“My very first experience,” I said.
“Pore soul!” exclaimed the feeling tradesman, but he referred to the
criminal, not to me.
“For Gord’s sake don’t bungle it!” were the last husky words I heard
from him; and then I set forth to hang Arthur Honeybun, who deserved
hanging if ever a man did. I told myself this, and made a quotation
which I forget.
And now arose one of the most sinister concatenations easily to be
conceived in the life of a respectable citizen. Here was I on the brink
of self-destruction; I only waited for some fellow-creature to restrain
me. _But nobody attempted to do so!_ My folly in disguising the truth
from the little rope-merchant now appeared. Had he known, he had
doubtless shown me my dreadful error in time; now it was too late; his
only advice--sound undoubtedly--had been not to bungle it. The world
pursued its own business quite regardless of me and my black secret and
my hidden rope. Apparently there was really nothing for me to do but to
lose my wager or hang myself--an alternative which I well knew would
represent for my family a total pecuniary loss considerably greater
than the sum involved.
I wandered down a lonely court and found an archway at the bottom.
One sickly gas-lamp gleamed above this spot, and the silence of death
reigned within it. Had I been in sober earnest, no nook hidden away
under the huge pall of the fog could have suited me better. Some
evil fiend had apparently taken charge of my volition and designed to
see the matter through, for I pursued this business of hanging with a
callous deliberation that amazed me. I even smiled as I climbed up the
arch and made the rope fast upon the lamp above it. Not a soul came to
interrupt. The lamp blinked lazily, the fog crowded closer to see the
sight, the fiend busied himself with my Jubbulpore rope and arranged
all preliminaries, while I sat and grinned over the sooty desolation.
I felt my pulse calmly, critically; I indulged in mental analysis,
endeavoured to estimate my frame of mind, and wondered if I could throw
the experience into literary form for a scientific journal. I remember
being particularly surprised that the attitude of my intellect towards
this performance was untinctured by any religious feeling whatsoever.
Then came a psychological moment when the fiend had done everything
that he could for me. My task was merely to tie the loose end of the
Jubbulpore masterpiece round my neck and cast forth into the void.
How strange a thing is memory! For some extraordinary reason a famous
definition of fishing flashed into my mind. I could not recall it
exactly at that terrible moment, but I remembered how it had to do with
a fool at one end of a piece of string.
Still not a footstep, but only the rumble and roar of all selfish
London some twenty yards off, and never a hand to save me from a
coward’s doom. I grew much annoyed with London; I reminded London
of the chief incidents in my own career; I asked myself if this was
justice; I also asked myself why I had been weak enough to turn into
a blind alley, evidently an unpopular, undesirable spot, habitually
ignored. And then I grew melancholy, even maudlin. I saw my faults
staring at me--my negligences and ignorances; and chiefly my crass
idiotcy in not undertaking this matter at Piccadilly Circus, or some
main junction of our metropolitan system, where such enterprises are
not tolerated. It is, of course, a free country, and the rights of
the subject are fairly sacred, speaking generally; but we draw the
line here and there, and I knew that any attempt to annihilate myself
upon some lamp-post amid the busy hum of men must have resulted as I
desired. Interference would have prevented complete suspension there,
but here the seclusion was absolute, and simply invited crime. The
fog had now reached its crowning triumph, and promised to deprive my
trusty Jubbulpore hemp of its prey, for I was suffocating, and asphyxia
threatened to overwhelm me at any moment.
“Where the deuce are the police?” I asked myself at this eleventh
hour. It was a policeman who had placed me in my present pitiable
fix, and--blessed inspiration!--why should not another of the tribe
extricate me from it? When in danger or imminent peril it is our
custom to shout for the help of the law, and surely if ever a poor,
overwrought soul stood in personal need of the State’s assistance, it
was Arthur Honeybun at that moment. So, with nerves strung to concert
pitch, I lifted up my voice and called for a policeman. In these cases,
however, one does not specify or limit, so my summons was couched
generally to the force at large.
There followed no immediate response, then three boys assembled under
my arch, and they formed a nucleus or focus about which a small crowd
of the roughest possible persons, male and female, collected. Last of
all a policeman also came.
