"I may have acted without sufficient knowledge to guide me. My education has not, perhaps, on the whole, been ordered wisely. Subjects that I feel will never be of the slightest interest or consequence to me have been insisted upon with almost tiresome reiteration. Matters that should be useful and helpful to me―gunpowder, to take but one example―I have been left in ignorance concerning. About all that I say nothing; people have done their best according to their lights, no doubt. When, however, we come to purity of motives, singleness of intention, then, I maintain, I am above reproach. The proof of this is that Providence has bestowed upon me the seal of its approvaclass="underline" I was not blown up. Had my conduct been open to censure―as in certain quarters has been suggested―should I be walking besides you now, undamaged―not a hair turned, as the saying is? No. Discriminating Fate―that is, if any reliance at all is to be placed on literature for the young―would have made it her business that at least I was included in the debris. Instead, what do we notice!―a shattered chimney, a ruined stove, broken windows, a wreckage of household utensils; I, alone of all things, miraculously preserved. I do not wish to press the point offensively, but really it would almost seem that it must be you three―you, my dear parent, upon whom will fall the bill for repairs; Dick, apt to attach too much importance, maybe, to his victuals, and who for the next few days will be compelled to exist chiefly upon tinned goods; Robina, by nature of a worrying disposition, certain till things get straight again to be next door to off her head―who must, by reason of conduct into which I do not enquire, have merited chastisement at the hands of Providence. The moral lesson would certainly appear to be between you three. I―it grows clear to me―have been throughout but the innocent instrument."
Admit the premise that to be virtuous is to escape whipping, the argument is logical. I felt that left uncombated it might lead us into yet further trouble.
"Veronica," I said, "the time has come to reveal to you a secret: literature is not always a safe guide to life."
"You mean―" said Veronica.
"I mean," I said, "that the writer of books is, generally speaking, an exceptionally moral man. That is what leads him astray: he is too good. This world does not come up to his ideas. It is not the world as he would have made it himself. To satisfy his craving for morality he sets to work to make a world of his own. It is not this world. It is not a bit like this world. In a world as it should be, Veronica, you would undoubtedly have been blown up―if not altogether, at all events partially. What you have to do, Veronica, is, with a full heart, to praise Heaven that this is not a perfect world. If it were I doubt very much, Veronica, your being here. That you are here happy and thriving proves that all is not as it should be. The bull of this world, feeling he wants to toss somebody, does not sit upon himself, so to speak, till the wicked child comes by. He takes the first child that turns up, and thanks God for it. A hundred to one it is the best child for miles around. The bull does not care. He spoils that pattern child. He'd spoil a bishop, feeling as he does that morning. Your little friend in the velvet suit who did get himself blown up, at all events as regards the suit― Which of you was it that thought of that gunpowder, you or he?"
Veronica claimed that the inspiration had been hers.
"I can easily believe it. And was he anxious to steal the gunpowder and put it on the fire, or did he have to be persuaded?"
Veronica admitted that in the qualities of a first-class hero he was wanting. Not till it had been suggested to him that he must at heart be a cowardy cowardy custard had he been moved to take a hand in the enterprise.
"A lad, clearly," I continued, "that left to himself would be a comfort to his friends. And the story of the robbers―your invention or his?"
Veronica was generously of opinion that he might have thought of it had he not been chiefly concerned at the moment with the idea of getting home to his mother. As it was, the clothing with romance of incidents otherwise bald and uninteresting had fallen upon her.
"The good child of the story. The fact stands out at every point. His one failing an amiable weakness. Do you not see it for yourself; Veronica? In the book, you, not he, would have tumbled over the mat. In this wicked world it is the wicked who prosper. He, the innocent, the virtuous, is torn into rags. You, the villain of the story, escape."
"I see," said Veronica; "then whenever nothing happens to you that means that you're a wrong 'un."
"I don't go so far as to say that, Veronica. And I wish you wouldn't use slang. Dick is a man, and a man―well, never mind about a man. You, Veronica, must never forget that you're a lady. Justice must not be looked for in this world. Sometimes the wicked get what they deserve. More often they don't. There seems to be no rule. Follow the dictates of your conscience, Veronica, and blow―I mean be indifferent to the consequences. Sometimes you'll come out all right, and sometimes you won't. But the beautiful sensation will always be with you: I did right. Things have turned out unfortunately: but that's not my fault. Nobody can blame me."
"But they do," said Veronica, "they blame you just as if you'd meant to go and do it."
"It does not matter, Veronica," I pointed out, "the opinion of the world. The good man disregards it."
"But they send you to bed," persisted Veronica.
"Let them," I said. "What is bed so long as the voice of the inward Monitor consoles us with the reflection―"
"But it don't," interrupted Veronica; "it makes you feel all the madder. It does really."
"It oughtn't to," I told her.
"Then why does it?" argued Veronica. "Why don't it do what it ought to?"
The trouble about arguing with children is that they will argue too.
"Life's a difficult problem, Veronica," I allowed. "Things are not as they ought to be, I admit it. But one must not despair. Something's got to be done."
"It's jolly hard on some of us," said Veronica. "Strive as you may, you can't please everyone. And if you just as much as stand up for yourself, oh, crikey!"
"The duty of the grown-up person, Veronica," I said, "is to bring up the child in the way that it should go. It isn't easy work, and occasionally irritability may creep in."
"There's such a lot of 'em at it," grumbled Veronica. "There are times, between 'em all, when you don't know whether you're standing on your head or your heels."
"They mean well, Veronica," I said. "When I was a little boy I used to think just as you do. But now―"
"Did you ever get into rows?" interrupted Veronica.
"Did I ever?―was never out of them, so far as I can recollect. If it wasn't one thing, then it was another."
"And didn't it make you wild?" enquired Veronica, "when first of all they'd ask what you'd got to say and why you'd done it, and then, when you tried to explain things to them, wouldn't listen to you?"
"What used to irritate me most, Veronica," I replied―"I can remember it so well―was when they talked steadily for half an hour themselves, and then, when I would attempt with one sentence to put them right about the thing, turn round and bully-rag me for being argumentative."
"If they would only listen," agreed Veronica, "you might get them to grasp things. But no, they talk and talk, till at the end they don't know what they are talking about themselves, and then they pretend it's your fault for having made them tired."
"I know," I said, "they always end up like that. 'I am tired of talking to you,' they say―as if we were not tired of listening to them!"
"And then when you think," said Veronica, "they say you oughtn't to think. And if you don't think, and let it out by accident, then they say 'why don't you think?' It don't seem as though we could do right. It makes one almost despair."