Foe-Farrell Part 7

"Know what?" asked Jimmy, leaning back and sucking at his pipe.

"Whatever it is, I probably don't: that's what a Public School and University education did for me. As I seem to remember one Farrell's remarking in the dim and distant past, for my part I never indulged in Physiological Research--I made my own way in the world . . ."

He murmured it dreamily, and then sat up with a start. "Lord's sake!" he cried out. "You don't tell me that Farrell . . . that the Professor actually--"

"Don't be a fool," I interrupted. "Of course, Jack doesn't. Jack, tell him about the Grand Research. Enlighten his ignorance, that's a good fellow."

"Enlighten him yourself, if you want to. You'll tell it all wrong: but I'm tired," declared Foe.

"Well, then," said I, "it's this way, dear James. . . . You behold seated opposite to you on the right of the fireplace, and smoking the beast of a brier pipe with the modesty of true genius, a Scientific Man--a Savant, shall I say?--of European reputation. It isn't quite European just yet: but it's going to be, which is better."

"I always prophesied it," said Jimmy. "What's it going to be _for_?"

"Listen," said I. "Having received (as you a.s.sure us) a liberal education, either at Eton or B.N.C., you probably made acquaintance with that beautiful poem by Dr. Isaac Watts beginning--"

'Let dogs delight to bark and bite-'

"Continue the quotation, with brief notes on any obscurities."

"Certainly," said Jimmy.

'Let dogs delight to bark and bite, 'Tis manners so to do--'

"No, that sounds a bit off."

'Let dogs delight to bark and bite, For G.o.d hath made them so; Let bears and lions growl and fight, For 'tis their nature toe.'

"Good boy!" said I. "Now that's where Dr. Watts--"

"Don't interrupt," said Jimmy. "It isn't manners so to do, when I'm just getting into my stride--"

'But, children, you should never let Such angry pa.s.sions rise: Your little hands were never made To tear each other's eyes . . .'

"Please, I don't know any more."

"Nor need you," I a.s.sured him, "for, according to Jack, it's completely out of date."

"'M'yes!" Jimmy agreed. "But he won't get a European reputation by discovering _that_. They don't tear each other's eyes at the N.S.C., even--it's against the rules. Come and see for yourself, Professor."

"Angry pa.s.sions," I went on patiently; "envy, hatred, and malice-- especially hatred--are Jack's special lay; the Grand Research we call it. Take simple anger, for instance. What is it makes a man angry?"

"Lots of things. . . . Being called a liar, for one."

Foe took the mischief in the boy's eye, and let out a laugh.

"I can't be angry with _you_, anyway. Go on, Roddy. You're doing it quite well so far, though I'm almost too sleepy to listen."

"It isn't as simple as you think," I pursued seriously (but glad enough in my heart to have heard Jack laugh--he wasn't given to laughter at any time). "All sorts of things happen inside you; all sorts of mechanisms start working: nerves and muscles, of course, but even in the blood-vessels there's a change of the corpuscles as per order--you put an insult into the slot and they do the rest.

The levers of the machine--the brakes, clutches and the rest are in the forebrain: that's where you change gear when you want to struggle with suppressed emotion, run her slow or let her all out: and that's what Jack means to do with us before he has finished. Does he want us to love or to hate?--He'll press a b.u.t.ton, and we shall do the rest, automatically. He will call on a Foreign Minister or an amba.s.sador and make or avert a European War. He will dictate--"

"He's telling you the most atrocious rubbish," cut in Foe, addressing Jimmy.

"I am suiting this explanation to the infant mind," said I, "and I'll trouble you not to interrupt. . . . You may or may not have heard, my dear child, either at Eton or Oxford, that the brain has two hemispheres--"

"Just like the globe," said Jimmy brightly.

"Aptly observed," I congratulated him: "though that is perhaps no more than a coincidence. Taking the ill.u.s.tration, however, if we can only eliminate the Monroe Doctrine and work the clutch between these two--Jack, you are reaching for the poker. Don't fire, Colonel: I'll come down. . . . Reverting, then, to the forebrain, you have doubtless observed that in man it is enormously larger than in the lower animals, as in our arrogance we call them--"

"I hadn't," said Jimmy.

"It's a fact, nevertheless," said I. "I a.s.sure you. . . . Well, Jack, so far, has dealt only with the lower animals. I don't say the lowest. I doubt if he can do much with an oyster who has been crossed in love. But by George! you should watch him whispering to a horse! or, if you want something showier, see him walk into a lion's cage with the tamer."

"I say, Professor! Have you _really?_--" I knew Jimmy would sit up at this point.

