A Knight on Wheels Part 27

"What are the London offices, where are they, and why do they require taking charge of?" enquired Mr. Mablethorpe categorically. Like all unmethodical and scatter-brained persons he cherished a high opinion of himself as a man of affairs.

"The London offices," said Philip, "are in Oxford Street. They consist of a show-room, full of new cars--the Company gets most of its orders through this show-room--and a biggish garage and repairing-shop at the back, opening into somewhere in Soho."

"And do they want you to tell untruths in the show-room or wash cars in the garage?" enquired Mr. Mablethorpe.

Dumps stiffened indignantly, but Philip laughed.

"They want me to boss the whole place," he said. "Hitherto they have had a man in charge of the show-room and another in charge of the garage, and there has been everlasting trouble between them. I gather that the show-room man is young--an old public-school boy--"

"I know! Wears white spats, and sends for an underling to open the bonnet of a car when a customer asks to see the works," said Mr.

Mablethorpe. "Go on."

"And the repair-shop man is elderly and Yorks.h.i.+re and a ranker. I fancy they parted bra.s.s-rags from the start, with the result that working expenses are too high--"

"Surprising!" murmured Mr. Mablethorpe.

"--And I have been told off to go to town and supervise the pair of them," concluded Philip. "Shall I?"

"Why not?"

"Well--I shall be giving up my other work, you know."

"What is your other work? Describe one of your ordinary days in detail."

Philip did so. When he had finished, Mr. Mablethorpe said:--

"Well, if that is the sort of life your tastes incline to, why not go the whole hog and get ten years' penal servitude right away? That strikes me as an equally suitable and much more economical method of satisfying your desires. Consider! You would get ten years of continuous employment, of a kind almost identical with your present occupation, and the State--people like me--would maintain you into the bargain. No rates, no taxes, no extortionate tradesmen, no women of any kind!

Regular hours, rational diet, and free spiritual consolation! What more could a man ask? True, your hours of work would be shorter than at present, but I dare say that if you were good they would allow you an extra go at the oak.u.m when no one else was using it. That's the plan, Philip! Put the thing on a business footing at once, and get arrested!

Don't overdo it, of course. It is no use committing a crime they could hang you for: that would be _trop de zele_. Supposing you burn down the Houses of Parliament--or, better still, the Imperial Inst.i.tute--or get to work on some of your personal friends with a chopper, and carve ten years' worth out of them. Start on Dumps here. She would make a capital subject for experiment."

Miss Mablethorpe turned to the visitor with an apologetic smile.

"He will be all right presently," she said, indicating her parent. "He is always a little strange in his manner after correcting proofs."

She was right. Presently Mr. Mablethorpe, who had been ranting about the room, to the detriment of waste-paper baskets and revolving bookcases, sat down and said:--

"And you are reluctant to give up your present berth, Phil?"

"Yes," said Philip, "I am. You see," he added a little shyly, "it's my work."

"Quite so," agreed Mr. Mablethorpe, suddenly serious. "You believe that work is the key of life. _Labor omnia vincit_--eh?"

Philip nodded, but Dumps enquired:--

"What does that mean, please?"

Her father translated, and continued:--

"Philip, let me tell you something. You are in danger of becoming a specialist. Life, roughly, is made up of two ingredients--Things and People. At present you are devoting yourself entirely to Things--to Work, in fact. How many years have you lived in Coventry?"

"About five."

"Very good. And how many people do you know there? I am not referring to your fellow stokers. I mean people outside the place. How many?"

Philip pondered, and shook his head.

"I don't know," he said.

"Half a dozen?"

"Perhaps."

"There you are, right away!" said Mr. Mablethorpe, with the intensely satisfied air of one who has scored a point. "You have spent five years in a place, and barely know half a dozen people there. You are becoming a specialist, my son--a specialist in Things. That is all wrong. You are lop-sided. Man was never intended to devote himself to Things, to the exclusion of People--least of all you, with your strong gregarious instincts and human sympathies. Isn't that true?"

Philip considered. Long dormant visions were awakening within him. His thoughts went back to the days when he had decided to follow the calling of a knight-errant. That decision had not occupied his attention much of late, he reflected.

"And therefore," continued Mr. Mablethorpe, "I counsel you to go to London and take up the new billet. Go and reason with the Yorks.h.i.+re foreman, and pulverize the gentleman in spats, and argue with creditors--go and study _People_. Study the way they walk, the way they talk, the way they think, the way they drink. You won't like them. They will s.h.i.+rk their work, or blow in your face, or tell you anecdotes which will make you weep. But they will restore your balance. They will develop the human side of you. Then you will be really rather an exceptional character, Philip. Very few of us are evenly balanced between Things and People. All women, for instance, have a permanent list toward People. Things have no meaning for them. A triumph of engineering, or organisation, or art, or logical reasoning, makes no appeal whatever to a woman's enthusiasm. She may admire the man who achieves them, of course, but only because he happens to have sad eyes, or a firm mouth, or a wife in an asylum. If the personal touch be lacking, Things simply bore Woman. I once showed an aunt of mine--a refined and intelligent woman--round the finest cathedral in England, and the one solitary feature of the whole fabric which interested her was a certain stall in the choir, where a grandnephew of hers had once sat for eighteen months as a choir-boy! Yes, women are undoubtedly lopsided. Men, as a whole, are predisposed the other way--which largely accounts for what is known as s.e.x-antagonism. Heaven help all novelists if no such thing existed!"

"Shop!" remarked the unfilial Dumps.

Mr. Mablethorpe, recalled to his text, continued:

"Very well, then. We agree that Things--by which we mean Work--are not the Alpha and Omega of Life. Alpha, perhaps; Omega, certainly not."

"Don't you mean, 'Archibald, Certainly Not!' Daddy?" enquired Miss Dumps, referring to a popular ditty of the moment. Mr. Mablethorpe took no heed.

"_Labor omnia vincit_," he said, "is only half a truth. There is another maxim in the same tongue which supplies the other half. You can easily commit it to memory if you bear in mind the fact that it ends a pentameter, while the other ends a hexameter. It is: _Omnia vincit amor_."

He translated for the benefit of his unlearned daughter, and swept on.

"Now, consider. If it is true that Work conquers All, and equally true that Love conquers All, what must be our logical and inevitable conclusion?"

It was Dumps who answered.

"That Love and Work come to the same thing in the end," she said. Her eyes met Philip's, and dropped quickly.

Mr. Mablethorpe nodded his head gravely.

"Philip," he said, "you hear the words of this wise infant? They are true. That is why I want you to go and mix with People. You are getting a bit too mechanical in your conception of Life. You are in danger of becoming an automaton. You must cultivate your emotions a bit--Love, Hate, Pity, Joy, Sorrow--if you want to turn into a perfectly equipped Man. Taking them all round, it is impossible to get to know one's fellow creatures without getting to love them. That is the secret which has kept this old world plodding along so philosophically for so many centuries. So start in on People, my son. Go to London and take up that appointment. You will regret your old workshop at times. Machinery is never illogical, or unreasonable, or ungrateful; and though it may break your arms and legs, it will never try to break your heart. Still, it is only machinery. If you want to attain to the supreme joys of Life you will have to be prepared for the deep sorrows too, and you can only meet with these things by consorting with human beings. You have discovered for yourself--or think you have--that _labor omnia vincit_. Go on now until you realise the meaning of the other phrase of which I spoke. When that happens you will have found yourself. You will be poised and balanced. In short, my son, you will be a Man. Now let us scramble for m.u.f.fins."

CHAPTER XVI

THINGS