Part 2

The girl, as she spoke, looked very "nice" and English: she was feeding Sunshine from a fork. I began to wonder whether it was actually possible that she did not realise the horrible impropriety of her conversation. As an Englishman, I knew my duty. That duty was to represent to her in suitable terms that her conduct was abandoned and impure. But the religious duty of causing maidens to blush is one which is best performed by the Righteous, who perform it so well and often.... I concealed my horror.

And the maiden prattled on. "Some of them are fearfully grateful. Do you see that old stuffed owl in the dusty case, there? That's a present--to me. It only came yesterday, and it's a token of gratitude from a Jewish lady in the fish trade. This is her sixth, and the first five were all girls. She used to deal with our opposition--Dr. McWhite--but when the fifth female came along they changed over to Fatty, and this stuffed owl is what he calls a tribute to professional ability. And there's Fatty's key in the door. Seize his bacon, will you--it's in the fender."

I was rather annoyed with Dr. Brink for returning just then. I had mapped out a series of leading questions designed to elicit James's age and identity.

But when the little hungry man came in, I felt that these questions were unimportant and could wait. It was interesting enough to help that busy scientist to mustard, and to hear him curse the Liberal Government with his mouth full of bacon, and to watch the quiet motherliness of James.

"Regular multitude in the waiting-room," announced the doctor, as he gulped his coffee. "Got to get back there quick. You'd better pop down with me, youngster, and get a squint at it all."

"You sit on the gas-stove in the kitchen," explained James. "There's a window just above it which gives on to the consulting-room, and it's painted on the kitchen side, and I've scratched a little squint-hole in the paint.... I often go down there when the drunks come in--the _funny_ drunks, I mean. Sometimes they are not funny. And Mr. Boag, the Conative Meliorist, sits there by the hour. He calls it 'supping with misery.'"

"You'll spend the day with us, I suppose?" suggested the little doctor. And, as it was Saturday, and therefore a holiday in my trade, I supposed that I would.

And then they introduced me to the gas-stove.

*IV*

*SIXPENCES*

I sat on the gas-stove, with James beside me, and we applied our eyes in turn to the squint-hole and beheld the Doctor earning sixpences.

_Item:_ A young gentleman with the hiccoughs. Was feeling suicidal. How was his appetite? Shocking, shocking! Digestion in good order? On the contrary, it was shocking bad. What sort of nights? Shocking! Spirits low? Shocking low. Did his head ache? Shockingly. Food taste dull? Absolutely shocking. Young gentleman receives some advice on the subject of alcoholic excess and a bottle of water, fortified by harmless colouring matter. Young gentleman departs.

_Item:_ Tired woman with baby in convulsions. Baby's dietary discussed. Woman indignant. "Why," she declares, "'e 'as the very same as us!" Baby dismissed with a powder.

_Item:_ Slow-spoken man with a jellied thumb. "Door jamb," he explains. "Want a stifficut. Works at the Brewery. Want another stifficut for the Insurance. 'Urry up. 'Ow much? Good-day."

Then an old woman came in--a very old woman, with rosy cheeks and a clean apron, and querulous, childish eyes.

"I want some morphium," she says, "to soothe meself down. Not that I got a right to look for much--at my age."

The doctor became jocular. "What!" he cried. "A fine woman like you? Morphia for you? What? With those cheeks? _What?_"

"I ain't got no happetite," said the old woman. "And there's shooting pains in me 'ead, and I don't sleep proper, and I seems to feel lonesome, and I wants some morphium to soothe meself down with."

"What's your favourite dinner dish?" inquired our inconsequent wag of a doctor.

"I ain't got no favourites," replied the woman. "I'm old, I am; what should I do with favourites at my age? I want some morphium to soothe meself down."

"What _is_ your age--sixty?"

"I shall never see sixty again," said the woman. "Nor I shan't see seventy. Nor eighty. I'm old."

"And you mean to tell me," cried the doctor, with sudden heat, "that you do not care for tripe? Good tripe, mind you--tender tripe, very well boiled, with just a flavouring of onions?"

"And if I did," protested the woman, "who's to cook it for me? There's so many young women to get the favours now I find, and me so old. Can't I have a little morphium, Doctor: the brown mixture, ye know? To soothe meself down with."

"The young ones get the favouring, eh? Do you live with a young woman?"

"I lives with two on 'em--worse luck."

"Daughters?"

