Chapter V (1)

For a day or two longer time resumed its sweet slow delightfulness, though its clarity was diminished and some of its enjoyment dimmed. A village woman came to assist in the mornings, but Orianda was now seldom able to leave the inn; she had come home to a burden, a happy, pleasing burden, that could not often be laid aside, and therefore a somewhat lonely Loughlin walked the high and the low of the country by day and only in the evenings sat in the parlour with Orianda. Hope too was slipping from his heart as even the joy was slipping from his days, for the spirit of vanished Lizzie, defrauded and indicting, hung in the air of the inn, an implacable obsession, a triumphant forboding that was proved a prophecy when some boys fishing in the mill dam hooked dead Lizzie from the pool under the hornbeam tree.

Then it was that Loughlin’s soul discovered to him a mass of feelings—fine sympathy, futile sentiment, a passion for righteousness, morbid regrets—from which a tragic bias was born. After the dread ordeal of the inquest, which gave a passive verdict of Found Drowned, it was not possible for him to stem this disloyal tendency of his mind. It laid that drowned figure accusatively at the feet of his beloved girl, and no argument or sophistry could disperse the venal savour that clung to the house of “The Black Dog.” “To analyse or assess a person’s failings or deficiencies,” he declared to himself, “is useless, not because such blemishes are immovable, but because they affect the mass of beholders in divers ways. Different minds perceive utterly variant figures in the same being. To Brown Robinson is a hero, to Jones a snob, to Smith a fool. Who then is right? You are lucky if you can put your miserable self in relation at an angle where your own deficiencies are submerged or minimized, and wise if you can maintain your vision of that interesting angle.” But embedded in Loughlin’s modest intellect there was a stratum of probity that was rock to these sprays of the casuist; and although Orianda grew more alluring than ever, he packed his bag, and on a morning she herself drove him in the gig to the station.

Upon that miserable departure it was fitting that rain should fall. The station platform was piled with bushel baskets and empty oil barrels. It rained with a quiet remorselessness. Neither spoke a word, no one spoke, no sound was uttered but the faint flicking of the raindrops. Her kiss to him was long and sweet, her good-bye almost voiceless.

“You will write?” she whispered.

“Yes, I will write.”

But he does not do so. In London he has not forgotten, but he cannot endure the thought of that countryside—to be far from the madding crowd is to be mad indeed. It is only after some trance of recollection, when his fond experience is all delicately and renewingly there, that he wavers; but time and time again he relinquishes or postpones his return. And sometimes he thinks he really will write a letter to his friend who lives in the country.

But he does not do so.

_Alas, Poor Bollington!_

“I walked out of the hotel, just as I was, and left her there. I never went back again. I don’t think I intended anything quite so final, so dastardly; I had not intended it, I had not thought of doing so, but that is how it happened. I lost her, lost my wife purposely. It was heartless, it was shabby, for she was a nice woman, a charming woman, a good deal younger than I was, a splendid woman, in fact she was very beautiful, and yet I ran away from her. How can you explain that, Turner?”

Poor Bollington looked at Turner, who looked at his glass of whiskey, and that looked irresistible—he drank some. Bollington sipped a little from his glass of milk.

I often found myself regarding Bollington as a little old man. Most of the club members did so too, but he was not that at all, he was still on the sunny side of fifty, but _so_ unassertive, no presence to speak of, no height, not enough hair to mention—if he had had it would surely have been yellow. So mild and modest he cut no figure at all, just a man in glasses that seemed rather big for him. Turner was different, though he was just as bald; he had stature and bulk, his very pince-nez seemed twice the size of Bollington’s spectacles. They had not met each other for ten years.

“Well, yes,” Turner said, “but that was a serious thing to do.”

“Wasn’t it!” said the other, “and I had no idea of the enormity of the offence—not at the time. She might have been dead, poor girl, and her executors advertising for me. She had money you know, her people had been licensed victuallers, quite wealthy. Scandalous!”

Bollington brooded upon his sin until Turner sighed: “Ah well, my dear chap.”

“But you have no idea,” protested Bollington, “how entirely she engrossed me. She was twenty-five and I was forty when we married. She was entrancing. She had always lived in a stinking hole in Balham, and it is amazing how strictly some of those people keep their children; licensed victuallers, did I tell you? Well I was forty, and she was twenty-five; we lived for a year dodging about from one hotel to another all over the British Isles, she was a perfect little nomad. Are you married, Turner?”

No, Turner was not married, he never had been.

“O, but you should be,” cried little Bollington, “it’s an extraordinary experience, the real business of the world is marriage, marriage. I was deliriously happy and she was learning French and Swedish—that’s where we were going later. She was an enchanting little thing, fair, with blue eyes; Phoebe her name was.”

Turner thoughtfully brushed his hand across his generous baldness, then folded his arms.

“You really should,” repeated Bollington, “you ought to, really. But I remember we went from Killarney to Belfast, and there something dreadful happened. I don’t know, it had been growing on her I suppose, but she took a dislike to me there, had strange fancies, thought I was unfaithful to her. You see she was popular wherever we went, a lively little woman, in fact she wasn’t merely a woman, she was a little magnet, men congregated and clung to her like so many tacks and nails and pins. I didn’t object at all—on the contrary, ‘Enjoy yourself, Phoebe,’ I said, ‘I don’t expect you always to hang around an old fogey like me.’ Fogey was the very word I used; I didn’t mean it, of course, but that was the line I took, for she was so charming until she began to get so bad tempered. And believe me, that made her angry, furious. No, not the fogey, but the idea that I did not object to her philandering. It was fatal, it gave colour to her suspicions of me—Turner, I was as innocent as any lamb—tremendous colour. And she had such a sharp tongue! If you ventured to differ from her—and you couldn’t help differing sometimes—she’d positively bludgeon you, and you couldn’t help being bludgeoned. And she had a passion for putting me right, and I always seemed to be so very wrong, always. She would not be satisfied until she had proved it, and it was so monstrous to be made feel that because you were rather different from other people you were an impertinent fool. Yes, I seemed at last to gain only the pangs and none of the prizes of marriage. Now there was a lady we met in Belfast to whom I paid some attention....”

