Chapter IV: Preface: “Oh, that mine enemy would write a book—of short stories.” (4)

For a few moments he buried his head in his hands, and Alice and I were silent. I could not but observe the interesting _mise-en-scène_ in which I found myself. The dim recesses of the room, heavy with memories. My wife cozily curled up in the high arm-chair, the firelight playing on her fresh, almost childlike, face, a simple ring sparkling on her finger, and on the pearly glint of her diaphanous gown. On the other side of the table where the little glasses stood, the clear-cut features and long snow-white hair of the old actor, silhouetted against a dark cabinet. And then, like some fragile ghost recalled to bear witness to its tragic past, the dim outline of the child’s white frock.

“It was before your time, _mes enfants_, long, long before your time,” he said suddenly. “You would not remember the famous Charles Carside Company who starred the provinces. We became known as the Capacity Company. The title was doubly-earned. We always played to full houses, and in those days—”

He turned to me with a penetrating, almost challenging look, and added:

“There were _actors_. Comedy, and tragedy, history, everything worth doing, in the legitimate, was in our répertoire. We changed our bill every night, and sometimes twice a day. Ay, and we changed our parts, sir. I remember Terry O’Bane and I reversing the parts of Othello and Iago on alternate nights for two weeks at a stretch. I played Lord Stamford to his Puttick in ‘The Golden Dawn.’ He played Shylock to my Bassanio. I will not bore you with these details. Ah! poor old Terry! Poor dear old Terry!”

He stopped and looked down at his hands, and neither of us spoke.

“When I say that Terry O’Bane and I were friends, I want to tell you that we were friends as only artists can be friends. We loved each other. For three years we worked together side by side—never a suspicion of envy, never a suspicion of jealousy. I remember one night, after Terry’s delivery of Jaques’ speech on the fool, he did not get a hand. I found him weeping in the wings. ‘Old fellow!’ I said, but he gripped me by the arm. ‘Colly boy,’ he answered, ‘I was thinking of you. I knew how distressed you would be!’ Think of that! His only concern was that I should be distressed. Ah! in those days....”

He stretched his long white fingers and examined them; then, turning suddenly to my wife, he said:

“I want to ask you, mademoiselle” (he persisted in calling her ‘mademoiselle’ all the evening), “to make allowances in what I am about to tell you for the _tempora et mores_. In my young days love had a different significance to what it has now. In this modern world I observe nothing but expediency and opportunism. No one is prepared to sacrifice, to run risks. The love between O’Bane and me was an epic of self-sacrifice, and it ran its full course. It found its acid test on the day when Sophie Wiles joined our company at Leeds.”

He stood up, and his voice trembled in a low whisper. Looking at Alice, he said:

“She was as beautiful, as fragile, as adorable as you are, mademoiselle. Strange how these great secrets are conveyed imperceptibly. O’Bane and I looked at each other, and instinctively we understood. We said nothing. We made no comment about her. We were entirely solicitous of each other’s feelings. We referred to her as ‘Miss Wiles’ and we addressed her as ‘Miss Wiles.’ Before we had been three weeks on the road I knew that if I had not known O’Bane’s feelings I should have gone to her and said, ‘Sophie, my darling, my angel, I love you, I adore you. Will you marry me?’ But would it have been chivalrous to do this, knowing O’Bane’s sentiments? We were two months on the road before the matter reached its climax. And during that time—under an unspoken compact—neither of us made love to Sophie. And then, one night, I could bear it no longer. I saw the drawn and hungry look in my colleague’s eye as he watched her from the wings. I went up to him and whispered, ‘Old fellow, go in and win. She’s worthy of you.’ He understood me at once, and he pressed my hand. ‘Colly,’ he said, ‘you’re right. This can’t go on. Meet me after the show and come round to my rooms.’”

The old actor’s lips were trembling. He drew his chair nearer to my wife’s. “I cannot tell you of the heart-burning interview I had with my old friend that night. Each tried to give way to the other. It was very terrible, very moving. At length we decided that the only solution would be to put the matter to a hazard. We could not cut cards or throw dice. It seemed profane. We decided to play a game of chess. We set out the pieces and began. But at the end of a few moments it was apparent that each was trying to let the other win. ‘Stay,’ I said; ‘we must leave the verdict to impartial destiny, after all,’ and I rose. On the sideboard—as it might be here—was a large bowl of Gloire-de-Dijon roses. I took the largest bloom and said, ‘Terry, old boy, if there are an odd number of petals in this rose, she is yours. If an even number, I will pay her court.’ He agreed. Slowly and deliberately, petal by petal, I destroyed the beautiful bloom. There were fifty-eight petals. When Terry saw the last petal fall he turned white and swayed. I helped him to the easy-chair and handed him a little grog. It was nearly dawn. Already the birds were twittering on the window-sill.”

He turned and gazed at the window as though even now the magic of that early morning was upon him.

“The dawn was clear for me, but for my friend how dark and foreboding! Or so it seemed to both of us at that hour. But, as Mahomet said, ‘With women, life is a condition of flux.’ At eleven o’clock that morning I was on my bended knees to Sophie. I poured out all my pent-up feelings of the two months. There are some things too sacred to repeat even to those who are—dear to us.”

He gasped and, stretching out his arm, poured out another glass of the Chartreuse.

