 11 A fancy Veronica is going to be an authorist. Her mother thinks this may account for many things about her that have been troubling us. The story never got far. It was laid aside for the more alluring work of playwriting, and apparently forgotten. I came across the copy book containing her rough notes the other day. There is decided flavor about them. I transcribed selections, the spelling as before being my own. The scene is laid in the moon, but everything is just the same as down here, with one exception. The children rule. The grown-ups did not like it, but they cannot help it. Something has happened to them. They don't know what. And the world is as it used to be, and the sweet old story books, before sin came. There are fairies that dance on nights, and witches that lure you, and then turn you into things. And a dragon who lives in a cave, and springs out at people, and eats them, so that you have to be careful. And all the animals talk, and there are giants, and lots of magic. And it is the children who know everything, and what to do for it. And they have to teach the grown-ups. And the grown-ups don't believe half of it. And they're far too fond of arguing, which is a sore trial to the children, but they have patience and are just. Of course, the grown-ups have to go to school. They have much to learn. Poor things, and they hate it. They take no interest in fairy lore. And what would happen to them if they got wrecked on a desert island they don't seem to care. And then there are languages. What they will need when they come to be children, and have to talk to all the animals. And magic, which is deep, and they hate it, and say it is rot. They are full of tricks. One catches them reading trashy novels, under the desk, all about love, which is wasting their children's money. And God knows it is hard enough to earn. But the children are not angry with them, remembering how they felt themselves when they were grown up, only firm. The children give them plenty of holidays, because holidays are good for everyone. They freshen you up. But the grown-ups are very stupid, and do not care for sensible games, such as Indians and pirates, what would sharpen their faculties, and so fit them for the future. They only care to play with a ball, which is of no help to the stern realities of life or talk. Lord, how they talk. There is one grown-up who is very clever. He can talk about everything, but it leads to nothing, and spoils the party, so they send him to bed. And there are two grown-ups, a male and a female, and they talk love, all the time, even on fine days, which is maudlin. But the children are patient with them, knowing it takes all sorts to make a world, and trusting they will grow out of it. And of course there are grown-ups who are good, and a comfort to their children. And everything the children like is good, and wholesome, and everything the grown-ups like is bad for them, and they must have it. They clamor for tea and coffee, what undermines their nervous system, and waste their money in the talk shop, upon chops, and turtle soup. And the children have to put them to bed, and give them pills, till they feel better. There is a little girl named Prue, who lives with a little boy named Simon. They mean well, but haven't much sense. They have two grown-ups, a male and a female, named Peter and Martha, respectively. They are just the ordinary grown-ups, neither better nor worse, and much might be done with them, by kindness. But Prue and Simon go the wrong way to work. It is lame, lame all day long, but as for praise, oh, never. One summer's day, Prue and Simon take Peter for a walk, in the country, and they meet a cow, and they think this is a good opportunity to test Peter's knowledge of languages. So they tell him to talk to the cow, and he talks to the cow, and the cow don't understand him, and he don't understand the cow, and they are mad with him. What is the use, they say, of our paying expensive fees, to have you taught the language, by a first-class cow, and when you come out into the country, you can't talk it. And he says he did talk it, but they will not listen to him, but go on raving. And in the end, it turns out, it was a Jersey cow, what talked to dialect, so of course he couldn't understand it. But did they apologize? Oh, dear no. Another time, one morning at breakfast, Martha didn't like her raspberry vinegar, so she didn't drink it. And Simon came into the nursery, and he saw that Martha hadn't drunk her raspberry vinegar, and he asked her why, and she said she didn't like it, because it was nasty. And he said it wasn't nasty, and that she ought to like it, and how it was shocking the way grown-ups nowadays grumble, that good wholesome food provided for them by their two indulgent children, and how when he was a grown-up, he would never have dared, and so on, all in the usual style, and to prove it wasn't nasty he poured himself out a cup full, and drank it off, in a gulp. And he said it was delicious, and turned pale, and left the room. And Prue came into the nursery, and she saw that Martha hadn't drunk her raspberry vinegar, and she asked her why. And Martha told her how she didn't like it, because it was nasty, and Prue told her she ought to be ashamed of herself for not liking it, because it was good for her, and really very nice, and anyhow she got to like it, and not get stuffing herself up with messy tea and coffee, because she wouldn't have it, and there was an end of it, and so on. And to prove it was all right, she poured herself out a cup full, and drank it off, in a gulp, and she said there was nothing wrong with it, nothing whatever, and turned pale, and left the room. And it wasn't raspberry vinegar, but just red ink, what had got put into the raspberry vinegar decanter, by an oversight, and they needn't have been ill at all, if only they had listened, to poor old Martha, but no, that was their fixed idea, that grown-ups hadn't any sense, at all, what is a mistake, as one perceives. Other characters had been sketched, some of them to be abandoned after a few bold touches, the difficulty of avoiding too close a portraiture to the living original, having apparently proved irksome. Against one such, evidently in an attempt to help Dick see himself in his true colors, I find this marginal note in pencil. Better not, might make him ratty. Opposite to another, obviously, of Mrs. St. Leonard, and with instinct for alliteration, is scribbled, too terribly true, she'd twig it. Another character is that of a gent, with a certain gift, for telling stories, some of them not bad, a promising party on the whole, indeed one might say, judging from description, a quite rational person, when not on the rantan, but inconsistent. He is the grown-up of a little girl, not beautiful, but strangely attractive, whom we will call enid. One gathers that if all the children had been enids, then surely the last word in worlds had been said. She has only this one grown-up of her very own, but she makes it her business to adopt and reform