“O, good lord!” groaned Turner.

“No, but listen,” pleaded Bollington, “it was a very innocent friendship—nothing was further from my mind—and she was very much like my wife, very much, it was noticeable, everybody spoke of it— I mean the resemblance. A Mrs. Macarthy, a delightful woman, and Phoebe simply loathed her. I confess that my wife’s innuendoes were so mean and persistent that at last I hadn’t the strength to deny them, in fact at times I wished they were true. Love is idolatry if you like, but it cannot be complete immolation—there’s no such bird as the phœnix, is there, Turner?”

“What, what?”

“No such bird as the phœnix.”

“No, there is no such bird, I believe.”

“And sometimes I had to ask myself quite seriously if I really hadn’t been up to some infidelity! Nonsense, of course, but I assure you that was the effect it was having upon me. I had doubts of myself, frenzied doubts! And it came to a head between Phoebe and me in our room one day. We quarrelled, O dear, how we quarrelled! She said I was sly, two-faced, unfaithful, I was a scoundrel, and so on. Awfully untrue, all of it. She accused me of dreadful things with Mrs. Macarthy and she screamed out: ‘I hope you will treat her better than you have treated me.’ Now what did she mean by that, Turner?”

Bollington eyed his friend as if he expected an oracular answer, but just as Turner was about to respond, Bollington continued: “Well, I never found out, I never knew, for what followed was too terrible. ‘I shall go out,’ I said, ‘it will be better, I think.’ Just that, nothing more. I put on my hat and I put my hand on the knob of the door when she said most violently: ‘Go with your Macarthys, I never want to see your filthy face again!’ Extraordinary you know, Turner. Well, I went out, and I will not deny I was in a rage, terrific. It was raining but I didn’t care, and I walked about in it. Then I took shelter in a bookseller’s doorway opposite a shop that sold tennis rackets and tobacco, and another one that displayed carnations and peaches on wads of coloured wool. The rain came so fast that the streets seemed to empty, and the passers-by were horridly silent under their umbrellas, and their footsteps splashed so dully, and I tell you I was very sad, Turner, there. I debated whether to rush across the road and buy a lot of carnations and peaches and take them to Phoebe. But I did not do so, Turner, I never went back, never.”

“Why, Bollington, you, you were a positive ruffian, Bollington.”

“O, scandalous,” rejoined the ruffian.

“Well, out with it, what about this Mrs. Macarthy?”

“Mrs. Macarthy? But, Turner, I never saw her again, never, I ... I forgot her. Yes, I went prowling on until I found myself at the docks and there it suddenly became dark; I don’t know, there was no evening, no twilight, the day stopped for a moment—and it did not recover. There were hundreds of bullocks slithering and panting and steaming in the road, thousands; lamps were hung up in the harbour, cabs and trollies rattled round the bullocks, the rain fell dismally and everybody hurried. I went into the dock and saw them loading the steamer, it was called s.s. _Frolic_, and really, Turner, the things they put into the belly of that steamer were rather funny: tons and tons of monstrous big chain, the links as big as soup plates, and two or three pantechnicon vans. Yes, but I was anything but frolicsome, I assure you, I was full of misery and trepidation and the deuce knows what. I did not know what I wanted to do, or what I was going to do, but I found myself buying a ticket to go to Liverpool on that steamer, and, in short, I embarked. How wretched I was, but how determined. Everything on board was depressing and dirty, and when at last we moved off the foam slewed away in filthy bubbles as if that dirty steamer had been sick and was running away from it. I got to Liverpool in the early morn, but I did not stay there, it is such a clamouring place, all trams and trollies and teashops. I sat in the station for an hour, the most miserable man alive, the most miserable ever born. I wanted some rest, some peace, some repose, but they never ceased shunting an endless train of goods trucks, banging and screeching until I almost screamed at the very porters. Criff was the name on some of the trucks, I remember, Criff, and everything seemed to be going criff, criff, criff. I haven’t discovered to this day what Criff signifies, whether it’s a station or a company, or a manufacture, but it was Criff, I remember. Well, I rushed to London and put my affairs in order. A day or two later I went to Southampton and boarded another steamer and put to sea, or rather we were ignominiously lugged out of the dock by a little rat of a tug that seemed all funnel and hooter. I was off to America, and there I stopped for over three years.”

Turner sighed. A waiter brought him another glass of spirit.

“I can’t help thinking, Bollington, that it was all very fiery and touchy. Of course, I don’t know, but really it was a bit steep, very squeamish of you. What did your wife say?”

“I never communicated with her, I never heard from her, I just dropped out. My filthy face, you know, she did not want to see it again.”

“Oh come, Bollington! And what did Mrs. Macarthy say?”

“Mrs. Macarthy! I never saw or heard of her again. I told you that.”

“Ah, yes, you told me. So you slung off to America.”