"Daughters? Me? No, sir. I'm a maiden, I am.... It's me landlady what I lives with."

"Doesn't she cook for you? I've got some tripe in the kitchen, and I thought--but, of course, if it can't be cooked, why---- What's all this about?"

The rosy-cheeked old maiden was crying, "I'm too old," she sobbed; "it's the young ones gets the favouring."

"Oh," said the doctor, "and so your landlady is unkind?"

"Not unkind, sir," said the woman, gently swallowing the doctor's bait; "she's a good woman, as they go, only I'm growed so old, and a young woman has come into our house, and I'm sorry to say, doctor, as she has 'leniated my landlady away from me. She is a young woman."

"Can't you get some other lodgings?" suggested the doctor. "You oughtn t to be neglected."

"I do not say I ham neglected, Doctor. That would be huntrue. I am not blaming anybody. I honly say I'm old. And this new lodger she's 'leniated my landlady away from me. She's young, you see. Well under seventy, she is."

They're all alike, these minxes," said the doctor, with a wistful smile.

"I got nothing to say agin her, mind you," protested the old woman. "Not agin neether. My landlady, she was very good and kind to me at one time; but now this young one 'ave come, and I ham sorry to say as she 'ave 'leniated my landlady away from me."

"I shouldn't fret about the matter, anyhow," suggested Dr. Brink. "You'll make friends with your landlady soon again; I'm sure you will."

"We was never bad friends," explained the woman. "We're friends to-day, on'y not _sich_ friends, if you understand me. This new lodger, you see, she has 'leniated my landlady away from me. That's what it is. She 'ave leniated her. She's a _young_ woman, you see! ... Will you give me some morphium, Doctor; just to soothe meself down with?"

The maiden got her morphia.

The maiden was succeeded by another woman--a mother. She carried a bundle, partly occupied by a baby. She was a lewd and dirty woman, and engaged my friend in the following dialogue.

FEMALE: I warra soothin' surrup for my baby yere. 'E's fidgety.

DOCTOR: How fidgety?

FEMALE: Well: look at the little blighter. 'E's got the blasted jumps.

DOCTOR: Of course he's got the jumps. He's dying.

FEMALE: Warra mean--dyin'?

DOCTOR: I mean that he will soon be dead.

FEMALE: Whaffor?

DOCTOR: Because he's starving.

FEMALE: Warra mean--starving?

DOCTOR: I mean that he is squirming mad from hunger. Breast fed, of course?

FEMALE: Warra mean, ye bleatin' image?

DOCTOR: Breast fed, of course?

FEMALE: Ye bleatin' image! 'Oo the 'ell you think _you_ are?

DOCTOR: Breast fed, of course?

FEMALE (_weeping wildly_): Me starve my baby? Ow, ow, ow, ow!

DOCTOR: Breast fed, of course?

FEMALE: Ow, ow--why cert'nly 'e's breast fed! 'Ow else d'ye think a pore workin' woman's goin' ter manage? And 'im not five months old. And one of yere own deliveries. Cert'nly e's breast fed.

DOCTOR: That's the trouble, you see. No baby can be nourished on gin and stout. He's starving, I tell you.

FEMALE: And I tell ye it's a dirty lie. I'm for ever feedin' 'im. 'E's for ever worryin'. Sich a happetite this little beggar's got. Warra mean, me starve 'im? Warra mean, yere gin and beer? I suckle the little dear meself.

DOCTOR: And what do you feed yourself on?

FEMALE: That's my business, ain't it?

DOCTOR: It's my business, too. If you want that baby to live, you'd best look sharp and feed him. Get sober. I can't cure the baby. The only person who can cure him is yourself. And to do that you must leave off getting drunk. You must eat some decent food. You're living on alcohol at present. No baby can be nourished on gin and stout.

FEMALE: S'elp me Gawd, Doctor--s'elp me Gawd, young man, if I die this minute--s'elp me Gawd I ain't 'ad only two 'arf-pints since yisterday. I take them a-purpose for the boy's own sake, young man. 'E don't seem to fancy it, some'ow, unless I 'as me drop o' stout. See what I mean, Doctor? I takes what I do for the baby's own sake: 'e _will_ 'ave it, bless 'is little 'eart.

*V*

*THE HYPOCRITES*

During a lull in the sixpenny battle Dr. Brink held parley with me, standing on the seat of his official chair and peering through the top of his consulting-room window. "Are you comfortable on that gas-stove?" inquired the learned doctor.

