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VICE VERSA
OR
A LESSON TO FATHERS
BY F. ANSTEY
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
FIRST EDITION (_Smith, Elder & Co._) _June 1882_
FIFTIETH IMPRESSION _May 1915_
_Reprinted_ (_F'cap 8vo_) (_John Murray_) _October 1917_
_Reprinted_ _March 1918_
_Reprinted_ _January 1920_
_Reprinted_ _August 1924_
_Reprinted_ _June 1926_
_Reprinted_ _August 1928_
_Reprinted_ (_Cr. 8vo_) _September 1929_
_Reprinted_ (_F'cap 8vo_) _December 1931_
_Reprinted_ _November 1937_
_Reprinted_ (_Cr. 8vo_) _June 1949_
_Reprinted_ _October 1954_
_Reprinted_ _March 1962_
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY LOWE AND BRYDONE (PRINTERS) LIMITED, LONDON,
N.W.10
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE 1
1. BLACK MONDAY 3
2. A GRAND TRANSFORMATION SCENE 15
3. IN THE TOILS 31
4. A MINNOW AMONGST TRITONS 48
5. DISGRACE 69
6. LEARNING AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS 87
7. CUTTING THE KNOT 104
8. UNBENDING THE BOW 120
9. A LETTER FROM HOME 133
10. THE COMPLETE LETTER-WRITER 146
11. A DAY OF REST 155
12. AGAINST TIME 169
13. A RESPITE 185
14. AN ERROR OF JUDGMENT 195
15. THE RUBICON 207
16. HARD PRESSED 221
17. A PERFIDIOUS ALLY 240
18. RUN TO EARTH 258
19. THE RECKONING 269
_PREFACE_
There is an old story of a punctiliously polite Greek, who, while
performing the funeral of an infant daughter, felt bound to make his
excuses to the spectators for "bringing out such a ridiculously small
corpse to so large a crowd."
The Author, although he trusts that the present production has more
vitality than the Greek gentleman's child, still feels that in these
days of philosophical fiction, metaphysical romance, and novels with a
purpose, some apology may perhaps be needed for a tale which has the
unambitious and frivolous aim of mere amusement.
However, he ventures to leave the tale to be its own apology, merely
contenting himself with the entreaty that his little fish may be spared
the rebuke that it is not a whale.
In submitting it with all possible respect to the Public, he conceives
that no form of words he could devise would appeal so simply and
powerfully to their feelings as that which he has ventured to adopt from
a certain Anglo-Portuguese Phrase-Book of deserved popularity.
Like the compilers of that work, he--"expects then who the little book,
for the care what he wrote him and her typographical corrections, will
commend itself to the--_British Paterfamilias_--at which he dedicates
him particularly."
1. _Black Monday_
"In England, where boys go to boarding schools, if the holidays
were not long there would be no opportunity for cultivating the
domestic affections."--_Letter of Lord Campbell's, 1835_.
On a certain Monday evening late in January, 1881, Paul Bultitude, Esq.
(of Mincing Lane, Colonial Produce Merchant), was sitting alone in his
dining-room at Westbourne Terrace after dinner.
The room was a long and lofty one, furnished in the stern uncompromising
style of the Mahogany Age, now supplanted by the later fashions of
decoration which, in their outset original and artistic, seem fairly on
the way to become as meaningless and conventional.
Here were no skilfully contrasted shades of grey or green, no dado, no
distemper on the walls; the woodwork was grained and varnished after the
manner of the Philistines, the walls papered in dark crimson, with heavy
curtains of the same colour, and the sideboard, dinner-waggon, and row
of stiff chairs were all carved in the same massive and expensive style
of ugliness. The pictures were those familiar presentments of dirty
rabbits, fat white horses, bloated goddesses, and misshapen boors, by
masters who, if younger than they assume to be, must have been quite old
enough to know better.
Mr. Bultitude was a tall and portly person, of a somewhat pompous and
overbearing demeanour; not much over fifty, but looking considerably
older. He had a high shining head, from which the hair had mostly
departed, what little still remained being of a grizzled auburn,
prominent pale blue eyes with heavy eyelids and fierce, bushy
whitey-brown eyebrows. His general expression suggested a conviction of
his own extreme importance, but, in spite of this, his big underlip
drooped rather weakly and his double chin slightly receded, giving a
judge of character reason for suspecting that a certain obstinate
positiveness observable in Mr. Bultitude's manner might possibly be due
less to the possession of an unusually strong will than to the
circumstance that, by some fortunate chance, that will had hitherto
never met with serious opposition.
The room, with all its aesthetic shortcomings, was comfortable enough,
and Mr. Bultitude's attitude--he was lying back in a well-wadded leather
arm-chair, with a glass of claret at his elbow and his feet stretched
out towards the ruddy blaze of the fire--seemed at first sight to imply
that happy after-dinner condition of perfect satisfaction with oneself
and things in general, which is the natural outcome of a good cook, a
good conscience, and a good digestion.
At first sight; because his face did not confirm the impression--there
was a latent uneasiness in it, an air of suppressed irritation, as if he
expected and even dreaded to be disturbed at any moment, and yet was
powerless to resent the intrusion as he would like to do.
At the slightest sound in the hall outside he would half rise in his
chair and glance at the door with a mixture of alarm and resignation,
and as often as the steps died away and the door remained closed, he
would sink back and resettle himself with a shrug of evident relief.