“I was intensely miserable there for a long while. Of course I loved Phoebe enormously, I felt the separation, I.... O, it is impossible to describe. But what was worst of all was the meanness of my behaviour, there was nothing heroic about it, I soon saw clearly that it was a shabby trick, disgusting, I had bolted and left her to the mercy of ... well, of whatever there was. It made such an awful barrier—you’ve no idea of my compunction—I couldn’t make overtures—‘Let us forgive and forget.’ I was a mean rascal, I _was_ filthy. That was the barrier—myself; I was too bad. I thought I should recover and enjoy life again, I began to think of Phoebe as a cat, a little cat. I went everywhere and did everything. But America is a big country, I couldn’t get into contact, I was lonely, very lonely, and although two years went by I longed for Phoebe. Everything I did I wanted to do with Phoebe by my side. And then my cousin, my only relative in the world—he lived in England—he died. I scarcely ever saw him, but still he was my kin. And he died. You’ve no comprehension, Turner, of the truly awful sensation such a bereavement brings. Not a soul in the world now would have the remotest interest in my welfare. O, I tell you, Turner, it was tragic, tragic, when my cousin died. It made my isolation complete. I was alone, a man who had made a dreadful mess of life. What with sorrow and remorse I felt that I should soon die, not of disease, but disgust.”

“You were a great ninny,” ejaculated his friend. “Why the devil didn’t you hurry back, claim your wife, bygones be bygones; why bless my conscience, what a ninny, what a great ninny!”

“Yes, Turner, it is as you say. But though conscience is a good servant it is a very bad master, it overruled me, it shamed me, and I hung on to America for still another year. I tell you my situation was unbearable, I was tied to my misery, I was a tethered dog, a duck without water—even dirty water. And I hadn’t any faith in myself or in my case; I knew I was wrong, had always been wrong, Phoebe had taught me that. I hadn’t any faith, I wish I had had. Faith can move mountains, so they say, though I’ve never heard of it actually being done.”

“No, not in historical times,” declared Turner.

“What do you mean by that?”

“O well, time is nothing, it’s nothing, it comes and off it goes. Has it ever occurred to you, Bollington, that in 5,000 years or so there will be nobody in the world speaking the English language, our very existence even will be speculated upon, as if we were the Anthropophagi? O good lord, yes.”

And another whiskey.

“You know, Bollington, you were a perfect fool. You behaved like one of those half-baked civil service hounds who lunch in a dairy on a cup of tea and a cream horn. You wanted some beef, some ginger. You came back, you must have come back because there you are now.”

“Yes, Turner, I came back after nearly four years. Everything was different, ah, how strange! I could not find Phoebe, it is weird how people can disappear. I made enquiries, but it was like looking for a lost umbrella, fruitless after so long.”

“Well, but what about Mrs. Macarthy?”

Mr. Bollington said, slowly and with the utmost precision: “I did not see Mrs. Macarthy again.”

“O, of course, you did not see her again, not ever.”

“Not ever. I feared Phoebe had gone abroad too, but at last I found her in London....”

“No,” roared Turner, “why the devil couldn’t you say so and done with it? I’ve been sweating with sympathy for you. O, I say, Bollington!”

“My dear Turner, listen. Do you know, she was delighted to see me, she even kissed me, straight off, and we went out to dine and had the very deuce of a spread and we were having the very deuce of a good time. She was lovelier than ever, and I could see all her old affection for me was returning, she was so ... well, I can’t tell you, Turner, but she had no animosity whatever, no grievance, she would certainly have taken me back that very night. O dear, dear ... and then! I was anxious to throw myself at her feet, but you couldn’t do that in a public café, I could only touch her hands, beautiful, as they lay on the white linen cloth. I kept asking: ‘Do you forgive me?’ and she would reply: ‘I have nothing to forgive, dear, nothing.’ How wonderful that sounded to my truly penitent soul—I wanted to die.

“‘But you don’t ask me where I’ve been!’ she cried gaily, ‘or what I’ve been doing, you careless old Peter. I’ve been to France, and Sweden too!’

“I was delighted to hear that, it was so very plucky.

“‘When did you go?’ I asked.

“‘When I left you,’ she said.

“‘You mean when I went away?’

“‘Did you go away? O, of course, you must have. Poor Peter, What a sad time he has had.’

“I was a little bewildered, but I was delighted; in fact, Turner, I was hopelessly infatuated again, I wanted to wring out all the dregs of my detestable villainy and be absolved. All I could begin with was: ‘Were you not very glad to be rid of me?’

“‘Well,’ she said, ‘my great fear at first was that you would find me again and make it up. I didn’t want that then, at least, I thought I didn’t.’

“‘That’s exactly what I felt,’ I exclaimed, ‘but how could I find you?’

“‘Well,’ Phoebe said, ‘you might have found out and followed me. But I promise never to run away again, Peter dear, never.’

“Turner, my reeling intelligence swerved like a shot bird.

“‘Do you mean, Phoebe, that you ran away from _me_?’

“‘Yes, didn’t I?’ she answered.

“‘But I ran away from _you_,’ I said. ‘I walked out of the hotel on that dreadful afternoon we quarrelled so, and I never went back. I went to America. I was in America nearly four years.’

“‘Do you mean you ran away from me?’ she cried.

“‘Yes,’ I said, ‘didn’t I?’

“‘But that is exactly what I did—I mean, I ran away from you. _I_ walked out of the hotel directly you had gone—_I_ never went back, and I’ve been abroad thinking how tremendously I had served you out, and wondering what you thought of it all and where you were.’

