Literary Lapses Page 6

  We had been smoking in silence for some time when Ah-Yenspoke. My friend is a man of culture and wide reading,and his English is consequently perfect in its construction;his speech is, of course, marked by the lingering liquidaccent of his country which I will not attempt toreproduce.

  "I see," he said, "that you have been examining theportrait of my unhappy friend, Fifty-Six. I have neveryet told you of my bereavement, but as to-night is theanniversary of his death, I would fain speak of him fora while."

  Ah-Yen paused; I lighted my pipe afresh, and nodded tohim to show that I was listening.

  "I do not know," he went on, "at what precise timeFifty-Six came into my life. I could indeed find it outby examining my books, but I have never troubled to doso. Naturally I took no more interest in him at firstthan in any other of my customers--less, perhaps, sincehe never in the course of our connection brought hisclothes to me himself but always sent them by a boy. WhenI presently perceived that he was becoming one of myregular customers, I allotted to him his number, Fifty-Six,and began to speculate as to who and what he was. Beforelong I had reached several conclusions in regard to myunknown client. The quality of his linen showed me that,if not rich, he was at any rate fairly well off. I couldsee that he was a young man of regular Christian life,who went out into society to a certain extent; this Icould tell from his sending the same number of articlesto the laundry, from his washing always coming on Saturdaynight, and from the fact that he wore a dress shirt aboutonce a week. In disposition he was a modest, unassumingfellow, for his collars were only two inches high."

  I stared at Ah-Yen in some amazement, the recentpublications of a favourite novelist had rendered mefamiliar with this process of analytical reasoning, butI was prepared for no such revelations from my Easternfriend.

  "When I first knew him," Ah-Yen went on, "Fifty-Six wasa student at the university. This, of course, I did notknow for some time. I inferred it, however, in the courseof time, from his absence from town during the four summermonths, and from the fact that during the time of theuniversity examinations the cuffs of his shirts came tome covered with dates, formulas, and propositions ingeometry. I followed him with no little interest throughhis university career. During the four years which itlasted, I washed for him every week; my regular connectionwith him and the insight which my observation gave meinto the lovable character of the man, deepened my firstesteem into a profound affection and I became most anxiousfor his success. I helped him at each succeedingexamination, as far as lay in my power, by starching hisshirts half-way to the elbow, so as to leave him as muchroom as possible for annotations. My anxiety during thestrain of his final examination I will not attempt todescribe. That Fifty-Six was undergoing the great crisisof his academic career, I could infer from the state ofhis handkerchiefs which, in apparent unconsciousness, heused as pen-wipers during the final test. His conductthroughout the examination bore witness to the moraldevelopment which had taken place in his character duringhis career as an undergraduate; for the notes upon hiscuffs which had been so copious at his earlier examinationswere limited now to a few hints, and these upon topicsso intricate as to defy an ordinary memory. It was witha thrill of joy that I at last received in his laundrybundle one Saturday early in June, a ruffled dress shirt,the bosom of which was thickly spattered with the spillingsof the wine-cup, and realized that Fifty-Six had banquetedas a Bachelor of Arts.

  "In the following winter the habit of wiping his pen uponhis handkerchief, which I had remarked during his finalexamination, became chronic with him, and I knew that hehad entered upon the study of law. He worked hard duringthat year, and dress shirts almost disappeared from hisweekly bundle. It was in the following winter, the secondyear of his legal studies, that the tragedy of his lifebegan. I became aware that a change had come over hislaundry; from one, or at most two a week, his dress shirtsrose to four, and silk handkerchiefs began to replacehis linen ones. It dawned upon me that Fifty-Six wasabandoning the rigorous tenor of his student life andwas going into society. I presently perceived somethingmore; Fifty-Six was in love. It was soon impossible todoubt it. He was wearing seven shirts a week; linenhandkerchiefs disappeared from his laundry; his collarsrose from two inches to two and a quarter, and finallyto two and a half. I have in my possession one of hislaundry lists of that period; a glance at it will showthe scrupulous care which he bestowed upon his person.Well do I remember the dawning hopes of those days,alternating with the gloomiest despair. Each Saturday Iopened his bundle with a trembling eagerness to catchthe first signs of a return of his love. I helped myfriend in every way that I could. His shirts and collarswere masterpieces of my art, though my hand often shookwith agitation as I applied the starch. She was a bravenoble girl, that I knew; her influence was elevating thewhole nature of Fifty-Six; until now he had had in hispossession a certain number of detached cuffs and falseshirt-fronts. These he discarded now,--at first the falseshirt-fronts, scorning the very idea of fraud, and aftera time, in his enthusiasm, abandoning even the cuffs. Icannot look back upon those bright happy days of courtshipwithout a sigh.

