All Men are Ghosts Part 4

"Yes; I knew _you_ were."

"Shall we talk?"

"I want to, ever so."

"I say, we are going to have that beastly pudding for dinner to-morrow."

"That's just what I want to talk about."

"I've got an idea. Billy, I found out yesterday where they cook those puddings. They boil them in the copper of the outhouse, and the cook leaves them there while she looks after the rest of the dinner."

"Ripping!" answered Billy. "_I'll_ tell you what we'll do.--Hus.h.!.+ Is old Ginger awake?--All right. Well, we'll sneak into the outhouse to-morrow when the cook isn't looking, pinch the puddings out of the copper and chuck 'em in the pond."

"Why, Billy, that's just what I was going to say to you. But won't we scald ourselves?"

"I've thought of that. We'll get the garden fork and jab it into the puddings. They boil 'em in bags, you know."

"There's a better way than that. We'll get in before the copper has begun to boil."

"I hadn't thought of that, _but I was just going to_," said Billy.

"Yes, that's the way."

Enterprises such as these, however, were episodic, and merely serve to show how great souls, born under the same star, and united in the grand trend of their life-directions, share also the minor details of their activity. The seat of our affinities lay deeper. Both Billy and I were persons with an "end" in life, and breathed in common the atmosphere of great designs. We were like two young trees planted side by side on a breezy hill-top. Our roots were in the same soil; our branches swayed to the same rhythm; we heard the same secrets from the whispering winds. We were always on the heights. Few were the days of our companions.h.i.+p when we were not infatuated about something or other; and I sometimes doubt whether even yet I have outgrown the habit, so deep was its spring in my own nature and so strong the reinforcement it received from the influence of Billy. Sometimes we were infatuated about the same thing; and sometimes each of us struck out an independent line of his own; but always we were the victims of one mania or another.

At the time this history begins the particular mania that afflicted me was the collecting of tramcar tickets. My friends used to save them for me; I begged them from pa.s.sengers as they alighted from the cars; I picked them up in the street; and I had over seven thousand collected in a box. I thought that when the sum had risen to ten thousand the goal of my existence would be reached; and it may be said that I lived for little else.

Billy's mania was astronomy. He would spend the hours of his playtime lying on his stomach with a map of the stars spread out before him on the floor. Billy was a great astronomer--in secret. On the very day when he and I were being initiated into the mysteries of Decimals, he whispered to me in cla.s.s, "I say, I wonder how people found out the weight of the planets." He was an absent-minded boy, and many a clout on the head did he receive at this time for paying no attention to what was going on in cla.s.s. Little did the master know what Billy was thinking of as he stared at the wall before him with his great, dreamy eyes--and not for ten thousand worlds would Billy have told him. He was thinking about the weight of the planets, and the problem lay heavy on his soul; and Billy grew ever more absent-minded, and spent more time on his stomach every day. At last he suddenly waked up and began to get top-marks not only in Arithmetic but in every other subject as well. And later on, when we came to the Quadratic Equations and the Higher Geometry, the master was amazed to find that Billy required no teaching at all.

"What has happened to Billy?" asked somebody; and the answer came, "Why, of course, Billy has _burst_."

So he had. Billy had found out "how they weighed the planets," and the ma.s.s of darkness that oppressed him had been blown away in the explosion. About the same time I burst also. On counting up my tickets I found there were ten thousand of them.

Then came a pause, during which Billy and I wandered about in dry places seeking rest and finding none. Life lost its spring and the world seemed very flat, stale, and unprofitable. Conversation flagged, or became provocative of irritable rejoinders. "I say, what are you going to do with all those tramcar tickets?" asked Billy one day. "Oh, shut up!" I replied. Shortly afterwards it was my turn. "Billy, tell me what they mean by 'sidereal time.'" "Oh, shut up!" said he.

We were both waiting for the new birth, or the new explosion, utterly unconscious of our condition. But the Powers-that-be were maturing their preparations, and, all being complete, they put the match to the train in the following manner.

