Delphi Complete Works of Jerome K. Jerome (Illustrated) (Series Four) (77 page)

My substitute snatched eagerly at the chance, and away went the hares, while I, still keeping my face hid, moved slowly off.

“Cry-baby!” shouted a sharp-eyed youngster.

“Let him alone,” growled the Duke; and I went on to where the cedars grew.

I heard them start off a few minutes later with a whoop. How could I go home, confess my disappointment, my shame? My father would be expecting me with many questions, my mother waiting for me with hot water and blankets. What explanation could I give that would not betray my miserable secret?

It was a chill, dismal afternoon, the Heath deserted, a thin rain commencing. I slipped off my shirt and jacket, and rolling them under my arm, trotted off alone, hare and hounds combined in one small carcass, to chase myself sadly by myself.

I see it still, that pathetically ridiculous little figure, jogging doggedly over the dank fields. Mile after mile it runs, the little idiot; jumping — sometimes falling into the muddy ditches: it seems anxious rather than otherwise to get itself into a mess; scrambling through the dripping hedges; swarming over tarry fence and slimy paling. On, on it pants — through Bishop’s Wood, by tangled Churchyard Bottom, where now the railway shrieks; down sloppy lanes, bordering Muswell Hill, where now stand rows of jerry-built, prim villas. At intervals it stops an instant to dab its eyes with its dingy little rag of a handkerchief, to rearrange the bundle under its arm, its chief anxiety to keep well out of sight of chance wanderers, to dodge farmhouses, to dart across highroads when nobody is looking. And so tear-smeared and mud-bespattered up the long rise of darkening Crouch End Lane, where to-night the electric light blazes from a hundred shops, and dead beat into the Seven Sisters Road station, there to tear off its soaked jersey; and then home to Poplar, with shameless account of the jolly afternoon that it has spent, of the admiration and the praise that it has won.

You poor, pitiful little brat! Popularity? it is a shadow. Turn your eyes towards it, and it shall ever run before you, escaping you. Turn your back upon it, walk joyously towards the living sun, and it shall follow you. Am I not right? Why, then, do you look at me, your little face twisted into that quizzical grin?

When one takes service with Deceit, one signs a contract that one may not break but under penalty. Maybe it was good for my health, those lonely runs; but oh, they were dreary! By a process of argument not uncommon I persuaded myself that truth was a matter of mere words, that so long as I had actually gone over the ground I described I was not lying. To further satisfy my conscience, I bought a big satchel and scattered from it torn-up paper as I ran.

“And they never catch you?” asked my mother.

“Oh, no, never; they never even get within sight of me.”

“Be careful, dear,” would advise my mother; “don’t overstrain yourself.” But I could see that she was proud of me.

And after awhile imagination came to my help, so that often I could hear behind me the sound of pursuing feet, catch through gaps in the trees a sight of a merry, host upon my trail, and would redouble my speed.

Thus, but for Dan, my loneliness would have been unbearable. His friendship was always there for me to creep to, the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. To this day one may always know Dan’s politics: they are those of the Party out of power. Always without question one may know the cause that he will champion, the unpopular cause; the man he will defend, the man who is down.

“You are such an un-understandable chap,” complained a fellow Clubman to him once in my hearing. “I sometimes ask myself if you have any opinions at all.”

“I hate a crowd,” was Dan’s only confession of faith.

He never claimed anything from me in return for his affection; he was there for me to hold to when I wanted him. When, baffled in all my attempts to win the affections of others, I returned to him for comfort, he gave it me, without even relieving himself of friendly advice. When at length childish success came to me and I needed him less, he was neither hurt nor surprised. Other people — their thoughts, their actions, even when these concerned himself — never troubled him. He loved to bestow, but as to response was strangely indifferent; indeed, if anything, it bored him. His nature appeared to be that of the fountain, which fulfils itself by giving, but is unable to receive.

My popularity came to me unexpectedly after I had given up hoping for it; surprising me, annoying me. Gradually it dawned upon me that my company was being sought.

“Come along, Kelver,” would say the spokesman of one group; “we’re going part of your way home. You can walk with us.”

Maybe I would go with them, but more often, before we reached the gate, the delight of my society would be claimed by a rival troop.

