It must not be supposed that in other directions my affairs had got any smoother as time went on; nor that, although I worked as hard as flesh and blood would permit, that I succeeded in overtaking any of my liabilities. Moreover, I began to receive unmistakable warnings that my physical capacity was becoming unequal to the constant strain I put upon it, although I only knew that my morning cough was more exhausting than it had been, and that I always awoke in the morning feeling dreadfully tired, much more so indeed than when I went to bed. And always I found myself unable to keep up those terribly punctual monthly payments, and trying to discriminate between people who would be put off and people who wouldn't.
The first immediately unpleasant result of this discrimination or attempted preference was in connection with my latter loan. Now please understand that I am bringing no indictment against the money-lender, or mean anything opprobrious in speaking of him in that way. If he had lent me thousands instead of single pounds, he would have been a banker, and if I had wanted his money for speculation instead of to pay my rent and get my family food, I should have been a financier to be esteemed instead of being a borrower to be despised. I am only, however, concerned with the plain facts now, and they are that I sent a polite letter of apology to the money-lender, telling him that—oh well, you can imagine the kind of things a defaulting debtor would say—but the whole comprising just an ordinary letter of excuse for non-payment.
To this effusion I received no reply whatever, but two days afterwards my surety came rushing to me in a state of great agitation, flourishing a telegram which he had just received from his wife, to the effect that a man had been put in possession of their furniture in default of my payment of an instalment of the loan. Desperately he demanded of me what I meant by such behaviour, and tearfully assured me that such an experience had never been his before, in which I have reason to believe he was not within the parallel lines of fact. I was as stunned as he, and promised every reparation in my power, while I knew that nothing short of that instalment would avail. So I immediately obtained leave of absence, and went a-borrowing, a frequent exercise alas, but one which I never practised without a sense of poignant shame, preventing me from degenerating into the common species of "earbiter," as he is vulgarly called, of the Montague Tigg type.
Miraculously, as I think, I succeeded in borrowing the £3 required, on my faithful promise to repay at the end of the month, from a man who was as poor as I, but more methodical, and had put it away towards his rent. Let me say before I go any further, that I did not abuse his trust, nor did I ever do so to anybody except in the single case of my surety, which I was now engaged in repairing. I hope I do not put this forward in a spirit of offensive or aggressive virtue, but I do want to disavow any association with that rotten type of man who will promise anything to get your money, will, having got it, squander it, and then ridicule you for being such a fool as to lend to him, of all people in the world. This type I am glad to say is usually of the "sporting" breed of "boys," and has no relation to decent beings.
With my delayed instalment and my friend's freedom in my hand, I hied me unto the ancient capitalist at Victoria. I made no complaint, for indeed I had no ground. He made no apology, but received my money (I beg pardon, his money) with dignity, saying that he was glad the matter was so speedily arranged, because the aggressive process involved a lot of trouble which he hated. But business was business, and a bargain was a bargain, as he hoped I knew well, and—he hoped the weather would continue fine, being indeed very seasonable for the time of the year. And so we parted, I certainly feeling truly ashamed at having put this good old man to so much unnecessary trouble, my friend to indignity, and myself to so many superfluous blushes.
And as if to compensate me in some measure for what was in truth a heavy day, I found on my arrival home quite a nice order awaiting me. A gentleman of that fine class, the commercial traveller, who had often patronised me before, came in and ordered four pounds worth of pictures, paying as was his wont the money for them upon giving the order, and telling me that I could deliver them any time within the month. By great good fortune I had everything necessary to carry out the order in stock, and as soon as he was gone, I set to work with a glad heart. For I was like a cork, easily depressed, but popping up again serenely as soon as the pressure was removed. However, I could not be allowed even that small interregnum of peace, for at about ten a man came in with some inquiry about my charges for framing. I paid as much attention as I always did to his questions, but unfortunately had to leave him in the shop for a few minutes, while I went into my workshop. When I returned he was gone, and so was my glass-cutting diamond, which was lying upon the baize-covered table on which I cut my glass.
It was a heavy loss to me, for I had got used to its cut, and although its price was only 12s. 6d. I never had another that I could use properly, not being at all expert anyhow. I will not deny that this made me feel very unhappy, for when there was so much lying around stealable that would never be missed, I did feel it hard that a fellow should come in and steal my principal tool, for which at the outside he would only be able to realise about three and sixpence in pawn. Still I suppose I ought to be thankful that this was the sole theft I suffered from in all my business career, only somehow the present loss was so great that I was very grieved over it, and moreover I had to send to a local glass-cutter, with whom I was not on any the best terms on account of being a trade rival, for some squares of glass in order to complete my contract in time.
About this month I managed to get a little extra money in a way that seems fantastic, but which came to me as a very welcome addition to my spasmodic earnings. A young gentleman who had been an occasional customer came to me one evening, when I was trying to hammer out an article or story on the counter for want of something more immediately profitable to do, and asked me if I had any objection to model for him. I did not recognise the verb in its present application, and begged him to explain. It then appeared that he was an artist who earned most of his living by illustrating magazines, articles, and stories, and being extremely conscientious, he needed the living model so that his pictures should be vraisembleable as possible. But the professional model was not to be found in East Dulwich, and so in his extremity he thought of me as a man probably eager to earn an honest shilling in whatsoever strange ways.
After a few enquiries I closed with his offer of one and sixpence per hour (always very generously interpreted), and promised to come up to his house as soon as I had closed the shop, or say about 10.30 P.M. I went, and laid the foundation of a friendship that still endures, the artist in question having illustrated several of my books and done so, in my poor opinion, better than any other living artist could have done. But I am getting on too fast.
It must be remembered that as yet I had no experience of "modelling," knew absolutely nothing of what it meant to stand for half an hour in one position, and in parenthesis I may say that I never learned well. But I did my best, and my employer was pleased to say that my intelligent appreciation of what he wanted was much more useful to him than would have been the trained immobility of any professional model. But oh! how I suffered. I thought I knew what hard work, what endurance was. I got a severe shock. In justice to myself I must ask my readers to remember that I had been up since 6 A.M., and it was now nearly midnight, and that even if I had not been using my thews and sinews all that time I had been up and about. Anyhow I know that after striking an attitude which satisfied my employer and maintaining it for say seven or eight minutes, I felt as if I was in some infernal torture chamber, and though very anxious to earn my money and to win approval I had to give in.
But my employer was kindness itself, and though naturally intensely anxious to carry out his ideas, he never took the slightest advantage of my position, or insisted upon any pound of flesh. So far from that, and I cannot tell what it meant to me then, as soon as my time was up I was invited to a good supper, which his charming wife had prepared, and at which I was made to feel a welcome guest, with no thought of that hardly earned eighteen pence in the background. How much this kindly intercourse helped me I have no means of knowing, but the impression it made upon me at the time is no keener than the sense I have now of how kind it was; and I have been an honoured guest in that friend's house for the last ten years.
This seems, in these desultory confessions, a right and fitting place to set forth the fact that in many of my customers I found friends. By which I mean people who think about you, who would take trouble for you, or would make sacrifices to help you, who grieve over your misfortunes and rejoice when you are doing well. And how precious they are. I have always been a great stickler for the proper definitions of words such as Freedom, Love, Friendship, Truth; and I do wish people would not lightly talk of friends when they only mean some casual acquaintance who knows little of them and cares less. I can frankly assert that the only pleasant recollections I have of my shop-keeping days, connected with business that is, are associated with the many kindly folks whom I served. Of course my particular business lent itself to closer relations with customers than ordinary shop-keeping, since I had to discuss their desires with them, and give them the benefit of my experience. The one drawback attached to this was that I often spent three or four times as long discussing a trifling order as it was worth; but that was counterbalanced by my sometimes getting a big order with a very small amount of talk.
It did occasionally happen that I, as the Yankees happily and metaphorically put it, struck a snag even in this, and one glaring instance lingers luridly in my memory. A neighbouring tradesman, with whom I was on most friendly terms, very kindly gave me an introduction to a well-to-do customer of his at Tulse Hill. My friend was a builder and decorator, and had done a great deal of work for this gentleman, to their mutual satisfaction. So when, one day, his customer asked him about getting some old English frames regilded he recommended me, and did not, in ordinary business fashion, stipulate that he should have a commission upon the transaction. Cheered by my friend's description of his customer, I waited upon the latter, and was received in the most jolly fashion as a guest, and not in any patronising spirit, refreshments being produced and some pleasant general talk ensuing. I was then shown the work and asked for an estimate. This I gave after close calculation, and with due consideration of the fact that my customer had probably obtained other estimates before asking for mine.
But to my intense amazement, the gentleman, upon hearing the sum named, immediately said that he could get the work done in the best style for just one quarter of the sum I had named! Now there was nothing for me to do but give him the lie direct had I obeyed my first impulse. But I stifled it, and mildly said that such a price as he had quoted meant gilding with German metal, as the quantity of gold leaf required to cover those frames would cost three times the sum. He, of course, said that he didn't know anything about that, the price given him by a gilder in the Minories was for English gold. I then rose to go, saying that I regretted not being able to go further in the matter. He then said he did not want to disappoint me, and what was the lowest I could do the job for? I replied quietly that I had quoted the lowest possible price for regilding, and one that was less than half what would be demanded by a big West End firm, but that if he cared to have the frames renovated and touched up where necessary I could meet him with an estimate of half the first amount quoted, but explaining fully that this would be in no sense regilding. After a lot of talk he agreed, and I undertook the work.
My kindly gilder, for I could not do the work myself, never having been able to master the delicacy of touch required in this exceedingly technical operation, made every effort, as he always did, to help me to make the best of a bad bargain, cutting his price as I had cut mine. And he did his touching up so well, that when the work was finished I felt that my customer would say that it would have been a waste of money to have had those frames regilded, they looked so well. Now my part of the work so far consisted in getting the six heavy frames to my shop from Tulse Hill, having first removed the pictures from them, and the completion of my task would be to return them, fitting the pictures in again and hanging them; and my share of the profits were almost precisely what a carrier would have charged for the job. But in the meantime, my customer had removed to Clapham Common, and the task of delivering those frames, which required the most careful handling, was thereby vastly increased in difficulty. However, I tackled it successfully by the aid of the gilder, who, wanting his money, agreed to wait at a neighbouring hostelry until I should return with the spoil.
My customer's satisfaction at the way in which the work had been done could not be concealed, and indeed the pictures did look very fine when in position. Then he asked me nonchalantly if I had brought the bill. I handed it to him. He glanced at it and said, "Oh! you have made a gross mistake. You agreed to do the work for £2 pounds, and this bill is for £5." For a moment I was speechless, and then replied as calmly as I could, "I have made no mistake, sir; you wanted me to do the work for £2, and I told you it was impossible. I have to pay my gilder £4. 5s., and he is now waiting for the money at the Plough."
Well, he rejoined casually, "that's nothing to do with me; you'll get £2 or nothing. You can please yourself."
Now I am anything but a courageous man, but I felt desperate, and although he towered over me like a giant with a very threatening air, I said, quite coolly, "You owe me £5 for work done, and I shall not leave this house until I get it," at which he laughed merrily and retorted, "Ah! so that's your little game is it? Very well, stay here until I'm tired of you, then I'll throw you into the road." So I sat down on the nearest chair (I was then in a partly furnished drawing room), and resigned myself to wait. Fortunately, there was a book there, Kipling's "Light that Failed," and I began to read.
Now strange as it my seem, so great is the power of detachment from circumstances over which I have no control that I have always possessed, that I read that book through with the utmost enjoyment, only an occasional cross current of compunction traversing my mind for the weary wait imposed upon my faithful coadjutor. I had finished the book about a quarter of an hour, which means that I had been in the house nearly four hours, when the gentleman came in and said, with assumed surprise, "What, you here still? How much did you say you wanted?" "£5," I replied quietly. "All right, here you are," he answered, holding out a £5 note to me. I took it, examined it, said "thank you," and walked out of the house.
Tame ending, was it not, to such a dramatic situation, and tamer still the fact that my only sensation was one of satisfaction that I had got the money. I joined my gilder, who was, I regret to say, distinctly the worse for liquor, having had, as he said, no option but to beguile the long afternoon by taking eight special Scotches for the "good of the house." However I explained the situation to him, handed him his money, and made haste home feeling that if ever I had earned fifteen shillings in my life I had done so on this occasion. In conclusion of this episode, I regret to have to add that my friend who had recommended me to this "genial sportsman," as I heard somebody call him, had the grievous misfortune to lose £50 of hardly earned money due to him from the same merry gentleman. I cannot trust myself to comment upon this behaviour which, alas, is all too common among a certain class who habitually live beyond their means and regard the poor tradesman as fair game. If they can only borrow from him as well their delight seems proportionately heightened.
And now I had a sudden gleam of joy, a bit of pleasure so keen that it made me forget for the time all my troubles. I had a story accepted, and it appeared in print. Many of my readers will know what that meant, but I will not believe that any one could have been more delighted than I was. Not that I built up any airy structures of hope, of fame and fortune as an author upon it, but I could not help feeling that it was wonderful how I, without any of the usual educational aids, in competition with the mighty army of able writers ever assaulting harassed editors in London, and under the stress of such stern life-conditions as mine, should have accomplished such a feat. True it was only in a boy's paper, Young England, true that the pay was only a guinea, and that I waited six months for it, but the golden glorious fact remained that I saw myself in print.
Perhaps it is strange that I did not then neglect the business which yielded me nothing but debt and disappointment, and throw all my energies into this new channel. A profound distrust of my own abilities, and an idea that this was just a bit of curious good luck may possibly account for my apathy, but whatever it was I know that for a long time I was content to rest upon my laurels in the literary arena and to grub along in the shop. The verb I have used just expresses it; I grubbed and got ever deeper and deeper into the mire, and to the well-meant advice of my friends as to why on earth I did not give up the unequal struggle and go bankrupt before it killed me, I could only render the same answer as before, that bankruptcy spelt workhouse because I should inevitably lose my job.
