Chapter II: Two Skeleton Biographies

Bertrand Paul Tressider had been born into a fairly well-to-do, middle-class family. As usual, the unchangeable law of life governing such things permitted him no choice of parents. Presumably, therefore, he would consider himself lucky in not appearing on earth as a Chinese coolie, or, worse still, an African pygmy.

Having been respectably, if not actually luxuriously, ushered into "this best of all possible worlds," he at once became the victim--like everybody else--of environment, heredity and his own devices. He was another unit of evolution; another tiny speck in the pattern of the universe; another spark of energy let loose in a scheme, apparently eternal, for the furtherance of some vast, unfathomable design.

Except for two or three sisters, who appeared on the scene years later, he was an only child. At birth he had been endowed with a very large head. For this reason, his parents watched him closely, hopeful that he might turn out to be a prime minister, although at the same time fearful lest he develop into an imbecile. One never can tell with big heads. Only expert phrenologists know for certain. A bump or two either way, and...

But there was no occasion to worry. Pretty soon little Bertrand began to make it quite plain that he wanted his own way in everything. Also he commenced to exhibit a keen desire to smash things up--toys, and pots and things; all to the accompaniment of violent outbursts of temper. It was a happy day for the fond parents when they definitely accepted this infallible proof of their darling boy's saneness.

As time went on, Bertrand's over-sized cranium, instead of being reckoned a possible symptom of idiocy, became the subject of joyful speculation.

"Mark my words," said Tressider, senior, one evening, when he and his wife were admiring the way the young prodigy was trying to throttle a kitten; "he'll be a great lawyer some day."

Bertrand's mother thought not. She was descended from a family which in the last hundred years had shot forth stray branches delicately blossomed with Church of England clergymen. She said she quite thought her son was cut out for a bishop.

Tressider, senior, of lineage far less esthetic, noting young Bertrand's display of acquisitive gifts, countered with schemes for the boy's future more in keeping with the world's idea of success.

"No, my dear," he had said, "he'll never be a bishop. He's much too wise for that. Look how he keeps his chubby hand round the throat of that kitten where it can't possibly get at him. That's extremely clever. No, Ethel, dearest, we'll give him a good education, and I shall be altogether mistaken if he doesn't turn out to be a highly-successful man, and become rich, and the envy of all his friends."

"I did so hope," responded Mrs. Tressider gently, "that he would follow in his Uncle Theobald's footsteps. Such a calm, peaceful nature he had; so good; so deeply spiritual; so true to his own church, the only church; not a bit like these modern ministers who go about converting and upsetting people, and hobnobbing with other sects; so----"

"For God's sake, don't talk so much, Ethel," interposed Tressider, senior, irritably, "or else say something more to the point. I thought we were discussing the boy's future. It isn't to be imagined for one moment that his talents should be wasted like that. Look at him! Just look at him now! Take particular notice of the way he recognizes me as his father. Did you ever see such intelligence written on a human face? And that head of his--neither too small, nor yet too big; in fact, just right. And we used to be nervous about it. Tut! Tut! No, my dear, if that boy doesn't turn out to be either a Lord Chancellor, or a Viceroy of India, I'll eat my best silk hat, hang me if I won't. Why only the other morning, Tom Bett--and you know very well he never exaggerates--told me when he was signing me up for another thousand-pound insurance policy, 'Tressider, old fellow,' he says, 'that boy of yours is an absolute marvel, he is, indeed. It's my firm opinion he's smart enough to be a law----'"

"Why, John, dear, Mr. Bett has never even seen Ber----"

"There you go again, always interrupting me. Let me tell you once for all that I've finally decided Bertrand shall be a lawyer. He's almost three years old now--or is it two?--no matter, he----"

"Thirteen months, and three days----"

"No matter, I say. It's quite time we did something about his future. Life is short--too short. Look at me---fifty gone, and only a civil service clerk. True, it's the higher civil service; and we're well off, I know; but what have I really accomplished? Nothing--absolutely nothing. Let it be a lesson to us. Let us choose Bertrand's profession for him, and carry the idea out, not deviating one hair's-breadth from our intention. Let---- There, just what I expected! That wretched cat isn't to be trusted. Didn't I tell you not to allow him to play with the thing?----Good Lord, can't you stop him squalling? I never heard such a row in all my life. Do something with him for goodness' sake. Feed him. Shove that ring in his mouth. Something's sticking into him somewhere. Great Scott! what a vile temper. Shall I tell Harriet to come up and see to him, dear? I'm going to the club, and I can easily call to her on my way out. She's bound to be in the kitchen with one of her favourite flames, I suppose. I shan't be late, dearest. Don't bother sitting up for me."

* * * * * * * *

So, after deciding, with such admirable judgment, upon making a lawyer of Bertrand, his parents saw to it that he was well educated. First he was sent to a select private school which was conducted by the Misses Arbuthnot--a couple of elderly spinsters who were distinguished by being distantly related to a major in the Indian army. At this scholastic temple he was taught to consider it a frightful vulgarity to laugh in the street when he saw the butcher's boy set his basket down so as better to chase a cat, whilst a dog slipped off with the tripe and the mutton chops.

Next he went to a big grammar school where the masters were able to teach him nearly as much as his companions did; finally he was pitchforked into the office of a large and successful firm of lawyers at Sheffield as an articled clerk.

Neither Foggum on Conveyancing, Grabbit on the Law of Entail, Splitup on Divorce, nor any legal luminary on the whole bag of tricks of jurisprudence, managed very much to amuse Bertrand. Eventually he succeeded in making a frightful hash of his final examination, which event occurred just about the time Barr invented his all-British Colony scheme in London. Bert promptly seized the legal bit in his teeth, ran off as though a dozen County Court judges were exploding behind him, made Barr's acquaintance over a couple of whiskies-and-soda, then calmly waited for the sailing of the _Lake Manitoba_.

Bert had never really forgotten the Leatherstocking tales of Fenimore Cooper; nor yet Mayne Reid's Scalp Hunters; nor all the other Wild West stories among which he had contrived ingeniously to sandwich his legal studies. Some irresistible force within himself urged him towards the great open spaces. The romance of the endless prairies beckoned to him seductively with its adventurous imaginings. And, besides, he couldn't help himself. He was in the grip of heredity. Several of his progenitors had been wanderers. One of them had been hanged--so his father frequently boasted--by the Spaniards as a heretic, at Santa Cruz, because he refused to kiss a cross made from blood-stained Inca gold.

When his father heard of the move, he argued against it--a trifle weakly though. He himself had many times nursed secret longings for a career filled with yardarms, pieces of eight, tomahawks and shark-infested lagoons. Bert was obdurate. With horrible recklessness, he sacrificed his chances of the Woolsack, greatly to his father's rather insipidly-expressed disappointment. However, when the time for the sailing of Barr's pioneering crusaders drew near, the old gentleman paid his passage, financed him to the tune of five hundred pounds, and also provided him with an exceedingly generous kit.

Samuel Adolphus Potts' life history had been much less complicated. That little man's wits had been tempered in the environment of a fairly prosperous cab driver's home; rough-ground in a huge jam factory, among the sophisticated emery wheels of crowds of both sexes; finally burnished and sharpened as an extra barman in a not-very-high-class but well-patronized London public house.

Sam's capital consisted of twenty-odd pounds, clear of travelling expenses--plus an invincible common-sense.