"Of course he has," said I. "It began on a trip we took together in Uganda, just after leaving Cambridge. I was after lions: Jack's game was the mosquito and other bugs. One day--oh, well, Jack, we'll keep that story for another occasion. . . . The long and short was, he found he had a gift--uncanny to me--of dealing with animals in a rage, and raising or lowering their angry pa.s.sions at will.

He switched off bugs, their cause and cure, and on to this new track.

He started experimenting, made observations, took records. He's been at it now--how many years, Jack? He'll play on a dog-fight better than you can on a penny-whistle: as soon as he chooses they're sitting one on each side of the gramophone, listening to Their Master's Voice. Vivisection?--Farrell's an a.s.s. The only inhuman thing I've ever known Jack do was to domesticate a wild-cat and restore her to the woods unprotected by her natural amenities.

These people hear a shindy going on in the laboratory in '--' Street, and conclude that he's holding the wrong sort of tea-party. Now, if he'd had an ounce of practical wisdom to-night, he'd have arisen quietly, invited Farrell to drop in at 4.30 to-morrow, arranged a moderate dog-fight, and given that upholsterer ten minutes of glorious life. Farrell--"

"I'm going to turn you both out," said Foe, getting up suddenly.

"Help yourself to another whisky-and-soda, Roddy. . . . I'm so beaten with sleep it's odds against getting off my boots." As a fact, too, his face was weary-white. He turned to Jimmy, however, with a ghost of a smile. "Roddy has been talking a deal of nonsense. But if you really care to inspect my little show, come around some morning . . . . Let me see--to-day's Wednesday. Sat.u.r.day is my slack morning--What d'you say to breakfasting here on Sat.u.r.day, nine o'clock? and we'll walk over at half-past ten or thereabouts. I keep a yellow dog there that will go through some tricks for you. . . .

Right? Then so long! . . . You can come along, too, Roddy, if you'll behave yourself."

NIGHT THE FOURTH.

ADVENTURE OF THE POLICE STATION.

I opened my newspaper next morning in no little anxiety. I ought rather to say "my newspapers": for the L.C.C. campaign was raging at its height, and a candidate cannot afford to neglect in the morning any nasty thing that any nasty fellow has written overnight.

Jephson--yes, he's the same good Jephson who wouldn't exchange my b.u.t.ton-stick for a Field-Marshal's baton--Jephson brought in my morning tea and laid across the foot of my bed a bundle of newspapers as thick as a bolster.

I sat up, reached for them and began to read almost as soon as he switched on the light. I was honestly nervous.

I took the hostile papers first, of course. Pretty soon it began to dawn on my grateful soul that all was right with the world.

The reporters had stood shoulder to shoulder. Two or three headlines gave me a shake. "BRISK SCENES ACROSS THE WATER," "MR. FARRELL SPEAKS OUT," "AN INTERRUPTER EJECTED." One headline in particular gave me qualms--"WHAT'S WRONG WITH SILVERSMITH'S COLLEGE? PUBLIC ENDOWMENT WITHOUT PUBLIC CONTROL: MR. FARRELL PUTS SOME SEARCHING QUESTIONS." But it had all been toned down in the letterpress and came to very little. The reporters, using their own discretion, had used such phrases as "An interrupter, apparently labouring under some excitement," "At this point a gentleman in the front row caused a diversion by challenging . . . The audience were in no mood, however, . . ." "Here an auditor protested warmly. It was understood that he had some official connection with the inst.i.tution referred to by the candidate," and so on.

I hugged myself over my success. To be sure, the vague impression derivable was that the "scene" had its origin in strong drink.

But the name of Professor John Foe nowhere appeared. Greatest blessing of all, there was no leading article, no pithy paragraph, even. I arose and shaved blithely. Across the stairhead I could hear Jimmy shouting music-hall ditties--his custom in his bath.

Yes, all was right with the world.

Nothing happened that day, except that I interviewed my agent after breakfast, worked like a n.i.g.g.e.r until nightfall, canva.s.sing slums; got back to the Bath Club, had a swim, dined, and returned to my const.i.tuency for the night's public meeting. Arduous work: but what you might call supererogatory. I could have shot my opponent sitting, and he knew it. My rascal of an agent knew it too, but he was an honest man in his way--and that's politics.

Next morning, same procedure on Jephson's part: similar bolster of papers, neatly folded and laid across the foot of my bed.

This time I poured myself a cup of tea and reached for them lazily.

The _Times_ was topmost. Jephson always laid the _Times_ topmost.

Five minutes later . . . But listen to this--