The Works of Rudyard Kipling Part 136

"Thanks. Change, please. I can't see very well--will you count it into my hand?"

"If they all took their pa.s.sages like that instead of talking about their trunks, life would be worth something," said the clerk to his neighbour, who was trying to explain to a hara.s.sed mother of many that condensed milk is just as good for babes at sea as daily dairy. Being nineteen and unmarried, he spoke with conviction.

"We are now," quoth d.i.c.k, as they returned to the studio, patting the place where his money-belt covered ticket and money, "beyond the reach of man, or devil, or woman--which is much more important. I've had three little affairs to carry through before Thursday, but I needn't ask you to help, Bess. Come here on Thursday morning at nine. We'll breakfast, and you shall take me down to Galleons Station."

"What are you going to do?"

"Going away, of course. What should I stay for?"

"But you can't look after yourself?"

"I can do anything. I didn't realise it before, but I can. I've done a great deal already. Resolution shall be treated to one kiss if Bessie doesn't object." Strangely enough, Bessie objected and d.i.c.k laughed.

"I suppose you're right. Well, come at nine the day after tomorrow and you'll get your money."

"Shall I sure?"

"I don't bilk, and you won't know whether I do or not unless you come.

Oh, but it's long and long to wait! Good-bye, Bessie,--send Beeton here as you go out."

The housekeeper came.

"What are all the fittings of my rooms worth?" said d.i.c.k, imperiously.

"'Tisn't for me to say, sir. Some things is very pretty and some is wore out dreadful."

"I'm insured for two hundred and seventy."

"Insurance policies is no criterion, though I don't say----"

"Oh, d.a.m.n your longwindedness! You've made your pickings out of me and the other tenants. Why, you talked of retiring and buying a public-house the other day. Give a straight answer to a straight question."

"Fifty," said Mr. Beeton, without a moment's hesitation.

"Double it; or I'll break up half my sticks and burn the rest."

He felt his way to a bookstand that supported a pile of sketch-books, and wrenched out one of the mahogany pillars.

"That's sinful, sir," said the housekeeper, alarmed.

"It's my own. One hundred or----"

"One hundred it is. It'll cost me three and six to get that there pilaster mended."

"I thought so. What an out and out swindler you must have been to spring that price at once!"

"I hope I've done nothing to dissatisfy any of the tenants, least of all you, sir."

"Never mind that. Get me the money tomorrow, and see that all my clothes are packed in the little brown bullock-trunk. I'm going."

"But the quarter's notice?"

"I'll pay forfeit. Look after the packing and leave me alone."

Mr. Beeton discussed this new departure with his wife, who decided that Bessie was at the bottom of it all. Her husband took a more charitable view.

"It's very sudden--but then he was always sudden in his ways. Listen to him now!"

There was a sound of chanting from d.i.c.k's room.

"We'll never come back any more, boys, We'll never come back no more; We'll go to the deuce on any excuse, And never come back no more! Oh say we're afloat or ash.o.r.e, boys, Oh say we're afloat or ash.o.r.e; But we'll never come back any more, boys, We'll never come back no more!"

"Mr. Beeton! Mr. Beeton! Where the deuce is my pistol?"

"Quick, he's going to shoot himself 'avin' gone mad!" said Mrs. Beeton.

Mr. Beeton addressed d.i.c.k soothingly, but it was some time before the latter, thres.h.i.+ng up and down his bedroom, could realise the intention of the promises to 'find everything tomorrow, sir.'

"Oh, you copper-nosed old fool--you impotent Academician!" he shouted at last. "Do you suppose I want to shoot myself? Take the pistol in your silly shaking hand then. If you touch it, it will go off, because it's loaded. It's among my campaign-kit somewhere--in the parcel at the bottom of the trunk."

Long ago d.i.c.k had carefully possessed himself of a forty-pound weight field-equipment constructed by the knowledge of his own experience. It was this put-away treasure that he was trying to find and rehandle. Mr.

Beeton whipped the revolver out of its place on the top of the package, and d.i.c.k drove his hand among the khaki coat and breeches, the blue cloth leg-bands, and the heavy flannel s.h.i.+rts doubled over a pair of swan-neck spurs. Under these and the water-bottle lay a sketch-book and a pigskin case of stationery.

"These we don't want; you can have them, Mr. Beeton. Everything else I'll keep. Pack 'em on the top right-hand side of my trunk. When you've done that come into the studio with your wife. I want you both. Wait a minute; get me a pen and a sheet of notepaper."

It is not an easy thing to write when you cannot see, and d.i.c.k had particular reasons for wis.h.i.+ng that his work should be clear. So he began, following his right hand with his left: "The badness of this writing is because I am blind and cannot see my pen." H'mph!--even a lawyer can't mistake that. It must be signed, I suppose, but it needn't be witnessed. Now an inch lower--why did I never learn to use a type-writer?--"This is the last will and testament of me, Richard Heldar. I am in sound bodily and mental health, and there is no previous will to revoke."--That's all right. d.a.m.n the pen! Whereabouts on the paper was I?--" "I leave everything that I possess in the world, including four thousand pounds, and two thousand seven hundred and twenty eight pounds held for me--oh, I can't get this straight." He tore off half the sheet and began again with the caution about the handwriting.

Then: "I leave all the money I possess in the world to"--here followed Maisie's name, and the names of the two banks that held the money.

"It mayn't be quite regular, but no one has a shadow of a right to dispute it, and I've given Maisie's address. Come in, Mr. Beeton.

This is my signature; I want you and your wife to witness it. Thanks.

Tomorrow you must take me to the landlord and I'll pay forfeit for leaving without notice, and I'll lodge this paper with him in case anything happens while I'm away. Now we're going to light up the studio stove. Stay with me, and give me my papers as I want 'em."

No one knows until he has tried how fine a blaze a year's acc.u.mulation of bills, letters, and dockets can make. d.i.c.k stuffed into the stove every doc.u.ment in the studio--saving only three unopened letters; destroyed sketch-books, rough note-books, new and half-finished canvases alike.

"What a lot of rubbish a tenant gets about him if he stays long enough in one place, to be sure," said Mr. Beeton, at last.

"He does. Is there anything more left?" d.i.c.k felt round the walls.

"Not a thing, and the stove's nigh red-hot."

"Excellent, and you've lost about a thousand pounds' worth of sketches.

Ho! ho! Quite a thousand pounds' worth, if I can remember what I used to be."

"Yes, sir," politely. Mr. Beeton was quite sure that d.i.c.k had gone mad, otherwise he would have never parted with his excellent furniture for a song. The canvas things took up storage room and were much better out of the way.

There remained only to leave the little will in safe hands: that could not be accomplished til tomorrow. d.i.c.k groped about the floor picking up the last pieces of paper, a.s.sured himself again and again that there remained no written word or sign of his past life in drawer or desk, and sat down before the stove till the fire died out and the contracting iron cracked in the silence of the night.