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Uneasy Money/Chapter 24

The man who had alighted from the automobile was young and cheerful. He wore a flannel suit of a gay blue and a straw hat with a coloured ribbon, and he looked upon a world which, his manner seemed to indicate, had been constructed according to his own specifications through a single eyeglass. When he spoke it became plain that his nationality was English.

Nutty regarded his beaming countenance with a lowering hostility. The indecency of anyone being cheerful at such a time struck him forcibly. He would have liked mankind to have preserved till further notice a hushed gloom. He glared at the young man.

Elizabeth, such was her absorption in her thoughts, was not even aware of his presence till he spoke to her.

'I beg your pardon, is this Flack's?'

She looked up and met that sunny eyeglass.

'This is Flack's,' she said.

'Thank you,' said the young man.

The automobile, a stout, silent man at the helm, throbbed in the nervous way automobiles have when standing still, suggesting somehow that it were best to talk quick, as they can give you only a few minutes before dashing on to keep some other appointment. Either this or a natural volatility lent a breezy rapidity to the visitor's speech. He looked at Elizabeth across the gate, which it had not occurred to her to open, as if she were just what he had expected her to be and a delight to his eyes, and burst into speech.

'My name's Nichols—J. Nichols. I expect you remember getting a letter from me a week or two ago?'

The name struck Elizabeth as familiar. But he had gone on to identify himself before she could place it in her mind.

'Lawyer, don't you know. Wrote you a letter telling you that your Uncle Ira Nutcombe had left all his money to Lord Dawlish.'

'Oh, yes,' said Elizabeth, and was about to invite him to pass the barrier, when he began to speak again.

'You know, I want to explain that letter. Wrote it on a sudden impulse, don't you know. The more I have to do with the law, the more it seems to hit me that a lawyer oughtn't to act on impulse. At the moment, you see, it seemed to me the decent thing to do—put you out of your misery, and so forth—stop your entertaining hopes never to be realized, what? and all that sort of thing. You see, it was like this: Bill—I mean Lord Dawlish—is a great pal of mine, a dear old chap. You ought to know him. Well, being in the know, you understand, through your uncle having deposited the will with us, I gave Bill the tip directly I heard of Mr Nutcombe's death. I sent him a telephone message to come to the office, and I said: "Bill, old man, this old buster"—I beg your pardon, this old gentleman—"has left you all his money." Quite informal, don't you know, and at the same time, in the same informal spirit, I wrote you the letter.' He dammed the torrent for a moment. 'By the way, of course you are Miss Elizabeth Boyd, what?'

'Yes.'

The young man seemed relieved.

'I'm glad of that,' he said. 'Funny if you hadn't been. You'd have wondered what on earth I was talking about.'

In spite of her identity, this was precisely what Elizabeth was doing. Her mind, still under a cloud, had been unable to understand one word of Mr Nichols's discourse. Judging from his appearance, which was that of a bewildered hosepipe or a snake whose brain is being momentarily overtaxed, Nutty was in the same difficulty. He had joined the group at the gate, abandoning the pebble which he had been kicking in the background, and was now leaning on the top bar, a picture of silent perplexity.

'You see, the trouble is,' resumed the young man, 'my governor, who's the head of the firm, is all for doing things according to precedent. He loves red tape—wears it wrapped round him in winter instead of flannel. He's all for doing things in the proper legal way, which, as I dare say you know, takes months. And, meanwhile, everybody's wondering what's happening and who has got the money, and so on and so forth. I thought I would skip all that and let you know right away exactly where you stood, so I wrote you that letter. I don't think my temperament's quite suited to the law, don't you know, and if he ever hears that I wrote you that letter I have a notion that the governor will think so too. So I came over here to ask you, if you don't mind, not to mention it when you get in touch with the governor. I frankly admit that that letter, written with the best intentions, was a bloomer.'

With which manly admission the young man paused, and allowed the rays of his eyeglass to play upon Elizabeth in silence. Elizabeth tried to piece together what little she understood of his monologue.

'You mean that you want me not to tell your father that I got a letter from you?'

'Exactly that. And thanks very much for not saying "without prejudice," or anything of that kind. The governor would have.'

'But I don't understand. Why should you think that I should ever mention anything to your father?'

'Might slip out, you know, without your meaning it.'

'But when? I shall never meet your father.'

'You might quite easily. He might want to see you about the money.'

'The money?'

The eyebrow above the eyeglass rose, surprised.

'Haven't you had a letter from the governor?'

'No.'

The young man made a despairing gesture.

'I took it for granted that it had come on the same boat that I did. There you have the governor's methods! Couldn't want a better example. I suppose some legal formality or other has cropped up and laid him a stymie, and he's waiting to get round it. You really mean he hasn't written?

'Why, dash it,' said the young man, as one to whom all is revealed, 'then you can't have understood a word of what I've been saying!'

For the first time Elizabeth found herself capable of smiling. She liked this incoherent young man.

'I haven't,' she said.

'You don't know about the will?'

'Only what you told me in your letter.'

'Well, I'm hanged! Tell me—I hadn't the honour of knowing him personally—was the late Mr Nutcombe's whole life as eccentric as his will-making? It seems to me—'

Nutty spoke.

'Uncle Ira's middle name,' he said, 'was Bloomingdale. That,' he proceeded, bitterly, 'is the frightful injustice of it all. I had to suffer from it right along, and all I get, when it comes to a finish, is a miserable hundred dollars. Uncle Ira insisted on father and mother calling me Nutcombe; and whenever he got a new craze I was always the one he worked it off on. You remember the time he became a vegetarian, Elizabeth? Gosh!' Nutty brooded coldly on the past. 'You remember the time he had it all worked out that the end of the world was to come at five in the morning one February? Made me stop up all night with him, reading Marcus Aurelius! And the steam-heat turned off at twelve-thirty! I could tell you a dozen things just as bad as that. He always picked on me. And now I've gone through it all he leaves me a hundred dollars!'

Mr Nichols nodded sympathetically.

'I should have imagined that he was rather like that. You know, of course, why he made that will I wrote to you about, leaving all his money to Bill Dawlish? Simply because Bill, who met him golfing at a place in Cornwall in the off season, cured him of slicing his approach-shots! I give you my word that was the only reason. I'm sorry for old Bill, poor old chap. Such a good sort!'

'He's all right,' said Nutty. 'But why you should be sorry for him gets past me. A fellow who gets five million—'

'But he doesn't, don't you see?'

'How do you mean?'

'Why, this other will puts him out of the running.'

'Which other will?'

'Why, the one I'm telling you about.'

He looked from one to the other, apparently astonished at their slowness of understanding. Then an idea occurred to him.

'Why, now that I think of it, I never told you, did I? Yes, your uncle made another will at the very last moment, leaving all he possessed to Miss Boyd.'

The dead silence in which his words were received stimulated him to further speech. It occurred to him that, after that letter of his, perhaps these people were wary about believing anything he said.

'It's absolutely true. It's the real, stable information this time. I had it direct from the governor, who was there when he made the will. He and the governor had had a row about something, you know, and they made it up during those last days, and—Well, apparently your uncle thought he had better celebrate it somehow, so he made a new will. From what little I know of him, that was the way he celebrated most things. I took it for granted the governor would have written to you by this time. I expect you'll hear by the next mail. You see, what brought me over was the idea that when he wrote you might possibly take it into your heads to mention having heard from me. You don't know my governor. If he found out I had done that I should never hear the last of it. So I said to him: "Gov'nor, I'm feeling a bit jaded. Been working too hard, or something. I'll take a week or so off, if you can spare me." He didn't object, so I whizzed over. Well, of course, I'm awfully sorry for old Bill, but I congratulate you, Miss Boyd.'

'What's the time?' said Elizabeth.

Mr Nichols was surprised. He could not detect the connexion of ideas.

'It's about five to eleven,' he said, consulting his watch.

The next moment he was even more surprised, for Elizabeth, making nothing of the barrier of the gate, had rushed past him and was even now climbing into his automobile.