“I could only say ‘Good God, Phoebe, I’ve had the most awful four years of remorse and sorrow, all vain, mistaken, useless, thrown away.’ And she said: ’And I’ve had four years—living in a fool’s paradise after all. How dared you run away, it’s disgusting!’

“And, Turner, in a moment she was at me again in her old dreadful way, and the last words I had from her were: ‘Now I _never_ want to see your face again, never, this _is_ the end!’

“And that’s how things are now, Turner. It’s rather sad, isn’t it?”

“Sad! Why you chump, when was it you saw her?”

“O, a long time ago, it must be nearly three years now.”

“Three years! But you’ll see her again!”

“Tfoo! No, no, no, Turner. God bless me, no, no, no!” said the little old man.

_The Ballet Girl_

On the last night of Hilary term Simpkins left his father’s shop a quarter before the closing hour in order to deliver personally a letter to John Evans-Antrobus, Esq., of St. Saviour’s College. Simpkins was a clerk to his father, and the letter he carried was inscribed on its envelope as “Important,” and a further direction, “Wait Answer,” was doubly underlined. Acting as he was told to act by his father, than whom he was incapable of recognizing any bigger authority either in this world or, if such a slight, shrinking fellow could ever project his comprehension so far, in the next, he passed the porter’s lodge under the archway of St. Saviour’s, and crossing the first quadrangle, entered a small hall that bore the names J. Evans-Antrobus with half a dozen others neatly painted on the wall. He climbed two flights of wooden stairs, and knocking over a door whose lintel was marked “5, Evans-Antrobus,” was invited to “Come in.” He entered a study, and confronted three hilarious young men, all clothed immaculately in evening dress, a costume he himself privily admired much as a derelict might envy the harp of an angel. The noisiest young gentleman, the tall one with a monocle, was his quarry; he handed the letter to him. Mr. Evans-Antrobus then read the letter, which invited him to pay instanter a four-year-old debt of some nine or ten pounds which he had inexplicably but consistently overlooked. And there was a half-hidden but unpleasant alternative suggested should Mr. Evans-Antrobus fail to comply with this not unreasonable request. Mr. Evans-Antrobus said “Damn!” In point of fact he enlarged the scope of his vocabulary far beyond the limits of that modest expletive, while his two friends, being invited to read the missive, also exclaimed in terms that were not at all subsidiary.

“My compliments to Messrs. Bagshot and Buffle!” exclaimed the tall young man with the monocle angrily; “I shall certainly call round and see them in the morning. Good evening!”

Little Simpkins explained that Bagshot and Buffle were not in need of compliments, their business being to sell boots and to receive payment for them. Two of the jolly young gentlemen proposed to throw him down the stairs, and were only persuaded not to by the third jolly young gentleman, who much preferred to throw him out of the window. Whereupon Simpkins politely hinted that he would be compelled to interview the college dean and await developments in his chambers. Simpkins made it quite clear that, whatever happened, he was going to wait somewhere until he got the money. The three jolly young gentlemen then told little Simpkins exactly what they thought of him, exactly, omitting no shade of denunciation, fine or emphatic. They told him where he ought to be at the very moment, where he would quickly be unless he took himself off; in short, they told him a lot of prophetic things which, as is the way of prophecy, invited a climax of catastrophic horror.

“What is your name? Who the devil are you?”

“My name is Simpkins.”

Then the three jolly young gentlemen took counsel together in whispers, and at last Mr. Evans-Antrobus said: “Well if you insist upon waiting, Mr. Simpkins, I must get the money for you. I can borrow it, I suppose, boys, from Fazz, can’t I?”

Again they consulted in whispers, after which two of the young gents said they ought to be going, and so they went.

“Wait here for me,” said Mr. Evans-Antrobus, “I shall not be five minutes.”

But Mr. Simpkins was so firmly opposed to this course that the other relented. “Damn you! come along with me, then; I must go and see Fazz.” So off they went to some rooms higher up the same flight of stairs, beyond a door that was marked “F. A. Zealander.” When they entered Fazz sat moping in front of the fire; he was wrapped as deeply as an Esquimaux in some plaid travelling rugs girt with the pink rope of a dressing-gown that lay across his knees. The fire was good, but the hearth was full of ashes. The end of the fender was ornamented with the strange little iron face of a man whose eyes were shut but whose knobby cheeks fondly glowed. Fazz’s eyes were not shut, they were covered by dim glasses, and his cheeks had no more glow than a sponge.

“Hullo, Fazz. You better to-day?”

“No, dearie, I am not conscious of any improvement. This influenza’s a thug; I am being deprived of my vitality as completely as a fried rasher.”

“Oh, by the by,” said his friend, “you don’t know each other: Mr. Simpkins—Mr. Zealander.”

The former bowed awkwardly and unexpectedly shook Mr. Zealander’s hot limp hand. At that moment a man hurried in, exclaiming: “Mr. Evans-Antrobus, sir, the Dean wants to see you in his rooms at once, sir!”

“That is deuced awkward,” said that gentleman blandly. “Just excuse me for a moment or two, Fazz.”

He hurried out, leaving Simpkins confronting Mr. Zealander in some confusion. Fazz poked his flaming coal. “This fire! Did you ever see such a morbid conflagration?”

“Rather nice, I thought,” replied Simpkins affably; “quite cool to-night, outside, rather.”

The host peered at him through those dim glasses. “There’s a foggy humidity about everything, like the inside of a cream tart. But sit down,” said Fazz, With the geniality of a man who was about to be hung and was rather glad that he was no longer to be exposed to the fraudulent excess of life, “and tell me a bawdy story.”

