A Holiday in Bed and Other Sketches Part 7

"You could tell her you had got such a lot of books that you would prefer a cake for a change?"

Urquhart said that would be putting it too plain.

"Well, then," said Secundus, "even though she did send you another book, it would perhaps be a better one than that. Tell her to send 'The Boy Crusoes.' I haven't read it."

"I have, though," said Urquhart.

"Well, she could send 'The Prairie Hunters.'"

"She's not the kind," said Urquhart. "It's always these improving books she buys."

Ultimately the two boys agreed upon a line of action which was hardly what the reader might expect. Urquhart wrote letters of thanks to all those who had remembered his birthday, and to the old lady the letter which pa.s.sed through my hands read as follows:

"DEAR MISS ----:

I sit down to thank you very faithfully for your favor, namely, the book ent.i.tled 'Thoughtful Boys Make Thoughtful Men.' It is a jolly book, and I like it no end better than a cake, which would soon be ate up, and then nothing to show for it. I am reading your beautiful present regular, and hoping it will make me a thoughtful boy so as I may be a thoughtful man, no more at present,

I am, Dear Miss ----, Your very sincere friend,

THOMAS URQUHART."

Our boys generally end up their letters in some such way as that, it being a method of making their epistles cover a little more paper. As I feared, Urquhart's letter was merely diplomatic. He had not come round to the opinion that after all a book was better than the cake, but he had seen the point of Fleming's sudden suggestion, that the best plan would be to "keep in" with his benefactress. Secundus had shown that if Miss M---- was bothered about this year's present, she would be less likely to send anything next year, and this sank into Urquhart's mind.

Hence the tone of his letter of thanks.

It remains to follow the inglorious career of this copy of "Thoughtful Boys make Thoughtful Men." First, Urquhart was openly contemptuous of it, and there seemed a probability of its only being used as a missile.

Soon, however, he dropped hints that it was a deeply interesting story, following these hints up with the remark that he was open to offers. He and Fleming Secundus had quite a tiff about it, though they are again good friends. Secundus, it appears, had gone the length of saying that it was worth a shilling, and had taken it to his bed to make sure of this. Urquhart considered it as good as bought, but Secundus returned it to him next day. Examination of the book roused the suspicions of Urquhart, who charged Secundus with having read it by peeping between the pages, which, to enhance its commercial value, had remained uncut.

This Secundus denied, but he had left the mark of his thumb on it.

Eventually the book was purchased by c.o.c.ky Jones, but not without a row.

c.o.c.ky went up to Urquhart one day and held out a shilling, saying that he would give it for "Thoughtful Boys Make Thoughtful Men." The owner wanted to take the shilling at once, and give up the book later in the day, but c.o.c.ky insisted on its being put into his hands immediately.

That Jones should be anxious to become the possessor of an improving book surprised Urquhart, but in his haste to make sure of the shilling, he handed over "Thoughtful Boys Make Thoughtful Men." Within an hour of the striking of this bargain a rumor reached Urquhart's ears that c.o.c.ky had resold the work for one and sixpence. Inquiries were inst.i.tuted, which led to a discovery. At our school there is a youth called d.i.c.ky Jenkinson, who, though not exactly a thoughtful boy, has occasional aspirations in that direction. Being for the moment wealthy, Jenkinson had remarked, in the presence of c.o.c.ky, that one and sixpence would not be too much to give for Urquhart's copy of "Thoughtful Boys Make Thoughtful Men." Feeling his way cautiously, c.o.c.ky asked whether he meant that the book would be cheap at one and sixpence to anybody who wanted it, or whether he (d.i.c.ky) was willing and able to expend that sum on it. Thus brought to bay, Jenkinson solemnly declared that he meant to make Urquhart an offer that very day. c.o.c.ky made off to think this matter over, for he was aware that the book had been already offered to Fleming Secundus for a shilling. He saw that by taking prompt action he might clear sixpence before bedtime. Unfortunately, he was not able to buy the book from Urquhart, for he was dest.i.tute of means, and he knew it would be mere folly to ask Urquhart for credit. In these painful circ.u.mstances he took Robbins into his confidence. At first he merely asked Robbins to lend him a shilling, and Robbins merely replied that he would do no such thing. To show that the money would be returned promptly, c.o.c.ky then made a clean breast of it, after which Robbins was ready to lend him an ear. Robbins, however, stipulated that he should get half of the spoils.

c.o.c.ky, as has been seen, got the book from Urquhart, but when it came to the point, Jenkinson was reluctant to part with the one and sixpence. In this extremity c.o.c.ky appealed to Robbins, who at once got hold of d.i.c.ky and threatened to slaughter him if he did not keep to his bargain. Thus frightened, Jenkinson bought the book.

