I am not sure what was my most awkward predicament, for the choice lies between a prayer-meeting and Folkestone. This may seem obscure, but it isn’t, as you will presently see. My Folkestone experience was as follows:—The baby—I decline to specify whose baby, for the law of England does not compel any man to confess that he is a grandfather—had been ill for a week, and the physician said that we must take her to the seashore instantly. In half-an-hour we had caught a train for Folkestone, which the baby’s mother, remembering her sensations when landing from the Boulogne boat after a rough passage, felt sure was “all that there is of the most seashore,” as the French idiom has it. It was just about to rain when we reached Folkestone, and, putting the baby and her attendant slaves in a carriage, I told them to drive at once to the private hotel, which we had selected, and I would follow with the luggage. It took some time to pile a mountain of boxes and bundles on the top of the carriage, but, finally, just as the rain began to pour, a self-sacrificing friend who had remained to help got into the cab with me, and we told the driver to go to number 33, such-a-street. It was at the furthest extremity of the town, and when we reached there, after two or three attempts on the part of the top-heavy cab to upset, I was greeted by the information that no such person as the landlady of whom I was in search lived there. What was worse, nobody had ever heard of her, and no cab containing a baby had called at the house that day. Where then was the baby, and its mother, and my wife, and its other slaves? Obviously, they were lost somewhere in the town of Folkestone, and our two cabs might drive up and down for months without ever once meeting one another. I looked at my companion, and he looked at me in silence. No language could do justice to the occasion, and we both recognised the fact. I told the cabman to go to all the hotels in the neighbourhood, and enquire for a missing baby. He explained that there were nothing but hotels and boarding-houses in Folkestone, and that to visit them all would take the greater part of our lives; still, he would try. So we went to at least a dozen different places, and, although twice a sample of the resident babies was brought out for our inspection, we did not find the one for which we were in search. Then the driver, seeing our despair, said that perhaps he had better drive to the pier, and we said that perhaps he had. I think he had a vague idea that we were lunatics, and could possibly be lured on board the Boulogne boat, and so got rid of. But he thought better of it before reaching the pier, and suggested that if we went back to the station, perhaps the stationmaster might help us. So we went back to the station, merely to be told by the stationmaster that he knew nothing about the missing landlady or the missing baby, and didn’t want to, either. Once more the driver suggested the pier, and we told him to drive us anywhere. It was now after dark, and being wet and hungry, as well as devoid of wives and babies, we were beginning to be reckless. All at once, a joyful cry sounded from a passing cab. It was the voice of my wife, who was patrolling Folkestone in the hope of meeting us. Our nightmare was over, and in a few more minutes we were clasped in the arms of the baby—or, at any rate, we would have been had she been old enough to learn the use of her arms. To the unmarried man the experience may not seem quite so dreadful as it did to me, but let a married man mislay a valuable baby, not to speak of a wife and daughter, in a strange town on a stormy night, and he will know how near he can come to having a nightmare without preliminary pork and sleep.
And tells of a
prayer meeting.
Once, when I was an undergraduate, a prayer-meeting was held in somebody’s room, which I attended. I do not recollect what was the occasion of the holding of this meeting, but I do remember that it was a particularly solemn one. There were about thirty of us in the room, and the meeting had been in progress for about half-an-hour, when it suddenly occurred to me that were someone to burst into a laugh, the astonished expression of the others would be something worth seeing. Then I thought how painful would be the feelings of the man who laughed, and how he would be covered with shame and remorse. All at once an irresistible desire to laugh came upon me. There was nothing whatever to laugh at, and the mere idea of laughing in such a place filled me with horror, but still the desire—a purely nervous one, of course—to break out in a peal of laughter grew stronger and stronger. I bit my lips, and tried to think of the most solemn and depressing subjects, but that laugh could not be conjured in any such way; presently I knew that I was smiling—a broad, complacent, luxurious smile. Just then, a man sitting opposite to me saw my smile, and a look of cold horror spread over his face. At this I laughed aloud, in a choking, timorous way, but loudly enough to attract the attention of every one in the room. The mischief was now done, and, in the estimation of my comrades, I was disgraced for ever, as the man ought to be who insults pious people at their prayers. Being ruined, I thought that there was no longer any necessity for prolonging that terrible effort to suppress a laugh, and so I leaned back in my chair and laughed loud, long, and, in fact, uproariously. The meeting came to a sudden pause. The first expression on every face was that of amazed horror, but my laugh was contagious, and presently someone else joined in, and before order was restored the room rang with the laughter of a dozen men. All this time I was in an agony of self-reproach in spite of my laughter. I virtually broke up the meeting, and it was not until the clergyman, who presided, had dismissed us, that I could command myself sufficiently to try to explain to him the purely involuntary nature of my laughter. He was kind enough and intelligent enough to understand the matter, but the greater part of those who heard me believe to this day that I was a bold blasphemer of a peculiarly brutal character. I could never begin to tell what mental suffering the affair caused me, but I can safely say that I was never more miserable than I was at the very moment when I was laughing the most thorough and ecstatic laugh that ever came to me.
Zangwill refuseth
to be drawn, and
runneth amuck.
I never was in an awkward predicament. I have seen it stated that I once wrote “To be concluded in our next” without having the slightest idea how to extricate my characters from the mess I had got them into, but that is another story. There is not a word of truth in it. An awkward predicament is as unfamiliar to me as a crinoline; I have never been in one. It is absurd, therefore, to ask me what is the most awkward predicament I have ever been in; besides, it is always so invidious to select. I really must refuse to pander to editorial flippancy, and to add myself to the April fools who will scribble seriously upon the subject. I think, if this sort of thing is to take the place of our sensible symposia, it is time the Idlers’ Club was abolished. The intrusion of ladies has spoilt everything. Once we sat with our feet on the mantelpiece smoking. (My own cigar was always given me by the artist.) Now we never smoke—Angelina won’t permit it. Tea replaces the whiskey of yore, and the horizon is bounded by thin bread and butter. We are expected to stick to one predetermined subject—doubtless for fear we might wander off into the improper—and we are almost encouraged to bring our sewing. No more we enjoy those delightful excursions to everywhere—interrupting one another apropos des bottes, and capping an appreciation of Wagner with an anecdote about a mad turtle. Yet this is the only natural style of conversation. Who ever keeps to the point in real life? It is bad enough in examinations for the examiners to ask you about Henry II. when you are anxious to tell them about Elizabeth; or to demand your ideas on the manufacture of hydrochloric acid when the subject nearest your heart is the composition of ammonia. But conversation will not bear such inquisitorial pinning down to a particular point. It becomes a dead specimen butterfly instead of a living, fluttering creature. I think someone ought to tell the editors that they are simply ruining the club. I shudder to think what will become of it in five years’ time, when nobody will belong to it but ladies and parsons. I would resign at once if it were not for sheer generosity. The generosity of the editors is, indeed, beyond all cavil. But even their generosity has its limits. It is as certain as quarter-day that if I do not fill my allotted space I shall not get paid. And yet, in the absence of any experience of the requisite nature, it is quite impossible for me to say one word on the subject I have been asked to talk about. I don’t wish to tell a lie or to throw away money, but it looks as if I must do one or the other. Really, it’s the most awkward predicament I was ever in.