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Twenty Years After/Chapter 57

"Have you been to the general?" said Mordaunt to D'Artagnan and Porthos; "you know he sent for you after the action."

"We want first to put our prisoners in a place of safety," replied D'Artagnan. "Do you know, sir, these gentlemen are each of them worth fifteen hundred pounds?"

"Oh, be assured," said Mordaunt, looking at them with an expression he vainly endeavoured to soften, "my soldiers will guard them, and guard them well, I promise you."

"I shall take better care of them myself," answered D'Artagnan; "besides, all they require is a good room, with sentinels, or their simple parole that they will not attempt escape. I will go and see about that, and then we shall have the honor of presenting ourselves to the general and receiving his commands for his eminence."

"You think of starting at once, then?" inquired Mordaunt.

"Our mission is ended, and there is nothing more to detain us now but the good pleasure of the great man to whom we were sent."

The young man bit his lips and whispered to his sergeant:

"You will follow these men and not lose sight of them; when you have discovered where they lodge, come and await me at the town gate."

The sergeant made a sign of comprehension.

Instead of following the knot of prisoners that were being taken into the town, Mordaunt turned his steps toward the rising ground from whence Cromwell had witnessed the battle and on which he had just had his tent pitched.

Cromwell had given orders that no one was to be allowed admission; but the sentinel, who knew that Mordaunt was one of the most confidential friends of the general, thought the order did not extend to the young man. Mordaunt, therefore, raised the canvas, and saw Cromwell seated before a table, his head buried in his hands, his back being turned.

Whether he heard Mordaunt or not as he entered, Cromwell did not move. Mordaunt remained standing near the door. At last, after a few moments, Cromwell raised his head, and, as if he divined that some one was there, turned slowly around.

"I said I wished to be alone," he exclaimed, on seeing the young man.

"They thought this order did not concern me, sir; nevertheless, if you wish it, I am ready to go."

"Ah! is it you, Mordaunt?" said Cromwell, the cloud passing away from his face; "since you are here, it is well; you may remain."

"I come to congratulate you."

"To congratulate me - what for?"

"On the capture of Charles Stuart. You are now master of England."

"I was much more really so two hours ago."

"How so, general?"

"Because England had need of me to take the tyrant, and now the tyrant is taken. Have you seen him?"

"Yes, sir." said Mordaunt.

"What is his bearing?"

Mordaunt hesitated; but it seemed as though he was constrained to tell the truth.

"Calm and dignified," said he.

"What did he say?"

"Some parting words to his friends."

"His friends!" murmured Cromwell. "Has he any friends?" Then he added aloud, "Did he make any resistance?"

"No, sir, with the exception of two or three friends every one deserted him; he had no means of resistance."

"To whom did he give up his sword?"

"He did not give it up; he broke it."

"He did well; but instead of breaking it, he might have used it to still more advantage."

There was a momentary pause.

"I heard that the colonel of the regiment that escorted Charles was killed," said Cromwell, staring very fixedly at Mordaunt.

"Yes, sir."

"By whom?" inquired Cromwell.

"By me."

"What was his name?"

"Lord Winter."

"Your uncle?" exclaimed Cromwell.

"My uncle," answered Mordaunt; "but traitors to England are no longer members of my family."

Cromwell observed the young man a moment in silence, then, with that profound melancholy Shakespeare describes so well:

"Mordaunt," he said, "you are a terrible servant."

"When the Lord commands," said Mordaunt, "His commands are not to be disputed. Abraham raised the knife against Isaac, and Isaac was his son."

"Yes," said Cromwell, "but the Lord did not suffer that sacrifice to be accomplished."

"I have looked around me," said Mordaunt, "and I have seen neither goat nor kid caught among the bushes of the plain."

Cromwell bowed. "You are strong among the strong, Mordaunt," he said; "and the Frenchmen, how did they behave?"

"Most fearlessly."

"Yes, yes," murmured Cromwell; "the French fight well; and if my glass was good and I mistake not, they were foremost in the fight."

"They were," replied Mordaunt.

"After you, however," said Cromwell.

"It was the fault of their horses, not theirs."

Another pause

"And the Scotch?"

"They kept their word and never stirred," said Mordaunt.

"Wretched men!"

"Their officers wish to see you, sir."

"I have no time to see them. Are they paid?"

"Yes, to-night."

"Let them be off and return to their own country, there to hide their shame, if its hills are high enough; I have nothing more to do with them nor they with me. And now go, Mordaunt."

"Before I go," said Mordaunt, "I have some questions and a favor to ask you, sir."

"A favor from me?"

Mordaunt bowed.

"I come to you, my leader, my head, my father, and I ask you, master, are you contented with me?"

Cromwell looked at him with astonishment. The young man remained immovable.

"Yes," said Cromwell; "you have done, since I knew you, not only your duty, but more than your duty; you have been a faithful friend, a cautious negotiator, a brave soldier."

"Do you remember, sir it was my idea, the Scotch treaty, for giving up the king?"

"Yes, the idea was yours. I had no such contempt for men before."

"Was I not a good ambassador in France?"

"Yes, for Mazarin has granted what I desire."

"Have I not always fought for your glory and interests?"

"Too ardently, perhaps; it is what I have just reproached you for. But what is the meaning of all these questions?"

"To tell you, my lord, that the moment has now arrived when, with a single word, you may recompense all these services."

"Oh!" said Oliver, with a slight curl of his lip, "I forgot that every service merits some reward and that up to this moment you have not been paid."

"Sir, I can take my pay at this moment, to the full extent of my wishes."

"How is that?"

"I have the payment under my hand; I almost possess it."

"What is it? Have they offered you money? Do you wish a step, or some place in the government?"

"Sir, will you grant me my request?"

"Let us hear what it is, first."

"Sir, when you have told me to obey an order did I ever answer, `Let me see that order '?"

"If, however, your wish should be one impossible to fulfill?"

"When you have cherished a wish and have charged me with its fulfillment, have I ever replied, `It is impossible'?"

"But a request preferred with so much preparation - - "

"Ah, do not fear, sir," said Mordaunt, with apparent simplicity: "it will not ruin you."

"Well, then," said Cromwell, "I promise, as far as lies in my power, to grant your request; proceed."

"Sir, two prisoners were taken this morning, will you let me have them?"

"For their ransom? have they then offered a large one?" inquired Cromwell.

"On the contrary, I think they are poor, sir."

"They are friends of yours, then?"

"Yes, sir," exclaimed Mordaunt, "they are friends, dear friends of mine, and I would lay down my life for them."

"Very well, Mordaunt," exclaimed Cromwell, pleased at having his opinion of the young man raised once more; "I will give them to you; I will not even ask who they are; do as you like with them."

"Thank you, sir!" exclaimed Mordaunt, "thank you; my life is always at your service, and should I lose it I should still owe you something; thank you; you have indeed repaid me munificently for my services."

He threw himself at the feet of Cromwell, and in spite of the efforts of the Puritan general, who did not like this almost kingly homage, he took his hand and kissed it.

"What!" said Cromwell, arresting him for a moment as he arose; "is there nothing more you wish? neither gold nor rank?"

"You have given me all you can give me, and from to-day your debt is paid."

And Mordaunt darted out of the general's tent, his heart beating and his eyes sparkling with joy.

Cromwell gazed a moment after him.

"He has slain his uncle!" he murmured. "Alas! what are my servants? Possibly this one, who asks nothing or seems to ask nothing, has asked more in the eyes of Heaven than those who tax the country and steal the bread of the poor. Nobody serves me for nothing. Charles, who is my prisoner, may still have friends, but I have none!"

And with a deep sigh he again sank into the reverie that had been interrupted by Mordaunt.

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XVIII] hid them by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water.) And Ahab said unto Obadiah, Go into the land, unto all fountains of water, and unto all brooks: peradventure we may find grass to save the horses and mules alive, that we lose not all the beasts. So they divided the land between them to pass throughout it: Ahab went one way by himself, and Obadiah went another way by himself.

And as Obadiah was in the way, behold, Elijah met him: and he knew him, and fell on his face, and said, Art thou that my lord Elijah? And he answered him, I am: go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah is here. And he said, What have I sinned, that thou wouldest deliver thy servant into the hand of Ahab, to slay me? As the Lord thy God liveth, there is no nation or kingdom, whither my lord hath not sent to seek thee: and when they said, He is not there; he took an oath of the kingdom and nation, that they found thee not. And now thou sayest, Go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah is here. And it shall come to pass, as soon as I am gone from thee, that the Spirit of the Lord shall carry thee whither I know not; and so when I come and tell Ahab, and he cannot find thee, he shall slay me: but I thy servant fear the Lord from my youth. Was it not told my lord what I did when Jezebel slew the prophets of the Lord, how I

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Rh hid an hundred men of the Lord's prophets by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water? And now thou sayest, Go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah is here: and he shall slay me. And Elijah said, As the Lord of hosts liveth, before whom I stand, I will surely shew myself unto him to day. So Obadiah went to meet Ahab, and told him: and Ahab went to meet Elijah.