“She refused me, or if she did not actually refuse me—indeed, she did not; she was sympathetic, almost loving, but so—indeterminate that I was almost driven to a frenzy of despair. When one is young, one is like that. One must have all, and at once, or go crazy with despair. For a week I courted her day and night, and I could not make her decide. She liked me, but she did not love me. At the end of that time, I went to O’Bane, and I said, ‘Old man, it is your call. My part is played.’ Under great pressure from me he consented to enter the lists, and I withheld my hand as he had done. Even now the memory of that week of anguish when I knew that my greatest friend was making love to my adored is almost unbearable. At the end of the week he came to me and said, ‘Old boy, I don’t know how I stand. She likes me, but I hardly think she loves me.’ I will not burden you with the chronicle of our strange actions which followed. We decided that as the question was identical it should be an open fight in a fair field, otherwise, between us, we should lose her altogether. We would both pay court to her wherever and whenever the opportunity occurred. And we would do so without animosity or ill-will. The tour lasted three months, and I knew that O’Bane was winning. There was no question about it. He was the favorite. Every minute I was expecting to hear the dread glad tidings. And then a strange thing happened.”

He leant back in his chair and passed his hands through his hair with a graceful gesture.

“An uncle in Australia died and left O’Bane an enormous fortune. He was rich beyond the dreams of avarice. The company all knew of it, and were delighted, all—all except one person.”

He glanced towards my wife, and sighed.

“I have lived a good many years, and yet I seem to find the heart of woman as unfathomable, as unexplorable as ever. They are to me the magic casements opening on the night. There is no limit ... every subtle human experience is capable of endless variation. Sophie refused to marry O’Bane because people would think she married him for his money. The anguish of those last weeks I shall never forget. She definitely refused him, and I was torn between my love for O’Bane and my love for Sophie. I can say with perfect truth—literal truth—that the fortune killed O’Bane. When we arrived in London, he began to squander. He drank, gambled, and led a depraved life, all because the woman he loved would not marry him. In the spring he left the company and took a house in town. It became the happy hunting-ground of loose characters. It is needless to say that if Sophie wouldn’t marry him, there were plenty of other women willing to marry a young millionaire. He became entangled with a fast and pretty creature called Annabel Peacock. He married her, and in the following year they had a child.”

The fire crackled on the hearth; my wife did not take her eyes from the old actor’s face. A black cat strolled leisurely across the room and stretched itself before the fire. He continued:

“It was then that I experienced an entirely novel vision of woman’s character. Sophie, who would not marry O’Bane because he was rich, and who shivered with disgust in the presence of Annabel Peacock, developed an amazing affection and interest for their child. We were out again in the Capacity Company. I had her all to myself. I laid siege to her heart. I was patient, tactful, importunate, imploring, passionate. But it was all no good, my boy ... no good at all. Heigho! would you believe it?—for ten years of my life from that date I was that woman’s slave, and she was the slave of Terry’s child. Company after company I joined in order to be with her. I gave up good parts. I sacrificed leads, and in fact I even accepted a walk-on—anything to be with Sophie. Sophie, who would not listen to me, who treated me like a little pet, to run hither and thither, and who spent all her money and time on toys and clothes for Terry’s child. Would you believe it?”

To my surprise, my wife spoke for the first time. She said: “Yes.”

Brancker looked at her keenly, and nodded.

“Yes. In any affair between a man and a woman, a man finds himself at a disadvantage. Mademoiselle, you see, understands. Women have all kinds of mysterious intuitions and senses which we wot not of. She is armed at every point. She has more resources. She is better-equipped than man. Sophie even made a friend of Annabel. She wrote her loving letters and called her ‘my dearest.’ For you must know that two years after his marriage my old friend Terry O’Bane went under. He awakened one night feeling ill; he groped in a chest where he usually kept a flask of brandy. He took a gulp. The liquid he drew into his throat was pure liquid ammonia which Annabel had been using for photographic work. She was a keen amateur photographer. He rushed out into the street in his pajamas, and died in the arms of a policeman at the corner.”

The horror of this episode was written plainly in the old man’s face. He delivered it with a kind of dramatic despair, as though he knew it had to be told and he could not control himself. Then he seemed to fall to pieces, and lay huddled at the back of his chair. I looked at Alice furtively, and I could see a tear swimming on the brink of her eye. It was some moments before he could continue.

“These were all the best years of my life, _mes enfants_, when my powers were at their highest. My old friend Toole offered me a good part in London. He said to me, ‘Brancker, old man, you’re wasting yourself in the provinces. Come to town and take a lead.’ I could only press his hand and thank him. In another week or two I was on the road again with Sophie. As the years went by she became more and more absorbed by Terry’s unattractive child, and more and more distressed concerning it. For you must know that in spite of his profligate life, Terry still had left a considerable fortune, and Annabel continued to live in the same way. And it was the worst possible atmosphere to bring a child up in. Annabel was kind to the child in a spasmodic way, passionate and unreliable. She would pet it and coax it, and buy it expensive toys and dresses, and then suddenly neglect or scold it. Sophie knew this, and all the time she could spare she went to London and tried to help the situation. She humored and flattered Annabel, who was quite manageable if you treated her like this, and she did what she could to influence the early training of the child for good. But, as you may imagine, the little minx grew up the spit and image of her mother. She was vain, fickle, and spoilt. By the time she was ten she thought of nothing but her looks and her frocks; and she was indeed a very pretty child. She had all the prettiness of her mother, with something of her father’s grace and charm. She was encouraged to amuse the vulgar people who came to the house, and she was allowed to listen to all the loose talk, and to sit up to any hour she liked, unless Annabel happened to be in a contrary mood, when she would slap the child and lock her in her room.