On hearing of this, Urquhart considered that he had been swindled, and set off in quest of c.o.c.ky. That boy was not to be found, however, until his threepence had disappeared in tarts. I got to know of this affair through Robbins' backing up of c.o.c.ky, and telling Urquhart that n.o.body was afraid of him. A ring was immediately formed round Urquhart and Robbins, which I had the pleasure of breaking up.

Since I sat down to write the adventures of "Thoughtful Boys Make Thoughtful Men," I have looked through the book. Jenkinson read several chapters of it, and then offered it for next to nothing to anybody who had a fancy for being thoughtful. As no bidder was forthcoming, he in the end lost heart and presented it to the school library. A gentleman who visited us lately, and looked through the library, picked it up, and said that he was delighted to observe that the boys kept their books so clean. Yet not so long ago he was a boy at our school himself.

IT.

As they were my friends, I don't care to say how it came about that I had this strange and, I believe unique, experience. They considered it a practical joke, though it nearly unhinged my reason. Suffice it that last Wednesday, when I called on them at their new house, I was taken up stairs and shown into a large room with a pictorial wall paper. There was a pop-gun on the table and a horse with three legs on the floor. In a moment it flashed through my mind that I must be in a nursery. I started back, and then, with a sinking at the heart, I heard the key turn in the lock. From the corner came a strange uncanny moan. Slowly I forced my head round and looked, and a lump rose in my throat, and I realized that I was alone with It.

I cannot say how long I stood there motionless. As soon as I came to myself I realized that my only chance was to keep quiet. I tried to think. The probability was that they were not far away, and if they heard nothing for a quarter of an hour or so they might open the door and let me out. So I stood still, with my eyes riveted on the thing where It lay. It did not cry out again, and I hoped against hope that It had not seen me. As I became accustomed to the room I heard It breathing quite like a human being. This rea.s.sured me to some extent, for I saw that It must be asleep. The question was--Might not the sleep be disturbed at any moment, and in that case, what should I do? I remembered the story of the man who met a wild beast in the jungle and subjugated it by the power of the human eye. I thought I would try that.

All the time I kept glaring at It's lair (for I could not distinguish itself), and the two things mixed themselves up in my mind till I thought I was trying the experiment at that moment. Next it struck me that the whole thing was perhaps a mistake. The servant had merely shown me into the wrong room. Yes; but why had the door been locked? After all, was I sure that it was locked? I crept closer to the door, and with my eyes still fixed on the corner, put my hand gently--oh, so gently!--on the handle. Softly I turned it round. I felt like a burglar.

The door would not open. Losing all self-control, I shook it; and then again came that unnatural cry. I stood as if turned to stone, still clutching the door handle, lest it should squeak if I let it go. Then I listened for the breathing. In a few moments I heard It. Before It had horrified me; now It was like sweet music, and I resumed breathing myself. I kept close to the wall, ready for anything; and then I had a strange notion. As It was asleep, why should I not creep forward and have a look at It? I yielded to this impulse.

Of course I had often seen Them before, but always with some responsible person present, and never such a young one. I thought It would be done up in clothes, but no, It lay loose, and without much on. I saw Its hands and arms, and It had hair. It was sound asleep to all appearances, but there was a queer smile upon Its face that I did not like. It crossed my mind that It might be only shamming, so I looked away and then turned sharply around to catch It. The smile was still there, but It moved one of Its hands in a suspicious way. The more I looked the more uncomfortable did that smile make me. There was something saturnine about It, and It kept it up too long. I felt in my pocket hurriedly for my watch, in case It should wake; but, with my usual ill-luck, I had left it at the watchmaker's. If It had been older I should not have minded so much, for I would have kept on asking what Its name was. But this was such a very young one that It could not even have a name yet.

Presently I began to feel that It was lying too quietly. It is not Their nature to be quiet for any length of time, and, for aught I knew, this one might be ill. I believe I should have felt relieved if It had cried out again. After thinking it over for some time I touched It to see if It would move. It drew up one leg and pushed out a hand. Then I bit my lips at my folly, for there was no saying what It might do next. I got behind the curtain, and watched It anxiously through a c.h.i.n.k. Except that the smile became wickeder than ever, nothing happened. I was wondering whether I should not risk pinching It, so as to make It scream and bring somebody, when I heard an awful sound. Though I am only twenty, I have had considerable experience of life, and I can safely say that I never heard such a chuckle. It had wakened up and was laughing.

