Chapter II (1)

But a man cannot forget the training of his youth, the practice of his adult years, and the support of his middle age in one demonian hour. As I passed wildly through dim, bilious abysses of filth-laden atmosphere, though my body was soon lost, and hopelessly lost, in the fog, my mind became a trifle clearer and the steadfast principles of a lifetime reasserted themselves. I determined to go on with my shattered existence; indeed I felt tolerably sure that my fellow-man, who had kept me thus busily employed, would presently prevent me from carrying my purpose to its bitter end. I grew a little calmer, recollected the terms of my wager, and so proceeded with the directions delivered by the police constable, doubting nothing but that my next meeting with a human being would divert the catastrophe, and once more set me forward upon a new road.

Presently a little shop loomed alongside me, and I perceived that here might be procured an essential in the matter of destruction by hanging. A mean and humble establishment it was, lighted by one paraffin lamp. The stock-in-trade apparently consisted of ropes and door-pegs--in fact, the complete equipment proper to my undertaking. Time and place agreed. It was indeed just such a gloomy, lonesome, and sequestered hole as a suicide might select to make his final purchases. From a door behind the counter there came to me a bald and mournful little man with weak eyes, a subdued manner, and the facial inanity of the rabbit. Hints of a fish dinner followed him from his dwelling-room, and through the door I could catch a glimpse of his family, four in number, partaking of that meal.

“What might you want?” he asked, but in a despondent tone, implying, to my ear, that it was rarely his good fortune to have anything in stock a would-be customer desired to purchase.

“I want a rope to hang a man,” I answered, and waited with some interest to see the result.

The small shopkeeper’s eyes grew round; a mixture of admiration and creeping fear lighted them.

“My gracious! You’re _him_, then! To think as ever I should----”

Here he broke off, and in a frenzy of excitement opened the door behind him and spoke to his wife. I overheard, for he could not subdue his voice. I think he felt confronted by the supreme business transaction of his career.

“Jane, Jane! Creep in the shop quiet and look at this here man! By ’Eaven! it’s the public executioner! To think as ever I should sell a rope to him! Hush!”

He turned, and while he addressed me with dreadful humility, the woman, Jane, crept into the shop, and stared morbidly upon my harrowed countenance.

Then she whispered to her husband--

“That’s not him, for I seed his picture in the _Police News_ last week. It’s a new one, or else his assistant!”

Meantime I was being served, and it seemed that the little man suddenly awakened to the dignity of his calling before my sensational order. He began handling a wilderness of rope ends and discoursing upon them with the air of an expert as he rose to the great occasion.

“A nice twisted cordage you’ll be wanting, and if you’ll leave the choice to me, nobody shall be none the worse. I’ve been in rope since I was seventeen. Now, Manila hemp won’t do--too stiff and woody, too lacking in suppleness. That’s what you want: suppleness. The sisal hemps, from South America, are very pretty things, and the New Zealand hemp is hard to beat; but there’s another still more beautiful cordage. Only it’s very rarely used because it comes rather expensive. Still, when a fellow-creature’s life’s at stake, I suppose you won’t count the cost. Besides, the Government pays, don’t it? That’s a Jubbulpore hemp--best of all--or bowstring hemp, as I’m told they use in the harems of the East, though what for I couldn’t say. I’ve got a very nice piece--ten foot long and supple as silk--just try it--and any strain up to two hundred pound. Hand-spun, of course--a lovely thing, though I say so. But it’s a terrible thought. Jute’s cheaper, only I won’t guarantee it; I won’t indeed. You want a reliable article, if only for your own reputation. And one more thing; I suppose there’s no objection to my using this as an advertisement? People in these parts is all so fond of horrors; and as it’s Government I ought to be allowed the lion and unicorn perhaps?”

I bought the Jubbulpore hemp as the man advised. It cost thirty shillings, and the vendor wrestled between pleasure at the success of his extortion and horror at the future of his rope. But I told him he must neither advertise the circumstance, nor dare to assume the lion and unicorn on the strength of it. This discouraged him, and he lost heart and took a gloomy view of the matter.

