CHAPTER VI.
SHOWING HOW THE KING ENRICHED THE SYNAGOGUE.
The Synagogue of the Gates of Heaven was crowded—members, orphan boys, Schnorrers, all were met in celebration of the Sabbath. But the President of the Mahamad was missing. He was still inconvenienced by the effects of his stroke, and deemed it most prudent to pray at home. The Council of Five had not met since Manasseh had dissolved it, and so the matter of his daughter's marriage was left hanging, as indeed was not seldom the posture of matters discussed by Sephardic bodies. The authorities thus passive, Manasseh found scant difficulty in imposing his will upon the minor officers, less ready than himself with constitutional precedent. His daughter was to be married under the Sephardic canopy, and no jot of synagogual honour was to be bated the bridegroom. On this Sabbath—the last before the wedding—Yankelé was to be called to the Reading of the Law like a true-born Portuguese. He made his first appearance in the Synagogue of his bride's fathers with a feeling of solemn respect, not exactly due to Manasseh's grandiose references to the ancient temple. He had walked the courtyard with levity, half prepared, from previous experience of his intended father-in-law, to find the glories insubstantial. Their unexpected actuality awed him, and he was glad he was dressed in his best. His beaver hat, green trousers, and brown coat equalled him with the massive pillars, the gleaming candelabra, and the stately roof. Da Costa, for his part, had made no change in his attire; he dignified his shabby vestments, stuffing them with royal manhood, and wearing his snuff-coloured over-garment like a purple robe. There was, in sooth, an official air about his habiliment, and to the worshippers it was as impressively familiar as the black stole and white bands of the Cantor. It seemed only natural that he should be called to the Reading first, quite apart from the fact that he was a Cohen, of the family of Aaron, the High Priest, a descent that, perhaps, lent something to the loftiness of his carriage.
When the Minister intoned vigorously, "The good name, Manasseh, the son of Judah, the Priest, the man, shall arise to read in the Law," every eye was turned with a new interest on the prospective father-in-law. Manasseh arose composedly, and, hitching his sliding prayer-shawl over his left shoulder, stalked to the reading platform, where he chanted the blessings with imposing flourishes, and stood at the Minister's right hand while his section of the Law was read from the sacred scroll. There was many a man of figure in the congregation, but none who became the platform better. It was beautiful to see him pay his respects to the scroll; it reminded one of the meeting of two sovereigns. The great moment, however, was when, the section being concluded, the Master Reader announced Manasseh's donations to the Synagogue. The financial statement was incorporated in a long Benediction, like a coin wrapped up in folds of paper. This was always a great moment, even when inconsiderable personalities were concerned, each man's generosity being the subject of speculation before and comment after. Manasseh, it was felt, would, although a mere Schnorrer, rise to the height of the occasion, and offer as much as seven and sixpence. The shrewder sort suspected he would split it up into two or three separate offerings, to give an air of inexhaustible largess.
The shrewder sort were right and wrong, as is their habit.
The Master Reader began his quaint formula, "May He who blessed our Fathers," pausing at the point where the Hebrew is blank for the amount. He span out the prefatory "Who vows"—the last note prolonging itself, like the vibration of a tuning-fork, at a literal pitch of suspense. It was a sensational halt, due to his forgetting the amounts or demanding corroboration at the eleventh hour, and the stingy often recklessly amended their contributions, panic-struck under the pressure of imminent publicity.
"Who vows—" The congregation hung upon his lips. With his usual gesture of interrogation, he inclined his ear towards Manasseh's mouth, his face wearing an unusual look of perplexity; and those nearest the platform were aware of a little colloquy between the Schnorrer and the Master Reader, the latter bewildered and agitated, the former stately. The delay had discomposed the Master as much as it had whetted the curiosity of the congregation. He repeated:
"Who vows—cinco livras"—he went on glibly without a pause—"for charity—for the life of Yankov ben Yitzchok, his son-in-law, &c., &c." But few of the worshippers heard any more than the cinco livras (five pounds). A thrill ran through the building. Men pricked up their ears, incredulous, whispering one another. One man deliberately moved from his place towards the box in which sat the Chief of the Elders, the presiding dignitary in the absence of the President of the Mahamad.
"I didn't catch—how much was that?" he asked.
"'I DIDN'T CATCH.'"
"Five pounds," said the Chief of the Elders shortly. He suspected an irreverent irony in the Beggar's contribution.
The Benediction came to an end, but ere the hearers had time to realise the fact, the Master Reader had started on another. "May He who blessed our fathers!" he began, in the strange traditional recitative. The wave of curiosity mounted again, higher than before.
"Who vows—"
The wave hung an instant, poised and motionless.
"Cinco livras!"
The wave broke in a low murmur, amid which the Master imperturbably proceeded, "For oil—for the life of his daughter Deborah, &c." When he reached the end there was a poignant silence.
Was it to be da capo again?
"May He who blessed our fathers!"
The wave of curiosity surged once more, rising and subsiding with this ebb and flow of financial Benediction.
"Who vows—cinco livras—for the wax candles."
This time the thrill, the whisper, the flutter, swelled into a positive buzz. The gaze of the entire congregation was focussed upon the Beggar, who stood impassive in the blaze of glory. Even the orphan boys, packed in their pew, paused in their inattention to the Service, and craned their necks towards the platform. The veriest magnates did not thus play piety with five pound points. In the ladies' gallery the excitement was intense. The occupants gazed eagerly through the grille. One woman—a buxom dame of forty summers, richly clad and jewelled—had risen, and was tiptoeing frantically over the woodwork, her feather waving like a signal of distress. It was Manasseh's wife. The waste of money maddened her, each donation hit her like a poisoned arrow; in vain she strove to catch her spouse's eye. The air seemed full of gowns and toques and farthingales flaming away under her very nose, without her being able to move hand or foot in rescue; whole wardrobes perished at each Benediction. It was with the utmost difficulty she restrained herself from shouting down to her prodigal lord. At her side the radiant Deborah vainly tried to pacify her by assurances that Manasseh never intended to pay up.
"SHE STROVE TO CATCH HER SPOUSE'S EYE."
"Who vows—" The Benediction had begun for a fourth time.
"Cinco livras for the Holy Land." And the sensation grew. "For the life of this holy congregation, &c."
The Master Reader's voice droned on impassively, interminably.
The fourth Benediction was drawing to its close, when the beadle was seen to mount the platform and whisper in his ear. Only Manasseh overheard the message.
"The Chief of the Elders says you must stop. This is mere mockery. The man is a Schnorrer, an impudent beggar."
The beadle descended the steps, and after a moment of inaudible discussion with da Costa, the Master Reader lifted up his voice afresh.
The Chief of the Elders frowned and clenched his praying-shawl angrily. It was a fifth Benediction! But the Reader's sing-song went on, for Manasseh's wrath was nearer than the magnate's.
"Who vows—cinco livras—for the Captives—for the life of the Chief of the Elders!"
The Chief bit his lip furiously at this delicate revenge; galled almost to frenzy by the aggravating foreboding that the congregation would construe his message as a solicitation of the polite attention. For it was of the amenities of the Synagogue for rich people to present these Benedictions to one another. And so the endless stream of donatives flowed on, provoking the hearers to fever pitch. The very orphan boys forgot that this prolongation of the service was retarding their breakfasts indefinitely. Every warden, dignitary and official, from the President of the Mahamad down to the very Keeper of the Bath, was honoured by name in a special Benediction, the chief of Manasseh's weekly patrons were repaid almost in kind on this unique and festive occasion. Most of the congregation kept count of the sum total, which was mounting, mounting....
Suddenly there was a confusion in the ladies' gallery, cries, a babble of tongues. The beadle hastened upstairs to impose his authority. The rumour circulated that Mrs. da Costa had fainted and been carried out. It reached Manasseh's ears, but he did not move. He stood at his post, unfaltering, donating, blessing.
"MRS. DA COSTA HAD FAINTED."
"Who vows—cinco livras—for the life of his wife, Sarah!" And a faint sardonic smile flitted across the Beggar's face.
The oldest worshipper wondered if the record would be broken. Manasseh's benefactions were approaching thrillingly near the highest total hitherto reached by any one man upon any one occasion. Every brain was troubled by surmises. The Chief of the Elders, fuming impotently, was not alone in apprehending a blasphemous mockery; but the bulk imagined that the Schnorrer had come into property or had always been a man of substance, and was now taking this means of restoring to the Synagogue the funds he had drawn from it. And the fountain of Benevolence played on.
The record figure was reached and left in the rear. When at length the poor Master Reader, sick unto death of the oft-repeated formula (which might just as well have covered all the contributions the first time, though Manasseh had commanded each new Benediction as if by an after-thought), was allowed to summon the Levite who succeeded Manasseh, the Synagogue had been enriched by a hundred pounds. The last Benediction had been coupled with the name of the poorest Schnorrer present—an assertion and glorification of Manasseh's own order that put the coping-stone on this sensational memorial of the Royal Wedding. It was, indeed, a kingly munificence, a sovereign graciousness. Nay, before the Service was over, Manasseh even begged the Chief of the Elders to permit a special Rogation to be said for a sick person. The Chief, meanly snatching at this opportunity of reprisals, refused, till, learning that Manasseh alluded to the ailing President of the Mahamad, he collapsed ingloriously.
But the real hero of the day was Yankelé, who shone chiefly by reflected light, but yet shone even more brilliantly than the Spaniard, for to him was added the double lustre of the bridegroom and the stranger, and he was the cause and centre of the sensation.
His eyes twinkled continuously throughout.
The next day, Manasseh fared forth to collect the hundred pounds!
The day being Sunday, he looked to find most of his clients at home. He took Grobstock first as being nearest, but the worthy speculator and East India Director espied him from an upper window, and escaped by a back-door into Goodman's Fields—a prudent measure, seeing that the incredulous Manasseh ransacked the house in quest of him. Manasseh's manner was always a search-warrant.
The King consoled himself by paying his next visit to a personage who could not possibly evade him—none other than the sick President of the Mahamad. He lived in Devonshire Square, in solitary splendour. Him Manasseh bearded in his library, where the convalescent was sorting his collection of prints. The visitor had had himself announced as a gentleman on synagogual matters, and the public-spirited President had not refused himself to the business. But when he caught sight of Manasseh, his puffy features were distorted, he breathed painfully, and put his hand to his hip.
"SORTING HIS COLLECTION OF PRINTS."
"You!" he gasped.
"Have a care, my dear sir! Have a care!" said Manasseh anxiously, as he seated himself. "You are still weak. To come to the point—for I would not care to distract too much a man indispensable to the community, who has already felt the hand of the Almighty for his treatment of the poor—"
He saw that his words were having effect, for these prosperous pillars of the Synagogue were mightily superstitious under affliction, and he proceeded in gentler tones. "To come to the point, it is my duty to inform you (for I am the only man who is certain of it) that while you have been away our Synagogue has made a bad debt!"
"A bad debt!" An angry light leapt into the President's eyes. There had been an ancient practice of lending out the funds to members, and the President had always set his face against the survival of the policy. "It would not have been made had I been there!" he cried.
