Chapter IV: Part 4

"No, I don't fancy that there is anything more to say." Then he shook his head rather reproachfully, and walked off to the other end of the ship. In fact, he went as far away from me as he possibly could without getting into the sea. I felt sorry, and followed him, and begged him to tell me about his younger days, when he was an apprentice, and first sailed the ocean. This cheered him up, and he recounted a mad freak off Cape Horn by night. It happened that another sailing ship was following his vessel, so he and a friend began hanging out signal lamps to her, and waving green and blue and yellow and crimson lights over the stern of their ship. The approaching barque stood this display for some time, and then, probably under the impression she was running into a chemist's shop, grew frightened, and changed her course, and was no more seen. Our Fourth Officer, I should think rightly, regards this as one of his happiest efforts.

The Doctor has already arranged a programme for Roseau. One Podbury dwells there, and this Podbury brews the best rum punch in the West Indies. The Doctor knows and esteems him. My brother is also familiar with the Bishop of Dominica, and says that he is a genial, lovable Irishman of admirable parts, and the best company in the world. It is agreed, therefore, that we first call upon the Bishop, then see the town, and finally cheer our exhausted systems with Podbury's rum punch. Neither the Bishop nor Podbury has invited us, or knows we are here at all; but that is a sort of detail which counts for nothing in foreign parts.

Dominica is very beautiful, with the same beauty as many other islands already mentioned. Great wooded hills rise, peak upon peak, to the clouds, and between them lie deep gorges and fertile ravines. The margins of the sea are fringed with palms; Roseau itself lies glimmering upon the shore, with white walls and red and grey roofs. Inland, winding out under low cliffs behind the town, flows forth the river over a rocky bed to the sea. This stream produces some very noble scenery towards the interior, and is rather a large volume of water for such a small island. As a result Dominica is extremely damp at seasons of much rain, and grows, among other things, frogs of majestic size.

By kind permission of the Captain, I was allowed to avail myself of the mail-boat at all ports; and now, tumbling into this vessel, the Doctor and I soon reached dry land.

"Let us bolt straight off to the Cathedral," he said; "ten to one the Bishop's there; if not, we can go on to his house."

Roseau appeared to be rather a languishing little town. The stony streets were all overgrown with grass; the place generally lacked any air of enterprise; the negro children, who swarmed everywhere, were more than usually destitute of attire.

Upon reaching the Bishop's place of business, we found to our dismay that a funeral was going on. The Cathedral doors were wide open, a crowd was gathered within, and over a flower-laden bier stood the Bishop, singing away, and as fully occupied as a man could be.

I noticed that the Doctor was fussing about, trying to catch his friend's eye. I therefore said:

"Don't; it isn't decent. You can't expect even a bishop to be genial and effusive at a time like this. Consider the survivors."

"He sees me!" whispered my brother.

"Sees you; yes, not being blind he couldn't help it. Everybody in the Cathedral sees you; and they very naturally resent the sight. Come away; you're making the Bishop nervous."

It really was most annoying. There he stood, so close that we could almost touch him, and yet separated from us by a gulf only to be bridged by the end of his burial service.

The Doctor became illogical and childish about it. When I had dragged him away from these last sad rites, he gave it as his opinion that any other bishop would have stopped, just for a moment at least, and been friendly and enthusiastic, if only in an undertone.

"He may get thousands of opportunities to bury people, but he will never have a chance of seeing you again," said my brother. Then he added, as an afterthought, "And very probably you will never get another opportunity of talking to an Irish bishop."

After that he sneered at the local medical practitioner, and said that likely enough the deceased would not have died at all in proper hands.

Then a thought struck me, the horror of which reduced my brother to absolute despair. I said:

"Perhaps the Bishop is interring Podbury. In that case everybody you know on this island will be busy, and we shan't get any hospitality, or punch, or anything."

"Just my luck if he is," answered the Doctor gloomily. He then kept absolute silence for half-an-hour, during which time we walked to the Roseau River and beheld many black laundresses out in mid-stream washing clothes. Turning from this spectacle, he spoke again and said:

"Our present state of suspense is destroying me. I've a terrible presentiment that they _were_ burying Podbury. If so, we're done all round. I'm going right away to Podbury's now. I shall see in a moment by the blinds if the worst has happened."