'Take me to the station, at once,' she was crying to the stout, silent man, whom not even these surprising happenings had shaken from his attitude of well-fed detachment.

The stout man, ceasing to be silent, became interrogative.

'Uh?'

'Take me to the station. I must catch the eleven o'clock train.'

The stout man was not a rapid thinker. He enveloped her in a stodgy gaze. It was only too plain to Elizabeth that he was a man who liked to digest one idea slowly before going on to absorb the next. Jerry Nichols had told him to drive to Flack's. He had driven to Flack's. Here he was at Flack's. Now this young woman was telling him to drive to the station. It was a new idea, and he bent himself to the Fletcherizing of it.

'I'll give you ten dollars if you get me there by eleven,' shouted Elizabeth.

The car started as if it were some living thing that had had a sharp instrument jabbed into it. Once or twice in his life it had happened to the stout man to encounter an idea which he could swallow at a gulp. This was one of them.

Mr Nichols, following the car with a wondering eye, found that Nutty was addressing him.

'Is this really true?' said Nutty.

'Absolute gospel.'

A wild cry, a piercing whoop of pure joy, broke the summer stillness.

'Come and have a drink, old man!' babbled Nutty. 'This wants celebrating!' His face fell. 'Oh, I was forgetting! I'm on the wagon.'

'On the wagon?'

'Sworn off, you know. I'm never going to touch another drop as long as I live. I began to see things—monkeys!'

'I had a pal,' said Mr Nichols, sympathetically, 'who used to see kangaroos.'

Nutty seized him by the arm, hospitable though handicapped.

'Come and have a bit of bread and butter, or a slice of cake or something, and a glass of water. I want to tell you a lot more about Uncle Ira, and I want to hear all about your end of it. Gee, what a day!'

'"The maddest, merriest of all the glad New Year,"' assented Mr Nichols. 'A slice of that old 'eighty-seven cake. Just the thing!'

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 faith, and form anew the living temple of the Holy Ghost, in their generation. Thus the consecrated Form of Religion will be like some fair statue, which lies buried for ages, but comes forth at length as beautiful as ever; they will be furnished with all requisites for teaching us those lessons, which the preceding age has been engaged in obliterating.

2. If it be true that our weak and carnal minds do not readily dwell upon, nor comprehend, spiritual things by themselves, can we conceive any thing more precious to us on earth, than the outward forms which Himself has appointed to arrest our attention, to embody unseen realities, to serve as a kind of ladder between earth and heaven, between our spirit and the Spirit of Holiness? It is much to our purpose to observe, that Almighty God Himself directly declares that this is His design, in the institution of Forms and Ordinances. And the consideration of such passages of Scripture may perhaps set us on asking ourselves whether we can be really desiring the end, if we find ourselves at all irregular in seeking the means which He has appointed. (Vide Exod. xii. 26. xiii. 5—10. and 11—16. Levit. xxiii. 43. Josh, iv. 1—7.)

3. Further, religious ordinances are, to the consciences of individuals, a recurring testimony against sin. Can we conceive any thing more precious in an ungodly world, in the perverse world of our own heart? Dare we then suffer to decay, and go to nought, the means which God has provided for calling sinners to repentance, and even the best men to self-examination? Shall we suffer ourselves to think and speak lightly of them, and neglect to defend them when they are attacked? To remove a barrier against error, is in its measure to encourage and tempt men to it; and comes under the denunciation pronounced by our Blessed Lord, (Luke xvii. 1, 2.) "Woe unto him through whom offences come; it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should make to stumble one of these little ones."

Just the same care did take of His peculiar people of old. "Write ye this song for you, and teach it the children of Israel; put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for Me against the children of Israel. For when I shall have brought

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Uneasy Money/Chapter 25

Bill made his way along the swaying train to the smoking-car, which was almost empty. It had come upon him overwhelmingly that he needed tobacco. He was in the mood when a man must either smoke or give up altogether the struggle with Fate. He lit his pipe, and looked out of the window at Long Island racing past him. It was only a blur to him.

The conductor was asking for tickets. Bill showed his mechanically, and the conductor passed on. Then he settled down once more to his thoughts. He could not think coherently yet. His walk to the station had been like a walk in a dream. He was conscious of a great, dull pain that weighed on his mind, smothering it. The trees and houses still moved past him in the same indistinguishable blur.

He became aware that the conductor was standing beside him, saying something about a ticket. He produced his once more, but this did not seem to satisfy the conductor. To get rid of the man, who was becoming a nuisance, he gave him his whole attention, as far as that smothering weight would allow him to give his whole attention to anything, and found that the man was saying strange things. He thought that he could not have heard him correctly.

'What?' he said.

'Lady back there told me to collect her fare from you,' repeated the conductor. 'Said you would pay.'

Bill blinked. Either there was some mistake or trouble had turned his brain. He pushed himself together with a supreme effort.

'A lady said I would pay her fare?'

'Yes.'

'But—but why?' demanded Bill, feebly.

The conductor seemed unwilling to go into first causes.

'Search me!' he replied.

'Pay her fare!'

'Told me to collect it off the gentleman in the grey suit in the smoking-car. You're the only one that's got a grey suit.'

'There's some mistake.'

'Not mine.'

'What does she look like?'

The conductor delved in his mind for adjectives.

'Small,' he said, collecting them slowly. 'Brown eyes—'

He desisted from his cataloguing at this point, for, with a loud exclamation, Bill had dashed away.

Two cars farther back he had dropped into the seat by Elizabeth and was gurgling wordlessly. A massive lady, who had entered the train at East Moriches in company with three children and a cat in a basket, eyed him with a curiosity that she made no attempt to conceal. Two girls in a neighbouring seat leaned forward eagerly to hear all. This was because one of them had told the other that Elizabeth was Mary Pickford. Her companion was sceptical, but nevertheless obviously impressed.

'My God!' said Bill.

The massive lady told the three children sharply to look at their picture-book.

'Well, I'm hanged!'

The mother of three said that if her offspring did not go right along to the end of the car and look at the pretty trees trouble must infallibly ensue.

'Elizabeth!' At the sound of the name the two girls leaned back, taking no further interest in the proceedings.

'What are you doing here?'

Elizabeth smiled, a shaky but encouraging smile.

'I came after you, Bill.'

'You've got no hat!'

'I was in too much of a hurry to get one, and I gave all my money to the man who drove the car. That's why I had to ask you to pay my fare. You see, I'm not too proud to use your money after all.'

'Then—'

'Tickets please. One seventy-nine.'

It was the indefatigable conductor, sensible of his duty to the company and resolved that nothing should stand in the way of its performance. Bill gave him five dollars and told him to keep the change. The conductor saw eye to eye with him in this.

'Bill! You gave him—' She gave a little shrug of her shoulders. 'Well, it's lucky you're going to marry a rich girl.'

A look of the utmost determination overspread Bill's face.

'I don't know what you're talking about. I'm going to marry you. Now that I've got you again I'm not going to let you go. You can use all the arguments you like, but it won't matter. I was a fool ever to listen. If you try the same sort of thing again I'm just going to pick you up and carry you off. I've been thinking it over since I left you. My mind has been working absolutely clearly. I've gone into the whole thing. It's perfect rot to take the attitude you did. We know we love each other, and I'm not going to listen to any talk about time making us doubt it. Time will only make us love each other all the more.'

'Why, Bill, this is eloquence.'

'I feel eloquent.'

The stout lady ceased to listen. They had lowered their voices and she was hard of hearing. She consoled herself by taking up her copy of Gingery Stories and burying herself in the hectic adventures of a young millionaire and an artist's model.

Elizabeth caught a fleeting glimpse of the cover.

'I bet there's a story in there of a man named Harold who was too proud to marry a girl, though he loved her, because she was rich and he wasn't. You wouldn't be so silly as that, Bill, would you?'

'It's the other way about with me.'

'No, it's not. Bill, do you know a man named Nichols?'

'Nichols?'

'J. Nichols. He said he knew you. He said he had told you about Uncle Ira leaving you his money.'

'Jerry Nichols! How on earth—Oh, I remember. He wrote to you, didn't he?'

