The Casual Ward Part 6

On leaving Feedingspoon, it happened that the first man whom I met was Fadmonger, _the_ Fadmonger, the one with a Continental reputation. He had been ordered to play golf in the morning, and was returning from the links. As we walked together towards the North of Oxford, I was about to repeat to him the substance of my conversation with Feedingspoon. But on my mentioning the latter's name, Fadmonger interposed, and said that he really could not trust himself to speak on that subject. He then discoursed upon it at great length, using the most violent language about Obscurantism, Packed Boards, the Tutorial Profession, Sacrifice of Research to Examination, Frivolous Aims and Obsolete Methods, and the like.

"What," he cried indignantly, "are we to think of a curriculum-so called-which includes the _Republic_ of Plato and excludes the _Onomasticon_ of Julius Pollux?"

"a.s.suredly," I replied, "there can be only one opinion about it."

"Exactly," he said; "you are one of the few sensible men I know. Our methods, I can tell you, are getting us into serious discredit abroad. I should just like you to hear the things which are said about Literae Humaniores by Professor Jahaleel Q. Potsherds of Johns Hopkins, and Doctor Grabenrauber of Weissnichtwo. They think very little of this University at Johns Hopkins."

"Indeed," I said; "I am pained to hear it."

"Yes," replied Fadmonger; "it worries me a good deal. I have almost resolved to give up the rest of my lectures for the Term, and go to the Riviera for a complete change. . . .

"No," he continued, after a pause, "there is nothing to be hoped from the College Tutor. Obscurantist he is, and obscurantist he will remain: he is our great impediment to serious study-study, that is, of anything except so-called cla.s.sical texts. It is to the young student that we must look for salvation. Do you know young Frawde of my College? I have had most interesting talks with him-a really able man, but of course quite misunderstood by his tutors: able men always are."

"He is, I suppose," said I, "reading for a Final Honour School."

"Of course he is doing nothing of the kind," Fadmonger replied with some warmth. "In the present degraded condition of Honour Greats it is quite unworthy of a serious student. He is at present preparing to take a pa.s.s degree: and after that he thinks of going abroad to devote himself seriously to a course of Tymborychology. A most interesting young man, with admirably sound ideas on the present state of the Schools. . . ."

It happens that I know Frawde: and when I next met him I commented with some surprise on his new departure. Frawde was quite candid, and said it had been necessary to do something in order to patch up his much-ploughed character before Collections. He had been plausible, and Fadmonger credulous.

"And really, you know, the Fadder wasn't half a bad chap"-he had given Frawde a recommendation to read in the Bodder-"and I am going there too,"

said the serious student, "as soon as I can find out where it is: but n.o.body seems to know. After all, lots of chaps go abroad after their degraggers: why shouldn't I have a spade and dig in Egypt or Mesopotamia or somewhere, same as anybody else? Eh?"

And, upon my word, I really don't see why he shouldn't.

THE TORTURED TUTOR: A DIALOGUE OF THE DEAD

"The question is," said Pluto to the deceased Tutor, "which of our penalties we can a.s.sign to you. Something you must have, you know: it's the rule of the place."

"Sorry to hear you say so," replied the Tutor. "I _had_ hoped that perhaps I might be allowed a little quiet to enjoy the pleasant warmth-my doctor really sent me here as an alternative to Algiers-and possibly throw in a little journalistic work which would advertise you in the evening papers. You're not known enough up there."

"Not known? Why, surely you yourself must often have been recommended to-"

"Of course, of course," the Tutor hastily interrupted,-"but not by any one whose opinion or advice I at all respected. Whereas if I might just have leisure to look round and jot things down, now that I am here, I could put you in touch with specialists who-"

"Now, look here," said the Monarch, "if you're going to stay here at all, you must please to remember that this isn't a University. I simply won't have idlers loafing round wasting their own time and demoralizing society with their lazy habits. Pardon my abruptness" (he continued, more mildly), "but with all the exclusiveness in the world I can't prevent our getting a little mixed now and then, and if people come here with academic ideas I really couldn't be responsible for order and morality.