The usual exchange of measles and whooping-cough had been going on in our school, and Billy and I being convalescent from the latter complaint, to which we had both succ.u.mbed at the same time, were sent out one day to take an airing in the Park. On pa.s.sing down a certain walk, shaded by planes, we noticed a very old gentleman seated in a bath-chair which had been wheeled under the shadow of one of the trees.

He sat in the chair with his head bent forward on his chest, and his wasted hands were spread out on the cover. He seemed an image of decrepitude, a symbol of approaching death. He was absolutely still. A young woman on the bench beside him was reading aloud from a book.

I think it was the immobility of the old man that first arrested our attention. The moment we saw him we stopped dead in our walk and stood, motionless as the figure before us, staring at what we saw. We just stared without thinking, but even at this long distance I can remember a vague emotion that stirred me, as though I had suddenly heard the wings of time beating over my innocent head, or as though a faint scent of death had arisen in the air around; such, I suppose, as horses or dogs may feel when they pa.s.s over the spot where a man has been slain.

Suddenly Billy Burst clutched my arm--he had a habit of doing that.

"I say," he whispered, "let's go up to him and _ask him to tell us the time_."

We crept up to the bath-chair like two timid animals, literally sniffing the air as we went. Neither the old man nor his companion had noticed us, and it was not until we had both stopped in front of them that the reader looked up from her book. The old man was still unaware of our presence.

"If you please," said Billy, "would you mind telling us the time?"

At the sound of Billy's voice the old man seemed to wake from his dream.

He lifted his head and listened, as though he heard himself summoned from a far point in s.p.a.ce; and his eyes wandered vaguely from side to side unable to focus the speaker. Then they fell on Billy and his gaze was arrested.

Now Billy was a beautiful person--_the very image of his mater_. The eyes of the houri were his, the lids slightly elevated at the outer angle; he had the mouth of them that are born to speak good things; and about his brow there played a light which made you dream of high Olympus and of ancestors who had lived with the G.o.ds. Yes, there was a star on Billy's forehead; and this star it was that arrested the gaze of the old man.

A look of indescribable pleasure overspread the withered face. It almost seemed as if, for a moment, youth returned to him, or as if a breath of spring had awakened in the midst of the winter's frost.

"The time, laddie?" said he, "Why, yes, of course I can give you the time; as much of it as you want. For, don't you see, I'm a very old fellow--ninety-one last birthday; which I should think is not more than eighty years older than you, my little man. So I've plenty of time to spare. But don't take too much of it, my laddie. It's not good for little chaps like you. Now, _how much_ of the time would you like?"

"The _correct_ time, if you please, sir," said Billy, ignoring the quant.i.tative form in which the question had been framed.

So the old gentleman gave us the correct time. When we had pa.s.sed on, I looked back and saw that he was talking eagerly to his companion and pointing at Billy.

"I'll tell you what," said Billy as soon as we were out of hearing.

"I've found out something. _It does old gentlemen good to ask them the time._ Let's ask some more."

So for an hour or more we wandered about looking out for old gentlemen--"to do them good." Several whom we met were rejected by Billy on the ground that they were not old enough, and allowed to pa.s.s unquestioned. Some three or four came up to the standard, and at each experiment we found that our magic formula worked with wonderful success. It provoked smiles and kind words; it pleased the old gentlemen; it did them good. Old hands were laid on young shoulders; old faces lit up; old watches were pulled out of old pockets. One was a marvel with a long inscription on the gold back of it. And the old gentleman showed us the inscription, which stated that the watch had been presented to him by his supporters for his services to political progress and for the gallant way in which he had fought the election at So-and-so in 1867. Yes, it did the old gentlemen good. But, be it observed, Billy was the spokesman every time.

From that time onward, Billy and I were Masters in Magic, no less, infatuated with our calling and devoted to our formula. The star-books were bundled into Billy's play-box; the ten thousand tramcar tickets were thrown into the fire.