"No, indeed," admitted Manasseh. "You would have stopped it in its early stages. The Chief of the Elders tried, but failed."
"The dolt!" cried the President. "A man without a backbone. How much is it?"
"A hundred pounds!"
"A hundred pounds!" echoed the President, seriously concerned at this blot upon his year of office. "And who is the debtor?"
"I am."
"You! You have borrowed a hundred pounds, you—you jackanapes!"
"Silence, sir! How dare you? I should leave this apartment at once, were it not that I cannot go without your apology. Never in my life have I borrowed a hundred pounds—nay, never have I borrowed one farthing. I am no borrower. If you are a gentleman, you will apologise!"
"I am sorry if I misunderstood," murmured the poor President, "but how, then, do you owe the money?"
"How, then?" repeated Manasseh impatiently. "Cannot you understand that I have donated it to the Synagogue?"
The President stared at him open-mouthed.
"I vowed it yesterday in celebration of my daughter's marriage."
The President let a sigh of relief pass through his open mouth. He was even amused a little.
"Oh, is that all? It was like your deuced effrontery; but still, the Synagogue doesn't lose anything. There's no harm done."
"What is that you say?" enquired Manasseh sternly. "Do you mean to say I am not to pay this money?"
"How can you?"
"How can I? I come to you and others like you to pay it for me."
"Nonsense! Nonsense!" said the President, beginning to lose his temper again. "We'll let it pass. There's no harm done."
"And this is the President of the Mahamad!" soliloquised the Schnorrer in bitter astonishment. "This is the chief of our ancient, godly Council! What, sir! Do you hold words spoken solemnly in Synagogue of no account? Would you have me break my solemn vow? Do you wish to bring the Synagogue institutions into contempt? Do you—a man already once stricken by Heaven—invite its chastisement again?"
The President had grown pale—his brain was reeling.
"Nay, ask its forgiveness, sir," went on the King implacably; "and make good this debt of mine in token of your remorse, as it is written, 'And repentance, and prayer, and charity avert the evil decree.'"
"Not a penny!" cried the President, with a last gleam of lucidity, and strode furiously towards the bell-pull. Then he stood still in sudden recollection of a similar scene in the Council Chamber.
"You need not trouble to ring for a stroke," said Manasseh grimly. "Then the Synagogue is to be profaned, then even the Benediction which I in all loyalty and forgiveness caused to be said for the recovery of the President of the Mahamad is to be null, a mockery in the sight of the Holy One, blessed be He!"
The President tottered into his reading-chair.
"How much did you vow on my behalf?"
"Five pounds."
The President precipitately drew out a pocket-book and extracted a crisp Bank of England note.
"Give it to the Chancellor," he breathed, exhausted.
"I am punished," quoth Manasseh plaintively as he placed it in his bosom. "I should have vowed ten for you." And he bowed himself out.
In like manner did he collect other contributions that day from Sephardic celebrities, pointing out that now a foreign Jew—Yankelé to wit—had been admitted to their communion, it behoved them to show themselves at their best. What a bad effect it would have on Yankelé if a Sephardi was seen to vow with impunity! First impressions were everything, and they could not be too careful. It would not do for Yankelé to circulate contumelious reports of them among his kin. Those who remonstrated with him over his extravagance he reminded that he had only one daughter, and he drew their attention to the favourable influence his example had had on the Saturday receipts. Not a man of those who came after him in the Reading had ventured to offer half-crowns. He had fixed the standard in gold for that day at least, and who knew what noble emulation he had fired for the future?
Every man who yielded to Manasseh's eloquence was a step to reach the next, for Manasseh made a list of donors, and paraded it reproachfully before those who had yet to give. Withal, the most obstinate resistance met him in some quarters. One man—a certain Rodriques, inhabiting a mansion in Finsbury Circus—was positively rude.
"If I came in a carriage, you'd soon pull out your ten-pound note for the Synagogue," sneered Manasseh, his blood boiling.
"Certainly I would," admitted Rodriques laughing. And Manasseh shook off the dust of his threshold in disdain.
By reason of such rebuffs, his collection for the day only reached about thirty pounds, inclusive of the value of some depreciated Portuguese bonds which he good-naturedly accepted as though at par.
Disgusted with the meanness of mankind, da Costa's genius devised more drastic measures. Having carefully locked up the proceeds of Sunday's operations, and, indeed, nearly all his loose cash, in his safe, for, to avoid being put to expense, he rarely carried money on his person, unless he gathered it en route, he took his way to Bishopsgate Within, to catch the stage for Clapton. The day was bright, and he hummed a festive Synagogue tune as he plodded leisurely with his stick along the bustling, narrow pavements, bordered by costers' barrows at one edge, and by jagged houses, overhung by grotesque signboards, at the other, and thronged by cits in worsted hose.
But when he arrived at the inn he found the coach had started. Nothing concerned, he ordered a post-chaise in a supercilious manner, criticising the horses, and drove to Clapton in style, drawn by a pair of spanking steeds, to the music of the postillion's horn. Very soon they drew out of the blocked roads, with their lumbering procession of carts, coaches, and chairs, and into open country, green with the fresh verdure of the spring. The chaise stopped at "The Red Cottage," a pretty villa, whose façade was covered with Virginian creeper that blushed in the autumn. Manasseh was surprised at the taste with which the lawn was laid out in the Italian style, with grottoes and marble figures. The householder, hearing the windings of the horn, conceived himself visited by a person of quality, and sent a message that he was in the hands of his hairdresser, but would be down in less than half an hour. This was of a piece with Manasseh's information concerning the man—a certain Belasco, emulous of the great fops, an amateur of satin waistcoats and novel shoestrings, and even said to affect a spying-glass when he showed at Vauxhall. Manasseh had never seen him, not having troubled to go so far afield, but from the handsome appurtenances of the hall and the staircase he augured the best. The apartments were even more to his liking; they were oak panelled, and crammed with the most expensive objects of art and luxury. The walls of the drawing-room were frescoed, and from the ceiling depended a brilliant lustre, with seven spouts for illumination.
Having sufficiently examined the furniture, Manasseh grew weary of waiting, and betook himself to Belasco's bedchamber.
"You will excuse me, Mr. Belasco," he said, as he entered through the half open door, "but my business is urgent."
The young dandy, who was seated before a mirror, did not look up, but replied, "Have a care, sir, you well nigh startled my hairdresser."
"Far be it from me to willingly discompose an artist," replied Manasseh drily, "though from the elegance of the design, I venture to think my interruption will not make a hair's-breadth of difference. But I come on a matter which the son of Benjamin Belasco will hardly deny is more pressing than his toilette."
"Nay, nay, sir, what can be more momentous?"
"The Synagogue!" said Manasseh austerely.
"Pah! What are you talking of, sir?" and he looked up cautiously for the first time at the picturesque figure. "What does the Synagogue want of me? I pay my finta and every bill the rascals send me. Monstrous fine sums, too, egad—"
"But you never go there!"
"No, indeed, a man of fashion cannot be everywhere. Routs and rigotti play the deuce with one's time."
"What a pity!" mused Manasseh ironically. "One misses you there. 'Tis no edifying spectacle—a slovenly rabble with none to set the standard of taste."
The pale-faced beau's eyes lit up with a gleam of interest.
"Ah, the clods!" he said. "You should yourself be a buck of the eccentric school by your dress. But I stick to the old tradition of elegance."
"You had better stick to the old tradition of piety," quoth Manasseh. "Your father was a saint, you are a sinner in Israel. Return to the Synagogue, and herald your return by contributing to its finances. It has made a bad debt, and I am collecting money to reimburse it."
The young exquisite yawned. "I know not who you may be," he said at length, "but you are evidently not one of us. As for the Synagogue I am willing to reform its dress, but dem'd if I will give a shilling more to its finances. Let your slovenly rabble of tradesmen pay the piper—I cannot afford it!"
"You cannot afford it!"
"No—you see I have such extravagant tastes."
"But I give you the opportunity for extravagance," expostulated Manasseh. "What greater luxury is there than that of doing good?"
"Confound it, sir, I must ask you to go," said Beau Belasco coldly. "Do you not perceive that you are disconcerting my hairdresser?"
"I could not abide a moment longer under this profane, if tasteful, roof," said Manasseh, backing sternly towards the door. "But I would make one last appeal to you, for the sake of the repose of your father's soul, to forsake your evil ways."
"Be hanged to you for a meddler," retorted the young blood. "My money supports men of genius and taste—it shall not be frittered away on a pack of fusty shopkeepers."
The Schnorrer drew himself up to his full height, his eyes darted fire. "Farewell, then!" he hissed in terrible tones. "You will make the third at Grace!"
"'FAREWELL!' HE HISSED."
He vanished—the dandy started up full of vague alarm, forgetting even his hair in the mysterious menace of that terrifying sibilation.
"What do you mean?" he cried.
"I mean," said Manasseh, reappearing at the door, "that since the world was created, only two men have taken their clothes with them to the world to come. One was Korah, who was swallowed down, the other was Elijah, who was borne aloft. It is patent in which direction the third will go."
The sleeping chord of superstition vibrated under Manasseh's dexterous touch.
"Rejoice, O young man, in your strength," went on the Beggar, "but a day will come when only the corpse-watchers will perform your toilette. In plain white they will dress you, and the devil shall never know what a dandy you were."
"But who are you, that I should give you money for the Synagogue?" asked the Beau sullenly. "Where are your credentials?"
"Was it to insult me that you called me back? Do I look a knave? Nay, put up your purse. I'll have none of your filthy gold. Let me go."
Gradually Manasseh was won round to accepting ten sovereigns.
"For your father's sake," he said, pocketing them. "The only thing I will take for your sake is the cost of my conveyance. I had to post hither, and the Synagogue must not be the loser."
Beau Belasco gladly added the extra money, and reseated himself before the mirror, with agreeable sensations in his neglected conscience. "You see," he observed, half apologetically, for Manasseh still lingered, "one cannot do everything. To be a prince of dandies, one needs all one's time." He waved his hand comprehensively around the walls which were lined with wardrobes. "My buckskin breeches were the result of nine separate measurings. Do you note how they fit?"
"They scarcely do justice to your eminent reputation," replied Manasseh candidly.
Beau Belasco's face became whiter than even at the thought of earthquakes and devils. "They fit me to bursting!" he breathed.
"But are they in the pink of fashion?" queried Manasseh. "And assuredly the nankeen pantaloons yonder I recollect to have seen worn last year."
"My tailor said they were of a special cut—'tis a shape I am introducing, baggy—to go with frilled shirts."
Manasseh shook his head sceptically, whereupon the Beau besought him to go through his wardrobe, and set aside anything that lacked originality or extreme fashionableness. After considerable reluctance Manasseh consented, and set aside a few cravats, shirts, periwigs, and suits from the immense collection.
"Aha! That is all you can find," said the Beau gleefully.
"Yes, that is all," said Manasseh sadly. "All I can find that does any justice to your fame. These speak the man of polish and invention; the rest are but tawdry frippery. Anybody might wear them."
