Chapter VIII (2)

“Oh, Bill, you _are_ a bad boy; what are yer goin’ to do?”

“Play ships at that puddle. I was lookin’ for sutthin’ what ’ud do for ships, an’ can’t find nothin’.”

“An’ what’ll yer do about dinner?”

“I ain’t goin’ to ’ave no dinner,” said Bill, solemnly, “I’m goin’ to starve. They don’t keer. Dead byebies is what _they_ like.”

The lanky girl leaned her broom against the wall, sat down on the doorstep, and commenced the research of a pocket; the pocket yielded her one penny.

“Look ’ere, Bill,” she said, “you take this and git yourself sutthin’ to eat.”

Bill shook his head, and pressed his lips together. He was much moved.

“I ’ad it give me a week ago, and I sived it ’cos there warn’t nothin’ what I wanted. So you take it. I don’t want it. If yer like, yer can give us a kiss for it.” She pressed it into his hand. “There ain’t no other little boy I know what I’d give it to,” she added rather inconsistently.

Bill nodded his head, and the lips grew a little tremulous. He had been treated cruelly all the morning, and this sudden change to sympathy and generosity was almost too much for him. He kissed the yellow-haired girl--once timidly and then suddenly with great affection.

“Why, Bill,” she said, “I ain’t done nothin’ to ’urt yer, yer look ommust as if yer was goin’ to cry.”

“No, I ain’t,” replied Bill, finding words with difficulty, “but--but I ’ate ev’rybody in the world ’cep’ you.”

Then he walked away with great dignity, and every nerve in his excitable little body quivering. He felt on the whole rather more wretched than before. The contrast made him feel both sides of it more deeply. He had forgotten now about the beautiful puddle and his intention to play ships. He wandered down the main street, and then down a side street which led behind a grim, frowning church. And here he found something which attracted his attention. It was a dirty little shop which a small tobacconist and an almost microscopical grocer had used successively as a last step before bankruptcy. It had then remained for some time unoccupied. But now the whole of the window was occupied with one great bright picture, before which a small crowd had gathered. It represented a beautiful mermaid swimming in a beautiful sea, accompanied by a small octopus and some boiled shrimps. Her hair was very golden and very long; her eyes were very blue; she was very pink and very fat. Underneath was the announcement--

THE MERMAID OF THE WESTERN PACIFIC!

Positively to be Seen Within!!

FOR A FEW DAYS ONLY.

ADMISSION ONE PENNY

An old man was standing in the doorway, with a tattered red curtain behind him, supplying further details of the history and personal appearance of the mermaid. He looked slightly military, distinctly intemperate, and very unfortunate, yet he was energetic.

“What it comes to is this--for a few days only I am offering two ’igh-class entertainments at the price of one. The performance commences with an exhibition by that most marvellous Spanish conjurer, Madumarsell Rimbini, and concludes with that unparalleled wonder of the world, the mermaid of the Western Pasuffolk. I have been asked frequent if it pays me to do this. No, it does _not_ pay me. I am doing it entirely as an advertisement. Kindly take notice that this mermaid is not a shadder, faked up with lookin’ glasses. She is real--solid--genuine--discovered by an English officer while cruisin’ in the Western Pasuffolk, and purchased direct from ’im by myself. The performance will commence in one minute. If any gentleman is not able to stay now, I may remark that the performances will be repeated agin this evenin’ from seven to ten. What it comes to is this--for a few days only, etc.”

Of course Bill had seen shows of a kind before. He had seen a ’bus horse stumble, and almost pick itself up, and stumble again, and finally go down half on the kerb-stone. That had been attractive, but there had been nothing to pay for it. Again, in his Sunday-school days, he had been present at an entertainment where the exhilaration of solid buns and dissolving views had been gently tempered by a short address. That too was attractive, but it had been free. And now it would not be possible to see this beautiful buoyant creature swimming in clear shrimp-haunted waters unless he paid a penny for it, the only penny that he possessed. Never before had he paid anything to go anywhere. The temptation was masterful. It gripped him, and drew him towards the tattered red curtain that hung over the entrance. In another minute he had paid his penny, and stood within.

At one end of the shop a low stage had been erected. On the stage was something which looked like a large packing-case with a piece of red baize thrown over it. There was a small table, on which were two packs of playing-cards and a brightly coloured pill-box, and a tired fat woman in a low dress of peculiar frowziness. As the audience entered she put a smile on her face, where it remained fixed as if it had been pinned. The performance commenced with three clumsy card-tricks. Then she requested some one in the audience to put a halfpenny in the painted pill-box and see it changed into a shilling. The audience felt that they had been weak in paying a penny to see the show, and on this last point they were adamant. They would put no halfpennies in no pill-boxes. They were now firm. So also was the Spanish conjurer, and this trick was omitted. She intimated that she would now proceed to the second part of the entertainment, the exhibition of the mermaid of the Western Pacific. She removed, dramatically, the red-baize cover, disclosing a glass case. The audience pressed forward to examine its contents. The case was filled for the most part with those romantic rocks and grasses which conventionality has appointed to be a suitable setting for stuffed canaries, or stuffed dogs, or anything that is stuffed. There was a background of painted sky and sea; and in the front there was a small, most horrible figure, looking straight at Bill out of hideous, green, glassy eyes. It was not the lovely creature depicted in the window outside. It was a monstrous thing, a contemptible fraud to the practised intelligence, but to Bill’s childish, excitable mind a thing of unspeakable horror and fascination. The lower half was a wilted, withered fish; then came a girdle of seaweed, and then something which was near to being human, yellow and waxy, with a ghastly face, a bald head, and those eyes that would keep looking at Bill. He shut his own eyes for a second; when he opened them again the monstrous thing was still looking at him.

