Selected Short Fiction (40 page)

On his knees on one side of this gallery, a shabby person of modest appearance who shivered dreadfully (though it wasn't at all cold), was engaged in blowing the chalk-dust off the moon, toning the outline of the back of the hermit's head with a bit of leather, and fattening the down-stroke of a letter or two in the writing. I have forgotten to mention that writing formed a part of the composition, and that it also - as it appeared to me - was exquisitely done. It ran as follows, in fine round characters: ‘An honest man is the noblest work of God.
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0.£ s.d. Employment in an office is humbly requested. Honour the Queen. Hunger is a 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 sharp thorn.
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Chip chop, cherry chop, fol de rol de ri do. Astronomy and mathematics. I do this to support my family.'

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Murmurs of admiration at the exceeding beauty of this performance went about among the crowd. The artist having finished his touching (and having spoilt those places), took his seat on the pavement with his knees crouched up very nigh his chin; and halfpence began to rattle in.

‘A pity to see a man of that talent brought so low; ain't it?' said one of the crowd to me.

‘What he might have done in the coach-painting, or house-decorating!' said another man, who took up the first speaker because I did not.

‘Why he writes - alone- like the Lord Chancellor!' said another man.

‘Better,' said another. ‘I know
his
writing.
He
couldn't support his family this way.'

Then, a woman noticed the natural fluffiness of the hermit's hair, and another woman, her friend, mentioned of the salmon's gills that you could almost see him gasp. Then, an elderly country gentleman stepped forward and asked the modest man how he executed his work? And the modest man took some scraps of brown paper with colours in ‘em out of his pockets and showed them. Then a fair-complexioned donkey with sandy hair and spectacles, asked if the hermit was a portrait? To which the modest man, casting a sorrowful glance upon it, replied that it was, to a certain extent, a recollection of his father. This caused a boy to yelp out, ‘Is the Pinter a smoking the pipe, your mother?' who was immediately shoved out of view by a sympathetic carpenter with his basket of tools at his back.

At every fresh question or remark, the crowd leaned forward more eagerly, and dropped the halfpence more freely, and the modest man gathered them up more meekly. At last, another elderly gentleman came to the front, and gave the artist his card, to come to his office tomorrow and get some copying to do. The card was accompanied by sixpence, and the artist was profoundly grateful, and, before he put the card in his hat, read it several times by the light of his candles to fix the address well in his mind, in case he should lose it. The crowd was deeply interested by this last incident, and a man in the second row with a gruff voice, growled to the artist, ‘You've got a chance in life now, ain't you?' The artist answered (sniffing in a very low-spirited way, however), ‘I'm thankful to hope so.' Upon which there was a general chorus of
‘You
are all right,' and the halfpence slackened very decidedly.

I felt myself pulled away by the arm, and Mr Click and I stood alone at the comer of the next crossing.

‘Why, Tom,' said Mr Click, ‘what a horrid expression of face you've got!'

‘Have I?' says I.

‘Have you?' says Mr Click. ‘Why you looked as if you would have his blood.'

‘Whose blood?'

‘The artist's.'

‘The artist's!' I repeated. And I laughed, frantically, wildly, gloomily, incoherently, disagreeably. I am sensible that I did. I know I did.

Mr Click stared at me in a scared sort of a way, but said nothing until we had walked a street's length. He then stopped short, and said, with excitement on the part of his fore-finger:

‘Thomas, I find it necessary to be plain with you. I don't like the envious man. I have identified the cankerworm that's pegging away at
your
vitals, and it's envy, Thomas.'

‘Is it?' says I.

‘Yes, it is,' says he. ‘Thomas, beware of envy. It is the green-eyed monsters which never did and never will improve each shining hour,
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but quite the reverse. I dread the envious man, Thomas. I confess that I am afraid of the envious man, when he is so envious as you are. Whilst you contemplated the works of a gifted rival, and whilst you heard that rival's praises, and especially whilst you met his humble glance as he put that card away, your countenance was so malevolent as to be terrific. Thomas, I have heard of the envy of them that follows the Fine Art line, but I never believed it could be what yours is. I wish you well, but I take my leave of you. And if you should ever get into trouble through knifeing - or say, garotting - a brother artist, as I believe you will, don't call me to character, Thomas, or I shall be forced to injure your case.'

