was a short period of prosperity, though it dwindled as the tenants
began to realize where their money went. For a time J. and I got her to
keep our bicycles, other people in the house followed suit, and during
several months she was paid rent for as many as six, keeping them in the
empty sitting-room from which even the rickety chairs had disappeared,
and where the floor now was thick with grease and stained with oil. If
we had trunks to store or boxes to unpack, she would let us the same
room for as long as we wanted, and so she managed, one way or the other,
by hook or by crook. But it was a makeshift existence, all the more so
when her habits began to tell on her physically. She was ill half the
time, and by the end of her fourth year in the house, I do not believe
she could have sewed or waited or cooked, had she had the chance. She
had no friends, no companions, save her cat. They were a grim pair, she
with hungry, shifty eyes glowing like fires in the pallor of her face,
he more gaunt and ungainly than ever: for a witch and her familiar they
would have been burnt not so many hundred years ago.
Then we heard that she was taking in lodgers, that women with the look
of hunted creatures stole into her rooms at strange hours of the night.
Some said they were waifs and strays from the "Halls," others that they
were wanderers from the Strand; all agreed that, whoever they were, they
must be as desperately poor as she, to seek shelter where the only bed
was the floor. Much had been passed over, but I knew that such lodgers
were more than landlord and tenants could endure, and I had not to be a
prophet to foresee that the end was approaching.
It came more speedily than I thought, though the manner of it was not
left to landlord and tenants. Christmas, her fifth in the house, had
filled her purse again. Tenants were less liberal, it is true, but she
must have had at least five or six pounds, to which a turkey and plum
pudding had been added by our neighbour across the hall, who was of a
generous turn. She had therefore the essentials of what passes for a
merry Christmas, but how much merriment there was in hers I had no way
of telling. On holidays in London I keep indoors if I can, not caring to
face the sadness of the streets or the dreariness of house-parties, and
I did not go downstairs on Christmas Day, nor on Boxing Day which is the
day after. Mrs. Haines, if she came up, did not present herself at our
chambers. I trust she was gay because, as it turned out, it was her last
chance for gaiety at this or any other season. In the middle of the
night following Boxing Day she was seized with one of her mysterious
attacks. A lodger was with her, but, from fright, or stupidity, or
perhaps worse, called no one till dawn, when she rang up the housekeeper
next door and vanished. The housekeeper next door went at once for the
doctor who attends to us all in the Quarter. It was too late. Mrs.
Haines was dead when he reached the house.
Death was merciful, freeing her from the evil fate that threatened, for
she was at the end of everything. She went out of the world as naked as
she came into it. Her rooms were empty, there was not so much as a crust
of bread in her kitchen, in her purse were two farthings. Her only
clothes were those she had just taken off and the few rags wrapped about
her for the night. Destitution could not be more complete, and the
horror was to find it, not round the corner, not at the door, but in the
very house, and, worse, to know that it deserved no pity. As she had
sown, so had she reaped, and the grave was the kindliest shelter for the
harvest.
The day after, her sister appeared, from where, summoned by whom, I do
not know. She was a decent, serious woman, who attended to everything,
and when the funeral was over, called on all the tenants. She wanted,
she told me, to thank us for all our kindness to her sister, whom
kindness had so little helped. She volunteered no explanation, she only
sighed her regrets. She could not understand, she said.
Nor could I. No doubt, daily in the slums, many women die as destitute.
But they never had their chance. Mrs. Haines had hers, and a fair one
as these things go. Her tragedy has shaken my confidence in the
reformers to-day who would work the miracle, and, with equal chances for
all men, transform this sad world of ours into Utopia.
_Our Beggars_
[Illustration: CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE FROM OUR WINDOWS]
VIII
OUR BEGGARS
I know our Beggars by their ring. When the front door-bell is pulled
with insolent violence, "That," I say to myself, "is a Beggar," and I am
usually right.
