The Complete Works of Stephen Crane (62 page)

The little Doctor Chord was so downtrodden that for the remainder of the evening he hardly dared to raise his eyes from the table, but I was glad to see him apply himself industriously to the punch.

To my great alarm Fullbil now said: “Sirs, I fear we have suffered ourselves to forget we have with us to-night a strange gentleman from foreign parts. Your good fortune, sir,” he added, bowing to me over his glass. I bowed likewise, but I saw his little piggish eyes looking wickedly at me. There went a titter around the board, and I understood from it that I was the next victim of the celebrated Fullbil.

“Sir,” said he, “may I ask from what part of Italy do you come?”

“I come from Ireland, sir,” I answered decently.

He frowned. “Ireland is not in Italy, sir,” said he. “Are you so good as to trifle with me, sir?”

“I am not, sir,” said I.

All the gentlemen murmured; some looked at me with pity, some with contempt. I began to be frightened until I remembered that if I once drew my sword I could chase the whole roomful of philosophy into the next parish. I resolved to put on a bold front.

“Probably, sir,” observed Fullbil, “the people of Ireland have heard so much of me that I may expect many visits from Irish gentlemen who wish to hear what my poor mind may develop in regard to the only true philosophy of life?”

“Not in the least, sir,” I rejoined. “Over there they don’t know you are alive, and they are not caring.”

Consternation fell upon that assembly like snow from a roof. The gentlemen stared at me. Old Fullbil turned purple at first, but his grandeur could not be made to suffer long or seriously from my impudence. Presently he smiled at me, — a smile confident, cruel, deadly.

“Ireland is a great country, sir,” he observed.

“’Tis not so great as many people’s ignorance of it,” I replied bluntly, for I was being stirred somewhat.

“Indeed!” cried Fullbil. Then he triumphantly added: “Then, sir, we are proud to have among us one so manifestly capable of giving us instruction.”

There was a loud shout of laughter at this sally, and I was very uncomfortable down to my toes; but I resolved to hold a brave face, and pretended that I was not minding their sneers. However, it was plain enough that old Fullbil had made me the butt of the evening.

“Sir,” said the dramatist Bobbs, looking at me, “I understand that in Ireland pigs sit at table with even the best families.”

“Sir,” said the critic, Fancher, looking at me, “I understand that in Ireland the chastity of the women is so great that no child is born without a birthmark in the shape of the initials of the legal husband and father.”

“Sir,” said old Fullbil, “I understand that in Ireland people go naked when it rains, for fear of wetting their clothes.”

Amid the uproarious merriment provoked by their speeches I sat in silence. Suddenly the embarrassed little scientist, Doctor Chord, looked up at me with a fine friendly sympathy. “A glass with you, sir,” he said, and as we nodded our heads solemnly over the rims I felt that there had come to my help one poor little frightened friend. As for my first acquaintance, he, seeing me attacked not only by the redoubtable Fullbil, but also by the formidable Bobbs and the dangerous Fancher, had immediately begun to pretend that never in his life had he spoken to me.

Having a great knowledge of Irish character I could see that trouble was brewing for somebody, but I resolved to be very backward, for I hesitated to create a genuine disturbance in these philosophical circles. However, I was saved this annoyance in a strange manner. The door opened, and a newcomer came in, bowing right and left to his acquaintances, and finally taking a seat near Fullbil. I recognized him instantly; he was Sir Edmund Flixton, the gentleman who had had some thought of fighting me in Bath, but who had refrained from it upon hearing that I had worsted Forister.

However, he did not perceive me at that time. He chattered with Fullbil, telling him evidently some very exciting news, for I heard the old man ejaculate. “By my soul, can it be possible?” Later Fullbil related some amusing things to Flixton, and, upon an inquiry from Flixton, I was pointed out to him. I saw Flixton’s face change; he spoke hastily to old Fullbil, who turned pale as death. Swiftly some bit of information flashed around the board, and I saw men’s eyes open wide and white as they looked at me.

I have said it was the age of bullies. It was the age when men of physical prowess walked down the street shouldering lesser men into the gutter, and the lesser men had never a word to say for themselves. It was the age when if you expressed opinions contrary to those of a bully he was confidently expected to kill you or somehow maltreat you.

Of all that company of genius there now seemed to be only one gentleman who was not a-tremble. It was the little scientist Doctor Chord. He looked at me with a bright and twinkling eye; suddenly he grinned broadly. I could not but burst into laughter when I noted the appetite with which he enjoyed the confusion and alarm of his friends.