  "The happiness of Fifty-Six seemed to enter into and fillmy whole life. I lived but from Saturday to Saturday.The appearance of false shirt-fronts would cast me tothe lowest depths of despair; their absence raised me toa pinnacle of hope. It was not till winter softened intospring that Fifty-Six nerved himself to learn his fate.One Saturday he sent me a new white waistcoat, a garmentwhich had hitherto been shunned by his modest nature, toprepare for his use. I bestowed upon it all the resourcesof my art; I read his purpose in it. On the Saturdayfollowing it was returned to me and, with tears of joy,I marked where a warm little hand had rested fondly onthe right shoulder, and knew that Fifty-Six was theaccepted lover of his sweetheart."

  Ah-Yen paused and sat for some time silent; his pipe hadsputtered out and lay cold in the hollow of his hand;his eye was fixed upon the wall where the light andshadows shifted in the dull flickering of the candle. Atlast he spoke again:

  "I will not dwell upon the happy days that ensued--daysof gaudy summer neckties and white waistcoats, of spotlessshirts and lofty collars worn but a single day by thefastidious lover. Our happiness seemed complete and Iasked no more from fate. Alas! it was not destined tocontinue! When the bright days of summer were fading intoautumn, I was grieved to notice an occasional quarrel--onlyfour shirts instead of seven, or the reappearance of theabandoned cuffs and shirt-fronts. Reconciliations followed,with tears of penitence upon the shoulder of the whitewaistcoat, and the seven shirts came back. But the quarrelsgrew more frequent and there came at times stormy scenesof passionate emotion that left a track of broken buttonsdown the waistcoat. The shirts went slowly down to three,then fell to two, and the collars of my unhappy friendsubsided to an inch and three-quarters. In vain I lavishedmy utmost care upon Fifty-Six. It seemed to my torturedmind that the gloss upon his shirts and collars wouldhave melted a heart of stone. Alas! my every effort atreconciliation seemed to fail. An awful month passed;the false fronts and detached cuffs were all back again;the unhappy lover seemed to glory in their perfidy. Atlast, one gloomy evening, I found on opening his bundlethat he had bought a stock of celluloids, and my hearttold me that she had abandoned him for ever. Of what mypoor friend suffered at this time, I can give you noidea; suffice it to say that he passed from celluloid toa blue flannel shirt and from blue to grey. The sight ofa red cotton handkerchief in his wash at length warnedme that his disappointed love had unhinged his mind, andI feared the worst. Then came an agonizing interval ofthree weeks during which he sent me nothing, and afterthat came the last parcel that I ever received from himan enormous bundle that seemed to contain all his effects.In this, to my horror, I discovered one shirt the breastof which was stained a deep crimson with his blood, andpierced by a ragged hole that showed where a bullet hadsinged through into his heart.

  "A fortnight before, I remembered having heard the streetboys crying the news of an appalling suicide, and I knownow that it must have been he. After the fir
st shock ofmy grief had passed, I sought to keep him in my memoryby drawing the portrait which hangs beside you. I havesome skill in the art, and I feel assured that I havecaught the expression of his face. The picture is, ofcourse, an ideal one, for, as you know, I never sawFifty-Six."