We should be as Anglo-Indian as Olympus in no time."

"Very true! very true!" said the Shade. "I quite see. Satan finds some mischief still-eh? as I used to say when I was a Dean. Since you really insist on it, I suppose there _had_ better be some trifling torture by way of occupation. Only look here-it mustn't be any of the things I used to do up above. Quite absurd, you know, to go on reading the same books you did at school-no, I mean, to be made to continue on the same old lines I followed before I came up-down, I should say. It's so monotonous, and it isn't improving."

"Well," said Pluto, "we'll see what can be done, on that a.s.sumption. It does rather limit possibilities, though, doesn't it? You see I have to confess that, considering it's the nineteenth century, we are a little behind the times-no great variety in the matter of punishments."

"Why don't you bring them up to date?" asked the visitor.

"Practically," he replied, "it's a question of expense. With funds, I could do much more. Roasting over a slow fire, for instance, is good: they have that in another place: but just think of the coal bill! Then viva-voceing and vivisecting without anaesthetics are of course admirable; but the cost of expert labour involved would be ruinous. Result is, that nearly all my penalties are self-acting and consequently simple in design; and, on the whole, except in the case of _blases_ people who come here with a too varied experience, they answer tolerably well."

"All right," said the Tutor, "suggest an occupation."

"Let me see," said the Ruler of the Shades, and he pondered a few moments. "How would it be, now, if you were to take a turn with our friend Sisyphus? He rolls a big stone up a hill, and just as he thinks it's going to get to the top, down it comes again-most disappointing.

Quite inexpensive, and very healthy, _I_ should say, and really, as an object-lesson in the force of gravity, not uninstructive."

"Won't do at all," replied the Tutor. "In the Vacations I was always walking up hills and having to come down before I got to the top. Then in the Term I used to teach Logic to pa.s.smen; and really, if you think-"

"Yes, yes," Pluto agreed; "the occupations would be practically identical. Of course, that won't suit you. Well, then, there's Ixion, who goes round on a wheel."

"I'm a bicyclist myself," objected the Tutor.

"Are you? Pity, too, because Ixion says his wheel's old-fashioned; he wants a new one with pneumatic tyres warranted puncturable, which shows that he is really entering into the spirit of the thing. You might have had his old one for a song, I'm sure. However, what do you say to calling on those Danaid girls, and getting them to teach you their little industry? There, again, you have simplicity itself. Take a can with a hole in the bottom, go on pouring water into it-"

"I thought I told you," murmured the deceased, wearily, "that I have followed the profession of teaching."

"Very true; I had forgotten. Don't know what we can do to suit you, really! Perhaps you'd like to imitate Theseus-_sedet aeternumque sedebit_, as Virgil said. Astonishing how Virgil picked these details up! There's old Theseus, sitting like a hen. They say he's as tired of sitting as if he were a rowing-man."

"As an ex-member of the Board of the Faculty of Arts-" began the Tutor.

"Ah, dear me!" replied Pluto. "Then that won't do either? Those Boards must be excellent from my point of view. I have often wished I had one or two down here. But I'm really afraid we're getting to the end of the list. And, you know, if we can't provide you with anything, back you'll have to go. _I_ won't keep you, eating your head off. But, talk of eating! shall I put you up beside Prometheus, and ask his eagle to do a little overtime work by taking a turn at your liver? I am afraid we could hardly stand you a private eagle all to yourself. It is said to be quite painful; I really don't think you can have gone through that, with all your experience."

"Oh yes I have," returned the Tutor; "a long course of Hall dinners has familiarized me with every possibility in the way of liver trouble. The eagle business would be the merest _crambe repet.i.ta_."

"Bless the man!" cried Pluto, justly provoked. "Very well; then you can't stay here, that's all. I've given you all the alternatives Hades has at its disposal, and you tell us you have been through them all in your University! All I can say is, you had better go back to it, and stay there."