all the incorrigible old folk the other children have despaired of. It is all done by kindness. She is ever-patient, and just. Prominent among her numerous protégies is a military man, an elderly colonel, until she took him in hand, the awful example of what a grown-up might easily become, left to the care of incompetent infants. He defies his own child, a virtuous youth, but lacking in sympathy, is rude to his little nephews and nieces, a holy terror to his governess. He uses wicked words picked up from retired pirates. Of course, without understanding, they're terrible significance. He steals the Indians firewater, what few can partake of, with impunity, certainly not the colonel. Can this be he, this gibbering wreck? He hides cigars in a hollow tree and smokes on the sly. He plays truant, lures other old gentlemen away from their lessons to join him. They are discovered in the woods in a cave playing wist for six penny points. Does Enid's storm and bully rag threaten that if ever she catches him so much as looking at a card again, she will go straight out and tell the dragon, who will in his turn be so shocked that in all probability he will decide on coming back with her to kill and eat the colonel on the spot? No, such are not her methods. Instead, she smiles indulgently. She says it is only natural for grown-ups to like playing cards. She is not angry with him, and there is no need for him to run away and hide in a nasty damp cave. She herself will play wist with him. The effect upon the colonel is immediate. He bursts into tears. She plays wist with him in the garden after school hours when he has been good. Double dummy, one presumes, one leaves the colonel in the end, cured of his passion for wist, whether as the consequence of her play or her influence, the rough notes give no indication. In the play, I am inclined to think Veronica received assistance. The house had got itself finished early in September. Young Butte has certainly done wonders. We performed it in the empty billiard room, followed by a one-act piece of my own. The occasion did duty as a housewarming. We had quite a crowd, and ended up with a dance. Everybody seemed to enjoy themselves, except Young Birdie St. Leonard, who played the Prince, and could not get out of his helmet in time for supper. It was a good helmet, but had been fast and clumsily, and inexperienced people trying to help, but only succeeded in jamming all the screws. Not only wouldn't it come off, it would not even open for a drink. All thought it an excellent joke, with the exception of young Herbert St. Leonard. Our mayor, a cheerful little man, and very popular, said that it ought to be sent to punch. The local reporter reminded him that the late John Leitch had already made use of precisely the same incident for a comic illustration, afterwards remembering that it was not Leitch, but the late Phil May. He seemed to think this ended the matter. St. Leonard and the vicar, who are rival authorities upon the subject, fell into an argument upon armor in general, the special reference to the 14th century. Each used the boy's head to confirm his own theory, passing it triumphantly from one to the other. We had to send off young Hopkins in the donkey cart for the blacksmith. I have found out, by the way, how it is young Hopkins makes our donkey go. Young Hopkins argues it is far less brutal than whacking him, especially after experience has proved that he evidently does not know why you are whacking him. I am not at all sure the boy is not right. Janey played the fairy god-mama in a white wig and paniers. She will make a beautiful old lady. The white hair gives her the one thing that she lacks, distinction. I found myself glancing apprehensively round the room, wishing we had not invited so many eligible bachelors. Dick is making me anxious. The sense of his own unworthiness, which has come to him quite suddenly, and apparently with all the shock of a new discovery, has completely unnerved him. It is a healthy sentiment and does him good, but I do not want it carried to the length of losing her. The thought of what he might one day bring home has been a nightmare to me ever since he left school. I suppose it is to most fathers, especially if one thinks of the women one loved oneself when in the early twenties. A large, pale-faced girl who served in a bun shop in the Strand is the first I can recollect. How I trembled when, by chance, her hand touched mine. I cannot recall a single attraction about her except her size, yet for nearly six months I lunged off pastry and mineral waters merely to be near her. To this very day an attack of indigestion will always recreate her image in my mind. Another was a thin, shallow girl, but with magnificent eyes. I met one afternoon in the South Kensington Museum. She was a brainless, vixen-ish girl, but the memory of her eyes would always draw me back to her. More than two-thirds of our time together we spent in violent quarrels and all my hopes of eternity I would have given to make her my companion for life. But for luck in the shape of a well-to-do cab proprietor, as great an idiot as myself, I might have done it. The third was a chorus girl. I'm the whole of the best of the bunch. Her father was a coachman, and she had ten brothers and sisters, most of them doing well in service. And she was succeeded, if I have the order correct, by the ex-wife of a solicitor, a sprightly lady, according to her own account the victim of complicated injustice. I daresay there were others if I took the time to think, but not one of them can I remember without returning thanks to Providence for having lost her. What is one to do? There are days in springtime when a young man ought not to be allowed outside the house. Thank heaven and convention it is not the girls who propose. Few women who would choose the right moment to put their hands upon a young man's shoulders and looking into his eyes ask him to marry them next week would receive no for an answer. It is only our shyness that saves us. A wise friend of mine, who has observed much, would have all those marrying under five and twenty divorced by automatic effluxion of time at forty, leaving the few who had chosen satisfactorily to be reunited if they wished. His argument being that to condemn grown men and women to abide by the choice of inexperienced boys and girls is unjust and absurd. There were nice girls I could have fallen in love with. They never occurred to me. It would seem as if a man had to learn taste in women as in all other things, namely by education. Here and there may exist a born connoisseur, but with most of us our first instincts are towards vulgarity. It is Barry, I think, who says that if only there were silly women enough to go round good women would never get a look in. It is certainly remarkable the number of sweet old maids one meets. Almost as remarkable as the number of stupid cross-grained wives. As I tell Dick I have no desire for a daughter-in-law of whom he feels himself worthy. If he can't do better than