There were two men standing near to Bill. One of them was a very young and very satirical carpenter, with a foot-rule sticking out of his coat-pocket. “So that’s a mermaid!” he remarked. “Yer call that a mermaid--oh!--indeed, a mermaid--oh, yes!”

“Seems to me,” said the other man, middle-aged, cadaverous, and dressed in rusty black, “that it’s a sight more like a dead byeby.”

“Well, you _ought_ to know,” replied the satirical carpenter, grinning.

Bill heard this. So in that basement flat in Pond Buildings, Bill’s home, there was something lying quite still and waiting for him, to frighten him. He had never thought what a dead baby would be like. His mind began to work in flashes. The first flash reminded him of some horrible stories which his red-haired, vehement aunt had told him, to terrify him into being good. He had objected at the close of one story that dead people could not walk about.

“You don’t know,” his aunt had replied, “nobody knows, what dead people can do.” In the second flash he imagined that he had gone home, had been lectured by his aunt, and beaten by his father, and had cried himself to sleep. He would wake up at night, when all was quiet--he felt sure of it--and the room would not be quite dark. He would see by the white moonlight a horrible, yellow, waxy thing crawling across the floor. It would not go to the right or to the left, but straight towards him. It would be his dead baby sister, and it would have a face like the face of the mermaid, and it would stare at him. He would be unable to call out. It would come nearer and nearer, and at last it would touch him. Then he would die of fright.

No, he would not go home, not until the dead baby had been taken away.

As the audience crowded out through the narrow doorway, Bill touched the man in shabby black:

“Please, sir, ’ow long is it afore they bury dead babies?”

The man stared at him searchingly. “What do yer want to know that for? Depends on the weather partly, and on the inclinations of the bereaved party. ‘Soon as possible’ ’s allus my advice, but they let it go for days frequent.”

Bill thanked him, and walked aimlessly away. He could not get the terror out of his mind. He walked through street after street, so absorbed in horrible thoughts that he hardly noticed what direction he was taking, and only just escaped being run over. He had been wandering for over an hour when he came across two boys, whom he knew, playing marbles. This was companionship and diversion for his thoughts. For some time he watched the game with interest, and then one of the players pulled from his pocket two large marbles of greenish glass, and set them rolling. Bill turned away at once, for he had been reminded of those green eyes. He imagined that they were still looking at him; but, in his imagination, they belonged not to the mermaid, but to the dead baby. He wished again and again that he had never been to that show. He was growing almost desperate with terror. Of course, his state of mind was to some extent due to the fact that he had eaten nothing for eight hours. But then, Bill did not know this. Suddenly he gave a great start, and a gasp for breath, for he had been touched on the shoulder. He looked up and saw his father. Now Bill’s father had drunk two glasses of bad beer during his dinner hour, and in consequence he was feeling somewhat angry and somewhat self-righteous, for his head was exceedingly weak and poor. He addressed Bill very solemnly--

“Loit’rin’ in the streets! loit’rin’ and playin’ in the streets! What’s the good o’ my bringing of yer up in the fear o’ Gawd?”

Bill had no answer to make; so his father aimed a blow at him, which Bill dodged.

“All right,” his father continued, “I’m sent out on a jorb, and I ain’t got the time to wallup yer now. But you mark my words--this very night, as sure as my name’s what it is, I’ll knock yer blawstid ’ead off.”

At any other time this would have frightened Bill. But now it came as a positive relief. There is no fear so painful, so maddening, as the fear of the supernatural. The promise that he should have his head knocked off had in itself but little charm or attraction. But in that case he knew what to fear and from whence to fear it. It took his thoughts away for a few minutes from the horror of that dead baby, whose ghastly face he pictured to himself so clearly. But it was only for a few minutes; the face came back again to his mind and haunted him. He could not escape from it. He was more than ever determined that he would not go home; he dared not spend a night in the next room to it. Already the afternoon was closing in, and Bill had no notion where he was to go for the night. For the present he decided to make his way to the green; he would probably meet other boys there that he knew.

The green to which he went is much frequented by the poor of the south-west. The railway skirts one side of it, and gives it an additional attraction to children. Bill was tired out with walking. He flung himself down on the grass to rest. His exhaustion at last overcame his fears, and he fell asleep. He slept for a long time, and in his sleep he had a dream.

It was, so it seemed to him in his dream, late in the evening, and he was standing outside the door of the basement flat. He had knocked, and was waiting to be admitted. Suddenly he noticed that the door was just ajar. He pushed it open and entered. He called, but there was no answer. All was dark. The outer door swung to with a bang behind him. He thought that he would wait in the kitchen by the light of the fire until some one came. He felt his way to the kitchen and sat down in front of the fire.

