Abbey, its conical cap glowing like the flame of a will-o’-the-wisp in
a dark morass,--while passively, and without any strength to resist
its imperious lead, the millionaire followed. In the full radiance
of a moon which made the streets as light as day, they presently
stood,--and as in a fevered dream, Josiah saw the familiar clock-tower
of Westminster, the great square in front of the Houses of Parliament,
and the twinkling lamps on the bridge that spans the steely gleam of
the river Thames. The dull human roar of the great metropolis thundered
in his ears like the rushing of many waters, and while he yet looked
on the scene which he knew so well, the Goblin took off its cap and
touched his eyes with its tasselled point.
“Tick-tock! Tick-tock! Only two thousand years by the Spirit’s clock!”
it said.
And lo!--the stately tower, buildings and streets disappeared!
Smooth green fields spread out on every side, full-flowering with
meadow-sweet, buttercups and daisies,--there was no longer any bridge
across the river, which, flowing calmly between low banks of mossy turf
and fern, reflected the sunshine in a thousand sparkles and plashed
against the double shores with musical murmurs of peace. A flock of
sheep grazed on the quiet pasture, and their shepherd sat at his ease
by the side of the placid stream.
And now the Goblin waved its spidery arms.
“Ask him,” it said--“what has become of London!”
Obediently McNason put the question. The shepherd turned upon him a
young wondering face.
“London!” he echoed. Then he smiled. “Oh yes, I think I know what you
mean! There _was_ a city of that name somewhere about here once, but I
don’t know exactly where! There’s nothing of it left now!”
“Nothing!” exclaimed McNason, aghast.
“Nothing!”--And the Goblin, pronouncing this word, waved its arms
again, whereupon the Vision vanished,--“Nothing! Not a shred!--not a
brick--not a bone! Not even a gold Coin! All the business--Gone!--all
the pleasure--Gone!--all the scheming, plotting, lying, cheating,
villainy, hatred and envy of one human creature contesting with the
other--Gone! All the self-sufficiency, learning, little wisdom, and
utter godlessness--Gone! Such will London be in two thousand years! And
Nature will not miss it! Nature can do without it very well; Nature can
do without you equally well, McNason! The sun will go on shining and
the birds will go on singing none the less because You are wanting!
Come along!--come along! In the spirit of One Timothy Two, time’s up!
Off we go on our last journey!”
Once more Josiah fell on his knees.
“Spare me!” he cried--“Spare me! Surely I have suffered enough!”
“Suffered? You? Oh Beelzebub!” And the Goblin began to elongate itself
in its own peculiar and terror-striking style, “You’ve only just begun
to know what it is to _feel_! You hard old scoundrel! _You_ talk of
suffering!--why, you have lived till over sixty years of age, caring
nothing at all for the troubles of others unless you could turn such
troubles to your own advantage! As a child you were selfish,--as a boy
you were selfish,--as a young man you were selfish,--as an old man
you are selfish! You have crushed out hundreds of human lives in your
factories as if they were mere ants swarming under your iron heel!
You have cut down the expenses of your business to the narrowest,
meanest, most pitiful margin,--you ‘sweat’ your labourers to such an
extent that you know you dare not walk through your own workshops
without a revolver in your pocket and a man on either side of you
for protection--you are a living curse to the majority of those you
employ--and they look for your death in the hope that after you are
gone they will have a kinder master! And _you_ quote Shakespeare, do
you? And the Bible! Oh hoo-roo! Come along! Time’s up, I tell you! And
we’re not going far. Just a little see-saw ride to a Home Sweet Home!
A last long Home! A Happy Home! Oh hoo-roo-oo-oo! One Timothy Two, and
away we go!”
* * * * *
Again a brief spell of semi-consciousness--a kind of waking nightmare
in which many confused sights and sounds were intermingled;--flying
visions of pale worn faces full of sorrow and appeal; noises as of
weeping, with stifled cries and sobs of pain;--and then Josiah McNason
opened his eyes widely, to find himself lying flat on a narrow bed in
the centre of a rather large room. His head rested on a small, very
hard pillow,--and on this pillow squatted the Goblin with an air of
being quite at ease.
“Here we are in a happy ‘Home,’ McNason!” it chuckled softly in his
ear--“Don’t worry! Don’t agitate yourself! Keep quiet calm! You will
have every possible attention!”
Josiah stared helplessly about him. He saw his clothes neatly folded
and placed all together on the top of a chest of drawers,--his top-hat
was also a particularly conspicuous object on a chair close by. He
realised that he had been undressed and put to bed, but how this had
happened he could not tell. He turned a miserable questioning gaze on
the Goblin.