“Now, then,” he said, “what’s all this, then?”
[Illustration: “I LIFTED UP MY VOICE AND CALLED FOR A POLICEMAN”]
The miserable boys took entire credit to themselves for discovering
me perched aloft. They pointed me out and called attention to the
Jubbulpore rope dangling from the lamp, and elaborated their own
theories.
Very properly the constable paid no attention to them, but addressed
all his remarks to me.
“You up there,” he asked--“what d’you think you’re plyin’ at?”
There was no sympathy in his voice. He appeared to be a tall, harsh
officer--a mere machine, with none of the milk of human kindness in
him; or perhaps a beat in Seven Dials had long since turned it sour.
Moreover, he felt that the crowd was on his side--a circumstance that
always renders a constable over-confident and aggressive.
I felt unstrung, as I say--distracted and more or less emotional--or I
should have approached the situation differently; but I was not my own
master. I sat there, a mere parcel of throbbing nerves escaped from a
hideous death. So, instead of being lucid, which is a vital necessity
in all communion with the police, I uttered obscure sayings, went out
of my way to be cryptical, and even spoke in spasmodic parables. But of
course there exists no member of the body politic upon whom parables
are wasted more utterly than a constable.
“You are surprised, and naturally so, to see me here,” I said. “There
are, however, more things in heaven and earth, policeman, than are
dreamt of in your philosophy. I am the creature of circumstances--in
fact, of a series of circumstances probably unparalleled. A colleague
of your own--it may be a personal friend--is responsible for my
position on this arch. Yonder wretched boy has not erred; I had
seriously thought to destroy myself. I was driven to the very threshold
of that rash act. _A fronte præcipitium, a tergo lupi_, policeman. I am
here perched between the devil and the deep sea, a precipice in front,
a pack of wolves in the immediate rear. Now, be frank with me. I place
myself entirely in your hands. I desire your honest and dispassionate
advice.”
But this is not the way to talk to a policeman; perhaps it is not the
way to talk to anybody.
The deplorable boy had another theory.
He said, “The blighter’s off his onion!”
Then somebody else, dimly conscious that I had used a foreign language,
suspected that I might be an anarchist. The policeman merely told me
to come down, and I obeyed without hesitation, and gave myself up to
him. I felt that, situated thus, at least I was safe enough, if he
would only do his duty; but he appeared to believe in the opinion that
I was a foreigner.
“Where do you come from?” he asked. “If you’re not English, it’s a case
for your bloomin’ Consul.”
“I come from South Kensington,” I answered, “and I am English to the
backbone, and it’s your duty to convey me to the police-station, which
I’ll thank you to do.”
Here again I made a mistake. No man likes being told his duty, whether
owing to the natural human aversion from thinking of it or doing it, or
for other reasons connected with pride I know not; but the constable,
upon this speech of mine, displayed annoyance, and even some idea of
leaving me to my own devices. Seeing that he showed an inclination to
let me escape into the fog without even a word of advice, I spurred him
to his office. I said:--
“If you don’t arrest me, I shall persuade some other member of the
force to do so, and, as I have already made a note of your number, it
will be the worse for you.”
Upon this he started as if a serpent had stung him; the crowd cheered
me, and my object was attained. He felt his popularity was slipping
away, and so set about regaining it.
“All right, all right, my bold ’ero!” he said. Then he blew a whistle,
and summoned two colleagues.
“Dangerous lunatic--wants to be took up,” he explained. “Clean off his
chump. Tryin’ to ’ang ’imself.”
Then he turned to me, and adopted a conciliatory tone.
“Now, then, uncle, come along quiet,” he said.
I suggested a cab, and offered to pay for it, but the constable held
such a thing unnecessary extravagance.
“Won’t hurt you to walk,” he said. “And we’ll go quicker than a
four-wheeler in this fog.”
