New Gallery a powerful piece of impressionism, “The River
of Fate,” by Miss Paxter, turned upon the same theme; all London
talked of the blue-eyed Somersetshire lad, who lay there in his
khaki, floating with upturned face upon the dark waters. The public
subscription which was raised for his aged parents, and their
subsequent conviction for fraud, are not to the purpose of my tale,
unless it be to take this opportunity of defending Miss Paxter with
all the warmth of which I am capable, from the suggestion that she
knew the old people to be childless, or the incident itself to be
fictitious.
A further proof of Mr Barnett’s self-abnegation, and of the absence
of all financial pressure, during the growth of the movement, exists
in the fact that Messrs Pscheuffer, desiring to publish a book upon
the M’Korio Delta, wrote to Mr Barnett, and that he, with a fine
sense of what was due to his honour, refused to write so much as the
preface, or even to accept the dedication of the volume. He referred
the firm to Major Pondo, and washed his hands off the whole matter.
The success of the M’Korio village at Earl’s Court, if a plebeian,
was yet a genuine indication of the popular feeling. It was crowded
throughout the season; and the chief, a magnificent Basuto named
Issachar, was pensioned by an enthusiastic admirer who prefers to
remain anonymous.
[Illustration: DR MOHL
FROM THE OIL PAINTING PRESENTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF DORPOTT BY HIS
MAJESTY WILLIAM II, EMPEROR AND KING]
Even the neglected museum of Theoretical Geography received, for
the first time in forty years, a daily influx of visitors eager to
behold the raised map of the M’Korio Delta. The absolute flatness,
and consequent ease of cultivation, of the region could not be better
appreciated than in this graphic form.
Two rival hosiers, having each patented a type of collar under the
name of “The M’Korio,” went to law to decide which should have the
right of using so valuable a title. The case was reported at great
length, and aroused the widest interest and discussion. It is one of
his many acts of private generosity, so few of which I have been able
to record in this book, that Mr Barnett recouped the loser of this
action for his trouble and expense out of his own pocket, and gave
him a handsome present beside.
Finally, in a _brochure_ of the utmost interest, based upon vast
research, and expressed with admirable economy of proof, Dr Mohl, of
the University of Dorpott, conclusively identified the Delta with the
Sheol of the Old Testament.
I would it were my lot to set down nothing save the positive side of
this wave of success; but I owe it to Mr Barnett, and also to the
truth, to touch upon such opposition as the movement encountered.
This opposition was not always consciously exerted. It existed none
the less.
An article appeared in a German Review advocating the purchase of
the Delta by Germany, with one of whose colonies it was coterminous.
The wound it dealt was the deeper from the fact that Mr Barnett’s
own second cousin, Baron Bloch, was the author of the article, which
appeared above his pseudonym of “Sympathicus.” It was good to hear
the outburst of indignation with which this proposal was met in
England. We were saved by the rally of our own blood to our side. The
article “Git,” which appeared in the principal American newspaper in
London, was undoubtedly the turning point, after which the City and
the banking interest determined to support what was feared at the
time to be the vacillating policy of the Government.
Owing to the persistence of a very wealthy private member, whom
no arguments could mollify, unexpected difficulties arose in the
transference of the Delta from the Foreign to the Colonial Office, a
trifling but necessary formality which could not be accomplished till
much later, in August, when the close season for grouse was at an end.
[Illustration: BARON BLOCH (FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY M. M. BALLARU
ET CIE., 147 _bis_, RUE ST. LOUP. LES CLICHÉS SONT LA PROPRIÉTÉ
EXCLUSIVE DE LA MAISON)]
The correspondent of _The Times_ at Kurù, in a long course of
articles, which did more than anything else to teach the monied
classes what the M’Korio might mean, never once mentioned the company
nor any of its supporters—and there are conditions under which such
neutrality is dangerous.
Against all this Mr Barnett bore up with an heroic tenacity.
There was but one feature in all the field before him which gave him
any serious anxiety, and this was that unhappy vacillation which I
have already so often shown Mr Burden to have displayed, from the
moment that he plunged into efforts ill-suited to his training and
experience.
It was necessary, upon the face of it, that Mr Abbott should be
invited to join the original promoters, to “chip in,” as Mr Barnett
put it in somewhat excessive joviality of phrase.
But Mr Abbott was Faroosh. None but Mr Burden could approach him,
and frequently as he had been asked to do so, Mr Burden hesitated; a
childish hesitation; a man shrinking from a scene.
