Chapter I: Part 1

_SIXPENNY_
:: _PIECES_ ::

_BY A. NEIL LYONS_

_LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD_
_NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY: MCMIX_

WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH

_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_

Arthur's. With a Cover-design
by W. Graham Robertson.
Crown 8vo. Second Edition.

TO
K. L. S.

_*CONTENTS*_

I. Introductory
II. Concerning James
III. First Impressions
IV. Sixpences
V. The Hypocrites
VI. Conatus
VII. On The Properties of Water
VIII. The Way of the East
IX. The 'Pothecary
X. The Mother's Trade Union
XI. The Diagnosis
XII. The Tuskers
XIII. Art Lovers
XIV. Three Babies
XV. Ingrates
XVI. Baffin's Find
XVII. Mr. West's Wife
XVIII. Three Dialogues
XIX. Curing the Curer
XX. Milk!
XXI. Two Patients
XXII. Lost!
XXIII. The Survivor
XXIV. More of Prudence
XXV. A Talk with James
XXVI. The April Barge
XXVII. The Case of Mrs. Roper
XXVIII. The Black Hat
XXIX. On Earning Sixpence
XXX. Dialogue with a Bride
XXXI. An Interlude
XXXII. Low Finance
XXXIII. The Mothers' Meeting
XXXIV. The Woes of Wilfered
XXXV. Still More of Prudence
XXXVI. A Birthday Party
XXXVII. The Moral Sense
XXXVIII. Love and Hate
XXXIX. On a Dead Policeman
XL. Mrs. Gluckstein
XLI. Of Human Kindness
XLII. The Last

_*SIXPENNY PIECES*_

*I*

*INTRODUCTORY*

I was a beautiful evening in the month of May.

The stars were shining.

The beautiful moon looked beautifully forth from her beautiful throne.

A nightingale greeted her with a beautiful sonnet. England--our England--bore upon her bosom the beautiful perfume of woodruff and the wild clover. In Bovingdon Street, London, E., a lover was kicking his sweetheart.

That was the beginning of this book. I happened to be standing at Mr. Wilson's coffee stall. And I heard the screaming. And I saw some shadows moving briskly, like the funny silhouettes on the blind at a pantomime. And some of us laughed and some of us whined and one of us blew a whistle. And the constabulary arrived, and with their coming the tumult died. And they brought the girl to the light of the stall, and her face was bruised and swollen and she lost her voice. But before doing so she was able to assure us that "'E done it in drink." "'E" was removed under escort.

They did not take her to a hospital, because there was a round little man at the stall who prevented them from doing so. "Lemme alone," the lady had remarked, upon regaining speech. "Don't you worry me. I'm all right, I am. I got my doctor 'ere: this genelman in the top 'at. Ain't that right, sir? You are my doctor, ain't you?"

"That is so," said the round little man, "I'm her doctor. Shift your dam carcases and give the woman some air."

"There you are," gasped the woman, "what did I tell you? He _is_ my doctor. I got 'is confinement card in me pocket this minute."

"She can't stop 'ere you know, Dr. Brink," expostulated a constable.

"I'll take her home," said the round man.

"Be a lot better in the 'orspital," muttered the constable.

"I'm obliged for your opinion, officer; but I think I'll have my own way _this_ time. Catch hold of her middle, will you, Sonny?"

It was your servant who had the honour to be addressed as Sonny, and he hastened to do the little round man's bidding. When we had got the lady into a perpendicular attitude, the doctor put his arm about her, and, anticipating the little man's commands, your servant did the same. And so we led her from the stall, all the cut-throats of Bovingdon Street following reverently behind us. Happily our march was not a long one, for the patient lived in Smith Street; and Smith Street, as everybody knows, is the second turning past the African Chief beer-house in Bovingdon Street. Short as the journey was, however, I could have wished it to be shorter: for the cut-throats pressed us close, breathing thickly about our ears; and the woman weighed heavy, having no manner of use for her legs and being stupid in the head. She only spoke once during the walk, and that was to say, in a drowsy sort of monotone: "'E done it--in drink."

We came at last to 13, Smith Street, and the fact that eighteen eager faces were already distributed among the six small windows of that dwelling-house removed my latent fears that our arrival would disturb "the neighbours." The owners of these faces were entirely mute, save for one, an elderly woman, who, in a loud wail, made certain representations to Providence in regard to one 'Erry Barber, whom I understood to be the lusty gallant primarily responsible for this adventure. Having repeated these commands a great number of times, and having exercised undoubted talent in describing 'Erry and 'Erry's parentage, the old woman proceeded to chronicle her views respecting a vast number of alien subjects. At last this lady had the great misfortune to "catch her breath," at which the doctor cut in.

"Stop that beastly noise!" he shouted, "and shut the window, and put on a respectable garment, and come downstairs and let us in."

The lady looked benignly down upon us.

"Go' bless ye, doctor," she exclaimed, "you are a good man. But you didn't ought to talk like that to _me_. I lorst a son in the Bower war."

At that moment the door was opened by some other dweller in the house. And the doctor and his patient entered in. Not knowing the neighbourhood and not liking it, and being also of a curious nature, I awaited the doctor's return. I had not long to wait. He came out very soon, and we walked away together into clearer air. And the doctor spoke.

"It is a deuced queer thing," he said, "that a man can't stop for five minutes at a dam coffee stall without some fool or other finding work for him. I'll never go to that stall again. I'll be damned if I will. I ought to have got home half an hour ago."

"Yes," I said--I believe that vaguely I sought to comfort him--"and she _would_ have been better off in the infirmary?"

"Don't talk foolishness, young man," replied the round little doctor. "You are talking dam nonsense. Infirmary--pooh! With a baby almost due, and with all those bruises! They would have made a complete job of it there. They would have kept her there for the lying-in and all--a six weeks' job at least."