“‘Aunt Sophie,’ as she called her, was a favorite with Lucy, but only, I’m afraid, because ‘Aunt Sophie’ gave her expensive toys, and lavished her love persistently upon the child. She wrote to her nearly every day, wherever she happened to be, and sent her little gifts.”

The old man mopped his forehead. He was evidently laboring under the severe strain which the invoking of these memories put upon him. He walked to the sideboard and poured himself out a glass of water, into which he poured—an as after-thought—a tiny drop of rum. After taking two long, meditative gulps, he resumed his seat. He seemed to have forgotten all about our presence. He was living in the past. But suddenly he turned to my wife and said:

“I have many of the beautiful frocks which Sophie made for little Lucy. They have come down to me. If it would not bore you to call one afternoon, mademoiselle, I could show you some that might interest you.” There was a strange, eager appeal in his voice. It seemed a matter of tremendous moment that Alice should go and inspect the frocks. My heart bled for him. “Of _course_ she will go,” I thought, but to my surprise, she said nothing. She just looked at him with that queer, watchful expression that women alone are capable of. Perhaps it is part of what the old chap referred to—their equipment. She toyed with the chain on her frock, and his eye meditated her movements. He hesitated, and then rather nervously proceeded, as though talking to himself.

“Frocks! What a part they play in our lives. Carlyle was right. Sophie was extraordinarily clever with her needle. She had a genius for combining materials. Her theatrical experience helped her. She made the most alluring frocks. The child adored ‘Aunt Sophie’s’ frocks. They always looked so striking and so professional. The crisis in my life, and which I am about to tell you of, was indeed occasioned by one of the frocks which Sophie made for Lucy. It came about in this way.”

He paused again, and tapped the top of the table with his beautiful white hands.

“That last year—that year when Lucy reached her tenth birthday—the excesses in Annabel’s house reached their zenith. The place became notorious. Annabel had taken to herself a drunken lord, Lord Starborough. He was a dissipated young _roué_. He rather took a fancy to Lucy, and he spoilt her in the same way that Annabel did. We heard stories of the goings on. The child was taken to houses to dance. I believe she was even taught to put on rouge. There was a rich family called the Arkwrights, who also had children, and who lived a similar life. These children were Lucy’s great friends. They vied with each other in their infantile snobbery. The parents gave elaborate parties and tried to outshine each other in the lavishness of their entertainment, and the overdressing of the children. It was very, very painful. Even I, whose life was being wrecked by Sophie’s adulation of this child, felt sorry. My heart bled for my old friend’s daughter.

“We had a long tour that autumn, Sophie and I. We wore out in ‘The Woman Who Failed.’ Sophie had a lead, but I was only playing the part of a butler. It was a long and trying tour up North. The weather was very bitter. There was a good deal of sickness, and our chief was a hard man. Early in December Sophie caught a cold which rapidly developed into bronchitis. She had a narrow escape. She was, however, only out of the bill for ten days. She insisted on returning and struggling on. The tour was to end on Christmas Eve. One day she had a letter from Lucy. I remember the exact words to this day. ‘Dear Aunt Sophie, do make me a lovely frock for Christmas Eve. The Arkwrights are having a lovely ball, and I know Irene is having a gold and green, with a sparkling veil. Your loving Lucy.’

“When Sophie got this letter she smiled. She was happy. She was always happy when doing a service. Ah! me.... For nearly a week she thought and dreamt about the frock she was going to make for Lucy for the Arkwrights’ party. She knew what the child wanted—a frock to outshine all the others. Then another story reached us. I have forgotten what it was: some distressing record of these Arkwright people. One night after the show she sent for me. I could tell she was very agitated. She clutched my arm, and said, ‘Old man, I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to make Lucy a frock which will outshine all the others. And it will be just a plain white frock, with no adornment of any sort. Just think of it,—amongst all those vulgar, overdressed children, one little girl, as pretty as Lucy,—in plain white. And they will be bound to appreciate it. It will tell. And perhaps she will realize—what it means. Good taste and refinement will always tell against vulgarity.’ I applauded Sophie’s idea, and I went with her to get the material. But she fainted in the shop. During those last few days I began to realize that Sophie was very ill. She was simply living on her nervous force, keeping herself going in order to complete the tour, and to deliver Lucy’s frock in time for the ball.

“Our last journey back was from Nottingham. We arrived in London at five o’clock on Christmas Eve. I was in a fever of dread. I believed that Sophie was dying. She kept swaying in the train as though she was going to drop. Her face was deadly-white, her eyes unnaturally bright, and her fingers were still busy on the frock. So absorbed had I been in Sophie’s affairs, I had made no arrangements about lodgings in town. Neither had she. But my old friend, Joe Gadgers, seeing my distress, said, ‘Old boy, leave it to me. I know a snug little place where they’ll take you in. I’m not stopping. I’m going straight through to Hastings.’ I thanked my old friend and embraced him. When we got to Euston, we got Sophie into a four-wheeled cab, and Joe Gadgers came with us to arrange the introduction. I hardly noticed where the lodgings were—somewhere in Clapham, I think. We arrived there, and a good lady took us in without hesitation. We put Sophie to bed. She was almost delirious, but still the frock was not quite finished. Joe left us, and I sat by her bedside, watching her busy fingers. I knew it was useless to protest. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked, and outside the snow was beginning to fall.”