Never since the world began, thought we, had a more glorious game been invented, never had so important an enterprise been conceived by the wit of man and entrusted to two apostles twelve years old. A world-wide mission to old gentlemen was ours. Who would have believed there were so many of them? They seemed to spring into existence, to gather themselves from the four quarters of the earth, in order that they might receive the healing touch of our formula. We met them in the street, in the Park, by the river, at the railway station, coming out of church--everywhere. And all were completely in our power. Oh, it was magnificent!

So it went on for three or four weeks. But a shock was in store for us.

At first, as I have said, Billy was the spokesman. But there came a day when it seemed good that some independence of action should be introduced into the partners.h.i.+p. Billy went one way and I another.

Going on alone, I presently espied an old gentleman, of promising antiquity, walking briskly down one of the gravel paths. He was intermittently reading a newspaper. Trotting up behind him, I observed that in the intervals of his reading he would be talking to himself. He would read for half a minute and then, whipping the newspaper behind his back, begin to declaim, as though he were making a speech, quickening his pace meanwhile, so that I was hard put to it to keep up with him.

Indeed I had to run, and was out of breath when, coming up alongside, I popped out my question, "If you please, sir, what o'clock is it?"

"Go to the devil!" growled the old ruffian. And without pausing even to look at me he strode on, continuing his declamation, of which I happen to remember very distinctly these words: "I cannot, my Lords, I will not, join in congratulating the government on the disgrace into which they have brought the country." I recall these words because they resembled something in a speech of Chatham's which I had to learn by heart at school, and I remember wondering whether the old gentleman was trying to learn the same speech and getting it wrong, or whether he was making up something of his own.

Be that as it may, I had received a blow and my fondest illusion was shattered. I was personally insulted. As a professional magician I was flouted, and my calling dishonoured. And, worst of all, the magic had broken down. For the first time the formula had failed to work--had done the old gentleman _no good_. It cut me to the heart.

I ran about in great distress, seeking Billy, whom finding presently I informed in general terms of what had happened.

"What did you say to the old beast?" asked Billy.

"I said, 'If you please, sir, what o'clock is it?'"

"Oh, you a.s.s!" cried Billy. "_Those are the wrong words._ If you'd said, 'Would you mind telling me the time?' he'd have gone down like a ninepin. Only cads say 'what o'clock.' He thought you were a cad! Oh, you idiot! Leave me to do it next time."

Thus it came to pa.s.s that the partners.h.i.+p was resumed on its old basis, with Billy as the predominant member and spokesman of the Firm.

And now we entered on what I still regard as an enterprise of pith and moment. We determined, after long colloquy in the bedroom, to waylay this recalcitrant old gentleman once more, and repeat our question in its proper form, and with Billy as spokesman. Had I been alone, my courage would certainly have failed to carry me through. But with Billy at my side I was never afraid of anything either then or afterwards. O Billy, if only you had been with me--then--and then--if only I had felt your presence when the great waters went over me, if only I could have seen your tilted dreaming eyes when--I would have made a better thing of it, indeed I would! But one was taken and the other left; and I had to fight those battles alone--alone, but not forgetful of you. I did not fight them very well, Billy; and yet not so ill as I should have done had I never known you.

Well, for several days the declaiming gentleman, whom we now knew as "the old beast," and never called by any other name, failed to appear.

But at last we caught sight of him, striding along and violently whipping his newspaper behind his back, just as before.

On the former occasion, when I was alone, I had operated from the rear, but with Billy in support, I proposed that we should attack from the front. So we threw ourselves in his path and marched steadily to meet him. On he came, and as he drew near, down went the newspaper, and, as though he were spitting poison, he hissed out from between his teeth a fearful sentence, of which the last words were: "the most iniquitous government that has ever betrayed and abused the confidence of a sovereign people"--staring meanwhile straight over our heads.