“Does it so very much matter,” suggested Dan, “how the wooden-headed man-at-arms or the shilling gallery boy happens to regard you?”
“Yes, it does,” retorted Goggles, “because we happen to agree with them. If I could earn five pounds a week as juvenile lead, I would never play a comic part again.”
“There I cannot follow you,” returned Dan. “I can understand the artist who would rather be the man of action, the poet who would rather be the statesman or the warrior; though personally my sympathies are precisely the other way—with Wolfe who thought it a more glorious work, the writing of a great poem, than the burning of so many cities and the killing of so many men. We all serve the community. It is difficult, looking at the matter from the inside, to say who serves it best. Some feed it, some clothe it. The churchman and the policeman between them look after its morals, keep it in order. The doctor mends it when it injures itself; the lawyer helps it to quarrel, the soldier teaches it to fight. We Bohemians amuse it, instruct it. We can argue that we are the most important. The others cater for its body, we for its mind. But their work is more showy than ours and attracts more attention; and to attract attention is the aim and object of most of us. But for Bohemians to worry among themselves which is the greatest, is utterly without reason. The story-teller, the musician, the artist, the clown, we are members of a sharing troupe; one, with the ambition of the fat boy in Pickwick, makes the people's flesh creep; another makes them hold their sides with laughter. The tragedian, soliloquising on his crimes, shows us how wicked we are; you, looking at a pair of lovers from under a scratch wig, show us how ridiculous we are. Both lessons are necessary: who shall say which is the superior teacher?”
“Ah, I am not a philosopher,” replied the little man, with a sigh.
“Ah,” returned Dan, with another, “and I am not a comic actor on my way to a salary of a hundred a week. We all of us want the other boy's cake.”
The O'Kelly was another frequent visitor of ours. The attic in Belsize Square had been closed. In vain had the O'Kelly wafted incense, burned pastilles and sprinkled eau-de-Cologne. In vain had he talked of rats, hinted at drains.
“A wonderful woman,” groaned the O'Kelly in tones of sorrowful admiration. “There's no deceiving her.”
“But why submit?” was our natural argument. “Why not say you are going to smoke, and do it?”
“It's her theory, me boy,” explained the O'Kelly, “that the home should be kept pure—a sort of a temple, ye know. She's convinced that in time it is bound to exercise an influence upon me. It's a beautiful idea, when ye come to think of it.”
Meanwhile, in the rooms of half-a-dozen sinful men the O'Kelly kept his own particular pipe, together with his own particular smoking mixture; and one such pipe and one such tobacco jar stood always on our mantelpiece.
In the spring the forces of temptation raged round that feeble but most excellently intentioned citadel, the O'Kelly's conscience. The Signora had returned to England, was performing then at Ashley's Theatre. The O'Kelly would remain under long spells of silence, puffing vigorously at his pipe. Or would fortify himself with paeans in praise of Mrs. O'Kelly.
“If anything could ever make a model man of me”—he spoke in the tones of one whose doubts are stronger than his hopes—“it would be the example of that woman.”
It was one Saturday afternoon. I had just returned from the matinee.
“I don't believe,” continued the O'Kelly, “I don't really believe she has ever done one single thing she oughtn't to, or left undone one single thing she ought, in the whole course of her life.”
“Maybe she has, and you don't know of it,” I suggested, perceiving the idea might comfort him.
“I wish I could think so,” returned the O'Kelly. “I don't mean anything really wrong,” he corrected himself quickly, “but something just a little wrong. I feel—I really feel I should like her better if she had.”
“Not that I mean I don't like her as it is, ye understand,” corrected himself the O'Kelly a second time. “I respect that woman—I cannot tell ye, me boy, how much I respect her. Ye don't know her. There was one morning, about a month ago. That woman-she's down at six every morning, summer and winter; we have prayers at half-past. I was a trifle late meself: it was never me strong point, as ye know, early rising. Seven o'clock struck; she didn't appear, and I thought she had overslept herself. I won't say I didn't feel pleased for the moment; it was an unworthy sentiment, but I almost wished she had. I ran up to her room. The door was open, the bedclothes folded down as she always leaves them. She came in five minutes later. She had got up at four that morning to welcome a troupe of native missionaries from East Africa on their arrival at Waterloo Station. She's a saint, that woman; I am not worthy of her.”
“I shouldn't dwell too much on that phase of the subject,” I suggested.
“I can't help it, me boy,” replied the O'Kelly. “I feel I am not.”
“I don't for a moment say you are,” I returned; “but I shouldn't harp upon the idea. I don't think it good for you.”
“I never will be,” he persisted gloomily, “never!”
Evidently he was started on a dangerous train of reflection. With the idea of luring him away from it, I led the conversation to the subject of champagne.
“Most people like it dry,” admitted the O'Kelly. “Meself, I have always preferred it with just a suggestion of fruitiness.”
“There was a champagne,” I said, “you used to be rather fond of when we—years ago.”
“I think I know the one ye mean,” said the O'Kelly. “It wasn't at all bad, considering the price.”
“You don't happen to remember where you got it?” I asked.
“It was in Bridge Street,” remembered the O'Kelly, “not so very far from the Circus.”
“It is a pleasant evening,” I remarked; “let us take a walk.”
We found the place, half wine-shop, half office.
“Just the same,” commented the O'Kelly as we pushed open the door and entered. “Not altered a bit.”
As in all probability barely twelve months had elapsed since his last visit, the fact in itself was not surprising. Clearly the O'Kelly had been calculating time rather by sensation. I ordered a bottle; and we sat down. Myself, being prejudiced against the brand, I called for a glass of claret. The O'Kelly finished the bottle. I was glad to notice my ruse had been successful. The virtue of that wine had not departed from it. With every glass the O'Kelly became morally more elevated. He left the place, determined that he would be worthy of Mrs. O'Kelly. Walking down the Embankment, he asserted his determination of buying an alarm-clock that very evening. At the corner of Westminster Bridge he became suddenly absorbed in his own thoughts. Looking to discover the cause of his silence, I saw that his eyes were resting on a poster representing a charming lady standing on one leg upon a wire; below her—at some distance—appeared the peaks of mountains; the artist had even caught the likeness. I cursed the luck that had directed our footsteps, but the next moment, lacking experience, was inclined to be reassured.
“Me dear Paul,” said the O'Kelly—he laid a fatherly hand upon my shoulder—“there are fair-faced, laughing women—sweet creatures, that ye want to put yer arm around and dance with.” He shook his head disapprovingly. “There are the sainted women, who lead us up, Paul—up, always up.”
A look, such as the young man with the banner might have borne with him to the fields of snow and ice, suffused the O'Kelly's handsome face. Without another word he crossed the road and entered an American store, where for six-and-elevenpence he purchased an alarm-clock the man assured us would awake an Egyptian mummy. With this in his hand he waved me a good-bye, and jumped upon a Hampstead 'bus, and alone I strolled on to the theatre.