Colin Brancker stood up, and suddenly picked up the little white frock from the back of the chair. He held it in his arms reverently and tenderly. His voice was strong and resonant. He stood there, and acted the scene vividly before our eyes.

“At ten minutes to seven I left the house, holding the frock in my arms. I rushed out without a hat, without a coat. I flew along the street, calling out for a cab like a madman.... At last I got one. I told the driver to drive like the furies to the address I gave him in Kensington. In the cab I stamped my feet and rocked the dress in my arms as though it were a fevered child. I don’t know how we got there. It seemed an eternity. I flung into the house, calling out, ‘Lucy! Lucy!’ I found her in the drawing-room. She was dressed in a flaming orange and silver dress, with a sparkling tiara in her hair. She was looking in a mirror and putting finishing touches to her hair. She cried out when she saw me: ‘Hullo! I thought Aunt Sophie had forgotten me. I’ve hired a frock from Roco’s.’ ‘Child,’ I said, ‘your Aunt Sophie has been working out her life’s blood for you. Here is the frock.’ She grabbed it and examined it. ‘Frock!’ she said. ‘It looks more like a nightdress. I don’t want the beastly old thing’; and she threw it across the room. I believe at that moment I could have struck the child. I was blind with fury. Fortunately, I remembered in time that she was my old friend Terry O’Bane’s daughter. I picked up the frock. ‘Ungrateful child!’ I exclaimed. ‘You don’t know what you’re doing. You’re murdering an ideal. You’re killing your aunt.’ She tossed her insolent head and actually pressed the bell for the butler to see me out. Just like a grown-up person. Dazed and baffled, I clutched the little white frock and staggered out into the street. The night was dark, and the snow was still falling. Christmas bells were beginning to peal.... I plunged on and on, my heart beating against my ribs. People stared at me, but I was too distressed to care. How could I go back to Sophie with the insulting message? Suddenly, at the corner of Hyde Park, a most appalling realization flashed through my mind. _I had made no note of the address of the lodgings where Sophie and I were staying!..._ God in heaven! What was I to do? The only man who could help me, my old friend, Joe Gadgers, had gone to Hastings. What could I do? Could I go to the police and say, ‘Will you help me to find the address of some lodgings where an actress is staying? I think it’s somewhere round about Clapham. I don’t know the name of the landlady, or the name of the street, or the number?’ They would have thought I was mad. Perhaps I was mad. Should I go back to Lucy? The child wouldn’t know.... And all this time Sophie was dying. Ah! merciful God! perhaps she would die. If she died before I found her, she would die in the happy belief that the frock had been worn. Her last hours would be blessed with dreams, visions of purity and joy ... whilst I ... I should have no place in them, perhaps ... but I, too, after all, I’d suffered for her sake. Who knows?... Who know...?”

His voice broke off in a low sob. I leant forward watching his face, racked with anguish. The room was extraordinarily still.... I dared not look at Alice, but I was conscious of the pearly sheen of her frock under the lamp. Away in the distance one could hear the rumble of the traffic on the High-road. The remorseless tick of the clock was the only sound in the room. Once I thought it ticked louder, and then I realized that it was some one tapping gently at the door. The door opened a little way, and against the dim light in the passage appeared the gaunt face of the old serving-woman, phantom-like, unreal....

“Excuse me, sir.” She peered into the room. The old actor gazed at her with unseeing eyes. He stood with one hand on the back of the chair, and across the other arm lay the white frock; a dignified and pathetic figure.

“I’m sorry to trouble you, sir.”

“Yes, Mrs. Windsor?”

“My little niece ’as just called. I can’t find it anywhere—that little frock I made for ’er last week. I put it in the chest. I thought perhaps you might ’ave.... Oh! there it is, sir. Do you mind—? Thank you very much, sir. I’m sorry to have disturbed the company.”

In the sanctuary of our bedroom that night, my wife said:

“Did you really believe that that writing on the photograph was by Henry Irving?”

“My dear,” I answered, “when their careers are finished, the painter, the author, the architect or the sculptor may point to this or that, and say, ‘Lo! this is my handiwork.’ But to the actor nothing remains but—memories. Their permanence lies in the memories of those who loved them. Are we to begrudge them all the riches of imagination? After all, what is the line of demarcation between what we call reality and what we call imagination? Is not the imagery invoked by Shelley when he sings of dubious myths as real a fact as the steel rivets in the Forth Bridge? What is reality? Indeed, what is life?”

“I don’t know what life is,” answered my wife, switching off the light. “But I know what you are. You’re a dear old—perfect old—BOOB!”

“Alice, what do you mean?” I said.

She laughed softly.

“Women are ‘equipped,’ you know,” she replied enigmatically, and insisted on going to sleep.

A GOOD ACTION

A GOOD ACTION

It is undoubtedly true that the majority of us perform the majority of our actions through what are commonly known as mixed motives.