Simpkins sank into an armchair and was silent.

“Perhaps you don’t care for bawdy stories?” continued Fazz. “I do, I do. I love vulgarity; there is certainly a niche in life for vulgarity. If ever I possess a house of my own I will arrange—I will, upon my soul—one augustly vulgar room, divinely vulgar, upholstered in sallow pigskin. Do tell me something. You haven’t got a spanner on you, I suppose? There is something the matter with my bed. Once it was full of goose feathers, but now I sleep, as it were, on the bulge of a barrel; I must do something to it with a spanner. I hate spanners—such dreadful democratic tools; they terrify me, they gape at you as if they wanted to bite you. Spanners are made of iron, and this is a funny world, for it is full of things like spanners.”

Simpkins timidly rose up through the waves of this discourse and asked if he could “do” anything. He was mystified, amused, and impressed by this person; he didn’t often meet people like that, he didn’t often meet anybody; he rather liked him. On each side of the invalid there were tables and bottles of medicine.

“I am just going to take my temperature,” said Fazz. “Do have a cigarette, dearie, or a cigar. Can you see the matches? Yes; now do you mind surrounding me with my medicines? They give such a hopeful air to the occasion. There’s a phial of sodium salicylate tabloids, I must take six of them in a minute or two. Then there are the quinine capsules; the formalin, yes; those lozenges I suck—have one?—they are so comforting, and that depressing laxative; surround me with them. Oh, glorious, benignant, isn’t it? Now I shall take my temperature; I shall be as stolid as the sphinx for three minutes, so do tell me that story. Where is my thermometer, oh!” He popped the thermometer into his mouth, but pulled it out again. “Do you know L. G.? He’s a blithe little fellow, oh, very blithe. He was in Jacobsen’s rooms the other day—Jacobsen’s a bit of an art connoisseur, you know, and draws and paints, and Jacobsen drew attention to the portrait of a lady that was hanging on the wall. ‘Oh, dear,’ said L. G., ‘what a hag! Where did you get that thing?’ just like that. Such a perfect fool, L. G. ‘It’s my mother,’ says Jacobsen. ‘Oh, of course,’ explained L. G., ‘I didn’t mean _that_, of course, my dear fellow; I referred to the horrible treatment, entirely to the horrible treatment; it is a wretched daub.’ ‘I did it myself!’ said Jacobsen. You don’t know L. G.? Oh, he is very blithe. What were you going to tell me? I am just going to take my temperature; yesterday it was ninety odd point something. I do hope it is different now. I can’t bear those points, they seem so equivocal.”

Fazz sat with the tube of the thermometer projecting from his mouth. At the end of the test he regarded it very earnestly before returning it disconsolately to the table. Then he addressed his visitor with considerable gloom.

“Pardon me, I did not catch your name.”

“Simpkins.”

“Simpkins!” repeated Fazz, with a dubious drawl. “Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t like Simpkins, it sounds so minuscular. What are you taking?”

“I won’t take anything, sir, thank you,” replied Simpkins.

“I mean, what schools are you taking?”

“Oh, no school at all.”

Fazz was mystified: “What college are you?”

“I’m not at a college,” confessed the other. “I came to see Mr. Evans-Antrobus with a note. I’m waiting for an answer.”

“Where do you come from?”

“From Bagshot and Buffle’s.” After a silence he added: “Bespoke boots.”

“Hump, you are very young to make bespoke boots, aren’t you, Simpkins, surely? Are you an Agnostic? Have a cigar? You must, you’ve been very good, and I am so interested in your career; but tell me now what it exactly is that you are sitting in my room for?”

Simpkins told him all he could.

“It’s interesting, most fascinating,” declared Fazz, “but it is a little beyond me all the same. I am afraid, Simpkins, that you have been deposited with me as if I were a bank and you were something not negotiable, as you really are, I fear. But you mustn’t tell the Dean about Evans-Antrobus, no, you mustn’t, it’s never done. Tell me, why do you make bespoke boots? It’s an unusual taste to display. Wouldn’t you rather come to college, for instance, and study ... er ... anthropology—nothing at all about boots in anthropology?”

“No,” said Simpkins. He shuffled in his chair and felt uneasy. “I’d be out of my depth.” Fazz glared at him, and Simpkins repeated: “Out of my depth, that would be, sure.”

“This is very shameful,” commented the other, “but it’s interesting, most fascinating. You brazenly maintain that you would rather study boots than ... than books and brains!”

“A cobbler must stick to his last,” replied Simpkins, recalling a phrase of his father’s.

“Bravo!” cried Fazz, “but not to an everlasting last!”

“And I don’t know anything about all this; there’s nothing about it I’d want to know, it wouldn’t be any good to me. It’s no use mixing things, and there’s a lot to be learnt about boots—you’d be surprised. You got to keep yourself to yourself and not get out of your depth—take a steady line and stick to it, and not get out of your depth.”

“But, dearie, you don’t sleep with a lifebelt girt about your loins, do you now? I’m not out of my depth; I shouldn’t be even if I started to make boots....”

“Oh, wouldn’t you?” shouted Simpkins.

“I should find it rather a shallow occupation; mere business is the very devil of a business; business would be a funny sort of life.”

“Life’s a funny business; you look after your business and that will look after you.”

“But what in the world are we in the world at all for, Simpkins? Isn’t it surely to do just the things we most intensely want to do? And you do boots and boots and boots. Don’t you ever get out and about?—theatres—girls—sport—or do you insist on boot, the whole boot, and nothing but boot?”