We sought out Podbury's desolate home, and the Doctor asked bitterly why Providence should have snatched away one whose skill in the matter of rum punch was a household word. I said:

"Try and feel hopeful. We cannot yet be absolutely certain that he has gone."

And then we met Podbury in the Market Place. He was thoroughly alive, and apparently in good health.

"Ah, Doctor!" he exclaimed, "back again. Glad to see you. How are the boys on the 'Rhine?' Who's your friend?"

I was made known to Podbury, and explained how the sight of him had turned our mourning into joy, and how I had come out from England as much to taste his celebrated rum punch as anything else. He appeared gratified at this, and led the way to his house.

We asked him who the Bishop was burying, and he did not even know. He said:

"A nigger, for certain. Can't be anybody of much account or I should have heard tell of it."

Then we reached his home, and while he brewed cold punch, we talked to his wife and daughters and some aunts that he had, on his father's side.

The Treasure dropped in too. He knew Podbury well, and Podbury regarded him as an authority on punch. The liquid was presently placed before us. Podbury showed pleasure when I said what I thought about it; but he did not feel quite contented until he had expert's opinion.

"Magnificent!" the Treasure presently declared; "why it's equal to the 1890 brew--you remember."

Podbury's eye brightened at this allusion to one of his greatest past triumphs. He tasted the punch himself, and admitted that it certainly seemed "about right."

With a desire to be entertaining, I volunteered a fact or two concerning punch generally. I said:

"Our word 'punch,' as you are doubtless aware, is derived from the Hindustani '_panch_' or Sanskrit '_panchan_'; which mean simply 'five.' Punch is a mixture of five ingredients, hence the name."

Everybody was rather impressed with this apposite remark, excepting Podbury. He answered:

"Yes, that's so. I've known it years and years. You bet what I don't know about punch isn't worth knowing."

This I took to be sheer conceit on the part of Podbury. His successes with punch were making the man egotistical. I did not believe that he had heard of these interesting points before, whatever he said to the contrary. At any rate, they were quite new to his wife and daughters and aunts. So I turned my attention to them, and told them several other things worth knowing. They doubtless retailed my information to Podbury after we had departed. Still the punch was good and cooling, and, with a heart that rises above trifles, I here deliberately bless the man who brewed it. To be thus publicly blessed in print ought to content even Podbury.

When we returned to the "Rhine" night had shaken out her starry skirts, and land and sea were very dark. But great electric eyes glared down from either side of the ship, facilitating the business of loading, and shining upon a struggling crowd of lighters, and a yelling, swearing assembly of negroes. Steam cranes groaned and shrieked and rattled; new passengers were coming aboard, driven to madness with luggage; and sundry Dominica tradesmen bustled about, selling curiosities. These people vended stuffed frogs, the skins of humming-birds, Brazilian beetles, and gigantic Rhinoceros beetles also.

Five or six of them hemmed in the Doctor immediately he arrived, but, finding that he had already laid in frogs and beetles, they turned upon me with grim determination to do business, or perish in the attempt. My knowledge of the "Rhine" enabled me to escape from all save one, but he was as familiar with our vessel as I, and finally, penning me in a corner, he produced a frog as big as a lap-dog, and declared that it was his almost suicidal intention to practically give me the thing for half-a-dollar. I said:

"No, John. I am perhaps as good a judge of a bull-frog as anybody living, and I tell you without hesitation that your frog is worth ten shillings. Don't dream of parting from it for less."

He grinned, and asked:

"Massa gib me ten shillin' for him?"

"Again, no, John. I do not need this Goliath of a frog. I am merely valuing the reptile for your future guidance. Let me see those beetles."

He showed me a weird creature, which looked as if nature had begun an insect and then changed her mind and finished it off like a crab. This thing, with the ferocious claw-like nose and chin, was a female Rhinoceros beetle, so the owner explained. The male beetle appeared to be a harmless, mild concern of much smaller size, and with no warlike appendages whatever. I never saw any insect of the sterner sex labour under such crushing disadvantages. Personally, did I belong to this order of coleoptera, I should sing extremely small, and remain a bachelor, and creep or fly about quietly after dark, and not affect ladies' society much. Probably, most gentlemen Rhinoceros beetles do so. It must always be Leap Year with these concerns. If the males had to propose, the race would long since have become extinct.