And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel? And he answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim. Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto mount Carrnel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, which eat at Jezebel's table. So Ahab sent unto all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together unto mount Carmel. And Elijah came unto all the people, and said. How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word. Then said Elijah unto the people, I, even I only, remain a prophet of the Lord; but Baal's prophets are four hundred and fifty men. Let them therefore give us two bullocks;


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XVIII] and let them choose one bullock for themselves, and cut it in pieces, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under: and I will dress the other bullock, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under: and call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said. It is well spoken. And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, Choose you one bullock for yourselves, and dress it first; for ye are many; and call on the name of your gods, but put no fire under. And they took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered. And they leaped upon the altar which was made. And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said. Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked. And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them. And it came to pass, when midday was past, and they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded. And Elijah said unto


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Rh her arrival by a leader, which, ended with these brave, wise words:

"The rapid increase of population in the United States, augmented by an annual immigration of nearly three hundred thousand from these isles, is a fact that forces itself on the notice and interest of the most unobservant and uncurious. All these promise to develop the resources of the United States to such an extent as to compel us to a competition as difficult as it is unavoidable. We must run a race with our gigantic and unshackled rival. We must set our long-practised skill, our steady industry, and our dogged determination, against his youth, ingenuity, and ardor. It is a father who runs a race with his son. A fell necessity constrains us and we must not be beat. Let our ship-builders and employers take warning in time. There will always be an abundant supply of vessels, good enough and fast enough for short voyages. The coal-trade can take care of itself, for it will always be a refuge for the destitute. But we want fast vessels for the long voyages, which otherwise will fall into American hands. It is fortunate that the Navigation Laws have been repealed in time to destroy these false and unreasonable expectations, which might have lulled the ardor of British competition. We now all start together with a fair field and no favor. The American captain can call at London, and the British captain can pursue his voyage to New York. Who can complain? Not we. We trust that our countrymen will not be beaten; but if they should be, we shall know that they deserve it."

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Rh all the people, Come near unto me. And all the people came near unto him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down. And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, unto whom the word of the Lord came, saying, Israel shall be thy name: and with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord: and he made a trench about the altar, as great as would contain two measures of seed. And he put the wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid him on the wood, and said. Fill four barrels with water, and pour it on the burnt sacrifice, and on the wood. And he said, Do it the second time. And they did it the second time. And he said, Do it the third time. And they did it the third time. And the water ran round about the altar; and he filled the trench also with water. And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near, and said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the Lord God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again. Then the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones,


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98 booms and long, heavy, lower studdingsail booms swung in along her rails, gave an idea of the enormous spread of canvas held in reserve for light and moderate leading winds; her blocks, standing and running rigging were neatly fitted to stand great stress and strain, but with no unnecessary top-hamper, or weight aloft. On deck everything was for use; the spare spars, scraped bright and varnished, were neatly lashed along the waterways; the inner side of the bulwarks, the rails and the deck-houses were painted pure white; the hatch combings, skylights, pin-rails, and companions were of Spanish mahogany; the narrow planks of her clear pine deck, with the gratings and ladders, were scrubbed and holystoned to the whiteness of cream; the brass capstan heads, bells, belaying pins, gangway stanchions, and brasswork about the wheel, binnacle, and skylights were of glittering brightness. Throughout she was a triumph of the shipwright's and seaman's toil and skill.

No ship like the Oriental had even been seen in England, and the ship-owners of London were constrained to admit that they had nothing to compare with her in speed, beauty of model, rig, or construction. It is not too much to say that the arrival of this vessel in London with her cargo of tea in this crisis in 1850, aroused almost as much apprehension and excitement in Great Britain as was created by the memorable Tea Party held in Boston harbor in 1773. The Admiralty obtained permission to take off her lines in dry dock; the Illustrated London News published her portrait, not a very good one by the way; and the Times honored

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92 Holland upon the sea, but they had quite the contrary effect. With a few slight changes, however, they were passed along from generation to generation, until Adam Smith exposed the fallacy of Protection in his Wealth of Nations, which appeared in 1776. From that time on, British statesmen, few in number at first, adopted his teachings, and under the pressure of popular clamor some concessions were made, especially in the way of reciprocity treaties, but it was nearly three quarters of a century before these barbaric old laws, a legacy from the thieving barons, were finally swept away.

It may be well briefly to enumerate these laws as they stood previous to their repeal, for it is seldom that one comes across so much ingenious stupidity in so compact a form; also mainly because through their repeal the ships of Great Britain eventually became the greatest ocean carriers of the world.

(I.) Certain enumerated articles of European produce could only be imported to the United Kingdom for consumption, in British ships or in ships of the country of which the goods were the produce, or in ships of that country from which they were usually imported.

(II.) No produce of Asia, Africa, or America could be imported for consumption in the United Kingdom from Europe in any ships; and such produce could only be imported from any other place in British ships or in ships of the country of which they were the produce.

(III.) No goods could be carried coastwise from

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Rh one part of the United Kingdom to another in any but British ships.

(IV.) No goods could be exported from the United Kingdom to any of the British possessions in Asia, Africa, or America (with some exceptions in regard to India) in any but British ships.

(V.) No goods could be carried from one British possession in Asia, Africa, or America to another, nor from one part of such possession to another part of the same, in any but British ships.

(VI.) No goods could be imported into any British possessions in Asia, Africa, or America, in any but British ships, or ships of the country of which the goods were the produce; provided also, in such case, that such ships brought the goods from that country.

(VII.) No foreign ships were allowed to trade with any of the British possessions unless they had been specially authorized to do so by orders in Council.

(VIII.) Powers were given to the sovereign in Council to impose differential duties on the ships of any country which did the same with reference to British ships; and also to place restrictions on importations from any foreign countries which placed restrictions on British importations into such countries.

Furthermore, by an act passed in 1786, British subjects were prohibited from owning foreign-built vessels. This act was regarded as one of the Navigation Laws, and was repealed with them.

One of the objects of the repeal of the Navigation Laws was to enable British ship-owners to become

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XIX] and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, The Lord, he is the God; the Lord, he is the God. And Elijah said unto them. Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape. And they took them: and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there.

And Elijah said unto Ahab, Get thee up, eat and drink; for there is a sound of abundance of rain. So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; and he cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees, and said to his servant, Go up now, look toward the sea. And he went up, and looked, and said, There is nothing. And he said, Go again seven times. And it came to pass at the seventh time, that he said. Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand. And he said, Go up, say unto Ahab, Prepare thy chariot, and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not. And it came to pass in the mean while, that the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode, and went to Jezreel. And the hand of the Lord was on Elijah; and he girded up his loins, and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel.

Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done,


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94 the ocean carriers of the world, and to remove every restraint as to where they should build or buy their ships. This step was a natural sequence to the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, and the glorious dawn of Free Trade, by which every British subject was permitted to purchase whatever he required in the best and cheapest market, and so was able to work at a moderate wage, and to have continuous employment. Thus Great Britain, with few natural advantages, became the great workshop of the world and controlled every market upon the globe in which her manufactures were not excluded by the barrier of Protection. Even from these countries she reaped a decided benefit, for they were so hampered by Protection, which increased the expense of living, created high rates of wages for labor but with uncertain employment, and brought about increased cost of production, whether of ships or merchandise, that it became impossible for them to compete in the open markets of the world, and these avenues of trade were left open for Great Britain to exploit at her pleasure.

Such was the belief of the great leader, Richard Cobden, and his brilliant colleagues. They were convinced that if British merchants were to carry on the commerce of Great Britain they must do so untrammelled as to where they bought or built their ships; they realized the fact that cheaper and better wooden sailing vessels—then the ocean cargo carriers of the world—were being built in the United States than could be constructed in Great Britain. (Indeed, as we shall presently see, the finest, largest, and fastest ships owned or chartered in Great

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Rh Britain between the years 1850 and 1857, came from the shipyards of the United States.) They fully recognized the importance of the home ship-building industry, and did everything possible to encourage it, but they also perceived that ship-owning is of vastly more importance to a nation than shipbuilding, and that fleets of ships are not commerce but only the instruments with which commerce performs its work; likewise, that the nation owning the best and cheapest ships, no matter where or by whom built, must and will, other things being equal, do not only most of its own carrying trade, but also a considerable portion of that of other nations. These men were not willing any longer to sacrifice the carrying trade of their country in order that a few comparatively unimportant shipbuilders, grown incompetent through long years of monopoly, might continue to thrive at the expense of the nation.

No people excel the English in courage and resource in times of national trouble, and they had long before this fought battles for freedom—freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of the slave, freedom to worship God,—and now the final contest for freedom, the freedom of trade, had been bravely fought and won. The result, of course, was not immediate, as it required several years to recover from the evil effects of two centuries of Protection. The fruits of victories for freedom rarely ripen quickly, and in this instance the records show that the increase of British shipping for the year before the repeal of the Navigation Laws had been 393,955 tons, while

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96 ing the year following there had been a decrease of 180,576 tons; also that foreign yessels arriving from foreign ports increased from 75,278 tons to 364,587 tons in these years. It was therefore natural that there should be a feeling of despondency throughout Great Britain among those who had opposed the repeal, for they thought that their fears were being realized, and that the over-sea carrying trade, which they had regarded as their own, was being taken from them. In this hour of gloom the stouthearted ship-owners of London and Liverpool resolved that England should again become Mistress of the Sea, and so competition, the stimulus needed to rouse their latent abilities, was the instrument of their salvation.