I gazed at It from behind the curtain; Its eyes were wide open, and you could see quite well that It was reflecting what It ought to do next. As long as It did not come out I felt safe, for It could not see me.

Something funny seemed to strike It, and It laughed heartily. After a time It tried to sit up. Fortunately Its head was so heavy that It always lost its balance just as It seemed on the point of succeeding.

When It saw that It could not rise, It reflected again, and then all of a sudden It put Its fist into Its mouth. I gazed in horror; soon only the wrist was to be seen, and I saw that It would choke in another minute. Just for a second I thought that I would let It do as It liked.

Then I cried out, "Don't do that!" and came out from behind the curtain.

Slowly It moved Its fist and there we were, looking at each other.

I retreated to the door, but It followed me with Its eyes. It had not had time to scream yet, and I glared at It to imply that I would stand no nonsense. But, difficult though this may be to believe, It didn't scream when It had the chance. It chuckled instead and made signs for me to come nearer. This was even more alarming than my worst fears. I shook my head and then my fist at It, but It only laughed the more. In the end I got so fearful that I went down on my hands and knees, to get out of Its sight. Then It began to scream. However, I did not get up. When they opened the door they say I was beneath the table, and no wonder. But I certainly was astonished to discover that I had only been alone with It for seven minutes.

TO THE INFLUENZA.

The time has come for you to leave this house. Seventeen days ago you foisted yourself upon me, and since then we have been together night and day. You were unwelcome and uninvited, and you made yourself intensely disagreeable. We wrestled, you and I, but you attacked me unawares in the back, and you threw me. Then, like the ungenerous foe that you are, you struck me while I was down. However, your designs have failed. I struggle to my feet and order you to withdraw. Nay, withdraw is too polite a word. Your cab is at the door; get out. But, stop, a word with you before you go.

Most of your hosts, I fancy, run you out of their houses without first saying what they think of you. Their one desire is to be rid of you.

Perhaps they are afraid to denounce you to your face. I want, however, to tell you that I have been looking forward to this moment ever since you put me to bed. I said little while I was there, but I thought a good deal, and most of my thoughts were of you. You fancied yourself invisible, but I saw you glaring at me, and I clenched my fists beneath the blankets. I could paint your portrait. You are very tall and stout, with a black beard, and a cruel, unsteady eye, and you have a way of crackling your fingers while you exult in your power. I used to lie watching you as you lolled in my cane-chair. At first it was empty, but I felt that you were in it, and gradually you took shape. I could hear your fingers crackling, and the chair creak as you moved in it. If I sat up in fear, you disappeared, but as soon as I lay back, there you were again. I know now that in a sense you were a creature of my imagination.

I have discovered something more. I know why you seemed tall and stout and bearded, and why I heard your fingers crackling.

Fever--one of your dastard weapons--was no doubt what set me drawing portraits, but why did I see you a big man with a black beard? Because long ago, when the world was young, I had a schoolmaster of that appearance. He crackled his fingers too. I had forgotten him utterly. He had gone from me with the love of climbing for crows' nests--which I once thought would never die--but during some of these seventeen days of thirty-six hours each I suppose I have been a boy again. Yet I had many schoolmasters, all sure at first that they could make something of me, all doleful when they found that I had conscientious scruples against learning. Why do I merge you into him of the crackling fingers?

I know. It is because in mediaeval times I hated him as I hate you. No others have I loathed with any intensity, but he alone of my masters refused to be reconciled to my favorite method of study, which consisted, I remember (without shame) in glancing at my tasks, as I hopped and skipped to school. Sometimes I hopped and skipped, but did not arrive at school in time to take solid part in lessons, and this grieved the soul of him who wanted to be my instructor. So we differed, as Gladstonian and Conservative on the result of the Parnell Commission, and my teacher, being in office, troubled me not a little. I confess I hated him, and while I sat glumly in his room, whence the better boys had retired, much solace I found in wondering how I would slay him, supposing I had a loaded pistol, a sword, and a hatchet, and he had only one life. I schemed to be a dark, morose pirate of fourteen, so that I might capture him, even at his black-board, and make him walk the plank.

I was Judge Lynch, and he was the man at the end of the rope. I charged upon him on horseback, and cut him down. I challenged him to single combat, and then I was Ivanhoe. I even found pleasure in conceiving myself shouting "Crackle-fingers" after him, and then bolting round a corner. You must see now why I pictured you heavy, and dark, and bearded. You are the schoolmaster of my later years. I lay in bed and gloried in the thought that presently I would be up, and fall upon you like a body of cavalry.