I bought a beetle or two, and then my merchant, with strange pertinacity, returned to the bull-frog. Not far distant stood our Model Man, working for his life. So I said:

"You see that gentleman there--the one ordering everybody about and making so much noise? Take your frog to him, tell him it is a ten-shilling frog, and he will probably buy it on the spot."

But this frog vendor knew the Model Man from experience. He evidently had no inclination to attempt any business with him.

"Dat gem'man no buy nuffing, sar. He berry sharp wid me 'fore to-day."

Indeed, the near presence of the Model Man discouraged my friend to such an extent that he presently withdrew. I told his enemy afterwards, and the Model Man said:

"Offer his beastly frogs to ME! If he had dared to, I should have pitched him into the sea, stock and all. I did once, when he began bothering people to buy things they had no wish for."

"Ah," I said, "doubtless he alluded to that circumstance when he told me you had been sharp with him before to-day."

Among the passengers who joined us at Dominica was an old friend, an ample, full-bodied, admirable gentleman who travelled from England with us, and found the ocean extremely monotonous and trying upon the voyage out. The same trouble still dogged his footsteps. He came aboard quite wild and haggard, and declared the universal and appalling lack of variety was telling upon his health.

"Just think of it," he said, "wherever you turn, nothing but negroes and cocoanut palms, cocoanut palms and negroes. Every place is exactly like the last; every palm tree exactly like every other; every negro identical with the rest. I never saw such a monotonous set of islands in my life."

"Look at their beauty," I said.

"I have, until I'm out of all heart with it," he replied. "A pinnacle or two, with clouds round the top; a field of sugar-cane; hundreds of palms, hundreds of blacks; mean houses and a paltry pier--that's a West Indian island. I liked the first; I tolerated the second; I even bore with the third; but the fourth wearied me; the fifth harrowed me; the sixth sickened me; the seventh--that is this one--has absolutely maddened me; and the eighth or ninth will probably kill me."

I said:

"You ought not to have come here. Why did you?"

"I took advice," he answered drearily. "So-called friends assured me that what I wanted was constant change of scene, with variety and novelty. They asserted that these things were to be found in the West Indies, and I believed them. Look at the climate, too; even that never changes. Look at the sky; English people cannot stand this eternal surface of dead blue. They are not accustomed to it, and it frets their optic nerves. In fact, the whole scheme of things here sets the nervous system on edge from morning till night. There is a cannon somewhere in this steamer, and it will fire in a moment; for no reason, that I can see, except a nautical love of unnecessary noise. These ships cannot come to a place or depart again without firing off their wretched brass guns."

He went moaning away to his cabin, saying that he never knew one room from another on board ship: they were all so exactly alike; and I proceeded to scan further fresh arrivals.

One party consisted of a man and his wife. They had recently been turned out of Venezuela, upon political grounds, and were now going up to St. Thomas, to meet some friends there and arrange a Revolution. A very pretty little French girl and her mother were also among the passengers. The Treasure knew them well, and, when he heard they were coming, grew excited, and hurried away to shave and change his clothes.

The Treasure's Enchantress was certainly very beautiful, with a slight, trim figure, great wealth of raven hair and flashing eyes. Moreover, she appeared to like him, and told me that he always gave her mother the best cabin in the ship.

There was a scene that night, after we started, between the Treasure and my brother. It happened thus:

The Enchantress proved to be but an indifferent sailor, and sent for the Doctor. He was just starting to comfort her when the Treasure arrived.

"Ill?" he asked. "Ah, I knew she would be, poor girl; she always is. Tell her to drink a pint of salt water. It's the only thing. If that fails, tell her to drink another."

The Doctor immediately showed anger. He said:

"Thanks very much. It saves a medical man such a deal of bother when he has got a chap like you always handy to do the prescriptions. Should you think two pints of salt water would be enough? Hadn't we better say a bucket of it?"

"You may be nasty, but it's none the less true that salt water is right," answered our Treasure. "Just because the thing is a simple, natural remedy, you doctors turn up your noses at it. I know this case better than you do. The girl has often sailed with us. Sea-water is what she wants to steady her. I told her so before dinner."

