He and old Jane paid us many visits. If I had been a clever man, I should have gone on tour with the pair. I am sure there was money in them; such a pair were well worth knowing.
At length I told him he must look out for himself, and that I should not pay for his lodgings any longer. I missed him for some days, and flattered myself that he was gone, so I went to his lodgings to make sure. As I stood in the passage the shrill tones of the piccolo and the strains of the ‘Bohemian Girl’ came downstairs to greet me. The landlady besought me to take him away. ‘He’ll be the death of me. He has not left his bed for five days, and has been blowing that thing all the time,’ she said. I went up to him. There he lay, happy as a king. A bed to lie upon, a piccolo to play, some tea-leaves to smoke, he was all right; nothing put him out—nothing but physical force ever did. He put his instrument down and filled and lit his pipe when I entered. I wanted him to get up and dress, offering him a dinner if he would do so. ‘And find the door closed against me when I come back? No thanks!’ he said. I had taken the room, and was morally bound to get the fellow out. I could not dress him against his will, I could not put him in the street, so I told him that I should come round at five o’clock with the relieving-officer and a conveyance to take him to the workhouse. He got up, dressed, put his piccolo in his pocket and his keyboard under his arm, and went. He did not wait for a dinner, but I noticed that he put the dried tea-leaves in his pockets. Some weeks afterwards he was at my door again. It was the morning of the day on which our only daughter was buried. I went to speak to him, and, telling him of our sorrow, I gave him half a crown, and told him to go quietly away. He did so, but returned, bringing some choice flowers, a pretty card, and some ‘In Memoriam’ verses written by himself. He had spent the half-crown, and was again penniless. I saw him bareheaded in the cemetery, and I saw him and my burglar friend approach the grave after we had left it; but he came to the house no more. Twelve months afterwards I again had a sight of him. From the top of an omnibus I saw him walking along the Strand with the keyboard under his arm.
Unappreciated genius is a very common thing, but if in despair the possessor seeks comfort from drink, then tragedy more often than comedy ensues. A man about fifty-five years of age was picked up on London Fields with his throat cut, a razor in his hand, and his breath smelling strongly of spirits. The police considered it a case of attempted suicide, for he was not dead. After detention at the hospital, he was charged, so I made his acquaintance. After the law had done with him, I made friends with him, hoping to help and cheer him a bit, for he was quite friendless—his wife dead and no children. I found him a most intelligent and clever man. He had been a commercial traveller in a good way of business. He owned frankly to me that when a traveller he drank heavily, but strenuously denied that drink was the cause of his present position, though he admitted that, when under the influence of drink, years ago, he had been attacked and robbed of a large sum of money, and received at the time severe injuries to his head. He was of a mechanical turn of mind, and for more than thirty years he had been working at a problem that approached perpetual motion, which, he said, was absurd. He lived in a very poor neighbourhood, and had a small room in a miserable house. In his room were a very small truckle-bed, one chair and table, and a little lathe. The rest of the room was covered with models of his machinery, some finished, some in course of construction, while the walls were covered with drawings and designs. After the death of his wife, he determined to give up his calling, and go in for mechanics altogether, and this was the result—disappointment, poverty, starvation, and would-be suicide.
I gave him a suit of clothes, of which he stood in sore need, sent him for a short holiday to recruit his health, and then induced him to do some travelling on commission in the timber trade. This he did for a short time, but his heart and his thoughts were ever on his models. I have sat by him in his little room, and have seen him glow with excitement and become as one inspired as he expatiated on his invention, which, he contended, would, if properly utilized, dispense with steam and electricity as motive powers, do away with horses in trams and cabs, work the sewing-machine for the tired woman and the knife-cleaning machine for the hotel porter, while cyclists might adopt it to carry them over hill and dale; the possibilities were infinite.
Years of failure and suffering had only made him the more certain of success. His plan was novel and interesting, and if he could not get much force out of it, he certainly could get motion. His room was full of wheels, all of different sizes, but built on much the same lines. The spokes of the wheels were of a peculiar serpentine pattern, and each spoke formed a trough. In each trough was placed an iron or brass ball, which was correctly turned and polished. He had made his wheels with a flat, broad rim, and they would, when placed on the floor, stand upright of themselves. The hubs were peculiar. I cannot explain them, but sure enough, when he just touched a wheel, it ran gently across the room. The balls formed his motive power, and the arms and hub were his secret. As the wheel moved, I noticed that three balls were always on the down-side and at the outside edge of the wheel; two balls were on the upside of the wheel, but as soon as they began to ascend they ran at once to the centre of the wheel, the hub, a peculiar arrangement of the spoke-troughs, compelling them to do this. Thus, with three balls on the outside down grade and two balls on the up grade, but close to the hub, he undoubtedly got some little power. His argument was, that if only the wheels were large enough, and the balls heavy enough, any amount of power and speed could be obtained. He begged me to go into partnership with him, so that we jointly could patent it. As my faith and finances were not equal to this, he gave up his work, and declared the glory and profit should be all his own. I am afraid they will, for the last time I saw him he was starving in his little room. To give him money, I found, was useless, for he spent it either on his models or in drink.