Habitual novel readers on reading thus far will, I am afraid, prepare
themselves for the arrival of a faithful cashier with news of
irretrievable ruin, or a mysterious and cynical stranger threatening
disclosures of a disgraceful nature.
But all such anticipations must at once be ruthlessly dispelled. Mr.
Bultitude, although he was certainly a merchant, was a fairly successful
one--in direct defiance of the laws of fiction, where any connection
with commerce seems to lead naturally to failure in one of the three
volumes.
He was an elderly gentleman, too, of irreproachable character and
antecedents; no Damocles' sword of exposure was swinging over his bald
but blameless head; he had no disasters to fear and no indiscretions to
conceal. He had not been intended for melodrama, with which, indeed, he
would not have considered it a respectable thing to be connected.
In fact, the secret of his uneasiness was so absurdly simple and
commonplace that I am rather ashamed to have made even a temporary
mystery of it.
His son Dick was about to return to school that evening, and Mr.
Bultitude was expecting every moment to be called upon to go through a
parting scene with him; that was really all that was troubling him.
This sounds very creditable to the tenderness of his feelings as a
father--for there are some parents who bear such a bereavement at the
close of the holidays with extraordinary fortitude, if they do not
actually betray an unnatural satisfaction at the event.
But it was not exactly from softness of heart that he was restless and
impatient, nor did he dread any severe strain upon his emotions. He was
not much given to sentiment, and was the author of more than one of
those pathetically indignant letters to the papers, in which the British
parent denounces the expenses of education and the unconscionable length
and frequency of vacations.
He was one of those nervous and fidgety persons who cannot understand
their own children, looking on them as objectionable monsters whose next
movements are uncertain--much as Frankenstein must have felt towards
_his_ monster.
He hated to have a boy about the house, and positively writhed under the
irrelevant and irrepressible questions, the unnecessary noises and
boisterous high spirits which nothing would subdue; his son's society
was to him simply an abominable nuisance, and he pined for a release
from it from the day the holidays began.
He had been a widower for nearly three years, and no doubt the loss of a
mother's loving tact, which can check the heedless merriment before it
becomes intolerable, and interpret and soften the most peevish and
unreasonable of rebukes, had done much to make the relations between
parent and children more strained than they might otherwise have been.
As it was, Dick's fear of his father was just great enough to prevent
any cordiality between them, and not sufficient to make him careful to
avoid offence, and it is not surprising if, when the time came for him
to return to his house of bondage at Dr. Grimstone's, Crichton House,
Market Rodwell, he left his father anything but inconsolable.
Just now, although Mr. Bultitude was so near the hour of his
deliverance, he still had a bad quarter of an hour before him, in which
the last farewells must be said, and he found it impossible under these
circumstances to compose himself for a quiet half-hour's nap, or retire
to the billiard-room for a cup of coffee and a mild cigar, as he would
otherwise have done--since he was certain to be disturbed.
And there was another thing which harassed him, and that was a haunting
dread lest at the last moment some unforeseen accident should prevent
the boy's departure after all. He had some grounds for this, for only a
week before, a sudden and unprecedented snowstorm had dashed his hopes,
on the eve of their fulfilment, by forcing the Doctor to postpone the
day on which his school was to re-assemble, and now Mr. Bultitude sat on
brambles until he had seen the house definitely rid of his son's
presence.
All this time, while the father was fretting and fuming in his
arm-chair, the son, the unlucky cause of all this discomfort, had been
standing on the mat outside the door, trying to screw up enough courage
to go in as if nothing was the matter with him.
He was not looking particularly boisterous just then. On the contrary,
his face was pale, and his eyelids rather redder than he would quite
care for them to be seen by any of the "fellows" at Crichton House. All
the life and spirit had gone out of him for the time; he had a
troublesome dryness in his throat, and a general sensation of chill
heaviness, which he himself would have described--expressively enough,
if not with academical elegance--as "feeling beastly."
The stoutest hearted boy, returning to the most perfect of schools,
cannot always escape something of this at that dark hour when the sands
of the holidays have run out to their last golden grain, when the boxes
are standing corded and labelled in the hall, and some one is going to
fetch the fatal cab.
Dick had just gone the round of the house, bidding dreary farewells to
all the servants; an unpleasant ordeal which he would gladly have
dispensed with, if possible, and which did not serve to raise his
spirits.
Upstairs, in the bright nursery, he had found his old nurse sitting
sewing by the high wire fender. She was a stern, hard-featured old lady,
who had systematically slapped him through infancy into boyhood, and he
had had some stormy passages with her during the past few weeks; but she
softened now in the most unexpected manner as she said good-bye, and
told him he was a "pleasant, good-hearted young gentleman, after all,
though that aggravating and contrairy sometimes." And then she
predicted, with some of the rashness attaching to irresponsibility, that
he would be "the best boy this next term as ever was, and work hard at
all his lessons, and bring home a prize"--but all this unusual
gentleness only made the interview more difficult to come out of with
any credit for self-control.
Then downstairs, the cook had come up in her evening brown print and
clean collar, from her warm spice-scented kitchen, to remark cheerily
that "Lor bless his heart, what with all these telegrafts and things,
time flew so fast nowadays that they'd be having him back again before
they all knew where they were!" which had a certain spurious consolation
about it, until one saw that, after all, it put the case entirely from
her own standpoint.
