II.—The Equalizer
My friend was talking about the difficulty of getting level with life: with the people who charge too much, and with bad management generally; the subject having been started by a long wait outside the junction, which made our train half an hour late.
“How,” my friend had said, “are we ever going to get back the value of this half-hour? My time is worth two guineas an hour; and I have now lost a guinea. How am I to be recouped? The railway company takes my money for a train which they say will do the journey between 11.15 and 12.6, and I make my plans accordingly. It does not get in till 12.36, and all my plans are thrown out. Is it fair that I am not recompensed? Of course not. They have robbed me. How am I to get equal with them?”
So he rattled on, and the little cunning eyes opposite us became more cunning and glittering.
After my friend had left, the little man spoke to me.
“Why didn’t he take something?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” I said.
“Something from the carriage, to help to make up?” he said. “The window strap for a strop, for instance? It’s not worth a guinea, of course, but it’s something, and it would annoy the company.”
“But he wasn’t as serious as that,” I said.
“Oh, he’s one of them that talks but doesn’t act. I’ve no patience with them. I always get some, if not all, of my money back.”
“How?” I asked.
“Well, suppose it’s a restaurant, where I have to wait a long time and then get only poor food. I calculate to what extent I’ve been swindled and act accordingly. A spoon or two, or possibly a knife, will make it right. I am scrupulously honest about it.” He drew himself up proudly.
“If it’s a theatre,” he went on, “and I consider my time has been wasted, I take the opera-glasses home with me. You know those in the sixpenny boxes; I’ve got opera-glasses at home from nearly every theatre in London.”
“No!” I said.
“Really,” he replied, “I’m not joking. I never joke. You tell your friend when you see him next. Perhaps it will make him more reasonable.”