'He did. And this morning, just after you had left, he called.'

'Jerry Nichols called?'

'To tell me that Uncle Ira had made another will before he died, leaving the money to me.'

Their eyes met.

'So I stole his car and caught the train,' said Elizabeth, simply.

Bill was recovering slowly from the news.

'But—this makes rather a difference, you know,' he said.

'In what way?'

'Well, what I mean to say is, you've got five million dollars and I've got two thousand a year, don't you know, and so—'

Elizabeth tapped him on the knee.

'Bill, do you see what this is in my hand?'

'Eh? What?'

'It's a pin. And I'm going to dig it right into you wherever I think it will hurt most, unless you stop being Harold at once. I'll tell you exactly what you've got to do, and you needn't think you're going to do anything else. When we get to New York, I first borrow the money from you to buy a hat, and then we walk to the City Hall, where you go to the window marked "Marriage Licences", and buy one. It will cost you one dollar. You will give your correct name and age and you will hear mine. It will come as a shock to you to know that my second name is something awful! I've kept it concealed all my life. After we've done that we shall go to the only church that anybody could possibly be married in. It's on Twenty-ninth Street, just round the corner from Fifth Avenue. It's got a fountain playing in front of it, and it's a little bit of heaven dumped right down in the middle of New York. And after that—well, we might start looking about for that farm we've talked of. We can get a good farm for five million dollars, and leave something over to be doled out—cautiously—to Nutty.

'And then all we have to do is to live happily ever after.'

Something small and soft slipped itself into his hand, just as it had done ages and ages ago in Lady Wetherby's wood.

It stimulated Bill's conscience to one last remonstrance.

'But, I say, you know—'

'Well?'

'This business of the money, you know. What I mean to say is—Ow!'

He broke off, as a sharp pain manifested itself in the fleshy part of his leg. Elizabeth was looking at him reprovingly, her weapon poised for another onslaught.

'I told you!' she said.

'All right, I won't do it again.'

'That's a good child. Bill, listen. Come closer and tell me all sorts of nice things about myself till we get to Jamaica, and then I'll tell you what I think of you. We've just passed Islip, so you've plenty of time.'

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 them into the land which I sware unto their fathers, that floweth with milk and honey, and they shall have eaten and filled themselves, and waxed fat; then will they turn unto other gods, and serve them, and provoke Me, and break My covenant. And it shall come to pass, when many evils and troubles are befallen them, that this song shall testify against them as a witness; for it shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed." (Deut. xxxi. 19—21.)

"Which of you," says Hooker, "receiveth a guest whom he honoureth, and whom he loveth, and doth not sweep his chamber against his coming? And shall we suffer the chambers of our hearts and consciences to lie full of vomiting, full of filth, full of garbage, knowing that Christ hath said, 'I and My Father will come and dwell with you?'… Blessed and praised for ever and ever be His Name, who, perceiving of how senseless and heavy metal we are made, hath instituted in His Church a Spiritual Supper, and an Holy Communion, to be celebrated often, that we might thereby be occasioned often to examine these buildings of ours, in what case they stand. For sith God doth not dwell in temples which are unclean; sith a shrine cannot be a sanctuary to Him; and this Supper is received as a seal unto us, that we are His house and His sanctuary; that His Christ is as truly united unto me, and I to Him, as my arm is united and knit unto my shoulder; that He dwelleth in me as verily as the elements of bread and wine abide within me; which persuasion, by receiving these dreadful mysteries, we profess ourselves to have; a due comfort, if truly; and if in hypocrisy, then woe with us."

4. These arguments, in behalf of the duty of keeping to the Standing Ordinances of Religion, are strengthened by the consideration of the peculiar influence which old and familiar institutions exert over the affections. If Christianity were left to select and reject its ordinances, as one age succeeded to another, there would be no safeguard for the permanence and identity of the religious temper itself. God indeed might invisibly preserve it; but so He might (did He so choose) without ordinances of any kind. But, since He has vouchsafed to employ them, it is but judging according to the revealed course of His Providence, to say, that His purpose is more fully answered by their being of a


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 standing than of a variable nature. Thus we find an argument from the reason of the case, for rigidly adhering to those which have been transmitted to us.

5. Consider for one moment what becomes of any of us, if we be not blest and supported with the Divine Grace; and then consider through what channels it is most natural to expect, and safest to seek this Grace: whether through Standing Ordinances, those to which the Church has ever had recourse as appointed by and His Apostles, or those which we follow without inquiry as to their antiquity or acceptableness. The analogy of former dispensations leads us to the same conclusion. Abraham at Hebron (Gen. xv. 8, 9.) seeks a sign; Almighty refers him to the usual ordinance of worship, sacrifice, and therein sends him a sign. So again. He might have revealed Himself to Moses in any place; but if Moses would find Him, it must be in the Tabernacle. Cornelius prayed and fasted, certainly not expecting a supernatural vision; but one was sent him, with the message of salvation. On the other hand, it is the peculiarity of false prophets and unsound teachers to seek change and novelty in the rites with which they approach. "When Balaam saw that it pleased the to bless Israel, he went not as at other times to seek for enchantments, but he set his face towards the wilderness." (Numb. xxiv. 1.) Accordingly he is obliged to speak with a wavering belief: "Peradventure the will come to meet me."

So much for what Reason suggests to us. Now let us observe what Himself has directly told us in Scripture concerning Standing Religious Ordinances.

1. He positively enjoins them. Turn to the Jewish ceremonies, and remember that they were,—(1.) Often unintelligible in their full import, yet positively enjoined, even on pain of death. E. g. Circumcision (Gen. xvii. 14.), the Passover (Exod. xii. 15. Numb. ix. 13) And remember that our faith and obedience are chiefly tried in things not understood, as, for instance, in the prohibition of the tree of knowledge. (2.) They were afterwards found to be significant. See the Epistle to the Hebrews throughout. Just as wise teachers store the minds of children with things which they will not fully understand till a future day,


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The Man Upstairs and Other Stories

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Contents
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 * /The Man Upstairs/
 * /Something to Worry About/
 * /Deep Waters/
 * /When Doctors Disagree/
 * /By Advice of Counsel/
 * /Rough-Hew Them How We Will/
 * /The Man Who Disliked Cats/
 * /Ruth in Exile/
 * /Archibald's Benefit/
 * /The Man, The Maid, and the Miasma/
 * /The Good Angel/
 * /Pots O' Money/
 * /Out of School/
 * /Three from Dunsterville/
 * /The Tuppenny Millionaire/
 * /Ahead of Schedule/
 * /Sir Agravaine/
 * /The Goal-Keeper and the Plutocrat/
 * /In Alcala/

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 so does our Divine Master admit us to the Symbols of that eternal worship and service of Him, which shall constitute the blessedness of the next life, a blessedness which it hath not entered into man's heart to conceive. (3.) The ordinances of the Christian Church are held in such high honour, that even to those whom He had first enriched with His miraculous gift, it was yet a farther and indispensable blessing to receive a solemn admission into her sacred mysteries. Mark, for instance, St. Peter's converts, Acts x. 44—48. They had received the, and spake with other tongues: "Then answered Peter, Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the as well as we? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the ." Vide also Acts xiii. 2, 3.

2. provided that the Jews should be able to keep His ordinances; rather interrupting the course of nature, and controlling the feelings of whole nations, than that the ordinances of His service should be set aside on a single occasion. If He commands the observance of the Sabbath in the wilderness. He provides for the people a double store of manna on the day before, and miraculously preserves it from corruption. (Exod. xvi. 5. 24.) If He directs that the land be allowed to lie fallow every seventh year, He sends a triple harvest in the sixth year. (Levit. xxv. 21.) If He enjoins all the males to leave their homes, and appear before Him thrice in the year. He suspends all the jealous and hostile feelings of the neighbouring nations, and promises that they should not even "desire" the land of the Israelites. (Exod. xxxiv. 24.)