What did you think of my doctor? You need not answer, for I know that you disliked him. You and I were foes, and I was getting the worst of it when he walked in and separated the combatants. His entrance was pleasant to me. He showed a contempt for you that perhaps he did not feel, and he used to take your chair. There were days when I wondered at his audacity in doing that, but I liked it, too, and by and by I may tell him why I often asked him to sit there. He was your doctor as well as mine, and every time he said that I was a little better, I knew he meant that you were a little weaker. You knew it, too, for I saw you scowling after he had gone. My doctor is also my friend, and so, when I am well, I say things against him behind his back. Then I see his weaknesses and smile comfortably at them with his other friends--whom I also discuss with him. But while you had me down he was another man. He became, as it were, a foot taller, and I felt that he alone of men had anything to say that was worth listening to. Other friends came to look curiously at me and talk of politics, or Stanley, or on other frivolous topics, but he spoke of my case, which was the great affair. I was not, in my own mind, a patient for whom he was merely doing his best; I was entirely in his hands. I was a business, and it rested with him whether I was to be wound up or carried on as usual. I daresay I tried to be pleasant to him--which is not my way--took his prescriptions as if I rather enjoyed them, and held his thermometer in my mouth as though it were a new kind of pipe. This was diplomacy. I have no real pleasure in being fed with a spoon, nor do I intend in the future to smoke thermometers. But I knew that I must pander to my doctor's weakness if he was to take my side against you. Now that I am able to snap my fingers at you I am looking forward to sneering once more at him. Just at this moment, however, I would prefer to lay a sword flat upon his shoulders, and say gratefully, "Arise, Sir James." He has altered the faces of the various visitors who whispered to each other in my presence, and nodded at me and said aloud that I would soon be right again, and then said something else on the other side of the door. He has opened my windows and set the sparrows a-chirping again, and he has turned on the sunshine. Lastly, he has enabled me to call your cab. I am done. Get out.

FOUR-IN-HAND NOVELISTS.

The following is a word-puzzle. It narrates the adventures of a four-in-hand novelist while trying to lose his reputation. Compet.i.tors do not require to be told that a four-in-hand novelist is a writer of fiction who keeps four serial tales running abreast in the magazines.

The names of specimen four-in-hand novelists will recur readily to every one. The puzzle is to discover who this particular novelist is; the description, as will be observed, answering to quite a number of them.

A few years ago, if any one in Fleet street had said that the day would come when I would devote my time to trying to lose my reputation, I would have smiled incredulously. That was before I had a reputation. To be as statistical as time will allow--for before I go to bed I have seven and a half yards of fiction to write--it took me fifteen years'

hard work to acquire a reputation. For two years after that I worked as diligently to retain it, not being quite certain whether it was really there, and for the last five years I have done my best to get rid of it.

Mr. R. L. Stevenson has a story of a dynamiter who tried in vain to leave an infernal machine anywhere. It was always returned to him as soon as he dropped it, or just as he was making off. My reputation is as difficult to lose. I have not given up the attempt yet, but I am already of opinion that it is even harder to lose a reputation in letters than to make one. My colleagues will bear me out in this.

If I recollect aright--for I have published so much that my works are now rather mixed up in my mind, and I have no time to verify anything--the first place I thought to leave my reputation in was a volume of pot-boilers, which I wrote many years ago for an obscure publication. At that time I was working hard for a reputation elsewhere, and these short stories were only scribbled off for a livelihood. My publisher heard of them recently, and offered me a hundred pounds for liberty to republish them in book form. I pointed out to him that they were very poor stuff, but he said that that had nothing to do with it; I had a reputation now, and they would sell. With certain misgivings--for I was not hardened yet--I accepted my publisher's terms, and the book was soon out. The first book I published, which was much the best thing I ever wrote, was only reviewed by three journals, of which two were provincial weeklies. They said it showed signs of haste, though every sentence in it was a labor. I sent copies of it to six or seven distinguished literary men--some of whom are four-in-hand now--and two of them acknowledged receipt of it, though neither said he had read it.

My pot-boilers, however, had not been out many weeks before the first edition was exhausted. The book was reviewed everywhere, and, in nine cases out of ten, enthusiastically lauded. It showed a distinct advance on all my previous efforts. They were model stories of their kind. They showed a mature hand. The wit was sparkling. There were pages in the book that no one could read without emotion. In the old days I was paid for these stories at the rate of five shillings the thousand words; but they would make a reputation in themselves now. It has been thus all along. I drop my reputation into every book I write now, but there is no getting rid of it. The critics and the public return it to me, remarking that it grows bigger.