The first American ship to carry a cargo of tea from China to England after the repeal of the Navigation Laws was the clipper Oriental, of 1003 tons, built for A. A. Low & Brother in 1849, by Jacob Bell, who continued in the ship-building business after the firm of Brown & Bell was dissolved in 1848. This ship's length was 185 feet, breadth 36 feet, depth 21 feet. She sailed from New York on her first voyage, commanded by Captain N. B. Palmer, September 14, 1849, and arrived at Hong-kong by the Eastern passages in 109 days. She discharged, took on board a full cargo of tea for New York, sailed January 30, 1850, and arrived April 21st, 81 days' passage. This was Captain Palmer's last command, though he lived many years, as we have seen, to enjoy the fruits of his toil upon the sea.

The Oriental sailed on her second voyage from New York for China, May 19, 1850, under the

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Rh of Captain Theodore Palmer, a younger brother of Captain Nat, and was 25 days to the equator; she passed the meridian of the Cape of Good Hope 45 days out, Java Head 71 days out, and arrived at Hong-kong, August 8th, 81 days from New York. She was at once chartered through Russell & Co. to load a cargo of tea for London at £6 per ton of 40 cubic feet, while British ships were waiting for cargoes for London at £3:10 per ton of 50 cubic feet. She sailed August 28th, and beat down the China Sea against a strong southwest monsoon in 21 days to Anjer, arrived off the Lizard in 91 days, and was moored in the West India Docks, London, 97 days from Hong-kong—a passage from China never before equalled in point of speed, especially against the southwest monsoon, and rarely surpassed since. She delivered 1600 tons of tea, and her freight from Hong-kong amounted to £9600, or some $48,000. Her first cost ready for sea was $70,000. From the date of her first sailing from New York, September 14, 1849, to arrival at London, December 3, 1850, the Oriental had sailed a distance of 67,000 miles, and had during that time been at sea 367 days, an average in all weathers of 183 miles per day.

Throngs of people visited the West India Docks to look at the Oriental. They certainly saw a beautiful ship; every line of her long, black hull indicated power and speed; her tall raking masts and skysail-yards towered above the spars of the shipping in the docks; her white cotton sails were neatly furled under bunt, quarter, and yardarm gaskets; while her topmast, topgallant, and royal

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Mr. Punch's Book of Sports On being asked to play Croquet, A.D. 1894.

? What? Why? How? Are we back in the Sixties again? I am rubbing my eyes—is it then, or now? I'm a Rip Van Winkle, it's plain!

Hoop, Ball, Stick, Cage? Eh, fetch them all out once more? Why, look, they're begrimed and cracked with age, And their playing days are o'er!

Well—yes—here goes For a primitive chaste delight! Let us soberly, solemnly beat our foes, For Croquet's no longer "tight"!


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HE years between 1849 and 1856 were perhaps the most prosperous that ship-owners and ship-builders have ever known. The discovery of gold in Australia in 1851 had much the same effect as that in California in 1848, and people flocked to Melbourne from all parts of the world. There was this difference, however, that whereas passengers went to California, after the first rush, by steamers via Panama, and the mails and gold were always transported by this route, all the Australian passengers, mails, and gold were for a considerable period carried by sailing vessels. The extent of this traffic may be judged from the fact that the yield of the gold fields up to December 30, 1852, a little more than a year after their discovery, was estimated at £16,000,000 sterling, or $80,000,000. Prior to 1851 the emigration to the Australian colonies had been about 100,000 persons per annum, while the average between 1851 and 1854 was 340,000 annually. The transportation of these passengers alone required an enormous amount of tonnage, so that the discovery of gold in Australia gave an additional impulse to clipper ship building.

At this time the proper route to ports on that

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Rh part of the globe had only just become known, although British ships had been sailing to and from Australia and New Zealand for many years, taking out emigrants and bringing back wool. They usually called at the Cape of Good Hope both outward and homeward bound, this being the route recommended by the Admiralty. One of the most important services rendered by Lieutenant Maury was his careful research in this matter, which resulted in an entire revolution of both outward and homeward tracks. Instead of sailing near the Cape of Good Hope outward bound, he discovered that a ship would find stronger and more favorable winds from 600 to 800 miles to the westward, then continuing her course southward to 48°, she would fall in with the prevailing westerly gales and long rolling seas in which to run her easting down. It was in this region that the Australian clippers made their largest day's runs.

The homeward bound Admiralty track was entirely abandoned by Lieutenant Maury in favor of continuing in the brave west winds, as he called them, round Cape Horn, so that a voyage to Melbourne out and home encircled the globe. By the old routes, vessels were usually about 120 days each way, though sometimes considerably longer. By the tracks which Lieutenant Maury introduced, the outward and homeward voyages were made in about the same time that had formerly been consumed in a single passage, though of course the increased speed of the clipper ships contributed to this result.

The misery and suffering of passengers on board the old Australian emigrant ships before the days

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262 of the clippers are difficult to realize at the present time, but there is an account compiled from the report of the Parliamentary Committee appointed in 1844 to investigate the matter, which reads as follows:

"It was scarcely possible to induce the passengers to sweep the decks after their meals, or to be decent in respect to the common wants of nature; in many cases, in bad weather they would not go on deck, their health suffered so much that their strength was gone, and they had not the power to help themselves. Hence the between-decks was like a loathsome dungeon. When hatchways were opened under which the people were stowed, the steam rose and the stench was like that from a pen of pigs. The few beds they had were in a dreadful state, for the straw, once wet with sea-water, soon rotted, beside which they used the between-decks for all sorts of filthy purposes. Whenever vessels put back from distress all these miseries and sufferings were exhibited in the most aggravated form. In one case it appeared that, the vessel having experienced rough weather, the people were unable to go on deck and cook their provisions; the strongest maintained the upper hand over the weakest, and it was even said that there were women who died of starvation. At that time the passengers were expected to cook for themselves, and from their being unable to do this the greatest suffering arose. It was naturally at the commencement of the voyage that this system produced its worst effects, for the first days were those in which the people suffered most from sea-sickness, and under the prostration

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 Rh of body thereby induced, were wholly incapacitated from cooking. Thus though provisions might be abundant enough, the passengers would be half-starved."

In an interesting book entitled Reminiscences of Early Australian Life, a vivid description is given of maritime affairs in 1853. The writer, who had arrived at Melbourne in 1840, says that: "Since that time the town of Melbourne had developed from a few scattered and straggling wooden buildings, with muddy thoroughfares interspersed with stumps of gum trees, into a well-built and formed city, with wide, and well-made streets, symmetrically laid out, good hotels, club houses, and Government buildings. Port Phillip Bay, in which two or three vessels used to repose at anchor for months together, was now the anchorage ground of some of the finest and fastest clippers afloat."

At this time (1853) upwards of two hundred fullrigged ships from all parts of the world were lying in the Bay. This writer continues: "After landing their living freight of thousands that were rushing out to the gold fields to seek for gold, and fearing that they might be too late to participate in their reputed wealth, ships now waited for return cargoes, or more probably for crews to take them home, as in many cases all the hands had deserted for the gold fields. On ascertaining that there were two good ships sailing for London, with cargoes of wool and gold-dust, about the same time, or as soon as they could ship crews—one the Madagascar, of Messrs. Green & Co.'s line, and the other the Medway of Messrs. Tindall & Co.'s line—I proceeded to

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264 the office and booked a passage by the Madagascar—the passage in those days for a first-class cabin being £80. After paying the usual deposit and leaving the office, I met a friend, who was also homeward bound, and on my informing him that I had booked by the Madagascar, he persuaded me to change my ship and go home with himself and others whom I knew in the Medway, and upon returning to the office of Green's ship, and stating my reasons for wishing to change to Tindall's ship, they were very obliging, and returned my deposit, stating that they could easily fill up my berth. It was well for me at the time that I changed ships, as the Madagascar sailed the same day from Port Phillip Head as we did, with four tons of gold-dust on board; and to this day nothing has ever been heard of her. She either foundered at sea, or, as was generally supposed, was seized by the crew and scuttled and the gold taken off in boats. All must have perished, both passengers and crew, as no tidings of that ill-fated ship ever reached the owners.

"On board the Medway there were four tons' weight of gold-dust, packed in well-secured boxes of two hundred pounds each, five of these boxes being stowed under each of the berths of the saloon passengers. Each cabin was provided with cutlasses and pistols, to be kept in order and ready for use, and a brass carronade gun loaded with grape shot was fixed in the after part of the ship, in front of the saloon and pointed to the forecastle—not a man, with the exception of the ship's officers and stewards, being allowed to come aft.

"The character of the crew shipped necessitated

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{{block center|width=400px|Miss Delamode (of Belgravia). "Well, dear, I must be off. Don't you love Lord's?"

Miss Dowdesley (of Far-West Kensingtonia). "I'm sure I should, only{{bar|2}}" (immersed in her own dreams}—"We don't know any!"}}

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Mr. Punch's Book of Sports OUR VILLAGE CRICKET CLUB I

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Mr. Punch's Book of Sports

up a match by saying to some local subaltern that it would be such fun to have a game, and you know a girl who could give points to Grace.

Agree with the youthful warrior that the fun would be increased by allowing the men to play with broom-sticks, and left-handed, and the girls, of course, with bats, and unrestricted.

