Foe-Farrell Part 6

The little Chairman followed me into the lobby and thanked me effusively, while a couple of stewards helped me into my great-coat.

He threw a meaning glance over his shoulder at Farrell, who stood in a corner nervously winding and unwinding a long silk comforter about his neck and throat. He seemed to be muttering, saying something over to himself. His face twitched--it was still red and congested-- and he kept his eyes on the floor. He had not spoken to either of us since the meeting dissolved. Very likely he did not see us.

"A bit rattled," I suggested quietly.

"You may bet on that, Sir Roderick." The steward, who was turning up my coat collar, said this almost in my ear. "You don't think, now--"

He did not finish the sentence, and I faced about on him for the rest of it. He tapped his forehead gently.

"Oh, nonsense!" said I. "He's not broken to public life and he doesn't ruffle well, that's all; and, after all, it isn't every man who enjoys being called a liar to his face and before some hundreds of people."

"His face, sir," the steward persisted. "That's it; you've given me the word. Did you see his face? No, of course you didn't, for you were sitting sideways to him--and so was you, Mr. Chairman, sir.

But I was standing by the main door when it happened, and had him in full view, and--Well!" he wound up.

"Well?" said I.

He dropped his voice to a whisper almost. "It frightened me, sir. . . . I think it must have frightened a good few of the audience, and that's what held the rush back and gave you and the other gentleman time. You wouldn't think, to look at his face now"-- with a glance across at Farrell, who was sending out to inquire if his car had arrived, and looking at his watch (for, you'll understand, the meeting had broken up early in spite of my oratorical effort)--"you wouldn't believe, Sir Roderick, that there was anything deep in the man. Nor perhaps there isn't. It didn't seem to me, just half a minute, that it was Mr. Farrell inside Mr. Farrell's clothes and looking out of his eyes."

"Then _who_, in the world?" I asked.

The steward gave himself a shake. "Speak low, sir, and don't turn round. . . . I was a fool to mention his name--folks always hear their own names quicker than anything else. He's looking our way, suspicious-like. . . . Now if I was to say 'Satan,' or if I was to say that he was a party possessed--Well, any way, Sir Roderick, I wish we had someone else for a candidate, and I don't see myself happy, these next few days, working on Committee for him."

"Well, you have the advantage of me," said I. "You saw him full-face, whereas I had to study him from the rear. From the rear he looked funny enough. . . . But look here," I went on; "if there were any slate loose on the man's roof, as you're hinting, you may bet that a great Furnis.h.i.+ng Company in Tottenham Court Road wouldn't be taking any risks with him as Chairman of Directors."

"All I can say, sir," he muttered, shaking his head, "is that I don't like it. And, anyway, he isn't a gentleman."

The Chairman had left us to say good night to Mr. Farrell, whose car was just then announced. I went across, too, to shake hands and wish him good luck on polling-day. As our eyes met he started, came out of the torpor in which he had been gazing about him, and bowed to me in best shop-walker fas.h.i.+on.

"Ah, Sir Roderick!" he said, not very coherently. "You must excuse me--remiss, very. Owe you many thanks, sir--not only for coming-- great honour--But saved very awkward situation. Overwrought, sir-- that's what I'm suffering from--overstrain: not used to this sort of thing. . . . My G.o.d, I am tired . . . all of a sudden, too; so tired you can't think. . . . Can I have the pleasure of driving you a part of the way, Sir Roderick?"

"Thank you, Mr. Farrell," said I. "But you're for Wimbledon, I believe, and I'm for Chelsea. Fact is"--I ventured it on an impulse--"I'm going to call on that friend of mine, Professor Foe, who so unhappily interrupted you to-night, and tell him that he made a fool of himself." I watched his eyes. They were merely dull-- heavy. "You did provoke him, you know, Mr. Farrell," I went on: "I'm morally certain he is guiltless of the practices alleged in that doc.u.ment of yours; and, if I can persuade him to receive you in his laboratory and show you his work and his methods--"

By George, I _had_ called back that look into Mr. Farrell's gooseberry eyes! This time it lasted for about two seconds.

"Meet him?--_him?_ Your pardon, Sir Roderick." He brushed his hand over his eyes, but they were dull again. . . . "No, thank you"--he turned to the Chairman--"It's only two steps to the car; I don't want anyone's arm. . . . Well, yes, I'm obliged to you. Queer, how tired I feel. . . . Good night, gentlemen!"

The car purred and glided away. "I feel a bit uneasy about our Candidate," said the Chairman as we watched the rear-light turn the corner. "He's had a shock. . . . Well, we live in stirring times, and one more evening's over!"

"But it isn't!" I cried out on a sudden thought. "Man, we've forgotten the reporters! If they've left the building the whole town will be red before we're well out of our beauty-sleep."

We made a plunge back for the hall and, as luck would have it, found three of the four reporters at the table. The early close had left them ahead of time, and two were copying out their shorthand while the third was engaged on a pithy paragraph or two under the headline of "Stormy Proceedings--A Professor Ejected. What happens to Dogs in the Silversmiths' College?"

I won't say how we prevailed with the Fourth Estate, except that it wasn't by bribery. The man writing the Pithy Pars did some cricket reporting at Lord's during the summer--some of the best, too.

I was taking bread out of his mouth, and knew it. But it had to be done, and it was done, as a favour between gentlemen. He saw to the others. . . . G.o.d help those people who run down Cricket!

I knocked in at Foe's flat well on the virtuous side of midnight.

Jimmy was in charge of the patient. Foe had got into an old Caius blazer and sat very far back in a wicker chair--lolled, in fact, on his shoulder-pins, sucking at a pipe and brooding.

"Give me a whisky-and-soda," said I. "If ever a man has earned it!"

