Part 7

“Poor woman!” said the Student. “I perceive that she is one of those unhappy people whom grinding poverty compels to produce ephemeral literature which is afterwards printed and sold at one real for the divertisement of the populace of Madrid. I know of no trade more pitiful, and I can assure you the sight of her industry moves me to the bottom of my heart.”

“The sight is indeed pitiful,” said the Devil, “to those at least who permit themselves the luxury of pity--a habit which I confess I have long ago abandoned. For you must know that in the company of Belphegor, Ashtaroth, and the rest even the softest-hearted of devils will grow callous. But more interesting to you perhaps than the sad necessities of her trade is the matter which she is at present engaged upon.”

“What is that?” said the Student.

“Why,” said Asmodeus, “she is writing ‘Nellie’s Notes’ for a paper called _The Spanish Noblewoman_, and she is at this very moment setting down her opinion that there is no better way to pass a rainy afternoon than taking out and cleaning one’s Indian Bracelets, Ropes of Pearls, Diamonds, and other gems. She is good enough to add that she herself thinks it wise and a good discipline to clean her own jewellery and not leave it to a maid.”

“In the room below you will see a young man whom I very much regret to say is in a state of complete intoxication.”

“I do not know,” said the Student, “why you should regret such a sight, for I had imagined that all human frailty was a matter of pleasure to your highnesses.”

“Yes,” replied Asmodeus, “in the general it is so, but you must know that this particular vice is so inimical to the province which I control that I regard it with peculiar detestation, and I am not upon so much as speaking terms with Shamarel, who has been deputed by the Council to look after those who exceed in wine.”

“Is not that the same,” asked the Student, “whom they say twice appeared to a hermit at Carinena?”

“You are right,” said Asmodeus, betraying a slight annoyance, “but pray do not put it about that a personage of such importance was at the pains of appearing to a common hermit. The fact is, he was at that moment visiting the Campo Romano to assure himself that the vines were in good condition, and it was by the merest accident that the hermit caught sight of him during this journey, for you must know that he makes it a punctilio never to appear in person to one under the rank of Archbishop, and even then he prefers that the recipient of the favour should be a Cardinal into the bargain, and if possible a Grandee of Spain.”

“You have told me so much about your amiable colleague,” said the Student, “that you have forgotten to tell me whether any moral divertisement attached to the poor young fellow whom we see in that offensive stupor.”

“No,” said the Devil, “now I come to think of it, there is perhaps nothing remarkable in his condition, unless you think it worthy of notice that he is a medical student and will shortly be entrusted with the nerves and veins of the poor in the public hospitals of Madrid. It is to be hoped that he will soon put behind him these youthful follies, for if he persists in them they will make his hand tremble, and in that case he will never be permitted to practise the art of surgery upon the persons of the wealthy and more remunerative classes.”

“Outside the house,” said the Student, “I see a policeman walking with some solemnity, and I confess that the sight is pleasing to me, for it gives me a feeling that the good people of Madrid are well looked after when so expensive an instrument of the law is spared for so poor a quarter.”

“You are right,” said Asmodeus, “and were I now to show you the inner heart of the Duke of Medina y Barò who controls the police forces of Madrid, you would find that his chief anxiety in the distribution of his men came from the dilemma in which he perpetually finds himself, whether to furnish them rather in large numbers to the wealthier quarters for the defence of which policemen exist, or for the poorer quarters, the terrorising of which is necessarily their function.”

“At any rate,” said the Student, “he need not bother himself about the houses of that large number of people (and I am one) from whom there is nothing to steal and who yet have never learnt any of the arts of theft. In a word, he is spared the trouble either of protecting or of keeping down what are called the middle classes.”

“True,” said Asmodeus, “but most unfortunately this kind of person does not herd together in special districts. If they did so it would be a great relief to the strain upon the Police Department; but they are scattered more or less evenly throughout the wealthier and the poorer quarters.”

“Can you tell me,” asked the Student, “whether it is worth our while to watch the policeman for a few moments in the exercise of his duties and whether he would provide us with any entertainment as we watched him unseen?”