The Doctor departed, and when he had gone, I asked the Treasure all about his Enchantress. I said:

"Of course it's no business of mine, but I'm very interested in your welfare, and might be useful. Where does she live?"

He answered:

"She has two addresses: one in Martinique and one in Paris. I know them both; but I hardly think I should be justified in divulging them."

"Certainly you would not," I said. "I should be the very last to suggest it."

"It is a little romance in a small way--I mean her life and her mother's. The father was a French Count, and died in a duel. That shows some French duels are properly carried out. She is awfully rich, and not engaged. At least, she doesn't wear a ring. She likes tall men. Of course that's nothing, but I happen to be fond of small women."

"Merely a coincidence," I said, and he looked rather disappointed.

"We think curiously alike in a good many directions," he continued. "I taught her to play deck quoits, and shot a few things for her with my gun. And she gave me a photograph recently."

"Of herself?" I asked. "Well, no," he admitted, "not exactly that. She takes pictures sometimes in a little pocket camera. She did one of an old negro woman--ugly as sin; but it was not so much the subject as the thought of giving it to me. It argued a friendly feeling--at any rate, a kindly feeling. Don't it strike you so?"

"Undoubtedly it did. You're a lucky man. How far is she going with us?"

"To St. Thomas. She has a temporary address there, by-the-bye. I know that too."

"Go in and win at St. Thomas. I believe it is a certainty for you; I do, indeed."

The Treasure absolutely blushed. He was a very big man indeed, and produced the largest extent of blush I ever saw.

Then my brother came back, looking extremely grave.

"How is she?" we asked simultaneously.

"Very ill," he answered shortly. "She was all right when we started, and never better in her life; but, after dinner, she drank half a wineglass of salt water, and the natural result has been disaster. I understand some fool urged her to try this as a preventive of _mal-de-mer_. Her mother thinks it must have been a coarse practical joke, and is going to speak to the Captain about it. I wouldn't be the man who prescribed that insane dose for a thousand pounds."

Then an expression of abject dismay stole over the Treasure's face as, despite his great size, he appeared to shrivel and curl up into nothing.

[Sidenote: The Rev. Dr. Parker pays a visit.]

My "predicament" was first "awkward," then "foolish." "It was all along of" a woman. I may even say a "woman in white." "I was a pale young curate" then, but of a dissenting type. Twenty-two years of age. Very white in the face. Dark brown hair, enough to fill a mattress. Very high collars, compared with which Mr. Gladstone's are mere suggestions. Huge white neckerchief. Black cloth from top to toe. I was sent to visit an invalid lady somewhere in City Road. A total stranger. Place: A shop. Room: At the tip-top of the house. The last part of the staircase was exceedingly narrow and steep, the stairs themselves little broader than a ladder. Tableau: A lady in bed, the only occupant of the room; a young minister, nearly all head and shirt collar, the rest of him a mere detail; the minister very shy and, as it were, "struck all of a heap" by the novelty of his position. The young minister, nervously shy, sat down, and the woman in white breathed a deep sigh. If my mother could have spoken to me then, it would have been such a comfort. I felt as if up in the clouds and the ladder had been stolen. There was not enough of me to break into perspiration, or I should have broken. I know I should. On this point I will brook no contradiction. There I sat. There were but two of us, and oh! I felt so very high up, and so very far from the police. Even the street noises seemed to be in another world, and that world next but one to this. The silence was painful. At length the young mother, not so very, very young, perhaps, turned her large brown eyes upon me in a fixed and devouring way, and I can tell you what she said. Shall I? Can you bear it? I could not. She said, with malignant slowness, "I feel such a strong desire to kill somebody." I was the only "body" in the room. How that young man got out of the chamber I could never tell. He never revisited it. He was in the City Road as if by magic. Did he pray with the woman? Not a word. Or she might have preyed upon him.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Burgin recalls an incident.]