"And would that matter?"

"Matter? Of course it would. That man will be out in a week, even if our local humorist doesn't let him off with a fine. What's to become of that poor girl's home, do you suppose, while she's in and he's out?"

"Would he touch it?"

"Do you live in this neighbourhood, sir?" The doctor wore a visage as of painful wonder.

I explained that I didn't.

The doctor's wonder grew. "What under heaven are you doing in the purlieus of Mile End Road at two in the morning, then?" he demanded.

"Sir," I said, with grand simplicity, "you behold in me the representative of an inexpensive but celebrated newspaper. I am come here, by editorial instruction, to seek out Blossom, the chimney-sweep philosopher, whose opinion on horse-racing we are anxious to secure for our magazine page. But Blossom has evaporated. Mrs. Blossom vainly seeketh him. So does the other woman's husband. I have prepared a full and detailed report of this disgraceful scandal, which will appear, together with photographs, on our sermon page next Sunday. And as, when I communicated by telephone with my editor, he was so kind as to relieve me from further intellectual activity for the day, and as I do not know Mile End, and as I----"

"Never mind the 'ases,'" interpolated the doctor. "My name is Brink. I like your politics."

"I have no politics," I explained. "But ... I hate my job."

"That is what I mean," replied the doctor. "... So you want me to send this woman to the infirmary, where they will feed her well and keep her warm between white sheets, and give her copies of the _Nineteenth Century_ to read. But during that time, you see, her 'man' and some other woman would be pawning her home. She knows this, and I know it. So I took her home. If she has concussion, of course, she'll _have_ to go; but short of that we can get her through it at home. There's a boilerman's wife in the room above who has rudimentary graces. Infirmary, forsooth! Why, even the respectable married ones would rather pawn their wedding rings than 'lie in' on a public bed. A woman at home is a woman at home, even though she talks through the mouth of a midwife; but when a woman is in hospital William's wages and the marble ornaments are both at William's mercy. And so the women stop at home and call in Brink--Brink--the sixpenny doctor."

I laughed. "Is it _really_ sixpence--your fee, I mean?"

"It is _really_ sixpence. And my income is twelve hundred a year. I used to have a respectable half-guinea practice in Norfolk, and then I was doing eight hundred, and spending it all on dog-carts and dinner-parties. Here I have no expenses at all, except in the matter of top-hats; they insist upon top-hats. And I like the place: I am charmed with the people. Do you like smoked salmon and cold duck?"

"I do."

"Then come inside, and have some. And have a look at James. James will do you good. James is unique. And I can give you a bed, and I can tell you stories, and show you some fun, too--sideways sort of fun--at sixpence a time."

"Sixpenny pieces," I suggested, as his key turned in the lock.

*II*

*CONCERNING JAMES*

I have confused impressions of that first visit to the house of Dr. Brink. It was so late when we entered, you see, and all within the house was strange and unexpected, and the duck and Burgundy were very peace-provoking.

The sort of house which I had expected the doctor to inhabit was not at all the sort of house he really lived in. I had, perhaps, no very definite ideas at all. One knows the _ordinary_ doctor's house: a cool and studious consulting-room, having leathern armchairs and a telephone and a stethoscope and some framed engravings after Landseer and a silver goblet which he won at tennis in the eighties and a case of text-books and a mule canary and claret plush curtains and the centenary edition of Sir Walter Scott. And a very quiet and lofty waiting-room, containing all the illustrated papers for last April and a reading-glass and a stereoscope, besides a decanter of water and three clean tumblers.

One knows that sort of house, I say, and likewise the gentle, murmuring press of sufferers which lays siege to it. But the spot-cash practitioners of Mile End Road are rather strange and foreign to us. We do not go into their little, weird consulting-hatches nor sweat amid the tumult of their vulgar patrons. We can imagine what the thing is like: and there are some of us perhaps who imagine truthfully. I didn't.

My imagination did not run to Japanese colour prints and pastel studies, and neatly framed examples of the art of Mr. Nicholson. And yet these things were hung upon the white distempered walls of Dr. Brink's infirmary. I figured the tumult as gazing speechlessly upon these curious East End substitutes for Landseer. "What do they think of them?" I asked the doctor.

"They are much amused," said he. We were standing before a pastel when he spoke--a thing of heavy shadows with purple deeps, wherefrom there stood forth dimly the figures of a crippled man and an old sick woman, and the face of a child with brazen eyes. "Out Patients" was the title of this drawing, and it preached of a divine torture. "They are much amused," said the doctor.

But this was in the morning. That night we did not look at pictures, nor at patients. We sat above and supped off duck and Burgundy. I saw confusedly--it was a pleasant confusion--that there were many good pictures in the house, and that books were everywhere--everywhere. And the bottle was a full one. And we spoke of olives and the Norfolk women.

Then he took me to a little brown room with more books in it, and a bedstead which was of oak and carven.

"Good-night," said the doctor. "You shall see old James to-morrow. You will like old James. Good-night."

* * * * *

When morning came, I had the pleasure of viewing Bovingdon Street in the sunshine.

It was a queer sort of sunshine, to be sure--weak and uncertain and rather dirty: a sort of actinic heel-taps. But I remember thinking that any less shabby form of sunshine would have carried with it an air of disrespect, as though it had come forth to mock at the gloom and ugliness of the thing beneath it. A gloomier, sillier, dirtier street than Bovingdon Street I do not wish to see. But I have seen such all the same. Indeed, I have looked upon some filth and squalor beside which Bovingdon Street is as the Mall compared to Worship Street. So much I must admit in common fairness.

