“What’s the use of a paltry shade that cannot even scare burglars away from a family mansion?” he asked.
“The poor little chap tried his best,” said Ethel.
“Yes, after it was all over and the mischief nearly done. If he’d had the pluck of a mouse, he would have gone down to help Warren, instead of fluttering about making faces and doing nothing, and getting in the way. Why didn’t he speak up like a man?”
The brute Warren said he thought that most spectres were cowards at heart, and the butler ventured to agree with him.
I am leaving Capon Hall. These incidents have knocked all the spirit out of me. I wish to say no bitter word of anybody; it is more in sorrow than anger that I write; but misunderstanding so humiliating, coupled with loss of self-respect so complete, can neither be lightly forgiven nor forgotten.
Change, repose, lapse of ages are all necessary to the renewal of my shattered moral tone and vital principle. It may be many centuries before I revisit “the glimpses of the moon.” If I had my way I should never haunt again. In my case the game is not worth the phosphorescence. There obtains an idiotic belief among men that “all appearances are deceitful”; but that such a rule has many exceptions I can only trust this narrative will sufficiently attest.
GREENSMITH’S CHARADE
CANDIDLY, if you were to ask me what I think of amateur acting generally, and charades in peculiar, I should tell you that in my opinion there is a very considerable compartment down below devoted exclusively to this peculiar form of torment. There the amateurs will do great things on a fiery stage; and the misguided people who have encouraged them during this life must make up their minds to sit solidly in red-hot stalls, without backs, through an eternity of indifferent acting. It is a source of satisfaction to me that I only helped to perform one charade in my life—which I ruined. And yet it seems rough to be jubilant about it, because that particular entertainment did two really great things for me—one in the little affair of Millicent Warne, the other touching Greensmith.
You don’t know Greensmith? Thank God for it; but let the thought that he still lives, and is loose, and may on some occasion cross your own path, chasten you when you are going strong and feel inclined to get above yourself. The time of these events being Christmas, I will not say what I think of Greensmith here, but merely hint that he is the smallest man and the biggest hound that ever cast a black spell on a pleasant party. His conceit is gigantic, his manners are loathsome, his ancestry runs into a Jew pedlar in the second generation and stops there. He has more opinions and less information than a Board School teacher. He is, moreover, a worm, and also a bounder. He lies, and he would break all the ten commandments every week of his life had he the pluck to do so. But if he may be allowed a strong point, it is cowardice. He wears an eyeglass with difficulty, waxes the points of an indifferent moustache, sports a red tie by day, diamonds by night, and is, to conclude, within the bounds of charity, the most unutterably deplorable parody of a human being that Nature ever turned out during a moment of weakness. So much for a mere judicial summary of Greensmith. If you want my private opinion concerning him, you can have it when this present blessed season of peace and good will has passed into limbo. I can’t blackguard a man at Christmas-time.
Greensmith and I joined old General Warne’s house-party about the third week in December. How Greensmith got in nobody ascertained with certainty, but I fancy his purse had something to do with it. Retired army men, with plenty of energy and nothing to occupy their minds, either spend their time in religious enterprises or mercantile ones; they dabble in missions and Church work, or stocks and shares, according to the bent of their genius. General Warne was one of those who go off to play in the City. There he met the ineffable Greensmith, and with some lack of wisdom invited the thing to spend Christmas at his place in Warwickshire. Now, mind you, I judge of every Johnnie by himself, and I was utterly unprejudiced in the matter of Greensmith when I first met him. I knew by the number and nature of the rings on his hand as he held it out that he wasn’t a gentleman; still, I told myself, this might be his misfortune and not his fault. A mere error of taste in jewellery is nothing. But when he opened his mouth, the horrible inner nature of the person appeared. He had the start of me by two days; yet his manners must have led you to suppose that he had enjoyed the privilege of knowing General Warne, his daughter, and his wife since they were born.