Delphi Complete Works of Jerome K. Jerome (Illustrated) (Series Four) (245 page)

Public indignation was at its highest when a new comer to the neighbourhood, a young fellow named Haynoth, suggested the getting together of a party for a summer’s tour in Turkey. Everybody took up the idea with enthusiasm, and recommended Begglely as the “party.” We had great hopes from that tour. Our idea was that Begglely would pull his button outside a harem or behind a sultana, and that a Bashi Bazouk or a Janissary would do the rest for us.

We were, however, partly doomed to disappointment — I say, “partly,” because, although Begglely returned alive, he came back entirely cured of his photographic craze. He said that every English-speaking man, woman, or child whom he met abroad had its camera with it, and that after a time the sight of a black cloth or the click of a button began to madden him.

He told us that on the summit of Mount Tutra, in the Carpathians, the English and American amateur photographers waiting to take “the grand panorama” were formed by the Hungarian police in queue, two abreast, each with his or her camera under his or her arm, and that a man had to stand sometimes as long as three and a half hours before his turn came round. He also told us that the beggars in Constantinople went about with placards hung round their necks, stating their charges for being photographed. One of these price lists he brought back with him as a sample.

It ran: —

One snap shot, back or front ..   ...   ... 2 frcs.
      ,,      with expression    ...   ... 3 ,,
      ,,      surprised in quaint attitude . 4 ,,
      ,,      while saying prayers ...  ... 5 ,,
      ,,      while fighting      ...  ... 10 ,,

He said that in some instances where a man had an exceptionally villainous cast of countenance, or was exceptionally deformed, as much as twenty francs were demanded and readily obtained.

He abandoned photography and took to golf. He showed people how, by digging a hole here and putting a brickbat or two there, they could convert a tennis-lawn into a miniature golf link, — and did it for them. He persuaded elderly ladies and gentlemen that it was the mildest exercise going, and would drag them for miles over wet gorse and heather, and bring them home dead beat, coughing, and full of evil thoughts.

The last time I saw him was in Switzerland, a few months ago. He appeared indifferent to the subject of golf, but talked much about whist. We met by chance at Grindelwald, and agreed to climb the Faulhorn together next morning. Half-way up we rested, and I strolled on a little way by myself to gain a view. Returning, I found him with a “Cavendish” in his hand and a pack of cards spread out before him on the grass, solving a problem.

THE MAN WHO DID NOT BELIEVE IN LUCK

He got in at Ipswich with seven different weekly papers under his arm. I noticed that each one insured its reader against death or injury by railway accident. He arranged his luggage upon the rack above him, took off his hat and laid it on the seat beside him, mopped his bald head with a red silk handkerchief, and then set to work steadily to write his name and address upon each of the seven papers. I sat opposite to him and read
Punch
. I always take the old humour when travelling; I find it soothing to the nerves.

Passing over the points at Manningtree the train gave a lurch, and a horse-shoe he had carefully placed in the rack above him slipped through the netting, falling with a musical ring upon his head.

He appeared neither surprised nor angry. Having staunched the wound with his handkerchief, he stooped and picked the horse-shoe up, glanced at it with, as I thought, an expression of reproach, and dropped it gently out of the window.

“Did it hurt you?” I asked.

It was a foolish question. I told myself so the moment I had uttered it. The thing must have weighed three pounds at the least; it was an exceptionally large and heavy shoe. The bump on his head was swelling visibly before my eyes. Anyone but an idiot must have seen that he was hurt. I expected an irritable reply. I should have given one myself had I been in his place. Instead, however, he seemed to regard the inquiry as a natural and kindly expression of sympathy.

“It did, a little,” he replied.

“What were you doing with it?” I asked. It was an odd sort of thing for a man to be travelling with.

“It was lying in the roadway just outside the station,” he explained; “I picked it up for luck.”

He refolded his handkerchief so as to bring a cooler surface in contact with the swelling, while I murmured something genial about the inscrutability of Providence.

“Yes,” he said, “I’ve had a deal of luck in my time, but it’s never turned out well.”