But if Mr Abbott’s directorship could wait, there were other and
more disquieting symptoms in Mr Burden’s manner. He had fits of
silence. For days he saw eye to eye with all his colleagues—and then,
suddenly, a note would come, short, querulous, excusing himself
from attending the most important functions. At last, during the
great reception in the beginning of July, Mr Barnett grew seriously
concerned.
My pen has not the leisure to describe the brilliancy of that
function. It was a scene which could not be matched in any capital
of Europe, hardly in London itself, elsewhere than in the little
district which is bounded on the north by Hyde Park Square and
Seymour Street, on the east by Park Street, on the south and west by
the misty distances of Hyde Park. It was worthy of all that was said
of it in the _Morning Post_ upon the one hand, in the _Indépendence
Belge_ upon the other—but I can mention it only in connection with Mr
Burden’s distressing mutability.
One thing had given Mr Barnett real hope; and that was Mr Burden’s
attitude towards what I may call the more common-place side of all
this matter of the M’Korio. A very genuine interest had appeared in
the old man’s face whenever he discussed the history or the geography
of the M’Korio. There ran through his character that tendency towards
futile pottering which led our grandfathers—with a mighty empire
before them—to waste their energies upon the foundation of learned
societies. During those enormous dinners, where every celebrity had
elbowed him, Mr Burden had often given cause for the very gravest
fears to the more masterful mind of the leader. But whenever he had
an opportunity of discussing Dr Mohl’s pamphlet with such experts
as M. Sabbat or Canon Cone, his animation and delight relieved
Mr Barnett’s apprehension. On the famous night when the first of
our geologists maintained the undoubted presence of gold in the
M’Korio, and when, in the startled silence that followed, Mr Barnett
(smiling that famous smile) had handed the model of the nugget from
guest to guest, Mr Burden, ignoring all that the news portended for
his country, showed an excited interest in the unique geological
conditions which could produce metallic deposits in a deep bed of
decomposing vegetable matter.
It was with confidence, therefore, that, on the occasion of this
great reception at Barnett House, the host led Mr Burden proudly
forward to present him to Major Pondo, whose book, “The African
River,” had during the past six days marked him out as the chief
expert upon that region.
The centre of every remark, the chief object of every introduction
throughout the evening, and now, upon Mr Burden’s late arrival the
natural recipient of his views, Major Pondo was for the moment one of
the land marks of London.
It was observed that Mr Burden stopped somewhat suddenly, as in
amazement, when he approached the soldier; and, indeed, the sight
which met his gaze was novel to him, and might have proved entrancing
to a better balanced mind.
Major Pondo, who boasted no regular commission from any crowned head
or president, had yet perhaps seen more real fighting than any of
those who are pleased to call themselves professional soldiers. Even
in this brilliant assembly, a dark contusion upon his left cheek-bone
was markedly visible, and a deep gash, clumsily sewn up across the
cusp of the chin, marked an adventure suffered somewhere far from
medical aid. In stature, he has been described as so short as to be
almost dwarfish. It is an error into which my contemporaries have
been led by the sturdy build and short, strong neck of the explorer.
His exact height, as it appears in official records, where the
photograph, thumb-marks, and many other accurate measurement of his
anatomy are preserved, is 1·3587 metres, or in English notation,
almost exactly five feet two inches.
[Illustration: MAJOR PONDO (AN EXTRACT FROM THE PICTURE OF THE
RECEPTION AT BARNETT HOUSE. BY THE COURTESY OF THE PROPRIETORS OF
“SOCIAL SKETCHES,” A WEEKLY MAGAZINE)]
Tropical suns and arctic snows in Mexico and Manitoba had tanned
his skin to the colour of wet elm. His teeth were even and of a
brilliant white, which stood in almost painful relief against the
complexion I have described.
His head, which was of great size, was bald, save for a considerable
cluster of hair at the back and just beside the ears. But though this
adornment was sparse, it was never unkempt; and Mr Burden, while yet
he was some way off, could distinguish upon it the gloss of a recent
unguent. The scalp was a mighty dome, and over the eyes was fixed
a frown, which indicated less a habit of scowling than the fixed
impression of indomitable energy. The face was clean shaven, and the
eyes of a beautiful soft brown, approaching black. Their glances
were slow and measured, but seemed to betray a certain unfamiliarity
with his surroundings. The right foot thrust out firmly a few inches
before the left; the right hand, holding the coffee cup in a simple
but powerful gesture, the left clenched just above the small of his
back, such was the figure whose name at least is familiar to every
Englishman, such was the human monolith which stood immovable in the
swirling of the throng as Mr Burden approached it with wondering
eyes. Mr Barnett introduced and left them together.