I remember a couple of incidents, both of which gave me unpleasant dreams for some time. The first was in connection with that noble animal which is so useful to man--when it suits him. I was staying out at the Constantinople fortifications with my friend, Colonel A----, in a delightfully picturesque little Turkish village called Baba Nakatch. We had no drains, no amusements, no post--nothing but an occasional death from typhoid to vary the monotony. When we tired of playing chess, we rode out and inspected fortifications, _i.e._, my friend the Colonel rode into a place with earthworks round it, majestically acknowledged the salutes of the soldiers, and then rode out again. It generally took four or five hours to go the rounds, and I humbly remained outside each fort, only catching distant glimpses of the frowning guns as I sat on an Arab steed at the entrance, and tried to look military. One day, another Colonel, whose horse was pining for that exercise which his somewhat indolent master felt disinclined to give him, suggested that I should ride his grey charger and "take the devil out of him." I couldn't see any devil in the horse when he was brought round. He was apparently calm and sleepy, and tolerated me for about ten minutes. Then, without any warning, the brute swerved round, and bolted back at a mad gallop in the direction of the village. His mouth was like cast-iron, so I soon gave up pulling at it. The gallop was exhilarating. Why trouble to stop? So I simply sat well back, and awaited events. I hadn't to wait very long. We cut round a corner, and dashed up a muddy lane leading to the stables. Ten yards ahead of me, I suddenly noticed a thick telegraph wire stretched across the road, a little higher than a horse's shoulders, which had evidently been diverted from its original uses by an ingenious but unprejudiced Turkish soldiery for the purpose of suspending their washed shirts. Rip! rip! Z--z--z--z! as I ducked to the saddle-bow, and something scraped across my back with a sound as of rending garments. When I was able to reflect, I found the horse standing almost asleep in the yard, with my soldier-servant respectfully holding my stirrup in his hand. "Shall I sew up the back of the Effendi's jacket?" he placidly remarked; and the incident terminated.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Also another.]

On the second occasion, I was badly scared. I reached Montreal one hot summer night before the English steamer started. She was timed to leave at three in the morning, and all passengers had to be on board the night before. It was so hot that I was nearly suffocated in the close harbour. When I went down to my cabin I left the door open, put my purse and watch at the foot of the bed, under the mattress, and tumbled off to sleep. There was no light in the cabin, as the steamer was moored alongside the wharf. When I awoke, I lay quite still for a moment, vaguely conscious of impending evil. I could hear someone breathe in the darkness--stealthy steps--then a hand groping lightly about feeling for my throat. It rested there for a moment. There was a momentary tightening of the fingers. Should I keep still, or make an effort? I kept still, trying to breathe naturally. The fingers left my throat, and fumbled under the pillow as if searching for something, then gradually retreated, the breathing of the man became less distinct, and I was alone. With one bound I reached the door, bolted it, and sat down on the floor in a helpless and chaotic condition. The next day a new steward was missing; so were several other things.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: F. W. Robinson has a predicament.]

Oh, yes, I have had my awkward predicament too--you, gentlemen, have not had it all your own way. It happened in "the dead of the night" at a big hotel in a Lancashire watering-place, and my first notice of the forthcoming event was given to me by a loud hammering at the front door. "Gentleman home late, decidedly noisy, and probably drunk," I soliloquised, and was about to resume my slumbers when someone ran along the corridor outside, his or her naked feet sounding oddly enough as they pattered, at a great rate, past my door. "Somebody ill," was my next thought. "Very ill," was thought number three, as more feet--also in a hurry--went bounding by. "Perhaps a lunatic at large," was my fourth reflection, as various voices sounded in the distance, several of them in a high falsetto. I got out of bed, opened my door, and looked down the corridor towards the big wide staircase in the distance. There was smoke coming along the passage, a smell of burnt wood, and then a woman's voice giving out a bloodcurdling shriek of "Fire!" That was quite enough notice for me. Two minutes afterwards I was downstairs in the hall of that sensational establishment.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: It necessitates unconventional attire.]

I was not alone. I was in a mixed assembly of a hundred men, women, and children, who very quickly became two hundred, presently three hundred, all told; visitors, waiters, chambermaids, hotel officials, huddled together in the most incongruous and comic costumes, and thirty per cent. of them with no costumes at all, unless night-shirts and curl-papers count. I was decorous by comparison. I _had_ on a pair of trousers (buttoned up the wrong way, certainly), a billycock hat, a surtout coat, a walking-stick, and no shoes or socks. The hall, being paved with marble, struck exceedingly cold to bare feet, and with a total disregard for other people's property I took down an ulster from a rack, and stood on it until a gentleman from upstairs, who was singularly distraught, emptied a whole pail of water over the balusters under the impression that we were flaring somewhere below there. The conflagration was on the first floor above a shop, which had caught light to begin with, and burned through to the hotel bedrooms. Here were plenty of smoke, plenty of "smother," and a few flames in the corner, but no one knew what might be the end of the business, and we were all prepared to march on to the breezy Parade should the fire gain too much sway over the premises.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: But is not very serious.]