It had burnt very low, and the furniture was only just distinguishable by the light of it. As he was waiting he heard very faintly the sound of breathing. It did not frighten him; but he could not understand it, because as far as he could see there was no living thing in the room except himself. He thought that he would strike a light and discover what it was. The matches were in a cupboard on the right-hand side of the fireplace. He could only just reach the fastening, and it took him some little time to undo it. The moment the fastening was undone the door flew open, and something yellowish-white fell or rather leapt out upon him, fixing little quickly-moving fingers in his hair. With a scream he fell to the floor. He had shut his eyes in horror, but he felt compelled to open them again to see what this thing was that clung to him, writhing and panting. A little spurt of flame had shot up, and showed him the face. Its eyes were blinking and rolling. Its mouth moved horribly and convulsively, and there was foam on the white lips. The face was close to his own; it drew nearer; it touched him. It was wet.

Bill suddenly woke and sprang to his feet, shivering and maddened with terror. The green was dark and deserted. A cold, strong wind had sprung up, and he heard it howling dismally. An impulse seized him to run--to run for his life. For a moment he hesitated; and then, under the shadow of the wall, slinking along in the darkness, he saw something white coming towards him, and with a quick gasp he turned and ran. He paid no heed to the direction in which he was going; he dared not look behind, for he felt sure that the nameless horror was behind him; he ran until he was breathless, and then walked a few paces, and ran again. As he crossed the road on the outer edge of the green, a policeman stopped and looked at him suspiciously. Bill did not even see the policeman. His one idea was escape.

It happened that he ran in the direction of the river. He had left the road now, and was following a muddy track that led through some grimy, desolate market-gardens. All around him there was horror. It screamed in the screaming wind with a voice that was half human; it took shape in the darkness, and lean, white arms, convulsively active, seemed to be snatching at him as he passed; the pattering of blown leaves was changed by it into the pattering of something ghastly, coming very quickly after him. For one second he paused on the river’s brink; and then, pressing both his hands tightly over his eyes, he flung himself into the water.

And the river went on unconcerned, and the laws of Nature did not deviate from their regular course. So the boy was drowned. It was a pity; for he was in some ways a lovable boy, and there were possibilities in him.

* * * * *

Bill’s aunt was putting the untidy bedroom straight when his mother, opening her eyes and turning a little on the bed, said, in a low, tired voice--

“I want Bill. Wheer’s Bill?”

“I sent ’im out, dearie; ’e’ll be back d’rectly. Don’t you worry yourself about Bill. Why, that drattid lamp’s a-shinin’ strite onto your eyes. I’ll turn it down.”

There was a moment’s pause, while the vehement woman--quiet enough now--arranged the lamp and took her place by the bedside. She smoothed the young mother’s faded hair with one hand. “Go to sleep, dearie,” she said.

Then she began to sing in a hushed, quavering voice. It was a favourite hymn, and for devotional purposes she rarely used more than one vowel-sound--

“Urbud wuth me! Fust fulls thur uvvun-tud.”

THE GIRL AND THE BEETLE.

_A STORY OF HERE AND HEREAFTER._

On the brushwood and groups of trees that here and there broke the monotony of the flat and sandy common were the marks of autumn. The wind was soft and mild, and the leaves fell gently, and the white clouds sailed away into the distance steadily and unquestioningly. Far off the glint of sunlight fell on the narrow, sluggish river. Winds and leaves, clouds and river--all were going home, with a calm meekness that aggravated the dying beetle. It was a good day to die on, and the beetle knew it; but yet he was dissatisfied.

Above him there hovered two unkempt birds, tormented by a sense of what in all the circumstances was the correct thing to do. Each bird had sighted the beetle, and neither would come and take it; for each thought that the other would suppose him to be greedy. Of these two birds the one was magnanimous and the other was nervous, and both were hungry.

“There’s a large beetle down there,” the first remarked, “but I don’t know that I care about it particularly. Won’t you take it?”

There was nothing that his companion would have liked better, but his unfortunate nervousness prevented him from availing himself of the generous offer. “No, thanks,” he stammered, “I couldn’t deprive you.”

“But I really don’t want it,” said Magnanimity.

“Nor do I,” replied Nervousness. “Let’s go for a little fly.”

So they flew slowly away, feeling empty and mistaken, with a sense that the world must be out of joint where there were nearly always two birds to one beetle, and both the birds understood etiquette. And the beetle went on dying.

He had not during his previous life been a good beetle. He was strongly built, and his constitution, which had now given way, had always been considered robust. Female beetles had thought him uncommonly handsome; yet with all these gifts he had not been a good beetle; on the contrary he had been extremely immoral. He lay stretched on the sand by the edge of the pathway, enjoying the warmth of the afternoon sunlight.

“Mary,” he called, a little querulously, “come out.”