that he had best remain single. Janie and he, if I know anything of life, are just suited for one another. Helpful people take their happiness in helping. I knew just such another once, a sweet industrious sensible girl. She made the mistake of marrying a thoroughly good man. There was nothing for her to do. She ended by losing all interest in him, devoting herself to a home in the East End for the reformation of newsboys. It was a pitiful waste. So many women would have been glad of him, while to the ordinary sinful man she would have been a life long comfort. I must have a serious talk to Dick. I shall point out what a good thing it will be for her. I can see Dick keeping her busy and contented for the rest of her days. Veronica played the princess with little boy Foy, Sir Robert of the Curse, as her page. Anything more dignified has, I should say, rarely been seen upon the English stage. Among her wedding presents were two votes for women presented by the local fire brigade. A flying machine of proved stability might be used as a bathing tent. A national theater with cold water douche and basement for reception of English dramatists. Recipe for building a navy without paying for it. Gift of that great financial expert Sir Hocus Pocus. One conscientious income tax pair has been driven by a lady, two socialists in agreement as to what it means, smaller one slightly damaged, one contented farmer, Babylonian period, and one extra-sized bottle, solution of the servant problem. Dick played the dragon without a tail. We had to make him without a tail owing to the smallness of the stage. He had once had a tail, but that was a long story. Added to which there was not time to tell it. Little Sally St. Leonard played his wife, and Robin was his mother-in-law. So much depends upon one's mood. What an ocean of boredom might be saved if science could but give us a barometer for telling us our changes of temperament. How much more to our comfort we could plan our lives knowing that on Monday, say, we should be feeling frivolous on Saturday, dull to bed tempered. I took a man once to see the private secretary. I began by enjoying myself, and ended by feeling ashamed of myself and vexed with the scheme of creation. That authors should write such plays that actors should be willing to degrade our common nature by appearing in them was explainable, he supposed, by the law of supply and demand. What he could not understand was how the public could contrive to extract amusement from them. What was there funny in seeing a poor gentleman shut up in a box? Why should everybody roar with laughter when he asked for a bun? People asked for buns every day. People in railway refreshment rooms and aerated bread shops. Where was the joke? A month later I found myself by chance occupying the seat just behind him at the pantomime. The low comedian was bathing a baby and tears of merriment were rolling down his cheeks. To me the whole business seemed painful and revolting. We were being asked to find delight in the spectacle of a father scouring down an infant of tender years with a scrubbing brush. How women, many of them mothers, could remain through such an exhibition without rising in protest appeared to me an argument against female suffrage. A lady entered, the wife, so the program informed me of a baron. All I can say is that a more vulgar, less prepossessing female I never wished to meet. I even doubted her sobriety. She sat down and plump upon the baby. She must have been a woman rising sixteen stone, and for one minute fifteen seconds by my watch the whole house rocked with laughter. That the thing was only a stage property I felt was no excuse. The humor, heaven save the mark, lay in the supposition that what we were witnessing was the agony and death for no child could have survived that woman's weight of a real baby. Had I been able to tap myself beforehand I should have learned that on that particular Saturday I was going to be set serious. Instead of booking a seat for the pantomime I should have gone to a lecture on Egyptian pottery which was being given by a friend of mine at the London Library and have had a good time. Children could tap their parents, warn each other that father was going down, that mother next week was likely to be gusty. Children themselves might hang out their little barometers. I remember a rainy day in a country house during the Christmas holidays. We had among us a member of Parliament, a man of sunny disposition, extremely fond of children. He said it was awfully hard lines on the little beggars cooped up in a nursery, and borrowing his host's motor coat, pretended he was a bear. He plotted round on his hands and knees and growled a good deal, and the children sat on the sofa and watched him. But they didn't seem to be enjoying it, not much, and after a quarter of an hour or so he noticed this himself. He thought it was, maybe, that they were tired of bears and fancied that a whale might arouse them. He turned the table upside down and placed the children in it on three chairs, explaining to them that they were shipwrecked sailors on a raft, and that they must be careful the whale did not get underneath it and upset them. He draped a sheet over the towel-horse to represent an iceberg, and rolled himself up in a macintosh and flopped about the floor on his stomach, butting his head occasionally against the table in order to suggest to them their danger. The attitude of the children still remained that of polite spectators. True, the youngest boy did make the suggestion of borrowing the kitchen toasting fork and employing it as a harpoon, but even this appeared to be the outcome, rather of a desire to please, but of any warm or interest, and the whale objecting the idea fell through. After that he climbed up on the dresser and announced to them that he was an orangutan. They watched him break a soup-tureen, and then the eldest boy, stepping out into the middle of the room, held up his arm, and the member of parliament, somewhat surprised, sat down on the dresser and listened. Please, sir, said the eldest boy. We're awfully sorry. It's awfully good of you, sir, but somehow we're not feeling in the mood for wild beasts this afternoon. The member of parliament brought them down into the drawing room where we had music, and the children at their own request were allowed to sing hymns. The next day they came of their own accord and asked the member of parliament to play at beasts with them, but it seemed he had letters to write. There are times when jokes about mothers-in-law strike me as lacking both in taste and freshness. On this particular evening they came to me bringing with them all the fragrance of the days that are no more. The first play I ever saw dealt with the subject of the mother-in-law. The problem, I think it was called, in those days. The occasion was an amateur performance given in aid of the local ragged school. A cousin of mine, lately married, played the wife, and my aunt, I remember, got up and walked out in the middle of