Arrange your eleven in such a fashion that you come out as captain in the most picturesque costume.

Be careful to "kill" your colleagues' appearance by an artful combination of discordant hues.

Carry out the above scheme with the assistance of a joint committee consisting of two, yourself and the local subaltern.

Arrange, at the last moment, that the men shall only send out six of their team to field. Manage to put yourself in first, and play with confidence the initial ball.

Amidst the applause of the six fielders you will be clean bowled.

Retire gracefully, and devote the rest of the afternoon to tea and mild flirtation with the five men who have been weeded out.

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Author:Thomas Hamilton (1789-1842)

Works

 * The Youth and Manhood of Cyril Thornton (1827), in 3 vols.
 * Annals of the Peninsular Campaign (1829)
 * Men and Manners in America (1833)

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was Kipps' third world. There were no doubt other worlds, but Kipps knew only these three; firstly, New Romney and the Emporium, constituting his primary world, his world of origin, which also contained Ann; secondly, the world of culture and refinement, the world of which Coote was chaperon, and into which Kipps was presently to marry, a world it was fast becoming evident absolutely incompatible with the first, and, thirdly, a world still to a large extent unexplored, London. London presented itself as a place of great, grey spaces and incredible multitudes of people, centring about Charing Cross station and the Royal Grand Hotel, and containing at unexpected arbitrary points shops of the most amazing sort, statuary. Squares, Restaurants—where it was possible for clever people like Walshingham to order a lunch item by item, to the waiters' evident respect and sympathy—exhibitions of incredible things—the Walshinghams had taken him to the Arts and

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272 a full-length representation of the Indian chief for whom she was named. She made her first voyage from Liverpool to Melbourne in 1854 under command of Captain Samuel Reed in 69 days, and as she received very quick despatch, being in port only 12 days, and made the passage to Liverpool in 73 days, the voyage round the globe, including detention in port, was made in five months and four days. On the homeward passage, bringing home 45,000 ounces of gold, she beat the celebrated Guiding Star by 9 days, though she lost considerable time through being among the bergs and field ice off Cape Horn. Upon her arrival at Liverpool the Red Jacket was sold to Pilklington & Wilson, of that port, then agents of the White Star Line, for £30,000, and continued in the Australian trade for several years, becoming one of the most famous of the American-built clippers.

The competition of the Black Ball and White Star lines proved of great benefit to both cabin and steerage passengers, as their comfort and convenience became subjects of consideration in a manner unthought of in the old days before the discovery of gold at Bendigo and Ballarat.

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310 Crafts and to a picture gallery—and theatres. London, moreover, is rendered habitable by hansom cabs. Young Walshingham was a natural cab taker, he was an all-round large minded young man, and he had in the course of their two days' stay taken Kipps into no less than nine, so that Kipps was singularly not afraid of these vehicles. He knew that whereever you were, so soon as you were thoroughly lost you said "Hi!" to a cab, and then "Royal Grand Hotel." Day and night these trusty conveyances are returning the strayed Londoner back to his point of departure, and were it not for their activity in a little while the whole population, so vast and incomprehensible is the intricate complexity of this great city, would be hopelessly lost forever. At any rate, that is how the thing presented itself to Kipps, and I have heard much the same from visitors from America.

His train was composed of corridor carriages, and he forgot his trouble for a time in the wonders of this modern substitute for railway compartments. He went from the non-smoking to the smoking carriage and smoked a cigarette, and strayed from his second-class carriage to a first and back. But presently Black Care got aboard the train and came and sat beside him. The exhilaration of escape had evaporated now, and he was presented with a terrible picture of his Aunt and Uncle arriving at his lodgings and finding him fled. He had left a hasty message that he was called away suddenly on business, "ver' important business," and they were to be sumptuously

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Rh designed a number of other clipper ships, including the Challenger—not the English ship of that name,—the Game-Cock, Surprise, Northern Light, Ocean Chief, Fearless, Ocean Telegraph, and Herald of the Morning. He also designed several freighting vessels and yachts. It was the custom at that period for vessels to be designed in the yards where they were constructed, and Mr. Pook was the first naval architect in the United States who was not connected with a ship-bulding yard. On her first voyage the Red Jacket sailed from New York for Liverpool, February 19, 1854, commanded by Captain Asa Eldridge, and made the passage in 13 days 1 hour from Sandy Hook to the Rock Light, Liverpool, with the wind strong from southeast to westsouthwest, and either rain, snow, or hail during the entire run. During the first seven days she averaged only 182 miles per twenty-four hours, but during the last six days she made 219, 413, 374, 348, 300, and 371 miles, an average of a fraction over 353 miles per twenty-four hours.

Captain Eldridge was well known in Liverpool, having, together with his brothers, John and Oliver, commanded some of the finest New York and Liverpool packet ships of their day; he had also commanded Commodore Vanderbilt's steam yacht North Star during her cruise in European waters in 1853. He was afterwards lost in command of the steamship Pacific of the Collins Line.

The Red Jacket attracted a great deal of attention at Liverpool, being an extremely handsome ship—quite as good-looking as any of the clippers built at New York or Boston. For a figurehead she

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CH. VII. His immediate motive had been his passionate dread of an encounter between these excellent but unrefined old people and the Walshinghams, but now that end was secured, he could see how thwarted and exasperated they would be.

How to explain to them?

He ought never to have written to tell them!

He ought to have got married and told them afterwards.

He ought to have consulted Helen.

"Promise me," she had said.

"Oh, desh!" said Kipps, and got up and walked back into the smoking car and began to consume cigarettes.

Suppose, after all, they found out the Walshingham's address and went there!

At Charing Cross, however, there were distractions again. He took a cab in an entirely Walshingham manner, and was pleased to note the enhanced respect of the cabman when he mentioned the Royal Grand. He followed Walshingham's routine on their previous visit with perfect success. They were very nice in the office, and gave him an excellent room at fourteen shillings the night.

He went up and spent a considerable time in examining the furniture of his room, scrutinising himself in its various mirrors and sitting on the edge of the bed whistling. It was a vast and splendid apartment, and cheap at fourteen shillings. But, finding the figure of Ann inclined to resume possession of

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312 his mind, he roused himself and descended by the staircase after a momentary hesitation before the lift. He had thought of lunch, but he drifted into the great drawing-room and read a guide to the Hotels of Europe for a space, until a doubt whether he was entitled to use this palatial apartment without extra charge arose in his mind. He would have liked something to eat very much now, but his inbred terror of the table was very strong. He did at last get by a porter in uniform towards the dining-room, but at the sight of a number of waiters and tables, with remarkable complications of knives and glasses, terror seized him, and he backed out again, with a mumbled remark to the waiter in the doorway about this not being the way.

He hovered in the hall and lounge until he thought the presiding porter regarded him with suspicion, and then went up to his room again by the staircase, got his hat and umbrella and struck boldly across the courtyard. He would go to a restaurant instead.

He had a moment of elation in the gateway. He felt all the Strand must notice him as he emerged through the great gate of the Hotel. "One of these here rich swells," they would say. "Don't they do it just!" A cabman touched his hat. "No fear," said Kipps, pleasantly.

Then he remembered he was hungry again.

Yet he decided he was in no great hurry for lunch, in spite of an internal protest, and turned eastward along the Strand in a leisurely manner. He tried to

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CH. VII find a place to suit him soon enough. He tried to remember the sort of things Walshingham had ordered. Before all things he didn't want to go into a place and look like a fool. Some of these places rook you dreadful, besides making fun of you. There was a place near Essex Street where there was a window brightly full of chops, tomatoes and lettuce. He stopped at this and reflected for a time, and then it occurred to him that you were expected to buy these things raw and cook them at home. Anyhow, there was sufficient doubt in the matter to stop him. He drifted on to a neat window with champagne bottles, a dish of asparagus and a framed menu of a two shilling lunch. He was about to enter, when fortunately he perceived two waiters looking at him over the back screen of the window with a most ironical expression, and he sheered off at once. There was a wonderful smell of hot food half way down Fleet Street and a nice looking Tavern with several doors, but he could not decide which door. His nerve was going under the strain.

He hesitated at Farringdon Street and drifted up to St. Paul's and round the church yard, full chiefly of dead bargains in the shop windows, to Cheapside. But now Kipps was getting demoralised, and each house of refreshment seemed to promise still more complicated obstacles to food. He didn't know how you went in and what was the correct thing to do with your hat, he didn't know what you said to the waiter or what you called the different things; he was

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314 convinced absolutely he would "fumble," as Shalford would have said, and look like a fool. Somebody might laugh at him! The hungrier he got the more unendurable was the thought that anyone should laugh at him. For a time he considered an extraordinary expedient to account for his ignorance. He would go in and pretend to be a foreigner and not know English. Then they might understand.… Presently he had drifted into a part of London where there did not seem to be any refreshment places at all.

"Oh, desh!" said Kipps, in a sort of agony of indecisiveness. "The very nex' place I see, in I go."

The next place was a fried fish shop in a little side street, where there were also sausages on a gaslit grill.

He would have gone in, but suddenly a new scruple came to him, that he was too well dressed for the company he could see dimly through the steam sitting at the counter and eating with a sort of nonchalant speed.

