Part 22 (2/2)
”Here I exchange realities only for realities. You ask for my treasures, I ask for your brain and heart in exchange--yours, boy, not your father's, not another's.”
”And this price,” he argues, ”how shall I obtain it?”
”Go about the world,” replies the great Lady. ”Labour, suffer, help.
Come back to me when you have earned your wages, and according to how much you bring me so we will do business.”
Is real wealth so unevenly distributed as we think? Is not Fate the true Socialist? Who is the rich man, who the poor? Do we know? Does even the man himself know? Are we not striving for the shadow, missing the substance? Take life at its highest; which was the happier man, rich Solomon or poor Socrates? Solomon seems to have had most things that most men most desire--maybe too much of some for his own comfort.
Socrates had little beyond what he carried about with him, but that was a good deal. According to our scales, Solomon should have been one of the happiest men that ever lived, Socrates one of the most wretched. But was it so?
Or taking life at its lowest, with pleasure its only goal. Is my lord Tom Noddy, in the stalls, so very much jollier than 'Arry in the gallery? Were beer ten s.h.i.+llings the bottle, and champagne fourpence a quart, which, think you, we should clamour for? If every West End Club had its skittle alley, and billiards could only be played in East End pubs, which game, my lord, would you select? Is the air of Berkeley Square so much more joy-giving than the atmosphere of Seven Dials? I find myself a piquancy in the air of Seven Dials, missing from Berkeley Square. Is there so vast a difference between horse-hair and straw, when you are tired? Is happiness multiplied by the number of rooms in one's house? Are Lady Ermintrude's lips so very much sweeter than Sally's of the Alley? What IS success in life?
ON THE PLAYING OF MARCHES AT THE FUNERALS OF MARIONETTES
He began the day badly. He took me out and lost me. It would be so much better, would he consent to the usual arrangement, and allow me to take him out. I am far the abler leader: I say it without conceit. I am older than he is, and I am less excitable. I do not stop and talk with every person I meet, and then forget where I am. I do less to distract myself: I rarely fight, I never feel I want to run after cats, I take but little pleasure in frightening children. I have nothing to think about but the walk, and the getting home again. If, as I say, he would give up taking me out, and let me take him out, there would be less trouble all round.
But into this I have never been able to persuade him.
He had mislaid me once or twice, but in Sloane Square he lost me entirely. When he loses me, he stands and barks for me. If only he would remain where he first barked, I might find my way to him; but, before I can cross the road, he is barking half-way down the next street. I am not so young as I was and I sometimes think he exercises me more than is good for me. I could see him from where I was standing in the King's Road. Evidently he was most indignant. I was too far off to distinguish the barks, but I could guess what he was saying--
”d.a.m.n that man, he's off again.”
He made inquiries of a pa.s.sing dog--
”You haven't smelt my man about anywhere, have you?”
(A dog, of course, would never speak of SEEING anybody or anything, smell being his leading sense. Reaching the top of a hill, he would say to his companion--”Lovely smell from here, I always think; I could sit and sniff here all the afternoon.” Or, proposing a walk, he would say--”I like the road by the ca.n.a.l, don't you? There's something interesting to catch your nose at every turn.”)
”No, I haven't smelt any man in particular,” answered the other dog.
”What sort of a smelling man is yours?”
”Oh, an egg-and-bacony sort of a man, with a dash of soap about him.”
”That's nothing to go by,” retorted the other; ”most men would answer to that description, this time of the morning. Where were you when you last noticed him?”
At this moment he caught sight of me, and came up, pleased to find me, but vexed with me for having got lost.
”Oh, here you are,” he barked; ”didn't you see me go round the corner?
Do keep closer. Bothered if half my time isn't taken up, finding you and losing you again.”
The incident appeared to have made him bad-tempered; he was just in the humour for a row of any sort. At the top of Sloane Street a stout military-looking gentleman started running after the Chelsea bus. With a ”Hooroo” William Smith was after him. Had the old gentleman taken no notice, all would have been well. A butcher boy, driving just behind, would--I could read it in his eye--have caught Smith a flick as he darted into the road, which would have served him right; the old gentleman would have captured his bus; and the affair would have been ended. Unfortunately, he was that type of retired military man all gout and curry and no sense. He stopped to swear at the dog. That, of course, was what Smith wanted. It is not often he gets a scrimmage with a full-grown man. ”They're a poor-spirited lot, most of them,” he thinks; ”they won't even answer you back. I like a man who shows a bit of pluck.” He was frenzied with delight at his success. He flew round his victim, weaving whooping circles and curves that paralyzed the old gentleman as though they had been the mystic figures of a Merlin. The colonel clubbed his umbrella, and attempted to defend himself. I called to the dog, I gave good advice to the colonel (I judged him to be a colonel; the louder he spoke, the less one could understand him), but both were too excited to listen to me. A sympathetic bus driver leaned over, and whispered hoa.r.s.e counsel.
”Ketch 'im by the tail, sir,” he advised the old gentleman; ”don't you be afraid of him; you ketch 'im firmly by the tail.”
A milkman, on the other hand, sought rather to encourage Smith, shouting as he pa.s.sed--
”Good dog, kill him!”
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