There was at least no actual squalor in the street on which I looked: only dirt and gloom and ugliness. The houses which faced me were comparatively new, and they were small and neat, and of a square and thick-set build. But there happened to be one hundred and sixty of them, each exactly like its neighbour, and having each before its doorway a small pale or enclosure containing--cinders and rags and pieces of paper and battered cans and smudgy babies and hungry cats. And there was grime on all the windows, and in front of them a very vulgar man was selling bloaters, loudly. Also, in all that soot-brown avenue there was one white thing: a hawthorn tree in bloom, which shuddered gently in the fog-shine like a discontented spectre. And those ridiculous fat houses stood there stoutly, shoulder to shoulder, one hundred and sixty of them, eyeing her with dolour. And a voice beneath my window made speech, saying loudly: "You give me my daughter's combings back, ye thievin' slut." So I left the window and lighted a pipe and crawled back into bed.

* * * * *

And then, as the story writers say, a strange thing happened. There came a sudden tap upon my bedroom door, and without further warning there entered in a--a lady. She was rather a young lady, to be sure, some fifteen years of age, perhaps. And she was wearing a petticoat--a striped petticoat--and her hair was dressed into innumerable pigtails, and her top was covered by--by a--a--don't they call it a camisole? And she bade me "Good-morning," very calmly.

"G--G--Good-morning!" I responded. I hoped to heaven that I was not blushing.

"Don't trouble to scream," said the lady, in an off-hand manner. "It is all right: I have come for my stockings."

"Really," I began, a little hotly, "_I_ haven't ta----" And then I stopped. A horrible thought presented itself to me.

Doctor Brink no doubt combined the practice of alienism with that of spot-cash cures. And this lady was doubtless an "inmate." And----

The voice of the inmate interrupted me. "It's quite all right, really it is. I'm not accusing you of theft or anything else. I only want to get my stockings from this cupboard. Mrs. Gomm, our 'char,' she mixes things up so. And I want a brown pair, because this is my day for being respectable with my aunt at Ealing, and you wear your brown dress and a neat toque for that sort of thing; and where the devil that woman has--oh, here we are. Want darning, of course. Damn!"

Swearing seemed to be a widespread habit in this unusual household. I coughed--the sort of cough you use when children are present and your deaf Uncle David is reviving his recollections of India in the sixties.

"I say," protested my visitor, "you really needn't look so worried. It's all right, really. This is my room, you know; theoretically, you know. Only I always sleep in the bathroom (we've got a bath-room, you know, and there's a lid to it, and I sleep on that), and I always sleep there because it's a long way from Fatty, and I can't hear him raving when the night-bell rings. And Fatty----"

"Pardon me," I cried, "but who is Fatty?"

The lady looked at me a little blankly. "Who is Fatty?" she repeated, but then broke off, a light as of understanding in her eye. "I was forgetting," she said. "Of course, you wouldn't know. Well, it is like this, you see. This house belongs to a man called Brink, who is a doctor and----"

"I know all that," I assured her.

"Oh, you do know all about it, then," quoth she; "I wasn't sure, you know. Most of the strange people that I find in my bedroom if I happen to look in for anything don't know anything at all about us. Fatty finds them--gathers them up, you know--and brings them home and feeds them and converts them to Socialism and puts them to bed, and when they wake up in the morning they have to have it all explained to them. Fatty is Dr. Brink, you know. One always calls him Fatty, because his proper names are Theobald Henry de la Rue, and you simply haven't time in the mumps season. You're a reformer, I suppose? What do you reform?"

"Reform!" I cried, "what do _I_ reform? Why, I don't reform at all. I've never reformed a blue-bottle."

"But surely you're against something or other. You _must_ be against something!"

"Oh, well," I answered, "if it comes to that, I--I----"

"Just so," assented the lady. "Don't go into particulars. They _all_ particularise. I could stand much from you--more than usual, I mean--because you are clean-shaven, and that is such a change from most of the other powerful thinkers whom one finds here in the morning. They are staunch, you know, and sound on the Education Question and all that sort of thing, and they are a useful hobby for Fatty to take up; but they're rather old and solemn, as a rule, you know. And they _do_ go into details! Now _you_ seem rather jolly; and when you've got up and we've been properly introduced and I've boiled your egg, I'll show you my white rats. Do you like white rats?"

"I adore them," said your servant.

"Good. And, I say, I hope you won't mind, but you'll have to toilet yourself in the kitchen sink. Our 'char's' such a rotter, you know, and I see she hasn't filled your jug--she never does--and she doesn't come till ten, and I've got to finish dressing, and Fatty's out on a call, and there's all the breakfast to get; and when you've done your toilet _do_ you mind just putting a match to the gas stove and sticking a kettle on? Thanks awfully." ... My fair guest flung herself upon the door. All of her, save a corner of the stripy petticoat, had disappeared, when I put in _the_ important question.

"I say," I cried, "who _are_ you?"

"Me," cried a voice from behind the door--"me? Oh ... I am James."

*III*

*FIRST IMPRESSIONS*

With breakfast came the opportunity of renewing my _entente_ with James. That young lady appeared now fully clothed in the conventional garments of her age, even to a pinafore with seven pockets.

"What do you put in all those pockets?" I inquired, as she tripped in with the bacon.

"Most of them," she answered, "contain white rats.... I thought," she added, eyeing me closely, as I drifted in a thoughtful manner to the far end of the table, "I thought you _adored_ white rats?"

"That is quite so," I responded. "The dear, dumb creatures! I--I idolise them."

"_Why_ do you idolise them?" demanded James, putting on a very subtile smile.

"Because," I answered, "because they--they are so dumb and--and so white."

"Then why do you shudder at them?"