“Come, Fullbil! Come, Bobbs! Come, Fancher! Where are all your pretty wits?” he cried; for this timid little man’s impudence increased mightily amid all this helpless distress. “Here’s the dignity and power of learning of you, in God’s truth. Here’s knowledge enthroned, fearless, great! Have ye all lost your tongues?”

And he was for going on to worry them, but that I called out to him, —

“Sir,” said I mildly, “if it please you, I would not have the gentlemen disturbed over any little misunderstanding of a pleasant evening. As regards quarrelling, I am all milk and water myself. It reminds me of an occasion in Ireland once when—” Here I recounted a story which Father Donovan always began on after more than three bottles, and to my knowledge he had never succeeded in finishing it. But this time I finished it. “And,” said I, “the fellow was sitting there drinking with them, and they had had good fun with him, when of a sudden he up and spoke. Says he: ‘’Tis God’s truth I never expected in all my life to be an evening in the company of such a lot of scurvy rat-eaters,’ he says to them. ‘And,’ says he, ‘I have only one word for that squawking old masquerading peacock that sits at the head of the table,’ says he. ‘What little he has of learning I could put in my eye without going blind,’ says he. ‘The old curmudgeon!’ says he. And with that he arose and left the room, afterward becoming the King of Galway and living to a great age.”

This amusing tale created a sickly burst of applause, in the midst of which I bowed myself from the room.

On my way to my chamber I met the innkeeper and casually asked him after Paddy and Jem. He said that he would send to have word of them and inform me as soon as possible. Later a drawer came to my door and told me that Paddy and Jem, with three men-servants of gentlemen sleeping at the inn, had sallied out to a mug-house.

“Mug-house?” said I. “What in the devil’s name is a mug-house?”

“Mug-house, sir?” said the man, staring. “Mug-house? Why, sir, ’tis—’tis a form of amusement, sir.”

“It is, is it?” said I. “Very good. And does any one here know to what mug-house they went?”

“The ‘Red Slipper,’ I think, sir,” said the man.

“And how do I get to it?” said I.

“Oh, sir,” he cried, “’tis impossible!”

“Is it?” said I. “And why is it? The innkeeper said the same to me, and I would like to hear all the reasons.”

“Sir,” said the man, “when it becometh dark in London there walk abroad many men of evil minds who are no respecters of persons, but fall upon whomsoever they, may, beating them sorely, having no regard for that part of the Holy Book in which it is written—”

“Let go,” said I. “I see what you mean.” I then bade him get for me a stout lad with a cudgel and a lantern and a knowledge of the whereabouts of the “Red Slipper.”

I, with the stout lad, had not been long in the street before I understood what the landlord and the waiter had meant. In fact we were scarce out of the door before the man was menacing with his cudgel two human vultures who slunk upon us out of the shadow. I saw their pale, wicked, snarling faces in the glow of the lantern.

A little later a great shindy broke out in the darkness, and I heard voices calling loudly for a rally in the name of some guild or society. I moved closer, but I could make out little save that it was a very pretty fight in which a company of good citizens were trying to put to flight a band of roughs and law-breakers. There was a merry rattling of sticks. Soon enough, answering shouts could be heard from some of the houses, and with a great slamming of doors men rushed out to do battle for the peace of the great city. Meanwhile all the high windows had been filled with night-capped heads, and some of these people even went so far as to pour water down upon the combatants. They also sent down cat-calls and phrases of witty advice. The sticks clattered together furiously; once a man with a bloody face staggered past us; he seemed to have been whacked directly on the ear by some uneducated person. It was as fine a shindy as one could hope to witness, and I was deeply interested.

Then suddenly a man called out hoarsely that he had been stabbed — murdered. There were yells from the street and screams from the windows. My lantern-bearer plucked me madly by the sleeve. I understood him, and we hastily left the neighbourhood.

I may tell now what had happened and what followed this affair of the night. A worthy citizen had been stabbed to death indeed. After further skirmishes his comrade citizens had taken several wretches into custody. They were tried for the murder and all acquitted save one. Of this latter it was proven that the brawl had started through his attempt to gain the purse of a passing citizen, and forthwith he was sentenced to be hanged for murder. His companion rascals were sent to prison for long terms on the expectation that one of them really might have been the murderer.

