Much Ado About Something

by C. E. Lawrence

A new moon made its appearance. It peeped from a cradle of clouds. Venus and Jupiter gleamed underneath it. Other stars in their places shone. That was the first night to gladden London since the Mayday of June's madness; and as for the long, long time before that--oh dear! oh dear!

June, peering through a ducal window, realized the improvement, and was delighted with Bim. She knew it was largely his doing--his and the wand's. Her sympathy grew radiant towards him. He was a good gnome, and when they had returned, victorious and forgiven, to the Land of Wild Roses--as she had no doubt they would do eventually--he should be rewarded. Perhaps she would kiss him.

Slowly, but all too speedily, the time went by. The band which for three comfortable hours had been stirring the hearts of hundreds, played the Good-night National Anthem, and put out its lights. Two by two the lovers turned homewards, each couple happily emotional, joying in the enthralment, delightfully subdued. There were more marriages determined upon, more attachments confirmed and made love-affairs during that evening, than ever before--with the possible exception of the last of the supralapsarian days.

The author of this splendid improvement sat, smiling and tired, on a discarded cigarette-box. He joyed in the wide silence and the dewy grass.

The park became more and more still. On every side of it there was the eternal hum of the traffic. Solitary wayfarers passed silently along the walks and faded into the darkness. Now and then the shadow of laughter was heard, occasional cab-calls, one distant bugle sounding the last post, a man's voice giving a hail. Slowly even such sounds as these were lost in the all-engulfing silence; the night was very still.

There was room for fairies here, thought Bim, but no fairies were there. There ought to be rings of them, lightly laughing and dancing; making merriment for the stars. Hyde Park in its loneliness longed for them. They, only, were needed to make it the perfect garden.

The places of the elves had been taken by creatures of a very different clay. An hour or so ago, and the park was thronged with youth, hopeful, happy, confident. The difference now!

In all directions there slept or grumbled on the grass the human waste of our social system; the aged, the ugly, the hopeless, the infirm and unfit; the thriftless, workless, worthless--worn remnants of all manner of miserable humanity. Poor wretches whose days had long been damned! Their backs are weak with burdens. They have not even a hope in their pockets. They have sinned and suffered; have learned the many lessons of bitterness, and been crushed. They have hungered and had to continue hungry; have been wet, cold, and, in their shivering, had no better shelter than some broken penthouse or windy archway; their only friendships have been with members of their own dismal fraternity. Fortunate was Lear! They have touched desire with crime and been compelled to pay the law's and the world's penalties. There is short shrift for such as these, the drift of the cities. Born are they to suffer, to endure; to know only shame; to die.

The gnome resumed his wanderings, and gazed wonderingly at the many sleeping faces. It was the most amazing of all the sights he had seen. The marks of meanness and want were stamped on them. Yes, June was right in her madness. The fairies ought to have prevented this. Tragedy is permissible when it is romantic, but such tragedy of squalor as was lighted by the starshine then was ugly, evil, the first and last of the shames. The gnome came across Lazy Tim, who stretched on an open newspaper, fast asleep, snoring with his mouth wide open.

Tim was a ne'er-do-well. He had not one scruple, hope, ambition, or blessing. His father and mother had been ne'er-do-wells also. Beyond them he had no history. He had never been inside a school, or known what discipline--other than that of the gaol and casual ward--meant. He had never formed a taste for work, but, thanks to sharpened half-wits, had here and there earned many crooked pence. He had been taken on as a farm-hand and a factory-hand times out of counting; but the monotony of the one employment and the prison-like character of the other had always driven him into the free-lance world again. Tim was unmoral and incorrigible. He had known no guidance whatever in his ways. He had an idea that it was wise to dodge any man in uniform, and that was about all.