After this Dick had parted from his elder sister Barbara and his young
brother Roly, and had arrived where we found him first, at the mat
outside the dining-room door, where he still lingered shivering in the
cold foggy hall.
Somehow, he could not bring himself to take the next step at once; he
knew pretty well what his father's feelings would be, and a parting is a
very unpleasant ceremony to one who feels that the regret is all on his
own side.
But it was no use putting it off any longer; he resolved at last to go
in and get it over, and opened the door accordingly. How warm and
comfortable the room looked--more comfortable than it had ever seemed to
him before, even on the first day of the holidays!
And his father would be sitting there in a quarter of an hour's time,
just as he was now, while he himself would be lumbering along to the
station through the dismal raw fog!
How unspeakably delightful it must be, thought Dick enviously, to be
grown up and never worried by the thoughts of school and lesson-books;
to be able to look forward to returning to the same comfortable house,
and living the same easy life, day after day, week after week, with no
fear of a swiftly advancing Black Monday.
Gloomy moralists might have informed him that we cannot escape school by
simply growing up, and that, even for those who contrive this and make
a long holiday of their lives, there comes a time when the days are
grudgingly counted to a blacker Monday than ever made a school-boy's
heart quake within him.
But then Dick would never have believed them, and the moralists would
only have wasted much excellent common sense upon him.
Paul Bultitude's face cleared as he saw his son come in. "There you are,
eh?" he said, with evident satisfaction, as he turned in his chair,
intending to cut the scene as short as possible. "So you're off at last?
Well, holidays can't last for ever--by a merciful decree of Providence,
they don't last quite for ever! There, good-bye, good-bye, be a good boy
this term, no more scrapes, mind. And now you'd better run away, and put
on your coat--you're keeping the cab waiting all this time."
"No, I'm not," said Dick, "Boaler hasn't gone to fetch one yet."
"Not gone to fetch a cab yet!" cried Paul, with evident alarm, "why, God
bless my soul, what's the man thinking about? You'll lose your train! I
know you'll lose the train, and there will be another day lost, after
the extra week gone already through that snow! I must see to this
myself. Ring the bell, tell Boaler to start this instant--I insist on
his fetching a cab this instant!"
"Well, it's not my fault, you know," grumbled Dick, not considering so
much anxiety at all flattering, "but Boaler has gone now. I just heard
the gate shut."
"Ah!" said his father, with more composure, "and now," he suggested,
"you'd better shake hands, and then go up and say good-bye to your
sister--you've no time to spare."
"I've said good-bye to them," said Dick. "Mayn't I stay here till--till
Boaler comes?"
This request was due, less to filial affection than a faint desire for
dessert, which even his feelings could not altogether stifle. Mr.
Bultitude granted it with a very bad grace.
"I suppose you can if you want to," he said impatiently, "only do one
thing or the other--stay outside, or shut the door and come in and sit
down quietly. I cannot sit in a thorough draught!"
Dick obeyed, and applied himself to the dessert with rather an injured
expression.
His father felt a greater sense of constraint and worry than ever; the
interview, as he had feared, seemed likely to last some time, and he
felt that he ought to improve the occasion in some way, or, at all
events, make some observation. But, for all that, he had not the
remotest idea what to say to this red-haired, solemn boy, who sat
staring gloomily at him in the intervals of filling his mouth. The
situation grew more embarrassing every moment.
At last, as he felt himself likely to have more to say in reproof than
on any other subject, he began with that.
"There's one thing I want to talk to you about before you go," he began,
"and that's this. I had a most unsatisfactory report of you this last
term; don't let me have that again. Dr. Grimstone tells me--ah, I have
his letter here--yes, he says (and just attend, instead of making
yourself ill with preserved ginger)--he says, 'Your son has great
natural capacity, and excellent abilities; but I regret to say that,
instead of applying himself as he might do, he misuses his advantages,
and succeeds in setting a mischievous example to--if not actually
misleading--his companions.' That's a pleasant account for a father to
read! Here am I, sending you to an expensive school, furnishing you with
great natural capacity and excellent abilities, and--and--every other
school requisite, and all you do is to misuse them! It's disgraceful!
And misleading your companions, too! Why, at your age, they ought to
mislead _you_--No, I don't mean that--but what I may tell you is that
I've written a very strong letter to Dr. Grimstone, saying what pain it
gave me to hear you misbehaved yourself, and telling him, if he ever
caught you setting an example of any sort, mind that, _any_ sort, in the
future--he was to, ah, to remember some of Solomon's very sensible
remarks on the subject. So I should strongly advise you to take care
what you're about in future, for your own sake!"
This was not a very encouraging address, perhaps, but it did not seem to
distress Dick to any extent; he had heard very much the same sort of
thing several times before, and had been fully prepared for it then.
He had been seeking distraction in almonds and raisins, but now they
only choked instead of consoling him, and he gave them up and sat
brooding silently over his hard lot instead, with a dull, blank
dejection which those only who have gone through the same thing in their
boyhood will understand. To others, whose school life has been one
unchequered course of excitement and success, it will be
incomprehensible enough--and so much the better for them.