It would certainly have been quite impossible for Mr. Edwin Pothecary to analyze the concrete impulse which eventually prompted him to perform his good action. It may have been a natural revolt from the somewhat petty and cramped punctilio of his daily life; his drab home life, the bickering, wearing, grasping routine of the existence of fish-and-chips dispenser. A man who earns his livelihood by buying fish and potatoes in the cheapest market, and selling them in the Waterloo Road cannot afford to indulge his altruistic fancies to any lavish extent. It is true that the business of Mr. Edwin Pothecary was a tolerably successful one—he employed three assistants and a boy named Scales who was not so much an assistant as an encumbrance and wholesale plate-smasher. Mr. Pothecary engaged him because he thought his name seemed appropriate to the fish-trade. In a weak moment he pandered to this sentimental whim, another ingredient in the strange composition which influences us to do this, that, and the other. But it was not by pandering to whims of this nature that Mr. Pothecary had built up this progressive and odoriferous business with its gay shop front of blue and brown tiles. It was merely a minor lapse. In the fish-and-chip trade one has to be keen, pushful, self-reliant, ambidexterous, a student of human nature, forbearing, far-seeing, imaginative, courageous, something of a controversialist with a streak of fatalism as pronounced as that of a high-priest in a Brahmin temple. It is better, moreover, to have an imperfect nasal organism, and to be religious.

Edwin had all these qualities. Every day he went from Quince Villa at Buffington to London—forty minutes in the train—and back at night. On Sunday he took the wife and three children to the Methodist Chapel at the corner of the street to both morning and evening services. But even this religious observance does not give us a complete solution for the sudden prompting of an idea to do a good action. Edwin had attended chapel for fifty-two years and such an impulse had never occurred to him before. He may possibly have been influenced by some remark of the preacher, or was it that twinge of gout which set him thinking of the unwritten future? Had it anything to do with the Boy-Scout movement? Some one at some time had told him of an underlying idea—that every day in one’s life one should do one pure, good and unselfish action.

Perhaps after all it was all due to the gayety of a spring morning. Certain it is that as he swung out of the garden gate on that morning in April something stirred in him. His round puffy face blinked heavenwards. Almond blossoms fluttered in the breeze above the hedgerows. Larks were singing.... Suddenly his eye alighted upon the roof of the Peels’ hen-house opposite and Mr. Edwin Pothecary scowled. Lord! How he hated those people! The Peels were Pothecary’s _bêtes-noires_. Snobs! Pirates! Rotters!

The Peels’ villa was at least three times as big as the Pothecarys’. It was, in fact, not a villa at all. It was a “Court”—whatever that was. It was quite detached, with about fourteen rooms in all, a coach-house, a large garden, and two black sheds containing forty-five fowls, leading an intensive existence. The Pothecarys had five fowls which sometimes did and sometimes didn’t supply them with two or three eggs a day, but it was known that the Peels sent at least two hundred and fifty eggs to market every week, besides supplying their own table. Mr. Peel was a successful dealer in quills and bristles. His wife was the daughter of a post office official and they had three stuck up daughters who would have no truck at all with the Pothecarys. You may appreciate then the twinge of venom which marked the face of Edwin as he passed through his front gate and observed the distant roof of the Peels’ fowl-house. And still the almond blossoms nodded at him above the hedge. The larks sang.... After all, was it fair to hate any one because they were better off than oneself? Strange how these moods obsess one. The soft air caressed Edwin’s cheek. Little flecks of cloud scudded gayly into the suburban panorama. Small green shoots were appearing everywhere. One ought not to hate any one at all—of course. It is absurd. So bad for oneself, apart from the others. One ought rather to be kind, forgiving, loving all mankind. Was that a lark or a thrush? He knew little about birds. Fish now!... A not entirely unsatisfactory business really the fried fish trade—when things went well. When customers were numerous and not too cantankerous. Quite easy to run, profitable. A boy came singing down the road. The villas clustered together more socially. There was a movement of spring life....

As Edwin turned the corner of the Station Road, the impulse crystallized. One good action. To-day he would perform one good, kind, unselfish, unadvertised action. No one should ever know of it. Just one to-day. Then perhaps one to-morrow. And so on; in time it might become a habit. That is how one progressed. He took his seat in the crowded third-class smoker and pretended to read his newspaper, but his mind was too actively engaged with the problems of his new resolution. How? When? Where? How does one do a definitely good action? What is the best way to go to work? One could, of course, just quietly slip some money into a poor-box if one could be found. But would this be very good and self-sacrificing? Who gets money put in a poor-box? Surely his own family were poor enough, as far as that went. But he couldn’t go back home and give his wife a sovereign. It would be advertising his charity, and he would look silly doing it. His business? He might turn up and say to his assistants: “Boys, you shall all have a day’s holiday. We’ll shut up, and here’s your pay for the day.” Advertising again; besides, what about the hundreds of poor workers in the neighborhood who relied for their mid-day sustenance on “Pothecary’s Pride-of-the-Ocean Popular Plaice to Eat?” It would be cruel, cruel and—bad for business in the future. The public would lose confidence in that splendid gold-lettered tablet in the window which said “Cod, brill, halibut, plaice, pilchards always on hand. Eat them or take them away.”

The latter sentence did not imply that if you took them away you did _not_ eat them; it simply meant that you could either stand at the counter and eat them from a plate with the aid of a fork and your fingers (or at one of the wooden benches if you could find room—an unlikely contingency), alternatively you could wrap them up in a piece of newspaper and devour them without a fork at the corner of the street.