3. We cannot dare to conjecture how much evil may come from neglecting positive ordinances. King Saul departed from the express command of God, respecting the way in which sacrifice should be made to Him. He could even make a plausible excuse for what he did; but turn to 1 Sam. xiii. 13, and see what it drew down upon him: "Thou hast done foolishly; thou hast not kept the commandment of the thy  which He commanded thee; for now would the  have established thy kingdom upon Israel for ever. But now thy kingdom shall not continue; the  hath sought Him a man after His own heart,


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 and the Lord hath commanded Him to be captain over His people, because thou hast not kept that which the commanded thee." Think again of Nadab and Abihu; they did not neglect the worship of ; but they thought they might surely take the fire for the sacrifice, from whence they would; "surely this was a minor point," as some among us are presumptuous enough to say. But He who gave laws to them and us, knows nothing of minor points. There can be no little sin, for there is no little authority to sin against. Nadab and Abihu were struck dead for offering with strange fire. This is agreeable to the analogy of the physical world, which is open to our senses. It is a simple and apparently harmless thing to place a candle near gunpowder, or to bring certain gases together; but the result may cost us our life.

4. Such was the importance of observing positive ordinances in the Jewish Church. Surely the lesson delivered in the Old Testament is intended for us Christians. We have the same unchanging Father, who was the of Israel, and who has given us the Scriptures that we may have the means of searching out His will. First consider the light in which He views in the law of Moses what we are apt to call "minor points." "Therefore shall ye abide at the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation day and night, seven days, and keep the charge of the Lord, that ye die not." (Levit. viii. 35.) After the death of Nadab and Abihu, the charge is given "unto Aaron, and unto Eleazar and Ithamar, his sons, uncover not your heads, neither rend your clothes, lest ye die, and lest wrath come upon all the people." (Levit. x. 6.) "Do not drink wine nor strong drink, thou nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the Tabernacle of the Congregation, lest ye die." (Ibid.)

This was the uniform tone of the Divine Guardian of the Church then. Is the duty less urgent now? when, (1.) the added claim on our gratitude is all that the New Testament tells us: (2.) The Ordinances are so much fewer, and therefore, first, the trouble of them is so incomparably diminished; next, the preciousness of them (humanly speaking) so much more strikingly seen: they are the only jewels of this sort that we have left.


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 5. Remark may be made upon the very circumstance, that, in the Christian Covenant, Standing Ordinances are made the channels of its peculiar blessings. The first use of Ordinances is that of witnessing for the Truth, as above mentioned. Now their sacramental character is perfectly distinct from this, and is doubtless a great honour put on them. Had we been left to conjecture, we might have supposed, that in the more perfect or spiritual system, the gifts of grace would rather have been attached to certain high moral performances; whereas they are deposited in mere positive ordinances, as if to warn us against dropping the ceremonial of Christianity.

This last observation leads to the brief notice of an objection sometimes brought against the necessity of a Christian's attention to Ordinances, grounded on the notion of the spiritual character of Christianity. Now,—1. Are we quite sure that we are more spiritual, and more independent of the external helps of the Church, than Samuel,—Hezekiah,—Josiah,—and Daniel?—2. What does our own experience say? Do we see the best and holiest of men becoming most independent and regardless of them, or the very reverse? 3. Are the feelings of love, affection, reverence, tender remembrance, which are entertained towards such places and things as are associated in our minds with the persons who are the primary objects of these feelings, inconsistent with spiritual-mindedness? Are not the Ordinances which Christ and His Apostles have appointed, the bond of perpetuated unity to the Church, a precious and mysterious medium for the "Communion of Saints" in all countries and ages? No one among us would think it a mark of weakness to cherish with attachment and respect a Bible which his father had used for half a century, from which he had learned the words of life and the way of salvation. And is it not a soothing and elevating privilege, to feel that we, even at this distant day, are allowed to come and walk in the very steps of all the holy men of old, the glorious company of the Apostles, and the noble army of martyrs, to take that narrow path, whose farther end they have now found to be in heaven? In walking over the very ground where the holy Apostles lived and walked as Bishops, or in following our Himself into Gethsemane, along the beach of the sea of


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 Gennesareth, or in pausing with Him on the Mount Olivet, as He weeps over Jerusalem, we find ourselves moved with something too deep and touching for words, and almost for thought; and is it no privilege, no blessing, to think with Him, to have our spirit admitted to move in the same path which His Holy Spirit has chosen; to be consecrated with Him and to Him in the water of Baptism, to eat the Holy Supper with Him, to fast with Him, to pray with Him in the very form and very thoughts which flowed from His divine mind and lips?

If these things are so, how can we hold up our heads, and dare to think of the way in which we have handled His Ordinances, handled that Form in which He has deigned to live on in the world, and to move before the eyes of His Church! If we can recollect the moment when we have been so dead in heart as to have found ourselves considering, not how often our Saviour would let us come and hold communion with Him, but how few times would satisfy Him,—whether "this one" omission would draw down His displeasure,—if there be one of us who lives in this spirit, "how dwelleth the love of God in him?"

Once more, if, when all times, all places, all forms, are in themselves alike, yet it has pleased the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose Name is Holy, to choose to Himself certain forms, places, and times, for His especial dwelling upon earth,—with what reverend and solemn feelings should we go to meet Him there, and approach His altar with our gift! We read (Lev. xxii. 18. 25.) that the of Israel would admit no blemished creature to be sacrificed to Him; nor will He now accept the offering of our hearts unless we cleanse ourselves from all unbelief, insincerity, and guile: "wash our hands in innocency, and so go to His altar."


text: Tracts for the Times/Tract 32

title: Tracts for the Times/Tract 32


text: Talk:The Man Upstairs and Other Stories

title: Talk:The Man Upstairs and Other Stories


text: Talk:My Man Jeeves

title: Talk:My Man Jeeves


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 drawers, and bedstead; a block of wood answered the double purpose of chair and pillow, the beef-barrel was also a kind of side-table, whilst the cover of it was made to do duty occasionally as a rat-trap by setting it up with a stick and a string, and Dodge described the destruction he wrought upon the rat species by these simple means as something quite astonishing. After spending by no means an uncomfortable evening, a shake-down was made and they all turned in.

Before they fell asleep, a wild dog was heard howling near the hut and presently a chorus struck up. Dodge, taking his gun, went to the door, and answered them by a howl nearly as wild, to which there was a reply. "These chaps and I have a little conversation together of a night—they are capital company, and afford me lots of sport. They smell I've got some grub here again. I will be back directly: don't you come" he said, as the two were preparing to follow him: "it takes an old hand to touch a wild dog." After he had been gone about ten minutes, the report of his gun was heard, and then a second barrel. In a few minutes he returned dragging a large dog by the leg whilst Lady kept a firm grip of its throat.

"This fellow has made free with my veal, I'll be bound," said Dodge.

"Do they kill calves?" Slinger inquired.

"Occasionally, and sheep very often. Why I have scarcely a beast on my station with a perfect tail, they generally manage to nip off that little delicacy when it is young, so that I never get ox-tail soup; but I have a capital substitute in that of the kangaroo." He then called his dog. "Come here, old girl, I want to make a bolster of you to night," and she lay down in a convenient position. Old Dodge placed his head on this novel pillow, and was soon snoring lustily, in which he was shortly joined by his visitors.

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 It was fated their slumbers were not to be of long duration, for Lady, the kangaroo dog and pillow, suddenly sprung up with a growl, letting Dodge's head drop heavily upon the ground. The sleepers started up in time to hear a sound as of several persons retreating from the hut. On opening the door, the dog ran out barking furiously, but the inmates could distinguish nothing to excite alarm, although the moon shone brightly.

Dodge was rubbing his head, as he said, "One of the disadvantages of having an animated bolster; but we must look about us; I can't make this out exactly;" and he whistled for his Lady, but she did not return. "Stranger still!" said Dodge. "See to your guns, lads, and follow me, there's no time to dress." Accordingly they wrapped themselves in their blankets and sallied from the hut.

Dodge assumed the command, "Raymond," he said, "you will take the right, I the left, and Slinger, you keep near, don't go above thirty yards off, and if Raymond or I make signals, go inside immediately, and let no one enter but ourselves.—Blaze away, we shan't be far off."