He sat listening to the grim sphinx clock on the black marble
chimneypiece, as it remorselessly ticked away his last few moments of
home-life, and he ingeniously set himself to crown his sorrow by
reviving recollections of happier days.
In one of the corners of the overmantel there was still a sprig of
withered laurel left forgotten, and his eye fell on it now with grim
satisfaction. He made his thoughts travel back to that delightful
afternoon on Christmas Eve, when they had all come home riotous through
the brilliant streets, laden with purchases from the Baker Street
Bazaar, and then had decorated the rooms with such free and careless
gaiety.
And the Christmas dinner too! He had sat just where he was sitting now,
with, ah, such a difference in every other respect--the time had not
come then when the thought of "only so many more weeks and days left"
had begun to intrude its grisly shape, like the skull at an ancient
feast.
And yet he could distinctly recollect now, and with bitter remorse, that
he had not enjoyed himself then as much as he ought to have done; he
even remembered an impious opinion of his that the proceedings were
"slow." Slow! with plenty to eat, and three (four, if he had only known
it) more weeks of holiday before him; with Boxing Day and the brisk
exhilarating drive to the Crystal Palace immediately following, with all
the rest of a season of licence and varied joys to come, which he could
hardly trust himself to look back upon now! He must have been mad to
think such a thing.
Overhead his sister Barbara was playing softly one of the airs from "The
Pirates" (it was Frederic's appeal to the Major-General's daughters),
and the music, freed from the serio-comic situation which it
illustrates, had a tenderness and pathos of its own which went to Dick's
heart and intensified his melancholy.
He had gone (in secret, for Mr. Bultitude disapproved of such
dissipations) to hear the Opera in the holidays, and now the piano
conjured the whole scene up for him again--there would be no more
theatre-going for him for a very long time!
By this time Mr. Bultitude began to feel the silence becoming once more
oppressive, and roused himself with a yawn. "Heigho!" he said, "Boaler's
an uncommonly long time fetching that cab!"
Dick felt more injured than ever, and showed it by drawing what he
intended for a moving sigh.
Unfortunately it was misunderstood.
"I do wish, sir," said his parent testily, "you would try to break
yourself of that habit of breathing hard. The society of a grampus (for
it's no less) delights no one and offends many--including me--and for
Heaven's sake, Dick, don't kick the leg of the table in that way; you
know it simply maddens me. What do you do it for? Why can't you learn to
sit at table like a gentleman?"
Dick mumbled some apology, and then, having found his tongue and
remembered his necessities, said, with a nervous catch in his voice,
"Oh, I say, father, will you--can you let me have some pocket-money,
please, to go back with?"
Mr. Bultitude looked as if his son had petitioned for a latch-key.
"Pocket-money!" he repeated, "why, you can't want money. Didn't your
grandmother give you a sovereign as a Christmas-box? And I gave you ten
shillings myself!"
"I do want it, though," said Dick; "that's all spent. And you know you
always _have_ given me money to take back."
"If I do give you some, you'll only go and spend it," grumbled Mr.
Bultitude, as if he considered money an object of art.
"I shan't spend it all at once, and I shall want some to put in the
plate on Sundays. We always have to put in the plate when it's a
collection. And there's the cab to pay."
"Boaler has orders to pay your cab--as you know well enough," said his
father, "but I suppose you must have some, though you cost me enough,
Heaven knows, without this additional expense."
And at this he brought up a fistful of loose silver and gold from one of
his trouser-pockets, and spread it deliberately out on the table in
front of him in shining rows.
Dick's eyes sparkled at the sight of so much wealth; for a moment or two
he almost forgot the pangs of approaching exile in the thought of the
dignity and credit which a single one of those bright new sovereigns
would procure for him.
It would ensure him surreptitious luxuries and open friendships as long
as it lasted. Even Tipping, the head boy of the school, who had gone
into tails, brought back no more, and besides, the money would bring
him handsomely out of certain pecuniary difficulties to which an
unexpected act of parental authority had exposed him; he could easily
dispose of all claims with such a sum at command, and then his father
could so easily spare it out of so much!
Meanwhile Mr. Bultitude, with great care and precision, selected from
the coins before him a florin, two shillings, and two sixpences, which
he pushed across to his son, who looked at them with a disappointment he
did not care to conceal.
"An uncommonly liberal allowance for a young fellow like you," he
observed. "Don't buy any foolishness with it, and if, towards the end of
the term you want a little more, and write an intelligible letter asking
for it, and I think proper to let you have it--why, you'll get it, you
know."
Dick had not the courage to ask for more, much as he longed to do so, so
he put the money in his purse with very qualified expressions of
gratitude.
In his purse he seemed to find something which had escaped his memory,
for he took out a small parcel and unfolded it with some hesitation.
"I nearly forgot," he said, speaking with more animation than he had yet
done, "I didn't like to take it without asking you, but is this any use?
May I have it?"
"Eh?" said Mr. Bultitude, sharply, "what's that? Something else--what is
it you want now?"
"It's only that stone Uncle Duke brought mamma from India; the thing, he
said, they called a 'Pagoda stone,' or something, out there."
"Pagoda stone? The boy means Garuda Stone. I should like to know how you
got hold of that; you've been meddling in my drawers, now, a thing I
will not put up with, as I've told you over and over again."
"No, I haven't, then," said Dick, "I found it in a tray in the
drawing-room, and Barbara said, perhaps, if I asked you, you might let
me have it, as she didn't think it was any use to you."