But one spring morning I received a warning too urgent to be neglected (though I did not heed it then). I was rushing off to the office as usual after four hours of the hardest work and nothing in me since the previous midday meal, except sundry cups of tea, when just in the middle of Green Lane, Dulwich, I felt the world slipping from under me, and with hardly a struggle I was gone for the time. I often thought somewhat resentfully afterwards how much better for me it would have been not to have revived again into a world already over stocked with mediocrities, how easy and pleasant and satisfactory it would have been to have had the ever-gnawing question of how to live settled authoritatively for me. That, however, was not to be, for presently I came to, awoke as it were from a pleasant sleep, and gazed wonderingly around.
There was no one in sight, for it was then a most secluded pathway at that early hour of the day, and I gradually realised my surroundings. I had fallen very pleasantly upon a grassy and weed over-grown patch at the side of the St Olave's playing grounds, so that I was not bemired or disreputable looking. My first thought was of the office, to get there as soon as possible, and make what excuse I could for my late arrival—for I felt that it must be near noon, as I had no means of knowing the time. So I struggled to my feet, only to find that nature had her authoritative say in the matter, for I trembled so that I could not stand erect, and I felt all gone inside. Moreover there was a curious numbness at my finger ends which seemed to me to presage paralysis. Therefore I gave up the office idea and crept back at the easiest pace I could manage to the house of a gentleman in East Dulwich Grove, nearly next door to James Allen's School, who had often patronised me but never, although a local physician of great repute, attended me or any of my family.
He received me with the utmost kindness and bade me lie down after giving me some sal volatile, also forbade me speaking a word until he gave me leave. So I lay on his sofa watching him at work until my over-burdened heart and overstrung nerves had quieted down. Then he cross-examined me as to my mode of life, my health generally, and at the end of my answers, said quietly, "Now, my friend, advice is usually flung away upon such people as you have declared yourself to be, so I will not advise you. But I tell you, from my utmost convictions, that at the rate you are now living, and in the present condition of your vital powers, your time here on earth is limited to one year, or at the outside eighteen months. If, however, you ease off, slow down, don't work like a fiend or race after trains like a madman, you may live the allotted span."
I was about to reply when he interposed, saying sadly, "I know you'll tell me it's a counsel of perfection. It's one of the tragedies of our profession that we continually have to give counsel which the patient cannot follow. But we cannot help that. Now, I'll listen to what you have got to say." And he did. I detailed to him as to a father confessor, the uttermost particulars of my business, my debts, and the conditions under which I held my clerkship. He listened most sympathetically, most kindly, and then threw up his hands with a gesture as of one compelled to dismiss the case from his mind.
"Heart failure; mustn't hurry or you'll die; must eat more, whether you've any appetite, or means to get it or not; must rest and take things quietly," and so on, and so on. Bitterly I smiled to myself as I slowly crept home. But so curiously is the average man constituted that I did not feel as if I was actually under sentence of death. I rather clung to the belief that Doctor Stericker might be mistaken, and anyhow that many things might happen in eighteen months. Though really that was not what kept me going. I have no claim to perseverance, pertinacity, courage or, least of all, optimism, but like the involved orator I couldn't see a place to leave off. No opening presented itself to me to step out of and lay the almost intolerable burden down, although I know full well that but for those helpless ones dependent upon me I should certainly have made or found a way long before.
Here is the only explanation I can give of my persistence in a hopeless cause, to assign any other would be rank hypocrisy, as it would be to claim any special virtues of endurance or bravery in the face of overwhelming odds. And I have often thought that in many of us who get credit for "sticking to it" when all hope seems dead, there may be something of what Kipling quotes as the pertinacity of materials: we hold on because it has become a habit so to do. But even I could not help seeing that the crash could now not be very long delayed, especially as I dared no longer dash at my work when it came in with a rush. I have also to recall very gratefully that my chief at the office, who took a kindly interest in my struggles, and had advised me to file my petition in bankruptcy, now hinted to me very clearly that in the event of my doing so, no notice would be taken by those "up above." This cheered me immensely, for I knew he would not have told me this if he had not found good grounds for doing so. And so I went on in my quieter course awaiting the catastrophe, and absolutely uncertain as to how or when it would come.
Just about this time, I was delighted by the acceptance of an article I had written, by the editor of Chambers's Journal, a magazine which I had known and admired all my life, although I think it was called Chambers's Miscellany, "When that I was a little tiny boy," I had also imagined that the publication of a story or an article by anybody in those familiar double-column pages conferred a sort of brevet rank upon the writer of which no one could rob him; and in addition to all this the cheque which I received with (to me) amazing promptitude, was three times as much as I had previously received for an article of nearly the same length. So that altogether I felt uplifted and heartened, although the idea of literature as a profession still never occurred to me, especially as I was rapidly nearing forty, and feeling very often double that.
I fully believed that at forty a man's career was irrevocably fixed; if he had done nothing worthy of note before, he would certainly never do anything after, and all the stirring adventure of my early days had been completely overlaid by the dull drab round of my clerkly duties through so many years, to say nothing of the other jejune, undramatic, commonplace matters of which I have been writing in these pages. Only, and this I would like to lay stress upon, there was a glow of strange delight in my heart, to find that when I took my pen in hand and sat down to write, all that early life on many seas stood out bold and clear upon the background of my mind, and I lived its incidents over and over again.
Little did any of my infrequent customers think when they came into the shop and saw me writing as if for dear life, as I leaned over the counter, that I was lost in the resuscitated life of a quarter of a century before. And strange to say, at least to me, as soon as I laid down the pen all the vivid reality vanished, and I was as eager to get an order for a five-shilling frame, or to sell a couple of little pictures that I had framed on speculation, as if I had never done anything else all my life. Occasionally, however, my eagerness departed, as when one day a lady came in and purchased all the framed Mildmay texts I had in the place, telling me that she was going to present them to a church bazaar. Of course I cut the price to the bone, as we say, for I thought I must not miss so good a chance of getting rid of stock that had been on hand for a long time; so I charged her just about half what the things cost me in materials. Her order came to thirty shillings, and she said when about to pay me, "Of course you'll give me twenty-five per cent. discount, I always get that for bazaar goods!"
Even £1. 2s. 6d. would have been heartily welcome, but I rejoice to recollect that I told that wicked old harpy exactly what I thought of her, and her methods, and the system generally. This is not the place nor the time for a dissertation upon the charity of those who grind the face of the poor tradesman to supply the goods which they so ostentatiously present to the local bazaar, but I do not know that anything has aroused fiercer resentment in my heart than the behaviour of these liars, hypocrites, and thieves. Strong words, I agree, but not any stronger than the truth which is, as we know, mighty and will prevail.
Nearer and nearer drew the day of my deliverance,though of the manner in which that liberation was to be effected or of the time when it would come, I had not the remotest idea. I have omitted to say that when I took this shop I agreed with the gas company to supply me with three large incandescent gas lamps on hire. They gave a splendid light, and were called the Vertmarsche patent, I remember. I was very proud of them, although they were only mine by courtesy, as I had not paid more than three quarterly instalments off their heavy cost. But they certainly did give a tone to the appearance of the shop, and although they undoubtedly made a heavy increase in my gas bills, I had learned that economy in light in any shop was fatal to business.
However I was often congratulated upon the splendour of my lights, for the system was then new, and I was the only tradesman in the lane who had them. They were especially admired by the tenant of my old shop nearly opposite, who had for some time been endeavouring to carry on a little drapery business there. He used to come over and swap troubles with me, telling me things which made me realise that I was by no means the only sufferer in this war of ours. At last, one evening, he became exceedingly confidential, telling me that his affairs had come to a crisis, and that he was about to file his petition in bankruptcy. But, he said, his furniture was of a very good and expensive kind, and he felt it would be too bad to have it seized and sold for such a trifle as it would surely fetch at a knockout auction. Would I then let him my first-floor front room, which I had never occupied, as a store house for the best of his furniture until the clouds had rolled away? and if so, what would I charge per week. He could pay three shillings and sixpence.
At first I hesitated, for I realised the precariousness of my own position, but my visitor, mistaking my hesitation for a desire to get more money out of him, said, "I'd pay you more if I could, but I swear I have hardly a penny in the world. Do help me if you can; you may be glad of a similar lift yourself some day." Of course I hastened to assure him that nothing could well have been farther from my thoughts than the idea of exploiting his misery. Three shillings and sixpence a week would pay me well, and indeed was the sum I had been vainly asking for that room for a long time.
He thanked me effusively and departed. After closing hours, he managed to get his effects transferred to my front room, and when I saw the kind of stuff he had, I could not wonder at his anxiety lest it should fall into the hands of those harpies, who batten upon the hardships of people who have their homes broken up. A terrible tragedy indeed, when the savings of an industrious lifetime invested in furniture are knocked down for, in many cases, less shillings than they cost pounds originally, and are then immediately resold to the inner gang for an enhanced price, to appear in a few days' time in some local furnishing warehouse at almost as high a price as their original figure.
The next day, my poor little guest came the expected cropper. His shop was closed, and he disappeared with his wife and family. I felt a wistful curiosity to know how he was faring, and yet a curious diffidence lest I should learn too much for my peace of mind. And so he passed out of my thoughts, and indeed I even forgot that so large a portion of his belongings was under my roof. Truly I had quite sufficient of my own pressing personal affairs to occupy all my attention to the exclusion of any one else's troubles for the time, and that probably made me more callous than I should have been. I know that when some chance acquaintance would come in, and after a very lengthy preamble, try to borrow a few shillings, I used to wax eloquent. Yet I suppose I ought to have been quite grateful for the opportunity of giving utterance to my sorrows without being suspected of ulterior motives. But I regret to say that I got a very bad idea of my fellow-men generally about this time. So many of them known to me looked so jolly, existed so easily, dressed well, smoked good cigars, and yet when they got me by myself invariably sang a song of misery, of a hollow mask concealing a broken heart, which the temporary loan of a pound or two would mend. And when the pound or two was not forthcoming a shilling or even sixpence would be so welcome. One quality they certainly had, that of perseverance. Yes, after the most vehement exposition of the impossibility of ever borrowing anything from me, of all people in the world, they would reappear shortly on the same errand, until I shrewdly suspected, and told them as much, that they were only doing it for practice.
The climax for which I had been so long and so ignorantly waiting came in dramatic fashion. Not, of course, as I had expected it to come, for to tell the plain simple truth I had for a long time thought that it would arrive by my falling dead in the street, and I exercised my imagination continually on the possible scenes afterwards. There was nothing much to wonder at in this for I almost always felt at this time as if I was, as the Spaniards say, Gastados, used up, had nothing at all left inside. But on this eventful evening I was working away as usual, "fitting up," in trade terms, at my glass cutting bench, when, without the slightest warning, the whole ceiling of the shop fell down, from wall to wall it tore away in one great mass of rotten plaster, smashing everything in its fall and filling the shop with dust and ruin. An earthquake could not have been more comprehensive as regards the internal fittings of the shop. My blessings upon the loafing scoundrels who slapped that rubbish up against the laths above, entirely careless of what happened as long as it stuck there till they got their money. They did me better service than they ever dreamed of. A big chunk of plaster having hit me on the head I was for a moment dazed and partly suffocated by the dust as well, but I saw my broken lamps flaring up towards the network of tindery laths above, and instinctively I dropped on my hands and knees to grope my way to the gas meter. I got rather badly cut, but I found the meter and turned off the gas, just in time to save the house from catching fire.
I can hear some cynic say, "Silly ass, why didn't he let it catch fire and burn down, he could have made a bit out of it then." Perhaps so, but I was not prepared to make a bit, and I had trained myself in habits of honesty (now don't laugh, for many people do, and I am no great exception) so that my first and only thought at that juncture was to prevent the greater calamity of fire. Groping my way back along the counter, the dust having somewhat subsided I saw my wife, white and trembling, at the door of the shop parlour. On a sudden impulse I laughed loudly. In that instant I saw that the long looked for deliverance had come at last. But she said, "Oh, what's the matter? Are you all right?" meaning was I sane. I answered cheerily, "No doubt about that. I'm all right, and for good or evil I've done with this business. This means a full stop. I can't go on, however much I might want to."
Then I became aware that the outside of the shop was crowded with people who had heard the crash, and with the intense curiosity of a London crowd had accumulated with the idea of seeing what was "up." This sight caused my mirth to subside, for like most Englishmen I hate a crowd, hate to be pried upon, especially at a time like that. We like to fight our troubles alone, or at most with one or two chosen chums. On the platform it is different, the more facing you then the better, but afterwards, half a dozen will make you feel awkward. So I went to the door, and said appealingly, "What do you want?" There was no reply, so with a sigh I went on. "The ceiling of my shop has fallen down and ruined my stock. That's all. There's plenty of trouble, but it's mine, and you people can only add to it by crowding round here." With this I seized my "long arm," a pole with a hook to it, and marching out pulled the shutters down. I daresay a lot of them stood for a long time staring at the shutters, a practice of London crowds that is in curious variance to their usual alertness, but I do not know, for I did not look out again that night.
Having bolted up as securely as if I feared a raid I came back to the parlour, where my wife met me, still with that doubting look in her eyes, and said, "Whatever will you do?" "Do," I replied, "I shall do the only thing that is now possible, I shall go up to Bankruptcy Buildings in the morning and file my petition." "How do you do that?" she queried. "I don't know anything about it, but I can learn, and shall learn I doubt not pretty quick," I answered. "And in any case it doesn't matter much now, for I am absolutely certain that this is what I have been unconsciously waiting for so long." As the matter was not yet quite plain to her I went on to point out the absolutely ruinous condition of the house with respect to the other ceilings, which did not, however, make the place uninhabitable. The shop was quite another matter. For in the first place the bulk of my stock of pictures was smashed, in the next my three costly lamps would require at least £5 spent upon them to put them in working order again, while I could not possibly open the shop again for business in that forlorn and dilapidated condition.
Now the landlord had simply scoffed at the idea of doing anything to the premises in the way of repairs, telling me, with some indignation, what was indeed true, that the house had just been practically rebuilt, although taking no notice of my demur that the work had been so badly done that it had long ago required doing all over again. In addition to all these things I was very near the end of a second quarter in which I had paid no rent, and I should have been diffident, to put it delicately, in any case of approaching the landlord upon the subject of repairs unless I could do so with £20 in my hand.