He was half minded to resort to a hansom and brave the terrors of the dining-room of the Royal Grand—they wouldn't know why he had gone out really—when the only person he knew in London appeared (as the only person one does know will do in

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CH. VII London) and slapped him on the shoulder. Kipps was hovering at a window at a few yards from the fish shop, pretending to examine some really strikingly cheap pink baby linen, and trying to settle finally about those sausages.

"Hullo, Kipps!" cried Sid; "spending the millions?"

Kipps turned, and was glad to perceive no lingering vestige of the chagrin that had been so painful at New Romney. Sid looked grave and important, and he wore a quite new silk hat that gave a commercial touch to a generally socialistic costume. For a moment the sight of Sid uplifted Kipps wonderfully. He saw him as a friend and helper, and only presently did it come clearly into his mind that this was the brother of Ann.

He made amiable noises.

"I've just been up this way," Sid explained, "buying a second-hand 'namelling stove.… I'm going to 'namel myself."

"Lor'!" said Kipps.

"Yes. Do me a lot of good. Let the customer choose his colour. See? What brings you up?"

Kipps had a momentary vision of his foiled Uncle and Aunt. "Jest a bit of a change," he said.

Sid came to a swift decision. "Come down to my little show. I got someone I'd like to see talking to you."

Even then Kipps did not think of Ann in this connection.

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316 "Well," he said, trying to invent an excuse on the spur of the moment. "Fact is," he explained, "I was jest looking 'round to get a bit of lunch."

"Dinner, we call it," said Sid. "But that's all right. You can't get anything to eat hereabout. If you're not too haughty to do a bit of slumming, there's some mutton spoiling for me now"

The word "mutton" affected Kipps greatly.

"It won't take us 'arf an hour," said Sid, and Kipps was carried.

He discovered another means of London locomotion in the Underground Railway, and recovered his self-possession in that interest. "You don't mind going third?" asked Sid, and Kipps said, "Nort a bit of it." They were silent in the train for a time, on account of strangers in the carriage, and then Sid began to explain who it was that he wanted Kipps to meet, "It's a chap named Masterman—do you no end of good.

"He occupies our first floor front room, you know. It isn't so much for gain I let as company. We don't want the whole 'ouse, and another, I knew the man before. Met him at our Sociological, and after a bit he said he wasn't comfortable where he was. That's how it came about. He's a first-class chap—first-class. Science! You should see his books!

"Properly he's a sort of journalist. He's written a lot of things, but he's been too ill lately to do very much. Poetry he's written, all sorts. He writes for the Commonweal sometimes, and sometimes he

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CH. VII books. 'E's got 'eaps of books—'eaps. Besides selling a lot.

"He knows a regular lot of people, and all sorts of things. He's been a dentist, and he's a qualified chemist, an' I seen him often reading German and French. Taught 'imself. He was here"

Sid indicated South Kensington, which had come opportunely outside the carriage windows, with a nod of his head, "—three years. Studying science. But you'll see 'im. When he really gets to talking—he pours it out."

"Ah!" said Kipps, nodding sympathetically, with his two hands on his umbrella knob.

"He'll do big things some day," said Sid. "He's written a book on science already. 'Physiography,' it's called. 'Elementary Physiography'! Some day he'll write an Advanced—when he gets time."

He let this soak into Kipps.

"I can't introduce you to Lords and swells," he went on, "but I can show you a Famous Man, that's going to be. I can do that. Leastways—unless"

Sid hesitated.

"He's got a frightful cough," he said.

"He won't care to talk with me," weighed Kipps.

"That's all right; he won't mind. He's fond of talking. He'd talk to anyone," said KidSid [sic], reassuringly, and added a perplexing bit of Londonized Latin. "He doesn't pute anything, non alienum. You know."

"I know," said Kipps, intelligently, over his

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318 knob, though of course that was altogether untrue.

Kipps found Sid's shop a practical looking establishment, stocked with the most remarkable collection of bicycles and pieces of bicycle that he had ever beheld. "My hiring stock," said Sid, with a wave to this ironmongery, "and there's the best machine at a democratic price in London, The Red-Flag, built by me. See?"

He indicated a graceful, grey-brown framework in the window. "And there's my stock of accessories—store prices.

"Go in for motors a bit," added Sid.

"Mutton?" said Kipps, not hearing him distinctly.

"Motors, I said.… 'Owever, Mutton Department 'ere," and he opened a door that had a curtain guarded window in its upper panel, to reveal a little room with red walls and green furniture, with a white clothed table and the generous promise of a meal. "Fanny!" he shouted. "Here's Art Kipps."

A bright-eyed young woman of five or six and twenty in a pink print appeared, a little flushed from cooking, and wiped a hand on an apron and shook hands and smiled, and said it would all be ready in a minute. She went on to say she had heard of Kipps and his luck, and meanwhile Sid vanished to draw the beer, and returned with two glasses for himself and Kipps.

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CH. VII "Drink that," said Sid, and Kipps felt all the better for it.

"I give Mr. Masterman 'is upstairs a hour ago," said Mrs. Sid. "I didn't think 'e ought to wait."

A rapid succession of brisk movements on the part of everyone, and they were all four at dinner—the fourth person being Master Walt Whitman Pornick, a cheerful young gentleman of one and a half, who was given a spoon to hammer on the table with to keep him quiet, and who got "Kipps" right at the first effort and kept it all through the meal, combining it first with this previous acquisition, and then that. "Peacock Kipps" said Master Walt, at which there was great laughter, and also "More Mutton, Kipps."

"He's a regular oner," said Mrs. Sid, "for catching up words. You can't say a word but what 'e's on to it."

There were no serviettes and less ceremony, and Kipps thought he had never enjoyed a meal so much. Everyone was a little excited by the meeting and chatting, and disposed to laugh, and things went off easily from the very beginning. If there was a pause Master Walt filled it in. Mrs. Sid, who tempered her enormous admiration for Sid's intellect and his socialism and his severe business methods by a motherly sense of her sex and seniority, spoke of them both as "you boys," and dilated—when she was not urging Kipps to have some more of this or that—on the disparity between herself and her husband.

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320 "Shouldn't ha' thought there was a year between you," said Kipps; "you seem jest a match."

"I'm his match, anyhow," said Mrs. Sid, and no epigram of young Walshingham's was ever better received.

"Match," said young Walt, coming in on the trail of the joke and getting a round for himself.

Any sense of superior fortune had long vanished from Kipps' mind, and he found himself looking at host and hostess with enormous respect. Really, old Sid was a wonderful chap, here in his own house at two and twenty, carving his own mutton and lording it over wife and child. No legacies needed by him! And Mrs. Sid, so kind and bright and hearty! And the child, old Sid's child! Old Sid had jumped round a bit. It needed the sense of his fortune at the back of his mind to keep Kipps from feeling abject. He resolved he'd buy young Walt something tremendous in toys at the first opportunity.

"Drop more beer, Art?"

"Right you are, old man."

"Cut Mr. Kipps a bit more bread, Sid."

"Can't I pass you a bit?"

Sid was all right, Sid was, and there was no mistake about that.

It was growing up in his mind that Sid was the brother of Ann, but he said nothing about her for excellent reasons. After all, because he remembered Sid's irritation at her name when they had met in New Romney seemed to show a certain separation. They

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CH. VII didn't tell each other much.… He didn't know how things might be between Ann and Sid, either.

Still, for all that, Sid was Ann's brother.

The furniture of the room did not assert itself very much above the cheerful business at the table, but Kipps was impressed with the idea that it was pretty. There was a dresser at the end with a number of gay plates and a mug or so, a Labour Day poster, by Walter Crane, on the wall, and through the glass and over the blind of the shop door one had a glimpse of the bright coloured advertisement cards of bicycle dealers, and a shelfful of boxes labelled. The Paragon Bell, The Scarum Bell, and The Patent Omi! Horn.…

It seemed incredible that he had been in Folkestone that morning, and even now his Aunt and Uncle!

Brrr. It didn't do to think of his Aunt and Uncle.

When Sid repeated his invitation to come and see Masterman, Kipps, now flushed with beer and Irish stew, said he didn't mind if he did, and after a preliminary shout from Sid that was answered by a voice and a cough, the two went upstairs.

"Masterman's a rare one," said Sid over his arm and in an undertone. "You should hear him speak at a meeting.… If he's in form, that is."

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322 He rapped and went into a large, untidy room.

"This is Kipps," he said. "You know. The chap I told you of. With twelve 'undred a year."

Masterman sat gnawing at an empty pipe and as close to the fire as though it was alight and the season midwinter. Kipps concentrated upon him for a space, and only later took in something of the frowsy furniture, the little bed half behind, and evidently supposed to be wholly behind, a careless screen, the spittoon by the fender, the remains of a dinner on the chest of drawers and the scattered books and papers. Masterman's face showed him a man of forty or more, with curious hollows at the side of his forehead and about his eyes. His eyes were very bright; there was a spot of red in his cheeks, and the wiry black moustache under his short, red nose had been trimmed with scissors into a sort of brush along his upper lip. His teeth were darkened ruins. His jacket collar was turned up about a knitted white neck wrap, and his sleeves betrayed no cuffs. He did not rise to greet Kipps, but held out a thin wristed hand and pointed with the other to a bedroom arm chair.