  The bell on the door of the outer shop tinkled at theentrance of a customer. Ah-Yen rose with that air ofquiet resignation that habitually marked his demeanour,and remained for some time in the shop. When he returnedhe seemed in no mood to continue speaking of his lostfriend. I left him soon after and walked sorrowfully hometo my lodgings. On my way I mused much upon my littleEastern friend and the sympathetic grasp of his imagination.But a burden lay heavy on my heart--something I wouldfain have told him but which I could not bear to mention.I could not find it in my heart to shatter the airy castleof his fancy. For my life has been secluded and lonelyand I have known no love like that of my ideal friend.Yet I have a haunting recollection of a certain hugebundle of washing that I sent to him about a year ago.I had been absent from town for three weeks and my laundrywas much larger than usual in consequence. And if Imistake not there was in the bundle a tattered shirt thathad been grievously stained by the breaking of a bottleof red ink in my portmanteau, and burnt in one placewhere an ash fell from my cigar as I made up the bundle.Of all this I cannot feel absolutely certain, yet I knowat least that until a year ago, when I transferred mycustom to a more modern establishment, my laundry numberwith Ah-Yen was Fifty-Six.

  Aristocratic Education

  House of Lords, Jan. 25, 1920.--The House of Lordscommenced to-day in Committee the consideration of ClauseNo. 52,000 of the Education Bill, dealing with the teachingof Geometry in the schools.

  The Leader of the Government in presenting the clauseurged upon their Lordships the need of conciliation. TheBill, he said, had now been before their Lordships forsixteen years. The Government had made every concession.They had accepted all the amendments of their Lordshipson the opposite side in regard to the original provisionsof the Bill. They had consented also to insert in theBill a detailed programme of studies of which the presentclause, enunciating the fifth proposition of Euclid, wasa part. He would therefore ask their Lordships to acceptthe clause drafted as follows:

  "The angles at the base of an isosceles triangle areequal, and if the equal sides of the triangle are produced,the exterior angles will also be equal."

  He would hasten to add that the Government had no intentionof producing the sides. Contingencies might arise torender such a course necessary, but in that case theirLordships would receive an early intimation of the fact.

  The Archbishop of Canterbury spoke against the clause.He considered it, in its present form, too secular. Heshould wish to amend the clause so as to make it read:

  "The angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are, inevery Christian community, equal, and if the sides beproduced by a member of a Christian congregation, theexterior angles will be equal."

  He was aware, he continued, that the angles at the baseof an isosceles triangle are extremely equal, but he mustremind the Government that the Church had been aware ofthis for several years past. He was willing also to admitthat the opposite sides and ends of a parallelogram areequal, but he thought that such admission should becoupled with a distinct recognition of the existence ofa Supreme Being.

  The Leader of the Government accepted His Grace's amendmentwith pleasure. He considered it the brightest amendmentHis Grace had made that week. The Government, he said,was aware of the intimate relation in which His Gracestood to the bottom end of a parallelogram and was preparedto respect it.

  Lord Halifax rose to offer a further amendment. He thoughtthe present case was one in which the "four-fifths"clause ought to apply: he should wish it stated that theangles are equal for two days every week, except in thecase of schools where four-fifths of the parents areconscientiously opposed to the use of the isoscelestriangle.

  The Leader of the Government thought the amendment asingularly pleasing one. He accepted it and would likeit understood that the words isosceles triangle were notmeant in any offensive sense.

  Lord Rosebery spoke at some length. He considered theclause unfair to Scotland, where the high state of moralityrendered education unnecessary. Unless an amendment inthis sense was accepted, it might be necessary to reconsiderthe Act of Union of 1707.

  The Leader of the Government said that Lord Rosebery'samendment was the best he had heard yet. The Governmentaccepted it at once. They were willing to make everyconcession. They would, if need be, reconsider the NormanConquest.

  The Duke of Devonshire took exception to the part of theclause relating to the production of the sides. He didnot think the country was prepared for it. It was unfairto the producer. He would like the clause altered toread, "if the sides be produced in the home market."

  The Leader of the Government accepted with pleasure HisGrace's amendment. He considered it quite sensible. Hewould now, as it was near the hour of rising, presentthe clause in its revised form. He hoped, however, thattheir Lordships would find time to think out some furtheramendments for the evening sitting.

  The clause was then read.

  His Grace of Canterbury then moved that the House, inall humility, adjourn for dinner.