“What--what’s this?” he stammered--“What are you going to do to me?”
“I?” And the Goblin, with an injured air of perfect innocence, executed
a diabolical French shrug of its shoulders--“I’m not going to do
anything to you, my dear sir! I wouldn’t be so cruel! It is THEY!--THEY
are going to do something to you,--but all for your good!--oh,
hoo-roo--all for your good!”
THEY! Who were THEY? With painful hesitation Josiah turned his eyes
round about again, and presently saw, standing near him like dim
figures in a blurred photograph, two men talking confidentially
together--one fairly young, the other elderly,--while with them was
a smart, well-set-up, rather perky looking woman attired in the
conventional grey gown, spotless apron and cap of the “professional”
nurse. The elderly man’s back was turned, but he seemed to be
expounding some knotty point of argument to his companions with
particular emphasis and gusto.
“Something’s gone wrong with the Works, McNason!” said the Goblin,
confidentially, “That’s what’s the matter?”
“Works?” And McNason’s troubled mind immediately reverted to his huge
factories--“What works?”
“YOUR works!” and the Goblin leered at him sideways with a frightful
grin--“Your internal works! And these two learned gentlemen are going
to find out what it is. You’re ill, you know!--you’re very ill! The
learned gentlemen don’t quite understand how or why you’re ill, but
they’re going to find out! They’re going to slice you up and see what
you’re like inside! It will be most interesting and instructive--to
the learned gentlemen! It won’t interest YOU at all, because you’re to
be put under chloroform, and you won’t know anything about it except
when you ‘come to.’ Then you will die! But that won’t particularly
matter! The operation is sure to be ‘most successful.’ An operation is
always ‘successful,’ even if the patient never recovers! The medical
profession must be safeguarded, you know!”
McNason heard, and in an instant became a prey to the most violent
access of nervous horror.
“I’m not ill!” he said fiercely. “There’s nothing whatever the
matter with me! How dare you say there is! It’s all a mistake--an
abominable mistake! I’ve never suffered from any illness except
gout and indigestion--never!--there’s no operation needed for such
ailments!--what the devil do you mean by bringing me here?”
“You _will_ talk about the devil!” And the Goblin shook its tasselled
cap at him reproachfully--“Don’t say I mentioned him first! You’re ill,
I tell you!--you’re more seriously ill than your old friend Willie
Dove, and you’re here _because_ you’re ill! ‘To this complexion must
we come at last’! Oh Beelzebub! They don’t know whether it’s cancer or
appendicitis with YOU!”
“Look here!” almost shouted Josiah, addressing himself to the two men,
who, with the nurse, still stood together talking, but who appeared not
to hear him--“Take me out of this place directly! I’ve been brought
here on false pretences! I’m not ill! I don’t want an operation! I
won’t be operated upon! I’ll--I’ll----!”
Here exhausted, he sank back on his hard pillow impotently clenching
his hands in a paroxysm of rage and fear.
The Goblin grinned.
“Now, McNason, keep cool!” it said--“Don’t show temper! Doctors don’t
like that sort of thing. They call it ‘nerves’ and they give you a
soothing draught. Besides, these two eminent personages who are just
now discussing your ‘case’ can’t hear you, and if they could they
wouldn’t listen. One’s a ‘Sir.’ He’s a clever man, of course, or he
wouldn’t be a ‘Sir.’ It’s a little unpleasant that the title puts him
on the same rank with any provincial Mayor who has presented an address
to the Sovereign! But it can’t be helped. There’s no suitable honour
in this country for _merely_ intellectual and scientific persons! Now
about your case----”
“I’ve _no_ case!” groaned the wretched millionaire--“No case at all----”
“You _are_ a case!” declared the Goblin--“A whole case in yourself! A
case of a man gone wrong! A case of a human creature who has a stone
in the place where his heart ought to be!--a hard, heavy stone, without
a pulse of love or kindness in it! A case? Oh Beelzebub! I should
think you _are_ a case! Sir Slasher Cut-Em-Up--that’s the broad-backed
elderly gentleman over there,--thinks you’ve got something ‘malignant’
inside! Oh hoo-roo-oo-oo! I should think you had! Sir Slasher believes
it’s cancer. But if it is, they’ll never find it, McNason! No!--_your_
cancer’s on the mind!--and they’ll never cut _that_ out! But they’re
going to have a good try!”
Josiah moaned helplessly.
“Sir Slasher Cut-Em-Up is a great vivisector,”--proceeded the Goblin,
cheerfully--“He knows where to find every little nerve and muscle in
the body of a dog, for instance. I don’t say your body is at all like
that of a dog!--I know your Soul isn’t half so honest or so faithful!