It is difficult to understand how the beetle could call without making any noise. It should be remembered, however, that sound is to beetles very much what silence is to us. A certain kind of silence, on the other hand, answers to what we call conversation, and can be varied so as to express all that we can do by changing the tone of the voice. The small female of depressed appearance, who hurried from the shelter of a stone in answer to this summons, quite understood that she had been called querulously. The two unkempt birds should undoubtedly have waited.

“Thomas,” said the beetle who had been addressed as Mary, “I think you called me?”

“Have you stopped crying?”

“Yes, dear; I won’t cry any more, if you don’t like it.”

“You know I don’t like it. Have you got any new ideas?”

“Well, Thomas, nothing that could be absolutely called new, perhaps; but I remember a little story that my poor dear mother used to----”

“Stop!” said Thomas, “you’re a stale, heavy-minded female, and you can get back under the stone. I was going to let you see me die. I shan’t now!”

“Do let me stop!” pleaded Mary.

“No, I won’t!--stay, what’s that pestilential insect creeping towards us?”

“It’s the Dear Friend. He looks small and meagre, but we must not judge from looks, Thomas. Beauty fades.”

Thomas surveyed Mary slowly. “It does,” he said.

The Dear Friend was so named from his habit of calling indiscriminately on other beetles, and excusing himself on the ground that he wanted to be their dear friend. He lived a very good life, and he wanted other beetles to be good. The want was noble, but he had not sufficient tact to conceal it. Some beetles thought him a bore, and did not care to hear him discuss their sins in his plain way. Others, seeing that he knew so little about this life, thought that he might have unusual knowledge of the next. Beetles, as a class, have a tendency towards mysticism. Mary had a firm belief in the goodness and spirituality of the Dear Friend, although she was dimly conscious that he was not clever. She was very anxious that he should have a few words with the dying Thomas.

“You will see him, dear, won’t you?” she said. “You’re drawing near to your end, you know, and it would do you good to experience a word in season. You have been such a bad beetle.”

“I have,” said Thomas, with a chuckle of intense self-satisfaction, “I’ve been a devilish bad beetle.”

The thought of his own exceeding immorality seemed quite to have restored his good temper. “Heavy-minded female, you are become brilliant. Never before have I experienced a word in season. You may stop, and we’ll interview the Dear Friend.”

Mary, like some females of higher organisations, was rarely able to understand the precise value of a satirical silence. Everything was cloudy in her brain, and nothing precise. She had vague ideas that she ought to be good, and that served her for aspirations. She had at least three decided opinions--that her mother had been very good and very kind to her, that Thomas was horribly bad and very unkind to her, and that of the two she infinitely preferred Thomas. She was emotional and rather self-seeking. At present she was very pleased at being praised, and welcomed the little visitor kindly as he crept across towards them. They formed an extraordinary trio even for beetles. It is not generally known that the lower the physical organisation the more complicated is the character. A beetle is as a rule much more contrary and difficult than a man. The character of a tubercular bacillus is so complex as to absolutely defy analysis.

“Mr. Thomas,” the Dear Friend began solemnly, “I am pleased to see you--in fact, I have come a long way with that intention. I had heard that you were very ill and like to die, and I had also heard--you will excuse me--of your past life.”

“Quite right,” said Thomas encouragingly, “I am guilty of having had a past life. Oh, sir, you can’t think how many beetles of my age have had a past of some kind or other. It is true that it was my own life--I have not taken any one else’s, not yet--but still I’ve had it. I feel that deeply.”

At this the Dear Friend warmed to his work, but made a fatal mistake--he grew slightly enthusiastic. Now Thomas could stand no manner of enthusiasm, because it always seemed to him to show an exaggerated conception of the value of things.

“Oh, Mr. Thomas, I am so very glad to hear you talk like that. This is indeed no time for idle compliments, and you recognise the fact. You have the sense of guilt. You see how disgusting, and loathsome, and abominable the whole of your life has----”

Here he was interrupted by a curious stridulating noise which Thomas made, thereby rendering it impossible to catch the remainder of the Dear Friend’s silence. The poor little insect cooled down again at once. He saw that enthusiasm would not do; that he had been taking matters too fast, and that Thomas was a beetle who required to be treated with a good deal of tact. The Dear Friend himself was unable to stridulate, and had sometimes felt the want of it; but it is not a gift which belongs to every kind of beetle. Perhaps it would be as well to show some interest in the process, and then gradually to lead up to more serious subjects. He waited till the last whir had died away, and then he said:

“May I inquire how you make that noise? It is most interesting.”

Thomas knew all about it.

“It is caused,” he answered drily, “by the friction of a transversely striated elevation on the posterior border of the hinder coxa against the hinder margin of the acetabulum, into which it fits.”

“Ah!” gasped the Dear Friend; but he speedily recovered himself. “That is indeed interesting--really, extremely interesting.” He was trying to think in what way it would be possible to connect this with more important matters. “Talking about fits,” he said, “I have just come away from such a sad case, quite a young----”

“I was not talking about fits, sir,” interrupted Thomas, a little irritably. The Dear Friend hastened to agree with him.