To say that I had no money wherewith to get these repairs done would be too bold a platitude, for I never had any money that I could call my own, I never spent a penny upon the imperative needs of my family or myself, without a sense of guilt, of dishonesty, because I knew that it rightly belonged to someone else. But perhaps I should not have accepted the fiat of that collapsed ceiling so readily, had I not, metaphorically speaking, been in a state of physical decay, and inviting a coup de grâce. At anyrate I was perfectly satisfied in my own mind that it was a direct interposition of the awful power of Providence in my little ephemeral affairs, and after a few mouthfuls of bread and cheese I went to bed with a lighter heart than I had borne for many a day.
I arose in the morning at daylight, refreshed by my good rest, which in itself was most unusual, but to me is a proof how largely fatigue is induced by worry. My first thought was the ruin below, and as soon as I had drunk my tea, I faced it. Pushing the shutters up and letting the light stream in, I surveyed the scene and saw that it was far more ghastly than I had realised last night. In fact it quite fascinated me, and I stood staring at it for about ten minutes, softly whistling the while, until I suddenly came to myself with a jerk, and commenced to clear up a bit. But it was a painful business because of its obvious hopelessness. Still something had to be done in order to get in and out, and besides I had got so used to work that employment, whether remunerative or not, was an absolute necessity.
Another thing which made this occupation so painful to me was the handling of the broken children of my labours, my picture frames. Every one of them had been a source of pride to me as I finished it, and stood it up to contemplate it; and to see them all mutilated, spoiled, and scattered was to me a most depressing sight. Still, by sheer force of habit, I worked on, and succeeded in getting a sufficient clearance made for present purposes by the time I had to prepare for the office. Not that I intended to do any office work that day, for quite different plans were in my mind.
I reached the office at the usual time, and, without uncovering my table, sought my kindly chief and told him that I was at last compelled to take his often reiterated advice and go to Carey Street (the Bankruptcy Court). Hurriedly I explained the circumstances to him, finding that he was entirely in favour of my action. Then I made out the usual application for a day's leave (to be deducted from my summer vacation), handed it in, and left.
With ample time to spare, I strolled up to the huge pile of buildings at the back of the Law Courts, which I in common with many happier Londoners had never known the use of until then. Indeed they had not long been finished and the approach to them, across what some of the newspapers ironically called at that time Strand Common, was quite appropriately depressing. It had that effect upon me at anyrate, added to all that horror of the unknown which is so natural to imaginative people and withal so unjustifiable in nine cases out of ten. Being full early I sat down on one of the benches which even then were provided by some thoughtful souls for the use of weary jetsam from the roaring tide of the Strand or Fleet Street, and endeavoured to concentrate my thoughts upon the approaching ordeal. It was a hopeless failure, as any attempts at meditation have always been with me. My thoughts will only flow under the stimulus of speech or pen action, in silence and alone they are uncontrollable, and range fruitlessly over the whole field of my experience.
But, behold, to me came sudden and grateful relief in the person of an old patron of mine who held some snug billet as an official reporter at the Law Courts facing us. Having an hour to spare, he had come there to smoke a contemplative pipe and enjoy the unwonted rest from recording in wiggly hieroglyphics the mass of banalities, lies, and legalities which it was his business to perpetuate in print. He was an enthusiast in photography—indeed, it was his only hobby—and at the very slightest sign that I was attending to what he said, he launched forth into a flood of talk about lenses and exposures, and focussing and developing, about all of which I knew rather less than I did of cuneiform inscriptions. But he was so pleased, and my face expressed so much interest (which I swear I could not feel), that he babbled on for the hour he had to spare.
Then suddenly he said, "But what are you doing here?" I replied casually as if it was an ordinary occurrence with me, "Oh, I'm waiting to file my petition in Bankruptcy as soon as it's eleven o'clock." "Indeed," he answered, "well, you needn't be in a hurry, you won't find anybody in there that is. Good morning," and he left me.
True my histrionic qualities are few, but I know that I did try and impart a pathetic break to my voice when I spoke of my errand, to infuse it with a pathos which I did not feel, for I had no idea of what was before me. I know also that he did not take the slightest notice of my tone, and treated it as one of the commonest of human experiences, one not deserving of even a passing thought. I know too that this vulgar indifference of his hurt me more than any words of whatever kind could have done. By it I knew that I was now enrolled among the ranks of the great army who live by their wits, who make a business of living upon other people, who are as much the parasites of society as the bookmaker or the bucket-shopkeeper, although not nearly so prosperous. No one would give me any credit, I knew, for the almost superhuman struggles I had made to pay my way, and to justify my right to live and maintain my wife and family. I, who had literally starved myself and worked myself into collapse in order to practice all the week what I preached on Sundays in the open air, was now to be classed with those whom I had so often denounced.
Perhaps it served me right for denouncing anybody. But it is hard when one feels deeply to refrain from speech. Yet I suppose it would be safe to say that we never know what we might become if we fell victims to the folie des grandeurs, combined with that far more common complaint, the accursed thirst for gold, no matter whose.
Standing, as I am now (as far as my story is concerned), on the threshold of the Bankruptcy Court, I wish to disavow the idea of having any quarrel with individuals, or, of any personal bias. One of the main objects I have had before me in writing this book has been to record simply and without hyperbole my own experiences in connection with this great national Institution. If, in the course of my remarks, I say anything which is not strictly warranted by the facts, I declare that it is not intentional. I only say that which personal observation and experience leads me to believe is strictly true. Also, be it noted, I write from the point of the view of the amateur—I have not had the benefit in one sense of an association with any of those able financiers who have been bankrupt several times, and then have retired to enjoy in a peaceful retirement the fruits of their labours.
I declare that when I pushed open the swing doors of the vast hall I felt just as a boy does upon entering a school for the first time. So utterly ignorant, so helpless, so willing to learn. I advanced a few paces and met a cheery soul in uniform, who said heartily, "Wotyer lookin' fur, Govnor?" Now, as the Americans say, wouldn't that get you busy? I looked at him and to him, I make no doubt, like a perfect fool. He looked at me keenly and enquiringly, until I had to say, "Well, the fact is—I am unfamiliar with these places, but I have had misfortunes and I wish to file my petition in Bankruptcy." You will observe from its frequent repetition how proud I was of having got what I considered one legal phrase at least pat and complete. He replied with the utmost nonchalance, "Right O, second door on the left, and ask at the desk. They'll put you up to it."
I followed his instructions, feeling that I was getting on, and entered the room he indicated. There were several men, I dare not say clerks for they had not any of the characteristics of that much derided tribe, and I doubt whether even Mr H. G. Wells would have satirised them in his usual curious fashion concerning clerks, but all were engaged, nay engrossed with some work, until I came to the last, and he was reading the Daily Chronicle. As I was only one of his employers, I acted as usual, that is, I humbly waited before him until he had finished the article he was reading, when he languidly lifted his eyes to me and said with an air, not exactly of contempt, but of the most utter and complete detachment, "Well! what is your business?"
Still with bated breath and lowly demeanour, I replied, "I wish to file my petition in Bankruptcy." "All right," he answered as he folded his paper, "that'll be £10—£5 for the stamp and £5 security for costs." I caught my breath and said, "But I've got no money at all; I can't pay anybody, that is why I came here." To which he rejoined casually, "Who's your solicitor?" This, I am afraid, rather disturbed me, for how I, who had avowed myself penniless, could afford to pay a solicitor (the very word savoured of affluence to me) I could not conceive, and I did really regard his question as an insolent one. It was not, of course. It was perfectly business like and proper from his point of view, which from mine was as wide as the poles asunder. But still, realising my position, I told him civilly that I had no money to employ a solicitor, that so far from having £10, my stock of ready cash was under five shillings, that if I had £10 I should certainly not be there, but handing that £10 out to some of those who were entitled to it.
Much more I said to the same non-effect, for he listened with an expression of infinite weariness, and when I had finished he said abruptly, "How much do you owe?" I answered, about £300. "Very well, then," he replied, "if you had £10 wouldn't it be much better to come to us with it and empower us to treat with your creditors than to fritter that crumb away paying two or three and annoying all the rest? But, after all, that's not the point; it's none of my duty to stand here telling you what you ought to do. You get £10 and come here with it, and I'll give you your papers and set you going. Good morning."
Thus he ceased and busied himself with a heap of papers, leaving me standing aghast at the idea that a man who had no money to pay his debts should have to pay £10 for the privilege of saying so in public, that any money he might have should not be devoted to paying his debts, but to making legal excuses why he should not do so. However, this particular official had obviously had quite sufficient of such a fool as I was, and it was of no use wasting time there, so I quietly slunk away in worse plight than ever, to my way of thinking. For I could not possibly bring my mind to bear upon the inherent dishonesty of the situation.
As thus—declaring myself a bankrupt, all my belongings of whatever kind as well as my future earnings, until my debts were satisfied, became automatically the property of the official receiver to hold in trust for my creditors. Therefore to sell it, or any portion of it for any purpose, was a felony. Yet having no money how was I to raise these fees? I could not borrow, for if I revealed my position, no sane person would lend, and I could not possess any security. If anybody gave me money for the purpose of paying those fees, it would be a fraud upon my creditors to put the money to that purpose. Whichever way I looked I could see no way out but by falsehood and fraud, and I was only at the beginning of my experience.
In this extremity I went to a man of great experience in business, but with a high reputation for probity as far as meeting all his liabilities went. He was also credited with very sharp practice despite his high moral and religious standing. Consequently, I do not suppose I could have consulted any one better qualified to give me advice. He fully agreed with me that nothing was more eminently calculated to destroy the moral sense than going through the Bankruptcy Court, of your own initiative—if your creditors made you a bankrupt it was another matter. In a case like mine it was obvious that a man had to pay a considerable sum down for the privilege of swearing that he had no money at all, which money could not legally be his. Yet, since the law itself created this dishonest state of affairs, I was clearly absolved from the charge of dishonesty if I raised and paid this money, providing those from whom I obtained it were not defrauded by being made the victims of false representations on my part.
He finished his advice by lending me £2 towards the amount required, and I went on my sorrowful way homewards. When I reached home I found a fresh batch of dunning letters and two judgment summonses waiting for me, but I paid no heed to them, I had more engrossing business to attend to. I spent a long time explaining the position to my wife and endeavouring to furbish up some of the stock in the event of my being driven to raise money on it, and then went on the doleful business of trying to borrow £8 without any reasonable prospect of being able to repay it. That was indeed a pilgrimage of pain. But I must not say that; although the fruit of a long half day's search was only £1, I met with very much sympathy and many kind cheering words, also much commendation for having taken the step I had at last.
I went back to the office in the morning, after a sleepless night, feeling as unfit for my clerical duties as I could well be, as may be imagined. My sympathetic chief was of course anxious to know how I had fared, and listened with the greatest attention to my story. Then he suggested that I had better take at least a couple of days off, as I could not possibly do my work under such mental conditions, and leave no means untried to raise that money, even if I had to sell such of the stock as I could make saleable at any price it would fetch. And he wound up by lending me a sovereign, to be repaid when I could.
So I got through the day somehow, though I am afraid I sorely exasperated other care-free individuals, who had to work with me and could not realise the condition of my mind. At last five o'clock came, and I hurried home. My wife met me midway of the shop with a beaming face, and held out her hand with eight sovereigns in it. I staggered back as if I had received a blow, and gasped, "Wh-a-at, where, how did you get it?" "Pawned the piano," she replied promptly, a statement which filled me with amazement, for, although I was only too familiar with the side entrance to establishments flaunting the three golden balls, she, to the best of my knowledge and belief, had never been in such a place in her life. I had always taken that unpleasant necessity upon myself.
But there was the money, the price of deliverance, and now I must explain the circumstances. The piano was an exceedingly good one which I had bought on the hire system long ago at the second-hand price of £40. I had presented it to her on some anniversary and thenceforward never thought of it as mine, never regarded it as a possible means of raising money for my needs. And here it had been the saving of a very bad situation, for although my experience was still green I dimly understood that the hour of deliverance was at hand. The side-issue of the terribly low figure for which that beautiful instrument was pledged—which if not repaid within a year would mean its loss—did touch me rather sharply, but I could not stop to think of that, nor could I be ungrateful enough to suggest to my wife that she might have done better, remembering her experience. Also I felt that in a year, who knew, I might happen on something which would enable me to redeem the piano.
So I had the price, and secure in that knowledge I went to bed and slept very soundly, no thought of the proceedings after the preliminary payment occasioning me the slightest uneasiness. And it was with a light heart that I rose early in the morning to complete the clearing up of my wrecked ship, to put, in fact, my house in order against what I dimly foresaw would be the next step, the visit of the official assessor whose duty it would be to estimate the whole of my possessions, with the exceptions of tools and an irreducible minimum of clothing and bedding, not bedsteads. By eleven o'clock I had made the poor place look quite respectable and hurried off, leaving, as a last message, instructions to my wife to dispose of our fowls for what they would fetch. We had bred them ourselves, and they had been a source of great pleasure to us and profit to the children, for they responded liberally in the matter of eggs. There were twenty-five of them altogether, beautiful birds of no particular breed, and all pets. I may as well finish off this particular transaction by saying that during the day they were sold en bloc for eighteen shillings, although any one of them would have cost three shillings dead had I been a buyer.
Away I went in high spirits to Carey Street, but before I got there, I felt the malign influence of the place upon me, and when I entered those fateful doors, I was subdued enough. No need for me to enquire the way now, I went straight to the desk of the official whom I had encountered before. He looked at me with the same air of nonchalant aloofness, as of a being from another sphere beyond all such hopes and fears and sorrows as I might have. Producing the money, I said submissively, "I have brought the fees you told me were necessary." "Ah, I think I remember something about it," he replied. "Wanted to file your own petition, didn't you?" Of course I retold my story, or as much of it as he would listen to, until he interrupted me with, "Who's your solicitor?" Again I assured him that I had no money wherewith to employ a solicitor, and, moreover, I had been assured that the business was so simple that any man of ordinary intelligence could manage it himself.