the second act. Robina, in spectacles, and an early Victorian bonnet reminded me of her. Young Butte played a comic cabman. It was at the old Haymarket in Buxton's time that I first met the cabman of art and literature. Dear, bibulous, decoded creature with ever-wrathful, outstretched palm and husky, here, watch this! How good it was to see him once again. I felt I wanted to climb over the footlights and shake him by the hand. The twins played a couple of young Turks, much concerned about their constitutions, and made quite a hit with a topical duet to the refrain, and so you see the reason he is not the boss for us. We all agreed it was a pun worthy of Tom Hood himself. The vicar thought he had heard it before, but this seemed improbable. There was a unanimous call for author, giving rise to sounds of discussion behind the curtain. Eventually the whole company appeared with Veronica in the center. I had noticed throughout that the center of the stage appeared to be Veronica's favorite spot. I can see the makings of a leading actress in Veronica. In my own piece, which followed, Robina and Butte played a young married couple who do not know how to quarrel. It has always struck me how much more satisfactorily people quarrel on the stage than in real life. On the stage, the man, having made up his mind to have it out, enters and closes the door. He lights a cigarette, if not a tea-totaler, mixes himself a brandy and soda. His wife all this time is careful to remain silent. Quite evident it is that he is preparing for her benefit something unpleasant, and chatter might disturb him. To fill up the time she toys with the novel or touches softly the keys of the piano until he is quite comfortable and ready to begin. He glides into his subject with the studied calm of one with all the afternoon before him. She listens to him in rapt attention. She does not dream of interrupting him, would score in the suggestion of chipping in with any little notion of her own likely to disarrange his train of thought. All she does when he pauses, as occasionally he has to for the purpose of taking breath, is to come to his assistance with short encouraging remarks such, for instance, as, well, you think that. And if I did? Her object seems to be to help him on. Go on, she says from time to time bitterly, and he goes on. Towards the end, when he shows signs of easing up, she puts it to him as one sportsman to another. Is he quite finished? Is that all? Sometimes it isn't. As often as not, he has been saving the pick of the basket for the last. No, he says that is not all. There is something else. That is quite enough for her. That is all she wanted to know. She merely asked in case there might be. As it appears there is, she resettles herself in her chair and is again all ears. When it does come, when he is quite sure there is nothing he has forgotten, no little point that he has overlooked she rises. I have listened patiently. She begins to all that you have said. The devil himself could not deny this. Patience hardly seems the word. Enthusiastically, she might almost have said. Now, with rising inflection, you listen to me. The stage husband, always the gentleman, bows, stiffly maybe, but quite politely, and prepares in his turn to occupy the role of dumb but dignified defendant. To emphasize the coming change in their positions, the lady most probably crosses over to what has hitherto been his side of the stage, while he, starting at the same moment and passing her about the center, settles himself down in what must be regarded as the listener's end of the room. We then have the whole story over again from her point of view, and this time it is the gentleman who would bite off his tongue rather than make a retort calculated to put the lady off. In the end, it is the party who is in the right that conquers. Off the stage, this is more or less of a toss-up. On the stage, never. If justice be with the husband, then it is his voice that gradually growing louder and louder rings at last triumphant through the house. The lady sees herself that she has been to blame and wonders why it did not occur to her before, is grateful for the revelation and asks to be forgiven. If, on the other hand, it was the husband who was at fault, then it is the lady who will be found eventually occupying the center of the stage, the miserable husband, who morally speaking will be trying to get under the table. Now, in real life things don't happen quite like this. What the quarrel in real life suffers from is want of system. There is no order or no settled plan. There is much too much go as you please about the quarrel in real life, and the result is naturally pure muddle. The man, turning things over in the morning while shaving, makes up his mind to have this matter out and have done with it. He knows exactly what he is going to say. He repeats it to himself at intervals during the day. He will first say this, and then he will go on to that. While he is about it he will perhaps mention the other. He reckons it will take him a quarter of an hour, which will just give him time to dress for dinner. After it is over and he looks at his watch, he finds it has taken him longer than that. Added to which he has said next to nothing, next to nothing that is what he meant to say. It went wrong from the very start. As a matter of fact, there wasn't any start. He entered the room and closed the door. That is as far as he got. The cigarette he never even lighted. There ought to have been a box of matches on the mantelpiece behind the photo frame, and of course there were none there. For her to fly into a temper merely because he reminded her that he had spoken about this very matter at least a hundred times before, and accused him of going about his own house stealing his own matches was positively laughable. They had quarreled for about five minutes over those wretched matches, and then for another ten because he said that women had no sense of humor, and she wanted to know how he knew. After that there had cropped up the last quarter's gas bill, and that by a process still mysterious to him had led them into the subject of his behavior on the night of the hockey club dance. By an effort of almost supernatural self-control, he had contrived at length to introduce the subject he had come home half an hour earlier than usual on purpose to discuss. It didn't interest her in the least. What she was full of by this time was a girl named Arabella Jones. She got in quite a lot while he was mainly trying to remember where he had last seen the damned girl. He had just succeeded in getting back to his own topic when the Cuttiford girl from next door dashed in without a hat to borrow a tuning fork. It had been quite a business finding the tuning fork, and when she was gone they had to begin all over again. They had quarreled about the drawing room carpet about her sister Flory's birthday present and the way he drove the motor car. It had taken them over an hour and a half, and rather than waste the tickets for the