“Alas!” answered the Devil sadly, “I have no power to forecast the future; but from my knowledge of the past I can tell you that during the ten years since he has joined the force this officer has not once arrested a rich man in error on a dark night, nor perjured himself before a Magistrate so openly as to be detected, nor done any of those things which legitimately amuse us in people of his kind.”

“But do you not think,” said the Student, “that we might by remaining here see him help an old woman across the road amid the plaudits of the governing classes, or take a little child that is lost by the hand and lead it to its mother’s home?”

“Doubtless,” said the Devil, yawning, “we should find him up to tricks of that sort were we willing to wait here, floating in the air, for another ten or dozen hours, when the streets will be full of people. But the play-acting to which you so feelingly allude is but rarely indulged in by these gallant men when onlookers are wanting. Come, the sky is already pale in the direction of the eastern mountains; it will soon be day, and I desire before you are completely tired out to show you one more sight.”

With these words Asmodeus took the Student by the hand and darted with inconceivable rapidity over the roofs of the city until he came to a particular spot which he had evidently marked in his flight.

“Cast your eyes,” he said, “upon this narrow but busy thoroughfare beneath us. It is the only street in Madrid which at so late an hour is still full of people and of business. It is called Fleet Street.”

“I have heard of it,” said the Student.

“No doubt,” said the Devil; “but what I particularly desire to point out to you is a man whom you will see in his shirt-sleeves, seated upon a swivel-chair and writing away for dear life, matter which will appear to-morrow in the _Morning Post_.”

“Well,” said the Student, “what of that?”

“Can you guess what he is writing?” asked Asmodeus.

“That I am quite unable to do,” said the Student.

“It is,” said the Devil, “a series of satirical remarks upon the frailties and follies of others--and yet he is a journalist!”

The Death of the Comic Author

A Comic Author of deserved repute was lodging at the beginning of this month in a house with broken windows, in a court off the Gray’s Inn Road.

He had undertaken to produce a piece of Humorous Fiction to the length of 75,000 words.

The Comic Author, a man of experience (for this was his forty-seventh book), had sat down to begin his task. He calculated how long it would last him. He was good for 1500 words a day, if they were short words, and even when doom or accident compelled him to the use of long ones he could manage from 1163 to 1247.

The specification was lucid and simple. There was to be nothing in the work that could offend the tenderness of the patriot nor the ease of good manners, let alone the canons of decency and right living. A powerful love interest which he was compelled under Clause VII of his contract to introduce immediately after each of the wittiest passages had been deftly woven into the fabric, and (as was clearly laid down in Clause IX) no matter already published might appear in those virgin pages. If any did so, be sure it was so veiled by the tranposition of phrases and other slight changes of manner as to escape the publisher’s eye.

So far so good. But upon the 13th of August, a day of great beauty, but of excessive heat, the Comic Author, sitting at his desk, was struck by Apollo, the God and patron of literary men.

It was the custom of the Comic Author, who was a teetotaler and a vegetarian, to wear a soft shirt entirely made of wool and devoid of a collar, which ornament, he was assured by Members of the Faculty, exercised a prejudicial effect upon the health. It was equally his custom to compose his famous periods with his back turned to the light. This habit he had also adopted at the dictation of the Faculty, who had proved to him beyond possibility of refutation that the human eye is damaged by nothing more than by reading or writing with one’s face towards the window. With his back, therefore, to the window in his room (it was unbroken), it was the Comic Artist’s wont to sit at a plain and dirty small deal table and express his mind upon paper, his head reposing upon his left hand, his fountain pen grasped firmly in his right, and his lips and tongue following the movement of his nib as it slowly crawled over the page before him.

The Comic Author (again under the impulse of the Faculty) kept his hair cut short at the back; to cut it short all over was more than his profession would allow. You have, then, the Comic Author sitting at his desk with his back to the unbroken window, his neck exposed from the shortness of hair and the absence of collar, under the brilliant light of the 13th of August.

A fourth condition must now be considered: by some physical action never properly explained, glass, though it may act as a screen to radiant heat, will also store and intensify the action of sunlight. So that anything placed immediately beneath it upon a bright day will (it is notorious) suffer or enjoy an effect of heat far greater than that discoverable upon its outer side. The common greenhouse is a proof of this. The Comic Author was therefore in a situation to receive the full power of Apollo. It took the form of a sunstroke, and with his story uncompleted, nay, in the midst of an unfinished phrase, he fell helpless.