Then they each went on their separate missions. Raymond stumbled over logs and tufts of long grass, for such was his anxiety to discover some cause of alarm that he scarcely looked to see where he was going, and after he had made two or three turns, he began to wonder in which direction the hut was. At this moment he saw an object move out from behind a tree and quickly dart back again. Stealthily advancing to where he had seen the figure, he had reached to within a few yards of the spot, when he heard a low whistle. Raising his gun very cautiously, he dropped among the grass, and shortly afterwards saw a light object protruding from behind the tree. Taking a deliberate aim at it, he said, "Move and I will fire. Who and what are you?"

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 "Oh only old Dodge," said that personage, coming into full view. "I thought 'twas you: why how did you manage to get my side of the hut? I pushed out my blanket for you to have a shot at. Have you seen anything?"

"No, only your respectable self."

"Well, we must go back again; but it is queer. What can have become of Lady?"

They soon came in sight of Slinger on guard. He had lighted a pipe and was seated upon a log with his back to them.

"Steady," whispered Dodge, "Shall I show you what chance your friend would have with the natives?

"How will you do that?"

"You remain near this tree for five minutes, and you shall see the first lesson the blacks taught me. Now I'm going to make Slinger prisoner before he knows anything about it. Take care of my rifle." He then wriggled himself among the long grass, and was soon lost to Hugh. In a short time he saw Slinger rest his gun against the tree, for the moon was quite clear, and presently Dodge rose close behind him and clasped him tightly in his arms.

"Da" Slinger began to roar, when Dodge placed his hand upon his mouth.

"It is all right," he said, as he let him go, "don't swear, I told you I would not be far off. Now that is what I call taking advantage of a man behind his back." Hugh ran up, and they all returned to their shake-down, but the dog did not make her appearance.

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110

next morning they were astir before that very punctual and amusing bird, the Laughing Jackass, had proclaimed to the sluggards of the bush, by its discordant hootings, that the sun was again risen upon the land. The note of the Morepork, not unlike that of a cuckoo with a cold, the purring cry of the flying squirrel, and the squall of the several kinds of opossums, rang in the ears of the little party as they were making final arrangements for their departure. It was at this juncture that the lost dog returned, but in a pitiable plight; she could scarcely crawl, and her breathing was nearly stopped from the strangling effects of a strip of linen which tightly encircled her throat. Her mouth was covered with foam, and it appeared as if the poor creature had returned to her master only to die. Dodge was almost beside himself; and after separating the ligature, and wiping the foam from her mouth, he fetched some water of which she eagerly partook. Then he addressed her in encouraging accents, interspersed with an occasional malediction upon the heads as well as other portions of the bodies of her late persecutors. "Poor old girl, keep up your pluck:" (then some very strong expressions alluding to eyes and limbs:) "never say 'die.' Haven't we stood by each other for years? and when the Gorger left me, didn't you stick to me? to be sure you did. Then cock your tail up—(The ruffians!—the hang-dog villains!)—Hurra! now you are better—bravo!"

Whether there was something exhilarating in the earnest manner of Dodge, or that the dog was a proficient in the

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Talk:My Man Jeeves/Absent Treatment

"Absent Treatment" really doesn’t belong to "My man Jeeves." There’s absolutely no mention of either Jeeves or Wooster. Even if it is Wodehouse—what. Akme (talk) 16:47, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
 * This collection is 50-50: 4 Jeeves stories, 4 Pepper stories. More info at Reggie Pepper. Hrishikes (talk) 16:58, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Sorry. I just found that out for myself by looking at the original at Gutenberg. (I was about to make a similar comment about the next story before I thought I’d better check :) )

title: Talk:My Man Jeeves/Absent Treatment


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 language, or more probably, whether the removal of the impediments to her breathing might not have had some effect, the Lady rapidly recovered, and her master's delight was unbounded; and now all anxiety on the score of his dog's life was set at rest, the piece of linen with which she had been tied attracted his attention. He examined the end closely, and gave it as his opinion that some land-lubber, who did not know how to tie a knot, had endeavoured to steal her, but that she had given him the slip by gnawing her fastenings. Unfolding a portion of the linen, he said, "It is a plain stripe and very neat — pretty pattern, isn't it? it is a favourite one with Government, and much in vogue in prisoners' barracks and road-gangs.—Creation!!" he exclaimed, "look here!" There certainly was nothing very tremendous met their gaze, for stamped upon the linen, in unassuming characters, were the letters C. P.

"C. P," said Slinger. "Oh, initial letters of course."

"Yes," said Dodge, "and I'll tell you of what: D__d Villain, Sir." Seeing his listeners were somewhat mystified, he volunteered an explanation,—"C. P. stands for Crown Prisoner, and Crown Prisoner stands for D—d Villain, they are synonymous terms, and it is my firm conviction that our visitors of last night were no better than they should be: however, let us waste no more time, but be off."

With a deep blue sky overhead, and with the dew still upon the sward, they started on their expedition, whilst Lady followed them at a respectful distance. They soon struck on the trail of cattle, and after a little observation, Dodge was satisfied it was of his own herd, and that they had taken the direction of the mountain ranges and were completely out of harm's way.

After skirting the creek, (the water of which was brackish) for several miles, they stopped for mid-day rest and refreshment

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text:
The Man Upstairs and Other Stories/The Man Upstairs

were three distinct stages in the evolution of Annette Brougham's attitude towards the knocking in the room above. In the beginning it had been merely a vague discomfort. Absorbed in the composition of her waltz, she had heard it almost subconsciously. The second stage set in when it became a physical pain like red-hot pincers wrenching her mind from her music. Finally, with a thrill in indignation, she knew it for what it was—an insult. The unseen brute disliked her playing, and was intimating his views with a boot-heel.

Defiantly, with her foot on the loud pedal, she struck—almost slapped—the keys once more.

'Bang!' from the room above. 'Bang! Bang!'

Annette rose. Her face was pink, her chin tilted. Her eyes sparkled with the light of battle. She left the room and started to mount the stairs. No spectator, however just, could have helped feeling a pang of pity for the wretched man who stood unconscious of imminent doom, possibly even triumphant, behind the door at which she was on the point of tapping.

'Come in!' cried the voice, rather a pleasant voice; but what is a pleasant voice if the soul be vile?

Annette went in. The room was a typical Chelsea studio, scantily furnished and lacking a carpet. In the centre was an easel, behind which were visible a pair of trousered legs. A cloud of grey smoke was curling up over the top of the easel.

'I beg your pardon,' began Annette.

'I don't want any models at present,' said the Brute. 'Leave your card on the table.'

'I am not a model,' said Annette, coldly. 'I merely came—'

At this the Brute emerged from his fortifications and, removing his pipe from his mouth, jerked his chair out into the open.

'I beg your pardon,' he said. 'Won't you sit down?'

How reckless is Nature in the distribution of her gifts! Not only had this black-hearted knocker on floors a pleasant voice, but, in addition, a pleasing exterior. He was slightly dishevelled at the moment, and his hair stood up in a disordered mop; but in spite of these drawbacks, he was quite passably good-looking. Annette admitted this. Though wrathful, she was fair.

'I thought it was another model,' he explained. 'They've been coming in at the rate of ten an hour ever since I settled here. I didn't object at first, but after about the eightieth child of sunny Italy had shown up it began to get on my nerves.'

Annette waited coldly till he had finished.

'I am sorry,' she said, in a this-is-where-you-get-yours voice, 'if my playing disturbed you.'

One would have thought nobody but an Eskimo wearing his furs and winter under-clothing could have withstood the iciness of her manner; but the Brute did not freeze.

'I am sorry,' repeated Annette, well below zero, 'if my playing disturbed you. I live in the room below, and I heard you knocking.'

'No, no,' protested the young man, affably; 'I like it. Really I do.'

'Then why knock on the floor?' said Annette, turning to go. 'It is so bad for my ceiling,' she said over shoulder. 'I thought you would not mind my mentioning it. Good afternoon.'