No, it would not be a good action in any way to close the Popular Plaice to eat. Edwin came to the conclusion that to perform this act satisfactorily it were better to divorce the proceeding entirely from any connection with home or business. The two things didn’t harmonize. A good action must be a special and separate effort in an entirely different setting. He would take the day off himself and do it thoroughly.

Mr. Pothecary was known in the neighborhood of the Waterloo Road as “The Stinker,” a title easily earned by the peculiar qualities of his business and the obvious additional fact that a Pothecary was a chemist. He was a very small man, bald-headed with yellowy-white side whiskers, a blue chin, a perambulating nostril with a large wart on the port side. He wore a square bowler hat which seemed to thrust out the protruding flaps of his large ears. His greeny-black clothes were always too large for him and ended in a kind of thick spiral above his square-toed boots. He always wore a flat white collar—more or less clean—and no tie. This minor defect was easily atoned for by a heavy silver chain on his waistcoat from which hung gold seals and ribbons connecting with watches, knives, and all kinds of ingenious appliances in his waistcoat pockets.

The noble intention of his day was a little chilled on his arrival at the shop. In the first place, although customers were then arriving for breakfast, the boy Scales was slopping water over the front step. Having severely castigated the miscreant youth and prophesied that his chances of happiness in the life to come were about as remote as those of a dead dog-fish in the upper reaches of the Thames, he made his way through the customers to the room at the back, and there he met Dolling.

Dolling was Edwin’s manager, and he cannot be overlooked. In the first place, he was remarkably like a fish himself. He had the same dull expressionless eyes and the drooping mouth and drooping mustache. Everything about him drooped and dripped. He was always wet. He wore a gray flannel shirt and no collar or tie. His braces, trousers, and hair all seemed the same color. He hovered in the background with a knife, and did the cutting up and dressing. He had, moreover, all the taciturnity of a fish, and its peculiar ability for getting out of a difficulty. He never spoke. He simply looked lugubrious, and pointed at things with his knife. And yet Edwin knew that he was an excellent manager. For it must be observed that in spite of the gold-lettered board outside with its fanfare of cod, brill, halibut, plaice and pilchards, whatever the customer asked for, by the time it had passed through Dolling’s hand it was just _fish_. No nonsense about it at all. Just plain fish leveled with a uniform brown crust. If you asked for cod you got _fish_. If you asked for halibut you also got _fish_. Dolling was something of an artist.

On this particular morning, as Edward entered the back room, Dolling was scratching the side of his head with the knife he used to cut up the fish; a sure sign that he was perplexed about something. It was not customary to exchange greetings in this business, and when he observed “the guv’nor” enter he just withdrew the knife from his hair and pointed it at a packing case on the side table. Edwin knew what this meant. He went up and pressed his flat nose against the chest of what looked like an over-worked amphibian that had been turned down by its own Trades Union. Edwin sneezed before he had had time to withdraw his nose.

“Yes, that’s a dud lot,” he said. And then suddenly an inspirational moment nearly overwhelmed him. Here was a chance. He would turn to Dolling and say:

“Dolling, this fish is slightly tainted. We must throw it away. We bought it at our risk. Yesterday morning when it arrived it was just all right, but keeping it in that hot room downstairs where you and your wife sleep has probably finished it. We mustn’t give it to our customers. It might poison them—ptomaine poison, you know ... eh, Dolling?” It would be a good action, a self-sacrificing action, eh? But when he glanced at the face of Dolling he knew that such an explosion would be unthinkable. It would be like telling a duck it mustn’t swim, or an artist that he mustn’t paint, or a boy on a beach that he mustn’t throw stones in the sea. It was the kind of job that Dolling enjoyed. In the course of a few hours he knew quite well that whatever he said, the mysterious and evil-smelling monster would be served out in dainty parcels of halibut, cod, brill, plaice, etc.

Business was no place for a good action. Too many others depended on it, were involved in it. Edwin went up to Dolling and shouted in his ear—he was rather deaf:

“I’m going out. I may not be back to-day.”

Dolling stared at the wall. He appeared about as interested in the statement as a cod might be that had just been informed that a Chinese coolie had won the Calcutta sweep-stake. Edwin crept out of the shop abashed. He felt horribly uncomfortable. He heard some one mutter: “Where’s The Stinker off to?” and he realized how impossible it would be to explain to any one there present that he was off to do a good action.

“I will go to some outlying suburb,” he thought.

Once outside in the sunshine he tried to get back into the benign mood. He traveled right across London and made for Golders Green and Hendon, a part of the world foreign to him. By the time he had boarded the Golders Green ’bus he had quite recovered himself. It was still a brilliant day. “The better the day the better the deed,” he thought aptly. He hummed inaudibly; that is to say, he made curious crooning noises somewhere behind his silver chain and signets; the sound was happily suppressed by the noise of the ’bus.

It seemed a very long journey. It was just as they were going through a rather squalid district near Cricklewood that the golden chance occurred to him. The fares had somewhat thinned. There were scarcely a dozen people in the ’bus. Next to him barely a yard away he observed a poor woman with a baby in her arms. She had a thin, angular, wasted face, and her clothes were threadbare but neat. A poor, thoroughly honest and deserving creature, making a bitter fight of it against the buffets of a cruel world. Edwin’s heart was touched. Here was his chance. He noticed that from her wrist was suspended a shabby black bag, and the bag was open. He would slip up near her and drop in a half-crown. What joy and rapture when she arrived home and found the unexpected treasure! An unknown benefactor! Edwin chuckled and wormed his way surreptitiously along the seat. Stealthily he fingered his half-crown and hugged it in the palm of his left hand. His heart beat with the excitement of his exploit. He looked out of the window opposite and fumbled his hand towards the opening in the bag. He touched it. Suddenly a sharp voice rang out:

“That man’s picking your pocket!”

