Part 23 (2/2)

He said that in some instances where a man had an exceptionally villainous cast of countenance, or was exceptionally deformed, as much as twenty francs were demanded and readily obtained.

He abandoned photography and took to golf. He showed people how, by digging a hole here and putting a brickbat or two there, they could convert a tennis-lawn into a miniature golf link,--and did it for them.

He persuaded elderly ladies and gentlemen that it was the mildest exercise going, and would drag them for miles over wet gorse and heather, and bring them home dead beat, coughing, and full of evil thoughts.

The last time I saw him was in Switzerland, a few months ago. He appeared indifferent to the subject of golf, but talked much about whist.

We met by chance at Grindelwald, and agreed to climb the Faulhorn together next morning. Half-way up we rested, and I strolled on a little way by myself to gain a view. Returning, I found him with a ”Cavendish”

in his hand and a pack of cards spread out before him on the gra.s.s, solving a problem.

THE MAN WHO DID NOT BELIEVE IN LUCK

He got in at Ipswich with seven different weekly papers under his arm. I noticed that each one insured its reader against death or injury by railway accident. He arranged his luggage upon the rack above him, took off his hat and laid it on the seat beside him, mopped his bald head with a red silk handkerchief, and then set to work steadily to write his name and address upon each of the seven papers. I sat opposite to him and read _Punch_. I always take the old humour when travelling; I find it soothing to the nerves.

Pa.s.sing over the points at Manningtree the train gave a lurch, and a horse-shoe he had carefully placed in the rack above him slipped through the netting, falling with a musical ring upon his head.

He appeared neither surprised nor angry. Having staunched the wound with his handkerchief, he stooped and picked the horse-shoe up, glanced at it with, as I thought, an expression of reproach, and dropped it gently out of the window.

”Did it hurt you?” I asked.

It was a foolish question. I told myself so the moment I had uttered it.

The thing must have weighed three pounds at the least; it was an exceptionally large and heavy shoe. The b.u.mp on his head was swelling visibly before my eyes. Anyone but an idiot must have seen that he was hurt. I expected an irritable reply. I should have given one myself had I been in his place. Instead, however, he seemed to regard the inquiry as a natural and kindly expression of sympathy.

”It did, a little,” he replied.

”What were you doing with it?” I asked. It was an odd sort of thing for a man to be travelling with.

”It was lying in the roadway just outside the station,” he explained; ”I picked it up for luck.”

He refolded his handkerchief so as to bring a cooler surface in contact with the swelling, while I murmured something genial about the inscrutability of Providence.

”Yes,” he said, ”I've had a deal of luck in my time, but it's never turned out well.”

”I was born on a Wednesday,” he continued, ”which, as I daresay you know, is the luckiest day a man can be born on. My mother was a widow, and none of my relatives would do anything for me. They said it would be like taking coals to Newcastle, helping a boy born on a Wednesday; and my uncle, when he died, left every penny of his money to my brother Sam, as a slight compensation to him for having been born on a Friday. All I ever got was advice upon the duties and responsibilities of wealth, when it arrived, and entreaties that I would not neglect those with claims upon me when I came to be a rich man.”

He paused while folding up his various insurance papers and placing them in the inside breast-pocket of his coat.

”Then there are black cats,” he went on; ”they're said to be lucky. Why, there never was a blacker cat than the one that followed me into my rooms in Bolsover Street the very first night I took them.”

”Didn't it bring you luck?” I enquired, finding that he had stopped.

A far-away look came into his eyes.

”Well, of course it all depends,” he answered dreamily. ”Maybe we'd never have suited one another; you can always look at it that way. Still, I'd like to have tried.”

He sat staring out of the window, and for a while I did not care to intrude upon his evidently painful memories.

<script>