So, with a large accompaniment of those who win entertainment from
the misfortunes of their betters, I started to some sheltering haven,
where it was my hope that the remainder of the day might be spent in
security and seclusion behind bolts and bars. In this desire lurked no
taste of shame or humiliation. I was far past anything of that kind. My
sole unuttered prayer was to be saved from all further human counsel
whatsoever. If an angel from heaven had fluttered down beside me, and
uttered celestial opinions to brighten that dark hour, I should have
rejected his advice, very likely with rudeness.
I thought of the cynical sagacity of Norton Bellamy. How wise he had
been! And what a fool was I! I pictured his face when my story came to
be told. I heard his horrid laughter, and my self-respect oozed away,
and I almost wished I was back with the Jubbulpore hemp upon the arch.
Then, in the moment of my self-abasement, at the supreme climax of my
downfall, I looked out through a yellow rift in the accursed fog, and
saw Norton Bellamy himself.
At first, indeed, I did not credit this. The fog had lifted somewhat,
livid patches and streaks of daylight relieved the gloom, and a dingy
metropolis peeped and blinked through it, fungus-coloured and foul; but
suddenly, painted upon the murky air, there took shape and substance a
moving concourse of figures--of heads under helmets--and I, remembering
the spectre of the Brocken, for a moment suspected that what I saw was
but the shadows of myself, my policemen and my crowd projected over
against us upon the dusky atmosphere.
Yet as that other company approached the splendid truth burst upon
me. Vagrants, policemen, and rioting boys mainly composed it; but in
the place of chief dishonour walked Norton Bellamy. He, too, it would
seem, had violated the laws of his country. He too, by devious and
probably painful ways, had drifted into Seven Dials, and there lost
his freedom. An even-handed Nemesis, whose operations yet remained
hidden from me, had clearly punished Bellamy for rejecting the advice
of his fellow-man, even as she had chastened me for accepting it. And
from cursory appearances it looked as though Bellamy had endured even
more varied torments than my own. One might have thought that attempts
had been made to clean the highway with him. He was dripping with mud,
he lacked a hat, his white waistcoat awoke even a passing pity in my
heart, and yet the large placidity, the awful calm of a fallen spirit,
sat on Bellamy. He had doubtless exploded, detonated, boiled over,
fumed, foamed, fretted, and thundered to his utmost limit. His bolt was
shot, his venom was gone; he stood before me reduced to the potency of
a mere empty cartridge-case.
We met each other’s glance simultaneously, and a sort of savage and
foggy beam of joy flitted across his muddy face; while for my part I
doubt not that some passing expression of pleasure, which tact and
humanity instantly extinguished, also illuminated my features. Our
retinues mingled, and for a moment we had speech together.
Needless to say, the discovery that we were acquainted proved a source
of much gratification to the crowd.
“Great Scott! You!” gasped out Bellamy. “What have you done?”
“Practically nothing,” I answered; “but what I have suffered no tongue
can tell and no human being will ever know. It is sufficient to say
that I am here because I was deliberately advised by a fellow-creature
to go and hang myself.”
“They told you to do that?” he asked, with keen but suppressed
excitement.
“They did.”
He was silent for an instant, pondering this thing, while joy and
sorrow mingled on his countenance. Then he answered me.
“I’ll write your cheque the first moment I get back to the office. You
were right. There is more good advice given than bad. I’ve proved it
too. If I’d done half what I was told to-day, I----”
Here our respective guardians separated us, and we marched to our
destination in silence; but about five or six minutes later we sat
side by side in a police-station, and were permitted to renew our
conversation.
“You’ve had a stirring day, no doubt,” Bellamy began, while he scraped
mud off himself. “Tell me your yarn, then I’ll tell you mine. But how
is it, if somebody advised you to go and hang yourself, that you are
here now? You’ll have to explain that first as a matter of honour.”
I explained, and it must be confessed that my words sounded weak. It is
certain, at any rate, that they did not convince Bellamy.
“I withdraw the promise to write a cheque,” he said shortly. “On your
own showing you dallied and dawdled and fooled about upon the top
of that arch. You temporised. If you had followed that advice with
promptitude and like a man, you wouldn’t be here. This is paltry and
dishonest. I certainly shan’t pay you a farthing.”