"Glad to see you," he said. "Sit down and make yourself at home. Will you smoke?"

Kipps said he would, and produced his store. He was about to take one, and then, with a civil afterthought, handed the packet first to Masterman and Sid. Masterman pretended surprise to find his pipe out before he took one. There was an interlude of matches. Sid pushed the end of the screen out of his

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CH. VII way, sat down on the bed thus frankly admitted, and prepared, with a certain quiet satisfaction of manner, to witness Masterman's treatment of Kipps.

"And how does it feel to have twelve hundred a year?" asked Masterman, holding his cigarette to his nose tip in a curious manner.

"It's rum," confided Kipps, after a reflective interval. "It feels juiced rum."

"I never felt it," said Masterman.

"It takes a bit of getting into," said Kipps. "I can tell you that."

Masterman smoked and regarded Kipps with curious eyes.

"I expect it does," he said presently.

"And has it made you perfectly happy?" he asked, abruptly.

"I couldn't 'ardly say that," said Kipps.

Masterman smiled. "No," he said. "Has it made you much happier?"

"It did at first."

"Yes. But you got used to it. How long, for example, did the real delirious excitement last?"

"Oo, that! Perhaps a week," said Kipps.

Masterman nodded his head. "That's what discourages me from amassing wealth," he said to Sid. "You adjust yourself. It doesn't last. I've always had an inkling of that, and it's interesting to get it confirmed. I shall go on sponging for a bit longer on you, I think."

"You don't," said Sid. "No fear."

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324 "Twenty-four thousand pounds," said Masterman, and blew a cloud of smoke. "Lord! Doesn't it worry you?"

"It is a bit worrying at times.… Things 'appen."

"Going to marry?"

"Yes."

"H'm. Lady, I guess, of a superior social position?"

"Rather," said Kipps. "Cousin to the Earl of Beauprés."

Masterman readjusted his long body with an air of having accumulated all the facts he needed. He snuggled his shoulder-blades down into the chair and raised his angular knees. "I doubt," he said, flicking cigarette ash into the atmosphere, "if any great gain or loss of money does—as things are at present—make more than the slightest difference in one's happiness. It ought to—if money was what it ought to be, the token for given service; one ought to get an increase in power and happiness for every pound one got. But the plain fact is the times are out of joint, and money—money, like everything else, is a deception and a disappointment."

He turned his face to Kipps and enforced his next words with the index finger of his lean, lank hand. "If I thought otherwise," he said, "I should exert myself to get some. But, if one sees things clearly, one is so discouraged. So confoundedly discouraged.… When you first got your money, you thought

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CH. VII that it meant you might buy just anything you fancied?"

"I was a bit that way," said Kipps.

"And you found that you couldn't. You found that for all sorts of things it was a question of where to buy and how to buy, and what you didn't know how to buy with your money, straight away this world planted something else upon you"

"I got rather done over a banjo first day," said Kipps. "Leastways, my Uncle says."

"Exactly," said Masterman.

Sid began to speak from the bed. "That's all very well, Masterman," he said, "but, after all, money is Power, you know. You can do all sorts of things"

"I'm talking of happiness," said Masterman. "You can do all sorts of things with a loaded gun in the Hammersmith Broadway, but nothing—practically—that will make you or any one else very happy. Nothing. Power's a different matter altogether. As for happiness, you want a world in order before money or property, or any of those things that have any real value, and this world, I tell you, is hopelessly out of joint. Man is a social animal with a mind nowadays that goes around the globe, and a community cannot be happy in one part and unhappy in another. It's all or nothing, no patching any more for ever. It is the standing mistake of the world not to understand that. Consequently people think there is a class or order somewhere, just above them or just

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326 below them, or a country or place somewhere, that is really safe and happy. The fact is, Society is one body, and it is either well or ill. That's the law. This society we live in is ill. It's a fractious, feverish invalid, gouty, greedy and ill-nourished. You can't have a happy left leg with neuralgia, or a happy throat with a broken leg. That's my position, and that's the knowledge you'll come to. I'm so satisfied of it that I sit here and wait for my end quite calmly, sure that I can't better things by bothering—in my time, and so far as I am concerned, that is. I'm not even greedy any more—my egotism's at the bottom of a pond, with a philosophical brick around its neck. The world is ill, my time is short and my strength is small. I'm as happy here as anywhere."

He coughed and was silent for a moment, then brought the index finger around to Kipps again. You've had the opportunity of sampling two grades of society, and you don't find the new people you're among much better or any happier than the old?"

"No," said Kipps, reflectively. "No. I 'aven't seen it quite like that before, but. No. They're not."

"And you might go all up the scale and down the scale and find the same thing. Man's a gregarious beast, a gregarious beast, and no money will buy you out of your own time—any more than out of your own skill. All the way up and all the way down the scale there's the same discontent. No one is quite sure where they stand, and everyone's fretting. The

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CH. VII herd's uneasy and feverish. All the old tradition goes or has gone, and there's no one to make a new tradition. Where are your nobles now? Where are your gentlemen? They vanished directly the peasant found out he wasn't happy and ceased to be a peasant. There's big men and little men mixed up together, that's all. None of us know where we are. Your cads in a bank holiday train and your cads on a two thousand pound motor; except for a difference in scale, there's not a pin to choose between them. Your smart society is as low and vulgar and uncomfortable for a balanced soul as a gin palace, no more and no less; there's no place or level of honour or fine living left in the world; so what's the good of climbing?"

"'Ear, 'ear," said Sid.

"It's true," said Kipps.

"I don't climb," said Masterman, and accepted Kipps' silent offer of another cigarette.

"No," he said. "This world is out of joint. It's broken up, and I doubt if it will heal. I doubt very much if it'll heal. We're in the beginning of the Sickness of the World."

He rolled his cigarette in his lean fingers and repeated with satisfaction: "The Sickness of the World."

"It's we've got to make it better," said Sid, and looked at Kipps.

"Ah, Sid's an optimist," said Masterman.

"So are you, most times," said Sid.

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328 Kipps lit another cigarette with an air of intelligent participation.

"Frankly," said Masterman, recrossing his legs and expelling a jet of smoke luxuriously, "frankly, I think thas civilisation of ours is on the topple."

"There's Socialism," said Sid.

"There's no imagination to make use of it."

"We've got to make one," said Sid.

"In a couple of centuries perhaps," said Masterman. "But meanwhile we're going to have a pretty acute attack of confusion. Universal confusion. Like one of those crushes when men are killed and maimed for no reason at all, going into a meeting or crowding for a train. Commercial and Industrial Stresses. Political Exploitation. Tariff Wars. Revolutions. All the bloodshed that will come of some fools calling half the white world yellow. These things alter the attitude of everybody to everybody. Everybody's going to feel 'em. Every fool in the world panting and shoving. We're all going to be as happy and comfortable as a household during a removal. What else can we expect?"

Kipps was moved to speak, but not in answer to Masterman's enquiry. "I've never rightly got the 'eng of this Socialism," he said. "What's it going to do, like?"

They had been imagining that he had some elementary idea in the matter, but as soon as he had made it clear that he hadn't, Sid plunged at exposition, and in a little while Masterman, abandoning

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CH. VII his pose of the detached man ready to die, joined in. At first he joined in only to correct Sid's version, but afterwards he took control. His manner changed. He sat up and rested his elbow on his knees, and his cheek flushed a little. He expanded his case against Property and the property class with such vigour that Kipps was completely carried away, and never thought of asking for a clear vision of the thing that would fill the void this abolition might create. For a time he quite forgot his own private opulence. And it was as if something had been lit in Masterman. His languor passed. He enforced his words by gestures of his long, thin hands. And as he passed swiftly from point to point of his argument it was evident he grew angry.

"To-day," he said, "the world is ruled by rich men; they may do almost anything they like with the world. And what are they doing? Laying it waste!"

"Hear, hear!" said Sid, very sternly.

Masterman stood up, gaunt and long, thrust his hands in his pockets and turned his back to the fireplace.

"Collectively, the rich to-day have neither heart nor imagination. No! They own machinery, they have knowledge and instruments and powers beyond all previous dreaming, and what are they doing with them? Think what they are doing with them, Kipps, and think what they might do. God gives them a power like the motor car, and all they can do with it

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330 is to go careering about the roads in goggled masks killing children and making machinery hateful to the soul of man! ("True," said Sid, "true.") God gives them means of communication, power unparalleled of every sort, time and absolute liberty! They waste it all in folly! Here under their feet (and Kipps' eyes followed the direction of a lean index finger to the hearthrug) under their accursed wheels, the great mass of men festers and breeds in darkness, darkness those others make by standing in the light. The darkness breeds and breeds. It knows no better.… Unless you can crawl or pander or rob you must stay in the stew you are born in. And those rich beasts above claw and clutch as though they had nothing! They grudge us our schools, they grudge us a gleam of light and air, they cheat us and then seek to forget us.… There is no rule, no guidance, only accidents and happy flukes.… Our multitudes of poverty increase, and this crew of rulers makes no provision, foresees nothing, anticipates nothing.…"

He paused and made a step, and stood over Kipps in a white heat of anger. Kipps nodded in a noncommital manner and looked hard and rather gloomily at his host's slipper as he talked.