“No, Mr. Thomas, you were not. I see what you mean, and it’s very good of you to correct me. I was wrong. I was quite wrong. But you happened to use the word fits, and that suggests----”

“And talking about jests,” retorted Thomas severely, “I don’t think this is the time for them. When you’re calmer, my friend, and have got over your inclination to make sport of serious subjects, you will see this. Please don’t get excited; I’m not equal to it. You come to see me on my death-bed, and when I try to talk about my past life, you wax ribald, and begin to make puns that a school-girl would be ashamed of. I’m sorry for you, sir,--very sorry. Mary, show that bug out. I want to think of my latter end, and he interrupts me.”

“Oh, dear, dear!” said the poor, well-meaning little insect, almost whimpering, “I’m afraid I’ve made a very bad beginning. I didn’t intend to offend you, and I do hope you’ll make allowances. I know I’m not very clever, and I’m very young, and I’ve never had any education to speak of, because I’ve always been going about in my humble way trying to teach others. But I do want to be your really dear friend, and my heart does yearn to----”

“Mary,” said the exasperated Thomas, “I asked you to show that bug out. Will you kindly go away, sir, and drown yourself? I insist upon thinking of my latter end, and I simply cannot do it when you are here.”

“I will go away, if you wish it, Mr. Thomas, but you will let me come back this evening?”

“You won’t be able to come back, if you drown yourself.”

“But I’m not going to drown myself.”

“Well, you said you were, and you ought to, any way.”

“Oh, Mr. Thomas, I never, never----”

“Don’t contradict. It’s excessively rude, especially in a young bug like yourself. You promised to drown yourself, if I’d bequeath Mary to you in my will. You can take her now, if you like, and you may both go away and drown yourselves. I shall be dead before this evening; and if I am quite dead, you may come back. Now go.”

The Dear Friend turned slowly and sadly away.

“Are you going to take Mary?” Thomas called after him. “You can if you like. She’s nearly as fat-headed as yourself, and you’d get on splendidly together. Pray take her. I’m nearly dead, and I don’t want her.”

The Dear Friend made no reply. The wretched Mary was crying again. Thomas had worked himself up to the climax of fury, and was now lapsing from it into a series of chuckles. “Moist one,” he said, turning to Mary, “you don’t love me.”

“Indeed I do,” sobbed Mary. “I love you ever so much too well--but you’re so cruel--and you make fun of a good cause--and you’re going to die.”

“Let us,” said Thomas, drily, “be categorical. You, like most other females, say too much at once. Your remarks must be sifted and answered categorically. Firstly, you state that you love me. Yet you display a lot of wet, horrible emotion, in order to hasten my end. Don’t speak; you know you did;--and you asked the Dear Friend to come and bore me in my last moments; and you refused to sit on his head, or show him out, or stop him in any way. Consequently I had to stop him myself. I had to be almost rude to him. Perhaps you’d better go after him if you’re so fond of him. He’s only half-way across the path, and you’ll be able to catch him up.”

“Oh, Thomas! I’m sure I never----”

“_Will_ you keep quiet? Can’t you see that I’m being categorical? Secondly, you say that I’m cruel. I am, and it’s not my fault. If you and other people were not so abominably heavy-minded, I should not be cruel. You provoke me. You needn’t tell me that you can’t help being heavy-minded. I know that, and I never said that it was your fault; but it certainly isn’t mine. Nothing that I know of ever is anybody’s fault. Thirdly, you said that I made fun of a good cause. You muddler! I love most causes, and hate most of their promoters. Most causes are noble, and most promoters are presumptuous. So far from making fun of the good cause, I did it the greatest service by asking the Dear Friend to seek an early death. That reminds me--you said that I was going to die. So I am, if you don’t mind waiting ten minutes. Why this unseemly haste?”

At this point Mary became all tears and disclaimers. “If you do that,” said Thomas, “you really will have to go. I am about to die, and I intend to die my own way, without any weeping females or dear friends. It’s much the same with you that it is with man and the other lower organisms. The good heart generally goes with a bad head; and if you have a good head, you probably--there, I thought so. Do you see? The Dear Friend on the further side of the path has just been trodden on by a passing labourer. If he’d had a little more head, he would have kept out of the way, and then he would not have died. Intellect is practical: spirituality is not. Now that is very curious, for although I have always been a most practical beetle, I have frequently had strong spiritual desires. For instance, I often after supper yearn to leave this gross and uncomely world, and bask in an impossible hereafter.”

“Ah!” cried Mary. (She liked the ring of his last sentence.) “Those are beautiful words. If only you would always talk like that, instead of insulting those who only come to do you good. I know the Dear Friend made you angry; but then it’s not so much what he said as what he wanted to say that we must think of.”

“Ah, yes, my dear Mary, most moist and muddle-headed, and it is not so much what I am as what I want to be that the deceased bug should have considered. You were born with a wrong head, and so you form wrong judgments. It’s not your fault; nothing’s anybody’s fault. The Dear Friend was good, but it doesn’t matter. I am bad, and that doesn’t matter either. Nothing matters, and I can’t understand anything, and I want to die.”