Sir Slasher has had more than a hundred innocent animals under his
scalpel--all poor, trustful, good creatures whom he has pinned and
stretched in every possible position on his rack of torture--whose
nerves he has severed--whose muscles he has galvanized--and whom he has
killed as slowly, as ruthlessly and as criminally as any Torquemada
that ever roasted a heretic to the sound of sacred music! Hoo-roo!
Sir Slasher knows a thing or two, I can tell you! He’s a licensed
murderer of the harmless and helpless,--but even a dog’s soul has a
place in the eternal countings, as Sir Slasher may find out to his cost
when he becomes a member of our United Empire Club! He cut up a dog
yesterday--now he’s going to cut up YOU! You’re a splendid subject for
him, you know! You’ve got so much MONEY!”
Again Josiah moaned in a stupor of fear.
“You’ve got so much MONEY!” repeated the Goblin, smacking its wide
lips as though it were tasting something savoury,--“And MONEY’s a
great thing! MONEY has enabled you to come to this ‘Home’--one of the
most select ‘Homes’ in London! Oh, Home Sweet Home! Oh happy, happy
Home! It’s the special pet ‘Nursing Home’ of Sir Slasher Cut-Em-Up,
where he’s got the matron and all the nurses under his big Thumb! Oh,
hoo-roo! Such a dear Home! You pay Five Guineas a week for your room to
begin with,--and then when you’re very ill, you pay Ten. Afterwards,
when you get worse and are likely to die, you pay Fifteen. The nurse
is extra. If you have two nurses you have two extras. Everything apart
from the room and the bed is ‘extra.’ If you want a bottle of soda
water you pay sixpence for a ‘split,’ ninepence for a full. And so on!
And so on! Oh, what a dear ‘comfy’ Home! There aren’t many like it in
London, I can tell you! Only a few--a beautiful, blessed few!”
At this moment, the personage whom the Goblin designated as Sir
Slasher-Cut-Em-Up finished his conversation with his younger
colleague, and both gentlemen smiled pleasantly, not to say
flirtatiously, at the grey-gowned nurse.
“Twelve o’clock to-morrow will do very well,” said Sir Slasher--“We
shall leave you to make all the preliminary arrangements, Nurse
Drat-Em-All. He’s asleep just now, I see!”
“I’m not asleep!”--gurgled McNason, feebly.
But Sir Slasher apparently did not hear. He stood by the bedside,
smiling blandly, his hands clasped behind him under his coat-tails.
“One of the richest men in the world!” he ejaculated,
appreciatively--“Dear me, dear me! Ah well, well! Has he any family?”
“None,”--said Nurse Drat-Em-All--“He had one son, I believe, who died
in childhood.”
She spoke primly, her lips opening and shutting on her words like a
kind of mechanical valve. But while she spoke she flashed her eyes at
the younger doctor with a feline cajolery in their hard brown depths.
“Then who,” murmured Sir Slasher, thoughtfully--“Who is to carry on his
vast business concerns? Who is to inherit his enormous fortune?”
No answer was forthcoming to this profound proposition.
Sir Slasher thereupon removed his hands from under his coat-tails, and
consulted his watch.
“I must be going,”--he said--“You will attend to all that is necessary,
Nurse?”
“Certainly, Sir Slasher!”
“I shall bring Dr. Choke-Em-Off with me to-morrow--and I think--yes,
I think”--here he looked benevolently considerate--“that taking
into account Mr. McNason’s great wealth and important position,
and--er--also--er--the very great difficulty and uncertainty of the
operation, Dr. Choke-Em-Off’s fee should be doubled! He is one of our
best anæsthetists--what do you say, Nurse?”
Sir Slasher had a delightful smile, and he was smiling delightfully
now. Nurse Drat-Em-All responded to the charm of it.
“There is no doubt that it is justifiably a case of double fees all
round!” she said, her own smile breaking into a giggle.
“Exactly!” And Sir Slasher shed a fatherly glance upon her--“And our
young friend here”--at this he laid a hand on his fellow-surgeon’s
shoulder--“Our young and brilliant friend will also have an opportunity
of displaying his skill and securing his reward! Of course,”--here he
became portentously business-like--“it will be advisable to get the
patient to sign the required cheques in advance,--there will be no
difficulty about that I should imagine! Because you see,--afterwards!”
“Ah!--afterwards!” echoed the younger doctor, speaking for the first
time.
Sir Slasher tried to look grave, but failed in the attempt.