An excited individual opposite was pointing at him. The woman uttered an exclamation and snatched at her bag. The baby cried. The conductor rang the bell. Every one seemed to be closing in on Edwin. Instinctively he snatched his hand away and thrust it in his pocket (the most foolish thing he could have done). Every one was talking. A calm muscular-looking gentleman who had not spoken seized Edwin by the wrist and said calmly:

“Look in your bag, Madam, and see whether he has taken anything.”

The ’bus came to a halt. Edwin muttered:

“I assure you—nothing of the sort—”

How could he possibly explain that he was doing just the opposite? Would a single person believe a word of his yarn about the half-crown? The woman whimpered:

“No,’e ain’t taken nothin’, bad luck to ’im. There was only four pennies and a ’alfpenny anyway. Dirty thief!”

“Are you goin’ to give ’im in charge?” asked the conductor.

“Yer can’t if ’e ain’t actually taken nothin’, can yer? The dirty thievin’ swine tryin’ to rob a ’ard workin’ ’onest woman!”

“I wasn’t! I wasn’t!” feebly spluttered Edwin, blushing a ripe beetroot color.

“Shame! Shame! Chuck ’im off the ’bus! Dirty sneak! Call a copper!” were some of the remarks being hurled about.

The conductor was losing time and patience. He beckoned vigorously to Edwin and said:

“Come on, off you go!”

There was no appeal. He got up and slunk out. Popular opinion was too strong against him. As he stepped off the back board, the conductor gave him a parting kick which sent him flying on to the pavement. It was an operation received with shrieks of laughter and a round of applause from the occupants of the vehicle, taken up by a small band of other people who had been attracted by the disturbance. He darted down a back street to the accompaniment of boos and jeers.

It says something for Edwin Pothecary that this unfortunate rebuff to his first attempt to do a good action did not send him helter-skelter back to the fried fish shop in the Waterloo Road. He felt crumpled, bruised, mortified, disappointed, discouraged; but is not the path of all martyrs and reformers strewn with similar débris? Are not all really disinterested actions liable to misconstruction? He went into a dairy and partook of a glass of milk and a bun. Then he started out again. He would see more rural, less sophisticated people. In the country there must be simple, kindly people, needing his help. He walked for several hours with but a vague sense of direction. At last he came to a public park. A group of dirty boys were seated on the grass. They were apparently having a banquet. They did not seem to require him. He passed on, and came to an enclosure. Suddenly between some rhododendron bushes he looked into a small dell. On a seat by himself was an elderly man in a shabby suit. He looked the picture of misery and distress. His hands were resting on his knees, and his eyes were fixed in a melancholy scrutiny on the ground. It was obvious that some great trouble obsessed him. He was as still as a shadow. It was the figure of a man lost in the past or—contemplating suicide? Edwin’s breath came quickly. He made his way to him. In order to do this it was necessary to climb a railing. There was probably another way round, but was there time? At any minute there might be a sudden movement, the crack of a revolver. Edwin tore his trousers and scratched his forearm, but he managed to enter the dell unobserved. He approached the seat. The man never looked up. Then Edwin said with sympathetic tears in his voice:

“My poor fellow, may I be of any assistance—?”

There was a disconcerting jar. The melancholy individual started and turned on him angrily:

“Blast you! I’d nearly got it! What the devil are you doing here?”

And without waiting for an answer he darted away among the trees. At the same time a voice called over the park railings:

“Ho! you, there, what are you doing over there? You come back the way you came. I saw yer.”

The burly figure of a park-keeper with gaiters and stout stick beckoned him. Edwin got up and clambered back again, scratching his arm.

“Now then,” said the keeper. “Name, address, age, and occupation, if _you_ please.”

“I was only—” began Edwin. But what _was_ he only doing? Could he explain to a park-keeper that he was only about to do a kind action to a poor man? He spluttered and gave his name, address, age, and occupation.

“Oh,” exclaimed the keeper. “Fried fish, eh? And what were you trying to do? Get orders? Or were you begging from his lordship?”

“His lordship?”

“That man you was speaking to was Lord Budleigh-Salterton, the great scientist. He’s thinkin’ out ’is great invention, otherwise I’d go and ask ’im if ’e wanted to prosecute yer for being in ’is park on felonious intent or what.”

“I assure you—” stammered Mr. Pothecary.

The park-keeper saw him well off the premises, and gave him much gratuitous advice about his future behavior, darkened with melancholy prophecies regarding the would-be felon’s strength of character to live up to it.

Leaving the park he struck out towards the more rural neighborhood. He calculated that he must be somewhere in the neighborhood of Hendon. At the end of a lane he met a sallow-faced young man walking rapidly. His eyes were bloodshot and restless. He glanced at Edwin and stopped.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said.

Edwin drew himself to attention. The young man looked up and down nervously. He was obviously in a great state of distress.

“What can I do for you?”

“I—I—h-hardly like to ask you, sir, I—”

He stammered shockingly. Edwin turned on his most sympathetic manner.