“A hawful tride, if I may say so without offence,” he ventured. “Would it be the Peckham Rye murderer as you’re buying this rope for, or that poor soul who lost his temper with his wife’s mother down Forest Hill wye?”

“Neither,” I answered. “It is a man called Honeybun.”

“Honeybun! Ah! A ugly, crool nime! What’s he done?”

“Made a fool of himself.”

“Lord! if we was hung for that, there wouldn’t be much more talk of over-population--eh? Well, well, I s’pose he’ll be as ’appy with you and that bit of Jubbulpore as we can hope for him. A iron nerve it must want. Yet Mr. Ketch was quite the Christian at ’ome, I b’lieve. Not your first case, of course?”

I picked up the rope and prepared to depart.

“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?”

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.

JOHNSON’S BOSWELL

Learning from a source sufficiently credible that the young Scotchman James Boswell, son and heir to the Laird of Auchinleck, designs some future biography of myself, I have favoured him with a measure of my company and conversation naturally denied to most men of his age. His attainments, without being considerable, are varied, and though the man’s garrulity can command neither respect nor admiration, yet there is about him a charm of rude health, high spirits, and good temper, which to undervalue or overlook would be at once unreasonable and unfair. His veneration for the writer, if irksome, is genuine; if at times offensive, is consistent. He has not as yet broke to me his intention, but the ambition was imparted to others of high repute. Them it is not necessary that I should here distinguish by their several appellations, but one and all inform me that Mr. Boswell, by constant practice and unceasing attention to my utterances in company, has so far schooled his memory to retrace and record with a startling accuracy much of the varied disquisition which is said to fall from me in conversation, together with those aphorisms, similes, apothegms, new lights, illuminations, corruscations, and repartees likewise reported as occurring in the substance of my discourse. Whether such a piece as must result from his assiduity is desirable, or can be fashioned with art sufficient to justify its existence, I shall not presume to determine. Fame, by which is understood the survival of human achievement, must be won by a man’s own labour; and it is surely vain to imagine that the attention of successive generations can be arrested by the idle elaboration of a daily life from an unknown pen, no matter how minute the record or illustrious the object of it. Be that as it may, with a purpose to prove whether, indeed, it be possible by system and attention to commit a man’s trivial actions and utterances to paper, I shall adventure some brief data or memoranda carried out after the fashion that is reported to be followed by Mr. Boswell against myself. And it is fitting that my own embryo historian should be the subject of such an experiment.

_Monday._--At Thrale’s. After dinner, to which repast Boswell was not invited, he arrived, and, finding a large company present, thrust himself into the talk without ingenuity and without decorum. Perceiving him to be intoxicated, I endeavoured to silence his alcoholic exuberance with as little occasion for offence to those present as the circumstance allowed. BOSWELL: “And pray, sir, have you dined to your satisfaction?” JOHNSON: “Sir! Thus to interrogate a guest before his host and hostess is to write yourself down a mighty ill-bred fellow, and reveal to the company a plentiful lack of good manners and just taste.” MRS. THRALE: “The man has abandoned his manners for another cargo.” JOHNSON: “Too true, madam.” MR. GOLDSMITH: “He has sacrificed his wit to Bacchus, sir.” JOHNSON: “Ay, sir; and no divinity within the compass of the classics ever received offering more paltry.” There was laughter at this, and, under cover of it, I essayed to remove Mr. Boswell from a circle that in reality loved him, and was sad before the spectacle of his present lapse; but the man stood, temporarily stripped of reason, naked of proper sense, and unashamed. He turned upon me in a very frenzy of vinous anger. BOSWELL: “You are pleased, sir, to--to--make me the target of your el--elephantine pleasantries; but know, sir, that James Boswell of Auchinleck demands an answer to--to----” Here he attempted to draw his sword, and was immediately deprived of that weapon by those present. JOHNSON: “Get thee to bed, Bozzy, and----” But the sweep and force of the utterance I had designed were interrupted, for the man leapt towards me like an opera-dancer. His offensive intention failed of its effect, happily for him, and, at the very commencement of the onset, he fell over Mrs. Thrale’s negro, who was about to hand me coffee and cakes. Ethiopian, Scotchman, cream, sugar, and sweetmeats of a dozen sorts encountered the ground in the very extremity of chaotic confusion. Whereupon Thrale sent men for a coach, and Boswell was presently conveyed from amongst us. JOHNSON: “Now who shall dare affirm that my notorious antipathy to the Scotch rests on a mere airy basis of humour, without sufficient incentive and provocation seldom long absent from my elbow?” None of the company took it upon themselves to traverse my utterance or question the justice of my conclusion.