“He’s coming with us this afternoon. He promised.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Yes, he did.”

“Well, he ain’t, anyhow. See?”

“Oh, isn’t he? Who says he isn’t?”

“I do.”

“Punch his head, Dick!”

“Yes, you do, Jimmy Blake, and I’ll punch yours. Come, Kelver.”

I might have been some Queen of Beauty offered as prize for knightly contest. Indeed, more than once the argument concluded thus primitively, I being carried off in triumph by the victorious party.

For a period it remained a mystery to me, until I asked explanation of Norval — we called him “Norval,” he being one George Grampian: it was our wit. From taking joy in teasing me, Norval had suddenly become one of my greatest admirers. This by itself was difficult enough to understand. He was in the second eleven, and after Dan the best fighter in the lower school. If I could understand Norval’s change of attitude all would be plain to me; so when next time, bounding upon me in the cloakroom and slipping his arm into mine, he clamoured for my company to Camden Town, I put the question to him bluntly.

“Why should I walk home with you? Why do you want me?”

“Because we like you.”

“But why do you like me?”

“Why! Why, because you’re such a funny chap. You say such funny things.”

It struck me like a slap in the face. I had thought to reach popularity upon the ladder of heroic qualities. In all the school books I had read, Leonard or Marmaduke (we had a Marmaduke in the Lower Fifth — they called him Marmalade: in the school books these disasters are not contemplated), won love and admiration by reason of integrity of character, nobility of sentiment, goodness of heart, brilliance of intellect; combined maybe with a certain amount of agility, instinct in the direction of bowling, or aptitude for jumping; but such only by the way. Not one of them had ever said a funny thing, either consciously or unconsciously.

“Don’t be disagreeable, Kelver. Come with us and we will let you into the team as an extra. I’ll teach you batting.”

So I was to be their Fool — I, dreamer of knightly dreams, aspirant to hero’s fame! I craved their wonder; I had won their laughter. I had prayed for popularity; it had been granted to me — in this guise. Were the gods still the heartless practical jokers poor Midas had found them?

Had my vanity been less I should have flung their gift back in their faces. But my thirst for approbation was too intense. I had to choose: Cut capers and be followed, or walk in dignity, ignored. I chose to cut the capers. As time wore on I found myself striving to cut them quicker, quainter, thinking out funny stories, preparing ingenuous impromptus, twisting all ideas into odd expression.

I had my reward. Before long my company was desired by all the school. But I was never content. I would rather have been the Captain of their football club, even his deputy Vice; would have given all my meed of laughter for stuttering Jerry’s one round of applause when in our match against Highbury he knocked up his century, and so won the victory for us by just three.

Till the end I never quite abandoned hope of exchanging my vine leaves for the laurels. I would rise an hour earlier in the morning to practise throwing at broomsticks set up in waste places. At another time, the sport coming into temporary fashion, I wearied body and mind for weeks in vain attempts to acquire skill on stilts. That even fat Tubby could out-distance me upon them saddened my life for months.

A lad there was, a Sixth Form boy, one Wakeham by name, if I remember rightly, who greatly envied me my gift of being able to amuse. He was of the age when the other sex begins to be of importance to a fellow, and the desire had come to him to be regarded as a star of wit among the social circles of Gospel Oak. Need I say that by nature he was a ponderously dull boy.

One afternoon I happened to be the centre of a small group in the playground. I had been holding forth and they had been laughing. Whether I had delivered myself of anything really entertaining or not I cannot say. It made no difference; they had got into the habit of laughing when I talked. Sometimes I would say quite serious things on purpose; they would laugh just the same. Wakeham was among them, his eyes fixed on me, watching me as boys watch a conjurer in the hope of finding out “how he does it.” Later in the afternoon he slipped his arm through mine, and drew me away into an empty corner of the ground.

“I say, Kelver,” he broke out, the moment we were beyond hearing, “you really are funny!”

It gave me no pleasure. If he had told me that he admired my bowling I might not have believed him, but should have loved him for it.

“So are you,” I answered savagely, “only you don’t know it.”