The characters in this little domestic scene I found highly amusing after my first scare, as I have no doubt I was a very amusing spectacle to others. The most agile of the company tore up and down stairs with utensils of all kinds, full of water, from the kitchen; sometimes they fell up the stairs, or clashed against each other, and an awful mess was the consequence. One lady was brought solemnly down in a large clothes basket, fright having deprived her of the use of her limbs; two men in night-shirts stood against the front door with small portmanteaus under their arms, extremely anxious to be the first to get out alive; one old gentleman, also scantily clad, harangued us from the first landing in a feeble and bleating fashion. "Has any-any-body se-ent for the fiiire brigade?" he asked every two or three minutes, always forgetting that he had been answered in the affirmative. He was sure that the fire brigade had escaped every one's memory but his own, and presently--it _had_ seemed a long while--the firemen in their brass helmets arrived, and brought their hose into the premises and lumbered upstairs with it, and the engines began pumping and thumping in the street. A quarter-of-an-hour finished the proceedings so far as one's personal safety was concerned, and by twos, threes, and fours we slunk away to our respective rooms considerably ashamed now of our get-up, and thankful in our hearts that the worst was over.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Gribble's predicaments have been very common-place.]

Most of my predicaments have been very common-place predicaments, and the ways in which I have got out of them very ordinary and obvious ways. Once, when I was a child in petticoats, I wanted to walk through a tunnel at the same time as an express train, but my nurse ran after me and pulled me back. Once, before I had learnt to swim, I was caught by the tide between Broadstairs and Ramsgate; but some sailors came and took me off in a boat. Once again, I, who cannot claim to be physically robust, was challenged to single combat by a truculent Belgian miner of six foot three, with whom I had refused to drink pecquet; but a steam tram happened to pass opportunely, and I escaped in it. Lastly, there was my Alpine brigand. He, with all his faults, was picturesque.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: With one exception.]

I believe--and I shall be glad to be contradicted if I am mistaken--that I am the only living man who has ever been "stuck up" by a brigand in the middle of a glacier. I had no idea that the man was a brigand until, by behaving as such, he gave himself away; otherwise, I have no doubt I should have risen to the occasion and taken to my heels. As it was, he gave me, as the gods gave Demodocus, "both good and evil." That is to say, he deprived me of my money, leaving me in exchange a new sensation, and something interesting to write about. If I were to generalise about brigands, I should do so thus: Brigands, I should say, are of medium height, slightly but firmly built; they wear mutton-chop whiskers, and are dressed in brown; they carry their luggage--their shaving tackle, I suppose, and their pyjamas--in red and white handkerchiefs slung behind their backs; their appearance is ferocious, and they go about with guns. They spend most of their time sitting on the lateral moraines, pretending to be chamois-hunters. When they see solitary strangers, they come down on to the glacier and accost them without introduction, their usual form of salutation being, _Donnez-moi tout l'argent que vous avez?_ The ideal way to treat a brigand is to arrest him, drag him to the nearest police station, and give him into custody. A more practical plan is to humour him by relieving his necessities, and afterwards to recoup yourself by holding him up to contumely in the press. But you must not expect him to be caught. The Department of Justice and Police will show great energy in sending you his _dossier_ in several languages, so that you may be able to give chapter and verse when you denounce him in print. The Chief of the Department may even invite you to drink an absinthe with him in the Sion Casino. But, as for catching your brigand, that request is much too unreasonable to be seriously entertained.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Frank Mathew tells the truth.]

