I MET him first at Lord’s, the best place, perhaps, in all London for
making acquaintances and even friends. Even if he had not worn a light
suit of clothes that drew the critical eye inevitably to his monstrous
girth he would have been conspicuous as occupying with difficulty the
space provided for two persons on an afternoon when seats were at a
premium. But though I own to no prejudice against flesh in itself, it
was not his notable presence that induced me to speak to him, but rather
the appealing glances that he threw to right and left of him when he
thought to have detected that fine wine of the game which, tasted
socially, changes a cricket match to a rare and solemn festival. Such an
invitation is one that no one for whom cricket is an inspiration can
refuse, and it was natural that thereafter we should praise and criticise
in wise and sympathetic chorus.
The acquaintance thus begun warmed to intimacy at the Oval and
Canterbury, and I began to seek his easily recognisable figure on
cricket-grounds with eagerness, to feel a pang of disappointment if he
was not there. For though to his careless eye his great moonlike face
might suggest no more than good-natured stupidity, I had soon discovered
that this exuberance of form barely concealed a delicate and engaging
personality, that within those vast galleries of flesh there roamed the
timid spirit of a little child. I have said that to the uncritical his
face might seem wanting in intelligence, but it was rather that the
normal placidity of his features suggested a lack of emotional
sensitiveness. Save with his eyes—and it needed experience to read their
message—he had no means of expressing his minor emotions, no compromise
between his wonted serenity and the monstrous phenomenon of his laughter,
that induced a facial metamorphosis almost too startling to convey an
impression of mirth. If normally his face might be compared with a deep,
still pool, laughter may be said to have stirred it up with a stick, and
the consequent ripples seemed to roll to the very extremities of his
body, growing in force as they went, so that his hands and feet vibrated
in humorous ecstasy.
Later, when, in one of his quaint interrogative moods, he showed me a
photograph of himself as a child, I was able to give form to the charming
spirit that Nature had burdened with this grievous load. I saw the
picture of a strikingly handsome little boy, with dark, wide eyes and
slightly parted lips that alike told of a noble sense of wonder. This, I
felt, was the man I knew, whose connection with that monstrous shape of
flesh had been so difficult to trace. Yet strangely I could recognise
the features of the boy in the expansive areas of the man. In the light
of the photograph he resembled one of those great cabbage-roses that a
too lavish season has swollen beyond all flowerlike proportions, yet
which are none the less undeniably roses. Others might find him clumsy,
elephantine, colossal; thenceforward he was for me clearly boyish.
His voice varied more in tone and quality than that of any other man I
have ever met, and over these variations he seemed to have little
control; and this, too, made it very difficult for strangers to detect
the trippings and hesitancies, gentle, wayward, and infinitely sensitive,
of his childlike temperament. Within the limits of one simple utterance
he would achieve sounds resembling the drumming of sudden rain on
galvanised iron and the ecstatic whistlings of dew-drunk birds. It was
sometimes difficult to follow the purport of his speech for sheer wonder
at the sounds that slid and leaped and burst from his lips. His voice
reminded me of a child strumming on some strange musical instrument of
extraordinary range and capacity which it had not learned how to play.
His laughter was ventriloquial and rarely bore any accountable
relationship to the expressions of mirth of ordinary men. It was like an
explosive rendering of one of those florid scales dear to piano-tuners,
but sometimes it suggested rather an earthquake in his boots.
He dwelt in a little flat that seemed like the upper floor of a
doll’s-house when related to its proprietor, and here it was his delight
to dispense a hospitality charmingly individual. His meals recalled
nothing so much as the illicit feasts held in school dormitories, and
when he peered curiously into his own cupboards he always looked as if he
were about to steal jam. He would produce viand after viand with the
glee of a successful explorer, and in terms of his eager hospitality the
most bizarre cates appeared congruous and even intimately connected, so
that at his board grown men would eat like schoolboys, with the great
careless appetite of youth.
He had a fine library and a still finer collection of mechanical toys,
which were for him a passion and a delight. It was pleasant to see him
set some painted piece of clockwork careering on the hearthrug, stooping
over it tenderly, with wondering eyes, and hands intent to guard it from
disaster. It was pleasant, too, to hear him recite Swinburne, of whom he
was a passionate admirer; for, though his voice would be as rebellious as
ever, his whole body would thrill and pulse with the music of the poet.
He always touched books softly because he loved them. Of bonfires he
spoke reverently, though a London flat hardly lent itself to their active
exploitation; and I remember that he told me once that nothing gave him a
keener sense of what he had lost in growing up than the scent of burning
twigs and leaves. Yet if he felt this loss, what should it have been for
us who had come so much farther than he!
Himself a child, he was beloved of children and treated by them as an
equal; but I never knew another child who was so easily and continuously
amused. The Hippodrome, the British Museum, the Tower of London, and the
art of Messrs. Maskelyne and Devant alike raised in him the highest
enthusiasm, which he expressed with charming but sometimes embarrassing
freedom. Alone of all men, perhaps, he found the Royal Academy wholly
satisfying, and it could be said of him truly that if he did not admire
the picture he would always like the frame. He had a huge admiration for
any one who did anything, and he liked riding in lifts.
Though he treated women with elaborate courtesy, their society made him
self-conscious, and he, who could direct his body featly enough in a
crowded street, was apt to be clumsy in drawing-rooms. Perhaps it was
for this reason that they had apparently played no marked part in his
life, and I may be wrong in attaching any special significance to a
phrase he made one quiet evening in his flat. We had been speaking of
the latest sensation in our group of mutual acquaintances, of the
marriage of Phyllis, daintiest and most witty of cricket-lovers, to a man
in whom the jealously critical eyes of her friends could perceive no
charm; but the conversation had dwindled to silence when he said, “Surely
his love can make any man lovely!”
Then, as if the subject were closed, he fell to speaking of his latest
pocket-knife with boyish animation; but the phrase dwelt in my mind,
though the image of the brave boy with wide eyes and lips parted in
wonder was all that I ever knew of the man who made it.