Humours of Irish Life Part 36

Meldon replied at once to the tone in which the word was spoken.

"I don't want to be asking questions. If there's any secret about the matter you're quite right to keep it to yourself. I quite understand that you Cabinet Ministers can't always say out everything that's in your mind. I only mentioned the steamer because the conversation seemed to be languishing. You wouldn't talk about Thomas O'Flaherty Pat's field, and you wouldn't talk about the Gaelic League, though I thought that would be sure to interest you. Now you won't talk about the steamer. However, it's quite easy to get on some other subject. Do you think the weather will hold up? The gla.s.s has been dropping the last two days."

Mr. Willoughby struggled out of the hammock-chair again. He drew himself up to his full height and squared his shoulders. His face a.s.sumed an expression of rigid determination. He addressed Higginbotham:

"Will you be so good as to go up to the old man you spoke of----"

"Thomas O'Flaherty Pat," said Meldon. "That's the man he means, you know, Higginbotham."

"And tell him----" went on Mr. Willoughby.

"If you're to tell him anything," said Meldon, "don't forget to take someone with you who understands Irish."

"And tell him," repeated Mr. Willoughby, "that I shall expect him here in about an hour to meet Father Mulcrone."

"I see," said Meldon. "So that's where the yacht's gone. You've sent for the priest to talk sense to the old boy. Well, I dare say you're right, though I think we could have managed with the help of Mary Kate. She knows both languages well, and she'd do anything for me, though she is rather down on Higginbotham. It's a pity you didn't consult me before sending the steamer off all the way to Inishmore. However, it can't be helped now."

Higginbotham departed on his errand and shut the door of the hut after him. The Chief Secretary turned to Meldon.

"You've chosen to force your company on me this afternoon in a most unwarrantable manner."

"I'll go at once if you like," said Meldon. "I only came up here for your own good, to warn you about the state of Higginbotham's bed. You ought to be more grateful to me than you are. It isn't every man who'd have taken the trouble to come all this way to save a total stranger from getting his legs cut with broken gla.s.s. However, if you hunt me away, of course, I'll go. Only, I think, you'll be sorry afterwards if I do. I may say without vanity that I'm far and away the most amusing person on this island at present."

"As you are here," said Mr. Willoughby, "I take the opportunity of asking you what you mean by telling that outrageous story to Mr.

Higginbotham. I'm not accustomed to having my name used in that way, and, to speak plainly, I regard it as insolence."

"You are probably referring to the geological survey of this island."

"Yes. To your a.s.sertion that I employed a man called Kent to survey this island. That is precisely what I refer to."

"Then you ought to have said so plainly at first, and not have left me to guess at what you were talking about. Many men couldn't have guessed, and then we should have been rambling at cross purposes for the next hour or so without getting any further. Always try and say plainly what you mean, Mr. Willoughby. I know it's difficult, but I think you'll find it pays in the end. Now that I know what's in your mind, I'll be very glad to thrash it out with you. You know Higginbotham, of course?"

"Yes."

"Intimately?"

"I met him this afternoon for the first time."

"Then you can't be said really to know Higginbotham. That's a pity, because without a close and intimate knowledge of Higginbotham, you're not in a position to understand that geological survey story. Take my advice and drop the whole subject until you know Higginbotham better.

After spending a few days on the island in constant intercourse with Higginbotham you'll be able to understand the whole thing. Then you'll appreciate it. In the meanwhile, I'm sure you won't mind my adding, since we are on the subject,--and it was you who introduced it--that you ought not to go leaping to conclusions without a proper knowledge of the facts. I said the same thing this morning to Major Kent, when he insisted that you had come here to search for buried treasure."

Mr. Willoughby pulled himself together with an effort. He felt a sense of bewilderment and hopeless confusion. The sensation was familiar. He had experienced it before in the House of Commons when the Irish members of both parties asked questions on the same subject. He knew that his only chance was to ignore side-issues, however fascinating, and get back at once to the original point.

"I'm willing," he said, "to listen to any explanation you have to offer; but I do not see how Mr. Higginbotham's character alters, or can alter, the fact that you told him what I can only describe as an outrageous lie."

"The worst thing about you Englishmen is that you have such blunt minds.

You don't appreciate the lights and shades, the finer nuances, what I may perhaps describe as the chiaroscuro of things. It's just the same with my friend Major Kent. By the way, I ought to apologise for him. He ought to have come ash.o.r.e and called upon you this afternoon. It isn't a want of loyalty which prevented him. He's a strong Unionist and on principle he respects His Majesty's Ministers, whatever party they belong to. The fact is, he was a bit nervous about this geological survey business. He didn't know exactly how you'd take it. I told him that you were a reasonable man, and that you'd see the thing in a proper light, but he wouldn't come."

