THE GAME OF DRAUGHTS.
(By One who has Played it.)
Assume that I am living in Yokohama Gardens (before the pleasant change from winter to spring), and that I am conscious of the near approach of the North Pole. The fires in the grates seem to be lukewarm, and even the coals are frozen. My servants have told me that the milk had to be melted before it could adorn the breakfast-table; and as for the butter, it is as hard as marble. There is only one thing to do, to send for that worthy creature Mr. Lopside, an individual "who can turn his hand to anything."
"Well Sir," Mr. Lopside arrives and observes after a few moments spent in careful consideration of the subject from various points of view, "of course you feel the cold because there is five-and-twenty degrees of frost just outside."
I admit that Mr. Lopside's opinion is reasonable; and call his attention to the fact that a newspaper which is lying on the floor some five yards from a closed door is violently agitated.
"I see Sir," says he promptly. "If you will wait a moment I will tell you more about it."
He takes off his coat, throws down a bag of tools (his chronic companion), and lies flat on the floor. Then he places his right ear to the ground and listens intently, pointing the while to the newspaper that has now ceased to suffer from agitation.
"There you are, Sir!" he exclaims triumphantly. "There's a draught there. I could feel it distinctly."
He rises from the ground, reassumes his overcoat, and once more possesses himself of his bag of useful instruments.
"Well, what shall I do?" I ask.
"Well, you see Sir, it's not for the likes of me to advise gentry folk like you. I wouldn't think of presuming upon such a liberty."
"Not at all, Mr. Lopside," I explain with some anxiety.
"Then Sir—mind you, if it's not taking too much of a liberty—I would, having draughts, get rid of them. And you have draughts about, now haven't you?"
I hasten to assure him that I am convinced that my house is a perfect nest of draughts.
"Don't you be too sure until I have tested them," advises Mr. Lopside.
Then the ingenious creature again divests himself of his overcoat and workman's bag and commences his labours. He visits every door in the house and tries it. He assumes all sorts of attitudes. Now he appears like Jessie Brown at Lucknow listening to the distant slogan of the coming Highlanders. Now like a colleague of Guy Fawkes noting the tread of Lord Monteagle on the road to the gunpowder cellar beneath the Houses of Parliament. His attitudes, if not exactly graceful, are full of character.
"There are draughts everywhere," says Mr. Lopside, having come to the end of his investigations.
"And what shall I do?" I ask for the second time. Again my worthy inspector spends a few minutes in self-communing.
"It's not for the likes of a poor man like me, Sir, to give advice; but if I were you, Sir, I would say antiplutocratic tubing."
"What is antiplutocratic tubing?"
"Well, Sir, it's as good a thing as you can have, under all the circumstances. But don't have antiplutocratic tubing because I say so. I may be wrong, Sir."
"No, no, Mr. Lopside," I reply, in a tone of encouragement. "I am sure you are right. Do you think you could get me some antiplutocratic tubing, and put it up for me?"
"Why, of course I could, Sir!" returns my worthy helper, in the tone of a more than usually benevolent Father Christmas. Then he seems to lose heart and become despondent. "But there, Sir, it's not for the likes of me to say anything."
However, I persuade Mr. Lopside to take a more cheerful view of his position, and to undertake the job.
For the next three hours there is much hammering in all parts of the house. My neighbours must imagine that I have taken violently to spiritual manifestations. Wherever I wander I find my worthy assistant hard at work covering the borders of the doors with a material that looks like elongated eels in a condition of mummification—if I may be permitted to use such an expression. Now he is standing on a ledge level with the hall lamp; now he is reclining sideways beside an entrance-protecting rug; now he is hanging by the bannisters midway between two landings. The day grows apace. It is soon afternoon, and rapidly becomes night. When the lights are beginning to appear in the streets without, Mr. Lopside has done. My house is rescued from the draughts.
"You won't be troubled much more, Sir," says he, as he glances contemptuously at a door embedded in antiplutocratic tubing. "Keep those shut and the draughts won't get near you—at least so I think, although I may be wrong. Thank you, Sir. Quite correct. Good evening."
And he leaves me, muffled up in his overcoat, and still clinging to his basket, with its burden of saws, hammers, chisels, and nails of various dimensions. I enter the dining-room with an air of satisfaction as I hear his echoing footsteps on the pavement without, and attempt to close the door. It will do almost everything, but it won't shut. I give up the dining-room, and enter my study. Again, I try to close the door. But no; it has caught the infection of its neighbour and also declines to close. I try the doors of the drawing-room, bedroom, and the dressing-room. But no, my efforts are in vain. None of them will close. The wind howls, and the draughts rush in with redoubled fury. They triumph meanly in my despair.
There is only one thing to do, and I determine to do it. I must send for Mr. Lopside to take away as soon as possible his antiplutocratic tubing. After all he was right when he had those, alas! unheeded misgivings. He said "he might be wrong"—and was!