"The gas-stove," I said, "is very well; but--er--comfort, you know, is not exactly the word. It--it--I say, you know, that woman with the dying baby was rather quaint."

"This," said the doctor, "is a quaint sort of gas-stove. We often roast chaps on it. Do you like beer?"

"Not much," I answered, "but my brother plays the flute."

"Because," pursued my host, ignoring this effort at repartee, "my consultations are nearly over for this morning, and then I am going my round, and that is a short one, and I shall be back here by one o'clock, and after that I propose to brew some beer. Would you like to help me?"

The proposition was not without a certain suddenness, but I was getting used to this household, and did not betray my surprise. Also, I accepted the invitation.

"Righto! Come about yourself? How's your appetite?" said the doctor, in one breath, as he disappeared from the window and readdressed himself to business.

* * * * *

And in the afternoon we duly did this brewing.

"One brews in Baffin's studio," explained the doctor, with a slight yawn, as he led me through the kitchen door into his little yard, all bright with tulips. "Baffin's studio is really our washhouse, you know."

"And who is Baffin?" I demanded.

"One of the Leicestershire Baffins," replied the doctor gravely. "His mother was a Pillbrook. His uncle----"

I begged the doctor to restrain his gift of humour. "Where is Baffin? What is he?" I demanded again.

"Oh," said the doctor, "if you are really commonplace enough to be interested in a man himself when you ask, "who he is," I will expound this Baffin to you. He has red hair and freckles, and he is one of the Leicestershire Baffins, and he hates the Leicestershire Baffins, and he is a youth of great talents, who is supposed to live here, but at present he is reforming the Royal Academy, and reviving poster art in England. And he never puts anything where he will find it again, or shuts a drawer or folds his clothes. He is a genius. And---- Look out, I say, that's Baffin's bag."

It _was_ Baffin's bag, and it assisted your servant in the performance of a complicated somersault. Baffin had left it on his doorstep.

Baffin's doorstep led into quite the wildest washhouse which I have ever viewed. Baffin's bed, consisting of three brown blankets strewn oddly upon a damaged ottoman, occupied most of the foreground, and behind this object lay, in some confusion, waistcoats, and easels, and broken chairs, and bas-reliefs, and unclean collars, and portfolios, and fencing sticks, and a rusty helm and vizor out of Wardour Street. And the walls were covered with crayon drawings and printed posters, all of them attached to the plaster by means of one corner and a pin, and all of them being curled at the edges and tanned with exposure. It was noticeable, also, that a bust of the Blessed Virgin, after Cinquevalli, was situated within the font or cavity of the copper. We removed this object in order to make room for the beer.

I observed also that Mr. Baffin's studio was beautified by one mural design of a permanent nature. This consisted of a sum in compound arithmetic, performed by means of charcoal. I studied this inscription with interest. There was

L3 5 20 ----- L65 0

A fairly obvious, if unconventional, piece of mathematical deduction. We were then faced with a new problem, somewhat more mysterious in its workings. Thus:--

65 98 -- 13)163(12 Carry 3 13 -- 33 26 -- 7 12 ---- 12/7 ---- Total L1 12s. 7d.

I must own to being strangely touched by this pathetic effort on the part of Baffin to solve the mysteries of an alien art. I also reflected that the result of his calculations, though wayward and inscrutable in itself, was probably touched with a profound and poignant importance to Baffin. It represented cigarettes and dinners--L1 12s. 7d. worth, more or less. A fellow-feeling made me fear it must be less. There was a hurried, insignificant, shamefaced look about the figures wherewith Baffin had recorded his results. They indubitably pointed to a debit balance.

Presently Mr. Baffin himself strolled in, and we were presented to each other, and he helped us boil the beer. He helped us in intention rather than effect, for Mr. Baffin possessed a thoughtful, halting, introspective mind, and, as Dr. Brink had observed, he did not put things where they could be found again. Also, he was rather wrapped up in me. "I say, you know," he had observed, "I wish you would sit for me. You would make a splendid model for my oyster seller. I am doing the New Cut by night, you know."