"Anybody!" gasped the poor Beau, stricken to the soul.
"Yes, I might wear them myself."
"Thank you! Thank you! You are an honest man. I love true criticism, when the critic has nothing to gain. I am delighted you called. These rags shall go to my valet."
"Nay, why waste them on the heathen?" asked Manasseh, struck with a sudden thought. "Let me dispose of them for the benefit of the Synagogue."
"If it would not be troubling you too much!"
"Is there anything I would not do for Heaven?" said Manasseh with a patronising air. He threw open the door of the adjoining piece suddenly, disclosing the scowling valet on his knees. "Take these down, my man," he said quietly, and the valet was only too glad to hide his confusion at being caught eavesdropping by hastening down to the drive with an armful of satin waistcoats.
"THE SCOWLING VALET ON HIS KNEES."
Manasseh, getting together the remainder, shook his head despairingly. "I shall never get these into the post-chaise," he said. "You will have to lend me your carriage."
"Can't you come back for them?" said the Beau feebly.
"Why waste the Synagogue's money on hired vehicles? No, if you will crown your kindness by sending the footman along with me to help me unpack them, you shall have your equipage back in an hour or two."
So the carriage and pair were brought out, and Manasseh, pressing into his service the coachman, the valet, and the footman, superintended the packing of the bulk of Beau Belasco's wardrobe into the two vehicles. Then he took his seat in the carriage, the coachman and the gorgeous powdered footman got into their places, and with a joyous fanfaronade on the horn, the procession set off, Manasseh bowing graciously to the master of "The Red House," who was waving his beruffled hand from a window embowered in greenery. After a pleasant drive, the vehicles halted at the house, guarded by stone lions, in which dwelt Nathaniel Furtado, the wealthy private dealer, who willingly gave fifteen pounds for the buck's belaced and embroidered vestments, besides being inveigled into a donation of a guinea towards the Synagogue's bad debt. Manasseh thereupon dismissed the chaise with a handsome gratuity, and drove in state in the now-empty carriage, attended by the powdered footman, to Finsbury Circus, to the mansion of Rodriques. "I have come for my ten pounds," he said, and reminded him of his promise (?). Rodriques laughed, and swore, and laughed again, and swore that the carriage was hired, to be paid for out of the ten pounds.
"DROVE IN STATE."
"Hired?" echoed Manasseh resentfully. "Do you not recognise the arms of my friend, Beau Belasco?" And he presently drove off with the note, for Rodriques had a roguish eye. And then, parting with the chariot, the King took his way on foot to Fenchurch Street, to the house of his cousin Barzillai, the ex-planter of Barbadoes, and now a West Indian merchant.
Barzillai, fearing humiliation before his clerks, always carried his relative off to the neighbouring Franco's Head Tavern, and humoured him with costly liquors.
"But you had no right to donate money you did not possess; it was dishonest," he cried with irrepressible ire.
"Hoity toity!" said Manasseh, setting down his glass so vehemently that the stem shivered. "And were you not called to the Law after me? And did you not donate money?"
"Certainly! But I had the money."
"What! With you?"
"No, no, certainly not. I do not carry money on the Sabbath."
"Exactly. Neither do I."
"But the money was at my bankers'."
"And so it was at mine. You are my bankers, you and others like you. You draw on your bankers—I draw on mine." And his cousin being thus confuted, Manasseh had not much further difficulty in wheedling two pounds ten out of him.
"And now," said he, "I really think you ought to do something to lessen the Synagogue's loss."
"But I have just given!" quoth Barzillai in bewilderment.
"That you gave to me as your cousin, to enable your relative to discharge his obligations. I put it strictly on a personal footing. But now I am pleading on behalf of the Synagogue, which stands to lose heavily. You are a Sephardi as well as my cousin. It is a distinction not unlike the one I have so often to explain to you. You owe me charity, not only as a cousin, but as a Schnorrer likewise." And, having wrested another guinea from the obfuscated merchant, he repaired to Grobstock's business office in search of the defaulter.
But the wily Grobstock, forewarned by Manasseh's promise to visit him, and further frightened by his Sunday morning call, had denied himself to the Schnorrer or anyone remotely resembling him, and it was not till the afternoon that Manasseh ran him to earth at Sampson's coffee-house in Exchange Alley, where the brokers foregathered, and 'prentices and students swaggered in to abuse the Ministers, and all kinds of men from bloods to barristers loitered to pick up hints to easy riches. Manasseh detected his quarry in the furthermost box, his face hidden behind a broadsheet.
"HIS FACE HIDDEN BEHIND A BROADSHEET."
"Why do you always come to me?" muttered the East India Director helplessly.
"Eh?" said Manasseh, mistrustful of his own ears. "I beg your pardon."
"If your own community cannot support you," said Grobstock, more loudly, and with all the boldness of an animal driven to bay, "why not go to Abraham Goldsmid, or his brother Ben, or to Van Oven, or Oppenheim—they're all more prosperous than I."
"Sir!" said Manasseh wrathfully. "You are a skilful—nay, a famous, financier. You know what stocks to buy, what stocks to sell, when to follow a rise, and when a fall. When the Premier advertises the loans, a thousand speculators look to you for guidance. What would you say if I presumed to interfere in your financial affairs—if I told you to issue these shares or to call in those? You would tell me to mind my own business; and you would be perfectly right. Now Schnorring is my business. Trust me, I know best whom to come to. You stick to stocks and leave Schnorring alone. You are the King of Financiers, but I am the King of Schnorrers."
Grobstock's resentment at the rejoinder was mitigated by the compliment to his financial insight. To be put on the same level with the Beggar was indeed unexpected.
"Will you have a cup of coffee?" he said.
"I ought scarcely to drink with you after your reception of me," replied Manasseh unappeased. "It is not even as if I came to schnorr for myself; it is to the finances of our house of worship that I wished to give you an opportunity of contributing."
"Aha! your vaunted community hard up?" queried Joseph, with a complacent twinkle.
"Sir! We are the richest congregation in the world. We want nothing from anybody," indignantly protested Manasseh, as he absent-mindedly took the cup of coffee which Grobstock had ordered for him. "The difficulty merely is that, in honour of my daughter's wedding, I have donated a hundred pounds to the Synagogue which I have not yet managed to collect, although I have already devoted a day-and-a-half of my valuable time to the purpose."
"But why do you come to me?"
"What! Do you ask me that again?"
"I—I—mean," stammered Grobstock—"why should I contribute to a Portuguese Synagogue?"
Manasseh clucked his tongue in despair of such stupidity. "It is just you who should contribute more than any Portuguese."
"I?" Grobstock wondered if he was awake.
"Yes, you. Was not the money spent in honour of the marriage of a German Jew? It was a splendid vindication of your community."
"This is too much!" cried Grobstock, outraged and choking.
"Too much to mark the admission to our fold of the first of your sect! I am disappointed in you, deeply disappointed. I thought you would have applauded my generous behaviour."
"I don't care what you thought!" gasped Grobstock. He was genuinely exasperated at the ridiculousness of the demand, but he was also pleased to find himself preserving so staunch a front against the insidious Schnorrer. If he could only keep firm now, he told himself, he might emancipate himself for ever. Yes, he would be strong, and Manasseh should never dare address him again. "I won't pay a stiver," he roared.
"If you make a scene I will withdraw," said Manasseh quietly. "Already there are ears and eyes turned upon you. From your language people will be thinking me a dun and you a bankrupt."
"They can go to the devil!" thundered Grobstock, "and you too!"
"Blasphemer! You counsel me to ask the devil to contribute to the Synagogue! I will not bandy words with you. You refuse, then, to contribute to this fund?"
"I do, I see no reason."
"Not even the five pounds I vowed on behalf of Yankelé himself—one of your own people?"
"What! I pay in honour of Yankelé—a dirty Schnorrer!"
"Is this the way you speak of your guests?" said Manasseh, in pained astonishment. "Do you forget that Yankelé has broken bread at your table? Perhaps this is how you talk of me when my back is turned. But, beware! Remember the saying of our sages, 'You and I cannot live in the world,' said God to the haughty man. Come, now! No more paltering or taking refuge in abuse. You refuse me this beggarly five pounds?"
"Most decidedly."
"Very well, then!"
Manasseh called the attendant.
"What are you about to do?" cried Grobstock apprehensively.
"You shall see," said Manasseh resolutely, and when the attendant came, he pressed the price of his cup of coffee into his hand.
Grobstock flushed in silent humiliation. Manasseh rose.
Grobstock's fatal strain of weakness gave him a twinge of compunction at the eleventh hour.
"You see for yourself how unreasonable your request was," he murmured.
"Do not strive to justify yourself, I am done with you," said Manasseh. "I am done with you as a philanthropist. For the future you may besnuff and bespatter your coat as much as you please, for all the trouble I shall ever take. As a financier, I still respect you, and may yet come to you, but as a philanthropist, never."
"Anything I can do—" muttered Grobstock vaguely.
"Let me see!" said Manasseh, looking down upon him thoughtfully. "Ah, yes, an idea! I have collected over sixty pounds. If you would invest this for me—"
"Certainly, certainly," interrupted Grobstock, with conciliatory eagerness.
"Good! With your unrivalled knowledge of the markets, you could easily bring it up to the necessary sum in a day or two. Perhaps even there is some grand coup on the tapis, something to be bulled or beared in which you have a hand."
Grobstock nodded his head vaguely. He had already remembered that the proceeding was considerably below his dignity; he was not a stockbroker, never had he done anything of the kind for anyone.
"But suppose I lose it all?" he asked, trying to draw back.
"Impossible," said the Schnorrer serenely. "Do you forget it is a Synagogue fund? Do you think the Almighty will suffer His money to be lost?"
"Then why not speculate yourself?" said Grobstock craftily.
"The Almighty's honour must be guarded. What! Shall He be less well served than an earthly monarch? Do you think I do not know your financial relations with the Court? The service of the Almighty demands the best men. I was the best man to collect the money—you are the best to invest it. To-morrow morning it shall be in your hands."
"No, don't trouble," said Grobstock feebly. "I don't need the actual money to deal with."
"STRUCK THE CHANCELLOR BREATHLESS."
"I thank you for your trust in me," replied Manasseh with emotion. "Now you speak like yourself again. I withdraw what I said to you. I will come to you again—to the philanthropist no less than financier. And—and I am sorry I paid for my coffee." His voice quivered.
Grobstock was touched. He took out a sixpence and repaid his guest with interest. Manasseh slipped the coin into his pocket, and shortly afterwards, with some final admonitions to his stock-jobber, took his leave.
Being in for the job, Grobstock resolved to make the best of it. His latent vanity impelled him to astonish the Beggar. It happened that he was on the point of a magnificent manœuvre, and alongside his own triton Manasseh's minnow might just as well swim. He made the sixty odd pounds into six hundred.