theater they had gone without their dinner. The matter of the cold chisels still remained to be thrashed out. It had occurred to me that through the medium of the drama I might show how the domestic quarrel could so easily be improved. A daftless good body, a worthy young man deeply attached to his wife, feels nevertheless that the dinners she is inflicting upon him are threatening with permanent damage his digestive system. He determines come what may to insist upon a change. The viral good body, a charming girl, admiring and devoted to her husband, is now withstanding a trifle on tape, especially when her domestic arrangements happen to be the theme of discussion. The daftless, his courage screwed to the sticking point, broaches the difficult subject, and for the first half of the act my aim was to picture the progress of the human quarrel not as it should be but as it is. They never reached the cook. The first mention of the word dinner reminds Elvira, quick to perceive that argument is brewing, and alive to the advantage of getting in first, that twice the month before he had dined out not returning till the small hours of the morning. What she wants to know is where this sort of thing is going to end. If the purpose of Freemasonry has the ruin of the home and the desertion of women, then all she has to say, it turns out to be quite a good deal. A daftless, when able to get in a word, suggests that eleven o'clock at the latest can hardly be described as the small hours of the morning. The fault with women is that they never will confine themselves to the simple truth. From that point onwards, as can be imagined, the scene almost wrote itself. They have passed through all the customary stages and are planning with exaggerated calm arrangements for the separation which each now feels to be inevitable, when a knot comes to the front door and there enters a mutual friend. There haste the attempts to cover up the traces of mental disorder with which the atmosphere is strewed to not deceive him. There has been, let us say, a ripple on the waters of perfect agreement. Come, what was it all about? About, they looked from one to the other. Surely it would be simpler to tell him what it had not been about. It had been about the parrot, about her want of punctuality, about his using the butter-knife for the marmalade, about a pair of slippers he had lost at Christmas, about the education question and her dressmaker's bill and his friend George and the next-door dog. The mutual friend cuts short the catalog. Clearly there is nothing for it but to begin the quarrel all over again, and this time if they will put themselves into his hands he feels sure he can promise victory to whichever one is in the right. Elvira, she has a sweet impulsive nature, throws her arms around him, that is all she wants, if only Adolphus could be brought to sea. Adolphus grips him by the hand, if only Elvira would listen to sense. The mutual friend, he is an old stage manager, arranges the scene. Elvira in easy chair by fire with crochet, enter Adolphus. He lights a cigarette, flings the match on the floor, with his hands in his pockets, paces up and down the room, kicks a footstool out of his way. Tell me when I am to begin, says Elvira. The mutual friend promises to give her the right cue. Adolphus comes to a halt in the center of the room. I am sorry, my dear, he says, but there is something I must say to you, something that may not be altogether pleasant for you to hear. To which Elvira, still crocheting, replies, O indeed, and pray, what may that be? This was not Elvira's own idea. Springing from her chair, she had got as far as, look here, if you have come home early merely for the purpose of making a row, before the mutual friend could stop her. The mutual friend was firm. Only by exacting strict obedience could he guarantee a successful issue. What she had got to say was, O indeed, et cetera. The mutual friend had need of all his tact to prevent his becoming a quarrel of three. Adolphus, allowed to proceed, explained that the subject about which he wished to speak was the subject of dinner. The mutual friend this time was beforehand. Elvira's retort to that was, dinner, you complain of the dinners I provide for you? Enabling him to reply, yes, madam, I do complain, and to give reasons. It seemed to Elvira that the mutual friend had lost his senses, to tell her to wait, that her time would come, of what use was that, half of what she wanted to say would be gone out of her head. Adolphus brought to a conclusion his criticism of Elvira's kitchen, and then Elvira, incapable of restraining herself further, rose majestically. The mutual friend was saved the trouble of suppressing Adolphus. Until Elvira had finished, Adolphus never got an opening. He grumbled at their dinners. He, who can die night after night with his precious freemasons, does he think she likes them any better? She doomed to stay at home and eat them. What does he take her for? An ostrich? Whose fault is it that they keep an incompetent cook too old to learn and too obstinate to want to? Whose old family servant was she? Not Elvira's. It has been to please Adolphus that she has suffered the woman. And this is her reward. This. She breaks down. Adolphus is astonished and troubled. Personally he never liked the woman. Faithful she may have been, but a cook never. His own idea, had he been consulted, would have been a small pension. Elvira falls upon his neck. Why did he not say so before? Adolphus presses her to his bosom, if only he had known. They promised the mutual friend never to quarrel again without his assistance. The acting all round was quite good. Our curate, who is a bachelor, said it taught a lesson. Veronica had tears in her eyes. She whispered to me that she thought it beautiful. There is more in Veronica than people think. End of Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Of They and I by Jerome K. Jerome This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Debra Lynn. They and I by Jerome K. Jerome. Chapter 12 I am sorry the house is finished. There is a proverb, Fools build houses for wise men to live in. It depends upon what you are after. The fool gets the fun, and the wise men the bricks and mortar. I remember a whimsical story I picked up at the bookstall of the Guerre de Lyon. I read it between Paris and Fontainebleu many years ago. Three friends, youthful Bohemians, smoking their pipes after the meager dinner of a cheap restaurant in the Latin Quarter, felt a thinking of their poverty, of the long and bitter struggle that lay before them. My themes are so original, side the musician. It will take me a year of fate days to teach the public to understand them, even if ever I do succeed. And meanwhile I shall live unknown, neglected, watching the men without ideals passing me by in the race, splashed with the mud from their carriage wheels as I beat the pavements with worn shoes. It is really a most unjust world. An abominable world, agreed the poet, but think of me. My case is far harder