“No, none of them,” replied Simpkins. “Don’t care for theatres, I’ve never been. Don’t care for girls, I like a quiet life. I keep myself to myself—it’s safer, don’t get out of your depth then. I do go and have a look at the football match sometimes, but it’s only because we make the boots for some of your crack players, and you want to know what you are making them for. Work doesn’t trouble me, nothing troubles me, and I got money in the bank.”

“Damme, Simpkins, you have a terrible conviction about you; if I listen to you much longer I shall bind myself apprentice to you. I feel sure that you make nice, soft, watertight, everlasting boots, and then we should rise in the profession together. Discourse, Simpkins; you enchant mine ears—both of them.”

“What I say is,” concluded Simpkins, “you can’t understand everything. I shouldn’t want to; I’m all right as it is.”

“Of course you are, you’re simply too true. This is a place flowing with afternoon tea, tutors, and clap-trap. It’s a city in which everything is set upon a bill. You’re simply too true, if we are not out of our depth we are in up to our ears—I am. It’s most fascinating.”

Soon afterwards Simpkins left him. Descending the stairs to the rooms of Evans-Antrobus he switched on the light. It was very quiet and snug in those rooms, with the soft elegant couch, the reading-lamp with the delicious violet shade, the decanter with whiskey, the box of chocolate biscuits, and the gramophone. He sat down by the fire, waiting and waiting. Simpkins waited so long that he got used to the room, he even stole a sip of whiskey and some of the chocolate biscuits. Then to show his independence, his contempt for Mr. Evans-Antrobus and his trickery, he took still more of the whiskey—a drink he had never tasted before—he really took quite a lot. He heaped coal upon the fire, and stalked about the room with his hands in his pockets or examined the books, most of which were about something called Jurisprudence, and suchlike. Simpkins liked books; he began reading:

That the Pleuronectidæ are admirably adapted by their flattened and asymmetrical structure for their habits of life, is manifest from several species, such as soles and flounders, etc., being extremely common.

He did not care much for science; he opened another:

It is difficult indeed to imagine that anything can oscillate so rapidly as to strike the retina of the eye 831,479,000,000,000 in one second, as must be the case with violet light according to this hypothesis.

Simpkins looked at the light and blinked his eyes. That had a violet shade. He really did not care for science, and he had an inclination to put the book down as his head seemed to be swaying, but he continued to turn the pages.

Snowdon is the highest mountain in England or Wales. Snowdon is not so high as Ben Nevis.

Therefore the highest mountain in England or Wales is not so high as Ben Nevis.

“Oh, my head!” mumbled Simpkins.

Water must be either warm or not warm, but it does not follow that it must be warm or cold.

Simpkins felt giddy. He dropped the book, and tottered to the couch. Immediately the room spun round and something in his head began to hum, to roar like an aeroplane a long way up in the sky. He felt that he ought to get out of the room, quickly, and get some water, either not or cold warm—he didn’t mind which! He clapped on his hat and, slipping into his overcoat, he reached a door. It opened into a bedroom, very bare indeed compared with this other room, but Simpkins rolled in; the door slammed behind him, and in the darkness he fell upon a bed, with queer sensations that seemed to be dividing and subtracting in him.

When he awoke later—oh, it seemed much later—he felt quite well again. He had forgotten where he was. It was a strange place he was in, utterly dark; but there was a great noise sounding quite close to him—a gramophone, people shouting choruses and dancing about in the adjoining room. He could hear a lady’s voice too. Then he remembered that he ought not to be in that room at all; it was, why, yes, it was criminal; he might be taken for a burglar or something! He slid from the bed, groped in the darkness until he found his hat, unbuttoned his coat, for he was fearfully hot, and stood at the bedroom door trembling in the darkness, waiting and listening to that tremendous row. He _had_ been a fool to come in there! How was he to get out—how the deuce was he to get out? The gramophone stopped. He could hear the voices more plainly. He grew silently panic-stricken; it was awful, they’d be coming in to him perhaps, and find him sneaking there like a thief—he must get out, he must, he must get out; yes, but how?

The singing began again. The men kept calling out “Lulu! Lulu!” and a lady’s gay voice would reply to a Charley or a George, and so on, when all at once there came a peremptory knock at the outer door. The noise within stopped immediately. Deep silence. Simpkins could hear whispering. The people in there were startled; he could almost feel them staring at each other with uneasiness. The lady laughed out startlingly shrill. “Sh-s-s-sh!” the others cried. The loud knocking began again, emphatic, terrible. Simpkins’ already quaking heart began to beat ecstatically. Why, oh why, didn’t they open that door?—open it! open it! There was shuffling in the room, and when the knocking was repeated for the third time the outer door was apparently unlocked.

“Fazz! Oh, Fazz, you brute!” cried the relieved voices in the room. “You fool, Fazz! Come in, damn you, and shut the door.”

“Good gracious!” exclaimed the apparently deliberating Fazz, “what is that?”

“Hullo, Rob Roy!” cried the lady, “it’s me.”

“Charmed to meet you, madame. How interesting, most fascinating; yes, I am quite charmed, but I wish somebody would kindly give me the loose end of it all. I’m suffering, as you see, dearies, and I don’t understand all this, I’m quite out of my depth. The noise you’ve been making is just crushing me.”

Several voices began to explain at once: “We captured her, Fazz, yes—Rape of the Sabines, what!—from the Vaudeville. Had a rag, glorious—corralled all the attendants and scene-shifters—rushed the stage—we did! we did!—everybody chased somebody, and we chased Lulu—we did! we did!”