I explained my attitude towards white rats. "It is not fear which makes me seem to shrink," I pointed out, "only a sense of--of--well, you see, the white rats which I have previously adored were confined within a cage, which contained a sort of treadmill, which they worked with their feet, and you watched this talented display from a distance, and wondered if they never grew tired. But----"

"Those wheel-cages," interpolated James, "are the most damnable contrivances which were ever invented. Whenever I see one I buy it and burn it. That is one reason why I happen to have so many rats. I think that the people who make those things ought to be devoured by locusts. I----"

"You also have the spirit of reform, then?" I ventured to suggest.

"Reform!" echoed James, with a bitter laugh. "Because one hates to see things tortured? _I_ call it common decency. All of Fatty's friends have got some wonderful new name for being decent. One of Fatty's most particular friends is a rather awful man named Boag, and he is a public accountant, and he wears spats, and he calls himself a Conative Meliorist; and if you ask him why, he says it is because he believes in making people happy. 'Conative Meliorist'! Think of it! Sounds so expensive, doesn't it? He pronounces his name in two jerks--Bo--ag, and it always reminds me of Asheg, Mesheg, and Abednedgo.... He looks exactly like them, too! 'Conative Meliorist'! It is much easier to call yourself just James."

"Why _do_ you call yourself 'James,' by the way?"

"Let us stick to the point," responded James. "It is so like a man to dodge your arguments when he can't upset them. What was the point?"

"Conative Meliorism," I suggested.

"That was merely a passing reference. There was something else which reminded me of Mr. Boag. Something which reminded me of something which reminded me of something which remind--I remember now. We were talking of white rats. You were pretending not to hate them. You were trying to deceive me. Your pretendings don't take me in the leastest bit, so you may just as well chuck them up. Be honest. Be a man. Stand up like an English gentleman. Say what you feel about them. Do not fear to shock my virgin ears because----"

"How old are you, James?" I hoped that my simple, honest, obvious wonder would disarm the question of its point.

The lady gazed upon me with an air of bland surprise. "That is a question," she answered, with great gravity, "which I never discuss. It isn't fair to Fatty. _Do_ sit down. Was it sugar and no milk, you said; or milk and no sugar? And will you have hysterics if Sunshine joins the circle? He always breakfasts with his mother. Oh, de minna, tinna, tooney Sunshine, den."

Sunshine was a rat--the whitest and roundest and fattest of them all.

* * * * *

I, nevertheless, contrived to breakfast well. Sunshine's mistress was thoughtful enough to curtail the radius of that minna, tinna, tooney animal's accustomed beat: with the result that I was able to keep my seat. And his mistress stayed him with dainties and prattled cheerfully upon a variety of strange subjects. It was no good waiting breakfast for Fatty, she explained, because Fatty's "call" was a "midder."

"And what in heaven's name," I demanded, "may a 'midder' be?"

"That," explained James, "is what Fatty calls an 'obstetric term.' When people have babies, you know. Do you know what 'B.B.A.' means?"

I didn't.

"That's another trade expression. It stands for 'Born Before Arrival,' and it's what you always pray for, because it saves a lot of time, and they have to pay you just the same. Our fee is half a guinea, and you can pay it by instalments if you like. But if it is your first baby we charge a guinea, because your husband is a lot more trouble to us, and he is not always sober. And whatever the fee, we do our very best for you, and pride ourselves on our results; but as we get about seven 'midders' every day, we are not able to make so many compliments as we did in Norfolk.... Fatty calls it his Automatic Delivery System."

The girl, as she spoke, looked very "nice" and English: she was feeding Sunshine from a fork. I began to wonder whether it was actually possible that she did not realise the horrible impropriety of her conversation. As an Englishman, I knew my duty. That duty was to represent to her in suitable terms that her conduct was abandoned and impure. But the religious duty of causing maidens to blush is one which is best performed by the Righteous, who perform it so well and often.... I concealed my horror.

And the maiden prattled on. "Some of them are fearfully grateful. Do you see that old stuffed owl in the dusty case, there? That's a present--to me. It only came yesterday, and it's a token of gratitude from a Jewish lady in the fish trade. This is her sixth, and the first five were all girls. She used to deal with our opposition--Dr. McWhite--but when the fifth female came along they changed over to Fatty, and this stuffed owl is what he calls a tribute to professional ability. And there's Fatty's key in the door. Seize his bacon, will you--it's in the fender."

I was rather annoyed with Dr. Brink for returning just then. I had mapped out a series of leading questions designed to elicit James's age and identity.

But when the little hungry man came in, I felt that these questions were unimportant and could wait. It was interesting enough to help that busy scientist to mustard, and to hear him curse the Liberal Government with his mouth full of bacon, and to watch the quiet motherliness of James.

"Regular multitude in the waiting-room," announced the doctor, as he gulped his coffee. "Got to get back there quick. You'd better pop down with me, youngster, and get a squint at it all."

"You sit on the gas-stove in the kitchen," explained James. "There's a window just above it which gives on to the consulting-room, and it's painted on the kitchen side, and I've scratched a little squint-hole in the paint.... I often go down there when the drunks come in--the _funny_ drunks, I mean. Sometimes they are not funny. And Mr. Boag, the Conative Meliorist, sits there by the hour. He calls it 'supping with misery.'"

"You'll spend the day with us, I suppose?" suggested the little doctor. And, as it was Saturday, and therefore a holiday in my trade, I supposed that I would.

And then they introduced me to the gas-stove.

*IV*

*SIXPENCES*

I sat on the gas-stove, with James beside me, and we applied our eyes in turn to the squint-hole and beheld the Doctor earning sixpences.

_Item:_ A young gentleman with the hiccoughs. Was feeling suicidal. How was his appetite? Shocking, shocking! Digestion in good order? On the contrary, it was shocking bad. What sort of nights? Shocking! Spirits low? Shocking low. Did his head ache? Shockingly. Food taste dull? Absolutely shocking. Young gentleman receives some advice on the subject of alcoholic excess and a bottle of water, fortified by harmless colouring matter. Young gentleman departs.