than yours. Your gift lies within you. Mine is to translate what lies around me, and that, for so far ahead as I can see, will always be the shadow side of life. To develop my genius to its fullest I need the sunshine of existence. My soul is being starved for lack of the beautiful things of life. A little of the wealth that vulgar people waste would make a great poet for France. It is not only of myself that I am thinking. The painter laughed. I cannot sort your heights, he said. Frankly speaking, it is myself that chiefly appeals to me. Why not? I give the world beauty, and in return, what does it give me? This dingy restaurant where I eat ill-flavored food off hideous platters, a foul guirette giving on to chimney pots. After long years of ill-requited labor I may, as others have before me, come into my kingdom, possess my studio in the Champs-Elysees, my fine house at Nuelle, but the prospect of the intervening period I confess appalls me. Absorbed in themselves, they had not noticed that a stranger seated at a neighboring table had been listening with attention. He rose, and apologizing with easy grace for intrusion into a conversation he could hardly have avoided overhearing, requested permission to be of service. The restaurant was dimly lighted. The three friends on entering had chosen its obscurist corner. The stranger appeared to be well dressed. His voice and bearing suggested the man of affairs. His face, what feeble light there was being behind him, remained in shadow. The three friends eyed him furtively. Possibly some rich but eccentric patron of the arts, not beyond the bounds of speculation that he was acquainted with their work, had read the poet's verses in one of the minor magazines, had stumbled upon some sketch of the painters while bargain-hunting among the dealers of the quartier Saint Antoine, been struck by the beauty of the composer's not-turning app heard at some student's concert, having made inquiries concerning their haunts and chosen this method of introducing himself. The young men made room for him with feelings of hope mingled with curiosity. The affable stranger called for LeCours and handed round his cigar case, and almost his first words brought them joy. Before we go further, said the smiling stranger, it is my pleasure to inform you that all three of you are destined to become great. The LeCours, to their unaccustomed palates, were proving potent. The stranger's cigars were singularly aromatic. It seemed the most reasonable thing in the world that the stranger should be thus able to foretell to them their future. Fame, fortune will be yours, continued the agreeable stranger. All things delightful will be to your hand. The adoration of women, the honor of men, the incense of society, joy's spiritual and material, beauty of surroundings, choice, foods, all luxury and ease, the world your pleasure ground. The stained walls of the dingy restaurant were fading into space before the young men's eyes. They saw themselves as gods walking in the garden of their hearts' desires. But alas, went on the stranger, and with the first note of his changed voice the visions vanished. The dingy walls came back. These things take time. You will, all three, be well past middle age before you will reap the just reward of your toil and talents. Meanwhile, the sympathetic stranger shrugged his shoulders. It is the old story. Genius spending its youth battling for recognition against indifference, ridicule, envy, the spirit crushed by its sordid environment, the drab monotony of narrow days. There will be winter nights when you will tramp the streets, cold, hungry for lawn, summer days when you will hide in your attics, ashamed of the sunlight on your ragged garments, chill dawns when you will watch wild-eyed the suffering of those you love, helpless by reason of your poverty to alleviate their pain. The stranger paused while the ancient waiter replenished the empty glasses. The three friends drank in silence. I proposed, said the stranger, with a pleasant laugh, that we pass over this customary period of probation, that we skip the intervening years, arrive at once at our true destination. The stranger, leaning back in his chair, regarded the three friends with a smile they felt rather than saw, and something about the stranger, that could not have told themselves what, made all things possible. A quite simple matter, the stranger assured them, a little sleep and a forgetting in the years lie behind us. Come, gentlemen, have I your consent? It seemed a question hardly needing answer, to escape at one stride the long weary struggle to enter without fighting into victory. The young men looked at one another, and each one, thinking of his gain, bartered the battle for the spoil. It seemed to them that suddenly the lights went out, and a darkness like a rushing wind swept past them, filled with many sounds, and then forgetfulness, and then the coming back of light. They were seated at a table, glittering with silver and deity china-wear, to which the red wine in Venetian goblets, the varied fruit and flowers, gave color. The room furnished too gorgeously for taste, they judged to be a private cabinet in one of the great restaurants. Of such interiors they had occasionally caught glimpses through open windows on summer nights. It was softly illuminated by shaded lamps. The stranger's face was still in shadow, but what surprised each of the three most was to observe opposite him two more or less bald-headed gentlemen of somewhat flabby appearance, whose features, however, in some mysterious way appeared familiar. The stranger had his wine-glass raised in his hand. Our dear Paul, the stranger was saying, has declined with his customary modesty any public recognition of his triumph. He will not refuse three old friends the privilege of offering him their heartiest congratulations. Gentlemen, I drink not only to our dear Paul, but to the French Academy, which in honoring him has honored France. The stranger, rising from his chair, turned his piercing eyes, the only part of him that could be clearly seen, upon the astonished poet. The two elderly gentlemen opposite, evidently as bewildered as Paul himself, taking their cue from the stranger, drained their glasses. Still following the stranger's lead, lent each across the table, and shook him warmly by the hand. A big pardon, said the poet, but really I am afraid I must have been asleep. Would it sound rude to you? he addressed himself to the stranger. The faces of the elderly gentlemen opposite did not suggest there being a much assistance to him. If I asked you where I was? Again, there flickered across the stranger's face the smile that was felt rather than seen. You are in a private room of the Café Petale, he answered. We are met this evening to celebrate your recent elevation into the company of the Immortals. Oh, said the poet, thank you. The academy, continued the stranger, is always a little late in these affairs. Myself, I could have wished your election had taken place ten years