Thomas threw himself on his back and kicked petulantly. Mary entreated him not to give way to temper; however, he declared that he was doing no such thing: that he was trying to think very fast, and that the action of kicking made it possible to think faster. Suddenly he stopped, and recovered his normal position. “Mary,” he said, “it is clear to me, and I will make it clear to you, that nothing matters. Suppose something had an optical delusion, and the optical delusion died, and had a ghost----”

“But it couldn’t, Thomas.”

“I know that. I am only asking you to suppose it--and the ghost went to sleep, and dreamed that he was dreaming, that he was dreaming----”

“Oh, don’t go on! you’ll only make your poor head ache!”

“Do you think the something would care very much what happened in its optical delusion’s ghost’s dream’s dream’s dream? Yet the innermost of the three dreams would seem to be perfectly real, and the apparent reality would be due to part of the previous experience of the something, which would be filtered--or, rather, reflected--through the whole series.”

“That will do. Please don’t go on. I don’t understand a word of it, and it’s no use. Oh, _do_ let us talk good.”

“You are going to understand it, fat-headed one. You think that you exist; that everything is real. How do you know that it is so? When you dream, you imagine that the dream is quite real; but you wake up and find that you are wrong. Now suppose the something one day had a thought, that went through a million optical delusions, a billion ghosts, and a trillion dreams----”

“It’s not a bit of good,” interpolated Mary. “I can’t imagine numbers like that.”

“That thought might ultimately take the form of this world, of which I, Thomas, the beetle, am a considerable part. There is nothing impossible about that. It may be so, and I am inclined to think that it is so, because something inside me seems to be struggling to get back to its origin. But if it is so it must be perfectly clear to you that nothing matters, because nothing is real, and nothing will be real till it gets back again to the--the something!”

“I don’t understand it,” said Mary; “are you quite sure that it doesn’t confuse you at all to think that way?”

“Absolutely sure,” said Thomas, which was untrue.

“And how do you get back again to the something?”

“That,” said Thomas drily, “I will show you in a few minutes if, as I said before, you do not mind waiting.”

For a short time neither of them spoke. The sun, like the spoiled child who promises to be so good if you will only let him stop, was growing more beautiful than ever as the time drew near for his departure. He had nothing but vapour and light with which to work, and yet he produced some very pretty effects. The gravel path, near which Thomas and Mary were lying, led into the road which skirted the edge of the common; along this road was a line of detached villas. The sun did the best that he could with them, but felt that he could not do much. The last house in the line was much larger than the rest, and stood in much larger grounds. The advertisement had described them as being park-like, and they certainly contained quite enough trees almost to hide the house from the views of those who passed on the road. The sun had found out one of the windows through the foliage and was making it blaze. He liked doing that. He could see a good deal of the house and grounds; in point of height he had the advantage of passers-by. He could see two tennis-courts, the players, groups who had gathered to look on, others who strayed aimlessly about and tried to prove they were not suburban. It was all cup and conversation, and it rather bored the sun, who has a masculine mind. None of the people in that garden were aware that rather less than half a mile from the house a remarkably fine beetle was dying in his sins; if they had known it, they might possibly not have cared.

When Thomas began to talk again, he appeared to be continuing a line of thought of which he had not considered it worth while to give the beginning.

“So the truth of the matter is that a beetle did once get there--right up beyond the stars, but he never carried a man there. Aristophanes said he did, but that was an ætiological myth. He made up the story to account for a prevalent belief that man could rise to higher things.”

“That was what the Dear Friend always said,” murmured Mary reflectively. “Cows, and pigs, and men, and fowls can never get up there--only beetles. It’s all kept for them.”

“And it’s not what I say,” retorted Thomas sharply. “I’ve got better things to do in my last moments than to waste them in agreeing with anybody. The mistake the man made was not in supposing that he could rise. All beasts can rise, as much as we can. His mistake was in rejecting the supernatural, and thinking that he could be raised only by a beetle. We may have more spirituality than men. That is quite possible: they are a lower organism. We may perhaps find it easier to soar than they do. But I am sure that all are going there, just as we are, beyond the stars.”

“That may be true,” said Mary, plucking up a little spirit; “but it certainly was not the opinion of the Dear Friend. Only beetles can rise.”

“Do you prefer the opinions of the Dear Friend to absolute truth?”

“I do,” said Mary proudly.

“Oh, blind and fat of temperament!” [This does not read quite right, but it is a fairly literal translation. There are no polite English words that exactly express the silence which Thomas used on this occasion.] “A few days ago I was down in the grass by the river. It looks sweet and green from here. It grows long, and it makes a pleasant shade above one; but at the roots it’s all mud and muck. That is the way of the world; instead of grumbling at the mud we might just as well be thankful for the grass; however, that’s not my point. The cows came down to drink while I was there. They are nasty, lumpy animals; you can see their slobbering mouths and great yellow teeth as they bend over one to crop the grass. Some beetles get nervous, but I don’t fancy there’s any danger. As one of those brutes stooped down, I looked up and saw right into its eyes. It was like looking into immeasurable distance. They were sad, humble, trustful eyes; but there was something in them which signified the consciousness of a purpose in being. That is my point. A poor devil of a cow! it couldn’t have told any one why it existed, it could not even have put the reason clearly in its own mind; but it _knew_. I am much like the beast. I know, but I cannot say, not even to myself, the reason for my existence. Sometimes I think that if all sounds were in my power, I could get the whole thing out in music. It is a thing which defies ordinary processes and all logical connexion. I see the fading sunlight writing something on the under edge of a cloud; the intellectual part of me cannot read that language, but something else in me reads it, and understands it, and answers it almost piteously. ‘Oh that I might fly away and be at rest!’ And suddenly the conviction is strong in me that I know why I am here, and what I shall be hereafter. In the awful silence of the night that conviction comes dropping down my dark mind like a falling star. In moments of acute dyspepsia I always feel it.”