I can lay no claim to the honesty that has made the other members of this club so eager to expose their most awkward and ludicrous adventures. Why should I publish my least pleasant memories to strangers? That is a task I would leave to my enemies. Besides, whenever I have come to grief, some other fellow has been to blame. When I fell into Hampton Lock, before the eyes of a multitude, it was because that ungainly lout Jones let the boat swing. Jones laughed then, and many times after when he told the story; but why should I help him to spread it? But that is neither here nor there. If I had been always as lucky as the other members of this club, who seem to have remained dignified in their misfortunes, then I might be less reticent. And if I were so unscrupulous as to speak only of things less bitter to remember, then I might tell how on a Bavarian railway I was once waked at midnight by an excited official who--with an air as if life and death hung on my answers--plied me with questions in spite of my explaining to him that I did not even know what language he was talking, and who at last rushed away leaving me doubting whether he was a mad-man or a nightmare; or how I lost my way among the hills by Bologna--at a time when I knew no Italian--and wandered for hours along dusty roads, cursing the ignorance of the natives; or how, dining at Lugano--in the open air and under a vine-covered trellis--I ordered a cheap wine, new to me, "Château-neuf-du-Pape," and was delighted when it was brought to me reverently cradled and in an immemorial bottle, and when it proved to be a wine of wonderful merit, and how my blood turned cold when the waiter gave me the bill, for he had mistaken my order, and I had been drinking Château-something-or-other, a priceless vintage.

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[Sidenote: Alden is not sure which.]

I am not sure what was my most awkward predicament, for the choice lies between a prayer-meeting and Folkestone. This may seem obscure, but it isn't, as you will presently see. My Folkestone experience was as follows:--The baby--I decline to specify whose baby, for the law of England does not compel any man to confess that he is a grandfather--had been ill for a week, and the physician said that we must take her to the seashore instantly. In half-an-hour we had caught a train for Folkestone, which the baby's mother, remembering her sensations when landing from the Boulogne boat after a rough passage, felt sure was "all that there is of the most seashore," as the French idiom has it. It was just about to rain when we reached Folkestone, and, putting the baby and her attendant slaves in a carriage, I told them to drive at once to the private hotel, which we had selected, and I would follow with the luggage. It took some time to pile a mountain of boxes and bundles on the top of the carriage, but, finally, just as the rain began to pour, a self-sacrificing friend who had remained to help got into the cab with me, and we told the driver to go to number 33, such-a-street. It was at the furthest extremity of the town, and when we reached there, after two or three attempts on the part of the top-heavy cab to upset, I was greeted by the information that no such person as the landlady of whom I was in search lived there. What was worse, nobody had ever heard of her, and no cab containing a baby had called at the house that day. Where then was the baby, and its mother, and my wife, and its other slaves? Obviously, they were lost somewhere in the town of Folkestone, and our two cabs might drive up and down for months without ever once meeting one another. I looked at my companion, and he looked at me in silence. No language could do justice to the occasion, and we both recognised the fact. I told the cabman to go to all the hotels in the neighbourhood, and enquire for a missing baby. He explained that there were nothing but hotels and boarding-houses in Folkestone, and that to visit them all would take the greater part of our lives; still, he would try. So we went to at least a dozen different places, and, although twice a sample of the resident babies was brought out for our inspection, we did not find the one for which we were in search. Then the driver, seeing our despair, said that perhaps he had better drive to the pier, and we said that perhaps he had. I think he had a vague idea that we were lunatics, and could possibly be lured on board the Boulogne boat, and so got rid of. But he thought better of it before reaching the pier, and suggested that if we went back to the station, perhaps the stationmaster might help us. So we went back to the station, merely to be told by the stationmaster that he knew nothing about the missing landlady or the missing baby, and didn't want to, either. Once more the driver suggested the pier, and we told him to drive us anywhere. It was now after dark, and being wet and hungry, as well as devoid of wives and babies, we were beginning to be reckless. All at once, a joyful cry sounded from a passing cab. It was the voice of my wife, who was patrolling Folkestone in the hope of meeting us. Our nightmare was over, and in a few more minutes we were clasped in the arms of the baby--or, at any rate, we would have been had she been old enough to learn the use of her arms. To the unmarried man the experience may not seem quite so dreadful as it did to me, but let a married man mislay a valuable baby, not to speak of a wife and daughter, in a strange town on a stormy night, and he will know how near he can come to having a nightmare without preliminary pork and sleep.

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[Sidenote: And tells of a prayer meeting.]