ago, when all France, all France that counts that is, was talking of you. At fifty-three, the stranger touched lightly with his fingers the poet's fat hand. One does not write as when the sap was running up instead of down. Slowly, memory of the dingy café in the route St. Louis of the strange happening that took place there that night when he was young crept back into the poet's brain. Would you mind, said the poet, would it be troubling you too much to tell me something of what has occurred to me? Not in the least, responded the agreeable stranger. Your career has been most interesting, for the first few years chiefly to yourself. You married Marguerite. You remember Marguerite? The poet remembered her. A mad thing to do, so most people would have said, continued the stranger. You had not a sue between you. But myself, I think you were justified. Youth comes to us but once, and at twenty-five our business is to live. Undoubtedly, the marriage helped you. You lived an idyllic existence for a time, in a tumbledown cottage at Chershne, with a garden that went down to the river. Poor, of course you were, poor as church mice, but who fears poverty when hope and love are singing on the bow? I really think quite your best work was done during those years at Chershne. The sweetness, the tenderness of it. There has been nothing like it in French poetry. It made no mark at the time. But ten years later the public went mad about it. She was dead then, poor child. It had been a hard struggle. And as you may remember she was always fragile. Yet even in her death I think she helped you. There entered a new note into your poetry. A death that had hitherto been wanting. There was the best thing that ever came to you, your love for Marguerite. The stranger refilled his glass and passed the decanter. But the poet left the wine unheeded. And then, ah, yes, then followed that excursion into politics. Those scathing articles you wrote for la liberté. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that they altered the whole aspect of French political thought. Those wonderful speeches you made during your election campaign at Angershne. How the people worshiped you. You might have carried your portfolio had you persisted. But you poets are such restless fellows. And after all I daresay you have really accomplished more by your plays. You remember, no, of course, how could you, the first night of La Coquette? Shall I ever forget it? I have always reckoned that, the crown of your career. Your marriage with Madame Deschanel, I do not think it was for the public good. Poor Deschanel's millions. Is it not so? Poetry and millions interfere with one another. But a thousand pardons, my dear Paul, you have done so much. It is only right you should now be taking your ease. Your work is finished. The poet does not answer. Sit staring before him with eyes turned inward. The painter, the musician, what did the years bring to them? The stranger tells them also of all that they have lost. Of the griefs and sorrows. Of the hopes and fears they have never tasted. Of their tears that ended in laughter. Of the pain that gave sweetness to joy. Of the triumphs that came to them in the days before triumph had lost its savor. Of the loves and the longings and fervors they would never know. All was ended. The stranger had given them what he had promised, what they had desired. The gain without the getting. Then they break out. What is it to me, cries the painter, that I wait to find myself wearing the gold medal of the salon, robbed of the memory of all by which it was earned? The stranger points out to him that he is illogical. Such memories would have included long vistas of meager dinners and dingy restaurants. Of attic studios. Of a life the chief part of which had been passed amid ugly surroundings. It was to escape from all of such that he had clamored. The poet is silent. I asked but for recognition, cries the musician, that men might listen to me. Not for my music to be taken from me in exchange for the recompense of a successful tradesman. My inspiration is burnt out. I feel it. The music that once filled my soul is mute. It was born of the strife and anguish, the stranger tells him, of the loves that died, of the hopes that faded, of the beating of youth's wings against the bars of sorrow, of the glory and madness and torment called life, of the struggle you shrank from facing. The poet takes up the tale. You have robbed us of life, he cries. You tell us of dead lips whose kisses we have never felt, of songs of victory sung to our deaf ears. You have taken our fires, you have left us but the ashes. The fires that scorch and sear, the stranger adds, the lips that cried in their pain, the victory bought of wounds. It is not yet too late, the stranger tells them. All this can be but a troubled dream growing fainter with each waking moment. Will you buy back your youth at the cost of ease? Will you buy back life at the price of tears? They cry with one voice. Give us back our youth with its burdens and a heart to bear them. Give us back life with its mingled bitter and sweet. Then suddenly the stranger stands revealed before them. They see that he is life, life born of battle, life made strong by endeavor, life learning song from suffering. There follows more talk, which struck me when I read the story as a mistake, for all the details, though they have now learned, that life to be enjoyed must be lived, the victory to be sweet must be won. They awaken the dingy cafe and the rude St. Louis. The ancient waiter is piling up the chair's preparatory closing the shutters. The poet draws forth a small handful of coins, asks what is to pay? Nothing, the waiter answers. A stranger who sat with them and talked a while before they fell asleep has paid the bill. They look at one another but no one speaks. The streets are empty, a thin rain is falling. They turn up the collars of their coats, strike out into the night, and as their footsteps echo on the glistening pavement, it comes to each of them that they are walking with a new grave step. I feel so sorry for Dick, for the tens of thousands of happy, healthy, cared-for lads of whom Dick is the type. There must be millions of youngsters in the world who have never known hunger except as an appetizer to their dinner, who have never felt what it was to be tired without the knowledge that a comfortable bed was awaiting them. To the well-to-do man or woman life is one perpetual nursery. They are awakened in the morning, not too early, not till the nursery has been swept out and made ready, and the fire lighted, awakened gently with a cup of tea to give them strength and courage for this great business of getting up, awakened with whispered words lest any sudden start should make their little heads ache. The blinds carefully arranged to exclude the naughty sun, which otherwise might shine into their little eyes and make them fretful. The water, with a nasty chill off, is put ready for them. They wash their little hands and faces all by themselves. Then