'No; but one moment. Don't go.'

She stopped. He was surveying her with a friendly smile. She noticed most reluctantly that he had a nice smile. His composure began to enrage her more and more. Long ere this he should have been writhing at her feet in the dust, crushed and abject.

'You see,' he said, 'I'm awfully sorry, but it's like this. I love music, but what I mean is, you weren't playing a tune. It was just the same bit over and over again.'

'I was trying to get a phrase,' said Annette, with dignity, but less coldly. In spite of herself she was beginning to thaw. There was something singularly attractive about this shock-headed youth.

'A phrase?'

'Of music. For my waltz. I am composing a waltz.'

A look of such unqualified admiration overspread the young man's face that the last remnants of the ice-pack melted. For the first time since they had met Annette found herself positively liking this blackguardly floor-smiter.

'Can you compose music?' he said, impressed.

'I have written one or two songs.'

'It must be great to be able to do things—artistic things, I mean, like composing.'

'Well, you do, don't you? You paint.'

The young man shook his head with a cheerful grin.

'I fancy,' he said, 'I should make a pretty good house-painter. I want scope. Canvas seems to cramp me.'

It seemed to cause him no discomfort. He appeared rather amused than otherwise.

'Let me look.'

She crossed over to the easel.

'I shouldn't,' he warned her. 'You really want to? Is this not mere recklessness? Very well, then.'

To the eye of an experienced critic the picture would certainly have seemed crude. It was a study of a dark-eyed child holding a large black cat. Statisticians estimate that there is no moment during the day when one or more young artists somewhere on the face of the globe are not painting pictures of children holding cats.

'I call it "Child and Cat",' said the young man. 'Rather a neat title, don't you think? Gives you the main idea of the thing right away. That,' he explained, pointing obligingly with the stem of his pipe, 'is the cat.'

Annette belonged to that large section of the public which likes or dislikes a picture according to whether its subject happens to please or displease them. Probably there was not one of the million or so child-and-cat eyesores at present in existence which she would not have liked. Besides, he had been very nice about her music.

'I think it's splendid,' she announced.

The young man's face displayed almost more surprise than joy.

'Do you really?' he said. 'Then I can die happy—that is, if you'll let me come down and listen to those songs of yours first.'

'You would only knock on the floor,' objected Annette.

'I'll never knock on another floor as long as I live,' said the ex-brute, reassuringly. 'I hate knocking on floors. I don't see what people want to knock on floors for, anyway.'

Friendships ripen quickly in Chelsea. Within the space of an hour and a quarter Annette had learned that the young man's name was Alan Beverley (for which Family Heraldic affliction she pitied rather than despised him), that he did not depend entirely on his work for a living, having a little money of his own, and that he considered this a fortunate thing. From the very beginning of their talk he pleased her. She found him an absolutely new and original variety of the unsuccessful painter. Unlike Reginald Sellers, who had a studio in the same building, and sometimes dropped in to drink her coffee and pour out his troubles, he did not attribute his non-success to any malice or stupidity on the part of the public. She was so used to hearing Sellers lash the Philistine and hold forth on unappreciated merit that she could hardly believe the miracle when, in answer to a sympathetic bromide on the popular lack of taste in Art, Beverley replied that, as far as he was concerned, the public showed strong good sense. If he had been striving with every nerve to win her esteem, he could not have done it more surely than with that one remark. Though she invariably listened with a sweet patience which encouraged them to continue long after the point at which she had begun in spirit to throw things at them, Annette had no sympathy with men who whined. She herself was a fighter. She hated as much as anyone the sickening blows which Fate hands out to the struggling and ambitious; but she never made them the basis of a monologue act. Often, after a dreary trip round the offices of the music-publishers, she would howl bitterly in secret, and even gnaw her pillow in the watches of the night; but in public her pride kept her unvaryingly bright and cheerful.

Today, for the first time, she revealed something of her woes. There was that about the mop-headed young man which invited confidences. She told him of the stony-heartedness of music-publishers, of the difficulty of getting songs printed unless you paid for them, of their wretched sales.

'But those songs you've been playing,' said Beverley, 'they've been published?'

'Yes, those three. But they are the only ones.'

'And didn't they sell?'

'Hardly at all. You see, a song doesn't sell unless somebody well known sings it. And people promise to sing them, and then don't keep their word. You can't depend on what they say.'

'Give me their names,' said Beverley, 'and I'll go round tomorrow and shoot the whole lot. But can't you do anything?'

'Only keep on keeping on.'

'I wish,' he said, 'that any time you're feeling blue about things you would come up and pour out the poison on me. It's no good bottling it up. Come up and tell me about it, and you'll feel ever so much better. Or let me come down. Any time things aren't going right just knock on the ceiling.'

She laughed.

'Don't rub it in,' pleaded Beverley. 'It isn't fair. There's nobody so sensitive as a reformed floor-knocker. You will come up or let me come down, won't you? Whenever I have that sad, depressed feeling, I go out and kill a policeman. But you wouldn't care for that. So the only thing for you to do is to knock on the ceiling. Then I'll come charging down and see if there's anything I can do to help.'

'You'll be sorry you ever said this.'

'I won't,' he said stoutly.

'If you really mean it, it would be a relief,' she admitted. 'Sometimes I'd give all the money I'm ever likely to make for someone to shriek my grievances at. I always think it must have been so nice for the people in the old novels, when they used to say: "Sit down and I will tell you the story of my life." Mustn't it have been heavenly?'

'Well,' said Beverley, rising, 'you know where I am if I'm wanted. Right up there where the knocking came from.'

'Knocking?' said Annette. 'I remember no knocking.'

'Would you mind shaking hands?' said Beverley.

maddening hour with one of her pupils drove her up the very next day. Her pupils were at once her salvation and her despair. They gave her the means of supporting life, but they made life hardly worth supporting. Some of them were learning the piano. Others thought they sang. All had solid ivory skulls. There was about a teaspoonful of grey matter distributed among the entire squad, and the pupil Annette had been teaching that afternoon had come in at the tail-end of the division.

In the studio with Beverley she found Reginald Sellers, standing in a critical attitude before the easel. She was not very fond of him. He was a long, offensive, patronizing person, with a moustache that looked like a smear of charcoal, and a habit of addressing her as 'Ah, little one!'

Beverley looked up.

'Have you brought your hatchet, Miss Brougham? If you have, you're just in time to join in the massacre of the innocents. Sellers has been smiting my child and cat hip and thigh. Look at his eye. There! Did you see it flash then? He's on the warpath again.'

'My dear Beverley,' said Sellers, rather stiffly, 'I am merely endeavouring to give you my idea of the picture's defects. I am sorry if my criticism has to be a little harsh.'

'Go right on,' said Beverley, cordially. 'Don't mind me; it's all for my good.'

'Well, in a word, then, it is lifeless. Neither the child nor the cat lives.'

He stepped back a pace and made a frame of his hands.

'The cat now,' he said. 'It is—how shall I put it? It has no—no—er—'

'That kind of cat wouldn't,' said Beverley. 'It isn't that breed.'

'I think it's a dear cat,' said Annette. She felt her temper, always quick, getting the better of her. She knew just how incompetent Sellers was, and it irritated her beyond endurance to see Beverley's good-humoured acceptance of his patronage.

'At any rate,' said Beverley, with a grin, 'you both seem to recognize that it is a cat. You're solid on that point, and that's something, seeing I'm only a beginner.'

'I know, my dear fellow; I know,' said Sellers, graciously. 'You mustn't let my criticism discourage you. Don't think that your work lacks promise. Far from it. I am sure that in time you will do very well indeed. Quite well.'

A cold glitter might have been observed in Annette's eyes.

'Mr Sellers,' she said, smoothly, 'had to work very hard himself before he reached his present position. You know his work, of course?'

For the first time Beverley seemed somewhat confused.

'I—er—why—' he began.

'Oh, but of course you do,' she went on, sweetly. 'It's in all the magazines.'

Beverley looked at the great man with admiration, and saw that he had flushed uncomfortably. He put this down to the modesty of genius.