"The Bursar," said the Tutor, "will not be best pleased to see me again.

He thinks he has got my Fellowship, and is going to use it for the benefit of the College farms. I can tell you he won't like it one bit when I reappear at the College Meeting."

"The Bursar and I shall have plenty of time for an explanation-later,"

said Pluto.

THE DIFFICULTIES OF MR. BULL {77}

I have been a good deal distressed lately by the reverses of my friend John Bull, who is one of the leading tradesmen in this town. Everybody knows his establishment. It does a very large business indeed: you can get practically everything there-coals, Lee-Metford rifles, chocolate, biscuits, steam-engines, Australian mutton, home and colonial produce of every kind, in short. My old friend is tremendously proud of his shop, which, as he says, he has made what it is by strict honesty (and really for an enterprising tradesman he is fairly honest) and attention to business principles. He has put a deal of capital into it, and spares no expense in advertising; in fact, he keeps a regular department for poetry, which is written on the premises and circulated among customers and others, and explains in the most beautiful language that the house in Britannia Road is the place to go to for everything. John, who prides himself on his literary taste, considers this to be the finest poetry ever written; and Mrs. Bull reads it out to him in the evening before he has his regular snooze after supper.

Everything was going on swimmingly until this unfortunate Hooligan trouble began. I must explain to you that Mr. Bull owns a great deal more property than the actual premises where he transacts business.

Somehow or other, in course of time he has become the proprietor of bits and sc.r.a.ps all over the town and suburbs-tenements, waste lands, eligible building sites, warehouses, and what not-the whole making up what, if it was put together, would be a very considerable estate. How it all came into John Bull's hands n.o.body knows properly; indeed, I don't think he does himself. Some of it was bought, and bought pretty dear too. Some of it was left to him. A good deal of it he-one doesn't like using the word, but still-well, in fact, took; but, mind you, he always took everything for its good, and for the ultimate benefit of society, not for any selfish reasons; so that to call Mr. Bull a pirate, as Dubois does who keeps the toy-shop over the way, is manifestly absurd. Anyhow, it is a very fine property, and would be bigger still if Jonathan C., a cousin of the family, hadn't taken off a good slice which used to belong to John.

As I was saying, this property is a very large straggling affair, most of it a long way off from the shop. Its owner finds it very hard to look after every part; all the more so, because this town has no regular police, and is therefore continually troubled by gangs of roughs, who go about breaking windows and even heads, and doing damage generally. They are always giving a great deal of trouble to the Bull people; and what makes it worse is that very often they are actually tenants on the property, who ought to know better. One of these Hooligan crowds lately made a dead set against poor John; it was all the harder because to my personal knowledge he had shown himself most kind and forgiving to various members of this particular gang; and once before, when they came and broke his windows, he refused to prosecute, and simply gave them five shillings to drink Mrs. Bull's health and not do it again. That is the kind of man he is, sometimes. In spite of this indulgent and charitable treatment, they came the other day and made a raid into an outlying corner of his property and did all sorts of damage; and not content with this, they actually squatted there on land which was no more theirs than it is mine (I am thankful to say), where they insulted and even a.s.saulted innocent pa.s.sers-by, and levied blackmail on John Bull's adjacent tenants, and, in short, became the terror of the neighbourhood and a disgrace to civilization. And when Mr. Bull's watchman (I told you there is no regular police force, and everybody has to look after himself), when Thomas Atkins, I say, came with orders to turn them out, they told him to go-I hardly like to say where-and absolutely refused to stir; quite the contrary; they hid themselves behind rubbish-heaps and h.o.a.rdings and such like, and threw things at Thomas; and when he tried to catch them, they ran away and hid behind more h.o.a.rdings, so that when you thought they were in one place they were always somewhere else, and the poor watchman got so knocked about with stones and brickbats that the next morning, when he came round to the shop to report progress, he had a black eye, and a cut head, and a torn coat, and a nasty bruise on one of his legs. Mrs. Bull had to patch up his coat and give him some arnica and vaseline.