“I was born on a Wednesday,” he continued, “which, as I daresay you know, is the luckiest day a man can be born on. My mother was a widow, and none of my relatives would do anything for me. They said it would be like taking coals to Newcastle, helping a boy born on a Wednesday; and my uncle, when he died, left every penny of his money to my brother Sam, as a slight compensation to him for having been born on a Friday. All I ever got was advice upon the duties and responsibilities of wealth, when it arrived, and entreaties that I would not neglect those with claims upon me when I came to be a rich man.”

He paused while folding up his various insurance papers and placing them in the inside breast-pocket of his coat.

“Then there are black cats,” he went on; “they’re said to be lucky. Why, there never was a blacker cat than the one that followed me into my rooms in Bolsover Street the very first night I took them.”

“Didn’t it bring you luck?” I enquired, finding that he had stopped.

A far-away look came into his eyes.

“Well, of course it all depends,” he answered dreamily. “Maybe we’d never have suited one another; you can always look at it that way. Still, I’d like to have tried.”

He sat staring out of the window, and for a while I did not care to intrude upon his evidently painful memories.

“What happened then?” I asked, however, at last.

He roused himself from his reverie.

“Oh,” he said. “Nothing extraordinary. She had to leave London for a time, and gave me her pet canary to take charge of while she was away.”

“But it wasn’t your fault,” I urged.

“No, perhaps not,” he agreed; “but it created a coldness which others were not slow to take advantage of.”

“I offered her the cat, too,” he added, but more to himself than to me.

We sat and smoked in silence. I felt that the consolations of a stranger would sound weak.

“Piebald horses are lucky, too,” he observed, knocking the ashes from his pipe against the window sash. “I had one of them once.”

“What did it do to you?” I enquired.

“Lost me the best crib I ever had in my life,” was the simple rejoinder. “The governor stood it a good deal longer than I had any right to expect; but you can’t keep a man who is
always
drunk. It gives a firm a bad name.”

“It would,” I agreed.

“You see,” he went on, “I never had the head for it. To some men it would not have so much mattered, but the very first glass was enough to upset me. I’d never been used to it.”

“But why did you take it?” I persisted. “The horse didn’t make you drink, did he?”

“Well, it was this way,” he explained, continuing to rub gently the lump which was now about the size of an egg. “The animal had belonged to a gentleman who travelled in the wine and spirit line, and who had been accustomed to visit in the way of business almost every public-house he came to. The result was you couldn’t get that little horse past a public-house — at least I couldn’t. He sighted them a quarter of a mile off, and made straight for the door. I struggled with him at first, but it was five to ten minutes’ work getting him away, and folks used to gather round and bet on us. I think, maybe, I’d have stuck to it, however, if it hadn’t been for a temperance chap who stopped one day and lectured the crowd about it from the opposite side of the street. He called me Pilgrim, and said the little horse was ‘Pollion,’ or some such name, and kept on shouting out that I was to fight him for a heavenly crown. After that they called us “Polly and the Pilgrim, fighting for the crown.” It riled me, that did, and at the very next house at which he pulled up I got down and said I’d come for two of Scotch. That was the beginning. It took me years to break myself of the habit.

“But there,” he continued, “it has always been the same. I hadn’t been a fortnight in my first situation before my employer gave me a goose weighing eighteen pounds as a Christmas present.”

“Well, that couldn’t have done you any harm,” I remarked. “That was lucky enough.”

“So the other clerks said at the time,” he replied. “The old gentleman had never been known to give anything away before in his life. ‘He’s taken a fancy to you,’ they said; ‘you are a lucky beggar!’”

He sighed heavily. I felt there was a story attached.

“What did you do with it?” I asked.

“That was the trouble,” he returned. “I didn’t know what to do with it. It was ten o’clock on Christmas Eve, just as I was leaving, that he gave it to me. ‘Tiddling Brothers have sent me a goose, Biggles,’ he said to me as I helped him on with his great-coat. ‘Very kind of ‘em, but I don’t want it myself; you can have it!’

“Of course I thanked him, and was very grateful. He wished me a merry Christmas and went out. I tied the thing up in brown paper, and took it under my arm. It was a fine bird, but heavy.