_Tuesday._--Mr. Boswell waited upon me about noon. He was of pallid aspect, and had suffered some temporary discoloration to the cuticle in the region of his right eye. He chose to enlighten me as to the cause, and explained that the men who conveyed him home on the previous night were responsible. BOSWELL: “Chairmen and coachmen always ask too much.” JOHNSON: “No, sir, they never ask _me_ too much.” BOSWELL: “But the exception proves the rule. If it is a question of weights and measures, you----” JOHNSON (_taking him up sharply_): “Stay, sir! To what a pitiable extremity must that wretch be reduced who thrusts personality upon his argument. Know this, sir: all dead weight is heavier than that which lives, and folly dead drunk must ever cause a chairman more labour than wisdom sober.” He made haste to assure me that he had intended no impertinent allusion, and he proceeded to deplore his conduct on the preceding evening with such humility and regret that my choler subsided. JOHNSON: “Alas, sir, if regret could but banish the consequences of folly! But religion testifies and experience proves that no ill deed escapes from due exaction of penalty.” BOSWELL: “I visit Mrs. Thrale’s anon to express the utmost sorrow for my conduct.” JOHNSON: “Do so, sir.” BOSWELL: “And yet, dear sir, if you consider, there appears nothing very singular in the course which I pursued. What gentleman of quality can say he has never been the worse for good wine? And who is there would wish so to declare even if he could?” JOHNSON: “This is not regret for an offence, but rather a rebellious attempt to palliate it.” BOSWELL: “Then I will never drink wine again if you so advise me.” JOHNSON: “Sir, this is the puerile irresponsibility of a babbling infant. Yet, if years be the standard by which we estimate your age, you are no longer a child. At least, I am not your schoolmaster.” BOSWELL: “I would you had been, sir, then I should have been a wiser man.” JOHNSON: “I know not that; but you might have been a sorer boy.” BOSWELL: “Nay, sir, chide no more. I am heartily sorry for my misdeeds, and my punishment is severe enough, for it chiefly lies in the thought that I have given you pain.” JOHNSON: “Only the pain, sir, of seeing my own species reduced below the level of those lower orders of beasts whose control was given to humanity at creation.” He proceeded to whine about the profound depression of his spirits and the particular depths of misery in which he always discovered himself to be plunged after consciousness of having played the fool in a public place. JOHNSON: “Repetition will blunt the edge of most emotions. If folly publicly displayed occasions you such uneasiness, you should be accustomed by this time to the mental condition you describe. But I will scold no more. Come, sir, let us take a walk down Fleet Street.” BOSWELL: “It rains, sir.” JOHNSON: “What then, sir? Does too much wine make a man afraid of water?” We walked out to the tavern known as “The Cheshire Cheese,” and it afforded me some entertainment to observe, despite his recent utterances, that Mr. Boswell’s first mandate to the drawer was a pint of red wine. We ate of veal and prunes, and during the progress of our repast he invited me to express an opinion on a certain individual who enjoyed high office as the result of interest rather than merit. JOHNSON: “Sir, I entertain no opinion of him.” BOSWELL: “Is that to say, sir, that you hold a bad opinion of him?” JOHNSON: “No, sir, it is not. Had I held him in bad opinion I should have so expressed myself. To entertain no opinion of a man is to deny the mind all consideration of him.” He left me soon afterwards, but had evidently forgotten his penitential visit to Mrs. Thrale. I, however, restored the matter to his memory, and he thanked me with effusion, and went his way.

