As it was within the prohibited hours when inns are closed except to bona fide travellers—by which is meant those who have travelled three miles from the place where they slept the previous night—we found the inn door closed. Whymper knocked sharply and loudly at it in his usual masterful way, and, when it was opened by a frowsy looking fellow in shirt sleeves, said dryly, in more senses than one:
“I am thirsty and want a drink, please.”
“Are you bona fide travellers?” inquired the fellow.
“Well,” remarked Whymper partly to the fellow and partly to me, “there was a time early in my career when some doubts were cast upon my qualifications as a mountaineer and even, upon my word, in regard to my statement as to what had happened, but, this is the first time I have been challenged in regard to my being a bona fide traveller. I’ll say nothing about the qualification of my friend here, but considering that since the last time I passed this hostelry I have travelled some seven or eight thousand miles, I think I’m entitled to describe myself as a traveller in a very bona fide sense. As a matter of fact, we have come from Southend this morning, which I believe is outside the statutory three miles. Do I look, my good fellow, like a man who’d tell you a lie about a thing like that?”
“I don’t know,” replied the man looking Whymper very hard in the face, “but I’ll tell you what you do look like if you wish. You look to me like a man who if he’d made up his mind to have a drink would have it whether he was a bona fide traveller or not, and wouldn’t let no one else stop him from having it, and that’s more.”
“I observe, my man,” said Whymper sententiously, as the door was opened to admit us, “that you are no indifferent judge of character, but I am curious also to know whether you are disposed to have a drink yourself.”
The man’s answer, in Parliamentary parlance, was in the affirmative.
VI
At what I am now about to say of Edward Whymper, he would himself either have hooted with cynical ridicule or else would have heard with a slow and cold smile of amused scorn, but to me his was a sad, gloomy, if not indeed a pathetic figure. I do not say this because he was a lonely man—and in all life I have met no one who was quite as lonely as he—but because he walked always in the shadow of self. I am not implying that he was selfish, for he was not. In his business transactions—albeit not an easy man to “best,” and not above driving a hard bargain with those whom he distrusted—he was not only as good as his word, but was the soul of integrity and honour. Prepared as he was to fulfil his share of the contract to the letter, he expected and required that others should do the same. Yet when dealing with those who had treated him handsomely he could be quixotically generous. Even to those to whom he owed nothing, he did many unselfish kindnesses for which he expected no gratitude, and was prepared to go unrequited. While the professional mendicant was sternly and mercilessly shown the door, the deserving poor he was always, if stealthily and secretly, ready to help.