“Under all the circumstances, and it being Christmas time, I thought I would treat myself to a glass of beer. I went into a quiet little house at the corner of the Lane and laid the goose on the counter.

“‘That’s a big ‘un,’ said the landlord; ‘you’ll get a good cut off him to-morrow.’

“His words set me thinking, and for the first time it struck me that I didn’t want the bird — that it was of no use to me at all. I was going down to spend the holidays with my young lady’s people in Kent.”

“Was this the canary young lady?” I interrupted.

“No,” he replied. “This was before that one. It was this goose I’m telling you of that upset this one. Well, her folks were big farmers; it would have been absurd taking a goose down to them, and I knew no one in London to give it to, so when the landlord came round again I asked him if he would care to buy it. I told him he could have it cheap,

“‘I don’t want it myself,’ he answered. ‘I’ve got three in the house already. Perhaps one of these gentlemen would like to make an offer.’

“He turned to a couple of chaps who were sitting drinking gin. They didn’t look to me worth the price of a chicken between them. The seediest said he’d like to look at it, however, and I undid the parcel. He mauled the thing pretty considerably, and cross-examined me as to how I come by it, ending by upsetting half a tumbler of gin and water over it. Then he offered me half a crown for it. It made me so angry that I took the brown paper and the string in one hand and the goose in the other, and walked straight out without saying a word.

“I carried it in this way for some distance, because I was excited and didn’t care how I carried it; but as I cooled, I began to reflect how ridiculous I must look. One or two small boys evidently noticed the same thing. I stopped under a lamp-post and tried to tie it up again. I had a bag and an umbrella with me at the same time, and the first thing I did was to drop the goose into the gutter, which is just what I might have expected to do, attempting to handle four separate articles and three yards of string with one pair of hands. I picked up about a quart of mud with that goose, and got the greater part of it over my hands and clothes and a fair quantity over the brown paper; and then it began to rain.

“I bundled everything up into my arm and made for the nearest pub, where I thought I would ask for a piece more string and make a neat job of it.

“The bar was crowded. I pushed my way to the counter and flung the goose down in front of me. The men nearest stopped talking to look at it; and a young fellow standing next to me said —

“‘Well, you’ve killed it.’ I daresay I did seem a bit excited.

“I had intended making another effort to sell it here, but they were clearly not the right sort. I had a pint of ale — for I was feeling somewhat tired and hot — scraped as much of the mud off the bird as I could, made a fresh parcel of it, and came out.

“Crossing the road a happy idea occurred to me. I thought I would raffle it. At once I set to work to find a house where there might seem to be a likely lot. It cost me three or four whiskies — for I felt I didn’t want any more beer, which is a thing that easily upsets me — but at length I found just the crowd I wanted — a quiet domestic-looking set in a homely little place off the Goswell Road.

“I explained my views to the landlord. He said he had no objection; he supposed I would stand drinks round afterwards. I said I should be delighted to do so, and showed him the bird.

“‘It looks a bit poorly,’ he said. He was a Devonshire man.

“‘Oh, that’s nothing,’ I explained. ‘I happened to drop it. That will all wash off.’

“‘It smells a bit queer, too,’ he said.

“‘That’s mud,’ I answered; ‘you know what London mud is. And a gentleman spilled some gin over it. Nobody will notice that when it’s cooked.’

“‘Well,’ he replied. ‘I don’t think I’ll take a hand myself, but if any other gent likes to, that’s his affair.’

“Nobody seemed enthusiastic. I started it at sixpence, and took a ticket myself. The potman had a free chance for superintending the arrangements, and he succeeded in inducing five other men, much against their will, to join us. I won it myself, and paid out three and twopence for drinks. A solemn-looking individual who had been snoring in a corner suddenly woke up as I was going out, and offered me sevenpence ha’penny for it — why sevenpence ha’penny I have never been able to understand. He would have taken it away, I should never have seen it again, and my whole life might have been different. But Fate has always been against me. I replied, with perhaps unnecessary hauteur, that I wasn’t a Christmas dinner fund for the destitute, and walked out.