Ours are not the Beggars of whose decay Elia complained; though he could
not have believed that the art of begging was in any more danger of
being lost than the art of lying. His sort have still their place at the
crowded crossing, at the corners of streets and turnings of alleys--they
are always with us. I rarely go out that I do not meet the cripple who
swings himself along on his crutches through the throngs at Charing
Cross, or the blind man who taps his way down the Strand, or the
paralytic in her little cart close to St. Martin's, and I too should
complain were they to disappear. These are Beggars I do not mind. They
have their picturesque uses. They carry on an old tradition. They are
licensed to molest me, and their demands, with their thanks when I give
and their curses when I do not, are the methods of a venerable and
honoured calling. Besides, I can escape them if I choose. I can cross
the street at the approach of the cripple, I can dodge the blind man, I
can look away as I pass the paralytic, and so avoid the irritation of
giving when I do not want to or the discomfort of hearing their opinion
of me when I refuse. But to our Beggars I do object, and from them there
is no escape. They belong to a new species, and have abandoned the
earlier methods as crude and primitive. They make a profession neither
of disease nor of deformity, but of having come down in the world. They
scorn to stoop to "rags and the wallet," which they have exchanged for a
top hat and frock coat. They take out no license, for they never beg in
the streets; instead, they assault us at our door, where they do not ask
for alms but claim the gift, they call a loan, as their right. They are
bullies, brigands, who would thrust the virtue of charity upon us, and
if, as the philosopher thinks, it is a test of manners to receive, they
come out of it with dignity, for their fiction of a loan saves them, and
us, from the professional profuseness of the Beggar's thanks.
It was only when I moved into chambers in the Quarter that they began to
come to see me. Hitherto, my life in London had been spent in lodgings,
where, if I was never free from Beggars in the form of those intimate
friends who are always short of ten pounds to pay their rent or ten
shillings to buy a hat, it was the landlady's affair when the Beggars
who were strangers called.
Chambers, however, gave me a front door at which they could ring and an
address in the Directory in which they could find out where the door
was; and had my object been to make a study of them and their manners, I
could not have hit upon a better place to collect my material.
Not that Beggars are encouraged in the Quarter, where more than one
society devoted to their scientific suppression has, or has had, an
office, and where the lady opposite does not wait for science, but sends
them flying the minute she catches them in our streets. The man who
loafs in front of our club, and who opens cab-doors for members, and as
many more as he can capture, might be mistaken for a Beggar by anybody
who did not know the Quarter, but we who do know it understand that he
is loafing by special appointment. The small boy who has lately taken to
selling his single box of matches on our Terrace does so officially, as
the brass label on his arm explains. And nothing could be more
exceptional than the cheerful person who the other day reeled after the
Publisher and myself into one of our houses where there is an
elevator--for to elevators we have come in the Quarter--the thin end of
the modern wedge that threatens its destruction--and addressed the
Publisher so affectionately as "Colonel" that we both retreated into the
elevator and pressed the button for the top floor.
But the Beggars we keep off our streets, we cannot keep from our front
doors. J. and I had hardly settled in chambers before we were besieged.
People were immediately in need of our help who up till then had managed
without it, and to our annoyance they have been in need of it ever
since. They present themselves in so many different guises, by so many
different methods, that it is impossible to be on our guard against them
all. Some sneak in with the post, and our correspondence has doubled in
bulk. Dukes, Earls, Marquises, Baronets, favour us with lithographed
letters, signing their names at the bottom, writing ours at the top, and
demanding our contribution to charities they approve, as the price of so
amazing a condescension. Ladies of rank cannot give their benevolent
balls and banquets unless we buy tickets, nor can they conceive of our
dismissing their personal appeal. Clergymen start missions that we may
finance them, bazaars are opened that we may fill the stalls with the
free offering of the work by which we make our living, and albums are
raffled that we may grace them with our autographs. We might think that
the post was invented for the benefit of people whose idea of charity is
to do the begging and get us to do the giving. Many of our Beggars like
better to beg in person: sometimes as nurses with tickets to sell for a
concert, or as Little Sisters of the Poor--whom I welcome, having
preserved a sentiment for any variety of cap and veil since my own
convent days; sometimes as people with things to sell at the biggest
price, that we would not want at the lowest, or with patent inventions
that we would not take as a gift, and who are indignant if we decline to
be taxed for the privilege of not buying or subscribing. But the most
numerous of our Beggars, the most persistent, the most liberal in their
expectations, are the men, and more occasionally the women, who, having
come down in the world, look to us to set them up again, and would be
the first to resent it if our generosity ran to any such extravagant
lengths.