"It isn't as though they had something to show for the waste they make of us, Kipps. They haven't. They are ugly and cowardly and mean. Look at their women! Painted, dyed and drugged, hiding their ugly shapes under a load of dress! There isn't

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CH. VII a woman in the swim of society at the present time, wouldwho [sic] wouldn't sell herself, body and soul, who wouldn't lick the boots of a Jew or marry a nigger, rather than live decently on a hundred a year! On what would be wealth for you and me! They know it. They know we know it.… No one believes in them. No one believes in nobility any more. Nobody believes in kingship any more. Nobody believes there Is justice In the law.… But people have habits, people go on in the old grooves, as long as there's work, as long as there's weekly money.… It won't last, Kipps."

He coughed and paused. "Wait for the lean years," he cried. "Wait for the lean years." And suddenly he fell into a struggle with his cough and spat a gout of blood. "It's nothing," he said to Kipps' note of startled horror.

He went on talking, and the protests of his cough interlaced with his words, and Sid beamed in an ecstasy of painful admiration.

"Look at the fraud they have let life become, the miserable mockery of the hope of one's youth. What have I had? I found myself at thirteen being forced into a factory like a rabbit into a chloroformed box. Thirteen!—when their children are babies. But even a child of that age could see what it meant, that Hell of a factory! Monotony and toil and contempt and dishonour! And then death. So I fought—at thirteen!"

Minton's "crawling up a drain pipe until you die"

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332 echoed in Kipps' mind, but Masterman, instead of Minton's growl, spoke in a high, indignant tenor.

"I got out at last—somehow," he said, quietly, suddenly plumping back, in his chair. He went on after a pause. "For a bit. Some of us get out by luck, some by cunning, and crawl on to the grass, exhausted and crippled to die. That's a poor man's success, Kipps. Most of us don't get out at all. I worked all day and studied half the night, and here I am with the common consequences. Beaten! And never once have I had a fair chance, never once!" His lean, clenched fist flew out in a gust of tremulous anger. "These Skunks shut up all the university scholarships at nineteen for fear of men like me. And then—do nothin'.… We're wasted for nothing. By the time I'd learnt something the doors were locked. I thought knowledge would do it—I did think that! I've fought for knowledge as other men fight for bread. I've starved for knowledge. I've turned my back on women; I've done even that. I've burst my accursed lung.…" His voice rose with impotent anger, "I'm a better man than any ten princes alive! And I'm beaten and wasted. I've been crushed, trampled and defiled by a drove of hogs. I'm no use to myself or the world. I've thrown my life away to make myself too good for use in this huckster's scramble. If I had gone in for business, if I had gone in for plotting to cheat my fellow men—ah, well! It's too late. It's too late for that, anyhow. It's too late for anything now! And I couldn't have done it.

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CH. VII … And over in New York now there's a pet of society making a corner in wheat!

"By God!" he cried hoarsely, with a clutch of the lean hand. "By God! If I had his throat! Even now I might do something for the world."

He glared at Kipps, his face flushed deep, his sunken eyes glowing with passion, and then suddenly he changed altogether.

There was a sound of tea things rattling upon a tray outside the door, and Sid rose to open it.

"All of which amounts to this," said Masterman, suddenly quiet and again talking against time. "The world is out of joint, and there isn't a soul alive who isn't half waste or more. You'll find it the same with you in the end, wherever your luck may take you.… I suppose you won't mind my having another cigarette?"

He took Kipps' cigarette with a hand that trembled so violently it almost missed its object, and stood up, with something of guilt in his manner as Mrs. Sid came into the room.

Her eye met his and marked the flush upon his face.

"Been talking Socialism?" said Mrs. Sid, a little severely.

Six o'clock that day found Kipps drifting eastward along the southward margin of Rotten Row. You

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334 figure him a small, respectably attired figure going slowly through a sometimes immensely difficult and always immense world. At times he becomes pensive and whistles softly. At times he looks about him. There are a few riders in the Row, a carriage flashes by every now and then along the roadway, and among the great rhododendrons and laurels and upon the greensward there are a few groups and isolated people dressed in the style Kipps adopted to call upon the Walshinghams when first he was engaged. Amid the complicated confusion of Kipps' mind was a regret that he had not worn his other things.…

Presently he perceived that he would like to sit down; a green chair tempted him. He hesitated at it, took possession of it, and leant back and crossed one leg over the other.

He rubbed his under lip with his umbrella handle and reflected upon Masterman and his denunciation of the world.

"Bit orf 'is 'ead, poor chap," said Kipps, and added: "I wonder."

He thought intently for a space.

"I wonder what he meant by the lean years?"

The world seemed a very solid and prosperous concern just here, and well out of reach of Masterman's dying clutch. And yet

It was curious he should have been reminded of Minton.

His mind turned to a far more important matter. Just at the end Sid had said to him, "Seen Ann?"

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CH. VII and as he was about to answer, "You'll see a bit more of her now. She's got a place in Folkestone."

It had brought him back from any concern about the world being out of joint or anything of that sort.

Ann!

One might run against her any day.

He tugged at his little moustache.

He would like to run against Ann very much.…

"And it would be juiced awkward if I did!"

In Folkestone! It was a jolly sight too close.…

Then, at the thought that he might run against Ann in his beautiful evening dress on the way to the band, he fluttered into a momentary dream, that jumped abruptly into a nightmare.

Suppose he met her when he was out with Helen! "Oh, Lor'!" said Kipps. Life had developed a new complication that would go on and go on. For some time he wished with the utmost fervour that he had not kissed Ann, that he had not gone to New Romney the second time. He marvelled at his amazing forgetfulness of Helen on that occasion. Helen took possession of his mind. He would have to write to Helen, an easy, off-hand letter, to say that he had come to London for a day or so. He tried to imagine her reading it. He would write just such another letter to the old people, and say he had had to come up on business. That might do for them all right, but Helen was different. She would insist on explanations.

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336 He wished he could never go back to Folkestone again. That would settle the whole affair.

A passing group attracted his attention, two faultlessly dressed gentlemen and a radiantly expensive lady. They were talking, no doubt, very brilliantly. His eyes followed them. The lady tapped the arm of the left hand gentleman with a daintily tinted glove. Swells! No end.…

His soul looked out upon life in general as a very small nestling might peep out of its nest. What an extraordinary thing life was, to be sure, and what a remarkable variety of people there were in it!

He lit a cigarette and speculated upon that receding group of three, and blew smoke and watched them. They seemed to do it all right. Probably they all had incomes of very much over twelve hundred a year. Perhaps not. Probably none of them suspected, as they went past, that he, too, was a gentleman of independent means, dressed, as he was, without distinction. Of course things were easier for them. They were brought up always to dress well and do the right thing from their very earliest years; they started clear of all his perplexities; they had never got mixed up with all sorts of different people who didn't go together. If, for example, that lady there got engaged to that gentleman, she would be quite safe from any encounter from a corpulent, osculatory Uncle, or Chitterlow, or the dangerously insignificant eye of Pierce.

His thoughts came round to Helen.

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Rh


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CH. VII When they were married and Cuyps, or Cuyp—Coote had failed to justify his "s"—and in that west end flat and shaken free of all these low class associations, would he and she parade here of an afternoon dressed like that? It would be rather fine to do so. If one's dress was all right.

Helen!

She was difficult to understand at times.

He blew extensive clouds of cigarette smoke.

There would be teas, there would be dinners, there would be calls. Of course he would get into the way of it.

But Anagrams were a bit stiff to begin with!

It was beastly confusing at first to know when to use your fork at dinner, and all that. Still

He felt an extraordinary doubt whether he would get into the way of it. He was interested for a space by a girl and groom on horseback, and then he came back to his personal preoccupations.

He would have to write to Helen. What could he say to explain his absence from the Anagram Tea? She had been pretty clear she wanted him to come. He recalled her resolute face without any great tenderness. He knew he would look like a silly ass at that confounded tea! Suppose he shirked it and went back in time for the dinner! Dinners were beastly difficult, too, but not as bad as Anagrams. The very first thing that might happen when he got back to Folkestone would be to run against Ann. Suppose, after all, he did meet Ann when he was with Helen!

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338 What queer encounters were possible in the world!

Thank goodness, they were going to live in London!

But that brought him around to Chitterlow. The Chitterlows were coming to London, too. If they didn't get money they'd come after it; they weren't the sort of people to be choked off easily, and if they did they'd come to London to produce their play. He tried to imagine some seemly social occasion invaded by Chitterlow and his rhetoric, by his torrential thunder of self-assertion, the whole company flattened thereunder like wheat under a hurricane.

Confound and hang Chitterlow! Yet, somehow, somewhen, one would have to settle accounts with him! And there was Sid! Sid was Ann's brother. He realised with sudden horror the social indiscretion of accepting Sid's invitation to dinner.

Sid wasn't the sort of chap one could snub or cut, and besides—Ann's brother! He didn't want to cut him. It would be worse than cutting Buggins and Pierce—a sight worse. And after that lunch!

It would be the next thing to cutting Ann herself. And even as to Ann!

Suppose he was with Helen or Coote! …

"Oh, Blow!" he said, at last, and then, viciously, "Blow!" and so rose and flung away his cigarette end, and pursued his reluctant, dubiating way towards the really quite uncongenial splendours of the Royal Grand.…

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CH. VII And it is vulgarly imagined that to have money is to have no troubles at all!

