“Sensible?” he echoed. “Sensible? But what’s the use of cutting your name on a place set apart for the purpose? There’s no fun in that. Things are coming to a pretty pass when Town Councils take to sarcasm. Because that’s what it is,” he continued. “Sarcasm. They don’t want our names anywhere, and this is their way of saying so. Sarcasm has been described,” he went on, “as ‘the language of the devil’; and it’s true.”
“But why do you want to cut your name?” I asked.
He opened his eyes to their widest. “Why? What’s the use of going anywhere if you don’t?” he retorted. “You’ll find my name all over England—on trees at Burnham Beeches, on windows at Chatsworth, on stone walls at Kenilworth, on whitewash at Stratford-on-Avon, in the turf of Chanctonbury. You’ll find it in belfries and on seats. I should be ashamed of myself if I didn’t inscribe it—and permanently, too. But this is too much for me. I came here only because I heard about the stone globe; and then to find those tablets! But I haven’t wasted my time,” he continued. “I went over to the New Forest the other day, and to-morrow I’m going to Stonehenge.”
“That’s no good,” I said.
“No good? Why, I’ve bought a new chisel on purpose for it. I’m told the stone’s very hard.”
“You won’t be able to do it,” I said. “It’s enclosed now, and guarded.”
He buried his face in his hands. “Everything’s against me,” he groaned. “The country’s going to the dogs.”
II.—The Equalizer
My friend was talking about the difficulty of getting level with life: with the people who charge too much, and with bad management generally; the subject having been started by a long wait outside the junction, which made our train half an hour late.
“How,” my friend had said, “are we ever going to get back the value of this half-hour? My time is worth two guineas an hour; and I have now lost a guinea. How am I to be recouped? The railway company takes my money for a train which they say will do the journey between 11.15 and 12.6, and I make my plans accordingly. It does not get in till 12.36, and all my plans are thrown out. Is it fair that I am not recompensed? Of course not. They have robbed me. How am I to get equal with them?”