Their patronage of the Quarter is doubtless due, partly to its being
close to the Strand, which is an excellent centre for their line of
business; partly to a convenient custom with us of leaving all street
doors hospitably open and inscribing the names of tenants in big gilt
letters on the wall just inside; partly to the fact that we are not five
minutes from a Free Library, where they can agreeably fill their hours
of leisure by the study of "Who's Who," "The Year's Art," and other
books in which publishers obligingly supply the information about us
which to them is as valuable an asset as a crutch to the cripple or a
staff to the blind. Provided by the Directory with our address, they may
already know where to look us up and how to establish an acquaintance by
asking for us by name at our door; but it is this cramming in the facts
of our life that enables them to talk to us familiarly about our work
until acquaintance has ripened into intimacy and the business of begging
is put on a personal and friendly footing. Great as is the good which
Mr. Carnegie must have hoped to accomplish by his Free Libraries, even
he could have had no idea of the boon they might prove to Beggars and
the healthy stimulus to the art of begging which they develop.
In the beginning our Beggars had no great fault to find with us. Their
frock coats and top hats, signs of real British respectability, carried
them past the British porter and the British servant. When they crossed
our threshold, some remnant of the barbarous instinct of hospitality
compelled us to receive them with civility, if not with cordiality. We
never went so far as, with the Spaniard, to offer them our house and all
that is in it, another instinct warning us how little they would mind
taking us at our word; nor did hospitality push us to the extreme of
being hoodwinked by their tales. But in those days we seldom let them go
without something, which was always more than they deserved since they
deserved nothing. If there is such a thing as a Beggar's Baedeker, I am
sure our chambers were specially recommended in earlier editions. In
justice, I must confess that they gave us entertainment for our money,
and that the very tricks of the trade were amusing--that is, while the
novelty lasted. We liked the splendid assurance of their manner; the
pretended carelessness with which a foot was quickly thrust through the
opening of the door so they could be shut out only by force; the
important air with which they asked for a few minutes' talk; the
insinuating smile with which they presumed that we remembered them;
their cool assumption that their burden was ours, and that the kindness
was all on their side for permitting us the privilege of bearing it. And
we liked no less their infinite trouble in inventing romances about
themselves that Munchausen could not have beaten, their dramatic use of
foggy nights and wild storms, their ingenuity in discovering a bond
between us, and their plausibility in proving why it obliged us to meet
their temporary difficulties which were never of course of their own
making. Nor could we but admire their superiority to mere charity, their
belief in the equal division of wealth, their indifference as to who did
the work to create the wealth so long as they did not do it themselves,
and their trust in the obligation imposed by a craft in common. Had they
bestowed half the pains in practising this craft that they squandered in
wheedling a few shillings from us on the strength of it, they must long
since have been acknowledged its masters.