_Wednesday._--Mr. Boswell called and drank tea with Mrs. Williams and me. The propinquity of my cat evidently occasioned him some discomfort, and I reproved him. JOHNSON: “How vain is it in you, sir, to let a poor dumb beast affect your ease and interfere with your comfort!” BOSWELL: “But it is _not_ dumb, sir; it mews and shows in a dozen ways that it desires my friendship.” JOHNSON: “Why, then, deny it such a simple boon? If the cat is worthy of the intimacy of Samuel Johnson, surely James Boswell need not scorn its society.” Mrs. WILLIAMS: “I’ll wager you know many bigger rascals, Mr. Boswell.” JOHNSON: “Nay, madam, we are not concerned with morals, but breeding. This cat is a gentleman. After a friendship extending over a considerable portion of his life, and no small fraction of my own, I find that the epithet of ‘gentleman’ may be bestowed upon him without offence to truth. He can hold his peace, and he never bores me with ill-timed reflections on human or feline affairs.” Boswell, though the condition is rare with him, was moody, a state into which the presence of my harmless tabby hath aforetime thrown him. He either failed to appreciate my humorous treatment of the beast and sly allusion to himself, or, of set purpose, overlooked both. Such conduct in my presence is unlike him; for, though apt to hold his place in most conversation, and ready enough with comment and quotation (of a sort usually obvious enough, scarce to escape the charge of superfluity), yet he willingly suffers occultation in my presence, and rarely exhibits to my observation any mood other than one of obsequious reverence and studious attention. Upon my dismissal of the cat to that private or nocturnal phase of his career which he conceals from his master, yet which is not of such an esoteric nature but that the flight of human imagination may create a phantasmagorial image of it, Boswell recovered a little of his customary high spirit. He pressed me as usual to accompany him on a journey to the islands of the Hebrides, and expatiated, not without elegance, on their savage situation and the ferocity and nobility of Nature as there exhibited. BOSWELL: “You must see me kilted on the mountain-tops, sir.” JOHNSON: “If that is your primary inducement to the enterprise, I would as willingly remain in town.” Truly, the spectacle of this man, so exuberant, so hyperbolic, so volatile, while a mild stimulant, viewed on level ground and clothed after the modes prescribed by a high civilisation, must have become at once intoxicating, bewildering, and perhaps disgusting, if displayed, as he suggested, within the barbarous circumference of a Highlander’s petticoat upon some conspicuous elevation in the Isles of Skye or Mull. He talked of various matters, uttered no word whose original wisdom or exceptional folly rendered it worthy of commemoration, and then took his leave.

_Thursday._--I saw nothing of Mr. Boswell, and was none the worse.