_Item:_ Tired woman with baby in convulsions. Baby's dietary discussed. Woman indignant. "Why," she declares, "'e 'as the very same as us!" Baby dismissed with a powder.

_Item:_ Slow-spoken man with a jellied thumb. "Door jamb," he explains. "Want a stifficut. Works at the Brewery. Want another stifficut for the Insurance. 'Urry up. 'Ow much? Good-day."

Then an old woman came in--a very old woman, with rosy cheeks and a clean apron, and querulous, childish eyes.

"I want some morphium," she says, "to soothe meself down. Not that I got a right to look for much--at my age."

The doctor became jocular. "What!" he cried. "A fine woman like you? Morphia for you? What? With those cheeks? _What?_"

"I ain't got no happetite," said the old woman. "And there's shooting pains in me 'ead, and I don't sleep proper, and I seems to feel lonesome, and I wants some morphium to soothe meself down with."

"What's your favourite dinner dish?" inquired our inconsequent wag of a doctor.

"I ain't got no favourites," replied the woman. "I'm old, I am; what should I do with favourites at my age? I want some morphium to soothe meself down."

"What _is_ your age--sixty?"

"I shall never see sixty again," said the woman. "Nor I shan't see seventy. Nor eighty. I'm old."

"And you mean to tell me," cried the doctor, with sudden heat, "that you do not care for tripe? Good tripe, mind you--tender tripe, very well boiled, with just a flavouring of onions?"

"And if I did," protested the woman, "who's to cook it for me? There's so many young women to get the favours now I find, and me so old. Can't I have a little morphium, Doctor: the brown mixture, ye know? To soothe meself down with."

"The young ones get the favouring, eh? Do you live with a young woman?"

"I lives with two on 'em--worse luck."

"Daughters?"

"Daughters? Me? No, sir. I'm a maiden, I am.... It's me landlady what I lives with."

"Doesn't she cook for you? I've got some tripe in the kitchen, and I thought--but, of course, if it can't be cooked, why---- What's all this about?"

The rosy-cheeked old maiden was crying, "I'm too old," she sobbed; "it's the young ones gets the favouring."

"Oh," said the doctor, "and so your landlady is unkind?"

"Not unkind, sir," said the woman, gently swallowing the doctor's bait; "she's a good woman, as they go, only I'm growed so old, and a young woman has come into our house, and I'm sorry to say, doctor, as she has 'leniated my landlady away from me. She is a young woman."

"Can't you get some other lodgings?" suggested the doctor. "You oughtn t to be neglected."

"I do not say I ham neglected, Doctor. That would be huntrue. I am not blaming anybody. I honly say I'm old. And this new lodger she's 'leniated my landlady away from me. She's young, you see. Well under seventy, she is."

They're all alike, these minxes," said the doctor, with a wistful smile.

"I got nothing to say agin her, mind you," protested the old woman. "Not agin neether. My landlady, she was very good and kind to me at one time; but now this young one 'ave come, and I ham sorry to say as she 'ave 'leniated my landlady away from me."

"I shouldn't fret about the matter, anyhow," suggested Dr. Brink. "You'll make friends with your landlady soon again; I'm sure you will."

"We was never bad friends," explained the woman. "We're friends to-day, on'y not _sich_ friends, if you understand me. This new lodger, you see, she has 'leniated my landlady away from me. That's what it is. She 'ave leniated her. She's a _young_ woman, you see! ... Will you give me some morphium, Doctor; just to soothe meself down with?"

The maiden got her morphia.

The maiden was succeeded by another woman--a mother. She carried a bundle, partly occupied by a baby. She was a lewd and dirty woman, and engaged my friend in the following dialogue.

FEMALE: I warra soothin' surrup for my baby yere. 'E's fidgety.

DOCTOR: How fidgety?

FEMALE: Well: look at the little blighter. 'E's got the blasted jumps.

DOCTOR: Of course he's got the jumps. He's dying.

FEMALE: Warra mean--dyin'?

DOCTOR: I mean that he will soon be dead.

FEMALE: Whaffor?

DOCTOR: Because he's starving.

FEMALE: Warra mean--starving?

DOCTOR: I mean that he is squirming mad from hunger. Breast fed, of course?

FEMALE: Warra mean, ye bleatin' image?

DOCTOR: Breast fed, of course?

FEMALE: Ye bleatin' image! 'Oo the 'ell you think _you_ are?

DOCTOR: Breast fed, of course?

FEMALE (_weeping wildly_): Me starve my baby? Ow, ow, ow, ow!

DOCTOR: Breast fed, of course?

FEMALE: Ow, ow--why cert'nly 'e's breast fed! 'Ow else d'ye think a pore workin' woman's goin' ter manage? And 'im not five months old. And one of yere own deliveries. Cert'nly e's breast fed.

DOCTOR: That's the trouble, you see. No baby can be nourished on gin and stout. He's starving, I tell you.

FEMALE: And I tell ye it's a dirty lie. I'm for ever feedin' 'im. 'E's for ever worryin'. Sich a happetite this little beggar's got. Warra mean, me starve 'im? Warra mean, yere gin and beer? I suckle the little dear meself.

DOCTOR: And what do you feed yourself on?

FEMALE: That's my business, ain't it?

DOCTOR: It's my business, too. If you want that baby to live, you'd best look sharp and feed him. Get sober. I can't cure the baby. The only person who can cure him is yourself. And to do that you must leave off getting drunk. You must eat some decent food. You're living on alcohol at present. No baby can be nourished on gin and stout.

