I have just come home from my Club in a state bordering upon
distraction. No great misfortune has happened to me, my dearest
friend has not been black-balled, the Club bore has not had me in his
unrelenting clutches. The waiters have been, as indeed they always
are, civil and obliging, the excellent _chef_ catered with his
usual skill to my simple mid-day wants, my table companions were
good-humoured, cheerful, and pleasantly cynical. What then, you may
ask, has happened to shatter my nerves and impair my temper for the
day? It is a simple matter, and I am almost ashamed to confess it
openly. But I am encouraged by the fact that two eminently solid and,
so far as I could see, perfectly unemotional gentlemen were as deeply
pricked and worried by what happened as I was myself. To begin with,
I do not admit that my nerves vibrate more easily than those of my
fellow-men. I have never killed an organ-grinder, I am guiltless of
the blood of a German band, I have even gone so far as to spare guards
who asked for my railway-ticket after I had carefully wrapped myself
up for a journey, and no touting vendor of subscription books or works
of art can truthfully say that I have kicked him. On the whole I think
I am reasonably even-tempered and of higher than average amiability.
Others may judge me differently. I don't wish to quarrel with them. I
simply reiterate my opinion. Why then am I to-day in a seething state
of exception to my rule? Here is the cause:
[Illustration]
After I had done with my luncheon, and had puffed a friendly cigar,
I proceeded to that room in the Club which is specially dedicated to
literature and silence. What a feast of multitudinous periodicals is
there spread out, how brightly the variegated array of books from
the circulating library attracts the leisurely, how dignified and
awe-inspiring are the far-stretching ranks of accumulated volumes upon
the shelves. And the carpet, how soft, and the chairs how comfortably
easy. Into one of these chairs I sank with a religious novel (I merely
mention the fact, whether for praise or blame I care not), and began
to think deeply about various life-problems that have much distressed
me. Why must men wear themselves out prematurely with labour? Why
must we suffer? And why, granting the necessity for pain, should I
occasionally sink under a toothache, while HARRISON, a blatant fellow
with a red face and a loud voice, continues in a condition of robust
and oppressive health? These speculations were not so painful and
disturbing as might be supposed. Indeed, they had a soothing effect.
From the rhythmical breathing and the closed eyes of two other
occupants of arm-chairs, I judged that they were similarly occupied
in philosophic reflection. I was just composing myself to a bout of
specially hard thinking, when, lo, the door opened, and in stepped Dr.
FUSSELL!
Everybody, I take it, knows Dr. FUSSELL. He is a member of countless
learned Societies. Over many of them he presides, to some he acts
as secretary. He reads papers on abstruse questions connected with
sanitation, he dashes with a kind of wild war-whoop into impassioned
newspaper controversies on the component elements of a dust particle,
or the civilisation of the Syro-Phoenicians. He is acute, dialectical,
scornful and furious. He denounces those who oppose him as the meanest
of mankind, he extols his supporters as the most illustrious and
reasonable of all who have benefited the human race. In the Club he
is always engaged in some investigation which keeps him continuously
skipping from bookshelf to bookshelf, climbing up ladders to reach
the highest shelves, rushing up and down-stairs with sheaves of paper
bulging in his coat-pockets, or stowed under his arms. He lays his
top-hat on the table, and makes it a receptacle for reams of notes and
volumes of projected essays. In a word, he is a human storm.
Well, in he came with his grey hair streaming over his forehead, and
his eyes aflame. I knew in a moment that repose in his presence was
out of the question, though I still sat on, hoping against hope.
First, the Doctor bounded to the fire-place, seized the poker, and
began to rummage the fire. It was a good fire, and had done nothing
to deserve this punishment. I shifted on my seat; the two other
philosophers opened their eyes and frowned, and still Dr. FUSSELL
continued to rummage. Now I knew, not only that that fire was being
poked on an entirely wrong principle, but that I alone knew how it
ought to be poked. My fingers itched, my whole body tingled with
excitement. At last Dr. FUSSELL ceased. In a moment I was out of my
seat and making a bee-line for the poker. I just managed to beat the
other two by a short head, seized the poker, and relieved my soul
by stirring the fire on strictly scientific principles. The others
watched me hungrily. When I had finished, each of them took a short
turn with the poker, and then we all returned, more or less appeased,
to our seats.
But we had not done with the ineffable FUSSELL. By this time he was on
the top of a step-ladder. Slowly he selected six tomes, and began his
perilous descent. Our eyes were riveted upon him. Crash, bang! His
arms were empty, and the unconscionable books fluttered and clattered
to the floor. Slowly and ruefully did FUSSELL descend into the cloud
of dust and gather his bruised treasures from the carpet. At last he
heaped them on his table, and began to write. We hoped for peace,
but it was not to be. A sudden thought struck him. He would sew his
scattered leaves of MS. together. With dreadful deliberation he took
needle and cotton from a little pocket housewife that he carried with
him; and then began one of the most maddening performances I have
ever watched. Carefully he held the needle to the light, carefully he
wetted and trimmed his cotton to a point. And for ten stricken minutes
we saw him miss the eye of the needle, sometimes by an inch, sometimes
by a hair's breadth. It was a thrilling contest between obstinacy and
evasiveness. I was fascinated by it. Every time, as the cotton neared
the eye, my heart slowly ascended into my mouth, only to drop with a
fatal swiftness into my boots as the triumphant needle scored another
victory. I began to imitate FUSSELL's every movement. I threaded
invisible needles by the gross with imperceptible cotton. I felt in
my own breast all the ardour of the chase, all the bitter sorrow of
repeated failures. My two companions in misfortune were similarly
affected, and there we sat, three sane and ordinary men, feverishly
going through all these itching movements with FUSSELL as our
detested, but unconscious fugleman. The strain became too great. I
sprang from my chair, "Sir," I said to the astonished FUSSELL, "permit
me; I learnt the art of threading needles as a boy from an East End
seamstress," and before he had time to protest, I had seized the
offending instruments, and by a stroke of inspiration had passed the
cotton through. Then without waiting to hear what FUSSELL might have
to say, I fled from the room. And here consequently I sit with my
nerves shattered, and an untasted crumpet cooling on the tea-tray.
Am I singular? I think not. There are others whose mannerisms plague
me too. For instance, TRUBERRY, whom I meet occasionally, has a wild
and venomous habit of relating to me his infinitesimal jokelets. That
I could pardon. But when, having related one, he bursts, as he always
does, into a helpless suffocation of purple laughter, the savage
within me awakes and I murder TRUBERRY in fancy to an accompaniment
of refined and protracted tortures. Once, as I helped him on with his
overcoat, he joked and exploded. My fingers were horribly near his
throat. But I mastered the impulse, and TRUBERRY will never know how
near he was to destruction. And to make matters worse, he is one
of the kindest and most considerately helpful of human beings. Oh,
IRRITATION, IRRITATION, you have much to answer for. The fly in the
ointment of the apothecary was a baby to you. Avaunt, avaunt!