He gave me a pitying glance, and then grunted, "Oh, all right. Take these forms and fill them up. Anything you don't understand, I'll try to explain to you." So saying he handed me a most formidable sheaf of printed documents, wherein I read in the usual involved official verbiage all sorts of instructions as to my procedure. I had been fairly well accustomed to official forms, but my heart sank at the sight of these, for it seemed an utter impossibility that I should ever make head or tail of them.
However I attacked them boldly, and when I came to a snag I just left it and went on to the next. By the end of an hour, I had done something to all the forms, but it was very little, and I took them back to the man at the desk with a modest request that he would explain some of the difficulties to me. As he glanced over the sheets a deep frown gathered over his brow, and he presently growled. "Look here, why the devil don't you get a solicitor? You'll never do this yourself, and I can't be bothered showing you. I've got my work to do." (In my innocence I had imagined that what I was asking him to do was his work.) I patiently explained to him my position once more, for though naturally prone to resent injustice and high-handed officialdom, my spirit was sadly broken and lent itself to being bullied, up to a certain point.
So he did some more explaining, but with very bad grace, and with a manner exactly like that of a coarse-minded usher with a very dull and frightened small boy. I paid all the attention I could, took the forms away, and had another hour at them. Then I came to an absolute deadlock, and though I very much disliked going to him again, I was compelled to do so. He took the documents from me in grim silence, glanced at them, and then said with much emphasis, "Oh! this'll never do. Messenger!" The messenger appearing, my mentor queried of him, "Is old hard-hat about?" "I think so," replied the messenger. "Well, go and tell him I want him," and the messenger departed.
Pending his return I waited, still like the school-boy at the master's desk, wondering mightily who "old hard-hat" might be, and what he could have to do with me, or I with him. As he was rather long in coming, I grew mildly impatient, and ventured to ask who had been sent for. The man behind the desk replied sharply, "You've got to be identified, and you can't possibly do that yourself." "Well," I answered, "how in the name of common sense can a man whom I have never seen or heard of identify me?"
Oh, he grunted, "you've got nothing to do with that. It's just a legal form, that's all." I might have said some more, but just then the person we were waiting for arrived. A tall slender figure in brown, with an auburn wig and no teeth. He had a placid yet decided way with him, and reminded me, oddly enough, of Charles Lamb, from what I had read of that gentle soul, and such portraits as I had seen of him.
Coming direct to my mentor, the new comer said, "You sent for me, I believe, Mr Blank." "Yes," replied the clerk, "take this man away, and see if you can get him out of the muddle he is in with those documents." Mr Hardhat, for so I must call my new acquaintance, turned to me and murmured, "Will you come over to this table with me?" I went, but on arriving there, I said, "Look here, before we go any further, are you a solicitor sent for to help me?" He replied, to the best of my recollection, that he was, but not in regular business; in short I gathered, I do not know how, that he had either never passed his examination, or that he had for some reason not been able to carry on a regular business, and that he now attended that building regularly in the hope of picking up such chance jobs as mine promised to be.
Upon finding this out, I immediately made it plain to him that I was utterly unable to incur a solicitor's bill, that I had been told by people in authority that there was nothing in Bankruptcy procedure to prevent an unhappy debtor from doing his own business; and although I had not in the least realised what an unpleasant business it was, I was bound to go through with it. He heard me out with great patience, and then said mildly, "Yes, I know that theoretically it is possible for a debtor to do his own business here, but practically it is not possible. As to paying me for the assistance I can give you, please don't let that trouble you at all. I am quite willing to do my best for you, and let the question of payment (it will be a mere trifle in any case) stand over until you come upon happier times. If you never pay me it will not ruin me, and I might as well be helping you as doing nothing. Please let us get to work, and say no more about it."
I really cannot say how deeply touched I was by this man's gentle kindness, and the more because of its contrast with my treatment by the well-paid official, and I made a mental vow that if ever I were able to repay him, I would be as lavish in doing so as my circumstances would permit. Then I told him that I could not be so brutally independent as to throw his kindness back at him, and I would accept his help with gratitude. He nodded gravely, took the papers from me, drew his fountain pen from his pocket, and sat down to work.
Now for anything I know it may be necessary to make the formulæ of bankruptcy proceedings as difficult, technical, and prolix as possible, not being an expert I dare not offer an opinion, but I do know that this expert who had now come to my assistance, although working with great skill and rapidity, took several hours to prepare the documents demanded, and then much of what was put down was fiction, had to be, since I had kept no books, and even though my memory was phenomenally good, it was far from equal to the demands now made upon it. But at last the dread business was complete, we took those forms to another official who merely glanced through them, secured them together with green cord, and handed us a piece of parchment (I believe) which we had to write certain matters upon, and then take to another part of the building to be stamped.
Up till now I had only paid £5, but now I was to disburse another £5 for the privilege of becoming a bankrupt, the first £5 having been as security for costs. So we handed the mystic document we bore to a man who looked like a superior workman, who took it from us, and held out his hand for my £5. When I had paid him, he took a stamp from a drawer, and after pumice-stoning the parchment in a certain place, and doing something else to the back of the stamp, carried the latter over to where a glue-pot stood simmering on a gas ring. Here he anointed the stamp, placed it on the document, put the latter in a press, and then obliterated the stamp in two or three other ways. I never saw so much work upon a stamp before. But then, to be sure, it was a stamp representing £5 sterling.
This operation was almost the last for the day, which was now wearing to a close. My good friend, Mr Hardhat, merely took the last document to another part of the building while I waited for him. When he returned he told me that my preliminary examination was fixed for the second day afterwards at eleven in the morning, and that until then nothing further could be done. But he also assured me that I was now ipso facto bankrupt, and that I was on no account to pay anybody anything on account of debt, for that would be a misdemeanour. If any of my creditors took action, with the exception of the landlord, who might distrain for his overdue rent, I had only to show them a certain slip of paper I possessed, and that would, in sea-metaphor, choke their luffs.
I thanked him, and made for home, determined to devote the next day to some good hard work at the bench, framing up such pictures and texts as I had in stock, so as to use up the remainder of my moulding, backboard, glass, etc. And then I should perhaps be able to make a forced sale, and raise some ready money. With these thoughts in my mind, I turned the corner of Ashbourne Grove into Lordship Lane, and not looking where I was going, I ran into a man whom I at once recognised as the lessee of my former shop and my present first floor front room. We greeted one another heartily, and he said, "Let's see, I owe you a week's rent, here it is," and he placed three and sixpence in my hand. He went on, "I shan't want you to store that furniture for more than a week or two longer, for I am very nearly through my difficulties, and I am thinking of taking a nice little business in Dalston." As soon as he had said this, I remarked gravely, "I don't want to frighten you, but if you'll take my advice you'll shift those sticks out of where they are now with the least possible delay. I told you when you put them there that I was in Queer Street, and to-day I have been adjudicated bankrupt. Now, you know what that means."
He stared at me wildly for a moment, as if he had seen a ghost, and then cried, "Merciful heavens, I must hurry up." Off he rushed down the lane, leaving me laughing to think of my experience of the lame leading the blind. But I was very glad of his three and six all the same, and not having eaten all day save for a crust of bread and cheese at noon, I determined that something hot for supper should be forthcoming. Procuring the materials for this meal took me some little time, and when I arrived at the shop, my poor little tenant drew up at the door with a coal-trolly, which he had hired somewhere on the spur of the moment. I at once opened the side door for him and it was really a sight to see how he toiled to get his household goods out, especially in contrast with the calm deliberateness of the coal-heaver.
When it was all on the trolly, he gave a great sigh of relief, and came into the shop mopping his streaming head. "Well, old chap," he gasped, "that's as narrow a squeak as I want; and I can't blame anybody but myself, for I ought to have let you know where to find me. However, it's all right now, and I only hope you'll get through your trouble as I've done. Good-bye." And he went out of my life.
I worked very hard the next day for two reasons, first, I did want to get as much stuff ready for sale as possible, my sense of absolute honesty having already become considerably blunted by contact with that temple of fraud in Carey Street; and secondly, because I did not want to brood over the terrible possibility of my landlord coming in by deputy and seizing all my poor belongings—for in my simplicity I still looked upon them as mine, totally oblivious of the fact that, in the eyes of the law, I now possessed absolutely nothing except necessary clothing and bedding, tools and cooking utensils. Now and then the thought would obtrude itself that after all these years of toil and stress, I had brought, vulgarly speaking, my pigs to a pretty fine market, but my sense of relief from the misery I had so long endured outweighed any other consideration, and I was not at all melancholy.
My day's work was a fruitful one, for I managed to knock up quite a number of little frames for which, if low in price, I was fairly sure of a ready sale for that reason. And I also put the last touches on my tidying up, as well as getting ready such small goods as I knew I should be allowed to retain. I also secured a place of refuge—a house to move into—from a local house agent, secured it too without the slightest concealment from him of all my circumstances. But then he was a good fellow, and never backward in doing a good turn if he could. Thus at the end of the day I felt ready for the crisis of to-morrow. Hitherto there had only been verbiage writing and payment of fees; to-morrow, Mr Hardhat informed me, would see definite action being taken. But of that I will write in the next chapter.
I suppose that there are few things more demoralising to an assimilative mind than the association with places of a demoralising tendency. Which I do not intend as a profound remark, but as the fruit of actual experience. At any rate I know that when I first entered the Bankruptcy Court, I felt a profound pity for the listless, hopeless, slouching-looking figures I saw haunting its purlieus. But when I went up this morning, for my preliminary examination, I felt as listless, hopeless, and slouching as any of them—I had enlisted in the great army of the insolvent, and no matter how void of offence my conscience might be, in that I had not wilfully or in extravagance defrauded any man, the taint of debt, the virus of unutterable meanness which makes the Chinese commit suicide, bowed my head, rounded my shoulders, and robbed me of my self-respect.
I only had to wait about two hours this morning before my turn came on. When it did, and I was summoned to stand before an inquisitor, I received a sudden shock. For, behold, the dread Rhadamanthus to whom I must unveil my most secret sorrows and troubles was a young man whom I had often seen coming up Victoria Street with a similar individual, and had loathed from the depths of my soul. His garb was immaculate as regards the latest fashion, his collar as high as human endurance would permit, his trousers creased in exactly the right line, turned up to exactly the proper height; he slouched at exactly the angle prescribed by his class (or the class to which he wished to appear to belong), and, crowning iniquity, he wore a monocle in his left eye. Altogether a "Johnny" of the Johnniest. And he was my inquisitor!
He took several huge sheets of paper (printed forms of course), and began what I saw was a stereotyped set of questions with a bored air and yet an unpersonal way with him, almost as if he were addressing a penny-in-the-slot machine, which was rather helpful. I was a long time before him, and I answered his questions to the best of my ability, but often I fear with a desire to get the examination over rather than with any keen attention to accuracy. It was a curious business altogether, perfunctory in the extreme, and I had then no idea what my answers would be used for. I learned later.
When released I sought my faithful friend, who advised me to get home with all speed, for that an official appraiser would call upon me that afternoon, and it would be well that I should meet him. So I returned with haste, reaching home a long time before the individual indicated. I must say I awaited him with considerable trepidation, for I gathered that he would be of much the same character as several of the same class I had sorrowfully made acquaintance with before.
This is not the least of the sorrows which beset the poor, the manner in which their goods are distrained upon for a small debt, and furniture honestly worth twenty times the sum due is taken, and I was going to say sold—but it is never sold then, it is given away to a gang of heartless rogues, who make it their business to fatten upon the robbery of the poor within the law. In my case, however, there was no fear that they would take more than I owed. My furniture had cost me well over £100, and the two counters in the shop would easily have sold second-hand for £10, but I doubt if the whole of my chattels put together could, even if sold in a shop to the public, have been made to realise more than £30. It was not good furniture when I bought it, and though some of it was not now very old, it stood revealed as what it was, shoddy-built, of unseasoned wood, varnished instead of polished, upholstered with American cloth or sham velvet, and stuffed with unclassable rubbish.
My visitor arrived at about three o'clock, and to my relief he was quite a respectable and civil man. He quietly announced his errand as if it was a duty he was sorry to perform, and therefore I hastened to assure him that I could readily dissociate a man from his employment. Thus his work went on very smoothly, and was exceedingly soon over. Then he closed his book and turning to me said, "You haven't got much." I smiled wanly, and made no reply for obvious reasons. Then he went on to inform me that although he was an appraiser of the Court his inventory was only taken for the official purpose of checking the accounts of the firm to whom they would presently assign the task of dealing with it. And bade me a courteous good day, leaving me wishing that the whole degrading business was over.
Still I must say in strict justice that so far as it had gone, and remembering the immense number of formalities to be gone through, there had been scarcely any delay, but that I think was largely due to my personal interest in the matter and the energy I put into it. And now I was, all unknowing, come nearly to the end of the miserable business as far as my comfort and relief was concerned. I had one more quiet Sunday at the shop, spent in the usual way, and on Monday morning there arrived a man like a jovial costermonger of the better class out for a holiday—one of those men who are born comedians, whom to look at is to laugh, unless one is so sour or so sad that laughter is an impossibility. My very heart warmed to him, and when I found that he represented the firm of auctioneers, who were to deal with my chattels, I felt quite relieved, though I could not then have known any reason why I should be.
He was exceedingly abrupt and swift in all his movements, so that before I had realised that he had been through one room, he was beckoning me into the shop with a comic forefinger and an air of mystery. When I came up to him smiling in spite of myself, he said in a hoarse whisper, "Now, look y'ere, Guvnor, 'ow much yer goin' ter bid fer this little lot?" and he bent his brows upon me in a funny frown. I stared at him blankly, and then stammered out, "I—I don't know what you mean." "Ow, you don't, don't yer. Well, I'll 'splaint yer. If I sen's one of our vans daown 'ere, and clears your sticks aht, we cawn't tike the trouble t' sell'em orf bit by bit. 'Taint likely. Theyn't worf it. Nah, wot we sh'll do is ter sen rahnd t'one of ahr small Jew 'angers on, an' sye, 'Nah then, Moses or Abrams or Jyecob, as the kise mye be, wot yer givin' t' clear aht this little lot.' An' it's six ter four that we tikes 'is fust orfer, 'cause it don't matter t' us a bit on a little job like that, we gets the same commishun. Now, I mean that ter prevent that there kerlamity 'appenin' t'yer, you mike a bid for 'em yerself, an' you tike it strite from me that if your bid is anythin' over rubbish price ahr Guvnor 'll jump at it, syevin the trouble er tikin' it awye too an' all."