"I somehow knew you'd turn up," said Jimmy, mixing. "Not a scratch?

Tell us."

So I told. I didn't tell all, of course. I left out all the business in the lobby, what the steward had said, what Farrell had said, and my traffic with the reporters. I humped myself on my display of oratory.

I must have thrown this--necessarily thrown it--somewhat out of proportion.

Jimmy said, "Rats! I know all about Caesar's funeral, and you couldn't do it. You can't come it over us with your spellbound audience. What you've done is you've kept the bridge ever since the proud Professor and I started back, and, when they cut it behind you, you swam the river."

"Have it which way you like," said I, dropping into a chair.

"Now tell me how you two have been getting along."

"Our motto," said Jimmy, "has been Plain Living and High Thinking.

We have fleeted the time in earnest discourse. It began on the way home with the Professor asking me some innocent question concerning what he called the 'Science' of Ju-Jitsu. I told him that it was of j.a.panese origin, as its name implied, and further that he did wrong to call it a Science; it was really an Art. I engaged that I could prove this to him in thirty seconds, but said I would wait until we reached home, lest he might be trying his discovery on the Police.

This led to a discussion on the Art of Self-Defence, in the course of which he let fall the incredible remark that he had never been inside the National Sporting Club."

"Give him time," said I. "Jack's a methodical worker, as every man of science should be. He'll come to it; but, so far, his researches have been confined to the lower animals."

Jimmy looked puzzled. "Eh? . . . Oh, you mean politicians. Well, it occurred to me that if he meant to attend any more political meetings, there was no time to be lost. So--"

"But I don't," Jack growled.

Jimmy corrected himself. "Perhaps we'd better say, then, that I thought it well he should know the difference between some public gatherings and others. So we've been talking about the N.S.C. and the Professor is under promise to visit it with me, one night, and see how an argument ought to be conducted."

I lit a pipe and looked at Foe over the match. "Jack," said I, "a holiday for you is indicated. With Jimmy's leave I'm going to speak seriously for a moment. . . . Down in the country, among other jobs, I have to sit on an Asylum Committee: and from the start I've been struck by the number of officials in charge of lunatics who seem, after some while at it, to go a bit dotty themselves. Doctors, male attendants--it doesn't seem to affect the women so much--even chaplains--after a time I wouldn't give more than short odds on the complete sanity of any of 'em. Why, even our Chairman . . . I must tell you about our Chairman. . . . He's old, and you may put it down to senile decay. Before we discharge a patient, or let him out as harmless, it's our custom to have him up before the Committee with a relative who undertakes to be answerable for him. Well, our Chairman, of late, can't be trusted to tell t'other from which: and it's pretty painful when he starts on the vacant-looking patient and says, pointing a finger at the astonished relative, 'You see, Mr. So-and-so, the apparent condition of this poor creature.

It is with some hesitation that we have given this case the benefit of the doubt; and we cannot hand him over unless satisfied that you feel your responsibility to be a grave one.'"

Foe got up, smiling dourly, knocked out his pipe, and chose a fresh one from the mantelpiece. "You'll make quite a good story of that, Roddy," he said, "with a little practice. But, as I don't work among lunatics, what's the bearing of it?"

"You're working," said I, "--for years now you've been working and overworking--on these wretched animals, and neglecting the society of your fellow-men. You pore over animals, you probe into animals, you're always thinking about animals; which amounts to consorting with animals--at their worst, too. . . . I tell you, Jack, it won't do. I've had my doubts for some time, but to-night I'm sure of it.

If you go on as you're going, there'll be a smash, my boy."

I was half afraid he would fly out on me. But he lit his pipe thoughtfully, dropped the match into the fire, and watched it burn out before he answered.

"And I'm to consort with my fellow-men, eh?--with the sort you led me among to-night?" He laughed harshly, with a not ill-humoured snort.

"Is that your prescription? Thank you, I prefer my bad beasts."

"No," I said. "After to-night it's not my prescription. I'll give you another. I know your work, and that your heart's in it.

But ease down this term as far as the lecture-list allows, and then at Easter come with Jimmy and me to Wastdale and let me teach your infant footsteps how to mountaineer. There's nothing like a stiff climb and a summit for purging a man's mind. . . . I've come to like mountains ever so much better than big game. They are the authentic G.o.ds, high and clean; they're above desecration; the more you a.s.sail them the more you are theirs. . . . Now there's always a kind of l.u.s.t, a kind of taint, about big-game hunting. No harm to a man if he's in full health--but beastliness, and menagerie smell, if he's not."

"Mountains!" scoffs he.

"You needn't despise them," said I. "They're apt to be heavenly, just before Easter, with the snow on 'em; and Mickledore or Gable or the Pillar from Ennerdale will easily afford you forty-four ways of breaking your neck. . . . If you're good and can do a little trick I have in mind on Scawfell I'll reward you by bringing you home past a farm where they keep a couple of savage sheep-dogs. For a good conduct prize, I have a friend up there--a farming clergyman--who will teach you words of cheer by introducing you to a bull that can't pa.s.s the Board of Trade test because he's like Lady Macbeth's hand-- however you babble to him in a green field he makes the green one red. But these shall be special treats, you understand, held in reserve. Most days you'll just climb till you're tired, and your dinner shall be mutton for three weeks on end. . . . Now, don't interrupt. I may seem to be on the oratorical lay to-night, but G.o.d knows I'm in earnest. If I wasn't, I shouldn't have spoken out like this before Jimmy, who's your friend and will back me up."

"I might," said Jimmy judiciously, "if I understood what you meant by all this chat about savage animals. What is it, at all? Does the Professor keep a menagerie? And, if so, why haven't I been invited?"

"Why, don't you know?" I asked.