A few days after the Royal Wedding, the glories of which are still a tradition among the degenerate Schnorrers of to-day, Manasseh struck the Chancellor breathless by handing him a bag containing five score of sovereigns. Thus did he honourably fulfil his obligation to the Synagogue, and with more celerity than many a Warden. Nay, more! Justly considering the results of the speculation should accrue to the Synagogue, whose money had been risked, he, with Quixotic scrupulousness, handed over the balance of five hundred pounds to the Mahamad, stipulating only that it should be used to purchase a life-annuity (styled the Da Costa Fund) for a poor and deserving member of the congregation, in whose selection he, as donor, should have the ruling voice. The Council of Five eagerly agreed to his conditions, and a special junta was summoned for the election. The donor's choice fell upon Manasseh Bueno Barzillai Azevedo da Costa, thenceforward universally recognised, and hereby handed down to tradition, as the King of Schnorrers.
The Semi-Sentimental Dragon.
There was nothing about the outside of the Dragon to indicate so large a percentage of sentiment. It was a mere every-day Dragon, with the usual squamous hide, glittering like silver armour, a commonplace crested head with a forked tongue, a tail like a barbed arrow, a pair of fan-shaped wings, and four indifferently ferocious claws, one per foot. How it came to be so susceptible you shall hear, and then, perhaps, you will be less surprised at its unprecedented and undragonlike behaviour.
Once upon a time, as the good old chronicler, Richard Johnson, relateth, Egypt was oppressed by a Dragon who made a plaguy to-do unless given a virgin daily for dinner. For twenty-four years the menu was practicable; then the supply gave out. There was absolutely no virgin left in the realm save Sabra, the king's daughter. As 365 × 24 only = 8760, I suspect that the girls were anxious to dodge the Dragon by marrying in haste. The government of the day seems to have been quite unworthy of confidence and utterly unable to grapple with the situation, and poor Ptolemy was reduced to parting with the Princess, though even so destruction was only staved off for a day, as virgins would be altogether "off" on the morrow. So short-sighted was the Egyptian policy that this does not appear to have occurred to anybody. At the last moment an English tourist from Coventry, known as George (and afterwards sainted by an outgoing administration sent to his native borough by the country), resolved to tackle the monster. The chivalrous Englishman came to grief in the encounter, but by rolling under an orange tree he was safe from the Dragon so long as he chose to stay there, and so in the end had no difficulty in despatching the creature; which suggests that the soothsayers and the magicians would have been much better occupied in planting orange trees than in sacrificing virgins. Thus far the story, which is improbable enough to be an allegory.
Now many centuries after these events did not happen, a certain worthy citizen, an illiterate fellow, but none the worse for that, made them into a pantomime—to wit, St. George and the Dragon; or, Harlequin Tom Thumb. And the same was duly played at a provincial theatre, with a lightly clad chorus of Egyptian lasses, in glaring contradiction of the dearth of such in the fable, and a Sabra who sang to them a topical song about the County Council.
Curiously enough, in private life, Sabra, although her name was Miss on the posters, was really a Miss. She was quite as young and pretty as she looked, too, and only rouged herself for the sake of stage perspective. I don't mean to say she was as beautiful as the Egyptian princess, who was as straight as a cedar and wore her auburn hair in wanton ringlets, but she was a sprightly little body with sparkling eyes and a complexion that would have been a good advertisement to any soap on earth. But better than Sabra's skin was Sabra's heart, which though as yet untouched by man was full of love and tenderness, and did not faint under the burden of supporting her mother and the household. For instead of having a king for a sire, Sabra had a drunken scene-shifter for a father. Everybody about the theatre liked Sabra, from the actor-manager (who played St. George) to the stage door-keeper (who played St. Peter). Even her under-study did not wish her ill.
"INSTEAD OF HAVING A KING FOR A SIRE, SABRA HAD A DRUNKEN SCENE-SHIFTER FOR A FATHER."
Needless, therefore, to say it was Sabra who made the Dragon semi-sentimental. Not in the "book," of course, where his desire to eat her remained purely literal. Real Dragons keep themselves aloof from sentiment, but a stage Dragon is only human. Such a one may be entirely the slave of sentiment, and it was perhaps to the credit of our Dragon that only half of him was in the bonds. The other half—and that the better half—was saturnine and teetotal, and answered to the name of Davie Brigg.
Davie was the head man on the Dragon. He played the anterior parts, waggled the head and flapped the wings and sent gruesome grunts and penny squibs through the "firebreathing" jaws. He was a dour middle-aged, but stagestruck, Scot, very proud of his rapid rise in the profession, for he had begun as a dramatist.
The rear of the Dragon was simply known as Jimmy.
Jimmy was a wreck. His past was a mystery. His face was a brief record of baleful experiences, and he had the aspirates of a gentleman. He had gone on the stage to be out of the snow and the rain. Not knowing this, the actor-manager paid him ninepence a night. His wages just kept him in beer-money. The original Sabra tamed two lions, but perhaps it was a greater feat to tame this half of a Dragon.
Jimmy's tenderness for Sabra began at rehearsal, when he saw a good deal of her, and felicitated himself on the fact that they were on in the same scenes. After a while, however, he perceived this to be a doleful drawback, for whereas at rehearsal he could jump out of his skin and breathe himself and feast his eyes on Sabra when the Dragon was disengaged, on the stage he was forced to remain cramped in darkness while Ptolemy was clowning or St. George executing a step dance. Sabra was invisible, except for an odd moment or so between the scenes when he caught sight of her gliding to her dressing-room like a streak of discreet sunshine. Still he had his compensations; her dulcet notes reached his darkness (mellowed by the painted canvas and the tin scales sewn over it), as the chant of the unseen cuckoo reaches the woodland wanderer. Sometimes, when she sang that song about the County Council, he forgot to wag his tail.
"SOMETIMES, WHEN SHE SANG THAT SONG ABOUT THE COUNTY COUNCIL, HE FORGOT TO WAG HIS TAIL."
Thus was Love blind, while Indifference in the person of Davie Brigg looked its full through the mask that stood for the monster's head. After a bit Jimmy conceived a mad envy of his superior's privileges; he longed to see Sabra through the Dragon's mouth. He was so weary of the little strip of stage under the Dragon's belly, which, even if he peered through the breathing-holes in the patch of paint-disguised gauze let into its paunch, was the most he could see. One night he asked Davie to change places with him. Davie's look of surprise and consternation was beautiful to see.
"Do I hear aricht?" he asked.
"Just for a night," said Jimmy, abashed.
"But d'ye no ken this is a speakin' part?"
"'BUT D'YE NO KEN
THIS A SPEAKIN' PART?'"
"I did—not—know—that," faltered Jimmy.
"Where's your ears, mon?" inquired Davie sternly. "Dinna ye hear me growlin' and grizzlin' and squealin' and skirlin'?"
"Y—e—s," said Jimmy. "But I thought you did it at random."
"Thocht I did it at random!" cried Davie, holding up his hands in horror. "And mebbe also ye thocht onybody could do't!"
Jimmy's shamed silence gave consent also to this unflinching interpretation of his thought.
"Ah weel!" said Davie, with melancholy resignation, "this is the artist's reward for his sweat and labour. Why, mon, let me tell ye, ilka note is not ainly timed but modulatit to the dramatic eenterest o' the moment, and that I hae practised the squeak hours at a time wi' a bagpiper. Tak' my place, indeed! Are ye fou again, or hae ye tint your senses?"
"But you could do the words all the same. I only want to see for once."
"And how d'ye think the words should sound, coming from the creature's belly? And what should ye see! You should nae ken where to go, I warrant. Come, I'll spier ye. Where d'ye come in for the fight with St. George—is it R 2 E or L U E?"
"L U E," replied Jimmy feebly.
"Ye donnered auld runt!" cried Davie triumphantly. "'Tis neither one nor t'other. 'Tis R C. Why, ye're capable of deein' up stage instead of down! Ye'd spoil my great scene. And ye are to remember I wad bear the wyte for 't, for naebody but our two sel's should ken the truth. Nay, nay, my mon. I hae my responsibeelities to the management. Ye're all verra weel in a subordinate position, but dinna ye aspire to more than beseems your abeelities. I am richt glad ye spoke me. Eh, but it would be an awfu' thing if I was taken bad and naebody to play the part. I'll warn the manager to put on an under-study betimes."
"Oh, but let me be the under-study, then," pleaded Jimmy.
Davie sniffed scornfully.
"'Tis a braw thing, ambeetion," he said, "but there's a proverb about it ye ken, mebbe."
"But I'll notice everything you do, and exactly how you do it!"
Davie relented a little.
"Ah, weel," he said cautiously, "I'll bide a wee before speaking to the manager."
But Davie remained doggedly robust, and so Jimmy still walked in darkness. He often argued the matter out with his superior, maintaining that they ought to toss for the position—head or tail. Failing to convince Davie, he offered him fourpence a night for the accommodation, but Davie saw in this extravagance evidence of a determined design to supplant him. In despair Jimmy watched for a chance of slipping into the wire framework before Davie, but the conscientious artist was always at his post first. They held dialogues on the subject, while with pantomimic license the chorus of Egyptian lasses was dancing round the Dragon as if it were a maypole. Their angry messages to each other vibrated along the wires of their prison-house, rending the Dragon with intestinal war. Weave your cloud-wrought Utopias, O social reformer, but wherever men inhabit, there jealousy and disunion shall creep in, and this gaudy canvas tent with its tin roofing was a hotbed of envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness. Yet Love was there, too—a stranger, purer passion than the battered Jimmy had ever known; for it had the unselfishness of a love that can never be more than a dream, that the beloved can never even know of. Perhaps, if Jimmy had met Sabra before he left off being a gentleman—!
The silent, hopeless longing, the chivalrous devotion yearning dumbly within him, did not stop his beer; he drank more to drown his thoughts. Every night he entered into his part gladly, knowing himself elevated in the zoological scale, not degraded, by an assumption that made him only half a beast. It was kind of Providence to hide him wholly away from her vision, so that her bright eyes might not be sullied by the sight of his foulness. None of the grinning audience suspected the tragedy of the hind legs of the Dragon, as blindly following their leader, they went "galumphing" about the stage. The innocent children marvelled at the monster, in wide-eyed excitement, unsuspecting even its humanity, much less its double nature; only Davie knew that in that Dragon there were the ruins of a man and the makings of a great actor!
"Why are ye sae anxious to stand in my shoon?" he would ask, when the hind legs became too obstreperous.
"I don't want to be in your shoes; I only want to see the stage for once."
But Davie would shake his head incredulously, making the Dragon's mask wobble at the wrong cues. At last, once when Sabra was singing, poor Jimmy, driven to extremities, confessed the truth, and had the mortification of feeling the wires vibrate with the Scotchman's silent laughter. He blushed unseen.
But it transpired that Davie's amusement was not so much scornful as sceptical. He still suspected the tail of a sinister intention to wag the Dragon.
"Nae, nae," he said, "ye shallna get me to swallow that. Ye're an unco puir creature, but ye're no sa daft as to want the moon. She's a bonnie lassie, and I willna be surprised if she catches a coronet in the end, when she makes a name in Lunnon; for the swells here, though I see a wheen foolish faces nicht after nicht in the stalls, are but a puir lot. Eh, but it's a gey grand tocher is a pretty face. In the meanwhiles, like a canny girl, she's settin' her cap at the chief."