My brain, working furiously, had absorbed his whole meaning and exhausted every possible avenue of raising any more money by the time he had done speaking. And I shook my head, sadly murmuring, "It's no use. I'm most grateful to you for giving me this opportunity of saving my poor bits of goods, but I exhausted all my friend's means raising the money for the Court fees. I don't believe I could raise another sovereign to save my life." "P'raps not," returned he drily. "An' yet you might ter syve yer sticks. Nah once more, 'cause I got ter be movin', got arf dozen jobs on ter dye, you jist dig out like all possessed ter dye. Say you will 'ave a bit a brass ter sive that there poor little 'ome from bein' broke up, an' bring it, wotever it is, up t' th' orfice termorrow mornin' ten o'clock. I sh'll be there, an' I promise yer thet if it's anywheres near the mark the Guvnor 'll tike it. G'mornin,' keep yer chivvy up," and he was gone, whistling like a thrush, bless him.
While I stood there dazed, who should burst in, as was his custom, but my chum Bob from next door. I have said little of him lately, but indeed nothing could exceed the comfort that his cheery presence and sympathy had been all through this trying time. With money he could not help me, for he had but a very small salary, every penny of which he needed for the maintenance of his aged mother and himself; but he did what was even better at this time, he gave me himself, gave up such recreations as he had after his long day's confinement to come and talk over my lugubrious affairs, and try to devise ways of bettering them. Now he came up to me with a rush, saying, "Hullo, old boy, how's things? you look as if you'd had a knock."
Gratefully I turned to him, and in a few minutes he was in possession of the situation. He considered deeply for a little, and then said musingly, "I think I see a light. How many pictures have you got ready for sale? I gave him the number," showed him the best of them, and he went on: "Will you let me try and sell 'em for you to-night, getting what I can for 'em?" Of course I gladly acquiesced, as drowning men catch at straws, and salved my conscience for the dishonesty by the reflection that the transaction was really far more beneficial to my creditors, to say nothing of myself, than the clearing of them out by the Jew spoken of by my late visitor could possibly be.
That's all right then, he said; "now you get 'em all ready, an' as soon as I can get off, I'll trot 'em round." He secured leave from his duties, and began a circuit of his friends, and after making several visits to the shop for more pictures he came in at last about ten o'clock tired but triumphant, and slapped down £5. 19s. on the table. I felt so glad I had a bit of supper ready for him, as I had nothing to do but cook, for he was almost ravenous with hunger. With great glee, he recounted his experiences, how he had implored, cajoled, bullied, his friends into buying the pictures they had so long seen in my shop window, taking large discounts for ready money, but he did not tell me, nor did I discover until long afterwards, that he had borrowed nearly £2. 10s. of the money, and bought three pictures himself, for my sake, which he didn't want, and certainly could not afford. But then that was his idea of being a chum.
It was only now that I permitted myself to realise how wretched would have been my lot had it not been for those avenues of escape, illegal as they were. To have been stripped of every article of furniture, and turned with my young family into an empty house, with no credit, and without as far as I could see at present more than sufficient money than would buy the most necessary articles of food allowed me out of the wages I was earning, cannot be regarded in any other light than that of a severe penalty for being a bad business man. Yet such was the law, and it was only mitigated by evasion or defiance. There can, I think, be no doubt of the badness of the law which crushes those who obey it honestly, but permits itself to be rendered nugatory with the utmost ease and impunity by any who are sufficiently dishonest. Nay, more, which tacitly invites and fosters dishonesty and falsehood to such an extent that I am sure no decent man can ever go through the process of being made a bankrupt without having deep scars left in his soul.
But although my present relief was undoubtedly great, and I consequently felt much happier, I was by no means upon secure ground as yet. Therefore, I was exceedingly impatient when morning came to be off to the city with my precious little hoard. I was outside the office some time before the clock struck, and at the earliest possible moment I was inside, much to the disgust of the first arrivals, who resented my punctuality. My vivacious friend of the previous day was there, cutting jokes with all and sundry except me, whom he seemed to regard as a piece of furniture which had accidentally got left in the office, by which I gathered correctly that he did not want to be recognised by me.
Presently a clerk came towards me and said with a lowering face, "Who did you want to see?" I told him, the principal; upon which he disappeared into an inner office. When he returned, he said, "The Governor'll see you directly." Presently I was called in, and a very kindly old gentleman demanded my business. I told him I was a debtor upon whom his firm had orders to distrain, and that I had come up to make an offer to buy in my small stock of furniture, so small that it was hardly worth his while to remove. "Ah," he said, "you are Mr Bullen of Lordship Lane, I believe," consulting a book at his side. I answered that I was.
Now then, he went on, "what are you prepared to bid for this furniture of yours?" "Five pounds," I replied as calmly as I could, though to tell the truth my heart was thumping with the excitement of the crisis. "Five pounds," he repeated scornfully, "for a houseful of furniture! the thing's absurd. I never heard the like. Indeed you'll have to offer a good deal more than that." Very earnestly I answered him that it was quite impossible that I should do so. I had reached the limit, and that only by what I felt to be a miracle. Then he called the man whom I had received my instructions from, and consulted him in a low voice. The upshot of their conversation was that he turned to me and said, "My man here thinks your offer isn't out of the way, and so I'll accept it, but you must pay our fee." Again I assured him of my impecuniosity, but he cut me short by saying, "All right, you give me a promissory note to pay a guinea for my fee within a month, and the bargain's closed. But remember, if you try to chisel me, you'll be very sorry for it. My clerk will make out the receipt and note. He won't keep you waiting long."
So I paid the £5 and signed the promissory note. When I was leaving the office the principal said as if through an afterthought, "Look here, we've done with you—as far as we are concerned, your goods are free. But your landlord can distrain, if you let him, at any time between sunrise and sunset. So if I was you I'd shift those goods to another house—then they'll be safe and not before. Good morning."
It may be easily imagined what effect this advice had upon my already fretted nerves, and I felt as if I must fly. But when I got outside my friend was there, and I could do no less than thank him for his invaluable tip, succeeding at the same time in prevailing upon him to accept half-a-crown as a tiny recognition of, not payment for, his great kindness. Then I fled, suffering all the time until I reached home. I dashed into the shop where my wife was standing talking to Bob. I paid no attention to either of them, but seized the long arm, rushed outside, and began to pull the shutters down. "Whatever's the matter with you?" cried my wife, and they both stared at me as if they thought I was mad. But I never heeded them until I had the place effectually closed, and then wiping my brow I turned to them and breathlessly declared the reason of my haste.
It is hardly to be wondered at that they both laughed until the tears ran down. I joined them after a while, but at the same time I had an overwhelming sense of danger passed. The rest of that day was devoted to preparations for moving, the new abode as I have before said having been secured. As soon as the legal limit of entry by bailiffs had passed, I sallied forth and hired a van, horse, and man, at one and sixpence an hour (see large bills), and the work of removal began. Of course Bob was in his element, and we worked liked demons. By supper-time we were fairly installed in the new premises and as comfortable as circumstances would permit. Nay, I am ungrateful, far more comfortable than I had been since I first took upon my unfit shoulders the burden of a shop.
The last duty I performed that night was to post to the landlord the key of the premises with a line stating what it was. I did not add insult to injury by any expressions of apology, although I felt that an apology, very full and ample, was indicated. But, doubtless, the sense of exultation at having emerged from the late turmoil with my "bits of sticks," as the poor lovingly call their home plenishing, was uppermost in my mind, and overcame my sense of what was right and due to all, a tribute I was unable to pay. We had a delicious little supper of stewed rabbit and pickled pork that night, total cost for six eighteenpence (because it was Monday, and Ostend rabbits unsold from Saturday were a little stale), and afterwards a long, long talk over the beginning of better times. Then we parted happily, and I enjoyed a perfect night's rest.
I had left in the shop the broken lamps, a few of the fittings and the two counters. I claim no credit for leaving those counters; they had cost me £10, but I could not have sold them on the spur of the moment for ten shillings, although they were legally mine, if the term can be used of transactions which all seemed to me extra-legal if not actually illegal. To tell the truth I detached the shop entirely from my mind; it was an incubus removed as was Christian's burden in the "Pilgrim's Progress," and, although never in the habit of making resolutions or swearing off, I felt that nothing could, would, or should ever induce me to take upon my shoulders such a burden again.
I went back to my office with a fairly light heart, except for the lingering doubts which always assailed me when I had been away a long time, and found everything proceeding calmly in its accustomed channels. I did learn afterwards that one kind gentleman, suffering from insufficiency of occupation, had brought my bankruptcy before the Secretary, and had been snubbed for his pains. The same philanthropist I afterwards learned had been to the manager of a firm to which I was indebted and suggested that they should get an order to garnishee my £2 a week, but was again repulsed in his benevolent ideas. I may say in passing that his salary was double mine, that he was a bachelor, and I was seven, like the Wordsworth child, and after that I think I can leave the matter.
How long it was after this sudden passing from storm to calm, before I was called upon to meet my creditors I do not know, but I do know that I woke every morning feeling that life had begun anew. The postman's knock (truly it was rare now) no longer gave me palpitation of the heart, nor did I fear that upon coming home, I should meet one of my uninvited guests with designs upon my "bits of sticks." Demands for money, peremptory, denunciatory, ceased automatically. I moved in a new world, where debts were not, and £2 a week was a neat little annuity amply sufficient for all present needs; and I began to feel again as if life was worth living. Of course I had carried my tools with me and had set up a bench where I might do an occasional job if the opportunity offered; and as many of my old customers sought me out, I still earned a little extra, which I found very useful.
When I had almost forgotten that such a place as the Bankruptcy Court existed, much less that I had ever owed any money, I received an order to attend a first meeting of creditors at the Court. Of course I attended promptly, but only one of my creditors appeared, and I learned afterwards that he only came for the purpose of opposing any hostile resolutions which might be proposed. There were none, and he said nothing, in fact the whole proceedings were of the most perfunctory nature and occupied less than a quarter of an hour. I saw my old friend Mr Hardhat, who congratulated me upon the smooth way in which my affairs were going. "Now," he said, "there's only the public examination, and as soon as that is over you can apply for your discharge." I thanked him, and paid him the very small sum in which he said I was indebted to him, went away, and in another fortnight forgot the shameful business again.
The thought, however, would continually arise in my mind, how very different my position was now compared to what it had been a few days ago. Then, while fighting most desperately against overwhelming odds to pay my way and do my duty, I was being literally harassed to death; now, having by a substantial payment, not to my creditors but to the Government, obtained the right to declare my inability to pay anybody, I was left in perfect peace, and even in my appointed meeting with creditors no man of all those to whom I owed money came to say a word against me. I was not at all inclined to question very closely the means by which I had obtained deliverance from the morass in which I had so long been floundering, but the reflections would continually obtrude themselves, and I could only say with a sigh, as so many others have said in a like case, that it was a topsy-turvy world.
Then came the day of my public examination, but it had no terrors for me, for I knew that it could make no difference to me now, and besides I rather welcomed the opportunity of saying something in public on my own behalf. But I little thought that I was to have an object lesson in the absurdity and injustice of our Bankruptcy laws that day which would dwell in my mind as long as I lived. Yet it was so, and although I have read of many more flagrant instances since they are only exaggerations of this case, the principle is the same.
A man was being examined whose salary and commission had for over twenty years been more than £1200 a year. His debts were over £5000, contracted in all sorts of extravagant ways, and his creditors were very angry indeed. Now his assets were nil—I heard nothing about the selling up of his home or of his being turned out of the house for which he was supposed to pay £100 a year rent. In reply to questions he pleaded that he had a large family, but it turned out that the eldest was twenty-five and the youngest fourteen. Asked what reason he could assign for being in this position, he could or would give none but living beyond his means. Then came the very pertinent question, what did he propose to do?
Well, in the first place, said his eminent solicitor, his employers were willing to retain him in their service providing that he obtained his discharge, but not otherwise. Supposing that to be the case, his earnings would be much reduced, say to £800 a year. Now the proposition made was that whatever he earned over £600 a year should be set aside to be distributed pro rata among his creditors until they had received a dividend of five shillings in the pound on their claims. All this on condition only that he received his discharge then and there. There was some little talk, purely I judged for the sake of appearances, and then he was discharged to begin again. Now I do not say that this was injustice, but if it was just, what was I to call the treatment I subsequently received?
I was presently subjected to a searching examination by a very clever gentleman, who dilated upon my iniquity in continuing to trade after I knew that I was unable to fulfil my obligations. All the questions put were from the notes of my preliminary examination, and I felt very grateful for my excellent memory.
No creditor appeared to say a word in my disfavour, and the examination was concluded, nothing apparently having been done for or against me. I was puzzled, and as soon as I got outside the Court I eagerly enquired of my faithful Mr Hardhat, who was waiting for me, what I ought to do now. "Apply for your discharge at once," said he, "for if you delay it, the period you will be suspended for (and it's sure to be two years), will only date from the time of application, however long hence that may be." Of course I was eager to apply at once, but when I learned that there would be more fees to pay amounting to several pounds, none of which money would benefit my creditors at all, I indignantly refused to do anything of the sort, and said that I didn't care if I was never discharged, I would pay no more fees if I had thousands. And I rejoice to say that I never did.
The emphatic declaration I made at the end of the last chapter seems to demand an explanation forthwith, but the reader, if he has had patience to follow me so far in my recital of these experiences, must wait for the proper sequence of events. Being assured that I was absolutely free from molestation by anybody on account of past debts, and in no danger of any trouble so long as I did not obtain credit to the extent of £20 without disclosing the fact that I was an undischarged bankrupt, I went on my way rejoicing. For whatever doubts I had about my future, of one thing I was certain, and that was that I would never go into business again as a tradesman, and as for getting credit for £20 I laughed at the idea.
