A BYGONE.
When I see the white-haired and venerable Thompson standing behind my equally white-haired but much less venerable father at dinner, exuding an atmosphere of worth and uprightness and checking by his mere silent presence the more flippant tendencies of our conversation; when I hear him whisper into my youthful son's ear, "Sherry, Sir?" in the voice of a tolerant teetotaler who would not force his principles upon any man but hopes sincerely that this one will say No; and when I am informed that he promised our bootboy a rapid and inevitable descent to a state of infamy and destitution upon discovering no more than the fag end of a cigarette behind his ear, then I am tempted to recall an incident of fifteen years back, lest it be forgotten that Thompson is a man like ourselves who has known, and even owned, a human weakness.
Dinner had begun on that eventful evening at 7.30 P.M., and it was drawing within sight of a conclusion, that is, the sweet had been eaten and the savoury was overdue, at 9.45 P.M. Four of us had trailed thus far through this critical meal: my father, a usually patient widower who was becoming more than restless; the Robinsons, never a jocund brace of guests, who were by now positively sullen, and myself who, being but a boy—of twenty odd years and having little enough to say to a woman of fifty-five and her still more antique husband, had long ago settled down to a determined silence. Meanwhile Thompson, then in his first year of service with us, tarried mysteriously heaven knows where.
The intervals of preparation before each course had been growing longer and longer and the pause before the savoury threatened to be infinite. My father commanded me to ring the bell severely. Longing to escape from the table I did so with emphasis, and my ring summoned (to our surprise, for we were not aware of her existence in the house) a slightly soiled kitchen-maid.
"Where is Thompson?" asked my father sternly.
"At the telephone, Sir," stammered the maid.
"The telephone!" cried my father. "Whatever is the matter?"
The maid started to mumble an explanation, burst into tears and fled in alarm, never again to emerge from the back regions. My father commanded me to the bell again, but as I rose Thompson entered. He was even then a stately and dignified person, and it was with a measured tread and slow that he advanced upon my father.
"Will you please serve the savoury at once?" said my father.
"I am afraid it cannot be done, Sir," said Thompson. "May I explain, Sir?"
"What is the meaning of this?" asked my father, fearing some terrible disaster below stairs, and sacrificing politeness to his guests with the hope of saving lives in the kitchen.
Thompson cleared his throat.—"For some weeks, Sir," he said, "I have been much worried with financial affairs. Like a fool I have invested all my savings in speculative shares, and the variations of the market have unduly depressed me. When I am depressed I take no food, and that depresses me even more."
You will be as surprised as we were that this was allowed to continue, but when a man of so few words as Thompson chooses to come out of his shell he is always master of the situation. "And so, Sir," he continued, "I have taken the liberty of telephoning to the mews for a cab."
He paused and bowed, as if this made it all clear, and was about to withdraw. "Kindly finish serving dinner at once, and don't be impudent," my father got out at last.
Thompson sighed. "It is absolutely out of the question, Sir," said he. "Quite, quite impossible."
"Why on earth?" cried my father.
Thompson became, if possible, more solemn and deliberate than before. "I am drunk, Sir," said he.
At this point Mrs. Robinson, whose indignation had slowly been swelling within her, rose and left the room. Robinson, as in duty bound, followed. Neither of them, to my infinite joy, has ever returned...
"Depressed by want of food, Sir," continued Thompson, by sheer duress preventing my father from following his guests and attempting to pacify them, "I have taken to spirits. I do not like the taste of spirits and they go at once to my head. They depress me further, Sir, but they intoxicate me. Yes, I am undoubtedly tipsy."
My father seized the opportunity of his pause for reflection to order him to leave the room and present himself in the morning when he was sober.
"You dismiss us without notice, Sir," he stated, referring to himself and his wife in the kitchen. "First thing in the morning we go. And so I have ordered the cab to take us."
This was a very proper fate for Thompson but came a little hard on my father. "But what am I to do?" asked he.
Thompson regarded him with a desultory smile. "The Mews desires to know, Sir," said he, "who will pay for the cab?"
I ought to be able to state that there followed with the cold light of day an apology, with passionate tears and remorse, from Thompson, or at least a severe reprimand from my father before he consented to keep him on. I regret to say that my father, next morning, postponed the interview till the evening, and from the evening till the next morning, and—that interview is still pending. If this seems weak, you have only to see Thompson to realize that no man with any sense of the incongruous could even mention the word "Drink" in his presence.
As for the cab which Thompson had ordered, though we never saw it we later heard all about it. It went to the wrong house because, as the proprietor of the mews informed us with shame and regret, the driver entrusted with the order had been very much under the influence of alcohol. Altogether it is a sordid tale, made no better by the fact that the house which the drunken driver chose to go to and insult was the Robinsons'...