Bealby; A Holiday. Герберт Уэллс

of a topographical nature his lordship collapsed upon Mr. Mergleson. The decanter flew out of his grasp and smashed presently with emphasis upon the landing below. The syphon, escaping from the wreckage of Mr. Mergleson and drawn no doubt by a natural affinity, rolled noisily from step to step in pursuit of the decanter. …

      It was a curious little procession that hurried down the great staircase of Shonts that night. First the whisky like a winged harbinger with the pedestrian syphon in pursuit. Then the great lawyer gripping the great butler by the tails of his coat and punching furiously. Then Mr. Mergleson trying wildly to be respectful—even in disaster. First the Lord Chancellor dived over Mr. Mergleson, grappling as he passed, then Mr. Mergleson, attempting explanations, was pulled backwards over the Lord Chancellor; then again the Lord Chancellor was for a giddy but vindictive moment uppermost; a second rotation and they reached the landing.

      Bang! There was a deafening report—

CHAPTER II

       A WEEK-END AT SHONTS

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§ 1

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      The week-end visit is a form of entertainment peculiar to Great Britain. It is a thing that could have been possible only in a land essentially aristocratic and mellow, in which even the observance of the sabbath has become mellow. At every London terminus on a Saturday afternoon the outgoing trains have an unusually large proportion of first class carriages, and a peculiar abundance of rich-looking dressing-bags provoke the covetous eye. A discreet activity of valets and maids mingles with the stimulated alertness of the porters. One marks celebrities in gay raiment. There is an indefinable air of distinction upon platform and bookstall. Sometimes there are carriages reserved for especially privileged parties. There are greetings.

      “And so you are coming too!”

      “No, this time it is Shonts.”

      “The place where they found the Rubens. Who has it now?” …

      Through this cheerfully prosperous throng went the Lord Chancellor with his high nose, those eyebrows of his which he seemed to be able to furl or unfurl at will and his expression of tranquil self-sufficiency. He was going to Shonts for his party and not for his pleasure, but there was no reason why that should appear upon his face. He went along preoccupied, pretending to see nobody, leaving to others the disadvantage of the greeting. In his right hand he carried a small important bag of leather. Under his left arm he bore a philosophical work by Doctor MacTaggart, three illustrated papers, the Fortnightly Review, the day’s Times, the Hibbert Journal, Punch and two blue books. His Lordship never quite knew the limits set to what he could carry under his arm. His man, Candler, followed therefore at a suitable distance with several papers that had already been dropped, alert to retrieve any further losses.

      At the large bookstall they passed close by Mrs. Rampound Pilby who, according to her custom, was feigning to be a member of the general public and was asking the clerk about her last book. The Lord Chancellor saw Rampound Pilby hovering at hand and deftly failed to catch his eye. He loathed the Rampound Pilbys. He speculated for a moment what sort of people could possibly stand Mrs. Pilby’s vast pretensions—even from Saturday to Monday. One dinner party on her right hand had glutted him for life. He chose a corner seat, took possession of both it and the seat opposite it in order to have somewhere to put his feet, left Candler to watch over and pack in his hand luggage and went high up the platform, remaining there with his back to the world—rather like a bigger more aquiline Napoleon—in order to evade the great novelist.

      In this he was completely successful.

      He returned however to find Candler on the verge of a personal conflict with a very fair young man in grey. He was so fair as to be almost an albino, except that his eyes were quick and brown; he was blushing the brightest pink and speaking very quickly.

      “These two places,” said Candler, breathless with the badness of his case, “are engaged.”

      “Oh ve-very well,” said the very fair young man with his eyebrows and moustache looking very pale by contrast, “have it so. But do permit me to occupy the middle seat of the carriage. With a residuary interest in the semi-gentleman’s place.”

      “You little know, young man, whom you are calling a semi-gentleman,” said Candler, whose speciality was grammar.

      “Here he is!” said the young gentleman.

      “Which place will you have, my Lord?” asked Candler, abandoning his case altogether.

      “Facing,” said the Lord Chancellor slowly unfurling the eyebrows and scowling at the young man in grey.

      “Then I’ll have the other,” said the very fair young man talking very glibly. He spoke with a quick low voice, like one who forces himself to keep going. “You see,” he said, addressing the great jurist with the extreme familiarity of the courageously nervous, “I’ve gone into this sort of thing before. First, mind you, I have a far look for a vacant corner. I’m not the sort to spoil sport. But if there isn’t a vacant corner I look for traces of a semi-gentleman. A semi-gentleman is one who has a soft cap and not an umbrella—his friend in the opposite seat has the umbrella—or he has an umbrella and not a soft cap, or a waterproof and not a bag, or a bag and not a waterproof. And a half interest in a rug. That’s what I call a semi-gentleman. You see the idea. Sort of divided beggar. Nothing in any way offensive.”

      “Sir,” said the Lord Chancellor, interrupting in a voice of concentrated passion, “I don’t care a rap what you call a semi-gentleman. Will you get out of my way?”

      “Just as you please,” said the very fair young gentleman, and going a few paces from the carriage door he whistled for the boy with the papers. He was bearing up bravely.

      “Pink ’un?” said the very fair young gentleman almost breathlessly. “Black and White. What’s all these others? Athenæum? Sporting and Dramatic? Right O. And—Eh! What? Do I look the sort that buys a Spectator? You don’t know! My dear boy, where’s your savoir faire?”

§ 2

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      The Lord Chancellor was a philosopher and not easily perturbed. His severe manner was consciously assumed and never much more than skin-deep. He had already furled his eyebrows and dismissed his vis-a-vis from his mind before the train started. He turned over the Hibbert Journal, and read in it with a large tolerance.

      Dimly on the outskirts of his consciousness the very fair young man hovered, as a trifling annoyance, as something pink and hot rustling a sheet of a discordant shade of pink, as something that got in the way of his legs and whistled softly some trivial cheerful air, just to show how little it cared. Presently, very soon, this vague trouble would pass out of his consciousness altogether. …

      The Lord Chancellor was no mere amateur of philosophy. His activities in that direction were a part of his public reputation. He lectured on religion and æsthetics. He was a fluent Hegelian. He spent his holidays, it was understood, in the Absolute—at any rate in Germany. He would sometimes break into philosophy at dinner tables and particularly over the desert and be more luminously incomprehensible while still apparently sober, than almost anyone. An article in the Hibbert caught and held his attention. It attempted to define a new and doubtful variety of Infinity. You know, of course, that there are many sorts and species of Infinity, and that the Absolute is just the king among Infinities as the lion is king among the Beasts. …

      “I say,” said a voice coming out of the world of Relativity and coughing the cough of those who break a silence, “you aren’t going to Shonts, are you?”

      The