"Hold your tongue!" hissed the hind legs. "She's as pure as an angel."
"Hoot-toot!" answered the head. "Dinna leebel the angels. It's no an angel that lets her manager give her sly squeezes and saft kisses that are nae in the stage directions."
"Then she can't know he's a married man," said the hind legs hoarsely.
"Dinna fash yoursel'—she kens that full weel and a thocht or two more. Dod! Ye should just see how she and St. George carry on after my death scene, when he's supposit to ha' rescued her and they fall a-cuddlin'."
"You're a liar!" said the hind legs.
Davie roared and breathed burning squibs and capered about, and Jimmy had to prance after him in involuntary pursuit. He felt choking in his stuffy hot black rollicking dungeon. The thought of this bloated sexagenarian faked up as a jeune premier, pawing that sweet little girl, sickened him.
"Dom'd leear yersel!" resumed Davie, coming to a standstill. "I maun believe my own eyes, what they tell me nicht after nicht."
"Then let me see for myself, and I'll believe you."
"Ye dinna catch me like that," said Davie, chuckling.
After that poor Jimmy's anxiety to see the stage became feverish. He even meditated malingering and going in front of the house, but could only have got a distant view, and at the risk of losing his place in an overcrowded profession. His opportunity came at length, but not till the pantomime was half run out and the actor-manager sought to galvanise it by a "second edition," which in sum meant a new lot of the variety entertainers who came on and played copophones before Ptolemy, did card-tricks in the desert, and exhibited trained poodles to the palm-trees. But Davie, determined to rise to the occasion, thought out a fresh conception of his part, involving three new grunts, and was so busy rehearsing them at home that he forgot the flight of the hours and arrived at the theatre only in time to take second place in the Dragon that was just waiting, half-manned, at the wing. He was so flustered that he did not even think of protesting for the first few minutes. When he did protest, Jimmy said, "What are you jawing about? This is a second edition, isn't it?" and caracoled around, dragging the unhappy Davie in his train.
"I'll tell the chief," groaned the hind legs.
"All right, let him know you were late," answered the head cheerfully.
"Eh, but it's pit-mirk, here. I canna see onything."
"You see I'm no liar. Shall I send a squib your way?"
"Nay, nay, nae larking. Mind the business or you'll ruin my reputation."
"Mind my business, I'll mind yours," replied Jimmy joyously, for the lovely Sabra was smiling right in his eyes. A Dragon divided against itself cannot stand, so Davie had to wait till the beast came off. To his horror Jimmy refused to budge from his shell. He begged for just one "keek" at the stage, but Jimmy replied: "You don't catch me like that." Davie said little more, but he matured a crafty plan, and in the next scene he whispered:—
"Jimmy!"
"Shut up, Davie; I'm busy."
"I've got a pin, and if ye shallna promise to restore me my richts after the next exit, ye shall feel the taste of it."
"You'll just stay where you are," came back the peremptory reply.
Deep went the pin in Jimmy's rear, and the Dragon gave such a howl that Davie's blood ran cold. Too late he remembered that it was not the Dragon's cue, and that he was making havoc of his own professional reputation. Through the canvas he felt the stern gaze of the actor-manager. He thought of pricking Jimmy only at the howling cues, but then the howl thus produced was so superior to his own, that if Jimmy chose to claim it, he might be at once engaged to replace him in the part. What a dilemma!
Poor Davie! As if it was not enough to be cut off from all the brilliant spectacle, pent in pitchy gloom and robbed of all his "fat" and his painfully rehearsed "second edition" touches. He felt like one of those fallen archangels of the footlights who live to bear Ophelia's bier on boards where they once played Hamlet.
Far different emotions were felt at the Dragon's head, where Jimmy's joy faded gradually away, replaced by a passion of indignation, as with love-sharpened eyes he ascertained for himself the true relations of the actor-manager with his "principal girl." He saw from his coign of vantage the poor modest little thing shrinking before the cowardly advances of her employer, who took every possible advantage of the stage potentialities, in ways the audience could not discriminate from the acting. Alas! what could the gentle little bread-winner do? But Jimmy's blood was boiling. Davie's great scene arrived: the battle royal between St. George and the Dragon. Sabra, bewitchingly radiant in white Arabian silk, stood under the orange-tree where the pendent fruit was labelled three a penny. Here St. George, in knightly armour clad, retired between the rounds, to be sponged by the fair Sabra, from whose lips he took the opportunity of drinking encouragement. When the umpire cried "Time!" Jimmy uttered inarticulate cries of real rage and malediction, vomiting his squibs straight at the champion's eyes with intent to do him grievous bodily injury. But squibs have their own ways of jumping, and the actor-manager's face was protected by his glittering burgonet.
At last Jimmy and Davie were duly despatched by St. George's trusty sword, Ascalon, which passed right between them and stuck out on the other side amid the frantic applause of the house. The Dragon reeled cumbrously sideways and bit the dust, of which there was plenty. Then Sabra rushed forward from under the orange-tree and encircled her hero's hauberk with a stage embrace, while St. George, lifting up his visor, rained kiss after kiss on Sabra's scarlet face, and the "gods" went hoarse with joy.
"Oh, sir!" Jimmy heard the still small voice of the bread-winner protest feebly again and again amid the thunder, as she tried to withdraw herself from her employer's grasp. This was the last straw. Anger and the foul air of his prison wrought up Jimmy to asphyxiation point. What wonder if the Dragon lost his head completely?
Davie will never forget the horror of that moment when he felt himself dragged upwards as by an irresistible tornado, and knew himself for a ruined actor. Mechanically he essayed to cling to the ground, but in vain. The dead Dragon was on its feet in a moment; in another, Jimmy had thrown off the mask, showing a shock of hair and a blotched crimson face, spotted with great beads of perspiration. Unconscious of this culminating outrage, Davie made desperate prods with his pin, but Jimmy was equally unconscious of the pricks. The thunder died abruptly. A dead silence fell upon the whole house—you could have heard Davie's pin drop. St. George, in amazed consternation, released his hold of Sabra and cowered back before the wild glare of the bloodshot eyes. "How dare you?" rang out in hoarse screaming accents from the protruding head, and with one terrific blow of its right fore-leg the hybrid monster felled Sabra's insulter to the ground.
The astonished St. George lay on his back, staring up vacantly at the flies.
"I'll teach you how to behave to a lady!" roared the Dragon.
Then Davie tugged him frantically backwards, but Jimmy cavorted obstinately in the centre of the stage, which the actor-manager had taken even in his fall, so that the Dragon's hind legs trampled blindly on Davie's prostrate chief, amid the hysterical convulsions of the house.
Next morning the local papers were loud in their praises of the "Second Edition" of St. George and the Dragon, especially of the "genuinely burlesque and topsy-turvy episode in which the Dragon rises from the dead to read St. George a lesson in chivalry; a really side-splitting conception, made funnier by the grotesque revelation of the constituents of the Dragon, just before it retires for the night."
The actor-manager had no option but to adopt this reading, so had to be hoofed and publicly reprimanded every evening during the rest of the season, glad enough to get off so cheaply.
Of course, Jimmy was dismissed, but St. George was painfully polite to Sabra ever after, not knowing but what Jimmy was in the gallery with a brickbat, and perhaps not unimpressed by the lesson in chivalry he was receiving every evening.
Perhaps you think the Dragon deserved to marry Sabra, but that would be really too topsy-turvy, and the sentimental beast himself was quite satisfied to have rescued her from St. George.
But the person who profited most by Jimmy's sacrifice was Davie, who stepped into a real speaking part, emerged from the obscurity of his surroundings, burst his swaddling clothes, and made his appearance on the stage—a thing he could scarcely be said to have done in the Dragon's womb.
And so the world wags.
An Honest Log-Roller.
Louis Maunders was writing an anonymous novel, and a large circle of friends and acquaintances expected it to make a big hit. Louis Maunders was so modest that he distrusted his own opinion, and was glad to find his friends sharing it in this matter. It strengthened him. He carried the manuscript unostentatiously about in a long brief bag, while the book was writing, and worked at it during all his spare moments. Even in omnibuses he was to be seen scribbling hard with a stylus, and neglecting to attend to the conductor. The plot of the story was sad and heartrending, for Louis was only twenty-one. Louis refused to give those roseate pictures of life which the conventional novelist turns out to please the public. He objected to "happy endings." In real life, he said, no story ends happily; for the end of everybody's story is Death. In this book he said some bitter things about Life which it would have winced to hear, had it been alive. As for Death, he doubted whether it was worth dying. Towards Nature he took a tone of haughty superiority, and expressed himself disrespectfully on the subject of Fate. He mocked at it through the lips of his hero, and altogether seemed qualifying for the liver complaint, which is the Prometheus myth done into modern English. He taught that the only Peace for man lies in snapping the fingers at Fortune, taking her buffets and her favours with equal contempt, and generally teaching her to know her place. The soul of the Philosopher, he said, would stand grinning cynically though the planetary system were sold off by auction. These lessons were taught with great tragic power in Maunders' novel, and he was looking forward to the time when it should be in print, and on all the carpets of conversation. He was extremely gratified to find his friends thinking so well of its prospects, for it was pleasing to him to discover that he had chosen his circle so well, and had such intelligent friends. It did not seem to him at all unlikely that he would make his fortune with this novel; and he hurried on with it, till the masterpiece needed only a few final touches and a few last insults to Fate. Then he left the bag in a hansom cab. When he remembered his forgetfulness, he was distracted. He raved like a maniac—and like a maniac did not even write his ravings down for after use. He applied at Scotland Yard, but the superintendent said that drivers brought there only articles of value. He sent paragraphs to the papers, asking even of the Echo where his lost novel was. But the Echo answered not. Several spiteful papers insinuated that he was a liar, and a high-class comic paper went out of its way to make a joke, and to call his book "The Mystery of a Hansom Cab." The annoying part of the business was that after getting all this gratuitous advertisement, in itself enough to sell two editions, the book still refused to come up for publication. Maunders was too heart-broken to write another. For months he went about, a changed being. He had put the whole of himself into that book, and it was lost. He mourned for the departed manuscript, and generously extolled its virtues. For years he remained faithful to its memory; and its pages were made less dry with his tears. But the most intemperate grief wears itself out at last; and after a few years of melancholy, Maunders rallied and became a critic.
THE GREAT CRITIC.
As a critic he set in with great severity, and by carefully refraining from doing anything himself, gained a great reputation far and wide. In due course he joined the staff of the Acadæum, where his signed contributions came to be looked for with profound respect by the public and with fear and trembling by authors. For Maunders' criticism was so very superior, even for the Acadæum, of which the trade motto was "Stop here for Criticism—superior to anything in the literary market." Maunders flayed and excoriated Marsyas till the world accepted him as Apollo.
What Maunders was most down upon was novel-writing. Not having to follow them himself, he had high ideals of art; and woe to the unfortunate author who thought he had literary and artistic instinct when he had only pen and paper. Maunders was especially severe upon the novels of young authors, with their affected style and jejune ideas. Perhaps the most brilliant criticism he ever wrote was a merciless dissection of a book of this sort, reeking with the insincerity and crudity of youth, full of accumulated ignorance of life, and brazening it out by flashy cynicism.