"Will you kindly tell me what is the proper light in which to view this extraordinary performance of yours?"

"Certainly. It will be a little difficult, of course, when you don't know Higginbotham, but I'll try."

"Leave Mr. Higginbotham out," said the Chief Secretary, irritably. "Tell me simply this: Were you justified in making a statement which you knew to be a baseless invention? How do you explain the fact that you told a deliberate--that you didn't tell the truth?"

"I've always heard of you as an educated man. I may a.s.sume that you know all about pragmatism."

"I don't."

"Well, you ought to. It's a most interesting system of philosophy quite worth your while to study. I'm sure you'd like it if you understand it.

In fact, I expect you're a pragmatist already without knowing it. Most of us practical men are."

"I'm waiting for an explanation of the story you told Mr. Higginbotham."

"Quite right. I'm coming to that in a minute. Don't be impatient. If you'd been familiar with the pragmatist philosophy it would have saved time. As you're not--though as Chief Secretary for Ireland I think you ought to be--I'll have to explain. Pragmatism may be described as the secularising of the Ritschlian system of theological thought. You understand the Ritschlian theory of value judgments, of course?"

"No, I don't." Mr. Willoughby began to feel very helpless. It seemed easier to let the tide of this strange lecture sweep over him than to make any effort to a.s.sert himself.

"Do you mind if I smoke?" he said. "I think I could listen to your explanation better if I smoked."

He took from his pocket a silver cigar-case.

"Smoke away," said Meldon. "I don't mind in the least. In fact, I'll take a cigar from you and smoke, too. I can't afford cigars myself, but I enjoy them when they're good. I suppose a Chief Secretary is pretty well bound to keep decent cigars on account of his position."

Mr. Willoughby handed over the case. Meldon selected a cigar and lit it.

Then he went on--

"The central position of the pragmatist philosophy and the Ritschlian theology is that truth and usefulness are identical."

"Eh?"

"What that means is this. A thing is true if it turns out in actual practice to be useful, and false if it turns out in actual practice to be useless. I daresay that sounds startling to you at first, but if you think it over quietly for a while you'll get to see that there's a good deal in it."

Meldon puffed at his cigar without speaking. He wished to give Mr.

Willoughby an opportunity for meditation. Then he went on--

"The usual ill.u.s.tration--the one you'll find in all the text-books--is the old puzzle of the monkey on the tree. A man sees a monkey clinging to the far side of a trunk of a tree--I never could make out how he did see it, but that doesn't matter for the purposes of the ill.u.s.tration. He (the man) determines to go round the tree and get a better look at the monkey. But the monkey creeps round the tree so as always to keep the trunk between him and the man. The question is, whether, when he has gone round the tree, the man has or has not gone round the monkey. The older philosophers simply gave that problem up. They couldn't solve it, but the pragmatist--"

"Either you or I," said Mr. Willoughby, feebly, "must be going mad."

"Your cigar has gone out," said Meldon. "Don't light it again. There's nothing tastes worse than a relighted cigar. Take a fresh one. There are still two in the case and I shall be able to manage along with one more."

"Would you mind leaving out the monkey on the tree and getting back to the geological survey story?"

"Not a bit. If it bores you to hear an explanation of the pragmatist theory of truth, I won't go on with it. It was only for your sake I went into it. You can just take it from me that the test of truth is usefulness. That's the general theory. Now apply it to this particular case. The story I told Higginbotham turned out to be extremely useful--quite as useful as I had any reason to expect. In fact, I don't see that we could very well have got on without it. I can't explain to you just how it was useful. If I did, I should be giving away Major Kent, Sir Charles Buckley, Euseby Langton, and perhaps old Thomas O'Flaherty Pat; but you may take it that the utility of the story has been demonstrated."

Mr. Willoughby made an effort to rally. He reminded himself that he was Cabinet Minister and a great man, that he had withstood the fieriest eloquence of Members for Munster const.i.tuencies, and survived the most searching catechisms of the men from Antrim and Down. He called to mind the fact that he had resolutely said "No" to at least twenty-five per cent. of the people who came to him in Dublin Castle seeking to have jobs perpetrated. He tried to realise the impossibility of a mere country curate talking him down. He hardened his heart with the recollection that he was in the right and the curate utterly in the wrong. He sat up as well as he could in the hammock-chair and said sternly--

"Am I to understand that you regard any lie as justifiable if it serves its purpose?"