My lack of faith has, I am afraid, been a great financial loss to my family, for before ‘Sherlock Holmes’ died a lady in Kensington wrote to me repeatedly, thinking evidently that I had some connection with that astute detective. She had lost, or had been robbed of, one hundred thousand pounds’ worth of diamonds and jewellery, and had come to the conclusion that I was the man to recover it. She had not much of a clue, but in sixteen pages, closely-written, she gave me a detailed and elaborate description of her jewels, and finished by offering me ten per cent. of the value I recovered. It was a tempting offer, but I kept a discreet silence, knowing I should get better terms. After a time she wrote again, offering twenty per cent. I waited on, and about that time the death of the famous detective was announced, and I have since had no chance of earning that £20,000.
But the world loses more than I do, for the wonderful and beneficent discoveries and inventions that go unapplied can only be appreciated by those who, like myself, mix much with humanity, or by the doctors at lunatic asylums. There need no longer be ‘confusion of tongues.’ A gentleman I met in the cells—a cultured, educated gentleman, too—has devoted years of study, and sacrificed everything, to perfect a plan by which everybody can understand everybody in every clime and nation; it is as simple as A B C, and it only needs adopting. Many years he has been trying to induce his countrymen to adopt it, but he has no honour in his own country. So he is trying princes and potentates abroad, to whom he writes long letters, offering his simple plan. Somehow they fail to see the advantage of it, and, of course, he starves. He was as gaunt as a famished wolf when I first met him, and his sufferings brought him into the police court. I thought some food and a rest at the seaside would benefit his health, and they did. But renewed health brought increased faith in his discovery, for which he is prepared to die, and no doubt will die, for he is again becoming gaunt and weird-looking, and, I am afraid, seeks consolation from the bottle. The friends of such men shun them as if they had the plague; for the wealth of Crœsus and the wisdom of Solomon cannot save a man who to his devotion to some cherished delusion adds a devotion to drink; and though one feels an infinite pity for, and a great interest in, such men, yet, if one essays to help them, it is soon apparent that the task is hopeless, and the advice of the seer of old is followed: ‘Ephraim is joined to his idols; let him alone.’
Yet this class of men is very numerous. I have a number of them on my list of friends. One by one, from different walks of life, they have gathered round me, and they have infinitely more faith in me than I have in myself, for they look to me to see them righted, and I know the impossibilities which they cannot realize. A powerful and clever man of this description comes very often to learn how I am getting on with his affairs. He believes himself the true heir to the throne of England, and I have to take his word for it, for of argument he will have none; it is too real with him. By a process of inductive reasoning he has come to the conclusion that I am the one to get him crowned. He reasons thus: He is the King. The Archbishop of Canterbury crowns the King. The Archbishop belongs to the Church of England. I belong to the Church of England. I know him to be the true King. Therefore it is my duty to see that the Archbishop does his duty and crowns him.
He can converse rationally and with point on any other subject. He can see the failings and follies of others, but his devotion to this idea has ruined him, and he has become a penniless wanderer. He too seeks spirituous consolation, and gets into the hands of the police at varying intervals, when he defends himself with the skill of an accomplished lawyer, but also makes use of his opportunity to declare to the magistrate his kingship. Sometimes the magistrate has doubts of his sanity, and remands him to prison for a medical report. He wrote me from Holloway once, telling me that he was on a week’s remand and on such a day would be again at Westminster police court. He expected me to be there and give evidence on his behalf. ‘The magistrate thinks I am mad, and the prison doctor has orders to report on me,’ he wrote. ‘You can testify to my sanity as well as to other important matters, but as you have not seen me lately, I must now give you proof of my sanity. I prove it thus: Mad people think themselves sane. All the world beside may be mad, but they never doubt in the least their own sanity, but I find myself entertaining doubts as to my sanity. I sometimes say to myself, “Are you going mad?” Ergo, the very fact that I question my own sanity proves that sanity beyond doubt.’ I did not go to give the evidence asked for; he established his sanity without my aid, and he came to see me. Fortunately, he bears the deprivation of his rights with philosophic patience and imperturbable good-humour. He knows ‘it is only for a time!’ It is no use to say with regard to these men, ‘Get them to give up the drink,’ for they cannot, neither is drink the cause of their condition. Drink is the effect, not the cause, a symptom of something wrong, not the wrong itself. I confess my inability to get down to the bed-rock of their condition.