_Friday._--He carried me to Drury Lane Theatre, where Mr. Garrick was playing to an audience of the scantiest possible dimensions. The piece, a wretched one, accounted for this, and we witnessed it upon the final evening of its representation. Langton and Beauclerk joined us in the pit, and Boswell loudly animadverted on Garrick’s lack of perspicuity in lending his genius to such a poor poet. I pointed out that, so far as Garrick was concerned, the piece was very well, in that he had the lion’s share of heroic passages, and, indeed, all that there was worthy an actor’s attention. JOHNSON: “His ability lends a meretricious significance to a creation which, if examined in the closet, would be found poverty-stricken as to ideas, futile and faulty in construction, and remote from art or nature as truth is remote from falsehood.” Forgetting that we were in a public place, I made this assertion with greater sonority of intonation than the occasion demanded; and some person in the gallery flung half an orange, which was unquestionably designed for myself, but struck Mr. Boswell. BOSWELL: “Zounds! this passes belief, that a clown should dare--I will go up this instant and chastise the rascal!” JOHNSON: “Nay, sir, he was in the right. He has paid, as we have, for his entertainment; and be it noted that the fellow expended his money in order to obtain a view and enjoy a hearing of Mr. Garrick, not you.” BOSWELL: “He meant to hit you, sir; that is what enrages me.” JOHNSON: “Ay, and had the correctness of his aim equalled the ardour of his indignation, I----” BEAUCLERK (_interrupting me_): “Nay, sir; let me pray silence. The players are bending sour looks upon us.” JOHNSON: “They have reason on their side. Silence! Silence!” We then turned our attention to the drama, followed tragic circumstances of death and disaster with all proper sobriety of demeanour, and upon the completion of the act, went within the precincts of the stage to see Mr. Garrick. I observed without difficulty that he suffered from a mighty ill-humour; and, indeed, his first remark, addressed to myself, left us in no doubt as to his irascibility. GARRICK: “You are to know, Dr. Johnson, that people come to my theatre to see _me_.” JOHNSON (_smiling_): “Nay, Davy, not always.” This allusion to the extremely slender proportions of his audience was not taken in that spirit best calculated to lessen the force of the jest. To state the player’s exact reply appears unnecessary; let it suffice when I assert that Mr. Garrick was rude. But a worse concatenation of events followed. Mr. Boswell came upon us at this moment, from some interchange with one of the ladies of the stage; and with ill-timed pleasantry, very characteristic of his bad judgment in matters of taste, jested openly upon the poor audience, and wondered what might be its financial equivalent. To say that Mr. Garrick surprised Mr. Boswell by the vigour and fire of his retort would be to state too mildly the case. The tragedian, assuming a look of extreme ferocity, bade Mr. Boswell henceforth mind his own business, and never again dare to present his person behind the scenes before he was bidden. BOSWELL: “This is unmannerly, sir; I did but jest.” JOHNSON: “Nay, sir; a quip levelled at the private concerns of an individual, a jest which depends for its point on another’s ill-fortune in the affairs of his business or profession, is not of that humour which a gentleman should at any time permit himself. Enough of this. Mr. Garrick is right and you are wrong.” MR. BOSWELL (_permitting his anger to assert a regrettable supremacy over him_): “Damn it! I am always wrong.” JOHNSON: “Then, sir, mend your obstinate persistency in error, and strive to be sometimes right; and know also that an oath has an ill sound always, and never more so than when uttered in the company of those whose position or piety----” Here the business of the stage demanded our sudden silence and departure. We were, in fact, hustled from our place with an abruptness which cut the thread of my discourse. What thereupon became of Mr. Boswell I know not. For myself, I returned no more to the auditorium, but left the theatre and returned home alone. Upon ulterior consideration I perceived that I had erred, and took an early occasion of acquainting both Garrick and Boswell with the fact; and I added to the information those expressions of regret proper to it.

_Friday._--We took dinner at the house of a worthy silk-mercer. The company was in no sense literary or intellectual. Talk indeed we had, but conversation if reduced to a monologue perforce perishes. Boswell broke a lance or two with me for the benefit of those present; but there was no man there of a calibre to awaken my interest, no opposing material of a surface rough enough to rub a spark from me. We returned in a chaise, and Boswell appeared so elated that I asked him the reason of his high spirits. BOSWELL: “Well, sir, I have rarely enjoyed conversation so much.” JOHNSON: “Words were uttered, even to weariness, but I heard no conversation.” BOSWELL: “Why, sir, they hung on your every utterance.” JOHNSON: “Ay, as they would hang on the actions of a contortionist, of a rope-dancer, or the voice of an Italian singer.” BOSWELL: “True, there was nothing to call out _your_ powers.” JOHNSON: “No, sir.” BOSWELL: “Yet I felt myself talking a great deal and confuting the city people with ease.” JOHNSON: “If it was within your power to confute them, there can have existed but little need for me to speak.” BOSWELL: “But I am glad you did not oftener take the other side, and so turn my victory into defeat.”

He came with me to my dwelling, and we sat late, for he was about to return to Scotland, and there seemed no probability of another meeting between us for extended periods of time. As the moment of our parting approached Mr. Boswell relapsed into silence and sighs. JOHNSON: “Nay, sir, have done with these futile expressions of an artificial emotion. We have enjoyed each the society of the other, and now the tide of human affairs renders a parting of greater or less duration necessary between us. Heed your business; recollect the advantages of your education, the exactions consequent on your position, and the duty you owe to your God, your father, and your king. Write as the occasion serves, but let me have no more unmanly outbursts of imaginary low-spirits or simulated misery. You are as yet young, and the world lies before you; seek, therefore, to be contented; remember your friends and be grateful for small mercies. These precepts duly followed will rob evil of half its sting, will fortify your soul against the world, and enable you, with a mind conscious of right, to look your fellows in the face and fear no man. Now farewell.” He made a reply, which combined expressions of regard and an incoherent assembly of ill-assorted adjectives. He then pressed my hand fervently, and went upon his way.