The first of our Beggars, whom I probably remember the better because he
was the first, flattered me by introducing himself as a fellow author
at a time when I had published but one book and had won by it neither
fame nor fortune. What he had published himself he did not think it
worth while to mention, but the powers of imagination he revealed in his
talk should have secured his reputation in print. I have rarely listened
to anybody so fluent, I could not have got a word in had I wanted to. It
never seemed to occur to him that I might not be as bent upon listening
to his story as he upon telling it. He made it quite a personal matter
between us. I would understand, he said, and the inference was that
nobody else could, the bitterness of his awakening when the talented
woman whom he had revered as the kindliest of her sex betrayed herself
to him as the most cruel. For long, in her Florentine villa, he had been
Secretary to Ouida, whom he found so charming and considerate that he
could only marvel at all the gossip about her whims and fancies. Then,
one morning, he was writing a letter at her dictation and by oversight
he spelt disappointment with one p, a trifling error which, as I knew,
any gentleman or scholar was liable to. She flew into a rage, she
turned him out of the villa without hearing a word, she pursued him into
the garden, she set her dogs--colossal staghounds--on him, he had to run
for his life, had even to vault over the garden gate, I could picture to
myself with what disastrous consequences to his coat and trousers. And
she was so vindictive that she would neither send him his clothes nor
pay him a penny she owed him. He had too fine a sense of gallantry to go
to law with a lady, he dared not remain in Florence where the report was
that he went in danger of his life. There was nothing to do but to
return to England, and--well--here he was, with a new outfit to buy
before he could accept the admirable position offered to him, for he had
not to assure me that a man of his competency was everywhere in demand;
it was very awkward, and--in short--he looked to me as a fellow author
to tide him over the awkwardness. I can laugh now at my absurd
embarrassment when finally he came to a full stop. I did not have to
wait for his exposure in the next number of "The Author" to realize that
he was "an unscrupulous impostor." But I was too shy to call him one to
his face, and I actually murmured polite concern and "advanced" I have
forgotten what, to be rid of him.
Out of compliment to J., our Beggars pose as artists no less frequently
than as authors. If the artist himself, when accident or bad luck has
got him into a tight place, likes best to come to his fellow artist to
get him out of it, he is the first to pay his debts and the first debt
he pays is to the artist who saw him through. But this has nothing to do
with our Beggars who have chosen art as an unemployment and with whom
accident or bad luck is deliberately chronic. They look upon art as a
gilt-edged investment that should bring them in a dividend, however
remote their connection with it. According to them, an artist entitles
all his family, even to the second and third generation, to a share in
J.'s modest income, though J. himself is not at all of their manner of
thinking. Grandsons of famous wood-engravers, nephews of editors of
illustrated papers, cousins of publishers of popular magazines, fathers
of painters, brothers, sons, and uncles of every sort of artist, even
sisters, daughters, and aunts who take advantage of their talent for
pathos and "crocodile wisdom of shedding tears when they should
devour,"--all have sought to impress upon him that the sole reason for
their existence is to live at his expense. He may suggest meekly that he
subscribes to benevolent institutions and societies founded for the
relief of artists and artists' families in just their difficulties. They
are glib in excuses for making their application to him instead, and
they evidently think he ought to be grateful to them for putting him in
the way of enjoying the blessing promised to those who give.
The most ambitious reckon their needs on a princely scale, as if
determined to beg, when they have to, with all their might. One artist,
distinguished in his youth, writes to J., from the Cafe Royal where, in
his old age, he makes a habit of dining and finding himself towards
midnight ridiculously without a penny in his pocket, an emergency in
which a five-pound note by return of messenger will oblige. Another,
whose business hours are as late, comes in person for a "fiver," his
last train to his suburban home being on the point of starting and he as
ridiculously penniless, except for a cheque for a hundred pounds just
received from a publisher, which he cannot change at that time of night.
