A Whaleman's Wife

by Frank Thomas Bullen

He was awakened by a waiter, who handed him a scented note. At first he stared at the man stupidly, only half awake, and utterly uncomprehending. Then as sense returned he tore open the envelope and read:

‘Dear Jake,—You’ve had a pretty high old time, and so have I. But you might have the savvy to let it go at that. You must be a bigger fool than even I took you for if you imagine that I am going to slide down to the bottom along with you, and begin by coughing up all the stuff you’ve paid me with. No, no; you’ve been playing long enough: now run along like a wise little man and earn something. I’m off on a much better campaign. Good luck.—Not yours,

‘A. C.

‘P.S.—If you feel inclined to kick, watch out how you do it. It isn’t very healthy exercise for you.’

Jake read this letter thrice without understanding a word of it. Its general import he knew, and it had paralysed him. He sat staring stupidly at the paper until the waiter, nudging him, politely called his attention to the fact that his bill was before him. That roused him as does the far-heard crack of the fowling-piece arouse the timid hare. Summoning all his energies, he dismissed the waiter with a curt ‘All right, I’ll ’tend t’ this d’reckly,’ and rising, lounged toward the lift, his head throbbing furiously. Poor wretch, he was really more fool than rogue—thoroughly selfish, yet beaten by one more selfish than himself, upon whom he had lavished all he had; heartless towards his own, yet punished for his benevolence to a stranger who had befooled him; he was really a fair type of a large class of men everywhere who are only virtuous because they lack opportunity or initiative to be otherwise. Reaching his sumptuous room, he found his clothes bestrewing the floor, showing how thorough had been the search made by the departed one for portable plunder. He felt his head beginning to swim, and realising that he must escape or make the acquaintance of a Tombs gaoler, he pulled himself together, slammed his door, and, descending by another lift, passed from the hotel and was soon lost in the crowd.

Now, there is one tremendous difference between the cities of North America and those of Great Britain in respect of their harbourage of such men as Jake Fish was now in a fair way to become. London, for instance, seems to offer a premium to the most worthless. A loafing, shiftless vagabond need exercise no ingenuity, no originality of resource, in order to be better looked after in every way than, let us say, a seaman in a merchant ship. London workhouses swarm with humans of this type, well fed, well clothed, well housed, and, oh, so tenderly entreated as to work. Any little ailment that a working man would never notice is considered sufficient warrant for lapping these spoilt children of fortune in cotton wool and tenderly nursing them back to convalescence again in palace chambers fitted with all the appliances for the healing of disease that the mind of benevolence and medical skill can devise. And for all this the sorely burdened ratepayer must needs provide, although he, in common with most of England’s working poor, thinks of the workhouse as the home of disgrace, and would in most instances rather die of starvation in silence than go there.

But in North America, while there is great store of loafers, not confined either to the lowest class, they must have some original talent, some inventive enterprise about them, whether in criminal way or merely low trickery. Otherwise they become hoboes, or as we should call them in England ‘tramps,’ whose chief qualifications must be an unconquerable aversion to work, great powers of passive endurance, a love of filth—in fact, a reversion to the worst type of savage without one savage virtue. There is little room, however, for the hobo in a city. The exercise of his chosen calling needs great open spaces sparsely peopled, where there are hardly any police. Moreover, the hoboes, according to Mr. Josiah Flynt, are a close corporation looking with much disfavour upon would-be recruits, so that admission to their ranks is not easily gained.

Jake Fish then, had he realised it, was in evil case. He was a veritable prodigal, unrepentant, and with no father’s house to return to in case of repentance. Only fit for farming, and hating that furiously, he had no idea of doing anything else for his bread, and, as we have seen, his tastes were costly. Consequently, now that he had spent all, he felt that he had a bitter grievance against society for not graciously providing him with the means to continue his career of viciousness. But he was, besides, an arrant coward, an essentially worthless man, such as may be, by a miracle, made into a useful member of society, but, alas, very seldom is. He drifted down, down, down. The few dollars in his pockets when he left the hotel were squandered with the same utter absence of forethought as had always characterised him, and then, when, driven by hunger, he would have obtained some labouring work, he found himself fiercely shoved aside by far better men.

He disappeared. Not that there is not work and food for all in the Great Republic, but the conditions of life are strenuous, and if a man will not work, and work hard, he must scheme, and that cleverly, or he will certainly disappear as Jake did, and no one will take any trouble to inquire whither.

Will, on the other hand—bright, eager, and industrious—arrived in Chicago with resolute determination to take his fate by the throat, also to husband his small resources with the utmost care while seeking among the busy throngs for something that he could do. And he was determined not to stand choosing, but to do as he had read that so many others had done—take the first employment offered, no matter how deficient in qualification he might feel himself to be for it, and, having once got work, to strive manfully to keep it, and rise from one point to another by ceaseless attention and industry, and, above all, to avoid the saloon (public-house) as he would a plague-spot. Fortunately for him, he had never acquired the taste for dissipation which had destroyed his brother, for opportunity had been lacking. It was not a question of moral principle at all. And now, although he did not know it, would not have believed it had he been told, he was in a position of the utmost danger. Without any home ties, with no religious convictions, nothing to safeguard him from ruin, he might easily have sunk; but he had no physical inclination for the destroying vices, having never been tempted.