  The Conjurer's Revenge

  "Now, ladies and gentlemen," said the conjurer, "havingshown you that the cloth is absolutely empty, I willproceed to take from it a bowl of goldfish. Presto!"

  All around the hall people were saying, "Oh, how wonderful!How does he do it?"

  But the Quick Man on the front seat said in a big whisperto the people near him, "He-had-it-up-his-sleeve."

  Then the people nodded brightly at the Quick Man andsaid, "Oh, of course"; and everybody whispered round thehall, "He-had-it-up-his-sleeve."

  "My next trick," said the conjurer, "is the famousHindostanee rings. You will notice that the rings areapparently separate; at a blow they all join (clang,clang, clang)--Presto!"

  There was a general buzz of stupefaction till the QuickMan was heard to whisper, "He-must-have-had-another-lot-up-his-sleeve."

  Again everybody nodded and whispered, "The-rings-were-up-his-sleeve."

  The brow of the conjurer was clouded with a gatheringfrown.

  "I will now," he continued, "show you a most amusingtrick by which I am enabled to take any number of eggsfrom a hat. Will some gentleman kindly lend me his hat?Ah, thank you--Presto!"

  He extracted seventeen eggs, and for thirty-five secondsthe audience began to think that he was wonderful. Thenthe Quick Man whispered along the front bench, "He-has-a-hen-up-his-sleeve," and all the people whispered it on."He-has-a-lot-of-hens-up-his-sleeve."

  The egg trick was ruined.

  It went on like that all through. It transpired from thewhispers of the Quick Man that the conjurer must haveconcealed up his sleeve, in addition to the rings, hens,and fish, several packs of cards, a loaf of bread, adoll's cradle, a live guinea-pig, a fifty-cent piece,and a rocking-chair.

  The reputation of the conjurer was rapidly sinking belowzero. At the close of the evening he rallied for a finaleffort.

  "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "I will present to you,in conclusion, the famous Japanese trick recently inventedby the natives of Tipperary. Will you, sir," he continuedturning toward the Quick Man, "will you kindly hand meyour gold watch?"

  It was passed to him.

  "Have I your permission to put it into this mortar andpound it to pieces?" he asked savagely.

  The Quick Man nodded and smiled.

  The conjurer threw the watch into the mortar and graspeda sledge hammer from the table. There was a sound ofviolent smashing, "He's-slipped-it-up-his-sleeve,"whispered the Quick Man.

  "Now, sir," continued the conjurer, "will you allow meto take your handkerchief and punch holes in it? Thankyou. You see, ladies and gentlemen, there is no deception;the holes are visible to the eye."

  The face of the Quick Man beamed. This time the realmystery of the thing fascinated him.
br />   "And now, sir, will you kindly pass me your silk hat andallow me to dance on it? Thank you."

  The conjurer made a few rapid passes with his feet andexhibited the hat crushed beyond recognition.

  "And will you now, sir, take off your celluloid collarand permit me to burn it in the candle? Thank you, sir.And will you allow me to smash your spectacles for youwith my hammer? Thank you."

  By this time the features of the Quick Man were assuminga puzzled expression. "This thing beats me," he whispered,"I don't see through it a bit."

  There was a great hush upon the audience. Then the conjurerdrew himself up to his full height and, with a witheringlook at the Quick Man, he concluded:

  "Ladies and gentlemen, you will observe that I have, withthis gentleman's permission, broken his watch, burnt hiscollar, smashed his spectacles, and danced on his hat.If he will give me the further permission to paint greenstripes on his overcoat, or to tie his suspenders in aknot, I shall be delighted to entertain you. If not, theperformance is at an end."

  And amid a glorious burst of music from the orchestrathe curtain fell, and the audience dispersed, convincedthat there are some tricks, at any rate, that are notdone up the conjurer's sleeve.

  Hints to Travellers

  The following hints and observations have occurred to meduring a recent trip across the continent: they arewritten in no spirit of complaint against existing railroadmethods, but merely in the hope that they may prove usefulto those who travel, like myself, in a spirit of meek,observant ignorance.