Perhaps I was too elated at the knowledge that I was free from the hateful incubus which had robbed me of all joy in my life for so long, but I think I had some excuse, and whether I had or not I allowed myself to feel happy. Occasionally I felt depressed by the thought of how near I was to forty years of age, how small were my chances of starting my children in life, and how tired and worn out I was feeling, but I was naturally elastic of temperament, and the rebound I had lately felt was entirely beneficial to me. I worked at the bench still, but with reluctance, because I had learned by bitter experience, that work I never so hard, the reward was entirely incommensurate with the outlay of energy. And so I took less and less interest in picture framing, and got back again to my beloved books in greater measure than ever.
Also I scribbled more and got several articles accepted at long intervals, the remuneration for which, though pleasant to receive and always coming in handy to meet some most pressing need, such as clothes for the children, never raised in me any hopes of a permanent and substantial addition to my income. For I still regarded, by some twist of mind, the picture framing as my stand-by, although one article which I could write in an evening or in the morning before going to work would yield more when sold than I could earn in a week's overtime by the really hard work of framing, to say nothing of the labour involved in fetching the material and carrying home the finished product. Not that I ever received any extravagant prices for my writing. With one honourable exception, Chambers's Journal, all the organs I wrote for seemed anxious to get what I wrote for the smallest possible sum, or nothing if I could be made to forget that they had published my stuff. To one journal with an august name and a large circulation, having also an advertisement revenue of many thousands a year, I sent a story of 5000 words. I received a most courteous letter in reply with a statement that while they would much like to print the story, which was an excellent one, they could only offer me ten shillings for it! I took it, never mind why.
But taking things all round I was happier than I had been for many a day. Having been set free from that awful burden of the shop, and being finished for ever, (I hoped) with the whole body of County Court officials, bum-bailiffs, etc., I experienced a restful peace to which I had long been a stranger. I recovered much of my lost vigour, for although the habit of work still clung to me and I did not waste a minute if I could help it, I no longer dreaded a knock at the door, no longer felt symptoms of heart failure at the sight of a postman coming towards me. Now and then I thought of my fortieth birthday fast approaching, believing as I did that a man of forty was too old to strike out any new line, that if he had never done anything worth doing he never would, and much more of the same tenor. But most happily, however these pessimistic thoughts harassed me they did not affect my conduct, not because I determined that they should not, or braced myself in an heroic resolve to defy fate, age, or anything else that should tend to hinder my advancement, but for the same reason that I kept going so long in that hopeless shop, because the necessity was laid upon me, as the nigger song says, to keep "a-pushin' an' a-shovin'." Very disagreeable to other people in many cases this persistence of a fellow for whom they cannot see the slightest necessity, but then, so much depends upon the point of view.
My only object in writing the penultimate sentence is to clear myself of any suspicion of false hypocritical pretence. I have the greatest horror and detestation of posing as one who, by sheer force of will and decision of character, has conquered circumstances, lived instead of died, and although wrecked apparently beyond salvage has reconstructed something navigable and sailed away from a far more profitable voyage. For I know that these things depend upon the quality of the fibre of which a man is wrought and for which he can take no credit. It is this which often keeps a man at work when, had he been living in more prosperous conditions, he would have been in bed with grave doctors and nurses around him, and hourly bulletins as to his temperature, etc., being issued. I remember during the first influenza epidemic the case of a carter for one of the great carrying companies in London who, it being a busy season, had been on duty twenty hours. He drove into the yard in the small hours of the morning, dropped the reins on his horse's back, but did not descend from his dickey. As he gave no reply to repeated hailing by his mates below, one mounted to him and found him stiff in death. It came out at the inquest that on leaving home twenty hours before he had told his wife that he felt very bad, one moment shivering and the next burning, and all his limbs one big ache, but the fibre of the man insisted upon going on. Fear of losing his job, of being short in his scanty week's earnings had spurred him, but the frame gave out under the great strain put upon it by the spirit.
You may call it heroism if you will, but if it has any of that sublime quality I am sure it is unconscious, innate, and not to be referred to any conceived and determined desire to overcome obstacles apparently insurmountable. Of course it is far more admirable, more worthy of respect than is the conduct of the weakling who wilts under the first blast of adversity, who must always be bolstered up and pushed along the way that he ought to go, and never does anything for himself that he can get others to do for him—a born loafer, in fact, for whom there really is no room in a work-a-day world, but who, alas! thrives bodily upon the labours of others, and is often treated with far more consideration than those who are steadily labouring on.
It was about this time that I unconsciously dropped upon a new form of activity entirely aloof from the tradesman line. I was a worker in a humble little mission whereof none of the members earned more than £2 a week, and some only half that sum. I had joined it in my desire to get away from the cabals and jealousies of the ordinary church or chapel where two-thirds of the good that might be done is wasted upon most unchristian friction between members. I had got thoroughly disgusted with them all as far as my experience had gone, and I felt that my only hope of remaining associated with a body of Christians was to get as low down as possible, where nobody could put on side or ape the patron.
Now it was our custom in our little hall during the winter months to give, whenever we could raise sufficient funds, a free tea to the poor neglected children of the neighbourhood, of whom there were a sad number. It always meant a lot of work collecting the few shillings necessary, but that work was never grudged by any of us, and we always felt sufficiently rewarded at the sight of the poor kiddies stuffing themselves. How cheaply we did it to be sure. Tea never cost us more than one shilling a pound, condensed milk, threepence halfpenny a pound tin; good cake, from the philanthropic firm of Peek Frean, we got for fourpence, and sometimes threepence a pound; and other matters, including margarine, on a like scale. Oh, it was a feast! and there was always a hungry crowd of grown-ups outside at the close who were grateful for the carefully saved fragments.
Well! it came to pass that at this particular time I speak of the winter promised to be exceptionally severe, and we could not raise funds for our free teas. So, in a moment of inspiration, I suggested that if we could raise sufficient funds to have some lantern slides made from pictures which I would get, and take the Peckham Public Hall, I would give a lecture on the South Sea Whaling industry, of which I had never forgotten a detail. All the brethren entered into the proposal con amore, but I doubt if it would ever have matured but for a recent convert, a young clerk in a big manufacturing house, who drew out his savings and financed the affair.
That difficulty over, we went ahead full speed and pestered everybody we knew to buy tickets, getting a guinea by the way from Sir John Blundell Maple, who probably thought it was worth that to shelve us when we applied to him for his patronage of the show. The great night arrived, and we had secured a popular local preacher to take the chair. His organist had promised to play an accompaniment for two sacred songs which I was to sing, and best of all, four hundred tickets were sold. Our popular preacher, however, very nearly ruined us, for, after introducing me in a very graceful speech, he said to my shame and indignation, "Will brother so-and-so lead us in prayer," naming a long-winded old donkey who would ramble you on for an indefinite length of time in a babblement that was anything but prayer, even if such a prologue was at all indicated on such an occasion.
I verily believe that I lost a pint of sweat while that old idiot maundered on. I felt in every nerve the impatience and disgust of the mixed audience, and at last, in despair, I actually prayed myself that the Lord would stop his wretched twaddle, for it was nothing else. Apparently my prayer was answered, almost immediately, for he had a violent paroxysm of coughing which enabled us to go ahead. Of course I was not at all nervous, my long training in the open air prevented that, and equally of course (I suppose) the strangeness of the subject held the suburban folk enthralled. However that may have been, I know that presently seeing my last slides appearing and fearing that I was cutting the matter too short, I asked a friend of mine in front (in a stage whisper) the time. "Ten o'clock, Tom," he promptly replied, in a voice audible all over the hall. My, but there was nearly a panic. Some wise person turned the lights up, and in about two minutes nearly everybody had gone.
You see, divers of them came from far, and our Peckham communications in those days were none of the best. A few faithful local ones remained till the bitter end however, and my superintendent, who was a chimney-sweep, said in broken accents from the platform, swabbing his eyes meanwhile, "I never knoo we 'ad sich a bruvver!" And what more in the way of commendation and honest praise could the heart of man desire than that? Only this, that the net profits of the lecture, after all expenses were paid, were £14 all but a shilling or two, a far greater sum than we had ever had before to spend upon free teas for poor children.
Then, at the instigation of a lantern fiend, I beg the dear chap's pardon, a lantern enthusiast, who offered his services and his truly exquisite set of slides free, I gave a series of four lectures on the life of Christ in the little hall itself. A blind performer on the organ flutina, who knew nearly all the classic hymns by heart, was easily secured at the economical figure of half a crown per evening, and I interspersed my remarks with all the old favourite hymns, that now are indeed caviare to the general, sung solo. Such an entertainment as I then gave, which of course would be impossible to me now, would, I am sure, bring me in twenty guineas a night. For I could sing and I could talk, the pictures and the music were alike excellent but—. The total net produce was about fifteen shillings for four nights! There, it's the first bit of brag I've given utterance to in the course of these chapters, and this is its fitting anti-climax.
But if I did not receive much for my services as far as money went, either for myself or the cause, I did gain invaluable experience in addressing indoor audiences. I was already thoroughly at home with any crowd in the open air, but I found that it was a totally different matter to speak inside a building, even to the method of producing the voice and sustaining it without obvious effect or real fatigue for a couple of hours if need arose. And as I had previously discovered in the open air that straining the voice ranting or raving was not only indicative of insincerity but precluded intelligibility as well, so, in a renewed and more definite sense, I found it here, and I am beyond measure grateful for that experience. For I hate to hear a speaker, on whatever subject, yell or shout at his audience as if he had a personal quarrel with every one of them, just as much as I hate mannerisms of any kind on the platform, regarding them all as a sort of showing off that is only worthy of a pampered child.
The upshot of this practice at home, as I might say, was that I began to get a local reputation as a lecturer, and any struggling church or chapel in the neighbourhood trying to raise funds would give me a cordial invitation to come and help them, providing my own lanternist, etc., for the good of the cause; and for a time I went, unconscious that I was by way of being a blackleg, but exceedingly conscious that the silver collections asked for on these occasions were mostly copper with a goodly sprinkling of farthings. In my natural modesty (the reader may laugh quietly at this but I can assure him that the possession of this quality, so beautiful in women, is in excess entirely detrimental to man, since the world takes us largely at our own valuation), I felt that these meagre results were a sufficient gauge of my popularity.
Still I did remember occasionally, to my comfort, a small experience I had once, in Portland, Oregon. Three of us common sailors were invited to a Methodist Episcopal Church to hear a lecture, by a phenomenal preacher, entitled, "The Life, Death, and Resurrection of an Arab." We were almost appalled by the magnificence of the place, which, for luxury of appointment, could give points to any place of public entertainment I have ever been in. Silk velvet lounges for pews, upholstered like feather beds, soft Turkey carpets on the floor, hammered brass enrichments to the carven woodwork—the place reeked of wealth. At the close of the lecture the preacher went round with his own top hat for the collection, in his humility not desiring any help from the church officers. And the result in spot cash, as they would say, was four dollars and ninety-two cents! of which our party might have been credited with ten cents. A widow's mite indeed, for it was all we had. Able seamen ashore in a foreign port, except on liberty day, rarely have any money, and I am sure I don't know why we had that solitary dime. But the lesson of the affair was that services, however valuable in themselves, rendered gratis, or in the hope that the audience will be generous, are usually taken by the recipients as not worth recognising. The higher the price the performer can charge and get, the more he or she is appreciated. It is a fact never to be forgotten.
Thus it came about that I did not get puffed up by any roseate visions of becoming a popular lecturer—how could I when I had seen an audience of eight hundred yield fourteen shillings and elevenpence three farthings? But I had a solid asset always in the glow of satisfaction that I could address a big crowd and interest them, a pleasure which was hardly clouded even for a moment by such remarks as I heard a burly man make once in a chapel at Peckham where I was lecturing. In a hoarse whisper he said to a neighbour, "What's this 'ere all about, Guvnor?" "Whales," replied his interlocutor. "Ho, is it?" he growled. "Well, s'rimps is more in my line or winkles. 'Ere, let me get aht!"
Almost imperceptibly I was dropping my picture framing connection. Much as I had enjoyed the work, apart from the struggle to add to my income by it, I had grown to hate it from its associations. That none of the men who had trusted me with their goods had even so much as appeared against me when I had figured as a bankrupt under examination only made me feel grateful to them, it did not lessen my horrors of the means by which I had been brought to the sad pass I had so lately emerged from. And so as I did not pursue the business with any energy it gradually fell away, and I was not in the least sorry, although I had not got to the point yet of refusing any work that came in my way.
But I had grown quite unconsciously into the habit of writing, had become used to seeing what I had written in print even to the point of wondering not what the world would think of it, but what the editor would think it worth while to pay me for it. Also I had grown to be infected by the spirit of adventure, common to most literary men. By which I mean that, unlike the tradesman, who, with a steady demand for his goods, which people must have, fixes his profits with due regard to the practice of his competitors, and does not dream of vicissitudes, they must always reckon upon a change in the public taste or in the idiosyncrasies of editors. It is a sportsmanlike feeling, and I must say that it appealed to me very strongly as a pastime, but I always regarded the cheques which I received as a gift from on high. When I got an article or story accepted, I rejoiced and was exceedingly glad, and then I endeavoured to forget all about it. Because I never knew what I was going to get, nor when I was going to receive it. Therefore when it came it was in the nature of a find. Needless to say, I always wanted it very badly, and always wondered whatever I should have done without it, but that I think only added to my joy.
Then came an opportunity which I thought but little of, at that time, but have since seen the importance of. An article appeared in a scientific journal of high standing upon a subject which I had made peculiarly my own, and about which I had the most intimate personal knowledge. A friend brought this article to my notice, and I, feeling amazed at its assumptions, wrote to the editor about it. As a result he requested me to write an article for him on the matter, and I did so. Now, having regard to the standing of the journal in question, and the fact that I had been invited to write, I broke my rule of non-expectancy, and looked for a substantial reward. Alas for my hopes. The article duly appeared—it was well over four thousand words, and in three months I received for it thirty-seven and sixpence! I regard that now as I regarded it then, an outrage. Yet I suppose that is really how men of science are paid in this country.