In that introduction the explorer had bowed, but had not uttered
a word. To the first remarks Mr Burden somewhat timidly made, he
replied with gestures alone; to a compliment, with a slight smile; to
a theory upon the climate of the M’Korio valley, with a cough that
committed him to nothing.
My old friend has confessed to me that, for some moments, he was
in dread lest Major Pondo might be dumb. He was even seized with a
terror that the man was ill-acquainted with the English language,
until the word “Yas!” mouthed out in the rich accent of Jamaica,
convinced him that he was in error. It was the prelude to a short
account, delivered as it were by rote, of the Major’s life and
adventures, at the close of which dark silence redescended. Mr
Burden, so far from finding his suspicions allayed, was tortured with
every manner of doubt.
If it were my purpose to defend my friend, I should find no
difficulty in holding such a brief. It must be remembered that he
was wholly ignorant of the new world into which he had wandered, and
that men such as Major Pondo, or indeed any other of those who yearly
and almost daily spread the bounds of our power, were quite unknown
to him. His irritability and unstable spirit, the result, as I still
believe, of old age, have been evident throughout these pages, and
it must be added that the hour was late—far later than the merchant
would have permitted himself had he obeyed his medical adviser—that
the glare, the heat, the multitude, all combined to arouse in him a
morbid judgment, and to enflame distorted views which were due in the
main to the failure of his health.
But it is not my business to defend him. I have no duty but to
enumerate quite simply, the facts in their order. Were I to trespass
upon another ground, I might find myself in competition with the
labours of Mr and Mrs O’Rourke, the very mention of whose existence I
particularly desire to avoid.
Be the cause what it may, when Mr Barnett returned to lead Mr Burden
to another guest, so far from having brought my friend into greater
harmony with the astounding energies of the new movement, he had
produced, by that interview with Major Pondo, a sentiment—I repeat
it, a morbid sentiment—approaching disgust.
There was nothing which, at that moment, Mr Burden would not have
believed. There was no anti-patriotic libel, no little-England mania
or lie, no dead and gone Cobdenism of the sixties, which he would not
have accepted after that brief experience.
He left the house that night, full of a kind of angry determination
to go next day and do what he had never yet dared to do: to speak to
Mr Abbott. But he would speak to him in a sense very different from
that which Mr Barnett had intended when he had asked him to call upon
that life-long friend, and to offer him a directorship.... He would
see Abbott, he would tell him of the risk to a considerable fortune,
of his doubts, of the torturing alternation of his mind: he would
find true stable comradeship and relief.
Fate, and the nature of men, led on to their meeting indeed, but
brought it, in spite of them both, to a very different end.
* * * * *
When Mr Burden awoke next morning, the deep sleep of fatigue and the
good light of a new day had somewhat changed his mood. There remained
of it nothing but an undercurrent of anxiety, which the conversation
of Cosmo that morning did very much to allay.
The day’s business at the office was prosperous, the air bracing and
sunny; if he found himself walking towards Mr Abbott’s office that
evening for the first time in so many weeks, it was only because he
was a business man, trained to method, and that therefore he detested
to abandon any resolve he had formed.
He came severely, and with a purpose, into the little panelled room
which had seen for 123 years the growth of the Abbott Line.
The place reeked of our past; but there was that in it which has
justly provided the financial press with a pet subject for ridicule.
It was as small as the cabin of a ship; indeed it had sheltered three
generations of men who had sailed as owners perpetually in their
own craft. It suggested the punch and the tobacco of that lazy race
of seamen, who knew of nothing but England, and cared for nothing
but her; and yet—in a way—we love them. It suggested very primitive
methods of business: phrases about “The position of the house,” the
plodding and the short-sightedness of the men whose theories in
government and finance we have, please God, finally abandoned. And at
the old large desk, in this old small room, sat a figure most worthy
of its frame.
Mr Abbot was in everything one of the characters which, pleasing as
they may still be in fiction to-day, would be sand in the bearings
of England, ruining the machine, were they to reappear in our modern
life.
There was nothing in him of what a true citizen has under the stress
and vision of our time.
He was tall, stout, and rubicund; his voice, which was louder than
that of a gentleman should be, pushed “cheeriness” up to and
beyond the bounds of vulgarity. The obstinacy which his features
partly betrayed was immediately apparent when he began to discuss
any controversial matter. He was cocksure of this and of that, upon
twenty subjects where men of an analytical power infinitely superior
had, in the vast intellectual expansion of these latter years, been
content to doubt or to criticise.