FEMALE: S'elp me Gawd, Doctor--s'elp me Gawd, young man, if I die this minute--s'elp me Gawd I ain't 'ad only two 'arf-pints since yisterday. I take them a-purpose for the boy's own sake, young man. 'E don't seem to fancy it, some'ow, unless I 'as me drop o' stout. See what I mean, Doctor? I takes what I do for the baby's own sake: 'e _will_ 'ave it, bless 'is little 'eart.

*V*

*THE HYPOCRITES*

During a lull in the sixpenny battle Dr. Brink held parley with me, standing on the seat of his official chair and peering through the top of his consulting-room window. "Are you comfortable on that gas-stove?" inquired the learned doctor.

"The gas-stove," I said, "is very well; but--er--comfort, you know, is not exactly the word. It--it--I say, you know, that woman with the dying baby was rather quaint."

"This," said the doctor, "is a quaint sort of gas-stove. We often roast chaps on it. Do you like beer?"

"Not much," I answered, "but my brother plays the flute."

"Because," pursued my host, ignoring this effort at repartee, "my consultations are nearly over for this morning, and then I am going my round, and that is a short one, and I shall be back here by one o'clock, and after that I propose to brew some beer. Would you like to help me?"

The proposition was not without a certain suddenness, but I was getting used to this household, and did not betray my surprise. Also, I accepted the invitation.

"Righto! Come about yourself? How's your appetite?" said the doctor, in one breath, as he disappeared from the window and readdressed himself to business.

* * * * *

And in the afternoon we duly did this brewing.

"One brews in Baffin's studio," explained the doctor, with a slight yawn, as he led me through the kitchen door into his little yard, all bright with tulips. "Baffin's studio is really our washhouse, you know."

"And who is Baffin?" I demanded.

"One of the Leicestershire Baffins," replied the doctor gravely. "His mother was a Pillbrook. His uncle----"

I begged the doctor to restrain his gift of humour. "Where is Baffin? What is he?" I demanded again.

"Oh," said the doctor, "if you are really commonplace enough to be interested in a man himself when you ask, "who he is," I will expound this Baffin to you. He has red hair and freckles, and he is one of the Leicestershire Baffins, and he hates the Leicestershire Baffins, and he is a youth of great talents, who is supposed to live here, but at present he is reforming the Royal Academy, and reviving poster art in England. And he never puts anything where he will find it again, or shuts a drawer or folds his clothes. He is a genius. And---- Look out, I say, that's Baffin's bag."

It _was_ Baffin's bag, and it assisted your servant in the performance of a complicated somersault. Baffin had left it on his doorstep.

Baffin's doorstep led into quite the wildest washhouse which I have ever viewed. Baffin's bed, consisting of three brown blankets strewn oddly upon a damaged ottoman, occupied most of the foreground, and behind this object lay, in some confusion, waistcoats, and easels, and broken chairs, and bas-reliefs, and unclean collars, and portfolios, and fencing sticks, and a rusty helm and vizor out of Wardour Street. And the walls were covered with crayon drawings and printed posters, all of them attached to the plaster by means of one corner and a pin, and all of them being curled at the edges and tanned with exposure. It was noticeable, also, that a bust of the Blessed Virgin, after Cinquevalli, was situated within the font or cavity of the copper. We removed this object in order to make room for the beer.

I observed also that Mr. Baffin's studio was beautified by one mural design of a permanent nature. This consisted of a sum in compound arithmetic, performed by means of charcoal. I studied this inscription with interest. There was

L3 5
20
-----
L65 0

A fairly obvious, if unconventional, piece of mathematical deduction. We were then faced with a new problem, somewhat more mysterious in its workings. Thus:--

65
98
--
13)163(12 Carry 3
13
--
33
26
--
7
12
----
12/7
----
Total L1 12s. 7d.

I must own to being strangely touched by this pathetic effort on the part of Baffin to solve the mysteries of an alien art. I also reflected that the result of his calculations, though wayward and inscrutable in itself, was probably touched with a profound and poignant importance to Baffin. It represented cigarettes and dinners--L1 12s. 7d. worth, more or less. A fellow-feeling made me fear it must be less. There was a hurried, insignificant, shamefaced look about the figures wherewith Baffin had recorded his results. They indubitably pointed to a debit balance.

Presently Mr. Baffin himself strolled in, and we were presented to each other, and he helped us boil the beer. He helped us in intention rather than effect, for Mr. Baffin possessed a thoughtful, halting, introspective mind, and, as Dr. Brink had observed, he did not put things where they could be found again. Also, he was rather wrapped up in me. "I say, you know," he had observed, "I wish you would sit for me. You would make a splendid model for my oyster seller. I am doing the New Cut by night, you know."

"Are you in love?" demanded Mr. Baffin, a little later. I said, "Of course." "Will you bring her round, then?" continued Mr. Baffin. "And to what end?" I said. "I am collecting lovers," explained this talented and candid youth. "I want that rapt look. Paid models are no use at all, you know. Amateurs aren't much better, of course, because they all have prejudices against yearning in public. But I am hoping to find the exception in time, and you have a natural sort of expression--rather--and so I thought--I give you tea, you know, and drinks when there are any. All you have to do is to sit on the throne and embrace. I hope she's dark. Next Tuesday would be a good day."

I promised Mr. Baffin that I would submit his proposition to all the ladies with whom I happened to be in love.

And then the liquid in the copper arrived at a perfect temperature and we became all silent in the pursuit of brewing. And James came in to help us, observing that the attractions of brewing transcended those of her aunt at Ealing, and that she had postponed her visit to that respectable lady. And some of the doctor's friends looked in, including Mr. Pudsey, the lyric poet, and Boag (conative meliorist), who invited me to dine with him, and Jenny Brown, the painter, and Miss Blick, of the Women's Social and Political Union, and Mr. Webb, the local curate, who explained to me, with an air of bold originality, that Christianity and Socialism had points in common. And we partook of tea from Breton mugs, and were secretly amused at each other. And in the midst of it all a gas engine arrived at the surgery door, and said "Honk! Honk!" And the doctor rushed out and came back looking sad.