I told him that I felt no desire to take his money, and he was going
into the question of how far he might be said to have won mine when
we were summoned before the magistrate. Here fate at last befriended
me, for the justice proved to be master of my lodge of Freemasons and
an old personal friend. Finding that no high crime was laid at the
door of Bellamy, and, very properly, refusing to believe that I had
been arrested in an attempt on my own life, he rebuked my policeman
and restored to us our liberty. Whereupon we departed in a hansom-cab,
after putting two guineas apiece into the poor-box. This, I need hardly
say, was my idea.
Then, as we drove to a hatter’s at the wish of Norton Bellamy, he threw
some light on the sort of morning he himself had spent. The man was
reserved and laconic to a ridiculous degree under the circumstances,
therefore I shall never know all that he endured; but I gathered enough
to guess at the rest, and feel more resigned in the contemplation of my
own experiences. He hated to utter his confession, yet the memory of
that day rankled so deep within him that he had not the heart to make
light of it.
“A foretaste of the hereafter,” began Bellamy--“that’s what I have had.
And if such a fiendish morning isn’t enough to drive a man to good
works and a better way of life, I’d like to see what is. You say your
trouble began in the railway-carriage coming to town. So did mine. But
whereas your part was passive, and, by the mere putty-like and plastic
virtue of ready obedience to everybody you finally found yourself face
to face with death, I reached the same position through a more active
and terrible sort of way.”
“Nevertheless,” said I, “taking into consideration the difference
between my character and yours--remembering that by nature you are
aggressive, I retiring--nothing you can say will make me believe that
you have suffered more than I. Physically perhaps, but not mentally.”
“Don’t interrupt. I’ve heard you; now listen to me,” he answered. “It
began, as I say, in a train. An infernal inspector desired to see my
season-ticket. Of course he was within his rights, and I had a whole
carriage-load of fools down on me because I refused to show it. This
day has taught me one thing: there’s not a man, woman, or child in the
country who minds their own business for choice if a chance offers of
poking their vile noses into any other body’s. The people who have
interested themselves in me to-day! Well, this railway chap was nasty,
of course, and took my name and address; but nothing more worth
mentioning happened, except a row with a shoeblack, until I got to my
office. There the real trouble began.
“You know Gideon? Who doesn’t, for that matter? I had the luck to
do him a good turn a week ago, and he came in this morning with a
tip--actually went out of his way to cross Lombard Street and get out
of his cab and look in.
“He said ‘Good morning. Buy Diamond Jubilees--all you can get.’ And I
didn’t look up from my letters, but thought it was Jones, who’s always
dropping in to play the fool, and remembered our loathsome bet. So I
merely said, ‘Shan’t! Clear out!’ Then I lifted my head just in time to
see Gideon departing, about as angry as a big man can be with a little
one, and my clerks all looking as though they’d suddenly heard the last
trump.
“I tore after him, but too late; of course he’d gone. Then I dashed to
his place of business, but he’d got an appointment somewhere else and
didn’t turn up till after twelve, by which time the tip was useless.
And he showed me pretty plainly that I may regard myself as nothing to
him henceforth. After that I was too sick to work, so went West to see
a man and get some new clothes. Like a fool, I never remembered that
with this bet on me I couldn’t lie too low. It was all right at the
hairdresser’s, as you may imagine; but I’m accustomed to let my tailor
advise me a good deal, and you can see the holy fix I was in after
he’d measured me. I got out of that by saying that I’d drop in again
and see his stuffs and his pictures by daylight; then I had a glass
of port at Long’s, and remembering my youngsters, went to find a shop
where I could get masks and wigs and nonsense for them, because they
are proposing to do some charades or something to wind up their holiday
before they go back to school. Then, in the fog, I got muddled up and
lost myself about a quarter of a mile from where we met. First I had
a row with a brute from Covent Garden Market, who ran into me with a
barrow of brussels-sprouts. We exchanged sentiments for a while, and
then the coster said--
“‘I don’t arsk of you to pick ’em up, do I?’