He was, in a word, what he would have called “sound.” He was “sound”
upon Free Trade; he was “sound” upon the maintenance of the gold
standard—a matter upon which he could know absolutely nothing. He
was “sound” in his contempt for “foreigners”—in which category he
was pleased to include what he denominated “Yankees.” He loved
England—but what he loved was the soil, the air, the habit; not that
great vision we possess. He clipped his words in a manner so heartily
unconscious and offensive that, for all his great wealth, the entry
into a rank above that of his birth would have been denied him. He
did not attempt it.
[Illustration: “COMPETITION! SIR; COMPETITION!”]
To strangers he would come out with a great roaring “sir,” at the
end of every other sentence. His conversations began with remarks
upon the weather (commonly in condemnation of it) and would, I regret
to say, not infrequently terminate with an oath, as he expressed
his difference from the more modern views of his companion. He would
often follow up such an expletive by uttering the undoubted truth
“that that was all _he_ knew about it,” or that “it was all _he_ had
to say.”
By some accident, probably of party tradition, he had followed Mr
Gladstone in his policy of Home Rule for Ireland; but nothing save an
inexcusable mulishness had made him continue to defend that worn-out
error when all his friends had abandoned it.
It is not remarkable that, with such a character, he should have
found himself totally out of sympathy with the principal economic
trend of our time, and should have boldly refused to amalgamate
the Abbott Line with any combination of shipowners. I can almost
see him as I write, sitting at the table at the Palmerston, where
he lunched, and shouting: “Competition, sir, competition!” at the
unhappy Zachary K. Peabody, the agent of the African Steamship Trust,
whose refinement he was too coarse to perceive, and whose practical
experience of commerce he derided.
His features were, in their outline, projecting and masculine; his
eyes firm, his chin solid. His hair, which was always in disorder,
was of a sharp iron-grey, and two little whiskers, nearly white,
emphasised the squareness of his face. But the strength of his mouth
was weakened by a perpetual tendency to laughter, and what he would
have called “good-fellowship,” or, as I have heard it named, “Row.”
Many things had combined to give him his influence over Mr Burden.
They had been young men together in the days when a common label
of so-called Liberalism, the necessity for political effort, was
sufficient to mask many essential differences of character between
men. The greater vigour and more sanguine temperament of the
shipowner had naturally over-borne the sobriety and occasional
hesitation of the dealer in hardware. It must also be admitted, that
in many of the small affairs of life—a narrow life, remember, and
one whose horizon was easily surveyed—his judgment had rarely been
at fault. It was he who had introduced Mr Burden to the trade in the
M’Korio, and who would willingly—for as such crude natures often are,
he was capable of affection—have gone to any sacrifice to preserve
his friend from commercial or personal dishonour.
He was unmarried.
As for his judgment upon any of the great complexities of modern
life, no worse judge could have been discovered than this utterly
simple, obstinate, loud-voiced man. His judgment upon such an
adventure as Mr Barnett’s could hardly for a moment be in doubt.
Mr Burden had felt it instinctively, and, for all these weeks, had
carefully avoided that familiar room. Now at last he entered; but the
very sight of Mr Abbott’s face roused in him a kind of warning that a
severe difference of opinion might arise.
It will not surprise my readers to be told that Mr Abbott’s greeting
was emphatic and commonplace, full of “eh’s?” and “Lord love me’s,”
and “all this long time’s”; but there lay in it a kind of hint that
Mr Abbott knew well enough the cause which had so prolonged that
interval.
Natural as was hesitation to such a man upon such a subject, Mr
Burden looking first in his friend’s eyes, and then away from them to
a vile oil painting of the _Arethusa_, said:
“Abbott, I have come to ask your advice upon a matter ... or perhaps
I should say, I want to hear what you think of a matter....”
Mr Abbott replied that Mr Burden might “ask away,” and “whatever
you’re going to do,” he continued, with a facile joviality, “take my
advice and don’t.” He laughed boisterously, as is the fashion of such
men, at his own wit, blew his nose in a resounding way, took out a
pipe, filled it with an astonishing black tobacco, lit it and said:
“Fire it out, my lad. Out with her!”
It was some time since Mr Burden had suffered this kind of approach;
and it cannot be denied that he was more than a little nettled.
Perhaps he showed it in his tone. At anyrate he said shortly enough:
“I have come to ask you what you think of the M’Korio?”
“It stinks,” said Mr Abbott, decisively.