A week after this notice appeared, his oldest and dearest friend called upon him and asked him for an explanation.
"What do you mean?" said Maunders.
"When I read your slashing notice of 'A Fingersnap for Fate,' I at once got the book."
"What! After I had disembowelled it; after I had shown it was a stale sausage stuffed with old and putrid ideas?"
"Well, to tell the truth," said his friend, a little crestfallen at having to confess, "I always get the books you pitch into. So do lots of people. We are only plain, ordinary, homespun people, you know; so we feel sure that whatever you praise will be too superior for us, while what you condemn will suit us to a t. That is why the great public studies and respects your criticisms. You are our literary pastor and monitor. Your condemnation is our guide-post, and your praise is our Index Expurgatorius. But for you we should be lost in the wilderness of new books."
"And this is all the result of my years of laborious criticism," fumed the Acadæum critic. "Proceed, sir."
"Well, what I came to say was, that if my memory does not play me a trick after all these years, 'A Fingersnap for Fate' is your long-lost novel."
"What!" shrieked the great critic; "my long-lost child! Impossible."
"Yes," persisted his oldest and dearest friend. "I recognised it by the strawberry mark in Cap. II., where the hero compares the younger generation to fresh strawberries smothered in stale cream. I remember your reading it to me!"
"Heavens! The whole thing comes back to me," cried the critic. "Now I know why I damned it so unmercifully for plagiarism! All the while I was reading it, there was a strange, haunting sense of familiarity."
"But, surely you will expose the thief!"
"How can I? It would mean confessing that I wrote the book myself. That I slated it savagely, is nothing. That will pass as a good joke, if not a piece of rare modesty. But confess myself the author of such a wretched failure!"
"Excuse me," said his friend. "It is not a failure. It is a very popular success. It is selling like wildfire. Excuse the inaccurate simile; but you know what I mean. Your notice has sent the sale up tremendously. Ever since your notice appeared, the printing presses have been going day and night and are utterly unable to cope with the demand. Oh, you must not let a rogue make a fortune out of you like this. That would be too sinful."
So the great critic sought out the thief. And they divided the profits. And then the thief, who was a fool as well as a rogue, wrote another book—all out of his own head this time. And the critic slated it. And they divided the profits.
A Tragi-Comedy of Creeds.
Not much before midnight in a midland town—a thriving commercial town, whose dingy back streets swarmed with poverty and piety—a man in a soft felt hat and a white tie was hurrying home over a bridge that spanned a dark crowded river. He had missed the tram, and did not care to be seen out late, but he could not afford a cab. Suddenly he felt a tug at his long black coat-tail. Vaguely alarmed and definitely annoyed, he turned round quickly. A breathless, roughly-clad, rugged-featured man loosed his hold of the skirt.
"'Scuse me, sir—I've been running," gasped the stranger, placing his horny hand on his breast and panting.
"What is it? What do you want?" said the gentleman impatiently.
"My wife's dying," jerked the man.
"I'm very sorry," murmured the gentleman incredulously, expecting some conventional street-plea.
"Awful sudden attack—this last of hers—only came on an hour ago."
"I'm not a doctor."
"No, sir, I know. I don't want a doctor. He's there and only gives her ten minutes to live. Come with me at once, please."
"Come with you? Why, what good can I do?"
"You're a clergyman!"
"A clergyman!" repeated the other.
"Yes—aren't you?"
The wearer of the white tie looked embarrassed.
"Ye-es," he stammered. "In a—in a way. But I'm not the sort of clergyman your wife will be wanting."
"No?" said the man, puzzled and pained. Then with a sudden dread in his voice: "You're not a Catholic clergyman?"
"No," was the unhesitating reply.
"Oh, then it's all right!" cried the man, relieved. "Come with me, sir, for God's sake. Don't let us waste time." His face was lit up with anxious appeal.
But still the clergyman hesitated.
"You're making a mistake," he murmured. "I am not a Christian clergyman." He turned to resume his walk.
"Not a Christian clergyman!" exclaimed the man, as who should say "not a black negro!"
"No—I am a Jewish minister."
"That don't matter," broke in the man, almost before he could finish the sentence. "As long as you're not a Catholic. Oh, don't go away now, sir!" His voice broke piteously. "Don't go away after I've been chasing you for five minutes—I saw your rig-out—I beg pardon, your coat and hat—in the distance just as I came out of the house. Walk back with me, anyhow," he pleaded, seeing the Jew's hesitation, "Oh! for pity's sake, walk back with me at once and we can discuss it as we go along. I know I should never get hold of another parson in time at this hour of the night."
The man's accents were so poignant, his anxiety was so apparently sincere, that the minister's humanity could scarcely resist the solicitation to walk back at least. He would still have time to decide whether to enter the house or not—whether the case were genuine or a mere trap concealing robbery or worse. The man took a short cut through evil-looking slums that did not increase the minister's confidence. He wondered what his flock would think if they saw their pastor in such company. He was a young unmarried minister, and the reputation of such in provincial Jewish congregations, overflowing with religion and tittle-tattle, is as a pretty unprotected orphan girl's.
"Why don't you go to your own clergyman?" he asked.
"I've got none," said the man half-apologetically. "I don't believe in nothing myself. But you know what women are!"
The minister sniffed, but did not deny the weakness of the sex.
"Betsy goes to some place or other every Sunday almost; sometimes she's there and back from a service before I'm up, and so long as the breakfast's ready I don't mind. I don't ask her no questions, and in return she don't bother about my soul—leastways, not for these ten years, ever since she's had kids to convert. We get along all right, the missus and me and the kids. Oh, but it's all come to an end now," he concluded, with a sob.
"Yes, but my good fellow," protested the minister, "I told you you were making a mistake. You know nothing about religion; but what your wife wants is some one to talk to her of Jesus, or to give her the Sacrament, or the Confession, or something, for I confess I'm not very clear about the forms of Christianity; and I haven't got any wafers or things of that sort. No, I couldn't do it, even if I had a mind to. It would ruin my position if it were known. But apart from that, I really can't do it. I wouldn't know what to say, and I couldn't bring my tongue to say it if I did."
"Oh, but you believe in something?" persisted the man piteously.
"H'm! Yes, I can't deny that," said the minister; "but it's not the same something that your wife believes in."
"You believe in a God, don't you?"
The minister felt a bit chagrined at being catechised in the elements of his religion.
"Of course!" he said fretfully.
"There! I knew it," cried the man in triumph. "None of us do in our shop; but, of course, clergymen are different. But if you believe in a God, that's enough, ain't it? You're both religious folk."
"No, it isn't enough—at least, not for your wife."
"Oh, well, you needn't let out, sir, need you? So long as you talk of God and keep clear of the Pope. I've heard her going on about a Scarlet Woman to the kids. (God bless their little hearts! I wonder what they'll do without her!) She'll never know, sir, and she'll die happy. I've done my duty. She whispered I wasn't to bring a Roman Catholic, poor thing. I fancy I heard her say once they're even worse than Jews. Oh, I don't mean that, sir. You're sure you're not a Roman Catholic?" he concluded anxiously.
"Quite sure."
"Well, sir, you'll keep the rest dark, won't you? There's no call to let out you don't believe the same other things as her."
"I shall tell no lie," said the minister firmly. "You have called me in to give consolation to your dying wife, and I shall do my duty as best I can. Is this the house?"
"Yes, sir—right at the top."
The minister conquered a last impulse of mistrust, and looked round cautiously to be sure he was unobserved. Charity was not a strong point with his flock, and certainly his proceedings were suspicious. Even if they learnt the truth, he was not at all sure they would not consider his praying with a dying Christian akin to blasphemy. On the whole he must be credited with some courage in mounting that black, ill-smelling, interminable staircase. He found himself in a gloomy garret at last, lighted by an oil-lamp. A haggard woman lay with shut eyes on an iron bed, her chilling hands clasping the hands of the "converted" kids, a boy of ten and a girl of seven, who stood blubbering in their night-attire. The doctor leaned against the head of the bed, the ungainly shadows of the group sprawling across the blank wall. He had done all he could—without hope of payment—to ease the poor woman's last moments. He was a big-brained, large-hearted Irishman, a Roman Catholic, who thought science and religion might be the best of friends. The husband looked at him in frantic interrogation.
"You are not too late," replied the doctor.
"Thank God!" said the atheist. "Betsy, old girl, here is the clergyman."
The cloud seemed to pass off the blind face, and a wave of wan sunlight to traverse it; slowly the eyes opened, the hands withdrew themselves from the children's grasp, and the palms met for prayer.
"Christ Jesus—" began the lips mechanically.
The minister was hot with confusion and a-quiver with emotion. He knew not what to say, as automatically he drew out a Hebrew prayer-book from his pocket and began reading the Deathbed Confession in the English version that appeared on the alternate pages.
"I acknowledge unto Thee, O Lord, my God, and the God of my fathers, that both my cure and my death are in Thy hands...." As he read, the dying lips moved, mumbling the words after him. How often had those white lips prayed that the stiff-necked Jews might find grace and be saved from damnation; how often had those poor, rough hands put pennies into conversionist collecting-boxes after toiling hard to scrape them together; so that only she might suffer by their diversion from the household treasury.
The prayer went on, the mournful monotone thrilling through the hot, dim, oil-reeking attic, and awing the weeping children into silence. The atheist stood by reverently, torn by conflicting emotions; glad the poor foolish creature had her wish, and on thorns lest she should live long enough to discover the deception. There was no room in his overcharged heart for personal grief just then. "Make known to me the path of life; in Thy presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand are pleasures for evermore." An ecstatic look overspread the plain, careworn face, she stretched out her arms as if to embrace some unseen vision.
"Yes, I am coming ... Jesus," she murmured. Then her hands dropped heavily upon her breast; the face grew rigid, the eyes closed. Involuntarily the minister seized the hand nearest him. He felt it respond faintly to his clasp in unconsciousness of the pagan pollution of his touch. He read on, "Thou who art the Father of the fatherless and the Judge of the widow, protect my beloved kindred with whose soul my own is knit."
The lips still echoed him almost imperceptibly, the departing spirit lulled into peace by the prayer of the unbeliever. "Into Thy hand I commend my spirit. Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth. Amen and Amen."
And in that last Amen, with a final gleam of blessedness flitting across her sightless face, the poor Christian toiler breathed out her life of pain, holding the Jew's hand. There was a moment of solemn silence, the three men becoming as the little children in the presence of the eternal mystery.
It leaked out, as everything did in that gossipy town, and among that gossipy Jewish congregation. To the minister's relief, his flock took it better than he expected.
"What a blessed privilege for that heathen female!" was all their comment.
The Memory Clearing House.
When I moved into better quarters on the strength of the success of my first novel, I little dreamt that I was about to be the innocent instrument of a new epoch in telepathy. My poor Geraldine—but I must be calm; it would be madness to let them suspect I am insane. No, these last words must be final. I cannot afford to have them discredited. I cannot afford any luxuries now.