'In the advertisement pages,' said Annette. 'Mr Sellers drew that picture of the Waukeesy Shoe and the Restawhile Settee and the tin of sardines in the Little Gem Sardine advertisement. He is very good at still life.'

There was a tense silence. Beverley could almost hear the voice of the referee uttering the count.

'Miss Brougham,' said Sellers at last, spitting out the words, 'has confined herself to the purely commercial side of my work. There is another.'

'Why, of course there is. You sold a landscape for five pounds only eight months ago, didn't you? And another three months before that.'

It was enough. Sellers bowed stiffly and stalked from the room.

Beverley picked up a duster and began slowly to sweep the floor with it.

'What are you doing?' demanded Annette, in a choking voice.

'The fragments of the wretched man,' whispered Beverley. 'They must be swept up and decently interred. You certainly have got the punch, Miss Brougham.'

He dropped the duster with a startled exclamation, for Annette had suddenly burst into a flood of tears. With her face buried in her hands she sat in her chair and sobbed desperately.

'Good Lord!' said Beverley, blankly.

'I'm a cat! I'm a beast! I hate myself!'

'Good Lord!' said Beverley, blankly.

'I'm a pig! I'm a fiend!'

'Good Lord!' said Beverley, blankly.

'We're all struggling and trying to get on and having hard luck, and instead of doing what I can to help, I go and t-t-taunt him with not being able to sell his pictures! I'm not fit to live! Oh!'

'Good Lord!' said Beverley, blankly.

A series of gulping sobs followed, diminishing by degrees into silence.

Presently she looked up and smiled, a moist and pathetic smile. 'I'm sorry,' she said, 'for being so stupid. But he was so horrid and patronizing to you, I couldn't help scratching. I believe I'm the worst cat in London.'

'No, this is,' said Beverley, pointing to the canvas. 'At least, according to the late Sellers. But, I say, tell me, isn't the deceased a great artist, then? He came curveting in here with his chest out and started to slate my masterpiece, so I naturally said, "What-ho! 'Tis a genius!" Isn't he?'

'He can't sell his pictures anywhere. He lives on the little he can get from illustrating advertisements. And I t-taunt—'

Please! said Beverley, apprehensively.

She recovered herself with a gulp.

'I can't help it,' she said, miserably. 'I rubbed it in. Oh, it was hateful of me! But I was all on edge from teaching one of my awful pupils, and when he started to patronize you—'

She blinked.

'Poor devil!' said Beverley. 'I never guessed. Good Lord!'

Annette rose.

'I must go and tell him I'm sorry,' she said. 'He'll snub me horribly, but I must.'

She went out. Beverley lit a pipe and stood at the window looking thoughtfully down into the street.

is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them. Sellers belonged to the latter class. When Annette, meek, penitent, with all her claws sheathed, came to him and grovelled, he forgave her with a repulsive magnanimity which in a less subdued mood would have stung her to renewed pugnacity. As it was, she allowed herself to be forgiven, and retired with a dismal conviction that from now on he would be more insufferable than ever.

Her surmise proved absolutely correct. His visits to the newcomer's studio began again, and Beverley's picture, now nearing completion, came in for criticism enough to have filled a volume. The good humour with which he received it amazed Annette. She had no proprietary interest in the painting beyond what she acquired from a growing regard for its parent (which disturbed her a good deal when she had time to think of it); but there were moments when only the recollection of her remorse for her previous outbreak kept her from rending the critic. Beverley, however, appeared to have no artistic sensitiveness whatsoever. When Sellers savaged the cat in a manner which should have brought the S.P.C.A. down upon him, Beverley merely beamed. His long-sufferingness was beyond Annette's comprehension.

She began to admire him for it.

To make his position as critic still more impregnable, Sellers was now able to speak as one having authority. After years of floundering, his luck seemed at last to have turned. His pictures, which for months had lain at an agent's, careened like crippled battleships, had at length begun to find a market. Within the past two weeks three landscapes and an allegorical painting had sold for good prices; and under the influence of success he expanded like an opening floweret. When Epstein, the agent, wrote to say that the allegory had been purchased by a Glasgow plutocrat of the name of Bates for one hundred and sixty guineas, Sellers' views on Philistines and their crass materialism and lack of taste underwent a marked modification. He spoke with some friendliness of the man Bates.

'To me,' said Beverley, when informed of the event by Annette, 'the matter has a deeper significance. It proves that Glasgow has at last produced a sober man. No drinker would have dared face that allegory. The whole business is very gratifying.'

Beverley himself was progressing slowly in the field of Art. He had finished the 'Child and Cat', and had taken it to Epstein together with a letter of introduction from Sellers. Sellers' habitual attitude now was that of the kindly celebrity who has arrived and wishes to give the youngsters a chance.

Since its departure Beverley had not done much in the way of actual execution. Whenever Annette came to his studio he was either sitting in a chair with his feet on the window-sill, smoking, or in the same attitude listening to Sellers' views on art. Sellers being on the upgrade, a man with many pounds to his credit in the bank, had more leisure now. He had given up his advertisement work, and was planning a great canvas—another allegorical work. This left him free to devote a good deal of time to Beverley, and he did so. Beverley sat and smoked through his harangues. He may have been listening, or he may not. Annette listened once or twice, and the experience had the effect of sending her to Beverley, quivering with indignation.

'Why do you let him patronize you like that?' she demanded. 'If anybody came and talked to me like that about my music, I'd—I'd—I don't know what I'd do. Yes, even if he were really a great musician.'

'Don't you consider Sellers a great artist, then, even now?'

'He seems to be able to sell his pictures, so I suppose they must be good; but nothing could give him the right to patronize you as he does.'

'"My learned friend's manner would be intolerable in an emperor to a black-beetle,"' quoted Beverley. 'Well, what are we going to do about it?'

'If only you could sell a picture, too!'

'Ah! Well, I've done my part of the contract. I've delivered the goods. There the thing is at Epstein's. The public can't blame me if it doesn't sell. All they've got to do is to waltz in in their thousands and fight for it. And, by the way, talking of waltzes—'

'Oh, it's finished,' said Annette, dispiritedly. 'Published too, for that matter.'

'Published! What's the matter, then? Why this drooping sadness? Why aren't you running around the square, singing like a bird?'

'Because,' said Annette, 'unfortunately, I had to pay the expenses of publication. It was only five pounds, but the sales haven't caught up with that yet. If they ever do, perhaps there'll be a new edition.'

'And will you have to pay for that?'

'No. The publishers would.'

'Who are they?'

'Grusczinsky and Buchterkirch.'

'Heavens, then what are you worrying about? The thing's a cert. A man with a name like Grusczinsky could sell a dozen editions by himself. Helped and inspired by Buchterkirch, he will make the waltz the talk of the country. Infants will croon it in their cots.'

'He didn't seem to think so when I saw him last.'

'Of course not. He doesn't know his own power. Grusczinsky's shrinking diffidence is a by-word in musical circles. He is the genuine Human Violet. You must give him time.'

'I'll give him anything if he'll only sell an edition or two,' said Annette.

The outstanding thing was that he did. There seemed no particular reason why the sale of that waltz should not have been as small and as slow as that of any other waltz by an unknown composer. But almost without warning it expanded from a trickle into a flood. Grusczinsky, beaming paternally whenever Annette entered the shop—which was often—announced two new editions in a week. Beverley, his artistic growth still under a watchful eye of Sellers, said he had never had any doubts as to the success of the thing from the moment when a single phrase in it had so carried him away that he had been compelled to stamp his applause enthusiastically on the floor. Even Sellers forgot his own triumphs long enough to allow him to offer affable congratulations. And money came rolling in, smoothing the path of life.