The more humble have so much less lavish a standard that half a crown
will meet their liabilities, or else a sum left to the generosity of the
giver. A youth, frequent in his visits, never aspires above the fare of
a hansom waiting below, while a painter of mature years appears only on
occasions of public rejoicing or mourning when there is no telling to
what extent emotion may loosen the purse strings. Some bring their
pictures as security, or the pictures of famous ancestors who have
become bewilderingly prolific since their death; some plead for their
work to be taken out of pawn; some want to pose in a few days, and these
J. recommends to the Keeper of the Royal Academy; and some are so subtle
in their argument that we fail to follow it. We are still wondering what
could have been the motive of the excited little man who burst in upon
J. a few days ago with a breathless inquiry as to how much he charged
for painting polo ponies for officers, and who bolted as precipitately
when J. said that he knew nothing about polo, and had never painted a
pony in his life. But for sheer irrelevance none has surpassed the
American whom, in J.'s absence, I was called upon to interview, and who
assured me that, having begun life as an artist and later turned model,
he had tramped all the way from New Orleans to New York and then worked
his way over on a cattleship to London with no other object in view than
to sit to J. If I regret that my countrymen in England borrow the trick
of begging from the native, it is some satisfaction to have them excel
in it. When I represented to the model from New Orleans that J., as far
as I could see, would have no use for him, he was quite ready to take a
shilling in place of the sitting, and when I would not give him a
shilling, he declared himself repaid by his pleasant chat with a
compatriot. He must have thought better of it afterwards and decided
that something more substantial was owing to him, for three weeks later
his visit was followed by a letter:--
MADAM,--I know how sorry you will be to hear that since my little
talk with you I have been dangerously sick in a hospital. The
doctors have now discharged me, but they say I must do no work of
any kind for ten days, though an artist is waiting for me to sit to
him for an important picture. They advise me to strengthen myself
with nourishing food in the meanwhile. Will you therefore please
send me
3 dozen new-laid eggs
1 lb. of fresh butter
1 lb. of coffee
1 lb. of tea
2 lbs. of sugar
1 dozen of oranges.
Thanking you in advance,
I am, Madam,
Gratefully yours.
There are periods when I am convinced that not art, not literature, but
journalism is the most impecunious of the professions, and that all
Fleet Street, to which the Quarter is fairly convenient, must be out of
work. It is astonishing how often it depends upon our financial backing
to get into work again, though dependence could not be more misplaced,
for a certain little transaction with a guileless youth whose future
hung on a journey to Russia has given us all the experience of the kind,
or a great deal more than we want. As astonishing is the number of
journalists who cherish as their happiest recollections the years they
were with us on the staff of London, New York, or Philadelphia papers
for which we never wrote a line. One even grew sentimental over the
"good old days" on the Philadelphia "Public Ledger" with J.'s father
who, to our knowledge, passed his life without as much as seeing the
inside of a newspaper office. But the journalist persisted until J.
vowed that he never had a father, that he never was in Philadelphia,
that he never heard of the "Ledger": then the poor man fled.
Astonishing, too, is the count they keep of the seasons. Disaster is
most apt to overtake them at those holiday times when Dickens has taught
that hearts are tender and purses overflow. For them Christmas spells
catastrophe, and it has ceased to be a surprise to hear their ring on
Christmas Eve. As a rule, a shilling will avert the catastrophe and
enable them to exchange the cold streets for a warm fireside, hunger for
feasting, though I recall a reporter for whom it could not be done under
a ticket to Paris. The Paris edition of the "New York Herald" had
engaged him on condition that he was in the office not later than
Christmas morning. He was ready to start, but--there was the ticket,
and, for no particular reason except that it was Christmas Eve, J. was
to have the pleasure of paying for it.
"Why not apply to the 'New York Herald' office here?" J. asked.
The reporter beamed: "My dear sir, the very thing, the very thing. Why
didn't I think of it before? I will go at once. Thank you, sir, thank
you!"
He was back in an hour, radiant, the ticket in his hand, but held tight,
so that just one end showed, as if he was afraid of losing it. "You see,
sir, it was the right tip, but I must have some coffee at Dieppe, and I
haven't one penny over. I can manage with a shilling, sir, and if you
would be so kind a couple more for a cab in Paris."
He did not know his man. J. would go, or rather he has gone, without
breakfast or dinner and any distance on foot when work was at stake. But
the reporter was so startled by the suggestion of such hardships for
himself that he dropped the ticket on the floor, and before he could
snatch it up again J. had seen that it was good not for Paris, but for a
'bus in the Strand.