"Are you in love?" demanded Mr. Baffin, a little later. I said, "Of course." "Will you bring her round, then?" continued Mr. Baffin. "And to what end?" I said. "I am collecting lovers," explained this talented and candid youth. "I want that rapt look. Paid models are no use at all, you know. Amateurs aren't much better, of course, because they all have prejudices against yearning in public. But I am hoping to find the exception in time, and you have a natural sort of expression--rather--and so I thought--I give you tea, you know, and drinks when there are any. All you have to do is to sit on the throne and embrace. I hope she's dark. Next Tuesday would be a good day."

I promised Mr. Baffin that I would submit his proposition to all the ladies with whom I happened to be in love.

And then the liquid in the copper arrived at a perfect temperature and we became all silent in the pursuit of brewing. And James came in to help us, observing that the attractions of brewing transcended those of her aunt at Ealing, and that she had postponed her visit to that respectable lady. And some of the doctor's friends looked in, including Mr. Pudsey, the lyric poet, and Boag (conative meliorist), who invited me to dine with him, and Jenny Brown, the painter, and Miss Blick, of the Women's Social and Political Union, and Mr. Webb, the local curate, who explained to me, with an air of bold originality, that Christianity and Socialism had points in common. And we partook of tea from Breton mugs, and were secretly amused at each other. And in the midst of it all a gas engine arrived at the surgery door, and said "Honk! Honk!" And the doctor rushed out and came back looking sad.

"It is Lady Budge, the new member's wife," he said with dolour; "and she has come in her motor to discuss the poor. James, old girl, I am awfully sorry, but you have got to be respectable. Her ladyship is waiting upstairs now."

A period of wild excitement followed, while we all helped James to comb her hair and climb into the speckled pinafore of a blameless life. "I will do my best," said James; "but I am sure I shall forget and call you 'Fatty.' Is it father or papa to-day?"

"Her ladyship," responded the doctor, "is, I think, the kind of ladyship who would prefer papa. Let her do all the good she wants to. Mention that we've got a curate here. Webb and I will come up in a little while and collect the cheque. Don't harrow her. She's the kind of ladyship who likes to do business with _respectable_ poverty."

When, a little later, we went upstairs, James was sedately sipping more tea from a cup. And her ladyship was talking, and James was viewing her with eyes of innocence and wonder. "I quite agree with you," said James, "that alpaca is the most sensible thing for people of that class."

Baffin was dragged in, and the doctor loudly proclaimed him as being of the Leicestershire Baffins, and her ladyship suddenly looked interested and human.

"You are an artist?" she said. "How very charming!"

Baffin, who had done very well up to then, became suddenly ponderful again. "I say," he blurted forth, at last, "couldn't I persuade you to sit for me some time? You are the very thing I have been looking out for. For my angel's back, you know."

*VI*

*CONATUS*

I accepted Mr. Boag's invitation and dined with him--at the National Liberal Club. They wine you at this place in a manner which is singularly perfect. I cannot, at this distance of time, state exactly what topics formed the subject of Mr. Boag's improving conversation; but I can say that, regarded from the standpoint of Meliorism, his dinner was an emphatic success. And when it was quite over I found myself upon the Thames Embankment smiling cheerfully, as was becoming to the happy circumstance of my conversion to Mr. Boag's cheerful doctrines.

And thus it was that I came to take part, unofficially, at another dinner party; a repast _a deux_, with epigrams, and incident, all in the most approved style of romance. The _tete-a-tete_ is consecrated to literature by a thousand charming precedents. I shall certainly offer no apology for submitting this one to your indulgent consideration.

They were dining off alabaster--or was it granite?--at the foot of Cleopatra's Needle; and I remarked particularly the singular blueness of Strephon's fingers. The glorious revelation, recently vouchsafed to me, of Conative truths, had so warmed my heart, had set up such a tingling within my veins (which were themselves protected from chill by several layers of wool and cambric) that the few degrees of frost prevailing at the moment had not yet become evident to my senses. Strephon, of course, was in another case, being appropriately clad in garments partaking of the nature of gossamer. And he, besides, had not been privileged to receive the truths of Meliorism. Wherefore, he must blow upon his nail, and pinch his scrubby cheek, and utter blasphemies, crying, "Christ, mate, but this wind ain't 'arf a nipper."

And she (the Chloee of this story: the one whom he addressed as "mate") made answer thus: "Then do as I tell you, an' drink that up!"

"But 'ere, 'old 'ard!" cried Strephon, as she poked a little bottle at his lips--"that's your share, ain't it?"