“You are suffering. What is it?”

“Sh-Sh-Shell-shock, shir.”

“Ah!”

At last! Some heroic reflex of the war darted through Edwin’s mind. Here was his real chance at last. A poor fellow broken by the war and in need, neglected by an ungrateful country. Almost hidden by his outer coat he observed one of those little strips of colored ribbon, which implied more than one campaign.

“Where did you meet your trouble?” he asked.

“P—P—P-Palestine, sir, capturing a T-T-Turkish redoubt. I was through Gallipoli, too, sir, but I won’t d-d-distress you. I am in a—in a—hospital at St. Albans, came to see my g-g-g-girl, but she’s g-g-g-gone—v-v-vanished....”

“You don’t say so!”

“T-t-trouble is I l-l-l-lost my p-pass back. N-not quite enough m-mon—”

“Dear me! How much short are you?”

“S-S-S-Six shill—S-S-S-Six—”

“Six shillings? Well, I’m very sorry. Look here, my good fellow, here’s seven-and-sixpence and God bless you!”

“T-T-thank you very much, sir. W-will you give me your n-name and—”

“No, no, no, that’s quite all right. I’m very pleased to be of assistance. Please forget all about it.”

He pressed the soldier’s hand and hurried on. It was done. He had performed a kind, unselfish action and no one should ever hear of it. Mr. Pothecary’s eyes glowed with satisfaction. Poor fellow! even if the story were slightly exaggerated, what did it matter? He was obviously a discharged soldier, ill, and in need. The seven-and-sixpence would make an enormous difference. He would always cherish the memory of his kind, unknown benefactor. It was a glorious sensation! Why had he never thought of doing a kindly act? It was inspiring, illuminating, almost intoxicating! He recalled with zest the delirious feeling which ran through him when he said, “No, no, no!” He would _not_ give his name. He was the good Samaritan, a ship passing in the night. And now he would be able to go home, or go back to his business. He swung down the lane, singing to himself. As he turned the corner he came to a low bungalow-building. It was in a rather deserted spot. It had a board outside which announced “Tea, cocoa, light refreshments. Cyclists catered for.”

It was past mid-day, and although tea and cocoa had never made any great appeal to the gastronomic fancies of Edwin Pothecary, he felt in his present spiritually elevated mood that here was a suitable spot for a well-merited rest and lunch.

He entered a deserted room, filled with light oak chairs, and tables with green-tiled tops on which were placed tin vases containing dried ferns. A few bluebottles darted away from the tortuous remains of what had once apparently been a ham, lurking behind tall bottles of sweets on the counter. The room smelt of soda and pickles. Edwin rapped on the table for some time, but no one came. At last a woman entered from the front door leading to the garden. She was fat and out of breath.

Edwin coughed and said:

“Good-mornin’, madam. May I have a bite of somethin’?”

The woman looked at him and continued panting. When her pulmonary contortions had somewhat subsided she said:

“I s’pose you ’aven’t seen a pale young man up the lane?”

It was difficult to know what made him do it, but Edwin lied. He said:

“No.”

“Oh!” she replied. “I don’t know where ’e’s got to. ’E’s not s’posed to go out of the garden. ’E’s been ill, you know.”

“Really!”

“’E’s my nefyer, but I can’t always keep an eye on ’im. ’E’s a bright one, ’e is. I shall ’ave ’im sent back to the ’ome.”

“Ah, poor fellow! I suppose he was—injured in the war?”

“War!” The plump lady snorted. She became almost aggressive and confidential. She came close up to Edwin and shook her finger backwards and forwards in front of his eyes.

“I’ll tell yer ’ow much war ’e done. When they talked about conscription, ’e got that frightened, ’e went out every day and tried to drink himself from a A1 man into a C III man, and by God! ’e succeeded.”

“You don’t say so!”

“I do say so. And more. When ’is turn came, ’e was in the ’orspital with Delirious Trimmings.”

“My God!”

“’E’s only just come out. ’E’s all right as long as ’e don’t get ’old of a little money.”

“What do you mean?”

“If ’e can get ’old of the price of a few whiskies, ’e’ll ’ave another attack come on! What are yer goin’ ter ’ave—tea or cocoa?”

“I must go! I must go!” exclaimed the only customer Mrs. Boggins had had for two days, and gripping his umbrella he dashed out of the shop.

“Good Lord! there’s another one got ’em!” ejaculated the good landlady. “I wonder whether ’e pinched anything while I was out? ’Ere! Come back, you dirty little bow-legged swipe!”

But Mr. Pothecary was racing down the lane, muttering to himself: “Yes, that was a good action! A very good action indeed!”

A mile further on he came to a straggling village, a forlorn unkempt spot, only relieved by a gaudy inn called “The Two Tumblers.” Edwin staggered into the private bar and drank two pints of Government ale and a double gin as the liquid accompaniment to a hunk of bread and cheese.

It was not till he had lighted his pipe after the negotiation of these delicacies that he could again focus his philosophical outlook. Then he thought to himself: “It’s a rum thing ’ow difficult it is to do a good action. You’d think it’d be dead easy, but everythin’ seems against yer. One must be able to do it _somewhere_. P’raps one ought to go abroad, among foreigners and black men. That’s it! That’s why all these ’ere Bible Society people go out among black people, Chinese and so on. They find there’s nothin’ doin’ over ’ere.”