“Oh, shut up, everybody!” cried out Fazz.

“Yes, listen,” cried the voice of Evans-Antrobus. “This is how it happened: they chased the eight Sisters Victoria off the stage, and we spied dear little Lulu—she was one of those eight Victorias—bolting down a passage to the stage entrance. She fled into the street just as she was—isn’t she a duck? There was a taxi standing there, and Lulu, wise woman, jumped in—and we jumped in too. (We did! We did!) ‘Where for?’ says taximan. ‘Saviour’s College,’ say we, and here you are—Lulu—what do you think of her?”

“Charming, utterly charming,” replied Fazz. “The details are most clarifying; but how did you manage to usher her into the college?”

“My overcoat on,” explained one voice.

“And my hat,” cried another.

“And we dazzled the porter,” said a third. There were lots of other jolly things to explain: Lulu had not resisted at all, she had enjoyed it; it was a lark!

“Oh, beautiful! Most fascinating!” agreed Fazz. “But how you propose to get her out of the college I have no more notion than Satan has of sanctity—it’s rather late, isn’t it?”

Simpkins, in his dark room, could hear someone rushing up the stairs with flying leaps that ceased at the outer door. Then a breathless voice hissed out: “You fellows, scat, scat! Police are in the lodge with the proctors and that taximan!”

In a moment Evans-Antrobus began to groan. “Oh, my God, what can we do with her? We must get her out at once—over the wall, eh, at once, quick! Johnstone, quick, go and find a rope, quick, a rope.”

And Fazz said: “It does begin to look a little foolish. Oh, I am feeling so damn bad—but you can’t blame a fool for anything it does, can you? But I am bad; I am going to bed instantly, I feel quite out of my depth here. Oh, that young friend of yours, that Simpkins, charming young person! Very blithe he was, dear Evans-Antrobus!”

Everybody now seemed to rush away from the room except the girl Lulu and Evans-Antrobus. He was evidently very agitated and in a bad humour. He clumped about the room exclaiming, “Oh, damnation, do hurry up, somebody. What am I to do with her, boozy little pig! Do hurry up!”

“Who’s a pig? I want to go out of here,” shrilled Lulu, and apparently she made for the door.

“You can’t go like that!” he cried; “you can’t, you mustn’t. Don’t be a fool, Lulu! Lulu! Now, isn’t this a fearful mess?”

“I’m not going to stop here with you, ugly thing! I don’t like it; I’m going now, let go.”

“But you can’t go, I tell you, in these things, not like that. Let me think, let me think, can’t you! Why don’t you let me think, you little fool! Put something on you, my overcoat; cover yourself up. I shall be ruined, damn you! Why the devil did you come here, you ...!”

“And who brought me here, Mr. Antibus? Oh yes, I know you; I shall have something to say to the vicar, or whoever it is you’re afraid of, baby-face! Let me go; I don’t want to be left here alone with you!” she yelled. Simpkins heard an awful scuffle. He could wait no longer; he flung open the door, rushed into the room, and caught up a syphon, the first handy weapon. They saw him at once, and stood apart amazed.

“Fine game!” said the trembling Simpkins to the man, with all the sternness at his command. As nobody spoke he repeated, quite contemptuously: “Fine game!”

Lulu was breathing hard, with her hands resting upon her bosom. Her appearance was so startling to the boy that he nearly dropped the syphon. He continued to face her, hugging it with both hands against his body. She was clad in pink tights—they were of silk, they glistened in the sharper light from under the violet shade—a soft white tarlatan skirt that spread around her like a carnation, and a rose-coloured bodice. She was dainty, with a little round head and a little round face like a briar rose; but he guessed she was strong, though her beauty had apparently all the fragility of a flower. Her hair, of dull dark gold, hung in loose tidiness without pin or braid, the locks cut short to her neck, where they curved in to brush the white skin; a deep straight fringe of it was combed upon the childish brow. Grey were her surprised eyes, and wide the pouting lips. Her lovely naked arms—oh, he could scarcely bear to look at them. She stood now, with one hand upon her hip and the other lying against her cheek, staring at Simpkins. Then she danced delightfully up to him and took the syphon away.

“Look here,” said Evans-Antrobus to Lulu—he had recovered his nerve, and did not express any astonishment at Simpkins’ sudden appearance—“he is just your size, you dress up in his clothes, quick, then it’s simple.”

“No,” said the girl.

“And no for me,” said Simpkins fiercely—almost.

Just then the door was thrust partly open and a rope was flung into the room. The bringer of it darted away downstairs again.

“Hi! here!” called Evans-Antrobus, rushing to the door; but nobody stayed for him, nobody answered him. He came back and picked up the rope.

“Put on that coat,” he commanded Lulu, “and that hat. Now, look here, not a word, not a giggle even, or we are done, and I might just as well screw your blessed neck!”

“Would you?” snorted Simpkins, with not a little animosity.

“Yes, would you!” chimed Lulu, but nevertheless she obeyed and followed him down the stairs. When she turned and beckoned, Simpkins followed too. They crossed a dark quadrangle, passed down a passage that was utter darkness, through another quad, another passage, and halted in a gloomy yard behind the chapel, where Evans-Antrobus struck a match, and where empty boxes, bottles, and other rubbish had accumulated under a wall about ten feet high.