His Landlady, summoning a neighbour to her aid (for the charwoman never stayed after ten o’clock, and it was already noon), dragged him to his room and sent for the parish doctor, who, after a brief examination of the patient, declared him to be in some danger; but the poor fellow was not so far gone as to forget his obligations, and he murmured a few words which, after some difficulty, they understood to be the address of the publisher whom he would not for worlds have disappointed. Imagining this address to be in some way connected with a pecuniary advantage to herself, the Landlady sent to it immediate word of his accident, and within half an hour a motor-car of surpassing brilliance and immense power was purring at the door. From this vehicle descended in a gentlemanly but commanding manner One who seemed far too great for the humble lodging which he entered. And the Doctor, leaving his patient for a moment, was pleased to receive the visitor in a lower room, while the Landlady, who was also interested in the event, listened with due courtesy in the passage without.

The Publisher (for it was he) learned with increasing concern the desperate position of the Comic Author, and while he was naturally chiefly concerned with the financial loss the little accident might involve, it should be remembered to his credit that he made inquiries as to the state of the patient and even asked whether he suffered physical pain. Upon hearing that the Comic Author, though fuddled by cerebral congestion, did undoubtedly suffer the Visitor’s brow perceptibly darkened; he pointed out to the Doctor that if this accident had but happened ten days later it would have had consequences much less serious to himself.

The Doctor was eager to point out that the fault was none of his. He had come the moment he had heard of the case, and, moreover, sunstroke was a disease which betrayed itself by no premonitory symptoms. He assured the Publisher that if the Comic Author’s survival could in any way be of service to the firm he would do everything in his power to save his life.

The Publisher replied, a little testily, that the value of the Comic Author’s survival would entirely depend upon the talent remaining to him after his recovery, and pointed out what the Doctor had overlooked, that a sensational death, if it received due recognition from the Press, often caused the works of the deceased to sell for a week or more with exceptional rapidity.

He next asked whether the Comic Author had not left manuscripts, and the Landlady was pleased to bring him not only all that lay upon the deal table, but much more beside, and all his private correspondence as well, which she found where she had often perused it, in various receptacles of her lodger’s room.

The Publisher upon receiving these seemed to feel his position less acutely, and sending the sheets out at once to his secretary in the car (with instructions that those stories or sketches hitherto unpublished should be carefully noted) he resumed his conversation with the medical man. He was first careful to ask how long cases of this sort when they proved fatal commonly endured, and expressed some relief at hearing that certain benignant exceptions had lingered for several days. He was further assured that lucid intervals might be counted on, and in general he discovered that the lines upon which the story had been intended to proceed might be recovered from the lips of the dying man before he should exchange the warm and active existence of this world for the Unknown Beyond.

He re-entered his motor-car, therefore, with a much lighter heart, promising to send an Expert Stenographer who should take down the last and necessary instructions from the lips of Genius. The motor-car then left that court off the Gray’s Inn Road where the tragedy was in progress, and swept westward to the larger atmosphere of St. James’s.

At this point again, when the activity and decision of one master brain seemed to have saved all, Fate intervened. The Expert Stenographer, having lacked regular employment for nearly eighteen weeks, was so overjoyed at learning the news and the price attached to his immediate services, that he could not resist cheerful refreshment and conversation with friends in celebration of the occasion. He reached the Gray’s Inn Road, therefore, somewhat late in the day; he was further delayed by a difficulty in discovering the house with broken windows which had been indicated to him, and when he entered it was to receive the unwelcome news that the Comic Author was dead.

The Doctor, whose duties had already for some hours called him to other scenes where it was his blessed mission to alleviate human suffering, was not present to confirm the sad event, and the Expert Stenographer, who could not believe that he had been baulked of so unexpected a piece of fortune, insisted upon proof which the Landlady was unable to afford. He even sat for some few moments by the side of the Poor Lifeless Clay in the vain hope that some further indication as to the general trend of the book might fall from the now nescient lips. But they were dumb.

