“Just the same,” commented the O'Kelly as we pushed open the door and entered. “Not altered a bit.”
As in all probability barely twelve months had elapsed since his last visit, the fact in itself was not surprising. Clearly the O'Kelly had been calculating time rather by sensation. I ordered a bottle; and we sat down. Myself, being prejudiced against the brand, I called for a glass of claret. The O'Kelly finished the bottle. I was glad to notice my ruse had been successful. The virtue of that wine had not departed from it. With every glass the O'Kelly became morally more elevated. He left the place, determined that he would be worthy of Mrs. O'Kelly. Walking down the Embankment, he asserted his determination of buying an alarm-clock that very evening. At the corner of Westminster Bridge he became suddenly absorbed in his own thoughts. Looking to discover the cause of his silence, I saw that his eyes were resting on a poster representing a charming lady standing on one leg upon a wire; below her—at some distance—appeared the peaks of mountains; the artist had even caught the likeness. I cursed the luck that had directed our footsteps, but the next moment, lacking experience, was inclined to be reassured.
“Me dear Paul,” said the O'Kelly—he laid a fatherly hand upon my shoulder—“there are fair-faced, laughing women—sweet creatures, that ye want to put yer arm around and dance with.” He shook his head disapprovingly. “There are the sainted women, who lead us up, Paul—up, always up.”
A look, such as the young man with the banner might have borne with him to the fields of snow and ice, suffused the O'Kelly's handsome face. Without another word he crossed the road and entered an American store, where for six-and-elevenpence he purchased an alarm-clock the man assured us would awake an Egyptian mummy. With this in his hand he waved me a good-bye, and jumped upon a Hampstead 'bus, and alone I strolled on to the theatre.
Hal returned a little after Christmas and started himself in chambers in the City. It was the nearest he dared venture, so he said, to civilisation.
“I'd be no good in the West End,” he explained. “For a season I might attract as an eccentricity, but your swells would never stand me for longer—no more would any respectable folk, anywhere: we don't get on together. I commenced at Richmond. It was a fashionable suburb then, and I thought I was going to do wonders. I had everything in my favour, except myself. I do know my work, nobody can deny that of me. My father spent every penny he had, poor gentleman, in buying me an old-established practice: fine house, carriage and pair, white-haired butler—everything correct, except myself. It was of no use. I can hold myself in for a month or two; then I break out, the old original savage that I am under my frock coat. I feel I must run amuck, stabbing, hacking at the prim, smiling Lies mincing round about me. I can fool a silly woman for half-a-dozen visits; bow and rub my hands, purr round her sympathetically. All the while I am longing to tell her the truth:
'Go home. Wash your face; don't block up the pores of your skin with paint. Let out your corsets. You are thirty-three round the abdomen if you are an inch: how can you expect your digestion to do its work when you're squeezing it into twenty-one? Give up gadding about half your day and most of your night; you are old enough to have done with that sort of thing. Let the children come, and suckle them yourself. You'll be all the better for them. Don't loll in bed all the morning. Get up like a decent animal and do something for your living. Use your brain, what there is of it, and your body. At that price you can have health to-morrow, and at no other. I can do nothing for you.'”
“And sooner or later I blurt it out.” He laughed his great roar. “Lord! you should see the real face coming out of the simpering mask.”
“Pompous old fools, strutting into me like turkey-cocks! By Jove, it was worth it! They would dribble out, looking half their proper size after I had done telling them what was the matter with them.”
“'Do you want to know what you are really suffering from?' I would shout at them, when I could contain myself no longer. 'Gluttony, my dear sir; gluttony and drunkenness, and over-indulgence in other vices that shall be nameless. Live like a man; get a little self-respect from somewhere; give up being an ape. Treat your body properly and it will treat you properly. That's the only prescription that will do you any good.'”