"Then Barbara had no right to say anything of the sort."
"But may I have it? I may, mayn't I?" persisted Dick.
"Have it? certainly not. What could you possibly want with a thing like
that? It's ridiculous. Give it to me."
Dick handed it over reluctantly enough. It was not much to look at,
quite an insignificant-looking little square tablet of greyish green
stone, pierced at one angle, and having on two of its faces faint traces
of mysterious letters or symbols, which time had made very difficult to
distinguish.
It looked harmless enough as Mr. Bultitude took it in his hand; there
was no kindly hand to hold him back, no warning voice to hint that there
might possibly be sleeping within that small marble block the pent-up
energy of long-forgotten Eastern necromancy, just as ready as ever to
awake into action at the first words which had power to evoke it.
There was no one; but even if there had been such a person, Paul
Bultitude was a sober prosaic individual, who would probably have
treated the warning as a piece of ridiculous superstition.
As it was, no man could have put himself in a position of extreme peril
with a more perfect unconsciousness of his danger.
2. _A Grand Transformation Scene_
"Magnaque numinibus vota exaudita malignis."
Paul Bultitude put on his glasses to examine the stone more carefully,
for it was some time since he had last seen or thought about it. Then he
looked up and said once more, "What use would a thing like this be to
you?"
Dick would have considered it a very valuable prize indeed; he could
have exhibited it to admiring friends--during lessons, of course, when
it would prove a most agreeable distraction; he could have played with
and fingered it incessantly, invented astonishing legends of its powers
and virtues; and, at last, when he had grown tired of it, have bartered
it for any more desirable article that might take his fancy. All these
advantages were present to his mind in a vague shifting form, but he
could not find either courage or words to explain them.
Consequently he only said awkwardly, "Oh, I don't know, I should like
it."
"Well, any way," said Paul, "you certainly won't have it. It's worth
keeping, whatever it is, as the only thing your uncle Marmaduke was ever
known to give to anybody."
Marmaduke Paradine, his brother-in-law, was not a connection of whom he
had much reason to feel particularly proud. One of those persons endowed
with what are known as "insinuating manners and address," he had, after
some futile attempts to enter the army, been sent out to Bombay as agent
for a Manchester firm, and in that capacity had contrived to be mixed up
in some more than shady transactions with rival exporters and native
dealers up the country, which led to an unceremonious dismissal by his
employers.
He had brought home the stone from India as a propitiatory token of
remembrance, more portable and less expensive than the lacquered
cabinets, brasses, stuffs and carved work which are expected from
friends at such a distance, and he had been received with pardon and
started once more, until certain other proceedings of his, shadier
still, had obliged Paul to forbid him the house at Westbourne Terrace.
Since then little had been heard of him, and the reports which reached
Mr. Bultitude of his disreputable relative's connection with the
promotion of a series of companies of the kind affected by the widow and
curate, and exposed in money articles and law courts, gave him no
desire to renew his acquaintance.
"Isn't it a talisman, though?" said Dick, rather unfortunately for any
hopes he might have of persuading his father to entrust him with the
coveted treasure.
"I'm sure I can't tell you," yawned Paul, "how do you mean?"
"I don't know, only Uncle Duke once said something about it. Barbara
heard him tell mamma. I say, perhaps it's like the one in Scott, and
cures people of things, though I don't think it's that sort of talisman
either, because I tried it once on my chilblains, and it wasn't a bit of
good. If you would only let me have it, perhaps I might find out, you
know."
"You might," said his father drily, apparently not much influenced by
this inducement, "but you won't have the chance. If it has a secret, I
will find it out for myself" (he little knew how literally he was to be
taken at his word), "and, by the way, there's your cab--at last."
There was a sound of wheels outside, and, as Dick heard them, he grew
desperate in his extremity; a wish he had long secretly cherished
unspoken, without ever hoping for courage to give it words, rose to his
lips now; he got up and moved timidly towards his father.
"Father," he said, "there's something I want to say to you so much
before I go. Do let me ask you now."
"Well, what is it?" said Paul. "Make haste, you haven't much time."
"It's this. I want you to--to let me leave Grimstone's at the end of the
term."
Paul stared at him, angry and incredulous, "Let you leave Dr.
Grimstone's (oblige me by giving him his full title when you speak of
him)," he said slowly. "Why, what do you mean? It's an excellent
school--never saw a better expressed prospectus in my life. And my old
friend Bangle, Sir Benjamin Bangle, who's a member of the School Board,
and ought to know something about schools, strongly recommended
it--would have sent his own son there, if he hadn't entered him at Eton.
And when I pay for most of the extras for you too. Dancing, by Gad, and
meat for breakfast. I'm sure I don't know what you would have."
"I'd like to go to Marlborough, or Harrow, or somewhere," whimpered
Dick. "Jolland's going to Harrow at Easter. (Jolland's one of the
fellows at Grimstone's--Dr. Grimstone's I mean.) And what does old
Bangle know about it? He hasn't got to go there himself! And--and
Grimstone's jolly enough to fellows he likes, but he doesn't like
_me_--he's always sitting on me for something--and I hate some of the
fellows there, and altogether it's beastly. Do let me leave! If you
don't want me to go to a public school, I--I could stop at home and have
a private tutor--like Joe Twitterley!"