We passed into another street, where each well-lighted window framed one or more painted hussies who called out in jocular obscenity, but when we marched stiffly on without replying their manner changed, and they delivered at us volley after volley of language incredibly foul. There were only two of these creatures who paid no heed, and their indifference to us was due to the fact that they were deeply engaged in a duel of words, exchanging the most frightful, blood-curdling epithets. Confident drunken men jostled us from time to time, and frequently I could see small, ashy-faced, ancient-eyed youths dodging here and there with food and wine. My lantern-bearer told me that the street was not quite awake; it was waiting for the outpourings from the taverns and mug-houses. I bade him hurry me to the “Red Slipper” as soon as possible, for never have I had any stomach for these tawdry evils, fit as they are only for clerks and sailors.

We came at length to the creaking sign of the “Red Slipper.” A great noise came from the place. A large company was roaring out a chorus. Without many words I was introduced into the room in which the disturbance was proceeding. It was blue with smoke, and the thundering chorus was still unfinished. I sank unnoticed into a quiet corner.

I was astonished at the appearance of the company. There were many men who looked like venerable prelates, and many men who looked like the heads of old and noble houses. I laughed in my sleeve when I remembered I had thought to find Paddy and Jem here. And at the same time I saw them up near the head of the table, if it please you. Paddy had his hand on the shoulder of a bishop, and Jem was telling some tale into the sympathetic ear of a marquis. At least this is the way matters appeared to my stupefied sense.

The singing ceased, and a distinguished peer at my elbow resumed a talk which evidently had been broken by the chorus:

“And so the Duke spoke with somewhat more than his accustomed vigour,” said the distinguished peer.

My worst suspicions were confirmed. Here was a man talking of what had been said by a duke. I cast my eye toward my happy pair of rogues and wondered how I could ever extricate them from their position.

Suddenly there was a loud pounding upon the table, and in the ensuing quiet the grave and dignified voice of the chairman could be heard:

“Gentlemen,” he said, “we crave your attention to a song by Mr. John Snowden.”

Whereupon my very own Jem Bottles arose amid a burst of applause, and began to sing a ballad which had been written in Bristol or Bath in celebration of the notorious scoundrel Jem Bottles.

Here I could see that if impudence could serve us we would not lack success in England. The ballad was answered with wild cheers of appreciation. It was the great thing of the evening. Jem was strenuously pressed to sing again, but he buried his face in his mug and modestly refused. However, they devoted themselves to his chorus and sang it over and over with immense delight. I had never imagined that the nobility were so free and easy.

During the excitement over Jem’s ballad I stole forward to Paddy. “Paddy,” I whispered, “come out of this now. ’Tis no place for you here among all these reverend fathers and gentlemen of title. Shame on you!”

He saw my idea in a flash.

“Whist, sir,” he answered. “There are being no reverend fathers or gentlemen of title here. They are all after being footmen and valets.”

I was extremely vexed with myself. I had been in London only a brief space; and Paddy had been in the city no longer. However, he had already managed his instruction so well that he could at once tell a member of the gentry from a servant. I admired Paddy’s cleverness, but at the same time I felt a certain resentment against the prelates and nobles who had so imposed upon me.

But, to be truthful, I have never seen a finer display of manners. These menials could have put courtiers to the blush. And from time to time somebody spoke out loud and clear an opinion pilfered verbatim from his master. They seldom spoke their own thoughts in their own way; they sent forth as their own whatever they could remember from the talk of their masters and other gentlemen. There was one man who seemed to be the servant of some noted scholar, and when he spoke the others were dumfounded into quiet.

“The loriot,” said he with a learned frown, “is a bird. If it is looked upon by one who has the yellow jaundice, the bird straightway dies, but the sick person becomes well instantly. ’Tis said that lovage is used, but I would be luctuous to hear of anybody using this lothir weed, for ’tis no pentepharmacon, but a mere simple and not worth a caspatory.”

This utterance fairly made their eyes bulge, and they sat in stunned silence. But I must say that there was one man who did not fear.

“Sir,” said Paddy respectfully, but still with his own dignity, “I would be hearing more of this bird, and we all would be feeling honoured for a short description.”

“In color he is ningid,” said the learned valet.

“Bedad!” cried Paddy. “That’s strange!”

“’Tis a question full of tenebrosity,” remarked the other leaning back in his chair. “We poor scholars grow madarosis reflecting upon it. However, I may tell you that the bird is simous; yblent in the sunlight, but withal strenuous-eyed; its blood inclined to intumescence. However, I must be breviloquent, for I require an enneadecaterides to enumerate the true qualities of the loriot.”

“By gor!” said Paddy, “I’ll know that bird if I see him ten years from now. Thank you kindly, sir. But we would be late for breakfast if you took the required time; and that’s true for me.”

Afterward I reflected that I had attended the meetings of two scholarly bodies in this one evening, but for the life of me I couldn’t decide which knew the least.