Over and over again has he told me the history of each individual tear in the cloth. Two of the worst of these had been perpetrated nearly ten years’ previously, and, although the perpetrators were still constant frequenters of the room, Isaac had never from the dates of their respective delinquencies spoken a word to either of them. When one of these persons lost a game and thus had to pay for the use of the table, Isaac would silently hold out a claw-like hand for the money, and no matter how brutal the chaff to which he might be subjected, he could never be provoked to retort.
One morning, after I had been for about two months a resident at the hotel, I entered the billiard-room, and there found Isaac sitting on the bench and weeping bitterly. His head was bowed upon his hands, and his poor twisted frame shook to the violence of his sobs. A large parcel lay next to him; one end of this had been opened and a new cloth thus revealed. It was quite clear what had happened: the evil and much-dreaded day had arrived; the old cloth was about to be discarded and another substituted. As a matter of fact the proprietor of the rival table up the street had invested in a new cloth and cushions, and consequently was drawing away custom in an alarming manner. Isaac’s master had at length put his foot down, and Isaac’s darling was to be re-clothed and re-cushioned. This Isaac regarded more or less as Mr Ruskin would regard draping the “Venus de Medicis” in a velveteen polonaise.
“I’d rather they took off my skin and put new calves to my legs,” he said between his sobs. “If I only knowed where to get gunpowder I’d blow the two of us up.”
I tried to reason with him, but he turned and withered me, in company with the proprietor and everyone else he could think of, in a blast of anathema that would have made a pope of the Middle Ages weep with envy, so I beat a hasty retreat.
Later in the day Isaac was reported to be very ill. Next morning I found him crouched on his face among pillows in a comfortable little room which formed a lean-to at the side of the stable. He was breathing stertorously and evidently had not long to live. When I addressed him he looked up at me with pain-shot eyes, but appeared to be unable to reply. Sounds of tacking could be heard coming from the direction of the billiard-room; the old cloth was being removed and the new one fixed in its place. A man named Scarren was sitting at the bedside; every now and then he puffed strong tobacco-smoke into the sick man’s face. This, Scarren explained in a whisper, was done at Isaac’s request. I noticed that when Scarren, during the conversation with me, allowed a longer interval than usual to elapse without puffing, Isaac became very uneasy.
Isaac died during the night. I forget exactly how the doctor who attended him described his malady, but judging from the length of the name it must have been something as uncommon as deadly. My private, unprofessional opinion was that the poor old man had died of a broken heart. Strange, that for the commonest of all diseases there should be no medical name—to say nothing of a cure.
Next day old Isaac’s body was carried to its resting-place in the pretty little cemetery, in the beautifying of which the inhabitants of Hilston spent a lot of money, which would have been far better devoted to sanitation, the same being very badly needed. Scarren, two of the regular votaries at the billiard-room and myself were the only mourners. Before the body was placed in the coffin I had, with the consent of the proprietor, laid the old cloth, neatly folded, where the worn-out body would rest upon it. The editor of the local paper heard of this circumstance and took me roundly to task for what he called my “heartless practical joke at the expense of a dead man.” I had, just previously, been the means of having a heavy reduction effected in his bill for some Government printing, the details of which proved, upon examination, to be as untrustworthy as his leading articles.
Scarren was installed as marker in old Isaac’s place. He was an old, shrivelled-up man of few words but many pipes, of the worst tobacco I have ever inhaled the smoke of. Scarren and Isaac had been great cronies, although the one had been as loquacious as the other was silent. However, in spite of his reserve there was a twinkle in Scarren’s eye which suggested latent humorous possibilities. He had been a hanger-on at the hotel for several years, making a precarious living by doing odd jobs. The occupation he loved most was fishing, especially for eels. As a rule, before you had conversed with him for five minutes upon any subject whatever, he would produce from his pocket what had once been a fish-hook, which ought to have been capable of holding a moderately-sized shark, but which was now a straight bar of iron with a barb at one end. The straightening-out had, he said, been effected in the following manner: One night he had hooked an enormous eel. Finding his strength unequal to landing the prey he tied the line to an adjacent thorn-tree, which swayed violently to the monster’s frantic tugs. All at once the stress on the line ceased and Scarren thought it had broken; but no, it was the hook that had given way, for when he drew it out of the water it was no longer a hook but a straight bar. The date of this episode was long before I made Scarren’s acquaintance. I was informed upon unimpeachable authority that the original, actual hook of the adventure had been stolen many years previously by some practical joker. Scarren, however, said not a word of his loss, but next day he was seen, when telling the story to a stranger, to produce another and a larger straightened hook from his pocket for the purpose of illustrating his narrative. Shortly afterwards the second hook was stolen, but was replaced by yet a larger one. This process had been several times repeated, with the result that the alleged hook of the adventure grew until quite a startling size was reached. The size to which Scarren’s hook will have attained in, say, ten years, if Scarren lives so long, might be an interesting subject for speculation.