"Not be rights," said the woman, blushing a little--or seeming to blush; for she was a battered, sodden thing, and her cheek had lost its quickness. "It ain't my share, be rights. I--I 'ad a sip at yourn. Besides, I've lorst me liking fur that Irish stuff. Give me Scotch!"

"This _is_ Scotch, ain't it?" said the man.

"It is, bad luck to it," replied the woman quickly. "I've lost me likin' fur it, I tell you. Give me Irish!"

"Oh!" said the man, and he swallowed her share.

He pocketed the empty bottle with a little shiver of contentment. The woman shivered also, and plucked at an imaginary shawl. "Now then, boy," she cried, with sudden cheerfulness; "wake up, you ain't 'arf a eater. Why don't ye punch into that other 'am bone."

"So I shall," responded Boy, with a full mouth, "when I done this."

"Righto, dearie," said the woman quietly, with a sideways look at the ham bone and another little shiver. Then she drew closer to her companion and looked at him silently, with pity in her awful eyes. "It's a funny thing about you," she said at last; "you to be on the rocks at your age--a boy like you!"

"I'm rather independent in me nature," explained the "Boy." "I've stood fur me rights and suffered by it. 'Ad some good jobs in me time. 'Ad some money too. I was a bit lucky over cards. Retired for a year an' done it in. Ain't 'ad no luck since."

"Funny, ain't it," said the woman, still with that strange softness in her shameful eyes. "Funny, ain't it," she repeated: "a boy like you."

"Not so much o' yere 'Boy,'" protested Strephon; "I'm twenty-four."

"Ha!" cried the woman, crouching closer, "what price yere 'umble then? _I'm_ turned forty-four."

Strephon looked lazily at her, munching his ham bone steadily. She made a queer figure, strange to see beside that world-old monument, with her swollen, bloodless face, and button nose, and greedy eyes, and ravelled, rusty hair, the colour of an old dog-fox's pelt. And that which was upon her head, a time-worn sailor-hat, set at a ridiculous angle, increased the queerness of her. "What price yere 'umble?" she cried again, with a shrill little creak of laughter; "turned forty-four, I am."

"Yus," said Strephon simply, "and you look it!"

He continued to munch at his ham bone, and she continued to leer at him, showing neither anger nor surprise. But the flat smile on her face grew gradually flatter, and again she shivered, plucking at the shawl which was not there.

Suddenly the man looked up from his ham bone and spoke to her. "'Ow much did 'e give you for it?" said he.

The woman uttered a sequence of scalding oaths.

"The stingy swine," cried she, "'e give me a tanner; that's what 'e give me--a lousy tanner. See if I don't jolly well pop back there and 'ave a shawl's worf out of 'is stinkin' till--the stingy Jew."

"What!" said the man, evincing a sort of interest. "Are you in that line, then? Tills and ceterer?"

"I'm in any blessed line, I am," said the woman, "s' long as there's the price of a fag in it. Never 'eard o' Nottingham Kate, I suppose? That's me. I was well known in me time. 'Twas I what done that drugging affair at Weedon, when we put them orficers through it. They made a lot of that job at the time. I done five year for that."

"Well," commented Strephon, still gnawing patiently at his bone, "it ain't much to yere credit. I'm on the straight ticket meself. Per'aps if I'd knowed the sort of character you--but there: you ain't so bad as some on 'em. Harlot, or thief, or what not, you've treated me quite fair.... Gurrr! ... Christ, but it's cold!"

"Chronic!" said the woman, pressing her senseless fingers to her neck, in the way which women have.

"That 'am," reflected Strephon, "just sooted me all right. Wish I 'ad a fag now."

Without a word, the woman struggled to her feet, and descended the steps of the pedestal, half walking, half crawling, like a child. She peered into the darkness, and must have beheld a figure there; for she at once came forward, with stiff, uncertain steps, and having spoken to him, returned to her pedestal the possessor of all his cigarettes.

"Strike me now," cried Strephon, beholding her treasure with incredulous eyes; "you _are_ a deep one. You don't 'arf know the ropes. Take one yerself, won't ye?"

Chloee took a cigarette and lighted it; but Strephon, after fumbling hopelessly with a matchbox, threw the thing away from him in petulant despair. "See here," cried he. "Look at them things, there! Them's my 'ands; was once. Look at 'em. Gawd 'elp me, look at 'em. I can't bend 'em; I can't move 'em; Gawd 'elp me, I can't ser much as lift 'em. I----"