Would to Heaven I had never written that first novel! Then I might still have been a poor, unhappy, struggling, realistic novelist; I might still have been residing at 109, Little Turncot Street, Chapelby Road, St. Pancras. But I do not blame Providence. I knew the book was conventional even before it succeeded. My only consolation is that Geraldine was part-author of my misfortunes, if not of my novel. She it was who urged me to abandon my high ideals, to marry her, and live happily ever afterwards. She said if I wrote only one bad book it would be enough to establish my reputation; that I could then command my own terms for the good ones. I fell in with her proposal, the banns were published, and we were bound together. I wrote a rose-tinted romance, which no circulating library could be without, instead of the veracious picture of life I longed to paint; and I moved from 109, Little Turncot Street, Chapelby Road, St. Pancras, to 22, Albert Flats, Victoria Square, Westminster.
"URGED ME TO ABANDON MY HIGH IDEALS."
A few days after we had sent out the cards, I met my friend O'Donovan, late member for Blackthorn. He was an Irishman by birth and profession, but the recent General Election had thrown him out of work. The promise of his boyhood and of his successful career at Trinity College was great, but in later years he began to manifest grave symptoms of genius. I have heard whispers that it was in the family, though he kept it from his wife. Possibly I ought not to have sent him a card and have taken the opportunity of dropping his acquaintance. But Geraldine argued that he was not dangerous, and that we ought to be kind to him just after he had come out of Parliament.
O'Donovan was in a rage.
"O'DONOVAN WAS IN A RAGE."
"I never thought it of you!" he said angrily, when I asked him how he was. He had a good Irish accent, but he only used it when addressing his constituents.
"Never thought what?" I enquired in amazement.
"That you would treat your friends so shabbily."
"Wh-what, didn't you g-get a card?" I stammered. "I'm sure the wife—"
"Don't be a fool!" he interrupted. "Of course I got a card. That's what I complain of."
I stared at him blankly. The social experiences resulting from my marriage had convinced me that it was impossible to avoid giving offence. I had no reason to be surprised, but I was.
"What right have you to move and put all your friends to trouble?" he enquired savagely.
"I have put myself to trouble," I said, "but I fail to see how I have taxed your friendship."
"No, of course not," he growled. "I didn't expect you to see. You're just as inconsiderate as everybody else. Don't you think I had enough trouble to commit to memory '109, Little Turncot Street, Chapelby Road, St. Pancras,' without being unexpectedly set to study '21, Victoria Flats—?'"
"22, Albert Flats," I interrupted mildly.
"There you are!" he snarled. "You see already how it harasses my poor brain. I shall never remember it."
"Oh yes, you will," I said deprecatingly. "It is much easier than the old address. Listen here! '22, Albert Flats, Victoria Square, Westminster.' 22—a symmetrical number, the first double even number; the first is two, the second is two, too, and the whole is two, two, too—quite æsthetical, you know. Then all the rest is royal—Albert, Albert the Good, see. Victoria—the Queen. Westminster—Westminster Palace. And the other words—geometrical terms, Flat, Square. Why, there never was such an easy address since the days of Adam before he moved out of Eden," I concluded enthusiastically.
"'THERE NEVER WAS SUCH
AN EASY ADDRESS.'"
"It's easy enough for you, no doubt," he said, unappeased. "But do you think you're the only acquaintance who's not contented with his street and number? Bless my soul, with a large circle like mine, I find myself charged with a new schoolboy task twice a month. I shall have to migrate to a village where people have more stability of character. Heavens! Why have snails been privileged with a domiciliary constancy denied to human beings?"
"But you ought to be grateful," I urged feebly. "Think of 22, Albert Flats, Victoria Square, Westminster, and then think of what I might have moved to. If I have given you an imposition, at least admit it is a light one."
"It isn't so much the new address I complain of, it's the old. Just imagine what a weary grind it has been to master—'109, Little Turncot Street, Chapelby Road, St. Pancras.' For the last eighteen months I have been grappling with it, and now, just as I am letter perfect and postcard secure, behold all my labour destroyed, all my pains made ridiculous. It's the waste that vexes me. Here is a piece of information, slowly and laboriously acquired, yet absolutely useless. Nay, worse than useless; a positive hindrance. For I am just as slow at forgetting as at picking up. Whenever I want to think of your address, up it will spring, '109, Little Turncot Street, Chapelby Road, St. Pancras.' It cannot be scotched—it must lie there blocking up my brains, a heavy, uncouth mass, always ready to spring at the wrong moment; a possession of no value to anyone but the owner, and not the least use to him."
He paused, brooding on the thought in moody silence. Suddenly his face changed.
"But isn't it of value to anybody but the owner?" he exclaimed excitedly. "Are there not persons in the world who would jump at the chance of acquiring it? Don't stare at me as if I was a comet. Look here! Suppose some one had come to me eighteen months ago and said, 'Patrick, old man, I have a memory I don't want. It's 109, Little Turncot Street, Chapelby Road, St. Pancras! You're welcome to it, if it's any use to you.' Don't you think I would have fallen on that man's—or woman's—neck, and watered it with my tears? Just think what a saving of brain-force it would have been to me—how many petty vexations it would have spared me! See here, then! Is your last place let?"
"Yes," I said. "A Mr. Marrow has it now."
"Ha!" he said, with satisfaction. "Now there must be lots of Mr. Marrow's friends in the same predicament as I was—people whose brains are softening in the effort to accommodate '109, Little Turncot Street, Chapelby Road, St. Pancras.' Psychical science has made such great strides in this age that with a little ingenuity it should surely not be impossible to transfer the memory of it from my brain to theirs."
"'PEOPLE WHOSE BRAINS ARE SOFTENING.'"
"But," I gasped, "even if it was possible, why should you give away what you don't want? That would be charity."
"You do not suspect me of that?" he cried reproachfully. "No, my ideas are not so primitive. For don't you see that there is a memory I want—'33, Royal Flats—'"
"22, Albert Flats," I murmured shame-facedly.
"22, Albert Flats," he repeated witheringly. "You see how badly I want it. Well, what I propose is to exchange my memory of '109, Little Turncot Street, Chapelby Road, St. Pancras'" (he always rolled it slowly on his tongue with morbid self-torture and almost intolerable reproachfulness), "for the memory of '22, Albert Square.'"
"But you forget," I said, though I lacked the courage to correct him again, "that the people who want '109, Little Turncot Street,' are not the people who possess '22, Albert Flats.'"
"Precisely; the principle of direct exchange is not feasible. What is wanted, therefore, is a Memory Clearing House. If I can only discover the process of thought-transference, I will establish one, so as to bring the right parties into communication. Everybody who has old memories to dispose of will send me in particulars. At the end of each week I will publish a catalogue of the memories in the market, and circulate it among my subscribers, who will pay, say, a guinea a year. When the subscriber reads his catalogue and lights upon any memory he would like to have, he will send me a postcard, and I will then bring him into communication with the proprietor, taking, of course, a commission upon the transaction. Doubtless, in time, there will be a supplementary catalogue devoted to 'Wants,' which may induce people to scour their brains for half-forgotten reminiscences, or persuade them to give up memories they would never have parted with otherwise. Well, my boy, what do you think of it?"
"'THE SUBSCRIBER READS
HIS CATALOGUE.'"
"It opens up endless perspectives," I said, half-dazed.
"It will be the greatest invention ever known!" he cried, inflaming himself more and more. "It will change human life, it will make a new epoch, it will effect a greater economy of human force than all the machines under the sun. Think of the saving of nerve-tissue, think of the prevention of brain-irritation. Why, we shall all live longer through it—centenarians will become as cheap as American millionaires."
Live longer through it! Alas, the mockery of the recollection! He left me, his face working wildly. For days the vision of it interrupted my own work. At last, I could bear the suspense no more and went to his house. I found him in ecstasies and his wife in tears. She was beginning to suspect the family skeleton.
"Eureka!" he was shouting. "Eureka!"
"What is the matter?" sobbed the poor woman. "Why don't you speak English? He has been going on like this for the last five minutes," she added, turning pitifully to me.
"Eureka!" shouted O'Donovan. "I must say it. No new invention is complete without it."
"Bah! I didn't think you were so conventional," I said contemptuously. "I suppose you have found out how to make the memory-transferring machine?"
"'WHAT IS THE MATTER?'"
"I have," he cried exultantly. "I shall christen it the noemagraph, or thought-writer. The impression is received on a sensitised plate which acts as a medium between the two minds. The brow of the purchaser is pressed against the plate, through which a current of electricity is then passed."
He rambled on about volts and dynamic psychometry and other hard words, which, though they break no bones, should be strictly confined in private dictionaries.
"I am awfully glad you came in," he said, resuming his mother tongue at last—"because if you won't charge me anything I will try the first experiment on you."
I consented reluctantly, and in two minutes he rushed about the room triumphantly shouting, "22, Albert Flats, Victoria Square, Westminster," till he was hoarse. But for his enthusiasm I should have suspected he had crammed up my address on the sly.
He started the Clearing House forthwith. It began humbly as an attic in the Strand. The first number of the catalogue was naturally meagre. He was good enough to put me on the free list, and I watched with interest the development of the enterprise. He had canvassed his acquaintances for subscribers, and begged everybody he met to send him particulars of their cast-off memories. When he could afford to advertise a little, his clientèle increased. There is always a public for anything bizarre, and a percentage of the population would send thirteen stamps for the Philosopher's Stone, post free. Of course, the rest of the population smiled at him for an ingenious quack.
The "Memories on Sale" catalogue grew thicker and thicker. The edition issued to the subscribers contained merely the items, but O'Donovan's copy comprised also the names and addresses of the vendors, and now and again he allowed me to have a peep at it in strict confidence. The inventor himself had not foreseen the extraordinary uses to which his noemagraph would be put, nor the extraordinary developments of his business. Here are some specimens culled at random from No. 13 of the Clearing House catalogue when O'Donovan still limited himself to facilitating the sale of superfluous memories:—
1. 25, Portsdown Avenue, Maida. Vale.
3. 13502, 17208 (banknote numbers).
12. History of England (a few Saxon kings missing), as successful in a recent examination by the College of Preceptors. Adapted to the requirements of candidates for the Oxford and Cambridge Local and the London Matriculation.
17. Paley's Evidences, together with a job lot of dogmatic theology (second-hand), a valuable collection by a clergyman recently ordained, who has no further use for them.
26. A dozen whist wrinkles, as used by a retiring speculator. Excessively cheap.
29. Mathematical formulæ (complete sets; all the latest novelties and improvements, including those for the higher plane curves, and a selection of the most useful logarithms), the property of a dying Senior Wrangler. Applications must be immediate, and no payment need be made to the heirs till the will has been proved.
35. Arguments in favour of Home Rule (warranted sound); proprietor, distinguished Gladstonian M.P., has made up his mind to part with them at a sacrifice. Eminently suitable for bye-elections. Principals only.
58. Witty wedding speech, as delivered amid great applause by a bridegroom. Also an assortment of toasts, jocose and serious, in good condition. Reduction on taking a quantity.