"It's all ridiculous nonsense, I tell you," said Paul angrily,
"ridiculous nonsense! And, once for all, I'll put a stop to it. I don't
approve of public schools for boys like you, and, what's more, I can't
afford it. As for private tutors, that's absurd! So you will just make
up your mind to stay at Crichton House as long as I think proper to keep
you there, and there's an end of that!"
At this final blow to all his hopes, Dick began to sob in a subdued
hopeless kind of way, which was more than his father could bear. To do
Paul justice, he had not meant to be quite so harsh when the boy was
about to set out for school, and, a little ashamed of his irritation, he
sought to justify his decision.
He chose to do this by delivering a short homily on the advantages of
school, by which he might lead Dick to look on the matter in the calm
light of reason and common sense, and commonplaces on the subject began
to rise to the surface of his mind, from the rather muddy depths to
which they had long since sunk.
He began to give Dick the benefit of all this stagnant wisdom, with a
feeling of surprise as he went on, at his own powerful and original way
of putting things.
"Now, you know, it's no use to cry like that," he began. "It's--ah--the
usual thing for boys at school, I'm quite aware, to go about fancying
they're very ill-used, and miserable, and all the rest of it, just as if
people in my position had their sons educated out of spite! It's one of
those petty troubles all boys have to go through. And you mark my words,
my boy, when they go out into the world and have real trials to put up
with, and grow middle-aged men, like me, why, they see what fools
they've been, Dick; they see what fools they've been. All the--hum, the
innocent games and delights of boyhood, and that sort of thing, you
know--come back to them--and then they look back to those hours passed
at school as the happiest, aye, the very happiest time of their life!"
"Well," said Dick, "then I hope it won't be the happiest time in mine,
that's all! And you may have been happy at the school you went to,
perhaps, but I don't believe you would very much care about being a boy
again like me, and going back to Grimstone's, you know you wouldn't!"
This put Paul on his mettle; he had warmed well to his subject, and
could not let this open challenge pass unnoticed--it gave him such an
opening for a cheap and easy effect.
He still had the stone in his hand as he sank back into his chair,
smiling with a tolerant superiority.
"Perhaps you will believe me," he said, impressively, "when I tell you,
old as I am and much as you envy me, I only wish, at this very moment, I
could be a boy again, like you. Going back to school wouldn't make me
unhappy, I can tell you."
It is so fatally easy to say more than we mean in the desire to make as
strong an impression as possible. Well for most of us that--more
fortunate than Mr. Bultitude--we can generally do so without fear of
being taken too strictly at our word.
As he spoke these unlucky words, he felt a slight shiver, followed by a
curious shrinking sensation all over him. It was odd, too, but the
arm-chair in which he sat seemed to have grown so much bigger all at
once. He felt a passing surprise, but concluded it must be fancy, and
went on as comfortably as before.
"I should like it, my boy, but what's the good of wishing? I only
mention it to prove that I was not speaking at random. I'm an old man
and you're a young boy, and, that being so, why, of course--What the
dooce are you giggling about?"
For Dick, after some seconds of half-frightened open-mouthed staring,
had suddenly burst into a violent fit of almost hysterical giggling,
which he seemed trying vainly to suppress.
This naturally annoyed Mr. Bultitude, and he went on with immense
dignity, "I--ah--I'm not aware that I've been saying anything
particularly ridiculous. You seem to be amused?"
"Don't!" gasped Dick. "It, it isn't anything you're saying--it's,
it's--oh, can't you feel any difference?"
"The sooner you go back to school the better!" said Paul angrily. "I
wash my hands of you. When I do take the trouble to give you any advice,
it's received with ridicule. You always were an ill-mannered little cub.
I've had quite enough of this. Leave the room, sir!"
The wheels must have belonged to some other cab, for none had stopped at
the pavement as yet; but Mr. Bultitude was justly indignant, and could
stand the interview no longer. Dick, however, made no attempt to move;
he remained there, choking and shaking with laughter, while his father
sat stiffly on his chair, trying to ignore his son's unmannerly conduct,
but only partially succeeding.
No one can calmly endure watching other people laughing at him like
idiots, while he is left perfectly incapable of guessing what he has
said or done to amuse them. Even when this is known, it requires a
peculiarly keen sense of humour to see the point of a joke against
oneself.
At last his patience gave out, and he said coldly, "Now, perhaps, if you
are quite yourself again, you will be good enough to let me know what
the joke is?"
Dick, looking flushed and half-ashamed, tried again and again to speak,
but each time the attempt was too much for him. After a time he did
succeed, but his voice was hoarse and shaken with laughter as he spoke.
"Haven't you found it out yet? Go and look at yourself in the glass--it
will make you roar!"
There was the usual narrow sheet of plate glass at the back of the
sideboard, and to this Mr. Bultitude walked, almost under protest, and
with a cold dignity. It occurred to him that he might have a smudge on
his face or something wrong with his collar and tie--something to
account to some extent for his son's frivolous and insulting behaviour.
No suspicion of the terrible truth crossed his mind as yet.
Meanwhile Dick was looking on eagerly with a chuckle of anticipation, as
one who watches the dawning appreciation of an excellent joke.
But no sooner had Paul met the reflection in the glass than he started
back in incredulous horror--then returned and stared again and again.