Whether I shall see the man again is known alone to the Mysterious Contriver of human meetings and partings. There is much good in him; he hath fair measure of scholarship, and a heart not readily turned to ill. Small indeed he must be confessed, but against his limitation of mind and narrowness of horizon may be set a busy, bustling, inquiring spirit, not apt to be offended, and not readily rushing into enmity. He has, despite his frivolous affectation of gloom, the cheerfulness of a caged lark, and may, indeed, be likened to that sprightly songster at many points. There is a riotous joy of life in him, as in the bird, which, exhibited even in a prisoned fowl at all seasons, becomes irritating, but which, displayed in a human creature, must cause first amazement, then annoyance, and finally contempt. That he will have the energy and industry to complete and publish such a life of me as my friends have declared he designs is difficult to believe; while as for my own hasty annotations of a week in the society of Mr. Boswell, they may well terminate upon this page. And as the subsequent perusal of such a trifle would give neither pleasure nor edification to my fellows, this idle fragment shall now be relegated to the recesses of my waste-paper basket or the inflammatory embraces of my hearth.

EDITOR’S NOTE.--Dr. Johnson doubtless selected the waste-paper
basket; hence our ability to publish this unknown fragment from his
Titan pen.

THE NINE MUSKETEERS

Two draped figures stood at the entrance of the Criterion Restaurant, and the electric light played upon the huge feathers in their hats, glittered on their trappings, and touched their gilt spurs. One was an enormous man, nearly a foot taller than those about him; the other, though of medium height, appeared to be made of Damascus steel.

“’Tis the hour, D’Artagnan,” said Porthos, as a church clock struck six.

“And the men!” answered D’Artagnan; whereupon two other romantic figures leapt from a hansom-cab.

“Athos!”

“Aramis!”

“God be with us all!”

The friends embraced, then entered the restaurant.

For a few brief hours they had secured leave of absence from the Stygian Fields, and before pushing on to Paris, had determined to visit a scene precious by reason of its manifold memories.

Porthos ordered dinner.

“Come hither, lackey,” he roared in a voice that made the china jingle. “The best--the best of everything--and champagne; no baser wine.”

He flung down his sword, and made his chair creak and groan.

“What thoughts of Milady and dear Lord Winter rise up in memory!” mused Athos.

“Of Buckingham and the Court,” said D’Artagnan.

Aramis read the evening paper.

Suddenly he became violently agitated and transported with feverish excitement.

“Behold!” he cried, “the mummers have us! the mummers have us! At the playhouse named ‘Her Majesty’s’ _The Musketeers_ fret their hour nightly to crowded houses!”

D’Artagnan frowned, and sought the face of Athos; Porthos looked furious, and twirled his huge moustaches; Athos lifted his eyebrows, and the habitual melancholy of his noble and patrician face became much increased.

“What say you to this, friend Athos?” inquired D’Artagnan.

Without a word Athos took the _Globe_ from the hand of Aramis, and studied it.

“One Beerbohm Tree essays your part, dear D’Artagnan; but be calm, be calm! He may mean well.”

D’Artagnan drank a bumper of champagne, but his hand trembled, and a terrible light gleamed in his eyes.

“And we--we are all in the play,” continued Athos. He started, and grew pale. “And Milady also,” he hissed.

“And Richelieu?” inquired Porthos.

“They are all there.”

Porthos shut his teeth like a rat-trap.

“It will be like old times,” he said.

Aramis answered nothing; he merely drew his blade and made it glitter thrice through the air, then put it up again.

The diners were much surprised, and the waiters also showed uneasiness.

“I perceive the play is alleged to be by one Sydney Grundy,” observed Athos, his melancholy increasing.

“Bon Dieu!” observed D’Artagnan.

“Bon Dumas!” said Aramis.