But Mathers, what with his chilled liver and business depression, was unreasonable. He derided my contention. He flouted it. He raised his voice in hard, simulated laughter, and attracted other men from their coffee and cigars. When he had won their attention, he tried to crush me publicly. He said:
“My dear chap, out of your own mouth I will confute you. If more good advice is given than bad, every man will get more good than harm by following advice. That’s logical; but you won’t pretend to maintain such a ridiculous position, surely?”
I like a war of words after luncheon. It sharpens the wits and assists digestion. So, without being particularly in earnest, I supported my contention.
“Assuredly,” I said. “We don’t take enough advice, in my opinion—just as we don’t take enough exercise or wholesome food. It is too much the fashion to ask advice and not take it. But if we modelled our lives on the disinterested opinion of other people, and availed ourselves of the combined judgment of our fellows, the world would be both happier and wiser in many directions. And if men knew when they were invited to express an opinion that it was no mere conventional piece of civility or empty compliment which prompted us to ask their criticism, consider how they would put their best powers forward. Yes, one who consistently followed the advice of his fellow-creatures would be paying a compliment to humanity and——”
“Qualifying himself for a lunatic asylum!” Here burst in the blatant Bellamy from his seat by the fire. He put down a financial journal, and then turned to me. “If there’s more good advice flying about than bad, old man, why don’t you take some?” he said. “I could give you plenty of excellent advice at this moment, Honeybun. For instance, I could tell you to play the fool only in your own house; but you wouldn’t thank me. You’d say it was uncalled-for and impertinent; you know you would.”
Bellamy is the only man who has any power to annoy me after my lunch; and knowing it, he exercises that power. He can shake me at a word, can reach my nerve-centres quicker than a tintack. Seen superficially, he appears to be nothing more than the mere, common stockbroker, but his voice it is that makes him so hated—his voice, and his manners, and his sense of humour. I turned upon him and did a foolish thing, as one often does foolish things when suddenly maddened into them by some bigger fool than oneself. I answered:
“There’s bad advice—idiotic advice—given as well as good. When I’ve exhausted creation, and want your opinion, my dear Bellamy, I’ll trouble you for it; and as to playing the fool, why, nemo mortalium omnibus horis sapit—not even Norton Bellamy. You’ll admit that?”
Bellamy has no education, and nothing irritates him quicker than a quotation in a foreign language, though any other quotation he’s more than a match for. He scowled and meant mischief from the moment the laugh went with me. He ignored the Latin, but stuck to the English of my remark.
“Bad as well as good,” he answered. “Just what I say. Only you assert ‘more good than bad,’ and I declare ‘more bad than good,’ which means that the more advice I refuse the better for me in the long run.”
“You judge human nature from an intimate knowledge of your own lack of judgment, my dear fellow,” I said, in a bantering voice.