Surely, surely, this could not be he!
He had expected to see his own familiar portly bow-windowed presence
there--but somehow, look as he would, the mirror insisted upon
reflecting the figure of his son Dick. Could he possibly have become
invisible and have lost the power of casting a reflection--or how was it
that Dick, and only Dick, was to be seen there?
How was it, too, when he looked round, there was the boy still sitting
there? It could not be Dick, evidently, that he saw in the glass.
Besides, the reflection opposite him moved when he moved, returned when
he returned, copied his every gesture!
He turned round upon his son with angry and yet hopeful suspicion. "You,
you've been playing some of your infernal tricks with this mirror, sir,"
he cried fiercely. "What have you done to it?"
"Done! how could I do anything to it? As if you didn't know that!"
"Then," stammered Paul, determined to know the worst, "then do you, do
you mean to tell me you can see any--alteration in me? Tell me the truth
now!"
"I should just think I could!" said Dick emphatically. "It's very queer,
but just look here," and he came up to the sideboard and placed himself
by the side of his horrified father. "Why," he said, with another
giggle, "we're--he-he--as like as two peas!"
They were indeed; the glass reflected now two small boys, each with
chubby cheeks and auburn hair, both dressed, too, exactly alike, in Eton
jackets and broad white collars; the only difference to be seen between
them was that, while one face wore an expression of intense glee and
satisfaction, the other--the one which Mr. Bultitude was beginning to
fear must belong to him--was lengthened and drawn with dismay and
bewilderment.
"Dick," said Paul faintly, "what is all this? Who has been, been taking
these liberties with me?"
"I'm sure I don't know," protested Dick. "It wasn't me. I believe you
did it all yourself."
"Did it all myself!" repeated Paul indignantly. "Is it likely I should?
It's some trickery, I tell you, some villainous plot. The worst of it
is," he added plaintively, "I don't understand who I'm supposed to be
now. Dick, who am I?"
"You can't be me," said Dick, "because here I am, you know. And you're
not yourself, that's very plain. You must be _somebody_, I suppose," he
added dubiously.
"Of course I am. What do you mean?" said Paul angrily. "Never mind who
I am. I feel just the same as I always did. Tell me when you first began
to notice any change. Could you see it coming on at all, eh?"
"It was all at once, just as you were talking about school and all that.
You said you only wished---- Why of course; look here, it must be the
stone that did it!"
"Stone! what stone?" said Paul. "I don't know what you're talking
about."
"Yes, you do--the Garuda Stone! You've got it in your hand still. Don't
you see? It's a real talisman after all! How jolly!"
"I didn't do anything to set it off; and besides, oh, it's perfectly
absurd! How can there be such things as talismans nowadays, eh? Tell me
that."
"Well, something's happened to you, hasn't it? And it must have been
done somehow," argued Dick.
"I was holding the confounded thing, certainly," said Paul, "here it is.
But what could I have said to start it? What has it done this to me
for?"
"I know!" cried Dick. "Don't you remember? You said you wished you were
a boy again, like me. So you are, you see, exactly like me! What a lark
it is, isn't it? But, I say, you can't go up to business like that, you
know, can you? I tell you what, you'd better come to Grimstone's with me
now, and see how you like it. I shouldn't mind so much if you came too.
Grimstone's face would be splendid when he saw two of us. Do come!"
"That's ridiculous nonsense you're talking," said Paul, "and you know
it. What should I do at school at my age? I tell you I'm the same as
ever inside, though I may have shrunk into a little rascally boy to look
at. And it's simply an abominable nuisance, Dick, that's what it is! Why
on earth couldn't you let the stone alone? Just see what mischief
you've done by meddling now--put me to all this inconvenience!"
"You shouldn't have wished," said Dick.
"Wished!" echoed Mr. Bultitude. "Why, to be sure," he said, with a gleam
of returning hopefulness, "of course--I never thought of that. The
thing's a wishing stone; it must be! You have to hold it, I suppose, and
then say what you wish aloud, and there you are. If that's the case, I
can soon put it all right by simply wishing myself back again. I--I
shall have a good laugh at all this by and by--I know I shall!"
He took the stone, and got into a corner by himself where he began
repeating the words, "I wish I was back again," "I wish I was the man I
was five minutes ago," "I wish all this had not happened," and so on,
until he was very exhausted and red in the face. He tried with the stone
held in his left hand, as well as his right, sitting and standing, under
all the various conditions he could think of, but absolutely nothing
came of it; he was just as exasperatingly boyish and youthful as ever at
the end of it.
"I don't like this," he said at last, giving it up with a rather
crestfallen air. "It seems to me that this diabolical invention has got
out of order somehow; I can't make it work any more!"
"Perhaps," suggested Dick, who had shown throughout the most
unsympathetic cheerfulness, "perhaps it's one of those talismans that
only give you one wish, and you've had it, you know?"
"Then it's all over!" groaned Paul. "What the dooce am I to do? What
shall I do? Suggest something, for Heaven's sake; don't stand cackling
there in that unfeeling manner. Can't you see what a terrible, mess I've
got into? Suppose--only suppose your sister or one of the servants were
to come in, and see me like this!"
This suggestion simply enchanted Dick. "Let's have 'em all up," he
laughed; "it would be such fun! How they will laugh when we tell them!"