“Afterwards,” he said pleasantly,--“the worthy millionaire may not be
in a condition to sign anything! I think”--and he paused, stroking
his smooth double chin--“I think, Nurse, he should be told that the
operation is a grave, very grave one, in case--these things sometimes
happen!--in case he has not made a will--or--let us say in case he
might wish to make some last testamentary gift--to--er--to me?--or--or
to you?--or to anyone else who may have rendered him a service?”
“I’ll see that he does all that he ought to do!” said Nurse
Drat-Em-All, with some severity--“I like my patients to be prepared for
the worst!”
“Quite right--quite right!” murmured Sir Slasher--“But prepare him
gently--quite gently, Nurse! By degrees--and cautiously! I _have_ known
cases where patients, getting too much alarmed, have made their escape
from a home like this by jumping out of the window! And strange to say
they have--some of them--escaped uninjured!--and stranger still, they
have recovered and lived many years! Most curious and remarkable! But
nerves are unaccountable things!” Here he paused and looked again at
McNason. “He sleeps very soundly! I should say he was older than he
admits! Ah well, well! We shall see! But I very much fear there’s no
chance for his recovery!”
“Then why not spare the knife and let him live as long as Nature will
allow him?” asked the younger doctor suddenly.
Sir Slasher looked amazed and reproachful.
“My dear sir! I was called in by Mr. McNason, and I must do my best for
such a very wealthy man! Besides, I think his is a very complex case,
and likely to prove most helpful and instructive. To-morrow at twelve
o’clock, Nurse! Good-evening!”
And Sir Slasher Cut-Em-Up walked softly out of the room, followed by
his colleague. Nurse Drat-Em-All, with a casual glance at the bed where
Josiah McNason lay, settled her cap more coquettishly on her head and
tripped after them.
“They’re gone!” said the Goblin then, sliding down from the pillow and
sitting astride on Josiah’s recumbent body--“But Nurse Drat-Em-All will
soon be back!”
“I don’t want her back!” groaned McNason, making an attempt to draw up
the bed-quilt in order to cover his eyes, in which effort he did not
succeed--“I don’t want anything! Leave me alone!”
“Sorry I can’t oblige you!” replied the Goblin--“I can’t leave you
alone till you leave YOURSELF alone! And Nurse Drat-Em-All must come
back to attend to her duties! She’s got a lot of things to do to you!”
McNason peered over the extreme edge of the bed-quilt.
“A lot of things to do to me?” he echoed, whimperingly--“What--what
will she do?”
“She will wash you first!” said the Goblin, briskly--“All over! Oh,
such a nice wash! Made of carbolic disinfectant! And you will be so
clean--_outside_ you!”
Josiah closed his eyes shudderingly.
“And then you will be put into a new flannel night-shirt,”--went on the
Goblin--“And you will perhaps be allowed a cup of hot milk or beef tea.
And when you’re nice and warm and clean and cosy, Nurse Drat-Em-All
will come and tell you to prepare for your end!”
“No--no!” cried McNason--“I’m not ill!--and I’m not ready--!”
“You _are_ ill!” declared the Goblin, firmly--“And never mind about
not being ready for your end. Nurse Drat-Em-All will _make_ you ready!
She’ll tell you what a very serious and expensive matter it will be to
slice you up scientifically to-morrow--and she will ask you where your
cheque book is----”
“I won’t tell her--I won’t--” stuttered McNason.
“Oh yes, you will! _She’ll_ get it out of you! And then you’ll write
a big cheque for Sir Slasher Cut-Em-Up, and another for the matron of
this happy ‘Home’--and for Dr. Choke-Em-Off,--and for everybody else
who wants a fee for sending you into the next world--and then--then
you’ll be allowed to sleep if you can! And to-morrow--to-morrow----”
Here the Goblin paused. Josiah raised himself up on his hard pillow and
looked at it with appealing eyes.