He grinned pleasantly. He had spoiled his own poetry, and that pleased him. In his former life he had always been trying to make pretty things, and had always broken them up again. The grin passed from him, and he continued:

“Cows, therefore, have souls. You needn’t contradict me, and thrust that omniscient Dear Friend down my throat, because I won’t stand it. I tell you that I saw into their eyes, and I know. If you want to get at the bottom of things, you must leave all ordinary processes, all logical processes. You can’t crawl down that way: you must jump. The people who dare not jump see that you have got to the bottom of things, and comfort themselves with saying that you must have hurt your poor head terribly. Have I hurt my head, Mary? For my intellect is all gone, and the light is fading very quickly. You hate men, I think. Never despise them any more; for they have souls. They cut down the grass, and it dies. They pull the flowers, and they die. They tread on the beetles, and they die. They kill the animals, cut down the trees, and poison the rivers. Where a man comes, death always follows. They are murderers; they are hideously ugly; they make unpleasant noises, and do not understand silences; they are the very lowest of all creatures, but they are on their way to a hereafter. Nothing’s wasted: the very strictest economy is practised.”

“I can’t understand you, Thomas; and I am afraid that you are getting worse. It tries you to talk. Why did you say the light was fading? The sun is still shining all over us. Oh, Thomas, you’ll be gone soon--may I cry now? I must.”

Thomas did not seem to have heard her. “I have been wicked, and yet not I,” he said. “It was something bad in me that will pass. And the world did provoke me terribly; it would be so emotional and stupid.”

Mary was crying unreservedly, but Thomas did not notice it.

“Something,” he said, “has come into my head which wants thinking out, but I will not bother myself. I have the easier way. Good-bye--for the sake of old times--Mary, darling. I am going to know everything.”

Then he curled up his legs quietly, and died.

Mary stopped crying, and examined the body. Yes, he was quite dead. Then she started away on a journey.

Thomas had been a wicked beetle, and he had talked wrongly in his last moments, and she was afraid to be near his body. Besides, she had heard of a vacancy.

The sun had quite finished with the window of that villa now, and the park-like grounds were nearly empty. On one of the courts a few enthusiasts were still playing, and would continue to play until they went in to dress. Out through the gate a young man sauntered into the road. The look of an escaped animal was on his face. He had been talking to a number of people whom he neither knew nor wanted to know. He had seen nothing of Marjorie, his host’s daughter, a child who always pleased and generally amused him. He felt that he had done much for his hostess; he had suffered privations. And now he was glad that the bulk of the visitors--all who were not staying in the house--had gone. He took the path across the common, pausing to light a pipe with a wax match and an air of relief. He walked in the direction of the spot where the dead body of Thomas was lying.

One of the two unkempt birds came slowly flying back again. It was he to whom the surname of Magnanimity has been given. He had got rid of his companion by some pretext of an appointment, and he had come back again to look for that beetle. He swooped down close beside the dead body of the insect, and turned it over with his beak.

“That’s just my luck,” he murmured softly. “I never could stand cold meat.” But that was affectation.

At this moment a small stone struck the ground within a foot of where the unkempt bird was standing. He hopped away in an aggrieved fashion.

“I won’t fly away yet,” he said sulkily, “it would only make the man conceited. They’re always chucking stones, these fools of men, and they hardly ever hit anything. They like to think that we’re afraid of them, and I’m not the least bit afraid.”

Another stone missed by a sixteenth of an inch the bird’s tail-feathers, and Magnanimity with one scream of bad language flew upwards. When he got there, he found that his nervous and unkempt companion had come back again, and had been watching him all the time. Then the magnanimous fowl swore worse than ever. There was no doubt that the nervous one would have a pretty story to tell about that pretended appointment.

The young man, who had thrown the stones, sauntered slowly up and surveyed the dead beetle, taking it in his hand to examine it more closely. He knew something about beetles--he had collected them in his school-days--and he saw that this was a large one of its kind, a fine specimen. He slipped it into one of his coat pockets, and strolled slowly back again to the house. He had originally meant to go further, but he had changed his intention. He was comparing in his own mind his favourite Marjorie, a child not quite fifteen, with the finished and ordinary girl as turned out in large numbers for the purposes of suburban tennis. He was also wondering casually why there were any beetles in the world, and why he had once been so interested in them.

When he got back to the house he paused in the hall for a second, and then went slowly upstairs to a room at the top of the house, used as a schoolroom by Marjorie and her governess, Miss Dean.