Mr Click parted from me with those words, and we broke off our acquaintance.

I became enamoured. Her name was Henerietta. Contending with my easy disposition, I frequently got up to go after her. She also dwelt in the neighbourhood of the Obstacle, and I did fondly hope that no other would interpose in the way of our union.

To say that Henerietta was volatile, is but to say that she was woman. To say that she was in the bonnet-trimming, is feebly to express the taste which reigned predominant in her own.

She consented to walk with me. Let me do her justice to say that she did so upon trial. ‘I am not,' said Henerietta, ‘as yet prepared to regard you, Thomas, in any other light than as a friend; but as a friend I am willing to walk with you, on the understanding that softer sentiments may flow.'

We walked.

Under the influence of Henerietta's beguilements, I now got out of bed daily. I pursued my calling with an industry before unknown, and it cannot fail to have been observed at that period, by those most familiar with the streets of London, that there was a larger supply — but hold! The time is not yet come!

One evening in October, I was walking with Henerietta, enjoying the cool breezes wafted over Vauxhall Bridge. After several slow turns, Henerietta gaped frequently (so inseparable from woman is the love of excitement), and said, ‘Let's go home by Grosvenor place, Piccadilly, and Waterloo' — localities, I may state for the information of the stranger and the foreigner, well known in London, and the last a Bridge.

‘No. Not by Piccadilly, Henerietta,' said I.

‘And why not Piccadilly, for goodness' sake?' said Henerietta.

Could I tell her? Could I confess to the gloomy presentiment that overshadowed me? Could I make myself intelligible to her? No.

‘I don't like Piccadilly, Henerietta.'

‘But I do,' said she. ‘It's dark now, and the long rows of lamps in Piccadilly after dark are beautiful. I
will
go to Piccadilly!'

Of course we went. It was a pleasant night, and there were numbers of people in the streets. It was a brisk night, but not too cold, and not damp. Let me darkly observe, it was the best of all nights - FOR THE PURPOSE.

As we passed the garden-wall of the Royal Palace, going up Grosvenor-place, Henerietta murmured,

‘I wish I was a Queen!'

‘Why so, Henerietta?'

‘I would make
you
Something,' said she, and crossed her two hands on my arm, and turned away her head.

Judging from this that the softer sentiments alluded to above had begun to flow, I adapted my conduct to that belief. Thus happily we passed on into the detested thoroughfare of Piccadilly. On the right of that thoroughfare is a row of trees, the railing of the Green Park, and a fine broad eligible piece of pavement.

‘0 my!' cried Henerietta, presently. ‘There's been an accident!'

I looked to the left, and said, ‘Where, Henerietta?'

‘Not there, stupid,' said she. ‘Over by the Park railings. Where the crowd is! O no, it's not an accident, it's something else to look at! What's them lights?'

She referred to two lights twinkling low amongst the legs of the assemblage: two candles on the pavement.

‘0 do come along!' cried Henerietta, skipping across the road with me; - I hung back, but in vain. ‘Do let's look!'

Again, designs upon the pavement. Centre compartment, Mount Vesuvius going it (in a circle), supported by four oval compartments, severally representing a ship in heavy weather, a shoulder of mutton attended by two cucumbers, a golden harvest with distant cottage of proprietor, and a knife and fork after nature; above the centre compartment a bunch of grapes, and over the whole a rainbow. The whole, as it appeared to me, exquisitely done.

The person in attendance on these works of art was in all respects, shabbiness excepted, unlike the former person. His whole appearance and manner denoted briskness. Though threadbare, he expressed to the crowd that poverty had not subdued his spirit or tinged with any sense of shame this honest effort to turn his talents to some account. The writing which formed a part of his composition was conceived in a similarly cheerful tone. It breathed the following sentiments: ‘The writer is poor but not despondent. To a British 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 Public he £ s. d. appeals. Honour to our brave Army! And also 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 to our gallant Navy. BRITONS STRIKE the A B C D E F Gwriter in common chalks would be grateful for any suitable employment HOME!
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HURRAH!' The whole of this writing appeared to me to be exquisitely done.