“Not so very long ago,”--it went on presently, in a kind of sing-song
monotone, “A man I knew went to a ‘Home’ something like this, only
not quite so up-to-date and expensive. He was a bold, kindly, genial
creature, fond of life and life’s pleasures. Something went wrong
with him and he consulted the doctors. They told him he had an
internal ailment, but they could not tell whether it was ‘malignant’
or not, till they had, so to speak, ‘opened him up.’ He felt strong
and hopeful, and consented to the operation. The surgeons did their
work--and how they did it, of course, only they can tell. But it was,
according to their own report, ‘successful.’ In forty-eight hours
the warm-blooded personality of the man that had talked, smiled and
jested with his own danger, was a mere lump of cold, stiff clay. He
had relatives--oh yes!--he had children for whom he had worked all
his life. What did they do? Why, they allowed his body which had so
lately pulsated with love for them all, to be taken away from the
‘home’ in which he died, and laid in a dismal vault without a single
soul to keep watch by it at night or say a prayer! The world is growing
callous concerning the dead, you know! And they don’t keep corpses in
‘Homes.’ When a man dies under an operation he must be ‘removed’ by
his family at once. In this case the poor fellow was ‘removed’ to a
chill city mortuary. His children, warm and comfortable, ate food as
usual and discussed the funeral business. Down in the cold and darkness
lay the once animated, cheery, generous-hearted man, alone--all, all,
alone!--shut out from the movement and light of natural things, with
no loving eyes to keep watch by his mortal remains,--no tender hands
to lay flowers on his lifeless breast!--and yet sentimentalists talk
about family love and home-affections! Oh hoo-roo!” And the Goblin
actually had tears like sparks of fiery dew in its eyes--“You ought
to be glad you’ve got no children, McNason! You’ve got MONEY instead!
And MONEY will enable you to have your body carried home grandly to
your country seat by special train! You can be laid out in state if
you like!--provided you give the order before Sir Slasher Cut-Em-Up
arrives to-morrow--candles burning all round you and wreaths on your
coffin,--it’s all done for MONEY!--and you can have a most expensive
funeral,--a beautiful mausoleum,--a marble monument and a lying
Epitaph! All for MONEY! MONEY’S a great thing, McNason!--and you’ve got
it! Oh Beelzebub! You’ve got it! But you’ve got nothing else!”
At this juncture McNason suddenly sat up in bed.
“Yes, I have!” he said, with a kind of trembling eagerness--“I’ve got
something else! I’ve got YOU! And I want--I want to make a friend of
YOU!”
The Goblin opened its round eyes so wide that they threatened to fall
out.
“Oh, you do, do you?” it queried doubtfully--“That’s odd! Now what put
that into your head?”
“I don’t know--I don’t know!” stammered McNason agitatedly--“But I
think----I feel----you don’t really want to do me any harm! Look
here!--Get me out of this! Take me away--take me away--take me home!”
The Goblin took off its conical cap and examined the interior of that
head gear with critical gravity. Its hair, in the all-round style,
seemed blacker and stickier than ever, and its features worked into the
most alarming contortions.
“Take you home!” it echoed--“What! Before Nurse Drat-Em-All comes back?”
“Yes--yes!” and Josiah wrung his hands imploringly; “Take me away at
once----!”
“But you’re ill!” said the Goblin--“You’re very ill!”
“I’m not!”
“You ARE! You’ve got a cancer!”
“I haven’t!”
“You HAVE! It’s called Selfishness! It is eating your life
away,--poisoning your blood--rotting your Soul!”
“I’ll get rid of it!--I’ll--I’ll cut it out myself!”--and in his
excitement McNason caught hold of the Goblin’s claw and pressed it
fervently--“I will--I will! Only take me out of this! Give me a chance!”
“You’re feverish too!” continued the Goblin, severely. “Your
temperature has gone up to the very highest point of Fraudulent
Philanthropy!”
“I know--I know!--but it will be all right!--only let me get home, and
you shall see--you shall see----!”
Here his voice ebbed away into a kind of choked sob.
“And I’m not sure that you haven’t got eczema,”--pursued the
Goblin--“Your snobbish hankering after a Peerage will probably break
out in a rash all over you!”
“It won’t!” said McNason--“It shan’t! I’ll--I’ll do whatever you tell
me----!”
“Oh, will you really though!” And the Goblin sniffed the air with its
terribly plastic nose very dubiously--“Do you mean it? Or is it all
funk? And only because you want to get away from Sir Slasher Cut-Em-Up?
I don’t believe in death-bed repentances!”
“It’s not--it’s not a death-bed repentance!” wailed McNason--“I don’t
want this to be my death-bed! I want to die in my own home!”
“Ah! So does Willie Dove!” said the Goblin. “Perhaps you can understand
now why his wife doesn’t want to send him to a Hospital!”
McNason shuddered. Time was flying fast, he thought--that cruel-looking
Nurse Drat-Em-All would be coming back immediately!--and with an
imploring cry he held out his arms to the Goblin.
“Ah, be good to me!” he moaned--“Take me home! I’ll promise
anything--anything!”
“It’s easy to promise,”--said the Goblin, “Anyone can do that! But will
you keep your promises? For instance, will you think of some other few
things besides YOURSELF?”
McNason lifted his trembling hands in the fashion of one invoking the
gods.
“I will!--I will!”