Kipps endured splendour at the Royal Grand Hotel for three nights and days, and then he retreated in disorder. The Royal Grand defeated and overcame and routed Kipps, not of intention, but by sheer royal grandeur, grandeur combined with an organisation for his comfort carried to excess. On his return he came upon a difficulty; he had lost his circular piece of cardboard with the number of his room, and he drifted about the hall and passages in a state of perplexity for some time, until he thought all the porters and officials in gold lace caps must be watching him and jesting to one another about him. Finally, in a quiet corner, down below the hairdresser's shop, he found a kindly looking personage in bottle green, to whom he broached his difficulty. "I say," he said, with a pleasant smile, "I can't find my room nohow." The personage in bottle green, instead of laughing in a nasty way, as he might well have done, became extremely helpful, showed Kipps what to do, got his key, and conducted him by lift and passage to his chamber. Kipps tipped him half a crown.

Safe in his room, Kipps pulled himself together for dinner. He had learnt enough from young Walshingham to bring his dress clothes, and now he began

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340 to assume them. Unfortunately, in the excitement of his flight from his Aunt and Uncle, he had forgotten to put in his other boots, and he was some time deciding between his purple cloth slippers, with a golden marigold, and the prospect of cleaning the boots he was wearing with the towel, but finally, being a little footsore, he took the slippers.

Afterwards, when he saw the porters and waiters and the other guests catch a sight of the slippers, he was sorry he had not chosen the boots. However, to make up for any want of style at that end, he had his crush hat under his arm.

He found the dining-room without excessive trouble. It was a vast and splendidly decorated place, and a number of people, evidently quite au fait, were dining there at little tables lit with electric, red shaded candles, gentlemen in evening dress, and ladies with dazzling, astonishing necks. Kipps had never seen evening dress in full vigour before, and he doubted his eyes. And there were also people not in evening dress who, no doubt, wondered what noble family Kipps represented. There was a band in a decorated recess, and the band looked collectively at the purple slippers, and so lost any chance they may have had of a collection, so far as Kipps was concerned. The chief drawback to this magnificent place was the excessive space of floor that had to be crossed before you got your purple slippers hid in under a table.

He selected a little table—not the one where a rather impudent looking waiter held a chair, but

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CH. VII other—sat down, and finding his gibus in his hand, decided after a moment of thought to rise slightly and sit on it. (It was discovered in his abandoned chair at a late hour by a supper party, and restored to him next day.)

He put the napkin carefully on one side, selected his soup without difficulty, "Clear, please," but he was rather floored by the presentation of a quite splendidly bound wine card. He turned it over, discovered a section devoted to whiskey, and had a bright idea.

"'Ere," he said to the waiter, with an encouraging movement of his head, and then in a confidential manner, "you haven't any Old Methuselah Three Stars, 'ave you?"

The waiter went away to enquire, and Kipps went on with his soup with an enhanced self-respect. Finally, Old Methuselah being unobtainable, he ordered a claret from about the middle of the list. "Let's 'ave some of this," he said. He knew claret was a good sort of wine.

"A half bottle?" said the waiter.

"Right you are," said Kipps.

He felt he was getting on. He leant back after his soup, a man of the world, and then slowly brought his eyes around to the ladies in evening dress on his right.…

He couldn't have thought it!

They were scorchers. Jest a bit of black velvet over the shoulders!

He looked again. One of them was laughing with

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342 a glass of wine half raised—wicked-looking woman she was—the other, the black velvet one, was eating bits of bread with nervous quickness and talking fast.

He wished old Buggins could see them.

He found a waiter regarding him and blushed deeply. He did not look again for some time, and became confused about his knife and fork over the fish. Presently he remarked a lady in pink to the left of him eating the fish with an entirely different implement.

It was over the vol au vent that he began to go to pieces. He took a knife to it; then saw the lady in pink was using a fork only, and hastily put down his knife, with a considerable amount of rich creaminess on the blade, upon the cloth. Then he found that a fork in his inexperienced hand was an instrument of chase rather than capture. His ears became violently red, and then he looked up, to discover the lady in pink glancing at him and then smiling as she spoke to the man beside her.

He hated the lady in pink very much.

He stabbed a large piece of the vol au vent at last, and was too glad of his luck not to take a mouthful of it. But it was an extensive fragment, and pieces escaped him. Shirt front! "Desh it!" he said, and had resort to his spoon. His waiter went and spoke to two other waiters, no doubt jeering at him. He became very fierce suddenly. "Ere!" he said, gesticulating, and then, "clear this away!"

The entire dinner party on his right, the party of

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CH. VII the ladles in advanced evening dress, looked at him.… He felt that everyone was watching him and making fun of him, and the injustice of this angered him. After all, they had every advantage he hadn't. And then, when they got him there doing his best, what must they do but glance and sneer and nudge one another. He tried to catch them at it, and then took refuge in a second glass of wine.

Suddenly and extraordinarily he found himself a socialist. He did not care how close it was to the lean years when all these things would end.

Mutton came with peas. He arrested the hand of the waiter. "No peas," he said. He knew something of the difficulty and danger of eating peas. Then, when the peas went away again he was embittered again.… Echoes of Masterman's burning rhetoric began to reverbrate in his mind. Nice lot of people these were to laugh at anyone! Women half undressed. It was that made him so beastly uncomfortable. How could one eat one's dinner with people about him like that? Nice lot they were. He was glad he wasn't one of them, anyhow. Yes, they might look. He resolved if they looked at him again he would ask one of the men who he was staring at. His perturbed and angry face would have concerned anyone. The band by an unfortunate accident was playing truculent military music. The mental change Kipps underwent was, in its way, what psychologists call a conversion. In a few moments all Kipps' ideals were changed. He

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344 who had been "practically a gentleman," the sedulous pupil of Coote, the punctilious raiser of hats, was instantly a rebel, an outcast, the hater of everything "stuck up," the foe of Society and the social order of to-day. Here they were among the profits of their robbery, these people who might do anything with the world.…

"No, thenks," he said to a dish.

He addressed a scornful eye at the shoulders of the lady to his left.

Presently he was refusing another dish. He didn't like it—fussed up food! Probably cooked by some foreigner. He finished up his wine and his bread.

"No, thenks."

"No, thenks." …

He discovered the eye of a diner fixed curiously upon his flushed face. He responded with a glare. Couldn't he go without things if he liked?

"What's this?" said Kipps to a great green cone.

"Ice," said the waiter.

"I'll 'ave some," said Kipps.

He seized a fork and spoon and assailed the bombe. It cut rather stiffly. "Come up!" said Kipps, with concentrated bitterness, and the truncated summit of the bombe flew off suddenly, travelling eastward with remarkable velocity. Flop, it went upon the floor a yard away, and for a while time seemed empty.

At the adjacent table they were laughing together.

Shy the rest of the bombe at them?

Flight?

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CH. VII At any rate a dignified withdrawal.

"No!" said Kipps, "no more," arresting the polite attempt of the waiter to serve him with another piece. He had a vague idea he might carry off the affair as though he had meant the ice to go on the floor—not liking ice, for example, and being annoyed at the badness of his dinner. He put both hands on the table, thrust back his chair, disengaged a purple slipper from his napkin, and rose. He stepped carefully over the prostrate ice, kicked the napkin under the table, thrust his hands deep into his pockets, and marched out—shaking the dust of the place, as it were, from his feet. He left behind him a melting fragment of ice upon the floor, his gibus hat, warm and compressed in his chair, and in addition every social ambition he had ever entertained in the world.

Kipps went back to Folkestone in time for the Anagram Tea. But you must not imagine that the change of heart that came to him in the dining-room of the Royal Grand Hotel involved any change of attitude toward this promised social and intellectual treat. He went back because the Royal Grand was too much for him.

Outwardly calm, or at most a little flushed and ruffled, inwardly Kipps was a horrible, tormented battleground of scruples, doubts, shames and self-assertions during that three days of silent, desperate

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346 grappling with the big hotel. He did not intend the monstrosity should beat him without a struggle, but at last he had sullenly to admit himself overcome. The odds were terrific. On the one hand himself—with, among other things, only one pair of boots; on the other a vast wilderness of rooms, covering several acres, and with over a thousand people, staff and visitors, all chiefly occupied in looking queerly at Kipps, in laughing at him behind his back, in watching for difficult corners at which to confront and perplex him, and inflict humiliations upon him. For example, the hotel scored over its electric light. After the dinner the chambermaid, a hard, unsympathetic young woman with a superior manner, was summoned by a bell Kipps had rung under the impression the button was the electric light switch. "Look 'ere," said Kipps, rubbing a shin that had suffered during his search in the dark, "why aren't there any candles or matches?" The hotel explained and scored heavily.

"It isn't everyone is up to these things," said Kipps.

"No, it isn't," said the chambermaid, with ill-concealed scorn, and slammed the door at him.

"S'pose I ought to have tipped her," said Kipps.

After that Kipps cleaned his boots with a pocket-handkerchief and went for a long walk and got home in a hansom, but the hotel scored again by his not putting out his boots and so having to clean them again in the morning. The hotel also snubbed him

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