Those were great days. There was a hat.…

Life, in short, was very full and splendid. There was, indeed, but one thing which kept it from being perfect. The usual drawback to success is that it annoys one's friends so; but in Annette's case this drawback was absent. Sellers' demeanour towards her was that of an old-established inmate welcoming a novice into the Hall of Fame. Her pupils—worthy souls, though bone-headed—fawned upon her. Beverley seemed more pleased than anyone. Yet it was Beverley who prevented her paradise from being complete. Successful herself, she wanted all her friends to be successful; but Beverley, to her discomfort, remained a cheery failure, and worse, absolutely refused to snub Sellers. It was not as if Sellers' advice and comments were disinterested. Beverley was simply the instrument on which he played his songs of triumph. It distressed Annette to such an extent that now, if she went upstairs and heard Sellers' voice in the studio, she came down again without knocking.

afternoon, sitting in her room, she heard the telephone-bell ring.

The telephone was on the stairs, just outside her door. She went out and took up the receiver.

'Halloa!' said a querulous voice. 'Is Mr Beverley there?'

Annette remembered having heard him go out. She could always tell his footstep.

'He is out,' she said. 'Is there any message?'

'Yes,' said the voice, emphatically. 'Tell him that Rupert Morrison rang up to ask what he was to do with all this great stack of music that's arrived. Does he want it forwarded on to him, or what?' The voice was growing high and excited. Evidently Mr Morrison was in a state of nervous tension when a man does not care particularly who hears his troubles so long as he unburdens himself of them to someone.

'Music?' said Annette.

'Music!' shrilled Mr Morrison. 'Stacks and stacks and stacks of it. Is he playing a practical joke on me, or what?' he demanded, hysterically. Plainly he had now come to regard Annette as a legitimate confidante. She was listening. That was the main point. He wanted someone—he did not care whom—who would listen. 'He lends me his rooms,' wailed Mr Morrison, 'so that I can be perfectly quiet and undisturbed while I write my novel, and, first thing I know, this music starts to arrive. How can I be quiet and undisturbed when the floor's littered two yards high with great parcels of music, and more coming every day?'

Annette clung weakly to the telephone box. Her mind was in a whirl, but she was beginning to see many things.

'Are you there?' called Mr Morrison.

'Yes. What—what firm does the music come from?'

'What's that?'

'Who are the publishers who send the music?'

'I can't remember. Some long name. Yes, I've got it. Grusczinsky and someone.'

'I'll tell Mr Beverley,' said Annette, quietly. A great weight seemed to have settled on her head.

'Halloa! Halloa! Are you there?' came Mr Morrison's voice.

'Yes?'

'And tell him there are some pictures, too.'

'Pictures?'

'Four great beastly pictures. The size of elephants. I tell you, there isn't room to move. And—'

Annette hung up the receiver.

Beverley, returned from his walk, was racing up the stairs three at a time in his energetic way, when, as he arrived at Annette's door, it opened.

'Have you a minute to spare?' said Annette.

'Of course. What's the trouble? Have they sold another edition of the waltz?'

'I have not heard, Mr—Bates.'

For once she looked to see the cheerful composure of the man upstairs become ruffled; but he received the blow without agitation.

'You know my name?' he said.

'I know a good deal more than your name. You are a Glasgow millionaire.'

'It's true,' he admitted, 'but it's hereditary. My father was one before me.'

'And you use your money,' said Annette, bitterly, 'creating fools' paradises for your friends, which last, I suppose, until you grow tired of the amusement and destroy them. Doesn't it ever strike you, Mr Bates, that it's a little cruel? Do you think Mr Sellers will settle down again cheerfully to hack-work when you stop buying his pictures, and he finds out that—that—'

'I shan't stop,' said the young man. 'If a Glasgow millionaire mayn't buy Sellers' allegorical pictures, whose allegorical pictures may he buy? Sellers will never find out. He'll go on painting and I'll go on buying, and all will be joy and peace.'

'Indeed! And what future have you arranged for me?'

'You?' he said, reflectively. 'I want to marry you.'

Annette stiffened from head to foot. He met her blazing eyes with a look of quiet devotion.

'Marry me?'

'I know what you are thinking,' he said. 'Your mind is dwelling on the prospect of living in a house decorated throughout with Sellers' allegorical pictures. But it won't be. We'll store them in the attic.'

She began to speak, but he interrupted her.

'Listen!' he said. 'Sit down and I will tell you the story of my life. We'll skip the first twenty-eight years and three months, merely mentioning that for the greater part of that time I was looking for somebody just like you. A month and nine days ago I found you. You were crossing the Embankment. I was also on the Embankment. In a taxi. I stopped the taxi, got out, and observed you just stepping into the Charing Cross Underground. I sprang—'

'This does not interest me,' said Annette.

'The plot thickens,' he assured her. 'We left our hero springing, I think. Just so. Well, you took the West End train and got off at Sloane Square. So did I. You crossed Sloane Square, turned up King's Road, and finally arrived here. I followed. I saw a notice up, "Studio to Let". I reflected that, having done a little painting in an amateur way, I could pose as an artist all right; so I took the studio. Also the name of Alan Beverley. My own is Bill Bates. I had often wondered what it would feel like to be called by some name like Alan Beverley or Cyril Trevelyan. It was simply the spin of the coin which decided me in favour of the former. Once in, the problem was how to get to know you. When I heard you playing I knew it was all right. I had only to keep knocking on the floor long enough—'

'Do—you—mean—to—tell—me'—Annette's voice trembled 'do you mean to tell me that you knocked that time simply to make me come up?'

'That was it. Rather a scheme, don't you think? And now, would you mind telling me how you found out that I had been buying your waltz? Those remarks of yours about fools' paradises were not inspired solely by the affairs of Sellers. But it beats me how you did it. I swore Rozinsky, or whatever his name is, to secrecy.'

'A Mr Morrison,' sad Annette, indifferently, 'rang up on the telephone and asked me to tell you that he was greatly worried by the piles of music which were littering the rooms you lent him.'

The young man burst into a roar of laughter.

'Poor old Morrison! I forgot all about him. I lent him my rooms at the Albany. He's writing a novel, and he can't work if the slightest thing goes wrong. It just shows—'

'Mr Bates!'

'Yes?'

'Perhaps you didn't intend to hurt me. I dare say you meant only to be kind. But—but—oh, can't you see how you have humiliated me? You have treated me like a child, giving me a make-believe success just to—just to keep me quiet, I suppose. You—'

He was fumbling in his pocket.

'May I read you a letter?' he said.

'A letter?'

'Quite a short one. It is from Epstein, the picture-dealer. This is what he says. "Sir," meaning me, not "Dear Bill," mind you—just "Sir." "I am glad to be able to inform you that I have this morning received an offer of ten guineas for your picture, 'Child and Cat'. Kindly let me know if I am to dispose of it at this price."'

'Well?' said Annette, in a small voice.

'I have just been to Epstein's. It seems that the purchaser is a Miss Brown. She gave an address in Bayswater. I called at the address. No Miss Brown lives there, but one of your pupils does. I asked her if she was expecting a parcel for Miss Brown, and she said that she had had your letter and quite understood and would take it in when it arrived.'

Annette was hiding her face in her hands.

'Go away!' she said, faintly.

Mr Bates moved a step nearer.

'Do you remember that story of the people on the island who eked out a precarious livelihood by taking in one another's washing?' he asked, casually.

'Go away!' cried Annette.

'I've always thought,' he said, 'that it must have drawn them very close together—made them feel rather attached to each other. Don't you?'

'Go away!'

'I don't want to go away. I want to stay and hear you say you'll marry me.'

'Please go away! I want to think.'

She heard him moving towards the door. He stopped, then went on again. The door closed quietly. Presently from the room above came the sound of footsteps—footsteps pacing monotonously to and fro like those of an animal in a cage.

Annette sat listening. There was no break in the footsteps.

Suddenly she got up. In one corner of the room was a long pole used for raising and lowering the window-sash. She took it, and for a moment stood irresolute. Then with a quick movement, she lifted it and stabbed three times at the ceiling.


text: Talk:The Man Upstairs and Other Stories/The Man Upstairs


text: Talk:My Man Jeeves/The Aunt And The Sluggard


text: Talk:My Man Jeeves/Leave it to Jeeves

title: Talk:My Man Jeeves/Leave it to Jeeves