And he rushed to the bell.
"Touch that bell if you dare!" screamed Paul. "I won't be seen in this
condition by anybody! What on earth could have induced that scoundrelly
uncle of yours to bring such a horrible thing as this over I can't
imagine! I never heard of such a situation as this in my life. I can't
stay like this, you know--it's not to be thought of! I--I wonder whether
it would be any use to send over to Dr. Bustard and ask him to step in;
he might give me something to bring me round. But then the whole
neighbourhood would hear about it! If I don't see my way out of this
soon, I shall go raving mad!"
And he paced restlessly up and down the room with his brain on fire.
All at once, as he became able to think more coherently, there occurred
to him a chance, slender and desperate enough, but still a chance, of
escaping even yet the consequences of his folly.
He was forced to conclude that, however improbable and fantastic it
might appear in this rationalistic age, there must be some hidden power
in this Garuda Stone which had put him in his present very unpleasant
position. It was plain too that the virtues of the talisman refused to
exert themselves any more at his bidding.
But it did not follow that in another's hands the spell would remain as
powerless. At all events, it was an experiment well worth the trial, and
he lost no time in explaining the notion to Dick, who, by the sparkle in
his eyes and suppressed excitement in his manner, seemed to think there
might be something in it.
"I may as well try," he said, "give it to me."
"Take it, my dear boy," said Paul, with a paternal air that sorely tried
Dick's recovered gravity, it contrasted so absurdly with his altered
appearance. "Take it, and wish your poor old father himself again!"
Dick took it, and held it thoughtfully for some moments, while Paul
waited in nervous impatience. "Isn't it any use?" he said dolefully at
last, as nothing happened.
"I don't know," said Dick calmly, "I haven't wished yet."
"Then do so at once," said Paul fussily, "do so at once. There's no time
to waste, every moment is of importance--your cab will be here directly.
Although, although I'm altered in this ridiculous way, I hope I still
retain my authority as a father, and as a father, by Gad, I expect you
to obey me, sir!"
"Oh, all right," said Dick indifferently, "you may keep the authority if
you like."
"Then do what I tell you. Can't you see how urgent it is that a scandal
like this shouldn't get about? I should be the laughing-stock of the
city. Not a soul must ever guess that such a thing has happened. You
must see that yourself."
"Yes," said Dick, who all this time was sitting on a corner of the
table, swinging his legs, "I see that. It will be all right. I'm going
to wish in a minute, and no one will guess there has been anything the
matter."
"That's a good boy!" said Paul, much relieved, "I know your heart is in
the right place--only do make haste."
"I suppose," Dick asked, "when you are yourself again, things would go
on just as usual?"
"I--I hope so."
"I mean you will go on sitting here, and I shall go off to Grimstone's?"
"Of course, of course," said Paul; "don't ask so many questions. I'm
sure you quite understand what has to be done, so get on. We might be
found like this any minute."
"That settles it," said Dick, "any fellow would do it after that."
"Yes, yes, but you're so slow about it!"
"Don't be in a hurry," said Dick, "you mayn't like it after all when
I've done it."
"Done what?" asked Mr. Bultitude sharply, struck by something sinister
and peculiar in the boy's manner.
"Well, I don't mind telling you," said Dick, "it's fairer. You see, you
wished to be a boy just like me, didn't you?"
"I didn't mean it," protested Paul.
"Ah, you couldn't expect a stone to know that; at any rate, it made you
into a boy like me directly. Now, if I wish myself a man just like you
were ten minutes ago, before you took the stone, that will put things
all right again, won't it?"
"Is the boy mad?" cried Paul, horrified at this proposal. "Why, why,
that would be worse than ever!"
"I don't see that," objected Dick, stubbornly. "No one would know
anything about it then."
"But, you little blockhead, can't I make you understand? It wouldn't do
at all. We should both of us be wrong then--each with the other's
personal appearance."
"Well," said Dick blandly, "I shouldn't mind that."
"But I should--I mind very much. I object strongly to such a--such a
preposterous arrangement. And what's more, I won't have it. Do you hear,
I forbid you to think of any such thing. Give me back that stone. I
can't trust you with it after this."
"I can't help it," said Dick doggedly. "You've had your wish, and I
don't see why I shouldn't have mine. I mean to have it, too."
"Why, you unnatural little rascal!" cried the justly-enraged father, "do
you mean to defy me? I tell you I will have that stone! Give it up this
instant!" and he made a movement towards his son, as if he meant to
recover the talisman by main force.
But Dick was too quick for him. Slipping off the table with great
agility, he planted himself firmly on the hearth-rug, with the hand that
held the stone clenched behind his back, and the other raised in
self-defence.
"I'd much rather you wouldn't make me hit you, you know," he said,
"because, in spite of what's happened, you're still my father, I
suppose. But if you interfere with me before I've done with this stone,
I'm afraid I shall have to punch your head."
Mr. Bultitude retreated a few steps apprehensively, feeling himself no
match for his son, except in size and general appearance; and for some
moments of really frightful intensity they stood panting on the
hearth-rug, each cautiously watching the other, on his guard against
stratagem and surprise.
It was one of those painful domestic scenes which are fortunately rare
between father and son.
Overhead, the latest rollicking French polka was being rattled out, with
a savage irony of which pianos, even by the best makers, can at times be
capable.