I am happy to say that I have never written for a scientific journal since, and I put that experience by the side of the other which I mentioned before as being parallel cases and warnings. Why, many a provincial newspaper struggling for a bare existence would have paid a hack writer more. But few people outside the charmed circle know how shamefully certain journals with an immense advertisement revenue exploit the poor scribes who fill their columns of reading matter with the fine fruit of brains and experience.
There is another curious little matter connected with this, which is entirely germane, and I think it of considerable interest, which I should like to mention as a particular instance. At one of our seaport towns I met with a man in Government employ, whose pay was at the rate of about £100 a year, but who possessed ability and mathematical qualifications of a very high order. In the course of conversation with him one day I learned that he had contributed over sixty articles, in the space of two years, to at least a dozen different daily and weekly journals. Some of these articles were 3000 words in length, and none were under a thousand. Many of them had been printed in prominent places, and were obviously considered by the editors as of great importance, as indeed they were. When I had glanced through some of them I said cheerfully, "I am very glad that you have been able to add to your scanty income in this way; it should lead to something very lucrative in time." "Oh," he replied, quite innocently, "I have never received anything for them. I thought that they weren't worth paying for."
I was astounded for a moment, and then asking him for a piece of paper, I drafted him a form of account to send to each of those journals. He did so, and in a week's time I was delighted to receive a grateful letter from him saying that my little bit of advice had resulted in his getting £60. He added that it would probably save the life of his dear wife, who had been ordered away by the doctor, advice impossible for him to follow before owing to lack of means. Well, heaven knows the remuneration he received was little enough, but it was better than nothing. What a condition of things when concerns yielding huge fortunes to their owners will stoop so low as to allow poor men to give them of their best, and never offer a halfpenny in return until dunned for it, and then only on so niggardly a scale.
I cannot close this chapter without saying that this practice is by no means universal, but it is decidedly general. I have myself been begged by an editor, yes, literally begged, to write an article for a pittance so small that I am ashamed to say I accepted it; and found afterwards that the article in question had been sold to several other journals for a big profit!
Now from the foregoing chapter it will be gathered that all unconsciously I was drifting into the habit of writing, in a literary and journalistic sense, for payment. It was a timid and tentative sort of beginning, and I often felt the rewards totally inadequate, especially in the matter of newspaper paragraphs, of which I sent out a good number. But my efforts in this direction suddenly received a most unexpected and gratifying fillip. Glancing one day in the Free Library through the columns of the Illustrated London News, I discovered, with a pleasant feeling at the pit of the stomach, as if I had just imbibed something warm and stimulating, that Dr Andrew Wilson, that genial kindly journalist and lecturer, had devoted his weekly column to my scientific article, allusion to which was made at the close of the last chapter.
I need not now record what he said, but it was so kindly and helpful that I began to feel a strange sensation—that of hope. For I could not help thinking that if what I wrote was worthy of the attention of so able a critic and journalist, it ought to be saleable generally. And so I wrote him a grateful letter, and asked him if he would follow up his kindness by introducing me to the editors of some of the journals for which he wrote, imagining in my ignorance that to be writing regularly for a paper or magazine argued not merely acquaintance with the editor, but influence over his acceptance of articles. I have since found that it is a very general misapprehension. As if the fact of a man being chosen to be editor of a publication did not prove that in the estimation of his employers at least he was capable of independent judgment, and might be relied upon to exercise it!
The jolly doctor answered me very promptly and kindly, but firmly disabused my mind of the idea that he had any influence with editors. In fact he told me, what, if I had possessed any knowledge of the profession at all I might have known, that editors rather resented any attempt on the part of a contributor to introduce other people. He advised me, as Kipling did later, to send my stuff in on its unaided merit, and suggested "Longmans'" and the "Cornhill" as two likely magazines to appreciate my matter. I wrote and thanked him, went home and got out a four thousand word article and posted it to the editor of "Longmans'," enclosing a stamped addressed envelope, for I had learned that much anyhow. The article was entitled, "Some Incidents of the Sperm Whale Fishery," and as I now know, would not in the least appeal to Mr Andrew Lang. I got it returned almost immediately, with the usual printed slip expressing the editor's regret, etc. Of course, I felt disheartened, having some indefinite idea that the advice I had received from Dr Andrew Wilson had more in it than struck the ear.
There was still left the "Cornhill," though, and being unwilling to risk the loss of the postage I walked across the park to the office of that pleasant publication, and laid my contribution upon the ledge devoted to correspondence. As the sequel has been made public property, by that kindly gentleman and good friend of mine, Mr J. St Loe Strachey, who was then Editor of the "Cornhill," I have no hesitation in reproducing it here. At that time the "Cornhill," like so many other magazines, was suffering from a plethora of accepted MSS., and Mr Strachey had accordingly given instructions to his assistant, Mr Roger Ingpen, not to give him any more MSS. to look at even, since none could possibly be accepted for a very long time. But Mr Ingpen is an extremely conscientious and careful man; he is withal of a most kindly disposition, and so it came about that my poor MS., instead of being returned unread with a statement of the cause, was carefully looked through. In the result Mr Ingpen handed it to Mr Strachey with a remark that here was something so fresh, and in his opinion so good, that he would not take the responsibility of returning it until his chief had seen it. Mr Strachey uttered some expression of impatience, but thrust the MS. into his pocket, and read it on his way home. And, lest I should become wearisome, it appeared in the earliest possible number of the magazine.
It was, all unknown to me, a momentous time. The acceptance of that MS. changed the whole course of my life. For if it had been returned from the "Cornhill," for whatever reason might have been assigned, I had determined to destroy it, as prior to sending it to "Longmans'," it had been rejected by the Editor of "Answers" (who wrote me a note about my folly in sending such stuff to a journal of the high character of "Answers"), and by the editor of "Chambers' Journal." So I felt justified in assuming that if the "Cornhill" would have none of it the verdict must be final—it was no good. And yet upon how many little things its acceptance hung! The fact of Mr Ingpen's care and appreciation, of my really good and clear handwriting without which Mr Strachey certainly would not have read it, it being his custom never to read MSS. if he can possibly avoid doing so. And then there is that unknown contributor whose story was displaced to make room for mine—how I hope that he was some renowned person to whom the non-appearance of his stuff made no difference!
When the article appeared it in some manner caught the eye, and appealed to the taste, of Mr W. T. Stead, who had then started the "Review of Reviews." He gave it a lengthy notice, in the course of which he stated his opinion that I had struck a new vein of stirring adventure which should prove a very valuable one. Encouraged by reading this, I wrote to Mr Stead, telling him that I had partly written a book upon the lines of my article, and begging his advice as to getting it published, for I told him I knew nothing about the publishing world, and had an idea that unless a new writer had influence (whatever I supposed that to be), he stood no chance of getting anything published except by paying for it. And I, so far from being able to pay money for having a book published, was extremely anxious to earn some by the sale of my writings.
In his reply, which was prompt and kindly, he recommended me to Messrs Smith, Elder & Co., the publishers of the "Cornhill," assuring me that no introduction was necessary, that all publishers were always on the lookout for new writers, and that if my book was as good as the sample he thought I need have no doubt of its acceptance. So upon this advice I wrote to Messrs Smith, Elder & Co., offering to submit the portion of the book I had already written (some 50,000 words) for their approval. Naturally they suggested I should finish the book first, and then they would be delighted to consider it, and give me their decision as early as possible. Thus encouraged I toiled early and late to finish the book, and when I had done so I submitted it to Messrs Smith, Elder, who almost immediately accepted it. But the story has often been told, and I would rather not repeat myself if possible. I only tell what I have about it in order to lead up to something else which belongs to this book, to these confessions, an echo of the dreadful time through which I had passed. I may say, however, that had I been a superstitious man, I should certainly have felt that my success in getting my first book accepted and the, to me, immense sum of £100 paid me for it, was dearly purchased by a terrible domestic blow. Hitherto, in spite of much illness and privation in my family, its circle had remained intact. Now, however, with the first gleam of prosperity that I had ever known in all my life, came the grim shadow of death. On the day that I received the letter of acceptance of my book, my youngest child, a boy of great promise and beautiful disposition, suddenly died. Mercifully I had a tremendous amount of work on hand that week. I had quite a large order for picture frames to execute, the last by the way that I ever did. I had to remove from one house to another, to attend to the burial business, and to do my office work also. Therefore I had no time to think until all was well over, and the tragedy had become only a sad memory.
This marked a turning point in my career which led to some amazing results. I had hitherto never seemed able to do anything right, now I could do nothing wrong. Orders for literary work flowed in upon me, and when the book was published the critics vied with one another in the kindliness of their remarks. Everyone seemed bent upon trying to turn my head. That, however, was impossible, for, in the first place, I was past forty years of age, and in the next my training in the school of adversity had been too long and thorough to permit of my being puffed up now. Of course I began to save money, and as soon as I did my thoughts turned to those friendly creditors of mine who had behaved with such wonderful leniency to me in the day of my trouble. My old German creditor especially I remembered. Now after I had become bankrupt I still went to his warehouse to buy my materials, and always stole in and out like a thief ashamed to meet him, but one day did so. He said, with a queer smile, "So, Meesder Bullen, you vas all right now, hein! ve dont makes no trouble for you, hein! now you soon bicks opp agen, hein! but tondt go buyin' your mouldins someveres ellas now mit your ready money, gome here all de time. Ve makes you righdt. Cood day."
Of this good old man, and the others not less kind, I now thought continually, and as I reckoned up my savings week by week my hopes grew stronger that I should soon be able to pay all my debts. As they did so, I made a resolve that if I ever did become able to pay those obligations my creditors should receive every penny I had to give, not a doit should be impounded by bankruptcy officials. For I knew and hated the system whereby a bankrupt's estate has an immense amount of it swallowed up in the costs of division. Of course I know that the machinery of a great concern like the Court of Bankruptcy needs funds to carry it on, but I am perfectly sure that the costs in which the creditors are mulcted are enormously in excess of what they should rightly be.
Therefore I determined that when I had accumulated sufficient funds to satisfy all my debts I would give myself the great pleasure of going to each creditor personally, and paying him what I owed him. Then when all were paid I would take the receipted bills to the Court, and demand to be discharged from being a bankrupt. That was my programme, but like many another well laid plan it did not work. As you shall see.
When at last the time arrived so eagerly waited for, and I had about £400 saved, I took a day's leave from the office (I was soon to leave it altogether), and going to the Court hunted up my old and tried friend, Mr Hardhat. Giving him a substantial fee for taking him away from the Court, we adjourned to a neighbouring hotel, where I unfolded my plan to him. He listened attentively until I had finished, and then said judicially, "Yes, it's all very well and honest and all the rest of it, but if you will excuse my saying so it's very foolish. In the first place every one of your creditors has wiped your account off his books as a bad debt, and you'll hardly get thanks for re-opening the matter, even though you come with the money in your hand. In the next you'll certainly get into trouble with the Court for not proceeding in the matter regularly, and you may be sure they will suspend your discharge for as long as they possibly can. The four years which has elapsed your bankruptcy will not be reckoned. What you ought to do is to take half the sum you have mentioned, go to the Official Receiver, and tell him that a friend has offered to pay that sum into Court in consideration of you getting your immediate discharge, and all will go through like clock-work."
I waited very impatiently until he had finished, because I knew beforehand all the facts he was telling me, and then I said grimly, "And how much of that £200 do you suppose my creditors will get by the time it has filtered through the Court?" He smiled and murmured abstractedly, "I'd rather not say." "Well," I went on, "my mind is made up. Every penny that I have saved up to pay my debts with shall go to the people I owe the money to, and I'll do the distribution most gladly. I paid £10 in Court fees almost with my heart's blood, and they'll get no more if I can help it." I had forgotten to mention that being unable to redeem the beautiful piano in time it was lost, and the pawnbroker got for £8 an instrument honestly worth £40.
So we parted the best of friends, and I with my cheque-book in my pocket began my happy journey. I wish with all my heart that I was able to give you some idea of the joy I had that day and the next. As nothing had ever given me greater pain, shame and humiliation, than having to make excuses for not paying money which I legally owed, as the degradation of borrowing had eaten into my very soul, so now the exultation of being able to clear myself, as it were, was correspondingly great. I verily believe that was the happiest (consciously the happiest) day of all my life. And I was asked to surrender all that delight to some cold-blooded official, who would exact an enormous toll for the services rendered by his department. The very thought of such a thing was preposterous. It would have been literally flinging away the joy which I had anticipated so long and so eagerly.
The first man that I called upon was a mount-cutter, who had a small business in which he worked very hard himself. I owed him £12, an amount which he certainly could ill afford to lose, but which he had been obliged to regard as hopelessly gone. He was an exceedingly kind and genial man, and one with whom I had been on most intimate terms, so that my pain and grief at letting him in had been very great. I greeted him cordially, and said, "Mr ——, I have come to pay you that money I owe you, and I cannot say how glad I am to be able to do it. I believe it is £12." And with that I got out my cheque-book. He stared at me for a moment, and then replied in a strained voice, "I am so glad, not merely of the money, though it could not be more welcome than it is to-day, when I have just learned of a loss of £50, money lent to help a friend, but because you have come spontaneously to pay me. It does me very much good in every way, gives me a little better opinion of human nature, and I thank you most heartily." I wrote out the cheque and handed it to him, saying what I knew to be the absolute truth, that it could not give him more pleasure to receive his just due than it gave me to be able and willing to pay it. Then I told him of the happy turn of fortune which had enabled me to do this act of justice and honesty, and he listened delightedly. We then shook hands, and parted both with a glow of good feeling that was priceless.
Then with eager steps I hastened to the warehouse of my old German creditor, but alas I found that he was dead. It was a heavy blow, for I had so looked forward to seeing him without a downcast eye and a shrinking sense of dishonesty. His successor in the business accepted my cheque in the most matter-of-fact way, making no comment. But that affected me not at all, although I came away less springily than I did from the first creditor.