“You first, and quiet, quiet,” growled Evans-Antrobus to Simpkins. No one spoke again. Night was thickly dark, the stars were dim, the air moist and chill. Simpkins, assisted by the other man, clambered over rickety boxes and straddled the high thick wall. The rope was hungover, too, and when the big man had jumped to earth again, dragging his weight against it, Simpkins slid down on the other side. He was now in a narrow street, with a dim lamp at one end that cast no gleam to the spot where he had descended. There were dark high-browed buildings looming high around him. He stood holding the end of the rope and looking up at the stars—very faint they were. The wall was much higher on this side, looked like a mountain, and he thought of Ben Nevis again. This was out of your depth, if you like, out of your depth entirely. It was all wrong somehow, or, at any rate, it was not all right; it couldn’t be right. Never again would he mess about with a lot of lunatics. He hadn’t done any good, he hadn’t even got the money—he had forgotten it. He had not got anything at all except a headache.

The rope tightened. Lulu was astride the wall, quarrelling with the man on the other side.

“Keep your rotten coat!” She slipped it off and flung it down from the wall. “And your rotten hat, too, spider-face!” She flung that down from the wall, and spat into the darkness. Turning to the other side, she whispered: “I’m coming,” and scrambled down, sliding into Simpkins’ arms. And somehow he stood holding her so, embracing her quite tightly. She was all softness and perfume, he could not let her go; she had scarcely anything on—he would not let her go. It was marvellous and beautiful to him; the glimmer of her white face was mysterious and tender in the darkness. She put her arms around his neck:

“Oh ... I rather love you,” she said.

_Simple Simon_

This simple man lived lonely in a hut in the depths of a forest, just underneath three hovering trees, a pine tree and two beeches. The sun never was clear in the forest, but the fogs that rose in its unshaken shade were neither sweet nor sour. Lonely was Simon, for he had given up all the sweet of the world and had received none of the sweet of heaven. Old now, and his house falling to ruin, he said he would go seek the sweet of heaven, for what was there in the mortal world to detain him? Not peace, certainly, for time growled and scratched at him like a mangy dog, and there were no memories to cherish; he had had a heavy father, a mother who was light, and never a lay-by who had not deceived him. So he went in his tatters and his simplicity to the lord of the manor.

“I’m bound for heaven, sir,” says Simon, “will you give me an old coat, or an odd rag or so? There’s a hole in my shoe, sir, and good fortune slips out of it.”

No—the lord of the manor said—he could not give him a decent suit, nor a shoe, nor the rags neither. Had he not let him dwell all life long in his forest? With not a finger of rent coming? Snaring the conies—(May your tongue never vex you, sir!)—and devouring the birds—(May God see me, sir!)—and cutting the fuel, snug as a bee in a big white hive. (Never a snooze of sleep, with the wind howling in the latch of it and the cracks gaping, sir!) What with the taxes and the ways of women—said the lord—he had but a scrimping time of it himself, so he had. There was neither malt in the kiln nor meal in the hopper, and there were thieves in the parish. Indeed, he would as lief go with Simon, but it was such a diggins of a way off.

So Simon went walking on until he came to the godly man who lived in a blessed mansion, full of delights for the mind and eye as well as a deal of comfort for his belly.

No—the godly man said—he would not give him anything, for the Lord took no shame of a man’s covering.

“Ah, but your holiness,” said Simon, “I’ve a care to look decent when I go to the King of All.”

“My poor man, how will you get there, my poor man?” he said.

“Maybe,” says Simon, “I’ll get a lift on my way.”

“You’ll get no lift,” the godly man said, “for it’s a hard and lonely road to travel.”

“My sorrow! And I heard it was a good place to go to!”

“It is a good place, my simple man, but the road to it is difficult and empty and hard. You will get no lift, you will lose your way, you will be taken with a sickness.”

“Ah, and I heard it was a good kind road, and help in the end of it and warmth and a snap of victuals.”

“No doubt, no doubt, but I tell you, don’t be setting yourself up for to judge of it. Go back to your home and be at peace with the world.”

“Mine’s all walk-on,” said Simon, and turning away he looked towards his home. Distant or near there was nothing he could see but trees, not a glint of sea, and little of sky, and nothing of a hill or the roof of a friendly house—just a trap of trees as close as a large hand held before a large face, beeches and beeches, pines and pines. And buried in the middle of it was a tiny hut, sour and broken; in the time of storms the downpour would try to dash it into the ground, and the wind would try to tear it out. Well, he had had his enough of it, so he went to another man, a scholar for learning, and told him his intentions and his wishes.

“To heaven!” said the scholar. “Well, it’s a fair day for that good-looking journey.”

“It is indeed a fine day,” said Simon. As clear as crystal it was, yet soft and mellow as snuff.

“Then content you, man Simon, and stay in it.”

“Ah, sir,” he says, “I’ve a mind and a will that makes me serve them.”

“Cats will mouse and larks will sing,” the scholar said, “but you are neither the one nor the other. What you seek is hidden, perhaps hidden for ever; God remove discontent and greed from the world: why should you look on the other side of a wall—what is a wall for?”

The old man was silent.

“How long has this notion possessed you?”

The old man quavered “Since ... since ...” but he could say no more. A green bird flew laughing above them.

“What bird is that—what is it making that noise for?”

“It is a woodpecker, sir; he knows he can sing a song for Sixpence.”

The scholar stood looking up into the sky. His boots were old—well, that is the doom of all boots, just as it is of man. His clothes were out of fashion, so was his knowledge; stripped of his gentle dignity he was but dust and ashes.

“To travel from the world?” he was saying. “That is not wise.”