Marjorie was seated at the table writing. She had a large French dictionary by her side. She was dressed in dark blue serge. Her long hair had become a little untidy in her struggle to be idiomatic. She had a pale, intelligent face. She looked up as the young man entered.

“I’m awfully glad you’ve come,” she said, smiling. “It was getting rather dull, being all alone. Did you have some good setts?”

“No, not particularly--didn’t play much. I talked, and made myself useful, and ate ices, and drank things most of the time. You can’t see like that.” He struck a match, and lit the gas, and then he seated himself at the piano. “Where’s Miss Dean?”

“Oh, she went away as usual at half-past five, and left me this stuff to do for to-morrow. I’m doing it now, because I am going to be down in the drawing-room to-night. Only three more days to the holidays!”

“Have you got any tea?”

Marjorie nodded her head towards a table at the side of the room. “They brought it up about an hour ago,” she said. “It’s quite cold--will you ring for some more?”

“No, thanks,” he answered, as he got up and helped himself. “This will do very well. I am not really thirsty, because, as I said, I have been drinking during the whole of the afternoon--more or less. But I never feel absolutely sociable unless I am either smoking or drinking. Have you got much more to do for the estimable one?”

“Oh, no, only a few words. It was a shorter bit than usual, and I expected to have got it finished ever so long ago. But when it came to doing it, there were a lot of words that I’d never seen before. I know the French for a plate, or a glass, or a horse, or a hat, or anything like that. But I always have to look up words like buttercup or gridiron. Now here’s a word of that kind. What’s the French for beetle?”

“Escarbot, I believe, but I wouldn’t swear to it.”

“Look here, Maurice,” Marjorie said very earnestly, leaning her pretty little chin on one hand, “I’ll tell you what I’ve noticed. When a thing’s different in one way, it’s always different in another. If a piece for translation is extra short, there are always more words to look up. If I have an awfully bad morning, and Miss Dean is savage, and Aunt Julia patronises me, and Miss Matthieson makes me kiss her--bah!--I’m always glad at the end of it, because I know I am going to have a specially good afternoon or evening.”

“Marjorie, I believe you’re right. You’ll have a bad morning to-morrow if that wretched piece about the gridirons and beetles isn’t done for the inestimable Dean.”

“Well, I’ll finish in less than two minutes. Play something while I’m doing it.”

He opened the piano and took down the first piece that came. It was a drawing-room piece, and had the entire absence of soul which always appealed to the corresponding vacuum in the chilly Miss Dean. It was moderately difficult, and sounded _very_ difficult. Miss Dean well knew that when a girl like Marjorie, not yet fifteen, played that piece properly, it would be acknowledged to reflect great credit on her teacher. Maurice Grey opened the piece, looked at it suspiciously, skipped the introduction, played a few bars from the first page, glanced at the fifth page, then shut it up, and put it back again on the top of the piano with a sigh.

“I hate that too,” said Marjorie. “Play the thing you played to them last night in the drawing-room.”

“You weren’t in the drawing-room last night.”

“No, but my bedroom’s just above, and I could hear it. It went like this.” She hummed a few bars.

Maurice began to play once more. It was a mischievous, tender, eccentric little dance that went laughing about the piano as if it were mad. Marjorie had finished her work, and rose from the table and stood beside him, watching him with dark, attentive eyes as he played. She was thinking that she liked Maurice. He knew the right way to treat her. Aunt Julia treated her like a baby, and other visitors often appeared to be under the impression that children like inanity. Her father was rather an apathetic man, yet he had the sincerest affection for his wife, his only daughter, and young Maurice Grey. He had many acquaintances, but no other friends. He had been “Meyner and Sons,” who did great things in iron, but he disposed of his business to a company soon after his marriage. He was absorbed in the study of psychology, and made many curious experiments upon himself. In one or two of these young Maurice had been of some service to him. But in his family affections, his studies, or his experiments, he showed very little enthusiasm. He never expected to get great results. “The evidence is so bad,” he said to Maurice once, speaking of his favourite pursuit. “On my subject men lie often intentionally; and often deceive themselves and lie unintentionally, and rarely speak the truth. Also I find out more and more that I cannot even trust my own senses. The human brain is a shockingly defective instrument.” He was a little sensitive, and to visitors in his house--with the exception of Maurice--he would talk of anything but psychology. Psychology, he found, was a thing they never understood at all, and at which they generally laughed. Marjorie’s mother, Mrs. Meyner, was not so apathetic or so pessimistic, but then her horizon was not extended. The circle of her friends and relations gave her enough to think about and to make life worth living. She was a very gentle, unselfish woman, and had a provoking knack of sincerely liking nearly everybody. Her half-sister, Julia, had the opposite knack of hating nearly everybody. Julia was old and unmarried, and had a wonderful tongue; she dressed perfectly, had snowy hair, a kind face, a sweet smile, gentle ways, and a perfectly venomous disposition. Marjorie did not like her Aunt Julia. She did not like Miss Matthieson much better--a sentimental woman. Miss Dean was too chilly a person to like exactly; Marjorie respected her sometimes. But she did like Maurice, and she liked the music that he was playing now.

“That is awfully nice,” she said, when the piece was finished. “What is it?”