"It is Lady Budge, the new member's wife," he said with dolour; "and she has come in her motor to discuss the poor. James, old girl, I am awfully sorry, but you have got to be respectable. Her ladyship is waiting upstairs now."

A period of wild excitement followed, while we all helped James to comb her hair and climb into the speckled pinafore of a blameless life. "I will do my best," said James; "but I am sure I shall forget and call you 'Fatty.' Is it father or papa to-day?"

"Her ladyship," responded the doctor, "is, I think, the kind of ladyship who would prefer papa. Let her do all the good she wants to. Mention that we've got a curate here. Webb and I will come up in a little while and collect the cheque. Don't harrow her. She's the kind of ladyship who likes to do business with _respectable_ poverty."

When, a little later, we went upstairs, James was sedately sipping more tea from a cup. And her ladyship was talking, and James was viewing her with eyes of innocence and wonder. "I quite agree with you," said James, "that alpaca is the most sensible thing for people of that class."

Baffin was dragged in, and the doctor loudly proclaimed him as being of the Leicestershire Baffins, and her ladyship suddenly looked interested and human.

"You are an artist?" she said. "How very charming!"

Baffin, who had done very well up to then, became suddenly ponderful again. "I say," he blurted forth, at last, "couldn't I persuade you to sit for me some time? You are the very thing I have been looking out for. For my angel's back, you know."

*VI*

*CONATUS*

I accepted Mr. Boag's invitation and dined with him--at the National Liberal Club. They wine you at this place in a manner which is singularly perfect. I cannot, at this distance of time, state exactly what topics formed the subject of Mr. Boag's improving conversation; but I can say that, regarded from the standpoint of Meliorism, his dinner was an emphatic success. And when it was quite over I found myself upon the Thames Embankment smiling cheerfully, as was becoming to the happy circumstance of my conversion to Mr. Boag's cheerful doctrines.

And thus it was that I came to take part, unofficially, at another dinner party; a repast _a deux_, with epigrams, and incident, all in the most approved style of romance. The _tete-a-tete_ is consecrated to literature by a thousand charming precedents. I shall certainly offer no apology for submitting this one to your indulgent consideration.

They were dining off alabaster--or was it granite?--at the foot of Cleopatra's Needle; and I remarked particularly the singular blueness of Strephon's fingers. The glorious revelation, recently vouchsafed to me, of Conative truths, had so warmed my heart, had set up such a tingling within my veins (which were themselves protected from chill by several layers of wool and cambric) that the few degrees of frost prevailing at the moment had not yet become evident to my senses. Strephon, of course, was in another case, being appropriately clad in garments partaking of the nature of gossamer. And he, besides, had not been privileged to receive the truths of Meliorism. Wherefore, he must blow upon his nail, and pinch his scrubby cheek, and utter blasphemies, crying, "Christ, mate, but this wind ain't 'arf a nipper."

And she (the Chloee of this story: the one whom he addressed as "mate") made answer thus: "Then do as I tell you, an' drink that up!"

"But 'ere, 'old 'ard!" cried Strephon, as she poked a little bottle at his lips--"that's your share, ain't it?"

"Not be rights," said the woman, blushing a little--or seeming to blush; for she was a battered, sodden thing, and her cheek had lost its quickness. "It ain't my share, be rights. I--I 'ad a sip at yourn. Besides, I've lorst me liking fur that Irish stuff. Give me Scotch!"

"This _is_ Scotch, ain't it?" said the man.

"It is, bad luck to it," replied the woman quickly. "I've lost me likin' fur it, I tell you. Give me Irish!"

"Oh!" said the man, and he swallowed her share.

He pocketed the empty bottle with a little shiver of contentment. The woman shivered also, and plucked at an imaginary shawl. "Now then, boy," she cried, with sudden cheerfulness; "wake up, you ain't 'arf a eater. Why don't ye punch into that other 'am bone."

"So I shall," responded Boy, with a full mouth, "when I done this."

"Righto, dearie," said the woman quietly, with a sideways look at the ham bone and another little shiver. Then she drew closer to her companion and looked at him silently, with pity in her awful eyes. "It's a funny thing about you," she said at last; "you to be on the rocks at your age--a boy like you!"

"I'm rather independent in me nature," explained the "Boy." "I've stood fur me rights and suffered by it. 'Ad some good jobs in me time. 'Ad some money too. I was a bit lucky over cards. Retired for a year an' done it in. Ain't 'ad no luck since."

"Funny, ain't it," said the woman, still with that strange softness in her shameful eyes. "Funny, ain't it," she repeated: "a boy like you."

"Not so much o' yere 'Boy,'" protested Strephon; "I'm twenty-four."

"Ha!" cried the woman, crouching closer, "what price yere 'umble then? _I'm_ turned forty-four."

Strephon looked lazily at her, munching his ham bone steadily. She made a queer figure, strange to see beside that world-old monument, with her swollen, bloodless face, and button nose, and greedy eyes, and ravelled, rusty hair, the colour of an old dog-fox's pelt. And that which was upon her head, a time-worn sailor-hat, set at a ridiculous angle, increased the queerness of her. "What price yere 'umble?" she cried again, with a shrill little creak of laughter; "turned forty-four, I am."

"Yus," said Strephon simply, "and you look it!"

He continued to munch at his ham bone, and she continued to leer at him, showing neither anger nor surprise. But the flat smile on her face grew gradually flatter, and again she shivered, plucking at the shawl which was not there.

Suddenly the man looked up from his ham bone and spoke to her. "'Ow much did 'e give you for it?" said he.

The woman uttered a sequence of scalding oaths.