Poor Mr. Atkins! He is a most respectable man, and an excellent watchman, as was his father before him. It is a tradition of the Atkins family that they are as brave as lions, and do not know what fear is; but unfortunately they are not always very clever, and Thomas is a little slow at learning, and does not pick up new tricks readily. His father had a tremendous hammer-and-tongs battle with the Dubois' watchman once, right in the middle of the public street-thirty-six rounds or so they had of it-and licked him, as John Bull says, in true British style; and that is always Thomas's way, and the only thing that he understands properly; none of your underhand dodges like hiding behind places and throwing brickbats when one isn't looking. So that the Hooligan ways of fighting were quite too much for him at first. And although Mr. Bull spent a lot of money in buying him a new watchman's rattle and a very expensive second-hand truncheon, nearly as good as the best kind, still it was all no good, and Thomas couldn't turn the invaders out.

All this time you must not suppose that Mr. Bull's neighbours had nothing to say about the matter. On the contrary, they were very much interested and, I am sorry to say, pleased. Dubois the Frenchman, and Muller, the man who keeps the World's Cheap Emporium, and Alexis Ivanovitch, the big cornfactor in the next street who is always maltreating his workmen, were never tired of saying nasty things about Mr. Bull and crowing over the mishaps of Mr. Atkins. Everybody knows what a terrible quarrel there was some years ago between Muller and Dubois, and how Muller went into the toyshop and thrashed the Frenchman then and there, so that poor Dubois had to go to bed for a week, and for a long time afterwards used to go about vowing vengeance. But this didn't in the least prevent the two from fraternizing on the common ground of enmity to John Bull. They would meet-by accident, of course-just under his windows, and then Muller would say, very loud, to Dubois, "Is it not ridiculous, my friend, that this once apparently so mighty Herr Bull and his watchman should again by the Hooliganish crowd have been defeated?" Or perhaps, "This is what comes of your big businesses and your straggling premises with no one to protect them. How much better to have a small compact business (though it's not so small either, mind you) like my Emporium, by a large number of properly trained watchmen defended!" And Dubois would say,-so that it annoyed the Bull household very much indeed,-"Behold the fruits of being a pirate and a robber. Conspuez M. Atkins! Justice for ever! a bas les Juifs!" (he always says that now when he is angry-goodness only knows why). Indeed Dubois got so excited that he actually thought of breaking John's windows, though on reflection he decided that he wouldn't do it just yet. And John was very cross with Atkins and the s...o...b..y, and even with Mrs. Bull and his son J. Wellington Bull, and caused it to be generally known that he would knock Dubois's head off for sixpence if he got the chance. Then Paddy Gilhooly, who is a tenant of the Bulls', in Hibernia Road-and a shocking bad tenant, too, who never pays any rent when he can help it, and keeps his premises in a disgraceful condition, with a lot of pigs and poultry running about in the front parlour-this Paddy must needs put his finger in the pie and turn against his own landlord, so that whenever Mr. Atkins came along Hibernia Road Paddy would put his head out of window and shout, "Hooligans for iver! More power to th' inimy! Crunchy aboo!" and other similar observations, of which no one took the least notice, because it was the way with the Gilhooly family. Still, it was very ungrateful of Paddy, after all John's kindness to him; besides being painful to Mr. Atkins, who is a near cousin of the Gilhoolys and would not wish to be disgraced by the conduct of his relations. I don't know why it is, but somehow or other Mr. Bull has not the gift of making himself generally popular. Time after time he has lent Paddy money; and as for Muller and Dubois, if they want good advice on the proper conduct of their business, they know where to come for it: but they don't seem to appreciate the privilege. In short, if it wasn't for that little bankrupt wine merchant Themistocles Papageorgios, whom John saved some time ago from the consequences of litigation with a Turkish firm, I doubt if my poor friend has one sincere wellwisher among all the townsmen.