And he said—
"Righto! I've always stuck to that. And I've been so busy lately, trying to make other people cheerful, that I've got rather down on my own luck."
He offered me the remains of his repast, which I declined. Then I told him that I had two shillings and that, if he was still hungry, he might share my lunch with me when we came to some quiet inn. He thanked me heartily and fell in with this. He said he wasn't hungry but was suffering from an agonizing thirst. He said that thirst was a disease with him, also smoking; and I told him that it was a terrible mistake to become the victim of a habit; and he said he knew only too well that it was.
I improved his mind a good deal before we came to an inn, and then, not wishing to be seen, I gave him one of my shillings and told him to spend sixpence on himself and sixpence on me. I merely wanted sixpennyworth of good, wholesome bread-and-cheese; and I went behind some haystacks and waited for him.
He was a long time coming, and, when he did come, I was surprised to find how little bread-and-cheese he brought for sixpence. Me admitted frankly that it was very little; but he said the landlord was a hard man and he would not give a crumb more for the money.
While I ate, Marmaduke FitzClarence Beresford—for that was this friend's name—told me something of his life. He was a gentleman by birth and also by education. He had, in fact, been to Eton and Oxford and also in the army. He had won the Victoria Cross and been mentioned several times in dispatches. He had even shaken hands with the King and been thanked by the House of Commons for his services in the Boer War. But then, at the very height of his worldly prosperity, a bank had broken and he had suddenly found himself quite ruined and penniless. Of course he had to leave the army, for in the position he had now reached, which was that of major-general, his mess bill alone ran into gold every week. A major-general has to buy champagne every day of his life, whether he drinks it or not. It is a rule in the British army and very important. But he said that nothing mattered as long as one tried to do good in the condition in life that one found oneself in. He said I was perfectly right to carry my Skeleton Sermons with me, and that the first thing he was going to do, when he had saved a little money, was to buy a volume himself. But, if anything, he was still more interested in my telescope. He said that it was good for five shillings and advised me to sell it. He explained that it was useless to me if I was going to devote the rest of my life to doing good; and of course this was true.
He said we had better stop where we were till dusk, and that there was a small town, two miles off, where it might be possible for him, as a favour to me, to get a friend of his to buy the telescope. So we sat a good many hours in this quiet field; and he smoked thousands of cigarettes, and I told him many things that it was useful for him to know; and he told me many things that it was not particularly useful for me to know, yet interesting. He was a well-meaning and religious officer, but he was rather soured, naturally enough, owing to the utter breaking of his bank and the loss of his hard-earned savings.
He admitted that I had made him see several things in a very new and different light, and then, towards evening, he said we might now start to sell the telescope. He said with a part of the proceeds I might get a fairly clean bed at the little town, and that he hoped, after a comfortable night's rest, I should be able to start refreshed and strong to do good at Exeter. I asked him where he was going to sleep, and he said in some ditch, because, for the moment, he was absolutely without means, having given away his last shilling to a poor tramp who was even worse off than himself. I told him he might be very sure that he would never regret that shilling; and he said probably not in the long run, but, just for the moment, as it was going to be a wet night and he had a bad cold on his chest developing into bronchitis, he felt a little weak and regretful. Then I said—
"You shall share this telescope with me, Major-general Beresford, and if you like to throw in your lot with me, we will take a humble lodging for the night and start to do good to-morrow."
He said it was almost more than he had a right to expect; and yet it showed how wicked he had been to doubt Providence for a moment. He almost cried, and I cheered him up and told him to be courageous and hopeful. Then he said he would try to be; and then he went off with the telescope, while I waited just outside the small town behind a hoarding. The major-general had said that he should be about an hour, as a thing of this kind wanted a good deal of doing; but he wasn't: he came back in twenty minutes, and he brought the telescope with him, and he was in a frightful rage and spoke several soldierly words that were not at all right to use for a man who wanted to do good.