"LET SLEEPING DOGS LIE."
SALUBRITIES ABROAD.
(En Route for Home after the Royat Treatment.)
At Geneva I meet an old friend, one of the heartiest men I've ever known and one of the best. He is delighted, really delighted, at our accidental meeting. I am for going on, but he will not hear of it.
"I know the place," says he, cheerily, with a wink and a nudge, "and I'll take you about."
What a wink it is! and what a nudge! So full of humorous appreciation of life and character. Such a knowing not-to-be-done-by-anyone sort of wink. And the nudge is intended to draw your attention to the wink and emphasise it. John Birley is the frankest, openest, freest-and-easiest of men, with a boundless capacity for enjoyment, the strongest sympathies with suffering, and of a reverential grateful spirit that thanks Heaven for all bounties, and accepts misfortunes and sorrows as kindly reminders from Providence that the misfortunes and sorrows of others have to be considered and relieved, and again he thanks Heaven for having put it into his power to relieve them. His chief enjoyment is in giving pleasure to others. The most selfish would gain some good from contact with John Birley; and the craftiest, to whom it might occur to make John Birley's acquaintance for the sake of what he could make out of him or by him, would soon discover his error, and would be informed that he stood detected, very clearly, plainly, and straightly, not by anything that John Birley would say, but he would have it intimated to him beyond possibility of mistake by John Birley's wink and a playful nudge from John Birley's elbow in his left or right side, for John speaks with both elbows. The crafty rogue would there and then know—if he were not too fatally crafty for himself as are so many rogues, or too conceited to realise the humour of the situation,—that his little game, whatever it might have been with John Birley, was up, that his schemes were upset and that to "try it on," any further with John Birley would be utter waste of time and trouble. That is what John Birley's wink would convey to the rogue. But to the honest man, to the friend, the wink and nudge assure good comradeship and something rare in store for him. To the unfortunate and suffering there is another tone to the wink and nudge, and to these they are full of promise of hope and help, and act as a fine invigorating tonic.
Such is John Birley, whom I meet en route and who insists upon my stopping with him and showing me the place. He travels a great deal, he knows everybody and everybody knows him. No matter what the language of the country may be, no matter whether he is in France, Germany, Russia, Egypt, India, or Africa, among cultivated peers, outlandish peasants, or uncouth savages, John Birley invariably makes himself thoroughly understood, for any deficiency in his acquaintance with the language he ekes out with a wink and a nudge adapted to the occasion, and he is sure to obtain exactly what he wants, or an excellent substitute for it, if the thing itself is not to be had. And this has always been so. It so happens that he has retired from business and is now very rich, but long ago when he was working hard, and struggling too, his manner and method were just the same; he has never been discouraged, never been discontented, always energetic, always sanguine, and has elbowed his path for himself through the crowd, politely, pleasantly, apologising sympathetically for any toes he may have accidentally trod upon in his onward course, and working himself well into the front rank by the magic charm of his wink and nudge. He has pulled some others after him who have clung on to his coattails, and brought out of the ruck not a few of those on whose toes, as I have already said, he had pressed rather heavily in passing.