Then I made my way to the establishment of a big Jewish firm to whom I owed a considerable sum for fancy goods on my wife's side of the business. The manager, a wonderfully able business man with a bright incisive manner, remembered me at once, but said directly I mentioned my errand, "Oh, but that's all settled and done with. You went through the Court, didn't you?" "Yes," I replied, "but that didn't cancel my obligation. It was only a temporary expedient, and now that I am able to pay I want to do so." "Oh, very well," he rejoined carelessly, "we'll turn it up." So the books were brought. He looked up the matter, and turning to me with an air of surprise, exclaimed, "But this has nothing to do with you. It's in your wife's name!" I laughed and answered, "Yes, I know that, but it's my debt all the same, and I want to pay it."
It may sound incredible, but it is nevertheless true, that I had quite a difficulty in persuading that gentleman to take my cheque, for he kept protesting that it was no affair of mine. Even after I had handed the cheque to him, he held it towards me and said, "It's not too late you know, take it back; you've no need to pay this." And when I laughingly refused to do anything of the sort he said, with a shrug of his shoulders, "Well, you're a fool, of course, but you're a damned good sort of a fool, and if you'll accept my invitation I'll give you the best dinner that can be got in the city of London for money. I look upon you as a natural curiosity." Gleefully I assured him that dinners, except as a necessary means of keeping the machine going, never troubled me, that I had grown to like only the plainest food, and that in very small quantities. But I hastened to assure him that I nevertheless valued his kindly intention as highly as if I had been a gourmet. So we parted, and I have never seen him since.
From thence I went to another city house to which I owed a substantial sum. Here, however, I had never seen the principal, my dealings having been entirely through the traveller who called upon me, and who I have no doubt had been in serious trouble through my failure. My business here was of the most formal nature, for the cashier had nothing to do with the previous course of the business, only to receive my payment and to give me a quittance. But the sequel to this was perhaps the most surprising of all those eventful experiences. The next day I received a letter from the principal of the firm couched in the most charming terms. He had discovered he said that I was the writer of certain books, the reading of which had given him the greatest pleasure of that kind he had ever known. It was exceedingly difficult, he went on, to realise that I was the struggling tradesman whom he had so often caused to be harassed for the amount of his account; had he known who it was he would certainly not have troubled me. And now, as the only reparation he was able to make for what he felt had been his harshness towards me, he begged to return the cheque (I believe it was for £35), which nothing could induce him to accept. And he begged to wish me all possible happiness and prosperity as well as long life to go on giving pleasure.
I only wish I could add to my present pleasure by giving this good man's name, but that, alas, is out of the question for obvious reasons. But does not such an experience as this give one an exalted sense of the kindliness, courtesy, and active benevolence, that is to be found among business men. My motives in writing this book may be variously assessed, but I feel that I am only discharging an obvious duty in putting on record so fragrant, so elevating a record of fact. It should give persons inclined to cynicism a better, higher idea of their fellows. For it cannot be supposed that my experiences were unique, that I was specially singled out for such treatment. No, I believe that in every walk of life the good, the real good, in man far outweighs the evil, and that it is an entirely false and narrow view which sees in every man you do business with one whose mission in life is to do everybody he can, caring for nobody but himself. And I seek no better proof than that of my own experience.
Occasionally the honest kindly fair dealing trader or private person will be done, will be swindled ruthlessly. Now and then one comes across a man who simply lives to do harm, whose gall of envy is such that he will take any mean advantage to ruin another man whom he envies, even though in the process he only injures himself. Thank God, these are the exceptions, not the rule. On the contrary, in the good old way these exceptions only prove the rule that love, justice, and mercy are general, and that hatred, injustice, and cruelty are only sad upheavals of devilishness which are gradually but surely growing less and less able to harm well-doing folk.
Pleasant as these experiences were, and gratefully as I cherish them, I do not think that they were more so than some later ones, when I sought out some old friends who had lent me money to help me out of my constantly recurring difficulties, knowing full well when they did so that the chances of getting repaid were exceedingly slight. One of these friends indeed was a Swiss to whom in the early days of our friendship I had rendered some slight assistance in his endeavour to get arrears of four years wages from his employer, a compatriot who had been exploiting him on the ground of his ignorance of England and her ways. From him I learned how wonderfully these toiling Swiss managed to save. His wages never exceeded thirty shillings a week, out of which I should say, I never knew exactly, he saved seventy-five per cent. At any rate he was able to live for four years without receiving any wages from his employer, sleeping in a greenhouse at night (they were gardeners), and eating God knows what.
I met him at the mission with which I was associated in Paddington, and seeing his friendlessness asked him to my humble home for Sunday dinner and tea. And thus our friendship grew and ripened until I was able to render him the service aforesaid, thinking as I did that he was on the verge of starvation. To my intense surprise long afterwards, when I was bewailing to him my parlous plight, he took me to the garret-chamber which he occupied with all the paraphernalia of his business, and going to his box produced a bagful of sovereigns, out of which he asked me to take what would satisfy my urgent needs. Of course in a work of fiction I should have refused with many high falutin' words, but being cast in a lower mould I accepted, after I had got over my amazement that he should have any money at all, much less all that, for there was well over £100 in the bag.
But I must not make this chapter too long, and so I will leave over for the commencement of the next my dealings with my dear friend, Emanuel Hauri, whose end was peace.
This loving stranger in a strange land was consumptive, racked with an awful cough, and lived like a dog—aye, worse than many dogs I know. By all theories he should not have lived a year, for in addition to his dreadfully disabling disease and his manner of living, he worked like an over-powered machine. He was never in bed after three in the morning, and I have known him to trundle a barrow containing a cartload of bedding plants from Covent Garden to Kilburn before beginning his work at six o'clock. And he was never fretful, never captious. The only criticism I ever heard him make was once when he told me he had employed a young Englishman to help him at a big job of work at a gentleman's garden which he was reconstructing. "He stand an' vatch me wile I do de vork, he vants 'is beer efery few minutes, he don't know dis and he von't know dat, an' at last I gif him his day's money an' dell 'im to go, for I can get on better vithout 'im. Dese people in dis country do not seem to know vat vork is!"
And oh, my countrymen, is this not the case in a nutshell? It has got to such a pitch now, in this dear land of ours, that a pauper feels that he confers a favour upon a workhouse by condescending to board in it, and if it does not suit him he will instruct one of the labour members to ask a question about it in the House of Commons. Poor Emanuel couldn't understand it anyhow, and I have recorded his exact words wrung from the gentlest of souls. However, what he said to me about others is one thing, what he said to me about myself and my unbusinesslike habits is another. But he always added "of course you are English, and do not know the need for economy such as we on the Continent have drilled into us from our earliest years. So I don't blame you. But I tell you that the day is surely coming, when you, all of you, will be reduced to doing what we have so long been obliged to do, gather the weeds of the field to stay your craving stomachs, and your women will have to work like ours. I am sorry, for you have been a great people, but you have been a friend of every country but your own, and your people are getting played out—no patience, no stamina, no savvy!" I have translated his quaint words, but that is the sense of them, and shamefacedly I have to admit that they are scarcely exaggerated, they are nearly true.
Now this poor consumptive, who always looked more fit for an hospital than to be about at his strenuous work, had deep within his heart the passion of love, and very wrongly of course, in defiance of all right reasoning, married the girl of his choice in his youth. She came from America at his bidding, and together they lived a more strenuous life than ever, producing several children, and yet such was their united energy, always getting on. They bought a large house in Maida Vale that was running to seed, and letting it out in furnished apartments, while living themselves in a basement, made it pay.
It was at this time that I came along with my repayment of the loans made years before, and no memories of mine can overtop in interest those of the evening when I came and poured into the wife's lap the little heap of gold which represented his advances to me and substantial interest thereon. It happily came at a time when their affairs were under a shade, it was entirely unexpected and so grateful. Her face was streaming as she gathered up the coins, and said to her husband in their own language, "This makes all right, beloved one, no need to worry now."
It was a happy evening, but over it was the shadow of death. Not many weeks after I was called to his bedside, where he lay ardently desiring release from his sufferings, and assured that his lingerings here could only mean an additional burden on his wife, already staggering under a far too heavy load. I can never forget his parting words to me, "If I could only die. I have done with this world, I am of no more use here, and why I should live on puzzles me. I will so gladly go and rest." I bade him farewell and left him, to hear the next day that he had gone to that rest which he so ardently desired.
Now, I might if it were desirable give a great many more instances of the delight and satisfaction I had at that time, if it were not that I feel that these pages lack so plentifully that characteristic so earnestly, so eagerly demanded to-day, humour. I have no quarrel with this demand, for I love humour, and believe that no one has a keener appreciation of it than myself. But when I look at the majority of the alleged humorous productions of the day, I am reluctantly compelled to say that I do not see where their humour lies. I will not mention any names I see at the foot of alleged humorous articles to-day, which give me a feeling of nausea, and I wonder mightily how anyone can be found to read, much less buy the futile piffle that is printed, and that, too, in our leading magazines and newspapers. One leading exception I will make and gladly break my rule for, Mr Pett Ridge, bless him, who never makes a mistake, whose humour is sweet and true, and who, I believe from his writings, all of which I eagerly read, is as good a man as they make nowadays. As I only know this gentleman by casual meetings at dinners, I cannot be accused of log-rolling; indeed, I know how he would heartily repudiate any effort of the kind on my part.
Now, in my present peregrinations in search of those to whom I was indebted, I was unable to trace two or three, notably the gentleman in the Adelphi from whom I had borrowed £10 at an interest of £1 per month. And so, when the business was over, and I visited my friend Mr Hardhat with the story of my efforts, he smiled grimly and said, "They'll suspend your discharge for two years, you see if they don't." I said nothing, because I did not greatly care; but I felt that if they did, it would only be on a par with all that I had hitherto seen and known of the business. However we made the application for discharge in due form, presenting with it documentary evidence that all the debts had been paid, with the exception of those two or three that we could not find before mentioned, the total amount remaining unpaid being a mere trifle.
Now it seems scarcely believable, since one would naturally suppose that such an institution existed primarily for the purpose of doing justice to creditors, but the official to whom I presented the documents looked as if he had been personally affronted. "This ought to have gone through the Official Receiver's hands," he said severely. I was sorely tempted to reply in a similar manner, since his severity or otherwise mattered not a jot to me now, but I choked it down and answered mildly, "I wanted to save the creditors and myself trouble and fees and delay." To this he made no reply, but handed me my appointment for the hearing of my application for discharge.
That day came, and I again appeared before the Registrar to support my application for discharge. Now, when I had last come there, an utterly penniless man without any prospect of ever paying my debts, the public prosecutor or Official Receiver had dealt most leniently with me, had only stated the case against me of not keeping proper books of account, and of continuing to trade after knowing myself to be a bankrupt, without bias of any kind. But now that I had vindicated my right to be called an honest man, by voluntarily paying every man to whom I had ever owed anything, I was treated as a criminal. And on some technical count or other, which I did not understand, my discharge was suspended for two years. I endeavoured to protest, but was summarily silenced, and came away in a white heat of indignation against a system that under the ægis of law makes it more profitable to be a rogue than to be honest. I have no doubt that the Bankruptcy Act may theoretically be as near perfection as can be, but I am absolutely certain that in its administration it puts a premium upon knavery and crushes the honestly intentioned debtor into the dust.
My good friend, Mr Hardhat, was waiting for me when I emerged, and listened in silence while I exhausted my fairly copious vocabulary of disgust and dislike upon the whole sordid business. But he laughed outright, when I stamped the dirt off my boots upon the threshold, and declared that I would die rather than enter the place again. However we parted an hour later, on most excellent terms, and from that day to this, nearly nine years ago, although I have passed the place a thousand times, I have never seen him again.
And now my narrative draws near its close. For when I commenced it, I meant it to contain only what should justify its title, "The Confessions of a Tradesman," and so I have rigidly excluded all that I felt would not rightly come under that head. I found also as I advanced with the story that, among the thousands of incidents which rushed to my mind, I was reduced to a really small selection, since I was determined to tell the truth only. And if I told the whole truth there can be little doubt that I should have got into exceedingly hot water. So as I have been badly scalded once, I feel disinclined to run any risks of a like nature, and while my determination, and indeed my compulsion to tell the truth is as strong as ever, I must tell only such parts of it as will not wring the withers of sensitive individuals, or give opportunity to any grasping ones to get at me in a pecuniary sense.
Writers of autobiography are often blamed, quite unjustly I think, for leaving out just those parts of their story which in the opinion of the reader would prove most interesting. But would it not be more just to remember that closely interwoven as our lives are with those of others, it would be impossible to go into all the details desired without involving other persons who have not the least wish that their names or their actions should be made public? Another thing which is constantly pressed by the reviewers of autobiographies is, that no man or woman can be trusted to tell the truth about themselves. That they will either naturally try to make themselves out better than they are, or in a spirit of perverse braggadocio, pretend themselves to be villains of a deep and deadly dye, when they have only been playing at wickedness.
From both of these reproaches I do earnestly hope to be absolved. I have honestly tried in these confessions to set down just what has happened in a curiously involved life, repressing many desires to be vindictive towards others or exculpatory of myself, and since I am not here to be accused of the crime of writing a novel with a purpose (which I understand is considered in literary circles to be the unpardonable sin), I may hope that some struggling tradesmen may find comfort and even amusement in these pages. That the Philistines, whom superior Matthew Arnold hated, but whom I believe to be the very salt of the earth, the dwellers in suburbia and its mean streets, may perchance recognise one of their own kindred, who is not looking down upon them from any sublime literary height, but who is one of them and entirely unashamed of the fact; these are my consolations and encouragements as I finish these pages.
And thus with all my heart and soul I wish to every man and woman who have sunk their precious little capital in some suburban shop, and are to-night, oh, so anxiously, looking for the customers to drop in who may make their venture a success, a bumper house. May you all feel that your efforts have not been in vain. When you look up at the prettily decorated window, every muscle of you aching with the strain you have put upon it during the last few days, may you feel not only a glow of satisfaction at the appearance of your handiwork, but may your souls be gladdened by seeing crowds of easily pleased customers with bulging purses streaming through your gaping doors.