2
At this point we will ask our Mr. Alfred Jingle to oblige again.
“Tell you what,” he said to his artist friend. “I was wrong about Sharper again. I thought he’d reached the limit of human mess and martyrdom. He hadn’t. He’d not got within a street of it. He’s there now. Right up to the limit and leaning over the edge.
“Down at Brighton this week-end with my old missus. Sitting out on the pier. Sunday morning. Listening to the band. Overture to ‘William Tell.’ Always is. Whenever I strike a band, it’s ‘William Tell’ or ‘Zampa.’ Every time.
“Suddenly the missus says to me, ‘Who’s that old chap over there with a face like a turnip?’
“I looked up. It was Luke Sharper. Looking ghastly. His hair was grey. His face was grey. Even his flannel trousers were grey. All grey and worn. I don’t mean the trousers particularly. General effect, you know. Ears drooping down with no life or motion in them. I went up to him and asked him what brought him down to Brighton.
“‘Go away,’ he said. ‘I’m a leper. I’m an outcast. I’m a pariah dog. Go before I bring misery on you.’
“I told him I’d chance it, and asked him again what he was doing at Brighton.
“‘I’ve eloped,’ he said.
“‘With whom?’ I asked.
“‘Nobody. She never turned up. That’s not my fault. In the sight of Heaven we are all equal, and I’m an eloper. I’m a faithless hound. That’s not all, Jingle. They’ve thrown me out of the business. And that’s not all. I bought four packets of oxalic acid. I’ve put them down where Mabel is bound to see them. There’s one on her pillow, one on the clock, one on the piano, and one on the mantelpiece. You see? I’m a murderer. Mabel will take the hint, and will commit suicide. That will upset Dot and Dash, and they will commit suicide too. I only hope the man who spilt whitewash over my bookcase will commit suicide as well. Don’t come and see me in the condemned cell. I don’t want to see anybody any more. That’s why I’m sitting on Brighton pier on a warm Sunday morning.’
“‘You’ve got this wrong, Sharper,’ I said. ‘I know your wife. She won’t commit suicide because you’ve gone. She possibly might have done it if you had stopped. So your maids won’t be upset, and they won’t commit suicide either. And the painter’s man who spilt the whitewash over your books will be enjoying the joke over his Sunday dinner. You’re no good at the leper-and-pariah business. Come over and be introduced to my missus.’
“‘What you say might be true if I were a real man, but I have horrible doubts. I don’t feel like a real man.’
“‘Come off it,’ I said. ‘What do you feel like, then?’
“‘I feel like a lot of tripe out of some damn-silly book.’
“Well, I took him over to the missus, and she got on the buzz. She’s an energetic talkist. He never got time to say he was a leper once. Then some pals of hers came up to talk to her, and he and I escaped. I asked him what he was going to do. He said he was going back to Halfpenny Hole directly, in order to save the coroner’s officer the trouble of fetching him. Then he asked me to have a drink. We had three each. He rushed off to the station, and left me to pay. A man in that state is not fit to be alone. And it’s not too safe for anybody who happens to be with him. I let him go.”