they are shaved and have their hair done. Their little hands are manicured. Their little corns cut for them. When they are neat and clean, they toddle into breakfast. They are shown into their little chairs. Their little napkins handed to them. The knife-spoon that is so good for them is put upon their little plates. The drink is poured out for them into their cups. If they want to play, there is the day nursery. They have only to tell kind nurse what game it is they fancy. The toys are at once brought out. The little gun is put into their hand. The little horse is dragged forth from its corner. Their little feet carefully placed to the stirrups. The little ball and bat is taken from its box. Or they will take the air, as the wise doctor has ordered. The little carriage will be ready in five minutes. The nice warm cloak is buttoned round them. The footstool plays beneath their feet. The cushion at their back. The day is done. The games have been played. The toys have been taken from their tired hands. Put back into the cupboard. The food that is so good for them that makes them strong little men and women has all been eaten. They have been dressed for going out into the pretty park. Undressed and dressed again for going out to tea with the little boys and girls next door. Undressed and dressed again for the party. They have read their little book. Have seen a little play. Have looked at pretty pictures. The kind gentleman with the long hair has played the piano to them. They have danced. Their little feet are really quite tired. The footman brings them home. They are put into their little nighties. The candle is blown out. The nursery door is softly closed. Now and again some restless little man, wearying of the smug nursery, will run out past the garden gate and down the long white road. Will find the north pole, or failing at the south pole, or where the Nile rises, or how it feels to fly. Will climb the mountains of the moon. Do anything. Go anywhere. To escape from nurse civilizations everlasting apron streams. Or some queer little woman, wondering where the people come from, will run and run till she comes to the great town. Watch and wonder the strange folk that sweat and groan. The peaceful nursery with the toys, the pretty frocks, never quite the same again to her. But to the 1920s of the well to do, the world beyond the nursery is an unknown land. Terrible things occur out there to little men and women who have no pretty nursery to live in. People push and shove you about. Will even tread on your toes if you are not careful. Out there is no kind strong nurse bank balance to hold one's little hand and see that no harm comes to one. Out there one has to fight one's own battles. Often one is cold and hungry out there. One has to fend for oneself out there, earn one's dinner before one eats it, never quite sure of the week after next. Terrible things take place out there, strain and contest and fierce endeavor. The ways are full of dangers and surprises. Folk go up, folk go down. You have to set your teeth and fight. Well to do little men and women shudder. Draw down the nursery blinds. Robin had a little dog. It led the usual dog's life. Slept in a basket on an iderdown cushion, sheltered from any chance draft by silk curtains. It's milk warmed and sweetened. It's cozy chair reserved for it in winter near the fire. In summer where the sun might reach it. It's three meals a day that a gourmet might have eaten gladly. It's very fleas taken off its hands. And twice a year, still extra care was needed lest it should wantonly fling aside its days and nights of luxurious ease, claim its small share of the passion and pain that go to the making of dogs and men. For twice a year there came a wind, salt with the brine of earth's ceaseless tides, whispering to it of a wondrous land whose sharpest stones are sweeter than the silken cushions of all the world without. One winter's night there was great commotion. Bebet was nowhere to be found. We were living in the country miles away from everywhere. Bebet! Bebet! cried poor frenzied robinah. And for answer came only the laughter of the wind pausing in his game of romps with the snowflakes. Next morning an old woman from the town four miles away brought back Bebet at the end of a string. Oh, such a soaked, bedraggled Bebet! The old woman had found her crouching in a doorway, a bewildered little heap of palpitating femininity, and reading the address upon her collar and maybe sending a not-impossible reward, had thought she might as well earn it for herself. Robinah was shocked, disgusted, to think that Bebet, dainty, petted, spoiled Bebet, should have chosen of her own accord to go down into the mud and darkness of the vulgar town to leave her curtain to idre down to tramp the streets like any drab. Robinah, to whom Bebet had hitherto been the ideal dog, moved away to hide her tears of vexation. The old dame smiled. She had borne her good man eleven, so she told us. It had been a hard struggle, and some had gone down, and some were dead, but some, thank God, were doing well. The old dame wished us good day, but as she turned to go and impulse seized her, she crossed to where Bebet, ashamed yet half defiant, sat, a wet, woeful little image on the hearth rug, stooped and lifted the little creature in her thin, warm arms. It's trouble you brought yourself, said the old dame. You couldn't help it, could you? Bebet's little pink tongue stole out. We understand, we know we mothers, they seem to be saying to one another. And so the two kissed. I think the terrace will be my favorite spot. Alpha Bertha thinks, too, that on sunny days she will like to sit there. From it, through an opening I have made in the trees, I can see the cottage just a mile away at the edge of the wood. Young Butte tells me it is the very place he has been looking for. Most of his time, of course, he has to pass in town, but his bride days to Mondays he likes to spend in the country. Maybe I shall hand it over to him. St. Leonard's chimneys we can also see above the trees. Dick tells me he has quite made up his mind to become a farmer. He thinks it would be a good plan, for a beginning, to go into partnership with St. Leonard. It is not unlikely that St. Leonard's restless temperament may prompt him eventually to tire of farming. He has a brother in Canada doing well in the lumber business, and St. Leonard often talks of the advantages of the colonies to a man who is bringing up a large family. I shall be sorry to lose him as a neighbor, though I see the advantages under certain possibilities of Mrs. St. Leonard's address being Manitoba. Veronica also thinks the terrace may come to be her favorite resting place. I suppose, said Veronica, that if anything was to happen to Robin, everything would fall on me. It would be a change, Veronica, I suggested. Here the two it is you who have done most of the falling. Suppose I've got to see about growing up, said Veronica. End of Chapter 12 End of They and I by Jerome K. Jerome Recorded by Deborah Lynn