He shut his mouth upon the words like a gin; put his hands firmly
upon the desk, as does a man upon a rudder bar, and looked up at Mr
Burden.
“Whole country stinks. You’ve known places that stink. Barking
Level stinks. Out _there_, by God, the whole place stinks. Big as
Yorkshire—I’ve been there, mind you, and you haven’t. Not a square
yard but stinks!”
Indeed, Mr Abbott, in company with many who declaim against the
corruption of our public life, would have done well to consider
whether his language was not a greater offence against true morality
than the actions and motives which he so recklessly ascribed to
others.
“I came for advice, Abbott: not for abuse,” said Mr Burden.
He was thoroughly annoyed, and the whole purpose of his visit receded
from him. He was annoyed by the self-satisfaction of his friend’s
tone, by the excessive coarseness of his language, though it came
from lips to which, I fear, coarseness was habitual. And he was,
above all, annoyed to have thrust into the delicacy of his slight
scruples this roaring objurgation.
“Who’s abusing you, man alive?” said Mr Abbott, in his great loud
voice, staring in harmony with his tone.
Mr Burden, crossing his arms, and tapping the oilcloth with his left
foot, answered, with quiet dignity, that Mr Abbott’s words implied an
insult to his friends, to himself, and he might add, to the Empire.
Mr Abbott’s only reply was to draw his forefinger rapidly across his
nose—a gesture to which he was most unfortunately addicted—to clench
his fist, and to strike the table before him.
“The Empire?” said Mr Abbott, much as a man might say, “the giant
Blunderbore?” Then he continued, more quietly: “Burden, you’re going
mad.”
“Yes, the Empire,” said Mr Burden with some heat, and with more
decision than he had yet shown. “I came for advice, Abbott, and,
upon my soul, I think I’m more fit to give it you than you are to
give it me.”
He had the firmness now to look Mr Abbott straight in the eye, and
doing so, he said in a voice that was almost equally firm:
“Perhaps you do not know that they have found gold?”
“GOLD!” roared, bellowed, thundered Mr Abbott. He blew out a great
breath, and whispered at the end of it: “Oh Lord in heaven!”
Mr Burden could bear no more.
He got up and said: “I’m sorry for this, Abbott, but I don’t think
that either you or I will profit by continuing the scene.”
Mr Abbott rose at the same time from his big wooden chair.
“You may go if you like, Burden,” he said, wagging his forefinger,
and staring into his friend’s face, as is the fashion of insolent
men; “you may go if you like ... but don’t blame me if they knock
you! They’re a lot of —— scoundrels, and if you have anything to do
with them you’re a —— fool ... and remember I said so. Don’t blame me
if they knock you!”
“I blame you for nothing but your expressions, Abbott,” said Mr
Burden.
His legs were trembling beneath him with emotion; he repressed it,
and walked slowly to the door, which he was careful to shut behind
him with courteous ease.
When he was gone Mr Abbott, whose mind was closed to all save the
most immediate things, stared at the door a moment, first blankly,
then a little sadly. At last he gave an enormous cough, followed by
a laugh yet more enormous, and within ten minutes had forgotten the
scene in the intricacies of a policy.
* * * * *
But Mr Burden was thoroughly disturbed. He was the more hurt at his
friend’s outburst, because at heart he had been on the defensive. Had
Mr Abbott shown less violence, the advice—which he had rejected—would
perhaps have sunk less deeply into his mind. As it was, the effect
of the quarrel was this: that the wild words of Mr Abbott, the
groundless insinuations which were those (at the best) of a fanatic,
did more than the closest reason could have done. They took root in
his heart, and bore a fruit of suspicion which never left him night
or day.
He dined in the evening in town, alone, at an hotel—a thing he had
not done for perhaps ten years. He purposely remained in that hotel
for many hours, that he might be alone when he should reach home,
and that he might sleep before the very name M’Korio should reach
his ears again. He took the 11.2, and did not reach his station till
twenty minutes to twelve. It was close upon midnight when he unlocked
the door of Avonmore.
He saw lights and heard voices; he came into the smoking-room whence
they proceeded, and saw at the fire the profile of Cosmo, a little
table with glasses, syphons and a whisky bottle, and beyond them,
in his own deep padded chair, a cranium and a back which were most
certainly those of Mr Barnett: of Mr Barnett in repose.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] As the scurrilous poem beginning “It is, it is the Canon’s
opening roar,” or the deliberate misprinting of the peroration to his
Romanes lecture on Historical Christianity, “The soul of Ananias like
a star,” etc.