But this man, in one respect like the last, though seemingly hard at it with a great show of brown paper and rubbers, was only really fattening the down-stroke of a letter here and there, or blowing the loose chalk off the rainbow, or toning the outside edge of the shoulder of mutton. Though he did this with the greatest confidence, he did it (as it struck me) in so ignorant a manner, and so spoilt everything he touched, that when he began upon the purple smoke from the chimney of the distant cottage of the proprietor of the golden harvest (which smoke was beautifully soft), I found myself saying aloud, without considering of it:

‘Let that alone, will you?'

‘Halloa!' said the man next me in the crowd, jerking me roughly from him with his elbow, ‘why didn't you send a telegram? If we had known you was coming, we'd have provided something better for you. You understand the man's work better than he does himself, don't you? Have you made your will? You're too clever to live long.'

‘Don't be hard upon the gentleman, sir,' said the person in attendance on the works of art, with a twinkle in his eye as he looked at me, ‘he may chance to be an artist himself. If so, sir, he will have a fellow-feeling with me, sir, when I' - he adapted his action to his words as he went on, and gave a smart slap of his hands between each touch, working himself all the time about and about the composition - ‘when I lighten the bloom of my grapes - shade off the orange in my rainbow - dot the i of my Britons - throw a yellow-light into my cow-cum-
ber
- insinuate another morsel of fat into my shoulder of mutton - dart another zig-zag flash of lightning at my ship in distress!'

He seemed to do this so neatly, and was so nimble about it, that the halfpence came flying in.

‘Thanks, generous public, thanks!' said the professor. ‘You will stimulate me to further exertions. My name will be found in the list of British Painters yet. I shall do better than this, with encouragement. I shall indeed.'

‘You never can do better than that bunch of grapes,' said Henerietta. ‘0, Thomas, them grapes!'

‘Not better than
that,
lady? I hope for the time when I shall paint anything but your own bright eyes and lips, equal to life.'

‘(Thomas, did you ever?) But it must take a long time, sir,' said Henerietta, blushing, ‘to paint equal to that.'

‘I was prenticed to it, Miss,' said the young man, smartly touching up the composition - ‘prenticed to it in the caves of Spain and Portingale, ever so long and two year over.'

There was a laugh from the crowd; and a new man who had worked himself in next me, said, ‘He's a smart chap, too; ain't he?'

‘And what a eye!' exclaimed Henerietta, softly.

‘Ah! He need have a eye,' said the man.

‘Ah! He just need,' was murmured among the crowd.

‘He couldn't come that 'ere burning mountain without a eye,' said the man. He had got himself accepted as an authority, somehow, and everybody looked at his finger as it pointed out Vesuvius. ‘To come that effect in a general illumination, would require a eye; but to come it with two dips - why it's enough to blind him!'

That impostor pretending not to have heard what was said, now winked to any extent with both eyes at once, as if the strain upon his sight was too much, and threw back his long hair - it was very long - as if to cool his fevered brow. I was watching him doing it, when Henerietta suddenly whispered, ‘Oh, Thomas, how horrid you look!' and pulled me out by the arm.

Remembering Mr Click's words, I was confused when I retorted, ‘What do you mean by horrid?'

‘Oh gracious! Why, you looked,' said Henerietta, ‘as if you would have his blood.'

I was going to answer, ‘So I would, for twopence - from his nose,' when I checked myself and remained silent.

We returned home in silence. Every step of the way, the softer sentiments that had flowed, ebbed twenty mile an hour. Adapting my conduct to the ebbing, as I had done to the flowing, I let my arm drop limp, so as she could scarcely keep hold of it, and I wished her such a cold good night at parting, that I keep within the bounds of truth when I characterize it as a Rasper.