“Well, of course, as he didn’t ask me to pick them up, I immediately
began to do it. And the man was so astonished that he stopped swearing
and called several of his friends to make an audience. So that was all
right as far as it went; but just then a bobby appeared out of the
din and clatter of the street, and ordered me to move on. Of course I
wouldn’t, and while I was arguing with him, and asking for his reason,
a fire-engine dashed out of the bowels of the fog and knocked me down
in a heap before I knew who’d hit me.
“Everybody thought I was jolly well killed, and I could just see the
air thick with blackguard faces, getting their first bit of real fun
for the day, when I suppose I must have become unconscious from the
shock for the time being. Anyway, on regaining my senses, I found
myself in a bed of mud and rotten oranges, with three policemen and
about fifty busybodies, all arguing cheerfully over me, as if I
was a lost child. Most of them hoped I was dead, and showed their
disappointment openly when I recovered again. Two doctors--so they
said they were--had also turned up from somewhere, and taken a general
survey of me while I was in no condition to prevent them. After that I
need hardly tell you I’ve lost my watch.
“The question appeared to be my destination, and now the policeman
who had told me to move on explained, at great length, that depended
entirely on whether I was physically shattered or still intact. If I
was all right save for the loss of my hat and the gain of an extra
coat or two of mud, the man had arranged to take me to a police-station
for interfering with a fire-engine in the execution of its duty, or
some rot of that sort; but if, on the other hand, I was broken up and
perhaps mortally injured, then it struck him as a case for a stretcher
and a hospital.
“They were still arguing about this when I came to. Upon which the
constable invited my opinion, and explained the two courses open to
him. He seemed indifferent and practically left it to me; so, as I felt
the police-station would probably represent the simplest and shortest
ordeal, and as, moreover, so far as I could judge at the time, I was
little the worse in body for the downfall, I decided in that direction.
I told him I was all right and had mercifully escaped. Whereupon he
congratulated me in a friendly spirit and took me in charge.”
Thus Bellamy: and when the man had finished, we spoke further for
the space of about two minutes and a half, then parted, by mutual
understanding, to meet no more.
“I’m sorry for you,” I said. “We were both wrong and both right. The
truth is that there’s a golden mean in the matter of advice, as in
most things. Probably the proportions of good and bad are about equal,
though I am not prepared to allow that our experiments can be regarded
as in any sense conclusive.”
“And as to the bet, I suppose we may say it’s off?” asked Norton
Bellamy. “I imagine you’ve had enough of this unique tomfoolery, and I
know I have. I’m a mass of bruises and may be smashed internally for
all I know, not to mention my watch.”
“Yes,” I replied, “the wager must be regarded as no longer existing.
We have both suffered sufficiently, and if we proceeded with it _quod
avertat Deus_, some enduring tribulation would probably overtake one or
both of us. And a final word, Bellamy. As you know, we have never been
friends; our natures and idiosyncrasies always prevented any mutual
regard; and this tragedy of to-day must be said to banish even mutual
respect.”
“It has,” said Norton Bellamy. “I won’t disguise it. I feel an
all-round contempt for you, Honeybun, that is barely equalled by the
contempt I feel for myself. I can’t possibly put it more strongly than
that.”
“Exactly my own case,” I answered; “and, therefore, in the future it
will be better that we cease even to be acquaintances.”
“My own idea,” said Bellamy, “only I felt a delicacy about advancing
it, which you evidently didn’t. But I am quite of your opinion all
the same. And, of course, this day’s awful work is buried in our own
breasts. Consider if it got upon the Stock Exchange! We should be
ruined men. Absolute silence must be maintained.”
“So be it,” I replied. “Henceforth we only meet on the neutral ground
of Brighton A’s. Indeed, even there it is not necessary, I think, that
we should have any personal intercourse. And one final word; if you
will take my advice----”
He had now alighted, but turned upon this utterance and gave me a look
of such concentrated bitterness, malice, and detestation, that I felt
the entire horror of the day was reflected in his eyes.
“_Your_ advice! Holy angels and Hanwell!”
Those were the last words of Norton Bellamy. He felt this to be the
final straw; he turned his back upon me; he tottered away into his
hatter’s; and, with a characteristic financial pettiness, raised no
question about paying for his share of our cab.