How many consequent misfortunes depended upon this untoward accident the reader may easily guess. The Landlady, to whom the Comic Author had owed thirty shillings for a month’s rent and service, was in a very natural anxiety for some days, an anxiety which was increased by the discovery that her former lodger had no friends, while his few relatives seemed each to have, in their own small way, claims against him of a pecuniary nature.

His dress clothes, upon which she had confidently counted, turned out to belong to a costumier of the neighbourhood, who loudly complained that he had had no notice of this intempestive demise, and was at least a sovereign out of pocket by so awkward a conjunction; nor was he appreciably relieved when it was pointed out to him that the suit would at least carry no contagious disease.

The Stenographer, as I have already indicated, lost the remuneration dependent upon his Expert Services, and was further at the charge of the refreshment which he had foolishly consumed in anticipation of that gain.

The Doctor, indeed, was not disappointed, for he had expected nothing, but by far the worst case was that of the generous and wealthy man who had been at all the risk of advertising, partly printing, and already ordering the binding of the work which he now found himself at a loss to produce.

There is no moral to this simple story: it is one of the many tragedies which daily occur in this great city, and from what I know of the Comic Author’s character, he would have been the last to have inflicted so much discomfort had it in any way depended upon his own volition; but these things are beyond human ordinance.

On certain Manners and Customs

I was greatly interested in the method of government which I discovered to obtain in the Empire of Monomotapa during my last visit there. I say “during my last visit” because although, as everyone knows, I have repeatedly travelled in the more distant provinces of that State, I had never spent any time to speak of in the capital until I delayed there last month for the purpose of visiting a friend of mine who is one of the State Assessors. He was good enough to explain to me many details of their Constitution which I had not yet grasped, and I conceive it--now that I have a full comprehension of it--to be as wise a method of governing as it is a successful one.

I must first put before the reader the elements of the matter. Every citizen in Monomotapa takes a certain fixed rank in the State; for the inhabitants of that genial clime have at once too much common sense and too strict a training to talk nonsense about equality or any other similar metaphysical whimsey. Every man, therefore, can precisely tell where he stands in relation to his fellows, and all those heart-burnings and jealousies which are the bane of other States are by this simple method at once exorcised. Moreover, the method by which a man’s exact place is determined is simplicity itself, for it reposes upon his yearly revenue; and there is a gradually ascending scale from the poorest, whose revenue may not amount from all sources to more than 40 Tepas a month, to the Supreme Council, the wealthier members of which may have as much as 10,000,000 Tepas a month, or even more. There is but one drawback to this admirably practical and straightforward way of ordering the State, which is that by a very ancient article of their religion the Monomotapians are each forbidden to disclose to others what the state of their fortunes may be. It is the height of impertinence in any man, even a brother, to put questions upon the matter; all documents illuminating it are kept strictly secret, and though religious vows and binding oaths are very much disliked among this people, yet one is rigidly observed, which is that forbidding the divulgence by a bank of the sums of money entrusted to it by its clients. Certain rash spirits have indeed proposed to destroy the anomaly and either to make some other standard arrange the order of society (which is unthinkable) or else to allow questions of money to be freely debated, and the incomes of all to be matter of public comment.

Now, like many excellent and rational attempts at religious or social reform, these propositions must wholly fail in practice. As for setting up some other standard than that of wealth by which to decide the importance of one’s fellow citizens, the Monomotapians very properly regard such a proposal as fantastic to the point of buffoonery. Nor, to do them justice, do those who propose the scheme seriously intend this part of it. They rather put it forward to emphasise the second half of their programme, which has much more to be said for it. But here a difficulty arises of a sort that often upsets the calculations of idealists, namely, that however much you change the laws you can with more difficulty change the customs of the people, and though you might compel all banking accounts to be audited, or even insist upon every man making a public return of his income, yet it is certain that the general opinion upon this matter would result, in practice, in much the same state of affairs as they now have. Men would devise some other system than that of banks; their returns would be false, and there would be a sort of general unconscious conspiracy among all to support fraud in this matter.

My host next explained to me the manner in which laws are made among the Monomotapians and the manner in which they are administered. It seems that by a fundamental rule of their Constitution no law may be passed in less than twenty-five years, unless it can be proved to have its origin in terror.