"The stingy swine," cried she, "'e give me a tanner; that's what 'e give me--a lousy tanner. See if I don't jolly well pop back there and 'ave a shawl's worf out of 'is stinkin' till--the stingy Jew."

"What!" said the man, evincing a sort of interest. "Are you in that line, then? Tills and ceterer?"

"I'm in any blessed line, I am," said the woman, "s' long as there's the price of a fag in it. Never 'eard o' Nottingham Kate, I suppose? That's me. I was well known in me time. 'Twas I what done that drugging affair at Weedon, when we put them orficers through it. They made a lot of that job at the time. I done five year for that."

"Well," commented Strephon, still gnawing patiently at his bone, "it ain't much to yere credit. I'm on the straight ticket meself. Per'aps if I'd knowed the sort of character you--but there: you ain't so bad as some on 'em. Harlot, or thief, or what not, you've treated me quite fair.... Gurrr! ... Christ, but it's cold!"

"Chronic!" said the woman, pressing her senseless fingers to her neck, in the way which women have.

"That 'am," reflected Strephon, "just sooted me all right. Wish I 'ad a fag now."

Without a word, the woman struggled to her feet, and descended the steps of the pedestal, half walking, half crawling, like a child. She peered into the darkness, and must have beheld a figure there; for she at once came forward, with stiff, uncertain steps, and having spoken to him, returned to her pedestal the possessor of all his cigarettes.

"Strike me now," cried Strephon, beholding her treasure with incredulous eyes; "you _are_ a deep one. You don't 'arf know the ropes. Take one yerself, won't ye?"

Chloee took a cigarette and lighted it; but Strephon, after fumbling hopelessly with a matchbox, threw the thing away from him in petulant despair. "See here," cried he. "Look at them things, there! Them's my 'ands; was once. Look at 'em. Gawd 'elp me, look at 'em. I can't bend 'em; I can't move 'em; Gawd 'elp me, I can't ser much as lift 'em. I----"

Chide, taking the cigarette from her lips, placed it between his, which silenced them. And then she took his hands, and with a little laugh--the same old creak of a laugh--she widened the gaping juncture of her bodice, and placed his senseless hands within it, where they lay warm beside her bosom. The sudden contact of the ice-cold substance forced a little shriek from her.

"That's a good idea, mate, that is," declared her Strephon. "'Ope you won't catch cold?"

"Co-old?" cried the woman, with a little tremor. "Co-ld be damned. Us women is different from you blo-o-kes. We kin sta-and more cold. We got more warmth be na-ature."

"I see," said Strephon, and he blew forth a fat, contented cloud of cigarette smoke.

There was a silence, disturbed by the chattering of the woman's teeth. Then, at last, with a sudden catching of the breath, she spoke again--

"'Ere," she said, "'ere"--and she uttered the familiar creak--"I'm doin' this because I like you. Wonder if you like me?"

"Ho," reflected Strephon, "you're all right--considering what you are."

*VII*

*ON THE PROPERTIES OF WATER*

"Doctor ... can you tell me if water is a safe thing for anybody to drink?"

She was a wizened, alert little woman, having bright eyes and an eager face. The back of the doctor's neck, which I spied through my peephole, grew red under pressure of the secret emotions occasioned by this question.

"As to that," replied the doctor, "I--ahem--er--I--well, in fact--er--ahem--you see, er--Mrs.--Mrs.----"

"Mrs. Skelp, sir," interpolated the caller. "Mrs. Skelp, of Peacock Street. You must remember me, sir. I've 'ad you in for me last three."

"Why, of course, I remember you, Mrs. Skelp," responded the shameless physician; "your name had slipped my memory. And how are they all doing?"

"Nicely, thank you, sir," said Mrs. Skelp. "Excepting," she added, as if with a sudden afterthought--"the pore little thing what died. Although I'm sure, doctor--and many's the time I said the same to Skelp--I'm sure you done _your_ best. Though 'ow you made seven visits of it when the child was on'y ill five days is a thing I never could--but, there, let bygones be bygones. About this water now. You think that water's a safe sort of thing for anybody to drink, Doctor?"

"It's--ahem--it's a--er--a natural sort of drink, you know," suggested the doctor.

"Why, cert'nly, Doctor," admitted Mrs. Skelp. "On'y ... Well, so far as that goes, you could say the same of milk."

"You could," assented Dr. Brink.

"And yet," pursued his patient, "it is well known to all of us what milk will do for the system. Look 'ow it puffs you out. Look at that baby of mine, the pore little thing what died. You did your best, Doctor, we all know, but we've often thought since as milk was at the bottom of it. It doesn't do for the likes of us to set ourselves up against the doctor, but you'll remember yerself that I had my suspicions about you ordering so much milk. 'What _I_ think she wants,' I said, is one of your biggest bottles of good dark red, and---- But there, let bygones be bygones. What I really come 'ere for is about this water question. I says to mine last night, I says--'e's a drayman, you know, Doctor.'"

The Doctor nodded.

"Well," suggested Mrs. Skelp, "you know what _draymen_ are. Water's no drink for a drayman, Doctor."

"I--I suppose not," ventured the doctor.

"And mine, 'e's a 'eavy, full-bodied build o' man. And so I says to 'im--but what's the good o' sayin' _anythink_ to 'im. The long and the short o' it is, Doctor, as 'e's took to the water 'abit.

"I meantosay," continued Mrs. Skelp, having marked the doctor's grin, "I meantosay as 'e's sworn off 'is licker.

"'E's a great reader is mine, you see. 'E sets up in bed for hours o' a Sunday morning and gets through as much as three-pennyworth o' papers at a setting. Not that I 'olds with so much readin', mind you. 'Moody boys an' readin' gals,' we used to say--well, you know the rest, Doctor. It's a thankless 'abit.