Once, when I was an undergraduate, a prayer-meeting was held in somebody's room, which I attended. I do not recollect what was the occasion of the holding of this meeting, but I do remember that it was a particularly solemn one. There were about thirty of us in the room, and the meeting had been in progress for about half-an-hour, when it suddenly occurred to me that were someone to burst into a laugh, the astonished expression of the others would be something worth seeing. Then I thought how painful would be the feelings of the man who laughed, and how he would be covered with shame and remorse. All at once an irresistible desire to laugh came upon me. There was nothing whatever to laugh at, and the mere idea of laughing in such a place filled me with horror, but still the desire--a purely nervous one, of course--to break out in a peal of laughter grew stronger and stronger. I bit my lips, and tried to think of the most solemn and depressing subjects, but that laugh could not be conjured in any such way; presently I knew that I was smiling--a broad, complacent, luxurious smile. Just then, a man sitting opposite to me saw my smile, and a look of cold horror spread over his face. At this I laughed aloud, in a choking, timorous way, but loudly enough to attract the attention of every one in the room. The mischief was now done, and, in the estimation of my comrades, I was disgraced for ever, as the man ought to be who insults pious people at their prayers. Being ruined, I thought that there was no longer any necessity for prolonging that terrible effort to suppress a laugh, and so I leaned back in my chair and laughed loud, long, and, in fact, uproariously. The meeting came to a sudden pause. The first expression on every face was that of amazed horror, but my laugh was contagious, and presently someone else joined in, and before order was restored the room rang with the laughter of a dozen men. All this time I was in an agony of self-reproach in spite of my laughter. I virtually broke up the meeting, and it was not until the clergyman, who presided, had dismissed us, that I could command myself sufficiently to try to explain to him the purely involuntary nature of my laughter. He was kind enough and intelligent enough to understand the matter, but the greater part of those who heard me believe to this day that I was a bold blasphemer of a peculiarly brutal character. I could never begin to tell what mental suffering the affair caused me, but I can safely say that I was never more miserable than I was at the very moment when I was laughing the most thorough and ecstatic laugh that ever came to me.

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[Sidenote: Zangwill refuseth to be drawn, and runneth amuck.]

I never was in an awkward predicament. I have seen it stated that I once wrote "To be concluded in our next" without having the slightest idea how to extricate my characters from the mess I had got them into, but that is another story. There is not a word of truth in it. An awkward predicament is as unfamiliar to me as a crinoline; I have never been in one. It is absurd, therefore, to ask me what is the _most_ awkward predicament I have ever been in; besides, it is always so invidious to select. I really must refuse to pander to editorial flippancy, and to add myself to the April fools who will scribble seriously upon the subject. I think, if this sort of thing is to take the place of our sensible symposia, it is time the Idlers' Club was abolished. The intrusion of ladies has spoilt everything. Once we sat with our feet on the mantelpiece smoking. (My own cigar was always given me by the artist.) Now we never smoke--Angelina won't permit it. Tea replaces the whiskey of yore, and the horizon is bounded by thin bread and butter. We are expected to stick to one predetermined subject--doubtless for fear we might wander off into the improper--and we are almost encouraged to bring our sewing. No more we enjoy those delightful excursions to everywhere--interrupting one another _apropos des bottes_, and capping an appreciation of Wagner with an anecdote about a mad turtle. Yet this is the only natural style of conversation. Who ever keeps to the point in real life? It is bad enough in examinations for the examiners to ask you about Henry II. when you are anxious to tell them about Elizabeth; or to demand your ideas on the manufacture of hydrochloric acid when the subject nearest your heart is the composition of ammonia. But conversation will not bear such inquisitorial pinning down to a particular point. It becomes a dead specimen butterfly instead of a living, fluttering creature. I think someone ought to tell the editors that they are simply ruining the club. I shudder to think what will become of it in five years' time, when nobody will belong to it but ladies and parsons. I would resign at once if it were not for sheer generosity. The generosity of the editors is, indeed, beyond all cavil. But even their generosity has its limits. It is as certain as quarter-day that if I do not fill my allotted space I shall not get paid. And yet, in the absence of any experience of the requisite nature, it is quite impossible for me to say one word on the subject I have been asked to talk about. I don't wish to tell a lie or to throw away money, but it looks as if I must do one or the other. Really, it's the most awkward predicament I was ever in.