“No, I’m not,” he replied. “Wish I was. I say, Kelver” — he glanced round to see that no one was within earshot—”do you think you could teach me to be funny?”

I was about to reply with conviction in the negative when an idea occurred to me. Wakeham was famous among us for one thing; he could, inserting two fingers in his mouth, produce a whistle capable of confusing dogs a quarter of a mile off, and of causing people near at hand to jump from six to eighteen inches into the air.

This accomplishment of his I envied him as keenly as he envied me mine. I did not admire it; I could not see the use of it. Generally speaking, it called forth irritation rather than affection. A purple-faced old gentleman, close to whose ear he once performed, promptly cuffed his head for it; and for so doing was commended by the whole street as a public benefactor. Drivers of vehicles would respond by flicking at him, occasionally with success. Even youth, from whom sympathy might have been expected, appeared impelled, if anything happened to be at all handy, to take it up and throw it at him. My own social circle would, I knew, regard it as a vulgar accomplishment, and even Wakeham himself dared not perform it in the hearing of his own classmates. That any human being should have desired to acquire it seems incomprehensible. Yet for weeks in secret I had wrestled to produce the hideous sound. Why? For three reasons, so far as I can analyse this youngster of whom I am writing:

Firstly, here was a means of attracting attention; secondly, it was something that somebody else could do and that he couldn’t; thirdly, it was a thing for which he evidently had no natural aptitude whatever, and therefore a thing to acquire which his soul yearned the more. Had a boy come across his path, clever at walking on his hands with his heels in the air, Master Paul Kelver would in all probability have broken his neck in attempts to copy and excel. I make no apologies for the brat: I merely present him as a study for the amusement of a world of wiser boys — and men.

I struck a bargain with young Wakeham; I undertook to teach him to be funny in return for his teaching me this costermonger’s whistle.

Each of us strove conscientiously to impart knowledge. Neither of us succeeded. Wakeham tried hard to be funny; I tried hard to whistle. He did all I told him; I followed his instructions implicitly. The result was the feeblest of wit and the feeblest of whistles.

“Do you think anybody would laugh at that?” Wakeham would pathetically enquire at the termination of his supremest effort. And honestly I would have to confess I did not think any living being would.

“How far off do you think any one could hear that?” I would demand anxiously, on recovering sufficient breath to speak at all.

“Well, it would depend upon whether you knew it was coming,” Wakeham would reply kindly, not wishing to discourage me.

We abandoned the scheme by mutual consent at about the end of a fortnight.

“I suppose it’s something that you’ve got to have inside you,” I suggested to Wakeham in consolation.

“I don’t think the roof of your mouth can be quite the right shape for it,” concluded Wakeham.

My success as story-teller, commentator, critic, jester, revived my childish ambition towards authorship. My first stirrings in this direction I cannot rightly place. I remember when very small falling into a sunk dust-bin — a deep hole, rather, into which the gardener shot his rubbish. The fall twisted my ankle so that I could not move; and the time being evening and my prison some distance from the house, my predicament loomed large before me. Yet one consolation remained with me: the incident would be of value to me in the autobiography upon which I was then engaged. I can distinctly recollect lying on my back among decaying leaves and broken glass, framing my account. “On this day a strange adventure befell me. Walking in the garden, all unheeding, I suddenly” — I did not want to add the truth—”tumbled into a dust-hole, six feet square, that any one but a moon calf might have seen.” I puzzled to evolve a more dignified situation. The dust-bin became a cavern, the entrance to which had been artfully concealed; the six or seven feet I had really fallen, “an endless descent, terminating in a vast and gloomy chamber.” I was divided between opposing desires: One, for rescue followed by sympathy and supper; the other, for the alarming experience of a night of terror where I lay. Nature conquering Art, I yelled; and the episode terminated prosaically with a warm bath and arnica. But from it I judge that desire for the woes and perils of authorship was with me somewhat early.

Of my many other dreams I would speak freely, discussing them at length with sympathetic souls, but concerning this one ambition I was curiously reticent. Only to two — my mother and a grey-bearded Stranger — did I ever breathe a word of it. Even from my father I kept it a secret, close comrades in all else though we were. He would have talked of it much and freely, dragged it into the light of day; and from this I shrank.