"A CLERGYMAN
RECENTLY ORDAINED."
Politicians, clergymen, and ex-examinees soon became the chief customers. Graduates in arts and science hastened to discumber their memories of the useless load of learning which had outstayed its function of getting them on in the world. Thus not only did they make some extra money, but memories which would otherwise have rapidly faded were turned over to new minds to play a similarly beneficent part in aiding the careers of the owners. The fine image of Lucretius was realised, and the torch of learning was handed on from generation to generation. Had O'Donovan's business been as widely known as it deserved, the curse of cram would have gone to roost for ever, and a finer physical race of Englishmen would have been produced. In the hands of honest students the invention might have produced intellectual giants, for each scholar could have started where his predecessor left off, and added more to his wealth of lore, the moderns standing upon the shoulders of the ancients in a more literal sense than Bacon dreamed. The memory of Macaulay, which all Englishmen rightly reverence, might have been possessed by his schoolboy. As it was, omniscient idiots abounded, left colossally wise by their fathers, whose painfully acquired memories they inherited without the intelligence to utilise them.
O'Donovan's Parliamentary connection was a large one, doubtless merely because of his former position and his consequent contact with political circles. Promises to constituents were always at a discount, the supply being immensely in excess of the demand; indeed, promises generally were a drug in the market.
THE OMNISCIENT IDIOT.
Instead of issuing the projected supplemental catalogue of "Memories Wanted," O'Donovan by this time saw his way to buying them up on spec. He was not satisfied with his commission. He had learnt by experience the kinds that went best, such as exam. answers, but he resolved to have all sorts and be remembered as the Whiteley of Memory. Thus the Clearing House very soon developed into a storehouse. O'Donovan's advertisement ran thus:—
WANTED! Wanted! Wanted! Memories! Memories! Best Prices in the Trade. Happy, Sad, Bitter, Sweet (as Used by Minor Poets). High Prices for Absolutely Pure Memories. Memories, Historical, Scientific, Pious, &c. Good Memories! Special Terms to Liars. Precious Memories (Exeter Hall-marked). New Memories for Old! Lost Memories Recovered while you wait. Old Memories Turned equal to New.
O'Donovan soon sported his brougham. Any day you went into the store (which now occupied the whole of the premises in the Strand) you could see endless traffic going on. I often loved to watch it. People who were tired of themselves came here to get a complete new outfit of memories, and thus change their identities. Plaintiffs, defendants, and witnesses came to be fitted with memories that would stand the test of the oath, and they often brought solicitors with them to advise them in selecting from the stock. Counsel's opinion on these points was regarded as especially valuable. Statements that would wash and stand rough pulling about were much sought after. Gentlemen and ladies writing reminiscences and autobiographies were to be met with at all hours, and nothing was more pathetic than to see the humble artisan investing his hard-earned "tanner" in recollections of a seaside holiday.
"THEY OFTEN BROUGHT SOLICITORS WITH THEM."
In the buying-up department trade was equally brisk, and people who were hard-up were often forced to part with their tenderest recollections. Memories of dead loves went at five shillings a dozen, and all those moments which people had vowed never to forget were sold at starvation prices. The memories "indelibly engraven" on hearts were invariably faded and only sold as damaged. The salvage from the most ardent fires of affection rarely paid the porterage. As a rule, the dearest memories were the cheapest. Of the memory of favours there was always a glut, and often heaps of diseased memories had to be swept away at the instigation of the sanitary inspector. Memories of wrongs done, being rarely parted with except when their owners were at their last gasp, fetched fancy prices. Mourners' memories ruled especially lively. In the Memory Exchange, too, there was always a crowd, the temptation to barter worn-out memories for new proving irresistible.
"WHEN THEIR OWNERS WERE AT THEIR LAST GASP."
One day O'Donovan came to me, crying "Eureka!" once more.
"Shut up!" I said, annoyed by the idiotic Hellenicism.
"Shut up! Why, I shall open ten more shops. I have discovered the art of duplicating, triplicating, polyplicating memories. I used only to be able to get one impression out of the sensitised plate, now I can get any number."
"Be careful!" I said. "This may ruin you."
"How so?" he asked scornfully.
"Why, just see—suppose you supply two candidates for a science degree with the same chemical reminiscences, you lay them under a suspicion of copying; two after-dinner speakers may find themselves recollecting the same joke; several autobiographers may remember their making the same remark to Gladstone. Unless your customers can be certain they have the exclusive right in other people's memories, they will fall away."
TWO AFTER-DINNER SPEAKERS RECOLLECTING THE SAME JOKE.
"Perhaps you are right," he said. "I must 'Eureka' something else." His Greek was as defective as if he had had a classical education.
What he found was "The Hire System." Some people who might otherwise have been good customers objected to losing their memories entirely. They were willing to part with them for a period. For instance, when a man came up to town or took a run to Paris, he did not mind dispensing with some of his domestic recollections, just for a change. People who knew better than to forget themselves entirely profited by the opportunity of acquiring the funds for a holiday, merely by leaving some of their memories behind them. There were always others ready to hire for a season the discarded bits of personality, and thus remorse was done away with, and double lives became a luxury within the reach of the multitude. To the very poor, O'Donovan's new development proved an invaluable auxiliary to the pawn-shop. On Monday mornings, the pavement outside was congested with wretched-looking women anxious to pawn again the precious memories they had taken out with Saturday's wages. Under this hire system it became possible to pledge the memories of the absent for wine instead of in it. But the most gratifying result was its enabling pious relatives to redeem the memories of the dead, on payment of the legal interest. It was great fun to watch O'Donovan strutting about the rooms of his newest branch, swelling with pride like a combination cock and John Bull.
WRETCHED-LOOKING WOMEN PAWNING THEIR MEMORIES.
The experiences he gained here afforded him the material for a final development, but, to be strictly chronological, I ought first to mention the newspaper into which the catalogue evolved. It was called In Memoriam, and was published at a penny, and gave a prize of a thousand pounds to any reader who lost his memory on the railway, and who applied for the reward in person. In Memoriam dealt with everything relating to memory, though, dishonestly enough, the articles were all original. So were the advertisements, which were required to have reference to the objects of the Clearing House—e.g.,
A PHILANTHROPIC GENTLEMAN of good address, who has travelled a great deal, wishes to offer his addresses to impecunious young ladies (orphans preferred). Only those genuinely desirous of changing their residences, and with weak memories, need apply.
And now for the final and fatal "Eureka." The anxiety of some persons to hire out their memories for a period led O'Donovan to see that it was absurd for him to pay for the use of them. The owners were only too glad to dodge remorse. He hit on the sublime idea that they ought to pay him. The result was the following advertisement in In Memoriam and its contemporaries:—
AMNESIA AGENCY! O'Donovan's Anodyne. Cheap Forgetfulness—Complete or Partial. Easy Amnesia—Temporary or Permanent. Haunting Memories Laid! Consciences Cleared. Cares carefully Removed without Gas or Pain. The London address of Lethe is 1001, Strand. Don't forget it.
Quite a new class of customers rushed to avail themselves of the new pathological institution. What attracted them was having to pay. Hitherto they wouldn't have gone if you paid them, as O'Donovan used to do. Widows and widowers presented themselves in shoals for treatment, with the result that marriages took place even within the year of mourning—a thing which obviously could not be done under any other system. I wonder whether Geraldine—but let me finish now!
How well I remember that bright summer's morning when, wooed without by the liberal sunshine, and disgusted with the progress I was making with my new study in realistic fiction, I threw down my pen, strolled down the Strand, and turned into the Clearing House. I passed through the selling department, catching a babel of cries from the counter-jumpers—"Two gross anecdotes? Yes, sir; this way, sir. Half-dozen proposals; it'll be cheaper if you take a dozen, miss. Can I do anything more for you, mum? Just let me show you a sample of our innocent recollections. The Duchess of Bayswater has just taken some. Anything in the musical line this morning, signor? We have some lovely new recollections just in from impecunious composers. Won't you take a score? Good morning, Mr. Clement Archer. We have the very thing for you—a memory of Macready playing Wolsey, quite clear and in excellent preservation; the only one in the market. Oh, no, mum; we have already allowed for these memories being slightly soiled. Jones, this lady complains the memories we sent her were short."
"'TWO GROSS ANECDOTES?'"
O'Donovan was not to be seen. I passed through the Buying Department, where the employees were beating down the prices of "kind remembrances," and through the Hire Department, where the clerks were turning up their noses at the old memories that had been pledged so often, into the Amnesia Agency. There I found the great organiser peering curiously at a sensitised plate.
"Oh," he said, "is that you? Here's a curiosity."
"What is it?" I asked.
"The memory of a murder. The patient paid well to have it off his mind, but I am afraid I shall miss the usual second profit, for who will buy it again?"
"I will!" I cried, with a sudden inspiration. "Oh! what a fool I have been. I should have been your best customer. I ought to have bought up all sorts of memories, and written the most veracious novel the world has seen. I haven't got a murder in my new book, but I'll work one in at once. 'Eureka!'"
"Stash that!" he said revengefully. "You can have the memory with pleasure. I couldn't think of charging an old friend like you, whose moving from an address, which I've sold, to 22, Albert Flats, Victoria Square, Westminster, made my fortune."
That was how I came to write the only true murder ever written. It appears that the seller, a poor labourer, had murdered a friend in Epping Forest, just to rob him of half-a-crown, and calmly hid him under some tangled brushwood. A few months afterwards, having unexpectedly come into a fortune, he thought it well to break entirely with his past, and so had the memory extracted at the Agency. This, of course, I did not mention, but I described the murder and the subsequent feelings of the assassin, and launched the book on the world with a feeling of exultant expectation.
Alas! it was damned universally for its tameness and the improbability of its murder scenes. The critics, to a man, claimed to be authorities on the sensations of murderers, and the reading public, aghast, said I was flying in the face of Dickens. They said the man would have taken daily excursions to the corpse, and have been forced to invest in a season ticket to Epping Forest; they said he would have started if his own shadow crossed his path, not calmly have gone on drinking beer like an innocent babe at its mother's breast. I determined to have the laugh of them. Stung to madness, I wrote to the papers asserting the truth of my murder, and giving the exact date and the place of burial. The next day a detective found the body, and I was arrested. I asked the police to send for O'Donovan, and gave them the address of the Amnesia Agency, but O'Donovan denied the existence of such an institution, and said he got his living as secretary of the Shamrock Society.
I raved and cursed him then—now it occurs to me that he had perhaps submitted himself (and everybody else) to amnesiastic treatment. The jury recommended me to mercy on the ground that to commit a murder for the artistic purpose of describing the sensations bordered on insanity; but even this false plea has not saved my life.
It may. A petition has been circulated by Mudie's, and even at the eighth hour my reprieve may come. Yet, if the third volume of my life be closed to-morrow, I pray that these, my last words, may be published in an édition de luxe, and such of the profits as the publisher can spare be given to Geraldine.
If I am reprieved, I will never buy another murderer's memory, not for all the artistic ideals in the world, I'll be hanged if I do.